Seer of Egypt (8 page)

Huy did not miss the pleading behind Thothmes’ light words, and a little of the joy went out of the bright morning.

“No indeed, Lord,” Ishat responded stiffly, withdrawing her fingers. “You were a most agreeable companion. Come into the house. Khnit has prepared a small meal for us, but tonight we will absolutely gorge on her delicious food!”

Thothmes’ expression of disappointment at her decorum faded. He glanced to where the members of Huy’s staff were lined up under the portico, waiting to reverence him. He whistled. “An estate, a full complement of servants, and I’m tied up beside a rather pretty barge that must be yours,” he said to Huy as they linked arms and began to stroll up the path, Thothmes’ train trotting behind him. “How odd are the twists and gyrations of fate, Huy! Could you ever have imagined this wealth for yourself when we shared a cell at school together, or when you and Ishat existed in that cramped hovel beside the beer house? I want to hear everything. The King must be very pleased with you indeed. Does he summon you often?”

“Not at all. His ministers and courtiers come for consultations, but His Majesty remains silent.”

“How odd. You would think that he would want the future told for our new Prince Amunhotep. Now, if our wonderful King Thothmes, the third of that illustrious name, still sat on the Horus Throne, he would have insisted that you live within the palace compound and See for his family every day! He would have truly appreciated you.”

Huy smiled to himself. Thothmes had idolized the late King and had mourned deeply when he went to ride in the Sacred Barque.

They had arrived before the solemn line of Huy’s servants. Huy introduced them, noting that Amunmose, now fully shaved and clothed in the ankle-length sheath of a steward, was almost unrecognizable. Thothmes greeted them cheerfully, they bowed, and Huy dismissed them. As they scattered to their duties, he led his friend into the house and up to the guest room.

Thothmes whistled. “You wrote to me about the lion skin. A little overpowering, don’t you think? I’d like to give the couch to Ibi and sleep on the roof myself. Do you object?”

“Of course not.”

“What a good idea.” Ishat had entered and was standing behind them. “You can shout for your body servant through the wind catcher, Thothmes. Now let’s find some shade and drink beer, and you can give us all your news. How does the Hawk sepat fare under your lackadaisical hand?”

They half lay on reed mats and cushions under the thick canopy of the sycamores growing against the southern wall while Thothmes’ steward Ptahhotep and a self-conscious Amunmose served them beer and sweetmeats. Before long, Ishat pulled off her headdress and shook out her hair. “It’s too hot for such formality,” she complained. “Here in the Delta the summer is bad enough. It must be unbearable further south.”

A moment of silence followed. Huy, glancing at Thothmes, saw that his friend’s gaze had become fixed on the wealth of black tresses suddenly tumbling past Ishat’s shoulders. Ishat had also become aware of Thothmes’ scrutiny. Awkwardly, she cleared her throat. “Thothmes, what’s wrong with Nakht?” she said. “You mentioned an illness in your last letter. Is it serious?”

Thothmes did not answer at once. Then he sighed. “I don’t think so, but he seems listless and easily fatigued. Our physician has been unable to diagnose the problem as yet. Father and I work together in his office in the mornings, but in the afternoons I am left to see to the affairs of the sepat by myself.” He grinned ruefully. “I listen to farmers complaining about the encroachment of their neighbours’ fields onto their own, and persons who feel the merchants have cheated them, and in another month, when the taxes are due, there will be screams from everyone as the taxgatherers go about their business for the King. But I like our Mayor. He and I have begun more beautifying in Iunu.”

“I remember the city as being already very beautiful,” Huy put in. “Do you go to the temple often, Thothmes? Do you ever revisit our school?”

“Nasha and I go on feast days,” he replied, “and of course I pray to my dear Osiris Thothmes Glorified. I don’t bother with the school. Ramose continues to run it with his usual efficiency.”

“And is Nasha well?” Huy asked carefully.

Ishat shot him a glance.
I know what you will ask next,
her eyes told him scornfully. Huy looked away, lifting his cup, but there were flies struggling in the dregs of his beer. He poured them onto the grass.

“Nasha never changes,” Thothmes said. He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. “Father despairs of her. She’s rejected every suitor and now few call on her. Soon no one will want to marry her. She’ll be too old.” He cocked one sleepy eye at Huy. “I think she’s been in love with you ever since you began coming to our house on school holidays. Her tongue is sharper, but she retains her great sense of humour.”

