Khu: A Tale of Ancient Egypt (26 page)

“They do not know of Ankhtifi’s reputation,” Qeb added in their defense.
He too looked worried, and the lines on his dark skin were more pronounced. But Mentuhotep disregarded him.

“I wish it had been my idea, Father,”
Nakhti said regretfully, ignoring the rebuke.

“It was my idea, Father,” Khu spoke up. “But it could not be avoided.”

“Your idea,” Mentuhotep repeated, raising a single eyebrow. Khu never ceased to amaze him.

“Yes,” Khu said simply, without any trace of defensiveness.

“And what would I have told your mothers if something had happened to you both?” the king admonished them with a shake of his head.

“That is the risk of ba
ttle, Father,” Nakhti answered after a solemn moment.

“No,” the king argued.

“What else could they have done?” Qeb asked, crossing his arms over his chest. He had been standing by and watching the king chiding his sons. He understood Mentuhotep’s concern. When Qeb had first heard of Khu’s injury he felt a molten blend of rage and fear surge through him. Fear for the boys he loved as sons, and rage for the men who could have killed them.

Mentuhotep’s
fatherly instinct was the first to rear its head where his sons were concerned. But the boys had proved themselves as young warriors. They had survived their first real battle, and it would serve them well in the uncertain times lying ahead. After all, iron is forged in fire. And there is nothing like battle to forge a warrior.

Mentuhotep shot
Qeb a censorious look, but said nothing. He knew that Qeb was right. “They could have gone for help,” he finally said after a moment, but his words lacked conviction. He realized that he would have done the same in their place.

A servant girl brought in a tray of food, and laid it on the wide table standing between two painted columns supporting the spacious room’s high ceiling. No reed mats covered the three windows set high up in two of the walls facing each other, and light poured into the room, illuminating the vast space. The walls were covered in painted vines and flowers, as were the columns. Incense burned from a corner of the room, sending delicate tendrils curling through the still air. Amulets encircled Khu’s bed for protection. Two more amulets were tucked within the bandages of his head and his ribcage, to speed up the healing process. He had been given warm infusions to sip that were made with special curative herbs. But they tasted awful, and he winced every time he drank, forcing himself to swallow the bitter liquid.

“Father…” Khu
got Mentuhotep’s attention, and the king turned back to his son.

Mentuhotep
sat down at Khu’s side once again. He placed a fatherly hand over Khu’s hand that was now larger than his own. Khu was still growing, and the king knew he would soon surpass him in height.

“It’s alright, Father,” Khu whispered as he
gave his father’s hand a gentle squeeze. He sensed the king’s distress.

Mentuhotep could not stop thinking about
how his sons could have been killed. It would have destroyed him if anything had happened to them. Utterly destroyed him. For a moment, the idea of losing his sons made him think of Khety, and how the northern ruler had lost his wives and children; he had lost everyone that mattered to him. The thought was unbearable, and Mentuhotep frowned, quickly shaking it away.

Mentuhotep’s gaze turned to one of the high windows and he stared at the light. Tiny
speckles of dust moved in lazy patterns through the brilliant streak. He thought about the terrible massacre from which Khu had escaped as a child. Although the king was well aware of those things happening in the villages north of Thebes, Khu’s story made it more real—and far more personal.

Once he had regained consciousness in the presence of Nakhti, Mentuhotep and Qeb,
Khu had recounted everything that had happened to him on that grisly night in his village when he was a child. His encounter with Ankhtifi had triggered every sordid detail of those long repressed memories, and he told them the story with a grim and faraway expression. Only a slight trembling of his hand, and a silent tear marking a glistening path on his cheek, betrayed the emotions roiling within him.

The king turned back to Khu. H
e regarded his son with a quizzical eye, as he pondered the bloody pillaging Khu had witnessed and escaped. What if Khu had died alongside his family that night when he was a boy? What if he had arrived to another settlement after his narrow escape, instead of coming to Thebes? What if someone else, other than the palace servants, had discovered the sick child hiding in the reeds? So many questions ran through his mind.

Mentuhotep
thought of the Seven Hathors and what fate they must have decreed for Khu upon his birth. It was believed that these seven mistresses of fate were responsible for the destiny of a person’s life. They were present at the moment of birth, pronouncing the child’s fate in all things, including the lifespan, key events, and manner of death.  How they must have smiled upon the infant Khu when he was born. They must have kissed his eyes, imbuing them with the special gift he possessed. Whatever bleak future he had held in that humble village, must have been promptly exchanged for something brighter. The short and dark thread of his destiny had been replaced by a golden strand that would lead him to the Theban palace on his seventh year. It was full of portent, and the king felt a strange thrill prickle his skin as he pondered the fate of the boy who became his son.

“Father…” Khu sensed the turmoil within his father. But Mentuhotep closed his eyes and
shook his head.

“You cannot come. You must rest and heal.
You can barely move as it is. Look at you,” Mentuhotep gestured with a hand over Khu to indicate his debilitated state.

“I injured Ankhtifi, Father,” Khu said.

“How do you know this?” Mentuhotep narrowed his eyes.

“
I felt the blade hit bone. He will have a limp at the very least, if he does not lose the leg to infection.”

Khu had indeed injured the chieftain
when he had lunged and driven the blade into his leg. The wound in Ankhtifi’s thigh had been cleaned, sutured, and bound tightly afterwards. No infection ensued. But the dagger had inflicted nerve damage, and would leave Ankhtifi with an obvious, permanent limp. It would hinder him, making it difficult to walk for long. It would also affect his posture, so that he would grow more stooped over time, from the efforts of favoring the weakened leg.

“
An animal is far more dangerous when wounded,” Qeb muttered aloud as he thought of Ankhtifi’s feral instincts. The man seemed more animal than human.

