House of Illusions Read online

  “Oh,” he responded. “What did she look like?” The question took me aback.

  “She was as anonymous as any other peasant but she had unusual blue eyes. Why do you ask, Lord?” He gave a snort of annoyance.

  “Every Royal Herald plying the river knows about her,” he said. “The light-eyed crazy one. We try not to stop here, but if we must, we do our best to stay hidden. She works for the temple, but under the pretext of hospitality she pesters us to deliver a package to Pharaoh. I have met her before. Why do you think I was so anxious to bypass this mudhole?”

  “A package?” I asked, intrigued. “What is in it?” He shrugged.

  “She says that it is the story of her life, that once she knew the Great One, who exiled her here for some crime or other and if only he will read what she has written he will forgive her and lift the banishment. What she has written!” he finished scornfully. “I doubt if she can even scratch her name in the dirt! I should have warned you, Kamen, but it is a small damage done. She will annoy us briefly, but we will at least enjoy a meal.”

  “So no one has actually seen inside the package?” I pressed.

  “Of course not. I told you, she is insane. No Herald would risk embarrassment by carrying out such a request. And put away any romantic notions you may have, young man. Peasants in stories told by nurses may end up in the presence of the Lord of All Life, but in reality they are dull, stupid animals fit for nothing but raising crops and tending the herds they resemble.”

  “She has an educated accent,” I ventured, not sure why I was defending her, and he laughed.

  “She has acquired it through years of annoying her betters who have been luckless enough to encounter her,” he retorted. “Do not be kind to her or she will importune you all the more. The priests who employ her should control her behaviour. Soon no one at all will want to stop at Aswat, to trade or worship or hire workmen. She may be harmless but she is as irritating as a cloud of flies. Did she mention hot soup?”

  Full dark had fallen by the time she came to us almost soundlessly, appearing out of the dense shadows and pacing into the flickering orange light of the fire like some barbaric priestess, her hair, now freed from the hemp, rioting about her head and waving on her breast. She had changed her shift, I noticed, but the one she now wore was no less crude than the garment in which she had been washing the temple floor, and she was still bare-footed. She bore a tray which she set ceremoniously before us on the collapsible table my Herald had called for earlier from the boat. Bowing to him, she then lifted the lid from a pot and proceeded to ladle a savory-smelling soup into two smaller bowls. Beside them were dishes of fresh barley bread and date cakes and, best of all, a flagon of beer. Her movements were graceful and delicate. She offered the soup first to the Herald and then to me with head bowed, both hands around each bowl, and as we began to spoon up the admittedly delicious broth, she poured the beer and unfolded two spotless linen squares which she placed carefully and unobtrusively on our naked knees. Stepping back, she stood with her arms at her sides as we demolished the food, coming forward only to refill our cups or remove the empty plates, and I wondered as I ate if perhaps she had been a servant in the home of some local dignitary, or if the Chief Priest of Wepwawet, a peasant himself but of necessity more highly educated than his neighbours, had taught her how to behave. At last the dishes were piled on the tray and covered with the now soiled linen and my Herald sighed and shifted on his stool.

  “Thank you,” he said gruffly and, I thought, grudgingly. At his words the woman smiled. Her mouth parted to reveal even white teeth that glinted briefly in the light of the fire and I realized suddenly that she was beautiful. The dimness hid her chafed hands, the fine lines around those strange eyes, the dull dryness of her wild hair, and I stared at her boldly for a moment. Her gaze rested on me, then returned to my Lord.

  “We have met before, Royal Herald May,” she said softly. “You and your entourage put in here last year when your skiff was holed. What news from the Delta?”

  “No news,” May replied stiffly. “I am returning to Pi-Ramses from the south. I have been away for several weeks.” Her smile widened.

  “And of course momentous events may have taken place in the north of which you are unaware,” she chided him with mock solemnity. “Therefore you can give me no news. Or is it that you do not wish to encourage me in conversation? I have fed you, Royal Herald May. In return, could I not sit here in the sand and enjoy your company for a while?” She did not wait for permission. Sliding to the earth, she crossed her legs and settled her shift across her lap, and I was reminded of how the scribe in my father’s household would sink to the floor and use just such gestures to place his palette on his knees in order to take the dictation.

