“‘A piece of dung’—and I quote,” Kate supplied.
“Then let’s see if we can make him eat it.”
I smell a change coming, a shape turning leaves in the wind.
—Normandi Ellis, Awakening Osiris
14
Year Tour in the Reign of Ay
(1948 B.C.)
DAY 13, FIRST MONTH OF INUNDATION
Seeing to the welfare of my expanded “family” weighs so heavily on my shoulders, especially with Khary’s wife about to give birth again, that I must retreat to my sleeping room in order to escape the dust and noise of the bricklayers and carpenters who add new rooms to my house. Tonight I glanced up to find Aset sitting cross-legged on my sleeping couch with Tuli wedged against her thigh, waiting for me to finish my writing. She held a scroll, so I laid my pen aside and waited to see what she wanted.
“I was working on a poem, a gift for my father, when the river of my thoughts ran dry,” she began. “I thought perhaps you could tell me where I went wrong.” I nodded and she began to read.” ‘Beside the well the sycamore rises. Beside the well bright cornflowers grow. Do they rise on their tender stalks by will? Or does some force of love drive them up? I wake in the dark to the stirring of birds, a murmur in the trees, a flutter of wings. I am flesh of my father’s flesh. His sorrows are mine, his joys, his spirit. And my thoughts lie with his, in peace.’ “
I have little patience for poetry, but her way with words often leaves me speechless, for they are as playthings that take on meaning only when she puts them together.
“Well, did I put you to sleep?” she demanded when I was slow to respond.
“Such loving thoughts would please any father. Perhaps you only arrived at the natural end before you realized it.”
“I wrote it for my father, sunu, not any father!” she snapped, echoing the tune her mother sings so well.
“Do not lay your dissatisfaction or your temper at my door. Even the good opinion of the most gifted poet in the land is of no consequence if it does not please you.” Tuli pricked an ear, hearing something amiss in my voice.
“Perhaps if you were to read me one of yours—” she began.
“Writing verses is for those with idle hands, or a man besotted with love.”
“My father says a man who refuses to let his ka speak is either a coward or ashamed of what he carries in his heart, yet I know you are neither.”
“Perhaps your ka is ill-informed.” Tuli jumped down to sit on his haunches, begging me to change my tone.
“If I cannot blame my ka for what I say or do, why should I blame those who inform me?” Mischief plucked at her mouth as she tipped her head toward Tuli.
“Tuli writes verses now?” I inquired.
Like a gust of wind snatching the flame from a lamp, her blue eyes darkened, and she snapped her fingers, bringing him to her side. “He shows me in other ways that he loves me, even when I displease him. It is just that I do not understand why you have no desire to examine our feelings as you do our bodies.”
“Flowery phrases do not come easily to my tongue.”
“Not even when you were a green youth mooning over the ripe breasts of some girl? Tell me, then, how does the sadness I feel when I disappoint my father bring tears to my eyes? What causes the roaring in my ears when I am alone in the dark? Why do my cheeks grow red and hot when I am ashamed of something I said?” Like a stone rolling downhill, Aset has never been one to stop until she reaches the bottom.
“Perhaps all are simply signs sent by your namesake to let you know she watches over you,” I suggested, since I had no other answer to give.
“You make light of my questions?” I dared not smile, so I shook my head. “If there is a difference between knowing and believing, as you say, and the road to eternity is knowing—the open eye—then to not ask questions is to close your eyes. Yet the priests never question anything, though they worship the sun, the source of all light and life.”
I can recognize a theological argument when I hear it. “Is that what this is all about—you miss your father?”
Her hand played with Tuli’s ear. “Of course I miss him, but—”
“Then think about it and see if you can find a way to discover what causes the noise in your ears. As for the verses, I will try if you have the patience to guide me.” If she worries that I may stop caring for her, I will write all the verses she wants, clumsy or not. And if something else bothers her, at least she will have an excuse to come to me.
“We could address the same subject,” she suggested.
