by Jerry Dubs
“Yes, the gods intervened,” King Djoser said finally. “And yes, Djefi is guilty of treason. And yes, Teti, he will be punished. Do you know why I did not order him executed today?”
He smiled to himself, as Teti remained silent. It was good to see that Teti had learned that there was a time for listening.
“You are young and strong, Teti,” King Djoser said.
“You can teach a donkey by beating it, but it is hard work and you will never be able to trust it. But if you train it by rewarding it with food, then you have spared it and yourself pain and it will be more trustworthy. You can lead men by making them fear you. They will fight for you and obey you. But if they love you, then they will die for you.
“When I saw the statue Djefi had made, I decided to embrace it. He wanted a confrontation, which he knew he could not win unless something happened to me. Which, of course, he expected. So, I embraced the statue and welcomed Sobek as my protector, not an equal, but a protector. This eliminated the intended insult and, as you saw, proved to be true. Sobek did protect me. The other priests saw that I was not threatened by Djefi’s offense. I was above it, bigger than Djefi, bigger than Sobek.
“That will raise me in their eyes.”
“But the attack, father,” Teti said.
“When I saw the statue I knew Djefi was part of the plot.”
“You knew? Did you know about the crocodile?” Teti asked eagerly.
King Djoser saw the excitement in his son’s eyes. He smiled in return. “Yes, Teti,” he said.
“How?”
King Djoser looked off in the distance. Should he bring Teti into his confidence or keep him at arm’s length a little longer? Would the boy be suspicious that his father was treating him like a child?
“Do you think that I am what I say I am, the living Horus?”
“Yes,” Teti answered without hesitation.
“You are sure?” King Djoser asked.
Teti nodded his head with certainty. “Yes, father. I am certain. If you are a god, then I am the son of a god, someday to be a god myself.”
Imhotep stopped eating and held his breath, waiting to see the King Djoser's reaction.
King Djoser threw his head back and laughed, openly and loudly. He leaned forward and clapped his son on the back. “The answer I would have given,” he said, still laughing.
Teti beamed at his father’s open show of affection.
“Sometimes, Teti, I know things, things I have no reason to know. This is the truth. Last week when we were sailing down river, I was happy that the land would be replenished, I was filled with joy that my offering to Khnum had been accepted. I felt as if my body could no longer contain my spirit and it seemed to soar above and beyond me. I saw all the Two Lands, the river, the fields, the people, the temples, the markets, the brewing houses and bakeries, I saw the fishermen on the river and the fish and crocodiles and snakes and hippos beneath it. I saw the desert and the mountains, the hawks and vultures and song birds that fly above it and the lions and deer that live below them.
“My heart was lighter than the air and I knew that I was blessed and the gods would embrace me and protect me.
“So when I learned about the plans Djefi and Kanakht had made I was unafraid.”
Teti nodded. “Did you know about Nesi also?”
King Djoser’s face lost its humor. “Yes, Teti. That was why Bata and Meryptah were there. They were watching him, protecting you.”
“I could have protected myself if I had known,” Teti said softly.
“I know. But you know that I would not allow anyone to harm you. I needed you to act unconcerned so that I could learn who all the plotters were. I asked no more of you than I did of myself.” He leaned toward Teti as he saw questions hanging behind his eyes.
“I am a god, Teti. Make no mistake about it. I knew that I would not be harmed. I knew that you would not be harmed. You may think I was taking a chance, putting you at risk. But I tell you, as Horus, as the Eye of Re himself, I had no doubts.”
Father and son looked into each other’s eyes for several heartbeats and then Teti lowered his eyes.
King Djoser watched him, looking for signs of rebellion, a hint of sulking, but it seemed that Teti was digesting the information, not questioning it.
“What will happen to Djefi now?” he asked, turning the conversation to the future.
King Djoser took a long drink of wine.
“This is very good,” he said to Imhotep.
“I like the wine, King Djoser, but your beer makers are fantastic. I have never had better beer.” He looked down at his small belly. “It is easy to drink too much of it.”
“I sent him back to To-She, Teti,” King Djoser said turning back to his son. “He protested that he had no part in Kanakht’s plans and that Sobek had saved me, not attacked me. I answered that the temple had been desecrated by the spilling of blood and could not be used for three years. He can return then to try again to dedicate it.”
“Then what is his punishment?” Prince Teti asked.
“Death. But not here in front of everyone. I want Sobek to be a protector, not an adversary. I would not have the god lose face by killing his First Prophet. No, Djefi will return to To-She, thinking and planning for his return to power. I will continue my journey down river, following the flood and celebrating with the people.
“Teti, you will take half the king’s company with you, under your command, to Ineb-Hedj and wait there for me. When I arrive we will go together to To-She. We will visit Djefi and take him on a hunting trip to the western mountains where we will use him as bait for desert lions, as he wished to use me for the crocodile.”
They were quiet for a moment, and then Imhotep spoke. “What if he tries to flee?”
Father and son looked at him as if he had just suggested a hippopotamus might grow wings.
“Where would he go?” King Djoser asked. “There is only Kemet. There is a desert to the east and to the west. The sea lies to the north and hostile Nubia to the south, along with my army. I control the River Iteru.”
