Seer of Egypt

by Pauline Gedge

  Dinner that evening was a quiet affair. Thothhotep’s appetite seemed to have deserted her. She looked tired and vulnerable, hunched over her table in one of Iput’s worn sheaths, and after the meal she begged to be allowed to retire to her room. Ishat, wine cup in hand, watched her go. “Iput tells me that she has been shaved and plucked, and oiled all over twice, but looking at her, there’s no way to tell,” she commented. “Let her sleep long and soundly, and then perhaps tomorrow she’ll be ready to begin her training. I do know how she feels, Huy. I had to hide my panic when I met Thothmes officially for the first time. I broke down and cried in front of you, though, didn’t I?”

  Huy looked across at her affectionately. “Yes, you did, but you conquered your fear and went on to conquer him. Ishat, I would like to give you something special as a marriage gift. What would you like? A piece of jewellery? A goodly supply of your perfume? I cannot think of anything Thothmes will not be able to supply.”

  “I suppose I ought to ask for gold,” she replied. “The gods know that my father is far too poor to offer Thothmes a dowry. Let me think.” Her nose disappeared into the cup and she drank, afterwards running her tongue over her upper lip to savour the last droplets of wine clinging to her mouth, her eyes dark as she stared past him into the pleasant dimness of the room. Then she set the cup slowly back onto her table. Her hands remained clasped to its stem. “There is one thing, but you may not want to part with it.”

  “Just name it,” Huy protested. “Everything I own apart from my protecting amulets is yours, Ishat.”

  “The scarab, then.” She lifted her face to meet his gaze. “The scarab I found and gave to you all those years ago. It has always comforted me to know that you cherished it. I thought of it as something that bound us together. I still regard it in that way. No matter how contented I may become as Thothmes’ wife, no matter how much we both may change in the future, the scarab is a symbol of the link that joins us and may never be broken. You still have it?”

  “Of course! You presented it to me on a lettuce leaf while the remains of my fourth Naming Day feast lay scattered on the plates and the grass and on your tiny kilt, Ishat.” On that same day Ker and Aunt Heruben gave me the compartmented cedar box with an image of Heh, god of eternity, etched in silver into the lid, he remembered. Above the kneeling god with his arms outstretched and holding the notched palm ribs was my own silver name, Huy, also sunk into the fragrant wood. Hapzefa found me a piece of fresh linen and I laid the scarab on it in one of the compartments. The other boys at school envied me such a precious and unusual gift.

  “Merenra,” he called, and the steward slid out of the shadows. “Go up to my room and bring me my little cedar box. It is somewhere at the bottom of one of my tiring chests.” He turned back to Ishat. “You may have it gladly, dearest sister. It has delighted me, reassured me, and comforted me also through the years. You want nothing more?”

  “No.” She had relaxed. Her fingers left the stem of the wine cup and at once Amunmose appeared beside her, proffering the jug. She shook her head. “No more wine for me, Amunmose.” He retired.

  Huy and Ishat waited in silence for Merenra to return. A kind of formality had fallen between them, Huy realized—why he did not know. It seemed to carry with it an aura of solemnity, as though a ritual was about to be performed. And so it is. In giving the scarab back to Ishat, I am closing the door on a smooth continuity of closeness and love that began almost before I could stagger naked about my mother’s tiny garden and Ishat, one year younger than I, would try to crawl after me.

  Merenra returned, placing the box on Huy’s table, and for a moment Huy ran his fingers over the lovely figure of the god and over the notches on the palm ribs that represented millions of years. The future, he said to himself. No longer a mystery to me whenever I wish to explore it. Did Ker experience a flash of presentiment when he ordered Heh incised here?

  “The Anniversary of my Naming Day takes place this week,” he said, lifting the lid and carefully extracting the scarab. “I was born on a very lucky day, the ninth of Paophi. It seems fitting that this should go to you now, Ishat. Be gentle with it.” He passed it to her on its bed of linen and she took it cautiously.

