House of Illusions (19 page)

“Good. Then we will go.”

We passed the guards, and as we did so she held up her wrist without slowing or looking at them. They hardly bothered to acknowledge either of us, and soon we were hurrying across the small shadow the Seer’s pylon was beginning to cast. Thu turned her face away, and I was painfully reminded of her story, of how many times she had come and gone from these watersteps, resplendently garbed in all the finery the harem and an adoring King could provide. She made no comment and I remained quiet.

It was the hour of the afternoon sleep, and the garden was deserted. We slipped quickly into the house, across the empty entrance hall and up the stairs. Takhuru was waiting for us and answered immediately to my knock. I was amused to see, as we entered her room, that she had managed to be washed and painted while I was gone. The folds of her gossamer-thin white linen sheath were held to her tiny waist by a belt of interweaving gold ankhs. More ankhs studded with moonstones encircled her long neck and hung from her earlobes. Her cosmetician had sprinkled her face and shoulders with gold dust. The contrast between such rich elegance and the stained and tattered garb of my companion was startling, yet it was the peasant who dominated the space in which we all stood. She put out her arms and gave Takhuru a deep obeisance. Takhuru inclined her head, and the two women surveyed one another in silence. Then Takhuru said, “What is your name?”

“My name is Thu,” the woman replied equably.

“I am the Lady Takhuru. Kamen has told me all about you. I am sorry for your plight, and I have promised him that I will do all I can to help you. My Steward believes that you importuned me in the market-place and out of pity I hired you. I expect that such an excuse for your presence here might offend you seeing that once you had your own servants,” she went on hurriedly, the haughty Takhuru giving way to an anxious kind-heartedness I loved but seldom saw, “but it was all I could think of. You will have to do what he tells you until Kamen and I can decide how to extricate you from this nightmare.” With the slight emphasis she put on some of her words I suddenly understood that my betrothed had put on her finery out of a feeling of insecurity not arrogance, and was making clear her prior claim on me. I was flattered and amused.

“I am very grateful to you, Lady Takhuru,” the woman replied smoothly. “I assure you that I am not in the least offended in having to serve when once I was served. I will do my best not to endanger either of you. After all, Kamen saved my life.” Takhuru smiled.

“He did, didn’t he? It hasn’t really sunk in yet, any of it. I shall summon you soon to talk to me and explain everything better. Now if you go down to the rear of the garden you will find the servants’ quarters. My Steward should be there. Tell him to give you food and beer and a place to sleep and something to wear.”

“Thank you.” The woman bowed and let herself out with an unobtrusive grace. When she had gone, Takhuru turned to me.

“She is not at all the way I imagined,” she said frankly. “I thought she would be, well, sturdy and solid, but if you disregard the evidences of poverty and neglect you can see someone quite fine underneath. Her speech and manners owe nothing to village life.”

“I love you, Takhuru,” I said. “Not only are you generous and beautiful but I keep finding pieces of you I never knew were there.” She smiled and blushed.

“That is an appalling admission seeing that we have known each other since we were children,” she retorted. “I, on the other hand, know perfectly well that under your boring and distressingly responsible exterior lies a man who would throw everything proper away with a snap of his fingers if it became necessary. And you have done just that. I love you also. I am intrigued with this adventure. Do you think that one day we may find ourselves in the presence of the One because of it?”

“No,” I said shortly, suddenly afraid that she did not after all understand the gravity of the situation we were in. “If we are lucky I will be left alive and your family will remain in ignorance of the whole matter. This is not a game.”

“I know that,” she whispered, and all at once the Takhuru who had greeted me so oddly was back. She was searching my face carefully. “Kamen,” she said slowly, “the message I sent you, the one you had to ignore because you were going south. I have something to show you. Something about your father.” I was immediately alarmed.

“What is it? Has there been an accident? Is he injured? Dead?”

“No, not Men,” she said. She took a deep breath, blew it out, and went to her tiring chest. Kneeling, she lifted the lid, rummaged about among her clothes, and withdrew a scroll. Getting up, she approached me with a strange caution, holding it close to her body.

“I found this when I was investigating my father’s office,” she said, her voice thready. “It was in a box of old lists of employees and faience production for previous years. If it is genuine, you may indeed one day stand before the One. You have a right to do so. You are his son.” She held out the scroll with both hands, as though she was bestowing a precious gift or an offering to a god, and I took it in a cloud of sudden confusion.

