Khu: A Tale of Ancient Egypt

by Jocelyn Murray

  And just as quickly as it had formed, the mob disintegrated into chaos.

  That single shriek and fiery arrow had broken the spell of the mob’s madness. Its coiled body split apart, morphing into a kind of frantic herd of frightened wildebeest that ran, pushing and shoving in a frenzied stampede, whose only thought was escape. The stupefying effects of the heqet, the fast encroaching darkness which swallowed the sky whole, and the torch smoke wafting over the crowd by a parched easterly desert breeze, convinced the people that the gods had suddenly turned against them in anger. And in their madness, they perceived the fire as a sign of the gods’ fury.

  Several more arrows illuminated a fiery path as they whizzed above the dispersing crowd toward the temple, whose sphinxes overlooked the now-vacant avenue which had been hastily abandoned. People were screaming and shouting as they left the temple grounds and ran blindly through the narrow streets of the town—streets which were made more frightening by the erratic shadows cast by torches in the marketplace. Pottery crashed to the ground, sacks of grain and spices spilled, fruit and vegetables rolled in the streets as tables were upturned and people tripped and fell on one another, some of them getting crushed in the process.

  “Stay here, Lord King,” Ankhtifi told King Khety.

  They had withdrawn into the colonnaded courtyard of the Temple of Osiris with an entourage of guards and officials, and their three captive priests. A silent rage was beginning to replace the shock of the sudden turning of events, and the king grit his teeth against it.

  “Someone did this,” Khety snarled through his clenched jaw. “This was not an act of the gods.”

  Khety was envisioning all his meticulous arrangements being swept away like the Nile waters over the floodplains. Over a year of scrupulous planning had gone into the details which had unfolded this night. Over a year of meetings, and training, and strategizing, and waiting. But it had been a lifetime of ambition.

  “An enemy,” Ankhtifi said.

  “Find them,” Khety growled at some of his guards, with fury in his eyes, as several of his men left the temple to see who was behind the disaster, “and burn the town. Burn and destroy everything, including the royal necropolis. Leave nothing untouched! Destroy it all!” The power he had wielded over the crowd had dissolved as soon as they had panicked and dispersed.

  But the battle had not yet been lost—it was just beginning. He would just have to go about it differently than he had originally planned.

  The king thought about his small kingdom that was barely held together by the blood of his enemies. He thought of the throne which had been left to him by his father, and his grandfather before him. That throne rested on a dream of reunifying the lands—a dream which had been stoked and nurtured over time.

  The seat of Lower Egypt’s throne in Nen-nesu had never been very large or stable to begin with. It had risen from the ashes of the Old Kingdom’s disintegration in Inebou-Hedjou. But other thrones had risen as well, as the central authority over the land disintegrated, and the provincial powers grew stronger. And although they had ruled their own city-settlements effectively, their power did not extend beyond the short reach of their arms. One by one, Khety had crushed them and usurped their power, growing more gluttonous and greedy as a result. King Mentuhotep was the last obstacle to his dream of ultimate power over Egypt; but a formidable obstacle indeed.

  “Leave me!” Khety shouted abruptly, as one of his attendants tried to calm him.

  The startled man slunk away like a dog with his tail tucked beneath him, and stepped outside the courtyard.

  Khety was pacing back and forth among the gigantic columns that safeguarded and adorned the temple’s private covered courtyard. He felt like a caged beast. He wanted to destroy the temple whose pillars felt like the constricting bars of a colossal pen. He flung his scepter onto the stone floor instead. He took a jagged breath and rubbed the back of his neck, as his thoughts roamed south, to Thebes, where Mentuhotep ruled. He closed his eyes against the envy burning in his blood. He closed his eyes tightly and drew his brows together, so that a deep, vertical line appeared to cleave his high forehead in two.

  He coveted the Theban throne. He coveted it with every fiber of his lonely being. And he coveted everything belonging to the Theban ruler—his wives, his children, his lands, his very life.

