Orphan of the Sun, page 6
On the morning of the ritual itself, Meryt was left in charge of baking bread and cakes while Tia and Nauna prepared vegetables in the back room. Henut and Mose hung around the courtyard, getting in the way of both Meryt and Nes, the Nubian servant girl who had been brought in to grind a new batch of grain.
Baki wandered around the house with a cocky smile on his face, occasionally joining his younger brother and sister as they played around Meryt’s feet. ‘You will have to wait on me at the feast tonight,’ he said to Meryt, grabbing a chunk of freshly baked bread. ‘I’ll be a man. You’ll have to do as I say.’
‘I’m waiting on the guests. Tia will look after you,’ Meryt told him, unwilling to be drawn into an argument. She took a bowl of freshly ground wheat from Nes and added a little salt and honey.
‘I’ll be at the feast too. I won’t need looking after,’ boasted Baki. ‘Father’s gone to buy wine. He says I can drink as much as I please after the ritual. I won’t feel any pain.’
Meryt shrugged. She knew that there were also ointments that would reduce the pain a little, but nothing could take it away entirely. ‘If you say so.’
‘Do you doubt me?’ Baki demanded. He ripped his bread apart and took a bite.
Meryt looked at him. How could he be so arrogant? ‘Take care that you don’t anger the gods,’ she warned him. ‘They may give you greater pain than you’re expecting.’
‘You would say that,’ replied Baki. ‘And I suppose you’ll make sure they do, with one of your curses.’
‘Baki!’ Meryt glared at her cousin. She knew he was taunting her, but the words were too painful to ignore. ‘I do not curse anyone, do you hear me? You should mind what you say. You know as well as I do that words of power shouldn’t be trifled with.’
Baki laughed gleefully. ‘“Words of power shouldn’t be trifled with”,’ he mimicked, then stuck out his tongue. ‘Save your lessons for your new husband, Meryt. I’m sure Ramose will lap them up.’
Meryt felt cut to the core. Quickly, she glanced around at Henut, Mose and Nes the servant girl. Henut was happily feeding scraps of bread to the goat. Nes was bent over the corn, still grinding methodically. But Mose was listening, his eyes wide as he took in every word. She felt so angry with Baki that she wanted to strike him.
Before she had the chance, they heard Senmut’s voice calling Baki.
‘Ah! There you are.’ Senmut appeared in the doorway, a cheerful smile on his face. ‘Are you ready for your ritual, Baki? We have to go in a minute.’ He handed Meryt a flagon of wine. ‘Keep that somewhere cool and give me four of the best loaves. We shall make offerings to Ptah and Amen-Re before the ceremony.’
Meryt did as he said, handing two each to Senmut and Baki. Tia appeared next to Senmut, her face drawn and anxious. She embraced her oldest son, and gave his black side-lock a final caress. Meryt could see the fear in her eyes, and felt a wave of sympathy for her aunt in spite of her anger with Baki.
‘Take this,’ she heard Tia whisper, pressing an object into Baki’s hand. ‘I have pronounced many spells over it. May it protect you and deliver you from suffering.’
Baki opened his hand, and Meryt caught a glimpse of what lay on his palm. It was Tia’s favourite amulet, an udjat eye of Horus made of faience, glazed a deep cobalt blue.
The household immediately seemed more peaceful once the men had gone. Meryt made a big batch of flat loaves, placing the shaped lumps of dough on the outside surface of the little domed oven. They were the easiest kind of loaf to make, for when they were cooked, they simply dropped to the floor. The emmer wheat cakes were trickier. They had to be cooked on the inside of the oven and watched carefully, and Meryt was pleased when they came out round and golden.
Tia brought in a big bowl of onions, garlic, leeks, peas and beans, and began gutting the ducks. The mothers of the other five boys arrived one by one, bringing gifts to add to the feast. As Tia sat with Mose, making a note of them all on an ostracon, Meryt took the opportunity to escape to the roof.
In the still heat of the early afternoon, sound travelled easily across the village. Meryt leant against the wall and looked out over the rooftops, listening to the bleating of a neighbour’s goat. The murmur of voices drifted up from the streets and courtyards, interspersed with spurts of laughter. Now that the working week had ended, the murmuring seemed deeper as more male voices joined in.
