Book 9, The Crocodile's Tail Summary

In three years abroad, acquiring knowledge good and bad, Sinuhe matures. He is shocked to learn of anti-Egyptian rioting over taxes and alliances between the Syrian cities. Patients lump him with the oppressors and he decides to go home and report to Horemheb. Before he can leave, a messenger fetches him to treat Aziru's ailing first-born, who is merely teething. Aziru talks about paying agitators to kindle hatred of Egypt in Syria and not fearing a Pharaoh who sends out "symbols of life." He boasts of controlling Megiddo and laughs at Sinuhe's warnings of Egyptian retribution and Hittite duplicity. They part friends as Sinuhe leaves for Smyrna, bound for Egypt.

Although he has no home in Thebes, Sinuhe is at least is not haunted by sorrow and shame and longs for the Black Land. Thebes seems more...