Imhotep (48 page)

“Since
then we have lived in a cold truce.  He mocks me at every turn; I try to
stay out of his way.  But believe me, dear one, if Siamun thought for a
moment that Djefi no longer protected me, he would kill me as brutally and
savagely as he could.  I don’t know what protection Djefi has extended to
you, but we must be careful.

“We
must not anger him.  Do you understand?”

Diane
nodded.

“Do
you forgive me?”

Brian
was gone, perhaps dead, although Diane refused to believe that.  There
were no police here, no one to turn to for help.  If she was going to
survive she knew she needed help.  She reached up a tear-streaked arm and
pulled Yunet close, hugging her.

B
rian pulled his eye back from the small
spyhole and shrugged.

Pahket
looked through it next and then pulled back and shook her head.  “I don’t
see him either,” she said.  “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

She
slipped out of the small alcove along the back wall of the courtyard where King
Djoser was holding a feast to celebrate the beginning of the flood.  Brian
watched her walk along the wall for a moment and then turned his eye back to
the spyhole.

He was
hiding from the others, waiting for a chance to meet with Tim, or Imhotep as
Tama and the others insisted on calling him now.  Tama and Hetephernebti
were helping him to hide; officially he was still an outlaw. 

He had
spotted Djefi at the feast, and it was obvious which one was King Djoser, but
Brian couldn’t figure out which one was Imhotep.  The men all had their
heads shaved and were dressed in tight, pleated kilts, except Djefi, who wore a
long robe that failed to hide his fat stomach. 

And
except for Djefi, they all looked the same color and size.  Brian
remembered that Imhotep was short by modern standards, so he fit right in with
this crowd.  They all had green kohl painted around their eyes, and most
wore bracelets and necklaces.  One guy had his on backward; a big pendant
that looked like a keyhole was hanging down his back between his shoulder
blades.

Brian
looked at him harder. 
Shit, it’s Tim, I mean Imhotep,
he realized
with a start.

He was
standing a few feet away from the king, a young girl at his side.  He was
talking with Hetephernebti, his face serious and intense.  Brian shook his
head.  Tim had definitely gone native.  If Brian hadn’t seen him
before, he wouldn’t have been able to pick him out as someone who hadn’t been
raised in ancient Egypt.

Brain
looked down at himself.  He was wearing only a short kilt.  His skin
had been turned dark by the Egyptian sun and his head also was shaved. 
However, his unusual size and fast-growing beard, made him stand out from the
natives.

He saw
Pahket at the edge of the courtyard trying to catch Tama’s eye.  Tama,
wearing the robes of a priestess of Ma’at, along with a long dark wig, and
bracelets and necklaces, looked totally different from the woman with whom he
had spent several weeks walking south from Khmunu.

Tama
saw Pahket and excused herself from a conversation with another priestess and
an older man wearing a simple white robe.  She walked around a line of
long tables and took Pahket’s hand, kissing her on the cheek in greeting.

The
two women had become close friends, Tama acting as the older sister Pahket
never had.  Watching them, Brian realized how much he had been changed in
the four months since his arrival in this ancient land.

He
used to undress women with his eyes, imagining the swell of their breasts, the
size and color of the aureoles around their nipples, the small curve of their
stomach.  Now, with most of the women either naked, except for a belt, or
dressed in transparent robes, he found that he looked more closely at their
faces and, more importantly, at who they were.

He
still admired their nude beauty, but being surrounded by it, he discovered he
had stopped obsessing about it. 

Tama
had helped, teaching him so much on their trip.  He had fallen in love
with her, with her beauty, her spirit, her intelligence, her
understanding.  He knew that she still would welcome him as a lover, but
he also knew that she would never make the kind of commitment to him that he
wanted. 

Their
journey had been a sojourn into a different world for each of them.  She
had been visiting the land outside her temple world, immersing herself in the
reality of the Two Lands that lay outside the pillars and sacred ponds of
Khmunu.  He had been running from Diane’s unexpected rejection and the
attack orchestrated by Djefi at Khmunu.

