The Forest of Myrrh (Imhotep Book 3)

by Jerry Dubs

  To Imhotep’s disbelief, the soldier’s eyes were wet with tears. The man gently kissed Meryt’s face and said, “I am sorry, grandmother.”

  The soldier jerked his head toward the western wall of the temple and Imhotep was lifted to his feet. Numb from the pain of watching Meryt die, staff in his hand, he allowed the soldiers to lead him away.

  Glancing back he saw a dozen of the strangely armed soldiers forming a half circle to guard his retreat.

  - 0 -

  The soldier led Imhotep into the western corridor where Akila stood between two other soldiers. He tried to speak to her, but his lips were trembling and there was no air in his lungs.

  Shuffling, half carried, Imhotep was led down the corridor to an open doorway guarded by two soldiers. One of them held a torch and the other stood with crossed arms watching Imhotep and the soldiers approach.

  Imhotep looked at him without comprehension. The older soldier was ancient, yet he looked familiar.

  When he saw Meryt’s lifeless body the old soldier began to cry. Tears streamed down his face and his mouth worked silently.

  “I’m sorry, Commander Bata. We were too late,” the young soldier said.

  “Bata?” Imhotep said, pushing the syllables slowly from his half open mouth.

  “Lord Imhotep,” the old man said, his voice the whisper of a ghost. He stepped to Imhotep and embraced him.

  “How? I don’t understand,” Imhotep said.

  Unable to speak, Bata shook his head and held his arms out to the soldier.

  The soldier gently transferred Meryt’s body to Bata.

  “Take them through, Neferhotep,” he said, nodding toward the open doorway.

  “No, no, I’m not leaving Meryt,” Imhotep said.

  “I’m sorry Lord Imhotep. I wish we could talk, but there is an army in the courtyard and we haven’t the time. Neferhotep will tell you all that happened. I will stay here with Meryt and cover the hieroglyphs so that the door is sealed behind you.”

  The young soldier nodded to the men who were holding Imhotep and they lifted him through the doorway.

  “Goodbye, Akila,” Bata said when she came up to him by the doorway. “I protected Maya and Hapu as you and Lord Imhotep asked.”

  She put a hand to his face and caressed his cheek.

  “Imhotep never knew what he had in you,” she said, leaning forward and kissing him.

  “I had everything I could want,” Bata said. “Now you must take care of him.”

  1467 BCE

  The 6th year of the reign

  of Pharaoh Hatshepsut

  Saved

  The soldiers half dragged, half carried Imhotep into a new world.

  Tightly gripping his wooden staff, Imhotep twisted to look back at the stone time portal. The stone doorway was slowly closing and beyond it, as if in a haze, Imhotep saw the old man who called himself Bata. Holding Meryt, the man leaned down and kissed her forehead tenderly. Then, his face wet with tears, he looked up, caught Imhotep’s eye and mouthed, “Farewell.”

  The portal closed and Imhotep gasped as the enormity of his loss overwhelmed him. He had resigned himself to death when he had been entombed five years earlier, but this was worse. He had been willing to sacrifice himself to save Meryt and Maya, but instead he had lost Meryt and he had no idea where his daughter had gone.

  “Maya,” he said mournfully.

  “Yes, Grandfather,” the soldier called Neferhotep said. “We will take you to Mother.”

  Imhotep heard the words, but they made no sense to him.

  Adjusting his grip on the staff, Imhotep felt his fingers stick. He looked at them and saw that his hand was red with Meryt’s blood. Suddenly the soldiers stopped walking and the one on his left said something. Imhotep turned and saw Akila tug at the soldier’s arm. The soldier glanced at Neferhotep, who nodded and the soldier stepped back to make room for Akila.

  “I’m sorry, Tim,” she said in English

  “I killed her,” Imhotep answered.

  “No, no, Tim, you didn’t kill her.”

  “Threshen was trying to stab me. I knocked the spear aside and it went into Meryt.”

  “Then it was Threshen who killed Meryt, Tim. He held the spear. You were trying to protect her.” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Tim, what just happened? I don’t understand what is going on. Bata, Maya, and Hapu went through the door. I waited a minute and then heard the soldiers in the courtyard and at the same time I heard the stone door open behind me.

  “I turned around and soldiers started running through the door and into the corridor behind him,” she tilted her head toward Neferhotep. “He asked me if I was Akila and then he asked where you were. I said that I thought you were in the courtyard. He ran off, followed by a dozen more soldiers. I followed them.

  “When I got to the courtyard, two of the soldiers stopped me. That’s when I saw you and Meryt and the rebels. Neferhotep, is that how you say his name? He was running toward you, that huge knife of his raised overhead, with a couple of soldiers following him. I didn’t know if he was going to help you or kill you.”

  “Who is he?”

  As Imhotep shook his head, they reached the end of the corridor and entered a room with a high ceiling and two walls lined with windows. The stone floor was swept clean and several linen screens decorated with paintings of the river god Hapi lined the wall behind them. The wall to their left was lined with wooden dressers and cabinets.

  In the center of the room were four wooden chairs with cushions laid on the flat seats. In front of the chairs was a table with platters of roasted goose and oxen, bowls of figs and grapes, loaves of bread and three clay pots of beer.

  “Bata brewed the beer himself,” Neferhotep said, extending his arm to the chairs. “This was meant to be a celebration.”

  Behind him, Imhotep heard the pounding of bare feet. A soldier ran into the room and stopped, kneeling before Neferhotep. “The door is sealed,” he said.

  Neferhotep lightly touched the man’s shoulder and the man rose and backed out of the room.

  Turning to Akila and Imhotep, he said, “We can relax now.” Then, shaking his head, he said, “I can’t believe that he is gone and that you are here.”

  Imhotep moved shakily to one of the chairs and sat. Akila stood beside him and crossed her arms. “Where are we? Who are you? What just happened?”

  Neferhotep smiled and the expression changed his face dramatically. Instead of a stern soldier, unmoved by brutally killing Threshen, he was a young man, not yet out of his teens. Akila saw something familiar about him, the shape of his head, the way he held his shoulders.

  Nodding, Neferhotep said, “I pictured myself standing over there, beside that chair, while Bata explained everything. The center chair was meant for Imhotep, the others for you and for Meryt.” He sighed, rolled his shoulders, another movement that Akila was sure she had seen before, and then he said, “I wasn’t here when this began, but I have heard the story many, many times.”

  Through the time portal

  His left arm wrapped around Maya, his right hand clutching his spear, Bata stepped through the false doorway. He expected to find himself on the rounded dirt embankment outside the temple wall, but instead he had entered a wide stone corridor lit by a series of torches angled out of sconces.

  Surprised to be in a hallway that didn’t exist, he stopped so suddenly that Hapu bumped into him. As Hapu slid around him, Bata looked back through the time portal. Swirled by the desert heat, the air in the doorway shimmered darkly, and looking through it Bata saw Akila’s anxious face staring at him as she pushed the stone slab shut.

  Watching the world he knew disappear, he fought the urge to throw himself against the door and return to the temple. Instead, he clenched his teeth and reminded himself that he had promised to protect Maya and Hapu.

  As the door closed he felt Maya stir against his chest. He rubbed his hand across her head to comfort her and kissed her head. Suddenly and softly, Hapu touch
ed his arm. Looking down the corridor, she whispered, “Bata.”

  He followed her eyes and in a moment he heard it, too. Rapid footsteps.

  He bent to put Maya on her feet.

  “Stay with Hapu,” he told the waking girl. Then he touched the wooden handle of the knife tucked into his loincloth and gripped his spear in both hands. Turning toward the sound of the approaching steps, he prepared to keep his promise to protect Maya and Hapu.

  - 0 -

  A young girl appeared out of the darkness of the distant corridor. An amber ankh swayed on a golden necklace as she ran. Her black wig was askew, the bangs hanging down over her left ear, long coiled strands covering her right ear and right eye. She wore a sheer linen gown, the waist smeared with blood, as if she had wiped her hands on it.

  When she saw Bata she stopped so quickly that she almost fell. Hurriedly, she glanced once over her shoulder and then looked back at Bata, Hapu, and Maya. As her eyes lingered on Maya, she decided that the man, woman, and little girl were less threatening than what lay behind her.

