It was noon: the rays of the sun found no way into the narrow shady
streets of the city of Thebes, but they blazed with scorching heat on
the broad dyke-road which led to the king’s castle, and which at this
hour was usually almost deserted.
To-day it was thronged with foot-passengers and chariots, with riders
and litter-bearers.
Here and there negroes poured water on the road out of skins, but the
dust was so deep, that, in spite of this, it shrouded the streets and
the passengers in a dry cloud, which extended not only over the city,
but down to the harbor where the boats of the inhabitants of the
Necropolis landed their freight.
The city of the Pharaohs was in unwonted agitation, for the storm-swift
breath of rumor had spread some news which excited both alarm and hope
in the huts of the poor as well as in the palaces of the great.
In the early morning three mounted messengers had arrived from the
king’s camp with heavy letter-bags, and had dismounted at the Regent’s
palace.
[The Egyptians were great letter-writers, and many of their letters
have come down to us, they also had established postmen, and had a
word for them in their language “fai chat.”]
As after a long drought the inhabitants of a village gaze up at the
black thunder-cloud that gathers above their heads promising the
refreshing rain--but that may also send the kindling lightning-flash or
the destroying hail-storm--so the hopes and the fears of the citizens
were centred on the news which came but rarely and at irregular
intervals from the scene of war; for there was scarcely a house in
the huge city which had not sent a father, a son, or a relative to the
fighting hosts of the king in the distant northeast.
And though the couriers from the camp were much oftener the heralds of
tears than of joy; though the written rolls which they brought told more
often of death and wounds than of promotion, royal favors, and conquered
spoil, yet they were expected with soul-felt longing and received with
shouts of joy.
Great and small hurried after their arrival to the Regent’s palace, and
the scribes--who distributed the letters and read the news which was
intended for public communication, and the lists of those who had fallen
or perished--were closely besieged with enquirers.
Man has nothing harder to endure than uncertainty, and generally, when
in suspense, looks forward to bad rather than to good news. And the
bearers of ill ride faster than the messengers of weal.
The Regent Ani resided in a building adjoining the king’s palace. His
business-quarters surrounded an immensely wide court, and consisted of
a great number of rooms opening on to this court, in which numerous
scribes worked with their chief. On the farther side was a large,
veranda-like hall open at the front, with a roof supported by pillars.
Here Ani was accustomed to hold courts of justice, and to receive
officers, messengers, and petitioners. To-day he sat, visible to all
comers, on a costly throne in this hall, surrounded by his numerous
followers, and overlooking the crowd of people whom the guardians of the
peace guided with long staves, admitting them in troops into the court
of the “High Gate,” and then again conducting them out.
What he saw and heard was nothing joyful, for from each group
surrounding a scribe arose a cry of woe. Few and far between were those
who had to tell of the rich booty that had fallen to their friends.
An invisible web woven of wailing and tears seemed to envelope the
assembly.
Here men were lamenting and casting dust upon their heads, there women
were rending their clothes, shrieking loudly, and crying as they waved
their veils “oh, my husband! oh, my father! oh, my brother!”
Parents who had received the news of the death of their son fell on each
other’s neck weeping; old men plucked out their grey hair and beard;
young women beat their forehead and breast, or implored the scribes
who read out the lists to let them see for themselves the name of the
beloved one who was for ever torn from them.
The passionate stirring of a soul, whether it be the result of joy or of
sorrow, among us moderns covers its features with a veil, which it had
no need of among the ancients.
Where the loudest laments sounded, a restless little being might be seen
hurrying from group to group; it was Nemu, Katuti’s dwarf, whom we know.
Now he stood near a woman of the better class, dissolved in tears
because her husband had fallen in the last battle.
“Can you read?” he asked her; “up there on the architrave is the name
of Rameses, with all his titles. Dispenser of life,’ he is called. Aye
indeed; he can create--widows; for he has all the husbands killed.”
Before the astonished woman could reply, he stood by a man sunk in woe,
and pulling his robe, said “Finer fellows than your son have never been
seen in Thebes. Let your youngest starve, or beat him to a cripple,
else he also will be dragged off to Syria; for Rameses needs much good
Egyptian meat for the Syrian vultures.”
