The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

I trembled, thinking him sick and delirious. But he said to me in a commanding voice, “Come!” Therefore I followed him. He led me down from the terrace and past the royal lake, whilst from behind the walls came the sorrowful murmur of the grieving crowd. We went past the stables and the dogs’ residence, and managed to exit through the servants’ gate without guards hindering us. I was in great dread, for Ptahor had stated that we shall not leave the palace premises before the death of the king, but I could not gainsay the prince.

His body tense, he walked with such fierce, sliding steps that I had hard work to keep up with him. He was wearing only a loincloth, and the moon shone on his fair skin, his slender legs and thighs wide as a woman’s. The moon shone on his prominent ears and the tormented, agitated face — like he was following a vision the others could not see.

When we reached the shore, he said, “We will take a boat. I am going eastward to meet my father.” Without hesitating to choose his craft, he stepped into the nearest reed boat, and I followed him; and we began to row across the river, and no one sought to hinder us, though we had stolen the boat. The night was uneasily astir, and other craft were out on the river, and the red glow of Thebes appeared ever brighter in the sky ahead. When we reached the farther shore, he set the boat adrift and started to walk forward without looking back as if he had been this way many times before. I felt I could only follow him, heart filled with fear. There were also other people afoot in the night, and we were not shouted at by the guards, for Thebes knew already that the King would die that night.

The walk was exhausting him, and I wondered at the toughness of his weak body, for though the night was very cold, the sweat ran down my back as I followed him. The stars moved across the heavens, and the moon went down, and still he walked until we came up out of the valley into the uncultivated desert and left Thebes behind us, and the three mountains in the east — the guardians of Thebes — loomed before us black against the sky. I thought he wouldn’t be able to walk the same distance later and wondered where we could find a chair to carry us back.

At last, he sat down panting in the sand and said in a frightened voice, “Hold my hands, Sinuhe, for they tremble, and my heart races. The hour draws near, for the world is desolate, and there is no one in the world except you and me. But where I go, you cannot follow. Yet I do not want to be alone.”

I gripped his wrists and felt that his whole twitching frame was bathed in cold sweat. The world about us was desolate, and far off some jackal howled for a death. Very slowly the stars paled and space about us turned a wan grey. Suddenly he shook off my hands and rising lifted his face to the east, to the mountains.

“The god is coming!” he said softly, and his face was glowing devoted and ill. “The god is coming!” he said raising his voice. “The god is coming!” he shouted into the desert, and the air grew brighter around us and the mountains before us flamed gold, and the sun rose. Then, with a shrill cry, he sank swooning to the ground and lost his consciousness. Only his limbs were twitching and his mouth was moving, and he was churning up the sand with his feet. But I was no longer afraid, for I had heard such cries in the forecourt of the House of Life and knew what to do. Lacking a wooden peg to wedge between his teeth, I tore a strip from my loincloth, rolled it up and stuffed it into his mouth and began to massage his limbs. I knew he would be sick and dazed when he awoke, and I looked about me for help, but Thebes lay behind us, and not the meanest hovel was in sight.

At that instant, a falcon flew past me with a screech. It swooped out of the rays of the rising sun into a high arc above us. Then it sank again, and made as if to alight upon the prince’s forehead. I was so confused that I instinctively made the holy sign of Amun. Maybe it was the god Horus that the prince had meant, and the god was here to manifest in the shape of a falcon. The prince moaned, and I bent to tend him. When I raised my head again, it seemed that the bird had taken human shape. Before me stood a young man, beautiful and godlike in the rays of the rising sun. He had a spear in his hand and wore the coarse shoulder cloth of a poor man. Though I did not believe in the gods, for safety’s sake I prostrated myself before him.

“What’s this?” he asked in the dialect of the Lower Kingdom and pointed at the prince. “Is the lad sick?”