by Jerry Dubs
She moved to me, her eyes sparkling.
Her lips moved. She whispered to herself, and to me: If not tonight, then never.
She raised her face to me. I tilted my head slightly and, instead of meeting her lips with mine, I rested my forehead against hers.
“I love you, Queen Merti,” I whispered.
Before she could speak, I touched a finger to her lips. “No, do not say the words. Not now, not ever. You are a Queen of the Two Lands. You are wife to Pharaoh Thutmose. You must not burden your ka with this weight.
“I can love you. You are my queen. It does not add weight to my heart. But you cannot return it. No, dear Merti, do not say it. I beg you, keep your ka pure. Accept my love and my devotion. Your acceptance of my love is the only gift that you can give me. Nothing more.”
Her head shook and she began to cry.
“I am not being noble,” I said, my hand stroking her head now, memorizing each curve, learning the shape and feel of my love, knowing that this memory would be all that I would have from this day on. “I want you to live forever in Khert-Neter. I hope to adore you there, through all of eternity. But we cannot make that dark journey through Duat if our hearts are not light.”
A tear fell against my shoulder. I slid from my stool and, kneeling before her, I wrapped my arms around her, holding her, feeling the heat of her body, the softness and the strength there.
She returned my embrace, pulling me close.
“I am not born of the Two Lands. What if I am not allowed entry to Khert-Neter?” she asked, her hands exploring the ridge of my spine, the curve of ribs beneath my skin.
“You are queen of the Two Lands. You will be welcomed to Khert-Neter,” I assured her. “We must keep your heart light. In all that we can do, dear Merti, we must always act to keep your heart light. You must be the very spirit of a queen, and I will be your servant. We will stay within ma’at.”
Her body stop quaking and her breathing slowed.
“After tonight,” she said. She pulled away from me and then moving to me, her mouth open to mine. “We will have this moment. Then we will live within ma’at.”
Her breath mingling with mine. I bent to her and — although I was certain that Ma’at herself was standing behind me with disapproving, folded arms, and that Anubis was shaking his jackal snout in dismay — I touched my lips to Merti’s.
The vast sky contracted to a single point. The constant pull of Geb gave way. All the worries and questions that had followed me dissipated like smoke from a dying fire.
There was only this moment.
My ceaseless, questioning mind was overwhelmed by the softness of Merti’s mouth, by the tender pull of her arms, by the wash of her breath on my face, by the taste of her lips. My heart felt light enough to float from Ma’at’s stern scales, able to rise above the restraints of the laws of the Two Lands, free of the shackles imposed by the god-serving priests, beyond even the laws of the gods themselves.
I wanted this moment to never end.
And then Queen Merti lifted her head from mine. Smiling wistfully, she leaned close and gave me a final, farewell kiss.
“We return to ma’at,” she said, her voice solemn.
I Survive The First Cataract
“What’s wrong with him?” I heard Pairy ask Turo.
The charioteers were sitting together at the stern of our boat, which was moving slowly upriver. I saw Turo look toward the bow where I sat on a folded mat, my knees drawn up to my chest, my arms resting on my raised knees and my chin resting upon my arms.
My body was sitting in the slow-moving boat, but my heart was still atop the palace roof.
We had been traveling south on the river for ten days, putting ashore at each village to ask if anyone had seen a Medjay warrior, and then stopping at dusk to sleep and to gather water and food for the following day. During the first few days I tried to keep myself occupied, busying my thoughts so they would not dwell on the palace roof.
But as our boat moved upriver, each passing hour shouldered its way into my memory, pushing my memories farther into the past.
It annoyed me; and I grew melancholy.
Shu’s breath, which pushed the square sail and nudged our boat upriver, brought the charioteers’ words to me as clearly as if they had been sitting beside me.
I heard Turo say, “He looks like I felt when I heard about Queen Menwi being missing. You know, that I should have stayed with her instead of returning to the army.”
