Seer of Egypt

by Pauline Gedge

  Huy rounded on Thothmes. “Three days? She’s been unconscious for three days and you send for me only now, Thothmes?”

  “We kept expecting her to wake up,” Thothmes replied miserably. “Her injuries, apart from the broken fingers, were not serious. You love her too. There seemed no point in asking you to come, and the next time you visited us she would tell you all about it, once it was over.”

  “It is my belief that a vehedu has entered the Lady Ishat through the metu of her ears or nostrils, and lodged in her head,” the physician broke in. “I cannot locate it, let alone dispel it. The Governor hoped that prayers might dislodge it, but to no avail.”

  Huy stared at him while the information reeled slowly through his mind. The vehedu were the unseen carriers of pain and of the illnesses of internal inflammations and fevers. They could enter through any bodily orifice and travel through the metu, the channels inside the body responsible for the movement of essentials— air, blood, mucus, semen, nourishment, the proper passage of urine and feces. It was entirely possible that Ishat had fallen victim to some unknown vehedu passed to her from the filthy foreigners who attacked her.

  The physician bowed again and moved towards the door. “Now that you are here, Great Seer, neither I nor the priest is needed. With your permission, Governor, I shall go to my quarters until I am summoned.” Thothmes nodded once in his direction. The door closed behind him.

  Unwillingly, now full of a strange reluctance, Huy approached the couch. Ishat was lying on her back under a clean white sheet, her hands loose across her chest, three of the fingers of her right hand encased in stiff, slightly yellowed linen. Both forearms were heavily bruised and cut where she had tried to defend herself. Her head, resting on the spotless pillow, looked curiously malformed because of the narrow patch of red scalp showing just above her ear, where her hair had been torn out, and the black swelling of her eye on the same side. Huy wondered whether the physician had tied a piece of raw beef against her eye, and decided that the remedy was so commonplace there could be no doubt. The other eye was fully closed. Huy looked for any movement of the eyeball, but her whole face, unnaturally pale and oddly lax, was still. She looks dead already, Huy thought with a stab of fear as he took the stool the physician had vacated and carefully lifted her undamaged hand, placing it between both of his own. A soft movement behind him reminded him that both Thothmes and Thothhotep were present. Huy had forgotten they were there. He closed his eyes. Now, Anubis, Atum has deigned to prescribe for and heal much lesser folk than Ishat through me. You know how much I love her. Tell me what to do.

  “Atum’s gaze roams elsewhere, Great Seer,” the familiar voice of the jackal god answered the thought at once. “There are more pressing affairs to be dealt with in Egypt than the fate of one peasant woman, no matter how important she might be to you—the seed of heresy within the bosom of the King, for instance. Atum seeks a man who will root out this danger to his beloved daughter Ma’at. He had believed,” Anubis went on conversationally, “that he had found such a one long ago, but he was sadly mistaken.”

  “Do not mock me,” Huy begged. “I have admitted my guilt before the Great He-She. I am culpable. I deserve to be punished—but not this way, Anubis! Not at the expense of an innocent life! What ails Ishat? Tell me!”

  “You are very free with your commands, arrogant human.” The words had become a hiss of moist animal breath that Huy felt against his ear. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of a white kilt, a black, tightly muscled calf, a long black foot encased in golden sandals studded with blue lapis. “Atum is not concerned with this female’s guilt or innocence, only with her use as a discipline for you,” the god went on. “He gave her to you once to ease the years of your poverty. He removed her when you no longer needed her. She is his tool.”

  “And so am I!” Huy shouted. “He has taken me, body and ka and akh and ba, he has used me times without number, as is his right! If I have betrayed a flaw, was it not created in my mother’s womb, with Atum’s full knowledge?”

  “And what a flaw,” Anubis purred. “Atum must now pass his rod over Egypt’s future and conjure another for this, the land he loves above all others, because of you. Don’t you know that your audience before the King was the most vital moment of your life, and that every god watched it with bated breath? You have condemned Amunhotep and, yes, his son Thothmes to the judgment, and Ma’at will not be lenient.”

  “Then leave me alone,” Huy whispered. “If Atum has decreed that Ishat is to die, just go away.”

