House of Illusions Read Online Free PDF Page A

weakness in allowing a mere peasant woman to manipulate my will and had decided to give the box back to her. I was angry with myself, but even more angry with her for foisting the responsibility of dealing with the thing onto me. If I kept it, the hard decisions would be mine and I knew I was too honest to simply drop it overboard and let the Nile receive its weight. As I knelt and stood, knelt and murmured my petitions with an absent heart, I kept glancing about the court in the hope of seeing the woman, but she did not appear.
    The priest concluded his worship and the sanctuary doors were closed. With a cursory smile in my direction he disappeared into one of the small rooms that fronted the court, his two young acolytes scurrying after him, and I was alone. The box sat on the paving beside me, mutely accusing, a demanding orphan. Snatching it up, I hurried through to the outer court, jammed my sandals back on my feet and ran across the forecourt and around to the tiny shack that clung to the temple’s rear wall. As I opened my mouth to call, I realized that I did not even know the woman’s name. Nevertheless I raised my voice in a greeting and waited, aware that the sailors would be completing their final check of the boat and my Herald would be anxious to cast off. “Oh damn her!” I muttered under my breath. “And damn me for being a soft fool.” Calling again I pushed tentatively against the woven reed mat that passed for a door. It gave, and I was peering into the dimness of a small room whose floor was packed dirt and whose walls were bare. A thin mattress covered a low wooden cot that was surprisingly well constructed, the patina of its smooth legs and sturdy frame gleaming expensively in the relative poverty of its surroundings. The table beside it and the stool at its foot, though simple, were also obviously the work of a craftsman. A crude clay lamp lay on the floor. The hut was empty, and I could not wait. Briefly I considered placing the box on the cot and fleeing but discarded the idea, not without another curse, as unworthy of me. Letting the reed mat fall closed behind me, I swung back towards the river.
    As I ran up the ramp and onto the deck of the craft, my kit and blanket under one arm and the offending box under the other, my Herald gave a loud guffaw.
    “So she has finally found her fool!” he chortled. “Are you going to drop it overboard, young Kamen, or will your principles get the better of you? How did she persuade you to take it? With a quick roll on her doubtless flea-ridden mattress? You are carrying a load of trouble there, mark my words!” I did not reply. I did not even glance at him, and as he shouted the order to raise the ramp and cast off and the boat slid away from the bank into the glittering morning, I realized that I did not like him at all. My soldier had saved bread and beer for me. I sat in the shade of the prow and ate and drank with no appetite while Aswat and its sheltering vegetation slid away behind us and the desert swept around the few fields and isolated palms remaining. The next village was of course not far away, but as I brushed the breadcrumbs from my knees and drained the last of the beer, a weight of loneliness descended on me and I fervently wished this assignment to be over.

2
    THE REMAINING EIGHT DAYS of our voyage passed without incident, and on the morning of the ninth day we entered the Delta where the Nile divided into three mighty tributaries. We took its north-eastern arm, the Waters of Ra, which later became the Waters of Avaris and ran through the centre of the greatest city on earth. It was a relief to me to leave the silent aridity of the south behind and breathe the air of the Delta, more humid, heavy with the scents of gardens, alive with the reassuring sounds of human activity. Though the river had not yet begun to rise, there was water everywhere in ponds and placid irrigation canals, dimpling cool between the closely gathered trees,