An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) (4 page)

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Authors: Paul Doherty

BOOK: An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries)
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I’d always regarded Isithia as a Demon God lording it over her household, but in the city she was just one being amongst many. I saw men and women I could never have imagined: Negroes in their plumed head-dresses, shoulders draped in jaguar skins. Mercenaries from Canaan, Libya and Kush. Some wore horned helmets, stout boots on their feet and wicked-looking weapons thrust through belts and sashes. These brushed shoulders with merchants from the islands, Desert Wanderers and Sand Dwellers whose faces and bodies were hidden beneath folds of cloth. Hesets, temple girls, danced and flirted, their beautiful faces framed by thick braided wigs, all decorated with white stones and gorgeous head-bands. They wore gauze-like gowns above leather braided skirts. Every movement was part of some dance as they clashed
sistra
and shook tambourines in a slow, sinuously moving line of beauty.
The many markets enthralled me. Smells from the ointment-and perfume-sellers mingled with the tang of freshly cut antelope steaks which hung dripping from hooks or were being vigorously grilled over charcoal fires. Bakers offered strange-shaped loaves smelling fragrantly of spices and fresh from the ovens. Water-sellers, yokes fixed across their shoulders, cheap cups dangling from cords round their necks, forced their way through, bawling for custom. Shaven-headed priests, eyes ringed with black kohl against the heat, moved through the crowds like a shoal of fish amidst gusts of incense. Ladies in palanquins chattered in different tongues, their brilliantly-plumaged tame birds chained to a pole. A thief, caught red-handed, was being beaten on the feet next to a barber’s stall set up under a palm tree. Elsewhere, the market policemen with their trained baboons had caught another sneakthief, who screamed abuse as a baboon bit deeply into his thigh. A million colours dazzled the eyes. Shifting images came and went as we twisted and turned through narrow streets or trod across blazing white squares and courtyards. Oh, how I remember that day! I could have stopped and stared till the sky fell in, but Aunt pulled me on.
At last we were through, going up the basalt-paved avenue to the Temple of Anubis. You must have seen it? Lined by huge statues of the crouching Anubis dog, their bodies, heads and paws black as night, their pointed snouts and ears picked out in brilliant gold, rich red ruby eyes glowing in the sunlight as if these creatures were about to rise in snarling anger. I recalled Seth the Saluki hound and glanced away. We pushed through the throng towards the great
pylon
or entrance to the temple. This was flanked by two huge statues of Anubis the Lord God of the Necropolis, the Master of the Death Chamber. For a young boy who had never seen the like before, it was an awesome spectacle. Above the gateways soared flagpoles, their red and green streamers dancing in the breeze. Crowds of worshippers, many of them carrying small reed baskets of food, were also pouring through to pay their devotions. The heady aroma of food made me realise I had not eaten. In outright defiance, I stopped and cried out that I was hungry. I could tell by my aunt’s face that she was prepared to argue but her servants were similarly famished so she agreed to stop by a small booth. A few
debens
of copper bought trays of
mahloka
, its green leaves crushed and mixed with onion, garlic and strips of roast duck, followed by pots of bean soup and eggs cooked long and slowly so as to be melting soft and creamy in the middle. We squatted under an awning and ate, my aunt chattering to Api. As we were eating, another servant took me across to read the inscription of the mighty war Pharaoh Tuthmosis III:
I made those who rebel hurl themselves under my
sandals.
They heard my roaring and withdrew into caves.
I trampled on the Libyans and the vile Kushites.
Oh yes, I remember that day so well! A shabby fortune-teller, a wizened man, eyes yellowing in a weather-beaten face, sidled up to curse my aunt in a language I could not understand. My aunt jumped to her feet and replied just as fiercely. I didn’t understand, but a servant later whispered that the fortune-teller had cursed my aunt with the Seven Arrows of Sekhmet the Destroyer Goddess.
‘Why?’ I asked.
The servant pulled a face, cupping a hand over his mouth to whisper, ‘He claimed she has no soul.’
I don’t know what really happened but, if I had a piece of silver, I would have rewarded that fortune-teller.
