Enana’s voice rose to a shrill falsetto; his whole form seemed to tremble as he cried aloud the first dread incantation:
As the aged Magician’s voice shrilled out upon the night air Bata, the unhappy Unis’ aged nurse, suddenly awoke.
Softly she stole down the corridor from a chamber at the rear of the tomb, where she usually slept. Bata reached the open door just in time to hear Enana command the very gods to descend to earth. The horrified Bata fell in a faint across the threshold.
When at length Bata returned to consciousness, she somehow managed to crawl back to her room, dumb with terror. Bata had seen the old Magician’s trembling form aglow with a mystic light, his upturned face shining with some inward flame. Before him, out of the gloom there had suddenly appeared two heavily cloaked figures. Bata never doubted but that the tall forms were those of the great gods Thoth and Set.
The youthful Ramses, leader of the recent successful expedition against the Nubians, had won for himself many titles of distinction. Yet, chief among these undoubtedly, was his new appointment to the rank of Fan-Bearer-on-the-Right-of-Pharaoh.
The post of Fan-Bearer was an office eagerly sought by the more exalted nobles, since it gave one the ear of Pharaoh, as did perhaps no other position at Court. The one possible exception was the post held by Dedu, son of Den, through four generations at least, the coveted post of Keeper-of-the-King’s-Robes.
The title of Fan-Bearer had been given Ramses by Pharaoh at Thi’s earnest solicitation. The Queen-Mother had been prompted to this step through no love she bore the youthful soldier, but as part of a plan which was intended to lull the stubborn adherents of Amen into a sense of false security.
The aged Enana, grandfather to Ramses, was the subject of the Queen-Mother’s especial detestation. Indeed, detestation was by far too mild a word to express her feelings in respect to the old magician.
By conferring the title of Fan-Bearer upon Enana’s grandson, Thi hoped to put Enana and the other followers of Amen off their guard. For, would not the very title imply a definite and continuous sojourn in the capital?
Yet, of late, Thi felt that the attempt to keep the young soldier near the Court had been ill-advised. For various rumors, vague hints of an alarming nature, had reached the ears of Menna the Overseer.
These ill-defined rumors had been promptly reported to Thi, with various embellishments, of course, on the part of Menna, son of Menna.
Without a doubt, someone who knew the Court, someone who was familiar with the secret intrigues of harem life in the palace, had been quietly spreading broadcast palace secrets of a most terrifying nature.
One report had it that the present Pharaoh was a Syrian, born before Thi’s parents came down into Egypt.
It was hinted that Yakab the Chancellor was his true father. Had they not both the same extraordinarily attenuated figure? Did not both suffer from the same racking cough? Did not both speak with a marked lisp? Thi, the Queen-Mother, was almost stout; the late Pharaoh had been a corpulent man, in his youth possessed of unusual strength. The face was that of Thi, perhaps, but the body that of Yakab the Chancellor!
Yes, it was plain that Thi had done away with Pharaoh’s former wife, the Lady Hanit; that Menna and Thi had planned the murder of the true heir to the throne, the Lady Hanit’s son, in order that Yakab’s son, by Thi, might ascend the Egyptian throne.
Finally it was whispered that the murdered Prince still lived; that he had escaped from Menna, son of Menna, into whose baleful charge he had been placed.
All unwittingly, Ramses had been drawn into this maelstrom of palace intrigue. His name was frequently mentioned in connection with the probable succession to the throne.
The subject of a successor to the Horus Throne was one of great importance at this moment. Queen Noferith had borne the king but girls—“five little beams of Shu the sun-god” their royal father had playfully called them. And of these one had recently become the perfume of the heavenly lotus which the sun-god holds to his august face!
Pharaoh felt sure that Ramses himself knew nothing of these rumors. In many a bitter discussion with his mother and Menna the Overseer Pharaoh had frequently stated his conviction that Ramses would utterly condemn such traitorous thoughts should they ever come to his ears.
Pharaoh had loved Ramses like a brother. He had admired him as some superior being. For a time neither Menna’s craftily embellished reports nor Thi’s openly avowed hatred of Enana’s grandson could turn Pharaoh from his blind trust in the good faith of his boyhood’s hero.
Himself ever a sickly child, Pharaoh had sighed for his coming of age, that he might take the field with Ramses, and be himself a witness of the latter’s many deeds of valor.
For years had Pharaoh pictured himself in the famous Warbonnet of the Pharaohs, that bright blue headdress which Thothmes and a long line of heroic forebears had carried far into the ranks of their stricken foes and, with one exception, returned in safety to their acclaiming people. Yes, even King Sequenen’s horrible death, at the hands of the Hyksos invaders, was better far than his present life of inaction, a life varied only by tiresome harem plots, counterplots and the probabilities of a general religious or civil upheaval.
But Pharaoh, under Thi’s baleful influence, was as pliable as the clay in the deft fingers of the potter. The Queen-Mother presently took fright at these oft-repeated and ever highly-colored rumors, and it was not long before she and Menna had convinced Pharaoh that the grandson of Enana, at Thebes, was a constant menace.
Thus, when “the rewards of the King” were yet warm in Ramses’ hands, that happy young warrior was dismayed to receive a roll of papyrus, straight from the hands of Majesty, a brief note whose finely written contents necessitated another exile from Sesen, from Thebes and the home he so dearly loved, the villa of Enana the Magician, his grandsire. Ramses was commanded to depart for the north with the setting of the morrow’s sun, there to take over the Egyptian army guarding the hostile frontier in Asia. Bitter disappointment, and somewhat of anger, caused the voice of Ramses to tremble as he directed his chairmen to set him down at Enana’s villa.
