Seer of Egypt

by Pauline Gedge

  “I did notice, my Ishat. I’m overjoyed at your good fortune, but only if it’s what you really want.”

  “It’s what I need.” Coming to him, she let her forehead droop onto his chest. “Hold me, Huy. Put your arms around me and let me draw your smell, your warmth, your vitality into myself one last time. After tonight I shall repudiate the thoughts of you that constitute adultery.”

  He did as she had asked, encircling her, feeling the taut muscles of her back, the jaspers around her circlet pressing into his neck as he tightened his hold. For six long breaths she grasped him as though the floor of the room had become mud into which she was sinking, then she stood away. “Iput will trail after me all evening carrying my cosmetics box, just in case I might need refurbishing,” she said, then laughed. This time the sound had a hint of hysteria in it. “Well, old friend, let us go down.”

  They walked to the door. Huy opened it and together they stepped into the passage. Iput left the floor where she had been waiting, fly whisk in one hand and the cosmetics box tucked under the other arm. Huy drew Ishat’s gold-laden arm through his. “Lady Ishat,” he said.

  The noise grew steadily louder as they descended the stairs, until at the entrance to the reception hall it became a deafening cacophony of hundreds of voices chattering and laughing. Here they paused, and at once Ptahhotep glided up, resplendent in gold-bordered linen, his naked scalp wound with a yellow ribbon, his own face paint immaculate, his white Staff of Office in one hand. “Lady Ishat, Seer Huy, my Masters await your presence,” he said loudly above the cheerful din. “Follow me.” He strode away, calling, “Step aside for a moment, honoured guests. Step aside.” The crowd parted and Huy and Ishat went through behind the steward’s stately form. Ishat stared straight ahead, but Huy looked curiously to right and left, both hoping and dreading to see people he knew. Cups were raised to them. Faces broke into smiles as they went.

  A dais had been erected against one wall, and as they approached it, Huy whispered to Ishat, “Bow to Nakht but not to the others. You are their equal now.” She nodded as Thothmes jumped the small distance from the dais onto the tiles and came beaming towards them. Ishat’s arm slid out from under Huy’s elbow.

  Thothmes embraced her. “Ishat, you have never looked more goddess-like! Come and meet the rest of your family. Huy, there’s a table and cushions for you on the dais also.”

  Huy glanced ahead. Nakht was sitting in a large chair, a high table before him. Huy wondered what it had cost him to be arrayed as he was, in a starched linen helmet whose lappets touched his gold-hung shoulders. The symbols of his charge, the Heq-at sepat—the crook and the fishing net—rose in delicate miniature from the golden band across his forehead to which the helmet was attached. The thick arm band of his office, which had once gripped an upper arm, now lay loosely about one of the Governor’s wasted wrists. Both his hands, heavy with rings, lay in his white lap. Amethysts glittered on the thongs of his sandals. Huy, coming up to him and bowing then looking into his kohled eyes, saw the glaze of a deep poppy infusion that was walling him off from both his pain and the swirling throng that filled the hall. He smiled at Huy.

  Nasha was sitting close beside him, her head level with the arm of his chair. She nodded to Huy, then jerked a thumb to her right. No words were needed. Unwillingly, with an inner shrinking, Huy turned.

  But Thothmes and Ishat were blocking his view. It was obvious that Thothmes was introducing Ishat to Anuket and her husband, Amunnefer. Stepping up onto the dais, Huy moved to stand behind Ishat, his fingers hooking lightly into her belt, and he did not know whether he did so to reassure Ishat that he was there or to take courage from her. In a moment I shall see you, he thought wildly, my fragile little garland weaver with the big brown eyes, the aristocratic oval of a face with its flawless skin—I shall hear your voice, always so soft, often hesitant. O gods, it is as though the years since our last meeting have disappeared, meant nothing! It was only as Ishat shifted slightly and Huy moved on shaking legs to stand beside her that he remembered the last time he had seen Anuket. She had listened secretly to the anguish of his interview with Nakht from outside the office window, and as he had stumbled through the garden, half mad with grief, she had come sliding out of the darkness to subtly reinforce her hold over him.

