Текст книги "River god"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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  Her face was as white as freshly ground cornflour. Her eyes were so large and dark that they reminded me heart-breakingly of the little girl whom, in years gone by, I had so often woken from the grip of nightmare, and lit the lamp and sat beside her cot until she slept again. This time I could not help her, for the nightmare was reality.

  I could not go to her, for the priests and Pharaoh's guard surrounded her, as they had all these days past, and they would not let me near unto her. She was lost to me for ever, my little girl, and I could not support the thought of it.

  The priests had built the wedding canopy of river rushes on the bank above the Nile, and my Lady Lostris waited beneath it for her bridegroom to come to claim her. At her side stood her father, with the Gold of Praise glittering around his neck and the smile of the cobra on his lips.

  The royal bridegroom came at last, to the solemn beat of the drum and the bleat of gazelle-horn trumpets, and to me this wedding march was" die saddest sound in all the earth.

  Pharaoh wore the nemes crown and carried the sceptre, but behind the pomp and the regalia, he was still a little old man with a pot-belly and a sad face. I could not help but think of the other bridegroom who might have stood under the canopy beside my mistress, if only the gods had been kinder.

  Pharaoh's ministers and high officials attended him so closely that my view of my mistress was obscured. Despite the fact that it was I who had been forced to arrange every detail of it, I was excluded from the wedding, and I had only glimpses of my Lady Lostris during the ceremony.

  The high priest of Osiris washed the hands and the feet of both the bride and the groom with water freshly drawn from the Nile to symbolize the purity of their union. Then the king broke a morsel from the ritual corn-loaf and offered it to his young bride as a pledge. I glimpsed my mistress's face as he placed the crust between her lips. She could neither chew nor swallow but stood with it ia her mouth as though it were a stone.

  Once again she was hidden from my view, and it was only when I heard the crunch of the empty jug that had contained the marriage wine as the bridegroom shattered it with a blow of his sword, that I knew that it was done and that Lostris was for ever more beyond the reach of Tanus' arms.

  The crowd beneath the canopy opened and Pharaoh led his newest bride forward to the front of the platform to present her to the people. They showed their love for Lostris in a chorus of adulation that went on and on until my ears rang and my head swam.

  I wanted to escape from the press and go to find Tanus. Although I knew that he had been released from detention and was once again at liberty, he had not attended the ceremony. He was perhaps the only man in Thebes who had not come to the riverside today. I knew that wherever he might be, he stood in as dire need of me as I was of him. The only small comfort that either of us might find on this tragic day was with each other. However, I could not tear myself away. I had to see it out to the final harrowing moment.

  At last my Lord Intef came forward to take his farewell of his daughter. As the crowd subsided into silence he embraced her.

  Lostris was like a corpse in his embrace. Her arms hung limply at her side, and her face was pale as death. Her father released her, but kept a grip on her hand as he turned and faced the congregation to offer the ritual gift to his daughter. Traditionally, this gift was made over and above the dowry that went directly to the bridegroom. However, only the nobility observed this custom, which was designed to give the bride an independent income.

  'Now that you go from my house and from my protection to the house of your husband, I bestow upon you the gift of parting, that you will remember me always as the father that loved you.' The words were inappropriate to the circumstances, I thought bitterly. My Lord Intef had never loved another living soul. However, he continued the ancient formula, as though the sentiments were his own. 'Ask any boon of me, my beloved child. I will refuse you nothing on this joyous day.'

  It was the usual practice for the extent of the gift to be agreed in private between father and daughter before the ceremony, hi this case, however, my Lord Intef had told his daughter unequivocally what she was entitled to ask for. He had done me the honour of discussing the matter with me the previous day, before .informing Lostris of his decision. 'I don't want to be extravagant, but on the other hand I do not wish to appear parsimonious in Pharaoh's eyes,' he had mused. 'Let us say, five thousand gold rings and fifty feddan of land?not on the riverfront, mind you.'

  He had, with my prompting, finally decided on five thousand gold rings and one hundred feddan of prime irrigable land as being a suitable gift for a royal wedding. On his instruction I had already drawn up the deed of grant for the land, and set aside the gold from a secret store that my master kept out of the way of the tax-collectors.

