The Field of Reeds (Imhotep Book 4)

by Jerry Dubs

  Looking to Pharaoh Thutmose the men saw the ruler throw his head back in laughter, raise his sword even higher and start another hymn to Amun. Regaining their courage, the soldiers joined the song, waved their swords again and started a foot-stomping dance.

  Imhotep finally reached them and, stopping beside Neferhotep, he shouted over the sound of the storm.

  “Lower your arms! The lightning will strike you!”

  To his relief Neferhotep stopped dancing and lowered his sword. Imhotep leaned close to his grandson. “The metal in the swords will draw the fire from the sky,” he said.

  Ignoring the warning, the other men raised their arms higher and shouted the hymn louder.

  A flurry of lightning bolts struck beside the roof and, without thought, Imhotep launched himself at Pharaoh Thutmose. Stumbling as he dove, Imhotep wrapped his arms around Pharaoh Thutmose’s waist and together they fell to the roof.

  The men stopped singing and closed on the tangled men.

  “No!” Neferhotep screamed, moving between the soldiers and his grandfather. “He is saving Pharaoh Thutmose.”

  “He is trying to kill him!” Pawura shouted back, swinging his sword at Neferhotep, who quickly blocked the attack with his own sword. As Neferhotep’s arm swung back from the parry, two soldiers grabbed him and dragged him away.

  Raising his sword, Pawura stepped toward Imhotep.

  “No, stop!” Neferhotep shouted, twisting free and leaping forward.

  Pawura turned toward Neferhotep, his sword raised to strike the charging charioteer.

  The sight evoked memories of the followers of Neith attacking Tjau and rage swept through Imhotep. Hurling his staff at Pawura, he screamed in English, “No! Goddamn it! No more killing!”

  As the staff struck the one-handed soldier, a streak of lightning tore the sky and struck Pawura’s upraised sword.

  In the unbearable flash, the soldiers stood frozen, their eyes on Pawura whose raised arm was enveloped in flames.

  Pawura screamed and began a death dance of uncontrolled spasms. The smell of burnt flesh exploded from him and he fell to his knees as smoke rose from his blackened arm.

  Thunder crashed across the roof and the remaining soldiers fell to their knees.

  Imhotep struggled to his feet and limped to Pawura. The soldier’s blackened eyes told Imhotep that his ka had fled.

  Imhotep picked up his staff and, standing upright, he saw that the soldiers were still on their knees, their heads pointed toward him as they whispered prayers of forgiveness.

  Turning, he saw Pharaoh Thutmose staring at him, his eyes wide with awe.

  Behind him he heard Neferhotep whisper, “Truly, you are a god!”

  The King of Kadesh

  Durusha, King of Kadesh, was angry.

  Dismounting his chariot, he walked across the deserted, dusty courtyard to the low wooden palace of King Idrimi. Raising a hand to stroke his wavy beard, he felt something small and hard beneath his heavy fingers.

  Squeezing his fingers together, he captured the flea. He started to pinch harder, knew from experience that it was impossible to kill a flea with his hand, and flung the insect away.

  Tonight I’ll have one of Idrimi’s daughters pick fleas from my beard.

  Followed by his six bodyguards, dust covering their hardened, scarred bodies, he pushed past the frightened sentries by the palace doorway and stalked the poorly lit hallway.

  King Idrimi should have been waiting by the gates of the city. He should have slaughtered an ox and set out beer and bread and women, Durusha thought angrily.

  He and his men entered the long throne room, its walls hung with deer, wolf, and goat skins. A handful of men stood arguing at the far end of the room in front of a low dais that supported a wooden throne on which King Idrimi sat, his round eyes half closed in boredom.

  Hearing the heavy footsteps of the intruders, Idrimi stood and pointed to the guards who stood by the doors. Then, recognizing his unannounced guest, he hurried from the dais, his arms wide in welcome.

  “King Durusha, welcome, welcome! What a wonderful surprise. Your travels must have gone well: your envoy said you would not arrive until tomorrow.” Holding his arms out, he stopped before Durusha, waiting for the king to open his arms in return.

