Imhotep (59 page)

A month later on a distant mountain range King
Kha-sekhemwy poured a handful of turquoise gems from his right hand to his
left.  Unpolished and rough, just pulled from the sandstone beneath the rocky
ground, the stones were more brown than blue-green.

King Kha-sekhemwy motioned for Djoser to come
closer.

“Cup your hands,” he told his son.  He poured the
stones into Djoser’s hands.

“What do you think, son?  Worth dragging our
ships across Deshret and sailing them across the Great Green?  Worth marching
through the red dust and climbing those jagged boulders to these hard, dark
caves?”

They were standing in the shade of a small
mud-brick hut near the cave entrance to one of more than a dozen mines at the
Terraces of Turquoise, the richest gemstone deposit in Mafkat, the Land of
Turquoise.

A month earlier, a few days before Hetephernebti
tested her fertility, King Kha-sekhemwy had begun assembling his army of four
thousand men, calling on the governors of each nome of the Two Lands to send
men to Waset.

They had come from the delta region, racing
upriver to beat the floods that would soon wash down the length of the River
Iteru.  Others had floated down the river from Abu.  Some of the men were farmers
whose lands would be flooded for the next three months; others were sons of
bakers, weavers, fishermen or merchants; some were members of the standing
militia from each nome; and others, mingled among them, a platoon within each
company, were Nubian archers, tall, black mercenaries from the land beyond the
first cataract.

In Waset their first job was to reassemble the
wooden sledges kept to carry the flat-bottomed cedar fleet across the eastern
desert to the banks of the Great Green, the sea that divided the Two Lands from
Sinai, an empty land of deserts and red rock mountains.

Provisioned by merchants who grumbled about the
king’s demand for discounted prices but who were happy to find a voracious
buyer for their bread and meat and grain, the army marched into the red desert
they called Deshret, singing and taunting each other as they dragged the
sand-bound fleet eastward.  But as the green trees, brown water, and dark soil
of Kemet disappeared from sight, and as the sledges seemed to grab at the sand
as they slid over it, the taunting and singing were replaced by grunts and
calls for water.

Leaner and with freshly callused hands and aching
backs and legs, the army reached the shores of the Great Green.  Across the
narrow sea loomed the mountains of Mafkat.  Far to the south was the land of
Punt, source of gold and incense.

As the army launched itself into the Great Green,
a small contingent of men watched from the shore, left behind to guard the
sledges.  They loudly cheered and silently laughed as the rest of the army,
many of the men nervous about crossing the sea, bent to the oars and began to
row to the east.

After two days, with a new set of muscles burning
and aching, they beached their ships at Ras Abu-Rudeis, a small outpost set in
front of distant, reddish mountains.  Here King Kha-sekhemwy left another
platoon of men to guard the beached fleet.  The rest of the army, including
Djoser’s Lion Company, marched toward the eastern mountains.  At the foot of
the mountain range the army entered Wadi Martella, one of the many ancient,
dried riverbeds that wound through the mountains.

A week of trekking, with pain finding a new
collection of muscles, took them deep within the mountain range to the caves
where the turquoise stones that decorated the royal jewelry and that provided
the rich blues of the tomb paintings and the dyes for the royal linens were
mined.

Now, standing before one of the caves, Djoser
contemplated the dirty stones while behind him the army erected tents, began
cook fires and took turns filling goat skins with water from a stream that
trickled down from the mountain top.

King Kha-sekhemwy studied Djoser as the boy
rubbed his thumbs across the turquoise gemstones.

“I talked with Sabef while we were marching
here,” Djoser said slowly.

“Sabef?”

“He is the leader of the Nubian archers in my
company.  He showed me how he works flint to create a sharp arrow head.”

King Kha-sekhemwy raised an eyebrow.  He had had
little interaction with his youngest son until two years ago when the boy
turned nine years old and was ready to begin military training.

Menathap had told him that Djoser was not an
ordinary boy.  King Kha-sekhemwy had smiled at her words, assuming them to be
nothing more than the proud boast of a proud mother.  She had seen his smile and
shook her head at him, her eyes filled with knowledge that he didn’t share.

