by Daniel Caet
“It is better to calm down, Helel, your anger is clouding your judgment,” she said with immense calm.
“That I calm down? I cannot believe I'm hearing this from you,” I said raising my voice and getting up from the cot. “I cannot understand that you have been seeing this all this time without doing anything. You could have avoided this if you had killed that bastard long ago.”
Her face hardened again, and for a moment I thought I saw the creature from two nights before in front of me again.
“Enough!” she shouted, and her voice resounded as if accompanied by an eternal echo. “Breathe and calm down or I will have to calm you myself.”
Making a gigantic effort I got my breathing to calm down and my body to relax slowly.
“Do you really think that Sarureptah is the problem? Sarureptah has neither the brains nor the courage to try something like this on his own if he does not feel strongly supported. No, Helel. Sarureptah is the tail of the serpent, and if we want to save Ankh we must cut off the head.”
“And who is the head according to you? Seti?”
“I think the real head is someone much closer to you and me. Narmesh.”
“Narmesh is dead, Sadith! I think you've been living for years terrified by a ghost that can do nothing to you anymore.”
“Let me tell you something I discovered on my trip to Avaris,” she said with a veiled smile. “Remember I told you I wanted to find out more about the origin of Seti's family relationship with Seth?”
“Yes, I remember it.”
“All right. The person I went to visit is an old woman named Kama who lives in a hut on the outskirts of Avaris. She has no family or wealth, so she lives on the charity of her neighbours; but it was not always like that. For many years she was the foster-mother of the then young Paramesu's family and was the person who raised Seti. Seti felt absolute adoration for her and when he had his own children, he also put them in her wise hands. This woman knows the family from the inside and had some really interesting stories to share with me. Long before Paramesu began to rise in the government of Pharaoh Horemheb, the dilemma of Seti's marriage was raised. The family at that time subsisted with the soldier salary of Paramesu's and what they could get from the lands that Sitre, Paramesu's wife, had contributed to the marriage with. There were several candidates, all from the Avaris area, but there was a small problem; Seti had fixed his eyes on the daughter of one of the great priests of Horus called Tuya. This should not have been an obstacle had it not been for two small things; one that the family was well above the rank of Paramesu's, the second, that Tuya had her own interests. Tuya was a relatively beautiful young woman, but with a capricious and volatile character and with an overflowing livid. Rumours about the number of slaves and men of low birth who had passed between her legs were numerous, but nothing mattered to Seti who was completely enthralled with her. Unfortunately, the swings of Tuya had its consequence, and Tuya became pregnant with one of her lovers’ child. Her life suddenly collapsed. Her father was enraged and in order to protect his family's reputation he was forced to marry her before the pregnancy was evident with the only man who was ready to marry immediately, Seti. If Seti's family was surprised at the sudden interest of Tuya's father in marrying his daughter to the boy, they never said it; the benefit of getting married in the family of a great priest was too great. And that's how Seti and Tuya got married and how Seti ended up being Tia's father, a creature he never suspected was not his. But fate was about to take another turn in their lives. In just two years Paramesu was promoted to Horemheb's counselor, and the family moved to Thebes. Life had just given Tuya everything she had always wanted, position and prestige; but now she had another dilemma, the need to give a male heir to Seti to guarantee the continuity of the house line. Unfortunately for Tuya, no matter how much effort she put into it, three years after his arrival in Thebes she had not yet conceived any son of Seti’s and the family began to pressure him to marry a new wife. If this new wife gave Seti a male, Tuya would be reduced to a clay figure without any relevance and she could not allow that, so she decided to resort to the power that she believed could help her, the gods. Tuya organised a pilgrimage trip to the