A Long Time from Home Pt. 02 Ch. 02

"Ahhh... and a descendent of Horemheb who's a healer is no threat, while a descendent of Horemheb, who's a warrior might be."

"Exactly." I confirmed with a nod. "I will leave Kemet if people try to play politics with me. I really want no part of it."

"And go where?" He asked, genuine interest in his voice.

"Dilmun, I think." I drank from the cup again. "Away from the Sea People."

"Understandable." He chuckled. "Well, enough talk of bad times." He lifted his cup. "Cheers!"

"Cheers."

We started to chat about less important things, but as he turned to talk with another captain, I felt my mind speed up. Strange as it sounded, the problem for Kemet was that Ramesses II had been so old when he died. While Merneptah was an able ruler, he had been almost seventy when he took the throne and despite my healing, I doubted that he would live more than five to ten years.

Unfortunately, the crown prince was old as well, since he was the eldest of the still living children.

That would cascade down through the next generations, meaning that for the next thirty or forty years there would be a period, where anyone who took the throne of Kemet, would die of old age within a decade of being crowned. In other words, the time of stability for the Kemetian Empire was at an end and it couldn't have come at a worse time, with unrest or war all over this part of the world.

To make matters worse, the Sea People had already disrupted most of the trade in the Middle Sea area, and that trade was what had brought peace to the area for hundreds of years. Sure, there had been wars, but those had been localized wars for land or resources, and with a few exceptions, they haven't included the total annihilation of entire cities, that the merchant had told was happening now.

However, if trade in the Middle Sea was about to disappear, every single empire that relied on that trade would have problems in years or centuries to come.

The more I thought about it, the clearer it became that I needed to move away from Kemet. Not only due to the political situation, but also because of my age. People already thought that I was too young to be the person that had healed Ramesses II and that was only going to get worse as time went by. The only thing that worked as an advantage for me right now was the white hair, since humans tended to equalize that with old age, but anyone that saw my face up close would quickly realize that I wasn't nearly as old as the hair would suggest.

I sighed to myself. Unless I just dumped many of the items from my childhood, that meant that I would have to pack a lot of stuff, so it could be transported to my new home, wherever that was going to be.

As I had said to the captain, Dilmun was the most obvious choice, as I knew both the area and the language, but it was not the only choice. Travelling further would bring me to Bhārata, which was just as obvious and for the same reasons. So was Lescare for that matter, but without magical transport, that was very far away. In contrast, the relatively new kingdom of Sheba was closer than even Dilmun and as a prime exporter of spices, especially frankincense and myrrh, they had plenty of rich merchants that were willing to pay for a healer.

The more I thought about it, the better a choice Sheba seemed to be. One huge advantage was that I had never been there before and therefore nobody knew me or what age I was supposed to have.

Fortunately, it wasn't a decision that I had to take now, so I pushed the thought away and turned my attention back to the party. If it was going to be one of the last parties I had here, I might as well enjoy it while it happened.

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One of the huge advantages with being an Ars Mentalis Healer, is that most of the healing tricks were controlled by the subconsciousness. That meant that as long as I had mental energy, I would heal myself, which included the effect of alcohol on the body and I woke up early the next morning a little sleepy from lack of sleep and slightly bloated from eating too much meat, but without the hangover that seemed to plague most others. Especially after a party as lavish as the one I had attended the night before.

I was immensely grateful for that, as the Royal Servant that had woken me up didn't look like he cared that he had disturbed my much-needed sleep. He just wanted to do what he had been told to and right now, that was to get me to Overseer Aswad.

As the title suggested, the Overseer was in charge of many different aspects of the court and I had no idea why he wanted to see me this early in the morning, but as I was just here as a healer, I walked over to see him.

"A bright good morning to you, Healer Ivah." He greeted when I arrived by his tent.

"May Ra bless your day." I said with a slight bow, glancing around. The tent was a picture of organized chaos, as there were papyri on all flat surfaces and two scribes were busy noting things down.

