Khu: A Tale of Ancient Egypt (6 page)

The collapse of the unified kingdom had trickled down to all levels
of the land. Tombs, temples and monuments had been pillaged and plundered. Canals lay broken, water-storage basins were in disrepair, dykes and ditches abandoned. The complex irrigation system which harnessed the floodwaters of the life-giving Nile had fallen into ruin, leaving the unruly northern territories impoverished.

Bands of robbers and lawless tribes crawled throughout the region like the grain beetles and cockroaches which destroyed the stored cereals. They took whatever they pleased from whomever they chose, with little consequences. And Mentuhotep had no intention of letting the darkness that shrouded his northern neighbors creep over his own dominion.

The men pulled their boat through t
he tall reeds of the riverbank and tied it to a stake. Somewhere in the distance a jackal howled and the men shivered as they touched the amulets hanging from their necks, in hopes that it was not an ill omen. The stars were a blanket of bright pin pricks pulled across the night sky. Frogs and crickets grew silent as the men pushed through the tall reeds growing in thick clusters by the water’s edge. One man stayed behind to guard the boat as the others followed the man who had been anxiously awaiting them on the shore. They moved slowly through the darkness, their daggers in hand.

“
How far?” one man asked.

“Just f
ollow me,” the leader instructed as he headed toward the village in front of the others. “But keep your distance. If any one of us should be caught, we do not know each other.” He glanced back at the others, pausing to make sure they understood. “I will deny everything,” he continued. “I will deny ever seeing you, and deny having any knowledge of these acts,” he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, then over his shaved head in a nervous gesture. His was the only shaved head in the group. The other men wore their hair cropped just above their shoulders, as most of the laborers, peasants and skilled workers did. “And if you know what is good for you, you had better do the same.”

“We know the plan,” the first man retorted, wanting to silence the leader.

“We swore by blood,” another reminded him.

But the leader only
grumbled and dismissed their replies with a wave of his hand. He trusted no one, blood or no blood. Relying on others was an unavoidable nuisance that sometimes proved necessary.

The land rose muddy above the marshes
, then dipped beneath an outcrop of wild grasses before smoothing out before them. The thatched vegetation carpeted a plain where sycamore, mimosas and doum palms dotted the expanse. The goats, sheep and cattle which normally grazed here during the day, had been safely corralled for the night. Flame trees were in full bloom, though their fiery red flowers were lost to the darkness, while the low hanging branches of willow trees caressed the ground like long feathered strands in the soft breeze. An owl hooted its forlorn call, and somewhere another owl responded, prompting some of the men to touch their amulets again.

The men walked
past several plowed fields and onto a road leading through one of the entrances in the walled village. Houses and workshops of every kind spread out in large orderly blocks divided by narrow streets which were deserted at this late hour. The palace lay farther south, and was separated from the village by a short road that led to an entrance in the wall enclosing the great compound and its private gardens.

Somewhere a dog barked but then fell
silent again. A cat darted out from the shadows, crossing their path before it disappeared into the darkness. The men continued until they arrived to one of the structures housing the grain. They were planning to use the large coarsely woven linen sacks kept inside by the vats to transport the precious cereals back to the boat. There were no windows cut into the wall facing this side of the street. And keeping by the building, they crept farther into the village like serpents through the deep shadows hiding the moon’s wan light.

The king’s guards were roaming outside the palace walls
with torches to illuminate their path. They had first combed the private gardens where vines and fruit trees grew in manicured splendor around the ponds stocked with fish, before stepping beyond the gate. The gatekeeper was not at his post, and Mentuhotep assumed he had left to join the guards searching for the interlopers.

“Where is Odji?” the king inquired of
the missing gatekeeper, when they stepped away from the abandoned post.

“Searching the grounds perhaps, Lord King,”
a guard said.

Khu
just kept close to the king’s side as they followed the guards.

“Which way, son?” the king asked the boy. Khu simp
ly lifted his chin northwards toward the adjacent village.

A few of the guards had gone ahead when one shouted a warning. “Over her
e! Stop! Stop in the name of Amun who sees all in darkness and light. Stop!”

But the man
he called out to didn’t stop. He scurried away in the darkness like a nocturnal thing living in the realm of the shadows.

“Go, go, run!” one of the thieves shouted when they saw they had been
discovered.

“Split up!”
another ordered.

The thieves dispersed
to take cover within the village. They sprinted down the streets, cutting through narrow alleyways, and running between some of the tightly packed workshops and homes arranged in ordered blocks, all the while puzzling over how anyone could have seen or heard them when no sound had been made. They had been as quiet as the dead lying in their tombs.

But not anymore.

Some of the villagers heard the commotion and woke up to the sounds of screams and chases. A dog began to howl, others barked, and somewhere a baby cried.

“Wait here!” a man warned his wife as she held a small child to her bosom. The man peeked out of the mud-brick home adjacent to the blacksmith shop where he worked, when he saw a guard running down the street.

“Stay back!” the guard shouted to the man before turning a corner.

A few
of the villagers hurried up to the roofs of their homes, climbing the side staircases built against the exterior walls of their houses. It was where they slept during those times when the heat proved too stifling to stay inside. They gathered their families safely above where they also hoped to get a better view of the commotion on the streets below.

