Authors: Pauline Gedge
The air began to change, growing purer and drier, and I pulled it into myself as though it was medicine for some sickness. I could be queen of all this some day, I thought as the panorama of Egypt slid past me. I will captivate Pharaoh. I will make myself indispensable to him in every way. I will climb from concubine to queen. Perhaps even Great Royal Wife, because I am so much younger than either Ast or Ast-Amasareth, his principal wives, and anything can happen. I will one day sit beside him in the throne room, and the noblest heads in Egypt will bend to me. It was a pleasant daydream as the hot wind lifted the hair from my sticky neck and sent rivulets of sweat down my spine.
Of the dark mysteries of the bedroom I did not think, nor did I dwell on the feel of the King’s flabby flesh under my hands, the odour of his fever-laden breath. If I imagined those inevitable private moments at all it was Prince Ramses who received my caresses and who laid his mouth on mine. I knew the time would come when I had to conquer my initial distaste for Pharaoh’s body, but the future still lay ahead. The present was everything.
Several times during the long, quiet days I sat with Hui in the foetid little cabin, talking to him while Neferhotep bathed and refreshed him. In the dark hours while we were tied up in some quiet bay, the servants’ fire sparking into the blackness and their laughter and conversation drifting to us over the sullen water, we swam naked together, not speaking, glorying in the warm silken embrace of the Nile our father, and afterwards I would sit swathed in Disenk’s linens, my knees under my chin, and watch my Master commune wordlessly with the moon, his brother. The experience should have brought us closer but it only served to remind me that my time with Hui was almost over, that an era was about to end and others would take his place of importance in my life.
For him there was sadness, I think. If I had been less self-involved, more attuned to the sensitivity that comes with maturity, I might have spoken to him of his feelings, but I did not want to consider them. If they began to intrude upon my selfish dreams I remembered how he had ruled me, used me, planned my days with no regard for who I was, and thus I regained the distance that had begun to grow between us. I did not think that I needed him any more, that the power in our relationship had passed to me because of what he wanted me to achieve with Ramses, but I was wrong. Hui still held all the dice. He always would.
We tied up in the canal of Wepwawet’s temple one fiery noon and Disenk and I, surrounded by household guards, walked down the ramp and through the gaggle of excited villagers to be greeted by my totem’s High Priest. Hui remained in his cabin, but I wanted to make my first act one of worship and thanksgiving to the god who had guided my path all my life.
They were all there, my old neighbours, in their coarse kilts and thick sheaths, their eyes inquisitive yet bashful as they took in the gold-tasselled canopy shielding me from the sun, the sheen of my black hair bound with a fillet of silver net, the flowing transparency of my ankle-length, pleated linen over white leather sandals on whose thongs tiny carnelians glowed reddish-orange. I smiled at them all, recognizing the girls who had feared and shunned me and suddenly pitying them for the harsh, deep colour of their skin, so damaged by the sun, the last evidences of fresh youth already giving way to an encroaching physical dissolution. I would have looked like that if I had stayed here, I thought with an inward shudder as I greeted them. My feet would already be calloused beyond repair, small lines etched by the sun would be appearing on my face, and my hands would be rough and chafed from household chores. Poor things, they are not my enemies any more.
My guards pushed their way politely through the throng and I found myself before the High Priest. Beside him a shy little boy wielded a smoking censer. I bowed to the priest and he returned the reverence. “I remember you,” I said with wonder. “You taught Pa-ari his letters but you would not teach me, and now you have been elevated to a much more exalted position!” He was younger than my memories had shown me, no longer a faceless adult but a youngish man with a cheerful expression and alert brown eyes.
“I should not have been so foolish, Thu,” he answered gaily, “for we hear that you have become an accomplished scribe and a physician, moreover! Welcome home! Your god awaits you!” I smiled back at him and followed as he turned and walked into the outer court.
Wepwawet’s temple was smaller than my childish memory had made it, still a jewel but compact, more rustic. In the outer court Disenk bent to remove my sandals and I held out my hand for the offering I had brought, the gem-studded pectoral Hui had given to me after my feast with his friends. It cost me dear to part with it, but I owed Wepwawet far more than I could ever repay and that feeling of indebtedness had grown a thousandfold as I had looked at the village girls. But for my god’s indulgence I could have been one of them, standing gawking at the arrival of some painted and perfumed aristocrat come to pay her haughty respects to this minor deity. Not minor to me, I thought as I moved towards the inner court. I am your devoted slave, great Wepwawet.
