RIVER GOD

Wilbur Smith

The Nile that flows through this story has both of us in her thrall. We

have spent days of delight voyaging together upon her waters and idling upon

her banks. As we are, so is she a creature of this very Africa of ours.

Yet this great river runs neither so strongly nor so deeply as my love for

you, my darling.

THE RIVER LAY HEAVILY UPON THE desert, bright as a spill of molten metal

from a furnace. The sky smoked with heat-haze and the sun beat down upon it

all with the strokes of a coppersmith’s hammer, hi the mirage the gaunt hills

flanking the Nile seemed to tremble to the blows. Our boat sped close in

beside the papyrus beds; near enough for the creaking of the water buckets of

the shadoof, on their long, counter-balanced arms, to carry from the fields

across the water. The sound harmonized with the singing of the girl in the

bows.

Lostris was fourteen years of age. The Nile had begun its latest flood on

the very day that her red woman’s moon had flowered for the first time, a

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coincidence that the priests of Hapi had viewed as highly propitious.

Lostris, the woman’s name that they had then chosen to replace her discarded

baby-name, meant ’Daughter of the Waters’.

I remember her so vividly on that day. She would grow more beautiful as the

years passed, become more poised and regal, but never again would that glow

of virgin womanhood radiate from her so overpoweringly. Every man aboard,

even the warriors at the rowing-benches, were aware of it. Neither I nor any

one of them could keep our gaze off her. She filled me with a sense of my own

inadequacy and a deep and poignant longing; for although I am a eunuch I was

gelded only after I had known the joy of a woman’s body.

Taita,’ she called to me, ’sing with me!’ And when I obeyed she smiled with

pleasure. My voice was one of the many reasons that, whenever she was able,

she kept me near her; my tenor complemented her lovely soprano to perfection.

We sang one of the old peasant love songs that I had taught her, and which

was still one of her favourites:

My heart flutters up like a wounded quail

when I see my beloved’s face

and my cheeks bloom like the dawn sky

to the sunshine of his smile?

From the stern another voice joined with ours. It was a man’s voice, deep

and powerful, but it lacked the clarity and purity of my own. If my voice was

that of a dawn-greeting thrush, men this was the voice of a young lion.

Lostris turned her head and now her smile shimmered like the sunbeams on

the surface of the Nile. Although the man upon whom she played that smile was

my friend, perhaps my only true friend, still I felt the bitter gall of envy

bum the back of my throat. Yet I forced myself to smile at Tanus, as she did,

with love.

Tanus’ father, Pianki, Lord Harrab, had been one of the grandees of the

Egyptian nobility, but his mother had been the daughter of a freed Tehenu

slave. Like so many of her people, she had been fair-headed and blue-eyed.

She had died of the swamp fever while Tanus was still a child, so my memory

of her was imperfect. However, the old women said that seldom before had such

beauty as hers been seen in either of the two kingdoms.

On the other hand, I had known and admired Tanus’ father, before he lost

all his vast fortune and the great estates that had once almost rivalled

those of Pharaoh himself. He had been of dark complexion, with Egyptian eyes

the colour of polished obsidian, a man with more physical strength than

beauty, but with a generous and noble heart?some might say too generous and

too trusting, for he had died destitute, with his heart broken by those he

had thought his friends, alone in the darkness, cut off from the sunshine of

Pharaoh’s favour.

Thus it seemed that Tanus had inherited the best from both his parents,

except only worldly wealth, hi nature and in power he was as his father; in

beauty as his mother. So why should I resent my mistress loving him? I loved

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him also, and, poor neutered thing that I am, I knew that I could never have

her for myself, not even if the gods had raised my status above that of

slave. Yet such is the perversity of human nature that I hungered for what I

could never have and dreamed of the impossible.

Lostris sat on her cushion on the prow with her slave girls sprawled at her

feet, two little black girls from Cush, lithe as panthers, entirely naked

except for the golden collars around their necks. Lostris herself wore only a

skirt of bleached linen, crisp and white as an egret’s wing. The skin of her

upper body, caressed by the sun, was the colour of oiled cedar wood from the

mountains beyond Byblos. Her breasts were the size and shape of ripe figs

just ready for plucking, and tipped with rose garnets.

She had set aside her formal wig, and wore her natural hair in a side-lock

that fell in a thick dark rope over one breast. The slant of her eyes was

enhanced by the silver-green of powdered malachite cunningly touched to the

upper lids. The colour of her eyes was green also, but the darker, clearer

green of the Nile when its waters have shrunk and deposited their burden of

precious silts. Between her breasts, suspended on a gold chain, she wore a

figurine of Hapi, the goddess of the Nile, fashioned in gold and precious

lapis lazuli. Of course it was a superb piece, for I had made it with my own

hands for her.

Suddenly Tanus lifted his right hand with the fist clenched. As a single

man the rowers checked their stroke and held the blades of their paddles

aloft, glinting in the sunlight and dripping water. Then Tanus thrust the

steering-oar hard over, and the men on the port bank stabbed their backstroke

deeply, creating a series of tiny whirlpools in the surface of the green

water. The starboard side pulled strongly ahead. The boat spun so sharply

that the deck canted over at an alarming angle. Then both banks pulled

together and she shot forward. The sharp prow, with the blue eyes of Horus

emblazoned upon it, brushed aside the dense stands of papyrus, and she lanced

her way out of the flow of the river and into the still waters of the lagoon

beyond.

Lostris broke off the song and shaded her eyes to gaze ahead. ’There they

are!’ she cried, and pointed with a graceful little hand. The other boats of

Tanus’ squadron were cast like a net across the southern reaches of the

lagoon, blocking the main entrance to the great river, cutting off any escape

in that direction.

Naturally, Tanus had chosen for himself the northern station, for he knew

that this was where the sport would be most furious. I wished it was not so.

Not that I am a coward, but I have always the safety of my mistress to

consider. She had inveigled herself aboard the Breath of Horus only after

much intrigue in which, as always, she had deeply involved me. When her

father learned, as he surely would, of her presence in the thick of the hunt,

it would go badly enough for me, but if he learned also that I was

responsible for allowing her to be in the company of Tanus for a full day,

not even my privileged position would protect me from his wrath. His

instructions to me regarding this young man were unequivocal.

However, I seemed to be the only soul aboard the Breath of Horus who was

perturbed. The others were simmering with excitement. Tanus checked the

rowers with a peremptory hand-signal, and the boat glided to a halt and lay

rocking gently upon the green waters that were so still that when I glanced

overboard and saw my own reflection look back at me, I was struck, as always,

by how well my beauty had carried over the years. To me it seemed that my

face was more lovely than the cerulean blue lotus blooms that framed it. I

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had little time to admire it, however, for the crew were all abustle.

One of Tanus’ staff officers ran up his personal standard to the masthead.

It was the image of a blue crocodile, with its great coxcombed tail held

erect and its jaws open. Only an officer of the rank of Best of Ten Thousand

was entitled to his own standard. Tanus had achieved such rank, together with

the command of the Blue Crocodile division of Pharaoh’s own elite guard,

before his twentieth birthday.

Now the standard at the masthead was the signal for the hunt to begin. On

the horizon of the lagoon the rest of the squadron were tiny with distance,

but their paddles began to beat rhythmically, rising and falling like the

wings of wild geese in flight, glistening in the sunlight. From their sterns

the multiple wavelets of their wakes were drawn out across the placid waters

and lay for a long while on the surface, as though moulded from solid clay.

Tanus lowered the gong over the stem. It was a long bronze tube. He allowed

the end of it to sink below the surface. When struck with a hammer of the

same metal the shrill, reverberating tones would be transmitted through the

water, filling our quarry with consternation. Unhappily for my equanimity, I

knew that this could readily turn to a murderous rage.

Tanus laughed at me. Even in his own excitation he had sensed my qualms.

For a rude soldier he had unusual perception. ’Come up here in the

stern-tower, Taita!’ he ordered. ’You can beat the gong for us. It will take

your mind off the safety of your own beautiful hide for a while.’

I was hurt by his levity, but relieved by the invitation, for the

stern-tower is high above the water. I moved to do his bidding without

undignified haste, and,’as I passed him, I paused to exhort him sternly,

’Have a care for the safety of my mistress. Do you hear me, boy? Do not

encourage her to recklessness, for she is every bit as wild as you are.’ I

could speak thus to an illustrious commander of ten thousand, for he was once

my pupil and I had wielded the cane on more than one occasion across those

martial buttocks. He grinned at me now as he had in those days, as cocky and

impudent as ever.

’Leave that lady in my hands, I implore you, old friend. There is nothing I

would relish more, believe me!’ I did not admonish him for such a

disrespectful tone, for I was in some small haste to take my place in the

tower. From there I watched him take up his bow.

Already that bow was famous throughout the army, indeed throughout the

length of the great river from the cataracts to the sea. I had designed it

for him when he had grown dissatisfied with the puny weapons that, up until

that time, were all that were available to him. I had suggested that we

should try to fashion a bow with some new material other than those feeble

woods that grow in our narrow riverine valley; perhaps with exotic timbers

such as the heart-wood of the olive from the land of the Hittites or of the

ebony from Cush; or with even stranger materials such as the horn of the

rhinoceros or the ivory tusk of the elephant.

No sooner had we made the attempt than we came upon a myriad of problems,

the first of which was the brittleness of these exotic materials. In their

natural state none of them would bend without cracking, and only the largest

and therefore the most expensive elephant tusk would allow us to carve a

complete bowstock from it. I solved both these problems by splitting the

ivory of a smaller tusk into slivers and gluing these together in sufficient

girth and bulk to form a full bow. Unfortunately it was too rigid for any man

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to draw.

However, from there it was an easy and natural step to laminate together

all four of our chosen materials?olive wood, ebony, horn and ivory. Of

course, there were many months of experimentation with combinations of these

materials, and with various types of glue to hold them together. We never did

succeed in making a glue strong enough. In the end I solved this last problem

by binding the entire bowstock with electrum wire to prevent it from flying

apart. I had two big men assist Tanus in twisting the wire on to it with all

their combined strength, while the glue was still hot. When it cooled, it set

to an almost perfect combination of strength and pliability.

Then I cut strands from the gut of a great black-maned lion that Tanus

hunted and killed with his bronze-bladed war spear out in the desert. These I

tanned and twisted together to form a bowstring. The result was this gleaming

arc of such extraordinary power that only one man out of all the hundreds who

had made the attempt could draw it to full stretch.

The regulation style of archery as taught by the army instructors was to

face the target and draw the nocked arrow to the sternum of the chest, hold

that aim for a deliberate pause, then loose on command. However, not even

Tanus had the strength to draw this bow and hold his aim steadily. He was

forced to develop a completely new style. Standing sideways to the target,

addressing it over his left shoulder, he would throw up the bow with his left

arm outstretched and, with a convulsive heave, draw back the arrow until the

feathered flights touched his lips and the muscles of his arms and chest

stood proud with the effort. In that same instant of full extension,

seemingly without aiming, he would loose.

At first, his arrovlfe flew at random as wild bees leave the hive, but he

practised day after day and month after month.

The fingers of his right hand became raw and bleeding from the chafing of

the bowstring, but they healed and toughened. The inside of his left forearm

was bruised and excoriated where the bowstring slashed past it on the release

of the arrow, but I fashioned a leather guard to protect it. And Tanus stood

at the butts and practised and practised.

Even I lost confidence in his ability to master the weapon but Tanus never

gave up. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he gained control of it to the point

where, finally, he could launch three arrows with such rapidity that they

were all in the air at the same instant. At least two of the three would

strike the target, a copper disc the size of a man’s head set up at a

distance of fifty paces from where Tanus stood. Such was the force of those

arrows that they would fly cleanly through the metal which was the thickness

of my little finger.

Tanus named this mighty weapon Lanata which was, quite coincidentally, the

discarded baby-name of my mistress. Now he stood in the bows with the woman

at his side, and her namesake in his left hand. They made a marvellous

couple, but too obviously so for my peace of mind.

I called sharply, ’Mistress! Come back here immediately! It is unsafe where

you are.’ She did not even deign to glance over her shoulder, but made a sign

at me behind her back. Every one of the crew of the galley saw it, and the

boldest of them guffawed. One of those little black vixens that were her

handmaidens must have taught Lostris that gesture, which was more appropriate

to the ladies of the riverside taverns than to a high-born daughter of the

House of Intef. I considered remonstrating with her, but at once abandoned

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such an imprudent course, for my mistress is amenable to restraint only in

certain of her moods. Instead, I applied myself to beating the bronze gong

with sufficient vigour to disguise my chagrin.

The shrill, reverberating tone carried across the glassy waters of the

lagoon, and instantly the air was filled with the susurration of wings and a

shade was cast over the sun as, from the papyrus beds and the hidden pools

and open water, a vast cloud of water-fowl rose into the sky. They were of a

hundred varieties: black and white ibis with vulturine heads, sacred to the

goddess of the river; flights of honking geese in russet plumage, each with a

ruby droplet in the centre of its chest; herons of greenish-blue or midnight

black, with bills like swords and ponderous wing-beats; and ducks in such

profusion that their numbers challenged the eye and the credibility of the

beholder.

Wild-fowling is one of the most ardent pursuits of the Egyptian nobility,

but that day we were after different game. At that moment, I saw far ahead a

disturbance upon the glassy surface. It was weighty and massive, and my

spirits quailed, for I knew what terrible beast had moved there. Tanus also

had seen it, but his reaction was altogether different from mine. He gave

tongue like a hunting hound, and his men shouted with him and bent to their

paddles. The Breath ofHorus shot forward as though she were one of the birds

that darkened the sky above us, and my mistress shrieked with excitement and

beat with one small fist upon Tanus’ muscled shoulder.

The waters roiled once more and Tanus signalled to his steersman to follow

the movement, while I hammered upon the gong to bolster and sustain my

courage. We reached the spot where last we had seen movement, and the vessel

glided to a standstill while every man upon her decks gazed around eagerly.

I alone glanced directly over the stem. The water beneath our hull was

shallow and almost as clear as the air above us. I shrieked as loudly and as

shrilly as my mistress had and leapt back from the stem-rail, for the monster

was directly under us.

The hippopotamus is the familiar of Hapi, the goddess of the Nile. It was

only with her special dispensation that we could hunt it. To that end Tanus

had prayed and sacrificed at the goddess’s temple that morning, with my

mistress close by his side. Of course, Hapi is her patron goddess, but I

doubted that alone was the reason for her avid participation in the ceremony.

The beast that I saw beneath us now was an enormous old bull. To my eye, he

seemed as large as our galley, a gigantic shape that lumbered along the

bottom of the lagoon, his movements slowed down by the drag of the water so

that he moyed like a creature from a nightmare. He raised puffs of mud from

beneath his hooves the same way that a wild oryx stirs the dust as it races

across the desert sands.

With the steering-oar Tanus spun the boat about and we sped after the bull.

But even at that slow and mannered gallop he rapidly drew away from us. His

dark shape faded into the green depths of the lagoon ahead of us.

’Pull! By Seth’s foul breath, pull!’ Tanus howled at his men, but when one

of his officers shook out the knotted lash of the whip, Tanus frowned and

shook his head. I have never seen him ply the lash where it was not

warranted.

Suddenly the bull broke through the surface ahead of us and blew a great

cloud of fetid steam from his lungs. The stink of it washed over us, even

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though he was well out of bowshot. For a moment his back formed a gleaming

granite island in the lagoon, then he drew a whistling breath and with a

swirl was gone again.

’After him!’ Tanus bellowed.

’There he is,’ I cried, as I pointed over the side, ’he’s doubling back.’

’Well done, old friend,’ Tanus laughed at me, ’we’ll make a warrior of you

yet.’ That notion was ridiculous, for I am a scribe, a sage and an artist. My

heroics are of the mind. None the less, I felt a thrill of pleasure, as I

always do at Tanus’ praise, and my trepidation was, for the moment, lost in

the excitement of the chase.

To the south of us the other galleys of the squadron had joined the hunt.

The priests of Hapi had kept a strict count of the number of these great

beasts in the lagoon, and had given sanction for fifty of them to be

slaughtered for the coming festival of Osiris. This would leave almost three

hundred of the goddess’s flock remaining in the temple lagoon, a number that

the priests considered ideal to keep the waterways free of choking weed, to

prevent the papyrus beds from encroaching upon the arable lands and to

provide a regular supply of meat for the temple. Only the priests themselves

were allowed to eat the flesh of the hippopotamus outside the ten days of the

festival of Osiris.

So the hunt spun out across the waters like some intricate dance, with the

ships of the squadron weaving and pirouetting while the frenzied beasts fled

before them, diving and blowing and grunting as they surfaced to dive again.

Yet each dive was shorter than the last, and the swirling breaches at the

surface became more frequent as their lungs were emptied and could not be

fully recharged before the pursuing ships bore down upon them and forced them

to dive again. All the while the bronze gongs in the stern-tower of each

galley rang out to blend with the excited cries of the rowers and the

exhortations of the helmsmen. All was wild uproar and confusion and I found

myself shouting and cheering along with the most bloodthirsty of them.

Tanus had concentrated all his attention on the first and largest bull. He

ignored the females and younger animals that breached within bowshot, and

followed the great beast through all his convolutions, drawing inexorably

closer to him each time he surfaced. Even in my excitation I could not but

admire the skill with which Tanus handled the Breath of Horus and the manner

in which his crew responded to his signals. But then, he always had the knack

of getting the very best out of those he commanded. How otherwise, with

neither fortune nor great patron to sustain him, could he have risen so

swiftly to exalted rank? What he had achieved he had done on his own merit,

and that despite the malignant influence of hidden enemies who had placed

every obstacle in his way.

Suddenly the bull burst through the surface not thirty paces from the bows.

He came out gleaming in the sunshine, monstrous black and awful, clouds of

steamy vapour spurting from his nostrils like that creature from the

underworld that devours the hearts of those who are found wanting by the

gods.

Tanus had an arrow nocked and now he threw up the great bow and loosed it

in the same fleeting instant. Lanata played her dreadful shimmering music,

and the arrow leaped out in a blur that deceived the eye. While it still

hissed in flight, another followed it and then another. The bowstring hummed

like a lute, and the arrows struck one after the other. The bull bellowed as

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they buried themselves full-length in his broad back, and he dived again.

These were missiles that I had devised especially for this occasion. The

feathered flights had been removed from the arrows and replaced by tiny

floats of baobab wood such as the fisherman use to buoy their nets. They

slipped over the butt of the shaft in such a way that they were secure in

flight but would become dislodged once the beast dived and dragged them

through the water. They were attached to the bronze arrow-head by a fine

linen thread that was wound around the shaft, but which unravelled once the

float was detached. So now, as the bull sped away beneath the water, the

three tiny floats popped to the surface and bobbed along behind him. I had

painted them bright yellow so that the eye was drawn to them and the bull’s

position was instantly revealed, even though he was deep in the lagoon.

Thus Tanus was able to anticipate each of the bull’s wild rushes and to

send the Breath of Horus speeding to head him off and to place another set of

arrows deep in the glistening black back as it bulged out of the water. By

now the bull was towing a garland of pretty yellow corks behind him, and the

waters were streaking and swirling red with his blood. Despite the wild

emotions of the moment I could not help but feel pity for the stricken

creature each time it came bellowing to the surface to be met by another hail

of the deadly hissing arrows. My sympathy was not shared by my young

mistress, who was in the very thick of the fray and shrieking with the

delicious terror and excitement of it all.

Once again the bull came up dead ahead, but this time facing the Breath of

Horus as she bore down upon him. His jaws gaped so wide that I could see far

down his throat. It was a tunnel of bright red flesh that could easily have

engulfed a man entirely. The jaws were lined with such an array of fangs that

my breath stopped and my flesh chilled. In his bottom jaw they were huge

ivory sickles designed to harvest the tough and sinewy stalks of standing

papyrus. In his upper jaw they were gleaming white shafts as thick as my

wrist that could shear through the hull timbers of the Breath of Horus as

easily as I would bite through a cake of cornflour. I had recently had the

opportunity of examining the corpse of a peasant woman who, while cutting

papyrus on the river-bank, had disturbed a cow hippo that had just given

birth to a calf. The woman had been severed in half so neatly that it seemed

she had been struck with the keenest of bronze blades.

Now this enraged monster with his maw filled with these gleaming teeth was

bearing down upon us, and even though I was high in the stem-tower and as far

from him as I could possibly be, yet I found myself as incapable of sound or

movement as a temple statue, frozen with terror.

Tanus loosed yet another arrow which flew squarely down the gaping throat,

yet the creature’s agony was already so terrible that he seemed not to notice

this further injury, although it must eventually prove fatal. He charged

without check or hesitation straight at the bows of the Breath of Horus. Such

a fearsome roar of fury and of mortal anguish issued from the tortured throat

that an artery ruptured deep within it and gouts of blood were sent spraying

from his open jaws. The spewing blood turned to clouds of red mist in the

sunlight, both beautiful and horrible at the same time. Then the bull crashed

headlong into the bows of our galley.

The Breath of Horus was cutting through the water at the speed of a running

gazelle, but the bull was even swifter in his rage and his bulk was so solid

that it seemed as though we had run aground on a rocky shore. The rowers were

sent sprawling from their benches, while I was hurled forwards with such

force against the rail of the stern-tower that the air was driven from my

8

lungs and replaced by a solid rock of pain in my chest.

Yet even in rny own distress my concern was all for my mistress. Through

tears of agony I saw her flung forward by the impact, ’fcnus threw out his

arm to try to save her, but he was also off-balance from the shock, and the

bow in his left hand hindered him. He was only able to check her impetus for

a moment, but then she teetered at the rail with her arms windmilling

desperately, and her back arched out over the drop.

