The wedding would have been considered lavish for a member of the Royal family, let alone a businessman and a priestess, despite Nomti’s riches. What surprised me, however, were the reports I received from Mhotep explaining that most of the excesses were the result of Woserit’s desires for a wedding that would be the envy of her priestess sisters and family. I did not understand how a priestess of Isis would come by such worldly desires.
The wedding ceremony itself was a simple and brief affair, held at the Temple and presided over by Irisi. Woserit was dressed in a long gown that displayed her squat figure and ample breasts to best advantage. Nomti wore an elegant tunic that was adorned with the gold armband given to him by Qa’a.
At the party that night, I noticed a strange look upon Nomti’s face, one that I had never before seen. He stared wide-eyed at his bride with a look of such utter satisfaction that I deduced could only come from the fact that they had enjoyed an afternoon of sexual relations for the very first time. I smiled inwardly, for as hard working as Nomti was, he certainly deserved all the joys of her body that Woserit might bestow upon him.
It was in the midst of the party that the King gave in his honor, that Qa’a stood on his platform. Calls for quiet rang through the hall. Qa’a held a cup of Babylonian wine and offered a toast for the couple, who he motioned to stand before him.
“People of Kem, I offer a toast to this couple who loyally serve Kem, each in his and her own way.” I watched Khenemet swallow as if he had just tasted bitter bile. “I wish you much happiness, prosperity and children.” To this the crowd applauded loudly. Some of the architects and engineers that worked with Nomti called out loudly to him, holding their cups in tribute.
“And now it is time for me to give the couple a gift. I have thought long and hard about this, for there is little of wealth that I can give Nomti, for he probably has more wealth than Horus’ brother!” At this the crowd laughed and yelled their approval. Once they quieted, Qa’a continued.
“So, instead, my loyal servant,” he said looking directly at Nomti, “among your many other duties I hereby appoint you Minister of Relations With Foreigners.”
In the very briefest of moments before the crowd broke out in cheers and back-patting, I heard Khenemet, who stood beside me, gasp. Buikkhu looked at him in astonishment and mouthed the word: “What?” Then Khenemet whipped around and stormed off, his leopard skin robe flowing out behind him, with Buikkhu close behind.
SCROLL NINETEEN
The Delta Simmers
Merkha
“Yes, I am saying just that!” Khenemet yelled directly at me. “I do wonder about your loyalties, priest! Is it to Horus or is it elsewhere?”
I stood dumfounded, my belly aching from Khenemet’s questioning my allegiance. I felt unable to speak.
“Well, answer or, by all that is holy, I will have you banished from the palace!” Khenemet spun on his heels and paced to the other side of the sanctuary, where he gulped from his cup of beer.
“In front of Horus, himself,” I muttered, “I swear my allegiance to the priesthood, for… for I have done nothing for which I should be repentant.”
“Nothing? Either you are stupid, Merkha, which I hardly think the case, or you are negligent in your duties. Which is it?”
“But I knew nothing of the King’s plans to elevate Nomti. It came as a shock to me, too, although… I mean, you both heard the emissary from Canaan sing his praises as well as I did. He…”
“Do you defend that charlatan?” Buikkhu hissed.
I hardly knew how to defend myself, let alone Nomti. “I… no I do not defend Nomti. I mean it is not up to me to praise or condemn him. Oh, Horus!” I said and slumped into the nearest chair, my knees unable to support me any longer. My head hung in my hands and I shook from fright.
“Leave him be,” Khenemet finally said. “He is… well, never mind.” Khenemet continued to pace, while Buikkhu stood just an arm’s length from my chair.
“The King leaves in five days for festivals in Upper Kem,” Khenemet said to me, while looking over Mother Nile in the distance. “I plan to accompany him. Assign one of your underlings as his scribe for that trip, Merkha. I have other plans for you while he is gone.” I noted Buikkhu shaking his head in agreement. My stomach churned with dread.
As soon as Qa’a and Khenemet sailed away with the Royal Court, I met with Irisi one night at the Temple of Isis. Ra’s silver half-disk lit up the courtyard where we sat, casting deep shadows that cut across the stonework.
“You look exhausted,” Irisi said, patting my hand.
“I am. It is from lack of sleep from worrying about my role in service to the King and to Horus.”
“They should be one and the same, my friend, for if you have forgotten, Horus and the King are brothers.” At that we both laughed.
“I wish it were as simple as that.”
“Does Khenemet make conflicting demands?”
I paused before answering, having a vision of the very day I joined the priesthood and thought to myself that life from that point on would be so simple, so understandable.
“I no longer know up from down, right from wrong it seems. Nothing is what it appears as far as the rivalries between Khenemet, Buikkhu, Qa’a and Nomti.”
