House of illusions, p.17
House of Illusions, page 17
Takhuru settled back on one elbow. I saw her lips open to briefly reveal the piece of dark cinnamon caught between her teeth. She gazed levelly at the bright scene before her, then she raised herself and adjusted the thin gold anklet above her foot, pulling the sheet up around her thighs as she did so. She leaned back again. Her movements were slow and lazy, fraught with a sensuous purpose, and I realized suddenly that she was taunting me in a way that owed nothing to her youth and inexperience.
“You are like the Goddess Hathor herself today,” I called to her quietly. She smiled.
“I know,” she said serenely.
We waited. The time seemed long, but at last the woman came striding into the open area around the pool. She was wearing the dress of the house, a calf-length sheath bordered in yellow and pulled in at the waist by a yellow belt. Yellow sandals were on her feet. Her hair was pinned on top of her head and tied with a yellow ribbon. Approaching Takhuru she bowed gracefully and then stood still. “You sent for me, Lady Takhuru,” she said. Takhuru sat up.
“You massaged me with such skill yesterday,” she announced, “and I am stiff with swimming today. Please do it again. You will find the scented oil there.” She pointed.
The woman bowed again and went to where the pot of oil rested. Wepwawet lay beside it, half-buried under a cushion. I saw the woman’s brown hand reach out, then pause. My breath hitched in my throat. Her hovering fingers began to shake, then with a strangely animal grunt she grabbed the statue with both hands and turned towards Takhuru. I could see her face plainly. Her eyes were wide, the blue of them rimmed entirely in white. She had gone very pale. Lifting my totem, she pressed him clumsily to her forehead and stood there swaying as though she was drunk. Her throat worked. Takhuru was watching her as keenly as I. When she did manage to speak, her voice was ragged.
“Lady Takhuru, Lady Takhuru,” she said. “Where did you get this?” She was now running uncertain hands over it as I had often done, feeling the smooth, gleaming lines of the god’s kilted body.
“A friend gave it to me,” Takhuru answered off-handedly. “It is well made, is it not? Wepwawet is the totem of your village, isn’t he? Why Thu, what is the matter?”
“I know this statue,” Thu said huskily. “My father carved it for me as a gift for my Naming Day long ago when I was still an apprentice in the house of the Seer.”
“Are you sure it is the same one?” Takhuru asked. “There are hundreds of likenesses of the god. He is after all the Opener of the Ways.” She touched Thu’s arm. “You may sit, Thu, before you collapse.” The woman sank onto the grass.
“I would know it blindfolded,” she said more calmly though her voice still trembled. “One touch would tell me that it is my father’s handiwork. Did I not see it beside my couch every day? Did I not pray before it? My Lady, I beg you to tell me which friend gave it to you.” She was leaning towards Takhuru, her face strained, her whole body tense. “The last time I saw it was when I passed it into the keeping of Amunnakht, ruler of the King’s harem, on the day I left Pi-Ramses to begin my exile. I beseeched him to see that whatever fate befell my little son, Wepwawet should go with him.” I saw the bewilderment on Takhuru’s face begin to give way to a dawning understanding. The woman pounded the earth with a clenched fist. “Do you see?” she cried out. “If I can talk to your friend, I might be able to find my son! Perhaps he still lives!” Takhuru stared at her, then her gaze swivelled to where I knelt. “Gods,” she whispered. “Oh gods. Kamen, it’s you.”
With great difficulty, as though weak from some long illness, I came to my feet and walked unsteadily out into the clearing. I was able to come right up to the woman before my legs gave way again and I sank before her. I looked full into her face. “That statue is mine,” I said, hearing my words coming from far, far away. “It was wrapped in the linen with me when I was delivered to the house of Men. I know that Pharaoh is my father. And you … You are indeed my mother.”
