Authors: Pauline Gedge
Striding to the inner door I jerked it all the way shut, and I had begun to tie the intricate knots of the cord when all at once I became completely calm. My hands steadied. My breathing slowed. The marks of his teeth are in my mouth, I thought distinctly. I will have to tell Disenk that I slipped and cracked myself on the edge of a chair. I will tell Hui the same thing, but what will Kenna say to him? Will he complain about me? Will he tell the Master the truth, and will he be believed? How secure am I in Hui’s life, in his affections? How much trouble can Kenna make for me, now and in the future, if he chooses to start pouring poison into Hui’s ears?
Poison.
The knots were complete, lying tangled against the polished wood of the door. I gazed at them unseeingly and gingerly fingered my wounded mouth. I had behaved abominably, reprehensibly, in goading Kenna. I had been unable to control myself but I had learned a valuable lesson in self-discipline and I vowed that nothing like it would ever happen again. Ever. Once was enough. I should have bitten my own lip and remained silent whatever the cost, but it was too late to undo the damage I had done. Kenna was now an open enemy, able to influence Hui against me in subtle, private ways. Therefore one of us must go, and it would not be me. Thoughtfully I made my way back to my room.
Disenk exclaimed in horror over my minor disfigurement, throwing up her tiny hands and sending immediately for salt water and a piece of fresh meat. Gently and efficiently she bathed the swelling and made me sit with the meat covering it until the throbbing had died away. Then she dabbed it with honey. I was scarcely aware of her ministrations. My mind was working feverishly, scanning Hui’s collection of noxious powders. Hemlock perhaps. A leaf tossed into Kenna’s salad would loosen his limbs so that he would not be able to walk well. His eyesight would become weak and his heart would flutter. The advantage to the hemlock was that its symptoms would not begin to show for an hour or so, but although Hui had taught me the plant’s deadly properties he had not schooled me in the amounts needed. Too much and Kenna would die. Too little, and he might recover after a day or so and return to his Master’s side. The root was harmless in the spring, but did harmless mean that it would produce no symptoms at all or that it would merely make one sick? A refreshing drink made from the leaves of the thornapple? Hui had included the tiniest amount in one of his prescriptions. But as the thornapple’s noxious qualities were known to every Egyptian physician it was more than likely that the Master would recognize Kenna’s illness. The dog button? It was the most virulent poison on Hui’s shelves, killing by inhalation, ingestion or contact with the skin. Hui had described to me in horrifying detail the way I would die if I was foolish enough to handle it carelessly. But in tiny medicinal doses it produced no symptoms at all, and there was no middle ground of mere illness with its use. It destroyed completely or it did nothing obvious.
While Disenk checked the progress of my lip, her perfect features as solemn as though I had lost a tooth and would be ugly for life, I considered and discarded one possibility after another. The oleander worked too quickly. The bead vine had to be chewed. Honey from the azalea was a possibility, but where could I obtain it? My mind felt as hot and swollen as my mouth and in the end I pushed all thought of Kenna away. There was time to decide what to do, days if necessary, before the acid words I knew he would spew forth began to be considered seriously by Hui. If they were taken seriously. Perhaps the Master would brusquely command his servant to be silent, to take his complaints to the Chief Steward. But perhaps Kenna was right and my place here less secure than I had imagined. It was all very difficult. I sighed, and Disenk asked anxiously, “Does it hurt very much, Thu?” I shook my head. The real hurt was inside me. Evil bitch. Conceited whore. Common, arrogant, vain, selfish. Was I all those things? Of course not. Kenna had lashed out from the same pain that had stung me. Jerking away from Disenk’s feathery touch I told her that I must swim, and together we made our way out into the garden, I to lose myself in the embrace of the water and she to sit on the bank and watch me.
It was easier, in the end, than I had thought. Once a week Kenna appeared to clean the inner office, and while I took dictation or passed ingredients to Hui as he bent over his stained bowls and utensils, the man would sweep and wash around us. Hui seemed hardly aware that he was there, so used was he to the well-established routine, but I watched Kenna closely. Often he would pause halfway through his chores to summon a slave with beer. He would place the cup on the outer desk to drink from when he became thirsty. Sometimes this did not happen, but more often than not he would end his work by wiping the sweat from his forehead and neck, and stand for a moment while he drained the cup. Then he would gather up his tools, including the cup, and leave. He always finished well before Hui and I and was gone as quietly as he came.