“And read our verses to each other,” I added. “That way you could instruct me by example.”
Delight bubbled in her throat. “What shall we write about?”
“Uh, let me think what might be … a possibility.”
“Possibility? Oh, I like that.” She unfolded her legs and slid off the couch, dumping Tuli onto the floor, but the instant her bare feet touched the cool tiles she stilled, though he ran ahead into the passageway.
“Leave your scroll and I will see that it gets to your father,” I told her, ignoring her bare feet. “But you best give me a few days. I am not so quick as you.”
DAY 4, SECOND MONTH OF INUNDATION
With the life-giving waters of Mother River rising faster than anyone can remember, an uneasy pall of apprehension afflicts us all. Whatever the cause, the stench of carrion hangs over the city like a deadly miasma, from the growing heap of bodies outside the House of Beautification. Everywhere I go I burn sulfur to drive off the spirits of the dead along with the rats that invade their miserable hovels. For those who will die despite any medicine I give them, I light incense and invoke the goddess—O Isis, great in sorcery, deliver me from everything bad and evil and vicious. From affliction caused by a god or goddess, from dead man or woman, from male or female enemy, as you delivered your son Horus.”
At times, lately, the cold fingers of fear clutch at my heart when I glance up to find Aset standing before me, white night robe still swirling around her ankles like some ghostly wraith sent by the gods to torment me. “I thought we might read our poems,” she announced on this night.
I motioned her to my sleeping couch and waited for Tuli to jump up beside her. “Perhaps I should go first,” I suggested, hunting through the sheets on my table, “lest my paltry effort sound the worse for coming after yours.”
She gave me an encouraging nod so I took a deep breath and began.” ‘Like a child in its mother’s belly, I am with you but not among you. I am water bubbling from a spring. I am the laughter in two jugs of red wine. A tadpole swimming in a shallow pool left by the tears of the goddess. I have always been here, a child in the silence of things, for I am possibility.’ “
I kept my eyes on the papyrus, expecting laughter, indulgence or even pity, but not silence. Curiosity finally drove me to look up, only to find her so engrossed in her own verse that she had not even heard mine. “I told you I have no talent for poetry,” I said, to explain such a pitiable effort. “I only thought to describe some things that fascinated me as a boy, which I forgot and then rediscovered with you.”
She gave me a puzzled look. “I don’t—what do you mean?”
“The gods have given me a rare and precious gift in allowing me to see again with the eyes of a child.”
“Mine?” I nodded. “Truly?”
‘Truly,” I replied, provoking the glorious smile that is the greatest mystery of all to me, since I cannot even guess where such light comes from let alone explain the effect it has on me.
“That must be why our thoughts follow the same path.” Too excited to sit still, she jumped down from the couch and came to my side. “I was afraid if I said how much I like yours it would sound boastful, since mine is so like yours. Read it again.”
I did as she asked, and she continued where I stopped.” ‘I am the word before its utterance. I am thought and desire. An idea. A portent of impossible dreams. I know no ending for I have no beginning.
Because I am possibility.’ “
DAY 21, THIRD MONTH OF INUNDATION
Only the storehouses Ramose ordered built away from the river still hold edible grain. All else, even the corn and lentils stored in the royal warehouses, has been swept away by the raging current or else lies buried in mud, fueling rumors that Pharaoh has displeased the gods by refusing to name an heir. But just as the river in flood robs its banks, the land in its turn will rob the water, a never-ending cycle repeated by stars and moon and sun, each robbing the other of a place in the sky. Whose earthly star will rise now, I wonder, to take Paranefer’s place? Surely that will say more than all the gossips about who sent the High Priest to the subterranean dwelling place of night.
DAY 16, FOURTH MONTH OF INUNDATION
Sheri, Nebet, and Mena came to celebrate Aset’s eleventh feast day, leaving Nebet’s little brother with his nurs-mother. We ate in the garden, then Mena and I stretched out on the grass while Sheri helped Ipwet and Tamin, Khary’s wife, carry the empty bowls and platters to Nofret’s kitchen.
