Seer of Egypt

by Pauline Gedge

  Huy stepped forward. “Thank you all for this sacred greeting,” he called. “The honour of this visit is more mine than yours. Enjoy your day of freedom.”

  Ramose gestured sharply at them and they bowed and scattered, a horde of white-kilted brown bodies with the ribbons of different colours that denoted their seniority tied into neatly braided youth locks.

  Thothmes watched them go. “Gods, Huy,” he breathed. “Were we ever so incredibly neat and well behaved?”

  The High Priest laughed. “You were always very fastidious, Thothmes, but the lessons of cleanliness and tidiness came hard for you, Huy. You were a very spoiled, capricious child when your uncle Ker left you in our care. Well.” He hoisted the leopard skin higher on his shoulder. “I’ll leave you to explore your old home at your leisure. Feel free to eat the noon meal with the boys if you like. Come and see me before you return to Nakht’s house.” He strode away, his white sheath swirling against his ankles.

  Huy turned to Anhur. “Go and visit the guards. I’ll send a servant for you when it’s time to go.”

  Anhur looked doubtful. “Remember how the boys in the temple school at Khmun pestered you. This lot is just waiting to dog your heels with all sorts of questions. Perhaps I should stay with the two of you.”

  “No. We can see to ourselves.” It was Thothmes who spoke. “And Anhur, tell the bearers to leave if they want to, and come back before the afternoon sleep. Come on, Huy! Let’s see if our old cell still smells of rinsing vinegar and lamp oil!”

  Together they took the path that led them left from the concourse, beside the temple’s wall, and on into the grassy compound lined with the cells of the pupils. It was crowded with expectant faces. At once a boy of about eight ran up to them and executed a breathless bow. “Honoured Lords!” he gasped. “I am Maani, son of the Governor of the Theb-ka sepat on the shores of the Great Green! I and my companion inhabit the cell where your blessed bodies used to lie! We are very proud to live there. Often I have dreams of you, Great Seer. Be pleased to grace our home with your presence.”

  Huy stifled an impulse to laugh. He thanked Maani gravely, and as he and Thothmes moved towards the open door of their old cell, Thothmes murmured, “They’re like a flock of eager little sparrows waiting for crumbs, Huy. They make me feel rather old and terribly important.”

  The cell was pleasantly dim and cool. Huy, looking about, thought that it was really much smaller than he remembered it, and it did indeed hold the odours of vinegar and lamp oil. The furnishings had not changed. He recognized the dark swirl of a knot in one of the wooden legs of the couch where he had spent so many nights. Each couch had a little table beside it on which stood a statue of the inmate’s totem and a clay lamp. Crammed between them were two tiring chests. The room and the linen on the couches were spotlessly clean, and there was no untidiness.

  Maani was hovering behind Huy. “You slept to the left of the door, Master? Yes? That is where I sleep now.”

  Huy turned to him. “Does the servant Pabast still take care of your needs? Is he still here?”

  “Oh yes! He is very grumpy and refuses to tell us about your time in our cell, but he did say that you were a brave boy.”

  “Did he?” Huy was taken aback. He and Pabast had not liked each other, but Huy remembered that when he left the temple to walk to Hut-herib under the High Priest’s orders to take nothing but his own belongings and some food, Pabast had given him a bag of salt and one of his old razors. “Why brave?” he wondered aloud. “Because I left here with so little? Because I took my whippings without yelling or squirming?”

  Maani’s eyes grew round. “You were whipped, Master? You? What for?”

  “When I was your age, I disobeyed many rules. So did the other boys. We would sometimes venture into the kitchens or the animal pens at the rear. One day I was caught and punished.” Well, that is the truth as far as it goes. There’s no point in speaking of how I blundered into the presence of the Ished Tree and had to be purified in Ra’s sacred lake and then do homage to the Tree before taking a nasty beating from Harmose, our Overseer. “I was lucky not to be expelled.” Maani looked horrified, then pained. “I was no different from you,” Huy said gently. “The gift of Seeing conveyed on me after my accident, when I was twelve, did not grant me godhood, Maani.”

  “I can vouch for that!” Thothmes added with a grin. “Shall we find Pabast and tease him a bit, Huy, or shall we visit the schoolroom?” Looking about him, he shook his head. “We spent many happy hours in here, but there were many anxious ones too. Remember how sick you became and how I was given permission to nurse you through the fever? And how you used to come tired and frustrated from reading the Book of Thoth and recite the passages to me?”

  The Book, Huy thought. The Book. I am close to it here. It lies within the temple, a few steps away. As though the mere idea of it could give it life, the words of the scrolls began to flow unbidden through his mind. He forced them away. He knew the contents of all forty-two portions. The words had been indelibly inscribed onto his consciousness at the moment he had read them, never to be forgotten. Yet the ultimate meaning of the mighty work dictated to Thoth by the creator-god Atum still escaped him, and he had set the exercise of interpretation firmly aside.

  “Let’s go to the schoolroom,” he decided. “If I stood before Pabast, I’m sure I’d be reduced to the level of a guilty child all over again. Thank you for allowing us this indulgence, Maani.”

  They stepped out into the sunshine. Immediately the boys jostled one another to be close to him, and more than once he felt swift fingers brush his naked flesh, as though to touch him would confer luck or healing or simple confidence. A brief fear that their contact with him might precipitate an unwelcome vision came and went. The questions began as the pupils lost their shyness.

  “Twice Born, may we see the scar on your head?”

  “Twice Born, is it true that the gods come to you when you summon them? What do they say?”

  “Master, what did you like learning best when you studied here?”

  “How many people have you healed?”

  “You have seen the King. What does he look like?”

  “We take our swimming lessons in the water where you drowned. Is the water cursed or blessed by that event? And should we continue to call down anathema upon your attacker Sennefer when we say our prayers?” This was from an older boy who stood slightly apart from the others and stared at Huy with solemnity.

  Huy was appalled. He pulled himself free from the questing, admiring hands. “The water is neither cursed nor blessed,” he answered urgently. “It is no more to blame or to praise than the air you draw into your lungs. As for my attacker, you must know that the King removed from him the noble’s right to wield the throwing stick, and he was sent away to another school, where he was very unhappy. I know, because I spoke to him there. He acted in his own defence. I had thrown myself towards him in a fit of furious rage. You must stop calling down the wrath of the Sheseru against him!” There was a sudden hush at the mention of the Sheseru, the host of demons divided into the ranks of the Khatyu and controlled by the gods. They could be used to bring harm or be transformed into the Habyu, the emissaries. “Remember that there is great power in ritual words,” he finished. “Make those words creative, not destructive, or you may find your own totems unleashing the Sheseru-arrows against you! Now the Noble Thothmes and I would like to continue our visit by ourselves. May Ra shine his benevolence upon your day of leisure.” Suitably cowed, the children made their obeisances and drew away.

  Thothmes whistled as he and Huy walked out of the compound and started towards the schoolroom. “Phew! I keep forgetting that you’re already a legend, at least among schoolboys, and you’re certainly the subject of idle gossip amongst the King’s huge entourage. We’re almost there. Can you smell food?”

  The dining room was directly accessible from the schoolroom, and Huy remembered how often he had lost his concentration towards the end of the morn
ing’s work as delicious odours began to waft over him and the other students. He and Thothmes stepped into the schoolroom.

  “Same old smells: clay dust and charcoal with a whiff of papyrus,” Thothmes commented. “How we loved it when Sennefer got punished, didn’t we?”

  “The more he was punished, the more angry he became with us, insulting my base birth and mocking your devotion to our Osiris-one King Thothmes the Third,” Huy replied. “I can see now how miserable he was with himself.”

  “You’re too generous,” Thothmes said sourly. “Let’s brave the throng of your admirers once more and have something to eat. Unfortunately, there’ll be no beer.”

  The Overseer Harmose, who always presided over the meal, waved them to his table as the boys stood to reverence Huy and Thothmes again before sitting back down on the long forms to either side of their huge tables. Huy greeted him happily. “I’m glad to see you still ruling this little kingdom, Master,” he said as he and Thothmes settled down, and at once a servant came bustling forward to serve them.

  “I love my work.” Harmose smiled. “There are few boys I’m unable to help turn into good Egyptian citizens by the time they leave here. You were a challenge, I do admit. Thothmes, I enjoyed your marriage feast very much and I wish you the blessings of every god upon your union. Now we will eat!”