  Khety wanted power over all of Egypt, and he wanted the respect and adoration the people showed the ruler of Upper Egypt.

  All he saw in the eyes of his own subjects was fear. They feared him when they stepped into the same room with him. They feared him when they whispered his name. They feared him when they knelt on trembling knees before him. They feared him when they opened their mouths to speak, and then stammered as they did so.

  This bothered Khety. He hated their fear because fear breeds contempt. And contempt leads to rebellion. And rebellion induces treason.

  The king exhaled, bristling against the realization that he could never be like Mentuhotep. He would never be respected and revered as was the Theban king. Yet like Mentuhotep, Khety was not a vain man. He was even oblivious to his own good looks and the flustering effect they sometimes had over others. Khety had always attributed his power over others to their fear; and though this was true, it had not always been that way. There was a time when he was cherished and loved, even if those sentiments only extended to the edge of his dominion. Yes, there was a time when he was venerated for the integrity and honor within his heart. He had cared deeply for his people, and they had esteemed and treated him with loyalty and devotion in return.

  But that was a long time ago. It had been long before the tragedies wreaked havoc in his wretched life. Long before he built thick walls around himself; walls hewn from grief, anger and an agonizing loneliness that hardened his heart.

  None of those ephemeral things mattered anymore, anyway. Feelings come and go. They wax and wane like the moon’s endless cycles throughout time. And if Khety could not have the people’s devotion, he would at least have their obedience.

  Yes, he thought to himself, as he clenched his jaw determinedly once again, he would have their obedience; an obedience wrought by force if necessary.

  Obedience wrought in blood.

  TEN

  Mentuhotep had given the signal to Qeb to loose the fiery arrow that flew over the people toward the Temple of Osiris, like a portent of death. The Kushite warrior had the eyesight of a hawk, and had released the string of his bow with the intent of using the arrow to kill the northern king, and jolt the mob out of its trance.

  “Aim for the pretender,” the king told Qeb, as he eyed Khety and the people with a frown on his face. “It is time to disperse this maddened crowd.”

  Khu, Nakhti and one of the soldiers had their arrows poised to fly toward the temple as well. And just as they were ignited with fire, they too followed Qeb’s arrow over the mob that was now screaming. The mob’s bravura had swollen disproportionately large by Khety’s incendiary speech, and then burst like new wine in an old goatskin.

  “Seth! It is Seth!” Some of them shrieked in their delirium.

  “He’s come to murder us all!” others screamed of Seth, who was the god of chaos and storms, as well as the brother of Osiris and Isis.

  “Run! Get away! Death is upon us!” they panicked, as their heqet-steeped imaginations exploded into hysteria.

  According to the Legend of Osiris, the dark and moody Seth grudgingly lived in the shadow of his brother, whom he despised with all the bitterness of a sibling rivalry as vast as the unyielding desert stretching on either side of the Nile Valley. After much plotting, the jealous Seth killed Osiris by trapping him in a wooden chest, which he sealed with molten lead, before hurling it into the Nile. Isis secretly retrieved the chest which was eventually discovered by Seth who, consumed by an unquenchable fury, dismembered Osiris’s dead body, and scattered his remains throughout Egypt, before claiming the throne of the gods for himself.

  With Seth on the throne, chaos preva
iled over the land. It unleashed cruelty and injustice, provoking humanity’s baser instincts, as well as hardship, famine and disease. But the actions of Seth did not go unavenged. Horus, son of Osiris and Isis, later hunted down and confronted his evil uncle Seth. He engaged him in an eternal battle of good versus evil, which is fated to end with the victory of Horus reinstating Osiris as king, who, until that day comes, remains god of the dead, ruling justly in the Afterlife.

  Panic spread over the dispersing crowd like wildfire as their thoughts turned to the evil brother of Osiris. Upon seeing the fiery arrows, they believed that Seth had come to inflict a terrible destruction over the town, smiting them in a jealous rage for their devotion to Osiris. What the people did not know was that the battle for Egypt was being fought, not by gods, but by the two most powerful kings at the time.

