by Jerry Dubs
“That feels good,” she said, leaning back and offering herself to him without shame.
He laid the flat of his hand against her stomach and caressed her belly across her hip and the side of her thigh.
“I was covering myself in mud,” she said in a dreamy voice.
“Why?” His hand crossed her knee and drifted along the inner side of her thigh, feeling the warmth there.
“To let it dry in the sun,” she said, the words staggered and breathy. “I like to feel it tighten as it dries, feel it change as if the sun is making it come alive.”
His hand moved higher, brushing against the softness where he had entered her.
She leaned back on her elbows and sighed.
He traced a line across her waist to her chest and neck.
“You are beautiful,” he said.
She smiled and opened her eyes. “I think you see beauty everywhere, Imhotep.”
“Is that how you think of me?” he asked, “As Imhotep now?” His fingers linger on her lips, and then began to slowly move across her cheek and down her neck.
“Yes,” she said.
He followed the delicate lines of her collarbone to her breastbone, down the line between her breasts.
“Yes,” she said again, “I think of you as Imhotep.”
His thumb caressed the arc of the ribs just above the softness of her belly.
“Tim is too small a name for you now.”
Across the side of her waist, pausing on the defining shape of her hip, following the line down and across her thigh.
“Imhotep is the right name for you.” She lay back completely, as he kissed her neck and began to follow the path of his fingers with his lips and tongue.
Side-by-side they lay on their backs, touching hands, looking up at the cloudless sky.
There is a true difference here, Imhotep thought. Not just in the land, although that is different. The world is so much younger, the air has been breathed less, not yet channeled through the fire of coal furnaces, steam engines and cars, not yet scarred with the millions of anguished screams from wars not yet waged, not torn by the shrieks of jet engines, rockets, missiles, bombs and bullets.
Will the colors fade in years to come, or do I just see them differently now? Is the air sweeter, the sun brighter, the water softer?
My mind is less cluttered, with fewer decisions, less worry about the day-to-day concerns that seemed to fill it before. With less mental clutter, do I see and hear more clearly? Is my mind less separated from my body?
He felt Meryt prop herself up on her elbow and look down at him.
The back of her hand swept lightly against his cheek, brushing against the stubble of his beard. She rubbed his chest, across his stomach and then held him, tugging gently. “Do you ever touch yourself like this?” she asked, squeezing him.
He nodded. “Yes,” he answered, surprised that he was not embarrassed by her question.
She bent down and kissed him once. “So do I. But it is different when you touch me. Is it because I don’t know what you will do next? Is it because your skin and touch are different from others? Or is it because I want you to touch me and so I think it feels different?”
Surprisingly he felt himself begin to stir under her touch.
“Touch me like my brother,” she commanded him.
Tim squinted up at her. He remembered reading that some of the kings of ancient Egypt married their sisters, or at least called their wives ‘little sister.’ He didn’t know if it was a term of endearment or if royal incest was proper.
“Here,” she said, presenting him with the bottom of one of her feet. “Tickle me, like my brother used to when we were little and fighting.”
When he didn’t move, she said, “I want to see if your touch is the same as his. Tickle me.”
He rolled over and grabbed her ankle with one hand and began to tickle the bottom of her foot with the other. She kicked her leg, but he held on as she laughed and rolled, trying to get away.
“Stop,” she said.
“Was it the same?” he asked, laughing with her.
“I don’t know,” she said, gasping for air. “I think it was. But look!” She grabbed her own ankle and tickled her foot. “Nothing! If another tickles me, I cannot control the feeling. If I tickle myself, nothing. If I touch myself here,” she put her hand on her groin, “it can feel good if I want it to, but at other times, nothing. It depends on what I want. But here,” she stretched her foot in the air, “Here, I have no control. I cannot tickle myself. Here I can, there I can’t.
“Are you the same way? We must investigate,” she said, laughing as she lunged for him and they began to roll across the beach.
Imhotep and Djoser
When they returned to the temple complex, Meryt said she needed to send a message to Hetephernebti at Waset, to let her know what they had learned about the attack on Prince Teti.
“What can she do?” Tim asked.
“She can ask King Djoser to appoint someone she trusts to guard Prince Teti, maybe my brother, Meryptah. He is a member of the House Guard and he is someone Hetephernebti knows.
“And she needs to know what happened,” she said. “Nesi wouldn’t have just attacked Prince Teti, someone ordered him to do it. There had to be some kind of reward promised. Hetephernebti is going to the festival of Thoth at Khmunu. Kanakht will be there, as will priests from throughout the Two Lands. Whoever ordered Nesi to attack the prince will probably be there.”
Meryt shrugged. “I don’t know how Hetephernebti uses her knowledge, but she knows, more than anyone, what is happening in Kemet. She has friends all along the river and others, like me, who tell her what we see and hear. Sometimes she sends people out to different towns and festivals. I know that she writes many letters to her brother and gets many messages from him.
“That was how I found you. She heard from someone in Ineb-Hedj that a god had appeared there. She sent three of us to find you.”
