As I looked back down the months I had spent in the harem, in Hui’s house, as I remembered the men I had met, their questions, Kaha’s lessons, Disenk’s story of her life in the High Priest’s household, the way in which Hui had brought me into Pharaoh’s view, my place in those events became suddenly completely clear. My perception changed. I had thought the hand of fate benign. I had believed that I had begun on the periphery of Hui’s life and been drawn into its centre because of his slowly blossoming affection for me, but I had been at the centre all the time, an unsuspecting victim around whom a long, laborious plot had unfolded.
It had failed, therefore I was expendable. Indeed I must be disposed of as a liability so that the plotters could formulate a better plan. How often had they tried before, always cautious to protect themselves, cover their tracks? How often had they failed? They were clever, patient men and women, not likely to make any fatal mistakes. With my execution they could wipe the record clean and begin again.
No wonder Paibekamun kept the jar! If Pharaoh had died it would have been better for them, but either way I must not survive to threaten them in a future into which they were always peering with infinite discretion.
“I can name them, Highness,” I said, “but I cannot prove my words.”
“Then I will bid you a good night.” He strode to the door, and called sharply to the guard. Without glancing my way the Prince went out and the other men followed, Karo giving me a swift parting smile.
They had scarcely disappeared into the gathering gloom when the serving girl came in carrying a lighted lamp. Behind her several more servants struggled under the weight of my bedding and chests. It took them some time to place everything on the floor and leave, and even more time for the girl to make up the cot and arrange the few cosmetics that were mine and not Disenk’s on the table together with my wigs, my lamps, and other trifles. All at once I missed little Pentauru. He at least loved me. He was my son. Would they speak of me to him with respect when I had gone, or would they poison his mind against me and make him ashamed of his parenthood? The thought of my imminent death was entirely unreal and I pushed it away.
“I have prepared the room, Lady Thu,” the girl said shyly. “Shall I now bring food and drink?”
“No.” I had eaten nothing since the morning but the thought of forcing anything past my swollen throat was unbearable. “You may go now. Wait upon me in the morning.” Obediently she knocked to be let out, and as soon as I was alone I reached for the cushion in which I had secreted the Prince’s scroll. It had been torn and re-stitched. I felt it thoroughly. It no longer held anything but stuffing.
Moving on to my medicine box I examined it. Nothing was missing but the phial that had contained the arsenic Hui had given to me. Setting the chest aside I opened the cedar box my father had given to me, and lifting out my statue of Wepwawet I set him on the table. “You have betrayed me too, O God of War,” I said to him. “There is no one left to stand by me.” But then I snatched him up, and cradling him fiercely I sat on the edge of the cot. The fresh linen the girl had placed there smelled of happier days, of myrrh and saffron, of Pentauru’s body, and in a moment the tears engulfed me. I was lost, I was doomed, and I gave myself up to my grief.
I did not expect to be able to sleep, but the powerful emotions of the day had exhausted me and I fell at last into a heavy unconsciousness, waking at dawn to a full awareness of my surroundings and a fresh flow of tears that continued now and then throughout the day. I could not control them. I felt bereaved, abandoned, and a tiny part of me did not believe that the rapid events of the last two days had happened at all so that I spent the hours in a dislocated daze. Surely I had fallen ill and was in a coma. Or I was in the middle of a visit to Hui who had put me into a trance from which I would presently wake to embark in my elegant little skiff and return to the harem.
But layered over that illusion was a stifling cloak of pain. Hui, Hunro, Disenk, they were my enemies. I had never achieved any recognition in their eyes. While they pretended to admire and respect me, they were using the gullible little peasant from Aswat, and now, their aim deflected, they had forgotten her and were moving on to more absorbing things. She was flotsam. She was a cracked and discarded pot, a piece of torn linen, as disposable as the crumbs and rinds of fruit left on a plate when the meal is over.
