Authors: Pauline Gedge
The following morning, clad in a dazzlingly clean fresh sheath, a white ribbon entwined in my hair, my face immaculately painted, I knocked at Hui’s door and was told to enter. Obediently I did so, bowed, greeted him, set an ink pot in my palette and reached for the papyrus ready for me on the small desk. The door to the inner room was already open, and this time light cascaded out of it into the office. After one appraising glance at my appearance Hui beckoned me inside. “Set your palette on the table,” he said. “Your first task will be to learn to recognize the contents of the containers here. I will show you each one, reciting for you the properties of the herb. You will memorize what I tell you, and the following day you will sit in here and write down what you have remembered from the day before. Thus will we work, until you are completely familiar with all of them.” I nodded, slid my palette onto the cold marble surface of the table, and waited. He pulled down a jar and removed the stopper. My nose twitched in approval, for the aroma released was strong and bracing. “Have no fear of this,” he told me. “You have already noticed that the smell is particularly efficacious. I prescribe its inhalation to patients who are weak from a long and debilitating disease. Other than that, it can be ground up, diluted, and drunk to settle disorders of the stomach.” He handed it to me and I pulled out several long, thin, dark-brown whorls of brittle tree bark. “Your mother would find this extremely useful,” he remarked as I examined it. “But she could never afford it, for it comes from a barbaric country on the edge of the world. It is called cinnamon.” I returned it to him and he passed me a large box. Opening it I saw withered and twisted roots. Again the smell was pungent but weak. “This too must be traded for,” he commented. “It is kesso root. You know of the properties of the poppy, of course. This root can also be used to produce a twilight sleep and dull pain. The blossoms of the kesso can be dried and brewed into a tea which will kill tapeworm in the bowels. I have none to show you at present. I am waiting for a caravan to arrive with several other plants I ordered.” I closed the box and handed it back to him. He thrust a bundle of large dry leaves at me and laughed. “Kat leaves,” he said. “When I have disciplined you severely for some mistake that you will inevitably make, and you are miserable, soak one of these until it grows supple again and then chew it. But only one, dear Thu. It will make you believe that you can conquer the world and then fly into the arms of Ra as he rolls across the sky. And do not dip into my stock too often or you will come to depend upon the effects of the kat for all your well-being. Here.” This time a tiny stone vial was held out to me. It was full of a colourless oil that had no odour. “Savin,” Hui said. “A curious oil. Do not allow your hand to tremble, Thu, for a drop on your skin will cause it to blister and rot. It is both a friend to women and a terrible scourge. In small doses it will encourage the monthly bleeding to begin. Some women will ask me for it a month or two after some night of indiscretion of which their husbands are unaware. But if taken in sufficient amounts to cause abortion it usually kills. Convulsions, vomiting of a greenish hue, inability to urinate, and finally inability to breathe. Death is slow. It can take days.” I passed it back to him with an inward shudder. “I do not distil the oil myself,” he remarked as he set it back on the shelf. “It would take too long and the results would not be pure. I buy it in its finished form. I also buy the poppy already ground into powder. Now this I grow myself. It stinks, does it not? Thornapple. I see that you are familiar with it. Your mother assuredly warned you against the beauty of its white or purple flowers. Its only use is death.”
The lesson went on, and I was alternately intrigued, excited and appalled. I asked no questions. I was content to concentrate on remembering the information fed to me, the colour and consistency of the oils and powders and roots and leaves, the methods of administration, the safe and unsafe doses. My mother would have been overjoyed to learn what I was beginning to assimilate, but I looked at the shelves and recognized that no village midwife could ever have afforded the exotic things stored there.
At last Hui poured water from one of the large flagons under the table into a bowl and handed me a dish of natron. “Wash your hands,” he commanded. When I had done so, he washed his own, then he bent and blew out the lamps. I picked up my palette and we went out into the office. The sunlight seemed pure and limpidly innocent to me and I took a deep breath, watching carefully as Hui retied the door cord. “Now,” he said, going to his desk and seating himself, “we will have refreshments.” He clapped sharply and immediately the double doors opened. Kenna came in and bowed. He did not look my way. “Bring beer and cold goose and shat cakes,” Hui told him. “If there are any pomegranates that have not completely shrivelled away, bring those also.” Kenna bowed again and left.