  Durusha was two hands taller than Idrimi, his shoulders were twice the width of the prince’s and his arms were as heavy and muscled as Idrimi’s legs. His face, a slab of pockmarked stone, was divided by a knife-blade nose. His mouth, hidden beneath thick moustaches that tangled into a wide, wavy beard, was turned into a frown.

  He was insulted that the king hadn’t been waiting to greet him and he was certain that the little man was lying to him now. Yet he forced himself to smile and opened his arms to embrace Idrimi.

  Durusha planned to destroy the armies of the Two Lands, which were as vast as the desert that spawned them. To drive the arrogant Egyptians from Canaan, Durusha needed every sword he could muster, even the few, weak swords of this distant city.

  So he put aside his anger and embraced Idrimi.

  He would add the king to the three hundred allies he was gathering.

  Once Canaan was secured as his personal kingdom, Durusha would turn his attention to his vassals.

  And they would learn to welcome him as their superior. They would offer him food and beer and their daughters.

  Pharaoh's scribe

  Tjaneni had seen twenty floods, fourteen of those while apprenticed to the priests of Amun.

  During his temple years he had enjoyed the soothing, chanted hymns, the tall painted columns and the calming aroma of burning myrrh, but it was the strange symbols painted on walls and columns that had excited his ka. In the few hours when he had not been attending the priests, serving meals, filling oil lamps, polishing statues, washing the floor, or brushing the leopard-skin capes of the priests, he had stood transfixed in front of the rows and columns of hieroglyphs, his finger tracing their shapes.

  While standing before a wall of symbols one evening four years ago he had been startled to hear a voice ask if he understood their meaning.

  Fearful that he had been caught doing something improper, he mutely had shaken his head. A hand had touched his shoulder and from the corner of his eye, Tjaneni had seen a thick walking staff, its shaft carved with intertwining snakes.

  Imhotep!

  Everyone knew of the ancient god who walked the Two Lands as a scribe. He had raised the stone mountain of King Djoser. He had envisioned the temple of Pharaoh Hatshepsut, carved from Geb himself. And three years earlier, when Tjaneni was just beginning his apprenticeship, Imhotep’s words had cut through the air and severed the hand from one of Pharaoh Thutmose’s guards.

  Blood still stained the floor of Amun’s inner sanctum.

  Tjaneni had trembled as he had felt the god’s presence by his ear. And then the god had whispered, “If you want, I will teach you their magic.”

  ***

  Imhotep taught Tjaneni to use his reed brush to capture the breath of life and, with ink, to cage it upon dried, pounded papyrus stalks. Flowing from his reed, the ka of the world lay upon the papyrus, where it could be resurrected by another if they understood the painted symbols.

  Tjaneni had discovered that he loved the smell of ink, the feel of the reed stalk in his fingers, the gentle glide of inked reed against dry papyrus.

  Then a year ago he had been called to the palace where, under Imhotep’s approving eye, he had been ordered to record a court of justice before Pharaoh Thutmose. Although his ka had been vibrating with nervousness, Tjaneni had recorded the council flawlessly.

  Now he was personal scribe to the Golden Hawk.

  ***

  Sitting on the floor by Pharaoh Thutmose, Tjaneni untied a linen ribbon that bound a rolled papyrus message from the commissioner of southern Canaan.

  The linen ribbon removed, he carefully slid his index finger under the lip of the roll and lifted gently. Imhotep had taught Tjaneni that messages from th
e provinces were sometimes written on old papyrus and given to cracking and breaking. When he received such a message, Tjaneni would wrap a damp linen cloth around the rolled papyrus, watching carefully to be sure that the papyrus grew pliant enough to unfurl, but not so damp that the dried ink came back to life.

  This message unrolled without crackling, the surface was smooth, the ink carefully brushed on the dried reed stalks.

  The linen tie and the quality of the papyrus lent authority to the message.

  He began to read.

  “Lord Pharaoh Thutmose, third of the name, Golden Horus ... ” From the side of his vision, Tjaneni saw Pharaoh Thutmose wave his hand, dismissing the formal salutation.

  Tjaneni scanned the message, moving quickly to the heart of the dispatch.

