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

guard you now,” he said loudly. “I’ve finished my juice, Huy. May I go and talk to them?” His eyes were shining with excitement. “I’ve never dared to speak to the temple guards at Mennofer, it’s not allowed for pupils, and I’ve always wanted to. Have your guards had to kill anyone trespassing in your garden yet?”
    Huy reached across and pulled his ear. “Go to the rear of the compound, where you’ll see some new cells. The largest one belongs to Anhur, my captain. Knock on his door lintel, tell him who you are, and he might be willing to show you his weapons. But, Heby, if he’s busy, don’t whine. Come back into the house. Ishat and I will be showing it to everyone.”
    The boy nodded solemnly, scrambled up, and hurried along the corridor leading to the back of the house.
    Itu sighed. “We won’t be seeing him again for a while,” she commented. “He’s obsessed with everything involving the army, and he wants to be a soldier.”
    “That will pass,” Ishat said, rising. “Now, come with us. Huy, are you ready? I’m longing to show you all over this wondrous estate. Though it is small, it has absolutely everything.” She linked arms with her mother. “Later on we’ll dine together. The cook, Khnit, is preparing a special meal.”
    She led them first towards the stairs, pride and excitement evident in her straight spine under the flowing scarlet linen, her new earrings, fashioned into a likeness of Hathor’s mild bovine face and curved horns, swinging against her strong neck. The exotic and very rare purple gold enhanced her vibrant beauty, and Huy thought that she had never looked more lovely.
    She led them into every bedchamber on the second floor, standing proudly while they exclaimed over the ornate couches dressed in fine linen sheets, the delicately carved cedar tables holding alabaster lamps fluted like lilies, the cosmetics stands with their assortment of pretty ceramic and stone vials, their brushes and copper mirrors shaped, like Ishat’s earrings, in the image of Hathor, goddess of love and beauty. Half the floor in the guest room was taken up by a huge lion’s skin complete with snarling head and outflung claws. Itu bent down and stroked it in awe.
    “It’s a special gift from the King,” Ishat explained. “His Majesty shot it himself, with one arrow from the bow no one else is strong enough to draw. Or so it’s said.”
    A ray of the Aten became this lion, the embodiment of Amun, Huy thought uneasily, and the King killed it. Every pharaoh delights in hunting lions. Then why do I have a sense of foreboding when I look at this one?
    “How do your house servants clean it?” the ever-practical Hapzefa wanted to know. “It can’t be scrubbed with natron. I suppose all they can do is take it outside and hang it up and beat it.”
    Beat it. Huy suppressed an inward shiver and left the room.
    A narrow stair at the end of the hall led the group directly down into the bathhouse. Here the air was humid and smelled sweet. Itu drew it into her lungs. “You have many kinds of perfumed oils here,” she said to Huy, “and I can detect the odour of lilies.”
    “I keep ben oil spiked with essence of lilies just for you, Mother,” Huy told her. “Whenever I inhale it, I think of you bending over my cot to kiss me good night when I was a child. Perhaps you will spend a night or two here with Ishat and me and enjoy the pampering our staff can give. You deserve it. Now we will step out into the garden.”
    Itu brightened. She was an avid gardener, growing all the vegetables her family ate in tiny terraces around the pool in her own yard. Huy, in his youth, had often flattened the lettuce and cabbages by lying on them so that he could watch the activity in the pond.
    “So much land to water!” Itu said. “It’s hard enough to haul buckets from the field canals just beyond the acacia bushes at home!”
    “Our gardener, Seshemnefer, now has an assistant,” Ishat told her. “He