“You wait,” another of the men called and disappeared from the top of the wall while the other two men remained with bows drawn. Presently, the men became relaxed and put down their weapons, but remained attentive. Marai began to pace a little, impatient.
They always do this, these important men. I had to wait for Hordjedtef when I went to study some time ago. He remembered sitting outside Great One’s powdery white walls before his guards brought him through the gates for a good part of the morning. He started to sit again, knowing it might be a while.
“Let’s just go,” Djerah complained. “Maybe he’s at the other Qustul. These men could just be waiting for us to drop our guard so we can be taken prisoner.”
“Djerah… think of what you’re saying,” Marai sighed. “Why take so long with us when they could easily pick us off without even bothering the man if they thought we were a threat. Maybe he wasn’t expecting us this soon.”
Marai thought about the last five days while he waited on a response from inside the palace gates. He had made the boat move at a blinding pace, even though it grew larger and got a sail the first night. Djerah had unknowingly helped, but travel with the young man had been trying. He nagged and pestered as if Sheb had truly walked into a younger body. When he didn’t worry aloud, he chatted about anything: the land they passed, people, birds that flew overhead, incidents that took place at his former work. Marai preferred little idle chatter so he could think and reflect. It was one of many reasons why he had lived apart from his tribe when his people had lived in the wilderness.
“We’re running low on supplies,” he had said on the second day after they tried the new striped sail. “Take out the Yah stone and whisper to it while I row. This part of the river steers well enough. Maybe they will whisper to you of someone up the way who is just dying to trade food and beer to us for a few beads.”
Marai sensed Djerah about to say something about the mediocre quality and size of the beads, but went back to the rowing. He didn’t think anything further about the trade or the need for supplies and drifted into a dreamlike state as the surging of the oars and the strokes became part of his arms once more. The Children of Stone had learned the needed movement through his efforts the day before and automatically duplicated them at a good speed. Today he felt no sweat or strain in the work. They row through me and make it seem as if I’m pul ling the wood through the water, he laughed and began to build an even more interesting boat in his thoughts as he and the young man traveled.
A boat offloading food, wine, and beer for a small market had docked where they pulled in that night. When Djerah took out the beads, swearing they would get no more than a half ration of anything, he discovered the small turquoise beads had doubled in size.
“I didn’t do it” Djerah shook his shaggy head. “That stone. I just asked. I swear…”
“Just go see if the man with all of that stuff on his raft needs some help lightening his load.” Marai brushed the young stonecutter away and tried to hide the fact he was about to explode with laughter. Then, he thought of the ladies and what lay ahead.
The third morning, nothing new happened, but the Child Stone in Marai’s brow and the eight other stones propelled the boat at a regularly established speed.
“Uh… Marai… You’d better come out of that daydream you are having and look at this.” The young man had slipped back to where the sojourner sat. Marai opened his eyes without pausing in the automated sweep of the oars and looked to the shore where the young man was pointing. In the distance, Marai saw people running on the shore and shouting about how fast their boat was moving and that it was effortlessly maneuvering past any other boat traffic. He waved and smiled, aware that the oar continued its sweep without his hand on it.
“Wait…” Djerah frowned. “The boat is rowing itself? How?”
Part of the big man knew how, but he also knew he would never be able to put the method into spoken word. It would sound like sorcery.
“The boat has simply learned what I need,” he started. “But… I agree. We might be attracting tale spinners.”
“The boat learned…” Djerah puzzled, then shook his head that he didn’t understand.
“Bending time and speed. Slipping through the cracks,” he suggested, but the young man had gone back to man the waiting helm oar. “And you see you’re not working hard as you were before, don’t you?” he called, but once again Djerah, seemingly overwhelmed by the mechanics of this magical rowing, had stopped listening.
He resumed his pondering about next steps, wondering if Hordjedtef had sensed what he was doing in any way.
