Pharaoh

by Wilbur Smith

  Immediately one of Weneg’s men behind me grabbed a handful of my hair and hauled me backwards into a sitting position, and pointed my face towards Pharaoh.

  ‘Look at that ugly, simpering and self-satisfied face! Tell me, if you dare, that is not guilt also written in gigantic hieroglyphs from ear to ear across it,’ he challenged everybody in the great hall. ‘I shall now relate to you the list of crimes against me and my family that this lump of excrement has committed. You will learn how richly he deserves the traitor’s death that I have prepared for him.’ He was starting to tremble with the force of his anger as he pointed the forefinger of his right hand into my face. ‘His first victim that I know of for certain, although there were probably scores before her, was my paternal grandmother Queen Lostris.’

  ‘No! No! I loved Queen Lostris,’ I burst out in anguish, unable to contain myself at the mention of her name. ‘I loved her more than life itself.’

  ‘That is probably the reason you murdered her. You could not have her so you killed her. You killed her, and boasted of your foul deed in the scrolls you left in her royal tomb. Your actual written words, which I have seen with my own eyes are: I killed the evil thing of Seth that was growing in her womb.’

  I moaned at the memory of the growth that the foul god Seth had placed inside her body. In my medical tracts I have given it the name of ‘carcinoma’. Yes, I plucked that monstrosity from her dead body, mourning the fact that all my skills as a physician were inadequate to save her from its onslaught. I cast it into the flames and burned it to ashes, before I began the mummification of her still beautiful remains.

  However, I did not have the words to explain all this to her grandson. I am a poet who rejoices in words, but still I could not find the words to defend myself. I sobbed brokenly but Pharaoh Utteric Turo continued remorselessly with his list of accusations against me. He smiled with his lips, but his eyes were like those of a standing cobra: filled with cold and bitter hatred. The venom he spat at me was every bit as noxious as that of the snake itself.

  He related to the assembled noblemen and scions of royalty how I had stolen a vast fortune in gold and silver from the royal treasury which his father Pharaoh Tamose had placed in my trust. As proof of my treachery he cited the fabulous fortune in landed estates and treasure which I had accumulated over the years. He flourished a scroll and then read aloud from it. This purported to record all my embezzlements from the treasury. These amounted to well over a hundred million lakhs of silver; more silver than exists on all our earth.

  The charges were so preposterous that I did not know where to begin my rebuttal. All I could think of in my defence was to deny the accusations and repeat over and over: ‘No! That’s not the way it happened. Pharaoh Tamose was like a son to me, the only son I ever had. He gave all of that to me to reward me for the services I carried out on his behalf over the fifty years of his life. I never stole anything from him, not gold nor silver, not even a loaf of bread.’

  I might not have spoken for Pharaoh went on listing the charges against me: ‘This assassin Taita used his knowledge of drugs and poisons to murder another precious royal woman. This time his victim was my own beautiful, gentle and dearly beloved mother, Queen Saamorti.’

  I gasped to hear that monstrous trollop so described. I had treated many of her slaves that she had personally emasculated or beaten half to death. She had delighted in mocking me cruelly over my damaged and mutilated manhood; bemoaning the fact that others had been ahead of her with the gelding knife. Her handmaidens had been gainfully employed in smuggling a seemingly endless train of male slaves into her elaborate sleeping quarters. The obscenities she practised with these sorry creatures had probably resulted in the birth of the very person who stood before me now reading out my death warrant: His Mighty Majesty Pharaoh Utteric Turo.

  One thing I knew with the utmost certainty was that the potions and medicines which I administered desperately to Queen Saamorti had not been sufficiently therapeutic to cure the filthy diseases which one or more of her myriad paramours had squirted into her lower bodily orifices. I wish her peace, although I am certain that the gods in their wisdom will deny it to her.

  However, this was not the end of the horrific accusations that Pharaoh Utteric had to bring against me. The next was as far-fetched as all the previous charges lumped together.

