by Jerry Dubs
The goddess was happy as a lion. She was free to roam the desert, to kill what she pleased. Thoth told her about the sadness that had spread throughout Egypt. She shrugged her tawny shoulders and growled in disinterest. Thoth told her about the pain of the people of Kemet and she yawned. He told her that her father wept and she paced and flicked her tail, eager to return to the hunt.
Thoth told her stories about the Two Lands, stories of pain and of joy, stories of great hunts and feasts, stories of the gods and goddesses and she listened. Thoth used his words, he sang his stories, he made the sounds and the empty spaces between the sounds into a net and eventually Tefnut’s interest was snared and she agreed to come home.
Tama and Hetephernebti stood together at the fringe of the crowd as Waja-Hur, with Nimaasted holding his arm, triumphantly led Tefnut’s homecoming procession through the courtyard.
Screeching baboons, representing the two gods, knuckle-walked beside Waja-Hur, casting anxious glances over their shoulders at a desert lion that followed them, kept at bay by twin acolytes holding golden leashes.
A train of musicians, dancers and acrobats accompanied them, surrounding six Nubians who carried a sedan chair on which the statue of a lion-headed woman was carried.
“I pray that the moisture does return,” Hetephernebti said, as much to herself as to Tama. “I watch daily for the ibises,” she said, referring to the flocks of birds that flew north into Kemet each year just before the flooding waters arrived.
Tama took Hetephernebti’s hand. “I watch for them, also.”
Hetephernebti turned to her friend. She brought her eyes up slowly and looked at the younger priestess.
“The time may come, Tama, when we must do more than watch and pray. It may be here now.”
Tama smiled sadly.
“It is not just my brother,” Hetephernebti said. She led Tama away from the crowd so they could talk privately.
“Djoser can take care of Kanakht. If not, then he doesn’t deserve to sit on the throne. The schemes of Kanakht do not concern me. No, don’t look at me that way, Tama. I love Djoser, he is my brother. But I do question what he has done. He is no god. I know that. You know that. I cannot argue that with Kanakht.
“My worry is with Djefi. Not just him, but others like him. I know they are watching and wondering and waiting, like a pack of jackals. They each believe in their god. And not just in their god, but that their god is the most important of all the gods.
“We all do, I admit,” Hetephernebti said.
“But we must content ourselves with the family of gods. I believe Re guides us best, you follow Ma’at, Waja-Hur follows Thoth. Each represents a different truth, a different aspect of the ma’at that guides us all, even the gods themselves. If Djefi is allowed to elevate Sobek, if the viciousness of that mean-spirited man is given free rein, then the spirit of Kemet will change.
“I will not allow it,” she said.
Tama had never seen this side of her friend.
“Hetephernebti,” she said. “We must trust the gods. Who are we to try to work our small wills over the gods? Do you not trust in Re?”
“I trust Re to be Re, yes. But I do not expect Re to raise a cup to my lips when I am thirsty or to wash away my sweat when I am hot. No, I do for myself. We all do. Re is Re. I must act on what I believe is his desire. I cannot believe that he would want Sobek to rise above all gods. Never! I will do everything I can to help Re, to stop Djefi.”
Tama was quiet, observing and thinking.
“Dear sister,” she finally said. “I do not like Djefi either. But think, he is doing what he believes Sobek wants him to do. He is acting just as you say you will act, trying to interpret Re’s desire and make it happen here in Kemet. If you act against Djefi, how are you different from him?”
Hetephernebti looked at Tama, her face composed, reflecting the confidence she felt.
“Because, Tama,” Hetephernebti said, “I am right and he is wrong. Sobek is an evil god, a destroyer. Re is a loving god, he nurtures Kemet. I will help my brother because Kanakht is an ambitious, grasping man and if he succeeds, then Djefi succeeds and I can not allow that to happen. Never.”
Tama was about to answer when Hetephernebti raised her hand.
