Suti and the Broken Staff Read online

  SUTI

  AND

  THE BROKEN STAFF

  By Jerry Dubs

  “Suti and the Broken Staff” is published by Imhotep Literary, LLC

  Contact: [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. Although based on historical events and figures, the names, characters, places, and incidents described in the novel are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright 2016 by Gerald B. Dubs

  All rights reserved.

  Copy editing by Suzanne S. Barnhill

  [email protected]

  Cover designed by Kyle Mohler

  [email protected]

  ISBN 978-0-9846717-6-2

  Novels by Jerry Dubs

  THE IMHOTEP NOVELS

  Imhotep, published 2010

  The Buried Pyramid, published 2013

  The Forest of Myrrh, published 2014

  The Field of Reeds, published 2015

  SUTI THE SCRIBE

  Suti and the Broken Staff, published 2016

  OTHER FICTION

  Kaleidoscope, published 2011

  The Earth Is My Witness, published 2011

  Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot,

  you know.

  Alan Watts

  Author's Note

  Suti and the Broken Staff is a sequel to the Imhotep tetralogy about the ancient Egyptian architect, scribe, vizier, and physician named Imhotep.

  However, although Suti and the Broken Staff refers to Imhotep and events that are described in The Field of Reeds, it is self-contained.

  ­­Jerry Dubs, December, 2016

  SUTI

  AND

  THE BROKEN STAFF

  Table of Contents

  Novels by Jerry Dubs

  Author's Note

  Table of Contents

  Hear me!

  I Climb Geb’s Back

  I Meet Lord Amenhotep

  I Ride With the Maryannu

  I Listen to Geb Whisper

  I Tell Geb’s Tale

  I Meet Turo, Who Is Not Dead

  I Find a Splinter

  I Tell Pakhura a Tale

  I See a God

  I Rescue a God

  I Ride to Men-Nefer

  I Visit Gods

  I Foolishly Touch the Queen

  I Fear For My Hand

  I Meet Huy

  I Appease Bes

  I Study a Tree

  I Meet Ipu, who commands me

  I Learn a Terrible Secret

  I Taste Blood

  I Hear a Prophecy

  I Find the Trail of Kebu

  I Wonder about Gods

  I Learn of Darkness by Day

  I Understand

  I Anger the Queen

  I Create Ma’at Anew

  I Survive The First Cataract

  I Do Not Drown

  I Report a Murder

  I Die

  I See Too Much

  I Find Kebu, I lose Kebu

  I slip Wepwawet’s grasp

  I Can Create The World

  I Gain Friends

  I Escape Kerma

  I Pray to Hapi

  I Set the River Afire

  I Hold the Broken staff

  I Build A ladder of thoughts

  I Create Ma’at

  I See My Love, I lose My Love

  My First Secret

  I See beyond Ma’at

  My Great Secret

  Hear me!

  They call me Scribe.

  I am Suti, Keeper of the Words of Thoth.

  Keeper, not speaker; I am no priest.

  The words I speak are my own.

  Thoth’s words I keep hidden.

  ***

  Lord Imhotep once told me about a priest of Thoth whom he had known many ages ago. It was in another time, before the red sands of Saqqara had given birth to the great pyramids.

  This priest had become old. His body had outlived his mind. He could no longer recall even the simplest hieroglyphs.

  So said Lord Imhotep.

  (I did not know this priest.)

  Now I have become ancient.

  I need to make my heart light before my memories dissipate like smoke rising from incense.

  I must reveal my great secret.

  ***

  I declare:

  What I say is true.

  These things I witnessed with my eyes.

  Or I was told of them by others.

  Or I believe they happened.

  Hear me!

  ***

  It matters not if my memories are phantoms!

  I have watched friends die. I have killed enemies. I have contested with Seth.

  I have learned that when we rest from life it is only our phantom thoughts that survive to enter the Field of Reeds. That eternally green paradise is a land inhabited by wishes and desires and hopes.

  That is why your heart must be light.

  (These are my words, not the words of Thoth.)

  ***

  My words wander.

  No more!

  I will lay my whip on them, and they will fly as true as an arrow from Kebu’s bow, as powerful as the horses driven by dear Pairy, my ever-loyal charioteer.

  What I say is true!

  The twenty-second day of the first month

  of the third season of the twenty-third year

  of the rule of Pharaoh Thutmose, third of the name,

  Long life!

  I Climb Geb’s Back

  It was early morning when I climbed the mountain for the second time.

  I had first climbed it the previous morning as our charioteers and archers mounted their war chariots, and as our foot soldiers gathered their shields and short spears to prepare for battle. I climbed so I could watch from on high as our glorious army attacked the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Mitanni, and the rest of the hundred allies of the king of Kadesh.

  I had seen fourteen floods. I was old enough to fight, but I had not worked in the fields when I was a child. Nor had I labored in the quarries. Nor had I netted fish or carried bundles of reeds. My arms were weak, my legs thin as those of a colt.

  The army did not want me.

