House of Illusions (54 page)

“I know all about you,” she said. “I have heard the gossip. Some of the women fear you. Some envy you your closeness with the Prince. Their lives are …” She paused, searching for words. “… are very small, Lady Thu, and their servants become small also. I have not been here long and I do not want to spend the rest of my life moving from one unsatisfied concubine to another.”

“Then what do you want?” I asked curiously. “Do you not fear me also, Isis? Or do you see me as an adventurer who will take you into turbulent waters? For I assure you that I myself want nothing more, now, than to sit in my own garden, drink my own wine, and punt on the Nile in my own skiff every evening while the sun goes down.”

“I will erect the canopy in your garden,” she said eagerly. “I will pour your wine and arrange the cushions on the deck of your skiff. I will massage you and paint you. I will be efficient and unobtrusive. I do not fear you, Lady Thu. I am afraid to die never having known what it is to be alive.”

Like a pinprick to the heart I heard Hunro’s voice, silenced now forever, and looking into the young and pleading face of this girl made me feel suddenly old.

“Very well,” I sighed. “But do not come wailing to me in the future when you discover that I have no intention of moving in the circles of the wealthy and you have become bored. Talk to the Keeper and get his permission in writing. Now fetch me food!” Smiling happily she bowed and rushed out, and I made my way to the bath house through the sparkling morning.

Scrubbed and oiled I returned to my cell and ate with relish, savouring every mouthful Isis set before me. I was dipping my fingers in the bowl of warm water she held out to me when one of the stewards presented himself and there was a commotion outside. He handed me a scroll.

“It is a list of all the effects you requested from the storehouses,” he said in answer to my query. “The boxes are here. The Keeper begs you to be ready to depart at sunset. He also reminds you that the King’s gift of five deben of silver is in a separate casket within one of the chests, together with two scrolls dictated by the One Himself. You are not to unroll them until you arrive at your destination.”

“But I have no destination!” I shouted after him, to no avail. He and the servants had gone. I turned to Isis. “Open the chests,” I said. “You will find sheaths and sandals and paint. Select what you will and come and dress me. I will go through these gates clad in my own belongings. Then you can hunt for the Keeper and persuade him to give you to me.”

Retiring to my chair, I listened to her delighted exclamations as she rummaged about. I have no destination, I thought on a tide of elation. I am free. Tonight I will see the lights of the harem and the palace recede behind me for the last time. Where will I go? It does not matter, for I do not care.

I was ready to leave long before the appointed time, sitting outside my door on one of the huge chests while behind me Isis, ever conscientious, cleared the cell of my occupancy. I could have remained in it until the last moment but from the time Isis closed the lid on the pretty cosmetic box I had chosen in the storehouse and placed it in the larger chest its atmosphere had changed, become alien to me. I was no longer the woman who had taken up residence within it such a short time ago, and it had mutely begun to shut me out. For my part, its dimensions, its furnishings, even its odour, became all at once foreign to me and I shed it like a cocoon, stepping out onto the path that would take me not only out of the women’s quarters but also into a new life.

I was wearing clothes and jewellery I had not put on before: a diaphanous sheath of a peculiar dark crimson colour shot through with gold thread, a belt of linked golden lotuses, bracelets of golden leaves whose veins were thin tracings of carnelian, and a band that rested on my forehead and showered my loose hair and my neck with droplets of hung gold. A single large scarab carved in bone and encased in chased gold graced one finger, and gold dust glittered on my eyelids.

So I waited, arrayed as though I had been bidden to a great feast in the banqueting hall instead of an unknown future, my feet together, my hennaed palms on my knees, the aroma of the expensive perfumed oil Isis had rubbed between my breasts enfolding me in its musky cloud. There was no one to whom I wished to say farewell. I had taken my leave of Amunnakht, and Pharaoh was not strong enough any more to face another encounter. Neither was I. If the Prince had wished to see me again, he would have sent for me. I should have summoned a scribe and dictated a letter to my brother and family in Aswat, but I did not want to disturb the mood of solemn, joyful anticipation I felt.

