House of Illusions (3 page)

I should have been content. I was on my way home to my family and my betrothed, Takhuru. I had successfully completed my first military assignment. I was healthy and vigorous, rich and intelligent. Yet, as I lay there, a restless sadness began to steal over me. I turned over in the sand, closing my eyes, but the earth beneath me seemed harder than usual, grinding against my hip and shoulder. I heard my soldier pace close and then stroll away. I turned again, but it was no good. My mind stayed alert.

I got up, strapped on my sword, and stepped through the trees onto the river road. It was deserted, a ribbon of greyness running through a shrouding of palms and acacia. I hesitated but had no real desire to see the village, which would differ little from a thousand others fronting the Nile from the Delta to the Cataracts of the south. I turned right, feeling increasingly insubstantial as the dark outline of the temple appeared limned in moonlight and the palm fronds above me whispered their dry night song. The water in the canal was black and motionless. I stood on its paved edge for a moment, staring down at my own featureless pale reflection. I did not want to go back to the river. I swung left and walked beside the temple wall. All at once I was skirting a ramshackle hut that leaned against the rear of the temple and before me the desert opened out, rolling in moondrenched waves to the horizon. A line of palms marking the edge of Aswat’s fragile cultivated land meandered away on my left, such a weak bastion holding back the sand, and all of it dim yet stark in the all-pervading streams of moonlight.

I did not notice her at first, not until she emerged from the deep shadow of a dune and glided across the ground. Naked, arms raised, head thrown back, I took her to be one of the dead whose tombs are untended and who wander the night desiring revenge on the living. But she was dancing with such vitality that my thrill of terror vanished. Her straining, flexing body seemed the colour of the moon himself, blue-white, and the cloud of her hair was a patch of blackness moving with her. I knew I should retire, knew I was witnessing a very private ecstasy, but I was rooted to my place by the savage harmony of the scene. The immensity of the desert, the cold flooding of moonlight, the passionate homage or expiation or act of intense pleasure the woman was performing, held me spellbound.

I did not realize the dance was over until she suddenly stood still, raised both fists to the sky, and then seemed to go limp. I could see dejection in the slump of her shoulders as she walked towards me, bent down to retrieve a piece of clothing, and came on more quickly. All at once I knew I was about to be discovered. Hurriedly I swung away but my foot hitched against a loose stone and I stumbled, falling against the rough wall of the hut in whose shadow I had been hiding. I must have grunted with the instant pain in my elbow for she halted, wrapping herself in the linen she was carrying and calling out, “Pa-ari, is that you?” I was caught. Cursing under my breath, I stepped out under the moon to come face to face with the madwoman. In the un-light surrounding us her eyes were colourless, but her lines were unmistakeable. Sweat glimmered on her neck and trickled down her temple. Strands of wet hair stuck to her forehead. She was panting lightly, her chest rising and falling under the two hands clasping the cloak to her. I had not surprised her for long. Already her features were composed.

“So it is Kamen, junior officer,” she said breathily. “Kamen the spy, neglecting his duties to guard the illustrious Royal Herald May who is doubtless snoring in blissful ignorance aboard his safe little boat. Have they begun to teach young recruits at the military academy in Pi-Ramses how to spy on innocent women, Kamen?”

“Certainly not!” I retorted, confused by what I had seen and angered by her tone. “And since when do decent Egyptian women dance naked under the moon unless they are …”

“Are what?” she countered. Her breathing was returning to normal. “Insane? Mad? Oh I know what they all think. But this,” she waved at the hut, “is my home. This,” she jerked her head, “is my desert. And that is my moon. I am not afraid of prying eyes. I harm no one.”

“Is the moon your totem then?” I asked, already ashamed of my outburst, and she laughed grimly.

“No. The moon has been my undoing. I dance in defiance under Thoth’s rays. Does that make me mad, young Kamen?”

“I do not know, Lady.”

“You called me Lady once before this night. That was kind. I did have a title once. Do you believe me?” I looked full into her shadowed face.

“No.”

She grinned and a brief glint of some internal fever in her eyes gave me a stab of superstitious fear, but then I felt her fingers, warm and commanding, on my arm. “You have grazed your elbow. Sit down. Wait here.” I did as I was told, and she disappeared into the hut, returning almost immediately with a clay pot. Sinking beside me she prised off the lid, took my elbow, and gently smeared a salve on the small wound. “Honey and ground myrrh,” she explained. “The wound should not infect, but if it does, soak it in the juice of willow leaves.”

“How do you know of these things?”

