The man veered towards her but did not slow. “The King will be passing Hut-herib sometime this morning!” he called. “Word has gone around that his war was a triumph and he has brought back many prisoners! If you want to see him go by, you’d better hurry or all the best places to stand along the river road will be taken!”
Huy had joined her and she turned to him mockingly. “Do we want to run to the river and be pushed and jostled just for a glimpse of His Majesty? Or should we begin our workday? It’s too hot to stand about in crowds,” she answered herself. “Let’s go to the first few houses on my list. The town will be half empty. Gods, Huy, I’m thirsty already. Do you think Rahotep has locked the beer house door?”
Five hundred Rethennu princes and seven chiefs of Tikhsi
, Huy thought.
So Atum said. Do I want to see them for myself?
“Let’s work,” he decided, “then we can sleep the worst of the afternoon heat away. The air seems slightly more humid today, Ishat. I wonder if the Inundation has begun early.”
“Fevers, biting flies, swarms of mosquitoes, and drownings,” Ishat said succinctly. “I should have gone with Thothmes and then I could be followed about by a servant with a big whisk and an even bigger flagon of beer.”
Huy tweaked her nose. “If I didn’t know better, I’d believe that you were regretting your decision, you talk about it so much,” he teased her. “Go next door and pour yourself beer. No one steals from Rahotep—his servants are too large and mean. You can pay him later. And if you want a fly whisk, we were given a couple last year by a happy horse trader whose son had a bowel full of worms. Go and find them.”
“I wasn’t serious. Huy, if the details of the King’s victories tally with your vision, do you think he will want to see you today or tomorrow?”
“Probably, but we mustn’t wait for a summons. We’d better go. Drape a piece of linen over your head, Ishat. The sun is fierce and I don’t want you to become ill.”
“One vision for me is quite enough,” she muttered as she re-entered the house, her words giving Huy a moment of unease, but then she came back, her head and neck enveloped in linen, and they set off along the baking, deserted street.
They returned to the house at noon, both covered in dust that clung to their sweat, to find the street busy again and the beer house open. Ishat went next door while Huy stripped, washed gratefully in a bowl of tepid water, and wrapped himself in a sheet. When she came back, she was carrying a jug of beer and a dish of date pastries.
“They were not eaten this morning because everyone had gone,” she explained, setting the food on the table. “Rahotep gave them to me for nothing. They’ll do for our meal. It’s too hot to go to the temple kitchen and get something, or even to put together some fresh vegetables here. I just want to wash and sleep until it’s cooler.” She bit into a pastry. “Rahotep says that the King has already gone by. He sat on a big chair in the centre of
Kha-em-Ma’at
where everyone could see him. Seven foreigners were hanging head down from the prow of the barge, wriggling and shrieking. The rumour is that the King will sail right past his palace at Mennofer and go all the way to Weset so he can bash out their brains in front of Amun and display their bodies on the city wall. So you were right. Seven chiefs. This water is filthy.” She emptied the bowl into the street and began to ladle a fresh supply from the huge flagon standing just within the doorway. “According to Rahotep it took all morning for the army and the prisoners and horses and booty to pass along the river road, and they were still filing along when he got tired and came home.”
Unselfconsciously she pulled her sheath up over her head, dropped it on the floor, and plunged her hands into the bowl. Huy watched her wash herself without really seeing her.
So Amunhotep has come and gone without a word to the Seer who took away his uncertainty. I don’t know whether to be relieved or insulted. Relieved, I think. Being in the presence of royalty is just too nerve-racking. But I will not forget this ingratitude
.
“I need to sleep now,” he said. “Finish the pastries if you like, Ishat. My headache has killed my appetite.” She was tugging a comb through her hair and nodded, not answering him, standing naked with one leg flexed and both arms raised, her naked brown spine as straight as a reed. Her unselfconscious beauty did not move him. Folding the sheet more tightly around his waist, he went into his own room.
The New Year’s celebrations began and went on for days. The Dog Star rose in the night sky. The Inundation slowly flooded the land, depositing its silt and once again turning Hut-herib into a series of small islands. Huy laboured on, with Ishat and her lists beside him, walking the streets of the town that had become as familiar to him as the contours of his own face.