  Now she was before him, smiling a greeting, those eyes in which he wanted to drown limned enticingly with kohl, both graceful, tiny hands pressed against his cheeks, and for one despairing moment she was as she used to be and he was alone with her in the herb room, weak with desire, inhaling the blend of flower and drying herb scents, his gaze riveted on the motions of her long fingers and the curtain of dark hair hiding her exquisite face. “Anuket,” he blurted hoarsely, and her arms dropped.

  “Huy. Or should I say Great Seer Huy.” She was appraising him, her eyes moving rapidly and impudently up and down his body. “By Amun, you’re even more handsome than the last time I saw you, how many years ago? Three? Four?” Leaning closer to him, she lowered her voice. “If my father had known that you were about to catch the eye of the One, my fate might have been very different.”

  Puzzled, Huy took a step back and regarded her. The voice held an echo of the melody he had been both longing and dreading to hear, but it had somehow thickened, become rougher. Her body too seemed to have thickened under the white and silver sheath she was wearing. A hint of loose flesh lay under her chin. There were patches of greyness under eyes whose lids were more heavy than he remembered. The eyes themselves were slightly bloodshot. The hair on her head was clearly an elaborate wig fashioned in dozens of long, stiff braids.

  She saw him staring at it and said rather defensively, “Weset is a very hot place. The desert is close. I keep my skull shaved for coolness. This is my husband, Amunnefer.” She glanced briefly to the side, where the man was waiting.

  Still in the grip of bewilderment, momentarily unable to tear his eyes away from Anuket’s tainted beauty, Huy’s body turned to Amunnefer before he turned his head. Where is she? he thought incoherently even as he answered the man’s smile. Where is that delicate child? I should see a small maturing in her, of course, but not this coarse caricature! Ishat had moved to stand beside him. Looking at her quickly, he saw a naked triumph stamped clearly on her features. A sudden distaste for all women, a flash of purely masculine bafflement at the mysterious actions of their kas, took hold of him and was gone.

  He bowed to Amunnefer. “I’m glad to meet you at last, noble one,” he said. “We have exchanged letters, and you were good enough to trust to my gold without knowing very much about me. I am grateful.”

  “The word of Governor Nakht and my wife put my mind entirely at ease, Seer Huy,” Amunnefer replied. He was a tall, thin man with a wigged head that seemed too large for his body, straight and healthy though it clearly was, and with a pleasant, open expression that spoke of a cheerful honesty. “I’m sure you have many questions for me regarding the crop in which you have invested. Anuket and I will not be returning to Weset for several days, during which time I will be available to you.”

  “Thank you,” Huy said politely. “I do indeed wish to speak with you, but tonight is of course not convenient. Tomorrow afternoon?” He was answering Amunnefer automatically, hardly aware of what he was saying, his glance continually straying to the woman who still bore a strong resemblance to Anuket but must surely be some family relation, a cousin, perhaps, whom he had not yet met. Her mouth had been painted silver to match the wealth of silver jewellery clasping her arms, her neck, and woven into the strands of her wig, and her smile held a hint of intimacy that was making him uncomfortable. Wake up! he told himself sternly. This is indeed Anuket whom you loved, Anuket the sister of your friend, the girl you have known for years. But you do not know this Anuket, something whispered inside him. The Anuket you remember has been changed somehow.

  “We had better take our tables,” Thothmes said. “Ptahhotep is about to announce the feast.”

  Even as he spoke, the stew
ard’s Staff of Office thudded on the floor with a measured authority that rapidly silenced the crowd. “Seek your cushions, honoured guests, and wear the garlands of celebration prepared for you. The feast begins.”

  There was a long confusion while men and women chose places, sank onto the cushions, and placed around their necks the flowers waiting to be lifted from the surfaces of the tables in front of them. Huy found himself between Nasha and Ishat, with Thothmes wriggling down beside his new wife and Anuket and Amunnefer beyond him. Thothmes’ eldest sister, Meri-Hathor, and her husband were also on the dais, on the other side of Nakht. She waved at Huy, who waved back, pleased to see her. He had not known her well. She had married and left Nakht’s house at about the same time Huy had begun to visit there, but he remembered her as being willing to take the younger children into the marshes or light fires for them on the verge of the river. She looks well and happy, Huy thought. Unlike Anuket.

