Makes a cruel sense now. Look at him. To think it was all over a woman now – my mother, because she rebuked him for his insincerity. The assault on her body was his answer – an outrageous attempt to win her. Yet, it drove her into Father’s arms.
“Everything is safe now, Wser,” Userre whispered suddenly. “You or our newest king needn’t worry of these things falling into wrong hands. The legend is satisfied.”
Wserkaf shuddered inwardly, then looked sideways when he saw a glint of crystal catch the sunlight. He knew what it was.
“How did you…” he started, then almost stood and walked away in disbelief. Instead, he just shook his head.
“Gently,” Userre whispered again. “He might notice we are speaking. Let him think he has the only treasure. I have seen to it that he will see nothing of value in the flint box, and I will see this other treasure gets to you before you or I depart.”
Wserkaf didn’t feel at ease with that statement.
“Father – are you?” he started, concerned, but Userre clapped a firm hand on his son’s knee and smiled.
“At peace with the gods. So, don’t you have a care. The djed is righting itself and my part is as it should be. I just didn’t understand it until she told me.”
“She? Did Khen – her majes –” Wserkaf frowned.
“No. It was your mother,” Userre rose from his seat and began to move toward his meditation room. “Do not question so much the activities of the gods. Accept miracles and do not seek to dissect them with reason.”
Wserkaf knew he had seen his mother’s spirit when he and Khentie were struggling with the slab, but there was more his father wasn’t telling him. As his father went one direction, he moved in the other; toward Hordjedtef.
“Father is tired again, Great One. He’s going to rest for a while.”
“I’m not surprised. He’s not well, you know. It’s a pity we had not resolved our differences earlier. I might have helped him.”
Wserkaf froze, feeling a knot of rage in his gut that he didn’t know how to ease. He didn’t feel like having a lecture about how any intelligent man and women past the age of bearing a child might live well with regular movement, dance, and the proper combination of well-prepared foods, sops, and curative herbs. The lesson was old and tiring.
“So”, the Inspector changed the subject as his father left the plaza, “have you found anything of note here?”
“It’s as I told you once, Dear One. Whatever was of value in these boxes is lost to us without a way to read it. My father, may he ever glide the stars in bliss, wasn’t right at all to believe Djedi of Sneferu’s story that the secrets of the gods were located here. Not if we, their own sons, were not meant to read them.”
He doesn’t know about the second wdjat, Wserkaf thought to himself but countered quickly when he saw a glimmer of recognition cross his teacher’s face: “And the flint box? Did you see the things in that?”
“Golden tubes with more prayers, some papers, and these odd, stone-like slabs. They were green, which I thought especially strange.”
“Green?” Wse asked, turning to look in the box which lay open and ignored to one side of the priests as they pored over the wood boxes. “What kind of stone?”
“I thought it might be emerald-like stone or malachite, but the fact that letters are etched in them goes against the properties of such a precious stone. It’s far too light as well. In the full light, they’re not as tempting as they were when I saw them years ago in the half-light.” The elder sighed and shook his head. “Dreams of youth. I’ll be off back to Ineb Hedj in the morning then, and I’ll want to meet with you to discuss further details of your elevation. This journey has solved so many of my questions and eased any of the doubts I had.”
Wserkaf knew his former mentor was hiding something. He wasn’t sure what it was. Hordjedtef’s manner was entirely too pleasant for him to trust.
“Well,” he turned, going to the flint box to stare at the tubes. Only two of them had been unfastened. “I wanted to thank you for following us.” Bending to lift the thin green slab, he noticed the way the script was etched and knew at a glance that it was extremely old. The writing was a combination of scripts: casual, formal, Sanghir, and two other distinct types of characters. It was the same “gibberish” writing Marai had inscribed on the linen sheets the day Hordjedtef decided to destroy him. If Hordjedtef claimed there was ‘nothing to see’ he was either lying or his wits had gone soft with another half year of aging.
