by Jerry Dubs
I withdrew my hand, stared at the fingers and then, raising my hips, I tugged my kilt off. I pushed some of the linen into the webbing and then carefully pulled it free, keeping the leather straps pulled apart. The kilt was smudged with more of the dark brown flakes.
Using my heels, I pulled myself from beneath the chariot. Once my head cleared the undercarriage, I sat up and examined the flakes on the kilt. Bringing the kilt close to my mouth, I darted my tongue out and tasted one of the flakes.
“That is disgusting,” Pairy said.
“What is it?” Turo asked.
Naked, I got to my feet and held the kilt out for them to inspect.
Pairy took a step backward while Turo leaned in close to look at the dirty linen.
“Here, right here,” I said, pointing to a soft brownish-red smudge.
“It is blood,” I said when I saw that Turo didn’t plan to taste it.
“But there is only a little,” I said. “So the chariot was not carrying someone with a grievous wound.”
Looking at the linen in my hand, I realized that I was once again without a clean shendyt.
“Turo,” I said, “would you please run to the barracks and find someone to loan me a shendyt. I don’t want Lord Amenhotep to hear that I was wandering about Men-Nefer in dirty linen.”
As the charioteer jogged away, I turned to Pairy.
I knew that the charioteer was a different man than I. Pairy had been trained to fight, to kill. I had been raised in the side rooms of the palace and worked with Lord Imhotep and Lord Amenhotep. Pairy was weaned on beer, I drank wine. Pairy was at home in Seth’s Cave while I preferred the solitude of a temple garden.
Yet we needed to work together and to trust each other.
I said: “The motion you created with your hands … the palms slapping together. It means coupling, doesn’t it?”
Pairy looked at his feet.
“I never saw it before. At first I thought it was some strange clap, some way to convey appreciation, like the slapping of sistra or the snapping of fingers. Here hold this,” I said, extending the filthy kilt.
Pairy frowned, but he took it, lowering his head.
“You saw my energetic walk and the enthusiasm in my face and decided that I had lain with someone last night. Then, because you had seen me talking with her, you concluded that it was the little girl Ipu. That’s why you whispered to Turo,” I said.
“Look at me, Pairy,” I insisted softly.
When the charioteer looked up, I spread my arms wide.
I said: “I stand before you naked, Pairy. I have nothing to hide. My life is open. My ka is blameless. My heart is light. If you have questions of me, ask. If you suspect that I have done something wrong, that I have spoken falsely, that I have taken what is not mine, that I have not acted with honor, you must tell me. Confront me.
“In my own way, I would be a weapon for Lord Amenhotep and for Pharaoh Thutmose. If I am to be their sharp edge, then you must be my whetstone. You must scrape away my impurities. Allow no stain to remain on me. Can I depend on you for that?”
I reached out and grabbed Pairy’s arm, squeezing it lightly to bring the charioteer’s eyes up to mine.
“I did not lie with the servant girl Ipu. She is a child. I know that you view me as little more than a boy, but Ipu is too young to lie with a man or a boy. The enthusiasm you see in me is for my hope that we will discover the fading trail of Queen Menwi,” I said.
Pairy nodded understanding.
I gave the charioteer’s arm a final squeeze and took the dirty shendyt from him, and turned to the sound of Turo returning with my clean kilt.
I Hear a Prophecy
Freshly dressed, I ran from the barracks to the temple.
My haste was foolish, for when I arrived I was covered with sweat. (It was one of those days when Re’s light falls with a heat that dances on your skin like a flame.) I walked the temple halls to my room where I wiped the dust and sweat from my skin, wrapped a clean shendyt around my waist, poured a few drops of oil onto my palm and rubbed it into my scalp.
Satisfied that my appearance would not embarrass Lord Amenhotep, whom I represented, or — most importantly — offend Queen Merti, should I encounter her in the temple halls, I walked to Lord Useramen’s office.
There were no guards or servants in Lord Useramen’s outer chambers, so I walked to the entrance of his office and waited there a moment, listening for sounds.