I had been awake for a long time when the girl was admitted accompanied by a slave who placed a huge bowl of warm water on the floor and withdrew. I greeted them both, noting how their eyes flicked to me and then as quickly glanced away. The marks of my ordeal were all too evident on my face. I stood gratefully while the girl washed me and sat still while she did her best to braid my wet hair and apply my cosmetics. She did not have Disenk’s sure, professional touch but somehow I preferred the feel of her clumsy, well-meaning fingers.
As she was rubbing saffron oil into my neck and the reassuring odour of the perfume I loved began to fill the air, the door was again opened. A meal was set for me and I discovered that I was hungry. The girl had dressed me in my yellow sheath, placed my beaded sandals on my feet, pushed golden bracelets onto my forearms and slipped jasper earrings into my lobes.
I began to recover. Waves of disbelief and anguish rolled over me from time to time but I was able to dry my eyes and fortify my inner self. I was the Lady Thu, no matter what. I would bury this agony. Already I was digging the hole into which I would tip it, cover it with my own resilience, tamp it down with my ability to forget, if not to forgive. It was unthinkable that the judges should convict me when I had been only the gaming piece and not, as I had believed, the hand that moved it across the board. Looking at me, listening to me as they had yesterday, could they not see that truth?
Her tasks completed, the girl left. I tried to distract myself by reading the numerous scrolls I had collected, but when I unrolled an old letter from my brother by mistake and was shaken by such a strong feeling of despair that I almost cried out, I closed the chest and lay on the cot, staring at the ceiling. My eyes itched with tiredness and the tears I had shed. Already the heat in the cell was becoming noticeable. I thought of going to the door and engaging the guards in conversation, but was too indolent even to sit up.
In the early afternoon the same scribe who had been present on the previous day was admitted to take my dictation. I would have preferred to write to the King in my own hand, on my own palette of which I was still inordinately proud, but I saw the wisdom in making every move I made an official one. He sank onto a corner of the carpet that now partially hid the dirt floor, prepared his tools, muttered the prayer to Thoth, and waited.
I hesitated. These words must be entirely correct. Each one must have the power of an arrow to pierce Pharaoh’s heart and stir his sympathy. “To the Lord of All Life, the Divine Ramses, greetings,” I began. “My dearest Master. Five men, including your illustrious son the Prince Ramses, are even now sitting in judgement upon me for a terrible crime. According to law I may not defend myself in their presence but I may petition you, the upholder of Ma’at and supreme arbiter of justice in Egypt, to hear in person the words I wish to speak with regard to the charge against me. Therefore I beg you, for the love you once bore me, to remember all that we shared and grant me the privilege of one last opportunity to stand in your presence. There are circumstances in this matter that I wish to divulge to you alone. Criminals may make this claim in an effort to avert their fate. But I assure you, my King, that I am more used than guilty. In your great discernment I ask you to ponder these names.”
Briefly I considered the fact that the petition would be read aloud to Ramses as he sat in his office to deal with the business of the day, and then decided that it did not matter if one of the plotters happened to be there. He would appear mystified. He would point out, as I had, that an accused person will say anything to save himself from his rightful fate and that I was talking nonsense. But I was counting on Pharaoh’s undoubted intelligence and on his memory of me as a woman who was far from s
tupid. Had I made him uneasy enough, had I intrigued him enough to win myself an audience?
Carefully I listed the men who had held me in such secret contempt. Hui the Seer; Paibekamun the High Steward; Mersura the Chancellor; Panauk, Royal Scribe of the Harem. Here I saw the hand of the scribe taking my dictation falter before resuming its work. Pentu, Scribe of the Double House of Life; General Banemus and his sister the Lady Hunro; General Paiis … Now it was my turn to hesitate. I liked General Paiis. He had flirted with me, found me attractive. He had been kind to me. Oh, Thu, you shallow idiot, I told myself sternly. He used you too. In fact, if he could he would have used your body and not just your mind. I spoke his name without another qualm.
I did not list the servants, although my tongue trembled with eagerness when I thought of Disenk. She had lived beside me hour after hour for years. She had shared my hopes and disappointments. She had taught me to trust and rely on her, consider her a friend, while all the time she, a mere body servant, was looking down her perfect little nose at me, at my peasant roots, my lack of social ease, and was conferring with my mentor in the matter of my manipulation.
