Suti and the Broken Staff Page 18

The queen’s voice turned angry, and I imagined Wepwawet’s claws tearing at her heart, leaving cloven wounds behind as the Opener of the Way carried away her son.

  “Simple scribe,” she said, turning her attention back to me. “Why are you here? My husband has sent messengers to tell me of his victory. He has sent me gold taken from the chariot of the King of Kadesh to show his love. Why did he send a scribe?”

  I had never faced an advancing army. I had never heard the whistle and whirr of arrows falling from the sky. I had never seen malice in an enemy’s eyes as he raised a club or knife. Bravery had as little meaning to me as did the idea of flying, so it was ignorance, not courage, that raised me to my feet, that guided my hand into my myrrh-soaked bag and that propelled me toward the sad shadow that was Queen Satiah.

  I heard the queen’s attendants gasp in unison as I approached the mourning queen. I heard the two guards who stood by the doorway drag the handles of their spears across the floor as they leaned forward on the balls of their feet.

  Queen Satiah, one hand holding a tear-soaked linen cloth to her eyes, looked up at me, her eyes moving to the object that I held in my hands.

  “I am searching for Lord Imhotep and for Queen Menwi,” I said, pausing a step from the seated queen. “They left the army before it reached Megiddo. I followed their tracks south to Gaza and then to Men-Nefer, but I have not found them. They have disappeared, Queen Satiah.”

  I saw her lips stop trembling. Her glistening eyes widened in curiosity.

  “Disappeared?” she said. Her voice was soft, matching my whisper, but suddenly more interested.

  I nodded solemnly, wondering if I heard a trace of joy in her voice.

  “All that I have found … my only clue to their disappearance is this,” I said, extending my hand.

  Her eyes focused on the strange sandal.

  Her lips formed words, but no sound came from her mouth.

  Staring at her face, I read the three syllables formed by her quivering lips: Tha -noo-nee. And now her eyes, damp and tired, turned hopeful.

  “What did he say?” she asked, the words sliding from her tongue like the warning hiss of a snake.

  “Thanuny did not speak to me,” I said. “I hope that you will.”

  Now her eyes grew wide and she looked from the sandal to my face and then to the guards who stood by her door.

  “I do not know the owner of this sandal,” she said loudly and then, sitting back in her chair, she raised a hand, the limp fingers hanging toward the floor. With a flick of her wrist, she snapped the fingers up, dismissing me and my strange sandal.

  “I am in mourning. Bother me no more,” she said.

  Strong hands gripped my shoulders and once more I was dragged from the presence of a queen.

  I Create Ma’at Anew

  Unforgiving stone scraped my back. The joints of my shoulders strained. The dark-screened doorway slid past my eyes, and then the guards stopped walking. Grunting, they twisted in unison and threw me against the far wall of the hall.

  The shortest of the two looked at me with disgust and then spat on my face.

  “You’re lucky Pharaoh Thutmose isn’t here,” the other said, kicking my stomach.

  The kick knocked the wind from my lungs and pushed the bread and fish I eaten at lunch into my throat. I covered my mouth with my free hand, swallowed sour bile, and curled into a tight ball to protect myself.

  “Stay away from the queen,” the first guard said, kicking at my head.

  I saw the foot approaching. I knew that I could block it, but I thought it would anger the soldier and bring more kicks. I turned my head slightly so that the foot struck the back of my head instead of my face.

  The blow landed hard and I saw a glittering field of flashes.

  As I curled into a tighter ball, I wondered whether other guards would see them, and, if they did, whether they would rescue me or join in the attack.

  Another kick struck my right arm. I heard a brittle snap and the owner of the foot cursed. Then, as another kick struck my side, I heard a high-pitched scream: “Stop it! You’re hurting him!”

  Recognizing the voice, I raised my head from the floor and, looking through spread fingers, saw Ipu running down the corridor.

  The guards turned to her, saw that she was wearing fine linen of a royal attendant, not the coarse cloth of a slave, and paused their beating.

  “She serves Queen Merti,” I said with the little breath that remained in my lungs. “Don’t hurt her.”

