Moses

by Howard Fast

  Moses whistled. “What do you propose for your wife while you’re gone, soldier? A palace?”

  “Take it or leave it, O Prince of Egypt.”

  “I take it.”

  “Good. Now we are friends, and if you buy me, nevertheless you buy a man. Now let us find some shade and a cold drink and talk about tomorrow. There’s a winehouse behind the stables where the soldiers go, and god or no, you had might as well begin to be a soldier now.”

  [3]

  THEY SAT ON a bench outside of the winehouse, in the shade of a pelph, a variety of thorn tree with shiny copper-green leaves that grew profusely on the Delta; for try as he would, Moses could not bring himself to enter the dark, strong-smelling tavern where a crowd of soldiers drank wine and talked colourfully and obscenely about sex and war. He found now, and he would find later, that it was not easy to soften and bend the iron rods of royalty and godhead that had been forged in him during the years of his youth; and while it was one thing to unbend to anyone who shared the clean white splendour of the palace, prince or priest or scribe or slave, it was something else entirely to rub shoulders with these sweaty, dust-covered and foulmouthed soldiers.

  A prince who cannot at all times be a prince will likely enough be a defenceless and worried creature, and Moses was not yet old enough to cover his feelings successfully. He saw how appraisingly Hetep-Re watched him, and he felt that the soldier saw through him and into him.

  “Well,” he told himself, “it will not always be this way. I made my way in the palace and I’ll make my way in this army too.” Hetep-Re was saying that this was a new world, and if one were to live in it, one had to accept it. Soldiers had virtues, he supposed, but their trade was killing, and they were a dirty, foul-mouthed and hard lot. It was more likely that they would end up in the desert, their bones picked clean by the vultures, than in any embalmer’s tank. He himself, he pointed out, had never seen the inside of the Great House of Ramses, but from all he had heard, things were a little different there.

  “Yes, I would say so,” Moses nodded.

  “Well. Prince, so it goes, and our trade has its compensations as well as its burden. We see odd parts of the world, which is a good deal bigger than the priests say, and we have our moments of wealth even if we don’t hold on to it. We get sufficient taste of women and power to glut our appetites, and if we are lucky we live. Kush is a hard place, hot and very far away, and the men of Kush are wild and terrible on the battlefield. But I would rather fight against Kush than against Hatti or Philistia.”

  “Why so?” Moses asked, and then apologized, lest he be revealed for an utter fool, “I know nothing of war, I’m afraid.”

  “And I know nothing of manners or culture,” Hetep-Re responded generously, cocking his head at Moses and inquiring, “You can read and write, can’t you?”

  Moses nodded. “I began to read at the age of eight, and I’ve been reading and writing ever since.”

  For the first time, a look of awe and respect came over the face of Hetep-Re, and he nodded sagely. “A prince of Egypt indeed. I think ours will be a profitable association. Seti-Keph does not read or write. Neither do I, for that matter. It’s a better weapon than an iron sword, Prince of Egypt—and therefore to be kept under your kilt with other excellent weapons until the time you use it.”

  Moses was amused and more at ease in a world he recognized, a world of plotting and counterplotting, lies and deceit, a world not unlike, in this respect, the Great House.

  As they spoke, a knot of chariot-drivers was gathering around them, stating at the jewels and finery of the tall prince of Egypt. With a look and a wave of his hand, Hetep-Re dispersed them, snarling a few obscene words about their parentage. “Dogs,” he said to Moses. “There’s the first lesson of military life. Your soldier is a dog. Throw him a bone but crack the whip too. One officer holds power over a hundred men. They would tear him to shreds if they didn’t fear him.”

  Moses looked after the retreating men and then took up the conversation again. “You said you would rather fight against Kush than against Hatti or Philistia—?”

  “Did I? It’s true. For one thing, they have no chariots in Kush. For another, little metal—copper, some bronze, but almost no iron. They have much gold and they work it well, but to work bronze, they must buy their tin from us. They are brave and savage men in battle, but they fight as the Sea Rovers fight, each man for himself, and they can’t stand against disciplined footsoldiers or chariots. The danger from Kush is that our order of battle may break, and then if they come into us with their battle madness, all the gods in Egypt cannot help us. But there’s time for that. It’s a great distance to the Land of Kush—and from here in the Delta, we will he on the march and on the river for better than seventy days before we reach even the northernmost outposts of Kush. Right now, the advice you are paying for is of a more practical kind. Have you had much experience in a chariot, Prince of Egypt?”

