“Clean my brush and mix fresh ink,” Ani ordered. “Tell Kaha to wait upon me.” The servant bowed, swept up the palette, and went away. “The letter will go upriver with one of the Master’s Heralds,” Ani answered my unspoken question. “There will be no charge to your family of course. You will dictate to me again in one month’s time, Thu. Ah!” He beckoned impatiently at the young man who had knocked and entered. “This is my assistant, the Under-Scribe Kaha. He is in charge of your lessons. He is inquisitive and rather rude, which is unfortunate, because he is also mildly intelligent. Kaha this is your pupil, Thu.” Kaha grinned and looked me up and down with a frank curiosity.
“Greetings, Thu,” he said. “Ignore the comments of my master. He is afraid that one day I will surpass him in both intelligence and competence. I already surpass him in wit.” Ani grunted.
“Begin with the scrolls we have already discussed,” he told Kaha. “Go out into the garden. The child needs air.”
“Thank you, Venerable One,” I said haltingly as Kaha swept up a bundle of scrolls from a shelf and ushered me out, and Ani threw me an absent smile and turned to his desk.
“I don’t think I shall ever have the good fortune to become a Chief Scribe,” Kaha said airily as we moved down the passage towards the shaft of sunlight cascading through the rear doorway. “I talk too much. I do not blend well into my surroundings. I have too many opinions and like to express them too loudly.” We turned left and I blinked, temporarily blinded by the force of the mid-afternoon sun. Kaha clicked his fingers and at once a slave who had been sitting in the shadow by the door sprang towards us, a sunshade at the ready. Kaha then ignored him. The man walked behind us, holding the yellow dome over our heads, its blood red tassels dancing just before our eyes. We rounded the corner of the house and crossed the main courtyard. I wondered if Harshira was at his window, marking our progress, and resisted the urge to glance back and see. “We might as well make ourselves comfortable by the fishpond,” Kaha remarked as we paused so that the slave could open the gate. “It will be cool there and we won’t be disturbed.”
I barely heard him. It was good to be out of the house at last, to lift my face to the blue sky glimpsed above the jerking palms, to feel hot air on my skin. I wanted to remove my sandals as soon as we had left the burning paving of the courtyard but Kaha strode on, down the winding path I had covered, it seemed, a henti ago, until he veered and plunged through an opening in the thorn hedge. The pool lay dark and still, its surface hardly disturbed by the light flutter of the insects that skimmed it. Lily and lotus pads floated, green and elegantly curved. There were, of course, no flowers. It was the wrong season. Kaha lowered himself to the grass. “Bring whisks, water and mats,” he snapped at the servant. “Go to my rooms and request papyrus and my second-best palette.” He graced me with one of his wide smiles. “Beer would be better,” he confided as the man hurried away, “but we don’t want our faculties clouded, do we? So you are Hui’s little peasant from Aswat.” His eyes slid over me, but somehow his scrutiny was not insulting. “They tell me you are sharp-tongued and wilful.” I drew in my breath to protest but he went on. “They also tell me that the Master had a dream about you or a vision or something. Lucky you!” He sorted quickly through the scrolls and held one out to me. “None of that is my concern,” he said firmly. “I have been given the not unpleasant task of providing you with an education. Not unpleasant, that is, if you do in fact exhibit some intelligence. Here. Read this to me.” I took the scroll and unrolled it.
“Kaha,” I said slowly, deliberately, “I am rather tired of being described disparagingly as ‘the little peasant from Aswat.’ Peasants are the backbone of Egypt. Without them the country would collapse in a week. The sweat of my father waters this house and don’t you forget it. Besides,” I finished rather lamely, “my father is Libu, and he was a soldier long before he took to farming. I do not have a peasant’s lineage.” He laughed.
