The Twice Born (24 page)

“It happened again, didn’t it?” Thothmes said as they entered the cell and Huy collapsed onto the unmade cot. “With Samentuser? What is his fate, Huy?”

“I don’t believe that I may tell you anyone’s fate but your own,” Huy murmured. “Thothmes, did you bring any of your father’s wine with you? I would like a mouthful or two.”

Rooting about in his satchel, Thothmes produced a small flagon and a cup. “I’ll make up your cot for you while you drink it,” he offered, but Huy shook his head.

“I’m feeling better already. Let me drink and then I’ll attend to my chores. Gods, it’s good to be back here with you!”

The evening meal was served in the courtyard as usual. Huy and Thothmes fetched their food from the long table, joined in the prayer of thanks to Ra led by one of the priests, and settled down with their backs against the warmth of their cell wall. Several boys wandered over to perch in the grass beside them, dipping their sesame bread into the fragrant garlic and onion soup and bringing Huy up to date on everything he had missed. “We are still ploughing through the Wisdom of Amenemopet,” one of them grimaced. “We have just finished the eighth stanza. ‘Let your integrity be felt in the vitals of the people,’ and so on. But an architect comes twice every week to teach us the rudiments of his craft. I find that very interesting. I might change my mind about becoming a scribe and take architecture instead. My father could get me taken on as an apprentice somewhere when I leave this place.”

“I don’t like it so much,” Thothmes said. “All those planes and angles and calculations about the stresses of various kinds of stone. I’ll be following my father as governor of Iunu. A course in recognizing a good architect would be more useful to me than the details of his profession. What about you, Huy?”

Huy had been pushing the dried figs and dates about on his plate. “I don’t even know yet if I’ll be allowed to stay in school, so I try not to think about my future,” he said slowly. “My greatest hope is to be a good scribe, but I may end up cutting flowers for my uncle. I won’t feel safe until I hear from the Overseer.”

“You should be allowed free schooling after what happened to you!” one of the boys said indignantly. “Or Sennefer’s father should be made to shoulder the responsibility. I heard our teacher telling the Overseer that such a dreadful thing has never happened before in the whole history of this school!”

Thothmes sniffed. “Just try squeezing anything out of that man. He may be governor of the Nart-Pehu sepat, but if he had his way he would be administering the Uas sepat, where the King lives. My father says that he is even jealous of the Vizier and fancies himself greater than the High Priest of Amun himself. He is not a happy man.”

“How can he be, with a son like Sennefer?” someone else put in, and they all laughed.

Huy got up. “I’m looking forward to class tomorrow, but tonight I’m tired. I think I’ll spend the rest of the evening on my cot. It’s very good to see you all again.” He delivered his empty dishes to the servant behind the table, and as he was turning away Pabast hurried up to him.

“I heard that you were back,” he said peremptorily. “I will come early in the morning to inspect your injury and see how I may shave it without pain.”

Huy’s smile grew as he looked into the man’s self-important face. “I am now a senior here, and as such I may wear my hair in any way I want. I’ve decided to let it grow, Pabast. You need not worry, I will keep it clean and oil it often. I appreciate your concern and I thank you for your previous services to me.”

“You may indeed grow it, but not to the length of some crazy man living in the desert,” Pabast responded primly, and Huy laughed.

“Trust you to have the last word! You may report me to the Overseer the moment you see me running around with my hair flying about my buttocks!” Pabast tutted and made a show of clattering the soiled dishes on the table. Huy walked back to his cell.

He had unpacked his goods and spread his linen on the cot. Khenti-kheti stood in his usual place on the table. Ishat’s scarab rested at the feet of the god, glinting faintly in the dying light of the day. Prostrating himself, Huy stood, and after the formal prayers to the totem of his town he begged Khenti-kheti to open a way for him to stay in school, to keep the ominous gift of the other gods quiescent within him, to prosper his lessons and take care of those he loved.

He was just finishing when Thothmes came in, his youth lock tousled, his skin luminous with beads of water. “Do you think you’ll have the courage to continue with your swimming lessons, Huy?” he asked, rifling through his chest and bringing out a square of linen. He began to dry himself vigorously. “Will you at least try? And what about going into the papyrus swamps? Nasha will want to take us out duck hunting as soon as possible.”

