10

THE AFTERNOON was still hot but not unpleasantly so when I left Nesiamun’s house and walked quickly along the Lake path, feeling dangerously exposed in that elegant, quiet district. I had told Kamen that I did not fear the city, but my words had been a lie to reassure him. I knew little of Pi-Ramses. When I lived with Hui, my days were strictly regulated and my movement constrained to the house and gardens. All else was closed to me. I used to curl up against my window at night, after Disenk had smothered the lamp and gone to her mat outside my door, and gaze out into the darkness through the tangle of tree branches, wondering what lay beyond.

I had sailed through the city of course on my way from Aswat, but I had been excited and afraid and the scenes I had floated past remained jumbled together in my memory, a chaos of colour, shape and noise unconnected to that which had come before or to what followed. Sometimes the sounds of laughter and loud talk drifted to my ears from the unseen Lake. Sometimes torchlight reached me, flickering spasmodically from an illuminated barge that passed Hui’s pylon all too quickly, so that in the end the bounds of my reality were Hui’s walls and the city seemed a mirage to me, existing and yet ephemeral.

Later I had gone to the palace to treat Pharaoh’s symptoms. Hui and I had ridden in a litter. I had begged him to leave the curtains raised as we went and he had done so, but there was still only the Lake path with its thin traffic and the sun on the water and more estates, more watersteps. When I was admitted to the harem, the route Disenk and I took was the same. I came to know the heart of the city well, that great sprawling complex of palace and harem, but of the areas that fed nourishment into it through its many tributaries I was ignorant.

Hunro had taken me into the markets once, but we had lain on our litters and chattered, and though we had occasionally alighted to finger the wares for sale, I had taken no note of the streets through which our escort had forced a way for us. Why should I? For I was the Lady Thu, pampered and protected, the soft soles of my feet need never tread the rutted, burning surfaces over which the rest of the populace surged, and there would always be soldiers and servants to cross the gulf between me and the dust and stench of Pi-Ramses.

Always. I came to myself with a grimace. Always was a long time. The pretty litters were gone, the soldiers and servants withdrawn, and I was about to cross that gulf myself on feet so toughened by years of neglect that they no longer cringed at heat or pain. Pharaoh had decreed that I should go unshod into my exile and so remain, and that had been the hardest shame, for the wealth and position of a lady could be judged on many things, but the condition of her feet was the final test of breeding and nobility.

I remembered how shocked Disenk had been at the state of my feet when Hui first placed me in her obsessive care, how day after day she oiled and abraded them, soaked and perfumed them, until they were as pink and pliant as the rest of me. I was not allowed to touch them to the floor in the morning without linen slippers. I could not go outside without leather sandals. More than the anxious attention she gave to my neglected hair and sun-browned skin, more than the lessons in manners and cosmetics, my feet were the symbols, to Disenk, of my peasant blood, and she was not satisfied until the day when she came to me with a bowl of henna and a brush to paint their soles on the occasion of my first feast with Hui’s friends.

On that day I ceased to be a commoner, became worthy, in Disenk’s snobbish but beautiful eyes, of the title Ramses later bestowed on me. Looking down on them now as I turned away from the Lake and sought a way that would lead me into the anonymity of the markets, I saw my mother in their splayed, sand-encrusted sturdiness. In one blistered, bleeding month of my exile all Disenk’s work had been undone and my Lady Thu, spoiled favourite of the King, vanished once more beneath the flaying of Aswat’s arid soil.

I had slowly forced myself to accept the deterioration of my body. It had been the least of my worries, faced as I was with the sudden transition from a life of idleness to one of hard labour in Wepwawet’s temple, cleaning the sacred precincts and the priests’ cells, preparing their food, washing their robes and running their errands every day and then returning to the tiny hut my father and brother had erected for me where I would tend my pitiful garden and perform my own chores. Yet it had caused me the most grief, not only because I was a vain creature but also because it symbolized all I had gained and then lost. I would grow old and die in Aswat, becoming as withered and sexless as the other women who bloomed early and aged too soon, the juices sucked out of them by the harshness of their lives. No chance to be sustained by the vitality of passion either, for although I was an exile, yet I still belonged to the King and could not, on pain of death, give myself to any other man.

Two things kept me sane. The first, strangely enough, was the hostility of my neighbours. I had brought disgrace upon Aswat and the villagers shunned me. In the beginning the adults ostentatiously turned their backs when I went by and the children threw mud or stones and shouted insults, but as time passed I was simply ignored. I had no opportunity to be absorbed back into the social life of the village and so taste again the despair, the feeling of imprisonment, that had tormented me there in my growing years. In spite of my exile I could remain aloof, convince myself more easily that I was not a part of them and the unrelenting cycle of their days.

The second was the story of my rise and fall. I began to write it in defence against the longing for my little son that would attack me in the hours of darkness and also to tend the weak but steady flame of hope I would not let die. I did not, could not, believe that I was fated to rot in Aswat forever, no matter how irrational that conviction was, and so night after night I wrote grimly, often through a haze of exhaustion and with swollen, cramped fingers, and hid the sheets of stolen papyrus in a hole in my dirt floor.

