Khu: A Tale of Ancient Egypt (8 page)

Yet of all of Mentuhotep’s children, it was Khu who had
developed most in the years since the ruler had first claimed him as his own son. The king remembered when Tem first introduced him to the frail boy—a mere slip of a child who reminded him more of the slender papyrus reeds than anything else. The memory was a sharp contrast to the young man he had grown into since that time.

Mentuhotep thought of
these things as he observed Khu and Nakhti drinking the thickly brewed
heqet
directly from an earthen jug handed to them by an attending servant. Made of barley and sweetened with honey, the herbed liquid ran down their chins, spilling onto their bare chests, and cooling their skin as it refreshed them. Nakhti wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as Khu grabbed the jug from him and drank his own fill of the nutritious beverage that was a staple in the people’s diet.

Khu was the tallest of
the king’s children. Whereas Nakhti was built stocky, Khu’s muscular frame was lean and sinewy. He also possessed a natural grace and confidence, moving and speaking with the ease of one comfortable in his own skin.

Nakhti’s confidence had a cocky edge
to it. He was the more impulsive and boisterous of the two brothers, who had been best friends since childhood. Nakhti was also always the first to throw down a challenge or jump into a fight. He was the kind who acted before thinking, while Khu proceeded more cautiously.

Like most of the women in the palace, Nakhti’s own mother had warned him to keep his distance from Khu
when the strange boy had first come to live under their roof. Her fears were based on age-old superstitions passed from one generation to another, and there was little to change them now. But unlike Neferu who was jealous of Khu and the king’s affection for him, Nakhti’s mother did not feel threatened by the child. She just felt uncomfortable by his catlike eyes which almost seemed to look
through
people.

Despite
the superstitions, fears and jealousies following the innocent child like the dust clouds kicked up by the beasts of burden on the dirt roads, it had not been long before Nakhti and Khu became fast friends. Like most children whose natural curiosity gets the better of them and trumps their initial reserve, Nakhti’s own curiosity and interest in Khu drew them together. And their personalities—though opposite—suited and complimented each other well. They became inseparable.

Before long, t
he rest of the palace occupants and others who came into contact with the boy, let go of their doubts and suspicions when they saw no evil befall the young Nakhti, who could always be found playing with Khu. No strange illness claimed his body, no madness overtook his mind, and no injury of any kind incapacitated Nakhti. This was enough proof of the young Khu’s harmlessness, leading the others to accept Khu as one of their own.

Except for Neferu.

Although Neferu’s own infant son Sankhkare had grown into a healthy and inquisitive toddler in the first few years after Khu’s arrival, she still regarded Khu with tremendous jealousy. It most certainly must have been due at least in part to the great affection held for him by the king. Mentuhotep loved Khu.

Whenever the ruler’s gaze came to rest on the boy, it was as though someone had
kindled a light within his eyes. His whole face seemed to glow with the warmth that filled him. Perhaps it was the timing of their introduction that played a significant role in their bond. It was like all the warmth and tenderness that Mentuhotep had felt for his third wife Henhenet and their unborn daughter had been transferred to Khu upon their deaths. And once that favor had been bestowed on the child, nothing could shake it. It was as strong and steadfast as the pyramids of Lower Egypt which dated back to the Old Kingdom.

It was this bond that Neferu envied. The rational part of her knew that nothing but death could take the kingdom’s future throne from her son.
Sankhkare’s heirdom had been decided from the womb, conditional to his being born male. But another part of her feared for her son’s future, and wished to guard it jealously against any would-be usurpers. Although she despised the uncertainties that hardened her heart and filled her veins with poison, she could not stop the tension from gripping her whenever she saw the easy father-son relationship shared by Khu and the king.

She hated
Khu. She hated him because she feared and envied him. She wanted the same bond for Sankhkare and the king. And although she would not admit it to herself, she also hated him because he was everything that she wanted her own son to be. Her hatred possessed a depth and complexity that would take nothing short of a feat of supernatural proportions to dispel.

And that is precisely what
finally happened.

It was during the festival of
Heb Nefer en Inet
—the Beautiful Feast of the Valley—that Neferu experienced a dramatic change of heart. Khu was nine years old at that time. The annual celebration took place during the second month of
Shemu
—the Season of Harvest—and saw much feasting and rejoicing throughout the kingdom of Thebes.

A shrine b
earing the statue of the god Amun was transported with great pomp and circumstance in a procession led by the temple priests out of the Temple of Amun. The golden shrine was covered in finely woven linen dyed in brilliant hues of turquoise and purple, to hide it from the public’s eyes. It was carried on a sacred barque by a procession of priests draped in animal skins, who followed after a slew of fan-bearers, singers and musicians.

The great Temple of Amun dominated the temple complex in Thebes
, for the god Amun was king of the gods and creation, and one of the chief deities in all Egypt, especially in the Upper Lands where he was honored with his wife Mut and their son Khonsu as part of the Theban Triad. The temple’s limestone architecture reflected white under a dazzling sun. Two obelisks stood like sentinels before the grand pylon which rose formidably toward the blue sky.

The
procession of priests stepped out of the towering entrance and walked down the Avenue of Sphinxes in the presence of the many people who had been granted time off from work in order to participate in the important festivities. The priests made their way beyond the temple complex, through the village streets, and onto a gilded barge floating over the Nile. This was followed by a flotilla of smaller boats carrying people and a profusion of flowers and choice offerings of food and drink including bread, meat, spiced honey cakes, dates, figs, melons, wine and
heqet
that had been brewed especially strong for the joyous occasion.

