Suti and the Broken Staff Read online

  “Big like round or big like tall?” I asked.

  “I guess tall,” Ahmose said.

  Min nodded. “Probably tall because he was black like those warriors from the south.”

  “You mean Medjay archers,” Ahmose corrected him.

  “Yeah, archers…”

  “Wait,” I said, interrupting them, “how do you know he was black?”

  “Ahmose saw him,” Min said.

  “Not me,” Ahmose said when I turned to him. “He means Ahmose-with-the-bad-eye.”

  “Yeah, one of his eyes has milk in it,” Min said.

  “But his other eye is good,” Ahmose said as Min held a hand over one eye and looked at me.

  “Yeah, I can see fine with just one eye,” Min said, turning his head while continuing to hold a hand over his eye.

  “What did Ahmose-with-the-bad-eye tell you?” I said, nudging the boys back to the topic of strangers.

  “That it was early morning, barely light yet, and this big black man was along the wharf,” Ahmose said.

  “And he was walking funny,” Min said, lowering his hand from his face to hold it against his side. Then, favoring the side he was holding, Min staggered a few steps away from me. “He was carrying a thick walking staff, but it was too short for him to use.”

  “And his cloak slipped off,” Ahmose said, smiling at Min, who had stopped staggering now and, with a painful grunt, leaned down to pick up an imaginary cloak.

  “That’s when Ahmose saw the lines on his back,” Ahmose said.

  “Lines?” I asked, my mind picturing the ritual scarring that Medjay warriors carried on their backs.

  “Like he had been whipped,” Ahmose said as Min spread his arms high in the air and bent his back away from imaginary whip lashes.

  “It sounds as if Ahmose-with-the-bad-eye sees very well,” I said. “When did Ahmose-with-the-bad-eye see this stranger?”

  “Two mornings ago,” Ahmose said.

  Min nodded. “Not this morning and not yesterday. The morning before that.”

  A thrill raced through me. The timing aligned. If this man was Kebu, then he had departed for Waset the day after Queen Menwi’s chariot had been found.

  My hands held a thread that I could follow; Kebu would know where Queen Menwi had gone.

  Testing my foot as I moved, I raised myself upright. Leaning against the palm tree, I reached into the bag I carried across my shoulder.

  “Min and Ahmose, you have done very well. I have a reward for you.” I pulled my fist from the bag and then, extending my arm, I opened my hand to reveal two amulets that I had purchased for the boys after questioning a jeweler at the edge of the market. The jeweler had not seen an old man or a woman with a silver ring in her lip — “You mean, Akila, the hemet of Lord Imhotep?” the jeweler had asked, making me lower my eyes in exasperation at my futile attempt to be secretive.

  But my downcast eyes, had fallen on the turquoise amulets — this is how the gods work! — which were carved in the image of a cheetah’s face. Clearly, it was the goddess Seshat. Just as clearly, I knew that the gods intended for me to buy them.

  Min and Ahmose leaned together, their small brown shoulders touching as they peered at the treasures in my hand.

  “Are they a cheetah?” Min asked.

  “Or a cat?” Ahmose asked.

  “They are a cheetah, the goddess Seshat,” I said, giving my voice a note of excitement.

  The boys leaned closer, their shallow breaths joining together and washing over my open hand.

  “Well,” I said, “take them.”

  “I thought the reward was looking at them,” Min said, reaching hesitantly toward my hand.

  “Are they real?” Ahmose asked, pinching the remaining amulet in his fingers and bring it close to his face.

  “As real as a pointed stone in the street. As real as the river and a boat filled with cedar logs,” I said, wondering how quickly I could take to the river to follow Kebu.

  I Wonder about Gods

  Standing at the prow of the boat that had carried us south for seven days, I watched the silver surface of the river rise in greeting to the morning air. Drifting toward me, the morning mist swirled around our boat, and then, dissolving into wispy tendrils, it parted, leaving a moist kiss on my face.