’Tanus!’ she screamed, and reached out one hand to him. He recovered his

balance with the nimbleness of an acrobat and tried to catch her hand. For an

instant their fingers touched, then it seemed that she was plucked away and

dashed over the side.

From my elevated position in the stern I was able to follow her fall. She

flipped over in the air like a cat, and the white skirts streamed upwards to

expose the exquisite length of her thighs. To me it seemed that she fell for

ever, and my own anguished cry blended with her despairing wail.

’My baby!’ I cried. ’My little one!’ For I was certain that she was lost.

It seemed that all ’her life, as I had known it, replayed itself before my

eyes. I saw her again as a toddling infant and heard the baby endearments

that she bestowed on me, her adoring nursemaid. I saw her grow to womanhood,

and I remembered every joy and every heartache that she had caused me. I

loved her then in the moment of losing her even more than I had done in all

those fourteen long years.

She fell upon the vast, blood-splattered back of the infuriated bull, and

for an instant lay spread-eagled there like a human sacrifice upon the altar

of some obscene religion. The bull whirled about, mounting high out of the

water, and he twisted his huge deformed head backwards, trying to reach her.

His bloodshot piggy eyes glared with the insanity of his rage, and his great

jaws clashed as he snapped at her.

Somehow Lostris managed to gather herself and cling to a pair of the

arrow-shafts that protruded from the bull’s broad back as though they were

handles. She lay with her arms and legs spread wide. She was not screaming

now, all her art and strength employed in staying alive. Those curved ivory

fangs rang upon each other like the blades of duelling warriors as they

gnashed in air. At each bite they seemed to miss her by only a

finger’s-breadth, and any instant I expected one of her lovely limbs to be

pruned away like a delicate shoot from the vine, and to see her sweet young

blood mingle with those brutish effusions that streamed from the bull’s

wounds.

In the prow Tanus recovered swiftly. For an instant I saw his face and it

was terrible. He tossed aside the bow, for it was useless to him now, and he

seized instead the hilt of his sword and jerked the blade free of its

crocodile-skin scabbard. It was a gleaming length of bronze as long as his

arm, and the edges were honed until they could shave the hair from the back

of his hand.

He leaped up on to the gunwale and balanced there for an instant, watching

the wild gyrations of the mortally wounded bull in the water below him. Then

he launched himself outwards and dropped like a stooping falcon with the

sword held in both hands and pointing downwards.

He dropped across the bull’s thick neck, landing astride it as though he

were about to ride it into the underworld.

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The full weight of his body and the impetus of that wild leap were behind

the sword as he struck. Half the length of the blade was driven into the

hippopotamus’s neck at the base of the skull, and, seated upon it like a

rider, Tanus worried and worked the keen bronze deeper, using both arms and

the strength of those broad shoulders. At the goad of the blade the bull went

berserk. His strivings up to that point seemed feeble in comparison to this

fresh outburst. The bull reared most of his enormous bulk out of the lagoon,

swinging his head from side to side, throwing solid sheets of water so high

in the air that they crashed down on the deck of the galley and, like a

curtain, almost obscured the scene from my horrified gaze.

Through it all I watched the couple on the monster’s back tossed about

mercilessly. The shaft of one of the arrows that Lostris was holding snapped,

and she was almost thrown clear. If this had happened she would surely have

been savaged by the bull and chopped into bloody tatters by those ivory

fangs. Tanus reached backwards and with one arm seized and steadied her,

while with his right hand he never ceased working the broifce blade deeper

into the nape of the bull’s neck.

Unable to reach them, the hippopotamus slashed at his own flanks,

inflicting terrible gaping wounds in his sides so that for fifty paces around

the galley the waters were incarnadined, and both Lostris and Tanus were

painted entirely crimson from the tops of their heads to the soles of their

feet by the spurting blood. Then- faces were turned to grotesque masks from

which their eyes whitely glared.

The violent death-throes of the bull had carried them far from the galley’s

side, and I was the first aboard to recover my wits. I yelled to the rowers,

’Follow them! Don’t let them get away,’ and they sprang to their stations and

sent the Breath of Horus in pursuit.

At that instant it seemed that the point of Tanus’ blade must have found

the joint of the vertebrae in the breast’s neck and slipped through. The

immense carcass stiffened and froze. The bull rolled on to his back with all

four legs extended rigidly, and he plunged below the waters of the lagoon,

bearing Lostris and Tanus with him into the depths.

I choked back the wail of despair that rose in my throat, and bellowed an

order to the deck below. ’Back-water! Do not overrun them! Swimmers to the

bows!’ Even I was startled by the power and authority of my own voice.

The galley’s forward way was checked, and before I could reflect on the

prudence of what I was doing, I found myself heading a rush of hulking

warriors across the deck. They would probably have cheered while they watched

any other officer drown, but not their Tanus.

As for myself, I had already stripped off my skirt and was naked. Not the

threat of a hundred lashes would have made me do this in any other

circumstances, for I have let only one other person ever see those injuries

that the state executioner inflicted upon me so long ago, and he was the one

who had ordered the castrating knife used upon me in the first place. But

now, for once, I was totally oblivious of the gross mutilation of my manhood.

I am a strong swimmer, and although in retrospect such foolhardiness makes

me shudder, I truly believe that I might have dived over the side and swum

down through those blood-dyed waters in an attempt to rescue my mistress.

However, as I poised myself at the ship’s rail, the waters directly below me

opened and two heads bobbed out, both of them streaming water and as close as

a pair of mating otters. One was dark and the other fair, but from both of

10

them issued the most unlikely sound I had ever heard. They were laughing.

They were howling and shrieking and spluttering with laughter as they

floundered towards the ship’s side, locked so firmly in each other’s arms

that I was certain that they were in real danger of drowning one another.

All my concern turned instantly to outrage at this levity, and at the

thought of the dreadful folly which I had been on the point of committing.

Like a mother whose first instinct on finding her lost child is to thrash it,

I heard my own voice lose all its previous deep authority and turn shrill and

querulous. I was still berating my mistress with all my famous eloquence as

she and Tanus were dragged by a dozen willing hands from the water on to the

deck.

’You reckless, unbridled little savage!’ I railed at her. ’You thoughtless,

selfish, undisciplined little hoyden! You promised me! You swore an oath on

the maidenhead of the goddess?’

She ran to me and threw both arms around my neck. ’Oh, Taita!’ she cried,

still bubbling with laughter. ’Did you see him? Did you see Tanus spring to

my rescue? Was it not the noblest deed that ever you heard of? Just like the

hero of one of your very best stories.’

The fact that I had been on the point of making a similar heroic gesture

was quite ignored, and this only increased my irritation. Added to which I

suddenly realized that Lostris had lost her skirt, and that the cold, wet

body she pressed to mine was entirely naked. She was displaying to the rude

gaze of officers and men the neatest, tightest pair of buttocks in all Egypt.

I snatched up the nearest shield and used it to cover both our bodies while

I shouted at her slave girls to find another skirt for her. Their giggles

only increased my fury, and as soon as both Lostris and I were once again

decently covered, I rounded on Tanus.

’As for you, you careless ruffian, I shall report you to my Lord Intef! He

will have the skin flogged from your back.’

’You will do no sucff thing,’ Tanus laughed at me, and threw one wet

muscled arm around my shoulders to hug me so soundly that I was lifted off my

feet, ’for he would have you flogged just as merrily. Nevertheless, thank you

for your concern, old friend.’

He looked around quickly, with one arm still encircling my shoulder, and

frowned. The Breath of Horus was separated from the other ships of the

squadron, but by now the hunt was over. Every galley but ours had taken its

full share of the bag that the priests had sanctioned us.

Tanus shook his head. ’We did not make the most of our chances, did we?’ he

grunted, and ordered one of his officers to hoist the recall signal to the

squadron.

Then he forced a smile. ’Let us broach a jug of beer together, for now we

have a while to wait and this has been thirsty work.’ He went to the bows

where the slave girls were fussing over Lostris. At first I was still so

angry that I would not join their impromptu picnic on the deck. Instead I

maintained an aloof dignity in the stern.

’Oh, let him sulk a while,’ I heard Lostris’ stage-whisper to Tanus as she

recharged his cup with foaming beer. "The old darling gave himself an awful

scare, but he will get over it as soon as he is hungry. He does so love his

11

food.’

She is the epitome of injustice, is my mistress. I never sulk, I am no

glutton, and at that time I was barely thirty years of age, although to a

fourteen-year-old anyone above twenty is an ancient, and I admit that, when

it comes to food, I do have the refined tastes of a connoisseur. The roast

wild goose with figs that she was ostentatiously displaying was one of my

favourite dishes, as she very well knew.

I made them suffer for a while longer, and it was only when Tanus brought

me a jug of beer with his own hand and cajoled me with all his charm that I

deigned to relent a little and let him lead me to the prow. Still, I was a

little stiff with them until Lostris kissed my cheek and said, loud enough

for all to hear, ’My girls tell me that you took command of the ship like a

veteran, and that you would have dived overboard to rescue me. Oh, Taita,

what would I ever do without you?’ Only then would I smile at her and accept

the slice of goose she pressed upon me. It was delicious, and the beer was of

three-palm quality. Even so, I ate sparingly, for I have my figure to

consider and her earlier jibe about my appetite still rankled a little.

Tanus’ squadron was scattered widely across the lagoon, but now it began to

regroup. I saw that some of the other galleys had suffered damage, as we had.

Two ships had collided in the heat of the chase, while four others had been

attacked by the quarry. However, they reassembled swiftly and took up their

battle stations. Then, in line astern and with strings of gay pennants

fluttering at the mastheads to proclaim the size of each galley’s bag, they

dashed past us. The crews raised a cheer as they came level with the Breath

of Horus. Tanus saluted them with a clenched fist and the Blue Crocodile

standard was dipped at the masthead, for all the world as though we had just

achieved a famous victory against daunting odds. Boyish display, perhaps, but

then I am still enough of a boy to enjoy military ceremonial.

As soon as it was over, the squadron resumed its battle stations and was

holding its position against the light breeze that had sprung up, with

skilful use of paddles and steering-oars. Of course, there was no sign of the

slaughtered hippopotami as yet. Although every galley had killed at least

one, while some had killed two and even three, the carcasses had all sunk

away into the green depths of the lagoon. I knew that Tanus was secretly

lamenting the fact that the Breath ofHorus had not been the most successful

boat, and that our protracted encounter with the bull had limited our score

to only that single animal. He was accustomed to excelling. Anyway, he was

not his usual ebullient self and he soon left us on the prow and went to

supervise the repairs to the hull of the Breath ofHorus.

The bull’s charge had sprung the underwater planking and we were taking

enough water to necessitate constant bailing of the bilges with leather

buckets. This was a most inefficient procedure which diverted men from their

duties as rowers and warriors. Surely it could be improved upon, I thought to

myself.

So while we waited for the carcasses of the dead beasts to rise, I sent one

of theslave girls to fetch the basket that contained my writing instruments.

Then, after a little further thought, I began to sketch out an idea for

mechanically removing the water from the bilges of a fighting galley in

action, a method which did not demand the efforts of half the crew. It was

based pn the same principle as the shadoof water buckets. I thought that two

men might operate it instead of a dozen at the buckets, as was now the case.

12

When I had completed the sketch, I pondered on the collision that had

caused the original damage. Historically, the tactics used in battles between

squadrons of river galleys had always been the same as those of land

engagements. The ships would lie alongside each other and exchange volleys of

arrows. They would then close and grapple and board, and finish the business

with the sword. The galley captains were always careful to avoid collision,

as this was considered sloppy seamanship.

’But what if?’ I thought suddenly, and I began a sketch of a galley with a

reinforced bow. As the idea took firm root I added a horn like that of the

rhinoceros at the water line. It could be carved from hardwood and clad with

bronze. Angled forwards and slightly downwards, it could be driven through

the hull of an opposing vessel to rip out her belly. I was so engrossed that

I did not hear Tanus come up behind me. He snatched the papyrus scroll from

me and studied it avidly.

Of course, he understood instantly what I was about. When his father had

lost his fortune, I had tried everything in my power to find a rich patron to

sponsor him to enter one of the temples as a novice scribe, there to continue

his studies and his learning. For I truly believed that, with my tutelage, he

had every prospect of developing into one of the great minds of Egypt,

perhaps in time a name to rank with that of Imhotep who, one thousand years

before, had designed those first marvellous pyramids at Saqqarah.

I had been unsuccessful, naturally enough, for the same enemy whose spite

and guile had destroyed Tanus’ father had set out to bar the way to Tanus

himself. No man in the land could prevail against such a baleful influence.

So instead I had helped Tanus to enter the army. Despite my disappointment

and misgivings, this had been his own choice of career ever since he had

first stood upright and wielded a wooden sword on the other infants in the

playground.

’By the carbuncles on Seth’s buttocks!’ he exclaimed now, as he studied my

drawings. ’You and that designing brush of yours are worth ten full squadrons

to me!’

Tanus’ casual blasphemy on the name of the great god Seth always alarms me.

For although both he and I are Horus men, still I do not believe in

flagrantly offering offence to any member of the pantheon of Egyptian gods. I

personally never pass a shrine without offering a prayer or making a small

sacrifice, no matter how humble or unimportant the god it houses. It is, to

my mind, simple common sense and good insurance. One has sufficient enemies

amongst men without deliberately seeking out others amongst the gods. I am

particularly obsequious to Seth, for his formidable reputation terrifies me.

I suspect that Tanus knows all this and deliberately does it to tease me.

However, my discomfort was soon forgotten in the warm glow of his praise.

’How do you do it?’ he demanded. ’I am the soldier, and today I saw

everything that you did. Why did not the same ideas occur to me?’

We were instantly immersed in a lively discussion of my designs. Of course,

Lostris could not be excluded for long, and she came to join us. Her

handmaidens had dried and rebraided her hair and retouched her make-up. Her

loveliness was a distraction, especially since she stood beside me and

nonchalantly draped one slim arm over my shoulder. She would never have

touched a man like that in public, for it would have offended against custom

and modesty. But then I am not a man, and though she leaned against me, her

eyes never left Tanus’ face.

13

Her preoccupation with him went back to when she had first learned to walk.

She had stumbled along adoringly behind the lordly ten-year-old Tanus,

faithfully trying to copy his every gesture and word. When he spat, she spat.

When he swore, she lisped the same oath, until Tanus had complained bitterly

to me, ’Can you not make her leave me alone, Taita? She’s just a baby!’ He

was not doing much complaining now, I noticed.

At last we were interrupted by a hail from the lookout in the bows, and we

all hurried forward and peered eagerly across the lagoon. The first

hippopotamus carcass was rising to the surface. It came up belly first as the

gases in its intestines expanded and the guts distended like a child’s

balloon made from a goat’s bladder. It bobbed on the surface with all its

legs extended stiffly. One of the galleys sped across to recover it. A saitor

scrambled out on to the carcass and secured a line to one of the legs. As

soon as this was done, the galley towed it away towards the distant shore. .

By now the huge corpses were surfacing all around us. The galleys gathered

them up and dragged them away. Tanus secured two of them to our stern-hawser

and the rowers strained at their paddles to move them through the water.

As we approached the shore I shaded my eyes against the slanting sun’s rays

and peered ahead. It seemed that every man, woman and child in Upper Egypt

was waiting upon the bank. They were a vast multitude, dancing and singing

and waving palm-fronds to welcome the incoming fleet. The restless movement

of their white robes seemed like a storm surf breaking upon the edge of the

placid lagoon.

As each galley drew up against the bank, teams of men clad only in the

briefest loin-cloths waded out as deep as their armpits to fasten ropes to

the bloated carcasses, hi their excitement they were oblivious to the

ever-present threat of crocodiles lurking in the opaque green waters. Every

season these ferocious dragons devour hundreds of our people.

Sometimes they are so bold that they rush out on to dry land to seize a

child playing near the water’s edge or a peasant woman washing clothes or

drawing water for her family.

Now, in the vast meat-hunger that gripped them, the people were interested

in only one thing. They seized the ropes and hauled the carcasses ashore. As

they slithered up the muddy bank, scores of tiny silver fish that had been

feasting on the open wounds were slow to relinquish their hold and were drawn

out with the carcasses. Stranded upon the mud-banks, they flopped and

quivered like stars that had fallen to earth.

Men and women, all wielding knives or axes, swarmed like ants over the

bodies. In a delirium of greed they howled and snarled at each other like

vultures and hyenas on a lion’s kill, disputing each titbit as they hacked at

the gigantic carcasses. Blood and bone chips flew in sheets as the blades

hacked and hewed. There would be long lines of wounded at the temple that

evening, awaiting treatment from the priests for their missing fingers and

gashes down to the bone where the careless blades had slipped.

I too would be busy half the night, for in some quarters I have a

reputation as a medical doctor that surpasses even that of the priests of

Osiris. In all modesty I must admit that this reputation is not entirely

unwarranted, and Horus knows my fees are much more reasonable than those of

the holy men. My Lord Intef allows me to keep for myself a third part of all

that I earn. Thus I am a man of some substance, despite my slave status.

14

From the stern-tower of the Breath of Horus I watched the pantomime of

human frailty that was being played out below me. Traditionally the populace

is allowed to eat its fill of the meats of the hunt upon the foreshore, just

as long as none of the spoils are carried away. Living as we do in a verdant

land which is fertilized and watered by the great river, our people are well

fed. However, the staple diet of the poorer classes is grain, and months may

pass between their last mouthful of meat and the next. Added to which, the

festival was a time when all the normal restraints of everyday life were

thrust aside. There was licence to excess in all things of the body, in food

and drink and carnal passion. There would be sore bellies and aching heads

and matrimonial recriminations on the morrow, but this was the first day of

the festival and there was no check on any appetite.

I smiled as I watched a mother, naked to the waist and plastered from head

to toe with blood and fat, emerge from the belly cavity of a hippopotamus,

clutching a running lump of liver which she threw to one of her brood in the

jostling, shrieking pack of children that surrounded the carcass. The woman

ducked back into the interior of the beast, while, clutching his prize, the

child darted away to one of the hundreds of cooking-fires that burned along

the shore. There an elder brother snatched the hunk of liver from him and

threw it on the coals, while a pack of younger urchins crowded forward

impatiently, slavering like puppies.

The eldest child hooked the barely scorched liver off the fire with a green

twig, and his brothers and sisters fell upon it and devoured it. Immediately

it was consumed they bayed for more, with fat and juice running down their

faces and dripping from their chins. Many of the younger ones had probably

never tasted the delicious flesh of the river-cow before. It is sweet and

tender and fine-grained, but most of all it is fat, fatter than beef or

striped wild ass, and the marrow-bones are truly a delicacy fit for the great

god Osiris himself. Our people are starved of animal fat and the taste of it

drove them wild. They gorged themselves, as was their right on this day.

I was content to keep aloof from this riotous mob, happy in the knowledge

that my Lord Intef s bailiffs would secure the finest cuts and marrow-bones

for the palace kitchens where the cooks would prepare my personal platter to

perfection. My precedence in the vizier’s household exceeds all other, even

that of his major-domo or the commander of his bodyguard, both of whom are

free-born. Of course, it is never openly spoken of, but all tacitly

acknowledge my privileged and superior position and few would dare challenge

it.

I watched the bailiffs at work now, claiming the share of my lord, the

governor and grand vizier of all the twenty-two nomes of Upper Egypt. They

swung their long staves with the expertise bom of long practice, whacking any

bare back or set of naked buttocks that presented themselves as targets, and

shouting their demands.

The ivory teeth of the animals belonged to the vizier, and the bailiffs

collected every one of them. They were as valuable as the elephant tusks that

are brought down in trade from the land of Cush, beyond the cataracts. The

last elephant had been killed in our Egypt almost one thousand years ago, in

the reign of one of the pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty, or so the

hieroglyphics on the stele in his temple boast. Naturally, from the fruits of

the hunt my lord was expected to tithe the priests of Hapi who were the

titular shepherds of the goddess’s flock of river-cows. However, the amount

of the tithe was in my lord’s discretion, and I who was in overall charge of

the palace accounts knew where the lion’s share of the treasure would end up.

My Lord Intef does not indulge in unnecessary generosity, even towards a

15

goddess.

As for the hides of the hippopotamus, these belonged to the army and would

be turned into war shields for the officers of the guards regiments. The army

quartermasters were supervising the skinning-out and the handling of the

hides, each of which was almost the size of a Bedouin tent.

The meat that could, not be consumed on the bank would be pickled in brine,

or smoked or dried. Ostensibly it would be used to feed the army, the members

of the law courts, the temples and other civil servants of the state.

However, in practice a large part of it would be discreetly sold, and the

proceeds would filter down quite naturally into my lord’s coffers. As I have

said before, my lord was the wealthiest man in the Upper Kingdom after

Pharaoh himself, and growing richer every year.

A fresh commotion broke out behind me, and I turned quickly. Tanus’

squadron was still in action. The galleys were drawn up in line of battle,

stem to stern, parallel to the shore-line, but fifty paces off it on the edge

of the deeper water. On each ship harpooneers stood at the rails with their

weapons poised and pointed down at the surface of the lagoon.

The taint of blood and offal in the water had attracted the crocodiles. Not

only from all over the lagoon, but from as far off as the main course of the

Nile, they had come swarming to the feast. The harpooneers were waiting for

them. Each long harpoon pole was tipped with a relatively small bronze head,

viciously barbed. Spliced to an eye in the metal head was a tough flax rope.

The skill of the harpooneers was truly impressive. As one of these scaly

saurians came slipping through the green water, with its great crested tail

flailing, moving like a long dark shadow, silent and deadly beneath the

surface, they would be waiting for it. They would allow the crocodile to pass

beneath the galley, and then, as it emerged on the far side with the

harpooneer’s movements screened from it by the ship’s hull, he would lean out

over it and stab downwards.