I sat motionless in the gently blowing airs of the courtyard while Isis completed her scouring and came out to join me. I told her to get her belongings from her own quarters and say whatever goodbyes were needed and she soon returned, afraid, I think, that I might go without her, a large leather sack over her shoulder and the precious scroll ending her employment in the harem in her hand. Carefully she set her bag beside a chest and sank to the grass across from me but she did not let go of the roll of papyrus. I did not speak to her and she did not look at me. Each of us was engrossed in our own thoughts as the afternoon wore away.

At last, when the sky above the courtyard had faded from deep blue to the delicate pink that preceded the scarlet of sunset and the shadow of the fountain pulsed long across the grass, I heard the footsteps for which I had been yearning and I turned my head and watched him come. Smiling, he held out his arms and with an answering cry I rose and went gladly into his embrace. “How lightly you are travelling, Mother!” he said with mock sarcasm as he gestured to the men with him to pick up my chests. “Is the bag to go as well?”

“It belongs to Isis,” I explained, tucking my hand beneath his elbow. “She has been released from the harem to serve me. Oh, Kamen, it is so good to see you, to hear your voice! How has it been with you? Is Takhuru well? Are you taking me to Men’s house?” We began to walk towards the entrance, Isis behind.

“I am very well,” he replied. “The Prince has granted me a commission in his own Division, and he has placed Banemus directly under my authority. It was a wise decision although uncomfortable for both of us. Banemus is, was, a great general and I hope to learn much from him. He will redeem himself quickly I think. Takhuru …” I pulled him to a halt.

“I had planned that we should live together, you and I and Takhuru!” I protested, anxious and disappointed. “That hope has sustained me through all the horror, Kamen, but if you have taken oath under the Prince you must remain in Pi-Ramses! I need you! I have a list of estates I want you to look at. Without you, what shall I do?”

“I am not going to disappear from your life again,” he said, taking my hand from the crook of his arm and kissing it softly. “But I must carve out a career for myself, marry Takhuru, raise a family. I cannot live with you, my mother. It would be wrong for you as well as for me. I understand a little of what you have suffered and you must trust me when I tell you that I will not allow you to suffer any more. A home has already been prepared for you. I think you will like it. If not, I will help you find another.”

“A home? But where? I wanted to do the choosing with you, Kamen. Please!” For answer he indicated the chests.

“You have the two scrolls Pharaoh gave you?”

“Yes. But what…?”

“Enough. Your craft awaits you at the palace watersteps and soon the light will be gone. We must make haste.”

He vanished along the entrance passage, and I paused before following him and looked back. The fountain was still cascading into its wide basin. Its glittering red water was catching the last of the sun and the constancy of its sound, a music that had quietly accompanied the passionate and despairing days of my first confinement in this place and was still weaving its melody as I left it for the second time, was like the voice of eternity itself, obscure and enigmatic.

Around it the women sat or lay talking while their servants folded up the canopies that were no longer needed. Somewhere someone was plucking lazily at a lute, its plangent notes drifting in the warm air. More servants went to and fro bearing laden trays whose tantalizing odours spoke of an evening of good food and red wine, of sharing the small details of the day, of lamps lit and couches rumpled and then the silent hours before another dawn when it would all begin again.

But without me. Thank all the gods. Without me. Some other concubine would peer into my cell with trepidation and desire while her servant opened her boxes and began to unpack all her pretty things. Would she sometimes lie on the couch in the darkness and wonder whose body had weighted the mattress before her? Would she dream of love and a queen’s crown? The ghost of Hunro called to me. I have never lived, it whispered. Never lived. With a final ache of pity for her, for myself, for them all, I turned and walked away.

Kamen was already speaking to the guards on the main gate, and by the time I came up to him, it was open and Isis and I were waved through. On my right the pool where Hunro and I had swum together lay black and motionless, already absorbing the colour of night, and the trees that shaded it during the day loomed over it now with sinister enquiry. After one swift glance at it I hurried to catch up with Kamen. He was striding along the path that ran between lawns to join the wider avenue that many times had taken me through the imposing public entrance of the palace. Imperial servants were already fixing torches to the mighty pillars, and courtiers were beginning to drift under their glare.

