The Twice Born (42 page)

He rose abruptly. “It’s late. I must collect my gifts and go, Thothmes. How generous you are, all of you! I have no way to fully show my gratitude.”

Thothmes scrambled up beside him and for a moment their eyes met, each face deeply shadowed. “You must forgive her,” Thothmes said. “She is standing on the verge of full womanhood. Sometimes she is not very likeable.”

Huy did not reply.
Neither is Ishat at times
, his thoughts ran on.
I suppose that she too is fast becoming a woman, yet I cannot imagine her ever being anything other than forthright with her emotions
. Her picture began to fade and at once Anuket was there in his mind’s eye, her expression sullen and loose with wine. A pang of sadness shook Huy. He and Thothmes walked back to the house side by side.

On the following morning both the expected message of congratulations from his family and the gift from Methen were delivered to Huy’s cell. Huy’s father had little to say besides wishing his son long life and happiness, but Huy was shocked at the news that his brother, Heby, was about to be enrolled in the temple school at Hut-herib. “Your brother will celebrate his fourth Naming Day in Mekhir,” Hapu had dictated, “and your uncle Ker has agreed to furnish him with the things he will need in order to attend the temple school in our town. We pray that he will do as well at his studies as you.”

Slowly Huy let the scroll roll up and sat clutching it, staring out into the brilliance of the day.
Four years old! My brother is four years old
, he mused, stunned,
and I see him in my mind still crawling about the garden naked, babbling nonsense at Hapzefa as she trails behind him. And what of my parents? How have they aged? I do not want to see them. Only Ishat
. He flung the scroll onto the cot behind him.
It hurts me that Ker will lavish all the attention on Heby that he took away from me, that my father’s true affection now goes to his second son, that I have become a ghost to my family
. He tried to tell himself, quite truthfully, that it was his own fault, that he had refused, year after year, to go home. But his sense of abandonment remained.

Methen had sent him a stack of papyrus sheets, carefully wrapped in linen and placed in a wooden box for protection. “My gift to you is a practical one,” the priest had written. “A student can never find enough papyrus. Use it to write to me.” Huy put his nose to it, closing his eyes and inhaling the familiar dry, reedy odour, his heart suddenly full of a longing to see his friend. But not even for a glimpse of Methen or Ishat would he return to Hut-herib. Sliding to the floor, he reached for his palette, set it across his knees, and began to compose a letter to the priest, and gradually the pain in his heart subsided.

13

 
SEVEN MONTHS AFTER
Huy’s fifteenth birthday, on the seventeenth day of Pakhons at the beginning of the season of Shemu, Pharaoh Thothmes the Third died. The weather was pleasant. Egypt’s little palm-bordered fields were thick with lush green crops. Gardens overflowed with an abundance of flowers and swiftly ripening vegetables. It was the time of fecundity when the country was at its most beguiling, before the harvest and the deadening heat that would accompany it. There was shock as well as genuine sorrow throughout the kingdom, for Thothmes had passed his eightieth year and had sat on the Horus Throne for fifty-four years. Many had come to believe that he was indeed immortal, a god upon earth as well as a great warrior who had spent his youth in conquering an empire for his citizens before he settled down to rule an Egypt basking in the wealth that poured in from his new vassal states.

The school at Iunu was closed during the seventy days of mourning for the Osiris-one. Again Huy found himself wandering the rooms and corridors alone, pursued by the dismal and seemingly endless dirges sung for the dead King by the priests in the inner court of the temple. The news of Pharaoh’s death had come to the two young men at dawn. Both had been awake and talking sleepily, but at the sound of the herald’s voice ringing out through the courtyard they had scrambled to stand outside their cell along with the others tumbling dishevelled onto the grass. An incredulous silence followed the man’s pronouncement. Huy, glancing at Thothmes, saw that his friend had gone pale. “It cannot be!” Thothmes whispered. “He was not even ill. We would have known that!”

“He was very old,” Huy said awkwardly. “Many people were born and lived and died while he reigned, and never knew another king. He has gone to sit in the Holy Barque, Thothmes, together with the other gods. You must not grieve for him.”

Tears had begun to run down Thothmes’ brown cheeks. “I must go home at once. I must put on the blue of mourning and set soil on my head and pray to him, for surely such a mighty and beneficent god does not need to be justified in the Judgment Hall.”

Huy thought of that place, of the drafts that blew through it, the glitter of sporadic light on the golden scales. Once more he felt the hot breath of Anubis against his neck. “Is this reality, young Huy, or is it illusion?” the god was asking. Shaking off the vision, Huy put an arm around Thothmes. “The governors of the sepats will be summoned to the funeral,” he said. “You will be going south to Weset, Thothmes, and you will be able to watch your hero ferried across the river to the place of the dead. I wonder in what secret cliff his tomb has been prepared.”

