Desert God (16 page)

Pharaoh was impatient to begin utilizing it for the welfare of his subjects. I had to restrain him from paying the nation’s debts with silver ingots bearing the hallmark of the Supreme Minos of Crete.

‘Great Pharaoh, you and I are both aware that the Minos has his spies in every city of our very Egypt,’ I pointed out to him. ‘It would take but a short time for one of them to send a message back to Crete to inform him that every souk and tavern in Thebes was awash with silver ingots bearing the hallmark of the bull of Crete.’

‘Is what you are telling me I can never spend the bullion I have packed into my treasury over there?’ He pointed with his chin at his father’s tomb on the far side of the Nile. ‘In case the Minos is alerted to its existence?’ His tone was bitter and his expression angry.

‘I beg your forgiveness, Royal Egypt. You are the father of the nation. The treasure belongs to you to use in any way you wish. However we must alter its appearance so that no man alive, and in particular not the Supreme Minos, will ever be able to recognize it.’

‘How will we achieve that, Taita?’ He was only slightly mollified. At least he was looking into my face with an expression which was once more friendly and interested.

‘We must break the ingots down into much smaller fragments, each weighing the same amount; say half a deben. Each of these could bear the image of your royal head.’

‘Hmm!’ he murmured. I had known that he would like the idea of his own head on the fragments. ‘What would we call them, these silver fragments of mine, Tata?’

‘Pharaoh will surely think of a better name, but I had the idle notion that they should be known as silver mem.’

He smiled with pleasure. ‘I think that is very appropriate, Tata. Now what image are we going to stamp on the reverse side of my silver mems, opposite my head?’

‘Of course, Pharaoh will decide that.’ I bowed my head and avoided his gaze.

‘Of course I will decide that,’ he agreed, ‘but you would like to make a suggestion, I can see that.’

I shrugged. ‘We have been together since the moment of your birth, Majesty.’

‘Yes. Horus knows I have heard about it from you often enough. When you relate how my first act was to piss on you, I always think I should have pissed harder and longer.’

I pretended that I had not heard the last part of his remark. ‘I have always been close behind you, loyally and faithfully. It might be propitious to continue that tradition.’ I paused, but he urged me on.

‘Continue! However, I think I can see in which direction we are headed.’

‘Perhaps – and I say perhaps with all humility – perhaps Pharaoh might see fit to order that the image of the wounded falcon should decorate the reverse side of his silver mem,’ I suggested and he let out a shout of laughter.

‘You never let me down, Tata. You had it all worked out from the very beginning!’ The wounded falcon with a broken wing is my personal hieroglyph.

Under the royal auspice and in terms of strict secrecy I set up a mint within the precincts of the tomb of Mamose to manufacture this coinage.
Coin
was the new word I had conceived to describe these pieces of silver. Pharaoh accepted it without argument.

This coinage was another of my achievements which proved an extraordinary boost to the progress and prosperity of our very Egypt. Nowadays a smoothly functioning monetary system is an essential instrument of government and commerce. It was one of my gifts to my Egypt, and one of the principal reasons why we will always be the pre-eminent nation of the world. Although other nations have since imitated us, the silver mem is now the coin that is recognized and accepted joyfully in every country in the world.

With a nudge from me Pharaoh changed the name of his father’s tomb to ‘the Royal Mint’; thereby expunging the deleterious taint of death and interment from the place. When this was done Pharaoh appointed me to be the governor of this institution; thereby adding substantially to all my other duties and responsibilities. However, when duty calls I never complain.

One of my first acts in my new capacity of governor was to appoint Zaras to be the Guardian of the Royal Mint and Treasury. I prevailed on Pharaoh to give him the command of a battalion of guards to assist him in carrying out these duties. Of course this placed Zaras completely under my authority.

Since Princess Tehuti had contrived her stratagem to force him to inspect her diamond ring, and thereby making her intentions clear to me, I had been very careful to keep Zaras isolated on the western bank of the Nile. I knew that when my darling had fixed her mind on a certain course of action it was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to distract and dissuade her.

