House of Dreams (66 page)

Two days later the blow fell. Freshly washed and dressed I had just seen the girl go out to fetch my morning meal when the door opened again and the four judges filed into my tiny space. With them was a royal Herald, and over his white linen he wore a gossamer cloak of blue. The colour of mourning. The colour of death.

My bowels turned to water. Oh gods, I thought hysterically as I rose to face them. Oh gods, no. No! Panic-stricken, I scanned their faces. They would not look at me, all but the Herald, who gave me a cool glance and unrolled a scroll. I did not want to hear his words. For a moment all control left me and I covered my ears with both hands, shaking my head from side to side in a paroxysm of terror and uttering sharp cries, but they waited impassively and the hysteria died. The Herald cleared his throat.

“Thu of Aswat,” he read. “You have been judged and found guilty of the murder of the concubine Hentmira, and extreme blasphemy against the Divine God Ramses User-Ma’at-Ra meri-Amun. This is the sentence of the court. Your title is void. Your belongings shall be distributed among the women of the harem. The estate in the Fayum deeded to you by the King shall revert to him and become khato-land. You will remain in this cell without food or drink until you die, but Pharaoh is merciful. He will allow you to take your own life by whatever means you choose if you so desire.”

Choose … wish … desire … They were words of life, words of love. The other words impinged themselves on my consciousness only slowly.

… until you die …

… take your own life …

I tried to make it real and failed.

“But I submitted a petition to Pharaoh!” I protested loudly. “Did he not read it?”

“He read it,” the Herald said. “In his divine wisdom he chose not to intercede for you or to interfere in any way with the course of justice.”

“It is a trick!” I shouted. “Ramses would never let me die!” I snatched the scroll from the hand of the Herald and stared at the signature at its foot. There was no mistaking the King’s hand, strong again now, definite and cold. He had signed my death warrant. “What of my son, my child, his child?” I blurted. “What of my little Pentauru?” Deftly but politely the Herald took back the scroll.

“Pharaoh has repudiated the paternity of your son,” he said. “He no longer acknowledges any responsibility for the boy, who will be placed in the care of a family of merchants in Pi-Ramses and raised as one of their own.”

“I cannot take him with me?” I said stupidly, uncomprehendingly, and for the first time I saw pity in the Herald’s eyes.

“I do not think that you would wish your son to go where you are going, Thu,” he replied.

At that the full import of my fate crashed down upon me. With a shriek I collapsed upon the floor, curling in upon myself, hands over my face. Vaguely I heard the door open. Someone said, “No. Take the food away. She is to eat and drink no more.” The judges, still dumb, went out.

Then rough hands picked me up and put me in a corner. Servants were already stripping the cot and tossing my fine linen out onto the ground beside the guards. Others were piling my sheaths and sandals, my wigs and jewellery, even my lamps, into chests. I saw my medicine box go flying to join the confusion. In a cloud of dust the carpet was snatched up. A man bent to pick up the lamp on the table and I flung myself on him.

“No, not that lamp! I cannot die in darkness! I cannot endure the night without it! Please!” But he pushed me away and I saw the lamp go hurtling through the doorway.

They even took the cedar box my father had given me. By the time the door closed behind them the cell was empty. They had removed the sandals from my feet, the ribbons from my hair, and the sheath I had been wearing had been replaced by a coarse shift with a piece of cord to tie it to my waist. I had hardly felt the shame of my nakedness as the linen was indifferently ripped from my body. Only Wepwawet remained, standing on the table beside the denuded cot and staring at me with an unwinking, lofty gaze.

Stunned, I was unable to move. Like a woman carved from wood myself, I remained in the centre of the cell, encased in shock. After a while I felt the first intimation of thirst steal over me, and with it the knowledge that the next liquid to caress my mouth would be the water used by the sem-priests to wash my lifeless flesh. My story was told. My luck had run out. The nameless grave of a criminal would claim me, and I would be forgotten.

