Imhotep (53 page)

“Find
them,” he said to Siamun. “I don’t care what you do with Yunet, but bring the
red-haired woman back to me alive.”

“Unharmed?”
Siamun asked, his eyes glowing.

Djefi
snorted in disgust. 

“You
want her, don’t you?  How can you think of that now?” He shook his
head.  “Have her, I don’t care.  But bring her back to me alive AND
able to talk.

“No,
take them to Saqqara, to the tomb of Kanakht.”

T
he sun seemed to linger on the western
horizon as if Re was resisting his nightly trip through Khert-Neter.  In
the fading light Diane and Yunet shook the sand out of the linen cloth they had
used as a tent, preparing to roll it up so they could resume their trek.

Following
Neswy’s instructions they had walked through the night and early morning. 
He had urged them to travel only at night to save their water and their
strength.  He said they should hide during the daylight under the
dun-colored square of linen he had given them. 

Yunet
had wanted to take camels to make the trip quicker, but Neswy had pointed out
that Siamun would travel faster and they would be more visible sitting high on
a camel.

“I
would go with you, Yunet,” he had said, tears welling in his eyes.  “But I
am of little use anymore.” He looked down at his leg.  Brian had saved his
life when he carried him out of the desert, but his broken leg had not healed
correctly.

“I can
only give you my knowledge.

“You
cannot travel by boat because it will be too easy for Siamun to find you. 
There is no place to hide on the water.  You cannot travel across the
desert because you would lose your way and die.  I am sorry, Yunet,” he
said as she protested, “but it is true.

“But
there is a way.”

He had
led them out from under the trees and pointed to the sky.  “See, there,”
he had said pointing to the horizon.  “Hold your hand like this,” he had
turned his right hand sideways, with the fingers aligned with the
horizon.  “Stretch out your arm and lay your thumb along the
horizon.  Yes, like that.  Now, just above your hand there is a
bright star, brighter than the others.  Do you see it?  Yes? 
Now, turn your hand so the heel is at the horizon and the bright star is along
the side of your small finger.  Look, Yunet, look at the top of your
fingertips.  See the bright star there?  It is the brightest star in
the sky.  It marks the east.

“When
you leave here, follow the canal toward the river until it begins to be
light.  Then you must move into the desert.  Walk into the desert
until you can no longer see the trees.  Then walk some more.  Take
the cloth and stretch it out.  Scatter sand over it and then crawl
underneath it. 

“It
will give you shade and it will hide you.

“When
it grows dark, walk back to the canal.  Always keep the water to your
right.  Take time to bathe and drink.  It will give you
strength.  Walk until the sky begins to grow light, then head back into
the desert to hide.  I know this will seem slow, but you must be
careful.  Djefi will send Siamun after you and there is no better hunter.

“If
you lose your way and cannot get back to the water, then follow that bright
star.  It will lead you east to the river.  Once there, you follow
the river’s flow.  It will take you north to Ineb-Hedj.  Remember,
you must hide during the day, as far from the canal and the river as you
can.  They will look for you along the water.”

He had
hugged her.

“This
will pass, Yunet.  Someday you will be able to return to To-She. 
This evil that Djefi and Siamun have brought will not last.”

T
he first night they had run on nervous
energy, their ears attuned to every sound in the darkness, each of them lost in
her own thoughts.

For
Yunet, the world had shifted, the eternal landscape of the Two Lands changed
forever.  She had been born into a world where order - ma’at -
was the foundation of life. 

The
rhythm of life was immutable. 

Each
day Re appeared in the cloudless eastern skies and each night he entered
Khert-Neter, knowing he would be guided through the darkness and reborn
again.  In the proper season Khnum unleashed the great river to bring life
to the land, rising each year to restore the fields.  Khonsu the wanderer
passed across the sky each night, gliding through the darkness that was the god
Kuk. 

In the
Two Lands that lay between the sky goddess Nut and her brother Geb, the earth
god, each step of life had been taken before, by ancestors and by the gods
themselves.  Deadly quarrels, illicit couplings and strange births, dismemberment
and loving salvation - all had taken place among the gods.  Their
examples guided each man and woman in their daily life.

When
one drank and danced it was as Hathor, Lady of the West, the great cow-headed
goddess of love and fertility, had done since the beginning of time.  Bes,
strange little dwarf with a lion’s mane, aided in childbirth.  Everyone
kept magical amulets, the ankh of life, the sa - magical papyrus scrolls
to protect against the desert sun.

What
she and Diane had done - assaulting the First Prophet of Sobek and
fleeing from their homes in the dead of night - these had never been
done.  Never should be done.

Yunet
knew that they had disturbed ma’at.  She wondered what price they would
pay.

D
iane was euphoric.

A
lifetime of doing what was expected, of accepting her fate with unspoken
resentment, was over.  She felt an exhilaration and lightness that she
wanted to hold onto forever.

She
knew that she had snapped when she had seen Brian tied to the stone chair with
Siamun standing beside him holding his bloody tongue.  She had sunk into
depression, her world black and bleak.  She would have drunk herself to
death, but there had been only beer and wine and her stomach could not hold
enough to kill her.

She
had heard Yunet’s pleadings, she had lain stone cold within her embrace, but
Diane had withdrawn to a silent world.  It had been death.

The
trip downriver away from the bleak stone and desert of Kom Ombo had revived
her.  The movement of all the life around her - the power of the re-energized
river, the sight of the birds darting from tree to tree along the river bank,
the swaying reeds, the splash of fish jumping from the water, the calls of
hawks as they soared through the sky - slowly it had washed away the
self-pity and dejection.

She
was certain that Brian was still alive.  She knew she would see him again
and somehow things would be made right.