  She jogged the short distance to them and, stopping with her hands open to show she carried no weapons, she said, “Help me. They have killed my brothers and now they are coming after me.”

  Her accent was strange, the words slightly slurred. As Bata strained to make sense of what she said, Hapu quickly asked, “Where are they?”

  “Behind me. They are searching each room, but this corridor goes only to the royal chambers,” she said, pointing up the hallway. “There is no other exit.”

  “How many are there?” Hapu asked.

  “I think just two of them are left. Amenmose, Wadjmose and their guards killed the others.”

  Hapu touched Bata’s arm and nodded at his knife. He pulled it from his loincloth and handed it to her. “Take Maya,” Hapu said to the girl. “Go to the chambers. We will follow.”

  The girl nodded, took Maya’s hand and said, “Hurry.”

  With Hapu and Bata guarding them, the girl led Maya down the corridor as the sound of breaking pottery crackled behind them.

  - 0 -

  “Who are you? What are your names?” the girl asked as they paused outside a doorway at the end of the hall.

  “I am Hapu. He is Bata and this is Maya,” Hapu said, laying her hand on Maya’s head. “We are friends and family of Lord Imhotep.”

  The girl shook her head and Hapu and Bata exchanged glances. Who had not heard of Imhotep?

  “We are going to meet my mother, Queen Ahmose,” she said.

  Bata cocked his head and said, “Who are you?”

  The girl looked at him in pity. “Are you outlanders? I am Princess Hatshepsut, daughter of Thutmose, Pharaoh of the Two Lands, conqueror of the Nubians, builder of the Temple of Amun.”

  - 0 -

  Seated on a low throne in her receiving room, Queen Ahmose was talking with Yuf, a bent-backed man who had the duty of maintaining her statue in the temple of Amun.

  The queen had almond-shaped eyes, heavily shadowed with kohl, wide shoulders and heavy hips that filled the wooden chair. Her black wig was resting on a mannequin head that sat on the floor beside her.

  Her dark eyes flashed angrily as she looked up at the sound of footsteps entering her chambers.

  “Hatshepsut!” she barked, “One does not run into the queen’s chambers.”

  Yuf, stiff with age, twisted slowly and narrowed his eyes to show that he, too, disapproved.

  “Mother, there are assassins in the temple!” Hatshepsut said breathlessly.

  As Ahmose shook her head in dismissal of the impossible claim, Hatshepsut stepped closer and showed her mother her bloody hands. “They have killed Amenmose and Wadjmose and their bodyguards. Two of them are in the hallway behind us, searching each room. They are on their way here.”

  Alarmed now, Queen Ahmose pushed herself out of her chair and for the first time noticed the girl who was standing behind Hatshepsut and the two strangers lingering in the doorway. Gasping, she started to bend down for her wig. Hatshepsut ran forward and picked up the wig and placed it on her mother’s head.

  “The man by the doorway is not one of the assassins. His name is Bata and he is carrying a spear because he is a soldier. The woman’s name is Hapu,” she whispered as she adjusted the wig.

  “And you decided to bring a strange, armed man into my chambers?”

  “To protect us, mother,” Hatshepsut said, as if speaking to a child. Behind the queen, Yuf huffed disappointment with the princess’ judgment.

  “The soldiers are getting closer,” Bata said from the doorway.

  Queen Ahmose glared at him and Bata quickly knelt and bowed his head. “Queen Ahmose, long life,” he said before reaching over and tugging Hapu’s hand. She knelt beside him and repeated the ritual greeting.

  “I thought Djefatnebti was queen,” little Maya said in confusion.

  Queen Ahmose looked at her sharply and then dismissed the foolishness of a child.

  Understanding that her mother relied on protocol and on others, Hatshepsut took charge. She turned to the queen and said, “Great Mother, please take Yuf and go into your bedroom.”

  “You do not tell your mother what to do. You’ve been spending too much time with Thutmose,” she answered.

  “Queen Ahmose,” Bata said, standing and walking quickly to the throne, “please listen to your daughter.”

