Authors: Pauline Gedge
“This is Thu,” Harshira said simply, gesturing brusquely in my direction. To my surprise, the scribe bowed to me also.
“Greetings, Thu,” he said, and his voice was a shock. Low and melodious, the words perfectly enunciated, it reminded me of the temple cantor at Aswat, whose praises to Wepwawet would fill the hidden sanctuary with strong music and drift over the wall to echo through the inner court. The sound always brought a throb of strange longing to my throat. “I am the Master’s Chief Scribe, Ani. I understand that today you are to dictate to me.” He turned back to Harshira. “May I take her now?”
“You may. Run along, Thu, and try to dictate a short and coherent letter. Ani’s time is more valuable than your words.” I gave him what I hoped was a hostile glance but he was smiling at me, the flesh of his face rising into new configurations. I bowed stiffly and followed the scribe out of the room.
We did not go far. A short way back along the passage I had previously walked with the little slave, we entered a door on the opposite side and I found myself facing a more congenial view than Harshira’s. Ani’s window gave out onto the rear of the gardens. A narrow paved path ran half-hidden between dense shrubbery and the tall trees that grew against the great sheltering wall so that the room was filled with a cool, green light. It contained a desk, several chairs and shelves crowded with hundreds of scrolls. Each shelf was neatly labelled. The atmosphere was quiet and peaceful and I felt myself begin to relax. Ani closed the door behind us and motioned me to a chair.
“Be pleased to sit, Thu,” he said kindly. “I will prepare my palette.” His manner held none of the arrogance of Harshira’s and he moved and spoke with a warm, calm assurance. I sank into a chair and watched him pull his palette across the desk, uncap the ink, select a suitable brush. A sheaf of papyrus lay at hand and he lifted a sheet, opened a drawer, removed a burnisher and began to vigorously smooth the beige paper. His working materials were plain wood, the palette scored and stained, the brushes unadorned, but the burnisher was of creamy ivory inlaid with gold, its handle softly gleaming from years of use. Lovingly he laid it on the desk, picked up the palette, came round, and sank to the floor by my feet. His eyes closed and his lips moved in the silent, ritual prayer to Thoth, patron of all scribes and the god who had given hieroglyphs to his people. I was vividly reminded of Pa-ari, and felt a rush of affection towards this man, now dipping a brush into the ink. He looked up at me and smiled, and suddenly I did not know how to begin. Shyly I cleared my throat, my gaze travelling the room as I hunted for words. He must have seen my dilemma.
“Do not be afraid,” he told me. “I am an instrument, nothing more. Think of me that way. Speak from your heart to those you love. Forgive me, Thu, but has your brother the skill, yet, to read your words to your parents?” I admired his gentle tact.
“I suppose the Master has told you all about me and my family,” I replied ruefully. “Yes, Pa-ari is already an accomplished scribe, still in school but performing a scribe’s duties for the priests in our temple. He will read to my parents. But I do not know how to begin. Or where,” I finished helplessly. “There is so much to tell!”
“Perhaps a formal opening would be appropriate,” Ani suggested. “‘To my loving parents, greetings from your dutiful daughter Thu. May the blessings of Wepwawet the Mighty be on you and on my brother, Pa-ari.’ Will that suffice?”
“Thank you,” I said. His head went down and he began to inscribe the words, quickly and with an unselfconscious neatness. I cast about in my mind for a place to begin. Should I start with the journey? A description of the house? A proud declaration of the fact that I had been assigned a body servant? No. I must be diplomatic. I must not speak to them as though they were now somehow beneath me. My fingers had tightened on the arms of the chair. I looked down at the spotless, gossamer-soft linen folding over my knees, felt the ends of the blue ribbon stir against my naked shoulders. My tongue tasted the slightly bitter flavour of red ochre.
All at once a full awareness of the strange and wonderful fate that had overtaken me blossomed in my consciousness. Until then I had been moving in a kind of waking dream. The trees beyond the window stirred briefly in a stray puff of wind. I could smell the perfume of the saffron oil anointing my body, the faint sweetness of the cedar wood chair in which I sat. Ani came to the end of the greeting and looked up, brush poised expectantly, and I noticed for the first time the silver Eye of Horus lying against the folds of his tunic. This was my world now, in all its complexity, with all its mysteries and surprises. I was no longer a little peasant girl, running barefooted by the Nile. I inhabited a different womb from which a different person would emerge.
