All morning had the aged Magician, and the Lady Renet, his wife, sat beside the garden pool listening to the effusive congratulations of his friends, his neighbors, and the many members of his house and wide domain.
All that morning his bustling servants had been busy arranging the various presents along the awning-shaded corridor which faced the tree-set garden.
Bars and collarettes of gold, electrum and silver; bead stands of lazuli, malachite, crystal, carnelian, amethyst, beryl, jasper; great pendants in gold, silver or bright blue fayence; finger-rings of gold encrusted with colored pastes or set with little green glazed beetles, carved in stone and engraved below with felicitous expressions; treasures big and little were piled high in seemingly innumerable vessels and exposed on brightly painted wooden tables or stands along the halls and corridors.
Clusters of white, soft pink or pale blue lotus flowers were bound about frames bent to represent the anekh or sign of “longevity.” The nofer or sign of “happiness,” in the shape of little lutes, hung from every branch in the garden.
There had been but one thing lacking in a morning of never-to-be-forgotten successes. As Khufu the Butler had remarked, not a single member of the Royal House had visited their honored master; not even a Royal Usher had come with the customary messages of felicitation or with the usual “gold of honor.” To Khufu, as to the other devoted servants of the aged Magician, this neglect was the occasion of grave concern.
Not so to Enana! Well he knew the reason of this breach of courtesy, this public affront.
Enana’s early training had been behind the walls of Amen’s great temple in the Apt. There for years had he served Amen, God of Thebes, as chorister, incense-bearer, lector, keri heb and, lastly, as Chief Magician.
Enana was known as a devoted follower of Amen, as an ardent and incorruptible believer in the power of the greatest of all gods, Amen of Thebes. As such he knew well that he had incurred the undying hatred of Thi the Syrian, whose one ambition in life, now that her son was established on the throne, was the overthrow of Amen and the destruction of all the other local gods of Egypt. If Thi could compass it, Aton, the Syrian sun-god, should be the sole object of worship from Suan of the north to Suan of the south.
At the present moment, however, Enana had pushed from his mind all thoughts of Thi. All his present enjoyment was centered in the scheme next his heart and in his anticipation of seeing Ramses, his grandson, whom it mostly concerned.
At any moment the young soldier might dash through the gate in that impetuous way so dear to the frail old man.