Chapter 8

BJ and Kilgot became inseparable long before Kilgot reached his majority. BJ was the younger brother that Kilgot never had. The two went on hunting expeditions, sometimes sneaking off without their bodyguards, and spending all day in a chariot out on the plains. BJ drove for Kilgot and Kilgot drove for BJ. These excursions scared hell out of both sets of parents, but we could not seem to stop them. There was no way to effectively "ground" a prince of Egypt or his shadow.

The result was that we learned to live with it, but we never liked it. There were just too many ways for an active kid to be killed in the Egypt of that time, and that does not count the brigands and assassins that could show up at any time.

On one occasion that we knew of, and there might well have been others that we did not know about, Kilgot and BJ came storming back to the summer palace with a couple of arrows stuck in the side of the chariot along with one spearhead jammed into the floor of the chariot. The two boys were very excited over having escaped an ambush that they were sure was set by assassins.

The boys had asked permission this time to ride out to the mountain escarpment that seemed to hover over the summer palace. This was a relatively safe trip because it would be confined to familiar territory relatively near the palace. They received permission because they would have probably found a way to go there anyway, and they left the palace compound soon after breakfast and morning prayers. As it happened, they did tell one of the priests of their plans for the day, but nobody thought anything of that.

They were practically to the escarpment when all hell broke loose. They were attacked front and rear by men in chariots and forced nearer the escarpment. Archers were shooting arrows from the chariots and men were throwing spears from the rocks overhead. BJ was driving and Kilgot was shooting arrows at appropriate targets. Kilgot did manage to hit a couple of the men in the chariots, but it was BJ's inspired driving bordering on the reckless that let them finally escape.

I questioned them closely, both separately and together, and that was where we picked up the name of the priest who had been told of their little excursion. The priest was questioned intensively by the palace torturers and he revealed quite a bit of information regarding a cabal of priests who were unhappy at the thought of a foreigner having so much influence over a future pharaoh. It turned out that BJ was the real target of the assassination attempt, and Alquat and Kilgot both hit the ceiling.

Assassination of royalty was expected and it happened fairly often, but it was unheard of to go after somebody just because he was a friend of royalty. The torturers had a field day cleaning out the priesthood that had the temerity to hatch such a plot. Of course, this only increased the bond between Kilgot and BJ.

The next few years had their ups and downs, but mostly it was a case of sliding along in the comfortable rut. However, Alquat was getting old and it was time for Kilgot to become serious about becoming the next pharaoh. Alquat let it be known that Kilgot was his selected successor and named as such in his will. This was good because it made it socially and politically acceptable for Kilgot to accompany Alquat to all of the religious shrines to be made privy to the ceremonies and sacrifices that were kept secret from the common people.

Naturally, it was necessary for me to accompany Alquat and for Sally to accompany Kilgot to all of these functions. We didn't go inside to the most secret of functions, but we did get to see a lot that the average person knew nothing about. Neither Sally nor I were interested in the details of the sacrifices and other sacred things that were done behind closed doors, but we were fascinated by the paintings and bas-relief sculptures that covered the walls and ceilings of the ante-rooms. BJ was kind of pissed off at being excluded from something that his friend Kilgot was seeing, but BJ got a full report that evening, so he was not torn up too much.

Anyway, this sort of thing went on for about two years, and then Alquat fell sick. No one could figure out what was wrong, but Alquat seemed to waste away. It was as if he were being eaten alive from within, and he was often in great pain, but Alquat would not step back from his obligations as pharaoh. Nevertheless, Kilgot took on more and more of the ceremonial functions of the pharaoh until it seemed that he was the actual pharaoh in all but name.

Well, the event everybody was expecting finally happened: Alquat died one night in his sleep. Hepsol, his favorite wife was with him that night, and she was able to bid him goodbye as he passed on. This happened in the main winter palace, so there were a lot more people directly affected than would have been in the summer palace, but there was so much precedence for the death of a pharaoh that the gears began to grind to set up the major state funeral that was going to rock the entire country.

Kilgot moved in to take his place as pharaoh with the usual fanfare, but there was very little disruption of anyone's life except what was to be expected from a state funeral. For all of about 20 minutes I was out of a job, but Kilgot appointed me as head of his bodyguards and BJ was made my assistant. The former head of Kilgot's bodyguards was getting old and about to retire anyway, so there were no hard feelings over the transfer of duties.

It was interesting, though, that this was the first time that official note was taken of the apparent ages of Sally and me. We appeared not to have aged a day since we first arrived in Egypt, and BJ looked very much like a carbon copy of me at that age. Nobody could explain this lack of physical aging, least of all us, so it was attributed to be a special favor of the gods that the protector of the pharaoh and his chief care-giver never aged.

This did give us more of a magical air about us as far as the palace servants were concerned, but the nobility pretended not to notice. That was probably out of jealousy, but who could tell? I did notice that all of my orders were carried out to the letter, and that was something for me to be happy about. Sally reported the same thing.

One of the things that Kilgot set out to do was to build up a group of wives whom he serviced regularly and diligently. He was trying to beget a male heir as soon as possible, and he hoped to have several of them available for training to be the next pharaoh. This was pushed by BJ, and I couldn't help wondering if BJ was not also helping in the servicing of the women. BJ and Kilgot were so close that I could not believe that this was not done at the request of Kilgot.

Kilgot already had two wives by the time Alquat had died, so he did produce a son very shortly after he became pharaoh. Unfortunately, this child was very sickly, and Sally and I wondered if the boy would make it beyond his second birthday. I was interested in Roman culture when I was in graduate school, so I knew about the Romans having problems with congenital syphilis. I was familiar with the symptoms, and I suspected that Hasmoptah was afflicted.

His mother had come from Nubia, and that had once been a hotbed for the illness. There was nothing that I could do about it but sympathize with all involved. I even tried to make a crude form of penicillin, but that was a dismal failure. Fortunately, I had not mentioned what I was doing, so I did not catch any flak from the priesthood or from the physicians.