by Mika Waltari
He went with a smile on his lips, for death comes at times like bliss after great agony, and his eyes before they faded saw strange visions. I surveyed him trembling, forgetful of his race, his speech, and the color of his skin; I remembered only that he, my fellow man, died by my hand and my wickedness. Hardened though I was by all the deaths
I had witnessed during my lifetime, yet my heart quaked at the passing of Prince Shubattu, and the tears poured down my cheeks.
The Hittites laid his body in strong wine and honey that they might bear it to the royal tombs, where eagles and wolves watched over the eternal sleep of kings. They were touched by my emotion, and at my desire they willingly certified on a clay tablet that I was in no way to blame for Prince Shubattu’s death but had exerted every art to save him. They attested this with their seals and with the seal of Prince Shubattu, that no shadow might fall on me in Egypt because of their lord’s death. For they judged Egypt by themselves and believed that when I told Princess Baketamon of Prince Shubattu’s fate she would have me put to death.
Thus I saved Egypt from the power of the Hittites, and I ought to have rejoiced. I did not, being oppressed with the sense that death followed ever at my heels. I had become a physician that I might heal and give life, but my father and mother died because of my wickedness, Minea died because of my weakness, Merit and little Thoth because of my blindness, and Pharaoh Akhnaton because of my hatred and my friendship and for the sake of Egypt. All whom I loved died a violent death-Prince Shubattu also, whom I had grown to love during his death agony. Everywhere, a curse went with me.
I returned to Tanis, to Memphis, and at last to Thebes. I gave orders for my ship to be made fast at the quay of the golden house, and having entered the presence of Eie and Horemheb, I said to them, “Your will has been done. Prince Shubattu has perished in the Sinai desert, and no shadow falls on Egypt because of his death.”
They rejoiced greatly at my words. Eie took the golden chain of the scepter bearer from his neck and hung it about my own, and Horemheb said, “Relate this also to Princess Baketamon; she will not believe us if we tell her of it, but will fancy that I have had him assassinated out of jealousy.”
Princess Baketamon received me. She had painted her cheeks and mouth brick red, but in her dark, oval eyes lurked death.
I said to her, “Your chosen, Prince Shubattu, released you from your promise before he died. He died in the desert of Sinai, of the desert sickness. No arts of mine availed to save him nor yet those of the Hittite physician.”
She took the golden bangles from her wrists, and setting them on mine, she said, “Your news is good, Sinuhe, and I thank you for it. I have already been initiated as a priestess of Sekhmet, and my crimson robe is in readiness for the festival. Nevertheless, this desert sickness is only too familiar, and I know that my brother Akhnaton, whom I loved with a sister’s love, died of the same. Accursed be you, therefore, Sinuhe-accursed to all eternity! May your grave also be accursed and your name fall into perpetual oblivion. You have made the throne of the Pharaohs a playground for robbers, and in my blood you have desecrated the blood of the Pharaohs.”
Bowing deeply before her, I stretched forth my hands and said, “Be it as you say.”
I left her, and she bade her slaves sweep the floor after me all the way to the threshold of the golden house.
4
During this time the body of Tutankhamon had been prepared to withstand death, and Eie had the priests bear him swiftly westward to his eternal resting place, which had been hewn in the rock in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. He had with him many presents, although Eie kept for himself a great portion of the treasure that Tutankhamon had intended for burial. As soon as the entrance to the tomb had been sealed, Eie pronounced the period of mourning at an end, and Horemheb sent his chariots to occupy the streets of Thebes.
None rebelled when Eie was crowned Pharaoh, for the people were weary, as a beast that is goaded with spears along an endless path is weary. No one questioned his right to the crown.
Thus Eie was crowned Pharaoh. The priests, whom he had bribed with countless gifts, anointed him with holy oil in the great temple, and the people shouted his praise for he distributed bread and beer among them, and so poor had Egypt become that these were now munificent gifts. But many were aware that henceforth the true ruler of Egypt was Horemheb, and they wondered silently why he did not himself take the power into his own hands instead of allowing the aged and detested Eie to ascend the throne of the Pharaohs.
But Horemheb knew well what he was doing, for the people’s cup of suffering was not yet drained to the dregs. Bad news from the land of Kush summoned him to war against the Negroes, and after that he still had to renew the conflict against the Hittites for the conquest of Syria. For this reason he wanted the people to blame Eie for their sufferings and want, that later they might praise the name of Horemheb as victor and restorer of peace.
Eie never considered this, being dazzled by power and by the glitter of the crowns, and he willingly fulfilled his part of the bargain he had struck with Horemheb on the day of Akhnaton’s death. The priests brought Princess Baketamon in ceremonial procession to the temple of Sekhmet, where they arrayed her in the crimson robe and raised her on Sekhmet’s altar. Horemheb arrived at the temple with his men, in celebration of his victory over the Hittites. All Thebes shouted his praise. Having distributed golden chains and tokens of honor among his men, he let them go. Then he stepped into the temple, and the priests closed its copper doors behind him. Sekhmet appeared to him in the shape of Princess Baketamon, and he took her. He was a warrior and had waited long.
That night all Thebes celebrated the festival of Sekhmet, and the sky glowed red with the light of lamps and torches. Horemheb’s scum drank all the taverns dry and smashed in the doors of the pleasure houses. At dawn the soldiers once more assembled before the temple of Sekhmet to see Horemheb come forth. When the copper gates were opened and he stepped out, they cried aloud and swore in many tongues, for Sekhmet had been faithful to her lion’s head. Horemheb’s face and arms and shoulders were scratched and bleeding as if a lion had torn him with its claws. This diverted his men greatly, and they loved him for it. But Princess Baketamon was borne away by the priests to the golden house, without showing herself to the people.
Such was the bridal night of my friend Horemheb, and I know not what pleasure he had of it. Shortly afterward he mustered his troops and went to mobilize his army at the First Cataract in the south, in order to march on the land of Kush.
Eie exulted blindly in his power, and he said to me, “In the whole land of Kem no one stands higher than myself, and it matters not whether I live or die: Pharaoh dies not-he lives forever! I shall step aboard the golden boat of my father Ammon and sail across the heavens into the west. I am already an old man, and my deeds glare out at me from the darkness of night. I am glad that I need no longer fear death.”
But I mocked him, saying, “You are an old man and I believed you wise. You cannot suppose that the stinking oil of the priests has rendered you immortal in the twinkling of an eye? Royal headdress or none, you are the same man still. Death will soon overtake you, and life depart.”
His mouth began to quiver, and fear glinted in his eyes as he said plaintively, “Have I then committed all these crimes in vain? Was it in vain that I sowed death about me all my days? No, no-assuredly you are wrong, Sinuhe. The priests will save me from the abyss of death and will preserve my body to all eternity. My body must be immortal since I am Pharaoh, and for the same reason I cannot be held guilty for my deeds.”
Thus did his reason begin to fade, and he had no joy of his power. In the horror of death he coddled himself and dared not even drink wine. His diet was dry bread and boiled milk. As time went on, he was filled with ever increasing dread of assassins, and whole days passed during which he dared not taste food for fear of poison. His old age found him entangled in the net of his own actions, and he became so suspicious and cruel that
all shunned him.
A seed quickened for Baketamon, and in her rage at this she harmed herself in attempting to destroy the child while it was yet in her womb. The life in her was stronger than death, and when her time came, she bore a son to Horemheb, and in painful labor, for her loins were narrow. The physicians and slaves were compelled to hide the child from her lest she do it harm. Many tales were afterward told of this child, such as that he had been born with the head of a lion or with a helmet. I can bear witness that there was nothing abnormal about the boy, who was healthy and robust. Horemheb gave him the name of Rameses.
