Khu: A Tale of Ancient Egypt by Jocelyn Murray Page B

asked, distracting the boatman from his dismal thoughts. Odji hoped it would happen soon before Mentuhotep returned from Kush.
    “King Khet y is probably on his way from Nen-nesu as we speak,” the boatman said. “The annual Festival of Osiris will be celebrated in Abdju soon.”
    Odji frowned. “Why would he go then?” he wondered aloud.
    “I think he wants to time the revolt to coincide with the festivities.”
    “ With the Festival of Osiris?” Odji was confused. It did not make sense to him. For a moment he wondered if the boatman got his facts mixed up. The man was getting on in years.
    “That is all I know,” the boatman said , shrugging his thin shoulders. He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another as he spoke. His sun-darkened skin was stretched tightly over his wiry frame, and the lines on his weathered face gave him a look of being perpetually worried.
    A gray short-haired cat watched him with aloof eyes from the shade of a doorway lying beyond the main entrance to the palace compound, and the boatman touched a hand to the amulet hanging from his neck. He felt guilty and wondered if the gods were watching as well.
    “ Ankhtifi is there already, with a small army of his own,” the boatman added. His eyes darted around nervously, making sure no one was in too close proximity to overhear their conversation. But no one even glanced their way.
    “Ankhtifi?”
    “Yes,” the boatman said, “King Khety’s supporter. The chieftain of Nekhen.”
    Odji nodded absentmindedly. He was imaging himself again as a lord. It was a far cry from the boy who was born to simple peasants.
    An ox-drawn cart passed by on its way to the village. It hauled a crop of melons, cucumbers, leeks and onions. A man and his son led the beast of burden through the street, tugging on the animal’s yoke. They did not even glance at the gatekeeper and the thin, older man with whom he was talking.
    No one noticed the avarice gleaming in Odji’s eyes. And as the boatman took his leave of Odji, hurrying to head back to his small vessel so he could get away from Thebes, Odji once again slipped into his reverie, dreaming of the day when he would oversee a small village of his own.

     
     
    SIX
     
     
    King Wakhare Khet y III, Ruler of Lower Egypt, stood in the pavilion of his palace in Nen-nesu. He had just dismissed his advisors and needed a moment alone to think. A servant was clearing away two platters of food and several cups of heqet that had been set on a long side table standing between two columns. Khety exhaled as he stepped down from the dais where his throne sat. He walked over to the table where he had left his cup earlier. The servant paused from her work to refill his cup with heqet before bowing and leaving with the platters.
    Today Khety received word that Ankhtifi had arrived in Abdju with a small army. This was good news. It was what he had wanted, and what he had been planning for several seasons now. Yet he felt a little ambivalent at how these long-awaited events were finally unfolding.
    The king walked over to the edge of the pavilion with the cup in his hand. He took a sip of the heqet and stared out at the view. His palace sat on a piece of land which rose sharply from the Nile’s western bank. It was set higher than the crop fields growing closer to the water’s edge. A village lay south of the palace, and west of the fields. From its elevated ground, the palace commanded stunning views of the River Nile and the lush floodplains to the east, as well as of the desert ridges, sand plains, and rocky plateaus stretching interminably to the west.
    There were no clouds in the vast blue sky, and the king interpreted that as an augury boding well for his plans. He needed the gods to smile upon him, for tomorrow he would depart for Abdju, where he would be joining Ankhtifi with his own army of men. The timing was perfect, for it happened to be the Festival of Osiris which was celebrated annually in Abdju. Hopefully