Guide me back to the palace.
I have been waiting for you, it screeched.
It plunged toward me. Running swiftly over the baked land, I waved my arms. Help was nowhere in sight. This time the vulture glided upon the wind and taunted me. Fear prickled up my spine. I couldn’t escape. This bird of prey would attack me like a surprised jerboa awakened from a drowsy day slumber. I jerked to the left.
Run fast, that will make my victory more pleasing, thought the vulture.
You have not fulfilled Sit-Amun’s bargain. She is growing restless.
My legs ached. I grew dizzy from the oven heat. I lost my balance, and tripped over a cactus, splaying in a helpless heap, scraping my face and hands like a blood sacrifice being offered to Amun. I heard a terrible squawk.
“Help,” yelled a boy who wielded a sling. “I killed a sacred bird!”
“Her Majesty has fallen,” wailed an elder woman with few teeth.
A crowd circled. A worker cradled me in his arms and raced back toward my enclosure. When I woke, Amaret tended my needs. She tried to drizzle fruit juice into my mouth and offered me comforting words.
That only made me more upset.
“I want Meti,” I sputtered.
Amaret put her hand upon Pentu as an anguished look clouded her face. He put a cool cloth to my head.
“Merit-Aten, she is not here,” replied Pentu. He plucked cactus needles from my flesh. I shrieked. My blurred vision improved. Amaret’s owl and falcon perched nearby. I smelled the stench of my dysentery.
“Did the vulture eat at me?”
“A boy hit it with a rock before anything calamitous happened,” said Pentu. “The villagers brought you home.”
“Dearest, you have heat vexation. It is never wise to leave this underground room during the worst of the day,” added Pentu.
I strained to gaze up the ladder of this burrow that had been carved out for me. That clever Imhotep had devised a way to insulate my quarters by having a pipe pour cool water from the Nile over the limestone roof.
My cot and turquoise rug had been positioned in the corner along with my clothes chest and toys. On the far wall a colorful relief of my father, mother, and me showed us paying tribute to the Aten. The solar disk’s rays ended in little hands putting an ankh to my nose.
“Will Meti come?” I asked with cracked lips.
“She is in Thebes. We just received word that she is pregnant with twins and cannot travel in this heat,” said Pentu as he administered a poultice to my head.
“Has she forgotten me?”
“I will take you to Thebes,” Pentu said and patted my hand.
I repeated my father’s words. “There is nothing for me in Thebes.”
“As you wish, Your Highness.”
“Pentu, do you miss your mother and father?” I whispered with a hoarse throat.
“My mother was a Semite and my father was from the outer lands. When I was an akh, the Hittites set fire to my village. I saw a boar with huge tusks growing from its face kill everyone else. It terrified me. I hid in a tent and survived because a pole hit me, knocking me unconscious. It left this scar on my head, which seems to itch in the blazing heat or when I get upset. The enemy thought I wested. Later, someone took me to the Temple of Heliopolis where I studied and took my initiations. I have been content.” He patted my hand.
“But you have no family.”
His eyes welled up. “You are my family.”
“Pentu, do you think Mery-Ptah could visit his family in Thebes?”
Pentu roughly scratched his head. “What made you think of Mery- Ptah? He was banished to Aswan so he will not ever be allowed to return to Thebes.”
“You must still be hallucinating. Rest,” said Amaret.
* * *
With each passing day my strength improved. Netri wrote a new Hymn to Aten. He let me give suggestions. Amaret sang lovely songs and taught me to write poems. Pentu taught me to heal by using the energy from my hands and activate the wheels of light within my body. Finally, I could see my colors of swirling energy within me.
“Is there anything else I may do for you?” asked my physician.
“Yes. The workers wish to toil at night and rest in shelter during the day,” I said with determination. “I wish for roofs to be built over their huts to give them shade.”
“Your Highness, you know your father has expressed his orders that no roofs be allowed in Akhet-Aten. Everyone is to be in full view of the physical sun during the day, and Vega, the cosmic sun at night,” replied Pentu.
“Then let them sleep in the palace with us.”
Pentu bowed with his arms crossed over his collar bone. “Your suggestion is quite admirable. I shall advise your father and the Imhotep of your royal request. Perhaps we can build shaded huts in their village.” “Make it so, Pentu-Aten,” I said with a flourish of my hand to dismiss him. Meti did this often and it always met with favorable results.
* * *
Only a fortnight later, it pleased me to hear that a workman’s village had been sanctioned and the laborers started construction. Tents of heavier linen, woven in the village, were pitched that morning. All constructors would shift their working hours from sunset to sunrise. Fires were lit in great stone pits so they could see. They could now sleep during the daylight hours. This news pleased me.
