Ra

What the Eye Had Seen

Hathor returned at sunset with a strip of linen caught beneath one fingernail.

Ra saw it when she reached for his hand. The cloth was blue, with a row of small white birds stitched along its edge. Someone had taken trouble over those birds. One had a crooked wing.

He let her take his hand.

“Are they finished?” he asked.

“Those in the western hills.”

The court stood behind him. No one moved. His daughter bent her head, waiting for the praise he had given her when she first went out, when the words against him were still hot in his ears. Old, the people had called him. Too old to rule what he had made.

His fingers tightened around hers. Gold pressed against gold.

“Then come inside.”

“There are others beside the river.”

“Let them remain there.”

Hathor raised her face. In her eyes he saw the slopes she had crossed, the people running, the places where they had stopped. He had sent his Eye to find his enemies. It had found everyone within reach.

“They fled your judgment,” she said.

“I have judged enough.”

She drew her hand from his, slowly, as though he had misunderstood something simple.

“At dawn,” she said, “I will finish.”

She turned toward the darkening land. Ra spoke her name, and the pillars caught it and carried it through the house. She paused at the outer door. For an instant he thought she would return.

Then she stepped through.

The blue thread remained across his palm.

Ra looked at the gods who had counseled him. Some had their eyes lowered. Others watched the doorway with the satisfaction of servants whose work was being done well.

“Bring the survivors here,” he said.

Shu moved first. “They are hiding from you.”

Ra opened his mouth to repeat the command. The thread stirred in his breath.

“Then take me to them.”

The Brewer’s Price

The woman struck him with a beer cup.

It broke against his shoulder. She reached for another before Shu caught her wrist.

Ra had entered the brewing court ahead of his light, keeping its radiance low, and for a moment she had seen only a tall old man in the doorway. Now the gold of his face lit the broken pieces at her feet.

“Let her go,” he told Shu.

She pulled her arm free. Behind her, a row of fermentation jars stood beneath reed covers. The court smelled of grain and sour warmth. Beyond the wall, a child coughed, then was hurriedly hushed.

“How much beer?” Ra asked.

The woman stared at him.

“In these jars. How much is ready?”

“For whom?”

“Hathor.”

She snatched up the neck of the broken cup.

Shu stepped between them, but Ra put a hand on his shoulder and moved him aside.

“She will drink,” Ra said. “She will sleep. We will put it in her path before morning.”

“And you have only just thought of making her sleep?”

He could have filled the court with light until she fell upon her face. He knew precisely how little it would take. The wish came so easily that he looked away from her, toward the covered jars.

“Yes.”

She waited. He had nothing to add.

At last she set down the shard.

“There is more at the temple store. Enough for a feast.”

“Have it brought.”

“My sister is across the lower field. Her boy cannot walk. They will not cross open ground while your daughter is there.”

“Shu will fetch them.”

“You will fetch them.”

Shu drew breath to speak. Ra stopped him.

“What is your name?”

“Taret.”

“Show me the field, Taret.”

She lifted a lamp. He followed her through the back gate, leaving Shu to gather the jars.

In the ditch beyond the barley stubble, Taret called softly. A woman answered from under a mat of reeds. Ra knelt and raised it. The boy beneath it had his leg bound between two pieces of wood; his mother held one hand over his mouth.

She saw Ra and pressed harder.

He held out his arms.

“She sent me,” he said, turning enough for Taret’s lamp to show.

The mother looked past him at her sister. Only then did she release the child.

Ra lifted him. The splints scraped across his forearm. The boy was hot, astonishingly light, and desperately intent on not making a sound.

Halfway back, he whispered, “Will she come here?”

Ra adjusted his hold so the injured leg would not swing.

“I am going to stop her.”

The boy watched his face for the rest of the walk.

At the brewing court, Taret took the child from him and laid him on folded sacking. Then she tore the reed cover from the nearest jar.

“Tell me where.”

The Red Field

They chose the shallow basin between the river path and the ridge where the survivors had hidden. Low banks enclosed it on three sides. Hathor would come down the path at first light; the basin lay directly across her way.

Messengers brought red ochre. Taret ground it finer between two stones, then stirred it into a cup of beer. She held the cup beneath Ra’s face.

The liquid caught his light and reddened.

“More,” he said.

She added a pinch, stirred, and waited.

Ra remembered the western slopes in Hathor’s eyes.

“That is enough.”

All through the night, jars moved from hand to hand. The gods carried them from the stores; the people who had crept out of hiding lowered them down the bank. Ra stood in the basin and emptied each one himself. Beer spread around his ankles, carrying little rafts of foam.

When someone stumbled, hands reached out. When a jar cracked, they caught what they could in bowls. No one sang. The sound of pouring seemed too loud in the darkness.

Near the eastern end, the red surface stopped rising.

Ra waded toward it. A thin stream ran beneath the bank. He pressed his heel into the opening, and the soil collapsed around his foot.

The beer rushed through.

“Bring the empty jars,” he called.

Taret slid down beside him. She thrust a reed mat into the breach, but the current folded it and pulled it halfway under. Ra caught the edge. Together they dragged it back.

“The burrows go through the bank,” she said. “We should have packed it before we poured.”

On the ridge, the first pale line appeared.

Ra could feel the coming light. It was his own, and it would show Hathor every person still crossing the field. He looked toward the last line of carriers. Shu was taking a jar from an old man whose arms had begun to shake.

“Take them uphill,” Ra said. “All of them.”

Taret was pushing mud into the rolled mat.

“This will open again if we leave it.”

“I will stay.”

She looked up at him. There was no worship in the look. She wanted to know if he understood what holding the bank would require.

