Moses, Man of the Mountain Page 5

  From old Mentu Moses learned much about the ways of animals. The old man interpreted their noises and told Moses what they said. It was very amusing to the boy to hear the comments of all the birds and the beasts on human conduct and appearances. In fact, they were human by Mentu’s interpretations. Tara the monkey, for example, was he not the smart-aleck person of no importance always trying to imitate his betters and making a mess of things? Why, certainly! Some folks said that monkeys were old folks and that all old folks turned to monkeys, when they got old. Possibly they did, but Mentu was not old enough yet to find out for sure. But he thought it just as well when Moses should be old enough to hunt seriously, that he refrain from shooting those monkeys with his arrows. “You might kill an old friend or two among those monkeys, Moses. And I know you don’t want to do a thing like that.”

  “I certainly don’t,” Moses said emphatically. “Least of all would I want to kill you, Mentu. But how would I know?”

  “If, when age comes upon me to the stage when I find myself a monkey, I would let you know.”

  “But how could you, Mentu? You couldn’t talk to me like you do now, you know.”

  “That’s right, too.”

  Both the little boy and the old man fell into a gloomy mood for a moment.

  “I have it!” Mentu finally shouted. “You know how I always tease you by running my hand down your collar?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, if ever you come upon a company of monkeys and one should spring upon your shoulder and thrust its paw down your neck, you can be sure it’s me.”

  They were both very happy at finding a solution. Moses leaned his head on the bosom of the old man and said. “Then I would take you into the palace as my pet and you would have a fine gold collar for your neck and plenty of fruits and nuts to eat, and sleep right on the bed with me.”

  “It would be lovely if I were a monkey now, to enjoy all of that.”

  “Wouldn’t it, though? I wish you were a monkey right now so I could take you inside with me and give you things.”

  Mentu sighed heavily. So they decided to hunt the little birds that live in the tall grass by the river. They took a number of throw-sticks and set out. On the way Moses led the old man to the spot where he was trying to build a playhouse of bits of stone. A lizard peeped out from behind a rock nearby and looked at them with a long, earnest stare.

  “That same lizard is there every day when I play here,” Moses told Mentu.

  “He thinks you are acting crazy,” Mentu told him.

  “Why? Why is it crazy for me to build a playhouse like the cities of Rameses and Pithom that the Hebrews are building for Pharaoh?”

  “The lizard does not understand it that way. He thinks all structures are made for nesting. He thinks you have been building a nest for your mate to lay eggs in. He says you take too long about it so that your mate must be ready to bust from holding her eggs so long. He asks why do men build such high nests for their mates? Are they afraid that their eggs will be stolen?”

  Moses laughed heartily at that, and he suspected that the grimace on the face of the old man was more of a laugh than a sign of serious thought.

  “Did he say all of that, Mentu? How do you know?”

  “You are too young to understand now, but when you are older I will tell you how it is that men can understand the language of the birds and the animals and the plants.”

  “You are not teasing me, Mentu? The lizard really said that?”

  “Why, certainly he did. I explained to him that humans do many things in their nests besides lay eggs. He says he cannot understand such doings but perhaps it is just as well. He asks if you will be good enough to stun a few flies for him so that he can catch them.”

  “But, Mentu,” Moses objected, “you told me once that lizards like to catch their flies alive and vigorous. You said it was a point of pride with him to use his speed and cunning.”

  “So I did, little Suten-Rech. So I did, and they do when they are young and virile. But this lizard complains that he is old like me and a little hungry like me. He says that he has been driven out of the company of the females by younger males. He has lost the power that once resided in his mighty hind legs so that he cannot spring so far nor so quickly as before. So he cannot catch enough flies to support himself. And what is worse, he cannot catch the females any longer. He is much too slow. A sad, sad situation. He fears he will father no more families.”

  “Why doesn’t he ask some of them to wait for him?” Moses asked full of sympathy.

