House of Illusions (37 page)

Pushing the cloak aside I crawled forward resignedly, biting back a groan at the ache in my legs as I willed them to move. Coming shakily to my feet, I stood trembling, such a tumult of emotions churning in me—love, rage, fear and the unwelcome familiarity of a child’s hesitation—that I could hardly think. “I was right,” his voice continued out of the gloom. “It is my little Thu, come home to roost like some bedraggled desert bird. Not so little now, of course, are you?”

“You betrayed me.” I wanted the words to be strong and forceful, but I heard myself croak them instead. “Damn you, Hui, you used me and betrayed me and left me in the harem to face humiliation and trial and a sentence of death. You raised me, you were everything to me, and you abandoned me to save your own skin. I hate you. I hate you. I have spent the last seventeen years thinking about killing you and now I am here to do it.” The knife was no longer clumsy in my grip. Tightening my hold on it, I stepped towards the dais, but as I did so I was half-blinded by the dazzle of light that flared suddenly. Hui was sitting up with tinder in his hand, and the flame in the lamp once again steadied to a yellow glow.

For what seemed like an eternity we stared at one another. His expression was one of mild amusement, yet behind it I could sense wariness and perhaps, yes perhaps, a little sadness? I felt my fingers grow numb around the hilt of the knife. As before, so very long ago, I was frozen in place, unable to move.

I remembered him standing naked in the river under the moonlight, all glistening silver as he raised his arms to his totem, the moon. I remembered him sitting behind his desk in the office, framed in the greenery outside the window, his face stern as he reprimanded me. I remembered the way his hair fell over his cheek as he bent above his pestle, all his concentration fixed on the herbs he was grinding, while around us spun the sweet and acrid aromas of that inner sanctuary where he was most himself. I swallowed. “Well?” he prompted, his eyebrows rising. “Is your knife not sufficiently sharp? Shall I call for a whetstone? Or is your will not sufficiently hardened? Are you remembering the good things instead of those times that must surely sear your honest peasant soul? Memory is an implacable weapon, my Thu. Are you going to stab me or not? You have had plenty of practice in murder you know. This should be easy.” As always, he had shown an uncanny ability to read my thoughts. My shoulders slumped.

“Oh Hui,” I whispered. “Oh, Hui. You have not changed. You are still arrogant and cruel and insanely self-confident. Did you not wonder, even once, how my life was unfolding in Aswat? Do you feel no remorse for what you did to me?”

“Of course I wondered,” he answered crisply, sliding from the couch and reaching leisurely for the kilt he had discarded earlier. “But I know you very well. You survive, my Thu. You are the tough little desert flower that can suck life from the most meagre surroundings. No, I did not worry about you. As for remorse, you failed your task in the harem and I did what I had to do. That was all.”

“Make up your mind,” I said drily. “A moment ago I was a bedraggled desert bird.” He looked me up and down with a cool, deliberate assessment, and in spite of my halfhumorous retort I had to inwardly steel myself for the mocking comment I knew would come.

“How old are you now?” he demanded. He had finished fastening the kilt about his waist and had flung himself into a chair and crossed his legs. His calves were still taut, the white feet high-arched and long. I did not dare do more than notice them out of the corner of my eye, for I did not want my weakness to show.

“I am in my thirty-third year,” I said. “But you did not need to ask. I was thirteen when you picked me up out of the Aswat mud and seventeen when you flung me back into it.”

“Your temper has not improved,” he commented.

“Evidently not,” I snapped, “for if it had I would not be standing here without paint or jewellery or a pair of sandals on my feet. Why don’t you say it, Hui? You cannot wait to tell me how much of a wreck I have become.” To my credit, the tremor I felt did not reach my voice. He began to smile, but his eyes remained unreadable.

“So the temple drudge is still vain,” he drawled. “Your skin is as rough as a crocodile’s. Your feet have spread. They are no longer delicate and the bones can no longer be easily seen. Your hair is only fit for bees to hive in. You are a rather disgusting shade of cinnamon and no noblewoman would dream of employing you in any other capacity than that of kitchen assistant. But, my Thu, the ghost of the woman who fired Pharaoh’s lust can still be seen and with care she could be resurrected. Her blue, blue eyes could still trouble a man’s dreams.” I searched his face, not knowing whether he was sincere or indulging in the viciousness peculiar to him. Did my eyes trouble his dreams? For though his smile was gentle, I could not tell if it was also patronizing. “Do not fret,” he went on smoothly. “You look no worse than when you first came to my house. A few months with someone as skilled as Disenk and you would hardly recognize yourself.”