  The matter was settled. It remained only for Lostris to give voice to the request before her groom and all the wedding guests. But she stood pale and silent and withdrawn, seeming neither to see nor hear what was going on around her.

  'Speak up, my child. What is it that you desire from me?' My Lord Intef s tones of paternal love were becoming strained, and he shook his daughter's hand to rouse her. 'Come, tell your father what he can do to make this happy day complete.'

  My Lady Lostris stirred as though coming awake from a dreadful dream. She looked about her and her tears welled up and threatened to break over her quivering eyelids. She opened her mouth to speak, but what came from her throat was the weak little cry of a wounded bird. She closed her lips again and shook her head speechlessly.

  'Come, child. Speak out.' My Lord Intef was having difficulty sustaining an expression of paternal affection. 'Name your marriage gift, and I will give it to you, whatever it is that you desire.'

  The effort that Lostris had to make was apparent to me, even though I stood so far from her, but this time when she opened her mouth her request rang out over our heads, clear as the music of the lyre. There could not have been a soul in the crowd who did not hear every word of it.

  'For my gift give me the slave, Taita!'

  My Lord Intef reeled back a pace as though she had thrust a dagger into his belly. He stared at her aghast, his mouth opening and closing without a sound escaping. Only he and I knew the value of the gift that Lostris had demanded. Not even he, with the store of wealth and treasure that he had garnered over a lifetime, could afford such a payment.

  He recovered swiftly. His expression was once more calm and benign, though his lips stretched tight. 'You are too restrained, my darling daughter. A single slave is no fitting gift for Pharaoh's bride. Such stinginess is not in my nature. I would rather you accepted a gift of real value, five thousand rings of gold and?'

  'Father, you have always been too generous with me, but I want only Taita.'

  My Lord Intef smiled a white smile, white teeth, white lips and white rage. While he still stared at Lostris I could see that his mind was racing.

  I was the most valuable of all his possessions. It was not simply my wide range of extraordinary talents that made up the full measure of my worth to him. Even more, it was that I knew intimately every convoluted thread of the intricate tapestry of his affairs. I knew every informer and spy in his network, every person whom he had ever bribed and who had bribed him. I knew which favours were outstanding on each account, which favours remained to be settled, and which grudges were still to be paid off.

  I knew all his enemies, a long list; and I knew those he counted his friends and allies, a much shorter list. I knew where every nugget of his vast treasure was hidden, who were his bankers and his agents and his nominees, and how he had concealed the ownership of great tracts of land and stores of precious metals and gemstones in the legal labyrinth of deeds and titles and servitudes. All of this was information that would delight the tax-collectors and cause Pharaoh to revise his opinion of his grand vizier.

  I doubted that my Lord Intef himself could remember and trace all his wealth without my assistance. He could not properly order and control his sprawling, shadowy empire without me, for he had kept himself aloof and separated from the most unsavoury aspects of it. He had preferred to send me to take care of those details which, if discovered, might incriminate him.

  So it was that I knew a thousand dark secrets, and I knew of a thousand fearful deeds, of embezzlement and extortion, of robbery and bloodiest murder, all of which taken together could destroy even a man as powerful as the grand vizier.

  I was indispensable. He could not let me go. And .yet, before Pharaoh and the entire population of Thebes, he could not deny Lostris her request.

  My Lord Intef is a man full of ire and hatred. I have seen such rage in him that must have made Seth, the god of anger, start up and take notice. But I had never seen such fury as now that his own daughter had him cornered.

  'Let the slave Taita stand forward,' he called, and I saw that it was a ruse for him to gain a respite. I pushed my way as swiftly as I was able to the foot of the wedding platform, to give him as little time as possible to plan his next mischief.

  'I am here, my lord,' I cried, and he stared down at me with those deadly eyes. We have been together so long that he can speak to me with a look almost as clearly as with the spoken word. He stared at me in silence until my heart was racing and my fingers fluttered with fear, then at last he said in soft, almost affectionate tones, 'Taita, you have been with me since you were a child. I have come to regard you as a brother more than as a slave. Still, you have heard my daughter's request. I am by nature a fair and kind man. After all the years it would be inhuman of me to discard you against your wishes. I know that it is unusual for a slave to be given a say in his own disposal, but then your circumstances are indeed unusual. Choose, Taita. If you wish to stay in your home, the only home you have ever known, then I cannot find the heart to send you away. Not even at the request of my own daughter.' He never took his eyes off me, those terrible yellow eyes. I am not a coward but I am careful of my safety. I realized that I was staring into the eyes of death, and I could not find my voice.

