Seer of Egypt

by Pauline Gedge

  “Master Huy? Great Seer?”

  Huy came to himself with a start. Heqarneheh had come up to him and was bowing several times to get his attention. “I’m sorry,” Huy said. “What is it?”

  “The Prince would like to go fishing. The Princess asks if you would take him out in your skiff. With a guard, of course.”

  Huy glanced towards Amunhotep. The child was craning back at him earnestly. He did not look tired in the least. Huy got to his feet and beckoned, and Amunhotep trotted to his side. Huy answered Heqarneheh, “I will, but given the continued rising of the river, we won’t go far from the watersteps. The soldier talking to Wesersatet is my captain. Go and tell him he’s needed.” As Huy was speaking, he felt small fingers close around his own. “Highness, do you have a fishing rod?” he asked. The boy began to tug him towards the entrance. Heqarneheh was approaching Anhur.

  “Yes, I do. Heqarneheh will fetch it for me, and I have already collected worms from your garden for the bait. I don’t think that I shall be able to catch anything, though. The fish will be down deep near the bottom now that the sun has gone and they’ve finished feeding on flies and mosquitoes.”

  “Why do you want to go fishing, then, Highness?” They had reached the open doors and were passing through the pillars and out into a darkness softened by pallid moonlight. Huy heard Anhur’s step behind them, and with a quick bow Heqarneheh hurried past.

  “I mostly want to sit in a boat and enjoy being on the water here where it’s quiet,” Amunhotep responded promptly. “When I go fishing at home, I have to go in a litter through the city from the palace to the river and then wait while Wesersatet or another commander orders the people off the river road and then puts me in one of the royal skiffs and then makes sure that no other boats are too close to me. Or I have to go through the barracks to the Peru-nefer docks. It’s a great nuisance. Look how easy this is!”

  They were almost at the watersteps, where Heqarneheh was crossing the ramp from the royal barge, a miniature rod and a clay pot in his hands. Amunhotep reached for them. Huy bent down and picked him up, carried him through the water under which half the steps were submerged, set him gently in the skiff, and clambered in after him. Anhur followed. Heqarneheh settled himself on the sand by the gate. Grasping the pole, Huy pushed them away from the bank.

  “Don’t hit the current,” Anhur warned. Even on its edge there was a slight tug at the manoeuvrable little craft. Huy let it take them just past the point where torchlight ended and full night began, then he poled them back towards the bank. Amunhotep was stirring the worms in the pot with one thoughtful finger.

  “Here in the shallows you just might catch something, Highness,” Huy said.

  Amunhotep nodded. He selected the bait he wanted, drove a hook through it while Huy held the rod, tossed it overboard, and took the rod from Huy with a sigh of satisfaction. “This is fun,” he announced. “Is this the way the peasant boys fish, Master?”

  “Not unless their fathers are fishermen,” Huy told him. “Most peasant boys cannot afford to trade for hooks. They wade into the river and try to net the fish.”

  Amunhotep was silent for a moment, obviously digesting this information. “When I am King, I shall make a decree that every boy must be given fish hooks,” he decided. “By then I shall be forbidden to fish or eat fish, because the King may not offend Hapi. So I must fish every day and eat fish every day while I can. I like doing both.”

  “So you will be King one day?” Huy asked cautiously.

  Amunhotep shot him a quick look. “Yes. My mother the Princess tells me that I will. I’m not supposed to talk about it to anyone because she is only my father’s Second Wife and inferior to Princess Neferatiri and everyone thinks that Neferatiri’s son will be the Hawk-in-the-Nest. But he won’t. Not ever.”

  “But Highness, you are talking about it to me,” Huy pointed out. And to Anhur, he thought privately.

  “I’m allowed to tell you anything, Great Seer,” the boy tossed off impatiently. “My mother says that you already know I’ll be King. She says that now my uncle has gone away, you are to be my new uncle. If I like you, of course.” He wiggled the rod up and down. “I think I like you. I’m not sure yet.” Huy sensed rather than saw Anhur’s eyebrows go up. “My mother also says that sometimes you may tell me things I don’t want to hear and I must listen to you carefully and not get angry. Menkhoper and Heqarneheh do the same thing, but I still like them, so don’t worry.” He made a face, a thoroughly childlike grimace that unexpectedly tugged at Huy’s heart. “I wish they’d play the games I want to play sometimes, though. The other children in the palace are rather stupid and boring.” His attention returned to the fluid darkness of the water. “I’m not going to catch anything tonight, am I? Never mind. I can sit here and listen to the owls and the animals snuffling about in the grass by the bank. I go to the King’s zoo, but it’s not the same.”