She turned at the sound of footsteps. It was Mose, standing uncertainly at the top of the stairway. Meryt held out her arm and the eight year old came to stand next to her.
‘Have you finished writing down all the presents?’ Meryt asked him.
Mose nodded. ‘Tuya brought two more ducks. The others brought bread and vegetables.’
‘We won’t go hungry then, will we?’
Mose smiled briefly, but he seemed preoccupied. Meryt thought of her exchange with Baki, and felt a stab of fear.
‘Is something troubling you, Mose?’ she forced herself to ask.
Mose dug his finger into a little hole he had made in the mud brick. Meryt watched him, seeing from his furrowed brow and pursed lips that his mind was working furiously. At last, he looked up. ‘When you get married, will you still come and see us?’ he asked.
It was like a punch in the stomach. Meryt stared at her little cousin speechlessly for a moment. ‘Who says I’m getting married?’ she whispered eventually.
Mose’s face brightened. ‘You mean you’re not?’
‘I don’t want to, no.’
‘But Baki said …’
‘Don’t listen to Baki. He was teasing me.’ Meryt felt desperate. If everyone assumed she was going to marry Ramose – even the children – there would be little chance of getting out of it.
Mose’s calm eyes gazed at her. She could tell he wasn’t convinced, but his next words surprised her all the same. ‘You shouldn’t have to marry if you don’t want to,’ he said.
Meryt touched his arm. These days, little escaped the eight year old, and she felt glad that he understood. But the pressure was mounting. Senmut would demand a decision before long.
When Baki returned, it was not on foot but in Senmut’s muscular arms. The neighbouring women had left to greet their own menfolk, and Meryt was sitting with Nauna preparing fruit. She watched from the courtyard as her uncle carried her cousin inside and laid him down in the back room. Baki was whimpering, his shorn head making his dark eyes seem all the wider as he stared up at Senmut and Tia through his pain. Meryt thought of his boasts earlier that day, and shook her head grimly.
Tia knelt beside him and held his hands. ‘May Isis protect you – life, prosperity, health,’ Meryt heard her whisper. ‘May your suffering be taken from you. Peshedu, have mercy on my son.’
Senmut left her to it and walked through to the courtyard. He seemed in good spirits, and smiled expansively. ‘How are the preparations going?’ he asked. ‘The guests will be arriving soon. Are you ready to serve, Meryt?’
Meryt shook her head, and scrambled to her feet. ‘No, Uncle. I’ll get ready now.’
It was a role she hated. Senmut could not afford to buy any servants or to hire them for an evening’s revelry. Of course there was Nes, but she was employed by the government only to grind the grain. So whenever Senmut had friends around, he expected his niece to play the part of a hired hand.
Meryt went through to the middle room and opened a wooden casket. She took out a mirror of highly polished bronze, a little pot of kohl and another of red ochre, and a string of cowrie shells. Quickly, she slipped off her linen dress and packed it into the casket. She was slinging the cowrie string around her hips when Senmut came into the room.
‘I’ll need my best kilt and wig,’ he said. ‘Tia’s busy with Baki. Bring them to me when you’re ready – I’ll be on the roof.’
Meryt nodded, and reached for the kohl pot. With a little brush, she gave her eyes a thick black outline, trying not to smudge the edges. Then she dabbed some of the red ochre on to her cheeks and reached into the casket once more for a beaded necklace. Last of all, she reached for her wig – a cheap one made of date-palm fibre that she hated, because it made her itch.
In another casket lay Senmut’s finest kilt, made of pure white linen and painstakingly ironed into many beautiful pleats by Tia. Next to it lay his wig. Meryt grabbed them both and headed on to the roof, sucking in her cheeks as the cool evening breeze chilled her bare skin.
‘Thank you, Meryt,’ said Senmut as she handed him the garments. His mood was still cheerful, and Meryt hoped it would remain that way.
‘Do you need anything else?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘No. Go and help Nauna now.’ He paused, and smiled. ‘You’ll make a good wife, Meryt.’