“I trust that I am not a coward, Thothmes. Let me try the bathhouse first. One must wash before bed, if I remember the rules correctly. I see that you’ve already been.”

Thothmes stared at him suspiciously and then burst into laughter. “I’d forgotten your strange sense of humour. Actually, I’ve been doing my lengths in the lake. Let’s get cleaned and oiled together and then you can go to bed.”

Huy had expected a summons from the Overseer within the following few days, but he returned to his classes, struggled to catch up to the work the others were doing, ate the noon meal in the noisy hall with everyone else, even approached his swimming instructor with a request to continue the exercises, and the temple authorities remained silent. He was trailed everywhere by a hesitant Samentuser, who hastened to pick up anything—a sheaf of papyrus, a brush, a pot of ink—Huy might drop. In the classroom, clustered at the far end of the vast room with others of his age and competence, he often felt eyes upon him and, turning, saw Samentuser staring at him with an expression of dumb worship on his face. “I think he’s in love with you, Huy,” Thothmes chuckled, but Huy did not find the little boy’s devotion amusing and took him aside one day in the brief hiatus between lunch and the afternoon sleep.

“Is there something worrying you, Samentuser?” he asked. For answer a small hand crept up and fingered the frog ornament Huy had once used to secure his youth lock and which now held his hair imprisoned at the base of his skull.

“Ever since you came back I’ve been dreaming about you, Huy,” Samentuser said haltingly. “Every night I dream that I am drowning. I can’t breathe. My head aches. You are standing on the verge of the lake, bending down, holding out your hands and calling to me, but I can’t reach up to you, I can’t grasp your hands.” His lips quivered. “I know it’s silly. Don’t be angry with me. I wake up with a terrible desire to see you because I am so afraid.” He swallowed and his eyes slid away from Huy’s. “Has someone put a spell on me, do you think? Can you help me?”

Huy’s throat had gone dry. Squatting, he embraced the boy. “My hands are here now. I am holding them out to you, just as in your dream, but this is the world of waking, Samentuser. Grasp them.” He was preparing to say something comforting, to tell the boy that his nightmare was nothing more than a reflection of his preoccupation with Huy himself, and that he must spend more time in games and other healthy pursuits with his classmates. But all at once he sensed a powerful presence behind him. Samentuser’s troubled little face, the smooth beige stone of the temple wall beyond, the shriek of a hawk passing high above, remained clear. Huy knew that he was entirely rooted in the present, and yet a deep, rough voice spoke into his ear, a voice that illogically seemed full of animal teeth. Hot breath touched his neck.

“Say this to the child,” the voice began, the words a soft rumble but entirely plain. “‘Go to a priest and request an Anubis thread. Let the man knot it about your wrist.’ Thus will I be bound to his good with my Followers of Horus. Remind him of the promise of Amun: ‘Anything harmful is under my seal.’ He must pray to his totem twice a day to have the oppression of the dream removed from him. He must bend his head to you and receive the seal of your protection. That is all.”

Huy swallowed his scream of surprise and fear.
Am I then to be a messenger for the gods as well as a herald of the future, blessed Anubis?
he asked silently of the warm breath bathing his skin with horrific regularity.
What are the limits of this gift?
He had wanted to say “terrible gift, unwanted gift, gift with a weight like a stone of granite lodged within my soul,” but he did not dare. There was a sudden, oddly timbreless chuckle, and the presence was withdrawn. The breeze caressing Huy’s neck was now cool.

“Please speak to me, Huy,” Samentuser begged. “Is your silence an angry one?”

“Not at all.” Huy squeezed the small fingers and let them drop. “You are from Nefrusi, are you not? You worship Amun?” Samentuser nodded. “And what is it said of Amun? Do you remember?” Samentuser shook his head. “Anything harmful is under his seal. Yes? Anything harmful. You surely have his image beside your cot. I want you to go to one of the priests here and ask for an Anubis thread. Let him knot it about your wrist. Your parents are wealthy. They can pay, can they not?” Huy took Samentuser’s rapt attention for consent. “Anubis is Lord of the Bau. He has all the armed followers of Horus under him.”