I doubt these people will carry this story down the river, but I think the amount of bending will come through to Hordjedtef as some kind of disturbance. He raised his hand and dropped an illusion that made the boat shimmer like the heat rising from calm water. This time, instead of a prismatic light on a flat surface, a pale sunset-colored orb enclosed the boat. Marai sensed it might look like a great bubble on the river and that it might draw even bigger crowds to see something like that speeding by. The whisper voices reassured him and made a different suggestion.
A vessel in which to float
Cannot be seen
Show the younger one
Let him feel our strength.
He will rise to us one day
Rise? Marai wondered briefly, but complied. “Come here,” he said. Pull the helm oar back in for a minute. The Children wanted to show you something.”
Djerah sat, his expression partway between boredom and a desire to be challenged.
“Go,” Marai told him. “On my count, push fore, and pull… fore and pull… think of where you want to go and let it take you.”
Djerah looked at Marai’s hands once and pushed gingerly only to feel the oar snatched from him, then swing back and nearly knock him off the rowing platform.
“Gods!” he muttered. “The power…” he grabbed the oar and tried to steady himself as the wooden length swung him back and forth like it was shaking a rag. “You can’t be that strong! Slow it down!” and the rowing slowed until Djerah could grab the wood and move with it. “How is it…?” He gasped, astonished but starting to glide with the rhythmic strokes.
“I haven’t asked,” Marai remembered telling him and adding. “Sometimes if a gift comes it’s best to take it without looking for how it works.”
“Which is how you missed them trying to kill you,” the young man quipped.
“And you are going to be a man of constant trouble to me now, aren’t you? Just remember, not everything is as simple as you want to make it.” The sojourner relaxed a little more and took the oars again, at least grateful the initial chilliness of their companionship had eased.
When a dragonfly perched on Djerah’s shoulder, Marai saw the young man coax it onto his finger. He hadn’t noticed the stillness inside the bubble that surrounded the boat until now. On previous days, although the wind going by them was less violent than it should have been given their speed, it had left them feeling windblown at the end of each day. Today, Marai noticed the bubble had created a calm around them. The dragonfly had become trapped when the bubble formed that morning.
“Look here, Marai, he got lost and then caught by what’s around us, poor thing.”
Marai felt a kinship with the creature, and of the way he had been trapped in the white bubble-like vessel in the sand… lured in and trapped. He let go of the swinging oar and stuck his hand through the pinkness of the bubble until he felt a draft of rushing air.
“Stick your hand through the membrane like I just did. It’s like a real soap bubble, but it won’t pop. Let the little fellow go as soon as you feel the draft.”
Djerah did just that then laughed “If I stay with you long enough, I’ll get this boat to fly like that for you. Just like a dragonfly. You just watch me.”
“I bet you will.” Marai remembered the verse he had heard float to Djerah in Houra’s voice right before the journey began.
Be well my young heart...
Be strong where I could not.
You will become as the eagle
You will command the sun on silver wings.
This is but the first step into the light.
A commotion at the gate erased all of those thoughts.
A crack appeared in the gate and a curious old face peered out.
“Ah. You are finally here,” the voice that came from the old face added. “If you find favor with the high kin who wears the red crown, then you must be the one I have returned to see. Are you he?”
Marai was taken aback. The man’s face wasn’t at all what he expected and yet at the same time it was a face he thought he had always known. Djedi, he thought. The real one. He’s near you or you are him somehow. The sojourner started to say something in response but he couldn’t get any words to come. The voice, which spoke in perfect Kemet speech was that higher sounding tenor voice that had always been in the chorus of Children’s voices.
After a polite pause, the face in the gate crack continued. “I have sensed your coming for many, many years… that two would come from the north, but one would have hair of the moon and one would have hair of the sun. The young man with you, is the other of two?”
Djerah stepped forward, smoothing his dark, tightly twisted curls.