  The people ran for their lives, thinking Seth would release a pit of snakes, spitting fiery venom from the Netherworld to consume them. The jubilant mood following the grand ceremonial reenactment commemorating Osiris, which had been sullied by Khety’s talk of blood and sacrifice, soured into a fear reeking of desperation.

  It was every man for himself as the people sought cover from an impending doom.

  Mentuhotep had arrived at Abdju only hours before. He had cut his trip to Kush short, where he had hired more mercenaries before returning to Swentet to assemble an army and head back north, not even bothering to stop in Thebes.

  He traveled in a fleet of ten ships with about six-hundred men, most of whom were trained soldiers, armed with bows and arrows, spears, scimitars, battle axes and shields. They sailed north on the Nile and docked at a small farming settlement just south of Abdju, so their arrival would not be noticed. They uncoiled the thick papyrus ropes stored on deck, and used them to secure the ships to the shore, looping and tying them around some large boulders used for this purpose. A small crew stayed behind to guard the ships which would remain here, safely out of sight from the enemy. Only one of the ships would follow to dock in Abdju in the morning, along with a few smaller boats that would be at the king’s disposal.

  “We go on foot from here,” the king instructed, as his men left the ships and took their weapons to head toward the city that was celebrating the Festival of Osiris.

  Although the farming village south of Abdju appeared to be largely deserted, a few people stopped whatever they were doing to watch the armed men move in disciplined form after the king of Upper Egypt. A young, expectant mother grasped the hand of her little boy in alarm, as she cradled her swollen belly in a protective gesture. They stared, unblinkingly, with their mouths slightly agape, at the men who passed by in silence. An old man herding a small flock of sheep had also turned to face the men leaving the ships by the shore. Several of the sheep were bleating as the stillness of the aging day was broken. There were a few children wading in a shallow pond under the watchful eyes of two elderly women, who were weaving large reed baskets that would be used for storing fish caught from the river, after it had been cleaned, dried and salted.

  Startled birds took to flight while others sought shelter in the dense reeds by the riverbank. The agricultural settlement had fields lying next to a small village with a heqet-brewing facility. Most of the laborers had taken time off to celebrate the annual festival in Abdju, where it was believed that the entrance to the Underworld waited in the mouth of a canyon.

  Khu and Nakhti walked behind their father and Qeb on the dirt road that crept along the rocky vegetated bank of the Nile. The land rose sharply away from the river, then continued into a gently sloping plain running westward, with slender palm trees rising against the sky whose colors deepened with every passing hour of the sun’s ancient voyage.

  A vulture circled above, catching Khu’s eye.

  “It is a good omen,” Nakhti said as he too watched the bird. “Mut is watching over us.”

  Mut was the vulture goddess of the sky. She was Amun’s wife and mother goddess of Thebes. It was believed that all life was conceived through her, and she was worshiped alongside Amun and the moon-god Khonsu who was her son. The three of them were revered as the Triad of Thebes.

  The boys watched as the bird soared gracefully with its outstretched wings, whose dark flight feathers were tipped in white. Nakhti was in high spirits, feeling excited about the prospect of fighting alongside the soldiers in his father’s army. He walked with his head held high, carrying himself as one who believed he could not be defeated.

  But Khu felt a little apprehensive. He could not place the source of the strange feeling which grew stronger as they neared Abdju. All he knew was that something dark and evil waited for them there.

  “They might be expecting us,” the king said, as they kept close to the riverbank whose thick vegetation shielded them from view.

  “Expecting a fleet on the river perhaps, Father,” Nakhti answered confidently. “But they will not expect an army on foot.”

  “Even if they are, it does not matter,” Khu spoke up.

  Khu had been the one to persuade Mentuhotep to leave the mines for another time and go to Abdju. He had sensed the fear and deception in Ankhtifi’s administrator. The fish-faced man was as slippery as an eel and just as dangerous. And as Khu had suspected, the man had indeed sent word to Ankhtifi about Mentuhotep’s visit right after the Theban king had departed.