We finished our meal. Sounds from beyond the
pylon
drifted down – not the singing of choirs or the humming prayer of priests, or the sweet music of the harpist and lyre-players, but hideous screams. Curious, we hurried up to the gateway and into the great temple forecourt. I stood astonished at the sight. Executions were rarely carried out near holy places but on this day, the Magnificent One had made an exception. Kushite mercenaries, members of my father’s regiment, were dealing out punishment against the last of his killers. The temple forecourt had been cleared, its visitors marshalled into one long column stretching up to the great copper-plated, cedarwood doors. At the far side of the forecourt a stake had been driven into the ground and the thief, impaled through the rectum, writhed in his death agonies. A herald, armed with a conch horn, oblivious to the blood-drenched ground and the hideous screams, loudly proclaimed the penalty for plundering tombs and murdering Pharaoh’s servants. Two other robbers, stripped naked, were being basted with animal fat. More members of my father’s regiment, seasoned warriors in their leather kilts, baldrics and striped bright head-dresses, were preparing great leather sacks held with cord. These last remaining assassins from the tomb-robbing gang were to be bound in the sacks, taken to the great river and thrown into a crocodile pool.
My aunt seemed impervious to the hideous death agonies and the dreadful scenes. Beating the air with her fly whisk she approached an officer, a standard-bearer of the Chariot Squadron. In a hoarse voice she explained who we were. Immediately we were surrounded by soldiers and priests – a strange contrast of soft skin and sloe eyes with the tough and grimy war veterans, eyes red-rimmed from tiredness and desert dust. I recall a mixture of sweat, exotic perfume, hardened leather and perfumed linen robes. My aunt was treated as an object of veneration whilst I was caressed as the Son of the Hero. A priest gabbled his apologies, how we were not supposed to wait but I knew Aunt, she always liked to make a grand entrance. We were ceremoniously ushered across the second court which boasted a giant statue of a jackal-headed Anubis. A priest explained that it had a movable jaw so it could speak to devotees and utter an oracle. Around the courtyard were fountains, each with a sacred stela, a statue over which the water could flow and so become holy, a sure remedy against poison. I, remembering the Saluki hound, didn’t think there were such remedies and stopped to examine one. My aunt pulled me away. I could tell by the curl of her lips that she was not impressed.
I wondered why my aunt was so apprehensive about approaching the temple until I entered it and realised that this was my first time in a true House of Worship: Aunt Isithia’s house had few statues or tokens of the Divine Ones. Isn’t life strange? I have never thought much of the gods but the Houses of Eternity in which they are supposed to live always impressed me. The hypostyle or hall of columns: rows of papyriform pillars with their bell-shaped bases and bud-forming capitals painted in glorious red, blue and green and decorated with triangular patterns. Bronze-plated doors, emblazoned with inscriptions, opened smoothly and silently on hinges set into the wall. I truly felt we were entering a place of magic.
Every so often we were sprinkled by a priest with drops of holy water from a stoup and cleansed by brushing the images of Pharaoh inscribed on the wall. Paintings and decorations were everywhere. The air was thick with incense and pierced by a low chanting which echoed eerily through the columned passageway. We passed Chapels of the Ear where pilgrims presented their petitions and eventually reached the
Wabet
, the Place of Purification. At the express order of the Magnificent One my father would begin his journey from here to the eternally fresh fields of the Green-skinned Osiris. A great honour! Even the most expensive embalming houses in the Necropolis could not be trusted with the corpses of the great ones. A priest once confided to me in a scandalised whisper how even the bodies of beautiful women were kept for a few days to allow decomposition to begin so they would not be violated.
