“Not only did he not believe me, he wouldn’t even sit still for the rest of the truth I was giving him. The stories say there has not been a year like this since the one when I came to be, sixty-four years ago,” he turned, his eyes slowly closing in some irritation.
Marai noticed how much red color was in the man’s eyelashes, and how increasingly foreign to Ta-Seti he appeared.
“Young Prince Maatkare Raemkai is an educated man, grandson of one of the gods of wisdom, if you will. He isn’t ignorant of the signs or the stars. I think he simply has come to believe he’s above the gods’ reproach and doesn’t understand it is mostly his golden-tongued grandfather aiding him.” The old man began to lead Djerah and Marai up the steps to the observation porch. “He told me he knew the stars from his own journey here. He argued the hunt would be fair enough, even challenging, but not impossible. I told him two more things: One is, when the wind shifts and goes south to east as it has so recently done, he is not to cross the desert strip between the grasses to hunt there or great evil in the way of demons will be wakened. The second is, we will be unable to supply him anything after two more weeks. We will be gone to the south until the stars that foretell this wind change.” But then, Akaru Sef sighed. “Yet now, I must violate my own safety and take a boat to the royal city myself, instead of going with them.”
Marai shuddered. For a moment, he saw the image of Naibe-Ellit walking in the swirling dust with eyes that did not see him. The vision played against another woman’s shrill laughter in the distance. ‘A storm is coming’, Naibe whispered dully in the vision, as if every bit of emotion had been frightened out of her. Then, in the distance, Marai thought he heard roaring like a mighty flood of a river.
“I hear something. Is there water near here, other than the great river?” he asked.
“Now that you mention it,” Djerah frowned and inclined his ear to the distant sound. “I didn’t think about it until you said something, but it sounds like water running, or maybe the wind rattling dry grass.”
The men looked around, then stared into the horizon. Marai felt the wind toying almost lovingly with his “tassel” hair. A feeling of peace and a strange sense of power stole over him, as if someone or something feminine in the wind recognized him.
“Ah, you hear her then. She has many names. The Lady Oya, some who live to the east call her. There, she is the wind and the storm. I like to think she is Tefnut, the gentle raining wind that feeds the flood, or Satet, the river rushing by. Many names and faces, one feminine energy. She knows you too, Marai, and whispers to you to take care because there will be more. The time for the wind demons is long past overdue.”
Akaru-Sef’s freckled face drew gaunt and filled with a look of mystery. “The breath of will come upon the earth and make the dunes walk. Legends say once, on the whim of a sorcerer long ago who many thought was Sebiumeker, you in Kemet say it is Atum himself, a whole village was covered up in a day and what is green now was once a piece of the Satet’s mighty river that he buried out of anger to her. That is the water you hear… the ghost of a stream.” Akaru-Sef pointed toward a distant range of buff-colored mountains. “All of that was grassland when I was a child, because the spirit of the lion blessed it. As I grow old, so does this land. If the Satet would come again, the waters would rise and there would be grassland once more.” The governor turned away from the formed brick rail a little sadly. “When I go into the west, to my Amenti, it will be here my remains will lie, but none of my people will stay. They will need to bring me things of the dead from a new place if I am to live on as akh.”
Marai stared hard into the horizon. A rhythm of drums sounded in his head followed by happy sounds of singing and chanting whispered into the air. Is it the ghost of the buried village? he asked himself, a whole village?
Akaru nodded as if he heard that thought and took Djerah and Marai on a tour of the rest of his Eternal House. Two chambers were full and sealed.
“My first wife is here five years, so is the woman who mothered me. Now,” he cheerfully told them, “I have Xania as my chief and one more. We have many children who will be tasked to keep our resting places and honor our names, but I saw in my vision years ago that my place would be here. While I am alive, we will go to where the still water is,” his grin affirmed as he broke into a quiet chanting poem.
“We will seize the cool region soon and drink at the Lake of Memory,” his voice intoned.
