The Twice Born (7 page)

Kay laughed. “He says that to everybody he meets for the first time. You’re a solemn little thing, aren’t you, Thothmes? Well, we must return to our cell.”

Obediently the boy took his hand and they moved away, but Thothmes looked back. “I am glad there is another new boy in the school, and I look forward to sharing with you, Huy,” he called.

“His manners are excellent,” Harnakht commented. “He bows to every adult regardless of their station. He even bowed to me when I first met him. His father is the Governor of this sepat, the thirteenth of Lower Egypt, and rightly regards a good education as the most important asset for any child. He could go home every afternoon, but his parents want him to enjoy everything the school has to offer. He is rather a pet in a humourless kind of way.”

Huy resolved at once that he would also make himself a pet. He had never been taught to bow to anyone but Khenti-kheti’s priest. Thothmes’ delicacy had given him pause.

The bathhouse, a short way along the corridor behind the Holiest of Holiest and just within another compound, was a large room with a sloping stone floor. Great urns filled with water and smaller ones containing oil hugged the walls. A pile of linens of different sizes sat on a long table. Three boys stood drying themselves and talking loudly, their voices echoing in the humid air. Huy drew it in with pleasure. Iunu’s atmosphere was drier than the air of his home and carried fewer scents, which he now realized he had been missing.

“I am going to leave you here for a while,” Harnakht said. “Take up one of those ladles, douse yourself with water, grab a handful of natron from the bowl, and scrub yourself thoroughly. But I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how to wash yourself. And don’t forget to oil your lock! Can you find your way back to our cell?”

Huy nodded.
Unlike Thothmes the pet
, he thought scornfully. In truth he was already slightly jealous of Thothmes.

When Harnakht had gone, Huy self-consciously approached one of the urns, ladle in hand, aware of the strange boys still chattering together on the farther side of the chamber, but they did not so much as glance at him. The urn was as tall as he. Standing on tiptoe, he was able to scoop out enough water to wet himself. He had expected it to be cold, but it was lukewarm.
I suppose
, he thought as he plunged a hand into the natron,
that it is brought to the bathhouse hot and those who dawdle like we did must miss its comfort
. He managed the remainder of the chore tolerably well, awkwardly rubbing oil onto whatever parts of his body he could reach, and he did not forget to draw some through his new youth lock. His head felt as though it kept wanting to fall to one side, but he knew that, when he became used to the one piece of hair he had left, its lopsided weight would cease to bother him.

He found his way back to his cell and struggled into the fresh loincloth and kilt he found waiting on his cot. The quality of the linen was higher than his own. The exercise was becoming easier and he was briefly grateful to his uncle for teaching him such basic skills, although he missed Hapzefa’s gentle touch. There was also a dish of dates and raisins and a glass of milk. Huy hesitated. He was hungry again, but perhaps Harnakht had fetched the snack for himself. But it had been placed on his table, so in the end he emptied cup and dish.

He was just putting on his sandals when Harnakht returned. “I washed myself and dressed myself,” he blurted eagerly, forgetting what his uncle had said about the other boys of course being able to do these things, but Harnakht simply nodded. He had a white ribbon in his hand. Huy’s elation vanished. “I won’t,” he said.

“Yes, you will.” Harnakht held it out. “Every first-year boy wears a white one. In the second year you get a yellow one, in the third blue, in the fourth red, and so on. It’s how the teachers and servants are able to recognize the level of study you’re at. After the fourth year you get arm bands instead. See mine?” He thrust out his arm. “This is my eighth year. I’m twelve. When you get to your twelfth year you get a gold one. You have to give it back for the next sixteen-year-olds, of course, but the High Priest himself gives you a scroll to say that you are qualified to begin work as a scribe if you want to.” He shrugged. “I will become mayor of Abtu after my father, I expect, but before that I will work under him as an assistant scribe. Now tie this around your youth lock, close to your scalp until the hair grows longer.”

Huy was mollified. If the other boys in their first year had to look like girls, then he supposed no one would think him stupid. Snatching the ribbon, he fought to make it tight, but somehow his fingers got in the way and in the end Harnakht tied it for him. “You must practise doing it yourself,” was all he said.