  “You deserve her death!” Anubis snarled.

  Suddenly Huy found himself on his feet and facing the god’s angry black eyes. The long furred nose almost touched his own. With a jolt of horror, Huy realized that the room had lengthened and widened. Dull ochre light illuminated the fetid air. The rank smell of death filled his nostrils. Motionless forms on plain slabs filled the sombre space. I have been here before, he knew with terror. This is a House of the Dead. He did not want to look behind him, but in spite of himself he found his body turning, his gaze dropping to the figure at his rear. Ishat lay naked, the marks left by her attackers clear on flesh that seemed pathetic and so very frail. Even as he stared down at her, one lifeless arm slid from the panel on which her corpse was lying and brushed against his hip. There was a flurry of movement as two men came close.

  “The Governor’s wife,” one of them said. “What a pity! She was well loved throughout the sepat. The Great Seer could do nothing for her, although he tried. Well, we must begin her Beautification.” He leaned over her, the obsidian disembowelling knife poised, and Huy stumbled away with a cry.

  “Have pity, Atum! Pity for Thothmes and her children, if not for me!”

  “Did you have pity for the wounds of Ma’at?” Anubis growled. He was leaning towards Huy, his eyes narrowed and now yellow in their nest of fur. As he spoke, Huy could see past his slick fangs and long tongue to the dark maw of his throat. He could devour me if he wished, Huy thought. One word from Atum and he could gulp down the forces of my life and leave me nothing but a body and a name. Yet he is kind, this divine jackal. He leads the dead into the Judgment Hall, to Ma’at and her feather and the scales. He wishes Sobek, eater of souls under the scales, to go hungry.

  “No, I did not,” Huy replied with resignation. “I cared only for my own preservation, Anubis, something I bitterly regret. I accept the consequence.”

  For answer the god swung round and, sweeping his staff carelessly over Ishat’s carcass, drew his lips back over his teeth in a disdainful smile. Instantly, Huy was back in Ishat’s bedchamber, her hand in his, the scent of frankincense strong in his nostrils.

  “She merely sleeps,” Anubis said. “Atum has decreed that now she may wake. He accepts your sad little spasm of humility. Have you learned your lesson, Seer?”

  Huy opened his mouth to agree and felt Ishat’s fingers withdraw. Startled, he looked up. Her one good eye was open.

  “Huy, what are you doing here?” she said, her voice thin but clear. “Gods, my hand hurts! So does breathing. And my eye!” She gingerly touched the swelling. “Did I take a fall?”

  Thothmes ran to the couch and bent to kiss her. “You remember nothing, Ishat? Coming home through the Street of the Beer Houses? The foreigners who attacked you?”

  She frowned and tried to sit up, then winced. “Ouch! I’m bruised, aren’t I, my dearest? I remember coming home late and bidding Intef and the bearers a good night. I was tired, but I went to the nursery to make sure the children were all right, then I came here to my own quarters so as not to wake you.”

  Thothmes and Huy exchanged glances. Atum has done all this, Huy knew with certainty. Were the foreigners inhuman, a host of Khatyu sent to chastise me by injuring Ishat? The attackers were not caught. They melted away into the night. They will never be caught, Ishat will recover completely and in perfect ignorance of the events that overtook her, and I have been horrendously warned to never again betray the creator. Thot
hmes was gripping Ishat’s hand and stroking her face, talking to her quietly.

  Huy got to his feet. “I’ll dictate later,” he said to Thothhotep. “The vision was for me alone, and I must never forget it.” He touched Thothmes on the shoulder. “I have an errand to run in the House of Life,” he told him, “but I’ll return for the evening meal. I promised to spend time with young Huy on my barge. Ishat, you are indomitable. You will heal quickly.”

  She smiled up at him faintly. “I’m appalled at what Thothmes has told me. Thank you, darling Huy, for the Seeing.”

  “I did nothing,” he replied. “Make a sacrifice to Atum when you are well enough.”

  “I shall. Send me the children as you go. I want to see them.”

  Huy started for the door, Thothhotep behind him. I did nothing, he repeated soundlessly as he gained the passage. I have no pain of my own because the canal that flows between god and petitioner is dry this time. No divine force streamed through me. My discipline is complete.