The home of Ramses’ grandsire was built upon a circular island on the western side of the Nile. Seen from a distance, this island appeared to float upon the quiet waters. The low white walls which surrounded its garden, its branching cedars, full crested palms and feathery mimosa trees, were mirrored in the waters of the inundation.
Enana the Magician had felt called upon to live comparatively near to Semet, Thebes’ unending burial ground, since, during the former monarch’s lifetime he had been appointed “Guardian of the Royal Tombs.”
Enana was proud of his skill in necromancy; Enana was even more proud of his knowledge of astrology, botany, medicine and of his intimate acquaintance with the Magic Scrolls of the Conjurers and Sorcerers of Amen. But, above all else, Enana enjoyed hearing himself addressed as Guardian of the Ancestors, whenever a summons from Majesty or a Court Function had necessitated his presence at the Palace. Alas, as far as Enana and Renet, his wife, were concerned, such functions had long since ceased!
Nevertheless, to-day was a gala day with Enana, a day of rejoicing to his entire household. For to-day Enana, son of Enana, had arrived at the ever-prayed for one hundred and ten years!
One other living person alone could boast of such a record and that was the father of Thi, the Queen-Mother. But Iuya was only a nobleman by courtesy, an Asiatic, an heretical believer in Aton. Enana scorned Iuya as a pretentious old scoundrel, who spent the major part of his time decrying everything Egyptian and lauding Syria, and all things Syrian.
All morning had the aged Magician, and the Lady Renet, his wife, sat beside the garden pool listening to the effusive congratulations of his friends, his neighbors, and the many members of his house and wide domain.
All that morning his bustling servants had been busy arranging the various presents along the awning-shaded corridor which faced the tree-set garden.
Bars and collarettes of gold, electrum and silver; bead stands of lazuli, malachite, crystal, carnelian, amethyst, beryl, jasper; great pendants in gold, silver or bright blue fayence; finger-rings of gold encrusted with colored pastes or set with little green glazed beetles, carved in stone and engraved below with felicitous expressions; treasures big and little were piled high in seemingly innumerable vessels and exposed on brightly painted wooden tables or stands along the halls and corridors.
Clusters of white, soft pink or pale blue lotus flowers were bound about frames bent to represent the anekh or sign of “longevity.” The nofer or sign of “happiness,” in the shape of little lutes, hung from every branch in the garden.
There had been but one thing lacking in a morning of never-to-be-forgotten successes. As Khufu the Butler had remarked, not a single member of the Royal House had visited their honored master; not even a Royal Usher had come with the customary messages of felicitation or with the usual “gold of honor.” To Khufu, as to the other devoted servants of the aged Magician, this neglect was the occasion of grave concern.
Not so to Enana! Well he knew the reason of this breach of courtesy, this public affront.
Enana’s early training had been behind the walls of Amen’s great temple in the Apt. There for years had he served Amen, God of Thebes, as chorister, incense-bearer, lector, keri heb and, lastly, as Chief Magician.
Enana was known as a devoted follower of Amen, as an ardent and incorruptible believer in the power of the greatest of all gods, Amen of Thebes. As such he knew well that he had incurred the undying hatred of Thi the Syrian, whose one ambition in life, now that her son was established on the throne, was the overthrow of Amen and the destruction of all the other local gods of Egypt. If Thi could compass it, Aton, the Syrian sun-god, should be the sole object of worship from Suan of the north to Suan of the south.
At the present moment, however, Enana had pushed from his mind all thoughts of Thi. All his present enjoyment was centered in the scheme next his heart and in his anticipation of seeing Ramses, his grandson, whom it mostly concerned.
At any moment the young soldier might dash through the gate in that impetuous way so dear to the frail old man.
Enana sat with his wrinkled hands resting upon the squares of gold leaf with which his tunic was faced. His beady black eyes were fixed upon the open door, his ears alert to catch the first shout of Ramses’ bearers, as they rounded the great Mortuary Temple near by. From time to time his hand went to his bosom where rested the magic book.
But the sun-god began his descent into the realms of darkness, lights broke out in the distant city, a line of chanting priests bearing torches appeared upon the walls of Amenhotep’s temple, the light upon the high stand at Enana’s elbow was lit. Yet Ramses did not come.
Ah, Enana, but a little patience! Magician though thou art, the Goddess Hathor is more powerful than thou!
Even as Ramses had finished reading the royal command and set his hand to the arm of his carrying-chair, Seneb the Usher advanced bowing and handed him a second note.
Joy lit up the stern face of the young soldier as he read; a sudden animation seemed to fill his whole being. Bidding his chairmen await him in the outer court, he turned and followed Seneb, the Usher, through the columned aisles of the Audience Hall.
Arrived before the line of granite sphinxes which fronted the Treasury of Silver, Seneb bowed again, turned on his heel and left him.
Three women stood beneath a doorway which fronted the innermost court. Eagerly Ramses advanced as the form of the Princess Sesen stepped out from its shadows:
“Sesen, they told me thou wert with thy Father in Thinis! Had I known, in truth, that the Palace held thee, I would have come to claim thy promised reward.
“By Hathor! Thou are more radiantly beautiful than when I left thee last! How often have I lain awake at night thinking of thee. The hot nights upon the desert sand passed quickly, restfully, for dreams of thee!
“Sesen, thou knowest all my love; all my hopes are centered in thee. What are the rewards of Majesty to the reward that thou hast promised me—thyself. Look! I have kept my word. I found the famous jewel which Enana told thee of and—it is thine!”
Slowly Ramses drew from his girdle a great emerald set in gold. A rose-colored band of fine gazelle hide showed it to have been worn about the forehead of its former owner, the Nubian King.
