Imhotep (60 page)

In an archery contest Djoser was as accurate as
the Nubians but his bow, a smaller bow made of sycamore, didn’t generate the
power to send an arrow through the small copper target that was pinned against
a palm tree trunk.

After watching Sabef bury arrow after arrow in
the heart of the target, Djoser asked to try the antelope-horn bow.  His arms
weren’t long enough to draw the string as fully as the Nubian could and so his
arrows, lacking speed, still bounced off the metal target.

“I need a smaller bow,” Djoser said.

“Or longer arms, my prince,” Sabef told him.

“Then I would look like one of Thoth’s baboons,”
Djoser said with a laugh.

King Kha-sekhemwy watched, wondering if Djoser
would imitate one of the knuckle-walking monkeys, but to the king’s relief,
Djoser’s innate dignity drew the line at monkey imitations.

As the contests wound down, Djoser suggested one
more game: throwing sticks.

Similar in shape to boomerangs, but smaller and
more rounded, throwing sticks were used to hunt ducks in the marshlands of the
delta.  Although they were used in combat, they were more of a distraction than
a weapon, something to draw a fighter’s attention away from a spear thrust or
the swing of a wooden club.

The men balanced a severed antelope head on a
rock and then tried to hit it with their throwing sticks.  It was soon apparent
that Djoser was incredibly accurate and the contest evolved into Djoser trying
to hit the antelope head from greater and greater distances while the men
cheered each success.

Once he had reached the limit of his arm, Djoser
started trying to hit the antelope head while he was running.  After one throw,
one of the hunters picked up Djoser’s throwing stick and softly threw it back
toward him.  Instead of waiting for it to land, Djoser ran forward and snatched
it from the air.  Soon a game of catch developed and after a short while the
men were left with bruised arms from missed catches and humbled egos from
watching Djoser’s speed and reflexes.

“Next you’ll be catching spears and arrows,” King
Kha-sekhemwy told him as they settled to eat the roasted antelope.

Instead of laughing, Djoser stopped tearing at
the meat and looked at his father.

“Has anyone done that?” Djoser asked.  “I think
it would be possible, at least with spears.  I think arrows would be too fast
and their shafts aren’t long enough.” He darted out his right hand and
pretended to grab a flying arrow.  “No, father, I don’t think I could catch
arrows.”

He went back to pulling at the meat.  Holding a
chunk of it, he tore off a bite with his teeth.  After he swallowed, he said,
“I might give spears a try.”

“I would suggest blunt ones at first,” King
Kha-sekhemwy said with a grin.

“Thrown by children,” Djoser added with a laugh. 
Then he said quietly, “Thank you, father.  Thank you for bringing me with you.”

King Kha-sekhemwy smiled back and said, “We’re
near one of Hathor’s temples.”

“Hathor, here?” Djoser asked.

King Kha-sekhemwy nodded.  He pointed back into
the mountain range.  “Here she is called Lady of Turquoise.  There is a temple
up that wadi, a day’s walk.”

“Are we going there?”

King Kha-sekhemwy shook his head.

“No, I am staying here at the edge of the
mountains where there is water and game.  I’ll have plenty of mountain climbing
when we go back to the mines.”

Djoser nodded assent.

“You can go,” King Kha-sekhemwy said.

Djoser looked up eagerly.  Like his sister, he
was fascinated by the gods, always eager to learn more, to wander the temples,
to touch the sacred statues, to stare at the painted scenes of the gods’ lives,
to listen to the priests tell the stories.

“Yes, I mean it,” King Kha-sekhemwy said.  “Take
your archer with you.  There isn’t much there, however, Djoser.  It is very
small, hardly decorated and no one lives there.  But the miners go there to ask
Hathor for guidance.  There are Sleeping Chambers where the miners receive
visions of where to search for gemstones.”

The king smiled.  “It must work, we’ve seen the
gems.  Spend the night there, perhaps you’ll dream of riches.”

King Kha-sekhemwy stood and stretched his arms
above his head.

Releasing a satisfied sigh he pointed along the
base of the mountain ridge. “I’ll take the hunting party up that way,” King
Kha-sekhemwy said.  “I’d like to kill one of the spotted cats.  The pelt would
make a beautiful robe for your mother.

