House of Illusions (55 page)

Taking a cup from Isis in which the dark wine trembled, I raised it. “To my totem, Wepwawet, to the Great God Ramses, to his son the Hawk-in-the-Nest,” I said. “Life, Health and Prosperity to us all.” We drank together and then set upon the food, and I realized suddenly as I watched Kamen’s graceful fingers shredding a crisp piece of lettuce that I was happy, really happy, for the first time in many years.

For several hours we lounged on the cushions and talked without tension, Kamen of his youth, his military training, his growing love for Takhuru, his ambitions for the future, and myself of my days with the King. I did not wish to speak again of my own youth in Hui’s house or of the months of my exile in Aswat and Kamen, sensing my reluctance, did not press me. There were many jokes told and much laughter before he kissed my cheek and sought his blanket under the awning that had been rigged against the cabin wall outside and I settled down on the camp cot with Isis curled up on the cushions by the door.

When I woke, the Delta was behind us and we had just passed the pyramids that littered the high plateau on the west bank. The morning was cool and bright with promise. Standing blinking in the cabin’s doorway, I stared for a while at the dazzling blue sky against which the beige hills stood out as sharply as though their outlines had been traced with a knife. Closer in, a line of palm trees marked the river road. The Nile glinted, reflecting the hue of the sky, and at its edge where the reeds clustered, birds whistled and piped to the new day.

Isis knelt on the deck, an array of bowls and jars around her, setting out food. Across from me the oarsmen’s bent backs glistened with sweat as they pulled against the current, for we were going south and the river, although no longer swollen and rushing with the flood, was nevertheless full and flowing. Above me the yellow sail billowed in the prevailing wind out of the north, and the imperial colours of the flag ripped out at the top of the mast.

Kamen was leaning with his forearms on the rail. He was barefooted, clad only in a short white kilt, his hair blowing about his neck. He must have sensed my scrutiny for he turned and, seeing me, came striding across the deck. “You slept well,” he observed. “With only one night on the river you look better. Some of the strain has gone out of your face. Come and eat under the awning. The fare is much the same as before and I am sorry for that, but we are not travelling far and this evening you may taste hot victuals.” I followed him around the cabin to where the awning cast a wide shade, and settling myself on the cushions under it, I tried to reason where we might be going. Isis came, bowing and setting out the dishes, and I had an idea.

“Isis, try and find the scroll I received from the land surveyor,” I told her. “Bring it to me. I will guess our destination,” I went on, turning to Kamen. “Everything for sale is on that list. If we are not going far, I should be able to tell you where my new home is to be. But Kamen, estates this close to the Delta are prized and very expensive. Most of them are hereditary anyway. To whom do I owe my silver? And I am angry that I have not been allowed to make this choice myself.” I picked up the beer Isis had poured for me, took a long drink, and bit into a piece of cheese.

“I have told you,” he answered with indulgent deliberation. “You must trust me. If you are not delighted with what has been done for you I will take you back to Men’s house and we can pore over this list of yours.”

“Well at least we do not appear to be going as far as Aswat,” I muttered. “This vessel is not fitted for such a long haul.”

I took the scroll Isis extended and unrolled it. The surveyor had grouped the properties according to the districts in which they lay. I ignored everything south of the Fayum. We had already sailed beyond several places listed, and in the Fayum itself, nothing was available. I was not surprised. The oasis was lush and beautiful, rich in orchards and vineyards, its soil black and fertile. Royalty owned much of it and the rest was tended by the stewards of the nobility.

“It must be somewhere between the entrance to the Fayum and where we are now,” I remarked, handing the scroll to Kamen. “Only two estates qualify, and one does not run down to the river. Therefore it must be the other.” Kamen took the papyrus but let it roll up without looking at it and handed it back. He squinted at me, grinning.

“You are an intelligent woman,” he taunted me. “If you can tell me where we are going, I will personally dig in your garden for a full year.”

“Then you must be very confident that I will not arrive at the truth,” I said, and laughed, but I was genuinely mystified and occupied my mind with trying to solve the puzzle for the rest of the day.

We docked briefly in the evening, putting in at a narrow, sandy bay so that the sailors could rest. They built a fire on the bank and swam and later sat in the glow of the embers, drinking beer and talking together. Kamen joined them.