People throughout the region
cheerfully greeted the god with incense, music and dancing. They saluted him with joyful hymns, prostrating themselves in adoration and gratitude as the sacred icon of Amun passed before them. Amun’s statue was transported to the various mortuary temples and tomb chapels housing the remains of their beloved dead on the Nile’s west bank, before returning back on the barge and over the land as the sun crossed the sky on its daily voyage over the earth. It was a time of rejuvenation, jubilation, and thanksgiving for the bounty bestowed upon the land and the people. It was also a time of remembrance when people honored and paid tribute to the dead.

“Amun! Amun!”
many called out as they flung themselves on the ground to bow low before the passing shrine.

“Adoration to thee! Ruler of g
ods, life-giver to the lands!”

“Amun! Beloved sovereign of sovereigns!”
others cried in the grip of ecstasy intensified by the sweet incense and potent heqet inebriating the people.

Khu and Nakhti were among the large group of children that cheered
, clapped and danced in tune to the music filling the perfumed air.

By this time, t
he late afternoon’s setting sun blazed with a crimson fire over the revelers who had been celebrating since the early morning, and its warmth heightened the effects of the heqet that flowed freely among the people. The long day’s festivities had continued on the east bank of the Nile after all the religious ceremonies had been completed. People rejoiced throughout the village, by the riverbank, and in front of the temple complex long after the golden shrine had been returned to its home within the great temple’s sanctuary.

A
crowd of wealthier revelers including the high officials and their families, the nobility, and the royal family and their friends had withdrawn from the streets and temple complex to celebrate on the lavish palace grounds whose pillared halls and lush courtyards spread out like an oasis of earthly delights. Everything had been decorated for the feast, so that garlands of fresh flowers and vines encircled the columns and hung from the buildings in colorful displays. There were tables laden with platters of food, earthen jars brimming with heqet, and clay amphoras filled with red wine that was kept for special feast days.

People bedecked themselves
in their finest garments, makeup, and jewelry made of gold with precious gems including garnets, carnelian and lapis lazuli. Women wore perfumed wax cones over their festival wigs so that the sweet oil ran over their shoulders as it melted, enveloping them in its fragrance. Even the beasts in the private palace stables were adorned with wreaths for the special occasion, and given extra helpings of fodder.

People were laughing and
swaying by the musicians, their heads spinning as they gave themselves over to the elation suffusing the air. Professional musicians played an assortment of instruments including harps, flutes and lyres, while nimble dancers performed acrobatics as part of the festival amusements.

It was then that Khu noticed little Sankhkare toddling over by a pond.

The pond was one of the many pools kept in the lush palace gardens that grew with an abundance of date palms, fruit trees, and flowering plants surrounding the spacious living quarters. It was strewn with lotus flowers and miniature floating oil lamps whose flames imbued the murky water with an emerald glow. Sankhkare was alone, and had somehow escaped the watchful eyes of his mother and nursemaid. And free of their restrictive attentions, he scuttled happily away before anyone could notice.

The two-year-old heir to the throne was holding a date in his chubby little hand. He had been gnawing at it while
creeping closer to the pond’s edge which was fringed with purple fountain grass, foxtail, flowering rushes, and bur reeds. Getting down on his hands and knees, he stuffed the date into his mouth, leaned forward, and stretched out his arm over the water. The spiked bluish petals of the lotus blossoms had not yet closed for the night, and their fragrance was intoxicating. Sankhkare tried to reach one of these delicate beauties when he slipped and disappeared beneath the dark water without a sound.

A
bolt of anguish shot through Khu in that instant.

Khu
was standing about twelve paces away from the pond. He had been clapping his hands in time to the rhythm of a tune along with a large group of children when he flinched suddenly, forcing him to turn and look for the little boy he had just seen wandering toward the pond moments before. He knew something was terribly wrong. His heart was beating like the wings of a scattering of heron who had been startled while wading through the river marshes.

Sankhkare was gone.

A rippling in the water’s surface was all that remained after the pond swallowed him up without so much as a splash. But Khu knew he was in trouble. He felt the child’s distress as strongly as though it had been
he
who had been engulfed by the turbid water.

“Sankhkare!” Neferu cried out
, scanning the area about her.

Her son had simply vanished.
He had been sitting on the ground nearby a moment ago, playing with a wooden toy cat, and the clay pieces of a stone board game. Neferu saw the circular playing pieces strewn haphazardly about, while the toy cat lay abandoned on its side. But the little boy was nowhere in sight.

Neferu
thrust her cup of wine into the hand of a servant, and got up to leave the group of women with whom she had been chatting. She searched wide-eyed for the little boy who meant the world to her.

“Where is Sankhkare?” she asked
in a panicked pitch of the nursemaid who was looking bewildered herself. “WHERE IS HE?” she yelled as she grasped the nurse by the shoulders and shook her hard.

“I… I
-I don’t know, my lady,” the woman stuttered, her eyes filled with fear. “He was just here.”

Khu ran over to the pond, catching Neferu’s
eye. She stopped to stare at him in confusion as he jumped into the water without hesitation.

“Khu!” someone yelled from the crowd after he leaped in
to the water.

The musicians stopped playing
their instruments, and people everywhere turned to see what was happening.

Khu
ducked under the pond’s surface and grabbed Sankhkare by an arm, pulling him up out of its depths. By now everyone had stopped dancing to gather round the pond and watch as Khu lifted the small boy out of the water, and lay him down on the dry ground next to the grasses.