by N. L. Holmes
Hani shrugged. They both knew what was going on. Neferet wasn’t the sort to sacrifice her happiness to restore an older man—her father’s friend—to joy. She was using him for cover.
It took Hani a long time to fall asleep that night. He felt Nub-nefer against him, breathing the untroubled breath of the soul wrapped in dreams, while his eyes refused to close and his thoughts raced. First they circled the king’s deliberate humiliation of Ptah-mes and his equally inexplicable new fondness for Hani. Does Nefer-khepru-ra hope to pit us against one another in rivalry—to conquer us by division? Do I dare to refuse an honor at the king’s hand? It might be taken as a refusal to obey, and much as he seems to love me all at once, that would probably be the end of me.
It would take a lot of courage. Hani thought of all the precious individuals under his protection and wondered how far he dared to jeopardize their safety for his own ideological ends. Wasn’t that exactly what he had reproached his brother-in-law for doing—disappearing from sight for four years so he could continue to pour out calls to arms against the king?
Hani rolled over in bed, but the new position proved no more conducive to sleep than the old one. Neferet—how could she do this? I can’t believe she’s being so calculating. Ptah-mes is undergoing so much, and now to have an adolescent bride who cares nothing for him and will no doubt cuckold him with another woman... But short of refusing to give the marriage his blessing, he didn’t know what to do about it. The two parties were both adults. Hani groaned silently. What sort of wedding present can I possibly give them?
After a long time, Hani’s thoughts began to slow and blur as sleep claimed him, and he finally slid into welcome oblivion.
⸎
The following day, Hani slept rather late. By the time he shuffled into the kitchen, the household had pretty well dispersed to their daily tasks. Nub-nefer had disappeared on her regular mysterious jaunt—no doubt to see her brother—and the house was strangely silent. Hani seated himself in the garden pavilion, braving the chill, to drink his morning milk in solitude. Before long, his father emerged from the house, wigless and unshod like Hani.
Mery-ra came toddling toward him, in his hands a pot-shaped loaf of bread wrapped in a towel. “Morning, son. Baket-iset said you were out here. The servant girl just took this bread out of the oven, and I thought you might like to share it with me while it’s hot.” He plopped down in the other chair and uncovered the loaf, fanning its fragrant steam toward his son to tempt him.
But Hani needed no encouragement to eat. He broke off a chunk, which was almost too hot to hold, and waved it under his nose, snuffing in voluptuous pleasure. “In the Field of Reeds, I want to eat hot bread all day long.” He bit into it with gusto.
“I saw Nub-nefer briefly before she took off for parts unknown,” his father said, breaking off a large piece of the bread. “She looked strangely ecstatic and said something cryptic like ‘At last something wonderful is happening to this family.’”
Hani snorted. “That’s one way of looking at it. You won’t believe what I’m going to tell you, Father.”
Mery-ra leaned closer, his eyes widening avidly. “Tell. Tell.”
Hani lowered his voice. “Neferet is marrying Lord Ptah-mes.”
“What?” Mery-ra reared back in astonishment. “Is this a joke?”
“If she’d told me, I might have thought so. But it was Ptah-mes, who certainly isn’t the joking sort.”
Hani’s father continued to gape at him disbelievingly. “And Nub-nefer calls that a wonderful thing?”
“He’s a prize catch, Father. Rich and blue-blooded.”
“But...” Mery-ra seemed to be unable to come up with an adequate word. “They’ll be miserable together. They’re too different.”
“That’s the way I see it. But she asked him, and he said yes. I suppose if neither has any expectations of the other...”
“Is she finished with that little Bener-ib, then?”
Hani shook his head, feeling the cold weight of gloom descend upon him again. “They’ll live together in his house while he’s in Azzati.”
Mery-ra made a whooshing noise. “I’ve never heard of such a... a thing.”
“Of such a calculating, self-centered thing, you mean? Neither have I. I want to turn the girl over my knee.”
Mery-ra stared at the bread in his hand as if he had no idea where it had come from. “Have you talked to her?”