  “A little.”

  “A little—well, better than none, I suppose. You will learn a lot on the march. Until then, you must not make an enemy out of Seti-Keph. Keep out of his way. You are a prince of Egypt, but in the wilderness of the South, a prince is nothing and Seti-Keph is all. That is hard for you to understand, but you must.”

  “I will try,” Moses nodded.

  “You are also, by the God-King’s appointment, a captain of chariots. But Seti-Keph will give you no host to lead, and he would be a fool if he did. If you insist, he will give you lip-service so long as we are on the Delta, and after that he will hate you.”

  “It seems he hates me already.”

  “Oh, no—no. That’s his way. There’s no milk of kindness in him. He’s a hard and shrewd man—how else would a peasant-boy become Captain of Hosts? But he doesn’t hate until he has a reason to hate. He has a wild bellow, like a bull in heat, but underneath he is as cold and calculating as any man in Egypt. I lead a host of a hundred chariots. My advice is for you to remain with me and let the situation develop. After our first battle, Seti-Keph will be looking for captains of chariots to replace those who have been killed. Now, do you have a chariot?”

  Moses shook his head.

  “All right—you’re a prince of Egypt, and you’re not poor. Let me take care of the chariot. I don’t know how to read or write, but I know chariots. Now, do you have horses?”

  “Only one horse—but he’s a fine beast and strong and full of spirit.”

  “Now by all that is holy,” Hetep-Re demanded disdainfully, “how do you harness a chariot with one horse?”

  “I don’t,” Moses smiled. “I ride him astraddle, as the Libyans do.”

  “Do you?” asked Hetep-Re, not without a note of contempt in his voice. “Do you find it pleasant? I’m afraid I like things the Egyptian way, the horse in front of a chariot and not under a man, but every man to his own taste. I heard it was a vogue at the Great House, but they have their ways at the palace and we have ours. For the campaign, you will want two teams of broken chariot-mounts, for horses are hard to come by in Kush and you’ll need replacements. And when you learn enough about a chariot to feel that you were born in one, you can harness four horses, two on the tree and two wing beasts on leather harness. But right now you want two matched teams. The best are from Hatti, trained and broken there, but they come high?” He ended on a note of questioning. Evidently, he was uncertain of the resources of even a prince of Egypt.

  “Whatever they cost, buy them,” Moses shrugged. “I am very rich, if that is what you want to know. I have more wealth than I know or care what to do with, so there is one less secret between us.”

  Hetep-Re smiled warmly and nodded. “I am a poor man, but I like wealth. I am told that the rich are indifferent to it sometimes, and when that is the case it makes them very admirable and you can take pleasure in their breeding. You might not think it to look at me, but I have the greatest respect for breeding, culture and the better things in life. Unfortunately, the circumstances of my birth den
ied me full access to them. Now that the situation is clear, I’ll buy the best—the very best of everything. Nothing else is fitting. Do you agree with me, O Prince of Egypt?”

  “I agree with you,” Moses said coldly, attempting to hide his distaste for the officer, arguing to himself that this was the reality and that he might just as well make his peace with it. A man with wealth was a fool not to use it—and in the same mood, he asked the officer curiously,

  “Tell me, Hetep-Re, now that we have discovered that we can be of use to each other, is there anything in this army that wealth can’t buy?”

  The Captain of Chariots took the question seriously and considered it carefully. “One thing,” he finally admitted, “but that is worth thinking about. Seti-Keph, the Captain of Hosts.

  “But this kind of discussion can wait. For the moment, O Prince of Egypt, there is one thing more you require—a chariot-driver. I will undertake to train him myself, to give him my personal attention, providing you buy a young, strong and brave man.”

  “Buy?”