A man had approached them, stopping short and waiting for Hetephernebti to signal him closer. She nodded her head and as he walked toward them, he said, “I bring a message from Samut. He said that the man you sent him to find is with him at Edfu. They wait for you there.”
“Brian?” Tama said to Hetephernebti.
“Yes. He must have escaped from the temple at Kom Ombo,” Hetephernebti answered.
Tama's eyes filled with tears of relief. “I am going to him.”
Heralds of the Flood
Prince Teti’s arm was withered and pale, his face was tense and worried.
Hesire had removed the last wrappings of the cast and were gently probing the prince’s forearm.
“No, it doesn’t hurt. Yes, I can feel it. Hesire, what is wrong with my arm? Look at it!”
“I am, Prince Teti, I am. What about this? Does this hurt?” He moved his grip lower to the spot where the bone had protruded through the skin. A dark jagged line marked where the skin had been torn.
“It’s all skinny and my hand feels weak.” Prince Teti clenched and unclenched his fist. “I have no strength. How can I hold a spear?”
Hesire turned Prince Teti’s arm over. He pinched the narrow forearm. Yes, it is more withered than I have ever seen, he thought. But the bone felt properly aligned. There was a small bump where the break had been, but the bone was solid and Prince Teti didn’t pull away or grimace when Hesire ran his fingers over it.
The cast Imhotep had created had done its job. To be sure, Rudamon had done the hard part - setting the original break. Hesire made a mental note to praise the young priest in front of King Djoser.
“Your arm is healed, Prince Teti,” Hesire said, finally releasing the arm.
“How can you say that?” Prince Teti asked. “Do you see it? It looks like a little girl’s arm. Something is wrong.” He looked in disgust at the healed arm.
“Prince Teti, you’ve seen newly born donkeys, haven’t you?”
Prince Teti nodded his head suspiciously.
“They can barely stand. Their legs are weak. But in a few days they can run and soon they can carry a pack.”
“I am not a donkey. You do not compare a prince of Kemet to a donkey,” Prince Teti said, straightening his back.
Hesire sighed. The boy had grown so much. He remembered squatting by the boy’s mother as she sat on the birth chair pushing the boy into the world. Looking back, Hesire thought, Prince Teti had always seemed aware of his status. He hadn’t cried so much as demanded the nursemaid’s milk. He had been imperious all his short life.
Perhaps he is the son of a god, Hesire thought.
“I am sorry, Prince Teti. What I meant to show was that the donkey’s legs are weak because they have not been used while it is curled up inside its mother. Your arm has not been used while it has been in this cast. Once you exercise it, it will regain its strength.” He bent down to his basket and pulled out an object Imhotep had sent from Abu. It was a small bag of sand, the grains sewn in a beautiful linen pouch embroidered with a vulture with its wings spread.
“Here,” he said as he handed the fist-sized bag to Prince Teti. “Imhotep said you are to use this, squeeze it with your right hand. It will strengthen your hand and your arm.”
Prince Teti took the bag and squeezed it with his weak hand. Then he took it in his uninjured arm and squeezed it. “Will it make this arm stronger, too?” he asked.
“Yes,” Hesire answered, happy to see Prince Teti’s enthusiasm.
“Good.” He took it back in his weak hand and began to squeeze it. “How long?”
“A few weeks. . .”
“Weeks!”
Hesire stifled a smile at the look of dismay on Prince Teti’s face. He tried to re
member when a week had seemed like a long time. He was sure that it had, but now the days flowed together so quickly that it seemed only yesterday, not six weeks ago that he had first met the strange Imhotep.
“It is not such a long time,” Hesire said.
“I was planning a hunting trip,” Prince Teti said. He tossed the sand ball into the air and caught it with his freshly healed hand. A smile lit up his face as he gripped the bag strongly.
“I’ll work harder,” he said. “I’ll be ready.”
Hesire allowed himself a chuckle. “I’m sure you will, Prince Teti. You are truly amazing.”
Prince Teti nodded in unabashed agreement. “Where is Imhotep? Is he still with my father at Abu?”