There was a moment of silence. Huy listened to the drone of bees searching in vain for flowers that had long since died. Across from him, his path to the watersteps lay white and dazzling in the sunlight, and the stiff palms lining it cast no shade. At length he could bear it no more. Ishat was idly plying her fly whisk, turning her sandalled foot back and forth to see the jaspers glow as they caught the light now creeping over her ankles.

“And what of Anuket?” Huy blurted, his throat tight. “I know that she lives with her husband, the son of the Governor of the Uas sepat, at Weset. Do you ever see her?”

“Sometimes.” Thothmes turned onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow so that he could see Huy’s face. “Everyone likes to get drunk at feasts, but I suspect that Anuket takes too much wine every day. She has put on weight and her eyes have become permanently swollen and dark-circled. She carps at her husband in public and no longer has any interest in weaving wreaths and garlands.” He sighed. “Father has reprimanded her, but it does no good. You’re not still in love with her, are you, Huy? She seems unhappy. I wonder how different she would be if Father had allowed you to marry her.”

“She would still be unhappy, for Huy cannot consummate any love, as you may remember, Thothmes,” Ishat snapped. She drew her feet in under her, out of the reach of the sun, with one sharp movement.

“I had forgotten.” Thothmes sat up and grasped Huy’s hand. “Your life has become so … so normal, Huy. Everything that happened to you years ago seems like a very dim memory. So the god’s hand still rests heavily on you? Forgive me.”

It is you who should be begging my forgiveness for your outburst,
Huy thought, looking across at Ishat.
You have humiliated me and you know it.
She would not look at him. She was running her hand back and forth over the dry spikes of the grass.

Huy gave Thothmes’ hand a shake and withdrew his own. “Of course,” he said. “I never had any secrets from you, my dear friend, and I can forgive you anything. Truthfully, I think of Anuket less often, but when I do the pain is still there. I’m sorry she’s in distress.”

“It may not be the wine, though,” Thothmes added. “Her husband owns many acres of poppy fields. Perhaps she indulges in the drug too much.”

“Poppy fields? Around Weset?” Huy leaned forward.

Thothmes nodded. “Importing it has become too expensive, so the Governor petitioned the King for a few arouras to see if we could grow our own. The experiment was successful. Now Weset is surrounded by a sea of red and white poppies, and Anuket’s husband and his father the Governor are doing very well out of the sales. The quality is quite high, or so I hear. I take it rarely myself.”

Now Ishat met Huy’s glance. Her eyebrows went up.

“Thothmes, would it be possible to invest in this enterprise?” Huy asked. “Would you put forward my suggestion to Anuket’s husband?” Quickly he explained to Thothmes how he wanted to accrue his own security. “The poppy would be a profitable venture for me, as well as purchasing land around Hut-herib. My father is looking into that. Is Egyptian poppy exported yet?”

“Not yet, but already there have been requests from foreigners.” He considered, his head on one side. “I see no reason why your gold should not be as good as anyone else’s. I will send a scroll to Amunnefer. I’m sure he will be agreeable.”

“Thank you.”

The conversation turned to other topics until it gradually died into the stunned quiet of the approaching hour of the afternoon sleep. Merenra had come out of the house and was hovering under the pillars. Huy roused himself. “Let us rest, and talk more this evening when it’s cooler.” He got up and held a hand down to Ishat, but Thothmes was quicker. Ishat reached for the young man’s grasp, came to her feet, and smiled at him.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Thothmes,” she said. “I’ve missed you.” She walked away without a glance at Huy, who followed miserably.
I am going to lose her, and why should I be resentful? I cannot offer her what she needs.

Once on his couch, the closed slats of his window hanging casting bands of muted light across his floor, he lay staring into the dimness of his hot room feeling utterly without volition.

At dusk, the three of them gathered in the reception hall, where they fell upon the feast Khnit and her assistants had prepared, and laughed because they were grossly outnumbered by their combined servants, and applauded the music of Thothmes’ harpist, who had travelled with him. Ishat seemed to have recovered her good humour. She drank copious amounts of shedeh-wine, and after the dishes had been cleared away she drunkenly insisted on dancing for them, but Huy, watching her sway in and out of the shadows cast by the flickering lamps, thought that there was a feverish edge to her gaiety. Thothmes tapped the floor in time to the music, his expression fixed on her avidly. Huy hoped that, once she had exhausted herself, she would go straight to her bedchamber, and indeed she soon bade them a good night and disappeared unsteadily in the direction of the stairs.