He
wasn’t sure what she had found in him, except answers to her never-ending
curiosity, but he knew that she had opened his eyes to a new view of the world
around him and the people in it.  And he saw now that although Tama loved
him, it was in her fiercely honest and open way.  He was not hers and she
would never be his.  The ideas of possession and jealousy had been
expelled from her world.

Although
he admired her idea, he wanted a feeling of completeness that he knew he would
never feel with her.

Pahket
offered it.  In her uncomplicated way she was as much a facet of the truth
as Tama was.  Tama was a powerful light, a sun burning too brightly to
look into for more than a moment.  Pahket was a warm, comforting fire,
nourishing and strong.

He
felt a tinge of disappointment that his decision to be with Pahket meant that
he would not hold Tama in his arms again.  He knew that if he went to her
Tama would accept him, but he understood, at last, that he didn’t need her as a
lover.  Or, he thought with a swell of surprise, want her.

As a
friend she offered him a different satisfaction.  He knew he would never
get anything except an honest opinion from her; she was incapable of anything
less.  She was his touchstone, a genuine measure of reality.

He
returned to the spyhole. 

Pahket
and Tama were standing near Imhotep now, waiting for him to notice them. 
When he did, he and Hetephernebti went to them, leading them away from the
center of the courtyard.  Brian saw that King Djoser had noticed them, as
did the older man who stood beside his throne. 

Brian
shook his head in annoyance.  He had seen that man before.  It had to
be either at To-She or Khmunu.  He looked at the man again and then closed
his eyes, but he couldn't place him.

I
mhotep held a finger to his mouth,
signaling Brian to not speak.  Silently he took Brian by the arm, leading
him away from the wall, down a passageway and into an open garden.  Pahket
waited by the garden entrance as Imhotep and Brian walked to a bench beneath a
willow tree.

“Jesus,
Brian, I am sorry to hear what happened to you.  Tama and Pahket told me.”

Brian
almost cried in joy at the sound of English.  He opened his mouth to talk,
but stopped when Imhotep held up his hand.

“Wait,
I have to get back in there before Kanakht wonders where I went.  Here’s
what is going on.  The king is having a feast to celebrate the beginning
of the flood season.  That’s extremely important, the flood that is. 
So I have to be at this feast.  But I know we have to talk. 
Shit.  Can you talk? Are you able?”

“A
wihel.  Ought ery ell.”

Imhotep
put his hand on Brian’s arm.  “I’m so sorry, Brian.  This Siamun,
that’s his name, right?  He’ll be punished.  I can promise
that.  Look, after this feast we’ll meet.  I’ll send someone to bring
you to my chambers where we’ll be safe.  I have a notebook.  You can
write everything out.

“I
really have to go.” He turned and took a step away, then he stopped and looked
back at Brian.  “We’ll get this sorted out, Brian.  I promise. 
I have the king’s ear.  We’ll get you and Diane back home.”

A
t Abu, King Djoser had worn a nemes, a
blue and gold-striped cloth that covered his shaved scalp and hung down to his
shoulders.  But tonight he wore the pschent, the double crown of the Two
Lands, a tall red outer crown that symbolized his rule over Lower Kemet, with a
tall white crown of Upper Kemet that fit inside the red shell and was held in
place by an outer coil.

Although
clean-shaven like every other Egyptian, for the feast he wore a long,
straight-edged goatee.  In his right hand he carried the hook-handled heqa
scepter made of polished orange quartz and decorated with wide gold bands.

He
wore a knee-length pleated kilt, bleached blazing white by the sun.  White
sandals rested under his feet.  A wide pectoral necklace fanned across his
bare chest, its colorful beads forming the image of a vulture with widespread
wings.

Green
kohl covered his upper eyelids; delicate black lines had been drawn to replace
his plucked eyebrows, the lines extending from the corners of his eyes to the
side of his face.  Against his protests, his wife Inetkawes had insisted
that a light red paint be applied to his lips.

In
truth, his protests had been weak.  When he looked in the silver mirror
his attendants held for him he saw himself as others saw him - a man so
handsome he was beautiful.  His wide cheekbones and broad forehead gave
his beauty an underlying strength.  His eyes, highlighted by the makeup,
showed depth, intelligence, and understanding.  It was hard to not smile
at the face that stared back at him so serenely, so godlike.

