Suti and the Broken Staff Read online

  I Tell Geb’s Tale

  “What has Geb told you?” Anun asked, walking toward me on legs grown stiff from sitting by the well.

  His voice chased the chill that had crept over me. Turning to Anun, I blinked in surprise to discover that Re was approaching the western sky, setting it afire with a strange purple blaze.

  Trained by Lord Imhotep to keep inventories during the construction of Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple, I had made a mental list of chariots, horses, and people.

  Bored from waiting through the afternoon, the other charioteers gathered around me.

  “There are six horses missing,” I said. “They were taken toward Gaza,” I said, pointing south.

  Anun turned to look at the empty road.

  “How can you know that?” Pairy asked.

  I ran a few paces down the southern road. “Here,” I said, pointing to the palm branches I had placed by the tracks of a single chariot and eight horses.

  I squatted by a cluster of hoof prints. Pointing to each individual print, I said, “There are six different tracks overlapping here. Each is a little different.”

  Anun nodded agreement. “I have heard that Medjay trackers can do this,” he said.

  Although I was happy to hear Anun accept my findings, I was disappointed. I had never heard of Medjay trackers sorting out such a jumble of prints.

  Hoping to impress him, I ran to another set of prints. “These are deeper,” I said, raising my voice to show that this was significant. I paused a moment until the men had gathered around me. “The horses were bearing more weight. The chariot! And look at this!” I showed them the straight grooves left by the chariot itself. “See how wide these are? I compared them to the tracks left by your chariots. These are almost twice as wide.”

  “The queen’s chariot!” Anun said.

  I nodded, excited to see him agree with my thought.

  Suddenly, Anun looked confused.

  I smiled.

  “Exactly, Commander Anun. If the horses were taken south, tethered behind the queen’s chariot, then the three chariots pulled by those horses must still be here. There are tracks leading around the trees behind the well.”

  “Ahmose, Meryre, check the trees,” Anun said.

  As the two charioteers ran toward the trees, I turned to Anun. “I think that one of the chariots will be Wah’s, taken from the clearing after he was killed. Another will be Benia’s,” I said naming the charioteer who was the last guard left with Queen Menwi and Lord Imhotep. “The last chariot must be Kebu’s.”

  Anun lowered his head. “But where are the people? Where is the queen?”

  “How many can the queen’s chariot carry?” I asked, although I had reasoned that only one person capable of driving a chariot had left Yehem. Otherwise they would have taken more chariots.

  My greater question was this: Why had they driven toward Gaza and not back to the safety of the army? Did something dangerous lie between here and the army? Or was someone injured and in need of the medical care in Gaza?

  Instead of answering me, Anun looked up the road at the scattering of palm leaves I had laid further up the road.

  “Do the tracks tell you anything else?”

  With Pairy and Aperia following us, I led Anun north on the road.

  “Here,” I said, pointing to more palm leaves. “The leaves that are upside down show the direction of the older tracks. Now,” I squatted to see the tracks more clearly in the dying light. “These tracks are the oldest. They are of the wide chariot…”

  “The queen’s,” Anun interrupted.

  “Yes, and Benia’s,” I said. I twisted to point toward the well. “They lead in that direction. Then the one with the narrow wheels,” I paused to give him space to show he understood.

  “Benia’s,” Anun said, his voice impatient.

  “Yes, Commander. Then Benia’s chariot returned to the road and headed back toward Aruna. It stopped over there. You can see multiple, overlapping prints where his horses stood. He stopped because another war chariot had approached.” I waited a moment, then when he looked puzzled, I said, “It would have been Wah’s chariot, stolen from him at the campsite where he was killed.

  “I think they talked, and then Benia continued driving his chariot toward Aruna,” I said.

  “But the man driving Wah’s chariot would have been the man who killed Wah,” Anun protested. “Benia would have recognized Wah’s chariot and fought the driver.”

  “But he didn’t. Perhaps the charioteer was known to Benia. Or perhaps he showed Benia the gold armband he had taken from Wah. Perhaps he told Benia that he had encountered Wah and that Wah needed help.” I shook my head, wishing Geb’s whispers had told me more.

