Seer of Egypt

by Pauline Gedge

  At last the plates were scoured and talk faltered. Huy looked at the Prince and nodded. Amunhotep rose. “It’s time for the afternoon sleep,” he said. “I and Huy must go now. Thank you, father and mother of Huy, for your hospitality.” He smiled at them all as Itu and Hapzefa struggled to their feet and bowed, and Hapu inclined his head. Huy kissed them.

  “Do you need anything, Father?” he asked Hapu, knowing that his father would deny any lack. Hapu shook his head. Huy felt Amunhotep’s hand creep into his own and together they went out into the fierce early afternoon sunlight, both blinking after the dimness of the house. Anhur and the guards fell in behind them. The litter-bearers emerged from the shade of the orchard where they had been dozing. Ishat used to come creeping into the garden through that gap in the acacia hedge, Huy thought as he waited for the Prince to settle himself among the cushions. The air here is full of her, and I am here also, she and I perpetually young, perpetually linked to each other although we are now living out our several destinies apart. I am not comfortable here. The power of the past to unman me is too strong.

  “Uncle Huy, what was that meat?” Amunhotep asked as the litter was lifted.

  Huy closed the curtain beside himself and leaned over the boy to draw it across on the other side. “It was pork. Pig’s flesh, Highness,” Huy replied in surprise. “You haven’t eaten it before?”

  “No, of course not. It’s the food of the poor, and servants. I didn’t like it much.” He yawned widely. “The shedeh was good, though. It’s made me sleepy.” He turned a troubled face to Huy. “Your parents are very old and infirm, Uncle Huy. Life must be hard for them now in that tiny, dark house, but it must have been even worse when you and your brother the Mayor of Mennofer were little. How could anyone exist in such a small place?”

  “That house is large compared to the dwellings of most of Hut-herib’s citizens,” Huy answered carefully. “My family are peasants, but because my uncle Ker was fortunate enough to be granted land by your great-grandfather the Osiris-King Thothmes the Third, my father was given work that enabled him to build our house. Ker was a clever and adventurous young man who loved flowers and became apprenticed to a perfume maker here in the Delta. When the man died suddenly, Ker applied to the King for the fields that of course had gone khato, and the King deeded them to him in exchange for a share of the profits as well as the usual taxes. Ker hired my father. Most peasants do not live as well as my family does.”

  Amunhotep was quiet for so long that Huy thought he had gone to sleep. It was hot and close in the confines of the litter. The rhythmic sway of the bearers was soporific. But at last the boy sighed and stirred. “You lived with your servant Ishat in the centre of Hut-herib, where there is noise and filth all the time, didn’t you? My mother the Queen told me so. Hut-herib is very smelly and ugly. I shall be glad to return to your estate. Do the peasants have enough to eat, Uncle Huy?”

  “Yes, they do, Highness,” Huy assured him. “Egypt abounds in vegetables and crops of every kind, and as long as Isis cries, no one goes hungry. There are fish in the river, and pigeons and hares to eat. You need not worry.”

  “I am not worried,” Amunhotep said loftily. “I would expect Amun to bless all of us who live under the rule of Ma’at, but some more than others, of course. Your scribe is very pretty, isn’t she? She loves Anhur. Does she sleep with him, do you know? My father the King sleeps with many women. When I am in my quarters in the harem, they fawn upon me and all they ever talk about among themselves is who will go to my father’s bed next and how to make themselves more attractive. The concubines, I mean. I get very tired of them.”

  Huy was becoming used to the seemingly illogical leaps in the Prince’s conversations. He fought his thick-headedness and did his best to concentrate on what was being said. “So your mother allows you to mingle with the concubines, Highness?”

  Amunhotep favoured Huy with his broadest grin. “Well, no, not really,” he confessed. “But they come to the door of my apartments with gifts for the guards, and they whisper and giggle and sometimes persuade the men to let them in. Sobekhotep appoints the guards because his title is Guardian of the Prince as a Child as well as being Overseer of the Treasury, but my mother the Queen threatened to have him dismissed if he did not discipline them. The women still try to get in. They think that I talk with my father the King every day, but I don’t.” The grin had disappeared. Huy did not miss the note of longing in the words.

  “Have you no friends in the palace, Highness?” he inquired.

