Qa'a (The First Dynasty Book 3) Page 6

  Khenti was frustrated. “This sounds silly to my ears, Priestess. When a General tells his soldiers what to do, they must obey, not try to figure out what he means.”

  “I would agree,” Irisi responded. “In those instances obedience is what is called for. But there are other matters, matters of the heart, and of rule, that require one to listen far more deeply.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about!”

  “There were times,” the Queen interjected, “when your father would come to our quarters in the palace and I would instantly know that something troubled him. He had no need to tell me in so many words, nor command that I hear him.”

  “Yes, but that is understood between any two people who have spent many years together under one roof. Even a carpenter’s apprentice knows when his master must have a specific tool.” At that point Khenti noticed Irisi smile toward the Queen.

  “I think you miss the point,” the Queen suggested. “Many is the time that your father spoke in words, but his meaning lay in the empty spaces between those words.”

  “You both speak in riddles!” Khenti objected.

  “Then allow me to continue for a moment,” the Queen said. Khenti rammed his back against the seat back and crossed his leg over his knee.

  “What I mean is he might talk at first about his anger at Khenemet, or perhaps Amka, but what really bothered him was that he felt hurt by their remarks. That is what the Priestess meant by listening and not just hearing.”

  The Prince stared straight ahead, quiet for a moment. “Perhaps I have an idea of what you mean, but that is why men rule and women stay at home. Men are more direct. We say what we mean to each other. We give clear commands and it is the job of our subjects to obey.”

  “And of that we must speak,” Irisi interjected, turning to face Khenti. “It is when men bring that attitude from work into the home that they begin to have difficulties in their relationship with their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters. There are men who think that a man’s role is to be god and master over their women, and so treat them badly. They do not understand what it means to be a strong man for the women in their lives. We priestesses speak to women every day who are beaten by their husbands or are abused by being treated worse than their husbands treat their donkeys.”

  “I do not condone such actions, and my mother knows that,” Khenti objected, turning to the Queen for her assent.

  “Nor do I suggest that to be the case,” Irisi said calmly. “I only appeal to the future King of The Two Lands that there will be those who seek to create laws in our land that will treat women unkindly, mistakenly believing that it is in the interests of ma’at. I beseech you to be careful, my Prince, that is all. Be certain that those in power do not abuse it, for from that flows other forms of abuse, ones that can be felt even in the home. Of this I believe we can all agree, that the home is the very foundation of Kem’s greatness.”

  SCROLL FIVE

  Ascension

  Merkha

  It was on the seventh day before Khenti’s coronation, several days after his circumcision and the Rite of Purification, that Sabef was ushered into his quarters. Khenti sat with cool swaddling cloths of Mother Nile’s soothing waters on his groin, placed over a salve that Buikkhu had prepared and had him wrap around his penis.

  Sabef shuffled in leaning heavily on a tall, unadorned staff, a servant on each side holding him up under his arms, a gift in his old age from King Semerkhet. The elder was bent severely at the waist, and as he shuffled in it looked as if he were searching the floor for a crumb of bread. When he was seated, he looked up with great effort at Khenti.

  “Aha, I can see you have been cut,” he said through a smile that showed his decayed teeth. “Have you had a change of heart about being King yet?” he added. With that Sabef noticed my presence and peered intently in my direction.

  “Is that you, Merkha? Come closer so that I may see you.” I moved toward the elder statesman and bowed before him. He leaned back and skewed his head sideways to better see me.

  “No, no, do not bow to me,” Sabef said in his croaky voice as he gently pushed me away with his staff. “They might mistakenly think I am the Horus fledgling and cut off the tip of my penis, too!” At this Khenti and I laughed until our sides ached.

  “I should not make you laugh, dear Prince, for it must hurt, indeed.”

  “I imagine it would, Sabef, but Buikkhu has been plying me with enough salves and herbs to heal an army. It is not so bad.”

  “Soon the Horus fledgling will be brother to Horus,” I said. “Like we Horus priests he now has the right to proudly display the head of his manhood in Ra’s light.”

  “Indeed he does,” Sabef replied, tapping his staff to the mud brick floor. “And I remember well the day his father proudly displayed that head, and his grandfather before him.” Now Sabef groaned as he turned in his chair with difficulty towards Khenti.

  “It is that bond you have with the falcon god that protects us all, Khenti. And every day, throughout the day, as you go about your business you will again and again witness that which makes you different from the mortal men of Kem. There is no better way for Horus’ brother to be reminded of that terrifying fact than through the holy rite of circumcision.”

  “I had not thought of it that way,” Khenti said, nodding. “But why do you call it ‘terrifying’?”

  “Oh, Khenti, I am old, far older than ever I imagined I would be. I have seen much in my life. I have been an emissary to far away lands for your grandfather. I have served your father and even his grandfather. Yet this I will tell you, my young Prince. To be King of the Two Lands is the greatest honor to be bestowed on any mortal. It is also the cruelest of curses wrought by the gods.” With that Sabef leaned his head against his wrists, his hands holding his staff upright before him.

