Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,113

wine. The Tashery vintage of three years ago was superb.’

I saw Meryt, who had clearly been cooking—there was flour on both her cheeks and a wide smear on her haunches where she had wiped her hands—give my dearest love a sharp look. Clearly she did not think ‘humble fare’ a good description of the dishes she was presently preparing. But she allowed the moment to pass and went back to her pots.

Menna had been a royal scribe for thirty years. He was aware that the conversation which he had just heard was loaded with hidden references, but Menna was an old royal scribe and knew better than to comment. Royal scribes, even in the relaxed reign of Amenhotep-Osiris, were discreet, or they were re-employed as labourers on drainage ditches.

Menna laid out on the little table in front of him an inscribed clay tablet, a new clay tablet and a stylus.

‘This is the alphabet, Lady. It is a syllabry, not one letter for each sound, as the cursive which you would have learned—you did learn cursive?’

‘I did,’ I assured him. ‘I was taught first by Khons and then by Duammerset; and my dear friend Snefru allowed me to inspect many of his hoarded scrolls and copied inscriptions.’

I was relying on the spy in the office—Ptah-hotep had confidently identified him as Bakhenmut’s scribe, a young man called Pashed—not knowing the names. They were all common. He would certainly not have heard of Duammerset, the Singer of Isis, and in any case the Lady Duammerset was in the Field of Reeds, probably with Snefru the Scribe, questioning the authors of the most intractable texts as to what they had really meant by them and having a wonderful time, which is what the Field of Reeds is for.

There was nothing that Huy or Pannefer could do to any of the persons I had named. They were all dead, though Duammerset was not the King Akhnaten’s fault. Khons murdered and Snefru dead of shock, however, were.

Menna was a man of great self-control. He raised a papery-skinned hand to wipe tears from his face, but even a close observer would not have noticed that he was weeping, probably for Snefru the Scribe. Everyone knew Snefru and his eternal quest for more ancient writings, everyone liked him and everyone in the field of learning missed him.

‘I was just saying to my colleague, I said, “This is a difficult passage, we’ll have to ask Snefru, he’ll know.” I just said that. And here you are, another of Snefru’s pupils. He has been much in my mind today,’ he explained, very softly.

I said, ‘Master, you have an insect in your eye, let me help you,’ and made a great business of wiping his eyes with a piece of linen and re-drawing his kohl, and by the time I had finished he had recovered himself. He took my hand under the table and squeezed it gently. His grasp was dry, like papyrus. Then he remarked, ‘See, daughter, this little picture which I am drawing is what?’

‘A plough,’ I said.

‘A plough. Now this is the cuneiform sign for the word eppinu which means ‘plough.’ It also stands for the syllable or sound, of course. Can you see how the sign has developed from the picture? Good. here is another. What would you call this?’

I examined the pictograph. ‘Trees, Master Menna?’

‘Trees indeed, you are quick, daughter. That is the pictograph for kiru, orchard. This is sadu, mountain, and this is alpu, which means..’

‘Ox. Yes, I see. How many signs are there?’

‘Five hundred and thirty one,’ Menna informed me with relish. Of course. He liked my company and this task was going to take a considerable time. ‘Each mark has threads and bars; by these the syllable is qualified and this is the determinative and this marks the vowels.’

The system was alien to my mind, as strange as the signs which the Nubians carve on trees to warn wayfarers and mark boundaries. I was employed for two hours in attempting to grasp the syllabry, and I had made little progress when I had to return to the Widow-Queen Tiye’s quarters, and I walked into what looked like a small and well-contained war.

Tiye the Queen may she live was standing in the middle of the room, absolutely beside herself with wrath. My sister Nefertiti was cowering by the door, her back against it, so that I nearly pushed her over when I came in.

The Widow-Queen was so angry that I was very tempted to