Seer of Egypt

by Pauline Gedge

  Three times Huy and Ramose extended themselves in worship, then they stood side by side, regarding the Tree in silence. It still gives off a combined aroma of honey and garlic and orchard flowers together with the stench of ukhedu when a wound begins to suppurate, Huy thought. Sweet and pungent and otherworldly. Heka is strong in here, it is always present. I was surrounded with it, the magic of the Tree, every time I sat in its dappled shade to read one of the Book’s scrolls.

  “The Tree of Life,” he said aloud, “holding within it the full mysteries of good and evil, planted here when Atum created the All out of the Nun, and tended by every High Priest of Ra since the beginning. So you told me, Ramose, when you dragged me here after I’d been discovered on this very spot, lost and covered with animal dung and trying to get back to my cell. I was sure that you were going to hang me from one of those branches for my desecration.”

  Ramose laughed. “I remember how terrified you were, but not so terrified that you couldn’t ask me why the Tree was holy. I knew even then that you and the Tree shared a kinship. Now it’s clear that your power to see into the future parallels the mystery inherent in the Tree. Both have to do with the ponderous inevitability of consequence.”

  Huy glanced at him curiously. “The fruit of the Tree holds within itself the knowledge of both good and evil. For us humans, such knowledge means that we must choose one path or the other, and take the consequences. In seeing the future, do I share the same purity of comprehension inherent in the Ished’s fruit?”

  Ramose nodded. “I believe so, for surely your gift enables you to see the consequences of actions not yet performed.” He bowed to the Tree and turned to the door. “My thoughts often become clearer in here. It’s the magic surrounding the Tree. The heka.”

  The heka. Huy cast a last look at the huge, gnarled branches heavy with foliage and followed Ramose out into the passage.

  By the time Huy emerged onto the concourse, it was the middle of the afternoon. The bearers were yawning. Anhur was leaning resignedly on his spear, and Thothmes, already lying back on cushions inside the litter, seemed asleep. Huy slid in beside him, Anhur straightened and barked at the bearers, and the temple was left behind.

  “Are you all right, Huy?” Thothmes wanted to know. “I had time to let off a few arrows and talk to Mesta and take a nap.”

  “Mesta? So he’s still the Master Charioteer?”

  “Of course. What kept you so long?”

  “The Ished Tree.”

  “Oh. Was it difficult?”

  “A little. The sight and scent of it certainly took me back to my childhood. I think I’ll go home tomorrow morning, Thothmes. It’s time for both of us to settle down to our customary routines.”

  Thothmes grunted. “Unfortunately. Having you here has been wonderful, and I’m sorry we haven’t been able to spend more time with each other. Perhaps you will come back during the next Inundation. Even a Governor has little to do when the land turns into a lake.”

  Huy himself had fallen into a doze by the time the bearers turned from the river road onto the vine-hung path leading to Nakht’s entrance. Once beyond the pillars, the two friends parted, Thothmes to inquire after his father’s health before joining Ishat in their room and Huy to seek his couch. He was halfway up the stairs when Amunnefer hailed him, and looking up, he saw the man waiting for him. Taking the last few steps, Huy greeted him.

  “I wanted to speak to you while the household was asleep,” Amunnefer explained. His eyes slid away from Huy’s and Huy realized that something was embarrassing him. He seemed reluctant to go on.

  “What is it, noble one?” Huy prompted. “Is there bad news from our poppy fields?”

  Amunnefer’s kohled eyebrows rose. “Oh, no, Huy, nothing like that. It’s … my wife … Anuket greatly desires that you should See for her. She says that she had begun to ask you yesterday but you and she were interrupted. Will you do her this favour?” His anxious gaze returned to Huy.

  You have no idea what you are asking of me, Huy thought, his stomach shrinking. Has love completely blinded you to what your wife is becoming? I strongly suspect it is what the god will show me if I take those tiny fingers between my own, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to!

  “I had hoped to enjoy this reprieve from the violence of the headaches that accompany every Seeing,” he responded cautiously. “If the Lady Anuket was ill, it would be a different matter. Or if some event in her life was looming over which she was fretting. As it is …” He spread out his arms and did not finish the sentence.