“You were sent to find me? But I saw you, that morning by the river. I found you.”
Meryt nodded. “Yes, you found me, but I was looking for you. I knew who you were when you waded across the river, remember? You raised your kilt to keep it dry but you were wearing something underneath. I knew you were the stranger then.”
“You were watching me at the festival. It wasn’t an accident that you were waiting in the tunnel, was it?” he asked.
She nodded again. “Yes, I was watching you. I didn’t know you would come into the tunnel, but I was watching you. I saw you find the path that Hetephernebti uses to cross from the island and I saw you try to talk to Diane before Yunet woke up. When she grabbed at you, I gasped and almost turned to run for the guards.”
“The guards?”
“Yes, I would have had them arrest you for Hetephernebti. Just to save you from Djefi. But then you escaped and I was able to lead you to safety.”
For a second Tim wondered if what had passed between them since had been at Hetephernebti’s direction, but he quickly discarded that notion and felt embarrassed that he had even considered it. Meryt had never been anything but open and honest with him. He knew she was intelligent and certainly knew much more about ancient Egypt and how things worked here. He trusted her. He trusted that she was exactly what she seemed.
“You said that Hetephernebti sent three people looking for me. What if one of the others had found me?”
Meryt laughed. “They didn’t, Imhotep. You found me and now here we are.
“When I was younger,” she stopped and looked up at Tim earnestly, “I know that you think I am still very young. But when I was younger, I worried about everything. Was I walking the right way to be a priestess of Re? Did I say the right things, with the right tone of voice? I tried so hard to be what I thought Re and Hetephernebti wanted me to be.
“Hetephernebti saw this. She is wise, Imhotep, so very understanding. She told me to stop trying. She said Re loved me the way I am, with my eye to the side, wit
h my peasant accent, with my skinny legs, with my curiosity about everything. She said that in a way, with his warm rays, Re was worshiping me just as I should worship him. And that the best way I could worship him was to be me. The gods had shaped me this way. Why should I be unhappy with what the gods had done?”
“When I went looking for you, I was ready to find you, or to not find you. I was not in a contest with the others. And, look, you found me. Did Hetephernebti send three of us looking for you so that you would find only me?” She laughed again. “I love Hetephernebti and I think she is so very wise, but she does not see the future.”
“So you think the gods intended for us to be together?” Tim asked.
She shook her head smiling. “I am not so important that the gods plan my days. I honor the gods, Re above all, but I think I am on my own. Of course Hetephernebti helps me, she is wonderful, but I think my happiness and life are my own, not owed to or owned by any gods. If I step into the river and a crocodile eats me, it is because I chose a foolish action. If I fall in love with a man and he beats me, then I have chosen a bad man.
“And when I do something foolish, it is up to me to fix it. My friends can help me but this is my life.
“When I saw you I thought you were beautiful, but I did not know you. Then when Hetephernebti asked me to stay with you and teach you, I got to know you and I liked you. Then when I was ill and you saved my life, I thought that I loved you, but I was afraid that my feelings were being influenced by what you had done. So I watched and waited to see how you felt and how I truly felt. If you had not wanted me, then I would have accepted that, Imhotep. Not because it was what the gods wanted, but because it was that way.”
Tim shook his head. “Here I thought you were just a mindless creature who smears herself with mud,” he teased.
“Tama speaks of that,” she said. “Not that I smear myself with mud, but about being mindless. I don’t understand exactly what she means, but I know she means it in a good way. She says that our minds cloud our thinking. You know, when you tickled me and I couldn’t tickle myself. That has to be my mind. I know that my skin feels it the same way. It has to. But my mind decides that one touch should make me laugh and another should not. So sometimes I think I should not trust my mind, but should trust my heart instead.
“Tama teaches that there is a deeper way to see things, where the mind is used, but something else helps you to see and understand. Hetephernebti teaches acceptance and love, but her mind is constantly occupied. She thinks about the people of Iunu, about her brother, the king, about The Two Lands. She and Tama are very much alike in many ways, but I think they are very different, too.”
She stopped and put her hand to her mouth. “I am sorry. I talk too much. It is my heart, Imhotep. It is full to bursting because of what we have done and it is singing.”
Tim smiled, his thoughts filled with admiration for Meryt. She was so young, but she had so much to teach him. “My heart is singing, too, Meryt. Now, go send your message to Hetephernebti. I must go see King Djoser and tell him what I’ve learned.”
King Djoser, Sekhmire and Imhotep left early in the morning to survey the lands on the east bank of the river near the temple of Khnum.
Meryt stayed at the temple to work in the bakery.
“I miss making bread, grinding the flour, working the dough with my hands. Go,” she had told Imhotep.
Three days had passed since Meryt had sent a letter to Hetephernebti. King Djoser also had sent a message north to his sister at Waset after hearing Imhotep’s theory of what had happened to Prince Teti in the river.
Bata had been told that he would stay at Abu with them until King Djoser traveled north to Kom Ombo.
