House of Dreams (9 page)

“There are thirty-six ingredients to the poultice,” I replied. “Must I list all of them?”

“You are impertinent,” he chided me. “Can you handle the poppy?”

“In all ways.”

“Do you know what to do with antimony?” I did not. “Lead? Lead vitriol? Sulphur? Arsenic? No? Would you like to learn?” I lowered my beer cup.

“Please, don’t make fun of me,” I begged, stifling a sudden urge to cry. “I would very much like to learn.” He tapped the scroll against the ghostly white of his forearm.

“Thu,” he said gently, “I saw your face in the oil three months ago. I was divining for Pharaoh, my mind upon him, and as I bent over the bowl you were there, the blue eyes, the sweetly curving mouth, the sultry black hair. Your name whispered through my mind, Thu, Thu, and then you were gone. I do not need to read for you. Fate has presented us to each other, for reasons that are as yet unknown. My name is Hui, but you will call me Master. Would you like to learn?”

Three months ago! My pulses raced. Three months ago Pa-ari and I had sat in the red sand of a desert sunset and I had cried out my frustration. The gods had heard me. A shiver, light as a drifting blossom, went through me and I was filled with awe.

“I am to be your servant?” I breathed. “You will take me away from here?”

“Yes. I leave at dawn. The orders have already been given to the crew. You must agree to obey me in all things, Thu. Do you agree?”

Feverishly I nodded. Now all was happening with the speed of an approaching khamsin. The storm had not struck, but its imminence appalled me. Is it really what I want? I asked myself frantically. The choice is here. After so long, it has come. Do I hold out my arms to embrace it or do I run home to the babies and the herbs, the palm wine and gossip, village dust between my bare toes and Father making the nightly prayers in our little house, his blond head bent in the candlelight, Pa-ari and I in the delightful stolen hours, knee to knee … Pa-ari …

Now I did weep. Fatigue and excitement, fear and tension had taken their toll. Hui made no move until I had finished, then he rose.

“Go home and tell your father to be at the foot of the ramp an hour before dawn,” he said. “Come with him and bring whatever you wish to remember of Aswat. If he refuses, you must stay here, for come what may I must sail with Ra’s rising. Go now. You have two hours.”

I was dismissed. Stumbling, I pushed aside the drapery and started down the ramp. The air smelled good after the close confines of the cabin, fresh and full of the things I realized now were more precious to me than I had supposed—Nile mud and dry grasses, the tang of the dung-laden dust and the clean odour of the desert. I did not run back to the village. I walked, sobbing all the way.

4

SUNRISE WAS STILL
only a subtle thinning of the hot darkness when Father and I came to a halt at the foot of the ramp leading onto Hui’s barge and faced the guard’s challenge. We had not spoken to each other on the path that was taking me away from everything I had known. My mother had woken grudgingly to my urgent prodding. She had lit a candle, and by its feeble light had sat on their pallet, her hair disordered and her eyes swollen, while I poured out as much of my disjointed story as I wanted them to know. Father had been immediately alert under my hand, in the way of seasoned soldiers. He listened non-committally, his expression going from confusion to mild annoyance to vigilance as I tried unsuccessfully to convey the urgency I felt. When I had finished I crouched before them, fists and jaw clenched in the knowledge that the sun was coming, Ra was about to be reborn from the belly of Nut, and once his fire touched the eastern horizon beyond the river my hope would be gone. Father took a corner of the coarse kilt he had discarded on the mud floor the night before and calmly and deliberately wiped the sweat from his forehead and the back of his neck. “You have been crying,” he remarked. His voice triggered a flood of mixed recrimination and solicitude from my mother.

“You naughty girl,” she said vehemently, “running about under the moon and stirring up trouble like a whore! What about the soldiers out there? You could have been raped or worse! You are possessed! Are you sure you weren’t just dreaming, my sweet? A dream, yes? Young girls have strange fancies sometimes. You dared to speak to the Seer, you impudent child? How could you shame us so?” In her agitation the linen that had covered her slipped to her corrugated waist. Her generous breasts were quivering with panic and indignation. At once my father lifted the sheet and unconsciously she grabbed it to her chin.