temple of Isis in the city of Nbuwt to ask the goddess to grant her wish to mother a boy. However, it was not Isis who answered her request, but Seth. Kama was at that time Tia's nanny and went to Nbuwt with Tuya's entourage. What nobody knew was that Kama was actually Sitre’s spy, who had never liked Tuya as a wife for her son and wanted to find some reason to get rid of her. Tuya went to the temple, in the middle of the night carrying a torch and a jug of honey as was tradition in women who wanted to ask favours from Isis. Only one slave accompanied her for her protection. Kama, instructed by Sitre, followed Tuya to the temple and witnessed everything that happened there. Tuya deposited the honey in front of the statue of the goddess and used the torch to light the lamp that had to illuminate it to immediately pray to the goddess to share her light with her as she had just done. Suddenly, a tall figure with a large dark mantle covering his head appeared before Tuya and presented himself as the god Seth, protector of the house of Seti. Tuya, far from being scared, bowed to the god and asked him to help her conceive a child. Kama could not hear the conversation between the god and Tuya, but she saw what happened next. The god touched the head of the slave who immediately became a kind of puppet and began to remove his clothes. There, on the floor of the temple and in front of Seth, the slave took Tuya and she surrendered to him without any qualms. The next day, Tuya returned to Thebes and barely two months later her pregnancy was announced. The joy of the whole family of Seti was immense when Tuya gave birth to a boy, the young Rameses. All, except Sitre who knew what happened in Nbuwt thanks to Kama. Unfortunately, Sitre made the mistake of facing Tuya with the truth and threatening to tell everything to Seti, a vain threat given the lack of evidence; but for Kama it was the end of her days in Seti’s house. Tuya was responsible for paying a group of Pharaoh soldiers to kidnap Kama, raped her and left her for dead on the banks of the Nile. Kama managed to crawl to a nearby fisherman's cabin that helped her recover, and returned to Avaris where she has lived hidden in fear that Tuya knows of her existence and tries to finish the job. So, you see, Helel,” she continued, “there's more than one member of that family with more than intimate connections with Seth.”
“What I see is that Tuya is a treacherous bitch like so many others, but I do not understand what that has to do with Narmesh, and why you insist that it is he who is behind all this.”
“Do you really need more evidence? First, it was the doll, exactly the same doll that Narmesh used to threaten us years ago. A doll that also carried the symbol of Seth. Later we discovered that Tuya, the same person who is responsible of me coming to court and not being allowed to leave, has a story with Seth. And to that you must add a little detail that Kama told me and that I have omitted in my story.”
“What detail?”
“Kama could not see clearly Seth's face, but she could remember something very relevant. His face had a burn that disfigured him on the right side. I think you'll remember from my story that your daughter Niel gave that small gift to Narmesh when she defended me from his attack.”
I could not deny that all her arguments seemed logical, but to think that my son could have survived all those years only to cause pain to his own family at the most unexpected moment was something that I had trouble conceiving.
“It's not impossible, Helel,” she said, reading my thought again. “I am the living example that there are ways to cheat death.”
“All right,” I said slightly irritated. “Let's suppose you're right and that Narmesh is behind all this. So, let's not wait any longer, let's go for him and let's stop him.”
“It's not that easy, Helel. We do not know where to find him or how to get there. I'm afraid we'll have to wait for our enemies to make their next move.”
“Wait? And what do you expect us to do in the meantime? Shut us up like cockroaches to p
revent anything bad from happening to Ankh?”
“Completely the opposite. We must return to our lives so that they think we do not suspect anything. We will be like the scorpion that pretends to be dead so that the serpent attacks him, and exposes its more defenceless flank to his sting. Besides,” she said, getting up and recovering his initial sadness, “we have to attend a funeral.”