“I sense…” the elder frowned, face still in the crack but he stared at Djerah. “Oh. I see. You are a fledgling yet, not shed your plumage of doubt.” his smile crinkled.
Marai wondered why the elder hadn’t opened the gates to them. Is he going to turn us around now? Does he wait for some spirit to approve of us? Fledgling? A young bird?
“We’ve come a long way and at a hard speed, too,” Marai insisted. “We can just trade some turquoises for a spot outside these walls, if you prefer.”
“This I know,” the old man grinned with unusually perfect teeth. Men came up behind them, guarding their exit. “You have come because spirit drives you up the river and have I come down from Buhen to meet you also because of this spirit. Before I allow you to come in, I want to hear the reason from your own mouth why you come in such a rush.”
Marai knew this was a test, but was getting irritated at the way all of his hurry to get here for help had suddenly ground to a stop and found a wall of stony resistance covered by a sunny smile in the man he was supposed to meet. He was a weather front on a warm day.
“I come to see a man…” Marai framed his words sternly. Djerah meanwhile threw his hands up in the air with an oath and turned to shuffle away in disgust.
“…who presumes he is a warrior god,” Marai continued. “He’s stolen from me and from the royal houses. I understand he sojourns near here and has three women out of Ineb Hedj in his company,” Marai’s eyes silvered in disgust, yet something about the man’s demeanor drew him into a quieter patience. “The women are my wives.”
Another thoughtful silence followed, then the old man spoke.
“I see. You would mean young Prince Maatkare Raemkai. We know him, but we are no close friend to him. He is a kinsman to the house of the father of Kaphre-Suph with whom we have a treaty. We are honor bound to allow him to hunt and trade in our upper region. We are expecting prepared skins and preserved meat in return.” The old man paused, as if he measured each word he spoke the same way Marai had been careful with his own words. In a moment, he continued.
“You oppose Prince Maatkare because he has stolen? Stolen your women too? This is so very like his highness, but you must understand, I myself have not seen them. I sense them, and I know are mostly well, just as you sense it.”
The gates were suddenly pulled inward by a sophisticated counterweight system. When Marai and Djerah entered, they were swung shut again and latched by a lever system behind them.
Marai focused on the full appearance of the older man who had been standing in the gate. His wiry body wore an odd shendyt – knee length in front and longer in the back. A magnificent lion-skin cloak was made so the front paws looped over each other and the tail trailed from a plain gold belt around his waist. When he turned to lead Marai into his open plaza, the sojourner saw interlocking stars stenciled carefully on the cloak in the pattern of Asar’s constellation.
The old man’s hair was red as the sand, but mixed with silver. It was not the typical black color of people here. It hung from his slightly balding brow, encased in a thin, gold head circlet with a lion head set on its prominence. His color, in the light, was pale and filled with freckles. When he looked up at Marai, a spark of strange recognition shone in his strange eyes. One eye was green; the other was deep brown. The sojourner was awestuck by the reality of the man as the pieces of his life and his entire journey slipped quietly into place.
Deka wanted to come to Ta-Seti to find what happened in her lost girlhood. The Children said there were three to assist. I’m first, Wserkaf must be second. Hordjedtef picked him out for reasons I can’t guess yet, but they turned out to be the right ones. This man, Wse said, is the legendary lion-child ancient Djedi picked out before he died. That made him the destined third and likely more the old wizard’s heir than Wse. But, what is Djerah and why are they asking me to include him? Blood? That’s a thin one. For a moment, Marai felt the ire of rebellion rising. And what this has to do with me getting my wives out of the prince’s grasp and the stolen Children of Stone back to Wserkaf I have no idea.
“I suppose I too would be unwell and eager to see an end to this, if I were you and he had taken the women I love,” the elder smiled a little uncomfortably this time.
Marai knew the old man had sensed all of his inner disquiet.
“Then, pardon me, but what do you have to offer me?” Even the Children… Marai thought, then stopped. The old man leading them had slowed as if he heard the sojourners thoughts again.
