Rahab the Harlot--Wattys Awards

Chapter Nine

Thoth's flotilla of ships grew larger as they sailed further South.  Hours later,on the right side of the river  there was a huge area with  Jackals facing each other in order to mark the way to half-buried tombs. Some were modest, but others still possessed their original grandeur. Some posted silent guards of solid granite. Others were but scattered stones and broken images.

Salmon looked with intense interest. "My people are buried in unmarked graves in the desert sand." He turned toward Thoth, who seemed to know what he was going to ask.

"That is the Valley of the Kings--which means that we are getting closer to Luxor, home of Pharaoh and capital of Upper and Lower Egypt." Thoth pointed to a magnificent tomb with silent, colorful armed guards in kinglike headdresses. "That's where Ramses II was buried. The tomb is his entrance to the Afterlife, where he lives to this day."

"Are common folk also entering into a second life there?"

"Perhaps a skilled artist, someone of near nobility."

"The kings spend much from the royal treasury for those tombs? We cover our dead with stones,"  Salmon said.

"My Hebrew friend," Thoth said, "you should see the treasures they put inside a tomb." Thoth held out his hand as if to put an expensive ring on his finger. "There are gold figurines of gods, jewelry, gold plates, gold laden coffins of Pharaoh and the queen."

"How do you know that a Pharaoh's tomb would have such riches, Thoth?"

Thoth smiled but did not speak. He continued to smile in silence.

"You stole the riches of the kings?"

"My brave Hebrew friend, I was not always a soldier in service to Pharaoh."

"What happened to your great wealth? From what you say, you could buy an army of your own."

"Easy riches are easy to lose. I have spent foolishly on beer, women who have rooms over the taverns, and beautiful women who love gifts of ivory and silk." Thoth then looked longingly. "Then came a beautiful woman who wanted not the wealth of kings, which I no longer had, but a good life sharing the marriage bed and bringing my children to cheer us up when we are older."

"So now you're honest as a God?"

"Rocks will cover my body while I pass through the House of the Dead. They will weigh my heart after my eyes close on this life." Thoth smiled. "How lucky she made me." He looked at Salmon. "Moses will have a magnificent tomb in the desert?"

Salmon thought for a while. "Moses is an humble man as much as he is a strong leader of my people. He himself says he will never enter the land that his God has promised to my people. God will allow him to climb a mountain and see the land he has promised to us.  Then he will be no more.  God will bury him, Thoth."

The boats were joined by still more units of Pharaoh's soldiers as they sailed south up the Nile. Again they put their boats into small villages so that no single village bore the burden of feeding all the soldiers. More and more these villagers were poor.  They had fewer taverns with women willing to share their bodies with spirited soldiers.

Soldiers who took advantage of girls too young were whipped without mercy, and some few lost their heads. Many of the Captains like Thoth had enough control over their men that they took no risks. To disgrace their captain was to forfeit their own lives.

Yet some women willingly were wanting to have children by visiting soldiers. It was a fact that during every war when soldiers traveled in sail boats to the North or South, there was always an increase in local populations in the fishing villages.

"So, Salmon, you will not visit the taverns of Egypt and find an eager servant woman to lie with?"

"You know that I love Rahab too much, Thoth."  Salmon smiled at the young women smiling and waving at their boats. "If I have food, rest, and pray, I will endure and return to Rahab."

"I have other reasons," Thoth said, "for keeping myself from the women in the villages." He paused. "I have to show myself a fair Captain who does not violate rules I set for my soldiers."

In the distance to the South the great Temple of Karnak and a huge city appeared. It was small at first, but the closer their sail boats came, the city's magnificence became easier to see.

There were magnificent temples and public buildings, rows of small sphinxes facing each other to guide travelers to a strong, massive gate through a city wall. Statues of past Pharaohs and Queens adorned the way. Huge obelisks rose into the air and told of numerous deeds of the past kings.

At length Thoth's flotilla joined others at a small harbor. There they were met by a Captain assigned to guide Thoth's Hundred to a series of barracks built in past years to house soldiers traveling from the South or North.

"Tomorrow we will parade before the Pharaoh and swear allegiance to follow him to death if necessary.