The Forest of Myrrh (Imhotep Book 3)

by Jerry Dubs

  “Thank you,” Neferhotep said. “He was a second father to me. Pharaoh Hatshepsut will mourn his decision to stay ... ” He looked at Akila questioningly. “He is truly living now in the time before the pyramids?”

  Akila frowned as she thought. She tilted her head toward Imhotep and said, “Imhotep explained it this way: Imagine that each of us is a boat on a great river of days. We start upstream,” she pointed back up the river, “and we follow the current downstream.”

  Neferhotep nodded.

  “Let’s imagine that Abu is where you were born, instead of it being a place, it is the time when you were born. Each village we pass is a different, later year in your life.”

  Neferhotep breathed deeply as he stared at Akila, trying to imagine the passing of time in a world where each day was like the last.

  “You have seen eighteen floods, yes?” Akila said. Neferhotep nodded. “So imagine that we have passed eighteen villages. Now we have no sail or rowers. We cannot turn against the stream of the current. So you cannot revisit those villages. They are behind you. Forever. But the villages are still there.”

  Neferhotep pursed his lips in thought.

  “The false doorway that Bata opened was like putting the boat ashore and dragging it upriver to one of those villages we already passed,” Akila said.

  Neferhotep nodded. “But Bata – his boat – is in the water now. He could catch us?”

  “No,” Akila said. “His boat and our boat travel at the same speed. So we will always remain ahead of him.”

  “Unless we put ashore and wait,” Neferhotep said.

  “Yes,” Akila agreed. “But it is impossible to put ashore on the river of time, Neferhotep.”

  “Unless you are Imhotep,” Neferhotep said.

  “Apparently,” Akila agreed. Then, reaching toward the sack that contained her few possessions, she retrieved her medical kit. She opened it and pulled out a silver stick. “Neferhotep, do you trust me?”

  He nodded. “Of course. Maya and Hapu told me about you. You saved grandfather’s life, you gave your own blood to save grandmother’s life and you healed mother when she was an infant. And Bata said that you when you saved grandfather you healed not only his body but his ka as well.”

  “Well,” she said, embarrassed that Bata had spoken so highly of her, “I think we all helped each other.” She held up the silver stick and said, “I’d like to take a small sample from you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Akila stood and walked to him. “It is to help Imhotep,” she said. “Open your mouth like this.” She opened her mouth wide. “And then I’ll put this inside against your cheek. You’ll feel a tiny pinch, like this.” With her free hand she pinched the skin on the back of his hand.

  “This will help Imhotep?” he asked and then he opened his mouth.

  Akila took a quick DNA sample and nodded.

  “It could mean his life,” she said.

  Hope

  Sitting on his throne, Seni shifted his weight and sighed.

  He didn’t mind knowing that Wepwaret was near. Death held no fear for him. No, he welcomed it. The gods had been cruel in this life, perhaps they would reward him in the next. Perhaps he would be reunited with Mut-Nofret.

  Thutmose, his hunger inflamed when he saw Mut-Nofret, had taken her away from Sunet immediately after the festival. She had become a minor wife, submitting to Thutmose that very night as his royal boat drifted down river to Waset.

  A year later Seni learned that she had given birth to a prince. The boy was named Akheperenre, a name often said with a wisp of sadness, a shrug or a worldly nod.

  Away from the capital and distant from court gossip, Seni could learn little about his distant love. He heard rumors that the beautiful young princess was distraught because the boy was marked by Seth. There were tales that Mut-Nofret was in disgrace, but there also were stories, repeated with ever exaggerated details, that Pharaoh Thutmose was spending night and day planting his seed in his youngest wife.

  And then a messenger had come to Sunet; Seni had been appointed scribe to the governor of distant Ta-Seti. He was to leave immediately.

  On the trip upriver, he had asked the messenger, a pompous official named Bek, how he had been chosen for the remote outpost. Bek had shrugged. “Who knows, young scribe. Pharaoh knows all the cattle of the Two Lands. Perhaps Thoth whispered his name in his ear. Perhaps someone else did.” And then he had laughed and turned away.