“Master, does Kenna help you in your work?” I asked with what I hoped was ingenuousness. Hui shook his head.
“Kenna cleans my floor and scrubs down the table but he is not allowed to touch the medicines,” he told me, giving me a keen glance. “He is an excellent servant in all ways and I would not want him to inadvertently poison himself. But do not think to give yourself airs, Libu princess, because you may do what is forbidden to Kenna. Perhaps that is because I value his services over your own. Little girls are cheap to replace. Well-trained, mature body servants of Kenna’s experience are not.”
“I think I will chew a kat leaf now,” I said sulkily, and he gave a single great burst of laughter.
“No, you will not. Uncap your ink and prepare to take a dictation.”
Obediently I took up my palette and sank cross-legged to the floor at his feet in the time-honoured pose of all scribes. I was not really insulted. He knew me well, this peculiar man, in fact I was impudent enough to imagine that we understood each other. He had gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to have me educated, and although I strongly suspected that the reason he had done so had very little to do with his need for a new scribe, I trusted him. Carefully I laid the gleaming new palette across my knees, uncapped the ink, opened the box and selected a brush. Then I waited. Hui had settled himself into his chair and was leaning back, arms folded. He glanced down at me. “You are forgetting something,” he said. Swiftly I ran my eye over my preparations. Everything was in place. The papyrus sheet under my hand was so smooth that it had not required burnishing. Then it came to me. Bowing my head I whispered the prayer to Thoth, gratitude and pride filling me as I did so. I had a right to say the scribe’s prayer now. I was a full-fledged servant of the god of language. When I had finished I smiled happily up at Hui.
“I am re-collected, Master.”
“Then begin. To His Excellency Panauk, Royal Scribe of His Majesty’s Harem, greetings. In regard to the bowel disorder of the Lady Weret, I send by the hand of my Steward a prescription of saffron and poppy. The Lady Weret must fast for three days and take one ro of this mixture four times a day, followed by one piece of bread in rotten condition. Report her progress to me at the end of a week. In the matter of the child Thothmes’ eyes, continue the treatment I have previously suggested, adding the rowan wood and honey salve to absorb the exudations and relieve his itching. Put gloves on his hands if he is tempted to scratch himself. With reference to Queen Twosret’s somewhat injudicious request, I understand that you are compelled to make me aware of the needs of the royal women. However, I presume that you cautioned her before passing her question to me. Tell her most respectfully that I cannot comply, but I will wait upon her at her convenience to discuss any other problems she may have. My charges for these physics and for my advice will be forwarded to the Royal Treasurer at the palace. By the hand of my Scribe Thu, I am your humble servant Hui, Seer of the gods and Master Physician.” He unfolded his arms. “Did you follow, Thu? Let me see what you have done.” Wordlessly, smugly, I handed him the papyrus. He nodded. “Good. It is neat, and I see that you have spelled everything correctly. Make a scroll and give it to Harshira to be sealed and delivered. Where is Kenna with the food?” As though the servant had been waiting, there was a knock on the door and he entered bearing a tray. Placing it on the desk he bowed himself out without a word. I was suddenly ravenous, and at Hui’s invitation I rose and began to tear at the cold goose.
“Who is Queen Twosret?” I wanted to know. Hui sipped his wine.
“Do not speak with your mouth full,” he rebuked me impatiently. “She is one of Ramses’ lesser queens, a member of the Peleset tribe. Ramses brought her back from his wars five years ago.” Picking up a copper fruit knife he sliced neatly through one of the wrinkled pomegranates on the tray and inspected the contents with distaste. “She is a pretty little thing but rather stupid. Ramses had a daughter by her and has not touched her since.”
“You mean that she was a captive?” I snatched up the discarded pomegranate and began to scoop out its contents with a silver spoon.
“Of course that is what I mean. I suppose you think that is romantic. Ramses won a great naval and land battle. He took over three thousand captives as slaves and gifts to his officials and commanders. It is unfortunate that his internal policies are not as sweepingly decisive. If he would regard Egypt as a battlefield and plan his campaigns accordingly we would not be slowly sinking into a marsh of corruption and decay.”
