Pharaoh

The charges were so preposterous that I did not know where to begin my rebuttal. All I could think of in my defence was to deny the accusations and repeat over and over: ‘No! That’s not the way it happened. Pharaoh Tamose was like a son to me, the only son I ever had. He gave all of that to me to reward me for the services I carried out on his behalf over the fifty years of his life. I never stole anything from him, not gold nor silver, not even a loaf of bread.’

I might not have spoken for Pharaoh went on listing the charges against me: ‘This assassin Taita used his knowledge of drugs and poisons to murder another precious royal woman. This time his victim was my own beautiful, gentle and dearly beloved mother, Queen Saamorti.’

I gasped to hear that monstrous trollop so described. I had treated many of her slaves that she had personally emasculated or beaten half to death. She had delighted in mocking me cruelly over my damaged and mutilated manhood; bemoaning the fact that others had been ahead of her with the gelding knife. Her handmaidens had been gainfully employed in smuggling a seemingly endless train of male slaves into her elaborate sleeping quarters. The obscenities she practised with these sorry creatures had probably resulted in the birth of the very person who stood before me now reading out my death warrant: His Mighty Majesty Pharaoh Utteric Turo.

One thing I knew with the utmost certainty was that the potions and medicines which I administered desperately to Queen Saamorti had not been sufficiently therapeutic to cure the filthy diseases which one or more of her myriad paramours had squirted into her lower bodily orifices. I wish her peace, although I am certain that the gods in their wisdom will deny it to her.

However, this was not the end of the horrific accusations that Pharaoh Utteric had to bring against me. The next was as far-fetched as all the previous charges lumped together.

‘Then there was his flagrant treatment of two of my royal aunts, the Princesses Bekatha and Tehuti. It is true that my father managed to arrange a marriage for both of them with the most powerful and fabulously wealthy monarch in the world, the mighty Minos of Crete. Pharaoh, my father, sent these royal virgins in a caravan to their wedding with the Minos. Their retinue reflected our own wealth as a nation. It was several hundred persons strong. The treasure that was the dowry of my sisters was almost two hundred lakhs of fine silver bars. My father Pharaoh Tamose once again placed his trust in this sordid criminal and reprobate you see before you: Taita. He gave him command of the caravan. His assistants were two military officers named Captain Zaras and Colonel Hui. My information is that this creature, Taita, succeeded in reaching Crete and marrying my sisters to the Minos. However, in the eruption of Mount Cronus caused by the rage of the eponymous god Cronus, he who is the father of the god Zeus and has been chained for all eternity by his son in the depths of the mountain …’

Here Pharaoh paused briefly to catch his breath, and then hurried on with his wild accusations: ‘The Minos was killed by the fall of rocks when the island of Crete was devastated by the eruption. In the ensuing chaos those two pirates, Zaras and Hui, abducted both my aunts. They then hijacked two of the vessels which belonged to my father Pharaoh Tamose’s fleet and fled northwards into the unexplored and savage archipelagos at the far end of the world. All this was against the will of my aunts, but with the connivance and encouragement of the accused scoundrel, Taita. When he returned to our very Egypt Taita told Pharaoh that his sisters had been killed in the volcanic eruption, and Pharaoh called off the search for them. Taita must bear the full guilt for their abduction and the hardships they must certainly have suffered. That dastardly deed alone warrants the death sentence for its perpetrator.’

Once again the only verdict I could truthfully plead was guilty: guilty of allowing the two young women that I love more even than they love me the opportunity to find true fulfilment and happiness after they had done their duty to the utmost. But once again I could only gape at my accuser and maintain the silence which I had promised to Bekatha and Tehuti when I sent them to find happiness with the men they truly love.

Pharaoh turned away from me, drew himself to his full height and gazed upon the ranks of noblemen and princes, who were stunned into stillness and silence by his revelations and accusations. He regarded them one at a time, drawing out the suspense. Then at last he began to speak again. I expected no mercy from him, and he did not disappoint my expectations.

‘I find the prisoner guilty of all the charges brought against him. He is to be deprived of all his assets, be they large or small, fixed or moveable, situated anywhere in the world. They are all forfeited to my treasury, nothing excepted.’