  “It is sad but true that females seeking love do not wait for the weak and the aged. When the power to spring is gone—when you are older you will understand such things. A very trying period in a male thing’s life.”

  “He could lie in wait and seize him a wife as she passed. Then he wouldn’t have to run after her and he would not need so much strength to overcome her struggles,” Moses offered.

  “He says he had a fight about that yesterday. He ambushed a female, a handsome young thing, but a young buck heard the struggle and attacked him in his weak moments, and drove him off. He is quite lame from the mauling he took. So it would be nice if you crippled some flies so that he might eat a dinner. When one is too old for love, one finds great comfort in good dinners.”

  Moses obliged the lizard with some flies and said to Mentu, “Maybe you would like something to eat, too. I think I could get you something from the palace kitchen without too much trouble.”

  “Of course I would, Prince Moses. You have a big heart in that young body of yours. Of course, I would like something to eat. It would be ridiculous for the stableman to pretend that the food of Pharaoh was not good enough for his belly. Food makes people what they are. If the palace food makes a god out of high-born Pharaoh, it ought at least to make a man out of me.”

  “Then I will go and get you something from the cook.”

  “Thanks, Prince Moses, but be very careful that nobody finds out the food is for the stableman. The scraps from Pharaoh’s table are set aside and dedicated to the stomachs of Pharaoh’s dogs. Don’t be caught in the misuse of the dogs’ dishes. Sacrilege is a terrible crime.”

  Moses hurried to embrace the old man.

  “Why do you embrace me, Prince Moses?” Mentu asked.

  “Because I love you better than anyone, except my mother,” Moses answered with his face pressed against the cheek of Mentu.

  “Why do you love me? It is natural for the stableman to love a prince, but why should a prince love a stableman?”

  “I love you because you know all about the beginnings of things and you tell me about them. You tell me such nice lizard-talk.”

  “Well, all love is tempered with something, so it might as well be lizard-talk as plenty and power. Run along now and fetch me some meat. The food of Pharaoh has a lovely aftertaste.”

  Moses hurried off towards the kitchen and brought back a filling snack for his friend. Day after day he kept this up until old Mentu ceased to struggle with the older yard servants for bits of the hog head when roast pork was on the palace table. This was always an occasion with yard help. Roast pork at Pharaoh’s table meant boiled hog head for the help. And old Mentu used to struggle mightily for such bits as he could get. But now he loftily stood aside from the struggle and explained to the others mysteriously, “I am eating further back on the hog now.”

  And Mentu continued to charge the imagination of the boy with his tales of creation. Those first days of the world, which he called the “Kingdom Age,” when people lived as long as trees.

  “In the beginning,” Mentu would say, “there was neither nothing nor anything. Darkness hid in darkness—shrouded in nothingness.” Or he would talk at length on the seven rays of time; on fire, the father of the sacrifice who was the triple-formed messenger of men to the gods—as fire on earth, as lightning in the air and as the sun in heaven.

  It was the talk of Mentu which stirred the inquisitive Moses to stealing into the enclos
ure of the priests. After that first time, he would slip away from his tutors and attendants and go softly into the temples and into the forbidden precincts behind the temples where the priests lived and worked. And always he came out with more details of the home life of the gods when they were not attending their altars and being the inexpressible to men. In vain did the priests try to discourage him. They set magic tricks to awe and frighten him, but he would not stay away. He learned to feed the sacred snakes and handle the altar fires without hurt to himself. He begged to be taught the mysteries of signs and omens and the power of sayings and seals until the priests despaired. “What power will we have over the Suten-Rech if they are going to know as much as we do?” they asked themselves and put him off on account of his age. “Come back to us after you have had your manhood ceremony and we will teach you,” they told him. When he was gone they said, “Oh, he will be far too interested in war and women to bother with temple magic by that time. Who would bother with being a priest if he could be a prince anyway? All young boys have silly notions. Five years from now he will laugh at the idea. Our Pharaoh, when he was a boy, begged to be allowed to be a charioteer.”

