House of Dreams (67 page)

I was taken in a closed cart to the docks of Pi-Ramses, fed a meal of sesame paste and bread, and assisted to my place on the enormous craft. The captain, a burly Syrian, watched while my guards secured my chains. He received a scroll from one of them for the mayor of my village then went away without a word. The soldiers also departed, and I was left to watch the mighty city slowly vanish into the pearly glow of early morning.

I was not sorry to leave it behind. I had never known it well. I had come as a captive and I was leaving as one, and my life had been spent within the cocoons of Hui’s house and then the harem. Even the thought of my baby did not conjure regret. That would come later. For the present I sat, ate and slept on a thin pallet under a wide canopy, and for the rest of the time I was content to savour the breezes that caressed me, to hear with an almost overwhelming delight the slap of the Nile against the sides of the barge, to let my eyes explore the glory of a slowly passing vista I had never thought to see again.

I had nothing but the rough shift I wore. A few short months before, I would have been horrified at the prospect of venturing out without my litter, the soothing creams for sunburned skin, a parasol if I should decide to walk, sandals to protect my soft feet, some fruit if I should feel hungry, and of course the guards to keep away curious onlookers.

But now, as I crouched at the foot of the tall mast with the canopy flapping over my head, my hair whipping in my unpainted eyes and my cheeks already reddening with the sun, I experienced a surge of freedom such as I had never known. The chains chafed my delicate ankles where once there had been golden links. I eagerly and with conscious enjoyment ate the plain fare and drank the strong peasant beer placed on the deck for me twice a day, and washed with reverence in the tiny bowl brought to me each dawn. At night I lay watching the stars sparkle in the immensity of the sky while the sailors sang and laughed and the mast above me seemed to reach up and up and spear the brilliant points of light themselves. I had returned from the dead. I had stood on the edge of the chasm of nothingness and had been reclaimed. I could savour life as no other.

We churned past the entrance to the Fayum in the dark, and though I knew it was there I did not sit up to see the channel wind away towards the home I had never inhabited, the fields whose bounty I would never see. I had not been allowed to make any dictations, but Amunnakht had promised to see that the Overseer and his men were paid before the estate passed into other hands. I felt a deep sadness when I remembered how Ramses had surprised me with the deed and how we had journeyed there to see it. My fields had not betrayed me. They had faithfully and obediently yielded their fruits. It was I who had let them down and I grieved quietly while the Fayum dropped away behind me and the dry air of the south began to stir in my nostrils.

Eight days later at noon the barge dropped its two anchors in the middle of the river opposite Aswat. The craft was too large to negotiate the shallows but the captain lowered a small raft and poled me, still in chains, to the bank. The heat was unremitting at that hour. The stiff palms I remembered with a jolt, the configurations of the growth that overhung the muddy water, the haze of white dust hanging in the burning air, all incandescent in the increasing fire of Shemu, reached out to draw me back into their timeless embrace.

As I stumbled up onto the sand beside the small bay where my mother and the other women washed their clothes, the village itself came into view. It was smaller than I remembered, its houses merely mud boxes, its square that I had thought so vast nothing but an uneven patch of earth. Dirty and impoverished, I saw it for the first time as I saw myself, sturdy, strong, indomitable, surviving the vagaries of rulers and the depredations of war with its roots sunk deep into the soil and its nourishment the hallowed traditions of antiquity. I had expected to find an end, but Aswat greeted me with mute promise.

My mother, father and brother were standing on the edge of the square, together with the mayor. The Keeper had sent a message to them and doubtless, in the way of the village, the word of the barge’s approach had spread long before it had appeared. They did not speak and I did not look at them as the captain struck off my chains. The flesh of my ankles and wrists had been rubbed raw. My face was red and peeling from the now unaccustomed exposure to the sun I had endured. When the man had finished, he thrust the scroll my guard had given him at the little group, picked up the chains, and waded back into the river. It was done.

No one spoke. A lizard skittered across the square and flicked into the thin shade of a bush. I saw movement within several of the doorways and I knew that though my father had probably requested the other villagers to let me disembark in peace, they were watching me from the shelter of their houses. I looked at him. His face was etched with deep lines that the sun had hammered home and his hair was greying, but his eyes were as clear and warm as ever. “Welcome back, Thu,” he said. As if his words had broken a dam, my mother stepped forward.

“You have forever disgraced this family,” she said in a low voice. “You are a wicked girl, and I can hardly hold up my head with my neighbours because of you. Even if I wanted to take you back as my assistant, the other women will not let you near them for fear you might do them harm. How could you? Did I not raise you well?” She would have gone on, but my father silenced her abruptly.

“This is not the time for recriminations,” he said. “We must hear the Good God’s instructions regarding Thu’s future, then we will take her in out of the heat.” I glanced at Pa-ari. He had neither moved nor spoken. The mayor was pursing his lips officiously. Then he blushed and passed the scroll to Pa-ari. I noticed that my brother’s hand was shaking as he began to read it aloud.