“So you object to being scorned as a peasant, not from any pride in being one but because you are convinced that your blood is just a fraction bluer than that of your Aswat neighbours,” he exclaimed with unexpected astuteness. “Sharp-tongued, and conceited also. Read to me, Libu princess. If I judge that you love and revere the written word as much as I do, I shall forgive you all your faults.” I hated his perception but rather liked his forthright manner. When will this testing end? I wondered, and taking a deep breath I scanned the scroll.
It was the account of a military engagement that had taken place hentis ago, during the reign of some Pharaoh called Thothmes the First. The narrator was one of his generals, Aahmes pen-Nekheb. The language was difficult, colourful and slightly archaic, and I was soon stumbling as I fought to decipher the black characters. Pa-ari’s lessons had been less onerous, the simple words making up simple maxims regarding morals and behaviour. This scroll was full of the names of places and tribes I had never heard of, long words of action, long passages of exposition and explanation. When I stumbled Kaha waited. When I came to a frustrated halt he prompted me. “Break down the word into its holy components,” he told me. “Pray. Guess. Enter into the sanctuary of this work.” He did not joke any more. His attitude was attentive, sombre. When I had groped my way to the end he took back the scroll. “Now tell it to me,” he commanded and I did so, my eyes on the water of the pond and the darting dragonflies whose wings glittered as they passed in and out of the reach of Ra’s fingers. The servant had returned, quietly laying out mats for us, setting water jugs in the grass and fly whisks in our hands. He withdrew just out of earshot and settled himself under a tree.
“Not bad,” Kaha commented when I fell silent, “but you did not even attempt to remember the number of prisoners taken.”
“Why is that necessary?” I asked rather petulantly, for I believed I had done rather well. “I am to be an assistant, not a scribe, and besides, the account is written for all to see and a scribe takes dictation. He does not memorize and give back by rote.” Kaha gave me a keen look.
“A scribe must be proficient in many ways,” he objected. “Suppose he takes a dictation and the scroll is sent and several days later his master says to him ‘Scribe, exactly what did I say in that scroll?’”
“But do not the under-scribes spend their time making copies?” I countered smoothly. “The scribe merely needs to read from the copy.” I was obscurely annoyed with him. He rolled his eyes.
“Thu, you are being obtuse,” he sighed. “Sometimes an official is in conference with another official and needs to know later what the other official has said, but he has ordered his scribe not to write anything down.” I gazed at him thoughtfully.
“You mean that sometimes a scribe must have the eyes and ears of a spy.”
“Very good!” he responded sarcastically. “And now, if you have sufficiently embarrassed yourself with your presumptuous naïvety, we will continue with the lesson. I have ascertained that you can read—after a fashion. But can you write?” He set the palette the slave had brought across my knees, opened the ink, placed a brush in my right hand. I wanted to excuse myself before I had even begun, to tell him how I had studied in secret, how I had only rarely been able to practise on expensive papyrus, but I pressed my lips firmly together against the rush of despicably self-pitying words, and transferring the brush from my right to my left hand I dipped it in the ink and waited. There was a pause. Glancing up I saw his eyes narrowed, fixed on me in speculation.
“So,” he said softly. “The left hand not the right. No one told me that you are a child of Set.”
“What of it?” I flashed back at him. “My father also uses the left hand, it is more natural for us, and he is a great soldier and a servant of my god the mighty Wepwawet, the War God, not Set the turbulent, the bringer of chaos! Do not judge me thus, Kaha!” I did not know if I was angry or hurt. I had encountered such prejudice before but not often, and for some reason I had not expected to find it here, in this sophisticated house where the inhabitants did
not gather for evening prayers and the day did not seem to begin with any thanks to Amun or Ra.
Once my mother, in a fit of exasperation over something I had done or some argument I had persisted in fermenting, had burst out, “Thu, I sometimes think that Set is your true father, for you stir up trouble all the time!” And once I had been walking across the village compound at sunset on my way home from the fields and I had passed an old man. I hardly noticed him, being tired and hungry and bent on reaching my own door, but he had stopped at the sight of me, pointing, then stumbled and fell in his haste to get out of my way. I was puzzled. The sun-baked square was deserted and I was nowhere near him. Yet as I hesitated, hearing him shout imprecations at me from where he lay spread-eagled in the dust, I saw that the red light of the sinking sun had elongated my shadow until it lay like a misshapen snake across his feet. Then I understood that as a left-handed child, even my shadow brought bad luck, and I had run home in shame and confusion.