The old man, who had hitherto stood there in silent despair, clenched
his fist. The dwarf pointed to the Regent, and said: “If he there
wielded the sceptre, there would be fewer orphans and beggars by the
Nile. To-day its sacred waters are still sweet, but soon it will taste
as salt as the north sea with all the tears that have been shed on its
banks.”
It almost seemed as if the Regent had heard these words, for he rose
from his seat and lifted his hands like a man who is lamenting.
Many of the bystanders observed this action; and loud cries of anguish
filled the wide courtyard, which was soon cleared by soldiers to make
room for other troops of people who were thronging in.
While these gathered round the scribes, the Regent Ani sat with quiet
dignity on the throne, surrounded by his suite and his secretaries, and
held audiences.
He was a man at the close of his fortieth year and the favorite cousin
of the king.
Rameses I., the grandfather of the reigning monarch, had deposed the
legitimate royal family, and usurped the sceptre of the Pharaohs. He
descended from a Semitic race who had remained in Egypt at the time of
the expulsion of the Hyksos,
[These were an eastern race who migrated from Asia into Egypt,
conquered the lower Nile-valley, and ruled over it for nearly 500
years, till they were driven out by the successors of the old
legitimate Pharaohs, whose dominion had been confined to upper
Egypt.]
and had distinguished itself by warlike talents under Thotmes and
Amenophis. After his death he was succeeded by his son Seti, who
sought to earn a legitimate claim to the throne by marrying Tuaa, the
grand-daughter of Amenophis III. She presented him with an only son,
whom he named after his father Rameses. This prince might lay claim to
perfect legitimacy through his mother, who descended directly from the
old house of sovereigns; for in Egypt a noble family--even that of the
Pharaohs--might be perpetuated through women.
Seti proclaimed Rameses partner of his throne, so as to remove all doubt
as to the validity of his position. The young nephew of his wife Tuaa,
the Regent Ani, who was a few years younger than Rameses, he caused to
be brought up in the House of Seti, and treated him like his own son,
while the other members of the dethroned royal family were robbed of
their possessions or removed altogether.
Ani proved himself a faithful servant to Seti, and to his son, and was
trusted as a brother by the warlike and magnanimous Rameses, who however
never disguised from himself the fact that the blood in his own veins
was less purely royal than that which flowed in his cousin’s.
It was required of the race of the Pharaohs of Egypt that it should be
descended from the Sun-god Ra, and the Pharaoh could boast of this high
descent only through his mother--Ani through both parents.
But Rameses sat on the throne, held the sceptre with a strong hand, and
thirteen young sons promised to his house the lordship over Egypt to all
eternity.
When, after the death of his warlike father, he went to fresh conquests
in the north, he appointed Ani, who had proved himself worthy as
governor of the province of Kush, to the regency of the kingdom.
A vehement character often over estimates the man who is endowed with
a quieter temperament, into whose nature he cannot throw himself, and
whose excellences he is unable to imitate; so it happened that the
deliberate and passionless nature of his cousin impressed the fiery and
warlike Rameses.
Ani appeared to be devoid of ambition, or the spirit of enterprise; he
accepted the dignity that was laid upon him with apparent reluctance,
and seemed a particularly safe person, because he had lost both wife and
child, and could boast of no heir.
He was a man of more than middle height; his features were remarkably
regular--even beautifully, cut, but smooth and with little expression.
His clear blue eyes and thin lips gave no evidence of the emotions that
filled his heart; on the contrary, his countenance wore a soft smile
that could adapt itself to haughtiness, to humility, and to a variety of
shades of feeling, but which could never be entirely banished from his
face.
He had listened with affable condescension to the complaint of a landed
proprietor, whose cattle had been driven off for the king’s army, and
had promised that his case should be enquired into. The plundered man
was leaving full of hope; but when the scribe who sat at the feet of the
Regent enquired to whom the investigation of this encroachment of the
troops should be entrusted, Ani said: “Each one must bring a victim to
the war; it must remain among the things that are done, and cannot be
undone.”
The Nomarch--[Chief of a Nome or district.]--of Suan, in the southern
part of the country, asked for funds for a necessary, new embankment.
