by Mika Waltari
6
So I set up the physician’s sign above my door and took up my work again, requiring gifts according to the means of my patients. But I required nothing of the poor, and sick people squatted in my courtyard from morning until night. I asked them very cautiously about Aton, being unwilling to frighten them or to give rise to evil report since my reputation in Thebes was already sufficiently black. But I found that Aton had been forgotten and that no one any longer understood him. Only agitators and those who had suffered injustice remembered him, and the cross of Aton was used as an evil symbol to do men harm.
When the waters fell, Eie the priest died. It was said that he had starved to death because his dread of poison would not allow him to eat. Then Horemheb brought the war in Syria to an end and allowed the Hittites to keep Kadesh since he could not win it back. He returned in triumph up the river to Thebes, where he celebrated all his victories. He observed no period of mourning after Eie’s death but declared publicly that Eie had been a false Pharaoh who through his ceaseless warfare and extortionate taxation had brought only suffering to Egypt. Having put an end to the war and closed the gates of Sekhmet’s temple, he persuaded the people that he had never desired war but had been forced to obey the false Pharaoh. Therefore, the people greatly rejoiced at his return.
But as soon as Horemheb had arrived in Thebes, he sent for me and said, “Sinuhe, my friend, I am older than when we parted, and my spirit has been sorely oppressed by your words, with which you accused me of being a bloodthirsty man who brought only harm to Egypt. I now have my desire and have re-established the might of Egypt so that no danger threatens the land: I have snapped the points of the Hittite spears and shall leave the conquest of Kadesh to my son Rameses. I have had my fill of war and mean to build a powerful kingdom for him. Egypt is as filthy as a poor man’s stable, but soon you will see me heave out the dung, replace wrong by right, and give to every man his full measure. Truly, my friend Sinuhe, with my coming the old times return, and ail shall be as it was. For this reason I intend to efface from the line of kings the miserable names of Eie and Tutankhamon-since Akhnaton’s has already been removed-that it may seem as if their times had never been. I shall reckon my own reign from the night of great Pharaoh’s death when I came to Thebes spear in hand with my falcon flying ahead.”
He leaned his head moodily in his hand. The war had carved lines in his face and there was no joy in his eyes as he said, “The world is indeed different from what it was when we were boys, when the poor had their full measure and when even in the mud huts there was no lack of oil and fat. But Egypt shall be fruitful and wealthy again. I will send ships to Punt; I will set work going once more in the quarries and deserted mines that I may build bigger temples and gather gold, silver, and copper for Pharaoh’s treasury. In ten years you will not recognize Egypt, Sinuhe, for you shall then see no more beggars or cripples in the land. The weak shall give place to the strong, and I will wash away the sickly blood from Egypt and make of it a sturdy nation, which my sons shall lead into battle for the conquest of the world!”
I did not rejoice at his words. My belly sank to my knees, and my heart was seized with a deadly chill. I did not smile but stood before him dumb.
This angered him, and scowling as of old, he said, “You are as sour as ever, Sinuhe. You are like a barren thornbush in my sight, and I do not know why I expected to feel such joy in meeting you again. I called you to me before ever I had lifted my sons in my arms or embraced my consort Baketamon, for war and power have made me lonely. There was not one single man in Syria with whom I could share my sorrow and joy, and when I spoke I had always to weigh my words. From you, Sinuhe, I desire only friendship. Yet it appears as if your friendship has burned out and as if you felt no joy in my return.”
I bowed low before him and my lonely soul cried out to him. I said, “Horemheb, of all the friends of our youth you are the only one now living. I shall always love you. Now the power is yours, and soon you will set upon your head the crowns of both kingdoms, and no one will be able to curb your power. I beg you, Horemheb: raise up Aton once more! For the sake of our friend Akhnaton, raise up Aton! For the sake of our most terrible crime raise up Aton, that all men may be our brothers and that there may be no more war!”
