by Jerry Dubs
Djoser picked at the fruit and bread as she spoke, sitting easily in his chair, his shoulders relaxed. But his mind was focused, picking up not just the words she spoke, but the changes in expression, the tone of her voice, the distance of her gaze.
“When Emsaf, he was the fisherman who rescued me, pulled me from the water, he brought me here. He had been heading to Iunu to bring a baby girl to the temple. He lived in the delta with some other men and one of them had brought a pregnant girlfriend there. She died giving birth and Emsaf decided to bring the girl to the temple,” Hetephernebti said.
“I was desperate and afraid that there would be more men looking for me. So I hid by taking Ipwet’s name and I told Re-Khu that the girl was my daughter. I’ve grown to love her as if she really were mine.”
Hetephernebti paused and looked at her brother, seeking approval and forgiveness.
Djoser leaned toward her and took her hand. “I am sorry that I wasn’t here to help you. And Ipwet. I remember her. She was a little bird, innocent and alighting on every thought and sound. I’m sorry, Nebti, truly sorry for what you have suffered.”
Hetephernebti wiped tears from her face with her free hand and nodded. She gave a small shrug and said, “We have flourished here, Djoser. Re-Khu has been a father and a brother. We have been safe and happy. I miss our mother and father and I missed you, but I have learned that this is what I want. I don’t want to be queen, I don’t miss Waset or the palace. I would happily live out my days without seeing Nebka again.”
She sighed deeply and said, “I have done all the talking, brother. Now you must tell me about your life.”
Djoser smiled. “Yes, but first, Nebti, I think we should agree that we will remain Ipwet and Hemwy for now. I think Re-Khu knows who we really are, but I think we are safe with him.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I trust Re-Khu and I don’t want to draw any attention to us. I hear rumors of life in Waset but my life is here now. But you? Who are you now? What have you become?”
Djoser smiled and reached for his wine cup.
He sipped from his wine and then said, “I am Horus Rising.”
Horus within
Djoser put down his wine cup and leaned toward his sister. He put his hand atop hers and, holding it, said, “The night our father was killed, Horus came to me or, rather, I became Horus. I flew with his might and I saw the killing of Osiris and his resurrection.”
Hetephernebti felt his grip tighten on her hand as he spoke, she heard ecstasy filling his voice and she saw his eyes shine as if the light of Re himself was within him. She had seen this passion in Re-Khu and she had felt it herself, fleetingly and far too seldom.
“And I saw Father’s death,” Djoser said. “I remember hoping that what I had seen was a vision, but I knew that it wasn’t. When the vision ended I woke Sabef and we hurried from the mountain to find Father’s camp.”
“Sabef?”
“Ah, yes, I’m sorry. I’ve lived with this memory for fifteen years but you know nothing of it. Sabef is a Nubian archer. I met him during the trek to the Terraces of Turquoise.” Djoser smiled as he thought of his friend. “He is here in Iunu. You will like him.”
“He taught me to make arrow heads and how to pull a long bow. When he could have surrendered me to the men who killed our father, he stood by me, ready to die with me. He and I became best friends. I later married his sister.”
“You are married?”
Djoser shook his head. His eyes turned dark and he said softly, “No longer; she died.”
“I’m sorry.”
Djoser retreated from the memory and, blinking he pushed the sadness away. Gathering his thoughts he said, “I’m not telling this well. There is too much to say. Let me go back to the start.”
He sat back in his chair and rolled his shoulders. He stared over his sister’s head for a moment, looking within. Hetephernebti watched his face relax, taking on the softer lines of the boy she remembered from her childhood.
“When the army left Waset we marched, no,” Djoser said, “I should say we trudged across the eastern desert. It started out fun, lots of singing and taunting as we competed in pulling the sledges that carried the boats. I took my turn in the harnesses, determined to show the men that even though I was the king’s son, I could pull my weight. But the pace soon slowed. We got calluses on our hands and our shoulders were rubbed raw from the leather harnesses.”
