Seer of Egypt

by Pauline Gedge

  “I’m a trifle drunk,” Thothmes remarked, enunciating with care. “Your shedeh is better than mine at home. Where are the pomegranates grown?”

  “On my uncle’s estate, beside his other perfume flowers. Ishat insists on acquiring the wine even though I want nothing to do with Ker. Perhaps the fruit imbibes some blossom aroma that is translated into taste when it begins to mature on the vine.” Huy gazed down affectionately at the pale oval of his friend’s face. “You conducted the ceremony of attainment with great pomp and much thought today, Thothmes. Your preparations must have been long and thorough.”

  “They were, but I wanted Ishat to know how desperately I love her and in what esteem I hold her. Do you think she was impressed?” The anxious question might have come from the lips of a young man on the verge of his first love affair.

  “Definitely,” Huy replied at once. “She has instructed Iput to set the flowers on the table by her couch. She’s packed and ready to leave, Thothmes.”

  There was a moment of silence. Thothmes struggled up just long enough to pour and drink a cup of water before lying back again. Huy sat still, his eyes on his shrouded acres. Above them, the sky was slightly hazed, the stars blurred, the moonlight diffused with the brief humidity of a Delta spring. Presently Thothmes said, “Have you forgiven me, Huy?”

  Huy turned to him. In the uncertain light of the one feeble lamp, Huy could see his distress. “I’ve had no choice,” he said harshly. “It was either forgive you or lose both of you. I’ve been tempted to browbeat Ishat into guilt, force her to stay with me, but such selfishness is not in the way of Ma’at, and Ma’at, as you well know, is as much my jailer as Atum.”

  “And what of Atum, Huy? What of the Book? I remember its words pouring from you in our cell after each reading. I remember how distressed you often became when it made no sense to you. And I can never forget the sight of your dead body when the priests pulled you out of the lake, your skin grey, your eyes open and lifeless, the water dribbling from between your teeth. Has it all been for nothing, the maiming of your sexuality, your inability to lose yourself in wine as the rest of us do, the headaches that threaten your reason? For the healing of a few citizens each week, and scrying for the one or two nobles the One sends to you? Do you know?”

  “No.” A knot had formed with horrifying suddenness in Huy’s chest and he resisted the urge to press his fist against it. Having someone who can rip aside the defences I have created for myself is terrifying. Thothmes, you see into my soul.

  “The final meaning of the Book of Thoth still eludes me, although its words are scored into my mind,” he said thickly. “All I can do is wait here in the backwater of Hut-herib, wait for the god to show me the destiny he prepares for me, wait for the King to dispose of my gifts as he sees fit. I can see into your future with a touch of my hand on your arm, but my own fate is hidden.” He could not go on.

  “How do you bear it, Huy? The loneliness of it? And I am taking away your only true companion.”

  The stone in Huy’s chest had swelled to include his throat. He said nothing.

  There was another long silence. Thothmes’ eyes had closed. Huy fought the overwhelming need to put his forehead against his knees, knowing that if he did so the tears would come. He was about to summon Ibi with a pillow and blanket for his master when Thothmes stirred, sighed, and struggled up.

  “I have to ask you a question that you may not wish to answer,” he said, crossing his legs and leaning over his knees to place both palms flat on the ground in front of him. “Before I ask it, I must assure you that whatever you have to say will make no difference to my feeling for Ishat or my decision to sign a contract of marriage with her. I need to know whether there has ever been a rival for her affections besides yourself.” He glanced across at Huy and then away again. “Is she still a virgin, Huy?”

  “Gods, Thothmes!” The words blurted from Huy almost before he had the time to fully comprehend his friend’s inquiry. “You should be asking Ishat directly, not me. Not me! That’s a private matter between the two of you! Do you understand that you want me to betray her confidence?”

  “No, I don’t want that.” Thothmes shook his head emphatically. “But I’m painfully aware that Ishat’s heart belongs to you, not to me. I shall do my best to seduce her love away from you. I’m asking whether or not she has ever tried to tear herself away from you in the past with anyone else, anyone I might need to regard as a rival once her regard for you begins to fade, a mirage who could gain solidity if I fail.”

