Scroll Of Saqqara Part 2

Khaemwaset sat back, trying to quell his annoyance at his father's manipulations, his selfish desire to be back in his office in Memphis, his impatience with everything that separated him from his slowly growing academic preoccupations. I am turning into an irascible old man, he told himself, hearing the sounds of marching feet and the sudden harsh bark of a commander from beyond the north wall of the precinct, where the huge military barracks and training ground ran down to the Lake of the Residence. There was a time when the demands of the palace and temple were important to me, when I gladly put my duty to my father before all else, but now they are irksome and I wish only to be allowed to labour over my legacy to Egypt, my crypt for the holy Apis bulls and my larger duty of restoration, without interference from that wily old man. Why? He moved restlessly, seeing but not seeing the idle groups of white-clad courtiers in their transparent linens go down before his progress like wind-shaken boughs of blossom, dappled in shade from the cl.u.s.tering trees before Pharaoh's mighty House. There was no answer to his private question, and it only served to intensify his nervous mood. The words "getting old" revolved sardonically in his mind.

They had come to a halt. Nubnofret was peering in at him. "Khaemwaset, are you asleep already?" she asked, and he blinked into her handsome, exquisitely painted face, aware all at once of the cleavage between her heavy, yellow-draped b.r.e.a.s.t.s as she bent towards him. Grunting, he stepped out of the litter, Nubnofret beside him, Hori behind, and they began to ascend the wide steps that took them almost at once into the cool, pleasing gloom cast by the palm-headed columns, soaring to be lost high above.

Ramses' palace, as complex and bewildering as a city in itself, had been built by his father Seti the First, and enlarged by the son into its present state of breathtaking opulence. Its facade, under the awesome pillars, was of turquoise tiles close-set with lapis to form a gleaming network of dark and light blue. Its floors and walls were glazed tiles set with intricate designs of the Delta's myriad plant and animal life, or were dazzling white plaster splashed with bright colours. The doors, requiring two men to open and close them, sent a lingering aroma of expensive Lebanon cedar throughout the hundreds of rooms, and were chased and inlaid with electrum and silver or plated with beaten gold.

Flowers were everywhere-strewn underfoot, cl.u.s.tered around the walls, garlanding pillars and people alike in an eternal spring. A man could become lost in its gleaming vastness for days, and Ramses was careful to provide slaves whose job was simply to guide and direct visitors and guests through the endless halls. Its libraries-the House of Life, where maps, official weights and measures, sky charts and dream keys were stored, and where all scientific work was done, and the House of Books, holding all archives-were famous throughout the world and always thronged with scholars of every nationality. Its feasts, its musicians and dancers, were equally notorious for the sheer exotic abundance of the food, the expertise of the music makers, and the beauty and grace of the dancers.

At its heart sat Ramses King of Kings, Son of Amun, Son of Set, wealthy beyond the dreams of most of his subjects, omnipotent and aloof, the Living G.o.d of the only country in the world that really mattered. Khaemwaset, striding behind the echoing voice of Ramose still calling his warning, was impelled once again into a grudging admiration for the House. He knew his way around it very well, having been raised here, and no longer regarded it as the magical miracle he had when a child, for he knew the pyramiding weight of minute organization that kept its flowers fresh, its food abundant and its servants always on hand, but its concept never failed to win his wonder.

Ramose had at last halted before two looming silver doors flanked by seated G.o.ds almost as high as the cross-beam. Amun with his feathers gazed serenely back along the polished corridor, while on the left a granite Set glowered down on the party, his long wolfish nose aggressively raised. Khaemwaset gestured and the doors swung inward onto a wide, pillar-forested floor of turquoise pieces that cast a soft blue glow over the interior. The family walked into it and the doors were reverently closed.

Nubnofret moved at once. "I shall freshen myself and then pay my respects to the Empress and the Chief Royal Wife," she told Khaemwaset. "You will know where I am if you need me. I do hope they have not scented my water with that strong attar they used last time. I cannot stand the smell and I did tell them, but doubtless they have forgotten ..." She planted a kiss on Khaemwaset's neck, still talking, and disappeared into her own rooms with her retinue. Kasa and Ib, already present, waited.

"What will you do?" Khaemwaset asked Hori. The young man smiled, his face breaking into the creases that quickened the hearts of every woman in the court, and his translucent kohl-rimmed eyes narrowed.

"I shall go to the stables and look over the horses," he answered his father, "and then Antef and I will see who we can find to share a few cups of wine with. Can I go to dinner with Grandfather tonight?"

"Of course. Just make sure that if you get drunk there are at least two of my soldiers to escort you back to your apartments. I will see you later, Hori."

