by Paul Doherty
The House of Instruction stood at the far side of the palace and, looking back, I smile wryly. I was in the most splendid palace under the sun, being given a foretaste of life in Osiris’s Great House and Territory. However, I was more concerned with my new surroundings and new companions. The House was a one-storey building built four square round a large courtyard which boasted a splendidly built fountain, a small herb garden and a multi-coloured pavilion. The building was mud-bricked, stamped with the name of the Crown Prince; plastered within, whitewashed without, its flat roof was served by outside stairs, its doors and lintels made of wood and limestone. One part served as a dormitory: its beds were crude cots, wooden frames with stretched leather thongs to support a straw-filled mattress. Each bed was protected by a canopy of coarse linen veils against the flies, with sheets of the same texture and a rug for when the nights turned cold. The floor was of polished acacia wood so bright you could see your face in it. Beside each bed was a simple fold-up camp chair and a plain stool fashioned out of sycamore. A chest of terebrinth wood stood at the end of each bed to contain clothing and other personal belongings. Down the centre of the room ranged small dining tables bearing oil lamps. The windows were mere wooden-edged squares in the wall, boarded up with shutters in the winter or latticed screens in the summer. One part of the building was a schoolroom during inclement weather. In the spring and summer, unless it grew too hot, we were taught outside. The rest of the building served as offices, kitchens, wash places and schoolrooms.
The overseer of the House of Instruction was Weni, an old soldier-cum-scribe with a plump round face, thick fleshy lips and heavy-lidded eyes. From one earlobe hung a gold ring; cheap jewellery decorated his fingers and wrists. He looked the typical fat fool but he was sly, ruthless and, despite his porky appearance, light on his feet. Weni was a former member of the Nakhtu-aa or ‘Strong-Arm Boys’, a crack infantry unit known as ‘the Leopards of the East’. A highly decorated veteran, successful in hand-to-hand fights, he always wore a Gold Collar and the Silver Bees for killing five Mitanni in hand-to-hand combat and cutting off their penises as proof.
Aunt Isithia made sure I was aware of Weni’s reputation as she dragged me through the palace grounds, whispering and nipping me, determined to exploit this last occasion together to heap petty cruelties and insults on me. She kept mentioning the Mitanni penises. When I met Weni, he glared down at me as if he would take mine. He was sitting on a bench in the courtyard, his shemsou or personal slave holding up a parasol against the midday sun. Grasping me by the shoulder, he spun me round. His hard eyes studied me carefully.
‘I knew your father.’ His gaze shifted to Aunt Isithia. ‘You can go now.’
Isithia scuttled away. She didn’t even say goodbye, I didn’t even look. I decided to stare around and received a blow on the ear.
‘I will tell you,’ Weni whispered, leaning forward, ‘when to look away.’ His grim face relaxed and he gently caressed my earlobe. ‘I never did like your Aunt Isithia – she’s a cruel bitch! Some people say she drove your mother to an early grave. Well, go and unpack your things.’
There were about twenty-four boys in the Kap, sons of the Magnificent One’s friends or the offspring of his concubines – known as the Royal Ornaments. The principal boy was Crown Prince Tuthmosis, a tall, twelve year old with the eyes and face of a hunting bird. We were organised into four units of six. Tuthmosis was not with us on the night I met the Horus Ones, the members of my unit. We all bore the seal ‘HA’ with the hieroglyphs of a hawk and a rod etched on a small copper tablet slung on a cord round our necks. There were five in all, boys who were later to be my friends, rivals and enemies. Horemheb, Huy, Pentju, Maya and Rameses – I vaguely remember a sixth but he died of fever. I always think of us as the ‘Six’.
