The Eye of Horus

by Carol Thurston

  “Welcome, Senakhtenre. May the great god bless and protect you,” she murmured, returning my gesture. “The house of my Lord Uzahor is honored by your presence. How may I serve you?”

  “Could we send the others away? Except Aset, in case I should need her assistance.” I saw Ramose motion to someone else. “Perhaps you could ask them to approach the shrine to the god who protects this house, and ask him to restore your husband to health. After that, order someone to open the windows to let the outside air blow through.”

  When I turned back to Ramose, I encountered a different pair of blue eyes—eyes I would know anywhere in this world or the next. Otherwise, I suppose, I might not have recognized her, for she wore a long black wig styled in a multitude of narrow braids, each tied with a tiny carnelian Knot of Isis. Around her throat lay a wide collar of rodshaped turquoise and lapis lazuli beads, drawing my eyes down to her breasts under a white gauze robe that did little to conceal her ripening body. I forced myself to put my palms together, but my hands trembled so that I had to lower my head to them lest someone suspect we were more to each other than a tutor and his onetime pupil.

  When I glanced up again her eyes danced with mischief, as if she took pleasure in my confusion. “We must raise him up,” I told her.

  Without a word she hurried to the sitting shelf and grabbed a cushion in each hand. Ramose went to the other side of Uzahor’s couch to help me lift him, while she slid the cushions under his head and shoulders. And with every move, the tiny carnelian amulets played a muted tune. I caught the aroma of almond oil laced with cassia blossoms, ginger, and peppermint, and knew she wore the perfume I had specially blended for her to mark the occasion when she left childhood behind. It suited her, I thought, not for the first time, its sweetness curbed by something sharp and tangy, hinting at the strength hidden beneath that soft, feminine facade.

  “Hyena’s tongue?” she whispered when I had the old man propped up. She waited for my nod, then took what she needed from my goatskin bag and hurried away. My eyes followed her and collided with Pagosh’s black scowl. A few minutes later she was back with the warmed draught, hands trembling, perhaps because she has seen too much of death in her thirteen years. Now Anubis was on the prowl again, about to steal another of those she cared for.

  “I added a little ginger, to ease his stomach.” She tried to rouse Uzahor enough to swallow what we spooned into his mouth, but much of it ran down his chin. Then, respecting Sati’s higher status, she went to stand behind her father, who sat watching his old friend with doleful eyes.

  “There is little to do now but wait,” I explained, mostly for Sati’s benefit, who stood with her hand covering one of her husband’s. Tuli jumped up on the couch, licked Uzahor’s other hand, then settled himself within reach should he wake. Everyone grew quiet after that, waiting. I glanced up at the scene on the wall, where a single hunter aimed an arrow at his prey—a wild-eyed gazelle with neck and ears erect, vibrating with the excitement of the chase—and recognized it for what it was, an image of sexual arousal. Which only drove my eyes back to Aset.

  She had outlined her eyes in black and dusted the lids with yellow ocher, reminding me of all the hours we have spent in my garden, discussing some treatment while she prepared her colors—grinding the yellow earth from the base of the cliffs or the burnt almond shells that produce a dark, purplish black. Afterward she would pour the fine powder into a length of hollow reed and plug it with papyrus pith before tucking it into her drawstring bag, where she carries the little papyrus-root lion, still her most prized possession—something I have never understood. It is of little value to anyone but the children she entertains with stories of his exploits in the Western Desert, where he outwits every hunter no matter how skilled or brave.

  “He breathes a little easier,” she whispered. I nodded and let my eyes follow the drape of Sati’s gown to the floor, only to discover that she wore a pair of Ipwet’s sandals. Finally, Uzahor’s eyelids began to flutter, a sign that he was waking. But I have seen many an old man return from such a sleep to a place he did not know. It took a while before he gave Sati a weak smile and tried to speak. She put her ear to his lips, then left him to go to a wooden chest standing on crossed duckbill legs, and returned with an ivory scribe’s palette.

  “Aset,” Uzahor rasped. Tuli pricked up his ears.

