Khu: A Tale of Ancient Egypt

by Jocelyn Murray

  “He will not leave,” Khu said, and all eyes turned to him. “He wants to take Upper Egypt. You heard him,” Khu looked at his father. “We all heard him in the speech he gave in front of the Temple of Osiris,” he was speaking to Qeb and Nakhti as well, who nodded slowly in assent.

  “No, he won’t leave. You are right,” the king replied, chewing thoughtfully.

  Nakhti went and helped himself to some bread and cheese. He brought a cup of heqet for Khu, winking at his brother conspiratorially, as he placed it on a small table next to his mat, so he could have something more palatable than the bitter infusions he had been sipping.

  “This will taste better than those vile potions they’ve been making you drink, brother.”

  Khu thanked his brother but remained lost in his thoughts. His eyes were roaming about the spacious room as his mind reviewed his father’s campaign plans to capture Lower Egypt. Mentuhotep’s men had advised him to go north as soon as possible and take the throne by force. They had cautioned the king against waiting. Any delay would only allow the northern king to amass more men, artillery, and support for his cause. But Khu was not so sure that they should proceed so openly. He knew that Khety and Ankhtifi were shrewd as weasels. And to catch a weasel, one must think like a fox.

  Mentuhotep saw Khu’s mind working. He knew his son was thinking. He could see those golden eyes moving about the room. His son had been a beautiful child, and now he was growing into a very handsome young man. But it was the honor and integrity within him that shone most brightly. “What do you have in mind, Khu?” he asked him.

  Khu’s eyes finally came to rest on one of the painted walls on the other side of the room, where ducks and geese were poised in sudden flight from the marshes where they had been foraging for food only moments before. Something had startled the fowl, flushing them from the dense vegetation. Khu tilted his head to one side, narrowing his eyes as an idea took shape in his mind.

  “We’ll lure them out of their hiding,” he spoke up after a moment.

  Mentuhotep followed his son’s gaze to the mural of the frightened waterfowl. The birds were rising in a bustle of flapping feathers as they tried to escape a trap set by two hunters with nets, crouching in the reeds. “How?” he asked Khu.

  “Why should we chase after them when we can lure them to us instead?” Khu paused a moment to let the question sink into their minds. He tried to sit up a little, flinching at the stab of pain in his side. Nakhti walked over to prop a few cushions behind Khu’s back so that he could be more comfortable. He handed the cup of heqet to Khu, who nodded gratefully to Nakhti for his help, before sipping it slowly and looking back at the painted wall.

  Qeb and Mentuhotep had neared Khu’s bedside as he spoke, wondering how Khu intended to lure them. “We’ll set a trap to bait them,” Khu said, as though reading their minds. He reached out to put the cup on the table, and then very carefully lay back on the cushions, holding his breath against the pain until he could relax once again.

  “Bait them?” Qeb asked with interest.

  “Does he not have allies elsewhere? In several of the settlements north of here?” Khu asked.

  “He does,” Mentuhotep nodded.

  “In Zawty,” Qeb said. “They have supported him for a long time.”

  “In other settlements too,” Mentuhotep said.

  “Yes, but Zawty especially,” Qeb continued. “They are a wealthy province whose power has always sided with the kings of Lower Egypt.”

  “Then Zawty it should be,” Khu nodded with a faint smile playing about his lips. “That is where we should set the trap.”

  “Hmm…” Mentuhotep narrowed his eyes in thought, scratching at the stubble growing along his jawline. He was wondering how he could possibly bait his arch nemesis to a province full of his own enemies. The people there would never accept anything Mentuhotep said. They would remain suspicious and guarded. And they would warn Khety against Mentuhotep’s plans.

  “He trusts them,” Khu said quietly, looking at his father.

  The king ran a hand over his scalp before letting his arm fall by his side. “Go on,” he said, staring at Khu with interest.

  “King Khety trusts the people of Zawty. Isn’t that so, Qeb?” Khu asked.

  “Yes, this is true. He does trust them,” Qeb answered.

  “He knows he has their support,” Khu continued, “and so he will be far more inclined to believe them, and go along with whatever they say or do.”

  “How so?” Nakhti asked.

  “Look at that wall,” Khu pointed to the mural with the hunting scene. “Imagine chasing the birds out in the open. They would see you coming and fly away,” he paused for a moment and had another sip of the heqet, then replaced the cup on the table before continuing. “Those hunters are luring the birds to them. They have their trap set with their nets, and are hiding in the reeds. Who do you think will catch the birds? They, or the first group chasing them out in the open?”

  “Ah,” the king smiled and nodded slowly. He understood what Khu had in mind. It was a better plan than that which had been worked out with his advisors the previous day. Khu had not been at the meeting because of his injuries, and Mentuhotep had felt the absence of his son. Along with Qeb, Khu’s instincts and intuition were the ones he trusted most. The king was grateful that Khu was well enough to at least discuss their plans together now. “So you are proposing that we have his supporters in Zawty convince Khety to go there.”

  “Yes.”

  “By planting our own spies among them?”

  “Something like that,” Khu replied. “You can sort out the details. It should not be too difficult. They are all nervous, and desperate, and afraid.”

  “Fear makes men predictable,” Qeb said in his wise way.

  “It certainly makes them more pliable,” the king added. “Desperate men are willing to take desperate measures. It will open them up to the power of suggestion, which is precisely what we will need to get them to convince Khety to go there. Khety wants to win more than anything… I know how he feels,” he added quietly after a pause. The king’s eyes traveled up to the dust-speckled light again, and he watched the golden streaks as they played over the walls and on the floor. “Let them lick their wounds first,” Mentuhotep continued, as he mulled over the idea for himself. He stepped closer to the wall to study the beautifully painted scene. “We’ll give them time to lower their guards. Khu is right,” he nodded. “If we chase them now, they will only run. They are expecting to be chased. So we will wait. Then, when they think they are safe, we will bait them.”

  “And then what?” Nakhti asked.

  “And then we spring the trap,” Khu answered. He turned toward the king. “Perhaps you could have Sudi go to Zawty instead, Father. He might be able to convince them that he is betraying you. You can send word to him. He cannot have gone far yet.”

  Khu closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. He was tired, and his head was throbbing. His body ached from the beating he had taken. But he liked the plan. He especially liked the fact that it would buy him plenty of time for his bones to mend. All he wanted was to accompany his father. He could not stay behind. Not after having come face-to-face with the monster who murdered his family. He wanted to hunt Ankhtifi down like the animal he was, and send him to an eternal death in the pit of darkness where he would be swallowed whole by the serpent-demon Apep, before being vomited again and again, and then scorched in the goddess Sekhmet’s cauldrons. There, in the Slaughtering Place, Sekhmet’s butchers would torture Ankhtifi in all his senses, for all eternity, in the inextinguishable Lake of Fire.

  “Yes,” Mentuhotep said, pulling Khu’s mind back from the Slaughtering Place. “We shall go north and spring the trap, then unite the lands once again,” as though it were that simple.

  The king smiled, and his optimism was infectious. It all seemed so easy. The revolt had been crushed very quickly, considering the thousands of people that had been involved. Certainly most were pilgrims, not w
arriors, but sometimes battles are won from sheer numbers rather than skill or strategy, though that had not been so in this case. Fear had quickly broken the mob’s resolve, and scattered the pilgrims like rats from a sinking ship.

  “The timing is right,” Mentuhotep nodded. “Khety actually did us a favor.”

  “A favor?” Qeb raised a questioning eyebrow at the king.

  “Yes. If he had not instigated the revolt, we would have remained complacent. And nothing would have changed.”

  “You have been planning this for years. Planning to reunite the kingdoms,” Qeb said.

  But the king shook his head. “It takes a spark to start a fire. Khety does not know what he has set into motion,” Mentuhotep scratched at the stubble along his jawline again; it itched as it grew. “Or perhaps he does, and regrets it now. But whatever he thinks does not signify,” he waved a hand dismissively through the air, “for the spark has ignited a fire which will sweep north all the way to where the river feeds the sea.”

  Khu settled back on his mat, pleased that he would be accompanying his father’s troops north soon. He kept thinking about Ankhtifi, recalling every detail of the chieftain’s bearing, manner and form, as his mind searched and probed for possible weaknesses in the wolf-man, which would help him take down the lupine warrior. Just a while longer, Khu thought to himself with resolve. A little while longer and he would finally avenge his father, mother and sister, and all those in his village who had died on that blood-misted night, long ago.

  King Mentuhotep went back to the table of food as he pondered their plans and all that was said. He was imagining a new and unified Egypt, purged of the vermin that had been plaguing it for years; purged of thugs like Ankhtifi who inflicted death, destruction and despair wherever they went. He was already planning his assault to take the lands of the north.

  But the Seven Hathors had other plans for Egypt.

  The Mistresses of Fate shook their heads at the folly of men trying to impose their own will above that of the gods, for they had long ago chartered a course of their own. And for all Mentuhotep’s soldiers, strategies and strength, it would be years before Khu would finally face Ankhtifi once again. Years—not days, nor even several courses of the moon—stretched between Lower Egypt and Mentuhotep’s dream of unification.

  “Yes,” said Mentuhotep, oblivious to the decrees of Fate, as he drank some of the heqet waiting on the table alongside the food, “it is time to restore Egypt to her former glory.”

  And he raised his cup high.

  THIRTEEN

  Odji panicked when he got word of what had happened in Abdju. What would he do now? Every detail of the uprising plunged him deeper into despair.

  His friend in Abdju was dead. Many of Khety’s supporters who had been there were dead. And Khety himself had fled.

  All the gatekeeper could see in his bleak future was a colossal wall rising before him. In his mind’s eye, it stood between him and his sadistic dreams. He felt as though a door had been shut, trapping him inside a tomb—alive.

  Odji stared at the boatman, but looked right through the older man. They were sitting inside Odji’s house, which stood on a far corner of the palace grounds, near the quarters where many of the servants were housed.

  “How could things have gone so wrong?” Odji asked in disbelief. He kept uncrossing and re-crossing his legs, then standing up to pace about and sit back down.

  “You tell me. You had said that King Mentuhotep would be in Kush.” The boatman wrinkled his brow in accusation. His face was a map of lines etched by time and the sun. He was thin and stooped through the upper back, as though the effort of straightening his posture would cause his bones to break.

  “I must leave,” Odji said, as he stood up to move about the room again. “I cannot stay here any longer.” His guilt, greed, and ruthless ambitions had infected his mind with paranoia. He was convinced that Mentuhotep would somehow know of his treachery when he laid eyes on him, the same way young Khu had stared at him with a knowing look, all those years before. “It is too dangerous for me to remain,” he shook his head quickly. “No, I do not wish to stay another day.”

  “Then come with me,” the boatman said.

  “Where will you go?”

  “To Zawty. It is rumored that Khety may be staying there. They support him. You can come and find work there, or at a nearby settlement,” he paused a moment to think. “They might be interested in you once they know you were working for the king. You could be useful to them.”

  Odji fidgeted with an empty cup he had picked up from a small table. He turned it around in his hands, studying the simple earthen vessel as he pondered the boatman’s words, before blowing out a long sigh.

  The boatman narrowed his eyes at the gatekeeper, shaking his head in disapproval.

  “What?” Odji asked, defensively. “What is it? Why are you looking at me that way?”

  “You are a fool, I think,” the man reproached. “A fool to be so miserable here. It is a good life, yet you are miserable,” the boatman shook his head again.

  “You don’t know what you are saying,” Odji argued as he sat back down. He knew that the man sitting across from him was a simple man with simple ambitions. He did not care for power or wealth beyond the pittance he earned from his life on the Nile, and relaying clandestine messages. He was content with his life on the river.

  “Calm yourself.”

