Despite my weariness, I marveled at how ordered, how divinely ordained was life in our beloved Upper Kem, Land of the Lotus. Each servant knew precisely what her role was, no more, but also no less. It was the natural order of things, ma’at, a perfect balance that kept chaos and the forces of evil at bay. I felt a certain sense of pride, even at a desperate time like this, for I, Anhotek, Chief Scribe, Horus priest and shaman to the royal court of King Scorpion, was in no small measure responsible for maintaining that balance.
The Queen had slept for but a few moments between contractions. Now she began to stir, as another wave of pain began its climb to an inevitable crescendo. I rushed over and took her hand.
“Is it time, yet?” she moaned, so weakly I had to bend nearer to hear her words. Her soft, unblemished skin was again soaked in perspiration. I mopped her brow and neck with a clean cloth, taking care not to disturb the gold amulet necklace of the frog god, Heket, who protected her during her labor. Her hair was still tightly bound in tiny braids and beads atop her head, but strands had come loose and lay twisted on her pillow, coated with the scented fat that I had poured on her head at the beginning of her labor as part of the ritual to Hathor.
“Soon, my dear Neith-hotpu,” I whispered in her ear. “Very soon.”
But, the Queen hardly heard me. Her mind was numbed with fatigue and she hardly stirred in the birthing bed, despite the pain. “How long has it been, Anhotek? It seems like an eternity already.”
I breathed deeply, fighting back my tears, and took the Queen’s tiny hand in my own, massaging it gently with my fingertips.
“My sweet lotus, it takes time to create things great and wonderful,” I whispered. “It is like Upper Kem itself. The gods took a long, long time to birth it from Mother Nile so they could give it as a gift to our people.” Her brow relaxed as she listened to my voice. “You are birthing a son… a mighty prince. Your ka and the King’s created him and he will follow your mighty husband and lead our land to even more greatness.”
Neith-hotpu’s eyes closed. “Anhotek, do you still believe it will be a boy?”
I gazed at her body before answering. It distressed me to no end to see her breaths coming in short gasps. I put my hand on her abdomen and felt the muscles tensed with pain, then smoothed a palm over my forehead, as if to erase its creases from the Queen’s view.
“Oh, my lovely Queen, ruler of Upper Kem, of this I am sure. You will bear a son. There is no mistaking the color your urine turns the emmer wheat. And he will be a great and mighty warrior.” I patted her abdomen gently. “But now you must rest to save your strength.” I pointed to the amulet on her neck. “Even Heket needs your help.”
“It will be yet a little while before the young prince is ready to face the world. Perhaps he waits for his father to return from battle.” The Queen just stared at me vacantly. I shivered at what I saw behind her eyes and I quickly whispered a prayer to Hathor, goddess of women in childbirth.
“My hand is upon you and your baby, Queen Neith-hotpu, beloved of Upper Kem. May Hathor bring the sweet north wind to hasten the delivery of the Prince and may the seal of Hathor be your protection.” Seven times did I repeat this chant, which may only be offered by a Horus priest to a woman in childbirth.
Neith-hotpu closed her eyes. My body slouched with fatigue. I had not slept for at least a day and I began to worry that my judgment would be affected by my exhaustion. But, there could be no mistaking the signs the last time I had examined the Queen, hardly an hour ago. She had not dilated beyond the width of my two fingers and both baby and mother were in distress. It was a breach birth, of that I was sure. I had inserted my fingers to feel for tiny toes or even, Ra forbid, the baby’s soft backside. But in all my years ministering at dozens of births I had never encountered a baby positioned as precipitously as was this one.
While the Queen’s servants watched nervously from various corners of the room, I placed four curved ivory magic wands, one at each corner of the Queen’s bed, their ninety-degree bends defining the edges of a rectangle that enclosed her in a magical protective space. Each of the servants that were allowed to touch the Queen was careful not to disturb them. But, as the day wore on, it was obvious to me that another powerful magic was at work in the Queen’s birthing, a power from the other world that far exceeded my own.
I opened a drawer of my cedar herbal chest and removed two small clay jars. I had known for hours that something was wrong, but in my weariness I had hoped against hope that natural events would speed the labor, as I had seen happen so many times before. I had no choice now but to act and to ready myself for the worst.