My companions were roughly one or two years either side of my age. Horemheb was the undoubted leader; pugnacious and hot-eyed, his lower lip jutted out, his chin too: even as a boy he had muscular thighs and a barrel chest, and his skin was slightly lighter in colour than ours. Rameses struck me from the start as a bird of prey, with those cold, ever-shifting eyes and beaked nose over thin bloodless lips. Huy was Huy, graceful but arrogant. He always stood, feet apart, hands on his hips. He looked me up and down from head to toe, eyes crinkling with amusement. Pentju. Ah yes, even then he was ever-watchful. With his narrow, pointed features under a shock of rather light hair, Pentju reminded me of a mongoose. Maya was plump and always smiling; even then he could walk more provocatively than a girl. We all dressed in linen tunics and loincloths: Maya wore his like a girl with his tunic nipped in at the waist, legs oiled, feet shod in delicate sandals. Meryre joined the unit a few weeks after I did – a sanctimonious bastard from the start with his holier-than-thou face and permanently raised eyes as if he was in constant prayer to the heavens.
Sometimes I become confused. Did Meryre join us from the beginning, or am I getting mixed up with someone else? We were supposed to be a unit of six but the numbers fluctuated. What I do remember clearly is that first night I felt as if I was surrounded by a host of enemies. They pushed me around, went through my possessions and pulled the sheets off my bed. I then had to be initiated. My hands were bound, I was blindfolded and they poked and prodded me to recall their names. My little body turned black and blue and the game was only terminated by our evening meal of bran and artichoke followed by semolina cake. I remember it because it was so enjoyable. I was eating, free of Aunt Isithia’s glare.
‘Eat quickly,’ Horemheb growled, scooping some of my semolina cake from the bowl. ‘If you don’t eat quickly, we’ll eat it for you.’
How cruel children can be. They had the rapacity and ferocity of a starving hyena pack. Once the meal was finished the rest sat in judgement over me.
‘We all have nicknames,’ Huy murmured, one finger to his lips. ‘So what shall be yours?’
He then introduced us. Horemheb was the ‘Scorpion General’. Rameses the ‘Snake Shadow’. Pentju the ‘False Physician’. Maya was the ‘Heset’ or dancing girl, Meryre the ‘Pouting Priest’, Huy the ‘Ignoble Noble’.
‘I know,’ Rameses whispered, head slightly to one side. ‘Just look at him! His brow juts and so does his mouth.’ He tapped me on the end of my nose. ‘He looks like a baboon.’
My initiation was complete. From then on I was known as the ‘Baboon of the South’. After that I was accepted. I had learned my first lesson in the House of Instruction, the golden rule of all politicians: be as cunning and ferocious as the rest, show no pity and ask for none. Weakness only provokes attack. My formal schooling began every day at dawn. Weni roused us and force-marched us down to the icy waters of the canal. Then, whatever the weather, we’d run back naked, dress and eat a quick meal of oatmeal and sweetened bread. All the time Weni and his instructors, pinch-faced priests from the local temple, quoted proverbs at us.
‘Don’t eat too much. Don’t drink too much. Yesterday’s drunkenness will not quench today’s thirst.’
The day’s schooling would then formally begin. We learned the mysteries of the pen, the palette, of red and blue ink. We practised on ostraca or pot shards and limestone tablets before graduating to finely rubbed papyrus. We studied the Kemenit or Compendium and wrote out how marvellous it was to be a scribe. We learned the language of Thoth and paid lipservice to Sheshet, the Lady of the Pen. Our tutor’s favourite instruction was: ‘Be a scribe, and your body will be sleek. You will be well fed. Set your heart on books. They are better than wine.’
Our teachers certainly believed in the old proverb ‘A boy’s ear is upon his back; he hears when he has been beaten’. We’d sit cross-legged in the schoolroom or out in the courtyard, our writing palettes on our laps whilst the instructor would walk up and down ever ready to rap fingers or backs with his sharp ferrule. During the heat of the day we’d rest and continue our schooling as the weather grew cooler, followed by games, skittles, tug-of-war or jumping the goose. Whatever we did was fierce and cruel. I soon hard
ened myself. The seasons passed. Sometimes, Aunt Isithia came to visit me. She seemed to have aged; she was smaller, more wizened, and tried to flatter me with ointments and unguents from the storerooms. My present to her on the great festivals was always the same, a wooden carving of a monkey with a fly on its shoulder. I always informed her that I was very happy, that I was most fortunate to be in the Kap. I told her nothing about what happened there. None of my unit were friends, the only close relationship was that between Horemheb and Rameses. For the rest it was petty cruelty. I remember my first beating when Maya dared me to write this poem.