He watched for a moment as his son swung back through the hall, his strong brown legs and white kilt tinged with the steady glow of the turquoise floor, then turned to Ib. "Is the food ready?" The man nodded. "Then let us go within and I will eat briefly before I sleep." His doors were flung wide and he pa.s.sed into the place that had been his second home for more years than he cared to remember.

First there was a small and functional room given over to business and working receptions. It had once been a place of entertainment when he was much younger and definitely more frivolous, but now it exuded the stern atmosphere of labour and was scrupulously tidy. Beyond it were his sleeping quarters with a huge, lion-footed couch, golden censers standing before the shrine of Amun, an ivory-topped table and ebony-inlaid chairs. The aroma of steaming food mingled pleasantly with an undercurrent of fresh beeswax.

Khaemwaset liked the room but for the fact that voices echoed faintly, so that he felt he might be sleeping in a temple. But the whole of Pi-Ramses is a temple, he thought as he sank to the floor on a cus.h.i.+on and Ib drew a tiny table close to him. A temple to my father's G.o.dhead, a burst of sustained praise for his military exploits, his infallibility. The bread was still warm from Pharaoh's mighty kitchens. "It has all been tasted," Ib commented. Khaemwaset set to with a will. Later he lowered himself onto the yielding mattress of his couch, pulled the smooth sheet to his chin and fell asleep without reflection.

Four hours later, freshly washed and clad in the long robe of a vizier, he was welcoming the kingdom's Chief Treasurer, the High Priest of Amun and the chief of all temple scribes, and listening patiently to their monotonous figures regarding the apportionment of taxes to the G.o.ds, both foreign and indigenous. Before long the officials were wrangling over which temples deserved the greater subsidies, and with an inward sigh and a surrept.i.tious glance at the waterclock Khaemwaset settled down to arbitrate their demands as tactfully as he could. The task was important, for the slighting of a foreign G.o.d could result in a diplomatic incident, and he did his best to give it his full attention, but he was relieved when at last his decisions were accepted and he was able to send the men away after a few moments of general conversation and wine sipping.

Walking through into his sleeping quarters he took a few grains of incense, lit the charcoal in the tall censer stand and sprinkled the myrrh onto the glowing blackness. Immediately a harsh, sweetish-grey smoke began to plume upwards. Khaemwaset opened the doors of the shrine, prostrated himself before Amun's benign smile and, lying on the cool tiles, he began to pray.

At first his words were part of the formal evening litany spoken each night far away in Thebes, where Amun towered in the heart of the temple of Karnak and ruled that city as he had done for centuries, but before long the solemn lilt of ritual gave way to a few stumbling personal pleas, and then silence. Khaemwaset lay with eyes screwed shut, aware of the solid resistance of the floor at his knees, his thighs, his elbows, breathing in a minute film of dust and the smell of beeswax.

Amun, something is wrong with me, he half thought, half prayed. I do not know what it is, indeed, the stirrings of discontent and something else, something alien and alarming, are so faint in the deep recesses of my ka that I wonder if I am not mistaken. Is it the beginning of disease? Do I need a purge, a week of fasting, an elixir? Is it a lack of proper exercise? He remained very still while he probed himself. A reluctant distaste for his father, the palace, the showy arrogance of Pi-Ramses, the paper-shuffling important ministers, began to spread like the fiery rash on the little dancer's body, and he let it grow. I am the greatest magician and physician in Egypt, he thought again bitterly, yet I am held in awe only because I in turn hold the reins of government in these hands, these hands that dig, that search, that would willingly relinquish the dry, dumb details of administration if they could hold just once the Scroll of Thoth, the key to all power and all life. Sometimes I think that I would even relinquish my ka itself for the opportunity to possess the two spells the Scroll is said to contain. One spell gives the power of bodily resurrection to the one who legitimately speaks it, and the other gives him the ability to understand the language of everything living under the sun. I command all people in the kingdom save my father, but I do not command the birds, the animals ... or the dead. I am aging, my ways are becoming increasingly set, and I am afraid. I am running out of time while somewhere far down in the earth or entombed in rock or lying on the breast of a magician who was mightier than I are the words that would make me the most powerful man Egypt has ever known.

He groaned and sat up, crossing his legs, his eyes on Amun's gold sandals. Once the quest was like a game, a young man's ideal, full of excitement and pregnant with strong possibility. I played with it happily while I was learning medicine, beginning a family, working with my father, sure that I was the most favoured man in the world and the Scroll would fall into my lap as a gift from the admiring G.o.ds. Then I began my great labour of restoration and exploration and the game became the underlying cause of everything I did, a dark, constant pulse of waning hope and mounting frustration that gradually ceased to be a game. For seventeen years I have searched. I have grown mighty in knowledge but I have not found it.

His back had begun to ache, and he scrambled to his feet and stretched, reaching down to close the shrine. Thoth, G.o.d of the wisdom I wors.h.i.+p, he thought angrily, why do you deny me this thing? I am the only man worthy of possessing it, yet you hide it from me as though I were an ignorant peasant who would do it harm.