The steps we went down seemed to stretch for ever. The cavern below glowed with light. Priests, some with shoulders draped with jaguar skins, others with their faces hidden behind jackal masks, moved through the billowing smoke. The air was rich with spices. The object of their veneration was the body of my father, stretched naked in the centre of the chamber on a sloping wooden slab. He looked fast asleep except for his grey skin and the dark wound in his neck. His corpse had already been drenched in natron. Surrounded by incense-burners, a lector priest, eyes half-closed, swayed backwards and forwards as he chanted the death prayers. I had to stand and watch my father’s body be embalmed. The ethnoid bone in his nose was broken, the brains pulled out, the eyes pushed back and the cavities filled with resin-soaked bandages. Armed with an Ethiopian obsidian knife a priest made the cut in my father’s left side and drew out the liver, lungs and intestines. The inside was washed with natron and stuffed with perfumes. All the time the prayers were chanted and the incense billowed. I was not frightened, whatever my aunt intended. I was fascinated by the priests in their white kilts and robes, shaven of all hair, even their eyebrows, their soft skins glinting with oil. Afterwards, when we left, I did not feel sad. My father was gone and these secretive priests in that sinister chamber with the brooding statues of Anubis meant nothing to me.
We honoured the seventy-day mourning period whilst the preparations were brought to an end. Father’s corpse was pickled in perfume, his heart covered with a sacred scarab, tongue lined with gold and two precious stones placed in his eye-sockets. He was then bound in bandages. On the day of his burial I joined my aunt and a legion of mourners and singers to accompany Father across the Nile to the House of Eternity. He was placed in his sarcophagus. We had the funeral feast and afterwards on our journey back across the Nile my aunt leaned over. I had studied her well and so had remained totally impassive throughout the entire ceremony. At the end she asked if I was upset.
‘Madam,’ I replied, ‘I am not sad.’
‘Because your father has gone,’ she gabbled, ‘to the Field of the Blessed?’
‘No, dearest Aunt, I am happy because my father’s ghost will now join my mother’s beneath the willow tree in your garden.’
Isithia’s face went slack. I savoured for the first time how revenge, well prepared and served cold, was sweeter than the richest honeycomb.
‘You have seen her there?’ my aunt breathed.
‘Often,’ I replied, round-eyed in innocence.
She moved away. I glanced at the swirling water of the Nile.
‘Oh swampland,’ I whispered, reciting a famous curse, ‘I now come to you.’ I glanced quickly at Isithia. ‘I have brought the grey-haired one down to the dust. I have swallowed up her darkness.’ I realised, even then, that my days in Aunt Isithia’s house were closely numbered.
How fair is that which happened to them.
They have so filled the heart of Khonsou
In Thebes,
That he has permitted them to reach the West.
In peace, in peace, all fair ones proceed westwards
in peace.
Despite my tender years, these were the verses I sang under the willow tree. I even managed to find gifts to place there: small coffers made out of papyrus, miniature wooden statues which would act as
shabtis
, servants to help my parents in the Fields of the Blessed. I turned the area around the willow tree into a small shrine. To be perfectly honest, it was not so much out of filial affection, more to taunt Aunt Isithia. Oh yes, I knew I would be going but I just wanted to help her make that decision. I spent more time under that willow tree than anywhere else. Accordingly, I was not surprised when, within a month of my father’s burial, I had joined the Kap, the Royal House of Instruction at the place known as the Nose of the Gazelle in the sprawling, unfinished Palace of the Malkata. The Malkata was a jewel, the House of Rejoicing, the Palace of the dazzling Aten built by the Magnificent One, Amenhotep III, for his own pleasure. It lay just beneath the western hills, so at evening the palace was suffused with the dying rays of the sun. It was an impressive imperial residence, but as a boy of no more than nine summers, I didn’t care about its splendour. Children are strange! I was not aware of the coloured pillars, the flower-filled courtyards or the ornamental lakes. All I cared about was the fact that I was leaving Aunt Isithia! I was to be in a new place, the school attended by Pharaoh’s son, the Crown Prince Tuthmosis, and the chosen offspring of certain highranking officials. My place there was the Magnificent One’s final tribute to my father. Only later did I learn that Aunt Isithia wielded considerable influence, not to mention her rod, over certain of Pharaoh’s ministers.
