her hands and kissed them lightly. “You honour me, Ishat,” he told her quietly. “Be well.” Running along the ramp, he disappeared into his cabin.
Seneb bowed to the pair on the steps, shouted an order, and quickly the ramp was hauled in. Sailors appeared with poles and began to push the barge away from the bank and into the centre of the sullen river. Ishat put a hand on Huy’s arm. She was about to speak, but Huy shook her off.
“Not now,” he said tersely. “I need poppy and an hour on my couch. Tell Merenra to begin preparations for the Royal Nurse’s visit.” None of this will have any meaning once she is gone, he thought as he felt the blessed coolness of the reception hall enfold him. Not the estate, not my work. She has become the heart of everything in my life. How shall I fill the chasm her going will leave? Already I feel it opening all around me.
He lay on his couch once Tetiankh had given him the drug and had withdrawn, turning onto his side and staring into the dimness of the room. This is not anger, he realized all at once with a shock the poppy did not dull. This is fear. I am afraid of loneliness, afraid of missing her, afraid of decisions that must be made without her clear voice arguing us both into consensus. Fear? This is panic. Ishat is my link to the world of normality and practicality I began to leave the moment Sennefer’s throwing stick sent me plunging into Ra’s temple lake, a world I crave desperately but can only partially inhabit. I cannot get drunk, although I may drink. I cannot make love, although I may feel both love and desire. I must carefully discipline my mind to appreciate the beauty of Egypt, thrusting away any comparison my ka wants to make with the incomparable glories of Paradise. I am Atum’s pawn, at the mercy of whatever visions he chooses to send me, without the security of knowing his will, for even though the words of the Book of Thoth are sharply embedded in my consciousness, I still have not been able to solve their final riddle.
As if he had deliberately summoned them, the first phrases of the Book rose into his mind. “I Thoth, greatest of heka-power, giver of the sacred gift of language to man out of my own Hu, set down these mysteries at the command of Atum so that he who is possessed of the gift of wisdom may read and understand what is the will of the Holy One. Let him who desires this knowledge take care that his eyes be diligent and his reverence complete. For he without sia will read to his harm, and he without diligence will enter the Second Duat.”
The opium was spreading its warmth through his blood, loosening the tension in his limbs, gently lifting memories out of the dimness on the periphery of his consciousness where they hid, and imbuing them with all the colour and immediacy of moments long gone. Once again he was stepping down from the wicker floor of the chariot after his lesson on the school’s training ground and running his hand over Lazy White Star’s moist flank as he prepared to unhitch the horse. He could smell his own sweat mingling with the not unpleasant odour of the animal. The sun was hot on his head. Dust clung to his calves. But he was oblivious to the physical world around him for the torment in his mind. What was the Second Duat? He had cursed the sluggishness and ignorance of his own sia, his perception, as he freed the horse from the vehicle, led it into its stall, and washed and brushed it while it drank, his movements automatic. He had then gone outside, and was struggling to wrench the chariot free of the sand when the solution had come to him, flooding his mind. The Second Duat was what every Egyptian thought of as the first and only one, a place through which the dead must pass in order to reach the Paradise of Osiris, a nightmare populated by djinns and demons. The First Duat was the place where Atum willed a metamorphosis for himself.
Huy, lying drugged on his couch, no longer saw the far wall of his room.
Seneb bowed to the pair on the steps, shouted an order, and quickly the ramp was hauled in. Sailors appeared with poles and began to push the barge away from the bank and into the centre of the sullen river. Ishat put a hand on Huy’s arm. She was about to speak, but Huy shook her off.
“Not now,” he said tersely. “I need poppy and an hour on my couch. Tell Merenra to begin preparations for the Royal Nurse’s visit.” None of this will have any meaning once she is gone, he thought as he felt the blessed coolness of the reception hall enfold him. Not the estate, not my work. She has become the heart of everything in my life. How shall I fill the chasm her going will leave? Already I feel it opening all around me.
He lay on his couch once Tetiankh had given him the drug and had withdrawn, turning onto his side and staring into the dimness of the room. This is not anger, he realized all at once with a shock the poppy did not dull. This is fear. I am afraid of loneliness, afraid of missing her, afraid of decisions that must be made without her clear voice arguing us both into consensus. Fear? This is panic. Ishat is my link to the world of normality and practicality I began to leave the moment Sennefer’s throwing stick sent me plunging into Ra’s temple lake, a world I crave desperately but can only partially inhabit. I cannot get drunk, although I may drink. I cannot make love, although I may feel both love and desire. I must carefully discipline my mind to appreciate the beauty of Egypt, thrusting away any comparison my ka wants to make with the incomparable glories of Paradise. I am Atum’s pawn, at the mercy of whatever visions he chooses to send me, without the security of knowing his will, for even though the words of the Book of Thoth are sharply embedded in my consciousness, I still have not been able to solve their final riddle.
As if he had deliberately summoned them, the first phrases of the Book rose into his mind. “I Thoth, greatest of heka-power, giver of the sacred gift of language to man out of my own Hu, set down these mysteries at the command of Atum so that he who is possessed of the gift of wisdom may read and understand what is the will of the Holy One. Let him who desires this knowledge take care that his eyes be diligent and his reverence complete. For he without sia will read to his harm, and he without diligence will enter the Second Duat.”
The opium was spreading its warmth through his blood, loosening the tension in his limbs, gently lifting memories out of the dimness on the periphery of his consciousness where they hid, and imbuing them with all the colour and immediacy of moments long gone. Once again he was stepping down from the wicker floor of the chariot after his lesson on the school’s training ground and running his hand over Lazy White Star’s moist flank as he prepared to unhitch the horse. He could smell his own sweat mingling with the not unpleasant odour of the animal. The sun was hot on his head. Dust clung to his calves. But he was oblivious to the physical world around him for the torment in his mind. What was the Second Duat? He had cursed the sluggishness and ignorance of his own sia, his perception, as he freed the horse from the vehicle, led it into its stall, and washed and brushed it while it drank, his movements automatic. He had then gone outside, and was struggling to wrench the chariot free of the sand when the solution had come to him, flooding his mind. The Second Duat was what every Egyptian thought of as the first and only one, a place through which the dead must pass in order to reach the Paradise of Osiris, a nightmare populated by djinns and demons. The First Duat was the place where Atum willed a metamorphosis for himself.
Huy, lying drugged on his couch, no longer saw the far wall of his room.
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