H Rider Haggard - Moon of Israel

by Moon Of Israel [lit]

  "Your Highness, how can I say to the Prince--'So much shall you love this or that woman and no more?' Moreover, why do you fear that which has not and may never come about?"

  "I do not know how you can say such a thing, Scribe, still I ask you to say it if you can. As to why I fear, it is because I seem to feel the near shadow of some woman lying cold upon me and building a wall of blackness between his Highness and myself."

  "It is but a dream, Princess."

  "Mayhap. I hope so. Yet I think otherwise. Oh! Ana, cannot you, who study the hearts of men and women, understand my case? I have married where I can never hope to be loved as other women are, I who am a wife, yet not a wife. I read your thought; it is--why then did you marry? Since I have told you so much I will tell you that also. First, it is because the Prince is different to other men and in his own fashion above them, yes, far above any with whom I could have wed as royal heiress of Egypt. Secondly, because being cut off from love, what remains to me but ambition? At least I would be a great queen, as was Hatshepu in her day, and lift my country out of the many troubles in which it is sunk and write my name large upon the books of history, which I could only do by taking Pharaoh's heir to husband, as is my duty."

  She brooded a while, then added, "Now I have shown you all my thought. Whether I have been wise to do so the gods know alone and time will tell me."

  "Princess," I said, "I thank you for trusting me and I will help you if I may. Yet I am troubled. I, a humble man if of good blood, who a little while ago was but a scribe and a student, a dreamer who had known trouble also, have suddenly by chance, or some divine decree, been lifted high in the favour of the heir of Egypt, and it would seem have even won your trust. Now I wonder how I shall bear myself in this new place which in truth I never sought."

  "I do not know, who find the present and its troubles enough to carry. But, doubtless, the decree of which you speak that set you there has also written down what will be the end of all. Meanwhile, I have a gift for you. Say, Scribe, have you ever handled any weapon besides a pen?"

  "Yes, your Highness, as a lad I was skilled in sword play. Moreover, though I do not love war and bloodshed, some years ago I fought in the great battle between the Ninebow Barbarians, when Pharaoh called upon the young men of Memphis to do their part. With my own hands I slew two in fair fight, though one nearly brought me to my end," and I pointed to a scar which showed red through my grey hair where a spear had bitten deep.

  "It is well, or so I think, who love soldiers better than stainers of papyrus pith."

  Then, going to a painted chest of reeds, she took from it a wonderful shirt of mail fashioned of bronze rings, and a short sword also of bronze, having a golden hilt of which the end was shaped to the likeness of the head of a lion, and with her own hands gave them to me, saying:

  "These are spoils that my grandsire, the great Rameses, took in his youth from a prince of the Khitah, whom he smote with his own hands in Syria in that battle whereof your grandfather made the poem. Wear the shirt, which no spear will pierce, beneath your robe and gird the sword about you when you go down yonder among the Israelites, whom I do not trust. I have given a like coat to the Prince. Let it be your duty to see that it is upon his sacred person day and night. Let it be your duty also, if need arises, with this sword to defend him to the death. Farewell."

  "May all the gods reject me from the Fields of the Blessed if I fail in this trust," I answered, and departed wondering, to seek sleep which, as it chanced, I was not to find for a while.

  For as I went down the corridor, led by one of the ladies of the household, whom should I find waiting at the end of it but old Pambasa to inform me with many bows that the Prince needed my presence. I asked how that could be seeing he had dismissed me for the night. He replied that he did not know, but he was commanded to conduct me to the private chamber, the same room in which I had first seen his Highness. Thither I went and found him warming himself at the fire, for the night was cold. Looking up he bade Pambasa admit those who were waiting, then noting the shirt of mail and the sword I carried in my hand, said:

  "You have been with the Princess, have you not, and she must have had much to say to you for your talk was long? Well, I think I can guess its purport who from a child have known her mind. She told you to watch me well, body and heart and all that comes from the heart--oh! and much else. Also she gave you that Syrian gear to wear among the Hebrews as she has given the like to me, being of a careful mind which foresees everything. Now, hearken, Ana; I grieve to keep you from your rest, who must be weary both with talk and travel. But old Bakenkhonsu, whom you know, waits without, and with him Ki the great magician, whom I think you have not seen. He is a man of wonderful lore and in some ways not altogether human. At least he does strange feats of magic, and at times both the past and the future seem to be open to his sight, though as we know neither the one nor the other, who can tell whether he reads them truly. Doubtless he has, or thinks he has, some message to me from the heavens, which I thought you might wish to hear."

  "I wish it much, Prince, if I am worthy, and you will protect me from the anger of this magician whom I fear."

  "Anger sometimes turns to trust, Ana. Did you not find it so just now in the case of her Highness, as I told you might very well happen? Hush! They come. Be seated and prepare your tablets to make record of what they say."

