House of Illusions (6 page)

I had never been allowed to accompany my father in his dealings with Egypt’s greatest oracle. “The man runs a perfectly respectable household,” my father had told me rather testily some years ago when I had asked him why I could not go with him, “but he is fanatical regarding his privacy. I would be too if I suffered from his affliction.”

“What affliction?” I had pressed. All Egypt knew that the Seer had some terrible physical ailment. In his rare public appearances he was swathed from hooded head to bandaged toes in white linen so that even his face was invisible. But I had hoped that given the frequency of my father’s visits some more specific information might be forthcoming. “Is the Seer deformed?”

“I do not think so,” my father had replied carefully. “His speech is more than sane. He walks on two legs and obviously has the use of both arms. His torso seems pleasingly slim for a man of middle age. Under his windings of course. I have not had the privilege of seeing him without them.” I had been nine at the time this exchange took place, and with a young boy’s natural curiosity I had waited my chance to squeeze Pa-Bast for more. But he had been even less co-operative than my father.

“Pa-Bast, you are a friend of Harshira, the great Seer’s Steward,” I had begun after pushing my way with my usual bluntness into his little office where he was bent over the scroll on his desk. “Does he talk much about his illustrious Master?” Pa-Bast had looked up and fixed me with his level gaze.

“It is not polite to intrude without knocking, Kamen,” he had reproved me. “As you can see, I am busy.” I apologized but stood my ground.

“My father has told me what he knows,” I said, completely unabashed, “and his words have distressed me. I wish to include the Seer in my petitions to Amun and Wepwawet but I must be exact in my prayers. The gods do not like vagueness.” Pa-Bast sat back on his chair and smiled thinly.

“Do they not, young master?” he said. “Nor do they look indulgently on the hypocrisy of young boys who wish to acquire salacious gossip. Harshira is indeed my friend. He does not talk about his Master’s personal affairs and I do not talk about mine. I strongly suggest that you concentrate on the state of your own affairs, namely the sorry showing you are making in the study of military history, and leave the Seer’s business to the Seer.” His head had gone down again over his work and I had left him utterly unrepentant, my curiosity unslaked.

My marks in military history improved and I learned, more or less, to mind my own business, but in my idle moments I continued to ponder the power and mystery of the man to whom the gods revealed their secrets and who, it was said, could heal with a glance. Heal all but himself, that is. As I hurried past the dark maw of his pylon, I thought of him now wound in linen like a corpse, sitting motionless in the dimness of the silent house whose upper windows could sometimes be glimpsed beyond the dense life of his garden.

Once past his domain my mood lightened and before long I was turning in at Takhuru’s gate. The guards waved me through and I strode the sandy path that snaked between thick shrubbery. A straight line would have brought me quickly to the house’s imposing, pillared façade but Takhuru’s father had laid out his estate to give an impression of more arouras than he really had. His walkways curved around stands of doum palms, ornamental pools and oddly shaped flower beds before leading to the broad paving of his courtyard, and the building itself could not be seen until one had turned the last bend. The affectation amused my father, who said that the estate reminded him of a mosaic designed by an overly enthusiastic faience worker intent on giving those who saw it a headache. He had not, of course, made the remark in public. I found the effect slightly suffocating.

If the grounds were crowded with foliage and various embellishments, the interior of the house seemed always empty, cool and spacious, its tiled floors and star-spangled ceilings breathing an old-fashioned peace and gentility. Furnishings were sparse, simple and costly, the servants well trained, efficient and as silent as the polite air through which they moved. One glided towards me as I walked into the hall. Good manners demanded that I pay my respects to Takhuru’s parents before seeking her out, but the man informed me that they had gone to dine on the river with friends. The Lady Takhuru could be found on the roof. Thanking him I retraced my steps and took the outside stairs.

In spite of the fact that the sun had now set and the streamers of red light being dragged rapidly towards the west held little heat, my betrothed was sitting in deep shadow against the eastern wall of the windcatcher, half-buried in cushions. Though she was cross-legged, her spine did not touch the brick, her narrow shoulders did not slump, and the filmy folds of her yellow sheath decorously hid her knees. Beside her were her gold-thonged sandals, set neatly together. To her right, a tray held a silver flagon, two silver cups, two napkins and a dish of sweetmeats. Before her the sennet game waited, each playing piece on its appointed square. Hearing me come, she turned her head and smiled happily, but that rigid little back did not bend. Her mother, I reflected as I approached, would have approved. Taking her hand, I pressed my cheek against hers. She smelled of cinnamon, an expensive but pleasant addiction she had, and of lotus oil.

