Imhotep Read online

  But then sometimes, when Taki was teaching their daughters to cook or to weave linen and Paneb saw Taki’s concentration reflected in the faces of his beloved daughters, he knew that they also communed with the gods.

  She should meet this god, he decided. It was a gift he could give her.

  Tim shook himself free from his reverie and looked across the desert as if finding himself here for the first time.

  He couldn’t walk across the desert, hoping to survive for three or four days, hoping to accidentally stumble across To-She. For the moment, Brian and Diane were beyond his reach. He needed transportation; he needed a better way to communicate than scratching in the sand. He needed a plan.

  He stood, careful to keep his damp fingers from touching the sand.

  He picked up the long brush Paneb had used to draw in the sand. Ahmes hurried to his side to clear away a space in the sand.

  Tim drew a box with a doorway. He pointed to it and looked at Ahmes, who said ‘hewet.’

  He pointed to the house again. “Hewet of Paneb and Ahmes.” Then he placed his hand against his chest and said his name. Ahmes’ mouth gaped open in surprise. He turned to Paneb.

  “Father, he wants to come to our house!”

  “Yes, Ahmes, I think so,” he agreed, wondering if the god had read his mind.

  Tim continued to draw, making a circle to represent the sun and then a dashed line to show it moving across the sky and setting.

  Paneb nodded. “At night. I think, Ahmes,” he said, thinking of Djefi’s orders to be silent, “that the netjrew like to be secretive.”

  “That’s why we never see them, isn’t it,” Ahmes said.

  When dusk came, Paneb sent Ahmes ahead to make sure that no one was along the path to Ineb-Hedj and to tell his mother that she should prepare for a guest.

  They had spent the afternoon teaching the god their language. They took turns drawing in the sand and saying the words to match the pictures. At other times they had acted out ideas, pretending to eat, drink, sleep and ride camels. The god was shy at first, depending on Ahmes and Paneb to decide which words to teach. But when they ran out of ideas, unsure what he wanted to learn, the god pulled an object out of the sack he carried.

  He lifted part of it and showed Paneb and Ahmes that it was filled with pages of papyrus only smoother and whiter.

  The god drew pictures on the pages and asked Ahmes and Paneb to describe them.

  One picture showed two men fighting. Another showed a crocodile attacking a man. Others were less exciting: a boat, a man walking across the desert, the sun rising and setting. He drew a snake, a scorpion, a fire, and a water pot. His drawings were quick and accurate and Paneb, remembering how the god Brian had thrown the spear so deeply into the sand, wondered if there was anything the gods could not do.

  It was dark as Paneb and Tim approached the outskirts of Ineb-Hedj. They were greeted by Ahmes who was out of breath after running from their house back to the edge of town.

  “Mother wouldn’t let me go because I wouldn’t tell her who the guest was,” he said. “I told her it was someone you met at the tomb, but I didn’t know his name. She asked what he did and if he wore a kilt.”

  Paneb smiled. “What did you say?”

  “I told her it was a surprise.”

  Paneb nodded. “It will be, it will be.”

  Tim followed none of the conversation. He knew that the crash course in Egyptian that afternoon was just a start at acclimating his ear to sounds he had never heard before. He hoped that being immersed in the language would make him learn it quickly.

  The moon was in its last quarter, however the stars were bright and it was easy for Tim to follow Paneb through the maze of hard-packed dirt streets of Ineb-Hedj. Mud-brick homes with open doorways and narrow open holes for windows were scattered along the tree-shaded pathways. At some places a group of three or four homes faced each other in a half circle with a rock-lined fire pit in the center of the clearing.

  It seemed that Paneb was leading him through back alleys, avoiding areas where Tim heard the sound of people talking. Once they startled a pen of geese and Paneb’s pace picked up as the geese began to honk. At one house a young goat tethered to a post cried out as they passed.

  Soon they left the crowded area and entered a neighborhood where the pathway was wider and straighter; the houses were larger and set back from the street. Most of them had head-high, mud-brick walls surrounding a small courtyard.