25

NO ONE CAME NEAR ME
. Morning became afternoon, and the fury of Ra beat upon my prison walls, turning my breath fiery and my body wet with sweat. Slowly the afternoon dissolved into a sunset I both longed for and feared, for with the coolness would come darkness and I had no lamp to keep at bay the phantoms that were waiting to torment me.

Once I left the cot, and going to the door I tried to speak to the guards. I had the muddled idea that I would plead with them to summon someone, anyone in authority, to whom I could explain the grave error that had been made, but the soldiers ignored me completely, although in the end I yelled and cursed at them through the small slit in the thick mud brick. The gesture only served to intensify my thirst and I returned to the cot where I lay trying to woo sleep to come to me.

In the end it did, but I woke to full darkness and a complete and final understanding of my sentence. No one would come. No one would bring water, or a covering to keep me from shivering in the night chill, or even a face, however hostile, with which to ameliorate the loneliness of my dying. No one would wash the sweat and grime from my body or give me medicine if I became ill. But that was a stupid thought. Of course I would become ill. And then I would weaken until I died. How long could someone live without water? Did they go mad first? Did they become consumed with fever?

Oh, water! I could feel it against my lips, slipping over my limbs, rippling in my hair as I struck out into the river with the moon high overhead. I could taste it as Disenk passed me a cup and the blessed contents slid over my tongue and down my eager throat. I could see its surface break as I dipped my hand into it before turning to the next course of my meal. Water, from which the first mound that was to become Egypt rose in the first days of creation. Water, that flooded the land and brought fertility to this, the most beautiful corner of the earth. Water, for which I would murder again and again if I could be granted just one sip.

I came to myself in a darkness that seeped into my nose and pressed relentlessly against my skin. Thirst cried out from every pore. My head throbbed. I ached with cold, for the cell did not retain the heat of the day but gave out a stinking dankness without the sun. Rising with difficulty I went unsteadily to the door. I could sense but not see the presence of the two guards to either side, and I strained to perceive what was beyond, but there was no moon and I had to imagine the rough ground, and the stables and perhaps even a row of palm trees beside the Waters of Avaris that flowed deeply to join the Nile and from there to the limitless expanse of the Great Green. I had never seen the Great Green, and now I never would. Not with the eyes of my body. But perhaps with the magic eyes of my coffin I would be able to look upon that miracle.

Coffin? Criminals did not receive coffins. They were not embalmed. Their bodies were buried in the sand, and only by diligently searching would the gods be able to find them. And then what? How would I fare in the Judgement Hall, providing the gods were able to put a name to my withering body? My heart would betray me. There would be no scarab placed upon it to prevent it from telling the truth about the evils I had done, and when weighed on the scales against the Feather of Ma’at it would sink with a damning speed. You are twice condemned, Thu, I told myself. Once by mortal judges and once by the verdict of the gods. No happiness at the feet of Osiris for you. Only more darkness, more despair, an eternal cry for light in the lightlessness of the Underworld.

My hands and feet were beginning to swell. With fumbling fingers I lifted Wepwawet and lay on the cot, at first whispering prayers of contrition and remorse and pleas for clemency but then simply saying them in my mind, for my tongue was becoming fat and unwieldy and the effort of drawing breath hurt me. The air rasped over my parched throat.

I slept, oblivion coming upon me with horrifying swiftness, but to my dismay I woke again to daylight and a raging thirst that had me crawling to the door and begging incoherently for water. But my jailors were deaf to my increasing frenzy. It was as though I were already dead. At last one of them spoke without looking at me, without even turning his head. “You may ask for a sword if you wish to end your misery,” he said brusquely. “That is allowed.”

I clung with one hand to the lip of the window as panic finally overtook me and gave me a moment of renewed strength. Screaming and crying and beating at the door with one fist, I gave myself over to madness, and to that fear of the unknown that lurks waiting for everyone doomed to grow old and for whom a last breath is a terrifying certainty.

