Ramses, Volume V

by Christian Jacq

  “We came at a forced march,” Merenptah reminded him. “Regrettably, several of my men fell ill. Along the way we found a number of empty wells and dried springs. I’m afraid I’m taking the princess on a rather perilous adventure.”

  “Completely unheard of,” repeated the commander. “Only a god could upset the weather this way.”

  These were the words Merenptah had been dreading. “I’m afraid you may be right, Commander. Is there a shrine that protects the fortress?”

  “Yes, but it can’t keep away all the evil spirits surrounding us—not enough to change the weather. We’d have to call on a god with the force to rule the heavens.”

  “Can you spare us water enough for the return journey?”

  “I’m sorry, Your Highness, but no! You’ll have to stay here and wait for rain.”

  “If this unseasonable heat persists, we’ll run out of water on the journey, and so will our Hittite companions.”

  “Still, this is winter. The dry spell can’t last.”

  “As you’ve said yourself, Commander, it isn’t natural. Leaving here is risky, but so is staying.”

  Deep creases appeared in the officer’s forehead.

  “But . . . what do you plan to do?”

  “Inform the Pharaoh. He’ll know what to do.”

  Kha unrolled three long papyrus scrolls on Ramses’ desk, his finds from the archives in Heliopolis.

  “The texts are explicit, Your Majesty. A single god controls the climate of Asia: Set, the Destroyer. But no body of magicians is qualified to enter into direct contact with him. You and you alone must convince him to restore the seasons to their proper order. And yet . . .”

  “Go ahead, son.”

  “Yet I can’t encourage you to confront him. Set’s might is uncontrollable.”

  “Are you afraid I’m too weak?”

  “You are the son of Seti, but changing the weather means dealing with thunder, lightning, and winds. And Set is unpredictable. Egypt can’t spare you, Father. Let’s send a shipment of holy statues and emergency food supplies to Syria instead.”

  “Do you believe that Set will let them through?”

  Kha hung his head. “No, Your Majesty.”

  “Then he leaves me no choice. I have to answer the god’s challenge, or else Merenptah, the Hittite princess, and everyone with them will die of thirst.”

  Ramses’ elder son had no argument to offer.

  “If I don’t return from the temple of Set,” Pharaoh said to Kha, “be my successor, son, and dedicate your life to Egypt.”

  The Hittite princess, quartered in the fortress commander’s suite, demanded to speak to Merenptah. He considered her an unknown and somewhat dangerous quantity, but showed her all the consideration due a highborn lady.

  “Why aren’t we leaving for Egypt at once?”

  “Because that’s impossible, Princess.”

  “The weather is splendid.”

  “It’s a drought in the middle of the rainy season, and we’re short of water.”

  “You don’t mean we’re stuck in this horrible fortress!”

  “Heaven is against us; some divine will is keeping us here.”

  “Don’t your magicians know what they’re doing?”

  “I’ve called on the greatest magician in the land: Ramses himself.”

  The princess smiled. “You’re an intelligent man, Merenptah. I’ll recommend you to my husband.”

  “Let’s hope that heaven hears our prayers, Your Highness.”

  “Oh, it will! I haven’t come this far to die of thirst. I know that Pharaoh has heaven and earth in the palm of his hands.”

  Setau and Ahmeni could do nothing to change Pharaoh’s mind. At dinner, Ramses had eaten a thick steak cut from a steer, an animal embodying Set’s strength. He drank strong oasis wine, which was also among the god’s symbols. Then, after purifying his mouth with salt (which Set exuded, an earthly fire so essential to the preservation of food), the king prayed before the statue of his father, whose very name, Seti, had laid a claim to the storm god’s terrifying power.

  Without his father’s help, Ramses had no chance of coming to terms with Set. The slightest error—a ritual gesture that was less than precise, a moment’s inattention—and thunder would strike. There was only one effective weapon against Set’s sheer power; that weapon was rectitude, the code instilled in Ramses during his apprenticeship with Seti.

  In the middle of the night the king entered the temple of Set, built on the site of Avaris, the hated capital of the earlier Hyksos invaders. A place dedicated to silence and solitude, a place only Pharaoh could enter without fear of immediate annihilation.

