Suti and the Broken Staff

by Jerry Dubs

  Whose foot fits the strange sandal?

  Has Lord Imhotep departed the Two Lands? How is that possible?

  Feeling my fingers twitch in eagerness to hold a reed brush, I decided that I should write my list of questions. I was at the intersection of two hallways in the palace and turned, thinking to return to Nakht’s office. However, I was reluctant to disturb my sleeping master.

  I turned to look down the intersecting hallways, trying to remember where each led, where I might find an abandoned office. As I thought, my nose was assailed by competing aromas. I took a step into the hallway to my right. Sniffing, I inhaled the warm, yeasty aroma of baking bread: The kitchens.

  Curious about what other smells I could detect, I returned to the intersection, and, holding my breath, I turned to face the other passage. I exhaled to clear my nose and then sniffed gingerly, my head tilted upward to ease the passage of the air. Focusing my attention on the warm air that entered my nostrils, I sensed a floral scent floating atop an edgy tincture of incense. Incense and flowers … oils! Perfumes! The harem of Pharaoh Thutmose.

  The aroma lured my attention back to the night in the garden at Men-Nefer and to Queen Merti’s delicate skin, caressed by starlight and separated from my hand by nothing more than a tremulous teardrop.

  “Suti?” a young voice said.

  “Ipu?” I said returning from my reverie.

  “I didn’t know you were in Waset,” Ipu said, her face brightening into a smile.

  “I just arrived, Ipu. And you, have you been here long?” I asked, dropping to a knee to bring my face to her level.

  “We arrived yesterday,” she said. “My mistress is with her sister. You can’t see her,” she said, her mouth forming an official frown.

  I nodded. “I understand, Ipu. I am sure that she is very busy. I was here to visit my old teacher, Nakht. He taught me to read and to understand the stars.”

  Ipu smiled, uncertain what to say about the stars.

  “Is Queen Merti well? Was the trip pleasant?” I asked, feeling like a little boy tiptoeing about a bakery, hoping to snatch an unguarded piece of bread.

  Ipu nodded. “She is well. But she is sad that Prince Amenemhat has rested from life. We are happy that he is reborn in the Field of Reeds, but he was just a little baby. He would have been pharaoh when he grew up. He would have been a great pharaoh,” Ipu said, no doubt repeating words she had heard others say.

  A guard passed, his body briefly blocking the light from a wall torch and casting a passing shadow on Ipu’s upraised face.

  I saw the shadow as a sign of the darkness mentioned by Nakht and I thought: This is all connected … the approaching darkness, the death of Prince Amenemhat, the disappearance of Queen Menwi and Lord Imhotep. It was said that Lord Imhotep could travel through time, journeying into the past or to the time that has not yet arrived. Was the darkness a sign of his passing?

  “What is wrong, Suti?” Ipu asked.

  “Nothing … everything,” I said, my thoughts moving too rapidly to be constrained by words. “Please tell Queen Merti that I miss her. I mean, tell her that I will not fail her,” I stuttered, my thoughts on Pentu, who was both friend to Kebu and son-in-law of Lord Imhotep.

  Rising, I touched Ipu’s cheek, thinking her skin a vessel to transmit my touch to the queen.

  “I must go, Ipu,” I said, turning to hurry to the house of Pentu.

  I Understand

  Having no litter or chariot, I commanded my feet to carry me down the broad thoroughfare that stretched from the palace toward the Temple of Amun and beyond that to the suburbs of Waset where Pentu lived.

  Trusting my feet not to lose their way, I turned my thoughts inward as I passed the double line of strange, stone beasts, replicas of the guardian that rose from the desert near the ancient pyramids of Saqqara.

  As I walked, I imagined myself as Neith-as-a-spider tugging on the disparate threads of what had become a tangled mystery. It seemed to me that each of the strands was tethered to Lord Imhotep.

  It was Lord Imhotep who had taken Queen Menwi from the safety of the army.

  It was Lord Imhotep’s great-grandson that Queen Menwi carried.

  It was Lord Imhotep who had saved Kebu and made him his protégé.

  I passed the tall, angled pylons of the Temple of Amun without noticing them. I walked with deaf ears through the boisterous market that sprawled along the river. Eventually, shade from the tree-lined avenue of the suburb where Pentu lived fell upon my overheated head, and my mind returned to my body.

