The Twice Born (32 page)

At last, when he was about to turn back in despair, he came to the one detached mud-brick house in the centre of a row of grey dwellings, but this one had a waist-high mud wall in front of it and was hung with cowrie shells. Tired and dirty, he pushed through the gate and approached the doorless porch. At once a man appeared, eyeing him watchfully although his words were polite. “Greetings. This is the house of the Rekhet. I am her steward. May I ask, what is your business with her?” Huy gave his name and was invited to take the stool the man had obviously just vacated. He could have sat there in the coolness for much longer than he did, but soon the man returned, this time gracing him with a deep bow. “My mistress is in her garden. She is eager to see you. Please follow me.”

Huy was led around the small building into an unexpectedly large, high-walled area of shade trees and grass. There was even a pool, its surface thick with lily pads. After the stark aridity through which he had passed, the sight of so much greenness was like a draft of cold water. Some of his fatigue left him as he walked towards the woman who was straightening as he came up to her. She was dressed in coarse peasant linen. Her feet were bare and both hands covered in wet soil. Smiling, she answered Huy’s obeisance.

“You look almost as disreputable as I do!” she chuckled. “Did you walk all the way from the temple? Ramose should have provided you with a litter. Isis!” At her call a woman came out of the house and stood waiting. “Bring us hot water and beer! And cushions! Come under the shade,” she went on, drawing Huy towards the cluster of sycamores. “I have been weeding the few vegetables I grow around the pool. My poor steward goes to the river every few days and hires men to keep the water level high. A foolishness, I think, but cultivating cabbage and leeks is a fine antidote to the strain of my work.” Seeing Huy’s bewilderment, she laughed again. “I have an estate on the lake at Mi-wer. I have cattle at the oasis, and a grape arbour, and a huge vegetable garden. Food and wine is brought to me regularly while I am in the city. I am not poor, Huy. I live here where the common people can come to my door without fear to be freed of their demons, and when I need to rest I go home to Ta-she. Ah! Here is the beer and the cushions. Heating the water will take longer.” The servant set the cushions and a tray on the ground, poured two cups, and went away. Henenu waved Huy to the grass and lowered herself beside him with a groan. “My joints are becoming stiff. I think soon I will send for my masseuse. It’s good to see you, Huy. Tell me how you are faring.”

Huy began to talk of the mundane life of the school. He had forgotten how her eyes in their nest of deep wrinkles could fix on him with a disconcerting intensity, and he was momentarily shy. But the water arrived, hot and scented with jasmine, and by the time they had washed their hands and she had emptied the bowl over his dusty feet he had regained his confidence. His thirst slaked, he spoke of the Book, reciting faultlessly what he had read in it, telling her of his dream and the subsequent revelation, and when he passed to his passion for Anuket he did so without faltering.

Henenu placed a gnarled hand briefly on his knee. “Ramose may be wrong. There is much about you that cannot easily be put into the box labelled Young Man. You may love Anuket for the rest of your life.”

“Oh, I hope not!” Huy cried in dismay. “To love her for the rest of my life would put me in a perpetual prison. She will marry a nobleman. Nakht will see to it.”

“Perhaps.” Henenu pursed her lips thoughtfully. “And that may be a good thing. Otherwise you will be torn between your duty to the gods and the desires of your heart and body, and will do full justice to neither.”

Huy had not considered this. “So I may find myself in a place where no choice is possible,” he said angrily. “Well, at least apart from the Book the gods have left me alone. I wrestle with my friends, I inadvertently brush against a dozen people a day, yet the gift of Seeing remains quiet.”

“Make the most of that peace,” Henenu replied. “It will not last. You are not of much use to them yet, being confined in school. Do you know when you will be going south to Khmun to read the second part of the Book?”

Huy had been resolutely disregarding this necessity. His world so far had been Hut-herib, Iunu, and the stretch of river in between, and he admitted to himself that he was afraid to venture beyond what was familiar. He shook his head. “No, and I’m in no hurry to see Khmun.” He hesitated. “Rekhet, I have a question that the High Priest could not or would not answer.” Her grey eyebrows rose. “I learned that a Seer loses the gift of Sight if he or she loses his or her virginity.” The words were clumsily put together and he bit his lip. “Is it true?”