That night, as I readied myself for a bath in the glow of my candles, I stripped off my sweat stained sheath. Standing before my mirror, I gasped.
What is that aberration? I looked closer. It couldn’t be. Hair grew on my nether regions. I covered myself, feeling ashamed, and unsure of how it happened. Perhaps Sit-Amun had cursed me so hair would now cover my entire body. I had to find a way to free Mery-Ptah or she would render me as an abominable beast. I had to cover it, keep this hidden or I would be cast away. Meti and Grand Djedti Ti-Yee didn’t look like this. I had seen the smooth sex of many of my elders.
I pulled my pack from under my bed and dug into it. When I found the wrapped item, I unfolded the precious woven cloth with care. The moonstone glistened, enchanting me. Little wisps of color danced around it and hypnotized me.
“I want Asgat. I want my cat,” I said.
The moonstone pulsated within my hand like a heartbeat. It throbbed as if awakened from a slumber. A red wisp shot out of the crescent and plunged into the earth. Orange, then yellow puffs emerged and followed the first. My eyes grew wide. What would happen? Would I get my wish? I blew upon my burning fingers.
The ground beneath my feet trembled and cracked opened. I started to scream but then something miraculous happened. Asgat materialized from the underworld. The ground closed beneath her paws. Such glad tidings. I got my wish. Asgat had returned from the dead.
Here, Asgat.
She meowed in a garbled voice as if she hadn’t made a sound since she perished. But this time she came to my call. I embraced her for the first time. Something had changed. My heart raced with joy as I held that hairless feline and rocked her.
“There. There. You are fine. I shall feed you and love you.” Her purr made my heart content.
As I rubbed her body, her claws contracted and released against my leg. I scratched her ears, and this pleased her so much that she drew a long scratch of blood across my skin. Oddly, I felt no pain.
Did I displease you? she thought and cocked her head.
Her eyes looked strange. Perhaps the light made her Nile-blue eyes appear foggy and dull. But what could I expect? She had been tethered in the underworld for years. She had grown older. Of course that had to be it. Come lie by my side.
A man screamed in the night. I woke with a start. Asgat had left.
Perspiration soaked my linens. Something terrible had happened, but the eerie stagnation of the desert night air dulled my senses. My mouth felt parched and my tongue hurt. Pentu yanked open my door with a start. He peered into my shelter.
“Your Majesty, are you well?”
“Of course. Who screa
med?”
“I did. I am sorry to alarm you, but something scratched my face and hands in the middle of the night. I thought I saw a cat. Perhaps a stray. Sorry to have disturbed you. I do not know why I felt compelled to come find you. Please forgive me. Go back to sleep.”
“Pentu, wait, did you say a cat hurt you?”
“Yes, but it can wait until morning.”
“What color was it?”
“White. Yes, white. A scrawny and hairless little thing. Reminds me of that cat that died by the arrow. But we can talk about it in the morning. I just needed to know that you are all right. When I woke, I felt I needed to protect you. To warn you. But the sudden jolt made me forget why.” He put his hand up to the two red claw marks. Then he dropped the lid to my sunken enclosure. I shivered. It couldn’t be Asgat.
* * *
“Merit-Aten, I shall post a third guard near your chamber at night. I have had some disturbing news that an animal is terrorizing the villagers at night,” said Netri that night at dinner.
I gulped and kept my eyes down. “What kind of animal?”
“The reports claim it to be a feline. An elder worker claims she woke up and saw a white ghost scratch her baby. A little while later she claimed that the infant had fevers from the infection,” replied Netri as he chewed his meal. His head tilted in sorrow.
“I am concerned that the Amunites have unleashed a watcher.” Pentu gazed off into the distance. “It doesn’t seem likely that the creature can do damage, but you know how the Sesh fear these things. It makes for gossip and accusations.”
“I shall hunt it down,” replied Amaret, who then slurped a large portion of beef stew and smacked her lips. I grimaced. She had terrible table manners, but it was even more worrisome that she could hurt Asgat. I kept my hands wrapped in linens, claiming that I liked to wear wraps, but the truth was that my fingernails singed around the edges every time I touched that moonstone. Sadly, I couldn’t keep my hands off it. The moonstone called to me and begged me to use it to make even bigger wishes.
* * *
In the months it took to complete the palaces, I took care to keep myself covered. My chest, which ached often, had grown in size. With all the confusion and hurry to build our city, no one took note of my changing body or my bandaged hands.