“But Suti didn’t do anything wrong,” Pairy said. “I mean, you didn’t either. You were just following orders.” Pairy waved a hand to dismiss the confusion. “You know what I mean.”
After a minute, Pairy continued, “Maybe he has a girlfriend that he left behind. Some of the married charioteers moped around like that when we left Waset.”
“I haven’t seen him with anyone, except that little girl down in Men-Nefer,” Turo said. “And he said he hadn’t been with her because she was so young.”
“Maybe he just said that,” Pairy said.
“I don’t think so,” Turo said.
“No, me either,” Pairy agreed.
“We’ll be in Kerma soon. We’ll pick up Kebu’s trail and he’ll be okay,” Turo said.
***
Two days later, my thoughts were dragged forcefully back to my sulking body.
“Shouldn’t we take the boat out of the water?” I shouted at the back of Wennefer, captain of the single-mast ship that was carrying us to Kerma.
I had never heard the rush of water against boulders before and the constant roar was unnerving. Standing in the center of the ship, my body turned to avoid bumping into the eight rowers, I wrapped my arms around the cedar mast, and stared at the smooth boulders that rose from the water ahead.
They looked to me like hippopotamuses turned to stone.
“Starboard, quickly!” Wennefer called to the helmsman who was standing at the stern of the boat, both hands gripping a rope tied to the tall shaft that angled underwater, where it was attached to a broad rudder. “Drag your oars,” he told the four men seated on the starboard side. “Hold yours ready,” he told the rowers in the port side.
The bow of the boat cut to the right and Wennefer raised a hand to the rowers. “Okay, everyone now, gently, gently, just hold her steady. Let the wind push us through these rocks.”
He bent to rest a hand on the shoulder of the boy who knelt beside him.
“Watch the water depth, Ahmose. We are in a channel that I have taken before. There weren’t any submerged rocks before, but the river changes, so watch sharply. Throw the line and take a reading on the depth. I want at least three knots beneath us. If you see less, shout.”
The boy nodded and gathering a coiled rope in his hands, he counted out five knots that had been tied an arm’s length apart on the rope. Holding the fifth knot, he picked up a flat, round stone, its center cut away to allow the end of the rope to be fastened through it, and dropped the weight into the choppy water.
My curiosity captured, I leaned toward the bow of the boat and asked, “Why the fifth knot?” I looked at the captain, “You said three knots, why did he count out five?”
The boy, who was bent forward, one hand on the rope to measure its tension, ignored the question.
“We’re moving upriver,” Wennefer answered. “The current drags the stone under us, so he allows extra length on the rope. The trick is to feel when the stone hits the bottom. If he lets the stone roll along the bottom and drag more rope through his hands, then he’ll give me a false measure.”
“Then what happens?” I asked, dropping to a knee and placing my hands on the deck to steady myself as the boat lurched and twisted.
“Well, if we hit a rock hard enough, it will crack the hull of the boat. We’ll take on water,” Wennefer said.
“Four knots,” the boy shouted in excitement.
“Very good, Ahmose, now pull it up and do it again. And keep at it until we’re through the cataract,”
Wennefer said.
“What happens if we take on water?” I shouted, holding my arms ready to help maintain my balance as I rose to my feet.
“Then you and your friends get on your hands and knees and scoop it out so we don’t sink.”
I nodded. “We can do that.”
Wennefer smiled now. “Don’t worry, scribe, you won’t need to bail water. If we hit any of these rocks, the force will break the boat apart and we’ll sink faster than a heron diving for a fish. Do you know how to swim?”
(No, I didn’t know how to swim. Why would I learn to swim when the river teemed with snakes and biting fishes and, of course, the hungry spawn of Sobek?)
Before I could answer, Wennefer waved a hand and said, “I am making a joke. You wouldn’t need to swim.” As I smiled, eager to accept his words as a sad joke, Wennefer added, “The rocks would bash your head, and then the crocodiles would take you underwater for a final twirl.” He made circles with his hand to demonstrate the death spiral that waited beneath the water.