  The heat outside struck him forcibly and he began to sweat. He could see Anhur with the children clustered around him in the shade of a tree. “Your mother will be well!” he called to them as they saw him and scrambled up. “Go and see her! Anhur, get me the litter and bearers from the barge. And beer! Thothhotep, you had better come with me and take note of whatever I find at the temple.” I’m not even tired, his thoughts ran on as he and his scribe waited above the watersteps. I feel light and slightly dislocated from everything around me. The burden of my guilt has gone.

  He and Thothhotep drank thirstily before they got into the litter and the bearers set off along the river path. They rode in a familiar and companionable silence. The curtains remained open and gusts of hot air fluttered Thothhotep’s linen against Huy’s naked leg. “I don’t tell you often enough how fond I am of you,” he said to her abruptly. “You are efficient and intelligent and an essential member of the estate. Are you happy, Thothhotep? Do I allow you to go home to Nekheb often enough? Do you miss your sisters?”

  She glanced across at him in surprise, plucked eyebrows lifting, dark eyes warm in their encircling kohl. She was wearing a pair of earrings he did not recognize, the centre of each a disc of moonstone held by petals of green faience. He supposed that Anhur had given them to her. She never wore rings; she had said that they interfered with the practice of her work. But often her thin upper arms were gripped by plain spiral bracelets engraved with her name. She has remained too scrawny, Huy thought with loving humour as she opened her mouth to reply. When she came to us, Ishat was horrified at her physical state and we both tried to fatten her, but to little avail. She insists on keeping her hair short, an unflattering look for a very slender woman, but on her it is attractive. I must remember to give her more faience pins for it on her next Naming Day in Khoiak.

  “I write to them every month, Master,” she said. “They’re married now. I always send something for the public scribe who reads the letters as well. I’m very happy in your employ. My parents are in good health and do not need me. I lack for nothing, and if I may be permitted to say so, I admire you and I am proud to serve you.” Her gaze strayed to Anhur, who had one hand on the roof of the litter and was pacing beside it.

  You and Anhur should sign a marriage contract, he thought to himself. Why don’t you? I must ask Anhur when I think of it next. For answer he patted her knee and fell to watching the brown, brittle stalks of parched river growth glide by.

  Huy did not want the High Priest of Ra’s House to know that he was within the holy precinct. He had no idea who had succeeded Ramose, his old guide and mentor, but he strongly suspected a complicity between this High Priest and the King’s plans for his son Prince Thothmes. Leaving his bearers on the watered grass under the trees to either side of the god’s domain, he, Thothhotep, and Anhur crossed the stone apron between the small lake where craft coming up Ra’s entrance canal could moor and the pylon that signalled the outer court of the temple itself. Before reaching the pylon, Huy veered to the right. The House of Life lay within the shelter of the temple’s surrounding wall, between the row of storerooms giving onto the outer court and the sheltering main wall itself. Huy had sometimes been sent there by one of his teachers to fetch a scroll needed for class study. He was familiar with the cool, musty rooms whose walls were closely and neatly pocked with niches, themselves crowded with rolls of papyrus. The sleepy guard on the door recognized him and waved him on, and just inside the doorway the archivist rose from his stool and came bustling forward.

  “I am addressing the Great Seer, am I not?” he said, bowing. “I am Tehuti, Overseer of this House of Life. How may I serve you?”

  Huy returned his bow. “I’m seeking the life and works of the mighty Imhotep. Having been a pupil here, I know that he was a High Priest of Ra.”

  Tehuti looked at him curiously. “Very little has survived from those far-off days. Papyrus will last a very long time if it is cared for properly, but stone makes a better surface on which to inscribe the events of the past.” He tapped his chin. “We do have copies of most of the inscriptions on Imhotep’s monuments, and I believe we also have a few, a very few, accounts of his deeds.” He bent and swept up one of the small baskets on the floor near him. “If your scribe will accompany me,” and here he looked doubtfully at Anhur, “I will collect what there is.” He set off with Thothhotep at his heels.

  “You can join the bearers outside if you like,” Huy said to Anhur. “I may be here some time. I doubt if the archivist has any designs on ending my life.”

