Opener of the Sky

by Mary R Woldering

  The sojourner opened his other hand and looked at the Yah stone in his fingertips. It whined gently at first, then sang a wordless melody.

  I did not need him to find out this way. He turned the little one over. Be at peace. I’ll get him calmed down and give you back, but then you need to keep him be calmer the rest of this journey. He put the stone in his bag, ignoring the gentle rush of greeting from the other stones.

  “Djerah, I wish I could have told you something you would understand, but you don’t ever listen to me or hear my words.” Marai attempted to console the young man, who had come to his senses enough to struggle a little.

  “L-leh-meh lone,” he protested through the pain of a split lip.

  Marai’s grip on him relaxed. He let him sit in the floor of the porch while he waited for his first emotional storm to pass. He stared into the young man’s squinting eyes and evoked his thoughts as his hand touched the young man’s lip to stop the stinging.

  Easy. Easy now. I brought you no evil. Let me heal that, Marai sent the thought of a healed lip through his hand. Soon, he knew the pain had stopped.

  Djerah exploded into a torrent of grief.

  “I knew she was seeing a man,” Marai began. “My wife Ari told me she thought it was so. There was talk all over the neighborhood. I just thought it would be better to get you away from there because it’s not just her straying. Her sisters rallied behind her!” he tried to soothe Djerah, but that failed. “They told each other you abandoned her when you took extra work on the crews.”

  “So I’m twice a fool?” Djerah shook his head, wanting to mock himself. “Once to let it happen and not know; twice for coming along with you with and letting it complete.”

  Marai heard a sound below and turned to look through the rail down to the ground level. Akaru-Sef’s guards unfastened the gate and admitted the elder, who steadily trudged up the steps to the two men and sat a few steps away on a brick bench built against the secondary wall, to catch his breath and wait for the drama to calm.

  “I’m used up now, don’t you see?” Djerah held up his hand to push away Marai’s sympathetic grasp. “Used up! My wife and SeUpa? I’ve known him half my life like a cousin. We worked the same farm in the planting season at first, then he became a peacekeeper.” The young man reflected for one helpless moment. “This must have been going on a long time. Now that I think about it, I wonder if little Sheb is my son, after all” Djerah turned his face to the wall until his shoulders stopped heaving.

  For long moments, Marai sat absorbing the young man’s words. Then…

  “When you can, do come with me to your room, young man. I have ears that listen, too. Then, we will all weep together.” Akaru-Sef urged the two men down from the observatory and then, standing, dismissed his guards.

  After a few moments and attempts at thwarting more arguments, the three men returned to Akaru’s house. He told a servant who had risen during the commotion to make up some warm soured milk with honey and calming herbs infused in it.

  Marai sat silently, his hand resting on Djerah’s shoulder, transmitting a little boost of peace. No one spoke until the concoction was brought.

  Akaru pushed a steaming cup of it toward Djerah, ignoring his refusals.

  Marai saw what he thought was the elder’s heka for the first time. The man’s hand went up and a gentle calmness almost like a wind issued from it. At that point, the stonecutter listened to him finally and took the milk drink, sipping slowly, then more eagerly.

  “These things you see tonight were not so very surprising to you after all, were they young Djerah?” he asked. “You are angry at yourself because you did not face your fear that you were losing your wife and you pushed the thought away as one pushes away an evil dream. You assumed the woman would understand your efforts, but all she understood was that she had nothing but a corpse in her bed when you were there. And when you would be in the work camps you were not there at all. She went to one who would be there,” he explained.

  “How many in the Little Kina Ahna knew?” Djerah shifted his attention, giving no indication he had heard the elder’s wise words. His voice had become dull and nerveless. “You say your wives knew?”

  “Houra knew,” Marai answered, bowing his head. He hadn’t been contacted by her spirit, but the words came to his lips. “It’s why she stayed with you across the river. I just had that thought.”

  “From your stone?” Djerah looked up, taking a larger sip of the cooling liquid.

