2

THE REMAINING EIGHT DAYS of our voyage passed without incident, and on the morning of the ninth day we entered the Delta where the Nile divided into three mighty tributaries. We took its north-eastern arm, the Waters of Ra, which later became the Waters of Avaris and ran through the centre of the greatest city on earth. It was a relief to me to leave the silent aridity of the south behind and breathe the air of the Delta, more humid, heavy with the scents of gardens, alive with the reassuring sounds of human activity. Though the river had not yet begun to rise, there was water everywhere in ponds and placid irrigation canals, dimpling cool between the closely gathered trees, sparkling half-glimpsed in the tall papyrus thickets whose delicate fronds waved to the touch of a gentle breeze. White cranes stalked arrogantly in the shallows. Small craft plied to and fro beneath the dart of piping birds and our helmsman’s gaze never left the river as he carefully negotiated through them.

At the Waters of Avaris the view changed, for here we passed the temple of Bast, the cat goddess, and then the wretched shacks and hovels of the poor who crowded around the huge temple of Set and who filled the air between the temple and the rubble of an ancient town with a frenzy of dust, noise and filth, but soon the scene changed again and we had reached the vast canal that encircled Pi-Ramses, the city of the God. We took the right-hand arm, passing the seemingly endless panorama of warehouses, granaries, storehouses and workshops whose quays ran out into the water like greedy fingers to receive the goods that arrived from every corner of the civilized world and through whose gaping entrances the loaded workmen filed in a constant stream, bearing the wealth that was Egypt on their backs. Behind them I caught a glimpse of the sprawling faience factories. Their Overseer was the father of my betrothed, Takhuru, and I felt a surge of elation at the thought that I would see her again after so many weeks.

Beyond all this confusion was the peace and elegance of the estates of the minor nobles and officials, merchants and foreign traders. Here was my home. Here I would disembark for a few days of leisure before returning to my post on the estate of General Paiis and my labours in the officers’ school while my Herald sailed on through the closely guarded narrows that led at last to the Lake of the Residence. There the water lapped against steps of the purest white marble. The craft drawn up to them were fashioned of the finest Lebanon cedar and ornamented in gold, and the polite silence of extreme wealth cast a dreaming hush over lush gardens and deeply shadowed orchards. Here lived the Viziers and High Priests, Hereditary Nobles and Overseers, my future father-in-law among them. Here also a mighty wall surrounded the palace and environs of Ramses the Third.

One could not enter the Lake of the Residence without a pass. My family had access to the private domain, of course, and I had a separate pass enabling me to enter the house of my General and the military school, but today, as the helmsman pulled on the tiller and our craft nosed towards my landing steps, I thought of nothing but a good massage, a flagon of decent wine to complement our cook’s fine dishes and the clean touch of scented linens on my own bed. Impatiently I gathered up my belongings, released my soldier from his duty, took formal leave of the Herald May, and ran down the ramp, my feet touching the familiar coolness of our stone watersteps with delight. I barely heard the ramp being withdrawn and the captain’s command as the boat went on its way. Crossing the paving, I walked through the high metal gates which stood open, called cheerily to the porter who dozed on his stool within the entranceway of his small lodge, and entered the garden.

There was no one about. The trees and shrubs lining the path stirred lazily in whatever small gusts of wind managed to dive over the high wall that enclosed our whole domain, and sunlight spattered through their branches onto the beds of blooms dotted here and there in the haphazard way my mother liked. Striding along, I soon came to the Amun shrine where the family regularly gathered to worship and I turned right, angling towards the house porch through more trees. Between their sturdy trunks I could glimpse the large fish pond away on my left where the garden pressed up against the rear wall of the estate. Its reed-choked verge and stone lip were deserted, the wide green lotus pads dotting its surface were motionless. There would be no flowers on them for several months yet, but dragonflies darted over them, gossamer wings trembling and glittering, and a frog leaped among them with a splash and a quick ripple.

