“Watch out… A spell…” Djerah warned as Marai picked up the scroll.
Wserkaf appearing as an old woman? Has to be… but how he had the time to break free… Marai sensed Djerah thinking something even more sinister.
“No, no spell,” he assured the young man, but asked. “You read?”
“No, just counting marks,” Djerah scratched his shaggy head. “The old woman said they were for you, didn’t she, Nan?” he asked Raawa’s wiry older sister.
“Mmm… Hmmm” a disinterested feminine voice rose from the back of the tight little room.
“Wserkaf…” Marai breathed sadly, remembering the man’s ability to come and go in complete stealth when he served as Hordjedtef’s eyes. Disguising himself as an old woman wouldn’t have been too out of the ordinary: a ragged cloak drawn over his head, halting step, breathy but higher voice, and the power of illusion.
“By Ashera, I miss that man already, and he wrote it in our script. He’s already taught himself the code.” Marai sighed, then recited the note the priest had artfully scrawled:
“Go swiftly, with great wings
Look ever forward, never back
May all of the gods
Bring you ever closer
To wisdom that is Djehuti
To tranquility and truth of heart that is Ma-at
The great Dwty realizes the Sun
After the dance in the dark storms
So say I, User-Ka-ef Irimaet
No more One of Five
But one with you”
Marai’s hands trembled and his eyes grew moist because he knew Wserkaf wanted to be with him, taking up arms and magic tools in his fight to defeat Prince Maatkare and rescue the women if need be. Too much time had already been wasted trying to get Djerah to come with him. He studied the curious verse, again and again. Caressing the symbols gently, he turned with eyes closed, and breathed out.
Be with my heart along the way then…
If you cannot walk with me.
He whispered on the wind. Marai eagerly opened the second scroll and discovered a document bearing a note that it was to be read aloud to Djerah.
“Granted unto the near relations of the house of MRai, goods and pension, so that the head of this household one DjRa may have no obligation under law until the formal ascension of His Majesty King Shepseskaf has been established at the birth of the coming year. This is being granted so that said head of household will be free to guide on an upcoming journey in my absence for the purpose of obtaining in the name of Great Djehuti the stolen Ho-Ra and keys designated for the chambers at Per-A-At.”
The note was followed by the formal royal cartouche with the name of Shepseskaf and beside it the simpler un-cartouched name of Wserkaf as a priest of Ra.
“Oh. What under the great stars is going on?” Djerah gasped, backing away from Marai and the basket in astonishment. “Those names. Shepseskaf is the new king? What does…” he started.
“It means you don’t have to pay tribute or do work on the Eternal House and temples; that you can go with me after all and assist me in the journey as a representative of His Majesty.” Marai paused to read Djerah’s expression, then quipped: “might not be smart to say no.”
“I’m being pressed into service? Seriously? I have a family.” the young man took a step back into the house, flapping his arms and shaking his head in dismay. “Just like they did to Etum Addi – moving people around like they own us.”
The third scroll showed a more elegantly crafted map, a list of appropriate sepats for aid, and the names of the rulers of each. At the end of the journey map Marai read the name Mtoto Metauthetep Akaru Sef, then looked at Djerah, who stared again, open-mouthed, unable to understand how such events had taken place. The young man’s thoughts were too easy to read at that moment.
Savta told me this before she died. No ordinary man will come out of the sons of Ahu, Djerah thought, and this man can just know royalty and priests intimately enough to receive a personal edict from King Shepseskaf. Raawa and her sisters and all of our children will be cared for if I go with this sojourner to Ta-Seti and help him get something?
“With an army?” the young man asked, knowing if anything or anyone challenged the seat of power over the Two Lands, any number of princes could quickly shake up a militia of peasant irregulars and old men. “Why are they bothering with me? Keys for what?”
“No Army for now,” Marai had started to pace anxiously. “I suspect some may join us later, though. I’m sorry, Djerah,” he looked down at the young man, dismayed. “I’ve told you what it is. Come or don’t. I have to leave now, though. I’ll be at the well where you found me the other night for a few moments, clearing my thoughts. I’ll just take the clothes and scrolls off the top. The rest you can all keep. I won’t need them where I’m going,” he seized the items, bundled them, and trudged to the courtyard well in the deepening dark.
“The peacekeepers…” Djerah’s voice trailed in caution.
“Don’t care…” Marai called back over his shoulder.
Djerah regarded the big sojourners back as he left. After he looked through the contents of the basket, he knew very little, other than his own reluctance, was going to keep him from stepping onto the path and heading out of town. Nothing of this made any sense to the young stone-burnisher, yet the goods were there, handily delivered in the burden basket by a mysterious old woman who had just as quickly gone out of sight as she had arrived.
Isn’t this man going to Ta-Seti to get his wives back? No mention of that. The first scroll speaks of him like a god, too. He watched Raawa take out the gold and the faience beads, the chunks of turquoise and malachite, biting some of them to test them. His children had crowded close and were oohing and aahing as each new item emerged.