I opened the clay jars and out wafted pungent aromas. The herbs they contained I had gathered myself, from as far away as the sandy shores of the Great Green and the sheer cliffs of Upper Kush.
I motioned to Neith-hotpu’s head mistress to bring my mortars and pestles. The woman returned in less than two minutes. Her ashen face radiated the fear that all the Queen’s servants had for her very life. Their love for her was as real as the danger they all knew she now faced. Every woman in the room had seen friends and relatives die in childbirth. Such was the burden from the gods that women shouldered, although I hardly understood why they so willingly did so.
Steadying my hands, I made a paste of the fenugreek seeds with my mortar and pestle and heated it over a candle until it turned a dark brown. Then I added an equal measure of honey and stirred until the mixture was consistent.
I opened another container, this one smelling of fir resin, which I had extracted myself from tree chips I had the King’s traders import from lands far away, near Canaan. Soaked for months in the fermented juices of thyme and other plants, the thick fluid prevented wounds from festering. I added a few drops of the resin to the concoction in the bowl, watching them diffuse through the paste. Satisfied, I took out yet another jar from my cedar chest and added a pinch of incense to the mixture.
Working quickly, so the magic of the medicine would not dissipate, I ground the bulbs of three scallions in a clean pestle and emptied the contents of the pestle into the mixture. Reaching to my side, I opened a jar of dark barley beer, ladled out several drops and mixed all the ingredients together, adding a few sprigs of powdered juniper leaves to thicken it.
The women murmured in assent as I worked, shaking their heads or pointing toward me and whispering. I formed the doughy mixture into a tube, as long and as wide as two of my fingers, then lifted it from the bowl, amidst a rising crescendo of whispers. I looked with annoyance at the head mistress, instantly silencing her. She raised and lowered her hands and all the women in the room quieted, some holding their hands over their mouths as if, in their excitement and anxiety, it was the only way they could contain themselves.
I cocked my head toward the exit and the older woman instructed all the others to leave the room. When the last of the Queen’s hand maidens passed through the portico, the woman walked to my side.
“Hemamiya,” I whispered, “I must hurry this labor. Talk to your mistress, while I examine her.” Hemamiya nodded knowingly, her lips tightly closed. She had lost her youngest daughter in childbirth not more than four years ago. I knew she understood the gravity of the situation.
While Hemamiya sat on the edge of the bed, speaking soothingly and wiping the Queen’s brow, I worked quickly. I held my hand on the Queen’s abdomen, waiting for the contraction to peak, then lifted the sheet guarding the Queen’s modesty. I lifted her knees and spread her legs, feeling no resistance whatsoever. I marveled, yet again, at how tiny her body was, even with her abdomen so distended. I had seen countless births in my thirty-five long years, and dozens more in women from neighboring lands. And, while the babies were invariably similar in size, the women, most decidedly, were not. Kemian women were by far the smallest, and the birth process was far from kind to them. In villages throughout Upper Kem it was not uncommon to lose half its women to childbirth, a problem that vexed me to no end. For without our women, where was our h
ope for the future?
I checked to see how dilated the opening to the womb was, then I gently inserted the suppository, molding it under and around the opening to her womb. I would give the suppository an hour to work its magic.
I grabbed the bowl of medicine and added several more drops of moringa oil, then carried it over to the Queen’s side. “Here, Hemamiya,” I said, placing it in her outstretched hands. “Rub this oil carefully over the Queen’s abdomen… down here,” I said, pointing to my own pubic bone. “Rub gently for fifteen minutes, then come get me… and be sure she drinks plenty of water. Mother Nile must do her part, too.” I turned around, stooped with fatigue, and added. “I… I will be in my quarters, mixing up some potions.”
Once in my quarters, I lay down on my bed. It was a simple wooden bench, darkly stained, but intricately caned with rushes harvested from Mother Nile. On top of the caning rested a thick mattress made of coarse linen stuffed with goat hair, now fluffed up by the servants. I tried to go over a mental list of items I would need for the actual birth, but in seconds I was asleep, besieged by frightening dreams of swimming against Mother Nile’s current. All around me demons slithered easily through the waters.