When Horemheb heard this he shook his head in pity and said, “You are as mad as before, Sinuhe. Don’t you see that Akhnaton threw a stone into the water with a great splash, but now I smooth the surface as if he had never been? Don’t you see that my falcon brought me to the golden house on the night of the great Pharaoh’s death so that Egypt might not fall? I bring back the old ways, for men are never satisfied with the present: in their eyes only the past is good, and the future. I will unite past and future. I will milk the wealthy of their abundance; I will milk the gods who have grown too fat. In my kingdom the rich will not be too rich nor the poor too poor, and neither god nor man will compete with me for power. Yet I talk to you in vain since you cannot comprehend my thought. Your own thoughts are those of a feeble man, and the weak have no right to live in the world but are made to be trampled underfoot by the strong. So is it also with nations; so it has ever been and ever will be.”
Thus we parted, Horemheb and I, and our friendship was diminished. When I left him, he went to his sons and lifted them in his strong arms.
From his sons he went to Princess Baketamon’s room and said to her, “My royal consort, you have shone in my thought like the moon during these past years, and my longing has been very great. Now my work is done, and you shall soon sit by my side as your sacred blood entitles you to do. I have shed much blood for your sake, Baketamon, and for your sake cities have burned. Have I not earned my reward?”
Baketamon sweetly smiled at him, and stroking his shoulder shyly, she said, “Truly you have earned your reward, my consort Horemheb, great warrior of Egypt! I have built in my garden a pavilion the like of which has never been seen, to receive you as you deserve. Every stone in its walls I have collected myself in my great longing for you. Let us go to this pavilion, that you may have your reward in my arms and that I may give you joy.”
Horemheb exulted at her words, and Baketamon led him into the garden. The members of the court hid and held their breath at what would follow. Slaves and stableboys fled also. Thus Baketamon led Horemheb to the pavilion. When in his impatience he would have seized her, she defended herself gently and said, “Bridie your manhood for a while, Horemheb, that I may tell you with what great toil I have built this pavilion. I hope you remember what I said when last you took me by force. Look carefully at these stones. Each one of them-and they are not few-is a memorial of my pleasure in another man’s embrace. I have built this pavilion with my own pleasure, and in your honor, Horemheb. This great white stone was brought to me by a gutter of fish who was enchanted with me; this green one was given me by an emptier of latrines in the charcoal market; and these eight brown stones set together were brought by a vegetable seller who was quite insatiable and who warmly praised my accomplishments. Have patience, Horemheb, and I will tell you the history of every stone. We have plenty of time. Many years lie before us, but I believe the story of these stones will last me until my old age, if continued each time you seek my embrace.”
At first Horemheb would not believe her words but took them for some grotesque joke, and Baketamon’s modest demeanor deceived him. When he looked into her oval eyes, he saw there a hatred more terrible than death, and he believed what she told him. Mad with rage he seized his Hittite knife to slay the woman who had so hideously dishonored him.
She bared her breast to him and said mockingly, “Strike, Horemheb! Strike the crowns from your head! For I am a priestess of Sekhmet-I am of the sacred blood-and if you kill me you will have no right to the throne of the Pharaohs!”
Her words brought Horemheb to his senses. She held him bound, and her revenge was complete. He dared not tear down her pavilion, which confronted him whenever he looked out from his rooms. After reflection he
saw no other course than to appear ignorant of Bake- tamon’s behavior. To tear the building down would have been to betray to everyone his knowledge that Baketamon had let all Thebes spit upon his couch, and he preferred laughter behind his back to open shame. From then on he laid no hand on Baketamon but lived alone. To Baketamon’s credit be it said that she embarked on no more building works.
Such was Horemheb’s return, and I fancy he had little joy of his majesty when the priests anointed him and set the red crown and the white on his head. He grew suspicious and trusted no one, believing that all derided him behind his back because of Baketamon. Thus he always had a thorn in his flesh, and his heart knew no peace. He numbed his grief with work and began to clear the dung from Egypt, to restore the old ways and to put right in the place of wrong.
