by Jerry Dubs
“With this explanation my hand will remain attached to my wrist?” I asked.
Lord Useramen nodded, his face once more that of a wise owl.
I bowed. “Thank you, Lord Useramen. Thank you for helping me to understand the vision that overwhelmed me in the queen’s chambers. I will be careful to stay my hand, and I will be ever watchful for signs from Seshat.”
Lord Useramen raised an eyebrow as if he doubted the sincerity of my words.
Then he tilted his head toward the door.
I Meet Huy
Having left Lord Useramen’s office, I was walking through the many-columned roofed arcade of the Temple of Ptah, rubbing my hands together, allowing them to reassure each other that they would remain companions, when I head a woman’s voice.
“You are the scribe, the one who was traveling with the army,” a woman’s voice said.
Turning, I saw an old woman standing in the shadows. In her arms she held a woven reed basket piled with chunks of bread. She had a straight, narrow nose, which I watched carefully, expecting it to turn into the beak of an ibis. Bareheaded, the woman wore a robe that, even in the dim light of the temple, I could see had been washed many times, making it thin.
“Is there something wrong with your hands?” the woman asked, pointing at my hands with her nose, which had not yet turned into a bird’s beak.
I shook my head. “No, I’m just attached to them.”
“Oh.” The woman frowned in confusion. Then she tilted her head back and laughed. She laughed with her full being, the sound shaking her legs and her shoulders. I liked her immediately.
Then she nodded toward the hallway behind me. “You just left Useramen and he told you about hands being removed.” She shook her head. “He drags that tale out whenever he wants to frighten someone.
“On the other hand…” She looked slyly at me. “I wish I could say that it isn’t true. I haven’t seen it myself, you understand, but the soldiers have spoken of it. Bragged of it, as if that were something to bring pride. But,” she added, as I frowned, “I haven’t heard of it happening here.”
“My name is Suti,” I said hoping to move the conversation away from severed hands. “You are right. I am the scribe who was with the army. I serve Lord Amenhotep.”
Before I could ask her name, she said, “I thought so. And you are the one who touched the queen.”
“How does everyone know that?” I asked. “It happened only a few minutes ago. I didn’t touch her. I was just … I meant no harm,” I added.
Suddenly I thought: I will test Lord Useramen’s story with this old woman.
I stepped close to her and lowered my voice, as if revealing a great secret. “I was telling Queen Merti about her husband’s great victory at the battle of Megiddo. As I spoke, a shadow slipped into the room.”
I raised an arm and, using my endangered hand, I demonstrated how the godly shadow had floated.
“Borne on the fragile smoke of frankincense, the pale shadow drifted like a falling feather, tumbling and turning before coming to rest on the cheek of Queen Merti.” I paused and looked at her knowingly.
“I turned to the attendants and the potter, but no one else saw it. And then,” I jutted my head forward to demonstrate how intently I had watched the shadow, “I saw the edges of the spot begin to fray as if it were attaching itself to the queen’s face. Suddenly I knew that it was the spot of a cheetah! It was a sign from the goddess Seshat!”
I nodded to underscore the truth of his words. As I spoke I pictured Pairy and Turo, their mouths agape, their eye delighting in the story.
“I did not wish to startle the queen, but Seshat called me. I am a scribe, you understand, and Seshat is the goddess of scribes. And so I am under her power. My hand was irresistibly drawn to her.” I paused and glanced at the woman’s face to see if she was accepting the story.
“It must be a sign,” I said as the woman pursed her lips in doubt. “You see, First Priest Puimre is seeking cheetahs. His prayers must have enticed Seshat to appear. You see…”
The woman drew in her lower lip as if digesting my words, but her eyes were filled with mirth, not awe.
“The sacred spot of the goddess Seshat was a sign,” I persisted, although my heart had abandoned my voice. “I was reaching for the goddess, not the queen, you see.”
Now the woman laughed her full-throated laugh again.
