Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,187

loved, because I did not know how many days I had left and I wanted to spend them all with Kheperren.

The servant loaded my basket of belongings into a boat. It was not a large craft like Glory of Thoth, which I had left for the next Great Royal Judge. It was a middle-sized and well-built wooden vessel and its name, according to the writing around its prow, was Rider of the Reeds which was a nice name for a flat-bottomed craft, which would indeed ride the reeds.

Kheperren loaded another basket in beside me and jumped in, casting off and grabbing the tiller.

‘Come along, Ptah-hotep,’ he urged. ‘Have you forgotten how to row?’

I had not, and it was not really rowing anyway; just steering. The current carried us gently. The early morning mist was burning off the river. Later it would be hot. I asked how far we were travelling.

‘Not a long way,’ Kheperren smiled. ‘We will be there long before noon. I hope you like it, ’Hotep. It’s not a grand place. I’ve lived all my life in army camps, so any place is good enough for a soldier. But you’ve lived in palaces. This is…’

I bade him to stop worrying and mind his steering. We were in the middle of the river, the current was running quickly, and I had already seen one hippopotamus. Hippopotamuses, like troubles, seldom come singly.

I wasn’t worried about where we were going. I was free of all loves but this, my first. Free of all learning except a few curious scrolls which I meant to spend a few years puzzling out. Free of all command, all responsibility, all allegiance. I was a little intoxicated by being loosed from captivity. I began to sing, and soon Kheperren joined in.

Rise thou, my glad heart,

With thy diadem in the horizon of the sky

Grant thee glory in heaven

Power on earth

That I may go forth with gladness

That I may lie down in peace.

That my heart may be satisfied

That my journey be at an end.

I woke late at night. Kheperren was asleep beside me. He had bought me to a small well-made house by the river, surrounded with a vineyard. I had been introduced to the three men and two women who were to care for us.

I had admired the fish pool and approved of the vintage. It was a very pleasant place. We had eaten a peasant’s supper, of beans, bread, roasted fish and melons.

We had lain down in love and slept, and now I was awake. I could hear the rustling of the reeds, but there was something else, animal feet moving, a sniffing, and then a sharp thief-scaring bark.

‘Kheperren,’ I shook him by the shoulder and he drowsed awake and kissed my neck. A wave of delight was sweeping over me, but there was something I had to know.

‘Kheperren, what is the name of our dog?’

He pulled me down into his arms on the reed-mat bed.

‘Wolf,’ he said.

Afterword

On the State of Egyptology

A scholar, says poet A. E. Housman, is in the position of a donkey between two bales of hay who starves to death because it cannot make up its mind which bale to eat. Even though my friend Dennis Pryor says the natural position of a scholar is between two mutually antagonistic theories, I find the state of Egyptology unduly contradictory.

Consider the following, which confronted me just before I lost my temper with the whole thing. I am considering the position of scribes in the 18th Dynasty.

Barbara Mertz, author of Red Land, Black Land and a notable authority, says on p 134: ‘there were no little mud-brick schoolhouses in Egypt.’

Strouhal, also a notable authority and author of Life In Ancient Egypt, says on p 36 that there is evidence: of whole classes run for trainees…scribes…in the capital city of Thebes…(and) at the Ramasseum…and in later times…at other centres too.’

Now, although they may not have been made of mud-brick, they sound like schools to me.

Mertz adds, ‘girls were not taught.’ Strouhal retorts, ‘we know the princesses joined in (the classes) because one is portrayed with a writing tablet in her hand.’ Mertz says: ‘there were no schoolbooks;’ to which Strouhal replies: ‘the textbook was called Kemyt’.

Mertz says: ‘arithmetic was not taught’; but Strouhal states that: ‘the teaching (of mathematics) was limited to simple arithmetic and algebra which scribes might need…there were textbooks.’

Mertz says: ‘we do not know what age education began’; while Strouhal says without any qualification that: ‘schooling was from the age of five to