River God

by Wilbur Smith

  I went to the king and knelt beside the Utter. He was still alive. I examined him briefly and found that he hovered on the edge of consciousness. His skin was as clammy-cold as that of a reptile, and his breathing was shallow. There was only a thin rime of blood around that arrow-shaft which had seeped up from the wound, but when I laid my ear to his chest I heard the blood bubbling in his lungs with each breath he drew, and a thin red snake of it crawled from his mouth down his chin. I knew that whatever I could do to save him, I must do quickly. I shouted for a boat to take him out to the barge.

  The litter-bearers lifted him into the skiff, and I sat in the bilges beside him as we sculled out to where the great state barge lay anchored in the main flow of the current.

  THE KING'S SUITE CROWDED THE SHIP'S side to watch us approach. There was a gaggle of the royal women and all those courtiers and priests who had taken no part in the fighting. I recognized my mistress standing amongst them as we drew closer. Her face was very anxious and pale, and she held her young son by his hand.

  As soon as those on board the barge looked down into our skiff and saw the king on his litter, with the blood on his face that I had been unable to wipe away, a terrible cry of alarm and mourning went up from them. The women keened and wailed, and the men howled with despair, like dogs.

  Of all the women> my mistress stood closest at hand as the king was lifted up the ship's side and his Utter laid on the deck. As the senior wife, hers was the duty to attend him first. The others gave her space as she stooped over him and wiped the mud and the blood from his haggard face. He recognized her, for I heard him breathe her name and ask for his son. My mistress called the prince to him, and he smiled softly and tried to raise his hand to touch the boy, but he did not have the strength, and the hand dropped back to his side.

  I ordered the crew to carry Pharaoh to his quarters, and my mistress came to me quickly and asked low and urgently, 'What of Tanus? Is he safe? Oh, Taita, tell me that he is not slain by this dreadful enemy!'

  'He is safe. Nothing can harm him. I have given you the vision of the Mazes. All this was foreseen. But now I must go to the king, and I will need your help. Leave Memnon with his nursemaids, and come with me.'

  I was still black and crusted with river mud, and so was Pharaoh, for he had fallen in the same ditch as I had. I asked Queen Lostris and two of the other royal women to strip and bathe him and lay him on fresh white linen sheets, while I returned to the deck to bathe in buckets of river water that the sailors hauled up over the side. I never operate in filth, for I have found by experience that for some reason it affects the patient adversely and favours the accumulation of the morbid humours.

  While I was thus occupied, I was watching the east bank where our broken army was huddled behind the protection of ditch and swamp. This sorry rabble had once been a proud and mighty force, and I was filled with shame and fear. Then I saw the tall figure of Tanus striding amongst them, and wherever he moved, the men stood up out of the mud, and reassembled into the semblance of military discipline. Once I even caught the sound of ragged and unconvincing cheers on the wind.

  If the enemy should send their infantry through the swamps now, the slaughter and the rout would be complete. Not a man of all our mighty army would survive, for even Tanus would be able to offer little resistance. However, although I peered anxiously into the east, I could make out no sign of infantry shields in phalanx or the sparkle of advancing spear-heads at the shoulder-slope.

  There was still that terrible dust-cloud hanging over the plain of Abnub, so the chariots were at work out there, but without enemy infantry falling upon him, Tanus could still salvage some little comfort out of this dreadful day. It was a lesson I was to remember, and which stood us in good stead in the years ahead. Chariots might win the battle, but only the foot-soldiers could consolidate it.

  The battle out there on the river-bank was now entirely Tanus' affair, while I had another battle to fight with death in the cabin of the state barge.

  'WE ARE NOT ENTIRELY WITHOUT HOPE,' I whispered to my mistress, when I returned to the king's side. 'Tanus is rallying his troops, and if any man alive is capable of saving this very Egypt from the Hyksos, he is the one.' Then I turned to the king, and for the moment all else was forgotten but my patient.

  As is often my way, I murmured my thoughts aloud as I examined the wound. It was less than an hour, measured by a water-clock, since the fateful arrow had struck, and yet the flesh around the broken-off stub'of the shaft was swollen and empurpled.

