Seer of Egypt (6 page)

“It’s a special gift from the King,” Ishat explained. “His Majesty shot it himself, with one arrow from the bow no one else is strong enough to draw. Or so it’s said.”

A ray of the Aten became this lion, the embodiment of Amun,
Huy thought uneasily,
and the King killed it. Every pharaoh delights in hunting lions. Then why do I have a sense of foreboding when I look at this one?

“How do your house servants clean it?” the ever-practical Hapzefa wanted to know. “It can’t be scrubbed with natron. I suppose all they can do is take it outside and hang it up and beat it.”

Beat it.
Huy suppressed an inward shiver and left the room.

A narrow stair at the end of the hall led the group directly down into the bathhouse. Here the air was humid and smelled sweet. Itu drew it into her lungs. “You have many kinds of perfumed oils here,” she said to Huy, “and I can detect the odour of lilies.”

“I keep ben oil spiked with essence of lilies just for you, Mother,” Huy told her. “Whenever I inhale it, I think of you bending over my cot to kiss me good night when I was a child. Perhaps you will spend a night or two here with Ishat and me and enjoy the pampering our staff can give. You deserve it. Now we will step out into the garden.”

Itu brightened. She was an avid gardener, growing all the vegetables her family ate in tiny terraces around the pool in her own yard. Huy, in his youth, had often flattened the lettuce and cabbages by lying on them so that he could watch the activity in the pond.

“So much land to water!” Itu said. “It’s hard enough to haul buckets from the field canals just beyond the acacia bushes at home!”

“Our gardener, Seshemnefer, now has an assistant,” Ishat told her. “He spends most of his time bringing water from the river. Seshemnefer has had to clear the garden of tares and wildflowers and is almost ready to order the seeds and cuttings for planting when the next Inundation recedes. Then we shall have our own produce. He will dig a short canal from the river, right past the house itself and into the rear compound here, that the flood will fill. I want date palms planted along it to hide it from the house. A naked canal looks so, well, naked, don’t you think?”

They had all begun to sweat under the full glare of the summer sun. Apart from the two soldiers standing stolidly to either side of the gate that led almost immediately to the watersteps, the staff had retreated to their cots for the afternoon sleep. Huy felt the first intimations of a headache begin behind his eyes. “Let’s go back to the reception hall, where it’s cooler,” he said. “If anyone would like to lie down, the linen on the couches is clean. Mother?”

Itu shook her head. “Ishat is going to show me her new jewels and sheaths. Huy, there’s no sign of Heby. Do you think he’s safe?”

“Perfectly safe.”

Once inside, the group broke up, Ishat, Itu, and Hapzefa disappearing upstairs and Huy and Hapu settling themselves in Huy’s office. “I can fetch you barley beer, Father,” Huy offered. “Merenra and his underling are resting. For myself, I would like to drink something other than wine or water. How hot it is!”

Hapu nodded, running his hands over the gleaming surface of Huy’s desk, which held little more than a large lamp, Ishat’s palette, and a box of fresh papyrus scrolls. “Beer would be wonderful, Huy.” He leaned back and folded his arms. “So all this wealth exists on the whim of the King,” he said slowly. “Have you considered that, my son? What if you displease him? Will he take it all away?”

Huy, who had already reached the door, paused and glanced back. “Yes, I have, and it troubles me sometimes. Let me fetch the beer.”

As he went out again into the white heat and walked quickly towards the kitchen, where Khnit brewed the beer and kept it in large flagons, he marvelled at his father’s shrewd discernment.
But it shouldn’t surprise me,
he told himself as he hefted a flagon, poured the brown liquid into a jug, and grabbed up two cups.
After all, we are peasants, he and I, and peasants always know the value of everything they own or grow or must grudgingly buy. We are good bargainers, and we make sure that we never give, or take, something for nothing. The King supports me in exchange for the service of my gifts—but is it enough? Will he demand more from me in the future? Ask something of me that I cannot grant?

Re-entering the coolness of the office, he set his burden down, poured the beer, and, setting one cup before Hapu, went around the desk and sank into his own chair behind it. Both men drank greedily.

“I don’t know how I might displease His Majesty,” Huy said. “He asks little of me. I welcome the courtiers he sends for healing or scrying. I treat as many of Hut-herib’s townspeople as I’m able. So far he has not sent me a complaint.”

