Читать книгу Hanit the Enchantress - Garrett Chatfield Pier - Страница 7

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The sloping walls of the Temple of Amenra loomed black and forbidding against the pallid light of early morning.

The tall cedar flag-poles fronting the entrance pylons and the gold-capped shafts of the four granite obelisks seemed carved in ebony, so sharply were their dark lines defined.

No sound came from within; no life was apparent in the wide domain of cultivated fields which surrounded the temple on three sides. There was no sign of life upon the temple barges moored to the sandstone landing at the temple front.

A long line of cranes flew slowly, noiselessly, across the moon, now rapidly sinking into the blue haze which floated above the Western Hills.

Within the temple precinct, in a small chamber lit by the fitful light of a six-wicked lamp which swung out from the wall at the end of a pole, a restless figure bent from time to time above a form stretched at length upon a high couch.

The figure was that of a woman, a woman dead and to a certain extent disfigured by the scalpel and fat-extracting implements of the embalmer who now bent over her.

On a low bench beside him were spread out the many bronze and flint utensils of his craft.

Kathi, the Embalmer, made the last great incision. With a long, flat and minutely serrated flint knife, he laid open a good six inches of the flesh immediately above the heart. Having extracted that organ he carefully placed it in an alabaster jar filled almost to the brim with aromatic spirits. On top of the jar he set the cover, a cover crowned with a tinted portrait-head of the deceased. Three similar jars containing the viscera, brains and other organs liable to rapid decay, had already been hermetically sealed.

So quickly comes the dawn in Egypt that, by this time, one could readily distinguish the inscription in letters of dark blue which symmetrically filled a square at the shoulder of each vase:

“An oblation which the King bestows to the Royal Spouse, His Beloved, Hanit, Triumphant. Ten thousand oxen and fowl, ten thousand jars of wine, ten thousand loaves of bread, funerary raiment for the rewrapping of this body, all things pure and good for the soul of the deceased Queen, His Beloved, the Lady Hanit, Justified of God.”

Being at one and the same time Embalmer to the King, Chief Surgeon and Magician, as he macerated the shriveled flesh, Kathi recited the prescribed Ritual from the Book of the Dead and consecrated the many amuletic jewels and pendants with which he now proceeded to decorate the body.

Each limb received at his hand the anointing that rendered it incorruptible and the magical charms and incantations that should sustain the spark of life.

This done, Kathi placed a heavy amulet in the cavity whence he had extracted the heart, a great emerald beetle, inscribed beneath with a prayer for justification and absolution addressed to the Judge of the Dead, Osiris.

It did not enter Kathi’s head that he was trying to dupe Osiris by thus inserting a heavy stone heart in place of the real organ. Kathi merely wished to be sure that the heart would tip the scales against the great God’s “Feather of Truth,” when the deceased was led into the Hall of the Underworld for Judgment.

Having placed the emerald heart in position, the Embalmer set a long oval plaque of gold immediately above it, drew together the clean-cut flesh and sewed up the wound.

A small iron amulet, the Two Fingers of Horus, he placed in the hand, and the delicate jewels of the deceased, chains of minute carnelian emerald, garnet and amethyst pendants, he strung about the throat. Low upon the breast he placed a beaded wesekh, a broad jeweled pectoral ornament which, more than a thousand years before his time, King Kufu had called the national ornament of his people. Upon the head he set one of the huge pleated wigs of the day, confining it with a diadem of gold decorated at intervals with gold lotus flowers in high relief. Gold earrings of rosette form were set in the ears, broad jeweled bands slipped upon the arms, wrists and ankles, and Kathi, the Embalmer, commenced to wrap the body in the first few score feet of aromatic linen bandages.

The Embalmer rested a moment, hand on hip. Humming absently to himself he turned to trim the spluttering lamp. It was an occupation which consumed altogether too much of his time.

Kathi’s back being turned for a moment, he failed to see the bent figure of Enana, the Magician, who glided into the dimly lit room.

“Thou hast succeeded, son of Kathi?”

At his repressed but high-pitched voice, Kathi, son of Kathi, swung about, startled for an instant out of his wonted calm and immobility. He turned to close the door before replying. “As thou sayest, Holiness, I have succeeded. ’Tis but a few short minutes since Thi and Menna stood where thou standest at this very moment. The Syrian shed real tears above the body of that poor wench there. To her ’twas Hanit, doubt not.” Kathi smiled somewhat sadly as he gazed down upon the figure at his feet: “In death the Lady Meryt’s striking resemblance to Hanit, our beloved Queen, was most pronounced. And, following my work upon the head, the Lady Meryt’s own mother could hardly have chosen between them.