“Not yet,” Hani said glumly. “But I’ll do it today. I have to get back to Akhet-aten for my audience. I don’t think I can stay out the holidays.” He thought once more of the decision he was going to have to make and what it could cost his family. “Maybe I’ll come back afterward, before I go back to Djahy.”
“You think they’ll send you back?”
Not if I become the high commissioner of foreign affairs in the north, Hani told himself bitterly. “Someone needs to solve that murder and punish the perpetrator before the Babylonians get any angrier. Burna-buriash would be furious if he knew the investigation had stopped.”
Mery-ra heaved himself to his feet and clapped his son on the shoulder. “Better you than me, my boy. And I don’t mean the investigation. Tell me how your talk with Neferet goes.” He hustled off with suspicious haste, leaving Hani alone again.
Hani stared at the cooling chunk of bread in his hand then stuck it all at once into his mouth and ate it without pleasure. Great Hidden One, he prayed. Give me light, or I could really make a mess of things.
⸎
Hani returned to the house, his footsteps leaden. He was chilly and went in search of a shirt. In the upstairs corridor, he ran into his youngest daughter, alone for once.
“Papa!” she cried. “Grandfather said you were leaving for the capital. You’re not going to dance for Osir with me on the last night of the festival?” She began to weave back and forth and throw her head, her eyes twinkling.
But Hani couldn’t manage a smile. “I want to talk to you, my duckling. Let’s go down to the garden.”
Neferet seemed uneasy at his solemn expression. “Isn’t it cold outside?”
“Not if you wear a shawl. I want some privacy.”
He headed for the stairs, and she trailed after him, looking scared. Together, they passed through the salon, where Hani picked up his daughter’s shawl from a stool and handed it to her without a word. He led the way to the garden pavilion and pulled down the rolled-up mats behind them so that they were enclosed. They seated themselves in the two chairs.
“Well, little duckling,” Hani said, trying not to sound as severe as he wanted to be. “Were you ever going to tell us your news, or were we simply going to find out some day that you had left Aha’s?”
“What news is that, Papa?” Neferet’s eyes shifted aside in unmistakable guilt.
“About your marriage to my friend.”
She looked around—anywhere but at her father—and licked her lips. “Oh, that. Of course I was going to tell you and Mama.”
Hani beckoned her over to him, and she took her accustomed seat on his knee. “Do you love him, Neferet?”
She looked up at her father reluctantly. “He’s very polite. I... I like him well enough. Still, people don’t have to love each other to get married. There can be arranged marriages, you know.”
Hani stared at her, willing her to open her heart. “You asked the man to marry you, knowing that he was still grieving for his wife so he wouldn’t touch you. That’s a little dishonest, don’t you think, love? What if he decides he wants to get on with his life at some point and wishes his wife were a real wife to him? Would you push him away? You’re toying with his heartbreak.” It seemed too complicated to explain to her how Ptah-mes already hated himself.
Neferet’s lip began to tremble. “I don’t mean him any harm, Papa. He seemed happy to do it. He said it would keep the other women off him.”
“You’re using him. Don’t you see that?”
She got that stubborn look Hani knew so well,
lip outthrust. “Maybe he’s using me.”
“You tell me honestly if you believe that’s the case, duckling. Everyone is going to think you’re after his gold.”
Her eyes widened in offended virtue. “But I’m not. May the Lady Ma’at pull out the hairs under my arm one by one and set bulti fish to nibble my feet if I am.”
Hani was too dispirited to answer. He heaved a sigh.
Neferet put a hand on his chest. “Papa, you don’t think I’m doing something bad, do you? I thought you and Mama would be happy I was getting married.”
“And Bener-ib? Is he marrying her too?”
A silence fell. Neferet hung her head. Finally, she replied in a voice of forced cheerfulness, “She’ll be my lady companion. And my business partner—we’re going to open a practice. Because my husband will be gone most of the time.”
“I can see you’ve thought this through quite thoroughly, little duckling. Except for the moral side of it. ‘A youth does not follow the moral instructions although its words are on his tongue.’” He looked at her severely, trying not to give in to the tears suddenly sparkling in her little brown eyes.
Her voice shook when she spoke. “But Papa, it’s so perfect for both of us. How can it be wrong?”
