Seer of Egypt (47 page)

“The water for your washing is not hot, Master,” Tetiankh apologized. “I could find no space close enough to the barge to light a fire and heat it. I think that the whole city lives on the watersteps at night now that Mesore has ended.”

Today is the fifth of Thoth,
Huy thought.
A new year has begun.

“I don’t care to be washed tonight,” he said aloud. “Bring me water to drink. That’s all I’ll need until the morning.” He drowsed, vaguely aware of Thothhotep settling herself on her pallet just inside the doorway, and by the time the barge had shaken itself free of its cramped mooring and was turning its prow to the north, he was asleep.

Mindful of his new resolution, he did his best to concentrate his mind on the present. In the weeks that followed, he diagnosed, prescribed, and scryed for the people who continued to cluster hopefully outside his gate. At the end of the month a letter arrived from Amunnefer, who reported a bountiful crop of poppy from his and Huy’s fields and a continued improvement in Anuket’s health and behaviour. The news was an invitation to dip into his memories, but true to his resolve, he denied the whispers. Nor did he allow himself to ponder the worrisome contrast between what he had seen when he took Anuket’s hand, her unexpected decision to amend her behaviour, and Ishat’s brush with violence. He knew that the answers were beyond him. Seshemnefer arrived at the estate in person to proudly list the weight and amount of the harvests from Huy’s arouras. At the same time Merenra made an accounting of the latest gift of gold from the palace. For years it had arrived punctually in spite of Huy’s growing wealth from his own holdings, but now Huy listened to the news of its arrival with a sense of shame.
It has become a bribe, a payment for my collusion,
he thought as his steward bowed himself out of the office.
I should send a request to the King to direct it elsewhere, but then he would fear that I was about to change my pronouncement regarding the Prince Thothmes’ so-called dream.

Anhur had wasted no time in approaching Wesersatet regarding Huy’s nephew, and the Commander had cheerfully arranged for Amunhotep-Huy to be taken under the wing of one of his officers. A short letter from Heby let Huy know that a tutor had been engaged to fill the boy’s mornings, and in the afternoons he was escorted to the army’s barracks. “The tutor will be a drain upon my modest resources,” Heby had written, “and I will not approach Iupia’s father for assistance, seeing that Amunhotep-Huy is not her son. I know that, if I need to, I may ask you for help without shame, but I will not do so unless it becomes entirely necessary.”
There’s that word again,
Huy thought, his eyes leaving Heby’s neat professional hieratic script for a moment.
Shame.
Pushing the reflection away, he continued to read:

Huy laid the scroll on his desk with a word to Thothhotep, sitting cross-legged at his feet, to file it away in the niche reserved for family correspondence.

The river had begun to rise. Far away in the south, Isis was crying, and with her tears came an intensifying heat and an annoying eruption of fly and mosquito life. The month of Thoth also brought five gods’ feast days when no one worked and the celebrations of gratitude and relief at the prospect of yet another year of bounty continued. The flood of those seeking healing or counsel from Huy always dwindled to a trickle as the whole of Egypt gave itself over to the rites of worship. So he was surprised and alarmed to find a scroll without an identifying imprint waiting for him when he returned from his duty to Khenti-kheti’s shrine and a short visit with Methen. Thothhotep had been waiting for him in his office. She handed it to him.

“It was delivered by a man dressed in the coarse linen of a peasant,” she told him, “but his hands were soft and his body obviously shaved and oiled. His accent was refined. Kar would not let him through the gate and Merenra has of course joined his family to celebrate the Uaga Feast, so I was sent for. The man knew who I was. He was very polite but refused to give me his name. ‘You and your master will see me again,’ he said. ‘It is better that I remain anonymous to you both. No reply is expected to this message. Long life and health to you and the Great Seer.’ He went away along the river path.”

Instead of going to the floor with her palette, she continued to stand while a frowning Huy turned the papyrus cylinder over and over. He had been thirsty by the time he alighted from his litter in the shade of the house’s entrance pillars, but now he ignored the twin flagons of water and beer Ankhesenpepi had left for him on the desk.

“It may be from Prince Amunhotep in Mitanni,” she added.

Huy was about to rebuke her for the obvious curiosity in the words. Instead, he cracked the seal and went to perch on the edge of the desk. “Take the stool, Thothhotep,” he said. “It’s too hot to stand.” He unrolled the scroll as she obeyed. The characters that met his eye were uneven, some large, some awkwardly tiny. The lines of hieratic sloped down then up. The spelling was poor. Glancing to the end of the letter, he exclaimed in astonishment. “It is from the Princess Mutemwia, by her own hand! No wonder it resembles the scrawls of a young schoolboy. How many women apart from you and Ishat do you know who can even read, let alone write! I am impressed.” He began to read aloud.

Huy’s thirst had suddenly returned. Letting the scroll roll closed, he poured water for himself and Thothhotep, passed her a cup, and drank in large gulps.

For a long time both of them were silent. The room filled with the sound of the leaves beyond the window aperture rustling together as they were stirred by the breeze. An unintelligible blend of voices and the rattle of cutlery against metal drifting from the reception hall meant that the noon meal was about to be served. At last Thothhotep spoke. “The things the Princess says, the nameless servant who delivered the letter, the fact that she penned it herself—all of it points to secrecy, doesn’t it, Master?”

“Yes.” In spite of the water, Huy was still thirsty. “Do you understand why, Thothhotep?”

“About the friend in foreign lands I do. Prince Amunhotep has settled into his exile and is safe. As for the rest, I’m not sure.”

