Imhotep (19 page)

Neswy
pulled the spear out and raised it overhead for another thrust.  The
antelope kicked out with its rear legs and caught Neswy’s right knee. 
Brian heard the crack as the bone shattered and Neswy’s shocked cry at the same
time.  The antelope continued to twist in his arms; its movements more
frantic but less powerful.

Brian
released his grip enough to turn his head.  Neswy was on the ground, the
spear at his side, his hands over his leg.  Blood ran down his calf. 
When he saw Brian looking at him, the old man twisted on the ground, reaching
for his spear to pass it to him.

Brian
saw Siamun and the others jogging toward them.

The
antelope shuddered suddenly, snorted loudly.  Blood and mucus ran from its
nostrils, its bladder emptied and it lay its head almost gently on the ground.

Brian
released it and scrambled to Neswy who was rocking on the ground, his bloodied
leg stretched out on the ground, the lower half of it cocked at an unnatural
angle.  He was moaning softly.

T
hey gutted and butchered the still warm
antelope, wrapping the meat in linen cloths they had brought with them. 
They put the heavy cuts in the slings to carry back to To-She, setting aside a
small portion to roast over their fire that night.

Siamun
had glanced at Neswy’s injury with a strange, satisfied smile on his dark face,
then, dismissing him, had turned his attention to the antelope.  He hadn’t
spoken to Brian.

The
other hunters had followed Siamun’s orders, gutting, skinning and cutting the
antelope into manageable portions.

Brian,
coming down from the adrenaline high of facing down the antelope, was angry at
the way Siamun ignored Neswy and confused by the way Neswy accepted it.

The
old man was unable to stand.  The antelope’s kick had ripped the skin from
his knee, tearing away the ligaments and shattering the kneecap.  Brian
had washed the grit from the wound and made a splint using the shaft of his
broken spear, holding it in place with strips torn from his kilt.

Neswy
seemed grateful for Brian’s help, but seemed to have withdrawn.

Brian
thought of his useless cell phone, lying somewhere in his room at To-She, its
battery exhausted from being turned on and off again as he unsuccessfully tried
to find service.  He hadn’t seen anything resembling a medical facility or
a doctor.  And, although he hadn’t thought the words consciously, he knew
that he was some place, perhaps some time far away from everything he knew.

This
hunt was like something from the Stone Age, he thought.  He knew he
couldn’t expect any help for Neswy from Siamun.  The other two seemed less
sinister, but Brian knew they wouldn’t provide any help unless Siamun ordered
it.

W
hen morning came, Siamun and the others
slung their heavy bags over their shoulders and prepared to return to
To-She.  As usual they ignored Brian, leaving him to scramble to catch up
with them.

Neswy
was awake, watching from the same spot he had fallen the day before.  He
didn’t even try to stand today.  His knee was red and swollen.

Brian
was only a little surprised when Siamun and the others started to walk away
from the camp leaving Neswy behind.

“Stop,”
he shouted as the three turned to leave.

Siamun
turned to look at him.

“Neswy,”
Brian said, gesturing to the old man.

Siamun
shrugged.  Then he looked to the old man who was dragging himself to the
boulder so he could sit up.  “Can you walk, old man?”

Neswy
continued to drag himself, his eyes pinched shut in pain.

“We
take,” Brian said, angry that he didn’t know enough Egyptian to argue or to
call Siamun the names that were racing through his head.

Siamun
mimicked Brian’s poor Egyptian, “We take.”  Looking down at Neswy, he said
roughly, “Get up.”

Neswy
shook his head.

“We
can’t leave him, you don’t just leave someone behind,” Brian said in English.

Siamun
ignored him.  He rejoined the other two hunters.  “Go,” he said when
he reached them.

The
three of them walked away.

Brian’s
temper rose.  In a baseball game, if one of your teammates got hit by a
pitch and charged the mound, you went with him; you didn’t leave him hanging
out there alone.  If someone got spiked at second base, you ran over and
helped him, carried him off the field if he needed it.

“Get
back here,” he shouted at Siamun and the others.

They
continued to walk away, ignoring him.

Brian
took a few steps toward them.  “Siamun, you bastard, get back here! 
You can’t leave him behind,” he shouted.

