The Egyptian

BOOK 10
The City of the Heavens
1

The summer was at its hottest when Horemheb returned from the land of Kush. The swallows had long vanished into the river mud; the pools about the city stagnated while locusts and flea beetles attacked the crops. But in Thebes the gardens of the wealthy were green and cool and luxuriant, and on either side of the Avenue of Rams flowers bloomed in all the colors of the rainbow. Only the poor lacked water, and their food alone was polluted by the dust that fell everywhere like a net, filming the leaves of the acacias and sycamores in their quarter of the city. Southward, on the farther shore, Pharaoh’s golden house’ with its walls and gardens rose through the heat haze with the blue, misty glow of a dream. Although the hottest season was now upon us, Pharaoh had not left for his summer palaces in the Lower Kingdom but remained in Thebes. From this everyone knew that something was about to happen. As the heavens darken before a sandstorm, so the hearts of the people were overshadowed with dread.

No one was surprised to see warriors marching into Thebes at dawn on all the southern roads. With dusty shields, gleaming copper spearheads, and strung bows the black troops marched along the streets and stared about them in wonder, the whites of their eyes flashing in their sweaty faces. They followed their barbarous standards into the empty barracks, where cooking fires soon began to blaze and stones were heated to put in the great earthenware cauldrons. Meanwhile, ships of the fleet were berthing alongside the quays, and the chariots and plumed horses of the officers were put ashore from the transports. There were no Egyptians to be seen among these troops, who were for the most part Nubians from the south and Shardanas from the desert in the northwest. They occupied the city; watch fires were kindled at the street corners, and the river was closed. Gradually in the course of the day labor ceased in workshop and mill, in office and warehouse. The merchants carried in their goods from the street and barred their shutters, and the keepers of taverns and pleasure houses hurried to hire sturdy fellows with cudgels to protect their premises. The people arrayed themselves in white and began to stream from all quarters of the city toward the great temple of Ammon, until its courts were crammed and many were gathered outside the walls.

Meanwhile the word flew round that during the night the temple of Aton had been defiled and desecrated. The rotting carcass of a dog had been thrown on the altar, and the watchman had been found with his throat slit from ear to ear. When the people heard this they shot sidelong glances of fear, but many could not refrain from secret jubilation.

“Cleanse your instruments, lord,” said Kaptah gravely. “I believe that before nightfall there will be much work for you to do. If I do not mistake, you will be opening skulls also.”

Yet nothing noteworthy took place before the evening; a few drunken Nubians plundered shops and raped a couple of women. The guards seized them, and they were flogged in the sight of the people, which brought little consolation either to the merchants or to the women. Hearing that Horemheb was aboard the commander’s ship, I went to the harbor, though with little hope of speech with him. The guard heard me with indifference and went to announce my arrival, then to my surprise returned to summon me to the captain’s cabin. Thus for the first time I boarded a warship and looked about me with great curiosity, yet only the armament and the more numerous crew distinguished it from other vessels, since merchantmen also had gilded bows and colored sails.

So once more I encountered Horemheb. He seemed to me even taller and of greater dignity than before; his shoulders were broad, and the muscles of his arms powerful. But there were lines in his face, and his eyes were bloodshot and weary. I bowed low before him and stretched forth my hands at knee level.

He exclaimed with a bitter laugh, “See, it is Sinuhe, the Son of the Wild Ass! In truth you come at an auspicious hour!”

He did not embrace me because of his dignity, but turned to a fat, pop-eyed little officer who stood beside him panting in the heat. Horemheb handed him his golden whip of office saying, “Here it is, then-take charge!” Removing his gold-embroidered collar, he set it about potbelly’s neck and added, “Assume command, and may the blood of the people flow over your filthy hands.” Then he turned abruptly to me.

“Sinuhe, my friend, I am free to go with you wherever you will, and I hope you have a mat in your house where I can stretch my bones, for by Set and all devils I am mortally weary of arguing with maniacs.”

He then laid his hands on the shoulders of the little officer, who was a head shorter than himself, and said, “Look well upon him, friend Sinuhe, and impress what you see upon your memory, for here is a man in whose hands lies the destiny of Thebes this day. Pharaoh put him in my place when I told Pharoah he was’ mad. And having seen him you may readily surmise that Pharoah will soon have need of me again!”

He laughed and smote his knees, but there was no mirth in his laughter; it frightened me. The little officer looked at him meekly, his eyes popping with the heat and the sweat running down his face and neck and between his fat breasts.

“Be not angry with me, Horemheb,” he said in a high voice. “You know that I have not coveted your whip of office; I prefer my cats and the peace of my garden to the din of war. But who am I to set myself against the commands of Pharaoh? And he declares that there will be no war, but that the false god shall fall without bloodshed.”

“He declares the thing-he hopes for,” answered Horemheb. “His heart runs ahead of his reason as a bird outstrips a snail, so that his words have no weight. You should think for yourself and shed blood moderately, with due consideration, even though it may be the blood of Egyptians. By my falcon, I will flog you with my own hand if you have left your good sense in the cages with your pedigreed cats, for in the time of the late Pharaoh you were an eminent warrior, I hear, which is doubtless why Pharaoh has entrusted you with this tedious task.”

He thumped the new commander on the back so that the little fellow gulped and gasped, and the words he had meant to say stuck fast in his throat. Horemheb sprang up on deck in two strides, and the soldiers straightened themselves and greeted him with raised spears.

He waved his hand at them, crying, “Farewell, scum! Obey this little pedigreed pussy, who now bears the whip of command. Obey him as if he were a child, and see to it that he does not tumble off his chariot or hurt himself with his own knife.”