  'The arrow must come out. If I leave the barb in there, he will be dead by tomorrow's dawn.' I had thought the king could no longer hear me, but as I spoke, he opened his eyes and looked directly into mine.

  'Is there a chance that I will live?' he asked.

  'There is always a chance.' I was glib and insincere. I heard it in my own voice, and the king heard it also.

  "Thank you, Taita. I know you will strive for me, and I absolve you now from all blame, if you should fail.' This was generous of him, for many physicians before me have felt the strangling-rope as punishment for letting the life of a king slip through their fingers.

  "The head of the arrow is deeply lodged. There will be a great deal of pain, but I will give you the powder of the Red Shepenn, the sleeping-flower, to still it.'

  'Where is my senior wife, Queen Lostris?' he asked, and my mistress replied immediately, 'I am here, my lord.'

  'There is aught that I would say. Summon all my ministers and my scribes, that my proclamation may be witnessed and recorded.' They crowded into the hot little cabin and stood in silence.

  Then Pharaoh reached out to my mistress. 'Take my hand, and listen to my words,' he ordered, and she sank down beside him and did as she was ordered, while the king went on speaking in a soft and breathless whisper.

  'If I should die, Queen Lostris will stand as regent for my son. I have learned in the time that I have known her that she is a person of strength and good sense. If she were not, I would not have laid this charge upon her.'

  'Thank you, Great Egypt, for your trust,' Queen Lostris murmured low, and now Pharaoh spoke directly to her, although every person in the cabin could hear him.

  'Surround yourself with wise and honest men. Instruct my son in all the virtues of kingship that you and I have discussed.'You know my mind on all these matters.'

  'I will, Majesty.'

  'When he is old enough to take up the flail and the crook, do not attempt to withhold it from him. He is my lineage and my dynasty.'

  'Willingly I shall do what you order, for he is not only the son of his father, but my son also.'

  'While you rule, rule wisely and care for my people. There will be many who seek to wrest the emblems of kingship from your grasp—not only this new and cruel enemy, (his Hyksos, but others who stand even closer to your throne. But you must oppose them all. Keep the double crown intact for my son.' ‘Even as you say, divine Pharaoh.'

  The king fell silent for a while and I thought that he had slipped over the edge into unconsciousness, but suddenly he groped for the hand of my mistress again.

  'There is one last charge I have for you. My tomb and my temple are incomplete. Now they are threatened, as is all my realm, by this terrible defeat that we have suffered. Unless my generals can stop them, these Hyksos will sweep on to Thebes.'

  'Let us petition the gods that it does not come to pass,' my mistress murmured.

  'I charge you most strictly that you will see me embalmed and interred with all my treasure in accordance with the strictest protocols of the Book of the Dead.'

  My mistress was silent. I think that she realized even then just what an onerous charge this was that Pharaoh had laid upon her.

  His grip upon her hand tightened until his knuckles turned white, and she winced. 'Swear this to me on your own life and hope for immortality. Swear it before my ministers of state and all my royal suite. Swear it to me in the name of Hapi, your patron god, and on the names of the blessed trin
ity, Osiris and Isis and Horus.'

  Queen Lostris looked across at me with a piteous appeal in her eyes. I knew that once she had given it, she would honour her word at all and any cost to herself. In this, she was like her lover. She and Tanus were bound by the same code of chivalry. I knew also that those close to her must expect to pay the same price. An oath to the king now might one day return to burden us all, Prince Memnon and the slave Taita included. And yet there was no manner in which she could gainsay the king as he lay upon his death-bed. I nodded to her almost imperceptibly. Later I would examine the finer points of this oath, and like a law scribe I would mould it a little closer to reasonable interpretation.

  'I swear on Hapi, and on all the gods,' Queen Lostris said, softly but clearly, and there would be a hundred times in the years ahead when I would wish she had not done so.

  The king sighed with satisfaction and let her hand slip from his. 'Then I am ready for you, Taita. And for whatever fate the gods have decreed. Only let me kiss my son once more.'

