by Jerry Dubs
And then the young messenger stepped from behind a scraggy sycamore that sheltered a stone bench off to my right.
“Suti,” she whispered, her small voice serious in the night.
“Hello, Ipu,” I said, kneeling to bring my face level with hers.
Ipu’s face was solemn: her eyes wide to gather the starlight, her lips drawn into a small frown.
She reached out a hand. When I took it, I felt her fingers tremble as they wrapped themselves around mine. Turning, she tugged me, looking back once as if to reassure herself that I was still attached to the hand she held.
Taking small steps to match her gait, I followed Ipu past the sycamore, along the edge of the pond to a cluster of bushy, flowering plants. I recognized the small, spear-shaped leaves of a henna tree, its small pink-and-white blossoms dimly visible. Beneath it stood three chrysanthemum blossoms. Beyond them, floating in the inky water, I saw a lily, its flower cupped for the night.
For a moment, I felt as if I were standing within one of the garden scenes painted on the walls of the tombs of nobles.
“Here,” Ipu said, stopping and releasing my hand.
“Thank you,” I said, unsure what ‘here’ meant.
Ipu looked up at me, her small face still carrying a serious expression. Then she turned and walked quickly back toward the entrance to the garden.
“She will keep watch,” a voice said from the shadows.
***
“Don’t kneel,” Queen Merti said as I began to drop to my knees. “Do not indicate that you have heard me.”
I arrested my movement and straightened my legs. Torn between violating protocol and not obeying the queen, I chose obedience and turned my back to Queen Merti’s voice.
“As you command,” I said, trying to not move my lips.
“Please,” Queen Merti said, “I need to talk to you as a friend. Can you be my friend?”
“I will be whatever you wish,” I said.
“I wish you to be the scribe who visited me this morning before the guards took you away. I want you to speak to me without hiding your meaning behind courtly phrases or the mumble of priests,” Queen Merti said, her words arriving amid the quiet rustle of leaves.
“I will be that scribe. That is who I am,” I said, hiding my mouth with my hand in case someone was watching.
“If you take a single step backward, you will find a bench,” she said a moment later.
Stepping back, I felt my legs contact the solid weight of a stone bench.
“I am not allowed to be alone. High Priest Puimre forbids it,” Queen Merti said. “So tonight, my sleep restless, Ipu has taken me for a walk in the garden. If Puimre’s dozing guards awake and grow curious, Ipu will call like a dove and you will hide among the bushes.”
“I understand,” I said.
“Sit,” she said, the word an invitation, not a command.
I lowered myself to the bench without turning. My hips bumped against something soft and warm. I slid away from the contact and began to count my breaths, striving to maintain control over my thoughts.
“Suti,” Queen Merti said, “I spoke with Huy this afternoon. She told me that you can be trusted.”
“Yes, Queen Merti. You can trust me,” I said, saying silent thanks to the midwife.
I turned on the bench, careful to avoid touching the queen. I saw that we were sitting side by side, our legs separated by the width of a small hand. Her hands were folded on her lap. My eyes followed her hands to her arms and to her shoulders. There I saw the mottled shadows of leaves. I thought of Lord Useramen’s fantastical tale of the goddess Seshat transferring her spots to Queen Merti.
“Why do you smile?” Queen Merti asked, her voice as soft as the shadows.
I started to reach to one of the shadows that rested on her shoulder and then, remembering how she had shrunk from my touch this morning, I quickly stopped my arm.
“There are shadows on your shoulder,” I said, returning my hand to my lap. “After I was dragged from your chambers this morning…”
“That is why I wanted to talk tonight,” Queen Merti interrupted me.
I shook my head, she had no need to explain. “The reason I smile,” I continued, “is because Lord Useramen told me that I should say that…”
“The goddess Seshat placed spots on me,” Queen Merti said, her voice light with laughter. “Huy told me.”
“Ah,” I said.
“I am sorry that you were dragged from my chambers,” Queen Merti said. “That was not my intention.”