  Stopping at the wide wooden gate in the wall that surrounded Pentu’s home, I remembered that Pentu had been a royal physician, and that his wife — Lord Imhotep’s daughter — had been Keeper of the Wardrobe for Pharaoh Hatshepsut.

  It struck me now that I had never appreciated how elevated my teacher and associates were; they had always treated me as an equal.

  I thought about the awe that I heard in Ipu’s voice when she spoke to me and the respect that Pairy’s downcast eyes revealed. Even irreverent Huy was deferential to me.

  I wondered: Do they regard me as a noble? Am I so removed from the daily life of others that I do not share their common thoughts?

  I placed my hand on the wooden gate of Pentu’s estate, but my thoughts arrested my movement. I ceased pushing against the boundary that separated the home of Pentu from the rest of Waset.

  Turning my eyes to my hand, I realized that the heavy, aged wood it rested against was not an inanimate substance. No! It was the relic of a living tree. Life had coursed through this gate, giving it the strength to rise from the ground and tower over walls. Life’s echo still lived within the wood.

  I felt the slow, irresistible strength of the once-living tree pulsing within the gate, giving it the power to hold the outside world at bay.

  No!

  It was not protecting the house from the Two Lands, it was constraining the power that pulsed from this house, which was the sanctuary of Lord Imhotep. The gate was a heka shield that held Lord Imhotep’s anger at bay. I realized that if I dared to push open this door, I would be awash in the power of Lord Imhotep’s immortal ka. His knowledge would flood through me and I would understand Kebu’s disappearance. I would find Queen Menwi. I would be able to offer solace to Queen Merti.

  Oh, I was curious.

  And so, I leaned my weight against the gate of Pentu. The wood gave way to my will and I entered Pentu’s walled garden.

  ***

  I saw movement off to my right by a sycamore tree that stood with arms sheltering a stone bench. A pair of rock pigeons, their iridescent necks shimmering in the light, had flapped to the ground by the bench and were watching me. Above them, from deep in the shade of the sheltering tree, came the sweet su-seer song of a barn swallow.

  I paused, my ears alert, my eyes waiting for a godly apparition, perhaps even the darkness prophesied by Nakht. But I heard only the birds and saw only the pleasing greens of the trees, the subtle nod of color from flowers planted by a small pond, and, beyond them, the stately façade of the home of Pentu.

  Now a shadow moved within the doorway, and I held my breath in anticipation. Would Lord Imhotep emerge? Or Queen Menwi, carrying an infant in her arms?

  “Suti?” a voice called, and, leaving the house, the shadow took form and raised its arms in greeting. “Come in, come in from the heat, young scribe. I thought you were off in Canaan or Gaza or some other distant place with Pharaoh’s army destroying barbarians.”

  The words rode on the sound of Pentu’s voice, but I would not have recognized the doctor. I remembered Pentu as an older man, but one whose back had not yet yielded to the pull of Geb. Only a few months ago, when I had last seen him, the physician had walked with an eager bounce in his step. His face had been turned fearlessly to the future.

  The man who approached me now lifted arms weighted with fatigue. He walked with stiff legs, driven by will, not by eagerness. His face had retreated behind a mask of sorrow.

&n
bsp; Opening my arms to embrace the doctor, I felt a fragile curtain of skin supported by frail bones.

  Pentu patted my back and pulled me close as a father embraces a son. When he released his hold and stepped back, I saw that his eyes were moist with tears.

  “Come in, Suti,” he said, his voice fragile. “I’m sure that you remember the water sluice Imhotep had me install. It swirls past jars of beer and wine. Come in, sit in the shade, drink some beer, and tell me about life outside this quiet, empty city.”

  As I passed the sycamore tree, a swallow took flight, its split tail spread wide as it soared skyward.

  Swallows are the vessels of departing souls, and I wondered: Whose ka has just taken flight?

  Looking back to Pentu, I saw him wipe his eyes, and I realized that the doctor was aware that his son had died in distant Megiddo. I turned to look for the swallow, wondering if I would be able to recognize the ka of Neferhotep.

  And then I was struck with a question: How did Pentu know about his son’s death?

