Desert God (11 page)

Pharaoh Mamose had been overtaken by destiny and had never lain a single day in his tomb before the Hyksos drove us out of our land. When we embarked on the long exodus we were commanded by his wife, Queen Lostris, to carry his embalmed body with us.

Many years later, Queen Lostris ordered me to design and build another tomb in the savage Nubian wilderness thousands of leagues further south. That was where Mamose now lay.

The original tomb in the Valley of the Kings had stood empty all these years. More importantly for my plans, the canal that I had built from the funerary temple on the bank of the Nile to the royal tomb was still in an excellent state of repair. I knew this because only a short while previously I had ridden along the bank with my two little princesses to show them their father’s empty tomb. I must admit that neither of them showed much interest in this lesson in the history of their own family.

Even after all these years I was able to recall the precise dimensions of Mamose’s funeral barge. My memory is infallible. I never forget a fact, a figure or a face.

Now I measured the overall dimensions of our requisitioned Minoan treasure triremes. Then I ordered Zaras to anchor briefly in calm water, while I swam down to the trireme’s keel and measured the amount of water she drew with her full cargo of bullion in the hold. These measurements varied somewhat from ship to ship.

I returned to the surface well pleased with the results of my investigations. Now I was able to compare the dimensions of Pharaoh Mamose’s funeral barge with those of the captured triremes. The funerary canal would accommodate the transit of the largest of my triremes with ten cubits to spare on each side of the hull, and with clearance of fifteen cubits of water under the keel. What was even more encouraging was that all those years ago I had lined the canal with granite blocks and I had designed a system of locks and shadoofs to keep it always filled with Nile water.

It has been my experience that if you defer to the gods with the full reverence and respect that they deserve and expect, they are often inclined to return the compliment. Although they can be capricious, this time they had remembered me.

I planned the last leg of our journey to arrive at the entrance to the funerary canal shortly after the setting of the sun. In darkness we tied up at the stone jetty below Pharaoh Mamose’s funerary temple. Of course Mamose is now a god and has his own temple overlooking the Nile. It is but a short walk from the jetty on which Zaras and I landed.

It is not a very imposing temple. I must accept the responsibility for that. When we returned to Thebes after the exodus and we defeated the Hyksos at the battle of Thebes, my mistress Queen Lostris was determined to dedicate a temple to her husband, the long-dead Pharaoh. She wanted to honour him and at the same time render up thanks for our safe return from the wilderness.

Of course she summoned me to build the temple. When I saw the extent and sumptuousness of the edifice she had in mind I was shocked and alarmed. It would have overshadowed and outshone the grand palace of the Pharaohs which would face it from the opposite bank of the river. Pharaoh Mamose had almost reduced this very Egypt to penury with the erection of his two tombs: the one here at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings and the other even more complex and expensive tomb in Nubia.

Now my mistress, whom I adored and worshipped, planned to bring the nation low yet again with the erection of another astonishing building in his memory.

Fortunately I have considerable sway over her only son, the present Pharaoh Tamose, who is a sensible lad. To a much lesser extent I had learned from long and bitter experience how to control the wilder excesses of my queen. The dimensions of the temple to Mamose that we eventually settled upon were half the size of the tax collector’s building in Thebes, and I even managed to do away with the marble floors.

An establishment of this size no longer required the services of as many priests as my queen had in mind. I whittled away at her resolve until finally she threw up her hands in resignation and agreed to my counter-proposal of four priests, as opposed to her original estimate of four hundred.

Now when Zaras and I made our way up from the river to the rear entrance of the temple and walked into the nave without announcing our arrival we discovered the four religious gentlemen rather more than moderately inebriated on cheap palm wine. They were in the company of two young ladies who for some arcane and obscure reason were without clothing. They were engrossed in a prayer ritual with two of the priests of Mamose, which seemed to consist of rolling around on the floor of baked mud-bricks, clinging together and uttering cries of wild abandon. The two unoccupied priests stood over them clapping their hands and extorting the worshippers to a more strenuous display of religious devotion.

