I was born popping like some rotten seed out of my mother’s womb, so rough, so hard she died within the month, or so common report had it. My father Seostris, a Standard Bearer in the Medjay, was not present at my birth. Surely you know who the Medjay are? Auxiliary troops from the South. Many years ago, during the Season of the Locust, the Medjay decided to throw their lot in with the Egyptians when they waged war with fire and sword, by land and sea, against the Hyksos: barbarians who turned the Delta town of Avaris into their strong-hold and threatened to bring all Egypt under their heavy war-club. So impudent did they become, that the Hyksos Prince sent a message to the Pharaoh of the time to keep the hippopotami in his pool quiet because they disturbed his sweet slumbers in Avaris.
The brave Sequenre took up the challenge, launching a savage war only to be struck down in battle. The struggle was taken up by his son Ahmose who, like fire running through stubble, marched against the Hyksos and reduced them to ash. The gilded Egyptian war-barges smashed the Hyksos defences along the Nile, and Ahmose’s troops burst into Avaris and burned it to the ground. My ancestors, the Medjay, were with Egypt’s troops and, for such help, an eternal pact of friendship was sworn between the two peoples.
My father was a Medjay from the moment he left the egg. A born soldier, he did not bother with me. My memories of him are vague: a stout man with a shaven head, dressed in a leather kilt and jerkin, marching boots on his feet, a war-belt fastened about his waist, a quiver of arrows slung across his back. A man proud of serving Pharaoh, he had received the Golden Collar of Honour together with the Silver Bees of Courage for slaying enemies in hand-to-hand combat in battle. (I still own these medals of bravery; the heavy gold necklace and the small silver bees carved in a cluster from a lump of pure silver with a jewelled hook to fasten on your tunic.) I remember him showing me the khopesh, the curved sword which he used against the People of the Nine Bows, those myriad enemies of Pharaoh who envied Egypt’s riches and lusted after her rich soil and fair cities.
Father visited me occasionally, sometimes accompanied by an aide who carried his ceremonial shield. He would crouch down and stare coldly at me, eyes wrinkled up after years of peering through the heat and dust of the Red Lands. From the beginning I was lonely. I lived with my father’s sister, Isithia, a hard-faced, sinewy woman, sharp-eyed and bitter-tongued. A childless woman whose husband had gone North on business and never returned. I could understand why! He certainly left Isithia wealthy enough, the owner of a country mansion surrounded by lofty thick walls. One of my constant memories is playing on the steps leading up to its porticoed entrance with its palmetta decoration in blue, green and ochre-red. Around the house were slender columns carved to represent green papyrus with red roots and golden capitals, a shadow-filled peristyle which provided welcome shade against the heat. The rooms inside had polished beam ceilings and tiled floors: a vestibule, an audience chamber, other rooms and polished wooden stairs leading to upper chambers. Isithia and I would sit on the broad roof, away from the heat, to catch the cooling breath of Amun. All around the house stretched verdant gardens, fed by a canal from the Nile, shaded by climbing vines and edged with flowers. A beautiful place, its paths were lined with trees of every variety: kaku palms, sycamore, persea, pomegranate, acacia, yew, tamarisk and terebrinth. Elegant coloured pavilions stood around the garden where you could sit to enjoy the different flowers and scents. In the centre gleamed a square pool of pure water with blooms of white water lilies floating on the top. Even as a boy I could sit for hours and observe them, how the blue lotus would flower at dawn, curl at midday and sink beneath the water whilst the white lotus only flowered after darkness fell.
I very rarely left that house and garden. I used to stand on the roof next to the corn bins, resting against the latticework built around the parapet to keep me from falling off. Not that Isithia cared all that much for me. She was a cold woman. The only creature she ever showed affection for was Seth, the ugly Saluki hound — a fierce war-dog from less gentle days, and in my youth a rare breed. Where Isithia went, Seth always followed, and where Isithia went, so did her fly whisk. She hated flies and mice. Every hole, every crack through which vermin could creep, were liberally coated in cat fat.
I recall her sitting, fly whisk in hand, in her high-backed armchair, its legs ending in four panther paws. The chair suited her. Isithia was a panther with narrow eyes and receding chin. A tall woman, she dressed in flowing gowns and embroidered sashes. She very rarely wore a wig or, indeed, her silver-edged sandals which a servant always carried behind her. If the nights turned chilly, she’d drape a fringed shawl about her shoulders. She distilled perfumes and medicine and sold them to select customers, often making trips out to the Valley of the Pines to collect those herbs and concoctions she could not grow in her own gardens. In the main these produced enough fruit and vegetables to make us self-sufficient, with crops of onions, leeks, lettuces and water melons. Isithia rarely went to the market but hired the best cooks to buy and serve fattened duck and geese. I always drank the freshest milk, sweetened with honey from the hives of pottery jars kept at the end of the garden and, when the bees were found wanting, the milk was sweetened with carob seeds. If I was naughty I’d be given nothing except the pith of a papyrus stalk to suck. Isithia never hit me though sometimes she’d seize me by the shoulders and shake me. She led her own private life: her customers came at night — women for potions and sometimes men. I used to hear the sound of beating and cries but whether they were of pleasure or pain I could not tell.
Isithia’s servants were shemsous, or personal slaves, who wore a collar with a hieroglyph denoting their status — rolled-up matting on a stick. They were as terrified of her as I was — wary of her tongue and fly whisk. There were also a few slaves or bekous, men and women captured in war who were made to work in the gardens and live in sheds not fit for cattle. On one occasion two of them escaped. My father pursued them, caught them but never brought them back. Wielding authority over these was Api, Isithia’s wedpou or steward, dumb as an ox but just as faithful.
Isithia was undoubtedly rich. Her strongrooms held vases of oils and unguents: henna, iris, fir, mandrake and lotus, all kept in sealable chests with ebony and gold veneer in silver mountings. I don’t know whether Father even recognised the truth about his sister, or the silent terror she instilled in me. Sometimes at night, on the eve of an inauspicious day, Isithia would stand on the portico quoting bloodcurdling verses from The Book of the Dead. Flanked by fire cauldrons she would sprinkle the darkness with oils and herbs, Api standing in the shadows behind her. Isithia’s voice would carry low and terrible through the night.
One night I even glimpsed her in the garden squatting over a dish of glowing charcoal strewn with herbs. Her kilt pulled up, she crouched like a woman would over a latrine, mouthing curses into the night. Isithia practised hek, the magic of the dark. She was always terrified of the aataruu, those evil spirits out of the West. Only the gods know what her past contained; her soul must have been heavy with the nastiness. She hardly spoke to me except to quote proverbs about the need for peace and security. I remember one of the verses well. She made me learn it by rote.