Senmut, who overheard this rare pronouncement from Thutiy, smiled and walked away. Scribes were indeed magicians. They could control everything that happened by influencing the minds of those who could read those little squiggles and scratches. He himself was master of scripts, and proud of it, but he was glad that his sole task was not to record the expedition. There were much more important things he wanted to do.
When Senmut was not with the King and attending to the main business of the expedition, he sought out the shaman, taking the interpreter rather unwillingly along. Pa-an was terrified of the man and clutched his familiar amulets of Amun-Ra and Anubis nervously whenever they were anywhere near him. Senmut was making a point of learning the language as quickly as he could, but it
