Death Comes as End - Agatha Christie [4]
She unrolled it and stared at those marks that were meaningless to her untutored eyes.
Smiling a little, Hori leaned over her shoulder and traced with his finger as he read. The letter was couched in the ornate style of the professional letter writer of Heracleopolis.
‘The Servant of the Estate, the Ka servant Imhotep says:
‘May your condition be like that of one who lives a million times. May the God Herishaf, Lord of Heracleopolis and all the Gods that are aid you. May the God Ptah gladden your heart as one who lives long. The son speaks to his mother, the Ka servant to his mother Esa. How are you in your life, safety and health? To the whole household, how are you? To my son Yahmose, how are you in your life, safety and health? Make the most of my land. Strive to the uttermost, dig the ground with your noses in the work. See, if you are industrious I will praise God for you–’
Renisenb laughed.
‘Poor Yahmose! He works hard enough, I am sure.’
Her father’s exhortations had brought him vividly before her eyes–his pompous, slightly fussy manner, his continual exhortations and instructions.
Hori went on:
‘Take great care of my son Ipy. I hear he is discontented. Also see that Satipy treats Henet well. Mind this. Do not fail to write about the flax and the oil. Guard the produce of my grain–guard everything of mine, for I shall hold you responsible. If my land floods, woe to you and Sobek.’
‘My father is just the same,’ said Renisenb happily. ‘Always thinking that nothing can be done right if he is not here.’
She let the roll of papyrus slip and added softly:
‘Everything is just the same…’
Hori did not answer.
He took up a sheet of papyrus and began to write. Renisenb watched him lazily for some time. She felt too contented to speak.
By and by she said dreamily:
‘It would be interesting to know how to write on papyrus. Why doesn’t everyone learn?’
‘It is not necessary.’
‘Not necessary, perhaps, but it would be pleasant.’
‘You think so, Renisenb? What difference would it make to you?’
Renisenb slowly considered for a moment or two. Then she said slowly:
‘When you ask me like that, truly I do not know, Hori.’
Hori said, ‘At present a few scribes are all that are needed on a large estate, but the day will come, I fancy, when there will be armies of scribes all over Egypt.’
‘That will be a good thing,’ said Renisenb.
Hori said slowly: ‘I am not so sure.’
‘Why are you not sure?’
‘Because, Renisenb, it is so easy and it costs so little labour to write down ten bushels of barley, or a hundred head of cattle, or ten fields of spelt–and the thing that is written will come to seem like the real thing, and so the writer and the scribe will come to despise the man who ploughs the fields and reaps the barley and raises the cattle–but all the same the fields and the cattle are real–they are not just marks of ink on papyrus. And when all the records and all the papyrus rolls are destroyed and the scribes are scattered, the men who toil and reap will go on, and Egypt will still live.’
Renisenb looked at him attentively. She said slowly: ‘Yes, I see what you mean. Only the things that you can see and touch and eat are real…To write down “I have two hundred and forty bushels of barley” means nothing unless you have the barley. One could write down lies.’
Hori smiled at her serious face. Renisenb said suddenly: ‘You mended my lion for me–long ago, do you remember?’
‘Yes, I remember, Renisenb.’
‘Teti is playing with it now…It is the same lion.’
She paused and then said simply:
‘When Khay went to Osiris I was very sad. But now I have come home and I shall be happy again and forget–for everything here is the same. Nothing is changed at all.’
‘You really think that?’
Renisenb looked at him sharply.
‘What do you mean, Hori?’
‘I mean there is always change. Eight years is eight years.’
‘Nothing changes here,’ said Renisenb with confidence.
‘Perhaps then, there should be change.’
Renisenb said sharply:
‘No, no, I want everything the same!’
‘But you yourself are not the same Renisenb