“Anhotek! Anhotek, wake up!” Hemamiya was holding my shoulders and shaking me. “The Queen… she needs you! Anhotek, get up!”
“What? How…ummm…how long have I slept?” I asked, swinging my legs over the bed and already thinking through what tools and herbals I might need.
“I’m not sure. Perhaps thirty minutes, perhaps an hour… come quickly!” Her eyes were wide with fear. “The Queen is bleeding badly. She…”
But I had already picked up my surgical bag and was through the doorway leading to the Queen’s chambers. I ran down the brick causeway, silently cursing Hemamiya for not waking me in fifteen minutes, then realizing I should never have left the Queen’s side after ministering such a powerful medicine. The air was dry and hot and I felt dehydrated. But, my own needs would have to wait.
I surveyed the scene as soon as I entered the Queen’s chamber. The women parted. Neith-hotpu’s bed glistened crimson. A stack of blood-stained sheets lay in a heap nearby. The servants stood around, some crying, some consoling their peers, no one knowing what to do. Hemamiya pointed with her fingers and immediately two young girls grabbed the bloody sheets and ran from the room.
“Hemamiya,” I said. “Choose two of your most trustworthy women to assist us… ones that have borne children themselves. Get the rest of them out of here!” I turned toward the Queen, then back again to Hemamiya. “One more thing you must do yourself, Hemamiya. Go to the head guard and have him cordon off the Queen’s compound. No one is to be allowed to enter. I want no one within earshot.” The poor woman’s face was contorted in pain as if she, herself, had been skewered by an enemy’s blade. But, I, too felt skewered by the same blade, for I loved the Queen as surely as if she were my own flesh and blood.
“But, isn’t there…?”
“Every second you waste is a second I cannot spend saving the Queen’s life,” I lied. “Go!”
As Hemamiya raced out, whispering orders for all to leave except for two of her charges, I threw the sheet off Neith-hotpu’s pale body. She lay still, her legs straight on the bed, despite the birth process having begun.
I grabbed the Queen and hoisted her up on her pillows. Then I placed a straw-filled matt under the Queen’s buttocks. I positioned one woman on each side and had them hold the Queen’s knees bent up toward her chest. I quickly coated my hands with juniper juice.
Opening my surgical bag, I removed the wood birth canal openers my mentor Sisi, a Ta-Sety shaman, had given me. These openers had no equal in all of Kem, such are the healing arts of the Ta-Setians. Yet, I had to carve and sand the wood pieces for use in the smaller birth canals of Kemian women. I inserted the longer wooden blades into Neith-hotpu’s birth canal and spread them apart, holding them open with a wooden dowel, then quickly wrapped the attached piece of rawhide above the dowel.
With the opener in place, I immediately saw that the suppository I had placed in the Queen’s birth canal had worked, perhaps even too well. The Queen’s womb was fully open, but the baby’s breech position had begun to tear the opening. Blood spurted from several torn arteries. The baby’s head was still not visible.
I inserted both my hands into the canal and tried to ascertain the baby’s position. The women holding the Queen’s knees were white with fear. The baby’s head was bent backward at the neck, its chin caught on the inside of the pubic bone. The more the Queen’s womb contracted, the greater the risk of breaking its neck. If I did not act immediately, both mother and baby would surely die.
Hemamiya had been standing behind me throughout, watching, and talking softly to calm the Queen’s young handmaidens. She handed me a towel soaked in juniper juice. I cleaned my hands and instructed the two women to lower the Queen’s knees. I motioned to Hemamiya to follow me.
Out of earshot of the two maidservants, I turned toward Hemamiya. “May the gods have mercy on us, dear Hemamiya. There is no choice to what I must do… and quickly, too.” Tears ran down her cheeks.
“But, we are two of us used to doing what we must do.” I glanced at the Queen and took a deep breath. “The baby is stuck. They will both die if we wait any longer. As is, I don’t know what damage has been done to the new prince.”
“She is so young,” Hemamiya sobbed, protesting for both of us.
Only last year Hemamiya and I had been present at the blessing for the Queen’s first flow of menstrual blood. “Yes, fourteen years… much too young.”
