Seer of Egypt (53 page)

Huy saw a flash of purely adult speculation flit across the child’s strong features. “When I am King,” Amunhotep whispered again, his mouth barely moving. Then, in an abrupt and entirely youthful change of mood, his arms went around Anhur’s naked leg. “If my father goes to war, don’t go with him,” he said loudly.

Mutemwia reached for his arm and gently pulled him away. “I shall continue to write to you, Seer,” she told him. “I thank you for your hospitality.”

Huy bowed. “I look forward to reading your letters,” he replied. “May the soles of your feet be firm, Highness.”

At once Wesersatet and her guard moved forward; turning, she preceded them along the ramp and onto the deck. The ramp was run in. Huy could see the helmsman begin to manipulate the giant steering oar as her barge and then the others backed slowly away from the watersteps.

“The flood is still rising and there’s a current,” Thothhotep remarked. “She puts great faith in her sailors.”

“You may be sure that her husband provided her with his best,” Huy said, his eyes on the little fleet now forming a string of vessels on the distorted and murky surface of what had been the river. “I wonder what went through his mind when she requested them for a visit to me. Did he fear a Seeing? But she will be clever, Thothhotep. She will either convince him that no Seeing was ultimately necessary or she will concoct an innocuous vision to tell him about. I have not known such a resolute woman since—”

“Since Ishat,” his scribe put in. He swung to her, but she was smiling. “The Princess is indeed remarkable. It’s a pity that she’s not Chief Wife.”

Huy sighed. “She doesn’t need to be. She has complete faith in my vision. She sees her future in far more powerful terms than as a secondary wife. She believes that she will be Regent in Egypt.”

“And you?” The voice was Anhur’s. “What do you believe, Huy?”

The barges had disappeared. Huy turned his back on the turgid water. “I believe that Atum wills the vindication of Ma’at,” he said heavily. “Further than that I will not go.” Neither of his companions commented. For a while the three of them loitered on the path to the house while Anhur’s soldiers, their duty as an honour guard over, strode briskly past. Huy was aware that a pall had settled over him. “The house will seem empty for a while. I will miss the Prince’s laughter and the sight of the Princess wafting through my passages at night with her sleeping robe afloat.”

“There are no letters for you in the office,” Thothhotep said regretfully, “and we do not go into Hut-herib today. What will you do, Master?”

“Escape from all the cleaning and refurbishing going on in the house, and sit in the shade of the garden,” he replied gloomily. “I suppose you and Anhur will amuse each other.” For answer they bowed, linked arms, and strolled away, their heads together.
Years ago I was trapped by a King’s generous gratitude,
he thought, squinting after them,
and that generosity made me weak in the presence of his son. Now I am facing yet another cage, the bars forged of a growing affection and a sense of new obligation instead of gold. If my vision for our absent Prince spoke true. If Thothmes has a mere nine years to reign. I find myself desperately wishing that it lied, that for once I was a mouse in Anubis’s mocking claws, that the Prince is busy raising an army in Mitanni to wrest the throne from his usurping brother and I will be left to continue the work of the god among my own kind.
He recognized that these thoughts arose from a temporary sense of aimlessness now that his guests had gone, but he could not rid himself of them, and in the end he took a cushion out onto his roof and lay down in the shadow of one of the wind catchers. He did not sleep.

At the beginning of Tybi, Thothmes was crowned, becoming King Thothmes the Fourth. His Horus name, Ka-nakht-tut-Khau, meant Mighty Bull in His Risings Like the Form of the Sun. Other titles included Perfect of Diadems, Enduring of Kingship Like Atum, and Powerful of the Scimitar Who Subdues the Nine Bows, the traditional enemies of Egypt. The throne name he took was Menkheperura, “Everlasting are the Manifestations of Ra,” a detail that Huy, listening to Thothhotep read to him the account of the ceremony Ishat had written, did not miss. “The Aten is one of the manifestations of Ra,” he said when Thothhotep had finished. “There is no mention of Amun anywhere in his titles, and of course his name only means Son of Thoth. I wonder what changes we shall see in the administration.”

He had not been invited to the crowning ceremony and was not sorry. Mutemwia had sent him a hurried letter to tell him that Thothmes, busy and distracted with the endless matters of precedence and protocol a coronation demanded, had simply welcomed her back and asked no questions. All Egypt’s governors, mayors, and other officials had crowded into the temple to see the Double Crown set on Thothmes’ twenty-year-old head. Heby was among them, and in the second week of Tybi, Huy received a scroll from him.

“It’s true,” Huy admitted to Thothhotep as she placed Heby’s thick scroll on the table and poured herself water from the jug at Huy’s elbow. “I’m reluctant to leave the estate. I don’t dictate letters to Heby, yet I love him very much. I send Merenra to my parents with little gifts so that I don’t have to go to them myself. It’s as though I’ll attract the King’s attention if I stir from here.”

