Seer of Egypt

by Pauline Gedge

  “I love you, Nasha,” Huy chuckled, passing her his cup and watching her nose disappear into it. “And you love wine. Don’t deny it.”

  “I won’t.” She licked her pale lips and passed the cup back to him. “I do love it, but I thank Ra, my totem, that I do not love it the way my sister does. And speaking of Ra, before you ask, Thothmes and Ishat ate their early meal in their bedchamber and now they are in the temple, carrying offerings of thanks to Ra for their joining. They’ll be back on their couch like the rest of us this afternoon. Isn’t that the captain of your guard?”

  Huy turned to see Anhur scanning the grounds. When he saw Huy, he nodded, obviously satisfied, and went away again.

  “He watches you very closely, doesn’t he?” Nasha observed, holding out her arms so that her body servant could soak her wrists. “If you’ve finished eating, why don’t we play sennet for a while? I refuse to move until the last of the guests have left.”

  She sent her woman for the game, and Nasha and Huy settled down with the cones and spools. Huy was glad to be occupied. If Anuket appeared, she would see that he was busy and not alone. He knew that he was being cowardly, but for the moment he did not care. He wished fervently that he could scoop up Ishat, get onto their modest barge, and go home.

  By noon, all the guests but the members of the family had gone. An exhausted silence seemed to settle over Nakht’s estate. Food had been set out in the hall, but no one appeared to eat it. Huy, like everyone else, took to his couch early for the afternoon sleep, and did not wake until the sky outside his window had begun to fade to pink. He had Tetiankh dress him in clean linen and paint his face before he went downstairs, hoping to find Thothmes or Ishat, but only the servants preparing the hall for the evening meal greeted him. In the end, feeling lost, he wandered out into the garden, walking slowly along the narrow paths that wound between flower beds and shrubbery and brought him back at last to the rear entrance of the house. Reluctant to go inside, he decided to find Anhur, who was surely not far away, and leave the estate to watch the river craft float by.

  His own barge was tethered close to the water-steps. Perhaps Thothhotep would be on board. I have never felt so rootless, he thought as his feet found the path running straight to the steps, and he did not dare substitute the word lonely for rootless. The vine leaves clinging to the tall trellis that provided shade to either side of the path smelled sweet, patting against each other with a quiet susurration as the early evening breeze strengthened.

  “Anhur, are you close by?” he called, turning towards the entrance to the house, and as he did so, he saw a woman emerge from between the pillars and come gliding towards him. Behind her, Huy saw Anhur pause and then stand still. In spite of the sudden need to run away, Huy felt his heartbeat quicken. He waited, unsmiling. Anuket did not smile either. Halting in front of him, she scanned his face, then her hands lifted to trail down his cheeks, across his eyelids, flutter gently against his mouth.

  “I have dreamed of touching you again, Huy. Do you remember when I did so here in this garden, in the darkness, when you kissed me and begged me to leave my family and go with you? I was a fool to say no, but I was very young and unsure. Can you forgive me?”

  Unsure of what, Anuket? Huy thought as those seductive little hands came to rest on his naked shoulders. Unsure of your hold over me? I do not think so. You were so cold that night, unresponsive, even cruel. You knew that it did not matter how you behaved towards me, that I would carry my love for you wherever I went, whatever you did. The slowly bronzing light was gentle on the features she was lifting to his gaze, softening the premature lines traced there by her indulgences, giving the sallow skin a youthful flush, but it could not erase the slight pouches under those huge eyes or the fold under the determined chin. How dare you demolish such a long-held and familiar fantasy with this gross distortion, Anuket! he demanded silently, full of a sudden and wholly irrational anger. How dare you render the pain of the years behind me worthless!

  He stepped back so that she was forced to drop her arms. “There is nothing to forgive,” he answered her smoothly. “I also was young and unsure. You were a part of the security I was leaving behind. I wanted to take that part with me, for solace. Since then I have been very happy with Ishat and my growing good fortune, and you have made a most advantageous marriage. Think nothing of it. Do not berate yourself for the foolishness of youth.”

