It was a much larger, higher chamber than I had anticipated. Each wall was lined with shelves to the ceiling, and high storage cases also ran in an arrangement like fishbones down the middle of the space. On each shelf were stored many papyrus rolls. I would not have known where to start, but Nakht browsed swiftly among the dockets, searching for something.
‘Astronomy is merely a function of religion, as far as the world is concerned. As long as we know when the significant stars appear, so that the days and feasts and festivals coincide with the lunar charts, everyone is happy. But no one seems to have noticed that the regularity, the returning pattern of the imperishable stars themselves, implies an immense ordered universe beyond our understanding.’
‘Rather than the old stories we’ve been told since time began about Gods and Goddesses and everything coming from the papyrus swamp of creation, and the night world being the place of eternal life…’
‘Indeed,’ whispered Nakht. ‘The stars are eternal life, but perhaps not in the way we have always understood it. Heresy, of course,’ he said, and grinned happily.
He unrolled several scrolls on the low tables set out between the cases, and then showed me the star charts’ columns of signs and figures, written in red and black ink.
‘See: thirty-six columns listing the groups of stars into which the night world is divided. We call these the decans.’
I let my eye run down the symbols in their columns, opening the old scroll further and further. The signs seemed to go on endlessly. Nakht tutted.
‘Be careful. These have to be handled delicately. With respect.’
‘And why is the information noted like this?’
‘Each column shows the stars that rise before dawn above the horizon for every ten-day period of the year. See, here is the Dog Star, which rises exactly at the time of the inundation, at the start of the solar year. And here is Sah, Glorious Soul of Osiris, the bright star which rises at the start of peret, the time of spring…you know the saying, of course: “I am the star who treads the Two Lands, who navigates in front of the stars of the sky on the belly of my Mother Nut”?’
I shook my head.
‘I sometimes think you know absolutely nothing,’ he said.
‘This is not exactly my usual territory. But what about the eclipse?’ I reminded him.
For the next few minutes he assessed many more charts, unrolling and rolling as he went, each chart seeming more ancient and fragile than the last.
Finally, he shook his head in resignation.
‘There is nothing recorded. I thought not.’
‘A dead end.’
‘It was an interesting thought, and at least now you know something of the subject,’ he said, in his most scholarly manner.
We left the archive room, and the priest bent down stiffly to retie and reseal the cords. As we walked away, I wondered aloud: ‘Where are the secret books kept?’
Nakht failed to disguise his alarm at the question.
‘What are you talking about? Which secret books?’
‘The Books of Thoth, for example.’
‘Come now, they’re a legend rather than a reality. Like many supposed secret books.’
‘But it’s true, isn’t it, that there are a number of sacred texts which are only ever revealed to initiates?’ I asked.
‘“Initiates” of what? And texts about which secret subjects?’
‘Oh, such matters as divine geometry,’ I replied casually.
‘I have never heard of such a thing,’ he said stiffly, glancing around to make sure no one could hear us.
‘Of course you have, my friend,’ I said quietly.
He stared at me angrily.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You knew there would be nothing in those scrolls of interest to me. And I appreciate your taking the time to demonstrate that there was nothing. But I know you very well, and you are definitely not telling me something.’
He had the grace to flush.
‘Sometimes important matters are not to be discussed casually.’
‘What matters?’
‘I really despise you when you turn your interrogation techniques on to me. I am just trying to help,’ he said, not even half joking.
‘Then I will tell you what I think. I think there are secret books, on astronomy, among other things, and I think you have been initiated, and you have seen some of them, and you know where they are.’
He stared right at me, with as cold a look as I have ever seen on his face.
‘What a vivid imagination you have…’
And then he walked away.
I followed him back out into the light and heat of the late afternoon, and we walked on together in silence. Then suddenly he stopped and drew me into an area of shade beside an old temple.
‘I cannot lie to you, my friend. But I cannot reveal the contents of the books. I have taken a solemn vow.’
‘But all I asked was whether they existed or not.’
‘Even that is too much knowledge. Their existence or otherwise is a necessary concealment. The secret books are banned in these dark times. Secret knowledge has become dangerous again. As you well know, anyone found possessing them, or even copies of sections of them, could be punished by death.’
‘But they exist, they are shared within an inner circle, and therefore they must be kept somewhere clandestine. So where are they?’ I asked directly.
‘I cannot say.’
I gazed around at the buildings that filled the temple enclosures. Suddenly I realized there might be another city within this secret city, too. For every secret contains another secret at its heart.
He glared at me, frankly angry now.
‘You presume too much upon our friendship.’
We stood facing each other in this strange moment. To release the tension, I bowed.
‘I apologize. Professional matters should never come between old friends.’
He nodded, almost satisfied. I knew I would learn little more from him in this moment of emotional heat.
‘It is Sekhmet’s birthday, or have you forgotten that fact, amongst these ideas of eclipses and secret books? I am dining with you and the family tonight,’ he reminded me. I struck my forehead with my palm. I had not failed to remember, for Tanefert had reminded me before I left, but I still had a sacred family duty to perform.
‘And I am responsible for the feast, so I had better go and buy the secret ingredients-which I must never reveal, on pain of death-before the holy and esoteric merchants of the market shut their stalls.’
He managed to smile at last, and we walked together under the great gateway that returned us to the life of the city; then we parted, he to his house, and I to the market to buy meat, spices and wine.
13
We each have our habitual places to sit on the stools around the low table: my father at the far end, Sekhmet and Thuyu down one side, with Khety and his wife, and Tanefert and Amenmose on the other, together with Nakht and Nedjmet, the Sweet One, who likes to sit next to him, hanging her arms around his neck. She watches her audience as she enacts her loving gestures. Where did she learn such flattery? I had cooked our favourite dish-gazelle in red wine-reserved for celebrations.
Sekhmet looked serene and confident in a new pleated robe, displaying the earrings we had given her for her birthday. The self-consciousness of her teenage years is giving way now to a new self-possession. She has read far more than I have, and she remembers everything. She can still recite the nonsense poems we made up when she was a child. Knowledge to her is everything. She once said to me, earnestly: ‘I can’t be an athlete and a scholar.’ And so she made her choice.