Thothhotep did not laugh. Slaking her thirst, she replaced the cup on the desk and pulled a stool near to Huy. “The King has already turned his attention to you, Master, if only briefly,” she reminded him as she sank onto the stool. “He must have instructed Royal Treasurer Sobekhotep to continue the grant of gold that his father began. Merenra told me yesterday that the regular amount due at the start of the spring months had arrived.”

Huy did not know whether to feel glad or threatened by the news. “Will he go to war, I wonder? All the signs point to a rapid advance on Rethennu. Will he take the army further? Is Prince Amunhotep safe from him in Mitanni? Or does Thothmes feel so secure now that the Double Crown is on his head that he will leave his older brother alone?” Bemused, he ran a hand through his unbound hair. Heby’s letter had arrived very early in the day and as yet Huy had not been to the bathhouse.

“The question you really want answered is, will the King require a Seeing from you as he passes the town?” Thothhotep pointed out. “He doubtless remembers his father’s victories that you foretold. But he won’t stop here and send for you, will he?”

Huy met his scribe’s steady gaze. “No, he won’t. He will never offer me his hand. He’s afraid that if he does, I’ll know the truth of his dream for certain. He might send one of his generals, though, or even Wesersatet. Would that be safe for him?” Thothhotep did not respond. Her hand went to her palette, and Huy shook his head. “No, I won’t dictate an answer to Heby today. Seshemnefer arrived last night. He wants to discuss with me what crops to sow on the arouras at Ta-she and those I own west of Hut-herib, and Anab is already nagging me about our garden here.” He got up.

“Huy, why don’t you go with Seshemnefer when he returns to Ta-she?” Thothhotep said. “The Rekhet left you a beautiful house on the edge of the lake, and the surroundings will be bursting with fresh green growth. You need a rest.”

“Perhaps I do,” Huy admitted, “but I have no desire to be anywhere near the palace at Mi-wer, to be accessible to the nobles and officials stationed there, even if Thothmes does go east.” He placed both palms flat on the surface of the desk and leaned over them. “I want the next nine years to pass quickly,” he said harshly. “I want to bury myself here until our new King dies. I feel the pain of Ma’at’s wounding, Thothhotep. I have seen it. Let Thothmes stand in the Judgment Hall like every ordinary citizen so that whoever inherits the Horus Throne will begin to heal her! I suppose that I am speaking treason,” he went on more quietly. “So be it. File Heby’s letter. I’m going to the bathhouse with Tetiankh.”

By the second week of Tybi, the flood water had drained into the soil and back into the confines of the river’s banks. The peasants could be seen standing in the naked, silt-clogged fields. The maze of canals used to feed water to the coming crops had been sealed against any outflow as over the coming months the level of the river would gradually begin to drop. Rumours of a projected military campaign were at last confirmed. His Majesty would take his troops east at the beginning of the following month, Mekhir. But by then Huy no longer cared whether or not Thothmes went to war. On the twenty-eighth day of Tybi a letter from Amunnefer arrived. Huy, enjoying the cool breeze, was in the garden talking to Anab over baskets of bedding plants when Thothhotep brought him the scroll. Seeing Amunnefer’s seal impression in the wax, Huy handed it back to her. “It will be his estimates for the cost of tending the poppy arouras this year,” he said. “Make a note of them yourself, Thothhotep, and file them. You can give me the amount of gold later.”

She had taken the scroll and gone away and Huy had dismissed it from his mind, but almost immediately Amunmose came hurrying over the grass, his expression solemn. “Master, you are needed in the office,” he told Huy. “Thothhotep asks that you join her at once.” An intimation of what was to come brushed Huy, the merest feather touch of dread. He wanted to go on standing in the sunlight with his kilt moving gently against his thighs and the fresh green smell of the new plants over which Anab was bending in his nostrils. Amunmose was walking back to the house, and after a moment Huy followed him reluctantly.
It will not be about disease in the opium or trouble among the peasants,
he knew instinctively.
This is something much worse.

Thothhotep was standing in the middle of the office floor with the scroll in both hands, a stricken look on her face.
You have broken the discipline of a good scribe, Thothhotep,
Huy thought as he rounded the doorway.
You have shown your master a reaction to the contents of a letter before being asked to give one.
He halted, too tense to go to his chair. “Read it to me,” he said.

She swallowed. “Master, I—”

“Read it!”

She fumbled to unroll the scroll, her throat working again, her tongue moving briefly over dry lips. “There is no greeting,” she began, her voice uneven. She cleared her throat, shot him an agonized glance, and went on: