The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

Nevertheless, the people of Mitanni were curious, and they came to see me and brought their sick, being attracted by anything strange. Just as they loved to wear foreign clothes and jewellery and eat exotic dishes and drink imported wine, so they desired to be treated by an alien physician. Women came also to me and smiled upon me and told me of their maladies and complained that their men were lazy and tired and without virility. I understood well enough what they were after but I was careful not to give way to them, for I did not wish to offend against the laws of a foreign land. Instead, I gave them drugs to secretly mix with their husbands’ wine, and I had obtained such drugs as would set even a dead man rutting from the doctors in Zemar, the Syrians being the cleverest in the world in this matter and their medicines more powerful than those of Egypt. But whether the women gave these drugs to their husbands or to other men altogether I do not know — though I fancy they preferred strangers, for they were free in their ways and they had no children, which again was a sign to me that the shadow of death hung over their land.

I must mention that these people no longer knew the boundaries of their own kingdom since the boundary stones were constantly being moved for the Hittites bore them away in their chariots and set them up where they pleased. If the Mitannians protested, the Hittites laughed and challenged them to put them back again if that was their desire. But that was not their desire, for if what was told of the Hittites was true, there had never on this earth been seen so cruel and formidable a people. Legend had it that their keenest pleasure was to hear the cries of the mutilated and to watch blood flow from open wounds. They cut off the hands of Mitannian border folk who complained that the Hittite cattle trampled their fields and devoured their crops and then mocked them and told them to lift the boundary stones back to their places. They would also cut off these peasants’ feet and tell them to run and complain to their king or slit their scalps and pull the skin down over their eyes so they could not see whither the landmarks had been carried. The Mitannians also said that the Hittites mocked the Egyptian gods, which

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was a great disgrace to all Egypt, and that was reason enough for Pharaoh to send gold and spears and mercenaries to the land of Mitanni, so that they could wage war against the Hittites, for even if they did not love war, they hoped the Hittites withdrew seeing how the might of Pharaoh was behind Mitanni. I cannot recount all the evil that the Hittites had done, and all their cruelties and shameful practices. But it was said that they were worse than locusts, for after locusts the earth brings forth again, but wherever the chariots of the Hittites had passed, no grass ever grew.

I did not wish to tarry any longer in the land of Mitanni, for I felt that I had learned all I desired to know, but my doctor’s pride was hurt by the doubts of the Mitannian faculty, who did not believe what I had told them of skull opening. Now there came to my inn a distinguished man who complained that he had the roar of the sea continually in his ears, that he was given to swooning, and that he suffered from such excruciating pains in his head that if no one could cure him, he desired to die. The physicians of Mitanni would not treat him. Therefore he planned to die as life was but a misery to him. I said to him, “It is possible that if you let me open your skull you will be cured but more possible that you will die. From this operation only one in a hundred recovers.” He said, “I should be mad not to agree to this, for then at least I have one chance in a hundred of survival, but if I myself free my head from suffering, I lie flat and do not get up any more. I do not trust to your curing me, but if you open my skull, I do not act against gods like I would if I ended my days by myself. If on the other hand you do cure me, I will gladly give you half of all I possess, and that is no mean sum, nor will you repent if I die, for then also my gifts will be liberal.”

I examined him with great thoroughness, feeling every part of his head with my hand, but my touch gave him no pain, and no place on his head was more different than any other. Then Kaptah said, “Tap him on the head with a hammer, you have nothing to lose.” I tapped him with the hammer at different points, and he made no sign until suddenly he cried out and fell to the ground senseless. I concluded from this that I had found the spot where it would be best to open his skull. Summoning the physicians of Mitanni, who did not believe me, I said, “You may believe or you may not believe, but I mean to open the skull of this man to heal him though his death is the more probable result.” The doctors sneered and said, “This indeed should be worth seeing.”

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