"If you wonder why I have brought you here so early, I can assure you, that I was not by my own choice, but his highness insisted that you should be one of the first to receive your reward for the battle and as we have a busy day in front of us, we need to start early." He explained in a crisp voice and looked at a list. "According to this, you're rewarded a weapon and four slaves in addition to whatever else you're getting." He gestured in the direction of a servant. "Please go with my assistant and choose that from the spoils."

Wordlessly, I bowed again and walked with the assistant. The spoils of war were distributed according to custom and it was considered an honour to be able to choose as one of the first ones. Apparently, the King was very satisfied with my healing.

Someone had organized the weapons in different groups according to quality and my heart almost skipped a beat, when I recognized one of them. It was one of the cursed swords that the Pulcher family had distributed among the humans. Masterfully crafted and with precious stones inlaid in the guard and pommel, it was a beautiful sword and most likely worth the ransom of a minor king. More to the point, it would cause anyone carrying it to gradually become more and more warlike in their attitude, ensuring or at least increasing the possibility that the wielder would lead the tribe to war.

Fortunately, it was also a style of sword that the Kemetians didn't use and I guessed that was why it was still here. I might be one of the first to choose today, but the army commanders had their pick yesterday and if the sword had been a Khopesh, it would have been long gone.

So, I told the assistant that the Pulcher sword was the one I wanted, and he noted it down, before he led me over to the captured Libu people.

In general, I dislike owning slaves and avoided it whenever I could, but I had discovered that if I just treated them as servants, it tended to work out just fine. Then I could set them free once we were out of Kemet, whenever that was.

"I'm not familiar with the rules about this." I told the assistant as we walked. "Could you explain it to me?"

"Certainly, sir. You cannot separate a child from its mother or siblings, but small children don't count against the number of slaves that you can have. As usual all slaves are to be treated according to the law of the land with no unnecessary punishments."

I nodded absently. That meant that I had to clothe, feed them, and give them a place to live. Even with me living in the smaller townhouse, that wasn't a problem.

The Libu women, children and household slaves were gathered in several tents to keep them out of the sun, and the adults looked at us with a mixture of fear and resignation on their faces.

I took my time looking them over. If I had to have slaves, I might as well choose some with useful skills that weren't limited to cooking and cleaning, as I already had servants to do that.

A tall and wide dark man caught my eyes. Mostly because he was nearly my height, towering over the woman next to him, which was unusual among humans. He was also darker than most of the Libu people and I guessed that his ancestry was from somewhere below the great desert. Not that it mattered, except for the language.

"What's your name and where do you come from?" I asked in the Libu language.

"I'm Hori from Punt." He answered shortly in Kemetian, making me blink in surprise. Located south-east of Kemet and even more south of Kush, Punt was so far away from the routed most often chosen by merchants that it was rare to encounter a Puntian up here.

I nodded towards the woman by his side. Just as dark as he was, she was otherwise unremarkable. "Is that your wife?"

"Yes." He said with a nod.

"Profession?"

"I'm a shipbuilder and a smith." He gestured towards his wife. "Tiye is a cook."

I pondered that for a moment. He was not telling the truth, or at least not all of it, but on the other hand shipbuilders were good with almost all kinds of woods, making it a very versatile profession, and while I already had a cook, she could clean and serve.

Looking at the overseer's assistant. "I want these two for starters."

"Yes, sir."

Looking back at Hori, I asked. "Anyone you can recommend? You will be treated as servants, and I generally treat my people well."

He looked at me for a moment and there was a thoughtful expression in his voice, as he asked. "You're one of the Herysesta, right?"

Literally meaning 'Masters of Secrets', it was one of the Kemetian names for the Baylon race, so I nodded. With my skin- and hair colour, there was no reason to deny it. "Yes."

Before he could say more, a young woman stepped up beside Hori, dragging an even younger girl after her. "Me and my sister would like to come with you."

Aside from being of different ages, the two looked similar, with long, dark, and curly hair, big brown eyes in a rounded face. They also had the olive skin of people from the Middle Sea area, and they reminded me a lot of the women from Alashiya (Cyprus), though the one speaking had used heavily accented Kemetian.

