The Twice Born (26 page)

8

 
THE NEXT DAY
Huy wrote a letter to Methen, thanking him for his offer of an assistance that would not now be needed. Neither Ramose nor the Rekhet had suggested that Huy keep his unique abilities to himself. He had understood without being told that to natter about them randomly would indicate not only an excess of foolish pride but also a serious character flaw. It was equally obvious that he might use his own judgment in speaking of what the gods were doing through him when the occasion demanded an explanation. His words to Methen flowed with ease and came from his heart. Methen would be delighted to read of his friend’s good fortune, and his reply would be full of affection.

When the ink had dried on the scroll, it occurred to Huy to wonder how he was to pay a messenger to take it north to Hut-herib now that he could no longer call upon his uncle’s generosity. He had settled himself in the shade of the trees by the lake, his palette across his knees, away from the glare of sunlight on the stone flags of Ra’s vast concourse. Wandering back to his compound, the palette stowed in his small leather satchel and slung across his shoulder, he met a priest who was hurrying in the opposite direction. The man halted, his glance going from the roll of papyrus in Huy’s hand to the lost expression on his face, and to Huy’s astonishment he bowed respectfully. “May I help you, Huy?” he asked. “Do you need wax for your letter?”

“I have no seal, Master,” Huy answered awkwardly, “and I wrote without considering that my circumstances have changed. I have no means to send my letter away from Iunu.” He bowed and made as if to step past the man. After all, the students were forbidden to approach the priests without the permission of the Overseer, who decided whether a reason to disturb the holy men was frivolous or not, and to be casually accosted by one had given Huy a shock.

The priest barred his way politely, his hand out. “If you give it to me, I will see that it reaches its destination. Much correspondence passes between the temple and the towns and cities of Egypt. If you have written to a place outside our borders, that can be arranged also.” He smiled. “I will not read it. Simply tell me to whom it must go.”

Stuttering his profuse thanks, Huy did so, and passed it over. The man bowed again and strode quickly away, but later that day, as Huy and Thothmes were heading to the bathhouse after a strenuous three hours under the demanding eye of their shooting instructor, the same man rose from the stool outside its entrance and executed a bow that did not include Thothmes. “Your letter has gone and I have been authorized by the High Priest to give you the seal of the temple, Huy,” he said without preamble, holding out a ring. “You may use it on all your correspondence, as we do. You may request wax from your Overseer. When you have sealed your letters, pass them to any priest to deal with. Life and health to you.” Executing another swift bow, he disappeared through the doorway of the compound. Huy and Thothmes bent over the heavy piece of gold lying on Huy’s damp palm. The ring’s bezel bore Ra’s falcon head crowned with the sun disc and encircled by a snake with open mouth and forked tongue.

“The holy uraeus, ready to spit fire at the enemies of Ra,” Thothmes said solemnly. “The very same guardian who curls from the crown on the forehead of our Great God to protect him from everything evil.” He stared across at Huy. “The High Priest wasn’t joking, was he? You really are to be safeguarded in every way. I hope they let you out to dip your toes in the mud of my family’s presence once in a while! It’ll be good for your lamentable lack of genuine humility!”

Huy burst out laughing as he tried to slip the seal ring onto a finger of his left hand beside his amulets. “This is too big for me. If I lose it, I can expect more than a mild whipping.”

“Find a leather thong and hang it around your neck,” Thothmes suggested. “Do you think there’ll be wine with the meal tonight? We are approaching the eve of a god’s feast, after all.”

Nakht sent a litter for them, and the two boys left the temple precinct for three days of holiday, Huy with much relief. He was beginning to feel the pressure of being singled out. The seal ring was only the material evidence of something in the eyes of the priests he met crossing the concourse, in the intelligent face of his schoolmaster, in the wary glances of the servants. Even Pabast had seemed more taciturn and cautious than usual towards him when he came to the cell to shave Thothmes. Huy’s fellow classmates treated him no differently. Nor did his teacher. He was rebuked when he made a mistake in the dictation, grumbled at when he stumbled over a difficult passage in the aphorisms of Amenemopet that he and his friends were still wading through with thinly disguised boredom, yelled at by the military officer in charge of his physical training if his progress lagged; yet behind the seeming normalcy was an invisible wall of—what? Deference? Curiosity? Fear? Or was it all in an imagination that was inflating an already arrogant ka? All Huy knew, as he pondered these things, was that sometimes his breath seemed to catch in his lungs as though a weight had descended briefly upon his chest.

Nakht’s large, quiet estate was as welcoming as ever, its walls shutting out the clamour of the city beyond, its lily-choked pools and ancient shade trees an oasis of a very different security than the kind Huy wore around his neck. The whole family had gathered for the celebration of the god’s feast, including Meri-Hathor and her husband, a pleasant man who seemed content to sprawl on the grass and smile sleepily while the babble of conversation flowed over him. Huy wondered, as he walked up to Nakht and bowed, whether he should thank the Governor for having Sennefer’s throwing stick removed permanently from his grasp, then thought better of it; he did not want to sound vindictive. Thothmes’ mother kissed him warmly on both cheeks.

Nasha hurried up to him, thrust a cup of wine into his hands, and gently bit the tip of his nose. “I have stayed away from the Street of the Basket Sellers,” she announced loudly. “Father has been talking to the High Priest of Ra about you. It seems that you have developed a facility for peering into people’s futures. Oh, don’t look so dismal!” she chided him. “Seer or not, you’re still just cheeky Huy to me. Have some wine, eat a few sweetmeats, enjoy your few days here. Tomorrow we’re going to have a rafting party. Anuket has been making garlands.”

Huy turned to Nakht. “May I go and see her?”

