Lights on the Nile

by Donna Jo Napoli

  “It’s not for ceremonies,” said the wa’eb quickly. “We’re having a white linen cloak made for temple ceremonies. Purity comes first, of course. This one will be for wearing before the pharaoh.”

  The pharaoh! Kepi leaned forward so far, she almost fell on her face.

  “Well, I know that.” The mistress blinked. and Kepi wondered if, in fact, she hadn’t known. She couldn’t have ever entered the temple herself—a working woman like her. She was plump like only mistresses and masters could be, but she was still just a commoner. “Of course. But the pharaoh may be even less forgiving of a dirty cloak in his home than the other gods and goddesses are in their home, no? So you’ll wind up having to buy a third cloak for when the animal is full-size.” She raised her eyebrows. “You’ll do best in the long run if you buy enough for two cloaks now—one small and one big.”

  The wa’eb’s mouth twitched in a begrudging way, but he didn’t object.

  “In fact,” said the mistress, with renewed enthusiasm, “it’s a male, right?”

  “Right,” said the wa’eb warily.

  “Well, then, he’ll grow enormous. So you’ll need a medium-size cloak, as well, for the middle stage, when he’s no longer a baby, but not yet fully grown. You need enough for three cloaks.”

  The wa’eb swatted the air, as if to rid himself of a pesky insect. “I’ll leave the amount to you and the tailor then. But I want to choose the bolt you cut from.”

  “Of course.” The mistress went to the pile of bolts stacked up on the reed mats close to Kepi, so close that Kepi could smell the perfume on her hands—balsamum. Kepi moved even closer to her. The mistress gave a quick, sharp glance at Kepi, then went back to her task. She ran her finger along the bolts, as though searching. Her bracelets clinked together. “Here it is.” She carried a bolt to the table near the west window. “Please, have a look. Take your time.” She bowed and backed away, with hands folded at her bosom. That was when she looked Kepi full in the face and glared. She jerked her chin toward the outdoor work area.

  But Kepi wasn’t about to go back to work.

  The mistress’s eyes went along the wall to Amisi, still squatting in the corner. Her mouth hardened into a thin line. Amisi came creeping over to Kepi and tugged on her arm. Kepi yanked herself free. She wasn’t budging.

  The tailor had unrolled a good length of cloth by now. He held it up to catch the afternoon sunlight.

  The wa’eb blinked, clearly dazzled by the gold. It was brilliant. Shimmering. Perfect. “Yes,” he said simply. And he went out the door, leaving the rest to the tailor.

  Kepi ran after him, ignoring the mistress’s angry splutterings behind her.

  The wa’eb moved quickly for a man with a backache. He turned corners sharply. Kepi memorized the landmarks as they went. She needed to know how to get back to the weavers’ home tonight. Kan would be waiting for her. And Masud would come to report on his findings of the day. She counted the blocks between turns.

  Somehow the wa’eb had gotten far ahead of her. Kepi ran flat out. She didn’t know the name of his temple or where it was. She mustn’t lose him.

  The wa’eb turned a corner, and by the time Kepi arrived there, he was out of sight. She looked down every side street. She peeked into every open window. He was gone.

  Chapter 30

  The Temple

  “The pharaoh’s with that wa’eb. He said it. And I just bet Babu’s with him, too. That’s why he was buying the cloth, to make cloaks for my Babu.” It was dark in the sleeping room, so Kepi couldn’t make out anyone else’s face clearly. She couldn’t tell if they were convinced by what she’d said or not. “It has to be Babu,” she said more firmly. “The god Tehuti made me eavesdrop on our mistress with the wa’eb. Why else would he have done that? If I can only find out where the wa’eb went, I can talk to the pharaoh and I can get Babu—both at once.” Her voice shook with excitement. She’d given up hope of ever seeing her little baboon again, and now this: Babu would really be in her arms again, her sweet, dear Babu.

  “You can’t talk to the pharaoh, Kepi, I told you. You have to wait for the next public audience.” It was Masud’s voice. “But I know where the wa’eb went. There’s only one temple that the pharaoh goes to. And I found out today that the Sem priests at that temple use baboons in the Opening of the Mouth and Eyes ritual.”

  “What’s that?” asked Kan.

