Wayward Son (20 page)

From the back row, Cain watched the dramas in the town’s open-air theater with a mixture of fascination and mounting anxiety. The memories reawakened by this primordial story tempted him to abandon the spectacle, yet he couldn’t tear himself away. The notion that here in Egypt, of all places, fratricide was intimately bound up with the human condition struck a dissonant chord in Cain. Several thousand spectators cheered and applauded at the end of each play, but Cain felt racked by anguish and alienation.

Back aboard his vessel, long after midnight, Cain fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. But toward dawn, some intuition woke him with a start. Had the anchor chain given way? No, the barge was sound. A last-quarter moon glimmered on the Nile, whose waters were calm.

A familiar voice materialized out of the shadows.

“You still think of your brother, Cain?”
asked the master of spirits.

Cain was silent for some time. He decided to parry one question with another.

“Where is Abel, spirit? Is he like Osiris, in the afterlife?”

“Abel sleeps well. You will find him again when you finally have the courage to end your own life.”

He was angered by the spirit’s reference to his fateful invitation at the cliffside oasis.

“You saw what happened. I saved a life, rather than taking one.”

“And you expected some kind of reward, but instead received only more of the same curse. Restless wandering up and down the river without end. You merely exchanged the lonely sands for even lonelier waters. I am the only reason you live well in Egypt, enjoying great wealth, but without power’s hazards and its obligations.”

“You do not know the memories that gnash at me, spirit. I bid you depart!”

“Yes, Cain, the memories. I will leave you now. But the memories—they are yours forever.”

A predawn mist drifted over the river. Cain had sat bolt upright during the conversation, but now he sagged backward, exhausted.

He feared the memories would always torture him.

CHAPTER 23

The Nile River, circa 1400 BC

THE YEARS WHEELED AROUND for Cain, mounting into decades and generations. His trading as a river merchant flourished, ably aided by successive ship captains. He acquired lands under many different aliases in every district of Egypt. Though a stranger to the courts of power, his many names were known by the pharaohs of every dynasty. His pathway to material success in his adopted country met no obstruction. Cain was, if anything, an advertisement for the beneficent prosperity of pharaonic rule and the dominance of Egypt in the known world.

The brewery eventually became a triumphant success. After centuries of trial and error, Cain perfected a two-part process that produced a more refined beverage than Egypt had ever consumed before. Instead of lightly baked bread as the main ingredient, Cain used bread made from emmer wheat and slightly flavored with coriander, dates, and figs. This base, in turn, was combined with barley and yeast, and the medley was then fermented. The beer that resulted was golden-hued and slightly cloudy, but filtering and straining rendered it almost translucent. Egyptians, headed by the royal family, loved the new taste, and grain payments flowed ever more generously into Cain’s silos up and down the river.

Yet, no amount of wealth seemed to satiate Cain, so he immersed himself in plans for the brewery’s expansion. Calling in his supervisors, he reviewed a set of drawings that would enable the plant to triple production within a year. The market seemed inexhaustible. Cain hoped to ship his product overseas as well, perhaps to ports as distant as the island of Crete.

The construction of new warehouses, silos, copper fermentation tanks, and lifting cranes proceeded apace. Then, one evening just before sunset, Cain found himself on the loading dock, discussing personnel issues with his foreman, Sapra. While he was away on one of his many trips, some of his laborers had recently defected to take work with a rival grain merchant named Horus. This man, now nearing sixty and notorious for nursing long-standing grudges, regarded Cain as an upstart. Although these defections involved only a small minority of the employees, Cain inquired if Sapra had been able to determine the causes.

“Horus is fiercely envious of your success, sir,” replied the foreman. “He spreads ugly rumors that you are not even an Egyptian. His resentment has rubbed off on some of the workers, I’m afraid.”

As Cain paused to absorb this news, a strange sight presented itself. A medium-sized barge was swiftly approaching from upriver, seemingly laced with tongues of fire. At first he thought it was some kind of optical illusion, or a reflection of the flame-like rays of the setting sun. Yet as the vessel drew steadily closer, both men could see she was loaded with an immense mound of burning refuse, fanned even more briskly now by an early evening breeze on the river.