  I was crossing a field last Pakhons, taking a shortcut to the river road. Ishat’s voice came whispering into Huy’s mind, the echo of a confession she had made to him years before, a statement of agony as they sat together in the darkness of his parents’ garden. “… I saw a young man coming towards me. I thought it was you … I closed my eyes and pretended it was you …”

  “No, she is not a virgin,” Huy said harshly. “And no, there will be no ghost rising from her past to tempt her away. Forgive me, Thothmes, I am very tired.” He struggled to his feet. “If you wish to know more, you must speak to Ishat herself, but I assure you that in acquiring her you become the most fortunate man in Egypt. There is no capacity for deception in her.” He stood looking down at Thothmes’ curved spine. Thothmes did not move, and after a moment Huy bowed and left him.

  Apart from the quiet voices coming from the reception hall, where the servants were clearing away the debris of the feast, the house was silent. As Huy began to mount the stairs, Tetiankh materialized out of the dimness above, waiting for him. On his way along the passage to his own room, Huy paused at Ishat’s door. It was closed, but a sliver of light showed under it. He listened, but no sound reached him through the thick cedar. I want to go in, to hold her, to start babbling about something, anything to make her eyes brighten with interest and her voice cut across my words with agreement or argument. I want to hear her laugh. Sighing, he turned and went on along the passage to where his own door stood wide open and a lamp burned beside the clean white linen of his couch. There’s no point in it, he told himself miserably as Tetiankh moved to unfasten his kilt and steam rose from the scented water in the bowl on the floor. We have said it all, she and I. He stood motionless while the body servant removed his jewellery, washed him, unbraided and combed his long hair, briefly massaged honey and ben oil into his hands and face. Once on his couch, he stopped Tetiankh from putting out the light and bade the man sleep well. The door closed.

  He woke with a shock at some point in the night and realized that he was not alone. The lamp was guttering, its fuel almost exhausted, but by its frail flame Huy, turning his head cautiously, saw Ishat’s tousled head resting on the pillow beside him. She was breathing lightly, her eyelids with their black lashes fluttering, one arm flung across his chest, her long body warm against him. Gently, he eased his own arm under her head. Murmuring in her sleep, she curled towards him, settling her cheek in the hollow of his shoulder. Huy, inhaling the faint odour of perfume that still clung to her hair, felt his eyes fill with tears. He lay awake and held her while the hours crawled by towards the dawn.

  6

  The flotilla left Huy’s watersteps at mid-morning the following day, Thothmes’ capacious barge in the lead, followed by one holding Ishat, Iput, and a few other female servants. Behind her the remaining craft, crammed with the rest of both households’ staffs, were strung out. The day was fresh and cool with a stiff breeze off the river, and it was a noisy, happy crowd that lined the various decks to watch first the town of Hut-herib itself and then the palm-dotted countryside glide by. Huy, standing beside Thothmes, the warm deck rail under his fingers and his braids whipping against his neck, glanced back to catch a glimpse of Ishat among the wind-tossed linens of the women congregated along the barge’s side, but he could not see her. He had the strong feeling that she would be inside the cabin alone, perhaps even with her eyes shut tight, not wanting to see the only district she had ever known vanish out of sight.<
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  He had been alone on his couch when he had awakened that dawn. Only the slight ache in his shoulder and a hint of her perfume on his pillow told him that she had slept beside him. When he met her downstairs, dressed and painted simply for travel, her smile had been unnaturally bright and she had given him no more than a greeting before they made their way into the reception hall for the morning meal. Yet if he tried, he could still feel her hip against his, her regular breath spreading warmth on the skin of his chest. What is she thinking now? he wondered. It had not occurred to me before that Hut-herib’s dusty streets, my father’s house, Ker’s fields and the orchard, our little estate, have delineated her world since she was born. The city of Iunu is more familiar to me than my natal town, but to her it must loom vague and threatening in her imagination.

  “I wonder what Ishat will think of Iunu?” Thothmes said, as though he had read Huy’s thought. “I hope she’ll adjust well to it. You came to it as a child and grew to love it, and of course I’m proud to be one of its citizens. Will she see its beauty?”

