TRAGEDY OF SOULS

Su-Chi watched them take the baby away, her tenth in as many years. It never got any easier letting them go, she felt the same devastation, the same aching void in her heart she always felt. But the tears had stopped coming after her fourth, a beautiful little girl Amenemhat had told her, through his translator, she could keep with her if she did as he asked without question, without struggling.

She’d done everything he wanted, obediently complying with every depravity he forced her to perform… only for her baby girl to be taken from her. Amenemhat had gloated, laughing as he declared, “What did you think was going to happen, stupid slave bitch? The child will remain with the wet nurses until she is old enough to be put to work, then she will be transferred to dormitory seven until she is ready for breeding. Fourteen years from now, she will be another breed cow, just like you, and I will profit from selling your grandchildren to the highest bidder. In fact, I shall name her Ba’hara, the cow, to mark her as nothing more than cattle, so she will know her place. In the meantime, it is back to dormitory two for you, I expect to get a few more pups out of you before you are done.”

Six long, hard years later, she lay on the cold, stone floor of the cell, waiting for her next torment. After sending his guards to take her child, Amenemhat always came for one last chance to abuse her before he sent her back to the breeding compound to start the whole process over again. Sighing, she tried to get as comfortable as she could on the rough surface. She couldn’t take much more of this wretched existence, if she could find a way to end it, she would.

Suddenly, she noticed something glinting in the faint light coming from the torches in the passageway. She reached out and touched it, recoiling in shock as she felt the sharp edge and pointed tip. It was a blade: one of the guards must have dropped it. Reaching out again, she grasped the object, holding it up so it would catch the torchlight. As she examined it, she had an idea.

*

She smiled to herself as she heard him approaching. The blade was small, perhaps just part of a weapon that had broken off; she’d hidden it somewhere he wouldn’t look, but where he would soon discover it.

Pulling on her ropes, he manoeuvred her into his favourite position. Once he was satisfied, he placed his stiff, erect member against her tender flesh, and thrust forward abruptly, with no regard for the agony he would cause… just as he always did. But, this time, it was him that felt the agony. Falling back, he screeched like some kind of malignant, vengeful god, staring aghast at what was left of his manhood, split in two by the weapon she had carefully secreted within herself.

Reaching behind her, she pulled the blade from its hiding place. Placing it there had been easy after the many years of abuse she’d suffered. She started using it to cut through her bonds.

“You will die for this,” he hissed, “and it will be worse than anything you could ever imagine.”

She understood the threat, she had understood everything he’d said for years, but the fact he believed she couldn’t was an advantage she did not wish to forfeit, so she did not reply… if she had, she would have told him she could not imagine a death worse than the life he had subjected her to.

He tried to stand, but fell back, clutching his wounded phallus. Instead, he began shouting for his guards.

Slicing through the last of her ropes, she got to her feet, crouching beneath the low ceiling of the cell. Blade in hand, she stared at the slave master, pondering whether to cut his throat. Then she looked at the blood pouring from the tattered remains of the organ he had abused her with so often. She smiled. “It is justice,” she nodded, speaking in the language of her ancestors. Then she stepped into the passage outside and started to run.

*

Evading the guards was easy at first: she was small, the corridors were dark, filled with niches she could slip into when she heard them lumbering towards her. But, when she reached the upper floors of the villa, her chances of being discovered increased exponentially.

She was naked, marked as a breeding slave, anyone who saw her would know she was a runaway. Quite aside from the practical problems though, she had no idea where to go. She had escaped from her cell, but all she knew was the villa and the breeding compound. She hadn’t seen the outside since she was a little girl, no older than Ba’hara would be now.

Ba’hara! Perhaps she could find her, take her with her to freedom? But going into the breeding compound would be suicide… she would be recaptured and, most likely, executed in some horrible, depraved manner of Amenemhat’s choosing.

But, wait though: the guards would not expect an escaped slave to go back to the compound, they would expect her to try to leave the villa, they would be looking elsewhere. Going after Ba’hara might be the best thing to do, after all. And, besides, it was what her heart was telling her in any case.

*

“Do you have a girl named Ba’hara in there?” Su-Chi demanded, staring through the peephole in the sturdy, wooden door.

“Maybe,” the dormitory keeper shrugged, “but it is no business of yours.”

“I… I am a house slave, you will treat me with respect.”

“You do not look like a house slave. You have the mark of a breeder on your cheek, and you wear no robes, only a simple cloth skirt.”

She gritted her teeth, wishing now she had found something better to wear, “Er… er… I was a breeder, it is true, but I, er… er I was promoted… and, er… er, Master Amenemhat insists all the female house slaves dress like this.”

“Huh, sounds like him,” the matron nodded with a wry smile.

“So, do you have her… do you have Ba’hara?”

“She is in the box.”

“The box?”