“A fire ship!” shouted Sapra. “Quickly, sir, we must summon the entire staff to help! If she hits the dock, the brewery will burn!”

But it was too late. Cain and Sapra jumped clear in time, but the rogue barge, as if guided by a diabolical hand, crashed into the loading dock, soon triggering a deafening explosion in the nearest grain silo. As workers ran in all directions, Cain and Sapra were knocked backward to the ground by the force of the blast. Both were burned on their face, arms, and chest. Cain helped his superintendent off the flaming pier and was forced to watch his cherished investment consumed in the inferno. It had all happened so quickly that Cain struggled to comprehend the malice that had reduced most of his brewery to a charred ruin. This enterprise was his most thorough attempt yet to work around God’s curse of the ground. It seemed his maker would grant him no such reprieve.

By dint of some heroic firefighting, Cain, Sapra, and the rest saved about a quarter of the brewery. The consensus was that the sabotage was the work of Horus. But nothing could be proved. The fire ship, itself destroyed, was of untraceable origin.

Meanwhile, Cain grimly accounted for the casualties. Several dozen of his workers, trapped inside exploding silos, had been killed, and compensation would have to be paid to their families. Cain himself, as well as Sapra, had suffered additional severe burns as they fought the flames, and many staffers were similarly injured. Luckily, the salves and herbs available in Abydos sufficed to alleviate the pain.

But in the midst of such travails, he overlooked the risk that now, willy-nilly, he was running. After Cain’s burns healed within a week, the regeneration of his skin was impossible to conceal, even with cosmetics and bandages. Sapra and the others bristled; perhaps Horus had been right about Cain after all. What had been a series of murmurs against Cain became a chorus of angry shouts.

Reluctantly, he left Abydos behind.

CHAPTER 24

Abu Simbel, Egypt, circa 1255 BC

CAIN THOUGHT THAT HE had never seen a more splendid procession in all his centuries in Egypt. It was the first day of the
heb-sed
festival of
Ramesses II
, the public celebration of the pharaoh’s continuing vitality after thirty years of rule. While Cain had attended many such festivals before, for most Egyptians the
sed
jubilee was a once-in-a-lifetime event. Thousands of cheering spectators packed the riverside esplanade in Thebes, where the principal rituals of the festival would unfold.

The sed festival had ancient origins, he recalled.
Pharaoh Djoser
, for whom the
Step Pyramid
was completed in 2611 BC, celebrated such a jubilee, as did most of his longer reigning successors. But the first sed of Ramesses II outdid all its precursors in lavish pomp and splendor. The traditional religious rituals and narratives had been firmly reestablished. The priesthood of Amun-Re again had deep roots among the nation’s elite. Now more than ever, the pharaoh embodied the secular dominion of the state with the majesty of a god on earth.

As the priestly procession made its way around the perimeter of the esplanade, Cain noted with satisfaction that his friend Khaimudi had been promoted to the ranks of the high priesthood. The special insignia on his robe, as well as his presence in the front ranks of the procession, testified to Khaimudi’s new eminence. He had met the priest shortly after reinstalling himself in Thebes three years prior. Several days before the festival, Cain, who now called himself Senejer, received a message from his friend urging him to attend the opening ceremonies so that Khaimudi could present him with a special request. He wondered what his priestly friend had in mind. The two met that evening near the Red Chapel.

“Why did you not inform me of your promotion?” Cain asked.

His friend shrugged. “I am a religious man, not a merchant. Boasting is frowned upon.”

Cain chuckled. “I think we have more in common than you realize, O holy one,” he teased. “But, that aside, what is this request that brings us together this evening?”

Khaimudi placed his hands on Cain’s shoulders, his features bearing an uncharacteristically earnest expression.

“First I must have your vow of silence. No one outside the highest ranks at court knows what I am about to disclose to you.”

“You have my word.”