“I was once a physician, a very long time ago,” she answered simply. “I am forbidden to practise my craft any more. I steal the myrrh from the temple stores for my own use.”

“Forbidden? Why?”

“Because I tried to poison the King.”

Disappointed, I looked across at her. She was sitting with her knees hunched and her arms encircling them, her gaze on the desert. I did not want this strange, this eccentric creature to be insane. I wanted her to be in her right mind so that I might add another dimension, unpredictable and exciting yet legitimate, to my knowledge of life. Predict-ability had protected me through all my growing years. I had enjoyed the security of predictable meals, predictable schooling, predictable affection from my family, predictable feast days of the gods. My predictable betrothal to Takhuru, daughter of established wealth, was planned and expected. Even this assignment had brought no adventure, only predictable duties and discomforts. Nothing had prepared me for quixotic women who dance frenziedly under the moon in peasant villages, but insanity would render this new dimension illegitimate, an aberration of a sane society best ignored and then forgotten. “I do not believe you,” I said. “I live in Pi-Ramses. My father knows many nobles. I have never heard of such a thing.”

“Of course not. Very few knew of it at the time and besides, it was years ago. How old are you, Kamen?”

“Sixteen.”

“Sixteen.” She stirred and put out a hand. The gesture was irresolute and oddly pathetic. “It was sixteen years ago that I loved the King, and tried to kill him, and had a son. I was only seventeen myself. Somewhere in Egypt my son lies sleeping, knowing nothing of who he really is, from what seed he has sprung. Or perhaps he is dead. I try not to think about him too much. The pain is too great.” She turned and smiled at me sweetly. “But why should you believe me, the crazy Aswat devil? Sometimes I have difficulty believing it all myself, particularly when I am swabbing the temple floor before Ra has shaken himself to rise. Tell me about yourself, Kamen. Is your life pleasant? Have your dreams begun to come true? Whom do you serve in the city?”

I knew that I should return to the river. My soldier’s watch would soon be over. He would be waiting for me to relieve him and besides, what if some emergency had arisen on the boat? Yet the woman held me. It was not her now obvious insanity. Sadly I had to agree with my Herald’s assessment of that. Nor was it the contradictions she presented, though I found them intriguing. She was something new, something that troubled and yet soothed my ka. I began to tell her of my family, of our estate in Pi-Ramses, of my battles with my father who wanted me to become a merchant like himself, and of my eventual triumph and admittance to the military academy attached to the palace. “I intend to obtain a posting to the eastern border when I have been promoted to senior officer,” I finished, “but until then I am under the command of the General Paiis who keeps me guarding …” I got no further. With an exclamation she grasped my shoulder.

“Paiis! Paiis? That worm of Apophis! That granary rat! I found him attractive once. That was before …” She was struggling for control. Deftly I removed her hand from my shoulder. It had gone cold. “Is he still handsome and charming? Do princesses still plot to share his bed?” She began to beat at the sand. “Where is your pity, Wepwawet? I have paid and paid for my deeds. I have fought to forget, to abandon hope, and now you send me this!” Clumsily she scrambled up and ran past me, and I had only just got to my feet when she returned clutching a box. Her whole body was shaking as she thrust it at me. Her eyes were fierce. “Listen to me without prejudice please, please, Kamen! I beg you for the sake of my ka, take this box to the house of Paiis! But do not give it to Paiis himself. He would destroy it or worse. Place it into the hands of one of the King’s men who surely must come and go under your eye. Ask that it be delivered to Ramses himself. Make up any story you like. Tell the truth if you like. But not to Paiis! Think what you wish of me, but if there is any doubt in your mind, any doubt at all, help me! It is a small thing to do, is it not? Pharaoh is besieged with petitions every day. Please!”

My hand went to my sword with the instinctive reaction of my training. But I had been taught how to hold off hostile men, not obstinate women with only the most slender control over their minds. My fingers alighted on the hilt and rested there. “I am not the one to ask,” I objected, keeping my voice calm. “I cannot approach such people as freely as you might think, and if I make your request to one of my father’s friends, he will want to assure himself of its validity before risking loss of face before the One. Why have you not taken your box to Aswat’s mayor to be included in his correspondence to the governor of this nome, and through the governor to Pharaoh’s Vizier? Why do you trouble the Heralds, none of whom will ever help you?”

