Imhotep (36 page)

The
rich could afford the best lawyers and so they could do what they pleased
without fear of punishment.  A poor man who stole a thousand dollars with
a gun would go to prison for twenty years.  A wealthy man who stole
millions through fraud would delay and exhaust the court system while living
like a king.

A
leader could send an army against another country, send a thousand soldiers to
their deaths without fear of being made to answer.  Another could steal
his country’s wealth and live a life beyond dreams while his subjects lived in
squalor, and still be honored because of his self-awarded titles and stolen
wealth.

Justice
has always been a tool of the wealthy and powerful, he thought.  The
Crusades, the Inquisition, the European conquest of North and South America -
the victors wrote the history of large events, why would I think it was
different for the small, daily confrontations.

Is
this system less just?

If I
lie to King Djoser and he discovers the lie, I will be punished because he can
no longer trust me.  His advisers are close to him and he must trust
them.  Because he depends on those around him, even if no law applies to
him, he must be faithful to them and expect loyalty in return.

‘To
live outside the law, you must be honest,’ he thought, recalling a line from a
Bob Dylan song.

With a
start, Tim realized that he was still walking along the riverbank, but now the
water was flowing the other direction, he must have walked around the end of
the island and was heading up the other side.  He looked around to get his
bearings and saw Meryt kneeling by the water’s edge.  Her small, bare back
was to him, the sun lying across the water backlit her, creating a glowing
aura.

She
felt him watching her and stood, turning to him and smiling.  Her hands
were filled with wet stones.

She
walked to him, her thin arms and legs looking too long for her, her hipbones
jutting out from her flat stomach, her breasts small and tight on her bare
chest. 

The
change from his dark musings about injustice to her innocent beauty was
breathtaking.  He felt a warmth swell from his chest, almost like a blush,
but filled with joy instead of embarrassment or guilt.

He
felt like laughing, like singing.  All the sounds and colors and
fragrances of the world suddenly seemed exactly right, precisely as they should
be and he felt as if every cell in his body, every nerve, every muscle and
fiber was attuned to the beauty of the world and that beauty was centered on
the coltish girl who was walking toward him, with her muddy feet, dripping wet
hands and flashing brown eyes.

“Some
of these stones are so smooth and others are jagged.  They look the same
color and they are speckled the same.  Why would they be so different?”
she asked, looking at the stones in her hands.

His
throat was so swollen with desire he could hardly speak.

She
looked up and saw his eyes taking her in, saw the smile playing at his mouth.

“I
thought you were thinking about Bata and Nesi and Prince Teti,” she said.

Tim
reached for her, his hands caressing her shoulders and back, gently pulling her
toward him.  She dropped the stones and wrapped her arms around him. 
Tilting his head down to hers, he kissed her, softly brushing against her
cheeks, moving toward her lips.

She
turned her face toward his and returned his kiss.  After a minute, he
broke away and turned to look inland.  There was nothing but rocks and
sand at this end of the island.  He felt her arm wrapped around his waist
pull on him, urging him to turn the other way.  When he did, he saw only
the river.

He
felt her fingers playing with the tie of his kilt and then it fell free. 
She took his hand and smiling up at him, she said, “Come on.” She pulled him
toward the water, picking up speed as he joined her until they were running
across the river’s beach. 

They
splashed into the water, feeling the soft riverbed beneath them.  She led
him into the water until it was waist deep, then she stopped and turned to
him.  Bending down she washed away the grit that was on her hands from
gathering stones.  Cupping her hands, she raised some of the water to his
chest and splashed it on him, then rubbed her hands across his wet skin,
feeling the firm muscle beneath and the hard line of his sternum.

Tim
leaned forward and kissed her, running his hands down her side and then lifting
her.  She understood what he wanted to do and let the water support her,
wrapping her legs around his waist as he raised her and then slowly lowered
her.

Joined
together they stood unmoving, feeling the water lap against them, feeling their
skin on each other, the sun on their backs, the light breeze that followed the
river’s current brushing against them.

Meryt
cupped her hands behind Tim’s neck and leaned away from him, arching her back.
Her eyes closed she focused her attention on the sensation of being one with
him.