Khaimudi glanced over his shoulder to ensure they were alone. “Well, then, are you acquainted with the site of
Abu-Simbel
? It lies on the western shore of the Nile in Nubia, some 175 miles southwest of Aswan.”

Cain nodded.

“Ramesses wishes to build a colossal temple there. Two temples, actually. One shrine will celebrate his mightiness, and the second will glorify his beloved wife Nefertari. The temples will be literally carved out of the mountainside. Preliminary estimates call for a construction period of twenty years. Who knows if he will live that long, the sed notwithstanding. But that is not my chief concern at the moment.”

“Then what worries you?”

“The Mighty One has charged the high priesthood with the task of devising an unprecedented plan for the main temple. Of course, the construction serves the ends of propaganda, both religious and national. We want the Nubians to know that it is fruitless for them to challenge Egypt’s power. But Ramesses has another motive as well. He wishes this temple to surpass all others ever built in Egypt. It must not only be distinctive—it must be unique.”

“And how will you make it thus?”

“I have racked my brains. At the most senior level, the priests have combed records reaching back in time for more than fifty generations to the earliest dynasties. We have not found an answer. Everything that
can
be done
has
been done, it seems.”

Cain murmured with the trace of a smile, “If you can’t solve this puzzle, why turn to me?”

“You have seen more of Egypt than any man I know,” Khaimudi declared emphatically. “It is said that you are more than just a river trader—you are a builder and a scientist as well. I need your advice, Senejer. If anyone can develop a master plan for this temple, it is you.”

Cain glanced across the river to the west bank. Here was the Valley of the Kings, where Egypt’s pharaohs had been interred in rock tombs for several hundred years. The sun, dying in the west, fitfully glinted on the river’s rippling current.

“Why not consider the sun?” Cain said to his friend.

***

Three months later, Cain found himself drawing sketches on a sand dune perched atop the proposed building site at Abu Simbel. His plan was as simple as it was ingenious.

Two dates in the calendar were more significant to Ramesses, and to the public support of his kingly authority, than any others in the year: his birthday and his coronation day. These sacred days occurred in late October and late February, respectively. The four-month interval between them, Cain calculated, possessed an alluring symmetry. The pharaoh had been born almost exactly one month after the autumnal equinox. And he had been crowned one month before the vernal equinox. The angled rays of sunrise on these two dates, therefore, would be parallel. Cain’s idea was to orient the axis of the large temple so that the sun would brilliantly illuminate the inner sanctum, or holy of holies, on these two days alone. Not only would colossal statues and laudatory engravings celebrate Ramesses as Egypt’s eternal ruler, but the celestial firmament would do likewise. The symbolism was unmistakable: Egypt’s perennial vitality was linked to the sun’s regenerative powers on the earth. Heaven itself approved of Ramesses.

Khaimudi’s gratitude was boundless. Cain had encouraged him to present the plan to the priesthood as his own, which the priest agreed to do, provided that Cain promised never to disclose the plan’s true source. The pharaoh’s commendation was swiftly forthcoming. When the chief priest succumbed to a lung infection several months later, Khaimudi assumed his place—despite the fact that he lacked the customary seniority for such an elevation. Cain was gratified that he now had a close contact at the very highest level of the court. Who knew when such a connection might come in handy?

As construction on the new temples at Abu Simbel proceeded, Cain continued to enjoy his life in Thebes. Consistent with the usual pattern, he had taken a local wife who bore him a son, Jacuna. For Cain, this boy was special. From the time Jacuna was a small child, father and son enjoyed an easy camaraderie, free of the stifling formality that so often straitened the relationships of parents and children in Egypt. Jacuna possessed a healthy mischievousness, but also, as he grew older, a keen entrepreneurial insight.

Proud of his boy, Cain eventually accorded Jacuna the ultimate tribute: he treated him as an equal partner in the trading business. Cain felt confident that, with Jacuna’s help, the family business could outstrip all its competitors in Egypt—perhaps even in the eastern Mediterranean region. As for Jacuna’s mother, Cain had little familiar feeling. Her limited world of experience held no mystery for him, and thus she secured no special place in his heart.