Naguib Mahfouz - Three Novels of Ancient Egypt

He waited until the late afternoon, then shrugged his broad shoulders, as though making light of the matter, and went to the chamber. The guard saluted him and made way, and he entered with great hopes. He found her seated unmoving and silent, dejection and ennui showing in her blue eyes. Her dejection pained him and he said to himself, “Thebes for all its vast-ness was too narrow for her, so how must she feel now that she is a prisoner in this small chamber?” He stood unmoving before her and she straightened her back and raised her insolent eyes to him. He asked her gently, “How was your night?”

She did not answer and lowered her head to look at the ground. He cast a longing look at her head, shoulders, and bosom and repeated the question, feeling at the same time that his hope was not far off, “How was your night?”

She appeared not to want to abandon her silence, but raised her head sharply, and said, “It was the worst night of my life.”

He ignored her tone and asked her, “Why? Is there anything you lack?”

She replied without changing her tone, “I lack everything.”

“How so? I gave orders to the officer charged with guarding you to…”

She interrupted him with annoyance, “Don't even bother to speak of such things! I lack everything I love. I lack my father, my people, and my liberty. But I have everything that I hate: these clothes, this food, this chamber, and these guards.”

Once again he was stricken by disappointment and felt the collapse of his hopes and the disappearance of all he longed for. His features hardened and he said to her, “Do you want me to release you from your captivity and send you to your father?”

She shook her head violently and said vehemently, “Never!”

He looked at her in amazement and confusion but she resumed in the same tones, “So that it not be said that the daughter of Apophis abased herself before the enemy of her great father or that once she needed someone to comfort her.”

Aroused by anger and exasperation at her conceit and pride, he said, “You are not embarrassed to display your conceit because you feel sure of my compassion.”

“You lie!”

His face turned pale and he stared at her with a harsh look and said, “How callow you are, you who know nothing of sorrow or pain! Do you know the punishment for insulting a king? Have you ever seen a woman flogged? If I wished, I could have you kneeling at the feet of the least of my soldiers begging for pardon and forgiveness.”

He looked at her a long time to ascertain the effect of his threat on her and found her challenging him with her harsh, unflinching eyes. Anger swept over her with the same speed that it overtook all those of her race and she said sharply, “We are a people to whose hearts fear knows no path and our pride will not be brought low though the hands of men should grasp the heavens.”

He asked himself in his anger, should he attempt to humiliate her? Why should he not humiliate her and trample her pride into the ground? Was she not his captive, whom he could make into one of his slave girls? However, he did not feel at ease with this idea. He had had ambitions for something sweeter and lovelier, so that when his disappointment caught up with him, his pride rose up and his anger grew sharper. He renounced his desire to humiliate her, though he made his outward demeanor conceal his true thoughts, saying in tones as imperious as hers, “What I want does not require that you be tortured and for that reason you will not be tortured. And indeed, it would be bizarre for anyone to think of torturing a lovely slave girl like you.”

“No! A proud princess!”

“That was before you fell into my hands as a prisoner. Personally, I would rather add you to my harem than torture you. My will is what will decide.”

“You should know that your will may decide for you and your people, but not for me, and you will never put a hand on me alive.”

He shrugged his shoulders as though to make light of this, but she went on, “Among the customs passed down among us is that if one of us should fall into the snares of abjection and has no hope of rescue, he abstain from food until he die with honor.”

Contemptuously he said, “Really? But I saw the judges of Thebes driven to me, and prostrate themselves before me, groveling, their eyes pleading for pardon and mercy.”

Her face turned pale and she took refuge in silence.

The king, unable to listen to more of her words and suffering the bitterness of disappointment, could stay no longer. As he got ready to leave the chamber, he said, “You will not need to abstain from food.”

He left the chamber angry and depressed, having decided to transfer her to another ship. No sooner, however, had his anger died down and he was alone in his cabin than he changed his mind, and he did not give the order.

Chamberlain Hur appeared before the king in his cabin and said, “My lord, envoys from Apophis are come seeking permission to appear before you.”

Ahmose asked in surprise, “What do they want?”

The chamberlain said, “They say they carry a letter for your High Person.”

Ahmose said, “Summon them immediately!”

The chamberlain left the cabin and sent an officer to the envoys, returning to his master to wait. The envoys soon appeared with a small party of guards’ officers. They were three, the leader in front, and two others carrying an ivory chest. They were, as their flowing garments evidenced, chamberlains, white-faced and long-bearded. They raised their hands in greeting, without bowing, and then stood, with obvious insolence. Ahmose returned their greeting proudly and asked, “What do you want?”

Their leader said in an arrogant, foreign accent, “Commander.

Hur, however, did not let him complete what he intended to say, and said to him with his customary calm, “Envoy of Apophis, you are speaking to the pharaoh of Egypt.”

The leader said, “The war is still ongoing and its outcome is still to be decided. As long as we are still men and there are weapons in our hands, Apophis is pharaoh of Egypt, without partner.”

Ahmose gestured to his chamberlain to be quiet and said to the envoys, “Speak of the matter about which you came.”

The leader said, “Commander, on the day of the withdrawal from Thebes, the peasants abducted Her Royal Highness, the Princess Amenridis, daughter of our lord king, Apophis, Pharaoh of Egypt, son of the Lord Seth. Our lord desires to know whether his daughter is alive or did the peasants kill her.”

“Does your master remember what he did to our women and children at the siege of Thebes? Does he not remember how he exposed them to the arrows of their sons and husbands, which tore their bodies to pieces, while your cowardly soldiers sought shelter behind them?”

The man said sharply, “My lord does not shirk responsibility for what he does. War is a struggle to the death and mercy cannot be called on to prevent defeat.”

Ahmose shook his head in disgust and said, “On the contrary, war is an encounter between men, whose outcome is decided by the strong, while the weak suffer. For us it is a struggle that must not be allowed to suppress our gallantry and religious values… though I wonder at how the king can ask about his daughter, when such are his understanding of and opinions on — war.”

The envoy said — with disdain, “My master enquires for a reason that he alone knows and he neither asks for mercy, nor — will show it himself.”

Ahmose thought for a moment, not unaware of the motive that drove his enemy to ask after his daughter. He therefore asked clearly and in accents born of contempt, “Go back to your master and tell him that the peasants are a noble people who do not murder women and that the Egyptian soldiers think it below them to kill captives, and that his daughter is a captive who enjoys the magnanimity of her captors.”