  Confronting Set meant conquering fear, then regarding the world with eyes of fire, acknowledging its violence and convulsions. It meant becoming the force at the origin of the world, in the heart of the cosmos, where human intelligence never penetrated.

  On the altar, Ramses laid a cup of wine and a miniature oryx carved from acacia. Set’s fire dwelt within this desert animal, enabling it to withstand extreme heat and survive in a hostile environment.

  “The heavens are in your hands,” the king told the god. “The earth is at your feet. The world is at your command. Restore the winter rains in the north, take back your parching heat.”

  Set’s statue did not react. The eyes were stony.

  “I, Ramses, son of Seti, so address you. No god has the right to reverse the seasons. Even the divine is subject to the law of Ma’at, and you are no exception.”

  The statue’s eyes glowed red. Heat blasted the chapel.

  “Do not turn your power against Pharaoh, in whom the brothers Horus and Set are united. You are within me; your strength is what I use to fight the forces of darkness and banish chaos. Obey me, Set, bring rain to the lands in the north!”

  Lightning flashed through the sky and thunder boomed over Pi-Ramses.

  A night of combat was beginning.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The princess confronted Merenptah.

  “This waiting is unbearable! Take me to Egypt at once.”

  “My orders are to deliver you safely. As long as the heat wave continues, it would be unwise to travel.”

  “Why doesn’t Pharaoh do something?”

  A drop of water fell on the princess’s left shoulder. A second splashed on her right hand. She and Merenptah simultaneously looked up to see dark clouds swirling. A bolt of lightning shot through the sky, followed by a thunderclap. Heavy rain began to fall, lowering the temperature in a matter of minutes.

  “There’s your answer,” said Merenptah.

  The Hittite princess threw her head back, opened her mouth, and swallowed the life-giving rain in gulps.

  “Let’s go. Let’s go this minute!” she said.

  Ahmeni paced outside the king’s bedchamber. Sitting with his arms crossed, scowling, Setau stared straight ahead. Kha read a magical scroll, chanting the spells on it to himself. For at least the tenth time, Serramanna cleaned his short sword with a cloth soaked in linseed oil.

  “What time did Pharaoh leave the temple of Set?” the Sard asked again.

  “At dawn,” sighed Ahmeni.

  “Did he speak to anyone?”

  “No, he didn’t say a single word,” Kha declared. “He shut himself up in his room. I called the chief physician and he admitted her.”

  “She’s been in there for over an hour!” grumbled Setau.

  “Visible or not, the burns Set inflicts are deadly,” the high priest noted. “Neferet knows what she’s doing. Let’s leave her alone.”

  “I’ve been giving him regular doses of my potions to strengthen his heart,” Setau reported.

  Finally the bedchamber door opened. The four men rushed to surround Neferet.

  “Ramses is out of danger,” the chief physician of the realm reassured them. “A day of rest, and he can resume his normal activities. But you’d better watch out; we’re in for some rain.”

  The sky darkened over Pi-
Ramses.

  United like brothers under Merenptah’s command, the Egyptians and Hittites made their way through Canaan, took the coastal route along the Sinai peninsula, and arrived in the Delta. At each stop along the way there was feasting. During the trip, several of the soldiers traded their weapons for trumpets, flutes, and tambourines.

  The Hittite princess was wide-eyed, drinking in the verdant scenery—palm groves, fertile fields, irrigation ditches, papyrus swamps. What she found here bore no resemblance to the stark Anatolian plateau she had left behind.

  When the delegation arrived in Pi-Ramses, the streets were jammed with people. No one could have said how the information spread, but everyone knew that the Emperor of Hatti’s daughter would soon make her entry into Ramses the Great’s northern capital. The rich mingled with the poor, dignitaries standing elbow to elbow with ditchdiggers. Everyone was feeling expansive.

  “Extraordinary,” commented Uri-Teshoop, in the front row of spectators along with his wife. “This Pharaoh has done the impossible.”

  “He convinced the god Set to send rain,” beamed Dame Tanit. “There’s nothing that Ramses can’t do.”

  “Ramses is his people’s air and water,” a stonemason added. “His love is the bread we eat and the clothes we wear. He’s the father and mother of Egypt!”

  “His gaze can plumb minds and search souls,” chimed in a priestess from the temple of Hathor.

  Uri-Teshoop was undone. How could he fight a pharaoh so endowed with supernatural powers? Ramses commanded the elements; he could even change the weather in Asia. His invisible allies could vanquish any human army. Just as Uri-Teshoop had supposed, nothing could have prevented the safe arrival of the emperor’s daughter. Any attack against the convoy would have met with certain failure . . .

  The Hittite prince shook himself. No, he would not succumb to Ramses’ magic! His goal in life, his only goal, was to bring down this man who had ruined his chance to be emperor and reduced a proud commander to the state of vassal. No matter what his powers were, this Pharaoh was no god, but a human being, with a man’s weaknesses and failings. Lulled by his victories and his popularity, Ramses would eventually falter; time would also dull his thinking.

  And now he was marrying a Hittite princess, Uri-Teshoop’s own cousin! In her veins flowed the blood of an unruly and vengeful nation. Believing that this union would seal the peace might just turn out to be Ramses’ greatest mistake.

  “There she is!” cried Dame Tanit, whose cry was taken up by thousands of enthusiastic citizens.

  In the shelter of her chariot, the princess was putting the finishing touches on her face. She painted her eyelids green with a paste of copper sulfate and drew a black oval around her eyes with a wand dabbed in lead sulfate, silver, and charcoal. She looked in the mirror and was satisfied with her work.

  With a hand from Merenptah, the bride-to-be stepped down from the chariot.

  Her beauty stunned the crowd. Dressed in a long green gown that set off her ivory complexion, she looked every bit the queen.

  Suddenly, every head turned toward the town’s main avenue, where the clatter of galloping horses and chariot wheels was heard.

  Ramses the Great was coming to meet his future wife.

  The two proud young horses were descendants of the pair that, along with the lion Fighter, had been Pharaoh’s only allies at Kadesh, when his soldiers abandoned him to fight the Hittites single-handed. Each magnificent steed wore a headdress of blue-tipped red plumes. A caparison of red, blue, and green cotton covered their backs. The reins were attached to the monarch’s belt, since he held the scepter of illumination in his right hand.

  The gilded chariot advanced at a quick and steady pace. Ramses guided his horses with his voice, never raising it. He wore his blue headdress, recalling the celestial origins of the pharaonic line, and was dressed entirely in gold.

  He arrived like the sun, shedding light on his subjects. When the chariot rolled to a halt a short distance from the Hittite princess, the clouds parted and the sun reigned as absolute master in the newly blue sky. Ramses, the Son of Light, was surely responsible for this latest miracle.

  The young woman kept her eyes lowered. The king noted that she had opted for simplicity. A discreet silver necklace and bracelets, a simple dress . . . The absence of artifice accented her beautiful figure.

  Ramses anointed her forehead with precious oil.

  “This is the oil of marriage,” declared the Pharaoh. “It makes of you the Great Royal Wife of the Lord of the Two Lands and banishes the forces of evil. On this day you are born to your new position, according to the law of Ma’at. You will take the name Mat-hor-neferu-ra, ‘She Who Sees Horus and the Perfection of Divine Light.’ Look at me, Mathor, my bride.”

  Ramses reached his arms out toward the young woman, who very slowly placed her hands in Pharaoh’s. She, who had never known a moment’s fear, was petrified. The moment she had longed for, the chance to display her countless charms, had finally arrived, and she felt she might faint like some shy little maiden. Ramses radiated such magnetism that she sensed she was touching the flesh of a god, tumbling headlong into another world, a world without landmarks. Winning his love was only a wild dream, she realized, but now there was no turning back, although she wished she could run and go home to Hatti, far, far away from Ramses.

  Her hands still held in the king’s firm grip, she finally dared to look up at him.

  At fifty-six, Ramses was a striking man with unequaled presence. He had a broad forehead, a prominent arch to his thick eyebrows, piercing eyes, strong cheekbones, a long, arched nose, shapely ears, a deep chest—the ideal combination of strength and virile good looks.

  Mathor, though newly Egyptian, felt the Hittite in her fall instantly and violently in love.

  Ramses invited her into his chariot.

  “In this thirty-fourth year of my reign,” declared the Pharaoh in a ringing voice, “peace with Hatti will henceforth prevail. Stelae commemorating this marriage will be placed at Karnak, Pi-Ramses, Elephantine, Abu Simbel, and all the temples of Nubia. Feasts will be held in every town and village, with wine provided by the palace. From this day forward, the borders between our two countries will be opened. People and goods will circulate freely within a vast area now free from war and hatred.”

  A mighty cheer greeted Ramses’ declaration.

  Caught up in the moment despite himself, Uri-Teshoop joined in.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Flaring from the upper edge of the double mast to the planks, the rectangular linen sail swelled with the north wind. The royal flagship sailed fast against the current toward Thebes. In the prow, the captain took frequent soundings in the Nile with the aid of a long pole. He knew the river so well that no mishap would interfere with Ramses and Mathor’s journey. Pharaoh had hoisted the sail himself, while his young bride slept on in a cabin festooned with flowers and the cook plucked fowl to be served for dinner. Three helmsmen tended the rudder, which had two magic eyes carved into it showing the right direction. A sailor drew water from the river, dangling by one hand from the guardrail; a ship’s boy, agile as a monkey, climbed to the top of the mast to scan the horizon and alert the captain to potential dangers such as herds of hippopotami.

  The crew had been treated to an exceptional vintage from the great Pi-Ramses growers, a vintage from Year Twenty-two of Ramses’ reign, the memorable date of the peace treaty with the Hittites. This incomparable harvest had been aged in cone-shaped terra-cotta jars, a rosy brown, their straight necks sealed with plugs of clay and straw. They were painted with lotus flowers and a picture of Bes, the master of initiation into the great mysteries, a stocky character with a thick torso and short legs, sticking out his red tongue to denote the almighty Word.

  Ramses drank deeply of the fresh air rising from the river, then returned to the cabin amidships, where Mathor was now awake. Perfumed with jasmine, bare-breasted, wearing only a very short skirt, she was as lovely as the morning.

&nb
sp; “Pharaoh is all that is wonderful,” she said in a soft voice. “A shooting star, a raging wild bull with sharp horns, the crocodile staking out the pond, the falcon seizing its prey, the divine griffin that no one can conquer, the flame that pierces the darkest shadows.”

  “You have an excellent knowledge of our traditional literature, Mathor.”

  “It’s one of the subjects I’ve studied, including almost every word written about Pharaoh. Who wouldn’t be fascinated by the most powerful man in the world?”

  “If you’ve read all you say, then you must know that Pharaoh detests any form of flattery.”

  “But I mean it. I’m happier than I ever dreamed. I fantasized about you, Ramses, while my father was fighting you. I was convinced that only the Light of Egypt would give me life. Today I know that I was right.”

  The young woman clung to Ramses’ right leg, stroking it tenderly.

  “Am I forbidden to love the Lord of the Two Lands?”

  A woman’s love . . . it had been the last thing Ramses was looking for. Nefertari had been the love of his life, Iset the Fair his youthful passion. He had considered that part of his life dead and gone until his young bride revived his forgotten desire. Artfully scented, willing yet not provocative, she knew how to be seductive without losing her nobility. Her sheer beauty and sloe-eyed charm moved him deeply.

  “You’re so young, Mathor.”

  “I’m a woman, Your Majesty, and also your wife. Isn’t it my duty to win your love?”

  “Come to the prow and look at Egypt with me. I belong to her first and foremost.”

  The king wrapped a cape around Mathor’s shoulders and led her to the front of the boat. He told her the names of the provinces, towns, and cities, described their riches, detailed the irrigation systems, outlined their customs and festivals.

  And here was Thebes.

  On the East Bank, Mathor’s wondering eyes contemplated the immense temple of Karnak and the shining temple of Luxor, home to the ka of all the gods. On the West Bank, with the looming Peak where the goddess of Silence resided, the Hittite princess was struck dumb with admiration for the Ramesseum, the Pharaoh’s mortuary Temple of Millions of Years, and the gigantic statue embodying the king’s ka in stone, identifying him with the divine powers.