The Sentence of Pharaoh
Khian came to Tanis safely, landing at dawn. Having reached the
palace, he went to his private chambers and, putting off his scribe’s
attire, clothed himself in the robes of his rank. As soon as men began
to stir he reported his arrival through an officer to the Vizier, and
waited.
From the window-place of his chamber he saw that troops were moving on
the plain beneath, also that many vessels flying the royal banner were
unmooring from the quays and sailing away up Nile. While he marvelled
what this might mean, the cunning-faced old Vizier, Anath, came and
welcomed him with bows.
“Greeting, Prince,” he said. “I rejoice to see that you have
accomplished your mission in safety, for know that here we heard that
you were dead by a fall from a pyramid, which we took to mean that you
had been murdered by those strange zealots of the Dawn.”
“I know that story, Anath, for it was written in a letter which was
brought by a messenger from my father, whereon I stepped forward to
show myself alive and well, though it is true that I did fall from a
pyramid and was senseless a while. Has that messenger returned? He
fled away suddenly before I could have speech with him.”
“I do not know, Prince,” answered Anath. “The man has not been
reported to me, but I have only just risen and he may have come in the
night.”
“I hope he has, Anath,” said Khian, laughing, “seeing that although he
did not wait for the writing which I bear, he had news that I fear
will scarcely please my father who I prefer should learn it from him,
not from me.”
“Is it so, Prince?” asked Anath, eyeing him curiously. “Already there
has come news from these people of the Dawn, enough and more than
enough to make His Majesty very wrath, and should it be added to by
other tidings of the same sort, I think he will be mad with rage.
Would it please you to tell me this news?”
“I think not, Anath, although you are his Vizier and the holder of his
secrets, as you know, Pharaoh my father is strange-tempered and might
take it ill if I reveal to any one what I am charged to deliver to
himself.”
Anath bowed and answered:
“As to the temper of his Majesty, you are right, Prince, for since you
went away it has been terrible. Would that some evil god had never
moved me to put a certain thought into his mind: would that we had
never heard of the Order of the Dawn. Because of that thought and them
he has even threatened me with the loss of my office, though he knows
well that if I were driven from it, evil would come to himself, seeing
that for years I have been the shield that has turned arrows from his
head and by my foresight have saved him from conspiracies.”
“I know that this is so,” said Khian.
Anath thought a little while, then went on in a low voice:
“Prince, even Pharaohs fall or die at last. The dust awaits their
crowns, the grave their greatness. Prince, I have watched you from a
child and made a study of your heart, which I know to be honest and
true. Now I will ask you a question, promising to believe your answer
as though it were that of a god. Are you friendly towards me and if a
time should come when you sit where another sits to-day, would you
continue me in my offices, especially in that of Vizier of the North?
Weigh the matter and tell me, Prince.”
Khian reflected for a moment, then answered:
“I think that I would, Anath; indeed I am sure that I would.”
“And of the South also if that great land should chance to be added to
your heritage?”
“Yes, I suppose so, Anath, though here another--I mean others--might
claim a voice. Why not? If you have watched me, I have watched you,
and forgive me if I say I know your faults, namely, that you are
cunning and a great seeker after wealth and power. But I know also
that you are faithful to those you serve and to your friends, and in
your own way the cleverest man in Egypt, also the most far-seeing, as
you showed when you schemed that Pharaoh should wed the Princess of
the South, though that plan has bred more trouble than you know. So
there you have my answer and, as you said, I am not one who breaks his
word.”
Anath took the Prince’s hand and kissed it, saying:
“I thank you, Prince.” Then he paused and added: “The day when you are
Pharaoh of the North and South I may remind you of these words which
from your lips are a decree that may not be broken.”
“What does all this mean, Anath?” asked Khian impatiently. “You are
not making me party to some plot against my father, are you?”
“By all the gods of the Shepherds and the Egyptians, no, Prince. Yet
hearken. I have noted that if he is crossed in his will, his Majesty
of late goes mad, and those who go mad seek ruin, especially if they
be kings. Moreover, he is very rash and the rash fall into pits from
which other men escape. Also in his body he is not as strong as he
thinks and rage sometimes stops the heart. If Pharaoh’s heart stops,
what is Pharaoh?”
“A good god!” replied Khian, laughing.
“Yes, but one who attends no more to the affairs of earth. A month or
so gone your father asked your consent to his disinheritance of you
and you gave it without a thought. Perchance since then, Prince, you
may have found reason to change your mind upon this matter.”
Here he glanced at Khian shrewdly and went on: “But whether you have
changed it or not, know that heirs apparent cannot be so lightly
dispossessed of their acknowledged rights.”