King Shaba will need “the panther’s eye” no more. His ashes lie beneath the smouldering ruins of his palace. Vultures hover above the demolished houses of Napata, his Capital.
Sesen clasped her hands upon her bosom with delight. Without replying she took the jewel from Ramses’ hand and bound it about her gold-filleted wig. Ramses smiled down upon the happy little maid, as she sank into his arms. The great jewel seemed to glow upon her forehead, as if it pulsed to the rapid beating of her heart:
“Sesen, my Lotus! I love thee, I love thee!”
“And I, Ramses, my hero, feared for thee. Hathor’s altar has groaned beneath the burden of my offerings for thy safe return.”
Her words brought to Ramses’ mind the command of Pharaoh. He had found her but to lose her.
“Dove of Hathor, but a few short weeks and I return to claim thee for the Lady of my House.”
“Thou returnest? Whither goest thou?”
“Alas, my Dove! The King commands that I head the Egyptian host which now stands facing Kheta and her allies in Syria. By to-morrow’s sunset I must leave to help old Noferhotep with his task. Yet, have no fear for me. The Little People, I think, do but try out Noferhotep. He, poor man, grows weary of the task of waiting, with nothing but patrol work at best to break the monotony of his years of frontier life. Fear not for me. I have thy love, my Sesen! If need be, I could cut my way through Asia, with thy name my battle-cry. To-morrow I will see thee after the morning service. The Lady Renet and her maids will come to escort thee to our house for the betrothal. Breath of Ra, how happy will she be, she and Enana, my grandsire. Now must I hurry to them. As thou knowest, ’tis a gala day with my grandsire. May Hathor bless thee, my Sesen; may Aah cast her protecting beams about thee.”
For an instant the lovers held one another in a close embrace. The next, Ramses had mounted his chair. As he did so, twinkling lights broke out among the dark patch of trees in which stood Enana’s distant villa.
In his wooing of the Lady Sesen, Menna, son of Menna, worked tirelessly. Menna had been born upon the fifth of Paophi, and who does not know that a child born upon that auspicious day is ever successful in affairs of the heart!
Following his gift to her of Bhanar, the beautiful Syrian, each day brought to Sesen bunches of grapes, bursting pomegranates or succulent dates from Menna’s famous gardens. Frequently there were left at her door bags of powdered gold or lazuli for the floor of her rooms, or the choicest of fragrant oils and perfumes for her toilet. These last were sealed in little jars of rich blue glass or in black obsidian vases capped with gold.
To-day Sesen opened an ebony coffer richly inlaid with ivory and gold. Enclosed within she found a frail wooden spoon, an incense spoon, carved to represent a little maiden stretched at full length in the attitude of a swimmer. The names and titles of Menna, the Overseer, appeared upon this exquisite work of art, yet, if truth be told, Renny the Syrian had fashioned it.
As with Menna’s other gifts, a closely written sheet of fine papyrus accompanied the gift, whereon Sesen read of Menna’s passionate desire for a meeting. Enana had advised her to fan the flame of Menna’s passion for reasons he kept to himself. What would he say to this effusion!
The lines were written alternately in letters of red and black:
With a frown Sesen tore the note into little pieces and went on with her interrupted game of draughts with Merit-aton, Pharaoh’s eldest daughter.
Until Menna had stumbled upon Renny, the Syrian, hawking his despised figurines in the inhospitable streets of Thinis, Beq, an Egyptian sculptor attached to his house, had served Menna the Overseer as messenger.
For Menna, when not on duty at the Palace, was accustomed to rise late. Menna’s mornings were spent at the bath. Indeed, it not infrequently happened that the sun had begun his downward flight across the heavens before the lordly Overseer had succeeded in escaping from the ministrations of his slaves.
For several hours he must perforce suffer the attentions of his body-servants, his wig-keeper, sandal-bearer, perfumer, and the keeper of his jewels.
Thus, one stalwart Ethiopian, having finished rubbing his handsome frame with aromatic oils, another slipped about him the tunic and over-dress of the day. And what to an ordinary mortal constituted a tight tunic, appeared to Benkhu, the Prince’s body-servant, positively loose and ill-fitting.
And since Menna affected extremes, his tunic fitted far more closely, his voluminous and richly plaited over-dress swung out in far more ample folds, than those of any other of the foppish members of the Theban Court.
Indeed, Menna left Benkhu’s nimble fingers dressed as few others of the courtiers could be dressed.
His costuming completed, Menna listened to the reports of his farm overseers, and to those of his spies both of court, bazaar and temple. For Menna, though outwardly faithful to Aton, still continued to hold the honorific post of Scribe of the Estates of Amen.
His business attended to, Menna essayed a game of draughts with one of his friends, or rowed about the lake in Thi’s pleasure-barge. It was the policy of Menna never to be far from Thi, the Queen-Mother.
When Renny, the Syrian, had been enrolled among the retainers of Menna, the Overseer had affected to see much of him. He went to the length of separating Renny from Beq and the native Egyptian craftsmen attached to his house. He even provided Renny with a studio to himself.
To this workshop Menna himself would come at times, ostensibly to seek instruction in modeling, sculpture and wood-carving. As a matter of fact his visits were prompted by the desire to use Renny and his art as in former times he had that of Beq and the native craftsmen.
Renny fell in with this whim of his powerful patron. Many a minor ornament, such as a small lotus bowl, incense-spoon or sacred image, had Renny produced, without neglecting to leave some slight detail for the handsome Overseer to finish. Renny’s artistic productions Menna incontinently made his own, adding his name and titles together with the date of its completion.