We stood in silence for a moment, as the two women stared at us. “They will be of little use to us now. The two of us can handle what needs to be done. Dismiss them while I make ready.”
Hemamiya gently ushered them out of the room, as I took my place by the side of the Queen’s bed. Hemamiya soon joined me. As I removed various surgical tools from my bag, she placed them neatly on a wooden tray. I silently offered a prayer to Horus and Osiris.
“Hemamiya, set up a stand of water and a cloth to wash off the Prince once he emerges. Once I sedate the Queen, we have but a few moments to complete this or…” I did not need to finish my statement. The two of us worked as if in a trance, shutting out the unthinkable for as long as possible.
“She is sedated now. She will feel no pain, Hemamiya… that I promise you.”
I passed my hands over the Queen’s body three times, while Hemamiya covered her eyes. “Ra, father of the sky and Upper Kem, we have done our best to prepare our Queen for life in the hereafter, even though she leaves us in the ascending years of life. She has been a good daughter, a good wife to King Scorpion, and a fair and just Queen. Her heart is light. She has worked hard to bear a son for the King. Please judge her with compassion and sail with her on the heavenly boat to your palace in the Western sky. Please make it so.”
Hemamiya looked up at me, her face flushed. “Hemamiya, you will need to draw upon all your strength for what I am about to do.” She stared straight back into my ka.
“I am ready.” I placed my finest flint knife on the Queen’s abdomen and traced my path with the handle. “I will make a cut from here to here. There will be much blood and it will look very bad,” I whispered, hardly believing I was speaking such words. “If necessary look away, but you must hold the skin firmly on your side and pull it gently toward you as I cut.” Tears steadily fell from Hemamiya’s cheeks onto the bed sheet, but she held herself from sobbing fully.
“Do you understand?” She only nodded. “I am depending on you to do this, Hemamiya, or I may cut through her womb and cut the baby, too.”
“You need not worry,” Hemamiya said.
I closed my eyes in prayer for a moment to ask the gods to guide my hands, and to beg their forgiveness if I did not succeed. Then I made an arcing cut from just above and to the side of the Queen’s navel, down toward her pubic bone and then back up the other side. I attached the three cop
per hooks of the retractor to the flesh near the lowest point of the arc, each hook with a rawhide cord attached. Still fixated on my cut, I handed the cords to Hemamiya and reminded her to pull back gently. I heard a muffled moan rise from deep in her throat and looked up to see her nose and eyes running freely now.
With the top layer of skin peeled back, the Queen’s swollen womb was clearly visible. I picked up a smaller flint knife and carefully cut into the base of the Queen’s womb. The sweat from my dripping brow stung my eyes. Blood quickly obscured my view. We mopped it away with rags from the pile Hemamiya had stacked by the bed. After what seemed like an eternity, the walls of the womb began to part and I could see strands of dark, matted hair. My heart quickened.
Placing my left hand into the womb to protect the baby’s head and upper trunk, my right hand traced the blade along the baby’s body, until the cut was large enough to free him. I put down the knife. Holding the baby under his arms, I pulled him firmly from the Queen’s limp body into Ra’s light and placed him on the bed sheet.
Next, I tied the umbilical cord with a thin piece of goat rawhide a few inches from the baby’s abdomen and tied it off again, a few inches away, then cut between them with a special, engraved flint knife that I had commissioned for the birth. As I turned the baby over onto my left hand, I noticed that Hemamiya stood rigidly, still holding the retractors.
“Hemamiya,” I whispered. “Hemamiya… let go the cords.” She registered no recognition, looking as if she were following the Queen into the netherworld.
“Hemamiya,” I said again, louder. “Help me with the Prince. Quickly now!”
At that, Hemamiya looked up at me with such dark, blank eyes, my blood ran cold. She dropped the laces as one might discard the pit of a date. Like the spirit of the dead, she shuffled a few feet down the bed, opposite to where I held the baby. She knows the Queen’s ka has left her body, I thought, and like the dutiful servant she is, hers has departed, too. My heart pained at the thought.
The Dagger of Isis (The First Dynasty Book 2) Page 40
