Bakht was accompanied from the Delta by envoys of several prominent families, ones who traced their lineage back to King W’ash, who nearly defeated Narmer during the War of Unification. The next ten-days were filled with activity, as I met furtively with these representatives. It wasn’t easy to arrange these meetings since Den had his spies and soldiers follow me everywhere. But the Apep priesthood still maintained safe houses and caves where secret meetings could be held in comfort during the long hours of night.
One of the joys in being back in the Delta was the chance to get to know Menetnashte better. We had been estranged for so long, it was as if we were strangers. Our brief messages were not enough to mortar a strong bond, but the Apep priests had done well by him. He was a strong and stocky young man, possessed of Bakht’s dark and deep-set eyes and the intelligence of us both. He carried himself in a regal manner, his back straight, his shoulders square. Just by looking at him one would assume that he could handle himself in a fight, yet that only hinted at his real physical prowess.
Soon after I returned to the Delta, Bakht arranged for an exhibition of Menetnashte’s martial skills. As an Isis priestess I had many times been called upon to bless the soldiers before their warrior games or to minister to their bruises afterwards. So I was well versed in what constituted a good set of warrior skills. Even so, I was taken aback by Menetnashte’s performance. He carefully weighed his opponent, circling, his keen eyes taking in every tendency of his enemy. He would wait until they struck, parrying their blows or nimbly dodging them despite his size. But when he attacked, he did so with a vengeance. He was an irresistible force and more often than not it only took one volley from his mace or one parry with his sword to quickly dispense with his rival.
So it was that I was out one night in a secret meeting when Bakht barged into the meeting, grabbed my arm and took off with me. As we ran he explained that the King’s Guard had arrived at my house to summon me. We had become complacent in our belief that Den’s troops would never summon me from a sleep. Yet here we were, rushing back to my house in Dep, as my handmaidens stalled the soldiers.
Rushing in through the back door, I quickly changed into my nightgown and came toward the front of the building where the Captain waited.
“You are perspired,” the Captain had the audacity to say. I maintained my calm.
“It’s warm and I had a nightmare about soldiers barging into my home,” I said with as much bearing as I could. The Captain did not know how to respond. He cleared his throat.
“The Queen Mother summons you,” he said, drawing himself up.
“Mery? At this hour?” I asked. “Couldn’t she wait until morning?”
I noted the other soldiers looking uncomfortably at their Captain. “Gather your belongings. We leave in ten minutes for Inabu-hedj,” he said. “We will make double time, so prepare accordingly.”
Within the hour I was aboard one of the King’s skiffs, part of a flotilla being rowed by specially trained oarsmen in the King’s employ. As Ra’s chariot rose in the sky I was surprised by how swiftly the shore ran past us. Each team of oarsmen rowed for perhaps an hour and another crew would quickly assume their seats and continue. They alternated thus throughout the day and the next night. By the end of the second day we tied the boats up to the docks below the white walls of the city.
A fresh troop of King’s Guards surrounded me at the dock and walked me up the stairs to the palace. There a somber, and much older, Tepemkau met me. He looked me up and down and with only a nod turned and walked toward Mery’s quarters with me following.
Mery’s bedroom was large. Candles burned throughout the room, with clay shields in front of them to block their light from Mery’s sensitive eyes. They threw their flickering light across the white walls. Handmaidens scurried about quietly, bringing fresh baskets of fruit and flowers, replenishing the water pitchers and taking out the bed sheets that had just been changed.
Nekau stood at Mery’s bedside, the candlelight reflecting off his dark body, accenting his still muscular form. His eyes were bloodshot and swollen bags hung below them. Sitting on the bed was Herihor. There was rage in his eyes as he looked at me. So intense was his stare, so full of venom, I was forced to look away from him. But what I saw in the very next instant was far, far worse.
Lying on the bed was a ghost, a mut spirit from the world beyond. I must have gasped, for Nekau snapped his head around to chastise me with his look. I stared at the figure in the bed, trying to make sense of what it was I saw. Even I, after all these years, after all my hatred, could not control the tears that flowed from my eyes.
