Chapter Text
Ra recited carefully scratched minutiae from cramped scraps of papyrus about his plans upon plans until Sekhmet was ready to claw at her own face. She knew that he was trying to manage what he could of his world, but that world felt narrower and narrower. So she gave more and more, attempting to widen his world, to protect the people of Kemet, to protect the king and prince, to bring the floods, to hold back disease, to do everything perfectly.
Sekhmet was weary. She, who was infinitely strong, was tired. She, who was infinitely powerful, felt worn out.
One day, Ra looked down from the solar barque and saw that King Amenemhet had sent Prince Senusret into the desert with the army of lower Kemet to crush invaders from the west.
He saw that for several years, the Nile had barely lapped over its banks and the people of upper and lower Kemet were hungry. He saw that the hearts of the district lords were full of rebellion. That they remembered when Amenemhet had been a lord like themselves, before he married the daughter of the last king. They didn't know he'd always been the son of Ra. They remembered their power before the two lands were made whole again.
Ra said, "I know a way to heal what is wounded." He asked Ptah to serve as the master of ceremonies at a jubilee celebration that would refill Amenemhet with youthful vigor in this the thirtieth year of his reign. He imagined it like his own nightly renewal.
Ra turned to Sekhmet, but as he looked at her, he paused. He put his hands on Sekhmet's shoulders. He said, "What is it, daughter? Are you well? Know that I love you and care about you." He brushed a hand on her cheek. "I never want you to be sad."
He said it and it was true from the very beginning.
She said, "I know."
He looked at her with loving eyes and said, "I love you. I miss you when you are not here."
Sekhmet knew that. She had heard this truth before. Sekhmet drew on her strength to be strong enough to give from herself. She said, "Father. What do you need? How can I help?"
He pointed to where the army of lower Kemet gathered and said, "There is Prince Senusret, who you suckled at your breast when he was an infant. I worry about him. Keep him safe."
There was no need to make arrangements. Set stood on the prow of the boat each night with a spear meant for Apep and an ax-mace that only he could lift. She went with quick steps to the army of lower Kemet.
Sobek greeted her with a punch to the arm. "You've grown soft on your father's boat."
She punched him back, "Not as soft as you lolling around in the mud." But there was something in the way she said it that lacked fire.
Sobek looked at her quizzically. He shook his long crocodile snout. He said, "You need to taste the blood of our enemies. That'll set you right."
Sekhmet nodded, wondering if his words were true. It felt as if it had been an age of the world since she'd felt that kind of fire. Not that she wasn't aware of the cost of a fire like that.
Sobek shouted to the infantry, who had but a few weeks before been farmers in their long fallow fields. Gaunt hunger hunted their cheeks and desperation chased the way they held their shields.
Senusret was a handsome man. No longer the young Horus, but Ra at noon. He had been co-ruler with his father for ten years. He had been on many campaigns. He led the army into the western desert, but the raiders scattered like hyenas before a lion only to attack villages where the army was not.
Sobek roared, but that did not summon their enemies.
Sekhmet in her weariness and inertia shook herself. She went walking in the marshes outside of the fortress at Kom el-Hisn where the army was based. She walked along a branch of the western delta that snaked through the marshes and past small islands. Each like the Hill of the Beginning. She came to the end of the river where the water met the salt water of a widowed mother's tears.
She sat down in the hollow between the two peaks of a hill and rested in the shade. She rested through all the long day, but as night fell, she changed. She became active. She stood up. She knew what to do.
She went to Senusret and said, "Gather a small group of archers and infantry that you trust. No more than twenty men. Those who you think have the skill of sitting in silence. Those that you think have forged metal for hearts."
Prince Senusret did what she asked without question.
They left Kom el-Hisn quietly. She led them deep into the desert. She led them to an oasis that seeped water into the sand. It was not beautiful. It did not reflect the inky black and scattered lights of the night sky. It could not sustain an army going to war.
Like lions they waited.
Ra sailed into the sky and still they waited. They slept through the day. They hid like lions in the stubby grass and sand.
Senusret never questioned Sekhmet. He had absolute faith in her.
The second night they waited. Ra reached his portage of dawn without anything happening.
