by Wilbur Smith
It was dark before they rode up the causeway, lit on both sides by bonfires, and the populace had indulged themselves all that day on beer and wine provided by the royal treasury. The uproar was deafening as Pharaoh dismounted at Tamose's temple, and climbed the stairway between ranks of granite statues of his father and of his patron god Horus in all his hundred divine guises - Horus as the child Harpocrates, with side-lock and a finger in his mouth, suckling at the breast of Isis, or squatting on a lotus blossom, or falcon-headed, or as the winged sun disc. It seemed that king and god had become one.
Lord Naja and the priests led the boy Pharaoh through the tall wooden gates into the Hall of Sorrow, that holy place where Tamose's mummy lay on its embalming slab of black diorite. In a separate shrine in the side wall, guarded by a black statue of Anubis, the god of cemeteries, stood the pearly alabaster canopic jars that held the king's heart, lungs and viscera.
In a second shrine against the opposite wall the gold-covered sarcophagus stood ready to receive the royal corpse. The lid of the coffin bore a portrait of Pharaoh in gold so lifelike that Nefer's heart twisted, impaled with grief, and tears started in his eyes. He blinked them away, and followed the priests to where his father's body lay in the centre of the hall.
Lord Naja took up his position opposite him on the far side of the diorite slab, facing Nefer, and the high priest stood at the head of the dead king. When all was in readiness for the ceremony of Opening the Mouth of the dead king, two priests drew aside the linen sheet that covered the corpse, and Nefer recoiled involuntarily as he looked down on his father.
For all the weeks after his death, while Nefer and Taita had been in the desert, the embalmers had been at work on the King's body. First they had probed a long-handled silver spoon up his nostril and, without marking his head, scooped out the soft custard of the brains. They removed the eyeballs, which would putrefy swiftly, and filled the eye sockets and the cavity of the skull with natron salts and aromatic herbs. Then they had lowered the corpse into a bath of highly concentrated salts, with the head exposed, and let it soak for thirty days, daily changing the harsh alkali fluids. The fats were leached out of the corpse and the skin peeled away. Only the hair and skin of the head were unaffected.
When at last the corpse was removed from the natron bath it was laid on the diorite slab and wiped down with oils and herbal tinctures. The empty stomach cavity was stuffed with linen pads soaked in resins and waxes. The arrow wound in the chest was sewn closed, and amulets of gold and precious stones placed over it. The barbed and broken shaft that had killed the king had been removed from Pharaoh's body by the embalmers. After it had been examined by the council of state, the missile had been sealed in a golden casket and would go into his tomb with him, a powerful charm against any further evil that might befall him on his journey through the netherworld.
Then, during the remaining forty days of the embalming, the corpse was allowed to dry thoroughly with the hot desert wind through the open doorways streaming over it.
Once it was as desiccated as firewood, it could be bound up. The linen bandages were laid on it in an intricate design, as incantations to the gods were chanted by choirs of priests. Under them were placed more precious talismans and amulets, and each layer was painted with resins that dried to a metallic hardness and sheen. Only the head was left uncovered, and then for the week before Opening the Mouth, four of the most skilful makeup artists of the guild of embalmers, using wax and cosmetics, had restored the King's features to lifelike beauty.
They replaced the missing eyes with perfect replicas of rock-crystal and obsidian. The whites were translucent, the iris and pupils an exact match of the king's natural colour. The glass orbs seemed endowed with life and intelligence, so that now Nefer gazed into them with awe, expecting to see the lids blink and his father's pupils widen in recognition. The lips were shaped and rouged so that at any moment they might smile, and his painted skin looked silken and warm, as though bright blood still ran beneath it. His hair had been washed and set in the familiar dark ringlets that Nefer remembered so well.
Lord Naja, the high priest and the choir began to chant the incantation against dying for the second time, but Nefer could not tear his gaze away from his father's face.
'He is the reflection and not the mirror,
He is the music and not the lyre,
He is the stone and not the chisel,
He will live for ever.'
