by Jerry Dubs
“All of this. The wall was so high. The pyramid was so clean and unmarred.” She turned to Maya. “It will get much worse, Maya. In the distant future when your father and I are born, the wall and the pillars will have fallen and lie buried beneath the sand. Some of the stones from the pyramid will be stolen for other buildings.”
Maya nodded silently.
Imhotep leaned forward and kissed his daughter’s cheek.
“I think as we age, we talk and think more and more about the past and about our youth. Maya has heard all these tales a hundred times.”
Maya began to protest and then smiled instead. Her father was indeed old. Few in the Two Lands saw fifty floods. He was one flood short of sixty. Yet, except for the walking staff, he appeared young and energetic, his mind unclouded, his enthusiasm undiminished.
“See,” Imhotep said, leaning to kiss Akila, “she doesn’t disagree.”
“She would,” Akila said with a smile, “but she knows she would never win an argument with you.”
“No,” Imhotep agreed, “only you win those.”
Maya reached for the sack that carried the rolls of papyrus.
“Have you captured what you wanted?” she asked, taking the sack.
“Memories, Maya.” He looked over the vast complex that he had designed for King Djoser and let his thoughts wander. Turning back to his daughter, he said, “Our lives are like this endless, shifting desert, immense and unbounded. Who can fathom that?
“But if we take that sand, mix it with mud and shape it, we can make a brick. And the brick is solid and contained. We can understand it. It is an organized piece of the desert. It is a memory.
“Now, each day we make more of these bricks — our individual memories — and soon we have built a wall. And that wall is how we recall our life; a series of small moments, captured and turned into memories and then cemented together to form our personal history.”
He bent to pick up a handful of sand. Letting it run though his fingers and fall back to the ground, he said, “But our memories contain only a few moments of our lives. And our lives embrace only a small part of what has happened around us as we live.”
Akila coughed politely. “Old men turn into philosophers,” she said with amusement.
Maya pointed to the remnants of the enclosure wall. “And some of the walls are short, some have bricks that are poorly made.”
“Yes,” Imhotep said. “And even the best wall contains little of what truly happened and what it does contain is distorted by our view of the world.” He scuffed at the infinite desert sand.
“And all walls end,” Akila added, glancing at Imhotep.
Imhotep nodded agreement, his expression grim.
Maya was seized with a sudden wave of panic. She clutched her father’s arm. “Are you ill, father?”
“No, no, not at all. But,” he glanced at Akila, “Pharaoh Hatshepsut will soon rest from life.”
Maya sighed in relief.
“Of course she will, father. Her temple is completed and dedicated and she is weary. She knows Wepwawet is approaching. She welcomes him.”
Kebu, master archer
Standing in the archery range outside the Waset barracks, Kebu watched a dozen new boys string their bows. Already he could tell which of them would become archers and which would become runners who followed the chariots, carrying a club and a short, stabbing spear.
His right hand brushed against the thin scar that ran across the small lump on his thigh, the physical reminder of the months of horror he had endured seven years ago: the baboons, the snakes, the spiders living in his flesh.
Hearing the light snap of a breaking bowstring, he glanced at the boy who was fumbling with the bow that had fallen from his grasp. The boy felt Kebu’s gaze and looked up at the archery master with frightened eyes.
Archers stood behind the infantry lines, protected by shield bearers as they launched their deadly missiles toward the enemy. The best of them were promoted to ride in chariots under Neferhotep, who led the maryannu.
But boys whose eyesight was not true, whose fingers failed to master the gentle, confident release of the arrow, whose hands were not quick enough to nock three arrows and let them fly within the span of a single breath, whose arms were not strong enough to send an arrow above the shield bearer, past the charging charioteers and into the heart of the enemies of the Two Lands, those boys became foot soldiers.
Five deep, they would charge behind the charioteers, screams of fear-killing bravado filling their mouths as they pounded across the battlefield. They ate the dust of the chariots, they absorbed the rain of arrows and still they charged onward, toward glory or toward the Field of Reeds.