Hapu raised his thick eyebrows. Setting his cup deliberately back on the desk, he lifted the hem of his kilt, wiped his mouth, and stared pensively across at Huy. “What if he demanded some service from you that you could not fulfill? Or did not want to fulfill? I’m not talking about breaking a law of the country. Maybe a law of Ma’at? And because you denied him, he snapped his fingers and all this”—he jerked a thumb behind him in the direction of the reception hall—“all this disappeared. Kings can be fickle, Huy. Even the Incarnation of Amun on earth can forget about mercy and justice if it suits him. Are we not in the end his cattle, particularly we peasants, on whose backs rests the welfare of those who govern us?”

He must not depart from the balance of Ma’at … Already he is tempted to do so …
Huy stirred as the words he had remembered mere days before came drifting back into his mind, together with the same thought his perspicacious father had just voiced.

“I cannot imagine what task the King might set me that I could not perform,” he answered huskily.

Hapu rapped the desk. “The higher they are, the farther they can fall,” he retorted, “and you are already very high in this land. There are few who do not know your name, Great Seer!” He straightened and placed both brown forearms on the table. “You are really no better off than I. I depend on Ker for my livelihood. If I am injured and cannot work his flower fields, I fall. You depend on Amunhotep. If you antagonize him, you and Ishat also would find yourselves back in some hovel in the slums of the town.”

“Well, what do you expect me to do?” Huy’s rising anxiety was making him irritable. He felt as though this man his father, with his dusty greying hair, his sun-scarred skin, his splayed, rough hands, was intruding on a matter that he could not possibly understand. Yet Huy’s intellect knew the truth: he
was
vulnerable, and Hapu had put his finger on his weakness with a stark accuracy.

Hapu drained his cup and, half rising, reached for the jug and refilled it. “It’s simple,” he said, regaining his seat. “Take some of the King’s gold and invest it. Buy good arable land as it becomes available and have it cropped. I can help you there—I know the state of every farm between Hut-herib and Mennofer. Get that steward of yours to study the trade routes in and out of Egypt, what’s being moved, what’s profitable. Buy into a caravan, or, better still, equip one yourself. Take advantage of your good fortune while it lasts, Huy! Don’t let it make you lazy and indolent! Have you considered the oases? The rich keep summer homes by the lakes, and a lot of the arouras around them are owned by the temples, but the soil is incredibly fertile if you can get your hands on any of it.”

Huy stared at him. None of his father’s suggestions had occurred to him, but they all made sense. “His Majesty would know,” he objected.

Hapu shrugged. “He would probably applaud your wisdom, and besides, the less gold he has to send you, the more stays in the Royal Treasury. Talk to Ishat. She’s a sensible young woman, for all her frivolous fussing over baubles. You should marry her, Huy. It’s obvious that you love her. What are you waiting for? She’s always adored you. And for Amun’s sake, get your hair cut! You look like an aristocratic courtesan.”

So Mother decided to keep her counsel regarding my enforced impotence,
Huy thought.
She didn’t even tell her husband.

He forced a laugh and rose. “I’m so glad you came today. I think this visit has brought us closer, Father, cleared away the cloud between us. Will you forgive me the grudge I have held against you for so long?”

Hapu also got up and, coming around the desk, pressed Huy to his chest. “If you can forgive me my cowardice,” he replied, his voice suddenly shaking. “I have punished myself for it every day. Your mother was braver than I in those days.”

“Then let’s go and sit in the shade of the portico and play a game of Dogs and Jackals while Merenra prepares the hall for the evening meal.” Huy held him away and they smiled at each other. “He’s awake. I hear his tread in the passage.”

Hapu nodded. Huy took the box containing the gaming pieces from a shelf, and together they went along the passage, across the reception room, and out to the front of the house, where the shadows were already beginning to lengthen.

At sunset, they all gathered to eat the feast Khnit had prepared, and there was much talk and laughter as Merenra’s assistant went about lighting the lamps on their tall stands and the corners of the pleasant room sprang into sight. “All we need now are enough servants to stand behind each of us with fans waving,” Ishat said. “Even the few drafts moving through the room are hot. Oh, look, Huy! Merenra has somehow managed to find white water lilies and cornflowers for our tables! We simply must find someone who can make garlands. It’s polite to drape guests in necklets of fresh flowers.”