Coming from the hand of such a critical student of the arts, these small, but ever choice mementoes were eagerly sought at Court. No one doubted but that they were the work of the gifted Overseer himself.
Of late gifts and mementoes of this sort had suddenly ceased to materialize, and Menna, taxed with laziness by his friends at Court, gave it to be understood that a far more important undertaking now engaged his time. But the true reason of the present inaction of the Overseer was due to Renny, the Syrian.
That unhappy youth, in his constant visits to the Palace to deliver his masters’ gifts and notes to Sesen, had seen all too much of the beautiful Princess.
Yet, a single visit, and that his first, had proved more than enough to cause the beauty-loving Renny to come beneath the spell of Sesen’s haunting loveliness.
Do what he would to conceal his senseless passion, Renny felt that the fire at his heart would mount to his eyes, the surging blood, that seemed ever about to burst his heart, would flame into his cheeks.
At one moment Renny soared into the highest heavens; the next found him plunged into the gloomiest despair. He, an unknown sculptor, a despised foreigner, dared to lift his eyes to an exalted lady of the Egyptian Court!
Knowing too well the hopelessness of his present position, Renny sought to hide his passion.
Unluckily for the distracted sculptor, his burning hand had come in contact with the tapering fingers of the Princess.
Straightway Renny had thrown himself upon his knees and poured out to her startled ears the torrent of passionate words which had so long trembled upon his lips. Renny lost his head; his discretion vanished to the four winds of Heaven.
Sesen gazed down at the bowed head of the young sculptor in utter bewilderment. She could not have said whether she was more surprised, angered or amused. She clapped her hands twice; she would hand him to the guards. Yet, as the archers appeared from behind the columns of the courtyard, she changed her mind. A sudden wave of tenderest sympathy for Bhanar swept over the Princess. So it was not Bhanar he had sought so eagerly. Her heart ached for the quiet little maid standing so still and mute behind her. She turned to Bhanar:
“So this is that Renny, the Incomparable, of whom thou hast so often spoken, my Bhanar! Dare men so address a Princess of the Blood in thine own country and live? Like master, like man!”
Renny leaped to his feet, his face aflame with various emotions, amongst which wounded pride, perhaps was not the least.
“Lady! Since when is it considered a deed ill-done that a man should speak the love and reverence which he bears a maid? The mirror in thy hand should tell thee that few could look upon a face so fair, a form that Hathor’s self must envy, and not be stricken with that malady which not even the King’s physician hath power to cure! That I love thee I cannot help. My heart beats to thoughts of thee; thy image is stamped upon my very eyes!
“As to my master, the Lord Menna, I serve the Prince from gratitude. He found me well nigh starving in the streets of Thinis and gave me food and shelter. All my work he purchased and put me in the place of Beq, a sculptor whose work is excellent, according to your Egyptian standard. His portrait of thee I myself have much admired.
“Yet, Most Beautiful, ’tis not thee! ’Twould answer as well for any Lady of the Court. Were I to model thee, Fragrance of the Gods, thou shouldst see a living, breathing ‘double’ of thyself, thy very ka in stone. This I could prove to thee as could no other.”
During this conversation Bhanar had continued to ply the ostrich-feather fan above her mistress’s head. Anguish for Renny, pity for herself, showed in her beautiful eyes.
Sesen’s heart bled for her. Sesen knew Bhanar’s history well. Bhanar never tired of talking about her beloved village, of her dear Rippa, nestled among the distant Syrian hills.
The little Princess had soon perceived that Bhanar’s girlish love for her childhood’s companion had ripened into something stronger.
She had soon noticed how artfully Bhanar managed to forestall Sesen’s other maids whenever Renny’s name was announced by the usher.
Renny’s joy and relief at finding her in the household of the Princess had been genuine, since for a time, he had felt that he and Yakab had failed her. Thereafter, at each and every visit to the Palace, he had quite naturally sought his beautiful countrywoman. He knew that through her he would the more readily reach the lady of his master’s infatuation.
Renny had strict orders to deliver his master’s notes into the hand of Sesen in person. This at first he could never have accomplished, had it not been for Bhanar’s assistance.
This insistence of Renny to reach her through Bhanar alone Sesen had misinterpreted.
Then came that fatal day when Bhanar listened to Renny as he poured out his tale of love for her mistress. Bhanar’s heart seemed to stop its beating. From that moment she realized that she loved Renny with all the love that he—that he, alas, felt for Sesen, her mistress.
At this moment an agonizing sympathy for Renny seemed to freeze her heart. She knew that Renny at best did but provide distraction for the Princess. And now, in this statue of which he talked, Renny held out still further hopes of diversion. From her frequent visits to Enana’s villa, Bhanar knew that the absent Ramses was ever in Sesen’s mind, though never once had the little maid referred to him. In vain had she confided her knowledge of the mutual love of Sesen and Ramses to the unheeding Renny.
Sesen turned from the sculptor as if to leave. At the threshold of the steps she paused for a moment:
“Syrian, if you can indeed model such a portrait as that of which you speak, gladly will I purchase it of thee, and with it thy freedom.”
The overjoyed Renny kissed the hand she gave him:
“Within the month, Most Beauteous One! Give me but four short weeks and thou shalt see thyself as no one within the confines of the four iron pillars could ever hope to model thee. As to payment, I seek it not. Freedom might lead me away from thee!”
Renny again passionately kissed the jeweled fingers of the little Princess and dashed from the Court. How he finally managed to reach his studio door, he never knew.
Alas, for Renny and his promise. Even as he left the outer corridor, Bar, chief of his master’s spies, glided noiselessly from behind one of the great painted columns nearby.