  Amunnefer sighed. “She is not ill and no difficult decision waits for her at home in Weset,” he admitted. “She seems upset because you have Seen for her brother and for Nasha and have neglected her.”

  It was on the tip of Huy’s tongue to explain to this good man that the Seeing for Nasha had been entirely accidental, and that for Thothmes it had been an act of love. He repressed an urge that he knew was merely the desire to please Amunnefer, even placate him, whether because of their future business dealings or Amunnefer’s superior blood Huy did not know. Once again she is trying to exert her influence over me, he thought angrily. I thank the gods I am purged of the disease of loving her!

  “I’m sorry, noble one, but I hear no reason why I should accede to her request.”

  Amunnefer passed a distracted hand over his shaven scalp. “She is most upset. I can’t … I don’t know what … I am unable to appease her!” he finished, desperation in his voice. “If you will not See at her request, will you do so at mine? Please?”

  Love has made you weak, Amunnefer, Huy wanted to say. Anuket will never bind up the wound in you that she herself has caused. She will watch it bleed until all your virility has been leached away. Everything in him shouted a refusal, but even as his ka recoiled, he found himself nodding reluctantly.

  “Very well,” he said tonelessly. “For you, Amunnefer. Do you understand that what I See, if anything, will be shared with Anuket alone unless she gives me permission to share it with you?” Anger welled up in him, at Anuket, at Amunnefer’s inability to control his wife, at his own lack of courage. “I am going home in the morning,” he added brusquely. “When do you wish me to do this thing?”

  Relief flooded Amunnefer’s pleasant features. “At once, Master, if you will. She has woken from her sleep but is still on her couch.”

  Huy caught his arm. “Whatever comes of this in the future, you must swear to me now that you will not hold me responsible!” he said roughly. “I am a tool of the god and nothing more! I See only what Atum wishes me to See, not what I will the future to be!”

  “Of course!” Amunnefer looked bewildered. “I have the utmost respect for you, Great Seer, and that will not change.”

  Huy let him go. Amunnefer turned into the passage and Huy followed, every nerve screaming at him to retreat, to run to the safety of his own room, but that damnable surge of compassion for the man whose slender legs strode ahead of him kept him moving forward. At the last door on the left, Amunnefer paused, smiled at Huy briefly, and pushed it open. Woodenly, Huy followed.

  Anuket was on the couch, leaning back against a pile of cushions. A sheet covered her nakedness. Only her slightly swollen eyes told Huy that she had been asleep, for she was fully painted and a black wig lay sleekly shining to her shoulders. Seeing Huy, she held out both hands. “Huy, I am so grateful!” she said as he approached her. “I was not sure that you would agree to See for me, but here you are!” She cast a fond glance at her husband. “Thank you, my dearest!”

  Huy did not take the eager fingers. “Lord, would you please send a servant to Thothmes’ barge and summon my scribe? I need her to transcribe my words,” he said deliberately to Amunnefer. The man left at once.

  Anuket pouted. “Is it really necessary to have her here, Huy? I don’t want that chit knowing the secrets of my future.” The instant jealousy Huy had seen before fumed with the edge of spite in her tones and the sudden narrowing of her heavily kohled eyes.


  “I make no exceptions to this rule,” Huy snapped. “My scribe is no different from any other, even though she is female. Scribes keep their mouths closed and thus hold to their positions.”

  Anuket did not answer. They waited in silence for Thothhotep.

  She entered barefoot with her usual quiet poise, her old, scored palette under her arm, her brown skin damp, wet hair curling haphazardly behind her ears. Bowing deeply to Anuket, she turned to Huy. “Forgive my unkempt appearance, Master. I was just leaving the river after a swim when the noble Amunnefer approached me. I came as swiftly as I could.” Her free hand was pulling her linen sheath away from her body as she spoke.

  Huy nodded. “It’s of no consequence. Sit here beside me and prepare for the dictation.” She went to him quickly, hitching up her linen and folding onto the tiles. I am not angry with you, Thothhotep, Huy wanted to say as she fumbled open the palette and began to retrieve her tools. I am angry at my own spinelessness.