For the next two hours Harnakht walked Huy through the world behind Ra’s temple. He showed him the four other compounds, one of which had separate small houses and flower beds, and trellises covered in vines that provided shade by the large pool. This was where the oldest boys, already men, spent their final year. “Many pupils leave at my age,” Harnakht told Huy. “By then they have learned to read and write and are ready to continue a different education at home, depending on their parents’ wealth and blood. But those that stay on here will have become proficient in music, chariot driving, and all military arts and strategy by the time they go. Few parents can afford to keep their sons here so long. Only the sons of nobles inhabit these houses, with their own servants to care for them.”

The next month stretched ahead for Huy like a summer that never became an Inundation and then winter. He tried to imagine how long twelve years was, and gave up with a shudder. He hoped that Uncle Ker was not rich enough to keep him in school for such an eternity.

The school itself consisted of one enormous room, mostly bare but for one wall where a row of baskets held an assortment of pottery shards, and a long table laden with heaps of papyrus sheets, scribe’s palettes, pots of ink, and brushes. An easel holding a whitewashed board stood at one end. “The scrolls are too valuable to be kept here,” Harnakht said. “The teacher brings them every day from the House of Life.” Huy did not know what he was talking about. The room intimidated him with its slightly musty smell of new papyrus and pottery dust, although it was full of late afternoon sunlight that poured into it from large, high windows. Looking up, he saw a row of pigeons sitting on one of the sills, preening and watching the two boys.

“Light is, of course, needed in here,” Harnakht said, misinterpreting Huy’s glance, “and in the mornings it is not direct, seeing that the room has a northwestern orientation. After class we go straight to the dining room, through there.” He strode to a wide, doorless aperture and Huy trailed after him, mentally tracing the route back to the cell. The adjoining space was somehow friendlier. Several long, low tables filled it, with equally long bolsters on which to sit. “The teachers have their own tables,” Harnakht explained, “and drink wine with their meal. So do the older boys. Sometimes we get beer, but you little ones always have milk. Occasionally the High Priest eats with us, and when he does the tables are covered in flowers. His presence is a great honour.” Huy could hear the murmur of conversation coming from somewhere beyond the farther wall, and the clatter of dishes and utensils. The slightly unpleasant odour of steaming fish wafted about him, with the stronger promise of something sweet. “Beyond the kitchens are the pens and coops for the animals that feed us and the priests,” Harnakht went on, “and beyond them, the plots where our vegetables are grown. We are not allowed to visit anywhere beyond that door”—he pointed to where the sounds of cooking industry were coming from—“but some of us do sneak into the kitchens at night when we can’t sleep for hunger.”

The comment alarmed Huy. “Don’t we get enough to eat?” he asked.

Harnakht smiled down at him indulgently. “Food is good and plentiful,” he replied, “but when you are my age and growing fast you sometimes need an extra mouthful or two. Besides, creeping around in the dark is fun.” Huy did not think so. “I will show you the archery butts and then you must amuse yourself.” Harnakht turned back to the schoolroom. “I have bow practice before the evening meal, and if we don’t hurry I’m going to be late. I don’t want a beating.”

Huy wanted to know what other infractions might precipitate such a punishment. He had hoped that at this school, unlike the school at Hut-herib where he had heard that the pupils were regularly beaten, the forms of discipline might be different. He had never been beaten in his life. But Harnakht was already striding briskly towards the corridor.

Before he reached the door to the inner court of the temple, he pushed open one on his right, set into the outer wall of the passage, and Huy found himself blinking in sunshine that had already acquired the soft pinkish glow of a sunset still some hours away. Harnakht headed straight for the solid mud barrier that encircled the whole temple complex but for the lake and entrance pylon, and led Huy through a wooden gate. A wide concourse opened out. Stables were ranked along one side. Huy could hear the horses whickering, and their warm, comforting smell filled the air. Several low buildings sat at the far end under a haphazard line of trees. Halfway across the dusty expanse, a series of straw-backed targets had been set up. A cluster of boys waited beside them, bows slung across their shoulders, quivers swinging in their hands, and a man had emerged from one of the buildings and was approaching them. Huy watched him with fascination. He had never seen a living soldier before. Clad in a plain leather helmet, with leather gloves on his hands and what looked like a leather apron covering his broad chest as far as his pleated kilt, he filled Huy’s mind with an image of his own toy soldiers. He was back in his garden, crouching in the grass from which the blue-helmeted King in his hand would presently spring to destroy the enemy rustling about in the bushes. The enemy often turned out to be Sharp-Claw, Ishat’s cat, but Huy, King Thothmes, and all his men would chase it anyway.