“I am an outcast here,” she said loudly. I could see that she was striving to appear reasonable, but her body was rigid and her voice was uneven. “I am a daughter of Aswat but to my neighbours I am a source of shame and they shun me. The mayor has refused me many times. The villagers make sure that my words are not heard by denying my story to those who might help me. They do not want the scab torn off the wound of their humiliation. So I remain the madwoman, an irritant they can explain honourably, instead of an exiled murderess trying to obtain pardon.” She shrugged. “Even my brother, Pa-ari, though he loves me, will do nothing. His sense of justice would be outraged if the King at last bent a sympathetic ear to me. No one will risk his position, let alone his life, for me.” Holding the box in both hands, she pressed it gently against my chest and looked full into my face. “Will you?”

I heartily wished myself a hundred miles away, for pity, the one emotion sure to drain all strength from a man, had woken in me. Perhaps if I took the box the madness of her obsession would decline. I had only the faintest idea of what it must be like for her to make her way month after month, year after year, to the riverbank to face the ridicule of the men she was forced to approach, their dismissals, the contempt or worse, the compassion, in their eyes. I hoped she could not read my own. If I took the box, she would be relieved of that burden. I could throw it overboard. No word would come to her from the palace, of course, but she would be comforted by the thought that the King had simply chosen to continue her banishment, and peace might come to her. Such a deceit was unworthy of an officer in the King’s service, but were not my intentions kind? Guiltily I sighed and nodded, my hands, as I lifted them to receive the box, sliding over hers as she stepped away. “I will take it,” I said, “but you must surely not expect any answer from the King.” A great smile spread across her face and she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.

“Oh but I do,” she whispered, her breath warm against my skin. “Ramses is an old man, and old men begin to spend much time reliving the passions of their youth. He will answer me. Thank you, Officer Kamen. May Wepwawet protect and guide you on my behalf.” Drawing the cloak more tightly around her she walked away, disappearing into the shadow of the hut, and I tucked the damnable thing under my arm and began to run back towards the river. I felt like a traitor, but I was already furious at my lack of will. I should have turned her down. “Well it is your own fault for allowing the moon to bewitch you,” I berated myself as I stumbled through the trees. “Now what are you going to do?” For I did not think I was callous enough to fling the box into the Nile. When I reached my sleeping place, I hid it under my blanket, then hurried to relieve my soldier and spent the hours until dawn miserably pacing out the bounds of my watch.

While the sailors were preparing a morning meal, I stood in the inner court of the temple listening to a bleary-eyed priest chant the early salutations to the god. I could not see the form of my totem through the half-open door of the sanctuary. His servant blocked my view. Inhaling the thin streams of newly lighted incense that twisted towards me on the morning air and performing my prostrations, I strove to concentrate on the prayers I had wanted to say, but my thoughts refused to clear and the words stumbled over my tongue. By the time the merciless light of Ra had slipped fully over the horizon, I had finished rebuking myself for my weakness in allowing a mere peasant woman to manipulate my will and had decided to give the box back to her. I was angry with myself, but even more angry with her for foisting the responsibility of dealing with the thing onto me. If I kept it, the hard decisions would be mine and I knew I was too honest to simply drop it overboard and let the Nile receive its weight. As I knelt and stood, knelt and murmured my petitions with an absent heart, I kept glancing about the court in the hope of seeing the woman, but she did not appear.

The priest concluded his worship and the sanctuary doors were closed. With a cursory smile in my direction he disappeared into one of the small rooms that fronted the court, his two young acolytes scurrying after him, and I was alone. The box sat on the paving beside me, mutely accusing, a demanding orphan. Snatching it up, I hurried through to the outer court, jammed my sandals back on my feet and ran across the forecourt and around to the tiny shack that clung to the temple’s rear wall. As I opened my mouth to call, I realized that I did not even know the woman’s name. Nevertheless I raised my voice in a greeting and waited, aware that the sailors would be completing their final check of the boat and my Herald would be anxious to cast off. “Oh damn her!” I muttered under my breath. “And damn me for being a soft fool.” Calling again I pushed tentatively against the woven reed mat that passed for a door. It gave, and I was peering into the dimness of a small room whose floor was packed dirt and whose walls were bare. A thin mattress covered a low wooden cot that was surprisingly well constructed, the patina of its smooth legs and sturdy frame gleaming expensively in the relative poverty of its surroundings. The table beside it and the stool at its foot, though simple, were also obviously the work of a craftsman. A crude clay lamp lay on the floor. The hut was empty, and I could not wait. Briefly I considered placing the box on the cot and fleeing but discarded the idea, not without another curse, as unworthy of me. Letting the reed mat fall closed behind me, I swung back towards the river.