“You seemed to agree at the time, Anath; indeed you did more: it was
you who set afoot that new scheme of a certain marriage.”
“The rush bends before the wind, Prince, and as to this marriage,
perchance I wished to save the People of the Dawn, of whose doctrines
I think well, or perchance I wished to save Egypt from another war, or
both. The one thing that I did not wish to do was to hurt you, Prince.
And yet this came about, and now that knot must be undone.”
“Yes, Anath, it came about, or seemed to, for which the gods be
thanked, since otherwise I should never have been sent upon a certain
mission and certain things would never have happened to me which have
made me the happiest man in all the world. I will tell you of them
afterwards, perhaps--if I dare. Meanwhile, when will my father receive
me? Also, why are those troops gathered yonder and whither do the
ships sail up Nile? Is it to make another war upon the South?”
“His Majesty has been upon some pilgrimage of his own, Prince, as he
said to make a sacrifice in the desert after the custom of our
forefathers, the old Shepherds. He only returned thence last night, so
weary or so angered about I know not what that he would not receive
me. I believe that he still sleeps but there will be a Court before
noon, at which you must appear. As for the soldiers and the ships----”
At this moment there rose a cry without.
“A messenger from Pharaoh!” said the cry. “A messenger from Pharaoh to
the Prince Khian. Way for the messenger of Pharaoh!”
The doors burst open, the curtains were torn apart, and there entered
one of Apepi’s heralds clad in his livery and wearing a sheepskin on
his back, after the ancient fashion of the shepherds. He sprang
forward and, prostrating himself before the Prince, said:
“Having heard that your Highness has returned to Tanis Pharaoh Apepi
summons you to his presence in the Hall of Audience instantly,
instantly, instantly! O Prince Khian. And you also He summons, O
Vizier Anath. Come, come, come, O High Prince, and O great Vizier.”
“It seems that my father is in a hurry.”
“Yes,” answered Anath, “in such a hurry that we had best not keep him
waiting. Afterwards we will talk again, Prince. Herald, lead on.”
So they followed the man down the passages and across the courtyard to
the door of the Hall of Audience through which were speeding sundry of
the counsellors and nobles who were called “The King’s Companions,”
and as it seemed, also had been summoned hastily. At the end of the
hall, seated in a chair of state and surrounded by priests, scribes,
and a guard of soldiers, was Apepi. Glancing at him, Khian noted that
he seemed to be weary and dishevelled in his dress, for he wore no
crown, while in place of the royal mantle and apron of ceremony, a
coloured shawl was thrown round him which reminded Khian of something,
though at the moment he could not remember what it was. Moreover, his
face seemed drawn and thin and his eyes were very fierce.
Khian advanced up the hall and, after uttering the customary
salutation, prostrated himself before the King, while having made
obeisance, Anath the Vizier took his place on the left of the throne.
“Rise,” said Apepi, “and tell me, Prince Khian, how it comes about
that you whom I sent upon a certain embassy did not report your return
to me.”
“Pharaoh and Father,” answered Khian, “I disembarked at dawn and at
once, according to custom, caused the Vizier to be informed of my
arrival. The Vizier Anath rose from his sleep and visited me. He told
me that your Majesty was still resting on your bed after some journey
that you had made.”
“It matters not what he told you, and is the Vizier Pharaoh that you
should report yourself to him and not to me, so that I must learn of
your coming from the Captain of the Guard, whom I sent with you?
Surely you lack respect and he takes too much upon himself. Well, what
of your mission to those People of the Dawn? Have you made report of
that also to the Vizier? Know that I thought you dead, as my messenger
may have told you yonder at the pyramids. Should you not therefore
have hastened to advise me that you still lived? Is it thus that a son
should treat his father or a subject his king?”
Once more Khian began to explain but Apepi cut him short.
“I received the letter from the Council of the Dawn, an insolent
letter giving me back threat for threat, and with it another from
yourself, Khian, saying that you had seen this Nefra at some ceremony
when and where she purported to be crowned as Queen of Egypt. But I
have received no answer to my question as to whether this lady accepts
or refuses my offer of marriage. Do you bring that answer, Khian?”
“I do,” answered Khian, and drawing out the roll he handed it to the
Vizier who on bended knee passed it on to the King.
Apepi undid the writing and read it through carelessly, like to one
who already knew what was written there. As he read his brow grew
black and his eyes flashed.
“Hearken,” he said. “This mock queen refuses to be my wife, as she
says because years ago her father Kheperra was killed in battle with
my armies. Yes, that is what she says. Now, Khian, do you who have
dwelt all this while among the People of the Dawn tell me of her real
reasons.”