Wennefer turned his back and said, “Ahmose, what’s the depth?”
I leaned against the mast, my eyes moving rapidly over the rocks that rose on both sides of the boat.
“Ignore him, he does that with every passenger the first time they pass through the cataracts,” a voice said.
Keeping a firm grip on the mast, I lowered myself to the deck, hoping that being lower would reduce the swaying of the boat. My tongue began to search my mouth for the soothing pebble that had helped me when I had felt ill riding in the bouncing chariots.
“There aren’t any crocodiles in this section of the river,” the voice said.
I raised my eyes toward the voice and saw that one of the rowers was watching me.
“Really?” I asked.
The rower nodded. “The water is too rough here. But the captain is right about being bashed against the rocks.” He looked out into the water, his attention dragging my eyes to the river.
Ahmose called out “Four knots” again and the captain shouted, “Start rowing, men. Put your backs into it! The river is angrier than usual.”
The men bent their backs, dipped their oars, and slowly the boat pulled free of the river’s grip. The rocks, huge, gray, and menacing, drew nearer.
Sitting on the deck, I arched my back to look over the shoulders of the rowers to watch the water.
The river fought our progress. It threw wet, white tipped shafts of water into the air. The watery spouts arced, split, twisted, and smashed against the rocks; they slapped against the boat, sending stinging sprays past the rowers and onto me.
The boat began to groan as it rocked and rose and fell.
Despite the tight grip I had on the mast, the tall timber pulled away from me and then shouldered back against me, knocking me onto my side. I rolled, my legs hitting the wooden strut of one of the rowers’ benches. The boat twisted, and, as I was raising myself to my elbows, I was thrown against the bench again, this time my head striking the wood.
I groaned as bright flashes sparkled into view.
“Scribe!”
I blinked my eyes open and saw Pairy kneeling beside me.
“I am…,” I began to answer. The boat lurched again and I rolled onto my stomach and spread my arms and legs, picturing myself as a spider, hoping to somehow find a grip on the wet deck.
With the side of my face pressed against the deck, I squinted up to Pairy. The charioteer was squatting beside me, his body swaying with the boat, his legs absorbing and eating each jolt. I rolled my eyes toward the rowers. They were moving in unison, their strokes steady.
I wondered: Am I the only one who feels this fitful motion?
And then Pairy’s strong, steady hands gripped me. The charioteer helped me roll over and sit, my back pressed against the unreliable mast.
Pairy sat beside me, and shifting his weight easily, he raised an arm to drape around my shoulders.
“Worse than the chariot,” Pairy said, his solid presence an anchor.
I nodded, feeling safer now in Pairy’s protective embrace. Then I dared to look at the passing boulders. The river was narrow here, less than a third as wide as the channel that carried calmer water past Waset. Rocks, many of them taller than a man, filled the riverbed. The water clawed against the rocks, crawled up their gray backs, and then fell back onto the white, churning surface of the river.
Near the eastern shore I saw three boulders that stood shoulder to shoulder, their bodies creating a placid retreat where two boys were sitting, watching a whirlpool at their feet.
I raised an arm and waved at them. One of the boys saw me and, leaning toward his friend, pointed at our boat. The boys waved back at me, and then the boulders slid together, hiding them from sight.
I Do Not Drown
Kneeling at the bow of our boat as it approached Kerma, I turned my head sideways and asked Wennefer: “Did you hear that?”
The captain, one hand resting on the wide, curved prow, raised his other hand to stop the sailors from rowing.
“Help!” The cry skittered across the river’s surface, a thin echo without a source.
“Hurry!” I said, “someone is being attacked.”
“Wait,” Wennefer said quietly. “It could be a trap.”
I shook my head. “We aren’t carrying any goods and no one knows we are coming. How could it be a trap?”
Something heavy splashed into the water ahead of us. Laughter floated downstream.