His nineteenth birthday came and went in an intense, humid heat that drained the energy from him at a time when he most needed his strength to deal with the rash of illnesses attendant upon the time of year. Scrolls of congratulation came from Thothmes and Nasha, Ramose and the Rekhet. Huy’s parents put on a modest feast for him, an awkward occasion with his uncle Ker and aunt Heruben that tried all Huy’s reserves of patience and tact; but he rejoiced in seeing little Heby, growing as sturdy and healthy as one of the weeds Ker was forever trying to eliminate from his flower fields.
Heby’s eighth birthday would arrive in another four months. He was doing so well at school that plans were under way to send him to a larger centre, Iunu or the temple of Ptah at Mennofer, with Ker supplying all his needs. Huy listened impassively. His rancour against his uncle had dissipated long ago. Neither Ker nor Huy’s father could help their cowardice. Huy had no affection for his uncle anymore, but he still harboured a love for his father and particularly his mother. The one great curse of his poverty was that he could not afford to provide his parents with a suitable tomb. Watching Heby and listening to his easy and rather precocious conversation, Huy hoped that in years to come his brother might be the one to give that most sacred and valuable gift to the couple who had given him life.
Khoiak, the fourth month of the year, saw the river at its highest and began with the Feast of Hathor. As the flood receded, the last ten days were given over to a different feast every day—of the Exhibition of the Corpse of Osiris, of the Mourning Goddesses, of Osiris Himself, of the Father of Palms—and the first day of Tybi belonged to the Coronation of Horus. These were all major celebrations and gave Huy and Ishat a respite. Huy had not gone to the temple to give Khenti-kheti thanks for his life, although Methen had dropped several hints that he should do so. He knew that he had not fully expunged his bitterness towards the gods from his ka, that the acceptance of his lot did not always include either gratitude or warmth, and he did not want to pretend a false gratitude. His fellow citizens all seemed smug to him, the progress of their lives, whether poor or wealthy, laid down for them, their beliefs sure and unquestioned. He often envied them. There was not one aspect of his own life that satisfied him with its wholeness or security. He was a grown man and yet a virgin through no fault of his own. He nursed an unreciprocated love for a woman who had made him her toy. He held within him the words of a magical Book he had tried unsuccessfully to decipher. His labour was not dependent on his own efforts but relied upon the ephemeral whim of the gods. Or god. The only certainty he could grasp was the fact of his death, the end of the small cycle of his young life. There was a completeness to that. But he had been tossed back into mortality seven years ago for a purpose he was sure was incomplete. Everything unfinished, unsettled, and beyond his control.
No
, he thought as he lay on his couch while the town exhausted itself with prayers and feasting,
I am obedient, and that is enough
.
On the last day of Tybi, the day after the Exhibition of the Meadow, when the reappearance of the soil and the commencement of sowing was celebrated, Huy was sitting outside his house, a cup of beer on the ground beside him, enjoying the brief play of evening light on the motley collection of low buildings opposite. Their occupants too sat outside the open doors, some tossing dice into the dust, some bent over gaming boards, some leaning indolently against their walls, talking to friends. Naked children wrestled in the middle of the street. A tethered donkey aimed a kick at a passing dog and began a raucous braying. The beer house sent a cacophony of cheerful voices out into the limpid air. For once Huy was content. Ishat’s list was empty. Yesterday and today no demands had been made upon him. His head was quiet and clear, he felt rested, he had eaten well, and a peaceful night lay ahead. Ishat had taken the opportunity to go to the river and wash their clothes and bedding. He had offered to help her, but she had refused, going next door and returning with the beer before she shouldered the sack of laundry and pot of natron and set off happily along the street. She had been gone a long time. Huy had sipped at the beer, not really wanting it, his glance going increasingly to the corner where she would appear.