Siamun
paused briefly, but didn’t turn from his path.

“You
son of a bitch!  I’m not leaving him behind.  You little bastard,
you!  I’ll bring him home and then I’m finding you.  I don’t care who
you are or how many friends you have backing you.  I don’t care about your
little knife.  You hear me, you little son of a bitch!”

Brian
had never been this angry before.

He
wanted to charge after Siamun and break his leg, leave him behind to die in the
desert.  He knew the others would fight with Siamun, but he didn’t
care.  He was full of anger and confidence.  He could take them.

But,
even infuriated, he tried to get his anger under control, to harness the energy
rather than waste it.  He realized that even if he did defeat all three of
them, he would still be in the middle of the desert with an injured man, unsure
which way to go.

He
stood alone, halfway between Neswy and Siamun, his chest heaving, his hands
clenched as he watched the three hunters walk away.

Siamun
walked with his eyes straight ahead.

He
didn’t want to admit it, but this “god” impressed him.

Brian
had easily kept up with them on a journey that even Siamun viewed as a
difficult trek across the desert.  He had stood unflinching before the
horns of a charging antelope and moved with lightning speed to bring it down.

Siamun
had watched that with mixed feelings.  He had never seen a man put himself
directly in the path of a charging antelope.  For all their delicate grace
and beauty, their incredible speed and sharp horns made the animals
dangerous.  And, as Neswy had learned, their small, hard hooves were
perilous as well.

Up
until the last moment when Brian seemed to bend like a tree in a storm, Siamun
had thought he would be gored and trampled.  But somehow, moving so
quickly that it was a blur even in Siamun’s memory; Brian had swayed away from
the charging animal and then attacked it all at the same time.

Brian
had been quiet and unassuming during the trek.  The violence Siamun heard
now in Brian’s voice made him wonder if he truly was a god.  And what he
would be like in a fight.

If
he gets out of the desert alive, we shall see,
Siamun thought.

B
rian watched them disappear across the
sand, noting that they were moving southeast, the sun angled off to their left.

Neswy
was propped against the rock, watching Brian.

“Go,”
the old man said softly, nodding in the direction the other three had gone.

“You
have a broken leg, you’re not dying.  This is ridiculous,” Brian said in
English.

He
knelt by Neswy.

“Do
you know where To-She?”  he asked.

Neswy
nodded.

“OK,”
Brian said.  He stood and looked toward the water hole.  There were
short scraggy scrubs, but no trees, nothing that he could use to make a
platform to drag Neswy behind him across the desert.

“What
would MacGyver do?” he asked himself.  “Take an inventory,” he answered
himself.

He
reached down to pat his pockets and felt only the torn linen of the short kilt
he wore.  Unlike Siamun, he had no knife tucked in its waist.  He
knew that his sling contained a half-empty bladder of water and some flat bread
cakes.  Neswy had nothing except the narrow linen belt all the Egyptian
men wore.

He
picked up his water bag, gauging its weight and looked at Neswy. 

At
least he’s small.  Well,
Brian
thought,
everyone here is small.  He probably weighs no more than a
hundred twenty pounds.

He
picked up the water bag and walked to the water hole where he filled it, his
mind on the journey ahead, trying to visualize how it could work.  He
would have the water bag in a sling over his shoulders.  Neswy could ride
on his back.  Brian tried to see the old man there, one leg stiff, pushed
out in front of them, unable to grip Brian’s waist.

Walking
back toward Neswy, he passed the antelope carcass, the bones and entrails lying
in the sand, the animal’s skin beneath the bloody mess. 
Another sling,
he thought, looking at the hide.

He
laid the water bag on the sand near Neswy, who watched him carefully. 
Returning to the carcass, Brian pulled the hide from under the bloody organs
and bones.

The
skin had been stripped from the torso and thighs of the antelope, but the lower
part of the legs, where there was little meat, was still inside the skin. 
Brian pictured the skin from legs tied together to form two straps, the back
part of the hide serving as a sling in which Neswy could sit while Brian
carried him.

He
dragged the hide down to the water hole and rinsed it clean, rubbing sand into
it to help scrape away pieces of flesh that clung to it.