“To the honourable mayor of Aswat and the High Priest of the God Wepwawet, greetings. The following dispositions shall be made of the criminal Thu. She shall regard herself as an exile from the whole of Egypt but for the village of Aswat. Such men of the village who are willing shall build for her a hut against the wall of the temple of Wepwawet and she shall live there, earning her living by performing such tasks as the priests of Wepwawet shall assign to her. She shall not own any land, jewellery, a boat, or any goods other than those the priests deem necessary for the sustaining of her life. She shall not be allowed to possess any herbs or medicines, nor may she treat any illnesses or diseases within the area of her exile. She shall go barefoot at all times. Once a year the High Priest of Wepwawet shall dictate to me a scroll describing her state. It is to be remembered that she is still a possession of the Horus Throne, and as such may not be betrothed or engage in any sexual relationship with any man other than Pharaoh himself. She may swim in the Nile whenever she wishes, and she may cultivate a garden for her own use and for the ease of her ka.” Pa-ari let the scroll roll up and handed it back to the mayor. “It is signed by Pharaoh himself,” he said. Then he stepped forward and enfolded me in his arms. “I love you, Thu,” he said. “There is lentil stew and Mother’s beer waiting for you. It could all be worse. The gods have been kind.” Yes, they had been kind. They had chosen to forget me after all. And as I held Pa-ari’s hand and walked with him across the village square I suddenly realized that in one month I could celebrate my birth. I would be seventeen years old.

My father and Pa-ari built a two-roomed house for me in the shadow of Wepwawet’s wall and I took up residence there, going every day into the temple to sweep or clean, to carry away baskets of priestly linen which I would wash in the river, and sometimes to take such mundane dictation as an inventory of the god’s utensils or lists of supplies to be sent for from Thebes. I dug and planted a garden. Dutifully I visited my mother, although she remained ashamed to acknowledge me and I was always careful not to appear at her door when she was entertaining her friends. My father often came to sit at my door and talk, or drink the foul beer I made. He had fashioned a cot, a table and a chair for me and I had woven for myself two sheaths to wear, a covering for the cot and two cushions. I had begged dishes from the priests. Other than those simple things I was destitute.

Isis had produced a girl, a daughter for Pa-ari. I did not see as much of him as I would have liked even though we both worked in the temple, for his world was bounded by his new family and I was on its periphery, but sometimes he would appear at sunset and we would talk of the old days, of our childhood. Only once I told him of my life in the harem and of the terrible thing I had done, and I did not mention how Hui and the others had used me. It was not shame that held me back. Sometimes I grew afraid that Hui would send an assassin to kill me because of all I knew, and I did not want Pa-ari to be a victim also.

When I had been in Aswat for six months I began to think of my son. My life in the village was so divorced from everything I had known in the Delta that for a long time the harem and the palace and all that had passed there seemed like a particularly vivid dream, but gradually Pentauru regained his reality and my heart ached for him. I spent much time wondering how he was. Were the members of the merchant’s family treating him well? Was it possible that one so young could retain any memories of his true mother, perhaps flashes of her face? Would a certain perfume bring back to him an unease, a feeling of discontent that seemed to have no root in his present? Would the sparkle of light on a gem, the flutter of fine white linen, bring a sadness brimming into his heart? Had Ramses forgotten him altogether, or did his thoughts sometimes stray to his beautiful, fractious concubine and the child he had fathered on her?

I no longer felt beautiful. My hands became rough and calloused. My feet, forbidden any protection from the elements, grew splayed and hard. No kohl surrounded my eyes, only a fan of tiny lines as I squinted day after day against the sun, and my hair lost its sheen and softness and grew brittle. Yet for many months I was content to revel in the sheer miracle of my continued existence. Though I worked like the lowest harem servant, though the villagers at best ignored me and at worst threw dung at me for marking their village as the place from which a murderess had sprung, I was happy.

I took to wandering in the desert during the night hours while the village and the temple slept. I would rest for a while after sunset, and then I would creep out behind my hut to where the cultivation ended and the sand began. There I would tear off my sheath and run naked under the moon until I had exhausted myself, shouting and laughing, drunk with my isolation and the exhilaration of the endless horizon that stretched, stark and starlit, for as far as I could see.

Stripped of everything, I remembered the moment when waiting for word that Pharaoh was dead I had almost succumbed to the peculiar urge to walk away, out of the harem, out of the city, until I came to the desert where I could begin my life again, innocent and free. That urge had been satisfied. Dancing with the cold, shifting sand under my bare toes I was indeed innocent. I was free.

And I began to wonder what was happening in the palace. Was Pharaoh quietly pursuing his investigations into the lives of the names I had given him? Were his men watching the plotters as they hatched a new scheme? Would I ever have the satisfaction of seeing Hui’s smug, cold world dismembered?

Then Ramses would remember me. Then he would send to Aswat. He might even come himself. His Herald would approach my hut. I would be invited aboard the royal barge but of course I could not go in such a state, so Ramses would send his serving women to bathe and oil me, massage soothing creams into my poor feet and abused hands, dress my hair and paint my face, clothe me in shimmering linen and put precious gems about my neck and arms. Then, with new sandals on my feet, surrounded by an aura of saffron, protected by a sunshade, I would leave the hut and walk proudly, so proudly, to Wepwawet’s watersteps and up the ramp into my lover’s embrace.

Until then I will continue to play the dutiful servant of the servants of my totem. I will continue to dance alone at night among the dunes of the desert. And I will continue to write this, the story of my rise and fall, in secret, on papyrus I am able to steal from the temple storehouse. When I am finished, who knows? I may give it into Pa-ari’s keeping as a legacy, so that one day it may find its way to my son. Or I may entrust it to one of the royal Heralds who ply the river on the business of the crown and it may appear on Pharaoh’s desk some bright summer morning. The future is a perilous adventure, after all. Who knows?

THE END