Hani let out a long breath of resignation. “You’re both adults, and I can’t stop you. But I beg you, my dear, be kind to him. He’s suffered at lot.”
She dropped her eyes, and Hani could see tears rolling down her cheeks. “I don’t want to hurt him, Papa. I swear I won’t be mean to him. But... but what else can I do?” Neferet looked up at him hopefully. “Mama is happy about it.”
Hani heaved a sigh. Nub-nefer was relieved that her daughter’s unconventional relationship would be dissembled. She seemed pleased that the girl would take on the luster of high-class connections and maybe even—the thought just occurred to Hani—that Baket-iset would be provided for in luxury no matter what happened. But as for himself, he could only see in it a parody of the sort of relationship he and Nub-nefer had found so sweetly nourishing over the years. A potentially cruel parody.
“It’s your life, my girl,” he said finally, squeezing her shoulders with an encircling arm. “Do what your conscience tells you.”
⸎
The next morning, Hani set out for Akhet-aten. Neferet and Bener-ib decided to accompany him—ready, he supposed, to take possession of their new villa, even if it meant foregoing their dance for the Lord Osir. The bridegroom had already left for Azzati, to return the gods knew when. While the girls gossiped and giggled, Hani hung over the gunwales and stared into the green water of the River, which swirled about the bow in curls like the stylized fronds of a palm tree on a Kharuite seal.
His heart was leaden within him. He longed to hear the words “The king has changed his mind, and you won’t have to make this choice.” But he’d already made it. He just needed to think of a justification that wouldn’t look like out-and-out insubordination.
Just before they marched down the gangplank at the embarcadero of the capital, where boats of all sizes gathered like animals at their trough up and down the bank as far as one could see, Neferet slipped up to Hani and threw her arms around him, squeezing him hard. He enfolded her and drew her close to him, kissing the stubbly top of her head. He wanted to tell her he still loved her, but the words were caught in his throat, and he hoped she sensed his love pouring out around her. He felt more than usually helpless and inadequate. The specter of his upcoming ordeal had undermined his confidence.
At last, the girl pulled back and said, with a touch of pleading under her habitual good cheer, “I love you, Papa. I would never do anything to make you not be proud of me. May the seven-headed demons of the underworld gnaw on my liver if I do. May Ammit pull me apart limb from limb and suck out my marrow and—”
“I believe you, little duckling.” He smiled tenderly. “Remember the Hidden One present in your heart, and listen to his voice. He’ll lead you in the right path.” Hani kissed her forehead, and she stretched up to kiss his cheek in return.
He was fighting back his tears by the time the two girls disembarked one after the other. There was no ceremony attached to marriage; it was sufficient that the couple decide to live together—although couple was a relative term in this case. He supposed the girls would pick up their things at Aha’s and then move on to their new and splendid residence. Finally, in a crowd of other bureaucrats and travelers, he made his way down the gangplank and up the dusty slope to the Horizon of the Aten.
In this month of Mekhir, the city was as dry and raw as it was in the summer, although the cloak knotted around Hani’s shoulders felt comfortable in the brisk morning. Hani, finding his nose was running, sniffed hard and girded himself for the audience. He made his way to the Hall of Royal Correspondence to find out when the king would receive him. There, the vizier’s secretary told him that he’d secured an appointment that afternoon, wedged in between the other visits of the ruler of the Two Lands with his functionaries.
With half a day to kill, Hani wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He could hardly decamp to Ptah-mes’s villa, since his daughter was even now establishing her possession over the place. He wanted not to complicate what had to be an uncomfortable situation with the servants. So instead, he headed for his firstborn’s residence.
Aha happened to be home. As soon as the gatekeeper introduced Hani, the lad came rushing out to embrace him. “Father! How good to see you! What brings you here? Neferet just left, if you’re looking for her.” He looked like a thirty-three-year-old version of his father, but more sedentary. Aha’s plump square-jowled face was wreathed in smiles, and he wrapped a fond arm around Hani’s shoulders.
My, thought Hani in amusement. I haven’t seen this much open affection from the boy since he became an adolescent nearly twenty years ago.
“Did she tell you about her marriage?”