I do not remember much of the third and fourth days. I cannot describe my desolation, the bouts of delirium, the violent protests of a young and healthy body in the process of extermination. I know that once a face loomed over me and I came to myself sufficiently to recognize one of the guards, but I did not hear him retreat and close the door again. I was sporadically aware of the quality of light in the cell, grey at dawn, dim at noon and briefly red at sunset. The air seemed full of noise until I realized that the sound came from me, it was my breath panting like a suffering dog, and in my lucid periods I tried to concentrate on it as proof that I still lived, that I was still Thu, that time still held me in its grip.

I began to imagine that Kenna was bending over me. He was a pale oval floating in the darkness, his features shifting. “She is far gone,” he whispered. “I do not know if this will be enough.”

Oh, Kenna, I thought. It is enough. Is it not enough? Have I atoned for what I did to you, to Hentmira? Is she here also? I felt his hand beneath my head. A ghostly cup bumped gently against my mouth. My cracked lips opened. The waters of paradise gushed past them. My stomach heaved and I retched.

When next I opened my eyes Kenna was still there, and this time he had more substance. His features did not swim but cast long shadows over his face. The light of Ra haloed him. Once more he raised me and I drank, but before I could ask him if I had perhaps already traversed the Judgement Hall unconsciousness claimed me again. As I plunged into the void I heard Osiris say, “The stench in here is unbearable. Have her washed at once.”

A third time I surfaced, and now there was a lamp on the table and I was drinking, drinking the sweetest water I had ever tasted. It was running down my chin and trickling between my breasts and soaking the filthy mattress on which I lay and I wished I might drown in it. Amunnakht withdrew, carefully lowering my head and placing the cup beside the lamp. I stared up at him dumbly. He dissolved into the shadows and another face took his place. Round cheeks, a full chin, a high brow under a soft linen helmet, bright brown eyes that surveyed me shrewdly. I swallowed several times before I could find enough saliva to form a word. “Majesty,” I croaked. He nodded.

“I see that you are now in your own mind,” he said, “and can understand me well enough. You are an evil and cunning woman, Thu, and you deserve the death that was to be meted out to you. Yet in my divine mercy I have decided to spare your life. I signed the warrant for your execution but I was troubled. I did not sleep well. Memories came to afflict me, and the contents of your petition whispered in my thoughts. I ordered it burned, but I will not forget the list of names. It is possible that you dictated to me the truth. If that is so, and I let you die, I will have committed an offence. Not as great an offence as yours, to be sure, for in your wickedness you sought to destroy your God, but a small tear in the fabric of Ma’at all the same. Time will reveal all. I have decided to send you back to Aswat and there you will stay. I have spoken.”

I struggled to form words, to thank him. I tried to touch him but my hand trembled when I had managed to lift it and besides, it was too late. He had gone as quickly as he had appeared. The Keeper replaced him in my vision, helping me to drink again, wiping my face, drawing a blanket higher over my shoulders, and I found myself crying helplessly like a child. “He is a good God,” Amunnakht said, and I moved my head once in assent, listening. I could no longer hear the laboured panting of my breath. I was going to live.

A week later I was taken from the cell that would have been my tomb, and chained to the mast of a barge bound for the granite quarries of Assuan. No one but the soldiers detailed to secure me to the craft bade me farewell, and when I had woken on the morning of my departure I had been alone. Amunnakht had himself tended me until the night before. I had pressed the statue of my totem into his hands and begged him to see that it was given to little Pentauru. I could no longer cherish and protect my son. Wepwawet must become his mother, guiding and guarding him as the god had done for me. Perhaps the passing of the statue from my hands to his would forge a link between us. Perhaps Wepwawet would draw him to Aswat one day to see the temple of the deity whose likeness had mysteriously companioned him from the cradle. I could only hope. The Keeper agreed to do as I had asked, but when I pleaded further with him to send me word now and then of how the boy was faring he refused. “It is forbidden,” he said firmly. He did not return to see the shackles go around my ankles and wrists. I was sorry, for I had not taken the opportunity to thank him for his care.