Imhotep nodded in agreement, but he thought of one way out of Kemet that King Djoser didn’t know about - the unfinished tomb at Saqqara. It was where he would flee if he were Djefi.
Waja-Hur knew he was going to die.
He looked across the length of the boat and saw the fat priest sitting under his awning, eating and drinking, always eating and drinking. He looked to Waja-Hur like a petulant little boy, withdrawn from his friends, turning inward and finding only an empty shell that he forever tried to fill.
There was madness about him.
Waja-Hur had seen Djefi’s face when the crocodile was eating the living entrails of Makare. His eyes had been wide and gleaming, his lips moving softly. He had almost quivered with excitement, like some animal in heat.
The old man sighed softly, the air rattling through his small, withering chest. He lifted his eyes across the rising level of the river to the green trees that lined the banks.
Such a soothing color. The color of Khert-Neter.
He turned to the fat priest, almost started to walk toward him to ask about Kanakht: Why wasn’t he on the boat, where was his old friend? Then, like a desert mirage shimmering into focus, a memory returned of Kanakht writhing in a pool of blood, a huge crocodile standing beside him with a bloody stump of flesh protruding from its snout.
Waja-Hur cried out in fear, his hands gripped the boat railing. Was it a memory or a premonition? There was a scent of incense, a smell of sweat and fear with the memory, a clue Waja-Hur recognized now that this was a memory, not a vision. So Kanakht was dead. As the words ran through his mind, he recognized that they had been there before. Tagging along behind them was guilt: He had done something wrong. Fear lingered there too, and it took the shape of the fat priest.
Brian was sitting up and his color had already begun to return.
It was three days since the assassination attempt. Hesire had tended the knife wo
und which had hit high enough to miss Brian’s kidneys, glancing off the back of his rib cage, cracking a rib, but missing his lungs.
“Ipy,” Imhotep said in English. “King Djoser insists on calling you Ipy. So, how are you, Ipy?”
“Ipy?” Brian shook his head.
“Ipy is a strong goddess, she is magical protection. It is an honor, Brian. She is a hippopotamus, strong, powerful,” said Pahket, who was sitting beside him. She leaned her head against Brian’s shoulder.
Brian started to laugh, then groaned suddenly as the movement tugged at his wound.
Imhotep and Pahket looked at him strangely.
He spoke to Imhotep in English. “Ell him my mahical ame ih Oode.”
“Oode?” Imhotep repeated.
Brian rolled his eyes. “Ig ebowki. Remember?” He cocked his head. “I ed remember!”
Tim shook his head. Brian was amazing. He had been tortured, almost fed to a crocodile, knifed in the back and still his spirit’s remained high. He hugged Brian. “Dude, you are something else,” he told him in English.
Brian nodded his head excitedly and pointed to Imhotep. “Yeah, yeah, Oode!”
Imhotep laughed now. “Got it, you want the king to call you Dude.”
Brian beamed.
What he wanted to do was wrap his hands around the old man’s throat and choke him until he turned blue.
Djefi emptied his cup of beer and stared out across the water. In another two weeks they would be at Khmunu and he would put Waja-Hur ashore. He couldn’t be trusted. The old man had lost his mind. Three times in six days he’d asked Djefi where Kanakht was, why wasn’t he on the boat with them.
“He’s crocodile shit by now. Stinking turds sinking to the muck at the bottom of the river,” Djefi had told the old man the last time he’d asked. The old priest had looked at him like he didn’t understand and then suddenly his eyes had misted over and tears ran down his cheeks.
Too late for that, Djefi had thought.
He couldn’t believe that Waja-Hur had walked up beside King Djoser and pronounced him pure of heart, like he really was the god Thoth and not some raggedy old man who had lived too long, his body an empty shell, his mind gone.
Djefi stared across the water, but he saw nothing.
He had been banished to To-She. The king hadn’t used those words, but that was what had happened. It was only a matter of time now. In a few weeks, a few months - what did it matter to the king - someone would come to To-She and they would kill him. Djefi knew it. It’s what he would do; it’s what any man of power would do.
There was no place to run and he knew that he couldn’t hope to fight the king. I have Siamun, the king has an army.
He threw his beer cup over the side of the boat and watched it bob and tilt along the surface. He saw himself as the cup, floating along, driven by the currents. His face set in grim concentration.
In his heart he knew he was lost. He had clung to the hope that having Diane in his possession would somehow give him bargaining power with the king. But after seeing the king drive his spear through the body of his vizier, after seeing the blood lust in the king’s eyes, Djefi knew that Diane wouldn’t make a difference.
He couldn’t barter, he couldn’t fight. His only chance was to flee.
But where?
Suddenly he thought of Diane again. Not her beauty, not her relationship with Brian or Imhotep. No! She was a stranger. She had come from some mysterious land that no one had ever heard of before.
That’s where he could flee. He only needed to persuade her to tell him how to get there.
They put ashore at dusk, the fading light casting long shadows in front of them on the shore at Khmunu. No one, not even Nimaasted was there to greet them.
