Seer of Egypt

by Pauline Gedge

  His thigh was warm against Huy’s. He smelled of rosemary steeped in olive oil. One thin black tendril of hair had worked loose from the clasp holding the braid of his youth lock and was wisping against the shallow dip below the diminutive ridge of his collarbone. In spite of the boy’s self-confident prattle, Huy found himself moved by the vulnerability those few strands seemed to betray, the touching defencelessness of the young frame. He wanted to tuck the wayward tress back into the braid and put a protective arm across the fragile shoulders.

  “I’m so glad you’re here, Highness,” he said.

  Amunhotep turned to him with a dazzling smile. “So am I!” he said fervently. “I’ve brought you a gift for your Naming Day on the ninth of this month, and after we’ve been to the shrine of your totem to give thanks for your continued preservation, I’ll give it to you. I know you’ll really like it!”

  After the meal, the diners scattered. The season was Akhet, when the dawn came early and the sunset late, and the sky was still rosy soft with the last of the light when Anhur lifted Amunhotep into the skiff. Huy clambered aboard and poled the vessel away from the watersteps. Amunhotep took a deep breath. “There are no city odours here,” he said. “Only the faint scent of smoke from the kitchen and a whiff of everything damp from the flood. Egypt is the most wonderful place in the world, isn’t it? Our fate is very kind, to place us here. Tell me a story about my ancestors, Anhur, as you did when I stayed last year.”

  So Anhur began a long and involved tale of the military exploits of the Osiris-King Thothmes the First, five generations earlier, his deep, comforting voice making Huy nod with the need for sleep while the sound of the river was an almost imperceptible tremor and the night darkened around him.

  Heqarneheh and the Prince’s body servant were waiting for him by the gate as Anhur guided the skiff to a bump against a tethering pole, and it was Huy who swung the child into his arms, waded up the watersteps, and set him on his feet before his guardians. After he bade Huy and Anhur a formal good night, Amunhotep’s hand found his nurse’s and the three of them vanished towards the house.

  “If I have to do this every night, I’m soon going to run out of stories,” Anhur remarked as he and Huy fell into step together. “You must have plenty, Huy, from your time at school in Iunu.”

  “I do, but I think that he needs to hear the reassuring quality of your voice more than the exploits of the ancients. You do realize that the Queen has placed the responsibility for raising him entirely in our hands during the Inundation months?”

  “Of course I do!” Anhur replied sourly. “And Amun help us if we put a foot wrong! Will you go into the town with Thothhotep and work tomorrow, Master?”

  Huy laughed. “Yes, I must, but don’t worry, our Prince will be busy at his lessons and won’t be allowed near you! Sleep well, old friend.” They parted, Anhur towards his cell and Huy turning into the rear passage of the house. Am I allowed to think of him as the child I never had? Huy wondered in a rush of affection for Amunhotep. Is he a compensation for the impotence that ensures my ultimate loneliness? Atum, may I freely love this royal child although my love could very well supplant the devotion that rightfully belongs to his father the King? As if in answer, he heard, faintly and from far away, the shriek of a hyena followed by its sinister bark of laughter. The sound did not disturb him. So you remain nearby, he spoke to it silently as he began to mount the stairs. You keep your peculiar vigil, but tonight your cry is not meant to terrify me. At the god’s command you laugh at me, but the echo of your amusement holds no judgment. Therefore I will allow myself this surprising happiness.

  It occurred to him as Tetiankh was handing him his nightly dose of poppy that this new and unexpected relationship with the Prince might very well be the chance Anubis had spoken of when he had told Huy he would be allowed an opportunity to put right the wrong he had done in not censuring the Osiris-King and his son Thothmes, now King over Egypt. Had Atum amended his intention for his beloved country to accommodate Huy’s moment of fallibility by circumventing a future where Thothmes’ brother, the rightful heir, sat on the throne, in favour of an alternate fate, with Mutemwia’s son as the Divine One instead? If so, then I am resting in the centre of Atum’s will, Huy thought, closing his eyes as he heard Tetiankh pull the door shut behind him. I have been given the chance to earn his forgiveness.