  Amunhotep nodded and rolled his eyes. “I sometimes play with Minhotep and Ptahemhet and Paser. They’re the sons of my father’s officials who are closest to my own age, and we study together under Menkhoper and the other teachers. I like them well enough. I like my half-sister Petepihu better. She’s the daughter of Yaret, another of my father’s wives. She’s older than me. She’ll take me out into the palace gardens and tell me the names of all the birds. We play sennet together. But my mother the Queen doesn’t really like me living in my harem apartments, and sends me there only if people in the main palace are getting sick. Uncle Huy, may I give you your Naming Day present this evening? I’ve waited a very long time for you to see it.”

  The gift was a heavy collar made up of six rows of alternating dark orange carnelian and blue faience glass tiles held together by thin strings of gold and separated at regular intervals by golden frogs and lizards. Huy, seated cross-legged before the remains of the evening meal, speechlessly lifted the piece from its linen bed on his lap and held it up, watching the lamplight glint on the exquisite workmanship of the figures.

  The Prince leaned close. “I ordered the jeweller to put frogs on it for you because you like frogs, and lizards on it for me because I like lizards. Or mostly for me,” he corrected himself. “Lizards are sacred to the creator-god Atum. I asked Menkhoper, who knows almost everything. Frogs are for wehem ankh, ‘living again,’ and very appropriate for you. Are you pleased? Put it on!” He was clearly proud of himself, and wriggled behind Huy so that he could close the collar’s hasp while Huy held it against his chest. The sa amulet the Rekhet had made for him hung just a little lower on its chain.

  “Highness, I am pleased and honoured and humbled,” Huy managed. “It’s a magnificent present, a treasure.”

  “You don’t have to dine in it every night, but wear it sometimes while I’m here.” Amunhotep knelt up and enfolded Huy’s head in his arms. “I love you very much. Can we go fishing now?”

  As the years passed, Huy and all the members of his household began to look forward to the months of the Inundation, when Prince Amunhotep would arrive with his retinue, settle into the guest room, and bring the estate to life. Huy, loving him, seeing the changes both physical and intellectual in him each year, missed him when he was gone. The letters from his mother continued to arrive, always giving Huy a vivid account of everything occurring at court, but Mutemwia herself no longer accompanied her son to the Seer’s house. Huy admired her wisdom. It was certain that the King knew of his child’s yearly stay near Hut-herib, and equally clear that he did not care, probably because Amunhotep was not his heir. Amunemhat, son of Chief Wife Neferatiri, held that honour, and as long as Second Wife Mutemwia was not living at Huy’s estate with her little boy, she was not plotting sedition. The King’s gold continued to arrive punctually at Huy’s watersteps, but no word ever came from the One himself.

  It was a time of prosperity and satisfaction for Huy’s family also. In year five of the King, Huy’s nephew Ramose turned six and was enrolled at the temple school in Mennofer, and the following year his other nephew, Amunhotep-Huy, finished his education and was appointed as a scribe at court to Tjanuni, the King’s Overseer of Soldiers. Huy had no doubt that the boy would do well among the men he liked and did his best to emulate. He had wanted to enter the army itself, but Heby, his father, had protested against his desire so vehemently that Amunhotep-Huy had sulkily acquiesced to both Heby’s urging and that of his milit
ary tutor Officer Irem, and had accepted the position of army scribe instead. Heby’s own position as Mayor of Mennofer had given him a reputation to uphold. Only the sons of peasants volunteered to march with the infantry. The sons of nobles and highly placed administrators entered officer training, but even that route was denied to Amunhotep-Huy by his father and Irem, a man with his own ambitions, who was happy to be allied to the family of both the Mayor of Mennofer and Egypt’s famous Seer and who had no wish to see the country reminded of the family’s lowly origins by one of its members. Huy heard nothing from his older nephew, but Ramose began to send him letters as soon as he graduated from pieces of clay to papyrus. Huy enjoyed them. Ramose wrote increasingly ably of his life at school, his warm, unaffected words returning Huy to his own years with Thothmes at Iunu’s temple school in a past long gone.