  “Even in the lamplight its carapace still gleams golden!” she marvelled. “Two of its legs have come off and are loose on the linen, Huy. Thank you, thank you. No matter what other gifts I may receive on the day of my marriage feast, this will always be the most prized.” She struggled to her feet, holding the beetle reverently before her. “I have an empty alabaster ointment pot Iput can scour out. The scarab will be quite safe in it.” She smiled at Huy and then yawned. “Good night, my Seer. I suppose we must invite your family and my parents to a feast for your Naming Day. I had completely forgotten about it. I wonder when Thothhotep was born.”

  “On the twenty-eighth day of Khoiak.”

  Ishat shot him a keen look and then laughed. “The Feast of the Procession of the Obelisk. Truly a neutral day, neither lucky nor unlucky. Well, I shall see if I may discover something about her that you don’t know.” Her shadow snaked through the doorway as she approached the torch set in the wall of the passage beyond, and then she was gone.

  Huy shivered. The hour was late, but he did not think that weariness was sapping his khu-spirit. He felt the loss of the scarab as a minute hole in the wall of his defence against the Khatyu, the demons waiting to thwart the will of Atum and destroy him, Huy; and he wondered if the opening was large enough to allow the Sheseru, the arrows of the evil host, to get through and pierce him. I wonder if I should find a spell of protection and write it on papyrus and soak it in beer to drink in the morning, his thoughts ran on anxiously. Then he laughed at himself and, rising, signalled to Merenra that he could now extinguish the lamps. I wear on my body the most powerful symbols of protection, made for me by the most powerful Rekhet in Egypt, he told himself as he mounted the stairs. I never take them off. May the scarab bring you safety, my Ishat, and good memories of the years that have slipped beyond the ability of even the most powerful of Seers to restore.

  The following two months, Athyr and Khoiak, passed peacefully while the flood water stood at its highest. A trickle of townspeople came to Huy for diagnosis and treatment, and on those occasions Ishat herself took down the instructions of the god as they issued from Huy’s mouth, but she made sure that Thothhotep recorded them also, and meticulously scanned and criticized the girl’s work. Thothhotep herself seemed to be settling well into the routines of the house. Her increasing confidence was evident in a straighter carriage and a more ready smile, but she remained quiet and self-contained, a foil for Ishat’s volubility. She met Huy’s parents and Heby, his brother, with correct deference when they came for Huy’s Naming Day feast together with Ishat’s parents and Methen, priest to Khenti-kheti, the town’s totem, and Huy’s good friend. She and Ishat spent every afternoon in Huy’s office, Ishat dictating difficult passages from pieces of old correspondence and making the girl write hieroglyphs over and over on shards of discardable pottery until her neatness approached the standards Ishat had set for herself years before, when Huy in his turn had been teaching her.

  Thothhotep was obedient and patient. Her progress was swift, but Huy had not yet wanted to ask her for her opinions of the letters that arrived from the King’s Treasurer regarding Huy’s request, or the confirmation of his share in the cultivation and sale of the poppy drug that came from Amunnefer, Anuket’s enthusiastic husband. Occasionally Huy, passing his office door after the daytime sleep, heard Ishat’s sharp voice berating the girl, but he did not interfere. Inspecting her work, he could see the improvements she was making. She had asked his permission to write to her father, to let him know what shape her new life was taking, and of course he had agreed, privately unrolling the unsealed scroll and reading it before giving it to Merenra to send south to Nekheb. Its contents were touching. “To my esteemed father, greetings,” it began in Thothhotep’s pretty and increasingly neat hand. “I b
ring you the good news that I have been hired by the Great Seer Huy son of Hapu as his apprenticed scribe. His own scribe will soon leave his employ, at which time, if blessed Nekhbet wills it, I shall take her place. I am treated with much kindness. The Seer is a man of honour, with a mild and forgiving disposition. You need no longer worry for my welfare. Embrace my sisters and mother, and greet cousin Ahmose on my behalf. Your obedient daughter Thothhotep. Signed by my own hand this thirtieth day of Athyr in year seven of the King.”