The Regent listened to his eager representation with benevolence, nay
with expressions of sympathy; but assured him that the war absorbed
all the funds of the state, that the chests were empty; still he felt
inclined--even if they had not failed--to sacrifice a part of his own
income to preserve the endangered arable land of his faithful province
of Suan, to which he desired greeting.
As soon as the Nomarch had left him, he commanded that a considerable
sum should be taken out of the Treasury, and sent after the petitioner.
From time to time in the middle of conversation, he arose, and made a
gesture of lamentation, to show to the assembled mourners in the court
that he sympathized in the losses which had fallen on them.
The sun had already passed the meridian, when a disturbance, accompanied
by loud cries, took possession of the masses of people, who stood round
the scribes in the palace court.
Many men and women were streaming together towards one spot, and even
the most impassive of the Thebans present turned their attention to an
incident so unusual in this place.
A detachment of constabulary made a way through the crushing and yelling
mob, and another division of Lybian police led a prisoner towards a side
gate of the court. Before they could reach it, a messenger came up with
them, from the Regent, who desired to be informed as to what happened.
The head of the officers of public safety followed him, and with eager
excitement informed Ani, who was waiting for him, that a tiny man, the
dwarf of the Lady Katuti, had for several hours been going about in
the court, and endeavoring to poison the minds of the citizens with
seditious speeches.
Ani ordered that the misguided man should be thrown into the dungeon;
but so soon as the chief officer had left him, he commanded his
secretary to have the dwarf brought into his presence before sundown.
While he was giving this order an excitement of another kind seized the
assembled multitude.
As the sea parted and stood on the right hand and on the left of the
Hebrews, so that no wave wetted the foot of the pursued fugitives,
so the crowd of people of their own free will, but as if in reverent
submission to some high command, parted and formed a broad way, through
which walked the high-priest of the House of Seti, as, full robed and
accompanied by some of the “holy fathers,” he now entered the court.
The Regent went to meet him, bowed before him, and then withdrew to the
back of the hall with him alone. “It is nevertheless incredible,” said
Ameni, “that our serfs are to follow the militia!”
“Rameses requires soldiers--to conquer,” replied the Regent.
“And we bread--to live,” exclaimed the priest.
“Nevertheless I am commanded, at once, before the seed-time, to levy
the temple-serfs. I regret the order, but the king is the will, and I am
only the hand.”
“The hand, which he makes use of to sequester ancient rights, and to
open a way to the desert over the fruitful land.”
[“With good management,” said the first Napoleon, “the Nile
encroaches upon the desert, with bad management the desert
encroaches upon the Nile.”]
“Your acres will not long remain unprovided for. Rameses will win new
victories with the increased army, and the help of the Gods.”
“The Gods! whom he insults!”
“After the conclusion of peace he will reconcile the Gods by doubly rich
gifts. He hopes confidently for an early end to the war, and writes to
me that after the next battle he wins he intends to offer terms to the
Cheta. A plan of the king’s is also spoken of--to marry again, and,
indeed, the daughter of the Cheta King Chetasar.”
Up to this moment the Regent had kept his eyes cast down. Now he raised
them, smiling, as if he would fain enjoy Ameni’s satisfaction, and
asked:
“What dost thou say to this project?”
“I say,” returned Ameni, and his voice, usually so stern, took a tone
of amusement, “I say that Rameses seems to think that the blood of thy
cousin and of his mother, which gives him his right to the throne, is
incapable of pollution.”
“It is the blood of the Sun-god!”
“Which runs but half pure in his veins, but wholly pure in thine.”
The Regent made a deprecatory gesture, and said softly, with a smile
which resembled that of a dead man:
“We are not alone.”
“No one is here,” said Ameni, “who can hear us; and what I say is known
to every child.”
“But if it came to the king’s ears--” whispered Ani, “he--”
“He would perceive how unwise it is to derogate from the ancient rights
of those on whom it is incumbent to prove the purity of blood of the
sovereign of this land. However, Rameses sits on the throne; may life
bloom for him, with health and strength!”--[A formula which even in
private letters constantly follows the name of the Pharaoh.]
The Regent bowed, and then asked:
“Do you propose to obey the demand of the Pharaoh without delay?”