  “Perhaps you were supposed to figure it out from her manner, Djerah, but then I never discovered my own wife long ago was so sick of heart. She never brought her sorrow to me. She was always pushing me away to go out with Naim and the other young men and to go take the flocks up high to where they could eat sweet grass as sheep should, and not be like goats chewing on weeds and stems. It wasn’t until I saw she wasn’t eating and heard her long for release from her life in a dream that I knew something wasn’t right. I pushed it away. I thought she was just afraid of birthing our child, but her spirit knew she was dying.”

  Djerah finished the cup and let it settle.

  “You’re right, you know,” Djerah addressed the old man. “She was tired all the time. She fussed and didn’t want me staying late in the mornings when I was with her. Sometimes, I would wake up at night thinking she was going to take the little one out to settle him. Before that, when her belly was big, I thought she was out making water as a woman will do more at night when she’s big with child, but then I thought I heard voices and laughing. The night you came back I woke to her getting into bed and telling me she had been out for air,” his voice trailed. “I wondered why she was so eager to have me go with you, once she knew we would have no debt or tax to earn for His Majesty.” The draught of milk combined with his raw emotions had the desired effect. He yawned heartily.

  “There. That will make you sleep without dreaming or having wicked dreams,” Akaru smiled, satisfied. “It’s what you need now. Just let the goddesses of consolation take you in their sweet arms. Let them tell you that you have lost nothing but the blindfold that was over your own eyes.”

  “I hope its poison,” the young man grumbled, putting down the cup. “I mean, what is left for me in Ineb Hedj?” he lay down, a mournful expression easing from him as he continued to relax and drift. “If I go back, she will not have me. If I work in stone and men will tease and laugh once they know how she left,” his eyes closed.

  Marai wanted to tell Djerah one more time that he had mourned his dead bride and daughter for fifteen years, and fruitlessly sang to Ashera every night until the Children of Stone arrived. Then, as if by magic upon magic he was made whole and heroic enough to find love again.

  Djerah will be blessed and wealthy when we return. Wse said he will see to it Djerah is placed in the School of God Imhotep. What will be done with his family will then be his choice. It’ll be a new life, but the creature who watched shimmered in Marai’s thoughts again. Djerah mumbled before he slept.

  “Maybe one day I’ll be wise like both of you. Right now, I just don’t care.”

  CHAPTER 17: ACTIONS IN HASTE

  Akaru sat in a meditative silence with Marai for a few moments. They watched the young man sleep. When the elder was certain Djerah wouldn’t wake, he got up, then beckoned for the big man to follow him out to the open plaza.

  “A tough and harsh blow for our young friend, eh?” the elder began.

  “I knew he wouldn’t take it well,” Marai answered. “It’s the main reason I brought him. I understand that kind of rage in the blood as if it were in my own. I thought it would be better if he was away from that family when he realized what was going on.”

  “That was a wise thing, then.” The elder smiled but added, “it does surprise me that a fine young man like him doesn’t have other women to love him – a number two wife. In Kemet and in Ta-Seti, you have seen we love and are loved as time and spirit permit us. Why should one be a jealous man or woman when one can a
lways find another,” Akaru shrugged.

  “He could barely feed the one he had or his four children by her. She had two widowed sisters and they had between them three more children. He cared for my sister too before she went into the West. I didn’t know him before I went to the priests. I just knew he was a hard worker and he was making himself old trying to be a good man. I used to see the wilderness eat men up like that by the time they were thirty. Now I see the crews will do the same thing. All a poor man ever wants is to know he can count on a woman to be strong of heart and a comfort to him when he’s in his house. If she is weak, she’s easy to seduce when he is away,” Marai thought of Ariennu again, of her inconstancy and opportunity seeking. Djerah’s wife did the same thing, but hid her deed. Ari was at least honest and told me she tended to wander.

