Three Novels of Ancient Egypt

by Naguib Mahfouz

  The prince looked back at his father with eyes blazing like a beast caught in a trap.

  Pharaoh smiled as he declaimed, “If Fate really was as people say, then creation itself would be absurd. The wisdom of life would be negated, the nobility of man would be debased. Diligence and the mere appearance of it would be the same; so would labor and laziness, wakefulness and sleep, strength and weakness, rebellion and obedience. No, Fate is a false belief to which the strong are not fashioned to submit.”

  The zeal fired in his breast, Commander Arbu shouted, “Sublime is your wisdom, my lord!”

  Pharaoh, still smiling, said with absolute composure, “Before us is a suckling child, only an easy distance away. Come then, Commander Arbu — prepare a group of chariots, which I will lead to On — so that I myself may look upon this tiny offspring of the Fates.”

  “Will Pharaoh himself be going?” Hemiunu asked, amazed.

  “If I don't go now to defend my own throne,” said Pharaoh, laughing, “then when will it be right for me to do so? Very well, now — I invite you all to ride with me to witness the tremendous battle between Khufu and the Fates.”

  3

  Pharaoh's squadron of one hundred war chariots streamed out of the palace, manned by two hundred of the toughest troopers of the Great House Guards. Khufu — amidst a cohort of the princes and his companions — took their lead, — with Khafra at his right and Arbu on his left.

  They sped away to the northeast, shaking the ground of the valley like an earthquake, along the right branch of the Nile, heading toward the city of On. Their — wheels rattling like thunder, the rushing vehicles, with their magnificently adorned horses, kicked up mountains of dust behind them that hid them from the eyes of beautiful Memphis. With the colossal men riding them — like statues bedecked with swords, bows, and arrows, and armored with shields — they reminded the sleeping earth of the soldiers of Mina. They too had thrown up their own dust on these same roads hundreds of years before, bearing to the North an undeniable victory, forging the nation's unity as their glorious legacy.

  They rolled onward over the stones and gravel, led by an all-powerful man, the very mention of whose name humbled hearts and caused eyes to be lowered. Yet they rode not to invade a nation or to combat an army. Rather, to besiege a nursing baby boy still in his swaddling clothes, blinking his eyes at the light of the world — launched by the words of a wizard that threatened the mightiest throne on earth, shaking the stoutest hearts in creation.

  They covered the floor of the valley with surpassing speed, circumventing villages and hamlets like a fleeting arrow, fixing their eyes onto that fearsome horizon that loomed over the suckling child whom the Fates had made to play such a perilous role.

  From afar there appeared to them a cloud of dust whose source their eyes couldn't make out, until, the distance slowly dwindling, they — were able to discern a little band of horsemen crossing in their direction. They had no doubt that this group came from the district of Ra.

  The horsemen drew closer, and it became clear that they — were mounted soldiers trailing behind a single rider. The nearer they approached, the clearer it seemed they were pursuing that rider. Then, as the king's squadron came right upon their goal, they gasped with disbelief — for at their lead was a woman seated bareback on a stallion. The plaits of her hair had come undone, and — were strewn about behind her by the wind, like pennants on the head of a sail, and she looked exhausted. Meanwhile, the others had caught up — with her from behind, surrounding her on every side.

  This happened just as the king arrived with his retinue. The royal chariot had to slow down to avoid a collision, though neither Pharaoh nor any of his men paid much heed to either the woman being pursued, or her pursuers. They presumed these were policemen carrying out some official duty or other, and would have passed them by without any contact but for the woman calling out to them, “Help me, O Soldiers — Help me! Those men won't let me reach Pharaoh….”

  Pharaoh's chariot halted, and so did those behind him. He looked at the men encircling the woman and called to them with his commanding voice, “Summon her to me.”

  Yet, ignorant of he who had made this command, they did not respond. One of the horsemen's officers came forward, saying roughly, “We are guards from On who have come to execute an order from its high priest. From what city are you, and what do you want?”

  The officer's folly enraged Pharaoh's troopers. Arbu was about to berate him, but Pharaoh flashed him a hidden sign. Seething, he remained silent. The invocation of the Ra priest's name had diverted Pharaoh from his anger and made him think. Hoping to draw the officer into conversation, Khufu asked him, “Why were you pursuing this woman?”

