"The Great Overlord is where he should be, attending to trouble when it comes to his shore," said Ankhtifi. These were not fit men: like the women and children, their limbs were thin, their stomachs distended, and they wore cloaks of bruises and welts. "Where are you from? Are you people of mine?"
"Would that we were," said the helmsman, "or else we would not have trouble to bring to your shore, my lord. We come from Edfu in this old boat that we took from a boatwright before
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he could break it up for timber."
"If the boatwright should come in search of his craft, you might be punished. I may punish you for
theft anyway."
"He won't come after it, my lord. He's dead, but not by our hands. His brother killed him,
because he would not pledge his heart to Khuu's new lord."
"New lord!" Ankhtifi exclaimed. "Our lord, Neferkare, still wears the crowns in the Residence at
Neni-Nesut, so the administrator of Edfu has no new lord. I, the King's Seal-bearer, would have been
informed if he had flown to heaven."
"Neferkare is king in Neni-Nesut and Lower Egypt, and here in the District of Nekhen if you say
so, but he is not the king of Edfu any longer," said the helmsman. "Khuu has declared it."
"What manner of abomination is this? Has some vile Lower Nubian sorcerer laid a spell on Khuu's
heart?"
The helmsman did not know; he had spoken all that he could of the matters of big men, and he, a little man, was tired and hungry and his wife and children were crying on the shore. Ankhtifi learned the helmsman was in fact a potter and, although Hefat had potters already, Ankhtifi appointed him a place where he might build a little house and workshop beside the rest.
That evening Ankhtifi laid a banquet for these people on the river-bank and another in his pillared hall, where he summoned his sons and his council. They ate choice cuts of beef, drank good beer, ate white bread, and spoke of what the potter had told them.
The Overseer of Troops of Hefat, Minnefer, said, "The District of Edfu lies at the southern border of our district, and we are very near the northern. It is a long way."
"Khuu is like a wound in the foot of the King," Ankhtifi said. "We are the hands of the King."
"And where is the King's heart but in the Residence at Neni-Nesut," murmured Minnefer, "far to the north at the entrance of the Faiyum. He might as well dwell in Syria." "He is near the gods and honors them, to ensure that the river floods in its season. That inundation must pass Edfu before it reaches us. Would you have a rebel between us and the first floodwaters?"
"The vile Lower Nubians lie between us and the first floodwaters, and what ill is that? Unless they're drinking up the water of the river, to make it rise so poorly as it does nowadays." Everyone laughed, even Ankhtifi. "If Edfu falls," Ankhtifi said, as his smile withered word by word and the laughter drained out of his voice, "what of Elephantine, to the south? Will it fall to Khuu? Will Khuu then join with the Nubians upstream? Will they together push north with the current and attempt to crush us?"
"Ha," said Minnefer, slouching on his stool, "for once in your life you're too ready for a fight, Ankhtifi! Usually you're all speech and council. Life is good in Hefat. I am old enough to know. Don't go looking for death in Edfu. Death is bad anywhere, but worst away from home. A rebel against our King would have to arise in Elephantine for there to be any real trouble. It will not happen."
"And did you think a rebel would arise in Edfu?"
"Oh, no, but you did, Ankhtifi the Brave!" the workmen say, and for a moment Ankhtifi does not know where he is: why is his hall so dark, why has the smell of the roast evaporated, replaced by the taste of dust in his mouth, and why are workmen here in the place of his councilors? Why are these men so thin? Where are his other three sons?
"Khuu was ever a wretch and a rebel," Idy says. "You could not fail against him."
Could he? No, he could not, because the god said so. And suddenly it is as if he stands not on the perfectly clean floor of a nearly finished tomb but on the dusty pyramid mountain that workmen's picks and chisels have not yet carved out. It is as if the title Great Overlord of Edfu is not yet his, and as if the falcon does not yet follow him in shadows.
The falcon came to him that night for the first time, when the councilors had returned to their homes and his wife, Nebi, had gone to bed, as had his sons and his daughters. Ankhtifi went out to the hills to watch over this place where life was good. The lay of the land was perfect here, farmland and
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hill-country each in good measure, shady stands of trees fringing the riverbank. Minnefer had argued the truth: it was good, very much so.