  Sometime in the night, Huy came drowsily awake to find Amunhotep climbing onto the couch beside him. “I miss the Queen my mother,” the boy whispered, breathing sweet, warm air against Huy’s cheek. “She always makes me feel safe in the night, as you did the last time I slept beside you, Uncle Huy. She says the prayers of protection over me, but tonight Heqarneheh forgot. Heka is a gift from Atum to ward off the blows of fate. So says Menkhoper. You have strong heka. Everyone says so. May I stay with you until Ra is reborn and the demons retreat?”

  For answer, Huy lifted an arm and Amunhotep snuggled into his body. Almost at once Huy felt the Prince’s muscles loosen in sleep. He himself soon drifted into unconsciousness. He dreamed that he was sitting in a tree high above the grey expanse of the Inundation, and even in his sleep he knew its meaning: he might expect the destruction of all his woes.

  The house soon settled into the regular rhythm of life that Huy had predicted to his under steward. The Prince rose late in spite of all his nurse’s attempts to lure him from his couch, and by the time he had eaten his morning meal, visited the bathhouse, and been hurriedly kohled and dressed in little more than a loincloth and sandals, Huy and Thothhotep had dealt with the correspondence, Thothhotep had taken away Huy’s answers to be copied, and Menkhoper was preparing the office for Amunhotep’s morning lessons. Huy was present when he was not doing the healing and scrying work of the god among the townspeople. He had reluctantly ordered Anhur to go into the marketplace and make it known that until the middle of Tybi, when the water would be rapidly receding, he would receive no petitioners on the estate. “It’s too great a risk to the Prince’s security, having strangers congregating in the garden,” he had told Anhur. “Besides, no matter how tight-lipped we are, the news of his presence here must already be spreading, and many people will be curious to see him. It’s a nuisance for me and for Thothhotep and particularly for the litter-bearers, but it can’t be helped.”

  Huy soon found that he did not need to remonstrate with Menkhoper over any aspect of the morning’s lessons. The man was a good teacher, often turning the knowledge he was trying to impart into an enthralling or light-hearted story. He was also firm with his aristocratic pupil without becoming harsh. Amunhotep obviously respected him, as much for his ability to control a child who was fully able to try craftiness and subtle deception to get his own way as for his enlightened method of teaching. The second meal of the day was now eaten in the early afternoon, after which the household retired for the sleep. Huy had been forced to insist that the Prince remain quietly in his own room during this time, and had set a guard on the door to prevent Amunhotep from slipping free and roaming about by himself, for the boy never needed to rest. He played sennet or Dogs and Jackals with his long-suffering body servant, or practised his letters on the pieces of broken clay Menkhoper gave him. After the sleep he was placed in Anhur’s care, and gleefully disappeared with his friend to practise with his little bow or to learn the first simple wrestling holds in which every noble Egyptian boy delighted. Huy was more than grateful to Anhur for this respite. Often he himself returned home from Hut-herib sick and exhausted, and needed a couple of hours and a dose of poppy in the dimness of his shuttered bedchamber to recover.

  During the remaining hours before the evening meal, Huy unrolled the ground plans of various temples and monuments on his desk and, with Amunhotep sitting on a high stool beside him, explained how deep the foundation for a pillar of a certain height and weight had to be dug, why commemorative stelae were hewn out of granite instead of the prettier limestone, what tools the masons used, and what considerations an architect had to take into a
ccount when designing for the gods. If the Prince’s interest flagged, Huy would produce sketches of Egypt’s huge trading vessels and speak of their voyages and their cargo through the Great Green to Alashia and Keftiu and Arzawa in the north. He had requested the blueprints from the Mayor of Hut-herib, from Heby in Mennofer, and from Thothmes at Iunu. The drawings of the ships he had done himself at school. Amunhotep was full of questions, retaining almost everything he was told, and Huy delighted in his company. Every week he dictated a letter to Mutemwia describing her son’s progress and the state of his health and general well-being. Letters came from her to Amunhotep, and Menkhoper made the boy read them aloud, a task he attempted with much frowning, squinting, and lip biting.