Thothmes blew his nose on the kilt he had snatched up to cover his nakedness. “It will be the end of Epophi by the time the funeral procession forms,” he said thickly. “The harvest will be half over and only one month of school will be left before the Inundation is expected. I wonder if the High Priest will simply cancel all classes until next Tybi. He might as well. The coronation of the Hawk-in-the-Nest will be celebrated immediately following his father’s interment.” He gave Huy a watery smile. “All I know about him is his name. Isn’t that awful of me, Huy? My devotion has belonged solely to the god whose name I bear. I must pack up my things.”

And I suppose I ought to go home to Hut-herib
, Huy thought dismally.
It is seven months until Tybi rolls around again. By then I shall have passed my sixteenth birthday. Will I be forced to stay on in school until I am seventeen? What shall I do here for seven months?
Thothmes had turned into the cell, and gloomily Huy followed him.

On the morning following the King’s burial, the High Priest sent for Huy. It was the third week of Epophi. Everywhere the golden crops were being felled, the cabbages, garlic, onions, juicy cucumbers, and fat yellow melons pulled from thousands of gardens, the grapevines stripped of their weight of dusty purple fruit, and feasters gorged on fresh figs and dates, tiny currants and mulberries, and the sweet fuzziness of golden peaches. Pomegranates were in demand, and cooks held carob pods imported from Rethennu to their noses and inhaled appreciatively before tossing them into their dishes.

The summer had begun to heat towards the furnace of late Shemu and early Akhet, and Huy found himself sweating as he made his way towards Ramose’s quarters, but the High Priest rose from beside his cot and came to greet Huy with his usual cool affability, his long white sheath unstained, his hennaed palm dry as it touched Huy’s shoulder. “Tomorrow our new King will be crowned,” he said. “Temples everywhere will be in festivity, including this one. Would you like beer, Huy? Or water?”

Huy shook his head. “I need to immerse myself in the river, Master, but its level is very low. The bathhouse will have to suffice. What do you know of our new ruler?”

Ramose indicated a stool and Huy sat. “Prince Amunhotep will be the second of that name to inherit the Horus Throne. He is twenty-two years old, a man in the full vigour of his maturity. His skill at horsemanship earned him the charge of his father’s stables, and at seventeen Thothmes put the chief base and dockyards of the navy at Perunefer under him. He rows well, and hunts, and his prowess at archery is unrivalled.” Ramose smiled at Huy’s hesitant expression. “He has been aiding his father in government and learning statecraft for the last two years, while Thothmes was ailing,” he added. “We must hope that he commands as great an intellect as his father’s. Time will tell. His mother was Queen Meryet-Hatshepset, a rather stupid woman, but Thothmes chose his tutors well. The Prince’s lifelong friend Kenamun is a wise and moderate young man and will undoubtedly be a positive influence on our new Pharaoh.”

“You know much, Master!” Huy exclaimed, and Ramose laughed.

“It is the business of every High Priest to glean as much information as possible regarding those set in authority over us,” he said frankly. “The course of Egypt’s history is often swayed by the servants of her gods—especially by the High Priest of Amun at Weset. He is able to exert a subtle power over the decisions of the Horus Throne. However,” he finished briskly, “it is your future we must discuss.” Retreating to his couch, he took the chair beside it and crossed his legs. “I do not want you to waste another year here. I have arranged for your education to continue so that when you turn sixteen, in three months’ time, you will be ready to take up the position of scribe here in the temple. Too many weeks have already been wasted with mourning our beloved King.”

Huy felt himself go cold. “I am to sit in the classroom alone with my teachers?” he managed. “And the architect, he will come here especially for me?”

“Certainly. You will also continue your lessons in military tactics, the use of weapons, and the use of the chariot.”

“And afterwards you want me to remain here, as a scribe.”

“I see that the idea does not appeal to you,” Ramose said dryly. “Let me speak bluntly. You have been educated at the temple’s expense. For that alone you owe me consideration, but I would not be so niggardly as to claim payment for it at this late date. No, Huy, I have plans for you. You possess the Book of Thoth, in your mind. You do not yet understand it, but one day you will.” He leaned forward, placing his jewelled fingers together, and to an increasingly alarmed Huy there was something mildly threatening in the gesture. “You are the Twice Born,” Ramose continued. “You have the gift of Seeing, and of diagnosing and healing too, I think. Atum has been kind in allowing these things to slumber in you for a while. As a student you are of little use to him. But soon you will be free of the restrictions of the classroom. Then the gifts will waken. When they do, you will need my guidance, mine and the Rekhet’s. I want you for my personal scribe. You must learn of the Egypt of today if you are to influence the Egypt of tomorrow. I receive correspondence from the High Priests of every temple, from governors and administrators, army commanders and both Viziers. You will learn, and meanwhile your reputation as a Seer will slowly grow.”

