by Jerry Dubs
Maya blinked away tears and Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s face wavered in the play of shadows on the mirror and reformed itself as Maya’s own face, tight with anxiety.
Pharaoh Thutmose and Pharaoh Hatshepsut were absolute rulers with control over all life in the Two Lands. If Amun told Thutmose that Maya’s death was needed to restore ma’at, then Maya would die.
There was no one to whom she could appeal.
She hoped that after her death Thoth would weigh her heart and find that she had been pure. Then she would enter Duat and, eventually, find her way to the Field of Reeds.
Her eyes filled with tears again and, looking in the mirror, she saw her mother’s face staring back at her now. A wave of happiness washed against her. Although she would leave Neferhotep and Pentu when she rested from this life, Maya would be reunited with Meryt.
And soon, as all did, her husband and her son would join her in the afterlife.
She picked up a linen cloth and dabbed at her eyes.
She had lived in ma’at. She had honored her parents. She had served the Two Lands with joy.
Her fate now was in the hands of Amun and Thutmose.
Only Pharaoh Hatshepsut could intervene now and she was lost in her dream of Ta Netjer.
The Sixth Hour of Night
Leaning on his walking staff, Imhotep stood by the dry canal and watched Akila bend over Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who had awakened and was sitting on the back of Bek’s chariot.
Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s fever had abated and a few minutes ago she had tugged weakly on Bek’s shendyt and asked him to stop.
Akila straightened up and turned to Imhotep.
“She’s hungry and thirsty,” Akila said, her voice carrying more happiness than Imhotep had heard for several weeks.
Imhotep quickly walked to the chariot he was using and pulled one of the water skins from it. He took it to Akila and then returned to the chariot to look for the least moldy bread that remained in their supplies.
Turning back to Bek’s chariot, he saw Pharaoh Hatshepsut slide her legs from the chariot bed. Bending beside her, Akila helped the ruler to her feet. Pharaoh Hatshepsut steadied herself with a hand on the chariot and looked around in the darkness.
“Where are we?” she asked, her voice hoarse from disuse.
“Very close to Waset, I hope,” Imhotep answered, offering Pharaoh Hatshepsut a round loaf of bread.
Pharaoh Hatshepsut glanced at the food and then looked to Akila, who took the loaf. She tore off a small piece, peeled off the hardened crust, and gave it to Pharaoh Hatshepsut. “It should be fine, if you chew on the other side,” Akila said.
Pharaoh Hatshepsut moved her jaw gingerly as she took the bread.
“The bleeding has stopped,” Akila told her. “But you’ve been asleep for two days. That’s why you feel weak. You need to eat. When we get to Waset we’ll make soup.” She gave Pharaoh Hatshepsut her most optimistic smile. “You’ll be strong soon.”
Pharaoh Hatshepsut chewed gently, her eyes unseeing as she tested her teeth. She swallowed awkwardly and then paused, her tongue probing the aching tooth.
“The pain has gone, but the tooth isn’t right,” she said.
“I know,” Akila said sympathetically. “We’ll have Pentu look at it. I’m sure he knows who can best treat it.” She put a hand on Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s shoulder. “You’ll be fine. The worst is over.”
Pharaoh Hatshepsut nodded in absent agreement and then motioned to the bread. Akila tore off another small piece and gave it to her.
“We should go to Pentu’s home, not to the palace,” Pharaoh Hatshepsut said. “Once I am strong enough to appear in public, I’ll return to the palace and relieve Maya.”
“Look!” Bek interrupted.
They turned to the chariot driver and saw that he was pointing ahead of them.
As the sky had grown blacker, a faint glow of yellow fought the darkness.
“Waset!” he said.
The Seventh Hour of Night
At the Temple of Amun, Pharaoh Thutmose paused in the colonnade between the two sets of entrance pylons built by his grandfather. High above him a cedar ceiling blocked the night’s starlight, accenting the cloistered feeling of safety that increased with each step into the temple.