That floor hid another secret now, one that would save my son and give me a last chance at freedom if I had expiated my sin in the eyes of the gods and they had relented towards me. Now a hatred for the ruin of my calloused hands, my brittle, unkempt hair, the coarseness of my skin abused by sun and enforced neglect, returned with force. I found myself on the fringes of the crowds that thronged the market stalls. No one glanced at me. With my bare feet and arms, my thick tunic and uncovered head, I was just one more common citizen going about her modest business, and that very anonymity, though promising a margin of safety, filled my mouth with the taste of bitterness.

My first task was to find the Street of Basket Sellers so that I could be at the beer house promptly every third evening as Kamen had suggested. My thoughts, as I hovered beside an awning under which a stallkeeper sat dozing, began to circle him, the beautiful young man who I still could not believe belonged to me, but I thrust them away. The afternoon was advancing. I needed direction, food, a place to hide. Parental joy and pride would have to wait. I felt a sharp tug on my sheath. The stallkeeper had woken up. “If you are not going to buy anything, move on,” he grumbled. “Find shade somewhere else. You are blocking my stall.”

“Can you tell me how to get to the Street of Basket Sellers?” I asked him, obediently stepping back into the blinding sunlight. He waved behind him vaguely.

“Down there, past Ptah’s forecourt,” he answered. “It’s a long way.”

“Then could you spare one of your melons? I am hungry and very thirsty.”

“Can you pay?”

“No, but I could mind the stall for you if you wish to refresh yourself with a cup of beer. The day is hot.” He looked at me suspiciously and I graced him with the most ingenuous smile I could summon. “I will not steal from you,” I assured him. “Besides, how does one steal melons? I have no sack. I do not want to sit by any temple and beg.” I held up a finger. “One melon for the time it takes you to drink one cup of beer.” He grunted a laugh.

“You have a persuasive tongue,” he said. “Very well. But if you steal from me I will set the police onto you.” My smile widened. They were after me anyway, but surely they would not be looking for a woman standing behind a stall with a melon held out in each hand to tempt passers-by. I nodded. Tying a linen cloth around his bald head against the sun, he told me what to charge and wandered away, and I took up my post in the shade he had vacated. I longed to take the knife that lay on the table beside the tumbled pile of yellow fruit and split open one of his wares, but I resisted the mouth-watering temptation. Lifting two of them, I began to cry their virtues to the milling crowd, my voice blending with the sing-song shouts of the other vendors, and for a while my troubles withdrew.

By the time the merchant returned, I had sold nine melons, one of them to a soldier who barely glanced at me before using the knife to rend his purchase and walk back into the throng. My new employer slapped down a jug of beer and produced a cup from the folds of his tunic. Rolling a melon towards me and throwing the knife after it, he poured and invited me to drink. “I knew you’d still be here,” he said importantly. “I’m a good judge of character. Drink. Eat. What are you doing in Pi-Ramses?” The beer, cheap and murky, flowed down my throat like a cool blessing and I drained the cup before wiping my mouth with my hand and slicing into the melon.

I thanked him, and between mouthfuls of the succulent food I told him some trite story of a provincial family who could no longer afford to employ me and so I had come north in search of work. My short tale was interrupted twice by melon buyers, but the stallkeeper’s ears stayed open to me, and when I had finished both the lie and the fruit, he clucked sympathetically.

“I knew you’d been in some noble family,” he exclaimed. “You don’t talk like a peasant. If you’ve had no luck, I could use you on the stall for a day or two. My son usually helps me but he’s away. Free melons and beer. What do you say?” I hesitated, thinking quickly. On one hand I needed to be fluid, to be able to come and go, but on the other I had no idea how long I might be adrift in the city with no resources other than my wits. Perhaps this man was a gift from my dear Wepwawet.

“You are kind,” I said slowly, “but I would like to wait until tomorrow to give you an answer. I must find the Street of Basket Sellers tonight.” He was visibly offended.

“Why do you want to go there?” he said. “There are indeed many basket sellers, but there are beer houses and brothels too, and at night when the basket sellers go home the street is choked with young soldiers.” He looked me up and down. “It is no place for a respectable woman.” My dear melon man, I thought with an inward twist of anguish, I ceased to be a respectable woman the night I decided to offer Hui my virginity in exchange for a glimpse into my future. I was thirteen years old. I swallowed the pain away.

“But I met someone who told me that they might have work for me there,” I answered, “and though I appreciate your offer, a position in a beer house would mean a place to sleep as well.”

“It’s your business I suppose,” he said less stiffly. “But be careful. Those blue eyes of yours could lead you into trouble. Come back tomorrow if you have no luck.” I thanked him again for his generosity and took my leave. I also took his knife, my thoughts returning briefly to Kamen as my fingers curled around its hilt and I thrust it into my belt and pulled a fold of my sheath over it. He had killed to save me, but this time I might have to save myself. The sun was beginning to wester, turning the dust motes hanging in the air to darts of light. Quickly I waved without looking back and lost myself in the press of people.

The Street of Basket Sellers was indeed a long way, and by the time I had found it I was tired and thirsty again. Narrow and winding, the buildings to either side of it crowding together and leaning over its crookedness, it snaked into dimness although the sun still shone red in the square before Ptah’s temple. The basket sellers were loading their unsold wares onto donkeys, and the street echoed with the animals’ petulant braying and the curses of the men. Groups of soldiers already wove in and out of the turmoil, young men for the most part, loud and eager, seeking the doors through which a gentle, secret lamplight fell.