Horemheb was still fighting in the land of Kush, and his chariots wrought great destruction among the Negroes. He burned their straw-built villages and sent women and children into slavery in Egypt, but he enrolled the men in his army, where they proved good warriors, no longer having any families to distract them. Thus Horemheb built up a new army with which to meet the Hittites, for these men were strong, and when once they had worked themselves to a frenzy with the sound of their sacred drums, they felt no fear of death.
From the land of Kush Horemheb also sent great herds of cattle to Egypt so that grain grew luxuriantly once more in the land of Kem, the children had no lack of milk, and the priests were well supplied with beasts for the sacrifice. Whole tribes fled from their homes in Kush into the jungles-into the regions of the elephants and giraffes-beyond the boundary stones of Egypt. For years the land of Kush was deserted.
After two years of war Horemheb returned to Thebes, bringing with him much booty. He distributed gifts and held victory celebrations for ten days and ten nights. All work stopped, and drunken soldiers crawled about the streets bleating like goats, and the women of Thebes were delivered in due time of dark-skinned children.
Horemheb held his son in his arms and taught him to walk, and he said to me proudly, “See, Sinuhe! A new race of kings has sprung from my loins, and in the veins of my son runs the sacred blood although I was born with dung between the toes.”
He also went to Eie, but Eie in his fear shut and barricaded the door against him and cried in his shrill old voice, “Begone from me, Horemheb! I am Pharaoh, and I know that you have come to slay me and to set the crowns on your head.”
But Horemheb laughed heartily, kicked open his door, and shook him, saying, “I do not mean to kill you, old fox! You old bawd, I shall not take your life, for you are more to me than a mere father-in-law and your life is precious. It is true that your lungs whistle, and your mouth slobbers, and your knees are feeble-but you must hold out, Eie! You must survive another war, that Egypt may have a Pharaoh over whom to pour out its wrath while I am away.”
To his consort Baketamon, Horemheb brought great gifts: gold dust in plaited baskets, heads of lions he had killed, ostrich feathers, and live monkeys.
She would not even look at them and said to him, “In the sight of men I am your wife, and I have borne you a son. Be content with that, and know that if ever you lay hand on me again I shall spit on your couch and deceive you as no wife has yet deceived her husband. To bring shame on you I will take pleasure with slaves and porters and will lie with donkey drivers in the public places of Thebes. Your hands and body smell of blood, and they sicken me.”
Her opposition inflamed Horemheb’s desire for her; he came to me complaining bitterly and said, “Sinuhe, mix me a draught which I may give her to make her sleep so that at least I may go to her then and have my way with her.”
I refused, but he sought out other physicians who gave him dangerous drugs. He administered these to her secretly. When he rose from her embrace, she hated him more bitterly than before and said, “Remember what I told you-remember my warning!”
Soon Horemheb departed for Syria to prepare his campaign against the Hittites, for as he said, “The great Pharaohs set up their boundary stones in Kadesh, and not until my chariots have entered Kadesh once more will I be content.”
When Princess Baketamon perceived that once more a seed quickened within her, she shut herself into her room in the desire to be alone with her degradation. Servants were obliged to leave food for her outside her door, and when her time drew near, the physicians had her secretly watched. They feared lest she bring forth the child alone and send him down the river in a reed boat, as those mothers did who incurred shame by giving birth. She did not do this: when her time came she summoned her physicians. The pains of her labor brought a smile to her lips, and she brought forth a son to whom, without consulting Horemheb, she gave the name of Setos. So bitterly did she hate this child that she called him He who was born of Set.
When she recovered from her lying in, she bade her slaves anoint her and array her in royal linen. Having been ferried over to the other shore, she went alone to the fish market in Thebes. There she spoke with donkey men and water carriers and gutters of fish.
She said to them, “I am Princess Baketamon, the consort of Egypt’s great general, Horemheb. Two sons have I borne him, but he is a dull and slothful man and smells of blood. I have no pleasure in him. Come and take pleasure with me that I may enjoy you, for your scarred hands and your wholesome smell of dung please me, and I also like the smell of fish.”
The men of the fish market marveled at her words. They were frightened and sought to evade her, but she followed them with persistence, and baring her beauty to them she said, “Am I not fair? Why do you hesitate? Know that even should you consider me old and ugly, yet I desire from each of you no other gift than a stone-and let the stone correspond in size to the pleasure I give you.”
Such a thing had never before happened to the men of the fish market. Their eyes brightened at her beauty. The royal linen of her dress lured them, and the perfume of her salves mounted to their heads.
They said one to another, “Truly she must be a goddess who reveals herself to us because we have found favor with her. We should do wrong to oppose her will, and the pleasure she offers us must be divine.”
Others said, “At least our pleasure will cost us little, for even Negro women demand at least one copper piece. No doubt she is a priestess who is collecting stones with which to build a new temple to Bast, and we shall perform a deed acceptable to the gods if we do as she bids us.”
They followed her to the reed swamps by the riverbank, where she led them to be out of the sight of men. And there all day Baketamon gave pleasure to the men from the fish market, cheating them of none of their delight but greatly favoring them. Many brought her large stones such as are bought of quarrymen at a high price, so highly did they rate the pleasure she gave them.
They said one to another, “Truly we have never met such a woman.
Her mouth is melted honey and her breasts ripe apples, and her embrace is as hot as the charcoal bed on which fish are grilled.”
They begged her to return soon to the fish market and promised to gather many large stones for her. She smiled at them modestly, thanking them for their kindness and for the great joy they had given her. When in the evening she returned to the golden house, she was obliged to hire a sturdier craft to ferry across all the stones she had collected in the course of the day.
Next morning, she took a heavier boat, and when the slave women had rowed her over to Thebes, she left them to await her on the quay and made her way to the vegetable market. There she spoke to the farmers who came into the city at dawn with the oxen and asses, men whose hands were hardened by the soil, whose skin was rough and weather-beaten. She also spoke to the street sweepers, the emptiers of latrines, and the Negro guards, luring them and baring her beauty to them so that they abandoned their loads of farm produce, their oxen and their donkeys. They left the streets unswept and followed her to the reed swamps, saying, “Such a delicacy does not come the way of the poor every day. Her skin is not like that of our wives, and the scent of her is like the scent of the nobles. We should be mad not to take the pleasure she offers us.”
They took pleasure with her and brought her stones. The farmers brought doorsteps from th
e taverns, and the guards pilfered stones from Pharaoh’s buildings. In the evening Princess Baketamon offered modest thanks to all the men from the vegetable market for their kindness to her and for the joy they had given her. They helped her to load the boat with stones until it was so deeply laden that it was near sinking, and the slave women had much ado to row it across the river to the quay by the golden house.
That same evening it was known to all Thebes that the catheaded goddess had revealed herself to the people and taken pleasure with them. The strangest rumors ran rife about the city, for those who no longer believed in the gods found other explanations.
The following day, Princess Baketamon went among the men of the charcoal market, and that evening the reed swamps by the river were sooty and trampled. The priests in many small temples complained bitterly, for the charcoal sellers were godless men who thought nothing of tearing stones from the temple walls with which to pay for their pleasure. They licked their lips and boasted among themselves, saying, “Truly we have tasted paradise. Her lips melted in our mouths, her breasts were like glowing brands in our hands, and we did not know that such delights existed in the world.”
When it became known in Thebes that the goddess had appeared to the people for the third time, the city was filled with a great unrest. Even respectable men left their wives and went to the taverns, and at night they took stones from Pharaoh’s buildings so that next morning every man in Thebes went from market to market with a stone under his arm, impatiently awaiting the appearance of the catheaded one. The priests were perturbed and sent forth their guards to arrest the woman who was the source of this outrage and scandal.