The Egyptian (77 page)

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, “Bridle 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 Baketamon’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 build’ ing 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.

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 he 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.”

It 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 extravagant 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.”

I did not dread the loneliness since all my life I had been alone and was born to be so. My heart melted in sadness to think that never more should I behold Thebes or feel the soft soil of the Black Land beneath my feet or drink the water of the Nile.

I said to Horemheb, “I have few friends, for men shun me because of my bitterness and my sharp tongue, but you will surely allow me to take leave of them. I would gladly take my leave of Thebes also and walk once more along the Avenue of Rams, to breathe the perfume of sacrificial smoke among the bright pillars of the great temple and to smell the fried fish at nightfall in the poor quarter of the city.”

Horemheb would assuredly have granted my request if I had wept and prostrated myself at his feet, for he was a very vain man. But weakling though I was, I would not humble myself before him, for learning should not bow to power. I put my hand before my mouth and hid my fear in yawns, for I had ever been overcome by drowsiness when most afraid. In this I believe I differ from other men.

Then Horemheb said, “I shall permit no needless farewells since I am a warrior and dislike weakness. I will make your journey easy and send you immediately on your way without arousing public excitement or demonstrations. You are known in Thebes—better known than perhaps you are aware. You shall leave in a closed chair, but if anyone desires to accompany you to your place of banishment, I will permit it. Nevertheless, he must stay there all his days, even should you die first. He too must die there. Dangerous thoughts are a pestilence readily transmitted from one to another, and I do not desire your sickness to return to Egypt with any other man. If by your friends you mean a certain mill slave whose fingers have grown together and a drunken artist who portrays a god squatting by the roadside, and a couple of Negroes who have frequented your house—then you need not seek to take farewell of them; they have gene on a long journey and will never return.”