“This is a temple,” I said. My thoughts were on the danger my hand faced. I needed to persuade this woman that Seshat had controlled my movements. “There are gods everywhere. You must know that.”
“Suti,” she said. “You tell a fine story. Very sincere. I like the detail about the shadow fraying as it settled on the queen’s cheek.” She held up a hand to stop me when I opened my mouth to protest. “Suti, there is no doubt that gods roam this temple.”
Suddenly she leaned to her right and peered past me into the shadows of the colonnade.
Then, looking back at me, she winked. “I thought I saw old Ptah taking a piss over there.”
She chuckled and shook her head.
“You are making light of this,” I said. I thought I should be angry with this old woman, but I enjoyed her sense of humor and her bravery. And even her irreverence, which reminded me of Lord Imhotep.
The woman held the basket of bread out to me. I took its weight from her, and she touched my arm, directing me toward a stone bench that sat against the wall below a torch, its flame quiet and bright.
Sitting, she pulled me onto the bench beside her.
“Suti, you don’t need a story for me. I know all about you. I know you wouldn’t attack the queen,” she said, one of her ancient hands patting my knee. “And don’t repeat that silly story about Seshat. No one knows that goddess here. And don’t worry about Queen Merti, she won’t tell anyone about what happened; it casts more doubt on her intentions than yours. Her attendants will talk — you can be sure of that — but they carry a new story from her chambers every day. No one will take another tale any more seriously than they do any of the other inflated stories.”
She shook her head, a frown lighting on her lips. “It is a shame. Little Merti is a sweet, sincere girl. Her attendants have been poisoned by…” She stopped herself and shook her head and clapped her open hands on her thin legs. “No, no more gossip.”
She shrugged and reached into the basket. Selecting a chunk of bread, she tore off a small piece of it and put it in her mouth.
“Help yourself, Suti. Just pull off the green parts and drop them back in the basket,” she said, nodding at the basket. “The bread is growing moldy. I was taking it out to feed the geese.”
I selected a piece of bread, tore away the corner that was covered in mold and bit into the bread. It was hard with an edge of staleness. Its taste reminded me of the smell of Seth’s Cave.
“You seem overwhelmed with the mysteries of the House of the Soul of Ptah,” the woman said. “Let me dissolve one. My name is Huy. I am a midwife. I tended Queen Menwi, and so I met Lord Imhotep and the lovely Akila, who — if you ask me — has greater knowledge of medicine than Lord Imhotep, even if he is a god.”
She patted my leg and nodded. “Lord Imhotep will admit it, I am sure. He is a good man.” She smiled for a moment and then continued, “Akila and I became good friends. She is very fond of you, Suti. She spoke of you as the son that she and Lord Imhotep never had.”
She placed a hand on my arm. “Don’t be surprised, Suti. You worked with Lord Imhotep during the construction of the mortuary temple for Pharaoh Hatshepsut — now there was a woman! — and Lord Imhotep was impressed with your quick mind and your curiosity. Such traits are rare. Of course, he talked of you.
“Akila admired your gentle heart and your innocence. Yes,” she said, sorting through the basket for a less furry piece of bread, “they talked quite highly of you.”
She grew quiet as she chewed.
“I heard that you were here, Suti,” she said, after a moment. “That’s
why I came to the temple today. I wanted to meet this bright boy Akila described and I hoped that you would have news of Akila and Lord Imhotep. And Queen Menwi, of course.”
I looked off into the shadows for a moment. There were no gods watching from the shadows cast by uncertain torches.
Being dragged from the queen’s chambers had frightened me. Lord Useramen’s warning that my hand was in danger had alarmed me. My vision in the queen’s chambers that I had overlooked something in the grove at Yehem had shaken my confidence.
This quiet, confident woman was as welcome to my unbalanced ka as a desert oasis.
“They are missing,” I told her, sharing my burden.
“Missing?”
“Yes. They have disappeared.” I said.
“I don’t understand,” Huy said. “They were with the army, surrounded and protected by thousands of soldiers. How could they have gone missing?”
