House of Dreams

by Pauline Gedge

  “I am sorry, Thu,” he said without a trace of apology, “but the single rooms are reserved for the Mighty Bull’s favourite concubines. Some of them do not have windows either. When you have been elevated to that exalted position it will be my pleasure to escort you to more salubrious accommodation.” I stared at him for a moment, wanting to cry, wanting to go home, very aware of the background of voices, laughter and playing children. Some of the closer women had abandoned their conversations and were watching us curiously. I gathered up my courage.

  “Then I wish to register my first complaint,” I said with dignity, “and not to Neferabu either. To you, Keeper of the Door. This cell is like a cattle stall but I am not a cow. I am not part of the herd. I do not intend to sit in there and chew on my cud forever. Remember that!” He bowed.

  “I shall remember it,” he said smoothly, “but let me give you a word of advice. It is my duty to see that the harem remains a place of calm and orderliness. The comfort of the women is my second concern—my first is that the Lord of the Two Lands is satisfied within his domain. Any woman who stirs up discontent is dealt with severely. There are no exceptions.” Without warning he smiled, and the gesture transformed his face. “Do not make enemies here, Thu. Give yourself time to become used to the House. Discover its compensations. Look about you, and you will see that you have many advantages over the other women. Use them well, and keep your own counsel. For what is the sacrifice of a little luxury to you, O miraculous peasant from surprising Aswat, when you may capture the heart of the Living God? It is up to you.” He turned on his heel and was gone, pausing on his progress to offer a word to this one, a smile to that one, and I watched him only slightly mollified. I was already lamentably homesick.

  Disenk returned a short time later and behind her came several harem slaves wrestling with my chests which were then piled at the foot of my couch. I had been lying on it critically, testing it for firmness, and had reluctantly found that it was entirely agreeable. While Disenk dealt with the slaves I opened my cedar box and placed Wepwawet on the table where I could see him first thing in the morning and at the last at night, then I sat in one of the tiny chairs and sifted through my old treasures. The soft brush of the feathers, the cool resistance of the pretty stones that had caught my eye so many years ago, the dried spring flowers culled in their brief, startling fertility during some walk by the river, the clay scarabs Kaha had given me for each lesson successfully completed, fed reassurance into my fingers. You are still Thu, they told me mutely. You will not be lost in this maelstrom of uniform femininity.

  I carefully extracted the golden snakeskin, now distressingly brittle with age, and laid it on my lap. You are like the snake that left this behind for you to find, I told myself. You shed one self when you took ship with Hui and you are in the process of shedding another, but you remain the Lady Thu, Libu princess, about to grow a shell even more glorious than the ones from which you have so painfully emerged. The sight and feel of the fragile thing served to soothe me even further and by the time I closed the lid of the box and placed it carefully under my table I was ready to explore my new surroundings.

  They could have been much worse. At the far end of the courtyard, as Amunnakht had indicated, were two bath houses making up the lower corners of the building. They were larger than Hui’s and contained benches for massage as well as a bewildering array of aromatic pots and jars that had Disenk clucking with pleasure. Each one had doorways that opened into the passages that ran between the identical harem buildings and at one end led into gardens and at the other, fed the wanderer back onto the pathway leading to the main gates.

  There were four structures in all. Mine was the third from the main entrance. The second was similar. The fourth, at the far end, was where the children lived with their nurses and servants and above them, on their second floor, were the schoolrooms and tutors’ quarters. Each block had its grassed interior yard with pool and fountain.

  The first building, however, was barred to Disenk and me when we tried to enter. Harem guards turned us away. We discovered later that it was the home of the Lady of the Two Lands, Ast. She had the whole of the ground floor to herself, and above her on the second floor lived the fabled Ast-Amasareth, the foreign woman who had become Ramses’ powerful second Great Royal Wife. I could see little beyond the guards’ protecting bodies but an empty and peaceful vista of grass, flower beds and shrubs. Disenk and I returned to my cell both hot and tired to discover that in our absence four flagons of wine had been delivered. Hui had kept his promise. It was now past noon and I was secretly grateful for my room’s dim coolness. “Go to the kitchens and find me some food, Disenk,” I asked her. “But first, break the seal on one of those jugs and pour me something to drink. Are there cups in the chests?” I could smell something delicious wafting across the courtyard and I was hungry.