  Twisting to a seated position, I grabbed at the guards. The nearest one glared down at me and spat at me once more before turning to walk back into Queen Satiah’s chambers.

  As the guards walked away, Ipu knelt beside me.

  “They hurt you!” she said. “Your nose is bleeding,” she said, her fingers touching my cheeks and then moving to trace the line of my arm. “And your arm is scraped. Why were they kicking you, Suti? What happened?”

  I gave her a moment to satisfy herself that she had catalogued all my injuries, and then, placing my hands on the floor, I arched my back slowly, my focus on my stomach, which still felt the impact of the guard’s foot. Nodding to myself, I swallowed. The passageway proved to be clear.

  “I don’t think my injuries are serious,” I told Ipu, sounding more confident than I felt.

  “But you are bleeding,” she said pointing a finger close to my nose.

  I touched my upper lip, and then, feeling a warm stickiness, I withdrew my hand and studied the red stain on my finger. I probed my teeth with my tongue and then pushed my lower jaw to the left and right.

  Nothing hurt or felt loose.

  I sniffed, and then, gaining confidence, I scrunched my nose and took a deep breath. Smelling and tasting blood, I touched my nose and explored its bridge.

  “Nothing is out of place,” I said, smiling to show Ipu that I felt no pain.

  I rolled onto my hands and knees, waiting a moment to see if I would observe any more of the strange light flashes, then got to my feet.

  “See, Ipu, I am fine,” I said. “Thank you for stopping them. That was very brave.”

  “Why were they kicking you?”

  “I think they are angry with the gods for taking Prince Amenemhat, and they can’t kick the gods, so they decided to kick me.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Ipu said.

  “No, it doesn’t,” I agreed. “But it doesn’t have to make sense. I am sure it made them feel better.” I closed my eyes for a moment as a brief wave of dizziness made my vision swirl. It passed quickly, leaving me curious.

  “Did the walls wobble?” I asked Ipu.

  She frowned. “No.”

  “So I made the walls swirl, but for me alone,” I said to myself, smiling at the thought. “I changed the world for a moment.”

  “I think the kick to your head is what changed the world,” Ipu said.

  I put a hand on her shaved head. I thought about squatting to bring my face to her level. Then, imagining her alarm if I lost my balance and fell, I reconsidered. “Ipu, your insight is precious. Thank you for helping me realign my world with yours.”

  Ipu looked at me with mild alarm.

  “Now, wise Ipu, what brought you down this corridor at this moment allowing you to save me from further beating?”

  “I was looking for you, and then I heard the men,” she said.

  “Looking for me?”

  She nodded, a smile curling onto her face. “I have a message for you,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper.

  I felt dizzy again as I realized that the message must be from Queen Merti.

  “In the garden there is a tree with pink flowers,” she said, her forehead furrowed as she recalled the memorized message. “It is in the corner where Re goes to hide. Behind it is a ladder.”

  She stopped talking and reviewed her words for a moment and then smiled.

  “There is a ladder behind the tamarisk tree,” I said, deciphering her words. “Ah,” I s
aid, “and is there a time when the ladder is there?”

  “Oh,” Ipu said. “I forgot that part. It is there at night.”

  “All night? Every night?”

  “I don’t know,” Ipu said. “But she said that it would be there tonight at the same time that Khonsu was in the garden at Men-Nefer.”

  “Thank you, Ipu, I understand,” I said. My heart began to beat faster, as if it could persuade the slow minutes to match its rapid march and so bring me to the garden more quickly.

  ***

  Re’s parting red glow slowly yielded to Khonsu’s pearly light, and the million stars of night winked into existence, finding their place once more against Nut’s dark belly. The songbirds settled into their nests. A pair of mourning doves lowered their feathered shoulders to squeeze into an opening behind the cap of one of the pillars that surrounded the garden. The heavier, buzzing insects of the day returned to their secret lairs, as spindly, humming mosquitoes took to the air.

  Standing silently by the tamarisk tree along the southwestern wall of the palace garden, I waited.

