by Jerry Dubs
***
The next evening Paheri served fish for the third day in a row and after the meal, as Sabef and Djoser took a walk along the river, Sabef threatened to lead a hunting party into the desert to find some four-footed game.
“Something with warm blood,” he said. “I can’t eat another fish, I’ll grow fins.”
“As soon as we have the militias trained and the army formed, we’ll both head to the desert for as long as you like,” Djoser said. “We can become desert-dwellers and dine on scorpions.”
“I think I’d prefer them,” Sabef answered.
“Don’t tell Paheri. There is probably some kind of water scorpion that he’ll serve up,” Djoser said with a smile.
The men were walking the western branch of the river which split in half just above Ineb-Hedj. Spotting a flat stone, Djoser paused to pick it up. Curling his forefinger around the edge of the stone he threw it across the water. The stone slipped lower, skimmed off the water and began to skip.
Silently the men counted the skips, a game they had played since Djoser was young.
“Seven,” Sabef said.
“I could have gotten ten but the stone hit a fish,” Djoser joked.
“No doubt that fish will end up on my plate tomorrow,” Sabef sighed.
They stood by the river and listened to the soft sound of the water washing past them, each lost in his own thoughts - their shared pasts, their current path and the cloudy, hidden future.
“I’m going back to Iunu tomorrow,” Djoser said finally.
“Inetkawes?” Sabef asked.
Djoser nodded. “And more men will be arriving soon. I need to be there to greet them and get them organized. Then I’ll send them along to Imu. That’s where Hemon will be taking you next.”
“Do you trust Hemon to persuade the governors to join in this rebellion?” Sabef asked.
Djoser shrugged. “I trust him to follow his ambitions. He believes the path to what he wants lies with me. And I like him. Yes, I think he would like to overreach, but his mind is quick and he weighs the dangers. He will always be cautious.”
Sabef stooped to pick up a stone. Leaning back he raised his arm and twisting forward he unleashed the stone toward the river. The men counted again.
“Eight!” Sabef announced.
“Only because you failed to hit any fish. You might be a great hunter, but you’re a miserable fisherman,” Djoser said. He put an arm over Sabef’s shoulders and turned the older man away from the river.
Talking softly he said, “Sabef, I want you to continue traveling with Hemon. He’ll lead you to each of the governors and he will persuade them to put their militias into your hands. I’ll continue sending reinforcements as they arrive at Iunu from Ta-Seti. Once all of our archers are here, I’ll follow your path and visit each of the cities you’ve already visited.
“Wait for me in Tjaru, it’s the eastern most capital. We’ll stay there until the flood wanes. Then you will circle back through the cities, checking on the training. I will follow a month later and collect the militias as I travel. Meanwhile, Hemon will incite the governors to refuse the tax collectors.
“By the time the angry tax collectors return to the capital it will be harvest season and the farmers will be busy in the fields so General Babaef’s army will be at its smallest. He’ll gather his forces and march the army to the delta. I’ll have returned to Ineb-Hedj with the combined militias before Babaef gets there.”
Sabef nodded his understanding and then, raising his eyebrows he said, “So General Babaef and his army will confront you and an army of eager militia men but we will not have a fight.”
Djoser patted his old friend’s back. “Exactly, Sabef. No fight, just victory.”
***
A week later Hetephernebti was sweeping the stone edging of the plaza canal when she saw Djoser enter the courtyard. The sun was behind him so she couldn’t see his face but there was no mistaking his confident walk and his powerful build.
He paused just inside the wall and coupling his hands behind his lower back he stood there patiently surveying the open space. Knowing her brother, Hetephernebti understood that he was assessing the space, looking for changes since his last visit, searching for spots where men could lie in ambush, and confirming escape routes if needed.
She saw his eyes flit over her and move on, continuing their circuit of the plaza. After a moment he raised his arm and waved to her. She nodded to him and turned to follow the canal to a sycamore tree where she propped the broom against its trunk and waited for him in the shade.