“He is the king. Our council, which will meet in a few days, can only
determine how, and not whether we shall fulfil his command.”
“You will retard the departure of the serfs, and Rameses requires them
at once. The bloody labor of the war demands new tools.”
“And the peace will perhaps demand a new master, who understands how to
employ the sons of the land to its greatest advantage--a genuine son of
Ra.”
The Regent stood opposite the high-priest, motionless as an image cast
in bronze, and remained silent; but Ameni lowered his staff before him
as before a god, and then went into the fore part of the hall.
When Ani followed him, a soft smile played as usual upon his
countenance, and full of dignity he took his seat on the throne.
“Art thou at an end of thy communications?” he asked the high-priest.
“It remains for me to inform you all,” replied Ameni with a louder
voice, to be heard by all the assembled dignitaries, “that the princess
Bent-Anat yesterday morning committed a heavy sin, and that in all the
temples in the land the Gods shall be entreated with offerings to take
her uncleanness from her.”
Again a shadow passed over the smile on the Regent’s countenance. He
looked meditatively on the ground, and then said:
“To-morrow I will visit the House of Seti; till then I beg that this
affair may be left to rest.”
Ameni bowed, and the Regent left the hall to withdraw to a wing of the
king’s palace, in which he dwelt.
On his writing-table lay sealed papers. He knew that they contained
important news for him; but he loved to do violence to his curiosity, to
test his resolution, and like an epicure to reserve the best dish till
the last.
He now glanced first at some unimportant letters. A dumb negro, who
squatted at his feet, burned the papyrus rolls which his master gave him
in a brazier. A secretary made notes of the short facts which Ani called
out to him, and the ground work was laid of the answers to the different
letters.
At a sign from his master this functionary quitted the room, and Ani
then slowly opened a letter from the king, whose address: “To my brother
Ani,” showed that it contained, not public, but private information.
On these lines, as he well knew, hung his future life, and the road it
should follow.
With a smile, that was meant to conceal even from himself his deep
inward agitation, he broke the wax which sealed the short manuscript in
the royal hand.
“What relates to Egypt, and my concern for my country, and the happy
issue of the war,” wrote the Pharaoh, “I have written to you by the hand
of my secretary; but these words are for the brother, who desires to be
my son, and I write to him myself. The lordly essence of the Divinity
which dwells in me, readily brings a quick ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to my lips, and
it decides for the best. Now you demand my daughter Bent-Anat to wife,
and I should not be Rameses if I did not freely confess that before I
had read the last words of your letter, a vehement ‘No’ rushed to
my lips. I caused the stars to be consulted, and the entrails of the
victims to be examined, and they were adverse to your request; and yet I
could not refuse you, for you are dear to me, and your blood is royal as
my own. Even more royal, an old friend said, and warned me against your
ambition and your exaltation. Then my heart changed, for I were
not Seti’s son if I allow myself to injure a friend through idle
apprehensions; and he who stands so high that men fear that he may try
to rise above Rameses, seems to me to be worthy of Bent-Anat. Woo her,
and, should she consent freely, the marriage may be celebrated on the
day when I return home. You are young enough to make a wife happy, and
your mature wisdom will guard my child from misfortune. Bent-Anat shall
know that her father, and king, encourages your suit; but pray too to
the Hathors, that they may influence Bent-Anat’s heart in your favor,
for to her decision we must both submit.”
The Regent had changed color several times while reading this letter.
Now he laid it on the table with a shrug of his shoulders, stood up,
clasped his hand behind him, and, with his eyes cast meditatively on the
floor, leaned against one of the pillars which supported the beams of
the roof.
The longer he thought, the less amiable his expression became. “A pill
sweetened with honey,
[Two recipes for pills are found in the papyri, one with honey for
women, and one without for men.]
such as they give to women,” he muttered to himself. Then he went back
to the table, read the king’s letter through once more, and said: “One
may learn from it how to deny by granting, and at the same time not to
forget to give it a brilliant show of magnanimity. Rameses knows his
daughter. She is a girl like any other, and will take good care not
to choose a man twice as old as herself, and who might be her father.