Thereafter, Menna the Overseer saw to it that Renny sped upon no more missions to the Palace. On the contrary he was sternly warned to keep within his master’s villa-garden, and the little workshop which had been provided for him.
Yet, as luck would have it, in order to keep him busily occupied, Menna commanded him to model a statue of Hathor, Goddess of Beauty. This statue, when completed, Menna intended to present to the late Pharaoh’s shrine at Amada to the south. But to Renny he omitted to mention that his name and his alone would appear upon its ivory pedestal!
Menna the Overseer had little conception of the torture he had inflicted upon the mind of the youthful Renny when he forbade him his liberty. Hollow-cheeked and well nigh mad, Renny so far disobeyed his patron’s orders that he sat for hours, nay, for days at a time, huddled like a beggar at the Palace gate.
Not even the gentle Bhanar could console him whenever, as so frequently happened, a day went by without its being possible for the distracted youth to catch a glimpse of his idol.
Then, suddenly, he remembered his promise to the Princess. He sought out Khnum, the royal quarryman, who had but now moored to the western bank with a cargo consisting in the main of the precious alabaster of Hatnub. He bribed Khnum to procure him a giant block of purest alabaster, a mass of the creamiest material which the alabaster quarries could provide.
For days did master-quarryman Khnum seek a block of the unusual proportions demanded by the impatient sculptor. A week went by, an eternity to the tortured artist.
Finally, just as he was about to despatch a second expedition northward, and during the heat of one of the first days of the great sandstorm, Khnum and his sweating assistants hauled a wooden sledge before his dust-covered threshold. And there, high upon the friction-charred vehicle, stood the glossiest block of Hatnub’s finest alabaster which the distracted Renny had ever seen.
For many years men spoke of that never-to-be-forgotten sandstorm, a storm which ushered in days of blinding heat, days in which the flints that strewed the desert plateau cracked beneath the excoriating heat; days in which the ocher-hued river banks, confining a blinding reach of sluggish water, the shriveled and blasted sycamore, tamarisks and palms, nay, the very capital itself, seemed to be confined within the sun-god’s fiery furnace.
Day in, day out, those death-dealing rays shot from a changeless vault of steely blue. Down sank the tortured cattle; the birds gasped among the shriveled leaves of the trees. The very soil, by now as hard as any southern granite, yawned with wide-thrown crevices many cubits deep. Far to the south the broad-winged vultures circled slowly earthward from their lofty posts, as if they too feared the darts of the outraged Amen.
It was a sudden and appalling visitation which luckily blew itself out within but four of the customary nine days of blinding wind and sand.
Yet, throughout those four memorable days and thereafter Renny worked as he had never worked before.
Now, there came a day when Menna ordered his carrying-chair and bade his bearers set him down before the door of Renny’s workshop.
At the Overseer’s repeated knocks the bolts were slowly drawn. Through the barely opened door Renny, blinded by the glare, gazed unseeingly toward the extended hand of his smiling patron:
“How now, Syrian? Hast turned magician? Bar tells me thou must needs have conned the hekau-spell that bringeth food and drink, since all the food that is brought thee stands untasted. Breath of the Goddess! Why hast sulked behind barred doors these weeks and more?” Menna made as if to step within.
“Ah, master, most noble lord, I do beseech thee, go not within! Bethink thee, Splendor of Thebes, when first I came to thee, thou didst assure to me that privacy which, far more than thy golden uten, I did ask of thee! Continue now thy favor some little time, I pray. Thy statue of the Goddess Hathor is...!”
“Amemet eat me! Days, nay weeks, have we waited for a sight of it! Now is our sore-tried patience at an end.”
With a firmness unexpected in the customarily indolent Menna, the Overseer pushed the trembling Renny aside and entered the workshop.
At first, so sudden was the change from the glare of noonday to the murky shadows of the room, that Menna could distinguish nothing. When at last his eyes grew somewhat accustomed to the gloom, he found himself staring at the tinted statue of a regally robed woman, a life-sized figure so startlingly realistic that for a moment he instinctively drew back.
Upon a pedestal festooned with drooping lotus and fragrant mimosa stood the smiling figure of the Princess Sesen. So lifelike did the statue appear to the bewildered noble, that for a space of a full minute, he waited, expecting her lips to part, her tongue to utter the customary greetings.
Once his jeweled fingers had assured him that the figure was but tinted stone, Menna burst into voluble exclamations of wonder and delight.
“Verily, said I not that thou hadst learned some potent charm, some mighty hekau, known but to the blessed gods alone?
“Breath of Hathor! ’Tis the work of Ptah, nay, of Khnum himself, Fashioner of Mankind! None but a god could thus turn stone to flesh, put breath in the nostrils, life in the eye!
“Ah Syrian! if this be Syrian art, my heated arguments were but wasted breath! Compared to our Egyptian figures, shackled, mummified, as lifeless as the granite they are carved in, here stands grace and freedom, life itself!
“By the Theban Triad, the very blind would know this figure for the Princess, the Lady Sesen...!”
Menna broke off abruptly. Sesen?
Suddenly Menna’s face flamed in anger. Could there indeed be something between the Princess and this slave, this nobody?
Nay, as far as the Princess was concerned, Menna felt sure that Bar’s reports of Renny’s heedless temerity were false. At the moment Menna felt sure that he had good cause to trust the Princess. He fingered a scented note tucked in his jeweled belt.
But Renny...?
Menna shook his perfumed wig, and turning, spoke the young man’s name. Thrice he called, then strode to the half opened door.
Renny had vanished.
With a threatening imprecation the irate Overseer turned once more to the statue.
Yes, here was Hathor, Goddess of Beauty, Goddess of Love, as none in Egypt had ever conceived her!