  Mutemwia’s scrolls spoke to Huy of a King who was governing well and who had begun to build at Ipet-isut, the great temple complex dedicated to Amun at Weset in the south. Amun had become Amun-Ra some time before, a fact Huy had lightly dismissed from his mind until the King and his father the Osiris-one Amunhotep the Second began to quarrel with Amun’s priests and to openly prefer the Aten and other hypostases of Ra. Every King set out to enlarge and beautify Ipet-isut in homage to the country’s most powerful god, and Thothmes was no exception, though Huy, reading between the lines of Mutemwia’s perpetual scrawl, surmised that if Amun had not begun to be linked with the power of the sun, his Incarnation on earth would not have bothered to so honour him. Thothmes had a sandstone court built and decorated within the temple precinct, and also a shrine for the god’s barque, the precious stone being taken from the alabaster quarries on the east bank of the river opposite Khmun. He raised an obelisk that had been commissioned but not finished by his grandfather the Osiris-one Thothmes the Third. He had new copper and turquoise mines opened in the eastern desert where Hathor, goddess of love and beauty, and patroness of the area, had a temple. He was proceeding along the path of every ruler before him, and Huy, knowing how little time the King had left to leave any stamp upon his reign, felt a fleeting pity for him. So far he had done nothing to make his people anxious or afraid. He had not anathematized Amun publicly. He had not demanded a position of superiority for the Aten. Yet Huy, remembering the man’s great lie, was sure that among his courtiers and in the scant privacy of his own quarters the Aten alone received his prayers.

  Carefully, Huy questioned Prince Amunhotep regarding the spread of Aten worship in the harem where the boy often stayed, but Amunhotep had no interest in the rivalries of the gods. “I carry Amun’s great name,” he said to Huy once, “and that is enough for me. My father hates the south anyway. He always has. You’d think he’d love it because Ra’s heat burns so strongly there and his light dazzles the eyes. What are you worrying about, Uncle Huy?”

  Huy quickly turned the conversation into safer avenues, jolted by his adopted nephew’s perception, and tried to ignore his fears; for this was year six of the King, when the flood was high and the days were long, and the somnolence of peace and good order lay over the land.

  17

  Then, in year seven of the King, the Crown Prince Amunemhat died. He and Prince Amunhotep were both nine, but Amunemhat had been several weeks older than Mutemwia’s son. The news did not come to Huy in a letter from the Queen; it was delivered in a scroll from Ishat. Huy immediately recognized her vigorous hand as Thothhotep broke the seal and unrolled it.

  The month was Mekhir, the heat was mild, the fields were thick with green crops, and Huy and his scribe were sitting in the shade of the house’s rear entrance, lazily surveying the explosion of growth in the garden. It was just past noon. On the pond, the blue water lilies were closing and the white ones beginning to open, their perfume carrying faintly to Huy on the light breeze. He often thought of Heby’s first wife, the lovely and quiet Sapet, when he looked at them. Brightly hued butterflies hovered over the trembling blooms of papery red poppies, the delicate white of the narcissus, the rich blue of the cornflowers Anab was tending around the verge of Huy’s pond. Cornflowers also marched in orderly rows between the swaying palms lining the irrigation ditch beside the house. Anab would soon pick their petals, crush them, and sell their juice to the dyers. It’s a pity to denude them, Huy was thinking idly, but I could hardly refuse the man’s request to enrich himself a little more.

  At that moment Amunmose appeared behind him, handed the scroll to Thothhotep, and stood squinting into the distance. “A perfect day, Master,” he commented. “Rakhaka warns you that the noon meal is ready and he doesn’t want the soup to get cold. He’s flitting from table to table like a hawk that can’t quite catch the mouse, and glowering at me as if it’s my fault that you linger out here. He needs mint for the salad.” He stepped past Huy and walked briskly towards the herb patch, greeting Anab on the way.

  It was then, glancing at Thothhotep, reluctant to go inside, not really caring what was in the letter, that Huy recognized Ishat’s hand. Amunmose was returning, sprigs of mint in one hand. Huy could smell the fresh tang of it as the under steward approached.

  “Tell Rakhaka that I don’t mind cold soup,” he said, his eyes on Thothhotep’s hands as she unrolled the letter. “I must attend to this matter first.”

  Amunmose grimaced. “I’m afraid of him. He makes wonderful food, but he’s so bad-tempered. I wish Khnit was still cooking for us.”

  “Khnit is much happier taking care of my house at Ta-she. You have more authority here on the estate than the cook, Amunmose. If Rakhaka abuses you, shout back at him.”

