House of Illusions (20 page)

As I looked at him, it was brought home to me that the assassin was only a tool. Paiis himself was the impulse that moved the tool, his the original force that set the instrument in motion. I did not think that he hated the woman, or me either for that matter. His motive was not tangled with emotion; in fact, I believe that he liked me a great deal. His was a decision of self-preservation. He had seen a potential danger. He had carefully calculated the need for and degree of involvement. And then he had acted. All talents necessary in a senior military commander. Thu had said that he would try again. Looking into those eyes that gave nothing away, I knew that she was right.

He grimaced and leaned back, and the moment of appraisal had passed. “I am sure that you acquitted yourself as well as could be expected,” he said crisply. “I may say that I am puzzled by the behaviour of the mercenary and I will of course investigate his odd disappearance. Do you think he met with some misadventure?” I did my best to look taken aback. I was, I reflected, becoming a very good actor.

“Misadventure?” I repeated. “Oh I do not think so, General. What misadventure could have befallen him on such a mundane assignment? I must say that I neither liked nor trusted him. He kept himself secluded in the cabin and would speak to no one for days. I suspect that he simply felt the call of the desert once we had left the more populated areas and answered it without the sense of duty that would keep a more civilized man from abandoning his task. He is a desert dweller, is he not?” Paiis glanced at me sharply.

“I suppose that is obvious,” he said, “and I daresay we will not see him again. Tell me, Kamen, that box you brought to me. Did you open it?”

“No, my General. It would have been dishonourable to do so. Besides, since the woman is adjudged insane, I did not think there would be anything interesting inside it. Those knots were remarkably intricate. I could not have retied them.” Now he smiled.

“How comforting is a sense of honour,” he murmured. “A man with such an apprehension of what is right need make no difficult decisions. Ma’at has made them for him. You are dismissed, Kamen, but before you go, I should warn you that your time of service in my house is coming to an end. You have guarded me well but we both need a change. You will return to officers’ school for further training and reassignment.”

A dozen thoughts sped through my mind. He has just now decided this. He has not believed a word I told him and will no longer feel safe with me pacing his halls at night. He will not take the chance that I did not read the manuscript and he wants me back in the barracks so that he can kill me at his leisure. A training-ground accident perhaps. He is going to use his influence to have me posted to Nubia or one of the eastern forts. With great effort I let none of these conjectures show on my face. I saluted. “I am content in your service, General,” I said, “and I hope I have not displeased you in some way or my care of your household has been less than acceptable.”

“I have no complaints, Kamen,” he assured me, rising. “But you are a young man. You need to move on to something more challenging, something that will further develop your abilities. I will keep you under my eye, of course. I have a proprietary interest in you.” Now he grinned openly, with an impudent, boyish confidence, and I wanted to smash the smile from his face.

“Thank you, General,” I said. “You compliment me. I shall be sorry to leave your employ.” With that I turned smartly on my heel and left his office, my gut churning with both relief and rage.

As I strode along the path beside the water, I imagined myself in the presence of Pharaoh, my father. He had explained the reasons why he had thrown me away. He had not begged my forgiveness, for surely those reasons had been divinely correct, but he was looking down on me with loving indulgence as I knelt before him. “Is there anything I can do for you, Kamen?” he asked me kindly. “Some favour I may bestow?” “Yes,” I answer humbly but firmly. “You may deliver the General Paiis into my hands. He has done me a great wrong.” At that point I came to myself. A boatman passing on the Lake recognized me and called a cheerful greeting. I raised an arm in response then burst out laughing at the silly fantasy, at myself for my presumption, at Paiis for his arrogance. The outburst was a cleansing one and I answered our gate warden’s small bow and turned towards the entrance hall in a better frame of mind.

There were messages waiting for me from my family. My father had arrived safely in the Fayum having despatched the caravan and caught a boat north. He would spend a week seeing to the affairs of the estate with his Overseer, judging the state of the soil as the flood receded and deciding what crops should be planted, before escorting the women home. My mother and sisters had dictated long, gossipy letters so full of the flavour of their language that I could almost hear their voices as I read. I loved them all very much, but there were now too many secrets between my father and myself, and perhaps my mother also, and until they were removed, I would be on one side and my family on the other.