The light was slipping down the walls, turning their shabbiness into a golden glory that began to fade to pink. The children were called in, and Huy was just thinking of going inside himself and lighting a lamp when a sudden hush fell over the denizens of the street. All eyes turned to the corner. Huy’s glance turned also. He expected to see Ishat, but instead three men came striding over the packed earth, all kilted in white and blue. The man in the centre sported a thick gold chain from which a golden scroll hung on his naked chest. His sandals were plain and sturdy, the footwear of someone who walked a great deal, but his face paint was immaculate, his earring of silver and carnelian ornate, and a circlet of gold sat firmly on his short wig. The other two men were obviously soldiers. Swords swung lightly against their muscled thighs. Each wore a leather helmet and carried a short spear.
A herald
, Huy thought, coming to his feet.
A herald and his military escort, and they are coming to me
.
The trio reached him and halted. At once the soldiers swung round to face into the street, the inquisitive eyes of the now-silent residents fixed on them. The herald bowed. “Huy the Seer, son of Hapu?”
“Yes.”
“I am Royal Herald Minmose.” A battered leather satchel hung from his belt. Pulling it forward, he opened it and extracted two scrolls. He passed them to Huy with a smile. “His Majesty has required me to deliver these directly into your hands, and I have now done so. Long life and health to His Majesty!” With another bow he and his escort were gone, pacing confidently through the loose stones and offal littering the ground.
For some moments the silence of the street held. Huy’s neighbours stared at him with open curiosity, but as he made no effort to unroll the letters their attention waned. Chatter began again. Huy picked up his beer and retreated into his house.
He had just lit the lamps when Ishat came in, dumping the sack of laundry on the floor and rushing to stand beside him. “I saw them coming out of our street,” she panted. “It was a herald, wasn’t it? What did he bring you?”
Huy held up the scrolls. One had been sealed with two symbols, the sedge and the bee, the insignia of royalty. The other bore the symbols of the sepat in which Hut-herib was situated. Huy and Ishat stared at each other.
“I’m afraid to open them,” Huy said. “Look at this beautiful papyrus, Ishat! Look at how tightly woven and highly polished it is!”
“Yes, yes, it’s lovely. Break the seal, Huy!”
“It might just be an expression of gratitude from Amunhotep.” Huy turned it over and over in his hands.
“Sometimes I could shake you, son of Hapu!” Ishat exploded. “What did I tell you? What have I been telling you all along? You are already becoming famous, and soon you will be rich beyond anything you can imagine! These scrolls hold your destiny. I know it. Be brave!” She was dancing from foot to foot in her impatience.
With a laugh, Huy cracked the seal on the King’s scroll. He read the contents aloud with Ishat craning over his shoulder.
To the Seer Huy son of Hapu, greetings. Having completed the rout of the princes of Rethennu as you predicted, and having taken the exact number of captives, gold, horses, chariots, and copper that you predicted, it pleases me to offer you the reward of a house, garden, and full granary on the bank of the eastern tributary of the river, its site to be determined by my Governor of your sepat. It also pleases me to provide you with servants, gold, oil, perfumes, eye paint, and all other essentials of life so that you may continue to perform the work of the gods without fear of penury. However, it will not please me if the gift Atum has bestowed on you is exhausted in the indiscriminate service of the common people. They are my people and you may treat them as you see fit, but on pain of forfeiting these good things I in my munificence give to you, I command you to husband your strength for my service and the needs of my nobles and administrators, without whom this country cannot be governed, and answer their calls whenever they order you. You may wait until you have seen your new home before sending me a letter of thanks. Dictated this day, the tenth of Tybi, to my Chief Scribe Seti-en, and signed by my own hand.
The list of royal titles followed. Huy did not read them.
Ishat was jumping up and down, her hair flying. “Seer of the King! My Huy, Seer of the King!” she was shouting. Her exuberance made Huy smile, but seeing his expression, she sobered. “What can possibly be wrong?” she demanded.
Huy tapped the scroll against the table. “Don’t you see? All this generosity, but to keep the house and servants and the gods know what else, I must do what the King demands. I will always be a victim of his whims.”
“What whims? All he wants you to do is See for him or his court first. You can go on Seeing for the citizens of the town. He says so.”
“I know. But to be so reliant on the royal favour troubles me, Ishat. If I offend him, he can do more than take it all away again—he can punish me for my ingratitude. I would rather refuse his gifts and stay here in our little house and be free.”