  “Ah,” Akaru nodded, “I understand it now. So this leaves our young Djerah doubting his own worth as a lover and as a husband. He can’t yet believe that his woman was the weak one all along.” The elder, satisfied with the explanation, looked into the dimly lit sleeping passageway and moved toward it. “Watch him, though. I know his blood is up, as you said. Tonight he cries like a hurt child. Tomorrow, he will be angry.”

  In the morning, Djerah woke easily. Marai woke a moment later and saw that a quiet reflectiveness enveloped the young man. At the end of a light morning meal, during which pure mundanities were discussed, Akaru spoke to him.

  “Young man, Djerah?” he asked and was answered with a semi-silent grunt of acknowledgement. “I want you to show me the irrigation ditch where you created a miracle in the mud yesterday. Could you?”

  Djerah sighed in disgust and got to his feet to lead the elder to the river bank.

  Akaru looked back over his shoulder with an almost merry wink.

  In moments, Marai happily lay out all eight stones in the dark quiet of the sleeping area. Once again, the images formed like illuminated smoke.

  He saw the encampment moving north toward a bordering ridge of hills and counted a large detachment of men. It wasn’t as large as a full battle group, which would have contained thousands. This was a scouting and enforcement group of a few hundred troops. The sojourner had learned that princes often led forays into certain areas. If trouble the small group couldn’t contain arose, the detachment would withdraw to a safe distance and then return with more troops and a killing force.

  Will I be able to handle this group of men when I go? he wondered. I have to do this at night if I do it soon. I’ll talk to Akaru and get him to distract Djerah. The way he feels right now, I can’t risk taking him with me. I really wish this had come forth later, he shook his head, but knew there really wouldn’t have been a better time to hear of such a tragedy.

  When he shifted to a quick glance for his wives, he sensed something different near the tents. Marai stared into the image and found two men dressed in guard clothing he hadn’t seen before. These are new, he mused. The image cleared. The men were sitting on either side of Deka outside the prince’s tent. She was hand talking to them.

  Mutes? he asked himself. They were very sinewy and muscled; darker skinned than the other men and much darker than most of the Kemet or Ta-Seti men he had seen.

  As Deka’s hands moved, the men echoed her movements; learning what she meant.

  It was a mirror game. He remembered she and Naibe liked to play it with him in better times because it formed a spiritual bond between them. Why these men? Wonder if the prince knows this. Maybe she’s hoping to turn them and make an escape.

  Deka. Hear me. Open your eyes to me. He tried, but saw her head bow and turn away.

  She heard his voice, but wouldn’t acknowledge him. One of the men did sense him and looked up, teeth bared in an odd sort of growl. She stilled him by petting the back of his neck. Troubled, Marai moved his vision to a nearby tent where he sensed Ariennu and Naibe reclining.

  Ari, Naibe… Marai mouthed so intently over the arrangement of stones that his eyes closed. Ari tensed. The sojourner felt her blocking him out as if she knew her thoughts were playing tricks on her. Still thinks I’m a ghost, he hoped his frustration didn’t come through. Will you let me into your secrets? Will you? I… am… alive… coming to you… alive. Do you hear me yet, you foolish kuna?

  Ariennu’s face looked up, darkening in a moment’s horror.

  Foolish kuna, is it? Damn you then Marai… Oh I forgot, you damned yourself because you wouldn’t listen to me. I told you we weren’t as hard to kill as you thought. And you… you…

  Ari. Ari. If I could put my arms through time and space and just hold you… I’m alive I tell you.

  Only here in my heart. There you never died. I’m with you every day, but you have to do better than this. If you live, you have to prove it to me. You have to prove it to her, too. Ariennu indicated Naibe curling gently on her lap. Her tawny skin was light as golden ivory, her hair like waves of night. The lids of her gently closed eyes reflected a natural, unpainted grey-blue.

  Naibe, open your heart. Feel my tears of joy, making me want to burst with the joy only you could share with me. He bowed his head over the stones, breathing out in a sigh he hoped she would somehow feel because he knew she couldn’t hear him.