Soon I found myself crossing the vast plaza that ended with the watersteps. Here I had to weave between groups of cheerful nobles on their way to the night’s revelry in the palace and I thought of Pharaoh alone in his cavernous bedchamber but for the physicians and the pervading stench of his dying, itself an ominous unseen presence, while in this complex and opulent building the pulse of Egypt went on beating.

Kamen led us beside the steps and along the side of the canal where craft of every size and ornamentation were tethered until he slowed at the foot of a ramp leading up onto the deck of a small but graceful vessel. Its planking was of cedar. Its prow and stern were unadorned but its cabin was hung with golden damask and the sail tied against its slender mast appeared to be gold cloth also. A flag flapped limply high above but I could not discern its colours. A helmsman sat with his bare legs hanging one each side of the tiller, watching the activity around him with interest, and several sailors were leaning on the rail.

At the sight of Kamen they sprang to life, pattering down the ramp to help the servants with the chests and bow us aboard. At Kamen’s signal the ramp was run in, the rope holding us stationary untied, and the helmsman and the crew began to ease us from our berth.

“Whose boat is this?” I asked Kamen as behind me Isis disappeared into the cabin with an armful of cushions and one of the sailors bent with a pole to push us away from the bank.

“It is yours,” he replied. “A gift from the Prince. He did not know what colours you would wish on your flag so he allowed me to choose for you.” A wry smile lit his eyes. “I said that seeing I am of royal blood and you have spent the greater part of your life as a possession of the King, the imperial blue and white might be appropriate. He laughed but consented.”

“A gift?” I said wonderingly. “How generous of him! I am speechless.”

“Generous perhaps,” he agreed. “But I think that our future Pharaoh derives much secret amusement from your situation. He awaits a report from me on your reaction to a further gift he and his father have arranged together. No.” He held up a hand as I began to speak. “You may not ask. The two scrolls will make everything plain.”

“Then I am not to see your adoptive father or Takhuru or Nesiamun? I have much to thank them for, Kamen.”

“We are not going far,” he told me. “Men understands what I am doing. Will you rest in the cabin now, or shall I order a stool for you here?”

I asked for a stool, and when Isis had brought it, I sat clasping my knees and looking back while the craft broke free of the other vessels choking the canal and turned her prow towards the river. Slowly the row of tall pillars with their flaring torches illuminating the glittering crowds passing beneath them grew smaller. My vision filled with the dark trunks and tangled branches of the trees lining the canal. The sun had gone, and the lamp hanging in the stern cast shafts of orange light that broke across the oily water and were dissipated in the gathering gloom of the banks. The oars rose and fell cautiously, trailing grey foam.

Soon we turned out of the canal into the Lake of the Residence and the estates of the nobles began to slip by, their watersteps lamplit, their rafts and skiffs also hung with lights. The festive night of the city that was the centre of the world had begun, but I was no longer a part of it. Nor did I want to be. My fleeting melancholy came from nostalgia, a brief and poignant desire to turn back time, and nothing more. I did not think. The motion of the boat soothed me. The deepening darkness enclosed me. I did not realize that Kamen had come to sit on the deck beside me until he spoke.

“We are coming up to the Waters of Avaris,” he said. “Wine and cold food have been prepared for you. A salad, some bread and goat cheese, figs and slices of goose. Will you eat while you watch the city go by or come into the cabin?” I put my hand on his head, feeling how thick and strong his black hair was, how warm his scalp.

“I care nothing for the city any more,” I said. “What life I had here I left in the palace, and in unmarked graves somewhere in the desert beyond the Delta. Let us go into the cabin.”

One lamp bracketed on the wall glowed on the cushions scattered over the floor, the low table laden with dishes, the narrow camp cot already dressed with my linen. Isis was kneeling by the table and waiting to serve us, blushing as Kamen greeted her kindly. Outside I heard the challenge from the guards and our captain’s answer and knew that the Lake of the Residence was behind us.