“It is just some drunks fighting,” Wennefer said.
“The voice sounded young,” I said. I turned to the sailors. “Can we please hurry?”
The men looked to their captain, who nodded permission.
Straining forward at the bow, I stared into the night.
The river was wider and slower here, its movement apparent only in the slight wavering of the stars that floated on its dark surface and a sliding shadow of a long, narrow leaf that drifted past the boat.
Trying to ignore the slicing splash of the eight oars, I focused my ears on the approaching wharves of Kerma. I heard a slight tapping of wood on wood and perhaps the scuff of bare feet, more than two, but not so many that I couldn’t hear individual steps.
I glanced at the sailors — they didn’t appear to be rowing faster — and then looked back upriver.
Something was bobbing and twisting on the slow current.
“Over there,” I shouted.
Pairy and Turo joined me, their movement shifting the weight of the boat.
“It’s a body,” Pairy said.
The body moved now, turning and displaying a face that held two small eyes wide with disbelief and fear. Two thin arms waved and then the body bobbed in the water.
“It’s a boy,” I said. “He’s alive!”
Without thought, I jumped from the boat.
Behind me I heard Pairy say, “Can he swim?”
Turo’s answer was lost to me as I slipped under the water.
My feet felt nothing solid beneath them. My eyes closed as water covered my head. My nose squeezed itself shut and I felt a strange combination of anger and fear.
I kicked my legs, desperate to feel something solid, and worried that they would flail against the ridged back of a crocodile. I thrashed my arms, pushing against the slippery water. Suddenly my head rose above the water. I gulped a mouthful of air and twisted, searching for the boy.
Although water washed against my ears, I heard Wennefer shout.
I caught a glimpse of the boy off to my right and then the river pulled me beneath its surface.
My cheeks bulged from the air I had swallowed. I forced my eyes open, but all was dark. I couldn’t tell if I was still falling, but I still felt nothing solid beneath my feet. I kicked again, angry that the water would not support me. As I moved, I twisted my body, hoping that I was turning toward the boy.
Reaching, I grabbed fists full of water, but it slipped away.
I surfaced again and gulped air. Turning, I looked fo
r the boy. I saw the boat, nearer than it had been, and I shouted, “Save the boy.”
Then the river took me again.
I was in a wrestling match with the water now. The river pushed at me, it surrounded me, it clutched me in its soft, deadly grip. I twisted. I kicked. I pushed with my hands. I felt my lungs grow heavy. I blew air from my mouth and tasted the river water.
Then something struck my head.
I raised a hand to it. It was a slithering snake.
My mouth wanted to scream, but, fearful of gulping more water, I stopped my mouth.
Then I saw stars, and I wondered if they were the strange lights I had seen when my head was struck. Desperate, I searched for the clusters Nakht had taught me to recognize.
The snake brushed against my face and I saw now that it was the knotted rope that Ahmose had used to measure the river’s depth.
I grabbed the rope, swallowed a mixture of water and air, and sank again.
Kicking, fighting to free myself from the water, my head rose above the water again.
“The boy,” I gasped, hoping that the boat was near enough that the sailors could hear me.
Then I saw the boy. Letting go of the rope with one hand, I reached toward the boy with the other.
As I sank beneath the water, my fingers felt a robe. I clutched it and pulled it to me.
Kicking and crawling through the water, I reached the boy. I wrapped an arm around his head, making sure to keep it above the dark water.
I looped the rope under his shoulders and tied a knot. With each movement, the river pulled me down, but I found that if I kicked my legs furiously, I could keep my head above the water.
Suddenly I felt a hand under my arm.
“What in Seth’s name were you thinking?” Pairy asked.
Twisting, I saw that Pairy had lowered himself into the river. With one hand gripping the side of the boat and the other gripping me, he pulled me to safety.
When I was close enough, I reached up to grip the boat with one hand, the other holding the boy’s head.
“I was saving the boy,” I coughed in answer to Pairy’s question.