Hearing no voices, I cleared my throat loudly.
When there was no response, I said, “Lord Useramen, I have news.”
I followed my words into his office and found Lord Useramen sitting at his desk, a blank sheet of papyrus waiting beneath a raised brush.
“We have found Queen Menwi’s chariot,” I said. “It arrived here four days ago.”
Lord Useramen looked up at me with unseeing eyes. I saw the letter I had delivered from my master lying on his desk by his right hand, as if he had been studying it.
He stared at me without speaking and I wondered if I had caught him at the moment of transformation into or from his owl form.
His unmoving hand still hovered over the papyrus with ink gathering at the tip of the reed.
“Your brush,” I said, stepping close to the desk and nodding at Lord Useramen’s right hand, which held the ink-filled brush over the papyrus. When he remained still, I reached forward and closed my hand over his. I cupped my other hand beneath his brush and caught the falling drop of ink.
The movement reanimated Lord Useramen. His chest expanded (owl’s feathers ruffled), his hand jerked away from me (a wing fluttering), and he gasped (a startled hoot).
“The queen is here in Men-Nefer?” he said, regaining his human voice and laying his brush on a wooden trough beside the inkpot.
“My charioteers found Queen Menwi’s chariot at the barracks last night. I examined it this morning. There were traces of blood in the leather webbing beneath the chariot floor. But only a little. I think it was from the childbirth, not from a wound,” I said.
With a flush of happiness, I realized that my fears might have led me to believe the worst when I spoke with Queen Merti. Perhaps Lord Imhotep had led Queen Menwi and her child here. Perhaps he had taken her to a safe house somewhere to nurse her to safety. Or perhaps he was hiding the queen and the new prince so that Pharaoh Thutmose would be the first to see them.
“You have seen the queen?” Lord Useramen asked in a hopeful voice.
“No, Lord Useramen. Only her chariot,” I said.
“And you say the chariot was abandoned here last night?” he asked.
“No, Lord Useramen. The chariot was found at the barracks just after Re appeared on the seventeenth day of the second month of Shemu,” I said. “Four mornings ago,” I added when I saw Useramen begin to study his fingers.
He ignored me.
I watched him as, his faced turned down, he retraced the flow of time. He began to touch the finger of his left hand: one night, a second, a third. When he touched the fourth finger (the night the chariot arrived, I thought) he frowned.
Suddenly beads of sweat appeared on the top of his bowed head, and I wondered what unnamed fear had gripped him. What had happened four nights ago?
I leaned forward once more and, pinching the unmarked papyrus with two fingers, I moved it aside so that the sweat, which was now running down Lord Useramen’s face, would not spoil it.
Suddenly Lord Useramen came out of his trance.
“Perhaps Lord Imhotep has taken the queen to stay with one of his friends; perhaps he has a sanctuary here,” I suggested, hoping that Lord Useramen would direct me to the home of one of Lord Imhotep’s friends.
He looked up at me with wide eyes — not those of an owl, but those of a man who fears for his life. Then he moved from around his desk and said, “He has no friends here. All of them died many, many years ago.”
“Some other sanctuary,” I said, unwilling to let loose of the thread of hope that could l
ead me to Queen Menwi.
Lord Useramen stiffened. His eyes darted about the room as if he were surrounded by the kas of gods or the dead that I, a simple scribe, could not see.
He came out from behind his desk and walked past me as if I were not there. As he left the room, I heard him mutter in a hollow voice, “The tomb is a sanctuary.”
I Find the Trail of Kebu
With Lord Useramen abandoning me, I decided that the charioteers and I would search the city for Lord Imhotep and the queen ourselves.
I was raised in Waset, capital of the Two Lands, which carries itself with the royal bearing of Pharaoh Thutmose, third ruler born of the god Thoth. The city’s wide streets are swept each day; its market stalls are neatly aligned. The obelisks that rise before the tall pylons shine with precious electrum.