“For some it has been true. For others, the fortunate ones, not. Ramose does not know. Do you wish to take this chance?”

“If I could have Anuket, I would take the chance,” Huy said vehemently. “It is a serious matter, to defy the gods, but I would do it if it meant a life spent in her arms!”

“And then what?” The Rekhet leaned forward. “An eternity in the Duat? How do you imagine the gods would repay such perfidy? You cannot interfere with destiny and expect no retribution.” Her tone softened. “In any case, you need not concern yourself with such things yet. Put your energy into archery and chariotry and increasing your writing skills. We will talk of this matter again.” She shouted once more for Isis. “Now we will eat, and sleep for a while here in the shade. You are wearing your amulets, I see. Good. I am very aware of the aura of their protection all around you, Huy. The Khatyu hover outside it, but their malevolent craving to destroy you is being continuously turned aside. They are impotent.”

The meal they shared was simple, cabbage soup, bread, and goat’s cheese, and afterwards they both drowsed on the warm grass.

The sun was already sinking, turning the dust to red and casting long shadows over the streets, as Huy took his leave of Henenu and set off for the temple. The fruit and vegetable sellers were dismantling their stalls in the markets through which he passed. Laden donkeys choked the narrow lanes, and feeble lamplight already flickered in the depths of some of the beer shops. The brothels were not yet busy. Whores leaned apathetically against their walls, eyeing the passersby without interest, their elaborately curled wigs and thickly kohled eyes exotically parodying the appearance of young aristocrats. They would not begin to harass the men walking past them until full darkness fell, and although Huy saw their heads turning to follow his progress they remained silent.

One of them, however, briefly caught his attention. She was sitting on a stool, the folds of her yellow sheath draped about her calves, her chin resting in the palm of one hand. She seemed to be sunk in some distant thought, and did not look up as Huy strode by. There was something of Anuket’s daintiness about her, and it suddenly occurred to Huy that he might take a chance on deliberately destroying his Seeing gift by turning back and engaging her services. Then, with luck, he would be of no further use to the gods. He need not worry about the Book of Thoth, or what strange destiny awaited him. He would be free to submerge himself in the blessed anonymity of the crowd, work as a scribe, marry and raise a family, untroubled by dreams or premonitions. With luck.

He came to a halt and swung about, and the little whore took her chin out of her palm, stared at him, and rose. He took one step towards her, and as he did so she slid the band of her sheath off one shoulder, revealing an unexpectedly heavy breast, and began to smile shrewdly. The invitation was so blatant, so earthy, that a thrill of both disgust and attraction ran though Huy. It was not hard to imagine Anuket standing there in the guise of the goddess of lust after whom she had been named, her air of shy fastidiousness transformed into the artificial coyness of seduction. The young woman lifted her breast. Her smile widened, and Huy’s disgust won out. He walked briskly away.

On the ninth day of Paophi, his thirteenth Naming Day was marked by letters of congratulation from his parents and his aunt and uncle and by his own prostrations of gratitude before the sanctuary doors of the temple and his own statue of Khenti-kheti. He did not make an offering. With mild resentment, he decided that he did not want to thank the gods for burdening him with the weight of his uniqueness. His continued health he took for granted.

Once he had finished reading the three scrolls that made up the first part of the Book, he reread them several times, until beneath the sonorous words rolling through his mind whenever he called them up, he began to detect their incompleteness. Then he knew, with a sinking heart, that it was time for him to begin work on the second part. For several days he hesitated, both afraid and unwilling to see his safe routine of school work and exercise taken away from him, but at last he could delay no longer. On a stiflingly hot evening towards the end of his birth month he knocked on the High Priest’s door.

Ramose was at his desk, but his chair had been pushed back and his face was raised to the intermittent gusts of wind funnelling into the room from the wind catcher on the roof. He remained seated as Huy approached him and bowed. “I seem to feel the heat more acutely as I age,” he sighed. “I thank the gods that I do not live any farther south. Sit down, Huy. Pour yourself a little beer. Have you come to tell me that you are ready to travel to Khmun?”

“Yes,” Huy said reluctantly, taking the customary stool. “I can do no more with the first part of the Book. It is all here”—he tapped his temple—“in my head. I ponder it daily. Most of it I understand, but I have come to realize that it really is one piece of a whole.”

“The second part consists of only one scroll. Nevertheless, you will take as much time as you need in Thoth’s temple. Your teacher and instructors tell me that so far you are doing well, and Harmose reports that you are a tidy and responsible member of your courtyard.” He smiled. “Do you remember the rebellious and recalcitrant child you were when you first came here? You have grown in self-control and diligence. I am proud of you.” For some reason the High Priest’s praise annoyed Huy. He shook his head and did not reply. “Well, no matter,” Ramose went on. “The river is still rising and the school will remain closed until next month. It is not far from Iunu to Khmun, but the land is flooded and the current still strong. Rest from the Book. Concentrate on your other pursuits. I have already warned Thoth’s High Priest that you will be coming, and I will dictate another letter for him that you will take with you.”

Huy felt weak with reprieve. “Am I to go alone, Master?”

“Certainly not! You are much too valuable to be allowed to wander about Egypt by yourself! I will choose a temple guard and a body servant to go with you. Now run along.” He got out of his chair. “I am going to the bathhouse to drench myself in cool water.” Coming around the desk, he laid a hand on Huy’s head. “You’ve done well,” he said quietly. “Enjoy your freedom from the demands of the Tree.” It was an odd thing to say, and Huy glanced up at him swiftly, but he was already moving towards his private door at the rear of the room. Huy returned to his cell with a lighter heart.

It was good to know that each day was his own. He swam in the temple’s canal and pool, lay under the trees, and drowsed in the hot afternoons. After Pabast had brought the lamp, he sat on the floor of the cell and played board games with himself, moving the pieces idly, until he was tired. He was happy. A burden had indeed been lifted from him, and for the first time in many months he felt no different from the other boys.

He threw himself into the six days of celebration that marked the Amun-feast of Hapi, standing with the crowd on the bank and chanting his thanks to the god of the river for a copious flood. With Anuket, Nasha, and Thothmes he tossed armfuls of blooms onto the surface of the water and watched them float north, an undulating carpet of multicoloured fragrance. Anuket had made special wreaths for the occasion, and garlands for the members of the family to wear through the feasting that followed at her father’s house. Standing on tiptoe, she looped the flowers gravely over Huy’s bent head. “For you there are blue water lilies and sycamore figs, with the yellow flowers of the bak tree to give aroma,” she told him, kissing him solemnly on the cheek. It was only later, sitting on the floor of Nakht’s reception hall with his back against the wall while the revelry swirled around him and the bak blooms filled his nostrils with sweetness, that Huy remembered how both sycamores and water lilies were sacred to Hathor, goddess of love and beauty.

Her feast day had fallen on the first day of Khoiak. It heralded a month overfull of rites and observances, when the whole country breathed a sigh of relief at the height of a flood that would ensure abundant crops. Huy had participated in them all, just like any other youth, he told himself fervently.
Just like Thothmes and Samentuser and, yes, even Sennefer, wherever he is. For that is what I am—a youth on the verge of manhood
. With that thought came a wave of unaccustomed homesickness for his parents’ modest home in Hut-herib and Ishat’s acerbic voice. He found himself wondering what she was doing. His brother Heby would be two years old now, a sturdy toddler perhaps as demanding and obnoxious as Huy himself had been. Did Hapzefa pray over him at night and sing him to sleep as she had often done for him? Was there any corner of the house where his, Huy’s, presence still lingered?

