River God

by Wilbur Smith

  'It seems that they call themselves the Shepherd Kings,' I replied, 'the Hyksos.' The name would not have slid over my tongue so smoothly if I understood then what it would mean to our world.

  "The shepherds, hey? Well, they will not find my rascals an easy flock to herd? He dismissed them lightly, and was much more interested in my news of Lord Intef. 'If only we could be certain of his true whereabouts, I could send a detachment of men to arrest him, and bring him back to face up to justice. Wherever I walk on the estates that once belonged to my family, I feel the spirit of my father beside me. I know he will never rest until I avenge him.'

  'Would that it were so easy.' I shook my head. 'Intef is as cunning as a desert fox. I don't think we will ever see him in Egypt again.' As I said this, the dark gods must have chuckled to themselves.

  AS MY MISTRESS'S PREGNANCY ADVANCED, I was able to insist that she limited her many activities. I forbade her to visit the hospitals or the orphanage, for fear of infecting herself and her unborn infant with the vermin and the diseases of the poor. During the heat of the day I made her rest under the barrazza that I had built in the water-garden for the grand vizier. When she protested at the boredom of this enforced inactivity, Pharaoh sent his musicians to the garden to entertain her, and I was persuaded to leave my work on the Palace of Memnon to keep her company, to tell her stories and to discuss Tanus' latest exploits with her.

  I was very strict with her diet, and allowed her no wine or beer. I had the palace gardeners provide fresh fruits and vegetables each day, and I carved all the fat off her meat, for I knew that it would make the child in her belly sluggish. I prepared each of her meals myself and every night when I saw her to her bedchamber, I mixed a special potion with herbs and juices that would strengthen her infant.

  Of course, when she suddenly declared that she must have a stew made from the liver and kidneys of a gazelle, or a salad of larks' tongues or the roasted breast of the wild bustard, the king immediately sent a hundred of his huntsmen into the desert to procure these delicacies for her. I refrained from telling Lord Tanus of these strange cravings of my mistress, for I dreaded to learn that rather than prosecuting the war against the false pharaoh, the northern army had been sent into the desert to hunt gazelle or larks or bustard.

  As the day of her confinement approached, I lay awake at night worrying. I had promised the king a prince, but he was not expecting his heir to arrive so expeditiously. Even a god can count the days from the first of the festival of Osiris. There was nothing that I could do if the child turned out to be a princess, but at least I could prepare Pharaoh for her early arrival.

  Pharaoh had now conceived an interest in the subject of pregnancy and parturition, which temporarily rivalled his obsession with temples and tombs. I had to reassure him almost daily that the Lady Lostris' rather narrow hips were no obstacle to a normal birth, and that her tender age, far from being prejudicial, was highly favourable to a successful conclusion to our enterprise.

  I took the opportunity to inform him of the interesting but little-known fact that many of the great athletes, warriors and sages of history had been prematurely exposed to the light of day.

  'I believe, Your Majesty, that it's rather like the case of the sluggard who lies too long abed, and thus wastes his energy, while the great men are invariably early risers. I have noticed that you, Divine Pharaoh, are always about before sunrise. It would not surprise me to learn that you were also a premature birth.' I knew that he was not, but naturally he could not now contradict me. 'It would be a most propitious circumstance if this prince of yours should imitate his sire, and start early from his mother's womb.' I hoped that I had not belaboured my point, but the king seemed convinced by my eloquence.

  In the end, the child cooperated most handsomely by overstaying its allotted term by almost two weeks, and I did nothing to hurry it along. The time span was so close to the normal that no tongues could wag, but Pharaoh was blessed with the premature birth that he had come to believe was so desirable.

  It was no surprise to me that my mistress began her labour at a most inconvenient hour. Her waters broke in the third watch of the night. She was not in the habit of making matters too easy for me. At least this gave me the excuse of dispensing with the-services of a midwife, for I had little faith in those hags with the black, dried blood crusted under their long, ragged fingernails.

  Once she had begun, my Lady Lostris carried it off with her usual despatch and aplomb. I had barely time to shake myself fully awake, scrub my hands in hot wine and bless my instruments in the flame of the lamp, before she grunted and said quite cheerfully, 'You had better take another look, Taita. I think something is happening.' Although I knew it was much too soon, I humoured her. One glance was enough, and I shouted for her slave girls.

  'Hurry, you lazy strumpets! Fetch the royal wives!'

  'Which ones?' The first girl to answer my call tottered into the room half-naked and half-asleep.

  'All of them, any of them.' No prince could inherit the double crown unless his birth had been witnessed, and it was formally attested that no exchange had taken place.

  The royal women began to arrive just as the child revealed itself for the first time. My lady was seized by an overpowering convulsion, and then the crown of the head appeared. I had dreaded that it might be surmounted by a shock of red-gold curls, but what I saw was a thick dark pelt like that of one of the river otters. It was much later that the colour would change and the red would begin to sparkle in the black locks, like points of polished garnets, and then only when the sun shone upon it.

  'Push!' I called to my mistress. 'Push hard!' And she responded lustily. The young bones of her pelvis, not yet tempered to rigidity by the years, spread to give the infant fair passage, and the way was well oiled. The child took me unawares. It came out like a stone from a sling-shot, and the tiny, slippery body almost flew from my hands.

  Before I had a good hold on it, my mistress struggled up on her elbows. Her hair was plastered to her scalp with sweat and her expression was desperate with anxiety. 'Is it a boy? Tell me! Tell me!'

  The roomful of royal ladies crowding around the bed were witness to the very first act the child performed, as it entered this world of ours. From a penis as long as my little finger, the Prince Memnon, the first of that name, shot a fountain almost as high as the ceiling. I was full in the path of this warm stream, and it drenched me to the skin.

  'Is it a boy?' my mistress cried again, and a dozen voices answered her together.

  'A boy! Hail, Memnon, the royal prince of Egypt!'

  I could not speak yet, for my eyes burned not only with royal urine, but with tears of joy and relief as his birth cry rang out, angry and hot with temper.

  He waved his arms at me and kicked out so strongly that I almost lost my grip again. As my vision cleared I was able to make out the strong, lean body and the small, proud head with the thick pelt of dark hair.

  I LOST COUNT LONG AGO OF HOW MANY infants I have birthed, but there had been nothing in my experience to prepare me for this. I felt all the love and devotion of which I was capable crystallized into that moment. I knew that something which would last a lifetime, and which would grow stronger with each passing day, had begun. I knew that my life had taken another random turn, and that nothing would ever be the same again.

  As I cut the cord and bathed the child, I was filled with a sense of religious awe such as I had never known in the sanctuary of any one of Egypt's manifold gods. I feasted my eyes and my soul upon that perfect little body and upon the red and wrinkled face in which the signs of strength and stubborn courage were stamped as clearly as upon the features of his true father.

  I laid him in his mother's arms, and as he found and latched on to her swollen nipple like a leopard on to the throat of a gazelle, my mistress looked up at me. I could not speak, but then there were no words that could frame what passed silently between us. We both knew. It had begun, something so wonderful that as yet neither of u
s could fully comprehend it.

  I left her to the joy of her son and went to report to the king. I was in no hurry. I knew that the news would have been carried to him long since. The royal ladies are not renowned for their reticence. He was probably on his way to the harem at this very moment.

  I dawdled in the water-garden, possessed by a dreaming sense of unreality. The dawn was breaking, and the sun god, Ammon-Ra, showed the tip of his fiery disc above the eastern hills. I whispered a prayer of thanks to him. As I stood with my eyes uplifted, a flock of the palace pigeons circled above the gardens. As they turned, the rays of the sun caught their wings and they flashed like bright jewels in the sky.

  Then I saw the dark speck high above the circling flock, and even at that distance I recognized it immediately. It was a wild falcon, come out of the desert. It folded back its sharp wings and began its stoop. It had chosen the leading bird in the flock, and the dive was deadly accurate and inexorable. It struck the pigeon in a burst of feathers, like a puff of pale smoke, and the bird was dead in the air. Always a falcon will bind to its prey and drop to earth with it gripped in its talons.