  “I have nothing to say to you, woman!” May snapped. “The food was very welcome and for that I have already thanked you. There is nothing happening in Pi-Ramses that could be of the slightest interest to someone such as yourself, I assure you.”

  “I have embarrassed him,” she said, turning her face to me. “This mighty Herald. I embarrass them all, the important men who hurry up and down the river and curse when they are flung upon the barren shore at Aswat because they know that I will immediately seek them out. It does not seem to occur to them that I might embarrass myself in the process. But you, young officer with the handsome dark eyes, I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before. What is your name?”

  “I am Kamen,” I answered her, with a rush of unworthy fear that she was about to make her insane request to me. I cast a sidelong glance at my Herald.

  “Kamen,” she repeated. “Spirit of Men. Might I suppose that Men is your father’s name?”

  “You might,” I said tersely. “And I might suppose that you are making fun of me. I too thank you for the food, but my duty is the care of this Herald and he is tired.” I rose. “Be pleased to take your dishes and retire.” At once she also scrambled to her feet, much to my relief, and picked up her tray, but I was not to be reprieved so easily.

  “I have a favour to ask of you, officer Kamen,” she said, “a package to be delivered to the King. I am poor and cannot afford to pay. Will you take it for me?” Oh gods, I thought in exasperation. I felt shame for her as I shook my head.

  “I am sorry, Lady, but I do not have access to the palace,” I replied and she sighed and turned away.

  “I expected nothing more,” she called back over her shoulder. “What has Egypt come to, when the powerful will not hearken to the pleas of the destitute? It is no use asking you, Herald May, for you have refused me before. Sleep well!” Her scornful laughter trailed after her and then there was silence.

  “Witless creature!” my Lord said curtly. “Set your watch, Kamen.” He strode off in the direction of the boat, and I signalled to my soldier and began to fling sand onto the fire. The food was souring in my belly.

  I chose the second watch, gave my soldier the perimeters of his patrol, and retired with my blanket under the trees, but I could not sleep. The murmur of the sailors’ voices slowly died away. No sound came from the village and only an occasional muted splash revealed the presence of the river as some nocturnal animal went about its quiet business. The sky above me, latticed by branches, pulsed with stars.

  I should have been content. I was on my way home to my family and my betrothed, Takhuru. I had successfully completed my first military assignment. I was healthy and vigorous, rich and intelligent. Yet, as I lay there, a restless sadness began to steal over me. I turned over in the sand, closing my eyes, but the earth beneath me seemed harder than usual, grinding against my hip and shoulder. I heard my soldier pace close and then stroll away. I turned again, but it was no good. My mind stayed alert.

  I got up, strapped on my sword, and stepped through the trees onto the river road. It was deserted, a ribbon of greyness running through a shrouding of palms and acacia. I hesitated but had no real desire to see the village, which would differ little from a thousand others fronting
the Nile from the Delta to the Cataracts of the south. I turned right, feeling increasingly insubstantial as the dark outline of the temple appeared limned in moonlight and the palm fronds above me whispered their dry night song. The water in the canal was black and motionless. I stood on its paved edge for a moment, staring down at my own featureless pale reflection. I did not want to go back to the river. I swung left and walked beside the temple wall. All at once I was skirting a ramshackle hut that leaned against the rear of the temple and before me the desert opened out, rolling in moondrenched waves to the horizon. A line of palms marking the edge of Aswat’s fragile cultivated land meandered away on my left, such a weak bastion holding back the sand, and all of it dim yet stark in the all-pervading streams of moonlight.

  I did not notice her at first, not until she emerged from the deep shadow of a dune and glided across the ground. Naked, arms raised, head thrown back, I took her to be one of the dead whose tombs are untended and who wander the night desiring revenge on the living. But she was dancing with such vitality that my thrill of terror vanished. Her straining, flexing body seemed the colour of the moon himself, blue-white, and the cloud of her hair was a patch of blackness moving with her. I knew I should retire, knew I was witnessing a very private ecstasy, but I was rooted to my place by the savage harmony of the scene. The immensity of the desert, the cold flooding of moonlight, the passionate homage or expiation or act of intense pleasure the woman was performing, held me spellbound.