“Rivalries?”
“It should not be so, but yet it is. I am not certain where this is all heading.”
“Explain,” Irisi said, walking to the nearby table to get us some wine and all but disappearing into a shadow. I had to admire the grace with which she carried herself.
“For a reason that escapes me, Khenemet sees Nomti as a threat to his position and his standing in the Royal Court. I am certain that Nomti does not view it that way, yet…”
“Go on.”
“Yet I believe Khenemet may see deeper than do I, for Qa’a does ask Nomti for advice in many areas of rule, not just trade or the canal.”
“Is that not his right?”
“Yes, of course. Horus’ brother may do whatever he wishes and who are we to question? Yet Khenemet does question. He is always alert to changes within the Royal Court, for change is the enemy of ma’at.
“And for his part, I am not certain that Qa’a consults Nomti innocently. It is as if he does not fully trust Khenemet and makes certain that he keeps him balanced on the knife’s edge by using Nomti as a confidante.”
Irisi stood again and paced before me, lost in thought. “Of course you realize, Merkha, that the King may be wise not fully trusting Khenemet.”
I did not draw a breath, for I dared not open the conversation that I had long dreaded, even with someone I trusted as fully as I did Irisi. I kept my gaze fixed on the floor.
“Hiding your head in the sand like an ostrich will not help,” she continued softly. “We must speak of our suspicions or else someday drown in the undercurrents.” I knew that Irisi spoke truth.
I looked up to see her staring at me. “You are right, my dear sister,” I sighed. “I leave with Ra’s rising on a mission to the Delta for Khenemet. He wants me to assess rumors that have been circulating among the priesthood.”
“Rumors?”
“Dissension, unhappiness, the reports are vague, so Khenemet wants me to get more information, although I do think he wishes me to be away from the Royal Court for some purpose and uses this as a convenient excuse.
“But, no matter. We have more pressing rumors to discuss, rumors that I assume involve Semerkhet’s untimely death.”
“Yes, we do,” Irisi sighed and sat down heavily into the chair opposite mine.
And so it was that on that night that I learned more than I ever would have wished about Irisi’s suspicions, and not only hers, for if nothing else Irisi was the confidante of women both powerful and lowly throughout Inabu-hedj. And that night she wove together for me a tapestry of deceit and murder, a cloth whose threads came together from palace handmaids, wives of nobles and even from Horus priests who partook of the pleasures of certain priestesses in the ser
vice of Isis. When I left Irisi’s presence later that night I walked back to the palace in a stupor.
I could hardly imagine that Khenemet and Buikkhu would have dared to anger the gods by putting the brother of Horus in mortal danger, let alone murder him. What kind of men would commit such a heinous act? How could men sworn to please the gods, to strengthen ma’at, to contribute to the greatness of the Two Lands presume to alter the intricate play that the gods had ordained we act out? Did I not understand the pyramid of power that placed the King above all mortals, answerable only to Horus and Ra? Were there yet greater secrets to the priesthood that I knew nothing of?
I shook my head as I walked, talking to myself, trying to sort out these troubling thoughts. I had read every word that holy Anhotek had written on his papyrus scrolls. I knew every detail of Narmer’s life and his father and grandfather before him and every notable priest since. If such deeper secrets existed, I had seen no reference to them in all my years as a priest and Keeper of the Scrolls.
The next day I was relieved to begin my journey down Mother Nile to Dep, the ancient capital of the Delta people, without having to speak with Khenemet or Buikkhu. I was assigned only one boat that held me, my assistant, and two of the King’s guards, plus the captain and two oarsmen.
As Khenemet and Buikkhu had instructed, I stopped at every temple of Horus and every outpost where a lone priest might serve even the tiniest of villages. And, oh, those villages! Despite the prosperity that brought riches to the Royal Court, our people in the Delta scratched out a hard life, indeed. That is if they were granted life at all, for I found diseases of all manner afflicted these poor rekhi. Even childbirth, that gift from the gods meant to provide mortals to serve them for eternity, became an ordeal that all too many women never survived.
And yet there was something else that entered my mind on many occasions as we floated with Mother Nile’s gentle current toward Wadj-Wer, the Great Green. Wherever she flowed she brought life-sustaining waters, nourishment for the plants that fed our people.
But the gods take as well give, and the mighty waters were also populated by mut spirits that brought chills to my bones. The hideous, leathery forms of crocodiles lined the banks and lurked beneath the surface, their toothy mouths held open to allow them to breathe under Ra’s intense light, their ever hungry eyes following us although their heads never moved.
Yet even crocodiles were no match for the animals that we feared most, the deadly hippopotamuses that dotted the shallows and coves like huge rocks. May Horus protect those villagers who inadvertently crossed between mother and calf while fetching water for their poor families.