I embraced her,
her legs were wide.
I felt like a man in Punt.
The land of incense,
immersed in scent.
I was beaten because the hieroglyph for ‘embrace’ was the same as for a woman’s vagina. The sharp-eyed priest thought I was mocking him. I always retaliated. Maya loved his sandals and I received another beating for creeping out of bed at night and smearing them with oil.
Naturally, as the time passed, our interest in girls grew, though no one could boast of any experience, except Panhesy. He claimed he had read certain treatises and, ever clever, fashioned wooden puppets with movable arms and heads. Male and female, he made them act in close embrace which provoked smirks from Maya and sniggers of laughter from the rest. Weni discovered this and punished us, not for the toy, but for ‘stealing out of barracks’ as he termed it in the dead of night, lighting a fire in the grounds (a dangerous act), and taking strong beer to drink. He put us all on ‘battle rations’, a hideous punishment for young boys who woke like starving jackals and only lived to eat. Filling our stomachs was the only time we were silent as we bent over our reed baskets of chicken cooked in olive oil and onion sauce, garnished with chick peas and cumin. Now we had to starve. Horemheb decided to retaliate and tried to steal the bread of another unit. When Weni discovered that, we all received six strokes of the cane. He informed us that even ‘battle rations’ were suspended; we would now be given only dry bread and water for a week.
We were getting older, more cunning and sly, less reluctant to accept Weni’s authority. Pentju was skilled at stoking our anger. We forgot that he had fashioned the puppets or that Rameses had actually stolen the bread. Weni the overseer at the House of Instruction became our mortal enemy. Now Horemheb had been given a Danga dwarf, a gift from some relative in the Delta. In theory Weni should have objected but, being an old soldier, he was superstitious and slightly wary of the dwarf: a thickset little man who reached no higher than my shoulder, his head and face almost hidden by straggling black hair, moustache and beard. The Danga couldn’t sleep in the dormitory but had to fend for himself outside, whilst during lessons and games he crouched like a dog in the shadow of the wall. Horemheb always doted on the dwarf: the only person to whom he showed compassion, saving food and drink whilst also imposing an arbitrary levy on our rations. Horemheb held a ‘council’ as he called it, the dwarf squatting next to him. The oil lamps had been extinguished, the moon had fully risen and the rest of the dormitory were asleep as we sat in the far corner listening to the faint sounds from the rest of the palace.
‘I am hungry,’ Horemheb moaned, ‘and so is the dwarf.’
‘We are all hungry,’ Huy whispered.
‘It’s Weni’s fault,’ Pentju accused hoarsely.
‘But where can we get some food?’ Meryre demanded.
The Danga dwarf muttered, a guttural whisper. Horemheb cocked his head. The dwarf repeated what he had said. Horemheb smiled and patted his stomach.
‘I’m starving,’ he repeated. ‘And what I’d do for a piece of roast goose!’
At the time I didn’t know what he meant but two days later I found out. Weni had a goose called ‘Semou’, sacred to Amun: a noisy aggressive bird always dropping dung and pecking the nearest piece of soft flesh. I never discovered the full story but the goose disappeared and, from the smug smile on Horemheb’s and Rameses’ faces, I gathered they were the culprits. The dwarf also, a miniature grotesque with his flowing beard and sunken features, looked remarkably happy. Weni was furious and naturally suspected the Horus unit.
By now we had been joined by Sobeck, the son of a powerful merchant prince of Thebes who imported incense from Punt and cedar from Lebanon. ‘Sobeck the Sexual’ I called him; even as a youth he was always hungry for girls. He’d managed to weave his way into Horemheb’s affection and I suspected he was part of the coup against the goose. Nevertheless, we were all to blame. At midday, in the baking heat of the sun, Weni decided to hold court. Crown Prince Tuthmosis, as leader of the Kap, was present, dressed in a short tunic and holding an embroidered fan which bore the insignia of the Kap. He would act as Weni’s official witness. We were all stripped naked, the dwarf included. Weni rigorously inspected us, sniffing at our mouths and hands for any sign of grease or cooking but the ‘criminals’ as Weni called them were cunning; they had washed themselves thoroughly, though they had forgotten about the dwarf’s tousled hair and beard. Weni fell on him like a hungry vulture. He sniffed the little man’s hair and beard and slapped him harshly across the face.