I sat on the deck in the peaceful twilight, cradling my wine and listening to my son’s intermittent, lusty laughter, feeling a harmony grow between my body and my heart that had never been present before. I seemed to be at one not only with myself but with my surroundings, blending thought and emotion into the scent of the cedar planks beneath me, the soft lapping sounds of the river against the shoal and the rustle of shy creatures in the underbrush, the white stars above, irregularly blotted out by the stiff black fronds of the palms. I had become accustomed to the constant background noises of life in the harem. Even at night, when the women and their children and their servants fell silent, the city would make itself known as a distant rumble.

But I had been bred to the land. It was in my very bones and tonight its call came flooding over me, whispering and cajoling. In my youth I had been desperate to escape the life of hard labour and inevitable ignorance that prematurely aged the other young girls in Aswat. I had succeeded, but I had not exorcised the spell of the soil itself. I no longer wanted to. I had become a noble, the Lady Thu, well educated and rich, but like so many other minor nobles living on their country estates far from Pi-Ramses I was also a provincial with one hennaed foot in the muddy earth of the Inundation. I was at peace. I would accept whatever house and land my son had purchased on my behalf and retire into a blessed anonymity.

Just before I retired for the remainder of the night, Kamen came back on board and I saw the ramp being drawn up behind him. “We will go on,” he said. “I want you to sleep, Mother, and in the morning you must stay in the cabin until I come for you. Isis can see to your needs. Put on your most sumptuous clothing and the best jewels you have. Make sure she paints you meticulously. You are beautiful, but I want you to look irresistible.”

“I am not going to meet a lover, Kamen,” I said crossly. “And you should not be giving me orders like a bullying husband. Will a few arouras of land care how I am arrayed?” Something in his manner had made me suddenly uneasy.

“You must make a good impression on your new Steward,” he insisted. “He is a very able man but temperamental. You must gain his admiration at once or you will be forced to terminate his employment.”

“In my time I have dazzled a king and bested the most beautiful concubines in the harem!” I said hotly. “And now I am reduced to strutting before a mere Steward? I do not think so, Captain!”

“Please, Mother,” he begged softly. I did not reply. I rolled my eyes, shrugged, and went into the cabin, twitching the curtains closed behind me.

For a while I lay listening to the low voices of the sailors as they manoeuvred us out into the river once more. I felt the craft falter and quiver in the moment when the current tried to drag it northward but the dipped oars strove to pull towards the south, then it slid forward. Isis, dozing on the cushions, sighed and shifted her position. My eyes closed. I had intended to stay awake, to try and sense where we were going in the speed and direction of the vessel, but its movement and the rhythmic sound of the oars rising and falling lulled me and I slept after all.

I knew before I even opened my eyes the following morning that we had berthed somewhere. The boat rocked gently. No one was calling a beat for the oarsmen. Pearly light was seeping through the tasselled curtains of the cabin. It was very early. The din of the dawn chorus was still filling the air; therefore, I concluded, we must be close to many trees. A fragrance came to me, very faint but unmistakeable, the scent of orchard blossoms and the delicate tang of vine leaves. We have returned to the Delta, I thought in shock. Oh surely not! It cannot be!

I left the cot and stood, intending to tear open the curtains and look out no matter what Kamen wanted me to do, but at that moment Isis entered bearing a bowl of hot water. Before I could catch a glimpse of what lay beyond, she pulled the drapery closed again, smiled a greeting, and came to remove my sleeping shift. “Where are we, Isis?” I demanded. Her hands did not falter as they drew the garment over my head.

“I am sorry, Lady Thu, but I am not permitted to tell you,” she said calmly. “Your son told me that he would have me whipped if I did.”

“Such impertinence!” I snapped. “You are my servant not his. This had better be the last time you disobey me.” She was trickling the water over me and reaching for the natron.

“Yes, Lady,” she said humbly. “I am sorry. What sheath shall I fetch today?”

I submitted to her hands more willingly than I would have admitted. I was less annoyed than curious, and after my body and my hair were washed and I had been plucked and oiled and scraped, I did not attempt to see out when she left me to bring my clothes. Let Kamen have his fun. I would pretend surprise and delight no matter what sight met my eyes when he came for me.