“Midwife Huy,” I said, leaning toward the old woman. “I will tell you everything I know and then you will do the same. Our words will come together as threads in a loom. The warp and the weft will wend together and form a net and in that net we will capture the truth.”
Huy lowered her eyebrows at me, but she nodded.
And so, in a dark corner of the House of the Ka of Ptah, I placed my trust in the hands of midwife Huy.
***
Huy was good listener, attentive and quiet, quick to ask questions when I was unclear, but also patient when I paused to gather my thoughts.
Her eyes turned dark when I told her that we found three abandoned chariots in Yehem. She shook her head when I said that no one had seen Lord Imhotep or the queen in Gaza.
“There were rumors that Lord Imhotep was looking for a tomb,” she said when I finished.
I was surprised. Although the rich begin planning for their next lives as soon as they marry, I thought that because Lord Imhotep was a god he would have no need of a tomb.
“It was while he was here with the army, before you departed for Sinai,” she said. “I heard that someone was digging around in the sand west of the city.”
“Tomb robbers?” I asked.
I had heard Lord Imhotep and Senenmut talk about such people and I had wondered what would drive someone to break the seal on a tomb entrance and enter the sacred space. Spells, incantations, and prayers bind the tomb doors. Breaking into a tomb would release a flood of curses.
I know.
I have read the words of such curses.
A tomb robber loses all honor. They are burned alive in a furnace of excrement and then washed to sea and drowned. Other curses called for arms to be severed, necks to be twisted so violently that the head falls off. Worse than that, the robber’s heirs would suffer. They would not be permitted sacred burial, their bodies would be burned (I do not know if it would be in a fire of dung), and they would be fed to crocodiles.
“No,” Huy said, her voice thankfully chasing the vile images from my mind. “I think Lord Imhotep was looking for his home.” She picked up a piece of bread and dropped it back into the basket. “Lord Imhotep had grown tired of the Two Lands,” she said. “And you say his grandson was killed at Megiddo?”
“Yes,” I said, leaning close to hear her thought.
“His last tie to the Two Lands loosened,” she said. She sighed and stood, stretching her back.
“I will listen and watch,” she promised. “If there is anything I can do to help, you can usually find me here in the temple.”
“There is something,” I said. “I brought a woman with me from Gaza.”
She smiled now. “I wouldn’t have thought…”
I shook my head. “I rescued her from her father. He was forcing her…” I raised my eyes, hoping she would not force me to say unseemly things.
“I understand,” Huy said, her smile turning into a hard line.
“She is favored by Bes. I think she could learn to aid you,” I said.
I Appease Bes
“Can I wear the necklace?” Ahset asked me the next morning.
I shook my head. “No, Ahset. Leave the necklace here in my room. It will be safe; we are in Ptah’s temple, not Seth’s Cave.”
“But I like it,” she said stubbornly, her arms hanging awkwardly at her side, the elbows pushed outward by the thick roll of flesh that girdled her waist. “I want to wear it.”
Dealing with Ahset reminded me of the challenge of persuading a recalcitrant donkey to board a barge.
I had seen men push on a donkey’s hindquarters and earn bruised legs or worse from the donkeys’ angry feet. Others looped a rope around the donkey’s neck and discovered how strong and balanced the beast was when it stiffened its front legs and planted them in the sand.
The trick, I knew, was to persuade the donkey that it wanted to board the barge, luring it with food, coupling it with another donkey who had made the trip before, or, as I saw once, allowing dogs to nip at the donkey’s heels, a practice I frowned upon because it frightened the other donkeys and sometimes led to an overturned barge.
“Ahset,” I said, “remember when we first talked in Seth’s Cave?”
She nodded, her eyes disappearing behind a curtain of wrinkles.
“We talked about choosing what you want to do, about waking each morning and looking forward to the day,” I said, touching her arm.
“I look forward to wearing my necklace,” she said.
