“I trust that I am not a coward, Thothmes. Let me try the bathhouse first. One must wash before bed, if I remember the rules correctly. I see that you’ve already been.”
Thothmes stared at him suspiciously and then burst into laughter. “I’d forgotten your strange sense of humour. Actually, I’ve been doing my lengths in the lake. Let’s get cleaned and oiled together and then you can go to bed.”
Huy had expected a summons from the Overseer within the following few days, but he returned to his classes, struggled to catch up to the work the others were doing, ate the noon meal in the noisy hall with everyone else, even approached his swimming instructor with a request to continue the exercises, and the temple authorities remained silent. He was trailed everywhere by a hesitant Samentuser, who hastened to pick up anything—a sheaf of papyrus, a brush, a pot of ink—Huy might drop. In the classroom, clustered at the far end of the vast room with others of his age and competence, he often felt eyes upon him and, turning, saw Samentuser staring at him with an expression of dumb worship on his face. “I think he’s in love with you, Huy,” Thothmes chuckled, but Huy did not find the little boy’s devotion amusing and took him aside one day in the brief hiatus between lunch and the afternoon sleep.
“Is there something worrying you, Samentuser?” he asked. For answer a small hand crept up and fingered the frog ornament Huy had once used to secure his youth lock and which now held his hair imprisoned at the base of his skull.
“Ever since you came back I’ve been dreaming about you, Huy,” Samentuser said haltingly. “Every night I dream that I am drowning. I can’t breathe. My head aches. You are standing on the verge of the lake, bending down, holding out your hands and calling to me, but I can’t reach up to you, I can’t grasp your hands.” His lips quivered. “I know it’s silly. Don’t be angry with me. I wake up with a terrible desire to see you because I am so afraid.” He swallowed and his eyes slid away from Huy’s. “Has someone put a spell on me, do you think? Can you help me?”
Huy’s throat had gone dry. Squatting, he embraced the boy. “My hands are here now. I am holding them out to you, just as in your dream, but this is the world of waking, Samentuser. Grasp them.” He was preparing to say something comforting, to tell the boy that his nightmare was nothing more than a reflection of his preoccupation with Huy himself, and that he must spend more time in games and other healthy pursuits with his classmates. But all at once he sensed a powerful presence behind him. Samentuser’s troubled little face, the smooth beige stone of the temple wall beyond, the shriek of a hawk passing high above, remained clear. Huy knew that he was entirely rooted in the present, and yet a deep, rough voice spoke into his ear, a voice that illogically seemed full of animal teeth. Hot breath touched his neck.
“Say this to the child,” the voice began, the words a soft rumble but entirely plain. “‘Go to a priest and request an Anubis thread. Let the man knot it about your wrist.’ Thus will I be bound to his good with my Followers of Horus. Remind him of the promise of Amun: ‘Anything harmful is under my seal.’ He must pray to his totem twice a day to have the oppression of the dream removed from him. He must bend his head to you and receive the seal of your protection. That is all.”
Huy swallowed his scream of surprise and fear. Am I then to be a messenger for the gods as well as a herald of the future, blessed Anubis? he asked silently of the warm breath bathing his skin with horrific regularity. What are the limits of this gift? He had wanted to say “terrible gift, unwanted gift, gift with a weight like a stone of granite lodged within my soul,” but he did not dare. There was a sudden, oddly timbreless chuckle, and the presence was withdrawn. The breeze caressing Huy’s neck was now cool.
“Please speak to me, Huy,” Samentuser begged. “Is your silence an angry one?”
“Not at all.” Huy squeezed the small fingers and let them drop. “You are from Nefrusi, are you not? You worship Amun?” Samentuser nodded. “And what is it said of Amun? Do you remember?” Samentuser shook his head. “Anything harmful is under his seal. Yes? Anything harmful. You surely have his image beside your cot. I want you to go to one of the priests here and ask for an Anubis thread. Let him knot it about your wrist. Your parents are wealthy. They can pay, can they not?” Huy took Samentuser’s rapt attention for consent. “Anubis is Lord of the Bau. He has all the armed followers of Horus under him.”
