Huy’s stomach clenched. “It is true that I am here to consult with the Master,” he said carefully, “but as a student, not a Seer. I have been set a task of learning. As for my ability to scry, that has not yet been proven. Tell me about Nekheb. It is a great shipbuilding centre, is it not?”
The boy barked a short laugh. “Spoken like one of Pharaoh’s diplomats,” he retorted, not unkindly. “Forgive me, Huy. People must pester you all the time, but you must admit that my, our, curiosity is natural. Yes, Nekheb is a very famous city. In the days of our great liberator, Osiris Ahmose, and his accursed brother Kamose, the ships were built for the Setiu invaders and so a battle for control of the docks was fought there. The admiral Ahmose pen-Nekheb is our most revered son. You must have studied his exploits in school. He’s the one who …”
Huy appeared to be listening, but his attention had strayed. Something about the crowd of youthful heads had caused him unease.
Ib returned with a servant carrying trays of food, resumed his seat, and did his best to engage Huy in polite conversation. Huy’s appetite had fled, but he forced himself to eat while the guard standing behind him laid his spear on the ground and attacked his meal with relish. It seemed an eternity to Huy until Ib rose, called for silence, recited the prayer that ended the meal, and dismissed the boys. “Do you need to be guided back to your cell?” he asked Huy under the babble and scramble around them. “I presume that you are quartered with the priests.”
Huy shook his head. “Thank you, Ib, but I know the way. Besides, I think I’ll find a shady spot in the temple garden and spend the hour of sleep outside.”
“Very well, but if you need anything to do with the school just send a servant to me. I hope we meet again.”
The room had emptied. The guard picked up his spear and together he and Huy moved through the schoolroom, but as Huy entered the shadow of the passage beyond, an arm shot out and barred his way. “You think you are someone special, son of mud,” a familiar voice hissed. “You think you’re some kind of a god because the priests put their noses to their knees when you go by. You’re nothing but an untimely abortion, with your hair hanging past your shoulders like a girl and your false air of importance. One day they’ll know the truth. You’re a disease, an ukhedu, a worm in the bowels of the temples.”
“Sennefer,” Huy said calmly, although his heart was racing. “I failed to notice you in the dining room. I remember now. This is where you were sent.”
“As if you didn’t know! You ruined my life, peasant. I should have held you under the water and made sure you were dead before that little weakling Thothmes came running back to the lake with help to drag you out.” His crude features were flushed and his eyes glittered. “You managed to take advantage of your wound, didn’t you, like any crafty peasant.” He pushed closer to Huy, his body stiff with rage, but at that moment the guard interposed, drawing his sword and stepping between them.
“Be on your way, young whelp,” he said mildly, “before the flat of my blade teaches you some manners. And if you approach my charge again, I shall bleed you.”
“Ever the coward,” Sennefer sneered, but he backed away, and as he did so Huy felt himself lifted and lightened although his feet stayed firmly on the ground. No! he shouted dumbly, but his head began to whirl and in spite of his strong desire to run down the passage, to run away, a more powerful urge took his hand and closed it around Sennefer’s wrist. At once the other boy went still. Huy found himself surrounded by battle. Men’s screams deafened him. Dust caught in his throat, already dry from terror. He was clinging to the guardrail of an overturned chariot, coughing and sobbing, a dead horse at his feet. Someone was shouting at him angrily, the words lost in the melee, then something struck him in the back and he fell across the vehicle, blood pouring past his horrified gaze and trickling a red pattern against the wicker weave of the chariot’s vertical floor. He tried to draw breath and found he could not. Dark spots began to gather before his eyes and the din of the onslaught began to fade. In a burst of fear that loosened his bowels, he knew that he was dying.
But he was not dying. He was standing in a hot, dim passage in Thoth’s temple, his grip whitening the skin of Sennefer’s forearm, a dull pain beginning to throb behind his eyes. With effort he opened his hand, and at once Sennefer began to rub at the marks of his fingers.
“What did you do to me, you lunatic!” he shouted.