“How am I to know a woman’s reasons in such a matter, your Majesty?”
“In sundry ways, I think, Khian, otherwise you are but a poor envoy.
Yet before you search your mind for them, stretch out your right
hand.”
Thinking that he was about to be asked to take some oath, Khian
obeyed. Apepi stared at it, then once more stared at the letter and
asked in a quiet voice:
“How comes it, Khian, that you wear upon your hand, where I remember
used to be a certain ring that I gave to you engraved with the symbol
of our House and your titles as Prince of Egypt, another ring, an
ancient ring inscribed with the name of Khafra, Royal Son of the Sun,
who once a thousand years ago was Pharaoh of Egypt? And how does it
chance that this letter of refusal is sealed with that same ring by
Nefra who describes herself as Queen of Egypt?”
Now all present stared at Khian, while for a moment a little smile
flickered on the withered face of the Vizier Anath.
“It was a parting gift to me,” said Khian, looking down.
“Oh! So this puppet queen makes a parting gift of her royal ring to
you, my envoy. And did you perchance make a parting gift to her of the
ring of the heir apparent to the Crown of the North?”
Apepi paused, watching Khian, but he made no answer.
Then the King his father went on in a low, roaring voice like to that
of an angry lion:
“Now I understand all. Know, Son, that _I_ was that messenger who
visited the habitations of the Brethren of the Dawn some few days ago.
Yes, since he could trust no one else, not even his own son, Pharaoh
himself filled that humble office and came for his own answer. See, do
you know him now?” and rising from the throne with a quick motion he
wound the coloured Bedouin shawl about him so that it hid his face up
to the eyes, and limped forward a few paces.
“Yes,” answered Khian, “and, my Father, the disguise is as excellent
as the plan was bold, for had you but known it, you ran a great risk
among people who are worshippers of truth and look for it in others.”
Apepi returned to his throne and spoke again in the same roaring
voice:
“Aye, I ran a risk because I, too, love truth and desired to know what
was passing yonder by the pyramids, also to behold this daughter of
Kheperra with my own eyes. So I came and saw that she is very fair and
royal, such a one as I desire above all women for my queen. Other
things I saw also, among them that again and again she looked sweetly
at one clad in the white robe of a Brother of the Dawn, one who
presently I discovered to be no other than yourself, my envoy that I
believed was dead. Moreover, I heard from a fisherman that there were
strange sayings in those parts: namely, that the ‘Daughter of the
Dawn’ had promised herself to the Son of the Sun and that the Spirit
of the Pyramids had been unveiled by a man, of which sayings he swore
he did not know the meaning, though now to me it is clear enough. Tell
me, therefore, Khian, who come from the Home of Truth, first--are you
wed or affianced to the Princess Nefra, daughter of Kheperra whose
ring you wear upon your hand? and secondly, are you sworn a Brother of
the Dawn?”
Now his courage came back to Khian and, looking his father in the
eyes, he answered boldly:
“Why should I hide from your Majesty that I am betrothed to the royal
lady, Nefra, whom I love and who loves me, also that after thought and
study I have adopted the pure doctrines of the Dawn and am sworn of
its holy Brotherhood?”
“Why, indeed,” asked Apepi with bitter irony, “seeing that these
things have been discovered before it pleased you to announce them.
So, my son Khian, you whom I sent as my ambassador to ask a wife for
me, have stolen that wife for your own, and you whom I set to watch my
enemies, have adopted their doctrines and been sworn of their secret
fellowship. Why have you done these things? I will tell you. You have
broken your trust and robbed me of the woman because, did I marry her,
her son might thrust you from your heirship, whereas, if you marry
her, you keep it, as you think, and add to it whatever claims this
princess may have on the throne of Egypt. It is clever, Khian, very
clever.”
“I became affianced to the Lady Nefra because we love each other and
for no other reason,” answered the Prince hotly.
“If so, Khian, your love and your advantage go hand in hand, as do her
love and her advantage, wherein I think I see the cunning of that old
prophet, Roy. For the rest, you swear yourself of this Order because
you believe it to be powerful, having friends in many lands, and think
that by their help in days to come you will buttress up your throne or
win mine from me. Khian, I say that you are a thief, a liar, and a
traitor, and that as such I will deal with you.”
“Your Majesty knows well that I am none of these. In order to bring
about a certain alliance, your Majesty was pleased to reduce me from
my rank of heir apparent to that of a private person and as such to
send me on an embassy. As envoy I did my duty, but those to whom I was
sent would not listen to your Majesty’s proposal which I could not
help. Afterwards, as a private person I chanced to become attached to
a certain lady who, if I had not lived, for reasons of her own would
never have listened to the offer of your Majesty. That is all the
tale.”
