The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

death is a doctor’s good acquaintance, and with the materials at his command, a doctor may bring death to his patients as readily as life. If prince Zannanza had become ill and I were appointed to tend him, I could have tended him to death at my ease, according to all the laws of medicine — nor would any self-respecting physician have said a bad word about my treatment since throughout all ages the medical faculty have helped one another to bury their dead. But Zannanza was not ill, and if he were to sicken, he would summon a Hittite physician to cure him and would not summon an Egyptian physician.

I have set forth my musings in detail, to show how difficult the task Horemheb had laid upon me was, but I won’t dwell any further on the musings of my mind and I will only tell of what I did. In the House of Life at Memphis, I replenished my stock of drugs, and no one marvelled at the prescriptions I wrote, for what to a layman is deadly poison may in the hands of a physician be often a sound remedy. Then without further delay, I continued my journey to Tanis and got on a chair there and was furnished by the garrison with an escort of a few chariots to attend me along Syria’s great military road through the desert. I wanted to travel in a chair like a physician or how a man who is used to such comforts does, so that too much haste would not have drawn suspicion in my escort or the Hittites.

Horemheb’s information about Zannanza’s trip proved correct for I met him and his entourage three days out from Tanis at a spring surrounded by wall. Also, Zannanza travelled in a chair to save his strength, and he brought with him many pack donkeys laden with heavy packages and expensive gifts for princess Beketamun; he also brought heavy chariots to ensure safety on his journey while light chariots scouted the road ahead of him — for King Suppiluliuma had commanded him to be prepared for all surprise attacks, being well aware that the expedition was far from agreeable to Horemheb. Thus Horemheb would not have won anything if he had sent a group of bandits to murder him in the desert for it would have required a true military company strengthened with chariots in order to defeat him, and that would have meant war.

But the Hittites displayed great courtesy and cordiality to me as well as the officers of my modest escort — as they always display great courtesy and cordiality when they think they get for free what they cannot attain by force of arms. They received us in the camp they had pitched for the night, and having helped the Egyptian soldiers to set up our tents, they surrounded us with many guards,

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saying that they desired to defend us against robbers and lions in the desert so that we might sleep our night in peace. But when prince Zannanza heard that I had been sent by princess Beketamun, his curiosity got the better of him, and he summoned me to speak with him.

This way, I saw him in his tent, and he was a young, valiant man and his eyes were large and clear as water now that he was not drunk as when I had first seen him by Horemheb’s tent in Megiddo in the morning of Aziru’s death. Happiness and curiosity brought colour into his dark face, and his nose was as big and noble as the beak of a bird of prey, and his teeth gleamed glowing white like the teeth of a wild beast when he laughed with pleasure at the sight of me. I handed him a letter from princess Beketamun, forged by Ay, and stretched forth my hands at knee level before him with every mark of veneration, as though he were already my sovereign. I was greatly diverted to note that before receiving me, he had arrayed himself in the Egyptian manner and now found himself weird in these garments to which he was unaccustomed. He said to me:

“Since my future royal consort has confided in you and you are a royal physician, I will conceal nothing from you. Therefore I say that when a prince marries, he is bound to his partner, and my consort’s country shall be my country, and Egypt’s customs shall be my customs, and I have striven as far as may be to adopt the Egyptian customs already, so that I may not come as a stranger to Thebes. I am impatient to see the wonders of Egypt of which so much has been told to me, and I look forward to becoming acquainted with Egypt’s mighty gods, which henceforth shall be my gods also. But most eager I am to see my great royal consort, for by her I will found a new ruling house in Egypt and make children with her. Tell me everything about her, therefore, and tell me of her size and her figure and of the breadth of her loins as if I were already an Egyptian. And there is no need to conceal any flaw in her from me, but you can trust me completely, as I trust you like a brother.”

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