Kebu shifted his gaze from the boy, hoping that the child would find another bowstring and prepare his weapon, but prepared to lay his hands on the boy’s shoulders and tell him that Khnum had fashioned him as a foot soldier and not an archer.
As he thought of the Khnum, Kebu smiled. The gods had been good to him.
He remembered the long trek from Tadjoura seven years ago. He remembered feverish moments of the boat ride downriver and being carried nearly unconscious through the streets of Waset. He remembered a living pain in his leg and the emergence of a horde of spiders, their bodies coated with his blood.
And then darkness until the god Imhotep had recalled him from the edges of the Field of Reeds.
Imhotep! He was a god like no other.
Kebu pictured gods young and strong, even though he knew that they had roamed the Two Lands since before the time of King Narmer. Imhotep had seen almost sixty floods. He was older than anyone Kebu had ever known, and each year had left its mark on the god.
Imhotep carried a heavy staff, its aged wood carved to represent intertwining serpents, and he walked with a halting step. His narrow shoulders were thin, as if his skin were a light linen robe, ready to be discarded whenever his ka wished to take flight. And his eyes, despite the dark kohl that lined them, were held tight, as if the god had seen too much already.
Kebu shook his head.
Those eyes!
When he had awakened in Pentu’s home seven years ago, his senses finally restored by the physician’s heka, Imhotep had sat beside him on his bed. He had asked Kebu to tell him his story. He had looked at Kebu with compassion, yes, but also with a sadness that told Kebu that the god expected him to lie and that he would see through those lies and his heart would fill with disappointment.
And so Kebu had told only the truth, leaving out no details, remembering things he had hoped to forget. He had told Imhotep about the night attack in Tadjoura and found that he was not surprised that the god knew more about it than Kebu did.
He had let his words fall without restraint, giving himself to the mercy of the god.
A month later, soldiers came to Pentu’s home and Kebu thought that he was being taken to his execution. Instead he had been delivered to Neferhotep, who he later learned was grandson to the god, and asked to demonstrate his skill with the knife and the khopesh sword and the spear and the bow.
“Kebu.” A familiar voice called the archery master from his thoughts.
Kebu dropped his head in respect as he turned toward Imhotep, unsurprised to see the god approaching.
The god sent thoughts of himself to prepare me for his arrival.
He held his eyes downward, listening to the shuffling approach of the god, waiting, always with a mixture of anticipation and dread, for the god to lay his hand on Kebu’s shoulder.
He felt Imhotep’s touch now, the hand light, yet powerful.
“How are the boys?”
“A few will become adequate bowmen,” Kebu said, slowly raising his eyes.
He found a smile on Imhotep’s face.
“I am sure you will make them the best that they can be,” Imhotep said, his eyes wandering over the young soldiers before returning to Kebu. “You have done well, Kebu,” Imhotep said, squeezing Kebu’s shoulder proudly. “Neferhotep constantly prai
ses the archers you send him.”
Kebu felt fire pass from the god’s touch to his skin, the warmth filling and lifting him.
“Come with me, Kebu, I wish a word.”
***
Imhotep led Kebu to the shade of the barracks wall. Lowering himself to a stool, Imhotep sighed and looked up at Kebu. The Medjay’s restless eyes moved from Imhotep to the barracks door and then back to the archery field.
He reminds me so much of young Ahmes, Imhotep thought, fondly recalling the child of his long-dead friend Paneb. Ahmes, grown into a man, was lost in the distant future. So talented and loyal.
Imhotep nodded toward a small pot that rested on a bench by the wall. “There is beer, Kebu. I had it brought with me, so it hasn’t started to boil yet,” he added with a smile.
Kebu filled a wooden cup with beer and handed it to Imhotep, who propped his staff against the wall and took the cup with both hands. He took a slow drink and then said, “You have a gift, Kebu, of training the boys well. Their skills are polished.”
