The King's Man by Pauline Gedge

Author:Pauline Gedge
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: PENGUIN GROUP (CANADA)
Published: 2011-06-06T16:52:30+00:00

PART TWO

10

CHIEF STEWARD USERHET bowed profoundly as Huy, with Paneb behind him, walked into the Queen’s apartments and settled into one of Her Majesty’s gilded chairs. Paneb lowered himself to the floor at Huy’s knee and began to prepare his palette, the small sound of the burnisher against his papyrus faint but discernible in the quiet air. The room was empty but for Userhet, who glided past them to take up his station just out of earshot against one of the walls. Slowly Huy inhaled the faint, spicy aroma of the perfume Tiye still wore, a distinctive blend of cardamom and myrrh that enveloped her and remained hanging, an invisible cloud, wherever she had been. The room was empty and still but for an occasional gust of the hot night wind out of the north, coursing through the low, unshuttered window. It was the middle of Mesore.

Throughout the country, the last of the harvest was being hurriedly reaped, grain scythed, fruit pulled from tree or vine, honeycomb lifted, oozing golden and sweet, from the hive. Here in Weset the heat was unrelenting. Dust pervaded every corner of the city. The fields straggling along the river’s eastern bank were already fissured by deep cracks. The palm-lined canals were dry. At first Huy had been appalled and depressed by such aridity, but in the twelve years since he had sailed south with the court he had learned to endure it. Nevertheless, the return of the New Year was celebrated here with a greater fervour than the dwellers of the Delta could understand. The river was due to begin its life-giving rise in about two weeks, and the prayers of the populace had become clamorous with entreaties to Isis for a fresh outpouring of her tears and to Hapi for an Inundation teeming with fish.

Twelve years, Huy mused. How rapidly the time has slipped away! Weset has burgeoned into one of the largest and most vibrant cities in the world, the centre of an empire I have forged for my King. At its heart the golden outer skins of its stone buildings are visible for miles around. Its citizens enjoy the influx of a constant supply of goods from every nation eager to befriend a King who could crush them with a wave of his hand if he chose to end their precarious autonomy. My countrymen flood Kush and Wawat as far as the Fourth Cataract. Gold cascades into the Royal Treasury every day. Amunhotep desires, and out of all this wealth the things he desires at once acquire substance. What he desires most is the beautifying of his domain, and I have spent the better part of these last years in fulfilling his wish. Apart from the projects begun before he was crowned, my hand has been on the raising of every monument, every statue, so that wherever I go I see a memory of those times. A few are not particularly pleasant. Working with Amunhotep-Huy on the restoration and adornment of Ptah’s temple at Mennofer was difficult.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.