The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

sound statesmanship, and as a warrior I can well understand that a new god is indispensable. If Pharaoh were content merely to raise temples to him and employ priests into his service, I should have nothing to complain of. But Pharaoh thinks and talks too much about him. Whatever the occasion, sooner or later he brings the conversation round to him, by which he makes those about him crazier than himself. He says that he lives by truth but truth is like a sharp knife in the hands of a child, and even more dangerous is the truth in the hands of a madman, for a knife should be carried in its sheath and used only when need occurs. So it is with truth also, and for no one is truth more dangerous than for the ruler and commander.”

He drank wine and said, “I thank my falcon that I was able to leave Thebes, for the city is seething like a nest of serpents because of it, and I do not wish to involve myself in squabbles between gods. The priests of Amun are already spreading various raunchy stories about Pharaoh’s origins and fomenting sedition against the new god. His marriage also has caused indignation, for the princess of Mitanni, who used to play with dolls, died suddenly, and Pharaoh has raised up Nefertiti, the daughter of the priest, to be his consort. Certainly this Nefertiti is beautiful and dresses well, but she is very wilful and her father’s daughter in everything.”

“How did the princess of Mitanni die?” I asked, for I had seen the scared, wide-eyed child gazing out at Thebes as she was carried, decked out and adorned like an image, along the Avenue of Rams to the Temple.

“The physicians say, she could not stand the climate of Egypt,” Horemheb said and laughed. “And that is a bare -faced lie, for it is common knowledge that no country has so healthy a climate as Egypt. But you yourself know that the death rate among the royal children is high — higher than in the poor quarter though it seems hard to believe. It is wisest to name no names, but I would halt my chariot before the house of Ay the priest if I dared.”

He spoke indifferently and slapped his legs with his golden whip while drinking wine, but he had grown and become manlier, and his spirit had become uneasy, so that he was no boastful boy any more. He said:

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“If you want to meet Pharaoh’s god, come tomorrow to inaugurate the temple that I have quickly built in this town for him on the rock. I will send word to him about the inauguration, and he does not need to know anything about the casualties and the blood that was spilled; and he may rejoice with his god in his golden house.” Then he said, “Spend your night in a tent, if you find a place there. Due to my rank, I need to sleep in the house of the prince, but there are so many pests. But the pests are part of the war, like hunger and thirst and wound and burning villages, so I have no complaints.”

I spent my night in the tent, and they made my stay comfortable, for I had become friends with the quartermaster on my way from the coast to Jerusalem. When I told him I would follow the troops as a doctor, he cajoled me in various ways, for every soldier wants to be in good terms with a doctor. All night he sighed and moaned and said, “I wish I had never been born a soldier, for day and night fear eats the soldier’s heart like a rat. Already as a child he gets more lashes than food, and during a campaign he has to carry his meals and water on his shoulders like a donkey, so that his neck gets stiff like a donkey’s neck and his shoulder tendons break. Enemy stings him with spears and shoots arrows into his flesh, and if he is captured, he is like a bird in a cage, and he is beaten and his limbs are tied. Foul water is the soldier’s drink, and he has to himself steal or gain from the enemy his lousy pay. A soldier who finally returns to Egypt is like a worm-eaten tree and is no good for anything. He is wounded, or he gets sick and lies down, and they carry him on a donkey long stretches so that his clothes are stolen and his servant runs away. I truly wish I was never born a soldier.”

He showed me two soldiers who had tried to escape and whom Horemheb had hanged on the wall with their heads down, but they were already dead since the bowmen, their friends, had been merciful and used them as their targets while preparing for the battle. He also showed me a few captured Habirus. They were tall, angry men with big, thick noses and bloody heads. After this, we lay down in the tent to sleep.

In the morning, I was roused by the sound of horns and saw the soldiers falling in by companies, while sergeants and officers ran up and down the ranks yelling at them, buffeting them and striking them with their whips. When all were paraded, Horemheb stepped out from the dirty hut of the prince with his golden whip in his hand, and a servant held an umbrella over his head and kept the flies off him with a fly whisk while he addressed the soldiers. Horemheb said as follows:

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