The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

“I am still young and can wait,” said Burnaburiash and looked at me slyly for he was a King of merchant people. “If your Pharaoh has no daughter to send me and if he does not want to send his daughter to me, let him send me any noble daughter from Egypt, and I can say here she is Pharaoh’s daughter. No one suspects my word here, and Pharaoh loses nothing. But if he refuses, I will send my troops to get Pharaoh’s daughter, for I am very persistent, and what I have got in my head, stays in my head.”

I was frightened by his words and told him that war would cost him a lot and would terribly disturb international trade, which would bring more harm to him than Egypt. I also said, “Perhaps it is best for you to wait until your emissaries tell you daughters have been born to Pharaoh. Then I can write a clay tablet to him about this matter, and if he agrees, and he will certainly send his daughter to you, and he will not deceive you, because he has a new, powerful god, whom he lives in truth with. All lies are an abomination to him.”

But this Burnaburiash could not understand and said, “I do not want to hear about such god, and I am amazed that your Pharaoh has selected such a god, for all men know that often it is the truth that hurts men and makes them poor. However, I pray for all gods and also those gods I am not familiar with, because certainty is best and that is the custom, yet I will not deal with this god but from afar.” He also said, “The wine has revived me and cheered my liver, and your words about Pharaoh’s daughter and her beauty has excited me, and I think I will withdraw to my women’s house. But come with me, for that as a physician you may do, and like I said, I have a superabundance of wives and shall not be offended if you choose one for yourself tonight, provided you do not get her with child, for that would cause difficulties. I am also curious to see how an Egyptian lies with a woman, for every nation has its own customs. If I were to tell you the ways of those wives who come from distant lands, you would not believe me and would be greatly astonished.”

He would not heed my refusal but forced me to his women’s house on walls of which he showed me pictures his artists had made of coloured tiles, depicting men and women taking pleasure with one another in many different ways. He showed me also some of his wives, who were clad in jewels and precious stones and rich garments, and there were among them women and young girls from all known lands,

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and also some from the savage nations, whom merchants had brought. They varied in colour and figure and chattered like monkeys in many different tongues and danced before the King with bared bellies and diverted him in various ways, competing for the King’s favour. He urged me continually to choose one of them for myself until at last I told him that I had promised my god to abstain from women whenever I was about to treat a patient. On the following day, I was to perform an operation on one of his nobles who had growth in his scrotum, so I insisted that since I might not approach a woman it would be better for me to retire, lest I shame my healing skill. The King believed this and allowed me to go, but the women were sorely displeased and showed it by various gestures and sounds. Apart from the eunuchs, they had never yet seen a man in the prime of his manhood in the women’s house, and the King was young and slender and still without a beard.

Before I went, the King said, laughing to himself, “The rivers have overflowed their banks, and the spring has come, and the priests have therefore chosen the thirteenth day from today for the spring festival and the Day of the False King. I have prepared a surprise for you on that day that I believe will greatly divert you, and I expect to enjoy it myself, also. I will not say what it is to be, for that would spoil my pleasure.”

I went away full of misgivings, fearing that what amused King Burnaburiash would not amuse me at all. In this Kaptah for once was of my opinion.

King’s physicians did not know how to show their gratitude to me for it was because of me they had not faced the King’s wrath but received great gifts, and I had defended them in front of the King and praised their skills. I had done all this because they were skilled men in their field and I had lot to learn from them and they kept no secrets from me. The most important thing I learned from them was the way how to siphon milk from poppy cores and from it extract medicine that gave deep sleep, unconsciousness or death, depending on the dose. In Babylon, this medicine was used with wine or without wine, and it was said to bring great joy to men. Also priests used it to foretell the future

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