“Yes, it’s where we put bad little girls when they misbehave… and, believe me, Ba’hara often misbehaves; she spends a lot of time in the box.”

“What is the box?”

Pulling back the large, wooden bolt, the matron opened the door, “I’ll show you.”

*

The keeper led Su-Chi to a trap door in the floor of the dormitory: it was bolted shut, until the matron opened it to reveal a hole carved into the ground. It was a cramped, tiny space and, in it, was a little girl. As the torchlight hit her face, the girl blinked a pair of eyes identical to the ones that stared back at Su-Chi when she looked into a pool of still water.

“Ba’hara, is it you?”

“Who else would be in the box?” the girl shrugged; “it is always me.”

“Come,” Su-Chi held out her arms, “I am here to take you away.”

“Where?” the girl frowned, pulling back, out of reach.

“Well, er…” Su-Chi glanced over her shoulder. The matron had wandered off, no-one else was listening, “Er, you know, just away… surely anywhere is better than this, er… this box.”

“I am busy, lady, I cannot come with you, leave me alone.”

“Busy? How can you be busy trapped in a hole in the ground?”

“I am busy, lady, go away,” the girl insisted.

“Ba’hara, I’m not a lady, I’m…” she looked over her shoulder again, then whispered, “I’m your mother.”

“My mother is dead, the keeper told me.”

“No, my child, that was a lie; I’m alive, and I have come for you,” Su-Chi reached for her again.

Ba’hara stared back at her, a quizzical expression on her face, “You’re my mother?”

“Yes, my love, now come quick, there is no time to lose, I will take you…”

“If you are my mother, why did you leave me here, why did you not care for me?”

“Ba’hara, please, I had no choice, they took you from me when you were very small,” she closed her eyes for a moment, struggling to fight back the tears that suddenly seemed to have decided they were prepared to return from their long exile, just in time to betray her for who she truly was. Opening her eyes again, she begged, “Come now, Ba’hara, we must hurry if we are to…”

“Is she giving you any trouble?”

Looking up, Su-Chi saw the keeper walking towards her, carrying a switch, a short, thin, wooden rod used for disciplining children in the breeding compound. It was an object she’d feared since she was Ba’hara’s age, she still bore some scars where the keeper in her dormitory had used it on her when she was young.

“Er, a little, perhaps… but I am sure I can coax her to come with me willingly.”

“Huh, good luck with that,” grunted the matron, turning away again, “she is as stubborn as an ass that one, I told you she misbehaves.”

“I only misbehave because I am busy,” Ba’hara hissed, her face a picture of petulant defiance.

“What do you mean?” Su-Chi frowned at her, “why does being busy make you misbehave?”

“If I misbehave, the keeper puts me in here, in the box.”

“Yes, so?”

“I need to be in the box, this is where I am busy.”

“I do not understand. How can you be busy in there, what are you doing?”

The girl frowned again, “Are you really my mother?”

“Yes, my love,” Su-Chi lowered her voice to a whisper, “you are my child, it broke my heart when they took you from me.”

“Why did they take me from you?”

“Because I am a slave, like you. But I have escaped, and I have come to free you.”

“You do not need to free me, Momma, I have been busy,” grinning, the girl held up a bronze spoon. Turning, she pulled back a cloth at the rear of the box, behind where she had been crouching. Coloured to match the earth, Su-Chi had not noticed it before. As Ba’hara pulled the cloth aside, it revealed a tunnel, leading beneath the ground.

“The earth is soft here, I have dug almost to the river.”

“How do you know?”

“I hear it through the wall, it is close.”

Su-Chi sat back on her haunches, considering her daughter’s revelation. If she really had dug a tunnel to the river, it could be their best chance of escape. But was it just a childish fantasy? And was the tunnel wide enough for…

“Come with me, Momma, you will fit, I am sure, you are not too big for the tunnel… er, I think.”

Suddenly, there was a banging at the dormitory door. A loud, authoritarian voice demanded, “Open up at once, on pain of death, in Master Amenemhat’s name.”

The guards had found her, Ba’hara’s tunnel might be their only hope. But was she putting her own child at risk by staying with her? The thought of endangering her precious daughter was more horrifying than anything Amenemhat could ever do to her.

“Take your spoon, dig for your life, sweet Ba’hara, I will distract them while you escape. Hurry, my love,” she sprang to her feet and rushed to the door. Staring through the peephole at the hefty guards outside, she demanded, “Who are you, why are you disturbing the sleep of these children? Do you not know they must rest to help them grow, so they might make fine breeding slaves for the master one day?”

“We are here at Master Amenemhat’s command,” retorted the largest guard, “and you are the fugitive he seeks, the one known as Su-Chi.”

“You are mistaken, I am not this… this Suki you speak of, my name is Ta-kra, I am the, er… er, the assistant keeper of this dormitory.”