Huy regarded her thoughtfully. “When I first met you in the marketplace, you were proud and spoke your mind without fear,” he said with seeming irrelevancy. “Since then you have become more cautious, more circumspect. You accomplish your tasks with efficiency, but the outspokenness, the pride, are they still there, Thothhotep? Are you perhaps a little afraid of me, even after all these years in my employ? There is sometimes an awkwardness between us where, because of your position, there should be complete harmony. You know all my affairs. I am vulnerable before you, and never more so than today, with the contents of this letter waiting to be explained to you. I need you to understand it all. But you must either tell me what walls you off from me or make it clear that you want to proceed no further than scribing for my businesses and for the petitioners who dog my days.”

She had listened to him with an increasing agitation, her hands gripping each other, her features falling into an expression of deep distress. Jumping up from the stool, she began to pace, the empty cup clutched against her small white-clad breasts, until he had finished speaking. Then she halted in front of him. “A good scribe is self-effacing,” she burst out at once. “He takes the dictation. He remembers the contents of his master’s correspondence and must be ready to bring it to mind when asked to do so. He must copy and file. He must be tactful and sometimes invisible. All these things I have tried to be! And I have succeeded. But I am fully aware that I can never be to you what the Lady Ishat was. Friend, counsellor, confidante—these are far outside the limits of a scribe’s responsibilities. I did not want to be compared to her and found wanting! I did not want your private thoughts of me to be scornful. I do not want … do not need …” She faltered and her gaze dropped. “I do not want you to ever see me as Ishat’s poor imitation.”

Huy did not move. “That is the twisted pride preventing me from indeed seeing you as confidante and friend,” he said heavily. “That is the wall. I want more from you than a scribe’s diligence, Thothhotep. You’ve known from the start that this is no ordinary household. You are an intelligent woman. I desperately need that intelligence, all of it, at my disposal, even if sometimes it clashes with my own.” He slid off the desk. “Sometimes you must walk behind me. So did Ishat. But at other times I want you next to me, I need to be able to unburden myself to you, I want to trust you to expand the concept you hold of your responsibilities to me. Would you like to tell me what you know about the contents of the Princess’s letter? Think hard about it before you say yes, for if you do, our relationship will change.”

“You are asking me to be one of your counsellors,” she said slowly, “but you are also asking me if I will take the risk of sharing knowledge with you that might become dangerous in the future.” Now she faced him squarely. “I have almost forgotten what danger is like. It has been many years since I washed my one sheath in the river every evening and put it on every morning so that I could sit in some marketplace and hope for a commission. But the peril you speak of has little to do with physical hazard. I saw your distress when you returned from your audience with the King.” She placed the cup on the desk with careful deliberation and folded her arms. “I asked you nothing. If you had wanted me to know what had happened, you would have told me. As your scribe, it was not my place to pry.” She smiled faintly. “And you are fortunate in your servants, Master. They do not gossip. When Anhur and I talk together, we do not discuss the state of your mind or heart.”

“I have never paused to compare your competency with Ishat’s,” Huy replied. “Your strengths are different. I did not try to engage another Ishat when I tested you in the marketplace. I was simply looking for a good scribe who could adapt to the moods and routines of this house. Now I need more from you, so I will ask you again: shall I keep this matter to myself?”

“No.” Gathering up the folds of her sheath, she regained the stool. “I keep the secrets of your visions. You must know by now that I am trustworthy. What is happening to the King?”

Huy considered her for a moment. Her body had relaxed and she met his eyes calmly. Her question had been shrewd. Quickly he told her of Amunhotep’s growing preference for the god of the sun in his various aspects, his open dislike for Amun’s priests, the warning Atum gave him through Huy himself a long time ago. He spoke honestly of his own great failure.

“I fear that the King is preparing to announce Prince Thothmes as his official heir, but that is only a small portion of what he can do,” he finished. “He can declare Ra as Egypt’s pre-eminent deity. He can impoverish Ipet-isut by deciding to tax Amun’s temple there. He can dismiss Amun’s priests in favour of his own choices. The temple to Ra as the god of the horizon personified in the great stone lion, the stela glorifying the Aten— these things are only the beginning.”

“He will increasingly give preference to the Delta, to Ta-Mehu? You believe that such a policy will eventually divide Egypt?”

Huy nodded. “Ma’at will become unbalanced. The Princess Mutemwia, as a wife of Thothmes and a great friend of his elder brother, is already very afraid. She herself has no influence. Her son Prince Amunhotep is not in direct line for the Horus Throne any more than Pharaoh’s second son Thothmes is. But Mutemwia obviously remembers the great storm of gold dust I Saw enveloping Amunhotep and me when I encountered her by accident in the palace and the little Prince’s fingers closed around my own. I think she believes that the Seeing has much to do with her child’s future inheritance. Thothmes’ son Amunemhat by his Chief Wife Neferatiri is still a baby, but if Thothmes inherits the Horus Throne, Amunemhat will be the Hawk-in-the-Nest. Mutemwia’s child will then be too close to godhead for comfort. The threat of his elimination becomes all too real.”

“And Prince Thothmes will make sure that Amunemhat is raised to venerate Ra over every other god. He will also seek to keep the rightful heir out of Egypt. Or have him assassinated,” Thothhotep added. She was about to speak again but hesitated. Huy prompted her gently. “It seems to me that the Princess Mutemwia is making you her accomplice,” she went on hurriedly, the colour of embarrassment flooding her cheeks. “She intends to keep you secretly informed on these matters, hoping that you may be able to avert disaster, or at least divert it in some way, with your gift.” She spread her hands. “How, I cannot imagine. Am I right, Master?”