“Yes, he is my son, our son, but I am not
speaking as his mother, Hemwy,” she had said. “There is a presence about him. 
He is an old soul, his Ba is not that of a child.  The look of his eyes when he
studies something, the care in his choice of words, his patience and his
measured response to surprises, he has a wisdom beyond his years.  It is almost
… ” she had hesitated until Kha-sekhemwy had nodded for her to continue, “I sometimes
wonder if one of our ancestors, perhaps Narmer or Menes, has decided to return
to the Two Lands.”

King Kha-sekhemwy waited now for Djoser to
explain himself.

“When Sabef began working the flint it was dull
and useless, as these stones are now,” Djoser said, raising his turquoise-laden
hands.  “But when Sabef was finished he had given the flint an edge so sharp
that it drew blood when he pulled it across his thumb.”

“So the turquoise is like the flint?” King
Kha-sekhemwy said.

Djoser smiled.  “Yes, father.” He looked up to
his father’s broad face and met his eyes.

King Kha-sekhemwy had to stop himself from
looking away from his son’s penetrating gaze.  After a moment Djoser smiled and
slowly blinked his eyes, tacitly conceding his father’s superior position.

“I think, King Kha-sekhemwy, Powerful One, Lord
of Kemet, my beloved father, that stones, trees, earth, water, even men,
especially men, are like that.  They might seem to have little worth, but if
they are worked and polished they become valuable.”

King Kha-sekhemwy opened a linen bag and motioned
for Djoser to pour the gems into it.

“A good lesson, Djoser,” he said, beaming at his
son.  He tied the bag shut and turned to give it to an attendant.  As he
presented his vulnerable back to his son, King Kha-sekhemwy had a sudden thrill
of fear.

Yes, the boy was only eleven years old.  But he
had not merely kept up with the men in the Lion Company in the long march
across the red desert, he had led them, even taking his turn pulling the
sledges.  When they camped he was tireless, making sure the men had food and
water before he attended to himself.  Before he retired each night he always
presented himself to Harkhuf, his battalion commander, to review his orders for
the next day.

Rumors of his endurance and his strength
-
he could shoot an arrow
nearly as far as the strongest Nubian archer and he could throw a spear farther
than most of the men he commanded
-
had quickly reached King Kha-sekhemwy, which meant, the king knew, that
everyone in the army had heard the rumors and soon the rumors would grow into
legends.

Before long, King Kha-sekhemwy thought, my son
will want to sit on the throne of the Two Lands.  How many others, he wondered,
have already had the same thought?

- 0 -

King Kha-sekhemwy and Djoser peered over the
ridge of a small sand dune.  Behind them ten men from the first platoon of
Djoser’s Lion Company quietly shuffled along the base of the shifting sand.

The hunting party had left the day before,
winding their way down twisting mountain passes to the endless desert east of
the mountain range.  King Kha-sekhemwy had left the army behind under the
command of General Babaef, who led the Upper Division of the army.  Babaef had
the unexciting job of overseeing repairs to the mines, taking inventory of the
turquoise treasure and clearing fallen boulders from the trails connecting the
mines.

Meanwhile, the king would enjoy a hunt.

But the king had left in a bad mood.

Babaef, a thin, humorless man, with his own small
army of aides and scribes, insisted that everything be done properly.  It was a
good quality in an administrator, but an irritant when Babaef turned that same
unwavering attention to the king, which is what happened when Babaef had
insisted on knowing where the king was going.

King Kha-sekhemwy, silently bridling under
Babaef’s attention, had pointed east and said he would be over there. Babaef
had shaken his head, barely perceptibly, but enough to let the king know that
his answer wasn’t sufficient.  Then he had produced a clean piece of linen and
sketched a rough map of the mountain passes.  He handed the charcoal stick to
King Kha-sekhemwy and asked him to mark the pathways he planned to take.

Whichever path I want, the king wanted to say,
but faced with Babaef’s implacable insistence and surrounded by the general’s
lieutenants, King Kha-sekhemwy knew his general would lose face if he refused
his request.  So, feeling like a schoolboy, he had solemnly marked a trail on
the map and then commended Babaef for his excellent planning.