Menna’s brain worked fast. The statue he vowed to make his own. Bar and his minions were despatched to do away with Renny!
What a sensation would this work produce at Court, and especially upon the mind of the art-loving Pharaoh! Menna allowed himself visions of a naturalistic school modeled upon the Syrian, an essentially realistic school which should utterly banish the hieratic canons imposed upon the Egyptian craftsmen by the dictates of precedent and the will of an all-powerful priesthood.
Meantime, thought the Overseer, the statue must be kept from sight, at least, until Renny was safely out of the way.
He sent off a chairman to bring clay, string and his signet ring. With his own hands he covered the statue with the quarryman’s mats which still clustered in one corner of the little chamber.
In less time than it takes to tell it the tinted figure of the little Princess disappeared from sight. Menna closed the door and, slipping to the bronze bolt, bound it with cord and set his scarab-seal upon a clay pellet which he fastened thereto. This done, he hurried home. To-day was a momentous day with Menna, Overseer of the King’s Estates.
What Belur the Hittite Ambassador had said, concerning the expected outbreak of a religious war throughout Egypt, was true. Moreover, no one was greatly surprised at his report of the disaffection of Egypt’s Asiatic vassals.
In his efforts to establish the cult of the Syrian sun-god, in place of that of the various Egyptian deities, Pharaoh had little time to attend to the exacting affairs of his country’s vast empire abroad.
However, Belur’s words cannot have taken him altogether by surprise, since runners had brought letters daily from the few faithful vassal-kings along his Syrian border, letters begging help from Egypt.
Indeed, of late, these hints of troubles to come had resolved themselves into the most urgent appeals for troops to assist in stemming the advance of the dreaded Hittites. Two messengers had Noferhotep sent from the frontier on a like errand. After a protracted delay Pharaoh had despatched one division of Ethiopian troops to his support.
Yet, not until this moment, when a swift cedar boat was carrying Belur and his suite northward, did Pharaoh appreciate to the full the significance of those despairing cries for aid. As he now saw it, Belur had come as spokesman for a combined array of Egypt’s Asiatic foes, the very mention of whose names froze the blood in Pharaoh’s veins.
Thereafter Pharaoh’s spies were very active, along the border.
Time went by, yet nothing happened. Perhaps the boastful words of the Hittite were but intended to intimidate him. Or could it have been that the bold front which he had assumed had in turn deceived the Hittite?
Hearing nothing further of Rimur of Charchemish, or of the kings of Kadesh and Megiddo, Pharaoh again took up the work so near his heart. All his best efforts were now centered upon the establishment of the Syrian solar-cult throughout Egypt.
To this drastic move Pharaoh was incited by Yakab and by his mother, Thi, not so much on account of any real love they had for Aton, the Syrian deity, but mainly as a means of ridding themselves of the obstructive influence of Huy, Enana and the powerful priesthood of Amen in Karnak.
Realizing that the vast buildings of Amen’s temples in Karnak could never be moved, Thi pointed out to Pharaoh how comparatively easy it would be for him to forsake Thebes and the Palace of Amenhotep, his father, and to erect a new palace, a new city, elsewhere.
To this end Thi had urged Pharaoh to abandon Thebes and had prevailed upon him to erect a new capital, the City of the Sun, far to the north.
It was to raise this new capital, together with all the houses and villas surrounding it, that thousands of captive slaves were now put to work deep within the quarries of Hatnub, quarries famed alike on account of the superb quality of their fine white limestone and the translucency of their striated alabasters.
In building Pharaoh’s new city gigantic blocks in both of these rich materials were brought down from the hills along a specially leveled causeway. Each giant block had been secured upon great wooden sleds of hardened sycamore, and hauled to the new site by the concerted efforts of sweating oxen and groaning sleds.
Overseers were told of to prod the oxen; others to lash the scarred backs of the unhappy Asiatic slaves. The chief of each section occupied himself in pouring water upon the ground to prevent the sled from taking fire by friction, or oil to facilitate the movement of the sled.
When not so engaged the chief sang a love-song in time to the thwack of the overseers’ staves, as they further lacerated the bloody backs of the staggering captives. It was commonly said of a chief of a quarry-gang that he needed but three canopic jars at his entombment, since he lacked—a heart.
At the site of the new city other dull-eyed Asiatics, similarly flogged into line, worked waist-deep in sandy pits or muddy ditches. Day in, day out, the heavy wooden brick-carriers bit into the cracked and blistered shoulders of emasculated Amu.
Indeed, long before the quickening rays of Aton had mounted above the low hills which shut in the City of the Sun to the east, sweat, mud and blood had baked upon the naked backs of Ethiopian, Libyan, Canaanite and Kheftiu alike. Nay, Egyptians themselves, the down-trodden herdsmen, were as like as not torn from their ripening fields to toil perhaps at pressing bricks for Pharaoh’s palace, library and villa, or, cursed, cuffed and beaten by the shrieking taskmasters, to crack their thews at the well-nigh smoking ropes which encircle some colossal shaft, shrine or statue intended for the great temple of the sun-god Aton.
From their lofty posts above the valley watchful vultures craned their necks, as they slowly circled earthward. Such a stupendous undertaking exacted a heavy toll of death.
But what of deserted Thebes, of Huy and the priests of Amen?
Ever since the theft of the cultus-statue of the temple by the Atonites the priests at Karnak had shut themselves up behind the great walls of the Temple of Amen. Behind those massive walls they had continued to intone the ritual of Amen to an empty shrine and the Theban Recention of the Book of the Dead to deserted courts and forgotten offering-tables. Aton and its ritual they anathematized, though an Aton shrine had, for a time, been forced upon them.
