Seer of Egypt by Pauline Gedge Read Free Book Online Page A

scribe and I’ve begun to oversee the household.” Then she sighed. “It’s becoming a bit unwieldy, what with Anhur and the soldiers and all the new servants. It’s a good thing Merenra knows his job.”
    Huy had been watching his father. Hapu was holding his cup in both hands, taking small, obviously appreciative sips of the good wine, his eyes narrowed as he glanced slowly from one to the other grouped together under Huy’s little pillars. Every word I or Ishat speaks seems to be evidence of a superiority over him and Mother that we do not intend, Huy thought dismally. Ishat is simply making conversation, telling the obligatory small truths of good manners, but they sound like the unspoken arrogance of comparison. Both Ishat and I grew up in poverty, but our days were happy. Food was simple but nourishing. When we were babies, we ran about naked, and when we were older, one coarse kilt apiece was enough clothing. Even when Ishat became a woman and grudgingly left her kilt behind, her sheath was made of the thick linen of the first grade and she didn’t care. Our good fortune has not made us haughty, though now we go about in filmy linen of the twelfth grade and kohl our eyes and screw gems into our earlobes.
    He met Hapu’s eye and to his surprise his father smiled. “I hear great things about you when I must go into the town,” he said. “You have healed many grateful citizens through the power of the gods. I know that you labour long. I’m told that you suffer from continual headaches. I do not begrudge you any of this, Huy. Our King has recognized that you deserve it all.” He gestured briefly around the room.
    Huy felt a surge of irritation. Why would you begrudge it to me anyway, Father? None of it has anything to do with you. Did you defend me against my uncle, your brother? Did you take me in your arms, a terrified and confused boy of twelve, and tell me how you loved me and how everything would be all right? No. You hid like a coward, and now it is up to me to struggle, to find within myself a forgiveness that flickers in and out like a guttering candle.
    “Thank you, Father,” he said. “It’s true that I work hard. After all, I was not raised to be idle.”
    Hapu grunted. “Ker should not have turned his generosity in Heby’s direction,” he muttered, his voice deliberately pitched so low that only Huy could hear it above the chatter of the three women. “I blame myself for that, Huy. I did not behave as a man should. I was afraid of you, I admit it.” He was staring into his cup. “I did not know that the gods had blessed you. Now they bless me with another son, Heby, but I wait for their judgment. Will it fall on Heby? A fever? An infestation of worms, or worse? I’m sorry.”
    Huy’s anger faded. Hitching his cushion closer to Hapu, he rested a hand on his father’s knee. “The gods do not punish honest fear,” he said, matching his tone to his father’s. “Surely it is better than presumption. They expect us to run from the Khatyu, from the malicious demons and their arrows. Not to do so would be spiritual conceit.” He spread his arms. “The gods have rewarded me and I am able to forgive you, Hapu. Most of the time. I try not to look back or forward. My schooling was accomplished by the good graces of the High Priest Ramose at Ra’s temple in Iunu. I work diligently for Atum, the Neb-er-djer. Be at peace, dear Father.”
    Hapu took Huy’s hand and laid it between his two calloused palms. “The Neb-er-djer,” he repeated. “The Universal God. So it is Atum and he alone who gives you the healing visions?”
    “Most of the time the voice belongs to Anubis. Rarely to Ma’at. But the source is always Atum,” Huy replied unwillingly. He did not want to discuss these things, so private and so personal, with his father. Only Ishat, Methen, and the Rekhet invited the comfort of such an unburdening. Fortunately, at that moment Heby spoke up.
    “Ishat said you have soldiers to