 |
| In an inset tale, we meet the beguiling Se-she-shet |
(Sesheshet is the mysterious young female that the young hunter Kha finds crawling in the reeds during the rampage of the female lioness of destruction, Sekhmet-Hathor.)
They ate. She ate lustily, like one fighting to regain her strength. He wondered if she brought the same amiable appetite to all her pleasures. She drained her cup twice and refilled it and filled it again. She drank that too and offered him more, but he covered the mouth of his cup.
She looked disappointed.
“Does the good bowman not unstring his bow at night to relax it?”
“I must stay alert,” he said.
“Do you hunt at night?”
“Sometimes. But I must always take care I am not the hunted one.”
“What is it that you hunt, beautiful man? Other than poor helpless girls in the reeds who cannot hide their nakedness."
“I'm hunting for the cat of destruction,” he said. “I am here to end her rampage.”
“You - hunting a goddess?” She was astonished. “With a bow and arrow? You come to hunt a goddess and you ended up bagging me. Don't be disappointed though. Maybe you found her after all. Maybe I am the goddess. Who knows what she looks like? Who has seen her and lived?” She gave a playful growl, pretending to be Sekhmet Hathor.
She was tiddly, strong beer acting on an empty stomach, he guessed.
“Don't joke about the cat of destruction.”
“Lighten your heart, Kha. It's time to be mirthful. We are young and alive. Can’t I pretend to be cat instead of woman if I want to?”
“You are more kitten than cat.”
“Do you suppose there is a kitten in Sekhmet-Hathor?”
“No, she is a merciless bitch-cat.”
“Would you really kill Sekhmet-Hathor if you found out she were just a kitten like me?” She poured herself more beer. Her eyes were steady in spite of the drink.
“I would have to kill her, whatever form she took.”
“Shall I dance for you Kha?”
“Don't be foolish. You are weak as a kitten and must rest.”
“Don't think about destruction now. Besides it is well known that the cat does not strike at night. She sleeps after her daily orgy of killing.”
“How did you survive?” he asked her, trying to deflect her from her wanton inclinations, brought on by the beer. “You had the fever?”
“Fever? Yes, I expect that was it. The blood boiled in my veins, I saw a haze of red before my eyes and people running and screaming and a roar like the sun filled my ears, then darkness. I don’t know how I came to the river. I was weakened and needed its coolness in my throat. More drink?”
“No, and you must rest.”
“Tell me a diverting story, Kha.”
“I am in no mood to tell stories.”
“Or a clever riddle.”
“You are a riddle. Who are you, really? Don't you remember? Who is your family? Are you a priestess as I suspect?”
“A Pure One, yes. I am certainly that.”
“In whose temple do you serve?”
“My own of course,” she said enigmatically.
“You worship in your own temple?”
“We must all, Kha. Haven't you learnt that to your cost?”
“Tell me.”
“The temple of Sekhmet-Hathor.”
What a twist. He was hunting the very goddess this young woman served. Maybe it explained why she had survived. She had been spared. It also explained her fondness for drink. Intoxication was a part of the goddess Hathor's temple ritual, the priests and priestesses believing that it led the devout to the attainment of higher planes of existence. Mostly it brought them spewing into the streets. But Hathor's Feast of the Good Union was the most popular occasion of all on Egypt's crowded calendar of festivities.
“Where is your temple?”
“Never mind. All is gone.”
“Do you have family?”
“Not a soul on earth.”
Kha remembered the old maxim: Beware the girl from other parts, whose town and family is not known. Do not stare at her when she passes by. Her heart is deep water whose windings one does not know, a whirlpool with unpredictable eddies.
But he said: “You must come with us. I won't leave you here among the dead.”
“You seem to have taken a protective interest in me. I am exceedingly charmed by it, being more used to conferring protection than receiving it. How sweet!”
“Just get well.”
“Why are you doing this for me? Why are you taking such pity on a stranger?”
“Because it is a universe without pity,” he said. “And I make this one stand to defy it. You are the flesh of Egypt. You are Egypt. And so you are holy to me in a way that means more than old gods on crumbling thrones.”
“I know what your heart is feeling, Kha. The gods have tried to destroy me too and failed. I am one with you, even though I have just met you. And you are right in everything you feel and say.” She touched his hand in sympathy.
Memories of death and destruction flew from his mind…
(inset tale in The Smiting Texts)
No comments:
Post a Comment