Funerals for Ankh’s little girl lasted for what seemed like an eternity to me. It was hard for me to understand why lengthening the pain of loss so much, a pain that was consuming Ankh slowly. It was Ptehsure who instructed me in the Egyptian custom when it came to saying farewell to their loved ones and preparing them for the afterlife. First of all, it was imperative that the little girl receive a name, so that she could demonstrate in the other life that she had existed in this one, and the memory of her name would feed her existence in the afterlife. Sarureptah, as father, had chosen for the girl the name of Amunkhenemet, the one next to Amun. Ptehsure explained to me that her body would be mummified to guarantee its preservation in the afterlife and that this process in an adult could take two months during which the family was not authorised to show any kind of sadness since the body was still in this world. Being a baby, the priests in charge of embalming her body took only a week and all the preparations for the funeral could begin. As Seti's minister, Sarureptah was building a large tomb for his entire family in the city of the dead, but it was unfinished; so it was decided that the little one would rest in the grave of his grandparents, much less opulent. Maybe it was my human nature that imbued me with a sense of pity for the pain of the people I loved, but I thought that funerals would go by without involving Ankh to avoid further pain; however, once again, my incomprehension of the way of thinking of humans was manifest. When everything was ready, the family was summoned for the funeral procession that would take the child's body to its final resting place. As a slave, I was not authorised to come, but Ptehsure told me the details on her return. As the only two women in the little girl's family, Ankh and Sadith took a leading role in the procession. Placed on both sides of the small coffin that contained the mummified body represented the goddesses Isis and Nephtis and, just as they had brought back to life the dismembered body of the god Osiris, they accompanied the little Amunkhenemet at the beginning of their journey to the other world. The procession crossed Thebes and reached the city of the dead crossing the river in a boat. Not a tear rolled down the faces of the two women, for this they were accompanied by the mourners hired to mourn the pain that Ankh was not allowed to show. At the entrance to the tomb, a priest of Amun’s performed the ritual of opening the mouth with a bone knife, a symbolic act that would give the little one power to speak in the hereafter and defend herself, if necessary, when the purity of her soul was judged by the court of Osiris weighing her heart in front of the feather of Maat, symbol of absolute truth and justice. Finally, the body of the child was deposited in the tomb that was sealed again, and Ankh could return to the palace to be at last only a mother who had lost a child.
Darkness
We all have a part of darkness inside us, a darkness that sometimes devours us, scares us and threatens to destroy us; but when everything around us has collapsed, when there are no reasons or motives that feed the light, that darkness becomes our only company, the only friend who whispers to us that it is time to get up, to pick up our spoils and build a new us, a new day and to make the world burn in the fire of our anger.
The nightmares woke me up again and my body rose up one more time soaked in sweat. The images of the dreams that haunted me still echoed in my head, the same images night after night. Fire, destruction, corpses covering everything and over that death a single image, a figure sitting on a golden throne with hands covered in blood and a cloak that covered his face. Slowly, the figure withdrew its mantle and discovered his face to stare at me and his face was my face, his hands were my hands and his anger was my anger. Suddenly the figure turned his hand and the fire began to devour me inside, an indescribable pain filled everything while my body was consumed by the flames and, while I died, the figure spoke to me without moving his lips to tell me the same thing night after night .
«Die to be death!»
The dreams had begun after the burial of Ankh's little daughter. Everyone's life had begun to fall apart little by little after that day. Ankh had succumbed to a pain that had been kept inside her for too long, forced by a ridiculous social norm, and that pain had destroyed her to the point of turning her into a shadow of herself. Isolated from everyone around her, including Sadith, Ptehsure, and me, she barely ate and refused to leave her rooms, where she had forbidden us all to enter. Sadith, faced with the rejection of Ankh had decided to stay on the sidelines and we had not known about her for weeks while I, desperate for the impotence of having been relegated to the bedrooms of the other slaves, succumbed to my own darkness.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe the anguish of not knowing about Ankh´s situation, the person I had promised to protect, or maybe it was the anger to see that Sadith was still absent, but one night I could not take it anymore and when the whole palace was asleep I used my power to materialise in my old cubicle. As expected, it was empty, and I noticed a strange smell coming from Ankh's rooms filled the room. I entered the chamber knowing that Ankh would most likely kick me out as soon as she saw me, but what I found was much worse.