It was Mery, or what was left of her. She was so thin it seemed as if her blanket covered only a few thin reeds. Her cheeks were hollow and the bones of her mouth and jaw jutted out from her emaciated, yellowed face. Her breath came so infrequently that at first I thought she had already passed from this world. I saw a twitch in her hand and Herihor leaned his ear down to her mouth. He nodded.
“We will clear the room for a few minutes,” he called out to the maidservants who immediately left. It was then that I saw a motion in the corner. It was Amka himself, as if raised from the dead. He slowly shuffled directly toward me, hunched over his staff.
“Why she has requested you by her side is one of Horus’ great mysteries,” he whispered. He leaned back as far as his contorted back would allow so that he could look into my eyes. “Such chances for redemption do not happen often.” He continued to stare at me, his eyes shifting just a fraction right and left, scouring me to see what might be my reaction. Despite my tears I stared brazenly back. He shook his head and shuffled away, Nekau’s large hand under his elbow.
It was only Herihor and me left with Mery. He stood slowly, bent down and whispered something to her and walked toward me, his hand on the handle of the knife that was sheathed on his belt. “I would that Horus grant my wish to slit your throat, you evil mut,” he whispered through gnashed teeth. “But he whispers now in the ear of that beautiful woman there and they have exacted a promise to stay my hand. I’ll be at the door. One wrong word to her, one evil gesture… just one and I’ll gladly appear before Anubis with a heavy heart and your blood on my hands.”
I had never before experienced such a venomous attack and my throat felt dry as sand. He walked away before I could reply and there we were, alone again, Mery and me, for the first time in so many, many years. Were we truly sisters just yesterday? Was it not just a ten-day ago when I chased her through Djer’s gardens?
I stood at the foot of her bed listening to her breath come in soft rattles. Her eyes fluttered behind her wrinkled lids. Suddenly, they sprung open.
“Nubiti, is it you?” she said so softly at first I thought it my imagination. Her voice sounded rough as she struggled to speak.
I walked around the bed to sit on a chair by her side. “Yes, it is,” I answered.
“Take my hand,” she whispered. I was so shocked I could not react for a moment. As I finally reached for her, I noticed a movement by the door and saw Herihor ready to pounce. But Nekau’s swift hand stayed him.
Her hand was so slight I feared that even the gentlest of touches would break it like a desiccated jackal bone. Even in the heat of Shomu her hand felt cold. She closed her eyes and I watched as they moved behind her lids, first slowly from side to side, then in all directions. At once I felt a buzzing in my heart and my breath came in short gasps. My eyelids became heavy and I could not resist closing them. I heard a strong breeze blowing in my ears and I shook in my chair. My inner eyes looked over a high precipice in the deep desert, the winds buffeting my body. There were buildings below and people, many people. But when I dared to look down to make sense of what was laid out before me I felt dizzy and disoriented.
I quickly opened my eyes and there was Mery, staring at me, her lips straining to smile. “I have missed you, sister,” she said.
I did not know what to say for this strange scene was entirely unexpected and had been sprung on me
without warning. I wanted to say something, but words would not form around my jumbled thoughts. Images of our childhoods swirled in my heart and then as quickly the fateful discussions that led to my approving her poisoning. There was no doubt that her wasted condition was my work. I thought of Ti-Ameny then and I wished she had been able to complete her work before being discovered. Then I would not be confronting this unfortunate situation, but who knows what paths the gods would have had me follow? I knew that I should feel remorse, but my heart only felt empty.
“It is alright,” she went on. “I have seen it. All is forgiven.” Then she simply closed her eyes. I sat by her side still holding her tiny hand. In a moment Nekau came in, took a look at Mery and called to Herihor and Amka. A messenger was sent to get Den, who I heard running down the hall. By then I had been ushered out. One of the captains of the King’s Guard escorted me to the rear entrance of the palace, where a phalanx of his troops awaited to bring me back to Dep.
