Dream Boat (20 page)

'Hey . . .' Marcus slid gracefully down the pillar. 'Thish is my party, all right? I want my boss to know what a bloody good time I'm having under house arresh and that I don't give a tosh. So you jush make sure there's plenty of wine, Tingi, my old son, and even more plenty of women.'

The last words the smirking legionaries caught before he passed out were,
'Big
women!'

Claudia had misjudged Mentu. He was not like the man in that Macedonian legend who came to clear rats from a village and ended up piping the children away. There was a whole cross-section of ages and skills and abilities milling around inside the Pharaoh's commune.

The storm had, miraculously, held off for the journey, although it seemed to be following them northwards at a steady pace and, being a valley, once it arrived, would set in for hours, swirling round and round as it gathered in strength, faded, then gathered in strength once again. Meanwhile, the heat throbbed like a Nubian drum, and the viscous breeze sucked out your vitality and carried it away over the hills. Stiff-limbed, she clambered down from the trap. Long-horned cattle huddled in groups to protect themselves from the flies. Wilting fieldhands trudged home with the last wheelbarrow-loads of the day, but it was the scale - the sheer organisation - which took Claudia's breath away.

So many people! Somehow she'd imagined fifty or so gullible souls lured from the bright city lights, universally young and stupid, whereas there were ten times that number here! Claudia's opinion, she appreciated with the benefit of hindsight, had been influenced solely by the gospel spreaders of the Forum, cranks and fanatics like the two who'd accompanied her today, and by the fact that her fifteen-year-old stepdaughter had joined up with the Brothers.

Mentu's vision was never so narrow!

Every age was represented, including toddlers who had doubtless been born here, yet most astonishing was that

Mentu's specious ramblings had actually attracted craftsmen: weavers, carpenters, wheelwrights. Claudia had passed a potter's kiln, a brewery and, adjacent to the bakery, a flour mill, whose quern was turned by a sad-looking mule in a collar. On the drive in, she'd caught the distinct tang of a charcoal kiln in the woods as well as the less pleasant smell of the fuller's yard. She'd heard the thud of an axe, watched huntsmen return home with nets full of pigeons and a deer slung between two shouldered poles.

Her gaze roamed round this idyllic pear-shaped valley nestled in the soft, Etruscan hills. Fields stretched its length and breadth, there were orchards, pastures, beehives, olives, cattle, sheep and goats. You couldn't pick a city matron, plonk her in the country and then expect her to know how to clip and shear and geld, oh dear me, no. Animal husbandry required specialist skills, as did farm work, building maintenance and hunting.

Wily old Mentu had left nothing to chance.

He did not see this commune as a flash in the pan.

Yet, sinisterly, the commune was devoid of human discourse. Small children should be piggy-backing, hopscotching, skipping with ropes or rolling hoops, squealing as they punched each other's lights out in the dust. Instead, they sat in obedient silence, huddled over their counting frames, skeining wool or shucking peas and beans. Mentu would doubtless call it duty. Anyone else would suspect that subservience was being drummed into them from the earliest stage and that the adults fared no better. Sure, there were plenty of discussions about which-size-nail, how-many-onions, who-borrowed-my-awl, and can-someone-help-me-find-my-thimble floating about, but how odd that no one was debating politics, slandering their neighbours, climbing on their pet high horse or passing on unsound rumours as folk are prone to do in village groups! No faces here were red from exasperation, creased up in laughter, or rejuvenated by the latest gossip. By and large, members walked silently, heads bent and quiescent.

'To be sure, we're not all from Rome here, y'know!' The ripe brogue of Brindisi rose above muted accents ranging from Naples, Ancona, Cremona. 'Come. I'll help you wash and change, and then I'll show you the ropes.'

The brogue belonged to a stout, middle-aged woman whose greying hair was never going to be contained by something so insubstantial as a bun. Wisps stuck out in all directions, like a hedgehog who'd found himself caught between pestle and mortar or struck by a particularly spiteful bolt of lightning.

'That's the Pharaoh's quarters over there, me lovely.'