After much deliberation I had settled on the love apple with which to revenge myself on Kenna. Along with several other useful plants, Hui cultivated it in a well-guarded corner of the estate near the rear wall. I had not yet used it in any prescription, but Hui had told me that it was a good sleep drug in cases where a patient must be cut open. He also sometimes gave it to women who were barren, perhaps because its peculiar root was shaped like the penis of a man. I had handled the root without gloves and my skin had come out in an ugly rash, much to Disenk’s dismay. Its ripe fruit could be safely eaten. Unripe, it killed. What I liked most about it, however, was that in doses a little over the edge of safety it would produce vomiting and diarrhea. The thought of Kenna laid low in this embarrassing manner made me smile. When he began to recover I would give him some more, and I would keep doing so until, weak and rendered completely incompetent for his work as Hui’s body servant, he would be sent away.
My problem, however, was simple. I intended to feed the love apple to Kenna in the beer he usually called for. Therefore I could not use any solid part of the plant. He would have to drink his nemesis. I would have to grind the dried stem and a few leaves, soak the result in water, and add that to the beer. I had no idea how much of the tainted water would be effective, nor could I imagine how to experiment with it.
Obtaining stem and leaves was not difficult. Perhaps two days out of the week Hui was abroad in the city or in the temples and I was left to work happily by myself. I simply removed what I needed from the appropriate jar, ground it with mortar and pestle, and transferred it to another container which I filled with water and hid behind other sealed jugs on the highest shelf. I did not know how long to leave it there to brew, but surely a week would be long enough. Besides, I was afraid that if I left it longer it would be discovered and I would somehow have to explain its presence. I dreamed of it night after night, irrationally afraid that I would enter the office to find it gone, to find that Kenna knew all about it and was going to show it to the Master, to find Hui standing there grimly holding it up as I hurried to begin my work. Twice during that week I earned a reprimand from Hui, for I could not keep my mind or my eyes on the tasks before me. All my attention was fixed on the invisible jar nestling in its hiding place.
So great was my anxiety that I had almost decided to retrieve the concoction and toss it out, when Hui greeted me irritably one morning.
“I must go at once to the palace,” he told me as he walked past me to the passage. “The Great Lady Tiye-Merenast is ill. There is not much I can do. She is very old and her heart is weak. While I am gone, find her scroll and make up the medicine you will find already recorded there. It is pepper, kesso root, poppy and a drop of oleander juice if I remember correctly.” He halted and turned, fixing me with a sharp look. “Are you ill, Thu?” he asked abruptly. “You have dark circles under your eyes. Is Nebnefer working you too hard?”
“No, Master,” I replied truthfully. “I have not been sleeping well of late.”
“Fast for three days and then go without meat for a further three,” he said. “I will instruct Disenk to that effect in case you are tempted to ignore my advice.” He smiled absently and was gone. I heard him call for a guard and his litter as I was reaching for the chests of scrolls in the outer office.
I found the instructions regarding the care of Pharaoh’s mother without trouble, and leaving the appropriate chest open on the desk and taking the scroll with me I unknotted the cord of the inner office and went inside. I lit the lamps and began to assemble the things I would need. As I was breaking the seal on a new pot of ground kesso I heard movement in the outer office and my heart skipped a beat. It was Kenna of course. I felt him come to stand behind me and I kept my fingers from trembling as I picked up the tiny measuring spoon. I did not look round.
“He has been called away unexpectedly,” I said without preamble. “You can clean if you want to.”
“How very gracious of you, Majesty,” he replied with heavy sarcasm. “Thank you for your royal permission.” I gritted my teeth against the equally biting rejoinder that had slipped into my mind with frightening speed and continued with my task. The medicine was for an important royal woman and required all my attention. I heard Kenna return to the passage and shout for his beer. Everything in me came alert but my concentration did not falter. The powders were mixed to the correct proportions and shaken into the waiting phial. A little warm wax sealed it. My hands were still steady. Kenna was weaving his hostile dance around me with the twig broom. He went out and returned with the bowl of hot water, set it on the floor by my feet, and threw his rags into it. I reached for my jar. Kenna was on his hands and knees, sprinkling natron over the floor. I removed the seal.
