Читать книгу Out of the Black Land - Kerry Greenwood - Страница 22

I occupied the remainder of the day by instructing my new scribes, ordering more wine for Mentu's visits, and inspecting the chest full of beautiful cloths. As a Great Royal Scribe, I could wear what I chose and I did not like much decoration. It smacked of ostentation. I was therefore considering the difference between creamy linen with a thin gold border and a starkly white one when Meryt announced, 'Someone's coming - someone with a lot of attendants - sit in your chair, Master, take your writing board, tell your scribes to instruct you in something; it's the King Akhnamen may he live!'

I did as she bade me, throwing myself into my chair and grabbing a plaster board. Hanufer stood beside me and read the complaint from the temple of Osiris that the Nomarch of Heliopolis was reducing his offerings - just as Mentu had said. It was a long wait, and I had time to give him orders to send an investigator to the Nomarch and suggest that he hand over the ingot-shavings to the temple or suffer an afterlife spent inside the Great Snake, Apep. What sort of idiot risks his Eternity for a minor quarrel?

Khety, on my other side, had time to begin a summary of the preparations for the feast of Hathor-at-Dendera - she goes to Horus-of-Edfu at the end of Ephipi and there are always problems with public order - when the King finally arrived, flanked by two soldiers.

He stood in the doorway as we registered his presence and threw ourselves to the floor. I crawled forward to kiss his sandal and he signalled to me to rise by brushing his fly-whisk across my shoulder.

'You have only a small staff,' he commented, flicking the whisk at Khety and Hanufer. Meryt stayed where she was until one of the soldiers, shoving her with his foot, said, 'Fetch wine' and she rose and slid away.

'Lord of the Two Lands, more are expected, but not many more.'

'And you have appointed Mentu as your second. Do you believe that he will be of assistance?'

'Lord, I believe that he may be of great assistance.'

I did not specify as to how he might assist me, and it was always difficult to discern how much the Lord Akhnamen understood. I had dared to raise my eyes to his face. He was smooth and well tended, this younger son of the King. His eyes were strange, unfocussed, a dreamer's eyes, a visionary's. I never knew how to read them. Was he pleased with his selection from the School of Scribes? Was he about to order me back to obscurity? Hope rose in my breast. I could go then and find the Captain Horemheb and rejoin my own dear friend Kheperren.

'What have you found out? You gave your scribe an order. What was it?' he asked Hanufer directly.

Hanufer was not over-awed. He stood up straight, smoothed down his cloth, took his ostracon and repeated my order, word for word including the comment about the afterlife, as emotionlessly as though he was reading a laundry list. I held my breath. The King laughed and sat down in my chair.

'I think I may have chosen well,' he commented, accepting a cup of wine from Meryt's hand, after the soldier had tasted it and nodded to her to continue. 'You have everything you need? No one has offered you affront?'

I shook my head.

'And you have a guardian,' he commented, glancing at Anubis who was sitting as still as a stone hound by the door.

'Yes, Lord, I have.'

'That should preserve you from any annoyance,' he murmured ambiguously. 'I understand that you have been summoned to dine with the Chief Priest at Karnak tonight.'

'I have, Lord. Is it your will that I should attend?'

'Mmm...' he was thinking. 'Who is your god, boy?'

'Amen-Re,' I replied, surprised. Everyone's god was Amen-Re, the Sun.

'You come from the Nome of the Black Bull, do you not? Have you a special devotion to Apis or Osiris?'

'No more than usual, Lord of the Two Thrones.'

'Be careful,' he advised me. 'Yes, you must attend, of course; even I must attend on him if the High Priest summons me. But he will suspect you, Ptah-hotep, because you are young and because I selected you instead of an old man with whom that same High Priest had an understanding.

'My father the Divine Amenhotep says that the priests of Amen-Re are becoming too bold, too powerful and too rich. I am minded to mend this situation, but not yet. I am thinking of a new city.'

'A new city, Lord?' I was following his train of thought as well as I could, but logic was not helping. I decided to just follow this fascinating breeze wherever it went.