Off to his left there was scaffolding rising to the ceiling. As he made a mental note to ask Hapuseneb about it, he remembered that Pharaoh Hatshepsut had ordered a pair of pink granite obelisks erected inside the entrance.
They must be taller than the temple, he thought.
He passed through the narrow gateway of the second set of pylons and entered a narrower colonnade, this one crowded with twenty columns, each with sixteen sides. At either end of the narrow colonnade were small doorways that led to long passageways that ran the length of the temple.
The southern passageway, off to his right, contained a series of doors that led to the small temples to Khonsu and to Osiris. The sacred lake, dedicated to frog-headed Nun, god of the primordial water, lay north of the small temples. East of the lake, a sphinx-lined avenue led to the temple of Mut.
Pharaoh Thutmose smiled as he remembered his first years in the temple, learning all of the hallways and passages and doorways and secret paths.
The temple’s public rooms were grand, evoking the power of Amun, but the side rooms of the temple formed a warren of storage rooms and sleeping quarters, of kitchens and laundries, of bathing areas and treasuries.
Pharaoh Thutmose turned and followed the central court toward the sacred lake where he would purify himself before entering the sanctuary of the great god Amun. There he would sit and listen for the word of the god and decide the fate of the commoner Maya who had presumed to sit on the throne of the Two Lands.
The Eighth Hour of Night
Still too weak to stand, Pharaoh Hatshepsut sat on the bed of Bek’s chariot and watched Akila and Imhotep in their chariots follow her to Waset.
She told herself that in a few days she would regain her strength and the broken tooth would be nothing more than a memory. She would hold Senenmut in her arms and dine with her daughters. Then she would announce a vision from Amun and order the canal flooded again.
Word would soon arrive from Admiral Ahmose that the expedition was returning and there would be a grand procession.
My rekhyt, she thought, thinking of the inhabitants of the Two Lands as lapwing birds, will be astounded that I foresaw the expedition’s return and the arrival of the animals and treasures.
She smiled as she pictured the procession of the soldiers, exotic beasts, bundles of ivory from the fabled elephants, baskets of silver and gold, logs of the black trees, and the myrrh trees.
The myrrh trees ...
The thought stirred the memory of the fight in the forest with the giant Medjay warrior Yuya and, her ka was sure of this, the sound of the padded footsteps of the Seth beast that had followed them through the maze of thorny trees.
I killed Yuya!
I eluded the Seth beast!
Then her thoughts turned to her stepson and she wondered if she had made the right decision when she had sent Pharaoh Thutmose with the army to Sinai. Hapuseneb had told her that the boy, no, he was a man now, a full sixteen floods had passed, was growing restless.
He will have grown strong and his eyes will seek the throne, she thought.
She looked up and saw Imhotep standing beside his driver, one arm on the rail of the chariot, the other grasping his ever present walking staff. He claimed no divinity, but she was sure that he was a god from the time of the birth of Kemet. And he had prophesied that she would have a mortuary temple ... Djeser-Djeseru ... Sublime of the Sublimes!
Thutmose might want the throne to himself, but he will wait, she told herself. He will wait until my temple is complete. Then I will rest from life and journey to the Field of Reeds and see my father once more.
The Ninth Hour of Night
Pharaoh Thutmose, third of the name, stood naked in the sacred pool of Nun and looked
to the dark sky.
Khonsu rested, but the million stars of night filled Nut’s belly and Pharaoh Thutmose looked from their sparkling light to the water that surrounded him. The stars were there, too, their light wavering and softer.
He smiled.
He had discovered that temple life was a muted version of life outside of the tall pylons that enclosed the sacred space. And life in the Two Lands, he thought now, was a paler version of the life he would enjoy once he had rested from this world and joined his ancestors in the Field of Reeds.
But, he smiled broader now, there is so much more to do here. I am just beginning.
As he walked toward the edge of the lake, he watched the water ripple, disturbing the reflection of the stars.
My movements change the world.
At the water’s edge he picked up his shendyt kilt and wrapped it around his purified body and began walking to the inner sanctum of Amun.