It was not a violent blow, but an almost delicate dab with the long pole.

The bronze head was as sharp as a surgeon’s needle, and its full length was

buried deep beneath the reptile’s thick, scaly hide. The harpooneer aimed for

the back of the neck, and so skilful were these thrusts that many of them

pierced the spinal cord and killed the creature instantly.

However, when a blow missed its mark, the water exploded as the wounded

crocodile burst into wild convulsions. With a twist of the harpoon pole the

metal head was detached and remained buried in the reptile’s armoured neck.

Then four men took the creature on the flax line to control its contortions.

If the crocodile was a large one? and some of them were four times the length

of a man stretched out on the ground?then the coils of line were whipped away

smoking over the gunwale, scorching the palms of the men who were trying to

hold it.

When this happened, even the hungry crowds on the beach paused for a while

to cheer and shout encouragement, and to watch the struggle as the crocodile

was eventually subdued or the rope parted like a whiplash and the sailors

were sent tumbling backwards across the deck. More often, the stout flax line

held. As soon as the crew were able to turn the reptile’s head towards them,

it could no longer swim out into the deep water. They could then drag it in a

turmoil of froth and white water to the ship’s side where another gang was

waiting with clubs to crush the rock-hard skull.

16

When the carcasses of the crocodiles were dragged to the bank, I went

ashore to examine them. The skinners of Tanus’ regiment were already at work.

It was the grandfather of our present king who had granted the regiment the

honorific ’the Blue Crocodile Guards’ and bestowed upon them the standard of

the Blue Crocodile. Their battle armour is made from the horny skins of these

dragons. Properly treated and cured, it becomes hard enough to stop an arrow

or turn the edge of an enemy sword-cut. It is far lighter in weight than

metal, and much cooler to wear in the desert sun. Tanus, in his

crocodile-skin helmet all decorated with ostrich plumes, and his breastplate

of the same hide, polished and starred with bronze rosettes, is a sight to

strike terror into the heart of an enemy, or turmoil into the belly of any

maiden who looks upon him.

As I measured and noted the length and girth of each carcass, and watched

the skinners at work, I felt not even the most fleeting sympathy for these

hideous monsters as I had for the slaughtered river-cows. To my mind there is

no more loathsome beast in nature than the crocodile, with the possible

exception of the venomous asp.

My revulsion was increased a hundredfold when a skinner slit open the belly

of one of the largest of these grotesque animals, and out on to the mud

slithered the partly digested remains of a young girl. The crocodile had

swallowed the entire top half of her body, from the waist upwards. Although

the flesh was bleached soft and pasty-white by the digestive juices and was

sloughing from the skull, the girl’s top-knot was still intact and neatly

plaited and coiled above the ghastly, ruined face. As a further macabre

touch, there was a necklace around her throat and pretty bracelets of red and

blue ceramic beads on the skeletal wrists.

No sooner was this gruesome relic revealed than there came a shriek so high

and heart-rending that it cut through the hubbub of the throng, and a woman

elbowed aside the soldiers and ran forward to drop on her knees beside the

pitiful remains. She tore her clothing and keened the dreadful ululation of

mourning.

’My daughter! My little girl!’ She was the same woman who had come to the

palace the previous day to report her daughter missing. The officials had

told her that the child had probably been abducted and sold into slavery by

one of the gangs of bandits who were terrorizing the countryside. These gangs

had become a force in the land, blatantly conducting their lawless

depredations in broad daylight right up to die gates of the cities. The

palace officials had warned the woman that there was nothing they could do

about recovering her daughter, for the gangs were beyond any control that the

state could exert upon them.

For once mis dire prediction had proved unfounded. The mother had

recognized the ornaments which still decorated the pathetic little corpse. My

heart went out to the stricken woman, as I sent a slave to fetch an empty

wine jar. Although the woman and her child were both strangers to me, I could

not prevent my own tears from welling up as I helped her to gather the

remains and place them in the jar for decent burial.

As she staggered away into the uncaring multitude of revellers, carrying

the jar clutched to her breast, I reflected mat despite all the rites and

prayers mat the mother would lavish upon her daughter, and even in the

unlikely event that she could afford the staggering cost of the most

rudimentary mummification, the child’s shade could never find immortality in

the life beyond the grave. For that to happen, the corpse must be intact and

17

whole before embalming. My feelings were all for the unfortunate mother. It

is a weakness of mine that I so often lament, that I take upon myself the

cares and sorrows of every unfortunate that crosses my path. It would be

easier to have a harder heart, and a more cynical turn of mind.

As always when I am saddened or distressed, I reached for my brush and

scroll and began to record all that was taking place around me, everything

from the harpooneers, the bereaved mother, the skinning and the butchery of

the dead river-cows and crocodiles on the beach, to the unfettered behaviour

of the feasting, revelling populace.

Already those who were stuffed with meat and gorged with beer were snoring

where they had fallen, oblivious of being kicked and trampled by the others

still capable of remaining upright. The younger and more shameless were

dancing and embracing and using the gathering darkness and the inadequate

cover of the scanty bushes and the trampled papyrus beds to screen their

blatant copulations. This wanton behaviour was merely a symptom of the

malaise that afflicted the entire land. It would not have been thus if only

there had been a strong pharaoh, and a moral and upright administration in

the nome of Greater Thebes. The common people take their example from those

above them.

Although I disapproved most strongly of it all, still I recorded it

faithfully. Thus an hour sped away while I sat cross-legged and totally

absorbed upon the poop-deck of the Breath ofHorus, scribbling and sketching.

The sun sank and seemed to quench itself in the great river, leaving a

coppery sheen on the water and a smoky glow in the western sky as though it

had set fire to the papyrus beds.

The crowds on the beach were becoming ever more raucous and unrestrained.

The harlots were doing a brisk trade. I watched a plump and matronly

love-priestess, wearing the distinctive blue amulet of her calling upon her

forehead, lead a skinny sailor who was half her size from one of the galleys

into the shadows beyond the firelight. There she dropped her skirts and fell

to her knees in the dust, presenting him with a quivering parr of monumental

buttocks. With a happy cry the little fellow was upon her like a dog on a

bitch, and within seconds she was yapping as loudly as he was. I began to

sketch their antics, but the light faded swiftly, and I was forced to quit

for the day.

As I set my scroll aside, I realized with a start that I had not seen my

mistress since before the incident with the dead child. I leaped to my feet

hi a panic. How could I have been so remiss? My mistress had been strictly

raised, I had seen to that. She was a good and moral child, fully aware of

the duties and obligations which law and custom placed upon her. She was

aware also of the honour of the high family to which she belonged, and of her

place in society. What was more, she stood in as much awe as I did of her

father’s authority and temper. Of course I trusted her.

I trusted her as much as I would have trusted any other strong-willed young

creature in the first flush of passionate womanhood on a night such as this,

alone somewhere in the darkness with the handsome and equally passionate

young soldier with whom she was totally infatuated.

My panic was not so much for the fragile maidenhead of my mistress, that

ethereal talisman which once lost is seldom mourned, as for the much more

substantial risk of damage to my own skin. On the morrow we would return to

Karnak and the palace of my Lord Intef, where there would be wagging tongues

aplenty to carry the tale of any lapse or indiscretion on any of our parts to

18

him.

My lord’s spies permeated every layer of society and every corner of our

land, from the docks and the fields to the palace of Pharaoh itself. They

were even more numerous than my own, for he had more money to pay his agents,

although many of them served both of us impartially and our networks

interlocked at many levels. If Lostris had disgraced us all, father, family,

and me her tutor and guardian, then my Lord Intef would know of it by

morning, and so would I.

I ran from one end of the ship to the other, searching for her. I climbed

into the stern-tower and scanned the beach in desperation. I could see

nothing of her or of Tanus, and my worst fears were encouraged.

Where to search for them in this mad night I could not begin to think. I

caught myself wringing my hands in an agony of frustration, and stopped

myself immediately. I am always at pains to avoid any appearance of

effeminacy. I do so abhor those obese, mincing, posturing creatures who have

suffered the same mutilation as I have. I always try to conduct myself like a

man rather than a eunuch.

I controlled myself with an effort and assumed the same coldly determined

mien that I had seen on Tanus’ features in the heat of battle, whereupon my

wits were restored to me and I became rational once again. I considered how

my mistress was likely to behave. Of course, I knew her intimately. After

all, I had studied her for fourteen years. I realized that she was much too

fastidious and conscious of her noble rank brazenly to mingle with the

drunken, uncouth throng upon the beach, or to creep away into the bushes to

play the beast with two backs, as I had watched the sailor and the fat old

harlot do. I knew that I could call upon no one else to assist me in my

search, for that would have guaranteed that my Lord Intef would hear all

about it. I had to do it all myself.

To what secret place had Lostris allowed herself to be carried away? Like

most young girls of her age she was enchanted with the idea of romantic love.

I doubted that she had ever seriously considered the more earthy aspects of

the physical act, despite the best efforts of those two little black sluts of

hers to enlighten her. She had not even displayed any great deal of interest

in the mechanics of the business when I had attempted, as was my duty, to

warn her, at least sufficiently to protect her from herself.

I realized then that I must look for her in some place that would live up

to her sentimental expectations of love. If there had been a cabin on the

Breath ofHorus I would have hurried to it, but our river galleys are small,

utilitarian righting ships, stripped down for speed and manoeuvrability. The

crew sleep on the bare deck, while even the captain and his officers have

only a reed awning for a night shelter. This was not rigged at the moment,

and so there was no place aboard where they could be hiding.

Karnak and the palace were half a day’s travel away. The slaves were only

now erecting our tents on one of the small inshore islands that had been set

aside to give our party privacy from the common herd of humanity. It was

remiss of the slaves to be so tardy, but they had been caught up in the

festivities. In the torchlight I could see that a few of them were more than

a little unsteady on their feet as they struggled with the guy-ropes. They

had not yet erected Lostris’ personal tent, so the luxurious comforts of

carpets and embroidered hangings and down-filled mattresses and linen sheets

were not available to the lovers. So where then might they be?

19

At that moment a soft yellow glow of torchlight farther out on the lagoon

caught my attention. Immediately my intuition was aroused. I realized that,

given my mistress’s connections with the goddess Hapi, her temple on its

picturesque little granite island in the middle of the lagoon would be

exactly the place that would draw Lostris irresistibly. I searched the beach

for some means of reaching the island. Although there were shoals of small

craft drawn up on the shore, the ferrymen were mostly falling-down drunk.

Then I spotted Kratas on the beach. The ostrich feathers on his helmet

stood high above the heads of the crowd, and his proud bearing marked him

out.

’Kratas!’ I yelled at him, and he looked across at me and waved. Kratas was

Tanus’ chief lieutenant and, apart from myself, the firmest of his multitude

of friends. I could trust Kratas as I dared trust no other.

’Get me a boat!’ I screamed at him. ’Any boat!’ I was so distraught and my

tone so shrill that it carried clearly to him. It was typical of the man that

he wasted not a moment in question or indecision. He strode to the nearest

felucca on the shore. The ferryman was lying like a log in his own bilges.

Kratas took him by the scruff of the neck and lifted him out bodily. He

dropped him on the beach, and the ferryman never moved, but lay in a stupor

of cheap wine, twisted in the attitude that Kratas had dumped him in. Kratas

launched the craft himself and, with a few thrusts of the punt pole, laid

alongside the Breath of Horus. In my haste I tumbled from the tower and

landed in a heap in the bows of the tiny craft.

’To the temple, Kratas,’ I pleaded with him as I scrambled up, ’and may the

sweet goddess Hapi grant we are not already too late!’

With the evening breeze in the lateen sail we were whisked across the dark

waters to the stone jetty below the temple. Kratas secured the painter to one

of the mooring-rings, and made as if to follow me ashore, but I stopped him.

’For Tanus’ sake, not mine,’ I told him, ’do not follow me, please.’

He hesitated a moment, then nodded. ’I will be listening for your call.’ He

drew his sword and offered it to me, hilt first. ’Will you need this?’

I shook my head. ’It is not that kind of danger. Besides, I have my dagger.

But thank you for your trust.’ I left him in the boat and hurried up the

granite steps to the entrance of the temple of Hapi.

The rush torches in their brackets on the tall entrance pillars threw a

ruddy, wavering light that seemed to bring to life the bas-relief carvings on

the walls and make them dance. The goddess Hapi is one of my favourites.

Strictly speaking, she is neither god nor goddess, but a strange, bearded,

hermaphroditic creature possessed of both a massive penis and an equally

cavernous vagina, and bounteous breasts that give milk to all. She is the

deification of the Nile, and the goddess of the harvest. The two kingdoms of

Egypt and all the peoples in them depend utterly upon her and the periodic

flooding of the great river which is her alter ego. She is able to change her

gender or, like many of the other gods of this very Egypt, take on the shape

of any animal at will. Her favourite guise is that of the hippopotamus.

Despite the god’s ambiguous sexuality, my mistress Lostris always considered

her to be female, and so do I. The priests of Hapi may differ from us on this

view.

20

Her images upon the stone walls were vast and motherly. Painted in hectic

primary colours of red and yellow and blue, she beamed down with the head of

a kindly river-cow, and seemed to invite all of nature to be fruitful and to

multiply. The implied invitation was most inappropriate to my present

anxiety. It was my fear that my precious charge might even at this moment be

availing herself of the goddess’s indulgence.

A priestess was kneeling at the side-altar, and I ran to her, seized her by

the hem of her cape and tugged at it urgently. ’Holy sister, tell me, have

you seen the Lady Lostris, daughter of the grand vizier?’ There were very few

citizens of Upper Egypt who did not know my mistress by sight. They all loved

her for her beauty, her gay spirit and her sweet disposition, and they

clustered around her and cheered her in the streets and market-places when

she walked abroad.

The priestess grinned at me, all wrinkled and toothless, and she laid one

bony finger on the side of her nose with such a sly and knowing expression

that all my worst fears were confirmed.

I shook her again, but less gently. ’Where is she, revered old mother? I

beseech you, speak!’ But instead she wagged her head and rolled her eyes

towards the portals of the inner sanctum.

I sped across the granite flags, my heart outrunning my frantic feet, but

even in my distress I wondered at the boldness of my mistress. Although as a

member of the high nobility she had right of access to the holy of holies,

was there another in all of Egypt who would have the nerve to choose such a

place for her love tryst?

At the entrance to the sanctum I paused. My instinct had been right. There

they were, the two of them, just as I had dreaded. 1 was so obsessed by my

own certainty of what was taking place that I almost yelled aloud to them to

stop it. Then I checked myself.

My mistress was fully clad, more so than was usual, for her breasts were

covered and she had spread a blue woollen shawl over her head. She was

kneeling before the gigantic statue of Hapi. The goddess beamed down upon

her, bedecked in wreaths of blue water-lilies.

Tanus knelt beside her. He had laid aside his weapons and his armour. They

were piled at the door of the sanctuary. He was dressed only in a linen shift

and short tunic, with sandals on his feet. The young couple were holding

hands, and their faces were almost touching as they whispered solemnly

together.

My base suspicions were refuted, and I was struck with remorse and shame.

How could I ever have doubted my mistress? Quietly I began to withdraw,

although I would go only as far as the side-altar, where I would give thanks

to the goddess for her protection, and from where I could keep a discreet eye

on further proceedings.

However, at that moment Lostris rose to her feet and diffidently approached

the statue of the goddess. I was so enthralled by her girlish grace mat I

lingered a moment longer to watch her.

From around her neck she unclasped the lapis lazuli figurine of the goddess

which I had made for her. I realized with a pang that she was about to offer

it as a sacrifice. That jewel had been crafted with all my love for her, and

I hated to see it leave her throat. Lostris stood on tiptoe to hang it on the

21

idol’s neck. Then she knelt and kissed the stone foot while Tanus watched,

still kneeling where she had left him.

She rose and turned to go back to him, but then she saw me in the doorway.

I tried to melt away into the shadows, for I was embarrassed at having spied

upon so intimate a moment. However, her face lit with joy and before I could

escape, she ran to me and seized my hands.

’Oh, Taita, I am so glad that you are here?you of all people! It is so

fitting. It makes it all so perfect.’ She led me forward into the sanctum and

Tanus rose to his feet and came smiling to take my other hand.

’Thank you for coming. I know we can always count upon you.’ I wished that

my motives had been as pure as they believed them to be, so I hid my guilty

heart from them with a loving smile.

’Kneel here!’ Lostris ordered me. ’Here, where you can hear every word we

say to each other. You will bear witness for us before Hapi and all the gods

of Egypt.’ She pressed me to my knees, and then she and Tanus resumed their

places in front of the goddess and took each other’s hands, looking full into

each other’s eyes.

Lostris spoke first. ’You are my sun,’ she whispered. ’My day is dark

without you.’

’You are the Nile of my heart,’ Tanus told her quietly. "The waters of your

love feed my soul.’

’You are my man, through this world and all the worlds to come.’

’You are my woman, and I pledge you my love. I swear it to you on the

breath and the blood of Horus,’ Tanus said clearly and openly, so that his

voice echoed through the stone halls.

’I take up your pledge and return it to you one hundredfold,’ Lostris

cried. ’No one can ever come between us. Nothing can ever part us. We are

one, for ever.’

She offered her face to his and he kissed her, deeply and lingeringly. As

far as I was aware, it was the first kiss that the couple had ever exchanged.

I felt that I was privileged to have witnessed such an intimate moment.

As they embraced, a sudden chill wind off the lagoon swirled through the

dimly lit halls of the temple and fluttered the torch flames, so that for an

instant the faces of the two lovers blurred before my eyes and the image of

the goddess seemed to stir and quiver. The wind passed as swiftly as it had

come, but the whisper of it around the great stone pillars was like the

distant sardonic laughter of the gods, and I shuddered with superstitious

awe.

It is always dangerous to pique the gods with extravagant demands, and

Lostris had just asked for the impossible. This was the moment that for years

I had known was coming, and which I had dreaded more bitterly than the day of

my own death. The pledge that Tanus and Lostris had made to each other could

never endure. No matter how deeply they meant it, it could never be. I felt

my own heart tearing within me as, at last, they broke the kiss and both

turned back to me.

22

’Why so sad, Taita?’ Lostris demanded, her own face flooded with joy.

’Rejoice with me, for this is the happiest day of my life.’

I forced my lips to smile, but I could find no word of comfort or of

felicitation for these two, the ones I loved best in all the world. I

remained upon my knees, with that fixed, idiotic smile on my lips and

desolation in my soul.

Now Tanus lifted me to my feet and embraced me. ’You will speak to Lord

Intef on my behalf, won’t you?’ he demanded as he hugged me.

’Oh yes, Taita,’ Lostris joined her plea to his. ’My father will listen to

you. You are the only one who can do it for us. You won’t fail us, will you,

Taita? You have never let me down, never once in all my life. You’ll do it

for me, won’t you?’

What could I say to them? I could not be so cruel as to tell them the blunt

truth. I could not find the words to blight this fresh and tender love. They

were waiting for me to speak, to express-my joy for them, and to promise them

my help and support. But I was struck dumb, my mouth was as dry as if I had

bitten into, an unripe pomegranate.

’Taita, what is it?’ I watched the joy wither upon my mistress’s beloved

countenance. ’Why do you not rejoice for us?’

’You know that I love you both, but?’ I could not continue.

’But? But what, Taita?’ Lostris demanded. ’Why do you give me "buts" and a

long face on this happiest of all possible days?’ She was becoming angry, her

jaw was setting, but at the same time there were tears gathering deep in her

eyes. ’Don’t you want to help us? Is this the real value of all the promises

you have made to me over the years?’ She came to me and thrust her face close

to mine in challenge.

’Mistress, please don’t talk like that. I do not deserve that treatment.

No, listen to me!’ I placed my fingers on her lips to forestall another

outburst. ’It is not me. It is your father, my Lord Intef?’

’Exactly.’ Impatiently Lostris plucked my hand away from her mouth. ’My

father! You will go to him and speak to him the way you always do, and it

will be all right.’

’Lostris,’"! began, and it was a sign of my distress that I used her name

in this familiar fashion, ’you are no longer a child. You must not delude

yourself with childish fantasies. You know that your father will never

agree?’

She would not listen to me, she did not want to hear the truth that I would

speak, so she rushed in with words to drown out mine. ’I know that Tanus has

no fortune, yes. But he has a marvellous future ahead of him. One day he will

command all the armies of Egypt. One day he will fight the battles which will

reunite the two kingdoms, and I will be at his side.’

’Mistress, please hear me out. It is not only the lack of Tanus’ fortune.

It is more, much more.’

’His blood-line and his breeding, then? Is that what troubles you? You know

full well that his family is as noble as ours. Pianki, Lord Harrab was my own

father’s equal and his dearest friend.’ She had closed her ears to me. She

23

did not realize the depth of the tragedy on which we were embarking. Neither

she nor Tanus did, but then I was probably the only person in the kingdom who

understood it fully.

I had protected her from the truth all these years and, of course, I had

never been able to tell Tanus either. How could I explain it to her now? How

could I reveal to her the depths of the hatred that her father bore towards

the young man she loved? It was a hatred born out of guilt and envy, and yet

all the more implacable for these reasons.

However, my Lord Intef was a crafty and devious man. He was able to conceal

his feelings from those around him. He was able to dissemble his hatred and

his spite, and to kiss the one he would destroy and heap rich gifts and

lulling flattery upon him. He had the patience of the crocodile buried in the

mud at the drinking-place on the river, waiting for the unsuspecting gazelle.

He would wait years, even a decade, but when the opportunity arose, he was as

swift as that reptile to strike and drag his prey under.

Lostris was blithely unaware of the depths of her father’s rancour. She

even believed that he had loved Pianki, Lord Harrab, as Tanus’ father had

loved him. But then how could she know the truth of it, for I had always

shielded her from it? In her sweet innocence Lostris believed that the only

objections that her father would have to her lover were those of fortune and

family.