  “Yes. You want a slave. For one thing, you will not find a free Egyptian in the Delta, a healthy man with strength and courage, who will go with us of his own accord. If you buy a peasant out of debt, he will probably be a clod and a dolt. For another, it is the custom among us. A captain of chariots does not ride body to body with a free man—much less so a prince of Egypt. And this purchase, I feel, should be yours. Find a driver of your own choice, for often enough your life will depend on him.”

  “Very well,” Moses shrugged. “I will buy a chariot-driver. Anything else?”

  “A delicate matter, but unavoidable. If I am to buy, I need gold.”

  “You do indeed,” Moses nodded. “Come tonight to the gateway of the Great House and ask for Moses, son of Enekhas-Amon. I will have the gold for you.”

  “Moses?”

  “Moses, Prince of Egypt.”

  “Very well, godly one,” said Hetep-Re, rising and bowing low. “I come tonight.”

  [4]

  NEPH HAD RETURNED. In the last hour of the sun, Moses found the engineer in his chamber, standing before the large window and watching the twilight fall upon the pink and purple Nile. It occurred to Moses that the engineer recognized his tread, for he did not turn even when Moses stood alongside of him, but nodded and greeted him without looking at him.

  “Are you at prayer?” Moses asked.

  “Prayer? I burn no flesh, Prince of Egypt, no incense, no spices, and the little I knew from the Book of the Dead, I have forgotten. How shall I pray?”

  “The heart prays to Aton. You need only feel and think.”

  “Oh? Is that something old Amon-Teph taught you?”

  “Yes—”

  “I wonder whether after a day of observing the greed and folly of this world, Aton doesn’t have a bellyful, and is more content to get away in peace than to be bothered by the whining of pious hypocrites.”

  “Why is it, O Neph, that so many who believe for so long in Aton—and at such risk of their lives and fortunes, end up by becoming cynical and bitter?”

  “Do they? Then I would imagine, Prince of Egypt, that you should look into the meaning of what you call cynicism. Your cynic begins his career by renouncing the gods and believing in people. Not because he loves people, but because he hates the gods. But he becomes disillusioned because in the end plain human beings don’t stand up very well as gods. The gods are noble because they lack the power to be ignoble. That’s an interesting concept, isn’t it? The gods are immortal, not because they lack the curse of death, but because they lack the blessing of life. But your cynic fails to appreciate this. He wants a god who has at least the modest virtues of men, but because men are not godlike at all, he ends up by despising all people.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in the gods, Neph?”

  “Let me put it a little differently. Since I am an Egyptian, I do believe in them, but I dislike them intensely.”

  “Now I don’t understand anything you are saying,” Moses said with some annoyance. “Are you laughing at me?”

  “Have I ever laughed at you, Moses?” Neph sighed. “I have been away because the God-King sent me to Giza to draw up a plan for repairing the great pyramids. This is the fourth time he has done this, and the plans were prepared five years ago and are collecting dust here in this room. He periodically dreams that the gods of old are warning him not to neglect the pyramids, but he is also torn by the thought that they overshadow his own stone monuments. But my thoughts didn’t leave you, Moses. I heard of what happened, and you shouldn’t be angry at me because I wasn’t here when you needed me.”

  “I’m not angry!” Moses snapped, knowing that he was—and that he had felt totally abandoned by the one man who had given him some feeling of what it meant to have a father; and knowing too that now he was lonely and afraid, his heart pleading with Neph to reassure him, to tell him that his life had some sense and meaning and purpose, to give him spells and knowledge that would be a shield against fear.

  “Of course you were angry and hurt,” Neph said softly, “but what can I do for you, my poor Prince of Egypt? You can’t lean on me—only on yourself from here. We all look for ourselves and our answers in this folly that we call our glorious Egyptian birthright. In the old books, it says that once people lived here in peace and contentment, but I wonder? Man is what he is; accept that, Moses, or you’ll break your heart looking for something more than he is. This strange search you are embarking on is fruitless and without any answer or end.”

  “You know what I came for and you know what you’re giving me,” Moses said wretchedly.