  Instead of being taught to drive a chariot or to thrust a spear or to draw a bowstring, I was trained to wrestle with numbers, to close my eyes and calculate the number of donkeys needed to transport sufficient mudbricks to build a wall, to ensnare the sound of words with reed and ink.

  I was a scribe.

  I also had studied under Nakht, the royal astronomer. I could read the slow march of decans in the stars. I could anticipate the flood season. I could forecast what face Khonsu would reveal and even if he chose to hide.

  But I was no fighter.

  And so yesterday, as pennants waved over racing chariots, as warriors screamed their battle cries, as horses chuffed and galloped across the plain, as arrows feathered their way across Nut’s blue belly, as our foot soldiers ran across the valley, as the Hittites and Canaanites and other allies of the King of Kadesh beat their chests and drove their horses to join battle, I stood on this distant mountain and watched in wonder and in pride.

  I heard the shouts of courage and the pounding of drums and the scream of horses, and then, suddenly, it ended.

  I watched enemy soldiers race to the walls of Megiddo, where they took turns climbing makeshift ropes of linen rags and clothing to escape the battle. Others, waiting their turn at the base of the walls, stood unarmed, their weapons having been thrown aside to lighten their load when they ran. They were sheep awaiting slaughter and — beyond belief — instead of killing or capturing the cowards, our soldiers turned to plundering.

  In shame, I
turned my back on the wasted opportunity.

  Then, as if Re and Geb conspired to distract me, I saw spread before me a scattering of glittering rocks.

  I bent to gather samples. Then I stopped myself; I would not turn to plunder as the soldiers had. No! Lord Amenhotep would want a list of the men killed or wounded, and a list of the plunder taken. I looked at the dazzling, beckoning rocks for a long moment and then turned to run down Geb’s back to camp.

  That was yesterday.

  Now I had returned to the mountainside.

  I glanced at the camp to reassure myself that I would not be missed.

  Men walked toward the corrals to harness horses to chariots. Soldiers gathered their shields and spears and formed into companies along the western edge of the camp, but the drummers were not preparing to pound the drumbeat of war from skins stretched across hollowed logs.

  There would be no battle today.

  Raising a hand to protect myself, I raised my eyes to the eastern sky. Re’s solar barque was just clearing the eastern mountains.

  Lord Amenhotep would be at prayers with Pharaoh Thutmose. I had an hour before my master would need me.

  Smiling in anticipation, I untied the straps that secured the mouth of the leather bag I had carried from camp. I shook the mouth of the empty bag open, and, stepping onto the loose stones, I bent to examine the rocks. I saw glimmering stones the color of goat’s milk and others the shade of green one sees on the dusty underside of palm leaves.

  I shook my head; these were rocks I had seen before.

  I was in a foreign land; I wanted to find something new.

  Brushing aside a cluster of red sandstone rocks, I gasped at the sight of a black, granular rock. I had seen similar rocks in the quarries near Swenett. But this one was speckled with red droplets. I touched one of the crimson crystals, pushing gently to test whether it was part of the rock or some strange growth.

  Although it was the color of raw meat, it did not yield to my touch.

  I raised it to my face. Sniffing, I smelled only earth and heat.

  Then I thought: The red droplets are sharp-edged like a salt crystal.

  I licked it. Closing my eyes, I listened to my tongue. There was no tang of salt, nor taste of iron or fish.

  I placed the edge of a fingernail where the crystal met the black rock. Flicking my finger, I tried to pry it free. It stayed fast.

  Frowning, I tossed the rock from one hand to the other, assessing its weight. I had found a black rock once that felt so light that I mistakenly thought it would float. This rock was heavy, perhaps heavier than sandstone, but not as heavy as iron.

  I thought: I should break it open.

  As I looked around the scree for a sharp-edged rock, I realized what I was doing. I began to laugh as I thought: I’ll spend my hour examining this rock and return to camp with nothing else in my bag.

  I dropped the rock into my leather bag and turned my attention back to the beguiling banquet of stones.

  ***

  Oh, those rocks were distracting.

  Perhaps I wanted to be distracted, to forget yesterday’s disgrace.

  Pharaoh Thutmose — long life! — had been furious after the battle.

  “If we had not turned to plunder, if we had seized the King of Kadesh, the war would be over,” he had told his generals with seething anger.

  I did not hear the words nor did I feel the anger myself; I had not been invited to the council. But my friend Tjaneni, royal scribe, told me the words after the meeting had ended and Pharaoh Thutmose had withdrawn to his private tent.

  Tjaneni told me that he had never seen his master so angry. Hearing the rage in his master’s words, Tjaneni had expected Pharaoh Thutmose’s ba to emerge from his mouth and, taking the form of a hawk, attack the generals, plucking their eyes from their heads, tearing their lips from their quivering mouths.

  Tjaneni is a marvelous scribe. His hand is sure and fast. He never blotches the papyrus with ink. The lines of his hieroglyphs are straight or curved just so to make the rounded shoulder of an owl or small hands raised in prayer. If you compare one line of symbols to another, they match with perfection.

  Many scribes use a piece of wood to help them draw straight lines. Some have stones, cut and smoothed, around which they trace the divine shenu which encircles the symbols, binding them for eternity.