“I have not been properly trained in manners of the court,” I said. “I was taught a valuable lesson.”
Merti lifted her hand from her own lap. Then, pressing lips tightly together, she returned her hand to her lap. “There is a reason I reacted as I did, Suti,” she whispered. “It is my secret and I wish to give it to you. I hope that it will help you find my sister.”
“Queen Merti,” I said, “you do not need to explain your actions. I apologize for reaching toward you. I am a common scribe. My hands are trained to hold a brush, to rub ink from charcoal, to gauge the pressure on a reed. They are not meant to touch the face of a queen. No matter how much they…” I realized where my words were leading and stilled my voice.
In the silence that followed, I realized that neither of us was breathing. I wished that an owl would hoot or a fish would leap from the water or that Shu would slap a palm frond against another. But there was only stillness, and, in that quiet, I felt my heart swell.
My head was bowed in thought and, waiting for the queen to speak to me, I raised my eyes.
She was staring at me.
(The night was dark, and my memory is clouded by the many events that have passed since that moment, yet I remember that when I looked into Queen Merti’s eyes that night, they spoke to me as clearly as hieroglyphs. In those innocent eyes, I saw loneliness, fear, regret, and finally, resolve.)
When at last she spoke, she said: “My sister and Commander Neferhotep were lovers.”
As the words crossed the small space from Queen Merti’s lips to my ears they lost their meaning. Instead of words, I heard the frightful moans of children, the mysterious chants of priests, the work songs of foreign slaves. Although the sounds were obscured, the message they carried burrowed into my heart like a scorpion hiding itself beneath a rock.
“I don’t understand,” I said, although that I understood too well.
Queen Merti tilted her head at me. “The child Queen Menwi carried was Neferhotep’s child. The story about Ptah lying with her was created in the same way that Useramen created the story about Seshat visiting my chambers.”
***
I remember: As a child, I stood beside Lord Imhotep’s desk one morning as the man-god dipped a brush into ink and transferred to papyrus, not the sure strokes of a hieroglyph, but random markings. Smiling as he worked, Lord Imhotep had drawn a line here, a curve here, a circle here, then, glancing at me, he had said, “These strokes have no meaning, do they, Suti? But watch.”
With a sure hand, Lord Imhotep had added a line here, another there, his mouth twitching into a broad smile as he worked, his eyes darting from the papyrus to my fascinated face. A dot within a circle became an eye; a broad curve connected with another, and became an arched back; the arc found an anchor and turned into a tusk. At last, with the drawing taking form, I saw that the man-god was creating a hippopotamus.
He was bringing order to chaos.
***
I stood and stepped away from the bench. My hands sought each other, my fingers interlocking and then separating as my thoughts chased each other, creating order.
“Suti?” Queen Merti said.
Without thinking, I raised a hand to still her.
I assumed my thinking stance: my feet planted at shoulders’ width, my arms crossed behind my back.
I saw the separate strokes of this mystery come together. And behind the mysterious drawing I saw another, an image that had no form.
Nodding, I untangled my arms and turned to Queen Merti. Sitting beside her, I leaned close enough to allow whispers to carry my words. “Did Lord Imhotep know that Queen Menwi carried his grandson’s child?”
“Yes,” Queen Merti said. “In public he repeated the story of the god Ptah being the father, but Menwi told me that he had caught her and Neferhotep together. He knew that they were lovers.”
“And Pharaoh Thutmose, did he know?” I asked.
“I am not certain. He might have suspected,” Queen Merti said. “But Menwi said that Pharaoh Thutmose believed that Ptah had fathered the child. Of course, Menwi wanted to believe that.”
Her words left a trail in my thoughts, just as the horses and chariots had left their marks on the dirt road of Yehem. I saw how they connected, and I saw how they led to blood and death and heartbreak.
Although I was confident that my thoughts were true, I had no proof to offer Queen Merti.