Meryt stared at him, her throat dry. But Senmut was already wrapping the beautiful kilt around his loins, humming a tune. Before he could say anything else, she turned and ran quickly down the stairs.
The evening drew in swiftly. As the ducks roasted on a fire, Senmut’s guests arrived and settled themselves in the middle room. Nauna remained in the courtyard while Meryt ferried to and fro, first serving wine, then dishes piled high with meat and vegetables.
Whenever she passed through the back room, Meryt spared a moment for Tia, who scarcely moved from her son’s side. Baki made a poor patient, as Meryt had suspected he might. He writhed on the bed, groaning continuously and making bad-tempered demands for more wine. Tia gave him small swigs, and bathed his forehead with a cool, soothing ointment. Meryt passed her aunt small platefuls of food and begged her to eat, but Tia would not be tempted. She seemed lost in the world of her son’s pain and could think of nothing else.
The workmen were unused to drinking wine. On a daily basis they drank beer, and the stronger brew soon began to go to their heads. With each journey through to the middle room, Meryt was greeted with louder gales of laughter; and as their eyes lapped up the sight of her growing body, it became harder to keep her smile in its place. She consoled herself with the tastiest morsels of duck, crisped up on the fire and seasoned with salt, popping them into her mouth surreptitiously as she carried the serving plates through.
At last the men stumbled off into the night. Meryt rescued her dress from the casket and joined Mose and Henut where they lay on the roof, out of the men’s way. Henut was already sound asleep, duck fat smeared around her mouth and a peaceful expression on her face.
‘Everyone’s gone. You can go down now, if you want,’ Meryt whispered to Mose. ‘There’s lots more food too, if you’re hungry.’
Mose shook his head. ‘I’ve had enough.’ He sat up and looked anxiously at Meryt. ‘Will Baki be all right? Mama seems so worried about him.’
‘Of course he will. He’ll be his usual self in a few days.’ Meryt’s heart went out to the sensitive eight year old, who knew only too well that he would suffer the same fate in a few years’ time. All the same, he was right to observe that Tia seemed more worried than she should be. ‘Mama’s worried because Baki is her first child, that’s all,’ she added. ‘Make the most of the peace and quiet. He’ll be teasing you again in no time.’
Mose lay back down again, reassured. Meryt fetched a sheet and her precious ostracon before lying down beside him. She gazed at the image of the goddess Hathor, her frustration welling up inside as she mulled over the day’s events. Soon Baki would be back on his feet and Senmut would turn all his attention to getting rid of her. Why was nothing becoming clearer? She thought again of her dream – the image of Ramose disappearing over the mountain with her father, Peshedu …
Peshedu. How Meryt wished she had known him – both him and her mother, Simut. Simut had been so young when she died, a shimmering shadow of a girl. Sometimes Meryt wondered if she would suffer the same fate, if she ever tried to give birth. She had heard it said that such things could be passed from mother to daughter. But it was too frightening a thought to dwell on for long.
Her image of Peshedu was stronger. Tia spoke of him so often that Meryt had a clear picture of him in her mind – a lean, muscular man, not tall, but with a firm jaw and humorous eyes. There was also the bust of him in the front room niche, which Tia had commissioned on his death. It had been made by one of his friends, a fellow-sculptor, who had lovingly recreated his features when he had been struck down by the disease that stole so many men of the village in their prime.
Meryt re-examined her dream from every angle. Looking through the window to see her father … The hot desert wind, whipping around his linen kilt … The appearance of Ramose, travelling back from the kings’ tombs … None of it made any sense. Somehow, it seemed as though Peshedu held the answer, but how could that be?
There was only one solution: she would have to ask him personally. Not in the front room, where he had never lived, but in the tomb itself, where his embalmed body lay together with those of his ancestors.
Meryt-Re drifted restlessly into sleep and woke at dawn. The village was already coming to life in the streets around, but Mose and Henut were still sound asleep. Meryt rose quietly and crept down the stairs. In the dim light, she selected a ripe pomegranate and an untouched loaf of bread from the leftovers of the feast, and picked up the wooden kindling sticks with which the family kindled fire. She put them in a little reed basket and added a handful of dry straw. Then she slipped through the house to the front room, where she collected her packet of incense and the burner.