As I moved slowly along, I heard music begin suddenly, a happy lilting tune that sent the blood quickening through my veins, and a little of my weariness left me. In spite of my situation I was alive, I was free. For the present, no one could order me to go this way or that, no one could command me to scrub a floor or haul water. If I wished to loiter and watch the crowd, I was free to do so, to lean against a warm wall and draw deeply into my lungs the mingled aromas of animal dung and spilled beer, male sweat and the faint sweetness of the rushes used to weave the hundreds of baskets that were piled here every day. Such a choice felt strange and intoxicating to me after so many years when my will was not my own and I savoured it carefully, putting away the thought that, of course, it could not last.

All at once my way was blocked by a soldier who came to a halt squarely in front of me and looked me up and down with a bold stare. Before I could draw back, he was fingering my hair and fumbling with my sheath in an obvious attempt to judge the size and fitness of my body. He gave me an impersonal, swift smile. “Beer and a bowl of soup,” he pronounced. “What do you say?” Shame and a hot loathing coursed through me, directed not at him but at myself. For the second time that day my price had been assessed at no more than the value of the barest necessities to sustain life. If I am now worth so little, the words came whispering into my head, why not accept? What can it matter? You need sustenance, and this young man has accurately estimated the cost of the thing you would give in exchange for it. I drew myself up, although I wanted to crawl away and hide.

“No,” I replied. “I am not for sale. I am sorry.” He shrugged and did not argue, his lust a momentary impulse, not yet fuelled by a few hours of drinking and the jokes of his companions, and stepping around me he sauntered off. My mood of exaltation had gone and I did not linger. One last long red tongue from the setting sun slid towards me as I walked, until it came up against a bend in the street and soon faded. A jostling, whistling pack of soldiers crossed in front of me and disappeared into an open door. I looked up. The scorpion painted on the wall above seemed to want to scuttle down after them. I had found Kamen’s beer house.

With some trepidation I slipped inside. It was a small, unpretentious establishment crammed with tables and benches, well lit and seemingly clean. It was still halfempty, but even as I stood on the inner step, more soldiers pushed by me to be greeted with shouts. A few quiet whores sat together in a corner. They noticed me at once and eyed me suspiciously, afraid, I suppose, that I had come to steal business from them, but after a short while they lost interest in me and went back to their appraisal of the room.

I had begun to attract the attention of the soldiers as well. Their eyes flicked over me and away and I scanned them cautiously, looking for a spark of recognition or speculation. It was possible that Kamen had already given a message to his friend to pass to me, but one by one the faces turned away.

I could not stay there. I did not know if any of them belonged to Paiis’s guard but surely sooner or later someone would remember my description and rise to ask questions. This street was not a good place for me to be. The smell of soup was wafting into my nostrils from somewhere in the rear of the room and my mouth began to water but I turned and left, walking quickly away from the lamplight and into the lengthening shadows. Tomorrow I could easily steal food, and one night without it would do me no harm. I was thirsty, but the Waters of Avaris lay not far away and I could drink my fill of it if I did not care about the refuse flung into it. Better to take water from one of the temples where the priests kept huge urns filled for the use of pilgrims and worshippers. I found myself back on Ptah’s forecourt with a sense of relief.

Spending a moment in prayer to the Creator of the World, I drank deeply of his water and then began to wander the city, moving gradually towards the quays and docks where I intended to shelter for the night. At first I found myself often dodging into the darkness of recessed doorways while some richly hung litter passed by, its escort before and behind to clear a path and protect its rear, a servant calling a warning before it swung into view. Often the curtains would be raised and I would catch a glimpse of thin, gleaming linens bordered in gold or silver, a jewelled and hennaed hand fluttering, the stirring of oiled and coroneted braids. I did not want to take the chance of being recognized, even after seventeen years, by any of my former harem cellmates, though it was unlikely that any of them would know me without long consideration. Sometimes I thought I saw a face I had known, painted and closed, aloof in its beauty and its privilege, but my heart told me that what I perceived was the familiarity of my past, not one small fragment of it. As I grew closer to the docks and warehouses of Pi-Ramses, the torches and processions became less frequent and I walked more freely, but my hand crept to the hilt of the knife I had stolen and remained there, for the streets and alleys were dark and the people I encountered more furtive.

At the water’s edge, with the black silhouettes of barges and great rafts before me and the towering and jumbled heights of the warehouses behind, I found a sheltered corner under a pier and there I lay down, pulling my sheath close around me. At the end of the tunnel formed by the churned ground beneath me and the underside of the pier over my head, I could see the peaceful glint of moonlight on the hypnotic rippling of the Lake. My thoughts turned to Aswat, to the moon casting black shadows down the sides of the sand dunes where I shed my clothes and danced each night, danced in defiance of the gods and my fate.

A picture of my brother’s face rose before my inner vision. We had always been close. He had taught me to read and write, coming home from his own lessons in the temple to share them with me in the stolen hour of the afternoon sleep. In the first flush of my ascension over Pharaoh, when I had seen Egypt coming to my feet and the future had seemed to glitter with promise, I had begged him to come to Pi-Ramses and be my scribe but he had refused, preferring marriage and work in the temple at Aswat. I had been selfishly hurt, wanting to gather him to myself as I wanted to greedily gather everything my heart and my fingers touched. But his loving detachment had been my balm and my support in the nightmarish weeks after my return in disgrace to the village and he was still my rock.