Samentuser looked alarmed. “But Huy, Anubis has hosts of demons under him also.”
“I know. But the thread will bind Anubis to your good. You must pray to Amun twice every day to take this dream away from you, and he will be free to hear you because Anubis will respect the thread and will protect you with the followers of Horus. Bend your head.” The boy did so. Huy rested his hands on the hot, shaved skull. “My hands are on you. My seal is your protection,” he intoned. He wanted to ask Samentuser if he had any relatives in Iunu, people he could stay with during the disease-ridden months of the Inundation, but he did not dare. If the boy was to die of fever, if that was the fate ordained for him at his birth, then he, Huy, must not interfere. I have done all I dare to do for him, he thought, watching Samentuser leave the courtyard. The priest will want to know why Samentuser needs an Anubis thread. Will he leave the matter alone, or will I be summoned to explain? How can I explain? How can I say that the god himself spoke to me? I don’t understand any of this! I don’t want to have the eyes of the gods on me, to feel like the toy dog I had, pulled along by their string while they bark through me! Shocked at his fit of offensive blasphemy, he muttered an apology and went to his cot for the afternoon sleep like all the other students, but he was unable to rest.
A month passed before a letter arrived for him from his uncle. Carrying the scroll to a quiet corner of his courtyard, he broke Ker’s seal with trepidation and spent a moment glancing around the sun-filled area before daring to drop his eyes to the neat black hieratic script of Ker’s scribe. “My dear nephew Huy,” he read. “I have been in correspondence with your Overseer and have had several conversations with Methen, who has written on your behalf to the High Priest of Ra requesting assistance with the cost of your schooling. I have also approached your father with regard to your brother’s education. I feel as great a responsibility towards little Heby as I did towards you …” here Huy paused tensely “… and given your father’s inability to carry the cost of schooling for either of you, I have reluctantly decided to extend to Heby the advantages you have enjoyed.” Instead of me, Huy thought bitterly, dropping the papyrus into his lap. In spite of the fact that my life has been destroyed by the force of Sennefer’s arm and I am blameless, still Ker cannot overcome his fear of me. He does not want his personal or his business reputation tainted by any association with me that might be detrimental in the future. Oh, Ker! I wonder what that future holds for you! How easy it would be for me to find out next time I return home! He struggled to thrust the unworthy desire away and unrolled the scroll again. “I love you very much and so does your aunt,” the letter continued. “We remain distraught over what happened to you, but I must honestly consider that your precarious health may fail at any time and my investment in you be wasted. Heby will not attend school at Iunu. He will be enrolled at the smaller temple school here in Hut-herib.” How stupid do you think I am? Huy demanded of his uncle in his mind. Heby could die of a hundred different diseases before he disembarks from your barge and drags his belongings into the cell he will share with his guide, as I did! “The High Priest Methen and your Overseer have agreed to allow you to continue at Iunu providing Methen assumes the bulk of the cost. The Overseer will approach High Priest Ramose for the balance. Both men seem to think that you will be of benefit to Egypt one day. You will be summoned to discuss the matter with Ramose. I do not expect a reply to this letter.” It was signed by Ker himself.
Why not? Huy asked resignedly as he let the scroll roll up and sat staring down at it. Do you imagine that the mere touch of my hand on the papyrus will infect you with some sort of terrible spel
l? For a moment he ached for the past, for his uncle’s free smile, his humour, the unconditional affection that he, Huy, had taken for granted, then he got up off the warm grass, strode to his cell, and put the letter in his chest. He was tempted to throw it away or burn it, so great was his feeling of betrayal, but a part of him understood his uncle’s all too human weakness. Ker was not a god. He was simply a kind man, a good man, caught in a situation he was unable to understand. All the same, Huy told himself as he walked towards the lake where he had forced himself to resume his swimming lessons despite an overwhelming sense of dread, my continued education is assured. I must write to Methen and thank him at once, and as for the Overseer, I suppose he will extract some extra task from me in exchange. At least I don’t have to petition Thothmes’ father for a favour like some impoverished peasant. Here he laughed aloud, picked up his pace, and prepared to shed his kilt as the glittering surface of the water came into view.
