Author's note:
Funeral rites of the Egyptian are probably the most famous in the world, don't you think? First the draining of the internal organs, then the drying of the body, then embalming and the rites that follow. What I've tried to do is mix what history books say about them with even more fantasy from my overcooked brain.
Of course, all to frame the developing romance between Rai and Aretas. Please keep reading and reviewing!
Chapter 12
Homage to you, O ye gods of the Dekans in Anu, and to you, O ye Hememet-spirits in Kher Aha, and to thee, O Unti, who art the most glorious of all the gods who are hidden in Anu, O grant thou unto me a path whereover I may pass in peace, for I am just and true; I have not spoken falsehood wittingly, nor have I done aught with deceit.
-The Solar Litany, from The Book of the Dead, ca. 1240 B.C
It was nearly eighty sunsets before he saw her properly again, this time as part of Yuya's funeral's procession, after the time of embalming and readying Yuya's Ka for the Afterlife.
She had returned to look on Nefertiri that night and as she had promised, the queen had recovered under the astounding healing medicine that she had shown him. He had seen very little of her afterwards, having rotated shifts with other warrior-scribes, returning to the dwelling of his tribe in the desert.
Aretas stood by the side of the great palace as the procession made its way to Thebes from Hamunaptra, the snake of people that lined the streets stretching as far as the eye could see, mourning the who was to be the next great leader after Ramses II, his son Yuya of tender years. His second son after Yuya, the boy who was now to inherit the throne was barely three years old, weaned by another of his concubines and now renamed after his father.
It seemed appropriate that the boy's sarcophagus would be brought to the palace in the fading light; such that his soul not unaccompanied to the Afterlife almost complete. His procession had already lasted three days without end; the journey from Hamunaptra to Thebes already lasting two on foot.
The concubines and servants walked directly behind the chest of Yuya's possessions and his canopic jars, indistinguishable in their mourning attires, except for the headdresses of the vulture Nekhbet the royal wives wore. She was fully clad in white, a long tunic that started from the neck, covered by beads of sorts that reached to the ankles. The sleeves fanned out sharply, and a red wide belt cinched at a high waistline pleated the excess the loose cotton, allowing the skirt to billow gracefully around her legs.
Even in the most sombre of attires, with a head turned downwards, Enheduana-Rai was striking, matchless, and consummate. He watched her slow approach from the palace steps as the servants carried volumes of treasures and gold started down the dirt path that led to the palace, the song of the singers of Amun taking on a desperate wail as they strummed more forcefully on their instruments.
Rise up my father, great King
So that you may sit in front of them
The cavern of the broad sky is opened to you
So that you may stride in the sunshine.
Stand up for me, Osiris, my father.
I am your son, I am Horus.
I have come that I might cleanse and purify you,
That I might preserve you and collect your bones.
I say this for you.
At the entrance of the palace, it seemed that the common servants simply fell away, save for the royal women and the servants who bore the treasures and the sarcophagus of Yuya; the previous snake of the procession was now a short line, with more people falling away to the sides as the sarcophagus began its slow ascend towards the holy ground of the Pharaoh and the greatest of high priests. Only the greatest high priests, royal servants of the gods of Egypt, would chant the last rites in the palace and there only would Ramses II and his priests board the royal barge, which would then take its last symbolic sail down the Nile.
Yuya's journey, from boy to god was almost complete, as the crowd deferentially parted to make way for the sarcophagus; only people who were the most closely associated with the gods remained. The final contact of the sarcophagus was meant only for Ramses himself, the greatest son of Ra granting a godship on his own son, who was soon to join the ranks of the great ones before him.
The royal women now stood to the peripheries, after they ascended the stairs halfway, leaving the side of the sarcophagus after their three-day wakefulness, but not before anointing the sides of the coffin with their myrrh stained palms as their final farewell.
With a final cry from a high priest of Ptah, the palace doors closed, the crowd slowly dispersing, trundling north towards the Nile where they might catch a glimpse of the royal funerary barge in the distance.
There, they pointed, the barge awaited in the distance.
She did not turn her head in the direction of their fingers, not when death was a close companion of hers.
Enheduana-Rai was the one of the last of women to disperse; she stood still at the entrance of the great palace, a figure now diminutive and insignificant as she turned slowly and quietly made her way down to the marshland.
She knew that she should return to her chambers to prepare herself for the funeral feast of the gods, as the other royal women were doing- preening, chattering and laughing -it seemed as if Yuya's death had given them another reason to celebrate. He was the son of Peshet; they had told her that only she, as his mother, was to grief deeply.