A buzz ran through the ranks of his audience, and they exchanged envious glances for they all knew what riches this short recital entailed. It was common knowledge that I was the richest man in Egypt after only Pharaoh. He let them discuss it between themselves for a short while before he held up one hand for silence and they immediately froze. Even in my dreadful predicament I was amazed at how terrified they all were of their new Pharaoh, but I was learning the wisdom of their fear.

Then Pharaoh giggled. This was the moment when first I realized that Utteric Turo was raving mad, and that he placed neither restraint nor control on his own madness. That high-pitched giggle was a sound that could only be uttered by a lunatic. Then I remembered that his mother had also been mad – only her madness merely took the form of sexual incontinence. In Utteric Turo it took the form of total megalomania. He was unable to restrain any of his baser instincts or fantasies. He wished to be a god, so he declared himself one and believed that was all that was required for him to become one.

On this realization my heart went out to my fellow citizens of this, the greatest nation in the history of the world. They were only just beginning to realize what fate awaited them. I did not care about my own destiny for I knew that it was already fixed in the garbled mind of this madman. But I cared deeply for what was about to happen to my beloved Egypt.

Then Pharaoh began to speak again: ‘I am only mortified that death will come too quickly to this felon after all the suffering he has inflicted on my family. I would prefer to see him suffer to the limits of his evil soul for the airs and graces he has always affected, and for his pretence of wisdom and learning.’

Here I managed to smile at how Utteric could not disguise his envy of my superior intellect. I saw the quick flush of anger that my smile evinced, but he went ranting on.

‘I am aware that it is not adequate punishment; however, I decree that you shall be taken in your rags and chains from hence to the place of Torment and Sorrow. There you shall be given over to the tormentors who will …’ Here he recited a list of atrocities so frightful that it left some of the gentler females in his audience pale with nausea and weeping with horror.

Finally Pharaoh turned back to me. ‘I am now prepared to listen to your expression of remorse and regret before I send you to face your destiny.’

I rose to my feet, still manacled and half-naked, and I spoke out clearly, for I had nothing more to lose. ‘Thank you, Your Mighty Majesty Pharaoh Utteric Turo. Now I understand why all your subjects, not excluding me, feel as they do towards you.’ I made no effort to disguise the sardonic tone of my voice.

The coward Utteric shot me a disgusted glance and waved me away. I was the only person in the great hall of Luxor still smiling. That smile of derision was the only rebuke that was in my power to inflict on the monster who now ruled Egypt.

As Pharaoh had decreed Weneg and his platoon marched me out of the great hall of Luxor Palace, wearing only my loin-cloth and my chains. At the head of the great staircase I paused with astonishment and gazed down on the multitude that filled the open square at the foot of the steps. It seemed that every single citizen of our great city was assembled there, filling the square to overflowing. They stood in complete silence.

I could sense their hatred and enmity. Yet most of them had been my people. They or their fathers and grandfathers had fought with me in fifty battles. Those who had been crippled in the fighting I had taken in and succoured on my estates, giving them shelter from the elements and at least one substantial meal a day. Their widows also were certain of my bounty. I had given them useful employment and had schooled their offspring, equipping them for a place in this hard world. I realized that they had resented my charity and had come today to give free rein to their feelings.

‘Why are they here?’ I asked Weneg softly, barely moving my lips.

His reply was a whisper even softer than my question had been. ‘It is Pharaoh’s command. They are here to revile you as a traitor, and splatter you with ordure.’

‘That is why he ordered my clothing to be taken from me.’ I had wondered why Pharaoh had so insisted on that. ‘He wants me to feel the filth against my skin. You had best not follow me too closely.’

‘I will be one pace behind you. What is good enough for you, Taita, is good enough for me.’

‘You give me too much respect, good Weneg,’ I protested. Then I braced myself and started down the stairs towards the sea of angry humanity. I could hear the footsteps of my guards pressing close behind me, willing to share my ordeal. I did not hurry or slink, but walked calmly with my shoulders back and my head held high. I searched the faces of that mighty crowd awaiting me, looking for their expressions of hatred, waiting for the storm of their abuse to break over me.

Then, as the faces of the front rank of the dense throng came into clearer focus, I felt suddenly confused. Many of the women were weeping. That I had not expected. The men looked grim and – dare I even think it? – as sorrowful as the mourners at a funeral.

Suddenly a woman broke through the line of armed guards, ostentatiously placed there to keep the crowds under control. The woman stopped a few paces from me and threw something at me. It fell at my feet, and I stooped and picked it up from the stone slabs between my manacled hands.

It was not a ball of excrement as Pharaoh had decreed, but a lovely blue water lily from the Nile waters. This was the traditional offering to the god Horus, a token of love and deep respect.

Two of the guards broke from the ranks behind the woman and took her by the arms to restrain her, but they were not angry; their manner was gentle and their expressions sorrowful.

‘Taita!’ the woman called to me. ‘We love you.’

Then a second voice shouted from the mass of humanity behind her, ‘Taita!’ and then another called, ‘Taita!’ And suddenly a thousand and then two thousand voices were crying my name.

‘We must hurry to get you beyond the city walls,’ Weneg shouted in my ear, ‘before Pharaoh realizes what is happening, and descends upon us in his wrath.’

‘But even I don’t understand what is happening,’ I yelled back at him. He gave me no answer, but instead grabbed my upper arm. One of his men got a firm grip on my other arm. They almost lifted me off my feet as they ran with me down the open pathway which was shrinking as the crowds surged forward to try to touch or embrace me; I was uncertain which it would be.

At the end of the alley four of Weneg’s men were holding the chariots. We reached them just before the crowds overwhelmed us. The horses were panicked by the uproar but as soon as we were aboard the charioteers gave them their heads. They galloped in single file down the cobbled streets, headed for the main gates of the city. Soon we had left the massed humanity behind us. The gates were already closing when we came in sight of them, but Weneg cracked his whip over the backs of his team and urged them through the narrow gap and out into the open countryside.

‘Where are we heading?’ I blurted, but Weneg ignored my question and handed the key of my manacles to his archer who stood close behind me, steadying me in the lurching cockpit of the chariot.

‘Get those things off his wrists, and then cover the Magus’ nudity.’ He did not reply to my question, but looked smug and mysterious.

‘What do you intend to use to cover me?’ I demanded, glancing down at my naked body. Again he ignored my question, but his archer handed me a sparse bundle of clothing from the bin in the coachwork of the chariot.

‘I never knew you were so famous,’ the archer said as I pulled a green tunic over my head. Annoyingly it was the only one in the bag I had to choose from. Green is my least favoured colour; it clashes appallingly with the colour of my eyes. ‘Did you hear them shouting for you?’ The archer enthused. ‘I thought they were going to spurn you; but they loved you. All of Egypt loves you, Taita.’ He was beginning to embarrass me, so I turned back to Weneg.

‘This is not the shortest road back to Doog at the Gates of Torment and Sorrow,’ I pointed out to him, and Weneg grinned at me.

‘I am sorry to disappoint you, my lord. But it has been arranged for you to meet somebody other than the honourable Doog.’ Weneg whipped up the horses and turned them on to the paved road that led down to the harbour on the Nile. However, before we reached it he again turned the heads of the horses; but this time on to a northerly track that ran parallel to the great river. We drove in silence for several leagues at a fast trot. I would not give Weneg the satisfaction and importance of questioning him further. I was not sulking – that is something that I never do – but I must confess that I was slightly irritated by his mysterious reticence.

I had glimpses of the river through the thick forest which grew along the bank, but I feigned indifference and looked away to the far hills on the eastern horizon. Then suddenly I heard Weneg grunt and exclaim, ‘Ah! There he is, right where he promised to be.’

I turned, but in a leisurely and uninterested manner. But suddenly I sat bolt upright on the transom of the chariot, for there, only a hundred paces off the near bank of the Nile, was the flagship of our battle fleet, indubitably the finest and fastest trireme in existence. She could run down any other ship afloat, and board her with a hundred fighting crew.

I was not able to remain sitting calmly. I scrambled to my feet, and before I could restrain myself I had blurted out, ‘By the brimming breasts and the unctuous slit of the great goddess Hathor! That ship is the Memnon!’