“Master, what are you saying?” Huy blurted. “You will control my life completely whether I will it or not? You imagine that the gift will come back to me and you will control that also? Why?”

“Because a man who has returned from the dead with the power Atum has given you may become an invaluable adviser to the god even now preparing to sit on the Horus Throne,” Ramose answered bluntly. “Do not mistake me, Huy. I have no wish to rule Egypt through you. That would be truly evil. But through you the wishes of the gods can be conveyed to Pharaoh directly. I believe that this is your destiny.”

“That may or may not be true,” Huy answered carefully. “Such thoughts belong to the future. I am well aware of the great debt I owe to you, Master, in nurturing me and providing for my education. I trust I have not disappointed you or abused your care for me. But I would like to leave the temple and seek my employment elsewhere. I need a change. You have given me the great skills of a scribe. I want to use them in the service of a secular household.” He spread his hands. “In the temple I am reminded daily of what happened to me. I would like to lead a more normal life for a while.” He knew that he must not say the words that would hurt and alarm this good man:
I want to marry. I want Anuket. I want Nakht to give me employment so that my childhood may truly fade and be lost in the past
.

“I know. But such an arrangement may not be best for you.” Ramose spoke gently and, getting up, went and knelt before Huy, taking both hands in his own. “Go to the bathhouse and have a servant wash you, Huy. Then rest. Think about what I have said. Ask yourself what you owe to Egypt. Get up tomorrow morning and take your palette into the schoolroom. Your teachers will be waiting for you. Visit the Rekhet if you wish, but try not to fret.”

Huy withdrew his hands. “I owe a large debt to both you and the Rekhet,” he acknowledged. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful. Yet is it so wrong to desire a life outside these walls? Can I not serve Egypt just as well beyond the sacred lake, as my fellow students will do?”

He did not go to the bathhouse. Entering his cell, he flung himself onto his couch, curling his knees to his chin in a gesture of defensiveness.
I owe Egypt nothing. Nothing! My father groans and sweats for every bowl of lentils my mother places before him. The son of one of Egypt’s nobles ruined my life. I have existed here in Ra’s temple solely through the good graces of the High Priest. I have worked hard at my studies lest I fail and be sent back to a peasant’s town in disgrace. I owe no one anything
. Anger began to replace the self-pity that had been rising in him, and he turned onto his back, clasping his hands behind his head.
I will not be used
, he vowed.
Not by Ramose or Henenu, not even by you, great Atum. I will seize the remainder of my education and then leave this place
. He did not sleep. He stared unseeingly at the whitewashed ceiling above him while the sun reached its zenith and the air around him pulsed with heat.

The High Priest had obviously made all his plans before he spoke to Huy, for when Huy entered the schoolroom on the following morning they were all there waiting for him: his teacher of academics, the architect, the general in charge of imparting military life and tactics, and the weapons and chariots officer. Huy bowed to them.

“We have a mere three months to make up for all the time lost,” his teacher said without preamble. “You are entirely capable of leaving this school with the highest of honours and good recommendations from each of us, Huy, providing you dedicate yourself to nothing but work. I am sure you don’t want to be imprisoned here for yet another year!” He beamed at Huy and the others laughed.

They don’t know
, Huy thought as he smiled back politely.
Ramose has not told them that he plans to imprison me here indefinitely. They believe that they are doing a special favour for the Chosen One. Ah gods. How can I be sick of life at fifteen?

“I am indeed prepared to work hard, Master,” he replied. “Tell me how you have planned my days.”

The man consulted the wax tablet on the table beside him. “In the mornings you and I will continue our study of history, geography, mathematics, and the religious and secular ordering of Egypt past and present. You will learn the responsibilities of a good scribe—we have not yet covered that subject in class. You will take dictations. You will use your evenings to memorize what I have dictated, for testing the next day. In the early afternoon you will study under the architect. You will not go to the afternoon sleep. Instead you will be learning more of the administration of our army and navy and more of good military tactics. In the cool of the evening you will go to the training ground for practice with bow, sword, spear, and chariot.” He glanced up, eyebrows raised. “Do you have any questions?”

“Only one, Master. I dine often at the home of my friend Thothmes. Shall I be permitted to continue this?”

“I reserve my permission until I have assessed your progress,” the man replied. “Now we will begin. Where is your palette?” The other men were leaving.