River god - Smith Wilbur (бесплатные онлайн книги читаем полные версии .txt) 📗

  I carried her to the bows of the galley when at last the walls of Thebes opened to our view around the last bend in the river. With an arm around her thin shoulders I supported her, as we delighted together in all those long-remembered scenes, and lived again a thousand joyous memories of our youth.

  But the effort tired her. When we docked below the Palace of Memnon, half the populace of Thebes was waiting to welcome her. Pharaoh Tamose stood at the head of this vast throng.

  When the litter-bearers carried her ashore, they cheered her. Although most of them had never laid eyes upon her, the legend of the compassionate queen had persisted during her long exile. Mothers lifted up their infants for her blessing, and they reached out to touch her hand as it trailed from the edge of the litter.

  'Pray to Hapi for us,' they pleaded. 'Pray for us, Mother of Egypt.'

  Pharaoh Tamose walked beside her litter like the son of a commoner, and Tehuti and Bekatha followed close behind. Both the princesses smiled brightly, though the tears jewelled their eyelids.

  Aton had prepared quarters for the queen. At the door I sent them all away, even the king. I laid her on the couch beneath the vine arbour on the terrace. From there she could look across the river to the shining walls of her beloved Thebes.

  When darkness fell, I carried her to her bedchamber. As she lay upon the linen sheets, she looked up at me. 'Taita,' she murmured, 'one last time, will you work the Mazes of Ammon-Ra for me?'

  'Mistress, I can refuse you nothing.' I bowed my head and went to fetch my medicine chest.

  I sat beside her bed, cross-legged upon the stone slabs, and she watched me prepare the herbs. I crushed them in the alabaster pestle and mortar, and heated the water in the copper kettle.

  I raised the steaming cup and saluted her with it.

  'Thank you,' she whispered, and I drained the cup. I closed my eyes and waited for the familiar but dreaded slide, over the edge of reality, into the world of dreams and visions.

  When I returned, the lamps were guttering and smoking in their brackets, and the palace was silent. There was no sound from the river or from the sleeping city on the far bank, only the sweet trill of a nightingale in the gardens, and the light breath of my mistress as she lay upon her silken pillow.

  I thought she was sleeping. But the moment I lifted my trembling hand to wipe the cold and nauseous sweat from my face, she opened her eyes. 'Poor Taita, was it so bad?'

  It had been worse than ever before. My head ached and my vision swam. I knew that I would never work the Mazes again. This was the last time, and I had done it for her alone.

  'I saw the vulture and the cobra stand on either side of the river, divided by the waters. I saw the waters rise and fall one hundred seasons. I saw one hundred sheaths of corn, and one hundred birds fly over the river. Below them, I saw the dust of battle and the flash of swords. I saw the smoke of burning cities mingle with the dust.

  'At last I saw the cobra and the vulture come together in congress. I saw them mating and entwined on a sheet of pure blue silk. There were blue banners on the city walls and banners of blue flew on the temple pylons.

  'I saw the blue pennants on the chariots that drove out across the world. I saw monuments so tall and mighty that they would stand for ten thousand years. I saw the peoples of fifty different nations bow down before them.'

  I sighed and pressed my fingers into my temples to still the throbbing in my skull, and then I said, 'That was all my vision.'

  Neither of us spoke or moved for a long while thereafter, then my mistress said quietly, 'One hundred seasons must pass before the two kingdoms are united, one hundred years of war and striving before the Hyksos are at last driven from the sacred soil of this very Egypt. It will be hard and bitter for my people to bear.'

  'But they will be united under the blue banner, and the kings of your line will conquer the world. All the nations of the world will pay homage to them,' I interpreted the rest of my vision for her.

  'With this I am content.' She sighed and fell asleep.

  I did not sleep, for I knew that she still needed me near her.

  She woke again in that hour before dawn which is the darkest of the night. She cried Out, 'The pain! Sweet Isis, the pain!'

  I mixed the Red Shepenn for her. After a while she said, 'The pain has passed, but I am cold. Hold me, Taita, warm me with your body.'

  I took her in my arms and held her while she slept.

  She awoke once more as the first timid rays of dawn crept in through the doorway from the terrace.

  'I have loved only two men in my life,' she murmured, 'and you were one of those. Perhaps in the next life, the gods will treat our love more kindly.'

  There was no reply I could give. She closed her eyes for the last time. She stole away quietly and left me. Her last breath was no louder than the one before, but I felt the chill in her lips when I kissed them.

  'Goodbye, my mistress,' I whispered. 'Farewell, my. heart.'

  I HAVE WRITTEN THESE SCROLLS DURING the seventy days and nights of the royal embalming. They are my last tribute to my mistress.

  Before the undertakers took her away from me, I made the incision in her left flank, as I had done for Tanus. I opened her womb and took from it that terrible incubus that had killed her. It was a thing of flesh and blood, but it was not human. When I cast it into the fire, I cursed it, and I cursed the foul god Seth who had placed it in her.

  I have prepared ten alabaster jars to hold these scrolls. I will leave them with her. I am painting all the murals of her tomb with my own hand. They are the finest I have ever created. Each stroke of my brush is an expression of my love.

  I wish that I could rest with her in this tomb, for I am sick and weary with grief. But I still have my two princesses and my king to care for. They need me.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  On 5 January 1988, Doctor Duraid ibn al Simma of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities opened and entered a tomb on the west bank of the Nile in the Valley of the Nobles. The reason why this tomb had not been previously excavated was that in the ninth century AD an Islamic mosque had been built over the site. It was only after long and delicate negotiations with the religious authorities that the excavation was permitted.

  Immediately upon entering the passage that led to the burial chamber, Dr Al Simma was greeted by a marvellous display of murals which covered all the walls and the ceilings. They were the most elaborate and vivacious that he had ever encountered in a lifetime spent studying the monuments.

  He told me that he knew at once that he had made a significant find, for from amongst the hieroglyphics on the walls stood out the royal cartouche of an Egyptian queen who had not been previously recorded.

  His excitement and anticipation increased as he approached the burial chamber, only to be dashed as he saw that the seals upon the doorway had been damaged, and the entrance had been forced. In ancient times, the tomb had been robbed and stripped of its sarcophagus and all its treasures.

  Nevertheless, Dr Al Simma was able to date the tomb with reasonable accuracy to that dark night of strife and disaster that overwhelmed Egypt in about 1780 BC. For the next century the Two Kingdoms were in a state of flux. We have little record of the events of this period, but from the chaos eventually rose a line of princes and pharaohs that finally expelled the Hyksos invader, and lifted Egypt into its period of greatest glory. It gives me pleasure to think that the blood of Lostris and Tanus and Memnon ran strongly in their veins.

  It was almost a year after the tomb was first opened, while Dr Al Simma's assistants were copying and photographing the decorations of the walls, that a section of the plaster fell away to reveal a hidden niche in which stood ten sealed alabaster vases.