I thought he must be mad to talk thus wildly, though Ptahor had said that we must die if Pharaoh did, and the stauncher of blood believed it. My hair prickled on my scalp, for I did not wish to die.
The prince was panting; his hands twitched, and he mumbled to himself: “Restless… I would be-I would be in some other place. It is my god revealing himself. I know it-I fear it. Stay with me, Lonely One. He crushes my body with his strength, and my tongue is afflicted…
I trembled, thinking him delirious. But he said to me in a commanding voice, “Come!” and I followed him. He led me down from the terrace and past Pharaoh’s lake, while from behind the walls came the murmuring voices of the mourners. I was in great dread, for Ptahor had stated that we might not leave the palace before the death of the king, but I could not gainsay the prince.
He held his body tense and walked with such rapid, jerky steps that I had hard work to keep up with him. He was wearing only a loincloth, and the moon shone on his fair skin, his slender legs, and feminine thighs. It shone on his prominent ears and the tormented, agitated face that seemed to tell of some vision he alone could see.
When we reached the shore, he said, “We will take a boat. I am going eastward to meet my father.”
Without hesitating to choose his craft, he stepped into the nearest; I followed him, and we began to row across. No one sought to hinder us, though we had stolen the boat. The night was uneasily astir; other craft were out on the river, and the red glow of Thebes showed ever brighter in the sky ahead. When we reached the farther shore, he set the boat adrift and started to walk forward as if he had been this way many times before. Others were abroad also, and we went unchallenged by the watch. Thebes knew that the king would die that night.
The pace was wearing him out. Yet I wondered at the toughness of that young body, for though the night was cold, the sweat ran down my back as I followed him. The stars moved across the heavens, and the moon went down, and still he walked until we came up out of the valley into the desert, leaving Thebes behind us. The three hills in the east-the city’s guardians-loomed before us black against the sky.
At last he sank down panting in the sand and said in a frightened voice, “Hold my hands, Sinuhe, for they tremble, and my heart thuds against my ribs. The hour draws near-it draws near for the world is desolate-you and I are alone. Where I go, you cannot follow-and I do not want to be alone.”
I gripped his wrists and felt that his whole twitching frame was bathed in cold sweat. The world about us was indeed desolate; far off some jackal howled for a death; slowly the stars paled and space about us turned a wan gray. Suddenly he shook off my hands and rising lifted his face to the east, to the mountains.
“The god is coming!” he said softly, with awe in his distracted, blazing face. “The god is coming.” Then again in a loud voice he shouted into the desert, “The god is coming!”
The air grew brighter, the hills before us flamed gold, and the sun rose-and with a shrill cry he sank swooning to the ground, his mouth moving, his limbs twitching convulsively and churning up the sand. But I was no longer afraid, for I had heard such cries in the forecourt of the House of Life and knew what to do. Lacking a peg to wedge between his teeth, I tore a strip from my loincloth, rolled it up, and stuffed it into his mouth. Then I began to massage his limbs. He would be sick and dazed when he awoke. I looked about me for help, but Thebes lay behind us, and not the meanest hovel was in sight.
At that instant a falcon flew past me with a screech, swooping out of the rays of the rising sun into an arc above us, then sank again, and made as if to alight upon the prince’s forehead. Startled, I instinctively made the holy sign of Ammon; had the prince had Horus in his mind when he greeted his god, and was Horus here manifest? The boy moaned, and I bent to tend him. When I raised my head again, it seemed that the bird had taken human shape. Before me stood a young man, godlike, beautiful in the sun’s rays. He carried a spear and wore the coarse shoulder cloth of a poor man. Though I did not believe in the gods, for safety’s sake I prostrated myself before him.
“What’s this?” he asked in the dialect of the Lower Kingdom. “Is the lad sick?”
Feeling very foolish, I rose to my knees and greeted him in the ordinary way.
“If you are a robber,” I said, “you’ll get little from us, but I have here a sick boy, and the gods may bless you for your help.”
He screeched like a hawk, and the bird fell from the air to alight upon his shoulder.
“I am Horemheb, son of the falcon,” he said proudly. “My parents are but cheese makers, but it was foretold at my birth that I should win command over many. The falcon flew before me, and I followed, having found no shelter for the night in the city. Thebes is shy of spears after dark. But I mean to enter Pharaoh’s service as a warrior. They say he is sick, therefore he may need strong arms to protect his sovereignty.”
The prince moaned, passed his hands gropingly over his face, and contorted his limbs. I removed the rag from his mouth, wishing I had water with which to revive him. Horemheb surveyed him and asked coolly, “Is he dying?”
“He is not,” I replied impatiently. “He has the holy sickness.”
Horemheb gripped his spear as he looked at me.
“You need not despise me though I come barefoot and am poor. I can write passably and read what is written, and I shall have command over many. Which god has taken possession of him?”
The people believe that a god speaks through those suffering from the holy sickness, hence his question.
“He has his own god,” I answered, “and I think he is a little queer in the head.”
“He is cold.” Horemheb drew off his cloak and spread it over the prince. “Morning in Thebes is chilly, but my own blood suffices to keep me warm. My god is Horus. This is surely a rich man’s son, for his skin is white and delicate, and he has never worked with his hands. And who are you?”
“A physician and initiate of the first grade of priesthood in Ammon’s temple in Thebes.”
The heir to the throne sat up, moaned, and looked dazedly about him. His teeth chattered as he spoke.
“I have seen! The instant was as a cycle of time-I was ageless-he stretched forth a thousand hands above my head in benediction, and in every hand the symbol of eternal life. Must I not then believe?”
At the sight of Horemheb his eyes cleared, and he was beautiful in his radiant wonder.
“Is it you whom Aton, the one god, has sent?”
“The falcon flew before me, and I followed; that is why I am here. I know no more than that.”
The prince looked with a frown at the others weapon.
“You carry a spear,” he said in rebuke.
Horemheb held it forth.
“The shaft is of choice wood,” he said. “Its copper head longs to drink the blood of Pharaoh’s enemies. My spear is thirsty, and its name is Throat Slitter.”
“Not blood!” cried the prince. “Blood is an abomination to Aton. There is nothing more terrible than flowing blood.”
“Blood purifies the people and makes them strong; it makes the gods fat and contented. As long as there is war, so long must blood flow.”
“There will never be war again,” declared the heir to the throne. Horemheb laughed.
“The lad’s daft! War there has always been and always will be, for the nations must test each other’s worth if they are to survive.”
“All peoples are his children-all languages-all complexions-the black land and the red.” The prince was gazing straight into the sun. “I shall raise temples to him in every land, and to the princes of those lands I shall send the symbol of life-for I have seen him! Of him was 1 born, and to him I shall return.”