“And it looks lovely on you. You take great care with it. The gems are always polished and the strands are never tangled. It drapes across you as if it were made for you.”
“I think it was made for me,” she said, embracing the thought.
I nodded agreement. “I agree, Ahset. And it is beautiful. We should make sure it retains its beauty.”
“I do,” she said. “I wrap it in the cleanest linen each night. I have a strap of leather that I chew to make soft and I use that to polish it every evening.”
“Huy is a midwife,” I said, sliding behind Ahset and resting my hands on her heavy shoulders, my fingers near the loops and knots that held the necklace in place. “She has agreed to teach you her skills. You will be able to bring new life into the Two Lands. But, Ahset,” I said, leaning close and speaking softly into her ear, as if confiding a great secret, “the women sometimes thrash about as they give birth — Huy told me it was so. We wouldn’t want a flailing hand to accidentally tear your beautiful necklace.
“No,” I said, my fingers pushing the first knot through the loop to begin unfastening the necklace, “we will keep this treasure safe and then, each afternoon, when you return from ushering children into Kemet, you can don your necklace and wear it to dinner with Huy.”
“I wouldn’t want blood on it,” Ahset agreed. “And if I hold the baby, its fingers might tangle in it.”
“That’s right, I hadn’t thought of the baby’s waving hands. Their little fingers are surprisingly strong,” I said, releasing a second and then a third knot.
Ahset raised a hand to clamp on my wrist. “But the necklace is mine?”
“Yes, Ahset, it is yours. It is a measure of the regard I have for you and the favor the gods find in you, which will increase as you and Huy help the mothers of the Two Lands.” I undid the last knot and raised the necklace to allow Ahset to duck under it.
***
“This is Ahset,” I said, holding out a hand to indicate the girl. “Ahset, this is Huy.”
It was midmorning. Ahset and I were standing in the doorway of Huy’s house, which stood just beyond the shadows of the tall walls of Hut-ka-Ptah.
Huy smiled and crossed her arms.
“Can you keep a secret?” Huy asked Ahset, leaning close to the girl.
“I don’t know. No one has ever told me a secret.” Ahset pushed out her lips. “Some of the men who came to me didn’t want others to know that they had paid for my time.” She shrugged, the movement causing the long robe she was wearing to wrinkle as it rode her heavy body. “But everyone knew; the rooms had n
o doors. And I often heard the men talk about me, so I don’t think it was a real secret.”
Huy glanced at me, a small frown in her eyes, and then she nodded to Ahset. “Well, then,” she said, “we can say that you have never revealed a secret. That is good.” She approached Huy and took her elbow. “Come, Ahset, let me show you some of my tools. Have you ever had a child?”
“No,” Ahset said, her shoulders rising as she sighed deeply. “I was pregnant once, but my father beat me and the child slipped out. It was very…”
I listened to Ahset’s voice grow soft as she followed Huy into the inner chambers of the midwife’s home. Watching them pass through the far doorway, I smiled. Ahset was in good hands.
I hoped that Bes — who had not revealed his secret to me despite the necklace offering — would be grateful that I had arranged to have Ahset aiding mothers in childbirth, just as Bes himself did.
Perhaps the god would confide in me.
As the thought passed my mind, Bes directed my eyes to watch Huy and Ahset.
The women were crossing the room. My eyes followed their backs and then the matching motion of their legs and finally the lift and movement of their feet.
The bottoms of their sandals lifted into view and then disappeared with each step. I saw that Huy’s sandals were fastened with thongs of leather that wound about her ankle. Ahset’s sandals were homemade, woven together from reeds.
Look closely, Bes commanded.
I saw that although the sandals of the two women were different, they both covered the soles of their feet and were open to their toes.
Unlike the sandal I had found at Yehem.
Closing my eyes, I brought the sandal to life in my mind. I turned it over in my mind. I imagined a foot encased in the strange sandal. I saw the raised lines of bones coming from beneath the sandal flap. The bones were gathered at the ankle and spread outward toward the toes.
The toes, Bes whispered.