Life at court did not change. Servants came and went, some vanished without a trace and no one asked where. For a eunuch, every day was the same—jars of water, baskets of bread, dust on the stairs, and the contemptuous stares of overseers.
But ever since Panes told me his name, nothing was quite the same anymore.
It was a small difference—others still saw me as a shadow, but I knew there was one man who noticed that I was neither blind nor deaf. That my hands could do more than carry jars.
On the third evening he summoned me again into the chamber of papyri. The guards at the door whispered something about a eunuch being called among the priests, but they said nothing aloud. Panes sat behind a low table, reed pen in hand, surrounded by papyri and scales.
"Sit," he said.
I obeyed. My heart was beating fast.
He placed a papyrus with lines of signs before me. "Read," he ordered.
I leaned closer. My eyes ran over the symbols, most of them strange. Some I knew—water, bread, scarab, god. But most were a mystery.
"I don't know," I admitted.
Panes did not move. "You will learn. And you will not tell me you cannot."
He handed me the reed pen. Its tip was wet with ink. "Write water."
My hand trembled, but I drew a wave. Crooked, but recognizable.
"Again," he said.
I repeated it. Then again. And again. Until my hand stopped disobeying me.
Panes studied me, but said nothing. He only placed another symbol before me. "This is god. And this is bread. Remember them."
It went on for hours. Signs etched into my head until I saw nothing but line after line. When I nearly collapsed, he finally nodded. "Enough. Go."
On the way back to the eunuchs' quarters, my fingers were black with ink and my heart was still racing.
It was not just learning. It was more.
The next day he tested me again. This time, he set scales on the table. On one pan he placed a stone block, on the other grains of wheat. "How many grains to balance the stone?"
I looked at him. "I don't know."
"Then find out," he replied coolly.
I began to drop grains, one by one, then by handfuls, until at last the scales leveled. Panes smiled—not kindly, but like a wolf testing prey.
"Remember the number," he said.
And I did. Every grain, every tilt of the scale.
So he tested me day by day. Sometimes with numbers, sometimes with signs, other times with papyrus full of lines. "Where is the weakness?" he would ask. And I remembered my father's hand pointing out cracks in ordinary stones. I marked the place where the block would break.
Panes smiled again. "Correct."
He never praised me. Never said I was clever. But each time he nodded and said "correct," I felt I had taken a step closer to something I could not yet name.
The eunuchs who slept beside me began to whisper. "Amenemhet, Panes' little dog," they mocked. "Thinks he's a priest now."
I kept silent. They did not see what I did. They did not understand that within those signs and numbers lay power. Whoever controls bread and wine, controls men.
Panes taught me because I was useful. And I learned because I felt that if I remembered enough, one day I would no longer be just a shadow.
At court, they said priests never noticed eunuchs unless they made a mistake. I learned that sometimes they noticed you precisely when you stayed silent and obeyed.
One morning Panes did not call me to the accounting chamber. Instead, he sent me to the courtyard where goods were being unloaded into the storerooms.
"Go there and watch how many jars of oil they bring," he ordered. "Then tell me the number. If you are wrong, forget that I ever spoke to you."
It was a command, not a request.
I went out to the courtyard, where slaves dragged heavy jars from carts. The sun beat down on white walls, men groaned under the weight, overseers barked and struck with sticks.
I stood to the side, out of the way, and began counting. One, two, three… ten, twenty. Sweat rolled down their backs, sand stuck to their feet, but I could not lose focus. In my mind, each number became a carved sign, etched like a line in stone.
When the last jar was delivered, I carried the number in my head like a secret.
That evening Panes asked nothing more than: "How many?"
"Sixty-seven," I said.
He was silent for a moment. Then nodded and returned to his papyri. Nothing more. But I knew then I had passed.
---
The next day he gave me a different task. He led me to the construction site where masons hauled blocks onto the base of a temple wall. Sunlight blazed off the stone until my eyes burned.
"Look," Panes said, "and tell me which stone will fall first."
I scanned the blocks. Each massive, heavier than ten men. But when I studied the structure, I remembered my father's hand showing me cracks in stone.
I pointed to a block in the corner. "That one. It is set unevenly."
Panes said nothing. He signaled the overseers to place another block beside it. Under the weight, the stone shifted and nearly tumbled. Overseers shouted, slaves scattered, but Panes only smiled faintly and turned away.