The House of Instruction stood at the far side of the palace and, looking back, I smile wryly. I was in the most splendid palace under the sun, being given a foretaste of life in Osiris’s Great House and Territory. However, I was more concerned with my new surroundings and new companions. The House was a one-storey building built four square round a large courtyard which boasted a splendidly built fountain, a small herb garden and a multi-coloured pavilion. The building was mud-bricked, stamped with the name of the Crown Prince; plastered within, whitewashed without, its flat roof was served by outside stairs, its doors and lintels made of wood and limestone. One part served as a dormitory: its beds were crude cots, wooden frames with stretched leather thongs to support a straw-filled mattress. Each bed was protected by a canopy of coarse linen veils against the flies, with sheets of the same texture and a rug for when the nights turned cold. The floor was of polished acacia wood so bright you could see your face in it. Beside each bed was a simple fold-up camp chair and a plain stool fashioned out of sycamore. A chest of terebrinth wood stood at the end of each bed to contain clothing and other personal belongings. Down the centre of the room ranged small dining tables bearing oil lamps. The windows were mere wooden-edged squares in the wall, boarded up with shutters in the winter or latticed screens in the summer. One part of the building was a schoolroom during inclement weather. In the spring and summer, unless it grew too hot, we were taught outside. The rest of the building served as offices, kitchens, wash places and schoolrooms.
The overseer of the House of Instruction was Weni, an old soldier-cum-scribe with a plump round face, thick fleshy lips and heavy-lidded eyes. From one earlobe hung a gold ring; cheap jewellery decorated his fingers and wrists. He looked the typical fat fool but he was sly, ruthless and, despite his porky appearance, light on his feet. Weni was a former member of the
Nakhtu-aa
or ‘Strong-Arm Boys’, a crack infantry unit known as ‘the Leopards of the East’. A highly decorated veteran, successful in hand-to-hand fights, he always wore a Gold Collar and the Silver Bees for killing five Mitanni in hand-to-hand combat and cutting off their penises as proof.
Aunt Isithia made sure I was aware of Weni’s reputation as she dragged me through the palace grounds, whispering and nipping me, determined to exploit this last occasion together to heap petty cruelties and insults on me. She kept mentioning the Mitanni penises. When I met Weni, he glared down at me as if he would take mine. He was sitting on a bench in the courtyard, his
shemsou
or personal slave holding up a parasol against the midday sun. Grasping me by the shoulder, he spun me round. His hard eyes studied me carefully.
‘I knew your father.’ His gaze shifted to Aunt Isithia. ‘You can go now.’
Isithia scuttled away. She didn’t even say goodbye, I didn’t even look. I decided to stare around and received a blow on the ear.
‘
I
will tell you,’ Weni whispered, leaning forward, ‘when to look away.’ His grim face relaxed and he gently caressed my earlobe. ‘I never did like your Aunt Isithia – she’s a cruel bitch! Some people say she drove your mother to an early grave. Well, go and unpack your things.’
There were about twenty-four boys in the Kap, sons of the Magnificent One’s friends or the offspring of his concubines – known as the Royal Ornaments. The principal boy was Crown Prince Tuthmosis, a tall, twelve year old with the eyes and face of a hunting bird. We were organised into four units of six. Tuthmosis was not with us on the night I met the Horus Ones, the members of my unit. We all bore the seal ‘HA’ with the hieroglyphs of a hawk and a rod etched on a small copper tablet slung on a cord round our necks. There were five in all, boys who were later to be my friends, rivals and enemies. Horemheb, Huy, Pentju, Maya and Rameses – I vaguely remember a sixth but he died of fever. I always think of us as the ‘Six’.
My companions were roughly one or two years either side of my age. Horemheb was the undoubted leader; pugnacious and hot-eyed, his lower lip jutted out, his chin too: even as a boy he had muscular thighs and a barrel chest, and his skin was slightly lighter in colour than ours. Rameses struck me from the start as a bird of prey, with those cold, ever-shifting eyes and beaked nose over thin bloodless lips. Huy was Huy, graceful but arrogant. He always stood, feet apart, hands on his hips. He looked me up and down from head to toe, eyes crinkling with amusement. Pentju. Ah yes, even then he was ever-watchful. With his narrow, pointed features under a shock of rather light hair, Pentju reminded me of a mongoose. Maya was plump and always smiling; even then he could walk more provocatively than a girl. We all dressed in linen tunics and loincloths: Maya wore his like a girl with his tunic nipped in at the waist, legs oiled, feet shod in delicate sandals. Meryre joined the unit a few weeks after I did – a sanctimonious bastard from the start with his holier-than-thou face and permanently raised eyes as if he was in constant prayer to the heavens.