  Slowly, the air shed its heat. The greens of the garden bled into grey and then black. The stone walls grew more formidable, and, from inside the palace, the sound of footsteps — no longer competing with the changing guards and the hurrying servants and the shuffling priests — trailed hollow echoes.

  Ears trained on the rooftop, I tried to still my swirling thoughts: Kebu’s broad, scarred back disappeared as his chariot hurtled through the desert; Lord Imhotep’s lined face softened and became the face of his grandson, whose eyes stared lifelessly into a foreign sky; Queen Menwi’s round belly parted like the opening doors of the temple, and a swallow emerged, wings beating as it carried the prince’s ka to the Field of Reeds.

  I closed my eyes and tried to center my mind on this moment.

  Something soft brushed against my ankle. Looking down, I saw a black cat, one of many that roamed the palace and garden. Bending to pet the cat’s head, I felt it arch its back and curl its tail around my calf. Responding to my touch, the cat lowered its head and rubbed its cheek against the leather of my sandal.

  The motion pulled my thoughts to Queen Satiah’s reaction to the strange sandal. I was sure that she had mouthed Thanuny’s name, yet she had denied knowing the injured guard.

  The cat moved on, and I straightened, my bruised stomach complaining. I adjusted my feet to place them directly beneath my shoulders. Breathing deeply and then slowly emptying my chest, I crossed my arms behind me and assumed my thinking pose. As I adjusted my posture, I saw a small shadow move across the flat roof of the palace and, heart singing, I remembered why I was standing here in the garden.

  Turning to the ladder, I raised a leg and placed my foot on the first rung.

  I lifted my other leg to the next rung and, looking skyward, I thought of Pentu’s ladder of truth.

  I wondered what truth I would find on the palace roof.

  ***

  As I pulled myself onto the roof, Ipu greeted me with a single finger raised to her lips.

  Nodding understanding, I got to my feet, and, suppressing the urge to look around the roof, I waited for her to direct me.

  Ipu got on her hands and knees and peered over the side of the roof. Satisfied that no one had followed me, she got back to her feet and took my hand.

  “You know that the astronomers sit on the roof across the garden every night, don’t you?” I whispered, glancing across the opened courtyard to the opposite roof.

  Ipu responded by holding a finger to her lips again.

  “Sorry,” I said so lightly that I couldn’t hear my own voice.

  Ipu led me to a small canopy raised over a screen erected at the back of the roof. The dark cloth, I realized, would hide our backlit silhouettes from the astronomers’ view.

  When we got closer to the canopy, I saw the queen sitting on a low stool, her hands clasped and resting on her lap. She wore a dark, ankle-length robe with wide sleeves. Her shaved head looked delicate and fragile without her formal black wig, and her bare feet, pressed solidly against the stone roof, looked as perfectly formed as the formal statues I had watched the sculptors carve for Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s temple.

  An empty stool waited beside her.

  “Scribe Suti,” she said.

  I knelt, but as my knee touched the roof, she patted the stool beside her.

  “We are in darkness now, Suti. Come sit beside me and tell me what you have learned.”

  Her presence scattered my thoughts like Re’s rays chasing the million stars of night, and I wondered how I would recapture my thoughts and present them to her. Lowering myself to the stool, I kept my eyes turned downward in respect.

  “You may look at me, Scribe Suti,” she said.

  I took a deep breath and raised my eyes to her.

  Filtered by the linen canopy, Khonsu’s pale light cast a luminous shadow over Queen Merti, making her light skin appear to glow from within. She sat erect, but at ease — her face turned to me, her soft smile unforced, her eyes intelligent and somber. Her lips, slightly parted, offered a welcoming smile.

  As I studied her face, comparing it to the memory that I carried in my heart — and visited in my dreams — her mouth turned into a frown and her eyes widened in alarm. Before I could turn to look behind me to see what caused her fear, her hands rose from her lap and reached for my face.

  Her fingertips danced on my cheek, their touch so light that I was unsure if I was feeling them or if I was imagining the soft sensation.

