by Jerry Dubs
Floating crocodiles unconsciously turned to face the water flow, flicking their tails to stay in place. Others dove and, swimming to the bottom of the river, found that the bed had become invisible, covered by a swirl of murky water carrying so much silt that it pelted against them. Rising again, they swam to the banks and climbed out of the water.
The wind, dragged along by the invisible friction of water current, gathered strength and pushed upward, shaking the willow trees and the giant fronds of the palms that lined the river.
Had Djefi not be shaking from rage, he would have felt the difference as the river began to awake in the Two Lands. The boatmen had felt the change as they rowed toward the bank at the Temple of Sobek. The guards who leaned down to help the fat priest step from the boat onto the dry riverbank, felt the change in the wind.
But no one spoke about it to Djefi. The seething fury that froze his face into a mask stilled their tongues.
He wanted to hurt someone, to pass the pain he felt onto someone else. He had started to beat the messenger who had brought him the news of Brian’s escape, but the boat had begun to rock and he was afraid he would lose his footing. So he had the man thrown overboard. But that wasn’t enough. That didn’t begin to take the edge off his anger.
He shook free of the guards once he was on land. The one to his right didn’t let go quickly enough, so Djefi pushed a hand against the man’s unsuspecting face. Caught off balance, the guard stepped backward into the water, lost his balance and fell.
The muted laughter from the boatmen didn’t satisfy him. Djefi wanted tears and cries of pain.
If only Siamun hadn’t already fed the guard to the crocodile, that would have been something to savor. Well, he thought, there are other guards.
He started to lose his breath halfway up the steep walkway. There should be steps cut here, he thought. How will King Djoser, how will Waja-Hur ever get up here? So much to attend to!
He gasped for air, felt his bowels break in a long, rumbling fart, and plunged on ahead. Siamun better have a seat and beer waiting for me, he thought.
Djefi headed for the stone chair at the center of the courtyard. The guards walked a few steps behind him. The guard who had been pushed into the water looked around for the crocodile praying that the beast would charge from its dark well and attack the fat priest.
Siamun was standing by the chair. To Djefi’s eye, Siamun looked leaner and at the same time larger. He looked as if he was carved from the same stone as the chair. The muscles of his arms and chest seemed to strain against his skin, which looked mottled in the dusky night air, almost as if he was covered in bruises.
His face, however, was lined. He looked much older than his thirty years. The ragged flap of skin that had grown over where his ear used to be looked like a baby’s fist against the side of his head. His smile stopped at his mouth; his eyes were narrow and dead. His teeth, never clean, looked almost black and another was missing.
Suddenly Djefi quivered, thinking of what Yunet must have put up with during her marriage to Siamun.
“This is where King Djoser dies,” Siamun said proudly, patting the stone chair.
Djefi’s eyes widened. What if the guards heard? What if a rumor escaped the temple?
Siamun saw his look. “Do you think they would say anything?” he gestured toward the guards. Djefi looked at them, they all had their eyes on the ground, not daring to confront Siamun.
“They saw what happened to Naqada,” he said, referring to the guard who had allowed Brian to escape. “His screams lasted three days. After Sobek tore off his right leg, we bound his stump and tied him back on the chair the next night. The last night, we didn’t tie him because both his legs were gone.” Siamun laughed. “He tried to drag himself away. Sobek took him into the well. He wasn’t hungry for almost a week. But now, he is ready again.”
“You used the oil King Djoser uses? With the same aroma?” Djefi asked. He had given Siamun specific instruction. He wanted the crocodile to be trained to attack the right person.
Siamun ignored his question. “He will attack whoever sits in this chair. I just wish he had learned it quicker. We should have kept him hungrier.”
Djefi looked at him hard.
“If he fails, if something goes wrong, Siamun, then King Djoser will have his revenge. On all of us.”
Siamun leaned close. Djefi steeled himself not to pull back from the man’s ferocious breath. “Are you losing your nerve, Djefi?”