I had almost drowned once in that pond. I was three years old, insatiably curious, never still. Briefly escaping from my nurse who, I admit, was sorely tried, I trotted to the water, my hands eager for fish, flowers and beetles, and tumbled head first through the reeds. I remembered the shock, then the delicious coolness, then the onset of panic as I tried to draw breath from the dark greenness all around me and found I could not. My older sister pulled me out and tossed me onto the lip where I vomited water and then screamed, more in rage than in terror, and the following day my father directed his Steward to find someone to teach me to swim. I smiled as I entered the gloom of the porch and veered right, into the reception area, that memory coming fresh and vivid for a moment. Pausing, I let out a great breath of satisfaction, feeling the discomforts and tensions of the past few weeks flow from me.

To my left the big room was open, broken by four pillars between whose bulk the sunlight streamed. Beyond them the garden continued with its well close by the inside wall separating the house from the servants’ quarters. The fruit orchard was so dense that the main wall running around the whole of my home could not be seen. Far to my right a small door led out to the courtyard where the granaries stood, and across the expanse of white-tiled floor the opposite wall held three doors, all closed. I looked longingly at the one nearest the pillars, for behind it was the bath house, but I crossed in the direction of the third door, my sandals leaving little siftings of grit as I went. I had almost reached it when the middle door opened and my father’s Steward came towards me.

“Kamen!” he exclaimed, smiling broadly. “I thought I heard someone come in. Welcome home!”

“Thank you, Pa-Bast,” I replied. “The house is so quiet. Where is everyone?”

“Your mother and sisters are still in the Fayum. Had you forgotten? But your father is at work as usual. Do you return to the General at once or shall I have fresh linen placed on your couch?”

I had indeed forgotten that the females of the family had decamped to our little house on the borders of the Fayum lake to escape the worst heat of Shemu, and would not come back to Pi-Ramses until the end of next month, Paophi, when everyone hoped the river would be rising. I felt momentarily dislocated. “I have two days’ leave,” I answered him, shrugging off my sword belt and handing him my kit together with the sandals I had also slipped off. “Please do have my couch made up, and find Setau. Tell him everything in my kit is filthy, my sword needs cleaning, and the thong on my left sandal is coming unstitched. Have hot water taken to the bath house.” He continued to stand there smiling, his eyes on the box under my arm, and all at once I became painfully aware of it weighing against my side. “Take this to my room,” I said hurriedly. “I picked it up on my journey and have no idea what to do with it.” He took it awkwardly, his other hand loaded with my belongings.

“It is heavy,” he commented, “and what strange knots have been used to tie it closed!” I knew that the remark was not an inquisitive one. Pa-Bast was a good Steward and minded his own business. “A message has come from the Lady Takhuru,” he went on in a different vein. “She asks you to visit her as soon as you have returned. Akhebset came here yesterday. He wants you to know that tonight the junior officers will be celebrating in the beer house of the Golden Scorpion on the Street of Basket Sellers and if you are home by then he begs that you join them.”

I grinned ruefully at Pa-Bast. “A dilemma.”

“Yes indeed. But you could pay your respects to the Lady Takhuru after the evening meal and go on to the Golden Scorpion later.”

“I could. What is our cook offering tonight?”

“I do not know but I can ask.”

I sighed. “Never mind. He could serve stewed mice on chopped grass and it would be more toothsome than a soldier’s fare. Don’t forget the hot water. At once.” He nodded and turned away and I took the few steps to the third door and knocked sharply.

“Enter!” my father’s voice commanded and I did so, closing the door behind me as he rose from behind his desk and came around it, arms outstretched. “Kamen! Welcome home! The southern sun has burned you to the colour of cinnamon, my son! How was your journey? Kaha, I think we have done enough for now, thank you.” My father’s scribe rose from his position on the floor, gave me a quick but very warm smile, and went out, his palette in one hand and his pen and scroll in the other. Indicating that I should take the chair facing the desk, my father regained his own and beamed across at me.

