“Oh, you must understand why I do this. I must have your trust once more, Dear One. There has been far too much ill influence from them,” she heard.
The Count. I think he’s talking to Wse, but I can’t see him from here.
“Woman,” a man behind her suddenly called out. “Show yourself.”
Naibe’s heart quickened. Oh. I guess they can see me now, she turned quickly. “Uh, well…” she hesitated.
“How did you get up here?” the man asked.
It’s the steward. She knew the apron he wore. I hope I can speak clearly and not sound like an Akkad peasant.
“His Great Highness, the Count, ordered some nice candies. See?” she smiled awkwardly and held forward the gooey bundle in her hands. “He let me in the back just now and then told me to come up here for a plate.”
Naibe was so scared that she felt ill, but somehow the right words to say floated from her as if she knew all the Count’s household rules and the correct manners to use with a man of only slightly higher status.
There aren’t so many servants here, she thought and looked casually over the side. None down there either. Lot of furnishings gone too. Before, there were maids, attendants, and dressers all over. MaMa and Deka and I even had them watching us when we bathed.
“Odd,” the steward responded. “His Great Highness usually tells me when someone is coming in from outside.”
“If there’s any more food, could I help take it down? Perhaps a jar of drink?” she suggested, eager to climb down the ladder to deliver the candy and possibly spot Wserkaf.
“Hmm,” the man answered, then picked up a light blue platter. “Use this one, then take some of the medicinal tea he ordered. He and his assistant are at prayer, so don’t speak to them. This is for the second course when they finish.”
Medicinal tea. Oh. Is he forcing Wse to drink the stuff that hurt the king? Naibe thought, then reflected further. Praying? If they are praying, he must not be in too great danger.
Naibe took the plate the man offered, opened the sticky, honey-coated leaves, and emptied the eight fat dates out on the plate, arranging the leaves so they made a nice background.
“We’ll go first,” the steward beckoned to a girl to bring the bread. He brought a tray with two cups of beer and two bowls of herbed soup decorated by a spray of wild lettuce.
Naibe stood taller and realized her head felt odd. Without getting the honey on it, she felt up and realized she wore a wig that blocked the view of her stone. She straightened it and then went in line behind the others to descend the stairs.
She kept her head down and only looked out of the corner of her eyes. Further to the right she saw the two men. A wicker chair and a simple wood couch were there. There’s the Count, the old man sat writing something and whispering gently. Wseriri… Wserkaf lay on the couch, looking as if he was asleep. He didn’t seem to be in distress. Naibe wanted to send him a thought to let him know she was there to help him, but knew the Count would sense it and possibly recognize her.
Hordjedtef beckoned to the servants without looking up from his work. The steward, a girl, and Naibe filed forward in a row and set the food down, then turned, ready to go back up the steps. She tensed, suddenly feeling his icy gaze sweep over her like a dark wing.
He doesn’t know me. He won’t know me, she affirmed.
Hordjedtef sighed almost painfully.
“Our near last day here and you have allowed in a stranger in our midst?” he asked the steward.
The steward paused, alarmed.
“She said, Your Great Highness, that it was you who let her in; so that she could bring candy.”
Naibe tried to sneak away, but the servant grabbed her arm and yanked her forward so hard that she almost sprawled at the old man’s side. He barked a quick order for the other serving girl to grab the plate from the table where they had placed it and show it.
“Lying ka’t!” The steward growled, half dragging her forward.
Oh No, no, no. He can’t know me! Naibe thought. Not now! Not yet.
Hordjedtef looked her over and frowned.
“My man let you in?” he asked, incredulous.
“No, Great Highness,” Naibe spoke just above a whisper, noticing one of the hounds was sniffing at her legs. It emitted a faint little howl.
“I have come from the royal house,” she stammered. “I’m new there and fortunate to serve, for my skill with sweets. His Majesty and the Daughter of the God like my work and asked that these candies are shared with your Highness. I found the back gateway loose.” She waited, then sensed his thought:
Hmm. Fool Wse must have left it open.
Naibe was amazed that she could hear the thoughts, but then realized that given her appearance, whatever it was, he wouldn’t suspect her. The right things to say poured through her heart as easily as if all she spoke was the truth. Then, the hound whimpered, head lowered, and slowly sauntered away.
Uh-oh, she thought, that dog knows something!
Hordjedtef paused.
He’s thinking about the dog, Naibe felt her heart speeding up, but Hordjedtef continued:
“Has she? Daughter of the God Khentkawes?” he questioned.
Naibe instantly read the falseness in his face and knew she had used a poor excuse. Khentie, Wse had told her, despised the Count.
“How nice of her,” he began again. “Why, I was just consulting with her yesterday and welcoming her back from her journey. Perhaps she decided to give them to me later and sent you. Steward…” he called for the servant. “Come forth and taste one for me. I wouldn’t want to get a tooth-ache or a sour gut.”
The man almost showed his reluctance but came forward and took a small one from the plate. He bit into it and startled as the honey liquor inside filled his mouth. After a few moments, his anxious expression faded into a delighted smile.
“Is it good?” Hordjedtef asked, craning forward eagerly.
“Oh, excellent, most Great Highness…” the man exclaimed, looking in disbelief at Naibe. “I have never…” he sounded as if he really wanted to stay and have another candy.
“Good, then. You are all dismissed. As you can see, I am attending someone.”
Two servants turned, but Naibe, glanced seductively over her left shoulder and sent a thought to the old man carefully enough so that he would think it was his own idea.
You are captivated by me and my treat. You want to know of me. You want me to stay out here with you for a while.
“Young woman,” Hordjedtef cleared his throat, you should sit with me for a while, before I send you on your way back to her Majesty. Perhaps you will have a bit of the soup?” he smiled, seeming genuine.
Well, that worked. That, or the wild lettuce he’s eating. She knew old men swore by it to return hardness to the el and quantity to the seed.
She looked at Wserkaf, who had not moved since she arrived. Charming him will be too easy and it will to allow Wse to escape if he’s in trouble! He doesn’t look bad, though. If I try something, will either of them know who I am? she paused to stare at Wserkaf again and then sensed the energy flowing between the two men.
Now I understand what he’s doing, her thoughts darkened. The Great One is manifesting his power over him. He’s changing Wse’s thoughts with some kind of spell and made him drink something relaxing so he could not fight the spell. He’s not himself. He’s becoming empty so this man can put new thoughts in him. He might wake and not even know me. Naibe knew she needed to ask about the Wse because thinking so much about him was getting obvious.
“The man--” she whispered, pointing. “Is he ill? He doesn’t move.”
“Oh. No, sweet one,” Hordjedtef remarked, looking up at Naibe. He shaded his eyes and squinted.
She sensed his thought:
From the palace? I know many of the serving girls, but I haven’t seen you. New you said?
“He seems so…” she turned away, just to keep his gaze from focusing on her face or meeting her eyes for too long.
Naibe tried not to shrink at the touch of his leather strapped hand. No. Don’t touch me with… she almost thought the name Prince Maatkare and his handstrap that neutralized her energy, but she stopped herself and sat on her heels beside the chair, looking up into the sun.
“Then you certainly must nourish yourself, to bring a healthy life forth.” He carefully handed her a bowl of soup and some bread, then some beer, which she declined. She knew what had always been in Menkaure’s wine and if Wserkaf had called out to her and now lay as if helpless then something had been given to him, perhaps in what he drank. All the elder prince’s kindness seemed suddenly false.
Sometimes things happen, things planned, yet so unplanned.
She felt another voice enter her thoughts. It wasn’t Wserkaf’s voice and it wasn’t Marai’s. Naibe felt weak when she heard it because it swept her back to another moment in her life in which she had been powerful. She quickly regained her composure, almost thinking of the name.
Don’t give him the pleasure, my sweet young goddess. Do not say, do not even think my name. Just know I am here with you, once your king, now ever and forever your servant.
Naibe felt her shoulders tense. She wanted to scream in both horror and joy, because she knew who had spoken. On the couch under the shade near them, she heard Wserkaf moan as if he had heard it too. He appeared uncomfortable.
“Oh, look. The man is waking,” she whispered, but hoped he wasn’t. If Wse opened his eyes and saw her, even if she looked different, he might sense it in his heightened-but-controlled state and say her name. Maybe he would even trumpet the name of Menkaure KhaKhet who was drifting ethereally near her.
Naibe looked up into the sun again, then into the shaded area where Wse lay again. He twisted as if waking. Then, for the faintest of moments, she thought she saw golden raiment of the king taking form behind the Inspector. It was just the edge of it; his nemes and uraeus. In the light he sparkled like the sun on the Great River. The image of his flesh burst into the stars that had come from her eyes and filled him up on that special night of flowers and candles; the joy she brought him.
He knows me because he sees me. How young and healthy he appears now that the weight of this world…she thought. Naibe compared the floating spirit to the tiredness she had known in King Menkaure; the drooped shoulders that signaled his depression and his thickening, laced-in waist.
You are now a young bull, she admired. Vital, big, and beautiful; just the way all the statues show you. The deceased king stood near the couch where Wserkaf lay, indicating that she should hurry before it was too late.
The Count can’t see him, Naibe realized, any more than he can see my true face. I wonder…
Hordjedtef, as if he too sensed something, concerned himself with Wserkaf’s condition. He struggled from his chair, bent over him, and read the pulse at his protégé’s throat. After he touched various energy points, the elder priest returned the aura of tranquility back to his former assistant.
“Gently, gently, dear Wse…” he whispered. “See and remember the answers to the questions I have proposed to you.”
Naibe saw King Menkaure, in little sparkle-edged shadow lights, bending closer to Wserkaf, too. She thought of only one thing.
“Oh! Don’t take him with you. No,” she whimpered aloud. Hordjedtef paused as if he had begun to get an inkling of something spiritual going on.
“Young woman, what did you say?” he looked back over his shoulder at her.
“I… I…” Naibe stammered, then tried again. “I thought the man was dying. It scared me so!”
Hordjedtef frowned, looking more directly at her.
“There is something familiar about you. I think I have seen you at the palace. Were you, perhaps, a dancer now a serving girl until this child is born?”
Naibe turned away, feigning shyness. “Once, a long time ago, I danced.” Naibe whispered, about to collapse from terror.
“But, no longer? You have a family, a husband?” he asked, his gaze growing more incisive.
She knew he was on the cusp of seeing her and wanted nothing more than to fade from sight. She wanted to be instantly alone in Qustul Amani, resting on her pallet in the darkened room.
“Oh,” Naibe bowed her head, trying to stir up the memory of that moment when she was told Marai had died. Her tears began to flow.
“I see,” the elder seemed almost sympathetic. “He was taken from you suddenly and left you alone. That’s why my assistant’s state worried you.”
She nodded, her shoulders heaving slightly.
“I know…” Wserkaf’s words came from the couch. “Y-you will not succeed. Marai is… come…”
Naibe craned forward, eyes wide. She tried not to interfere, but couldn’t avoid listening.
“Dear One…” Hordjedtef’s voice wove with trance-inducing skill. “You know what was told you was such an error. See the truth. Embrace reality and shun their illusions. See how all precepts and facts line up in perfection… the proper order or all things in the universe.”
Naibe glanced up in time to see Wserkaf relax and smile as if a great light had come to him. She felt his thought, even though he had fallen silent.
I understand, Great One. All is as it was meant. I was being tested and proven in the fire. I will achieve the wisdom of the ages.
“Good,” Hordjedtef answered aloud, oblivious to the fact that Naibe listened to each of his words. “Now, place one foot higher on the next rung of wisdom as you ascend. Rest easily now. Do not fear the next truths as they enter your heart.”
Don’t be afraid, my sweetest goddess. Do what is right. Together we will do that. I am in his thoughts, guarding them, but something else is here too. I must guard against…
Menkaure KhaKhet was behind her, infusing himself into her; refreshing the sweet memories of the night they spent together before she had been taken.
For one night I was your goddess, above all others. I know that now, her thoughts reassured the spirit of the king. The loss of Marai broke me. Wseriri began to heal me and show me my power as did your son Shepseskaf. You gave me the strength to endure Maatkare, but then you died. I tried Majesty. You know I did.
And god and goddess became one being as great as the universe that night. You showed me all the stars and now I have become one…
“Are you well, young woman?” Hordjedtef frowned, distracted from his work. “Just quiet yourself. I will soon have this one settled as he relates more of the knowledge from his star-journey to me. He is duty bound to relay all. My servants know this and understand it is not of their concern.”
Naibe knew her presence and minor spell had affected the old man because he’d allowed her to hear his work and had even asked her to stay. Normally, she would have been sent away with the other servants and expected to stay out of the way. She watched Hordjedtef lift Wserkaf’s semiconscious head so he could drink more of the tea she had brought. She wanted to slap the cup from his hand, but shot him a winsome smile.
“It’s nothing, My Great Lord, the child startled me with a painful kick.”
King Menkaure’s form sifted away from her, but his spirit whispered: A child. It is what I meant by things unplanned.
Naibe wondered if the spirit believed the child was his. She couldn’t think about it or dare have this mental conversation with the deceased king, but understood if she had come with his child, it wouldn’t have changed a
nything of her status. The little one would be a prince and then perhaps a king, but was as Akaru predicted already a god.
A child, Asar bin Marai, will rule all Kemet one day, as his sire yet walks, risen from sleep. The spirit of Menkaure reflected, then faded just as Hordjedtef raised his leather-strapped hand and uttered:
“Be gone, distant walker. Your place is not here. Return to the damned or be returned to the jaws of Ammit.”
Naibe saw red, scaled claws forming over the veined and knobby hands of the priest and fought to stay in the shape she had assumed.
“What I did then bothered you, woman, did it not?” he turned, abandoning Wserkaf. The man had slumped unconscious on the bed in a renewed trance. “You are sensitive to things of the spirit?” he asked.
Naibe wondered if Great One’s utterance had indeed banished the spirit of Menkaure and if she would even be able to save Wse. She knew the last drink the elder had given him was stronger because he weakened immediately and his thoughts faded. Hordjedtef knew it too, but he continued to administer the drink.
I must distract him, but not enough for him to cause more hurt, she decided. “I was told this by some that I have a gift, but as I am not of godly blood I could never hope to be a priestess or an oracle. Perhaps, if I had wealth, I could become a seer.” Naibe paused, recalling that as a serving girl it would have been inappropriate for her to even speak to her betters so casually. She needed to get up and move away from his growing scrutiny.
“I need to walk, kind Great One. When the child kicks, I walk and then he calms. At those times, I sing to him,” she glanced at the plate of dates and saw that bees had begun their approach. Golden bees. Menkaure is still here, she felt more relaxed.
Offer him some, the king’s disembodied voice suggested.
“Do you?” Hordjedtef smiled wistfully, but Naibe knew something dreadful was gliding behind the man’s face. A haunted expression had drifted over him that spoke of some other presence. It reminded her of the thing that had tried to take her through the ceiling when Djerah activated the wdjat.
He’s done something to Wse. Hordjedtef has called this monster into himself. It will know me, she broke her gaze.
Heart of the Lotus Page 32
