by Jerry Dubs
“My ecstasy has always been in worshipping Re,” Hetephernebti said, turning away to count a group of jars.
“Oh,” Inetkawes said. She watched her mother’s bent back for a moment and then asked, “But is it OK for me to ... ”
Hetephernebti straightened from counting the jars and put her hand on Inetkawes’ cheek. “Oh, daughter, temple life should not be a decision you need to make. It is a decision the gods make for you. I could never picture a different life. It was what I always wanted, there was no decision. Re called me.
“I’ve watched you grow. You are an obedient daughter and you have been an unselfish servant to Re, but your ka seeks a different life. That has always been obvious, Inetkawes. I never imagined that your path was with Djoser, how could I? But when I see the two of you together, I see how happy he makes you and how you complete him.
“I could not be happier. For both of you. So yes, yes, Inetkawes, it is not only permitted for you to leave the temple, it is your destiny. You serve Re by following that destiny.”
Inetkawes started to cry. She opened her arms and pulled Hetephernebti close.
“Thank you, Mother,” she said. “I don’t want to disappoint you or Re.”
Hetephernebti stroked her daughter’s head. “You could never disappoint me. And the only way you could disappoint Re is if you failed to be yourself.” She kissed Inetkawes’ head and said with a chuckle, “Just don’t disappoint your Mighty Bull.”
***
“If we refuse the tax collectors, that damn Babaef will just march in here and take everything,” Kaninisut, governor of the Fish nome, told Hemon. “I don’t like him. He glowers and grunts all the time and I don’t like the way he looks at me.”
Barely out of his teens, Kaninisut was frail and fearful. His face and scalp were dark with a growth of stubble and his linen kilt was twisted as he sat on his wooden throne. He had a narrow face, close set eyes and a long, thin nose that dipped at the end. Hemon couldn’t help but think of an albatross every time he looked at the boy.
A tarnished armlet had slid from Kaninisut’s upper arm and dangled around his thin wrist. He jangled it nervously, letting the circle bounce rhythmically on the wooden arm of the throne.
He had become governor after his father, Sethos, had drowned in the Great Green.
Out fishing one day, Kaninisut, Sethos and another six boatmen, drifted almost out of sight of land. Dusk arrived and, trailing their nets, they rowed toward shore. Feeling a tug on the ropes holding the net, Sethos had pulled the net on board. Snarled in the netting was a flat, circular brown ray with dark blue eyes spotting its back. Twisting in the net, the ray lashed out at Sethos and stung him with its tail.
Sethos had screamed and twisted away from the net. Losing his balance he had fallen overboard. The netting had followed him and the last view Kaninisut had of his father was Sethos tangled in the netting, the ray flapping its round pectoral fins in his face, its tail lashing at his father.
Splashing and struggling, Sethos sank out of sight in the dark water and was never seen again.
Once on land Kaninisut had sworn he would never set foot on a boat again. He never ventured to the beach or looked upon the waves of the Great Green and lived in fear that some common incident would take his life. Perhaps a goat would kick him, or a sea gull flying overhead would drop a crab on his head.
Danger, Kaninisut knew, was everywhere. There was no reason to court it.
“We have to pay our taxes. There just isn’t any way not to,” he insisted, a white bubble of spittle working its way out of the side of his mouth.
“Yes, certainly,” Hemon said calmly. “It is the amount of the taxes, Lord Kaninisut. I talked with your treasurer, a very good man – precise and organized – and when I look at the taxes you’ve paid each year and then project them a few years, well, soon you have nothing left from the harvest except radish leaves and headless stalks of wheat.”
Kaninisut shook his head. “King Nebka would never do that.”
“He is, Lord Kaninisut. He already is. Walk your kingdom. There are fewer goats. Larger sections of the fields are given over to the king. More men are demanded each year for his service. If we, the governors of the Lower House, band together and speak as one, then King Nebka will listen.”
“He will never listen to us. Why should he? He is the king.”
“Exactly, Lord Kaninisut, that is why we need to train your militia. They will, ah, amplify our voice.”
