Three Novels of Ancient Egypt

The doughty lad's heart fluttered with the rapture of joy and glory, for none enjoyed this magnificent honor except the princes and the prominent men of state. He felt an indescribable happiness in riding in the wing of majesty that centered around Princess Meresankh. He imagined her hearing the violent beating of his heart as it pounded with love and passion. He was afraid to turn his head toward her, but he saw her gorgeous face in his mind's eye, and in the emptiness that spread out before him. He beheld her radiance despite the drab tones on the horizon, which announced the approach of nightfall.

If only she would bestow upon him a word of thanks like the others, he would deem it above all glory and the world together!

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The crown prince was serious — when he said that he would reward Djedef for saving his life. The Fates seemed to have chosen Khafra from among all men to pave the fortunate youth's road to glory. And indeed, but a few days had passed after the incident while hunting when Pharaoh received his heir apparent, among whose close cohorts was Djedef son of Bisharu. This was a more delightful surprise than anything for which the inspector's son had dared hope or dream. Nonetheless, he walked behind Prince Khafra with a heart steadied by surpassing courage, traversing the long corridors with their towering columns and colossal guards, until they appeared before him whose majesty made heads turn away.

Reclining on the throne, the king did not display his now-advanced age except with a few white hairs thrusting out from beneath the double crown of Egypt, and the slight withering of his cheeks. There was also a change in the look of his eyes, shifting away from the sharpness of power and coercion to the contemplation of wisdom and knowledge.

The prince kissed his great father's hand. “Here, my lord,” he said, “is the brave officer, Djedef son of Bisharu, whose astounding courage saved my life from the claws of certain death. He has come before you as your sacred will desired.”

Pharaoh leaned forward to offer him his hand, and the youth kissed it, kneeling in deep religious respect. “By your valor, O Officer,” Khufu said to him, “you have merited my satisfaction.”

“My lord, Your Majesty,” Djedef said, with a tremulous voice, “as one of the king's soldiers I know of no higher goal than to sacrifice my life for the sake of the throne, and my homeland.”

Here Prince Khafra intervened. “I beg my lord the King's permission to appoint this officer chief of my guards.”

The young man's eyes widened — he was caught completely unawares. The king answered the prince by asking Djedef, “How old are you, Officer?”

“Twenty years old, Your Majesty,” he replied.

Khafra saw the reason for Pharaoh's question. “Long life, wisdom, and knowledge are virtues befitting the priests, O lord,” he said. “As for the intrepid warrior, he disdains the limitations of age.”

“Whatever you want is yours, Khafra,” said the king, smiling. “You are my heir apparent: I cannot deny your wish.”

Djedef threw himself down at Pharaoh's feet and kissed his curved staff. At this, Khufu said to him, “I congratulate you for his Pharaonic Highness Prince Khafra's confidence in you, O Commander Djedef son of Bisharu.”

Djedef swore an oath of loyalty to the king, and the audience ended. The young man left Pharaoh's palace as one of the commanders of the Egyptian army.

This was a day of unparalleled joy in the house of Bisharu, as Nafa told Djedef, “My prophecy came true. Let me paint you in your commander's uniform.”

But Bisharu interrupted him with his coarse voice, now even thicker after the loss of four teeth. “Your prediction didn't produce Djedef,” he declared, “rather, it was his father's firmness, in that the gods fated him to be the son of a father among those who are close to Pharaoh.”

Zaya never laughed or cried as she did on that ecstatic day. Her thoughts drifted back to the darkness of the distant past, enfolded in twenty years gone by. She remembered the tiny infant whose birth gave rise to perilous prophecies, stirring a small war in which his true father had fallen victim: Oh, what memories!

When Djedef withdrew unto himself that evening, he fell into a peculiar mood of grief and apprehension, as though in reaction to the transcendent joy that had overfilled the whole day. Yet there were other reasons for it that did not cease to gnaw at his heart, as flame consumes chaff. He stared at the stars in the heavens through his window and sighed, “You alone, O stars,” he thought, “know that the heart of Djedef- the happy commander — is more intensely gloomy than the darkness in whose immortal depths you dwell.”

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