Reincarnation (5 page)

away his pain.

42

He was outside. The palm trees were gone. Strange plants he had never seen before

whispered below him. From the cliff he could see their tops swaying. It was a world of

tremendous green everywhere.

His hand clutched something coarse and thick. He was trying to steady himself but his bare

foot continued to slide beneath him.

There was a girl with him. Her coarse hair was what he held. It was Nakht's singer, though

her sleek hair was now unruly and knotted. Her eyes were wide in terror.

She was screaming.

He wanted to comfort her. "I won't hurt you." But he did not have the words.

He did not have the words!

So he clutched her more tightly.

Suddenly a green sphere appeared in a black sky, spinning between them. The sphere

would save them! Its magic was the answer.

He reached for it, not meaning to let her go. But he stretched too far.

She slipped from his grasp, tumbling away.

It took a moment to realize that he, too, was falling, hurtling down a tunnel that seemed to

have no end....

He awoke with a start. The singer sat across the room, staring at him intensely.

Why had he dreamed of her?

Why was she in front of him now?

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"Ramose is on guard outside," she warned, standing. "If I scream, he will kill you. He has promised me that."

The slave scowled at Tetisheri but said nothing. "Could you speak before you were injured?"

she asked. He nodded almost imperceptibly.

They gazed at each other, expressionless. He was oddly familiar to her -- but that was, no

doubt, because he had been in her strange dream.

Her reaction to him was still powerful, but she forced herself not to let it overwhelm her.

There was too much at stake for her now. She would be brave, like Isis.

"Nakht has told me he is displeased with my reaction to you," she told him. "I do not want to be sent home. I have prayed to Isis and she has taken the terror from my heart. I hope

you will not hold it against me in the future."

He did not nod or consent. Did he even speak Egyptian? Many Nubians did, but she could

not be sure. It seemed, though, that his expression softened a bit. He had stopped

glowering at her, at least.

"This day, the mistress of the house has learned that her father has died," she went on.

"They are already preparing his mummy. My father is a pottery maker in the next town over.

Nakht is sending Nerfi with me to buy four canopic jars from him. You are to go with us to

carry our supplies. Ramose will accompany us. I have been told that since he is from my

village, he is being sent along as a reward for

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his service. But, I suspect, he has been sent to report back to Nakht on whether you and I

can get along."

Tetisheri heard coldness in her voice that she had not intended. Rather than have her voice

shake and betray her fear, she held it steady through great effort. Nonetheless, she could

tell that the resulting tone was not warm.

He continued to stare at her steadily, his face revealing no emotion.

"We will keep our cordial distance from each other and make the journey together. All will

be well in that case," she concluded, heading for the door.

As he had promised, Ramose stood guard outside. "All went well?" he checked.

"He just sat there," she confirmed.

"Do not fear him," Ramose assured her. "He is afraid of me. I will be there to protect you."

"I dreamed of him," she confided. "He knocked me off a high place."

"Dreams are but phantasms of the mind," Ramose said. "You were frightened by him and your mind concocted a fearsome tale. That is all."

"I have heard our spirits travel in our dreams," she said.

He grunted dismissively. "It will be good to go home. They are right to buy their canopic jars from your father. His workmanship is the finest."

Tetisheri had always loved the jars when she was young. Four jars each with a different lid,

representing the four

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sons of Horus: Hapy the baboon, Qebehsenuef the falcon god, Duamutef the jackal, and

Imsety the human. Then she had discovered their purpose. Each held a different organ taken

from a mummified body -- the lungs, the intestines, the stomach, and the liver. They were

entombed along with the owners mummy. From then on she could never separate the jars

from their function, and lost her love of their fanciful lids.

Her father often chided her for her distaste of everything to do with death. "It's a change

much like the shifting sands of the desert," he tried to convince her. "Your
ka,
your spirit double, will roam after death. It may want to return for things it needed in this life. That's

why we must supply them."

But she would have nothing to do with it. She loved this earth, the sun on her face, the call

of birds, the smells of oils and burning lamps. She was too much of this world to ever want

to leave it.

"My father
is
the best potter," she agreed, shaking off the thoughts of death.

Ramose stepped closer to her. "I will enjoy spending time with you back in our village as we

did when we were children."

She was suddenly uncomfortable and turned to leave, but he held on to her wrist.

"Back then we liked each other, didn't we?" he said.

She knew he meant more than mere childish liking. It was true. There had always been

something unspoken

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between them. "But you went away and joined the army," she reminded him.

"Strange," he said, "back then I always had the feeling that
you
would go away and never return, leaving me to wonder what had happened to you. It was such a strong belief, yet it

was based on nothing."

"So
you
left instead?" she guessed.

"Yes. I left you before you could leave me. But I am grown now and no longer believe in

such foolish premonitions. And now we have found each other again."

She studied his face. It was handsome and strong. What was it that had bothered her about

him before? She couldn't remember. Had she thought he was too harsh, too cold? None of

that was apparent now.

As a girl, she had been almost relieved when he'd left for the army, but now he was back

and he interested her all over again.

Tetisheri held his eyes a few minutes more before sliding her wrist from his grip. "We will

get to know each other again on our journey, and perhaps the past will reawaken," she said.

The sun burned down on Nerfi's shoulders as the group made its way through the desert

sand on the trip back to Nakht's manor. The ebony skin of the slave beside her glistened

with sweat as he strained to pull the sled laden

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with their supplies. In her large basket, she carried the four canopic jars they had purchased

from Tetisheri's father. They would be home before Amun-Ra left the sky.