  Peering through the vaporous curtain, I watched a small mudbrick home materialize on the eastern shore. Standing on stiff legs by the hut, a brown cow turned its head toward the passing boat. As the boat carried me past the cow, I realized that it seemed to me that it was the cow that was moving.

  I thought: The landscape is painted on a long linen screen that is being dragged past me.

  ***

  My stay in the Temple of Ptah — where gods roamed the columned hallways, and where First Priest Puimre assumed the form of the god Ipy, and where Lord Useramen transformed into an owl — had taught me to question my eyes and ears.

  I had learned: Everything that I see and hear can be seen and heard in a different way. But I believed that the sounds and sights were rooted in truth and that I could find that truth with my thoughts. And with my heart, I thought, thinking of Queen Merti, who also was bound for Waset.

  Huy had told me that the queen was being sent back to the capital because the threat of the sleeping illness had passed. The midwife had also suggested that Lord Useramen was eager to have her away from the House of the Ka of Ptah so that her virgin womb would be safe from the rapacious god. Lord Useramen didn’t want to have to tell Pharaoh Thutmose that a second wife had been impregnated by Ptah.

  (Then, strangely she had raised her eyebrows and stared at me for a long moment.)

  ***

  Our boat was nearing Waset, and I could hear voices drifting across the water now, the words muffled by the mist. Cocking my head to listen, I heard another sound: the wet slap of wooden oars hitting water awkwardly as a boat turned in the river.

  Seeking the sound, my eyes found a narrow boat splashing away from the wharf. Curious, I leaned forward to study the mist-veiled form, trying to determine if it carried cedar logs and, perhaps, an injured Medjay warrior.

  I saw the back of a man who was sitting at the stern of the other boat. He had the wide shoulders of a Medjay warrior, and his skin was dark. However, this man’s head was covered in short, bushy hair, and he wore the striped robe of a merchant, the waist of it distended by a swollen, merchant’s belly.

  I thought: If finding Kebu were only that easy.

  Then, turning my attention to the boats that were moored along the river, I wondered which of them had brought Queen Merti south to Waset.

  ***

  Pleased to feel solid earth beneath our feet, Pairy, Turo and I paused beneath the tangled branches of an ancient sycamore whose roots clung to the narrow strip of grass squeezed between the river and the wide, hard-packed dirt road that led from the wharves.

  “I am going to the palace,” I said, one hand gripping the strap of the leather bag that hung from my shoulders. “I want to see Nakht and then report to…” I stopped and cocked my head. Before he had become quartermaster of the army, Lord Amenhotep had overseen the palace. Now he was many days away in Megiddo.

  “Amethu,” Pairy suggested.

  I looked at Pairy, surprised that he knew the name of the vizier.

  “I heard Commander Neferhotep mention him when we were training here,” Pairy said. “He’s the vizier, isn’t he?”

  “He is,” I said. “I never met him. Whenever I went to the palace it was to see Nakht or, later, Lord Amenhotep or Lord Imhotep. I was never taken to the audience hall or anywhere near Pharaoh Hatshepsut. But, yes, I remember Amethu’s name.

  “He has a scar on his cheek,” Pairy offered. “They said he got it fighting under Pharaoh Thutmose, the first one.”

  “That’s impossible. No one could be alive from that time,” Turo said, lifting a leg and scratching his ankle.

  “He must have seen at least a hundred floods,” Pairy said, his forehead
furrowed as he calculated. “Maybe two hundred,” he added, his voice confident.

  “Pharaoh Hatshepsut ruled for nineteen floods. Her husband, Pharaoh Thutmose, second of the name, ruled for fourteen years before Pharaoh Hatshepsut became regent. If Amethu was sixteen when he got his scar while fighting for Pharaoh Thutmose, first of the name, then Amethu would have seen forty-nine floods, perhaps fifty,” I said, caught up in the puzzle.

  “Is that true?” Turo asked, lowering his leg and raising the other to scratch it.

  I wondered how the charioteer had managed to find a bed of fleas on a boat.

  Finished scratching himself, Turo looked up at me. “How did you do that?”

  “It is scribe heka,” Pairy said.

