Three Novels of Ancient Egypt Khufu's Wisdom

by Naguib Mahfouz

  Ahmose said vehemently, “Let us wear whatever clothes we desire, for they are our clothes. You, however, never learned to wear clothes at all until Egypt took you in. And do not call me Isfmis, since you know that I am Ahmose, son of Kamose, son of Seqenenra, a lineage venerable in nobility and age, descended from the loins of Glorious Thebes, one that never roamed shelterless in the deserts or shepherded flocks. Indeed, I wish to fight you single-handed. This is an honor you will gain that I may quit myself of a debt that I bear toward the greatest man Thebes has ever known.”

  Khanzar shouted, “I see that conceit has blinded you from a true knowledge of your own worth. You think that your victory over Commander Rukh is good cause for you to stand before me. God have mercy on you, conceited youth! What do you choose for your weapon?”

  Ahmose said, a mocking smile on his lips, “The sword, if you will.”

  Khanzar said, shrugging his broad shoulders, “It is my dearest friend.”

  Khanzar got off his horse and handed its reins to his squire. Then he unsheathed his sword and grasped his shield. Ahmose did likewise and they stood in silence, two arms’ lengths apart. Ahmose asked, “Shall we begin?”

  Laughing, Khanzar replied, “How lovely these moments are, in which Life and Death exchange whispers! Have at you, young man!”

  At this the king leapt forward and assailed his huge opponent courageously, aiming at him a mighty blow that the governor met with his shield. Then the governor attacked in his turn, saying, “A clean blow, Isfinis! Methinks the ringing of your sword on my shield sings the melody of Death. Well met, -well met! My breast welcomes the envoys of Death. How often has Death wanted me as I played between its claws, then, baffled, let me go, realizing at the end that it had really come for someone else!”

  The man never ceased speaking as he fought, as though he were a skillful dancer who sang while he danced. Ahmose, realizing that his opponent was stubborn and intrepid, with muscles of steel, a foe full of tricks, light on his feet, a master of attack and feint, exerted all his strength and skill in avoiding the blows aimed at him, knowing that these were mortal blows for which there would be no cure should they reach their mark. Despite this, he took a blow on his shield whose heft he felt and he saw his opponent smile confidently, at which anger and fury arose within him and he aimed at the man a terrible blow that he in turn took on his shield. Struggling to master nerves and will alike, he asked Ahmose, “Where was this stout sword made?”

  Controlling himself likewise, Ahmose replied, “At Napata, in the far south.”

  As he dodged a hard blow aimed at him with exquisite skill, the man said, “My sword was made in Memphis, by the hands of Egyptian craftsmen. The man who made it had no idea that he was providing me with the tool that I will use to slay his sovereign, who trades and fights for him.”

  Ahmose said, “How happy he will be tomorrow when he finds out that it brought the enemy of his country bad luck!”

  Ahmose, seeking an opportunity for a violent attack, had scarcely finished speaking before he aimed at his mighty opponent three strokes one after the other with lightning speed. Khanzar warded them off with armor and sword but was forced to retreat a few steps and the king sprang after him and fell upon him brutally, directing blow after blow at his foe. Realizing the danger of this development, Khanzar stopped jesting with his opponent and closed his mouth, from which the smile had disappeared. He furrowed his brow and defended himself against his enemy's attacks with great strength and terrible courage, displaying unimaginable feats of skill and valor. The point of his sword gashed Ahmose's helmet and the Herdsmen, thinking that he had finished off his stubborn opponent, cheered loudly, to the point that Ahmose thought to himself, “I -wonder if I am hurt?” However, he felt no fatigue or-weakness, and, gathering his strength, struck his enemy a mighty blow that the latter met -with his shield. The blow struck it hard and he let it fall uselessly from his hand, his arm trembling. Shouts of joy and anger arose from the two sides and Ahmose ceased fighting, looking at this opponent -with a smile of triumph. The other brandished his sword and prepared to fight without a shield. Ahmose immediately took off his own shield and threw it to one side. Astonishment appeared on Khanzar's face and, giving him a strange look, he said, “What nobility, worthy of a king!”

