Heart of the Lotus

by Mary R Woldering

  “Good, good… find joy in this dark task then… I have my own tasks, if I have your word. I will await news of your progress.”

  The air thinned and the prince found himself alone. He stared at the box of stones, reached for the knife to place inside and then remembered Deka was out wandering.

  Damn her. Damn them all, he slammed the box shut and stuffed it under his bed. Sheathing the knife in his belt, he strapped it tighter around his kilt and left the tent.

  Deka froze when she opened the flap to the prince’s tent and saw his empty couch. She glanced to the left, seeking the expression of the lone guard outside. When she saw his firm but distant glance and received no greeting she knew:

  He’s been disciplined. Raem woke and followed me into the grass. He saw my men, I know it; saw me. He’ll be angry.

  Taking up the hem of her skirt, she nervously wiped her hands and face again, then rinsed her mouth with some wine from a cup on the table by the couch. A war raged in her thoughts.

  Ta-Te spoke to me. Now I know I’m not mad! He will be here soon. Perhaps he’ll take my Raem’s body as his own. Yet, he spoke of Marai as if he had not wanted me to reject him. He was dead. I had no other choice. He should understand!

  “Thinking much?”

  Deka felt the prince’s hands seize her arms and his breath exhale on her shoulder the instant before he nipped at it with his bared fangs. She wanted to face him, but instinct told her to freeze in place; to comply with his desire.

  “See,” he whispered, “this is what you want so badly, and this is what I can give. I should throw you on my couch and run through every part of you until you choke and bleed.” His hand shoved between her legs to feel and savor the wetness until she groaned in pleasure. “The thought of me making you burn like that makes your sweet clench weep for it. I should…”

  But then, as if it had been only mockery, he stepped back and turned her.

  She bowed her head, assaulted by too many thoughts to respond.

  Speak to him. You know he saw. Show him you are not ashamed, the deep whisper spoke inside her as if Ta-Te had entered her thoughts and used her own voice.

  “Don’t hurt me, my love.” Her voice began low, then strengthened gradually. “I know you want to show me you are still king over my soul and that is true. You are coming into your power now. Why are you alarmed when I show mine?”

  Deka felt his thoughts pause, then redirect. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He wasn’t in a wolf’s shape, as she expected he would be. His buffed and shaped nails were not claws, and his teeth merely dented his pouting lower lip.

  “But, nevertheless, you are mine, and as mine I expect you to be in my bed should I wake in the night, unless I have already ordered you aside… and in such a case you will be sleeping near, not wandering.”

  Deka stared up into his deep olive-green eyes, unblinking, but she couldn’t quite mask the energy of terror that pulsed in her temples. He sniffed at the side of her face, nipped at her cheek again, and smelled the leftover blood from the kill her guards had made.

  “Your hunger,” he affirmed. “Yet, it could not wait for morning,” his hand moved over her belly in tenderness. “To feed the whelp growing in it?”

  Deka paused. She hadn’t thought of the child when she and the guards went into the grass. She had thought of running free and of hunting, but had found the voice of the god Ta-Te. That voice hadn’t mentioned her child.

  Odd, she thought. He should have sensed it. It should have meant something for him to take my beloved as a host and to have his heir already forming inside me.

  “Yes, perhaps.” She nodded into his chest, her worry over his anger starting to fade. “The guards have been helpful.”

  She sensed his thoughts as he tensed again.

  Difficult. I have the woman, but the old pale-skinned wizard sent these creatures as a gift. I knew something was off. Why couldn’t I see it in them, the way they held back when I hunted the lion that nearly killed me? Would it have been a sacrilege for them to hurt a brother?

  “I hear your thoughts so angry about them, Raem. That they are not men, but lions. I’ve asked their hearts since they cannot speak, who it was that enchanted them, but they cannot tell me. They show me a river and them, as young creatures, suddenly knowing they stand on two legs. They were afraid and then were easily captured,” she looked away again. “They will protect me, and because I have grown to love you, they will protect you as well. But your men cannot know their secret. It is why we walk… so they can set the beast in themselves free.”

  For long moments, he looked in her eyes.

  Deka felt all his cruelty and suspicion seeping into her thoughts.

  Doesn’t trust me. She blinked, then found his face again. It would enrage him if she looked away. I don’t trust him. I thought I would, after he took his stone. I thought we would be as one. It’s not right.

  He seized her chin and squeezed it until it hurt, convincing her he could easily snap her jaw in one hand. She whimpered, but he pressed until she felt she would faint from pain.

  She wanted to fight him, but couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  He released her, then soothed the pain with his own brand of healing touch. When she had calmed, he looked at his fingertips as if he was surprised at his efforts.

  “Perhaps it’s a sign of your wisdom that you do not trust easily. Even friends will betray you if there’s a great enough advantage. A warrior knows this,” Maatkare’s lips brushed her glistening brow, teasing her stone’s resting place.

  Deka sensed something else had fueled his mood. He shouldn’t have been so upset if she left the tent, especially if her guards were with her. What is it? her thoughts asked.

  “Raem, beloved,” she stammered. “Another thing torments you. I feel it. Tell me what it is so we can defeat it together. Trust me that much.”

  “Perhaps,” the prince took a step back to regard her. “You hear my thoughts, but sometimes not so clearly because you are not yet mine. This thing. This elder god still commands your heart,” he turned. “But for what you’ve given me thus far, I would have choked the life from you the way I had to do it with the young brown-eyed honey when her thoughts demanded my submission.” He spat on the ground.

  Deka remembered sensing that he frequently choked Naibe until she fainted when he was with her, but never understood why. To her, it was inconceivable that anyone would think the young woman demanded submission. She was so gentle and invasively loving.

  That’s it, she remembered the way Naibe had effortlessly opened her own thoughts as they and Wise MaMa had traveled with Marai. Deka had been horrified that Naibe uncovered her need to find Ta-Te. That Naibe had dared tell everyone Ta-Te had not been worthy of anything from her had created the first rift between her own self and the others in their group.

  No. Ta-Te loved me. He speaks to me well, even tonight. Brown Eyes was wrong.

  “You still think about the others, the sojourners, too. I sense that. I need to know you are truly with me, Nefira. I need the dreams and visions to be the future of us… not them and not him.” Maatkare turned again, arms folded, then continued: “I’ve been given some new information. Shall we say it’s a new duty?” he ushered her to his bed, oddly more interested in talk than lovemaking.

  That unnerved her.

  “You see, the sepat man in Qustul and his grandson oppose the new and rising king. They view him as weak and plan an uprising either at the funeral of Menkaure or soon after. I am now to do more than observe. I have the grim task of discipline.”

  Deka’s thoughts raced. She saw the thirteen young men including the young man from the neighborhood being paraded before the troops not so very long ago. She remembered how he beat them, questioned them, choked them, and beheaded them or gutted them when they didn’t answer him. Only Naibe had stopped him from taking their neighbor’s life.

  Naibe, Naibe, Brown eyes, she thought. Oh, but the taste, she breathed inwardly and began
to breath faster in animal excitement. He opened me to the taste that day and I felt at last open to the sky and the god who will descend from it. Her heart pounded and her eyes clouded. The memory of it was enough to make her realize that even though she had eaten blood and meat, she hungered for it as if nothing had quenched it.

  “What’s this, woman?” Maatkare growled, gripping her arms. She dimly noticed his claws had begun to emerge as if her own hunger burned so greatly it had started to infect him.

  She leaned back, nearly struggling, but he gripped her and shook her hard. His claws dug into her arms and his fangs came forth slightly.

  “I won’t have this. I command you, Een nau, se-ereth-es-nun.” A pause, then “eres-nun…”

  “I can’t resist it… the burning. I need…” she felt hot, thirsty, and ravenous.

  Maatkare opened a part of his forearm with a claw and held that arm over her upturned face as if he expected her to beg like a dog for the slow drizzle of blood that dripped from it.

  “Raem. Please. Let me taste you… Let…”

  He held his arm over her open mouth.