“I am sorry to be later than I intended,” I said to forestall the expected complaint. “I arrived home dirty and very tired, and when I had bathed I slept longer than I should.” She affected a pout, and releasing her fingers she waved me down opposite her, the sennet board between us. She was wearing the bracelet I had given her last year when we were officially pledged to one another, a thin circlet of electrum around whose rim tiny golden scarabs marched. It had cost me a month of labour amongst the cattle belonging to the High Priest of Set during my leisure hours, and it looked beautiful on her elegant wrist.

“Providing you dreamed about me, I don’t mind,” she replied. “I have missed you a lot, Kamen. All I do from dawn to dusk is think about you, especially when Mother and I are ordering linen and dishes for our home. Last week the wood carver called. He has finished the set of chairs we ordered and he wants to know how much gilding to use on the arms and whether the rests are to be decorated or left plain. I think plain, don’t you?” She raised her black eyebrows and the flagon of wine at the same time, hesitating until I nodded. I watched her white teeth catch a portion of her lower lip as she poured, and her dusky eyes, heavily kohled, met mine. I took the cup and sipped. The wine was delicious, bringing a rush of saliva to my mouth. I swallowed appreciatively.

“Plain or fancy, I don’t really care,” I began, and then seeing her crestfallen expression, I realized my mistake. “I mean that I cannot afford much beyond simple gilding,” I added hastily. “Not yet, not for some time. I have told you that my soldier’s pay is not large and we must try to manage on it. The house itself is costing me a small fortune.” The pout was back.

“Well if you would accept my father’s offer and learn about faience, we could have everything we wanted now,” she objected, not for the first time. I answered her more sharply than I had intended. The argument was not new but the feeling that swept over me was, a depression mingled with anger at her blithe selfishness. My mind flooded suddenly with a vision of the modest hut where the Aswat woman lived, with its clean poverty, of the woman herself, her rough feet and coarsened hands, and I gripped my cup tightly to prevent the anger spilling over.

“I have told you before, Takhuru, that I do not want to become an Overseer of the Faience Factories,” I said. “Nor do I want to follow in my father’s footsteps. I’m a soldier. One day I may be a general, but until then I am happy with my choice and you will just have to learn to accept it without complaint.” The words had an admonitory sting to them which I regretted as I saw her flinch. The affected pout was replaced by a watchfulness. She paled and sat back. Her spine found the wall and she straightened unconsciously, laying her ringed and hennaed hands in her yellow lap and lifting her chin.

“I am not accustomed to poverty, Kamen,” she said evenly. “Forgive me for my thoughtlessness. You know of course that my dowry will be ample enough to provide for everything we might need.” Then she gave an artless and unselfconscious grimace that restored her to young girlhood, and my anger was gone. “I did not mean to sound arrogant,” she went on apologetically. “It’s just that I am afraid of being poor. I have never done without anything I wanted, much less needed.”

“My dear, silly little sister,” I chided. “We will not be poor. Poor is one table, one stool and one tallow lamp. Have I not promised to care for you? Now drink your wine and we will play sennet. You have not asked me how my assignment went.” Obediently her nose disappeared into her cup. She licked her lips and wriggled forward.

“I will be cones. You can be spools,” she ordered. “And I have not asked you about your journey south because I am not interested in anything that takes you away from me.”

I sighed inwardly and we began to play, throwing the sticks with a clatter onto the still-warm roof on which we sat and talking intermittently of nothing in particular while the last of Ra’s light was pulled from the treetops around us and the first stars appeared.

We had known each other for years, first as toddlers reeling about our respective gardens while our parents dined together and then as students in the temple school. She had soon returned home with a rudimentary education considered appropriate for young women who would be required to do no more than run a household for their husbands while I had continued to study and then entered the military school. We had seen less of each other then, meeting only when our families joined for parties or religious observances. My father had begun the negotiations that ended in our betrothal. Such a thing had seemed natural to me until Takhuru began to talk of houses and furniture, of utensils and dowry, and I realized that I would be eating, talking and bedding with this girl for the rest of my life.