I sent Setau with word to Pa-Bast that I would be out for the evening meal. I had not seen Akhebset for some time and besides, I had a need to lose myself in the rough and tumble of the beer house. All of it, Paiis and the woman and my lineage and my fears, could wait until the morning to enfold me again. I would get drunk with my friend and forget it completely. Laying aside my weapons and uniform, I wrapped a short kilt about my waist, slipped a pair of old sandals on my feet, and catching up a cloak I left the house.

I drank a great deal of beer, but try as I might I could not wholly obliterate the memory of the last week. Its events and emotions, its tension and shocks, remained in my consciousness and throbbed faintly beneath the singing and raucous laughter. I told Akhebset that I was soon to leave the General’s house. I wanted to tell him more, to pour it all into his ear. We had known each other since the days of our initiation into the army, but I did not want to risk losing his friendship or put him in danger, however remote that possibility. So we quarrelled and diced and sang, but I walked home sober as the moon set, and I fell into an unsatisfied slumber.

I woke late feeling jaded and I lay on my couch for some time, watching Setau raise the window hangings and straighten up my room while the meal he had brought sent its tempting aroma into the air. I was in no hurry to rise. Having completed a long assignment, I was due the obligatory two days to myself, so I lay on my back in a shaft of strong sunlight, not hungry, until Setau said, “Are you ill this morning, Kamen? Or just being lazy?” At that I sat up and swung my feet onto the floor.

“Neither,” I replied. “Thank you, Setau, but I don’t want any food, just the water. I think I will swim, and then I want to see Kaha if he is not busy. Don’t bother to lay out anything for me. I can dress myself when I get back.” He nodded and took the laden tray away, and when he had gone I drained the jug of water he had left, slipped sandals on my feet, and made my way to the Lake.

The morning was clear and sparkling, pleasantly warm without a draining heat, and I slid beneath the surface of the gently lapping water with a sigh. For a while I simply hung suspended in the coolness, content to see the distorted blur of my limbs, pale in the limpid depths, and feel the sun on my head, then I began to swim. There was sanity in the rhythmic action, in the flow of liquid against my lips and the sound of my measured breaths. When I began to tire, I pulled myself onto the bank, and by the time I had walked through the garden I was dry again. In my room I wrapped a clean kilt about my waist, combed my hair, and went down into the hall, sending a passing servant for Kaha. I was entirely calm. I knew what I must do.

He came at once, his palette tucked under his arm, a smile on his lively face. “Good morning, Kamen,” he greeted me cheerfully. “Do you want to dictate a letter?”

“No,” I said. “I want you to help me search the scrolls in my father’s office. You know them all, Kaha. I could go through them myself but there are many years of records in there and it would take too long.”

“Your father always asks that the office remain closed while he is away,” Kaha responded thoughtfully. “I only deal with the correspondence that cannot wait until he returns. Is it an urgent matter?”

“Yes it is. And I assure you that I have no intention of disturbing his business affairs.”

“May I ask what you are looking for?” I regarded him reflectively for a moment, then decided that I might as well answer him honestly. He was my father’s loyal servant, and whether he agreed to assist me or not, he would feel bound to tell my father that I had delved into his accounts.

“I want to find a letter from the palace,” I said. “I know that Father has occasionally supplied the Overseer of the Royal Household with rare goods. I am not talking about such requests. This scroll will date from the year of my birth.” His gaze sharpened.

“I entered your father’s service three years after that,” he said. “Your father’s affairs were in order and I did not need to examine any earlier records. But of course there are boxes from those years.” He hesitated. “Kamen, I risk your father’s displeasure if I open his room for you,” he reminded me. “Yet I will do so if you can assure me that this matter is indeed of the gravest importance and does not concern something he has forbidden you to explore.”