“Do you think I care for nothing more than the ruin of my youth?” I said. “Aswat has burned away such frivolous concerns.” I must have spoken with too much bitterness, for his smile widened.

“Now you are being pompous, and untruthful too,” he said. “No woman born has been free of the vice of vanity.” He leaned forward. “But of course you have more pressing concerns, do you not?” He spoke solemnly, but his red eyes suddenly lit with sarcasm. “You have found your son. Or rather, he found you. He came to consult me. Did you know? How did you manage to produce such an upright, sober young man?”

I stilled the retort that rose to my lips. I could have pointed out that Kamen was a credit both to Men’s upbringing and to Egypt, that Hui and Paiis were trying to destroy something strong and good, that if they succeeded Egypt would be finished as an example of true Ma’at in the world. But I was no match for Hui in the art of verbal sparring. “Please do not taunt me, Hui,” I said quietly.

He stared at me for a long time, the gleeful light in his eyes fading to a brooding opacity. Beside me the lamp crackled. Outside the window a breeze came up, making the leaves of the shrouded trees rustle for a moment before becoming still once more. I was tired and drained, wishing I had resisted the urge to come here, for he was more powerful than I and always had been.

Then he stirred, uncrossed his legs, and rose. “Are you hungry?” he queried, and without waiting for an answer he strode to his body-servant’s door and rapped on it loudly. After a while the man appeared, sleepy and swollen-faced. “Bring whatever is decently left from the feast, and a jug of wine,” he ordered. He turned back to me. “I did not want to command the assassination attempt on you and your son,” he said quietly. “I had little choice when Kamen returned alive to Paiis and Paiis warned me of the new danger lurking on our complacent horizon. If you had remained mutely in Aswat, if by some quirk of fate Kamen had not stopped there while fulfilling his duties, none of this distasteful mess would have come about. But the gods have placed in your hands the tools of revenge and you have picked them up. However, dear sister, you cannot use them.”

He had come so close that his breath fell warm on my face and the odour of his jasmine-drenched skin filled my nostrils. He had addressed me in the most loving and familiar terms. Never before had he used the word “sister,” reserved for an adored wife or mistress, and if it had fallen from any other lips but his, I would have been disarmed. As it was, I became alert at once in spite of the almost overwhelming desire to close my eyes and lift my mouth for a kiss, and I slid the knife deliberately between us.

“Save it for your brother’s witless whores, Hui,” I said loudly, pressing the fist that held the hilt against his naked breastbone. “Doubtless they can be easily manipulated, but if you want to throw me off my guard you will have to make a greater effort than this. I know perfectly well that you do not want my body. Besides, I still belong to the King, or had you forgotten? And it is to the King that Kamen and Men, yes and Kaha too, are going, with the copy of my manuscript Paiis did not know existed and a tale of attempted murder pharonic justice will not be able to ignore. Step back or I will run you through.” He did as he was told, but not before his red eyes had flared with what I knew to be a momentary lust coupled with admiration. I smiled. “Danger has always aroused you, hasn’t it, Hui?” I said, and realized for the first time as I spoke the words that they had sliced through to the mystery of his core. “Danger, plots, all of it, an escape from the burden of the gift the gods bestowed. Then you should be on fire, for you are in greater peril now than ever before. Paiis cannot silence all of us.”

He retreated to the chair and sat with his customary unhurried grace, then propped his elbow on the armrest and put his chin in his palm. He regarded me speculatively.

“Kaha too?” he murmured. “That hurts me. A scribe’s loyalty should be above question.”

“His loyalty is above question,” I retorted, wanting savagely to shake him out of his self-control. “It rests with Ma’at and justice.”

“It rests between his legs when he looks at you,” he flashed back. “If I wanted to, I could have you pinned to the floor in a moment.” I took the knife’s hilt in both hands and pointed it at him.

“Try it, Hui,” I taunted him. “I have less to lose than you.”

