Khu: A Tale of Ancient Egypt Read Online Free

rest Khu, my son. My beautiful boy.”
    Khu closed his sleepy eyes as the drink he had finished sipping coursed through his blood and relaxed him, his thick dark lashes grazing the tops of his cheeks. His features were perfectly proportioned and Tem marveled at his beauty once again.
    She wondered about the family he left behind, and a profound sadness filled her soul for the mother who must have loved him deeply. He would never see her again. But he would know a mother’s love—her love. And despite the sadness of his circumstances, Tem could not help feeling secretly relieved that Khu did not remember any of his past. She did not want him to suffer from it, nor did she want anyone trying to claim him and take him away from her.
    Tem smiled and exhaled a small sigh of satisfaction when she saw that Khu had fallen asleep once again. Gone was the ashen pallor in his complexion from those first few days when he appeared to teeter precariously on the edge of death. His smooth skin was regaining some of its natural healthy color as he improved.
    Tem had been by his bedside constantly from the moment her servants had brought him to her. With Mesi’s help, she herself had taken upon the task of carefully washing the blood and filth from his body, then anointing his skin with perfumed oils which were delicately scented with flowers, to protect him from Egypt’s arid climate. She had watched and waited anxiously as he struggled under the fever’s terrible power which left him very weak, and had placed cool herbal compresses made with willow leaves over his forehead and on the sides of his neck below his ears. She loved him already as her own son—as the child she could never bear. And she wanted to keep him for herself.
    Yes , Tem thought to herself with a mother’s conviction as she watched Khu lying on the linen sheet. Khu belonged to her now. It did not matter anymore that she had not been able to conceive a child of her own, because she had him now. He was her son now. And he would be raised and educated right alongside with the other noble children of the palace. Perhaps even her husband Mentuhotep II would claim him as a son as well. He already had an infant heir by Neferu, who was his second major wife. It had been determined that Neferu’s son would succeed Mentuhotep to the throne as ruler someday after Tem had failed to conceive a child herself. This had been decreed before Mentuhotep’s third wife, Henhenet, had died in childbirth.
     
     
    Henhenet ’s death and that of her unborn child, had occurred recently just before Khu had been found in the reeds. She had been expecting her first child with Mentuhotep when the double tragedy struck, casting a mournful pall over the palace. Although the pregnancy had been relatively easy, the birth had been a nightmare. Her labor had lasted days on end, while she was attended by women and nurses who were skilled in the birthing process. She had spent her final days in a special confinement pavilion within the palace, which was reserved for the baby’s birth, and dedicated to the goddesses Hathor, Thoueris and Isis in hopes that they would oversee the birth and protect both mother and child. Numerous amulets carved from jasper, lapis lazuli, malachite, and carnelian encircled the cushioned reed mat where she lay. A curved ivory wand engraved with deities had been placed on her swollen belly for protection, while statues and effigies of gods stared out from their platforms around the room, ready to ward off any evil spirits that might be lurking within.
    Every so often Henhenet would be assisted into a squatting position so that she could push through the contractions. But try as she might, the baby did not budge. She was also given special potions to drink that were believed to aid in the birth of a child, while scented unctions had been massaged liberally onto her belly. But nothing had helped. The baby was blocked by the placenta within her womb. After days of struggling,