  The fight resumed in silence and they exchanged two mighty blows, of which Ahmose's was the faster to the huge neck of his opponent. The latter, seized by a terrible convulsion and his hand losing its grip on the hilt of his sword, fell to the ground like a building demolished. Approaching with slow steps, the king looked into his face with eyes filled with respect and said to him, “What a valiant and doughty fighter you are, Governor Khanzar!”

  The man said, as he breathed his last, “You spoke truly, king. After me, no other warrior will bar your way.”

  Ahmose took Khanzar's sword and placed it next to his body, then mounted his steed and returned to his camp, knowing that the Herdsmen would fight with fury and a lust for revenge. As he approached his charioteers, he called out to them, “Soldiers, repeat our immortal cry ‘Live like Amenhotep or die like Seqenenra!’ and remember that our destiny is forever tied to the outcome of this ongoing battle. Never accept that the patience of years and the struggle of generations be lost in the weakness of an hour!”

  Then he attacked, and they attacked, and the fighting continued fiercely till sunset.

  For ten whole days, the fighting went on in this way.

  8

  On the evening of the tenth day of fighting, King Ahmose returned from the field exhausted, his strength all spent, and he called together his entourage and commanders. Though the fall of Khanzar had inflicted on the Herdsmen's army an irreplaceable loss, their chariot battalion continued to resist and repel the attacks of the Egyptians, causing them terrible losses. The king was absorbed by anxiety and feared that day by day the huge chariot battalion would be destroyed. On that particular evening, he was angry and sad at the fall of so many of his brave charioteers who had stood firm in the face of death, indifferent to their fate. As though talking to himself, he said, “Hierakon-polis, Hierakonpolis, will your name, I wonder, be coupled with our victory or with our defeat?”

  The others present were no less sad and angry than the king, but the tiredness and agitation that they saw on his handsome face alarmed them. Chamberlain Hur said, “My lord, our charioteers are fighting the Herdsmen's chariot battalion in its full strength and with all the equipment it possesses; thus our losses do not scare us. If soon we triumph over the enemy and destroy his chariots, his infantry will have no power over us. They will take refuge behind the walls of their fortresses, in flight from the assaults of our chariots.”

  The king said, “My main goal was to destroy the enemy's chariots while preserving a large force of our own chariots that could maintain permanent domination on the field, as the Herdsmen did in their attack on Thebes. But now I fear that both our forces will be destroyed and we shall be exposed to a long-term war that will leave no city unspared.”

  The king asked to review the latest count of the losses, which an officer brought. The Egyptian chariot battalion had lost two-thirds of its force of men and vehicles.

  Ahmose paled and looked into the faces of his men, where gloom prevailed without exception. He said, “We have only two thousand charioteers left. How do you estimate the enemy's losses?”

  Commander Deeb said, “I don't imagine, my lord, that they are any less than ours. Indeed, they are likely to be greater.”

  The king bowed his head and remained for a moment in thought. Then he looked at his men and said, “Everything -will be clear tomorrow. Tomorrow -will be the decisive day, there is no doubt. Our enemy may be suffering anxiety and doubt as much as we, or even more. In any case, none can blame us and we will blame none, and the Lord knows that we fight with hearts that care nothing for life.”

  Deeb enquired, “Our fleet is not fighting now, so why not use it to disembark troops behind the enemy, between
Hierakonpolis and Nekheb?”

  Ahmose Ebana said, “Our fleet now has complete control of the Nile, but we cannot risk disembarking troops behind enemy lines unless its whole army is engaged in the fighting. And the fact is, that the fighting so far has been confined to the two battalions of charioteers, while the rest of the enemy's army is lurking behind the battlefield, rested and wakeful.”

  One of the priests of Ombos asked, “My lord, do we not have a reserve force of charioteers?”

  Ahmose said, “We brought six thousand charioteers, the fruit of an exhausting campaign and much patience, and we have lost four thousand of them in twelve days of hell.”

  Hursaid, “My lord, Sayin, Ombos, and Apollonopolis Magna are ceaselessly building chariots and training charioteers.”

  Ahmose Ebana, for his part, said with his usual unflagging enthusiasm, “Enough for us the slogan that Sacred Mother Tetisheri taught us, ‘Live like Amenhotep or die like Seqenenra!’ Our charioteers cannot be subdued and our infantry burn with longing for the fight. Let us always remember that the Lord who sent you to the land of Egypt did not do so wantonly.”

  The men were reassured by the young commander's words and the king smiled radiantly. The army passed the night and awoke at dawn, as was their custom, and made themselves ready for the fight. As the day's first rays appeared, the chariot battalion advanced, the king and his guard at its center. To his amazement, when he looked at the field he found it empty. Looking again more closely, he saw in the distance the walls of Hierakonpolis, with not a single Herdsman standing between them and him. His surprise did not last long, however, as some of his spies came to him and reported that Apophis's army with all its huge divisions had withdrawn from the field and left Hierakonpolis by night to march fast toward the north. Commander Mheb could not help saying, “Now the truth is clear. There can be no doubt that the Herdsmen's chariot forces have been smashed and that Apophis preferred to flee to his fortresses rather than face our charioteers with his infantry.”

  Commander Deeb said joyfully, “My lord, we have won the great battle of Hierakonpolis.”

  King Ahmose enquired, “Do you think the cloud has really passed? Do you think that the dangers are really gone?” Then he turned to Deeb and said, “Just say that we have smashed the chariots of the Herdsmen, no more.”

  The news spread to the army and joy overcame all. The men of the royal entourage hurried to the king and congratulated him on the incontestable victory that the Lord had granted to him. Ahmose entered Hierakonpolis at the head of his army, the local people hurrying there with him from the fields to which they had fled in fear of the Herdsmen's revenge, and welcomed their king ardently, cheering the Army of Deliverance with cries that pierced the highest heavens.

  The first thing that the king did was to pray to the Lord Amun, who had extended to him a helping hand when he had been on the very brink of despair.

  9

  After this fierce twelve-day battle, the army rested at Hierakonpolis a few days and Ahmose himself took charge of organizing the city and restoring an Egyptian character to its government, farms, markets, and temples. He consoled its people for the various kinds of oppression, in the form of plunder, pillage, and destruction, to which they and their city had been subjected during the Herdsmen's retreat.

  Then the army marched north, the fleet setting sail at the same time, and entered the city of Nekheb on the afternoon of the same day, without resistance. It stayed there until dawn the following morning, -when it resumed its progress, occupying villages and raising over them the flags of Egypt, without coming across any of the enemy's forces. After three days, they came to the edge of the valley of Latopolis. The king and his men thought that the enemy would defend it, so Ahmose sent forward units of his army to the city, while Ahmose Ebana laid siege to its western shores. However, the vanguard entered the city without resistance and the army entered in peace. The people told them how the army of Apophis had passed them by, carrying its wounded with it, and how Herdsmen who owned houses and farms had loaded their furniture and wealth and joined up with their king's army in an awful state of terror and chaos.

  The army with its terrible forces continued to advance, entering villages and cities without the slightest resistance, until it reached Tirt, then Hermonthis. All yearned to make contact with the enemy so that they might vent the spleen that was in their breasts; yet their faces shone with pleasure whenever they raised the flag over a town or village and felt they had liberated a piece of their noble homeland. News of the defeat of the Herdsmen's chariots had revived the troops and kindled hope and enthusiasm in their hearts and they marched to rousing songs, pounding the earth of the valley with their copper-colored legs, until the walls of the city of Habu, an outlier of Thebes, towered above them. Here the valley descended toward the south in a sudden, steep incline. The vanguard went to the city but it was unguarded, like the cities before it, and the army entered peacefully. The entry into Habu shook the hearts of all the soldiers, because Habu and Thebes were like limbs of a single body, and because many of the army's soldiers were numbered among its valiant sons. Hearts and souls embraced in its squares and the men's spirits shouted out loud with longing and affection. Then the army moved north, their hearts full of anticipation and souls straining toward their goal, knowing that they were approaching the action that would determine their history and the critical battle that would decide the destiny of Egypt. They descended the great valley that the Thebans called “Amun's Way,” -which grew -wider the further they -went into it, until they saw the great wall with its many gates blocking their path and running to the east and the west; the obelisks, temple -walls, and towering buildings rising above it, all speaking of glory and immortality, and all enveloped in memories of greatness. A tempest of excitement and nostalgia flowed into them from these things that shook their hearts and minds, and the sides of the valley echoed to the cry of “Thebes! Thebes!” The name was on every tongue and the burning hearts proclaimed it and went on shouting it until tears swept aside their pride and they wept; and Hur, the old man, wept with them. The mighty army struck camp and Ahmose stood in its midst, the flag of Thebes that Tetisheri had sewn with her own hands fluttering above him, as he directed his eyes, shining with dreams, to the city and said, “Thebes, Thebes, land of glory, refuge of our fathers and our grandfathers, be of good cheer, for tomorrow a new day rises upon you!”

  10

  The king summoned Commander Ahmose Ebana and said to him, “I entrust to you Thebes’ western shore. Attack it or lay siege to it as you think fit, taking the inspiration for your plans from the conditions around you.”

  The men set to thinking about the plan of attack for Thebes. Commander Mheb said, “The walls of Thebes are well-built, and intimidating, and will cost the attackers many lives. However, they must be assailed, for the southern gates are the city's only point of access.”

  Commander Deeb said, “It is more effective for attackers to lay siege to a city and starve it into submission, but we cannot think even for a moment of starving Thebes. Thus, the only way open to us is to attack its walls. We are not without means of attack for the walls such as ladders and siege towers, but what we have is still not sufficient and we hope that adequate quantities of these will reach us. In any case, if the price of Thebes is high, we will pay it cheerfully.”

  Ahmose said, “That is right. We must not waste time, for our people are penned up inside the city's walls and they are likely to be exposed to our barbaric enemy's revenge.”

  The same day, the fleet advanced toward the western shore of Thebes and found before it a fleet belonging to the Herdsmen, which they had collected from the ships that had fled from Hierakonpolis. The Egyptian navy fell upon it and the two fleets engaged in a violent battle, but the Egyptians’ superiority in numbers of men and ships was large and they tightened the noose around the enemy and subjected it to a withering fire.

  Ahmose sent battalions of bowmen and lancers to test the defending forc
es. They shot their arrows at widely separated points along the great wall and discovered that the Herdsmen had filled it with the toughest guards and an inexhaustible supply of weapons. The Egyptian commanders had been organizing their forces and when the order to attack was issued, they sent successive platoons of their men to different parts of the valley to attack the walls at widely separated points, the men protected by their long armor. The enemy's arrows fell on them in a devastating rain and the men aimed their bows at the openings in the impregnable walls. The fighting proceeded without mercy, the camp sending out company after company of soldiers eager for the fight. These fought with death-defying boldness and paid dearly for their daring, and the day ended with a terrible massacre, so that the king, alarmed at the sight of the wounded and fallen, cried out in anger, “My troops care nothing for Death, and Death reaps them like a harvest.”

  Casting glances of fascination and horror at the field, Hur said, “What a battle, my lord! I see bodies everywhere on the field.”

  Commander Mheb, his face dark, his clothes dust-stained, said, ‘Are we not staring Death itself in the face as we attack?”

  Ahmose said, “I will not drive my army to certain destruction. It seems better to me to send a limited number of men behind siege towers, so that the openings in the enemy's wall fill with the dead.”

  The king remained in a state of high excitement, which the news borne by the messengers, that the Egyptian fleet had overcome the remains of the Herdsmen's fleet and become the unchallenged master of the Nile, did nothing to reduce. That evening, the messenger whom he had sent to his family in Napata returned carrying a message from Tetisheri. Ahmose smoothed the letter in his hands and read as follows: