The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

But when I had opened the door of the room in which I had left Minea, I returned at once, tearing my hair and said, lamenting, “Come and see what has happened, for there she lies dead in her blood with the bloodstained knife on the floor beside her, and also her hair is bloody.” The eunuchs came and were aghast for eunuchs have a great horror of blood, and they dared not touch her but began weeping and crying out in terror of the King’s wrath, but I said to them:

“We are involved in the same misfortune, you and I. Quickly, bring a mat in which I may roll the body and then wash the blood from the floor, that none may know what has occurred. For the King anticipated much pleasure from this girl, and his wrath will be terrible if he learns that you and I in our blundering have let her die as her god required. Make speed, therefore, to put another girl in her place, and preferably one from a foreign land who does not speak your tongue. Dress her and adorn her for the King, and if she resists, beat her with sticks before his eyes, for this is especially pleasing to the King, and he will reward you richly.”

The eunuchs perceived the wisdom of my words, and after bargaining with them for a while, I gave them half the silver they declared to be the price of a new girl. I knew they would steal the silver because they would buy the new girl with King’s silver and steal some of it too by letting the merchant write an amount larger than what was paid in the clay tablet, which has ever been and will ever be the way of eunuchs everywhere. But I did not want to argue with them. They brought me a mat in which I rolled Minea, and they helped me to carry her across the dark courtyards to the chair already occupied by Kaptah in his jar.

Thus I left Babylon in the darkness of the night as an exile, losing a lot of gold and silver, even if I could have become richer and still learn many things there. But the porters murmured, “Who is this man who forces us to move in the dark without torches and packs coffins and royals carpets to our load so that our necks are bent like oxen’s necks under yoke and logs chafe wounds upon our shoulders. Our livers are black from fear because we need to carry a corpse in the night, and blood drips from the carpet on to our backs. He needs to pay us well for all this.”

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When we reached the river bank, I bade the porters lift the jar down into the boat, but the mat I carried myself and hid below the deck. Then I said to the porters, “You slaves and sons of dogs! Tonight you have heard and seen nothing, should anyone ask you. To remind you of this I give each one of you a silver piece.” Prancing with delight they shouted, “Truly we have served an illustrious lord, but our ears are deaf and our eyes are blind, and we have seen and heard nothing tonight.” I let them go, well knowing that they would get drunk without delay, as has been the way of porters in all ages, and that in their cups they would babble of all they had seen. As there were eight of them and they were burly men, I could not kill them and throw them into the river as I might have wished.

As soon as they were gone, I woke the oarsmen, and in the light of the rising moon, they unshipped their oars and pulled away from the city, yawning and cursing their fate, for their heads were sore from all the beer they had drunk. Thus I took flight from Babylon, though for what reason I did all this, I cannot say, for doubtless it was written in the stars before the day of my birth and was inevitable.