The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

I would certainly have died on that journey had Aziru’s camp not lain immediately beyond the range of mountains on the other side of the pass. With half-blinded eyes, I saw a great assembly of tents amongst which horses were grazing, and a wall of chariots and ox sleds encircling the camp. After that, I knew nothing more until I awoke to find slaves throwing water over me and rubbing oil onto my limbs, for a literate officer had seen my clay tablets, and I was now treated with all respect and given back my clothes.

As soon as I could walk, I was taken to Aziru’s tent, which smelled of tallow and wool and incense, and Aziru advanced to meet me roaring like a lion, golden chains jingling about his neck and his curly beard in a silver net. He came to me and embraced me and said, “I am terribly sorry if my men have treated you ill, but you should have told them your name and explained that you were Pharaoh’s envoy and my friend. You should also have waved a palm branch over your head as a token of peace, as good custom requires, but instead, my men tell me that you rushed at them brandishing your knife, so that they were compelled to seize you to save their lives.”

My knees burned as with fire, and my wrists ached. Consumed with bitterness, I said to Aziru, “Look at me and see if I look like a danger to the lives of your men. They broke my palm branch and robbed me, and they even took my clothes and mocked me and trampled on Pharaoh’s clay tablets. You should have them flogged, and you should have at least some of them flogged to teach them respect for Pharaoh’s envoy.”

But Aziru threw open his garment in mockery and raised his hands as if wondering and swore, “You must certainly have had some evil dream, Sinuhe, and can I help it if you have hurt your knees on the stones in the course of your wearisome journey. I should not dream of flogging my best men for the sake of a wretched Egyptian, and the words of Pharaoh’s envoy are as the buzzing of flies in my ear.”

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“Aziru,” I said, “you who are the King of many Kings, order at least that man to be flogged who shamefully jabbed many wounds to my behind with a spear as I ran after the chariots. Have him flogged, and I shall be content, for know that I bring peace as a gift to you and to Syria.”

Aziru laughed aloud and smote his breast and said, “What is it to me if that pitiful Pharaoh of yours humbles on the dust before me and begs for peace from me. Yet your words are reasonable, and since you are my friend and the friend of my wife and my son, I will have that man flogged who speared you in the backside to hasten you, for that was against good custom, and as you know, I fight with clean weapons for noble aims.”

So I had the pleasure of seeing my worst tormentor flogged in the sight of the assembled troops before Aziru’s rent, and his comrades had no pity for him but mocked him and howled with laughter, when he shrieked, and pointed at him with their fingers, for they were warriors and glad of any break in their life of tedium. Without doubt, Aziru would have let them flog the man to death, but when I saw the flesh loosen from his ribs and the blood flow, and I thought his back was already aching as bad as my behind and knees, and I raised my hand and gave him his life. Seeing his misery, I had him carried to the tent Aziru had set aside for me to the great indignation of the officers who had been quartered there, and his comrades began to acclaim me with enthusiasm, fancying that I intended to follow up the whipping with many ingenious tortures. But I anointed his back with the same salves I had rubbed into my own knees and buttocks, and I bound up his wounds and let him quench his thirst with beer so that the man thought I was mad and lost his respect for me.

In the evening, Aziru invited me to a meal of roast mutton and hulled grains cooked in fat, which I ate in his tent with him and his nobles and with Hittite officers who were at the moment in his camp and whose mantles and breastplates were adorned with designs of double-headed axes and winged suns. We drank wine together, and all treated me with kindness and good will, thinking I was a simpleton who came to offer peace just when they most needed it. They talked loudly of Syria’s freedom and future power and of the yoke of the oppression, which they had lifted from their shoulders. But when they had drunk

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