  “Benia’s chariot only went a few paces,” I said, walking the road to show Anun. “Here it stopped. Then, look here. These spots are drops of blood.”

  “What happened?” Pairy asked from behind us.

  “I don’t know. The other chariot turned sideways in the road and then turned once more to head toward the well.”

  “He shot Benia from behind,” Anun said.

  “Which left no one to protect Queen Menwi except Lord Imhotep and his hemet Akila,” I said.

  Anun and I looked at each other for a hopeful moment, remembering the stories of Imhotep’s powerful magic but also recalling the man himself — narrow-shouldered, aged, walking with the help of a heavy wooden staff, its length carved in the form of entwining snakes.

  “He called fire from the sky the night Pharaoh Hatshepsut joined her father in his tomb,” I said, recounting the story everyone in the Two Lands knew.

  “Scribe,” Anun said, “Wah was a soldier. Benia was a soldier. If they could not stop this assassin…”

  “The chariots will tell us more, Commander Anun,” I said, wondering if they would tell us of tragedy.

  I felt another chill and thought for a moment that Thoth had returned to tell me more. Then I realized that the chill was from the air, which was bleeding itself of Re’s heat. I looked toward the well, wondering if the charioteers had started a campfire.

  Ahmose and Meryre had emerged from the woods and were jogging toward us.

  “We found them,” Ahmose said as he and Meryre slowed to a stop. “There were three of them as the scribe predicted. Two are ours, from the maryannu. The other has several quivers tied to it.”

  “Kebu’s?” Anun wondered aloud.

  Meryre nodded. “I think so. There are a few arrows left behind and they are longer than ours,” he said.

  “Medjay arrows,” Ahmose said in confirmation.

  As we looked at each other, wondering why the chariots had been left behind, I heard the chuffing of horses and the wooden creak of chariot wheels approaching from the north.

  I Meet Turo, Who Is Not Dead

  The all-seeing eye of Horus winked in and out of view from the triangular red pennant that fluttered from a thin pole tied to the chariot that rolled to a stop before us.

  “Yanhamu!” Anun said, recognizing the charioteer as the driver for General Djehuty, commander of our army. He raised a hand in welcome but, seeing Yanhamu’s downturned mouth, Anun held his words of welcome.

  Once the chariot had stopped, Yanhamu motioned for Aperia and Meryre to come to him. Then he turned and, placing one hand on the rail of the chariot, he jumped awkwardly to the ground.

  Curious, I followed the charioteers. When we reached the back of Yanhamu’s chariot, I saw a man curled on his side on the floor of the chariot.

  “It is Turo,” Yanhamu said, sadness in his voice. “Help him to the shade.”

  Aperia sat on the edge of the chariot floor beside Turo, whose back, I saw now, was crisscrossed with bruises and welts. I stepped closer, curious why a charioteer had been whipped and then sent to us. As Turo groaned and fell against Aperia, I saw a raw gash the length and width of the edge of a hand on Turo’s back just below his left shoulder.

  Turo had been stabbed with a spear, a punishme
nt given to thieves or to those who assault officials.

  It was a recent wound. The skin around it was angry and swollen. Blood still wept from the cut.

  Meryre saw the wound as well. “Why did they do that? Turo is no criminal.”

  Aperia shook his head. He leaned close to Turo’s ear and said, “Turo, let us help you to your feet. There is shade and water. Come, Turo.”

  “Help them,” I heard Anun say. Turning to see if he was talking to me, I saw Pairy and Ahmose shake themselves loose from the ground and begin to run to us.

  Backing away to give them room to help the wounded man, I turned and joined Commander Anun and Yanhamu.

  As I reached them, I heard Anun ask, “Why was Turo punished? He is a maryannu, Yanhamu. We rode together from Waset, all the length of the river road. I shared his campfire. He is a good man, a brave man. Why was he beaten and stabbed?”