Feeling
her energy, Tim saw how immersed she was in the moment.  White sunlight
danced on the river’s ripples.  The air gathered and held the light,
shimmering with urgency.  The colors of the sand, the water, the sky,
Meryt’s skin, her eyes, the soft underside of her throat all grew richer and
purer.  He heard the distant cry of a hawk and suddenly sensed himself
expanding outside his physical body, his spirit pushing through and soaring and
growing, encompassing both of them, spreading across the river and the land, up
through the dry desert air and into the sky itself.

He had
a glimpse of the timeless procession of the sun across the sky, an endless
march of kings and commoners across the unchanging land of Kemet and he felt
again that rightness of being here, of being here now, of being here with
Meryt.

A
fterward, spent and barely able to walk,
but energized and filled with the wonder of the pleasure they had given each
other, he spread his white kilt on the muddy river bank for her, thinking of
Sir Walter Raleigh’s grand gesture.

“No,”
she said, laughing.  “I want to feel the earth against my skin, not a dead
cloth.”

He
remembered the first time he had seen her, spreading the river’s mud over her
body.  He asked her about it.  “I thought you were disguising
yourself to go hunting or something,” he said.  They sat naked together on
the ground, their bodies wet and glistening from the river.

He
turned to face her and traced the soft line of her shoulder, down her chest and
to the tip of her breast, watching the nipple grow hard.  With the side of
his thumb, he brushed lightly against her skin feeling the warmth, the
smoothness and the vibrant thrill of their skin meeting.

“That
feels good,” she said, leaning back and offering herself to him without shame.

He
laid the flat of his hand against her stomach and caressed her belly across her
hip and the side of her thigh.

“I was
covering myself in mud,” she said in a dreamy voice.

“Why?”
His hand crossed her knee and drifted along the inner side of her thigh,
feeling the warmth there.

“To
let it dry in the sun,” she said, the words staggered and breathy.  “I
like to feel it tighten as it dries, feel it change as if the sun is making it
come alive.”

His
hand moved higher, brushing against the softness where he had entered her.

She
leaned back on her elbows and sighed.

He
traced a line across her waist to her chest and neck.

“You
are beautiful,” he said.

She
smiled and opened her eyes.  “I think you see beauty everywhere, Imhotep.”

“Is
that how you think of me?” he asked, “As Imhotep now?”  His fingers
lingered on her lips, and then began to slowly move across her cheek and down
her neck.

“Yes,”
she said.

He
followed the delicate lines of her collarbone to her breastbone, down the line
between her breasts.

“Yes,”
she said again, “I think of you as Imhotep.”

His
thumb caressed the arc of the ribs just above the softness of her belly.

“Tim
is too small a name for you now.”

Across
the side of her waist, pausing on the defining shape of her hip, following the
line down and across her thigh.

“Imhotep
is the right name for you.”  She lay back completely, as he kissed her
neck and began to follow the path of his fingers with his lips and tongue.

S
ide-by-side they lay on their backs,
touching hands, looking up at the cloudless sky.

There
is a true difference here,
Imhotep
thought. 
Not just in the land, although that is different.  The
world is so much younger, the air has been breathed less, not yet channeled
through the fire of coal furnaces, steam engines and cars, not yet scarred with
the millions of anguished screams from wars not yet waged, not torn by the
shrieks of jet engines, rockets, missiles, bombs, and bullets.

Will
the colors fade in years to come, or do I just see them differently now? 
Is the air sweeter, the sun brighter, the water softer?

My
mind is less cluttered, with fewer decisions, less worry about the day-to-day
concerns that seemed to fill it before.  With less mental clutter, do I
see and hear more clearly?  Is my mind less separated from my body?

He
felt Meryt prop herself up on her elbow and look down at him.

The
back of her hand swept lightly against his cheek, brushing against the stubble
of his beard.  She rubbed his chest, across his stomach and then held him,
tugging gently.  “Do you ever touch yourself like this?” she asked,
squeezing him.

He
nodded.  “Yes,” he answered, surprised that he was not embarrassed by her
question.

She
bent down and kissed him once.  “So do I.  But it is different when
you touch me.  Is it because I don’t know what you will do next?  Is
it because your skin and touch are different from others?  Or is it
because I want you to touch me and so I think it feels different?”

Surprisingly
he felt himself begin to stir under her touch.

“Touch
me like my brother,” she commanded him.

