Winged Pharaoh

by Joan Grant

  When the lamp went out, the room was filled with the pink light of dawn. And in it I was all alone.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Temple Counsellors

  Every day in the temples of Kam, two hours after sunrise and in the evening, those who are sufficiently experienced, although not yet initiate priests, wait in the room of peace beside the sanctuaries; and to them come any in the land who seek wise counsel for the guiding of their hearts. If a counsellor finds that the burden brought to him is too heavy to lighten unaided, then does he pass it on to one of greater wisdom.

  In villages where there is no temple, always is there a priest to whom the people can take their troubles, so that there is no one in Kam who need be without a wise friend and counsellor.

  When I was nineteen Ney-sey-ra adjudged that I was ready to become a counsellor of the Temple of Atet. In this work I learnt much that was of great value to me, for because of my office, the people showed me their hearts and told me of their troubles, with nothing added and with nothing unrevealed.

  On the first morning, there came to me a man who wept and said that he was afflicted of the Gods. After much questioning, I found that he was a fruit-seller in the market, and that he had dealt dishonestly with many people, selling them baskets of fruit that was about to spoil. He said that an old woman had put a curse upon him for defrauding her; and every night when he slept, rotten figs rained down upon him, and, weighted with their sodden pulp, he awoke screaming out that he was being stifled. He regretted that he had done wrong, and he asked me to remove the curse and to forgive him.

  And I said to him, “The curse was put on you because of your dishonesty. A priest cannot adjust the Scales of Tahuti. Only you can adjust a wrong that you have done. Secretly by night you must put baskets of fresh fruit before the doors of all whom you have defrauded. Then, when you have done this, you will find your dreams are calm again.”

  Next there came a man who told me that sometimes his young wife looked at him with unfamiliar eyes and spoke to him in a tongue that was strange; and sometimes she lay writhing upon the floor. Afterwards she would forget that she had done these things, and he dared not tell her what she had done, for fear of frightening her.

  I thought that there might be some evil one trying to possess this woman’s body. So I took him to the room of Ney-sey-ra, who told the man to bring his wife to him and he would armour her against attack.

  When I got back to the sanctuary, I found a little boy waiting for me. At first he was shy, but soon he was talking to me as if we were children together.

  He said, “I’ve been to the Sanctuary of Ptah and prayed to him, but I thought I’d like to tell you about it as well, in case he didn’t hear me. You see, I’m not quite sure if it’s the sort of thing he likes being bothered about.”

  I told him that Ptah always liked being bothered about things. And the little boy looked much happier, and went on, “My father is dead and my mother is a linen-weaver, and we live with my uncle. I’ve got a pet rat, she’s very beautiful and she’s called Tee-tee, and I love her; but I have to keep her hidden in a box behind the kindling wood, except when I’m out and then I always take her with me. And now she’s ill, and I daren’t tell my uncle because he hates rats and kills them and nails them up to a tree by their tails to frighten other rats away. And I asked Ptah to make Tee-tee well again. Do you think he’ll mind?”

  And I told the little boy to bring Tee-tee to the temple and that one of Ptah’s own servants would heal her.

  That evening the little boy returned, and he brought with him some flowers he had picked in the fields as a present to Ptah. And he told me that he hadn’t needed to bring Tee-tee with him, because Ptah had answered him so quickly that, when he got home, not only was Tee-tee well again, but she had six tiny baby rats with her in her box.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Septes

  Some there may be who, being in their first incarnation of training, came only twice a year to the temple to be examined as to their progress in their work, which they did in their own homes. Only when it was hoped that they would be ready to pass one of the three grades of initiation did they live in the temple.

  When I was nineteen a girl called Septes, who had been expected to pass the first test of lookers, was driven from the temple. Although we all knew that she was disgraced, none were told what she had done to merit her being despised by all who knew her: for they that are banished from a temple for being unworthy are the lowest in the land.

  I asked Ney-sey-ra what Septes had done. And he told me that she had been lying with one of the stonemasons who were working on the new court.

  I said, “Here there are priests and priestesses who are married and have born children. They are married, and this girl was not. But an action to be right must be right always; and that which is wrong cannot be altered by ceremony. How is it that she is unworthy, while Na-saw and her husband are honoured?”

  And he said, “Sekeeta, you are right. Ceremony cannot change a wrong. But it should be a symbol of an inward rightness. The spirits of Na-saw and her husband love each other and are glad that their bodies should be united upon Earth and that children should be born both of their bodies and their spirits. Septes knew that it was not well for her to lie with this man; for had she loved him, she would have wished to make him her husband and to share his life, even though he was a poor man and she the daughter of a noble. But though she knew she loved him not, yet her body was eager for his, and her pulses clamoured for him so loudly that she did not listen to the voice of her spirit. One whose will is not strong enough to order his own body is not ready to be trained how to sharpen a will that is so easily mastered.”