Marai felt the trembling start in his chest and spread throughout his body. These were some of the words chanted over his head while he lay in the tomb during his trial.
“For we are perishing of thirst…” the Akaru continued as he paced out a curious design on the platform before the stone peak. It was a calculation of stars etched in relief on the brick showing Asar as the hunter again.
“For I am a child of Earth and Starry Heaven, but my race is of heaven alone,” Marai felt himself whispering. It felt good to say words that he had only felt for so long… in sleep… in Wserkaf’s farewell. Djerah’s open-mouthed stare was followed by a taunt.
“Oh no, not magical stuff again…”
“Which, as you will learn, is only magic to those who are neither learned nor wise,” Akaru broke away from his prayer for a moment.
“I will be happy as a kid in milk…” Akaru-Sef continued, sinking briefly into something like a trance just long enough for Marai to pause and stare.
After the prayer, Akaru spent most of the day Akaru walking his property with the men. He looked at the boat in which Marai and Djerah had sailed, discussed life and mundanities, and heard gossip from the city of the king. By evening, Marai knew the young man was getting twitchy.
“So… how long do we stay here?” Djerah impatiently asked from the water as he soaked in his first immersion bath.
“You and I both know he’s stalling us because he’s waiting on his scouts to see where Maatkare and the women are,” Marai stared out into the plaza where he saw Akaru waving sage bundles and wondered what he had sensed that brought the need for that. “A day or two is my guess. Meanwhile, I’m going to get rest, get stronger, and get a sense of how I can take this snapping dog-man…” he grumbled. “I might go sooner, if I sense any further dread through these little ones tonight,” Marai patted his satchel of Child Stones on his belt, then prepared to take his bath as Djerah got out of the water.
“And I have the little one you’ve loaned me? Wonder what it’ll tell me tonight, since I’m not wishing up the speed of the boat anymore.”
Marai raised a brow in surprise, then laughed. So Djerah thinks he was making the improvements? I thought I was making them. Maybe he’ll be a good choice after all. A peasant and a stonecutter. Eh? Well, I remember I was just a shepherd.
CHAPTER 15: THE INSULT
A commotion from the village brought the men back from an early morning contemplation at the observatory. Akaru had taken the men there to discuss some of the pathways of knowledge he had acquired over the years. Djerah, not particularly interested, paced anxiously. Marai saw that, knew something was bothering him and hoped it wasn’t the reality of his future in Little Kina Ahna breaking through the barricade he’d set around his heart.
The three were greeted by a delegation of men and supplies that had been sent from Maatkare’s camp.
The men hurried toward the gates, but the smell instantly told them that instead of bringing good tanned skins and aged ale-beer, these emissaries had unceremoniously dumped a quantity of badly tanned skins and half-spoiled maggoty meat at the gate. It was obvious that the prince was mocking Akaru Sef’s agreed contract for payment as well as attempting to bait him into a response. The guards had seized the men who delivered it and were holding them so that the old governor could rule on what should be done to them.
“His Highness sent that?” Djerah couldn’t contain his shock. “What an unbelievable ass…” he spat on the ground.
Marai nudged him a little.
Just wait and see how
the Akaru handles it. It’s his problem this time, not ours, he sent a thought back to the young man, knowing custom dictated such shoddy work would rate at least a severe scourging of the messengers so they could take their wounded backs to show them to the man who sent them. He’ll have to send the prince a message that he’s not pleased. Learn from what he does.
At first the old man’s expression didn’t change. There was no outrage. Akaru’s expression relayed that this was, in fact, exactly what he had expected to be delivered. He folded his arms and paced back and forth in front of the pallet containing the stinking load a few times.
“You have a written message for me explaining this, then?” He moved toward one of the expressionless men pinned between two guards.
Marai, who had disguised himself as an ordinary traveler, pulled Djerah aside. He urged him to move them a good distance from Akaru and the assembled men.
