by Wilbur Smith
This particular day as we rode along the edge of the ocean the tide had run out further than usual.
Serrena put forward the preposterous theory that this was because of the fact that the sun and moon were aligned in some mysterious manner and exerting an aggravated pull on the waters, not because Poseidon was more thirsty than usual and thus drinking more deeply.
Now, like all those learned men who have studied the heavenly bodies, I am fully aware of the fact that the sun and the moon are actually one and the same entity. It becomes the sun when it is fully charged during the day, and then it becomes the moon during the night when its flames are burned out and recharging, at which time it becomes a mere shadow of its fiery self.
When I explained this to Serrena she immediately challenged me. ‘How can they be the same heavenly body when I have seen both the sun and the moon in the sky at one and the same time?’ she demanded of me in the tones of one who has settled a subject once and for all.
I reined in my horse to a halt, forcing her to do the same. ‘Make your hand into a fist, Serrena,’ I instructed her. But I changed smoothly into the Tenmass language, and when she obeyed I told her, ‘Now hold it up to the sun.’
‘Do you mean like this?’ she asked in the Tenmass. She enunciated it perfectly but was obviously unaware that she had done so.
‘Now look at the ground below you, and tell me what you see there,’ I instructed her.
‘I see nothing except my own shadow,’ she replied in the Tenmass, looking slightly puzzled.
‘What is that round dark shape?’ I asked her, leaning from the saddle as I pointed it out.
‘That’s the shadow of my hand.’
‘So do you mean that we are seeing both your hand and the shadow of your hand at the same time; just as we can often see both the sun and its shadow which we call the moon at the same time?’ I asked, and she opened her pretty mouth to argue further, then she closed it and we rode on in silence. Strangely enough we have never addressed the subject of the sun and the moon again since that day.
However, we often converse in the Tenmass when we are alone together, although Serrena is not aware that we are speaking an alien language. It gives me great pleasure to do so because it provides me with incontrovertible proof that she is one of the divines.
I thought long and earnestly on how to address the only person on this earth who could endorse the details of how this miraculous birth had come to pass. Even my special relationship with the main human character in this drama did not grant me the privilege of an outright confrontation. This would require all of my subtlety and cunning to come at the truth without creating a dangerous furore. I even considered the wisdom of letting the truth of the matter lie undiscovered. I want to make it abundantly clear that it was not sordid curiosity on my part, but a genuine concern for the wellbeing of everybody concerned that drove me on.
The first time I had allowed Tehuti and her sister Bekatha a taste of the fruit of the vine had been a long, long time ago when they were no more than fifteen or sixteen years old and I was escorting them from Egypt to Crete to be married to the mighty Minos. On the long voyage they had both pleaded with me to let them kill themselves rather than go through with the wedding, and I had given them wine to alleviate their distress. It worked, for that had been the last time they had ever contemplated suicide – to my knowledge. Since being reunited with them here in Lacedaemon I had noticed that the years had not lessened their penchant for the juice of the grape to any great extent. The only difference was that they had become more particular and demanding in their taste, and they sipped from only the most carefully chosen amphorae filled with the produce of the royal vineyards, as was their right.
I waited my opportunity with the patience of the hunter at the watering hole of his quarry. Then at last the potentate of one of the mysterious kingdoms that lay far to the east made a state visit to Lacedaemon, ostensibly to bolster trade relations, but in reality to enquire after the hand of Princess Serrena in marriage. Descriptions of her beauty had been bruited far and wide, but few had yet learned of her betrothal.
I was the only person in Lacedaemon who spoke Persian. Thus it was left to me to tactfully inform King Simashki, for that was the suitor’s name, of Serrena’s unavailability. His Majesty expressed his disappointment in such beautifully poetical language that Serrena was reduced to tears. Then he kissed both Rameses and Serrena on their cheeks, and presented the happy couple with a wedding gift of twenty large amphorae of the red wine from his own vineyards.
When Tehuti sampled this wine for the first time she remarked to her husband, ‘For another twenty amphorae of this marvellous nectar I would allow Simashki to marry me.’
King Hurotas sipped a mouthful from his own cup, rolled it around his tongue and then nodded. ‘And for twenty more I would let him have you.’
I thought it fortuitous that our guest spoke not a word of Egyptian, and merely raised his cup to them and joined in the general mirth which followed this exchange with a slightly puzzled expression.
It was Tehuti’s self-imposed rule to limit her evening intake of wine to two large cups. ‘Just sufficient to make me happy, but still able to get to my bed with only two of my maids to help me,’ as she put it.
In the confusion and bonhomie of the banquet I managed surreptitiously to raise her consumption to four or five, simply by filling her cup from my own every time she turned away from me to kiss or caress her husband. Thus when she at last decided to leave the gathering she had to grab my arm for support when she tried to stand up. I dismissed her maids and carried her up the stairs to her bedchamber, while she clung with both arms around my neck and giggled happily.
I undressed her and put her between the sheets just as I used to do, so long ago, when she was a little girl. Then I sat on the mattress beside her and we chatted and laughed together. But all the while I was directing the conversation in the direction I had chosen.
‘So why have you had only one child while Bekatha has four, and why did it take you so long?’ I demanded.
‘The good gods alone know the answer to that question,’ she replied. ‘Zaras and I have hardly missed a single night in thirty years, even when I am flying the red flag. He is insatiable, and I am almost as randy as he is. I wanted a baby so badly. And, as you remarked, my little sister Bekatha was popping them out of her oven one after the other, just like baking pies. I almost hated her for it. I used to pray to Taweret the goddess of childbirth and make sacrifice every night before Zaras came to my bed. But that didn’t work.’ Then she smiled knowingly. ‘How can you trust a goddess that looks like a hippopotamus standing on her back legs. She just gobbled up all my offerings and never gave me another thought, let alone a baby of my own.’
‘So what did you do?’ I asked, but her response was oblique and obfuscated.
‘You don’t mind if I use the pot while I think about it, do you, Tata?’ She hopped out of bed and perched herself on her chamber pot, which stood in a corner of the room. For a while we both listened respectfully to the tinkle of her liquid into the receptacle beneath her, and then Tehuti demanded, ‘If I tell you, do you promise you won’t tell anybody else, Tata?’ Her diction was only slightly skewed by her surfeit of the grape.
‘May the gods strike me down if ever I do,’ I replied dutifully and she gave a squeak of horror.
‘You shouldn’t say things like that, Tata. Take it back at once. You must never provoke the gods!’ She made the sign against the evil eye.
I took up her challenge and warned the hovering pantheon of immortals who were probably listening from the shadows of the room, ‘Don’t you dare touch me, any of you nasty old gods, or else Queen Tehuti will jump up from her potty and pee in your ear hole!’
Tehuti burst into fresh fits of giggles. ‘That isn’t funny!’ she told me, trying unsuccessfully to keep a straight face. ‘You must never make jokes about the gods. They have no sense of humour; none at all – unless the jokes are the ones that
they play on us.’
‘No more jokes,’ I promised. ‘However, tell me what you did to get yourself pregnant. I am agog to hear the secret, and I repeat my promise not to tell anyone.’
‘I did what I should have done in the beginning. I appealed to a male god, not a female one. I sacrificed an ox to him and I prayed to him on my knees for half the night.’
‘What did King Hurotas, your husband, think about that?’
‘He never knew. He was away waging war on our neighbours at the time; and I never bothered to tell him when he returned home.’
‘And did the male god respond to your entreaties?’
‘When at last I fell asleep he came to me in a dream.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper, and she blushed pinkly and lowered the lashes over her lovely dark eyes. ‘It was only a dream, I swear to you, Taita. I have always been a good girl. Zaras is my husband. I have ever been true to him.’
‘Who was the god? Did he tell you who he was?’ I asked and she blushed more brightly and hung her head, unable to look me in the eye. She was silent for a while and then she spoke so softly that I could not be sure of what she said.
‘Speak up please, Tehuti. Who was it?’ I demanded again.
She looked up at me and repeated clearly, ‘He said he was Apollo, the god of fecundity, music, truth and healing. I believed him, for he was so beautiful.’
I nodded sagely. Of course I could have added to that shortlist of his virtues that she recited to me. Apollo is also the god of lust and anger, wine and drunkenness, disease and falsehoods amongst countless other virtues and vices.
‘Of course, you and Apollo coupled with each other.’ I framed it as a statement of fact, not a question. She blanched deathly white.
‘It was a dream, don’t you understand, Tata?’ Her voice rose in a shrill of agony. ‘None of it was real. Serrena is my husband’s daughter and I am his chaste wife. I love my husband, and I love my daughter, not some phantom from Olympus or the netherworld.’
I looked at her with silent compassion, deepened by love. She sprang to her feet and ran to me. She threw herself at my feet and clasped my knees in her arms, burying her face in my lap.
‘Forgive me, my darling Tata.’ Her voice was muffled by the skirts of my robe. ‘It was all a dream and I had no control over what happened. It was magic and witchcraft. I was a feather swept up in the holocaust. It was terrible and it was magnificent. He filled every part of my body and my mind with unbearable pain and unbelievable pleasure, with blinding golden light and the darkness of the void. He was beautiful beyond words, but terrifying and hideous as sin. It lasted only an instant and a thousand years. I felt him place the miracle that was Serrena in my womb and I rejoiced at it. But it was not reality. Will you ever be able to forgive me for my wickedness, Taita?’
I stroked her hair gently and it felt like silk under my fingers as I whispered to her, ‘There is nothing to forgive, Tehuti. Your husband and your daughter are all of reality and everything else is shadows. Hold them close to your heart and cherish them, and tell no other person of your weird and fantastical dreams. Forget that you even told me.’
The preparations for the wedding of Rameses and Serrena took even longer than Hurotas had anticipated. We had two unexpected little wars to fight in the interim. It was the ambition of Hurotas and Hui to subjugate all the islands and lands surrounding the Cyclades and the south Aegean Sea, but after thirty years of almost continual warfare the task was not yet half completed. No sooner was one archipelago brought under control than another came out in rebellion at the opposite end of King Hurotas’ empire. In addition the Persians were perpetually complicating and confusing the issue. Wherever they detected weakness they were quick to sneak in and cut a few throats, then fill their ships with loot and disappear as suddenly as they had arrived; back into their vast and mysterious domain that tottered on the eastern brink of the world.
‘They are nothing more than uneducated savages and ruthless pirates,’ Hui told me in outraged tones.
‘They probably say the same thing about us,’ I pointed out reasonably.
‘We are pioneers and empire-builders,’ he contradicted me loftily. ‘It is our destiny to civilize and rule the world in the name of the true gods whom we worship.’
‘But you and your men love a good fight as much as any savage,’ I replied. ‘You told me so yourself.’
‘There is only one thing my people enjoy more than a good fight, and that is a good revel,’ Hurotas acknowledged. ‘It is my intention to give them the biggest, the wildest and the most famous wedding that any one of them has ever dreamed of, and that no man will ever want to miss.’
I nodded my approval. ‘Then while your guests are still recovering from a surfeit of good wine and rich food you can quietly usurp their kingdoms.’
‘My dear Taita, I have always admired your political acumen.’ Hurotas stroked his beard and smiled non-committally.
So I went on, ‘If your lovely daughter Serrena had chosen one of the island chieftains as a husband she would have made enemies of the other fifteen, but this way all sixteen of them become your allies and vassals. Although she is so young she is wise far beyond her years.’
‘I can only repeat my last statement about you, Taita.’ Hurotas kept on smiling. ‘You have always been able to see the way forward with great clarity.’
Even though the two of us were alone I dropped my voice so that Hurotas was obliged to lean closer to hear what I had to say next. ‘With those sixteen allies behind you an annexation of our very Egypt and the punishment of the tyrant Utteric Turo becomes feasible.’
‘I must admit that I have thought about that possibility. Who would you suggest replaces Utteric as Pharaoh in Luxor, Taita?’
‘You are the obvious choice,’ I answered without hesitation, but he chuckled.
‘I have no particular wish to return to Egypt on a permanent basis. I am very comfortable in my new citadel here in Lacedaemon. I have put a lot of effort into building it. Besides, my memories of Egypt are not particularly happy ones. But who else could I send to do the job?’ he asked and I pondered his question for a moment.
‘The name Pharaoh Rameses has a fine ring to it,’ I hazarded and Hurotas’ expression changed. He looked dubious. I realized my error and recovered smoothly, ‘On the other hand, even though as far as I am aware there has never been a woman ruler of Egypt, the name of Pharaohin Serrena has an even more noble resonance to my ear,’ and Hurotas smiled again. ‘They could rule as a joint triumvirate, or perhaps more accurately as a biumvirate.’ Now Hurotas burst out laughing.
‘You never fail to amuse me, Taita. Where do you get these ideas from? Very well, a biumvirate it shall be.’
It had only been a very few months since I had arrived in Lacedaemon but already my position was very nearly unassailable. Thirty years previously Hurotas had taken his instructions from me. Very little had changed in the interim, except that these days my instructions were more diplomatically phrased as suggestions.
I could not at this stage push Rameses’ promotion too rapidly above Hui and his sons, but tactfully I saw to it that he was placed in the centre of military and naval affairs of Lacedaemon, and that he still had command of the mighty warship the Memnon in which the two of us had escaped from Utteric and Egypt. He was officially ranked as rear admiral, directly below Admiral Hui. His royal bloodline and his betrothal to Princess Serrena gave him high status, but he was wise enough despite his youth not to flaunt it. He was already a favourite of Hui’s own family. When she entertained him, which was often, Princess Bekatha sat him beside her at her ample table and fed him liberally. She referred to him as ‘Rammy darling’. Her sons accepted him into the family with not the slightest show of rancour or jealousy and their burgeoning brood of young children were delighted to have another uncle to bully and beg sweetmeats from, and to pester to tell them stories and to carry them upon his back.
Of course King Hurotas and Queen Tehuti were delighted
by the prospect of him fathering their own grandchildren in due course, once the formalities had been taken care of. They gave Rameses his own suite of rooms in the citadel next door to my own, at the furthest end of the massive building from Serrena’s apartments. The number of sentries guarding the princess royal was unobtrusively doubled, as though my own surveillance was insufficient to ensure that her chastity was not prematurely terminated.
The quarters provided for me were almost as grand as those of King Hurotas and Queen Tehuti, but I had good reason to believe that the queen herself was directly responsible for this. Not a day passed that she did not appear uninvited in my private dining room with sufficient provisions to supply a hundred men or more, and enough wine to keep me drunk for a year. Or to wake me after midnight in her nightdress carrying a candle as she hopped up on my bed with the assurance of, ‘I won’t be more than a few minutes, I promise you, Tata. But I just have to ask you something very important, and no it can’t wait until tomorrow.’
Several hours later when I carried her back asleep in my arms to her own bed, her husband grumbled at me, ‘Can’t you remember to lock your door to keep her out, Taita?’