Isis seemed to be overcome by the solemnity of the occasion. Her touch was reverential as she draped me in the white and silver sheath, heavy with tiny golden ankhs, and hung the filigreed silver pectoral around my neck. I wanted her to braid my hair, but she ignored my request, combing it loose and setting on my brow a wide silver coronet surmounted with an ankh from whose arms hung tiny feathers of Ma’at. She had kohled my eyes and hennaed my mouth, touched me with myrrh, and was slipping jewelled sandals on my feet when Kamen pushed through the curtain and surveyed her handiwork. All that was left were the gold rings to slide onto my fingers when the henna had dried on my palms. “Very good, Isis,” Kamen said after eyeing me critically. “Now, Mother, command her to go and bring the two scrolls Pharaoh dictated for you.” Isis glanced at me and I nodded. When she had gone, I rose.

“My son,” I said quietly. “I love you, but I have played your puppet long enough. I want the truth.” He inclined his head, and coming up to me, he took my face between his hands. His eyes were warm.

“Oh, my mother,” he murmured. “Do you know how proud I am to be your son? Or how happy this moment makes me? I have marvelled often at the strange workings of fate, but never with more astonishment than here in this cabin where you shine like the goddess Hathor herself.” He dropped his arms as Isis came back, and at a second nod from me, she gave Kamen the scrolls. Breaking the seals on them both, he read them quickly. “This one,” he said, passing it to me. “But come outside before you look at it.” He held the curtain open. With a deep breath I brushed by him.

The bright waters of the lake of the Fayum opened out before my eyes, spreading away to be lost in the distance where the encircling hills met the sky. Pleasure craft already skimmed its surface, white sails shaking in the morning breeze, white foam breaking in their wake. Its verge was dotted with watersteps, gleaming bone-white in the sparkling sunlight, the paths leading to them from the low houses lost in a riot of luxuriant vegetation. Blossoms blown from the thick orchards floated across my vision. Palm groves swayed. “But, Kamen,” I stammered. “There are no estates for sale in the Fayum.”

“No,” he said quietly, taking my fingers in his own. “Turn around, Mother. Look behind you.” Dread took me then, an awful, powerful surge of fear and foreknowledge and disbelief so that even as I was turning I knew what I would see and my heart began to pound and my breath stopped in my throat.

It lay as I remembered it, the pretty watersteps against which we were tethered, the paved way through arching trees, the high shrubs to either side protecting it from the fields themselves and the two temples that flanked them. I could see the clustering pomegranates and sycamores that sheltered the house itself, so thick that the strip of desert beyond was invisible. I knew where the date grove lay, and the orchard and the vineyard. I knew that the lines of tall palm trees marked the irrigation canals that had brought life to my fields.

My fields. My ten arouras, deeded to me so long ago. Many times I had wondered painfully whose feet were treading the path, whose voice called to the Overseer over the burgeoning crops, whose hands cupped the clusters of grapes at harvest time. I pulled my fingers from Kamen’s grasp, and stumbling across the deck, I clung to the rail. “I do not understand,” I whispered. “Help me, Kamen.” He came up beside me and put an arm around my shoulders.

“When I was given to Men as a baby, Pharaoh deeded ten arouras of khato land in the Fayum to him in exchange for his promise of secrecy,” he said. “The house was in disrepair but the previous owner had had the fields cleared and had planted a barley crop, chick peas, some garlic. It was a good estate. Father had the house restored and the outdoor shrine and other outbuildings repaired. It became our second home. Every Akhet we came here to swim and fish. I always loved it, from the first time I set foot on these watersteps. I grew up here. I did not know, none of us knew, that it had once belonged to a famous concubine who had fallen from favour and into obscurity.” He put a finger under my chin and lifted my face. “Do not cry, Mother. You will ruin your paint and Isis will have to start all over again.”

“Go on,” I managed.

“After the trial the Prince summoned Men. Pharaoh wished this estate to revert to you. He offered Men an alternative, something on the Nile at the mouth of the Fayum. To his credit, Men agreed. We have moved out, Thu. The house has been furnished from the palace storehouses on Pharaoh’s command. I think he loved you very much.” Kamen waved. “It is yours. The original deed is in your hand.”