  “I would be a liar to give you anything else. Three days ago, at the Assembly of the Lights, I stood on the terrace of the Great House and watched the lights dancing and waving all over the city. I felt youth or the illusion of youth come back to me, and I went out into the streets and drank the wine held out to me and put a sprig of myrtle in my ear and danced and laughed and sang and then took a girl half my age to bed with me on the riverbank—”

  “It sounds like a good night,” Moses shrugged.

  “As good as any, I suppose. But when you eat bread, you should feel your belly full, not empty. Enough of that now. Ramses, they tell me, has made you a soldier. Are you pleased, Moses?”

  “Why not?” Moses said lightly, trying to give the impression that Neph had misjudged him, that if he had not found, neither had he sought, and that he desired neither pity nor affection. “My head is still on my neck, and as for the Land of Kush, well, I would go anywhere to get out of this vile House and out of the City of Ramses.”

  “All right then,” Neph nodded. “I also think it is better for you to go away than to remain here, although my life will be the emptier for that.”

  “You have your work.”

  “Well—have it that way, if you will.” He smiled without any happiness, and Moses wished that he himself were dead before he had hurt the one person in the Great House who was his friend. “I do have my work, and next to love, work is the best thing I know. I’ll look for you to come back, Moses.”

  “I go for three years.”

  “So long? But not so long for me as for you, Moses, for as the years pass, they pass always more quickly. You are going away to war, my son, and what do you think war is?”

  “I know it’s not like the life here. Men die. I know that,” Moses argued, on the defensive and already feeling a loyalty to the dust—covered men on the parade ground—special in his sense of being consecrated to a specific adventure and pledge, to something that the run-of-the-mill, workaday citizen could neither comprehend nor share. “I know it’s not all pleasure, but it is excitement and adventure and glory and a chance for something more than the gossip and conniving of this House. Something you can dream about, at least—”

  “Yes, you can dream about it,” Neph nodded.

  “Then why don’t you tell me what you think?”

  “It would do no good
to tell you, Moses. I want to help you in any way I can. If there’s anything you need?”

  “Yes—I need a slave for a chariot-driver, Neph,” Moses said almost arrogantly. “What kind of a slave should I buy?”

  Quite seriously, Neph replied, “A Bedouin, I think.”

  “A Bedouin?”

  “Yes. They’re stringy and hard, and they can take a lot of punishment and they know the desert. You’ll be in desert a good deal, and I think that’s the kind of a man for you.”

  Suddenly, Moses could not speak, feeling that his heart had swelled out to choke him. The sun had set, and it was quite dark in the chamber now. Moses stood at the window, bent forward, his hands gripping the sill, and when Neph asked him if he felt ill, he shook his head and managed to say,

  “I’m sorry, Neph.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for, O Prince of Egypt.”

  “I asked you never again to call me Prince of Egypt, Neph.”

  “I understand.”

  Now bits of time flowed by, and they stood there in the darkness, neither of them speaking. More time and deeper darkness—and then the first silver trickle of moonlight laced itself upon the river. It was Moses who finally broke the silence.

  “Neph?”

  “Yes, Moses.”

  “I want you to tell me from your heart, and not to think I am a boy asking you. I’m no more a boy; I’m a man, Neph. Will you tell me?”

  “If I can.”

  “Is Aton god?” Moses whispered. “Is he the only god? Will he look down upon me wherever I go?”

  “Wherever you go, the sun will be there, Moses,” Neph answered sadly, so sadly that it seemed to Moses to be the voice of another man speaking.

  “And is Aton god?”

  “I don’t really know, Moses.”

  “But what do you think? What do you believe?”

  “I don’t know. I’m an engineer, Moses, only that. If I build a house, I will put a lamp in it to light it. And what is. holy—the lamp or the craftsman who made the lamp? It’s hard to think, Moses, when the whole world is afraid of thought or truth. If I went out into the streets and said aloud what I say to you here, they would tear me to pieces. And as for this thing that we call god, Moses, how long a road will you travel if you look for him? Other men have tried, and instead of god, they find hunger and misery and greed and selfishness, and in the end, death. Let the priests have it their own way. Akh-en-Aton thought he could fight the priests, but even though he was God-King of Egypt, they defeated him in the end, and the streets ran with the blood of those who worshipped Aton. This is a dirty business, this business of the gods. Let it be, Moses.”