Heart of the Lotus

by Mary R Woldering

  “The most high one would be mightier; not approachable. I would not be able to stand before him. And to say I turned away the ones he had chosen to aid him.” The entity spoke again, mocking.

  Hordjedtef, still bent over in a combination of hesitation and worry, felt the choking feeling return.

  “Great Lord of all,” he gasped, stumbling again and suddenly so weak his other knee folded under him.

  As if amused but in the same moment irritated, the shape of the larger–than–life Marai grew redder. The head on his Was staff transformed from the Sutek/anteater image into the djed symbol, or the backbone. The entity’s face blackened as his body assumed a more feminine shape, then transitioned into a radiant opalescent green color shot with stars. What had appeared to him as a male now presented as a voluptuous woman about to give birth. She cried out, becoming blacker than black with the features of a noble Kush female. As if her time had at last arrived she pushed hard and a blue orb emerged from between her legs. It glimmered in reflected sunlight as the swirling images cleared. Although Hordjedtef had only beheld the sacred orb of earth in dreams and discoursed its true shape with other scholars, he knew what he had seen.

  My God. It is… it can’t. The elder planted his agonized forehead on the tiles, anxious that his own irreverence which had surpassed anything he had witnessed in the sojourner might have gone too far with this being. If this was indeed Atum as the creator, the god might at any moment tire of him and he would not only cease to exist in this form but in any form before or to come. The particles of his soul would find true oblivion. Dark surrounded him and with it, terror.

  “No. Please don’t make me see your glory or the magnitude of the dark. Just allow me to fix what has come undone; to balance it. I will do whatever I must,” he kept his eyes averted for a long time. When he sensed only silence, he hardened his resolve enough to look up again. The red man with sun-eyes caressed the solar orb with rays extending downward so that it looked like glowing golden hair.

  “You will listen this time? Then understand this. You must create a final solution for me, even if it means ending old alliances and loyalties if they will not readily assist you. Use only those who will aid you. Discard the others. I will be reborn, as will the others when they come to desire it. I have been away too long, waiting for my moment to come. Waiting for a host that I might come into; hidden and hard to find. I am not flippantly controlled by men who are born and die in the blink of an eye, nor are any of my race whether they are human, gods, demons, or child-voices caught in crystal stone.”

  “Ptah-te-a-ten-re-Atum, Lord of all the gods… No. I can’t… say you are not the great creator. Say to me you are not…” Hordjedtef made a faint squawk, feeling as though his ancient heart would explode. He lurched to his feet, staggered, righted himself, and then realized he was alone. The sun was setting.

  For long moments he sat on his heels at the edge of the canopy, wondering if the entity would return. The air was hot, but cooling into the balmy haze of dusk. A gentle breeze moved through the plaza as if it was a spirit seeking to console him in his fright, but he knew it was only a natural sundown wafting of air from the distant river.

  A servant approached timidly, making the elder wonder where the man and the two other workers he had retained from his estate had been during this afternoon-long encounter.

  Were they slacking? Asleep? Enchanted? Now they come to tend me? He wondered if they had seen anything, and if so, what they thought. His hounds bounded in on their leads with the servants guiding them. He reached up to gently grab one of their rust-furred heads and bring it to his forehead. If the entity is here, they will know it, he thought, waited, and then affirmed. It’s gone.

  “Rowser,” he petted the hound then gathered the other, who could have been its twin except for the larger blaze on his face. “Hetep. Good boys! So good to see you!” he glanced up at the servants and instructed:

  “Just some sop and bread, and plenty of my evening elixir. I have need of sleep.”

  He stayed with the dogs and then took the twine ball one had in its mouth. He threw it and watched them both dash eagerly after it a few times, glad to be free of the events of the afternoon. Thoughts of the lazy game with the dogs didn’t stay.