Sekhmire and King Djoser rowed the small boat across the water, the king enjoying the physical activity, pulling hard and challenging the younger soldier to keep up with him. Imhotep watched, wondering if Sekhmire was trying as hard as he could or if he was allowing King Djoser to move the boat in a slow curl.
When they reached the bank, King Djoser jumped out first to pull the reed boat up on the bank. Sekhmire and Imhotep splashed into the water and waded onshore.
King Djoser’s skin was glistening with perspiration, but his breathing was steady and even. He held out the palms of his hands for Imhotep to see. “Look,” he commanded. “These are the hands of a soldier. They can row a boat without tearing or blistering, throw a spear, swing a sword. But they get no use now. I sit, I listen, I send messages.”
He clapped his hands together.
“Now, Imhotep, let us look at the land that you want me to give to the great ram-headed Khnum.”
Turning, he led the way inland.
They explored more the next day and the day after that. Imhotep drew maps as they walked, identifying fields and boundaries, labeling huts that they saw, asking the residents their names and the names of their fathers and fathers before them.
“Isn’t this recorded anywhere?” Imhotep asked King Djoser toward the end of the third day. “Doesn’t the governor of the nome have records?”
King Djoser tossed his head back and laughed. Sekhmire smiled, but kept quiet. King Djoser clapped Imhotep on the back. “You are a strange man, Imhotep. So smart, and so innocent. Or are you making a joke, pointing out something I should know, but haven’t seen?”
Imhotep shook his head. “I am sorry, King Djoser, I only thought . . .”
“Yes,” King Djoser said. “Of course. The governor has records. I am sure he would show them to me, what choice would he have? But those records and maps would be different from the ones we are making. His maps would show that he owns more than he does. Or he might have other maps that for my tax collectors that show that he owns much less than he has. Don’t frown, Imhotep. I would do the same.
“So, I could look at his maps and say this and this will go to the temple of Khnum. I would have to trust his maps to show the fields and the homes, wonder if they are good land or not, worry if I was taking land away from a poor farmer.
“Or, and this is what we will do with the maps you are making, I could show him my choice of the land, based on what I have seen. He will know that I have walked the land myself and that I would know that the maps he will show me are not truthful.
“To avoid losing face, he will never show me his maps. Instead he will accept that my maps are accurate, which they are. He will see the wisdom of my decision and realize that giving up the land he claims to own will be less trouble than arguing over a claim he cannot prove because he would have to show me maps he has hidden from my tax collectors.
“He will act generous, I will accept his generosity as my due. I am king after all. We both will act our parts with honor and the god Khnum will benefit. And the river will flood.”
He looked hard at Imhotep. “Or so I am told,” he added.
That night King Djoser called Imhotep to his chambers.
The maps Imhotep had drawn over the past three days were spread out on a table, held in place with rocks. King Djoser was standing at the table, leaning forward, his eyes on the maps. Imhotep went to the table and stood opposite King Djoser, waiting quietly until the king raised his eyes. The playfulness that Imhotep saw there so often was missing now.
“This offering must be generous, but I must not take too much land from the governor. There is a balance to maintain. You understand?”
Imhotep nodded his head. There was fertile land near the river, but some of it was rocky, its fields interrupted by large boulders dropped there eons ago by the river. At other spots, the riverbank rose sharply, the arable land on a steep slope fit only for trees. Still other areas were flat, they flooded easily and then held the rich silt deposits.
“This is what I have decided,” King Djoser said. He pointed to tracts of land with a silver knife. “This, this, this and this I will give to Khnum,” he said.
Looking at the map, Imhotep pictured the land in his mind and remembered the words of the Famine Stele he had read about that n
ight so long ago at the Mena House.
According to the engraving on the stele, King Djoser had given land on both sides of the river from the water as far as the distant mountain ranges, including all the settlements on those lands. King Djoser had also given the temple the right to take a tenth of the gold, ivory, wood and minerals that came into Kemet from Nubia and the hunters and fishermen in the lands given to the temple were required to give a tenth of their fish and game to the temple.
The offering King Djoser was suggesting was far, far less.
“It is a generous offering to Khnum. It is what you said I should do,” King Djoser said. “The river will rise.”
Imhotep looked at the table, unable to raise his eyes to King Djoser, unsure what to say. Was the stele wrong, was his memory flawed? He had hoped that King Djoser would have suggested making the same offering described on the stele.
Once he had gotten over the shock of being named Imhotep, he had felt that it was right, that somehow his passage through time was necessary, that if he hadn’t followed Brian and Diane something fundamental would have been changed.
When he thought about it too much, his brain curled up in the fetal position and surrendered.
But now he worried that if King Djoser didn’t make the offering history recorded that some other fundamental shift would happen and the future that had unfurled to his time would be changed. For better or worse, he had no way of knowing, but suddenly he felt the weight of the unborn lives, all waiting for their chance to live.
One of them was Addy. One of them was him.
The future had to follow the path it had followed or else he wouldn’t be here.
Although the thought made sense as it crossed his mind, it became elusive and slippery when he tried to examine it. Still it left him with a hollow, aching fear. King Djoser had to make the right offering.