The room was completely dark except for the light coming from incense burners scattered around the room from whose embers a grey smoke came out which was responsible for that horrendous smell that filled the room. Ankh was on the bed, unconscious, dressed but in a state of extreme sloppiness, without a wig or makeup and with large black bags under her eyes. Next to her bed a bowl with the remains of a potion that I recognised instantly, poppy blossom, the same substance that smoked in the incense burners. In my time in the palace I had seen how the doctors of the court administered the extract of that plant to their patients when they needed them to be quiet, and even some mothers used it to calm their children when they cried, but the doses were always small and very controlled to prevent the patient from developing an addiction to the state that the plant induced. Evidently it was too late to prevent that from happening to Ankh. Her condition suggested that she had been taking that poppy infusion probably for weeks and the presence of the burners, something absolutely excessive that I had not seen in all my time in the palace, shouted out loud that her dependence on the state of unconsciousness that the plant provided was out of control. I ran to open the curtains that led to the terrace so that the night air cleansed the room and I took the burners outside to keep them from contaminating the room. I tried to wake up Ankh, but it was impossible, and I understood that I had to wait for the effect of the drug to pass so I stayed with her, watching over that unnatural dream.
Ankh woke up many hours later without knowing where she was or what time it was. I tried to speak to her, but my voice did not provoke any reaction in her. It took her a few minutes to begin to realise that she was in her room and, as soon as that happened, her hands tried to find the bowl with the infusion I had found next to her bed and removed. Seeing that the bowl was not there, she suddenly began to stir and show a state of enormous nervousness, and crawled out of bed to look for it on the floor of the room while muttering a constant litany.
“Where is it? Where is it? I need it. I left it here. Where is it?” Her tone of voice rose up as she saw that she was unable to find her drug. Her hands and mouth trembled, and the anxiety increased.
“Ankh, Ankh, my lady, you must listen to me!” I said trying to catch her attention, but she continued with her search, screaming that she needed her bowl. Suddenly, she turned to look at me and it was as if her brain had finally understood that there was someone else in the room with her. Without thinking, she launched herself against me, scratching my face with her fingernails and trying to reach my eyes.
“You, it's been you, you've stolen my bowl! Where is it? I'll kill
you if you don’t give it to me!” Her screams echoed throughout the room and the force with which she attacked me, fuelled by her craving, was unexpected of her small body. I knew that if I did not stop her, she would end up hurting herself, so I made a desperate decision. Gathering as much concentration as I could while trying to stop her hands I entered her mind and took control. Immediately Ankh stopped in her attacks and her body abandoned in my arms as if it were a sack of sand. I placed her back on the bed and with great effort induced a calm dream in her mind that would allow her to recover.
“Sleep!” I whispered, “let your body cleanse the poison you've been taking. And do not fear, I will not leave you!”
For two full days Ankh lay in her bed unable to get up, suffering the most terrible convulsions and her body drenched in sweat. The seizures of her being crying out for the drug that had been withdrawn were so strong that the concentration necessary to get her mind to remain in a state of rest while her body did all the cleaning work exhausted me too; but at dawn on the third day, Ankh was awake.
“Good morning, my lady!” I said with a smile, but if I expected a grateful word to come out of her mouth I was completely wrong.
“Get out of my sight!” she answered trying to get up, but her body, too exhausted by the efforts of the last days, did not answer her.
Her words hurt me, but I understood where they came from and I thought it was better to ignore them.
“I've made them bring some fruit so that my lady begins to regain strength. I think in a couple of days …”
“I'm not going to eat anything! Don’t you understand? I want to return to the state I was in before you invaded my rooms, I want my peace back!”
“That peace does not exist,” I said, knowing that she would not be used to having a slave answer her mistress in that way, but the possible punishment did not matter to me, only her well-being did.