I could not visit Khert-Neter and talk to those who had rested from life.
And, unlike Lord Imhotep, I could not journey into the past to witness events with my own eyes.
The only path I could follow led into the future.
“What is wrong?” Queen Merti asked as my silence continued.
“I told you before that all I have are words, Queen Merti. I would only give you words that I know are true,” I said.
She waited.
And my betraying tongue decided to fill that silence.
I said: “I fear that Queen Menwi and her baby and Lord Imhotep and Lady Akila have left the Two Lands.” There were darker thoughts that I withheld. Still, even the few words I uttered were too many.
***
Hear me!
I have watched the building of temples and tombs. I have seen pillars erected and walls constructed. I have seen great stones cut from the earth, raised from the depths of Geb’s belly, cut, and polished. And I tell you, with each construction there came a singular moment when the architect’s vision took life, transformed from a collection of walls and pillars into a building. With each pillar, there was a moment when the placing of one more section turned a stack of stones into a pillar. And I have seen huge stones raised with ropes and levers and straining and shouting. There is a terrible instant when the stone, raised and tilted, has shifted its balance so that now it will fall forward. It must fall forward. There is no retreat from such an instant. It is irreversible and it changes the world forever.
***
The air from my mouth that night reached my queen’s ears and the weight of my words — less than Ma’at’s feather, I swear! — fell upon her and changed our world.
Believing that her sister was lost to her forever, Queen Merti began to cry.
A tear welled in her left eye. The drop grew, its heavy belly swelling and filling with despair. Slowly — its connection to her ka strained to breaking — the tear began to slide down the soft curve of her cheek.
My hand left my lap and moved through the dark air, drawn to the tear.
Queen Merti watched my hand approach. Her lips trembled, from fear or from longing, I knew not.
I watched her, prepared to stay my hand if I saw an unspoken command in her eyes.
My hand drew closer.
I felt the heat of her skin.
Now my fingertip touched the imperceptible edge of the tear. The tension disturbed, the tear transferred its sorrowful burden to my hand.
Queen Merti closed her eyes and breathed through open lips.
I hesitated. My heart longed to move my hand closer, to caress her face, but I could not.
I returned my hand to my lap.
Her image began to waver, and I realized that my own eyes were now flooded.
Queen Merti opened her eyes. Seeing the tears in my eyes, she began to reach to my face.
The rock weight of my words completed its fateful fall, and I knew that forever more, each moment would be flavored by this sweet memory.
Then, as her hand touched my eager face, we heard the cooing of a dove.
It sounded a second time, louder and more urgent.
“I will find the truth, Queen Merti,” I said as I slid past her outstretched arm and crouched among the shrubs.
“I will not fail you,” I whispered as she rose and, wiping her eyes, walked toward Ipu.
***
Lying on my back, I extended my right arm toward the ceiling of my temple bedroom.
Although Re remained hidden, continuing his nightly struggle through Duat, I could see the bend of my wrist and the bump of a bone that rose at the outer side of my wrist. With my hand turned palm up, I could see the thin bones beneath the skin on the back of my hand. I moved my fingers and watched the corresponding bones appear and disappear.
I rotated my wrist to bring my palm into view. When I moved my fingers, deep creases appeared in my palm. I reached up with my left hand and rested those fingers on the bones now hidden back of my right hand.
Wiggling the fingers of my right hand I saw the creases form and disappear on my palm, and, with a different part of my attention, I felt the bones move beneath the fingers of my other hand.
Seen and unseen, felt and unfelt; all contained within one.
I lowered my arms and with the fingertips that — only a few hours ago! — had been close enough to feel the heat of Queen Merti’s blood coursing beneath the surface of her wondrous face, I touched the edge of my own jawline.
I felt the soft contact and then moved my fingers — just so! — and now they were hovering as near my own skin as they had been to Queen Merti’s.
I imagined that my fingers were within a phantom’s touch of the queen’s soft skin. I felt a lonely, delicious ache and, turning my head, I moaned.