  Kepi was grateful for the question. She didn’t know about this ritual.

  “Priests perform it on statues of dead people, so that they can smell and eat and see and taste and hear.”

  “All you need to do is make them breathe, too,” said Kan, “and it sounds like you’ve brought them back from the dead.”

  From behind Kepi came the muffled laughter of a few girls. They were the slaves, and they were all foreigners—they didn’t understand about Egyptian gods.

  “I think they do breathe again. I just forgot to say that,” mumbled Masud. “But they’re dead. Really.”

  “So why do it?” asked Kan.

  “This way their ka can enjoy the food offerings that their relatives bring to their tomb.”

  “Why do they need—”

  “No more questions,” said Masud. “Let me finish. The priest says prayers to four gods and does things with a special knife called a psh-kef, or something like that, and he uses bottles of perfume and burns smelly incense and I don’t know what else. I only learned about all this today. Anyway, a baboon is part of it.”

  “What part?” asked Kepi, all senses alert for danger.

  “The baboon holds an ostrich feather to the statue’s mouth. That’s all I know.” Masud was silent for a moment. “It’s an important ritual,” he added.

  Good. Nothing about that seemed like it could hurt Babu.

  “Too bad you can’t do it to living people,” said Kan. “My father fell from a cliff and went blind. I wish someone could give him back his sight.”

  Kepi looked sharply toward Kan’s figure in the dark. His father must have had trouble doing his job after that injury. Just like Father. Maybe he figured Kan would be better off as a slave than starving. What a terrible choice. No one ever should have to trade away their child.

  She remembered the boy and the legless man outside the gate of the metallurgy yard. They were starving. In all countries everywhere, people who get injured should be taken care of. Their families should be taken care of. What was wrong with the ruler of Kan’s country? What was wrong with the pharaoh of Egypt?

  “You can do the ceremony to living people,” said Masud. “But only to the pharaoh. When a man gets crowned pharaoh, he becomes a god. And—”

  “That’s absurd,” interrupted Kan. “Gods are the powers of nature. Dirt and sky, water and fire, sun and moon, and through it all the wind. A man is none of those things.”

  “This is Egypt, not your country,” said Masud.

  “So what? Do your gods have to be the same as stupid humans?”

  “Watch what you say,” said Kepi. “You don’t know who might be listening.”

  Kan frowned, but he stopped talking, at least.

  “Anyway,” said Masud, “at the crowning of a pharaoh, they do the Opening of the Mouth and Eyes ritual so that his ka merges with his physical self forever.”

  “How did you find out all this?” asked Kepi.

  Masud gave an apologetic little laugh. “The metalworkers told me.”

  “The slaves?” asked Amisi. “But they’re foreign. They don’t understand our gods.”

  “They listen. You know how it is. Whatever you can overhear helps make the day pass. One of them knew some things and another knew other things, and pretty soon everyone had something to say—and it all came together.”

  “Wait.” Kepi reached out and took hold of Masud’s arm. “Did you tell them about Kan and me?”

  Masud shook his head. “I asked questions and they answered them, and no one even wondered why I was asking. They were too busy worrying about how th
e laborers on Pharaoh Khufu’s new pyramid are striking over garlic.”

  “Garlic?”

  “Their daily ration isn’t high enough. They’re getting sick. So they staged a strike. Pharaoh Khufu has threatened to gather up everyone’s male slaves and make them finish his pyramid. And he’s cruel, everyone knows that. The boys are afraid.”

  This city was full of trouble. Mean masters and a meaner pharaoh. In Kepi’s home village slaves were treated nicely. A lump formed in her throat so big, it hurt her ears. “Let’s go get Babu tonight.” And I’ll talk to the pharaoh at the same time, she thought. She couldn’t possibly wait a whole month for the public audience. Already she feared she’d be getting home too late to save her family.

  “We can’t,” said Masud. “The priests will be home asleep with their families—and Babu will be wherever the wa’eb sleeps. But we can go to the temple and hide and wait till morning.”

  “And what will we do in the morning?” asked Kan.

  “As soon as I see Babu, I’ll call to him,” said Kepi. “He’ll jump on my head and we can run away and meet up later.”

  “They’ll chase you,” said Amisi.