  Her expression had been changing as he spoke, the eagerness replaced by a growing sullenness that she was clearly struggling to control. “Ah yes, Ishat,” she said. “Your old peasant friend. Your scribe, so I’ve heard. Will you miss her in more ways than one, my handsome Huy? And is there a hidden reason for replacing her with yet another woman? Perhaps they have both been substitutes for someone else, someone you could not have?” She was unable to conquer the spite in her voice, the voice that had lost its clarity and become overlaid with a thickening of tone. Yet beneath what Huy saw as a crust, he could also see that the Anuket he remembered and loved still existed, as though he might take a hammer and tap that crust and it would fall away to reveal Anuket the water lady, slim and graceful, shy and beautiful. The image saddened him.

  “What happened to you?” he said, tenderness welling up in him from the reservoir of the past. “You told me that you would never resemble the besmirched goddess Anuket of today, that you would remain pure and chaste and good. Why are you trying to destroy yourself?”

  Her body jerked as though he had prodded her with a stick, and then her eyes filled with tears. “I used to envy you the powerful emotion you felt when you were near me,” she blurted. “I remember telling you that I would never allow the fire to consume me. I remember everything, Huy. But secretly, I longed to feel the fire. Sometimes I pretended that I did, and then Nasha called me a manipulator and a flirt.” Now the tears spilled over and began to trickle down her cheeks. “I believed that with marriage would come the flames, that one day I would look at my husband and all at once be filled with so much desire that I could not eat or sleep for wanting him, for needing to be in his presence, but it did not happen. Amunnefer does not understand. Only the wine understands.” Lifting the hem of her sheath, she swiped clumsily at her face, leaving a smear of black kohl on the thin white linen.

  Huy did not know what to say. Is this an act to ensnare me once more? A kind of insanity? An excuse she tells herself? What?

  “They say you’re still a virgin,” she went on more calmly. “They say it’s because of the gift of Seeing. But I don’t believe in your virginity, not when I look at Ishat, or even her skinny replacement. Did you fall in love with Ishat after I rejected you, Huy?”

  “No. I love her dearly, but not that way.”

  “Do you still love me?”

  How can I tell her the truth? Huy thought, torn between pity and horror. How can I describe how the years of fighting against that love came down to one moment when I saw her yesterday in the reception hall, and the flame she craves for herself went out in me? The ashes smoulder with compassion and memory, that is all.

  “I still have a great affection for you as a companion of my youth and the sister of my friend,” he replied. “It grieves me to see you living up to your name. Amunnefer seems full of kindness and love for you. You live in luxury at Weset. Why can’t you be happy?”

  “My thirst for wine has grown,” she said in a low voice. “I cannot get through a day without it now. And Huy, I am surrounded by beautiful young men—the servants, my husband’s assistants, his friends among the nobility of Weset—and I watch them and wait for the fire, and when it doesn’t strike, I drink and drink. It is as though the goddess Anuket has indeed possessed me!”

  The last words were shouted. Huy saw Anhur start forward out of the shadows by the house entrance and raised a hand to stop him.

  “If you think that, then you must seek an exorcist,” Huy said urgently. “Go to Ramose while you are here and request an audience with the Rekhet, his friend. You need help, Anuket!”


  She smiled, an unlovely twist of the mouth. “I need you to See for me, Huy. I need to know my future.”

  “But in knowing it, you will be tempted to do nothing, to allow fate to rule you,” he objected, appalled at the thought of taking her hand and being precipitated into the maelstrom of her disordered life. “Decide to rule yourself, Anuket. It’s not too late to find again the girl I adored!”

  “Hypocrite,” she whispered. “Fate rules your life entirely. Is it not so? In what manner do you rule yourself?” She held out her hands. “You See for the peasants of Hut-herib. You have Seen for my brother and Nasha. See for me. I am not afraid.”

  But I am, he told himself glumly. I did not intend to See for Nasha. The moment came upon me years ago when the gift was new and untamed. What terrors would Atum show me if I granted this?

  To his unutterable relief, he heard a warning shout from the direction of the watersteps behind him and, turning, he saw a servant step into the water and catch the tether for Nakht’s barge. At once the ramp was run out and Thothmes and Ishat came hurrying towards him. When he turned back, it was to see Anuket disappearing in the direction of the garden.