I wanted to stand by her window and watch her sleep. I wanted to kneel by her bed and listen to the air pass in and out of her nostrils. I wanted to listen to her talk with her servants, to watch her hands on the clay of the potter’s wheel, to see her round eyes narrowed in concentration, to watch her lips purse in thought.
And — more than anything, more than any dream of my childhood, more than any dream of anyone’s childhood — I wanted to keep my promise to her.
I would find the truth.
I would not fail her.
I Taste Blood
Re’s morning light eased through the rectangular window by my bed. Dust motes rode the slanted beams — rising, falling, drifting, swirling — floating on the flower-scented breeze from the sacred garden.
The sacred garden!
I took a slow breath, eager to explore the scents it carried: dust, of course, always dust, but also a soft green aroma, slightly musty — the chrysanthemums! Sniffing again I sensed the cloying floral essence of the water lilies.
I thought: I will always remember this combination of smells.
Looking at the dark blue ceiling I saw painted the five-fingered stars of night filling Nut’s belly.
I smiled; I had seen those same stars held captive in the tear that I took from Queen Merti.
I raised my fingertips — sacred now, for they had had been anointed with a tear from the queen — and touched them to my lips. I knew that they were nothing more than my own fingers, yet I also knew that they would always bear the touch of the queen’s tear.
I sighed, allowed myself a long, blissful moment to relive our meeting, and then I pushed myself upright.
This morning I would inspect Queen Menwi’s chariot. I would find the thread of the lost queen’s trail and, winding it to myself, I would find the hiding place of Lord Imhotep, Akila, Kebu, and Queen Menwi.
I told Queen Merti once more: I will not fail you.
***
When I met the charioteers outside the barracks an hour later, I noticed Pairy looking at me as if were someone else. I was wearing a clean kilt and properly applied kohl and I felt a lightness in my step that had been missing ever since we had found Wah’s body.
I suppose I did look different.
I saw Pairy nudge Turo with an elbow and tilt his head at me. Then he interlocked his fingers and slapped his palms together.
Turning to me with an oafish grin, he asked, “Did you sleep well, Scribe Suti?”
Hearing laughter in Pairy’s voice, I suddenly realized what he was thinking. I blushed, angry with myself for feeling embarrassed. As casually as I could, I said: “I did, Charioteer Pairy. Exceedingly well.”
The charioteers exchanged amused looks, which I ignored.
“Which way is the queen’s chariot?” I asked, looking past them.
***
The queen’s chariot sat alone at the end of a row of war chariots beneath the palm-frond roof of an open-ended building across a field from the barracks.
Reaching the chariot, I dropped to my hands and knees, rolled onto my back and squirmed beneath the chariot. I had decided to search it systematically, beginning with its bottom.
As I studied the undercarriage of the chariot, I saw the lower legs of Pairy and Turo as they squatted beside the chariot. The chariot floor was made of wide leather bands woven together, like the reeds of a basket. I tugged at the bands, raising my head from the dirt to peer in between the tight bands.
“What is he looking for?” I heard Turo whisper to Pairy.
Instead of a response, Pairy whispered: “Remember that little servant girl, the one who came for him yesterday?”
“Her name is Ipu,” I said from beneath the chariot. “And I am looking for gold,” I said, answering Turo while I continued searching other bands of the chariot floor.
“If I find gold flakes captured in the webbing it would tell us that Queen Menwi stood in the chariot recently. Her sandals are painted with gold. It is likely that flakes of it would fall during the long, bouncing ride from Gaza,” I said, adding in a quiet whisper to myself: “Unless they fell off while the charioteers were taking turns driving the chariot.”
The leather band I had pried away from the netting slipped from my fingers and slapped against my other hand. I felt a fingernail break and muttered Seth’s foul name. As I shook my hand, I saw that a dark flake was stuck to it. I pushed my fingers back into the tight web. Twisting my fingers, I felt more flakes fall from the leather.