The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

This took place at the Gate of Ishtar, and the King sat upon a golden throne with the lion at his feet and with his dignitaries about him fully armed so that everything around him was like a cloud of gold and silver and purple. Below him along the broad road ran the warriors before him, the spearmen and archers sixty abreast and chariots six abreast, and their passing took the whole day until they had all been before the King. The chariot wheels were thunderous, and the thud of running feet and the clatter of accoutrements was like a tempest, and looking at it all made the eyes swim and the knees tremble.

But I said to Kaptah, “It will not suffice for us to report that the Babylonian warriors are as the sands of the sea in number. We must count their numbers.” Kaptah protested and said, “My lord, it is impossible, for there are not so many numbers in the world.” Yet I reckoned as well as I might, and the infantry were sixty times sixty times sixty men, while of chariots there were sixty times sixty; for sixty is a sacred number in Babylon, as are also five and seven and twelve, but why that is I would not know even if the priests explained it to me. I was not able to understand their explanations.

I noted also that the shields and weapons of the King’s bodyguard blazed with gold and silver, and their faces gleamed with oil, and they were so fat that running made them breathless, and they panted past the King like a herd of oxen. But they were few in number, and the troops from provinces were sunburned and dirty and smelled of urine. Many of them lacked spears, for the King’s summons had taken them by surprise, and their eyes were sore from flies, so that I reflected how soldiers in every country are alike. I also noticed that their chariots were old and squeaky and one or two of them lost a wheel as they drove by, and the scythes fixed to the chariots were green with mould.

That evening the King summoned me to his presence and said smilingly, “Did you see my might, Sinuhe?” I prostrated myself at his feet and wiped the ground with my mouth and answered, “Truly there is no mightier King than yourself, and it is not for nothing that men call you lord of the four quarters of the world. My eyes are weary, my head whirls, and my limbs tremble with fear, for the number of your warriors is as the sands of the sea or stars in the sky.” He smiled in delight and

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said, “You have had your desire, Sinuhe, but you could have believed it easier because my counsellors are very angry about this whim, and it has cost me a year’s tax revenue from a province, for the soldiers must eat and drink, and tonight they will riot in the city and do all kinds of mischief; such is the habit of soldiers, and the roads will be restless for a month because of the soldiers, and I don’t think I will do this again. Also my behind is numb from all the sitting on a golden chair, and the eyes roll in my head too. Let us now drink wine and rejoice our livers after this tedious day, for I have much to ask you.”

I drank wine with the King, and he asked me many questions such as children and the young who have seen nothing of the world will ask. But my answers pleased him, and at last he said, “Does your Pharaoh have a daughter, because everything that you have told me about the land of Egypt has made me to request Pharaoh’s daughter as my wife. I already have four hundred wives in my women’s house and that is more than enough for me for I can only meet with one woman a day and even that would be tiresome unless they were all different. But it would increase my dignity if there was a Pharaoh’s daughter among my wives, and the people I rule would respect me even more.”

Terrified, I raised my hand and said, “Burnaburiash, you do not know what you are saying, because a Pharaoh’s daughter has never, for as long as the world has existed, been touched my a foreign man, but Pharaoh’s daughters only marry their brothers and if they have no brothers, they remain unmarried all their lives and become priestesses. Therefore your words are a disgrace to the gods of Egypt, but I forgive you because you do not know what you are talking about.”

He knit his brows and said surly, “Who are you to forgive me anything? Isn’t my blood as sacred as the blood of Pharaohs?”

“I have seen your blood bleeding, when you spat to a jar next to you,” I admitted. “I have also seen the Great Pharaoh Amenhotep bleed, and I cannot claim that there was any difference in the blood of you two. But you must also remember that my Pharaoh only married recently, and I do not know if he has any daughters yet.”

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