  They followed the street into a small cul-de-sac, where a larger house stood beside two smaller homes. The smell of cooking spices and horseradish coming from the larger home reminded Tim that he hadn’t eaten since they had shared the cinnamon roll.

  They stopped in the dark clearing and Paneb pointed to the small house at their left. “The hewet of Taki’s mother,” he said. Pointing to the other smaller home, he said, “Hewet of Taki’s sister.”

  As Tim nodded his understanding his stomach growled in hunger.

  Paneb smiled at this human-sounding god. “Taki will have prepared food.” He started to pray that the food would meet this god’s approval, but then wondered to whom he should pray. If the god approved, he approved. He had seemed a very generous god so far. Paneb hoped it would continue.

  “I call my wife Taki, but her name is Takhaaenbbastet.”

  Tim repeated the longer name and Paneb nodded approval.

  He pushed open the gateway in the whitewashed wall that enclosed the courtyard and entered, holding the gate open for Tim.

  Directly in front of them was a palm leaf-topped canopy, similar to the one Tim had seen at the tomb, although the poles supporting this frame were sturdier than the ones at the tomb. Beneath the canopy was a pool of water.

  Tim saw Paneb glance up at the dark roof of the low house. A narrow staircase followed the left wall to the flat roof. He could see the outline of two arches on the roof and wondered what they were.

  Paneb led him around the canopy and past the steps. In the dim light coming from the doorway, Tim could see four columns supporting an overhanging roof that provided shade at the front of the house.

  The aroma of garlic and onions mixed with roasted goose grew stronger at the doorstep. Tim wondered if Taki had prepared a special meal because she was expecting a guest or if this was the welcome Paneb received every evening.

  “Welcome to my hewet, Netjer Tim,” Paneb said, reciting the words as a ritual welcome.

  Taki and her oldest daughter had their backs to the doorway when Tim and Paneb entered.

  “Beloved sister, this is Neb Tim,” he said to his wife using the title ‘Lord’ with Tim’s name.

  Taki and her daughter turned to the doorway.

  She wore a long, black wig and a white linen dress with a single strap over her right shoulder. Gold bracelets were on wrist, and a gold amulet with the strange dwarf figure of the household god Bes on it hung around her neck.

  Her daughter, nude except for a linen belt that hung around her waist, its ends hanging by her side, stood beside her. She looked a year or two older than Ahmes, her body still boyish and un-shaped.

  Taki held a platter with a roasted goose on it. Her daughter held a bowl of beans.

  They juggled the bowls when they saw Tim, almost dropping the food onto the house’s hard-packed dirt floor.

  Paneb had seen three gods arrive this week and spent all day with this one. There had been moments when he had forgotten that Tim was a god. He also had gotten used to Tim’s strange looks. He hadn’t thought of the effect Tim would have on his family.

  Paneb, his head shaved, was wearing only the pleated kilt he had put back on before returning to Ineb-Hedj.

  Tim was wearing khaki shorts, a white tee shirt with a drawing of The Family Guy’s Peter Griffin and a safari jacket vest with a dozen pockets and flaps. Although cut short, he had a full head of curly, black hair. And although only average in height for a twenty-first century American, he was half a foot taller than Paneb.

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p; Paneb stepped quickly across the small room and took the roasted goose from Taki and placed it on the low table beside her. His daughter recovered and placed the bowl beside the goose.

  Tim promptly forgot the greeting he had memorized, and said in English, “Good evening, Takhaaenbbastet. Thank you for receiving me.” He blushed when he realized that it made no difference how polite he was because she wouldn’t understand a word he had said. He hoped that his tone and body language would ease her fear.

  Before the confusion could begin to clear, Paneb’s youngest daughter, Hapu, ran crying into the house. She was followed by Ahmes who held a dead scorpion is his hand.

  She held her left arm stiffly in front of her. Even in the dim light from the lamps Taki had lit, Tim could see the red swelling where the scorpion had stung her.

  As Taki bent to take her daughter in her arms and comfort her, Paneb ran to the next room and quickly returned with a knife. He went to Hapu and grasped her arm, preparing to cut open the wound.