Setting a predictably gentle pace across from the stables, the woman indicated the far wing of a well-appointed set of buildings. Once, this had been a traditional villa set in the heart of its rural estate. However, instead of four blocks built round a rectangular courtyard, one wing had been demolished completely, the two long ones extended and a jumble of wooden buildings clustered between. Even so, Claudia reckoned accommodation would be pretty cramped!

'That far wing's off limits to anyone who isn't either a Pharaoh, a Pharaoh's wife or the Holy Council. Not forgetting Min, of course. He lives there, too.'

'Is Min the commune cat?'

'Cat?' Mercy roared with laughter, and several more grey hairs jack-knifed loose. 'Lordy, child, Min's the Grand Vizier!' She wiped away the tears. 'And before you ask, yes, it's his real name. They're brothers, Mentu and Min, but you'll get used to these Egyptian monikers after a while. Would you believe the name I was given when I joined was Mersyankh? Mersyankh! I could hardly pronounce it, let alone spell it.' She drew Claudia close. 'I told them, I'd settle for Mercy.'

Claudia laughed with her as they walked up the steps to the ladies' bath house. Mercy was by no means simple-minded and it was difficult to see this robust, happy, well-adjusted woman kowtowing to commune rules, but then escape routes come in many guises.

As though reading her mind, Mercy said, 'Ach, to be sure, I've never looked back! I dedicated the best part of forty years

to me family, doing what's right for them, what's best for them, until it's time, I thought, I did something for meself before it's too damned late.' She relieved Claudia of her discarded gown and held it up admiringly, before folding it away in a chest. 'So I up and left the lot of 'em.' Claudia's rings, armbands and pendant she placed in a dish shaped like a water lily, and Claudia knew that would be the last she'd see of her lovely jewels!

There was something in Mercy's manner which prompted her to ask, 'Left, as in "without a word" you mean?'

'Best way, me lovely,' Mercy said, helping her into a pleated shift dress, white and patterned with diamonds of green, blue and turquoise, identical in every respect to her own. Identical, in fact, to everyone else's.

'Me husband was a bastard,' she added matter-of-factly. 'Beat me when he drank and beat me when he was sober, a proper brute, and I don't care what anybody says, I recognise his type in Geb, and so I do! Geb's Keeper of the Central Store - he oversees the domestic side, the cooking, laundry, that kind of thing - you'll know who I mean when you see him. A Barbary ape on two legs. Are your shoulder straps too tight? Anyway, you'll have no trouble with Geb. He hates women - men like that do - he avoids them when he can, which is, of course,' she laughed, 'most of the time.'

Her hand dithered over two small wide-rimmed, flat-bottomed pots, finally reaching for the one in the form of a duck.

'Black,' she pronounced, and Claudia realised they were eye paints she'd been choosing. 'Later,' she said, Til show you to the rabbit hutch which passes for your bedroom, but first it's prayers. My, my, you look a picture!'

She steered her charge towards a tall mirror of polished bronze, and what shone back was not Claudia, but a replica of the three hundred other women in the commune. Hair had been twisted into a simple bun at the nape, eyes rimmed with kohl, a shift and sandals identical to everyone else's. Incredible. In

the space of ten minutes, Mercy had bestowed upon Claudia a veneer of invisibility . . .

'Tomorrow,' she said, replacing the disc-shaped lid on the kohl, 'I'll henna your palms, your fingernails and the soles of your feet, ooh, it's a heavenly sensation. Tomorrow's a public holiday, and tonight we celebrate the passing of the crocodile—'

Whoa! 'We're mourning the death of a future piece of luggage?'

'Tch! Hasn't that lazy sod, Zer, told you anything about your new way of life here?' Outside, thunder rolled and rumbled, lightning streaked the sky. Glancing up, Mercy prayed aloud that the rain would hold off until after the ceremony had finished. 'We operate a ten-day week, a ten-month year in the commune, and the months are named after the festivals. Hathor's marriage to Horus, for instance, is one, which we abbreviate to 'the cow'. Gets too complex otherwise.'