In their present extremity Huy, the great High Priest of Amen, relied for support upon the people, as did indeed his brother hierophants of Memphis, Thinis and Abydos.
Yet, no help came from the priests of Ptah, of Atum, of Osiris. The starving and plague-stricken peasants in whom they trusted failed to assist them.
For their part the peasants well knew that no matter which of the opposing factions gained the upper hand, their present state of utter wretchedness would remain unchanged.
What cared they for Amen, Ptah or Aton, when the Nile-god failed them, when Hapi neglected to pour his life-giving waters over their parched and stricken fields!
What was Amen or Aton to them, as they watched their ashen, granite-hard soil crack beneath the pitiless shafts of a ruthless sun-god! ’Twas an ill time to pray to him under any one of his three hundred names.
And so it happened that, at Pharaoh’s command, an Atonite force attacked the battlemented walls of Amen’s temple in Karnak.
As a result, the ancient temple of Sesostris was utterly destroyed. Oldest of all the temples within the encircling walls, its cedar columns, its silver floors, its walls of gold inlaid with malachite and lazuli, together with its hundreds of gold and silver statues of the kings of old, all were lost in a conflagration started by the overturning of a colossal incense-bowl which stood in front of the shadow of the god Min, outlined in silver in the panels of the sanctuary door.
That night Huy, great High Priest of Amen, lay dead, the poisoned cup clenched in his hand.
Yet, before he went forth upon his last long journey across the rocky heights of Duat and the demon-haunted valleys of the Underworld, Huy had arrayed himself in full regalia and taken his stand before the yellow curtain which screened the now empty shrine of the great god Amen.
Aloud he cried, “O Ancient One, Primordial God! By the power of thy Hidden Name, by the Heads of the Demigods that surround thee, hear the prayer of Huy, thy servant!
“Grant that the line of Ahmes be broken! Grant that no child of Pharaoh sit upon thy golden throne!
“Let Pharaoh’s name be blotted from remembrance! Let Pharaoh’s ka be forced to wander among the dunghills of forgotten cities!”
Slowly Huy raised the poisoned cup: “And now, O nameless One, before I go forth upon the way of trial, a token that thou dost grant my prayer. Give me a sign, O Holy One, a sign, O Amen, Lord of Lords!”
As if in answer to the High Priest’s cry, there came a sound as of the shaking of distant sistra and silver cymbals. There followed the thrumming of many harps and the sound of reed pipes. Suddenly, through the yellow curtain, there was seen a light which slowly increased in brightness.
In terror the awe-struck priests surrounding Huy hid their eyes. When again they dared to open them, they saw that the great curtain had been rent in two and, below it, stretched at full length, lay the white-robed figure of Huy, their leader.
In sorrow, Antefy, his successor, commanded his bearers to carry him to the chariot of Mei, the Atonite, where seven and seventy times seven at the feet of Pharaoh’s victorious representative, in words at least, he fell.
The other disheartened ministers of Amen nominally embraced the Aton creed then and there, or, with Antefy, their new leader, retired to a self-imposed exile among the arid sands of Nubia far to the south.
The fall of Huy and the priests of Amen, seeming to prove the strength and determination of Pharaoh, Memphis, Thinis and Abydos, and thereafter, nearly every local shrine throughout Egypt, at once raised altars to Aton, the Syrian sun-god.
Once again fortune favored the Atonites!
Menna, Overseer of the King’s Estates, was known to the Court as a hard and self-seeking man, and this in spite of his sleekness of skin, his luxurious habits and his untiring efforts to outshine the other “followers of the king” both in beauty of person, knowledge of literature and the arts, indeed, in all those visible evidences of culture which distinguished the Egyptian court.
In spite of this outward display and ostentation Menna, son of Menna, was appreciated at his full value by courtier, priest and peasant alike. Well they knew that but a tithe of the fat revenues which Menna collected for the king or had formerly collected for the unhappy Huy, Great High Priest of Amen, went to swell the royal “treasuries of gold and silver” or the “treasure of the god.” As yet, however, through fear of the Overseer’s “eyes and ears”—spies, native and foreign—no one had dared to inform upon him at the Palace.
In spite of all Menna could do to ingratiate himself with her, the Lady Sesen ever sought to avoid him. Yet Menna never despaired. His attentions were pressed upon her, in spite of all she could do to prevent. Recently the fringed Asiatic garments of his servants, an affectation of the much-traveled Prince, were seldom absent from her sight.
Yet to-day something had happened which might bring it well within the realms of possibility that she might break with the persistent Overseer once and for all.
During the course of one of her visits to the home of Ramses’ grandparents Enana had confided to her a secret which appeared to her astonished ears well-nigh incredible. For from him she learned the astounding news that Hanit, her former beloved mistress, Queen Hanit whom she had but yesterday it seemed, seen laid to rest yonder in the Valley of the Tombs, was alive, alive!
Rendered fairly dumb at once with amazement and joy, Sesen sat at Enana’s knees as if fascinated, her cheeks aglow, her eyes dancing with excitement, her lips parted as if she would drink in his every word.
This, then, was the reason of Enana’s feverish restlessness of late. Queen Thi herself, whom nothing escaped, had remarked it, had even commented upon it to Sesen.
Naturally, Sesen at the time could give no adequate explanation of the unusual behavior, the ill-restrained excitement, which seemed to agitate the wizened body of the old magician. And Queen Thi finally set it down as being due to loss of favor at court.
In fact, Enana had suddenly withdrawn entirely from all court functions. A faithful adherent of the great god, Amen of Thebes, and a brother of Huy, late High Priest of Amen, Enana could not but see in Thi and Pharaoh the murderers of Huy, his brother, and the implacable foes of Amen whom he loved and served.