"Good," he murmured. "You see what you see."
For me it was like the first spark. Never before had I felt that I was worth anything. But in that moment I understood—my eyes could be worth more than the strength of ten men.
---
As the days went on, Panes tested me more often. Once he sent me to check the bread rations for the priests. Another time he handed me a papyrus of accounts and said, "Find the mistake."
At first I failed. My fingers sweated, my eyes blurred as I traced line after line. But he never spared me. Only said: "Again."
And so I learned. I read aloud, copied signs, weighed oil, counted jars. Each day I felt my mind grow sharper, as though doors were opening inside me that I had not known existed.
The eunuchs in the quarters grew more hostile. "So, Panes' little pupil?" they jeered. "Do you think you'll be a priest someday? You'll never be anything. Not a man, not a woman, not a god."
Their words burned, but I said nothing. They did not know that what I had lost gave me this chance. No one feared a eunuch. No one saw him as a threat. And so I could go where others could not.
---
One evening, when I was nearly faint with fatigue, Panes laid a papyrus before me and said:
"These are the temple accounts. If we miscount, even the gods will go hungry. Find the error."
I scanned the rows. My eyes swam, but then I saw it—one small number that did not match.
"Here," I pointed. "Ten jars of oil missing."
Panes looked at the papyrus, then at me. And for the first time since he began teaching me, I saw the faintest curve of a smile on his lips.
"Good," he said. "Perhaps you are not only a shadow."
That night was the first I did not look up at the stars with emptiness in my chest. For the first time, I felt that there could be more in me than scar and silence.
And I swore that if the gods had given me this path, I would walk it to its end.
Morning was hot, and the storerooms smelled of sesame oil and smoke. On the table in the accounting chamber lay three sealed lists: bread, wine, oil. Panes slid them toward me and, without looking up, said:
"Copy these clearly. Hekat is not deben. The number is law."
I nodded. I knew the sign for hekat (a measure of volume), and deben (a measure of weight). But my fingers trembled slightly; the chamber was stifling, and noise from the courtyard reached inside. I scanned the rows, counted, matched units to numbers. At the end I pressed the seal carefully.
An hour later the steward of the oil jars stormed in, his face flushed with anger. Behind him came two porters and a guard with a stick.
"Who copied this list?" he hissed, laying the papyrus before me.
I looked—my writing, my seal.
"Twenty hekat are missing," he spat. "For the lamps in the northern hall. Where are they?"
My stomach dropped. In the line for lamps, I had written the wrong unit—deben instead of hekat. The number was right, the unit was wrong. The storeroom had delivered less than required. The ritual was delayed, the priests angry, the guards restless. In the temple, order is sacred—and I had broken it.
Panes took the papyrus, never looking at me. He scanned the lines once, twice, then set down his reed. When he spoke, his voice was low, but harder than stone:
"The mistake is yours, Amenemhet."
The guard smiled. He knew what it meant. At court, such errors were not met with long speeches. The law of discipline was clear: blows to the soles and reduced rations. Punishment quick, memory sharp.
"How many?" the guard asked, already tapping his stick.
Panes paused briefly. Then calmly:
"Twelve blows to the feet. Three days of reduced bread. The record will be corrected at once."
No one asked for my plea. The guard pressed me to a low bench in the courtyard. Eunuchs and slaves gathered, as flies gather to spilled beer—not out of malice, but out of habit. Bastinado on the soles was common; it taught faster than words.
The first blow burned like fire. The second like stone. By the fifth my soles were raw flame. By the tenth, the world shrank to breath and wood. At the twelfth, silence filled my head.
They pulled me up. My feet blazed, but I did not stumble—falling would be shame. The guard left, the crowd dissolved. Order returned.
Panes' face did not change. He took my papyrus, laid a clean one beside it, drew hekat and deben side by side, and said dryly:
"Read three times, write once. The number is the law. The unit is its spine. A broken spine cannot carry truth."
He handed me the reed pen. "Correct it."
My palms sweated, my soles throbbed, but my eyes were sharp. I wrote slowly, sign by sign. This time I whispered each unit to myself: hekat—volume, deben—weight. At the end I added the note for the storeroom and the northern hall. Panes checked it, nodded, and handed it to the steward.
