House of Illusions vindicates our much-maligned heroine, Thu. In her sequel to House of Dreams, Pauline Gedge shows us why she’s regarded as a superlative storyteller. Thu is exiled to Aswat, and is living out her life as a temple crone, slowly choking on the bitter seeds of hate and betrayal sown in her life almost two decades ago. She’s acquired a reputation for insanity, by virtue of haranguing all and sundry who stop by, beseeching them to take her manuscript to the Pharaoh. She still nurses a faint glimmer of hope that those who betrayed her will be brought to justice, including her mentor and primary abuser, Hui.

A passing soldier takes mercy on her and accepts the package out of misplaced compassion and a youthful ardour for righteousness, momentarily believing her story. Of course, he turns out to be her son, who was forcibly separated from her sixteen years ago by the Pharoah himself. Once this predictable arc is gotten over with, the story picks up and things start happening all over the place. The Hawk-in-the-Nest, prince Ramses believes Thu and spares her life, imprisoning the conspirators, who are then sentenced to death or mutilation (rhinectomies and ectotectomies abound).

But Thu’s desire for revenge is not slaked, since Hui has escaped the clutches of Ma’at. Before the Pharaoh ascends to the great Judgement Hall, he gives her back her title and her lands, and she is Lady Thu of the Fayum again. She journeys to her new home, only to find Hui as her steward. The Pharaoh in all his wisdom spared Hui’s life, but demoted him to the serving class and condemned him to obey Thu for the rest of his life. We leave the two main characters at the end, staring out over the Nile. Hui is clever and is counting on her old feelings for him to spare his life yet again, while Thu is aware of this, and moodily gazes out, wondering what the future has in store for them. The ending might be Sopranos-like, with not a whole lot happening at the precise moment of climax, but enough happens throughout the two tales to keep you, the reader, on a rollercoaster of empathic emotions.

Gedge does not disappoint and this is another worthy addition to your bibliotheque.

ISBN:0-670-87044-7

Pauline Gedge‘s House of Dreams is the story of a peasant who rises to power in the court of Pharaoh Ramses and is brought low by intrigue, coming full circle to her humble roots. Thu is the son of a foreign mercenary who settles in the south of Egypt, content to retire after fighting many wars for his god king. He is a northern brute of a man, and his daughter Thu looks exotic enough to catch the attention of many a lad. However, Thu has other plans than to frolic under the date palms with some rustic yokel and churn out more hands to till the fertile Delta. She has that one trait that can make life immeasurably miserable: ambition. She creeps on to the boat of the Great Seer Hui, willing to give her all for a chance to escape her tiny little village. But the Seer has seen her before and takes her on to make her into a lady. She is coached and moulded into a fine young lady, a courtesan who can entice the most jaded, titillate the most world-weary and coax out secrets from the most powerful. She becomes a wily tool in the hands of the Seer and his friends who plan to install her as a concubine in the harem of the Horus Gold himself, Pharaoh Ramses.

This goal is achieved and Thu ingratiates herself with the King and catches his fancy. He, who has a million lovers in his harem and has had every form of carnal delight is soon enthralled by the little virgin peasant from the South. Thu’s sudden rise to favour is suddenly retarded by her pregnancy, a thing she has sworn to avoid. She soon falls out of favour with the king and is confined to the quarters meant for all the other progenitors of royal bastards. Ramses, though a corpulent old man, is very sharp and is not keen to add another contender for the royal throne. He trusts none of the royal spawn vying for the throne, preferring to keep them weak through infighting. Thu makes a deal with Prince Ramses, the strongest contender for the throne and attempts to kill the great Pharaoh. However, she is betrayed and sentenced to death.

At the last minute, her former royal lover commutes her sentence to exile and lifelong celibacy, and she is returned to her peasant stead. The tale continues in House of Illusions, the next book in my current pile.

ISBN: 0-670-85598-7

We’re at the end of the Nile now. Pauline Gedge has dredged up every possible vista and scenario of life in ancient Egypt and we’re extremely well acquainted with their lifestyle. We begin the day by thanking Amun and promising to uphold Ma’at. We lay fire upon Apep in our every deed, and hope for a favourable weighing in the Hall when Osiris approaches. In her finale to the Lords of the Two Lands trilogy, Gedge delivers the finale with her usual finesse, leaving us thirsting for more. The Horus Road is replete with the trademark obsession with minutiae that make Gedge’s works such a pleasure to read. After reviewing Volume One and Volume Two, here’s what finally transpires in the third book.

