Imhotep (28 page)

As
Hesire held the arm, Tim packed the wound with the cream, thankful that it did
not need stitches, and then wrapped gauze around it.  He placed the splint
under the bone and wrapped more gauze around it to hold it in place.

Measuring
off a length of linen, he tied a sling around the prince’s shoulder to support
the broken arm.

Finished
with the arm, he picked up the pill bottles.

Shaking
two antibiotics and then some Ibuprofen into his hand, he asked Meryt to get a
cup of water for Prince Teti.  Giving the pills to Teti, he asked the
prince to swallow them. 

While
Prince Teti swallowed the last of the pills, Tim washed and dried his hands
with the leftover linen. 

“Prince
Teti,” he said.  “Please keep your arm in the sling, even as you
sleep.”  Taking the cup, Tim filled it with water and held it over the
water bowl.  “Your arm is swollen with blood.  If you keep your arm
raised, then,” he began to pour the water back into the bowl, “the blood will
slowly flow down and away from your arm.  Like this.

“The
medicine I put on your arm will help it to heal.  Tomorrow or the next
day, your arm will return to normal size.  Then we must cover it with a
hard covering, like Hesire had on before.  Please, Prince Teti, please be
careful until then.”

Prince
Teti nodded his understanding.

“Will
I be a cripple?  Will I lose my arm?” he asked.

“I do
not think so,” Tim answered.  “The treatment Hesire gave you saved
it.  This will help you grow strong faster.”

Prince
Teti nodded once more and walked from the room.

Suddenly
Tim was exhausted, but he knew there was more he needed to do.

“Thank
you, Hesire.  You did save his arm.  I could not have helped him
without you.”

Hesire
didn’t know how to answer.  He knew that he had done little except stand
by.  He wasn’t sure what Tim had done, except to remove the healing mud
and replace it with something else.  The pills he had fed Prince Teti,
were they heka?  He didn’t know.

Had
Tim told Prince Teti that Hesire had saved the arm in case the treatment didn’t
work?  Tim’s voice and actions seemed so true, but Hesire’s mind was still
filled with questions.

He
wanted to believe in this stranger, this man who said he wasn’t a god.  He
really did.

Tim
picked up his backpack and held out his hand to Meryt.  As they walked to
the doorway, he leaned to her and whispered, “I’ve never been so afraid.”

“You
are a great doctor, Tim.  You saved my life,” she said.  “You will
heal Prince Teti.”

L
ong after Meryt, who was still weak from
her illness, fell asleep that night, Tim sat beside a flickering lamp in their
chamber wide awake and marveling over the day he had just experienced.

He had
met King Djoser!

The
last time he had stayed awake this long - the night in Diane and Brian’s
room at the Mena House - seemed as if it had taken place in another
lifetime, to a different person.  He had spent much of that night reading
about Saqqara, the Step Pyramid, King Djoser, and the land he had ruled almost
five thousand years ago.

And
now he had met him.

Although
Djoser ruled in the Third Dynasty, well into the recorded history of ancient
Egypt, he was the earliest Egyptian king whose name Tim recognized.  From
his reading that night at the Mena House, Tim knew that an earlier king named
Narmer had united Upper and Lower Egypt to form the Two Lands.  But it was
Djoser, who ruled five hundred years after Narmer, who was better remembered,
immortalized by his stone tomb, the Step Pyramid.  The great pyramids of
Giza were modeled after it.  Imhotep, architect of the Step Pyramid, was
perhaps even more famous than King Djoser.

Where
is Imhotep?  Tim wondered.  He had assumed that the famous Egyptian
who was architect, physician, and adviser to the king would be standing beside
King Djoser in the throne room, as Kanakht had been.  But he was not, and
Tim had not even heard Imhotep’s name mentioned.  He made a mental note to
ask Meryt about the missing Imhotep.

Tim
stretched and looked down at his sketchbook.  He had begun to draw Meryt,
nude as always, sleeping peacefully on her side, her back to him.  The dim
light of the room shrouded her in shadows, softening her small form, making her
look even younger than she was.

He
knew that thinking of her as a child was a cultural bias.  In this time
and place, a girl of thirteen was a woman, not a child.  But every time he
fantasized about kissing or touching Meryt, something he caught himself doing
more often as they spent more and more time together, he felt a twinge of
conscience and then a flush of guilt.  In his old world she would be a
girl, and it would be wrong for him to think of her the way he was now, or even
to look at her as he was now as she slept.

The
lamp’s light gave her dark skin a soft sheen, its shadowy glow gently washing
over the smooth muscles of her back.  His eyes followed the curve of her
body’s profile, from her delicate shoulder down the slender line to her waist
over the angled rise of her narrow hips, across the lithe contour of her
backside to the tapering length of her thighs.