Rising, I began to pace, palms pressed together. “I have so much to tell you,” I began, “but first I must say that I love you all and I miss you. I am being treated well, in fact, you would not recognize me now. The Seer’s house is a marvel. I have a room all to myself, and in it there is a couch with fine linen …” I had come to the window. I leaned against the casement, eyes closed, dimly hearing the faint rustle of papyrus as Ani worked but was soon lost in the flood of words that poured out. I told them about Disenk and the food and wine. I described Harshira and the frightening, exciting confusion that was the city of Pi-Ramses I had seen briefly from the river. I talked about the fountain and the pools, the other servants, my glimpse of Pharaoh’s barge tethered to the marble watersteps of the palace as Hui’s craft had drifted past.
Then suddenly I had said it all and I was left with an awareness of my own loneliness. I imagined Pa-ari’s face as he read the scroll to my mother and father in the poor light of the tallow lamp. I could hear his steady voice as it sent my words into the tiny, cramped room. My father would listen intently, silently, his thoughts hidden as always. My mother would exclaim from time to time, leaning forward, her dark eyes glowing with admiration or sparking disapproval. But I was here, here, I was not sitting cross-legged with them on the rough hemp mat, hearing someone else’s incredible adventures with envy and yearning. “I miss you most of all, Pa-ari,” I ended. “Write to me soon.” Trembling with fatigue, empty yet at peace, I resumed my seat. Ani, of course, made no comment on what must have seemed to him an incoherent outpouring. The ink was rapidly drying. Under Ani’s coaxing the scroll rolled up. He rose and placed it on the desk, then covered the ink. He called softly. Immediately the door opened and a servant came in.
“Clean my brush and mix fresh ink,” Ani ordered. “Tell Kaha to wait upon me.” The servant bowed, swept up the palette, and went away. “The letter will go upriver with one of the Master’s Heralds,” Ani answered my unspoken question. “There will be no charge to your family of course. You will dictate to me again in one month’s time, Thu. Ah!” He beckoned impatiently at the young man who had knocked and entered. “This is my assistant, the Under-Scribe Kaha. He is in charge of your lessons. He is inquisitive and rather rude, which is unfortunate, because he is also mildly intelligent. Kaha this is your pupil, Thu.” Kaha grinned and looked me up and down with a frank curiosity.
“Greetings, Thu,” he said. “Ignore the comments of my master. He is afraid that one day I will surpass him in both intelligence and competence. I already surpass him in wit.” Ani grunted.
“Begin with the scrolls we have already discussed,” he told Kaha. “Go out into the garden. The child needs air.”
“Thank you, Venerable One,” I said haltingly as Kaha swept up a bundle of scrolls from a shelf and ushered me out, and Ani threw me an absent smile and turned to his desk.
“I don’t think I shall ever have the good fortune to become a Chief Scribe,” Kaha said airily as we moved down the passage towards the shaft of sunlight cascading through the rear doorway. “I talk too much. I do not blend well into my surroundings. I have too many opinions and like to express them too loudly.” We turned left and I blinked, temporarily blinded by the force of the mid-afternoon sun. Kaha clicked his fingers and at once a slave who had been sitting in the shadow by the door sprang towards us, a sunshade at the ready. Kaha then ignored him. The man walked behind us, holding the yellow dome over our heads, its blood red tassels dancing just before our eyes. We rounded the corner of the house and crossed the main courtyard. I wondered if Harshira was at his window, marking our progress, and resisted the urge to glance back and see. “We might as well make ourselves comfortable by the fishpond,” Kaha remarked as we paused so that the slave could open the gate. “It will be cool there and we won’t be disturbed.”