Quickly I ended my dictation in the usual way, read over the scribe’s work to make sure that he had honestly reproduced my words, and sealed the petition with the hieroglyph for “hope,” pressed into the wax by my own hand in such a way that it would be very hard to copy. “I do not know what master you serve,” I said to the scribe as he closed his pencase, capped his ink, and prepared to leave, “but I beseech you to go to Pharaoh’s personal scribe Tehuti and place this scroll directly into his hands. It is not addressed to the Prince but to the King himself. As you heard, it does not contain anything insulting or injurious to the Prince. There is no need for him to see it at all, though of course you must tell him that you have fulfilled your duty in taking my dictation. I thank you.”
The act of doing something, however small, to mitigate my plight had lightened my mood considerably, and I spent the next few moments trying to persuade my guards to allow me to take some exercise on the ground outside the cell. But they adamantly refused, and so I retreated to the cot, drank some water, and lighting a few grains of incense in my burner from the lamp that was now kept burning on the table I said my formal prayers to my totem, Wepwawet, and settled down to wait.
The day dragged to its close. The guard changed. I slept away the hottest part of the afternoon, attempted to play dogs and jackals against myself, and then found myself again fighting a feeling of being smothered that closed in without warning and had me crouched by the cot, desperately trying to draw breath into my lungs. In my mind I flew at the door, pounded on it, screamed to be let out, but in reality I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to remain calm. In the end the peculiar fit passed but I lived in dread that it might return.
At sunset my girl returned with food and wine which she set out on the table, her movements now more assured as she grew accustomed to the chore. Grimly I remembered the lessons I had endured with Disenk when I had first entered the Master’s house, how I had sat at the table in my room while she showed me how to eat, how to drink, how to behave. I asked the servant to eat with me, for I was becoming lonely, and she did so with an awkward self-consciousness. To her I am a titled lady, a noblewoman, I thought with sad amusement. She does not yet know that I am a peasant. Will she lose her awe of me when she discovers the truth?
I was glad of the lamp when darkness fell. I lay for hours, watching its glow and listening to the dead silence caused by the thick walls that muffled almost every sound. At times I would come to myself, suddenly aware that my mind had wandered into distant fields, and I did not know whether I had slept or not. I tried once more to pray, but every word I spoke to the god had been spoken by me before. The petitions felt stale and old in my mouth and in the end I let my mind drift.
Two days later the blow fell. Freshly washed and dressed I had just seen the girl go out to fetch my morning meal when the door opened again and the four judges filed into my tiny space. With them was a royal Herald, and over his white linen he wore a gossamer cloak of blue. The colour of mourning. The colour of death.
My bowels turned to water. Oh gods, I thought hysterically as I rose to face them. Oh gods, no. No! Panic-stricken, I scanned their faces. They would not look at me, all but the Herald, who gave me a cool glance and unrolled a scroll. I did not want to hear his words. For a moment all control left me and I covered my ears with both hands, shaking my head from side to side in a paroxysm of terror and uttering sharp cries, but they waited impassively and the hysteria died. The Herald cleared his throat.
“Thu of Aswat,” he read. “You have been judged and found guilty of the murder of the concubine Hentmira, and extreme blasphemy against the Divine God Ramses User-Ma’at-Ra meri-Amun. This is the sentence of the court. Your title is void. Your belongings shall be distributed among the women of the harem. The estate in the Fayum deeded to you by the King shall revert to him and become khato-land. You will remain in this cell without food or drink until you die, but Pharaoh is merciful. He will allow you to take your own life by whatever means you choose if you so desire.”
Choose … wish … desire … They were words of life, words of love. The other words impinged themselves on my consciousness only slowly.
… until you die …
… take your own life …
I tried to make it real and failed.
“But I submitted a petition to Pharaoh!” I protested loudly. “Did he not read it?”