We were saved from further outbursts by a discreet knock on the door. The servant entered bearing a tray which he set on the table beside the couch at Hui’s curt order, then he retired to his room without so much as a glance at me. “Help yourself,” Hui said.

I went to the table. The wine jar was still sealed. Turning to the chest where I had hidden, I wrestled the lid open and fingered the contents until I found a linen bag with a drawstring. Going back to the table, I filled it with the wine, the loaf of bread, a handful of figs and some goat cheese. Hui watched me in silence. When I had finished, I faced him. “Do not say it,” I warned him. “I am wearing your sheath and taking your food, but you owe me a great deal more than these things. You owe me seventeen years of hard work and despair, and when you are arrested I will be at your trial to collect the rest of the debt. I hate you, and my fervent prayer is that you are handed the same sentence I endured because of you, that you are shut up in an empty room until you die of thirst and starvation. I shall sit outside the door and listen to your pleas for mercy, and this time there will be no merciful Pharaoh to restore you to life.”

He did not stir. A slow, lazy smile spread over his pale face and one white eyebrow twitched upward. “Darling Thu,” he said. “You do not hate me. In fact you love me with a passion and constancy that enrages you, and that is why you came here tonight. Why else would you warn me of my imminent arrest? Presuming, of course, that Paiis is unable to wipe you all out, a task he will probably accomplish in spite of your bluster to the contrary. And in the unlikely event that I am tried for treason and commanded to end my own life, what would be left to you apart from a sweet but rather unsatisfying relationship with your son? For you are me, Thu. I made you, and without me you would be an empty husk. The seed of life would be gone.”

I did not look at him again. Clutching the bag in one hand and the knife in the other, I went to the door. “May Sebek crunch your bones,” I whispered, “and then may the eternal darkness of the Underworld close over your head.” Fumbling, I gained the dark passage beyond. The guard had taken up his station outside the office but I brushed past him, hardly aware of his presence. The entrance hall with its tall pillars was deserted and I hurried across it, but it could have been peopled with a thousand merrymakers and I would not have noticed.

For Hui was right. I loved him, and hated myself for loving him as a prisoner will both loathe and worship his torturer. No edict of Pharaoh, no decree of the gods, could make him love me back, but I would go on aching helplessly for him until I drew my last breath. I wanted to gouge out his hypnotic red eyes. I wanted to push my knife deep into his vitals and watch his blood run hot over my hands. I wanted to put my arms around him and feel his body relax into acquiescence against mine. Blinded by the tears of fury and loss pouring down my cheeks, I stumbled out onto the courtyard, found the small gate, and pushed through it into the rustling haven of the garden. By the time I came to myself, I had waded past the sleepy guards on the Lake path and was approaching the centre of the city.

Half-dazed I stood flattened against the rough wall of an alley while a succession of laden carts rattled past. My feet and legs were caked with river mud and the delicate sheath I had stolen from Hui’s bath house was drying grey and stiff against my thighs. It was time to approach the Golden Scorpion again, to seek a message from Kamen, to make plans, but for a long time after the carts with their shrieking donkeys had creaked away I could not move. My thoughts were scattered and my courage gone. Not until I found myself wishing fervently and pathetically that I was lying on my cot in the miserable little hut I had called home in Aswat did I come to my senses and force myself into the stream of humanity parading by.

He had not said that he did not love me, in fact he had not expressed any emotion at all. He guarded his ka more closely than the King on a royal progress, but in times past I had seen that guard weaken when he looked at me, and as I wended my way through the torchlit turbulence of the city streets, I deliberately recalled them to soothe the aching wound his words had left. In lifting me from my village as formless clay and moulding me into the shape he wanted, in fashioning my thoughts and directing my desires, he had become enmeshed in his own creation. If he was in my mind and heart, the architect and originator of everything I became, then I too was in his blood, a disease he had inflicted inadvertently upon himself.

We had made love once, in his garden, on the night my anguish and despair had come to a climax and I had decided to kill the king. The recklessness of that decision had fuelled our sudden lust, it was true, but Hui was not a man to allow himself to be carried away by the urgency of the moment alone. Under our mutual excitement and guilt there had flowed an undercurrent of genuine feeling. But he had denied it, was still denying it, for the sake of his survival, and the yearning in my own heart had been overwhelmed by the drive for revenge.