My last parting from him had been painful. He had agreed at once to lie for me, to put it about that I was lying ill in his house, although we both knew that his punishment would be severe if all did not fall out as I had hoped. Now here I was, lying sore and shivering under a pier with my life once more in ruins, and where was he? Our subterfuge had surely been discovered. Had he been arrested? Or would the mayor of Aswat, according him the affection and respect the whole village felt for him, allow him to walk free until I was either returned to my exile or vindicated before Pharaoh? Pa-ari. I murmured his name as I shifted on the hard ground. He had given me a selfless love I had not deserved and I was still repaying him with trouble.

Of my parents I dared not think. My mother scarcely spoke to me any more, but my father had borne my dishonour with the same inner dignity he had always shown, bringing me such material comforts as he could. Still, there was a wounding awkwardness between us that restricted our speech to everyday things and did not allow us to probe the wounds the years and my wickedness had opened.

The knife had worked its way against my hip and I drew it out and lay with it in my hand. What were the others doing, Kamen and his pretty Takhuru, and Kaha, who had been a welcome substitute for my brother during my months in Hui’s house? And Paiis? Hui himself? I needed sleep but my mind raced on, one image replacing another, all of them carrying their burden of anguish. In the end I clutched at the vision of Kamen as it went fleeting by, Kamen before I knew that he was mine, his eyes huge in the dimness as I pressed my manuscript into his unwilling hands, Kamen kneeling on my cot, a dark shape above me as I struggled up from unconsciousness, Kamen’s face, pale and contorted as blood spurted from the assassin’s neck, the feel of Kamen’s hand in mine, Kamen my son, my son, drawn to me against all odds, a sign of the gods’ forgiveness. I was calm then. My eyes closed. Drawing my knees to my chest, I slept and did not wake until the clatter of busy feet above and the creak of taut rope disturbed me.

No one paid me the slightest attention as I crawled from my hiding place, tucking the knife out of sight and stretching to ease the stiffness out of my limbs. The early sun felt good on my face, warm and clean, and I let it bathe me for a moment before setting off towards the markets once again. I did not intend to stand behind the melon stall. I would steal what I could from other stallkeepers and then perhaps spend some time in one of the temples. Their forecourts were always crowded with worshippers and gossipers and I could sit at the base of one of the columns and pass the time listening to the talk. If soldiers appeared, I would slip into the inner court where there would be a dusky silence. I hoped that the priests would not turn me out before the hunters had withdrawn. I had not anticipated that boredom would be my enemy along with anxiety, but I could see that it was going to be hard to fill the three days before I must go to the Golden Scorpion. Perhaps I might visit Hui. The thought brought a bubble of laughter to my lips and my pace quickened.

There were many small market squares in the city, and after several wrong turns and an altercation with a man whose patient donkey, loaded with tiers of large clay jugs, was blocking the cramped alley down which I had strayed, I found myself emerging into a sunny space alive with cheerful activity. Tables were being set up, awnings unfolded, children unloading panniers of everything from freshly garnered lettuce whose delicate green leaves still quivered with drops of moisture to crudely painted images of various gods set out to catch the awestruck eye of devotees from the country nomes. Servants were already moving among the half-erected stalls, empty baskets under their arms as they scanned the produce that would end up on the dining tables of their masters, and a small group of men and women had begun to gather in the shade at the far side of the square to await the prospect of employment.

Few glanced at me as I threaded my way through them all. The mouthwatering smell of broiling fish enveloped me as I sauntered past a man bent over the brazier on which it sizzled but I could not snatch hot food. Nor was there any point in running away with one of the ducks piled limply on another stall, for even if I had used the knife to gut one, I could not build a fire on which to cook it. I settled for a handful of dried figs, a loaf of bread and a few discarded leaves of lettuce, for though the owners of the fig and bread stalls had been engaged in their morning gossip and had not noticed my nimble fingers, the man on the lettuce stall stood behind his wares with a stony expression of vigilance on his face and all I could do was gather up the leavings scattered about behind him.

Retreating from there quickly with my meal, I walked a short way until I came to a Hathor shrine. At that hour the goddess’s small domain was deserted and I was able to sit on the ground with my back against her niche and eat in peace. By the time I had finished, however, a few women had come to do homage and I was forced to escape from their disapproving looks. My stomach was now pleasantly full, but after my night under the pier I was filthy, my hair full of dust, my feet and legs grey, my sheath stained, so I began to move towards the Waters of Ra on the west side of the city where I hoped to be able to bathe in relative privacy. I knew that military barracks were strung out along part of the Lake of the Residence and the Waters of Avaris on the east side and also beside the Waters of Ra, but to their south were the conclaves of the poor, spilling north from the ruins of the ancient town of Avaris, and there I would be entirely ignored.

I went slowly, my way impeded by the necessity of evading the small patrols of soldiers bent on business that probably had nothing to do with me but who I feared nonetheless, so that I did not come upon the western edge of the city until the sun stood overhead. Here, on the muddy verge of the water, I paused. Far to my right through the few stunted, drooping trees I could see the protecting wall of the military establishment. To my left and behind me was a maze of mud brick shanties set without order in a hot, grassless waste of noise and confusion. I had strode through it boldly, for the inhabitants were for the most part harmless, unlike the night denizens of the docks. They were peasants who had left their villages for the imagined delights of the city or the poor of the city itself, law-abiding and self-sufficient. The patch of packed earth on which I stood was deserted, baking in the sun, but I knew that in the evening the women would bring their laundry here, beating it on the stones just beneath the surface of the water while their naked children shouted and splashed around them.