“
Sudi left yesterday for Nen-nesu with a few men,” Mentuhotep changed the subject with a wave of his hand. “He will find and keep close watch over Khety and Ankhtifi’s whereabouts while we prepare our forces.”

“What if Ankhtifi sees him?” Khu asked.

“He won’t recognize him. I spoke with Sudi before he left, and he never got close enough to Ankhtifi before or during the revolt. Besides, they have never met, so Sudi’s identity is quite safe.”

“I do not know about that,” Khu said.

“What do you mean?” the king asked.

“Ankhtifi can sense an enemy as a predator sens
es his prey. He is all instinct.” Khu closed his eyes a moment as he recalled the way Ankhtifi moved when they walked in the shadows of the street. The wolf-man seemed to be sniffing the air like a dog. “He got to Pili,” Khu reminded them.

“That is what I have been saying,” Qeb added.

“Sudi will be alright,” the king insisted.

“And then what,
Father?” Nakhti asked.

Like Khu,
Nakhti was also eager to hunt down Khety and Ankhtifi. He wanted to kill Ankhtifi himself, after the chieftain nearly took his brother’s life. He glanced at Khu, tightening his fists and setting his jaw against the anger he felt for the man who almost killed Khu—twice: years back when Khu was a child in a small village, and again several days ago.

Khu sensed Nakhti’s emotions and looked at his brother. He had always admired Nakhti
’s courage. But there was more to him than that. Nakhti had a fiercely protective spirit, one which was backed by a boundless generosity for those whom he loved. He never stopped to think of himself when the welfare of others was at stake.

“
We will go north.” Mentuhotep got up and wandered over to the table where several dishes of food waited. He helped himself to a handful of grapes. “If we do nothing, Khety will make another attempt to take the Upper Kingdom,” Mentuhotep said around a mouthful of food. “That is what I would do if I were in his place,” he nodded. “He knows his time has run out. And desperation makes men fearless.”

“And impulsive,” added Qeb.

“We should hurry, Father,” Nakhti pressed eagerly. “He’ll get away.”

“And go where?” the king said flatly. “He has nowhere to go. He is most welcome to leave Egypt if he so desires. It will make things easier for us.”

“He will not leave,” Khu said, and all eyes turned to him. “He wants to take Upper Egypt. You heard him,” Khu looked at his father. “We all heard him in the speech he gave in front of the Temple of Osiris,” he was speaking to Qeb and Nakhti as well, who nodded slowly in assent.

“No, he won’t leave. You are right,” the king replied,
chewing thoughtfully.

Nakhti went and helped himself to some bread and cheese. He brought a cup of heqet for
Khu, winking at his brother conspiratorially, as he placed it on a small table next to his mat, so he could have something more palatable than the bitter infusions he had been sipping.

“This will taste better than those vile potions they’ve been making you drink,
brother.”

Khu thanked his brother but remained lost in his thoughts. His
eyes were roaming about the spacious room as his mind reviewed his father’s campaign plans to capture Lower Egypt. Mentuhotep’s men had advised him to go north as soon as possible and take the throne by force. They had cautioned the king against waiting. Any delay would only allow the northern king to amass more men, artillery, and support for his cause. But Khu was not so sure that they should proceed so openly. He knew that Khety and Ankhtifi were shrewd as weasels. And to catch a weasel, one must think like a fox.

Mentuhotep saw Khu’s mind working. He knew his son was thinking.
He could see those golden eyes moving about the room. His son had been a beautiful child, and now he was growing into a very handsome young man. But it was the honor and integrity within him that shone most brightly. “What do you have in mind, Khu?” he asked him.

Khu’s eyes
finally came to rest on one of the painted walls on the other side of the room, where ducks and geese were poised in sudden flight from the marshes where they had been foraging for food only moments before. Something had startled the fowl, flushing them from the dense vegetation. Khu tilted his head to one side, narrowing his eyes as an idea took shape in his mind.

“We’ll lure them out of their hiding,”
he spoke up after a moment.

Mentuhotep followed his
son’s gaze to the mural of the frightened waterfowl. The birds were rising in a bustle of flapping feathers as they tried to escape a trap set by two hunters with nets, crouching in the reeds. “How?” he asked Khu.

“
Why should we chase after them when we can lure them to us instead?” Khu paused a moment to let the question sink into their minds. He tried to sit up a little, flinching at the stab of pain in his side. Nakhti walked over to prop a few cushions behind Khu’s back so that he could be more comfortable. He handed the cup of heqet to Khu, who nodded gratefully to Nakhti for his help, before sipping it slowly and looking back at the painted wall. 

Qeb
and Mentuhotep had neared Khu’s bedside as he spoke, wondering how Khu intended to lure them. “We’ll set a trap to bait them,” Khu said, as though reading their minds. He reached out to put the cup on the table, and then very carefully lay back on the cushions, holding his breath against the pain until he could relax once again.

“Bait them?” Qeb asked with interest.

“Does he not have allies elsewhere? In several of the settlements north of here?” Khu asked.

“He does,” Mentuhotep nodded.

“In Zawty,” Qeb said. “They have supported him for a long time.”

“In other settlements too,” Mentuhotep said.

“Yes, but Zawty especially,” Qeb continued. “They are a wealthy province whose power has always sided with the kings of Lower Egypt.”

“Then Zawty it should be,” Khu nodded
with a faint smile playing about his lips. “That is where we should set the trap.”

“Hmm…”
Mentuhotep narrowed his eyes in thought, scratching at the stubble growing along his jawline. He was wondering how he could possibly bait his arch nemesis to a province full of his own enemies. The people there would never accept anything Mentuhotep said. They would remain suspicious and guarded. And they would warn Khety against Mentuhotep’s plans.

“He trusts them,” Khu said quietly, looking at his father.