  For a few moments the soft sound of the papyrus burnisher filled the room, and then Thothhotep laid it by her hip, lifted up a brush, and glanced at him. He smiled. Her face cleared. She began the short prayer to Thoth, and Huy’s attention returned reluctantly to the couch as he took the stool already resting beside it. You knew that I would bend to this, didn’t you? he thought bitterly as he put out a hand. You made sure that your face paint had been renewed and your wig was in place before you ordered Amunnefer to speak to me, and while he was doing so, you had this stool placed just so.

  “Put your hand in mine,” he said, fighting to create an inner calmness. “Be still and say nothing.” As her fingers came to rest on his, he repressed the desire to ask Thothhotep if she was ready, to look about for a drink of water, to allow the chirping of the birds outside to capture his attention. Sighing, he closed his eyes.

  At once the noise of the birds began to grow louder, filling the space around him discordantly, and he frowned, trying irritatedly to focus his mind beyond the sounds. After a moment he felt that he had succeeded. The jumble slowly grew more quiet, fell to a confused murmur, and suddenly Huy recognized it as a blend of human voices and bursts of laughter coming from a beer shop not far away. He was standing in a narrow, rutted street. Low buildings jostled against one another to either side. Some were spilling lamplight out onto the uneven dirt in front of them, but most of Huy’s surroundings were dim, the street running on into darkness, the roofs limned faintly against weak starlight. Huy had no idea where he was.

  “Not yet,” a familiar voice rasped in his ear, “but one day you will know every cubit of this place. You are in the holy city of Weset, and even holy cities have their drunkards and whores, don’t they, Mighty Seer? This street is some distance from the districts of privilege where the aristocrats can lie on their couches and hear the low conversations of the fishermen echo against the farther bank of the river as their skiffs float past in the night. Oh, Huy—blessed of the god or cursed, who can yet say which?—why do you choose to be here? What do you expect to See?” A black arm hung with golden bracelets came into Huy’s view over his right shoulder, and one long ebony fingernail pointed along the street. “In the shadows there is a flutter of greyness. What can it be?” Uneasily, Huy heard a note of mockery colour the harsh tones as his gaze found the object. It looked like a discarded piece of linen stirring in the intermittent breeze being funnelled towards him. Anubis grunted, and to his horror Huy felt a cold touch upon his back. “Where are your bones, Son of Hapu?” the grating voice went on. “Will you go forward or will you remove your hand from the pressure of a female thumb?” Huy glanced down. Anuket’s hand lay lightly on his palm, and as he watched, he saw another set of fingers, black and heavily ringed with gold, come to rest on Anuket’s. “Choose!” Anubis barked. “Shall I lift her arm and fling it back into her lap? Her eyes are wide open, Seer. She is eating you up. You can always lie, create a vision for her while your spine ladders itself within you again. The linen lifts and falls as Shu gives life to a wind that will not blow along this filthy street for many years. Will you step into its embrace or not?”

  “I do not want to lie.” Huy felt as though he was uttering a foreign language. “I do this for Amunnefer, as a f—”

  Anubis laughed. There was no mirth in the sound. “So be it. I wish you the satisfaction you secretly crave, proud Huy. As you step into the street, are you walking towards a future truth? Will it satisfy your thirst for revenge? Why are you waiting?” The icy fingers now bit into his shoulder, propelling him forward, then all at once Huy felt the god’s presence leave him. He heard the faint slap of his sandals against the beaten earth of the street. His hair lifted as the breeze gusted into his face, and the huddle of linen lifted also, collapsing back into the dust.

  There was something lying beside the linen, a darker smudge against the barely seen roughness of a wall, and even before Huy recognized it as a naked female body, his ka knew, and it dried his mouth and cut off his breath. Coming up to it, he squatted, pulling the pile of filthy linen away and reaching out with the other trembling hand to turn the face towards him. The figure groaned, the eyes opened lazily, and Huy found himself staring into Anuket’s ravaged features. She licked her cracked lips and smiled faintly up at him. “I hope you’ve brought a big litter, Amunnefer,” she slurred, her words only half formed and seeming to slide with impossible slowness into his ears. “I don’t think I can even sit up, let alone walk. Help me.” He wanted to pound his fist against that swollen mouth, press his palms to either side of that shaven skull and bash her head against the hard ground beneath her, yet under the terrible urge to violence was an even more horrifying maelstrom of love, pity, and impotence. Huy, imprisoned in Amunnefer’s body, powerless against the other man’s painfully racing heartbeat and the wild tumult of his emotions, could only watch and listen with numb shock.