Senusret's cousin leaned over to Senusret once. He opened his mouth to express his doubt, but Senusret traced the word for patience in the dirt.
On the third night, the raiders that had troubled them came to the oasis. They were a hundred strong. Not an army, but more than enough to gulp down the water of the seep. They were laughing. They were laden with stolen grain. The bags on their donkeys were heavy with blood spattered worked goods.
The leader freed a ring from a finger that he'd cut from a village leader and tossed that finger to land near Sekhmet's feet. He said to his men, "So much for the might of Kemet."
Senusret looked at Sekhmet, but her eyes were intent on the men at the oasis. Her eyes would have gleamed in the dark, but she had shut the lantern of them.
She waited while the wheel of stars turned in the sky. She waited while the raiders wove themselves into sleep. She gestured to silently explain what Senusret and his men must do. They crawled around the oasis keeping low to the grass. The sleepily awake saw nothing but a rustle in the wind and nothing more.
Sekhmet's roar was her signal. Her voice shook the desert. The raiders jumped up, torn from sleep. The arrows of Kemet knocked them back down again. A whistle of the wind and falling death. The raiders scattered.
But like lions upon antelope, the soldiers of Kemet pounced in the dark.
Sekhmet killed many, but she was careful not to drink blood. She knew herself now. She knew what she would do if she did. She burned the raiders. She separated them from the next life for what they had done.
In the morning, they took what had been stolen back to Kom el-Hisn to be returned to the living and the dead.
Sobek struck her shoulder and said, "Warrior goddess, well done!" He grinned widely, jubilant at her victory.
Sekhmet said, "I am not done."
For all of the months of the seasons of Growing and Low Water, though the dry fields remained fallow, she led Senusret again and again into the desert. Until the raiders that remained fled far to the west. They abandoned their cattle. They abandoned their desolate lands never to return.
As they herded the cattle back to the Nile's many channels, Sekhmet came to know herself further. Watching over the lowing cattle, Sekhmet said to herself, "I am complete." When she said the words, it was true from the beginning.
She said, "I am not Ra's only eye. I am not his only daughter. I am not the only god that can defend him from Apep. He will be happy when others answer his calls. I am not a god of the rivers. I do not need to be the one who summons the flood. There are others more suited to this task. I am not the king's only protector. It is my joy, but not my only joy." When she said the words, it was true from the beginning.
In that moment, she felt the doors to her beautiful temples close. She felt as what had been missing fell into place. She knew what she wanted.
She put aside the face of a lioness for the part of herself that she had not worn since she'd left the hill where desire had been met.
She said, "I am Sekhmet, but I am also the goddess that can give without loss." As she spoke the words, it had been true from the beginning.
They went back into the lands of the Nile where the cattle grazed on well fed grass. She led Senusret in jubilation down the long road to Kom el-Hisn.
Sobek greeted her at the fort with a crocodile's toothy grin and a gentle embrace. Senusret prepared to return to the palace, when Maahes and Nefertem came to the fort.
Maahes said, "Mother, the lord of some land to the east dared to cross your desert with a mighty army."
Sekhmet stood up. She picked up her arrows. Sobek jumped up, opening his mouth to shout for the army of lower Kemet, but Maahes stopped them laughing. Nefertem brought in a beautiful blue urn decorated at its lip with finely shaped gold lions and cattle.
Maahes said, "No, that's not what we came to tell you. Sit down."
Sekhmet sat down on a couch. She made herself comfortable while Nefertem filled her cup with pomegranate flavored beer. Sobek sat down more warily to listen.
Maahes said, "Imagine it. A vast army of men with supplies from ships that sailed down the coasts of the salt waters. Imagine men with thousands of bows and so many arrows that to fire them would look like a swarm of insects on the Nile at dawn. Imagine a forest of spears that must have beggared the trees of Canaan. Imagine so many shields that they reflected Ra like the Nile at mid-day. Are you imagining it?"
"Yes," said Sobek slowly, "And I am imagining myself slaughtering them."
Maahes shook with laughter. Sekhmet caressed Maahes cheek content to see him so joyful.
"There is no need to," said Maahes, drawing the moment out further. Even before he opened his mouth to say what he had to say next, Sekhmet knew what name her son would say next. "Ptah defended Kemet as ably as any army." Maahes wrapped his arms around himself and laughed.