I did not think that the reality of a marriage contract had been brought home to her yet in spite of her dreams. She was a spoilt only child, the late product of her parents who had lost a daughter many years ago. She was lovely in a delicate, fragile way and I supposed that I loved her. In any case, the die was cast and we were almost irrevocably tied to one another whether we liked it or not. Takhuru in her innocence liked it. I had liked it too in a purely unreflective way, until now. I found my eyes fixed on the fastidious way her fingers found and grasped a cone, the way she would occasionally smooth her sheath as though afraid that I might see further than her knees, the way she pursed her mouth and frowned before making a move. “Takhuru,” I said, “do you ever dance?” She looked across at me, startled, her features dim in the twilight.

“Dance, Kamen? What do you mean? That is not my vocation.”

“I do not mean in the temple,” I replied. “I know you are not trained for that. I mean dance for yourself, in the garden perhaps or before your window, or even under the moon, just for joy or perhaps in rage.” She stared at me blankly for a moment and then burst out laughing.

“Gods, Kamen, of course not! What a strange thought! Why would anyone indulge in such undisciplined behaviour? Look out. I am about to put you into the water. An unlucky omen for tomorrow!”

Why indeed?, I thought ruefully as she pushed my spool into the square denoting the dark waters of the Underworld and glanced up to laugh at me again. The move signalled an end to the game although I struggled for a propitious throw that would deliver me, and soon she swept the pieces into their box, closed the lid, and rose.

“Be careful tomorrow,” she warned me half-seriously as she took my hand and we wandered towards the stairs. “The sennet is a magical game and you lost this evening. Will you come into the house now?” I bent and kissed her full on the lips, briefly tasting the cinnamon and the sweet, healthy tang of her, and she responded, but then she pulled away, always she pulled away, and I let her go.

“I can’t,” I said. “I must meet with Akhebset and find out what has been happening in the barracks while I have been away.”

“You must indulge in a night of carousing you mean,” she grumbled. “Well, send and tell me when we can go and look at the chairs. Good night, Kamen.” Her attempts to control me, often unspoken, could be tiring. I bid her sleep well, watched that spear-straight back move from dimness into the sallow light of the lamps already lit within the house, and then turned to walk through the shadowed gardens. For some reason I felt not only tired but drained. I had done my duty by calling on her, placating her, apologizing for something I would not even have bothered to mention if she had been my sister or a friend, and I looked forward with far more eagerness to a night in the beer house with Akhebset and my other comrades. I would not have to explain myself to them, nor to the women who served beer and food or who inhabited the brothels where we sometimes met the dawn.

I had reached the river and here I paused, gazing down at the specks of starlight disfigured in the water’s slow swell. What is the matter with you? I asked myself sternly. She is beautiful and chaste, her blood is pure, you have known her and been happy in her company for years. Why this sudden shrinking? A tremor of air stirred the leaves above me and for a moment a shaft of new moonlight lit the reeds at my feet. Quelling the spurt of panic it caused me, I turned and walked on.

3

I SPENT THE REMAINING
one day of my leave nursing a sore head, dictating the most interesting letter I could conjure to my mother and sisters in the Fayum, and swimming in a vain attempt to rid my body of the admittedly enjoyable poisons I had fed it. I sent a message to Takhuru, arranging to meet her at the woodworker’s home after my first watch for the General. I dined in the evening with my father and later made sure that Setau had cleaned and laid out my kit in preparation for the morning. I was due to relieve the officer on the General’s door at dawn and I had intended to take to my couch early, but three hours after sunset I was still tossing restlessly under my sheet while the last dregs of oil in my lamp burned away and Wepwawet, although he stared straight out into the flickering shadows of my room, seemed to be eyeing me with speculation and a certain disapproval. At last I knew that until I had resolved the problem of the box I would get no sleep. Rising, I opened my chest, half-hoping that by some miracle the thing had vanished but no, it nestled comfortably under my folded kilts like some unwanted parasite. With a sinking heart I lifted it and placed it on my knees as I sat on the edge of my couch.