The Twice Born (16 page)

Samentuser looked up at him as though he had gone mad. “Of course. My father is wise and my mother is beautiful.”

“Do you believe that they love you?”

The boy frowned. An expression of uncertainty flitted across his face.

“Do you want them to love you even more? Why did your tutors leave you? Why do you think that your father keeps sending you away to one school after another?”

“Because he does not want me at home,” the boy said sullenly.

Huy shook his head. “No. It is because he loves you too much to see you grow up ugly and cruel and selfish. He longs to see you make him proud of you. Will you try, Samentuser?”

“You are very stupid,” Samentuser muttered, but he remained still as Pabast tentatively approached him, and when his new youth lock lay submissively against his shoulder and the rest of his hair covered his feet in a coarse black cloud, he ran a hand over his oiled scalp, grunted, and left the cell without another word.

His bedside table was cluttered with ostentatious representations of the deities of Weset: Amun, his wife Mut, and their son Khonsu. Huy did not know who the god of Nefrusi was, and did not care to ask. Nefrusi lay within the designation of the Un sepat, together with the towns of Khmun, Hor, and Dashut, halfway between Iunu and Weset. “He is simply showing off his father’s connection with the Horus Throne,” Thothmes said scornfully. Samentuser had wasted no time in informing everyone that he was the son of the princely governor of the Un region, who spent much time at the palace in Weset and held many conversations with the King himself. “If the father is anything like the son, I imagine that our Good God merely tolerates him out of the kindness of his august heart.”

As the days went by, Huy strove to find something in the boy to like, listening to his complaints about the quality of the food, the grade of the bed linen, the ban on personal servants. Samentuser tired him and he began to regard the hours in the schoolroom as a welcome respite from his onerous charge rather than an opportunity to further his own education. He was distressed but not surprised when he saw a bond begin to grow between Samentuser and his old enemy Sennefer. Their characters were distressingly similar in spite of the difference in their ages. Samentuser had found a sympathetic ear and Sennefer an admiring accomplice. It was a great relief when the month ended and Thothmes moved back into their cell.

Mekhir began. The river had regained its banks, the weather was pleasant, and in the fields the farmers stood to watch their young crops tremble, green and sturdy, in the warm breezes of Peret. The students settled down contentedly to another year of learning. Huy began to memorize the Wisdom of Amenemopet as dictated for the edification of his son the scribe Hor-em-maakheru. The stanzas were long and full of good advice to the young, a fact that Huy’s teacher dwelt on with relish. But Huy was also taking dictation straight onto papyrus from one of the older pupils, who had chosen for the exercise the military memoirs of Aahmes pen-Nekheb, friend of Osiris Thothmes the First in his old age, doughty campaigner, and Samentuser’s ancestor if the disagreeable child was to be believed. The man’s powerful character, arrogant, courageous, worshipful, and humorous, drenched every word Huy conscientiously transcribed in his neat hand, and Huy found himself pondering a lusty bloodline already grown thick with self-regard and polluted by pettiness. No more than three kings separated the first Thothmesid and the death of his fellow soldier from Samentuser—two if one did not count the upstart queen Hatshepsut, daughter of Thothmes the First—yet pen-Nekheb’s line threatened to dissipate into whatever feeble offspring Samentuser might produce.

Huy was idly discussing that incongruity with Thothmes one warm afternoon after the sleep. They were walking across the temple’s sun-dazzled forecourt on their way to the practice ground, Thothmes already gauntleted in preparation for his lesson in chariot driving and Huy with his bow held loosely in one hand. It was not a feast day, and the entrance to Ra’s House was deserted but for a few priests gathered in the shade of the pillars guarding the outer court. Several boys were playing on the grass under the trees, their shouts echoing against the high wall that surrounded the whole precinct but for the canal and lake in the forefront. Huy recognized Samentuser’s back, and beyond him Sennefer stood brandishing a throwing stick. Sennefer saw them and started towards the stone apron of the lake they were about to circle. “We should not have taken the long way around today,” Thothmes muttered. “Sennefer has been bragging about his new weapon ever since his father sent it to him. Now what?”

Huy sighed. They had no choice but to continue straight past Sennefer; to turn back would be cowardly. They did not change their leisurely pace, but Huy felt his muscles contract in anticipation, and sure enough, in a moment Sennefer began to shout.

