remorselessly with his list of accusations against me. He smiled with his lips, but his eyes were like those of a standing cobra: filled with cold and bitter hatred. The venom he spat at me was every bit as noxious as that of the snake itself.
He related to the assembled noblemen and scions of royalty how I had stolen a vast fortune in gold and silver from the royal treasury which his father Pharaoh Tamose had placed in my trust. As proof of my treachery he cited the fabulous fortune in landed estates and treasure which I had accumulated over the years. He flourished a scroll and then read aloud from it. This purported to record all my embezzlements from the treasury. These amounted to well over a hundred million lakhs of silver; more silver than exists on all our earth.
The charges were so preposterous that I did not know where to begin my rebuttal. All I could think of in my defence was to deny the accusations and repeat over and over: ‘No! That’s not the way it happened. Pharaoh Tamose was like a son to me, the only son I ever had. He gave all of that to me to reward me for the services I carried out on his behalf over the fifty years of his life. I never stole anything from him, not gold nor silver, not even a loaf of bread.’
I might not have spoken for Pharaoh went on listing the charges against me: ‘This assassin Taita used his knowledge of drugs and poisons to murder another precious royal woman. This time his victim was my own beautiful, gentle and dearly beloved mother, Queen Saamorti.’
I gasped to hear that monstrous trollop so described. I had treated many of her slaves that she had personally emasculated or beaten half to death. She had delighted in mocking me cruelly over my damaged and mutilated manhood; bemoaning the fact that others had been ahead of her with the gelding knife. Her handmaidens had been gainfully employed in smuggling a seemingly endless train of male slaves into her elaborate sleeping quarters. The obscenities she practised with these sorry creatures had probably resulted in the birth of the very person who stood before me now reading out my death warrant: His Mighty Majesty Pharaoh Utteric Turo.
One thing I knew with the utmost certainty was that the potions and medicines which I administered desperately to Queen Saamorti had not been sufficiently therapeutic to cure the filthy diseases which one or more of her myriad paramours had squirted into her lower bodily orifices. I wish her peace, although I am certain that the gods in their wisdom will deny it to her.
However, this was not the end of the horrific accusations that Pharaoh Utteric had to bring against me. The next was as far-fetched as all the previous charges lumped together.
‘Then there was his flagrant treatment of two of my royal aunts, the Princesses Bekatha and Tehuti. It is true that my father managed to arrange a marriage for both of them with the most powerful and fabulously wealthy monarch in the world, the mighty Minos of Crete. Pharaoh, my father, sent these royal virgins in a caravan to their wedding with the Minos. Their retinue reflected our own wealth as a nation. It was several hundred persons strong. The treasure that was the dowry of my sisters was almost two hundred lakhs of fine silver bars. My father Pharaoh Tamose once again placed his trust in this sordid criminal and reprobate you see before you: Taita. He gave him command of the caravan. His assistants were two military officers named Captain Zaras and Colonel Hui. My information is that this creature, Taita, succeeded in reaching Crete and marrying my sisters to the Minos. However, in the eruption of Mount Cronus caused by the rage of the eponymous god Cronus, he who is the father of the god Zeus and has been chained for all eternity by his son in the depths of the mountain …’
Here Pharaoh paused briefly to catch his breath, and then hurried on with his wild accusations: ‘The Minos was killed by the fall of rocks when the island of Crete was devastated by the eruption. In the ensuing chaos those two pirates, Zaras and Hui, abducted both my aunts. They then hijacked two of the vessels which belonged to my father Pharaoh Tamose’s fleet and fled northwards into the unexplored and savage archipelagos at the far end of the world. All this was against the will of my aunts, but with the connivance and encouragement of the accused scoundrel, Taita. When he returned to our very Egypt Taita told Pharaoh that his sisters had been killed in the volcanic eruption, and Pharaoh called off the search for them. Taita must bear the full guilt for their abduction and the hardships they must certainly have suffered. That dastardly deed alone warrants the death sentence for its perpetrator.’
Once again the only verdict I could truthfully plead was guilty: guilty of allowing the two young women that I love more even than they love me the opportunity to find true fulfilment and happiness after they had done their duty to the utmost. But once again I could only gape at my accuser and maintain the silence which I had promised to Bekatha and Tehuti when I sent them to find happiness with the men they truly love.
Pharaoh turned away from me, drew himself to his full height and gazed upon the ranks of noblemen and princes, who were stunned into stillness and silence by his revelations and accusations. He regarded them one at a time, drawing out the suspense. Then at last he began to speak again. I expected no mercy from him, and he did not disappoint my expectations.
‘I find the prisoner guilty of all the charges brought against him. He is to be deprived of all his assets, be they large or small, fixed or moveable, situated anywhere in the world. They are all forfeited to my treasury, nothing excepted.’
A buzz ran through the ranks of his audience, and they exchanged envious glances for they all knew what riches this short recital entailed. It was common knowledge that I was the richest man in Egypt after only Pharaoh. He let them discuss it between themselves for a short while before he held up one hand for silence and they immediately froze. Even in my dreadful predicament I was amazed at how terrified they all were of their new Pharaoh, but I was learning the wisdom of their fear.
Then Pharaoh giggled. This was the moment when first I realized that Utteric Turo was raving mad, and that he placed neither restraint nor control on his own madness. That high-pitched giggle was a sound that could only be uttered by a lunatic. Then I remembered that his mother had also been mad – only her madness merely took the form of sexual incontinence. In Utteric Turo it took the form of total megalomania. He was unable to restrain any of his baser instincts or fantasies. He wished to be a god, so he declared himself one and believed that was all that was required for him to become one.
On this realization my heart went out to my fellow citizens of this, the greatest nation in the history of the world. They were only just beginning to realize what fate awaited them. I did not care about my own destiny for I knew that it was already fixed in the garbled mind of this madman. But I cared deeply for what was about to happen to my beloved Egypt.
Then Pharaoh began to speak again: ‘I am only mortified that death will come too quickly to this felon after all the suffering he has inflicted on my family. I would prefer to see him suffer to the limits of his evil soul for the airs and graces he has always affected, and for his pretence of wisdom and learning.’
Here I managed to smile at how Utteric could not disguise his envy of my superior intellect. I saw the quick flush of anger that my smile evinced, but he went ranting on.
‘I am aware that it is not adequate punishment; however, I decree that you shall be taken in your rags and chains from hence to the place of Torment and Sorrow. There you shall be given over to the tormentors who will …’ Here he recited a list of atrocities so frightful that it left some of the gentler females in his audience pale with nausea and weeping with horror.
Finally Pharaoh turned back to me. ‘I am now prepared to listen to your expression of remorse and regret before I send you to face your destiny.’
I rose to my feet, still manacled and half-naked, and I spoke out clearly, for I had nothing more to lose. ‘Thank you, Your Mighty Majesty Pharaoh Utteric Turo. Now I understand why all your subjects, not excluding me, feel as they do towards you.’ I made no effort to disguise the sardonic tone of my voice.
The
