House of Illusions (2 page)

In truth I was curious to see inside the temple. The only link I had with my true parents was a small wooden statue of Wepwawet. It had stood on the table beside my bed for as long as I could remember. I had cuddled its smooth curves during the brief unhappinesses of childhood, paced furiously before it when my lamentably fiery temper was aroused, and fallen asleep night after night while watching the glow from my lamp illumine the God’s long wolf nose and pointed ears. I never felt fear with him beside me. I grew up with the fanciful belief that my first mother had appointed him to guard me and no danger, human or demonic, could reach me as long as Wepwawet stood gazing with his steady eyes into the dim recesses of my room. The craftsmanship was simple but sensitive, the hand that had formed the spear and sword the statue carried, that had carefully carved the hieroglyphs for “Opener of the Ways” across the God’s chest, had been devout as well as able, I felt sure. Who had made it? My adoptive mother did not know, and told me not to distress myself with fruitless fantasies. My father said that when I had been delivered to the house as a baby the statue had been wrapped together with me in the linen swathings. I doubted if either of my mysterious dead parents had actually put knife to wood themselves. High-ranking officers do not do the work of artisans and somehow I could not imagine a woman fashioning a God of War. Nor could I believe that the statue came from the poverty of Aswat. Montu was the Mightiest God of War, but Wepwawet was also venerated throughout Egypt, and in the end I had to sensibly presume that my dead father, a military man, had purchased the statue for his household shrine. Sometimes when I touched the God, I thought of those other hands, the hands that had made it, the hands of my father, the hands of my mother, and I imagined that I felt a flow of connectedness with them through the oiled patina of the wood. On this peaceful evening I had been given the unexpected opportunity to enter the house of the God and pray to him in his own domain. I skirted the end of the canal, walked across the tiny forecourt, and passed under the pylon.

The outer court was already full of evening shadows, its paving blocks dim beneath my feet, the unadorned pillars on either side shrouded in the coming darkness but for their crowns which still glowed in the last light of the sun. As I approached the double doors leading to the inner court, I stooped down, unlatched my sandals, removed them, and was raising a hand to pass through when a voice stopped me.

“The doors are locked.”

Startled, I turned. A woman had emerged from the shelter of one of the pillars and was in the act of lowering a bucket onto its pediment. She tossed a rag after it, put a hand to the small of her back, stretched, then came towards me, her step brisk. “The officiating priest locks the doors to the inner court at sunset,” she went on. “It’s the custom here. Few villagers come to worship during the night. They work too hard during the day.” She spoke off-handedly, as though she had made the same explanation many times and was only partially aware of me, yet I found myself looking at her carefully. Her accent held nothing of the harsh, slurred speech of Egypt’s peasants. It was clipped, precise and well modulated. But her bare feet were rough and splayed, her hands coarse, the nails broken and grimed. She was dressed in the formless garb of the female fellahin, a thick shift falling to the knees and secured with a length of hemp, and hemp also held back her wiry black hair. Her deeply brown face was dominated by a pair of clear, intelligent eyes whose colour, I realized with a shock, was a translucent light blue. Meeting them, I was immediately tempted to drop my gaze and the urge annoyed me. I was a junior officer of the King’s city. I did not give way before peasants.

“I see,” I replied more abruptly than I had intended, switching my attention to the inoffensive temple doors with what I hoped was a casual authority. “Then find me a priest to unlock the doors. I am guarding a Royal Herald. We are passing through your village on our way home to the Delta and I wish to perform my devotions to my totem while I have the opportunity.” She did not bow and back away as I had expected; indeed, she moved closer to me, and those peculiar eyes narrowed.

“Really?” she said sharply. “What is the Herald’s name?”

“His name is May,” I offered, and saw the sudden interest die from her face. “Will you fetch a priest?”

