Ramses, Volume I

by Christian Jacq

  “What rumors?”

  “Strange stories . . . that you’re tracking down a missing chariot driver, that your private secretary was injured in an assault.”

  “They’re more than stories.”

  “It’s best to leave these matters in official hands. The police have more resources at their disposal. They’ll get results, believe me. You’re too busy. The most important thing is for you to live up to your title.”

  A private lunch with his mother was a privilege that Ramses duly appreciated. Besides playing an active role in the government and performing the daily liturgy, the Great Royal Wife was left with very little time for herself or her family because of her countless court obligations.

  In the soothing shade of a pavilion, low tables had been set with alabaster plates. Tuya, fresh from a meeting to choose an elite women’s choir for the temple of Amon, wore a long, pleated linen gown and thick golden collar. Ramses had boundless affection for his mother, mixed with a growing admiration. She was a woman beyond compare; despite her modest birth, she was a born queen. Tuya alone could both inspire Seti’s love and help rule his kingdom.

  On the menu were lettuce, cucumbers, a prime cut of beef, goat cheese, a round honey cake, spelt wafers, and oasis wine cut with water. The queen enjoyed this break in her day and never permitted outsiders or favor-seekers to join her. Her private garden, nestled around a tranquil pool, was as much a part of her nourishment as the meals that her staff composed so carefully.

  “How did things go on your trip to Gebel el-Silsila?”

  “I lived the life of a stonecutter, then a sailor. I learned to respect those men.”

  “But neither life was the one for you.”

  “My father did not wish it.”

  “He wants to see you grow.”

  “Do you know of his plans for me?”

  “You’re not eating.”

  “I don’t understand why I have to be kept in the dark.”

  “Do you fear Pharaoh or trust him?”

  “My heart knows no fear.”

  “Then throw your whole being into the struggle ahead. Never look back, have no regrets or remorse. Steer clear of envy and jealousy. Count each second you spend with your father as a heavenly gift. Nothing else should matter.”

  The prince ate his beef, perfectly grilled and seasoned with garlic and herbs. A great ibis punctuated the flawless blue of the sky.

  “I need to ask a favor. The police won’t help me.”

  “That’s a serious accusation, son.”

  “I think it’s well founded.”

  “Do you have proof ?”

  “None at all, and that’s why I’ve come to you.”

  “I’m not above the law.”

  “If you demand a real investigation, it will happen. Right now, no one seems interested in finding out who tried to have me killed. And no one will name the businessman who put the seal of inspection on second-rate ink and passed it off as top quality, even to royal scribes. My friend Ahmeni almost died when he discovered the factory. When I got there, it was closed and the neighbors are scared to talk. That means someone important is involved, so important that everyone’s petrified.”

  “And you think you know who it is?”

  Ramses was silent.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Tuya promised.

  FIFTEEN

  Pharaoh’s ship was sailing north. Some distance out of Memphis, they had tacked toward one of the lesser branches of the Nile. Now they were deep in the Delta.

  Ramses was dazzled.

  The opposite of the desert, this was the territory of the god Horus.* Where Set ruled, the river valley cut a narrow swath of green through the vast desert. Here, water was all-powerful. The heart of the Delta was a huge swamp, thick with papyrus plants, teeming with birds and fish. There were no towns, not even villages, only a few fishermen’s shacks on islands that were really no more than the tops of submerged hillocks. The light shimmered, unlike the Valley’s harsh, direct sun. The reeds danced in the wind that blew down from the sea.

  Black flamingos, along with ducks, herons, and pelicans, shared this vast domain of meanders and backwaters. Here a ring-tailed wildcat plundered a kingfisher’s nest, there a snake slithered under some bushes, producing a cloud of multicolored butterflies. Man was not yet master of this place.

  The ship gradually slowed, carefully steered by a captain familiar with these treacherous waters. On board were twenty seasoned sailors; at the prow stood their supreme ruler. His son was secretly observing him, fascinated by his presence. Seti was Egypt incarnate, with a thousand years of pharaonic rule reinforcing his awareness of divine grandeur and the pettiness of men. In the eyes of his people, Pharaoh remained a mysterious personage. His true home, they believed, was the starry heavens; his earthly presence served as a link with the other world, his gaze opened the door to that world for his people. Without him, the country would be overrun by barbarians; with him, the future was a promise of eternity.

  Ramses was keeping a log of the expedition, just as he had on the first trip with his father. This time, he had no idea what the purpose of the voyage was. Neither his father nor the crew would discuss it. The prince noted an underlying tension in the men, as if danger lurked. At any moment, a monster might rear up and devour the vessel.

  As before, Seti had given him no time to say goodbye to Iset the Fair and Ahmeni. Ramses imagined the former’s fury, the latter’s concern. Still, he would follow his father anywhere he chose to lead, resisting the pull of love or friendship.

  A channel opened, easing their progress, and the ship went ashore at a grassy islet with an odd wooden tower on it. The king went down a rope ladder; Ramses followed. Pharaoh and prince then climbed the wooden tower, which had battlements of wattle. On top, it felt like being in the sky.

  Seti’s attention was so focused that Ramses dared not ask any questions.

  “Look, Ramses!”

  So high in the heavens it seemed to touch the sun, a flock of migrating birds flew south in a V.

  “They come from beyond the known world,” Seti revealed, “from the infinite spaces where the gods give life to all things. At home in the ocean of energy, those birds have a human head and feed on sunlight, but when they draw close to earth, they turn into swallows or other migratory birds. Study them always, for they represent our ancestors, their spirits convincing the sun not to set the world on fire. These birds inspire a pharaoh’s thoughts and show him a path mere mortals cannot see.”

  As soon as night fell and the first stars appeared, Seti taught his son about the heavens. He told him the names of constellations, explained the endless movement of the planets, the sun and the moon, the meaning of the dekans. Pharaoh’s power, he declared, should extend to the far ends of the cosmos, so that no land was beyond his grasp.

  Ramses listened with his heart as well as his ears. He took his fill of the nourishment offered him, not wasting a crumb. Dawn came much too soon.

  The royal barge was stuck in the dense undergrowth. Seti, Ramses, and four sailors armed with spears, bows, and throwing sticks set off in a light papyrus boat. Pharaoh told them which way to row.

  Ramses felt transported to another world, altogether different from the Valley. No trace, here, of human activity. Tufts of papyrus grew so tall they sometimes blocked the sun. If his shipmates hadn’t slathered him with a greasy repellent, he would have been eaten alive by the insects swarming around them in a deafening buzz.

  The skiff made its way through a watery glade, then glided into a sort of lake with two small islands cresting in the center.

  “The holy cities of Pe and Dep,” revealed Pharaoh.

  “Cities?” Ramses asked, astonished.

  “Where the souls of the just come to rest; their city is all of nature. When life sprang up from the primeval ocean, it took the shape of a hillock emerging from water. Here are the two sacred mounds which you may conceive of as the chosen residence of the gods.”

&nbs
p; Following his father, Ramses alighted at the holy cities and paused in prayer at a humble reed hut that served as a shrine. Embedded in the ground in front of it was a staff with a spiral-carved head.

  “This is the symbol of function in life,” the king explained. “Everyone must find his function and fill it, before attending to personal concerns. A pharaoh’s function is to be the gods’ first servant; if he thought of serving himself, he would be no better than a tyrant.”

  The unsettling, shifting surroundings kept them all constantly watchful and on edge. Only Seti seemed serene, as if in perfect command of this unreadable landscape. Without the tranquil certainty in his father’s expression, Ramses might have thought they would drift forever through the groves of giant papyrus.

  Suddenly the horizon cleared and the boat sped through greenish water toward a bank where fishermen worked. Naked, hirsute, they lived in rudimentary huts, worked lines, purse nets, and hoop nets, then slit the fish with long knives, gutted them and dried them in the sun. Two of them were carrying a Nile perch, so huge the pole it was strung on sagged in the middle.

