The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

I drank the beer she offered me to clear my sick head and could not say anything to her. She looked into my eyes with a smile, though in the depths of her own brown ones sorrow lay still, like black water at the bottom of a well. And she said, “Sinuhe, I would help you if I could, and I know that in this city there is a woman who owes you very much. In these days roofs are floors, and doors open outward, and many old debts are collected in the streets. Perhaps it would do you good to collect your debt also so that you wouldn’t suspect every woman be a desert that burns you.”

I said that I didn’t think she was a desert, but I left, and her words remained with me, for I was but human and those days my heart was swollen with the sight of blood and wounds, and I had tasted the frenzy of hatred so that I was afraid for myself. Therefore her words started to burn within me like a flame, and I remembered the temple of the feline goddess and the house beside it though time had drifted like sand over these memories. But during the days of terror in Thebes, the dead rose from their graves, and I remembered my father Senmut in his tenderness and my good mother Kipa, and there was a taste of blood in my mouth as I thought of them. At this time, no one in Thebes was too rich or too eminent to be entirely safe, and I need only have hired a few soldiers to carry out my purpose. But as yet I did not know what my purpose was. I returned to my house and helped the sick as I could without medicines and urged the people of the poor quarter to dig wells by the river bank so that the water became clean when it flowed through mud.

But on the fifth day there was fear even amongst the officers under Pepitaten’s command, for the soldiers ceased to obey the notes of the horn and insulted their leaders in the streets and snatched the golden whips from their hands and snapped them across their knees. The officers went to Pepitaten who was growing weary of a warrior’s life and missed his cats, and they persuaded him to seek audience of Pharaoh and tell him the truth and relinquish his chains of the royal commander. And so on the fifth day, Pharaoh’s messengers came to my house to summon Horemheb to appear before Pharaoh. Horemheb rose like a lion from his couch and washed and dressed and went back with the men, growling to himself at the thought of all he would say to Pharaoh, for that day even Pharaoh’s power was tottering, and no one

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knew what tomorrow might bring. When he stood before Pharaoh, he said, “Akhenaten, we need to hurry, and I have no time to remind you of all I counselled you to do. If you desire all to be as it was, give me the power of Pharaoh for three days, and on the third day I will restore the power to you, and you need never know of what has passed.”

But Pharaoh said to him, “Will you overthrow Amun?”

Horemheb said, “Truly you are crazier than possessed by the moon, yet after what has happened, Amun must fall if Pharaoh’s power is to survive. Therefore, I will overthrow Amun but do not ask how I will do it.”

Pharaoh said, “You shall not harm his priests, for they know not what they do.” Horemheb answered him and said, “In truth your skull should be opened, for it is plain that nothing else will cure you, but I will obey your command for once I covered your weakness with my shoulder cloth.”

Then Pharaoh wept and handed him his whip and his crook for three days. How this matter came about, I know only from what Horemheb told me, and as is the custom of the soldiers, he often embellished his stories. Be that as it may, he returned to the city in Pharaoh’s gilded carriage and drove through street after street calling the soldiers by name and took the most trustworthy among them with him, and he caused horns to be sounded, mustering the men under the falcons and lions tails. All that night, he dispensed justice, and yells and howls were heard from the men’s sleeping quarters, and canes by the score were worn to shreds in the hands of the regiment castigators, until their arms grew weary, and they groaned that never before had they known such toil. Horemheb sent his best men on patrol through the streets to grab every soldier who had not obeyed the horns and lead him to be flogged, and many whose hands and garments were bloody had their heads cut off in the sight of their fellows. When morning dawned, the scum of Thebes had scuttled back to their holes like rats, for everyone caught thieving or house breaking was speared on the spot. Therefore they escaped and hid themselves and trembled in their hideouts, tearing off Aten’s cross about their necks and clothes fearing it was damning if they were found.

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