“You mean you want to confront Babaef. Have you seen his army? He would destroy us.”
Hemon shrugged. “I haven’t seen his army. But Lord Sabef has.” He nodded his head to Sabef who approached the men and knelt.
“Lord Hemon, Lord Kaninisut,” he said. Sabef had rubbed oil on his bare torso to make the muscles stand out more. His antelope-horned bow was in his right hand, his left hand held a fistful of arrows. His knife, its handle also oiled to reflect the light, was in his loincloth belt.
“Just look impressive and don’t say much. I don’t plan to reason with Kaninisut, just scare him and then reassure him,” Hemon had told Sabef as they had prepared for the meeting.
Hemon saw Kaninisut curl into in his chair, his armlet tapped out a faster rhythm as he looked at Sabef.
“Lord Sabef has served under General Babaef. He fought with King Kha-Sekhemwy. He has just arrived in the Lower House after traveling the length of the Two Lands. Please tell Lord Kaninisut what you saw, Lord Sabef.”
Laying his bow and arrows on the ground, Sabef stood and held out his right arm, at the end of it his giant hand was clenched into a fist. He had practiced this move in front of Hemon so that it was slow and dramatic.
“Babaef’s army is an empty fist,” Sabef said, unrolling his fingers to show his palm. “The men are poorly trained, their weapons in disrepair. They are weak. I would crush them like so many dung beetles.”
He slowly crossed his arms and stared at Kaninisut.
When they had practiced, Sabef wanted to simply stand and tell the governor that Babaef’s army, which depended on clubs and stabbing spears, was susceptible to long range weapons – arrows and throwing spears. He wanted to explain that Babaef’s only tactic was a direct, frontal assault. It would be easy to use a smaller force of retreating spear men to lure Babaef’s men into an ambush of archers, which if placed on the army’s flanks would devastate it.
“No, no,” Hemon had argued, “I believe you, Sabef. I know you and Djoser are military geniuses. But Kaninisut is a simple governor. Don’t confuse him. Just look powerful and scary. And cross your arms. No, really, cross your arms, it looks very powerful.”
And so Sabef stood now before the governor of the Fish Nome with his arms crossed and Hemon whispered in Kaninisut’s ears that no army, not even Babaef’s, would dare to fight against Sabef and his fellow savages.
“And you will fight with us?” Kaninisut asked Sabef.
Sabef nodded his head.
“How many men do you have?”
“Oh, more than enough, Lord Kaninisut,” Hemon interjected, worried that Sabef would foolishly tell the truth about the small number of Nubian archers. “Your militia will be there as decoration, background scenery only, there to frighten Babaef even more.”
He saw Kaninisut pause.
“You give us your idle farmers, Lord Kaninisut, and Lord Sabef will train them. In a few months we will cut your taxes in half,” Hemon said.
Nebka and Babaef
When Nebka had been chief administrator for King Kha-Sekhemwy he had burned to take the throne. He wanted to wear the pschent double crown, and sit on the throne of the Two Lands. He wanted courtiers to kneel before him and he ached for the power to change the world with a wave of his hand.
Now he had held the throne for sixteen years and his appetite had waned.
He had never expected that wearing the double crown would be so tiresome.
There were so many decisions.
In the first month of Akh
et alone there was the festival to open the year. He had to be there. And then the wag-festival for Osiris to honor the dead. Of course, he had to attend it! Nor could he ignore the procession of Isis or the celebration of Hapi - it was his responsibility to ensure the flood would come. Then there was the departure of Osiris followed by the festival of intoxication for Hathor, when the goddess’ father had tricked her into drinking a lake of red beer in order to save mankind from her killing blood lust. It was Babaef’s second favorite celebration, topped only by the festival of Min, Bull of The Great Phallus; another festival Nebka had to attend.
It was impossible to preside over every festival, to honor every god. The distances between temples made it impossible. Yet as king it was expected, otherwise the god would be slighted, the high priest disappointed, and rumors would spread through whichever town housed the temple that the king didn’t care about them.
And clothing!