  I asked Ney-sey-ra what made a woman an adulteress. And he said, “There are two kinds of adultery. The first is a woman who lies with a man when the voice of her own experience tells her that it is unwise. This is wrong because, in being mastered by her body, she has weakened her will. But all of us when we are young in spirit pass through this stage, and we must reap unhappiness from it, just as they who cannot control their anger or their greed must reap the consequences, which are often most unpleasant. But what is meant by the law against adultery—I mean not the laws of man, but one of the great laws that are not written upon Earth—is a woman who lies with a man although the voice both of her body and her spirit cry out against it, and who does this for gold, or worldly gain. And in the degrees of the gain so do the consequences of her action increase: a woman who is hungry and lies with a man for a meal has done little against the law; but she who lies with a man for great riches—perhaps it may be that she marries a noble or a rich merchant—has done much against it and she will spend many tears in its adjustment.”

  And I said, “When I was at the palace for the Festival of Anubis, the Vizier of the Tortoise Land was at the feast, and with him was his wife, the daughter of a rich merchant. I noticed that when she looked at him there was hatred in her eyes. She was conscious of her new nobility, as one who had it by right would never be. If she married the Vizier to gain position as his wife, is she then one with the women who dwell near the soldiers’ courts?”

  Ney-sey-ra said, “If what you say of her is true, and the Vizier dwells not in her heart but only in her bed, then it would be unjust to the soldiers’ women to compare her with them, for they may love the men they take to bed.”

  “What of the woman who lies with a man to get food for a child or for someone she loves?”

  “If she does it, not for her own gain, but so that she may give to another, then she has done no wrong. In sacrificing herself so that another may not go hungry, she has done as well as one who shields a friend in battle. Remember, Sekeeta, it is unwise to judge until you are in a position to know the hearts of those you would pronounce upon. Even though you know all the circumstances of an action, you must also know the age of the spirit of the doer. There is no wrong in a lion not recognizing his cub when it is two years old, but all would cry out against
a man who turned against his child; for a man is older than a lion and therefore has greater responsibilities.

  “For a young one to be obscured by the pleasuring of his body is a little matter. But in one whose will is trained it would be a degradation for that will to be clouded by Earth. That is why adultery for one in a temple is accounted a sin: not because it is wrong for a woman to lie with a man, but because it is wrong for her to do so against the voice of her experience. It would be unworthy for one in a temple to lie with one with whom she—or he—did not wish to share her life. If they knew that their spirits also walked together, then would they wish to proclaim it by vowing their unity before a priest.

  “Remember always that in anything you may do, if in the truest weighing of your heart you find there is no shame, then that action cannot be unworthy, and so, for you, must be right. At the end of the journey, for all of us must come a time when we look back over all our lives and see all that has helped us on our way and all that has retarded us. But every action of which we can say in true sincerity, ‘That I did, not for myself, but because I loved another better’, must be a step along the true path. Even one who joins the train of Set because his master leaves the Brotherhood gains in the loyalty that he has shown, if he has followed after one he loved and not for what he hoped to gain for himself. Sometimes to help others, men break little laws. If a woman steals bread when she can find no other way to get it for her hungry child, though in the eyes of man she is a thief, before the Gods she is higher than another who from fear lets her child starve. And although she will owe the baker the loaf of bread, which in some life or time she must repay, she will find that what she has gained in courage is like a piece of gold beside a grain of sand.”

  “Then is thieving well, so long as it is for another?”

  “Only if all other ways of getting food have failed. But first one must be willing to do any work, to carry water, or to clean out a filthy byre, or anything one’s hand may find to do; and even then only after one has prayed that one may not have to become a thief.”

  I asked what the next life would be of a woman such as the wife of the Vizier of the Tortoise, and he said, “Without knowing all the circumstances, of her I cannot tell you. But once a woman came to the temple for help, and to give it I had to look up her records. I found that in a previous life she had been a beautiful dancing-girl; and she had married the son of a noble for what he could give her, although she had no love or charity for him in her heart. In this present life she was the daughter of a captain of the Northern Garrison. Her body became filled with longing for one of the officials of the court of Sardok when he visited your father the year before their invasion of our country. Against the wishes of her father she returned to Zuma as his wife. When she was far from her own people, she found he was a cruel and bitter man, who delighted to humiliate her before her guests, for he hated the people of Kam. Yet, although she feared and despised him, she could not throw off her deep longing for him; and because of this she suffered anything he did to her. Only at his death did she return to Kam. And she found that her father had been killed in the last battle against Zumas; and she had no relatives to whom she could go. Now she looks after the motherless children of the Overseer of the Vineyard. So she who once had taken everything and given not even gratitude in exchange, in this life gave herself and all her heart, but received nothing.”

  And I asked why she had felt this passion for the Zuma.

