Khu: A Tale of Ancient Egypt (11 page)

Nevertheless,
Odji had felt nothing but shame for his father who would come home each evening covered in dirt. And rather than admiring the man who worked hard to carve out a living for himself and his family, Odji despised him. His father reminded him of the swine covered in mud. They were filthy creatures, and were banned from religious ceremonies because they were regarded as unclean.

“Father, you
are dirty,” Odji once complained when he was a child.

His father’s fingernails
were always encrusted with soil, no matter how much time he spent washing his hands. Odji did not wish for anyone to see his father this way. It was disgraceful and embarrassing, especially in a society that valued purity and cleanliness. But Odji’s father just laughed at his son’s repugnance.

“
Better to be dirty and blameless, than clean with a filthy heart,” his father replied wisely. “There is no shame in work, Odji. Even those who spend their days cleaning the dung from the animal pens are doing honorable work,” his father spoke around a mouthful of bread, and paused to wash it down with a long gulp of heqet. “And this soil that you detest is what grows the food we eat. It is the fertile black land of life.”

“But
I detest it on
you
, Father. You smell bad! And everything you touch gets dirty!” Odji raised his voice to his father before running outside and up the narrow staircase leading to the rooftop.

They lived in a caretaker’s lodge next to the servants’ quarters on the palace
grounds. Although Odji was the son of a gardener, he had been granted special permission to attend school with the children of the upper classes, where he was taught to read and write. He proved to be a bright child with talent, and his parents encouraged him in his lessons. They had wanted him to become a scribe because the work opportunities would be plentiful and lucrative. But Odji was lazy and found the work tedious. He did not want to invest the time and effort in learning something he did not like. He also felt inadequate. Every day that he studied with the other boys, he was reminded of his own humble position, not from anything they would do or say, but from his own inferiority complex. He was selfish, ungrateful and vain. And he blamed his own shortcomings on his father.

Odji swore that he would be different
from the man who begot him. And he was. He was nothing like his father. While his father had been a humble man who was grateful for his place in the world, Odji wore his pride like a heavy cloak—a cloak reeking of arrogance. He felt entitled to a life he had not been born into.

“Odji!” His father
said. And when the boy did not answer, he followed him up to the roof.

The sun had already set earlier, and all that remained of twilight was a
thin band of silver glossing the edge of the horizon. No moon shone in the sky, and long shadows spread like black wine spilling over the land. The trees edging their home deepened the darkness, making it difficult to see.

“Odji?” his father called as he climbed the last few steps near the rooftop. “I know you are up here.”

Odji did not answer. He was sulking behind a tall
clay amphora on the opposite side of the roof.

His father reached the roof and paused. He was tired, and it had been a long day. “You
have nothing to be ashamed of, son,” he said. “There is nothing shameful about hard work. It is hard work that got us here, and it will get us into the Field of Reeds as long as we live a good and moral life.”

Odji
still said nothing. He kept sulking behind the amphora, as he listened to his father’s footsteps.

“
We could still be living in the village next to the other peasants. And you would never have had the opportunity to learn how to read and write. Instead, we’d all be doing back-breaking work in the crop fields all day long.” He took small steps, trying to avoid tripping on anything. “But even that is honorable,” he nodded to himself. “Yes, hard work is honorable, Odji. We must live by the principles of
maat
, for truth, order and integrity are everything.”

Odji exhaled, slumping down further into his
self-made misery. By now even the silver lining on the horizon was gone, having faded away into the night. Only the bright stars lit up the sky with their glittering splendor.

H
is father squinted as he peered into the darkness, hoping to find his sullen boy. “Come out, child,” he said. “Come out and stop this foolishness. Do not be offended by a little dirt. It is the dirt within men’s hearts that is most offensive; the filth you cannot see. Remember that always, son.”

And those were his last words.

Something frightened Odji and he tumbled out from behind the amphora and into his father’s legs. It might have been a spider crawling over his hand, or a cricket hopping in the darkness, or even just his own skittish imagination which made him screech in surprise as he tumbled into his father.

And startled by the commotion, his father
lost his balance and tripped. He tried to avoid falling on the boy at his feet as he stepped away awkwardly, but he lost his footing as he came perilously close to the roof’s edge.

It was not the fall that killed
Odji’s father, but rather the pile of mud-bricks sitting on the ground below. He lost his balance and fell off the roof, over the side of the house, landing awkwardly on that pile of bricks where he broke his neck. It had been swift. So swift, that his father did not even scream.

Odji stood
, wide-eyed for a heart-stopping moment. He kept very still, staring into the darkness as he held his breath, suddenly aware of the sounds of the night. Crickets were chirping, and a dog whined in the distance. Hushed voices drifted from the servants’ quarters in another part of the compound, and a light breeze ruffled the branches of the palm trees nearby. He heard an owl call, and he shivered involuntarily, touching the amulet hanging from his neck. Then he headed back slowly downstairs.

“Mother?” he call
ed.

Odji
was strangely calm. It was as though an invisible burden had been lifted from his shoulders. The load weighing him down was gone. He knew his father was dead. He knew it an instant after his father had fallen. And yet he felt nothing. No sadness, no remorse, no sorrow. Because he was dead inside.

T
ogether he and his mother had gone outside to find his father’s body.

At least
his father had died with his eyes closed.