There are many things about that event, from being summoned in Dep to sailing back after my visit with Mery that I have long ago forgotten. But among my most vivid memories of the event was this. As I crossed the threshold from the palace to the outside I was confronted by a seething, silent mass of humanity. Below us stood tens of thousands of loyal Kemians, men and women, rekhi and noblemen alike, looking up at the palace for word of their Queen. They stood, hardly a sound rising to us, except for the whispers of their prayers. Incense burned in braziers scattered throughout the periphery of the walled palace and long lines snaked through the streets and alleyways to offer their meager sacrifices.
“They love her dearly,” the captain said, daring to speak to me. Then we were off.
On the third day after I returned, as Ra rose above the horizon, I was awakened by a long, mournful blast of a ram’s horn that came from the Temple of Horus. I instantly knew what it announced. I bathed and dressed quickly and waited for the messenger. He arrived within the hour to tell me of Mery’s passing.
‘I have seen it,’ she had said to me that day upon her deathbed. What was it she saw? Did she stand upon that same precipice as did I? Did the winds that blew by my ear whisper some secret of the gods to her? Did she see remorse in my ka, for if she did her gaze surely penetrated deeper than my own?
I often wonder why she felt it so important to bring me to her side, after so many years and so much heartache between us. Was she only aware of the pain I caused her, or did she finally understand that she was also the cause of my own life’s suffering? To be so close to the throne, to fall from grace and to be banished, these cruel twists and turns hardened my heart to Mery. In the end I’m convinced there was nothing there. I held her hand and reflected on its coldness. I willed some warmth between us, a sign from the gods that a glimmer of love remained. I found none, not in my heart.
‘It is all right,’ she had said. For Mery it was always all right. Not so for me. Her son sat upon the highest throne in all the lands. My son was a poor priest in an obscure Delta town.
Even in Dep the outpouring of affection for Mery was astounding. Farmers came from towns near and far to offer sacrifices at the Temple of Horus, and women flocked to the Temples of Isis and Neith to make their offerings. For seventy days no business was conducted in the Delta, nor anywhere else in the Two Lands.
Beginning a month before the funeral was to take place, caravans began arriving one after another from lands to the east, men in strange curled beards and women hidden with veils and decorated with bangles and silk robes. Foreign kings sent unarmed soldiers to pay their respects and they carried chests filled with presents of every sort for the Queen’s eternal life and to mortar their relationship with King Den.
On the fifth day before the funeral, I left with a fleet of ships containing the princes and nobles of the Delta. Sailing with me were Menetnashte and Bakht. Khnum could not sober himself long enough for the journey.
The scene upon Mother Nile is impossible to describe. There were so many boats of every manner and description, if a man were to have fallen overboard he would surely have been crushed. It took twice as long as we had anticipated getting to Inabu-hedj, but once we were within a few hours sail, ships from the King’s navy identified royal guests and ushered them forward. Yet for hundreds of cubits around the harbor the boats were so thick we had to walk from the middle of the river on planks set across their bows to get to the docks.
The scene in Inabu-hedj was staggering to the senses. The King’s Guard captain who escorted us to the tents set up for guests told us that the priests had estimated the crowds at nearly a million people. Every house had rented out space to visitors. Every place where a tent could be pitched, it was. Visitors camped in caves in the mountains and the poorest of the poor simply slept out on the sands of the desert. The smells of Inabu-hedj were always a rich stew of people and foods, but now the stench was overpowering for the river itself was the most available for toileting. The intolerable heat of Shomu only served to intensify the assault on one’s senses.
The noise, too, was overwhelming. Inabu-hedj had always been a noisy city, so full as it was with merchants and trade and all the Kings’ workshops. Yet added to that now were the thousands of foreign dignitaries shouting in strange languages, trying to make themselves understood. The army was hard pressed to maintain even a semblance of order.
Due to our delay in arriving, we had only a day to prepare for the funeral. I awoke feeling a strong urge to offer prayers to my patron goddess, so I hired a young boy as a messenger and he returned shortly with two priestesses dressed in white. They, in turn, escorted me through the crowds to the Temple of Isis.