Sometimes I become confused. Did Meryre join us from the beginning, or am I getting mixed up with someone else? We were supposed to be a unit of six but the numbers fluctuated. What I do remember clearly is that first night I felt as if I was surrounded by a host of enemies. They pushed me around, went through my possessions and pulled the sheets off my bed. I then had to be initiated. My hands were bound, I was blindfolded and they poked and prodded me to recall their names. My little body turned black and blue and the game was only terminated by our evening meal of bran and artichoke followed by semolina cake. I remember it because it was so enjoyable. I was eating, free of Aunt Isithia’s glare.
‘Eat quickly,’ Horemheb growled, scooping some of my semolina cake from the bowl. ‘If you don’t eat quickly, we’ll eat it for you.’
How cruel children can be. They had the rapacity and ferocity of a starving hyena pack. Once the meal was finished the rest sat in judgement over me.
‘We all have nicknames,’ Huy murmured, one finger to his lips. ‘So what shall be yours?’
He then introduced us. Horemheb was the ‘Scorpion General’. Rameses the ‘Snake Shadow’. Pentju the ‘False Physician’. Maya was the ‘Heset’ or dancing girl, Meryre the ‘Pouting Priest’, Huy the ‘Ignoble Noble’.
‘I know,’ Rameses whispered, head slightly to one side. ‘Just look at him! His brow juts and so does his mouth.’ He tapped me on the end of my nose. ‘He looks like a baboon.’
My initiation was complete. From then on I was known as the ‘Baboon of the South’. After that I was accepted. I had learned my first lesson in the House of Instruction, the golden rule of all politicians: be as cunning and ferocious as the rest, show no pity and ask for none. Weakness only provokes attack. My formal schooling began every day at dawn. Weni roused us and force-marched us down to the icy waters of the canal. Then, whatever the weather, we’d run back naked, dress and eat a quick meal of oatmeal and sweetened bread. All the time Weni and his instructors, pinch-faced priests from the local temple, quoted proverbs at us.
‘Don’t eat too much. Don’t drink too much. Yesterday’s drunkenness will not quench today’s thirst.’
The day’s schooling would then formally begin. We learned the mysteries of the pen, the palette, of red and blue ink. We practised on
ostraca
or pot shards and limestone tablets before graduating to finely rubbed papyrus. We studied the
Kemenit
or Compendium and wrote out how marvellous it was to be a scribe. We learned the language of Thoth and paid lipservice to Sheshet, the Lady of the Pen. Our tutor’s favourite instruction was: ‘Be a scribe, and your body will be sleek. You will be well fed. Set your heart on books. They are better than wine.’
Our teachers certainly believed in the old proverb ‘A boy’s ear is upon his back; he hears when he has been beaten’. We’d sit cross-legged in the schoolroom or out in the courtyard, our writing palettes on our laps whilst the instructor would walk up and down ever ready to rap fingers or backs with his sharp ferrule. During the heat of the day we’d rest and continue our schooling as the weather grew cooler, followed by games, skittles, tug-of-war or jumping the goose. Whatever we did was fierce and cruel. I soon hardened myself. The seasons passed. Sometimes, Aunt Isithia came to visit me. She seemed to have aged; she was smaller, more wizened, and tried to flatter me with ointments and unguents from the storerooms. My present to her on the great festivals was always the same, a wooden carving of a monkey with a fly on its shoulder. I always informed her that I was very happy, that I was most fortunate to be in the Kap. I told her nothing about what happened there. None of my unit were friends, the only close relationship was that between Horemheb and Rameses. For the rest it was petty cruelty. I remember my first beating when Maya dared me to write this poem.
I embraced her,
her legs were wide.
I felt like a man in Punt.
The land of incense,
immersed in scent.
I was beaten because the hieroglyph for ‘embrace’ was the same as for a woman’s vagina. The sharp-eyed priest thought I was mocking him. I always retaliated. Maya loved his sandals and I received another beating for creeping out of bed at night and smearing them with oil.