Huy had been looking forward to hours of companionable gossip with his friend, beginning at once, but Thothmes excused himself soon after Ishat had gone. “Ibi has carried my bedding onto the roof and erected a sunshade over it against the morning’s glare,” he said, yawning, “and to the roof I shall go. Will you join me?”

“Not tonight.” They embraced and Thothmes strode away.

Huy sat on in a silence that seemed to echo with the hum of their chatter, the aroma of Ishat’s perfume now mingling with the not-unpleasant tang of smoke from the lamp wicks as Ankhesenpepi, the house servant, went softly from one to the other, extinguishing them. When he arrived at the last one, he turned inquiringly to Huy, who shook his head. “Put them all out, Ankhesenpepi. Thank you.”

The gloom was welcome. Gradually it lifted a little as starlight blurred grey in the high clerestory windows and faintly showed the open front door. Beyond it, Huy knew, a guard was stationed, but he could neither see nor hear the man. Suddenly he yearned for the poppy. He was not in physical pain; it was his heart that ached with a new loneliness. After a long time he hauled himself to his feet and made his way quietly up the stairs. Halfway along, he saw dull lamplight spilling out of Ishat’s room into the hallway and he paused. Low voices came to him, Ishat’s and Thothmes’, and then Ishat’s soft laugh. Anger seized him. Striding to the door, he was about to push his way in, but then he paused. He had caught a glimpse of the two of them, Ishat on her couch decorously smothered in a sheet while Thothmes was sitting cross-legged on the floor looking up at her.
Jealousy is an ignoble emotion,
he thought, fighting it with eyes rammed shut and fists clenched.
You love them both, Huy. They are your most intimate friends, and you know perfectly well that they also love you. Be happy for Ishat, that she has found someone who can give her what you cannot. Be happy for Thothmes, that he has fallen in love with a fine and honest woman.
Yet at that moment he came close to hating both of them.

In the end, he forced himself to continue on along the corridor and enter his own room. The effort seemed to drag down his limbs and take all the heat from his body. Collapsing on his couch, he pulled both sheet and blanket up around his shoulders, but he did not weep. A long time before he had vowed that he would never again shed tears. He tried to pray and gave up. The greed for poppy was nagging hungrily at him, and he could not sleep.

Thothmes stayed with them for a week. On the days when Huy and Ishat were busy with petitioners, he ambled along the riverbank with Seneb, the captain of his barge, or had Anhur set up a target away from the eager crowds, and practised with his bow and arrows. Several times they all boarded Huy’s boat and cruised leisurely in the red sunsets, drinking and leaning over the rail to watch the bare and parched banks glide by. Twice Huy left his office after the usual consultation with Merenra regarding the ongoing state of the household to find that Thothmes and Ishat were nowhere on the property. Guessing that they had sought the privacy of the cabin on Thothmes’ barge, Huy made his way behind the granaries, where there always seemed to be shadow between the large mud cones and the rear wall, and lowered himself onto the packed earth.

Still he did not weep. Drawing up his knees and resting his chin on them, he gazed into his future and found it to be desolate. Months earlier, when he and Ishat still lived in the town, he had placed his hands on her and Seen her painted and gorgeously arrayed. She had smiled at him in surprise, exclaiming that “they” were not expecting him. Ishat had laughed at the idea that she might be wealthy in the future, and she and Huy had simply gone about their business and forgotten the moment, but now Huy believed that he knew who “they” were. Ishat would finally give in to Thothmes’ importuning, and he, Huy, would be left alone with the servants and the wounded townspeople on this beautiful but ultimately meaningless estate.
For it will be meaningless without her,
his thoughts ran on.
My pleasure has been in seeing her so happy with her jewels and fine linens and the freedom from toil that has slowly healed her body from the depredations of hard living. Now her smiles and caresses and the occasional fits of anger that stem from her indomitable spirit will go to Thothmes. He will be the one to take her in his arms, slide the sheath from her shoulders, expose her brown breasts, bring his mouth against hers, and her lips will open for him, her eyes will close …
The same fantasies invaded his mind each time he sought refuge where the members of his staff could not find him, and he fought with a groan to banish them.