“Woman, be silent,” he ordered, and she closed her mouth, glaring at us both. He searched my face, then nodded. “I will come,” he said quietly, “but Thu, if you are simply playing one of your games with us or if you dreamed a wish to trouble our kas I will thrash you until the blood runs. Wait for me outside.” I scrambled to my feet, and as I turned towards my room I heard my mother say, “You are wrong to humour her, my husband! She is wayward and fanciful! We must marry her off as soon as possible and put a stop to her dangerous silliness!”

Pa-ari had obviously been wakened by the sound of her furious voice. I groped for his hand and held it tightly as I sank beside his pallet. “Oh, Thu,” he whispered. “What have you done? I tried not to fall asleep. I wanted to wait up for you but somehow … What happened?”

Quickly I told him everything except that the Seer was under the special protection of the gods, not for the pathetic witlessness that rendered a person sacred but because of his grotesque body. He put his arms around me and we clung to each other, my mouth buried against his neck, my nostrils inhaling the musky odour of his skin that I had come to associate with trust and companionship and loyalty. “So you are to have your chance,” he said, and I could hear the smile as he spoke. “My funny little Thu. Send word to me of how you fare as soon as you can.”

I did not want to release him. I wanted to take the path, climb onto the barge, sail to the Delta, still entwined safely in his embrace. But I pulled away and went to my pallet, feeling for the cedar box that held my treasures, lifting the basket that contained my best sheath and a few other pieces of linen. “I will not need to hire a scribe,” I replied. “I can write to you in my own hand, and you must write back, Pa-ari, for I will miss you above all. Farewell.” Clutching my possessions I went to the doorway.

“May the soles of your feet be firm.” He gave me the ancient blessing, and I carried the words and the sound of his voice in my heart as I slipped out of the house to find my father already sniffing the strange deadness of the air that always preceded the dawn. He did not acknowledge me and we set off across the village square in silence. I did not look back. I had already vowed that I would never set foot in Aswat again.

The guard looked tired and his manner was irascible until he recognized my father’s voice. “What, no palm wine to break your fast this morning?” he joked as he approached the curtained cabin. I heard him question the being within but the reply did not travel to the end of the ramp. He lifted the drapery and nodded. We crossed onto the barge and entered the cabin.

The room was full of shadows. The only light came from the small brazier the Seer had used much earlier to light the lamp, which was now out. The scent of jasmine invaded me but this time I welcomed it, drawing it deep into my lungs as a harbinger of change. Dimly I perceived the now familiar outlines of table and chest, cushions and cot.

The creature sitting on the cot rose and became a column of greyness, folded, swathed, enveloped in voluminous linens. I was startled when my father bowed. I had not thought to do so the last time I stood here. The voice that issued from the bindings, when it came, was muffled.

“Greetings,” it said. “I am the Seer Hui. I do not particularly want to know your name. It is not important.”

“It may not be important to you, Master, but it is vital to me and, I hope, to the gods. If you do not wish to hear it then I will not speak it. Thu, go and sit down by the far wall.” I did so, pride for my father welling inside me. He was not cowed by this threatening vision. His answer had been dignified. “My daughter tells me that you have offered her a position in your household,” he went on carefully. “I love her and want her to be happy, therefore I stand here before you to ask in what capacity she is to serve.”