“Thank you, Lord Imhotep.”
Imhotep smiled. “It is the truth, Kebu. You know that.” He saluted the warrior with his beer cup. “There is a time of unrest approaching, Kebu,” he said.
Kebu felt a thrill run through him at the casual prophecy. He wondered what it must be like to see the future so clearly.
“The Two Lands have two rulers, Kebu. Your warriors have one heart. For which ruler does it beat?”
Kebu wiped a hand across his face as he thought. Seven years ago he would have wondered if the question was a trap, but he had learned to trust this god. He knew that Imhotep was brother to Thoth and, like Thoth, he sought only the truth.
“Pharaoh Hatshepsut, long life!, is a hawk circling high in the sky as she watches over the Two Lands. Pharaoh Thutmose, long life!, is a hawk diving toward his prey, his wings spread, his claws extended.”
Imhotep waited.
“The soldiers train to fight, to loose their arrows, to throw their spears,” Kebu said. “They would fight for Pharaoh Hatshepsut, long life! But they would die for Pharaoh Thutmose, long life!”
Imhotep drained the beer cup and toyed with it as he thought. Standing, he put a hand on Kebu’s shoulder, felt a small shudder work through the archer’s muscles and squeezed him reassuringly.
He started to speak, but hurried footsteps arrested his words.
A royal guard ran through the barracks doorway and stopped in the sunlight’s glare. Finding Imhotep, the guard knelt and said, “You are needed at the palace, Lord Imhotep.”
Frowning, Imhotep squeezed Kebu’s shoulder once more.
“Soon their allegiance will no longer be divided, Kebu.” He glanced at the nervous messenger and then leaned closer to the Medjay. “And soon they will be asked to fight and to die,” he said quietly, the words falling from his mouth like stones from the sky.
Pharaoh Hatshepsut rests
Lost in his thoughts, Imhotep allowed himself to be helped into the litter that waited outside the barracks.
Laying his walking staff beside him, he twisted to rearrange cushions and then settled back to endure the jostling ride into the city, past the sprawling estates at the edge of the markets and into the heart of the Two Lands.
It would be useless to ask the messenger why he was being called to the palace, but Imhotep was certain that it was because Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s health had taken a turn for the worse.
In the seven years since the expedition to Ta Netjer, her health had declined steadily, sometimes rapidly. Her broken tooth remained imbedded in her jaw, sometimes becoming inflamed, but too difficult to remove without endangering the ruler’s life.
Often in pain, always in discomfort, Pharaoh Hatshepsut had become less active and she had developed a taste for soft foods: The interior of breads, lightly baked cakes, anything with honey, the flesh of fruit. Her weight increased, her energy flagged and, Akila was certain, she had become diabetic.
She was dying, Imhotep knew. Thutmose would sit alone on the throne.
It had happened, so it will happen, he thought with a wry smile. The litter swayed with the gait of the carriers and, closing his eyes, Imhotep felt himself adrift in the river of time.
***
Alighting at the tall, double doors of the palace, he found Akila waiting for him.
She nodded slightly and he knew that the hand of time had ticked past another unalterable mark.
Suddenly, he remembered one night before he had passed through the time portal and come to the Two Lands. He had been standing outside the Mena House Oberoi on the outskirts of future Cairo as the sun rose and the words of Omar Khayyam had floated to life.
Now he felt the ancient Persian poet’s presence again.
“The moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on. Nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it,” he whispered to himself in English.
Akila tilted her head as she caught the soft murmur.
Imhotep shrugged. “I don’t believe in fate,” he said, still in English, “but I often think that I am being swept along on the river of time.” He looked at her with sad, knowing eyes. “I have come to recognize that the idea that I have any control over my life is more illusion than truth.”
“Perhaps not control,” Akila said, leaning to kiss Imhotep’s cheek, “but influence, yes? We can nudge events a little.”