  While they brought our fine young prince to him, I drove the crowd of nobles from the cabin with little ceremony. Then I prepared a draught of the Red Shepenn for him and made it as strong as I dared, for I knew that pain could undo all my best efforts and destroy my patient as swiftly as a slip of my scalpel.

  When he had drunk it all, I waited for the pupils of his eyes to contract to pinpoints, and for the lids to droop over them. Then I sent the prince away with his nursemaids.

  ON LEAVING THEBES I HAD EXPECTED TO have to deal with arrow wounds, so I had brought my spoons with me. I had designed this instrument myself, although there was a quack in Gaza and another in Memphis who both claimed it was their invention. I blessed the spoons and my scalpels in the lamp flame, and then washed my hands in hot wine.

  'I do not think it is wise to use one of your spoons when the head of the arrow is so deep and so near the heart,' my mistress told me as she watched my preparations. There are occasions when she speaks as though the student had outpaced the master.

  'If I leave the arrow, it will certainly mortify. I will have killed him just as surely as if I had chopped his head off his shoulders. This is the only way that I will have a chance of saving him.'

  For a moment we looked into each other's eyes, and we spoke without words. This was the vision of the Mazes of Ammon-Ra. Did we wish to avoid the benevolent consequences to ourselves?

  'He is my husband. He is Pharaoh.' My mistress took my hand to emphasize her words. 'Save him, Taita. Save him, if you can.'

  'You know that I will,' I answered.

  'Do you need me to help you?' She had assisted me so very often before. I nodded my assent, and stooped over the king.

  There were three ways that I might have attempted to withdraw the arrow. The first would be to pluck it out. I have heard of a surgeon in Damascus who bends down the supple branch of a tree and attaches this to the shaft When lie releases the branch, the arrow is whipped out of the living flesh by the strength of the sapling. I have never tried such brutal treatment for I am convinced that very few men would survive it.

  The second method would be to push the arrow through the limb or the torso until the barbed head emerges on the far side. To achieve this, it can be driven along its original path with a mallet, like a nail through a plank. Then the barb is sawn off and the shaft drawn free. This treatment is almost as brutal as the first.

  My method is the Taita spoon. I have named the spoon after myself in all modesty, for the claims of those others are spurious, and posterity needs to be informed of my genius.

  Firstly, I examined the Hyksos arrow that I had salvaged along with the bow from the overturned chariot. I was surprised to find that the arrow-head was of worked flint rather than of bronze. Of course, flint is cheaper and easier to pro-sure in quantity, but I have seldom known a general who tries |o economize when setting out to seize a kingdom. This flint i«sow-head spoke eloquently of the Hyksos' limited resources, and suggested a reason for his savage attack upon :: this very Egypt. Wars are fought for land or wealth, and it seemed that the Hyksos was short of both these commodities.

  I had to hope that the arrow-head buried in Pharaoh's breast was of the same shape and design. I matched a pair of my spoons to the razor-edged piece of stone. My spoons are of various sizes, and I selected a pair that enclosed the head snugly, masking the wicked barbs with smoothly polished metal.

  By this time, the drug had worked its full magic, and Pharaoh lay unconscious upon his cloud-white linen sheets, with the snapped-off arrow standing out as far as my forefinger from the skin, which was wrinkled with age and covered with the frosted curls of his body hair I laid my ear on his chest once more and heard his breath sigh and gurgle in his lungs. Satisfied that he still lived, I greased the spoons that I had selected with mutton fat, to lubricate their entry into the wound. I laid the spoons close at hand and took up one of my keenest scalpels.

  I nodded to the four strong guards that Queen Lostris had selected for me while I was busy with my preparations, and they took hold of Pharaoh's wrists and ankles and held him down firmly. Queen Lostris sat at the king's head and placed the wooden tube from my medical chest between his lips and deep back into his throat. This would keep his windpipe clear and open. It would also prevent him from biting or swallowing his own tongue, or grinding his teeth together and snapping them off, when the pain assaulted him too fiercely.

