“He is mad,” said Horemheb to me, shaking his head in compassion. “I can see he needs a doctor.”
The prince raised his hand in greeting to the sun, and his face was once more filled with a passionate beauty as if he were looking into another world. We let him finish his prayer and then began to lead him toward the city. He made no resistance. The fit had left him weak; he staggered and moaned as he went; so at last we carried him between us, and the falcon flew ahead.
When we came to the edge of cultivation, we saw a royal carrying chair awaiting us. The slaves had lain down upon the ground, and out of the chair stepped a fat priest whose head was shaven and whose dark face was grave and beautiful. I stretched forth my hands at knee level before him, for I took him to be Eie, of whom Ptahor had spoken. But he did not heed me. He threw himself prostrate before the prince and hailed him as king, so I knew that Amenhotep III was dead. The slaves then hastened to tend the new Pharaoh. His limbs were washed, massaged, and anointed, he was robed in royal linen, and upon his head was set the royal headdress.
Meanwhile Eie spoke to me. “Did he meet his god, Sinuhe?”
“He met his god, and I watched over him that no evil might befall. How do you know my name?”
He smiled. “It is for me to know all that goes on within the palace walls. I know your name and that you are a physician and that I might therefore entrust him to your care. You are also one of Amnion’s priests and have sworn him your oath.”
There was a hint of menace in his tone as he said this. Throwing out my hands, I exclaimed, “What signifies an oath to Ammon?”
“You are right and have nothing to repent of. And this spearman?”
He pointed to Horemheb, who was standing apart, testing the spear point on his hand, with the falcon perched upon his shoulder.
“It were better perhaps that he should die,” he added, “for Pharaoh’s secrets are shared by few.”
“He covered Pharaoh with his cloak when it was cold and is ready to wield his spear against Pharaoh’s enemies. I believe he will be more useful to you alive than dead, priest Eie.”
Eie threw a gold ring from his arm toward him, saying carelessly, “You may call upon me some time at the golden house, spearman.”
But Horemheb let the gold ring fall in the sand at his feet and looked defiantly at Eie.
“I take my orders from Pharaoh, and if I am not mistaken, Pharaoh is he who bears the royal headdress. The falcon led me to him, and that is sign enough.”
Eie remained unruffled.
“Gold is costly and is always of use,” he remarked. He picked up the gold ring and put it back upon his arm. “Make your obeisance to Pharaoh, but you must lay aside your spear in his presence.”
The prince stepped forward. His face was pale and drawn but lighted still by a secret ecstasy that warmed my heart.
“Follow me,” he said, “follow me, all of you, upon the new way, for the truth has been revealed to me.”
We walked with him to the chair, though Horemheb mumbled to himself, “Truth lies in my spear.” The porters set off at a trot to where the boat awaited us alongside the landing stage. We returned as we had come, unobserved, though the people stood packed outside the palace walls.
We were allowed to enter the prince’s room, and he showed us big Cretan jars upon which were painted fish and other creatures. Word came that the Queen Mother was on her way to make her obeisance to him, so he gave us leave to go, promising to remember us both. When we had left him, Horemheb said to me in perplexity, “I am at a loss. I have nowhere to go.”
“Stay here with an easy mind,” I counseled him. “He promised to remember you, and it is as well to be at hand when he does. The gods are capricious and quickly forget.”
“Stay here and buzz around with these flies?” he demanded, pointing to the courtiers who were swarming at the prince’s door. “No, I have good reason to be uneasy,” he went on somberly. “What is to become of an Egypt whose ruler is afraid of blood and believes that all nations and languages and colors are of equal merit? I was born a warrior, and my warrior sense tells me that such notions bode ill for such a man as I.”
We parted, and I bade him ask for me at the House of Life if ever he needed a friend.
Ptahor was waiting for me in our room, red eyed and irritable.
“You were absent when Pharaoh drew his last breath at dawn,” he growled. “You were absent, and I slept; and neither of us was there to see Pharaoh’s soul fly from his nostrils straight into the sun, like a bird.”
I told him what had happened that night, and he raised his hands in great astonishment.
“Ammon keep us! Then the new Pharaoh is mad.”
“I think not,” said I doubtfully. “I think he has knowledge of a new god. When his head has cleared, we may see wonders in the land of Kem.”
“Ammon forbid! Pour me out some wine, for my throat is as dry as roadside dust.”
Shortly after this we were conveyed under guard to a pavilion in the House of Justice, where the Keeper of the Seal read the law to us from a leather scroll and told us that we must die since Pharaoh did not recover after his skull had been opened. I looked at Ptahor, but he only smiled when the executioner stepped forward with his sword.
“Let the stauncher of blood go first,” he said. “He is in a greater hurry than we are, for his mother is already preparing pease pottage for him in the Western Land.”
The stauncher of blood took a warm farewell of us, made the holy sign of Ammon, and knelt meekly on the floor before the leather scrolls. The executioner swung his sword in a great arc above the head of the condemned man, till it sang in the air, but stopped short as the edge just touched the back of his neck. But the blood stauncher fell to the floor, and we thought he had swooned from terror, for there was not the smallest scratch upon him. When my turn came, I knelt without fear; the executioner laughed and touched my neck with his blade without troubling to frighten me more. Ptahor considered he was too short to be required to kneel, and the executioner swung his sword over his neck, too. So we died, the law was accomplished, and we were given new names engraved in heavy gold rings. In Ptahor’s ring was written “He Who Is Like a Baboon” and in mine “He Who Is Alone.” Then Ptahor’s present was weighed out to him in gold and mine also, and we were clad in new robes. For the first time I wore a pleated robe of royal linen and a collar heavy with silver and precious stones. When the servants tried to lift the blood stauncher and revive him, they found him stone dead. I saw this with my own eyes and can vouch for its truth. But why he died I do not know, unless from the mere expectation. Simple though he may be, a man who can arrest the flow of blood is not like other men.
Henceforth, being officially dead, I could not sign my name as Sinuhe without adding He Who Is Alone, and at court I could be known by no other name.
2
When I went back to the House of Life in my new clothes and with the gold ring on my arm, my teachers bowed before me. Yet I was still a pupil and had to write a detailed account of Pharaoh’s operation and death, attesting it with my name. I spent much time over this and ended with a description of the soul of Pharaoh flying from his nostrils in the shape of a bird and passing straight into the sun. Later I had the satisfaction of hearing my report read to the people on each of the seventy days during which Pharaoh’s body was being prepared for immortality. During the whole of this period of mourning all pleasure houses, wine shops, and taverns in Thebes were closed so that to buy wine or hear music one had to enter by the back door.
But when these seventy days had passed, I learned that I was now a qualified physician and might start to practice in whatever quarter of the city I chose. If on the other hand I preferred to pursue my studies in one or other of the special branches-among the dentists or ear doctors, for instance, or the obstetricians, layers-on-of-hands, surgeons, or in any other of the fourteen different subjects in which instruction was given at the House of Life-I need only choose my branch. This was a special mark of favor, testifying how amply Ammon rewarded his servants.