  Huy let it roll up and passed it to Merenra with a smile. Mild and forgiving, am I? he thought, amused. It is a good thing, little Thothhotep, that you cannot yet see into the depths of my ka as Ishat does. He had given Thothhotep a pair of gold earrings on her Naming Day, plainly fashioned in the likeness of her totem, the goddess Nekhbet, and Ishat, with perhaps more glee than was appropriate, had heated a sliver of metal and pierced the girl’s lobes. Thothhotep now wore them every day with obvious pride. The sheaths Ishat had grudgingly commissioned arrived during Athyr, together with two pairs of leather sandals and a simple white leather belt. Huy, passing the open door of the guest room one early morning soon after the clothing arrived, had glanced in to see Thothhotep holding the soft linen of the new sheaths bunched against her mouth, her eyes closed, a look of sheer joy on her face.

  His own treasury was dangerously depleted after the expenditures to the King, the Mayor, as the King’s representative for the khato land, and Amunnefer, for the poppy fields, and Merenra had warned him that no more gold would be forthcoming from the Royal Treasury until the beginning of the season of Shemu. But Huy, temporarily content, had not cared. There was enough remaining from the last payment to take him, Ishat, and the household to Iunu for her marriage celebrations, and he had no desire to look beyond that day. Ishat had grudgingly assessed Thothhotep’s ability as adequate, which meant, of course, that—barring any great professional or personal lapse—she was almost ready to be confirmed in her position. Yet Huy waited. Ishat might still change her mind, decide to stay with him; Thothmes might even now be meeting some woman by chance who would drive Ishat utterly from his mind. In his more reasonable moments Huy knew that such impulsiveness was not in his friend’s nature, that Thothmes genuinely loved Ishat; but in the hot afternoons when he lay on his couch in agony following the Seeings, when the blessed drug Tetiankh brought him had not yet begun to spread its balm through his body and numb his mind, when all he wanted was Ishat’s comforting hand in his, he allowed himself to believe otherwise.

  Then it was the beginning of the month of Tybi and the Feast of the Coronation of Horus. Neither Huy nor Ishat had bothered much about marking the various gods’ days throughout the year. For them, the feasts meant a welcome respite from Huy’s work of healing and scrying. But Thothhotep asked Huy’s permission to go to Horus’s small shrine near the centre of the town and pray. Surprised, Huy gave her leave and ordered out the litter for her. So she was a religious girl, he mused as he stood with an annoyed Ishat and watched the conveyance sway out of sight. “I wonder how she really regards me, then,” he voiced his thought aloud. “Am I a figure of great veneration to her, a man singularly blessed by Atum, or a potential enemy of all other gods because of the power Atum has given to me?”

  “It’s difficult to tell,” Ishat retorted waspishly. “She does her work as diligently as I could wish, but ventures no opinions on the members of the household and does not gossip. I suppose that such attributes are valuable in a scribe, but I find her boring.” She turned back towards the coolness of the house. “Two scrolls came from Thothmes yesterday, Huy. I did not want to unseal them in her presence. They are obviously private. One is addressed to my father.”

  “It will be the marriage contract, then, and a copy for me as your guardian. The time has come to make your final decision, Ishat, before they are signed. Are you sure of what you want?”

  He was following her, and as she reached the shadow of the rear doorway, she said over her shoulder, “I am not staying with you, Huy, and don’t ask me again. You have Thothhotep now. You will find her entirely unobjectionable. You no longer need my services.” Her voice was shaking.

  Huy did not argue. Together they entered his office. Ishat picked up one of the thin scrolls lying on the desk. “Sign it quickly and I will take my father’s copy to him as soon as the litter returns,” she went on. “Then they can both be sent back to Thothmes. Shall I unroll this?”

  He nodded. Crisply she broke the wax. “Peasants do not bother with marriage contracts,” she said as she scanned the document. “A man merely promises to provide for his new wife and any children he may have, and a woman promises to be faithful and keep her house in order. Is this a standard contract for the nobility?”

  The question was careless, but Huy noted the anxious curiosity behind it as she passed the scroll to him. Quickly, he read. “I have no way of knowing,” he replied after a moment, “but I expect that the clauses are usual. Thothmes promises to support the household, and in the event of his death you are entitled to one-third of all his property, of every kind. The remaining two-thirds will be divided between any children you may have. You retain sole possession of everything you bring with you to the marriage—all land, trading contracts and profits, and personal belongings—and if later you decide to divorce him, you may take it all away with you.” He glanced up. “I think that this must be a common sort of contract, Ishat. However, if you commit adultery and thus bring the paternity of your children into doubt, you will be disinherited. I suppose all that is necessary to protect the inheritance. Nakht is rich, and so is Thothmes.”

