must be Apep.’
That sounded reasonable. I began to think that having a teacher was going to be very interesting.
Ptah-hotep
The temple of Amen-Re at Karnak is colossal.
Because I was uncertain if I would return—some people never do return from the temple—I made sure that Khons was settled with the alarming Great Royal Nurse Tey and her two charges. I gave a very unwilling Meryt enough gold to get back to Nubia and a scroll which freed her from slavery. I left Khety and Hanufer with the task of understanding a particularly convoluted tax appeal from the Nome of Set and I farewelled Anubis, who was the only one who didn’t contend with me. I would take no one with me into danger, though I had to have a furious argument with all of them before they agreed to let me go alone.
Meryt plaited my hair with beads, but otherwise I was undecorated, except for the Great Scribe’s ring-seal, which weighed down my hand. I had a right to wear that. Otherwise I was a mere appointee of a Younger Royal Son and did not consider it proper to make a display of my wealth, so recently gained and so easily lost. I was more afraid than I have ever been as I walked unescorted out of the palace of the King and into the avenue of ram’s-head sphinxes which led to the complex and castle of the most important temple of the Black Land’s most important god.
To walk from the palace of the King to the Temple of Amen-Re takes but an hour; and to walk the extent of the Temple of Amen-Re just along the river bank takes four hours. Every Pharaoh since the earliest has added his image and a few temples to the Theban temple, and some have added whole palace sized buildings. The central mystery, of course, is not open to anyone but the King and the High Priest, but the common people can see inside the great pylons or gates when the festival comes, and Amen-Re is carried along the avenue of sphinxes to his wife Mut, to stay for a decan in her arms.
The Heb-Sed festival too centres on this temple. It is celebrated when a Pharaoh has reigned for thirty years, and the Lord Amenhotep may he live looked strong enough to survive another two years and celebrate it. I prayed for the King’s health and my own as I walked along the sanded path, carefully cleared of stones every morning by slaves of the temple. No leaf or bird was suffered to land on that path. Men spent their whole lives warding them off, which struck me as a sad way to spend a life.
The temple is built of sandstone which catches and reflects the rays of its lord. Golden at noon, the stones were red as ochre as I approached them. The serpent wind had died away, the endless maddening scratching sound of blown sand had ceased, and I was wet with sweat and fear. No one spoke to me as I passed several cheerful parties of young men, redolent of wine and pleasure. One woman called to me from the houses of wine by the waterside, but I ignored her. I was praying to Osiris that I might find favour in his eyes because I might be joining him soon, to Neith the Hunter and Isis the Mistress of Magic who protect such creatures as the Princess Sitamen and I, and to such of my ancestors who could spare their attention from feasting in the Field of Offerings.
‘Help me, all gods and venerable ancestors, help me to survive this interview and this night,’ I prayed, but received no answer.
Amen-Re the Sun was descending into the underworld as I came to the pylons, turned aside and said to the soldier guarding the priest’s door, ‘I am Ptah-hotep. The High Priest and Servant of Amen-Re the Sun, Bringer of Blessings, has summoned me. I am here.’
He admitted me instantly into a courtyard. My feet crunched over carefully arranged patterns in unseen mosaic as I was conducted by the soldier who did not speak through a colonnade and into a wide hall. The pillars were shaped like stems, the capitals like lotus flowers. It was of inhuman size, vast and shadowed, with only a few torches for light. An elderly priest, head shaved, eyes down, beckoned me to follow him into another hall, and handed me over to a younger man, who took a