  I did not realize the dance was over until she suddenly stood still, raised both fists to the sky, and then seemed to go limp. I could see dejection in the slump of her shoulders as she walked towards me, bent down to retrieve a piece of clothing, and came on more quickly. All at once I knew I was about to be discovered. Hurriedly I swung away but my foot hitched against a loose stone and I stumbled, falling against the rough wall of the hut in whose shadow I had been hiding. I must have grunted with the instant pain in my elbow for she halted, wrapping herself in the linen she was carrying and calling out, “Pa-ari, is that you?” I was caught. Cursing under my breath, I stepped out under the moon to come face to face with the madwoman. In the un-light surrounding us her eyes were colourless, but her lines were unmistakeable. Sweat glimmered on her neck and trickled down her temple. Strands of wet hair stuck to her forehead. She was panting lightly, her chest rising and falling under the two hands clasping the cloak to her. I had not surprised her for long. Already her features were composed.

  “So it is Kamen, junior officer,” she said breathily. “Kamen the spy, neglecting his duties to guard the illustrious Royal Herald May who is doubtless snoring in blissful ignorance aboard his safe little boat. Have they begun to teach young recruits at the military academy in Pi-Ramses how to spy on innocent women, Kamen?”

  “Certainly not!” I retorted, confused by what I had seen and angered by her tone. “And since when do decent Egyptian women dance naked under the moon unless they are …”

  “Are what?” she countered. Her breathing was returning to normal. “Insane? Mad? Oh I know what they all think. But this,” she waved at the hut, “is my home. This,” she jerked her head, “is my desert. And that is my moon. I am not afraid of prying eyes. I harm no one.”

  “Is the moon your totem then?” I asked, already ashamed of my outburst, and she laughed grimly.

  “No. The moon has been my undoing. I dance in defiance under Thoth’s rays. Does that make me mad, young Kamen?”

  “I do not know, Lady.”

  “You called me Lady once before this night. That was kind. I did have a title once. Do you believe me?” I looked full into her shadowed face.

  “No.”

  She grinned and a brief glint of some internal fever in her eyes gave me a stab of superstitious fear, but then I felt her fingers, warm and commanding, on my arm. “You have grazed your elbow. Sit down. Wait here.” I did as I was told, and she disappeared into the hut, returning almost immediately with a clay pot. Sinking beside me she prised off the lid, took my elbow, and gently smeared a salve on the small wound. “Honey and ground myrrh,” she explained. “The wound should not infect, but if it does, soak it in the juice of willow leaves.”

  “How do you know of these things?”

  “I was once a physician, a very long time ago,” she answered simply. “I am forbidden to practise my craft any more. I steal the myrrh from the temple stores for my own use.”

  “Forbidden? Why?”

  “Because I tried to poison the King.”

  Disappointed, I looked across at her. She was sitting with her knees hunched and her arms encircling them, her gaze on the desert. I did not want this strange, this eccentric creature to be insane. I wanted her to be in her right mind so that I might add another dimension, unpredictable and exciting yet legitimate, to my knowledge of life. Predict-ability had protected me through all my growing years. I had enjoyed the security of predictable meals, predictable schooling, predictable affection from my family, predictable feast days of the gods. My predictable betrothal to Takhuru, daughter of established wealth, was planned and expected. Even this assignment had brought no adventure, only predictable duties and discomforts. Nothing had prepared me for quixotic women who dance frenziedly under the moon in peasant villages, but insanity would render this new dimension illegitimate, an aberration of a sane society best ignored and then forgotten. “I do not believe you,” I said. “I live in Pi-Ramses. My father knows many nobles. I have never heard of such a thing.”

  “Of course not. Very few knew of it at the time and besides, it was years ago. How old are you, Kamen?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Sixteen.” She stirred and put out a hand. The gesture was irresolute and oddly pathetic. “It was sixteen years ago that I loved the King, and tried to kill him, and had a son. I was only seventeen myself. Somewhere in Egypt my son lies sleeping, knowing nothing of who he really is, from what seed he has sprung. Or perhaps he is dead. I try not to think about him too much. The pain is too great.” She turned and smiled at me sweetly. “But why should you believe me, the crazy Aswat devil? Sometimes I have difficulty believing it all myself, particularly when I am swabbing the temple floor before Ra has shaken himself to rise. Tell me about yourself, Kamen. Is your life pleasant? Have your dreams begun to come true? Whom do you serve in the city?”