His office was dim and always pleasantly cool as the only light came from a row of small clerestory windows up near the ceiling. As a child I had often been allowed to sit under his desk with my toys while he conducted his business and I had been fascinated by the squares of pure white light they cast on the opposite wall, light that gradually elongated as the morning progressed and slid down the jumbled shelves until those uniform but fluid shapes began to creep towards me across the floor. Sometimes Kaha would be sitting crosslegged in their path, his palette across his knees and his reed pen busy as my father dictated, and the light would slither up his back and seep into his tight black wig. Then I knew I was safe and could return to my wooden goose and the little cart with real wheels that turned and in which I loaded my collection of pretty stones, brightly painted clay scarabs and my great pride, a little horse with flared nostrils and wild eyes and a tail of real horsehair protruding from its rump. But if Kaha chose to take up his position slightly closer to my father’s chair, then my toys would be forgotten and I would watch, tranced with something akin to fear, as the healthy bright squares slowly became distorted rectangles that oozed down the shelves and began to seek me out with blind purpose. They never quite reached me before my mother called me for the noon meal and, of course, I realized as I grew older that it would have been impossible for them to do so once the sun stood over the house. Later I spent my mornings at school, not under my father’s desk, but even as a man full grown, sixteen years old and an officer of the King, I could not laugh at that childish fear.

Today it was an early afternoon light that diffused gently through the room, and I sat and regarded my father in its soft glow. His hands and face were heavily lined and toughened with years of travelling the caravan routes in blazing heat, but the runnels of his face had set in their own routes of humour and warmth and the blotching and coarseness of his hands only served to accentuate their strength. He was an honest man, bluff and straightforward, a masterful bargainer in the hard market-place of medicinal herbs and exotica but fair in his dealings and he had made a fortune doing what he loved. He spoke several languages including that of the Ha-nebu and the peculiar tongue of the Sabaeans and insisted that the men who led his caravans, though citizens of Egypt, shared a common nationality with those with whom he traded. Like the priests he belonged to no class and so was accepted into all circles of society, but he was in fact a minor noble, a distinction he did not particularly value, as, he said, he did not earn the title. Yet he was ambitious for me and proud of the convoluted negotiations that had netted the daughter of a great noble for my future wife. Now he sat back, running a beringed hand over his bald scalp to where the last of his grey hair clung in a semicircle between his large ears, and raised a pair of bushy eyebrows at me.

“Well?” he prompted. “What did you think of Nubia? Not too different from the trek into Sabaea we took together, is it? Sand and flies and plenty of heat. Did you get along well with your Royal Herald?” He laughed. “I see by your face you did not. And all for an officer’s pay. At least the army is teaching you to keep your temper, Kamen, which is a good thing. One rude word to His Majesty’s servant and you would be out on your ear.” He sounded regretful and I grinned openly at him.

“I have no intention of being flung out of the army on my ear or my rump or even my nose,” I said. “Nubia was boring, the Herald an irritable man, and the whole assignment without incident. But it was better than sitting on a donkey day after day nearly dying of thirst, wondering if the desert brigands were going to attack and steal all the goods we had bartered so hard for and knowing we had to do it all over again in a few months.”

“If you get a posting to one of the border forts as you so foolishly desire, you will have your fill of heat and boredom,” he retorted. “Who can I leave my business to when I die, Kamen? To Mutemheb? Trading is no occupation for a woman.” I had endured this argument many times before. I knew there was no barb in his words, only love and disappointment.

“Dear Father,” I said impatiently. “You can leave it to me and I will appoint good stewards …” He waved me to silence.

“Trading is not an occupation that can be delegated to servants,” he pronounced loftily. “There is too much room for dishonesty. One wakes up one morning to find nothing but destitution and one’s servants in possession of the estate next door.”

“That is ridiculous,” I cut in. “How many caravans do you still lead in person? One in ten? Once every two years when you become restless? You trust your men as an officer must trust his soldiers …”

“Now YOU are becoming pedantic,” he smiled. “Forgive me, Kamen. You must be longing for a bath. How was the river on the way back? The sailors were surely praying for Isis to cry so that the rising current would be stronger than the prevailing north wind and would float you home. How much longer did it take to come than to go?”

