The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

Yet the Hittite pride came to my aid, since feeling ill next morning, prince Zannanza did not want to confess he was sick and put off the journey to rest because of his stomach troubles, but stepped into his chair denying that he suffered, although this required great effort. The journey continued all day, therefore, and when I passed his chair, he waved to me and shouted and strove to smile. During the day, his physician twice administered binding and pain-killing medicines, thus aggravating his condition by allowing the poison to exert its full effect — for a powerful diarrhoea might even in the morning have still saved his life.

But in the afternoon, he fell into a state of deep unconsciousness in his chair, with his eyes turning up into his head, and his drawn face assuming a pale green pallor, striking terror to the heart of his physician, who summoned me to his aid. When I saw his desperate plight, I had no need to feign terror, for it was real enough and chilled me despite the day’s heat, and also as I didn’t feel well from the poison. But I said that I knew the symptoms, and I said Zannanza had fallen ill from the desert sickness, of which I had warned him the evening before and of which I had read the signs in his face, although he would not heed me. The caravan halted, and we tended him where he lay in his chair, giving him stimulants and cleansing draughts and laying hot stones on his stomach. I carefully saw to it that the Hittite physician alone mixed the drugs and administered them, forcing them between the prince’s clenched teeth. I knew that he would die and desired by my counsel to render his death as painless and easy as might be since I could not do more to him.

When evening came, we bore him to his tent, and the Hittites gathered outside to mourn aloud about his tent, rending their clothes, strewing ashes in their hair and gashing themselves with knives for they were all in mortal fear, knowing that King Suppiluliuma would have no mercy on their lives if the prince died in their hands. But I watched with the Hittite physician at the bedside of the prince, and the smoke from the torches made my eyes sting and my nose run; and I saw this handsome young man, who just the day before had been strong, healthy and happy, slowly waste away and become ugly and green as death before my eyes.

717

I saw him die, and his pearl white eyes dimmed and became bloodshot, and his pupil was only a small dot the size of a needle’s head. Foam and slime coloured his teeth yellow, and his skin lost its healthy hue and pressed in, and he wrung his fists and sank his nails into his flesh in pain. The Hittite physician, filled with despair and suspicion, made continual examination of his condition, but his symptoms were no different from those of a severe stomach disorder and nothing happened to him which could not have been caused by a mean stomach disease. So no one thought of poison, and even if someone had thought of it, no one could have laid blame on me, since I had drunk the same wine and drank wine from his cup, and they could not imagine how I could have secretly poisoned Zannanza. Thus I had carried out my task with noteworthy skill and with great profit to Egypt so that I could have been proud of my skill, yet I felt no pride as I watched prince Zannanza die.

On the following day, he regained consciousness, and as death approached, he was just as a sick child, calling softly for his mother. In a soft, pitiful voice he moaned, “Mother, mother, my beautiful mother.” His powerless hand pressed my fingers, and death came to his eyes. But when death came, the pain ceased, and he smiled the bright smile of a boy and remembered he was of royal blood. He summoned his officers and said, “Let no one bear the blame for my death, for it has come on me in the form of the desert sickness, and I have been tended by the best physician of the land of Hatti and the most eminent physician of Egypt, with all of their skill. But their arts have not availed to cure me, because it is the will of the heavens and of the Earth Mother that I should die, and perhaps the desert is ruled not by the Earth Mother but by the gods of Egypt, and it protects Egypt. Let you all know that the Hittites must not seek to cross the desert, for my death is a sign of this — even the defeat of our chariots in the desert was a sign, although we would not heed it. Give the physicians a present worthy of me when I am dead, and you, Sinuhe, greet princess Beketamun and say that I release her from her promise and feel great sorrow because I may not carry her to her marriage bed for my own joy and hers. Indeed, bring her this greeting, for as I die, I see her floating in my dreams like a fairy-tale princess, and I die with her timeless beauty before my eyes though I have never seen her with living eyes.”

718