The room seemed cold to him. Walking to the water-clock he watched the slow drip and realized that the hour was late. Nevertheless he was restless. s.n.a.t.c.hing up a woollen cloak he went out, and, ordering the guards on his door to follow, he took the long walk through the quiet palace to the House of Books. The librarian was dozing just inside the huge double doors. He woke, and seeing who it was, made his obeisance and allowed Khaemwaset to pa.s.s.

For a further two hours Khaemwaset wandered the rows of neatly catalogued scrolls, pulling out one here, one there, exchanging brief words with the few scholars who preferred study to sleep. But the touch of old papyrus did not rea.s.sure him tonight as it usually did, and the contents seemed to him as dry and lifeless as the atmosphere in the library.

He left abruptly, intending to try and rest, for he knew tomorrow would be full, but at the door to his apartments he paused. He could hear Hori's voice coming with a crack of yellow light further down the hallway, and Antef answering. On impulse, Khaemwaset turned left and approached his wife's rooms. The guard at her door saluted and knocked for him, and presently Wernuro appeared, bleary-eyed and tousled, and bowed. "Is your mistress still awake?" Khaemwaset asked tersely.

"Why no, Highness," the woman answered, suppressing a yawn. "The Princess retired over an hour ago."

Again Khaemwaset hesitated, then he pushed into Nubnofret's reception room. One lamp burned on a table in the corner but it was sufficient to show him the welter of cus.h.i.+ons, cosmetic boxes, wilting flowers and discarded wine cups that told him she had spent a pleasant evening with friends and had, for once, uncharacteristically, allowed the no doubt exhausted servants to leave the mess until morning. "Thank you, Wernuro," he said. "Go to sleep out here. I will wake you when I leave."

Wernuro acknowledged him, but he was already picking his way to the farther door. The servant had left it ajar. Beyond, in the larger room, Nubnofret lay mounded in sheets on her couch. Khaemwaset could see the slow rise and fall of her breathing. The air was sweet with the tang of the cl.u.s.tered apple blossoms someone had set in a vase on the table beside her. It acted on him strangely as he moved softly to the couch and perched on the edge, conjuring every spring journey he had made to Pharaoh's city and, mingled with that, a cascade of ancient emotions long dormant, belonging to his boyhood and youth when he had been resident in the palace "Nubnofret," he whispered. "Are you awake?"

His answer was a mutter. Nubnofret turned over, and as she did so the sheet slipped to her waist. Her sleeping robe was very thin, and Khaemwaset's gaze became rivetted on the large, now flaccid b.r.e.a.s.t.s beneath with their dark aureoles and permanently raised nipples. Her warmth and the odour of her body rose to him as he sat there, s.h.i.+vering slightly and drawing the cloak more tightly around his shoulders. Her hair, now fingered through with grey streaks, lay in a welter upon her pillows, and in repose her face was smooth and calm.

Khaemwaset thought of the early days of their marriage when they had made love often, sometimes more in an effort to get to know each other than in pa.s.sion, but it had been good. Neither of us could be called spontaneous people, he mused, but sometimes a joyfulness overtook us and we sought each other out like children rus.h.i.+ng to play. Does she remember, I wonder, and does she wish that we were once more as close, or does she relish her many duties and look back on those days as part of a youth now thankfully gone? She knows that I rarely bother my concubines. Does she ever lie on her couch at home and long for my body? We still make love, but formally, the scratching of an occasional itch. Oh Nubnofret, ripe and stern, where has the time gone? His impulse had evaporated. As he rose she stirred and mumbled something and he turned back, but she was still asleep. He sent Wernuro back to her corner and returned to his own quarters.

In the morning he had himself dressed, jewelled and painted with care, and taking Amek, Ramose and Ib he went to visit his mother. Astnofert still retained the t.i.tle of Empress bestowed on her when Ramses' favourite for twenty years, the glorious Nefertari, had died. Nefertari had been Ramses' full sister, and thus Khaemwaset's aunt, but Astnofert was a half-sister. At fifty-nine years old she no longer stood beside her husband as a reigning queen for she was bedridden. Ramses had also married his daughter by her, Khaemwaset's younger sister Bint-Anath, who had been Chief Royal Wife for the last ten years and who at thirty-six bore an uncanny resemblance to the dead Nefertari. Another queen, Meryet-amun, daughter of Nefertari, shared her father's bed, but all Ramses' affection went to Bint-Anath. Khaemwaset hated her Semitic name but liked her, for she was alert and intelligent as well as being ridiculously beautiful. He did not meet her often, and they did not correspond, but their few encounters were always affectionate.