“I don’t intend to lose anything,” he answered, straining to keep his voice from squeaking. “But you lost something, didn’t you?”
Siamun stared at him, his eyelids lowering as he waited.
“Brian! You lost Brian.”
Siamun didn’t answer.
“Do you know where he is? No, you don’t. I don’t either. But there are only two possibilities. Either he’s dead, in the river and eaten by Sobek’s brothers, or he’s alive. If he’s alive, then that means someone has helped him and is hiding him.
“I heard that Hetephernebti was searching for him,” Djefi continued. “You do know that she is the king’s sister, don’t you? If she has found Brian and if he tells her what he saw here, then we are dead men, Siamun, dead men.”
He stopped when he saw Siamun smile and then start to laugh.
“Do you want to die, Siamun? Are you eager to get to Khert-Neter? Is your heart that light?”
Siamun shook his head smiling. “He won’t tell anyone anything. I cut out his tongue!” He laughed and turned away from Djefi.
As Djefi watched Siamun saunter toward his hut, he unconsciously wiped his lips with his tongue. He turned to the guards behind him.
“Is this true?”
The guards nodded their heads.
“We saw it, and heard it, First Prophet,” one of them answered. “I don’t know how this man could have survived. I don’t think he is still alive. If he somehow got to Kom Ombo he could not last long. He was weak and dying.”
Djefi thought about the agony Brian would have felt, the blood that would have flowed, and he smiled.
But, he worried, what if Siamun is wrong? Siamun thought Brian would die out in the desert, but he had survived. Diane! The other outlander, the one whom King Djoser has taken to calling Imhotep, he tried to talk to Diane during the ceremony at Iunu. She is my lever. As long as I have her, I can use her to bargain with King Djoser if he survives Sobek.
He turned toward the central temple complex where his rooms were waiting, his anger and tiredness forgotten as he made new plans.
In the morning he sent for Yunet and Diane.
Diane looked like a different woman. She still had her red hair, but it was tangled and dirty. Her pale skin was pasty and unhealthy, her eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot. She had lost weight and her breasts, their outlines visible beneath her linen robe, seemed to hang lower.
She had looked like a goddess. Now she was an empty shell.
Yunet looked as tired, but still strong and proud.
“Greetings, little sisters,” Djefi said.
Siamun, standing by Djefi’s chair, said nothing as the women entered.
“Greeting, First Prophet,” Yunet answered.
Diane raised her eyes from the stone floor and stared at Siamun. “Fuck you,” she said.
Djefi was puzzled at the foreign words, but when he saw Siamun stiffen, he looked at Yunet for an answer.
“She is angry with Siamun because of what he did to Brian.”
Djefi nodded. “Then the news I have for her will not be pleasing.” He paused, waiting for a response. When he got none, he continued, “The dedication of the temple is approaching. I think it will be a very confusing time. I have so much to do. I won’t have time to be a proper host to Diane. So, I have asked Siamun to take the two of you back to To-She, where you can relax without all this, uh, confusion.”
Yunet looked at Djefi, trying to understand what was really happening. They were being banished from the temple, kep
t away from the priests, priestesses and officials who would be arriving. So Djefi was intent on hiding Diane from everyone. It wasn’t because of the way she looks now, Yunet reasoned, because he had made the decision before he saw her.
She didn’t understand why.
“Yes, First Prophet,” she said. “We would be happy to return to To-She. But I’m sure you have important tasks here for Siamun. We could travel alone. Or with one of the boatmen.”
“Of course, you could. But his work here is done and he is ready to return to To-She. Aren’t you, Siamun?”
The guard grunted a sound that could have been ‘yes.’
So Siamun is being banished, also, Yunet thought. Or he is being sent to guard Diane, to keep her from escaping. Suddenly she was gripped with fear that Siamun had been told to take Diane away from the temple and to kill her. Then she shook free of the thought. If he wanted to kill her she would have been placed in the stone chair days ago.
