Seer of Egypt (22 page)

Huy smiled at Nasha. “No, don’t wait. Go and enjoy the evening. Thothhotep, come with me.” He was aware of Ishat’s stare as he left the room with Thothhotep at his heels. Truthfully, he would have preferred to have Ishat taking down the words of the coming meeting, but this was as good a moment as any to sever the link of master and scribe between them.

Of course, he did not need to be led to Nakht’s office; he could have walked the interior of this house blindfolded. Yet as he approached Nakht’s door, he faltered, the memory of his last visit springing fresh and terrible into his mind. He had begged to be given Anuket then, begged without dignity, begged like the penniless, desperate peasant that he was, and Nakht had turned him down. Nor would he agree to give Huy a scribe’s position anywhere within his governmental jurisdiction. His refusal to help Huy in any way was entirely unexpected. If Nakht had stepped up to Huy and struck him with his fist, Huy could not have been more shocked. Nakht had been more than a father to Huy, generous and kindly, and Huy had loved him. Thothmes told Huy later he believed that Nakht had not dared to invite the anger of the gods by doing anything that might thwart their plan for Huy’s destiny as their Seer, but the excuse did nothing to ease Huy’s sense of betrayal. As the tall door inlaid with the copper symbols of the Heq-at sepat, Nakht’s responsibility, loomed ahead, Huy saw again the insulting pity in the Governor’s eyes. He took a deep breath and knocked on the smooth cedar. Nakht’s voice bade him enter and he did so, Thothhotep following and softly closing the door behind her.

Huy expected to see the Governor rising from behind the desk that dominated the room, but Nakht was half sitting, half lying on a travelling cot placed between the desk and one of the niche-hollowed walls, propped up with many cushions and draped in a crumpled sheet. A dish containing a half-eaten salad and a full cup of wine sat on a low table beside him. He made no move to rise, but he smiled as Huy bowed and waved him forward. “This way I am able to both conduct the business of the sepat and husband my strength,” he explained as Huy approached him. “It is very good indeed to see you again, Huy. You’ve filled out. You look well.” His voice was thin. Reaching out, he picked up the cup and took a sip of wine. His hand shook.

“It’s a great pleasure to see you again also, noble one,” Huy responded. “I don’t think that you have met my new scribe.” He indicated the girl, who was standing motionless a polite distance away. “This is Thothhotep.”

Nakht’s smile grew wider. He raised his eyebrows as Thothhotep bent respectfully, and in that moment, in spite of the fleshless cheeks, the taut skin stretched over the painfully prominent bones of the Governor’s face, the yellowed eyes, Huy saw the benign features he remembered so well.

“Did you deliberately select another woman to keep your secrets, Huy, or do you simply enjoy mystifying and perhaps even shocking your unsophisticated neighbours? Greetings, Thothhotep.” His glance swept over her and returned to Huy. “I have the AA disease,” he said frankly. “The physicians are helpless against its onslaught, as you must know. I need you to See for me, Huy, and tell me how long I have left. Thothmes will wish to devote himself entirely to his new wife for a while, and besides, he is not quite ready to take my place. His Majesty has agreed to confirm him as Governor of the Heq-at upon my death.” He paused to take a mouthful of wine. “My tomb was finished before my dearest Nefer-Mut died. I look forward to a favourable weighing in the Judgment Hall and a reunion with her. Yet I am not entirely at peace.” He let out a long breath that hollowed the pitiful concavity of his chest even further. “My mind keeps reliving that last time you stood before me here, in my office. It was night then too. I have been wondering if I did you a grave disservice.”

Oh, Nakht, not now! I have been fighting that memory ever since I walked through your door yesterday. Let silence cover it! Let it sink into the mud of the past so that you may die with dignity and I may once again cover it with the blessed little routines of my daily life!

“You did what you believed to be right,” Huy managed huskily. “I could not have been a proper husband to Anuket, although I deceived myself into seeing myself in that position because I had fallen in love with her.”

“Anuket is a poison to any man,” Nakht broke in harshly. “No, I mean that I should have found a place for you within my administration as a scribe, kept you close to us and to Ra’s temple. I am so sorry, Huy. I condemned you to poverty, and if the King had not consulted you on his way into Rethennu, you would be in poverty still. I raised you as a young noble. You were more my son than the son of Hapu. Yet I abandoned you in the end. Forgive me, I beg you.” He had begun to gasp for air.