Rameses will ‘submit’--I am to I submit!’ And to what? to the judgment
and the choice of a wilful child!”
With these words he threw the letter so vehemently on to the table, that
it slipped off on to the floor.
The mute slave picked it up, and laid it carefully on the table again,
while his master threw a ball into a silver bason.
Several attendants rushed into the room, and Ani ordered them to
bring to him the captive dwarf of the Lady Katuti. His soul rose in
indignation against the king, who in his remote camp-tent could fancy he
had made him happy by a proof of his highest favor. When we are plotting
against a man we are inclined to regard him as an enemy, and if he
offers us a rose we believe it to be for the sake, not of the perfume,
but of the thorns.
The dwarf Nemu was brought before the Regent and threw himself on the
ground at his feet.
Ani ordered the attendants to leave him, and said to the little man
“You compelled me to put you in prison. Stand up!” The dwarf rose and
said, “Be thanked--for my arrest too.”
The Regent looked at him in astonishment; but Nemu went on half humbly,
half in fun, “I feared for my life, but thou hast not only not shortened
it, but hast prolonged it; for in the solitude of the dungeon time
seemed long, and the minutes grown to hours.”
“Keep your wit for the ladies,” replied the Regent. “Did I not know that
you meant well, and acted in accordance with the Lady Katuti’s fancy, I
would send you to the quarries.”
“My hands,” mumbled the dwarf, “could only break stones for a game of
draughts; but my tongue is like the water, which makes one peasant rich,
and carries away the fields of another.”
“We shall know how to dam it up.”
“For my lady and for thee it will always flow the right way,” said the
dwarf. “I showed the complaining citizens who it is that slaughters
their flesh and blood, and from whom to look for peace and content. I
poured caustic into their wounds, and praised the physician.”
“But unasked and recklessly,” interrupted Ani; “otherwise you have shown
yourself capable, and I am willing to spare you for a future time. But
overbusy friends are more damaging than intelligent enemies. When I need
your services I will call for you. Till then avoid speech. Now go to
your mistress, and carry to Katuti this letter which has arrived for
her.”
“Hail to Ani, the son of the Sun!” cried the dwarf kissing the Regent’s
foot. “Have I no letter to carry to my mistress Nefert?”
“Greet her from me,” replied the Regent. “Tell Katuti I will visit her
after the next meal. The king’s charioteer has not written, yet I hear
that he is well. Go now, and be silent and discreet.”
The dwarf quitted the room, and Ani went into an airy hall, in which
his luxurious meal was laid out, consisting of many dishes prepared with
special care. His appetite was gone, but he tasted of every dish, and
gave the steward, who attended on him, his opinion of each.
Meanwhile he thought of the king’s letter, of Bent-Anat, and whether it
would be advisable to expose himself to a rejection on her part.
After the meal he gave himself up to his body-servant, who carefully
shaved, painted, dressed, and decorated him, and then held the mirror
before him.
He considered the reflection with anxious observation, and when he
seated himself in his litter to be borne to the house of his friend
Katuti, he said to himself that he still might claim to be called a
handsome man.
If he paid his court to Bent-Anat--if she listened to his suit--what
then?
He would refer it to Katuti, who always knew how to say a decisive word
when he, entangled in a hundred pros and cons, feared to venture on a
final step.
By her advice he had sought to wed the princess, as a fresh mark of
honor--as an addition to his revenues--as a pledge for his personal
safety. His heart had never been more or less attached to her than to
any other beautiful woman in Egypt. Now her proud and noble personality
stood before his inward eye, and he felt as if he must look up to it
as to a vision high out of his reach. It vexed him that he had followed
Katuti’s advice, and he began to wish his suit had been repulsed.
Marriage with Bent-Anat seemed to him beset with difficulties. His mood
was that of a man who craves some brilliant position, though he knows
that its requirements are beyond his powers--that of an ambitious soul
to whom kingly honors are offered on condition that he will never remove
a heavy crown from his head. If indeed another plan should succeed,
if--and his eyes flashed eagerly--if fate set him on the seat of
Rameses, then the alliance with Bent-Anat would lose its terrors; there
would he be her absolute King and Lord and Master, and no one could
require him to account for what he might be to her, or vouchsafe to her.