Part Two
KAHA
7
I WAS STILL A YOUNG MAN when I first came to this house and Kamen was but three years old, a solemn, intelligent child with even features and a desire to understand everything that was going on around him reflected in his straight gaze. I would have made a good teacher, for I always responded to such latent potential with an anxiety that it might not be allowed to develop, but in Kamen’s case I need not have worried. His father took great care over his schooling, and nurtured and disciplined him as lovingly as one could wish.
There was something about the boy that drew me. He was like a face one glimpses briefly, forgets, and then begins to see everywhere, not connected to memory or event. Sometimes his father would allow him into the office while he dictated his letters. Kamen would sit under the desk with his toys, playing quietly, occasionally glancing out at me as I wrote, for we were on the same level, and I often wanted to touch him—reaching not for his soft baby skin but the thing inside, unconnected to anything I knew, yet familiar, that tugged at my consciousness.
Men’s home was a happy and congenial place and Men himself a good master. I was an excellent scribe. I had been trained, in both literacy and disillusionment, in the great temple of Amun at Karnak, where I saw the worship of the god reduced to complex but hollow rituals conducted by priests who believed more in filling their coffers and demonstrating their self-importance than in the power of the deity or the needs of his petitioners. Nevertheless, the education I received was excellent, and when it was completed, I had my pick of noble households in which to ply my trade.
I also had a passion for the history of my country and chose to enter the employ of a man with similar interests. He was of the opinion, which I shared, that Ma’at was perverted in Egypt, that the past glory of our country, when the Gods who sat upon the Horus Throne maintained the necessary harmony between temple and government, had become tarnished. Our present Pharaoh lived under the thumb of priests who had forgotten that Egypt did not exist to fill their coffers and advance the aspirations of their sons. The delicate balance of Ma’at, the cosmic music that wove secular and sacred power to produce the sublime song that was Egypt’s great strength, had become weighted with corruption and greed, and Egypt now sang weakly and discordantly.
Pharaoh, in his younger days, had led the army in a series of mighty battles against the encroaching eastern tribes who wished to appropriate the lush grazing fields of the Delta, but his genius did not extend to the battles begging to be fought within his own borders. His father had struck a bargain with the priests in the days when the foreign usurper polluted the Horus Throne, and the priests had agreed to help Setnakht regain the throne in exchange for certain privileges. Our present Pharaoh has honoured that bargain down all the long years of his rule and the priests have grown fat and bloated while the army stagnates and the administration has fallen into the hands of those of foreign blood whose loyalty extends only as far as the gold that they are paid.
My first employer greatly desired to see Ma’at healed and restored. He hired only those people who shared his love for Egypt’s past and I, with my regard for history, was happy there. Besides, in my younger days I had a horror of routine and repetition and the thought of spending my days writing predictable letters for wealthy but unimaginative nobles was distasteful. I began my career as an Under Scribe to Ani, Chief Scribe of that odd household. I was then nineteen years old. For four years I lived in virtual seclusion in the home of that very strange, very private man, and I was content. He recognized and encouraged my ability to absorb, and regurgitate at will, any fact or figure, any historical event. Of course a good scribe must be able to remember his master’s words during dictation or discussion and give them back to him when asked, but my facility in these things was greater than most, and my employer saw this.
He gave me a task I loved and for which I was eminently well suited, the education of a virtually unlettered young girl he had chosen to perform a service for Egypt and Ma’at. I knew of that service. I approved of it. And an affection for the girl grew in me as we studied together. She was beautiful and full of a raw, quick intelligence. She learned rapidly and like me she had a love and a reverence for the sacred language given to us by Thoth, the God of all wisdom and writing, in the days of Egypt’s birth. I was sorry to see her leave the household and I missed her.