7
In justice I must speak also of Horemheb’s virtues, for the people praised his name and held him to be a good ruler. After only a few years of reign he was numbered among the great Pharaohs of Egypt. He milked the rich and eminent, that none might compete with him for power, and this greatly pleased the people. He punished unjust judges and gave the poor their rights; he revised the taxes and paid the tax gatherers regularly from the royal treasury so that they could no longer enrich themselves by extortion from the people.
He traveled incessantly from province to province, from village to village, seeking out abuses. His journeys could be traced by the cropped ears and bleeding noses of corrupt tax gatherers. The cracking of whips and cries of lamentation were heard far and wide from the places where he set up his courts. Even the poorest could approach him, and he dealt out incorruptible justice. He sent ships again to
Punt. Once more the wives and children of seamen wept on the quays and gashed their faces with stones as custom required, and Egypt prospered exceedingly. Of every ten ships that sailed, three returned every year laden with treasure. He built new temples also and rendered the gods their due, favoring no one god save Horus and no one temple save that in Hetnetsut, where his own image was worshiped as a god, to whom the people made sacrifice of oxen. For all these things the people praised his name and told fabulous tales of him.
Kaptah also prospered mightily until no other man in Egypt could vie with him in wealth. Having neither wife nor children, he had named Horemheb his heir, that he might live in peace for the remainder of his life and gather ever greater riches. For this reason Horemheb extorted less from him than from other wealthy men.
Kaptah invited me often to his house, which with its gardens formed a whole district in itself so that he had no neighbors to disturb his peace. He ate from golden dishes, and in his rooms water ran from silver taps in the Cretan manner. His bath was of silver and the seat of his privy was of ebony, and the walls of this were inlaid with rare stones fitted together to form diverting pictures. He offered me strange foods, and wine from the pyramids. During his meals he was entertained by singers and players, while the fairest and most highly skilled dancing girls in Thebes performed marvels in their art for his enjoyment.
He said to me, “My lord Sinuhe, when a man attains a certain wealth, he cannot become poor but grows even richer without lifting a finger to help himself, so strangely is the world ordered. My wealth originated with you, Sinuhe, so I shall ever acknowledge you as my lord, and you shall lack nothing all the days of your life. For your own sake it is well that you are not rich, for you would never use your means to the best advantage but would sow unrest and bring about great calamities.”
He also favored artists; sculptors hewed his image in stone, giving him a noble and distinguished appearance. They made his limbs slender, his hands and feet small, and his cheekbones high. In these sculptures both his eyes had their sight, and he sat plunged in thought with a scroll on his knee and a pen in his hand although he had never even tried to learn to read and write. His scribes alone read and wrote and totted up huge sums on his behalf. These statues greatly amused Kaptah, and the priests of Ammon-to whom he had given vast presents that he might live in amity with the gods-set up his image in the great temple, and he bore the cost of this himself.
I was glad for Kaptah’s sake that he was rich and happy. Indeed, I was glad of everyone’s contentment and no longer sought to deprive men of their illusions if they were made happy thereby. Truth is often bitter, and it may sometimes be kinder to kill a man than to take his dreams from him.
But no dreams cooled my own forehead, and my work brought me no peace although at this time I tended many sick people. Of the patients whose skulls I opened only three died so that my reputation as a skull surgeon stood high. But I lived in continual discontent and found fault with everyone. I nagged at Kaptah for his gluttony, at the poor for their sloth, at the rich for their selfishness, and at the judges for their indifference, and I was satisfied with none. Sick people and children I never chided but healed my patients without giving them needless pain and let Muti share out her honey cakes among the small boys in the street whose eyes reminded me of Thoth’s.
Men said of me, “This Sinuhe is a wearisome, bitter man. His liver is swollen, and gall bubbles out of him in his speech so that he can find no delight in life. His evil deeds pursue him so that at night he finds no rest. Let us pay no heed to what he says, for his tongue stings himself more viciously than it stings others.”