For the present I was alone. Untying my belt I pulled the sheath over my head with relief. I buried the knife temporarily in the wet sand where the water lapped, and with my sheath in my hand I waded quickly past the rocks, feeling with a gasp of mingled shock and delight the blessed coolness creep up my thighs and over my stomach to caress my breasts. I could not help gulping it down as my head went under.

For a while I simply hung there, letting the water insinuate itself into every crevice of my body, loosening the soil even as it woke and restored me, then I did my best to scrub myself and my sheath. I had no natron, no brush, only my hands. When I had taken my fill of the water, I clambered out, dressed myself in the clinging, sopping linen, and sat in the thin shade of a sickly acacia bush, forcing my fingers through the tangle of my hair. When it lay in a semblance of tidiness below my shoulders, I got up and followed the water in the direction of the barracks. Fed and cleansed, I wanted to sleep.

The rear of the military enclosure was already casting a shadow as the sun slipped from its zenith, and I kept close to the wall, hearing on the other side the occasional neighing of chariot horses, shouted commands, the startling bray of a horn as the army pursued whatever occupations filled its time when the country was at peace. Coming to the vast gates and the paved way leading inside, I crossed it without a tremor and went on. Paiis’s soldiers were not quartered here but in the barracks on the other side of the city. If things had not changed, it was Prince Ramses’ Division of Horus and the Division of Set performing the manoeuvres drifting to my ears, twenty thousand men to be fed and watered and kept occupied lest their unrest spill over into wanton violence. I wondered how many of them were rotated to the eastern and southern borders and whether the Prince had any more interesting plans for them once his father died.

Fleetingly I thought of Pharaoh and experienced a moment of vertigo. How could it be that I had ever lain beneath him on his fine white sheets in that vast bedchamber, my nostrils full of the scent of incense and perfume and his sweat while about the golden walls, discreetly invisible, his servants waited to answer the snap of his fingers. Ramses! Divine King, with your large kindnesses and your unpredictable callousness, do you ever think of me and regret that I was nothing but a dream?

For some time now I had been aware of another wall that had appeared on my right, higher, smoother than the one on my left, and suddenly I realized that beyond it lay the palace and its gardens, the city within a city that sprawled, forbidden and enclosed, across the whole breadth of Pi-Ramses until it met the Lake of the Residence on the other side. I had come upon its rear, and surely if I tossed a pebble it would rattle down upon the roofs of the concubines’ cells. Straining my ears, I listened, with a mixture of revulsion and longing, for those remembered sounds that had sometimes troubled my sleep in my hut at Aswat—the laughter of women, the cries of the royal children playing by the fountains, the music of harp and drums—but it was the hour of the afternoon sleep and the precincts were quiet. I trailed my fingers along the wall as I went, as though their tips could see through the stone when my eyes could not. Did Hatia, mysterious Hatia, still sit motionless just within her door, swathed in black linen, the everpresent jug of wine beside her and her slave behind? Were the two little concubines from Abydos, Nubhirma’at and Nebt-Iunu, still in love with each other and did they still spend the hour of the sleep, this precious hour, satiated in each other’s arms? And what of Chief Wife Ast-Amasereth with the voice of mixed gravel and honey and the curiously attractive uneven teeth? Did she still inhabit the spacious apartment above the cells of the lesser women and spend this hour sitting silently in her ornate chair, her full, outrageously hennaed lips slightly parted as she pondered the complex web of spies she had woven about us all?

Then there was Hunro the dancer, lithe, restless Hunro with whom I had shared a cell and a lethal secret. Her seemingly artless friendship had been a sham. Beneath her warmth was a deep disdain for my peasant roots, and when I had failed to murder the King, when I became useless, she had turned from me with relief. At the thought of her my fist clenched and my contact with the wall was broken. It was a place of terror, the harem, as well as unimaginable luxury, and I never wanted to see its lush interior again.

I had come at last to a corner and peered around it cautiously. The wall ran on, shielding the kitchens and palace servants’ quarters, but I did not want to follow it for ahead of me, across an expanse of lawn dotted with doum palms, was the familiar bulk of Amun’s temple. The air above it was shimmering from the myriad incense stands that poured out their silent prayer to the greatest of all the gods, and the sound of chanting came to me, faint but clear. Gratefully my punished feet sank into the cool grass. At the back of the sanctuary wall I found a secluded corner screened by bushes, and placing the knife against my chest, I curled up and was almost instantly asleep.

I woke with something cold and damp being thrust against my cheek, and even before I had opened my eyes the knife was in my hand and I was struggling to my feet with a thudding heart. The culprit was a sleek brown dog with a long, enquiring nose and a collar studded with turquoise and carnelian around its neck. I could hear an imperious voice calling, and I did not wait to see who might come looking. Pushing the animal away, I sidled around the bushes and then ran, coming with a startling suddenness upon Amun’s wide forecourt. It was crowded with evening worshippers, and I realized that I had slept the afternoon away, miraculously undiscovered. I had been very stupid.

