THE LADY MIRIAM
Meanwhile the scribe of the "double house of life," and the son of the
royal sculptor were taking comfort on the palace-top beneath the subdued
light of a hooded lamp.
The pair had spoken of all Memphis and its gossip; had given account of
themselves and had caught up with the present time in the succession of
events.
"Hotep, at thy lofty notch of favor, one must have the wisdom of Toth,"
Kenkenes observed, adding with a laugh, "mark thou, I have compared thee
with no mortal."
Hotep shook his head.
"Nay, any man may fill my position so he but knows when to hold his
tongue and what to say when he wags it."
"O, aye," the sculptor admitted in good-natured irony. "Those be simple
qualifications and easy to combine."
The scribe smiled.
"Mine is no arduous labor now. During my years of apprenticeship I was
sorely put to it, but now I have only to wait upon the king and look to
it that mine underlings are not idle. If another war should come--if any
manner of difficulty should arise in matters of state, I doubt not mine
would be a heavy lot."
The young man spoke of war and fellowship with a monarch as if he had
been a lady's page and gossiped of fans and new perfumes.
Kenkenes looked at him with a full realization of the incongruity of the
youth of the man and the weight of the office that was his.
But at close range the scribe's face was young only in feature and tint.
He was born of an Egyptian and a Danaid, and the blond alien mother had
impressed her own characteristics very strongly on her son.
He had a plump figure with handsome curves, waving, chestnut hair and a
fair complexion. Nose and forehead were in line. The eyes were of that
type of gray that varies in shade with the mental state. His temper
displayed itself only in their sudden hardening into the hue of steel;
content and happiness made them blue. They were always steady and
comprehending, so that whoever entered his presence for the first time
said to himself: "Here is a man that discovers my very soul."
Whatever other blunder Meneptah might have made, he had redeemed himself
in the wisdom he displayed in choosing his scribe. Kenkenes had been led
to ask how Hotep had come to his place.
"My superior, Pinem, died without a son," the scribe had explained; "and
as my record was clean, and the princes had ever been my patrons, the
Pharaoh exalted me to the scribeship."
Kenkenes had then set down a mark in favor of the princes.
"I doubt not," the scribe observed at last, "that my time of ease is
short-lived."
The sculptor looked at him with inquiry in his eyes.
"When sedition arises and defies the Pharaoh in his audience chamber,"
Hotep went on, "it has reached the stage of a single alternative--success
or death. Dost know the Lady Miriam?"
"The Israelite?"
"Even so."
"I saw her this day."
"Good. Now, look upon the scene. Thou knowest she is the sister of
Prince Mesu, and the favorite waiting-woman of the good Queen Thermuthis.
She has lived in obscurity for forty years, but this morning she swept
into the audience chamber, did majestic obeisance and besought a word
'with him who was an infant in her maturity,' she said. The council
chamber was filled with those gathered to welcome Har-hat. Meneptah bade
her speak. Hast thou ever heard an Israelitish harangue?" he broke off
suddenly.
Kenkenes shook his head.
"Ah, theirs is pristine oratory--occult eloquence," the scribe said
earnestly, "and she is mistress of the art. She told the history of
Israel and catalogued its wrongs in a manner that lacked only measure and
music to make it a song. But, Kenkenes, she did not move us to
compunction and pity. When she had done, we had not looked on a picture
of suffering and oppression, but of insulted pride and rebellion.
Instead of compunction, she awakened admiration, instead of pity,
respect. For the moment she represented, not a multitude of complaining
slaves, but a race of indignant peers.
"Meneptah--ah! the good king," the scribe went on, "was impressed like
the rest of us. But finally he showed her that the Israelites were what
they were by the consent of the gods; that their unwillingness but
increased the burden. He pointed out the example of his illustrious
sires as justification for his course; enumerated some of their
privileges,--the fertile country given them by Egypt, and the freedom
that was theirs to worship their own God,--and summarily refused to
indulge them further.
"Then she became ominous. She bade him have a care for the welfare of
Egypt before he refused her. Her words were dark and full of evil
portent. The air seemed to winnow with bat-wings and to reek with vapors
from witch-potions and murmur with mystic formulas. Every man of us
crept, and drew near to his neighbor. When she paused for an answer, the
king hesitated. She had menaced Egypt and it stirreth the heart of the
father when the child is threatened. He turned to Har-hat in his
perplexity and craved his counsel. The fan-bearer laughed good-naturedly
and begged the Pharaoh's permission to send her to the mines before she
bewitched his cattle and troubled him with visions. Har-hat's unconcern
made men of us all once more, but Meneptah shook his head. 'The name of
Neferari Thermuthis defends her,' he said; 'let her go hence'."