A
year is simply how long it takes the earth to swing around the sun,
Tim thought. 
Does it really
matter how many times that has happened since Meryt’s birth?  Is the
movement of the planets and stars a more relevant way of measuring her maturity
than looking into her eyes?  Is counting the number of days and nights
that have passed since her birth more meaningful than her touch and her smile?

He
looked down at his sketchbook.  With his pencil, little more than a stub
now, he drew the curve of her hips sweeping inward to her narrow waist. 
Her arm rested on her side, her elbow bent slightly as her forearm draped away
from him into the shadows toward the wall.

Lightly
he outlined the soft rise of her back as it widened to her shoulder.  He
regripped his pencil to shade in the shadowed curve that led to her
spine.  He followed the smooth shadow toward her lower back.

He
could go to her now, unwrap the linen belt that held his kilt in place and curl
up beside her.  She would sense his presence, know it was him, and push
against him.  She would roll over and open her arms to welcome him and
pull him closer.

If
I touched her, caressed her shoulders, felt the smooth skin of her arms, the
delicate strength of her fingers, would it be wrong?  If I had been born
in this time and place, I wouldn’t think about it.  I would be as free to
love her, as she feels free to be with me.

There
was a rolled cotton sheet at the foot of the small bed.  Setting aside his
sketchbook, Tim stood and walked to the bed, unavoidably aware that he had
become aroused.  He picked up the sheet and shook it open.  Gently he
placed it across her bare form, covering her to her waist.  He leaned over
her and tenderly stroked her cheek.

“I’m
sorry, Meryt,” he whispered.  Bending closer, he kissed her forehead and
then, turning, he walked back to his chair to wait out the night.

I
t was midmorning when Tim and Meryt were
called to the royal chambers.

Tim
had fallen asleep in the chair.  He woke to the touch of Meryt’s hand
sliding across his stubble-filled skull.

“You
need to shave before we meet with Prince Teti again,” she said as he opened his
eyes.  A dream disappeared as he opened his eyes, its substance already
lost, only a warm feeling remaining.  He leaned forward to hide the
excitement he felt beneath his kilt, wondering if Meryt had noticed.

“I’ve
sent for a barber.  He should be here soon,” Meryt said, turning her back
and walking to a table that held a tray of bread and fruit.

Tim
tasted his morning breath.  “I should bathe,” he said.

“After
the barber,” Meryt said over her shoulder.  “There will be time.”

P
rince Teti and Hesire were waiting in the
royal chambers.

The
prince wore a half smile as he fought to keep his regal demeanor.  Hesire
was almost bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Tim
and Meryt stopped a few feet away from the prince, but Hesire waved them
forward.

“Come
closer, closer and look.  Your heka is very strong, the swelling is almost
gone.”

Tim
lowered his backpack to the floor and approached the prince.

“Good
morning, Prince Teti,” he said.

“Good
morning, Netjer Tim,” he answered, apparently deciding that Tim was indeed a god.

Tim
decided not to argue with his patient.

He
touched Prince Teti’s side and extended his other arm toward a window. 
“Come with me to the light, Prince Teti.”

He was
relieved to see that the simple first aid and the power of modern antibiotics
had worked their ‘magic’ over night.  The prince’s fingers were almost
normal size and the blackness had begun to fade to a normal looking
bruise.  Tim decided to leave the wrap in place and put a hard cast around
the broken bone.

“I
stayed awake through the night, holding my arm so,” Prince Teti said, raising
the fist of his injured arm to his shoulder.

“You
have a strong mind, Prince Teti,” Tim said.

“I do
what needs to be done.”

Tim
waved Meryt closer.  “I’m sorry, Meryt, but could you please find me
another length of linen and some wheat flour?  Oh, and a bowl of water.”

Hesire
stopped her with a gesture.  “No, Netjer Tim,” he said.  “Your hemet
does not need to run errands.” He clapped his hands and two servant boys ran
into the room.  He bent to them and gave them orders.  They ran
quickly back out the door.

Meryt
stood silently, her eyes on Tim, who allowed the moment to pass.  He knew
that hemet meant woman and that Hesire had just suggested that Meryt was more
than just Tim’s medical assistant.  Hemet also could mean wife.

“Your
hemet is beautiful,” Prince Teti said so quietly that only Tim could hear.

The
words could have been a simple compliment, but Tim heard much more in Prince
Teti’s four words.  The way he said ‘hemet’ made Tim think that the prince
understood that Hesire had overstated the relationship between Tim and
Meryt.  The prince’s eyes as he looked at him told Tim that Prince Teti
really did believe that Meryt was beautiful and that he saw her as a woman, not
a little girl.