But riding on this deluge of self-pity came the recognition of its source—a powerful unwillingness to begin the next phase of his reading of the Book. He fought it with a sour fatalism, and on the fifth of Tybi, five days after the celebration of the coronation of Horus, when Ramose sent word that he must pack up his belongings and meet his escort on the temple’s watersteps, he was ready.

10

 
THE JOURNEY UPSTREAM
to Khmun took six days. Huy travelled comfortably in one of the temple’s barges. He was not required to share the cabin with the guard and the servant who had been appointed to accompany him, and each evening he lay on the cot listening to the soft susurration of their conversation, feeling both guilty that he should be lying in sheltered luxury and envious of their freedom on the deck under the stars. He would have preferred a less formal vessel, and a blanket beside a fire on the bank at night, but Ramose had insisted on the security a full crew could provide. “And you must promise me that you will sleep in the cabin,” he had pressed Huy. “Your safety is vital. I shall question the barge’s captain on your return!” Huy kept his promise though it was hard, particularly as they first moored on the northern outskirts of Mennofer, Egypt’s ancient capital, and a dazzled Huy longed to explore both the city of the living on the east bank and the great city of the dead to the west, where pyramids pierced the red sky of evening above a jumbled plain of sand, rocks, and the tombs of the Osiris-ones. Mennofer itself was the gateway to the Delta. Its officials controlled all trade and other traffic on the river. It had a harbour, and its docks were crowded with craft of every description, its wharves piled with goods. The atmosphere was one of noisy superiority. Warships and weapons came out of the city’s workshops and Ptah the creator-god was its totem. Huy had thought Iunu impressive, but Mennofer took his breath away.

Once past the city, the river settled into a wide ribbon between quiet mud villages and moist, dark brown fields waiting for the crops to be seeded. The trees lining the brimming irrigation canals, having drunk their fill of the flood, were covered in gleaming green leaves, and the air retained a hint of humidity that was pleasant against hot skin. Huy spent the hours of daylight leaning against the deck rail, filling himself with an Egypt he had only imagined. Sometime on the fourth day out of Iunu he realized that, although beyond the sandbanks the surrounding countryside was lushly rich, the texture of the wind he was now inhaling had changed. Coming up from the south, it was dry and almost odourless, with the merest hint of the deserts over which it had come.

They passed the small town of Hebenu, and on the evening of the fifth day they anchored close to the entrance of the elevated canal that would lead them west into the heart of Khmun. Amunmose, Huy’s servant, pointed to the east bank where watersteps covered in sun-pink dust led up to many rutted tracks disappearing through the trees. “The workmen’s village of Hatnub lies beyond, to the north,” he told Huy. “Many barges dock here to load alabaster for royal projects. That beautiful stone, and also calcite, is quarried from the hills you can just see if you peer between the growth. Directly east are many ancient tombs, cut into the same rock. My family comes from Khmun,” he explained. “My father is cosmetician to the wife of one of the city’s minor administrators. I had no interest in his craft. I am apprenticed to one of the temple cooks at Iunu. The High Priest allowed me to serve you on this journey so that I could visit my relatives—when you do not need me, of course!”

Early the next morning they entered the canal, taking their place behind a stream of other craft carefully negotiating the narrow channel, and it seemed to Huy, at his usual place by the rail, that the city began at once. Paths already busy with laden donkeys and people on foot ran to either side of the waterway, and reed shacks and mud huts littered the ground. “It is three miles to the centre of the city,” Amunmose replied in answer to Huy’s question, “and another two to reach the branch of the Nile that runs all the way up to the oasis at Ta-she. The tributary is always full of craft, except during the flood of course. All the land around Khmun is very fertile, the crops very thick. It is a blessed place.” Huy looked eagerly ahead to where the horizon was blurred by what seemed to be a vast grove of trees. “Our palms are famous for their height and vigour,” Amunmose said proudly.

