Seer of Egypt

by Pauline Gedge

  “Lions hate hyenas,” he blurted over the top of her head, the sweet familiarity of her embrace filling him with a sense of security.

  “So they do, but I don’t see any hyenas lurking, do you?” She stepped back, looking him up and down with a smile. “Gods, Huy, why don’t you age? Look at me, with my greying hair and the wrinkles around my eyes in spite of the sacrifices I make to Hathor on her feast day every Khoiak and the honey and olive oil Iput massages into my skin! Let’s go downstairs and have some wine and gossip a bit. Iput, you can go ahead and sort out my things.”

  Iput bobbed to Huy as she entered, her arms full of boxes. “It’s good to be here again, Master,” she said in answer to Huy’s greeting.

  Thothmes and Heby were deep in conversation at the foot of the stairs as Huy and Ishat descended. “A matter of administrative policy,” Thothmes said apologetically as he and Huy embraced. “I’m sorry that your family has lost Hapu and Itu,” he added. “I remember them fondly. Ishat wants you to herself for a while. We’ll meet again this evening.”

  “It’s a good thing that we left the children at home,” Ishat remarked as she linked arms with Huy and they emerged into the afternoon sunshine. “Your house is far too small to accommodate three extra people besides Thothmes and me. Let’s sit under the hedge in the shade.”

  “I had completely forgotten about events in the palace,” Huy said, lowering himself onto the grass beside her. “I’ve had no letter from either the Queen or the Prince since they acknowledged my father’s death.”

  “The Prince is now the King. I’m surprised that you weren’t invited to the coronation, but of course Mutemwia knows that you’re still in mourning.” Ishat leaned back on one elbow and, pulling off her wig, ran impatient fingers through her hair. “All the governors were commanded to appear—not that I’d have missed the occasion for anything. It was held in the audience hall of the palace. The astrologers chose the second day of Athyr for Amunhotep’s crowning—why I can’t imagine, since it falls within the long and rather tedious celebrations for the Amun-Feast of Hapi, and besides, the flood is still fairly high at the start of Athyr.” She squinted across at Huy and grinned. “The Prince’s father had only been entombed ten days before. My belief is that Mutemwia pressed for her son’s immediate legitimization before any other contender surfaced.”

  “The only man with a strong claim to the throne is the Prince’s uncle, still living in exile,” Huy replied. “I don’t think that he’ll consider himself capable of ruling after so many years away.”

  “I agree, but don’t forget all the little sons of Thothmes and his concubines running about in the harem. Many of those women are entirely unscrupulous when it comes to the advancement of their children. Amunhotep is only twelve years old. He’s vulnerable.” She rolled onto her back and stretched out her arms luxuriously. “How good it is to be here with you! We don’t see enough of each other, Huy. Our days are overfull of responsibilities. The children miss you, particularly Nakht. My quiet one. He didn’t want to attend the coronation, but your namesake came with us to Mennofer. He climbed up onto the pedestal of one of the pillars in the hall so that he could watch the proceedings.” She batted at a bee droning past her face to reach the yellow acacia blossoms clustered on the branches behind her. “I heard it all and saw some of it. Amun-Ra’s High Priest set the hedjet and the deshret on the Prince’s head while he knelt, and I must say that the white and red crowns suited him. Mutemwia stood just behind the Horus Throne, and every time Amunhotep sat, she placed a hand on his shoulder. There’s no mistaking who’s Regent. She was wearing a Queen’s vulture headdress that made her look taller than she really is, and her sheath was sewn all over with droplets of gold. They made a striking pair, Huy, the young King with his mother, Nekhbet’s golden vulture head seeming to lean over him in protection and warning, as well as the holy uraeus on his own crown. I got a good look at them as they proceeded out of the hall surrounded by all the court dignitaries. Amunhotep seemed tired and Mutemwia was pale. The feast afterwards was beyond description, but Thothmes and I left early. Young Huy stayed on. So.” She cocked one eye in his direction. “Your vision for our new young King was true. Are you pleased?”

  “What titles has he taken?” Huy asked tersely.