  My altar. I still have the bowl smoldering and the images of the gods out. I need to whisper a few praises and put them in the safe box so naught will happen to them. He grunted and struggled to his feet, noticing he was far weaker and achy than he should have been. “Need to have a sleep potion that will block any dreams and visions, I do. Quite enough for the afternoon! My poor heart. It most certainly was a god that I am still alive and not fallen over in a death-fit of misery.” He muttered half-aloud, rubbed his chest to make certain his heart had ceased hammering, and shuffled back to the altar.

  The little statuette of the ibis was tipped over with its head blackened from soot and resting halfway in the bowl of burned incense. He seized it and began to rub the soot from its head on the hem of his shendyt.

  How did this happen? He noticed a chip missing from the flat stand. Ruined. Now it won’t stand up properly. Maybe the piece is around here. Whipping his head around, he searched the top of the altar and the floor nearby for the missing piece. Something sharp glinted in the corner.

  Ah. There you are. A little plaster… he thought, set the statuette down, and bent to retrieve it. As he did, the ibis figure trembled and rocked as if an unseen hand had jostled it. It rolled from the altar, fell to the tiles, and shattered.

  “Djehut… Gods, no!” Hordjedtef cried out but sensed the echo of the sonorous metallic voice coming from inside his own head.

  Whom you have always served.

  “Augh! Stop! It’s enough!” he smacked the heel of his left hand against his forehead while he clutched the first broken piece in his hand. Then in dismay: “Look at this mess. There’s nothing… Ow…” he noticed the sharp edge of the piece had cut the palm of his hand. Blood pooled quickly for such a small cut and began to drip.

  One of the servants heard the crash and came forward. He bowed:

  “Great One. You are injured. Shall I summon a physic?”

  “No. No… gods no,” Hordjedtef protested. “I can care for it myself. It bleeds, but isn’t deep or needing of a stitch. Just get me some heated pure water you were preparing for the tea and some salve and linen and I will bind it once I see there’s no bits in it.” He paused, then as an afterthought pointed to the shattered statue. “And clean that mess up.”

  The elder trudged to the last well-lit spot in the plaza with the first shard now in his other hand and looked at the wound.

  Clean. Good. He thought, then waited patiently for the servants to return with the proper medical supplies. He tested the bloodstained edge, wondering how it could have made such a strange cut on his palm and gasped. Shiny, like crystal… he paused, staring, because he thought of the wdjat and in the next instant he thought of the ntr stones. This was painted over carved crystal? Master Djedi left it to me… a gift for my care the last years of his life. He knew? All along, he knew?

  The man arrived, set the materials down, and backed away respectfully.

  “I will still wish to take my sop and my tea in moments, when I have bound this.” he called, then reflected. Illusion. He said something about that too. Doesn’t matter. I will sleep well and in my morning meditation I will sent word to my grandson. Then… he looked at the shard twinkling as if it agreed with his new plan. I will visit Great Lady Khentkawes, and the king. Then I will set about taming my faithless Wse. But what if I fail? No. Not this time. I will not fail the god now that I know his name.

  Chapter 5: The Goddess Doll

  “Your Majesty.”

  Khentie heard Count Prince Hordjedtef clear his throat an instant before he spoke. She knew the elder priest had been politely waiting on the other side of the draped archway to the king’s staterooms.

  I’ve been working all morning and you still feel you have the r
ight to come to His Majesty’s bedroom to see me? Where are the guards? Will I finally have to make an example of you? She glanced through the sheer linen and noticed Hordjedtef pacing anxiously, but remembered her self-control.

  Daughter of the God Khentkawes, now to be God’s wife, she thought to herself. Uncomfortable title. Soon enough the vulture crown will be placed on my head. Soon I will command he make an appointment if I ever allow him in my presence. For now, though… she decided to ignore Hordjedtef a little longer.

  Ever since her father died over a month earlier, the elder prince had visited with her almost every day as if he was her tutor.