  Tjaneni draws with a free hand, guided, obviously, by Thoth himself. (I also draw without aid, but my lines are not consistent; my curves sometimes wobble.)

  But more important than the beauty of the symbols Tjaneni draws is the accuracy of his words. I have never known his work to require correction. His words are true.

  And last night, the words he spoke were colored with sadness.

  Pharaoh Thutmose was angry that the King of Kadesh had escaped. But, Tjaneni explained, that anger was only the flickering tip of his rage. The enemy was hiding behind the walls of Megiddo. They had demonstrated their cowardice. We would soon surround them. We would build a wall. We would dig a moat. They would surrender. Their defeat was so certain that Tjaneni created a new title for our ruler: Surrounder-of-the-Asiatic!

  “No,” Tjaneni said, leaning close to whisper, “his sadness springs from his decision to allow Queen Menwi to return to Gaza with Lord Imhotep and his hemet Akila.

  “He didn’t know the battle would end so quickly,” I said.

  “He wants his wife and her soon-to-be-delivered son with him,” Tjaneni said, ignoring the excuse I offered for Pharaoh Thutmose.

  I shrugged. “Who could see into the empty heart of the king of Kadesh? Who could know that the coward would flee and the battle would end in a single day?”

  Tjaneni withheld agreement. He believes that Pharaoh Thutmose is infallible.

  “He sent Kebu to find them,” Tjaneni said.

  “Kebu?” I said, puzzled: why would a Medjay warrior, even one as trusted as Kebu, be sent to retrieve the queen?

  Then I nodded understanding.

  Like myself, Kebu is a protégé of Lord Imhotep. Pharaoh Thutmose must have chosen Kebu to fetch Queen Menwi so that he could also tell Lord Imhotep that Imhotep’s grandson, Neferhotep, had been killed.

  And so, with a heart weighted with my pharaoh’s worries, I stood on the mountain the day after the battle and thanked Geb for displaying his strange stone bones to distract my attention from the disgraceful greed of our soldiers, from the death of Neferhotep and from the absence of Queen Menwi.

  ***

  I remember that I found an exceedingly strange rock.

  It was white and it appeared that an army of ants had been trapped within it.

  The rock was smooth, although not as smooth as the flat, fragile, glistening black rock I had found earlier. The black markings on this stone were randomly placed and of different sizes. I ran my thumb over the rock surface, but I couldn’t tell if the black markings were raised, like the scales of a fish, or if they were part of the rock, like spots on a horse.

  Resting my weight on my heels, I held the rock up to the light to see if the black marks cast shadows. Suddenly I heard loose rocks slide behind me, and a small shadow blocked the light.

  The shadow changed into a boy, his head shaved except for the right side where a sidelock was gathered in a short tail.

  Despite my displeasure at having my exploration of the mountain interrupted, I smiled.

  I like children. Perhaps because I never had childhood friends. My parents died before they could give me a brother or a sister. My earliest memories are of following ancient Nakht about the royal palace, climbing the steps to the roof, sitting beneath the night sky and placing dots on papyrus to chart the movement of the stars.

  I had no playmates except the apprentices of Nakht, who were older than I and seldom talked to me, except to criticize my star charts. We never played hide-and-seek in the gardens or chased each other around the palm trees that lined the river or … I don’t know what other games children played when they were not in public
.

  I never slung a carefree arm around a friend’s neck. I never bumped foreheads with a friend as we shared a secret joke, or splashed water on each other at river’s edge.

  I never knew any children.

  Still, I like them.

  “Are you Suti, the scribe?” the boy asked in a hesitant, high-pitched voice.

  “Yes,” I answered, “I am Suti, scribe to Lord Amenhotep. Who are you?”

  “I am Ahmose,” the boy said.

  “Ahmose,” I said, giving the name respect.

  You could create an entire army from men and boys named after Ahmose, great-great-grandfather to our Pharaoh Thutmose. It was, as every child knows, Pharaoh Ahmose who drove the arrogant Hyksos from our land. I wondered if, once word of this great victory reached the Two Lands, every pregnant woman would name her child Thutmose.

  I stood and wiped my free hand on my shendyt. Still, the hand I offered Ahmose was dirty. Looking down I saw that my kilt, pristine and white when I tied it around my waist this morning, was now the same color as the ground beneath my feet.

  Thankfully, Ahmose was too pleased at being offered a hand to be offended by its gritty covering. He offered me his arm, and we gripped each other’s forearms as men of equal standing.

  “Well, Ahmose, how can I help you?” I asked.

  “Lord Amenhotep sent me,” the boy said shyly.

  Watching him lower his eyes, I smiled. He was just a messenger, seldom acknowledged.

  I remembered when I had been only eight floods old and Lord Imhotep had stopped to speak to me. I had expected a scolding — why else would a living god stop to talk to a child? — but instead he talked to me as an equal, listening to my responses and nodding respectfully.

  That conversation had changed my life.

  When Ahmose raised his eyes, they glowed with such admiration that I felt blood rush to my face.

  “What decan is it?” I asked, glancing at the sky, to give myself time to recover my composure.