“I was under the impression that it was I who summoned you,” Hui said dryly. “However, I know your unspoken fear. I have no concubines, nor do I buy the services of whores. Your daughter’s virginity is safe with me, indeed, I intend to guard it with a great deal more zeal than you seem to do. Thu is intelligent and ambitious. I will cultivate her intelligence and teach her the proper use for ambition. She in her turn will help me with the preparation of medicines and the pursuance of my studies in the nature and properties of minerals. Once a month she will write a letter to her family. If a month goes by without word from her you may lodge an enquiry with your mayor and have a summons issued against me. In exchange for her assistance I will pay you one deben of silver and I will make sure that the next arouras of khato-land around Aswat will be deeded to you.” I gasped. One deben of silver would support nine people for at least a year. My father rounded on me sternly.

“That was not polite,” he rebuked me, and turned back, but suddenly I could smell his nervous sweat, acrid and offensive. “Thu is not for sale,” he said coldly, “and what you offer is not a dowry. Besides, no farmer in Aswat is near death, therefore no land is about to revert to Pharaoh and become khato. Thu is not for sale!” I thought I heard a chuckle from the bandaged and hooded mouth.

“I am not buying her, you simpleton, I am compensating you for the work she will no longer be able to perform as apprentice to your wife. And do not have the effrontery to question my readings. Within a year, five arouras here will become khato-land. They are yours and I’ll add a slave to help you work them.”

Father said nothing for a long time. Then he moved closer to the Seer. “You are very eager indeed to take my daughter away with you, aren’t you, Master?” he said softly. “Why? The great cities of Egypt are full of noble, gently raised girls as intelligent and ambitious as Thu and requiring less training. What is your true reason?” Hui stood his ground, indeed he also narrowed the space between himself and my father. His gliding step conveyed a polite menace.

“It is not for you to question the wishes of the gods,” he said, “but I may tell you that I saw your daughter three months ago in the divining oil. I knew nothing of her save her name until she appeared before me this night, stark naked and dripping wet.” Oh you did not need to tell him that! I thought mutinously. You are trying to tease me and annoy him. Father, however, made no response and Hui continued. “I do not attempt to manipulate destiny. I merely read the messages of the gods, impart them as I see fit, and wait for their fruition. I waited to see what the face in the oil might mean. The gods have appointed this night to juxtapose their will with that of Thu.” The grey, linen-laden shoulders lifted in a gesture of resignation. “I speak the truth.” My father sighed and his body loosened. After a while a faint grin came and went on his face.

“I refuse the silver,” he said, “but I will take the land— if it becomes khato. And the slave.”

“So.” Hui walked to the table and picked up a scroll which he offered to my father. “You test my skill as a Seer, peasant. You do it with more subtlety than I would have expected, and with some wit, therefore I will not turn you into a toad on the spot.” He rasped out an abrupt laugh. “This holds my promise to you. The offer of the silver remains on the document should you ever have need of it. Thu! Rise and bid your father farewell!” He lowered himself onto the cot and watched impassively as I scrambled up. The agreement had been made. The scroll was in my father’s hand. The Seer now commanded me.

I looked up into my father’s face, so familiar, so dependable. He took my chin in his big, rough palm and studied me for a moment. “Are you sure that this is what you want, my Thu?” he asked me quietly. “You can still change your mind and come home with me.” I fell against him and hugged him tightly.

“No,” I answered against his chest. “If I go home I will always wonder what fate I had refused. Say a farewell to Mother for me. I could not do so because she was upset. Tell whoever leads Precious Sweet Eyes to the river to drink that she does not like to stand in the mud opposite the village. She prefers the sandy shoal a little to the north. Tell Pa-ari …” Father disengaged himself from my arms and put a finger to my lips.

“I understand,” he said. “I love you, Thu.” He kissed the top of my head, bowed to Hui, and walked to the curtain. It shushed closed behind him. I heard his greeting to the guard, his heavy footfall on the ramp, then he was gone.

I had been unaware of the activity outside the cabin, so wrapped was I in the events within, but now I heard running feet, the thud of ropes flung down, sharp orders being given. The loud scrape of wood on wood signalled the drawing in of the ramp, and the barge gave a shudder. Hui and I looked at one another. I was still clutching the basket and the box to my chest.