“Yes,” Hesire answered. “King Djoser refuses to leave Abu until the waters appear.”
Prince Teti tossed and caught the ball again, the action mimicking his father’s habit of tossing and catching an unsheathed knife. “Then I shall go to Abu to wait for the flood with my father.”
Imhotep and King Djoser hadn’t spoken a word to each other for nearly half an hour. The only sound in the king’s chambers was the raspy sound of the Senet sticks landing on the wooden table.
King Djoser gathered the four sticks and rolled them from his hand. Imhotep watched in bewilderment as they all landed with their black-painted side up. King Djoser reached across for the green cone, his last piece on the game board. He tapped the piece triumphantly against each of the six squares that led to the end of the board.
“Another?” he asked.
“How do you do that?” Imhotep asked, more to himself than to the king. He picked up the flat sticks and rolled them. Three landed with their black side up, the fourth showed its white side, the worst roll. He scooped them up and rolled again. All four landed showing black.
“Sure, now I roll it,” Imhotep said in mock exasperation.
King Djoser laughed.
“Hetephernebti said she thought you might be a god. Apparently she never saw you play Senet,” he said.
Imhotep realized that he was scowling over losing another game. Looking up from the beautifully painted game board he saw King Djoser smiling and watching him.
He started to laugh. “There are many ways I could prove to Hetephernebti that I am not a god,” he said. He reached for the sticks again. He shook them loosely in his hand and tossed them on the table again. Two white faces showed this time.
King Djoser scooped them up, rubbed them with his thumb and gently rolled them from his hand. They flashed black and white, tumbled against the Senet board and landed with only the black faces showing.
King Djoser smiled broadly.
“I’ve always been lucky at Senet. I used to think hard about the number I needed. Now,” he shrugged, “I just know that I will get what I need.” He slid open the drawer at the end of the raised board and carefully put the sticks away.
Imhotep picked up the playing pieces and added them to the drawer.
This was how their meetings began - a few games of Senet, which King Djoser always won, then the casual turn of the conversation to the topic King Djoser wanted to discuss.
“When I slept last night, Imhotep, I had a dream. Sleep is a strange thing when you think about it. Our bodies lie inert, but our spirits, ah, they fly. Don’t they? Some nights I dream of battles, some nights I dream of other conquests. Last night I dreamed that Khnum himself stood before me. Even as the god spoke, part of my mind said, ‘This is the dream Imhotep foretold.’
“And it was, Imhotep. It was.”
Imhotep felt a chill run up his spine as he heard the king talk. He had a brief disconnected moment as he wondered if his memory of history was being proven correct or if his suggestion to King Djoser that he would have this dream was creating history.
In another time he knew that he would have been paralyzed into inaction by this circular thought. Now he had adopted Meryt’s acceptance of life. If this was what happened, then it was happening. He would seize the moment, revel in it and live it as fully as he could.
King Djoser had continued to talk while Imhotep was lost in thought. His serene voice was tinged with amazement. “Khnum stood before me and he said he would put his arms around me, steady my body. He would safeguard my limbs. It was the most pleasant and comforting feeling.”
King Djoser turned to Imhotep.
“Do you have your papers, royal scribe?”
Imhotep opened his journal.
“The god’s words were so clear to me. I want you to record them while they still sing in my memory. Here is what Khnum said.
“He said, ‘I am master of creation. I have created myself; the great ocean which came into being in past times, according to whose pleasure the Nile rises. For I am the master who makes, I am he who makes himself exalted in Nun, who first came forth, Hapi who hurries at will; fashioner of everybody, guide of each man to their hour. I am Tenen, father of Gods, the great Shou living on the shore. The two caves are in a trench below me. It is up to me to let loose the well. I know the Iteru, urge him to the field, I urge him, life appears in every nose.’
“And he said, ‘I will make the river swell for you, without there being a year of lack and exhaustion in the whole land, so the plants will flourish, bending under their fruit.’