No one
would ever stand in her way again.

S
iamun was thrumming with energy.

He
didn’t know about Waja-Hur’s death, and he was unaware that King Djoser and his
sister Hetephernebti both wanted Djefi removed, the king for political reasons,
his sister because she feared the rise of the cult of Sobek.  But it
wouldn’t have mattered.

He was
preparing for a hunt, one that would end with Yunet and Diane in his power, to
do whatever he wanted.

He
gathered water bags and dried strips of oxen, said a quick prayer to Sobek and
to Anhur, god of war and hunting, ordered his men to keep Djefi safe and
tethered three camels together.  He would ride one until it was exhausted,
then switch to a fresh one.

Instinctively
he headed into the desert toward Ineb-Hedj.  Once he was moving he began
to think, trying to put himself in Yunet’s mind, just as he would try to
anticipate what an antelope would do if he were stalking it.

She
would not have gone into the red western desert.  There was nothing there
but sand, heat and death.  If she crossed the canal and went south she
would be heading toward Khmunu where Waja-Hur and Nimaasted would stop
them.  If she was able to cross the river and continue eastward there was
only more desert and beyond that the rumored sea.

Her
only hope was to reach Iunu and the Temple of Re.  And that was an
uncertain hope.  While Hetephernebti might give her sanctuary, she also might
turn her over to Djefi.  Hetephernebti was, after all, a priestess, just
as Djefi was a priest.  Ma’at would be maintained.

Atop a
jogging camel, Siamun headed northwest through the desert, his eyes darkened
with wide swaths of kohl, his spirits high as he thought of what he would do
once he caught the women.

Unconsciously
he fingered the side of his head and the knobby growth where his ear had been
sliced away by Yunet.  He would have his revenge at last.  He would
hear her cry for death, beg for an end to the pain.

And he
would take the red-haired bitch who thought she was a goddess.  He had
seen the way she looked at him on the boat, the anger in her eyes.  She
would know real anger as he rode her, driving himself into her, taking his
pleasure as he gave her pain.

He dug
his fingers deep into the matted hair at the camel’s neck and studied the
desert for signs of movement.

H
e had ridden across the desert to Saqqara,
almost reaching the high plateau without finding them.  Waiting through
the night on the outskirts of Ineb-Hedj, Siamun wondered where they could have
gone.

If
they had trekked across the desert toward Ineb-Hedj he would have found them,
unless they had become so disoriented that they had walked more than a day’s
journey in the wrong direction.  He didn’t think they had enough of a head
start to get that far out of sight by mistake.

Neswy! 
The old man would have helped them, Siamun realized.  Yunet is strong
and brave, but she knows nothing about hunting or traveling, except as a
passenger on Djefi’s boats.  But Neswy did, and there was no one else she
could have turned to after attacking Djefi.

Neswy
would have told them to stay along the canal and then the river.  They
would have no chance of losing their way and they would have water to
drink.  And he would have told them to travel only at night.

He
decided in an instant.  Abandoning two of the camels, Siamun took the
tether of the third camel, which would serve as a pack animal, and began to
follow the river south from Ineb-Hedj, confident that he would find them.

Y
unet and Diane were talking again, the
tension of the flight abrading the anger Diane had been silently nursing.

They
had reached the river and were heading north, following its flow toward
Ineb-Hedj, beginning to believe that they had escaped.

“If I
had died at his hands it would have been worth it to see his fat face when you
jumped on his back and began to claw at his eyes,” Yunet said as they washed
the sand from their bodies.

They
were knee-deep in the river, preparing for the night’s walk.  Yunet’s dark
skin made her almost invisible in the fading light; Diane’s fair skin seemed to
glow.

“You
don’t know what you’ve done, do you?” Yunet continued when Diane didn’t
answer.  “I don’t know the way you live in your country, but here there is
an order - we call it ma’at - that we do not disturb.  When
you attacked Djefi, you didn’t just disturb it, you ripped it apart.”

“You
sound like you regret it,” Diane said.

Yunet
shook her head.  “No, I don’t think so.  Yes, a little.  It
makes me wonder what else can happen.  It is very unsettling.”

“And
being choked to death would have been better?”

“No. 
But the world seems different to me now.  If the rules, the way of life
are not what I thought they are, what I was raised to believe, then I don’t
know what they are.”

“Maybe
there aren’t any rules,” Diane said.

They
climbed out of the water and gathered up their water skin, diminishing sack of
food and the linen tent.

Hefting
the food sack, Yunet said, “Now that we have reached the river, we should start
seeing small settlements.  We’ll be able to get some food then.”

Diane
nodded as they turned together and began to follow the river’s flow north.

They
walked in silence, listening to the water and the occasional small movement in
the underbrush.  When they had begun walking at night, Diane had been
terrified at every small sound, expecting lions or crocodiles to pounce on her
after every rustle of a leaf.  Now she had grown to love the night, with
its cooler air, the hint of moisture along the river and the blazing night sky,
full of stars she had never imagined living in cities all her previous life.

Yunet
was good company, too.  She didn’t press Diane to talk and she didn’t fill
the air with idle chatter. 

Diane
looked at her now as Yunet walked slightly ahead, feeling her way along the
path as the darkness grew heavier.  She watched as Yunet studied the
ground, pushing at bushes with a sturdy walking stick she had picked up a few
days ago.

Yunet’s
confidence and beauty made her seem so much larger and older than she really
was, but looking at her now, Diane saw her as she was - a woman not much
older than Diane, abandoning everyone she knew, dismissing a lifetime of habits
and training to help a stranger. 

“Yunet,”
she called.  She watched as Yunet stopped and turned to look back at her,
her expression focused and anxious.