  Unaccustomed to visitors, the fishermen looked alarmed and hostile. Huddling together, they brandished their knives.

  Ramses advanced to meet their aggressive stares.

  “Bow to your Pharaoh,” he commanded.

  Arms rose, hands opened, knives fell to the spongy ground. Pharaoh’s subjects prostrated themselves before their sovereign. Recovering, they asked him and his men to share their meal.

  The fishermen joked with the sailors, who produced two jars of beer. When sleep overcame the men, Seti addressed his son in the torchlight that kept away insects and wild animals.

  “Here are the poorest of men, yet they fulfill their function and await your support. Pharaoh assists the weak, protects the widow, feeds the orphan, responds to anyone who is in need. He is the faithful shepherd guarding his flock night and day, the shield protecting his people. He is the one God has chosen to fill the supreme function, so that it may be said ‘In his day no one went hungry.’ There is no task more noble than becoming Egypt’s ka, my son, the whole country’s nourishment.”

  Ramses spent several weeks with the fishermen and papyrus gatherers. He learned to identify many different edible fish, build light boats, find his way through the maze of canals and swamps, hone his hunting skills. He listened to these natural athletes tell of struggling for hours to land an enormous fish.

  Their life was rough, but they had no desire to leave it. The Valley seemed tame and bland in comparison. A few days in civilization was enough for them: they sampled the women’s charms, ate their fill of meat and vegetables, and headed home to the Delta.

  The prince absorbed their power, adopted their way of looking and listening, hardened in their company, never complaining when he ached with fatigue, and once again forgot his privileged position. The fishermen marveled at his strength and cleverness; his daily catch soon equaled three of theirs. But before long jealousy replaced admiration, and the men shied away from the king’s son.

  It was the end of his dream: to become someone else, relinquish the mysterious force that drove him, live no differently from a young stonecutter, sailor, or fisherman. Seti had brought him to this frontier, this wild place where land and sea merge, to put him in touch with his true being, stripped of childish illusions.

  His father had left him here. But the night before his departure, he had seemed to be marking out a course for Ramses, steering him toward kingship. His words were for no ears but his son’s.

  No—it had been a dream, a moment of grace, nothing more. Seti spoke to the wind, the water, the vastness of the Delta; his son was only a stand-in. Bringing him to the ends of the earth, his father had shattered his vain hopes and fantasies. Ramses’ existence would not be that of a monarch.

  His father’s personality was imposing and inaccessible, yet he felt close to Seti. He longed to sit at his father’s feet, to show him all he was capable of, to surpass himself. The fire that burned in Ramses was no ordinary one; Seti had discerned it, he was sure, and the art of kingship was the secret he had been slowly unveiling.

  No one would come for Ramses; it was his decision when to leave.

  He stole away before dawn, as the fishermen lay sleeping around the campfire. He stroked hard, steering his light papyrus craft due south. He followed the stars, then his instinct, until he rejoined a main branch of the river. He paddled doggedly on, aided by a tailwind, focused on his goal, taking only short breaks to snack on dried fish. Ramses tried to work with the current rather than fight it. Cormorants flew overhead, the sunlight streamed down.

  There, where the Delta ended, stood the white walls of Memphis.

  SIXTEEN

  The heat was stifling. Man and beast slackened their pace, waiting for the Nile’s annual flooding, which brought a long period of rest except for those choosing to work on Pharaoh’s construction projects. The harvest was in; the parched earth seemed about to die of thirst. But the Nile had turned chestnut brown, heralding the rise in water level that was the key to Egypt’s prosperity.