The only way that I could think of was to sever any contact between her and Zaras until I was able to work out her manifest destiny for her. Clearly this destiny was for her to become the queen and consort of the most powerful military figure in the world and not the plaything and camp-follower of some common soldier, however pleasant and congenial that soldier might be.

One of the few facts that I knew about the enigmatic figure of the Supreme Minos was his predilection for beautiful women of royal blood. To be entirely truthful, even this was not a proven fact. It was merely a rumour which by frequent repetition had become hard fact.

Nonetheless I was confident that this shadowy but omnipotent figure would find both my little princesses irresistible, and that through them I would be able to manipulate the Minoan to my will, and the greater good of our very Egypt. I consoled myself that Tehuti could hope for no greater honour and higher duty than to occupy a throne and to save her homeland from the Barbarian. When she realized this she would soon set aside her trivial infatuation with Zaras.

But in the meantime I would have to keep that worthy young man confined in the Royal Mint with little or no opportunity to cross the river; there to sniff around the royal harem like a dog with the scent in his nostrils of a little overheated bitch.

U
p until this time Pharaoh and we members of his royal council had followed the mounting conflict between the Supreme Minos and the Hyksos King Gorrab with utmost attention. And we had done whatever lay within our power to intensify their hostility towards each other. Unfortunately this was not much. Crete was far away and we had no contact with its ruler.

While I waited for the time to come when I could put my plan for Tehuti and Bekatha into effect I set out to learn what I could about Crete and the Supreme Minos. This was where both Amythaon and his daughter Loxias provided me with invaluable information about the island state, its history and population, its resources and most importantly its rulers.

I use the plural ‘rulers’ deliberately; for it seems that Crete has four kings. The Supreme Minos, as his title suggests, dominates the other three lesser kings. They live in separate palaces, but these are linked to the grand palace at Knossos by roads magnificently paved with marble slabs. In Egypt we would refer to these as satraps or governors, and not kings.

When I questioned him closely I learned that Amythaon had been born in a small village only three leagues outside the walls of Knossos, the citadel of the Supreme Minos. His father had been an officer in the palace and as a child Amythaon had been a spectator at many of the festivals and processions of the Minos. He was the first person that I had ever spoken to who had actually laid eyes on the Minos.

According to Amythaon he is a splendid and imposing figure who is always masked when he appears in public. The mask he wears is in the shape of a bull’s head fashioned out of pure silver. None of his subjects have ever seen his face.

‘He is immortal,’ Amythaon declared. ‘He has ruled since the birth of the nation, back in the mists of time.’

I nodded wisely, but it did occur to me that if none of his subjects had ever seen his face how did they know that it was the same man who had ruled forever? To me it seemed likely enough that when the incumbent Supreme Minos died his successor simply donned the silver bull mask and continued the reign.

‘He has a hundred wives,’ Amythaon went on and looked at me to be impressed. I adopted an expression of awe. ‘The Supreme Minos receives wives from all the other kings of the city states across the islands that dot the Aegean Sea. Four times a year, on the festivals which mark the changing of the seasons, they are sent to him as a form of tribute.’

‘How many vassal kings does the Supreme Minos have, Amythaon?’

‘He is a mighty monarch. He has twenty-six vassals in all, my lord,’ he told me, ‘including the three on the island of Crete itself.’

‘How many wives do they send him?’

‘Every year each vassal king sends him seven wives.’

‘That adds up to 182 each year. Do you agree with my figures, Amythaon?’ I watched him count on his fingers and at last he nodded.

‘That is correct, my lord.’

‘Then can you explain to me how the number of his wives remains at one hundred, as you asserted at first?’

‘I am not sure, lord. That is what I was told by my father when I was a child.’ He looked perplexed, and I asked another question to relieve his embarrassment.