“I can offer you men, even though I believe it’s ill advised. We’d be sorely outnumbered,” the Akaru answered without turning his head. “Not tonight, though. Prince Maatkare is touring the mines and the borders to the Rim of Kush. If you go for him now you won’t find him. I have, however, dealt with him once on this journey of his and sent my regrets via the sepat princes on the Kush border.”
Marai and Djerah trailed the old man and were followed by the guards into a simple brick palace. Other than the magical gate, there was nothing remarkable or showy in the estate. It was tiny compared to the vast palaces in Ineb-Hedj. Several shady rooms flanked a pool and few drawings adorned the whitewashed walls. Everything was meticulously clean. In the center court, woven rush mats lined the floor. There were no standing piles of refuse outside; no smells of waste. Incense and perfume abounded in the early evening breezes that did, in fact, exude peace.
A servant moved from the wings into the Akaru’s open courtyard to spread more fine rush mats woven with patterns of lions, stars, and the sun in splendor out on a white limed brick table that rose from the smoothly-scrubbed floor. An older, but elegant woman slipped back and forth then told her servant to water to wash the guests’ feet and hands. Cups of beer and even wine made from grapes were set out along with bread and palate-freshening green herbs. The woman took a place of honor beside the old man.
His wife, Marai mused. He has other wives but they are not here with him. Wonder why that is? He motioned for Djerah to sit. The young man plopped down beside him and studied the curious devotion of the servant and these formal purity rituals.
“As you have wondered, I am Mtoto Metauthetep Akaru-Sef of the Qustul Sepat and this is my chief wife Xania.” There was a prosaic nod. The man pushed forward a plate of bread, greens, and sauce for his guests, gesturing for them to eat.
“I have men who want to war from New City Qustul and even in Buhen.” He dabbed at sauce and passed the dish to his guests. “You might have warriors from these and other sepats waiting on only a word from me,” he paused, amused by Djerah eating like a starved man. He pushed another tray toward his guests. “I tell them to be calm, though, because in my vision
s I have seen it will not go well at all.”
He looked Marai steadily in the eye. “Do you know he always comes to us with a ten times the number of those who want a war with him? At least that? And he does not entertain prisoners for very long; toys with them a bit, then…” Akaru-Sef made a gesture of slitting his throat. “We do not wish him to come here, but we are bound by treaty.” The old man lifted a dish of flat breads and sauce to them. “Our land is no longer the wondrous hunting land of his father’s time, yet still he comes here under the false pretense of marshalling and inspecting on king’s orders. In truth, the king needs him away from the north. His actions do provoke wherever he goes, but he still has value.”
Marai felt as if he was in the presence a wise and benevolent man who had more of the demeanor of a priest or scholar than a warrior-king.
Peace through intellect rather than peace through might, he mused. If he thinks Menkaure has sent us, then our journey has outrun the news. Wonder if that’s the real reason we were going faster… to stay ahead of Maatkare or this one finding out? Damn the Children for this. Don’t they know how this hurts me? How it hurts my ladies? Marai felt a tingling sensation in his brow and wondered if the stone was emerging. He rubbed gently as if he was wiping a bead of sweat from it. It wasn’t. A feeling of sympathy and sad longing filled him, as if the Children were trying to tell him that they had learned much from him and that outside of forcing the choices, as they had once so elegantly explained, they were doing the best they could. The Akaru was a person he needed to get to know. Marai sensed from them that he would make a great difference in the way the rescue of the women played out.
“Well…” Marai shrugged, sopping up some of the sauce with his bread. “I do have other news… Great Menkaure is in his Horizon about a third of a moon now. King Shepseskaf gave me the writs before I left and he expects representation from the sepats as adopted sons of him. Don’t announce it yet, though, because Maatkare mustn’t know this. You’ll also need to make your journey north in under two moons to attend a funeral and an elevation… as will this Prince…”
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