“See my throwing stick, Huy?” he jeered, waving it above his head. “I’ve become quite proficient in its use. I brought down twelve ducks this summer. Now I’m teaching Samentuser how to use it. Would you like a lesson?”

Thothmes put a warning hand on Huy’s arm. “‘A storm wind moving like a flame in straw—that is the hothead in his hour,’” he quoted from the Wisdom of Amenemopet. “Ignore him, Huy. Don’t even look at him. He loves this.”

Samentuser had turned and was watching them expressionlessly. Huy gritted his teeth and walked on.

“Oh, of course. I forgot.” Sennefer’s voice rang clear and full of a false apology. “You’re not allowed to hold a throwing stick, are you? Being the son of a peasant, I mean. Too bad. You might have used one to kill a few of the rats infesting your father’s hovel.” Huy stopped dead. The bow fell from his hand.

Thothmes began to tug at him frantically. “Come on, Huy! Come on! He’s not worth the trouble! He’s nothing!” But Huy struck his friend’s fingers away. His heart had begun to pound and a redness was gathering before his eyes. Through it he saw little Samentuser grinning at him and, farther back, Sennefer’s mouth opening to spew forth another insult, another sly attack on his lineage.

“Not this time,” he said through rigid lips, coldly aware somewhere deep inside himself that he was almost incoherent with rage, that he was going to beat Sennefer to death with his bare fists and was fully capable of doing so, that he must use this last flash of terrible self-knowledge to regain control. But with a grunt he pushed it deliberately away and the full frenzy of his wrath rushed in. Crouching, his whole body tense, his features twisting into a snarl, he prepared to fling himself at Sennefer.

He heard Thothmes shriek, “No, Huy!” through the fog in his ears, saw Sennefer’s expression change from a sneer to a frightened surprise, saw Sennefer’s hand gripping the stick come up and back in a mindless reaction of fear, and the weapon came speeding towards him, turning over and over, its polished surface glinting in the bright sunlight. “Oh gods,” Thothmes said.

For Huy, time seemed to slow. He was able to examine the stunned disbelief in his friend’s two words. He clearly felt the string of his bow under the sole of his reed sandal as he took one step back. Inch by inch he toppled sideways as Thothmes thrust against his shoulder. Fascinated, he watched the throwing stick flow towards him. He could hear it now, a rhythmic whistle as it sliced through the air, and then it struck. Suddenly he was crawling blindly over the rough stone of the forecourt. He knew he was crawling, but he could not feel his hands or his knees. Someone was screaming his name through the loud singing in his head. Then he experienced a sensation of space beneath him, and falling, and the cool water of the lake closed over his spine. He tried to breathe and could not, but somehow it did not matter, because the space was beneath him again, vast and dark. He knew it was dark, dark and comforting, even though he was unable to open his eyes, and he was falling into it like a pebble dropped down a well.
It has no bottom
, he thought calmly.
So I may as well give myself up to death
, and as though he had said the words out loud he felt death float quietly up from below to claim him.

But a moment later he found himself kneeling on the verge of the lake, water dripping from his body onto the stone, his lungs fighting for air. Gasping and coughing, he staggered to his feet and looked about, expecting to see Thothmes rushing towards him, but the forecourt was deserted and the temple’s pillars empty of priests. There was no sign of his tormentor either. Sennefer and Samentuser had vanished. Lawn, trees, temple, and forecourt lay quietly dreaming in the soft, bright warmth of a spring afternoon. Gingerly Huy fingered his head. He could find no break in his scalp and his touch caused him no pain, although he knew that the throwing stick had struck him with enough force to kill him. In the right hands it was a lethal weapon, and Sennefer had flung it with all the strength of a sudden panic. Puzzled, Huy began to walk towards the temple, anxious to get to his cell and talk to Thothmes. He distinctly remembered the stunning blow of the stick, his immediate blindness, the feel of water closing over his back, but perhaps his instantaneous anticipation of those things as the piece of curved wood came hurtling towards him had caused him to react as though it had found its mark when in fact Sennefer’s aim had been faulty and the stick had missed him altogether.
Then where is Thothmes? Sennefer and the child would have run away, but Thothmes would have hurried over to make sure that I was all right. And I am certainly all right
.