Nakht nodded. “She’s in the herb room. Tell her to come out and be companionable.” Nasha whispered something to her sister that caused Meri-Hathor to smile broadly, but Huy was oblivious; he was already on his way into the house.

He smelled the herb room when he entered the long passage that led to the rear, a mixture of thyme, mint, dill, and spices mingling oddly with the heavy scents of the various flowers Anuket used for her hobby, making the air seem to adhere to his skin. The room had no door and his sandals tapped lightly on the tiling of the passage as he approached. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by a clutter of leaves and twigs, her fingers fallen motionless in the act of twisting the stems of two white lilies together. She did not look up until he crouched before her, then she smiled faintly. “Huy. I knew it was you. I recognized your step.” He felt her dark eyes searching his face. “It has been a long time. Are you well now?”

Huy could not help himself. He placed a palm against the firm smoothness of her cheek. “Anuket,” he said huskily. “I have missed you very much. Yes, I am well now, but all the time I lay sick on my bed my thoughts were here with you.”

She did not withdraw, but neither did she lean into his touch. “So you have returned to school and to us unscathed, for which I give thanks to the gods.”

She continued to look into his eyes, but Huy could not read what emotion lay behind her own. Her words were warmly polite, yet Huy, his lungs filling with the languorous aroma of the waxen lilies quivering in her lap, felt rather than saw a sudden tension in her hands. He sat back on his heels, and as he did so a wave of desire for her swept over him with such suddenness that he almost cried out. The need to grasp her shoulders and jerk her forward, fasten his mouth over hers, feel the press of her small breasts against his chest, was overpowering.
I want to pull up your sheath, lay you on your back, and thrust myself into you
, he thought with terrifying clarity.
I want to hear you pant. I want to smell your sweat blending with the smell of the flowers. I want to taste it imbued with the tang of the bunches of herbs hanging drying over our heads. Anuket!
The sensations of his body were so new, so imperative, that for a moment he was in danger of losing control over himself. Carefully he knelt and picked up the unfinished wreath.“This is beautiful,” he said, knowing that his voice shook, knowing that he must not look at her directly. “Even the King’s garland makers could not exceed the intricacy of your designs.”

Reaching behind her with a toss of her hair, she brought forward a simple loop of large yellow daisies and flung it over his head. “Thank you! I made this while I was sitting and thinking about how I would create the wreath for the festival. Wear it today, Huy, until the petals wilt, and then throw it away.” He hung on to it desperately with both hands and she clucked at him disapprovingly. “Don’t do that! You’re crushing the flowers! Is something wrong?”

The surge of lust was ebbing and he was able to loosen his fingers. He swallowed. “No, nothing. I moved to keep them from tangling in the seal, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Suddenly she pulled his left hand away from the daisies and examined the Rekhet’s gifts with interest. Huy remained very still. “These are finely made and very costly,” she remarked. “What are they for? Where did you get them?”

So Huy told her as much of his story as he could, and as he spoke he found himself returning to sanity, watching the changes of expression flit across her aristocratic little features with the same pleasure he had always found in looking at her.

“I knew that you had become some sort of Seer,” she said when he had fallen silent. “The High Priest of Ra is also Greatest of Seers, and Father went to talk to him when the rumours about you began to circulate at school. But Huy, we are still friends, aren’t we?” she said earnestly, leaning towards him. “That won’t change, will it?”

He managed a short laugh. “Of course not,” he assured her. “You will always be my very favourite woman, Anuket.” His tone was light, but privately he was thinking how a change was already taking place in him, shocking him with its force, how his affectionate preoccupation with her had become something else in the time it had taken him to blink.
I am in love with her. I walked into this pungent room freely, but I will walk out again like an animal dragging a trap on its leg
. The knowledge was bitter when it should have been glorious, and Huy knew it.
How am I to contend with this?
he asked himself hotly.
Have I not enough to bear already?

She was smiling at him, pulling a strand of her hair across her mouth with unconscious coquetry. “Good.” She straightened. “I expect Father asked you to bring me out into the garden, but this is my last wreath for the ceremonies and it will not take me long to finish it. After all, the family will be together for the next three days. So will we, Huy. Nasha will want to take you and Thothmes into the marshes and I will not want to go, but we can talk in the evenings.” Her hands were moving once more over the lilies.

Huy stood then hesitated, not wanting to leave, the prospect of hours spent without her presence now insupportable. After a long and increasingly awkward silence she looked up and met his eye. “Do you know what my name, Anuket, means?” she asked deliberately. One of her fingers had begun to move slowly back and forth over the pale surface of a single lily petal. He shook his head. “It means ‘to embrace.’ The temple astrologers chose the name for me when I was born. Father was distressed. He tried to persuade them to choose another, but they refused. Anuket is an ancient water goddess whose temple was at Khnum, by the First Cataract. She embraced the fields with the floods of the Inundation. She has never been very important, not like her sister Satis. But over time she has become a goddess of lust, with obscene attributes.” Her gaze returned to the wreath. “Father still sometimes feels insulted, but he is relieved to see me growing up the way I am. I respect the gods and my parents and I am chaste. I am chaste,” she repeated.

Huy bent down.
The well was deep, and the water cold and dark. Now I am drowning again
.

“What are you trying to say to me, Anuket?” he demanded to her averted cheek. “Of course you are of the water, pure and virtuous. Do you fear that the power of your name will eventually corrupt your virtue as the goddess herself has become perverted?”

“No!” The face she turned to him was flushed. “I did not know if you had heard of her, Anuket, in her present degraded aspect. I did not want you to think … to imagine … I would rather be Satis, so that I could worship the goddess who stands at the entrance to the Duat with the four vases of purifying water to be poured over each king as he enters the place of the dead. No totem of Anuket stands in my bedroom!”