“This campaign was over before it began, and in his letter to me Pharaoh upbraids me for shedding blood against his commands. I must go back to Egypt with my dung snouts, to disband them and deliver their hawks and lion tails into the keeping of the temple. But what will be the outcome, I know not, for these are the only trained troops in Egypt, and the rest are fit for nothing but squatting by the walls and pinching women in the market place. By Amun, it is easy enough for Pharaoh to write songs in his golden palace in honour of his god and to believe that all nations may be governed by love, but could he only hear the screams of mutilated men and the wailing of women in the burning villages when the enemy crosses the borders, he might think otherwise.”
“Egypt has no enemies for Egypt is too rich and too powerful,” I said. “Also your fame has carried out over Syria, and the Habirus will not remove the border stones a second time. Why then should you not disband the troops, for in truth they rage in their cups like wild beasts, their sleeping dens stink of urine, and their bodies are verminous.”
“You know not what you say,” he said, staring before him and scratching at his armpits, for even the mud hut of the city king is full of lice. “Egypt is satisfied by itself and is therein mistaken for the world is large and in the hidden places seed is being sown from which fire and destruction will be harvested. I have heard, for example, that the King of the Amurru is diligently amassing horses and buying chariots, whereas it would be more becoming of him to pay his tax to Pharaoh with greater punctuality. At his banquets, his high officials talk only of how the Amorites once ruled the whole world — which is in a sense true, as the last of the Hyksos dwell in the land of Amurru.”
“That Aziru is my friend and a vain man, for I gilded his teeth,” I said. “And I think he has other things on his mind, for I have heard that he has taken a wife who draws the strength from his loins and eventually makes his knees weak.”
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“You know many things, Sinuhe,” said Horemheb, looking at me attentively. “You are a free man and independent, and you travel from city to city hearing much that is hidden from others. If I were in your place and free like you, I should journey into every country seeking knowledge. I should go to the land of Mitanni and also visit Babylon and maybe also have a look at what manner of war chariots the Hittites now use and how they exercise their troops, and I should visit the islands in the sea to note how mighty their ships are, of which there is so much talk. But I cannot do that, because Pharaoh calls me back. Also my name is known throughout all Syria, and perhaps I should not hear so very much what I want. But you, Sinuhe, are clad in Syrian clothes and speak a language known to the educated of all nations. You are also a physician, and no one would imagine that you understand anything outside of your profession. Moreover, your talk is simple and to my ears often childish, and you have a wide -eyed look, but yet I know that your heart is locked and what you carry within you is known to none. Isn’t this true?”
“Perhaps it is true,” I said. “But what is it you want of me?”
“What would you say if I were to furnish you with a good supply of gold,” he said, “and send you to the lands I spoke of to practice your craft and spread the fame of both Egyptian medicine and your own healing powers so that in each city the rich and influential would summon you, and you would look into their hearts, and maybe even kings would summon you, and you would look into their hearts. Whilst you follow your calling, you would let your eyes and your ears be mine so that when you return to Egypt you might render me an account of all you have seen and heard.”
“I do not intend ever to return to Egypt,” I said. “Besides there is danger in what you propose, and I have no desire to hang head downward on the wall of a foreign city.”
“No one knows what tomorrow may bring,” he said. “I believe you will come back to Egypt, for he who has once drunk of the Nile waters cannot quench his thirst elsewhere. Even the swallows and the cranes return each winter, and don’t prosper in any other country. Therefore your talk is like buzzing of flies in my ears. Also gold is but dust under my feet, and I would rather exchange it for knowledge. As for hanging, your talk is like cow dung for I don’t ask you to do anything ill nor harmful nor to break the laws of any place. Don’t all great cities lure
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