He broke into an easy jog, paused part way across the open space and sniffed. Then he raised his hand again, holding one finger aloft and quickly turned. Hetephernebti laughed to herself as she saw him jog toward the beer seller.
In a moment he was walking toward her again, a clay beer pot in his hand and a wide smile on his face.
“It has been a long, dry walk,” he said in greeting.
“So those are your priorities? First beer, then your devoted big sister” she teased him.
He drank from the pot and wiped his mouth with the back of his left arm. “Actually, I was looking for Inetkawes,” he said innocently. Then he set down the pot, opened his arms and pulled Hetephernebti into an embrace.
She thought he felt leaner and tighter than when she had seen him a month ago. Pulling back she studied his face. The lines of his jaw seemed sharper, the stretch of skin across his wide cheekbones tauter and his eyes sunk deeper in his face.
He was twenty-seven years old. Many infants died during birth; it was not unusual for their mothers to follow them, taken by fever. Older children were taken by a wasting sickness, their bowels turned to water. Men died from falls in the quarries, were taken by crocodiles in the river, or were killed in battle. But many lived on. By the time they were forty they were tired and weak; the food they ate no longer gave them strength, their legs wasted away and they knew it was time to prepare for death.
Hetephernebti worried that she saw the beginning of that process in her younger brother.
Reading her mind, as he so often did, Djoser waved a hand to dismiss her worries.
“I have been pushing myself, Hetephernebti. Let me bathe and rest for a day or two and I’ll be my old self. I’m like our father, a mighty bull!” He smiled broadly and bent over to pick up the beer pot.
He took a long drink, sighed deeply and said, “Now, seriously, where is Inetkawes?”
“The last I saw her she was kneeling over a basin.”
Djoser shook his head.
“She is with child, little brother.”
Djoser’s smile grew wider and the lines that had worried Hetephernebti suddenly disappeared. “Praise Hathor,” he said. He handed the empty beer pot to Hetephernebti and asked, “Is she in her chambers or yours?”
“In mine,” Hetephernebti called to her brother’s fast-receding back.
***
Djoser paused in the doorway to Hetephernebti’s bedroom. His wife Kemisi had been unabashedly bold, amused at other people’s shyness, yet each month when her blood ran she left their hut, unwilling for Djoser to see her.
Other women in Ta-Seti were similarly reserved about illnesses. He had never lived with a woman from the Two Lands, so although he was Inetkawes’ lover and had shared her dreams, he didn’t know if she would be shy now when she was ill.
She was sitting on the long, curved bench at Hetephernebti’s makeup table, leaning forward with her elbows propped on the table, her head resting in her hands. Her skin, paler than any skin he had ever seen, was stretched tight against her bent back showing the furrows between her ribs and the small knobs of her spine.
He waited a moment to see if her shoulders were shaking, listening for sighs or sobs. Hearing none he moved into the room, allowing his bare feet to shuffle against the floor so she would hear him.
She raised her head at the sound and twisted her shoulders to see the doorway. As she moved her breasts came i
nto view. She was larger than other women Djoser had seen, but now her breasts were even fuller and he found himself staring at them.
Suddenly she was laughing and, coming to her feet, she ran across the room to him. The movement made her breasts bounce and sway. Djoser forced himself to look from her chest to her face. Although her face was drawn and there was darkness beneath her eyes, she was shaking her head in amusement.
“My friends said you would enjoy this change,” she said looking down at her chest.
She fell into his open arms and pressed herself against him.
“Hetephernebti said you were ill,” he said.
Nuzzling against his chest, she said, “A little. It passes and I’m told that soon it will no longer bother me. Mother gave me an amulet of Taweret. She said she had it when she was a girl.”
Djoser smiled, remembering the small green statuette his sister had carried with her, and the time she had tested her fertility with an onion. We were so young, so many dreams in our hearts, he thought.