He sat
on his golden throne beside his beautiful wife, Inetkawes, her face still
glowing from the exertion of their vigorous lovemaking before the feast. 
King Djoser smiled at her and enjoyed her provocative, knowing eyes as she
looked back at him.  She was not a shy, retiring little princess. 
She was a strong woman with a powerful ka.

King
Djoser didn’t give any thought to whether or not she knew of his sexual
celebration at Abu after the river began to rise.  He assumed she would
know and understand.  He was after all, King of the Two Lands, a Mighty
Bull. 

As if
reading his mind, her fingers tightened on his and she leaned her perfumed head
closer.  “I know what you are thinking, Netjer,” she said, using her pet
name for him, playing on its meaning of ‘god.’ She leaned closer and said in a
throaty whisper, “Mighty Bull, indeed.  After this feast we will see who
is mighty.”

He
squeezed her fingers in return.

He
felt a stirring of the peaceful ecstasy that had come over him earlier on his
boat.  The river was rising; his son was restored to health.  All
along the river the people of the Two Lands had come out to watch him pass on
his journey from Abu to Kom Ombo.  Some stood silently, others sang
prayers of thanksgiving.

His
new adviser, Imhotep, had explained his ideas for a grand tomb, an eternal
house worthy of a god.  Made of huge stone blocks, the tomb would rise
from a giant square mastaba base, each new layer smaller than the one below it
as the form rose skyward.

Once
the flood receded, the planting would begin and soon the river would be a
ribbon of blue between lush green fields of flax and barley and wheat. 
The harvest would follow, surely a bountiful one, and then, after the
celebrations, he would order work to begin on the tomb.  In his mind’s eye
he saw quarrymen cutting the stone, barges taking the blocks to Saqqara, and
the building of his eternal house beginning.

But
first, the dedication of the new temple of Sobek.  His smile turned cold
as he thought of what Imhotep had told him about Djefi’s plans.  The
strange adviser said moments ago that he would have more information later
tonight.  They would complete their plans then.

Two
harp players entered the room followed by a line of young dancing girls. 
King Djoser turned his attention to them, his mind closed to the worries of
tomorrow and to the plans of the future.  It was his special talent: He
focused on what was before him, bringing all of his attention to whatever lay
before him, whether it be a drawing of a tomb, the sweaty, writhing body of
Inetkawes or the shimmering landscape of the country he loved.

A
way from the celebration, excused from his
duty for the night, Makare met with his brother Nesi to go over their plans for
tomorrow.  Kanakht had explained Djefi’s plan to attack the king with a
crocodile.

“It
will be a diversion, and later a reason to explain what happened. 
Remember, when I am on the throne, my version of what happened at Kom Ombo will
be the only story.  So, listen to me now.  The crocodile will attack,
or it will not.  It doesn’t matter, as long as it becomes free and a
diversion is created.  People will be moving, there will be confusion. 
You will strike the king and Prince Teti.  Afterward Waja-Hur will declare
balance restored.  He will ask me to take the throne.

“You,”
he had looked at Makare, “will replace Sekhmire, who may be wounded during the
attack, or even killed.” He had reached out and placed a hand on each of the
young men’s shoulders.  “Together, we will restore glory to Kemet. 
We will lead the armies south into Nubia and east through Sinai.”

He had
paused and looked knowingly at the two brothers.

“I am
old.  My time here grows shorter each day.  Once I have restored
Kemet on the path of Ma’at, then I will retire, Makare and Nesi.  My work
will be done.  The Two Lands will need strong, young leaders.”

Makare
and Nesi had exchanged hopeful looks. 

Now,
on the eve of the attack, they were drinking and building their courage.

“I
will take the king,” Makare said for the fifth time, tilting up the empty clay
beer pot.

Nesi
nodded his head.  “Yes, yes.  I know.  I’ll be standing right
behind Teti.  This time, I won’t depend on the river or the rocks.” He
fingered the handle of his knife.