Moses, Man of the Mountain (6 page)

“My Mentu, if ever I become King you shall be Grand Advisor to the throne with eating privileges at my table.”

“May you soon be Pharaoh! But long before that time I will have gone to join the monkeys or the snakes, if I learn more than I do now.”

“Snakes?”

“Didn’t you know that wise men do not die? When they have attained a certain stage of wisdom they enter the serpents.”

“I did not know that. The priests never told me.”

“They tell nothing that doesn’t pay. Their business is like the cemetery. They take in but they never put out.”

“Some day I shall look into their business and find out why they control rulers.”

“Oh, they bite the rulers and everybody else with the tiny teeth of fear. Then rub ointment on the sore. Now, I had better go before I am seen.”

“Take my own horse and ride him to the stables, Mentu, and may the forty-two gods in the hall of the double Maati find you just.”

“May the deathless serpent that guards the book of Thoth whisper in your ears, my Suten-Rech. You are a man conferring with destiny.”

Moses rushed to the door of the tent and seized Mentu by the shoulders and dragged him back.

“Come back here, Mentu.”

“Why, Suten-Rech! In a few minutes your tent will be full of admirers and—er—some of them might recognize their clothes.”

“Never mind that. I’ll slip you out the back way if it comes to that. What about this deathless snake guarding the book of Thoth?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know anything about it. All I know is what I have heard. It was told by the father of the father of my father to the father of my father and the father of my father has told it to my father.”

“It is a really old story then.”

“Sure. And the cry of it is that there is a book which Thoth himself wrote with his own hand which, if you read it, will bring you to the gods. When you read only two pages in this book you will enchant the heavens, the earth, the abyss, the mountain, and the sea. You will know what the birds of the air and the creeping things are saying. You will know the secrets of the deep because the power is there to bring them to you. And when you read the second page, you can go into the world of ghosts and come back to the shape you were on earth. You will see the sun shining in the sky, with all the gods, and the full moon.”

“Where is this book, Mentu? Do the priests know it?”

“The priests have heard of it, of course, and now and then some one of them will pretend that he has read a page. But if they had read from that book, Suten-Rech, they would never remain a priest in Pharaoh’s temples. They would be too powerful for the place.”

“The priests are men of learning, Mentu. They must be wise.”

“They don’t just have to be. Certainly they know what is in
the books. That is learning, not wisdom. Learning without wisdom is a load of books on a donkey’s back. I want
you
to understand.”

“Where is this book, I ask you, Mentu? I mean to read it.”

“The cry of it is that it is in the middle of the river at Koptos, in an iron box; in the iron box is a bronze box; in the bronze box is a sycamore box; in the sycamore box is an ivory and ebony box and in the ebony box is a silver box; in the silver box is a golden box and in that is the book. And there is a deathless snake by the box to guard it. That is all that they told me so I don’t know any more.”

“If it were not for the feasts and the entertainments, and the announcements of the promotions in the army, I would start out for Koptos tomorrow, Mentu. It may be only an old tale, what you have told me, but I mean to search the river at Koptos for that snake and that book. Even if they are not there and never were there, it will be an interesting trip. When I go, you are going along. I will ask Pharaoh for you as my special attendant tomorrow. And if the box is there, Mentu, if it is only there!”

“If it is there and the snake is overcome, you will be the greatest priest the world will ever know. So far as I am concerned, if you take me with you, I won’t be nothing but your shadow, and you’ll be my boss. But I bet you I’ll be the top pauper in all Egypt. I’ll bet you that.”

The old man went out full of joy. Moses stood in the door of his tent and the sun went down in an Egyptian way—without a memory in the sky.

T
he announcements were made. The very next day after the maneuvers, they were made before all the big men of the army in their uniforms and armor. The men who sat in big chairs around the throne were there with the officers, for they were the ones who made the wars for the generals to fight. Pharaoh told the announcements to the scribe and he wrote them down, and a man with a loud voice for speaking read them out to the people. The Suten-Rech, Moses, was Commander-in-Chief of the armies of Egypt by reason of what had happened the day before. He was the chief commander for life or until Pharaoh could see further, that is, until somebody could show a better way to win battles than Moses had. In reply, Moses begged that the honor be given to somebody else, somebody more worthy than he was. He gave as a reason, in addition to his unworthiness, that he wanted to go traveling into foreign countries and see how they lived and made war there. But Pharaoh was not interested in the ways of other peoples. He was not interested in their wars and warfare unless they were the enemies of Egypt or Egypt’s allies. All that could wait. He was interested in winning wars at home and abroad. It would be time enough to consider how the people in those far-off countries lived after he had conquered them. Moses felt twisted and torn by his elevation. He had worked
hard for more than three years to earn it, and now he didn’t want it. He couldn’t say to Pharaoh, “You are breaking into my arrangements with your old decorations.” He had to pretend he liked it.