The high priest came to Nefer's side and placed the golden spoon in his hand. Nefer had been coached in the ritual, but his hand trembled as he placed the spoon on his father's lips and recited, 'I open thy lips that thou might have the power of speech once more.' He touched his father's nose with the spoon. 'I open thy nostrils that thou might breathe once more.' He touched each of the magnificent eyes. 'I open thine eyes that thou might behold the glory of this world once more, and the glory of the world to come.'
When at last it was done, the royal party waited as the embalmers wrapped the head and painted it with aromatic resins. Then they laid the golden mask over the blind face, and once more it glowed with splendid life. Contrary to custom and usage, there was only one death mask and one golden sarcophagus for Pharaoh Tamose. His father had gone before him to his tomb covered by seven masks and seven sarcophagi, one within the other, each larger and more ornate than the next.
For the rest of that night Nefer stayed beside the golden sarcophagus, praying and burning incense, entreating the gods to take his father among them and seat him in the midst of the pantheon. In the dawn he went out with the priests on to the terrace of the temple where his father's head falconer waited. He carried a royal falcon on his gloved fist.
'Nefertem!' Nefer whispered the bird's name. 'Lotus Flower.' He took the magnificent bird from the falconer and held it high upon his own fist, so that the populace gathered below the terrace might see it clearly. Around its right leg the falcon wore a tiny goldtag on a golden chain. On it was engraved his father's royal cartouche. 'This is the godbird of Pharaoh Tamose Mamose. It is the spirit of my father.' He paused to regain his composure, for he was near to tears. Then he went on, 'I set my father's godbird free.' He slipped the leather rufterhood from the falcon's head. Fierce eyes blinked at the light of the dawn and the bird ruffled its feathers. Nefer unknotted the jesses from its leg, and the bird spread its wings. 'Fly, divine spirit!' Nefer cried. 'Fly high for me and my father!'
He threw the bird up, it caught the dawn wind and soared on high. Twice it circled overhead, and then, with a wild and haunting cry, it sped away across the Nile.
'The godbird flies to the west!' the high priest called out. Every member of the congregation upon the steps of the temple knew that that was a most unpropitious omen.
Nefer was so physically and emotionally exhausted that as he watched the bird fly away he swayed on his feet. Taita steadied him before he fell and led him away.
Back in Nefer's bedchamber in the palace of Memnon, Taita mixed a draught at his bedside and knelt beside him to offer it. Nefer took one long swallow then lowered the cup and asked, 'Why does my father have only one small coffin when you tell me my grandfather was entombed in seven heavy golden sarcophagi and that it took twenty strong oxen to draw his funeral wagon?'
'Your grandfather was given the richest funeral in all the history of our land, and he took a great store of grave goods to the underworld with him, Nefer,' Taita agreed. 'But those seven coffins consumed thirty lakhs of pure gold, and almost beggared the nation.'
Nefer looked thoughtfully into the cup, then drained the last few drops of the draught. 'My father deserved such a rich funeral, for he was a mighty man.'
'Your grandfather thought much of his afterlife.' Taita explained patiently. 'Your father thought much of his people and the welfare of this very Egypt.'
Nefer thought about this for a while, then sighed, settled down on the sheepskin mattress and closed his eyes. He opened them again. 'I am proud of my father,' he said simply.
> Taita laid his hand upon his forehead in blessing and whispered, 'And I know that one day your father will have reason to be proud of you.'
--
It did not need the ill omen of the flight of the falcon Nefertem to warn Taita that they had reached the most dire and fateful period in all the long history of this very Egypt. When he left Nefer's bedchamber and started out into the desert, it was as though the stars stood frozen in their courses and all the ancient gods had drawn back and deserted them, abandoning them in this their most dangerous hour. 'Great Horus, we need your guidance now. You hold this Ta-meri, this precious land, in the cup of your hands. Do not let it slip through your fingers and shatter like crystal. Do not turn your back upon us now that we are in our agony. Help me, mighty falcon. Instruct me. Make your wishes clear to me, so that I may follow your will.'
