Seer of Egypt by Pauline Gedge

spends most of his time bringing water from the river. Seshemnefer has had to clear the garden of tares and wildflowers and is almost ready to order the seeds and cuttings for planting when the next Inundation recedes. Then we shall have our own produce. He will dig a short canal from the river, right past the house itself and into the rear compound here, that the flood will fill. I want date palms planted along it to hide it from the house. A naked canal looks so, well, naked, don’t you think?”
    They had all begun to sweat under the full glare of the summer sun. Apart from the two soldiers standing stolidly to either side of the gate that led almost immediately to the watersteps, the staff had retreated to their cots for the afternoon sleep. Huy felt the first intimations of a headache begin behind his eyes. “Let’s go back to the reception hall, where it’s cooler,” he said. “If anyone would like to lie down, the linen on the couches is clean. Mother?”
    Itu shook her head. “Ishat is going to show me her new jewels and sheaths. Huy, there’s no sign of Heby. Do you think he’s safe?”
    “Perfectly safe.”
    Once inside, the group broke up, Ishat, Itu, and Hapzefa disappearing upstairs and Huy and Hapu settling themselves in Huy’s office. “I can fetch you barley beer, Father,” Huy offered. “Merenra and his underling are resting. For myself, I would like to drink something other than wine or water. How hot it is!”
    Hapu nodded, running his hands over the gleaming surface of Huy’s desk, which held little more than a large lamp, Ishat’s palette, and a box of fresh papyrus scrolls. “Beer would be wonderful, Huy.” He leaned back and folded his arms. “So all this wealth exists on the whim of the King,” he said slowly. “Have you considered that, my son? What if you displease him? Will he take it all away?”
    Huy, who had already reached the door, paused and glanced back. “Yes, I have, and it troubles me sometimes. Let me fetch the beer.”
    As he went out again into the white heat and walked quickly towards the kitchen, where Khnit brewed the beer and kept it in large flagons, he marvelled at his father’s shrewd discernment. But it shouldn’t surprise me, he told himself as he hefted a flagon, poured the brown liquid into a jug, and grabbed up two cups. After all, we are peasants, he and I, and peasants always know the value of everything they own or grow or must grudgingly buy. We are good bargainers, and we make sure that we never give, or take, something for nothing. The King supports me in exchange for the service of my gifts—but is it enough? Will he demand more from me in the future? Ask something of me that I cannot grant?
    Re-entering the coolness of the office, he set his burden down, poured the beer, and, setting one cup before Hapu, went around the desk and sank into his own chair behind it. Both men drank greedily.
    “I don’t know how I might displease His Majesty,” Huy said. “He asks little of me. I welcome the courtiers he sends for healing or scrying. I treat as many of Hut-herib’s townspeople as I’m able. So far he has not sent me a complaint.”
    Hapu raised his thick eyebrows. Setting his cup deliberately back on the desk, he lifted the hem of his kilt, wiped his mouth, and stared pensively across at Huy. “What if he demanded some service from you that you could not fulfill? Or did not want to fulfill? I’m not talking about breaking a law of the country. Maybe a law of Ma’at? And because you denied him, he snapped his fingers and all this”—he jerked a thumb behind him in the direction of the reception hall—“all this disappeared. Kings can be fickle, Huy. Even the Incarnation of Amun on earth can forget about mercy and justice if it suits him. Are we not in the end his cattle, particularly we peasants, on whose backs rests the welfare of those who govern us?”
    He must not depart from the balance of Ma’at … Already he is tempted to do