  “Yes, my lord husband, I am here.”

  “For you.” He pushed the narrow pen case at her. A hunting scene was inscribed on one side, in the lifelike style of another time, now banned—thanks to Ramose and his parochial cohorts.

  “Oh, no, my lord,” Aset protested, “this was a token of the Magnificent Amenhotep’s high regard for you, and must go to one of your children.”

  Uzahor groped for her hand. “You … send me … message.”

  “I will, my lord, I promise.” She smiled despite her tears. “I will remember your generosity through all eternity, too, just as I treasure the kindness you have shown me in this world. You and Sati.”

  Uzahor turned his pale, watery eyes on me, so she said, “This is the physician I told you about. Senakhtenre.” He stared at me for a time, then heaved a tired sigh and closed his eyes. But almost at once he came awake again, a frantic look on his face as he sought someone or something he could not find.

  “Mose … Ramose,” he called in a faltering voice, a plea so filled with heartache that I felt my gut tighten in pity.

  The High Priest leaped to his feet and took Uzahor’s frail hand between both of his. “I am here. Nor will I leave you. The transgression was mine, not yours. Yet you kept faith with me through everything, even at the risk of going before Osiris with a stain on your heart.” Ramose eased down onto the edge of Uzahor’s couch and smiled at the old man. “You were right. I cannot escape the boy I once was, so I have waged constant war with my own ka, until I grow tired of the battle. But I cannot lie to you, either, and say I would willingly relive those years in order to do any different.” He stared unseeing into the past, at what only he and his friend could know, all the while stroking the back of Uzahor’s frail hand with his thumb. “Never to have pitted myself against her quick wit? Or watched her eyes light up when she laughs? Never to feel the touch of her hand in trust, or love? The rush of pleasure that comes with knowing she is mine?” Ramose shook his head. “Even to think of it brings the chill of death to my heart.”

  So did the High Priest confess his obsession with the woman who had stolen his free will, yet Uzahor smiled as if he forgave him whatever offense Ramose alluded to.

  “Pharaoh’s jackals will not come near you,” Ramose assured his old friend, “now or in the years to come. So be at peace and rest. Sati has ordered a rich broth from the kitchen, to make you strong as a bull again.” That same little smile was still on Uzahor’s face when he drifted into what appeared to be a natural sleep.

  I instructed Pagosh to inform Uzahor’s family and servants to go to their beds, while Sati sank down on the foot of his couch to keep watch. But without any warning, the old man began struggling to rise, and finally lifted both frail arms to the sky.

  “Aten comes!” he cried, a joyous smile creasing his weathered face. Then, as if the effort had sapped the last of his strength, his breath escaped from his open mouth, taking his ka with it, and the husk of the man he had been fell back against the cushions.

  Tuli let out a long, mournful howl, then began licking the old man’s hand. I moved to listen to his heart, to confirm what I already knew. From the look on Sati’s face she did, too, so I closed Uzahor’s sightless eyes, straightened his blanket, and folded it neatly across his chest, to give her time to recover herself. She dropped to her knees beside her husband’s couch, took his lifeless hand, and pressed it to her forehead as the elderly priest began an incantation to Osiris. “Blessed be Osiris. Blessed be the son of earth sprung from the egg of the world. Blessed be the son of heaven, dropped from the belly of the sky. Blessed be the god in his names, salvation of priests and goatherds
, king of kings, lord of lords. Priest and man, his body shimmers turquoise green.” When he finished she put her lips to Uzahor’s hand for the last time, rose and wrapped her dignity about her like a shawl, and went to inform the others who kept vigil in the antechamber to his room.

  I wondered if Ramose had known that his friend worshiped the Heretic’s god even after Horemheb’s proclamation made it a crime. Why else would the old man cry out to Aten instead of Amen-Re or Osiris? Unless he had only been reliving his youth, as so many old men do, in the time of the Magnificent Amenhotep, who championed Aten above other gods. By the time his son, who styled himself Aten’s one and only, was gone from the Two Lands, Uzahor must have been at least fifty and set in his ways.