  I tore my gaze from his, and looked towards my Lady Lostris. There was such appeal there, such loneliness and terror, that my own safety counted for nothing. I could not desert her" now, not at any price or under any threat.

  'How can a poor slave deny the wish of Pharaoh's wife? I am ready to do the bidding of my new mistress,' I cried out at the top of my lungs, and I hoped that my voice had a manly ring to it and was not as shrill as it sounded in my own ears.

  'Come, slave!' my new mistress ordered. 'Take your place behind me.'

  As I mounted the platform, I was forced to pass close to > my Lord Intef. His white, stiff lips barely moved as he spoke: for my ears alone. 'Farewell, my old darling. You are a dead; man.'

  I shuddered as though a poisonous cobra had slid across my path and I hurried to take my place in the retinue of my mistress, as though I truly believed that I could find safety in her protection.

  I STAYED CLOSE TO LOSTRIS DURING THE rest of the ceremony and I waited on her personally at the wedding feast, hovering at her elbow and trying to make her eat a little of the meats and fine fare that was spread before her. She was so wan and sickly that I was certain that she had eaten nothing in the last two days, not since her betrothal and the condemnation of Tanus.

  In the end I succeeded in getting her to take a little watered wine, but that was all. Pharaoh saw her drink and thought that she was toasting him. He lifted his own gold chalice, and smiled at her over the rim as he returned the toast, and the wedding guests cheered the couple delightedly.

  'Taita,' she whispered to me as soon as the king's attention was diverted by the grand vizier who sat at his other hand, 'I fear that I am going to vomit. I cannot stay here another moment. Please take me back to my chamber.'

  It was an impudence and a scandal, and had I not been able to adopt the role of surgeon, I could never have achieved it, but I was able to creep on my knees to the king's side, and to whisper to him without causing an undue comment amongst the wedding guests, most of whom were well along in wine at this stage.

  As I grew to know him better, I found that Pharaoh was a kindly man, and this was the first proof he gave me of it. He listened to my explanations and then clapped his hands and addressed the guests. 'My bride will go to her chamber now to prepare for the night ahead,' he told them, and they leered and greeted the announcement with lewd comment and lascivious applause.

  I helped my mistress to her feet, but she was able to make her obeisance to the king and leave the banquet hall without my support. In her bedchamber she threw up the wine she had drunk into the bowl that I held for her, and then she collapsed upon the bed. The wine was all her stomach contained and my suspicion that she had been starving herself was confirmed.

  'I don't want to live without Tanus.' Her voice was weak, but I knew her well enough to recognize that her will was as strong as ever.

  Tanus is alive,' I tried to console her. 'He is strong and young and will live for another fifty years. He loves you and he promises to wait for you to the end of time. The king is an old man, he cannot live for ever?'

  She sat up on the fur bedcover and her voice became stern and determined. 'I am Tanus' woman and no other man shall have me. I would rather die.'

  'We all die in the end, mistress.' If only I could distract her for the first few days of this marriage, I knew I could see her through. But she understood me too well.

  'I know what you are up to, but all your pretty words will do you no good. I am going to kill myself. I order you to prepare a draught of poison for me to drink.'

  'Mistress, I am not versed in the science of poison.' It was a forlorn attempt, and she crushed it effortlessly.

  'Many is the time that I have seen you give poison to a suffering animal. Do you not remember your old dog, the one with abscesses in its ears, and your pet gazelle that was mauled by a leopard? You told me that the poison was painless, that it was the same as going to sleep. Well, I want to go to sleep and be embalmed and go on to the other world to wait fpr Tanus there.?

  I had to try other persuasion. 'But what about me, mistress? You have only this day taken possession of me. How can you abandon me? What will become of me without you? Have pity on me.' I saw her waver, and I thought I had her, but she lifted her chin stubbornly.