Still, we sailed along the ribbon of green, further and further into Lower Kem. Mother Nile branched into five smaller rivers, each with tributaries that continued to narrow. We stayed on the larger of the tributaries, the one that led directly to the city of Dep. And it was there, as Mother Nile slowed and heaped her fertile mud on the marshlands, that I stopped for two days at a major temple of Horus. Due to the land’s abundance, a large town stood where the produce of farmers could be sold and bartered. The town boasted a large port that served as a trading route from Wadj-Wer to Upper Kem, ferrying goods to and from the kingdom of the Hittites. For those reasons, the town was an important source of information for Khenemet.
“I would send back reports from time to time, but it was as if I sent them into the void of Nun,” the head priest, Semni, told me after we had finished an urn of fine Babylonian wine I had brought with me. “So now I hardly bother,” he finished, holding out his cup for a refill.
“And if you were to write one now,” I asked, “what would it advise your superiors?”
“That all is not well here in the Delta.” By now he was well inebriated.
“Speak freely, my brother.”
He brought his cup to his lips and tilted his head far back to drain its contents, the quality of which he had probably never imbibed. “It is like this, the people of the Delta hate us. They believe they suffer a worse fate than those in the Land of the Lotus.”
“On what do they base these… these feelings?”
“Feelings? Are you blind, brother?” Drool came from the corner of his mouth and he wiped his lip with his robe. He politely looked at the wine urn and I poured him a full cup.
“I was born and raised in Upper Kem and I have never seen conditions such as exist here. It is true that in good years the harvest is abundant, but in bad years the people subsist on grain handouts, or what is left of them that is not savaged by the King’s bureaucrats and even our own priests.”
I was taken aback by Semni’s passionate words. “But I have heard that your trade is growing. Even the boats in your port appear to be laden with goods.”
“Yes. Yes that is true, but have you examined the cargoes? They are basic goods from Hittites and Assyrians. Trade stops here. We buy with what little we have, but little goes from us to them. And then came that knife to their bellies.” Semni drank again from his mug.
“Knife to their bellies?” I asked, curious.
“That canal. Merkha! It will choke the life out of whatever trade they do have with Upper Kem. Already our donations from businessmen have dried up ever since that ill-advised canal project has begun. The king’s attention will be drawn to Punt and Ta-Sety and lands south. Even the Arameans have begun to shift their allegiances to the south.”
I sat silent, pondering the implications of what I had just learned. My thoughts swirled within my heart.
“And that is not all, Merkha. I have begun to hear terrible rumors of alliances between the wealthy and powerful Delta families and the Hittites and Assyrians, who would also see their trade with Kem lessen if the canal project succeeds. Akkadian has become a necessary language with those who understand what is to come.”
“What is to come?”
“Oh, may Horus bless you, priest, for you are dumb as an ass; you and our superiors… and even the King himself! Do you not see that civil war simmers, ready for just one ingredient to bring it to boil? Are you so self-satisfied by Narmer’s hard-won gains, may his name be blessed for all eternity? We rest on his laurels, but we do not work equally hard to secure his vision. Even a beast of burden must be fed, brother. Go tell that to Chief Priest Khenemet and to Horus’ brother!”
My evening spent with Semni woke me from a deep sleep that was my life as a priest. It was a sheltered life, but a shelter that had cut me off from the outside world as well. Now I began to see the suffering of my people, their complaints and the insidious dangers that threatened ma’at.
There was also a curious thing that happened in my time with Semni. I noticed one morning two men who waited on the dock where we kept our boat. What drew them to my attention was that while everyone else in the harbor was busy, they sat quietly all morning drinking cheap beer, half hidden in the shadow of the hut of the owner who served them. When I returned at night, I saw one of them a hundred cubits away, looking out over the water toward our boat. Gooseflesh rose along my arms. From then on I told the King’s Guardsmen that they were to accompany me on my rounds.
Yet another revelation came to my attention during this time, a frightening one that caused me no end of worry. There were rumors of the rise of the secret Apep priesthood, a practice that had been banned generations ago by Meryt-Neith. Although small and weak, I learned that their priests, trained in the art of subterfuge, had helped to foster religious practices linked to the heathen gods of the Hittites, a fierce and warlike people. This was a masterful move, for if the Hittites threatened our lands, they would find fertile seeds already planted within the people of the Delta.
But what concerned me most was the possibility that some of our very own Horus priests, lowly ones stationed in remote areas of the Delta, might have succumbed to bribery and secretly embraced the Apep priesthood. That awareness caused me many sleepless nights.
Qa'a (The First Dynasty Book 3) Page 25