  “We went to the temple and then we slept on the barge and then we took a little sail in the sunset,” Ishat told him as the three of them linked arms and started for the house. “Now we are starving. Was that Anuket I saw walking away? I’m getting to know Nasha a little, but there hasn’t been time to talk to Anuket. Perhaps this evening.”

  Huy glanced at Ishat curiously, his mind presenting uncalled-for images of her and Thothmes locked together naked in the close confines of the barge’s cabin. She smiled up at him. “I’m really happy, Huy. I have the most wonderful, attentive husband. I’m not afraid anymore.”

  Huy looked across at Thothmes.

  “I’m really happy also,” Thothmes said. “I want to sit with Father for a moment before I eat, so I’ll leave you together.” He kissed Ishat and hurried inside. The others followed more slowly, trailed by Anhur.

  The reception hall seemed empty and gloomy in the gathering dusk, in spite of the lamps being lit one after another by Ptahhotep’s under steward. He bowed to Ishat as he went by. Eight tables had been placed close together in the centre. The dais had been dismantled. As Huy and Ishat moved forward, Meri-Hathor, Thothmes’ eldest sister, and her husband emerged from the interior passage and greeted them cheerfully. “We are having cabbage and broad beans and perch fish tonight,” Meri-Hathor told them as all four settled on the cushions behind the tables. “Then we are going home. Do you like the house Thothmes is building for you, Ishat?”

  “More than anything!” Ishat replied fervently.

  Nasha came striding into the hall looking a good deal better, Huy thought, than she had that afternoon, and behind her Amunnefer was peering about. “Have you seen Anuket?” he asked no one in particular, and no one answered him. She did not appear until the meal was half over, when she slid down beside her husband and called sharply for her food.

  “Tomorrow we go back to school,” Thothmes said to Huy. “We’ll share a litter right after the morning meal. I wonder what sad little scraps are inhabiting our old cell.” He lifted his wine cup. “Here’s to the past! May it—”

  But Ishat tugged at his arm. “Not to the past, dearest brother,” she objected. “To the future, and all the magic it will hold.”

  The small company drank the toast and the conversation became general once more, but Huy fell silent. She called him dearest brother, the most loving expression of affection there is. She used to call me that. Truly the times are changing. Anuket was drinking steadily and bleakly. She was ignored.

  Soon after the meal, the group scattered and Huy, anxious that an inebriated Anuket should not waylay him, went to Nakht’s room, but the Governor’s body servant turned him away. “My Master is sleeping,” Huy was told. “The physician attended him an hour ago.” In answer to Huy’s next query, the man shook his head. “He drinks much water and goat’s milk, but will eat only a little, and only if I mash the food. Attending the feast was too strenuous an undertaking. Now he must recover some strength.”

  Huy thanked him and retreated to his room, feeling emotionally drained. He had set up the statue of Hut-herib’s totem, Khenti-kheti, in the empty shrine. Now he made his prostrations and tried to pray—for Nakht, for Thothmes and Ishat’s happiness—but the vision of Anuket’s tears kept intruding, and in the end he closed the shrine and sat moodily on his couch.

  Tetiankh’s knock startled him. “The Lady Nasha is here,” he said. “She wishes to play Dogs and Jackals with you, Master.”

  Huy greeted the young woman with relief, and for the rest of the evening the two of them sat over the game board, talking easily of nothing in particular. By the time he bade her a good night and Tetiankh had brought the hot water for his wash, Huy had recovered his equilibrium.

  Tetiankh woke him early the following morning with warm bread, butter, a plate of dates, and a cup of water. Huy ate cheerfully. Today he would be spending at Ra’s temple with Thothmes. Before long, bathed, painted, and dressed, he went downstairs and summoned Anhur. The litter was already waiting by the entrance pillars, the bearers slumped in the shade. Huy just had time to greet them and sniff the morning air before both Thothmes and Anhur appeared. “The temple school has never educated a pupil who became as famous as you,” Thothmes said as he and Huy slid onto the litter’s cushions and the bearers sprang into position. “Everyone will want to catch a glimpse of the Great Seer. I shouldn’t be surprised if the High Priest hasn’t granted them a free day in honour of your visit.”

