The Twice Born (33 page)

“Oh, you are much more than that, Huy,” Mentuhotep murmured. “I know the burden that oppresses you. You have good mentors in Ramose and Methen and the Rekhet. Nevertheless, if you need a friend I am here.” Bowing to Huy for the first time, he left the cell, and this time the sacred baboon swinging from his ear seemed to be smiling.

The guard, who had been hovering behind them, blew out his breath. “You may turn out to be an offspring of Thoth himself, young Huy, but in the meantime you and I both have bellies to fill. I’m hungry. May we find out where the noon meal is being served?”

Huy laughed. “A good idea! I don’t want to eat with the priests. Let’s find the dining room of the school. It can’t be far away.”

The area of the temple that encompassed the school was very similar to its counterpart at Iunu, and Huy found it with little trouble, entering the dining room where the meal was under way. Appetizing aromas mingled with the intermittent chatter of the hundred or so boys and young men seated at the long tables. Hovering in the doorway, Huy hesitated, looking for an empty space on one of the benches, and after a moment an older boy noticed him and came hurrying over, followed by a gradually spreading hush. Heads were turned in Huy’s direction, fingers were stilled. “You are Huy, guest of the Master?” the young man inquired. He seemed flustered, passing a palm quickly across his shaven scalp and then folding his beringed hands together over the enamelled amulet resting against his naked chest. “I am Ib. Today is my duty day. Come and sit beside me. Will your guard go and eat with the servants?” He led Huy through a sea of curious eyes to one of the tables, and at a low word one of the diners scrambled up, gave Huy a clumsy bow, and wriggled between two of his fellows on the opposite bench.

Awkward and embarrassed, Huy took his place, the guard stationed behind him. “I’m afraid that my guard must eat here,” he said, heartily wishing that he had chosen the priests’ company instead.

Ib nodded vigorously. “I will instruct a servant,” he said, and hurried away.

Huy forced himself to scan the dozens of eyes still fixed on him. “I bring greetings from my fellow students at Iunu,” he said into the silence. “Of course they would rather be here with me than slaving at their lessons, but since we are all under the authority of our teachers and must do as we are told, they are sitting over their scrolls and I am enjoying this beautiful city. Surely they will be forgiven for envying me!”

A ripple of laughter broke the tension of the moment. Talk broke out again and the boy next to Huy turned to him eagerly. “Is it true that you are some sort of wonderful Seer, and you have come to Khmun so that the Master may consult with you?” he asked. “Nothing official has been said about your visit, but you know how things are—one priest lets out a couple of words and suddenly the rumours are flying.” He tore a piece of barley bread in two. “My father is High Priest at the temple of Nekhbet at Nekheb. That is a very long way south from here, yet he has heard something of you.” He dipped his bread into the bowl of fragrant broth before him.

Huy’s stomach clenched. “It is true that I am here to consult with the Master,” he said carefully, “but as a student, not a Seer. I have been set a task of learning. As for my ability to scry, that has not yet been proven. Tell me about Nekheb. It is a great shipbuilding centre, is it not?”

The boy barked a short laugh. “Spoken like one of Pharaoh’s diplomats,” he retorted, not unkindly. “Forgive me, Huy. People must pester you all the time, but you must admit that my, our, curiosity is natural. Yes, Nekheb is a very famous city. In the days of our great liberator, Osiris Ahmose, and his accursed brother Kamose, the ships were built for the Setiu invaders and so a battle for control of the docks was fought there. The admiral Ahmose pen-Nekheb is our most revered son. You must have studied his exploits in school. He’s the one who …”

Huy appeared to be listening, but his attention had strayed. Something about the crowd of youthful heads had caused him unease.

Ib returned with a servant carrying trays of food, resumed his seat, and did his best to engage Huy in polite conversation. Huy’s appetite had fled, but he forced himself to eat while the guard standing behind him laid his spear on the ground and attacked his meal with relish. It seemed an eternity to Huy until Ib rose, called for silence, recited the prayer that ended the meal, and dismissed the boys. “Do you need to be guided back to your cell?” he asked Huy under the babble and scramble around them. “I presume that you are quartered with the priests.”

Huy shook his head. “Thank you, Ib, but I know the way. Besides, I think I’ll find a shady spot in the temple garden and spend the hour of sleep outside.”

