That night all Thebes celebrated the festival of Sekhmet, and the sky glowed red with the light of lamps and torches. Horemheb’s scum drank all the taverns dry and smashed in the doors of the pleasure houses. At dawn the soldiers once more assembled before the temple of Sekhmet to see Horemheb come forth. When the copper gates were opened and he stepped out, they cried aloud and swore in many tongues, for Sekhmet had been faithful to her lion’s head. Horemheb’s face and arms and shoulders were scratched and bleeding as if a lion had torn him with its claws. This diverted his men greatly, and they loved him for it. But Princess Baketamon was borne away by the priests to the golden house, without showing herself to the people.
Such was the bridal night of my friend Horemheb, and I know not what pleasure he had of it. Shortly afterward he mustered his troops and went to mobilize his army at the First Cataract in the south, in order to march on the land of Kush.
Eie exulted blindly in his power, and he said to me, “In the whole land of Kem no one stands higher than myself, and it matters not whether I live or die: Pharaoh dies not-he lives forever! I shall step aboard the golden boat of my father Ammon and sail across the heavens into the west. I am already an old man, and my deeds glare out at me from the darkness of night. I am glad that I need no longer fear death.”
But I mocked him, saying, “You are an old man and I believed you wise. You cannot suppose that the stinking oil of the priests has rendered you immortal in the twinkling of an eye? Royal headdress or none, you are the same man still. Death will soon overtake you, and life depart.”
His mouth began to quiver, and fear glinted in his eyes as he said plaintively, “Have I then committed all these crimes in vain? Was it in vain that I sowed death about me all my days? No, no-assuredly you are wrong, Sinuhe. The priests will save me from the abyss of death and will preserve my body to all eternity. My body must be immortal since I am Pharaoh, and for the same reason I cannot be held guilty for my deeds.”
Thus did his reason begin to fade, and he had no joy of his power. In the horror of death he coddled himself and dared not even drink wine. His diet was dry bread and boiled milk. As time went on, he was filled with ever increasing dread of assassins, and whole days passed during which he dared not taste food for fear of poison. His old age found him entangled in the net of his own actions, and he became so suspicious and cruel that all shunned him.
A seed quickened for Baketamon, and in her rage at this she harmed herself in attempting to destroy the child while it was yet in her womb. The life in her was stronger than death, and when her time came, she bore a son to Horemheb, and in painful labor, for her loins were narrow. The physicians and slaves were compelled to hide the child from her lest she do it harm. Many tales were afterward told of this child, such as that he had been born with the head of a lion or with a helmet. I can bear witness that there was nothing abnormal about the boy, who was healthy and robust. Horemheb gave him the name of Rameses.
Horemheb was still fighting in the land of Kush, and his chariots wrought great destruction among the Negroes. He burned their straw-built villages and sent women and children into slavery in Egypt, but he enrolled the men in his army, where they proved good warriors, no longer having any families to distract them. Thus Horemheb built up a new army with which to meet the Hittites, for these men were strong, and when once they had worked themselves to a frenzy with the sound of their sacred drums, they felt no fear of death.
From the land of Kush Horemheb also sent great herds of cattle to Egypt so that grain grew luxuriantly once more in the land of Kem, the children had no lack of milk, and the priests were well supplied with beasts for the sacrifice. Whole tribes fled from their homes in Kush into the jungles-into the regions of the elephants and giraffes-beyond the boundary stones of Egypt. For years the land of Kush was deserted.
After two years of war Horemheb returned to Thebes, bringing with him much booty. He distributed gifts and held victory celebrations for ten days and ten nights. All work stopped, and drunken soldiers crawled about the streets bleating like goats, and the women of Thebes were delivered in due time of dark-skinned children.
Horemheb held his son in his arms and taught him to walk, and he said to me proudly, “See, Sinuhe! A new race of kings has sprung from my loins, and in the veins of my son runs the sacred blood although I was born with dung between the toes.”
He also went to Eie, but Eie in his fear shut and barricaded the door against him and cried in his shrill old voice, “Begone from me, Horemheb! I am Pharaoh, and I know that you have come to slay me and to set the crowns on your head.”
But Horemheb laughed heartily, kicked open his door, and shook him, saying, “I do not mean to kill you, old fox! You old bawd, I shall not take your life, for you are more to me than a mere father-in-law and your life is precious. It is true that your lungs whistle, and your mouth slobbers, and your knees are feeble-but you must hold out, Eie! You must survive another war, that Egypt may have a Pharaoh over whom to pour out its wrath while I am away.”
To his consort Baketamon, Horemheb brought great gifts: gold dust in plaited baskets, heads of lions he had killed, ostrich feathers, and live monkeys.
She would not even look at them and said to him, “In the sight of men I am your wife, and I have borne you a son. Be content with that, and know that if ever you lay hand on me again I shall spit on your couch and deceive you as no wife has yet deceived her husband. To bring shame on you I will take pleasure with slaves and porters and will lie with donkey drivers in the public places of Thebes. Your hands and body smell of blood, and they sicken me.”
Her opposition inflamed Horemheb’s desire for her; he came to me complaining bitterly and said, “Sinuhe, mix me a draught which I may give her to make her sleep so that at least I may go to her then and have my way with her.”
I refused, but he sought out other physicians who gave him dangerous drugs. He administered these to her secretly. When he rose from her embrace, she hated him more bitterly than before and said, “Remember what I told you-remember my warning!”
Soon Horemheb departed for Syria to prepare his campaign against the Hittites, for as he said, “The great Pharaohs set up their boundary stones in Kadesh, and not until my chariots have entered Kadesh once more will I be content.”
When Princess Baketamon perceived that once more a seed quickened within her, she shut herself into her room in the desire to be alone with her degradation. Servants were obliged to leave food for her outside her door, and when her time drew near, the physicians had her secretly watched. They feared lest she bring forth the child alone and send him down the river in a reed boat, as those mothers did who incurred shame by giving birth. She did not do this: when her time came she summoned her physicians. The pains of her labor brought a smile to her lips, and she brought forth a son to whom, without consulting Horemheb, she gave the name of Setos. So bitterly did she hate this child that she called him He who was born of Set.
When she recovered from her lying in, she bade her slaves anoint her and array her in royal linen. Having been ferried over to the other shore, she went alone to the fish market in Thebes. There she spoke with donkey men and water carriers and gutters of fish.