by Howard Fast
Moses let Nun unharness and curry the horses, while he himself bounded down the bank and into the churning river. When he was clean, he had Nun break out the baggage, and while a circle of curious soldiers looked on respectfully, he combed out his thick black hair, put a gold circlet on his brow, and clad himself in the spotless white linen and shining gold insignia of a prince of Egypt.
[12]
AS THEY APPROACHED the house, Sokar-Moses driving Seti-Keph’s chariot, in which the three of them rode, the thunder of the cataract became louder and louder—and then, by some freak of acoustics, muffled itself as they came over the ridge. It was a fine sight, the River Nile visible far in either direction, the foaming, tumbling rapids beneath them, and the round, blazing sun dropping into the western desert. But when the house appeared, Moses had eyes for nothing else; for he knew immediately that in all his life he had not seen such a house, nor would he likely see one such again.
Not that it was so different from other Egyptian houses, but there was something so graceful, so complete in its proportions as to have a deep effect on the observer—who afterwards would admit its beauty because there was nothing discordant about it. Like many noble houses in Karnak, it was a simple rectangle in shape, the flat roof supported by stone walls; but unlike the houses of Karnak, it had no wall around it to hide its grace, and it was built not of sandstone but of white limestone that glowed pink and purple in the late sunlight, and in the side walls it had great windows to let in the light—windows curtained by hangings of bright yellow and black. Its entire shape was a natural outgrowth of the upcropping escarpment, and it stood apart from the slave quarters and the stables, so that no unnatural influence might mar its simple beauty. As they drove up to the front, Moses saw that it was entirely open to the river, its verandah framed with the ancient reedshaped columns, marble cut to simulate bundles of tied river-reeds—a type of column that had not been used for more than a century. The limestone verandah stretched in front of the columns to the escarpment edge, and then led down in steps of curved terrace that narrowed finally to a little staircase cut out of the cliff rock itself. And placed here and there on the terrace were reclining cats and one marvellously carved sphinx—all of them in black volcanic basalt—with three large, white, house cats moving sinuously among the carvings.
As slaves ran up to take the horses, three people moved across the terrace, one a small, round-cheeked and obviously good-humoured Egyptian who welcomed them with such warmth that it would seem he had been waiting their arrival all the years he lived there, the second a slight, timid-appearing woman, past middle age, apparently his wife, and the third a young woman of poise and beauty, the daughter—Moses guessed—clad in a thin, transparent gown that left one rich, round breast bare and lovely, in the manner of the southern folk.
It was many a week since Moses had seen an attractive woman, and forgetting his manners, he gaped foolishly; but in the excitement of the meeting, no one noticed. SetiKeph and Aton-Moses embraced warmly, both of them bubbling with pleasure, while Sokar-Moses and Moses stood waiting to be introduced. Aton-Moses named his family with easy formality that demonstrated his breeding, his “beloved wife and companion,” the Lady Setep-Aton, smiling at Seti-Keph to show that he understood and regretted this constant use of “Aton” in the family names; and then the “jewel and comfort of my declining years,” his daughter, the Lady Merit-Aton. But even as he spoke, his eye fixed on Moses, and his manner became suddenly wary and dubious. This was noticed by Seti-Keph, who quickly said,
“No, no, my dear friend—I bring no disturbing guests to you. My messenger mentioned Sokar-Moses, this giant beside me, who is my right arm and first under me in command of the hosts. And this young man, I took the liberty to bring with me; for I know you would have been hurt had I neglected to. He is what he seems to be-the blood of the Great House of the God-King and a prince of Egypt; but he is a good lad, and I think you know that I am no poor judge of men.”
There, in front of Moses and the rest of them, Seti-Keph rambled on with his explanation, as if he knew that there could be no welcome and ease in the lovely white house until he had made their position clear.
“I know that you have heard a good deal about the sons of the God-King in the Great House, but this young man is something else indeed—and mind you, I make no comments on what happens in the Great House. I am an old soldier, and an ignorant one, too. But this man was sent into exile for three years by the God-King, and for many a day now I have watched him. He is an Egyptian, and without mean pride—and he travels with a single servant who drives his chariot, without retainers, without embalmers and women and priests and scribes, and he is a truthful man, Aton-Moses. For many a day I debated whether to bring him here, and then I decided, knowing him, that your house would be honoured by his presence. His name is Moses.”
The family, the three of them, mother, father and daughter, regarded Moses gravely; then the father bowed from the waist, covering both eyes with the tips of his fingers. The mother and daughter did likewise. Then, when they had uncovered their eyes, Aton-Moses said,
“Never before has a person from the Great House entered my home, and surely this has a meaning beyond honour, though we are honoured beyond the ability of words to express. If I was slow in my response, O Prince of Egypt, it is because for these many years I have played a careful game with our lives and happiness as the stake—as good Seti-Keph has no doubt told you; and I would just as well that no one at the Great House be reminded of my existence. Here and about, the people cherish my little skill and weave their own wall about me—but the Great House and the City of Ramses are a long distance away. Enough of explanations. We welcome and honour you, O Prince of Egypt—for my own hospitality stands in doubt now.” His eyes twinkled as he finished speaking, and his welcome was so direct and warm that Moses’ heart went out to him. The woman of the house nodded uncertainly, but the lovely Merit-Aton smiled at Moses with delight and admiration.
Aton-Moses clapped his hands, and slaves appeared with stools for them to sit on and with perfumed water to wash their feet and with wine to quench their thirst. They sat in a half-circle on the verandah, the house shading them from the last heat of the sun, and small bronze tables were set before them. Bowls of ripe grapes and figs were put down and simple clay dishes full of sliced melon and goat-flesh, the meat cooked in a savoury sauce of honey that Moses had never tasted before. Wicker baskets of hot bread were constantly presented to them, and for each person, a high-necked clay flask was provided, each one holding about two quarts of liquid. These were placed on the floor, and a long hollow reed allowed the diner to drink without disturbing the heavy bottle. The drink was a cold, slightly-fermented fruit juice, and Moses thought that in all his life he had never tasted anything so delicious and stimulating. He saw the others accept the dinner as nothing very extraordinary—and he realized how little of the life and custom of his own land had reached him through the walls of the Great House. He also recognized something that he had heard a good deal about—the very different status of women here in Upper Egypt. Whereas in the Delta the men would have dined alone, here the women participated on a basis of easy equality, something that SetiKeph and Sokar-Moses were apparently well acquainted with, for they fell into it as a matter of course.
For the first hour, Moses said nothing. He nibbled at his food—for the excitement and pleasure of the occasion had taken away his appetite—and listened to the conversation, which was mainly between Seti-Keph and Aton-Moses. How little of the news and politics of Lower Egypt reached here Moses realized as he heard the Captain of Hosts review the history of the past five years—and he also realized how little of those politics he had really understood. He heard the long war between Hatti and Egypt analysed as a power struggle for the riches of Canaan and for control of the iron mines in Lebanon and the vast wealth of Mesopotamia, and he saw war and conquest in a new perspective, as he had never seen them before. He listened to SetiKeph’s account of the expedit
ion to Kush, why it was undertaken and what Ramses hoped to accomplish by it. And he realized that Seti-Keph was a man who exercised neither judgment nor ethical attitudes toward his own profession. Once, not too long ago, Moses would thereby have dismissed the man as a brute; but he was learning that the question of who is and who is not a brute is none too simple—even as the nature of man constituted a maze he had never dreamed of.
Aton-Moses shook his head seriously and unhappily. “Wars should not be fought because a few bands of wild young men came down and crossed the frontier.”
“They also killed and burned and looted,” Seti-Keph pointed out, but with no passion.
“Will a war bring back the dead? The truth is, my friend, and you know it as well as I do, that the lust of the God-King for slaves and gold is insatiable. When the Libyans come out of the western desert and do the same thing, he takes no umbrage, for the Libyans are as poor as Bedouins, eh?”
“If I went looking for a just war,” Seti-Keph growled, “I would still be a peasant in the Delta.”
“And perhaps a good deal happier.”
“I doubt that. There are no happy peasants in the Delta today. But since I am a soldier, I do as I am told.”
“We enslave ourselves with people who do as they are told,” the doctor sighed. “And like all great nations, we Egyptians take such cursed comfort in it. We know so surely that nowhere but in Egypt is there culture and beauty and proper reverence for the gods, and we make a lovely cradle for what used to be called our conscience. For a thousand years we have been boasting to the world that only we possess the holy macaat, that peculiar Egyptian word which we claim can be translated into no other tongue. Is it conscience, the knowledge of right and wrong? In part, we admit loftily. Is it justice—yes, we admit elements of justice, don’t we? Mercy? That too, and of course an element of innate nobility. But those are only indications of macaat, which is all of them and more. Macaat is Egypt, the noble, the divine.” There was such bitter irony in his voice that Moses looked to Seti-Keph and Sokar-Moses to take offence. But they only smiled with the sort of tolerance that assured the doctor that nothing he could say would offend them.
“But do you know what this macaat really is ?” the little physician demanded.
“You failed to mention honour and courage,” Sokar-Moses said with some defence, not eager to pit himself against wit and intellect; and actually admiring the crackling speech of the physician. He had said very little until now, and his self-deprecating smile was at odds with his great bulk and ferocious appearance. “I mean, a soldier would have small macaat without those—don’t you think?”
“I don’t think! Honour—courage—those are war words, and they mean one thing to the professional butcher and something else entirely to normal folk. As a physician, I tell you they are your medicine; otherwise, how would you brigands sleep nights?”
Now, surely, Moses expected the company to explode, but the two women sat calmly, their hands properly folded on their laps; Sokar-Moses was taken somewhat aback; and Seti-Keph burst into roars of laughter, rocking with laughter until the tears ran down his cheeks. “All my life,” he spluttered, “I have been trying to say something like that. Rest easy, Sokar-Moses—the truth is always demanding and bitter. And you, Prince of Egypt,” turning to Moses, “can put this all down to the ranting of old men. He is not yet nineteen years,” he explained to Aton-Moses, “so all your lonely wit that you spin in the empty nights here seems damn’ foolishness to him!”
“Oh, no—no,” protested Moses, speaking for the first time.
“And you think it blasphemous and treasonable, my son?” the doctor asked gently.
“I think it wonderful,” Moses managed to say.
“Well!” cried Seti-Keph. “There you are. But what macaat? You were going to tell us, weren’t you?”
“Yes, if you want to hear?”
“Go ahead.”
“Macaat is righteousness, which is the curse the gods bestow on a people they desire to destroy.”
Moses understood this not at all, but he didn’t dare to say so and catching the grave eyes of Merit-Aton, he felt that above all things he must not reveal his own narrow horizons, his own great limitations. For the first time in his remembered life, he had lost all consciousness of being a prince of Egypt—and all consciousness of his princely fraudulence as well. In the Great House, he had heard contemptuous remarks concerning the “over-educated” and “over-sophisticated” barons of the Upper Nile, of their plotting against the gods, of the treasonable scepticism they had imbibed with their worship of Aton, and the way in which they undermined all that was truly Egyptian and holy. But never had he dreamed that there actually were people who thought and conversed in this manner. A part of him was experiencing that sudden discovery of vast horizons that comes to some young men once in their lifetime; another part of him was afraid, for in what he remembered as closest to this, his best talks with AmonTeph and Neph, there was always the secrecy that admitted the action as punishable sin. Here it was open, without any conspiratorial overtones, and filled with laughter and innuendo.
Seti-Keph said, “So you think the gods plan to destroy us.”
“Unless we destroy ourselves first.”