‘By the prime prick and turbulent testicles of the great god Poseidon! I believe that you are right; for once at least, Taita,’ Weneg mimicked me.

I bridled for an instant and then, before I could prevent myself, I laughed and pounded him between the shoulder blades. ‘You should never have shown me such a beautiful ship. It will only serve to put a host of naughty ideas into my head.’

‘Which was fully my intention, I must confess.’ Weneg called to his team of greys, ‘Whoa now!’ The magnificent animals nodded their heads and arched their necks to the drag of the reins, and the chariot came to a halt on the bank, looking out across the Nile towards the great warship.

The instant they recognized us on the bank the crew of the Memnon sprang to the windlass on the foredeck and winched up the heavy copper cross-shaped anchor. Then under staysails and a flying jib the warship sauntered in on the light westerly breeze towards the bank where we waited ecstatically to greet her.

My enthusiasm in particular was overwhelming, because I sensed that my salvation was at hand, and I was being spared another assignation with the dreaded Doog at the Gates of Torment and Sorrow.

‘Memnon’ was the baby name of my beloved Pharaoh Tamose, he who had so recently been laid low by the Hyksos arrow that his corpse had not yet completed the embalming process which would enable him to be laid to rest in his tomb that stood ready to receive him in the Valley of the Kings on the westerly bank of the Nile. There he would lie with his ancestors through all of eternity.

The Memnon was an enormous vessel. I know her specifications intimately because, after all, I was mainly responsible for her design. It is true that Pharaoh Tamose claimed full honours for that feat, but he is gone now and I am not so mean as to take the credit away from a dead man.

In length the hull of the Memnon exceeded 100 cubits. She drew 3 cubits of water fully loaded. Her crew numbered 230. She shipped a total of 56 oars in 3 banks a side, as her designation of trireme suggests. The staggered lower rowing benches and the outriggers on the top tier of oars prevented the strokes of the oars interfering with each other. Her width was less than 13 cubits so she was lightning fast through the water, and easy to beach. Her single mast could be lowered, but when raised it spread a massive square sail. She was quite simply the most beautifully designed fighting ship afloat.

As she came in to moor on the river-bank I noticed a tall mysterious figure in the stern. He was dressed in a long red robe and a hood of the same colour that covered his face, except for the eye slits. It was apparent that he did not wish to be recognized, and as the crew made the ship fast, he went below without revealing his features or giving any other suggestion of his identity.

‘Who is that?’ I demanded of Weneg. ‘Is this who we have come to meet?’

He shook his head. ‘I cannot say. I will wait for you here ashore.’

I did not hesitate but clambered up on to the Memnon’s bows and strode down the length of the upper deck until I reached the hatch down which the red-robed figure had disappeared. I stamped my foot on the deck, and immediately a deep but cultured voice replied. I did not recognize it.

‘The hatch is open. Come down and close it behind you.’

I followed these instructions and stooped into the cabin below. The headroom was minimal, for she was a fighting ship and not a pleasure cruiser. My red-robed host was already seated. He made no attempt to rise, but he indicated the narrow bench facing him.

‘Please excuse my attire but for reasons that will be immediately clear to you I need to keep my identity hidden from the common flock, at least for the immediate future. I knew you well when I was a child, but circumstances have kept us apart since then. On the other hand you were well acquainted with my father, who held you in the highest regard, and more recently my elder brother who is less enthusiastic …’

Before he finished speaking I knew beyond any doubt who it was that sat before me. I scrambled to my feet to accord him the respect that he so richly deserved, but in the process I cracked my head resoundingly on the beams of the upper deck above me. These were hewn from the finest Lebanese cedar, and my skull was no match for them. I collapsed again on my bench with both hands cradling my head and a thin trickle of blood running into my left eye.

My host leaped to his feet but he had the good sense to remain crouching. He whipped the red hood off his own head and rolled it into a ball. Then he clapped it over my wound, pressing down hard to stem the flow of my life’s blood.

‘You are not the first to sustain the same injury,’ he assured me. ‘Painful but not fatal, I assure you, my Lord Taita.’ Now that his hood was adorning my scalp, rather than covering his features, I was able to confirm that this was indeed the Crown Prince Rameses who was tending my injury.