  Huy waited for more, but the Prince seemed to have run out of breath. Gradually, all three of them succumbed to the warm tranquility of the night. Amunhotep began to hum a lullaby Huy remembered Hapzefa singing to him when he was no older than this self-assured little creature. Huy wanted to put an arm around him.

  Huy expected him to grow tired and bored long before he did, and it was Anhur who yawned as Amunhotep at last drew in his line, pulled off the worm, and tossed it into the water. “That was lovely,” he said, “but I’m a bit sleepy now. Let Hapi keep his fish. Don’t carry me up the watersteps, Master. I want to wade.”

  Once Anhur had tethered the skiff securely to a pole, Huy lifted Amunhotep and set him down thigh-deep on one of the drowned steps. Seeing them come, Heqarneheh had scrambled up and was waiting. Amunhotep plunged his hands into the water, rubbed them over his face, and crawled onto dry land. Bidding Huy and Anhur a polite good night, he took his nurse’s hand and together they disappeared along the path. Anhur let out a long breath.

  “Gods, Huy, just what was all that about? Clearly we both need to keep our mouths closed if we want to stay out of trouble, and equally clearly the Princess has some plan that includes you. I hope it doesn’t also include infanticide.”

  “No.” They had begun to walk towards the house. “I believe that Prince Amunemhat, Neferatiri’s son, will die before he can succeed his father. It’s all very secret, Anhur. Only Thothhotep and I and now you know what’s in the future for Mutemwia’s princeling.”

  “Well, it doesn’t concern me in the least, I thank all the gods. All I really have to worry about is how long you’re going to live.” He bowed briefly. “Sleep well. I’ll make a round of the guards on duty in the house before I fall onto my cot.” Huy watched him stride away, his brisk, open personality evident in his straight carriage and confident step.

  Mutemwia had wanted to speak with him after the feast. Huy imagined that by now she would have gone to her couch, and so he was surprised to see lamplight oozing out from under the door to his office. Wesersatet was standing guard in the passage outside. He saluted Huy as Huy approached. “Her Highness is waiting for you,” Wesersatet said. “She knew that the Prince would be on the river for a long time. She and Nefer-ka-Ra have been playing Dogs and Jackals in the meantime.” He smiled. “You need not be apologetic. Neither she nor her son goes to the couch early, and both of them find it difficult to get up in the morning!”

  Huy returned his smile. “Thank you, Wesersatet.” He turned and knocked, and, hearing Mutemwia’s voice tell him to enter, he did so.

  She was sitting in his chair and leaning over a game board on the desk. She had obviously been prepared for bed. Her face was free of paint and gleamed with the nightly application of honey most women favoured as an antidote to premature wrinkles. Her hair had been braided and hung down her back unadorned. Thin reed sandals lay by the chair where she had shed them to tuck her feet under the voluminous white sleeping robe draping her. She looked to be about twelve years old. The scribe sitting opposite her rose at once, bowed to her and then to Huy, and,
gathering up the pieces of the game, backed to the door and left, closing it behind him. Huy bowed in his turn and approached her.

  “So,” she said. “Did my son enjoy himself ? I presume he caught nothing. Please sit, Huy.”

  “It was too late for the fish, Highness. Sunset would have been better.” Huy sank a trifle wearily into the chair the scribe had vacated. It had been a long and stressful day.

  “Tomorrow Wesersatet and Heqarneheh can take him out at dusk, providing the flood doesn’t become much stronger. Going fishing from the palace requires so much preparation that much of the time he can’t be bothered, and he refuses to catch the fish in any of the royal ponds—he says it’s too easy.” She sat back, her heels still hooked over the edge of the chair in which she was sitting, her body enveloped in the gossamer tent of her sleeping robe. “And what do you make of my young Prince, Huy? Do you think him intelligent? Well behaved? Is his speech coherent and sensible?”