’You know it is true, Taita. Tanus is my equal in the lists of the

nobility. It is written in the temple records for all to see. How can my

father deny it? How can you deny it?’

’It is not for me to deny or to accede, mistress?’

"Then you will go to my father for us, won’t you, dear Taita? Say you will,

please say you will!’

I could only bow my head in acquiescence, and to hide the hopeless

expression in my eyes.

THE FLEET WAS HEAVILY LADEN ON THE return to Karnak. The galleys were low

in the water under their cargoes of rawhides and salted meat. Thus our

progress against the Nile’s current was slower than on our outward journey,

but still too swift for my heavy heart and mounting dread. The lovers were

gay and euphoric with then- newly declared love and their trust in me to

remove the obstacles from their path. I could not bring myself to deny them

this day of happiness, for I knew that it would be one of the very last they

would share, I think that if I could have found the words or summoned the

courage, I would have urged them, there and then, to seek the consummation of

then- love that I had so opposed the night before. There would never be

another chance for them, not after I had alerted my Lord Intef with my

foredoomed attempt at matchmaking. Once he knew what they were about, he

would come between them and thrust them apart for ever.

So instead I laughed and smiled as gaily as they did, and tried to hide my

fears from them. They were so blinded by love that I succeeded, whereas at

any other time my mistress would have seen through me immediately. She knows

me almost as well as I know her.

24

We sat together in the prow, the three of us, and we discussed the

re-enactment of the passion of Osiris that would be the highlight of the

festival. My Lord Intef had made me the impresario of the pageant, and I had

cast both Lostris and Tanus in leading roles.

The festival is held every second year, at the rising of the full moon of

Osiris. There was a time when it was an annual event. However, the expense

and disruption of royal life caused by having to remove the court from

Elephantine to Thebes was so great that Pharaoh decreed a greater interval

between the festivals. He was always a prudent man with his gold, was our

Pharaoh.

The plans for the pageant provided me with a fine distraction from the

looming confrontation with my Lord Intef, and so now I rehearsed the two

lovers in their lines. Lostris was to play Isis, the wife of Osiris, while

Tanus would take on the major role of Horus. They were both vastly amused at

the idea of Tanus playing Lostris’ son, and I had to explain that the gods

were ageless, and it was quite possible that a goddess could appear younger

than her offspring.

I had written a new script for the pageant to replace the one that had

remained unchanged for almost a thousand years. The language of the ancient

one was archaic and unsuitable for a modern audience. Pharaoh would be the

guest of honour when the pageant was performed in the temple of Osiris on the

final night of the festival, so I was particularly anxious that it should be

a success. I had already encountered opposition to my new version of the

passion from the more conservative nobles and priests. Only my Lord Intef’s

intervention had prevailed against their objections.

My lord is not a deeply religious man and would not normally have

interested himself in theological arguments. However, I had included a few

lines that were designed to amuse and flatter him. I read them to him out of

context, and then tactfully pointed out to him that the chief opposition to

my version came from the high priest of Osiris, a prissy old man who had once

frustrated my Lord Intef’s interest in a comely young acolyte. This was a

trespass for which my lord had never forgiven the high priest.

Thus it was that my version would be performed for the first time. It was

essential that the actors bring out the full glory of my poetry, or it might

well be the last time it would be heard.

Both Tanus and Lostris possessed marvellous speaking voices, and they were

determined to reward me for my promise to help them. They gave me of their

best, and thus the rehearsal was so absorbing, their recitations so

startling, that for a while I could forget myself.

Then I was brought back from the passion of the gods to my own mundane

preoccupations by a cry from the lookout. The fleet was sweeping around the

last bend in the river, and there lay the twin cities of Luxor and Karnak,

that between them made up Greater Thebes, strung out along the bank before us

and sparkling like a necklace of pearls in the stark Egyptian sunlight. Our

fantastic interlude had ended, and we must face reality once again. My

spirits tumbled as I scrambled to my feet.

’Tanus, you must transfer Lostris and myself to the galley of Kratas before

we come any closer to the city. My lord’s minions will be watching us from

the land. They must not see us in your company.’

25

’A little late, is it not?’ Tanus smiled at me. ’You should have thought of

that some days ago.’

’My father will learn about us soon enough,’ Lostris endorsed his

objection. ’It might make your task easier if we forewarn him of our

intentions.’

’If you know better than I, then you must do it your way and I will take no

further part in this crazy business of yours.’ I put on my most stiff and

offended air, and they relented immediately.

Tanus signalled Kratas’ galley alongside, and the lovers had only a few

moments for their farewells. They dared not embrace before the eyes of half

the fleet, but the glances and the loving words they exchanged were almost as

fulfilling.

From the stern-tower of Kratas’ ship we waved to the Breath of Horus as she

turned from us, and with her paddles flashing like the wings of a dragonfly,

she bore away to her moorings in front of the city of Luxor, while we

continued on up-river towards the palace of the grand vizier.

IMMEDIATELY WE DOCKED AT THE PALACE wharf, I made enquiry as’ to the

whereabouts of my master and was relieved to learn that he had crossed the

river to undertake a last-minute inspection of Pharaoh’s tomb and funerary

temple on the west bank. The king’s temple and tomb had been under

construction for the past twelve years, ever since the first day that he had

donned the double white and red crown of the two kingdoms. It was nearing

completion at last, and the king would be anxious to visit it as soon as the

festival was over and he was free to do so. My Lord Intef was anxious that

the king should not be disappointed. One of my lord’s many titles and honours

was Guardian of the Royal Tombs, and it was a serious responsibility.

His absence afforded me a further day in which to prepare my case and plan

my strategy. However, the solemn promise that the two lovers had extracted

from me was to speak out for them at the first opportunity, and I knew that

would be on the morrow when my lord held his weekly assize.

As soon as I had seen my mistress safely ensconced in the harem, I hurried

to my own quarters in that wing of the palace which is reserved for the

special companions of the grand vizier.

My Lord Intef’s domestic arrangements were as devious as the rest of his

existence. He had eight wives, all of whom brought to his marriage-bed either

substantial dowry or influential political connections. However, only three

of these women had ever borne him children. Apart from my Lady Lostris, there

were two sons.

As far as I was aware, and I was aware of everything that happened in the

palace and most of what happened outside it, my lord had not visited the

harem in the last fifteen years. The getting of Lostris had been the last

occasion that he had performed his matrimonial duties. His sexual tastes lay

in other directions. The special companions of the grand vizier who lived in

our wing of the palace were as pretty a collection of slave boys as you could

find in the Upper Kingdom, where over the previous hundred years pederasty

had replaced wild-fowling and hunting as the favourite preoccupation of most

of the nobility. This was merely another symptom of the ills that beset our

lovely land.

26

I was the eldest of this select company of slave boys. Unlike so many

others over the years whom, once their physical beauty had begun to fade or

pall, my lord had sent to the auction block in the slave-market, I had

endured. He had come to value me for virtues other than my physical beauty

alone. Not that this had faded?on the contrary, it had grown more striking as

I had matured. You must not think me vain if I mention this, but I have

determined to set down nothing but the truth in these accounts. They are

remarkable enough without my having to resort to false modesty.

No, my lord seldom pleasured himself with me in those days, a neglect for

which I was truly thankful. When he did so, it was usually only to punish me.

He knew full well the physical pain and the humiliation his attentions always

caused me. Although I had still been a child when I first learned to hide my

revulsion, and to simulate pleasure in the perverse acts that he forced upon

me, I never succeeded in deceiving him.

Strangely, my feelings of disgust and my loathing for this unnatural

congress never detracted from his own enjoyment, rather they seemed to

enhance it. He was neither a gentle nor a compassionate man, my Lord Intef. I

have counted in the hundreds the slave boys who, over the years, were brought

to me weeping and torn after their first night of love with my master. I

doctored them and tried my best to comfort them. That is perhaps why they

called me Akh-Ker in the slave boys’ quarters, a name which means Elder

Brother.

I might no longer be my master’s favourite plaything, but he valued me much

more highly than that. I was many other things to him?physician and artist,

’musician and scribe, architect and bookkeeper, adviser and confidant,

engineer and nursemaid to his daughter. I am not so naive as to believe that

he loved me or that he trusted me, but I think that at times he came as close

to it as he was capable. That was why Lostris had prevailed upon me to plead

on her behalf.

My Lord Intef had no concern for his only daughter, other than to maintain

her marriage value at its optimum, and this was another duty that he

delegated entirely to me. Sometimes he did not speak a single word to her

from one flooding of the Nile to the next. He showed no discernible interest

in the regular reports which I made to him of her training and schooling.

Of course, I was always at pains to conceal from him my true feelings for

Lostris, knowing that he would certainly use them against me at the first

opportunity. I always tried to give him the impression that I found her

tuition and her care a tedious duty that I mildly resented having thrust upon

me, and that I shared his own disdain and distaste for all of womankind. I

don’t think he ever realized that, despite my emasculation, I had the

feelings and desires of a natural man towards the opposite sex.

My lord’s disinterest in his daughter was the reason why I was occasionally

tempted, on the urging of my mistress, to run such insane risks as this

latest escapade of ours on board the Breath of Horus. There was usually at

least a chance that we would get away with it.

That evening I retired early to my private quarters, where my first concern

was to feed and pamper my darlings. I have a love for birds and animals, and

a way with them that amazes even myself. I had an intimate friendship with a

dozen cats, for no one can ever claim to own a cat. I owned, on the other

hand, a pack of fine dogs. Tanus and I used them to hunt the oryx and the

lion out in the desert.

27

The wild birds flocked to my terrace to enjoy the hospitality I provided

for them. They competed raucously amongst themselves for a perch on my

shoulder or on my hand. The boldest of them would take food from between my

lips. My tame gazelle would brush against my legs like one of the cats, and

my two falcons squawk at me from their perches on the terrace. They were the

rare desert Sa-kers, beautiful and fierce. Whenever we were able, Tanus and I

would take them out into the desert to fly them against the giant bustards. I

took great pleasure from their speed and aerial grace as they stooped down on

their prey. Anyone else who attempted to fondle them would feel the cutting

edge of those hooked yellow bills, but with me they were as gentle as

sparrows.

Only once I had taken care of my menagerie did I call one of the slave boys

to bring my evening meal. On the terrace overlooking the wide green expanse

of the Nile I savoured the exquisite little dish of wild quail cooked in

honey and goat’s milk that the head chef had prepared especially to welcome

me home. From there I was able to watch for the return of my lord’s barge

from the far bank. It came with the sunset glowing on the single square sail,

and I felt my spirits sink. He might send for me this evening, and I was not

ready to face him.

Then with relief I heard Rasfer, the commander of the palace guard,

shouting for my lord’s favourite of the moment, a sloe-eyed Bedouin lad,

barely ten years old. A short while later I heard the child protesting in a

terrified treble as Rasfer dragged him past my door towards the curtained

entrance of the grand vizier’s chambers. Although I had heard it so many

times before, I never could harden myself to the sounds of the children, and

I felt the familiar pang of pity. Still, I was relieved that it was not I who

would be called that evening. I would need a good night’s sleep so as to look

my best in the morning.

I woke before dawn with the feeling of dread still strong upon me. Even my

ritual swim in the cool waters of the Nile did nothing to relieve it. I

hurried back to my chamber where two of the slave boys were waiting to oil my

body and comb out my hair. I detested the new fashion amongst the nobility of

wearing make-up. My own skin and complexion were fine enough not to require

it, but my lord liked his boys to use it, and I wanted to please him

especially that day.

Even though my image in the bronze mirror reassured me, I could find no

appetite for my breakfast. I was the first member of my lord’s entourage

awaiting his arrival in the water-garden where he held his assize every

morning.

While I waited for the rest of the court to assemble I watched the

kingfishers at work. I had designed and supervised the building of the

water-garden. It was a marvellous complex of channels and ponds which

overflowed from one into the other. The flowering plants had been collected

from every part of the kingdom and beyond, and they were a dazzle of colour.

The ponds were stocked with all the hundreds of varieties of fish that the

Nile yields up to the nets of the fishermen, but they had to be replenished

daily as a result of the depredations of the kingfishers.

My Lord Intef enjoyed watching the birds hovering in the air like jewels of

lapis lazuli, then darting down to hit the water in a flash of spray, and

rising again with a silver sliver quivering in their long bills. I think he

saw himself as a fellow predator, a fisher of men, and that he looked upon

the birds as his kin. He never allowed the gardeners to discourage the birds.

28

Gradually I was joined by the rest of the court. Many of them were

dishevelled and yawning from sleep. My Lord Intef keeps early hours and likes

to complete the bulk of the business of state before the main heat of the

day. We waited respectfully in the first rays of the sun for my lord’s

arrival. ’He’s in a good mood this morning,’ the chamberlain whispered, as he

took his place beside me, and I felt a tiny prickle of hope. I might yet be

able to escape the serious consequences of my foolhardy promise to Lostris.

There was a stirring and a murmuring amongst us as when the river breeze

moves through the papyrus beds, and my Lord Intef came out to us.

His walk was stately and his manner was sumptuous, for he was mighty with

the weight of his honours and his power. Around his neck he wore the Gold of

Praise, that necklace of red gold from the mines of Lot which Pharaoh had

laid upon him with his own hands. His praise-singer preceded him, a

stump-legged dwarf chosen for his misshapen body and stentorian tones. It

amused my lord to surround himself with curiosities, either beautiful or

grotesque. Cavorting and prancing on his bowed legs, the dwarf chanted the

lists of my lord’s titles and honours.

’Behold the Support of Egypt! Greet the Guardian of the Waters of the Nile!

Bow down before Pharaoh’s Companion!’ These were all titles granted by the

king, and many of them imposed specific duties and obligations on him. As

Guardian of the Waters, for instance, he was responsible for monitoring the

levels and flows of the seasonal floods of the Nile, a duty which was

naturally delegated to that faithful, indefatigable slave, Taita.

I had spent half a year with a team of engineers and mathematicians working

under me, measuring and carving the rock cliffs at Assoun so that the height

of the waters rising up them could be accurately gauged and the volume of the

flood calculated. From these figures I was able to estimate the size of the

harvest months in advance. This enabled both famine and plenty to be

anticipated and planned for by the administration. Pharaoh had been delighted

with my work and bestowed further honours and reward upon my Lord Intef.

’Bend the knee for the Nomarch of Kamak and the Governor of all the

twenty-two nomes of Upper Egypt! Greet the Lord of the Necropolis and the

Keeper of the Royal Tombs!’ My lord was by these titles responsible for

designing, building and maintaining the monuments to pharaohs long dead and

the one still living. Once again, these duties were unloaded upon a

long-suffering slave’s shoulders. My lord’s visit to Pharaoh’s tomb the day

before had been the first that he had undertaken since the previous festival

of Osiris. It was I who was sent out in the dust and the heat to cajole and

curse the lying builders and the conniving masons. I often regretted having

let my master realize the extent of my talents.

He singled me out now without seeming to have done so. The yellow eyes, as

implacable as those of a wild leopard, touched mine, and he inclined his head

slightly. I stepped in behind him as he passed, and I was struck as always by

his height and the width of his shoulders. He was an outrageously handsome

man with long, clean limbs and a flat, hard belly. His head was leonine and

his hair dense and lustrous. At this time he was forty years of age, and I

had been his slave for almost twenty of those.

My Lord Intef led us to the barrazza in the centre of the garden, a

thatched building without enclosing walls, open to the cool breeze off the

river. He seated himself cross-legged on the paved floor at the low table on

which lay the state scrolls, and I took my usual place behind him. The day’s

business began.

29

Twice during the morning my lord leaned back slightly towards me. He did

not turn his head nor did he say a word, but he was asking my advice. I

barely moved my lips and I kept my voice pitched so low that no one else

could hear me and very few were even aware of the exchanges between us.

Once I murmured, ’He is lying,’ and a second time, ’Retik is a better man

for the post, and he has offered a gift of five gold rings to my lord’s

private treasury.’ And though I did not mention it then, another ring of gold

to me if the post were secured.

At noon my lord dismissed the congregation of officials and petitioners and

called for his midday meal. For the first time that day we were alone

together, except for Rasfer, who was both the commander of the palace guard

and the official state executioner. Now he took his post at the gate to the

garden, within sight of the barrazza but out of earshot.

With a gesture my lord invited me to move up to his elbow, and to taste the

delicious meats and fruits that had been laid out before him. While we waited

for the effects of any possible poisoning to manifest themselves upon me, we

discussed the morning’s business in detail.

Then he questioned me about the expedition to the lagoon of Hapi and the

great hippopotamus hunt. I described it all to him and gave him the figures

of the profits that he might expect from the meat and hides and teeth of the

river-cows. I inflated the estimate of profits a little, and he smiled. His

smile is frank and charming. Once you have seen it, it is easier to

understand my Lord Intef’s ability to manipulate and control men. Even I, who

should have known better, was once again lulled by it.

As he bit into a succulent cold cut of river-cow fillet, I drew a breath,

screwed up my courage and began my plea. ’My lord should know that I allowed

your daughter to accompany me on the expedition.’ I could see by his eyes

that he already knew this and that he had been waiting for me to attempt to

conceal it from him.

’You did not think to obtain my permission beforehand?’ he asked mildly,

and I avoided his eyes and concentrated on peeling a grape for him as I

answered, ’She only asked as we were on the point of departure. As you know,

the goddess Hapi is her patron, and she wished to worship and make sacrifice

at the lagoon temple.’

’Still you did not ask me?’ he repeated, and I offered him the grape. He

parted his lips and allowed me to slip it into his mouth. That could only

mean that he was well disposed towards me, so obviously he had not yet found

out the full truth about Tanus and Lostris.

’My lord was in council with the nomarch of Assoun at the time. I would not

have dared disturb you. Besides, there was no harm in it that I could fathom.

It was a simple domestic decision which I thought beneath your concern.’

’You are so glib, aren’t you, my darling?’ he chuckled. ’And so beautiful

today. I like the way you have painted your eyelids, and what is that perfume

you are wearing?’

’It is distilled from the petals of the wild violet,’ I replied. ’I am

happy that you like it, for I have a flask of it as a small gift for you, my

lord.’ I produced the flask from my purse and went on my knees to offer it to

him. He placed his finger under my chin and lifted my face to kiss me on the

lips. Dutifully I responded to the kiss until he drew back and patted my

30

cheek.

’Whatever it is you are up to, you are still very attractive, Taita. Even

after all these years you can still make me smile. But tell me, you took good

care of the Lady Lostris, did you not? You never let her out of your sight or

care for a moment, did you?’

’As always, my lord,’ I agreed vehemently.

’So there is nothing unusual concerning her that you wish to report to me,

is there?’

I was still on my knees in front of him, and my next attempt to speak

failed. My voice dried up.

’Do not squeak at me, my old darling,’ he laughed. ’Speak out like a man,

even though you are not.’ It was a cruel little jibe, but it steeled me.

’There is indeed something I wish humbly to bring to my lord’s attention,’

I said, and it does indeed concern the Lady Lostris. As I have already

reported, your daughter’s red moon rose for the first time at the flooding of

the great river. Since then the courses of her moon have flowed strongly each

month.’

My lord made a small grimace of distaste, the functions of the feminine

body repelled him. I found this ironic, considering his own preoccupation

with those far less savoury reaches of the masculine anatomy.

I hurried on. ’The Lady Lostris is now of marriageable age. She is a woman

of an ardent and loving nature. I believe it would be wise to find a husband

for her, as soon as we can.’

’No doubt you have one to suggest?’ he asked drily, and I nodded. ’There is

indeed a suitor, my lord.’

’Not one, Taita. You mean another one, don’t you? I know of at least six,

including the nomarch of Assoun and the governor of Lot, who have already

made offers.’

’I did mean another one, but this time one that the Lady Lostris approves

of. As you recall, she referred to the nomarch as that fat toad, and to the

governor as a randy old goat.’

"The child’s approval or disapproval is of no interest to me whatsoever.’

He shook his head, and smiled and stroked my cheek to encourage me. ’But go

on, Taita, tell me the name of this lovelorn swain who will do me the honour

of becoming my son-in-law in return for the richest dowry in Egypt.’ I

steeled myself to reply, but he stopped me. ’No, wait! Let me guess.’

His smile turned into that sly and foxy grin tha,t I knew so well, and I

realized that he had been toying with me.

’For Lostris to welcome him, he must be young and handsome.’ He pretended

to muse on it. ’And for you to speak out for him, he must be a friend or a

protege of yours. There must have been an opportunity for this paragon to

declare his suit and to solicit your support. What would be the time and the

place for that to have happened? I wonder. Could it have been at midnight in

the temple of Hapi, perhaps? Am I on the right trail, Taita?’

31

I felt myself pale. How did he know so much? He slid his hand around behind

my head and caressed the nape of my neck. This was often his prelude to

love-making, and he kissed me again.

’I can see by your face that my guesses are close to the target.’ He took a

handful of my hair and twisted it lightly. ’Now it remains only to divine the

name of this bold lover. Could it be Dakka? No, no, Dakka is not so stupid as

to incur my wrath.’ He twisted my hair just hard enough to bring tears to my

eyes. ’Kratas, then? He is handsome and foolhardy enough to take the risk.’

He twisted harder and I felt a clump of my hair come away in his hand with a

tearing sound. I choked back the whimper in my throat.

’Answer me, my darling, was it Kratas?’ He forced my face down into his

lap.

’No, my lord,’ I whispered painfully. I was not surprised to find that he

was fully aroused. He pushed my face down upon himself and held me there.

’Not Kratas, are you sure?’ He pretended to be puzzled. ’If it was not

Kratas, then I am at a loss to guess who else might be so insolent, so

insulting and so mortally stupid as to approach the virgin daughter of the

grand vizier of Upper Egypt.’