“A few days,” I shrugged. “But we did not make sufficient time to put in where we had intended to each evening. My Herald had planned to spend his nights enjoying the hospitality of mayors who set good tables but more often than not we ate bread and dates on the bank of the Nile. By the time we were forced to camp overnight in Aswat, he had become decidedly disagreeable. There was a woman at Aswat who brought us food …” My father’s glance sharpened.

“A woman? What woman?”

“Just a peasant, Father, half-mad. I went into the temple of Wepwawet to pray and she was there, cleaning. I spoke to her because the doors to the inner court were locked and I wanted them opened. Why? Do you know of her?” His bristling eyebrows drew together and his eyes were suddenly clear and very sober.

“I have heard of her. She pesters the Heralds. Did she pester you, Kamen?” The subject should have been a joke, but his gaze remained steadily grave. Surely he is not so protective of me that my encounter at Aswat has upset him! I thought.

“Well not exactly pester,” I replied, though of course that was just what she had done. “But she did make a nuisance of herself. She tries to thrust a box at everyone important who passes, something she wants given to the One. Apparently she had already tried to give it to May, my Herald, on a previous occasion, and he had refused, so she attempted to force it on me.” The gaze that had defeated so many foreign hagglers with sacks of herbs at their feet continued to bore into me.

“You did not take it did you, Kamen? I know the painful and fleeting compassions of youth! You did not take it?”

I had opened my mouth to confess to him that I had indeed taken it, that she had pressed it to my chest under the moonlight, half-naked, her strange eyes burning in her shadowed face, that something more than a naïve compassion had moved me, but a peculiar thing happened. I had never lied to my father, not once. My tutors had drummed into me the serious nature of lying. The gods did not like deceit. Deceit was a refuge of weakness. A man of virtue told the truth and took the consequences. As a child I had told the lies of anger and panic—No, Father, I did not hit Tamit because she was teasing me—but I had usually retracted those lies when pressed and taken my punishment, and as I grew older there was no need for retractions. I loved and trusted the man who was regarding me so solemnly, yet as I sat there staring back at him, the conviction began to grow in me that I must lie to him. Not because I was ashamed of giving in to the madwoman’s desperation, no. Not because my father might be annoyed or might laugh. Not even because he might demand to see the box, might open it, might … Might what? I did not know why the truth had to be hidden from him. I just knew in the depth of my ka that to admit that the box even now lay on my couch upstairs would be to end … end what? Damn it, end what?

“Of course I did not take it,” I answered coolly. “I pitied her but did not wish to feed her madness. The situation was very embarrassing though.” And I had better make up some story for Pa-Bast, I told myself suddenly, in case he mentions the box in casual conversation. Not likely but possible. Although my father’s stance did not change, I sensed a loosening in him.

“Good!” he said briskly. “We must cherish the insane as favourites of the gods but we must definitely not encourage their insanity.” He rose. “I managed to obtain antimony on the last trip,” he went on, changing the subject completely, “and a large amount of sage herb from Keftiu. The Sabaeans sold my caravan Steward a small quantity of yellow powder they call ginger. I have no idea to what use it may be put. I am going to visit the Seer in person after the sleep. The antimony is for him and he will pay a good price for it, but I am hoping he takes this ginger as well.” Coming around the desk, he slapped me heartily on the back. “You stink,” he said amiably. “Take a bath, a mug of beer and a rest. If you have the energy, dictate a letter to your mother and sisters in the Fayum. Too bad you were unable to take the detour on the way home and visit them.” I was dismissed. Standing and hugging him, feeling his strong arms through the thin linen of his shirt, I ruthlessly quelled the seed of shame inside me. I left the office feeling all at once very tired.

Crossing the reception hall, I went through the centre door and mounted the stairs beyond to where the sleeping quarters were. My room was to the right, with two large windows. Because the upper storey of the house was smaller than the lower, I could step out onto the roof of the lower storey if I wanted, walk to the parapet, and look down upon the granaries, the servants’ courtyard, the formal entrance and beyond the main wall the craft-choked Waters of Avaris. To the left of the head of the stairs were my sisters’ rooms which overlooked the north side of the garden and straight ahead were the double doors behind which my parents slept. My door swung wide to my touch and with thankfulness I went inside.