Praying as he went, he climbed the hills at the periphery of the great desert. The clicking of his long staff against the rocks alarmed a yellow jackal and sent it scampering away up the moonlit slope. When he was certain that he was not observed he turned parallel to the river, and quickened his stride. 'Horus, well you know that we are balanced on the sword edge of war and defeat. Pharaoh Tamose has been struck down and there is no warrior to lead us. Apepi and his Hyksos in the north are grown so mighty as to have become almost invincible. They gather against us, and we cannot stand against them. The double crown of the two kingdoms is rotten with the worm of treachery, and cannot survive against the new tyranny. Open my eyes, mighty god, and show me the way, that we might triumph against the invading Hyksosian hordes from the north and against the destroying poison in our blood.'
For the rest of that day Taita journeyed through the stony hills and the silent places, praying and searching to discover the way forward. In the late evening he turned back towards the river, and came at last to his ultimate destination. He could have chosen to come here by the direct means of a felucca, but too many eyes would have remarked his passing, and he had needed that time alone in the desert.
In the deep darkness when most men slept he approached the temple of Bes on the riverbank. A guttering torch burned in its niche above the gate. It lit the carved figure of the god Bes, which guarded the entrance. Bes was the deformed dwarf god of drunkenness and joviality. His tongue lolled out between his leering lips. In the wavering light of the torch he gave Taita an inebriated grin as he passed.
One of the temple acolytes was waiting to receive the Magus. He led him to a stone cell in the depths of the temple where a jug of goat's milk stood on the table beside a platter of dhurra bread and honey in the comb. They knew that one of the Magus' weaknesses was honey from the pollen of the mimosa blossom.
There are three men already waiting your arrival, my lord,' the young priest told him.
'Bring Bastet to me first," Taita instructed.
Bastet was the chief scribe of the Nomarch of Memphis. He was one of Taita's most valued sources of information. Not a rich man, he was burdened with two pretty but expensive wives and a brood of brats. Taita had saved his children when the Yellow Flowers devastated the land. Although of little consequence in the scheme of things, he sat close to the seat of power, using his ears and phenomenal memory to good effect. He had much to tell Taita of what had transpired in the nome since the accession of the new Regent, and received his payment with genuine gratitude. 'Your blessing would have been sufficient payment, mighty Magus.'
'Babes don't grow fat on blessings.' Taita dismissed him.
Next came Obos, the high priest of the great Horus temple at Thebes. He owed his appointment to Taita, who had interceded for him with Pharaoh Tamose. Most of the nobles came to the temple of Horus to worship and make sacrifice, and they all confided in the high priest. The third man to report to Taita was Nolro, the secretary of the army of the north. He also was a eunuch, and there was a bond between those who had suffered such mutilation.
From the days of his youth, when Taita had first found himself directing affairs of state from the shadows behind the throne, he had been aware of the absolute necessity of having impeccable intelligence on which to base decisions. All the rest of that night and most of the following day he listened to these men and questioned them narrowly, so that when he was ready to return to the palace of Memnon he was informed of all the important events that had transpired, and the significant undercurrents and political whirlpools that had developed while he had been away in the wilderness of Gebel Nagara.
In the evening he started back towards the palace, taking the direct route along the bank of the river. The peasants returning from their labours in the fields recognized him, made the sign for good luck and long life, and called to him, Tray to Horus for us, Magus,' for they all knew he was a Horus man. Many pressed small gifts upon him, and a ploughman called to him to share his dinner of millet cakes and crisply roasted locusts and goat's milk warm from the udder.
--
As night fell Taita thanked the friendly ploughman, bade him farewell, and left him sitting beside his fire. He hurried on through the night, anxious not to miss the ceremony of the royal rising. It was dawn before he reached the palace, and he had barely time to bathe and change his raiment before he hurried to the royal bedchamber. At the door his way was barred by the two guards, who crossed their spears across the entrance.