  'You will be all right, Taita. You will always be all right. My father will take you back gladly after I am dead.'

  'Please, my little one,' I used the childhood endearment in a last attempt to cajole her, 'let us talk of this in the morning. Everything will be different in the sunlight.'

  'It will be the same,' she contradicted me. 'I will be parted from Tanus, and that wrinkled old man will want me in his bed to do horrid things to me.' Her voice was raised so that the other members of the king's harem might hear every word. Fortunately most of them were still at the wedding feast, but I trembled at the thought of her description of him being relayed to Pharaoh.

  Her voice became shriller with the edge of hysteria in it. 'Mix me the poison draught now, this instant, while I watch you do it. I order you to do it. You dare not disobey me!' This command was so loud that even the guards at the outer gates must be able to hear her, and I dared not argue longer.

  'Very well, my lady. I will do it. I must fetch my chest of medicine from my rooms.'

  When I returned with the chest under my arm, she was up from the bed and pacing around her chamber with glittering eyes in that pale, tragic face.

  'I am watching you. Don't try any of your tricks on me now,' she warned me, as I prepared the draught from the scarlet glass bottle. She knew that colour warned of the lethal contents.

  When I handed the bowl to her, she showed no fear, and paused only to kiss my cheek. 'You have been both father and loving brother to me. I thank you for this last kindness. I love you, Taita, and I shall miss you.'

  She lifted the bowl in both hands as though it were a wassail cup rather than a fatal potion.

  'Tanus, my darling,' she toasted him with it, 'they shall never take me from you. We shall meet again on the far side!' And she drained the bowl at a swallow, then dropped it to shatter on the floor. At last, with a sigh, she fell back upon the bed.

  'Come, sit beside me. I am afraid to be alone when I die.'

  Taken on her empty stomach, the effect of the draught was very rapid. She had only time to turn her face to me and whisper, 'Tell Tanus again how much I loved him. Unto the portals of death, and beyond.' Then her eyes closed and she was gone.

  She lay so still and pale that for a moment I was truly alarmed, afraid that I had misjudged the strength of the powder of the Red Shepenn which I had substituted for the essence of the deadly Datura Pod. It was only when I held a bronze hand-mirror to her mouth that the clouded surface reassured me she still breathed. I covered her gently, and tried to convince myself that in the morning she would be resigned to the fact that she was still alive, and that she would forgive me.

  At that moment there was a peremptory knock upon the door of the outer chamber and I recognized the voice of Aton, the royal chamberlain, demanding entrance. He was another eunuch, one of the special brotherhood of the emasculated, so I could count him as a friend. I hurried through to greet him.

  'I have come to fetclTyour little mistress to the king's pleasure, Taita,' he told me, in high girlish tones so incongruous with such a large frame. He had been gelded before puberty. 'Is she ready?'

  'There has been a small mishap,' I explained, and led him through to see Lostris for himself.

  He puffed out his rouged cheeks with consternation when he saw her condition. 'What can I tell Pharaoh?' he cried. 'He will have me beaten. I will not do it. The woman is your responsibility. You must answer to the king, and stand before his wrath.'

  It was not a duty that I relished, but Aton's distress was real, and at least I had my medical status to afford me some protection from the king's frustrated expectations. Reluctantly, I agreed to accompany him to the royal bedchamber. However, I made sure that there was one of the older and more reliable slave maids in attendance in my mistress's outer chamber before I left her alone.

  Pharaoh had removed his crown and his wig. His head was shaved as bare and white as an ostrich egg. The effect startled even me, and I wondered how my mistress would have responded to the sight. I doubt that it would have raised either her ardour or her opinion of him.

  The king seemed as startled to see me as I was to see him. We stared at each other for a moment before I fell to my knees and made my obeisance.

  'What is this, Taita the slave? I sent for another?'

  'Merciful Pharaoh, on behalf of the Lady Lostris I come to beg your understanding and indulgence.' I launched into a harrowing description of my Lady Lostris' condition, larding it with obscure medical terms and explanations that were intended to divert the royal appetite. Aton stood beside me, nodding in emphatic corroboration of all I had to say.