Abruptly, he raised his voice. ’Rasfer!’ he cried. My head was twisted in

his lap so that through streaming eyes I could watch Rasfer approach.

In Pharaoh’s menagerie on Elephantine Island at Assoun there was a huge

black bear brought in many years ago by one of the trade caravans from the

East. That vicious, scarred brute always reminded me strongly of the

commander of my lord’s bodyguard. They both had the same vast, shapeless body

and the raw, savage power to crush a man to death. However, in loveliness of

face and sweetness of disposition, the bear had been favoured far beyond

Rasfer.

I watched Rasfer approach now at a trot that was surprisingly swift and

agile for those heavy, tree-like legs and the swell of his hairy gut, and I

was transported back over the years to the day that my manhood had been

plucked from me.

It all seemed so familiar, as though I was being forced to live once more

through that terrible day. Every detail of it was still so clear in my mind

that I wanted to shriek aloud. The actors in that long-ago tragedy were the

same. My Lord Intef, Rasfer the brute, and me. Only the girl was missing.

Her name had been Alyda. She had been the same age as me, sixteen sweet

innocent years. Like me, she had been a slave. I remember her now as having

been beautiful, but it is likely that my memory cheats me, for had she been

so she would have gone into a harem of one of the great houses and not been

relegated to the kitchen. I do know for certain that she had skin the colour

and lustre of polished amber that was warm and soft to the touch. I will

never forget the feel of Alyda’s body, for I will never experience anything

like it again. In our misery we had found comfort and deep solace in each

other. I never discovered who it was that betrayed us. I am not usually a

vengeful man, but I still dream that one day I will find the person who

delivered us up.

At that time I had been my Lord Intef s favourite, his special darling.

When he discovered that I had been faithless to him, the affront to his

self-esteem was such as to drive him to the very frontier of madness.

32

Rasfer had come to fetch us. He dragged us to my lord’s chamber, one of us

in each hand, as easily as if we had been a pair of kittens. There he had

stripped us naked while my Lord Intef sat cross-legged on the floor, just as

he was doing now. Rasfer bound Alyda’s wrists and ankles with rawhide thongs.

She was pale and shivering but she did not weep. My love for her and my

admiration for her courage had never been stronger than at that moment.

My Lord Intef beckoned me to kneel in front of him and he took a lock of

my hair and whispered endearments to me. ’Do you love me, Taita?’ he asked,

and because I was afraid, and because in some dim way I thought that it might

spare Alyda’s suffering, I answered, ’Yes, my lord, I love you.’

’Do you love anyone else, Taita?’ he asked in a voice of silk and, coward

and traitor that I was, I answered him, ’No, my lord, I love only you.’ It

was only then that I heard Alyda begin to weep. It was one of the most

harrowing sounds of my life.

He called to Rasfer, ’Bring the slut here. Place her so that they can see

each other clearly. Taita must be able to see everything that is done to

her.’

As Rasfer pushed the girl into my line of vision I could see that he was

grinning. Then my master raised his voice slightly: ’Very well, Rasfer, you

may proceed.’

Rasfer slipped a loop of braided rawhide rope over Alyda’s forehead. At

close intervals the rope was knotted, so that it looked like a headband such

as the Bedouin women wear. Standing behind the girl, Rasfer thrust a short,

stout baton of olive wood through the rawhide loop and twisted it until it

came up tight against her smooth, unblemished skin. The knots of harsh

leather bit into her flesh and Alyda grimaced with the pain.

’Slowly, Rasfer,’ my lord warned him. ’We still have a long way to go.’

The olive-wood baton seemed like a child’s toy in Ras-fer’s huge, hairy

paws. He twisted it with careful deliberation, a quarter of a turn at a time.

The knots bit in deeper, and Alyda’s mouth dropped open and her lungs emptied

in a gasping rush of air. All the colour drained from her skin so that it

turned to the colour of dead ashes. She struggled to fill her empty lungs

with air and then released it in one long, penetrating scream.

Still grinning, Rasfer twisted the baton and the line of leather knots

buried themselves in Alyda’s forehead. Her skull changed shape. At first I

thought it was a trick of my overwrought mind, then I realized that her head

was, in truth, constricting and elongating as the loop tightened. Her scream

was now a single unbroken peal that plunged into my heart like a sword-blade.

It went on and on- for what seemed like for ever.

Then her skull burst. I heard the bone collapse with a sound like a

palm-nut crushed in the jaws of a feeding elephant. That terrible, piercing

scream was cut off abruptly, as Alyda’s corpse sagged in Rasfer’s hands, and

my soul was filled to overflowing with my sorrow and despair.

After what seemed like an eternity my lord lifted my head and looked into

my yes. His expression was sad and regretful as he told me, ’She has gone,

Taita. She was evil and she led you astray. We must make certain that it

never happens again. We must protect you from any further temptations.’

33

Once again he signalled to Rasfer and he took Alyda’s naked body by the

heels and dragged it out on to the terrace. The back of her crushed head

bumped down the steps and her hair streamed out behind her. With a heave of

his massive shoulders, Rasfer threw her far out into the river. Her slack

limbs flashed and tumbled as she fell and struck the water. She sank swiftly

with her hair spreading out around her like trailing fronds of the

river-weed.

Rasfer turned away and went to the end of the terrace where two of his men

were tending a brazier of burning charcoal. Beside the brazier a full set of

surgeon’s instruments were laid out on a wooden tray. He glanced over them

and then nodded with satisfaction. He returned and bowed before my Lord

Intef. ’All is in readiness.’

My master wiped my tear-streaked face with one finger, then lifted the

finger to his lips as though he were tasting my sorrow. ’Come, my pretty

darling,’ he whispered, and lifting me to my feet he led me out on to the

terrace. I was so distraught and blinded by my tears that I did not realize

my own peril until the soldiers seized me. They threw me down and held me

spread-eagled on the terracotta tiles, pinning me at wrists and ankles so

that I could move only my head.

My master knelt at my head, while Rasfer knelt between my spread thighs.

’You will never do this evil thing again, Taita.’ Only then did I become

aware of the bronze scalpel that Rasfer had concealed in his right hand. My

master nodded at him and he reached down with his free hand and seized me and

stretched me out, until it felt as though he were plucking my entrails out

through my groin.

’What a fine pair of eggs we have here!’ Rasfer grinned and showed me the

scalpel, holding it up before my eyes. ’But I am going to feed them to the

crocodiles, just as I did with your little girl-friend.’ He kissed the blade.

’Please, my lord,’ I begged, ’have mercy?’ but my entreaties ended in a

shrill cry as Rasfer slashed down with the blade. It felt as though a redhot

skewer had been thrust up into my belly.

’Say goodbye to them, pretty boy.’ Rasfer held up the sac of pale wrinkled

skin and its pathetic contents. Then he began to rise, but my lord stopped

him. ’You have not finished,’ he told Rasfer quietly. ’I want all of it.’

Rasfer stared at him for a moment, not understanding the order. Then he

began to chuckle until his belly bounced. ’By the blood of Horus,’ he roared,

’from now on pretty boy will have to squat like a girl when he wants to

piss!’ . He struck again, then bellowed with laughter as he held up the

finger of flesh that had once been the most intimate part of my body.

’Never mind, boy. You’ll walk a lot lighter without that weight to carry

around with you.’ Staggering with laughter, he started towards the edge of

the terrace as if to hurl them into the river, but once again my lord called

to him sharply.

’Give them to me!’ he ordered, and obediently Rasfer placed the bloody

fragments of my manhood in his hands. For a few seconds my lord examined them

curiously, and then he spoke to me again. ’I am not so cruel as to deprive

you for ever of such fine trophies, my darling. I will send these to the

embalmers, and when they are ready I will have them placed on a necklace

surrounded with pearls and lapis lazuli. They will be my present to you at

34

the next festival of Osiris. Thus at the day of your burial they can be

placed in your tomb with you, and if the gods are kind, you may have the use

of them in the afterlife.’

Those terrible memories should have ended at the moment when Rasfer

staunched the bleeding with a ladle of boiling embalming lacquer from the

brazier, and I was plunged into blessed oblivion by the unbearable intensity

of the pain, but now I was trapped in the nightmare. It was all happening

again. Only this time little Alyda was missing, and instead of the

gelding-knife Rasfer held the whip of hippo-hide in his great hairy fist.

The whip was as long as the full stretch of Rasfer’s arms and it tapered to

the thickness of his little ringer at the point. I had watched him whittling

it himself, shaving off the coarse outer layer from the long strip of cured

hide until the inner skin was exposed, periodically pausing to test the

balance and the heft of it, cutting it through the air until it keened and

whined like the desert wind through the canyons of the hills of Lot. It was

the colour of amber and Rasfer had polished it lovingly until it was smooth

and translucent as glass, but so supple that he could bend it into a perfect

arc between those bear-like paws. He had allowed the blood of a hundred

victims to dry upon it and to dye the thin end of it to a lustrous patina

that was aesthetically quite beautiful.

Rasfer was an artist with this awful tool. He could flick out and leave on

the tender thigh of a young girl only a crimson weal that never broke the

skin, but stung as viciously as a scorpion and left his victim writhing and

weeping with the agony of it; or with a dozen hissing strokes he could strip

the skin and flesh from a man’s back and leave his ribs and the crest of his

spine exposed.

He stood over me now and grinned as he flexed the long lash in his hands.

Rasfer loved his work, and he hated me with all the force of his envy and the

feelings of inferiority that my intelligence and looks and favour engendered

in him.

My Lord Intef stroked my naked back and sighed. ’You are so wicked

sometimes, my old darling. You try to deceive me to whom you owe the deepest

loyalty. Nay, more than simple loyalty?to whom you owe your very existence.’

He sighed again. ’Why do you force this unpleasantness upon me? You should

know much better than to press the suit of that young jackanapes upon me. It

was a ludicrous attempt, but I suppose that I understand why you made it.

That childlike sense of compassion is one of your many weaknesses, and one

day will probably be the cause of your complete downfall. However, at times I

find it rather quaint and endearing and I might readily have forgiven you for

it, but I cannot overlook the fact that you have endangered the market value

of the goods that I placed in your care.’ He twisted my head up so that my

mouth was free to answer him. ’For that, you must be punished. Do you

understand me?’

’Yes, my lord,’ I whispered, but I rolled my eyes to watch the whip in

Rasfer’s hands. Once again my Lord Intef buried my face in his lap, and then

he spoke to Rasfer above my head.

’With all your cunning, Rasfer. Do not break the skin, please. I do not

want this delightfully smooth back marred permanently. Ten will do as a

start. Count then aloud for us.’

I had watched a hundred or more unfortunates undergo this punishment, some

of them warriors and vaunted heroes. Not one of them was able to remain

35

silent under the lash of Rasfer. In any event it was best not to do so, for

he took silence as a personal challenge to his skill. I knew this well,

having travelled this bitter road before. I was quite prepared to swallow any

stupid pride and pay tribute to Rasfer’s art in a loud voice. I filled my

lungs in readiness.

’One!’ grunted Rasfer, and the lash fluted. The way a woman later forgets

the full pain of childbirth, I had forgotten the exquisite sting of it, and I

screamed even louder than I had intended.

’You are fortunate, my dear Taita,’ my Lord Intef murmured in my ear. ’I

had the priests of Osiris examine the goods last night. They are still

intact.’ I squirmed in his lap. Not only from the pain, but also at the

thought of those lascivious old goats from the temple probing and prying into

my little girl.

Rasfer had his own little ritual to draw out the punishment and to ensure

that both he and his victim were able to savour the moment to the full.

Between each stroke he jogged in a small circle around the barrazza, grunting

exhortations and encouragement to himself, holding the whip at high port like

a ceremonial sword. As he completed the circle he was in position for the

next stroke, and he raised the lash high. ’Two!’ he cried, and I shrieked

again.

ONE OF LOSTRIS’ SLAVE GIRLS WAS WAITING for me on the broad terrace of my

quarters when I limped painfully up the steps from the garden.

’My mistress bids you attend her immediately,’ she greeted me.

’Tell her that I am indisposed.’ I tried to avoid the summons and, shouting

for one of the slave boys to dress my injuries, I hurried through into my

chamber in an attempt to rid myself of the girl. I could not face Lostris

yet, for I dreaded having to report my failure, and having at last to make

her face the reality "and the impossibility of her love for Tanus. The black

girl followed me, ogling the livid weals across my back with delicious

horror.

’Go tell your mistress that I am injured, and that I cannot come to her,’ I

snapped over my shoulder.

’She told me that you would try to wriggle out of it, but she told me also

that I was to stay with you and see to it that you did not.’

’You are insolent for a slave,’ I reprimanded her sternly as the boy

anointed my back with a healing salve of my own concoction.

’Yes,’ agreed the imp with a grin. ’But then so are you.’ And she dodged

the half-hearted slap I aimed at her with ease. Lostris is much too soft with

her handmaidens.

’Go tell your mistress that I will come to her,’ I capitulated.

’She said I must wait and make sure you did.’

So I had an escort as I passed the guards at the gate of the harem..The

guards were eunuchs like myself, but, unlike me, they were portly and

androgynous. Despite their corpulence, or perhaps because of it, they were

36

powerful men and fierce. However, I had used my influence to secure both of

them this cosy sinecure, so they passed me through into the women’s quarters

with a respectful salute.

The harem was not nearly as grand nor as comfortable as the quarters of the

slave boys, and it was clear where my Lord Intef’s real interest lay. It was

a compound of mud-brick hutments surrounded by a high mud wall. The only

gardens or decorations were those that Lostris and her maids had undertaken,

with my assistance. The vizier’s wives were too fat and lazy and caught up in

the scandals and intrigues of the harem to exert themselves.

Lostris’ quarters were those closest to the main gate, surrounded by a

pretty garden with a lily pond and song-birds twittering in cages woven of

split bamboo. The mud walls were decorated with bright murals of Nile scenes,

of fish and birds and goddesses, that I had helped her paint.

Her slave girls were huddled in a subdued group at the doorway, and more

than one of them had been weeping. Their faces were streaked with tears. I

pushed my way past them into the cool, dark interior, and at once heard my

mistress’s sobs from the inner chamber. I hurried to her, ashamed that I had

been so craven as to try to avoid my duty to her.

She was lying face down on the low bed, her entire body shaking with the

force of her grief, but she heard me enter and whirled off the bed and rushed

to me.

’Oh, Taita! They are sending Tanus away. Pharaoh arrives in Karnak

tomorrow, and my father will prevail upon him to order Tanus to take his

squadron up-river to Elephantine and the cataracts. Oh, Taita! It is twenty

days’ travel to the first cataract. I shall never see him again. I wish I

were dead. I shall throw myself into the Nile and let the crocodiles devour

me. I don’t want to h’ve without Tanus?’ All this in one rising wail of

despair.

’Softly, my child.’ I rocked her in my arms. ’How do you know all these

terrible things? They may never happen.’

’Oh, they will. Tanus has sent me a message. Kratas has a brother in my

father’s personal bodyguard. He heard my father discussing it with Rasfer.

Somehow my father has found out about Tanus and me. He knows that we were in

the temple of Hapi alone. Oh, Taita, my father sent the priests to examine

me. Those filthy old men did horrid things to me. It hurt so, Taita.’

I hugged her gently. It is not too often that I have the opportunity to do

so, but now she hugged me back with all her strength. Her thoughts turned

from her own injuries to her lover.

’I shall never see Tanus again,’ she cried, and I was reminded of how young

she truly was, not much more than a child, vulnerable and lost in her grief.

’My father will destroy him.’

’Even your father cannot touch Tanus,’ I tried to reassure her. ’Tanus is a

commander of a regiment of Pharaoh’s own elite guard. He is the king’s man.

Tanus takes his orders only from Pharaoh, and he enjoys the full protection

of the double crown of Egypt.’ I did not add that this was probably the only

reason that her father had not already destroyed him, but went on gently,

’While as for never seeing Tanus again, you will be playing opposite him in

the pageant. I will make certain that there is a chance for the two of you to

speak to each other between the acts.’

37

’My father will never lei the pageant go on now.’

’He has no alternative, unless he is prepared to ruin my production and

risk Pharaoh’s displeasure, and you can be certain that he will never do

that.’

’He will send Tanus away, and have another actor play Horus,’ she sobbed.

"There is no time to rehearse another actor. Tanus will play the god Horus.

I will make that clear to my Lord Intef. You and Tanus will have a chance to

talk. We will find a way out for the two of you.’

She gulped back her tears and looked up at me with complete trust. ’Oh,

Taita. I know that you will find a way. You always do?’ She broke off

suddenly and her expression changed. Her hands moved over my back, exploring

the ridged welts that Rasfer’s whip had raised across it.

’I am sorry, mistress. I tried to put forward Tanus’ suit, as I promised

you I would, and all this is the consequence of my stupidity.’

She stepped behind me and lifted the light linen tunic I had donned’ to

hide my injuries, and she gasped. "This is Rasfer’s work. Oh, my poor dear

Taita, why did you not warn me that this would happen, that my father was so

violently opposed to Tanus and to me?’

I was hard put not to gasp at this artless piece of effrontery, I who had

pleaded and warned them and in return been accused of disloyalty. I managed

to hold my peace, however, although my back still throbbed abominably.

At least my mistress’s own misery was forgotten for the moment in her

concern for my superficial injuries. She ordered me to sit on her bed and

remove my tunic while she ministered to me, her genuine love and compassion

making up for the lack of her medicinal skills. This distraction lifted her

from the utter depths of her despair. Soon she was chattering away in her

usual ebullient fashion, making plans to thwart her father’s wrath and to

reunite herself with Tanus. Some of these plans demonstrated her good common

sense, while others, more far-fetched, merely pointed to her trusting youth

and lack of knowledge and experience in the wicked ways of the world. ’I

shall play such a fine role of Isis in the pageant,’ she declared at one

stage, ’and I shall make myself so, agreeable to Pharaoh that he will grant

me any boon that I ask of him. Then I shall beg him for Tanus as my husband,

and he will say?’ here she mimicked the king’s pompous ceremonial tones so

cleverly that I was forced to grin, ’and he will say, "I declare the

betrothal of Tanus, Lord Harrab, son of Pianki, and of the Lady Lostris,

daughter of Intef, and I raise my good servant Tanus to the rank of Great

Lion of Egypt and commander of all my armies. I further order that all the

former estates of his father, the noble Pianki, Lord Harrab be returned to

him?" ’ Here she broke off in the middle of her ministrations to my wounds

and flung her arms around my neck.

’It could happen like that, could it not, dear Taita? Please say that it

could!’

’No natural man could resist you, mistress,’ I smiled at her nonsense. ’Not

even great Pharaoh himself.’ If I had known then how close my words would

turn out to being the truth, I think I should have placed a live coal on my

tongue before I spoke them.

38

Her face was shining with hope once again. That was enough reward for me,

and I donned my tunic again to bring to an end her too enthusiastic

ministrations to my back.

’But now, mistress, if you are to make a beautiful and irresistible Isis,

you must get some rest.’ I had brought with me a potion of the powder of the

sleeping-flower which is called the Red Shepenn. The seeds of this precious

flower had first been brought into this very Egypt by the trade caravans from

a mountainous land somewhere far to the east. I now cultivated the red blooms

in my garden, and when the petals were fallen I scratched the seed carapace

with a gold fork of three tines. Thick white milk flowed from these wounds,

which I gathered and dried and treated in accordance with the formula I had

evolved. The’ powder could induce sleep, conjure up strange dreams or smooth

out pain.

’Stay with me awhile, Taita,’ she murmured as she settled down on the bed,

curled like a sleepy kitten. ’Cuddle me to sleep like you did when I was a

baby.’ She was a baby still, I thought, as I took her in my arms.

’It will all turn out all right, won’t it?’ she whispered. ’We will live

happily ever after, just like they do in your stories, won’t we, Taita?’

When she was asleep" I kissed her forehead softly and covered her with a

fur rug before I stole from her chamber.

ON THE FIFTH DAY OF THE FESTIVAL OF Osiris, Pharaoh came down-river to

Karnak from his palace on Elephantine Island which was ten days’ travel away

by swift river galley. He came in full state with all his retinue to

officiate at the ?? festival of the god.

Tanus’ squadron had left Karnak three days previously, speeding away

upstream to meet the great flotilla and escort it on the last stage of the

voyage, so neither Lostris nor I had seen him since we had all three returned

from the great river-cow hunt. It was a special joy for both of us then to

see his galley come flying around the bend in the river, full on the current

and with a strong desert wind abeam. The Breath of Horus was in the van of

the fleet, leading it up from the south.

Lostris was in the grand vizier’s train, standing behind her two brothers,

Menset and Sobek. The two boys were comely and well-favoured, but there was

too much of their father in them for my taste. Menset, the elder of the two,

I particularly mistrusted, and the younger followed where his brother led.

I was standing further back in the ruck of courtiers and lesser

functionaries from where I could keep an eye both on Lostris and on my Lord

Intef. I saw the back of her neck flush with pleasure and excitement at the

glimpse she had of Tanus’ tall figure on the stern-tower of the Breath of

Horus. The scales on his crocodile-skin breastplate gleamed in the simlight,

and the spray of ostrich feathers on his helmet floated in the draught of the

galley’s passage.

Lostris was hopping with excitement and waving both slim arms above her

head, but her squeals and her antics were lost in the roar of the vast crowd

that lined both banks of the Nile to welcome their pharaoh. Thebes is the

most populous city in the world, and I guessed that almost a quarter of a

million souls had turned out to welcome the king. Meanwhile Tanus looked

neither left nor right, but stared sternly ahead with his unsheathed sword

39

held before his face in salute. The rest of his squadron followed the Breath

of Horus in the wide vee of the egret formation, named for the pattern that

those birds fly in as they return in the sunset to their roosts. All their

standards and battle honours were streaming out in a fluttering blaze of

rainbow colours, a noble show that set the crowds cheering and waving their

palm-fronds wildly.