“It might take you a full day to reach the
temple, another to return.  So, we’ll meet here in three days.”

- 0 -

With water-filled goatskins and dangling shoulder
pouches packed with leftover meat, Djoser and Sabef left at dawn.  Before they
left, King Kha-sekhemwy gave Djoser a small packet of incense.  “An offering to
Hathor,” he said.  The he added wryly, “Never approach a temple with empty
hands.”

Djoser and Sabef turned their backs to the rising
sun and began to climb the rock-strewn wadi.  The mountain wasn’t steep, but
the pathway was never clear.  The faint trail often disappeared beneath
boulders that they were forced to climb and then search for traces of the path
farther up the mountainside.

They climbed steadily for two hours and then, as
the morning sun began to burn down on them they found shade beside a large,
jagged overhang and drank some water and flexed their cramping legs.

Looking down across the desert that stretched
away from the base of the mountain Djoser saw choppy waves of sand.  Unlike the
smooth desert on the western side of the River Iteru, this one was scraggy and
littered with sharp rock outcroppings and tufts of high, dry grass.

Although last night’s campsite was marked by
ripples of sand, like a rumpled bed linen, and a trace of darker color, ashes
from the campfires, King Kha-sekhemwy and the hunting party were no longer in
sight.  Djoser shielded his eyes from the rising sun and looked south, but
there was no sign of movement.  The king had been in a hurry.

Leaning against the mountain, Djoser breathed
deeply and smiled.  All his life he had been surrounded and protected.  There
were always adults with him … teachers, military instructors, his mother,
palace guards.  Now, except for Sabef, he was alone.  There was no one to tell
him where to go, what to say or what to do.

He wished Hetephernebti could experience this. 
She, of all the people he knew, would appreciate the solitude.

He looked at Sabef to see if he was feeling the
same thrill of being alone.  The Nubian was crouched, his hands idly playing
with loose pebbles.  His eyes were on the northern horizon, his lips turned
into a small frown.

“Sabef, what is it?” Djoser asked.

The Nubian shook his head.

“Do you see something?  A lion or one of father’s
spotted cats?  Desert-dwellers?”

Sabef rose to his feet and pointed to the north,
back up the curve of the plateau that the hunting party had followed earlier.

“I don’t know.  I thought I saw a change in the
air.”

“A whirlwind?” Djoser asked, swirling a finger like
a cyclone.

Sabef shook his head.  “No, the way the air
danced above the rocks seemed to change.”

“What does that mean?  Is it a sign?” Djoser
asked.  Although he was not a tracker, he knew that more experienced men could
read ripples in the water, the change of a bird’s flight, the widening of a
camel’s eye.

“I think it was a lizard taking a piss on a hot
rock.” He watched Djoser’s face for a smile and then started to laugh when he
saw that Djoser wasn’t offended by the joke.

As Djoser turned to continue the climb, Sabef
paused and took another studied look at the edge of the plateau; the change in
the air could have been a campfire being smothered.  Someone was following the
hunting party.

Another two hours brought them to a series of
steps cut into a steeper passage.  A shallow, loose stone wall followed the
path here.  Beyond the wall, the mountain simply stopped, falling away to a
rock-strewn valley.

At the top of the cut steps, the path wound to
their right following a curve of the mountain where a small ledge had been
widened.  There was no protection here, just a straight drop from the narrow
path.

Walking in front, Sabef took pains to keep his
eyes away from the abyss, but Djoser paused, peering into the emptiness and
imagining what it would feel like to be a hawk soaring through the blue space
between Nut, the sky goddess, and Geb, her earthly husband.  He looked at the
crumpled mountain below him and the low-lying plateau off to the north.

For a moment he thought he saw movement, a group
of darker specks against the brown earth.  Then his attention was drawn to the
sound of cascading stones and a loud grunt from Sabef.

Turning, Djoser saw Sabef’s muscled back and legs
and at his feet, a gaping hole where a piece of the mountain had crumbled way
leaving a gap in the trail. Sabef was on the other side of the breach, leaning
against the mountain and breathing heavily.