"'And I take no amelioration to my people?' she demanded. 'Nay,' he
replied, 'not in the smallest part shall their labor be lessened.'
"Holy Isis, thou shouldst have seen her then, Kenkenes!
"She approached the very dais of the throne and, throwing up her arms,
flung her defiance into the face of her sovereign. It were treason to
utter her words again. I have seen men white and shaking from rage, but
Meneptah never hath so much of temper to display. Far be it from me to
say that the king was afraid, but I tell you, Kenkenes, mine own hair is
not yet content to lie flat. She concentrated all the denunciatory
bitterness of the tongue and pronounced and gloried in the doom of the
dynasty, heaping the blame of its destruction upon the head of Meneptah!"
The scribe finished his story in a whisper. Kenkenes was by this time
sitting up, his eyes shining with interest and wonder.
"Gods! Hotep, thou dost make me creep."
"Creep!" the scribe responded heartily, "never in my life have I so
wanted to flee a royal audience. When she had done, she turned and swept
from the presence and no man lifted a finger to stay her."
For a moment there was an expressive silence between the two young men.
At last Kenkenes broke it in a voice of intense admiration.
"What an intrepid spirit! Small wonder that she did not heed the
condemnation of the rabble at mid-day--she who was fresh from a triumph
over the Pharaoh!"
Hotep's eyes widened warningly and he shook his head.
"Nay, hush me not, Hotep," Kenkenes went on in a reckless whisper. "I
must say it. Would to the gods I had been there to copy it in stone!"
"Hush! babbler!" the scribe exclaimed, his eyes twinkling nevertheless,
"thine art will make an untimely mummy of thee yet."
Kenkenes poured out his first glass of wine and set it down untasted.
The contemplated sacrilege in stone opposite Memphis confronted him.
"If Egypt's lack of art does not kill me first," he added in defense.
"Nay," Hotep protested, "why wouldst thou perpetuate the affront to the
Pharaoh?"
"Because it is history and a better delineation of the Israelitish
character than all the wordy chronicles of the historians could depict,"
was the spirited reply.
"But the ritual," Hotep began, with the assurance of a man that feels he
is armed with unanswerable argument.
"Sing me no song of the ritual," Kenkenes broke in impatiently. "The
ritual offends mine ears--my sight, my sense. We have quarreled beyond
any treaty-making--ever."
The other looked at him with amazement and much consternation.
"Art thou mad?" he exclaimed.
"Nay, but I am rebellious--as rebellious as the Israelite, for I have
already shaken my fist in the face of the sculptor's canons. And the
time will come when the world will call my revolt just. I would there
were a chronicler, here, now, to write me down, since I would be
remembered as the pioneer. I shall win no justification, in these days,
perhaps only persecution, but I would reap my reward of honor, though it
be a thousand years in coming."
"Thou hast a grudge against the conventional forms and the rules of the
ritual?" Hotep asked, after a thoughtful silence.
"I have a distaste for the horrors it compels and am ignorant of their
use," Kenkenes answered stubbornly.
"Kenkenes," the scribe began, "Law is a most inexorable thing. It is the
governor of the Infinite. It is a tyrant, which, good or bad, can demand
and enforce obedience to its fiats. It is a capricious thing and it
drags its vassal--the whole created world--after it in its mutations, or
stamps the rebel into the dust while the time-serving obedient ones
applaud. So thou hast set up resistance against a thing greater than
gods and men and I can not see thee undone. I love thee, but I should be
an untrue friend did I abet thee in thy lawlessness. Submit gracefully
and thy cause shall have an audience with Law some day--if it have merit."
The young sculptor's face was passive, but his eyes were fixed sadly on
the remote stars strewn above him. He felt inexpressibly solitary. His
zest in his convictions did not flag, but it seemed that the whole world
and the heavens had receded and left him alone with them.
Again Hotep spoke.
"There is more court gossip," he began cheerily, as if no word had been
said that could depress the tone of the conversation.
Kenkenes accepted the new subject gladly.
"Out with it," he said. "Within the four walls of my world I hear naught
but the clink of mallet and falling stone."
"The breach between Meneptah and Amon-meses, his mutinous brother, may be
healed by a wedding."
"So?"
"Of a surety--nay, and not of a surety, either, but mayhap. A match
between the niece of Amon-meses, the Princess Ta-user, and the heir,
Rameses."
Kenkenes sat up again in his earnestness. "Nay," he exclaimed. "Never!"
"Wherefore, I pray thee?" Hotep asked with a deprecating smile.
"There is no mating between the lion and the eagle; the stag and the asp!
They could not love."