I myself left my employer when I began to fear that he and all those of his acquaintance were under the scrutiny of the palace. After all, the service the girl had been trained to perform was the murder of Pharaoh that would, we all hoped, result in the restoration of Ma’at. But Pharaoh had not died and the girl had been arrested and sentenced to death. That sentence, however, had been commuted to exile for no reason we could ascertain, and that worried me. My employer presumed that it was because Pharaoh had been so enamoured of the girl that no matter what her culpability he could not bear to snuff out her life, but I was not so sure. For all his faults, Ramses the Third was not a man to be swayed by emotion alone. It was more likely that the girl had imparted to the king some piece of information insufficient to bring us all to justice but enough to arouse the kind of suspicion that would result in a royal watchfulness. My employer did not agree. Nevertheless he understood my reason for going and gave me a superb reference. He also understood that although I was no longer under his admittedly comfortable roof, I had no intention of betraying him or the other confederates.
That was seventeen years ago. I had applied at the house of Men after having spent two unsatisfactory years on various other estates and seeing the restlessness within myself dwindle as I matured. I had kept faith with my first employer and worked honestly for the others. I had almost married the daughter of one of my employer’s Stewards. And I had almost managed to forget my part in the plot to assassinate the King.
Men’s house became my home. His servants were my friends, his family like my own. I watched Kamen grow into a steady, capable young man with an inner stubbornness that sometimes set him against the will of his father. When he chose to enter the army, there were harsh words, but Kamen prevailed. I never quite lost that feeling of having known him before and it made him easy to love. When he became betrothed, I knew it was only a matter of time before he built a household of his own and I thought that perhaps I would request a place with him as his scribe. In the meantime my loyalty went to his father.
So I did not harbour my anger at him for long. He had laid violent hands on me, but I had known he would not hurt me. He himself was frustrated and angry. For some time he had been preoccupied, absent in thought. He had taken to drinking excessively, roaming the house at night, and crying out in his sleep. I had heard him from my room at the other end of the passage. I wondered if he was in trouble, but it was not my place to ask him. His act in the office seemed to me merely the culmination of weeks of distress, and when he told me about the scroll he sought, I began to understand. We all knew that he was an adopted child, and like him we had not questioned his roots. Why should we? Why should he? He was adored by his mother and sisters, loved by his father, and respected by us servants who had seen him grow. His life had been rich, charmed, but now everything had changed.
After he had stormed out of the office, Pa-Bast had summoned one of the house servants, and under my direction she set the office to rights. As I was telling her what went where I was thinking deeply. Kamen had said that he would confess all to his father when he returned. For myself I had no fear of Men. He was a just man. But it was obvious to me that Kamen did not really want his father to know what he had done, otherwise he would not have waited until Men was away to get into the boxes of scrolls. I fully appreciated the young man’s growing need to at least find out from whence he had sprung. I suppose that a good son would have obeyed his father’s injunction to leave the matter alone, but my sympathies were with Kamen. Surely Men was being unreasonable. Was there harm in Kamen’s desire?
When the office was tidy once more and the door closed and bolted, I went in search of Pa-Bast. I found him in the kitchens behind the house, in conversation with the cook who had little to do while the family was away. When he had finished with the man, I drew him outside. “I have been thinking about the uproar earlier,” I said. “It was really no more than a puff of desert wind, soon dissipated. Kamen is troubled. I don’t want to increase his anxiety by adding his father’s displeasure to his own private worries. Let us keep what happened to ourselves, Pa-Bast. The office is clean. If I approach Kamen for the scroll he took, and replace it tomorrow, can we agree to forget the whole matter?” Pa-Bast smiled.
“Why not?” he replied. “It is the first time Kamen has caused such a stir, and as you say, no permanent harm has been done. I do not relish yet another tempest when Men returns and learns that his son had a fit of madness and tried to wreck his office. Whatever is gnawing at Kamen is not something frivolous. We both know him well.”
“It has something to do with his origins,” I said. “Men is being foolish in trying to keep the information from him. Once satisfied, Kamen would be at peace and the whole thing would recede into his past, become no more than a symptom of his growing. Do you know who his birthing parents were, Pa-Bast?” The Steward shook his head.
“No, and I do not remember the scroll Kamen snatched from the chest. He came with that statue of Wepwawet entwined in the linen that wound him. The scroll must have passed from messenger to Men without my knowledge. And you are right. Men is behaving stupidly in letting a dune become a mountain.”