One of the guards saw a man crouching in the darkness
by a date palm before scrambling up a wall and disappearing through a window. The man had entered a bakery’s storage room which sat across the road from the grain storage houses. His heart pounded as he waved his hands blindly before him so as not to bump into anything in the dark. The nutty aroma of emmer, barley and yeast clung to the room where bread was stored after being baked outside over a fire in the ceramic
bedja
—large, bell-shaped bread pots. The man was perspiring. He felt like a rat trapped in a large clay pot, with a cat circling by. He tripped, knocking the back of his head against something hard, and a ceramic pot crashed to the ground.

“Don’t move!” the guard yelled as he climbed through the window after the man.

The thief was still on the ground, feeling around for something he could use as a weapon. He lifted one of the bedja with both hands. It was heavy. Then he threw it toward the guard, but missed, and it fell with a loud clatter and broke. He used the momentary distraction to find his way to a doorway, before he slipped out of the room and escaped.

Two other thieves w
ere running across the rooftops, jumping from one to another of the closely spaced buildings. They were heading west, back towards the river that waited under the pale moonlight. They crouched low and kept away from the side of the block bordering the street so no one would see them.

Someone lunged at them from the shadows, but they were too fast, fueled by the
adrenaline of fright. It was one of the villagers—a craftsman—who had gone up to the roof to sleep in the open air where it was cooler than inside. His wife remained asleep below with their young son.

The thieves kept going
, running across three more rooftops before one of them tripped over a clay pot, nearly falling over the side of the building. The other man almost left him in his haste, but then turned to help him up. They continued on, taking better care to watch their footing, especially around the center of the roofs which opened up in a kind of atrium from the floor below, for much-needed ventilation.

Most of the houses were simple structures with two or three rooms. The main living area was in the front
, while the kitchen lay at the back where grain was ground into flour, the flour was sifted, and food was prepared. No cooking was done inside due to the heat, but rather outside over an open fire, or in the case of the larger upper-class homes, on top of the roof in clay ovens before it was brought back downstairs. The different classes of people were mixed together in the towns so that the larger white-washed upper-class houses stood two or three stories next to the simpler laborers’ homes.

The two thieves finally
made it to the edge of the village, and paused to look down over the side of one of the single-story structures over which they had fled. No guards were in sight, and they were anxious to get away.

“
Jump down!” one whispered urgently. “Hurry, we are almost there.”

“You jump,” the other said. His ankle was hurting from having tripped
and fallen over the clay pot recently. “I’ll take the stairs.”

The first man leaped over the side after a moment of hesitation.
He landed safely on his feet like a cat, and pressed his back against a wall in the shadows to avoid being seen. He ran a hand across his forehead, wiping away the dirt-streaked sweat from dripping into his eyes. When his accomplice caught up to him, they took off toward the wall surrounding the village. Its exit waited just beyond a row of date palms casting monstrous shadows in the murky light of the moon.

“To the boat!” one said as they
left the trouble behind them.

His partner hesitated, looking back toward the village. “What about the others?”

“That is their problem. We must go! Remember the plan,” and they took off toward the river waiting beyond the fields.

Inside the village, the chase
was still on as the remaining thieves sought cover from the guards.

“
Over there!” a guard pointed when he caught sight of one man. “Stop! You are surrounded!”

The thief was sneaking up a ladder propped against a wall, which led to the rooftop of one of the mud-brick workshops when he slipped and fell on his own knife, cutting himself badly in the lower belly. The guard caught up to the injured man and thrust the tip of his spear at his throat. He kicked the injured man’s knife out of reach, and it skittered several paces away on the ground.

“I’m hurt,” the helpless man mumbled in pain.

“Don’t move,” hissed the guard, “unless you wish to die, and you want your remains thrown in the desert for the jackals to feast upon.”

The thief swallowed hard against the pain
from his injury. Blood trickled down his neck from the prick of the guard’s spear point. He lay on the ground, sprawled on his back, his arms up by his head in surrender. He closed his eyes and exhaled in defeat.

The king
caught up to the guard and injured thief, with Khu following closely behind.

“Take him to the
pavilion,” Mentuhotep instructed, referring to a court near the Temple of Mut.

The Temple of
Mut was a shrine built in honor of the goddess Mut—wife of the god Amun, and daughter of the sun-god Re. Mut was a mother goddess and queen of goddesses, portrayed wearing the double crowns of Lower and Upper Egypt to symbolize her authority over all of the lands. She was also depicted wearing the royal vulture headdress symbolizing her protective and loving bond with her husband Amun, and their son, the moon-god Khonsu. Together with Amun and Khonsu, the three gods formed the Theban Triad, and were worshiped and revered for their protection and patronage of Thebes.

Mut’s temple
was situated next to the Temple of Khonsu, and by several smaller shrines and public buildings spreading out behind the village near the palace compound, including the pavilion used by the king for official public proceedings and judicial matters. The temple faced an open square ringed by shops catering to those visiting the temples. In the bustling daylight hours, and especially during the great festivals throughout the year, one could find stands laden with crates of vegetables and colorful fruit, heaps of freshly baked bread, clay pitchers brimming with brewed
heqet
, baskets of dried fish, pottery hanging on hooks or sitting on the ground, bolts of finely woven linen, carved amulets from semi-precious stones, and other items used in daily life. The temple complex paved the way leading to the larger Temple of Amun which honored the patron god of Thebes.