"Thou dreamy idealist!" Hotep laughed. "The half of great marriages are
moves of strategy, attended more by Set[1] than Athor.[2] Ta-user is mad
for the crown, Rameses for undisputed power. Each has one of these two
desirable things to give the other."
"And how shall they appease Athor?" Kenkenes demanded warmly. "Ta-user
loves Siptah, the son of Amon-meses, and Rameses will crown whom he loves
though he had a thousand other crown-loving, treaty-dowered wives!"
Hotep smiled. "I thought the four walls of thy world hedged thee, but it
seems thou art right well acquainted with royalty."
"Scoff!" Kenkenes cried. "But I can tell thee this: Rameses will put his
foot on the neck of Amon-meses if the pretender trouble him, and will wed
with a slave-girl if she break the armor over his iron heart."
Hotep laughed again and suggested another subject.
"The new fan-bearer," he began.
"Nay, what of him?" Kenkenes broke in at once.
"And shall we quarrel about him, also?"
"Dost thou know him?" Hotep queried.
"Right well--from afar and by hearsay."
"Do thou express thyself first concerning him, and I shall treat thee to
the courtier's diplomacy if I agree not."
"I like him not," Kenkenes responded bluntly.
Hotep leaned toward him, with the smile gone from his face, the jest from
his manner, and laid his hand on the sculptor's. The pressure spoke
eloquently of hearty concord. "But he has a charming daughter," he said.
Kenkenes inspected his friend's face critically, but there was nothing to
be read thereon.
A palace attendant approached across the paved roof and bent before the
scribe.
"A summons from the Son of Ptah, my Lord," he said.
"At this hour?" Hotep said in some surprise as he arose. "I shall return
immediately," he told Kenkenes.
"Nay," the sculptor observed, "my time is nearly gone. Let me depart
now."
"Not so. I would go with thee. This will be no more than a note. If it
be more I shall put mine underlings to the task."
He disappeared in the dark. Kenkenes lay back on the divan and thought
on the many things that the scribe had told him. But chiefly he pondered
on Har-hat and the Israelite.
When Hotep returned he carried his cowl and mantle, and a scroll. "I
too, am become a messenger," he said, "but I am self-appointed. This
note was to go by a palace courier, but I relieved him of the task."
The pair made ready and departed through the still populous streets of
Thebes to the Nile. There they were ferried over to the wharves of Luxor.
At the temple the porter conducted them into the chamber in which the
ancient prelate spent his shortening hours of labor. He was there now,
at his table, and greeted the young men with a nod. But taking a second
look at Hotep, he beckoned him with a shaking finger.
"Didst bring me aught, my son?" he asked as the scribe bent over him.
"Aye, holy Father; this message to the taskmaster over Pa-Ramesu."
"Ah," the old man said. "Is that not yet gone?"
"Nay, the Pharaoh asks that thou insert the name of him whom thou didst
recommend for Atsu's place. The Son of Ptah had forgotten him."
The old man pushed several scrolls aside and prepared to make the
addition..
"But thou art weary, holy Father; let me do it," Hotep protested gently.
"Nay, nay, I can do it," the old man insisted. "See!" drawing forth a
scroll unaddressed, "I have written all this in an hour. O aye, I can
write with the young men yet." He made the interlineation, rolled the
scroll and sealed it. "I am sturdy, still." At that moment, he dropped
his pen on the floor and bent to pick it up, but was forestalled by
Hotep. Then he addressed the scrolls, carefully dried the ink with a
sprinkling of sand and delivered one to Hotep, the other to Kenkenes.
"This to the king, and that to Snofru. The gods give thee safe journey,"
he continued to Kenkenes. "Who art thou, my son?"
"I am the son of Mentu, holy Father. My name is Kenkenes," the young man
answered.
"Mentu, the royal sculptor?"
Kenkenes bowed.
"Nay, but I am glad. I knew thy father, and since thou art of his blood,
thou art faithful. Let neither death nor fear overtake thee, for thou
hast the peace of Egypt in thy very hands. Fail not, I charge thee!"
After a reverent farewell, the two young men went forth.
A slender Egyptian youth went with them to the wharves and awakened the
sleeping crew of a bari.
Hotep they carried across and set ashore on the western side.
"May the same favoring god that brought thee hither, grant thee a safe
journey home, my friend. The court comes to Memphis shortly. Till then,
farewell," said Hotep.
"All Memphis will hail her illustrious son, O Hotep. Farewell."
It was not long until the sculptor was drifting down toward Memphis under
a starry sky--the shadowy temples of Thebes hidden by the sudden
closing-in of the river-hills about her.
[1] Set--the war-god.
[2] Athor--the Egyptian Venus; the feminine love-deity.