His Uncle Ta-Phar hated it too, but his personal feelings could not stand in the face of the enthusiasm of the military bloc and the intensified nationalism which had been whipped up for a generation by his father. Egypt was spreading by conquest and alliances based on force. If they didn’t keep on getting more they would begin to look weak. So Ta-Phar had to swallow the elevation of Moses and make out he liked it. But after all, he was the heir to the throne and when the armies went out, he could always ride in front, if he wanted to. And then again, the time would come when he would be Pharaoh himself and then other arrangements could be made. The old folks had a saying that the belt that went over the devil’s back had to buckle under his belly. He could wait old Moses out and when his time came, that upstart was going to catch it. “Your hands must knead everybody’s dough, and every shirt is too tight for you,” he said to Moses time and again when they quarreled. “You are my father’s first grandson, and so he dotes on you; and you are my sister’s only child and so she spoils you. Just wait until they are gone and see what
I
do for you. I mean to make you catch me a natural hurry, and don’t you forget it.”

So this was the way he spoke to Moses in the corridor of the palace after the announcements were over, and Moses laughed in his face.

“I wouldn’t let on if I were you, Ta-Phar. Somebody might hear you and laugh at you. Then you will have to get a law passed that people can’t laugh at Princes.”

“Another bit of impudence out of you and I’ll whip you.”

“No, you won’t whip me, Uncle Ta-Phar, but there might be a fight. But there would have to be some good running done before that fight comes off.”

“And why?”

“Because in the language of the soldiers’ camps, I’d have to
run you down and hem you up before I could get a fight out of you. You don’t want no parts of me, and I know it; and you know it, and you know that I know you know it.”

Moses strolled on off and joined his military escort and left Ta-Phar standing where he was. So Moses forgot all about him in a few minutes because his heart in all its height was far from the palace and armies and honors and hopes of honors. He was in his private suite with Mentu who was in the new clothes of his new job as personal attendant to the new commander of the Egyptian armies. But, they were not talking about troops and munitions and strategy. They were deep in the mysteries of life and magic. Moses had decided to go to Koptos at the first opportunity.

But years and wars and years of wars stood between him and his journey. The might of Egypt was stretching across the world. Ethiopia was conquered; Assyria kept in fear, Babylonia was terrorized. All tributes flowed towards Rameses and Memphis. No one knew how the Egyptian armies would strike nor when. The men were permanently in barracks. Once war was decided upon, Moses was on the march and they did not know whom they marched against until they were past the boundaries of Egypt. Against some nations they fought in formal battle formation and crushed them by sheer weight and numbers; another time, they lured out the main army of the enemy by sending an inferior force before the gates. When the attacking Egyptian forces retreated before the defenders, the swift-striking horsemen and foot soldiers of Moses fell upon them from ambush and cut off their retreat, and hewed them down like saplings. The returning armies of Egypt staggered home under the weight of booty and led slaves in hordes. The streets of the cities teemed with strange nationalities and tongues. From the Sudan, all Asia and Greece.

So always Moses was asking himself, “When will there be enough of conquests? When will I follow my own mind and read the pages of Thoth?”

He came to feel, somehow, that he would never die until he had read that book hidden in the river at Koptos. So he was
reckless in his daring. The huge hope of audacity spurred him and he took chances to win that no other leader would have dared, and won because his men had come to believe that he could not fail, so they fought like fiends from hell.

He knew what sorrow meant because old Mentu died. “Please give me the funeral and tomb of a priest,” he begged Moses at the last. “That is what I wanted to be. But I wanted to be a great one—not just another one to light fires and burn incense. I couldn’t make it from where I started. You have the power to insist—bury me as a priest.”

“Don’t you worry, Mentu. It is going to be done just like you want it. You have been my best friend. I am very sorry you will not be going to Koptos with me as we had planned, for I shall go.”

“Maybe I will, who knows? And, Suten-Rech, don’t forget what I told you about the monkeys and the snakes. It might be true, you know. The old folks often know things you can’t find in a book.”

“Oh, I won’t forget. I won’t forget anything that you have ever taught me, the sayings, and the proverbs and all. They have helped me a lot.”

“You are right to listen to proverbs. They are short sayings made out of long experience. Goodbye, son. I wanted a long life, but I didn’t mean to get old. Look out for the snakes and monkeys and find out what they say.”

Moses astonished the court by the elaborate burial of his servant Mentu. Everything needful was inside the tomb for the Ka of Mentu, even to the picture of a Prince and his groom on a river journey to a place where a serpent lived in the water. And no one knew why it was there but Moses. The tomb was surrounded on the outside by a fenced-in garden, and Moses ordered that no creature that entered that enclosure was to be killed at any time, especially if it were a monkey or a snake.

Sitting alone in his quarters he would picture Mentu in the Hall of the double Maati, justifying his life before the forty-two gods and crying:

“Hail, thou who eatest shades, who cometh forth from the place where the Nile riseth, I have not committed theft.

“Hail, Leg of Fire, who comest forth from Akhekky, I have not eaten my heart [harbored malice].”

And so on to the forty-two deities, and Moses felt that if he could only be as pure as old Mentu when it came his time to enter the court of Osiris Nu, he would be satisfied.

So these thoughts reminded Moses keenly of his days among the priests and he took to visiting them again. Now, he was the great soldier and a powerful Prince, and the priests behaved accordingly. By his own inclination he was better educated than any scribe in Egypt. He had read all of the books in the library, and all of the priests knew that he had read them. They were proud and happy to have him come among them. It gave new prestige to the priesthood which had declined considerably under the war party now in power.