“Very well, but if you need anything to do with the school just send a servant to me. I hope we meet again.”

The room had emptied. The guard picked up his spear and together he and Huy moved through the schoolroom, but as Huy entered the shadow of the passage beyond, an arm shot out and barred his way. “You think you are someone special, son of mud,” a familiar voice hissed. “You think you’re some kind of a god because the priests put their noses to their knees when you go by. You’re nothing but an untimely abortion, with your hair hanging past your shoulders like a girl and your false air of importance. One day they’ll know the truth. You’re a disease, an ukhedu, a worm in the bowels of the temples.”

“Sennefer,” Huy said calmly, although his heart was racing. “I failed to notice you in the dining room. I remember now. This is where you were sent.”

“As if you didn’t know! You ruined my life, peasant. I should have held you under the water and made sure you were dead before that little weakling Thothmes came running back to the lake with help to drag you out.” His crude features were flushed and his eyes glittered. “You managed to take advantage of your wound, didn’t you, like any crafty peasant.” He pushed closer to Huy, his body stiff with rage, but at that moment the guard interposed, drawing his sword and stepping between them.

“Be on your way, young whelp,” he said mildly, “before the flat of my blade teaches you some manners. And if you approach my charge again, I shall bleed you.”

“Ever the coward,” Sennefer sneered, but he backed away, and as he did so Huy felt himself lifted and lightened although his feet stayed firmly on the ground.
No!
he shouted dumbly, but his head began to whirl and in spite of his strong desire to run down the passage, to run away, a more powerful urge took his hand and closed it around Sennefer’s wrist. At once the other boy went still. Huy found himself surrounded by battle. Men’s screams deafened him. Dust caught in his throat, already dry from terror. He was clinging to the guardrail of an overturned chariot, coughing and sobbing, a dead horse at his feet. Someone was shouting at him angrily, the words lost in the melee, then something struck him in the back and he fell across the vehicle, blood pouring past his horrified gaze and trickling a red pattern against the wicker weave of the chariot’s vertical floor. He tried to draw breath and found he could not. Dark spots began to gather before his eyes and the din of the onslaught began to fade. In a burst of fear that loosened his bowels, he knew that he was dying.

But he was not dying. He was standing in a hot, dim passage in Thoth’s temple, his grip whitening the skin of Sennefer’s forearm, a dull pain beginning to throb behind his eyes. With effort he opened his hand, and at once Sennefer began to rub at the marks of his fingers.

“What did you do to me, you lunatic!” he shouted.

Huy wanted to laugh, but was simultaneously overcome with shame at his surge of spite. “You are going to die in battle, Sennefer. Perhaps such a fate may be averted by a change in you, perhaps not—I don’t know. I tell you only what I see. Now go away and leave me alone!”

Sennefer had gone pale. He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, looked down at his wrist, glowered across at Huy, then elbowed past him and disappeared into the schoolroom.

“So you really are a Seer?” the guard said as he followed Huy down the passage. “If I give you my hand, you can tell me my future?”

Wearily Huy stopped and turned to him, and without asking he placed two fingers on the rough skin of the hand that still grasped the sword. The guard exclaimed but did not pull back, and presently Huy smiled faintly up at him. “What is your name?”

“Anhur, after the warrior god. My father is also a soldier.”

“Do you like serving in the temple at Iunu, Anhur?”

The man grunted. “It’s boring sometimes, but it brings me my bread and onions. Why do you ask?”

“Because in three years’ time you will go to war and you will survive and after that you will make a decision that will affect the rest of your life.”

Anhur raised his eyebrows. “And what might that be?”

“Well, if I tell you, it will be no decision, will it?”

Anhur chuckled. “Cheeky, aren’t you? I suppose I’ll just have to wait for the end of this war or whatever, although I can’t imagine where it will take place. The Good God is old and the vassal states have stayed quiet for years.”

Huy sighed. “I tell only what I see. That’s all I can do. I don’t think I want to go into the garden after all. I want to sleep on my couch, and you can unroll your pallet outside my door. What evil luck, to find Sennefer here!”

“What did you do to him?” Anhur wanted to know, but Huy had started down the passage and would not answer.