  But Ankhtifi had not been overly concerned when he received the message from an envoy. So what if Mentuhotep had stopped by Nekhen on his way down to Kush? He did not see anything unusual in that. And the fact that Ankhtifi was in Abdju during the Festival of Osiris had been perfectly reasonable. Why would the Theban king suspect anything when Mentuhotep himself often attended many such festivals?

  There was nothing suspicious in that. At least that is what Ankhtifi had convinced himself. And so he had kept this information from Khety, after the envoy had delivered his message, so as not to distract Lower Egypt’s monarch from their scheme. They had purposely planned this revolt to coincide with the Festival of Osiris so it would not arouse suspicion, and so they could enlist the help of the several thousands of people who would be there. Khety had believed their plan to be foolproof.

  It almost had been.

  Ankhtifi was not aware that Mentuhotep had been told that he had gone to Abdju to trade goods which were commonly available in Abdju. It was that simple ruse that had made the Theban king suspicious of his southern neighbor. That, and Khu’s own intuition which was as sharp as an owl’s hearing.

  Mentuhotep might not have suspected anything if Khu had not insisted that something more sinister was at work. But over the years he had come to rely on Khu’s perceptiveness, and to trust his ability to see things in the light of truth, no matter how well it might be concealed beneath many slippery layers of deception. Strangely enough though, Khu had never mentioned anything about Odji the gatekeeper over the years since the botched robbery attempt. Perhaps that was due to Odji’s own clever instincts to keep his thoughts well hidden behind a façade of honesty. He had always made it a point to stay far from Khu whenever the boy was entering or leaving the palace compound. Keeping his distance had helped to keep his thoughts well hidden from Khu’s piercing gaze.

  Mentuhotep’s army passed by one of the hundreds of cemeteries bordering Abdju as they headed deeper into the western desert. Little more than the crumbled relics of the ancient stone structure survived of the Predynastic grave. The elaborate, brick-lined tomb showed the charred traces of fires which had once consumed the area. Thorny shrubs, weeds and wild grasses sprung from the dry ground, clinging to the broken walls of roofless chambers, which had long since been claimed by foxes, snakes and lizards. A few scattered bearded sheep cocked their heads to one side, eyeing the men as they grazed on the brush growing in clumps from the rocky terrain.

  Some of the men touched the amulets hanging from their necks in protection against any evil spirits that might be lurking among the dead, whose graves had been disturbed over time. Khu closed his eyes mo
mentarily as he grasped his own talisman hanging from a leather cord. It was a small, winged kheper scarab beetle carved from black onyx, holding a sun made of pure gold. His mother Tem had given it to him during their first celebration together of the Inundation of the Nile, when he was seven.

  “Wear this always my son,” Tem had told Khu, as she tied the cord around his neck. “It will protect you from harm.”

  Khu thought of his mother now as he touched the amulet. It was warm from the heat of his sun-drenched skin, and reminded him of her warm smile that was always touched with a hint of worry for the son who claimed her heart. He hoped she was well, and that she would not fret if she found out about what was going on in Abdju. Like most mothers, she often worried for him. And although she had been very supportive of Mentuhotep in his desire to take the boys with him to Kush, there was an underlying apprehension that made the corners of her smile waver ever so slightly. Only Khu knew of her true feelings and the depth of her love and need to protect the boy who had grown into a young man.

  “Stop…” Qeb raised a hand to halt the procession of men as they marched past the derelict grave.

  Qeb had been walking about fifty paces ahead of the king, to scout for possible danger lurking on the outskirts of Abdju, when he suddenly spoke up. He crouched down to examine something on the ground.

  Khu saw a thick cloud of flies buzzing loudly around Qeb, and some buzzards perched on a scraggly tree with thorny branches, stripped of leaves. The dark-feathered birds were hunched and brooding as they observed the landscape below, with beady eyes feigning indifference. Their yellow, dagger-like beaks were stained with blood.