  “You are a disgrace to my house and an embarrassment to the Horus Throne, Anuket,” Amunnefer said hoarsely while his arm went around her shoulders and lifted her to a sitting position. “Here, put on your sheath. The bearers—”

  “The bearers have seen me naked countless times,” she croaked as he pushed the sheath over her head and lifted one loose arm, trying to force it under a shoulder strap. “Why do you bother to come looking for me night after night, Amunnefer? Don’t you know that our destinies are written in the symbols that make up our names? Amun is Beautiful.” She laughed, a throaty, painful sound. “Well, aren’t you lucky, my husband, to carry such a pretty sentiment with you every moment of every day. I am only fulfilling the worship of my namesake when I get drunk and spread myself naked on the beer house tables for the pleasure of any man who wants to take me.” The bearers behind Amunnefer murmured.

  “Be quiet!” he begged her on a note of hysteria. He drew her other arm through the linen and tugged the sheath down over her breasts. “Look at you! A bite mark by your nipple and bruises on your thighs. Why, Anuket? I have given you everything any wife could want. I have loved you, been faithful to you, made excuses for you, and defended you before Pharaoh himself. He tells me to divorce you and send you home to your brother, but I cannot! I still love you and pray to Amun for you. I—”

  “Oh, be quiet yourself,” she said perfectly clearly, then bent to the side and vomited a stream of beer and sour wine onto the dust beside him. “We’ve been over all this before,” she went on, wiping her mouth on the sheath now bunched around her waist. “If you were a real man, you’d have me whipped and confined to my quarters and guarded all the time. You would hunt down my lovers and flay them too. Why don’t you?” Ridding herself of the contents of her stomach seemed to have revived her a little. Her speech had become more intelligible and her eyes beneath their inflamed lids were losing some of their vagueness. “Even now you cannot strike me!”

  Wearily, Amunnefer came to his feet, lifting her with him. Huy could smell the sourness of her and something else, something of which he did not think her husband was aware. The odour of tears
clung to her skin, a scent both acrid and full of desolation, as if anguish could be inhaled like a fragrance. Save me, her ka was screaming soundlessly, rescue me from this pit into which I have so willingly crawled. But Huy knew, as he felt himself lifting her and carrying her to the waiting litter, that Amunnefer had neither the level of empathy nor the strength of purpose to stand against the complex power of her character. He was a good and honest man, but his love for Anuket was as diffused as the miasma of incense that hung about a temple’s inner court. Only a man who was able to see the fissures in her soul and understand them could control her and thus keep her respect. Thothmes can! Huy cried out to Amunnefer as Anuket was lowered clumsily onto the cushions of the litter. Send her back to her brother, noble one! End her pain, and yours! Amunnefer was bending to draw a sheet up over his wife’s polluted body, and Huy bent with him. To his surprise he smelled fresh perfume and a faint tang of vinegar.

  Opening his eyes, he found himself on his feet, clutching Anuket’s fingers in both hands while his cheek rested by her hip on the white cleanliness of the couch. He straightened carefully and sank onto the stool, letting go of her fingers. Already the hammer inside his head was thudding rhythmically against his skull. He reached for the water on the table, but Anuket forestalled him, lifting the ewer and pouring before passing him the cup. He drank all of it, feeling her eyes on him inquiringly, but he would not meet her gaze. He gestured to Thothhotep. “Write,” he said huskily. “A vision of the future for the Lady Anuket …” And he began to recount everything he had heard, seen, and felt, omitting only the words Anubis had meant for him alone. Revenge? he thought as he narrated and Thothhotep’s brush worked busily on the papyrus. Yes, revenge. But it will not be sweet, Anubis. He sensed Anuket’s increasing agitation, but not until he had finished and Thothhotep had bowed herself out to make the copy that would be filed at home in Hut-herib did he swivel on the stool and look at her.