“Mercy, my lord!” the woman wailed. “Mercy for my heart, and for yours! Don't speak to me in this terrifying tone — I need consoling. Let's forget this agonizing memory: he was our son, and now he deserves mourning!”
He shook his head with lunatic fury. “I see that you are showing him mercy!”
“We're entitled to weep, sire. Didn't he lose both this — world and the hereafter?”
Khufu grabbed his head and raved in confusion, “My God… what is this madness that runs through my mind! What are these blows that keep falling on Pharaoh's head? How can it bear the crown of the Egyptians after this moment, — when it is weighed down just by the — white hairs that time has left on it? O Queen, Pharaoh is suffering a new phase of life, and all of your own suffering — will be of no avail. So call for my sons and daughters, and all of my friends. Summon Hemiunu, Mirabu, Arbu, and Djedef- go on, then!”
The wretched queen left the king's chamber, and sent out a request for the princes, the princesses, and their father's companions. On her own, she also asked for Kara, the king's private physician.
Each of them answered the call, coming promptly and in speechless shock, as though they were heading for a dreadful wake. They entered Pharaoh's room. He did not tarry on his bed but walked between the two lines of them, that of his immediate family, and the second of his other relatives and friends. The king was still vilely upset, his gaze wandering, when he caught sight of Kara, interrogating him gruffly. “Why did you come here, Doctor, without my asking for you?” he demanded. “You have been with me for all of forty years, and I have never once needed you in all that time. Should not one who can dispense with his doctor in his lifetime, be able to do the same when he dies?”
Mention of death frightened them, for its effect on Pharaoh's nerves and his state of uproar. As for the physician Kara, he smiled delicately, saying, “My lord is in need of a draught of…”
Khufu cut him off, shouting, “Take leave of your lord, and vanish from my sight!”
The sadness was plain on Kara's face as he said quietly, “My lord, perhaps — at times — the physician must disobey an order from his sire.”
The king's rage grew greater as he shifted his straying eyes through the faces of those arrayed, dumbfounded, around him, then bellowed, “Don't you hear — what this man is saying? And you all stand there doing nothing about it? How extraordinary! Has treason infected every heart here? Is Pharaoh despised by all of his children, and his friends? O Vizier Hemiunu — tell me what's fitting to do — with one — who defies Pharaoh!”
Hemiunu came forth — with obvious weariness and whispered in the doctor's ear. The man bowed to his lord and retreated to the background before exiting the chamber.
Meanwhile, Hemiunu drew close to Khufu's bed. “Go easy, sire, for what did the man want to do but good? Would my lord like me to fetch him a cup of water?”
Without awaiting the king's permission, the vizier left the room and Kara gave him a golden goblet filled with water in which a sedative potion had been stirred. The minister carried it to Khufu, who took it from Hemiunu's hand and drank it to the last drop. Swiftly feeling its effects, the king's agitation subsided as his normal expression returned, his flushed face regaining its natural color. Yet his frailty and listlessness were clear to see, as well.
Sighing deeply, the king said, “Woe to the person who suffers from old age and feebleness. These two weaklings shake the strongest giants!”
He looked at the group gathered around his bed. “I was a ruler of overwhelming vigor!” he lamented. “I was famed for my right hand, which clove between life and death! I pronounced laws both sacred and profane, inspiring worship and obedience! In my life, never for a moment did I forget my plan of good works and reform. I did not want the benefit for my servants to end with my life on earth. Hence, I wrote a lengthy thesis on medicine and wisdom which will be useful for as long as diseases show no mercy to the human being, and so long as the human being shows no mercy to himself. My life was prolonged, as you all see, and the gods wanted to test me with a severe trial of whose wisdom I was ignorant. They chose my son as their instrument and unleashed the armies of evil in his heart. He rose up as my enemy by ambushing me in the dark in order to kill me. Yet, my survival was written, and the ill-fated son paid the price of his life — for the sake of the few hours left in my own.”
The group listening called out wishfully, “May God lengthen the king's life!”
Pharaoh raised his hand, and silence returned before he resumed his address. “The end is decreed,” he declared. “I've summoned you to hear my last speech. Are you all prepared?”
Hemiunu was awash — with tears. “My lord! Do not mention Death…. This sorrow — will be lifted — and you'll live long, for Egypt, and for us.”
Pharaoh smiled. “Grieve not, O friend Hemiunu,” he admonished. “If Death were an evil, then immortality would have kept Mina on the throne of Egypt. Therefore, Khufu does not sorrow over death, nor does he dread it. Death is a less critical injury than many others that deform the face of life. Yet I want to be at ease concerning my grand bequest.”
He turned toward his sons, examining each of them one by one, as though he were trying to read what lay behind and inside them.
“I see you holding back in silence,” he said, “anxiously concealing a hidden sorrow. Each one of you regards his brother with a suspicious and resentful eye. And how could this not be so, when the heir apparent has died? The king is dying, and each of you harbors ambitions toward the throne, wanting it for himself. I do not deny that you are all noble youths of lofty morals — but I want to put myself at rest about my succession, and about your brethren.”
Baufra, the oldest of the princes, interrupted him. “My father and my lord,” he said, “however our longings may have divided us, they have conditioned us to obey you. Your will for us is like the holy law that compels our subservience without any dissent.”
The king grinned ruefully, beholding them with eyes that swiveled exhaustedly in their sockets. “What you said is beautiful, O Baufra,” he said. “Truly, I say to you, that I, at this frightful hour, find within myself an overawing power over the sublimity of human emotions. I feel that my fatherhood over the believers is of more import than my fatherhood toward my sons. They have appointed me to say what is right — and to do it, as well.”
Once again, he scrutinized their expressions, then proceeded, “To me, it seems that what I have said now has caused you no astonishment. And the truth is that, without disavowing my fatherhood of you, I find before me one who is more deserving of the throne than any of you, one whose assuming the crown will help preserve the virtue of your own brothers. He is a youth whose zeal has long destined him for leadership, while his courage has achieved a magnificent victory for the homeland. His heroism saved Pharaoh's life from perfidy. Be sure not to ask, ‘How can he sit on Egypt's throne if the blood of kings flows not in his veins?’ For he is the husband of Princess Meresankh, in whose veins runs the blood of kings and queens alike.”
Djedef looked astounded as he exchanged confused glances with Meresankh, while the princes and men of state were all caught so off-guard that their tongues were frozen and their eyes seemed dazed. They all stared at Djedef.
Prince Baufra was the first to risk rupturing this silence. “My lord, saving the king's life is a duty for every person, and not the sort of deed that anyone would hesitate to perform. Therefore, how can the throne be his reward?”
Sternly, the king replied, “I see that you would now stoke the fires of rebellion after having sung the anthems of obedience but a short while ago. O my sons, you are the princes of the realm and its lords. You shall have wealth, influence, and position — but the throne shall be Djedef's. This is the last will of Khufu, which he proclaims to his sons, by the right he has over them to command their obedience. Let the vizier hear it, so that he may carry it out by his authority and by his word. Let the supreme commander hear it also, that he may guard its execution with the force of his army. This last bequest of Khufu he leaves in the presence of those that he loves, and who love him; of those with whom he has dwelt closely in amity, and who, in return, offer their affection and fidelity.”