When he had been little more than a glorified scribe for his father, Nebka hadn’t cared about his appearance; he saw no one except Wakare. But he had coveted the fine linens, meticulously woven and dyed, that King Kha-Sekhemwy wore. He soon learned that there was more to appearing carelessly elegant than waking and wrapping a loincloth around one’s waist.
Nebka had to examine and approve each fabric sample and then the tailors and seamstresses demanded his time, for how could a robe hang gracefully without tailoring it to the wearer?
Food!
Hetephernebti had fled and drowned in the delta, and Nefermaat, Babaef’s sister, whom Nebka married a month later, refused to supervise the cooks. As arrogant as her older brother but without his masculine charms, Nefermaat simply raised a painted eyebrow whenever Nebka suggested that she perform her wifely duties - outside the bedroom, of course.
Which meant that if he wanted to eat, Nebka had to select his meals himself, for whom could he truly trust? He tried to delegate it to Kanakht, the stuffy proper administrator from King Kha-Sekhemwy’s reign, but then he got the same meal every day because Kanakht had no interest in food. Neither did Wakare who apparently lived on the motes of dust that hung in the air of his accounting offices. And so if Nebka wanted to eat he had to devote time to selecting meals and sampling produce from the market.
And so it went, with every decision a slice of his time was taken and soon Nebka found himself mired in so many small decisions about the appearance of the kingship that he had no energy to actually be king.
When he visited Wakare, who had taken over his former offices, Nebka found that he longed for the days when he was able to complete an inventory, calculate an expenditure, write a diplomatic letter and then blow out a candle on the day’s work.
Even his sex life had become more difficult.
Babaef could not be seen spending the night in Nebka’s chambers and there were too many guards in the palace to think that the general could successfully hide in Nebka’s rooms. Nebka was reduced to sneaking away from the palace at night, running from tree to wall to bush as he worked his way across Waset to Babaef’s house. And there was no time for that, simply no time or energy.
On those occasions when they did find time and solitude, they found themselves complaining about their lives, eating too much and drinking too much.
King Nebka had grown weary and sullen.
General Babaef had grown fat.
His chin wobbled beneath a slack jawline. Loose skin swayed on the underside of his arms. His chest had grown soft and his stomach pushed out beneath his ribs. He had taken to wearing full-length robes and, when appearing before the army, he wrapped a band of linen around his stomach, pulling it tight beneath his gown.
While his flesh had grown soft, Babaef’s will had grown more unbending; it was as wood left in the sun, dried and hard. His idea of ma’at was rooted in his youth. Every change – new faces, different wordings in prayers, a new path from one village to another – irritated him. He found himself with reasons to lose his temper every day.
Minkaf, chief tax collector for the Two Lands, had no interest in being the cause of Babaef losing his temper, yet he stood outside the general’s doorway, his legs quivering and his bowels angry and watery.
There is no reason to be afraid, he told himself. The governors in the Lower House are the ones who should be shaking in fear.
Finally Babaef was ready to see him. The armed guard waved him forward but Minkaf, whose appearance used to cause the governors throughout the Two Lands to put on false smiles and offer him banquets and oxen and women, Minkaf found he couldn’t move his legs.
With a smirk on his face as he shook his head, the soldier lowered his spear and prodded Minkaf with the blunt end. Minkaf turned and glared at the soldier and had the satisfaction of seeing that he could still bring a man under control with a look.
Then straightening his shoulders, Minkaf turned and walked down the gloomy hallway to Babaef’s chambers. Halfway down the hall, hearing the guard behind him start to laugh, Minkaf’s legs started to shake.
Babaef was seated behind a table. An overturned clay pot in front of him, a small puddle of beer at its mouth. Five young boys stood beside the general, each of them wearing a pale yellow robe. One held a platter of roasted meat, the aroma greeting Minkaf as he approached the table. Another boy held a bowl of dates, another bread, another a platter of onions, their skins removed so that the outer shells glistened. The fifth boy held a towel.
“Meat,” Babaef said, his eyes on Minkaf. The boy who held the meat platter selected a sliver of roasted ox and fed it to Babaef. As the general chewed he nodded his head at Minkaf.