‘Please, Your Royal Highness, it is merely a scratch which I richly deserve for my clumsiness.’ I was embarrassed by his solicitude, but grateful for the opportunity to gather my wits again and reassess the prince at such close quarters.

He ranked as Lord High Admiral of the Fleet, and he was so assiduous in his duties that he very seldom made himself available for light socializing and mingling with any other than his own naval officers or, naturally enough, his father. Of course I had romped with him as a child and had told him fairy tales of noble princes saving lovely maidens from dragons and other monsters, but as he approached puberty we had drifted apart and Rameses had come totally under his own father’s influence. Since then I had never again been familiar with him. So now I was surprised at how closely he resembled his father, Pharaoh Tamose. Of course, this resemblance reaffirmed the high regard in which I had always held him. If anything he was even more handsome than his father. It gave me a twinge of conscience to even think this; however, it was the truth.

His jawline was stronger, and his teeth more even and white. He was a little taller than his father had been, but his waist was leaner, and his limbs more supple. His skin was a most remarkable shade of deep gold, reflecting his mother Queen Masara’s Abyssinian ancestry. His eyes were a brighter and more lustrous shade of the same hue, and their gaze was piercing, but at the same time intelligent and kindly.

My heart went out to him once again, as though the intervening years had never existed. His next words confirmed my instincts: ‘We have many things in common, Taita. But at the moment the most pressing of them is my elder brother’s baleful and implacable enmity. Pharaoh Utteric Turo will never rest until he sees both of us dead. Of course, you are already under sentence of death. But so am I, although not as openly but with equal or even greater relish and anticipation.’

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why does your brother hate you?’ The question came easily to my lips. I felt that with this man I was perfectly in accord. I had nothing to hide from him, nor had he anything to hide from me.

‘It is simply because Pharaoh Tamose loved me and you more than he loved Utteric, his eldest son.’ He paused for a heartbeat, and then went on, ‘And also because my brother is mad. He is haunted by the ghosts and phantoms of his own twisted mind. He wishes to dispose of any person wiser and nobler than he is.’

‘You know of this for a certainty?’ I asked, and he nodded.

‘For a certainty, yes! I have my sources, Taita, as I know you do also. In secret and only to his sycophants, Utteric has boasted of his hostile intentions towards me.’

‘What are you going to do about it?’ I asked and his reply rang in my ears like my own voice speaking.

‘I cannot bring myself to strike him down. My father loved him: that is enough to stay my hand. But neither am I going to let him murder me. I am leaving Egypt this very day.’ His tone was calm and reasonable. ‘Will you come with me, Taita?’

‘I served your father with joy,’ I answered him. ‘I can do no less for you, my prince who should be Pharaoh.’ He came to me and clasped my right hand in a gesture of friendship and accord, and I went on speaking, ‘However, there are others who have put themselves at risk for my sake.’

‘Yes, I know who you mean,’ Rameses agreed. ‘Captain Weneg and his legionaries are fine and loyal men. I have spoken with them already. They will throw in their lot with us.’

I nodded. ‘Then I have no further quibble. Wherever you lead I will follow, my Lord Rameses.’ I knew very well where that was; better indeed than the prince himself. However, now was not yet the time to broach that subject.

The two of us went up on deck again and I saw that on the bank Weneg and his men had already dismantled the chariots; as we watched his men carried the parts over the gangplank and sent them down into the ship’s hold. Then they swayed the horses aboard and sent them down below also. In under an hour the Memnon was ready to sail. We cast off from the bank and turned the bows into the north. With the wind in our sails, the river current pushing us and the treble banks of oars beating the Nile waters to foam, we headed northwards towards the open sea and freedom from Pharaoh’s malignant and pernicious thrall.

One of the few benefits of being a long liver is to be gifted with remarkable powers of healing and recuperation from injury. Almost within the hour the self-inflicted wound to my scalp stopped oozing blood and began to dry up and shrivel away, and before we reached the estuarine mouth of the Nile where it debouched into the great Middle Sea the whip welts, bruises and other injuries inflicted upon me by the dreadful Doog and his minions had healed completely, leaving my skin smooth and glowing with health, like that of a young man again.