I barely heard him. It was good to be out of the house at last, to lift my face to the blue sky glimpsed above the jerking palms, to feel hot air on my skin. I wanted to remove my sandals as soon as we had left the burning paving of the courtyard but Kaha strode on, down the winding path I had covered, it seemed, a henti ago, until he veered and plunged through an opening in the thorn hedge. The pool lay dark and still, its surface hardly disturbed by the light flutter of the insects that skimmed it. Lily and lotus pads floated, green and elegantly curved. There were, of course, no flowers. It was the wrong season. Kaha lowered himself to the grass. “Bring whisks, water and mats,” he snapped at the servant. “Go to my rooms and request papyrus and my second-best palette.” He graced me with one of his wide smiles. “Beer would be better,” he confided as the man hurried away, “but we don’t want our faculties clouded, do we? So you are Hui’s little peasant from Aswat.” His eyes slid over me, but somehow his scrutiny was not insulting. “They tell me you are sharp-tongued and wilful.” I drew in my breath to protest but he went on. “They also tell me that the Master had a dream about you or a vision or something. Lucky you!” He sorted quickly through the scrolls and held one out to me. “None of that is my concern,” he said firmly. “I have been given the not unpleasant task of providing you with an education. Not unpleasant, that is, if you do in fact exhibit some intelligence. Here. Read this to me.” I took the scroll and unrolled it.
“Kaha,” I said slowly, deliberately, “I am rather tired of being described disparagingly as ‘the little peasant from Aswat.’ Peasants are the backbone of Egypt. Without them the country would collapse in a week. The sweat of my father waters this house and don’t you forget it. Besides,” I finished rather lamely, “my father is Libu, and he was a soldier long before he took to farming. I do not have a peasant’s lineage.” He laughed.
“So you object to being scorned as a peasant, not from any pride in being one but because you are convinced that your blood is just a fraction bluer than that of your Aswat neighbours,” he exclaimed with unexpected astuteness. “Sharp-tongued, and conceited also. Read to me, Libu princess. If I judge that you love and revere the written word as much as I do, I shall forgive you all your faults.” I hated his perception but rather liked his forthright manner. When will this testing end? I wondered, and taking a deep breath I scanned the scroll.
It was the account of a military engagement that had taken place hentis ago, during the reign of some Pharaoh called Thothmes the First. The narrator was one of his generals, Aahmes pen-Nekheb. The language was difficult, colourful and slightly archaic, and I was soon stumbling as I fought to decipher the black characters. Pa-ari’s lessons had been less onerous, the simple words making up simple maxims regarding morals and behaviour. This scroll was full of the names of places and tribes I had never heard of, long words of action, long passages of exposition and explanation. When I stumbled Kaha waited. When I came to a frustrated halt he prompted me. “Break down the word into its holy components,” he told me. “Pray. Guess. Enter into the sanctuary of this work.” He did not joke any more. His attitude was attentive, sombre. When I had groped my way to the end he took back the scroll. “Now tell it to me,” he commanded and I did so, my eyes on the water of the pond and the darting dragonflies whose wings glittered as they passed in and out of the reach of Ra’s fingers. The servant had returned, quietly laying out mats for us, setting water jugs in the grass and fly whisks in our hands. He withdrew just out of earshot and settled himself under a tree.
“Not bad,” Kaha commented when I fell silent, “but you did not even attempt to remember the number of prisoners taken.”
“Why is that necessary?” I asked rather petulantly, for I believed I had done rather well. “I am to be an assistant, not a scribe, and besides, the account is written for all to see and a scribe takes dictation. He does not memorize and give back by rote.” Kaha gave me a keen look.
“A scribe must be proficient in many ways,” he objected. “Suppose he takes a dictation and the scroll is sent and several days later his master says to him ‘Scribe, exactly what did I say in that scroll?’”
“But do not the under-scribes spend their time making copies?” I countered smoothly. “The scribe merely needs to read from the copy.” I was obscurely annoyed with him. He rolled his eyes.
“Thu, you are being obtuse,” he sighed. “Sometimes an official is in conference with another official and needs to know later what the other official has said, but he has ordered his scribe not to write anything down.” I gazed at him thoughtfully.
“You mean that sometimes a scribe must have the eyes and ears of a spy.”
“Very good!” he responded sarcastically. “And now, if you have sufficiently embarrassed yourself with your presumptuous naïvety, we will continue with the lesson. I have ascertained that you can read—after a fashion. But can you write?” He set the palette the slave had brought across my knees, opened the ink, placed a brush in my right hand. I wanted to excuse myself before I had even begun, to tell him how I had studied in secret, how I had only rarely been able to practise on expensive papyrus, but I pressed my lips firmly together against the rush of despicably self-pitying words, and transferring the brush from my right to my left hand I dipped it in the ink and waited. There was a pause. Glancing up I saw his eyes narrowed, fixed on me in speculation.