  Snatching up Ishat’s garland, Thothmes set it gently over her head and kissed her. Nasha had stood to do the same for Nakht. Young girls Huy had never seen before had begun to move through the glittering throng, tying perfume cones onto every head.

  “Father hired them specially,” Nasha remarked, lowering herself beside Huy. “They look lovely, don’t they, in those little yellow kilts and ribbons. You’re pale, Huy. I can guess why.”

  Nakht touched her shoulder, wanting something, and as Nasha leaned up to hear him, Ishat put her mouth against Huy’s ear. Don’t say it! Huy begged her silently. Please leave it alone!

  But Ishat knew better than to gloat over her victory. She stroked the back of his hand once. “I’m sorry, my dearest brother,” she murmured before lifting her chin for the tying of the cone that had been settled in her hair. Huy, feeling a polite hand on his shoulder, did the same. At once the pungent, compelling aroma of myrrh began to insinuate itself into his nostrils with the slowly melting beeswax.

  A servant bent. “Ox liver with fennel, Great Seer? Inet fish grilled with coriander? A stew of fava beans, parsley, and pepper? The Governor imported that black and powerful spice just for this occasion. Do try it. Fresh lettuce and mint with cucumber, celery, and sesame bread? The wine is coming.”

  Nakht had spared no trouble or expense for the marriage feast of his only son. Course followed course: beef, gazelle, fish, waterfowl, and pigeons; lentils and many different kinds of beans prepared with every herb and spice available; an abundance of fresh young vegetables, desserts of honeyed tigernut cakes, date and fig confections, and wines. Pomegranate, red and white grape, palm and fig and date wines filled and refilled the cups of the revellers. One wine in particular had been reserved for the company on the dais. “Year two of the Osiris-King Thothmes the Third, he whom I loved and after whom I was named, high-quality wine six times good, of the Vineyard Food-of-Egypt, made under the supervision of the Chief Overseer of the Vineyard Duauf,” Thothmes told them proudly as Ptahhotep unsealed the four precious clay flagons and the red liquid was poured out in a shining stream.

  “This vintage is better than the one Father served at my wedding feast.” Anuket’s voice came faintly to Huy over the growing din in the hall. “You are very honoured, Lady Ishat.” The words were slightly slurred, but the tones stirred echoes in Huy’s heart. He sipped his wine, noted its undoubted excellence, and fixed his attention on the melee below the dais.

  The music of Nakht’s players could be heard intermittently through the happy noise. A few women, already drunk, were dancing to the tap-tapping of the drum, loose bodies bending and swaying between the tables, the melted wax from their cones gleaming on brown necks and half-covered breasts. The heat had become oppressive, compounded by hundreds of bodies and dozens of lamps on their tall stands ranged about the walls. Huy could see the linens of the feasters closest to the wide-open doors stirring in the night breeze. Ptahhotep would have made sure that the rear door to the garden remained open and guarded also. But no coolness came to those on the dais. Thothmes said something to Ishat that made her laugh, the familiar sound returning Huy to his own small reception room at Hut-herib, its gleaming tiles, its pretty pillars, its shadowed quiet. He closed his eyes. He was sitting there and she was laughing as she came hurrying to him along the passage, full of something to tell him. He would see her in a moment. Hair and necklaces flying, she would rush up to him, perhaps with a scroll in her hand. “Huy … ,” she would say. “Huy …”

  “Huy?” The voice was Nasha’s. “Father has had enough. He asks that you and Ptahhotep put him to bed. Your touch comforts him, he says.”

  At once Huy rose, aware that Anuket’s drunken gaze had swivelled to him immediately. Gently, he and the steward helped Nakht out of the chair. He had eaten and drunk little. Food remained on his platter and his gold cup was still half full of wine. Together, the three of them moved slowly down the two steps from the dais and started across the littered floor. Silence fell around them as they made their way to the passage. The crowd bowed deeply and fell back. When they reached the relative peace of the hallway, they paused. Deeply moved, Huy felt the Governor’s head fall against his shoulder.