Slowly the city began to take shape, resolving into wide, palm-lined streets with gated walls, and the tall pylons of several temples rearing above the trees themselves, their outer courts still hidden at ground level. The canal bisected the city, running on to join the western tributary, but Huy’s barge veered towards the watersteps already choked with tethered craft, slipped into a berth, and the captain flung a rope to one of the men waiting to tie it to a pole. The ramp was run out. Amunmose heaved a sigh of satisfaction. “I will set your bags above the steps and go and find a litter. Please stay with your guard, Huy.” He disappeared through the crowd and Huy stood staring about, feeling vulnerable and assaulted by the bright, hot morning sun glaring up off the pavement, the babble of the colourful crowd swirling around him, and most particularly by the thin dogs lying panting in the shade by the steps or stretched negligently in the middle of many moving feet. Short-haired, the colour of sand, they were ignored by everyone and seemed entirely contented, but Huy eyed them warily.

He had begun to sweat by the time he caught sight of Amunmose beckoning him through the throng, and he picked up his worn leather bags and hurried to where a litter and four burly bearers waited. Once inside with Amunmose, feeling them being lifted, seeing the guard striding out beside him, Huy began to relax. The raucous crowd thinned out. A shrine came slowly into view, surrounded by sycamore fig trees and flower beds. A sweetly pungent whiff of acacia blossom filled the litter as it passed under the dappling shade of the tall bush, and almost at once a chariot clattered past them, the two horses sporting red plumes, the driver bent forward over the prow of the vehicle. Another dark beige dog was wandering across the road, tongue lolling. “I have seen the greyhounds of the wealthy,” Huy said, “and their hunting dogs. But what are these?”

Amunmose looked at him blankly then laughed. “They are desert dogs. They cannot be tamed, but their disposition is mild. They exist all through the south, as far as Swenet and the First Cataract. They come into the cities for offal and other scraps, but they prefer to live beyond the borders of the fields, out where there is only stone and sand. No one harms them and they in turn ignore us. They do not come into Iunu, it is too far north for them. I have missed them.”

Huy shivered, his mind suddenly filling with a vision of Imhotep’s fingers moving slowly along the hyena’s spine. “Are they sacred?”

“No. There is no punishment if you accidentally kill one, not like killing a hawk, for which you are executed. They resemble neither Set nor Anubis nor any of the lesser wolf-gods. They are really very amiable and keep to themselves.”

They had come to a crossroads and the bearers swung sharply left, onto a street lined with large squatting baboons, their pouched stone muzzles facing Huy as he craned to see them. “We have entered the avenue leading to the temple of Thoth,” Amunmose said. “His baboons face east so that they can help the sun to rise. In a moment you will see Thoth’s mighty pylon.”

Even as he spoke Huy saw it, a great square archway fronted by lawn and then a wide concourse, and beyond it the stark paving of the outer court. Amunmose called to the bearers and the litter was set down. Huy scrambled out and retrieved his belongings, the litter was dismissed, and together he, Amunmose, and the guard walked across the grass to the warm stone of the court, moving between the great arms of the pylon with its tall flags rippling in the stiff breeze.

This temple has a very different feel than Ra’s home
, Huy thought immediately.
It is grander, more solemn somehow. I cannot imagine the pupils at this temple school running across the concourse
. His palms had begun to prickle, and feeling as though something had brushed the back of his neck he put up a hand to rub it.
Heka
, he thought again.
It is heka. This temple is full of ancient magic, alive with it, and I am moving through it as though it were air
. Neither Amunmose nor the guard seemed aware of any change around them.

Approaching the closed doors to the inner court, Amunmose held out his hand. “Give me the scroll for the High Priest,” he said to Huy. “The Master has instructed me to take it within. Me! An apprentice cook!” He shed his sandals and rapped sharply on the small, narrow door set into one of the great copper panels with the likeness of Thoth beaten into it. The door opened, there was a muttered query, and Amunmose vanished inside. Huy studied the god’s curved ibis beak. Thoth held a scribe’s palette in one hand and a brush in the other. His coppery, red-gold bird’s eyes shone benignly. Huy, momentarily dizzy with tension, closed his own.