For a moment I stood shaking on the edge of the milling people, then pulling myself together, I skirted them and headed once more for the centre of the city. Kamen must send me some encouraging message on the following night, for I was becoming nervous and tired. Fits of despair stalked me and panic itself was not far away. I could not evade Paiis’s soldiers or continue to wander aimlessly about forever, and at that realization the idea of retreating to the one place Paiis would not expect to find me returned.

I would wait until dark, and then I would slip into Hui’s grounds. Perhaps right into Hui’s house. After all, I knew it as well as I knew my miserable little hut at Aswat. Better, in fact, for its tiled floors and painted walls had often been more real to me than the rough box in which I had endured the last seventeen years. Why not? I asked myself as I joined the vociferous throng pushing to acquire the last produce of the day. He has no guards. He is too arrogant for that. The reputation of his wizardry keeps the populace away from his door, but I am not afraid of the power of his gift. I can easily avoid his porter, and then I will be in the safety of his garden, away from crowds and dirt and soldiers.

But such reasons were spurious, I knew, for deep within me was a thirst to see him again, the man who had been my father and mentor, lover and destroyer, and the need was greater than sense. Would I kill him, or bury my face in his beautiful white hair? I did not know.

Once the idea took hold of me, I could not be still. My appetite fled, and so did my desire to hide myself in crowds. Taking the alleys, I worked my way east and slowly, slowly, the light went from dazzling to muted, from pink to pale orange to red, and by the time I reached the long path that ran behind most of the great estates the sun had gone.

I could not scale Hui’s wall, and his gardeners assiduously trimmed the trees that might have hung over into the alley. The only way in was under his pylon, and that meant circumventing the Lake guards. As the sky darkened, pale stars became visible one by one, and under their white pricking I retraced the short way I had come along the path and headed for the water. I did not yet attempt the guards. I would stay hidden under the spreading sycamores that shaded passers-by until their watch changed and hope that in their momentary relaxation I could slide beyond them.

With the knife in my lap I waited for a long time. Through the tracery of leaves I could see the two men, one each side of the path, and hear their sporadic conversation. They were bored and tired, ready for a hot meal and their own hearths. The traffic on the water grew as the inhabitants of the Lake embarked in their skiffs and decorated barges for a night of feasting, and for a while the same was true of the path. Torchlit groups sauntered past me like glittering butterflies, speaking of light, thoughtless things, and I envied them their privilege with a bitterness I had conquered during my exile but that came back to me now in all its evil power. I had been richer than they, greater than they, and I gritted my teeth and reminded myself that it was through my own fault that I had lost it all. Nevertheless, not my fault alone. I watched the night guards approach with a cold anticipation.

The four men drew together and the watch being relieved began to give the report. Quietly I got up, and stepping into the water, not taking my eyes off them, I waded past. I had to go slowly so that my steps made no sounds of washing, and in the space between the trees I crouched so as not to be silhouetted against the sky. But I regained the path further on without incident. They were still talking. Rounding a bend in the path, I drew a sigh of relief and set off for Hui’s entrance.

The night was still young and it occurred to me that Hui might be entertaining. So much the better. I could wander about the garden, perhaps sleep a little, and by the time he took to his couch he would be less likely to wake at any small betrayal of my presence. I began to examine the layout of the house in my mind as I walked, wondering where I might best enter, and by the time I had decided on the secluded rear entrance I was standing before his pylon.

Despite the assurance I had given myself earlier that I was not afraid of his Seeing power I paused, for in spite of an almost moonless sky the pylon cast a gloomy and vaguely threatening shadow and the garden beyond was lost in blackness. I looked to where the old porter lurked in his alcove just past one of the stone uprights and saw the faint glow of a fire. If the man was cooking a meal or even just gazing into the embers, his night vision would be temporarily ruined. Stupid Hui, I smiled grimly to myself as I glided under the pylon and immediately sought the grass to either side of the path where my footsteps would be muffled. Stupid, arrogant Hui. Every gate in this district has its guards but yours. What makes you so sure that you are invulnerable?

I was momentarily disoriented as the shrubbery closed around me, but my feet knew where they were, and I had not gone far before the confusion left me. I was behind one of the hedges that lined the path to the house. I could see it all laid out in my mind’s eye: the shrine to Thoth, the fish pond among the flower beds to the left, the larger pool where I had swum my lengths every morning under the lash of Nebnefer’s critical tongue to the right, across the path and over the other hedge. And at the end a low wall dividing garden from courtyard and house. Keeping to the grass, I padded beside the fish pond, the lily and lotus pads indistinct shapes on the surface of the cloudy water, and pushing through the thick bushes that flourished between the trees along the wall, I looked out on the deserted courtyard and the mass of the house beyond.

Nothing moved. The gravel of the courtyard gave off a faint luminescence, but under the pillars fronting the house all was dark. There would be a servant sitting before the door, of course, to receive guests and summon litters when they wanted to leave. No litters or bored bearers waited in the courtyard. Silence filled all the spaces my eyes tried to pierce, a silence I remembered suddenly as being peculiar to Hui’s domain, full of the quality of timelessness. I had to fight against the feeling of womblike security it brought to me. Once this had been my home, a whole world of safe dreams and exhilarating discoveries under the mantle of the Master’s protection. Or so I had thought.

