The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

But as I said this, Kaptah cried out pitifully from the door frame and said, “Take away this devil’s beast, or I shall climb down and slay it, for my hands are numb and my backside sore with sitting in this uncomfortable place which in no way befits my dignity. I will climb down indeed and slay that animal, unless you take it away this instant.”

Burnaburiash laughed more than ever at this threat, but then, feigning gravity, he said, “It would indeed be a woeful thing if you killed my lion, for I have brought it up since a cub, and it is my friend. I will call it away, therefore, that you may not commit this atrocity in my palace.” He called the lion to him, and when Kaptah had climbed down the hangings, he stood rubbing his cramped legs and glaring at the lion so that the King laughed again and slapped his knees and said, “A more comical man I never saw in my life. Sell him to me, and I will make you rich.”

But I did not wish to sell Kaptah to him, and he did not insist, and we parted friends when he had begun to nod and his eyelids were drooping from lack of sleep. He had had no sleep for many nights. The old physician, his private doctor, followed me out and said to me, “From your behaviour and words I can tell you are not an imposter but a skilled man, and you know your profession. But I am amazed at the courage with which you spoke to the lord of the four quarters of the world for if any of his own doctors had spoken to him thus, he would already be resting in a clay jar among his ancestors.”

I said to him, “It is best that we take counsel together about what is to happen in two weeks time, for that will be an evil day, and we should be wise to make sacrifice to all suitable gods.”

My talk greatly pleased him, for he was a pious man, and we agreed to meet in the temple to make sacrifice and to confer with the doctors about the King’s teeth. Before we left the palace, he caused refreshment to be offered to the porters who had brought me, and they ate and drank in the forecourt and praised me volubly. They sang aloud as they carried me back to the inn, crowds followed us, and from that day my name was famous in Babylon. But Kaptah rode his white donkey brooding greatly and would not speak to me, for he had been wounded in his dignity.

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Two weeks later, I met the King’s physicians in Marduk’s Tower, where we sacrificed a sheep together, and we let the priests examine its liver — for in Babylon the priests consult the livers of sacrificial beasts, interpreting therefrom much that is hidden from others. They told us that the King would be exceedingly wroth but that no man would lose his life because of it or suffer lasting hurt — though we must beware of claws and spears while healing the King. Next, we bade the astronomers consult the Book of the Heavens to learn whether the day was auspicious for this undertaking. They told us that the day was not unfavourable although we might have chosen a better. Next, the priests at our request poured oil into water and in this sought to read the future. Having surveyed the oil, they said they saw nothing remarkable or at least nothing of ill omen in the oil. As we left the temple, a vulture flew over us, carrying in its claws a human head it had snatched from the wall. This the priests interpreted as a favourable sign though to me it appeared very far from that.

Warned by the sheep liver, we dismissed the King’s guard and didn’t allow the King’s lion to follow him, but left it outside the door, for when the King became angered, he might have set it upon us to tear us apart, as the physicians declared had been known to happen. But King Burnaburiash came stoutly in, having fortified his liver with wine as they say in Babylon, though when he saw the dentist’s chair that had been conveyed to the palace, he turned extremely pale and said that he had important affairs of state to attend to, which he had forgotten while drinking.

He made as if to go, but while the other physicians lay bellies downward upon the floor, wiping it with their lips, I seized the King’s hand and encouraged him, saying that all would speedily be over if he would only have courage. I ordered the doctors to cleanse themselves, and I purified the dentist’s instruments in the fire of the scarab, then rubbed numbing salves into the boy’s gum till he commanded me to stop, saying that his cheek was like wood, and he could no longer move

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