  “Our envoys have been refused entry ... Tributes have not arrived from even the smallest city ... Two of our patrols have been attacked ... ” Tjaneni paused and looked to the throne. “There is a long list of grievances, Pharaoh.”

  Pharaoh Thutmose leaned forward. His dark eyes darted from his scribe to Imhotep who sat on a cushioned stool, one hand on his lap, the other wrapped about his ever-present walking staff, which now carried a black scar from the lightning attack on the roof two nights ago. His eyes were on the floor, his back bent.

  For seven years Pharaoh Thutmose had heard the whispers that Imhotep was a god from the ancient world who could foresee the future, but Pharaoh Thutmose had known of other fortune tellers and seers. They were common as frogs croaking in the night.

  But two nights ago, after Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s burial, his own eyes had seen Imhotep call fire from the sky to kill Pawura. Since that night, Pharaoh Thutmose had kept Imhotep at the palace, as a guest, but a guest who was invited to never leave.

  So far, the god had been compliant. His hemet, Akila, was with him. His daughter and grandson visited him. Still, he seemed lost in grief. Perhaps he sorrowed still over the departure of Pharaoh Hatshepsut.

  Perhaps he regretted killing Pawura.

  Pharaoh Thutmose doubted it; a god’s ka directed his actions, which meant that the actions were pure.

  Seeing Imhotep’s sagging shoulders and downcast eyes, Pharaoh Thutmose asked, “Something troubles you, Imhotep?”

  Imhotep raised his eyes and looked at Pharaoh Thutmose.

  The eyes that rose to meet Pharaoh Thutmose were clouded with sadness. “You know where this leads, Pharaoh Thutmose. There will be a war,” Imhotep said. “There is always another war.” He sighed and squared his narrow shoulders. “Should I tell you what you already know?”

  He shook his head; then straightening his back, he spoke as a prophet: “I tell you this, Pharaoh, a thousand sons and a thousand husbands will die. A thousand children will lose their fathers.”

  Pharaoh Thutmose sat back on his throne, his eyes moving from Imhotep to the painted columns and then to the windows that opened onto his garden. When he returned his gaze to Imhotep he asked, “What would you have me do, Imhotep? Should I sit idly on my golden throne, pluck at grapes, inhale words of praise, and allow the Two Lands to fall to barbarian sand dwellers?”

  Imhotep closed his eyes.

  He remembered his high school history. The textbooks had been little more than chronicles of the wars that had shaped the world. The causes, always recorded by the victors, were always some evil act of aggression — sometimes cloaked in religion, sometimes morals, sometimes geography. But, in the end, the real reason for the conflict was always wealth, whether it was measured by goats or by gold, by land or by oil.

  Modern political campaigns — bloodless wars waged with words — were also about wealth: access to donations from pharmaceutical companies, from medical associations, from the industries that benefited from waging war, from those who would control communication.

  Even terrorism, the scourge of the modern era he had left behind, although cloaked in the rhetoric of radical religion, was still about wealth — who controlled it, how it was distributed, who benefited from it.

  Yet, having lost his son and wife, Imhotep knew that he would fight to the death to save his family.

  And Pharaoh Thutmose viewed all the inhabitants of the Two Lands as his children, placed under his care by the gods.

  “No, Pharaoh Thutmose, you must fight,” Imhotep said.

  Then as Imhotep gathered his thoughts, Tjaneni spoke, his voice a sparrow darting between Imhotep’s thoughts. “The message says that King Durusha of Kadesh has gathered three hundred princes and a hundred thousand men.”

  As the words fell on his shoulders, Imhotep felt the sour breath of Wepwawet wash across him. The sensation was so strong, that he twisted on his stool, but saw only the wavering flames of torches on the distant wall.

  Turning back, he saw Tjaneni staring at him with wide eyes. Pharaoh Thutmose was watching him also, his elegant eyebrows arched in question. They both believed that he had just communed with the gods.

  Imhotep sighed. Perhaps he had. But they had given him no guidance.

  He turned his attention to the staggering number: a hundred thousand men.

  Was that even possible? How could Pharaoh Thutmose fight an army that size? Did that many able-bodied men live in the Two Lands?

  Then, thinking of the army of workers he had under his command when he had built the Step Pyramid, he smiled.