  Marai. My love. Her spirit voice suddenly hushed in his heart like the warmth of a summer breeze. I know. I never let you die in here. Her hand pointed to her heart. I never stopped believing…

  A sound interrupted his viewing. Laughing voices were entering. Marai quickly scooped up the stones and put them in his bag just as Akaru and a servant entered the plaza.

  “Where’s Djerah?” Marai hopped up, curious that the young man hadn’t returned.

  “We went to the ditch and the shaduf. He wanted to fish, he said, so I gave him a net and then these two fisher girls saw him and his young naked self out there on the levee and paddled a raft over to him. He sent me on back,” the elder laughed. “I think he will make his own cure for a sad heart if he stays out fishing and swimming all day.”

  Marai frowned. Something didn’t seem right.

  “I don’t think so. He was more upset than that. Playing with local girls is far too easy of a cure for a man who was howling his heart out just last night. Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m not sure, but he’s a grown young man, not a child, my friend. You don’t need to ‘shepherd’ him so closely. My guess is these girls will take the edge off his sorrow. He’ll be sad and angry, but maybe not as much as before. In the meantime…”

  And with that the elder led the big man back to the observatory to look out over the entire area and to begin to make a plan for how he might peaceably approach Maatkare so a war with Kemet would not arise. The last thing the elder wanted was trouble with the North.

  “I stand on shaking ground in this place because of the suph. Unless I am ready to break the treaty, I need to place my skill in bargaining,” Akaru explained. “Prince Maatkare, as I’ve said, provokes but stops short of a challenge, hoping I will blink and make a foolish move. I must wait until my win is certain… and we are still from almost the time of the First Ones a less strong people, no matter the boasting you may hear the young make. They take our ivories and gold, our red cloth and beer, and we get an ‘almost’ freedom. One day we will be a stronger people, but I will not live to see that day.”

  “Maybe not,” Marai’s smile was cryptic. “But, as you said when I arrived, the stars were different. Maybe that means the future too has changed.” And I know the women felt me, all three of them, he thought to himself. I can only hope that means something.

  Djerah returned in time for the evening meal, looking shy and somewhat calmer than before. He waved away any questions about the girls and went to rinse in a shallow bath, then he sat quietly to eat with the others.

  Marai knew by the expression on the young man’s face that outside of momentary release, nothing of substance had happened between him and the young women.

  “I am glad your day bought you some ease,” Akaru than
ked the young man for the fish and continued. “We’ll dry them for later. Will you return in the morning to catch more?”

  Marai knew the comment was a two-sided witticism of fishing and fisher girls and tried not to laugh. Djerah was still quiet and reflective, but sensed the jab and smirked that he might. Then, he said no more.

  After the meal had been cleared, Marai lurked a little and then did some strengthening exercises. He shot an occasional sidelong glance at the young man. Beside himself by the time the servants came to check the lamps and freshen the sheets, he asked: “Is there anything you need to talk to me about? Anything?”

  “No,” Djerah smirked. “I feel a little better, though. Maybe I’ll fish again tomorrow.”

  That was all he said. He might have continued, but the elder approached the rolled out mats where the men were thinking of retiring early.

  He brought some tea to soothe the young man, in case night demons wanted to bother him again.

  Djerah shrugged, took the drink, and downed it quickly.

  “Oh, I saw my better scouts in today. I didn’t tell you yet” Akaru mentioned as if that most important piece of news had been an oversight. “Prince Maatkare is returning from his ten-day sojourn to the south and will soon be close enough for one to go to him. The elder glanced at them as if he expected Marai to relate a plan, then he looked at Djerah.

  “Well,” Djerah answered a little too quickly. “Some of the men down by the boats have met with others who fish between here and Buhen, I believe it’s called. The women were…” he started. Marai noticed he was shy.

  “Yes, Buhen.” My grandson, Apedemeketep, and my other wives are there. Once this is settled, we’ll go there for a few days before we head north.”