  I am sure that it would not have worked with a younger and more vigorous bridegroom, ready and rearing to get to the business, but Mamose was an old bull. It would have been impossible to tally all the lovely women who over the past thirty years or so had enjoyed his services. In single file they would probably have encircled the city of Thebes of a hundred gates, possibly more than once.

  'Your Majesty,' Aton interrupted my explanations at last, 'with your permission, I will fetch you another female companion for the night. Perhaps the little Human with the unusual control of her?'

  'No, no,' the king dismissed him. 'There will be plenty of time for it when the child is recovered from her indisposition. Leave us now, chamberlain. There is some other matter that I wish to discuss with the doctor?I mean, with this slave.'

  As soon as we were alone the king lifted his shift to display his belly. 'What do you think is the cause of this, doctor?' I examined the rash that adorned his protuberant paunch, and found it to be an infestation of the common ringworm. Some of the royal women washed less frequently than is desirable in our hot climate. I have noted that filth and the contagious itch go together. The king had probably contracted the infection from one of them.

  'Is it dangerous? Can you cure it, doctor?' Fear makes commoners of us all. He was deferring to me now as would any other patient.

  With his permission, I went to my quarters to fetch my medicine chest, and when I returned, I ordered him to lie on the ornate gold and ivory marquetry bed while I massaged an ointment into the inflamed red circle of skin on his belly. The ointment was of my own concoction and would heal the rash within three days, I assured him.

  'In a great measure you are responsible for the fact.that I have married this child who is your new mistress,' he told me as I worked. 'Your ointment may cure my rash, but will your other treatment provide me with a son?' he demanded. 'These are troubled times. I must have an heir before I am another year older. The dynasty is in jeopardy.'

  We physicians are always reluctant to guarantee our cures, but then so is the lawyer and the astrologer. While I procrastinated he gave me the escape I was searching for.

  'I am no longer a young man, Taita. You are a doctor and I can tell you this. My weapon has been in many a fierce battle. Its blade is no longer as keen as once it was. Of late it has failed me when I most had need of it. Do you have something in that box of yours that would stiffen the wilting stem of the lily?'

  'Pharaoh, I am pleased that you have discussed this with me. Sometimes the gooVwork in mysterious ways?' we both made the sign to avert evil before I went on, 'your first congress with my virgin mistress must be perfectly executed. Any faltering, any bending from our purpose, any failure to raise on high the royal sceptre of your manhood, will frustrate our efforts. There will be only one opportunity, the first union must be successful. If we have to try again there will be the danger of your fathering yet another female.' My medical grounds for this prognosis were rather insubstantial. Nevertheless, we both looked grave, he graver than I did.

  I held up my forefinger. 'Had we made the attempt tonight, and?' I said no more, but let my forefinger droop suggestively, and shook my head. 'No, we are fortunate to have been given another chance by the gods.'

  'What must we do?' he demanded anxiously, and I was silent for a long while, kneeling in deep thought beside his bed.

  It was difficult not to let my relief and satisfaction become apparent. Within the first day of my mistress's marriage, I was already working my way into a position of influence with the king, and I had been offered a perfect excuse for keeping her maidenhead intact for at least a little longer, long enough perhaps for me to be able to prepare her for the brutal shock of her first act of procreation with a man whom she did t love and who was, indeed, physically distasteful to her. I told myself that with clever management of the situation, I might be able to draw out this period of grace indefinitely.

  'Yes indeed, Your Majesty, I can help you, but it will take some time. It will not be as easy as curing this rash.' My mind was racing. I had to wring every drop out of this sponge. 'We will have to go on to a very strict diet.'

  'No more bull's balls, I beseech you, doctor.'

  'I think you have had enough of those now. However, we will need to warm youf blood and sweeten your generative fluids for the fateful attempt. Goat's milk, warm goat's milk and honey three times a day, and of course the special potions I will prepare for you from the horn of the rhinoceros and the root of the mandrake.'

  He looked relieved. 'You are certain this will work?'

  'It has never failed before, but there is one other measure that is essential.'

  'What is that?' His relief evaporated, and he sat up and peered at me anxiously.