  He and Thothmes chatted as the meal progressed, but Huy found little to say. A familiar sense was stealing over him, a mixture compounded of the safety these walls had always provided to him, the mild anxiety he used to feel when faced with the constant need to achieve, and the complex spell of both fascination and dread the Book of Thoth had woven around him. It was as though some perspective he had lost was regaining its focus, some path from which he had inadvertently wandered was appearing again beneath his feet. There was sanity in it and there was Ma’at, right-thinking, a re-establishment of himself within the mighty confluence of cosmic and earthly order that met and flowed together to fashion the laws under which every Egyptian, commoner as well as king, must live. Harmony, he thought as he ate and drank and listened to the cheerful uproar around him. When was the last time I experienced such concord? Not in Nakht’s house, tormented by my love for Anuket, though I was happy there. Not with the pressure of the Book of Thoth a constant concern underlying my contentment in this place. Not in my parents’ home at Hut-herib, a place I began to outgrow the moment I stepped from Ker’s barge onto Ra’s sacred concourse as a frightened little boy. When did all the components of my life, both positive and negative, achieve a perfect balance? “When you stood in Paradise, in the Beautiful West, with Imhotep and the hyena before you and the Judgment Hall behind,” a voice he instantly recognized whispered in his head. “For what is eternity but the perfect resolution of light with darkness? The exact plummet of the scales? The centre of the fulcrum of creation? Atum waits for your understanding in the place of no-time, Great Seer Huy. Go home. Heal the sick. Make the future your servant. Your destiny is not yet seasoned. The meat needs more salt.” Huy, a vision of wet fangs and pointed black ears flashing across his inner vision, drew in his breath. “Anubis,” he said.

  At once he felt Thothmes’ hand on his arm. “What is it, Huy? Anubis? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Huy managed. “My thoughts were wandering, that’s all.” Both Thothmes and Harmose peered at him, then Thothmes’ touch became commanding, urging Huy to his feet, and Huy saw to his surprise that his plate was scoured, his cup empty, and half the boys had gone.

  “We must take a look at the training ground and pet the chariot horses before we leave,” Thothmes said to Harmose. “Thank you for your hospitality, Overseer Harmose. It has been a joy to be here again.”

  Harmose stood and returned Thothmes’ bow. “You two were favourites of mine. Be well. Come back and visit us any time you wish.”

  Outside, in the passage leading back to the front of the temple, Thothmes released Huy. “Perhaps this was not such a good idea,” he said heavily. “The memories are not all benign, are they, Huy? What did Anubis say to you?”

  “He told me to go home and become more seasoned.”

  “You hear his voice because you are so close to the Book here in the temple,” Thothmes said soberly. “Its magic emanations are reaching out to you. Why don’t I go to the training ground by myself while you talk to Ramose? He’s expecting you to call on him before the sleep. I’ll have Anhur summoned. The bearers will be waiting for us soon. Then we can leave.”

  Huy nodded and at once Thothmes left him, walking briskly away. Huy turned towards the priests’ quarters, where Ramose’s large and pleasant office lay.

  The High Priest opened the door himself to Huy’s knock and ushered him inside. “The boys will be in your debt for a long time.” He smiled. “Only gods’ feast days and visits from members of the high nobility merit a day off for them. Come and sit. Tell me how you really are. Your letters are full of what you do, but not what you think or feel. The Rekhet and I speak of you frequently, and I know that she continues to conjure on your behalf even though you are protected by the amulets she made for you, the sa on your breast and the two rings on your fingers. Has the King severely limited your freedom to work among the citizens of Hut-herib? Your letters did not say.”

  You are a shrewd and perceptive man, Huy thought as he took the stool he knew so well, in front of the desk. But I discovered that long ago. I am still wary of your desire to control my gift, but seeing that I live well away from your influence, I may honour your past great kindnesses to me with the truth.

  “I am a prisoner of the King’s generosity, but he is a benevolent jailer. I am permitted to do such work as is presented to me, providing I am always available to See for anyone the King himself sends to me. So far the requests from Mennofer have been very few.”