The box sat on the fresh linen of my couch, smugly dominating this, my sanctuary, and before I stripped the limp and dirty kilt from my waist so that I could go down to the bath house, I grasped it by a handful of those odd knots with which it was secured and flung it into one of my cedar chests, letting the lid fall with a thud. I still had no idea what to do with it. Even unseen it contaminated the air. “To Set with you,” I said under my breath to the woman who had already caused me so much inconvenience, for Set was the red-haired god of chaos and dissention, the totem of the city of Pi-Ramses to be sure but doubtless with followers as far away as miserable Aswat. Oh forget about it, I told myself as I left my room, went back down the stairs, and turned abruptly right at their foot, entering the warm humidity of the bath house. You’re home, Takhuru is waiting, you can get drunk with Akhebset, and in two days you will be back at your post with General Paiis. Deal with it later.

The hot water I had ordered was already steaming in two large urns and my servant Setau greeted me as I stepped up onto the bathing slab. While I scrubbed myself vigorously with natron and he deluged me with the scented water, he asked me about my journey and I answered him readily enough, watching the grubby film of my weeks away go sluicing through the drain in the sloping stone floor. When I was clean, I went outside and lay on the bench just within the thin shade of the house so that Setau could oil and massage me. The hottest hours of the day had begun. Beyond the shallow terrace the trees barely moved and the birds were silent. Even the continual low rumble of the city outside the wall was subdued. As my servant’s capable hands kneaded the knots from my muscles, everything in me began to relax and I yawned. “Never mind my feet, Setau,” I said. “At least they are clean. When you have finished pounding me, bring beer to my room, and please have a message sent to Takhuru. Tell her I’ll come to see her at sunset.”

Back in my own quarters I lowered the reed mats covering my windows, drained the beer Setau had promptly brought, and fell onto my couch with a groan of pure satisfaction. The little statue of Wepwawet gazed at me serenely from his post on my bedside table, his elegant nose seeming to quest the air and his tall ears pricked to receive my words as I drowsily saluted him. “Your temple is small but pretty,” I told him. “However, your devotees at Aswat are strange indeed, Wepwawet. I devoutly hope I do not have to encounter them again.”

I slept deeply and dreamlessly, and woke to Setau’s movements as he raised the mats and placed a tray at my feet. “I did not want to wake you, Kamen,” he said as I stretched and sat up, “but Ra is sinking and the evening meal is already over. Your father has been to the Seer’s house and returned. He instructed me to let you rest but doubtless the Lady Takhuru is even now pacing her garden in expectation of your presence and I did not think you would want to incur her displeasure.” I smiled at him slowly and reached for the tray.

“That is all too easy to do,” I replied. “Thanks, Setau. Find me a clean kilt will you, but don’t bother to get out my best sandals. If you’ve mended the others, they will do. I want to walk to the Noble’s house. I need the exercise.” The tray was heavy with milk and beer, a small loaf of clove-scented barley bread, steaming lentil soup and a bed of dark lettuce on whose quivering crisp leaves sat a square of yellow goat cheese, a piece of grilled duck and a scattering of raw peas. “Oh gods,” I breathed. “It’s good to be home.”

While I devoured the food with an alacrity which would have earned me a stern rebuke from my old nurse, Setau moved about the room, opening my chests. I saw him hesitate when his glance fell on the box and he lifted it enquiringly. “This will crush your starched linens,” he said. “May I place it elsewhere?” He was too well trained to ask me what it contained and I resisted the urge to increase his curiosity by trying to explain it away.