  “She’ll quickly adapt to its size and complexity,” Huy replied. “Ishat has courage, and besides, she is determined to make you happy, Thothmes.”

  “I know.” Thothmes grinned across at Huy, kohled eyes narrowed against the harsh sunlight. Then he sobered. “May I ask you if you ventured a glimpse into her future, Huy?” At once he shook his head. “No, no! I don’t want to know. Today I’m full of joy, and the future is a delightful prospect. Let’s not spoil it.”

  “As you wish.” Huy put an arm lightly across his friend’s warm, naked shoulders. “But it’s all right. I Saw for her a long time ago, when we were still living in the hovel beside the beer house. I almost doubted the vision, she was so beautiful, so richly clad and bejewelled. She was greeting me with a surprised smile. ‘We were not expecting you,’ she said. Now I know that the ‘we’ meant you and she.”

  “Oh, good! Were there any children in the Seeing?” Thothmes kept his gaze fixed on the far bank, where a pair of white ibises were standing in the water, almost hidden by an exuberant tangle of reeds, their yellow crests ruffling in the stiff breeze.

  Huy squeezed one brown shoulder and withdrew his fingers. “No, but it was clear that she had just opened some inner door and was about to emerge into a passage. I saw nothing but her face and upper body. There’s no reason to suppose that she won’t give you many children. She does want children, Thothmes. She told me so during one of our more serious conversations.”

  “Good,” Thothmes repeated slowly. “And I in my turn want her to have everything she desires. Do you think she and Nasha might become friends?”

  Huy laughed. “She and Nasha are very alike. Both are stubborn, wilful, and far too frank in their speech. They’ll either hate each other on sight or join forces to control your household. I don’t suppose Nasha has found a husband yet?”

  Thothmes groaned. “Not at all. Poor Father is glad to have a woman to manage his domestic affairs one day and anxious to see her married and gone the next. As I told you, he’s not well. Perhaps you can do something for him.”

  “I’ll try, if he’ll allow me to See for him.” Like a shabby cloak, the memory of his last meeting with Nakht settled over Huy, and for one moment it was night, and the feast that had heralded his Naming Day was over, and he was facing the Governor and begging for Anuket, begging for work, desperate to deny the pity in Nakht’s eyes. “What’s wrong with him?” he forced himself to ask now.

  “The physicians aren’t sure. He has become very thin and tires easily.” Thothmes turned to Huy, brow furrowed. “I’m afraid that he’s dying, Huy, and I’m not ready to lose him. I love him. Nor am I able to fully assume the governorship of the sepat yet. He’s looking forward to greeting you, by the way. He and Nasha both miss you.”

  Huy, holding back that hot weight of shame and resentment, did not respond. Instead he said, “Have you had any dealings with the King lately, Thothmes? Does he ever come to Iunu?”

  “No. His Vizier of the North visits every year as part of his progress through the Delta sepats, and of course we, Father and I, entertain him and Father gives him a report on such things as crop estimates, and whether the staff of the various temples are content, and the maintenance of the canals. But since Amunhotep went to war in his third year as King—an occasion you must remember very well, old friend, having told His Majesty exactly how his campaign would go—he has barely stirred from the palace at Weset. His Second Wife, Queen Tiaa, is pregnant. But of course, you knew that.”

  “Yes, Royal Nurse Heqareshu told me when he came for a Seeing.” Huy turned a troubled face to Thothmes. “Amunhotep’s Treasurer continues to send me gold with great punctuality, but I have Seen for only three or four nobles from Weset since Ishat and I settled on the estate the King gave us.” He hesitated, filled with a sudden foreboding. “I had imagined that His Majesty would make full use of my gift, send for me often or even come to Hut-herib, but his silence sometimes seems like a condemnation to me, as though I have offended him in some way. Why does he ignore me?”

  Thothmes shot him a shrewd look. “Because you might tell him things he doesn’t want to know. The power of his magicians and astrologers is as nothing compared to the authority Atum has put into your hands. He is perfectly aware that you could make him your gaming piece whenever you wished, so he resists his desire to know the course of his reign. Amunhotep rules with the force of his body, Huy. He fights, he hunts, he eats, he makes love, he is a doer with pride in his physical prowess and a secret contempt for all who live by their wits. I think that his contempt hides fear, especially a fear of you. He will not allow you to control his policies.”