“Yes, yes.” Aha beamed. “Not bad, for the little scamp to marry into one of the oldest, most distinguished families in Waset! That certainly reflects well on our family. Although, after all”—he punched his father jovially in the arm—“we have the Master of the King’s Stable.”
“Ptah-mes has gone back to Azzati. I guess your sister is establishing herself as mistress of the house as we speak.”
“It will do her good to have a household to manage. She needs to grow up. Children will certainly teach her a sense of responsibility.”
“No doubt,” Hani said evasively.
“The only shadow on all this is that Ptah-mes isn’t thought of very highly in the palace. I mean, he’s experienced and competent—he certainly has a distinguished résumé—but the king has doubts about him. Your friend tends to be rebellious. I guess that’s what can happen if you think yourself so rich that no one can touch you. But the Aten sees all.” There was a distasteful smugness about Aha’s expression.
“Well, I didn’t want to stay there this trip while Neferet is settling into her new role. Could you put me up tonight, son?”
“Of course, Father. Of course,” Aha assured him expansively. “The dwarf isn’t with you?”
“He’s your brother-in-law.”
“Yes, well, so is Ptah-mes son of Bak-en-ren-ef.” Aha laughed as if he could hardly contain his delight at belonging vicariously to the grandee class. “Let me have the servant girl show you to your old room, Father. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”
“I have an audience with the king this afternoon. I’ll probably go back to Waset tomorrow—maybe see the vizier first.”
“Splendid, Father. I had no doubt that you would get ahead if you just stopped being so stubborn.”
Hani thanked him wryly and gave him a hug. Nothing like honors to make a fellow rise in Aha’s esteem.
Aha called a servant, who picked up Hani’s basket of clean clothes and led the way to his lodging. “We’ll be eating lunch shortly, Father. I’ll have someone fetch you,” Aha called after him.
Lunch
was pleasant. Khentet-ka was as delighted as her husband about the family’s new liaison and chattered away, which took some of the pressure off Hani. His stomach was in such knots about the coming audience that he wasn’t sure he’d have any appetite, but once the deliciously prepared dishes were borne in, he found he was hungry and ate with a good will. He was especially grateful for the rare chance to spend some time with his three grandchildren, even though he found them rude and imperious little characters.
Hani would have enjoyed a bit of a siesta afterward, but he wasn’t sure how early the king would call him in, so as soon as he’d showered, painted his lids, and decked himself in his gold of honor, he headed for the door. Aha met him in the vestibule, his little eyes sparkling with pride. If he only knew how I felt about this interview.
“Take my litter, Father. You don’t want to be walking down the road all that way in your finery. You’ll be sweaty and get your feet dirty.” He embraced his father, beaming. “Good luck, eh?”
Hani lumbered down the garden path and climbed into the litter with all the eagerness of a man mounting the executioner’s platform. As the bearers lifted him, he sat back and heaved a sigh, wondering if he’d have the courage to do what he had to do. Great Father of us all, guide me. Djehuty, lord of justice, give your scribe strength.
⸎
For the first time in two years, Hani found himself at the midtown palace, walking through the magnificent painted pylon and entering a courtyard that reduced him to the magnitude of an ant. He trudged forward with determination across the vast, bleak pavement surrounded with immense statues of the king. He made his way to the second gate, broad and ramped for chariot processions, but he passed through the pedestrian door at the side instead. And now he had one last courtyard to cross, even larger than the last. The few people Hani saw here and there were no more impressive than a midge, reduced to nothing by the scale of their surroundings. Ahead, two obelisks reared to the sky, their golden caps winking and flashing in the midday sun like a pair of malevolent eyes.
His heart hammering within him, Hani mounted the broad staircase to the porch, where he announced himself to the porter. While he waited for the man’s return, Hani stared about him at the brilliant colors of the columns and walls—the superb paintings of lions and other predators stalking gazelles through a lush landscape. I guess this is meant to strike fear into favor seekers. The gods know I feel like a helpless gazelle in the clutches of a lion. Even if he didn’t respect the king as a man, there was no denying that Nefer-khepru-ra Wa-en-ra had almost limitless power.