Huy had listened to him with a mounting distress. Swiftly he went to the cot and, kneeling, took Nakht’s hands in his. They were very cold. “Thothhotep, run and find Nasha and have her send for the physician,” he ordered. “Are you in pain, Governor? What has been prescribed for you?”

The door opened then closed as Thothhotep hurried away.

Nakht grunted. “Anuket’s husband Amunnefer has been sending me poppy. The physician has been mixing it with ground kesso root to heighten its effects. It dulls my thoughts, though, so I try not to take it until I can bear the pain no longer. I am determined to walk among my guests tomorrow. I will take the medicine at the hour of the afternoon sleep and trust it to carry me through until the festivities are over.” Closing his eyes, he lay back on the cushions.

“Nakht, the gods order our lives as they see fit,” Huy said carefully. “If I had not spent many months in this house, I would not have known how to address the titled persons who come to me for healing or scrying, let alone how to engage them in conversation. If you had offered me a position as a scribe here in Iunu, it’s unlikely that I would have come to the attention of the One. You did as the gods wished when you refused my appeals.” The capitulation had cost him a great deal. He had forced the words past the fume of resentment that dried his throat and tightened his jaw. Yet, as they left him, they seemed to take with them some of the agony of that encounter, and he was able to kiss Nakht’s hand with genuine love. “You gave me far more than you ever denied me. I love you so much, my second father.”

Nakht did not open his eyes, but a brief smile flitted across his ravaged face. “And I you, my talented second son,” he murmured.

At that moment the door opened, and Nasha and a stranger came hurrying across the shadowed floor, Thothhotep behind them. “Huy, this is our physician,” Nasha explained. She bent over Nakht. “Talking to Huy is not resting, Father,” she chided him, then stepped back.

Quietly, the physician began to examine Nakht. Huy remained kneeling on the tiles, Nakht’s hand in his. Presently the physician straightened. “You already know that the AA cannot be cured, noble one,” he sighed, “but you will live longer if you remain calm. Do not allow yourself to become agitated. I shall prepare more poppy and kesso for you to drink tonight, and I shall return before dinner tomorrow and give you a weaker dose so that you may enjoy your son’s good fortune.” He spread out his hands. “I wish I could do more.” Bowing, he left.

“I thought you were going boating in the twilight,” Huy said to Nasha.

She nodded. “I decided to let Thothmes and Ishat go alone. Ishat needs to be with someone she’s known for longer than a day. She’s tired. Come and play Dogs and Jackals with me before I go to bed, Huy, and let Father drink his medicine and sleep.”

But Nakht’s grip tightened. “I need Huy for a little longer,” he told her. “Please wait outside the door, Nasha, and take the vial when the physician returns. We must not be disturbed.”

For answer, she leaned down and kissed his forehead.

“See for me now, Huy,” Nakht asked when she had gone.

Huy heard Thothhotep go to the floor just behind him without being told. Her pens rattled, and presently the tiny sound of her papyrus scraper came and went. Huy sank back to sit cross-legged on the floor, and taking Nakht’s hand in both of his, he closed his eyes.
Now, Anubis,
he prayed,
tell me that this man may be well.

“Well?” The familiar gravelled voice came at once. “Not well as you mortals count the state of your bodies. Governor Nakht will die on the second day of Pakhons, three months from now. The King will send his Vizier and namesake, Amunhotep, to attend the funeral. He is sitting under his sunshade by that rock. He is uncomfortable and sweating. He is not praying for Nakht’s ka. He is thinking about a drink of cool beer.”

There had been no dizziness, no sense of dislocation. Huy found himself standing with a crowd of solemn people on sand under a hot sun. Before him, Nakht’s embalmed and bandaged corpse stood propped beside the entrance to the tomb Huy remembered well, having mourned as Nakht’s wife Nefer-Mut was carried down into its darkness. The Kher-heb, the chief funeral priest, was chanting words from the unrolled scroll in his hands. The sem priest had approached the body and was in the act of touching Nakht’s mouth and eyes with a linen bag that contained pieces of red carnelian, as Huy knew, to restore the colour of health to Nakht’s lips and eyelids. Thothmes, as the Son-Who-Loves, waited behind the man to perform the next ritual. He was weeping silently. Huy turned his head. Nasha had slid her arm through his. She too was crying and clutching a square of damp linen to her face. There was no sign of Anuket.

