by newly built, lofty walls. These were patrolled by soldiers bearing shields, but the gates stood open to us. We drove through the city amid the braying of donkeys and the yelling of women and children, while baskets of fruit flew through the air and countless pitchers were crushed beneath the wheels, for the drivers paid no heed to any in their path.
When I was lifted from the vehicle, I could no longer walk but reeled like a drunken man. The drivers rushed me by the arms into the house, followed by slaves with my medicine chest. We had come no farther than the outer wall, which was hung with shields and breastplates and tasseled spears, when Aziru collided with us, trumpeting like a wounded elephant. He had rent his clothes and cast ashes on his hair, and he had scratched his face with his nails until it bled.
Aziru then embraced me warmly and wept and said, “Heal my son, Sinuhe-heal him, and all that is mine shall be yours.”
I said to him, “Let me first see your son that I may find out if I can heal him.”
He led me quickly to a large room heated by a brazier although it was summer. The air within was stifling. In the middle of the floor stood a cradle in which lay a baby less than a year old, swathed in woolen garments. He was screaming so hard that he was blue black in the face and sweat stood in beads upon his forehead. Although he was still so small, he had thick black hair like his father. I could not see that much ailed him. If he had been dying, he could not have roared so lustily. Lying on the floor beside the cradle was Keftiu, the woman I had once given to Aziru. She was fatter and whiter than ever, and her mountainous flesh shook as she struck her forehead on the floor in her grief and mourned and shrieked. From the corners of the room came the outcry of slaves and nurses whose faces were swollen and bruised from the blows that Aziru had dealt them because they could pot heal his son.
“Be of good courage, Aziru,” I said. “Your son is not dying, but I must cleanse myself before I examine him. And take away the accursed brazier before we all choke!”
Keftiu raised her head quickly from the floor and said in a fright, “The child will catch cold!” Her eyes lingered on me. Then she smiled and sat up, tidied her hair and her dress, and said, “Sinuhe, is it you?”
But Aziru wrung his hands and groaned, “The boy can take no food but spews up all he eats, and his body is hot. For three days now he has taken scarcely anything-only wept so that my heart breaks to hear it.”
I bade him drive out the nurses and the slave women, and he obeyed me meekly, altogether forgetting his majesty. When I had cleansed myself, I undid the baby’s woolen clothes and took them off, then opened the shutters so that the room was freshened by the cool evening air. The child at once grew quieter. His crying ceased and he began to kick his fat legs. I felt his body and his belly until all at once I thought of something and put my finger in his mouth. I had guessed rightly: the first tooth was showing like a pearl in his jaw.
Then I exclaimed wrathfully, “Aziru, Aziru! Was it for this your wild horses dragged hither the cleverest physician in Smyrna? Nothing ails your child-he is merely as impatient and irritable as his father. It may be he has had a little fever, but that has now abated. If he vomited, it was because he had the good sense to save his own life, for he has been overstuffed with rich milk. It is time that Keftiu weaned him and accustomed him to proper food, or he will soon bite off his mother’s nipples. You must know that your son wept in petulance at the cutting of his first tooth-and if you do not believe me, see for yourself.”
I opened the baby’s mouth and showed Aziru the tooth. He broke out in wild jubilation, clapped his hands, and danced about the room till the floor shook beneath him. I showed Keftiu the tooth also, and she vowed she had never seen so fair a tooth in the mouth of any child. When she would have swathed the baby in the woolen things again, I forbade her and wrapped him in a cool linen cloth lest he be chilled by the evening air.
Aziru continued to dance and stamp and sing in his raucous voice and was not at all abashed at having dragged me from so great a distance. He insisted upon displaying his son’s tooth to the members of his court and to his officers. Even the guards from the walls were called in to behold it. They pressed about the cradle amid a clanking of spears and shields and admired the child and tried to poke their dirty thumbs into his mouth to see the tooth, until I drove thetn all from the room, bidding Aziru take thought for his dignity and control himself.