I was greeted at the temple stairs by only a few of the priestesses I vaguely knew. Since my removal as Head Priestess the entire order had been rearranged. The priestesses were polite and took me around to the back of the temple, where they allowed me private access to the inner sanctuary. It had been years since I had set foot in a Temple of Isis. I removed my sandals and as I rounded the corner I began to tremble with fear. What if Isis viewed Apep’s newfound presence in my ka as an abomination? For a moment I hoped that the daily prayers of the priestesses lacked fervor and that Isis’ spirit would not be in her statue at the present moment.
I entered the sanctuary, keeping my gaze on the floor. The light from the brazier cast a warm, speckled light that played across my feet. I quickly crossed the floor and sat upon the lone bench. I sat for minutes before I realized that my muscles were tense and I had not breathed deeply since I left the tent. And so I tried the meditations that I had so long ago taught to my acolytes. I replayed the stories from our pantheon of gods and slowly retraced them back and still further back to Nun, to the nothingness that existed at the moment of Creation.
The ether of Nun swarmed around me. I breathed in the sen-sen breaths, deep, slowly, my inner eyes watching my breath mixing with the ether, watching it swirl within my lungs, then exhaling through my nostrils in a continuous stream of life. I sat silently, empty of all thoughts and emotions. I waited for the creative act to come, for my once beloved Isis to visit a new vision upon me, perhaps the creation of a new path, a new lifetime, even a new day.
I waited. I breathed until I became aware of my own breathing. I tried again. Nothing. I prayed for Isis to enter my ka, but my chest felt constricted and I realized that the passage to my ka was too narrow for her to squeeze through. In that instant I experienced clarity. I finally understood. I dropped to my knees and bowed my forehead to the earth before her in gratitude.
The next day was Mery’s funeral. There are many events that stand out in a person’s life. There are births and deaths, celebrations and formalities, feasts and famines. Yet none will ever stand out in my mind like Mery’s funeral. I admit that and I do not regret that my own funeral will most likely be a simple affair, attended by only a few people of little distinction. It was part of the clarity of vision I experienced in the Temple of Isis.
The day began with the blowing of
ram’s horns from the Temple of Horus and then picked up by horns at the palace and all the temples within Inabu-hedj so that Ra’s orb was greeted that morning with the mournful sound of Horus’ chosen ready to stand before Anubis’ scales.
I awoke and looked out from the tent and saw people scurrying in every direction to greet Ra. People lay prostrate on the ground while others bowed low or sank on bent knees to greet him. He, in turn, showered his people with warmth and light as he rose into a clear, cloudless, blue sky.
We dressed quickly and ate a substantial meal, for the funeral ceremony would last until Ra’s disk sank into the western sky. To his credit, Tepemkau had arranged for our contingent to be in the Royal processional, albeit toward the very end. Soldiers came to bring us toward the palace, but the processional was so long we found ourselves many streets away.
We heard the piercing blasts of the ram’s horn announcing the start of the procession, but it took fully two hours before our chairs were lifted and we began to move. Ever so slowly did we wind our way through the streets of the city, up the hill and to the royal necropolis. As we went, the common people were pressed together from the houses to the streets so that our carriers had barely enough room to walk past. By time our chairs passed, there were no flowers left for the people to throw at our feet. The carriers before us had trampled the petals to a pink slippery muck that went up to their ankles.
People wailed and flagellated themselves and rent their garments in sorrow. Every so often a commoner or a rekhi would throw himself or herself at our chairs, tears streaming from their eyes. “She sent a physician and saved my child,” one said. Another walked side by side with our carriage and relayed to us the tale of how Mery had decided a case in favor of his rekhi family rather than a rich landowner. I wondered whom this man thought was his audience. Yet for hours we listened to these tales from wealthy and rekhi alike.
The Dagger of Isis (The First Dynasty Book 2) Page 38