  For a moment there was silence. Khenti looked to me and then back to Sabef. I detected fear on Khenti’s face. “But, what would prompt you to make such a dire declaration?” Khenti asked of Sabef.

  The old man continued to lean against his staff for so long I was afraid he had fallen asleep. But then he raised his head with difficulty. “The gods have been good to me, dear Prince. But I am reminded that my sandals take up the space of a child yet to be born. I will soon stand before Anubis’ scale. Oh, I believe my heart to be light,” he said smiling. “I look forward to a long Afterlife.

  “But in service to my Kings I have seen much that has condemned even righteous men to internment in the chaos of Nun. I see surprise on your face, dear Khenti, but hear me out for I suspect it will be the last time you and I speak in this life.” Sabef shifted in pain in his chair and I dropped my quill and rushed to his side to help him adjust comfortably. I took a pillow and placed it behind his back and he patted my hand in gratitude.

  “As a youth I suspect you view governing with only a dream-like understanding of what it entails. You see the glory, the power, the ability to move men about like Senet game pieces. But soon you will learn the difficult truth about such power, for men will seek you out solely for their own gain. People will come to you to judge their disputes while all the while lying through eyes that falsely proclaim their righteousness. You will be torn by conflicting needs of our people. What is the right thing to do? What if I judge wrong? Will my pronouncements cause the death of my soldiers or death by starvation? Intrigue and suspicion, rivalries and attempts to secure more power within your court are the chisels that forever chip away at the foundation of rule.

  “Yes, you are Horus’ brother, my fledgling, but listen well to this old man. Here in this life, instead of flying with your brother, you will find that your wings are clipped and you are a prisoner within a palace that you carry with you on your shoulders at all times, wherever you may travel.”

  Sounds of fishermen calling to each other below us on Mother Nile pierced the air, but within that room, silence rang in our ears. I had stopped writing long before Sabef had finished his words and later I
had to hurriedly recall them to preserve them for Khenti’s benefit. But for now, we sat and simply digested these cautionary words from the most respected advisor to Kings in the Two Lands. I, better than anyone, knew how serious discussions like this affected the Prince and on that day, in that room, I knew that Khenti had just absorbed the most powerful lesson in his young life, spoken by a man who walked the boundary between two worlds. As such, his words made a strong impression on the future King. On one matter, though, Sabef himself had lied. For three more years he lived, and so became a valuable advisor to yet another King.

  On the day before the coronation, I saw that Khenti, Khenemet and Buikkhu spoke in hushed tones in Khenti’s quarters, as Khenemet pointed to Khenti’s Horus name and his serekh on the papyrus scroll spread before them. From Khenti’s reaction I felt he was happy with the name chosen, although I had learned from Buikkhu that there was yet another choice, or maybe even two, held in reserve in case the fledgling had a strong objection to the one Khenemet offered.

  Even if I was invited into that room, and I was not, I would have refused to attend, for I had only come to get Buikkhu’s approval for an administrative matter. Although Khenti had not officially named Buikkhu his Vizier, Buikkhu had already taken on some of the responsibilities as it related to Khenti’s ascension. For the entire ten-day preceding the event, I hardly had four hours of sleep each night and even then it was interrupted by harried dreams or the sudden remembrance of a task Buikkhu had give me and that I had forgotten to accomplish.

  As for our beloved Inabu-hedj, it was as if Akhet had suddenly arrived, except instead of Mother Nile’s waters flooding the land, a tide of visitors threatened to engulf us. Every day for a month now, merchants, landowners and noblemen arrived from throughout the Two Lands, each with his own caravan carrying families, gifts for the new King, and goods to trade. Foreigners arrived as emissaries from all the lands with which we traded. Every day as Ra rose in the sky the population grew. People scurried about in town as if in a beehive, buying food, bartering animatedly, selling storage jars, even arranging marriages with far away relatives. By time Ra was high in the heavens, the desert dust hung thick in the air, threatening to choke us all. Everyone walked around in the stifling heat with a cloth covering their mouth and nose.

  General Nebibi, who Khenti had served under during his training, was now Chief of the Army, a post he wore with the pride of his military bearing. Nebibi was responsible for maintaining order in the city, but from where I then stood, at the Temple of Horus looking down upon it, this was the first battle he would be destined to lose. Soldiers walked back and forth along the major streets clearing the crowds so that official delegations might pass and, as soon as they did so, the cordon of soldiers would collapse and rambunctious crowds would again fill the spaces. It had taken me more than an hour to travel from the palace to the Temple that morning to pray for Ra’s rising.