  Ishat sat up. “You’re worried that he’ll follow in his father’s footsteps and give an increasing prominence to the Aten? Let me see. There’s an emphasis on his devotion to Ra, of course. Every King pays homage to that god’s power.” She screwed up her nose. “His given name means ‘Amun is satisfied.’ His throne name is Nebmaatra, ‘the Lord of Truth is Ra.’ His Horus name Ka-nakht kha-em-ma’at, ‘Strong Bull, Appearing in Truth.’ I can’t remember his Two Ladies name or his Golden Horus name, not that it matters. There’s no mention of the Aten.”

  “He has little interest in matters of religion anyway,” Huy said with relief. “His mother’s influence on him is strong. She knows exactly how she wants him to govern.”

  “You like her, don’t you?”

  Huy smiled. “Yes, I do. She’s a complex woman.”

  “And a beautiful one.” Ishat yawned. “I expect that she’ll summon you to See for the One before long.” Grabbing up her wig, she scrambled to her feet. “I’m going inside to sleep while the house is calm. If you see Thothmes, tell him not to disturb me.”

  Two days after the funeral, Huy’s house emptied. Heby and Iupia returned to Mennofer with their sons, Thothmes and Ishat sailing south with them as far as Iunu. Huy, standing above his watersteps as the long flotilla drifted into the north-flowing current and a flurry of commands rang out, watched the forest of oars appear with a sense of both liberation and abandonment. Behind him his arouras lay deserted under the sparkle of the morning sun, and in the house, he knew, his servants would be sweeping away all evidence of occupation. Despite the turbulence my nephew created, it has been good to wake to the sounds of feet other than my guards’ or Thothhotep’s padding past my door, he thought rather dismally. To see the faces of those I love turn towards me as I enter my reception room to share food with them. To hear their voices, raised in laughter and conversation, fill the air with warmth, their presence pervade it with perfumes and colours and the welcome touch of friendly flesh. And most of all, best of all, to have Ishat here, to know that in her presence there is no need for explanations and that one word will bring our past back to us in all its hope and intimacy. Thothhotep has not filled the void Ishat left behind. Her loyalty to me is beyond reproach, but her true affection belongs to Anhur.

  She was waiting at his elbow, Anhur beside her, and Huy turned to them with a sigh. “I shan’t need either of you for the rest of the day. I’ll resume my work tomorrow. Anhur, go to Merenra and tell him to make up a mixture of ground frankincense and fenugreek in honey for your breathing. I don’t like the way you sound.”

  Anhur shrugged. “It’s nothing much, Huy. It’ll pass.”

  “No, it won’t.” Thothhotep grasped his brown arm. “With your permission, Master, I’ll go to Merenra myself and then make sure that Anhur takes his medicine.” She was about to say more, Huy could see it in her eyes, but at his nod she started briskly for the house.

  “There are changes coming,” Anhur said unexpectedly. “Can you feel it, Huy? And even if you can’t, I know from experience that if a long period of peaceful routine is broken by a death, then two more deaths follow, and after that either chaos or at the least a new pace of life.”

  “Anhur, I had not believed you full of the superstitions of the ordinary soldier,” Huy said in astonishment. “You are far from an ignorant man! Three deaths?”

  “I know the difference between nonsense and a genuine hunch,” Anhur retorted sourly. “The King was the first death, your father the second, and your mother the third. It won’t be as it was before, around this place. The gods are stirring.”

  The gods are stirring. An absurd comment meaning nothing, Huy thought, but ominous all the same.

  “Go an
d nurse your sick lungs, old friend,” he said testily. “Or rather, let Thothhotep nurse them for you. Our daily round of work and leisure has been temporarily disturbed, that’s all. Within a week all will be as it was.”

  But as he walked back along the path, his footsteps seemed suddenly loud to him, the facade of the house, with its small, brightly painted pillars, alien. He halted, senses alert. In the tangled acacia bushes to either side, the bees hummed among the blooms and fledglings set up a tuneless piping from hidden nests. Off to his right, the palm trees, long since mature, rose straight against the deep blue of the sky to branch out into crowns of spiked leaves jerking spasmodically in the breeze. To his left, the grass beneath the spreading sycamores still glistened from the morning’s watering. Ahead, just visible beyond the bulk of the house itself, a corner of the garden showed Huy the rows of newly sprouted vegetable crops interspersed with a scattering of flowers, the inviting blue of Anab’s cornflowers predominating. Beyond the garden, past the guards’ cells and the kitchen, the two clay domes of Huy’s silos huddled against the mud bricks of the rear wall. He saw his under steward straighten from among the row of feathery dill fronds, a basket full of young lettuce on his arm and a sprig of dill in one fist, and step around the lily-choked pond before moving towards the rear door and out of Huy’s sight. All is as it should be, Huy told himself. All is sinking back into predictability. Then why am I seeing my surroundings as though for the first time? Anhur and his silly notions.

  Yet the sense of estrangement stayed with him through the rest of the day. While his guests had been present, he had gone to his couch too late and too preoccupied to call the Book of Thoth to mind, but that night, as he lay on his couch watching the steady orange glow of his night light on the table beside him and listening to the silence in the house, the words of the Book began to echo behind his eyes. He recognized them, of course, but they formed and then fled as though they had been written in a foreign language. His mouth remained closed, but he had the distinct and confusing impression that the stanzas of the Book were spreading out the door, along the passage, rolling into every corner, filling his house, so that in the end there was no room left for him at all. He was shut out.

  The month of Tybi proceeded quietly for Huy, who continued to travel the short distance between his estate and the town when needed and to deal with the petitioners allowed to gather once more on his grounds. Beyond his walls, Egypt came to life in a flurry of sowing and planting. There were few holy days to be observed. Huy woke every morning knowing exactly what would fill the time before his couch beckoned to him again. Such knowledge should have brought him contentment; instead, his sense of dislocation grew. It was as though time was holding him in a place entirely separate from those around him. When Merenra entered the office with some request or a domestic problem, Huy knew what his steward was about to say. Stepping from the rear entrance into the garden, he inhaled the aroma of frying fish before he glanced towards the open kitchen and saw Rakhaka’s lean form bending to lay the fillets into the sizzling olive oil. Even while holding a petitioner’s hand, waiting for his surroundings to dissolve into a mirage filled with Anubis’s rough voice, he heard the god speak before his fierce animal jaws parted. Huy felt himself invisibly cocooned by the Book, wrapped in a grandeur and mystery so thickly dense that time itself could not penetrate the wall it had formed. It no longer seemed to originate in his mind. Its only source was heka, magic, and Huy knew better than to struggle against it, although he started to wonder if its force would eventually drive him insane. His servants began to look at him strangely, but he did not attempt to explain his state. Doggedly he went about the tasks Atum set for him, and he waited.

  His guests had left on the fifth day of Tybi. The twenty-ninth of every month was a holiday. It marked the day when the world was created, as well as the conjunction of the sun and the moon, and Huy was called out only for the direst necessity. A contented silence always lay over the country. The populace slept or visited friends or idled away the hours on the river. There were other holidays during each month, some claimed by busy servants, some ignored, but the observance of the twenty-ninth day was strictly marked. So Huy, sitting at his desk and picking through the cold food Rakhaka had set out for him the night before, was astonished to see a Royal Herald open the door of his office and step smartly into the room. He came to his feet.

  The man bowed twice. “A thousand pardons for approaching you unannounced, Great Seer. Your gate guard was nowhere to be seen, and of course your servants are enjoying their leisure today. I bring you a letter from the palace. I was instructed by His Majesty to place it directly into your hands.” His blue-trimmed white kilt and white linen helmet dazzled where he stood in the rectangle of brilliant sunlight falling from the narrow clerestory window high in the wall. His silver rings sparked briefly as he held out the scroll and then withdrew his arm. He smelled of mimosa blossoms.

  Huy, his long hair unbraided, face unpainted, smothered the need to apologize for his appearance. “Thank you. My steward is unavailable, but let me bring you wine and a dish of sweetmeats.”

  The herald shook his head. “My barge is at your watersteps and I must be on my way. His Majesty does not require me to wait for a reply. May I be dismissed?”