At once she bit her lip and cast an anxious glance in Huy’s direction. Huy knew what she was thinking. Thothmes’ sister Anuket was a skilled weaver of wreaths and festive garlands. Thoughts of her still filled his heart with longing and pain, and Ishat must be inwardly cursing herself for bringing her into his mind.

“If we keep adding to our household, we shall have to build more servants’ quarters and then Seshemnefer will have no room left for a garden,” Huy said lightly.

Ishat’s brow cleared. At that moment Heby came running into the hall, leaving a smattering of water droplets behind him.

“Am I late for the meal?” he panted. “Anhur took me swimming and we forgot to watch the passage of Ra. I’m sorry. At least I hung my kilt on a tree so it wouldn’t get muddy.”

Anhur had caught up to him. “They don’t seem to offer swimming lessons at Heby’s school. I gave him a lesson. He’s a fast learner.” He crossed his legs and sank calmly behind his little table, picking up the flowers lying on it and depositing them carefully on the tiles beside him.

“The river is very low, Anhur,” Huy said. “At this time of the year the shallows can be full of noxious things.”

Anhur nodded. “Don’t worry. I carried him out to where the current still flows, and when we had finished splashing about, I carried him back.”

“Anhur threw me in,” Heby exclaimed. “I lost my breath, but I didn’t panic. I can swim six strokes now without sinking!”

Merenra and his assistant were approaching with laden trays.

“It’s a good thing that we live far from the river. You must promise to stay out of the canals and swim only when you visit your brother,” Hapu told him. “Now go to the bathhouse and wash your face and hands with natron. You have pondweed in your hair and you smell rank.”

They dined on lentil soup and poppyseed bread, grilled goose in a garlic sauce, broad beans made fragrant with coriander, boiled cabbage sprinkled with cumin (a universal favourite), and sweet sycamore figs drowned in honey, all of it washed down with barley beer and date wine. By the time Merenra had cleared away the last empty dish, full night had fallen and the gusts of air reaching their flushed faces were cooler. Heby fell asleep sprawled across the cushions, his head in Itu’s crumpled lap.

Hapu leaned back unsteadily on his elbows. “Do you eat like this every evening, Huy?” he asked, a note of humour in his voice. “If you do, you will both be as fat as a couple of Delta cows before long!” His speech was slurred, his eyes slightly glazed.

“My father, you are drunk.” Huy smiled. “Good. Then Ishat and I have done our duty by you. Most of the time we eat simply, but if we have important guests, Khnit girds up her linen and produces a feast. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“I look forward to more fresh fruits and vegetables when they come into season,” Ishat put in. “Kuku and pomegranates and grapes and those little brown plums. Melons and juicy cucumbers.” She yawned. “I thank the gods that we are not working tomorrow, Huy. I shall sleep the morning away.”

Her words gave Huy an immediate vision of her, barefoot and dressed in her one thick, patched sheath, slipping out the doorway of their tiny dwelling in the poorer district of Hut-herib at dawn to beg the day before’s bread and a jug of milk from the owner of the beer house next door, whose wall they shared. That was before Huy’s name had begun to be whispered among the sick and needy of the town, when all they had came from Methen and the temple’s kitchen.

“You can sleep for a week if you want to, dearest sister,” he replied through the sudden lump in his throat. He turned to Hapu. “Father, will you stay the night?”

Owlishly, the man shook his head. “Tomorrow I must rise early. The fields are lying fallow, of course, but there are essences to be distilled and a shipment of dried myrrh flowers from Wawat to be collected from the docks.” He sighed. “Well, at least I am more fortunate than the workers who chop straw for the bricks all day long. Ker looks after Heby’s welfare and often gives us things we ourselves could not afford.” He gave Huy a lopsided grin and, rolling onto his knees, managed to stand. “This has been a wonderful day, but we must go.”

At once Merenra, who had been waiting in the shadows, stepped forward, a lamp in his hand. Hapu lifted Heby into his arms and Huy helped his mother to her feet. Hapzefa was already giving her linen brisk slaps to straighten its folds.

Huy nodded to Merenra. “Have your assistant rouse the litter-bearers. They can travel on the barge and then carry my family to their door.” He embraced Hapu over Heby’s limp body. “I’ll remember your advice,” he promised, “and when I need more of it, I’ll ask. Thank you, Father.”