  'First I have to enlarge the wound around the shaft to enable me to reach the head of the arrow,' I muttered to myself, and I pressed the point of the scalpel down along the line of the shaft. Pharaoh's whole body stiffened, but the men held him down remorselessly.

  I worked swiftly, for I have learned that speed is crucial in an operation of this nature, if the patient is to survive. I opened a slit on each side of the shaft. The human skin is tough and elastic and would inhibit the entry of the spoons, so I had to get through it.

  I dropped the knife and took up the pair of lubricated spoons. Using the arrow-shaft as a guide, I eased them deeper and deeper into the wound, until only the long handles' still protruded.

  By this time Pharaoh was writhing and twisting in the grip of his restrainers. Sweat was pouring from every pore of his skin, and running back over his shaven skull with its stubble of thin grey hair. His screams rang through the tube in his mouth, and reverberated through the hull of the barge.

  I had taught myself to ignore the agonized distress of my patients, and I slid the spoons deeper into the widely distended mouth of the wound until I felt them touch the flint of the arrow-head. This was the delicate part of the operation. Using the handles like a pair of tweezers, I levered the spoons apart and worked them over the arrow-head. When I felt them close of their own accord, I hoped that I had entirely enclosed the coarse flint and masked the barbs.

  I took a careful grasp of the handles of the spoons and of the reed shaft of the arrow, and pulled back on them all together. If the barbs were still free, they would have immediately snagged in Pharaoh's flesh and resisted my pull. I could have shouted aloud with relief as I felt it all begin ter yield. Still, the suction of the wet and clinging flesh was considerable, and I had to use all my strength to draw the shaft.

  Pharaoh's agony was dreadful to hear and behold, as the mass of reed and stone and metal was dragged through his chest. The Red Shepenn drug had long ago ceased to be of any effect, and the pain was raw and savage. I knew I was doing fearful damage, and I could feel tissue and sinew tearing.

  My own sweat ran down into my eyes and burned and half-blinded me, but I never released my pull until suddenly the blood-smeared arrow came free in my hands and I staggered backwards across the cabin and crashed into the bulkhead. I leaned against it for a moment, exhausted with the effort. I watched the dark, half-congealed blood trickle and spurt from the wound for a long moment, before I could rally myself and stagger back to stem it. , I smeared the wound with precious myrrh and crystallized honey, and then bound it up tightly with c
lean linen bandages. As I worked, I recited the incantation for the binding Up of wounds:

  I bind thee up, oh creature of Seth.

  I stop up thy mouth.

  Retreat before me, red tide.

  Retire before me, red flower of death.

  I banish you, oh red dog of Seth.

  This was the recitation for a bleeding wound caused by blade or arrow. There are specific verses for all types of wound, from burns to those inflicted by the fangs or claws of a lion. Learning these is a large part of the training of a physician. I am never certain in my own mind as to just how efficacious these incantations are; however, I believe that I owe it to my patients to employ any possible means at my disposal for their cure.

  In the event, Pharaoh seemed much easier after the binding-up, and I could leave him sleeping in the care of his women and go back on deck. I needed the cool river airs to revive me, for the operation had drained me almost as much as it had Pharaoh.

  By this time it was evening, and the sun was settling wearily upon the stark western hills and throwing its last ruddy glow over the battlefield. There had been no assault by the Hyksos infantry, and Tanus was still bringing off the remains of his vanquished army from the river-bank to the galleys anchored in the stream.

  I watched the boatloads of wounded and exhausted men passing our anchored barge, and I felt a deep compassion for them, as I did for all our people. This would be for ever the most dire day in our history. Then I saw that the dust-cloud of the Hyksos chariots was already beginning to move southwards towards Thebes. The clouds were incarnadined by the sunset to the colour of blood. It was for me a sign, and my compassion turned to dread.

  IT WAS DARK BY THE TIME THAT TANUS himself came aboard the state barge. In the light of the torches he looked like one of the corpses from the battlefield. He was pale with fatigue and dust. His cloak was stiff with dried blood and mud, and there were dark, bruised shadows under his eyes. When he saw me, his first concern was to ask after Pharaoh.