  I knew that I should return to the river. My soldier’s watch would soon be over. He would be waiting for me to relieve him and besides, what if some emergency had arisen on the boat? Yet the woman held me. It was not her now obvious insanity. Sadly I had to agree with my Herald’s assessment of that. Nor was it the contradictions she presented, though I found them intriguing. She was something new, something that troubled and yet soothed my ka. I began to tell her of my family, of our estate in Pi-Ramses, of my battles with my father who wanted me to become a merchant like himself, and of my eventual triumph and admittance to the military academy attached to the palace. “I intend to obtain a posting to the eastern border when I have been promoted to senior officer,” I finished, “but until then I am under the command of the General Paiis who keeps me guarding …” I got no further. With an exclamation she grasped my shoulder.

  “Paiis! Paiis? That worm of Apophis! That granary rat! I found him attractive once. That was before …” She was struggling for control. Deftly I removed her hand from my shoulder. It had gone cold. “Is he still handsome and charming? Do princesses still plot to share his bed?” She began to beat at the sand. “Where is your pity, Wepwawet? I have paid and paid for my deeds. I have fought to forget, to abandon hope, and now you send me this!” Clumsily she scrambled up and ran past me, and I had only just got to my feet when she returned clutching a box. Her whole body was shaking as she thrust it at me. Her eyes were fierce. “Listen to me without prejudice please, please, Kamen! I beg you for the sake of my ka, take this box to the house of Paiis! But do not give it to Paiis himself. He would destroy it or worse. Place it into the hands of one of the King’s men
who surely must come and go under your eye. Ask that it be delivered to Ramses himself. Make up any story you like. Tell the truth if you like. But not to Paiis! Think what you wish of me, but if there is any doubt in your mind, any doubt at all, help me! It is a small thing to do, is it not? Pharaoh is besieged with petitions every day. Please!”

  My hand went to my sword with the instinctive reaction of my training. But I had been taught how to hold off hostile men, not obstinate women with only the most slender control over their minds. My fingers alighted on the hilt and rested there. “I am not the one to ask,” I objected, keeping my voice calm. “I cannot approach such people as freely as you might think, and if I make your request to one of my father’s friends, he will want to assure himself of its validity before risking loss of face before the One. Why have you not taken your box to Aswat’s mayor to be included in his correspondence to the governor of this nome, and through the governor to Pharaoh’s Vizier? Why do you trouble the Heralds, none of whom will ever help you?”

  “I am an outcast here,” she said loudly. I could see that she was striving to appear reasonable, but her body was rigid and her voice was uneven. “I am a daughter of Aswat but to my neighbours I am a source of shame and they shun me. The mayor has refused me many times. The villagers make sure that my words are not heard by denying my story to those who might help me. They do not want the scab torn off the wound of their humiliation. So I remain the madwoman, an irritant they can explain honourably, instead of an exiled murderess trying to obtain pardon.” She shrugged. “Even my brother, Pa-ari, though he loves me, will do nothing. His sense of justice would be outraged if the King at last bent a sympathetic ear to me. No one will risk his position, let alone his life, for me.” Holding the box in both hands, she pressed it gently against my chest and looked full into my face. “Will you?”

  I heartily wished myself a hundred miles away, for pity, the one emotion sure to drain all strength from a man, had woken in me. Perhaps if I took the box the madness of her obsession would decline. I had only the faintest idea of what it must be like for her to make her way month after month, year after year, to the riverbank to face the ridicule of the men she was forced to approach, their dismissals, the contempt or worse, the compassion, in their eyes. I hoped she could not read my own. If I took the box, she would be relieved of that burden. I could throw it overboard. No word would come to her from the palace, of course, but she would be comforted by the thought that the King had simply chosen to continue her banishment, and peace might come to her. Such a deceit was unworthy of an officer in the King’s service, but were not my intentions kind? Guiltily I sighed and nodded, my hands, as I lifted them to receive the box, sliding over hers as she stepped away. “I will take it,” I said, “but you must surely not expect any answer from the King.” A great smile spread across her face and she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.