Naguib Mahfouz - Three Novels of Ancient Egypt

“Do you have some wish to be fulfilled?” Arbu asked her.

The woman replied, panting, “Yes, sir. I harbor a menacing secret that I wish to disclose to the Living God.”

Pharaoh listened more intently, as Arbu asked her, “And what is this menacing secret, my good woman?”

“I will divulge it to the Holy Eminence,” shesaid, entreatingly.

“I am his faithful servant, discreet with his secrets,” Arbu assured her.

The woman hesitated, glancing anxiously at those present. Her color was pale, her eyes darted back and forth, and her heart was pounding hard. The commander saw that he could entice her to speak by being soft with her.

“What is your name,” he inquired, “and where do you live?”

“My name is Sarga, sir. Until this morning I was a servant in the palace of the high priest of Ra.”

“Why were they chasing you?” Arbu continued. “Had your master made an accusation against you?”

“I'm an honorable woman, sir, but my master abused me.”

“Did you then flee because of his mistreatment?” Arbu pressed on. “Are you requesting that your complaint be raised with Pharaoh?”

“No, sir — the matter is much more threatening than you think. I stumbled upon a secret of whose danger I must warn Pharaoh — so I fled to warn the Sacred Self, as duty compels me. My master dispatched these soldiers in my — wake, to come between me and my sacred trust!”

The officer's horsemen trembled, as he quickly said in their defense, “The Reverend One ordered us to arrest this woman as she fled on horseback on the road to Memphis. We carried out the order without knowing anything at all about why it was given.”

Then Arbu said to Sarga, “Are you going to accuse the high priest of Ra of treason?”

“Summon me to Pharaoh's threshold so that I may reveal to him what so oppresses me.”

His patience expiring, Pharaoh fretted at the loss of precious time.

“Was the priest blessed this morning with the birth of a son?” he asked the woman, abruptly.

She turned toward him, wobbling with wonder. “Who informed you of this, sir,” she blurted, “when they had kept it secret? This is truly amazing!”

Pharaoh's entourage was becoming curious, exchanging silent looks among themselves. Meanwhile, the king interrogated her in his awe-instilling voice, “Is this the secret that you want Pharaoh to know?”

The woman nodded, still confused, “Yes, it is, sir — but it's not all that I wish to tell him.”

Pharaoh spoke sharply, in an intensely commanding tone that brooked no delay, “What is there to say, then? Tell me.”

“My mistress, Lady Ruddjedet, began to feel labor pains at dawn,” Sarga burst out, fearfully. “I was one of the chambermaids stationed by her bed to relieve her discomfort — sometimes with conversation, otherwise with medicine. Before long, the high priest entered; he blessed our mistress and prayed fervently to Our Lord Ra. As though wishing to put our mistress at ease, he gave her the glad tidings that she would give birth to a baby boy. This boy, he said, would inherit the unshakeable throne of Egypt, and rule over the Valley of the Nile as the successor to the God Ra-Atum on earth.

“He said to her, hardly able to contain himself for joy — as though he had forgotten my presence: I — whom she trusted more than any other servant — that the statue of the god Ra had told him this news in his celestial voice. But when his gaze fell upon me, his heart beat loud enough to be heard, and the fear was clear on his face. In order to appease the evil whisperer within, he had me arrested and held in the grain shed. Yet I was able to escape, to mount a steed, and set out upon the road to Memphis to tell the king what I had learned. Evidently, my master sensed that I had fled — for he sent these soldiers to apprehend me that, if not for you, would have carried me back to my death.”

Pharaoh and his companions listened to Sarga's story with alarmed surprise — for it confirmed the prophecy of Djedi the magician. Prince Khafra was gravely worried. “Let not the warning we received have been in vain!” he barked.

“Yes, my son — we shouldn't waste time.”

Khufu turned to the woman. “Pharaoh shall reward you very well for your fidelity,” he said. “There's nothing else for you to do now but to tell us which way you would like to go.”

“I wish, sir, that I might go safely to the village of Quna where my father lives.”

“You are responsible for her life until she reaches her home,” Pharaoh said to the officer, who nodded his head in obedience.

Motioning to Commander Arbu, the king climbed back onto his chariot, ordering his driver to proceed. They took off like the Fates themselves, with the other chariots behind them, in the direction of On, whose surrounding wall and the heads of the pillars of its great sanctuary, the Temple of Ra-Atum, could already be seen.

At that moment the high priest of Ra was kneeling at his wife's bedside in passionate prayer:

“Ra, Our Lord Creator, Present from the Time of Nothingness, from the time — when the water poured into the vastness of the primeval ocean, over which weighed a heavy darkness. You created, O Lord, by Your power, a sublimely beautiful universe. You filled it with an enchanting orderliness, easing its unified rule over the spinning stars in the heavens, and over the abundant grain on the earth. You made from the water all living things: the birds soaring in the sky, the fish swimming in the sea, man roaming on the land, the date palm flourishing in the parching desert. You have spread through the darkness a radiant light, in which Your majestic face is revealed, and which spreads warmth and life itself to all things. O Lord Creator, I confide to You my worry and my sorrow; I beseech You to lift from me the anguish and the tribulation, for I am Your faithful servant and Your believing slave. O God, I am weak — so grant me strength from Your cosmic knowledge; O God, I am fearful — so grant me confidence and peace. O God, I am threatened by a great evil — so enfold me in Your vigilance and Your compassion. O God, in my old age, You have endowed me with a son; You have blessed him and written for him, in the annals of the Fates, that he shall be a ruling king — so keep all malice away from him, and repel the evil that is set against him.”

Monra recited this prayer with an unsteady voice. His eyes flowed with hot tears that trickled down his thin and drawn cheeks. They wet his hoary beard, as he raised up his aged head, looking with emotion upon the pallid face of his wife, confined to her childbed. Then he gazed upon the tiny infant, serenely raising the lids from his little dark eyes, which he had lowered in fear of the strange world around him. When his wife Ruddjedet sensed that Monra had ceased his praying, she said to him weakly, “Is there any news of Sarga?”

“The soldiers will catch up — with her,” the man sighed, “if the Lord so commands.”

“Alas, my lord! The thread of our child's life hangs on something so uncertain?”

“How can you say that, Ruddjedet? Since Sarga escaped, I have not stopped thinking of a way to protect the two of you from evil. The Lord has guided me to a ruse, yet I fear for you, because in your delicate condition you might not be able to bear any hardships.”

She stretched out a hand toward him imploringly. “Do what you can to save our child,” she said in a pleading tone. “Let not my frailty worry you, for maternity has given me a strength that healthy people do not possess.”

“You should know, Ruddjedet,” the tormented priest replied, “that I have prepared a wagon and filled it with wheat. In it I have readied a corner for you to lie with our son. I have fashioned a box made of wood so that if you lay yourselves within it you will be concealed from view. In this you will go with your handmaiden Kata to your uncle in the village of Senka.”