Khaemwaset watched for her as he and his retinue, with Ramose calling the warning, walked sedately through the palace to the women's quarters where Astnofert lay in solitary splendour. Though he caught a glimpse of Meryetamun, her haughty profile gliding by surrounded by guards and twittering female courtiers, his sister was not evident. At the entrance to the women's quarters he left Amek and Ramose and went on with Ib.

His mother's suite was not far into the harem. It opened out beyond the customary sheltering doors of the long pa.s.sage into four rooms of magnificent size and luxurious appointment. The fourth room, smaller and more intimate than the others, led straight onto a covered walk and then the harem gardens. Astnofert liked to be carried to a couch there during the day so that she could lie and watch the movement of the wind in the trees and the activity of the women who filled the gra.s.s with their pastimes, gossiped away their sometimes tedious days and held their often drunken parties in the timeless heat of summer nights.

It was here that Khaemwaset found her, a grey-haired, thin lady propped up on pillows, her yellowing, unpainted face turned to the bright flow of sunlight beside her. In a corner of the room a harpist was rippling out a plaintive melody, and at Khaemwaset's approach a servant began to gather up the cones and spools of the sennet game she had been playing with the Empress. Astnofert's head came round in greeting, and in spite of her physical debility the gesture was still full of the grace and regality that had made her a famous beauty in the days of her youth. She smiled with difficulty, and Khaemwaset bent to kiss first her withered hand and then her lips.

"So, Khaemwaset," she said, the words hard and precise as she laboured to form them correctly. "I hear you have been summoned to drag Ramses out of yet another marital thorn bush. He does seem to enjoy the p.r.i.c.kles, doesn't he?"

Another servant had quietly placed a chair for the prince and he sank into it, leaning forward and inspecting his mother's features intently. He did not miss the tremor of her fingers as she spoke or the increased filminess of her eyes.

"I think he flings himself into trouble for the fun of the diplomatic game afterwards, Mother," he replied chuckling. "How are you? Is there any more pain?"

"No, but you might have a word with my physician about the poppy mash you prescribed for it." With a slow wave of her hand she dismissed the servant, who retired carrying the sennet board, and she turned back to her son. The nasty concoction is not dulling the twinges as it used to and I'm afraid he has perhaps lost the recipe you gave him."

Khaemwaset considered lying to her but then he changed his mind. She was dying a slow death and she knew it. "The recipe is not at fault, and neither is your physician," he answered her steadily. "When the poppy is taken day after day it begins to lose its efficacy, or rather, the body becomes habituated to it and needs more of it to perform the same task." She was nodding, her rheumy but sharp eyes fixed on his. "Much that comes from Syria is an abomination to me, Empress, as you know, but the poppy is a great blessing. If you were suffering a temporary complaint or were under the power of a curse that I was in the process of lifting, I would refuse to let you take any more ..." Here he hesitated, but those greying eyes, the whites brown with disease, did not flinch so he continued. "... but you are dying, dear Mother. I will order the physician to give you as much poppy as you want."

"Thank you," she said, her mouth quirking in a half-smile. "You and I have always been honest with one another, my dear. So now that my health has been discussed and disposed of, tell me why you are looking so haggard."

He stared at her, unsure. Outside there was a sudden burst of shrill feminine laughter as a group of young concubines sauntered past, leading three freshly washed spider monkeys that were vainly trying to sit down and groom themselves, and as Khaemwaset took a breath to answer Astnofert a pair of bluebirds dashed, trilling, into the room, circled, and flashed away into the trees in streaks of iridescent colour. Without warning he was shaken by a violent pang of longing to be one with them, to be soaring free and heedlessly into the vast hot sky away from this room in which death crept, invisible, towards the woman who had given him life. "I really do not know," he said at last. "The family is fine ..."

"Yes. Nubnofret entertained me for a while last night."

"... and my estates prosper. Father expects no more from me than he has always done ..."

She laughed, a dry wrenching sound that was nevertheless full of humour. "Which of course means that he expects everything!"

"Even so!" Khaemwaset summoned a grin, then sobered. "But ..." He was unable to finish, and in the end she attempted a shrug.

"Immerse yourself in finding a husband for little Sheritra," she advised him. "You need a new project, and there is one right under your nose."

He did not rise to the bait. He and his mother agreed on everything but the handling of his daughter, and here she sided most emphatically with Nubnofret. "I have a new project, waiting for me at home on the Saqqara plain," he said ruefully, "if I am ever able to get to it. Have you seen Father recently?"

She did not pursue the matter of Sheritra. "He comes to visit me once a week," she replied. "And we chat of inconsequential things. He tells me that the stela erected at the quarries of Silsileh, the one showing you and me, Bint-Anath and himself and Ramses as heir, has been finished. I wish that I could attend its dedication."