  “So it goes,” a priest devoted to Rah concluded. “But the contributions at the altars are getting thin. Let us make a new sun-god to renew the devotions of the people. I have just invented a new incense that shall be known as his breath and indication of his presence at the altar.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The seven red mares rushed the sun across the sky, the infinite expanse and the dawns made companies and formed years and the years brought Moses to young manhood and gave him bone and muscle. Mentu had taught Moses about horses. He showed him what made a fine horse and he showed him how to ride and sit.

  “Further up towards his shoulders, Prince Moses, and bring up those knees. You can’t lead an army until you can ride a horse.”

  “But my uncle, Pharaoh’s son, leads his men with his chariot.”

  “A war chariot is a splendid vehicle, Prince Moses, but there is more action on the back of a horse. You fight down on the enemy then, and not among them. There are too many sides to a war chariot anyway. Men can surround it and trap you. They can break off wheels from the clumsy thing. But on horseback now, your chariot is a living thing and quick to answer your impulses. Speed is vital in war.”

  “My mother says she will order a splendid chariot for me.”

  “Keep it for parades, but fight on horseback and win your wars. Your uncle is Pharaoh’s son and eighteen years older than you. He will be head of state and the nominal head of the army. But you shall be the first man of Egypt in war.”

  The men of war also loved the avid attention that Moses gave to their advice. They need not fear to differ with him nor scold him. He was a born trooper, they all agreed, as they watched his quick grasp of intricate problems and his tendency to experiment with troop placement and maneuvers. There was something about him, outside of being the grandson of Pharaoh, that made men listen to him with respect. There was something about him that assured them he was a companion to be relied on in times of danger. They wanted to follow him into whatever escapade he thought up. He was the young men’s choice for a leader. To the old officers he was an upstart who tried to think and every statesman knew that thinking was not for soldiers.

  For a long time his activities made no impression upon his young uncle, the Pharaoh apparent, because he was busy with affairs of his own. There was palace etiquette to struggle with; robes of state to be fitted and worn properly. Royal visits from other countries, hunts and ceremonies. Then there were the intrigues inside the palace and council to make sure that the woman who was his sister and the mother of Moses should not herself encroach upon her brother’s future power and prestige, and that she should not persuade their father to harbor any such foolish notions about Moses. Ta-Phar jealously guarded his prerogative and that took time and energy. He felt that he was already something of a statesman and gave time now and then to thinking up new strictures for the Hebrews. It was his definite impression that the nation as a whole was softening towards these people and tending towards their attitude of before the revolution. Such laxness might give the Hebrews their opportunity to invite foreign allies to come in and send his family packing again and he had no taste for foreign travel under such circumstances. He wanted to rule and be King. The palace, to him, was not so much a residence as it was the seat of authority. He was more relieved than worried at the zest of Moses for the outdoor life. If he got any pleasure out of excelling with the bow and arrow and hurling spears at marks, let him do it. There were plenty of spears in Egypt to be hurled by others for the heir of Pharaoh. In the hunt, the game was always prepared for his final thrust so why spend hours in practice? Moses was merely lacking in appreciation of his position of a prince, the more fool, he.

  Then came the day of the bi-annual military maneuvers. This was a happy day for the Crown Prince. This was the day he would appear in his new chariot and armor with the Egyptian force behind him. The last maneuver had been led by his father and he and Moses had played minor roles in the pageant. But this time his father was suffering from an injury to his hip and had decided to watch the action from a reviewing stand, in company with a visiting king and his retinue. The Prince would be King for the day.

  All day there had been the rumble of war chariots past the palace and out to the great field that bordered the Nile. Drums shouted and rumbled; bands blared, a thousand decorated floats were moored on the Nile opposite the parade ground to await the wives and daughters of nobles and officers out on the field in mock battle. Two sets of tents faced each other at opposite ends of the field and at right angles to the river so that the action would be visible to the reviewing stand and the flower-decked barges on the Nile.