Huy wanted to laugh, but was simultaneously overcome with shame at his surge of spite. “You are going to die in battle, Sennefer. Perhaps such a fate may be averted by a change in you, perhaps not—I don’t know. I tell you only what I see. Now go away and leave me alone!”
Sennefer had gone pale. He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, looked down at his wrist, glowered across at Huy, then elbowed past him and disappeared into the schoolroom.
“So you really are a Seer?” the guard said as he followed Huy down the passage. “If I give you my hand, you can tell me my future?”
Wearily Huy stopped and turned to him, and without asking he placed two fingers on the rough skin of the hand that still grasped the sword. The guard exclaimed but did not pull back, and presently Huy smiled faintly up at him. “What is your name?”
“Anhur, after the warrior god. My father is also a soldier.”
“Do you like serving in the temple at Iunu, Anhur?”
The man grunted. “It’s boring sometimes, but it brings me my bread and onions. Why do you ask?”
“Because in three years’ time you will go to war and you will survive and after that you will make a decision that will affect the rest of your life.”
Anhur raised his eyebrows. “And what might that be?”
“Well, if I tell you, it will be no decision, will it?”
Anhur chuckled. “Cheeky, aren’t you? I suppose I’ll just have to wait for the end of this war or whatever, although I can’t imagine where it will take place. The Good God is old and the vassal states have stayed quiet for years.”
Huy sighed. “I tell only what I see. That’s all I can do. I don’t think I want to go into the garden after all. I want to sleep on my couch, and you can unroll your pallet outside my door. What evil luck, to find Sennefer here!”
“What did you do to him?” Anhur wanted to know, but Huy had started down the passage and would not answer.
He has ruined my life, Huy thought later as he lay sleepless on his cot with the temple locked in a hot silence around him. But it is true that I have indirectly ruined his. The retribution that fell on his head may have been just, but it was also dire. He is disgraced and forever forbidden the noble’s privilege of the throwing stick, but surely the untimely end I foresaw for him far outweighs his attack on me in the scales of Ma’at, while I am given every opportunity to rise above my father’s station and receive the respect of important men through no virtue of my own. “Untimely abortion.” Huy stirred restlessly under the flush of hurt the words brought back to him. Well, so I am. The blessings poured upon me have nothing to do with my character, and I exist wholly at the whim of the gods. Or god. Sennefer caused me great harm, but good has come from it. I must talk to him, apologize aloud for the enmity between us and secretly for the spurt of glee the vision of his death brought me. Can we come to an understanding? How would I feel if he had told me that I was to end my life in the heat and stink of battle? I am guilty of a cruelty as great as his was to me. I should have kept my mouth closed, but how could I when the Seeing came upon me without warning and with such force that I was powerless against its onrush?
He spent the remainder of the afternoon wandering about the temple precincts, becoming increasingly aware that although the temple itself followed the simple plan of all the great places of worship, its surroundings seemed to sustain and enhance the unique atmosphere of heka that imbued it. Its well-watered lawns held no flower beds but were sparsely dotted with tall, smoothboled palms. Here and there stone effigies of Thoth himself made little pools of shade
into which, Huy noticed, no one seemed to venture; for around each striding figure, with its curved ibis beak inclined towards the scribe’s palette on which it was about to write, was an invisible circle of power that seemed to demand a polite respect. A row of squatting baboons fronted the wall of the outer court between the soaring pillars, and beyond them the wide concourse of the court itself was fluid with worshippers coming and going, but Huy noticed that people did not linger to gossip once their observances had been completed. Ra’s outer court at Iunu was usually crowded and often gaily noisy, particularly in the mornings and early evenings. Like the marketplaces, it was a favourite spot for sharing news and greeting friends. Here an air of solemnity and reverence prevailed.