  “Don’t be absurd!” Huy looked across affectionately at his friend. “I’m only slightly famous. Besides, no one knows we’re coming today. We’ll be able to wander about and indulge ourselves in memories all we want.”

  Thothmes looked sheepish. “Actually, I sent a message to the High Priest yesterday, warning him that we would see him today. We are expected. Don’t poke me. I thought it was polite.”

  Huy did not answer. He studied the familiar features of the boy who had shared a cell with him, listened to him recite the Book of Thoth, nursed him through a dangerous fever, and stoutly defended him in the swift antagonisms of childhood. Those features had changed little. The eyes had always held a thoughtfulness that had become an acute perception in the adult. The chin was perhaps less pointed, the sensitive mouth a little fuller, the body, always thin and wiry, had acquired more flesh. Thothmes has retained the good manners and dignity that marked him for both teasing and admiration at school, Huy mused. His kindness and honesty will not be corrupted over the years.

  “Is my kohl running?” Thothmes asked.

  Huy shook his head. “No. I was just feeling grateful for everything you have meant to me, and remembering your loyalty to the Osiris-one, King Thothmes the Third. You deserve to be happy, Thothmes.”

  “I am. I shall continue to be, providing Father rallies to hold his grandchildren on his knees. Did you See for him, Huy?”

  “Yes. He asked me to. I can’t tell you what I Saw, Thothmes. You must go to him if you want to know.”

  There was a silence, broken only by the quiet conversation of the bearers. Huy looked out to where Anhur was striding easily beside him.

  “Perhaps I shall,” Thothmes said finally. “But I can see what’s written on your face and in the tension of your body, dearest Huy. I think I must prepare to become the next Governor of the Heq-at sepat.”

  Huy did not reply.

  8

  As Thothmes had predicted, a large crowd of boys and priests had gathered on the vast stone expanse of the temple forecourt, and as Huy stepped out of the litter, a hush fell. He had no time to stare into the depths of the small lake where the canal from the river ended, where visitors to Ra’s domain moored their boats, where he had learned to swim, and where Sennefer’s throwing stick had plunged him to his death. He saw it out of the corner of his eye, though, as Ramose approached hi
m and Thothmes, and Anhur moved to stand beside him. The water glittered innocuously in the bright sunlight, cool and inviting. I drowned there, Huy thought with an inward shudder. For five days I lay dead while my body was taken to the House of the Dead at Hut-herib and my parents mourned. Since Ishat and I left our tiny home next to the beer house on that noisy street and moved onto the estate Pharaoh provided for us, I have seldom pondered the matter, but standing here with Thothmes in the place where I spent most of my childhood, I can imagine him and me walking across the forecourt on our way to the practice ground; imagine Sennefer shouting his usual insults at me, a peasant, son of a worker of the soil; feel my shame and anger suddenly turning to a blind rage that makes me launch myself at him. I feel Thothmes reaching to pull me back. I hear his cry, “No, Huy! No!” And I feel the stunning blow of the throwing stick as it struck my head and knocked me into this water. This water.

  He blinked. Ramose, clad in his priestly robes, the leopard skin draped over one shoulder as though it was one of Ra’s feast days, bowed and then embraced him. “Welcome back to your second home,” he said. “The students have been given a free day in your honour. They would like to sing for you the Hymn of Praise to Ra, just as you sang it every evening at dusk in your compound. Let it serve to remind you of the benevolence of the god and your own maturing here, under his roof.” He bowed to Thothmes. “I do not forget you either, Assistant Governor. You are always welcome here.”

  He turned and held up a hand. There was a general shuffling among the gathering. Then the first notes of the Hymn rose clear and true into the limpid air, bringing a lump to Huy’s throat. After a moment he and then Thothmes joined in, the words and melody slipping from their tongues easily and without reflection, the music rising and falling in its solemn cadences until the last note was held. It had always been followed by a sung prayer for Ra’s safety as he travelled through the twelve houses in the belly of Nut the sky goddess, but today Ra was nearing his zenith. The boys fell silent.