  Puzzled at first, Seni soon realized that it must have been Mut-Nofret who had whispered his name. Had she asked pharaoh to give him a position? Or had she blundered and called Seni’s name while pharaoh was riding her?

  Either way, he thought with satisfaction, she remembered him still. His name was on her lips. As hers was always in his heart.

  And so he had come to Kerma, capital of the kingdom of Ta-Seti, now a province of the Two Lands. He had served as scribe, as assistant administrator, as advisor, and now he was governor.

  - 0 -

  When he became governor, Seni was sure that the gods had turned in his favor, or perhaps they had grown bored with him and had found other mortals to torture. And so he had turned his palace into a dream home for Mut-Nofret.

  Built onto the back of the palace, his throne room was a rectangle that jutted out from the main hallway. Seni had instructed his architect to place windows on the two opposing sides of the room, allowing both morning and afternoon light to flood the room.

  Looking about the room now he smiled as he remembered sitting on a stool in the center of the unfinished room, imagining what Mut-Nofret would like.

  He had ordered small palm trees potted and placed between the windows, their flat, green leaves tinting the light to remind him of the garden where he and Mut-Nofret had become lovers. A small pond had been dug into the floor along the western wall, the water brought to the room with a water wheel along the outer wall that raised water from a canal and fed it into a sluice that ended in a stone waterfall.

  Moss refused to grow in the room and so he had the artificial pond surrounded with green pillows. Over them were hung willow branches, inserted into the side of a trunk fastened to the wall, to re-create the green grotto where he and Mut-Nofret had retreated to make love so many years ago.

  The ceiling was painted blue, not the dark blue of night painted on tomb ceilings, but the cerulean of the daytime sky. Daylight brought the false sky to life, adding to the illusion of the garden of his memory.

  In earlier days, when Seni had still clung to the fantasy that Mut-Nofret would leave Pharaoh Thutmose and join him here, he had live cranes brought into the room and the shallow pond was stocked with fish.

  But she never came.

  She had sent messages, at first simple notes, sealed and sent with a guard, a young scribe, or someone else that she had persuaded or bribed to be trustworthy. Later, after Thutmose’s desire for her had dimmed, she grew braver and sent longer messages and together they developed their own code, words that spoke of love without saying the word, innocent phrases that expressed longing, lists of requested goods that hid memories of young lust.

  As her son, Akheperenre, grew older, it became clear that the young prince would never be pharaoh. His thoughts were disorganized, his limbs uncoordinated. He wept for no reason, he laughed at unspoken jokes.

  And yet his name began to appear in the messages Mut-Nofret sent to him. Discarded by Thutmose when she failed to produce another heir, she had spent her hours plotting revenge.

  Damaged as he was, Akheperenre was her hope.

  Maya

  Waset had changed.

  The wooden docks were sturdier, there were more of them and the boats that lined them were larger and stacked higher with goods. The sound of bleating goats, snorting oxen, and shouting longshoremen filled the air.

  Their pilot curled their boat toward a wharf, its pilings painted royal blue, its planks crowded with soldiers, sailors, and merchants. Ropes were tossed to waiting hands
, tied to posts, a wide, solid gangplank was wedged from pier to ship and royal guards clambered aboard.

  It was late morning.

  Neferhotep had delayed their arrival to allow Imhotep and Akila to be properly bathed, perfumed, made up, oiled and dressed.

  The shendyt kilt Neferhotep gave Imhotep to wear was blazing white and given shape with dozens of vertical pleats. Tying it about his waist, Imhotep noticed that it was longer, reaching to his knees, while his older kilt had barely come to mid-thigh. The linen swath used to secure the shendyt ended with wide tails embroidered with his cartouche: a reed, an owl, and an altar.

  Akila, who had dressed alone in the sheltered canopy, had emerged wearing a long white linen gown, held in place with wide straps that rose from her waist, covered her breasts and looped over her shoulders.

  Neferhotep had bowed his head at her and said, “Bata spoke of your beauty, Akila. We all thought he was exaggerating, the magnified tales of an old man. But I see that he was understating your beauty.”