The smell was immediately overpowering, a rank, disgusting odour of rotting vegetation, and the water was brown. Kenna had not noticed anything. He was rubbing the tiles now, the dissolving natron rasping slightly as his wet cloth crushed it. I lifted Tiye-Merenast’s scroll and the jar and stepped into the outer office. The beer had been brought. It sat on the desk, limpidly innocent, cool and inviting to a thirsty man. I glanced back. Kenna’s white-clad buttocks were presented to me. His shoulders moved rhythmically. Holding my breath I poured the contents of the jar into the beer. Fleetingly I wondered when to stop. At half? Three-quarters? But water diluted everything and I did not want my disturbed nights, the panic that swept over me now, to be for nothing. I added it all. The dregs were oily and black.
I found that I was still holding my breath as I quickly stood the jar inside the chest that lay open beside the cup of beer, laid the scroll beside it, and closing the lid, moved away from the desk and went to the far wall. As I was replacing the chest Kenna came out. I walked past him, back into the inner office, sure that the sudden weakness in my knees would make me stumble, but he was already lifting the cup and did not even look at me. My heart was now palpitating wildly and I rammed my fist against my chest, forcing myself not to glance his way.
I began to pull jars and phials off the shelves at random, blindly, and I heard his sigh as he set the cup back on the desk with a click. Oh gods, I thought wildly, feverishly. What have I done? He was coming back. He sank to his knees behind me and I believed for one ghastly moment that I had erred, that he was dying at once, but he picked up his cloth and resumed his slow circles on the floor. I was frozen, my fingers stilled among the motley collection of herbs I had set haphazardly about. Then I became aware that he was standing beside me. “I want to wash the table,” he said. Numbly I moved aside while he set water on the tabletop, dipped a fresh rag into it, added natron, and began to vigorously push the jars aside. Once I saw him pause, and a frown crossed his face. But he returned to his scrubbing and at last was finished. Giving me a cold stare he removed the bowl and left.
I heard him gather everything up but I could not stir. I was in the grip of the greatest fear I had ever known, but under it flowed a thin stream of excitement. Would he take the cup? The outer door closed and I ran to see. The cup was gone, leaving nothing but a wet circle on Hui’s polished desk. I wiped it off with the hem of my sheath, then I went to the chest, retrieved the jar, added water from one of the flagons under the table, swirled it about, stood on Hui’s chair, and threw the contents out the high window. It was foolish, I knew, but every outside entrance had its guard or watchman and I did not want to run the risk of being seen carrying anything unusual that day.
Forcing myself to remain calm I replaced all the jars on the shelves, left the medicine I had been ordered to prepare in a prominent place on the table, then blew out the lamps and retreated. I had done it. It had been terrifying, but surprisingly easy. Perhaps Kenna was even now beginning to feel sick, tired, wanting his couch. With any luck it would be a week or two before I would have to look at his sour face again. I was smiling as I ran up the stairs to my room.
He was already very sick by the time Hui returned at sunset. I had spent the afternoon practising my lute music and even attempting to compose a song of my own, applying myself more diligently than usual to the instrument. I would have preferred to learn to play the intricate, sensuous rhythms of the drum, but drummers were almost always men and Harshira had denied my request for different instruction. I felt virtuous as I plucked the strings. I may have made Kenna ill but was I not at heart a good girl, obedient and hard-working? My music teacher congratulated me for my perseverance when she left, and Disenk asked me to sing my composition again.
I was facing an enticing meal of broiled fish with coriander-flavoured leeks and chickpeas when there was a peremptory knock on the door. Disenk went to open it. Harshira leaned in and beckoned to me.
“The Master has sent for you,” he said. “You must come at once.”
“What is it?” I asked. I did not need to simulate alarm. A pang of fear shot through me at the sight of his solemn face.