“I heard those very words, Imhotep. When I awoke, my heart was decided and at ease. I knew that my gift was pleasing to Khnum.
“Tomorrow Prince Teti will arrive. We will celebrate his return to health and I will make the sacrifice. Khnum will be pleased and harmony will return to the Two Lands.”
The Temple of Khnum filled only a small part of the northern tip of the island of Abu. The temple courtyard, enclosed by a low stone wall, was filled with fruit trees and flowering plants, a fitting display for Khnum who also was the god of fertile soil.
The grounds of the temple and the cleared area around it had become crowded with tents as guests arrived for the dedication of the gift King Djoser was bestowing on the temple.
High priest Sennufer was sharing his chambers with his son Sekhmire, his wife, Sati, and their son, Siptah, who had joined the commander at Abu for the ceremony.
Recognizing that the seven year famine was the most dangerous threat the Two Lands faced, King Djoser had abandoned Waset, his administrative center, until the water rose and the threat was gone.
He had even delayed his visit to the army beyond the second cataract. No military threat could do as much harm to Kemet as another year without a heavy harvest.
No ceremonies for other gods mattered to the king until this god who controlled the rise of the river was satisfied and showed his satisfaction by bringing the rush of silt-laden waters from beyond Nubia.
And so King Djoser had chosen to stay at Abu.
He met daily with Sennufer. He prayed to Khnum and made offerings. He had brought in a court scribe from Asuan, just across the river, to officially record the huge offering he was making to Khnum. Stone workers had been ordered to carve a stone stele commemorating the offering.
Prince Teti had arrived, the rest of King Djoser’s personal guard had been called back from their leaves, the boatmen had returned with them.
Ptahhotep, an elderly wrinkled man who had outlived all of his sons, was governor of the southernmost nome, which also was called Abu. Arriving on the island to watch King Djoser give away so much of his province, Ptahhotep had wisely chosen to embrace the king’s idea, offering his own scribes to help with the paperwork.
All was ready. The season of Ahket, the flood, was at hand.
Sekhmire wore a solemn face when he greeted King Djoser in the king’s chambers before the temple dedication.
King Djoser saw the change in the commander’s demeanor and raised an eyebrow in question. Before he could say anything, Sekhmire dropped to one knee and bowed his head.
“I know there is no need for this, King Djoser, I have pledged loyalty to you before. But I want to swear again before all the gods that I will prote
ct you with my arms, with my heart, with my eyes and mind, with my very spirit.”
He looked up earnestly at King Djoser. “This is not because of the gift of land to the temple or because my father is high priest. My father taught me to be humble before the gods, to value my friends and family and to serve the Two Lands. During our weeks here I have seen all of this in your actions. You are king of The Two Lands. Thousands of men serve in your armies. All of the land and the water, the fishes and the game, the fields of wheat and the stands of papyrus are yours. And still you humble yourself before the gods and make offerings to them.
“I swear to serve and protect you, King Djoser, Lord of The Two Lands.”
King Djoser laid a hand on Sekhmire’s shoulder, urging him to his feet. Once he was standing, King Djoser embraced him, holding him as he had dreamed the god Khnum held him.
When they moved apart, King Djoser saw tears in Sekhmire’s eyes. He clapped his hands on the commander’s broad shoulders and smiled at him.
“We will serve The Two Lands together, Sekhmire. The people will thrive and the gods will smile on us.”
Sekhmire nodded, unable to speak.
King Djoser clapped Sekhmire’s shoulders one more time. “Now, off to the temple. We must not keep Khnum waiting. Or your father,” he said with a wink.
“Here is some water,” Imhotep said.
Meryt shook her head wearily.
“You must have something,” he pleaded.
“No,” she said weakly. “I will just throw it up if I drink it.”
“Some bread?” he asked.
“No,” she said, laying her head on her arm. She was lying on the floor at the back of the room they shared on the temple grounds. Her head was just inches away from a half-open stone water drain.