“And you are definitely with child?” he asked. “It isn’t some other illness?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think so. I no longer bleed and my breasts are swollen.” She shrugged again. “We’ll soon see if my stomach starts to swell.
“Henutsen said I have child-bearing hips,” Inetkawes added proudly. “And I’ll certainly have enough milk,” she said.
“Henutsen? Is she a priestess?”
“No, a midwife. She is very experienced, every girl in Iunu knows her.”
“And you’ve talked with her?”
Inetkawes nodded.
“Can you eat?” Djoser tried to remember how Kemisi had coped with pregnancy. He remembered the birth well. Kemisi had struggled for more than a day to deliver their daughter. He had been sure that he would lose her then.
“Don’t worry about me, Djoser,” Inetkawes said, thrilled to see his face so full of concern for her. “Mother and Henutsen will take care of me. And I have Re-Khu to worry over me and pray for me.”
She leaned back from him and took his hands in hers. Pulling him back toward the bench, she said, “Tell me about your trip. Is everything going well? Did you meet Hemon? He comes here every year, but he stays to himself ... ”
“He’s very nice,” Djoser said. “I like him quite a bit and he’s been very helpful.”
They reached the bench and sat side by side.
Inetkawes took his hand and raised it to her breasts. “Touch them, Djoser. I can see you are overcome by their beauty,” she laughed. “Aren’t the women in Ta-Seti the same as women here in the Two Lands?”
She stopped talking as his hand explored her, caressing and gently tracing the swell of her breasts. He leaned his head and kissed the back of her neck. “Nowhere are there women like you, little Inetkawes.”
She leaned her head forward to expose more of her neck to his mouth.
“I asked Henutsen how I could welcome you,” she said softly. Putting her hand on Djoser’s lap she tugged at his loincloth. “She said I could do what I want but that I would have only myself to blame if our baby became angry because you were poking at him.”
Djoser slid from the bench. Kneeling in front of Inetkawes he put his lips to her breast.
“I’m willing to irritate him a little,” Inetkawes said, arching her back to press against his face.
He kissed the underside of her breasts and then, his hands sliding along her sides he kissed her stomach. Looking up at her, he smiled. “I’ve missed you, Inetkawes, and I want you but I can wait until you feel better.”
She put her hands on his head and pulled him close.
“I can’t,” she said.
Stories and Promises
Rising steadily, the swirling, brown waters of the river Iteru covered the fields of the delta and lapped against the walls of homes built too close to the river’s ever-changing channel.
Idled by the flood, farmers in the Lower House flocked to the capitals of the nomes to join the militias. They dreamt of pulling a bow with the strength of a Nubian and of defending their homes from an avaricious king.
Hemon and Sabef continued their tour of the twenty nomes of the Lower House. At times Sabef was disheartened by the condition of the men in the militias, but Hemon was continually optimistic, reassured that the other governors shared his desire for freedom from the king’s onerous taxes.
As the weeks passed the two men - physically such opposites, Hemon, stunted with a head too large for his body, his gait an awkward waddle, and Sabef, imposing in height, his arms, legs and back muscled from years of fighting, his stride athletic and graceful - became good friends.
Sabef learned that he could tease Hemon about being unable to reach fruit on tree branches and his fear of bathing without attendants — “No self-respecting crocodile would bother with such a small meal.”
In return Hemon would ask Sabef to tell him again about the boat ride across the Great Green or explain how he counted goats when he ran out of fingers — “Do you gather in groups and share fingers to count herds?”
Soon Sabef began to consult Hemon about the logistics of supplying the growing number of men and Hemon asked Sabef to construct a bow that he could use with his short arms.
As their friendship deepened they often talked about their main shared interest: Djoser. Sabef told Hemon about Djoser’s years in Ta-Seti and Hemon explained his views on Djoser’s place in the politics of the Two Lands.
