Kuhre fingered the
binding of the knot. It was her collar, constant reminder that she belonged to
Sekmeht.
There were ways the knots, complex though they were,
could be untied, but there was little chance of such a thing, little profit in
untying. She never imagined it, never even dreamed of it.
The collar, the knots, were crafted in finely braided
red flax. This collar contained a high magic. Kuhre knew that only a priestess
could remove it. If she herself discarded it, the goddess would find her--in
the day, in the night--in the Red Land, or the Black--and eat her, liver first,
as lions customarily did.
Jaws dripping silver in the moonlight, a crocodile
yawned. Kuhre could smell creature, the dangerous muddy reek on the faint breeze
which floated across the water. She imagined her churning the brown Nile with her
great tail, a cloud of blood welling in the shallows. She had seen this once,
another child--her older brother--playing too close to the shore, taken, right before her eyes. The
great creature had popped from the element of water onto the shore, and then
was gone. The instant of flying mud and failing limbs had left behind only a
shriek, his last cry hanging like a stricken bird in the buzzing, superheated air. How here parents had grieved, shaving their eyebrows! Kuhre had wept, too, although she'd felt more shock than grief for the brother, the child her parents most favored. Soon after, in the famine time, her parents had delivered Kuhre up to the temple and left her there, not seeming to care if she would serve there, or be sold as a slave in Canopus.
That long ago afternoon had left Kuhre with a terrified fascination
for the armored one, these children of Sobek, Lord of the Dark Water. She had learned the safest time to watch
them in the papyrus swamp below the temple was at night, when they were sleepy
and cold, but the death she’d witnessed had taught a her a lesson, about how Death
walked always at your side. Death could come and seize you in her black jaws in
an eye blink. Laughter could, in an instant, become a scream, and you would be
no more. Devoured, body gone, your Ka would be lost, doomed to wander forever
in the realms of utter night.
Kuhre knew she was in little danger here, atop the flat
sanctuary wall, lying on her belly, a white linen shawl wrapped around her
against the chill, gazing down at the lush scene --the lazy curve of the backwater--the papyrus,
the low spreading pads of the lotus, their flowers closed tight like sleeping
eyes, the tall palms outlined against the sable arch of Nut, her star children
sparkling upon her curved belly. It was
night, the great blinding heat of Ra behind--and ahead. Kuhre knew that as servant here, she had no
father, no mother, no past, no future, only the Goddess whom she had been
brought to serve seven inundations past.
Ah, the Goddess!
If any of her lamps went out, old Kennet would have her hide! Thinking of that, Kuhre finally arose. After first stretching her slim brown body against the velvet sky, she dropped
down onto the other side of the still warm brick wall, into the holy precinct's well-watered
garden.
She loved her ferocious Goddess. She enjoyed most of her simple
tasks, keeping the holy rooms swept clean, and the altars dressed with flowers,
although she did not particularly love washing the piss of the sacred cats from
the feet of statues and the tall papyrus inspired columns. She loved dancing and singing for
Sekmeht, shaking the sistrum, performing with the other girls beneath those cat eyes of palest gold, while
the priests and priestesses chanted or sang the hymns that praised her. In the
night, led within the darkest holiest place, the small temple within a temple, she
had once been allowed to look upon the smallest and most perfect golden statue
of Sekmeht, the light forever shining upon her, the ureaus crown gracing her
lion’s head.
Carefully padding through the garden, reed sandals
squeaking softly as she went, she tugged her shawl close with a shiver. She had
stayed longer atop the wall than she had intended, watching death lolling, Sobek’s
children spilling silver water from from her scales.
In the garden perfumes lingered. The smell of green, of
flowers and trees was pronounced in the dry night air, now flowing into the
valley from the desert. There were other smells, too. The strong smells of the
sacred lions and leopards who regularly marked certain parts of the garden.
They were loose in this place, but Kuhre was not afraid of them. They belonged
to Sekmeht, and she belonged to Sekmeht, so there was nothing to fear. They had
their moments, when they were cubbing or breeding, when it was not so safe to
walk among them, but she was never afraid, never had been, even when she’d
first arrived here as a child.
Perhaps she should have been as afraid of the sacred
lioness as she was of the crocs. She had, after all, seen two lions eat a man once, and
in the same way that cats eat mice. A pounce, a bite, then the screams, the
limping attempt at flight, the blood. Another ambush, more screams, then an
encouraging slap of a great paw, suggesting escape, followed by another pounce,
another broken limb, and so on, until the man’s spine broke, and the game
ceased to be interesting. This was how Kuhre knew that lions liked to eat prey
belly first, tearing out the soft parts, ignoring the dying gurgles, the
useless, flapping hands. She’d sat on
the wall and watched, with a mixture of disgust and fascination, along with
other temple servants.
Still, she knew the big cats who lived here were not,
as a rule, dangerous. Like her brother, the victim had been at the wrong place
at the wrong time. That man had been more than heedless; he had been a
criminal. The young man was a gentleman from another city, but he was of Egypt,
and should have known better. He and his companions had entered the sacred
precincts without devotion. Perhaps drunk, they had teased the lions in the
garden, and then run. It was just at
sundown when this blasphemy occurred; the cats were hungry.
No one interferred, except that the priests came out
and drove his impious friends back with whips and staves, prevented them from
offering aid. It was clear they had
treated the lionesses, (and therefore, the Goddess) with great disrespect. Such
flouting of the proper order of things must never be tolerated. The rest of this group, the ones caught by
the priests, had gone to the Natrum mines in the desert. Perhaps the leader, the one eaten by the
lions, had been given the softer punishment.
So Kuhre walked on, taking the quickest way back to the temple. The moon was old, but still
sufficiently gibbous to give good light for her human eyes. She saw the
lionesses’ eyes glowing, as they watched her cross the garden, but she did not fear, for she knew they had been well-fed at dusk. On every side, fountains tinkled and night-fallen dew
dappled across the leaves. Above, a vast host of trembling stars spangled the night with white, blue and red...
Juliet Waldron
Historical Novels told with Passion and Grit
To learn more about the Goddess today~~
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