Standing now with Pairy and Turo in the swirl of energy that swept through the streets of Men-Nefer, I felt as if I had been transported to another land.
I was accustomed to a world filled with men and women who looked similar enough to be cousins, if not brothers and sisters, Now I found myself now hearing strange words spun with exotic accents, seeing robes striped with foreign hues. And the faces — oh, the faces! — some were wide as a jar, others as narrow as a reed brush; some carried noses that spread from cheekbone to cheekbone, others were accented with high-curved beaks. Even the skin was different: some as dark as night, others pale as the strands of inner palm bark used to weave ropes. I saw heavy eyebrows, plucked and painted eyebrows, and, most impossibly, eyes that were not brown, but green as old palm leaves or blue as the morning sky. One — I was startled to see — even carried flecks of gold.
I thought: Father Ptah throws as many different pots as Geb produces rocks.
“The taverns are that way,” Pairy said.
“The taverns?” I said. “We are looking for a queen and for a god.”
Pairy shrugged and said, “Even gods get thirsty. And travelers stop at taverns. There is always news.”
“That’s true,” Turo agreed, his tongue making a slow sweep of his dry lips.
Seeing that the charioteers were eager to visit a tavern, I nodded. “It makes sense to split up. You two go that way,” I said, motioning toward the even more crowded streets that Pairy had pointed to earlier. “I’ll look for quieter neighborhoods. And don’t forget, although we are looking for Lord Imhotep, just say an old man with a snake-carved staff…”
Pairy and Turo looked at each other. “There aren’t very many old men with snake-carved staffs. We could just say we are looking for Lord Imhotep,” Pairy suggested.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t want rumors to start that he is missing. And the same with Queen Menwi. Ask about foreign women, well-born ones. Don’t say anything about the queen being missing. And ask about Akila, she has a silver ring in her lip, people would remember that.”
“What about Kebu?” Turo asked.
“Yes, definitely Kebu. I haven’t seen any Medjay warriors walking about here. He’s tall and darker than most of the others,” I agreed.
I looked up to Re and then glanced down the crowded streets that led from the market. I knew that the neighborhoods nearer the river were lined with large mansions, many with their own ponds. I started to calculate how long it would take me to stop at each house and ask about strangers.
I wondered: Will I need more than one afternoon to search them?
I realized that I didn’t know the number of streets or how many homes lined each street. Then, looking beyond the market to the palm trees that lined the river, I had an idea: I could estimate the distance and so calculate the number of homes I needed to visit.
Holding out my arm, I turned my hand palm down and then angled my arm skyward until my fingers were aligned with the top of the palm trees.
“Pairy,” I said, without moving my hand, “please, come over here and stand beneath my hand.”
I saw Turo and Pairy exchange smiles, but Pairy sidestepped beneath my hand.
“Put your hand atop your head,” I said, holding my arm steady. “No, not flat, make a fist. Yes, like that. Now, step sideways. Yes. Good!” I said when the third knuckle of Pairy’s fist aligned with my raised hand. Turning my head to look over my shoulder, I said, “Now, Turo, pretend that there is a string that starts at Pairy’s third knuckle. Imagine that the string follows the slant of my arm downward and reaches the earth. Where would it touch the road?”
“What kind of string?” Turo asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Leather, twisted reeds stems, palm bark, sheep gut.”
“So, a magical string that could be anything?”
“Yes,” I said, aware that my arm was starting to grow heavy. “Just mark where would it touch the road.”
“A leather one could be drawn tight, but sheep gut might tear,” Turo said. “So ..”
“A stick. Imagine a straight stick running from Pairy’s knuckle, following my arm. Where would the stick touch the ground?” I asked, suspecting that Turo was trying to make this calculation more difficult.
“I’ve never seen a stick that long. Not a straight one, anyhow. Willows droop so much it’s a wonder the tree can stand. Now cedar trees, they have straight trunks. I don’t know about the branches.”
Pairy said, “I feel silly standing here with my hand on my head. What are we doing?”