Baki was at last asleep, with Tia on the floor beside him. She had fallen asleep where she sat, kneeling by the side of the bed with her head resting on her arms. Meryt tiptoed past Senmut and Nauna, both snoring in the middle room, and out into the street.
Although it was the last day of the weekend, many of the villagers were already awake, taking advantage of the cool light of dawn. As Meryt headed south, workmen on donkeys trotted past her on their way to tend fields in the valley, servant girls walked sleepily towards her to start their monotonous job of grinding the grain, and the more diligent women were sweeping the street outside their houses.
Suddenly, Meryt stopped. Just up ahead of her, the wiry figure of Nofret appeared from a side alley. Her head was bowed and she turned south towards the gate without seeing Meryt. With a little skip, Meryt hurried after her to catch up.
She touched the servant girl on the shoulder. ‘Nofret.’
Nofret spun around, her eyes wide with fear.
‘It’s only me,’ said Meryt gently. ‘I wish you no harm. May I talk to you?’
The servant girl recoiled from her, her shoulders tense.
‘Please,’ said Meryt. ‘You can trust me, I promise.’
Nofret said nothing, but fell in beside Meryt as she carried on walking towards the village gate. Once they had passed through it, Meryt stopped.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked. ‘To the embalmers’ workshops?’
Nofret nodded.
‘Which way? Over the mountain?’ Meryt indicated the route through the eastern cemetery where the two girls had met before. This time, Nofret shook her head.
‘You don’t need to go that way because today you have nothing to hide.’ Meryt’s words were more a statement than a question. The servant girl nodded, and bowed her head.
Meryt studied her. She knew that the burden of secrecy was a heavy one, and sensed that Nofret might be ready to unload it. ‘Come with me,’ she said gently. ‘Dawn has only just broken. You have plenty of time. I am going to make an offering at my father’s tomb.’
Nofret looked anxious. ‘I can’t …’ she began.
‘Not for long,’ Meryt reassured her. ‘It will be quiet in the chapel courtyard. Come.’
The servant girl hesitated. But then, as Meryt started up the path that led to the western tombs, she began to follow.
Meryt walked west towards the cliffs, where the villagers’ tombs formed a large, sprawling cemetery across the lower slopes, their little pyramid-topped chapels dotting the limestone hillside. Unlike the disused eastern cemetery, this one was well maintained, for each tomb was assigned to a living family. She took a little path that led south-west, then stepped into one of the chapel courtyards.
Nofret paused at the entrance.
‘It’s safe here,’ Meryt told her. She felt a pang of sadness. ‘Hardly anyone visits. Most of my relatives are dead.’
Nofret sidled into the courtyard and joined Meryt where she was crouching down in the first patch of morning sunlight. The two girls faced east, soaking up the warmth.
‘At least you have some relatives,’ said Nofret quietly.
Meryt looked at her, the meaning of her words sinking in. Nofret was a servant girl, bought by Userkaf for a quantity of grain. It was a harsh fate. Girls with families did not become servants to be bought and sold like animals. ‘Do you know what happened to yours?’ she asked.
Nofret nodded. ‘My father was caught thieving. He was beaten savagely and sent to work in the stone quarries, far to the south. I don’t suppose he lived long. After that, my mother was forced to become a servant. We were separated when I was five. I had a younger brother too. I don’t know what happened to him.’
She said all this so calmly that Meryt was astonished, and she blurted out the first thing that came into her head. ‘Your father went through all that – and yet you are stealing yourself!’
‘Don’t say that.’ Nofret’s voice was sharp.
Meryt frowned. What did the servant girl expect her to say? Thieving from the royal embalmers’ workshops was madness. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I saw the amulet with my own eyes. You cannot deny it, Nofret. Is it your master, Userkaf, who demands that you steal?’
Nofret shook her head vigorously. ‘No! No …’
‘You would do better to admit the truth,’ Meryt pressed her. ‘How many more have you stolen?’
‘What is it to you?’ cried the servant girl, her eyes flashing defensively. She scrambled to her feet. ‘You can prove nothing. And in any case, you will soon be stuck with Ramose for a husband and the curse of Sekhmet on your head. Why should you care?’