If was true. Whenever I had poured forth my bitterness, I suffered for it and wept.
I spoke malignantly of Horemheb also, and all his deeds were evil in my eyes. Most of all I spoke ill of his “scum,” whom he maintained out of Pharaoh’s stores and who led an idle life in taverns and pleasure houses, boasting of their prowess and violating the daughters of the poor so that no woman could walk safely in the streets of Thebes. Horemheb forgave his ruffians all they did. When the poor turned to him with complaints about their daughters’ plight, he told them that they should be proud because his men were begetting so sturdy a race.
Horemheb was growing ever more suspicious by nature, and there came a day when his guards visited my house, drove away the sick from my courtyard, and brought me into his presence. Spring had come again, the river had fallen, and swallows were darting above the sluggish, muddy waters. Horemheb had aged. His head was bowed, and the muscles stood out like cords on his long, thin body.
He looked me in the eye and said, “Sinuhe, I have warned you many times but you do not heed my warnings. You continue to tell the people that the warrior’s profession is the most degraded and contemptible of all. You say that it would be better for children to die in their mothers’ wombs than to be born warriors. You say that two or three children are enough for any woman and that it is better for her to be happy with three children than unhappy and poor with nine or ten. You have said also that the god of the false Pharaoh was greater than all other gods. You have said that no man should buy or sell another as a slave and that the people who plow and sow ought to possess the land they cultivate, though it be Pharaoh’s or a god’s. You have declared that my rule differs little from that of the Hittites. And you have said much that was even more outrageous. Any other man would have been sent to the quarries long ago. I have been patient with you, Sinuhe, because you were once my friend. As long as Eie the priest was alive, I had need of you because you were my only witness against him. Now I need you no longer; you may rather harm me through your knowledge. Had you been wise, you would have held your tongue, lived a quiet life, and been content with your lot-for truly you have lacked nothing. Instead, you bespatter me with slander, and that I will no longer endure.”
His wrath increased as he spoke; he slashed his thin legs with his whip, scowled, and went on, “You have been a sand flea between my toes and a horse fly on my shoulder. I allow no barren trees that bear only poisonous thorns in my garden. I must banish you from Egypt, Sinuhe, and never again shall you see the land of Kem. If I allowed you to remain, the day would come when I should have to put you to death, and that I do not wish to do because you were once my friend. Your extravagan
t words might be the spark to kindle the dry reeds. When once dry reeds have caught, they blaze away to ashes. I will not allow the land of Kem to be gutted again-no, neither for gods nor for men. I banish you, Sinuhe, for you can be no true Egyptian, but some strange abortion of mixed blood. Sick notions throng your head.”
It may be that he was right and that my heart’s torment arose from the mixture in my veins of Pharaoh’s sacred blood and the pale, dying blood of Mitanni. Yet I could not but smile at his words, though I was half stunned by them, for Thebes was my city. I was born and brought up there and desired to live in no other place.
My laughter enraged Horemheb. He had expected me to fall prostrate before him and implore his mercy. He cracked Pharaoh’s whip and shouted, “Be it so! I banish you from Egypt forever. When you die, your body shall not be brought home for burial, though I may permit it to be preserved according to custom. It shall be buried by the shore of the Eastern Sea, from which ships put forth for the land of Punt, for that is to be your place of exile. I cannot send you to Syria, for Syria’s embers are yet glowing and need no bellows. Nor can I send you to the land of Kush since you affirm that the color of a man’s skin has no significance and that Egyptians and Negroes are of equal worth. You might instill foolish ideas into the black men’s heads.
“But the land by the seashore is deserted. You are welcome to make your speeches to the black wind of the desert, and from those hills you may preach at your pleasure to jackals and crows and serpents. Guards shall measure out your domain, and if you stray outside these bounds, they shall slay you with their spears. Save for this you shall lack nothing. Your couch shall be soft and your food abundant, and any reasonable request shall be complied with. Truly loneliness is punishment enough, and because you were once my friend, I have no desire to oppress you further.”