He took an empty jar, laid it sideways across the breach, and drove it into the wet earth. The clay cracked under his palm.

He stopped pressing.

Taret packed mud around the jar while he held it with just enough force to keep it still. Beer lapped against his knees. A thin line continued to escape past his wrist; she plugged it with a twist of reeds.

“Like that,” she said.

From the river path came a soft footfall.

Taret’s hands stopped.

Ra did not turn. “Go.”

She climbed the bank on all fours. He heard her slip, heard Shu catch her, and then the reeds above him settled.

The red water grew bright around his hands.

Before She Drank

Hathor stood at the edge of the basin.

Her face held the stillness of someone listening to a distant sound. Ra stayed crouched against the bank, one hand braced on the cracked jar. If he stood, it might shift. The pool was shallow enough already.

His daughter looked down.

“You have begun without me.”

The red surface trembled between them. She stepped into it, lifting the hem of her garment, and bent to touch the liquid.

Then the child cried out.

It was a small sound from the ridge: pain escaping before a hand could stop it.

Hathor straightened.

Ra saw the change in her eyes. Her attention passed over him and fixed on the reeds above his head.

“Hathor.”

She took a step toward the bank.

He pressed the jar deeper into its bed. The crack widened, biting his palm. The leak had stopped; the packed earth might hold now. He eased his hand away.

The jar stayed.

Ra rose between his daughter and the ridge.

“Look at me.”

“There is one left.”

“There are many.”

She smiled, and he knew the smile. He had worn it when the world first answered him, when his light reached a thing and the thing became visible, his to behold.

“Then I have work.”

She moved to pass him. Ra caught her wrist.

Heat ran up his arm. The pool hissed at their feet. Beyond her shoulder, the shallow water thinned into steam.

He released her.

She looked almost sorrowful. “You sent me.”

“I did.”

The words left him without majesty. He could not put it back into them.

Hathor glanced toward the ridge again.

Ra lowered himself into the pool.

He let the light of his face spread across its surface. It caught in the ochre, deepening the red, and his reflection lay at Hathor’s feet: the gold, the old eyes, the mouth that had commanded her.

“You have come back to me,” he said. “Stay.”

She looked from him to the reflection.

Behind him, a reed stem ticked against another. Ra kept his gaze on her. He did not reach for her again.

Hathor knelt.

She scooped the liquid into both hands and drank. A little ran down her wrists. She frowned at the taste.

Ra waited.

She drank again, more deeply. Her hands broke his reflected face into trembling pieces. She followed them across the water, drinking where they gathered, until her movements slowed and one hand remained beneath the surface.

“Father.”

He moved beside her before she fell. Her weight came against him, familiar and terrible, and he lowered her head onto his lap.

For a long time he watched her breathing.

The first person down from the ridge was Taret. She stopped beyond Hathor’s reach. In her hands she held a length of sacking.

Ra raised his daughter’s head just enough for Taret to fold it beneath her.

Neither spoke.

Room for Morning

Hathor woke with her head upon the folded sacking. Ra was still beside her.

She touched her mouth, tasted what remained upon her fingers, and looked at the empty jars.

“Beer.”

He waited while she sat up.

“You gave me beer.”

“I would have lost them all.”

She looked toward the ridge. People were coming down now, carrying bundles, helping one another over the rough ground. One saw her sitting upright and stopped so suddenly that the woman behind him stumbled.

Hathor began to rise.

Ra stood with her. This time he did not seize her wrist.

“The hunt is ended.”

“The words they spoke against you—”

“I heard them.”

“And you sent me.”

Her voice had sharpened. He faced it.

“The command was mine,” he said. “So are the dead.”

She searched his face. Across the field, the two people had not moved.

“They will speak again.”

Ra looked at them. The man had put himself in front of the woman, though neither had a weapon. Both were watching for the slightest movement of a god’s hand.

He lowered his own.

“Let them go.”

Hathor followed his gaze. At last she stepped aside, leaving the path open.

The pair hurried past without looking back.

Ra turned toward Nut, who waited beyond the roofs, and offered his daughter his hand. Hathor took it. Together they climbed out of the field.

By noon, people were searching for those who had not returned.

Ra sat on the bank. Ochre had dried in the creases of his hands. Beside him, the broken jar still held the earth in place.

Taret came carrying her nephew. His mother followed with a water vessel. They stopped a little distance away.

“She has ended the hunt,” Ra said.

“Because you told her to?” Taret asked.

He looked toward Hathor, waiting beside Nut.

“Yes.”

“And when they anger you again?”

Beyond the fields stood Nut. She had taken the form of a great cow, her back rising above the roofs. Shu waited beneath her, his hands lifted. A path into the sky opened between her horns.

“I am leaving too,” Ra said.

Taret watched the immense shape. “Taking the light?”

“No.”

The boy shifted in her arms. Ra stood, and the child drew his injured leg closer to her body.

Ra stopped where he was.

“You will have it each morning.”

Taret adjusted the boy’s weight. She did not thank him. He had not found words that deserved it.

He crossed the field to Nut. At her lowered shoulder he hesitated, feeling the weight of his body, the stiffening of the hand that had held the jar. Then he climbed. Shu steadied him until he reached her back.

Nut rose.

The roofs dropped away. The reed courts opened beneath him, small and distinct. He could see people turning their faces upward; he could see others who did not look up at all. Nut trembled as she climbed, and Shu stretched beneath her, holding her against the height.

Ra leaned over her flank for one last sight of the field.

Taret had set the boy down in the shade. She took a cup from his mother, rinsed it, filled it with water, and held it while he drank.

Light rested on the rim.