Aziru looked foolish and said, “Truly I may have forgotten myself and made a needless pother. Many nights I have lain awake by his cradle with a sick heart. But you must understand that he is my son and my first-born, my prince, my jewel, the apple of my eye, my little lion who one day will wear the crown of Amurru and rule over many. For truly I mean to make this land a great one, worth the inheriting, so that he will come to praise his father’s name. Sinuhe, Sinuhe, you don’t know how grateful I am to you for lifting this stone from my heart. You must acknowledge that you have never seen so fine a man child, not in all your travels. Look at his hair-at the swarthy lion’s mane-and tell me whether you have ever before seen such hair on a child of that age! You saw yourself that his tooth is like a pearl, faultless and gleaming-and look at his limbs!”
I grew so weary of his prattle that I bade him and his child take themselves to the nethermost pit. I told him my limbs were crippled from that hideous drive so that even now I hardly knew whether I stood on my head or my heels. But he appeased me, and putting his arm about my shoulders, he offered me many kinds of food on silver dishes, roast mutton and rice cooked in fat, also wine from a golden goblet. I was refreshed and forgave him.
I remained as his guest for some days. He gave me lavish presents and much gold and silver; his wealth had greatly increased since last we met. In what manner his poor country had grown rich he would not tell me but laughed in his beard and said that the wife I had given him had brought him good fortune. Keftiu was cordial also and showed me marked respect-no doubt recalling the stick with which I had so often tested the toughness of her skin. She followed me about, swaying and jingling in all her opulence, looking at me fondly and caressing me with her smile. So burning a love did Aziru bear toward her that he seldom visited his other wives, and from courtesy only. They were the daughters of tribal chieftains whose alliance he had thus prudently secured.
I had traveled so widely and seen so many countries that he felt impelled to boast of his might. He told me much that later he may have regretted mentioning. Thus I learned that the men who had attacked me in Smyrna and would have cast me into the harbor were agitators whom he had sent forth, and it was they who reported to him that I was once more in Smyrna.
He deplored what had happened but added, “Truly there shall be many broken skulls among the Egyptians, and many an Egyptian soldier shall be cast into the harbor before Smyrna and Byblos and Sidon and Gaza have learned that Egyptians are not invulnerable-that their blood flows and life leaves them when their hides are pierced. The merchants of Syria are overcautious, the princes timid, and the people as sluggish as oxen. It is for the alert to lead them and show them where their advantage lies.”
I asked him, “Why must this be, Aziru, and why do you bear so great a hatred toward Egyptians?”
He stroked his curly beard with a sly smile and said, “Who says I hate them, Sinuhe? I do not hate you. I grew up in Pharaoh’s golden house, like my father before me and all other Egyptian princes. I learned there that in the eyes of the educated all peoples are much of a muchness. No nation is either braver or more chickenhearted, crueler or more compassionate, wickeder or more virtuous than another. Among all races there are heroes and cowards, straight men and crooked-and this is true also of Syria and Egypt. Rulers therefore hate no one and acknowledge no difference between nations-but hatred is a great force in the ruler’s hand! It is more potent than many weapons, for without hatred no arm is strong enough to wield a weapon. Therefore I am doing what I can to kindle hatred between Syria and Egypt, and I shall blow on the flame until it blazes up into a fire to consume Egyptian sovereignty in Syria. All the cities, all the races of Syria shall learn that Egyptians are more despicable and cowardly and cruel, more corrupt, greedy, and thankless than Syrians. They shall learn to spit when they hear them mentioned and regard them as usurpers, oppressors, bloodsuckers, torturers, and defilers of children until their hatred can move mountains.”
“But none of this is true, as you said yourself.”
Throwing out his hands with a shrug he said, “What is truth, Sinuhe? When their blood has soaked up enough of the truth I offer them, they will swear by all their gods that it is the only truth and will believe no one who affirms the contrary. They will be persuaded that they are stronger, braver, and more righteous than any other people in the world. They will fancy that they love freedom more than they fear death and starvation and hardship, and they will be ready to pay any price to gain it. I shall teach them this. Many already believe it, and each believer will convert others until the new truth has run like wild fire throughout Syria. It is also a truth that Egypt once entered Syria with fire and blood and therefore with fire and blood must be driven out.”
“Which freedom is it you speak about to them?” I asked, fearing his talk on Egypt’s account.
He raised his hands once more and smiled gently.
“Freedom is a word with many meanings; some mean one thing by it and some another, but this is of no importance so long as the freedom is never attained. Many are needed to achieve freedom. When it has been won,