  As she was scraping away the wax with the imprint of Hui’s vineyard stamped into it the doorway darkened and a man came in, bowing. He looked like a prosperous merchant with his air of contented importance. I presumed that this was our Steward.

  “I am Neferabu,” he introduced himself. “The Keeper has asked me to make sure that you lack for nothing, Thu, and to tell you that you will not be required to present yourself before the King until you yourself feel that you are ready. It is a significant honour,” he went on confidentially. “The Keeper does not show such consideration to every newcomer. I am at your service. My room is beside the entrance.” I thanked him with relief, unaware until that moment how anxious I had been regarding my first sexual encounter with Ramses. The Keeper had liked me, why I did not know. Or more probably, he had seen my potential as a favourite. That thought was definitely cheering.

  Sitting in my chair I drank Hui’s wine reflectively, enjoying its familiar tang. I was not quite prepared to sit out on the grass under the eyes of my fellow prisoners. By the time I had finished it Disenk was back, bearing a tray and lamenting, as she attempted to serve me, the lack of proper dining tables. “We might as well be camping on the desert,” she complained. I was inclined to agree with her, but the food was beyond reproach and the mention of the desert reminded me of Hui’s words about Prince Ramses. Where was he lodged? Surely somewhere very close, on the other side of the high, sheltering wall beyond the long pathway perhaps, where the sprawling complex of the main palace lay. Disenk removed the tray, slid the sandals from my feet and the sheath from my body, and invited me to rest. Outside the sounds of activity had all but ceased. The women were seeking their couches to dream away the hot afternoon hours and the children had been carried to their own quarters. I wondered where the Lady Hunro was.

  When I woke towards late afternoon a woman was sitting on the edge of the other couch, swinging her legs and devouring what appeared to be a piece of cold duck. She was watching me, smiling. When she saw me open my eyes she shouted something through the doorway and a girl came in.

  “Fetch this lady’s servant,” she ordered, then she pushed the last morsel of meat between her lips, brushed her fingers together, and came over to me. I was by then upright and fully conscious. “I am the Lady Hunro,” she went on brightly, “and you, of course, are Thu. I have heard all about you from my brother Banemus. I am sorry I was not here to greet you earlier but I was busy dictating a letter to him. He is on his way back to Cush. When you have refreshed yourself I will introduce you to some of the other women if you like?” The statement was made as though it was a question and I nodded in agreement, rather bemused. She was not at all as I had imagined. Banemus’s sister, I had presumed, would be an older woman of serious mien, beautiful, naturally, but carrying with her something of her brother’s serenity. My expression must have betrayed my confusion for she laughed, throwing back her head to expose a long, well-muscled throat. Indeed, her whole body was muscular and well defined. I judged her to be about ten years older than I. Her hair was thick, short and very straight, her chin thrusting, her mouth prominent. Her likeness to the General lay in
her eyes. They were brown and warm, and fixed me with a friendly regard. “I know what you are thinking,” she said. “Can this woman come from the same family as sober old Banemus? But my brother can be very entertaining and witty when he chooses, and I love him dearly. I wish Pharaoh would have the intelligence to quarter him in the Delta.” She shrugged. “But intelligence is not one of our King’s major attributes.”