He has ruined my life
, Huy thought later as he lay sleepless on his cot with the temple locked in a hot silence around him.
But it is true that I have indirectly ruined his. The retribution that fell on his head may have been just, but it was also dire. He is disgraced and forever forbidden the noble’s privilege of the throwing stick, but surely the untimely end I foresaw for him far outweighs his attack on me in the scales of Ma’at, while I am given every opportunity to rise above my father’s station and receive the respect of important men through no virtue of my own. “Untimely abortion
.” Huy stirred restlessly under the flush of hurt the words brought back to him.
Well, so I am. The blessings poured upon me have nothing to do with my character, and I exist wholly at the whim of the gods. Or god. Sennefer caused me great harm, but good has come from it. I must talk to him, apologize aloud for the enmity between us and secretly for the spurt of glee the vision of his death brought me. Can we come to an understanding? How would I feel if he had told me that I was to end my life in the heat and stink of battle? I am guilty of a cruelty as great as his was to me. I should have kept my mouth closed, but how could I when the Seeing came upon me without warning and with such force that I was powerless against its onrush?

He spent the remainder of the afternoon wandering about the temple precincts, becoming increasingly aware that although the temple itself followed the simple plan of all the great places of worship, its surroundings seemed to sustain and enhance the unique atmosphere of heka that imbued it. Its well-watered lawns held no flower beds but were sparsely dotted with tall, smoothboled palms. Here and there stone effigies of Thoth himself made little pools of shade into which, Huy noticed, no one seemed to venture; for around each striding figure, with its curved ibis beak inclined towards the scribe’s palette on which it was about to write, was an invisible circle of power that seemed to demand a polite respect. A row of squatting baboons fronted the wall of the outer court between the soaring pillars, and beyond them the wide concourse of the court itself was fluid with worshippers coming and going, but Huy noticed that people did not linger to gossip once their observances had been completed. Ra’s outer court at Iunu was usually crowded and often gaily noisy, particularly in the mornings and early evenings. Like the marketplaces, it was a favourite spot for sharing news and greeting friends. Here an air of solemnity and reverence prevailed.

Huy came upon the sacred lake quite suddenly, rounding a corner of the central building to be faced with a low mud-brick wall broken by a gateless aperture guarded, to Huy’s surprise and delight, by a small statue of Thoth standing on a pedestal with, at his feet, the exquisite representation of a smiling woman. Clothed in a leopard skin, with a uraeus on her forehead and a star rising from her coronet, she too held a palette and brush. Beyond them both, the lake lay glittering in the sunlight. Anhur pointed to the thick hedge of sycamores around its rim. “There’s somewhere we might sit for a little. You’re allowed near the lake.”

But Huy’s attention was still fixed on the sculpture. “This must be Thoth’s wife. How beautiful she is! What is her name, do you know, Anhur?”

The man shrugged, but a priest who had just left the water and was wrapping himself in linen as he approached them had heard Huy’s question. “Her name is Seshat,” he explained with the merest flicker of astonishment in the eyes that met Huy’s own.
Certainly shock at my ignorance
, Huy thought. “She is indeed Thoth’s wife, the Lady of Books, librarian of Paradise and totem of mathematicians, architects, and those who keep records.” He smiled. “She lives near the Ished Tree, and one of her tasks is to write the name of each pharaoh on one of its leaves so that he may gain immortality. You see the palm branch beside her, with all the notches? She carves the years of each king’s earthly life into it. She and pharaoh together stretch out the white cord when the foundations for a new temple are being laid. Thoth belongs to everyone who reveres the written word, but Seshat belongs first to he who sits on the Horus Throne. Nevertheless we, his priests, love her very much.” He made a gesture of apology. “Forgive my lecturing tone. I am Thoth’s chief archivist and head librarian of the House of Life here in Khmun. And you are Huy.” He bowed. “You come to study the second part of the Book of Thoth?” Huy nodded. “Then I have a favour to ask of you. When you have read all five of its parts and understood its mysteries, will you visit me here and enlighten me? I myself have read the three scrolls that make up the second and fourth parts of the Book stored here in my archives, but I did not dare to travel to Iunu and look at the rest. I feared the warnings.” He looked curiously at Huy. “You do not fear them?”