I shook my head.
Even if I did calculate the distance to the river I didn’t know how large the estates were, so a reliable estimate of the number of homes I needed to canvass would be impossible to make.
I lowered my arm and nodded to Pairy. “You can put your hand down now,” I said.
The charioteers exchanged another smile and then Pairy said, “Where should we meet you?”
“At the temple entrance at dusk,” I said remembering that I had told the two street boys to meet me there.
***
Frowning, I leaned against a palm tree and massaged my left foot. It was late afternoon, and the palm tree shadows that stretched across the market plaza of Men-Nefer rippled with movement as they rode the shoulders of the sellers and the buyers and the servants who milled about the plaza.
I pushed my thumb against the arch of my foot, working my way toward the heel that hurt with each step.
The injury was all I had gained from my afternoon.
I had walked the suburban streets of Men-Nefer. I had followed the streets to the river, then wound along the river and entered another maze of curving streets. As I reoriented myself for the fifth time by aligning my path to Re’s barque, I wondered why the rich seemed to prefer winding roads to straight streets.
I decided: A straight path is shorter and easier to follow; therefore, the rich must prefer to hide.
I had entered courtyards with blossoming trees that sang with birds, and paved plazas that led, like a river of stones, to sprawling homes. I had talked to fat merchants who were home, having delegated their work to managers or sons. I had chatted with busy servants, with tree trimmers, and with slaves whose Egyptian consisted of little more than obsequious nods.
But no one had seen an old man with a staff, or a pregnant woman wearing rich robes, or a light-skinned woman with a silver ring in her lip. All that I had discovered was that even the best neighborhoods have sharp stones lying in them.
Balanced on my right leg, I leaned forward to examine the bottom of my left foot. I saw a slight swelling near my thumb, which I was pressing on the thick calluses of my heel. But I saw no blood. I rubbed my thumbnail against the tender spot, feeling for a rough flap of torn skin.
I lowered my leg and rested my weight on the ball of my foot. Then I slowly lowered my heel to the dirt. I felt no pain, so, I shifted my weight back. I felt a dull pain, only a small discomfort. Then, as I rocked back to test it further, a sharp bolt of pain shot through my heel and up my leg.
“There he is!” a young voice called.
Standing awkwardly on my right leg, — and feeling li
ke one of the priest-storks surrounding First Priest Puimre in the sacred pond — I looked to the sound and saw, briefly visible and then hidden among the legs and robes of passersby, the boy with the birthmark.
Struggling to maintain my balance, I raised a hand to wave acknowledgment to Min. The boy smiled and then reached out a short arm to tug his friend Ahmose into view.
Watching carefully for stones, I hopped back to the palm tree on my uninjured foot and, with hands steadying myself on the trunk, I lowered myself to the ground.
Sitting, I bent my leg to bring my heel closer. I was massaging the tender foot when the boys skidded to a halt, sending a brief whirlwind of dust toward me.
“Are you hurt?” Min asked, staring at my foot.
I nodded. “I stepped on a sharp stone.”
“I guess it was a real stone,” Ahmose said.
I looked up with a smile. “You make a valid point, Ahmose. Feeling our bodies interact with an object is one way for us to be certain that it is real.”
The boys looked at each other for a moment and then shrugged in unison.
“We didn’t find Lord Imhotep,” Min said.
“But we found some other strange person,” Ahmose said.
“Well, we didn’t actually find him,” Min said.
“No,” Ahmose agreed. “We didn’t see him or touch him.”
“We just heard about him,” Min said.
“Ears are as reliable as eyes,” I said. “What did you hear?”
“A strange man wearing a cloak got on a boat,” Ahmose said.
“It was a boat that takes cedar upriver,” Min added.
“To make other boats, I think,” Ahmose said.
I held a hand to stop the boys. “What did the strange man look like?” I asked.
The boys shrugged. “He was wearing a cloak. They said he was big and he walked funny, like he was hurt.”