Marai sat at the well and stared into the still, black water one more time. He had been badly shaken by the arrival of the basket and the scrolls and didn’t want the family to see how greatly it had affected him. Somehow, Wserkaf had managed to creep away from the funerary proceedings after getting the needed writs from the king and orders to Djerah’s team foreman, pack the basket, garb himself as an old woman, cross the river, and then make it back to the temples, all without alerting Hordjedtef.
This is wrong, Marai bowed his head and reached into the sack of Child Stones fastened at his waist. He can’t have that much magic to him. Not a few days ago he was scared he wouldn’t have time to get across the river, and now this? He must have called in favors from all of his gods. Did the king sign it, or did Wse forge the cartouche unbeknownst to the rising king?
With his thoughts swimming in questions rather than answers, Marai removed his hand from the sack and opened the final scroll. One of the residents of the court had placed a lamp on the edge of the well for the night. He held the scroll closer to the light and made out a faint, double-coded, puzzle message of some kind.
The symbol of the Eye of God had been drawn along one edge of the roll. Marai rolled it back up again to find the reversed symbol for truth on the other side of the scroll. When the two eyes faced each other, a third image of an eight-pointed star, the symbol formed by the Child Stones blazed forth. Instinctively, more because it was the symbol of his Lady god too, Marai tapped the roll to his brow.
Almost immediately he felt Wserkaf’s whisper-voice on the wind, just beneath his brow.
You were right, friend,
I am too stunned by the tragedy to act on it
You must do our work
In a far country
And I will attend here
Go quickly, Dear One
Go with the light of Maat.
The sojourner saw a moment from dawn of the first full day after the king had died. In the quiet, well-guarded ibu or “Pure Place” which was lit only by flickering lamps, Marai saw the thick billowing incense as the priests chanted and solemnly removed the king’s organs. He re-lived the priests’ looks of silent distress at how bad, cold, and choked with evil fluid
s his kind and noble heart had appeared. It should have been glowing and beautiful with the light of Ra. They remarked at how swollen and yellow the liver looked, then praised him for how well and valiant he must have been to battle this grave illness. Despair choked his heart, eased by our care. It was not wine sickness, they decided.
Then what caused the fevers? Marai saw Wserkaf step forward to pose the question. He saw the priests weeping openly at the suggestion. The curse, they reminded him. It wore him down to remain so strong for his people. Do you not see that it is just as the Great One of Five stated? Can you not verify it? Marai watched the men carefully wrap his organs in finest linen and set them in plain topped jars with characters painted on them.
You knew the truth, then didn’t you? Marai reflected, sensing Wserkaf’s agreement from the shadows.
Ay… no odor of wine rose from his holy ha when it was opened.
Though his training has been cursory at best, Marai recalled being taught that if wine sickness killed a man, the stench of rotting wine sugars about his corpse was nauseating. The cause was something else; something much more sinister.
Marai sensed his vision changing. He saw the Inspector sitting alone in his work room putting his signature on the document he would pass to the scribes. Whatever rage he felt over the death of the king was hammered into disciplined civility. All of his writing was coded. By instinct, the sojourner knew to trace the characters with his forefinger. When he did, he heard the translation of the code spinning through his thoughts:
“He has passed to the above.”
He poisoned Our Father
“He has left us orphans
His beloved uncle Hordjedtef out of Khufu”
as he has been doing for years
“Regarded his suffering and eased it
When his moment came to embrace the stars”
He finally won.
“His end was brought by exhaustion and a broken heart”
My master knew how to pluck the strings
“In combatting the curse over which he labored to defeat.
He has finally accomplished all”
of Our Father’s noble heart
“His name will live forever.”
Over his worries and sadness
“Now he ascends in radiance and the new sun is born”
Be wary my Brother out of Menkaure
Cleanse your house of this elder one and his heir
“To reign anew in the bright house.
He makes all risen things sing praises.
Praise him.”
A risen one and his own heir attend the will of the gods and wait your mark
Masterful… Marai thought. I pray the Great One doesn’t know what you did or that the risen one is me until you and the king are safe. I still don’t see how you got through all of the time. He stretched, cracking his shoulder and neck once and wondering when he would find a soft bed again. Marai was just about to begin a walk to the river when a squabble behind him announced a commotion in Djerah’s apartment.
“I won’t. I don’t care. My place is here with you.”
Protest answered.
“Raawa, you know I love you. Don’t say that. I’d do anything to keep our family safe.”
Low voiced complaining answered the young man’s pleas.
“I know… I know…”
Astonishment.
“Of course it’s a miracle, I just…”
Encouragement.
“I know. I miss you already, Sweet Melon. I’ll be safe. I’ll come back with a title to prove it to you. We won’t ever have to be apart again.”
Farewells ended with the shutting of a door and almost shy footsteps advancing.
“Heka,” the young man mumbled. “I don’t know how you did it, but your spell worked. I hope you’re happy.” the young man grumbled mightily as he joined Marai at the well.
Marai frowned, quizzing. The young man had a back pack and a walking stick.
“Did what?”
“Got that writ from the king. It’s just like the one they got for Etum Addi that ordered him to go to the coast. They’ve pressed me in to guiding you on the military road to Ta-Seti and back. By morning we’ll rest,” he sat at the well heavily, staring at his feet once then noticing the door to his apartment had closed.