What are you doing? How can you change how you look just like that? The young man started, but then realized Marai didn’t want to be recognized.
You know I stand out in a crowd. And forget how I do it. Just sense what they are saying. It’s good practice.
Marai turned his back on the scene, then bowed his head. The first thing he sensed was Djerah objecting and claiming he couldn’t do that kind of thing. Then, he saw the scroll Akaru was handed in his thoughts as if he was looking over the elder’s shoulder. Akaru unrolled the message and began to read. Marai knew instantly that no official scribe had written the note. The written and drawn characters were not a schooled standard, but drawn artistically in what he sensed was Prince Maatkare’s own strangely-tented but elegant characters.
Like little pointy-eared demons on some of the upstrokes… no scribe would…
Akaru read aloud.
“Beloved Lion Master… I fully understand what you are doing. My advisors tell me this is not, after all, the year of Atum’s or Sutek’s hot breath. In our voyage here, we did observe a plentiful rise of waters unlike the prediction of coming drought you have given. The game, poor at first as I journeyed to inspect the mines, has improved in the past two days and the beasts we take are moist -meated, not the sinew and bone of a bad year. Your foreboding has an odor about it similar to what I have left you today. Do not try to trick me into departing early as my house still rules over you, despite the amicable and friendly tones of the treaty. Yours in sovereignty, Maatkare Raemkai Grand General of Qustul, Buhen, and southward, Emissary of His Majesty Menkaure Ka-Khet Lord of the Two Lands”
Akaru-Sef quietly rolled the papyrus back into its form and slipped it into its carrying case. For a moment he meditated on an answer.
That was a challenge, Marai thought. This prince wants to start something.
“He writes well…” Akaru Sef addressed the man who had given the letter, motioning for his guards to release the men. “From his heart, I see.” His smile was cryptic. Turning to his guards, he said “the men are not at fault for delivering their leader’s words. They have been polite and have not themselves challenged us,” he turned to the men. Tell your master to do as he will, then. He may stay if he wishes, but tell him I presented no trick in my observations. I am merely warning him of what I know is true.” Then, he waved the men off. “Tell him, though, I will not change my own plans. We may not remain much longer to support or re-supply him for his return voyage. We desire to protect ourselves from all I have observed.”
The men scampered like rats back along the trail away from the river, glancing around from time to time to see if they would be shot in the back as they left. Akaru motioned to his men to sort through the leavings on the pallet to see if anything could be salvaged and dried with natron salt. Then, he beckoned to Marai.
“He writes like his grandfather talks…” Marai mused, imagining the man’s haughty and officious tone as he sat shaping his letters in his lamp-lit tent somewhere out on the grassland. “Why didn’t you send the word of the king’s death? He would certainly want to hurry back for the burial ceremony, then you’d be rid of him.”
“Many reasons, all involving a better and less-traceable strategy.” Akaru-Sef answered.
Marai noticed a strange glimmer in his host’s eyes; evidence of some higher-but-secretive working.
“First, he would ask how it is I came to know this. A truthful answer would tell him someone had arrived from Ineb Hedj. He would want to know who it was.”
The elder had turned away from the pile of skins so the few men who had come back from Buhen with him wouldn’t hear his discourse. Marai already knew that these guards wanted to go back to Buhen, round up troops of the more rebellious warriors and follow the envoys back to the prince’s encampment. Akaru finished explaining his reasons for holding back any mission.
“Second, because the time has been fairly short since Our Father has passed through to the stars, he would want to know if the news had come through another of my visions. He would likely think I had lied and might decide to make another insult to ‘teach’ my people something. Or, if he did believe me and was to stop all operations and come through here to get to the cataracts and his boats, even with men straining at the oar it would take two weeks at least. In his hurry, he might scatter the goods you seek. The women, if he has tired of them, might be assassinated as useless extra baggage. It is far wiser to let him proceed and not think that anything has changed.”
The sojourner flinched at the thought that the women might be destroyed, but in the same instant he knew he was vastly underestimating their strength as he had done from the start.