She scanned me, taking in the regulation-issue sandals in my hand, the leather belt from which hung my short sword, the linen helmet on my head and the armband denoting my rank that hugged my upper arm and of which I was so proud. I could have sworn that in that moment she had correctly assessed my position, my age and the limits of my power to command her. “I do not think so,” she said smoothly. “He is enjoying his evening meal in his cell and I do not wish to disturb him. Have you brought a gift for Wepwawet?” I shook my head. “Then it would be better to come back at dawn, before you set sail, and say your prayers when the priest begins his duties.” She turned as if to leave but swung back. “I am a servant to the servants of the God,” she explained. “Therefore I cannot open the doors for you. But I can bring you refreshments, beer and cakes or perhaps a meal. It is also my duty to see to the needs of those who journey in the service of Pharaoh. Where are you moored?” I thanked her, told her where our craft rested, and then watched her pick up the bucket and walk away through the gloom. She carried herself as regally as my older sister who had been trained in correct deportment by our nurse, a woman lured into our employ from the harem of the King himself, and I was left staring after her straight spine with a vague feeling of inferiority. Annoyed, I put on my sandals and made my way back to the boat.

I found my Herald sitting on his camp stool moodily staring into the flames of the fire the sailors had kindled. They themselves squatted in the sand a little way off, talking quietly. Our craft was now a bulk of darkness against a fading sky, and the water rippling gently against its hull had lost all colour. He glanced up as I approached.

“I suppose there’s no chance of a decent meal in this forsaken hole,” he greeted me wearily. “I could send one of the sailors to the mayor and demand something but the prospect of being surrounded by gawking villagers is too much tonight. Our supplies are running low. We will have to make do with flatbread and dried figs.” I crouched beside him and turned my face to the fire. He would eat and retire to sleep in the cabin of the boat, but I and the one soldier under me would rotate watches while he snored. I too was tired of indifferent food, hours spent in boredom and discomfort on the river, too many nights of broken sleep, but I was still young enough to be excited by my duties and proud of the responsibility that had me yawning and leaning on my spear in the small hours when nothing stirred but wind in the sparse trees along the Nile and overhead the constellations blazed.

“We will be home in a few days,” I answered. “At least the journey has been uneventful. In the temple I met a woman who is bringing us beer and food.”

“Oh,” he responded. “What did she look like?” The question took me aback.

“She was as anonymous as any other peasant but she had unusual blue eyes. Why do you ask, Lord?” He gave a snort of annoyance.

“Every Royal Herald plying the river knows about her,” he said. “The light-eyed crazy one. We try not to stop here, but if we must, we do our best to stay hidden. She works for the temple, but under the pretext of hospitality she pesters us to deliver a package to Pharaoh. I have met her before. Why do you think I was so anxious to bypass this mudhole?”

“A package?” I asked, intrigued. “What is in it?” He shrugged.

“She says that it is the story of her life, that once she knew the Great One, who exiled her here for some crime or other and if only he will read what she has written he will forgive her and lift the banishment. What she has written!” he finished scornfully. “I doubt if she can even scratch her name in the dirt! I should have warned you, Kamen, but it is a small damage done. She will annoy us briefly, but we will at least enjoy a meal.”

“So no one has actually seen inside the package?” I pressed.

“Of course not. I told you, she is insane. No Herald would risk embarrassment by carrying out such a request. And put away any romantic notions you may have, young man. Peasants in stories told by nurses may end up in the presence of the Lord of All Life, but in reality they are dull, stupid animals fit for nothing but raising crops and tending the herds they resemble.”

“She has an educated accent,” I ventured, not sure why I was defending her, and he laughed.

“She has acquired it through years of annoying her betters who have been luckless enough to encounter her,” he retorted. “Do not be kind to her or she will importune you all the more. The priests who employ her should control her behaviour. Soon no one at all will want to stop at Aswat, to trade or worship or hire workmen. She may be harmless but she is as irritating as a cloud of flies. Did she mention hot soup?”

