by Robert Dixon
Chapter Seven
The palace was in quite a state when I re-entered through the hole in the wall. Servants were weeping and everyone seemed in great mourning. “Where have you been?” I heard my sisters calling down from the hall balcony, “Something terrible has happened… and it’s all your fault!”
“Oh! No!” I thought, as I bolted up the palace stairs, “The advisor couldn’t have struck so soon… I wasn’t gone that long!” I hauled paw as fast as I could to the king’s chamber.
I passed the advisor in the hall and I heard him remark as I passed, “Some protector you turned out to be!” I also heard a slight sinister chuckle as well.
As I entered the chamber I saw the king’s physicians surrounding the bed and the queen was standing by the balcony clutching a worry shawl. I let out a loud howl and all eyes turned to me, including my friend, the king. “There you are!” he said, “I knew you wouldn’t run off and leave me!” I could see the king had his leg wrapped up tight with a stick inside the wrap. I could see pain on his face and my heart sank. “I was so stupid to think you had run away!” the king said, “So stupid!” He lay back on his headrest as I jumped to his side. He motioned for the physicians to leave and then the queen came over to the bed as well. “I don’t know what possessed me to think I should…” he paused, “I knew you would return to me, my friend.” His eyes looked a bit droopy and I realized the physicians must have given him something to ease the pain. “Stupid chariot….” he said before he drifted to sleep, “Stupid wheel…”
The queen was holding his hand as he drifted off then even she reiterated, “All your fault! Amun!” Then she did something she had never done before, she swatted at me and pushed me off the bed! “Scat! Leave us alone!” I was dumfounded as to how this all had occurred in such a short time span and left the chamber in search of my sisters. I found them where they usually reside, on the bed in their human’s chamber.
“I hope you are happy with yourself!” one of them hissed, as I entered.
“Yeah! Oh! Grand Protector! Not!” said the other.
“Look!” I hissed, “I’m pretty upset over all this as well! I came here to find out what happened!”
One said, “If you would have stayed put, nothing would have happened!”
“But no, you had to go run off and worry the king enough to make him go look for you!” said the other. It all started to fall into place.
I went missing, the king got worried that something had happened to me, then something must have happened to his chariot. “Stupid wheel”, he had said. Then he must have taken a tumble and hurt his leg. “It is my fault!”
I proceeded to tell my sisters why I had left and they started to feel sorry for the cruel remarks. They were relieved to hear that Mom was on her way to the Valley of the Kings. I also recounted the king’s plan to place us all in his tomb when his time came, and for the need for them to get to the valley as well. This last bit threw them a bit and they said that the life they had here was just too good to give up.
“Hunt mice in the sticks!” they exclaimed, “We’ll take our chances here.” I tried to convince them, but to no avail, they simply refused to give up their pampered life for freedom. I had failed again, first to my king and now to Mom. I left their chamber and almost ran right into the advisor.
“You couldn’t protect him forever!” he snickered, as I noticed some metal ring swinging on his finger, “Accidents do happen!” With that the advisor almost skipped down the hall. I just know he had something to do with this, and I was going to find out! The king was still sleeping and the queen still refused to let me in, so I went about to get my proof… then my revenge!
The chariot stables were toward the other side of the palace. This side is patrolled and protected by another large mau, whose fur was so golden that they called him Ra after the Sun God himself. I entered and was immediately accosted by Ra! “Protector my paw!” he said as he knocked me into a feeding trough for the horses, “I should shred you now!” With that he extended his claws and swung them toward my face, but being a bit younger than he and smarter, I rolled away and sprang out of claw reach.
“Now hold on!” I hissed, “Can’t you give a cat a chance to explain?”
Ra was sitting back on his haunches ready to launch himself again and said, “No explanation will heal the hurt you caused, Amun, but, I’ll give you to the count of ten to convince me not to kill you now! One…”
I proceeded to tell him,
“Two…”
Of my mission to save,
“Three…”
My mother and of the long distance,
“Four…”
The caravan had traveled,
“Five…”
Before I could catch it,
“Six…”
And return to the palace,
“Seven…”
I noticed that Ra had started to twitch in his stance, which signaled that he was about to spring so I decided to tell him of my suspicions of the advisor.
“Eig… the advisor?” Ra questioned, but had stopped twitching. “What about him?”
We discussed the whole issue of the mysterious visits late at night and of the incident in his room, of which Ra said he had heard about and had a good chuckle over the description of the advisor dangling from the lamp chain. I also told him about the comment he had made when I returned from the rescue of my mother. When I described the ring that he had swinging from his finger, Ra’s ears perked up a bit. “Describe this ring.” he said, clearly relaxed now and curious. In the sand I took my claw and drew a circle with a straight piece coming down from it, like a thin key. “Follow me.” he said and padded toward the back of the stable. He sensed my hesitation and laughed, “Relax! I believe you.”
“Whew!” I thought, “About time something went right today!” Ra turned the corner to the chariots and paused at one of the wheels.
“Does this look familiar?” he asked. I looked at what he was pointing to and I saw the same type ring on the end of the wheel.
“That’s it!” I said.
“So that’s what he was up to…” Ra started, “I saw him fooling around with the king’s chariot after the servants got it ready to go.” I knew then that the advisor had made swift use of my leaving to plan an “accident”, but even though he had done this to the chariot I was the one who was ultimately responsible. I had failed to protect my king by saving my mother. Ra was talking about getting revenge on the advisor, but all I could think of was my friend laying up in the bed. I knew the queen was mad at me but I had to get close to him. I thanked Ra for the information and promised him that he, and I, would get that revenge, but for now the king needed a guardian and exited the stables toward the palace.