The gritty floor of the court was hot and it hurt the tender soles of my feet. I paused in the thin shade of the inner pylon, the High Priest and his acolyte ahead of me and facing the closed doors of the sanctuary, and as I did so a figure detached itself from behind the stone and came forward. “Pa-ari!” I shouted, and a moment later I was in his arms. We clung to one another for a long while, then he put me away and looked me up and down.
“Gods you are a gorgeous creature!” he said, “and you smell wonderful. I have been allowed, allowed mind you, to accept your gift and place it before the doors. Apparently it is a great honour. The temple singers and dancers have been turned out on this momentous occasion. One of them is my betrothed. It is not every day that one of Pharaoh’s concubines deigns to visit Aswat.” He was smiling broadly but I could not read his eyes. He had grown into a handsome man, with a straight spine and broad chest, but his mouth was the same, ever ready to curve into a grin, and his gestures brought back vividly to me the joys and sorrows we had shared. I loved him desperately.
“I am not a concubine yet!” I hissed back as the singers and dancers of which he spoke began to file into the court behind him. “Not until Father gives his permission! Now let me perform my obeisances to Wepwawet in peace!” The music had begun, and a singer’s lone voice rose in the verses of praise. The dancers lifted their systra. A drift of sweet incense enveloped me, and I knelt and prostrated myself before the sanctuary with a humility I showed to no other. This was Wepwawet’s moment, not mine.
Afterwards, in the outer court, Disenk brushed down my sheath and briefly kneaded oil into my scratched knees and palms. As she did so, Pa-ari returned, his arm protectively around a dark, slim girl with the shy, darting eyes of a young doe. “Thu, this is Isis,” he said simply, and I leaned forward to formally kiss her cheek, feeling all at once hentis older than she, and worldly-wise, and just a little jaded. Jealousy stabbed me and was gone. Isis had the lithe body of a dancer and my thought, as I straightened and summoned up a smile, was that as long as she continued to dance for the God she would not become plump and flabby. I could not imagine my brother coupling with a dumpy village girl.
“You are lovely, Isis,” I said. “I am very happy to meet you. You must be very special if my brother is in love with you.” Pa-ari beamed and the girl flashed me back a brilliant smile.
“He is a terrible tease,” she told me. “According to him, I may look forward to a life of constant childbearing and unremitting household labour if I marry him.”
“No,” I rejoined. “You will be the village queen. May I take him away from you for a while?” At once she pressed his hand and left us. I wanted to say something complimentary to Pa-ari about her, something politic, but the words stuck in my throat. I still wanted him entirely to myself. That much had not changed. He gave me a quizzical stare as the shadow of the canopy fell over us both, and we made our way out of the temple and across to the barge. The crowd had thinned. Of course, I thought cynically as we strode up the ramp and settled ourselves under the awning. They have run home to tell their friends and neighbours what they have seen.
Disenk, efficient and unobtrusive, handed us fly whisks and cups of wine. She set refreshments before us and a bowl of water and cloths with which to cool ourselves if we wished. Then she went to sit in the shade of the mast, out of earshot but ready if summoned. There was no sound from inside the cabin.
“Father will receive the Seer tonight,” Pa-ari said, sipping his wine with relish. “After greeting you, naturally. He does not say so, you know how Father is, but I think he will enjoy having the great man come to him instead of being peremptorily summoned like the last time. He has not changed much,” he went on as if in answer to my unspoken question, “and Mother not at all. She has been throwing one fit of outrage after another since the Seer’s scroll arrived with Pharaoh’s request, you know how narrow-minded the village is, but she is secretly pleased. She never did understand you, Thu.”
“I know,” I murmured, not taking my eyes from his dear familiar face, the graceful, clever fingers curled around the stem of the cup, the brown hair fluttering against his bronzed neck. “Are you content to remain here, Pa-ari? Does your work in the temple satisfy you?” He nodded slowly.