Amose continues the siege of Het-Uart, content to sit and flush Apepa and his Setiu troop out like a covey of so many quails. But Apepa still has the mighty Pezedkhu who decides to unleash his forces against Ahmose, aiming for a quick victory by killing the southern upstart. Pezedkhu comes perilously close to mortally wounding Ahmose, but is defeated at the very last minute and Ahmose triumphs. Pezedkhu’s hand is chopped off and paraded to demoralize the Setiu troops, who lose all heart after seeing their stalwart general’s demise. Apepa gives in and opens the gates shortly after this and the beaten and starved Setiu emerge from their year-long siege. They move like prisoners from Bergen-Belsen, gaunt shadows of themselves after a year of forced starvation, famine and disease. Ahmose blunders by letting Apepa escape disguised as a ratty commoner, and is forced to chase him to the Setiu bastion at Sharuhen.

For all intents and purposes, Ahmose is now King of Egypt, for Apepa has fled Egypt itself. Ahmose returns home to Aahmes-nefertari, who is pregnant with yet another child doomed for an early grave. The rest of the story deals with Ahmose’s feelings for his wife and his desire to return to the field to kill Apepa once and for all. His conflict ends when he decides to leave for Sharuhen. He is granted a great boon when Apepa falls down some stairs and breaks his leg, inside his besieged citadel. With no medical supplies, no poppy and no doctors, Apepa gives in and surrenders the Horus throne formally to Ahmose, who is finally vindicated. Talk about the things that could kill you with ease five thousand years ago.

A fitting climax to a great trilogy you’ll definitely enjoy. I’ll leave you with the titles the Royal Herald shouts out whenever the King approaches: “Behold Uatch-Kheperu Ahmose, Son of the Sun, Horus, the Horus of Gold, He of the Sedge and Bee, He of the Two Ladies, the Mighty Bull of Ma’at, God in Egypt”.

ISBN: 067088670X

The Oasis is Volume Two of the Lords of the Two Lands trilogy. I reviewed Volume One here, in which Kamose was picking up the reins after his father’s demise and waging war on Apepa, the Setiu king of Egypt. Knowing fully well that his newly trained army of irregulars cannot hope to defeat the mighty King of Egypt in a frontal assault, Kamose plans his strategies well, along with the help of his non-Egyptian General, Hor-Aha. Apepa might be an insecure king, but he is no fool and wields a mighty strategist in his right-hand man, Pezedkhu. He is content to sit in his formidable fort at Het-Uart, living out the siege while the revolting army grows listless outside. Kamose too is content to wait outside, besieging the mighty fort, but knows that his army lacks the patience for a ten or fifteen year siege. He decides to bait the King out into the desert and trap him there, by sending a spy in with false information.

The spy is a nobleman named Ramose, whose father had been executed by Kamose for treachery. Regardless, he does his job well and lures half the king’s men to the desert, where he promptly realizes how the men are to die. Kamose has retreated and poisoned all the wells and oases. Since the army expected to fight at the oasis and win, they have not made provisions for water and now have neither enough water to turn back, nor enough to march for another three days across the Sahara to reach the Nile. Kamose’s tactic works and Apepa’s men succumb to the brutal heat and thirst like flies. Half the enemy’s army is gone, but such merciless acts take their toll on Kamose, leaving him in a state we would term ‘shell shock’ today. Isis weeps, the annual inundation occurs and Kamose retreats to defend his southern front, secure in the knowledge that he has all of Egypt, except for the one fort, which sits like a pus-filled canker on the face of Egypt.

Rivalries between the Princes aiding Kamose come to the fore here. They hate being on equal terms with a foreigner, Hor-Aha. They are envious of Kamose’s victories and certainly resent all his newly-found wealth, despite having made substantial gains in land and money in their own princely domains. However, the priests of the oracle of Amun have decreed that Kamose must die and he moves like a man condemned, knowing that it is his brother Ahmose who will sit on the Horus throne, after all of Kamose’s hard work. Volume three awaits and will not disappoint!

ISBN: 067088671-8

We’re still sailing down the Nile in antiquity, kiddies! I’m on a Pauline Gedge-athon and ancient Egypt is real to me. The Hippopotamus Marsh is Volume One of her Lords of the Two Lands trilogy. Seqenenra is the scion of a noble house which has ruled Egypt for centuries, until roughly two centuries prior, when Setiu barbarians from the North crept in and slowly gained power, usurping the traditional Egyptian kings. Seqenenra chafes at having to pay obeisance to his Setiu master and dreams of a day gone by, when people like him ruled the land. He spends unhealthy amounts of time in the dilapidated ruins of the palace of his forebears, dreaming of power gone by and ways to achieve it again. Reduced to lordship of a small fiefdom in the South of Egypt, Seqenenra lives in Weset with his wife, his mother and his two sons, Kamose and Ahmose. He often talks of throwing off the Setiu yoke to his sons, despite such talk being akin to blasphemy, since the King of Egypt was considered a living god in those days.