One evening as they sat by a dying campfire outside the village of Perhebyt, midway across the fan of the delta, Hemon said, “I liked Djoser the first time I met him. I underestimated him, of course. I thought he was just a silver-throated merchant trying to hoodwink me. He is such an imposing figure, strong and handsome, that I didn’t think there could also be a powerful mind behind that face,” He laughed at the memory.
Sabef nodded his head as he reached for a piece of goat meat lying on a palm leaf by the fire. “I told you I first met him when we were dragging boats across the desert.” He paused and tore off a piece of meat with his teeth. As Sabef chewed the meat, Hemon lifted a clay pot and sipped beer.
“He was just a boy, short but strong,” Sabef said after swallowing. “His shoulders were almost as wide then as they are now. He was commander of our company, and although half the age of some of the men, he didn’t order them about to try to prove that he was their commander. We all knew he was the king’s son and so we had to follow his orders, but he didn’t take advantage of that.
“Instead he insisted on taking his turn in the harnesses pulling the boats. You could almost see the muscles in his legs and back growing day by day.
“At first the men laughed, behind his back, of course, we weren’t idiots. But Djoser never stopped. He worked harder and longer than any of us and he never complained. You have to respect that.
“Then later, Hemon, he and I were alone in the desert and the platoon of men who had killed his father were near us. We were greatly outnumbered, so we had to hide. Djoser,” Sabef stopped talking and shook his head, his eyes wrinkling as he started to laugh. “Djoser stuck his head in a little cave, trying to find a place for us to hide. Suddenly he yanked his head out and there was a snake, one of those with the horns, hanging from his ear like a pendant.”
Hemon cocked his head and watched Sabef who stopped laughing and grew sober.
“I would have screamed and shouted. Any normal man would have! A snake hanging from his face! But Djoser calmly and quietly just reached up, squeezed the viper’s neck until it unclenched its fangs and then grabbed its tail with his other hand and whipped it against a rock.
“Not a sound, not a whimper or a tear. And he was just a boy. I thought to myself, I will follow this man-child anywhere.”
Hemon sipped more beer. “And here we are, out in the middle of a growing swamp while he is back at Iunu enjoying his young wife.” He laughed to himself
***
Her sickness fell away and Inetkawes’ stomach
grew round and heavy. Although she no longer skipped through rooms, she continued her duties in the temple with a song and smile on her lips and sometimes her hands on her aching back.
She and Djoser took a house outside the temple where they cooked and made love and he answered her endless questions about life in the palace of Waset, his first wife and daughter and his plans for the Two Lands.
Hetephernebti saw the change in Inetkawes, her enthusiasm growing, her childlike delights blossoming into a happiness that enfolded Djoser, their unborn child and the excitement of a new life unfolding within her and around her.
“He calls himself Mighty Bull,” Inetkawes told Hetephernebti with a giggle one morning as they checked the temple storerooms, taking inventory of the wines, oils, bags of grain, bolts of linen, torch sticks, jars of incense and cones of salt.
“Our father called himself Mighty Bull, also,” Hetephernebti said.
She thought a moment, looked at Inetkawes' open face and then, deciding to share a memory, she said, “I remember going to Mother’s chambers one night. I had a loose tooth and it had come out. It was my first and I didn’t know what to do. No one had told me that children lose their teeth. As I approached the doorway I heard my mother laughing and panting. I’d never heard her like that before. And then I heard my father laughing with her and he shouted, ‘Yes, ride your Mighty Bull.’”
Inetkawes nodded her head and laughed.
“I peeked into their room,” Hetephernebti said. “Father was on his back on Mother’s bed, his hips bouncing as Mother, astride him, was rocking and twisting. They were both gleaming with sweat, their mouths open and I knew I shouldn’t stand there and watch them, but they looked so happy, as if their kas were drifting from our world to land of the gods.”
“Is that how it was for you and King Nebka?” Inetkawes asked.
Hetephernebti had never talked about her marriage to Nebka, only telling Inetkawes that she had been drawn to the worship of Re and that tending his temple was more important to her than being queen of the Two Lands.