  Without thinking, Tim shouted, “Wait!”

  He and Addy had taken first aid courses while planning the trip and had studied treatment for problems that they thought were likely in the desert: heat exhaustion, dehydration, and various animal attacks, including the one Tim feared the most - a camel bite. He knew that a scorpion sting was painful, but less likely to be fatal than whatever Paneb was going to do with that wicked looking knife.

  Paneb had stopped and was watching Tim, his eyes full of fear.

  Tim swung his backpack off his shoulders and squatted beside it. He dug out his first aid kit and opened it. He took out a pack of instant cold compresses and squeezed one of the five cold packs to activate it.

  Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he motioned for Paneb to bring Hapu to him. The girl, astonished at Tim’s appearance, stopped crying when she saw him. With Paneb’s gentle urging she approached Tim.

  “Name?” he asked Paneb in Egyptian.

  “Hapu,” he answered softly.

  “Hapu,” Tim said, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “I know you can’t understand me, but neither could my dog when I talked to him and we got along fine. And I promise I won’t ask you to roll over or jump through a hoop.” He smiled, hoping that his attempt at a calming bedside manner would work.

  He felt Paneb and Taki watching him and thought for a second about the knife in Paneb’s hand.

  He laid the ice pack on his left leg and sat Hapu on his right. Leaning away from her to reach his first aid kit, he tore open a cleansing wipe. He took her injured arm in his hand and gently cleaned the swollen area around the sting mark.

  He took a tube of first aid cream and dabbed some on the sting, spreading it softly.

  “You’re doing great, Hapu. Really brave,” he whispered.

  He tore a small strip of gauze and folded it to make a bandage, which he placed over the sting. Then he wrapped gauze around it to hold the bandage in place.

  “You’ve probably never felt anything this cold,” he told her pointing to the cold compress. He held the ice pack up to her and lifted her hand to it. He nodded encouragement as her hand reached for and then touched the icy pack.

  She jerked her hand away and cried, “Mother, mother!”

  Taki started to step forward, but hesitated, fearful of this man her husband had addressed as ‘lord.’ Tim waved her forward and held the pack up to her. She touched it and jerked away as Hapu had done.

  Tim held the compress against his forearm. “Nefer,” he said, hoping they would understand the word as good instead of beautiful. “Ahhh,” he said, hoping it sounded like a sigh of relief and not pain.

  He felt Ahmes sidled up beside him. The boy touched the cold compress. Instead of jerking back as Taki and Hapu had, he pretended it felt good. “Ahhh,” he said, trying to sound like Tim.

  “Here, Hapu, you try it,” the boy said.

  With her brother holding her hand, Hapu touched the cold compress again.

  “Ahhh,” Ahmes said.

  Hapu giggled and mimicked her brother with a small “ahhh.”

  Tim slowly moved the compress from his arm to Hapu’s.

  “Ahhh,” he said.

  Ahmes put his small hand on the compress and said, “It will help you, Hapu.” He leaned forward and whispered to her, “He is Netjer Tim. He’s very nice. And he’s not scary either.”

  Measuring the Balance of Kemet

  Sitting under the canopy of his boat, Djefi’s thoughts were as dark as the slow moving water.

  He had never seen the River Iteru so low. It had been dropping steadily for seven years, ever since King Djoser had taken the throne and declared himself a living god. There was barely any current to slow Djefi's boat on its upriver voyage to the canal that led to To-She. The trip would be shorter than Djefi expected.

  However, with the water so low, the boatmen had to watch for rocks along the riverbed that might scrape the bottom of the boat. Unless they were ignorant sons of dung beetles, Djefi thought angrily, they would have enough sense to avoid collisions, wood-scraping jolts which could shake the boat enough to cause beer to slop out of a golden cup and onto a fine linen robe.

  Dagi, who had been piloting the boat when it struck submerged rocks, was now nursing open cuts on his back from the lashing Djefi himself had administered. The boatman would have been beaten longer had Djefi not tired from the heat and exertion after ten lashes. The priest could have ordered another crewman to continue the whipping, but Djefi was too exhausted to even listen to the man’s screams.