  A shout came from the hallway, startling the queen and she looked from Hatshepsut to the strange soldier and then to the open doorway.

  “Lady of All Women,” Yuf said in a surprisingly deep voice, “Let us continue our conversation in your chambers.” He picked up a parchment with a list of minor statues and offerings that he wanted to place in her shrine and nodded toward the doorway of her room.

  “Queen Ahmose,” Bata said urgently, “Please take Maya with you.”

  She looked at him in confusion.

  “She can stay with me. I will guard her,” Hatshepsut said, turning away from her mother to face Bata. “Do you have a plan?”

  Bata had assessed the room as he had entered. The wall facing the doorway had three short windows, each with a bench beneath it; there was no place to hide. The right hand wall was painted with a mural that showed twin images of the blue-colored god Hapi tying together reeds, uniting the Two Lands; it also was exposed. The wall to his left showed ram-headed Khnum seated on a chair before a potter’s wheel which held clay figures of a man and a woman. A standing screen with three panels, two depicting Khnum and the center one his wife, the goddess Satet, stood at the end of the room.

  “Hapu, hide behind the screen. Stay there unless there is a struggle. Hatshepsut, I mean, Princess Hatshepsut, please stand just beyond the screen. Is there a doorway behind it?”

  “Yes, there is a dressing room there,” she answered.

  “Run there if you need to. Maya,” he said, kneeling by the girl, “stay with her. And, please, don’t make any noise. Can you do that?”

  Maya pressed her lips together and nodded sternly.

  Taking Maya’s hand, Hatshepsut walked to the screen.

  “If there are two men, as she said, then they will see Hatshepsut and will be focused on her. I will stand beside the entrance. As soon as they pass me, I will shout and stab the nearest man. I should be able to withdraw the spear and stab the second, but if there is a struggle ... ”

  “I will come from behind the screen,” Hapu finished for him.

  “Can you do this?” Bata asked.

  Hapu nodded and ran to hide behind the screen.

  - 0 -

  There were three men.

  They rushed into the room and stopped just inside the doorway when they saw Hatshepsut.

  Before they had completely stopped, Bata drove the blunt end of his spear hard into the back of the head of the closest man. The soldier grunted and staggered away from the blow. As the other men turned toward the sound, Bata quickly twisted his spear around and drove its point into the chest of the second man
.

  The soldier was carrying a long, curved knife. With the spear still burrowing deeper into his chest, the man screamed and swung his knife at Bata. The tip of it sliced across Bata’s chest, cutting a deep gash through the muscles. Ignoring the pain, Bata lifted his left leg and kicked at the man’s hips while he yanked his spear from the soldier’s chest.

  The third soldier pushed past the dying man and rushed at Bata, who swung his spear at the man’s face as he staggered back from the soldier’s swinging blade. The soldier dodged Bata’s spear point and then squared himself to regain his balance.

  The first soldier had recovered now and joined his companion. He stepped over the fallen man’s body and began swinging his crescent-bladed khopesh in wide arcs. The two soldiers worked in unison, swinging their swords menacingly as they side-stepped to approach Bata from two directions.

  With the soldiers focused on Bata, Hapu ran silently across the floor and jumped onto the nearest man’s back. Draping one arm across his chest to steady herself, she reached around and quickly cut his throat. The soldier gasped and collapsed. Startled, the remaining soldier glanced over at the noise. Seeing the man’s attention flicker away from him, Bata drove his spear into the hollow of the man’s upper chest where his throat ended.

  With a gurgling moan, the last soldier fell to the floor.

  His chest heaving and bleeding, Bata pulled his spear free and ran to the doorway. Hatshepsut was standing there with Maya. She held one of the fallen soldier’s khopesh swords in both hands. Gripping the handle confidently she leaned through the doorway, her head turned sideways as she listened.

  “No one is coming,” she said. Then she turned to Bata and nodded in thanks. “You truly are a soldier. And you,” she said as Hapu came up beside them, “you are fierce as Sekhmet.”

  Ignoring her, Hapu put a hand on Bata’s bleeding chest. The wound ran diagonally from his right shoulder, across his breast bone to just below his left nipple. It was bleeding lightly, the blood near the wound already trying to thicken.