  Yanhamu sighed. “When Kebu didn’t return this morning, rumors began to spread: Queen Menwi had been killed by raiders … Queen Menwi had died giving birth in the wilderness … Queen Menwi and her unborn prince had been captured by Hittites … Queen Menwi had been taken by Lord Imhotep to the Field of Reeds…

  “Well, the dust from your departure had barely settled when Turo,” he nodded toward the beaten charioteer who was staggering between Aperia and Pairy toward the well, “came to General Djehuty. He confessed that he had left Queen Menwi instead of staying with her as he had been commanded to do. General Djehuty ordered him held until your return. He hoped you would bring Queen Menwi back safely and all would be well.”

  Anun nodded.

  “However, early this afternoon the men who were guarding Turo beat him and stabbed his shoulder.” Yanhamu held up a hand to forestall Anun’s anger. Leaning close to Anun, he said, “I know, he was treated like a common criminal, but — hear this, Anun — it is what Turo wanted. What he demanded!”

  “What he wanted?” Anun asked.

  “Yes,” Yanhamu said. “The rumors and his imagination overwhelmed him. He feels guilty for abandoning the queen.” He shook his head and then continued, “Turo was not the only guard who abandoned the queen. His friend Satnem was the other. Satnem was killed in the battle.”

  Yanhamu lowered his voice to a whisper. I had to lean close to hear his words. “Well, Turo learned that Satnem died when he fell from his chariot and was trampled by our own horses. To Turo it was clear that the gods had thrown Satnem from his chariot — what maryannu would fall from his chariot? — and that the gods had led the horses over his body. Turo is sure that Satnem was punished by the gods for abandoning the queen.

  “Turo is convinced that Satnem will wander Duat forever and that he faces the same fate.” Yanhamu raised a hand to clutch an ivory amulet of Bakha.

  “What he says makes sense,” Yanhamu said.

  Commander Anun lowered his head in agreement.

  Yanhamu continued: “Recognizing his fate, Turo begged the guards to lash him and then he insisted that they pierce his shoulder blade. When the guards hesitated, he told them that the pain would drive the evil from his heart, making it light for Ma’at’s scales. Then, with the spear still lodged in his shoulder, he begged them to kill him.

  “He said he had to rest from life while his heart was light, before he did something shameful.”

  I saw Anun nod solemnly.

  I was not trained as a priest, so I did not know if Turo’s reasoning was true. It made sense that a warrior would believe that pain would ease the path through Duat.

  As the words settled over us, we turned to look at the well where the charioteers were offering Turo water and helping him to sit in the shade of the palm trees.

  “The soldiers were arguing about Turo’s demand to be killed when Lord Amenhotep arrived,” Yanhamu said as we watched the charioteers. “He intervened. Then he persuaded General Djehuty to send Turo to you so that Lord Amenhotep’s scribe can question him.” Yanhamu shook his head in exasperation. “To tell the truth, Anun, I think General Djehuty just wanted to get Turo away from the other charioteers before his grief and guilt infected them.”

  I cleared my throat at the mention of Lord Amenhotep’s scribe. When Yanhamu was finished speaking, he looked at me.

  I said, “I am Suti, Lord Amenhotep’s scribe.”

  Yanhamu cocked his head and looked at me, then at Anun.

  “He is,” Anun said.

  “I thought he was your servant,” Yanhamu said, his eyes turning back to me and studying my face and then my kilt, looking for proof that I was truly a scribe.

  I did not have my basket with my brushes and ink and sheets of papyrus, so, I knelt and scratched in the dirt. I drew a circle and placed a dot in the middle: the symbol for Re. Then I drew a rectangle with seven short lines rising from it: a senet board (which we use as a symbol for everlasting, which is easily understood if you have played the game). I added a rough outline of a scarab beetle and then drew an oval around it.

  There! I thought. The throne name of Pharaoh Thutmose — Men-Kheper-Re, Everlasting is the Manifestation of Re.

  I wiped my hand on my shendyt and pulled my shoulders back, happy with the shenu I had drawn. I looked to Anun and Yanhamu. They were exchanging smiles, pleased with my work.

  “Yes, you are a scribe,” Yanhamu said.

  At that moment, the horses of Yanhamu’s chariot, tired of waiting with the weight of the chariot tugging at their necks, whinnied.

  “I forgot,” I said to myself, “they found the chariots.”

  I heard Yanhamu ask “What chariots?” but I was already running toward the trees.