Djoser smiled at the memory, recalling the sand slipping under his feet as he struggled to gain traction. And the flies — where did they come from? — always in his face, lighting on his eyes and lips looking for moisture. He had been so driven to prove himself. I still am, he thought, always determined to be the fastest runner, the most accurate archer, the quickest climber, the strongest wrestler.
“When we reached the Terraces of Turquoise, Father quickly grew bored inspecting mines so he took a small group of us hunting. A few days into the hunt Father told me about a temple to Hathor in the mountains and gave me permission to visit it. Sabef and I went alone.
“We found some seeds in the temple that Sabef told me his elders use to commune with the gods. I burned the seeds, inhaled their essence and felt the ka of Horus take possession of me. That night I flew with the god and I saw our father’s death.”
Djoser closed his eyes as he relived the memory, one he had revisited so often that it now seemed to be a tale from some other’s life, a myth that he had heard when young. The horror at seeing Osiris’s death and then his own father’s killing had abated, but the sensation of flying as Horus had never faded. The omnipotent thrill of soaring and seeing all had become part of the fabric of his life, as real as any other childhood memories.
He tore a piece of bread from the loaf and put it in his mouth. As he chewed it, he watched his sister. She looked the same as he remembered her, her build, her mouth, and the shape of her head. But her eyes had changed. When they were children, her eyes had told him her every thought, but now her thoughts were hidden.
He wondered if he should tell her how part of Horus had stayed with him and how the god’s ka had grown stronger and stronger within him. Would she accept it? Would she believe what he had become? Or would she think he was still her little brother, a boy who dreamed of greatness and was now imagining that he was more than he really was.
Patience, he told himself, we have just been reunited.
He knew that he was changed, hammered by life and by the gods into someone stronger, harder, and more dangerous, like one of Sabef’s arrow heads. How had she changed? Many years had passed and they must have left their mark on her. He wondered how deep those marks were and what changes they had wrought.
She watched him in return, and tilting her head she wordlessly asked him what he was thinking.
Leaning forward suddenly, he cupped a hand behind her head and pulled her to him. She willingly bent to him as he brought her close. He kissed the top of her shaved head, tasting the faint salt of her skin and inhaling the scent of jasmine from the oils she used, its powerful floral fragrance transporting him to their childhood garden.
“I’ve missed you so, Nebti,” he whispered, laying his cheek against her head. “Sabef protected me and he tried to be a father or big brother. I trusted him and learned to depend on him, but he was never relaxed with me. He was always watching me and wondering where my thoughts were, what my dreams were. But you, Nebti, you always saw my soul.”
“You never hid it well,” she answered.
He gently kissed her head again and then, caressing the back of her head and neck as he released his hold, he leaned back in his chair again, a smile playing on his mouth.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Or perhaps our souls speak to one another. There were times, Nebti, when I thought I could hear your thoughts even though I hadn’t seen you in years and despite the rumors that reached Ta-Seti that the queen of the Two Lands had died.
“I knew that you hadn’t gone to Khert-Neter,” he said earnestly.
“You knew because you’ve become Horus and can see throughout the Two Lands?” she asked as she reached into the bowl and chose a grape.
Djoser shrugged, inwardly thrilled that she had raised the idea of his divinity.
“I know that my ka flew across the Two Lands. I know that I saw our father’s death and it was true. When Sabef and I found Father’s camp most of the men were still in their beds, attacked and killed in their sleep, just as I had witnessed. Father had awakened though and fought, killing two of the assassins, again, just as I had seen in my vision.
“We buried Father as best we could,” Djoser said, returning to his story. “There wasn’t water to wash him, so we used sand to cleanse away the blood. I wrapped him in a shroud from the scraps of material we found at the camp site. We used our hands and knives to dig into the mountain, just beyond the edge of the desert, and we placed him there out of reach of the scavengers.