I withdrew and lowered myself onto the lawn. It was not possible that he had gone to bed. It was too early. Perhaps he was working in his office and I could not see the glow of his lamp from where I was. And then I remembered that he did employ one guard, a man who stood outside the office door every night, for inside the office was that other room where Hui kept his herbs and physics. And his poisons. The door to that room was secured by the intricate knots he had taught me, but a determined knife could sever rope and the guard was an extra insurance against anyone foolish enough to attempt to break in. The outer office opened directly onto the passage that ran from the rear of the house through to the entrance hall and if I tried to enter that way I would be seen at once. I would either have to go in before Hui closed the office or wait until the servant at the foot of the pillars left his post and slip in the front.

At that moment there was a commotion on the path, torchlight and the murmur of voices, and I crawled to peer over the wall once more. As I cautiously lifted my head, the house burst into life. The doors opened, pouring light onto the gravel. A large shape appeared and stood expectantly as the gate to my right creaked and four litters swayed across the courtyard to be set down in front of the pillars. The curtains were pulled apart and a cold shiver took me, for it was Paiis emerging with the impudent grace I remembered so well, and I had no eyes for the other guests also setting their sandalled feet on the ground and walking towards the figure waiting to greet them.

He had not changed much. His body was perhaps a little thicker, and I could not tell whether his mane of black hair was shot through with any grey, but the face he turned briefly to the woman behind him was as startlingly handsome as ever with its alert black eyes, its uncompromisingly straight nose and the full mouth that always seemed on the verge of a sneer. He was wearing a thigh-length kilt of scarlet linen and his chest was hidden under a mat of gold links. His animal allure no longer fascinated me as it had when I was younger, for I knew it for the shallow thing it was. All the same his blatant, rather tawdry beauty still made a purely physical impact. He put an arm around the bare shoulders of the woman and raised the other in greeting. “Harshira!” he called. “Pour the wine! Are the nut pastries hot? I am in the mood to celebrate tonight. Where is my brother?” The woman reached up and muttered something against his ear that made him laugh, her own hand going to his muscular stomach, and they passed into the hall followed by the other revellers. The doors were closed, but light now diffused through the side windows, and I heard distant music begin.

I gave them time to settle before their low, flower-laden tables, to exchange pleasantries with their host, to down a quantity of the wine I knew was the best to be had in the city. I gave Harshira time to cross and recross the hall, shepherding the servants with their laden trays, and then to take up his station behind the closed doors of the dining room. I gave the litter-bearers time to put their backs to their conveyances and become drowsy. Then I unfolded from the grass, climbed easily over the wall, and walked across the courtyard.

As I had surmised, the man under the pillars had retired. I pushed open the main doors, entered the house, closed the doors behind me, and strolled over the spotlessly gleaming tiled floor with its evenly spaced white columns. Nothing had changed. Hui’s elegant furniture, the cedar chairs inlaid with gold and ivory, the little tables topped with blue and green faience, were still scattered artfully about. The walls still smote with their profusion of frozen men and women with cups raised to their mouths and flowers in their hair, inscrutable cats beside them and naked children tumbling at their feet.

The stairs ran away from me into darkness on the far side of the hall, and as I approached them, I could hear the buzz of laughter and conversation interspersed with the trilling of a harp and the clatter of dishes coming from my right. I did not try to eavesdrop. A mood of icy calm was on me, a feeling of almost impudent omnipotence. One of the servants had dropped a sweetmeat from his tray and I picked it up and ate it as I went. I did not even concern myself with the slap slap of my bare feet on the tiles. Moving deliberately, I mounted the stairs. I did not need illumination. Times without number I had gone up and down these steps, not running, for Disenk did not allow me to proceed in anything but a sedate and ladylike manner, and memories rose with me as I gained the upper landing and passed confidently along it.

Coming to the door of my old room, I pushed it open. The window was uncovered, and the dull light of the stars was diffusing through it so that I could see the surface of my table under it where I used to eat with Disenk hovering behind me to make sure that I observed the proper manners. She would sit at it in the red flush of sunset, her head bent over my sheaths, sewing up the seams I had rebelliously torn, for my stride was long and I did not like to take the mincing little steps she required. Eventually Hui had reprimanded me and I had capitulated mutinously to the dictates of gentility.

The couch was still there also but it had been stripped to its bare wooden frame. The mattress, the smooth linen sheets, the deep pillows, had gone. No covering was on the floor, no chests, no evidence of occupation. For a moment I imagined fondly that Hui had ordered the room to remain unused out of sentiment, but then I laughed softly aloud. Thu you are still a conceited idiot, I told myself. There are no tender emotions for you lingering here. Two of your would-be murderers are downstairs, feeding off dainty victuals and congratulating themselves on yet another scheme, and you are here only for revenge. Grow up!

Yet I stood there for a long time in the almost complete darkness, probing the atmosphere for some trace, however faint, of the girl I had been. But no scent of the myrrh with which Disenk had anointed me came to my nostrils, no briefly glimpsed flick of gossamer linen disturbed the shadows, no cry of delight or pain or remorse echoed to my inner ear. The only familiarity lay in the dimensions of a room that had otherwise become dumb and anonymous. It did not even seek to reject me, but presently I sighed and left it, regaining the passage and turning away from the stairs to where another set of steps led down to the bath house. They too were full of a close blackness, but the bath house itself, open along one side to the small courtyard at the rear of the house with its single palm tree lifting stiff branches, was relatively light.