“If you had not come after us, no one would have known and we might have both been trapped behind the wall. It was your calling to us from inside those dark halls that made us stop and why Her Majesty…” he started, but saw Hordjedtef’s puzzled expression.
There it is again; that look. Does he not remember calling and coming down into the tomb? Was he truly being moved by another will? Surprising that someone of his power would allow that.
“Yes. Yes, of course it was very courageous of me. Fate worked with us, and a blast of light from the gods. Your father and I saw the light issue from the entry point and I, being yet more able bodied, brought men to see.” Hordjedtef restated, but Wserkaf saw something gliding behind his eyes that cast doubt on everything the old man was saying.
“You weren’t…” Wserkaf started but checked himself. “I thought you were already coming into the chamber and had been asking us if we needed help.” He also wondered why he had seen Hordjedtef sitting in the plaza covered in dust, but the elder completely omitted that point from his recounting of the events.
The elder shook his head as if he was amused.
“I was not there, Dear One. In a fright like that, the wits can play tricks and wicked spirits tell you falsehoods,” he insisted. “It would be unthinkable for me to retreat from within the tomb with Her Majesty in danger. I could not allow it to happen.”
Wserkaf stood, unsure of what to think, but guarded against the escape of any errant thought. The elder was protecting himself by putting out a tale with enough force that after a few rounds of telling, would become the truth. In that, he excelled. He had done it to the king and to his own grandson when making stories about how the Princess Meryt died, he had tried to do it to him about Marai’s motives, and he tried to do it again now.
Teacher, I cannot allow you to talk these things away anymore. Not to me or those I value. I will keep the truth in my heart, Wserkaf swore to himself.
Chapter 15: The Eye of Ra
Wserkaf thought about recent events as he and Khentie walked back from the dock. It was morning, two days after the incident in the no-longer-secret chamber. Hordjedtef had just departed, sailing back to Ineb Hedj in proud possession of the eight prayer boxes that had adorned the empty stone coffins for each of the original gods and goddesses.
After so many years my eyes were opened, but I still feel so much love and admiration for the man, Wserkaf reflected. He’s a shrewd manipulator and skilled in high heka, but if I had endured the same misfortunes as he did, I might have been tempted live the same life. Wouldn’t any man? Probably? No, probably not.
He held his consort’s hand as they entered the audience area of the temple. A lector priest came to them on quiet feet so he did not interrupt the mid-morning offerings and ceremony, but whispered that Userre had grown tired and was at his apartment lying down.
“Is he ill?” Wse asked.
“This happens often, Your Highness.” The priest bowed, averting his eyes from Khentie until she waved her hand in the air gently, giving him the signal to be at ease. “He’s assured us it’s nothing of concern other than old age,” the priest continued.
“I see,” Wse nodded and the steered Khentie to their room. Nap this early? I don’t trust this, but he’s been acting strange ever since we came out of the chamber with the boxes.
He kept silent as Khentie’s young maid helped her remove the jeweled collar and heavy wig she had worn to the dock. An acolyte took Wserkaf’s travel cloak and put it away.
When the two left, he spoke freely.
“I don’t like that tiredness, Khen. The last time I was here by myself and saw him on the outside, he was slower than I recalled, but not like this.”
She nodded, seemingly lost in her own thoughts, but added:
“I know what you mean. After we went into the chamber and after he saw that Hordjedtef was all a-gloat over the prayer boxes, he started looking distant to me. Maybe us getting these things he’s kept privately guarded for so long has done something to his spirit; as if he believes his time among us is over. I hate to say it, but my father got that look often enough his last years.”
“If Great One has ensnared him with poison in the guise of medicine for his weakening heart…” Wse burst just above a whisper because at this point he didn’t know if he could trust any random ears.
“I thought the same thing, Wse,” Khentie admitted.
“I thought it the moment I saw him that morning when father told me his heart was not strong and he told us that part of him felt it no longer belonged here. Remember that? Dede wouldn’t dare,” Wserkaf shook his head but knew the old man was a legend in his own time as far as the number of things he did that ‘no one else would dare do’.
“When he wakes, I’m going to ask him to show me what Hordjedtef has given him. If it’s even close to what he gave Our Father, I’ll have him for murder and attempted murder.” He looked around, knowing that their room was the only safe place where they might not be heard, and even thinking of such a plot was a criminal act for himself, an anointed consort, and the Daughter of the God.
Khentie nodded.
Wserkaf knew she wasn’t listening. She sat on the bed looking lost in thought again and starting to toy with her hands.
“It’s been two days of this nonsense with the prayer boxes and empty coffins. Men have been sifting the rubble in the chamber and Great One was constantly repeating his version of the story to everyone who would listen. He’s casting spells so we believe his version. I know he is,” Her eyes sought Wserkaf’s and she smiled when he pressed her close.
Wserkaf was used to Khentie appearing sober and agreeable in public and then unloading her thoughts and emotions privately, but since the excursion into the secret chamber with him, she had been much more agitated. The whole journey had been designed for her relaxation away from political life, and it had ended up being the opposite.
“Don’t do this to yourself, Khentie. He’s gone now,” Wserkaf sat with her and petted her back. “It’s good we all convinced him that his story was the right one and that there was nothing to be done about the contents of the flint box. He seemed pleased enough when he left with just the prayer boxes. I think I convinced him that father and I would work on the Sanghir passages and that I would bring everything back as soon as Sahure arrived to take over father’s care. I don’t think he’ll try to invade our thoughts now.”
Khentie glanced left, her eyes closing slightly. She stood, as if she had sensed someone spying, then crept to peer outside the drape.
“Just servants and some of the acolytes moving around,” a faint smile showed in the corner of her mouth. When she heard another step, she opened it again.
Userre stood before them.
“Father. Are you well?” Wserkaf worried instantly and went to the old man to ease him toward a chair.
“I’m not feeble as I portrayed to our Great One, Wse,” the High Priest of Ra answered quickly and insisted on remaining on his feet. “But if we’re certain Hordjedtef is no longer concerned with us, we do need to talk and get the air cleared once and for all. Come quickly to my apartment. I want to show you something.”
Wserkaf frowned, stooping to pick up Khentie’s sandals and then tie them on her feet. “And you’re not ill?” he looked up for a moment to ask.
“Oh, I am somewhat ill, as I said before; a weaker heart. I will remain among the living though, the gods have assured me, until the raising of the djed – and I don’t just mean the annual ceremonies. I mean the righting of the wrongs we’ve endured here.”
“Wrongs?” Wse raised an eyebrow. He and Khentie started walking to Userre’s private apartment with the old man alongside them. “I’ll tell you what I see as a wrong – the medication Hordjedtef is giving you. Have you determined its composition? You know both of us think he had a hand in King Menkaure’s death...” Wse began.
“I know this, and have known it,” Userre answered. “Worry not, though. These are merely relaxants to lull the heart; lotus powders to increase the color of meditative dreams. It’s not the Sweet Horizon mixture you told me he used on the sojourner, if that’s your worry. He doesn’t want to kill me; at least not yet.”
Wserkaf let out a sigh of slight relief, but was not entirely convinced.
“Don’t worry so for me. I am at peace, Wser, and you have things you must do. Here…” the old priest pulled a linen casing from his walking shawl as the three approached the small brick apartment outside the walls of the temple proper. Opening the casing, he lifted out the crystalline Eye of Ra and handed it forward.
“The other wdjat,” Khentie breathed a sigh of wonder. “Wse told me you had it, but I thought maybe it was one of Hordjedtef’s tricks.”
Wserkaf turned his back to the light and stared at the crystalline object. It was exactly like the one he had worn for years except his emblem had been the Eye of Truth and faced the other direction.
“Truth and now Light” he stated. “Was it really mother’s spirit that brought it to you?”
“It was. It is how I wakened again after I sent you to the tomb,” Userre said, reaching forward to smooth the shiny surface. “Your mother brought it to me, and she wished me well with it. The Great Teacher Djedi of Sneferu came with her. They both told me that all was as it should be and that I needed to get up and to stop the Great One from going into the chamber or it would be out harmony once more. I got up and sent priests to meet him. They found him asleep in the courtyard, covered in dust. It took them a few desperate moments to wake him.”
“But…” Khentie interjected, shock and disbelief evident in her voice.
“Father, are you sure?” Wserkaf frowned, fascinated by the rainbow-like glimmer on the beveled edge of the wdjat. “I told you we distinctly heard Dede in the tunnel right after we found the flint box in its chamber.”
“More than that, Wse,” Khentie interrupted. “Great One was down there for what seemed like forever, shouting out and asking us if we needed help. After Wse was trapped, he came in with two men. I wanted to free Wse by opening the slab again and he suggested… he tried…”
“Well, that’s surprising. I thought he would have outgrown those youthful urges at his age,” Userre commented, shocked. “Shameful, but the truth of the events is not as important as the outcome. He did not do more than suggest or approach, and the forces you unleashed with the wdjat exacted a price on whatever moved him and my priests that night.”
Wserkaf felt his thoughts halt as a memory emerged of himself walking through the solid slab as if it had been a wall of water into whiteness and seeing Khentie come barreling through the same white and into his arms while rock and gravel rained down all around them. He also distantly saw Hordjedtef being drawn back through the walls as if they were air and he was on a long rope. The two priests with him fell to the floor behind one of the stone tombs as if they were on ropes which also dropped. Wse’s hands went up in protection from those thoughts.
“What is it?” Khentie put her hand on Wse’s arm.
“I saw it, just now,” he lowered his hands. “Great One was pulled away from the fragmenting of the slab and your two priests were knocked behind the tombs,” he revealed. “Something else is toying with us. It put Dede there and maybe even moved him to suggest the unthinkable. I need to know who or what it is.”
“But you and Her Majesty are safe now, the flint box is safe for you to deliver to King Shepseskaf, and Dede is deceived into thinking he has the greater worth of things. On top of i
t, you now have the other eye,” Userre exclaimed. He took Wserkaf’s hand and wrapped it around the disc, then patted it as if he was giving it to him permanently. “What does it matter? Accept that the white light you both saw was indeed the light of Ra and his power through this little disc that kept you both safe and brought you back to where you belonged in the end.”
“Perhaps I did study too long at Dede’s feet then. Not to blaspheme in his very temple, father, but truth more than miracles interests me. Truth,” Wse shook his head and stared at the disc again as if he was asking a question. “What is it that you know, light or truth?”
Wserkaf felt his father reach forward to touch his arm, reassuringly.
“Maybe it’s both. You and Majesty have had an event.” Userre slumped his shoulders, appearing suddenly weary. “Trust that much. I’ve had one myself that’s made me proud the gods did decide I should live this long.”
Wserkaf tensed, noticing his father’s arm and the long thin scar that stretched from wrist to the inside of his elbow, evidence of another secret.
“I didn’t know,” he breathed out. “You tried to kill yourself.”
Userre nodded and added, “Twice. Come into my chambers, Wser dear and my dearest Majesty,” he answered. “I’ll tell you all before you leave, but first there’s something I discovered when you were seeing our dear Count Hordjedtef off on his boat with the boxes. I did lie to all to say I was tired and would stay behind, but it’s time for me to show you what happens when you place the Eye of Ra on the writings that have come from that most secret of the boxes.”
Once they were inside the apartment, they went to a small-but-humble cubicle. Userre sent the serving priests who brought the chairs, cushions, and writing equipment away. When they were alone, Userre sat on one of the chairs, cleared his throat, and brought everyone’s attention to the matter at hand.
“Wser. The box you seek lies under my bed, if you would get it out for us.
Heart of the Lotus Page 19