  “I don’t want to do any such thing!” Huy began, but as he spoke, the voice of Ramose, High Priest of Ra’s temple at Iunu, sounded clearly in his mind … a man who has returned from the dead with the power Atum has given you may become an invaluable adviser to the god even now preparing to sit on the Horus Throne … through you the wishes of the gods can be conveyed to Pharaoh directly … “You still have the face of an innocent boy, Thothmes,” he finished lamely. “How long did it take the administrators under you to realize that those big dark eyes hide an accurate perception and a sharp intellect?”

  “About as long as it took our teachers.” Thothmes jerked his head. “Come on, Huy, let’s sit in the shelter of the cabin wall. This wind is beginning to annoy me.”

  They made themselves comfortable on cushions under the awning and talked desultorily of inconsequential matters, but speaking of Queen Tiaa’s pregnancy had set up a nagging unease in Huy that would not go away, and he found it difficult to concentrate on his friend’s words. He remembered all too well the details of the vision for Royal Nurse Heqareshu into which he had been thrust, and he was glad when the noon meal offered a diversion.

  That evening, the little fleet tied up in a shallow bay where for some reason the marsh plants that often clogged the edges of the river had been unable to take root. Ramps were run out, cooking fires lit, and a capacious linen tent hung with golden tassels was erected for Ishat and her servants. “I’d be perfectly happy just rolling myself in a blanket and sleeping beside the two of you on the ground,” she protested, watching the parade of travelling couch, table, chair, carpet, linens, and two lamps go by and disappear between the gently billowing flaps.

  “An Assistant Governor’s wife does not sleep on the ground,” Thothmes said grandly. “Besides, dearest sister, you are not to feel the slightest cold or discomfort on this little journey.”

  “If you keep spoiling me, I’ll soon grow fat and soft,” she retorted. Then, seeing his expression, she relented. “Oh, Thothmes, I do thank you. You’ve thought of everything. But please let me sit here beside the fire with you and Huy and drink beer for as long as I like. Tell me about Iunu. What shall I see first as we draw near the city? I should like to visit the school where you became friends. Will you take me there later?”

  Huy lay ba
ck on his elbow and watched the orange firelight play on their faces as Thothmes answered her, one hand on her linen-clad knee, the other gesticulating with the innate grace Huy loved in him so much. Ishat was leaning forward to catch his words over the constant comings and goings of sailors and staff. She was smiling. It will be all right between them, Huy thought. Already they are in tune with one another, Ishat the lute and Thothmes the drum that sets the rhythm. I shall miss them even on the occasions when we are able to be together. They are swiftly becoming two halves of one whole, a unit from which I am excluded, although they love me. They will share experiences that will serve to gradually widen the space between us, but let it not grow so vast that we suffer the dislocation of so many first meetings! That I could not bear.

  He came to himself and realized that they were both looking at him inquiringly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you ask me something?”

  “You’ve forgotten all about Thothhotep,” Ishat replied. “Look at her, Huy, crouched behind you like an obedient dog. Do you want her to join us?”

  Huy glanced over his shoulder. His new scribe was sitting some distance away with her back against the bole of a palm tree, one hand curled protectively around the palette in her lap and the other supporting her chin as she gazed calmly about her. Huy was struck yet again by the girl’s air of self-sufficiency. Feeling his eyes on her, she turned her head. Huy beckoned her forward.

  “I did forget about her,” he admitted as she rose and hurried towards them. “Did she travel with the servants?” He waved her down, and after bowing to Thothmes she sank cross-legged and slid her palette open.

  “You wish to dictate, Master?” she inquired.

  Guiltily, Huy shook his head. “No, Thothhotep. Take some wine and sit here with us. When we embark in the morning, you had better bring your mattress onto Thothmes’ barge in case I decide to pass the time answering correspondence. Tell us, did you ever pass through Iunu on your travels? Do you know Ra’s temple?”