Samentuser looked alarmed. “But Huy, Anubis has hosts of demons under him also.”

“I know. But the thread will bind Anubis to your good. You must pray to Amun twice every day to take this dream away from you, and he will be free to hear you because Anubis will respect the thread and will protect you with the followers of Horus. Bend your head.” The boy did so. Huy rested his hands on the hot, shaved skull. “My hands are on you. My seal is your protection,” he intoned. He wanted to ask Samentuser if he had any relatives in Iunu, people he could stay with during the disease-ridden months of the Inundation, but he did not dare. If the boy was to die of fever, if that was the fate ordained for him at his birth, then he, Huy, must not interfere.
I have done all I dare to do for him
, he thought, watching Samentuser leave the courtyard.
The priest will want to know why Samentuser needs an Anubis thread. Will he leave the matter alone, or will I be summoned to explain? How can I explain? How can I say that the god himself spoke to me? I don’t understand any of this! I don’t want to have the eyes of the gods on me, to feel like the toy dog I had, pulled along by their string while they bark through me!
Shocked at his fit of offensive blasphemy, he muttered an apology and went to his cot for the afternoon sleep like all the other students, but he was unable to rest.

A month passed before a letter arrived for him from his uncle. Carrying the scroll to a quiet corner of his courtyard, he broke Ker’s seal with trepidation and spent a moment glancing around the sun-filled area before daring to drop his eyes to the neat black hieratic script of Ker’s scribe. “My dear nephew Huy,” he read. “I have been in correspondence with your Overseer and have had several conversations with Methen, who has written on your behalf to the High Priest of Ra requesting assistance with the cost of your schooling. I have also approached your father with regard to your brother’s education. I feel as great a responsibility towards little Heby as I did towards you …” here Huy paused tensely “… and given your father’s inability to carry the cost of schooling for either of you, I have reluctantly decided to extend to Heby the advantages you have enjoyed.”
Instead of me
, Huy thought bitterly, dropping the papyrus into his lap.
In spite of the fact that my life has been destroyed by the force of Sennefer’s arm and I am blameless, still Ker cannot overcome his fear of me. He does not want his personal or his business reputation tainted by any association with me that might be detrimental in the future. Oh, Ker! I wonder what that future holds for you! How easy it would be for me to find out next time I return home!
He struggled to thrust the unworthy desire away and unrolled the scroll again. “I love you very much and so does your aunt,” the letter continued. “We remain distraught over what happened to you, but I must honestly consider that your precarious health may fail at any time and my investment in you be wasted. Heby will not attend school at Iunu. He will be enrolled at the smaller temple school here in Hut-herib.”
How stupid do you think I am?
Huy demanded of his uncle in his mind.
Heby could die of a hundred different diseases before he disembarks from your barge and drags his belongings into the cell he will share with his guide, as I did!
“The High Priest Methen and your Overseer have agreed to allow you to continue at Iunu providing Methen assumes the bulk of the cost. The Overseer will approach High Priest Ramose for the balance. Both men seem to think that you will be of benefit to Egypt one day. You will be summoned to discuss the matter with Ramose. I do not expect a reply to this letter.” It was signed by Ker himself.

Why not?
Huy asked resignedly as he let the scroll roll up and sat staring down at it.
Do you imagine that the mere touch of my hand on the papyrus will infect you with some sort of terrible spell?
For a moment he ached for the past, for his uncle’s free smile, his humour, the unconditional affection that he, Huy, had taken for granted, then he got up off the warm grass, strode to his cell, and put the letter in his chest. He was tempted to throw it away or burn it, so great was his feeling of betrayal, but a part of him understood his uncle’s all too human weakness. Ker was not a god. He was simply a kind man, a good man, caught in a situation he was unable to understand.
All the same
, Huy told himself as he walked towards the lake where he had forced himself to resume his swimming lessons despite an overwhelming sense of dread,
my continued education is assured. I must write to Methen and thank him at once, and as for the Overseer, I suppose he will extract some extra task from me in exchange. At least I don’t have to petition Thothmes’ father for a favour like some impoverished peasant
. Here he laughed aloud, picked up his pace, and prepared to shed his kilt as the glittering surface of the water came into view.