  “It may be that she had some debt to pay to him. Or it may be that this attraction of the body was decreed by the Gods for the adjustment of the Scales and the gaining of experience. Sometimes this is done so that, because of it, people will undergo things which otherwise they would refuse to suffer, and sometimes so that two people who are chained together by hatred may free themselves from their bonds: for in every marriage, however unhappy, something of tolerance and understanding is learnt. Bodies may seek bodies through the will of the Gods, but the call of spirit to spirit can be only from shared experience. And a true marriage is where two who journey together along the same path help and comfort each other in their exile.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Wheel of Time

  I had been dreaming about Athlanta, and when I woke I was surprised to find that I was in Kam, five thousand years further on in time than when I was away from my body.

  After I had told Ney-sey-ra of my dream, I asked him why there should be this timelessness away from Earth. And he said that he would explain it to me, but first he wished to see whether I could put my knowledge into words for myself. So I sent for Thoth-terra-das to record my speech. After I left my body, I travelled to where I could see time clearly. And when I returned, Thoth-terra-das read my words to me.

  “On Earth I see Time as a straight line. Upon it, the present is a point from which, in opposite directions, stretch the past and the future, marked into divisions of the years like thumb-joints on the the taut string of the drawing-scribe. On Earth I see the horizon also as a straight line. When I am free of my body, I can see Earth as a sphere and Time as a circle. Upon this circle are the years marked, and if one travels along it, then is the distance between any two points greater or lesser according to the distance that one travels, just as it is on Earth. But I can reach to a place where it is as though the circle of time were the rim of a wheel, and I upon the hub of it. From me radiate the spokes, which are of equal length, whether they go to a point in time of what I have been, what I am, or what I shall become. While I am here, that moment I was first born as man—though it was before this little Earth—and that moment when I left the body that I dwell in now, and that future time when I shall be reborn, are at the same distance from me; for where I am is within and beyond Time, for it is the centre of a circle where past, present, and future, join and are eternal. When my future and my past are joined, then will my circle be complete, and I shall be free of the limitations of Earth. And when the circle of Earth is complete, Earth will have fulfilled its purpose. And it shall be a moon unto another world.”

  Ney-sey-ra told me that I had well expressed the truth, and, in so doing, had gained knowledge of the bonds of Time and learnt how to free myself from them more speedily; which would help me in my work.

  This knowledge made many things more clear to me. On Earth, memory struggles through the mists of years and we are often forgetful of experience that strives to tell us what is the right path; but from the hub of the Wheel of Time, all things are clear and there is no need to remember what we have learnt, for all our wisdom is with us at one place and time, pure and unshaken in the endless now.

  And I asked Ney-sey-ra, “Away from Earth I can see the past as clearly as the present, why can I not see my future?”

  And he said, “The past is solid, for what has been done cannot be changed. But every action that you do is changing a future, which is fluid and can be altered, into a past, which is permanent. Your to-morrow, or your life when next you are born, is like a pool in which you are reflected. At any moment it can be known what state the pool of your future is in, but by your free will you can make the storms upon it become quiet, or change its placid surface into waves. That is why so few prophecies come to pass. Look at that gardener carrying a water-jar. I can prophesy that he will cross the courtyard with his jar unspilled, but that is the future which his present actions form. But if he stumbles, or throws down the jar of his own will, then his present future is changed, for by his action he has brought another result into being; and so my prophecy would have been wrong. It is true to say that with the knowledge of all circumstances a picture of a future can be built up. But this is a picture which few are allowed to see, for it might influence a man’s actions. One who had a great store of good to reap, seeing a future clear and undisturbed and thinking himself secure, might let weeds grow in his field and spoil his harvest. Or another, seeing the famine he must have, might in his despair abandon his fields and so bereave himself of even his few ears of corn.

&nbs
p; “Think not of the future except to mould it by the present in which you live; and sow the seed that you will wish to reap.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Widow

  One day, as I was returning to the temple through the bean-fields, I saw a woman coming towards me along the path. She stared before her as if she were blind; and grief had carved her face into a mask of sorrow. I asked her if she could tell me the way to the house of Ketchet, the linen-weaver; for I wanted to break in upon her loneliness. She said that she would put me on the path to his house. And as we walked together, I asked Ptah that if I could comfort this woman, she would tell me of her grief.

  And as if she were talking to herself, she spoke. “Only a week ago I was the happiest woman in Kam, and now I am the most desolate on Earth. Since childhood my husband and I have known each other, for our fathers were brothers; and when I was fifteen and he but two years older, we were married. Always were we together, and five years ago we had a son, and for the three of us our days were joyful. Often my husband took our son with him in his boat, for he was a fisherman. Then in a sudden storm their boat capsized, and when the boat drifted to the bank, their bodies were found tangled in the net. Why must I live alone with grief? My Earth is broken. Why does it look the same, why do I see the sun and hear the birds, when heart and love and life are buried in the ground and lost for ever? Why should the Gods have so afflicted me—how can stone statues be so hard and cruel?”

  I said, “If you shut your eyes, the sun does not vanish from the sky; still does it warm you with its rays. For a little time, on Earth you cannot see the two beloved of your heart, yet they are there beside you, and when you sleep then are you with them.”