Just ahead, Tetisheri and Ramose walked along, talking together. Nerfi lifted a heavy jug of

water from the slave's sled and hurried ahead with it. "I have brought water for you," she offered Ramose.

Ramose undid the flask tied to his sword belt and Nerfi poured water into it. Then she

turned toward Tetisheri and stumbled. The heavy jug filled with water crashed onto

Tetisheri's foot. It cracked in half, making a puddle in the sand. Screaming with pain,

Tetisheri teetered back a moment before collapsing onto the ground.

Nerfi threw herself onto the sand beside Tetisheri. "It is the heat," she cried. "I am overcome from it. Do not punish me."

Ramose scowled at her. "Get up, fool. You deserve to be whipped for such carelessness."

"Leave her," Tetisheri admonished. "I need your help."

Ramose bandaged Tetisheri's foot, which grew swollen almost instantly. He tied it up with

linen from his army supply bag. Then he pushed aside supplies on the sled and made her a

bed, commanding the slave to pull her the rest of the way home.

Tetisheri's added weight slowed him down and he soon fell yards behind Ramose and Nerfi.

The sun was growing

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lower in the sky. "We do not want to be stranded out here after dark," Nerfi said to Ramose.

"Perhaps we should hurry ahead to send back servants to assist the slave."

"She's right," Tetisheri agreed when the cart had caught up to them. "Leave the slave behind with me. We will be all right until you return, and it will impress Nakht that we have stayed

behind together without incident."

Ramose unsheathed his sword and brought it to the slave's face. "Do not even look at her,"

he barked. "If I hear that you have done anything to worry her, I will gut you and throw your insides on the desert sand for the jackals to devour. No one will care. Keep pulling this sled.

Do not rest for even a moment."

The sled jutted forward and then stopped. Tetisheri turned onto her side and strained to see

what had happened. The slave's hands were bleeding, and the blood ran down the rope. He

was on his knees, clutching his head.

How far ahead had Ramose and Nerfi traveled? They were specks in the distance. Good. This

slave did not need Ramose's fury laid upon his shoulders. How much pain could a human

being endure?

Her past fear of the slave deserted her as she limped around to the front of the sled. In this

condition, he posed little threat. "You are ill?" she asked.

He pressed his hand onto his forehead, his eyes clamped shut. She took some linen from

the bag Ramose had left

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behind and wet it, then pressed it to his forehead. Her hands working quickly, she untied

him from the sled. When he was free, he began to draw the Egyptian hieroglyph for sleep in

the sand.

Nothing but sleep would staunch the agony of his pounding head.

Tetisheri recognized the symbol. "Yes, sleep if you must," she agreed. "Go back on the sled.

Sleep." Staggering to the back, he curled into a ball and slept.

Tetisheri sat in the sand, her back supported by the bundles on the sled. Amun-Ra was

preparing to depart, spinning orange and low in the sky, taking the worst of the extreme

heat toward the ground in his descent.

When she tried to rotate her ankle, pain shot through her like a stabbing knife. It was more

than physical agony that caused tears to jump to her eyes: How would she dance with a

broken foot? Nakht and Renenutet would surely send her home now.

The trip back to her village had been disorienting. Ramose had returned as a hero. Tetisheri

had been greeted as a sort of royal figure as well. Everyone assumed she would wed

Ramose, even her parents, who were clearly delighted at the prospect. Somehow it seemed

inevitable.

A mewing sound came from the covered basket sitting among the bundles at her back.

Stretching around, she took it down and reached inside to check on the small black-and-

orange wild kitten she had found during the visit home.

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The villagers enticed the feral cats with scraps of food so they would come to their yards to

eat the rodents that decimated their grain stores. This little one had been wandering in her

parents' courtyard with no mother in sight.

Renenutet kept statues of Bast, the cat goddess with the feline head and the body of a

woman, all over the house. Bast was a daughter of Osiris and Isis, the twin sister of Horus.

She was the keeper of his sacred Eye. She was also the mother of the lion god, Mihos. Surely

Renenutet was a lover of cats and wouldn't object if Tetisheri brought this pet into the

household.

Tetisheri reached into the basket to check on her new pet. The kitten clawed playfully at her

hand, nipping her. "You're a frisky baby," she said. "Settle down. We'll be home soon."

Taking it onto her lap, she stroked its soft fur until it purred.

In little more than fifteen minutes, the slave was up again. He bowed and began to tie

himself to the sled. "Is your head better?" she asked as she returned the kitten to its

basket.

Touching his forehead, he nodded. His eyes were bright, refreshed. She stopped and looked

at his dark, desert-lined face and saw him as if for the first time. His face was not her idea of

classic beauty, not like Ramose with his almond eyes and long, straight nose, but she saw

something there that drew her.

"Sit with me a moment more," she entreated him.

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As he settled tentatively beside her, she drew in the sand the hieroglyph for peace.

It was unusual for anyone other than a priest, priestess, or royalty to be able to read or

write, but she had learned a little from her father while working in his shop. They sometimes

had to inscribe an urn, jar, vase, or canopic jar.

He nodded his agreement and responded with two hieroglyphs:
No harm.

She smiled a little and he answered with an equally slight smile.

How she wished he could speak. She wanted desperately to talk to him right then because

she now felt the need to patch together the links that connected the information she

already had. He was a captured soldier. He could write in Egyptian hieroglyphs. He had

some illness that pained his head. And she had dreamed of him, dreamed of him so deeply

that it was as if she had drunk in his spirit.

Was this the
ka
of which her father had spoken? Had their
ka
spirits met in the dreamtime, each clutching for the mysterious green jewel? Was that why the feeling of knowing him

was now so strong?