So the shriveled body which Kathi had sworn was that of Hanit had been another’s. Sesen recalled that Enana had often remarked the striking resemblance which existed between the ex-Queen Hanit and the Lady Meryt.
It was Meryt’s body then which lay in its rock-hewn tomb back yonder swathed in yards of milk-white linens, encased in a triple cedar coffin glowing with gold and gem-incrustations! It was Meryt’s body which now rested in its huge granite sarcophagus, deep beneath the crumbling Western Hills! It was Meryt’s mummified form upon which she herself had placed that last sad offering, a chaplet of flowers, berries and leaves! Hanit, her beloved mistress, still lived!
Sesen could hardly follow Enana through the astounding threads of his story. She gathered that the ruse by which her mistress had been saved from certain death at Queen Thi’s hands had been Enana’s own, though its successful accomplishment had been due to the faithful Kathi.
Sesen begged to be allowed to visit Hanit, but Enana restrained her. He spoke of the terrible change in the demeanor of the once gentle and studious Queen. He spoke of her vindictive hatred of Pharaoh, of Thi and, more than these perhaps, of Menna, son of Menna, whom she considered the murderer of the prince, her son.
Since her escape from the Temple all her time had been spent in study, and that with but one end in view. Vengeance upon the trio whom she had such cause to hate had become with her an obsession.
It appeared that in the realms of black art Hanit had become the equal of Enana himself. Day and night had she pored over the lector’s rolls of papyrus, until each and every one of their incantations had become hers. She knew all the hidden spells of the Conjurers of Amen. She could part the waters at a word. Her ebony wand could cause grass to grow where no vegetation had lived before. Behead a bird or animal and, at a word from Hanit, it would spring to its feet alive and whole. Even the secrets of the masons and royal architects were hers. She knew the secret blocks of stone which, touched by even the weakest hand, opened or closed many a ponderous granite door of tomb or shrine.
Yes! She would have vengeance upon Pharaoh, upon Thi, upon Menna...!
At the mention of Menna’s name Sesen thoughtfully drew from the folds of her robe a small roll of papyrus, delicately scented and inscribed in black and red with another effusive expression of the Overseer’s undying passion and his plea for a tryst. Enana read it twice, then carefully rolled it up and placed it securely beneath his leather girdle, saying as he did so:
“Here may be found the bait to lure Prince Menna to his bitter doom! It reaches Hanit’s hands this very night! Verily, what said that sage of old, Imhotep? ‘Love is the greatest ally of the gods!’”
Trembling with suppressed excitement the old magician rose. He placed a caressing hand upon the head of the little Princess and departed somewhat abruptly, leaving her to marvel at the miraculous escape of her former mistress and to speculate as to the nature of Hanit’s vengeance upon Menna.
And Menna? Not long after Enana had left the little Princess the overjoyed Menna felt that he could, at last, afford to ignore the reports brought in by Bar and his other spies. Menna no longer feared the existence of an understanding between Renny and the little Princess. A note from Sesen, a note most tenderly inscribed, rested at the moment between Menna’s thumb and forefinger. He smiled as he placed the note to his lips. He inhaled the perfume of myrrh-paste, where Sesen’s fingers had touched the smooth papyrus. Sesen the Haughty, Sesen the Unapproachable, Sesen whom the great Ramses loved, had yielded to his attentions and passionate appeals. It had been a far longer siege than usually fell to the lot of the Overseer, but, at last, the usual stream of presents, poems, and entreaties had done its work. Sesen had agreed to meet him amidst the ruins near Mentuhotep’s shrine!
“Mentuhotep’s shrine? That forgotten ruin! An extraordinary place,” mused the Prince. For a moment he doubted the missive; a hint of suspicion clouded the gleam of triumph which glowed in his eyes.
Somewhat thoughtfully he reread the note. The next he had stretched his jeweled hand toward a little bronze mirror which rested upon an ivory rack at his elbow. It was a small mirror, its handle a maiden standing with arms outstretched as if to support the disk above.
But half conscious of what he was doing, Menna gazed at his handsome features as reflected in the burnished oval of the mirror. Slowly his features relaxed. He smiled, and, laying down the mirror, clapped his hands. He gave direction to the obsequious Syrian who immediately appeared, that Bentu, chief of his chair-bearers, be sent to him immediately.
Soon after, Bentu left his master’s presence, his face, wreathed in smiles, his ivory teeth flashing. Bentu walked on air, he could hardly refrain from snapping his fingers and dancing his joy like “the curly-headed ones,” as he hurried down the quiet corridors. An excursion such as his master planned for the morrow customarily ended well for Bentu, chief of the carriers.
Throughout the long night following, while Menna tossed upon his ivory-footed couch, Bentu gambled away his last worldly possessions.
At first Bentu lost three heifers at a throw. Then seven sheep went to Beq, the sculptor. Quickly followed the loss of thirty geese, the two gold uten which encircled his wrist, his hound Antef, and finally, most prized possession of all, his bright blue scarab-seal. All passed to Beq, the sculptor.
But what cared Bentu, the Carrier! In his master’s explicit directions as to clothes for the carriers, as to food and drink, Bentu scented an assignation. The new hood was to be put on the carrying-chair. It was a beautiful hood, made of the finest linen, in stripes of green and gold. A love affair without a doubt! There was a woman in it, and women—as Bentu knew full well—women paid well for messengers and—carriers!
Bentu curled himself up in a corner of Beq’s studio and went promptly to sleep. He feared to go home; his wife might ask questions, and Bentu was in mortal dread of Sebekmeryt his Nubian wife.