  “No,” Odji went on, “you do not understand.” He put the cup back on the table with a clatter. “I cannot stay. I cannot stay even if I wanted to. It is too late for me. Once they know of my involvement, and the extent of my deception over the years, I will be condemned. Yes,” he insisted with an emphatic nod, when he saw doubt in the boatman’s eyes, “condemned to death!” he threw his hands up into the air, and stood up suddenly.

  The boatman flinched, blinking nervously.

  “It is not your head that is at stake,” he said.

  But the boatman looked away, pondering Odji’s words as he scratched at a scab on his bony elbow.

  “We better leave now,” Odji uttered, after composing himself, “as soon as possible. Mentuhotep will be returning any day now. Unless he goes north.”

  “I heard his son was injured.”

  “Oh?” Odji’s thin eyebrows shot up. “Which one?” he asked with sudden interest, sitting back down slowly, his eyes fixed on the boatman.

  “I do not know. But it has detained the king.”

  Odji exhaled loudly through his mouth. He was frustrated. The boatman was not being very helpful, and his news, while interesting, was sketchy at best. Odji didn’t have time to sit around. He stood up and began packing a few of his belongings. He wanted to leave before King Mentuhotep returned.

  When he was ready, they stepped out of his small house and shut the door behind them.

  Odji hoped it was the last time he would see Thebes.

  ***

  Mentuhotep, Khu, Nakhti and Qeb were on a ship heading back to Thebes. It was their third day traveling south on the river that twisted and turned east before looping around and heading south again. A thick fog swathed the river in the early morning, but then thinned and disappeared as the sun rose higher. Date and doum palms grew in a thick mass just beyond the muddy bank, and their long, outstretched branches seemed to welcome the sailing ship with open arms. Several plover birds were pecking at the insects on a sandbar with their short beaks, oblivious to the fleet floating past them. Dragonflies flitted through the reeds and bulrushes where they hunted for smaller insects in the marshes.

  They had spent the first two days traveling without stopping, except when they had docked by the riverbank during the darkest hours of night, when the moon ceased to illuminate their way. Mentuhotep was eager to return home, now that Khu was mending. They had delayed their voyage for more than half a moon’s course so that Khu would be well enough to travel. But all of them had been restless in Abdju, pacing about like caged animals, except for Khu. He remained immobi
le as much as possible so he could heal properly. The pounding in his head had subsided, but nothing could soften the memories that had been revived with ferocious clarity. Not a day passed where he did not think of his murdered family, and of the monster who had taken their lives.

  The five-day journey back to Thebes was going smoothly, and if all went as planned, they would arrive in another two days. They were heading to the settlement of Gebtu on the east bank of the Nile, where they planned to spend the night to refresh themselves and their supplies. It was there that a major trade route marked a caravan path along a dry riverbed, which cut across the eastern desert from Gebtu to the Sea of Reeds. The dry riverbed would eventually be known as the Wadi Hammamat in the subsequent millennia. It was the shortest route from the River Nile to the Sea of Reeds on Egypt’s eastern border at Quseer. The outpost at Quseer served as a port from which expeditions to the mystical Land of Punt, and other remote places, were launched to trade and acquire exotic goods like incense, spices, ivory and pearls, as well as some of the unusual animals that were housed in menageries of the nobility. The region along the dry riverbed was also rich with quarries from where sandstone, basalts, quartz and other resources were mined.

  Gebtu was the cult center of Min—god of the eastern desert and fertility. Most of the province of Gebtu was exempt from paying taxes to the king. The protective decrees had been passed down since the early dynastic kings of the Old Kingdom, and the edicts also excluded its people from having to participate in the mandated labor and military duties required of citizens conscripted into service during war campaigns and special building projects that took place when the Nile’s flood kept people from working in the fields during the Season of Inundation.

  But what Mentuhotep did not collect in taxes, he mined in some of the prized stone used to build monuments, temples and tombs, from the many quarries found in the eastern desert along the ancient caravan route. And while no tolls were imposed on the nomadic traders following the dry riverbed to the Sea of Reeds, the traveling merchants usually donated a portion of their imported goods to the Temple of Min, to honor and thank the god for his protection as they ventured through the eastern desert. It was these unofficial payments that made Gebtu a prosperous settlement.