  Aset took Tuli in her arms to quiet his whining and went to her father’s side, but Ramose continued to stare at the wasted shell of his beloved friend. It was not until the mourners outside began to wail that he roused himself to give her instructions.

  “Go and change into whatever you wear as the physician’s boy. Pagosh will be waiting at the rear gate to take you from here. Speak to no one along the way and keep your eyes cast down.” She reached up and gave him a hug, then darted a wide-eyed glance at me. Ramose watched her until she was out of sight before turning to me. “It was Uzahor’s wish to return to Abydos, the place where he entered this world. Those who have outlived him here consider him eccentric in any case, in part because he preferred one woman to several.” He came near to smiling then. “He always claimed his sexual pleasure was the more intense because of it, but—”

  “How, then, did he explain taking a second wife?”

  “By sacrificing the truth of his wisdom and experience to the jibes of his friends, out of love for me.” Ramose gazed at the lifeless face. “He always found his own path. Even more so since Aset. He once told me that she was my greatest achievement, no matter how high I rose in position or wealth.” A bittersweet smile took his lips. “Just knowing he was here—” His throat worked to swallow his grief, so I stilled my curious tongue instead of asking what he planned now and stood like an accused man before Pharaoh’s judges, waiting to hear my sentence pronounced. Expecting exile.

  “Now I must ride the storm alone,” he mumbled when he found his voice again, then fixed his blue eyes on mine.

  I spoke first, clothing my promise in a warning. “I will do whatever it takes to keep her safe.”

  “If ever I doubted it, Tenre, that time is long past. But we must move quickly. His daughter goes to Memphis to a marriage already arranged. Sati will accompany him to Abydos and live nearby in the house that has been in his family since the time of the great Thutmose. For the next few weeks, while we mourn him here, no one from this house will mention Aset, but you must put a guard on her lest she leave your walls.”

  “Her word will be sufficient,” I replied, then dared to ask, “Uzahor left no sons?”

  For a moment he stared at me. Then he shook his head and continued as before. “For now Merit and Pagosh must remain here.”

  “And afterward?”

  “You would add two more to your menagerie?” I nodded. “Then I will leave it for them to decide. Pagosh will bring her clothes when he can, probably after dark, but if at any time you get wind of something that does not smell right, send word to me by your man Khary, so I will know the message is not a ruse.”

  It was not the first time Ramose has aroused my suspicions even as he granted me reprieve, for it is one thing to know that Khary manages my dispensary and another to recognize him by sight, even for a priest who is on speaking terms with the king of the gods.

  DAY 4, SECOND MONTH OF HARVEST

  I was finishing my midday meal when I looked up to find Khary hurrying along the path between his private garden and mine, followed by a man carrying a large basket on one shoulder, whom I took for a vendor. As they neared I saw that Tuli led the way, wagging his tail, and felt a twinge of uneasiness at his acceptance of the stranger who wore a striped nemes and dirty rag looped over one eye and cheek.

  “Where do you want it?” Khary asked, as if I had ordered what the man carried.

  “How in god’s name should I know?”

  When the one-eyed man lifted the basket from his shoulder and set it on the ground, the stink of his unwashed body descended on me like a cloud of flies on a pile of fresh dung. I did not recognize the crisscrossed sticks he carried, so I picked one up and held it to my nose. He bent to push the sticks aside, revealing a folded length of unbleached linen. I shrugged, wondering why Khary bothered me with replenishing our supply of bandaging, but before I could speak he lifted the cloth to reveal something blue. Lapis, from the look of it. And turquoise!

  I grabbed his arm, turning him until I could see the satisfied smile break across his bronze face. “By Thoth but you stink, Pagosh.” I had been expecting him in the dark of night, not with Re-Aten high in the sky. “Your sense of humor grows bold with age.” Khary began to laugh, setting Tuli to running circles around our feet.

  “It was not meant to be funny, sunu.” Pagosh pulled the dirty rag from his head and waited for the commotion to subside. “If I can fool you, I need not worry.”