  Huy studied her carefully. She may look like a girl, with her face washed and her lobes free of jewellery, but she watches me with astute eyes. How old is she now? Twenty-two this year? Where did she obtain her education?

  “Highness, such questions are not for any commoner to answer,” he said aloud. “Who may judge a Prince apart from his family and perhaps his noble peers?”

  “Nevertheless, I ask them of you and I require an honest assessment of Amunhotep.”

  Huy spread out his hands. “Highness, I cannot answer them after so short an acquaintance with him!”

  “Then give me your impressions. I intend to stay here for six more days so that you and he may become used to one another.”

  “To what end?” he dared to ask. “The Prince told me this evening that I am to take the place of his absent uncle—if he likes me, that is!” A small smile came and went on Mutemwia’s face. “Surely you have carefully chosen the men and women who have charge of his well-being and schooling, and he will become as closely attached to them as our Osiris-King was to Kenamun, the son of his nurse. There is no favoured place for me in little Amunhotep’s life.”

  She folded her arms across her bent knees and, resting her chin on them, stared at him pensively for a long time. The house had fallen into a deep silence, apart from an occasional sputter from the lamp. The reflection of its flame flickered dully on the surface of the desk through its thin alabaster cup, and all at once Huy was reminded of words he had read when he unrolled the commentary on the second part of the Book of Thoth at Thoth’s temple at Khmun. “Yet the Light cast a shadow, grim and terrible, which, passing downwards, became like restless water, chaotically casting forth spume like smoke.” It referred to the moment when Atum willed himself to become pure energy in the form of light, and thus cast a shadow. Huy, utterly bewildered, had argued to the High Priest Mentuhotep that as nothing had existed yet apart from Atum, the Light, how could he cast a shadow? Mentuhotep had told him that light would indeed cast a shadow without an object standing in its way. No one knew how, but if a piece of new white linen was held very close to a flame and stretched so that there were no folds in it, a faint, causeless shadow could be seen. Now Huy, watching the soft, diffused glow of the lamp so close to him, felt a mild disquiet brush him and vanish.

  At last the Princess stirred, sat forward, and placed her feet on the floor. “Answer my question,” she said. The authority in her tone was unmistakable.

  Huy took a long breath. “Very well, Highness, since you insist. I have known the Prince very briefly so far. His self-assurance is obvious, as is his physical resemblance to you and to his royal father. His intelligence is not yet so clear, but from his conversation I deduce a quick mind, ripe for further development. His character seems to be a blend of independence and a child’s desire for acceptance and affection. It is impossible for me to make any further assessment for now.”

  “For now.” Her gaze narrowed. “If I send him and his nurse to you for a time each Inundation, will you watch over him, take him with you when you venture out, play games with him, keep him safe?”

  Huy was completely taken aback. He had not expected this. “Why?” he managed, although the reason was beginning to take shape in his mind.

  She slapped both henna-stained palms on the table, an indication of her annoyance. “Are you being deliberately obtuse, Great Seer?” She bent forward. “Ever since my little one reached out and grasped your fingers, I have pondered the vision that came to you with his touch. I have also pondered the Seeing you bestowed on my brother-in-law. I have combined the words of the letter he received from you in Mitanni during that vision with the storm of gold in the centre of which you saw my baby. I shall soon be called Majesty, though I walk behind Chief Wife Neferatiri. Yet according to the will of Atum, made known through you, my husband will have a mere nine years on the Horus Throne and my son Amunhotep will mount it instead of Neferatiri’s offspring.” Reaching across the table, she tapped the back of his hand with one long forefinger. “He will need you then,” she went on quietly. “He will be only twelve years old. I will be Regent, governing until he achieves his majority at sixteen. I will need you also. Egypt’s Great Seer will stand beside the throne as Amunhotep’s adviser, his confidant, the one who will convey to him the will of Atum. With you in the palace there will be no unrest among my husband’s sons by his lesser wives and concubines. Until then I want him to get to know you, trust you, even love you, and I want you to love him also. Give me your thoughts on all this.” A childlike anxiety now filled her features, returning her, in Huy’s eyes, to the appearance of an insecure young girl, an impression totally at variance with her words.