  Self-importantly, the officer replied, “I am not obliged to account for my mission except to my chief.”

  Pharaoh shouted with thunderous fury, “Release this woman!”

  The soldiers — were now certain that they — were dealing — with a formidable figure. They gave up on the object of their chase, who had scurried to the king's chariot, cowering beneath it fearfully, calling out all the while, “Help me sir, please help me!”

  Arbu clambered down from his chariot and marched forcefully up to the officer. When the officer saw the sign of the eagle and Pharaoh's emblem on Arbu's shoulder, terror defeated him. Sheathing his sword, he stood to attention and gave a military salute, calling out to his men, “Hail the commander of Pharaoh's guards!”

  They all returned their swords to their scabbards, and stood in file like statues.

  When the woman heard what the officer said, she realized that she was in the presence of the Great House Guards. Standing up before Arbu, she said, “Sir, are you truly the head of our lord the king's guards? Naught but the truth of the gods is guiding me to him… for I fled my mistress, sir, in order to go to Pharaoh's palace, to the king's doorstep — for love of whom the lips of every Egyptian, man or woman, would gladly kiss.”

  “Do you have some wish to be fulfilled?” Arbu asked her.

  The woman replied, panting, “Yes, sir. I harbor a menacing secret that I wish to disclose to the Living God.”

  Pharaoh listened more intently, as Arbu asked her, “And what is this menacing secret, my good woman?”

  “I will divulge it to the Holy Eminence,” shesaid, entreatingly.

  “I am his faithful servant, discreet with his secrets,” Arbu assured her.

  The woman hesitated, glancing anxiously at those present. Her color was pale, her eyes darted back and forth, and her heart was pounding hard. The commander saw that he could entice her to speak by being soft with her.

  “What is your name,” he inquired, “and where do you live?”

  “My name is Sarga, sir. Until this morning I was a servant in the palace of the high priest of Ra.”

  “Why were they chasing you?” Arbu continued. “Had your master made an accusation against you?”

  “I'm an honorable woman, sir, but my master abused me.”

  “Did you then flee because of his mistreatment?” Arbu pressed on. “Are you requesting that your complaint be raised with Pharaoh?”

  “No, sir — the matter is much more threatening than you think. I stumbled upon a secret of whose danger I must warn Pharaoh — so I fled to warn the Sacred Self, as duty compels me. My master dispatched these soldiers in my — wake, to come between me and my sacred trust!”

  The officer's horsemen trembled, as he quickly said in their defense, “The Reverend One ordered us to arrest this woman as she fled on horseback on the road to Memphis. We carried out the order without knowing anything at all about why it was given.”

  Then Arbu said to Sarga, “Are you going to accuse the high priest of Ra of treason?”

  “Summon me to Pharaoh's threshold so that I may reveal to him what so oppresses me.”

  His patience expiring, Pharaoh fretted at the loss of precious time.

  “Was the priest blessed this morning with the birth of a son?” he asked the
woman, abruptly.

  She turned toward him, wobbling with wonder. “Who informed you of this, sir,” she blurted, “when they had kept it secret? This is truly amazing!”

  Pharaoh's entourage was becoming curious, exchanging silent looks among themselves. Meanwhile, the king interrogated her in his awe-instilling voice, “Is this the secret that you want Pharaoh to know?”

  The woman nodded, still confused, “Yes, it is, sir — but it's not all that I wish to tell him.”

  Pharaoh spoke sharply, in an intensely commanding tone that brooked no delay, “What is there to say, then? Tell me.”

  “My mistress, Lady Ruddjedet, began to feel labor pains at dawn,” Sarga burst out, fearfully. “I was one of the chambermaids stationed by her bed to relieve her discomfort — sometimes with conversation, otherwise with medicine. Before long, the high priest entered; he blessed our mistress and prayed fervently to Our Lord Ra. As though wishing to put our mistress at ease, he gave her the glad tidings that she would give birth to a baby boy. This boy, he said, would inherit the unshakeable throne of Egypt, and rule over the Valley of the Nile as the successor to the God Ra-Atum on earth.

  “He said to her, hardly able to contain himself for joy — as though he had forgotten my presence: I — whom she trusted more than any other servant — that the statue of the god Ra had told him this news in his celestial voice. But when his gaze fell upon me, his heart beat loud enough to be heard, and the fear was clear on his face. In order to appease the evil whisperer within, he had me arrested and held in the grain shed. Yet I was able to escape, to mount a steed, and set out upon the road to Memphis to tell the king what I had learned. Evidently, my master sensed that I had fled — for he sent these soldiers to apprehend me that, if not for you, would have carried me back to my death.”

  Pharaoh and his companions listened to Sarga's story with alarmed surprise — for it confirmed the prophecy of Djedi the magician. Prince Khafra was gravely worried. “Let not the warning we received have been in vain!” he barked.

  “Yes, my son — we shouldn't waste time.”

  Khufu turned to the woman. “Pharaoh shall reward you very well for your fidelity,” he said. “There's nothing else for you to do now but to tell us which way you would like to go.”

  “I wish, sir, that I might go safely to the village of Quna where my father lives.”

  “You are responsible for her life until she reaches her home,” Pharaoh said to the officer, who nodded his head in obedience.

  Motioning to Commander Arbu, the king climbed back onto his chariot, ordering his driver to proceed. They took off like the Fates themselves, with the other chariots behind them, in the direction of On, whose surrounding wall and the heads of the pillars of its great sanctuary, the Temple of Ra-Atum, could already be seen.

  4

  At that moment the high priest of Ra was kneeling at his wife's bedside in passionate prayer:

  “Ra, Our Lord Creator, Present from the Time of Nothingness, from the time — when the water poured into the vastness of the primeval ocean, over which weighed a heavy darkness. You created, O Lord, by Your power, a sublimely beautiful universe. You filled it with an enchanting orderliness, easing its unified rule over the spinning stars in the heavens, and over the abundant grain on the earth. You made from the water all living things: the birds soaring in the sky, the fish swimming in the sea, man roaming on the land, the date palm flourishing in the parching desert. You have spread through the darkness a radiant light, in which Your majestic face is revealed, and which spreads warmth and life itself to all things. O Lord Creator, I confide to You my worry and my sorrow; I beseech You to lift from me the anguish and the tribulation, for I am Your faithful servant and Your believing slave. O God, I am weak — so grant me strength from Your cosmic knowledge; O God, I am fearful — so grant me confidence and peace. O God, I am threatened by a great evil — so enfold me in Your vigilance and Your compassion. O God, in my old age, You have endowed me with a son; You have blessed him and written for him, in the annals of the Fates, that he shall be a ruling king — so keep all malice away from him, and repel the evil that is set against him.”

  Monra recited this prayer with an unsteady voice. His eyes flowed with hot tears that trickled down his thin and drawn cheeks. They wet his hoary beard, as he raised up his aged head, looking with emotion upon the pallid face of his wife, confined to her childbed. Then he gazed upon the tiny infant, serenely raising the lids from his little dark eyes, which he had lowered in fear of the strange world around him. When his wife Ruddjedet sensed that Monra had ceased his praying, she said to him weakly, “Is there any news of Sarga?”

  “The soldiers will catch up — with her,” the man sighed, “if the Lord so commands.”

  “Alas, my lord! The thread of our child's life hangs on something so uncertain?”

  “How can you say that, Ruddjedet? Since Sarga escaped, I have not stopped thinking of a way to protect the two of you from evil. The Lord has guided me to a ruse, yet I fear for you, because in your delicate condition you might not be able to bear any hardships.”

  She stretched out a hand toward him imploringly. “Do what you can to save our child,” she said in a pleading tone. “Let not my frailty worry you, for maternity has given me a strength that healthy people do not possess.”

  “You should know, Ruddjedet,” the tormented priest replied, “that I have prepared a wagon and filled it with wheat. In it I have readied a corner for you to lie with our son. I have fashioned a box made of wood so that if you lay yourselves within it you will be concealed from view. In this you will go with your handmaiden Kata to your uncle in the village of Senka.”

  “Call the servant Zaya, because Kata's in childbed — just like her mistress,” said Ruddjedet. “She delivered a baby boy of her own this morning.”

  “Kata has given birth?” Monra replied, taken aback. “In any case, Zaya is no less loyal than Kata.”

  “And what about you, my husband?” said Ruddjedet. “What if Fate decides that the secret of our child should reach Pharaoh, and he sends his soldiers to you. How will you answer when they ask you about your son and his mother?”

  The high priest had not prepared any plan to save himself if what she warned of occurred. Distracted as he was by the need to save both mother and child, he had given it little thought. Hence he lied when he answered, “Don't worry, Ruddjedet. Sarga will not get away from those I have sent after her. Whatever happens, no crisis will catch me unawares — and my news will reach you very soon.”

  Fearing any increase in her anxiety, he wanted to distract her, so he stood up and called out loudly for Zaya. The servant came rapidly and bowed to him in respect.

  “I shall entrust to you your mistress and her newborn child,” Monra told her, “so that you may conduct them to the village of Senka. You must take care, and be wary of the danger that threatens them both.”

  “I would sacrifice myself for my mistress,” she answered, sincerely, “and for her blessed son.”

  The priest asked her to assist him in carrying her mistress to the grain shed. Surprised by his request, the servant nonetheless obeyed his command. The man wrapped his wife with a soft quilt, and put his hand under her head and shoulders, while Zaya lifted her from under her back and thighs. Together they walked with her to the outer hallway, descending the staircase to the courtyard. They then entered the shed, laying her on the spot that he had prepared for her in the wagon. This done, the priest went back up and returned with his son, who sobbed and cried. He kissed him lovingly, and placed him in the embrace of his mother. He watched them for a little while from the side of the wagon. When he saw Ruddjedet becoming upset, he said to her, his heart skipping a beat, “Calm yourself for the sake of our dear child, and don't allow fear a way into your heart.”

  “You haven't named him yet,” she said, weeping.

  Smiling, he replied, “I hereby name him with the name of my father, who reposes next to Osiris. Djedef. Djedefra. D
jedefson of Monra. By God, I shall make his name blessed, and defend him from the wiles of those who plot against him.”

  The man approached with the wooden box and placed it over the pair so dear to him. Zaya sat in the driver's seat, taking the reins of the two oxen, as Monra told her, “Go with the blessings of the Lord our keeper.”

  As the wagon began to move slowly on its way, his eyes filled with copious tears, through which he watched as the vehicle crossed the courtyard, until the gate blocked his view. He dashed to the staircase, climbing it with the vigor of a young man, then hurried to the window that looked out upon the road, observing the wagon as it carried his heart and his joy beyond his sight.

  Something surprising then occurred that he had thought never — would — certainly not — with the speed that it now did. As he looked on, he — was seized — with an inexpressible terror. He forgot the sorrow of their parting, the agony of their farewell, and his longing as a father. The fear became so inflamed that he lost all sense and perception: he clenched his fists, pounding his breast with them, as he mumbled in dismay, “O Lord Ra, O Lord Ra.” He kept repeating this unconsciously as his eyes saw the squadron of royal chariots suddenly appear on the bend in the road near the temple. They drew closer and closer to his palace, precisely arrayed in assault formation, with equally precise and orderly speed, exactly two paces between each chariot.

  “O Lord of Heaven, Pharaoh's soldiers have come more quickly than the mind could conceive. Their arrival trumpets the success of Sarga's mission, and her escape from my soldiers. If only You had been able to send the angels of sudden death as speedily!” he thought.

  Pharaoh's troops drew near like giant demons, their horses neighing, their wheels rumbling, their helmets gleaming in the slanting rays of the sun. And why had they come? They came to slay the innocent child, the beloved son, with whom the Lord had gladdened him in his age of despair.

  Monra was still beating his breast with his fists, shaking his head like an imbecile, wailing in lament for his son. “O Lord. a group of them are surrounding the wagon; one of them is questioning poor Zaya sternly. What is he asking her? How does she answer him? And what do they seek? The lives of both my child and my wife depend on a single word uttered by Zaya. O My God! O Sacred Ra! Make her strong and secure, place on her tongue the words of life — and not of death! Save Your beloved son to live out the Fate that You have decreed for him, which You have proclaimed to me.”