And as Ankhtifi was t hinking these things, a bird descended from the sky. For a moment he thought it was a bat, or a swallow that had lost the way to its nest in the riverbank, but it was too large, and the markings on its face were those of the most perfect falcon Ankhtifi had ever seen. What could it be but a god? Horus or Hemen? One and the same? And if it were not, if it were merely some exceptional bird with most perfect markings on its face—who would know if the Great Overlord Ankhtifi went to both knees and pressed his face to the ground before it? No one, unless the bird might tell its master, in which case Ankhtifi would still be justified indeed.
So he did, then brought his hands up before his face in a gesture of praise. There was a scent about
the falcon, a remarkable odor of sadness and age, as if it had flown over all the incense-terraces of
the God's-Land.
Ankhtifi bowed again. Even as a lector-priest, he did not know what to say before a god.
"So," said the falcon, "here are my hands!"
Into the aromatic lull that followed, Ankhtifi offered these words: "The King willing, here is my
lord!"
"Are you so certain?"
"You are god, or you are as god. Such would be my lord, if it is the King's will."
"My hands, with such wisdom you would do well as my heart! I am your King. Behold me, Ankhtifi, He-Who-Shall-Live."
Ankhtifi, who was accustomed to receiving no direct command, did as commanded. Ankhtifi, who feared none, worried that his gaze might be too direct or too deferent. But he looked upon this god and saw that it had perched upon a standard. Indeed, Ankhtifi noticed as he drew his eyes away from the ground and up its length, that this standard was set upon nothing, being merely balanced above the rocky ground, as if the weight of the bird upon it were so perfect that the world would forbid it to fall, and if by some device of the god it did fall, the world itself would move aside, lest the standard come to harm.
And he saw, too, that every feather was as white as alabaster or blue like lapis lazuli, that its feet and beak shone like the green gold of Amau, that its talons were silver, that its right eye was bright as the noon sun, its left eye as bright as the full moon.
"Well, what is the matter, Seal-bearer of mine? Answer." "I had thought that my lord, my King, was the son of Re but born of a woman's womb. No queen could have brought you into the world, my lord. You are a god, fashioned in the time of creation."
"I emerged from the womb of Iput and six years later began the first of my ninety-four years upon the throne. No king does that without learning a trick or two. When I was a boy, my Seal-bearer Harkhuf— Warden of Nekhen, Lector-priest, not so unlike you—went down to Nubia to fetch me a pygmy from beyond the land of Yam. I worried mightily for this divine dancer from the Horizon-Dwellers. 'Don't let him drown!' I begged Harkhuf, 'Keep a guard with him night and day.'"
Until this moment Ankhtifi had thought nothing could amaze him more than what had already
happened, but the falcon, god or King or both, outdid himself. Ankhtifi had heard of this Harkhuf,
and of the pygmy of the Horizon-Dwellers, and of the King, all generations past. But he knew
nothing more of the story, so bit his tongue.
"That pygmy was a marvel, worth more than
every resin-tear from every incense-terrace, more than every green nugget from every gold mine in Amau, more than every black log from every forest of ebony. I was so very young, still suckled at my mother's breast, and even then I recognized his preciousness. What dances he danced! He pleased the gods mightily, my hands. Perhaps that is why they allowed him to work the magic that he knew, the magic of the Horizon-Dwellers that is not known in the land of Egypt or indeed anywhere else in the world. In secrecy he taught me how to live in three years as other men live in one, and thus I sat upon the Horus-throne for four years and ninety. Not until then did I fly to the West."
Well, then, that was it, Ankhtifi thought, strangely mollified that this was not his King, Neferkare of the House of Khety, but rather Nefer-kare Son-of-Re Pepy, the old king of many years ago when kings were still building pyramids of size. This must be his ha, wandering about the world. In any
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case, Ankhtifi had done very well to bow and would continue to treat the falcon thus. "My lord, if my King should permit, I will be your hands, even as I am the hands of the successor of your successors."
"Successors!" The falcon laughed, a sound like the bending of a copper saw. "I have no successors; those who have upon occasion occupied the throne in my stead have been little men and one little woman."
"Is my King Neferkare so weak that you, his forefather, do not acknowledge him? Should I disavow my allegiance to him? I would not do so with a willing heart, for he is indeed my King."
The falcon's copper laughter turned to a proper hawkish shriek.
"I am your King Neferkare."
"That pygmy knew death nearly as well as he knew life. Not once but ten times have I sat upon the Horus-throne! I have been one more than the Ennead!" And the falcon proceeded to name his old name and recount those of the Great Nine Gods, interspersed with the names of kings, some of which were known to Ankhtifi, others not: "Neferkare Pepy—Atum! Neferka-the-child—Shu! Neferkare—Tefnut! Neferkare Neby—Geb! Neferkare Khenedy—Nut! Neferkare Terer—Osiris! Neferkare Pepysonby—Set! Neferkaure—Isis! Neferirkare—Neph-thys! Neferkare—wait, there is no more. One more than the Ennead." Then his timbre changed, becoming darker or tired. "It is enough now. The tenth time shall be the last time, the perfected time, and for ten times four-and-ninety years I now will reign. Those Amenemhats and Senwosrets and Amenhoteps and Thutmoses and all those Rame-seses! They think they will succeed me. Let them pass their lives away as fishermen, as arrow makers, as boys of the horse-stables."
Ankhtifi did not think he knew any of these men, and he did not know what a horse was, but he
let the falcon speak; what else could he do?
"But you, Ankhtifi, you are my loyal hands, ready to bind up the wound in the sole of my foot."
"I am ready to do anything that pleases you, my lord, my King."
"Of course you are; you've proven yourself no fool. How much like Harkhuf you are! Go to Edfu with your troops. Tell your councilors and your soldiers that Horus himself dispatches you there. Defeat Khuu, who is a rebel and a wretch and who has stolen much of what belongs to the shrine of Horus-Behdeti, the god of that place. And every third night, from next one forth, bring to me two khenmet-loaves from the altar of Re and an offering of flesh. Do this, and my hands shall be rewarded."
"It will be done," Ankhtifi pledged, bowing to the ground again, and when he raised himself once more, the standard was gone and the falcon was gone, and just the slightest essence of the incense-terraces hung heavy in the still night air.
He was eager for morning and, having returned home to his bed, tried not to sleep, but sleep he did, and when he awoke he was not entirely sure if it had all been a dream. It did not matter, dream or otherwise, and Ankhtifi thought otherwise. Horus—the King!—had ordered him to Edfu.
When his council heard this, they did not know properly what to say. Even as Ankhtifi had never before spoken to a god, awake or dreaming, nor had any of these men spoken to someone who had spoken to a god, not on such intimate terms. So, although they still believed that Ankhtifi was for once in his life too ready to fight, they declared that they would make themselves ready, too.
Ankhtifi and his sons and all the troops mustered their boats and their spears and their bows and their shields. They stepped their masts and raised their sails, but the wind died.
"This is," said Minnefer, looking northward, "an evil sign."
"The wind always dies when you most want it," Ankhtifi said, looking southward. "Take out the lines and we'll track."
So some of the men took out the ropes and pulled the boats from shore, hour by hour, up the river. Each of Ankhtifi's four sons, all strong young men, took their turn at the lead of the trackers. Ankhtifi prayed to Horus, Hemen, Neferkare, whatever he should call the falcon, to restore the wind, that they might all the sooner be upon the border of the district of Edfu. Shadows and clouds passed
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along the sky, as if the god Set were up to a storm. A great flock of geese flew up the river. In their
wake the wind rose—from the west and dusty, useless and dangerous like Libyan tribes. The geese
followed them in the days that they tracked, and even at night as they camped, Ankhtifi could hear
their cackle, negeg-negeg-negeg.
Then, at last, as one evening they tracked past the city of Nekhen, the flock scattered. Ankhtifi sighted a falcon, the north wind returned. The square sails grew rounded and the trackers joyfully leapt aboard. Ankhtifi drew a deep breath, filling his nose with the fragrance of the God's-Land.