“He read it,” the Herald said. “In his divine wisdom he chose not to intercede for you or to interfere in any way with the course of justice.”
“It is a trick!” I shouted. “Ramses would never let me die!” I snatched the scroll from the hand of the Herald and stared at the signature at its foot. There was no mistaking the King’s hand, strong again now, definite and cold. He had signed my death warrant. “What of my son, my child, his child?” I blurted. “What of my little Pentauru?” Deftly but politely the Herald took back the scroll.
“Pharaoh has repudiated the paternity of your son,” he said. “He no longer acknowledges any responsibility for the boy, who will be placed in the care of a family of merchants in Pi-Ramses and raised as one of their own.”
“I cannot take him with me?” I said stupidly, uncomprehendingly, and for the first time I saw pity in the Herald’s eyes.
“I do not think that you would wish your son to go where you are going, Thu,” he replied.
At that the full import of my fate crashed down upon me. With a shriek I collapsed upon the floor, curling in upon myself, hands over my face. Vaguely I heard the door open. Someone said, “No. Take the food away. She is to eat and drink no more.” The judges, still dumb, went out.
Then rough hands picked me up and put me in a corner. Servants were already stripping the cot and tossing my fine linen out onto the ground beside the guards. Others were piling my sheaths and sandals, my wigs and jewellery, even my lamps, into chests. I saw my medicine box go flying to join the confusion. In a cloud of dust the carpet was snatched up. A man bent to pick up the lamp on the table and I flung myself on him.
“No, not that lamp! I cannot die in darkness! I cannot endure the night without it! Please!” But he pushed me away and I saw the lamp go hurtling through the doorway.
They even took the cedar box my father had given me. By the time the door closed behind them the cell was empty. They had removed the sandals from my feet, the ribbons from my hair, and the sheath I had been wearing had been replaced by a coarse shift with a piece of cord to tie it to my waist. I had hardly felt the shame of my nakedness as the linen was indifferently ripped from my body. Only Wepwawet remained, standing on the table beside the denuded cot and staring at me with an unwinking, lofty gaze.
Stunned, I was unable to move. Like a woman carved from wood myself, I remained in the centre of the cell, encased in shock. After a while I felt the first intimation of thirst steal over me, and wi
th it the knowledge that the next liquid to caress my mouth would be the water used by the sem-priests to wash my lifeless flesh. My story was told. My luck had run out. The nameless grave of a criminal would claim me, and I would be forgotten.
25
NO ONE CAME NEAR ME. Morning became afternoon, and the fury of Ra beat upon my prison walls, turning my breath fiery and my body wet with sweat. Slowly the afternoon dissolved into a sunset I both longed for and feared, for with the coolness would come darkness and I had no lamp to keep at bay the phantoms that were waiting to torment me.
Once I left the cot, and going to the door I tried to speak to the guards. I had the muddled idea that I would plead with them to summon someone, anyone in authority, to whom I could explain the grave error that had been made, but the soldiers ignored me completely, although in the end I yelled and cursed at them through the small slit in the thick mud brick. The gesture only served to intensify my thirst and I returned to the cot where I lay trying to woo sleep to come to me.
In the end it did, but I woke to full darkness and a complete and final understanding of my sentence. No one would come. No one would bring water, or a covering to keep me from shivering in the night chill, or even a face, however hostile, with which to ameliorate the loneliness of my dying. No one would wash the sweat and grime from my body or give me medicine if I became ill. But that was a stupid thought. Of course I would become ill. And then I would weaken until I died. How long could someone live without water? Did they go mad first? Did they become consumed with fever?
Oh, water! I could feel it against my lips, slipping over my limbs, rippling in my hair as I struck out into the river with the moon high overhead. I could taste it as Disenk passed me a cup and the blessed contents slid over my tongue and down my eager throat. I could see its surface break as I dipped my hand into it before turning to the next course of my meal. Water, from which the first mound that was to become Egypt rose in the first days of creation. Water, that flooded the land and brought fertility to this, the most beautiful corner of the earth. Water, for which I would murder again and again if I could be granted just one sip.
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