The soldiers laughed and shouted his praise, but he grew wroth and shook his fist at them, saying, “I shall not bid you farewell! We shall meet again in a little while, for I can see your purpose in your eyes. I say to you: Behave yourselves and remember my words, or I shall have the hide of your backs in ribbons when I come again.”

He asked where I lived and told the officer of the watch, but he forbade him to send his baggage to my house, believing it to be safer aboard the warship. Then as in the old days he laid his arm about my neck and sighed, “Truly, Sinuhe, if anyone has earned an honest carouse tonight, it is I.”

I told him of the Crocodile’s Tail, and he appeared so much interested that I ventured to beg for a special guard to be posted at Kaptah’s tavern. He gave the necessary orders to the officer of the watch, who promised to pick out some reliable older men for the purpose. In this way I was able to do Kaptah a service that cost me nothing.

I was by then aware that the Crocodile’s Tail contained a number of small private rooms where grave robbers and receivers of stolen goods were wont to settle their accounts and where at times distinguished ladies kept appointments with muscular porters from the harbor. I took Horemheb to such a room. Merit brought him a crocodile’s tail in a shell; he swallowed it at one draught, coughed somewhat and said, “O-oh!” He asked for another, and when Merit had gone to fetch it, he remarked that she was a beautiful woman and asked what there was between us. I assured him that there was nothing; nevertheless I was glad that Merit had not yet acquired her new open-fronted dress. But Horemheb made no advances; he offered her respectful thanks, and taking the cup upon the flat of his hand, he tasted it warily.

With a deep sigh he said, “Sinuhe, tomorrow blood will flow through the streets of Thebes, and I can do nothing to prevent it. Pharaoh is my friend, and I love him despite his madness; I once covered him with my shoulder cloth, and it was then that my falcon bound our destinies together. Perhaps I love him because of his madness, but I will not be involved in this struggle for I have my own future to think of and would not have the people hate me. O Sinuhe my friend! Much water has flowed down the Nile since the day of our last meeting in that stinking Syria. I have just come from the land of Kush, where by Pharaoh’s command I have disbanded the garrisons and brought the Negro troops back to Thebes, so that in the south the country is undefended. If this goes on, it can be but a question of time before disturbances break out in Syria. Revolt may bring Pharaoh to his senses-but meanwhile the country is impoverished. Ever since his coronation the mines have been worked by very few and without profit. Disciplining the lazy with sticks is no longer permitted; instead, they are put on short rations. Truly my heart trembles for Pharaoh’s sake, and Egypt’s, and for the sake of his god-though of gods, being a warrior, I know nothing. I say only that many-a very great many-will perish on account of that god. It is madness, for surely the gods exist to keep the people quiet and not to sow unrest among them.”

After a pause he went on, “Tomorrow Ammon is to be deposed and I for one shall not regret him, for he has grown too powerful to share Egypt with Pharaoh. It is statesmanlike of Pharaoh to overthrow him, for then he can confiscate his vast possessions, which may yet prove our salvation. The priests of other gods have been overshadowed by Ammon and are envious-but neither do they love Aton, and it is the priests who rule the people’s hearts. For this reason disaster must follow.”

“But,” said I, “Ammon is a hateful god, and his priests have kept the people in darkness for too long and stifled every living thought, until no one dares say a word without Ammon’s leave. Whereas Aton offers light and a life of freedom-a life without fear-and that is a great thing, a very great thing, my friend Horemheb.”

“I do not know what you mean by fear,” he said. “The people must be controlled by fear. If the gods govern them, the throne needs no weapons to support it. Were Ammon content to be Pharaoh’s servant, he would fully deserve his place, for no nation can be ruled without fear. That is why Aton, with his gentleness and his cross of love, is an exceedingly dangerous god.”

“He is a greater god than you believe,” I said quietly, hardly knowing why I said it. “Perhaps he is in you, without your knowledge-and in me. If the people understood him, he could save them all from fear and darkness. But it is more likely that many must die on his account, as you say, for those things that are eternal can only be imposed upon the general run of men by force.”

Horemheb regarded me impatiently as one looks at a babbling infant. Then, inspired by the crocodile’s tail, he regained his good humor and said, “At least we are agreed that it is time to oust Ammon, and if it is to be done, it should be done suddenly, by night and in secret, and all over the country at the same time. The priests of the highest grades should be executed at once and the others sent to the mines and quarries. But Pharaoh in his foolishness desires to do all openly with the knowledge of the people and in the light of his god-for the sun’s disk is his god, no new doctrine, by the way. The thing is lunacy and will cost much blood. I would not agree to its execution since I had not been told of his plans beforehand. By Set and all devils, if I had known of the matter, I should have planned it well and overthrown Ammon so swiftly that he himself could hardly have grasped what had happened. But now every street boy in Thebes knows of the plan; the priests are rousing the people in the temple courtyards, men are breaking branches in their gardens to serve as weapons, and women go to the temple with washing clubs hidden beneath their clothes. By my falcon, I could weep at Pharaoh’s madness.”

He bowed his head in his hands and shed tears over the trials that were to beset Thebes. Merit brought him the third crocodile’s tail and gazed so admiringly upon his broad back and swelling muscles that I sharply bade her be gone and leave us alone. I tried to tell Horemheb of what I had seen in Babylon, in the land of Hatti and in Crete, until I saw that the crocodile had already clouted him on the head with its tail and he was slumbering heavily with his head in his hands. He lay that night in my arms, and I held vigil over his sleeping, hearing all night the reveling of soldiers in the tavern. Kaptah and the landlord felt bound to entertain them, that they might the more readily protect the house when disturbances began. But I did not enjoy myself, for I reflected that in every house in Thebes knives were being whetted, stakes sharpened, and pestles bound with copper. I think there were few in the city who slept that night-certainly Pharaoh was not among them-but Horemheb, a warrior born, slept soundly.