The papyrus was stiff, as though it had not been unrolled for some time. It had once been sealed but half the seal had broken away. I noticed almost dispassionately that my fingers were shaking. Something in me had heard and understood her, and was tremulous with shock although my conscious mind still slumbered. “What are you saying? What are you saying?” I stammered like an idiot. Numbly I felt for a chair and sat down heavily. The black, formal hieroglyphs danced before my eyes. She came and put a firm hand on my shoulder.

“Read it,” she said.

The letters had ceased to gyrate, but I had to grip the scroll tightly to keep it steady enough to obey her. “To the Noble Nesiamun, Overseer of the Faience Factories of Pi-Ramses, greetings,” it said. “In the matter regarding the lineage of one Kamen, now residing in the home of Men the merchant, you may rest assured that the aforesaid Men is a man of integrity and has not tried to link an adopted son of base and uncertain parentage to your daughter who is of pure and ancient stock. The Lord of the Two Lands, the Great God Ramses, has seen fit, for divine reasons of his own which may not be questioned, to place his son, the aforementioned Kamen, into the care of the merchant Men to be raised by him as his own. Although the said Kamen is the son of a Royal Concubine, he is nevertheless blessed with the blood of the divinity, therefore do not hesitate to allow a marriage contract between your house and the house of Men. You are commanded, however, to obey the injunction of utter secrecy imposed upon the merchant Men when first he received the child Kamen into his care. Dictated to the Royal Scribe of the Harem Mutmose, this fourth day of the month Pakhons, in the twenty-eighth year of the King.” It was signed, “Amunnakht, Chief Keeper of the Door.”

For a long time I felt nothing. My head, my heart, my limbs were frozen. I stared into the room unseeing. This is what it is like to be dead, be dead, be dead, I thought over and over again. But gradually I became aware of a hand on my shoulder, a woman’s hand, Takhuru’s hand, I was in Takhuru’s quarters on a warm afternoon, no, not me, a King’s son was here, a King’s son, I, Kamen, was indeed dead, and then a dizziness washed through me and I doubled over.

With my eyes screwed shut I pressed my forehead against my knees until it receded. Takhuru’s hand was removed. When I was able to straighten slowly, I saw her sitting on the floor in front of me, calmly waiting. “It was a terrible shock for me,” she said. “It must be doubly so for you. It was your mother who came to you in your dreams, Kamen, and your will was bent on finding her. Who would have thought that a question you had not yet asked would be answered first?” I licked my lips and tried to swallow. I felt light and empty, like a winnowed husk.

“I suppose the scroll is genuine?” I managed.

“Of course it is. Amunnakht is indeed the Keeper of the harem door. His word is law within its precincts. Besides, who would be mad enough to forge such a scroll? Not only use the Keeper’s name but also express the will of Pharaoh without his knowledge or permission? His sons may not marry without that permission. It means that when the matter of our betrothal was mooted, your father told my father it was all right to join us because your lineage was in fact higher than mine. My father did not believe him. He applied to the Keeper for confirmation. The Keeper went to Pharaoh for permission both to reassure my father and to obtain the Great One’s permission for you to marry. You are a royal son, Kamen.”

“My father knew,” I said, anger beginning to flood my emptiness with a frightening speed. “He knew all of it. He must know which concubine bore me. And yet he denied everything, he lied to me in my distress! Why?” Takhuru shrugged.

“The scroll makes it clear that your father was bound to secrecy. He could not tell you the truth.” But I was not ready to forgive him. That blind, strong anger pulsed hotly through me so that I wanted to take my father by the throat and pound and pound him. My fists curled, and then I realized that it was my real father I wanted to smash into the dust. The Great God himself. I was a royal son.

“Why did Ramses give me away so quietly?” I said vehemently. “There are dozens of royal bastards in the harem, as young officers in the army, in positions in the administration. Everyone knows who they are. They may not be accorded the worship due to legitimized princes but their parentage is not hidden. Why was mine?” She leaned forward and grasped my wrists.