“Yes,”
Tim said, as much to himself as to Prince Teti, “Yes, she is.”

W
hen the boys returned with the supplies,
Tim asked Hesire and Meryt to help him with the cast.

They
mixed the flour and water to make a soupy paste.  Then they tore the linen
into foot-long lengths and soaked them in the flour mixture.  Tim’s idea,
remembering craft projects from grade school, was to create a cast from paper
mache.

Once
the linen was soaked, he wrapped the damp strips around Prince Teti’s arm to
create a cast.  When he finished, Tim tied a sling to support Prince
Teti’s arm.

“Once
this is dry,” he told Prince Teti, “it will be hard as wood.  But if it
gets wet again, then it will grow soft and be useless.”

“How
long?”

“Ah  .
. . ” Tim didn’t know how long a broken bone took to heal.  He turned to
Hesire.  “How long do you think it will take to heal?”

“Forty
days,” he answered easily, happy to be asked his opinion in front of the
prince.  “Prince Teti is young and strong.  Forty days, no more!”

Tim
nodded and said, “Forty days, Prince Teti.  But I would like to see you
again tomorrow.”

Prince
Teti nodded.  “It will be so, Netjer Tim.”

“Oh,
wait,” Tim said as Prince Teti turned to leave.  He dug into his first aid
kit and pulled out the antibiotics and Ibuprofen.  “Please swallow these
again,” he said, giving some pills to the prince.

After
Prince Teti had gone, Tim turned to Hesire.

“Thank
you, Hesire.  We must watch the prince’s hand.  If it swells again,
then the cast is too tight and the injury is, uh,” he didn’t know of a word for
infected, “unwell.”

Hesire
nodded.

“The
heka that you gave him.  Can you tell me what it is?”

Tim
thought about the idea of germs and bacteria and viruses.  How could he
explain that to Hesire?  He took the old man’s wrist and found his pulse,
then turned his wrist over to allow Hesire to find his.

“Yes,
yes,” Hesire said, “The voice of the heart.  We know of it.”

“The
voice of the heart,” Tim said, picking up on Hesire’s term, “carries blood
throughout the body.”

Hesire
nodded.  “Yes, yes.”

He
probably thinks I’m a simpleton, or else talking down to him, Tim thought.

“The
blood gives the body strength.  The heka, the medicine, I gave Prince Teti
will make his blood stronger.”

“Will
it help a man who is not ill?” Hesire asked, a soft urgency in his voice.

“I
don’t understand.”

Hesire
sighed softly.  “I have a friend, an old friend.  I’ve heard that he
is not well, that his thoughts leave him and he knows not where he is. 
Otherwise he remains strong and active, for a man of his age, that is.”

Tim
shook his head.  “No, Hesire.  Where I come from some people have the
same illness.  There is nothing we can do except watch over them.  I
am sorry.”

Hesire
had expected that answer.  He nodded knowingly. “My friend has lived a
long life, soon he will be happy once more with the body of his youth in
Khert-Neter.”

T
he next morning Tim and Meryt were called
again to the royal chambers to see Hesire and Prince Teti.

The
cast had dried and felt solid.  The prince’s fingers looked healthier, and
Prince Teti was in an even brighter mood.

“The
feeling has returned to my hand,” he said, wiggling his fingers.

“You
heal fast,” Tim said, returning Prince Teti’s arm to the sling.  “You
might be healed in only thirty-eight days,” he said with a grin.

“You
make light of this?” Prince Teti asked.  His voice was suddenly tinged
with anger and hurt.

Taken
aback by the prince’s tone, Tim was reminded that he was dealing with royalty,
with someone who expected to be taken seriously at all times, someone whose
word meant life or death.

Hesire
moved toward them to intervene, his mouth open as he tried to find words to
calm Prince Teti.

Tim
had a fleeting thought about royal inbreeding and mental instability, then
realized that despite Prince Teti’s view of himself, he was still a
fifteen-year-old boy who was in pain and who had thought for several days that
his arm would be cut off.

He put
a hand gently on Prince Teti’s shoulder and looked squarely into the prince’s
eyes.  “Yes, Prince Teti, I make light of this.  Not your pain, but
the injury.  You are strong and can laugh at this broken arm.  It
will heal and be stronger than ever.  Your will is stronger than this
injury.  And laughter, Prince Teti, is a strong medicine.  With it
you show the gods that you are at ease, that you are unafraid.  It makes
your body stronger and keeps your spirit light.”

Hesire
and Meryt stood motionless, waiting to see Teti’s reaction.