“I think that I am no more than a monkey riding a tiger and pretending I am in control,” he said, taking her arm and walking into the palace.
Akila stifled a sigh. She had listened to Imhotep’s existential angst before, but she had also seen him fight fate with all of his might. And win.
“She has rested from life,” she said softly in the tongue of the Two Lands.
Imhotep nodded. “She was in pain, so ... ”
“Senenmut is preparing to have her transported to the temple of Thoth.”
“Has Thutmose been notified?”
“He was with her,” Akila said.
“Really?”
“He was a good son,” Akila said. “I can’t imagine another man waiting so patiently to rule the world.”
They passed the huge interior garden where the late morning sun cast deep shadows into the eastern corners of the courtyard and tossed bright, wavering ripples of light on the pond.
“He truly believes in the gods and their plans,” Akila said.
Imhotep suppressed a shudder. Lapsing into English again, he muttered, “There is nothing more frightening than a man who is certain of divine plans.”
Arrival in the Two Lands
Menwi sat on a wooden bench along the side of the ship as it wove deeper into the green delta at the edge of the Two Lands. Extending an arm, she slowly waved her hand through the heavy air, rubbing her fingers together to feel the moisture that gathered on her skin, making it soft and smooth.
The river moved slowly here, its brown surface coated with a bubbling, patchwork lattice of algae, twigs, and leaves. Doum palm trees with shaggy brown sheaves of dead leaves hanging beneath their spread of fronds crowded the edge of the bank. Taller date palms, their tops spread like a fan, loomed behind the smaller mana trees, and, in front, shaggy willow trees waded into the water, their whip limbs arching gracefully to dip into the slow current.
Menwi looked up at the canopy that spread over the river, tinting the sunlight green. Breathing deeply of the heavy air, she felt her coarse gown tug at her, its cloth weighted with moisture, not with the red dust of the mountain of northern Canaan.
Such a strange land!
She glanced at the bow of the ship where her sisters lay on pillows strewn on the deck.
Menhet still sulked over being exiled from Alalakh and from her dreams of marrying a princely Hittite with a square, black beard. Little Merti had cried for a day and then, after Menwi had pointed out a school of graceful fish that emerged from the water like a gray rainbow and disappeared again wit
h a flick of their wide tails, the youngest sister had spent her waking hours watching for strange fish and birds.
They were both sleeping now, lulled into lethargy by the heat, the swaying of the ship, and the boredom of being caged on this slow-moving wooden island.
But, despite the heat, Menwi felt herself becoming more and more alive with each passing day, like a flower rescued from a drought.
The day after they had sailed from Alalakh, the sky had turned black and the captain, worried about being driven into the rocks, had turned the small ship into the open sea. In the morning Menwi had awakened to find that the world of rust-colored mountains, dust shrouded trees, and scabbed city walls had disappeared, replaced by an endless bowl of water, its surface sparkling with white jewels.
A thrill had run through her as she scanned the empty horizon.
If there is land in this direction, she thought, peering toward the morning horizon, there can be land in that direction, she realized, turning to her left. Turning again, she stared at empty waters and distant skies.
There was so much more to the world than I had dreamed. Could there be different mountains, different soil, different animals, a different sky?
Different people?
In the small market of Alalakh she had seen strange men wearing billowing trousers, others wore striped robes, still others wore short kilts. She had seen faces framed by high cheekbones, others with wide jaws; some mouths were framed with full lips, others with narrow lips. Once she had seen a woman with hair the color of straw! And that was in a tiny city at the far end of a trade route that was days away from the center of the world.
What waits at the end of this sea voyage?
And, she wondered with a thrill that quickened her heart, who is waiting?
***
Neferhotep pulled the waist strap of his shendyt tight and tied it with absent hands.
He had escorted Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s body to the embalming temples of Khnum and then continued downriver to greet the tribute wife Pharaoh Thutmose had demanded of King Idrimi.