“As you wish, First Prophet,” Yunet said, bowing her head. There was little else to do, she thought. They would go back to To-She and wait. There had been no word about Brian or the other stranger, except rumors that he was traveling with the king. At To-She they would be able to see less of Siamun than here in this confined temple complex. Perhaps Diane would begin to recover, to eat and regain her health.
“Thank you,” she added as they withdrew.
“And fuck you very much,” Diane muttered under her breath.
“Why did you agree?” Diane asked. “Why’d you kiss his fat ass,” she added in English, knowing Yunet wouldn’t understand.
Yunet stroked Diane’s shoulder. She hated what had happened to her since she had seen Brian’s tongue cut out. It was hard, Yunet understood that. But it was not something that could be changed.
If she wanted revenge on Siamun, then Diane would need to stay strong, not sulk and go hungry. She understood that the country Diane came from was different, but that did her no good now. She was here.
“If we go to To-She, then we’ll be away from this spot, from these memories,” she said soothingly. “We can get away from this heat and all this sand and rock. Remember the orchards and the gardens, Diane? It will be like it was when you first arrived. Once this temple is dedicated, everything will return to normal.”
Diane spoke without emotion, as she had since that night. “I don’t want normal. I want Siamun dead.”
Yunet put her hand over Diane’s mouth.
“You must never say that,” she warned her. “I know you are angry, I know you are hurt. But if he hears what you are thinking, he will hurt you. I know.”
Diane jerked her head away.
“You know. You know,” Diane mocked her. She switched to English. “You don’t know shit. If Brian ever gets fucking Siamun alone, he’ll rip his fucking head off. Brian is still alive, I know it. So yeah, I’ll go to To-She if it gets Siamun away from here so Brian has a chance to get better. Then he’ll come looking for Siamun. Brian found us here; he’ll find us in fucking To-She. And this time, I’ll be ready.” She picked up a vase and threw it against the wall. “This time I won’t let him down.”
Yunet let her rant, listening to the anger spill from her. She knew the feeling of pain and helplessness and how it could build inside until a balance was tipped, until the heart became so full that it had to explode.
Now was not the time for soothing, she knew. That would come later. But would Diane be able to contain herself on the long trip back to To-She or would she try to strike out at Siamun then? That would be disastrous.
She thought she knew this redheaded goddess-child, but now she wasn’t sure.
When Diane and Brian had arrived at To-She after their trek across the desert with Bakr, Yunet had seen immediately that Diane was angry with Brian. When they had fought that evening, Yunet had instinctively moved to comfort Diane. She knew what it was like to fear a man.
She had feared Siamun during their marriage, but she had known that her half-brother Djefi would always protect her. Then one night during a drunken argument Siamun had told her the truth about the night Djefi had saved her. He had told her everything.
As she listened to the horrible story that night, the trust and love she had had for Djefi had turned into a dread, deeper and more consuming than any fear of Siamun had been.
Two years before Yunet was born, her mother, Sitra, lost her first husband when he was killed hunting hippos in the delta. She had one child by him, a boy named Djefi who was eight years old by the time the widow Sitra caught the eye of Sesostris, who was visiting Iunu for the Festival of Re in His Barge.
Sesostris took Sitra and her boy to his home in To-She where he was a priest in the service of Sobek. A year later, after Yunet was born, Sesostris was elevated to First Prophet. With that came a change.
Sesostris spent more and more time at the temple, which suited Sitra because she wanted nothing more than to play with her little girl, to teach her to spin and sew and cook. Yunet was a quick learner and she showed signs of becoming a strong and beautiful woman.
The boy Djefi had become withdrawn when his father died. Now as his mother showered her attention on his sister, he desperately reached out to his stepfather for attention.
Sesostris moved Djefi to the temple where he roomed with another young acolyte named Siamun. The boys became friends, sweeping the temple hallways together, daring each other to race past sleeping crocodiles in the temple garden, peeking around doorways at the priests when they had secret meetings.