Tim
squinted up at her.  He remembered reading that some of the kings of
ancient Egypt married their sisters, or at least called their wives ‘little
sister.’  He didn’t know if it was a term of endearment or if royal incest
was proper.

“Here,”
she said, presenting him with the bottom of one of her feet.  “Tickle me,
like my brother used to when we were little and fighting.”

When
he didn’t move, she said, “I want to see if your touch is the same as his. 
Tickle me.”

He
rolled over and grabbed her ankle with one hand and began to tickle the bottom
of her foot with the other.  She kicked her leg, but he held on as she
laughed and rolled, trying to get away.

“Stop,”
she said.

“Was
it the same?” he asked, laughing with her.

“I
don’t know,” she said, gasping for air.  “I think it was.  But look!”
She grabbed her own ankle and tickled her foot.  “Nothing!  If
another tickles me, I cannot control the feeling.  If I tickle myself,
nothing.  If I touch myself here,” she put her hand on her groin, “it can
feel good if I want it to, but at other times, nothing.  It depends on
what I want.  But here,” she stretched her foot in the air, “Here, I have
no control.  I cannot tickle myself.  Here I can, there I can’t.

“Are
you the same way?  We must investigate,” she said, laughing as she lunged
for him and they began to roll across the beach.

W
hen they returned to the temple complex,
Meryt said she needed to send a message to Hetephernebti at Waset, to let her
know what they had learned about the attack on Prince Teti.

“What
can she do?” Tim asked.

“She
can ask King Djoser to appoint someone she trusts to guard Prince Teti, maybe
my brother, Meryptah.  He is a member of the House Guard and he is someone
Hetephernebti knows. 

“And
she needs to know what happened,” she said.  “Nesi wouldn’t have just
attacked Prince Teti, someone ordered him to do it.  There had to be some
kind of reward promised.  Hetephernebti is going to the festival of Thoth
at Khmunu.  Kanakht will be there, as will priests from throughout the Two
Lands.  Whoever ordered Nesi to attack the prince will probably be there.”

Meryt
shrugged.  “I don’t know how Hetephernebti uses her knowledge, but she
knows, more than anyone, what is happening in Kemet.  She has friends all
along the river and others, like me, who tell her what we see and hear. 
Sometimes she sends people out to different towns and festivals.  I know
that she writes many letters to her brother and gets many messages from him.

“That
was how I found you.  She heard from someone in Ineb-Hedj that a god had
appeared there.  She sent three of us to find you.”

“You
were sent to find me?  But I saw you, that morning by the river.  I
found you.”

Meryt
nodded.  “Yes, you found me, but I was looking for you.  I knew who
you were when you waded across the river, remember?  You raised your kilt
to keep it dry but you were wearing something underneath.  I knew you were
the stranger then.”

“You
were watching me at the festival.  It wasn’t an accident that you were
waiting in the tunnel, was it?” he asked.

She
nodded again.  “Yes, I was watching you.  I didn’t know you would
come into the tunnel, but I was watching you.  I saw you find the path
that Hetephernebti uses to cross from the island and I saw you try to talk to
Diane before Yunet woke up.  When she grabbed at you, I gasped and almost
turned to run for the guards.”

“The
guards?”

“Yes,
I would have had them arrest you for Hetephernebti.  Just to save you from
Djefi.  But then you escaped and I was able to lead you to safety.”

For a
second Tim wondered if what had passed between them since had been at
Hetephernebti’s direction, but he quickly discarded that notion and felt
embarrassed that he had even considered it.  Meryt had never been anything
but open and honest with him.  He knew she was intelligent and certainly
knew much more about ancient Egypt and how things worked here.  He trusted
her.  He trusted that she was exactly what she seemed.

“You
said that Hetephernebti sent three people looking for me.  What if one of
the others had found me?”

Meryt
laughed.  “They didn’t, Imhotep.  You found me and now here we are.

“When
I was younger,” she stopped and looked up at Tim earnestly, “I know that you
think I am still very young.  But when I was younger, I worried about
everything.  Was I walking the right way to be a priestess of Re? 
Did I say the right things, with the right tone of voice?  I tried so hard
to be what I thought Re and Hetephernebti wanted me to be.