He might think about ending them, but be strangely unable. Maybe Deka had this kind of plan all along, he realized. He next sensed Djerah shifting in discomfort at the elder’s lack of action. The irritation rippled away from the group of men sorting through the pallet of meat and skins as a feeling of misery and disbelief. He knew that letting insults go like that came across as a sign of weakness.
“Young Djerah,” the Akaru addressed the younger man. “You have to understand this prince wants to provoke rebellion. He’s bored with the hunt and knows the take has been meager, despite what he wrote to me. He wants to show the king his might and fitness to lead, to regain his respect. I’ve made no secret that the old city would be abandoned against the drought. He knows that an abandoned river fortress will be matchless property from which any roving invader might launch a campaign north or south. If he seizes Qustul Amani now, by putting down a fight, he and the king can later stage forays deeper into Kush and the lands of the Wawat. And if he has in his service of the heart what he insists is one of our women… Do you yet understand why I will not give him the fight he wants, though my own blood boils with the need to release my men to both of you?” he bowed his head for a moment. “I’m sorry about promising men to you before I understood everything. It will get the women killed unless you take the prince first and by surprise. I’ll have to meditate on another way.”
Djerah sighed, threw up his hands, and spun around in disgust.
“But Shepseskaf?” Marai whispered, certain no other ears could hear him. “I doubt he would support any campaign with this prince. He despises him.”
“I know this,” Akaru Sef returned quietly. “King Shepseskaf is himself despised as a weakling. He is what one would call a mere stone in the road. One moves it aside, or goes ‘round it without slowing down too much. Do you yet understand why he must not know how things have changed in the north?”
Marai left the Akaru at the observatory to meditate and went walking “to be alone with his thoughts.” As he stepped out into the grassland near the walled estate, he sensed Djerah following for a while then turning to go down to the river. Glad he’s not tagging along salting me down with questions. I can think for a while. He liked Djerah, but had seen him go from being a semi-confident young stonecutter and family man to, as the Akaru said, a fledgling eager to fly without strong enough wings. Marai wanted to get a better sense of his wives’ location. For that, he needed to have no
distraction.
Precious ladies, if you can sense me… he sent a thought into the universe as he wandered further from the estate. Because he was closer to the place his highness and the women had settled, he thought he might be able to break through any psychic defenses the man may have erected around his encampment. He knew he might encounter lions or other creatures in the brush, but wasn’t too worried about it.
He paced forward, enjoying the sweep of hip-high straw grass opening in front of each step and then closing behind him. In the distance, he saw a stand of trees that rose mysteriously out of the grass. Nothing else grew around it but grass and a broken line of drought-withered shrubs.
Land of grass, the land of my birth, he heard Deka’s voice from the encampment on the way to Ineb Hedj echoing in his thoughts.
It’s where she was in love with a god but he tired of her and threw her to earth, Marai sensed Naibe’s sweet-but-childlike voice repeating her own revelation about the Ta-Seti woman.
I feel Deka’s spirit most of all here, he thought. It’s as if this land gives her some kind of strength.
The wind rattled in the grass; dry branches waving in the trees sounded like water. Its feminine spirit enveloped him for a long and sensual moment. Marai remembered waking in the sleep pod with Deka, newly beautiful and elegant, wrapped around him. She tried to give him her love again, but he turned away just as he had rejected her when she was crippled and ugly.
This is my fault, isn’t it? All of this. Deka wanting to come here, turning it around and refusing me, the seeking this former lover Ta-Te who maybe wasn’t even a man. If I had not been so shy… Deka, if it helps at all, forgive me. Marai hastened through the grass to the trees, then sat in the shade with one arm up on his knee.
He stared back out at the distance he had come and noticed the walled village appeared as only a darkened bump on the flat and grassy horizon. Hmm. Didn’t think I wandered that far. Something’s watching me, though. Lion maybe?
Opener of the Sky Page 20