  The curtains were drawn and through them came the aged Bakenkhonsu leaning upon his staff, and with him another man, Ki himself, clad in a white robe and having his head shaven, for he was an hereditary priest of Amon of Thebes and an initiate of Isis, Mother of Mysteries. Also his office was that of Kherheb, or chief magician of Egypt. At first sight there was nothing strange about this man. Indeed, he might well have been a middle-aged merchant by his looks; in body he was short and stout; in face fat and smiling. But in this jovial countenance were set two very strange eyes, grey-hued rather than black. While the rest of the face seemed to smile these eyes looked straight into nothingness as do those of a statue. Indeed they were like to the eyes or rather the eye-places of a stone statue, so deeply were they set into the head. For my part I can only say I thought them awful, and by their look judged that whatever Ki might be he was no cheat.

  This strange pair bowed to the Prince and seated themselves at a sign from him, Bakenkhonsu upon a stool because he found it difficult to rise, and Ki, who was younger, scribe fashion on the ground.

  "What did I tell you, Bakenkhonsu?" said Ki in a full, rich voice, ending the words with a curious chuckle.

  "You told me, Magician, that we should find the Prince in this chamber of which you described every detail to me as I see it now, although neither of us have entered it before. You said also that seated therein on the ground would be the scribe Ana, whom I know but you do not, having in his hands waxen tablets and a stylus and by him a coat of curious mail and a lion-hilted sword."

  "That is strange," interrupted the Prince, "but forgive me, Bakenkhonsu sees these things. If you, O Ki, would tell us what is written upon Ana's tablets which neither of you can see, it would be stranger still, that is if anything is written."

  Ki smiled and stared upwards at the ceiling. Presently he said:

  "The scribe Ana uses a shorthand of his own that is not easy to decipher. Yet I see written on the tablets the price he obtained for some house in a city that is not named--it is so much. Also I see the sums he disbursed for himself, a servant, and the food of an ass at two inns where he stopped upon a journey. They are so much and so much. Also there is a list of papyrus rolls and the words, 'blue cloak,' and then an erasure."

  "Is that right, Ana?" asked the Prince.

  "Quite right," I answered with awe, "only the words 'blue cloak,' which it is true I wrote upon the tablet, have also been erased."

  Ki chuckled and turned his eyes from the ceiling to my face.

  "Would your Highness wish me to tell you anything of what is written upon the tablets of this scribe's memory as well as upon
those of wax which he holds in his hand? They are easier to decipher than the others and I see on them many things of interest. For instance, secret words that seem to have been said to him by some Great One within an hour, matters of high policy, I think. For instance, a certain saying, I think of your Highness's, as to shivering upon the edge of water on a cold day, which when entered produced heat, and the answer thereto. For instance, words that were spoken in this palace when an alabaster cup was broke. By the way, Scribe, that was a very good place you chose in which to hide one half of the cup in the false bottom of a chest in your chamber, a chest that is fastened with a cord and sealed with a scarab of the time of the second Rameses. I think that the other half of the cup is somewhat nearer at hand," and turning, he stared at the wall where I could see nothing save slabs of alabaster.

  Now I sat open-mouthed, for how could this man know these things, and the Prince laughed outright, saying:

  "Ana, I begin to think you keep your counsel ill. At least I should think so, were it not that you have had no time to tell what the Princess yonder may have said to you, and can scarcely know the trick of the sliding panel in that wall which I have never shown to you."

  Ki chuckled again and a smile grew on old Bakenkhonsu's broad and wrinkled face.

  "O Prince," I began, "I swear to you that never has one word passed my lips of aught----"

  "I know it, friend," broke in the Prince, "but it seems there are some who do not wait for words but can read the Book of Thought. Therefore it is not well to meet them too often, since all have thoughts that should be known only to them and God. Magician, what is your business with me? Speak on as though we were alone."

  "This, Prince. You go upon a journey among the Hebrews, as all have heard. Now, Bakenkhonsu and I, also two seers of my College, seeing that we all love you and that your welfare is much to Egypt, have separately sought out the future as regards the issue of this journey. Although what we have learned differs in some matters, on others it is the same. Therefore we thought it our duty to tell you what we have learned."

  "Say on, Kherheb."

  "First, then, that your Highness's life will be in danger."

  "Life is always in danger, Ki. Shall I lose it? If so, do not fear to tell me."

  "We do not know, but we think not, because of the rest that is revealed to us. We learn that it is not your body only that will be in danger. Upon this journey you will see a woman whom you will come to love. This woman will, we think, bring you much sorrow and also much joy."

  "Then perhaps the journey is worth making, Ki, since many travel far before they find aught they can love. Tell me, have I met this woman?"

  "There we are troubled, Prince, for it would seem--unless we are deceived--that you have met her often and often; that you have known her for thousands of years, as you have known that man at your side for thousands of years."

  Seti's face grew very interested.

  "What do you mean, Magician?" he asked, eyeing him keenly. "How can I who am still young have known a woman and a man for thousands of years?"

  Ki considered him with his strange eyes, and answered:

  "You have many titles, Prince. Is not one of them 'Lord of Rebirths,' and if so, how did you get it and what does it mean?"

  "It is. What it means I do not know, but it was given to me because of some dream that my mother had the night before I was born. Do /you/ tell /me/ what it means, since you seem to know so much."

  "I cannot, Prince. The secret is not one that has been shown to me. Yet there was an aged man, a magician like myself from whom I learned much in my youth--Bakenkhonsu knew him well--who made a study of this matter. He told me he was sure, because it had been revealed to him, that men do not live once only and then depart hence for ever. He said that they live many times and in many shapes, though not always on this world, and that between each life there is a wall of darkness."

  "If so, of what use are lives which we do not remember after death has shut the door of each of them?"

  "The doors may open again at last, Prince, and show us all the chambers through which our feet have wandered from the beginning."

  "Our religion teaches us, Ki, that after death we live eternally elsewhere in our own bodies, which we find again on the day of resurrection. Now eternity, having no end, can have no beginning; it is a circle. Therefore if the one be true, namely that we live on, it would seem that the other must be true, namely that we have always lived."

  "That is well reasoned, Prince. In the early days, before the priests froze the thought of man into blocks of stone and built of them shrines to a thousand gods, many held that this reasoning was true, as then they held that there was but one god."

  "As do these Israelites whom I go to visit. What say you of their god, Ki?"

  "That /he/ is the same as our gods, Prince. To men's eyes God has many faces, and each swears that the one he sees is the only true god. Yet they are wrong, for all are true."

  "Or perchance false, Ki, unless even falsehood is a part of truth. Well, you have told me of two dangers, one to my body and one to my heart. Has any other been revealed to your wisdom?"

  "Yes, Prince. The third is that this journey may in the end cost you your throne."

  "If I die certainly it will cost me my throne."

  "No, Prince, if you live."

  "Even so, Ki, I think that I could endure life seated more humbly than on a throne, though whether her Highness could endure it is another matter. Then you say that if I go upon this journey another will be Pharaoh in my place."

  "We do not say that, Prince. It is true that our arts have shown us another filling your place in a time of wizardry and wonders and of the death of thousands. Yet when we look again we see not that other but you once more filling your own place."

  Here I, Ana, bethought me of my vision in Pharaoh's hall.

  "The matter is even worse than I thought, Ki, since having once left the crown behind me, I think that I should have no wish to wear it any more," said Seti. "Who shows you all these things, and how?"

  "Our /Kas/, which are our secret selves, show them to us, Prince, and in many ways. Sometimes it is by dreams or visions, sometimes by pictures on water, sometimes by writings in the desert sand. In all these fashions, and by others, our /Kas/, drawing from the infinite well of wisdom that is hidden in the being of every man, give us glimpses of the truth, as they give us who are instructed power to work marvels."

  "Of the truth. Then these things you tell me are true?"

  "We believe so, Prince."

  "Then being true must happen. So what is the use of your warning me against what must happen? There cannot be two truths. What would you have me do? Not go upon this journey? Why have you told me that I must not go, since if I did not go the truth would become a lie, which it cannot? You say it is fated that I should go and because I go such and such things will come about. And yet you tell me not to go, for that is what you mean. Oh! Kherheb Ki and Bakenkhonsu, doubtless you are great magicians and strong in wisdom, but there are greater than you who rule the world, and there is a wisdom to which yours is but as a drop of water to the Nile. I thank you for your warnings, but to-morrow I go down to the land of Goshen to fulfil the commands of Pharaoh. If I come back again we will talk more of these matters here upon the earth. If I do not come back, perchance we will talk of them elsewhere. Farewell."

  Chapter VI

  THE LAND OF GOSHEN

  The Prince Seti and all his train, a very great company, came in safety to the land of Goshen, I, Ana, travelling with him in his chariot. It was then as now a rich land, quite flat after the last line of desert hills through which we travelled by a narrow, tortuous path. Everywhere it was watered by canals, between which lay the grain fields wherein the seed had just been sown. Also there were other fields of green fodder whereon were tethered beasts by the hundred, and beyond these, upon the drier soil, grazed flocks of sheep. The town Goshen, if so it could be called, was but a poor place, numbers of mud
huts, no more, in the centre of which stood a building, also of mud, with two brick pillars in front of it, that we were told was the temple of this people, into the inner parts of which none might enter save their High-priest. I laughed at the sight of it, but the Prince reproved me, saying that I should not judge the spirit by the body, or of the god by his house.