River god - Smith Wilbur - Страница 75

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  FROM ATON, PHARAOH HAD A FULL REPORT of Lostris' recovery and came in person to visit her. He brought her a new necklace of gold and lapis lazuli in the form of an eagle and sat until evening, playing word-games and setting riddles with her. When he was ready to leave, he called me to walk with him as far as his chambers.

  'The change in her is extraordinary. It is a miracle, Taita.

  When can I take her to bed again? Already she seems well enough to bear my son and heir.'

  'Not yet, Great Egypt,' I assured him vehemently. 'The slightest exertion on the part of my mistress might trigger a relapse.' He no longer questioned my word, for now I spoke with all the authority of the once dead, although his previous awe of me had worn a little thin with familiarity.

  The slave girls also were becoming accustomed to my resurrection, and were able to look at my face without having to make the sign. Indeed, my return from the underworld was no longer the most popular fare of the palace gossips. They had something else to keep them busy. This was die advent of Akh-Horus into the lives and consciousness of every person living in the land along the great river.

  The first time I heard the name Akh-Horus whispered in the palace corridors, I did not immediately place it. The garden of Tiamat beside the Red Sea seemed so remote from the little world of Elephantine, and I had forgottetfcthe name that Hui had bestowed on Tanus. When, howeva, I heard the accounts of the extraordinary deeds ascribed to this demi-god, I realized who they were speaking about.

  In a fever of excitement, I ran all the way back to the harem and found my mistress in the garden, besieged by a dozen visitors, noble ladies and royal wives, for she had so far recovered from her illness as to resume once more her role as court favourite.

  I was so wrought up that I forgot my place as a mere slave, and to be rid of .them I was quite rude to the royal ladies. They flounced out of the garden squawking like a gaggle of offended geese, and my mistress rounded on me. "That was unlike you. What on earth has come over you, Taita?'

  'Tanus!' I said the name like an incantation, and she forgot all her indignation and seized both my hands.

  'You have news of Tanus! Tell me! Quickly, before I die of impatience.'

  'News? Yes, I have news of him. What news! What extraordinary news. What unbelievable news!'

  She dropped my hands and picked up her formidable silver fan. 'Stop your nonsense this instant,' she threatened me with it. 'I'll not put up with your teasing. Tell me, or I swear you'll have more lumps on your head than a Nubian has fleas.'

  'Come! Let's go where nobody can hear us.' I led her down to the jetty and handed her into our little skiff. Out in the middle of the river we were safe from the flapping ears that lurked behind each corner of the palace walls.

  "There is a fresh, clean wind blowing through the land,'

  I told her. 'They call this wind Akh-Horus.'

  'The brother of Horus,' she breathed it with reverence. 'Is this what they call Tanus now?'

  'None of them know it is Tanus. They think he is a god.' 'He is a god,' she insisted. 'To me, he is a god.' 'That is how they see it also. If he were not a god, how then would he know where the Shrikes are skulking, how else would he march unerringly to their strongholds, how would he know instinctively where they are waiting to wayr lay the incoming caravans, and to surprise them in their own ambuscades?'

  'Has he accomplished all these things?' she demanded in wonder.

  'These deeds and a hundred others, if you can believe the wild rumours that are flying about the palace. They say that every thief and bandit in the land runs in terror of his life, that the clans of the Shrikes are being shattered one by one. They say that Akh-Horus sprouted wings, like those of an eagle, and flew up the inaccessible cliffs of Gebel-Umm-Bahari to appear miraculously in the midst of the clan of Basti the Cruel. With his own hands, he hurled five hundred of the bandits from the top of the cliffs?'

  'Tell me more!' She clapped her hands, almost capsizing the skiff in her enthusiasm.

  "They say that at every crossroads and beside every caravan route he has built tall monuments to his passing.' 'Monuments? What monuments are these?' 'Piles of human skulls, high pyramids of skulls. The heads of the bandits he has slain, as a warning to others.'

  My mistress shuddered with delicious horror, but her face still shone. 'Has he killed so many?' she demanded.

  'Some say he has slain five thousand, and some say fifty thousand. There are even some who say one hundred thousand, but I think those must be exaggerating a little.' 'Tell me more! More!'

  "They say he has already captured at least six of the robber barons?'

  'And chopped off their heads!' she anticipated me with ghoulish relish.

  'No, they say that he has not killed them, but transformed them into baboons. They say he keeps them in a cage for his amusement.'

  'Is all of this possible?' she giggled.

  'For a god, anything is possible.'

  'He is my god. Oh, Taita, when will you let me see him?'

  'Soon,' I promised. 'Your beauty burns up brighter every day. Soon it will be fully restored.'

  'In the meantime you must gather every story and every rumour of Akh-Horus and bring them to me.'

  She sent me to the shipping wharf every day to question the crews of the barges coming down from theg north for news of Akh-Horus.

  'They are saying now that nobody has ever seen the face of Akh-Horus, for he wears a helmet with a visor that covers all but his eyes. They say also that in the heat of battle the head of Akh-Horus bursts into flame, a flame that blinds his enemies,' I reported to her after one such visit.

  'In the sunlight I have seen Tanus' hair seem to burn with a heavenly light,' my mistress confirmed.

  On another morning I could tell her, "They say that he can multiply his earthly body like the images in a mirror, that he can be in many" different places at one time, for on the same day he can be seen in Qena and Kom-Ombo, a hundred miles apart.'

  'Is that possible?' she asked, with awe.

  'Some say this is not true. They say that he can cover these great distances only because he never sleeps. They say that in the night hours he gallops through the darkness on the back of a lion, and in the day he soars through the sky on the back of an enormous white eagle to fall upon his enemies when they least expect it.'

  "That could be true.' She nodded seriously. 'I do not believe about the mirror images, but the lion and the eagle might be true. Tanus could do something like that. I believe it.'

  'I think it more likely that everybody in Egypt is eager to set eyes upon Akh-Horus, and that the desire is father to the act. They see him behind every bush. As to the speed of his travels, well, I have marched with the guards and I can vouch for?' She would not allow me to finish, but interrupted primly.

  "There is no romance in your soul, Taita. You would doubt that the clouds are the fleece of Osiris' flocks, and that the sun is the face of Ra, simply because you cannot reach up and touch them. I, for my part, believe Tanus is capable of all these things.' Which assertion put an end to the argument, and I hung my head in submission.

  IN THE AFTERNOONS THE TWO OF US RESUMED our old practice of strolling through the streets and the market-places. As before her illness, "rny mistress was welcomed by an adoring populace, and she stopped to speak with all of them, no matter their station or their calling. From priests to prostitutes, none was immune to her loveliness and her unfeigned charm.

  Always she was able to turn the conversation to Akh-Horus, and the people were as eager as she was to discuss the new god. By this time he had been promoted in the popular imagination from demi-god to a full member of the pantheon. The citizens of Elephantine had already begun a subscription for the building of a temple to Akh-Horus, to which my mistress had made a most generous donation.

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