  Pushing himself to his feet he approached the throne.

  “Pharaoh Thutmose, long life!” He put both hands on his staff and leaned on the wooden support. He paused as he chose words that the ruler would want to hear and balanced them with words that needed to be spoken.

  “These words are true: More than a hundred thousand men lifted more than a million stones to build the tomb of King Djoser,” he said, his eyes meeting those of Pharaoh Thutmose. “Such an army can be raised. It was done, so it can be done, and it will be done.”

  “I will send you a man named Amenhotep. He organized the housing and the feeding and the health of the army that carved the great temple of Pharaoh Hatshepsut from the cliff. He is not a soldier, but he will help your generals raise an army powerful enough to drive the sand dwellers back into the wilderness.”

  Watching Pharaoh Thutmose, Imhotep saw a smile steal into the ruler’s eyes.

  He sees the hands of the gods in this, Imhotep thought, his face impassive as he waited for the inevitable nod of consent that he knew would come from Pharaoh Thutmose.

  On the floor by Pharaoh Thutmose’s throne, Tjaneni dipped his brush into water, gently drew the dampened end across a cake of compressed ashes and began to draw the symbols that would record Imhotep’s words and mark the beginning of the great war against the King of Kadesh.

  Unfulfilled Desire

  As Re withdrew to the western desert, the sands by the corral near the Waset barracks began to surrender the heat of the dying day.

  His back to the vanishing god, Neferhotep raised one foot to a fence rail and, leaning forward, rested his forearms on the top rail. The warm breath of Geb washed over him, making the air waver like waves on water. Squinting slightly, Neferhotep focused on two corralled stallions as they cautiously circled each other.

  Lips pulled back to bare their teeth, the horses tossed their heads, flicking their brown manes across their powerful necks. Neferhotep saw instead the long, loose curls of Menwi’s brown hair.

  The horses turned away from each other and then circled back, their hooves dancing lightly on the hard packed sand. Neferhotep focused on the horses, commanding his thoughts to watch the delicate, yet powerful movement of the horses.

  Her wrists, he thought, so slim and elegant.

  Squinting his eyes tight, he tried to banish the images that stole into his mind.

  He was commander of the maryannu and Pharaoh Thutmose wanted a hundred thousand chariots and charioteers, two hundred thousand horses and a hundred thousand archers to battle the armies of the King of Kadesh and his three hundred allies.

  Neferhotep was responsible for tr
aining the men and horses.

  That is where my mind must dwell, he told himself. Not on the light in Menwi’s eyes, not on the smoothness of her skin, the color of foreign sand, not ...

  “Neferhotep,” a voice called and Neferhotep jumped guiltily, his face flushed in embarrassment. Swallowing the thickness from his throat he turned from the corral to greet the quartermaster of the Egyptian army.

  “Hello, Amenhotep,” he said, coughing to hide the emotion in his voice.

  Ten floods older than Neferhotep, Amenhotep had worked with Imhotep and Senenmut to build the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Hatshepsut. Hired as a gang foreman, Amenhotep had quickly caught Senenmut’s eye. He had a natural talent for organization. His men always had the proper tools on hand. They never ran short of materials or rations.

  Promoted to manage a shift of quarrymen, Amenhotep continued to excel and was soon given responsibility for all of the workers, answering directly to Senenmut and Imhotep.

  Quietly he had imposed his unflappable calm over the army of stone cutters, sculptors, and artists who worked at the cliffside site, and soon he had been asked to schedule the rotating shifts of workers and the delivery of stones. Then he had turned his eye to maintaining the inventory of tools, and then the training of new workers.

  Curious if there was a limit to Amenhotep’s boundless abilities, Senenmut and Imhotep had asked him to oversee the encampments and shipments. He did. And soon he was tending to the thousand logistics of the seven-year project, allowing Senenmut and Imhotep to focus on the design and details of the monumental work.

  Now the manager of a million details was quartermaster of the army of the Two Lands.

  Although his voice and actions were always calm and considered, Amenhotep was never at rest: his narrow fingers twitched, his long legs bounced, his eyes roved constantly. His mind was as active: absorbing details, remembering requests, keeping its own inventory of materials and food and personnel.