  “I’ll wager you did not get past Aset.” He shrugged and refused to meet my eyes. “Surely you must have seen her. She watches Khary’s son on the mornings Tamin goes to market to sell Ipwet’s sandals.”

  “We spoke.”

  I motioned him to the other chair. “You brought her belongings?”

  “And a bundle of scrolls from Uzahor’s library,” he replied, dropping onto the empty stool. “There are more, but my donkey is all skin and bones. The others were already taken to haul grain from the fields. It will require one more trip at least.” I filled a clay mug with beer and handed it across to him. He feigned indifference, but even the date palms and willows were wilting under the brutal onslaught of the sun.

  “I will unload the other basket from your poor beast,” Khary offered, probably to let us talk in private, “and put him to graze in what remains of the kitchen garden. A mouthful or two will sweeten his temper.”

  Pagosh chewed a bite of bread and cheese, then washed it down with beer. “Mena came this week as usual?” he asked. I nodded. “He encounters nothing unusual across the river?”

  “Horemheb worries about what the Hittites do now that Mursili sits in his father’s place. An envoy from Hattusas arrived and demands reparation for the untimely end of the prince they sent to Ankhesenamen. It seems he was full brother to Mursili.”

  “So the crow comes home to roost,” Pagosh muttered.

  “Does Ramose expect trouble from that quarter?”

  “Is Pharaoh bent on ridding the Two Lands of the Heretic’s followers?” he replied, since it is forbidden now even to speak the rebel’s name, let alone worship his god.

  “To worship Aten is not necessarily to follow the Heretic,” I pointed out.

  “Tell that to Horemheb.”

  “His Edict of Reform has been inscribed on the temple wall, to assure that ignorance will be no defense when wrongdoers are called before Pharaoh’s judges. Horemheb must have had the Sacred Council’s approval, so they all have a taste for blood. Even a petty thief fears the words he cannot read once he has seen a man’s hand chopped off.” I tipped up the pitcher to refill his mug. “Pharaoh has made no move toward Nefertiti, so Aset will be safe for the same reason, even if word gets around about Uzahor. Anyway, the man who signed the marriage contract now is High Priest of Amen.” Pagosh kept his gaze trained on the plot where the fennel and purple thyme bloomed, as if to delay telling me the bad news.

  “Does Ramose say what he plans for Aset?” I asked.

  “I know that his love for her is that of a father. If he cares more than most fathers for their daughters—well, Aset is not like most daughters.”

  I recalled Ramose saying the same, but a lot of silt has come down the river to muddy the water since then. “The question is, does he love someone or something else
more?”

  “After so many years of your tutoring, sunu, it is a wonder Aset trusts anyone.”

  “I could say the same about you,” I countered.

  “Ramose told me of your offer,” he said, still not looking at me. “I thank you from my heart, Tenre, but it is better that we return to him.”

  “We are not without resources here now that so many physicians from the House of Life send their assistants to the Eye of Horus for pills and potions, if that is what worries you. Khary hears more about what goes on than an entire army of spies, especially if it is to do with which officer is Pharaoh’s latest favorite, or whose wife lies with another man. Or woman.”

  He bit into a fig from the bowl on my table. “Netted like a bird in your garden, I might do something foolish and betray you both.”

  “You? Foolish?” Bemused, I could only shake my head. “What about Merit? Or did you give her a choice?” He bent to retrieve something from the basket, then handed me a scrap of papyrus.

  “She sent this to show that she practices what Aset taught her.” I looked at what had been written on it. My thoughts go with you. “From the beginning whenever Aset came to Uzahor’s villa, she would read to Merit. A love poem written in another time or a story with a lesson hidden in it, turning it into a game. Once she read to her from the journal kept by a great Queen whose heart was torn asunder by the loss of her babe. Afterward Merit told me she could feel the Queen’s pain in her own heart. It made her believe in the magic of words. And to know that a Queen could suffer as she did made her feel less alone. Not so—so flawed.” He scowled. “That is her word, not mine, and I have forbidden her ever to use it again.”