“Poor Tuli is not used to having so many people intrude on his territory,” I observed, glancing to where the dog lay with his paws jerking in his sleep, while Nebet, Aset, and Ruka dangled their feet in the pond, giggling and talking.
“I’ll wager Aset’s new palette joins the other treasures she carries in that scruffy bag,” Mena remarked. “See how she keeps one hand always on your gift, as if she expects it to walk away? Does she prize it for what it is, do you suppose, or because it came from you?”
“You don’t know Aset if you have to ask.”
“I know her better than you think,” he grumbled.
“Lately she spends hours with my medical scrolls, to become my assistant in truth not just in name. It is as if she tries to cram two days of living into every one of ours.”
“She tries to catch up with you.”
“Don’t start,” I warned him, only half in jest. “I already have been made painfully aware of my advanced years. This morning she approached me with a mathematical puzzle. How is it possible for me to be three times her age now—thirty-three to her eleven years—yet be only twice her age when she is twenty-two?” Mena smiled with his eyes closed. “She also has taken to bringing wet clay when we go to visit the sick, to form the beasts in her stories. A pig who believes he can fly because he was raised by a flock of geese and so eventually grows wings. A crocodile whose snout is as long as his tail, so he is forever forgetting which is which.” Watching the three of them together, I grew curious. “What in the name of Thoth can they be talking about that Ruka chatters like a pigeon? With me he stumbles over his own tongue.”
“Aset has a talent for making him believe in himself. Would that the gods gave us all such a gift, for surely she healed Nebet in ways you and I had no hand in.” His next words came to me on a sigh. “How my daughter has blossomed under the nurturing sun of your little goddess!”
“As a boy I needed more than the supporting hand of my father, someone nearer to my own years. Without you, Mena, I never would have found the courage to be what I am, unimportant as that may be to anyone else.” He squinted at me, wondering, I suppose, if I had drunk too much wine. “If I speak too plainly it is because Aset has been at me to let my ka speak. I am conducting an experiment to see if her argument has merit.”
“Isn’t it time you started to look for a larger parcel of land?” he asked, changing the subject. “The addition to your house takes from your garden just when you need more ground for planting, thanks to your Eye of Horus. Surely you have credit enough in Pharaoh’s countinghouse.”
“You remember my neighbor on that side, who did little but complain to the magistrate about the noises at my door in the night?” He nodded. “Well, he now has all the quiet he could want. I have given his widow such a generous price for the land that she has dowry sufficient to attract a much younger man, one with more teeth than the old grandfather she had.” I snapped a twig off a nearby bush and hunted for a clear spot of ground. “I plan to knock down the wall and have the old house repaired, for Khary and Tamin, who is with child again. We will plant herbs and medicinal shrubs in the new ground, and have a small house built for Ipwet and Ruka—here, where the sage and thyme grow now. With all of us wearing these—” I lifted one foot to show him my palm-frond sandals, a bigger version of those Ipwet weaves for Aset and Nebet, “and Nofret bringing more orders from her friends, I may have to hire someone to help her. I also intend to plant a tamarisk, two sycamores, and another palm—both to harvest and provide shade.”
I heard a noise and knew at once who it was, though no lamps illuminated the back of my garden. So did Aset. Pagosh caught her on the run and twirled her around while she hugged his neck. “I am so glad to see you!” She pulled back to peer into his face. “But I wish Merit could have come, too.” Without a word he set her on her feet and turned to where Merit stood in the shadows, half hidden by the thin veil wrapped around her head. Aset ran to her and they began laughing and talking at the same time while the rest of us stood mute. Pagosh sent me a curt nod, causing me to wonder if his throat tightened as mine did, which reminded me of Aset’s question. How is it that our thoughts and feelings, which depart our bodies upon death so are without substance, can bring tears to our eyes?