  At that moment Disenk hurried in and began to lay out my attire for the rest of the day. She had set up her cosmetic table against the rear wall between the two couches so as to catch the light from the door. Hunro greeted her effusively and for a moment they shared news of the Lady Kawit and the activities of the house where Disenk had once been employed. Then, as Disenk indicated that I should sit before the array of pots and jars to have my paint repaired and my hair done, Hunro turned her attention back to me. She settled on the head of my couch, pulling around her the thin linen cloak which barely covered her lithe body and watching Disenk’s capable hands critically. “Now that you are here, Disenk,” she said, “I hope you will do my paint sometimes. My servant is very good but she cannot compete with you. Every noblewoman in Pi-Ramses knows of your skill. When are you to go into the palace, Thu? Tonight? Ramses is usually eager to sample the newest female fare. I had no sleep for the first three weeks I was here and I ended up prostrate before my Hathor shrine, begging the goddess of love and beauty to divert Pharaoh’s attention to someone else. I no longer felt like the ‘little Hathor’ my parents named me.” Her rich laugh rang out again. “Needless to say, my prayers were eventually answered. Now I am called to the royal bedchamber more to dance for His Majesty than to satiate his lust.” She grimaced and dropped her voice. “He is a terrible lover, Thu. Full of heat and fire but it all fizzles out very quickly.” I was shocked to hear the Lord of the Two Lands spoken of in this manner, for although I was already crushingly aware that his body did not in any way resemble the perfection of a god’s, yet I still believed in the absolute sanctity of his divine person.

  “How did you come to be here, Lady Hunro?” I asked. I could see her wry smile as a distorted image in the copper mirror I was holding up as she replied.

  “Please just call me Hunro. I made much trouble for my poor father, who is one of Ramses’ advisers, by refusing to marry the man of his choice and threatening to attach myself permanently to one of the temples as a dancer. I love dancing, Thu, and trained with the other noble girls from a young age to perform before the gods, but it is not considered proper for a noblewoman to make dancing a consuming career. My father gave me a choice. Marry or become a concubine. Ramses always liked me. Banemus would not let me run away south with him, so here I am. The life is good and I lack for nothing. I dance whenever I please. I administer my vineyards and cattle. I own a small portion of the faience works outside the city. And I do not have to defer to some demanding husband who insists that his house be run in a certain fashion.” She shrugged. “Anyway,” she finished, “you did not answer my question. Do you lose your virginity tonight?” Disenk had completed her work on my face and was kneading oil into my hands. I shook my head.

  “No, not until I wish it to be so,” I told Hunro. “And to be truthful, right now I would rather go home to Hui.”

  “And admit defeat? No, Thu,” she responded thoughtfully. “You are not the sort to give up so easily. Not like the girl who slept on your couch before you.” She slid from her perch and stretched, bending from side to side with hands clasped, and I soon learned that movement, for Hunro, was as natural as breathing and accompanied almost every conversation.

  “What happened to her?”

  “She killed herself. I had put up with her weeping and wailing for days. She was a pathetic little thing, delicate and pretty as a flower, but she had no spine.” Hunro tossed back the hair from her flushed face and leaned down to place her palms on the floor. Her voice became muffled. “She managed to lift a dagger from one of the guards and she stabbed herself. It was the one brave act of her life. At least she did it out on the grass and spared me the sight of blood all over this room.” I was momentarily speechless with horror.

  “But why did she do such a thing?” I managed. Hunro pulled herself slowly upright.

  “Because she fancied that she had fallen in love with some young butler in the palace and therefore could not bear to give herself to Ramses. If only she had waited Ramses would have soon tired of her bleating clumsiness and she herself would have recovered from her romantic fit. I have a lock of her hair around here somewhere. As a token from a suicide, it will bring me luck.”

  When I got to know her better I understood that behind Hunro’s undeniable amiability there was a streak of callousness, something not deliberately cruel or insensitive but merely an indifference to those less strong than she. But at the time I was shocked. Her reaction might have been honest but it was not conventional.

  “You say that your father is one of Pharaoh’s advisers,” I said, changing the subject hurriedly. I too was glad that the unfortunate girl had not killed herself anywhere near the couch on which I now had to sleep. “Do you also know Ramses well? And the Prince?”

  “Which one?” she countered. “There are plenty of them, all named Ramses after our Pharaoh’s true god, his ancestor Osiris Ramses the Second. Yes, I suppose I know Pharaoh quite well. I can help you to capture him if that is what you wish.” Something in her expression, the way she formed the words, brought a moment of forceful revelation to me. Hunro knew. I had been quartered with her for a reason. She, as well as her brother and Hui and the others, believed that I could eventually exert such an influence on Pharaoh that the course of Egypt’s history would be changed.