  'Complete abstinence. We must allow the royal member to rest and regain its full strength and force once again. You must forsake your harem and all its pleasures for a while.' I said this with the dogmatic air of the physician that cannot be gainsaid, for it was the one sure way to ensure that my Lady Lostris would remain untouched. However, I was worried by what his reaction would be. He could conceivably have flown into a rage at the thought of being denied his conjugal pleasures. He might have rejected me, and I could have lost all the advantage that I had so newly won. But I had to take the risk for the benefit of my mistress. I had to protect her just as long as I was able.

  The king's reaction surprised me. He simply lay back on his headrest and smiled complacently to himself. 'For how long?' he asked quite cheerfully, and I was struck by the realization that my strictures had come as a relief to him.

  For me, to whom the act of love with a beautiful woman would always be an unattainable and elusive dream, it took an immense effort to understand that Pharaoh was content to be relieved of a once pleasurable duty that, by reason of being so often performed, had become onerous.

  There must have been at least three hundred wives, and concubines in his harem at that time, and some of those Asian women were notorious for their insatiable appetites. I tried to sympathize with the effort that it must require to act like a god night after night, and year after year. The prospect did not daunt me as the actuality seemed to have wearied the king.

  'Ninety days,' I said.

  'Ninety days?' he repeated thoughtfully. 'Nine Egyptian weeks of ten days each?'

  'At least,' I said firmly.

  'Very well.' He nodded without rancour and changed the subject easily.

  'My chamberlain tells me, doctor, that apart from your medical skills, you are also one of the three most eminent astrologers in this very Egypt of ours?'

  I wondered why my friend the chamberlain had qualified his assertion. For the life of me I could not think who the other two might be, but I inclined my head modestly. 'He flatters me, Your Majesty, but perhaps I do have some little knowledge of the heavenly bodies.'

  'Cast a horoscope for me!' he ordered, sitting up eagerly.

  'Now?' I asked with surprise.

  'Now!' he agreed. 'Why not? For on your orders there is nothing that I should rather be doing at this moment/ That unexpected smile of his was really quite endearing, and despite what he meant to Tanus and my mistress, I found myself liking him.

  'I shall have to fetch some of my scrolls from the palace library.'

  'We have all night,' he pointed out. 'Fetch whatever you need.'

  The exact time and date of the king's birth were well documented and I had in the scrolls all the, observations of the movements of the heavenly bodies made by fifty generations of astrologers before me. While the king watched avidly, I made the first cast of the royal horoscope, and before I had half finished it I saw the character of the man, as I had observed it, perfectly endorsed by his stars. The great red wandering star, that we know as the eye of Seth, dominated his destiny. It was the star of conflict and uncertainty, of confusion and war, of sadness and misfortune, and in the end of violent death.

  But how could I tell him all these things?

  I extemporized and put together a scantily veiled resume of the well-documented facts of his life, and laced these with a few less well-known details that I had gathered from my spies, one of whom was the royal chamberlain. Then I followed with the usual assurances of good health and long life that every client wants to hear.

  The king was impressed. 'You have all the skills that your reputation made me expect.'

  "Thank you, Your Majesty. I am pleased that I have been able to be of service.'. I began to gather up my scrolls and my writing instruments preparatory to taking my leave. It was very late by now. From the darkness beyond the palace walls I had already heard the first cockerel crow.

  'Wait, Taita. I have not given you permission to leave. You have not told me what I really want to know. Will I have a son and will my dynasty survive?'

  'Alas, Pharaoh, those matters cannot be predicted by the stars. They can give only the general inclination of your fate, and the overall direction that your life will take, without making clear such details?'

  'Ah, yes,' he interrupted me, 'but there are other means of seeing into the future, are there not?' I was alarmed by the direction in which his questions were leading, and I attempted to head him off, but he was determined.

  'You interest me, Taita, and I have made enquiry about you. You are an adept of the Mazes of Ammon-Ra.' I was distressed. How had he found this out? Very few knew of this esoteric gift of mine, and I wanted it to remain thus. However, I could not blatantly deny it, so I remained silent.

  'I saw the Mazes hidden at the bottom of your medicine chest,' he said, and I was relieved that I had not attempted to deny my gift and been caught out in the lie. I shrugged with resignation, for I knew what was coming.