Something of those emotions gripped me now as I faced Kaha. He grimaced in apology when he saw my distress, and gave me a little bow.
“It is not something to be ashamed of, you know,” he said. “I was taken aback, that is all. Did you know that Set was not always a god of malevolence? That he is the totem of this nome, and the city of Pi-Ramses is dedicated to him?” I shook my head in wonder. Set, to the villagers, had always been a god to placate when necessary, to fear and avoid if possible. “The Great God Osiris Ramses the Second, he of the red hair and long life, was a devotee of Set and built this city to his glory. Set also has red hair— and he may have blue eyes as far as we know,” he ended humorously. “So take heart, Thu. If Set loves you, you will be invincible.” He drank some water and picked up a scroll. “Let us continue.”
I did not want to be a child of Set. I wanted to remain loyal to Wepwawet, my benefactor. The ink had dried on my brush. I bent to the inkwell again, whisked at the cloud of flies that was beginning to gather as the afternoon waned, and prepared to write with a thudding heart.
I did not do so well at the writing. My letters were large and poorly formed, my speed agonizingly slow. Kaha did not tease me. Something had subtly changed in his attitude. He was an attentive and patient teacher, correcting me carefully, allowing me to struggle at my own pace without becoming restless. He had formed a respect for my efforts, I think. After several hours of smudged ink, cramped fingers and frustration he took the brush gently from my stained fingers and lifted the palette from my knees. “That is quite enough for today,” he said, offering me water which I sucked down greedily. “The dictation was a difficult one, Thu, but I needed to know where to begin with you. I should return you to pieces of clay on which to practise but I won’t. Hui is rich enough to provide you with as much papyrus as you need!” He smiled and I smiled back. “Your reading is quite good. I hear that you have some healing skills also.”
“My mother is Aswat’s midwife and physician,” I told him. “I can write long lists of herb remedies without a mistake but I can see that I am ignorant of all else.”
“You will not be ignorant for long,” he said slowly. Turning, he signalled to the slave still nodding under his tree. “Go back to your room now, and eat your evening meal. I think we will forgo our history lesson tonight. You are tired, and you still must face a drubbing from Nebnefer.”
“I am to be beaten?” I cried in alarm. “What for?” Now he laughed aloud.
“Nebnefer is the Master’s trainer,” he explained. “He is one of the very few people allowed to see the Master unclothed. I do not think that he will force you to draw the bow or heft the spear but he will expect you to contort your body in many marvellous ways in order to maintain your health and suppleness. Go now.” I scrambled upright and kneaded a sudden cramp in my calf.
“If you will give me an old palette and some papyrus I could practise my letters in my idle hours,” I suggested, but he shook his head.
“It is not permitted,” he said firmly.
“Why not?” He drew up one knee and placed an arm over it. His graceful fingers spread wide and then went limp in a gesture of resignation.
“Your education is to be personally supervised at all times,” he pointed out. “On pain of severe punishment I am to make sure that you read or write nothing unless I am present or Ani is present.” I folded my arms and stared down at him.
“That’s stupid. It makes no sense at all. Does Hui think that I will write nasty secret letters to my family about him?” Kaha smiled.
“Oh, I don’t think so. Only the most errant fool would endanger her place here in such a stupid way. No, I imagine that the Master does not want you to pick up any bad learning habits. They are almost impossible to undo. Run along, Thu. Disenk will be waiting.” The wry, slightly condescending tone was back. I gave him a mute bow and left him, following the slave who had already raised the sunshade although Ra’s fiery rim was barely touching the horizon.