“I noted a hint of suspicion in Menna’s eyes the moment he entered the room. Yet, this instantly vanished, when once he had looked upon the body. He smiled. Menna no longer fears that Hanit will take vengeance for the murder of her son. To Menna, as to Thi, the body is that of Hanit. Their triumph seems to them assured. Hanit and Wazmes, her son, are dead. Thi’s son reigns! The Syrian sun-god triumphs over Amen!”

Enana, Chief Magician of the Temple of Amen, rubbed together his lean and shriveled hands. His experiment seemed well on the road to success.

A Pharaoh might set aside one queen for another; the late Pharaoh had done that. He might depose a queen of the line of the sun-god Ra in favor of Thi, a Syrian, a commoner. Beguiled by the latter’s crafty wiles he might close his eyes to the murder of an inconvenient son or so. ’Twas harem work that! But, to strike at the great God Amenra whom Enana served—that was a different matter!

Thi, the Queen-Mother, was a foreigner, an idolator. The present Chancellor was also a Syrian, Yakab of Rabbath.

Was it to be wondered at that the present Pharaoh, Thi’s son, was daily urged to overthrow the gods whom Egypt worshiped in favor of Aton, the Syrian god?

But what then would become of the great gods Amen, Ptah and Khonsu; of Osiris, Isis, Horus, and a host of deities worshiped through countless ages along the valley of the Nile? And last, but well to the fore in Enana’s vision, what would become of the innumerable priests, himself included, who served those powerful gods?

Yes! Menna could strangle Hanit’s only son, the lawful heir; Thi could seek to poison Hanit! But, touch the cult of Amen of Thebes and, at a word, the great priestly hierarchy throughout Egypt would rise as one man.

So, at least, thought Enana. So too Huy, First Prophet of Amen, his brother, and so Kathi, the Embalmer, their hireling.

If it was to resolve itself into a clash between Court and Temple (and, certainly, recent events had pointed to a rupture) Enana and the Prophets of Amen were ready.

Enana’s small black eyes fixed themselves upon those of the Embalmer who perceptibly cringed. He laid one thin hand upon Kathi’s shoulder: “Son of Kathi, thy skill is that of thy revered father (peace in Aaru be his), nay, more excellent! For what man was ever called upon to do the work that thou hast done?” Enana pointed to the figure lying half-concealed in the shadows of the room. “Verily in thee hath Amen a faithful follower, one whose reward shall surely find him.

“Listen, son of Kathi. The long-expected hour has come. Pharaoh, Thi and the Syrians about them can no longer conceal their plan to bring about a civil war. Jealous of our power, Thi and Yakab have decided to challenge the supremacy of all-mighty Amen. The priesthood of Egypt is to be overthrown. Hook-nosed Syrians and Canaanites are to be installed in our stead, and our beloved banks of Hapi are to be overrun with the kinsmen of Yakab, the Chancellor, may the twenty-four demigods blast him!

“Yet, mark my words, son of Kathi. Though Aton seem to triumph yet, in the end, shall Amen find his own. Though all the powers of the conjurers of Amen be counted in vain, yet shall Amen triumph through Enana, his servant. More I cannot tell thee at this time. Yet, through troublous days to come, remember my words.”

With a muttered farewell the aged Magician shuffled off down the narrow acacia-bordered path which led to the landing-stage by the side of the river.

Kathi stood watching Enana’s bent figure until it disappeared down the sandstone steps which led to the ferry.

Like Enana, his master, Kathi was above all a devoted follower of the great god Amen, whose worship the Queen-Mother now sought to destroy.

Yet, of late, there had been many moments such as this when Kathi had felt the bow-string at his throat, the arms of the strangler about his neck. Kings deal harshly with conspirators and Kathi, the Embalmer, whose horizon might well be said to have been circumscribed by death, feared to die.

Kathi’s fears were somewhat dissipated at sight of the onrushing sun-god, now vaulting higher and higher above the rosy Eastern Hills. He stretched forth his hands, palms upward, in that appealing attitude of prayer so suggestive of a spiritual offering.

On the river below him the boatmen burst into the Hymn to Ra at his Rising, which had been first sung by the Sage and Prophet Imhotep, two thousand years before their time!

Nature, too, added her welcome to the nurturing sun-god. The falcons sailed in great circles above the flashing waters of the river. To their shrill and quavering notes, intermingled with the joyous twitterings and flitterings back and forth of other birds, there was added the soft lowing of the sacred cows and the shrill chattering of the apes belonging to the Temple of Mut in Asheru.

Beams of light seemed to dance upon the gold caps of the lofty obelisks. Huge streamers rose upon the flag-poles which fronted the great portal of the sun-god’s mightiest temple.

Along the walls of the temple of the deified King Thomes, a phyle of chanting priests moved slowly, the keri heb with his tube-like censer at their head. Kathi found it next to impossible to believe that a hideous civil war was about to burst upon such peace as this.

Kathi shook his head. He turned once more to his unfinished task within.