“Hetephernebti
saw this.  She is wise, Imhotep, so very understanding.  She told me
to stop trying.  She said Re loved me the way I am, with my eye to the
side, with my peasant accent, with my skinny legs, with my curiosity about
everything.  She said that in a way, with his warm rays, Re was worshiping
me just as I should worship him.  And that the best way I could worship
him was to be me.  The gods had shaped me this way.  Why should I be
unhappy with what the gods had done?”

“When
I went looking for you, I was ready to find you, or to not find you.  I
was not in a contest with the others.  And, look, you found me.  Did
Hetephernebti send three of us looking for you so that you would find only me?”
She laughed again.  “I love Hetephernebti and I think she is so very wise,
but she does not see the future.”

“So
you think the gods intended for us to be together?” Tim asked.

She
shook her head smiling.  “I am not so important that the gods plan my
days.  I honor the gods, Re above all, but I think I am on my own. 
Of course Hetephernebti helps me, she is wonderful, but I think my happiness
and life are my own, not owed to or owned by any gods.  If I step into the
river and a crocodile eats me, it is because I chose a foolish action.  If
I fall in love with a man and he beats me, then I have chosen a bad man. 

“And
when I do something foolish, it is up to me to fix it.  My friends can
help me but this is my life. 

“When
I saw you I thought you were beautiful, but I did not know you.  Then when
Hetephernebti asked me to stay with you and teach you, I got to know you and I
liked you.  Then when I was ill and you saved my life, I thought that I
loved you, but I was afraid that my feelings were being influenced by what you
had done.  So I watched and waited to see how you felt and how I truly
felt.  If you had not wanted me, then I would have accepted that,
Imhotep.  Not because it was what the gods wanted, but because it was that
way.”

Tim
shook his head.  “Here I thought you were just a mindless creature who
smears herself with mud,” he teased.

“Tama
speaks of that,” she said.  “Not that I smear myself with mud, but about
being mindless.  I don’t understand exactly what she means, but I know she
means it in a good way.  She says that our minds cloud our thinking. 
You know, when you tickled me and I couldn’t tickle myself.  That has to
be my mind.  I know that my skin feels it the same way.  It has
to.  But my mind decides that one touch should make me laugh and another
should not.  So sometimes I think I should not trust my mind, but should
trust my heart instead.

“Tama
teaches that there is a deeper way to see things, where the mind is used, but
something else helps you to see and understand.  Hetephernebti teaches
acceptance and love, but her mind is constantly occupied.  She thinks about
the people of Iunu, about her brother, the king, about the Two Lands.  She
and Tama are very much alike in many ways, but I think they are very different,
too.”

She
stopped and put her hand to her mouth.  “I am sorry.  I talk too
much.  It is my heart, Imhotep.  It is full to bursting because of
what we have done and it is singing.”

Tim
smiled, his thoughts filled with admiration for Meryt.  She was so young,
but she had so much to teach him.  “My heart is singing, too, Meryt. 
Now, go send your message to Hetephernebti.  I must go see King Djoser and
tell him what I’ve learned.”

K
ing Djoser, Sekhmire and Imhotep left
early in the morning to survey the lands on the east bank of the river near the
temple of Khnum. 

Meryt
stayed at the temple to work in the bakery.

“I
miss making bread, grinding the flour, working the dough with my hands. 
Go,” she had told Imhotep.

Three
days had passed since Meryt had sent a letter to Hetephernebti.  King
Djoser also had sent a message north to his sister at Waset after hearing
Imhotep’s theory of what had happened to Prince Teti in the river.

Bata
had been told that he would stay at Abu with them until King Djoser traveled
north to Kom Ombo.

Sekhmire
and King Djoser rowed the small boat across the water, the king enjoying the
physical activity, pulling hard and challenging the younger soldier to keep up
with him.  Imhotep watched, wondering if Sekhmire was trying as hard as he
could or if he was allowing King Djoser to move the boat in a slow curl.

When
they reached the bank, King Djoser jumped out first to pull the reed boat up on
the bank.  Sekhmire and Imhotep splashed into the water and waded onshore.

King
Djoser’s skin was glistening with perspiration, but his breathing was steady
and even.  He held out the palms of his hands for Imhotep to see. 
“Look,” he commanded.  “These are the hands of a soldier.  They can
row a boat without tearing or blistering, throw a spear, swing a sword. 
But they get no use now.  I sit, I listen, I send messages.”