  This time, the relief was sublime.

  Chapter 11: A Crystalline Warning

  Speed of the gods and running; just before dawn with the fastest rowers. Inspector Wserkaf parted the gauze-draped opening of the boat cabin and watched Khentie stretch the sleep from her arms. He crawled into the bed and found the mirror buried in their coverlets. Rubbing it on his cloak until it shone, he handed it to her.

  “Blessed Morning, Your Majesty,” he smiled pretending he was a new play toy for a royal woman’s entertainment.

  “Oh, stop, Wse, and hand me the lamp from the post outside,” she whispered.

  “I could wake Mya to tend you,” he suggested rousing her young servant then shrugged, admiring the misty expression on her face. His own, he thought, must have been glowing in the early-morning dark. “Night was good to you.”

  “Oh, no. Don’t wake her. She will rise when she hears your chant. Travel by boat makes the poor thing ill. Just get the lamp and I’ll find my own oils. You go, now.”

  Wserkaf backed out of the cabin and pulled the lamp from the post, gave it to her, and then scanned the lightening horizon again as he waited for the first ray of sunlight.

  When Khentie signaled her readiness, he took her extended hand. He tried not to look at her as she emerged to witness his morning prayer as Daughter of the God,

  Raising his hands to the rising sun, he intoned:

  “Hail to you, Ra, perfect each day,

  Who rises at dawn without failing,

  Khepri who wearies himself with toil!

  Your rays are on the face, yet unknown,

  Fine gold does not match your splendor;

  Self-made, you fashioned your body,

  Creator uncreated.”

  The side-glance Wserkaf stole at Khentie in her simple coronet over her short, curled hair instead of formal raiment made him almost lose his composure.

  More brilliant than the sun, he thought, not caring if Ra himself took issue.

  It had been an incredible evening. They packed in secrecy and made certain no one knew they were leaving a full two days earlier than they had publicly announced. Shepseskaf had urged Wserkaf to leave his own boat and his son behind. The youth could be given a short assignment until they returned in two weeks.

  Both of them were instructed to take one of the smaller boats in the royal fleet, but not the king’s personal boat. That way, Hordjedtef would not easily discover the secrecy of their mission. The statue was loaded and they launched. Once they were under way, they chatted into the night. Then, after love and caresses, slept like youths exhausted with joy.

  Bliss, Wserkaf smiled as she gave orders to the journey steward who had wakened at the sound of the chant. And after so many years and recent storms.

  For a short time, he stood in the prow observing the dark place on the horizon. Per-A-At was not far away. He’d always made this journey in the other direction, from Ineb Hedj to Khmenu and back, three and four times a year. Funny, he thought, little fishing huts and shaduf jutting from the waterside marshes. Peasant rafts and wealthier folk with servants, bows, hunting. It’s the same up and down. Toward Per-A-At was more marshy and apt to have hippos and crocodiles. Southward, long stretches of rock and sand grew papyrus, and hunting parties fished or sought birds.

  When the steward brought the trays, Khentie beckoned Wse inside the cabin. They ate a quick morning meal of dried fruit, pickled goose, and beer. She smiled: the first sign of joy on her face in months.

  “So, Shepsesi is serious about you getting the flint box out of hiding?” Khentie dotted her lips after sloshing some of the beer when the boat bumped unsteadily. “Do you think your father will tell you where it is, or will I have to order him to do so?”

  Wserkaf whispered an answer:

  “I feel he’ll do it under the circumstances, but let’s not speak of it. As far as all know of our journey, we’re here bringing the shesepankh for the temple as your father’s final gift of spirit.” He reached forward to comfort her if she needed it. She stayed his hand and gave him a crust of bread.

  She nodded a winsome smile. “The gods are smiling on me, this journey, and you. Before this I was grieving, but I think it was over more than Our Father’s death. I was miserable that our life as beloveds, at least to the public eye, was over; our happy home was gone. Now many more things are tolerable.”

  Wse smiled, ate his food, and silently mused about the secret part of the mission.