After his boatmen secured the boat, Djefi sent them into town to get a sedan. Until King Djoser sent an assassin, he was still First Prophet of Sobek and he would not walk when he could be carried.
While Djefi was waiting, Waja-Hur decided to leave the boat. Djefi called after him, ordering him to stay on the boat. The old man ignored him and walked up the bank toward the town.
Djefi clenched his hands and thought of the pleasure he would have shortly.
Thoth departs
They found Waja-Hur’s body crumpled on the floor of his hut.
Nimaasted helped to carry the small body to a boat to be taken across the river the place of purification. There he bathed Waja-Hur’s body in a solution of natron, sanctifying it and preparing it for mummification.
The chief embalmer took charge of Waja-Hur’s body then, wearing a jackal mask as he removed the priest’s brain, coated his face with resin and carefully repacked the cranial cavity with resin-soaked linen rags.
The internal organs, except the heart, were removed to be embalmed separately and placed in canopic jars. Waja-Hur’s empty body was stuffed with more resin-soaked linen and gently set down in a trough where it was covered with natron crystals to dehydrate for forty days.
When Tama and Hetephernebti arrived, Waja-Hur’s body had been in the care of the embalmers for almost a week.
“What happened?” Tama asked Nimaasted.
“He was old, Tama,” Nimaasted said, his love for the old man thickening his voice. “He was eager to leave Kemet for Khert-Neter.”
Tama closed her eyes. She was suspicious of the timing of Waja-Hur’s death, but she heard the pain in Nimaasted’s voice.
“I’m sorry, Nimaasted,” she said. “I know you loved him as a father. He was a special man, truly dedicated to Thoth and to The Two Lands.” She waited a few moments to separate the questions she wanted to ask from her condolences.
“What I meant to ask, Nimaasted, was how did he pass?”
“I don’t know. He returned from Kom Ombo in the evening. I was not expecting him so soon.” He looked at her, his face drawn and worried. “I’ve had no news, Tama, but there are rumors reaching us that something horrible happened at the dedication.”
“You’ve had no messages from the king?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Just rumors. They say the king was attacked but turned himself into Sobek and ate his attacker. They say Waja-Hur regained his youth and spoke with the voice of a god, cleansing Kemet and returning The Two Lands to ma’at. They say the king’s new adviser killed a man by pointing his hand at him. They say Makare was trying to kill King Djoser.
“Is this true?”
Hetephernebti, who had been silent until now, put a hand on Nimaasted’s shoulder.
“The voice of the gods is in these stories, Nimaasted. I was at Kom Ombo. I saw,” she said. “King Djoser did not turn into Sobek, but Sobek did devour the man who plotted against the king. He was Kanakht. And Waja-Hur was truly visited by Thoth. Of that I am sure. His face and voice became that of a young man, a man possessed by a terrible strength. He looked in King Djoser’s heart and saw the truth that is there. He pronounced him a god and proclaimed that Kemet had been restored to ma’at.
“The truth is in the river, Nimaasted. Do you see how it has risen? King Djoser made an offering to Khnum to show his love of his father. And now Khnum has unleashed a mighty flood.”
It was true. Nimaasted had never seen the waters rise as they were now. He heard the passion in Hetephernebti’s voice, saw the belief in her eyes.
“Nimaasted,” Tama said. “Did you see Waja-Hur after he arrived? Did you see him with Djefi?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Waja-Hur was traveling with Djefi. They must have arrived together.”
Nimaasted nodded. “Yes. Djefi came to me the night before we found Waja-Hur. He said the trip had exhausted Waja-Hur and that he had gone to his room to sleep. Djefi said we should let Waja-Hur rest, that it been his habit to sleep until late in the day while on the boat.
“He has been tired, Tama. And lately he has kept unusual hours, sleeping during the day and walking the streets at night. You saw that. So we waited until after noon before checking
on him. He was on the floor, his ka free.”
Tama took Nimaasted in her arms and hugged the young priest.
“I’m sorry, Nimaasted. But, as you say, his ka is free and he will soon walk the green fields of Khert-Neter, young and strong again.”
Brian had mixed feelings as Khmunu came into view along the river.
He was no longer an outlaw, and he was traveling with Imhotep who wore the menat as a sign of his royal office as adviser to the king. Tama and Hetephernebti had traveled ahead of them, so Nimaasted and Waja-Hur would know that he was no longer a hunted man.
Still, the town was where everything had changed for him.
He had been attacked by strangers and saved by a boatman. He had hidden from a search party and been rescued by Tama. He had fled the village in disguise and then found himself during the journey with Tama. He had loved and been loved.
He, Imhotep and Bata were traveling with Pahket and Meryt. They were a few days behind Hetephernebti and Tama, having waited at Kom Ombo for Hesire to be satisfied that Brian’s wound was healing properly.
They planned to stop to get provisions and news. After three weeks on the boat with the men, Meryt and Pahket were eager to be among women.
“Effi killed him,” Brian said, nodding his head with certainty.
Imhotep nodded agreement. “Probably, Brian, but I don’t know how we would prove it.”
They were standing in Waja-Hur’s room with Tama who had told them that no one had seen Waja-Hur alive after he had arrived with Djefi.