Full dark had fallen by the time she came to us almost soundlessly, appearing out of the dense shadows and pacing into the flickering orange light of the fire like some barbaric priestess, her hair, now freed from the hemp, rioting about her head and waving on her breast. She had changed her shift, I noticed, but the one she now wore was no less crude than the garment in which she had been washing the temple floor, and she was still bare-footed. She bore a tray which she set ceremoniously before us on the collapsible table my Herald had called for earlier from the boat. Bowing to him, she then lifted the lid from a pot and proceeded to ladle a savory-smelling soup into two smaller bowls. Beside them were dishes of fresh barley bread and date cakes and, best of all, a flagon of beer. Her movements were graceful and delicate. She offered the soup first to the Herald and then to me with head bowed, both hands around each bowl, and as we began to spoon up the admittedly delicious broth, she poured the beer and unfolded two spotless linen squares which she placed carefully and unobtrusively on our naked knees. Stepping back, she stood with her arms at her sides as we demolished the food, coming forward only to refill our cups or remove the empty plates, and I wondered as I ate if perhaps she had been a servant in the home of some local dignitary, or if the Chief Priest of Wepwawet, a peasant himself but of necessity more highly educated than his neighbours, had taught her how to behave. At last the dishes were piled on the tray and covered with the now soiled linen and my Herald sighed and shifted on his stool.

“Thank you,” he said gruffly and, I thought, grudgingly. At his words the woman smiled. Her mouth parted to reveal even white teeth that glinted briefly in the light of the fire and I realized suddenly that she was beautiful. The dimness hid her chafed hands, the fine lines around those strange eyes, the dull dryness of her wild hair, and I stared at her boldly for a moment. Her gaze rested on me, then returned to my Lord.

“We have met before, Royal Herald May,” she said softly. “You and your entourage put in here last year when your skiff was holed. What news from the Delta?”

“No news,” May replied stiffly. “I am returning to Pi-Ramses from the south. I have been away for several weeks.” Her smile widened.

“And of course momentous events may have taken place in the north of which you are unaware,” she chided him with mock solemnity. “Therefore you can give me no news. Or is it that you do not wish to encourage me in conversation? I have fed you, Royal Herald May. In return, could I not sit here in the sand and enjoy your company for a while?” She did not wait for permission. Sliding to the earth, she crossed her legs and settled her shift across her lap, and I was reminded of how the scribe in my father’s household would sink to the floor and use just such gestures to place his palette on his knees in order to take the dictation.

“I have nothing to say to you, woman!” May snapped. “The food was very welcome and for that I have already thanked you. There is nothing happening in Pi-Ramses that could be of the slightest interest to someone such as yourself, I assure you.”

“I have embarrassed him,” she said, turning her face to me. “This mighty Herald. I embarrass them all, the important men who hurry up and down the river and curse when they are flung upon the barren shore at Aswat because they know that I will immediately seek them out. It does not seem to occur to them that I might embarrass myself in the process. But you, young officer with the handsome dark eyes, I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before. What is your name?”

“I am Kamen,” I answered her, with a rush of unworthy fear that she was about to make her insane request to me. I cast a sidelong glance at my Herald.

“Kamen,” she repeated. “Spirit of Men. Might I suppose that Men is your father’s name?”

“You might,” I said tersely. “And I might suppose that you are making fun of me. I too thank you for the food, but my duty is the care of this Herald and he is tired.” I rose. “Be pleased to take your dishes and retire.” At once she also scrambled to her feet, much to my relief, and picked up her tray, but I was not to be reprieved so easily.

“I have a favour to ask of you, officer Kamen,” she said, “a package to be delivered to the King. I am poor and cannot afford to pay. Will you take it for me?” Oh gods, I thought in exasperation. I felt shame for her as I shook my head.

“I am sorry, Lady, but I do not have access to the palace,” I replied and she sighed and turned away.

“I expected nothing more,” she called back over her shoulder. “What has Egypt come to, when the powerful will not hearken to the pleas of the destitute? It is no use asking you, Herald May, for you have refused me before. Sleep well!” Her scornful laughter trailed after her and then there was silence.

“Witless creature!” my Lord said curtly. “Set your watch, Kamen.” He strode off in the direction of the boat, and I signalled to my soldier and began to fling sand onto the fire. The food was souring in my belly.

I chose the second watch, gave my soldier the perimeters of his patrol, and retired with my blanket under the trees, but I could not sleep. The murmur of the sailors’ voices slowly died away. No sound came from the village and only an occasional muted splash revealed the presence of the river as some nocturnal animal went about its quiet business. The sky above me, latticed by branches, pulsed with stars.