"And who're you?"

"I'm Merit and this is my sister Tutu. I'm a midwife and Tutu can do pottery." She said, looking pleading at me. "We can work hard."

Her eagerness took me a little aback. "Why me?"

"I say you in Alashiya when I was little." She answered. "At least if you're Tazkul of Dilmun."

"That was me, though I use another name now." I said, slightly amused that people from my past kept showing up. First Nofret and now this young lady. "But that doesn't explain why you want to come with me."

"Because my father traded with you several times and he told me that you treated people fairly."

There was a sense of pain and longing in her voice that told me that her father probably wasn't alive anymore and while I was curious to the identity of her father, I decided that it could wait, so instead I just nodded and turned towards the Overseer's assistant. "I need those two as well."

He nodded and dutifully noted it down, before looking them over. "As young siblings, those will count as one, sir, so you still have a choice left."

With a sigh, I turned back to Hori. "Did you have a suggestion?"

"I do," he said. "Man or woman?"

"Woman." I answered. If they were to accompany me when I travelled, a woman was less of a threat than a man, since most men had at least some weapon training.

He nodded and pointed at another dark-skinned and curly-haired woman. "Kiya over there. She's a weaver but can also sing and play music. Unfortunately, she doesn't speak Kemetian."

"Fine, I'll take her as well." I said and informed the assistant about it. He noted it down. "Very well, sir. Good luck with your new property. I'll have them brought to your estate."

"Thank you."

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Visiting the temple of Bastet

Men-nefer, Kemet (Egypt)

Getting back to Men-nefer took three weeks, but I breathed a sigh of relief when I walked through the door and was greeted by Renef, the elderly chief of the household. "Welcome home, Master."

Renef had been Chief of the Household of my father's house in Pi-Ramesses as long as I remember and when I had moved to this house, I had brought him with me along with his wife, Henut, who was the cook, and one of their sons, Nakth, who took care of the garden. They had another grown son, he was still living in Pi-Ramesses along with his wife, where he worked as a scribe. Nakth was also educated as a scribe, but preferred gardening to writing.

"Thank you, Renef. I've gotten some more staff since His Highness in his wisdom decided to give me five slaves. You'll be glad to know that one of them is a cook."

He smiled widely. "Sounds good, Master. Henut could use some help in the kitchen."

"Yes, we can sort the rest out later. Right now, I just want a bath before relaxing in the shade with a cup of palm wine."

"Do you want something to eat as well?"

I considered it for a moment. I wasn't hungry, but on the other hand, it was getting dark, and I suspected that the lack of hunger was weariness from all the travelling, which meant that I would be hungry after the bath.

"Just some meat and cheese, please."

"I'll have it ready along with the palm wine, Master."

"Thank you."

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The sun had set before I walked into the garden, feeling fresher after having bathed and changed into more relaxing clothes, which was a simple belted skirt that just about everyone in Kemet used, from the pharaohs to farmers working in the field. Called a shendyt or a schenti depending on where in Kemet you were, it was the single piece of clothing best suited for the climate and I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt the cool evening air against my skin.

The meat and cheese were tasty and unlike the bread it was blessedly free of the ever-present grains of sand, while the palm wine was pleasantly cool.

The idea of moving from Kemet that had started during the campaign, still roamed in my head, becoming more and more real for every passing day, evolving into a plan.

Since the major problem was that I don't age, I needed to go to an area where they didn't know me and for that reason I had settled on Sheba as my next place to live. It was close, but out of the reach of the Sea People due to its location on the southern tip of Oram Aromatum (Baylon: Spice Coast. Present day Arabian Peninsula), and while most trade with Assyria and Babylonia happened by caravan, there were several harbours in the area. I had even visited two of them when I sailed from Dilmun to Kemet almost twenty years ago, and then again, when I had escorted the beautiful Yakshini Vibhrama from Kemet to Baharat.

However, back then we had only stopped to load water and food, while sheltering for the night, and it would be something different living there.