  ***

  I saw Pentu’s home with different eyes now.

  The furniture in the large reception room — a square wooden chest raised on legs, a tall chair with a short, curved back, and second chair with a high back, its surface painted with a series of serving girls carrying platters of food and jars of wine, a wide foot-stand resting before it, and a low, foldable, eight-legged bed — was grander than the furniture of my room in the temple at Men-Nefer, yet this chamber seemed more like a tomb than a space occupied by the living.

  I wondered: Where are the flowers?

  Maya, Pentu’s wife, always kept vases of flowers in the room, and large wooden baskets that held flowering trees. And birds. I remembered being amused by the presence of a hoopoe with its tan-and-black-striped, pointed crown. Tamed by Maya, the hoopoe had strutted about the room and called its soft, bubbly hoo-hoo-hoo song, always bringing a smile to my face.

  Pentu approached me with two silver cups in his hands. Extending one to me, he said, “This is the honey-flavored beer that Imhotep insisted that I keep on hand. I thought it was too sweet when I first drank it, but now I look forward to the honey taste. If I recall, you enjoyed it as well.”

  I accepted the cup and sipped the amber-colored beer, my nose enjoying the floral fragrance.

  “Thank you, Lord Pentu,” I said, lowering the cup and holding it with both hands. “I always enjoyed visiting your home.”

  Pentu shrugged. “My home,” he said. The words fell from his mouth with no enthusiasm.

  “It is where I live, but…” His eyes flickered across the room and then returned to me. He asked, “Have you ever seen the shell that a moth leaves behind? No? Imhotep was fascinated by butterflies and moths. I don’t completely understand the difference,” he said with a small smile and a shrug, “but Imhotep assured me that there is one. Akila agreed, so it must be true. Imhotep enjoyed stretching the truth, playfully, but…”

  He shook his head, a smile bringing life to his eyes and then quickly dying.

  “In any case, they begin as worms with legs and then form cocoons where they change into a winged moth. It is quite amazing. When the moth shrugs free, it leaves behind a husk, the once-living shell in which it lived while transforming.” Sitting in the high-backed chair, Pentu nodded toward the other chair.

  As I sat, Pentu continued, his voice growing distant, “This house has become an empty shell without Maya.”

  “And Neferhotep,” I said quietly. Pentu’s mouth tightened, his eyes grew distant.

  “You know about his death,” I said softly.

  Pentu looked down into his silver beer cup for a moment and then nodded.

  “Is Lord Imhotep here?” I asked.

  Pentu shook his head. “No, Suti, I am alone. Terribly alone.”

  “But how did you know about Neferhotep?” I asked. “Who told you?”

  “A messenger,” Pentu said, his eyes moving away from mine.

  “I am sorry that Neferhotep was killed,” I said. “He was brave. The charioteers admired him greatly. His heart was light, Lord Pentu.”

  In the silence that followed, I looked about the empty room. Pentu’s description was apt. The walls were dusty, the furniture unused. No laughter came from the kitchen where the slaves should be preparing…

  No, there were no slaves, I remembered. At Akila’s insistence, the slaves had been freed. Pentu and Maya then hired them as servants, paying them and giving them time to be with their families. Apparently Pentu had sent them away, perhaps to give himself privacy to grieve.

  Unconsciously, my eyes began to notice evidence of the lack of servants. A small ringlet of dust lay on the floor near the rectangular chest — a spill that had dried, leaving its outline behind. A wad of linen lay on the floor beneath a corner of the low bed.

  I suddenly wondered: Why is there a bed in this room?

  Looking back to Pentu, I saw that he was watching me, his eyes sad and cautious.

  “I had a guest,” Pentu said nodding to the bed.

  I rose from my chair and picked up the wadded cloth. It carried a brown stain.

  “Your guest was injured, Lord Pentu.” I held out the linen for Pentu to see. “The guest was the messenger you mentioned. But it was not a royal messenger, it was Kebu, wasn’t it?” I said.

  Taking Pentu’s silence as affirmation, I said, “I am searching for Kebu, Lord Pentu. I was sent by Lord Amenhotep to find Queen Menwi and Lord Imhotep. Kebu was sent before me, but he didn’t return. I have followed him up the river. I must find him. Please help me, Lord Pentu. Where is he? Where is Lord Imhotep? Where is Queen Menwi? Pharaoh Thutmose longs for his wife’s return.”