  Ramose had regained his customary chair behind the desk. He leaned back and folded his arms. “Ah yes, Mennofer,” he said heavily. “I was alarmed when the King moved the capital back to Mennofer from Weset. His predecessor Thothmes the Third, his father, spent many years campaigning in the east, consolidating Egypt’s hold on her vassal states and increasing their number. The Queen Hatshepsu, his aunt-stepmother, forbade any wars of conquest so that Egypt’s treasury might increase through peaceful trade. Many believe that Thothmes got rid of her when he became powerful enough, so that he could expand our territories.”

  “Got rid of her?” Huy echoed, shocked. “He murdered her?” Thothmes would be horrified to hear such a thing about his hero, Huy thought.

  Ramose nodded. “It’s believed so. However, my point is that Thothmes poured wealth and care into Weset and into Amun’s arms. It was right. It was Ma’at. Amun saved Egypt from the occupation of the Setiu hentis ago. Our present Incarnation does not seem to give Amun the loyalty he ought. Moving the court north to Mennofer returns him to the influence of the great centres of Ra-worship. Of itself, this would not matter. But Amunhotep spent his formative years here in the north, at Mennofer. I think that his primary allegiance is shifting away from Amun. If the balance of Ma’at is maintained, it will not matter, but I am disturbed. He comes here to pay his vows to Ra, but he goes more often to the shrine of the Aten.”

  “The Aten?”

  “Our King is young, healthy, and vigorous,” Ramose said wryly. “He cares more for the energies of the god than for his essence. Aten is all energy, the rays of light that become lions when they strike the earth.”

  “Between Ra and the lion is the Aten,” Huy said. “I understand. But—”

  “As I say, if the King gives due honour to Amun, we are safe,” Ramose cut in. “But the rumours from Weset say that he is beginning to neglect the god. Nothing very overt, nothing openly alarming, but I am concerned. Especially seeing that the King ignores you, although he provides well for you.”

  The words of Atum’s warning to the King came back to Huy. “I can do nothing unless he wills it, unless he sends for me. All I can do is go home and continue the work Atum
has set for me. What do you advise, Master?”

  Ramose shrugged. “I have no advice. I can pass on to you whatever news from the court at Mennofer my fellow High Priests around the country send to me, and that is all so far. Now, Huy, tell me how you fare. It must be hard for you to lose Ishat. But your poppy investment and the arouras you have been deeded— you are happy with all this? And you continue to heal?”

  Huy answered the High Priest’s questions easily and honestly. At last, obviously satisfied, Ramose stood. “You are making a good life for yourself at Hut-herib. I’m relieved. Please continue to write to me so that I can make the correct petitions to Ra on your behalf. Now.” He came around the desk and Huy left the stool. “Would you like to do reverence to the Ished Tree before you leave? I think that such an act is appropriate.”

  Huy hesitated. The Ished sat at the centre of the mystery of the Book. Its branches had overshadowed his schooldays after he had inadvertently stumbled into its presence, even before Sennefer’s throwing stick had sent him plunging into a unique and tumultuous existence. He had managed to forget it, as he was able to dismiss the words of the Book from the far more reassuring day-to-day details of life on his estate, and he did not relish confronting the Tree’s insistent reality. Ramose was waiting, a mild stubbornness clear beneath his patience. Finally, Huy nodded.

  At once the High Priest ushered him to the door. Together they paced the passages lined with priests’ cells Huy remembered vividly. This area of the temple was forbidden to the schoolboys unless they had been summoned. Its atmosphere reminded Huy uncomfortably of both well-deserved punishment and unwanted responsibility. Soon they slowed before a small, guarded door set into the inner wall. After absently greeting the soldier, Ramose swiftly untied the knots holding the two closed metal hooks set into wall and door, handed the rope to the guard, and pushed the door open, waving Huy through.

  The Tree was in its full late spring blossom, its thick leaves glossy, its branches laden with red and white blooms stirring gently in the breeze that funnelled down into the roofless space. As Huy took the few steps that brought him close to the rim of the hollow in which it sat and in which water was regularly poured, a momentary gust of air lifted the braid lying between his shoulder blades and sent a shower of petals floating to the ground. Welcome, Huy, the leaves seemed to rustle as he dropped to his knees and then performed a full prostration. Welcome, Great Seer. Have you come to read the Book of Thoth again?