what do you require?'
'Are you owned by this young man?' he pointed at me. Meryt nodded.
'Has he your loyalty?'
'He has,' said Meryt. Mentu considered her, then reached out and playfully tugged a tress of beaded, plaited hair.
'You're a good girl,' he commented, and gestured to her to rise. She did so with perfect, athletic ease. 'I might be of use to you, Lord, though not as a scribe. I know the palace, Lord Ptah-hotep. I accept your appointment. I will serve you faithfully. Now, what do you want to know?'
'Tell me about the Master of Scribes,' I said, as a test of his accuracy.
'A good man, if dry as the papyrus he studies. From an old family. Reliable, loyal, all those cold virtues.' So far I agreed with my new second in command.
'The Nomarch of the Nome of the Hare?' I asked at a venture, having just read his report.
'Drinks too much and quarrels incessantly with the Nomarch of Heliopolis. They share family connections - his First Wife is the Heliopolitan's sister. Spends too much of his inheritance on boats and huge feasts.'
'Is he cheating on his taxation?' I hazarded, not knowing how far Mentu would be willing to go in informing on his friends.
'Probably. Look for inconsistencies in the returns on fish; it's been a wonderful season for fish. And turtles.'
'How about Heliopolis, then?'
'Fat and lazy, do anything to avoid trouble. Wouldn't run the risk of cheating, because it would mean that he had to make an effort. Has a longstanding argument with the Temple of Osiris on the bank opposite the city. Study the temple's share closely; he'll shave their ingots if he can.'
'And Thebes?'
'Ah, that is my cousin.'
Without being asked, Meryt filled the cup of this loquacious informant. I found myself beginning to like Mentu, though he was everything I disapproved of in a man.
'Your cousin?'
'Indeed. Now he will pay more than he is required to pay to the Temple of Hathor, because he and the temple priestesses have an understanding. Whenever he feels the need of comfort, he calls for them and they attend his palace and relieve his... monotony,' Mentu laughed and I joined in.
'They are very skilled, the ladies of the Lady of Love and Beauty. The feast of Horus and Hathor is famed all over the known world. Achaeans and Trojans and Klepht travel many leagues to lie down in their smooth arms and taste their divine kisses. May I hope that my Lord will come with me to Edfu when the season comes?'
This was a loaded question, and I contented myself with a nod. I had never lain with a woman and did not know if I desired to taste such well-travelled flesh.
'Apart from his fascination with the priestesses?'
'Thebes is rich in his own right, no commoner's son.'
I allowed the silence to grow long after the initial discomfort.
Mentu shifted on his chair. Finally he said, 'No insult was meant, Lord. But if he is rich in his own right, he is less likely to peculate. Except for his expenses in love, you can trust the Theban Nomarch.'
I recalled my invitation to the temple at Karnak. 'The High Priest of Amen-Re?' I asked.
'Death in a white robe,' said Mentu promptly.
CHAPTER SIX
Mutnodjme
Merope and I had slept, though we were not aware of having slipped into a doze until we were woken abruptly by a flurry of movement in the outer chamber, and voices crying, 'The Queen is in labour, send for the great Royal Nurse Tey, the Queen's midwife!' I heard my mother grunt as she rose from her saddle- strung bed.
'Quick,' I whispered to my new sister. 'Put on your sandals and we can follow in the confusion.'
'Why should we?'
'Because it's childbirth, and I've not been allowed to see it.'
'Nor me,' she agreed, tying strings rapidly.
We slipped into the outer chamber, where my mother was stripping off her robe and stepping into a decorated tub. Slaves sluiced her down with cool water and scrubbed her with handfuls of oatmeal mixed with laundryman's lye and then rinsed her. She then tied a clean cloth about her waist, another around her head, and raised her voice.
'I am coming!' she cried. 'Be silent, women. The Great Queen Tiye has already borne children. She knows what is happening. But she will not be assisted by a clamour like a marketplace on the day before a feast! The birthroom has been prepared; has anyone thought to carry the Queen thither?'
She stilled the babble of replies with a gesture.
'Good. We will go there now, and she who makes an outcry which upsets the Great Royal Lady will be beaten until she bleeds.'
This threat calmed the crowd nicely and Tey walked composedly out of our apartments and into the corridor. Merope and I followed.
The mammisi was prepared. It had bare walls, a bare floor, and a pallet made of clean linen on the floor. The birth chair had been scrubbed and repainted. Not for the Lady of the Two Lands the peasant delivery, squatting on bricks. The chair was bottomless and at an easy height for the attendant to catch the baby as it was delivered.
So far, so good. The Queen was standing with two women massaging her back. Her hair was dark red with sweat and she looked old. She greeted my mother with a smile which was a sketch of the one I had seen before.
'Lady,' she said.
'Where does it catch you?' asked Tey.
'My back, it always hurts my back,' replied the Queen, and Tey directed the women to massage lower down, in the flat space just above the buttocks. The Queen seemed to feel some relief. She was offered an infusion and drank it.
'Now what?' whispered Merope.
'We wait,' I replied.
Nothing happened all afternoon. The sun sank towards night and still nothing happened. I was carrying a scroll, one of the few which I owned myself. Ani had copied it for me. It was the tale of Ptah and the Destruction of Mankind. Merope and I sat down against the wall, out of everyone's way, and peered through the legs of the attendant women. Nothing still seemed to be happening, and we were getting bored, so I opened the scroll and began to read, telling Merope of the sins of humans which made Ptah the creator disgusted with his creation:
Humans blasphemed against the god, saying, 'His bones are like silver, his limbs are like gold, his hair is like lapis, in truth he is old and weak'. Then Ptah called to him the gods who were with him in the primeval ocean and took counsel with them...
'Who were the gods from the primeval ocean?' asked my sister.
'Shu who is air, Tefnut who