There he would wait and listen for the god’s direction.
At dawn, when Maya arrived, Pharaoh Thutmose would follow the god’s demands.
The Tenth Hour of Night
Sleepy, but willing himself to wakefulness, Pentu sat on the floor, his back against the plaster-covered mudbrick wall of his bedroom and watched the slow rise and fall of Kebu’s chest.
He had moved the injured Medjay warrior to his study, away from the eyes of his servants and possible visitors. Senenmut had wanted to take the man to the palace where he could keep him under guard, but Pentu had argued that the injured man’s health was too precarious. Moving him, Pentu said, might kill him, and even Imhotep, father of medicine, would find it difficult to make a dead man divulge his secrets.
Now, Pentu waited for the man’s ka to wake and loosen his tongue. He would send for Senenmut who would pose as a scribe and together they would trick the Medjay into divulging the message he carried to Governor Seni.
If that failed, Pentu would reconsider Senenmut’s offer to find more persuasive ways to discover what the mysterious Medjay knew.
Suddenly, he heard a clatter in the roadway.
He got to his feet stiffly and walked toward the entrance.
It was the tenth hour of the night and even he couldn’t imagine who would be wandering the dark streets of his neighborhood.
He heard a horse whinny and then the undertone of voices.
More curious than frightened, he glanced at his sleeping patient and then hurried toward the front of his home. There were no lamps or torches lit within and the only light came from the cloud of stars that filled the sky.
“Pentu!” a familiar voice called softly.
Pentu smiled as he recognized the voice as Imhotep’s. Then he frowned.
Why is he arriving in the middle of the night?
“Imhotep?” he called back.
As he reached the doorway and stepped into the cool night he saw the dark shape of his father-in-law standing by the garden entrance, leaning on his walking staff. Behind him stood a chariot with a driver still standing behind the horses.
“Do you have guests?” Imhotep asked.
Pentu thought of the sleeping warrior. “Not really,” he answered.
Imhotep stepped toward him and, as he embraced Pentu, he whispered, “I have Pharaoh Hatshepsut with me. She is ill. She wants to hide here until she is better.”
Then, without waiting for an answer, Imhotep turned back to the chariot. “Bring her in,” he ordered.
“What happened?” Pentu asked, pulling Imhotep through the doorway of his home.
Imhotep shook his head. “She isn’t injured. She has a broken tooth,” he said, pointing inside his own mouth. “There was an infection but it has passed.”
Akila entered the house, her back to the men as she watched Pharaoh Hatshepsut walk slowly, aided by two of the charioteers. “Good morning, Pentu,” she said over her shoulder. “I’d like to take her to our bedroom.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Pentu said, turning and leading the way.
Imhotep walked with him. “How is Maya? And Neferhotep?” he asked.
“Well,” Pentu said.
Imhotep looked at his son-in-law and saw worry cross his face. “What is it?” he asked.
“I found a Medjay warrior unconscious on the street,” Pentu whispered. “He mentioned Ta Netjer and that women there survived.”
“Here? In Waset?”
“Yes.”
“Are there other Medjay here?” Imhotep asked.
Pentu shook his head. “No, I haven’t heard of any others.”
Akila brushed past them, her eyes on Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who was shuffling between the charioteers, her surge of strength waning. “Help her to the bed,” she said. “You are doing very well, Pharaoh Hatshepsut.”
She turned to Pentu. “Can you have the servants prepare soup?”
Pentu nodded.
As Pharaoh Hatshepsut sat on the bed, Akila touched the arms of the charioteers. “Go with Pentu to the kitchen and eat.”
Imhotep glanced at Pentu and then, turning to the charioteers, he said, “There are stables at the rear. Take the chariots there and unharness the horses first. Then rejoin us. We’ll have food waiting for you.”
As the charioteers left, Imhotep said, “We’ll keep the chariots hidden and house the charioteers here until Pharaoh Hatshepsut is well.” Turning to Pharaoh Hatshepsut, he leaned closer to her.