I ignored his wry comment on Pharaoh’s ineptitude. By now I had heard the same sentiments expressed many times in this house. “What a horrible fate!” I exclaimed, intrigued. “To be rescued, destitute, from the scene of death and carnage, and dragged in chains to Egypt, only to be selected as a wife for the mightiest ruler in the world, that is wonderful.” I was digging for the last of the bitter pomegranate seeds as I spoke. “Then to give him a little princess, for which the reward is to be flung aside and forgotten in the harem! That is unforgivable. What was her injudicious request, Master?”
“None of your business, you ridiculous child,” Hui said crisply. “And as for a horrible fate, is Pharaoh expected to regularly service every one of his women? There are hundreds of them in the harem. Twosret has hardly been ‘flung aside.’ As a queen she has her own apartments, and as the mother of a legitimately royal girl she has direct access to the Mighty Bull whenever she wants. She also enjoys the privileges of a high position in the hierarchy of the harem because she is a queen and not merely a concubine.”
“Like the Lady Weret?”
“Like Weret. Does the thought of being a member of Ramses’ harem fill you with loathing, Thu?” He was passing his wine cup under his nose, inhaling the bouquet and smiling at me faintly, mockingly. “I would have thought that a luxury-loving creature like you would be envious.” The expression in his blood-filled eyes was inscrutable. I swallowed the last of the pomegranate, dabbled my fingers in the fingerbowl, and considered. It had suddenly occurred to me that one of the few ways a peasant girl could leap the chasm of blood and privilege and come to the attention of the mighty existed in the harem.
“Not loathing,” I decided. “But to enjoy the King’s favour and then be banished from his bed, that I would find hard. I would want to be the most beautiful, the most pampered, the most indulged, always. What do the women find to do with themselves all day if they are not in the palace?” Hui drank and selected a shat cake. He turned it round and round in his white, fastidious fingers.
“They gossip. They eat and drink. They play with their jewels and order new clothes. Their servants bring them the latest cosmetics and lotions. Some of them, however, do not succumb to the enervating influence of the harem. They engage in trade and other businesses. They keep themselves firm in body and occupied in mind. But those women are exceptions.”
“Surely,” I said slowly, “it cannot be too difficult to keep Pharaoh’s affections if one is beautiful enough and clever enough to come to his attention in the first place.” Hui bit into his cake, chewed carefully, then cleared his mouth.
“Ah!” he responded. “That is the crux of the matter. Do you have any idea, my Thu, how few women are clever as well as beautiful? In the harem they may be counted on the fingers of one hand. Great Royal Wife Ast-Amasareth is such a one. She, like Queen Twosret, is a foreigner, a Syrian dragged in chains, as you so inaccurately put it, to Egypt after one of Ramses’ campaigns. She is no more beautiful than Twosret, but she is intelligent and crafty. She has made it her life’s work to know her husband well, his likes and dislikes, his weaknesses and strengths. Next to the Royal Wife the Lady of the Two Lands Ast, she is the most powerful woman in the harem and at court. She keeps her position through constant vigilance and great wisdom.”
“Then why is she herself not Chief Wife, if she is so perfect?” I flashed at him, obscurely irritated by his words. He grinned at me.
“Because she is not quite as intelligent or as cunning as Ast,” he told me, “and because Ast is the mother of Pharaoh’s oldest son. Now if you have eaten and drunk enough and your curiosity has been satisfied we will continue with your lessons. I have no appointments today.”
“I would like to see inside the harem,” I said, without much hope as I pulled my palette towards me and prepared to work. “Could I come with you one day, Master, when you go to minister to the women?” To my great surprise and delight he nodded, then he came around the desk, and taking my head between his hands he kissed my hair.
“I promise you, Thu,” he replied quietly, “that one day I will take you inside the harem. You have my word.” He straightened. “Now!” he went on briskly. “It is time for you to learn of the Metu, the channels that start from the heart. There are four to the head and the nose, four to the ears, six to the arms, six to the feet, four to the liver, four to the lungs and spleen, four to the rectum, two to the testicles, two to the bladder. They carry air, blood, mucus, nourishment, semen and excretions. A blockage of blood or mucus can cause illness. Blockage of the rectum can affect the limbs and even the heart itself. The Metu also carry Vehedu, the substances that bring pain. Thu, are you listening? I shall be asking you for this information again tomorrow. Stop wasting my time!”