Naturally, as the time passed, our interest in girls grew, though no one could boast of any experience, except Panhesy. He claimed he had read certain treatises and, ever clever, fashioned wooden puppets with movable arms and heads. Male and female, he made them act in close embrace which provoked smirks from Maya and sniggers of laughter from the rest. Weni discovered this and punished us, not for the toy, but for ‘stealing out of barracks’ as he termed it in the dead of night, lighting a fire in the grounds (a dangerous act), and taking strong beer to drink. He put us all on ‘battle rations’, a hideous punishment for young boys who woke like starving jackals and only lived to eat. Filling our stomachs was the only time we were silent as we bent over our reed baskets of chicken cooked in olive oil and onion sauce, garnished with chick peas and cumin. Now we had to starve. Horemheb decided to retaliate and tried to steal the bread of another unit. When Weni discovered that, we all received six strokes of the cane. He informed us that even ‘battle rations’ were suspended; we would now be given only dry bread and water for a week.
We were getting older, more cunning and sly, less reluctant to accept Weni’s authority. Pentju was skilled at stoking our anger. We forgot that he had fashioned the puppets or that Rameses had actually stolen the bread. Weni the overseer at the House of Instruction became our mortal enemy. Now Horemheb had been given a Danga dwarf, a gift from some relative in the Delta. In theory Weni should have objected but, being an old soldier, he was superstitious and slightly wary of the dwarf: a thickset little man who reached no higher than my shoulder, his head and face almost hidden by straggling black hair, moustache and beard. The Danga couldn’t sleep in the dormitory but had to fend for himself outside, whilst during lessons and games he crouched like a dog in the shadow of the wall. Horemheb always doted on the dwarf: the only person to whom he showed compassion, saving food and drink whilst also imposing an arbitrary levy on our rations. Horemheb held a ‘council’ as he called it, the dwarf squatting next to him. The oil lamps had been extinguished, the moon had fully risen and the rest of the dormitory were asleep as we sat in the far corner listening to the faint sounds from the rest of the palace.
‘I am hungry,’ Horemheb moaned, ‘and so is the dwarf.’
‘We are all hungry,’ Huy whispered.
‘It’s Weni’s fault,’ Pentju accused hoarsely.
‘But where can we get some food?’ Meryre demanded.
The Danga dwarf muttered, a guttural whisper. Horemheb cocked his head. The dwarf repeated what he had said. Horemheb smiled and patted his stomach.
‘I’m starving,’ he repeated. ‘And what I’d do for a piece of
roast goose
!’
At the time I didn’t know what he meant but two days later I found out. Weni had a goose called ‘Semou’, sacred to Amun: a noisy aggressive bird always dropping dung and pecking the nearest piece of soft flesh. I never discovered the full story but the goose disappeared and, from the smug smile on Horemheb’s and Rameses’ faces, I gathered they were the culprits. The dwarf also, a miniature grotesque with his flowing beard and sunken features, looked remarkably happy. Weni was furious and naturally suspected the Horus unit.
By now we had been joined by Sobeck, the son of a powerful merchant prince of Thebes who imported incense from Punt and cedar from Lebanon. ‘Sobeck the Sexual’ I called him; even as a youth he was always hungry for girls. He’d managed to weave his way into Horemheb’s affection and I suspected he was part of the coup against the goose. Nevertheless, we were all to blame. At midday, in the baking heat of the sun, Weni decided to hold court. Crown Prince Tuthmosis, as leader of the Kap, was present, dressed in a short tunic and holding an embroidered fan which bore the insignia of the Kap. He would act as Weni’s official witness. We were all stripped naked, the dwarf included. Weni rigorously inspected us, sniffing at our mouths and hands for any sign of grease or cooking but the ‘criminals’ as Weni called them were cunning; they had washed themselves thoroughly, though they had forgotten about the dwarf’s tousled hair and beard. Weni fell on him like a hungry vulture. He sniffed the little man’s hair and beard and slapped him harshly across the face.
‘Criminal! Thief! Murderer!’ Weni bellowed.