You can be sure that my dear brother Ramses will attend, Khaemwaset wanted to say sourly, but he did not. Of the few pleasures left to his mother, the contemplation of one of her sons instead of Nefertari's on the future throne of Egypt was the greatest. "Is my brother Merenptah at court?" he enquired.

"No, I do not think so. He is travelling in the south, keeping his eye on some of his building projects. He will probably call on you as he pa.s.ses Memphis on his way home."

"I suppose so."

There was little left to say. Khaemwaset, after a few more moments of idle conversation, got up, kissed her, and took his leave. Her hand was cold and leathery as he pressed it briefly between his own, and he was all at once eager to feel hot sun on his skin, to raise his face to the sky and close his eyes against Ra's blinding glory.

Leaving the harem he took a shortcut to the family's private garden. It was empty. Noon was approaching and the shadows under the sycamores were thin and short. The surface of the blue-tiled fish-pond was gla.s.sily still and water splashed monotonously into the fountain's basins. Khaemwaset held his fingers under the glittering flow and found it silky and warm. He was aware of the sun's fire slowly burning through the crisp striped linen of his headgear and it was very good. He had the curious and illogical conviction that he had been reprieved, that like a prisoner spared from execution or a very young child sent out to play, his senses were wide open to every sweet a.s.sault of his surroundings. Yet he felt grubby, tainted after breathing in his mother's slightly offensive dry breath, and he could still sense her icy touch. Bending he plunged both hands under the fountain's cascade and then leaned forward until the water lapped almost to his shoulders. I love her, he thought. It is not that. I do not want to die in the knowledge that all dreams are shown to be illusion. Though he stood there for a long time, watching his hands through the distortion of the moving water, he could not feel clean again.

He ate a light midday meal with Hori and Nubnofret. Hori, after sleeping late, was on his way to the House of Life with Antef and would then take a litter into the markets of the city, and Nubnofret had been invited by Royal Wife Meryet-Amun to join her for an afternoon spent sailing up some of the smaller tributaries of the Nile. Khaemwaset listened to their plans with half an ear, his mind already on the coming meeting with his father. He ate sparingly, had Kasa change his linen and set out with his escort for Pharaoh's private office.

The closer he came to the heart of power in the palace, the more crowded the halls and waiting rooms became. Often he had to slow while Ramose's voice was raised a notch and minor officials and n.o.bles, slaves, servants and foreigners, went to the floor in reverence. But eventually he stood outside the oasis of quiet that was Ramses' place of business behind the vast throne room where he sat to receive the adulation of citizen and amba.s.sador alike.

Khaemwaset waited while the Chief Herald announced him. He was ushered in immediately, and as he walked towards the huge, untidy desk behind which his father was already rising he took note of those present. There was Tehuti-Emheb the Royal Scribe, a man of few words but a powerful and silent personality who knew more of his master's mind and the true state of Egypt's health than anyone. He was already kneeling in prostration, his palette on the dark-blue gold-shot lapis tiles beside him. The Khatti amba.s.sador Urhi Teshub, his curling black beard and conical red hat framing an impressive face, was bowing slightly in the white ray of sunlight falling from the clerestory window high above. Ashahebsed was smiling frostily as he also laid himself full-length on the floor.

With a mute gesture Khaemwaset bade them all stand. He came up to Ramses, went down to kiss the jewelled feet and the long fingers airily extended, then rose and embraced his father. The servants who had been motionless around the walls sprang to life and for a moment the men by the desk were surrounded by a flurry of quiet activity. Wine was opened, tasted by Ashahebsed, and poured. Linen napkins appeared in a pristine pile on the edge of the desk. Scented water, pink and warm for the rinsing of the fingers, was laid discreetly, well out of the way of the scrolls piled before Pharaoh, and beside it several plates of various delicacies wafted the aroma of cardamom and cinnamon to Khaemwaset's nostrils. The servants withdrew backwards, bent double. Ramses ignored them.

"Khaemwaset, you do not look well," he commented in his laconic, cultivated voice. "The physician is always loath to prescribe for himself, is that not so? Take some wine and sharpen your wits, Prince. I am glad to see you."

Was there reproach in that mellifluous tone? Khaemwaset looked affectionately into the clear, bright eyes ringed in thick kohl. Pharaoh was wearing long jasper-and-gold earrings that swung against his thin neck and almost touched his gold-hung shoulders. The cobra and the vulture of supreme kings.h.i.+p reared over his forehead on the golden band that kept his red linen helmet in place, and his fastidiously hooked nose and delicately thin lips gave Khaemwaset a renewed impression of his father as the mighty hawk G.o.d, Horus. He was exquisitely groomed, from his hennaed and ringed hands to his well-clipped toes, and Khaemwaset, watching him seat himself, arrange his flowing linens and place his hands on the desk, admired and was amused by every calculated move.

