Pharaoh. Уилбур Смит

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СКАЧАТЬ understand your predicament, Captain,’ I replied. ‘I hope that our next meeting will be more pleasurable for both of us.’

      Weneg helped me down from the footplate of the chariot and then severed the bonds at my wrists with a sweep of his dagger. Swiftly he went through the formality of handing me over to the prison warders, and delivering to them my scroll of impeachment. I recognized Pharaoh Utteric’s hieroglyph at the foot of this document. Then Weneg saluted me and turned away. I watched him jump back on to his vehicle, seize the reins and wheel his team to face the gateway. As soon as the portcullis was raised high enough he ducked under it and without a backwards glance drove out into the daylight.

      There were four prison warders to receive me. As soon as Weneg had left the courtyard one of these lifted off his black headdress and confronted me with a derisive grin. He was a grossly obese creature, with garlands of fat drooping down from his jowls on to his chest.

      ‘We are honoured by your presence, my lord. It is not often that we get the opportunity to play host to such an illustrious personage, a man of the highest reputation and most fabulous wealth – after Pharaoh himself, of course. I am determined not to give you short measure. First let me introduce myself. My name is Doog.’ He bowed his great bald head, which was covered with obscene tattoos of stick figures doing repulsive things to each other, but he went on speaking: ‘A man of your erudition and learning will realize at once that Doog is Good spelled backwards, and he will know then what to expect of me. Those who know me well often refer to me as Doog the Terrible.’ Doog had a nervous twitch, which caused him to blink his right eye rapidly at the end of each sentence he uttered. I could not resist the temptation, so I winked back at him.

      He stopped grinning. ‘I see that you like your little jokes, my lord? In due course I will give you jokes that will cause you to die laughing,’ he promised. ‘But we must defer that pleasure for a short while longer. Pharaoh has arrested you for high treason, but not yet tried you nor found you guilty. However, that time will come, and I shall be ready for it, I assure you.’

      He started to circle me, but I turned at the same speed to keep facing him. ‘Hold him still!’ he snarled at his henchmen, and they seized both my arms and twisted them to bring me down to my knees.

      ‘You have beautiful clothes, my lord,’ Doog commended me. ‘I have seldom seen such splendid garments.’ This was true, for I had been expecting to address Pharaoh and his state council when I delivered to him the Hyksos treasure. I was wearing the golden helmet I had captured from a Hyksos general on another battlefield a long time ago; it was a masterpiece in gold and silver. Around my shoulders hung the Gold of Valour and the Gold of Praise, equally magnificent chains which had been awarded to me by the hand of Pharaoh Tamose himself for the service and sacrifice I had given to him. I knew that, adorned thus, I was a wondrous sight to behold.

      ‘We must not let such lovely garments become dirtied or damaged. You must remove them at once. I will take them into my safekeeping,’ Doog explained. ‘But I assure you that I will return them to you as soon as you are found innocent of the charges against you and are released from custody.’ I regarded him silently, not giving him the pleasure of hearing my protests or entreaties. ‘My men will help you to undress,’ Doog ended his little speech, which I was certain that he had also addressed to all of the men who were now but skulls in the niches of the walls above me.

      He nodded at his henchmen and they ripped the helmet from my head and the gold chains from around my neck; then they tore away the lovely garments that covered my body, leaving me naked except for a brief loin-cloth. Finally they dragged me back on to my feet and forced me to walk to the doors in the back wall of the courtyard.

      Doog lumbered along beside me. ‘All of us who work here within the prison walls are so excited and happy about the ascension of Pharaoh Utteric Turo to the throne.’ He winked four or five times to express his excitement, his head bobbing in time to the blinking of his eyes. ‘Pharaoh has changed our lives and made us some of the most important citizens in this very Egypt. During Pharaoh Tamose’s reign we hardly ever drew blood from one week to the next. But now his eldest son keeps us busy from morning until night. If we aren’t chopping off heads we are drawing the entrails out of men and women; or twisting off their arms; or hanging them by their necks or their testicles; or peeling off their skins with the hot irons.’ He chuckled merrily. ‘My brothers and my five sons were all out of work only a year ago, but now they are full-time executioners and tormentors, as I am. We are invited by Pharaoh Utteric Turo nearly every few weeks to the royal palace in Luxor. He likes to watch us carrying out our duties. Of course he never comes to visit us here. He is convinced that there is a curse on these walls. The only persons who ever come here do so to die; and we are the chosen few who help them to do it. But Pharaoh particularly loves to see me work on the young girls, especially if they are pregnant. So we take them down to the palace to do so. One of my little foibles is to hang them from the scaffold on bronze hooks through their tits, and then I use other hooks to rip the living foetus out of their wombs.’ Doog salivated like a hungry animal at his own description. I felt my gorge rise to have to listen to such obscenities.

      ‘I will let you watch while you are waiting for your own turn. I usually charge a fee, but you have let me have your helmet and gold chains for which I am so grateful …’ He was one of the most repulsive persons I have ever encountered. The black hood and cloak he wore were obviously meant to disguise the blood of his victims, but this close to him I could see that some of the stains were still damp, and the ones that had dried had begun to rot the fabric, so the stink of putrefaction and death hung over him like a dank miasma over a swamp.

      His assistants dragged me on through this human abattoir where their colleagues were going about their grisly business. The screams of their victims echoed against the bare stone walls, and blended with the cracking of the whips and the jovial laughter of these professional tormentors. The smell of fresh blood and human excrement was so overpowering that I found myself choking and gasping for breath.

      Eventually we descended a narrow flight of stone steps to reach a tiny, windowless underground cell. It was lit by a single candle, but otherwise it was bare. There was just enough room for me to sit on the floor, if I kept my knees up under my chin. My captors shoved me into it.

      ‘Your trial by Pharaoh is set for three days from today. We will come to fetch you for it. Otherwise we will not bother you again,’ Doog assured me.

      ‘But I need food and fresh water to drink and wash myself,’ I protested. ‘And I will also need clean clothes to wear for my trial.’

      ‘Prisoners make their own arrangements for such luxuries. We are busy men. You cannot expect us to be bothered by such trifles.’ Doog sniggered as he blew out the candle flame and thrust the stump into a pocket of his cloak. Then he slammed the door to my cell, and I heard his keys rattle in the outside of the lock. Three more days without water in this airless and sultry stone cell would be bitterly hard to bear, and I was not certain that I could survive it.

      ‘I will pay you.’ I heard my own voice rising with desperation as I shouted.

      ‘You have nothing with which to pay me,’ Doog’s voice carried back to me, even through the thick door, but then the footfalls of my captors receded into silence and my cell into utter darkness.

      In particular circumstances I am able to weave a spell of protection over myself which serves me in the same fashion as does the cocoon of certain insects. I am able to retreat to a secure place deep within my own self. This is what I did now.

      Early on the morning of the third day of my incarceration Doog and his henchmen had great difficulty summoning me back from the distant place in my mind to which I had retreated. I could hear their voices faint and faraway and gradually I became aware of their hands pummelling and shaking СКАЧАТЬ