He
clapped his hands together.

“Now,
Imhotep, let us look at the land that you want me to give to the great
ram-headed Khnum.”

Turning,
he led the way inland.

T
hey explored more the next day and the day
after that.  Imhotep drew maps as they walked, identifying fields and
boundaries, labeling huts that they saw, asking the residents their names and
the names of their fathers and fathers before them.

“Isn’t
this recorded anywhere?” Imhotep asked King Djoser toward the end of the third
day.  “Doesn’t the governor of the nome have records?”

King
Djoser tossed his head back and laughed.  Sekhmire smiled, but kept
quiet.  King Djoser clapped Imhotep on the back.  “You are a strange
man, Imhotep.  So smart, and so innocent.  Or are you making a joke,
pointing out something I should know, but haven’t seen?”

Imhotep
shook his head.  “I am sorry, King Djoser, I only thought  . . . ”

“Yes,”
King Djoser said.  “Of course.  The governor has records.  I am
sure he would show them to me, what choice would he have?  But those
records and maps would be different from the ones we are making.  His maps
would show that he owns more than he does.  Or he might have other maps
for my tax collectors that show that he owns much less than he has.  Don’t
frown, Imhotep.  I would do the same.

“So, I
could look at his maps and say this and this will go to the temple of
Khnum.  I would have to trust his maps to show the fields and the homes,
wonder if they are good land or not, worry if I was taking land away from a
poor farmer.

“Or,
and this is what we will do with the maps you are making, I could show him my
choice of the land, based on what I have seen.  He will know that I have
walked the land myself and that I would know that the maps he will show me are
not truthful.

“To
avoid losing face, he will never show me his maps.  Instead he will accept
that my maps are accurate, which they are.  He will see the wisdom of my
decision and realize that giving up the land he claims to own will be less
trouble than arguing over a claim he cannot prove because he would have to show
me maps he has hidden from my tax collectors.

“He
will act generous, I will accept his generosity as my due. I am king after
all.  We both will act our parts with honor and the god Khnum will
benefit.  And the river will flood.”

He looked
hard at Imhotep.  “Or so I am told,” he added.

T
hat night King Djoser called Imhotep to
his chambers.

The
maps Imhotep had drawn over the past three days were spread out on a table,
held in place with rocks.  King Djoser was standing at the table, leaning
forward, his eyes on the maps.  Imhotep went to the table and stood
opposite King Djoser, waiting quietly until the king raised his eyes.  The
playfulness that Imhotep saw there so often was missing now.

“This
offering must be generous, but I must not take too much land from the
governor.  There is a balance to maintain.  You understand?”

Imhotep
nodded.  There was fertile land near the river, but some of it was rocky,
its fields interrupted by large boulders dropped there eons ago by the
river.  At other spots, the riverbank rose sharply, the arable land on a
steep slope fit only for trees.  Still other areas were flat, they flooded
easily and then held the rich silt deposits.

“This
is what I have decided,” King Djoser said.  He pointed to tracts of land
with a silver knife.  “This, this, this and this I will give to Khnum,” he
said.

Looking
at the map, Imhotep pictured the land in his mind and remembered the words of
the Famine Stele he had read about that night so long ago at the Mena House.

According
to the engraving on the stele, King Djoser had given land on both sides of the
river from the water as far as the distant mountain ranges, including all the
settlements on those lands.  King Djoser had also given the temple the
right to take a tenth of the gold, ivory, wood and minerals that came into
Kemet from Nubia and the hunters and fishermen in the lands given to the temple
were required to give a tenth of their fish and game to the temple.

The
offering King Djoser was suggesting was far, far less.

“It is
a generous offering to Khnum.  It is what you said I should do,” King
Djoser said.  “The river will rise.”

Imhotep
looked at the table, unable to raise his eyes to King Djoser, unsure what to
say.  Was the stele wrong, was his memory flawed?  He had hoped that
King Djoser would have suggested making the same offering described on the
stele.

Once
he had gotten over the shock of being named Imhotep, he had felt that it was
right, that somehow his passage through time was necessary, that if he hadn’t
followed Brian and Diane something fundamental would have been changed.