  In the cities, shade was at a premium. Market vendors hung makeshift awnings. The most dreaded time of year was upon the country: the five days left over from the harmonious cycle of twelve thirty-day months. This period was ruled by the terrifying lion-headed goddess Sekhmet. She wanted to wipe out the human race for rebelling against the sun, but the creator once again came to the rescue, convincing Sekhmet he was drinking human blood when it was really rye beer. On five extra days in each year, Sekhmet was free to unleash her plagues and pestilence on the land, still determined to exterminate man and all his evil, cowardice, and cunning. Day and night, the temple walls echoed with litanies to appease the goddess. Pharaoh conducted a secret liturgy that would set the year to right again, turn death to life, provided the king was just.

  During these five dreadful days, economic activity ground to a virtual halt. Plans and trips were postponed, ships stayed in port, fields lay deserted. A few made last-minute repairs to their dikes, fearing that the avenging goddess’s anger would take the form of heavy winds. Without Pharaoh’s intercession, would anything be left of Egypt when she was done?

  The chief of palace security had intended to hole up in his office until New Year’s Day, when everyone breathed a sigh of relief, then celebrated. Unfortunately, he had just been summoned by Queen Tuya, and could not stop wondering why. Ordinarily he had no direct contact with the Great Royal Wife, receiving his orders from her chamberlain. What would cause her to sidestep the usual procedure?

  Like most court officials, he was terrified of the great lady. She believed the court should set an example and demanded the highest standards. No one displeased her twice.

  Up to this point, the chief of palace security had enjoyed an uneventful career, climbing through the ranks without stepping on anyone’s toes. He never made waves and quickly became entrenched in each new job. Since his appointment to the palace, all had gone smoothly.

  Until today.

  Had one of his underlings been spreading lies about him, eyeing his job? Was someone close to the royal family out to ruin him? What charges could have been leveled against him? The questions plagued him. Before long he had a full-blown migraine.

  Trembling, one eyelid twitching uncontrollably, the chief of security was admitted to the queen’s reception room. Although he was taller, she seemed to tower over him.

  He bowed low.

  “Majesty, may the gods favor you and keep you—”

  “Yes, yes,” she interrupted. “Please sit down.”

  The Great Royal Wife motioned toward a comfortable chair. The palace official dared not look up. A wisp of a woman, but so full of authority!

  “You’ve learned, I suppose, that a palace groom was hired to kill my son Ramses.”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “And you also know that the driver who was hunting with Ramses probably did the hiring.”

 
“Yes, Majesty.”

  “You are no doubt aware of the investigation’s current status.”

  “There’s every chance it will be long and complicated.”

  “Every chance! Strange choice of words. Perhaps you’d rather not see the truth come out?”

  The security chief hopped to his feet, as if stung by a hornet.

  “Of course I would . . . I wouldn’t—”

  “Sit down and listen carefully. I have the feeling someone wants the investigation dropped, written off as a simple case of self-defense. Ramses survived, his assailant is dead, the man who hired him vanished into thin air. Why stir up trouble? My son has pressed for results, but the police have failed to turn up a single lead. Something is very wrong here. Are we no better than a barbarian tribe, utterly lacking the concept of justice?”

  “Your Majesty! You know how dedicated the police are, how—”

  “All I know is that they’ve been unresponsive. I hope it’s temporary. If someone is blocking the investigation, I need to know who it is. And you are going to find out for me.”

  “You want me to—”

  “You have more leeway than the police. Find the charioteer who set the trap for Ramses and bring him in.”

  “Majesty, I . . .”

  “Will you or won’t you?”

  Slumping, the chief of palace security felt one of Sekhmet’s arrows pierce him. How would he be able to satisfy the queen without taking risks, ruffling feathers? If the villain behind the scenes turned out to be someone important, he could end up facing much more than Tuya’s wrath. But if he failed the queen, he was finished.

  “Of course I will do as you wish, but it may be difficult.”

  “You already said so. If it were a routine matter, I wouldn’t summon you personally. I also need your help with one more investigation, fortunately much less sensitive.”

  Tuya told him about the ink scam and the mysterious factory where the counterfeit cakes had been made and stored. Thanks to detailed information from Ramses, she could pinpoint the location. She wanted the name of the owner.