“Then we are agreed?”
“Yes.”
I did not feel disloyal towards my employer; indeed, I did not want to see a rift grow between father and son. Though they loved and respected one another, they were not much alike. I would speak to Kamen when he returned, replace the scroll, and that would be the end of it.
But Kamen did not return that day. I swam, ate a light meal, and wrote a letter to the papyrus makers requesting more sheets and a quantity of ink to be delivered. Evening faded into night, and still he did not come home. The next morning I rose and went at once to his room but Setau met me in the passage and told me that Kamen was not there. He had not slept in the house. I thought little of it. Kamen’s vices were the relatively harmless indulgences of youth and I presumed that he had spent the night carousing with his friends and was sleeping off the beer at someone else’s home. He still had a day to himself after fulfilling his latest military assignment and I did not concern myself overmuch with his absence.
Scrolls for my attention were delivered mid-morning and for some hours I was busy in the office, then I ate with Pa-Bast, napped for an hour, and took my regular afternoon swim in the Lake. Kamen had still not appeared by sunset, and that night his couch remained empty.
Two hours after sunrise I was crossing the entrance hall when a soldier came towards me. I halted while he came up and saluted. “The General Paiis has sent me to enquire into the whereabouts of the captain of his household guard,” he said without preamble. “Officer Kamen did not return to duty this morning. If he is ill, the General should have been notified.”
I thought quickly. The man’s words released a flood of anxiety in me and my first impulse was to protect Kamen. He was far from irresponsible. No matter what wildness might entice him he would not simply neglect to show himself to take his watch at the appointed time, much less leave the soldiers under his command to fend for themselves. Could I concoct a plausible lie? Say that there was sickness in the Fayum and his father had sent for him urgently? But what if Kamen was even now walking through the General’s gate, having overslept somewhere? No. His gear was still laid out on his couch where Setau had placed it. Then where was he? With Takhuru? For two nights? Nesiamun would never allow it. Had he fallen drunk into the river and been drowned? A possibility. Been set upon in the city and robbed and beaten? Another possibility but remote. I began to be afraid. Somehow I knew that he had not overslept, that he would not come home, that something terrible was happening and that I must lie for him.
“Tell the General that his father sent for him from the Fayum late last night,” I said. “It was a family matter of the greatest need and he set out at once. Did the General not receive his message?”
“No. When will he return?”
“I don’t know. But as soon as I have news I will pass it on to the General.” The man swung on his heel and padded away and I turned to find Pa-Bast standing behind me.
“This has become a serious matter,” he said to me in a low voice. “I wonder what we should do. I will send Setau to Akhebset’s house to make enquiries there, and also to Nesiamun’s Steward to ask if Kamen has been with the Lady Takhuru, but if we cannot run him to ground, then Men will have to be notified. I pray that Kamen is safe. I am reluctant to alert the city police and so make his disappearance public.” I nodded. It has something to do with that scroll, I thought to myself, but I did not say so aloud.
“Send Setau out,” I said. “There is nothing else we can do at the moment. If he comes back without news, we will talk again.”
I had little to do that morning. I took a few scrolls to read into the garden and settled myself within view of the entrance, and when I saw Setau leave, I went back into the house. Kamen’s door was open. The passage behind me was empty. Quickly I stepped to his chest, and opening it I saw the scroll lying on a pile of fresh linen, where Setau had undoubtedly put it when he tidied the room. Taking it, I closed the lid of the chest and made my way back outside.
Of course I had intended to tell Kamen what Pa-Bast and I had decided, and ask for the scroll to be returned, but Kamen was the gods knew where, and Men and the women would be coming home soon. If I had been a scribe who always observed the letter of the law, I would have taken the thing to the office and restored it to Men’s private box, and indeed my conscience smote me once, but very mildly, as I unrolled it. I was worried about Kamen. I wanted to help him if I could, and the contents of the scroll might point me towards some useful direction.