  To Imhotep’s amazement Neferhotep’s compliment made Akila blush, something he had never managed to achieve.

  “You have Meryt’s appreciation of the simple,” Akila said, bowing her head in return. Imhotep began to shake his head, then he saw her glance at him and smile.

  “You play with me,” Neferhotep said, smiling good naturedly, “but I am very serious. You are very beautiful, Akila.” He squinted his eyes in thought for a moment and then said, “We will wait here while I send for a beautician. I have no makeup aboard the ship and, although your beauty does not require gilding, we must present you properly.”

  - 0 -

  And so Imhotep was not completely surprised now when the guards who formed a corridor leading from midship to the gangplank all inhaled sharply when Akila stepped out from beneath the canopy.

  Taller than most ancient Egyptians, she carried herself with a natural dignity that gave her an air of royalty. She wore a wide, beaded necklace of turquoise stones interlaced with gold beads. She had submitted to the beautician’s razor and she was wearing a shoulder-length black wig, its coiled strands interlaced with threads of gold. A pair of gold bands, formed as a snake swallowing its tail, encircled her upper right arm and her eyes were delicately accented with kohl, the black shadow leavened with a touch of blue that matched her necklace.

  Naturally luminescent, her dark skin had been lightly anointed with jasmine-scented sesame oil, and now it glowed beneath the bright Egyptian sun. The beautician had applied a thin coat of carmine lipstick, the deep red highlighting the silver ring in Akila’s lip.

  She is, Imhotep thought, as beautiful as any queen.

  - 0 -

  At the end of the pier, Imhotep stopped and drew in his breath in surprise.

  Waset had indeed changed.

  Stalls along the waterfront were capped with colorful canopies, although children who ran past him were naked, few of the adults were nude. The men all wore the same long kilt that he was wearing, most were dyed brown or a faded red, some were unbleached and a few were blazing white. The women wore gowns with wide straps covering their breasts. Again some were dyed, some unbleached and a few made of the finest linen, so delicate and transparent that they were little more than veils.

  But the biggest surprise was the three chariots waiting along the road.

  Each was led by a pair of brown horses, their backs and sides covered with blue and white-striped saddle pads. Wide leather girths were strapped around the horses’ chests and necks and tethered to a central yoke.

  The chariots were painted white, the bottom edge and trim around the frame covered with golden gilt. The bodies of the chariots were large, supported by four six-spoked wooden wheels.

  As Imhotep and Akila looked at each other and then back at the chariots, Neferhotep joined them.

  “We will take the chariots to mother’s town home,” he said, extending his arm to direct them to the chariots. When he saw them hesitate, he said, “They are safe. It is the smaller war chariots that are difficult at first. But these ... ” he shrugged, “you simply hold on. The driver will take care of everything.”

  Then he said, “Oh, and try to keep your lips pressed together. It gets dusty.”

  - 0 -

  A few bouncing, jolting minutes later, the chariots slowed in front of the open gateway before a tall, sandstone-colored home.

  Imhotep reluctantly released his grip on the chariot body and staggered backward, catching his staff in his hand and then standing for a wobbly moment. The driver quickly took his arm to steady him. Waiting until Imhotep had regained his balance, the driver jumped from the chariot and then reached up to help Imhotep down to the solidly packed roadway.

  “Thank you,” Imhotep said. “That was my first chariot ride. Thank you for not driving too fast. Or was that fast?”

  “No, Lord Imhotep,” the driver said. “These chariots don’t work well at high speed. The war chariots, those are much faster. But they bounce.” He bent down and touched his knees. “Keeping the knees bent, that is the secret.”

  Imhotep nodded. Keeping my feet on the ground is the secret, he thought.

  As he tried to smile gratefully, Akila took his arm.

  “I kept trying to glance back at you, but I was afraid I would lose my balance and fall off,” she said. “But I would like to ride one again,” she whispered.