  This, time that did not happen. The falcon killed the pigeon and then opened his talons and released it. The shattered carcass of the bird fell free, and, with a harsh scream, the falcon circled over my head. Three times it circled and three times it uttered that thrilling, warlike call. Three is one of the most potent magical numbers. From all these things I realized that this was no natural occurrence. The falcon was a messenger, or even the god Horus in his other form.

  The carcass of the pigeon fell at my feet, droplets of its warm blood splattered my sandals. I knew that it was a token from the god. A sign of his protection, and patronage for the infant prince. I understood also that it was a charge to me. The god was commending him to my care.

  I took the dead pigeon in my hands, and lifted it to the sky. 'Joyfully I accept this trust that you have placed upon me, oh Horus. Through all the days of my life I will be true to it.'

  The falcon called again, one last wild shriek, and then it banked away and on quick, stabbing wing-beats, flew out across the wide Nile waters and disappeared into the wilderness, back towards the western fields of paradise where the gods live.

  I plucked a single wing-feather from the pigeon. Later I placed it under the mattress of the prince's cot, for good luck.

  PHARAOH'S JOY AND PRIDE IN HIS HEIR were unbounded. He declared a nativity feast in his honour. For one entire night the citizens of Upper Egypt sang and danced in the streets, and gorged on the meat and wine that Pharaoh provided, and they blessed the Prince Memnon with every bowlful that went down their gullets. The fact that he was the son of my Lady Lostris, whom they loved, made the occasion of his birth all the more joyous.

  So young and resilient was my mistress that within days, she was well enough to appear before the full court of Egypt, bearing her infant at her breast. Seated on the lesser throne below that of the king, she made a picture of lovely young motherhood. When she opened her robe and lifted out one of her milk-swollen breasts and before the assembled court gave the infant suck, they cheered her so loudly as to startle the infant. He spat out the nipple and roared at them in scarlet-faced outrage, and the nation took him to its heart.

  'He is a lion,' they declared. 'His heart is pumped up with the blood of kings and warriors.'

  Once the prince had been quieted again, and his mouth stopped up with the nipple, Pharaoh rose to address us, his subjects.

  'I acknowledge this child to be my issue and the direct line of my blood and succession. He is my first-born son, and shall be Pharaoh after me. To you noble lords and ladies, to all my subjects, I commend the Prince Memnon.'

  The cheers went on and on, for no one amongst them wanted to be the first to fall silent and bring his loyalty into question.

  During all of this I stood with other servants and slaves of the royal household in one of the upper galleries which overlooked the hall. By craning my head, I was able to pick out the tall figure of Lord Tanus. He was standing in the third rank below the throne with Nembet and the other military commanders. Although he cheered with the rest of them, I could read the expression on his broad, open face that he strove to disguise. His son was claimed by another and it was beyond his power to prevent it. Even I, who knew and understood him so well, could only guess at what agony he was suffering.

  When at last the king ordered silence and he had their attention once more, he continued, 'I commend to you also the mother of the prince, the Lady Lostris. Know all men that she sits now closest to my throne. From this day forward she is elevated to the rank of chief consort and the senior wife of Pharaoh. From henceforth, in name she will become Queen Lostris, while in precedence and preferment she ranks after the king and his prince alone. Furthermore, until the prince has reached the age of his majority, Queen Lostris shall act as my regent and, when I am unable to do so, she will stand at the head of the nation in my stead.'

  I did not think there was a soul in all the Upper Kingdom who did not love my mistress, except perhaps some of the royal wives who had been unable to provide the king with a male heir, and who now found themselves outranked by her and superseded in the order of precedence. All the rest showed their love in the acclaim with which they greeted this pronouncement.

  To end the ceremony of the naming of Pharaoh's heir, the royal family left the hall. In the main courtyard of the palace, Pharaoh mounted the sledge of state, and with Queen Lostris seated at his side and the prince in her arms, they were drawn by the span of white bullocks down the Avenue of Rams to the temple of Osiris to make sacrifice to the god. Both sides of the sacred avenue were lined a hundred deep by the citizens of Thebes. With a mighty voice they demonstrated their devotion to the king and their love for the queen and her new-born prince.

  That night, as I waited on her and the child, she whispered to me, 'Oh, Taita, did you see Tanus in the crowd? What a day of mixed joy and sorrow this has been. I could have wept for my love. He was so tall and brave, and he had to watch and listen when his son was taken from him. I wanted to jump to my feet in all that throng and cry out, "This is the son of Tanus, Lord Harrab, and I love them both." '

  'I am pleased for the sake of all of us, Your Majesty, that for once you were able to restrain that wayward tongue of yours.'

  She giggled. 'It is so strange to have you call me that— Your Majesty—it makes me feel like an impostor.' She transferred the prince from one breast to the other, and at the movement he released from both ends of his tiny body a double blast of air which in volume and resonance was truly imperial.

  'It is apparent that he was conceived in a wind-storm,' I remarked drily, and she giggled again and then immediately afterwards sighed dolefully.

  'My darling Tanus will never share these intimate moments with us. Do you realize that he has not yet held Memnon in his arms, and it is possible he never will? I think I am about to cry again.'

  'Restrain yourself, mistress. If you weep, it might sour your milk.' A warning which was untrue but effective in bending her to my will. She sniffed back her tears.

  'Is there no way that we can let Tanus enjoy our baby as we do?'

  I thought about it for a while and then made a suggestion which caused her to cry out with pleasure. As if to endorse what I had said, the prince broke resounding wind once more.

  The very next day when Pharaoh came to visit his son, the queen put my suggestion into effect. 'Dear and divine husband, have you given thought to selecting official tutors for Prince Memnon?'

  Pharaoh laughed indulgently. 'He is still only an infant. Should he not first learn to walk and talk, before he is instructed in other skills?'

  'I think his tutors should be appointed now, so they can grow to know him, and he them.'

  'Very well.' The king smiled, and took the child on to his knee. 'Who do you suggest?'

  'For his schooling we need one of our great scholars. Some person who understands all the sci
ences and mysteries.'

  The king's eyes twinkled. 'I cannot think of one who answers that description,' and he grinned at me. The child had altered Pharaoh's disposition; since Memnon's birth, he had become almost jovial, and for a moment I expected him to wink at me. However, his new, congenial attitude to life did not extend quite that far.

  The queen continued, unruffled by this exchange, "Then we need a soldier well versed in the warlike arts, and the exercise of arms to train him as a warrior. He should, I think, be young and of good breeding. Trustworthy, of course, and loyal to the crown.'

  'Who do you suggest for that position, my dear? Very few of my soldiers answer to all those virtues.' I do not think there was any guile or malice in Pharaoh's question, but nevertheless my mistress was no fool. She inclined her head gracefully and said, "The king is wise, and knows who, from all his generals, best suits that role.'

  At the very next assize the king announced the prince's tutors. The slave and physician, Taita, was to be responsible for Memnon's schooling and deportment. This surprised very few, but there was a buzz of comment when the king went on, 'For his training in arms and in military tactics and strategy, the Great Lion of Egypt, Lord Harrab, shall henceforth be responsible.' Accordingly it became the duty of Lord Harrab, when he was not on campaign, to wait upon the prince at the beginning of each week.

  While my mistress waited for her quarters in the new palace that I was building across the river to be -completed, she had moved from the harem into a wing of the grand vizier's palace that overlooked the water-garden I had built for her father. This was in accordance with her new status as the senior wife and consort. The weekly audience that Prince Memnon held for his official tutors took place under the barrazza, with Queen Lostris in attendance. Very often there was a score of other officials or courtiers present, and occasionally Pharaoh himself arrived with all his train, so we were under considerable constraint.