“With our macaat?” Seti-Keph asked mockingly.
“With out cursed righteousness. What do we know of people? We have lost all sense of them. What do your lords on the’Delta know of Kush?”
“I know nothing of Kush, where I have never been,” Sokar-Moses said bluntly, “and I’ve met few who do.”
“I respect an honest man,” Aton-Moses nodded. “There is no Kush. I see our young prince doubts me. I’m not being facetious, as Seti-Keph knows. Kush is a name for all of Africa to the south of us. Civilizations have come and gone in that strange land to the south, but always we Egyptians speak of Kush. The black skin is Kush. Bah! Our Egypt’s wars are as empty as our macaat. Right now, there is a new life, a new kingdom, a new civilization coming into being in what we call Kush. Not the tribes of cattle-raiders whom you smashed in the battle at the Sixth Cataract seven years ago, Seti-Keph. They are gone. They never recovered from that battle. These are black people who live far to the south of the Sixth Cataract, weeks of marching up the Blue Nile. A long journey, if you are to reach them with the cruel hand of your master. They have built a city, and they herd their cattle and till their fields in peace. The few wild raiders whom you will practise justice against were driven out, and came down here for want of a better place to go. But now you will punish the innocent for the guilty.”
“And how do you know all this?” Seti-Keph wondered.
“I have long ears,” Aton-Moses scowled. “There is little goes on hearabout that I don’t hear this or that concerning it. It may be that they have forgotten I exist, on the Delta—as I hope—but a hundred days’ journey to the south, the name of Aton-Moses is known, I assure you, and I have had patients from places you never dreamed existed.”
“Aton-Moses,” the prince asked, “you said a hundred days’ journey to the south?”
“And why not?”
“We have come so far,” Moses said unbelievingly. “I never knew such distances were in this world—”
“You will know better than half of a hundred days’ journey by your own sweat and sorrow,” the Captain of Hosts chuckled, “for after we leave here, there is that much and more before ever we set foot in Kush.”
Abashed and feeling that he had wholly exposed his youth and ignorance, Moses nodded silently; but he met the warm brown eyes of Merit-Aton, and they were sympathetic rather than derisive. Aton-Moses, noticing his embarrassment, hastened to change the subject, and he said,
“Tell me, O Prince of Egypt, what are your impressions of out backward—and lonely ‘Upper Land’?” giving it the old name.
“I don’t think it’s backward,” Moses answered eagerly. “I like it. I feel good here—and I think I love the desert and these escarpments.”
“Yes—t
he desert is something you love or hate, no in-between; and I have heard that nowhere on earth is there anything to match the colours of our escarpments. Look!” He pointed eastward, across the gorge of the Nile, to where the setting sun was beginning to display its nightly flow and ebb of colour upon the escarpment. “So it is, each night, and each night different. In the tales we tell our children it is Mother Mut herself who comes each evening to clothe her beloved cliffs and keep the chill night air from them. Do you remember, Merit-Aton?”
“I remember,” she nodded, her voice low and musical, and said to Moses, “but why the cliffs needed protection from the cold, I never knew and no one could ever tell me, not even my father, who knows almost everything.”
The teasing was very gentle, and Moses realized that it was a part of their relationship—a relationship between parent and child that he could hardly comprehend, for it was outside his own experience or anything he could imagine.
“Almost everything,” her father said. “I suppose all this would be strange to you, Prince of Egypt—just as the Great House would be most strange to me. I have never seen it. Is it as wonderful as they say?”
“Wonderful? I never thought of it that way. It was there, the place where I lived.”
“Was it a happy place to live?” the girl asked.
Slowly, Moses said, “I think—that no palace is a happy place to live. This is just a very large house-some say the largest house in the world; but it is full of fear and superstition and every kind of hatred—”
“A court is a court,” Seti-Keph shrugged.
“Yet it must have parts of beauty,” Aton-Moses pressed, “since at least part of it was built by the same man who built this house for me twelve years ago.”