It seemed to him that he stood there for a long time in the guard’s motionless shadow. The outer court behind them remained silent and empty, the air still. But at last the door swung back and Amunmose emerged, followed by a thin man of indeterminate age, his dark eyes kohled, his long white sheath belted with silver ankhs, and the lobe of one ear weighed down by the heavy silver image of a baboon standing bow-legged, its mouth open in a rictus that displayed both sharp, curved fangs. It was months since Huy had thought of the ivory monkey his uncle and aunt had given to him, but suddenly and fleetingly he was back in his parents’ garden at Hut-herib, a stone in his hand and the smashed remains of the hateful toy at his feet. The baboon swayed gently against the man’s brown neck as he leaned forward in greeting, an unveiled curiosity in his gaze.

“You are younger and taller than I had imagined from Ramose’s letters, Huy son of Hapu. Welcome to Thoth’s domain. I am his High Priest, Mentuhotep.” Some fading imprint of the distaste and fear of Huy’s brief memory must have shown on his face, for Mentuhotep smiled wryly. “I bear the name of the warrior god Montu, but I assure you that I am entirely peaceable,” he continued. Reaching back, he closed the door to the inner court. “Bring your bags and follow me. I have had a cell prepared for you with the priests. Amunmose, you are free to visit your family. I will send for you when Huy has finished his task here. You are also dismissed.” This was to the guard, but the man shook his head.

“I am commanded to accompany Huy wherever he goes and to stand outside his door at all times,” he said. “Forgive my impertinence, Master, but I must follow my orders.”

“My temple guards are perfectly capable of such a simple task,” Mentuhotep replied easily. “However, I will comply with Ramose’s desire. Let us leave the courtyard to the hot fingers of his god.”

Huy turned to Amunmose. “Thank you for your company,” he said, feeling small and rather vulnerable as Mentuhotep strode towards the open passage running between the outer wall and the inner court.

Amunmose grinned. “Take your time here, Huy, so that I may enjoy my mother’s leek soup to the full,” he whispered, and turned away.

The priests’ quarters were similar to those of Ra’s temple, a series of cells fronting the long, unroofed corridor that ended behind the sanctuary, where a grassless expanse led to the kitchens, the high surrounding wall, and the vegetable gardens and animal pens beyond. “Thoth’s sacred lake of purification lies on the other side of the complex,” Mentuhotep answered Huy’s diffident question as he paused before one of the anonymous cell doors and pushed it open. “You must go back along the avenue to the canal if you wish to swim, although I do not recommend it. Many of our less careful citizens toss their rubbish into it and it is not clean. The river is too far away for you to walk to. Do you like to swim?”

“Not particularly, Master,” Huy replied, “although I have taken instruction and I am safe in water.” He was regarding his new home. It was slightly smaller than the room he shared with Thothmes. A reed mat lay on the stone floor in front of a low, narrow couch. Beside the couch a wooden effigy of Thoth and an oil lamp stood on a plain table, and a desk rested against the opposite whitewashed wall with a square stool under it. There was an empty tiring chest, its lid raised. None of the sparse furniture bore any adornment, and the walls gleamed free of any paintings. Huy liked the atmosphere of quiet simplicity at once.

“The previous inhabitant completed his three-month rotation of service and went home,” Mentuhotep explained, “and I have not replaced him so that you might have this cell. If you have brought your personal totem with you, you may set it up beside Thoth. He will not mind. I will have bedding brought to you, and a pallet for your guard. Go anywhere you like, except for the sanctuary of course. The inner court is not closed to you. It appears that Thoth greatly favours you.” He hesitated, then said, “The second part of the Holy Book consists of only one scroll, as you probably know. You will study it in my office, and I will be available to you at any time for such discussion of it as you need. I have read the whole Book and have pondered its meaning over many years. Perhaps I may be of some help to you.” The man’s humility was overwhelming, making Huy feel naive and very much an imposter.

“I will need your help, Master,” he blurted. “It seems to me that the gods have chosen poorly if they desired an intelligent instrument to perform their will. I am nothing but a peasant from Hut-herib!”