When Netri wasn’t supervising every detail, he took to his tent with an excruciating headache. The enraged Amun priests constantly barraged him with psychic attacks. Amaret was able to shield Netri from the worst of it, but even she needed her rest. Pentu gave him medicinal aid and, in his free time, directed my daily lessons in the healing arts, astronomy, and initiatic science. The Imhotep conducted my studies in sacred geometry and sacred architecture. Amaret taught me initiatic dance and inner vision. I kept a close eye on Asgat and made sure she slept by my side every night, though it troubled me that she did not obey me. Every morning she disappeared. How could she escape through the secured lid of my enclosed domain?
* * *
One cloudless winter day after I turned ten, the painters put the finishing touches on the friezes decorating the whitewashed walls of our glorious abode. I must have bent too close to the wet colors because my lower sheath became soaked in red ochre. How clumsy of me.
My stomach ached from the fear of being discovered. How could I have been so foolish? Now, I would be admonished for disrupting the workers.
Amaret strode down the long faience-tiled hallway painted with palm fronds and flying ducks. Her flat feet as big as two barges sailed toward me. She clothed herself in an ancient, loose woven sheath and I could see her sagging breasts swing as she walked.
“Merit-Aten, where have you been? Pentu is ready with your morning lessons.” She started to turn to leave, then halted. She sniffed the air, faced me again and cocked her head. “What vexes you?”
“I had an accident. I leaned against the wall.” I hid my hands behind my back.
“I would say congratulations are in order,” she whispered as she maneuvered me past the workers dabbing paint on the borders.
I felt fatigued. My stomach throbbed, probably from the sour green melon I ate for breakfast. “I do not feel well.”
“It is most understandable when a young woman has her first blood.”
“Who has?” I asked, always wanting to know court gossip.
“You. This evening, we must perform the Ritual In Honor Of First Awakening. This is most auspicious. Tonight will be a full moon. As your mother is not here, I wish to present you the gifts of womanhood and prepare the unguent.”
My womanhood had arrived, making me jubilant. Gladly I would give up my sidelock and allow my hair to grow long. Now, as an adult, I could make my own choices.
Later that evening, when the full moon blossomed in the field of stars, Amaret wrapped a hand-embroidered blood red sheath around my plain one. Although red was the color of death, tonight it was the color of my birth as a woman. She washed my feet and massaged them with costly oils before putting on my new red sandals. For the first time my unbraided sidelock hung in long wavy strands. Tonight, no attendants shaved my head. Instead, Amaret presented me with a silver razor upon a shiny tray.
“Your responsibility as a woman is to maintain cleanliness. One of the ways we express our purity is to expel all hair from our body,” she explained without shame.
My face burned like a pot of boiling oil. Did she know about the hair that soon would cover my entire body? Would I have to reveal the humiliation that had taken root under my arms and over my nethers?
“How do we expel it?”
“Shave. I will send someone to teach you.”
“Does my Meti do this thing?”
“Yes, of course. She shaves her arms, legs, between her legs and even her eyebrows although it is not a custom, just her preference because she uses kohl liner to fill them back in.”
I felt immeasurable relief. Perhaps I wasn’t a monstrosity after all.
“I will present you to the moon, for your moon cycle is in honor of her presence.” Amaret handed me a long tapered candle. “This is our custom that all the females who love you will gather and sing to you, first a song to bid your childhood goodbye, and then a song of welcoming to embrace you into the mysteries of femininity. I must climb the stairs and prepare.”
She pulled herself up the ladder. The darkness of my sunken chamber engulfed me with sudden despair. A wave of isolation swept through my soul. Like a solitary wolf howling at the moon to mark its existence, I too would sing all by myself. There would be no one above to commune with. Amaret would enact the ritual instead of my family.
Alone. My father had gone to the southern cliffs for three fortnights of fasting and meditation. Pentu took route to the Temple of Heliopolis. Meti gave the suck of her breast to my newborn twin sisters. Meket-Aten read alone in our bedroom back in Thebes. Ankhi would be fast asleep. They would be uninformed of my coming of age. Alone. I placed my hand on the railing and hesitated. Amaret’s sad song grieved my heart.
“Come little one, it is a new day. Rise from your youthful bed,” she sang of my adolescence.
Pursing my lips, with regret I climbed the stairs, having already decided not to take pleasure in this ritual. I pulled myself from the safety of my cave, with a loud sigh, and was astonished to see hundreds of glittering candles hailed me as women lifted their voices in song and swayed to the melody.
Shadow of the Sun (The Shadow Saga) Page 26