"Sail," he said, "even into the night." The sailors did as he ordered, without argument that there might be shallows the pilots could not see, obstacles the helmsmen could not avoid. He longed to ask them if they disregarded their sailor's instincts because their noses were filled with incense from the wind—or perhaps it was now upon his own breath and they obeyed him on that account. But he did not ask, for by the time he thought to, they were on the borders of Khuu's district and one word might give them away to the rebels. Under the cover of night and silence they passed by crumbling villages and wastelands; dark, stinking things floating in the river; piles of grain rotting on the shore; until they came to the fields and the city of Edfu.
The sky was yet dark to the west; the east was just giving birth to the sun, which had yet to warm the moist morning air. Baboons, stirred into worship of the sun as shadows crept away from the hills, barked across the river.
Ankhtifi broke his men into four ranks and placed himself before the first. He led the first up the riverbank through the fields that were green with bindweed and cornflower, clover and vetch. His eldest son, Sobekhotep-the-younger, led the next line, Hotep-the-younger the next, Sanebi the last, and Idy held the rest of the troops back along the river, guarding the boats.
They came upon bodies along the way: a man and young girl, left there to rot, fly-blown father and sister to the stinking, swollen forms that had floated by on the river.
Smoke rose from beyond the wall of Edfu. A dog yapped, a bitch answered. The high voices of children carried in the still morning air. Such ordinariness in a day when the dead lay unburied troubled Ankhtifi deeply.
Where were the men to tend the fields? Callous and lazy, too, the grip of the rebel had made them. Truth had been overthrown and abandoned like the corpses. Evil spread like a weed in the fields.
"Khuu!" Ankhtifi called. "Where is Khuu?"
For an hour, like an eternity, Ankhtifi and his troops stood there before the wall. Living in the shadow of a rebel had made even the soldiers slothful. They would rather drink beer and chew melon seeds.
"Ankhtifi of Hefat has come to Khuu! In the name of the King!"
Now Khuu's men took notice. They whooped and ran to the walls, pouring through the gate while others crouched atop the walls. "Halt, you of Khuu!" cried Ankhtifi, raising his battle-ax. "In the name of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Neferkare, put down your spears, lay aside your bows, and drop y
our slings!" The men of Khuu did halt, and although they did not put down their spears, nor lay aside their bows, nor even drop their slings, they did not immediately press their attack. Instead, they laughed.
"Neferkare is not king here," cried an archer from the wall. Others took up the reply like a chorus, weaving into it insults: "Neferkare-who-has-lost-his-testicles is not King here, Neferkare-who-drinks-urine is not King here, Neferkare-who-eats-filth is not King here."
"Then," Ankhtifi replied, "there can be none here who can stand against me, because the only one who can best me is a man worthy of Neferkare, King of Upper and Lower Egypt. Lay aside your weapons and take up Truth once again."
The troops of Edfu who were assembled before the gate made way for a man. This man wore a starched-white kilt, heavy rings and armlets of Nubian gold and precious stones, and carried a fine battle-ax of bronze. Ankhtifi thought he saw red hairs among the black of his head.
"Khuu, I have come to weed your fields," Ankhtifi said.
Khuu laughed. "I would not trust a man of Neferkare with a sack of barley on his back."
"Why have you made a wasteland of your district?"
"There will be a harvest of grain after the next inundation. This year it has been necessary to
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winnow the chaff that covers my district. No doubt you have seen stray bits lying about. Like the wind I will take you out, too, Ankhtifi of Hefat, unless you prove yourself to be other than straw. There is a new lord in Egypt, and he performs in Truth before the gods. Let him lay mud upon your fields, Ankhtifi, let him bless the District of Nekhen." "The District of Nekhen is already blessed, by Hemen, by Horus, by Neferkare. We are civil in Nekhen and do not leave our dead for the carrion-birds and the flies, nor let the fish nibble upon their backs. This is not Truth. This is chaos. The stench of it fills my nostrils, Khuu. You and your name and your district, they reek."
Turtledove, Harry - Anthology 07 - New Tales Of The Bronze Age - The First Heroes (with Doyle, Noreen) Page 19