“I am the priests’ best scribe,” he said simply, “and I take pride in that accomplishment. Father is resigned to the fact that I will never work the land, but he has the slave your mentor sent and the scandal surrounding his arrival and the deeding of the khatoarouras has long since died away. I am preparing to wed.” He turned troubled eyes on me. “I know what that means to you, Thu, but you must also be aware that nothing will ever break the bond that unites us, not even my Isis. We have memories together that we made long before she danced into my dazzled vision!” He laughed. “You will make memories with Pharaoh but always we will have the secrets of our childhood to share.” His words were a precious balm to my ka and I pulled him to me and hugged him. “I am building a home for Isis and me with my own hands,” he said proudly. “It is beyond the temple, along the river path. And what of you, my sister? Are you happy? Are you sure that you want to be Pharaoh’s plaything instead of some worthy merchant’s wife?” His tone was light but I read true concern behind the humour.
Oh, Hui, I thought inwardly, jolted by Pa-ari’s perception, how cunningly you have created your masterpiece! “At one time I would have been content to marry a merchant,” I answered carefully, “but you see into my heart, Pa-ari. I can hide nothing from you. The daily round of life as mistress of a household would soon pall, and my restlessness would demand a new adventure. I intend to make the King my plaything, not the other way around!” Pa-ari hooted with mirth.
“Besides which, my princess, you are lamentably lazy and care nothing for the stern demands of duty! I love you, Thu!”
I wanted to tell him everything then. It hurt me that I felt a caution with him, a reluctance to confide in him my inadvertent killing of Kenna, my guilty lust for Prince Ramses, the mission Hui and his friends had placed upon me. But a man in love can be indiscreet and I did not want little Isis to be privy to my secrets. Perhaps I did my brother an injustice, but I could not take the chance. So I laughed with him, and the conversation turned to more innocuous things.
In the violent blooding of a desert sunset, Hui and I left the barge and made our way along the path that led from the temple watersteps into the village. Ahead went two household guards. I followed on foot under my canopy, then came Ani, also on foot, and Hui in his closely curtained litter. Guards brought up the rear. For me it was a voyage back in time. There was the spot where I had waited for Pa-ari to be let out of school on the day he brought me the news of the Seer’s coming. I fancied that I could still see the imprint of my bare feet in the dead grasses. The season had been the same, Shemu. Further on was the place, hidden by scrub, where Pa-ari and I had sat in the dirt under the sycamore by the river and he had begun my lessons by drawing the names of the gods. But under these memories that brought a lump of sadness and sweetness to my throat was the stronger, more potent remembrance of a walk at night under the ghostly palms, watched by the kas of the neglected dead, with moonlight splashing cold across my way and dread and determination in my heart. The uncouth little peasant girl had gone to meet her fate and now Pharaoh’s concubine was retracing her steps in triumph. It was a heady moment.
At the edge of the village square I spoke and the guards halted. The expanse of beaten earth seemed disappointingly small to me now. It no longer stretched into infinity with a promise of escape. A few ragged children stood well back in a protective cluster and watched me silently. Several young men and women and a group of their parents took a few timid steps towards me before stopping and waving. I waved back, but already I could see my father’s blond, tousled hair and solid bulk standing at the doorway of our house and forgetting my dignity I ran into his arms. He lifted me into the air before placing me gently down again and setting me away from him. His grave, thoughtful eyes smiled into mine. Pa-ari had been right. The lines of his face were perhaps etched a little deeper, his temples showed a suspicion of grey, but he was still my darling.
“Well, Thu,” he said. “You look as out of place in Aswat, now, as a jewel on a pile of dung. But you remind me very much of your mother when I first saw her. You have risen in the world, my daughter. Come inside.” He shared a few easy words with the guards, and putting a heavy arm across my shoulders, drew me into the house. He had completely ignored Ani, and Hui’s litter which had been lowered to the scuffed dust of the square. My mother flew at me as I entered the tiny, dark reception room and smothered me against her bosom.
“Thu! My little princess! You are here, you are alive! I did not think to see you again! Have you been treated kindly? Have you been a good girl? Have you remembered to say your prayers regularly?” She smelled of sweat and herbs and cooking pots. I extricated myself with difficulty and kissed her brown cheek.