'I will speak of it again. I have been given permission by my father to move from Thebes to a new place, clean, unstained by other worship. On the left bank of the river, at Amarna,' he said, waiting for my shocked reaction.

The left bank was reserved for Houses of Eternity, the cities of the dead, but I made no comment. If Pharaoh wanted to build a city in a tomb, who was I to argue? I nodded. The King rose.

'Attend on me early in the morning tomorrow,' he ordered. We all flung ourselves to the floor again, and he was gone.

Anubis, by the door, gave a faint growl and a long considering sniff. The King had, indeed, smelt powerfully of spikenard, and perhaps that offended my hound's sensitive nose.

We had barely recovered from the royal visit when another Divine Personage deigned to enter and we were back on the floor again. Fortunately Meryt had ordered it swept and sprinkled or I might have betrayed my dignity with a sneeze.

'Rise, rise,' said a slightly impatient female voice, and I came up nose-to-hem with the Chantress of the Temple of Neith, the Princess Sitamen, only daughter of Amenhotep and also his wife.

'You are Ptah-hotep,' she observed, motioning to Meryt to bring her a chair. 'Go on with your work, honoured scribes, I do not wish to interrupt you more than I must.'

Hanufer and Khety collected their wits, closed their mouths, which had gaped, and withdrew to the inner room. I was alone with one of the most powerful women in the Kingdom, and one of the most beautiful.

The Princess Sitamen was slim and strong, with wide shoulders and long legs. It was said that she did not wish to wed at all, and had accepted a marriage with her father with relief, as she could not thereafter be pressured to accept another mate. She loved to run, ride, dance and swim, lived with her maidens in seclusion, and was seldom seen at palace functions or feasts. Her charities were legendary. She had endowed a school of priestesses for the temple of the Divine Huntress Neith, sister of Isis, out of her own fortune, telling her ladies, 'Melt down a few thousand bracelets, I do not wish to wear anything more decorative than my skin'. Or so it was said. She certainly wore nothing more than a scant cloth, no jewellery except her badges of rank, and plain sandals such as common people wear.

And her own skin was very decorative. She glowed with health, though she was bronzed with weather, unlike the pale ladies of the palace.

'I am here on my mother's errand,' she began briskly. 'Her labour began an hour ago, but she does not forget promises. I need a scribe for the Royal Daughter Mutnodjme and a little Great Royal Wife called Merope, a barbarian princess. My mother suggests a young man, because they are both inquisitive and mischievous maidens, and would disconcert anyone older. Unless you can think of an older man who has a flexible mind?'

'I have never met one,' I confessed. 'I am honoured by the Great Royal Lady's trust. I will find her a suitable scribe. I will appoint someone, or I will come myself.'

'Good.' She had discharged her errand but she did not seem to be thinking of leaving. Her maidens had arranged themselves around her on the floor and Meryt had already sent a slave to fetch more wine and cold water. In future we would have to keep a greater store of provisions in the office. There was room enough in the empty rooms at the back.

'I saw that my brother was with you,' she commented.

'Yes, lady, he has just left.'

'Many will wonder at your appointment, Ptah-hotep.'

'Lady, they will. I am very young and I have no experience of this work, but I will learn. I will justify the trust which Pharaoh Akhnamen may he live has shown in me.'

'My father,' began the Princess, then abandoned the train of thought. 'No, of course, you cannot approach my father. But should you be able - indirectly, of course - to talk to him, his words are to be cherished. The Divine Amenhotep's reputation for wisdom is not exaggerated.'

'Certainly not, Lady of the Two Lands. Every wise man quotes his words.'

'Thank you,' she accepted a cup of watered wine from Meryt. Hanufer and Khety, abandoning any pretence of work, had joined the maidens and were handing round wine-vessels. The Lady Sitamen did not seem to object to their presence, so I did not frown them back to their places.

'The Lady Sitamen seeks a scribe to teach two young Royal Daughters,' I said to them. 'She needs an inquiring mind this on the orders of Queen Tiye, may she live. Have you any suggestions?'