Amythaon was even more helpful to me in describing the topography of the island of Crete and its population. I had accumulated a number of allegedly accurate maps of the island that all differed widely from each other. Amythaon went over these with me, laboriously correcting the substance and details and in the end consolidating these into a master map which he guaranteed was perfect. This map showed all the cities and villages, the ports and the anchorages, the roads and the passes through the Cretan mountain ranges.

Because of his family connections Amythaon was also able to give me reliable figures for the Minoan army and navy.

The number of foot-soldiers was substantial. However these were mainly mercenaries recruited from the other Hellenic islands or from amongst the Medes and Aryans of eastern Asia. Because of the mountainous nature of Crete itself, he told me that the Minoans possessed relatively few chariots, compared to the Hyksos or to our own Pharaoh.

It seems that the Supreme Minos makes up for this by the strength of his navy which far exceeds any other in the Middle Sea. Amythaon was able to give me estimates of the numbers and types of ships that it comprises.

The numbers that Amythaon quoted were so large that I knew they were exaggerated. I thought that if I was mistaken and Amythaon’s figures were accurate, then the Supreme Minos was a mighty man indeed.

A
rmed with all this information, I at last deemed that the time had come when we Egyptians should actively intervene on the side of Crete in the war between the Minoans and the Hyksos, and that we might be able to exert the critical impetus that was necessary to finally defeat the barbarian Hyksos and drive them from our homeland.

Aton and I pooled all the information and intelligence that we had gathered from our agents and he was impressed with the magnitude of my accumulated research, which was much greater than his own, but I did not disparage his efforts.

After long debate we were agreed that the most feasible plan was for us to initiate friendly overtures with the Minoans directly, and work towards an alliance with them which would make our two nations the dominant power on earth; a power which the Hyksos could never hope to challenge.

This was when, in my enthusiasm, I made an error. I told Aton, ‘I recall that in the time before the Hyksos incursion into Egypt we always maintained tenuous but mutually rewarding diplomatic contact with Crete. However, the invasion of Upper Egypt by the Hyksos has isolated our southern portion of the country. This has rendered it almost impossible for us to continue this contact with Crete. Our two countries have diverged; separated by the wedge that the Hyksos have driven between us.’

Aton listened to me with an expression of wonder slowly dawning on his chubby features. When I paused to hear his reply he went on staring at me in silence. I was obliged to press him.

‘So what is your opinion, Aton? Does my plan not appeal to you?’

He did not address my question, but reverted sharply to what I had said at the beginning. ‘Did I hear you correctly, Taita? Did you say that you actually remember the time before the Hyksos invasion of our land?’

I am usually extremely reticent about my age. Even those like Aton who know me well take me to be several decades younger than I truly am. If I were to tell them the correct figure they would think me a madman at the best, or a liar at the worst. The Hyksos invasion took place almost ninety years ago, and yes I do remember it well. But now I had to cover up my error.

I dismissed his question with a chuckle. ‘I expressed myself clumsily. What I meant was that from all I have read and heard related about the time before the Hyksos invasion, when Egypt was on friendly terms with Crete.’ Then I hurried on, ‘If we are going to attempt to restore those friendly relations and enter into another treaty of mutual defence between our two countries it will be extremely difficult to do so directly. Do you not agree, Aton?’

He did not reply at once. He still had that odd expression on his face, and I saw his eyes flicker down over my neck to my hands which lay on the cedar-wood writing desk in front of me. Aton knows as I do that the ravages of time are always more apparent on those parts of the human body.

However, I am an exception. The skin that covers my entire body is smooth and unblemished as that of a lad who has not yet grown a hair on his chin. Aton could not find the evidence of my true age that he was seeking there. So he nodded thoughtfully and brought his full attention back to the subject I had broached.

‘Of course what you say about the present situation is the truth, Taita. It would be almost impossible to make direct contact with the Minos. You have correctly identified the problem; now tell me what you believe to be the solution.’ He softened his challenge with a mild tone of voice.

‘Of course you know that the Supreme Minos maintains a diplomatic mission at the court of King Nimrod of Akkad and Sumer in his capital city of Babylon.’