Here I sucked in a long, slow breath, for the damp aromas were a combination of perfumed oils and scented essences holding only sensuous memories. How long had it been since any hands other than my own had touched my body to perform the wholly gratifying rituals of cleansing and massage? Every day I had stood here on the bathing slab while servants had scrubbed me with natron and poured sweet warm water over me, and then with rosy skin and tousled wet hair I had gone out into the courtyard where the young masseur waited. Disenk would carefully pluck out my body hair and the masseur, his hands ruthlessly expert, would stroke and pummel the fragrant oil into every pore. Life had been good then, full of promise for a beautiful and ambitious girl.

I circled the room, the soles of my feet welcoming the wet coolness of the stone floor, and lifted the lids from the many pots and jars on their stone ledges. Shedding my sheath, I dipped a jug into one of the great urns full of water, took a handful of natron, and stepping up onto the slab I abraded and rinsed myself, working the salts into my hair as well. When I had finished, I plunged my head directly into the urn, then reached for the oil. My skin drank it greedily, and so did my hair. I sat on the slab and braided my tresses.

There was a chest just by the foot of the stairs and I opened it and drew out the contents. There were a couple of male tunics and crumpled male kilts but there was also a long, light summer cloak and a narrow sheath, so sheer that only my eyes told me that my fingers caressed it. Harshira thought of every comfort for his master’s guests, including the possibility of a bath after a night of strenuous feasting. Tossing my coarse servant’s attire into a corner, I drew on the sheath with reverent hands. It slid down my freshly oiled body and settled against my curves as though it had been made for me alone. With its silken texture pressed against me I wished I had a mirror, for I felt for the first time in years the stirring of the Thu I had been. I rummaged again in the chest for sandals but could find none, and then decided it was just as well. Sandals would be too noisy, and besides, my feet had become unaccustomed to wearing them and if I was forced to run they would slow me down.

I was ready. Retrieving the knife from the place where I had laid it, I went back up the stairs, along the passage, and brazenly down into the entrance hall. The outbursts of laughter and talk were louder now, the music more strident. Hui’s wine was flowing freely in the veins of his friends. At the foot of the stairs I turned sharply left and joined the passage that ran straight through to the rear gardens. I passed the office door, the smaller door that probably still led into the cell of Hui’s body servant, and came to the imposing double doors of Hui’s own bedchamber. Without pausing but without haste I pushed them open and went in.

I had been here in his sanctuary only once before on a day I did not wish to remember, but I could not help glancing right first, towards the connecting door that led into the body-servant’s room. Kenna had died in there, Kenna the sulky with his venomous tongue, jealous of Hui’s attention to me, hating me and protective of the master he adored. I had murdered him in my panic lest he should drive a wedge between Hui and myself and I should be sent away. I had not intended to kill him, only make him very sick, but I had been an amateur in those days and the mandrake had been too strong. I need not have resorted to such a desperate measure after all, for I did not realize that I was far more valuable to Hui than his body servant. Kenna’s death sat on my conscience with a weight that my attempted murder of Pharaoh did not. It had been a cruel and senseless act.

The connecting door was shut, but I had no doubt that the current body servant was behind it, waiting for Hui to see his guests off and come to bed. I would have to be very quiet. I looked to the centre of the room. The massive couch still stood on its dais. Its sheet had been turned down. A lamp burned steadily, filling the space around it with an inviting glow. The walls were still alive with the paintings I remembered, lush depictions of the joy of living: vines, flowers, fish, birds, papyrus thickets, all in shimmering colours of scarlet, blue, yellow, white and black. A few gilded chairs sat about, flanked by narrow mosaicked tables set with other lamps, unlit. Someone had tossed a woollen cloak over one of the chairs. Its soft white folds pooled on the ground.

A full goblet had been placed on the table by the couch. I could see its blood-red contents glinting. Gliding across the cool, blue-tiled floor to the dais, I stepped up and thrust my nose close to the liquid. I inhaled carefully but could detect no hint of a soporific mixed with the wine so I picked it up and drank. The taste was pure Hui, dry, expensive, utterly slaking, and before I realized it I had drained the cup. Shrugging, I set it down then looked about for a suitable hiding place. There was none. A few ebony chests lined the walls, but though they were large, I did not think I could fit into any of them.

The cloak caught my eye. Voluminous and thick, it gave me an idea, and I went and stared at it thoughtfully then grabbed it up and carried it to the chest farthest away from the lamplight. I draped it this way and that over the edge until I was satisfied that I could crouch in the angle between it and the side of the chest. Then I crawled beneath it. On hands and knees, my face pressed to the tiny slit I had left in order to see into the room, I felt it resting gently on my shoulder, and all at once my nostrils were invaded by the delicate scent of jasmine, Hui’s perfume. I closed my eyes as a wave of longing for him swept over me, and taking the soft fabric between my fingers I drew it to my lips.

It was no good. Only the first thirteen years of my life had been spent without the knowledge of him, and the time before that was nothing more than an ephemeral mirage to me, without clear form or substance. He was the grounding, sometimes conscious, sometimes unwitting, of everything I had been and was now and would be until I died, no matter how hard I tried to exorcise him from my ka. I put my back against the wall, drew up my knees, and set the knife beside me. Then I waited.