  Huy was appalled. Is this what was in your mind, Ramose, High Priest of Ra, Henenu, Rekhet and mentor, even you, Methen, when all of you spoke of my destiny? Am I to rule the being who will rule Egypt?

  His hands slid off the table and covered each other in his lap. “Highness, I am sometimes forced to wonder if my visions of the future show me what may be, not what will be,” he said, his voice uneven, his mind full of Anuket and what had happened to Ishat instead. Instead? “In my vision for Prince Amunhotep, I saw the place of his exile, I saw a letter arriving for him from me in which I explain to him that he may return to Egypt but not as King, because your son has already been declared ruler. Amunemhat, Neferatiri’s boy, will have died by then. But Highness, your brother-in-law is the Osiris-one’s rightful heir. His father transgressed Ma’at when he proclaimed your husband as the Hawk-in-the-Nest. Now your husband will be crowned King after the period of mourning for his father is over. But when he dies, his brother deserves to come home to take his place. What if some action, some decision of yours or Neferatiri’s or even of Thothmes’ himself, changes the future? Negates what I saw? What if little Amunemhat survives? You are presuming a great deal.” What cause am I arguing for? he asked himself as he felt tension stiffen his shoulders and fold his fingers in on themselves. Why do I feel such panic?

  “I have absolutely no intention of transgressing Ma’at and earning myself an unfavourable Weighing by having Amunemhat murdered,” Mutemwia hissed. “Are you suggesting such a dreadful thing? But mark this, Huy. Atum has spoken through you. My son will reign, not his uncle—of this I am determined. Much as I love the Prince, his years in Mitanni will not have fitted him for godhood. My son will fully restore Ma’at and the worship of Amun as Egypt’s pre-eminent deity. This I can promise you, and I believe that if you chose to take my son’s hand in yours, you would See a return to such harmony in his future!”

  Huy could sit still no longer. Rising to his feet on legs gone weak, he bowed for her forgiveness in standing without her permission. “Highness, you have not heard me,” he managed. “Sometimes my visions of their future become … twisted in the lives of those for whom I See. This happens often enough for me to doubt the validity of what Atum sends. Or rather, I fail to see how the future fate of some may be warped into the fate of a member of their kin. What if Prince Amunhotep comes back from exile and deman
ds his rightful place?”

  “I heard you,” she answered calmly. “I know my friend. He will come back wanting nothing more than a peaceful life on his estates. He will not forget the strain and fear under which he lived before he left.”

  Huy’s throat went dry. “Will he fear you, Highness?”

  “I swear on the life of my precious baby that he will never have reason to fear me. Or him. You will see to that if you take up the burden I wish to lay upon you.” Once more her regard became critical. Her eyes travelled his face. He watched her note the tension apparent in his chest before her gaze returned to his mouth. His breath had become shallow. “You are sweating, Huy,” she said kindly. “The time for your evening poppy is long past. You have become entirely reliant upon the drug, have you not?”

  Who spies for you in my household? he thought, close to despair. Whom have you suborned since you and I met in the passages of the palace? Must I scatter my staff and hire strangers?

  She waved one graceful hand dismissively. “No, I have no spy here on your estate. The Mayor of Hut-herib, Mery-neith, sent me a scroll containing everything pertaining to you and your family he had gleaned from his taxation records and his work among the townspeople. The High Priest of Ra, Ramose, now retired, answered my request for a report on you in glowing terms. Governor Thothmes and his lovely wife Ishat visited me in my quarters at my request, and I myself, yesterday, met with your good friend the priest Methen. I am no pretty harem acquisition, Huy,” she said scornfully. “I administer my own estates, I make sure I know exactly what passes among the King’s many women, I watch and listen at every royal audience. No one spoke ill of you. Yet, on examining their words, written or spoken, I deduced much that they did not say. Your failure to speak out regarding my husband’s so-called dream I knew about from my Prince now in exile. The probability of your sexual wounding at Atum’s will—Ishat hinted at this during our conversation when she remarked that you suffered from all the strictures imposed by the gods on Egypt’s Seers through the ages. She would not elaborate, but her polite stubbornness gave me my answer. The sense of responsibility you display towards the townspeople and peasants of this sepat is evidence of your compassion and discipline. Your growing dependency on the opium poppy is unfortunately inevitable, given the pain Atum inflicts on you.”