  “I’m fast.”

  “Plus,” said Kan, “if there’s three of us, we can all run in different directions, and they’ll break up following us—it won’t be everyone following only Kepi. It’s better that way.”

  “Then I’m coming, too,” said Amisi. “One more person for them to chase.”

  “What if you’re not back before the mistress calls everyone to the morning meal?” asked Kepi. “You’ll get in trouble.”

  “I don’t care. If Kan’s helping, I’m helping.”

  The four of them sat immobile a moment. Kepi felt the air grow thick around them, as though it was binding them together like a giant swathe of cloth. The other three had known each other for a long time, but Kepi was new to the group. Yet the air was pulling all of them together equally. They had vowed to spend the future together. Masud would come to Kepi’s village. And Masud had invited Kan. And Kepi was pretty sure that wherever Kan went, Amisi would want to go. But all of that was just plans—just talk about the future. It was very different to talk about this moment here. About doing something tonight. And something so dangerous. Somehow their bond was strong enough that the three of them were willing to take this risk for Kepi. She didn’t understand how it had happened, but she was overcome with gratitude that made her feel all melty, like a candle at the end of its life. “Thank you.” She wished she could show them how much she meant it.

  Without another word, Kan and Masud and Amisi and Kepi snuck out the door on tiptoe. They slipped out into the street, following Masud. He led them a long way; the dark made it feel endless. Finally the houses stopped and they came to high walls enclosing a huge temple. Masud stopped and sucked in his top lip behind his bottom teeth.

  “What’s wrong?” whispered Kepi. “Anybody is allowed within the walls, no matter how poor. It’s just the temple itself we can’t enter.”

  “I know.” Masud turned to them. “Listen. There’s nowhere to hide in the temple yard. I looked earlier. But there’s a secret chamber under the temple. It’s not really like entering the temple itself.”

  “How do you know?” asked Amisi.

  “I saw men come out of there.”

  “But how do you know it’s not like entering the temple itself?”

  “I don’t know for sure. But I watched. It seems only the people who take care of the temple go down there. The main Sem priest doesn’t.”

  No one spoke.

  “All right,” said Kepi at last. “Let’s go.”

  She ran through the wall entrance, across the yard, and to the side door. The other three ran with her, like the truest of friends. Masud opened the door, and they looked down the stairs into blackness.

  Kepi turned her face to the sky. Great goddess Hathor, smile on us, please. We’re leaving your moonlight. But please don’t let us out of your sight. We need you, dear goddess. We draw strength from you.

  They filed down the stairs. It was a long way down.

  The chamber was larger than Kepi expected. And the stone walls were cold. The four of them huddled together.

  “Whose temple is this?” Kepi asked Masud.

  “The goddess Sekhmet.”

  A shiver shot through Kepi. Sekhmet was mean. Vicious even. Kepi rubbed her hands together to take off the chill that enveloped her. “And who are the four gods?”

  “What?”

  “You said four gods are prayed to in the Opening of the Mouth and Eyes ritual. Which ones?

  “Tehuti, Set, Horus, and Dunawy.”

  This was better news. Tehuti loved baboons, and maybe it really was he who had come as that giant ibis to encourage Kepi when she was chasing the Nubian boys, and for sure it was he who had let her see the crescent moon so she would eavesdrop on the wa’eb. And Set, well, he was Kepi’s personal patron. He’d come as a crocodile to warn the crew—with disastrous effects, but that was his nature; Set was vengeful. Horus was the most important of all the gods, and he was the patron of young men. So he should want to take care of Masud and Kan, at least. And he was Hathor’s husband, so he’d care about Kepi, too. Those three gods sounded very good indeed.

  The only mystery was Dunawy. Dunawy was the god with extended wings. He protected flying things. Kepi didn’t see how he would care at all about Babu or any of them. But she didn’t see any reason he would be against them, either.

  Inside her heart Kepi prayed. Please, Tehuti, Set, Horus, and Dunawy. I need to talk with the pharaoh. I know he comes often to this temple, so please let me find him here. He did something very wrong to Father, and he’s done lots of wrong things to lots of people. I need to tell him, so he’ll change his ways, and so I can save my family and maybe lots of other families. You care about people—if I do this, I’m serving you. It’s true. I’ve never looked at it like that before, but now I can see it’s true.

