River god - Smith Wilbur - Страница 82

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  The surveying and replacement of the boundaries after each flood was the responsibility of the Guardian of the Waters. Lord Intef had multiplied his fortune by favouring the claims of the rich and the generous when the time came round each year to reset the marker stones.

  From upstream echoed the distant rumble of the cataract. The rising flood overwhelmed the natural barrages of granite that were placed in its path, and, as it roared through the gorges, the spray rose into the hard blue sky, a silver column that could be seen from every quarter of the nome of Assoun. When the fine mist drifted across the island, it was cool and refreshing on our upturned faces. We delighted in this blessing, for it was the only rain we ever knew in our valley. Even as we watched, the beaches around our island were eaten up by the flood. Soon our jetty would be submerged, and the river would lap at the gates of our garden. Where it would stop was a question that could only be calculated by a study of the levels of the Milometer. On those levels hung prosperity or famine for the whole land and every person in it.

  I hurried back to find my mistress and to prepare for the ceremony of the waters, in which I would play a prominent role. We dressed in our finest and I placed my new gold chain around my neck. Then, with the rest of our household and the ladies of the harem, we joined the spontaneous procession to the temple of Hapi.

  Pharaoh and all the great lords of Egypt led us. The priests, plump with rich living, were waiting for us on the temple steps. Their heads were shaven, their pates shining with oil, and their eyes glittering with avarice, for the king would sacrifice lavishly today.

  Before the king the statue of the god was carried from the sanctuary, and decked with flowers and fine crimson linen. Then the statue was drenched in oils and perfume while we sang psalms of praise and thanks to the god for sending down the flood.

  Far to the south, in a land that no civilized man had ever visited, the god Hapi sat on top of his mountain and from two pitchers of infinite capacity he poured the holy waters into his Nile. The water from each pitcher was of a different colour and taste; one was bright green and sweet, the other grey and heavy with the silt which flooded our fields each season and charged them with new life and fertility.

  While we sang, the king made sacrifice of corn and meats and wine and silver and gold. Then he called out his wise men, his engineers and his mathematicians, and bade them enter the Nilometer to begin their observations and their calculations.

  In the time that I had belonged to Lord Intef, I had been nominated as one of the keepers of the water. I was the only slave in that illustrious company, but I consoled myself by the fact that very few others wore the Gold of Praise, and that they treated me with respect. They had worked with me before, and they knew my worth. I had helped to design the Milometers that measured the flow of the river, and I had supervised the building of them. It was I who had worked out the complex formula to determine the projected height and the volume of each flood from the observations.

  Our way lit by flickering torches of pitch-dipped rushes, I followed the high priest into the mouth of the Nilometer, a dark opening in the rear wall of the sanctuary. We descended the incline shaft, the stone steps slippery with slime and the effusions of the river. From under our feet, one of the deadly black water cobras slithered away, and with a furious hiss plunged into the dark water that had already risen halfway up the shaft.

  We gathered on the last exposed step and by the light of the torches studied the marks that my masons had chiselled in the walls of the shaft. Each of the symbols had values, both magical and empirical, allotted to it.

  We made the first and most crucial reading together with extreme care. Over the following five days we would take it in turns to watch and record the rising waters, and time the readings with the flow, of a water-clock. From samples of the water, we would estimate the amount of silt it bore, and all these factors would influence our final conclusions. When the five days of observation were completed, we embarked on a further three days of calculations. These covered many scrolls of papyrus. Finally, we were ready to present our findings to the king. On that day Pharaoh returned to the temple in royal state, accompanied by his nobles and half the population of Elephantine to receive the estimates.

  As the high priest read them aloud, the king began to smile. We had forecast an inundation of almost perfect proportions. It would not be too low, to leave the fields exposed and baking in the sun, depriving them of the rich black layer of silt so vital to their fertility. Nor would it be so high as to wash away the canals and earthworks, and to drown the villages and cities along the banks. This season would bring forth bountiful harvests and fat herds.

  Pharaoh smiled, not so much for the good fortune of his subjects, but for the bounty that his tax-collectors would gather in. The annual taxes were computed on the value of the flood, and this year there would be vast new treasures added to the store-rooms of his funerary temple. To close the ceremony of the blessing of the water in the temple of Hapi, Pharaoh announced the date of the biennial pilgrimage to Thebes to participate in the festival of Osiris. It did not seem possible that two years had passed since my mistress had played the part of the goddess in the last passion of Osiris.

  I had as little sleep that night as when I had kept vigil in the shaft of the Nilometer, for my mistress was too excited to seek her own couch. She made me sit up with her until dawn, singing and laughing and repeating those stories of Tanus to which she never tired of listening.

  In eight days the royal flotilla would sail northwards on the rising flood of the Nile. When we arrived, Tanus, Lord Harrab would be waiting for us in Thebes. My mistress was delirious with happiness.

  THE FLOTILLA THAT ASSEMBLED IN THE harbour roads of Elephantine was so numerous that it seemed to cover the water from bank to bank. My mistress remarked jokingly that a man might cross the Nile without wetting his feet by strolling over the bridge of hulls. With pennants and flags flying from every masthead, the fleet made a gallant show. We and the rest of the court had already embarked on the vessels that had been allotted to us, and from the deck we cheered the king as he descended the marble steps from the palace and went aboard the great, state barge. The moment he was safely embarked, a hundred horns sounded the signal to set sail. As one, the fleet squared away and pointed their bows into the north. With the rush of the river and the banks of oars driving us, we bore away.

  There had been a different spirit abroad in the' land since Akh-Horus had destroyed the Shrikes. The inhabitants of every village we passed came down to the water's edge to greet their king. Pharaoh sat high on the poop, wearing the cumbersome double crown, so that all might have a clear view of him. They waved palm-fronds and shouted, 'May all the gods smile on Pharaoh!' The river brought down to them not only their king, but also the promise of its own benevolence, and they were happy.

  Twice during the days that followed, Pharaoh and all his train went ashore to inspect the monuments that Akh-Horus had raised to his passing at the crossroads of the caravan routes. The local peasants had preserved these gruesome piles of skulls as sacred relics of the new god. They had polished each skull until it shone like ivory, and bound the pyramids with building clay so that they would stand through the years. Then they had built shrines over them and appointed priests to serve these holy places.

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