  “It’s all right, Ptahhotep,” Huy said. “He weighs no more than a few feathers. Go back to your duties. I’ll deliver him to his body servant.” Ptahhotep bowed quickly and went away. Huy picked Nakht up, climbed the stairs under the eyes of the guards stationed along the hall and at the foot, and came at last to Nakht’s large bedchamber. The body servant came forward at once. “Governor, do you need more poppy?” Huy asked as the two of them lowered Nakht’s emaciated body onto the couch.

  Wearily, Nakht shook his head. “No,” he muttered. “I took enough of the drug before the feast to kill one of my horses. I think I can sleep. Thank you, Huy, for your strong arm. Thank you for loving my son. Thank you for trying to save my wife from her fate. I have always loved you …” The words trailed away.

  “He sleeps,” the servant whispered. “I stay with him all night, Great Seer.”

  Huy nodded and left, closing the door quietly behind him and starting along the dim corridor. He was reluctant to rejoin the carousing going on below, but he knew that somewhere in the throng Ramose would be looking for him, although he had been unable to spot the High Priest among the densely packed bodies.

  The noise hit him as he plunged into the reception hall. Servants were removing the tables. Many more people were dancing now, wine cups in their hands. Huy saw Anuket among them, one shoulder strap of her sheath hanging down her back, her wig slightly askew, her cheek smeared with kohl. She spotted him as he came forward and began to hurry towards him, but a familiar form blocked his view of her and Huy found himself enfolded in a crushing embrace. The High Priest’s smile filled his carefully painted face.

  “Huy! I’ve been watching you up there with Nakht’s family. How well, how lordly, you look, my erstwhile pupil! I hear wonderful things about you. Do you remember how I caught you by the sacred Ished Tree? You were, what—five? You received a beating, and no one knew then how intertwined your fate would be with the Tree and the Book. Will you come to the temple before you go back to your estate so that we can catch up on all the news? It’s rather difficult to do tonight.”

  Huy laughed. He felt genuinely glad to see Ramose, although when he left the priest’s care he had been desperate to escape the awe and near-veneration of the denizens of Ra’s domain. “Thothmes is eager to walk down that particular lane of memory with me,” Huy responded. “If I can tear him away from Ishat, we’ll certainly visit you, and the school.”

  “Good.” Ramose looked about. “Henenu is here somewhere and is eager for a word or two with you. I think I shall summon my litter, pay my respects to the Noble Thothmes and his beautiful new wife, and return to my cell before the proceedings here become truly wild.” Embracing Huy again, he strode towards the dais, bowed, then bent forward to hear something Thothmes was saying to him.

  Huy edged away from where Anuket was swaying. He wanted to find Henenu the Rekhet
. He did not expect her to be drunk and dancing, but he threaded his way through the unruly mass of bodies anyway, his nostrils assailed by myriad different perfumes blending with human sweat and the rank odour of crushed blooms. Several young men loomed in his way, faces he recognized as fellow students, who embraced him and exchanged a few careless words before melting back into the press. There was no sign of the Rekhet, but just beyond the gyrating celebrants he came across Thothhotep and Paroi, Thothmes’ scribe, deep in conversation, their backs against the wall, forgotten wine cups beside them. At the sight of him they began to scramble up. Huy waved them back down.

  “You look lovely tonight, Thothhotep,” he told her, and it was true. Wine and heat had brought a flush of colour to her thin cheeks. Lamplight glinted on the gold earrings he had bought for her. She had rather inexpertly attempted to tie up her hair with a white ribbon. Most of it had sprung free and was trailing about her ears. She had also limned her eyes crudely with kohl, from Ishat, Huy surmised. Even though her touch had been clumsy, the effect was pleasing. With a smile and the first hint of a genuine fondness for her, he saw her palette resting on the floor under the edge of her sheath.

  “Thank you, Master.”

  “Are you enjoying the evening?”

  She returned his smile. “Yes indeed! I am privileged to be here, among so many noble people.”

  Leaving them to whatever it was they had been discussing so seriously, Huy made his way to the open door, breathing in the sweet night air that came gusting to meet him. He was about to step past the guards and out into the darkness when a hand fell on his shoulder.