The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

this task had I not feared sudden death during that night in my house. But after I had accepted this task, I made it beautiful in my eyes and dressed it in bright fantasy feathers until I believed that what I did would save Egypt. In my old age, I no longer believe so, but travelling fast down the river, I was in a hurry, and the fever of the task burned inside me so that my eyes swelled and I couldn’t sleep peacefully.

Once more I was alone, and lonelier than all other men, for there was no one left whom I could reveal myself to any more nor ask help from for my task. My secret was a Pharaohs’ secret, and if it were made known, thousands upon thousands would have perished. Therefore I had to be wilier than a serpent to avoid being caught, and my cunning was greatly encouraged by the knowledge that if I was caught, I should suffer a hideous death at the hands of the Hittites.

I was sorely tempted to abandon everything and escape and seek refuge in some remote place — like my namesake Sinuhe did in the legend when he accidentally learned a secret of Pharaoh. I was sorely tempted to escape and let destiny roll forward over Egypt, and had I escaped, the course of events might well have altered, and the world would today appear different — but would it appear better or worse, that I cannot say. Yet now in my old age, I perceive that all rulers are in essence alike, and all nations are in essence alike, and it signifies little who rules or which nation oppresses another, since ultimately it is the poor who suffer. So it might have been all the same had I blown my task to the wind and escaped. But if I had escaped, I could hardly have been happy again — not that I am any happier now, for the days of my happiness have gone along with my youth.

Yet I did not flee because I was weak, and when a man is weak enough, he lets himself be led by another man’s will into doing frightening deeds rather than choosing his own way. Indeed, if a man is weak enough, he lets himself be taken to death rather than cut the rope which leads him — and I think many people are weak, and I am not the only one.

Therefore prince Zannanza had to die, and sitting on board the ship in the shadow of a golden shelter with a jar of wine beside me, I exerted all my knowledge and skills to come up with a way to kill him so that my deed would remain undiscovered and so that Egypt would avoid responsibility for it. This was no easy task, for the Hittite prince would certainly travel with an entourage befitting his rank, and the Hittites were suspicious and they would doubtless keep a sharp watch upon his safety. Even if I met him alone in the desert, I could not have slain him with an arrow or spear — as if I had been able to — for a spear and arrow leave traces,

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and the crime would have been exposed. I also considered whether I might lure him to seek with me the desert basilisk whose eyes are green stones and hurl him into a chasm so that I could report that his foot had slipped and that he had broken his neck. But this plan was childish, for I was certain his escorts would never leave him out of their sight in the desert since they were responsible for his life to his father, the great Suppiluliuma. I could rest assured that I had no chance even to speak with him privately, and in fear of poison, the distinguished Hittites had cupbearers who tasted both food and drink beforehand, and they had different cupbearers for wine and food, so that I was not able to poison him with any ordinary means.

I kept recalling all stories of the secret poisons of the priests and of the golden house. I knew there were ways of introducing poison into a raw fruit upon a growing tree so that whoever plucked and ate the fruit when ripe met his death. I also knew there were certain scrolls that brought slow death to him who opened them and flowers whose scent, when priests had handled them, was fatal. But all these were secrets of the priests, and I was not knowledgeable about them, and I fancy that many of these stories were tales only. Even had they been true and had I been knowledgeable about them, I could not well have cultivated fruit trees in the desert; and I knew well that no Hittite prince would open a scroll but hand it to his scribe; nor were the Hittites in the habit of smelling flowers but rather slashed at their stems with whips and trod on them underfoot.

The more I contemplated all this, the more difficult I felt my task was, and I wished I had Kaptah’s cunning to help me, but I could not involve Kaptah in this affair, and Kaptah was anyway still in Syria, collecting his dues, and had no hurry to come back to Egypt for the time being, since for the sake of Aten’s kingdom, he regarded the Syrian climate healthier to his body than the Egyptian climate. So I summoned up my powers of invention and considered all my medical science, for

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