He had just finished his letter to Khenti-kheti’s priest on the following evening, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his cell with the lamp beside him and Thothmes on his cot, rattling the pieces of the sennet game they were about to play, when a servant Huy had not seen before entered and beckoned him with a peremptory wave. Huy had time to recognize the hawk tattoo on the man’s upper arm before scrambling to follow him into the early evening twilight. This was a servitor to the priests of Ra, and Huy’s surmise was borne out as the arrogant figure quickly left the premises of the school and entered the priests’ quarters, a place where Huy had not been since the day when, fleeing from Pabast, he had found himself in the presence of the Ished Tree. “Are you sure you have summoned the correct student?” he called uncertainly to the straight back, his mind briefly full of the confusion of that time. He was not answered. The man turned into the corridor lined with priests’ cells, now quiet, strode past them all, and halted before double doors Huy remembered only too well. Knocking, he turned, gave Huy an unexpectedly warm smile, and disappeared the way they had come.
“Enter.” The voice was muffled but recognizable. Swallowing, Huy pushed open one of the thick wooden doors and walked into the High Priest’s rooms.
Two people glanced up at him. One was the High Priest himself, sitting behind a table littered with scrolls. The other was the Rekhet. With an exclamation of pleasure Huy bowed profoundly to the bright eyes, the wizened fingers folded on the ornate wand lying across her white-clad thighs. She nodded briefly in return, the cowrie shells tied into her grey braids clacking gently. Repeating his bow, this time to the High Priest, Huy stood and waited. “You may bring forward that stool and sit, Huy,” the High Priest said. “I have been listening to a strange and compelling story about you, and before I proceed I would like to hear it told to me again, this time from your own mouth.” Huy did not need to ask what story. Anxiously he met the Rekhet’s eye.
“It’s all right, Huy,” Henenu said. “The High Priest and I are not only old friends, we also work together in the service of the gods. I have told him everything, and Methen has added his words to mine in a letter. Don’t be afraid.” She lifted the wand and placed it deliberately on the floor. “I need no protection from you nor you from me.”
“I’m not afraid, Rekhet,” he answered, and found that it was the truth. Dragging forward the stool, he lowered himself onto it and raised his eyes to the aristocratic face across from him. The High Priest waited impassively, his ringed fingers relaxed on the table before him. “You must have already known of the accident that befell me on the verge of the lake in front of the temple, Master,” Huy began, and continued to recount the events whose details were as vivid in that gracious, dimly lit cell as if they had just occurred. The High Priest’s gaze did not waver, showing neither shock nor surprise as Huy stumbled over his horrific waking in the House of the Dead and his rescue in Methen’s arms. It was the only moment he faltered in the telling, and when at last he fell silent the air seemed to hold the echo of his voice. Then the High Priest pushed a jug of water towards him. Huy rose, drank thirstily, and resumed his seat.
“If you touch me, you will know my fate?” the man said quietly at last.
“Yes, Master.”
“Will you do so?”
Huy cringed. Both pairs of eyes, so similar in their knowledge, so appraising, were fixed on him steadily. He shook his head. “No. Forgive me, Master, but … no.”
“You have done so for others,” the High Priest pressed. “Why not for me?”
“I have only acceded to one such request, from my friend Thothmes,” Huy replied, dry-mouthed in spite of the water he had drunk. “The other times it just happened. It was … it was sad and draining and somehow wrong, and I will not repeat it except from choice.”
“So you have no control over the gift?”
“No. That is, yes,” Huy floundered, “that is … I think I may be able to make it my servant, but not yet.”
“You are still afraid of it.” The voice was Henenu’s.
Huy turned to her. “Afraid, yes. Because I never know when it will strike me. Because it is doing things to me, changing me in my soul, perhaps even in my ka, my ba, my shadow. Everything I look at seems different from the way it was before … before …”
“Before you died.” The High Priest spoke calmly. “Without the witness of so many people, including the servants in the House of the Dead at Hut-herib, I would not only doubt the account, I would attribute it to an evil and blasphemous young man who craved an ignominious notoriety. But the fact of your death is too well attested. As for the rest, I trust the testimony of this woman”—he indicated Henenu—“in her capacity as the most famous Rekhet in Egypt. Her gift lies in the discerning and control of demons and spirits. According to her, you are possessed by neither. It remains to be seen whether the gift that has possessed you speaks truth.” His gaze narrowed. “You were right to refuse my request. The faculty that has been given to you must not be used lightly or frivolously.”