  And, please, oh, please please help me get Babu back. I know he’s working here now, in this temple. But he’s just a baby. He needs me. Please agree that he belongs with me. I’ll teach him to pray. Every day. To all four of you. And to Sekhmet, too. So he’ll serve the gods no matter what. Please allow me to find him. Please allow me to take him home.

  Chapter 31

  At Last

  The hours passed. There were no windows. Light couldn’t penetrate this room unless the door was open. How would they know when dawn came?

  Kepi felt her way carefully, past the sleeping bodies of her three friends and up the stairs to the temple yard. She would open the door just a little. Enough to let in a sliver of light when morning finally came but, hopefully, not enough to alert people outside that they were there.

  But when she cracked the door open, the rosy haze of morning greeted her. Already! A man walked past, covered in white cloth with white papyrus sandals. Kepi quickly closed the door, raced down the steps, and tripped and tumbled all the way to the bottom.

  “Who’s that?”

  “What happened?”

  “I fell.” Kepi pulled herself to her feet. Her arm hurt. “It’s dawn. And a priest is already here. Outside our door. We can’t get out without him seeing us—and if he sees us, how can we sneak up on them?”

  “Come over here, Masud,” called Kan. “Hurry. At this end of the room there’s another staircase.”

  Kepi heard Masud stumble as he crossed the room. “All right. I’ll go up and see what’s at the top.”

  Everyone hushed.

  “There’s a door,” came Masud’s voice again, finally. “It opens into the temple. And the temple’s still empty.”

  “Let’s go hide up there,” came Kan’s voice. “Then we can see what’s going on.”

  “We can’t enter the temple,” said Kepi. “Ordinary people aren’t pure enough.”

  “I’m not Egyptian,” said Kan. “No god can expect a foreigner to follow the rules. And you three have come
to rescue Babu. That’s an honorable goal. If the gods don’t understand that, they’re crazy.”

  “Kan didn’t mean that last thing,” Kepi said loudly. “Please, gods and goddesses, whoever is listening. Kan can be a silly jackass. Ignore that last thing he said, please. But the rest of what he said sounds right. Doesn’t it? Please show us what to do.”

  “You believe nothing happens just by chance, right?” asked Kan.

  “Right,” said Kepi.

  “Then the gods already showed us what to do,” said Kan. “They showed us this staircase.”

  Kepi sensed they all agreed. All of them must have, for the four of them climbed the staircase together. They came out into the cavernous temple, where the air was a soft pale gray. They flattened themselves against the side wall and sank to squatting. Kepi looked up at the ceiling. It was blue with yellow stars. Glorious.

  Only a moment later, the front door of the temple opened. A shaft of light cut through the center of the room. A procession of men came in. All dressed in white. All wearing white papyrus sandals. The one in the lead had a leopard skin draped at a slant across his chest and back, held in place by a cord at one shoulder. The leopard head and tail flopped as he walked. That was the Sem priest. Behind him came two men with white robes on top of their clothing. The hem-netjer, the priests. At the rear was the wa’eb Kepi had seen at the weavers’. They intoned the morning hymn, praying to the goddess Sekhmet to awaken in peace.

  The pharaoh wasn’t there.

  And neither was Babu.

  Kepi and Masud and Kan and Amisi were taking this terrible chance for nothing.

  The holy men walked to a small sanctuary at the center of the room, and the Sem priest broke the seal on the sanctuary door. The statue of the goddess Sekhmet was revealed. The Sem priest said a prayer over the statue, four times. Then the wa’eb reached inside the sanctuary and took out a piece of cloth and a jar. He poured from the jar onto the cloth and handed it to the Sem priest. Then he took out more cloth and poured again, so the hem-netjer also had them. He stood back as the three higher priests rubbed the statue of Sekhmet. The jar must have held oil, for the statue shone now. They took out a blue linen dress from the sanctuary and slipped it over the statue’s head. They added a red linen cloak. As the Sem priest adorned the statue with jewelry, one hem-netjer applied kohl around her eyes, and the other dabbed her everywhere with the scent of myrrh, so strong Kepi could inhale it from her hiding spot way over in the shadows.