  Pentu closed his eyes a moment and then looked back at me.

  “Kebu said Pharaoh Thutmose would send someone. I didn’t think it would be you,” Pentu said.

  “Lord Pentu,” I said, kneeling before him. “I found Kebu’s chariot at a small crossroads town. I found a body there, an assassin, I believe.

  “The only tracks leaving the village were of Queen Menwi’s chariot. The tracks led me to Gaza and then to Men-Nefer. But Lord Imhotep and Queen Menwi have not been seen in Men-Nefer. Then I learned that Kebu had taken flight from Men-Nefer on a boat bound for Waset.

  “What did he tell you? Where has he gone?” I asked.

  Pentu drained his beer cup and rested the empty cup on his leg. I saw his eyes move from the room to the past. Or perhaps to the future when he would rest from life and be reunited with his beloved wife and son.

  ***

  I was young, yet even one as inexperienced as I could see that Pentu had lost interest in remaining in the Two Lands. I am older now than Pentu was — the river of time flows slowly, slowly, slowly, carrying us forward in a relentless current that abandons us on this strange shore where there are no friends or family to share our memories. Yet sitting here in the distant future — my legs weak, my eyesight frail, my ears unable to distinguish between the sounds of the world and the murmur of my memories — I still long to wake each day. Perhaps for no better reason than that another day will lead to another night when I can rest my head on a pillow and direct my dreams to the days of my youth. For, in those dreams, I can resurrect my love, I can embrace what was withheld, I can speak the words that I could not allow my tongue to form.

  ***

  “Lord Pentu,” I prompted, bringing him back from Khert-Neter.

  “Suti,” Pentu said at last, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his legs as he looked at me, “Imhotep taught me … well, Akila had as much a hand in it as Imhotep.”

  He paused and shook his head, casting aside thoughts of the past. “Imhotep and Akila taught me that there are different pathways to the truth.

  “Our understanding rests on what has come before. The fire was hot yesterday; I know that it will be hot today. I do not need to put my hand in it.” Pentu paused and raised his eyebrows, waiting to see if I understood.

  Having heard these same word
s from Lord Imhotep himself, I nodded.

  “But when we encounter something new, or something that is not what it seems, then we have no past experiences to guide us.”

  “A ladder,” I interrupted, eager to have Pentu complete his explanation. “I know this idea, Lord Pentu. One must begin with sure knowledge — the first rung of a ladder — and then carefully add a second. The reasoning of each rung must be solid and secure. If constructed in such a way, then the ladder of thoughts will lead to an unseen truth. But if a single thought is not true, then the ladder will collapse.”

  Pentu lowered his head. I saw him gather his thoughts and then he said, “Lord Imhotep was a god.”

  “Was?” I said.

  Pentu held up a hand. “A god can be slain, but he cannot die. As you know, Seth killed Osiris, but Osiris still lives, so it was not death. Perhaps they are like that legged worm that dies within a cocoon but is reborn.”

  “And Queen Menwi?” I asked, struggling against my impatience.

  “Suti,” Pentu said, “I will not lie to you. I would not add a feather’s weight to my heart. I must see my wife in Khert-Neter. I promised Kebu that I would not repeat what he told me. I cannot break that promise. It would add as much weight to my heart as uttering a lie. And so I cannot speak.”

  “But Kebu knows,” I said, my thoughts hurrying past Pentu’s hesitant words. “He has told you and he has sworn you to secrecy.”

  Pentu bowed his head. “I love you and trust you as a son, Suti…,” he began.

  “But a secret shared is no longer a secret. I understand, Lord Pentu. Where has Kebu gone? Or is that a secret as well?” I asked, embarrassed to hear the edge of anger in my voice.

  “He has returned to Ta-Seti,” Pentu said. “But you will not find him, Suti. That is his home and he will hide well.”

  I got to my feet. As I did, my leather bag swung forward on my shoulder and the weight of the strange sandal bumped against me. Silently thanking the gods for reminding me, I pulled the sandal from my bag. Resting it in my hands, I held it out for Pentu to see.