  On the ninth of Paophi, Huy’s Naming Day, he and Amunhotep, with Heqarneheh and a suitable number of guards, skirted the flood and entered Hut-herib so that Huy could thank the totem of his town for yet another year of life. He was now forty-two and entirely aware that he appeared ten years younger. His belly remained tight and flat, his legs well muscled, his hair (still obstinately worn long) thick and black. There was no suspicion of a sag in his arms or pouches of flesh on his back above the belt of his kilt. His gift to Khentikheti this year was a pouch of gold dust and the crops of barley and flax reaped the previous season from his arouras west of the town and stored safely in the domes of his clay silos. He embraced Methen, introduced the Prince, who received the priest’s obeisance with dignity, and recited the prayers of thanksgiving with more than his usual attention. He was healthy, handsome, and rich, and standing beside him was the sturdy little scion of royalty he had already come to love. On this day the Book of Thoth seemed like an ephemeral mirage flickering far back in his mind. So did his dependence on the drug that now poured gold into the chests Merenra hovered over protectively. He was standing within the will of Atum, he told himself, and that was a triumph.

  After taking his leave of Methen, he and his entourage made their way to his parents’ house. He had debated with himself whether or not to have the Prince returned to the estate before he attended the modest feast his mother, Itu, and Hapzefa, Ishat’s mother, were preparing for him, but Amunhotep had protested loudly at the prospect of being left behind. “I am supposed to be experiencing the lives of the peasants,” he had pointed out. “This is a good way to begin, Uncle Huy—a whole afternoon with the most fortunate citizens who cared for you after Sennefer attacked you! Incidentally, isn’t it wonderful that he is now dead and probably gobbled up by Sebek for what he did? I bet his heart weighed much too heavily on the scales!”

  Looking into the sparkling eyes of this miniature demon of vengeance, Huy stifled the urge to smile. When you are older, I will tell you of those sad days in my father’s house, and of why I understand Sennefer’s misery, but you are too young to understand any of it now.

  “Very well, we will go on to my parents’ after our visit to Khenti-kheti’s shrine,” he had said. “But Highness, you must promise not to leave the boundaries of the garden. The fields and canals that lie close to the house are still flooding. They are dangerous.”

  His mother ran to embrace him as he approached the house. Enveloping her in his arms, inhaling the lily perfume she had worn ever since he could remember, noticing the lightness and frailty of her, he felt his chest constrict with love and pity. Behind her, Hapzefa came hobbling, aided by a walking stick. “Another Naming Day, and you’ve hardly changed since I chased you naked around the pond!” she called, her voice now the only robust part of her.

  Huy had long since built a small mud-brick house by the hedge dividing the garden from his uncle Ker’s orchard and settled a gardener and a house servant in it. His mother did only those chores she chose to perform, and spent most of her days gossiping with Hapzefa, who had become too lame to do much work, and reminiscing with her husband, Hapu. Huy’s father had eventually been forced to leave Ker’s perfume fields to the care of younger men. He could no longer stand upright, the knuckles of his hands were so swollen and painful that often he was unable to feed himself, and a weakness in his legs had relegated him to the chair Huy had provided for him. After a lifetime spent in lowering himself to the floor for food or prayer or to entertain, Hapu’s pride suffered. He would not thank Huy for increasingly taking care of his modest household, but he had expressed his gratitude, albeit grudgingly, to Heby, and Heby had told Huy. Huy’s pity went to Itu, who had been beautiful and kind and gentle, and whose sweet nature still shone through the ravages of aging.

  “And you still send shivers of apprehension down my spine, Hapzefa!” he called back, releasing Itu and hurrying to plant a kiss on the servant’s lined cheek. “Mother, Hapzefa, I have brought the King’s son Prince Amunhotep to meet you. In deference to your age and out of respect for your undoubted wisdom, he does not require you to perform any obeisance.”