Otherwise?
Claudia was already confused! But then that's what this whole place was about. Disorientation. New clothes, new regime, new identity. No personal possessions. No contact with home or even with the outside world - come on, that double set of gates wasn't to impress local wildlife! Memories would be eradicated by ritual, by work, by devotion to Ra through homage to his Ten True Gods working on earth and this, of course, suited cult members as well as cult leaders. It would be wise for Claudia to remember that. People were here, because they chose to be here. Because they had a need for dependency, for numbing, for sublimation of self. They did not want the responsibility of thinking for themselves, they were content with being set repetitive, mindless tasks which relieved them of personal accountability, even on the most menial level.

Brainwashing, she belatedly realised, works both ways . . .

Large raindrops began to fall, loud and hot. Grabbing Claudia's arm, Mercy ducked her head and dashed towards a high wall, whose enclosure was covered by a huge blue canvas awning worked by a contraption of wooden laths, poles

and ropes. Quite a crowd was already assembled, which didn't stop Mercy from pushing her way to the front for a good and clear view, and what a view! If Claudia had thought the boat on the upstairs floor of the apartment block was a knockout, here was surely its mother.

No replica, this! The barque was full-scale, a vessel fit for a king - for a god - its high prow and stern glowing with gold. Due to the heavy, dark sky, lanterns and torches had been lit around the temple front, making the jewels and gems shimmer and turning the rubies to living red eyes. Zigzag fangs of lightning turned the overlaid silver to incandescent flashing waterfalls. Behind the boat, stone hieroglyphs covered the white temple wall - Claudia recognised the Eye of Horus (why this preoccupation with body parts?) - and alabaster sphinxes lounged haughtily either side of the great, gaping doors.

'How many wives has Mentu got?' Two? Three?

'Twenty,' Mercy said, without blinking an eyelash. 'Why?' she chuckled. 'D'you fancy your chances?'

As more and more people huddled under the awning, Claudia was blown back by this overpowering odour of cloves and myrrh. The unguent, she realised, was yet another erosion of personality and decision-making, and in small quantities -well, you couldn't say it was pleasant, far too pungent for that, but nevertheless the fragrance was tolerable. En masse, though, and exacerbated by the heat, the smell was truly awesome! By now, the rain was drumming heavily on the canvas carapace, splattering over the side in thick torrents, and for a few moments, Claudia noticed no change in the background noise. Then she became aware that a different kind of drumming had started.

Booom, boo-boo-booom, boo-boo-booom,    boo-boo-boom.

A
broad-shouldered Negro beat a giant bronze tortoise with a fleece-covered drumstick, and the slow pulsing rhythm made the hair prick on Claudia's neck.

Booom, boo-boo-booom, boo-boo-booom, boo-boo-boom.

A
man moved into the spotlights cast by the high, mounted torches, and at first, she thought it was Zer. It was not. Zer

had already left on his return trip to Rome. But this man was also clad in priestly garb, and the strong, broad ridge of his skull showed a man of courage, strength and character, a man for whom wool would not easily be pulled over shaven eyebrows.

Booom, boo-boo-booom, boo-boo-booom, boo-boo-boom.

'He's permitted only goosemeat and beef for his protein intake,' Mercy whispered. 'Not allowed to touch fish, the poor darling, and as for beans. Tch. Can't so much as
look 
at the divils!'

Small fry, Claudia thought, to being forced to bath in cold water twice daily. Fine in this weather, but winter?

Behind the High Priest, ten white-robed priestesses swayed and rattled their sistrums, the tune from their silvery bells almost inaudible against the rumbles of thunder.
Booom, boo-boo-booom, boo-boo-booom, boo-boo-boom.

Then the eerie drumming stopped. An air of expectancy sizzled round the crowd. The High Priest reached into a moleskin bag at his waist and threw what looked like grit on to the brazier.
Whooosh!
Clouds of smoke billowed up, and when they cleared, Claudia gasped. Emerging as though airborne from the building came the most extraordinary procession she had ever seen!

Led by a man with his face painted blue and covered to the mouth with a dazzling gold mask, other figures filed out of the temple. Each wore a long, floating cloak of either gold, silver, copper or black which scraped the marble floor and, all except one other, bore the mask of an animal. Claudia recognised Horus, the falcon god, Bast the cat (oh, Drusilla; she's the spitting image of you!), a cow, a cobra, a vulture - ten in all. But then, as Mercy said, everything here came in tens.