Marai thought of the morning when he had crossed the river to study with the priests three months earlier. Ariennu had waited at the top step of the door and had watched him go. The image of her standing there, her dark but red-kissed curls blazing like fire in the rising sunlight, had given him so much of the hope he needed when he lay entombed. How different this is, he thought, Djerah’s wife just proved she has a lot less affection for him. Maybe she told him she couldn’t bear to see him walking away. Or maybe she didn’t want him to see her smile.
“Your wife will be protected? Her sisters too?” Marai asked, even though his second thought was that of the women dancing for joy behind the closed door.
“The gifts the old woman brought convinced her there would be much more for our family than if I stayed here and drew a wage,” he shook his shaggy head. “She gave me a big hug and kiss and told me to be safe; said she’d be making offerings for my safe return. Between king and wife pushing me, I just knew I couldn’t stay.” The young man looked up. At that moment, the sojourner saw something dark flit over Djerah’s face.
He knows, Marai looked down, chagrinned. Dammit, he does know and he was trying to stay here to set things right. He just doesn’t know it’s already too late. None of those women wanted anything about him as soon as a better option showed up. Cold fish they are. Up to me to make it smooth once he starts to let the truth come forth in his heart… that there’s no one, not even his children, here for his return.
“Well,” Djerah shrugged. “You rested enough? I napped after…” the young man implied a post-sex doze.
“I suppose, but there are some things I’ll have to show you pretty soon. I can make this go journey faster. If you watch carefully, maybe you’ll learn it too.”
Houra’s earlier words sounded once more and then faded on the early evening breeze.
Be well my young heart...
Be strong where I could not.
You will become as the eagle
You will command the sun on silver wings.
This is but the first step into the light
CHAPTER 9: ONE EAST, ONE WEST, ONE MORE
“Grandfather,” the tall young man in the long red shendyt greeted the small entourage that had just arrived at the gate of the palace area.
“You’re here much earlier than I expected. The mothers came yesterday, but said only you had sent them early and would come later. Now here you are? What’s happened? Have you seen another sign?” he looked up at the sedan in which his elder sat, shielding his eyes from the hot morning sun. He tagged beside it as the bearers brought it inside the gates.
“Fasten those,” the old man in the veiled chair commanded a guard “and post your best men in the tower with bow and spear.” He gestured for the bearers to lower him. As soon as they did, he stood and stepped toward the tall dark man, embracing him.
“Good to see you again, Aped. Your journey home this time was a good one?” the elder greeted his grandson warmly, his tone of caution suddenly gone.
“Good enough, but I can tell you something’s not right down in the White Wall and it’s wanting to follow me up the river with Inspector Wserkaf. When he journeyed to take over for me in his most recent duty, he asked me to stay extra days while he cleansed himself before starting his worship. He’s never done that; never had to do that since I’ve been in training.” The younger man guided his grandfather into his home, where servants bowed and began to attend to them both at once.
“It isn’t right. He’s done something against the code, but I sense it’s something that was needed. He was still shaking and sorrowful when he arrived; given to weeping like a girl. He’s not sure of himself anymore.�
��
The old one shrugged, as if he hadn’t listened. “Your mothers are settled, then? Their maids too?”
“Yes Akaru. They are in the back, discussing babies with my two goddesses.” Aped, the young man urged his grandfather to a soft cushioned place by the common pool.
When his elder was settled and a servant had bought refreshment, Aped asked again: “Have you had a new vision, Akaru?”
“Vision?” the elder, called Akaru, rocked forward and slapped his crossed knee with a laugh. His earrings, four in each pale-skinned ear, jingled. “When do I not have a vision? Not since the Lady Mafdet healed me of the sting and opened my soul to the world of the spirit! And lately what I see has been powerful. I think I may be coming to my end here!” he chuckled.
“Grandfather,” Aped sighed. “I’m sure your work is not done; not yet or I would know it myself. Are the signs in the sky right for his return?” the younger man worried.
Aped was always glad to host his grandfather during the opening of the raw season. That the old man sent his wives and their maids as well as many of the prettier women from Qustul was different this year. He was supposedly protecting them from General Maatkare and his troops who were little better than invading hordes. They demanded tribute and picked out the women they wanted. Sending them away protected them from a man who had little respect for the sepats or their rulers.
“The signs are right. What can I say to that? The time is coming for sure and young Prince Maatkare Raemkai is here, on top of it, ready to do his inspections and partake of his annual hunt.” The elder Akaru became a little more agitated in telling. “He arrived two nights ago, then came this morning to discuss the tribute right to enjoy himself here as he usually does. Then, he asked to have his stars read. That’s when I saw the signs and told him the sky would open soon and he should turn back unless he wished to die most mortally with his heart tossed to Ammit when the Sutek returns.” His earrings jingled again and the elder’s tawny-silver twists of hair flipped out merrily.
“And did he heed you?” Aped asked, knowing the answer but wanting to hear it spoken aloud.
Opener of the Sky Page 13