It was some time before the first vessel of the main convoy came wallowing

round the bend behind them. It was laden with ladies and nobles of the king’s

entourage. It was followed by another, and then by a great untidy horde of

vessels great and small. They came swarming downstream, transports filled

with palace servants and slaves and all their accoutrements and

paraphernalia, barges laden with oxen and goats and chickens for the

kitchens, gilded and gaily painted vessels bearing cargoes of palace

furniture and treasure, of nobles and lesser creatures, all uncomfortably

jumbled together in a most unseamanlike fashion. In what contrast was the

display put up by Tanus’ squadron as it rounded-to downstream and held its

geometrically spaced formation against the swift Nile current!

At last Pharaoh’s state barge lumbered around the bend, and the cheering of

the crowd rose to a crescendo. This huge vessel, the largest ever built by

man, made its ponderous way towards where we were waiting to welcome it at

the stone wharf below the grand vizier’s palace.

I had plenty of time in which to study it and to muse how aptly its size

and design, and the handling of it, reflected the present state and

government of this very Egypt of ours?Egypt as she stood in the twelfth year

of the rule of Pharaoh Mamose, the eighth of that name and line,,and the

weakest yet of a weak and vacillating dynasty. The state barge was as long as

five of the fighting galleys laid end to end, but its height and breadth were

so ill-proportioned that they gravely offended my artistic instincts. Its

massive hull was painted in the riotous colours that were the fashion of the

age, and the figurehead of Osiris on the bows was gilded with real gold leaf.

However, as she drew closer to the landing where we waited, I could see that

the brilliant colours were faded in patches and her sides were zebra-striped

in dun where her crew had defecated over the rail.

Amidships stood a tall deck-house, Pharaoh’s private quarters, that was so

solidly constructed of thick planks of precious cedar, and so stuffed with

heavy furniture that the sailing characteristics of the barge were sadly

affected. Atop this grotesque edifice, behind an ornate railing that was

woven of fresh lilies, beneath a canopy of finely tanned gazelle skins

skilfully sewn together and painted with images of all the major gods and

goddesses, sat Pharaoh in majestic isolation. On his feet were sandals of

gold filigree and his robe was of linen so pure that it shone like the high

cumulus clouds of full summer. On his head he wore the tall double crown; the

white crown of Upper Egypt with the head of the vulture goddess Nekhbet,

combined with the red crown and the cobra head of Buto, the goddess of the

Delta.

Despite the crown, the ironic truth was that this beloved sovereign of ours

had lost the Delta almost ten years previously. In our turbulent days another

pharaoh ruled in Lower Egypt, one who also wore the double crown, or at least

his own version of it, a pretender who was our sovereign’s deadly adversary,

and whose constant wars against us drained both kingdoms of gold and the

blood of the young men. Egypt was divided and torn by internal strife. Over

the thousand or so years of our history, it had always been thus when weak

men took on the mantle of pharaoh. It needed a strong, bold and clever man to

hold the two kingdoms in his fists.

40

In order to turn the unwieldy vessel into the current and bring her to her

moorings at the palace wharf, the captain should have steered close in to the

far bank. If he had done so, he would have had the full breadth of the Nile

in which to complete his turn. However, he had obviously misjudged the

strength of wind and current and he began his turn from midstream. At first

the barge swung ponderously across the current, listing heavily as the height

of the deck-house caught the hot desert wind like a sail. Half a dozen

boatswains raged about the lower deck with their whips rising and falling,

the snapping of the lash on bare shoulders carrying clearly across the water.

Under the goading of the lash the rowers plied their paddles in a frenzy

that churned the waters alongside the hull to foam, one hundred paddles a

side pulling against each other and none of them making any effort to

synchronize the stroke. Their curses and cries blended with the shouted

orders of the four helmsmen who were struggling with the long steering-oar in

the stern. Meanwhile, on the poop-deck, Nembet, the geriatric admiral and

captain of the barge, alternately combed his fingers through his long scraggy

grey beard and flapped his hands in impotent agitation.

High above this pandemonium sat Pharaoh, motionless as a statue and aloof

from it all. Oh, verily this was our Egypt. Then the rate of the barge’s turn

bled away until she was no longer swinging but heading straight for where we

stood on the bank, locked in chains by the pull of the current and the

contrary push of the wind. Captain and crew, despite all their wild and

erratic exertions, seemed powerless either to complete the manoeuvre and head

her into the current, or to heave-to and prevent her from ploughing headlong

into the granite blocks of ’the wharf and staving in her great gilded bows.

As everyone realized what was about to happen, the cheers of the crowd

watching from the shore slowly died away and an awful hush fell upon both

banks of the Nile into which the shouting and the turmoil on the decks of the

huge vessel carried all the more clearly.

Then suddenly all the eyes of the crowd were drawn downstream, as the

Breath ofHorus broke from her station at the head of the squadron and came

tearing up-river, driven by the flying paddles. In perfect unison those

paddles dipped and pulled and swung and dipped again. She cut in so sharply

under the bows of the barge mat the. crowd gasped with a sound higher than

the wind in the papyrus beds. Collision seemed inevitable, but at the last

possible moment Tanus signalled with a clenched fist lifted above bis head.

Simultaneously both banks of rowers backed water and the helmsman put the

steering-oar hard over.

The Breath ofHorus checked and paid away before the ponderous advance of

the great barge. The two vessels touched as lightly as a virgin’s kiss, and

for an instant the stern-tower of the Breath of Horus was almost level with

the barge’s main deck.

In that instant Tanus poised himself on the bulwark of the tower. He had

kicked off his sandals, divested himself of his armour, and thrown aside his

weapons. Around his waist he had tied die end of a light flax line. With the

line trailing behind him he leaped out across the gap between the two

vessels.

As though awakening from a stupor, the crowd stirred and shook itself. If

there was still one amongst them who did not know who Tanus was, he would

know before this day was out. Of course, Tanus’ fame had already been won in

the river wars against the legions of the usurper in the Lower Kingdom.

However, only his own troops had ever seen him in action. The reported deed

never carries the same weight as the one that the eye sees for itself.

41

Now, before the gaze of Pharaoh, the royal flotilla and the entire

populace of Kamak, Tanus leaped from one deck to the other and landed as

lightly as a leopard.

’Tanus!’ I am sure that it was my mistress, Lostris, who first called out

his name, but I was next.

’Tanusl’ I yelled, and then all those around me took up the cry. ’Tanus!

Tanus! Tanus!’ They chanted it like an ode to some newly discovered god.

The moment he landed on the deck of the barge, Tanus whirled and raced into

the bows, hauling in the thin line hand over hand as he ran. The crew of his

galley had spliced a heavy hawser, as thick as a man’s arm, to the end of the

carrying-line. Now they sent it across as Tanus lay back against the weight

of it. With the muscles of his arms and back shining with sweat, he dragged

it in.

By this time a handful of the barge’s crew had realized what he was about,

and rushed forward to help him. Under Tanus! direction they took three turns

with the end of the hawser about the barge’s bowsprit, and the instant it was

securdd Tanus signalled his galley away.

The Breath of Horus leaped into the current, gathering speed swiftly. Then

abruptly she came up short against the hawser, and the weight of the heavy

vessel on the other end threw her back on her haunches. For a dreadful moment

I thought she might capsize and be dragged under, but Tanus had anticipated

the shock and signalled his crew to cushion it by skilfully backing the long

paddles.

Although she was dragged down so low that she took in green water over her

stem, the galley weathered it, bobbed up and came back taut on the hawser.

For a long moment nothing happened. The galley’s puny weight made no

impression on the great ship’s ponderous way. The two vessels were locked

together as though a crocodile had an old bull buffalo by the snout but could

not drag him from the bank. Then Tanus in the bows of the barge turned to

face the disorganized crew. He made one authoritative gesture that caught all

their attention, and a remarkable change came over them. They were waiting

for his command.

Nembet was the commander of all Pharaoh’s fleet with the rank of Great Lion

of Egypt. Years ago he had been one of the mighty men, but now he was old and

feeble. Tanus took over from him effortlessly, as though it were as natural

as the force of the current and the wind, and the crew of the barge responded

immediately.

’Pull!’ He gestured to the port bank of oarsmen and they bent their backs

and pulled with a will.

’Back-water!’ He stabbed his clenched fist at the starboard side and they

dug in hard with the pointed blades of their paddles. Tanus stepped to the

rail and signalled to the helmsman of me Breath of Horus, masterfully

coordinating the efforts of both crews. Still the barge was bearing down upon

the wharf and now only a narrow strip of open water separated the vessel from

the granite blocks.

Then at last, slowly, too slowly, she began to respond. The gaudily painted

bows began to swing up into the current as the galley dragged mem round. Once

again the cheering died away and that fateful hush fell upon us all as we

waited for the enormous ship to crash into the wharf and tear out her own

42

guts on the rock. When that happened there was no doubt what the consequences

must be for Tanus. He had snatched command from the senile admiral and so

must bear the full responsibility for all the old man’s mistakes. When

Pharaoh was dashed from his throne by the collision, when the double crown

and all his dignity were sent rolling across the deck, and when the state

barge sank beneath him and he was dragged from the river tike a drowning

puppy before the gaze of all his subjects, men there would be both the

insulted Admiral Nembet and my Lord Intef to encourage Pharaoh to bring the

full weight of his displeasure to bear upon the presumptuous young upstart.

I stood helplessly and trembled for my dear friend, and then a miracle

occurred. The barge was already so’close to running aground and Tanus so near

to where I stood that his voice carried clearly to me. "Great Horus, help me

now!’ he cried.

There is no doubt at all in my mind that the .gods often take a hand in the

affairs of men. Tanus is a Horus man, and Horus is the god of the wind.

The desert wind had blown for three days and nights out of the western

desolation of the Sahara. It had blown at the strength of half a gale without

a check for all that time, but now it dropped. It did not taper off, it

simply ceased to blow at all. The wavelets mat had flecked the surface of the

river flattened out, and the palms along the waterfront that had been

vigorously shaking their fronds fell still, as though frozen by a sudden

frost.

Released from the claws of the wind, the barge rolled back on to an even

keel and yielded to the pull of the Breath of Horus. Her elephantine bows

turned up into the current, and she came parallel with the wharf at the

exact moment that her side touched the dressed stone and the rush of the Nile

killed her forward-way and stalled her motionless in the water.

One last command from Tanus and, before the ship could gather stern-way,

the mooring ropes were cast on to the wharf and swiftly garnered up by eager

hands and made fast to the stone bollards. Lightly as a goose-down feather

floating on the water, the great barge of state lay safe and serene at her

berth, and neither the throne upon which Pharaoh sat, nor the high crown upon

his head, had been disturbed by her moorage.

We, the onlookers, burst out in a roar of praise for the feat, and the name

of Tanus rather than that of Pharaoh was on all our tongues. Modestly, and

very prudently, Tanus made no attempt to acknowledge our applause. To draw

any further attention to himself that might detract from the welcome that

awaited the king would have been folly indeed, and would certainly have

negated any royal favour that his exploit had earned him. Pharaoh was always

jealous of his royal dignity. Instead, Tanus surreptitiously signalled the

Breath of Horus alongside. When she was hidden from our view by the bulk of

the barge, he dropped overside on to the galley’s deck, quitting the stage on

which he had just earned such distinction, and leaving it now to his king.

However, I saw the expression of fury and chagrin on the face of Nembet,

the ancient admiral, the Great Lion of Egypt, as he came ashore behind

Pharaoh, and I knew that Tanus had made himself another powerful enemy.

I WAS ABLE TO MAKE GOOD MY PROMISE to Lostris that very evening when I put

the cast of the pageant through their dress rehearsal. Before the performance

began I was able to give the two lovers almost an hour alone together.

43

hi the precincts of the temple of Osiris, which was to be our theatre for

the pageant, I had set up tents to act as dressing-rooms for each of the

principal players. I had purposely placed Lostris’ tent a little apart from

the others, screened from them by one of the huge stone columns that support

the roof of the temple. While I stood on sentry duty at the entrance to the

tent, Tanus lifted the opposite panel and slipped in under it.

I tried not to eavesdrop on their cries of delight as they first embraced,

nor to the whispering and cooing, to the muffled laughter and to the small

moans and gasps of their decorous love-making which followed. Although at

this stage I would not have made any attempt to prevent it, I was convinced

that they would not carry this love-making to its ultimate conclusion. Long

afterwards both Lostris and Tanus separately confirmed this one for me. My

mistress; had been a virgin on her wedding day. If only any of us had known

how close upon us that wedding day was, I wonder how differently we might

have acted then.

Although I was acutely aware that every minute that they were alone

together in the tent increased the danger for all of us, still I could not

bring myself to call enough and separate them. Although the welts on my back

that Raster’s whip had raised still burned, and although deep in that morass

of my soul where I attempt to hide all my unworthy thoughts and instincts my

envy for the lovers burned as painfully, still I let them stay together much

longer than I should have done.

I did not hear my Lord Intef coming. He used to have his sandals shod in

the softest kid-skin to muffle his footfalls. He moved silently as a ghost,

and many a courtier and slave felt either Rasfer’s whip or his noose on

account of a careless word that my lord overheard on his noiseless

peregrinations through the halls and corridors of the palace. However, over

the years I developed an instinct that enabled me most times to sense his

presence before he materialized out of the shadows. This instinct was not

infallible, but that evening it stood me in good stead. When I looked round

suddenly he was almost upon me, gliding between the pillars of the hypostyle

hall towards me, slim and tall and deadly as an erect cobra.

’My Lord Intef!’ I cried loudly enough to startle myself. ’I am honoured

that you have come to witness our rehearsals. I would be deeply grateful for

any advice or suggestions?’ I was gabbling wildly in an attempt to cover my

confusion and to alert the lovers in the tent behind me.

In both objects I succeeded better than I had any right to expect. I heard

the sudden scuffle of consternation within the dressing-tent behind me as the

lovers broke apart, and then the flutter of the rear panel of the tent as

Tanus ducked out the way he had entered.

At any other time I would never have succeeded so easily in deceiving my

Lord Intef. He would have read the guilt upon my face as clearly as I read

the hieroglyphics on the temple walls or my own characters on this scroll;

but that evening he was blinded by his own wrath, and intent only on taking

me to task for my latest misdemeanour. He did not rage; or roar with anger.

My Lord is at his most dangerous when his tone is mild and his smile silky.

’Dear Taita.’ It was almost a whisper. ’I hear that you have altered some

of the arrangements for the opening act of the pageant, despite the fact that

I personally ordered them. I could not believe that you have been so

presumptuous. I had to come all this way in the heat to find out for myself.’

44

I knew it was of no avail to feign innocence or ignorance, so I bowed my

head and tried to look aggrieved. ’My lord. It was not I who ordered the

changes. It was His Holiness, the abbot of the temple of Osiris?’

But my lord broke in impatiently, ’Yes, of course he did, but only after

you put him up to it. Do you think I do not know both you and that mumbling

old priest? He never had an original thought in his head, while you have

nothing but.’

’My lord!’I protested.

’What devious little trick was it this time? Was it one of those convenient

dreams sent to you by the gods?’ my lord asked, his voice as soft as the

rustle of one of the sacred cobras that infested the temple, sliding across

the stone flags of the floor.

’My lord!’ I did my best to look shocked by the accusation, although I had

indeed given the good abbot a rather fanciful account of how Osiris in the

guise of a black crow had visited me in my sleep to complain of the spilling

of blood in his temple.

Up until that time the priest had voiced no objection to the realistic

piece of theatre that my Lord Intef had planned for the amusement of Pharaoh.

I had only resorted to dreams when all my efforts to dissuade my lord had

failed. It was deeply abhorrent to me to be party to such an abomination as

my lord had ordered to be performed in the first act of the pageant. Of

course I am aware that certain savage peoples in the eastern lands make human

sacrifice to their gods. I have heard that the Kassites, who live beyond the

twin rivers Tigris and Euphrates, cast new-born babes into a fiery furnace.

The caravan masters who have travelled in those distant lands speak of other

atrocities performed in the name of religion, of young virgins slaughtered to

promote the harvest or captives of war beheaded before the statues of a

triple-headed god.

However, we Egyptians are a civilized people and we worship wise and just

gods, not blood-crazed monsters. I had tried to convince my master of this. I

had pointed out to him that only once before had a pharaoh made human

sacrifice; when Menotep had slit the throats of the seven rebel princes in

the temple of Seth and quartered their corpses and sent the embalmed

fragments to the governors of each of the nomes as a warning. History still

remembered the deed with distaste. Menotep is known to this day as the Bloody

King.

’It is not human sacrifice,’ my master had contradicted me. ’Merely a

well-merited execution, to be carried out in a rather novel fashion. You will

not deny, dear Taita, that the death penalty has always been an important

part of our system of justice, will you? Tod is a thief. He has stolen from

the royal coffers and he must die, if only as an example to others.’

It sounded reasonable, except that I knew he was not at all interested in

justice, but rather in protecting his own treasure and in impressing Pharaoh,

who so loved pageant and theatre. This had left me with no alternative but to

dream for the benefit of the good abbot. Now my Lord In-tef’s lip lifted in a

smile which exposed his perfect teeth but which chilled my blood and raised

the hairs on the nape of my neck.

’Here is a little piece of advice,’ he whispered close to my face. f’I

suggest that you have another dream tonight, so that whichever god it was

that visited you last time has an opportunity to countermand his previous

45

instructions to the abbot and to endorse my arrangements. If this does not

happen, I will find some more work for Rasfer?that is my solemn promise to

you.’ He turned and strode away, leaving me both relieved that he had not

discovered the lovers and miserable that I was forced to go ahead with the

vile display which he had ordered.

Nevertheless, after my master had left, the rehearsal was a heartening

success that revived my spirits. Lostris was in such a glow of happiness

after her tryst with Tanus that her beauty was indeed divine, and Tanus in

his youth and power was the young Horus incarnate.

Naturally I was perturbed by the entrance of my Osiris to the stage, aware

as I now was of the fate that my Lord Intef had ordered for him. My Osiris

was played by a handsome, middle-aged man named Tod who had been one of the

bailiffs until he had been caught dipping into my Lord Intef’s coffers to

support a young and expensive courtesan of whom he was enamoured. I was not

proud that it was my examination of the accounts that had brought to light

the discrepancies.

My lord had released him from custody, where he was awaiting formal trial

and sentencing, to play the part of the god of the underworld in the pageant.

My lord had promised not to take the matter further if he fulfilled the role

of Osiris satisfactorily. The unfortunate Tod was unaware of the hidden

menace in this offer and threw himself into the act with pathetic enthusiasm,

believing that he was about to earn his pardon. He could not know that, in

the meantime, my lord had secretly signed his death warrant and handed the

scroll to Rasfer, who was not only the state executioner but my choice to

play Seth in our little production. It was my lord’s intention that he should

combine both roles on the following evening when the pageant was performed

before Pharaoh. Although Rasfer was a natural choice for the role of Seth, I

regretted having cast him in it as I watched him rehearse the opening scene

with Tod, and I shuddered as I imagined how the main performance would differ

from the rehearsal. After the rehearsal it was my most pleasant duty to

escort my mistress back to the harem compound. She would not let me leave but

kept me late listening to her excited resume of the day’s extraordinary

events and the role that Tanus had played in them.

’Did you see how he called upon the great god Horus and how the god came at

once to his aid? Surely he has the full favour and protection of Horus, don’t

you agree? Horus will not let any evil befall us, of that I am now certain.’

There was much more of this happy fantasy, and no more talk of parting and

suicide. How swiftly the winds of young love shift!

’After what Tanus did today, the way he saved the state barge from

wrecking, surely he must also have earned Pharaoh’s high favour, don’t you

think so, Taita? With favour of both the god and Pharaoh, my father can never

succeed in having Tanus sent away now, can he, Taita?’

I was called upon to endorse every happy thought that occurred to her, and

I was not allowed to leave the harem until I had memorized at least a dozen

messages of undying love which I was sworn to carry to Tanus personally.

When, exhausted, I finally reached my own quarters, there was still no rest

for me. Nearly all the slave boys were waiting for me, as excited and

garrulous as my mistress had been. They also wanted Jo have my opinion of the

day’s events, and particularly of Tanus’ rescue of Pharaoh’s ship and the

significance of that deed. They crowded around me on the terrace above the

river as I fed my pets, and vied with each other for my attention.

46

’Elder brother, is it true that Tanus called upon the god for his help, and

Horus intervened immediately? Did you see it happen? Some even say that the

god appeared in his falcon shape and hovered over Tanus’ head, spreading

protective wings over him. Is it true?’

’Is it true, Akh, that Pharaoh has promoted Tanus to Companion of Pharaoh,

and given him an estate of five hundred fed dan of fertile land on the

riverside as reward?’

’Elder brother, they say that the oracle at the desert shrine of Thoth, the

god of wisdom, has cast a horoscope for Tanus. The oracle divines that he

will be the greatest warrior in the history of our Egypt and that, one day,

Pharaoh will favour him above all others.’ It is amusing now to look back on

these childish prattles, and to realize the strange truths that were

adumbrated in them, but at the time I dismissed them as I did the children,

with mock severity.

As I composed myself to sleep, my last thought was that the populace of the

twin towns of Luxor and Karnak had taken Tanus to their hearts completely,

but that this was an onerous and dubious distinction. Fame and popularity

breed envy in high places, and the adulation of the mob is fickle. They often

take as much pleasure in tearing down the idols that they have grown tired

of, as they did in elevating them in the first place.

It is safer by far to live unseen and unremarked, as I always attempt to

do.