  “He doesn’t shout at me, he glares,” Amunmose said. “When I glare back, I just look like a sheep in pain. He has no sense of humour. He never understands my jokes.”

  Huy waved him away. “I wish you’d find someone else to deafen with your constant talk. Get married, Amunmose, but in the meantime, leave us!”

  “Shall I read this to you, or would you like to read it for yourself?” Thothhotep asked as the under steward vanished into the dimness of the passage.

  For answer Huy nodded and closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall in anticipation of hearing Ishat’s words spoken aloud. She always wrote as she spoke. Huy smiled as Thothhotep began:

  To my darling Huy, greetings from the utter peace of this household. Thothmes and your namesake have gone on a tour of the sepat to assess the health of crops and animals, Nakht is of course at Ptah’s temple taking dictation from the High Priest, and Sahura is sleeping in her room after crying herself into hysterics over the son of one of Thothmes’ friends who’s not interested in marrying her. She is of course in love with him and will of course get over it. Thothmes will wait before assessing other likely candidates. Sahura isn’t much like me. All she really wants, at fifteen, is her own home to run. Fifteen, Huy! And Nakht seventeen and Huy eighteen and apprenticed to his father the Governor! But why am I telling you these things about the children that you already know, old friend? Perhaps because, when I hear of the death of any child, I give thanks to the gods that mine are still healthy and strong. We saw so many little corpses when we worked together, didn’t we? Well, here’s another one of great importance to you. I doubt if you’ve heard, but if you have, forgive me for repeating the news. Our Hawk-in-the-Nest, Amunemhat, is dead. There’s always fever during the Inundation, particularly in the Delta, and Thothmes tells me that the young Prince was not robust. So that leaves your little aristocrat the next in line for the Horus Throne and Mutemwia in a far more exalted position than that of Second Wife. Unless Neferatiri produces another son. I get the distinct impression that the King does not trust Mutemwia and doesn’t much like his son by her. Everyone knows how she favours you and how often Prince Amunhotep boasts of his life with you each year. She’s very ambitious. Do you think she might have had something to do with Amunemhat’s sudden death? What is she really like? Thothmes says that she stays away from court affairs unless the King commands her presence, and then she’s all smiles
and gracious words. Do you like her? By my own hand this tenth day of Mekhir, year seven of the King, Ishat.

  Thothhotep looked up with eyebrows raised under the fringe of her short hair. “How many of the Lady Ishat’s letters have you had to destroy, Huy? This is most definitely another one.” Pushing the one errant black tress back behind her ear, she tapped her knee with the scroll.

  “So the heir is dead,” Huy murmured, “and if my vision for the King’s brother in exile spoke the truth, Amunhotep will rule.” Suddenly hungry, he stood up and stretched. “Burn Ishat’s scroll before we eat, Thothhotep. I won’t write a reply. It’s time we paid a visit to Iunu anyway.” Is Mutemwia so cold-bloodedly ambitious that she would take the enormous risk of poisoning her son’s rival? he asked himself as he followed Thothhotep’s thin spine into the house. I don’t think so. Even without the vision, she is too clever and, yes, too much a servant of Ma’at to endanger the fate of her soul with murder. There’s warmth in her, and shrewdness, and a firm awareness of the value of every Egyptian’s life, peasant or noble. No, Mutemwia will not be able to resist a moment of exultation at this change in her son’s fortunes, but she will not gloat. He glanced up as he entered the reception room to see Rakhaka standing against the wall with an agonized look on his face. “Thothhotep will be here shortly,” he said with an inner smile, and took his place behind his table.

  After the seventy days of mourning and Beautification, Prince Amunemhat was buried in the tomb his father had begun preparing for his family, and within days of the funeral Prince Amunhotep was officially declared the Hawk-in-the-Nest. Only then did Huy receive a letter from Mutemwia, dictated and couched in formal language. Huy applauded the caution that had prevented her from writing to him to tell him of the young Prince’s death. A scroll also arrived from Amunhotep himself. Thothhotep fingered it curiously before breaking the seal. “I think this has been sealed twice,” she said. “Look where the first wax has coloured the papyrus very faintly red and the second pressing was done a little to the left of it.” She and Huy stared at one another.