“I prayed to Horus and Osiris and Isis. I didn’t remember all the words for Anubis or Thoth, but I said what I knew and I spoke from my heart, Nebti. I am sure the gods heard me.”
Djoser glanced at his sister and then looked away, his eyes traveling along the walls of her room. The screens standing there were painted with Re sailing in his solar boat; Re sitting on a throne, a red disk atop his head; Re with the head of a ram facing west toward a gathering darkness, the approaching night.
He thought of his dream-vision and the feeling that he had flown across the Two Lands and across time itself. Since he had returned to the Two Lands, the spirit of Horus had re-awakened in his heart and spread throughout his body filling him with the god’s strength.
“I will recover our father’s body, Nebti,” Djoser said with quiet assurance, “and return it to the Two Lands. His ka will journey to Khert-Neter to join our ancestors. I promise you.”
They were silent for a moment and then Djoser resumed his story. “Afterward, Sabef and I followed the mountain range to the south. Then we crossed the western mountains and found a fisherman who took us across the Great Green. Then we walked through the desert to his home in Ta-Seti.”
Although Djoser made the trek sound like a walk through the palace garden, Hetephernebti imagined the danger, the hunger and thirst, and the fear. Closing her eyes, she thought of her own flight from Waset. There had been danger, but also a sense of freedom; she had been escaping from the palace that had become a living tomb for her. Although her flight had led to the deaths of Ipwet and of the men who had been sent to retrieve her, in the end Re had given her what she had unknowingly sought – a serenity that overcame fear and anger.
She looked at her brother and wondered what the gods had given him.
“I lived with Sabef,” Djoser continued when he saw Hetephernebti’s attention had returned. “I married his youngest sister and might have stayed there and become as Nubian as Sabef, but last year the village where I lived was raided while I was on a hunting trip. My wife was killed. My daughter was taken.
“We tracked the raiders up the river and into the jungle. They had taken our cattle and women and so they were traveling slower than we did. When we caught them there was a fight and my daughter was killed. She had taken a knife from one of the captors and ... ”
Thinking of the magical power of names, Hetephernebti asked, “What was she called?”
“Kifi.”
“Kifi,” Hetephernebti repeated, sending the dead girl’s name to Re.
Djoser shifted in his chair. A sad smile played on his mouth and his eyes closed as he thought of his daughter. “She was ten years old. Tall and graceful. She liked to weave, but she also liked to go hunting with me. I enjoyed her company. She was quick, like you, Nebti, and unafraid. Too unafraid. Perhaps if she had been less courageous ... ”
Djoser shifted again in his chair. He opened his eyes and reached for more bread, then stopped and rested his hand on the table. He sighed and said, “The land is different there. There is no king and no army to protect the villages ... ”
Hetephernebti interrupted him, “And your wife?”
“Ah, Kemisi,” Djoser said, shaking himself from the memory of his daughter’s death. “She was fierce. You have a strong mind, Nebti, fearless, restless, powerful. Kemisi was like that in body, always direct and unafraid. She didn’t have time for arguments or philosophical discussions or planning. Everything was obvious to her. Are you hungry? Eat! Tired? Rest! She flowed through life like the river, making her own way, full of energy and power.”
He laughed quietly, his mind filled with her memory. “Each morning was a challenge to her: What will you make of me? I like to loll in bed, gather my thoughts, reflect on yesterday, plan today. But Kemisi ...
“Once I went farther south, past the desert. I followed the river into a forest filled with trees and vines and flowering plants with giant leaves and spiders bigger than my fist. One day the sky turned black, not just dark but black as if Re had simply disappeared. And then water fell from the clouds. Even though I was standing beneath the forest canopy it felt as if someone were on a branch above me emptying jars of water on me. The rain seemed to rush toward the ground, not content with simply falling from the sky, it threw itself to earth. And there was lightning and thunder, sharp cracks as if someone were banging cymbals by my head. I thought the earth would split from the noise and the light. Such an explosion of energy!
