Chapter six
Ahmes would not let me be seen in public with him, he was still supposed to be in mourning for his wife and didn’t want to alienate her father the King.
He wasn’t able to temper his lust for me however, even though he was not able to perform like a lion.
He stationed one of the servants that had escorted me to and from the temple to keep an eye on me, his name was Akhom.
I found myself deeply attracted to Akhom, he was a large powerful man with a subtle sense of humor.
When we were alone together I would try staring at him the same way I seen Isis stare at men in order to manipulate them. I would also accidently brush up against him when I had to walk by.
I could see him look at me sometimes when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. I could tell he wanted to be loyal to his employer but I was sure I would eventually prevail in bending his will.
Akhom’s wife had died a few years before and he had never remarried, he had two young daughters that were being raised by his mother’s family.
Unfortunately Ahmes started to become suspicious and very jealous, he soon replaced Akhom with his partner Bai.
I thought Bai was a more than suitable replacement, he also seemed to care a lot less about being loyal to Ahmes for he had no family to support.
It was only a few short weeks before he seized me roughly with his muscular arms and finally gave me the release I had been yearning for.
Ahmes seem to know immediately that something had happened, his jealousy became uncontrollable, he dismissed Bai and refused to let me out of his sight.
I had told him that I had learned how to write previously, he now used that knowledge against me. He appointed me as his official scribe so he could always watch me.
“Don’t put on so much paint around your eyes,” Ahmes had a small rag and he carefully wiped the kohl from my eyes.
“That dress, don’t you have one a little less revealing.”
“No! These were all bought by you,” I replied angrily.
“Stop your insolence.”
I stared at him my anger making my face warm.
Ahmes face also had an expression of anger, but I could also sense a tone of desperation in his voice.
“We mustn’t fight Kem, in time you will be happy here.”
I felt his hand grope my thigh hungrily.
“Aren’t we going to be late for your meeting,” I replied indifferently.
“Yes of course, let us go.”
I allowed him to clasp my hand and we walked out of the house’s main entrance.
It was a short walk to the Kings palace. I had been to a number of Ahmes meetings in the last week, at first I was met with stunned amazement by the other members but as soon as they saw my scribes pallet and obvious writing skill I just became a mild curiosity.
The King had been feeling his mortality lately this coinciding with the death of his daughter.
He had appointed Ahmes to construct a tomb to carry him to the afterlife. Ahmes had been conducting meetings with subordinate architects in order to come up with a floor plan and overall exterior design.
The typical nobleman’s tomb was usually created by excavating a few rooms into the desert ground. Then the corpse of the deceased was then interned with all the items needed for the afterlife and then wooden planks or large stone slabs were laid on top creating a roof for the rooms.
The final procedure was to cover the complex with a large flat mound of earth, this to keep the tomb robbers at bay.
This seldom worked, the evidence of robbery was apparent in most of the tombs of Lunu’s elite.
The King wanted another solution so that his tomb would be spared this fate, Ahmes and his subordinates had been unable to come up with a foolproof design.
“What if we make the mound bigger and out of stone, say to the height of a fifteen men.”
This from Senbi, a young eager looking fellow, I was pretty sure he had poor eyesight from the way he would squint at me. I was also sure he was infatuated with me.
He would blurt out odd questions to me after spending many minutes deep in concentration. I suspected he was building up his courage.
Strangely he kept his styluses in a special linen sack he had made so the ink wouldn’t stain the wooden box he carried them in.
“It would be hard to lift the blocks up after the first few levels,” Ahmes replied.
“Um… um… we could slope the sides and… use ramps,” said Squinty,”What do you think Kem?” he stared at me intensely.
“Well, what I think is that if we didn’t bury the King with all the crap he wants there would be nothing to steal.”
There was an uncomfortable silence, the group then carried on as if I had said nothing.
I was astounded when I had first started attending these meetings how much effort was going into something that would never work.
The King could easily walk to fifty plundered tombs a within half a day’s journey from his palace yet his vanity would lead him to believe that only he alone would thwart the thieves.
I suspected most of the robberies were being done by the very same labourers who had help construct them begin with.
I noticed many strategically placed lintels and roof slabs that were made of defective rock, all of which enabled quick access to the tombs.
“I say we use blocks, but only to the height that is feasible and then put loose stone and dirt on top of that,” said Ahmes second in command Horus.
He was a distinguished looking older man. Ahmes didn’t trust him and suspected he had been trying to take over the project behind his back.
The fourth member of the team was the construction foreman Paser, who like I, had lost all patience.
“Yes, that’s good perfect. I’ll start the quarrying,” he said.
“No wait… wait, we have to be sure,” Ahmes replied.
This started a furious argument with the four of them yelling and pounding their fists on the table.
