House of Illusions by Pauline Gedge Read Free Book Online Page B

prevented anyone from pushing through into the garden, I reflected. He was too frail. Yet the Seer employed no guards outside the wall. Inside the house there were soldiers, or so my father said, who did their work with quiet and unobtrusive efficiency, but standing there with one hand against the still-warm brick of the wall, my eyes on the distorted shadow that marked the entrance to the Seer’s domain, I understood why no weapons were needed outside. The pylon was like a mouth perpetually open to swallow the unwary and I had seen people on the path describe an unconscious semicircle as they went by. Even in the harsh light of noon I myself had often veered closer to the watersteps. Now, as the pylon’s long silhouette snaked across the path, I had to force myself to straighten and go on.
    I had never been allowed to accompany my father in his dealings with Egypt’s greatest oracle. “The man runs a perfectly respectable household,” my father had told me rather testily some years ago when I had asked him why I could not go with him, “but he is fanatical regarding his privacy. I would be too if I suffered from his affliction.”
    “What affliction?” I had pressed. All Egypt knew that the Seer had some terrible physical ailment. In his rare public appearances he was swathed from hooded head to bandaged toes in white linen so that even his face was invisible. But I had hoped that given the frequency of my father’s visits some more specific information might be forthcoming. “Is the Seer deformed?”
    “I do not think so,” my father had replied carefully. “His speech is more than sane. He walks on two legs and obviously has the use of both arms. His torso seems pleasingly slim for a man of middle age. Under his windings of course. I have not had the privilege of seeing him without them.” I had been nine at the time this exchange took place, and with a young boy’s natural curiosity I had waited my chance to squeeze Pa-Bast for more. But he had been even less co-operative than my father.
    “Pa-Bast, you are a friend of Harshira, the great Seer’s Steward,” I had begun after pushing my way with my usual bluntness into his little office where he was bent over the scroll on his desk. “Does he talk much about his illustrious Master?” Pa-Bast had looked up and fixed me with his level gaze.
    “It is not polite to intrude without knocking, Kamen,” he had reproved me. “As you can see, I am busy.” I apologized but stood my ground.
    “My father has told me what he knows,” I said, completely unabashed, “and his words have distressed me. I wish to include the Seer in my petitions to Amun and Wepwawet but I must be exact in my prayers. The gods do not like vagueness.” Pa-Bast sat back on his chair and smiled thinly.
    “Do they not, young master?” he said. “Nor do they look indulgently on the hypocrisy of young boys who wish to acquire salacious gossip. Harshira is indeed my friend. He does not talk about his Master’s personal affairs and I do not talk about mine. I strongly suggest that you concentrate on the state of your own affairs, namely the sorry showing you are making in the study of military history, and leave the Seer’s business to the Seer.” His head had gone down again over his work and I had left him utterly unrepentant, my curiosity unslaked.
    My marks in military history improved and I learned, more or less, to mind my own business, but in my idle moments I continued to ponder the power and mystery of the man to whom the gods revealed their secrets and who, it was said, could heal with a glance. Heal all but himself, that is. As I hurried past the dark maw of his pylon, I thought of him now wound in linen like a corpse, sitting motionless in the dimness of the silent house whose upper windows could sometimes be glimpsed beyond the dense life of his garden.
    Once past his domain my mood lightened and before long I was turning in at Takhuru’s gate. The guards waved me