“Greetings General Babaef, long life,” Minkaf said.
“Bread,” Babaef answered, rolling his eyes at Minkaf’s formal greeting. The boy with the bread dish pulled off a chunk of bread and fed it to Babaef. The piece was too large and, eager to get it into the general’s mouth, the boy pushed with two of his fingers. Babaef slapped the boy away and spit out the bread. Twisting, he swatted at the boy who stood unmoving as Babaef half-heartedly slapped him.
“Towel,” Babaef shouted. Another boy knelt by the general and raised his hands offering Babaef a clean towel. Babaef dabbed at his lips and then said, “Bread!” This time the boy tore off a smaller piece and carefully placed it in the general’s mouth.
“Ah, Wakare sent me,” Minkaf said.
“I know that and I know why,” Babaef said after he swallowed. “What happened down there? Why have you returned to Waset without the taxes? Tell me everything you did, everything that was said, everything that you saw. If you satisfy me, you might be allowed to walk out of here on unbroken legs despite your miserable failure to collect the taxes.”
Minkaf started to answer, found his throat dry and constricted. He swallowed and in a shaking voice began to tell General Babaef about the rebellion of the Lower House.
***
“It’s good to see you, dear Babaef,” Nebka said. He was seated by a window in his private chambers, three rooms away from the soldier who guarded the entrance. Afternoon light, bright and unfiltered by curtains or the leaves of trees, struck Nebka’s face like shards of stone. Each line and scar, a small mottled birthmark by his right ear and a mole by his upper lip, all were highlighted by the harsh light.
Approaching his old friend and lover, Babaef breathed heavily. It had been a long walk and he refused to use a litter and be carried like an old man. He looked at Nebka’s brightly lit face and slowly blinked, seeing his old friend anew. Nebka had aged, he was tired and the fire of ambition was little more than a smoldering ember.
Babaef sat heavily on the bench beside Nebka and took his hand. He felt the king’s fingers tighten around his.
“I find myself thinking about the past more and more often,” Nebka said.
Babaef gripped Nebka’s hand, his thumb stroking the aging skin.
“Come now, Nebka,” Babaef said. “We have many years ahead of us. I went to a seer last week. No, don’t snort, she wasn’t one who only wanted
a bottle of oil or a bag of gold. She can see the future. She has heka.”
Nebka smiled at Babaef. “We’re going to live forever, gods here in the Two Lands, never aging? Our cocks will be forever hard, our eyes sharp, our breath sweet?”
Babaef let go of Nebka’s hand and waved his own. “Believe what you want, Nebka. You’ve never been in battle. You’ve never touched death, never felt Anubis breathing down your neck. The gods speak to us and some of us hear them clearly.”
Nebka put a finger on Babaef’s lips. “We’ve had this talk before, dear one. You haven’t come here to harangue me about my fears or boast about your lack of them.”
Babaef shook his head. “One ka sharing two bodies,” he said, repeating the mantra the two men had created when they were young lovers.
Nebka smiled sadly and looked into Babaef’s eyes.
“I’ve heard rumors that Djoser is alive and that he is coming to claim the throne.”
Babaef nodded. “I’ve heard them, too. Someone in the Lower House is spreading the rumor to foment unrest. Djoser is dead, his body eaten by jackals. His ka is dead. He is not and never will be a threat to us. Put it out of your mind.”
Nebka turned toward the afternoon light. “We should have brought their bodies back. They were of the Great House and should have been prepared for the next life.”
Babaef shook his head violently. “No! You say that now because you’re gloomy and feeling sentimental. We talked about this sixteen years ago and we made the right decision then and it is the right decision now.” He shook his head again. “Nebka, it doesn’t matter. It is done. Their bodies are desecrated, their kas lost for eternity. We can’t change that.”
Nebka shrugged. “Still, the people believe the rumor.”
“All that has happened,” Babaef said angrily, “is that some greedy governors have decided that they don’t want to support the Two Lands. I’m going to take a few companies downriver and squash the rumors, collect the taxes and bring a few governors back to Waset where you and I will teach them the power of the Great House.”