  ‘Then there was his flagrant treatment of two of my royal aunts, the Princesses Bekatha and Tehuti. It is true that my father managed to arrange a marriage for both of them with the most powerful and fabulously wealthy monarch in the world, the mighty Minos of Crete. Pharaoh, my father, sent these royal virgins in a caravan to their wedding with the Minos. Their retinue reflected our own wealth as a nation. It was several hundred persons strong. The treasure that was the dowry of my sisters was almost two hundred lakhs of fine silver bars. My father Pharaoh Tamose once again placed his trust in this sordid criminal and reprobate you see before you: Taita. He gave him command of the caravan. His assistants were two military officers named Captain Zaras and Colonel Hui. My information is that this creature, Taita, succeeded in reaching Crete and marrying my sisters to the Minos. However, in the eruption of Mount Cronus caused by the rage of the eponymous god Cronus, he who is the father of the god Zeus and has been chained for all eternity by his son in the depths of the mountain …’

  Here Pharaoh paused briefly to catch his breath, and then hurried on with his wild accusations: ‘The Minos was killed by the fall of rocks when the island of Crete was devastated by the eruption. In the ensuing chaos those two pirates, Zaras and Hui, abducted both my aunts. They then hijacked two of the vessels which belonged to my father Pharaoh Tamose’s fleet and fled northwards into the unexplored and savage archipelagos at the far end of the world. All this was against the will of my aunts, but with the connivance and encouragement of the accused scoundrel, Taita. When he returned to our very Egypt Taita told Pharaoh that his sisters had been killed in the volcanic eruption, and Pharaoh called off the search for them. Taita must bear the full guilt for their abduction and the hardships they must certainly have suffered. That dastardly deed alone warrants the death sentence for its perpetrator.’

  Once again the only verdict I could truthfully plead was guilty: guilty of allowing the two young women that I love more even than they love me the opportunity to find true fulfilment and happiness after they had done their duty to the utmost. But once again I could only gape at my accuser and maintain the silence which I had promised to Bekatha and Tehuti when I sent them to find happiness with the men they truly love.

  Pharaoh turned away from me, drew himself to his full height and gazed upon the ranks of noblemen and princes, who were stunned into stillness and silence by his revelations and accusations. He regarded them one at a time, drawing out the suspense. Then at last he began to speak again. I expected no mercy from him, and he did not disappoint my expectations.

  ‘I find the prisoner guilty of all the charges brought against him. He is to be deprived of all his assets, be they large or small, fixed or moveable, situated anywhere in the world. They are all forfeited to my treasury, nothing excepted.’

  A buzz ran through the ranks of his audience, and they exchanged envious glances for they all knew what riches this short recital entailed. It was common knowledge that I was the richest man in Egypt after only Pharaoh. He let them discuss it between themselves for a short while before he held up one hand for silence and they immediately froze. Even in my dreadful predicament I was amazed at how terrified they all were of their new Pharaoh, but I was learning the wisdom of their fear.

  Then Pharaoh giggled. This was the moment when first I realized that Utteric Turo was raving mad, and that he placed neither restraint nor control on his own madness. That high-pitched giggle was a sound that could only be uttered by a lunatic. Then I remembered that his mother had also been mad – only her madness merely took the form of sexual incontinence. In Utteric Turo it took the form of total megalomania. He was unable to r
estrain any of his baser instincts or fantasies. He wished to be a god, so he declared himself one and believed that was all that was required for him to become one.

  On this realization my heart went out to my fellow citizens of this, the greatest nation in the history of the world. They were only just beginning to realize what fate awaited them. I did not care about my own destiny for I knew that it was already fixed in the garbled mind of this madman. But I cared deeply for what was about to happen to my beloved Egypt.

  Then Pharaoh began to speak again: ‘I am only mortified that death will come too quickly to this felon after all the suffering he has inflicted on my family. I would prefer to see him suffer to the limits of his evil soul for the airs and graces he has always affected, and for his pretence of wisdom and learning.’

  Here I managed to smile at how Utteric could not disguise his envy of my superior intellect. I saw the quick flush of anger that my smile evinced, but he went ranting on.