He glanced down at himself and halted. His feet were bare. So was the rest of him. Shirt, kilt, loincloth, all had disappeared. He turned, but no linen floated on the surface of the lake. As he turned back, he caught a flash of light out of the corner of his eye. The braid of his youth lock with its driftwood frog had swung forward. Huy lifted it from his collarbone in astonishment. A perfect little golden frog with lapis lazuli eyes peered back at him. Thoroughly alarmed, he remained very still, the frog and the end of his lock clutched in one hand, and it was then that he realized the silence surrounding him. No birds sang. The leaves of the trees dotting the wide lawns to either side of the forecourt were motionless. No lap of waves, no shout of oarsmen, no sound of animal or human came to him from the river behind him. There was only a hush so deep that he could hear his own breaths. Nothing moved, and yet the profound immobility held a quality of expectancy that seemed to be directed at him. Even the air he was drawing into his lungs was waiting.

Huy did not know what to do. If he tried to reach his cell as quickly as possible by slipping through the inner court stark naked and sopping wet and was caught, the punishment for such flagrant blasphemy would be dire. If he took the more acceptable route beside the outer wall of the temple and then in through one of the doors to the school at the rear, he was bound to be seen by a priest or one of the older boys, who might report him. Could he run in under the trees, make his way to the river, and lurk by the road in the hope that someone might have spread laundry on the bushes or dropped a cloak by accident? Yet he saw that beyond the fingers of shade cast by the pillars, the outer court was as empty as everything around him. He let go his youth lock, said a quick prayer for forgiveness to Ra, whose sacred house he was about to violate, and took one step towards the temple.

At once he was engulfed in sound. Birds twittered, leaves rustled, the water of the lake slapped gently against its stone apron. Illogical though he knew it was, Huy believed that he had made the correct decision, and as he walked in under the towering pylon and entered the outer court he felt himself become completely dry.

He expected to look ahead across the concourse with its cloisters on either side to the roofed inner court fronted by its row of pillars and, beyond that, the closed doors of Ra’s inmost shrine. What he saw stopped him dead as though a giant hand had suddenly been thrust against his belly. The power in his knees gave way so that he almost fell, but his flailing arms helped him to keep his balance, and then he stood in awe, his nakedness forgotten.

He was on the edge of a vast garden whose lush, flower-sprinkled grass ran away from him to be lost in a warm blue horizon. Pools dotted its expanse, their placid surfaces thick with white and pink water lilies. Close by on his right, a wide river flowed slowly, its water sparkling in the brilliant light, its banks marked by palm trees at whose feet the papyrus marshes were crowded with feathered egrets and herons picking their way gracefully among the gently quivering fronds. To his left, when he dared to turn his head, he saw a small whitewashed house set in a thicket of sycamores, and far, far beyond it he was sure he glimpsed a line of serried hills shimmering beige against the cloudless sky. All these things rushed at his senses in a chaos of colours and shapes, but the confusion was temporary, for he found himself inhaling a delicious scent he recognized but could not place. It seemed compounded of his uncle’s orchard blossoms and the honey his mother took from the hives in the perfume fields and the merest hint of garlic, and as he strove to bring its source to mind he noticed the Tree. He could have sworn it had not been there before, but now it towered ahead of him, its great branches spread, its leaves making a vast canopy of moving shade. Its aroma poured into him until he felt as though his blood itself had become charged with it, and as he stared at the Tree he remembered both its name and where he had seen it before. It was the Ished Tree.

Beneath it, spine resting against the gnarled trunk, a man sat cross-legged, a scroll unrolled across his knees. He was enveloped loosely in white linen. A pair of papyrus sandals and a scribe’s palette lay in the grass beside him, together with a silver cup in which a rich purple liquid quivered. Not far away, to Huy’s terror, a hyena squatted on its bony haunches, blinking lazily in the radiant sunlight, its snub nose pointed towards the man, the tufts of fur on each small ear and curving over its powerful shoulders gleaming. Its attitude seemed neither predatory nor expectant; it simply watched the man with an air of utter contentment. If it knew of Huy’s presence, it gave no sign.