ON THE AFTERNOON OF THE SIXTH DAY OF the festival, Pharaoh moved in solemn

procession from his villa in the midst of the royal estates in the open

country between Karnak and Luxor, down the ceremonial avenue lined with

statues of granite lions, to the temple of Osiris on the bank of the Nile.

The great sledge on which he rode was so tall that the dense crowds lining

the avenue were forced to strain their necks backwards to look up at him on

his great gilded throne as he trundled by, drawn by twenty pure white

bullocks with massive humped shoulders and wreaths of flowers on their horned

heads. The skids of the sledge ground harshly over the paving and scarred the

stone slabs.

One hundred musicians led the procession, strumming the lyre and the harp,

beating the cymbal and the drum, shaking the rattle and the sistrum, and

blowing on the long straight hom of the oryx and on the curling horn of the

wild ram. A choir of a hundred of the finest voices in Egypt followed them,

singing hymns of praise to Pharaoh and that other god Osiris. Naturally I led

the choir. Behind us followed an honour guard from the Blue Crocodile

regiment led by Tanus himself. The crowds raised a special cheer for him as,

all plumed and armoured, he strode past. The unmarried maidens shrieked and

more than one of them sank swooning in the dust, overcome by the hysteria

that his new-won fame engendered.

Behind the guard of honour came the vizier and his high-office bearers,

then the nobles and their wives and children, then a detachment of the Falcon

regiment, and finally Pharaoh’s great sledge. In all, this was an assembly of

several thousand of the most wealthy and influential persons in the Upper

Kingdom.

47

As we approached the temple of Osiris, the abbot and all his priests were

drawn up on the staircase between the tall entrance pylons to welcome Pharaoh

Mamose. The temple had been freshly painted and the bas-relief on the outer

walls was dazzling with colour in the warm yellow glow of the sunset. A gay

cloud of banners and flags fluttered fiom their poles set in the recesses of

the outer wall.

At the base of the staircase Pharaoh descended from his carriage and in

solemn majesty began the climb up the one hundred steps. The choir lined both

sides of the staircase. I was on the fiftieth step and so I was able to study

the king minutely during the few seconds that it took for him to pass close

to me.

I already knew him well, for he had been a patient of mine, but I had

forgotten how small he was?that is, small for a god. He stood not ~as tall as

my shoulder, although the high double crown made him seem much more

impressive. His arms were folded across his chest in the ritual posture and

he carried the crook and the flail of his royal office and his godhead. I

remarked as I had before that his hands were hairless, smooth and almost

feminine, and that his feet also were small and neat. He wore rings on all

his fingers and on his toes, amulets on his upper arms and bracelets on his

wrists. The massive pectoral plate of red gold on his chest was inlaid with

many colours of faience depicting the god Thoth bearing the feather of truth.

That piece of jewellery was a splendid treasure almost five hundred years old

and . had been worn by seventy kings before him.

Under the double crown, his face was powdered dead white like that of a

corpse. His eyes were dramatically outlined with startling jet black and his

lips were rouged crimson. Under the heavy make-up his expression was

petulant, and his lips were thin and straight and humourless. His eyes were

shifty and nervous, as well they might be, I reflected.

The foundations of this great House of Egypt were cracked, and the kingdom

riven and shaken. Even a god has his worries. Once his domain had stretched

from the sea, across the seven mouths of the Delta, southwards to Assoun and

the first cataract?the greatest empire on earth. He and his ancestors had let

it all slip away, and now his enemies swarmed at his shrunken borders,

clamouring like hyena and jackal and vulture to feast on the carcass of our

Egypt.

In the south were the black hordes of Africa, in the north along the coast

of the great sea were the piratical sea-people, and along the lower reaches

of the Nile the legions of the false Pharaoh. In the west were the

treacherous Bedouin and the sly Libyan, while in the east new hordes seemed

to rise up daily, their names striking terror into a nation grown timid and

hesitant with defeat. Assyrians and Medes, Kassites and Humans and

Hittites?there seemed no end to their multitudes.

What advantage remained in our ancient civilization if it were grown feeble

and effete with its great age? How were we to resist the barbarian in his

savage vigour, his cruel arrogance and his lust for rapine and plunder? I was

certain that this pharaoh, like those who had immediately preceded him, was

not capable of leading the nation back to its former glories. He was

incapable even of breeding a male heir.

This lack of an heir to the empire of Egypt seemed to obsess him even more

than the loss of the empire itself. He had taken twenty wives so far. They

had given him daughters, a virtual tribe of daughters, but no son. He would

not accept that the fault lay with him as sire. He had consulted every doctor

48

of renown in the Upper Kingdom and visited every oracle and every important

shrine.

I knew all this because I was one of the learned doctors he had sent for. I

admit that at the time I had felt some trepidation in prescribing to a god,

and that I had wondered why he should need to consult a mere mortal on such a

delicate subject. Nevertheless, I had recommended a diet of bull’s testicles

fried in honey and counselled him to find the most beautiful virgin in Egypt

and take her to his marriage-bed within a year of the first flowering of her

woman’s moon.

I had no great faith in my own remedy, but bull’s testicles, when cooked to

my recipe, are a tasty dish, while I reckoned that the search for the most

beautiful virgin in the land might distract Pharaoh and prove not only

amusing but pleasurable as well. From a practical point of view, if the king

bedded a sufficient number of young ladies, then surely one of them must

eventually drop a male pup into his harem.

Anyhow, I consoled myself that my treatment was not as drastic as some of

the others proposed by my peers, particularly those disgusting remedies

dreamed up by the quacks in the temple of Osiris who call themselves doctors.

If not actually efficacious, my recommendations would at least do no harm.

That was what I believed. How wrong ;the fates would prove me, and if only I

had known the consequences of my folly, I would have taken Tod’s place in the

pageant rather than have given Pharaoh such frivolous counsel.

I was amused and flattered when I heard that Pharaoh must have taken my

advice seriously, and that he had ordered his nomarchs and his governors to

scour the length’of the land from El Amarna to the cataracts to find bulls

with succulent balls and any virgin who might fit my specifications for the

mother of his first son. My sources at the king’s court informed me that he

had already rejected hundreds of aspiring applicants for the- title of the

most beautiful virgin in the land.

Then the king was swiftly past me and gone into the temple to the keening

of the priests and the obsequious bobbing of the abbot. The grand vizier and

all his train followed closely, and then there was an undignified rush of

lesser citizens to find places from which to watch the passion play. Space in

the temple was limited. Only the mighty and the noble and those rich enough

to bribe the thieving priests were allowed into the inner courtyard. The

others were forced to watch through the gates from the outer court. Many

thousands of the citizenry would be disappointed and would have to be content

with a secondhand account of the pageant. Even I, the impresario, had great

difficulty in fighting my way through the press of humanity, and I only

succeeded when Tanus saw my predicament and sent two of his men to rescue me

and force a path for me into the precincts reserved for the actors.

Before the pageant could begin, we were obliged to endure a succession of

flowery speeches, firstly from the local functionaries and government

ministers, and then from the grand vizier in person. This interlude of

speechifying gave me the opportunity to make certain that all the

arrangements for the pageant were perfect. I went from tent to tent, checking

the costumes and the make-up of each of my actors, and soothing last-minute

attacks of temperament and stage-fright.

The unfortunate Tod was nervously dreading the possibility that his

performance might not please my Lord Intef. I was able to assure him that it

most certainly would, and then I administered to him a draught of the Red

Shepenn, which would deaden the pain that he was about to have inflicted

49

lipon him.

When I came to Rasfer’s tent he was drinking wine with two of his cronies

from the palace guard and, with a whetstone, laying an edge on his short

bronze sword. I had created his make-up to render him even more repulsive,

which was not an easy feat given the high plateau of ugliness from which we

started. I realized how well I had succeeded as he leered at me with

blackened teeth and offered me a cup of the wine.

’How does your back feel now, pretty, boy? Have a taste of a1 man’s drink!

Perhaps it will give you balls again.’ I am accustomed to his taunts and I

kept my dignity as I told him that my Lord Intef had countermanded the

abbot’s orders and that the first act was to be played out in the original

form.

’I have spoken to Lord Intef already.’ He held up the sword. ’Feel the

edge, eunuch. I want to make certain that it meets with your approval.’ I

left him feeling a little queasy.

Although Tanus would not be on stage until the second act, he was already

in costume. Relaxed and smiling, he clasped my shoulder. ’Well, old friend,

this is your opportunity. After this evening your fame as a playwright will

spread throughout Egypt.’

’As yours has already. Your name is on every lip,’ I told him, but he

laughed it away with careless modesty as I went on, ’Do you have your closing

declamation prepared, Tanus? Would you like to recite it to me now?’

Traditionally, the actor who played Horus would close the pageant with a

message to Pharaoh, ostensibly from the gods but in reality from his own

subjects. In olden times this had been the one occasion during the year when

the populace, through the agency of the actor, could bring to the king’s

notice matters of concern which they were not able to address to him at any

other time. However, during the rule of this last dynasty of kings the

tradition had fallen away, and the closing speech had become merely another

eulogy to the divine pharaoh.

For days past I had been asking Tanus to rehearse his speech for me, but

every time he had put me off with excuses so lame that I was by now

thoroughly suspicious of his intentions. "This is the last opportunity,’ I

insisted, but he laughed at me.

’I have decided to let my speech be as much a surprise to you as I hope it

will be to Pharaoh. That way you should both enjoy it more.’ And there was

nothing I could do to persuade him. At times he can be far and away the most

headstrong and obstinate young ruffian I have ever encountered. I left him in

not a little dudgeon, and went to find more convivial company.

As I stooped in throughjhe entrance of Lostris’ dressing-tent, I froze with

shock. Even though I had designed her costume myself and instructed her

handmaidens as to exactly how I wanted her powder and rouge and eye-paint

applied, still I was not prepared for the ethereal vision that stood before

me now. For a moment I was convinced that another miracle had taken place and

that the goddess had indeed risen up from the underworld to take my

mistress’s place. I gasped aloud and had actually begun to sink to my knees

in superstitious awe when my mistress giggled and roused my from my delusion.

’Isn’t this fun? I cannot wait to see Tanus in full costume. I am sure he

must look like the god himself.’ She turned slowly to allow me to appraise

50

her own costume, smiling at me over her shoulder.

’No more godlike than you, my lady,’ I whispered. ’When will the play

begin?’ she demanded impatiently. ’I am so excited that I can wait no

longer.’

I cocked my ear to the panel of the tent and listened for a moment to the

drone of the speeches in the great hall. I realized that this was-the final

oration and that at any moment my Lord Intef would call upon my players to

perform.

I took Lostris’ hand and squeezed it. ’Remember the long pause and the

haughty look before you begin your opening speech,’ I cautioned her, and she

slapped my shoulder playfully.

’Away with you, you old fuss-pot, it will all go perfectly, you’ll see.’

And at that moment I heard my Lord Intef’s voice raised.

’The divine god Pharaoh Mamose, the Great House of Egypt, the Support of

the Realm, the Just, the Great, the All-Seeing, the All-Merciful?’ The titles

and honorifics continued while I hurried out of Lostris’ tent and made my way

to my opening position behind the central pillar. I peered around the column

and saw that the inner courtyard of the temple was packed and that Pharaoh

and his senior wives sat in the front rank on low benches of cedar wood,

sipping cool sherbet or nibbling dates and sweetmeats.

My Lord Intef was addressing them from the front of the raised platform

below the altar that was our stage. The main body of the stage was still

.hidden from the audience by the linen curtains. I surveyed it for one last

time, although it was too late to do anything further about it now.

Behind the curtains the set was decorated with palms and acacia trees that

the palace gardeners had transplanted under my instruction. My masons had

been taken from the work on the king’s tomb to build a stone cistern at the

back of the temple from which a stream could be diverted across the stage to

represent the river Nile.

At the rear of the stage, hanging from floor to ceiling, were tightly

stretched sheets of linen on which the artists from the necropolis had

painted marvellous landscapes. In the half-light of the dusk and the flicker

of the torches in "their brackets the effect was so realistic as to transport

the beholder into a different world in a distant time.

There were other delights that I had prepared for Pharaoh’s amusement, from

cages of animals, birds and butterflies that would be released to simulate

the creation of the world by the great god Ammon-Ra, to flares and torches

that I had doctored with chemicals to burn with brilliant flames of crimson

and green, and flood the stage with eerie light and smoke-clouds, like those

of the underworld where the gods live.

’Mamose, son of Ra, may you be granted eternal life! We your loyal

subjects, the citizens of Thebes, beg you to draw nigh and give your divine

attention to this poor play that we dedicate to Your Majesty.’

My Lord Intef concluded his address of welcome and resumed his seat. To a

fanfare of hidden rams’ horns, I stepped out from behind the pillar and faced

the audience. They had endured discomfort and boredom on the hard flagstones,

and by now were ripe for the entertainment to begin. A raucous cheer greeted

my entrance and even Pharaoh smiled in anticipation.

51

I held up both hands for silence, and only when it was total did I begin to

speak my overture.

’While I walked in the sunlight, young and filled with the vigour of youth,

I heard the fatal music in the reeds by the bank of the Nile. I did not

recognize the sound of this harp, and I had no fear, for I was in the full

bloom of my manhood and secure in the affection of my beloved.

’The music was of surpassing beauty. Joyously I went to find the musician,

and could not know that he was Death and that he played his harp to summoame

alone.’ We Egyptians are fascinated by death, and I had at once touched a

deep chord within my audience. They sighed and shuddered.

’Death seized me and bore me up in his skeletal arms towards Ammon-Ra, the

sun god, and I was become one with the white light of his being. At a great

distance I heard my beloved weep, but I could not see her and all the days of

my life were as though they had never been.’ This was the first public

recitation of my prose, and I knew almost at once that I had them, their

faces were fascinated and intent. There was not a sound in the temple.

’Then Death set me down in a high place from which I could see the world

like a shining round shield in the blue sea of the heavens. I saw’all men and

all creatures who have ever lived. Like a mighty river, tune ran backwards

before mine eyes. For a hundred thousand years I watched their strivings and

their deaths. I watched all men go from death and old .age to infancy and

birth. Time became more and more remote, going back until the birth of the

first man and the first woman. I watched them at the moment of their birth

and then before. At last there were no men upon the earth and only the gods

existed.

’Yet still the river of time flowed back beyond the time of the gods into

Nun, into the time of darkness and primordial chaos. The river of time could

flow no further back and so reversed itself. Time began to run forward in the

manner that was familiar to me from my days of life upon the earth, and I

watched the passion of the gods played out before me.’ My audience were all

of them well versed in the theology of our pantheon, but none of them had

ever heard the mysteries presented in such a novel fashion. They sat silent

and enthralled as I went on.

’Out of the chaos and darkness of Nun rose Ammon-Ra,

He-Who-Creates-Himself. I watched Ammon-Ra stroke his generative member,

masturbating and spurting out his seminal seed in mighty waves that left the

silver smear that we know as the Milky Way across the dark void. From this

seed were generated Geb and Nut, the earth and the heaven.’ ’Bak-her!’ a

single voice broke the tremulous silence of the temple. ’Bak-her.’ Amen!’ The

old abbot had not been able to contain himself, and now he endorsed my vision

of the creation. I was so astonished by his change of heart that I almost

forgot my next line. After all, he. had been my sternest critic up to that

time. I had won him over completely, and my voice soared in triumph.

’Geb and Nut coupled and copulated, as man and women do, and from their

dreadful union were bom the gods Osiris and Seth, and the goddesses Isis and

Nephthys.’

I made a wide gesture and the linen curtains were drawn slowly aside to

reveal the fantasy world that I had created. Nothing like this had ever been

seen in Egypt before and the audience gasped with amazement. With measured

tread I withdrew, and my place upon the stage was taken by the god Osiris.

The audience recognized him instantly by the tall, bottle-shaped head-dress,

52

by his arms crossed over his chest and by the crook and the flail he held

before him. Every household kept his statuette in the family shrine.

A droning cry of reverence went up from every throat, and indeed the

sedative that I had administered to Tod glittered weirdly in his eyes and

gave him a strange, unearthly presence that was convincingly godlike. With

the crook and the flail Osiris made mystical gestures and declaimed in

sonorous tones, ’Behold Atur, the river!’

Once more the audience rustled and murmured as they recognized the Nile.

The Nile was Egypt and the centre of the world.

’Bak-her!’ another voice called out, and, watching from my hidden place

amongst the pillars, I was astonished and delighted as I realized who had

spoken. It was Pharaoh. My play had both secular and divine endorsement. I

was certain mat from now on mine would become the authorized version,

replacing the thousand-year-old original. I had found my place in

immortality. My name would live on down the millennium.

Joyfully I signalled for the cistern to be opened and the waters began to

flow across our stage. At first the audience did not comprehend, and men they

realized that they were actually witnessing the revelation of the great

river, and a shout went up from a thousand throats, ’BaK-her! Bak-her!’

’Behold the waters rise!’ cried Osiris, and obediently the Nile was swollen

by the inundation.

’Behold the waters fall!, cried the god, and they shrank at his command.

’Now they will rise again!’

I had arranged for buckets of dye to be added to the water as it poured out

of the cistern at the rear of the temple. First a green dye to simulate the

low-water period, and then, as it rose again, a darker dye that faithfully

emulated the colour of the silt-laden waters of the high inundation.

’Now behold the insects and birds upon the earth!’ ordered Osiris, and the

cages at the rear of the stage were opened and a shrieking, chattering,

swirling cloud of wild birds and gorgeously coloured butterflies filled the

temple. The watchers were like children, enchanted and enthralled, reaching

up to snatch the butterflies from the air and then release them again to fly

out between the high pillars of the temple. One of the wild birds, a

long-billed hoopoe marvellously patterned in colours of white and cinnamon

and black, flew down unafraid and settled on Pharaoh’s crown. The crowd was

delighted. ’An omen!’ they cried. ’A blessing on the king. May he live for

ever!’ and Pharaoh smiled.

It was naughty of me, but afterwards I hinted to my Lord Intef that I had

trained the bird to single out Pharaoh, and although it was of course quite

impossible, he believed me. Such is my reputation with animals and birds.

On the stage Osiris wandered through the paradise mat he had created, and

the mood was set for the dramatic moment when, with a blood-chilling shriek,

Seth bounded on to the stage. Although they had been expecting it, still the

powerful and hideous presence shocked the audience, and the women screamed

and covered their faces, only to peer out again from between trembling

ringers.

’What is mis you have done, brother?’ Seth bellowed in jealous rage. ’Do

you set yourself above me? Am I not also a god? Do you hold all creation to

yourself alone, mat I, your brother, may not share it with you?’

53

Osiris answered him calmly, his dignity remote and cool as the drug held

him in its thrall. ’Our father, Ammon-Ra, has given it to us both. However,

he has also given us the right to choose how we dispose of it, for good or

for evil?’ The words that I had put into the mouth of the god reverberated

through the temple. They were the finest that I had written, and the audience

hung upon them. However, I alone of all of mem knew what was coming, and the

beauty and the power of my own composition were soured as I steeled myself

for it.

Osiris drew to the close of his speech. ’This is the world as I have

revealed it. If you wish to share it in peace and brotherly love, then you

are welcome. However, if you come in warlike rage, if evil and hatred fill

your heart, then I order you gone.’ He lifted his right arm all draped in the

gleaming diaphanous linen of his robe and pointed the way for Seth to leave

the paradise of Earth.

Seth hunched those huge, hairy shoulders like a buffalo bull, and he

bellowed so mat the spittle flew from his lips in a cloud that was flavoured

by the rotting teeth in his jaws. I could smell it from where I stood. He

lifted high the bronze broad-sword and rushed at his brother. This had never

been rehearsed, and it took Osiris completely by surprise. He stood with his

right arm still outstretched, and the blade hissed with the power of the

stroke as it swung down. The hand was lopped off at the wrist as cleanly as I

would prune a shoot from the vine that grows over my terrace. It fell at

Osiris’ feet and lay there with the fingers fluttering feebly.

The surprise was so complete and the sword so sharp that for a long moment

Osiris did not move, except to sway slightly on his feet. The audience must

have believed that this was another theatrical trick, and that the fallen

hand was a dummy. The blood did not come at once, which lulled them further.

They were intensely interested but not alarmed, until suddenly Osiris reeled

back and with a dreadful cry clutched at the stump of his lower arm;’ Only

then did the blood burst out between his fingers and sprayed down his white

robe, staining it like spilt wine. Still clutching his stump, Osiris

staggered across the stage and began to scream. That scream, high and clear

with mortal agony, broke the mood of the spectators’ complacency. They knew

then for the first time that what they were witnessing was not make-believe,

but they were trapped in horrified silence.

Before Osiris could reach the edge of the stage, Seth came bounding after

him oik those thick bow-legs. He seized the stump of Osiris’ arm and used it

as a handle to drag him back into the centre of the stage, where he threw him

sprawling full-length on the stone flags. The tinsel crown tumbled from

Osiris’ head and the plaits of dark hair fell to his shoulders as he lay in a

spreading puddle of his own blood.

’Please spare me,’ Osiris shrieked, as Seth stood over him, and Seth

laughed. It was a full-throated roar of genuine amusement. Rasfer had become

Seth, and Seth was hugely enjoying himself.

That savage laughter woke the audience from its trance. However, the

illusion was complete. They no longer believed that they were watching a

play, and for all of them this terrible spectacle had become reality. Women

screamed and men roared with fury as they witnessed the murder of their god.

’Spare him! Spare the great god Osiris!’ they howled, but not one of them

rose from his seat or rushed on to the stage to attempt to prevent the

tragedy from being played out.

54

They knew that the straggles and passions of the gods were beyond the

influence of mortal men.

Osiris reached up and pawed at Seth’s legs with his one remaining hand.