He dragged the dwarf from the line, pushing him forward for Tuthmosis to inspect. The Crown Prince confirmed his judgement: the dwarf smelled of goose.
‘Give us the names of your accomplices,’ Weni demanded.
The dwarf, trembling with fear, shook his head and made matters worse by urinating over Weni’s feet. The overseer grabbed him by the hair and dragged him across to a bench. He was forced to lie face down. Weni grasped a rod. Horemheb made to protest but Tuthmosis pushed him back in line. Weni turned threateningly. The dwarf’s wrists and ankles were seized by Weni’s assistants. The rod came back.
‘Master?’ I stepped forward.
Weni paused and turned. ‘Yes, Mahu? Are you the culprit?’
This was the one time I could tell the truth.
‘No, Master.’
‘Then why are you speaking?’
I went down on my knees and knelt in the dust.
‘Master, the dwarf is innocent.’
‘What!’
‘I gave him the goose grease.’
Weni forgot the dwarf and, striding over, dragged me to my feet.
‘I did not eat the goose,’ I stammered. ‘Nor did the dwarf. As you know, my Aunt Isithia distils potions and unguents. She gave me a pot of goose grease.’ I caressed my sidelock, the mark of my youth as well as membership of the Kap. ‘It is good for the hair.’ I gestured at the dwarf. ‘I gave some to him.’
Weni stared narrow-eyed. ‘And where is this goose grease?’
‘In a pot in my chest.’
Weni gestured with his head and one of his assistants hurried away to discover the truth. Aware of the others standing next to me, I closed my eyes. The dwarf was moaning. Tuthmosis was sucking on his lips as if to control his smirk. I just prayed that the pot of goose fat would be found, and whispered a prayer against ill luck: ‘Perish you who come in from the dark. You who creep in with your nose reversed and your face turned back.’
‘Master, he has told the truth.’
I opened my eyes. Weni was holding the small pottery jar, sniffing at it suspiciously.
‘Did you use this?’ He pulled the dwarf up and made him stand on the bench. The dwarf looked quickly at me, nodded and muttered something Weni couldn’t understand.
‘He uses it on his hair and beard,’ Horemheb shouted. ‘It keeps away the flies.’
Weni strode across and slapped Horemheb on the face. ‘Speak when you are spoken to.’ Then he turned to me. The fury had drained from his face; his eyes had a cold, calculating look.
‘Well, well,’ he murmured. ‘You are well named Mahu, Baboon of the South.’ He gnawed at his lips. ‘Let the dwarf go.’ Weni’s gaze never left me. ‘We’ll all take a good run down to the water and have a swim. Afterwards you can eat.’
He strode off, followed by Tuthmosis and his instructors. We just sat down in the dust. I had to, my legs were trembling. A short while later we were taken down to the canal to bathe. No one said anything until we returned. I was standing by my bed drying myself off, more interested in the fragrant smells coming from the portable stove out in the courtyard. Horemheb and Rameses came sidling over. Horemheb held out his hand.
‘Baboon of the South, I shall not forget.’
I clasped his hand and that of Rameses, and that was all Horemheb ever said. I learned two powerful lessons that day: how to win friends and how to survive. From that day on, the petty cruelties stopped and I fashioned my own philosophy. I would not be too bright to attract the teasing of my peers nor too dumb to provoke the anger of my teachers. I would be Mahu, he who lives by himself and walks alone. Horemheb never forgot and, I think, neither did Weni. From that day I felt strangely marked but I took comfort in the proverb I had learned in the schoolroom: Trust neither a brother nor a friend and have no intimate companions for they are worthless. The quotation from the
Instructions of King Amenemhat
was most appropriate. I had acted on impulse by myself, I had confided in no one either before or after; I had made friends or at least allies without making enemies.
I became a student skilled in the hieratic and hieroglyphic writing, the preparation of papyrus, and the use of calculations, especially the nilometer. With the rest I studied the glories of Tomery and, of course, theology – the worship of the gods and the cults of the temple. All things centred around Amun-Ra, the silent God of Thebes who, over the years, had become associated with the Sun God and was now the dominant deity of Egypt. We were instructed in the mysteries of the Osirian rites, of the journey through the Underworld, the
Am-Duat
, as well as the difference between the
Ka
and the
Ba
, the soul and the spirit. It all meant nothing to me. The gods were as dry and dusty as the calculations for assessing a
kite
of gold or a
deben
of copper. Women, though, were a different matter.