  Huy nodded. At once the man bowed, turned on his heel, and was gone. His sandals tapped briskly on the tiles of the passage before the sound gradually faded. It was then, standing with the scroll held gingerly in both hands, that Huy realized there had been no intimation of the man’s appearance at his door; the curious disparity distancing him from the world around him had gone. He looked down at the beige cylinder with its imposing red seal. “A change is coming,” Anhur had said such a short time ago. “Can’t you feel it?” I can now, Huy thought, running his thumb over the imprint of the sedge and the bee, royal symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt, before breaking the wax. It is here, accomplished even before I read the words that have brought it about. Carefully he unrolled the letter, sinking back onto his chair as he did so. He read in Menkhoper’s neat, clear hand:

  To the Great Seer Huy of Hut-herib, greetings. Having found much favour with My Majesty and having proved your loyalty to Her Majesty the Queen my Mother, you are commanded to remove yourself and all your household to the quarters that have been prepared for you in the Fine District of Pharaoh at Mennofer. You are appointed King’s Personal Scribe and will be known henceforth as Amunhotep son of Hapu. You will no longer be permitted to exercise the gift the god Atum has bestowed on you except in the service of your King. Your esteemed brother Heby has already demonstrated his administrative ability as Mayor of Mennofer. I am advised to bestow on him the task and title of Overseer of the Cattle of Amun and Overseer of the Two Granaries of Amun in the sepats of Lower Egypt. His elder son Amunhotep-Huy is now Superior King’s Scribe of Recruits and his younger, Ramose, though required to remain in Mennofer, will hold the position of Steward in the Mansion of the Aten at Iunu. A reply to this letter is not required. I expect your attendance at court by the beginning of Shemu. Dictated by His Majesty Amunhotep Nebmaatra to the Scribe in the House of the Royal Children and Tutor Menkhoper, this twenty-sixth day of Tybi in the season Peret, year one of the King.

  There was a postscript added by Amunhotep himself:

  Mother and I are both very excited to think that we will soon be able to see you every day. Menkhoper and my other teachers will go on with my education, but I’m relieved that you will be taking Menkhoper’s place as my personal scribe. I hope you’re pleased with your family’s promotions. I miss you so much, Uncle Huy. I can’t eat fish anymore and I have to keep my royal head always covered, which is a terrible nuisance, and I have to sit in audience every morning and listen to the reports of my ministers, who are all old and boring. Mother says that you may send a letter now to my blood relative in Mitanni, inviting him back to Egypt.

  Letting the scroll roll up, Huy slowly clasped his hands together and placed them on the desk. So this is
what the god has been preparing me for, he thought deliberately. This will be my task, to stand behind our young King, even as his mother does, and through him chart the course Atum has planned for this, his blessed country. This is why I came back from the dead. This is why I have been taught to wield the scrying gift. Both Methen and Ra’s High Priest at Iunu predicted this power for me when I was still at school. Amunhotep loves me. Mutemwia trusts me. Atum has laid the weight of these two responsibilities on my shoulders in the faith that I will not fail him. King’s Personal Scribe. King’s personal Seer. The fate of commoners will no longer concern me, by Mutemwia’s express wish. I know the decision to bar me from all but those she chooses was hers alone. So was the resolve to appoint Ramose as steward of the Aten shrine at Iunu even though as yet he’s too young to be active in that post. Thus she builds a channel along which information regarding all activity surrounding the worship of the Aten, at least in Iunu, will flow to her from a reliable messenger. How very astute she is, this woman with the body of a young girl and the intellect of a sage! I admire her wholeheartedly.

  All at once the full significance of Amunhotep’s letter burst upon him, and he began to both laugh hysterically and cry, cradling himself and rocking back and forth on the chair. “Find Merenra and order him to start packing up this house,” he said aloud to the empty room. “Find Thothhotep and dictate a letter to Prince Amunhotep in Mitanni. You won’t have to compose it afresh, though, will you, Huy son of Hapu? No—Amunhotep son of Hapu. It’s Amunhotep now. The words of that scroll already exist in the record of your vision for the Prince, given twelve years ago. You must dictate letters of congratulation to Heby and your nephews also. So much to do!”