  I Find a Splinter

  When I reached the edge of the small grove, I realized that Anun had not followed me. With the shadows growing heavier, I was reluctant to leave the charioteers to search the woods by myself.

  I turned and called back to Commander Anun who was still standing with Yanhamu.

  When my voice reached him, Anun looked up.

  “I want to look at the chariots,” I shouted, hoping that the loudness of my voice would frighten away flying snakes, teeth-baring hyenas, and other creatures that emerge at dusk. Although I had little hope that my voice would chase spiders — I do not think the army of Neith has ears.

  I bounced from leg to leg as I watched Anun walk — did he not see that the light was failing? — to the well. He spoke to the men there and then he, Yanhamu, and Pairy began to walk toward me.

  Worried about losing the light, I turned and, studying the ground — where the tracks of the three chariots were apparent from a line of small stones slightly dislodged from their resting place, and by leaves of grass broken by the passing weight — I hurried around the trees and then into the shadowed grove.

  It was darker amid the trees, and I had to drop to my hands and knees and scurry along like a dog with my nose to the ground just to see the faint tracks.

  I was new to this.

  (Since that first attempt at tracking, I have learned that the nose can track as well as the eyes. In some cases, fingers are better trackers than eyes. At other times, the ears are the best guide. Even thoughts can point the way when eyes, ears, nose, or fingers fail.)

  And so it was by accident that my fingers found a clue to the disappearing track. It was a black feather. I could tell by its clean tip and unruffled barbs that it was freshly fallen.

  I was sitting on my haunches studying the feather when the charioteers caught up with me.

  “Vultures,” I said, holding up the feather for them.

  I got to my feet and — back bent to study the ground — I followed the overturned leaves and slight depressions left by the chariot wheels.

  But as I walked deeper in the woods, the trees seemed to crowd together, as if hiding a secret.

  And then insects materialized, taking form from the twilight shadows. They buzzed at my ears and they swarmed about my eyes.

  I stood and waved my hands at a cloud of them. Dodging my hands, they moved slightly away from
me, as if beckoning me forward. And so I followed them.

  The buzzing grew louder.

  I paused and, eyes blinking at the smell, I breathed in the awful scent of rotting meat and dung rising from beyond a cluster of bushes.

  Holding my breath, I parted the bushes and found the source of the buzzing and the stink.

  A body, its stomach torn open, lay beneath a cloud of feeding flies.

  I felt a body press close to me and heavy breath fell on my shoulders. For an instant I imagined that it was Wepwawet coming to claim the unfortunate ka of the body. I waited for his claws to rake across my shoulder, but instead I felt the callused hand of Commander Anun who asked, “Who is it”

  “It is not Queen Menwi, commander,” I said, wondering, even as I spoke, how I knew it, since beasts had eaten away the soft part that lies between the legs, devouring the obvious clue of the body’s gender.

  I stepped close to the corpse, keeping my lips pressed together to guard myself from the flies. The legs of the body were thick, the knees prominent. “It is a man,” I said.

  “It is the work of Seth!” Pairy said as he crowded in behind Anun and Yanhamu.

  “No doubt,” I said. I held the black feather aloft and then let it twirl to the ground. “But he was aided by vultures and jackals.”

  I backed away from the body.

  Turning to Anun, I said, “Did Benia have any scars? Can you tell if this is his body?”

  Anun looked at the face. The eyes were gone, the lips eaten away. Even the toes had been devoured.

  Anun shook his head.

  “Was he taller than I am?” I asked.

  “He was taller, and heavier,” Pairy answered.

  Gathering my courage, I lowered myself to the ground and lay beside the body. Making sure that my feet were aligned with the feet of the dead man, I turned my head. I was staring at the bloodied forehead of the corpse.

  “Do I look taller?” I asked Pairy.

  The charioteer nodded.

  “Very good,” I said getting to my feet. “His skin is the same color as mine, so he is not Kebu. He is smaller than me, so it is not Benia. It is a man, so it is not Queen Menwi or Lord Imhotep’s wife Akila. His shoulders are broad and muscled, so he is not Lord Imhotep.”