  “Ipu said that you were attacked, but I didn’t know that you suffered so much harm,” she said.

  I wanted to close my eyes, to concentrate only on her touch, to commit this wonder to a memory so powerful that I would be able to beckon it each night and every morning. Instead I looked on my queen and said, “It was nothing, Queen Merti. I should not have talked with Queen Satiah. Her son has just died and she is in mourning.”

  “And so her guards kicked you,” Queen Merti said, her fingers now tracing the bump that had risen on the side of my head.

  (I should have thanked the guard for his anger. Without the injury, would I have ever felt her touch?)

  Her touch — the silken slide of perfumed oil, the airy brush of a feather, the cool wonder of water, the waking kiss of Re’s morning light — swept over me and through me. I clenched my hands into fists to keep them from reaching for her delicate wrists. I ached to feel her soft skin with my own fingers, but I remembered how she had withdrawn from my touch in Men-Nefer.

  Finished exploring my injuries (how I wished that more kicks had landed, giving my queen reason to prolong this moment), Queen Merti traced the line of my jaw for a lingering moment and then lowered her hands from my face. She returned her hands to her lap and her eyes, moving slowly from my face to my chest, to my stomach, to my kilt, settled at last on her hands.

  We sat in silence (I savoring the moment and longing to discover the next).

  “Queen Merti,” I said at last, my voice strangely thick, “I…” I stopped myself, worried that the words I found in my heart would turn the moment sour if I released them with my tongue.

  “Queen Merti,” I began again, gathering my strength, turning my thoughts from unseemly desire to my duty, “I need your help. I have learned that Kebu did find Queen Menwi and Lord Imhotep. But he is not with them now. I don’t know where they are, but I believe that Kebu does.”

  She nodded. “Then you must ask him.”

  “I will,” I said. “But he has fled to Ta-Seti. I must follow him there and find him.”

  “How can I help with that?” she asked, leaning toward me.

  “Not with that…,” I began to explain. “When I talked with Queen Satiah, she was sitting in darkness. It seemed strange. I know that she mourns her son’s death, but…” I shook my head, trying to find the words to describe my unease.

  “Her heart aches,” Queen Merti said.

  “I understand,” I said. “But
there was more than sorrow. There was anger and … guilt.”

  “The heart…” Queen Merti sighed. “My own refuses to obey my commands.” She reached over to me and placed a soft hand on mine. “Does your heart obey your commands?”

  I looked at her hand atop mine and then, cautiously, eagerly, I looked up to her eyes. She was watching me closely, her eyes both hopeful and frightened. As if looking into still waters, I saw myself reflected in her eyes. I wondered if she saw herself in mine.

  The dizziness that I had felt in the palace hallways returned, and suddenly I felt heat spread through my body to my hand and then to hers.

  Gathering strength, that heat grew into a flame that swept across the gentle bridge of our hands.

  My heart began to pound as I imagined the space devoured by that fire. I imagined leaning to her and placing my cheek on hers. And then my thoughts took flight and I imagined a future where I would wake beside my queen and, taking her hand, walk in the pale light before Re arrived with his unforgiving heat.

  (Oh, I imagined so much more … vague, unformed, fantastic dreams that I knew could never be. And yet those evanescent visions filled me with hope and longing and desire. They took root within my body. They flooded my mind and they seized my spirit. They are with me still, as vaporous as ever. As beguiling as ever.)

  And then, as my heart sang its siren song, cold reasoning raised its unfeeling head.

  I thought: Ma’at!

  Now the beating of my heart became the hammering of a mallet that carved out a different future.

  My mind (How could I ever come to trust it again?) argued that I must offer her trust, not love.

  I thought: She is a queen. I am a scribe. I cannot be with her. To think otherwise would place her immortal ka in danger.

  I knew: It is the way of ma’at.

  Tears swelled in my eyes.

  Queen Merti placed her other hand on mine. Her touch made the fire blaze and I felt a foreshadowing of an inferno that could engulf us.

  She traced gentle circles on my skin with her thumb.

  I leaned into the fire and the heat.

  I raised my hand and cupped her cheek.