At the first fork in the wadi, King Kha-sekhemwy
had chosen the opposite path from the one he had marked on the map.  Then,
looking over his shoulder, he thought he saw movement behind him.  He shook his
head; Babaef had anticipated the king’s contrariness and had sent a spy to map
his actual route.

It would feel good to drive my spear into the
side of a gazelle, King Kha-sekhemwy had thought.

Now, with warm sand pooling around his ankles as
he stood on the slope of a small dune, King Kha-sekhemwy could see a small herd
of gesa, straight-horned gazelles, gathered around a pool in one of the streams
that ran along the edge of the mountains.

Sabef, the Nubian archer, waited just behind the
king and prince.  He carried his own bow, a weapon nearly as long as the Nubian
himself made of two curved antelope horns joined at the center with a shaft of
ebony wood.

Pointing off to his right with his bow, Sabef
grunted.

King Kha-sekhemwy nodded.

“Do you see them, Djoser?” he asked.

Djoser had seen the small billow of sandy dust
and the straight lines of the gazelles’ horns when they had first mounted the
ridge, but he had waited for his father to point them out.

“Yes, King Kha-sekhemwy,” he said, speaking
formally while Sabef was near enough to hear.  “Do you think there will be
lions also?”

“Perhaps,” King Kha-sekhemwy said.  “More likely
foxes, maybe even one of the spotted cats.  But the gesa are better eating.”

Eyes closed, the king slowly turned his wide face
to catch a sense of the direction of the wind.  Behind them Sabef gathered a
handful of sand and let it slide from his fist watching to see where the air
took the dust from the sand.

King Kha-sekhemwy sensed the motion behind him. 
He turned to Sabef and pointed off to their right.  “Yes?” he asked. Sabef, his
skin so black that his eyes and teeth seemed to float in a living shadow,
nodded agreement.  The wind was coming from the north, toward them from the
gesa.

“Over this way,” King Kha-sekhemwy said to the
men below them on the sandy ridge.  He motioned to his left.

“We’ll stay below the ridge line as long as we
can, moving downwind of the gesa,” he told Djoser as they slid down the dune.

“Sabef and I could go in the other direction,”
Djoser suggested.  “I know that our scent could alarm them, but we could move
more slowly than you, staying off wind from the gesa.  Then when you signal, we
could let them see us.”

King Kha-sekhemwy considered the question for a
moment, then he nodded agreement.  It was a small request and it would give
Djoser a sense of independence.  If it worked, the gazelles would move away
from Djoser and into the spears of the king’s hunting party.

“Yes, Djoser,” he said.  “Move slowly.  When you
have circled around them, approach the crest of the dune but do not cross it. 
I will signal when my men are in place.” Then he extended his right arm, his
hand sideways and open.  Surprised by the offer, Djoser hesitated and then he
reached forward and clasped his hand around his father’s forearm, feeling King
Kha-sekhemwy’s strong grip on his forearm in return.

“Thank you, father,” he said, tears suddenly
threatening to fill his eyes.

“Good hunting,” King Kha-sekhemwy said, breaking
off the embrace and silently moving down the dune.

- 0 -

The king’s hunting party killed three of the
fast-sprinting gazelles.  They carried the slain animals back to the small
watering hole where the gesa had first been spotted.  One of the hunters had
directed the digging of a roasting pit where the gutted animals were laid after
a bed of coals had been fired and banked.

While the meat roasted, the soldiers, filled with
energy after the successful hunt, raced each other and wrestled before cooling
off in the shallow pool surrounded by date palms.  King Kha-sekhemwy watched
the contests from the shade, but Djoser, brimming with energy had joined the
soldiers.

In his wrestling match he surprised one stocky
soldier with his speed and his understanding of leverage and body joint locks. 
He quickly brought the larger man to the ground but the stronger and heavier
man eventually gained the advantage, holding Djoser’s squirming shoulders
against the sand.

Afterward, instead of sulking at his defeat,
Djoser threw an arm around the winner’s shoulders and asked him to teach him
how he had been able to gain the advantage when they were on the ground.