The years had passed, our bodies had changed. We no longer played skittles, or jump the goose or tug of war, but became more interested in stick fighting, wrestling, boxing – anything to dissipate the energy which seethed within us. Weni, of course, noted the changes and turned a blind eye to our sweaty forays beneath trees and in bushes with kitchen girls and maids, those who crossed our courtyard carrying pots or jars, swaying their hips and glancing sly-eyed at us. Of course Weni tried to give advice, but his attitude on women could be summed up in that proverb he lugubriously repeated: ‘Instructing a woman is like holding a sack of sand whose sides have split open’. Weni’s experiences with women had not been happy ones! He certainly never had the honour, or blood-freezing experience, of meeting women such as Tiye, Nefertiti and Ankhesenamun. I once repeated Weni’s advice to Nefertiti, at which she bubbled with laughter, and pithily replied, ‘You don’t have to instruct a woman, Mahu. She is already knowledgable.’
One word of advice Weni gave us which Sobeck later ignored to his peril. ‘Have nothing,’ Weni roared at us, one stubby finger punching the air, ‘have
nothing
to do with the
Per Khe Nret
, the Royal Harem, whoever they are, wherever they come from! They are the Sacred Ornaments of the Magnificent One!’
I listened bemused. The Magnificent One was encroaching more and more into our daily lessons, not only his name and titles but his power, whilst Prince Tuthmosis was finding his feet and wielding authority amongst the young men of the Kap. I, in turn, was becoming more curious about my surroundings. Years away from Aunt Isithia, I now began to crawl out of my shell or nest, the House of Instruction, and my first foray formed one of those threads which would later bind my entire life. I had been out with a kitchen servant, a sweet girl with beaded head-band and pretty gorget. We had gone deep into the orchards, then she left whispering how she would be missed and flitted away like a shadow through the trees.
I lay for a while staring up at the branches and listening to the early morning call of the birds. It was one of those inauspicious days, decreed by the Priests of the Calendar to be touched by Seth the Red-Haired God. Accordingly, there would be no instruction, no school, nothing but boredom from dawn to dusk. I had stolen out, met the girl and now wondered if I should go back. Instead I decided to explore the orchard and, for the first time, approached the Silent Pavilion. I had heard of this place from chatter in the dormitory and the drill ground but had paid it no attention. It lay some distance from the Residence. It wasn’t really a pavilion but a two-storeyed house peeping above a high, whitewashed wall. From my vantage point I could glimpse date palms, sycamore trees and terebrinths. A canal from the Nile had been dug in to water the grass, gardens and herbs. I crept closer, moving silently amongst the trees, and discovered that the Pavilion had only one entrance – a spiked double gate of heavy wood painted a gleaming black.
I approached the gate but froze. It was guarded by Kushite mercenaries, in fringed leather kilts, copper-studded baldrics across their chests; there were at least a dozen of them, some armed with the
khopesh
thrust through their sash, others with spears and shields bearing the insignia of the Isis and Ptah Regiments. A few archers also patrolled the area, heavy composite bows in their hands, quivers of cruel barbed arrows slung across their backs. They all wore the imperial blue and gold head-dress which stretched from their forehead down to the nape of their neck, each warrior displaying the Gold Collar of Bravery and the Silver Bees of Valour. Yet, even from where I crouched, I noticed they were all disfigured: one had an eye missing, another had suffered a deep scar which ran across his face and down into his neck: a third had his left cheek shrivelled, the eye pulled down as if he had escaped from some hideous fire.
The sun had risen though a faint mist still clung to the trees. I had just decided to withdraw when I heard a shout, that of a boy playing in the courtyard beyond. I also noticed the heavy rutted tracks of a cart marking the entrance to the gate. Mystified, I crouched back and listened more intently. Again the shout. Memories flooded back of Aunt Isithia’s house. Was this a similar situation? A boy playing by himself, guarded by adults?

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