‘Like a hawk,’ the messenger proclaimed loudly, ‘plunging on its quarry.’
The robbers, a sizable gang, eventually took refuge in a rocky outcrop served by a spring. My father laid siege. Aided by Sand Dwellers, he had eventually stormed the outcrop. Those robbers who were not killed in the skirmish were impaled on stakes thrust up into their bowels or bound in thornbushes drenched in oil and set alight. A few were sent into Thebes to await punishment whilst my father returned triumphant. He had only been slightly wounded; an arrow had clipped the side of his neck. However, its barb had been drenched in snake venom and, despite the help of the regimental leech, by the time they reached Thebes, Father was dead. My aunt didn’t cry but, gnawing at her lip, demanded my presence and, escorted by a retinue of servants, led me across the Nile to the Wabet, the House of Purification, up above the Libyan plateau just beyond the Necropolis. Our journey was fruitless. We arrived only to find that a great honour had been bestowed on my father by the express order of Pharaoh the Magnificent One. My father’s corpse was already across the Nile being cared for in the House of Death at the Temple of Anubis, a soaring temple which lay just east of Ipetsut, the most perfect of places, the great temple complex of Karnak where Amun-Ra the Almighty, the All-Seeing Silent One, or so they said, dwelt in dark mystery.
I did not know why my aunt dragged me to these places of death. Oh, I know what the priests say, they are also the Springs of Life, the first part of the journey to the Fields of the Blessed. Isithia didn’t care about that. Perhaps it was revenge? Yet, on reflection, it was an enjoyable day. I was taken through the Waset, the City of the Sceptre, the splendid Thebes — what an experience! Most boys of my age knew the city like the back of their hands but, for me, it was like entering another realm. An experience I’d never imagined: the throngs of people, the dust haze, and the marauding flies against which Isithia’s notorious whisk was used like a weapon.
I’d always regarded Isithia as a Demon God lording it over her household, but in the city she was just one being amongst many. I saw men and women I could never have imagined: Negroes in their plumed head-dresses, shoulders draped in jaguar skins. Mercenaries from Canaan, Libya and Kush. Some wore horned helmets, stout boots on their feet and wicked-looking weapons thrust through belts and sashes. These brushed shoulders with merchants from the islands, Desert Wanderers and Sand Dwellers whose faces and bodies were hidden beneath folds of cloth. Hesets, temple girls, danced and flirted, their beautiful faces framed by thick braided wigs, all decorated with white stones and gorgeous head-bands. They wore gauze-like gowns above leather braided skirts. Every movement was part of some dance as they clashed sistra and shook tambourines in a slow, sinuously moving line of beauty.
The many markets enthralled me. Smells from the ointment-and perfume-sellers mingled with the tang of freshly cut antelope steaks which hung dripping from hooks or were being vigorously grilled over charcoal fires. Bakers offered strange-shaped loaves smelling fragrantly of spices and fresh from the ovens. Water-sellers, yokes fixed across their shoulders, cheap cups dangling from cords round their necks, forced their way through, bawling for custom. Shaven-headed priests, eyes ringed with black kohl against the heat, moved through the crowds like a shoal of fish amidst gusts of incense. Ladies in palanquins chattered in different tongues, their brilliantly-plumaged tame birds chained to a pole. A thief, caught red-handed, was being beaten on the feet next to a barber’s stall set up under a palm tree. Elsewhere, the market policemen with their trained baboons had caught another sneakthief, who screamed abuse as a baboon bit deeply into his thigh. A million colours dazzled the eyes. Shifting images came and went as we twisted and turned through narrow streets or trod across blazing white squares and courtyards. Oh, how I remember that day! I could have stopped and stared till the sky fell in, but Aunt pulled me on.
At last we were through, going up the basalt-paved avenue to the Temple of Anubis. You must have seen it? Lined by huge statues of the crouching Anubis dog, their bodies, heads and paws black as night, their pointed snouts and ears picked out in brilliant gold, rich red ruby eyes glowing in the sunlight as if these creatures were about to rise in snarling anger. I recalled Seth the Saluki hound and glanced away. We pushed through the throng towards the great pylon or entrance to the temple. This was flanked by two huge statues of Anubis the Lord God of the Necropolis, the Master of the Death Chamber. For a young boy who had never seen the like before, it was an awesome spectacle. Above the gateways soared flagpoles, their red and green streamers dancing in the breeze. Crowds of worshippers, many of them carrying small reed baskets of food, were also pouring through to pay their devotions. The heady aroma of food made me realise I had not eaten. In outright defiance, I stopped and cried out that I was hungry. I could tell by my aunt’s face that she was prepared to argue but her servants were similarly famished so she agreed to stop by a small booth. A few debens of copper bought trays of mahloka, its green leaves crushed and mixed with onion, garlic and strips of roast duck, followed by pots of bean soup and eggs cooked long and slowly so as to be melting soft and creamy in the middle. We squatted under an awning and ate, my aunt chattering to Api. As we were eating, another servant took me across to read the inscription of the mighty war Pharaoh Tuthmosis III:
Oh yes, I remember that day so well! A shabby fortune-teller, a wizened man, eyes yellowing in a weather-beaten face, sidled up to curse my aunt in a language I could not understand. My aunt jumped to her feet and replied just as fiercely. I didn’t understand, but a servant later whispered that the fortune-teller had cursed my aunt with the Seven Arrows of Sekhmet the Destroyer Goddess.
‘Why?’ I asked.
The servant pulled a face, cupping a hand over his mouth to whisper, ‘He claimed she has no soul.’
I don’t know what really happened but, if I had a piece of silver, I would have rewarded that fortune-teller.
We finished our meal. Sounds from beyond the pylon drifted down — not the singing of choirs or the humming prayer of priests, or the sweet music of the harpist and lyre-players, but hideous screams. Curious, we hurried up to the gateway and into the great temple forecourt. I stood astonished at the sight. Executions were rarely carried out near holy places but on this day, the Magnificent One had made an exception. Kushite mercenaries, members of my father’s regiment, were dealing out punishment against the last of his killers. The temple forecourt had been cleared, its visitors marshalled into one long column stretching up to the great copper-plated, cedarwood doors. At the far side of the forecourt a stake had been driven into the ground and the thief, impaled through the rectum, writhed in his death agonies. A herald, armed with a conch horn, oblivious to the blood-drenched ground and the hideous screams, loudly proclaimed the penalty for plundering tombs and murdering Pharaoh’s servants. Two other robbers, stripped naked, were being basted with animal fat. More members of my father’s regiment, seasoned warriors in their leather kilts, baldrics and striped bright head-dresses, were preparing great leather sacks held with cord. These last remaining assassins from the tomb-robbing gang were to be bound in the sacks, taken to the great river and thrown into a crocodile pool.