  ‘I am aware that it is not adequate punishment; however, I decree that you shall be taken in your rags and chains from hence to the place of Torment and Sorrow. There you shall be given over to the tormentors who will …’ Here he recited a list of atrocities so frightful that it left some of the gentler females in his audience pale with nausea and weeping with horror.

  Finally Pharaoh turned back to me. ‘I am now prepared to listen to your expression of remorse and regret before I send you to face your destiny.’

  I rose to my feet, still manacled and half-naked, and I spoke out clearly, for I had nothing more to lose. ‘Thank you, Your Mighty Majesty Pharaoh Utteric Turo. Now I understand why all your subjects, not excluding me, feel as they do towards you.’ I made no effort to disguise the sardonic tone of my voice.

  The coward Utteric shot me a disgusted glance and waved me away. I was the only person in the great hall of Luxor still smiling. That smile of derision was the only rebuke that was in my power to inflict on the monster who now ruled Egypt.

  As Pharaoh had decreed Weneg and his platoon marched me out of the great hall of Luxor Palace, wearing only my loin-cloth and my chains. At the head of the great staircase I paused with astonishment and gazed down on the multitude that filled the open square at the foot of the steps. It seemed that every single citizen of our great city was assembled there, filling the square to overflowing. They stood in complete silence.

  I could sense their hatred and enmity. Yet most of them had been my people. They or their fathers and grandfathers had fought with me in fifty battles. Those who had been crippled in the fighting I had taken in and succoured on my estates, giving them shelter from the elements and at least one substantial meal a day. Their widows also were certain of my bounty. I had given them useful employment and had schooled their offspring, equipping them for a place in this hard world. I realized that they had resented my charity and had come today to give free rein to their feelings.

  ‘Why are they here?’ I asked Weneg softly, barely moving my lips.

  His reply was a whisper even softer than my question had been. ‘It is Pharaoh’s command. They are here to revile you as a traitor, and splatter you with ordure.’

  ‘That is why he ordered my clothing to be taken from me.’ I had wondered why Pharaoh had so insisted on that. ‘He wants me to feel the filth against my skin. You had best not follow me too closely.’

  ‘I will be one pace behind you. What is good enough for you, Taita, is good enough for me.’

  ‘You give me too much respect, good Weneg,’ I protested. Then I braced myself and started down the stairs towards the sea of angry humanity. I could hear the footsteps of my guards pressing close behind me, willing to share my ordeal. I did not hurry or slink, but walked calmly with my shoulders back and my head held high. I searched the faces of that mighty crowd awaiting me, looking for their expressions of hatred, waiting for the storm of their abuse to break over me.

  Then, as the faces of the front rank of the dense throng came into clearer focus, I felt suddenly confused. Many of the women were weeping. That I had not expected. The men looked grim and – dare I even think it? – as sorrowful as the mourners at a funeral.

  Suddenly a woman broke through the line of armed guards, ostentatiously placed there to keep the crowds under control. The woman stopped a few paces from me and threw something at me. It fell at my feet, and I stooped and picked it up from the stone slabs between my manacled hands.

  It was not a ball of excrement as Pharaoh had decreed, but a lovely blue water lily from the Nile waters. This was the traditional offering to the god Horus, a token of love and deep respect.

  Two of the guards broke from the ranks behind the woman and took her by the arms to restrain her, but they were not angry; their manner was gentle and their expressions sorrowful.

  ‘Taita!’ the woman called to me. ‘We love you.’

  Then a second voice shouted from the mass of humanity behind her, ‘Taita!’ and then another called, ‘Taita!’ And suddenly a thousand and then two thousand voices were crying my name.

  ‘We must hurry to get you beyond the city walls,’ Weneg shouted in my ear, ‘before Pharaoh realizes what is happening, and descends upon us in his wrath.’

  ‘But even I don’t understand what is happening,’ I yelled back at him. He gave me no answer, but instead grabbed my upper arm. One of his men got a firm grip on my other arm. They almost lifted me off my feet as they ran with me down the open pathway which was shrinking as the crowds surged forward to try to touch or embrace me; I was uncertain which it would be.

  At the end of the alley four of Weneg’s men were holding the chariots. We reached them just before the crowds overwhelmed us. The horses were panicked by the uproar but as soon as we were aboard the charioteers gave them their heads. They galloped in single file down the cobbled streets, headed for the main gates of the city. Soon we had left the massed humanity behind us. The gates were already closing when we came in sight of them, but Weneg cracked his whip over the backs of his team and urged them through the narrow gap and out into the open countryside.

  ‘Where are we heading?’ I blurted, but Weneg ignored my question and handed the key of my manacles to his archer who stood close behind me, steadying me in the lurching cockpit of the chariot.

  ‘Get those things off his wrists, and then cover the Magus’ nudity.’ He did not reply to my question, but looked smug and mysterious.

  ‘What do you intend to use to cover me?’ I demanded, glancing down at my naked body. Again he ignored my question, but his archer handed me a sparse bundle of clothing from the bin in the coachwork of the chariot.

  ‘I never knew you were so famous,’ the archer said as I pulled a green tunic over my head. Annoyingly it was the only one in the bag I had to choose from. Green is my least favoured colour; it clashes appallingly with the colour of my eyes. ‘Did you hear them shouting for you?’ The archer enthused. ‘I thought they were going to spurn you; but they loved you. All of Egypt loves you, Taita.’ He was beginning to embarrass me, so I turned back to Weneg.

  ‘This is not the shortest road back to Doog at the Gates of Torment and Sorrow,’ I pointed out to him, and Weneg grinned at me.

  ‘I am sorry to disappoint you, my lord. But it has been arranged for you to meet somebody other than the honourable Doog.’ Weneg whipped up the horses and turned them on to the paved road that led down to the harbour on the Nile. However, before we reached it he again turned the heads of the horses; but this time on to a northerly track that ran parallel to the great river. We drove in silence for several leagues at a fast trot. I would not give Weneg the satisfaction and importance of questioning him further. I was not sulking – that is something that I never do – but I must confess that I was slightly irritated by his mysterious reticence.

  I had glimpses of the river through the thick forest which grew along the bank, but I feigned indifference and looked away to the far hills on the eastern horizon. Then suddenly I heard Weneg grunt and exclaim, ‘Ah! There he
is, right where he promised to be.’

  I turned, but in a leisurely and uninterested manner. But suddenly I sat bolt upright on the transom of the chariot, for there, only a hundred paces off the near bank of the Nile, was the flagship of our battle fleet, indubitably the finest and fastest trireme in existence. She could run down any other ship afloat, and board her with a hundred fighting crew.

  I was not able to remain sitting calmly. I scrambled to my feet, and before I could restrain myself I had blurted out, ‘By the brimming breasts and the unctuous slit of the great goddess Hathor! That ship is the Memnon!’

  ‘By the prime prick and turbulent testicles of the great god Poseidon! I believe that you are right; for once at least, Taita,’ Weneg mimicked me.

  I bridled for an instant and then, before I could prevent myself, I laughed and pounded him between the shoulder blades. ‘You should never have shown me such a beautiful ship. It will only serve to put a host of naughty ideas into my head.’

  ‘Which was fully my intention, I must confess.’ Weneg called to his team of greys, ‘Whoa now!’ The magnificent animals nodded their heads and arched their necks to the drag of the reins, and the chariot came to a halt on the bank, looking out across the Nile towards the great warship.

  The instant they recognized us on the bank the crew of the Memnon sprang to the windlass on the foredeck and winched up the heavy copper cross-shaped anchor. Then under staysails and a flying jib the warship sauntered in on the light westerly breeze towards the bank where we waited ecstatically to greet her.

  My enthusiasm in particular was overwhelming, because I sensed that my salvation was at hand, and I was being spared another assignation with the dreaded Doog at the Gates of Torment and Sorrow.

  ‘Memnon’ was the baby name of my beloved Pharaoh Tamose, he who had so recently been laid low by the Hyksos arrow that his corpse had not yet completed the embalming process which would enable him to be laid to rest in his tomb that stood ready to receive him in the Valley of the Kings on the westerly bank of the Nile. There he would lie with his ancestors through all of eternity.