The path was narrow here and the mountainside
sloped more steeply toward the precipice.  Whoever had cut the trail hadn’t
widened the base enough and now a small section of it was gone.

“I was almost a bird, my prince, when I need to
be a goat,” Sabef said.  He reached a hand across the opening to Djoser.

To reach across to Djoser, Sabef had to stand as
close as possible to the gap in the trail.  His position left no place for
Djoser to step.  Djoser shook his head and motioned for the Nubian to back
away.  Then, without hesitation, Djoser jumped across the opening.  He felt the
air support him as if the hand of Osiris, son of Nut and Geb, lord of the
afterlife, was shielding him from harm.

And as he floated above the abyss Djoser had a
sudden premonition that something evil was stalking him but that he would be
protected.

- 0 -

The temple was a disappointingly small cave with
a pair of stone stele the height of a man by the entrance.

Djoser and Sabef peered into the darkness and
then walked past it, looking for something grander.  But they were atop a high
plateau now, the flat cap of the mountain and there were no structures in
sight.

They walked about the plateau, enjoying the view
of the reddish brown mountains that stepped away from them, sharp and steep as
crocodile teeth.  Off to the south and westward toward the Great Green Sea the
mountain range continued beyond their vision, hidden at the far horizon by a
haze of heat.

Eastward they could see the desert spreading out,
the brown sand turning bluish gray far in the distance until it merged with the
sky, Geb and Nut united.

They walked back to the cave entrance and found a
stone bowl on a ledge just inside the opening. Djoser filled the bowl with some
of the incense his father had given him and then lit it.  A tendril of white
smoke rose from the bowl and streamed into the cave.

“There is an opening inside,” Sabef said,
“pulling the smoke to it.”

“The Sleeping Chamber?” Djoser said as he sat at
the cave opening and drank from the goatskin.  He passed the bag to Sabef.  The
Nubian took the bag and drank deeply.

“Are there mountains like this in Nubia?” Djoser
asked Sabef.

“We call it Ta-Seti,” Sabef said, passing the
water back to Djoser.

He picked up his antelope bow and shook it.
“Ta-Seti means Land of The Bow.  It is much like Kemet.  There is the river and
that is all.  Beyond it only sand.  Small hills, but no mountains like this.”

Djoser had heard old soldiers, men in their
thirties, talking about the land of Punt where the sky was obscured by
overhanging trees so no one wore kohl to protect their eyes and where the air
was so full of moisture that no oil was needed for the skin.

Someday,
Djoser thought,
I’ll lead an
expedition there.

But now he was here, atop a barren mountain and a
simple cave dedicated to Hathor.

He jumped to his feet and stepped into the cave. 
With his back to the light, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. 
In a few moments he saw that the entrance room led to an opening as wide as two
men.  A faint gray light came from the passage.  He walked toward it.

The passage opened into a larger chamber with
smoother walls that had obviously been worked.  There were paintings of Hathor,
her twin horned-headdress supporting the red orb of the sun.  Unlike the few
paintings Djoser had seen on urns in temples in Waset, here Hathor’s eyes were
larger and rounder.  Her chin receded creating a short snout, making her face
look cow-like.  He wondered if the difference was because of the artist’s
unpracticed hand, or if he intended to give the goddess more of an animal form.

Again his thoughts went to his sister and her
curiosity about all the gods.  He wondered if she had had any luck with the
onion. 
And what happens when she does?  Will she marry King Kha-sekhemwy
who already has a chief wife and three minor wives?  Will she marry me?  Or
Nebka, our half-brother?  Or someone I don’t know?

The questions tugged at him for a moment and then
Djoser shook his head lightly.  They were questions that couldn’t be answered
and so he would put them aside.

“This must be the Sleeping Chamber,” Sabef said
from beyond the larger central room.

Djoser followed Sabef’s voice to a circular
chamber with niches cut into the wall, spaced out around the entire room. 
Rough hides hung from the wall and when Sabef lifted one to examine it, light
poured through behind it.  He raised the hide higher and they saw a rough-cut
opening in the cave wall that admitted sunlight.

The additional light showed white ashes in the
niches.

Pointing to the ashes, Djoser asked, “Incense?”