“Oh yes, she is here.” The harsh tones of the god filled Huy’s mind. “She sits in the shadow cast by her husband’s tent. She is not praying for Nakht’s ka either. She is eyeing the broad shoulders and muscled belly of the sem priest, forbidden fruit indeed, and her own ka is screaming for wine. Has your ka begun to scream yet, Son of Hapu? See to your house!”

The last words were shouted so loudly that Huy started and swung away from Nasha’s grip. They ended on a deep animal wail that set his heart pounding, and as he turned, he saw the hyena. It was perching on a small hillock and staring at him, its yellow eyes slitted against the bright light. As he watched, its mouth opened and its black tongue passed slowly across sharp white teeth. There was something so greedy, so anticipatory, about the motion that a shiver trickled down Huy’s spine. He tensed, fully expecting the beast to rise and come shambling towards him, fuelled by some malevolent purpose.
But how can its intention be malicious? Does it not belong in Paradise, in the Beautiful West, where evil does not exist?
The hyena hauled itself up and shook, the stiff beige hairs down its back quivering with the movement. Its gaze did not leave Huy’s face.
Anubis!
Huy cried out silently.
Tell me what this means!

“See to your house, Great Seer,” the whispered reply came on the jackal god’s warm breath. “See to your house.” Huy felt something cold placed in his hand. Glancing down, he saw Anubis’s black hand retreating, leaving a sinuous shape behind. Huy’s fingers closed around it. It was an Ur-hekau, an instrument used to open the eyes of a corpse so that it could see again, the mouth so that it could speak and eat. This one was of ebony, thick and heavy, the ram’s head with its uraeus perfectly executed.

“Ur-hekau, Mighty One of Enchantment,” Huy muttered stupidly—but it was not an Ur-hekau, it was a hand, a human hand, wrinkled and cold. It was Nakht’s hand, and as the Governor’s office solidified around him, Huy’s head began to pound with a suddenness and ferocity that had him pressing both palms to his temples. He had inadvertently carried Nakht’s hand to his face.

“The coolness is good,” he blurted, then gathered up his wits, let go of Nakht, and crawled up to sit on the cot beside Nakht’s knees. “Thothhotep, I see water on the desk. Bring me some,” he managed. Wordlessly, the girl obeyed, sinking back to the floor and settling her palette across her thighs as Huy drank. Relinquishing the cup, Huy faced the Governor. “I can answer your request,” he said thickly. “You will die on the second day of Pakhons, Master. I have witnessed your funeral. You will be greatly mourned.”

“Entombed on the twelfth day of Epophi, in the season of harvest, providing the seventy days of Beautification are observed, and I have no reason to suppose that they won’t be,” Nakht replied. “I have already set aside a generous payment for the workers in the House of the Dead. Thank you, dear Huy. The Seeing has made you ill, and I am tired. It’s time we both sought our couches.” He spoke calmly, but Huy saw that his eyes had filled with tears.

“Thothhotep, open the door and ask Nasha to please send for the Governor’s body servant and for Tetiankh,” Huy ordered. He was almost spent. The three of them waited in silence until Nasha and the servants hurried in, then Huy rose, bowed to Nakht, and, leaning against Tetiankh, left the room. The passage beyond seemed to stretch away into an infinite distance of dull orange torch flames and repeating pools of dimness.

Suddenly he felt an arm go around his waist. It was Thothhotep, her palette tucked under her elbow, her bony little shoulder thrust into his armpit. Surrendering to them, Huy was helped through the house, up the stairs, and into his own room.

“Tetiankh, find the poppy you packed and prepare a strong draft for me,” Huy begged as they lowered him onto the couch. “Thothhotep, open your palette again and take a fresh piece of papyrus. I have something private to add to the Seeing I gave the Governor. You will of course make a copy of that and hand it to his scribe tomorrow.”

“Of course, Master.” Calmly she slid to the floor and prepared her utensils.

Huy dictated the words of Anubis that were meant for him alone, and described the hyena’s actions. He did not ask for a comment and Thothhotep did not venture one.
I want Ishat,
Huy thought, the agony of his body rendering him defenceless against his longing for her.
I want her to give me her opinion of the god’s injunction and help me to untangle the matter of the hyena. I want her to hold the vial of poppy to my mouth and send Tetiankh away so that she can bathe my forehead in cool water herself.

“Thank you for helping me up the stairs, Thothhotep,” he said. “Sometimes the visions are less painful.”