“A dormitory needs only one keeper, you are the runaway, Su-Chi. Open up now and we will go easy on you. If we are forced to break the door down, it will be worse for you, and for all those within.”

“I am the one you seek, there is no need for you to punish the others.”

“So, open up, and we will not.”

“Do I have your word?” she glanced over her shoulder. Ba’hara had disappeared inside her hole.

“Yes, yes… of course you have my word. Now open up, quickly.”

“You promise? You promise not to hurt any of the children?”

“None will be hurt if you open the door now!” the guard snapped in exasperation, clearly losing patience with Su-Chi’s obvious delaying tactics.

Suddenly, she heard a distant, muffled scream, followed by a roaring noise. She ran to Ba’hara’s hole. It was beginning to fill with water, Nile water, gushing from the tunnel her daughter had dug. Jumping into the hole, she threw herself into the tunnel and began wriggling forwards. Behind her, she heard the dormitory keeper pulling the bolts on the door, apologising to the guards, screaming in agony. She kept wriggling, using her elbows and feet to push herself on. Cold, wet fingers brushed her ankle, but they didn’t get a grip.

The water was steadily rising… it reached her chin, her mouth, her nose. She turned her head, drew in as much air as her lungs could take, then pushed herself on.

Just as she thought she could take no more, almost ready to give up, she saw something ahead: a circle, a hole, she didn’t know what. She pushed on until she reached it, her lungs screaming in agony, desperate for air. But the hole was too small, she couldn’t get through. She closed her eyes. This was it, she was finished.

Little hands grasped her own… they pulled. Renewed hope filled her heart… she pushed. Together, somehow, they broke her free. She thrashed her way to the surface, only a few palms above, and sucked in the sweet, precious, life-giving air.

Bobbing in the water beside her, Ba’hara grinned, “I told you I’d been busy, Momma.”

*

They found a spot where the bank was low and climbed up. Su-Chi was delighted to see they were outside the walls of Amenemhat’s villa. She lay on her back, panting from the exertion of her ordeal. When she had finally got her breath back, she started to laugh.

“Why are you laughing, Momma?” asked Ba’hara.

Su-Chi smiled at her, “I came to rescue you, but it seems you rescued me instead.”

“Did I do well, Momma?”

“Very well,” Su-Chi nodded.

“What should we do now, Momma?”

“We should get as far away as we can before the morning comes. Our best chance is a boat, we need to find one.”

“Are those boats over there, Momma?” Ba’hara pointed.

“Yes, my child, but the harbour is well guarded, we need to find a boat somewhere else, somewhere quiet and unseen. Let us go the other way, downstream towards the sea.”

*

They found a boat, seemingly abandoned on the river bank, just outside the city. They paddled out, onto the river, and let the current take them away. They got about a mile downstream before it became painfully apparent why the vessel had been abandoned.

“The water is filling the boat, Momma, we are sinking, what should we do?”

“We must return to the shore, or we will surely drown.”

“But I see the lights, the torches of the guards. Will they not catch us if we go ashore?”

Su-Chi studied the moving lights, the distances, the angles, she weighed their chances and came to a reluctant conclusion. She sighed, “They will not catch us both if they follow but one of us.”

“What do you mean, Momma?”

“When we get to the river bank, you must run, you must keep the river at your right hand, and keep running. Do not stop until the dawn breaks. Then you must hide, hide somewhere you cannot be found, hide until the darkness returns. Then run again, with the river at your right side, run as far as your legs will carry you.”

“But where am I running to, Momma?”

“To freedom, I pray… it is your best chance.”

“What about you, Momma, are you not going to run to freedom too?”

Su-Chi smiled as she began paddling towards the river bank, “In a manner of speaking, yes, but my freedom will be different to yours, I must go another way.”

“Are you going to leave me again, Momma?”

Putting her hand on her chest, she shook her head, “No, my child, I will never leave you, my heart, my soul, they will always be with you. At night, when it is darkest, you must look to the stars. You will see me there, among them, looking down on you, watching you, with pride… and with love.”

“But I don’t want you to go to the stars, Momma, I want you here with me,” the little girl’s eyes were brimming with tears.

Su-Chi reached out and grasped Ba’hara’s hand, squeezing it tight, “I will be… always, I promise.”

They reached the shore and scrambled onto the river bank. “Go now, my child… run, as I told you,” whispered Su-Chi.

The girl hesitated, “I love you, Momma.”

“I love you too,” Su-Chi smiled; “now, go.”

Ba’hara waited a moment more, smiling back at her mother. She nodded, “Thank you, Momma,” then she turned and ran.

Su-Chi watched her go, waiting as she disappeared into the darkness of the Egyptian night, until she was satisfied no-one could possibly see her. Then she walked a few paces from the river and screamed with all her might, as loud as she could manage, “Come and get me, you bastards,” before running into the tall fields of wheat, heading west, away from the river, away from Ba’hara.