  I knew another thing, also, at that moment. I did not care about their plans, not really. I loved Hui and wanted to please him, but I was willing to play their game for less idealistic reasons than the ones that obsessed the Master and his associates. A peasant with invisible mud between her toes and the taste of gritty black bread and lentils still in her mouth, I wanted to continue to enjoy jewellery and expensive linens, fine food and the best wines. I wanted luxury and power, respect and recognition, because in those things lay security and the realization of my childhood dreams. I would be a princess. I would be queen.

  “Yes, it is what I wish,” I agreed slowly, meeting her eye, “but it is what you wish also, isn’t it, Hunro?” Her smile widened as we gazed at one another.

  “Indeed it is, Thu,” she purred. “Indeed it is.”

  14

  I DID NOT FEEL READY to brave Pharaoh’s bed until the middle of the following month, Paophi. Each morning I awoke thinking, I will do it today, I will send for the Keeper and tell him, but always something happened to divert me. My unacknowledged reluctance to do my duty was the true excuse, but there were many more. Within two weeks of my arrival in the harem it was known among the women that I was a physician. There were others, of course, men of high medical standing, but in coming to me the women knew that their ailments, and above all their most private requests, would not be relayed to the Keeper or worse, to the palace authorities. I would open my box of supplies and sit in a chair in a secluded corner of the courtyard, listening to the real or imagined needs of my compatriots, examining them and prescribing as best I could. Many of them were simply plagued with the vague distempers of boredom but it was not my business to recommend a more active life and in any case I knew that my words would fall on deaf ears.

  I myself had embarked on a routine as similar to the one I had practised at Hui’s as I could make it. Most of the women slept for as long as possible and would emerge from their cells, half-naked and yawning, to stumble into the shade and pick at their first meal of the day when the sun was already overhead. The temptation to follow their example was strong, but thanks to the rigid discipline I had endured under Hui’s wise direction I was able to resist it.

  In the morning Disenk roused me early and I would exercise, going through the rigorous movements Nebnefer
had taught me, while the sun lifted higher, turning the pink and shadowed courtyard into a cup of golden light. Often I was joined by Hunro who would dance on the grass with a joyful abandon, her face an ecstatic mask as she lifted it to the glittering sky. Then, both of us panting and pouring sweat, we would run down the narrow path between the forbidding wall of the palace and the blocks of harem buildings until we came to the entrance of the compound. Of course we did not attempt to pass the guards. We veered right into the little-used harem garden that enclosed the whole huge complex on three sides, and plunged into the pool. Hunro was content to immerse herself and then get out, lying on the grass until she was dry, but I grimly swam the lengths I had been used to doing for a shouting, critical Nebnefer, up and down, up and down, until my arms and thighs trembled with exhaustion. I would collapse beside the woman who was fast becoming a friend, and until hunger overtook us we would talk aimlessly, with much giggling. We did not bother to take our servants with us. At these times we had no needs and besides, while we exercised, Disenk and Hunro’s woman were in the kitchen preparing our food. When we were ready we would stroll back to our quarters and eat and drink like famished desert lions, self-righteously watching the first few sleepy denizens of the other cells stumble out and stand blinking in the strong sunlight. My appetite appeased, Disenk would escort me to the bath house where I was washed. This was followed by a body shave and massage from one of the resident masseurs.

  Those morning hours became precious to me. They were a time of quiet and privacy before the courtyard filled with young children and gossip, before the few women I saw professionally each day began to drift in my direction.

  At first the dozens of other concubines, a lovely, soft mass of big eyes and high voices and yielding flesh, were anonymous to me. Most of them remained that way, for I saw no reason to cultivate their acquaintance. After all, I would not be among them for long. But some stood out from the others. There was Hatia the drunkard who made her appearance in the late afternoon with swollen face and shaking hands and would sink gracelessly beneath her canopy to stare out upon the noisy crowd around the fountain. No one paid her any attention. She would sit thus, wine cup in hand and motionless servant behind, until sunset, at which time she would rise as silently as she had come, and disappear into her cell.