  The hawk of Horus, the sun-god, mounted to his noon perch and flew down the western sky for two hours, his blazing eyes fixed on the horizon of night. The men had been ordered to their tents since dawn. The princes and nobles now repaired to their decorated pavilions to dress. The barges with their ornate and brilliant-colored awnings filled and Pharaoh took his seat upon his open-air throne. The six royal trumpeters took their places before Pharaoh and at a sign they began the salute to Pharaoh in his incarnation of the sun-god.

  Then from their rich pavilions issued the princes and nobles of Egypt and mounted their chariots. Martial music played and the parade of the nobles before the throne of Pharaoh began. Shouts and cheers came from the barges and the standing people as each beautifully caparisoned war chariot with its three steeds passed in review and saluted the throne as they passed. First came the empty chariot of Pharaoh, the horses led by grooms in the livery of the palace. Then came the chariot of Egypt’s Crown Prince with Ta-Phar the son of Pharaoh at the reins. He was followed by Moses in a chariot less richly worked and draped. Then all the other chariots filed past four abreast, wheeled about the field and returned to their tents to get ready for the maneuvers in earnest.

  While they made ready, a company of dancers from the royal ballet leaped out from behind the reviewing stand and danced for the entertainment of the throne and the barges. The activities of the gods was the theme of the ballet and it was well received.

  The trumpeters again. This time they announced the maneuvers and the order. His Majesty’s forces were divided into the blues and the reds. The reds would be led by that embodiment of all that was pure and noble, the image of Pharaoh himself, Suten-Rech Ta-Phar. The blues were nobly led by the slightly lesser sun of the world and grandson of Pharaoh, Suten-Rech Moses, son of the daughter of Pharaoh. They saluted in every direction and retired.

  Out upon the field they rode the ranks of red charioteers with the Prince at the head. They came out in perfect formation, massed close together and chanting, “Who is so great as Pharaoh, and who can meet his glance?”

  “A truly magnificent force!” a visiting dignitary said to Pharaoh. “Magnificent?” Pharaoh retorted. “Why, man alive! You are look
ing at the finest chariot force in the world. It’s stupendous! There never was such a fighting machine in the history of warfare. And it will be a long time before its equal will be seen again. It was our highly developed war chariots which swept out the Hyksos. They are unbeatable.”

  The red force had reached the center of the field and all eyes looked towards the blue camp for the defending force, but not a single chariot emerged. There was a thick brush back of the camp. Suddenly a hundred soldiers mounted on camels trotted from the camp and rode, none too hastily, towards the chariot force with lifted spears. The Prince and his men were too startled for a moment to move. People did not know what to think. Some of them laughed.

  “What kind of a stupid joke is this?” the Prince sneered. “Bear down on them, my men, surround them and capture them.”

  The chariots got into furious motion. But as the horses got wind of the camels they began to rear and snort. At that precise moment a thousand horsemen burst from the wood and raced through the camp like lightning. As they cleared the tents a blood-chilling war whoop burst from the riders. They brandished their spears and bore down upon the chariots like so many fiends from hell. But they did not make a direct charge as their frenzied speed indicated. When almost near enough for hand-to-hand conflict, the horsemen split into two parties and executed a lightning-swift flanking movement and attacked the chariots from the side and rear. With quick jabs and thrusts, the charioteers were hurled from their machines. Bridles were seized. A wave of foot soldiers followed the cavalry and the charioteers struggling on the ground with their heavy armor and weapons, and often tangled in the reins of their chariots were overcome and taken prisoner. It was a rout. The throne and barges were on their feet first in surprise, then in alarm. Some asked, “Are those horsemen Egyptians or are they Hebrews and their allies, the hated Hyksos? Only men of the desert ride like that!”