  She had lowered herself into his chair and was sitting staring at her hands, which rested limply on the surface of the desk. She had gone pale beneath her face paint. “What if I can’t live up to the image of a Governor’s wife, Huy?” she asked in a low voice. “What if I can’t learn, and Thothmes becomes so irritated with me that he has to send me back to Hut-herib?”

  Then I would be a happy man, Huy thought immediately, and was at once ashamed.

  “Look at all you have learned since we left my father’s house,” he pointed out. “I also, Ishat. Your fears are ungrounded.” His gaze returned to the scroll. “There is little more, apart from the traditional gift to your parents.” His eyebrows rose. “Thothmes is being very generous. Did you notice?”

  “No,” she said dully.

  “He has negotiated the sale of two arouras of land from my uncle’s perfume fields so that your father might farm them for himself. He offers a cow in calf, two oxen, a plough, three pigs, flax and barley seed, and a servant to work at your father’s bidding. For your mother there are six ells of linen of the eighth grade, olive and ben oil, new pots and knives, and one deben’s weight of gold dust for trading in exchange for anything else she might need for her household. A gift to a bride’s family is expected, but this … this is extraordinary! He loves you very much indeed.”

  He watched her in sudden pain as she fought whatever bleak emotion had taken hold of her at his words. Slowly, her spine straightened. Her hands disappeared into her lap. Pursing her lips against a visible trembling, she came to her feet.

  “I will do my best to be worthy of him,” she said steadily. “I hope that little paragon of holiness will not spend all morning praying at Horus’s shrine, but in the meantime I’ll write to Thothmes. Sign your copy of the contract, Huy, and I will seal it and have it ready to be returned to Iunu with my father’s. I’ll have to read it to him and then watch him as he makes his mark on the papyrus. No doubt he and Mother will be pleased. They seemed to like Thothmes when they met.” Going to a shelf, she took down her palette, sank cross-legged to the floor, and busied herself in preparing her utensils. After a moment Huy left her.

  Thothhotep returned in time for the afternoon sleep, and at once Ishat had Anhur provide fresh bearers and set out for her father’s house. Huy retired to his room and fell into a troubled sleep. Ishat had still not reappeared by the time he woke,
had Tetiankh bathe him, and changed his loincloth and kilt. It seemed to him that the early evening was a little cooler than usual, and his impression was confirmed when Seshemnefer hurried up to him in the garden.

  “Master, the flood is receding,” the gardener said. “Very soon it will be time to sow your new fields. Have you thought about what you want to grow? Flax would be profitable, but flax quickly depletes the soil. Better to seed the arouras to barley and emmer for the first year. In what state is the soil? Will it need manuring? Has it been neglected? You must hire a boy to keep the geese away from the strewn seeds, and someone to weed out the dock leaves and wild poppies and clover as the crop appears.”

  Huy, looking into his polite but eager face, laughed in spite of the gloom that had dogged him ever since Thothmes had made his desires regarding Ishat known. “If you can find a suitable replacement to tend my flowers and vegetables on the estate, I’ll be happy to appoint you Overseer of the Crops of the House of Huy son of Hapu,” he chuckled. “You’re a good gardener, Seshemnefer. The Mayor chose you well for me. Go and assess my holding as soon as the river regains its banks. Hire whatever help you need. I cannot be concerned with this matter, but bring me a report every month. Your payment will of course be a percentage of the crop to store or trade as you wish. I hope Khnit won’t mind!”

  Seshemnefer bowed several times. “Thank you, thank you, Master,” he said fervently. “Khnit will be so happy to see me advance in your service that she will be full of advice. Now, with your permission, I must ask Anhur for a couple of soldiers to strengthen the dike. The water feeding the new palms must not be allowed to seep back into the river.”

  Huy waved him away and took a deep breath. Another step has been taken towards a defence against the possibility of the King’s capriciousness if I anger him in the future. Why does he not send more of his ministers and advisers to me for Seeing? Perhaps he relies on his court magicians for predictions as well as entertainment, but somehow I doubt it. Atum’s words to him through me have troubled him, I sense it. He watches me and he waits, but for what?