“That was Kemisi. She was a surge of strength, unquestioned, unchallenged, and unafraid; every action direct, honest, and strong.”
“You loved her very much,” Nebti said.
Djoser nodded, his eyes shining at her memory.
“The world is full of lessons, Nebti,” he said, his voice thick and heavy. “I learned from you, you with your restless, inquisitive mind. I learned hunting crafts from Sabef. Father showed me how to lead. Kemisi taught me action – simple, true action without thought.
“I am a vast, open vessel – my body and my ka – and they are being filled by everything around me, my family, my friends, the red desert, the black soil, the sky, the mountains, the river, even by my enemies, the raiders from Kush and General Babaef’s assassins. Kemisi’s death has filled me, as her life did. And little Kifi’s short life, it fills me, too.”
“And the gods, Djoser?” Hetephernebti asked, thinking of the compassion and satisfaction she felt when she thought of Re.
“Oh, yes,” he answered. “The gods fill me, Nebti. And they lead me.”
“Lead you?”
Djoser smiled. “To the throne, Nebti, they lead me to the throne.”
Horus revealed
Hetephernebti woke to the sound of laughter. She sat on her bed, feeling lighter and happier than she had felt since she was a child. She hadn’t realized until she had talked with Djoser the previous night how much his absence weighed on her heart.
They had talked for hours, reminiscing about their childhood, exchanging stories of the fifteen years lost to each other, and then Djoser had told her his plan.
Another chirrup of laughter danced into her room and she recognized it as Inetkawes' voice. Another lower voice just as happy and carefree followed and Hetephernebti sat up straighter. It was Djoser’s voice.
She knew immediately what had happened. She had insisted that her brother stay the night, giving him Inetkawes' unused room. Now her “daughter” had come to her room and found Djoser there.
Hearing them laugh again, Hetephernebti shook her head and smiled. She knew how charming her brother could be. And Inetkawes had a good heart and a loving mind. Although Hetephernebti had just recovered her brother, she would happily share him with Inetkawes.
The thought suddenly triggered the memory of the morning Djoser had discovered her in the palace garden with an onion clamped inside of her. Closing her eyes, she smiled at the memory. They had been so open and so innocent. She had seen glimpses of the boy last night — his impertinence, his amazing ability to compartmentalize his thoughts and his overwhelming, maddening and unshakable self-con
fidence.
The years had hardened the boy, turned him into a man whom others would eagerly follow. He was handsome, powerful, intelligent, and seemingly transparent.
But Hetephernebti thought Djoser’s openness was no longer an expression of his innocence. It had become a mask, a tool that he could use to inspire loyalty and trust. She wasn’t sure if he would allow her to see behind that mask, but it didn’t matter because she trusted the boy he had been and so she trusted the man he had become.
She would trust him with her fears, her dreams, and her life.
Suddenly Inetkawes shrieked and then started to laugh again.
And with my daughter, Hetephernebti thought.
***
Blushing and bouncing, Inetkawes entered Hetephernebti’s bedroom carrying an empty water pitcher and a damp towel. Her white chemise, soaked and transparent, clung to her breasts and hips.
“Were you helping Hemwy bathe or were you wrestling?” Hetephernebti asked with mock seriousness.
“The water was colder than he anticipated,” Inetkawes answered. “Several times,” she laughed. She set the pitcher on the floor by the doorway to the reception room. Tugging at her wet gown, she said, “And he had trouble finding the towel.”
A young girl, her arms wrapped around a clay pot filled with water, appeared at the doorway. Inetkawes hurried to her and took the water from her.
“Nemaathep,” Inetkawes said, “Let me help you.”
The girl, six years old and newly arrived at the temple, said, “Thank you, Inetkawes.” Then looking at the wbt priestess, she said, “You’re all wet.”
Djoser entered the far doorway, shaking water from his hands. “Is there a towel somewhere or is there a dry spot left on your gown?” he said with a laugh.