It was some little time before any of them became aware of our presence. At that point the ladies hurriedly retrieved their apparel and disappeared through the secret door behind the statue of the god Mamose. We did not see them again, nor were they mentioned in our subsequent conversation with the priests.

The priests of Mamose are well disposed towards me. Since the death of Queen Lostris I have made myself responsible for the payment of their monthly stipends. The four of them knelt in front of me, genuflecting vigorously and in the name of the god calling down blessings on my head.

As they knelt at my feet I produced the hawk seal of Pharaoh from under my cloak. They were struck dumb with awe. The high priest crawled to my feet and tried to kiss them. He smelled overpoweringly of sweat, cheap wine and cheaper femininity. I stepped back and Zaras dissuaded him from further demonstrations of piety with the flat of his sword across his bare buttocks.

Then I addressed the four of them briefly but firmly, warning them strictly that the presence of three large warships moored at the wharf outside their front door must never be mentioned or admitted to anybody but Pharaoh Tamose in person. In addition armed guards would be placed over their temple and the empty tomb at the far end of the canal both day and night. Only those men under the command of Captain Zaras were in future allowed to enter the sacred precincts. These same guards would ensure that the four priests themselves would remain strictly incarcerated within these precincts.

Finally I commanded the high priest to hand over to me the large bunch of keys to the tomb and all the other monuments under his charge. We left them still protesting their duty and devotion to me and Pharaoh, and their strict obedience to my orders. Zaras and I returned to our ships.

The fall in the ground from the entrance to the Valley of the Kings to the dock on the river was less than twenty cubits but it required four separate locks to lift each of our triremes that height before we could bring them to the tomb. We rowed the first ship into the lock below the temple and then closed the gates on it. The water level in the lock was five cubits lower than that in the canal.

I demonstrated to my three captains how to open the ground paddles. Water from the upper canal then drained down into the lock and slowly lifted the enormous ship up to the same level as the upper canal. Once the gates were closed behind her, fifty men on the tow lines were standing ready to drag the great trireme down the canal to the next lock, while behind her the process was being repeated to raise the second trireme.

None of my men had ever seen anything to match this, which was not surprising because I had invented the system myself. There was not another like it in all the world. They were elated and excited by what they perceived to be witchcraft. But there was usually hard work involved in my kind of magic.

Fortunately I had over two hundred men to apply to this labour. These included the slaves that had been chained below by the Minoans. They were now freed men but they were obliged to work for their freedom.

The water that was drained from the higher canal to lift the boat had to be replaced. I achieved this by pumping up fresh water from the river by means of a battery of shadoofs. These were counterweighted bucket chains each served by two men. It was an involved and laborious business that had to be repeated four times with each trireme.

Before each boat was lifted through the first lock the sails and masts were lowered flat on the upper deck. Then the hull was covered by woven reed mats until it resembled a shapeless mound of trash. When the citizens of Thebes awoke the following morning and looked across the river they would see nothing untoward on the far bank. The three great triremes had disappeared as though they had never existed.

It was almost sunrise the next day before we had towed the ships across the plain and moored them at the entrance to Mamose’s tomb. The men were exhausted so I ordered Zaras to issue them with extra rations of dried fish, beer and bread, and let them rest through the hot hours of the day.

I walked back along the towpath of the canal to the temple. The priests seemed to have recovered from the strenuous rituals, devotions and prayers of the previous evening. They rowed me across the river in the temple skiff. I was on my way to report on the success of our expedition to Pharaoh.

This was a pleasant duty to which I was looking forward immensely. My devotion to Pharaoh is exceeded only by that I had for his mother, Queen Lostris. Of course, it is futile to compare superlatives so I deliberately do not mention my royal princesses in this equation. Let it suffice to say that my devotion to the royal family extends to all its members.

My tame priests landed me on the steps below the bazaars of the waterfront of the city, which were already thronged despite the early hour. I set off through the narrow streets towards the palace gates. Under my battered helmet and filthy face mask nobody recognized me, although a gang of small ragamuffins danced around me calling me vile names and throwing stones at me. I caught one of their missiles in mid-air and returned it with considerably more force than I received it. The urchin who was clearly leader of the gang screamed with pain and clutched at the wound in his scalp, which was fountaining copiously, and he led his followers in the flight for safety.

When I reached the palace gates I removed my disguise, and the captain of the household guards recognized me at once. He saluted me respectfully.

‘I must see Pharaoh!’ I told him. ‘Send a messenger to tell him I am waiting on his pleasure.’

‘I offer you my apologies, Lord Taita.’ I did not correct him. I was becoming accustomed to my new title. ‘Pharaoh is not in Thebes, and we do not expect his imminent return.’

I nodded. This came as a disappointment, but as no real surprise to me. Pharaoh spends the greater part of his time and energy in prosecuting the interminable campaign against the Hyksos in the north. ‘Then take me to the chamberlain, Lord Aton.’

When I reached his private rooms Aton rushed to embrace me at the door. ‘What tidings, old friend?’ he demanded. ‘How went our venture?’

‘Grave tidings indeed.’ I assumed a gloomy expression. ‘The treasury of the Supreme Minos in his fort at Tamiat has been plundered, and King Beon has been murdered.’

He held me at arm’s length and stared into my face. ‘You jest with me, good Taita,’ he accused me. ‘All honest men must weep to hear it told! Who would commit such heinous crimes?’

‘Alas! Both committed by the same hand, Aton. One that you might recognize, mayhap?’ And I held up my right hand before his face. He stared at it with cleverly feigned mystification. To have survived so long in the role of royal chamberlain one had to be a gifted thespian.

Then he shook his head and began to chuckle, softly at first, but the volume of his mirth built up swiftly until he was snorting and hooting with glee. He staggered around the room bumping into the furniture and laughing. His belly and every other part of him were shaking with laughter. Then abruptly he stopped laughing and fled to the adjoining closet. There was a moment of silence, but before I could follow him there came a sound like the flooding of the Nile through the cataracts. It went on for some considerable time before Aton returned to where I waited. Now his expression was once more serious as he adjusted his robes.

‘You are fortunate, my dear friend, that I reached the pot in time, or you might have been drowned like King Beon.’

‘How do you know Beon was drowned?’

‘I have ears and eyes other than those you see in my face.’

‘If you know so much, then tell me about the treasure of the Minos.’

‘I have heard nothing of that.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘Is there aught you might have learned about it?’

‘Only that you were wrong.’

‘In what way was I wrong?’

‘You told me that the treasure might amount to a hundred lakhs, did you not?’ He nodded and I went on:

‘You sadly miscalculated.’

‘Can you prove it to me?’ he demanded.

‘I can do better than that, Aton. I can let you weigh it,’ I assured him. ‘However, I must get a message to Pharaoh before we leave the palace.’

Aton pointed to his writing case, which lay open in a corner of the room. ‘Write your message and Pharaoh will have it in his hand before nightfall,’ he assured me.

My message was short and cryptic. ‘Please be patient with me,’ I begged Aton as I handed it to him, ‘but I have not bathed or worn fresh apparel for almost two moons. I must visit my own quarters here in the palace before I return with you to the tomb of Mamose.’ I did not think it worth mentioning that neither had I seen my two little princesses since my return.

As soon as I reached my quarters I sent one of my slaves to the quarters of the royal women to convey a message to Their Highnesses.

The two of them arrived with the force and fury of the khamsin wind out of the desert just as I was stepping into my hot tub. They are the only ones in all the world that I allow to see me unclad, except for my slaves. However, my slaves are all eunuchs as am I, so they are of no account.

Now Tehuti and Bekatha perched on the marble surround of my tub and pestered me with questions. They took no notice of my nudity. Once many years ago Bekatha had spoken for both of them on the subject: ‘You are just like me and Tehuti; all three of us look so much neater without all those dangly things hanging in front of us.’