  I started to shake my head, then I stopped myself. “You have trained your hands to hold chariot reins. You can direct the horses to turn, to run faster, or to slow down. I see that as charioteer heka.” I shrugged. “My training is different, that is all.”

  I lowered my head as that thought led to a new one: I had heard stories about Lord Imhotep’s heka. Did he have the powers of a god, or were they simply powers that looked like those of a god to others? Would a horse look at us as gods because we can walk on two legs?

  Hearing the scuffling of feet, I look up to see Pairy and Turo watching me.

  “What should we do?” Turo asked.

  “We are looking for Queen Menwi and Lord Imhotep. And we are pursuing Kebu. I will go to the palace to seek the queen and then I will visit Pentu, who is Lord Imhotep’s son-in-law. You can check at the barracks for Kebu and then ask along the river if anyone has seen him. You will be staying at the barracks?” I asked.

  The men nodded.

  “I’ll find you there,” I said.

  I Learn of Darkness by Day

  Nakht was bent awkwardly behind his desk.

  Before I could run to help him, he straightened and I saw that he was gripping the edge of a stool. A frown on his face, he set the stool on the floor and then arched his back to stretch. He groaned loudly and raised his arms in another stretch.

  I backed away from the doorway and out of sight so I could noisily reappear.

  When I heard his shuffling footsteps, I coughed lightly and stepped into his room as if entering for the first time.

  “Master Nakht,” I said.

  “Suti?” Nakht said, pushing his face forward and squinting.

  “Yes, Master Nakht,” I said, approaching my former teacher. When I reached the far side of the astronomer’s desk, I dipped my head in respect and said, “You look well, sir.”

  Nakht laughed. “Your eyes must be aging more quickly than mine,” he said, waving a hand toward a pair of benches that faced each other on the other side of the room.

  “Are you unwell?” I asked, noting that Nakht seemed shorter than when I had seen him less than a year ago. His face looked pinched as well, and his eyes had grown heavy lids and were supported by dark circles.

  Nakht laughed again, shaking his head as he walked toward the benches. “I forget, Suti, that you actually listen when people speak. No, no, I am well. At least for a man who should be dead.” He held up a hand quickly. “I am not about to rest from life, nor have I been told by any of the physicians that I should make plans for my purification.”

  As Nakht settled on the bench, I went to a table that stood against the wall. There was a brown, wide-mouth jar. I peered inside, but, in the dimly lighted room I couldn’t see what the jar held. I dipped my head to smell.

  “Beer,” Nakht said. “I find it helps me sleep. When I was younger, sleeping in the daylight never bothered me, but lately I find it difficult to fall asleep and harder still to stay asleep. The beer aids me.”

  I dipped a wooden cup into the jar and carried the drink to Nakht. “You could rest during the night, Master Nakht,” I said. “Your apprentices could bring you their drawings in the morning. You could correct them from memory.”

  Nakht sipped at his beer and nodded. “But what if I thought that I found an error, but the drawing was correct?”

  I waited. Nakht often asked questions that he intended to answer. Lord Imhotep, on the other hand, was reluctant to answer questions. (As I grew older, I leaned toward Lord Imhotep’s method of teaching. Occasionally, a student will supply an answer that, while incorrect, casts the question in a new light.)

  “What if a star moved, one that had never moved before?” Nakht said now.

  “Has that ever happened?” I asked, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees.

  Nakht shrugged. “I was taught that the stars always follow the same path. I have never found it to be untrue.”

  “Then?” I said, unsure whether I was missing the point of Nakht’s comment or his reasoning had wandered into the mists of old age.

  Nakht drained the cup and handed it to me. “I always drink five.”

  As I refilled the cup, Nakht said, “What news do you have?”

  “We fought and won a single battle that has ended the war,” I said, knowing that Nakht would have no interest in the dramatic flourishes I added for others.

  “Yes, Megiddo,” Nakht said. “We have heard. Pharaoh Thutmose sent messengers with the news. They arrived only a few days ago. You didn’t know about them?” Nakht asked, looking at me from over the brim of his cup. “They would have left before you… ”

  “I left the morning after the battle,” I said. “But I turned west to Gaza, and then I stayed a few days in Men-Nefer.”