I noticed at times like this how similar small groups of men were to a pack of dogs. I looked at their mouths moving and snarling faces and could almost hear them bark, woof… woof woof!! WOOF!!! Woof woof… woof??
There was always the inevitable whining underling as the pack leader re-established his dominance.
“Yes… YES! I’ll wait… yes. It’s your responsibility,” Paser said to Ahmes.
I realized that Ahmes was incapable of making a decision. He was petrified that he would make the wrong one and Horus would point this out to the King which in turn would get him booted off the project.
I wondered how anything had ever gotten built in Lunu.
“Damn that Horus, I can see in his eyes he conspires against me,” Ahmes said as we walked back to our house.
“You must do something, the King expects a plan,” I replied.
Ahmes thought for a minute, I could see a frenzied scared look in his eyes.
“I shall allow Horus take credit for the plan, you must put his name prominently on all the documents. Then if it fails the King will blame him.”
“What if it succeeds?”
Ahmes smiled at me, “I will make sure he is not involved in the construction and then diminish the value of his drawings and instructions.”
I didn’t tell Ahmes that the King would have to die in order to see if the tomb was successful. I had met the son the King had chosen for his heir, he was arrogant and indifferent to everyone but his father whom he continually flattered.
I was pretty sure he would lose any interest in his father’s corpse the moment it was interned.
As we neared the house Ahmes gripped my hand harder, “we have the afternoon off, and perhaps if you are feeling better we can go to the bedroom.”
“I still have a searing pain in my head, I fear it is some terrible pestilence you must let me rest.”
“You have been ill a long time,” Ahmes whined.
I had no pain in
my head but I had been able to use this ruse in order to keep him at bay. I knew that even a man with his tiny libido would soon grow impatient but for now I was free of his clumsy groping.
“Tomorrow you will work with Senbi and put down Horus’s plan on papyrus,” Ahmes said as we entered the house. He then called for one of the servants to cook him a large meal.
I lay down on a couch and went to sleep.
“It has been a while tasty one.”
We were not on the shores of the great river this time but deep in the desert. Sobek had taken the form of an old man.
“I have not been dreaming,” I replied.
“You must pay careful attention to Senbi, you must learn what he knows.”
“Senbi? Why?”
“You must do this Kem, if you don’t just remember, the river is full of crocodiles.”
I drifted off into a deep sleep.
The next day Senbi started smiling uncontrollably when Ahmes told him that we were to work together to transcribe Horus’s plan. Ahmes obviously did not feel threatened by Senbi’s infatuation of me, or perhaps he didn’t notice, for he allowed us to work together out of his sight.
For all his faults Senbi was a diligent and gracious co-worker. He never took credit for my work or refused to share his extensive knowledge.
“The idea is not enough Kem, we have to break it down so that lay people can do the actual work,” he said when we first started.
Senbi first showed me how to create the drawings that would be needed by Paser to dig the proper sized rooms and quarry the stone blocks.
I paid rapt attention to everything he said. I had remembered Sobek’s veiled threat. There was no way to survive in this land without spending time next to the great river and its crocodiles.
Senbi and I spent many weeks on the drawings, he showed me how to manipulate numbers in ingenious ways that seemed more amazing then magic had been to me as a child.
“When you divide a circle’s circumference by its diameter you will always get this number Kem three and one seventh,” he had said the first week.
“But why?”
“No one knows, that’s what the gods decided.”
I spent many nights reading scrolls Senbi had lent me by lamplight. I learned how to measure time by the passage of the stars as well as the start of seasons and the sacred directions.
One morning when we had almost completed all the drawings and descriptions Senbi brought a small chest with him to our little office. He set it on the table opened it and pulled out a scroll.
“I wanted to show you this before we had finished, it’s an idea I had,” he rolled out the scroll.
I saw the papyrus was covered in boxes and circles joined together with lines. The boxes and circles all had writing in them.
“What is it?”
“It’s a way of planning these jobs so that anyone could do it, see it starts here,” he pointed to a circle with start written in it, “Then it flows through each decision and what to do if problems are encountered.”
I followed one of the lines to a box, it had “not enough blocks quarried?” written in it then two lines emerging one was labelled yes the other no. They went to other blocks with descriptions of what should be done.
“See if we used this we wouldn’t need to rely on Paser’s memory so much.”
I examined the papyrus closely, it was interesting but I was skeptical of it use, Paser had a fantastic memory and was quick to make wise decisions.
“It’s interesting,” I said.
Senbi could sense my skepticism, “well… um… it still needs work,” he said.
“Well in any case we’re almost done,” I said trying to cheer him up.
He became even more melancholy.
That night I had to finally relent and let Ahmes have his way with me, he had started to become mean and callous. Thankfully his stamina hadn’t improved. When he had finished and rolled onto his back I fell asleep.