He
laid it to dry over the boulder they had hidden behind yesterday, then went
back to the pile of offal and picked out a thighbone.  Finding a
hand-sized rock, he broke the bone, and then sharpened the edge of it against
the boulder.  Using the pointed bone he scraped along the bony lower legs
of the skin and then pried it loose with his fingernails.

As
Brian worked on the hide, Neswy staggered up to stand on his good leg.  He
leaned against the boulder and watched Brian work.

“I am
Yunet’s uncle,” he said.

Brian
nodded without looking up.

“Siamun
and Yunet were together, you understand?”

Brian
stopped now and watched Neswy, focused on what he said, trying to catch enough
words to understand.

“They
had a fight, she cut off his ear.  He would have killed her, but I was
there and I stopped him.  Well,” Neswy looked away, “my brother and I
stopped him.  My brother died a little later, also while out on a hunting
trip with Siamun.  Now it is my turn.  The other two, they are afraid
of Siamun.  They aren’t bad, just afraid.

“If
you go now, you can catch them,” Neswy said quietly, nodding in the direction
Siamun had gone.

Brian
shook his head and returned to his scraping.  He hadn’t understood
everything Neswy had said, but he knew the old man was offering to let Brian go
without him. 

That’s
not going to happen.

“You
know where To-She,” he said awkwardly.  “We go To-She together.”

“Three
days,” Neswy said.  He nodded at the water skin. “Little water.”

Brian
shrugged.

K
anakht sat under the white linen awning on
his barge, his eyes on the slowly passing riverbank, his mind unfocused,
drifting.  He picked a spot along the river, a thick stand of papyrus
plants, their thick triangular stems rising from the water, taller than a
man.  As his barge moved slowly downriver headed for To-She, the plants
came closer, but his attention drifted and when he looked again, the papyrus
was past him.

I’m
getting old,
he thought.

He
tried to refocus, pulling together the threads of his thoughts.

Waja-Hur
is fixated on the idea that King Djoser overstepped his bounds when he declared
himself a god.  He blames the series of meager floods and the resulting
famine on Djoser and the unbalance that the king’s declaration of godliness has
brought to The Two Lands.  In Waja-Hur’s mind, everything bad that
happened in the past seven years is because of Djoser, anything good happens
despite the king.

Djefi
is full of ambition, for himself and for his god Sobek.  Although the
young priest never would have come up on his own with the idea of removing
Djoser, he will grasp at the plot as a way to advance himself and his crocodile
god.  Is his ambition strong enough?

Although
he needed Waja-Hur for religious legitimacy and Djefi would provide the means
and setting for Kanakht’s plans, Makare was the key to the plot.

Commander
of the small garrison at Khmunu, Makare was ambitious, but cautious. 
Khmunu was several days downriver from Waset, where Djoser and the court were
centered, but Makare still reported directly to Sekhmire, who was head of the
royal guard, defender of the House of Horus, and protector of King Djoser himself. 

Kanakht
assumed that Sekhmire was loyal to Djoser.  As much as he disliked the
king, Kanakht knew the man was no fool.  Djoser would have tested
Sekhmire’s loyalty and found ways to bind the soldier to him - power,
riches, luxury, and women. 

But
Makare, stationed away from the center of power, hungered for the attention and
riches that surrounded the king. 

So
Kanakht had showered him with praise to drive a wedge between the young soldier
and his commander. 

Kanakht
had wondered aloud why Makare wasn’t at the royal court.  When Makare had
pointed out that here at Khmunu he was in charge of the garrison, even though
it was small, Kanakht had agreed.

“And
you’ve done a wonderful job, Makare.  You’ve proven that you are ready for
something larger, something more important.”

“Did
Sekhmire say that?” the young soldier had asked.

“He
doesn’t need to.  Everyone knows it.”

“But
what would I do in the royal guard?  Sekhmire commands it.”

Kanakht
had agreed, then planted the seed.  “Things change, Makare.”

After
this festival at To-She, Kanakht would visit with Makare again and invite him
to serve in his personal guard.  He would explain that even if Sekhmire
wouldn’t promote him, that he, Kanakht, would find a way to help Makare rise to
his deserved level.

Kanakht
needed him, his strength, and his willingness to kill.