  A dark room with the flint box containing the Secret Ways and Numbers. I’ve known too much about this place all my life. Got thrashed for sneaking into the caverns beneath the chart room as a boy. Now Shepsesi wants me to find the box and move it so Hordjedtef won’t get it in his grip. On top of that, he knows it wasn’t good between me and my father until recently and wants to secure his allegiance? This is as old as legend and playing out all over again with new actors.

  Hordjedtef told him about the box and its contents many times, but he often reiterated it was never as important as legend stated.

  You, old man, told me you had even seen the contents of the box and didn’t know the language on the tablets inside; that you copied what you could read, then hid the box again. And yet… Wserkaf sat a little straighter. He remembered the look on his teacher’s face when Marai demonstrated spirit writing that sunny afternoon in his plaza. None of this makes sense. Why kill him? Seduce him as you did me.

  Wserkaf fed his beloved a piece of dried melon, but noticed something was distracting her.

  “Wse?”

  “Beloved Majesty?” he gazed at the frown on her face and at that moment he felt a change in the air between them. A spirit? Out here?

  Something had found them.

  This far out in the middle of the river and in the early morning, spirits never lurked. They were always beaten back by the rising sun, only daring to emerge after dark. This was something else.

  “I know you felt that just now. Someone’s watching us,” Wse slipped closer to her. I hope this isn’t old Dede out dream walking. I don’t want him knowing we’re already here.

  Khentie put down her food and scooted to the opening of the cabin enclosure, straining to see something that lay on the distant shore. She drew back and shut her eyes, whispering her prayer and clasping her sycamore amulet.

  “A spell?” Wse raised his hands in a gesture and prayed under his breath with her. “Goddess Hethara, surround your vessel. Patience of Ra –”

  He felt a further drop in the sensation of the air that surrounded them and began to look around, scanning for something unusual.

  That’s not Hordjedtef, he frowned. I know his essence.

  Then he saw it: a large shimmering reflection edged in prismatic color had formed in front of the boat. It was an apparition of a giant oval shape large enough for the boat to pass through it as if it was a doorway to another world. It spun like a
n upright whirlpool, then vanished. Wse recognized both she shape and what had sent the pattern.

  “Someone south of us is using my wdjat; but it’s not Maatkare. I know he’s used it to see me, and so has his concubine, but this feels much stronger than the heka I felt the night I was at the well with Marai.” He pulled Khentie back into the shelter.

  The rising sun had already become hot.

  You speak of your crystal eye? Your ‘wdjat’ eye of truth? No. Prince Maatkare does not have it. I do. I am learning to use it, but the others do not know how much I have learned about it. I am finding you, because I need to speak to you and you know more of its use than they do. Shh.

  A voice Wserkaf didn’t recognize entered his thoughts with such a force that it dizzied him. He felt as if some creature had latched onto his wits and was pulling him into a receptive state so it could to speak to him.

  A spell? Hidden in this being’s words? He trembled as a mild seizure passed through him.

  “Wse? Do you need to make yourself level?” Khentie reached forward to steady his twitching shoulder; to give him a sense of stability.

  “Yes, but I can’t let this take me yet,” he struggled against the growing feeling that he would faint. “I don’t trust the sender,” Wse ducked down, buried his head in his lap, and massaged his temples. “Someone new has the disc and is using it to pull me into a vision.”

  “See him then, Wse. I’ll be right here,” Khentie urged, holding him.

  He stopped his struggle and allowed the numbness and tingling of a swiftly progressing trance to swarm and then fade as he freed himself from the confines of his body. Wserkaf soared up into the place where air, light, and mist combined. The energy called him up the river to the region past the Island of the Elephants.

  “When you begin to embrace the vision, signal with eyelids that tremble and raise your forefinger to me,” Khentie’s voice quietly crooned.

  Wserkaf listened to the quiet enchantment in her voice, comforted. His thoughts drifted back to a time in their childhood when they practiced trances in her father’s garden. Those afternoons had been carefree, because she was not the Daughter of the God in those days and he was not on his way to becoming a dual high priest. They were young and falling in love.