Huy came upon the sacred lake quite suddenly, rounding a corner of the central building to be faced with a low mud-brick wall broken by a gateless aperture guarded, to Huy’s surprise and delight, by a small statue of Thoth standing on a pedestal with, at his feet, the exquisite representation of a smiling woman. Clothed in a leopard skin, with a uraeus on her forehead and a star rising from her coronet, she too held a palette and brush. Beyond them both, the lake lay glittering in the sunlight. Anhur pointed to the thick hedge of sycamores around its rim. “There’s somewhere we might sit for a little. You’re allowed near the lake.”
But Huy’s attention was still fixed on the sculpture. “This must be Thoth’s wife. How beautiful she is! What is her name, do you know, Anhur?”
The man shrugged, but a priest who had just left the water and was wrapping himself in linen as he approached them had heard Huy’s question. “Her name is Seshat,” he explained with the merest flicker of astonishment in the eyes that met Huy’s own. Certainly shock at my ignorance, Huy thought. “She is indeed Thoth’s wife, the Lady of Books, librarian of Paradise and totem of mathematicians, architects, and those who keep records.” He smiled. “She lives near the Ished Tree, and one of her tasks is to write the name of each pharaoh on one of its leaves so that he may gain immortality. You see the palm branch beside her, with all the notches? She carves the years of each king’s earthly life into it. She and pharaoh together stretch out the white cord when the foundations for a new temple are being laid. Thoth belongs to everyone who reveres the written word, but Seshat belongs first to he who sits on the Horus Throne. Nevertheless we, his priests, love her very much.” He made a gesture of apology. “Forgive my lecturing tone. I am Thoth’s chief archivist and head librarian of the House of Life here in Khmun. And you are Huy.” He bowed. “You come to study the second part of the Book of Thoth?” Huy nodded. “Then I have a favour to ask of you. When you have read all five of its parts and understood its mysteries, will you visit me here and enlighten me? I myself have read the three scrolls that make up the second and fourth parts of the Book stored here in my archives, but I did not dare to travel to Iunu and look at the rest. I feared the warnings.” He looked curiously at Huy. “You do not fear them?”
Huy grimaced. “It would do me no good to fear them, seeing I am commanded to read them all anyway. What is your name, Master?”
The man clapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh, I am rude! I am called Khanun.” He laughed. When he did so, his whole face lit up. Its grooves deepened around his mouth and eyes, but the impression he gave was one of youthfulness and vigour, though while he had been talking Huy judged him to be in late middle age.
Huy held out his hand. “If I am permitted, I will come and discuss the Book with you. But it won’t be for some years, I think.” The fingers closing about his own were strong, and cold from the water.
“Of course not. You have an education to finish and a living to earn as well. May the gods grant you health, and me a life long enough to see you return fully grown.” He bowed. “Dine with us this evening. We will not be too solemn for you. The heka of Thoth is a wholesome and happy thing.” He padded away, his bare feet leaving damp imprints on the stone path, and Anhur whistled.
“How old are you, Huy? Thirteen? This is all heady stuff for a stripling! Now may we please spend a few moments under the shade of those sycamores? I’m tired.”
They entered the lake’s enclosure. Anhur lowered his spear and himself, but like a good soldier on duty he did not lie prone. Resting his spine against a tree, he sighed and relaxed. Huy crossed his legs and watched the play of light and wind on the surface of the water. Yes, he thought, Thoth’s magic feels strong and steady and quiet, but with an edge of caution to it. Ra’s heka at Iunu is boisterous and unsettling and unpredictable, making me anxious or exhilarated but seldom utterly at peace. Here there is peace, but the warning tingles in the air, waiting for a blasphemy, an insult, a moment of arrogant presumption. The prayers must be said correctly here, the rituals perfectly observed. How do I know this? He closed his eyes. Seshat writes on the leaves of the Ished Tree and Imhotep sits under it, reading. If I were a king, how many years of life would be notched on her palm rib for me? Only twelve? Have I become untimely?
