Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,38

torch from a slave and led me up a flight of stairs.

None of them had spoken. This treatment was evidently designed to rattle me, and I was determined that it should not do so. I had not asked or schemed or even desired to be Great Royal Scribe, but I was, and I had a feeling that if I had been the old man Nebamenet I would not have been walking through the halls attended by priests who seemed to have been struck dumb by my eminence. When the young man picked up his pace, wishing perhaps to have me arrive at my destination out of breath, I kept to my usual walking speed until he noticed and came back for me. Then I saw some expression on his expressionless face; it was not a smile but a softening of his rigidly schooled features. I did not speak to him, because I would have been at a disadvantage if I spoke and he did not reply. I had played this game at the school of scribes, and I had always won.

We came to a painted door, and the priest called ‘Ptah-hotep,’ and a slave opened.

I stepped inside. The room was bright with torchlight which revealed painted walls, a marble floor inlaid with golden sun discs, a ceiling made of golden rosettes placed so thickly that they looked like spiderweb over a lapis lazuli sky, and a throne.

It was made of wood overlaid with gold. The high back was of electrum, an alloy of silver and gold, the cushions were covered with golden tapestry and the footrest was of solid silver. It would have bought a small town.

Since I was not required to bow to an empty throne, I stood where I was and considered the situation. The slave who had admitted me had gone. I knew what I was expected to do: get angry, or fidget, or wander around and finger the ornaments, or fret, or tremble.

I did none of these. I sank down into the scribe’s cross legged position, folded my hands in my lap, and sank into thought.

The high priest was assuming a lot about the nature of my appointment if he dared treat me so discourteously. He was also making certain assumptions about me which I could not like. He was expecting to evoke an emotional reaction, well, I was certainly an emotional being, but all my love was given to one human, and he was with the army.

I knew how powerful the high priest was; did he know how powerful I was, with my patron the king behind me? Was it wise, in short, to slight me without doing some research to find out how I was likely to react? The Pharaoh Akhnamen could have ordered—though such a thing was unthinkable—that the worship of Amen-Re be abandoned and no taxes be paid to the priests, and where would that leave the high priest? A discredited old man forced to beg his way along the roads.

That thought pleased me and I may have smiled a little.

I sat still for about half an hour by the sand-clock on the table when I heard a scraping sound and an unexpected door opened in the painted wall. I had had time to memorise the decorations, and this wall was unusual; it was painted all over with doors of all sizes and shapes, half-open like the false door in a tomb which allows the ka to enter. One of these doors was now opening, and an old man came through, attended by two entirely naked, very beautiful women, who assisted him to climb the step and sit down on the throne.

I had enquired as to the correct greeting of Great Royal Scribe to High Priest. I rose and waited for him to acknowledge me. He raised his eyes and gave a slight nod.

‘Ptah-hotep,’ he said, a mild discourtesy.

‘Servant of Amen-Re,’ I bowed to the correct depth and no lower.

‘My name is Userkhepesh,’ he said. He was required to tell me his name by protocol agreed between the palace and the temple. I was tired, hot and weary of these manoeuvrings.

‘My title is Great Royal Scribe,’ I pointed out, as the thing which he clearly did not know about me.

There was a moment when we stared straight into each other’s eyes. He was very old. His shaven head was as white as chalk, his limbs trembled with age, and his robes hung on his rack of a body like nets on a