He was so old that his hands trembled on his breast. His skin was like vellum which has been left in the sun, a multitude of fine lines. His black eyes had filmed over. Time had struck him down and stripped him of his sight, but his voice was clear and he recognised my greeting.
‘Ptah-hotep,’ he said, ‘Greeting. I fear that I cannot offer you anything—not even a game of senet,’ he chuckled. ‘Though I shall soon be playing Passing-Through-The-Underworld in earnest.’
‘I am glad to see you, lord,’ I said, sitting down on the edge of the pallet. It was the usual peasant’s mud-brick shelf-bed, which was usually padded with a straw mattress. ‘I have come as you asked.’
‘You always had courage,’ he remarked. ‘Even when a terrible old man did his best to overawe you. Ah, well. I am dying,’ he said, taking my hand in both of his fleshless claws.
‘Yes, lord,’ it would have been discourteous to argue with him.
‘And I wished to tell you something before I die and have to confess my sins to the judges in the underworld. My heart will weigh heavily against the feather, for all of this is my fault, my fault,’ he began to cry. Tears trickled down the old face and I wiped them gently away.
‘Lord, how can this be all your fault? The state of the Black Land is too terrible for it to be any one man’s fault. It is not your doing that the river did not rise, is it, lord?’
‘Don’t humour me, boy, I am old but I am not senile,’ he snapped, sounding much more like himself. ‘Do you remember the temple of Amen-Re in its splendour?’
‘Certainly, lord. As I recall Amenhotep-Osiris thought that the temple had too much power; for there were two rulers of Egypt, you and the Pharaoh. The lord Amenhotep-Osiris tried to reduce your influence; and it was played like a game, in the sunlit courts, in the golden halls of Amen-Re.
‘When I came to see you, lord, for the first time, a boy just taken from the school of scribes, I was left waiting in your inner apartment. There was a wall painted with doors and a floor made of inlaid turquoise, a ceiling all webbed with golden images of Amen-Re, and your throne made of electrum with a footstool of silver. I had never seen such wealth. And you, my lord, came in through an unexpected door like a spider, attended by two naked women more lovely than any I had ever seen.’
‘You were no fly, Ptah-hotep. I did not realise then what an honourable creature had flown into my web. Though I did realise it after. I heard how you surrendered your office, boy, gave away your goods, set your slaves free, in order not to obey a dreadful order from the vile king. I wished that I had shared your courage.’
‘Userkhepesh, what are you trying to say?’ I asked gently, wishing I had at least bought some wine to moisten the old man’s dry throat. I had not thought to find him so unprovided with basic comforts. I had not imagined that the Chief Servant of Amen-Re could really be poor. I summoned the attendant.
‘Priest, here is maybe a twentieth of a deben. Go and buy some wine and bread, if some can be found.’ I gave all the copper shavings that I had in my pouch to the attendant. He vanished without a word, closing the door behind him.
‘Once a twentieth of a deben would have brought you more than bread and wine,’ commented Userkhepesh.
‘I could have given him a couple of gold beads, but that might have got him murdered,’ I replied. ‘The streets of Thebes are very unsafe now for anyone carrying anything of value.’
‘Indeed. Do you recall the son of the Wise King Amenhotep-Osiris?’
‘Lord, he rules all Egypt now, and a worse king has never sat on the Throne of the Two Lands,’ I replied, wondering if he was indeed senile.
‘There was a parley between all the chief priests, before you were born,’ he went on. ‘It was held in my apartments in the great temple of Amen-Re. The priests of Ptah were there, and Khnum, the strange cosmogeny of Hermopolis. We drank wine and watched Nubian dancers and indulged our flesh with women, with hair the colour of ripe corn, who had been bought in slave-markets beyond the Great Green Sea. The feast cost me a basket of gold.’
‘Yes, lord.’ I could