The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

The entire river reeked of death, and as the night set in, the wind brought the bitter smell of smoke from Thebes to our nostrils. Thutmose said mockingly, “Truly it appears that Aten’s kingdom has arrived on earth.” But I hardened my weak heart and said to him, “Thutmose, nothing like this has ever happened, and the world will never get a similar chance. You cannot make bread without first breaking the grains. Aten’s mill is grinding the grains now, let us bake the flour into bread for the sake of Pharaoh Akhenaten, and the world will truly change, and at the end, all men will be brothers before Aten.”

But Thutmose drank wine to remove the smell of death from his nose and said, “Forgive me, if I strengthen my weakness with wine, since to be honest, I am totally scared and my knees turn to water when I think of what we have to experience. So it is simplest during times like this to get drunk, for when a man is drunk, he does not think too much, and life and death, men and gods all become equal in his eyes.”

When we came to Thebes, many parts of the city were on fire, and even from the City of the Dead flames were leaping, for the people were robbing the tombs and burning the embalmed bodies of priests. Our ship was shot at with arrows from the wall without anyone asking what we were searching, and when we went ashore, frenzied crosses hurled horns into the water and beat them down with stakes until they drowned. From this, we guessed that the old gods had already been overthrown and that Aten had conquered.

We went straight to The Crocodile’s Tail where we met Kaptah. He had put off his fine clothes and stained the oil in his hair with mud and assumed the grey garment of the poor. He had also removed the golden plate from his eye and was now zealously serving drinks to ragged slaves and armed porters from the harbour and spoke to them, saying, “Rejoice and be happy, my brothers, for this is a day of great joy, and there are now neither lords nor slaves, neither high nor low, but all are free to come and go as they will. Today drink wine at my expense, and I hope you will remember my wine tavern should fortune favour you and enable you to steal silver and gold from the temples of

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the false gods or in the houses of bad masters. See, I am a slave like yourselves and was born a slave and grew up as a slave — in proof of which behold my eye, which a cruel master blinded with his stylus when he was angry with me for having drunk a jar of his beer and refilled it with my own water. But such wrongs will never again be wrought, and no one will ever again taste the rod because he is a slave, and no one will ever again need to labour with his hands because he is a slave, but all shall be pure joy and jubilation, dance and pleasure, as long as it lasts.”

Not until he had babbled all that, did he notice Thutmose and myself and he became a bit ashamed of his words, taking us to a closed room and saying, “You would be wise to dress in cheaper clothes and to soil with mud your hands and faces, for slaves and porters roam the streets praising Aten and beat in Aten’s name everyone who seems to them too fat and who has never laboured with his hands. But they have forgiven me my paunch because I was once a slave and because I have distributed grain amongst them and let them drink for nothing. But tell me what ill fortune brings you to Thebes just now, for in these days it is a most unhealthy place for those of high rank.”

We showed him our axes and sledge hammers and told him that we had come to overturn the images of false gods and to hew away their names from all inscriptions. Kaptah nodded his head wisely and said, “Yours may be a clever plan and acceptable to the crowd so long as they do not learn who you are for many changes are on the way, and the horns will be revenged for your deeds if ever they return to power. I cannot believe that this will continue much longer, for where are the slaves to get their grain to live — and in their devilry they have done such deeds as cause many crosses to doubt and become horns so as to restore order. However, Pharaoh Akhenaten’s order to free the slaves was very wise and far-sighted since it enables me to rid myself of all my useless and worn-out slaves who eat my expensive grain and oil for nothing. I no longer have need to feed and accommodate my slaves with great expenses but I can just hire them for work when I want to and then send them away when I want to, and I am not bound to them but can select my workers freely and pay them what I want. Grain is more expensive than ever, and once they are sober, they will come to me

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