“But why me?” Huy burst out. “Master, I do not want this faculty! I ask only to be allowed to finish my schooling in peace and become a good scribe!”
The Rekhet leaned forward and placed a hand on his stiff shoulder. “Stop fretting, Huy,” she soothed him. “The reason why will become apparent in time. Until then we also want you to finish your schooling. The gift is raw in you. It must mature. So must you, in ways that are acceptable to the gods. It is our duty, mine and Ramose’s, to help you learn not only the skills your teacher wishes to instill in you, but also the ways in which you may govern the emotions the gods do not trust. Anger. Envy. Lust for power. The things that will blunt and pervert the ability to See.” She patted him and withdrew. “The gift must not control you. It must become your servant.”
“The Overseer’s report on your academic progress is excellent,” the High Priest put in, holding up a sheaf of papyrus. “You learn quickly and retain what you learn. Your hand is neat and sure. You are swimming again. That took courage.” The coldly unapproachable features broke into a smile. “I am putting you under the care of the architect, who will teach you the rudiments of his craft. You will continue at the bow. And every day you will come here. What was the choice Osiris Imhotep placed before you under the Ished Tree?”
Huy felt a strong reluctance to say the words again, as though the more he repeated them the tighter his decision would hold him. “He asked me if I wished to read the Book of Thoth,” he half whispered.
“And you did so wish.”
I am not being given a chance to retract anything, Huy thought dismally. The High Priest is simply testing the particulars of my encounter. He nodded.
“Very well,” Ramose went on crisply. “The gods have willed that such knowledge be shared with you, a most rare and extraordinary opportunity for someone so young and untried. Half of the Book of Thoth is here. It is kept hidden in the Holiest of Holiest within the temple. The other half lies safely in Thoth’s temple at Khmun. The succeeding High Priests of each temple are res
ponsible for the safety of the portions of the sacred Book in their keeping.”
“So it really exists?” Huy was more shocked than amazed. Despite his utterly futile efforts to relegate the Tree, the Judgment Hall, even the faces of the gods themselves, to the realm of indistinct memory, to pick up the threads of a normal school life, he had continued to hope secretly that it had all been some great cosmic mistake on the part of Ma’at and the Book was nothing but legend. Yet here, in this warm, shadowed room, its existence was being confirmed in quite ordinary language.
The High Priest’s lips twisted in a thin smile. “You doubted. Or rather,” he added with shrewd perception, “you found comfort in doubting. Indeed it exists, and you will begin to study it. I will decide later whether or not I will allow you to open the other half. As far as I know, the only man who acquired full mastery over its mysteries was the mighty Imhotep himself, which was probably why he was chosen to speak to you. And I should warn you”—he hesitated—“the Book is a maze, and it is said that any man who is able to decipher it and reach the heart of its mysteries will know the nature and mind of Atum himself.” He paused, running a hand along his jaw. Half stupefied, Huy watched the lamplight glint briefly upon one ring after another until the long fingers passed across the mouth and came to rest on the table once more. “And that, my young Huy, means instant madness.”
“But the great Imhotep did not go insane,” Huy croaked. “He was deified. He became a god.”
“Indeed.” The High Priest rose. “Which will it be for you? I wonder. Madness or deification? I will leave you to spend a few moments with the Rekhet, then off to your cell and a good night’s sleep.” Gathering his linens around him, he stalked towards a small door barely visible in the uncertain light, but on reaching it he swung back. “I have refused Methen’s offer to assist in the support of your education. This temple will bear the cost itself. Methen is a true friend to you and you would do well to listen carefully to his advice. It will be most cogent for a chosen one. I will send for you.” Then he was gone, the door closing gently behind him.
The Twice Born Page 21