I paced self-consciously a step ahead of him, but as we recrossed the courtyard a thought struck me and I immediately forgot that he was there. How stupid I was indeed, an innocent young fool. Of course Hui need not worry about nasty letters from me to my family. As Kaha had so incisively stated, I would be an idiot to jeopardize my chance for a better life and anyway, how would I go about finding a messenger to convey them? It would be almost impossible for me to slip into the city alone and I had nothing with which to pay a Herald. No. I was being carefully watched, my words and actions weighed and reported. I was not to be by myself. It was doubtless true that Hui wanted only the best-educated staff to serve him. That was obvious and logical. If I was to assist him in any capacity I must be at least as literate as Kaha. The thought was daunting. But there was more, and as I walked along the side of the house towards the rear door, turning the problem over in my mind, I was completely mystified. What was in store for me? I knew now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that my clumsy, fervent dictation to my parents and Pa-ari would not be sealed and dispatched before being passed under the Master’s shrewd eye. Ani his tool, his employee, his Chief Scribe, Ani the necessary repository of his secrets, Ani the invisible man with the seductive voice who could blend so insidiously into any gathering, any background, he would at once have taken the scroll to Hui. A sudden hatred for the Chief Scribe shook me and then vanished. Ani was the perfect confidant. If I were the Master I would do the same thing. Yet why would he waste his time reading the insignificant letter of one of his servants, especially one on whom he had caused to be showered such attention, such care, and who would thus have no complaints to make to her family? To know me better? But why bother to know me better? If I succeeded as a servant, fine. If not, I could go home. Why go to so much trouble over a very disposable young peasant?
I was at my door. The slave bowed me inside and Disenk came towards me smiling. The room was full of the aroma of hot food, and several small, dainty lamps burned steadily, holding back the encroaching darkness. I greeted my body servant absently, stood while she washed the ink stains from my hands and pulled the rumpled sheath over my head, slipped my arms into the voluminous linen wrap she held out, sat while she brushed my hair and then allowed her to lead me to the laden table. All the time my thoughts were tumbling one after another, rolling past Ani and back again, hovering around Hui’s enigmatic presence that seemed to pervade the whole house though he was seldom glimpsed. I am being prepared for something other than a lowly assistant, I concluded, but what? The idea excited and terrified me. I did not speak to Disenk as she served me my food, and she remained silent.
By the time I had finished eating, full night had fallen outside and I could see nothing but the tangled clusters of black trees against a slightly lighter sky and one band of lamplight that slanted, yellow and faint, across the courtyard from Harshira’s office directly below. Finally I sighed. “What comes next, Disenk?” I said unwillingly. She began to stack the dishes.
“Nebnefer has sent word that he wishes to examine you and speak of
your physical training,” she replied, “but he will not make you work tonight, and in the future your exercise will be taken in the morning, before you bathe. He will come to you himself.” How very obliging of him, I wanted to say sarcastically, but I did not.
I watched Disenk summon a slave, watched him remove the remains of the meal, heard, a little later, the knock on the door. Disenk opened at once and bowed to the short, squat man who approached me. His manner and his movements were crisp and fresh. I stood and bowed, mockingly removing my wrap before being asked to do so, and he met my eyes and smiled approvingly. I was becoming used to the appraisal of strange men and I did not flinch. His touch was as impersonal as the masseur’s had been.
“Good peasant stock,” he announced. “But not thick, not heavy. Fine, strong bones, long legs, tight musculature.
Well, so it should be at your age. I am Nebnefer, by the way.”
“You are the first person here who has had anything complimentary to say about my peasant stock,” I said drily, and he snorted and pulled the wrap back over my shoulders. I clutched it closed.
“There’s more than Egyptian fellahin in you,” he told me bluntly, his black eyes darting over my face, “but there’s nothing wrong with a peasant’s body. Where else do Pharaoh’s honest soldiers come from if not from Egypt’s fields? You’d make a good runner, Thu, or swimmer, but as it is, all I have to do is keep you firm.”
House of Dreams Page 12