One day, the king of Egypt orders Seqenenra to kill the hippopotami in the marsh in Weset, claiming that their noise disturbs his sleep in his palace thousands of miles away. Seqenenra sees this command for what it really is, a test of domination and servile acquiescence. The straw breaks the camel’s back and Seqenenra decides to go to war to reclaim his birthright. Unfortunately, the king has spies everywhere and soon sends an assassin to finish Seqenenra off and end his half-baked dreams of glory. His son Kamose takes over the reins and promises to avenge his father’s foul death, all the while restoring glory to the Horus throne.

Gedge is fantastic in her depiction of daily life in Egypt. The Egyptians and their disdain for their neighbours is on show here, as the Egyptians, like all ancient peoples, considered only themselves civilized and all other nations barbarous in the extreme. The rise of a young upstart Prince taking on an established King is a good story arc, and to her credit, Gedge handles it well here. Book Two can only make the story better.

ISBN: 067088376-X

“Ra was about to be born out of the vagina of Nut” – When you read this description of imminent sunrise, you know you’re back in ancient Egypt, courtesy of Pauline Gedge, one of the finest Canadian authors to delve into Egyptology. I’ve previously reviewed Volume One of Pauline Gedge’s The King’s Man trilogy here. I got my hands on the second part of the trilogy and it definitely does not disappoint. Seer of Egypt continues the story of Huy, son of Hapu as he becomes the Great Seer and lives out his passive rebellion against the great god Atum. Huy’s best friend and scribe Ishat, a woman who loves him but can never be his due to his enforced impotence, marries his childhood friend and completes her rise from a lowly servant to one of the noble ladies of Egypt. Huy’s life takes a turn for the worse when he validates a fictitious dream by the Pharoah and his son, thereby completing his disappointment of Atum and all the other gods who brought him back to life.

Atum’s revenge is slow and permanent, robbing Huy of many things in life he loves. As repentance, he turns back to the Book of Thoth, seeking solace from the wisdom within. The Pharaoh’s son dies and his second son is crowned Hawk-in-the-Nest, a son who loves Huy. Huy gets moved into the royal quarters and is cut off from the masses he sprung from. His transformation from lowly peasant to elite noble is complete, although he is still humble and realizes he owes it all to Atum. Throughout the book, Anubis, he of the bejeweled long black fingers and warm snout, keeps Huy company, sneering at his misgivings and generally answering his supplications. Gedge’s atmospheric descriptions take us back to Egypt. You can feel the faience, see the uraeus, smell the figs, bask in the heat of the desert and feel the wrath of Anubis. An excellent read, one that left me waiting for the third and final book in the trilogy.

ISBN: 978-0-14-305293-7

Does Pauline Gedge listen to Nile? She might well like the lyrical content, if not the aural delivery. The Twice Born is all about ancient Egypt. This is my first Gedge book and it is very good in its recounting of the minutiae of ancient Egypt. Now, I’m the average sort of aficionado of Egyptology. I know about Howard Carter, Nefertiti, Rameses, the Sphinx and all that other arcana. Gedge is an Egyptophile from another dimension. In her books, you can smell the flowers, even if you can’t pronounce their names. You can hear the voices, even if you can’t understand their tongue.

In this book, the first of a trilogy (a posteriori knowledge to yours truly), the protagonist Huy is the son of a peasant who gets that luckiest of breaks: an education in one of the better schools in the land. The education is overtly religious, of course, but there’s no getting around that in any ancient culture. Huy is a quick learner, until an unfortunate run-in with a snobbish noble’s son leaves him unconscious and presumed dead for five days. While awaiting ritual dismemberment in the morgue, he meets the mighty Atum and Anubis and several other deities in the Egyptian pantheon. It is his lower class that saves him in the morgue, relegating him to the end of the queue and giving him time to awake from his unfortunate coma. Of course, he is treated with suspicion on coming to, and has the titular eponym bestowed on him.

The gods do not return the dead to life lightly, and much is asked of Huy after his figurative rebirth. He is forced to remain celibate, while Atum plans his destiny. Predictably, Huy rebels but doesn’t get very far. After all, these aren’t weak, modern gods with a penchant for forgiveness but older, pagan gods who very much believe in sparing the rod and spoiling the child. Huy returns to the fold and is appointed the Seer to the King. Such talent may not be wasted on the common folk, after all. The book ends here and picks up in the second part, I assume. That review to follow shortly, after I read it.

ISBN: 978-0-14-305291-3