She had only seen Yuya four times, a quiet, grave boy who only saw his father every moon cycle - the circumstances that had surrounded his death was something she did not want to think about at the moment.
The quiet of the stream now soothed her, and the placid run of the water sounding strange to her ears. Her head that had been filled with repetitive cries of the mourners, invoking the names of gods, exulting in their might to save the boy's soul now throbbed violently and with a wave of dizziness, swayed slightly. She was however, unprepared for the state of weakness that her body now found itself in, with no sustenance for two days -the people were also made to suffer for the boy's death - there was now a sound behind her and she whirled around; all she saw was a blur of green, barely conscious of a stranger's assuring arms that broke her collapse halfway.
Ramses no longer had a chief queen, she thought. He did not care anymore; the day he had left her bleeding on the floor was the day he had removed that official title from her, effectively labelling her a commoner, an outcast, who was no longer welcome in the his court. Besides, Yuya's death and funeral preparation had taken up his attention in the past months; Egypt still lay in financial ruins after the Exodus -nearly no woman now occupied his bedside. He and his Viceroy tried to save Egypt from ruin, two people administrating critical measures to curb the threat of a famine that would bleed the coffers completely dry.
He was a changed man, she believed. Temporarily mellowed by grief, yet hardening inside with rage. It was a matter of time before he needed the mass labour to save Egypt's desperate state, gathering his armies in pursuit of the Hebrew slaves that had left in riches months ago.
Nefertiri had watched Yuya's procession from a distance, grateful for her non-descript clothes. Djosyn had stolen her away from her chambers when she was barely able to stand and walk, and had brought her into the reaches of the desert, where his people dwelt.
The lifestyle of luxury that she was familiar with had long fled far, the people of the Medjai living a tried and tough existence in the vastness of the desert. The desert, she marvelled, was a place of protection to those who knew its secrets, but was spelled certain doom for those who got lost in its dunes. She seldom saw water or plants now; its preciousness was never more evident when only hard rock and endless sand surrounded one.
Djosyn and Aretas had rotated shifts with the other Medjai, whisking her away to the safety of their people and the lack of amenities, the simple lifestyle that they led seemed by far a small price to pay if Djosyn was always with her. And that he was, almost never away from her since he was off duty; his people had naturally accepted that she was, if not yet his wife, his unfaltering companion, for whom he had risked life and limb to save.
Again it seemed that their time was borrowed; when he had to return to his duties in the palace, although the element of the forbidden had faded away with each passing day. The hard, nomadic life that was built around the harsh desert was more real to her now than all that she had ever lived through.
She was now a woman of the Medjai; they were not harsh, knowing her as the famed royal queen Nefertiri, but treated her with no royal favours. She awoke with the sun, quietly worked as the other women did; drawing her own water, helped with the herds and educated the young Medjai generation in the lores of Egypt and their customs. Djosyn and Aretas trained the young boys daily; their patience never running out, endless, as they taught and re-taught the ways of the weapons and of combat. She would watch their activities outside Djosyn's tent every sunset, laughing with no small measure of amusement as the young boys tackled him to the ground at the end of every practice.
Her days of sparring as a court hobby and as performance were finished, she mused, although Djosyn insisted that she took up daggers from time to time as a reminder of her royal upbringing.
You may live with us, but you are still a woman of royal blood; I do not want you to forget that. There will be days where I am not able to protect you, he had told her.
It is not something I want to think about right now, she had replied easily.
All who live in and come from the desert are never safe, he had said simply, never once denying that they lived in perilous times; the desert offered its protection to her because the Medjai had called her their own under Djosyn, but it was only a temporary shelter.
She missed Djosyn terribly; he had left her a moon cycle ago to resume his duties, fiercely promising that he would return as quickly as he was allowed to. The political instability of Egypt was of grave concern to the Medjai.
The nights in his arms felt different than they did in the palace chambers, the fierce passion that had overtaken them then had been slowly replaced by a languid repose of contentment found in each other. The stars did shine brighter these nights, she had decided then without the stifling presence of the Egyptian court bearing down on them. What was forbidden and illicit seemed lawful; all the wrong was made right during those days as long as the cocoon of pleasure they had created never ruptured.
Yet time was never a luxury they had.
But now, she sighed, knowing that Djosyn and Aretas were somewhere in the procession, lost in the numerous bodies who mourned the young boy.
Making her way out of the Theban city, she mounted her horse and sat motionless for a while longer before riding the hard way back to the Medjai camp.
It would be quite some time before Djosyn returned to her.