The man was shouting sharply at the boys, who were scattering as they unslung their bows. Harnakht gave Huy an urgent tap. “Back through the gate and I’ll see you later,” he hissed. “I haven’t even collected my equipment yet.” He ran towards the instructor, his sandals kicking up tiny puffs of white dust, and Huy turned away. He would have liked to stay, to see the arrows buried in the targets but mostly to watch the man whose brown, muscular body held such confident authority.

He returned to his cell without much difficulty. The layout of the somewhat labyrinthine warren of compounds, passages, and rooms was becoming clearer, and with that comprehension Huy gained a measure of emotional control. He knew where he would be going in the morning and, more importantly, where he would be eating. He had learned to trust Harnakht, his offhand but well-meaning guide. He had met his new roommate and was not particularly impressed. As he trotted towards the pool in the centre of his own compound, he suddenly realized that for the last few hours he had not thought about his parents at all.

In the coolness of the cell he finally unpacked his few belongings, laying the Nefer amulet around his neck and placing the box containing the precious scarab on the table beside his cot. Then he hesitated. Much as he knew he would need to look at it regularly, he did not know if the other boys could be expected to leave it alone. Certainly Harnakht would be curious to see what was inside. He might tell everyone. It might even be stolen. Reluctantly, after one loving touch of its smooth, golden carapace, he closed the lid and put it in the tiring chest with the clothes his mother and Hapzefa had packed for him. But what of Pabast? Would he, Huy, be wearing his own linen from now on? Linen the servant would need to extract from the chest?

Sighing, the boy pushed the empty leather bags under his cot, took off his sandals, and, sitting on the floor, shook out the cones and spools of the sennet game his father had so painstakingly made for him. He began to play against himself. In spite of the precarious self-assurance he was beginning to feel, he was not yet ready to expose himself to the other pupils thronging the grass outside.

Harnakht came back, tired and filthy, at sunset. Huy asked him if he had been beaten—that terrible word—for being late. Harnakht scratched one large, soiled ear and grinned at Huy. “No. My instructor saw you and understood my responsibility. I hit mostly bull’s eyes today. If you’ve unpacked, then get out a fresh kilt and loincloth and put your sandals back on. We must wash again before we eat. That’s a really fine sennet board you’ve got. Can I play with you later?”

Huy was overjoyed at the suggestion of equality but appalled at the prospect of yet more scrubbing. Nevertheless, he did as he was told and together they made their way to the bathhouse, which was crowded. The older boys took their turns at the water and natron first, as was their privilege. “Just leave your dirty kilt here,” Harnakht told Huy as he exposed his own gangly body and grabbed up a ladle. “Pabast will collect them all and take them to the washermen. You won’t always get your own back, but it doesn’t matter—one kilt is much the same as another. Keep your ribbon dry, though. Take it off before you get wet.”

The evening meal was served from a table at the edge of the lawn. The boys lined up to have bowls and plates filled with the steamed fish, now cold, that Huy had smelled earlier, smothered in a garlic and cumin sauce and piled with onions and broad beans. There was thick lentil soup, bread, and sweet honey cakes. Reassured, Huy carried his food to the edge of the pond and ate. He watched the water spiders skate effortlessly across its surface, and the single fat frog that had somehow found its way into the compound snap lazily at the mosquitoes gathering in a cloud above the placid water.

Harnakht and Kay sat together some distance away. Huy looked about for Thothmes and finally spotted him sitting cross-legged in the doorway of his cell. He had finished eating and was surveying the company, his arms folded. Catching Huy’s glance, he raised one hand and nodded a greeting. He did not smile.