Mentuhotep’s father,
King Nakhtnebtepnefer Intef III, was king at the time when Odji’s father died. He was a kind man who allowed Odji and his mother to continue living on the palace compound where his mother worked as a servant. They had moved out of the caretaker’s lodge and into the smaller servants’ quarters. Odji gladly abandoned his studies after that. A scribe was not something he aspired to.

Odji
did odd jobs for several years until he commenced his guard training. When he was old enough, he began working as gatekeeper, where he remained through the rest of Intef’s reign, and Mentuhotep after him. Yet his job as gatekeeper—though honorable—had never been good enough as far as he was concerned, for some people are born restless and can find no satisfaction in life. Odji was not going to sit around and wait for a change that would never come. He refused to accept things as they were.

So he
began to plot something new to bring about that change for himself.

Odji
had a friend named Mdjai who lived north of Thebes in the district of Abdju, which was an important religious site of many temples. Mdjai had boasted about his life as an official, and how he oversaw one of the district’s smaller villages of craftsmen and laborers. Although he answered to a noble, the people of the village answered to him.

Odji wanted the same arrangement for himself.
It would be far more exciting than what he did now. He was able to read and write, and believed that these skills made him worthy of a higher occupation.

Odji
had never taken a wife, nor did he have any children. He did not care for those sentimental things, nor did he have time for the burdens accompanying such mundane and tedious bonds. All he wanted was power; a power to wield according to his own will.

“I am responsible for settling petty conflicts
among the villagers,” Mdjai had said.

“You are their judge?” Odji asked interestedly
, when he had seen the man at one of the many festivals celebrated throughout Egypt.

“Yes.
Their first judge. They bring their cases before me and I listen to their complaints. Then I arbitrate in their disputes.”

“And if they are unhappy
with the ruling?”

“They can petition to have their case heard by the temple priests.”

Odji liked that
very much. It would certainly be more interesting than what he did now. He wanted the respect and fear that would be shown him as an official overseeing a village of his own. He wanted the deference of a people subjected to his authority. He got a secret thrill from other people’s fear. It made him feel powerful, and flooded his veins with a kind of decadent exhilaration. Just thinking of it made his skin prickle with anticipation.

He
closed his eyes as he indulged in one of the fantasies which helped him get through the day-to-day routine in his dull existence. In his mind’s eye he saw people begging for mercy before him. Their pathetic pleas gave him a titillating rush as he grabbed a whip to inflict a merciless punishment upon their backs. Odji swallowed and opened his eyes, tamping down the excitement that made his heart beat faster.

It would not be long now.

Odji had been biding his time and working out a new plan. He
had made an arrangement with his friend Mdjai, where they would secretly exchange information so that Odji would keep him abreast of Mentuhotep’s business affairs. Mdjai knew important officials who were interested in having inside knowledge about Mentuhotep. The Theban king had rivals who would pay well for this information.

After their agreement,
Odji sent messages to Mdjai in Abdju every so often by way of the boatman who had come down the Nile on that blundered robbery attempt several years before. He was paid for this information according to its importance. Odji felt no allegiance to the Theban king, and did not hesitate to betray his ruler. He felt no loyalty to anyone except himself.

Odji
had told Mdjai that King Mentuhotep often went down to Kush to see to his mines, trade resources, and to visit and collect taxes from some of the settlements along his route. He told his friend how the king was getting richer from the gold he often brought back. And in return, Mdjai also shared information about the political intrigues throughout the northern lands.

The boatman had recently informed Odji that a revolt was being planned
in Abdju. It was being led by King Khety of Lower Egypt, who ruled from the seat of his throne in Nen-nesu, south of the Nile Delta. Khety had been conspiring with forces from the settlement of Nekhen—which was not too far south of Thebes. With the help of Ankhtifi, who was the governing chieftain of the province of Nekhen, Khety planned to capture Abdju and then continue on south in hopes of capturing Thebes as well.

Abdju had remained neutral in the political conflict dividing the once-unified powers of Egypt. It was an autonomous district, independent of the sovereignties of Lower and Upper Egypt. But some of its people wanted the protection and power that an alignment with Lower Egypt’s throne would afford. Odji’s friend Mdjai was one of them. Others, like many of the high priests in the temples, were more sympathetic to Mentuhotep and preferred to position themselves alongside the Theban ruler if neutrality were no longer possible.

King
Khety had his sights set on overthrowing Mentuhotep, seizing the throne of Upper Egypt, and consolidating the two kingdoms under his own rule. Gaining control of Abdju would be a pivotal step in the direction that would empower him over the divided lands.

“Just try to distract
your sovereign with local matters,” the boatman told Odji, as though it were that easy. “Then everything will fall into place.” He was relaying a message from Mdjai in Abdju.

Odji just stared at the boatman
, the lines between his eyes deepening. His mind was trying to sift through and organize all the information the man had told him. He knew that Mentuhotep was wise. It would not be easy to distract him with anything. The king would see right through the weakness of that plan, and wonder what he was up to. But Mentuhotep’s expedition to Kush could not have come at a better time. All Odji had to do was wait and hope that the king would be delayed by the Kushites. That would give King Khety the time he needed to capture Abdju.

“You will be compe
nsated well. The Lord King Khety himself will see to it that you get your own village in one of the more prosperous districts in the north.”

Odji swallowed at the lure dangling before him.
His time had finally come. He would soon quit Thebes for good, and go north to live as a lord overseeing a village. If only his father could see him now. Everything looked promising on that sun-drenched afternoon which even made the dirt roads sparkle. Power was the elixir that made his head spin, not unlike the potent ceremonial heqet brewed very strongly during times of great feasting.