T
im had spent two weeks with Meryt and
every day he was surprised and excited by her.  He admired her curiosity
and enthusiasm, her innocence, her intelligence, her energy and, even though he
was reluctant to admit it, her beauty.

His
Egyptian had improved immensely.  Unlike Paneb and his family, who had
tried to use short, simple words and speak slowly, Meryt had refused to baby
him.  He had learned to pay close attention and had found that her normal
conversational speed quickly had become comprehensible.  Although he
wasn’t fluent, he could hold a conversation.

“Did
Hetephernebti tell you to teach me your language?” he had asked during one of
their early conversations after she had saved him from the guards during the
night of the Festival of Re in His Barge.

“How
else could we talk to you?”

“What
else did she ask you to do?”

“I am
to learn everything about you and to tell you everything you want to know.”

They
were sitting quietly beside each other on the rough wooden deck of
Hetephernebti’s barge as it floated slowly upriver toward To-She, pushed by the
winds that the desert heat drew up river from the Mediterranean Sea, so many
miles behind them.

“Hetephernebti
heard that you are a god.  Are you?” Meryt asked in her direct manner.

“No.”

“They
say you healed Paneb’s daughter with magic.”

“It
was just, I don’t know the words, it was just healing, not magic.”

“They
say you are an artist,” she said, starting to tease him now.

“Yes.”

“Draw
something.”

“What
would you like?”

“Draw
me.”

She
stood.  As always, she was naked except for her linen belt.  She
posed in stiff profile her arms outstretched to welcome a guest; in the formal
style Tim had seen countless times in tombs.  He reached over to gather
his notebook and pencil from the backpack he had retrieved from Paneb before
the kindly tomb artist and his family had left Iunu.  When he looked up
she had changed position and was standing like a hunter on a boat, an imaginary
spear held overhead, her mouth turned down in a serious frown, her dark
eyebrows gathered.

He
looked down at his notebook to draw a horizon line, trying to refocus his mind
to look at her as a model, not as a very young, very beautiful woman whom he
was finding more and more attractive and intriguing.

When
he looked up, she had dropped to the deck and was sitting cross legged,
pretending to be drawing in her own notebook, her face studious, as he supposed
his had been.  He shook his head, she shook hers, mimicking his movement.

“You
have to sit still,” he said.

She
leaned forward and crawled across the wood to him, suddenly serious.

“Netjer
Tim, life is not sitting still.  Any artist can draw me sitting
still.  But that is not life.  That is what they paint in
tombs.  I am not ready for a tomb, am I?” she said as she came
closer.  “If you are a god, you can draw me moving.  That is life. ”

He
looked at the light lying softly across her silky skin, drawn tight across the
smooth muscles of her arms and shoulders as she leaned toward him.  He saw
open trust in her eyes, a playful tug of a smile on her lips. 

“I’m
not a god,” he answered.

N
eswy shook the water skin.  Finding
it empty, he tossed it aside, throwing off Brian’s stride as he carried the old
man down another dune.

“Over
there,” Neswy said, pointing with one arm, the other draped loosely around
Brian’s neck and chest.

Brian
looked where Neswy pointed.  In the soft predawn light he saw an odd shape
on the horizon, an irregular mound that broke up the flat line of the horizon.

“Those
are the rocks you can see from the edge of To-She.  Once we get there,
it’s only a half a day, no more.  We’re almost home.”

Neswy’s
voice was just a whisper now, but it didn’t matter.  Despite three days of
the man’s constant talking, Brian understood little of what he said.  He
heard “To-She,” “sand,” and “walk.” The rest was just so much harsh whispering
sounds, growing weaker each day.

They
walked at night.  Or rather he walked at night.  Neswy rode on
Brian’s back, sitting in the sling Brian had made from the antelope’s
hide.  The straps, skin from the animal’s legs, had grown stiffer and
stiffer as they dried.  Now they cut into his shoulders, wearing away at
his strength.

They
had walked just a few hours the first day, trailing Siamun and the other
hunters, never actually seeing them, but heading in the same direction. 
When they had reached some rocks, Neswy had asked Brian to stop and set him
down in the little shade the boulders cast.