"Deliver this today. The lamps will burn."
The steward left. We were alone.
Panes took out linen strips, some honey, and oil. It was unusual—priests were rarely merciful. But honey in Egypt healed wounds better than words; oil soothed fire in the skin. He set my foot on a stool, applied the mixture briefly, efficiently, and bound it.
"Punishment belongs to learning," he said flatly. "Not revenge."
I looked at him. For the first time, in those dark eyes I saw something like recognition—not for wisdom, but for endurance. In Egypt, not only numbers are counted; silence under the stick is counted too.
"Why did you not cast me aside?" I whispered before I could stop myself.
Panes wiped his hands, returned the honey jar, and said:
"Because you see. And one who sees can learn to look twice. Mistakes are cheap when they are paid with your own skin, not the temple's."
Then he pointed to the papyri again:
"Tonight, five signs: hekat, deben, bread, wine, oil. Each ten times. Tomorrow morning you come early. I will bring you the table of measures and weights. You will know it by heart."
I nodded. My soles burned, but my head was clear. Dust fell on the courtyard, the sun rose higher, and the priests were already preparing for the delayed offerings. My mistake was carved into my flesh, turning into memory.
That night, as I copied the units again and again, the whispers of the eunuchs slid off my back like dust from a broom. Read three times, write once. I repeated it in my mind with every wave, every stroke of ink. Each line was one step away from shame, one step closer to order, which I wanted to master.
At dawn I was waiting before Panes arrived. He carried the table:
"Lengths: royal cubit, palm, finger. Weights: deben, kite. Volumes: hekat, hin, djeser. Recite."
I spoke softly, carefully, but surely. He raised his brow once, nodded another time. When I stumbled, he did not lift the stick—he lifted a question.
"Why hin, not hekat?"
"Because it is small measure of liquid," I answered. "For lamps."
"Why kite, not deben?"
"Because it is fine powder—incense—and easier to portion."
At the end, he set down the reed and said dryly:
"No mistakes today."
I did not smile. I only felt another stone settle into my foundation. Stronger than yesterday. Quieter than pain.
As I turned to leave, Panes added:
"Learn this: order is the lamp. Units are its oil. Without oil, the lamp does not burn. And without the lamp, we are blind."
Outside, the courtyard woke to its noise. Porters shouted, guards marched with sticks, priests adjusted their robes. My soles remembered twelve blows, my head three new tables. Punishment was not an end—it was a boundary, teaching me to stand straight.
And I knew that next time my hand trembled, I would look twice. Not out of fear of the stick, but out of respect for the order I meant to master
The punishment had carved itself into my flesh, but it did not take away Panes' attention. On the contrary—it was followed by something I had not expected.
For three days I limped, ate less bread, and copied units onto papyrus until my eyes burned. But on the fourth day Panes summoned me and placed a small clay jar of oil before me.
"At night," he said, "the lamps in the northern hall burn out too quickly. The guards are lazy and do not pour enough. You will go, fill the vessels, and record how much oil is used. If in the morning the lamps still burn, I will know you understand not only the signs, but also the flame."
I looked at him, unsure if it was a jest. A eunuch, charged with tending the gods' light? But Panes was serious.
So, for the first time, I did not return to our quarters at night. With a jar of oil I entered the northern hall.
Where by day the air was filled with chanting and incense, there was now only silence and chill. Before me stood dozens of bronze lamps, many already flickering to embers. The flames were weak, the oil nearly gone.
I poured drop by drop. I counted, recorded on a wax tablet, and watched the flames rise again. Each lamp was like a sign I had to keep alive.
When I was done, I sat on the step and watched the light spread once more across the hieroglyph-covered walls. I felt as though I myself held order in my hands, order that would have otherwise slipped into darkness.
In the morning, when Panes arrived, he asked only: "Did they burn?"
"They burned," I answered, and showed him the record.
He scanned the numbers, nodded, and tucked away the tablet.
"Good," he said. "From now on, this will be your duty. The lamps are small, but remember—even a small flame lights a temple."
For others, it would have been a trivial chore. For me, it was worth more than all the blows and mockery. It was the first time someone entrusted me with the order of the gods in my hands.
And when that night I once again walked into the darkness with a jar of oil, I felt myself changing. I was no longer only a shadow. I was the one who guards the light.