“Tell me, and then again show me, so I can know,” was what Moses said to them about every bit of magic in the temples. “Never mind the ceremonies. They are not important. I can learn them from the other side of the altar. They are nothing anyway, but the dressing for what goes on behind the scenes. Make me know.”

Some of them thought that Moses took seriously the things that meant so much to them, but he didn’t. He learned all of their tricks as he went along, but only to sift them through his mind to see if any of them led towards real knowledge, or the book in the river. At last he knew all that there was to be known and still he found no doors that either hinged on hell nor heaven. He called the names a thousand times, but saw no faces of gods. But he learned many things to distract the minds of unthinking people from their real troubles, and to taint men with the fear of life. In this he saw a certain mastery over people if one cared to use it or needed to use it.

Then his mother died and he missed her very much. The Ethiopian Princess who had been brought to the palace as his wife as a sign of peace between Egypt and Ethiopia, meant nothing to him. Perhaps that was because he meant nothing
to her other than what had been arranged for in the treaty. He looked at her face that seemed to come to a point at her nose like a fox and wondered if he would have loved her if he had been allowed to win her as lesser men won their wives. But it wasn’t worth thinking about too much, and so he didn’t think.

But he knew it was not because he did not feel. Long ago before he was twenty, he had found out that he was two beings. In short, he was everybody boiled down to a drop. Everybody is two beings: one lives and flourishes in the daylight and stands guard. The other being walks and howls at night. He could be a lot of things to some woman when he found the right one. But the eye-looks of this treaty-wife in the palace was as impersonal as his own. She did not awaken the urge in him to give her the pain and tenderness that make up a marriage. He was always polite and kind. Whatever secrets her body held were no concern of his. And she was happy at being part of the court life. Some day, sometime, he would find a woman and crush from her body that essence that made men live. He would rouse her tears and her tenderness and he would give her something that she could not live without, of which his property and position was only a sign of his inward giving.

In the meanwhile, he had a great struggle on his hands. As the actual chief of the army he was demanding that Hebrews be included in the forces of Egypt. But he was being strenuously opposed by most of the court and a large part of the officers. They argued that they were not citizens of Egypt, but enemy-prisoners, and as such, it would be rash to put arms into their hands again. Who knew when they might rise up against their conquerors and turn the tables? Moses argued that they were enemies certainly, because they were treated as such. More than a generation of years had passed since the revolution and it was time that these people either be restored to citizenship or sent out of Egypt. It was a weak spot in any nation to have a large body of disaffected people within its confines. And then again, civilization and decency demanded
less harsh treatment for human beings. If they could not vote and bear arms at once, then shorten their hours of work and repeal the law that said their boy babies must be killed. It was not being obeyed anyway, and since it put Egypt in a bad light before other nations, why not strike it from the books? The anti-Hebrew party led by Ta-Phar shouted “No” to all of these proposals. If the Hebrews were sent out, wouldn’t they go and join themselves with some enemies of Egypt and return as invaders? They knew all of the back roads and the weak spots of the country. They would know when and where to strike. No, not one Hebrew was going to escape from Egypt. Pharaoh receded from his former position a little. He took off two hours from their working day and rescinded the order on boy babies. Moses took this as a hopeful sign and waited for a chance to demand other changes in the status of Goshen.

The Hebrews heard of his efforts in their behalf and sent little presents to him in secret to return him some thanks. He took occasion to slip down into Goshen once or twice to see their actual conditions and to talk with some of the leaders. What he saw touched him so that he resolved in his heart to do whatever was in his power to better their condition. He went directly to Pharaoh for a talk, and told him what was in his mind.

“To outside nations, Pharaoh, we seem better than we are. My idea is, if we wish to be really great is to be better than we seem.”

“Don’t be too brash, Moses. I have been thinking too. But it is hard to go against public opinion. The Hebrews are thoroughly hated in Egypt. I don’t say that I did not intensify the feeling to a degree when I came to the throne. But I only played on the instrument I found already. Be patient and some further changes might be decreed on my death.”

“Let us hope that might be a long time off. In the meantime their misery is awful. It is too terrible to look at. Go see for yourself.”

“I am old and sick and a trip like that would have me flat on my back for months. I don’t believe the country in general
would want my days shortened for the sake of those people. They brought it all on themselves anyway. Now, let’s table that subject and get back to these Persians. Do you think we got a chance against them if we invade them? Or do you think we ought to work them up to attack us?”

“I’ll think it over and let you know. It’s a ticklish question whichever way you take it. If we go there we’ve got to figure out how to carry enough supplies for a long journey and a long stay. This living off of the countries we pass through calls for a lot of extra fighting and we lose men and animals. If they invade us, even if we win, they destroy too much property and lives. Can’t we rest from wars and turn to home problems for a while?”

“Egypt has no home problems that I can see,” Pharaoh said coldly and turned over in bed. “What internal problems we had, got settled before you were born. Send in my nurse as you go out, and report on the Persian campaign tomorrow.”