“I do not know, but we can find out,” she said. “Give yourself time to become used to the idea, Kamen. Do nothing foolish. Perhaps you were born under excessively unlucky omens. Perhaps your mother was so beloved of Pharaoh that he could not bear to keep anything that reminded him of her. That peasant woman Thu. She was a concubine at about the same time you were born. I will ask her what she remembers of those days. And what I say is true. You are royal. You can request permission to come into your father’s presence and will not be refused.” She gave my arms a little shake. “You know that I loved you before I discovered you were of royal blood, don’t you?” she said solemnly. I tried to smile but my mouth felt heavy.

“You are an outrageous snob, Takhuru,” I half-whispered. “Now what do I do? How must I view myself? What am I? Are my thoughts and habits, my likes and dislikes, rooted in the royal seed? Must I remake myself? Try to know myself anew? Who am I?” She pulled me down beside her and strained to embrace as much of me as she could.

“You are my Kamen, brave and honourable,” she murmured. “We will do one thing at a time. First you will go home and have Setau bathe you. Tomorrow you will break into your father’s office and confirm this scroll by the undoubted existence of the other.”

“Tomorrow I must stand before the General and lie,” I answered, and she laughed.

“You can stand before him and secretly know that your blood is the purest in the kingdom,” she said. “He will not dare to raise a hand against a King’s son!”

But I was not so sure. For a long time Takhuru and I sprawled on her floor, alternately kissing and drowsing in the sleepy afternoon. Her room was security, normality, a last affirmation of the man I used to be. Not until I felt sane enough to pass through my own door did I leave her.

I remember vividly the short walk home. It was as though my old eyes had been replaced by new ones, and I saw the sparkle of bright light on the water, the outline of the trees against the sky, the dark yellow patches of sand beside the path, with remarkable clarity. The soles of my feet were sensitive to every surface beneath them, my ears responded to the myriad sounds of life, insect, bird and human, on the Lake. I was reborn, and yet I was the same. No longer did I inhabit the world on sufferance, feeling that I was filling a place that was not mine.

Once within my own domain I washed, changed my linen, and set out again, this time for Paiis’s estate. I would have liked to wait until the next day to give him my report but I knew I must speak to him before he heard from elsewhere that I had returned. He would be expecting the assassin to be admitted to his office. Instead, it was I who shouldered past his Steward and saluted.

He did not rise from behind his desk in shock, but I saw his body tense with the urge to do so. He controlled it immediately and his eyes, by the time they met mine, were empty of any panic. I admired his self-possession, keeping my own expression carefully solemn. “Kamen,” he said unnecessarily. “You have returned. Make your report.” His voice did not waver, but it was uncharacteristically shrill.

“My General,” I began, “I am sorry to have to tell you that I have failed to carry out your orders. I assure you that it was not from any lack of effort. I know my duty.” He made an impatient gesture. He was now not only fully in command of himself but alert with suspicion, and everything in me rose to meet that challenge.

“Don’t babble,” he cut in testily. “What went wrong with so simple an assignment?” I was tempted to laugh, but I recognized the desire as an invitation to a mildly reckless hysteria.

“I escorted the mercenary safely to Aswat as you required,” I said calmly. “Our nightly berths were in quiet places where we could not be seen, also as you required. Once we had arrived a little way out of the village, I accompanied the mercenary to the home of the woman three hours before dawn but she was not there. The mercenary was angry. After asking me where she might be, he told me to wait outside her door. I did so. He did not return, and neither did she.”

“What do you mean, he did not return?” Paiis snapped. “How long did you wait? Did you search for him?”

“Of course.” I allowed myself a fleeting expression of wounded pride. “But I was mindful of your admonition regarding secrecy. It made any thorough search difficult. I could have spent days questioning all the villagers and ransacking their houses, but as it was, I walked the alleys and the fields until the morning was far advanced. I waited a further day, hidden on board the boat, but the mercenary did not come. That evening I went again to the woman’s house but with no success. She also had not come back. I had to make a choice between making myself and my crew increasingly visible to curious peasants or leaving for the Delta. I chose to set sail. The responsibility is mine. I hope I have acted as a good officer should. I would like to suggest that you send a message to Aswat, commanding a local authority to make the arrest. Someone who knows the woman’s movements and habits.” Had I gone too far? His dark eyes regarded me thoughtfully, coolly, but I had no difficulty in holding his gaze. I hoped there was enough apology in mine.