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 columnade 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 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 fisherman's wire traps. But his eyes were deep and full of will and strength. Neither of us looked away for an uncounted time. I do not know what he saw in my eyes. But he finally broke the contact with a grunt, waved at the women to begin laying out a feast, and did
