The Phantom and the Fisherman (6 page)

“But really it is for Menes and Ahmose to decide. You are theirs to deal with as they please. If they want you chopped into fifty pieces and thrown to the crocodiles then that is what I will order.”

The fat teacher looked at the boys, his red eyes puffed and pitiful. “It would hurt.”

Menes looked at Ahmose then up at Payneshi the judge. “Spare him,” Menes said quietly. “He’s really taught us a lot – he’s a very good scribe but not a very good man – and he’s been punished. He’s lost his treasure.”

Payneshi blinked. “It’s
my
treasure.”

“Sorry,” Menes said quickly. “Spare him. Let him go back to teaching us … but take his beating sticks away.”

Payneshi said, “A wise young man and a generous one.”

“Very generous,” Meshwesh whined.

“But I can be generous too,” Payneshi said. “I am giving you half of all the treasure that Meshwesh stole. It is your reward.”

And so Menes walked from the palace a rich young man.

“What will you buy?” his mother asked him when he reached home.

“A boat for Dad,” he said.

“I should think so too,” his father grumbled. “You owe it to me.”

Mother threw her head back and laughed. “You stole his strong beer. He loves strong spirits. We got to the festival and he took a drink. All he tasted was weak beer. He nearly choked.”

“Ah,” Menes said wisely. “Just like the phantom who drank it – he thought he was a strong spirit too!”

Afterword

Scribes had to be experts at Egyptian picture-writing – hieroglyphics. We have to learn twenty-six letters in our alphabet. Scribes had to learn seven hundred signs.

So, school was hard and the teachers were strict. It seems schoolboys could be lazy and easily bored … just like today really. Teachers were told to beat boys because beating was the best way to make them work.

Once a boy had learned how to be a scribe he could have the best jobs in Egypt – in the king’s palace or in the temples. While peasants sweated in the fields the scribes had a comfortable and rich life. School was tough and sometimes painful – but it was worth it in the end.

The Egyptians believed in the spirit world. Evil forces were all around them. The best way to protect yourself from an evil spirit (or a ghost) was with a prayer. If that prayer was written down by a scribe then it was even more powerful. Of course a scribe would charge you for writing the spell.

Thieves like Meshwesh were often banished from their homes and sent away to try and survive in another town where they had no friends to help them.