Pauline Gedge - The Twice Born

PENGUIN CANADA

THE TWICE BORN

PAULINE GEDGE is the award-winning and bestselling author of eleven previous novels, eight of which are inspired by Egyptian history. Her first, Child of the Morning , won the Alberta Search-for-a-New Novelist Competition. In France, her second novel, The Eagle and the Raven , received the Jean Boujassy award from the Socit des Gens des Lettres, and The Twelfth Transforming , the second of her Egyptian novels, won the Writers Guild of Alberta Best Novel of the Year Award. Her books have sold more than 250,000 copies in Canada alone; worldwide, they have sold more than six million copies and have been translated into eighteen languages. Pauline Gedge lives in Alberta.

Also by Pauline Gedge

Child of the Morning

The Eagle and the Raven

Stargate

The Twelfth Transforming

Scroll of Saqqara

The Covenant

House of Dreams

House of Illusions

The Hippopotamus Marsh:

Lords of the Two Lands, Volume One

The Oasis: Lords of the Two Lands, Volume Two

The Horus Road: Lords of the Two Lands, Volume Three

THE

TWICE

BORN

PAULINE

GEDGE

PENGUIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published 2007

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (RRD)

Copyright Pauline Gedge, 2007

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publishers note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental .

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Gedge, Pauline, 1945

The twice born / Pauline Gedge.

ISBN 978-0-14-305291-3

I. Title.

PS8563.E33T94 2007 C813.54 C2007-903776-3

ISBN-13: 978-0-14-305291-3

ISBN-10: 0-14-305291-8

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AUTHORS NOTE

THE BOOK OF THOTH was purported to contain all knowledge regarding the creation of the cosmos, gods, and men as well as the laws relating to magic, nature, and the afterlife. It was dictated by Atum, the creator-god, to Thoth, god of writing, the sciences, and time, who set down the information on forty-two scrolls, which were divided between the temples of Ra at Iunu and Thoth at Khmun.

It survives in fragmented form as the so-called Pyramid Texts, found on the walls of the burial chambers of pyramids of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, at the temples of Esna and Edfu, and in certain coffins, where it is called, of course, the Coffin Texts. Pieces of it also appear in The Book of Knowing the Modes of Existence of Ra and of Overthrowing the Serpent Apophis and The Book of Coming Forth by Day, commonly known as the Book of the Dead.

According to Egyptian legend, before the reign of King Menes of the Protodynastic Period, the country was ruled for 13,420 years by the Servitors of Horus, the Shemsu-Hor. The Book of Thoth was said to predate the Shemsu-Hor by over 20,000 years.

The Greeks identified Thoth with their god Hermes. Hence the Hermetica, a collection of modernized writings attributed to Thoth.

HUY SON OF HAPU , later known as Amunhotep son of Hapu, was born of a peasant family in the modest Delta town of Hut-herib, yet became a very significant figure in Egyptian history. Although much is known of his great achievements, everything inscribed refers to his public accomplishments. His private existence remains blank. In The Twice Born , I have attempted to solve the puzzle of his early years.

HUY STOOD in his bedroom, his mother Itu beside him, looking with dismay at the toys laid out so carefully on his cot. Although the day was bright with heat, the breeze wafting through the window and lifting a corner of Huys linen sheet still held a little of the previous nights coolness. Huy did not notice. Hands behind his back, he stared mutinously at his treasures. His mother sighed.

It must be something you value, Huy, she prompted him gently. Something the god will know you did not really want to give up.

Why? Huy burst out. Why must I give him anything? I havent given him anything before! We havent ever gone to his home before!

Because tomorrow is the anniversary of your Naming Day. Ive already told you that. Tomorrow you will be four years old, and you and I and your father will go to Khenti-khetis shrine to thank him for your health and safety. Make a choice, Huy. What about your paints?

No. Uncle Ker and Aunt Heruben gave them to me. They would be upset if I gave them away. Unless they brought me some more? He turned an anxious face up to Itu. You love to see me paint, Mother. You would be upset as well if I couldnt paint anymore.

The whitewashed walls of his house offered a dazzling surface on which to create fat brown hippopotami, yellow boats sailing on a hectically blue Nile, portraits of himself as a warrior with spear in hand, and he had no intention of relinquishing that heady pleasure. No, the palette must go back into his sycamore chest.

Very well. Itus tone was faintly disapproving. Something else, then.

Huy considered. Well, what of his wooden dog on wheels? He had towed it about the garden many times, its jaws opening and closing rythmically while he barked for it, because it was dumb. But Hapu, his father, had spent hours carving it, and would be even more upset than Uncle Ker if he gave it away. Did gods play with toys, anyway?

That left the skittles, the leather ball, and the spinning top. Definitely not the spinning top. Chasing it through the house as it teetered this way and that and then whipping it into a fresh whirl of speed when it began to falter was the very best way to spend the boring summer afternoons that never seemed to end. The skittles, then. They were fun to play with, but the game soon became boring and the wooden ball never would roll quite straight to the pins. His big leather ball, however, needed someone to catch it and throw it back to him. It made Mother or Hapzefa give him all their attention. Not the leather ball either. Khenti-kheti would understand. Being a god, he might even decide to make the wooden ball perfectly smooth and then invite the other gods to play with him.

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