  “Ah,” Nakht said, extending the quickly emptied cup to me. “And why are you here and not with Lord Amenhotep? Has he found a new assistant?”

  I refilled the cup and gave it to my former master.

  “My time is still given to Lord Amenhotep. He has asked me to solve a mystery,” I said, watching Nakht closely. I wondered if he truly drank to aid his sleep or if he was trying to wash away memories.

  As Nakht brought the cup to his lips, he paused and said, “You have a mystery, you say. Well, I have one as well, young Suti.” He set the cup on the bench beside him and leaned toward me. “Have you ever heard of the darkness by day?”

  I shook my head.

  “During my restless days I have been reading through ancient records,” Nakht said. “I am afraid to read some of them — the papyrus is little more than crumbs held together by dust. We have been keeping records for a very long time, Suti,” Nakht said, his back straightening with pride.

  “At first I looked at the ancient papyri simply to take pleasure in the thought that my ancestors — the royal astronomers who came before me, not my actual parents and grandparents — had been watching and carefully observing the stars for so long. It makes me feel part of a never-ending procession, Suti. Probably something that matters more as I grow closer to resting from this life.

  “But” — he picked up his cup and took a small sip — “I found a report by an astronomer named Pashdet. He served the Two Lands almost four hundred years ago. Think of it, Suti! Few of us in the Two Lands see fifty floods, many see only half that many. We live long enough to cut our sidelock, take a woman, and create a child. And then, a few floods come and go and we are gone. Another generation is born, reproduces, and dies. Four in a hundred years. Sixteen in four hundred. This Pashdet would have been my great-grandfather four times over.”

  I smiled, happy to be with someone whose mind dealt so easily with numbers.

  “I wander, like Khonsu when he hides,” Nakht said, lifting his beer to salute the night moon.

  “Well, this Pashdet wrote of a darkness by day. At first I thought he was talking about his own eyes fading. Something I understand.” Nakht shrugged. “But he continued to record, in his own hand, for several years, so it wasn’t blindness. And he was frightened, Suti. These are astronomical records … numbers, dates, the rising of Sopdet, the passing of decans, the faint movement of unknown stars along the horizon. But this ‘darkness by day’ frightened Pashdet so much that he started to write about Horus l
osing his eye, and about Seth defeating Re!

  “Imagine, Suti! In astronomical records, danger couched among the dry figures like a viper hiding in fallen branches.” Nakht lifted the beer cup to his mouth and took a long drink. Lowering the cup, he extended it to me once more.

  “Curious, I looked through older records,” Nakht said as I handed him the beer cup once more.

  “There were three other references to this ‘darkness by day.’ I don’t have records of the procession of rulers, and the dates are recorded by the reigns of the different pharaohs, so I had trouble determining when these ‘darknesses’ arrived. But then I realized that I could simply count how many times the records noted Sopdet’s rise to herald the flood.”

  I felt my leg bouncing in excitement. I rested a hand on my knee to still the movement, but the energy continued to course through me as I listened.

  “This ‘darkness by day’ is not as regular as Khonsu or Re, but if I have counted correctly, it arrives every three hundred and seventy-five floods. Sometimes a year earlier, sometimes a year later.”

  “And how many floods have passed since Pashdet recorded it?” I asked.

  “Three hundred and seventy-five,” Nakht said, raising the beer cup to his lips. “The darkness is imminent.”

  ***

  I sat with my former master for another hour, exchanging news until his eyelids began to grow heavy.

  As I left him, my thoughts returned to the looming ‘darkness by day,’ then they flitted to the sad news he had given me about the death of Queen Satiah’s infant son, and then they scurried to the impossible disappearance of Queen Menwi — for Nakht had assured me that the missing queen had not arrived in Waset.

  But as soon as my attention settled on one of the unsettling mysteries, it jumped to another question.

  Why is Kebu fleeing instead of returning to the army?

  What is in the letter from my master than disturbed Lord Useramen so much?