Pagosh carried a small wooden box and scroll tied with a purple ribbon, both gifts from Aset’s father. The box alone would have been enough, for it was inlaid with rare woods and ivory from Kush, but it held a gold necklace that reminded me of the one Aset had “borrowed” from her lady mother—a message, surely, as well as a gift. Nofret and Sheri made much to-do over the delicacy of the worked gold, but it was the scroll that Aset clutched tightly in her hand for the rest of the evening.
Watching her, Mena arrived at a conclusion that would never have occurred to me. “She practices the art that comes naturally to women—using anticipation to enhance the ultimate pleasure.”
I scoffed at his flight of fancy and told him she only waited for a private moment to read Ramose’s message without interruption. “She rarely sees him, even on her visits to her husband’s villa, now that her father carries the responsibilities of the High Priest.”
Indeed, I have tried not to judge Ramose, though Pagosh believes it is Nefertiti’s plan for them to rule the Two Lands together, like two horses harnessed to the same chariot, she from the palace and Ramose from the temple. And he may be right. But tonight, with all those I love most in this world moving about among the fragrant flowers of my garden, their voices floating on the evening breeze, the river of happiness that flows through me by day overflowed its banks and inundated my heart.
DAY 2. SECOND MONTH OF PLANTING
Senmut arrived at the hour we had agreed upon the week before but without Mena, and by way of Khary’s dispensary rather than through the garden.
“Mena has been called to the palace,” he explained as we proceeded to my private place of work. My examining room and the dispensary no longer open into the place where I carry out my experiments, nor into the garden where Aset spends hours every day, reading or watching over her menagerie of animals.
“What is it this time?” I asked, since we have put our heads together more than once over the old Pharaoh’s failing health, hoping to give Horemheb time to consolidate his support among the Council of Wise Men.
“The old man outlives his teeth, even the few he has left. Putrid matter drains from his gums until the numbing salve no longer works, forcing him to ever bigger doses of mandrake. But even Mena cannot replace the water in a man’s clock when finally it runs dry. For some time now Horemheb handles not only the royal correspondence but in truth makes all of Pharaoh’s decisions.” I pulled up a stool for him at the writing table in my workroom, between the chests holding my supplies and tools, a shelf for potions, salves and other concoctions, and my collection of scrolls.
“But I bring other news,” he informed me. “A messenger arrived from Aniba bearing word that my
father has gone to Osiris. So I will go up the river with my brother, who takes my father’s place. I came to bid you farewell, Tenre, and to thank you for your generosity and wisdom.”
“You have my sympathy,” I replied, though his demeanor gave no indication that he grieved, “but I am the one who should thank you.”
“What for—allowing you to listen to my foolish questions?”
“For your astute observations and willingness to share them, even your stubbornness in arguing a point,” I replied, and was rewarded with a smile that, like Mena’s, is still quick and boyish. “Surely it will not be long until you can return.”
“With my father gone and the old ways with him, the time has come for me to serve my own people. Pharaoh’s Governor in Kush looks on Hiknefer with a fond eye because my brother was friend to Osiris Tutankhamen. So Huy is inclined to indulge his wishes, which means the time is ripe for me as well.”
“Ripe for what?” The heirs of Kemet’s vassals come to Pharaoh’s court to be educated, not only to assure their fathers’ allegiance but to train them for when their own time comes. But Senmut was not his father’s heir, and he traveled with Pharaoh’s army only to gain experience.
“To establish a new House of Life, one that I intend to make known from the highest reaches of Mother River to the Great Green Sea and beyond for the fresh breeze that blows through its open windows.” His eyes danced with enthusiasm. “A place where learned men gather to exchange ideas, whether it be how to treat the tired heart of an old man, the method used by a sculptor to shape a piece of stone, or how to increase the yield from our fields. Perhaps even you would consent to grace such a place with your wisdom.” I began to shake my head. “I do not ask for your answer now, Tenre, only that you remember. Whatever direction the winds blow in the years ahead, you will always have a place of honor in my house among men who question as you do, whether they be Hittite or Syrian, Canaanite or Babylonian, clean-shaven or—”
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