Nefertem said quietly, "He had an army."
Sobek said in a voice as surprised as a fish falling in air, "Ptah? The linen wrapped crafter. But he's as dry as dust. What could he do, throw pots?" Sobek chuckled like a channel of the Nile.
Maahes curled up next to Sekhmet on the couch and she put her arm around him. She asked, "What did Ptah do?"
"This vast army arrived at the fortress at Sena in the east. They surrounded it completely and demanded that the commander surrender. But the commander was clever. He asked for one night to pray on the question and our enemies in their arrogance gave him that night."
"But what happened in one night?" demanded Sobek. "What could have defeated a vast army like that?"
Sekhmet squeezed her son around the waist. Nefertem sat down by Sekhmet's feet with a basin of water. He washed her feet with cool water and gentle hands.
Maahes groomed Sekhmet's hair. Even as he whispered dramatically, "Ptah summoned rats from the fields. During the night, they ate through the strings of all those bows." Sobek slapped his thigh, laughing. "They chewed through the place where the bronze was fastened to the spears." Sekhmet squeezed her son affectionately. "They chewed through the straps of each of those shields. They chewed through the fastenings of the soldier's armor. Those that wore boots, the rats chewed through those too. Then," Maahes waggled his lion's brows and paused with a grin.
Sobek slapped his thigh again. "There is a then! What then?" He leaned forward.
"Ptah sent serpents and scorpions to strike the now armorless soldiers. They fell by the thousands, dropping their swords and knives as they ran away into the desert. As to their ships, Ptah sent his army to swarm those, too."
Nefertem said, "Even now, the artisans of Memphis are remaking the shields into goods for the benefit of Kemet. Even now they are gathering up on the abandoned bows and spears that will be used by our armies."
Sekhmet said, "Ptah, your father, has done well." As she said the words, she knew it was true and had known who their father was from the beginning.
She sent Maahes and Nefertem with Senusret back to the palace, while she headed where her heart longed to go.
As she went across lush lands of lower Kemet, she healed the sick. She spoke spells and shared fragrant plants that soothed pain. Isis had stolen this power from Ra, but Sekhmet had always had it within her.
When Sekhmet arrived in Memphis, the people were celebrating.
The people of the city were moving their bodies in dance. All through the city, the people were making music. They were shaking beautifully painted tambourines and slapping finely constructed drums. They were plucking well made harps and cleverly crafted lyres. All through the city, the people shook delicately wrought sistrums in the shape of a cow's horns with lion paws for bells.
She had come to Memphis to woo Ptah to her bed. She had come to Memphis to open her heart to him. What she found was a city full of celebration, but Ptah's temple was empty.
She found a fragrant linen wrapping beneath his statue. She laughed and closed her eyes. She was the eye of Ra. She didn't need to see to go.
She ran blind and true along the paths that she had made when she had searched for Shu and Tefnut. Her feet knew the way. She went through the desert that she had created. She followed the scent of myrrh. She followed the scent of coriander. She followed the scent of thyme.
She came to the hill where desire had been met . She opened her eyes and looked up at the porch of drunkenness.
She called up, "Tatenen, wake up. I am here to woo you into marrying me." She climbed the steps. "Seker, wake up. I am here to seduce you into being my partner." She reached the couch with its sleeping figure. "Ptah, wake up. I am here to make your mine." She said the words and it was true from the beginning.
Ptah opened his eyes and smiled. He offered her a silver bowl full of water. In that living water was a lotus flower created with love. In this way, he told her that he had been wooing her all along.
She kissed him in answer. She, who was complete, acted completely herself with Ptah. He, who was a creator, made a gift of his love that took nothing away in the giving of it.
When they were ready, they journeyed back to Memphis where Nefertem greeted them next to the rich black fields green with growing grain. The gift of the gods. While far away, Maahes walked by Senusret's side as word came that Amenemhet had gone into the west. Just as Sobek joyfully urged the river to overflow its banks in the Inundation. From order came chaos. Just as the water then receded leaving behind the rich black earth. From chaos may come order.
So Seshat wrote this down. This story is done.