They
had rested there until the sun was almost down, and then resumed the trek,
Neswy using the stars to keep them on track.  When Brian tired, they
stopped, lying in the lee of a large dune, covering themselves with the
stiffening hide to shield themselves from the sun.

The
second night, Brian thought Neswy would die.

The
old man had talked constantly in Brian’s ear, nudging him to the right or left
if Brian wandered off course.  Brian recognized the nonstop chatter as the
way Neswy distracted himself from the pain of his shattered knee.  As the
night wore on, Neswy grew quiet and then started to moan.

When
the moaning became constant, Brian stopped.

“Neswy?”
he said softly.

Neswy
groaned in answer.

Brian
looked down at Neswy’s right knee.  Blood had dried over the open
wound.  The joint was swollen and his lower leg, although held in the
makeshift splint, looked a little twisted.  Red streaks ran from the knee
up his thigh.

“Stop?”
he asked in Egyptian.

“No,”
Neswy answered.  He lifted his head from Brian’s shoulder and pointed into
the sky.  He counted slowly, pointing at a line of three stars.  He
laid his head back on Brian’s shoulder and softly murmured, “home.”

Brian
studied the sky.  He saw the row of brighter stars, the lowest seeming to
be the most distant, pointing in the direction he was facing.  He looked
at the stars surrounding the three, trying to memorize the pattern.

They
just looked like a bunch of flickering points.

“Damn
you, Siamun.  I swear I’ll kill you,” he said quietly.

F
our men were rowing hard, their backs
glistening with sweat, as the boat passed Kanakht’s barge on the canal that led
to To-She. 

Awakened
from a nap by the sound of the men grunting as the boat splashed by, heading
away from To-She, Kanakht caught only a blurry glimpse of the figure who sat in
the boat’s stern, unprotected from the sun, arms and legs crossed, a dark scowl
on his face.

The
boat swept by without the man looking up.

In the
old days, Kanakht thought, when Djoser’s father, King Kha-sekhemwy sat on the
throne of the Two Lands, a traveler passing someone along the River Iteru would
never have been so rude.  News and greetings would have been exchanged,
food and drinks offered, and politely refused.

If
someone had passed by like this, the king would have sent a fast boat from his
armada to bring the offender back and beat sense into him.  He would have
carried the reminder to be polite on his broken back the rest of his life.
Order was maintained under King Kha-sekhemwy, both within the Two Lands and
beyond the borders, where the king’s armies watched over Kemet.

Kanakht
looked across the canal, past the low trees that lined the waterway, off to the
golden red desert that lay beyond, that always lay beyond, isolating and
protecting The Two Lands.  Things are so different since Kha-sekhemwy has
gone on to his life in Khert-Neter.

At
times, Kanakht thought it would be good to give up this burden and to follow
him to the after world, to join his ancestors, to awake each morning to music
and beautiful women, to never feel tired or sad again.

That
time may not be so far off, although old Waja-Hur seems to have taken up
permanent residence here in the Two Lands, he thought.  But there is so
much to do.  Not only has Djoser offended the gods bringing year after
year of famine to the Two Lands, but he seems ignorant of the very ways of
governing Kemet. 

Kha-sekhemwy
led his armies and kept the land strong.  He gave Kanakht authority to
watch over the land, to manage the buildings and the granaries, to collect the
tributes from foreign lands and the taxes from within Kemet.  He trusted
me.

But
Djoser ignores the health of the land. His army has grown weak.  Instead
he looks over my shoulder, always asking why this is done and why that is done. 
Do I need to maintain homes in so many cities?  Why do the governors of
the twelve nomes write to me instead of to him?

Kanakht
sighed deeply, caught himself doing it and scolded himself.

There
is no time for weakness.  I will be in To-She by evening.  I’ll meet
with Djefi and see what this fat priest has been thinking since we last talked.

H
etephernebti camped just outside To-She,
close enough to gather water easily, but far enough from the crocodile-filled
lake to feel safe.

A
large tent housed the priestess and her attendants.  The few others who
had accompanied her on the trip upriver from Iunu slept outdoors beneath
awnings.  Meryt, as a wbt-priest, normally would have stayed in the tent
with Hetephernebti, but instead she went with Tim to find a shaded spot for
their camp.