Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,136
his last night? Mutnodjme, that’s who. And if they did not let me in soon I might easily seize a spear and start a massacre.
‘No,’ agreed the soldier, slowly.
‘And I am going in, not out,’ I said, and opened the door. The soldier watched me with the bewildered expression of a man who has given his arm-ring to a conjurer at a fair. I slipped past him while he was still thinking about it and closed and barred the door from the inside. I might not be able to leave, but until someone lowered this plank, they would not be able to get in, either.
‘I’m here, and I’m not leaving, because I can’t leave,’ I announced to Kheperren and Ptah-hotep, who were sitting at the same desk and puzzling over an inscription. ‘I can’t leave because there are two soldiers at your door to prevent it.’
‘We heard screaming,’ he said. ‘What happened in the courtyard of the Phoenix? We were about to go out and look for you.’
‘Mass rape,’ I said shortly, putting down my bundle. ‘I went to tell the Widow-Queen about it but she was not there. I hope that nothing has happened to her!’
‘She is more likely to have happened to someone else,’ Kheperren soothed me. He was right. I doubted that there was anyone in the palace, even the dim soldiery, who would dare to threaten the lady Tiye.
‘Well, Merope my sister has gone to her new husband, a nice man, Kheperren, he had even learned some Kritian to speak to her and she just fell into his arms. The others, well, the others are at least away from the palace.
‘I saw my sister Nefertiti there, floating above the terror, serene as cream, the daughter of a dog! How is it with you?’ I asked, looking at Ptah-hotep.
‘We are consulting some old proverbs,’ said Ptah-hotep. ‘There is one which I am looking for, but the manuscripts have been so damaged by the King’s insistence on removing the name of Amen-Re that they are hard to read.’
‘Which one are you searching for? I might know where it is,’ I said.
‘Something about teaching a goat to talk,’ Ptah-hotep said, and I laughed. I knew that one.
‘Come and I will tell you about it,’ I said, and they came to sit down with me in the empty inner apartments, far from any hearers, though we could speak any treason we wished, for doom had already come upon one we loved and Kheperren and I did not greatly care what happened to us if Ptah-hotep was to die.
I knew he would die rather than set that pyre alight.
To push the thought away, I made a story of the proverb. Kheperren and Ptah-hotep sat down at my feet and listened.
Once there was an Eloquent Peasant, and his son who was a thief. His thieveries were many, and he was finally caught as part of a gang which robbed the treasuries of the Pharaoh, even the Lord of the Two Lands.
This is how he was caught; the Master of the Treasury knew that gold was vanishing, but not how. In fact there was a secret entrance, made by a king who was a miser and did not want his court to know how often he visited his treasury to croon over his gold. The thieves had discovered this entrance and the Master of the Treasury did not know where it lay. But he set a trap, such as we use for mice but very large, and when one of the thieves reached for a particularly fine golden vessel, the trap snapped shut and he was caught by the arm. The others fled but in the morning there was the peasant’s son, caught fast.
The treasurer brought the thief before the king, who sent for the boy’s father. He was allowed to speak to his son and advised him of what to say.
So just when Pharaoh was about to pronounce sentence of mutilation and exile, or even death, the boy said, ‘Royal Lord, Master of the Two Thrones, give me a year, and I will teach a goat to talk!’
‘Impossible,’ said the King, but the boy repeated his statement, and the Pharaoh was interested. After all, he could still order the boy’s execution after the year if he had not carried out his boast.
So the son of the Eloquent Peasant was released. As soon as they were out of earshot he turned on his father, angrily asking, ‘Why did