Lo, grain is lacking on all sides. one is stripped of clothes, unanointed with oil. Everyone says, There is nothing. The storehouse is bare…
Lo, poor men have become men of wealth. he who could not afford sandals owns riches. See, those who owned robes are in rags, he who did not weave for himself owns fine linen…
Lo, hearts are violent, plague sweeps the land, there is blood everywhere, no shortage of dead. Lo, many dead are buried in the river, the stream is the grave, the tomb became stream. Lo, nobles lament, the poor rejoice. Every town says, "Let us expel our rulers…”
Lo, great and small say, “I wish I were dead." Little children say, "He should not have made me live!" Lo, all beasts, their hearts weep, cattle bemoan the state of the land…
- Admonition of Ipuwer
Lo, poor men have become men of wealth. he who could not afford sandals owns riches. See, those who owned robes are in rags, he who did not weave for himself owns fine linen…
Lo, hearts are violent, plague sweeps the land, there is blood everywhere, no shortage of dead. Lo, many dead are buried in the river, the stream is the grave, the tomb became stream. Lo, nobles lament, the poor rejoice. Every town says, "Let us expel our rulers…”
Lo, great and small say, “I wish I were dead." Little children say, "He should not have made me live!" Lo, all beasts, their hearts weep, cattle bemoan the state of the land…
- Admonition of Ipuwer
_____
Akhmim
Shemu, 2149 BC
“They call this a feast?” said Senbi. “When I was your age, this would have been no more than a meal. Where is the duck? Where is the roast lamb and honey-beer? Where is the white bread…”
The old man went on – he could go on for hours, when the mood struck him – but Nehesy had stopped listening. He’d heard Senbi’s stories many times, of what the festivals had been like long ago when the Nile was faithful, but such things had passed into memory, and memories couldn’t be eaten. It was a blessing, these days, that there were festivals at all.
And if that was a blessing, should it not be accepted? Yes, the feast of Min was now flat-bread and dates and a scant portion of fish, but it was still a day free from work, a day to celebrate the fertility of the Nile, a day of hope for the future. Let the old men grumble about festivals past, let them damn the half-life that the people lived now, but as the saying went, half alive was better than wholly dead.
A shout from the other end of the field made Nehesy turn away from Senbi, and he saw that the chief priest had entered in the guise of the god. His face was dyed jet-black, far blacker than a Nubian’s; he wore a tall two-horned crown and carried a flail; and a dowel underneath his robes gave the appearance of an immense, erect penis. He walked slowly, waving his flail to the right and left, other priests following in procession and intoning ancient prayers.
“Min!” someone called, and others took up the chant. “Min! Min! Min!” Soon, the rhythmic chant gave way to the god’s hymn. “Min, Lord of the Processions,” the assembly sang, “God of the High Plumes, Son of Osiris and Isis, Venerated in Ipu…”
The god reached the shores of the Nile and stood where he was, looking west across the river. One of the attendant-priests handed him bread and emmer-seeds, which he held aloft briefly before offering them to the waters. “May the Nile repay offering for offering, may the land be fertile, may all the people feast in the coming year.” Nehesy listened, and realized that he’d momentarily forgotten what a sad joke that prayer was. Today of all days, he could hope that it might be answered.
And now it was time for the games to begin. Senbi was saying something about the games of his youth, how men from the delta, from Nubia, even from the land of Punt had come to test their skill at archery and climb the sacred poles. But who would come from Nubia now, with so many warring sepats between here and there? Who would travel all the way from the delta, even if he could? Those things had been possible when all Kemet was ruled by one king, but now there was a king in Mennufer, another in Henen-nesut, and who knew how many sepat-lords and even mayors who claimed the title? Now, the men competing in the games were those of Akhmim and the surrounding countryside, and a few tribesmen in from the desert - them, and no one more.
Still, there were enough. Five men stood next to the poles, waiting for the signal. The poles were fifty feet high, well greased, protruding like phalluses from the very earth, and if all the men reached the top, the inundation would be as high as the poles were. Or so the legend went; it had not been thus for many years.
At a signal, the men began climbing, and the people in the crowd called out the names of their favorites. Everyone wanted the one from their district, their village, to reach the top first. Once, in his youth, Nehesy had been the one to do so, and he still remembered the rewards that had been his that night. He had proven himself the most fertile man in the city, and it followed logically that such fertility must be shared…
“…tomorrow,” came a voice in his ear. He turned, half-embarrassed at the memory that had just been interrupted, and saw that it was Nakhtmin, who was superintendent of the quarrymen’s guild as he was of the weavers. “We can’t wait until then. We must meet tonight, festival or not.”
Nehesy nodded his assent. What Nakhtmin was suggesting was extraordinary, but these were extraordinary times. Only yesterday, the news had come that the sepat-lord and the city governor had been killed in battle against desert bandits; the raiders had been routed, but many militiamen were dead or wounded, and now both sepat and city were without rulers. What’s more, the sepat-lord was a young man, and had no sons.
In times past, the king would have appointed new men to rule in their stead, but now no king had power here. It would be the kenbet, the jury of guildmasters and foremen, who would have to choose the new lord: it had never done so before, but if it didn’t, who would? The answer was as appalling as it was clear: no one would, and Akhmim would become the scrap of meat over which the dogs fought.
“Have you spoken to the priests?” Nehesy asked.
“Yes. They’ve given their blessing. “Bad luck to do business on a festival day, but worse luck to have no lord when the bandits threaten.”
“That’s the choice we have now - bad luck or worse luck.” Nehesy checked himself, realizing how much he was starting to sound like Senbi. “We will meet outside the temple, in the sight of the people.”
Nakhtmin started to say something, but his attention was drawn by another shout from the field. This time it wasn’t for the chief priest, or the men at the poles, or even the footraces that were now beginning: instead, all eyes were on the peasant who had entered at a dead run, in the last stages of exhaustion.
Nehesy strained to hear what the man was saying. “An army is marching!” he heard. “An army marches south from Siut. The sepat-lord marches south to conquer! He has three hundred men, and he is two days away, no more!”
The two men looked at each other: an army marching, their lord dead, and the militia still in the desert. “We don’t meet this evening,” Nehesy said. “We meet now.” He called to his apprentices. “Run to where the militia is, and warn them,” he said to one. “Go now into the field, and find everyone who has been a soldier,” he said to another.
Bad luck or worse. That now was the choice.