Taita was astonished. This had never happened before. He was the royal tutor, appointed thirteen years ago by Pharaoh Tamose. He glared at the sergeant of the guard. The man dropped his eyes but remained steadfast in his denial of entry. 'I mean no offence, mighty Magus. It is on the specific orders of the commander of the bodyguard, Colonel Asmor, and the palace chamberlain. No person not approved by the Regent is allowed in the royal presence.'
The sergeant was adamant, so Taita left him and strode down the terrace to where Naja was at breakfast with a small circle of his particular favourites and toadies. 'My lord Naja, you are fully aware that I was appointed by Pharaoh's own father as his tutor and mentor. I was given the right of access at any time of day and night.'
'That was many years ago, good Magus.' Naja replied smoothly, as he accepted a peeled grape from the slave who stood behind his stool and popped it into his mouth. 'It was right for that time, but Pharaoh Seti is a child no more. He no longer needs a nursemaid.' The insult was casual, but that did not make it less cutting. 'I am his regent. In future he looks to me for advice and guidance.'
'I acknowledge your right and duty to the King, but to keep me from Nefer's side is unnecessary and cruel,' Taita protested, but Naja waved a lordly hand to silence him.
'The safety of the King is paramount," he said, and stood up from the breakfast board, to indicate that the meal and the interview were over. His bodyguard closed in around him so that Taita was forced to fall
back.
He watched Naja's entourage set off down the cloister towards the council chamber. He did not follow immediately but turned aside and sat down on the coping of one of the fish pools to ponder this development.
Naja had isolated Nefer. He was a prisoner in his own palace. When the time came he would be alone, surrounded by his enemies. Taita searched for some means to protect him. Once again he considered the idea of flight from Egypt, to spirit Nefer away across the desert to the protection of a foreign power until he had grown old and strong enough to return to claim his birthright. However, he could be certain that Naja had not only barred the door to the royal quarters but that every escape route from Thebes and Egypt would have already been closed.
There seemed no easy solution, and after an hour of deep thought, Taita rose to his feet. The guards at the door to the council chamber stood aside for him, and Taita went down the aisle and took his accustomed seat on the front bench.
Nefer was seated on the dais beside his regent. He wore the lighter hedjet crown of Upper Egypt, and he looked pale and peaky. Taita felt a flare of concern that he might already be the victim of slow poison, but he could detect no deadly aura surrounding th
e boy. He concentrated on sending a current of strength and courage to him, but Nefer gave him a cold, accusing stare to punish him for missing the royal rising ceremony.
Taita turned his attention to the council business. They were considering the latest reports from the northern front, where King Apepi had recaptured Abnub after a siege that had lasted the previous three years. That unfortunate city had changed hands eight times since the first Hyksosian invasion in the reign of Pharaoh Mamose, Tamose's father.
If Pharaoh Tamose had not been struck down by the Hyksosian arrow, his bold strategy might have averted this tragic reversal of arms. Instead of now being forced to prepare for the next Hyksosian strike towards Thebes, the armies of Egypt might have been surging towards the enemy capital of Avaris.
Taita found that the council was bitterly divided in every consideration of the crisis. They were seeking to place the blame for this most recent defeat, when it was plain for any fool to see that Pharaoh's untimely death had been the main cause. He had left his army without a head and a heart. Apepi had taken immediate advantage of his death.
Listening to them argue Taita felt more strongly than ever that this war was a running abscess in the body of this very Egypt. Exasperated, he rose quietly and left the council chamber. There was nothing further he could accomplish here, for they were still wrangling over who should be given command of the northern armies to replace the dead Pharaoh Tamose. 'Now that he has gone, there is not one of our commanders who can match Apepi, not Asmor or Teron or Naja himself,' Taita muttered, as he stalked away. 'The land and our armies are bled white by sixty years of warfare. We must have time to build up our strength again, and for a great military leader to emerge from our ranks.' He thought of Nefer, but it would be years before the lad could take over the role that Taita knew, from his study of the Mazes of Ammon Ra, destiny had devised for him.