Ramses was vain, manipulative and still, at the age of sixty-four, undeniably magnetic. "Though you did not dine with me last night," Pharaoh went on, folding his fingers together one by one, "I know that you were able to complete the small task I requested. Sutekh will get his due again this year. I will command an offering to him in your name, so that he will gaze only upon your deed and not the seditious thought that surely filled your heart as you sealed the subsidy order."

Now Khaemwaset laughed, and at the sound the officials dutifully laughed also, politely and briefly. "I will dine with you tonight, Mighty Bull," he promised, sinking into the chair Ramses was indicating, "and as for Mighty Set, well, he has no cause to vent his anger on me. Do we not communicate in the making of my spells?"

Ramses inclined his head. The cobra's crystal eyes glittered as he did so. "Indeed. And now to work."

Urhi-Teshub stirred behind Khaemwaset, cleared his throat and came forward. Tehuti-Emheb rattled his pens.

"What is the trouble with the latest negotiations, Father?" Khaemwaset asked.

Ramses rolled his eyes to heaven, fixed the unfortunate Khatti amba.s.sador with a cold stare and waved at his scribe. Khaemwaset turned.

"Hattusil, king of the Khatti, is now requesting that the princess's dowry be delivered with rather than before her arrival," Tehuti-Entheb said. "He has been having much pain and soreness in his feet, and consequently the gathering of the dowry is slow. The drought in his land has further interfered with his good intentions."

"Good intentions," Ramses broke in with cool sarcasm. "First he promises me the greatest dowry ever paid in his eagerness to ally himself to the most powerful House in the world. Then months go by, and I see nothing. Then I receive a letter from Queen Pudukhepa, not from Hattusil himself mind you, telling me without a shred of apology that part of the palace was burned down"-here he sniffed delicately-"and therefore the first payment is delayed."

"Majesty," Urhi-Teshub protested, "I myself was present when the fire broke out. The destruction was terrible! My queen was much tried, seeing my king was away performing ceremonies for the G.o.ds, but she did not fail to write to you. Egypt was not forgotten!' His accent was guttural, his expression pained.

"Perhaps not," Ramses retorted, "but the fire was a most convenient opportunity to change the terms of the agreement. Now my dear Khatti brother whines of sore feet, as though he himself must sally forth from his citadel and personally chase every goat, every horse. Are there no viziers in his land? No competent stewards? Or must his wife take command of everything?"

The Khatti amba.s.sador was obviously well used to such stinging diatribes. He waited calmly, his hands tucked into his brocade gown, until Ramses had finished. Then he said, "Does Your Majesty perhaps doubt the honesty of his brother? Is he casting aspersions on the king who has kept the Treaty of Kadesh that his ill.u.s.trious father made before him, in spite of pressures from the Babylonian King Kadashman-Enlil to make a new treaty with him?"

"Kadashman-Enlil is a slippery little weasel," Ramses muttered, "in spite of our renewed diplomatic relations. And I happen to know, Urhi-Teshub, that your king is in fact squabbling with the Babylonian." He bit into a honeyand-almond cake, chewed thoughtfully, then dabbled his fingers elegantly in the water bowl. "Why should I trust Hattusil?" he asked grumpily. "He refused my request to revise the treaty and give me more of Syria, and then I heard that he himself is claiming the very portion I wanted."

"It was Khatti's portion in the first place, Divine One," the amba.s.sador responded firmly. "According to the more ancient treaty between the Khatti and your father, the Osiris One Seti, in very clear terms ..."

Khaemwaset sighed inwardly. Urhi-Teshub had made a tactical error in mentioning Seti. Ramses' father was a sore point with him. Seti had been a man of taste and vision. His monuments and his greatest work, the temple of Osiris at Abydos, displayed artistry of such fineness and beauty that one caught one's breath at the sight of it. But worse, Seti had succeeded in his wars where Ramses, in spite of his protestations to the contrary, had failed rather ignominiously. Khaemwaset listened to the two men wrangling back and forth, and thoughtfully sipped his wine. When he was ready he broke in, careful to interrupt the amba.s.sador, not his father.

"I do not see the point of all this," he said firmly. "We are here to bring the marriage negotiations to a successful close, and with all respect, Urhi-Teshub, if you wish to discuss the matter of the validity of old treaties you might arrange another time." The amba.s.sador bowed and smiled, obviously relieved. Khaemwaset turned his attention to Ramses who was pettishly, though gracefully, playing with his wine cup. "Our own amba.s.sador Huy is in Hattusas," he reminded him. "Send a message to the effect that we are willing to receive the dowry at the same time as the princess, providing Huy personally makes sure all gifts are present at the time of departure. Hattusil cannot be blamed for fires and illness, only for tardiness."

"He boasted too long and too loud," Ramses remarked. "I suggest that we request a five percent increase in the amount paid, to compensate us for all these delays. After all, tribute is definitely due to us." He cast a wily, sidelong glance at Khaemwaset. "I am not sure that the princess is worth the strain these negotiations are placing upon my royal heart. I might just decide to break them off and marry another Babylonian instead."

"Hattusil himself might do the same if we put unnecessary pressure on him," Khaemwaset objected. "We are talking about a dowry, Father, not tribute, as you well know. Give the Khatti king the benefit of the doubt, but make it clear that he is expected to fulfil his bargain completely. You do not wish to appear greedy and grasping, do you?"

"I want what is due to me," Ramses said emphatically. He sat back, his stooped shoulders curved over the weight of gold and silver on his chest and his braceleted arms loose along the carved lions' spines of the chair. "Oh very well. Tehuti-Emheb, write the d.a.m.ned letter to Huy and one to Hattusil expressing my displeasure at the delay and my suspicion that he is simply too poor to make good his boast, but tell him that I will magnanimously wait for the fruition of these extremely trying negotiations."

"His Majesty spoke in haste," Khaemwaset said deliberately to the scribe. "Leave out His Majesty's suspicion." The man nodded and bent over his palette. Ramses chuckled. "This meeting is over," he p.r.o.nounced. "Out, all of you. Khaemwaset, you stay" The amba.s.sador bowed and together with the scribe, backed down the long hall and out the doors. Ramses did not wait for them to disappear. He got up and beckoned Khaemwaset. "Call your steward for your medicine bag," he ordered. "Ashahebsed, do it for him. Come into the inner room Khaemwaset, and examine me. My chest pains me sometimes when I breathe, and I have breathlessness occasionally. I need a potion for fatigue also." He did not wait for his son's acknowledgement, but strode away. Khaemwaset followed. His father's condition was not reversible, but he had never dared to tell Ramses so, even though he knew that Pharaoh would blithely ignore his words. He was convinced that he would indeed live forever.

3.

Praise to Thoth ...

the Moon beautiful in his rising ...

he who sifts evidence, who makes the evil deed rise up against the doer, who judges all men.

BY THE TIME BY THE TIME Khaemwaset had examined his father, found no change in his condition and prescribed an innocuous elixir for his fatigue, the afternoon was far advanced. He was tired himself, more from the strain of the negotiations than from any physical activity. His horoscope, which he as a magician cast for himself and the rest of the family at the beginning of each month, warned him that the last third of this day would be portentous, either extremely lucky or dismally unlucky, depending on his own actions. The ambivalence of the prediction annoyed him, and he thought of it again as he made his way back to his apartments to sleep until dinner-time. He often enjoyed Pharaoh's great feasts. Guests from all over the world were invariably present and included fellow scholars, magicians and physicians with whom he could talk and argue. But today the horoscope's odd p.r.o.nouncement would lurk behind any congenial contact he might make. Khaemwaset had examined his father, found no change in his condition and prescribed an innocuous elixir for his fatigue, the afternoon was far advanced. He was tired himself, more from the strain of the negotiations than from any physical activity. His horoscope, which he as a magician cast for himself and the rest of the family at the beginning of each month, warned him that the last third of this day would be portentous, either extremely lucky or dismally unlucky, depending on his own actions. The ambivalence of the prediction annoyed him, and he thought of it again as he made his way back to his apartments to sleep until dinner-time. He often enjoyed Pharaoh's great feasts. Guests from all over the world were invariably present and included fellow scholars, magicians and physicians with whom he could talk and argue. But today the horoscope's odd p.r.o.nouncement would lurk behind any congenial contact he might make.

The family's private suite was empty. Khaemwaset did not bother to summon Kasa to undress him. He stripped off his clothes, took a long drink of water from the large jar always standing full in the airy hallway and collapsed onto his couch with relief.

An hour after sunset he, Nubnofret and Hori were announced and walked together with their train into Ramses' largest reception hall. At the striking of the Chief Herald's staff upon the floor, all conversation had ceased until Khaemwaset's t.i.tles were called, but as he and the others proceeded into the room the din began again, and Khaemwaset felt as though he were wading in noise.

Hundreds of people stood in brightly clad groups, or milled about, wine in their hands, talking and laughing, their voices fusing to echo off the many papyrus pillars and the silver star-dusted ceiling in mighty waves of sound.

A slave girl, naked but for a blue-and-white ribbon about her waist, came up to them bowing, and placed garlands of pink lotus and blue cornflowers over their heads. Another offered scented wax cones to be tied on their wigs. Khaemwaset bent good-humouredly, feeling the soft hands of the girl fumble with the ribbon, his eyes already scanning the crowd.

Bint-Anath was approaching, her many-pleated, floor-length sheath floating scarlet around her, her slim shoulders visible under a billowing white flounced cloak, and the long black ringlets of her wig already glistening with melted wax. The slave girl walked away and Khaemwaset bowed to Egypt's Chief Wife. "Greetings, brother," Bint-Anath said cheerfully. "I would stay and talk to you but it is really Nubnofret with whom I want to gossip. I have not seen her in a very long time. Do excuse me." She was like a G.o.ddess, like Hathor herself, moving lightly in the circle of reverence the guests had provided, her pair of ma.s.sive Shardana guards towering beside her and her exquisitely gowned and painted retinue behind.

"You are more beautiful every time I see you, Bint-Anath," Khaemwaset said gravely. "Of course I excuse you. Write me a letter instead."

She gave him a dazzling smile and turned to Nubnofret. Her female attendants were no longer chattering among themselves. Their glances flickered furtively over Hori, away, then back to the young man's matchless face and brown, well-muscled body. He grinned at them engagingly and Khaemwaset, catching Antef's eye, winked at him.

One girl, bolder than the rest, came up and, after bowing to Khaemwaset, addressed Hori directly. "It may be that having been in Pi-Ramses only two days, you lack a dinner partner, Prince," she suggested. "I am Nefert-khay, daughter of Pharaoh's architect, May. I would be pleased to entertain you while you eat and perhaps sing for you afterwards."

Khaemwaset, amused, noted Hori's preliminary quick a.s.sessment turn to slow interest as he took in Nefert-khay's high b.r.e.a.s.t.s and supple waist under the yellow sheath, her dusky kohled eyes and moist mouth. Hori inclined his head.

"As May's daughter you must also enjoy the privilege of dining in the first row next to the dais," he said, "so lead me there, Nefert-khay, and we will be ready for the food as soon as Pharaoh is announced. I'm hungry."

They wandered away, threading easily through the crowd, and Khaemwaset watched them go. Antef had tactfully vanished but Khaemwaset knew that though Hori might dine cheerfully with the girl, get drunk with her, kiss and compliment her and perhaps even essay more urgent caresses in the privacy of the sprawling gardens, he would end his evening lounging by the river or in his suite with Antef.

Khaemwaset knew that his son was not attracted to men, though rarely a man might be s.e.xually drawn to him. He liked and appreciated the young women who flocked around him, but his emotions, and therefore his body, remained unengaged. For Hori, the one could not operate without the other.

Khaemwaset spared a moment of pity for May's forward little daughter, then went to seek out his own small table on the dais where already the members of Ramses' immediate family were gathering. Lowering himself to the cus.h.i.+ons provided, he exchanged a few polite, cool words with his brother, the Crown Prince Ramses, already deep into his cups, and with Second Wife and Queen Meryet-Amun, before the Chief Herald's staff hit the floor with three resounding booms and the hundreds of voices trailed away. "Exalter of Thebes, Son of Set, Son of Amun, Son of Temu, Son of Ptah-Tenen, Vivifier of the Two Lands, Mighty of Twofold Strength, Valiant Warrior, Smiter of the Vile Asiatics ..." The Herald's voice droned, and here Khaemwaset smiled a trifle grimly. "... Lord of Festivals, King of Kings, Bull of Princes ..." Khaemwaset ceased to listen. Every forehead in the hall was resting on the floor and his own was buried in the cus.h.i.+ons he had been sitting on a moment before.

The Herald at last fell silent. Khaemwaset heard the crisp slap of his father's sandals on the dais by his ear, followed by the lighter tread of his sister. Bint-Anath settled herself beside him with a wriggle and a sigh, Ramses bade the crowd rise, and Khaemwaset resumed his cus.h.i.+ons and pulled the low table towards him.

Pharaoh leaned past his daughter-wife, resplendent in his blue-and-white-striped helmet surmounted by the golden cobra and vulture, his sharp eyes heavily kohled, his eyelids l.u.s.trously green. Rings glittered on each of his fingers, and ankhs and Eyes of Horus tinkled on his concave chest. "I drank some of the potion you prescribed for me, Khaemwaset," he said. "It was disgusting and I don't think it has done me any good, unless it is responsible for my vast appet.i.te tonight." At the foot of the dais the symbols of his divine royalty-the crook, flail and scimitar-were being set in their holders by their Keeper, and a contingent of Shardana guards was lining up between the dais and the crowd. At a signal from Ashahebsed, standing discreetly behind the royal table, food-laden servants began to pour from the shadows and a mouth-watering aroma stole through the mingled odours of scented wax, flowers and perfume. Ashahebsed began to serve Ramses.

"You expect miracles from all those around you, including me," Khaemwaset answered warmly. "Give the medicine a chance, Father. You might try going to bed earlier, too."

Ashahebsed was tasting the food. Ramses watched impatiently. "I am just as busy in bed as out of it," he said wickedly. "My women are killing me, Khaemwaset. So many of them, and they all demand satisfaction! What am I to do?"