'From the School, Lord Ptah-hotep?' asked Hanufer, who liked to have the rules explained before he started.

'There, or anywhere,' I replied.

I occupied my eyes with gazing at the Princess' maidens. They were very like her. They were scantily clad in undecorated cloth, they looked coloured by the sun if not precisely weathered, and they looked muscular and competent. One was wearing an archer's bracer and several carried knives. I would not have liked to approach the Princess Sitamen Great Royal Wife of Amenhotep may he live with mayhem in mind. The attendants of the lady looked capable of mincing any attacker long before he got within striking range. And they looked, to my mind, as if they might enjoy it.

However, Anubis, a war-dog, had sunk down onto his belly and seemed pleased by their company. Evidently they had no unpleasant fate in mind for me.

''Hotep, what about Khons?' asked Khety, who still had not become used to our elevation in status. I stared haughtily at him, until he registered the glare and amended his mode of address. 'I mean, my lord Ptah-hotep, Great Royal Scribe may you live, would you consider Khons for the honour?'

It was a good idea. Khons was young, he was bored, and his back bore the marks of the master's displeasure at his endless questioning. He was supposed to go into the Priesthood of Amen- Re but they had rejected him, and he was presently considering the fact that the only temple that wished to have him was the home of the unfashionable Khnum the Potter at Hermopolis - a soggy and uncomfortable place where half the population died young of marsh-borne diseases. His only other option was to return to his village and be a market-scribe; an honourable occupation, but possibly even more tedious than the temple of Khnum. And he was a commoner's son, as I was myself, and it pleased me to think of him instructing the Princesses.

'Will he do?' asked the Lady, arching an eyebrow.

'He will, with your royal approval,' I replied.

'Then you may forgive your scribe for forgetting your honorifics, as he is very young and he is sorry,' she said; and Khety grinned with relief. Had I wished, I could have had him beaten with rods for such insolence.

'Write an order for the Master of Scribes,' I directed. 'Send him Ptah-hotep's compliments and beg him to donate another student to the palace. Tell Khons to report to me and I will conduct him to the Royal Ladies Mutnodjme and Merope.'

'Very good,' the Princess still did not move and I wondered what else she wanted. She came to some sort of decision and gestured her attendants away.

'Young men, show my young women the decorative features of your office,' she ordered, and Khety and Hanufer rose obediently to exhibit my painted walls and my precious statue of Thoth made of the hardest grey granite.

The Princess waited until they had gone out of easy earshot and said quietly, 'My brother took you from one you loved, Ptah- hotep, to make you Great Royal Scribe.'

Was this a trap? Did she want to find a lever, and therefore needed to confirm my love for Kheperren? He was safely away with the army. The princess did not try to hurry me. She listened to Hanufer explaining at length the symbolism of Thoth being both the Ibis and the Ape, and waited.

'Yes, there was one I loved.'

'You sent him away?'

'Lady,' I agreed.

'That was wise, for you are surrounded by enemies. My brother's action has plunged you into a pit of snakes. But I know how it is to be threatened by the nature of one's love, Ptah-hotep, more than my brother or my father ever knew. That is why my father married me, to preserve my life and the way I live it. But you will have to marry.'

'Lady, in time.' I was not sure of this Divine Princess, or her purposes.

She sighed in exasperation. 'You have no reason to trust me, Ptah-hotep, but you may. So I will say this, if you are assailed, if your only love is in danger, send or come to me. I have a palace of my own where no enemy enters - or if they do, they do not remain. By gift of my wise father, may he live forever, I have position and power and I will protect you. In one respect, Great Royal Scribe, we are as sister and brother.'

I knew what she meant. She was right. She was also putting herself in peril to so speak to me, and was being astoundingly generous.

I slipped from my kneeling stance into a full 'kiss-earth' and laid my forehead on her workaday sandal. 'I am the Divine Lady's slave,' I said with a heart full of gratitude 'And lie at the Divine Lady's feet.'