“Put it on the bottom of the chest, then,” I suggested carelessly. “It’s not something I need to deal with immediately.” He nodded and did so, then went on laying out my gold-bordered kilt and tasselled belt, my plain gold bracelet and the earring set with beads of jasper. When I was ready, he painted my eyes with black kohl and helped me to dress. I left him to tidy everything away and went briskly down the stairs. My father stood at the bottom, talking to Kaha, and as I came up to them he eyed me critically. “Very handsome,” he commented cheerfully. “Off to dally with Takhuru are you? Well keep your hands off her, Kamen. Your marriage is still a year away.” I did not rise to the familiar bait. Bidding them both a good night I crossed the reception hall and out into the orange flush of the setting sun, thinking as I did so that I must remember to talk to Pa-Bast about the box.

Turning left outside the main gate, I swung along the path that ran beside the water, inhaling the cooler evening air. The watersteps I passed were thronged with the inhabitants of neighbouring estates and their servants as they prepared to take to the river in search of a night of revelry, and many of them called greetings to me as I passed. Then for a while I walked with dense trees on my left until I came to the sentries guarding the Lake of the Residence. Here I was challenged, but the words were a formality. I knew these men well. They allowed me to pass and I moved on.

The Waters of Avaris spread out into the great Lake that lapped with a suitably dignified slow rhythm against the sanctified precincts of the Great God Ramses the Third himself, and the estates between me and the towering wall protecting him from the common gaze were also walled. The tops of lush trees leaned discreetly over these massive mud-brick constructions, dappling me in a gradually deepening shadow as I paced beneath them. Where they were broken by tall gates that let out onto marble watersteps and sleek craft whose brightly coloured flags trembled in the evening breeze, the soldiers clustered. I saluted them happily and they shouted back at me.

Along this hallowed edge of the Lake lived the men holding the health of Egypt in their hands. Their power infused the kingdom with wealth and vitality. Under their direction the balance of Ma’at, the delicate web that wove the laws of gods and men together under Pharaoh, was maintained. Here lived To, Vizier of both the South and the North, behind his gates of solid electrum. The High Priest of Amun, Usermaarenakht, with his illustrious family, had his titles incised into the stone of the pylon under which his guests had to pass and his guards were decked in gold-tooled leather. The mayor of the holy city of Thebes and Pharaoh’s Chief Taxing Master, Amunmose, favoured a life-sized statue of the God Amun-Ra, once totem of Thebes alone but now the King of all the gods, standing with folded arms and gently smiling face on the paving between watersteps and gate. I did him homage as I stepped past his mighty knees. The home of Bakenkhons, Overseer of all Royal Cattle, was relatively modest. Here a party was about to embark, the women in filmy linen encrusted with jewels that flashed red in the dying light of the sun, the men wigged and ribboned, their oiled bodies gleaming. I waited respectfully while they were handed onto the cabined raft rocking at the foot of the watersteps. Bakenkhons himself answered my obeisance with a warm smile and the raft was poled away in a swirl of dark water. I went on.

The shadows were lengthening, stretching over me now and fingering the verges of the Lake, and as I came to the precinct of the great Seer, I paused. The wall enclosing his house and grounds was no different from the walls I had already passed. It was broken halfway along by a small and very simple gateless pylon so that passersby were able to glance into the garden itself. Within the left-hand base of the pylon an alcove sheltered a taciturn old man who had been the Seer’s porter for as long as I could remember and who had never once returned my greeting as I came and went. My father, who regularly had business with the Seer, told me that the ancient one only addressed those who turned in under the pylon and then only to send to the house for permission for the visitor to proceed. Not that he could have prevented anyone from pushing through into the garden, I reflected. He was too frail. Yet the Seer employed no guards outside the wall. Inside the house there were soldiers, or so my father said, who did their work with quiet and unobtrusive efficiency, but standing there with one hand against the still-warm brick of the wall, my eyes on the distorted shadow that marked the entrance to the Seer’s domain, I understood why no weapons were needed outside. The pylon was like a mouth perpetually open to swallow the unwary and I had seen people on the path describe an unconscious semicircle as they went by. Even in the harsh light of noon I myself had often veered closer to the watersteps. Now, as the pylon’s long silhouette snaked across the path, I had to force myself to straighten and go on.

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.