In this case the literal truth is closer to a lie, I thought to myself swiftly, but if I tell Kaha the spirit of the injunction concerning the secrecy and not just the bare words of command, he will refuse to let me through that door. After all, Father did not forbid me to investigate my roots. He simply advised me to leave it all alone.

“It is indeed very important,” I told him. “I know my father’s order about the office, but it is vital that I find the scroll. I have not been forbidden to explore this matter, indeed I have been pursuing it diligently and have reached the point where I need to examine certain information Father has. It is unfortunate that he is not here to consult and I am in a hurry.” Kaha frowned, obviously indecisive. His long fingers rapped absently on the wood of his palette.

“Can you not tell me more?” he asked finally. “I want to help you, Kamen, but your father’s long-standing order is quite explicit.”

“You have free access to the office,” I argued. “You come and go. Could I not slip in with you while you are attending to the daily business and talk to you while you work?” He was weakening. I could see it in his eyes. Then he capitulated.

“I suppose so,” he said doubtfully. “You are indeed the drip of water that wears away the rock! But you will stand before your father when he returns and tell him of this matter?”

“He does not have to know,” I said as he turned away, cracking the dried wax that had been plastered across the sliding bolt of the office door. He slid back the bolt and walked in and I followed, closing the door behind me.

“Yes he does,” he retorted with his back to me. “If a man cannot trust his scribe, who can he trust?” He began to break the seal on several scrolls already lined up neatly on the desk’s surface and I went at once to the shelves.

Each box contained the records of the year whose number was painted in black ink on its end, facing me. Kaha was obsessively neat. “Year thirty-one of the King,” I read. That was last year. The shelf above it contained the boxes from the previous ten years beginning with “Year twenty of the King.” In that year I was six. My heartbeat sped up as I ran my fingers along the boxes on the next shelf up, the one that began with “Year ten of the King.” The dating on the first seven boxes was in a different hand from Kaha’s. I lifted down the one designated “Year fourteen of the King,” glancing at the scribe as I did so. His head was down over the scroll in his hands. Placing the box on the floor, I raised the lid.

“Make sure that you keep the scrolls in order,” Kaha said suddenly. He was still not looking at me. I did not reply. Quickly I scrutinized them, expecting at any moment to see the remains of the tell-tale royal seal, but it was not there. I went through them again. Nothing. I replaced that box and took the ones from the years before and after year fourteen, going through them with increasing agitation, but again there was nothing. Sliding them back on the shelf, I approached Kaha.

“It’s not there,” I said, aware that my voice sounded choked. “Not in the business records. Where are Father’s private papers kept?” Kaha pushed himself away from the desk.

“Enough!” he said crisply. “You know better than to even ask me that, Kamen. You will have to wait until he comes home.”

“But I can’t wait, Kaha,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

I walked around the desk, stood behind the scribe, and hooking my arm under his chin I grasped my wrist, imprisoning him. His head was forced back against my chest. “With one sharp twist I can break your neck,” I said. “You can tell my father how I threatened you and laid hands on you and forced you to give me what I want. Now where is his private box?” Kaha sat perfectly still in my grip. The hands in his lap were relaxed.

“Kill me if you like,” he said thickly, and I felt the movement of his throat against my forearm. “But I don’t think you will. You know what the consequences would be. This will do you no good, Kamen. It might be better to explain to me why you are so desperate.” With an exclamation I let him go and flung round the desk. Sinking onto the stool in front of it, I passed a hand over my face.

“I am trying to find out who my parents were,” I said. “I have good reason to believe that although my father denies it, he knows, and the scroll I seek will tell me all.”

“I see.” His stare was level and composed. I had not frightened him at all, indeed, I now felt foolish under the careful regard of those dark eyes. “Then surely, Kamen, if your father declines to give you the knowledge you seek, it is not my place to allow you to disobey him.”

“Kaha,” I said heavily, “I am no longer the child who used to play under this desk with his toys while you sat cross-legged beside it and took my father’s dictation. If you do not bring out the box I need, I will tear the office apart until I find it. I no longer care what my father might say. I am not afraid of him. And you have no authority over me.”