One evening, when Siamun left with his father for a hunting trip into the desert mountains, Djefi found himself alone in the temple.
After his chores, he went to the temple garden as it was growing dark. It was a dangerous place to be. The crocodiles roamed the garden freely. And in the darkness it was impossible to see them at a distance and they moved so fast that if they chose to attack, Djefi would never be able to avoid them.
Djefi entered quietly and slowly, giving his eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness. After a few minutes it seemed to him as if the stars had become more bright. He could see the leaves of the palm trees as a blacker black, their knife-sharp edges poised in the cooling air. The roughed-skinned tree trunks formed beautiful abstract patterns of sharp angles of black-hewed brown. The ridges on the back of a crocodile that was lying immobile just a few steps away seemed to glisten.
He was sure that if he waited Sobek would rise from the pond, his fierce crocodile head atop a man’s body. He would walk godlike across the grounds and speak to Djefi, tell him about the mysteries of Khert-Neter, about the power of being a god, about the love that flowed from the family of gods, and about the paradise Djefi's dead father now enjoyed.
Djefi was standing on the cusp of a hidden world. The air itself about the pond seemed lighter. It was expanding, coming toward him and when it reached him he would be transported to a higher realm. He would understand and know. He would see his father again.
He was glad Siamun was not here. He would never have understood and his brutishness would have broken the spell.
The light was closer now and Djefi could feel the hairs on his arms and his neck rise to attention. A chill came over him. He closed his eyes, his face turned upward, eager for illumination.
But instead of the booming voice of the god, he heard a low moan, a guttural cry that turned into a series of grunts. He knew that sound. He and Siamun had followed it before, watching in the shadows as one of the women who came at night to the temple lay on her back beneath a priest.
He opened his eyes to see, as he feared, that the spell had been broken by the grunting sound. Instead of a magical garden ready to divulge secrets, he saw only shadows and darkness. Instead of incense, he smelled decay and waste.
He turned back to the temple and started down the hallway toward his room. Suddenly a woman ran from one of the rooms, blood dripping from between her legs. One hand was over her mouth; the other was lodged between her legs. She ran past him, cry
ing loudly.
Djefi looked back to the room she had left. His stepfather Sesostris was standing in the doorway. He was holding a whip in his right hand, the handle of it dripping with blood.
He was quivering in anger. “Get back here, whore!” he shouted. “I am First Prophet of Sobek and you will do whatever I say!”
Suddenly his eyes found Djefi who was cowering against the wall.
“What are you doing here?” he shouted.
Djefi shook his head, his eyes on the whip. Sesostris saw what Djefi was looking at. He saw the fear on the boy’s face. He nodded his head as if making a decision. He let the rolled whip thong fall to the stone floor. To Djefi it looked like a silent snake uncoiling from his stepfather’s hand.
He wanted to run, but fear overcame his legs and he suddenly sat on the cold stone floor. Sesostris advanced slowly, his wrist flicking the whip handle, making the thong slither across the stones.
Every night Siamun was away, Djefi’s stepfather found him and dragged him through the temple to his room. The first night Djefi had screamed in pain, but he saw that it only gave Sesostris more pleasure and the boy knew that no one would come to his aid.
He had feared the pain of the whip, but instead Djefi discovered that his stepfather had other plans for him. The priest had grown inured to the pleasures of a woman and had decided when he saw young Djefi that the boy offered a new world of pleasure and pain to explore.
Djefi endured silently, not admitting to Siamun when he returned, how his stepfather was abusing him. But he listened with intense attention when Siamun described the hunt and how he had driven a spear into the shaking side of a desert gazelle.
For almost a year, Djefi suffered.
Siamun saw the change in his friend, but to his eyes it was a change for the better. Djefi was more sullen, angrier, and ready to lash out and hurt smaller people. He was becoming a man.