The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

But the more he spoke to me, the more often I remembered Horemheb, for his manhood was somewhat similar with Horemheb’s manhood and they were both born soldiers, although Aziru was older and poisoned by Syrian statecraft. I did not believe he could rule great countries with his art, but I thought he had inherited his notions and plans from his forefathers, devised when Syria was like a sizzling serpents’ nest, with countless small-time kings fighting each other for power and having murdered each other — until Egypt pacified Syria and the sons of its princes were brought up in Pharaoh’s golden house and it became civilised. I sought to explain to him that he had a mistaken notion of the wealth and majesty of Egypt and warned him against being puffed up. Even a leather sack swells when filled with air yet when pricked, collapses and loses its bulk. But Aziru merely laughed and flashed his golden teeth, then ordered in more roast mutton on heavy silver dishes so as to display his wealth.

His study was filled with clay tablets, like he had said, for messengers brought him letters from all the cities in Syria. He received tablets also from the King of the Hittites and from Babylon, of which he could not refrain from boasting, though he would not let me see what was written on them. He was most curious to hear from me about the land of the Hittites, but I perceived that he knew as much of it as I did. Hittite envoys visited him and spoke with his soldiers and officers so that after seeing all this, I said, “The lion and the jackal may make alliance to hunt the same prey but did you ever see the choicest morsels fall to the jackal’s share?”

He only laughed with his golden teeth and said, “Great is my thirst for knowledge, and like you, I seek to learn new things, though affairs of state prevent me from travelling as you do, who are without responsibility and as free as the birds of the air. What harm, then, if the Hittite officers advise my officers in the arts of war, for they have new weapons and experience that we lack. This can only be of service to Pharaoh, for should war ever come, has Syria long been Pharaoh’s shield in the north, and often this shield has been bloody which we shall remember when we come to cast the accounts of Egypt and Syria together.”

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When he spoke of war, I thought of Horemheb and said to him, “I have enjoyed your hospitality too long and must now return to Zemar if you will place a chair at my disposal for I will never again step into one of your terrifying chariots and rather let my skull be broken. But Zemar has become grim to me, and doubtless as an Egyptian I have sucked the blood of poor Syria too long so that I intend to take ship for Egypt. We may not meet for a long time and perhaps never, for the memory of the Nile water is sweet in my mouth, and perhaps I shall remain to drink of it the rest of my days since I have seen enough of the world’s evil and have also learned something of its evil from you.”

Aziru said, “No one knows what tomorrow may bring, and rolling stones gather no moss, and the restlessness glowing in your eyes will not allow you to stay long in any one place. But pick yourself a wife from amongst my people, anyone you want, and I will build you a house in my city, and you will not regret if you stay here practising your profession.”

Jokingly, I said to him, “The land of Amurru is the most wrongful and hateful country in the world, and its Baal repulses me, and its women smell like goats in my nostrils. Therefore I put hate between me and the land of Amurru, and whoever says good things about Amurru, I will break his skull and do other things which I do not bother to list now since I don’t remember them, but I will write in several clay tablets various calculations, proving how you raped my wife and stole oxen I never possessed and practised sorcery and other things until you are hanged head downward on the wall, and I will rob your house and take your gold and buy a hundred times a hundred wine jars to drink to your memory.”

His laughter thundered in the halls of his royal house, and golden teeth glittered behind his curly beard. Like that I often remembered him when the bad days came, but we parted friends, and he gave me a chair and many presents, and his soldiers escorted me back to Zemar lest any should offer me violence because I was an Egyptian.

At the gateway into Zemar, a swallow darted like an arrow past my head, and my mind was troubled, and the street scorched my feet. When I had reached my house, I said to Kaptah, “Gather up our belongings and sell this house, for we will sail back to Egypt.”

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