“That perhaps we shall know when you have ceased to live, Khian. Learn
now how I will deal with these tomb rats of the pyramids who have
defied and insulted me. I will send an army--already it is on its
road--to knock them on the head, all of them. Only one will I
spare--the Lady Nefra; not because she is born of a royal House, but
because I have looked upon her and seen that she is beautiful, for,
Khian, you are not the only man who can worship beauty. Therefore I
will bring her here and make her mine, and for a marriage gift I will
give her your head, Khian; yes, you, the traitor, shall die before her
eyes.”
Now when they heard this decree the high officers who were named
Companions of the King stared at each other dismayed, for never before
had such a thing been told of, as that a Pharaoh of Egypt should kill
his own son because both of them loved the same woman. Even Anath the
Vizier started and paled; yet all that came from his lips was the
ancient salutation:
“Life! Health! Strength! Pharaoh’s word is spoken, let Pharaoh’s will
be done!”
As this hideous sentence fell upon his ears and a vision of all it
meant rose before his eyes, for a moment Khian felt his heart stop and
his knees tremble beneath him. He saw his Brethren of the Dawn
slaughtered and lying in their blood wherever they were trapped in
their hiding places. He saw the giant Nubian, Ru, overcome at last and
falling dead upon a mat of foes that he had slain. He saw the Lady
Kemmah butchered and Nefra seized and dragged a prisoner to Tanis,
there to be wed by force to a man she loathed. He saw himself led out
to death before her eyes and his gory head laid at her feet as an
offering. All these things and others he saw with the eye of his mind
and was afraid.
Yet of a sudden that fear passed. It was as though a spirit spoke to
his soul, the spirit of Roy, or so he thought, because for an instant
he seemed to appear before him seated where Apepi sat, venerable,
calm, and holy. Then he was gone, and with him went the terrors of
Khian. Moreover, now he knew what to answer; the words welled up
within him like water welling in a spring.
“Pharaoh and my Father,” he said in a bold, clear voice, “speak not so
madly, for I say that you cannot do these things which you have
decreed. Did not the Prophet of the Dawn repeat to you in his letter
his answer to your threat? Did he not say that he had no fear of you
and that should you attempt harm against the Brotherhood, every stone
of the pyramids would lie lighter on your head than will the curse of
Heaven which you would earn as a butcher and one forsworn? Did he not
tell you that the Order of the Dawn marshalled hosts unseen and that
with it goes the Strength of God? If not, I, your son, who am to-day a
Brother of the Dawn and its consecrated priest, deliver to you this,
his message. Try to do the wickedness that you have decreed, O
Pharaoh, and speaking with the voice of the Order of the Dawn, as I am
taught by the Spirit which it worships, I warn you that you will draw
down upon yourself disaster and death on earth, and after you have
left the earth, woe untold in the Underworld. Thus say I, speaking not
with my own voice but with that of the Spirit within me.”
When Apepi heard these dreadful words, he bowed his head and with
trembling hands drew the coloured robe more tightly about him, like to
one who in the midst of great heat is struck suddenly by a blast of
icy wind. Then again his rage possessed him and he answered:
“Now, Khian, I am minded to send you, the traitor, to your gods, your
king, your father, and your blood, down to that Underworld of which
you speak, there to discover whether this wizard Roy is or is not a
liar. Yes, I am minded to do this instantly here in the presence of
the Court. And yet I will not, since to you I appoint a punishment
more worthy of your crime. You shall live to see your fellow knaves
dead, every one of them; to see this maiden whom you have beguiled,
not yours but mine. Then, Khian, you shall die and not before.”
“Pharaoh has spoken, and I, an ordained Brother and Priest of the
Order of the Dawn, have spoken also,” answered Khian in the same clear
and quiet voice. “Now let the Spirit judge between us and show to all
who have heard our words, and to the whole world, in which of us
shines the light of Truth.”
Thus said Khian, then bowed to Apepi and was silent.
Pharaoh stared at him awhile, for he was amazed, wondering whence came
the strength that gave his son power to utter such words upon the edge
of doom. Then he turned to Anath and said:
“Vizier, take this evildoer who is no longer Prince of the North or
son of mine, and make him fast in the dungeons of the palace. Let him
be well fed that life may remain in him till all things are
accomplished.”
Anath prostrated himself, rose, and clapped his hands. There appeared
soldiers. Khian was set in the midst of them and led away, Anath
walking before them.