Moving there would also take some planning. Just for starters, I needed to sell the house and arrange for transport of the things I wanted to take with me. Since I was travelling anyway, it would be wise to get some trade goods I could sell when we arrived in Sheba, and I needed to talk with the merchants to hear more about the area and the culture. There were bound to be some cultural taboos that I needed to know to stay out of trouble.

The arrival of Renef brought me out of my thoughts. "Master, I'm sorry to disturb, but there's a runner from the Bastet temple here. It sounded urgent."

"Show her in, then."

He walked out of the garden, giving me time to think. Runners after nightfall was a rarity for the simple reason that it was dark in the streets. If you really wanted a message delivered after dark, you would send a small group with torches or other sources of light.

Not that robberies were frequent, but Men-nefer was still a huge city with lots of people and this far away from the palace area, guards were far in-between.

Renef came back quickly, along with a young boy bearing the sign of Bastet. The boy wasted no time as he kneeled before me. "Honoured healer, Priestess Nofret of Bastet humbly requires your assistance as soon as possible."

"Do you have a token or other signs of proof?"

The boy shook his head. "No, sir, but the priestess told me to say 'Your cook passed out. I took over.' to assure you that the message was from her."

I chuckled and nodded, as I stood up. "How urgent is it?"

"Very urgent. The priestess also told me to tell you to remember your holy items."

That puzzled me for a moment, until I remembered that Nofret still thought that I was the personification of Maahes, which meant that the holy items she was referring to had to be my knives, which again meant that there was danger involved.

"I'll go get them." I said with a sigh. Going into danger the same evening as I returned home from a long journey which included a war, wasn't exactly my idea of a good homecoming, but Nofret wouldn't have asked me for help if she didn't find it serious and if a priestess of Bastet found it serious, then chances were that it was.

Consequently, I was wearing my Iron Silks clothes and carried two long knives, when we left the house a little while later. Thankfully, I didn't have to use them on our trip to the temple quarter and we arrived at the temple complex of Bastet, Maahes and Sekhmet without any incidents. Men-nefer wasn't the home city of any of the three cults and thus they shared a big temple, instead of having three separate ones, and a little while later I was at Nofret's quarters.

"Welcome," said the priestess with a smile when I walked into the room. "And thank you for coming so fast."

"You're welcome," I said, as I returned the smile. She had looked good last time I saw her, but standing in the dim light of the room, with sparkling eyes highlighted by the make-up, she looked even better now. "But the messenger didn't tell me what it was all about. What's the rush?"

She shrugged slightly. "I don't know yet. I got a message from my acolyte Neferure, that she needed my help as she was in danger. She is coming to visit me here as soon as she can, but that might take a while, considering the length of dinners in the palace."

I nodded slowly. "I think I have a suggestion for what we can do, instead of just being bored here waiting."

With graceful movements, Nofret walked towards me and there was a seductiveness in her steps and voice that hadn't been there a moment before. "Exactly what I was hoping for."

"One moment." I said and turned to bolt the door, so it couldn't be opened from the outside. I don't mind company, but there're moments where I don't want to be disturbed. Then I turned back to Nofret, took her by the neck and dragged her in for a kiss, enjoying her soft lips, the way she melted into my arms and her hands on my back.

It didn't take long for the kiss to turn lustful and as our tongues duelled, one of her hands was sliding in between us, massaging my rapidly growing cock outside my clothes.

Returning the favour, I let a hand slide inside her loose dancers costume, finding one of her beautifully rounded breasts, groping it. While not big, the breast filled out my hand nicely and the stiff nipple felt arousing as it slid against the palm of my hand.

Moaning into my mouth, Nofret brought the other hand into play, as she began undressing me while we kissed. Sliding my hand downwards over her taut stomach, I reached between her legs. She wasn't wearing a loincloth and she gasped as my fingers found her shaved pussy. She must have been thinking about sex because she was dripping wet.

Nofret spread her legs to give me more room to work, and without breaking our kiss, I started exploring her pussy with my fore and middle fingers, gently massaging her love-pearl with my thumb.