The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

But Aziru only smiled and said, “I do not think that I am in any danger from Pharaoh, for I have received the symbol of life from his hands and have raised a temple to his god. He believes in me more than in anyone else in Syria, more than in his own envoys or in the officers of the garrison who worship Amun. I will now show you something that must greatly amuse you.”

He led me to the walls and showed me a dried-up, naked body hanging by the heels, and it was crawling with flies. “If you look closely,” he said, “you will see that this man is circumcised, and he is indeed an Egyptian. He was one of Pharaoh’s tax gatherers who made so bold as to come prying here to find out why I was few years in arrears with my taxes. My soldiers had good sport with him before they hung him on the wall for his impudence. By this I have ensured that Egyptians do not willingly travel through the land of Amurru, even in large bands, and the merchants prefer to pay their taxes to me rather than to them. You will grasp the significance of this when I tell you that Megiddo is under my dominion, obeying me and not the Egyptian garrison, who cower in their fortress and dare not venture into the streets of the city.”

“The blood of this poor man will be on your head,” I said appalled. “Your punishment will be terrible when the deed is known, for one may trifle with anything in Egypt rather than with Pharaoh’s tax gatherers.”

“I have hanged the truth on the wall for everyone to see,” said Aziru complacently. “A lot of inquiries have been started about this matter, and I have gladly filled both papers and clay tablets to explain it, and I have also received many clay tablets myself which I have carefully enumerated and archived so that I can later invoke them to fill new clay tablets until I can build an entire wall of clay tablets in my defence. By Baal of Amurru, I have made this matter so complicated that the governor in Megiddo curses the day he was born as I constantly bother him with new clay tablet asking justice for myself, being insulted by this tax gatherer. I have through many witnesses proved him a murderer, a thief and an embezzler of Pharaoh’s assets. I have proved how he had harassed women in all villages and desecrated Syrian gods, even passed his water on Aten’s altar in my city, which really makes my case strong as a mountain in front of Pharaoh. You see, Sinuhe, law and justice that is written on clay tablets is slow and complicated and becomes ever more complicated the more clay tablets are piled before judges, until not even a devil can say what is the truth. In this matter, I am stronger than Egyptians, and soon I am stronger in many other matters, too.”

323

This was not the only thing Aziru told me, but he spoke a lot, bragging about his kingship and cunning and claimed he would one day let his little boy inherit as many princely crowns as he had fingers and toes. He also taught me and said, “If you have an opponent that you want to vanquish, never forget the main important thing that he must be vanquished, but always keep it clear before your eyes. Therefore say how wrong he is in everything and see everything that he does in the wrong light and say his mercy is a lie and his generosity is a treachery and his friendship is a sham. If he is strong and offers you conciliation, agree to it to get closer to his throat and turn everyone you can against him and ally with his enemies, but take care that once he is vanquished, you can rob his house yourself and leave others empty-handed. If there are many that you want to vanquish, separate them from each other and spread lies in between them and make them wage war against each other and vanquish them one at a time and assure your friendship to the others and make them believe only good things about you until you have vanquished each one in his own turn. This statecraft I learned from the Egyptians for how they used to enslave Syria a long time ago.”

My indignation and repulsion amused Aziru greatly, and he mocked me and said, “If you had royal blood, I would not need to tell you this for you’d already have sucked it into your blood in breastmilk, but unlike me, you are not born to be a ruler but a subordinate and therefore my talk disgusts you.”

This way, I spent several days with Aziru without being able to hate him for he was my friend and his friendship was charming and generous, and his laughter made me also laugh. His father’s pride and tenderness towards his son was also amusing and childish in contrast to all his cunning. Even when he spoke with reason, I knew his heart was greater than his reason and flared up fiercely; and when he spoke and laughed and walked, his stature was greater than any other men of his people. I fixed some of his teeth and gilded again the teeth that had shed their gold so that his mouth shone like sun between his black beard when he laughed, and his men respected him ever more.

324