  The coronation’s arrival was heralded by the blasts of ram’s horns from the palace and imitated then from every temple in the city. Ra rose into a cloudless sky, which Khenemet pronounced to be a good omen. The crowds gathered in an expectant mood. The raucous behavior of the past ten-day was now replaced by a more somber, more respectful tone. As I looked out from the palace portico, I saw soldiers lining the entire route, each man not an arm’s length from his fellows. The soldiers wore clean white pleated kilts and newly issued leather sandals. Their chests were bare, except for the new leather straps that crossed their chests and attached to their belt. Some also wore the blue helmets of the King’s Guard. Each carried a spear which they used as a fence post to keep the crowds back. The crowds lining the route were ten and more deep, each person hoping to catch even the tiniest glimpse of their new King. They would consider that glimpse a good omen and would recount it for their family and friends for the rest of their lives.

  In his quarters, Khenti was being dressed by his attendants, under the supervision of Buikkhu. He wore a pure white kilt, with a gold breastplate upon his chest and his father’s gold armband of Horus upon his left arm. Although his head was shaved as part of his purification ritual, he wore a black wig upon it for the ride to the Temple. His eyes were painted only with a sparse outline of black kohl.

  “Remember to look straight ahead as you are carried,” Buikkhu reminded Khenti for the hundredth time. “The people must see you as Horus’ brother.” After a moment he dismissed the attendants. “Are you ready?”

  “I suppose.”

  “We should go then. It will be a long day. Did you finish the herbal I prepared? Good, it will fortify you. I will walk beside your carry chair. If at any point you need water, call out my name and I will draw your curtain so that you may drink without the rekhi watching. When we get to the Temple, Khenemet will be waiting to receive you.”

  As soon as the Prince stepped out into Ra’s light, the crowds became hysterical, sweeping their arms in the air, ululating, waving white scarves that the priestesses had handed out for the ascension celebrations. In an instant, Buikkhu nodded to Khenti and he climbed the wood steps into his carry chair that rested on a platform carried on the shoulders of ten priests who would be relieved periodically as the procession made its way down the main street.

  It was the Third Month of Proyet and as Khenti sat in his chair, he looked out at the fields beyond the crowds, already overgrown with crops, and he felt a swelling of pride in Kem. Although he had never seen any nation beyond the Two Lands, he felt certain that the gods blessed Kem above all others. Ma’at felt strong that day, he later told me.

  At Buikkhu’s command, the priests departed and the crowd cheered as one, jostling to get a better view of their King. The soldiers lining the route crossed their spears and pushed against the crowd to keep them contained. Soon Khenti’s retinue proceeded down the main thoroughfare of Inabu-hedj, the avenue that joined the palace with the Temple of Horus, which was lit by Ra’s golden light on a hill in the distance.

  Twenty musicians moved ahead of the procession, plucking their lyres, playing their horns and rattling their sistras, and beating on their drums. Behind them another twenty dancers, dressed in revealing linens, undulated and stepped in time, the male dancers lifting their lithe female counterparts high into the air, drawing shouts of approval from the crowds. Behind Khenti’s carry chair came a chorus of priests, chanting the holy blessings over the fledgling falcon god.

  From both sides of the avenue, people threw flower petals in homage to their soon to be King. By the end of the first hour, when the procession was only halfway to the Temple, the petals were so thick they reached to the calves of the processional. The priests carrying Khenti’s chair had to tread carefully so as not to fall on the slippery pulp. Several of the dancers had already fallen, causing good-natured laughter amongst the boisterous observers. By now I noticed that a good deal of the rekhi were drunk, having had their fill of the free cheap barley beer made available at every temple.

  In their impatience for the procession to reach their viewing point, the crowds presented the soldiers with a more difficult challenge. At an intersection where a smaller alley peeled off from the main avenue, I saw Nebibi standing on a sturdy military command post built of scarce logs, barking orders and pointing frantically further up the avenue. Suddenly, the crowd broke through the Army cordon. Looking up toward the Temple it appeared for all the lands as if a giant wave from the Great Green threatened to swamp us. I read the fear in the eyes of the priests as the unruly mob descended upon us, shouting in high fervor for their fledgling Horus. Khenti’s very life appeared in danger, as the drunken revelers would seek to touch him or rip from his body any memento of the coronation event.

  At that instant, I saw Nebibi jump from his perch and plunge into the chaos. His personal contingent was at his side, fifty of the strongest and best trained troops in the King’s Guard, other than those surrounding Khenti himself. None wore the swords that were normally part of their uniform, but instead carried a wooden club with which they
inflicted an abrupt reminder that they meant business. The procession stopped abruptly, as Nebibi and his men plunged into the crowd, confronting it head on. From a distance I could see the wave of people halt and gather onto itself, thicker and thicker, so that they would soon suffocate themselves in the crush.

  Nebibi’s men formed into a spearhead, the tallest and strongest men in the front. Together they pierced through the center of the crowd, forcing them into the myriad alleyways that radiated from the main road. In that way the pressure was relieved and soon the crowds were again behind the cordon of soldiers.