  And now because of Dagi's carelessness, Djefi, tired and angry, sat in a foul-smelling robe with one less cup of beer available to drink.

  But they would be back at To-She tomorrow, thanks be to Sobek!

  He would be off this swaying boat and back among the shaded pathways of the oasis that he and Sobek called home.

  The two strange gods, if they were gods, would be there by now and Yunet would have met them. Djefi was eager to hear her opinion of them because, even though the chantress lacked the training and delicacy of spirit to be a webt-priest or even a ka-servant, she did have an uncanny ability to see things that fell below Djefi’s elevated view.

  She would know if this Brian was truly a god and Diane a goddess.

  He sighed and stared off into the distance.

  So much was happening.

  Even in To-She, away from the river and isolated from the rumors that ran up and down The Two Lands, Djefi had heard of the unrest caused by the prolonged famine. Kemet was in discord, and now strange gods walk out of Kanakht’s tomb.

  It was too much to be coincidence; Djefi was sure that their appearance had to be related to the famine and to the plans Kanakht had hinted at when Djefi met him at Khmunu.

  What would Yunet think of his meeting with the royal adviser and with Waja-Hur, that shrunken old priest?

  Djefi hadn’t returned to To-She after the meeting because Kanakht had sent him to inspect the tomb. Did the adviser know the gods would appear? Did he have that kind of power, to make gods appear?

  Djefi had so much to discuss with Yunet.

  His meeting with Kanakht and Waja-Hur had taken place almost three weeks ago. He had been summoned by Kanakht to travel up river to Khmunu, where Waja-Hur lived. The ancient priest to the god Thoth seldom traveled anymore.

  The trip, which took more than a week in each direction, had disrupted his planning for the festival at To-She, but even a high priest did not refuse an invitation from the man who was second in power only to King Djoser.

  Kanakht had arrived from the other direction, following the river down from the town of Waset where King Djoser was holding council with priests of Khonsu, Mut and Amon. The harvest season was approaching and, all along the river, everyone knew how meager the results would be. King Djoser was consulting with the priests in hopes of finding a way to restore balance to Kemet.

  “He seeks advice,” Kanakht had said and coughed a wheezing laugh.

  The three men
met in Waja-Hur’s private quarters inside the Temple of Thoth. The room stood by itself away from the dark inner chambers of the small temple. It was little more than a mud-brick shack and as poorly furnished. Niches in the wall were filled with small statues of the gods. There were no windows and only one doorway, through which shadowy light spilled onto the dirt floor.

  Waja-Hur, naked except for a thin linen belt, was little more than a shadow himself. He looked as old as the Two Lands. He stood in a corner, barely visible in the dim light, but reeking of the smell of death. He was overseer of the royal mortuaries, and as his own death approached, he spent more and more time in the embalming chambers.

  Kanakht was half the age of Waja-Hur but still old enough to be Djefi’s father. The royal adviser wore an immaculate white linen robe and a wide, golden pectoral, a symbol of his power. He had served as adviser for King Djoser’s father for much of his life and he spoke of the current king with an off-hand familiarity that came from his years in power.

  “Djoser didn’t seek advice when he decided to call himself ‘Divine of Body.’ But now, when it is clear the gods are offended by his pretentiousness, now he wants me to find a miracle.”

  “It is too late,” Waja-Hur said in a raspy whisper.

  Each year, when the sacred white ibises arrived and the star Sopdet followed golden Re into the morning sky, the river rose like a groom’s staff on his wedding night. It would empty itself over the land for fourteen days. When it returned to its banks, it left behind the moist, black fertile soil that was the gods’ gift to Kemet.

  But for seven years the flood had been no more than a trickle from a spent old man. The water barely overflowed the bank and left behind little more than a damp coating.

  “The Golden Falcon,” Kanakht said, dryly referring to King Djoser by the king’s favorite nickname, “isn’t flying high now. He knows Kemet cannot survive another year of famine. The granaries are empty and this season’s harvest will not fill them. Hunger will creep across the land like jackals from Deshret, stirring up unrest and thoughts of revolt.”