“Hello Kem,” Sobek said.
We were in an impossibly large room, the walls were decorated with massive pictures so lifelike I wouldn’t have been surprised if the creatures and men in them had jumped out from them and walked around.
The floor was made of blindingly bright stone so smooth and flawless I could see my reflection in it.
Sobek appeared in his god form, a man with the head of a crocodile.
I had never seen him like this and prostrated myself in fear.
“Stand up, I have something to show you.”
Sobek created the first fissure I had ever seen.
“What is it?” I gasped looking at it slowly turning.
“It’s what sorcerers use to create magic,” he replied, “You must remember exactly what I say Kem and write it down when you wake up.”
Sobek showed me how to create fissures, and explained what they were.
“How will I use this?”
“Just remember what you’ve learned in your life, remember what Senbi showed you.”
I suddenly remembered Senbi’s papyrus with its little blocks and a vague idea started to form in my mind.
“Kem, the next time you see me will be when Anubis weighs your heart.”
“I’m going to die?”
“Not for a very long time Kem. You will be my last worshiper, but do not worry I will wait for you.”
I felt a profound sadness in my heart.
“One more thing Kem, there are many gods, always remember their hearts are not weighed down with guilt like people’s are and their actions are no more predictable then a roll of the dice.”
I woke up with tears in my eyes, I brushed them away got up and hurriedly wrote down what Sobek had told me before I forgot.
“What’s a fissure?” Shelley asked as Charlie rolled up the Papyrus.
“I don’t know, I’m not even sure if that’s the right translation it might be hole or something else I can’t be sure.”
“I guess we now know the guy who invented the flow chart,” Shelley said.
“Yes, it’s odd that it’s never shown up in any dig,” said Mohammad.
“Maybe they didn’t have enough buzzwords to use it properly,” Charlie said, “there’s still plenty of daylight left I’ll get another papyrus.”
The mastery of sorcery is a combination of trial and error and near death experiences.
I went with Ahmes to the Kings palace the next morning to finish up the plans for the Kings tomb.
“Is Horus’s name is prominent on all the documents?” Ahmes asked me.
“Yes I even used formal script.”
“Excellent.”
I left Ahmes and joined Senbi in his office.
“Well it should only take part of the morning to finish up,” I said.
Senbi stared at me with a strange look in his eyes, then he walked up to me grabbed my hand and dropped to his knees. He started kissing my hand.
“I love you Kem, come away with me.”
I had grown cynical about the desires of men and coldly pondered his request.
“You know I cannot do that…unless… there is one thing you could do for me.”
I explained to Senbi that I needed time away from Ahmes and that if he could come up with an excuse for me to continue working in his quarters I would succumb to his will.
“Yes of course… of course,” he pressed my hand against his face.
Senbi told Ahmes that he had wanted to design a temple and present the plans to the King to see if it could be built. He said he would like my assistance because of my skill as a scribe.
“Are you willing to work with Senbi,” Ahmes asked me.
I feigned an expression of disgust, “If I must,” I said resentfully.
Ahmes did not see Senbi as a threat and I could see that he thought he would be the perfect person to keep an eye on me.
“It will be good for you Kem,” he said sternly.
So I began my study of sorcery. I was able to satisfy Senbi without givin
g all of myself, for I feared becoming pregnant. He seemed thankful of any attention that I gave him.
Then I would spend the rest of the day alone in his office writing and experimenting with magic. I soon learned how dangerous and powerful it was.
I had numerous accidents, such as creating a wind so powerful it almost blew me into oblivion, another time I summoned a mighty flow of water that almost destroyed his office and drowned me.
After four months of intense study and stifling Senbi’s curiosity I became a functional if not gifted sorcerer. I knew it would take years to hone my new craft but for now I was still the most powerful mage in the land.
I immediately thought of a plan to secure my freedom from Ahmes then prepared the spells to accomplish it.
It was a week later during an afternoon in Ahmes house that I put my plan into action.
I had packed my meager possessions in a reed basket. I put on my most elegant dress and painted my face. I sat on the couch in the main living area drinking a large cup of wine.
Ahmes stumbled out of the bedroom groggily and looked at me.
“Why are you wearing that dress?” he said angrily, “and I have told you many times not to wear makeup!” he reached for a small rag.
There was a rustling sound that came from the main entrance, I saw the expression on Ahmes face change from anger to amazement to fear.
“Who is this whore?!” Hippo face screamed at Ahmes.
“Um… she is… scribe…”
“Get this slut out of here now or I will have her put to death!”
I downed the rest of my wine picked up the reed basket and walked out of the house. Hippo face didn’t even notice me, her eyes blazed with fire and were locked onto her unfaithful husband.
I was free.