That evening he washed in the priests’ bathhouse, braided his hair, being careful to tie it with his little frog, put on his best sandals, and went to dine with the priests. They welcomed him without undue effusiveness, talked to him casually about his family and his school work, and, when the meal was over, wished him a pleasant night and scattered to their own rest or to their duties. The experience was a welcome relief after the awkwardness of noon, but Huy resolved to make one more foray into the school compound to talk to Sennefer. Not yet, though, he vowed to himself as he and the plodding Anhur made their way through the torchlit passages to Huy’s cell. I need to be more sure of myself here before I risk another humiliation.
A servant had turned down the sheets on Huy’s couch and left a lamp burning beside the images of Thoth and Khenti-kheti, whose crocodile smile seemed to hold a smug pride at being in such august company. Huy smiled sleepily back at both of them as he began his nightly prayers. He did not hurry the words, though he wanted to. It would not do to offend either god so early in this strange journey he had taken upon himself when he had spoken those fateful words to Imhotep. After his final prostration he trimmed the lamp, saw that a jug of water, an empty cup, and one full of wine had been placed on the lid of the tiring chest, and gingerly sampled the wine. The sweet flavour of distilled pomegranates slid down his throat, and after another mouthful he went to the door and opened it. Anhur was sitting on his pallet with his back to the passage wall. “Finish this if you like,” Huy said, handing him the wine. “And if you need water in the night, there is some in my room.”
“You are kind,” the guard said as he reached up and took the goblet. “Thank you. May the gods grant you safety from the demons that ride the darkness, and give you a good omen in your dreams.”
Huy, about to turn back into his cell, hesitated. Anhur was raising the cup to his mouth in both meaty, strong hands, his bare legs sprawled across the floor of the passage, and a vision of Hapu blossomed in Huy’s mind. His father often sat in the same pose while Itu spooned the evening meal onto his clay platter, the beer cup clasped in his half-naked lap, his spine against the wall, his shoulders collapsed in exhaustion after a day of labour in the fields. Both men were muscular and browned by the sun. An aura of physical command clung to both of them, but whereas Hapu’s battle was against drought, weeds, and plant diseases, Anhur projected the comforting promise of security against more human predators. He also radiated a rough sort of kindness. Huy had seen it in his treatment of Sennefer. His words had been impersonal but not unduly harsh. Father used to behave towards me in that way, Huy thought sadly. Before I was brought home from the House of the Dead. Before my exorcism.
Anhur took a mouthful of wine, licked his lips, and glanced up. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” Huy replied diffidently. “I was just thinking that you remind me a little of my father. Were you raised in Iunu? Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“Five sisters.” Anhur groaned. “Three of them are still at home. My father managed to mar
ry two of them off, one to a steward and one to another soldier.”
“Is your father still alive?”
“He’s retired to a piece of land he farms for the temple. Why do you ask? Is it something to do with that look into my future you won’t tell me about?”
Huy smiled. “No. But I hope my prediction for you comes true.”
Anhur raised the cup. “If it’s that good, then I hope so too. Sleep well.”
Huy retreated, closing the cell door behind him. His vision for Anhur had seemed so promising yet so improbable that he did not want to dwell on it.
Once the lamp was extinguished, the wall high up opposite Huy’s couch was lit by one faint slit of grey moonlight filtering through the tiny clerestory window. For a while Huy lay curled up on his side, reviewing the events of the day, but then his thoughts turned to Anuket. Longing and desire flared in him briefly, together with a pang of homesickness for Thothmes and Nakht’s house and his own dearly familiar cell in Ra’s temple; but the heka of Thoth that blanketed his holy house was in Huy’s nostrils, stilling his emotions and weighing against his eyelids, and with a last drowsy glance up at the fading ray of moonlight he fell asleep.
In the morning he was woken by a servant who set a tray of bread, goat’s cheese, and milk on the couch beside him, replenished the oil in the lamp, and before Huy had finished eating returned with hot water and cloths. He stood politely waiting until Huy, having grown more and more uncomfortable, asked him why. “To wash you, young Master, to remove your soiled linen, and then to explore the contents of your tiring chest and make sure that you brought sufficient clothing with you. The High Priest has ordered it.”
The Twice Born Page 29