  Taken aback, they stared at the boy walking towards them. Itu did bow. “Welcome to this house, Highness,” she said as he came to a halt and stared up into her face. “We are most honoured by your presence.”

  “Yes, you are, and I am honoured to meet the mother of Egypt’s Great Seer,” he replied with aplomb. “I want to meet his father now.”

  Hapu was rising from his chair in the reception room of the house as Huy and the Prince, followed by the women, crowded into the cramped space. Bent over, he appeared to be bowing, but Huy knew that he could stand in no other way. “I wish you great fortune on your Naming Day, my son,” he said to Huy. “Now, who is this handsome young man?” Huy realized that his father had heard nothing of the greetings outside. He introduced Amunhotep, and boy and man gazed appraisingly at one another for a moment before Amunhotep’s eyes slid to the one hand steadying Hapu on the arm of the chair.

  “You may sit,” he offered, and Huy could have sworn that he was overcome with a brief shyness as Hapu eased himself down. “As the father of the Twice Born, you are surely beloved and protected by all the gods,” Amunhotep went on. “You must be very devout, to have been given the seed which created him. I shouldn’t be surprised if you are allowed to just walk through the Judgment Hall without having your heart weighed when the time comes for your Beautification.”

  Hapu’s eyebrows shot up. A smile touched his lips. “Your Highness is most polite,” he replied, “but I must confess that my work in the fields left me little energy or time for much devotion apart from the evening prayers to Khenti-kheti, and even then they were sometimes forgotten.” His glance went to Huy. “The heka surrounding Huy has nothing to do with me or my lack of piety. It comes directly from Atum.”

  “I’m not very devout myself,” Amunhotep said. “There are many things I’d rather do than pray. I rely on the heka surrounding the King my father to keep me safe and healthy, and he, of course, gets his magic from Amun.” He shrugged. “Lately there has been much worshipping of the Aten in the King my father’s harem and in the palace. That god has become fashionable since the King my father returned from the east victorious. I get bored when my tutors try to teach me about the gods. It’s all very confusing.” He and Hapu nodded gravely at one another. Amunhotep turned to a hovering Itu. “Mother of Uncle Huy, is there … He said that on his Naming Day there would be … Is it noon yet, do you think?”

  Itu had been frowning. Now her brow cleared. “Highness, if you will sit, Hapzefa and I will bring Huy’s Naming Day feast. It must indeed be nearly noon.” She and Hapzefa backed out of the room.

  Amunhotep sank onto a cushion facing Hapu across the faded beige of the old flaxen mat that had covered the dirt floor for as long as Huy could remember. Huy lowered himself beside him. There was an awkward silence until Amunhotep said, “You have laboured in the perfume fields all your life, Father of Huy. I am most interested in the production of perfume because the King my father’s Treasurer, Sobekhotep, has told me that its sale to foreign countries brings much wealth to Egypt. What sort of perfume do the foreigners like best?”

  Huy, marvelling at the child’s civility, saw n
o reason to join the conversation that ensued. His father, after a hesitant reply, began to speak of the flowers he had tended with a knowledge and affection Huy had not suspected. He was still extolling the virtues of lotus essence over lily when his wife and Hapzefa brought in the meal and set it on the floor.

  There were bowls of a spicy pork stew, a steaming lentil soup made fragrant with cumin and coriander, a salad of oiled chickpeas flecked by pieces of mild green onion and garlic, and pale yellow butter to spread on fresh bread. There was shedeh-wine, and dark barley beer for Hapu. Hapzefa brought out a plate of the honey cakes Huy had loved as a child. Everything was offered to Amunhotep first, and after a moment, when he looked about for the servant who would put the food into his clay dish, he happily applied his spoon himself. Huy watched him unobtrusively, anxious lest he might choke, but the Prince ate slowly and politely, emptied his mouth before speaking, and complimented the women on their cooking skill. Huy gave him a little watered shedeh to drink, the taste of last year’s pomegranates bittersweet on his own tongue.