  Old fool. Elder royal women do this! Great Khammie Mother is to counsel me, since my own mother is no more in the world. I never dreamed I would be a God’s Wife until everything changed six years ago; when my sister Meryt was murdered. And now he is prying into my thoughts with such a skill it taxes my own training. Go away old man, she bowed her head in thought to strengthen her blocking ability, then looked up again to see his barely visible form still waiting outside the curtain.

  “I do see you out there, Your Highness.” She began reluctantly, but gained speed and confidence as she addressed him. “When Father was alive you may as well have lived here, but you do not now. Your wisdom and your wiles helped you place yourself above royal physician and even my father’s vizier, but my brother and I will have no such need of you, Great One of Five.” She grumbled, attempting to re-focus on her task of sorting and blessing her father’s things. “Do you not have a home to return to?”

  Khentie knew he did, but she added the snipe at the elder so she would sound imperious.

  Counting the days until you leave us for Nekhen and your overdue retirement. I was afraid of you when I was a girl, but after my sister died… and with the way you made your beast of a grandson seem like an equal victim in her death and not the cause, I have come to despise you.

  Khentie didn’t want another physician, or for the old man to console or counsel her. This morning she perched on the large floor cushion near the dais where Menkaure’s bed had been. She used the overseeing of her father’s burial goods as a time of self-healing reflection.

  With a stub of red chalk pinched in her fingertips, she marked down each item on a tablet and then whispered:

  “Go with the grace of the gods. Ever serve him splendidly.” Then, she placed each item in one of the many baskets which would be carried to her father’s pyr-akh and sealed with him for his afterlife journey. I should have grown stronger by this time, she reflected. It’s been over a month since he died and I am no more level than the first day I heard of it. She recalled how she had collapsed in a cold faint when Wse had brought her into this room to observe her father’s body stretched in preliminary repose on his bed.

  Several more times the next few days, I fainted and could not take food for nearly a week.

  She removed the shabti from the baskets where she had placed them the evening before and inspected them one last time. These are perfect! They’re so sweet and so honored to serve Father through all eternity. She carefully wrapped the little ceramic dolls in the finest linen, then lovingly returned them to the baskets.

  I need to rest some more or I will join him soon, she sighed. I don’t think he’ll want to see me so quickly. Yesterday my dear brother found me asleep, right here on his floor. Told me I never stirred while he carried me to the women’s suite. He’s been aching too, and going without sleep; morning ‘til dark supervising the building and fretting it won’t be done in time. This is killing both of us!

  “I’ve sent some things for the burial, Your Majesty. If you would only attend me…” the elder priest, still waiting outside on the landing, called in to Khentie. His feigned weariness at not being invited in sooner showed in his impatient tone.

  Oh. Today he has a reason to come to me. Khentie moaned inwardly, then quietly gestured for him to enter. She instantly noticed the previously unseen retinue of servants following him. They carried in her father’s writing tablets and his nice ebony chair, which had been kept at the priest’s lesser palace for his visits there.

  As soon as she pointed out a corner of the room where the gathered furniture had been placed, Khentie went back to buffing one of thirteen little golden bulls with solar discs balanced between their horns for her father’s outer temple.

  Not looking at you, Highness, because it’s my sign you should go now, she sent an unguarded thought.

  Instead, the elder spoke:

  “You are to be praised, sweet Majesty! All this work that you do! Such a good daughter so that Our Father will rise properly,” the high priest leaned heavily on his two canes as he advanced in baby steps toward the cushion where she sat. A servant followed him and, as if trained to do so, eased the elder to the cushion and took the canes. When he had propped the canes against the entry wall, he left.

  And he acts as if I invited him to sit beside me? Share my floor pillow? Khentie kept her face turned until she noticed his right hand. A black leather crisscross strap formed a cover over his palm and looped around one finger like a ring. His handpiece. Haven’t seen him wear that since before father… when he would… she visualized the elder working with King Menkaure and wearing that piece. She didn’t like it. Her trained senses spoke of some spark of dark lightning that emanated from it as he touched the king. A magical power that sapped his will? Delusion, I was told. Is that a bandage underneath the piece? She tried to focus on it but felt slightly light-headed and found herself watching the elder’s cryptic smile take shape over his lips as he continued:

  “You ought to allow yourself time to rest, my dear Majesty. It’s not entirely fallen to your shoulders.”