‘Criminal! Thief! Murderer!’ Weni bellowed.
He dragged the dwarf from the line, pushing him forward for Tuthmosis to inspect. The Crown Prince confirmed his judgement: the dwarf smelled of goose.
‘Give us the names of your accomplices,’ Weni demanded.
The dwarf, trembling with fear, shook his head and made matters worse by urinating over Weni’s feet. The overseer grabbed him by the hair and dragged him across to a bench. He was forced to lie face down. Weni grasped a rod. Horemheb made to protest but Tuthmosis pushed him back in line. Weni turned threateningly. The dwarf’s wrists and ankles were seized by Weni’s assistants. The rod came back.
‘Master?’ I stepped forward.
Weni paused and turned. ‘Yes, Mahu? Are you the culprit?’
This was the one time I could tell the truth.
‘No, Master.’
‘Then why are you speaking?’
I went down on my knees and knelt in the dust.
‘Master, the dwarf is innocent.’
‘What!’
‘I gave him the goose grease.’
Weni forgot the dwarf and, striding over, dragged me to my feet.
‘I did not eat the goose,’ I stammered. ‘Nor did the dwarf. As you know, my Aunt Isithia distils potions and unguents. She gave me a pot of goose grease.’ I caressed my sidelock, the mark of my youth as well as membership of the Kap. ‘It is good for the hair.’ I gestured at the dwarf. ‘I gave some to him.’
Weni stared narrow-eyed. ‘And where is this goose grease?’
‘In a pot in my chest.’
Weni gestured with his head and one of his assistants hurried away to discover the truth. Aware of the others standing next to me, I closed my eyes. The dwarf was moaning. Tuthmosis was sucking on his lips as if to control his smirk. I just prayed that the pot of goose fat would be found, and whispered a prayer against ill luck: ‘Perish you who come in from the dark. You who creep in with your nose reversed and your face turned back.’
‘Master, he has told the truth.’
I opened my eyes. Weni was holding the small pottery jar, sniffing at it suspiciously.
‘Did you use this?’ He pulled the dwarf up and made him stand on the bench. The dwarf looked quickly at me, nodded and muttered something Weni couldn’t understand.
‘He uses it on his hair and beard,’ Horemheb shouted. ‘It keeps away the flies.’
Weni strode across and slapped Horemheb on the face. ‘Speak when you are spoken to.’ Then he turned to me. The fury had drained from his face; his eyes had a cold, calculating look.
‘Well, well,’ he murmured. ‘You are well named Mahu, Baboon of the South.’ He gnawed at his lips. ‘Let the dwarf go.’ Weni’s gaze never left me. ‘We’ll all take a good run down to the water and have a swim. Afterwards you can eat.’
&n
bsp; He strode off, followed by Tuthmosis and his instructors. We just sat down in the dust. I had to, my legs were trembling. A short while later we were taken down to the canal to bathe. No one said anything until we returned. I was standing by my bed drying myself off, more interested in the fragrant smells coming from the portable stove out in the courtyard. Horemheb and Rameses came sidling over. Horemheb held out his hand.
‘Baboon of the South, I shall not forget.’
I clasped his hand and that of Rameses, and that was all Horemheb ever said. I learned two powerful lessons that day: how to win friends and how to survive. From that day on, the petty cruelties stopped and I fashioned my own philosophy. I would not be too bright to attract the teasing of my peers nor too dumb to provoke the anger of my teachers. I would be Mahu, he who lives by himself and walks alone. Horemheb never forgot and, I think, neither did Weni. From that day I felt strangely marked but I took comfort in the proverb I had learned in the schoolroom: Trust neither a brother nor a friend and have no intimate companions for they are worthless. The quotation from the Instructions of King Amenemhat was most appropriate. I had acted on impulse by myself, I had confided in no one either before or after; I had made friends or at least allies without making enemies.