  Anhur did not respond to Huy’s gentle teasing. “Huy, do you remember the old keeper of the House of Life at Thoth’s temple in Khmun?” he asked. “You spent a lot of time with him. I liked him.”

  “Khanun. That was his name. I promised to send him a letter as soon as I had solved the riddle of the Book of Thoth. I wonder if he’s still alive?” Half of the Book is here somewhere, in one of these rooms, his thoughts ran on silently. I can feel it, holding its secrets to itself and yet reaching out to me. How familiar this place smells! I might be a student again, waiting to hurry back to the schoolroom carefully clutching some boring work of wisdom or advice with which to torment the class. He smiled ruefully to himself and settled down to wait.

  But the archivist knew his charge well. Presently he came striding back. Thothhotep was carrying the basket, now containing perhaps ten scrolls. “There are tables over here,” Tehuti gestured. “Unless I can be of more assistance, I shall leave you to your reading. May Thoth guide your heart and your thoughts.” Then he was gone.

  Thothhotep carried the basket to one of the tables. Huy took the chair behind it. Anhur sank onto the floor, yawned, and put his back against the wall.

  “Shall I read for you, Master?” Thothhotep asked.

  Huy considered, wondering how much of the papyrus contained information couched in an Egyptian dialect so ancient that she would not be able to decipher it. “No,” he decided. “I’ll read, and dictate the facts I want to take home. Prepare your palette.”

  In the end, the information Huy found was disappointingly scant. Apart from designing the main temple to Hathor at Iunet in the south, Imhotep had been Vizier and Overseer of Works to the Osiris-King Djoser. In that capacity he had drawn up the plans for the Divine One’s tomb, a pyramid of steps, and had supervised its construction. He was a devotee of Thoth and had been buried in the City of the Dead on the plateau across the river from Iunu with many beautified ibis birds and baboons, the creatures sacred to the god of wisdom and writing. He was an accomplished physician and was purported to have written a book of medicine, since lost. Apparently he had also written a book of spells, a few scrolls of which had survived as copies. Huy unrolled them eagerly. “These works are to be chanted aloud,” he read. “The very quality of the sounds and the intonation of the sacred words contains within itself the force of the things said.” There followed several incantations to be used for a variety of purposes. Huy laid those scrolls aside.
Imhotep’s sparse biography went on to say that he had written a wisdom text and that he had great skill in reading the ancient scrolls housed in the temple of Thoth at Khmun, where it was the habit of the scribes employed there to throw a little water on the ground in memory of their patron before they began to take dictation.

  There was nothing else. All was much as Methen had related. Huy returned the scrolls to the basket for the archivist to put away, but he was not disappointed. Imhotep had studied the ancient works stored at Khmun. He had also been a High Priest of Ra. That he had read and pondered the Book of Thoth was almost a certainty. Could he have penned the commentary that had been included with each portion of the Book, the explanations of Atum’s mystifying thoughts and actions that Huy had found helpful when he himself was attempting to understand them? Could the great man have resisted such a challenge? Huy did not think so. Nor did he believe that Imhotep would have dismissed the suspicion that the Book’s final stage was either incomplete or missing. He sought it, Huy told himself with excitement as he bade Anhur find the archivist. He sought, but did he find? And finding, did he recognize something so strange, perhaps even dangerous, that he chose to leave it where it was? What, then, should I do? Wait for Atum to lead me to it, or pursue it on my own? I have no idea where to begin, therefore I’ll go home, continue to heal and scry, and hope that enlightenment may find me.

  The archivist had arrived and was bowing, his eyes going briefly to the basket to assure himself, Huy thought with a smile, that none of the scrolls had been damaged. “Is there nothing else pertaining to Osiris Imhotep stored here?” Huy wanted to know.

  The man shook his head. “Nothing, Master. It’s rumoured that Imhotep was also a High Priest of Ptah at some time in his illustrious life, but as far as I can ascertain, no written record of such an appointment exists.”

  Huy was tempted to ask if he might see the Book of Thoth and the commentary. He had a confused idea that simply by looking at the commentary’s script, Imhotep would give him direction. But his good sense prevailed and, thanking the archivist, he and his companions left the temple precincts, Huy afraid that he would be recognized and delayed.