  Another dart at my brother? she knew what he implied. You and your companion priests never did like him for king. Old story, but it can’t be helped after the first choice died and the second, her blood ran cold, made everything change. She looked away, burying her gaze in her work. You all think he will be weak and ineffective, but he is not. I have my priestesses behind me and… she was about to form the name of her consort prince, Wserkaf but cancelled the thought just in time.

  “His Majesty is working steadily, Great One,” Khentie’s shoulders drooped. “You of all men should know this. Even now he is overseeing the work on Father’s eternal house and any free evening he meets with scribes and nobles; all of those, including yourself, who handled Father’s several concerns in the past. Are you forward enough to imply your new king ought to do more?” She closed her eyes, sighing sadly and thinking about Menkaure again.

  “His death was so sudden! And you still say you knew nothing of its coming, with all of your power and wisdom?” Her eyes twitched. She wanted to rub them, but didn’t dare. She knew any stateliness in her appearance was gone. Her barely lined eyes were ringed with the dark circles of weariness. At that moment, she didn’t care if she looked worse than a serving woman. She turned her glance from Hordjedtef, noticing the way he was staring at his nails and the leather hand piece.

  Khentie knew that dismissive look too well. He had something to say this morning and, like it or not, she knew she would be required to hear it without flinching or exposing her rage.

  Civility she remembered her mother teaching her as she had taught her elder sister. Watch your opponent as a lioness does. All who would deign to speak to you without answering your question are to be regarded as an enemy. See his or her weaknesses. Expose them on a day when it is unexpected and your manner is without heat.

  You knew this confrontation would come sooner or later, old man, Khentie thought to herself. Khentie noticed Hordjedtef’s imperious gaze down his ibis-beak nose. She visualized herself grabbing the old man, hauling him to the stateroom porch, throwing him to the polished brick below, and then crying out he had met death by stumbling. Tearing her eyes away again to keep him from reading her thoughts, she sighed uncomfortably. I couldn’t. It’s the very lie he used to cover my sister’s death.

 
“Has it not been adequately explained to you, my dearest, dearest holy daughter, that Our Father fought a dread battle against many sorceries? In the end, these took their toll on his mighty and awesome frame. A mere man would have failed under one such utterance.” Hordjedtef leaned closer. Khentie knew he was purposely seeking her eyes to look for her hidden thoughts.

  Khentie blinked them closed to avoid his stare, incredulous that the old man would use her time of mourning to re-present his theories of her father’s ill health and resulting death.

  “No. I no longer accept the prophecy of Buto as his fate, so guard what you feel you should repeat to me. My father himself doubted he had been given only six more years to rule after the tragedies that befell our family, so I won’t hear this fiction again.” She moved the statuette she had polished to one side and picked up another, but felt sharpness of the old man’s gaze on her arm.

  “Have you forgotten the external forces on his kind heart, dear honored one; how I valiantly labored to spare His Majesty their influence?”

  Even though she had been pleased with the bright and sunny day, Khentie felt a chilly breeze at his words. The sojourners from across the river were about to be mentioned. She knew it and reached for a shawl.

  So, he wants to bring that out into the air, does he? she mused. His servants don’t need to be lurking outside the drape, listening to us either.

  “I don’t think I like your tone, Great One, or the near presence of other ears.” She motioned to the men waiting outside.

  There was a time, old man, Khentie remembered, when I took every crumb of wisdom you saw fit to drop before me. I should have reined you in long ago. I believed the sojourners were quite capable of harming Our Father. You wanted me to think that. If there was ever some conspiracy to his sudden death, I think the architect of it now sits beside me. I just can’t prove it! her eyes squinted, still desperately avoiding his visual probe. This time she rubbed them but distracted the elder from her thoughts by calling to the men outside.