  “Father!” a woman’s voice shouted, and Imhotep turned to see a woman running through the gateway toward him. For a moment he felt a wave of vertigo. The woman's voice was that of Meryt and, to his weakened eyes, the shape of her body and the way she moved were the size and grace of Meryt.

  She ran with arms open to embrace him and he opened his with a flood of conflicting emotions.

  When he had last seen Maya, just a few days ago in his life, she had been a child. Now she was a woman the same age as Meryt had been as she lay dying in Imhotep’s arms. Her mouth, though not the same as Meryt’s, carried the same expression of openness, honesty, inquisitiveness, contentment and joy. Her eyes, flashing with happiness, were so much the eyes of Meryt that they reopened the still fresh wound of her death.

  He pulled her into his arms and turned his head to rest his cheek against the top of her head, just as he had with Meryt, feeling her arms encircle him at the same height, with the same force as Meryt’s had.

  “Father,” Maya whispered, “what is wrong?”

  Unable to speak, Imhotep pulled her closer, raising his face to kiss her forehead.

  “Maya,” Akila said softly, touching her shoulder, “you remind us so much of your mother.”

  Maya, the side of her face still pressed against Imhotep, smiled at Akila, who leaned close, her mouth almost touching Maya’s ear.

  “He mourns her greatly,” Akila whispered.

  Nodding her understanding, Maya closed her eyes and held her father closer.

  “I’m sorry, little bird,” Imhotep said a moment later when he had regained his voice. He straightened and stepped back from Maya, sliding his hands to her shoulders. Sensing movement at his side, he glanced over to see Neferhotep offering him a linen cloth.

  Imhotep took the cloth and dabbed the tears from his cheeks. Then, smiling at Maya, he dabbed at the tears that had run onto her ears and neck. Shaking her head, Maya reached up and took the swath of linen from him and handed it to Neferhotep.

  “Father,” she said, her own eyes brimming with happiness, “What has happened to you, has just happened, as strange as that is. But for me, it has been twenty-seven floods since I last saw you and mother. I have mourned for you both many years ago. I am at peace with mother being in the Field of Reeds. My tears now are for the happiness of being reunited with you.”

  She took his hand and led him into the wide entry of her home. “When I was a child, mother told me, although I was too young to fully understand, that passing to the next life disturbs you so much. She said it was your only flaw.” Maya smiled at her father. “But you must know that
mother had no fear of passing through death to her lasting life.”

  Holding her hand, Imhotep followed her into a larger room. Painted columns formed a pathway leading to a garden courtyard. Stone and wooden benches were arranged around a small rectangular pond.

  Maya led them to a trio of benches and then asked, “Have you eaten?”

  Before they could answer, Neferhotep joined them, followed by three girls carrying trays of fruit and bread.

  “We can have a lamb prepared. Or goose or fish. But I thought you would want something light. Pharaoh Hatshepsut will want you to dine with her tonight and she gets angry when her guests don’t eat,” Neferhotep said.

  Maya patted Imhotep’s leg and smiled. “I’m sure she wouldn’t become angry with you, Father. After all the stories Bata told her about you, she is in awe of you.”

  The girls set the food on a wooden table that two Nubians had carried into the garden while Maya spoke. Bowing, the girls stepped back and waited.

  Imhotep and Akila exchanged a glance, and then Imhotep said, “Maya, these girls, those men, are they your servants?”

  Maya nodded. “Yes, some of them. We have many more at our country estate. The garden there is much nicer, too. But I thought that after your journey you would want to rest here first. And, of course, Pharaoh Hatshepsut might decide to keep you here.”

  At the sound of hurried footsteps in the hallway, Maya stood and looked to Neferhotep.

  “I sent for him,” Neferhotep said and Maya clapped her hands in excitement.

  “Father, I want you to meet Pentu,” Maya said.

  As she spoke a tall, thin man wearing a full robe entered the garden. His face was wide, his eyes were filled with energy and amusement and his full lips were parted in a wide smile.

  A few years older than Maya, he walked briskly and confidently to Imhotep, stopped and bowed low.

  “Lord Imhotep, I am honored, and surprised beyond words.”