“Pentu has found a Medjay warrior here. The man,” he put his hand on Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s arm to reassure her, “isn’t a threat, he is unconscious. But, I wonder why he is here. He told Pentu that he had been in Ta Netjer, so he must have escaped the battle.
“Can you think of a reason why he would have come to Waset?”
Pharaoh Hatshepsut closed her eyes for a moment.
“He mentioned Governor Seni,” Pentu said into the silence.
Imhotep shook his head. “Who is he?”
“He is governor of Ta-Seti, not someone to fear. But the Medjay are from Ta-Seti,” she said. “My father used the Medjay in his army at times.”
“And Pharaoh Thutmose is traveling with the army,” Pentu said quietly.
“But they are in Sinai,” Pharaoh Hatshepsut said.
Pentu shook his head. “Some of the maryannu are here in Waset. The army hasn’t returned, but there are rumors that Pharaoh Thutmose has left the army. We don’t know where he is.”
There was silence for a moment and then Imhotep said, “Where is the Medjay warrior?”
The Eleventh Hour of Night
Maya sat up in her bed. The night sky was still black, without a hint of the rosy glow that heralded Re’s approach.
She got to her feet and crossed the room to the stand that held the stone water clock. The little starlight that winked through the window allowed her to see the conical body of the clock, but not the black paintings of the gods, most prominent the river god Hapi, that encircled the clock.
Hesitantly, she laid a hand on the top edge of the clock.
Filled at night, the clock had a series of horizontal bands that measured out the twelve hours of night. A small hole at the base of the clock drained the water, lowering the water level hour by hour until dawn.
Maya slid her hand inside the sloping inner side of the clock. She inched her hand downward, seeking the water level. With each small movement, she discovered that another hour had passed, another hour of what might be the last night of her life in the Two Lands.
Lower and lower she moved her hand until the tip of her outstretched index finger felt water.
Concentrating on the coolness of the water, she pushed her hand deeper.
Too soon the tip of her finger touched the bottom of the clock well. The water had barely passed the first knuckle of her finger.
An hour, perhaps two!
That was what remained of the last night of her life.
She withdrew her hand and walked back to her bed.
At first light, when the servants came to dress her, when Nefer
hotep came to escort her to the Temple of Amun, she would send a message to Pentu.
If the messenger was fleet, if Pentu hurried, she could meet him inside the temple and hold him one last time.
***
“Get a jar,” Akila said. “Take it to the charioteers and have them pee in it. We’ll all empty our bladders in it.”
“Ammonia!” Imhotep said, understanding her plan.
Akila nodded. “We don’t have smelling salts, but if we heat the urine and capture the ammonia it gives off, we can use that.” She looked down at the sleeping Medjay warrior. “It should wake him.”
As Pentu hurried away, Imhotep knelt by the Medjay.
“He’s just a boy,” he said softly.
“He’s a man here, Tim,” Akila said in English. “You and I are freaks, fifty years old! He’ll be extremely lucky to see thirty. Even in 1900, life expectancy was only forty-five, Tim. We’re three thousand years, almost four thousand years before that. King Tut was a teenager when he died and he had already ruled for nine years.” She shook her head and adjusted her tense, “when he will die.
“Pharaoh Thutmose is sixteen, right? He should be ruler by now. I’m sure he hears the clock ticking.”
“So you think he sent the Medjays to Ta Netjer to kill Pharaoh Hatshepsut?” Imhotep asked.
She shrugged. “It’s a brutal world, Tim. In our time the wealthy used laws and militarized police to keep power. Here they don’t try to disguise the power behind rhetoric. Would Thutmose kill Hatshepsut? He didn’t. I mean, history records them co-ruling for another seven years or so. Of course, maybe he did try but our presence in Ta Netjer — you seeing the attackers and warning everyone, me helping Hatshepsut in the Forest of Myrrh — maybe we kept history on track. Or made the history that we learned possible. I don’t know. It makes my head whirl.”