Still laughing, Seth grabbed bis wrist and pulled his arm out to its full

length, inspecting it as a butcher might inspect the shoulder of a goat

before he sections it.

’Cut it off!’ screamed a voice in the crowd, thick with the lust for blood.

The mood had swung again.

’Kill him!’ screamed another. It has always troubled me how the sight of

blood and violent death affects even the mildest of men. Even I was stirred

by this terrible scene, sickened and horrified, it is true, but beneath it

stirred by a revolting excitement.

With a casual sweep of the blade, Seth struck off the arm, and Osiris fell

back, leaving the twitching limb in Seth’s red fist. He was trying to rise to

his feet, but he had no hands to support himself. His legs kicked

spasmodically, and his head whipped from side to side, and still he screamed.

I tried to force myself to turn away, but though my gorge rose and scalded

the back of my throat, still I had to watch.

Seth hacked the arm into three pieces through the joint of the wrist and

the elbow. One at a time he hurled the fragments into the packed ranks of the

audience. As they spun through the air they sprinkled those below with drops

of ruby. They roared like the lions hi Pharaoh’s zoo at feeding-time, and

held up their hands to catch these holy relics of their god.

Seth worked on with dedicated gusto. Osiris’ feet he chopped off at the

ankles. Then the calves at the knees, and the thighs at the hip joints. As he

threw each of these to mem, the mob clamoured for more.

"The talisman of Seth!’ howled a voice amongst them. ’Give us the talisman

of Seth!’ and the cry was taken up. According to the myth, the talisman is

the most powerful of all the magical charms. The person who has it in his

possession controls all the dark forces of the underworld, It is the only one

of the fourteen segments of Osiris’ body that was never recovered by Isis and

her sister Nephthys from the far corners of the earth to which Seth scattered

them. The talisman of Seth is that same part of the body that Rasfer deprived

me of, and which forms the centre-piece of that beautiful necklace that was

the cynical gift of my Lord Intef. ’Give us the talisman of Seth!’ the mob

howled, and Seth reached down and lifted the red sodden tunic of the limbless

trunk at his feet. He was still laughing. I shuddered as I recognized that

merciless sound that I had heard so often at my own punishment sessions. In

sympathy I experienced once again the sudden fire in my groin as the short

sword flashed in Seth’s hairy paw, already wet and running with his victim’s

blood, and he lifted on high the piteous relic.

The crowd pleaded for it. ’Give it to us,’ ttfey begged him. ’Give us the

power of the talisman.’ The spectacle had transformed them into ravening

beasts.

Seth ignored their pleas. ’A gift,’ he cried. ’A gift from one god to

another. I Seth, god of darkness, dedicate this talisman to the god-Pharaoh,

Mamose the divine.’ And he hopped down the stone stairs on those powerful

bow-legs and placed the relic at Pharaoh’s feet.

55

To my amazement the king leaned forward and gathered it up to himself. His

expression beneath the powder and paint was spellbound,"as though this was

the true relic of the god. I am sure that at that moment he truly believed it

was. He held it in his right hand through all that ensued.

His gift accepted, Seth rushed back on to the stage to complete his

butchery. The thing that haunts me still is that the poor dismembered

creature was alive and sensate to the very end. I realized that the drug I

had given Tod had done little to dull his senses. I saw the terrible agony in

his eyes as he lay in the lake of his own blood and rolled his head from side

to side, the only part that remained to him to move.

For me, then, it came as an intense relief when at last Seth struck off the

head and held it up by its thick plaited locks for the crowd to admire. Even

then, the poor creature’s eyes swivelled wildly in their sockets as he looked

for the very last time on this world. At last they dulled and glazed over,

and Seth tossed the head to them.

Thus the first act of our pageant ended in swelling and rapturous applause

that threatened to shake the granite pillars of the temple from their bases.

DURING THE INTERMISSION MY SLAVE helpers cleaned away the gruesome evidence

of the slaughter from the set. I was particularly concerned that my Lady

Lostris should not realize what had truly taken place in the first act. I

wished her to believe that all had gone as we had rehearsed it. So I had

arranged that she stay in her tent, and that one of Tanus’ men remain at the

entrance to keep her there, and also to ensure that none of her Cushite

maidens were allowed to peep out at the first act and rush back to Lostris

with a report. I knew that if she realized the truth, she would be too

distraught to play her part. While my helpers used buckets of water from our

stage Nile to wash away the ghastly evidence, I hurried to my mistress’s tent

to reassure her and to satisfy myself that my precautions to shield her had

been effective.

’Oh, Taita, I heard the applause,’ she greeted me happily. ’They love your

play. I am so happy for you. You so richly deserve this success.’ She

chuckled in a conspiratorial fashion. ’It sounded as though they believed the

murder of Osiris was real, and the buckets of ox-blood with which you

drenched Tod were truly the blood of the god.’

’Indeed, my lady, they seemed totally deceived by our little tricks,’ I

agreed, although I still felt faint and ill from what I had just lived

through.

My Lady Lostris suspected nothing, and when I led her out on to the stage,

she barely glanced at the grisly stains that remained upon the stones. I

posed her in her opening position, and adjusted the torchlight to flatter

her. Even though I was accustomed to it, still her beauty choked my throat

and made my eyes sting with tears.

I left her concealed by the linen curtains, and stepped out to face my

audience. There was no sarcastic applause to greet me this time. Every one of

them, from Pharaoh to the meanest vassal, was captive to my voice, as in my

lambent prose I described the mourning of Isis and her sister Nephthys at the

death of their brother.

56

When I stepped down and the curtain was drawn aside to reveal the grieving

figure of Isis, the audience gasped aloud at her loveliness. After the horror

and blood of the first act, her presence was all the more moving.

Isis began to sing the lament for the dead, and her voice thrilled through

the gloomy halls of the temple. As her head moved to the cadence of her

voice, the torchlight was reflected in a darting and flickering shaft from

the bronze moon that surmounted her horned headdress.

I watched Pharaoh attentively as she sang. His eyes never left her face,

and his lips moved silently in sympathy with the words that swelled from her

throat.

My heart is a wounded gazelle,

torn by the lion claws of my grief?

She lamented and the king and all his train grieved with her.

There is no sweetness in the honeycomb,

no perfume remains in the desert blossom.

My soul is an empty temple,

deserted by the god of love.

In the front rank one or two of the king’s wives were snuffling and

blubbering, but nobody even glanced at them.

I look on death’s grim face with a smile.

Gladly would I follow him,

if he could lead me to the arms of my dear lord.

By now not only the royal wives but every one of the women were weeping,

and most of the men also. Her words and her beauty were too much for them to

resist. It seemed impossible that a god should show the same emotions as

mortal men, but the slow tears were cutting runnels through the white powder

on Pharaoh’s cheeks, and he blinked his heavy, kohl-darkened eyelids like an

owl as he stared at my Lady Lostris.

Nephthys entered and sang a duet with her sister, then hand-in-hand the two

women went in search of the scattered fragments of Osiris’ corpse.

57

Of course I had not placed the actual dismembered portions of Tod’s corpse

for them to find. During the intermission my helpers had retrieved these and

carried them away to the’embalmers on my instructions. I would pay for Tod’s

funeral out of my own purse. It seemed the very least that I could do to

compensate the unfortunate creature for my own part in his murder. Despite

the missing portion of his anatomy that Pharaoh still held in his hand, I

hoped the gods might make an exception in his case and allow Tod’s shade to

pass into the underworld, and that there he might not think too badly of me.

It is wise to have friends wherever you can, in this world and the next.

To represent the body of the god I had the funeral artists from the

necropolis build for me a magnificent mummy car-tonnage, depicting Osiris in

his full regalia and in the death pose with his arms folded across his chest.

This container I had cut ’into thirteen sections that fitted together like a

child’s building-blocks.

As the sisters retrieved each of these sections they sang a hymn of praise

to the god’s parts, to his hands and feet, to his limbs and trunk, and

finally to his divine head.

Such eyes, like stars set in the heavens,

must shine for ever.

Death should never dim such beauty,

nor the funeral wrappings contain such majesty.

When at last the two sisters had reassembled the complete body of Osiris,

except for the missing talisman, they pondered aloud how they could return it

to life once more.

This was my opportunity to add to the pageant that essential element that

makes any theatrical production appeal to the popular taste. There is a broad

lascivious streak in most of us, and the playwright and the poet does well to

bear this in mind if he hopes to have his work appreciated by the main body

of his audience.

"There is but one certain way to bring our dear lord and brother back to

life.’ I placed the words in the mouth of the goddess Nephthys. ’One of us

must perform the act of generation with his shattered body to make it whole

again and to fan the spark of life within it.’

The audience stirred and leaned forward with anticipation at this

suggestion. It had elements to appeal to even the most prurient of those

present, including incest and necrophilia.

I had agonized over how I would represent upon the stage this episode in

the myth of the resurrection of Osiris. My mistress had shocked me when she

had declared herself willing to carry her role through to the end. She had

even had the effrontery to point out, with that impudent grin of hers, that

she might gain some valuable knowledge and experience from doing so. I was

not certain if she was jesting or if she would really have gone through with

it; however, I would not give her the opportunity to demonstrate her good

faith or lack of it. Her reputation and the honour of her family were too

58

valuable to trifle with.

So it was that at my signal, the linen curtains were drawn once more and my

Lady Lostris quickly left the stage. Her place was taken by one of the

upper-class courtesans who usually plied her trade in a palace of love near

the port. I had hired this wench, from amongst several that I had

interviewed, because of her fine young body that so much resembled that of my

mistress. Of course, in facial beauty she could not come close to my Lady

Lostris, but then I know of none who could.

As soon as the substitute goddess was in position, the torches at the rear

of the stage were lit so as to cast her shadow upon the curtain. She began to

disrobe in the most provocative manner. The males in the audience cheered on

her shadowy gyrations, convinced that they were watching my Lady Lostris. The

harlot responded to this encouragement with an increasingly lewd display that

was almost as well received as the slaughter of Osiris in the first act.

Now came that action of the play that had given me, the author,

considerable pause, for how could I contrive fecundity without a stout peg to

hang it on? We had just seen Osiris forcefully deprived of his. In the end I

was forced to stoop to that tired old theatrical device that I so scorned in

the work of other playwrights, namely the intervention of the gods and their

supernatural powers.

While my Lady Lostris spoke from the wings, her shad-owy alter ego on stage

stood over the mummiform figure of Osiris and made a series of mystical

gestures. ’My dear brother, by the rare and marvellous powers granted to me

by our forefather, Ammon-Ra, I restore to you those manly parts that cruel

Seth so brutally tore from you,’ intoned my mistress.

I had equipped the mummy case with a device that I could raise by hauling

on a length of fine linen twine that ran over a pulley in the temple roof

directly above where Osiris lay. At Isis’ words the wooden phallus, hinged to

the god’s pudenda, rose in majestic splendour, as long as my arm, into full

erection. The audience gasped with admiration.

When Isis caressed it, I jerked the string to make it leap and twitch. The

audience loved it, but loved it even better when the goddess mounted the

supine mummy of the god. Judging by the convincing acrobatics of her

simulated ecstasy, the harlot I had chosen to play the part must have been

one of the truly great exponents of her art. The audience gave full

recognition to her superior performance, egging her on with whistling and

hooting and shouting ribald advice.

At the climax of this exhibition the torches were extinguished and the

temple plunged into darkness. In the darkness the substitution was made once

more and when the torches were re-lit my Lady Lostris stood in mid-stage with

a new-born infant in her arms. One of the kitchen slaves had been considerate

enough to give birth a few days previously, and I had borrowed her whelp for

the occasion.

’I give you the new-born son of Osiris, god of the underworld, and of Isis,

goddess of the moon and of the stars.’ My Lady Lostris lifted the infant high

and he, astonished by the sea of strangers before him, screwed up his tiny

face and turned bright red as he howled.

Isis raised her voice above his and cried, "Greet the young Lord Horus, god

of the wind and the sky, falcon of the heavens!’ Half the audience were Horus

men and their enthusiasm for their patron was unbounded. They came to their

59

feet in a roaring tumult, and the second act ended in another triumph for me

and in mortification for the infant god, who on later examination was found

to have prodigiously soiled his swaddling-cloth.

I OPENED THE FINAL ACT WITH ANOTHER of my recitations describing the

childhood and the coming to manhood of Horus. I spoke of the sacred charge

laid upon him by Isis, and as I did so, the curtains were drawn aside to

reveal the goddess in the centre of the stage. Isis was bathing in the Nile,

attended by her handmaidens. Her wet robe clung to her body so that the pale

glory of her skin shone through. The indistinct outlines of her breasts were

tipped with tiny rose-buds of virgin pink.

Tanus as Horus entered from the wings, and immediately dominated the stage.

In his polished armour and his warrior’s pride he was a perfect counterpoint

for the beauty of the goddess. The long list of his battle honours in the

river wars, together with his most recent exploit in saving the royal barge,

had focused the attention of the populace full upon him. For this moment

Tanus was the darling of the crowd. Before he could speak, they began to

cheer him, and the applause continued so long that the actors were forced to

freeze in their opening positions.

While the cheering swirled around Tanus, I picked out certain faces in the

audience and watched their reactions. Nembet, the Great Lion of Egypt,

scowled and muttered fiercely into his beard, making no attempt to hide his

animosity. Pharaoh smiled graciously and nodded slightly, so that those

seated behind him were made aware of his approbation, and their own

enthusiasm was encouraged. My Lord Intef, never one to fly against the

prevailing winds, smiled his most silky smile and nodded his head in concert

with his king. His eyes, however, when seen from my vantage-point, were

deadly.

At last the applause abated and Tanus could speak his lines, not without

difficulty, however, for every time he paused to draw breath another outburst

of cheering broke out. It was only when Isis began to sing that complete

silence fell upon them once more.

The suffering of your father,

the terrible fate that hangs over our house,

all these must be expunged.

In verse Isis warned her noble son, and held out her arms to him in

supplication and in command.

The curse of Seth is upon us all,

and only you can break it.

Seek out your monstrous uncle.

60

By his arrogance and his ferocity,

you will know him.

When you find him,

strike him down.

Chain him,

bind him to your will,

that the gods and all men

will be freed for ever from his ghastly sway.

Still singing, the goddess withdrew and left her son to his quest. Like

children following a well-loved nursery rhyme, the audience knew full well

what to expect and leaned forward eagerly and hummed with anticipation.

When at last Seth came leaping back on stage for the cataclysmic battle,

the age-old struggle between good and evil, beauty and ugliness, duty and

dishonour, the audience was ready for him. They greeted Seth with a chorus of

hatred that was spontaneous and unfeigned. In defiance Rasfer leered and

gibbered at them, strutting about the stage, cupping his genitalia in his

hands and thrusting his hips out at them in a mocking and obscene gesture

that drove them wild with fury.

’Kill him, Horus!’ they howled. ’Smash in his ugly face!’ And Seth pranced

before them, stoking their fury.

’Kill the murderer of the great god Osiris!’ they roared in a paroxysm of

loathing.

’Smash in his face!’

’Rip out his guts!’

The congregation’s reaction to him was in no way moderated by the fact that

it knew, deep down, that this was Rasfer and not Seth.

’Hack off his head!’ they screamed.

’Kill him! Kill him!’

At last Seth pretended to see his nephew for the first time, and swaggered

up to him, lolling his tongue out between

his blackened teeth, drooling like an idiot so that silver strands of

saliva slimed down on to his chest. I would never have believed that Rasfer

could make himself more repulsive than nature had already accomplished, but

now he proved me wrong.

’Who is this child?’ he demanded, and belched full in the face of Horus.

Tanus was unprepared for this and stepped back involuntarily, his expression

of disgust unfeigned as he smelled Rasfer’s breath and the contents of his

stomach, the sour wine still fermenting in it.

61

Tanus recovered swiftly and spoke his next line. ’I am Horus, son of

Osiris.’

Seth let out a mocking peal of laughter. ’And what is it you seek, boy

child of a dead god?’

’I seek vengeance for the murder of my noble father. I seek the assassin of

Osiris.’

’Then search no further,’ Seth shouted, ’for I am Seth the vanquisher of

lesser gods. I am Seth the eater of stars, and the destroyer of worlds.’

The two gods drew their swords and rushed at each other, to meet in

mid-stage with a ringing clash of bronze as blade struck blade. In an attempt

to reduce the chances of accidental injury, I had attempted to substitute

wooden swords for bronze, but neither of my actors would have any of it. My

Lord Intef had intervened when Rasfer had appealed to him. He had ordered

that they be allowed to wield their real battle weapons, and I had been

forced to yield to this higher authority. At least it added to the realism of

the scene as they stood now chest to chest, with blades locked, and glared

into each other’s face.

They made an extraordinary pair, so totally dissimilar, pointing up the

moral of the play, the eternal conflict of good against evil. Tanus was tall

and fair and comely. Seth was swarthy and thick-set, bow-legged and hideous.

The contrast was direct and visceral. The mood of the audience was as fiery

and as fiercely partisan as that of the two protagonists.

Simultaneously they pushed each other backwards and then rushed in again,

thrusting and cutting, feinting and parrying. They were both highly trained

and skilled swordsmen, amongst the finest in all Pharaoh’s armies. Their

blades whirled and glinted in the torchlight so that they seemed as

insubstantial as the sunlight reflected from the wind-ruffled surface of the

great river. The sound of their flight was that of the wings of the birds

startled from their roosts in the gloomy heights of the temple, but when they

clashed together it was with the heavy ring of hammers at the coppersmith’s

forge.

What seemed to the observer to be the chaos of real battle was in fact a

meticulously choreographed ballet which had been carefully rehearsed. Each

man knew exactly how each blow must be launched and each parry timed. These

were two superb athletes engaged in the activity for which they had trained

their entire warrior’s lifetime, and they made it seem effortless.

When Seth thrust, Horus left his parry so late that the point actually

touched his breastplate and left a tiny bright scratch on the metal. Then

when Horus launched himself forward in riposte, his edge flew so close to

Seth’s head that a coil of his coarse matted hair was shorn from his skull,

as if by a barber’s razor. Their footwork was as graceful and intricate as

that of the temple dancers, and they were swift as falcons and lithe as

hunting cheetahs.

The crowd was mesmerized and so was I. Therefore it must have been some

deep instinct that warned me, perhaps even a nudge from the gods, who knows?

At any rate, something outside myself made me tear my eyes away from the

spectacle and glance at my Lord Intef where he sat in the front row.

Again, was it instinct or my own deep knowledge of him, or the intervention

of the god who protects Tanus that placed the thought in my mind? A little of

62

all three of these, perhaps, but I knew with instant and utter certainty the

reason for that wolfish smile on my Lord Intef’s handsome features.

I knew why he had chosen Rasfer to play Seth. I knew why he had made no

effort to exclude Tanus from the role of Horus, even after he had found out

about the relationship between him and my Lady Lostris. I knew why he had

ordered the use of real swords, and I knew why he was smiling now. The

massacre was not over for the evening. He was looking forward to more. Before

this act was played out, Rasfer would ply his special talents once again.

’Tanus!’ I screamed, as I started forward. ’Beware! It’s a trap. He

intends?’ My cries were drowned out by the thunder of the crowd, and I had

not taken a second step when I was seized by each arm from behind. I tried to

struggle free, but two of Rasfer’s ruffians held me fast and started to drag

me away. They had been placed there for just such a moment as this, to

prevent me from warning my friend.

’Horus, give me strength!’ I rendered up a swift and silent entreaty, and

instead of resisting them I hurled myself back in the same direction as they

were pulling me. For an instant they were thrown off-balance, and I broke

half-free of their grasp. I managed to reach the edge of the stage before

they could control me again.

’Horus, give me voice!’ I prayed, and then screamed with all my breath,

’Tanus, beware! He means to kill you.’

This time my voice carried above that of the mob, and Tanus heard me. I saw

his head flick and his eyes narrow slightly. However, Rasfer heard me as

well. He responded instantly, breaking the rehearsed routine. Instead of

dropping back before the whirlwind of cuts and thrusts that Tanus was aiming

close to his brutish head, he stepped in and, with an upward sweep of his own

blade, he forced Tanus’ sword-arm high.

Without the benefit of surprise he would never have made the opening into

which he now launched a thrust behind which was the full weight of those

massive shoulders and mighty trunk. The point of his blade was aimed an inch

below the rim of Tanus’ helmet and directly at his right eye. It should have

skewered his eye and cleaved his skull through and through.

However, my shouted warning had given Tanus that fleeting moment of grace

in which to react. He recovered his guard just in time. With the pommel of

his sword he managed to touch a glancing blow to Rasfer’s wrist. It had just

sufficient force to deflect the sword-point a finger’s-width, and at the same

moment Tanus tucked in his chin and rolled his head. It was too late to avoid

the blow entirely. However, the stroke that might have skewered his eye and

split his skull like a rotten melon, merely laid open his eyebrow to the

bone, and then flew on over his shoulder.

Instantly a sheet of blood gushed from the shallow wound and flowed over

Tanus’ face, blinding his right eye. He was forced to fall back before the

savage onslaught that Rasfer now launched at him. Desperately he gave ground,

blinking at the blood and trying to wipe it away with his free hand. It

seemed impossible that he would be able to defend himself, and if only I had

not been held so securely by the palace guards, I would have drawn the little

jewelled dagger at my belt and rushed to his aid.

Even without my assistance Tanus was able to survive that first murderous

attack. Though he was wounded twice more, a gouge across the left thigh and a

nick on the biceps of his sword-arm, he kept weaving and parrying and

63

ducking. Rasfer kept coming at him, never letting him recover his balance or

his full vision. Within minutes Rasfer was blowing and grunting like a giant

forest hog, and running with sweat, his misshapen torso gleaming in the

torchlight, but the speed and fury of his assault never faltered.

Though no great swordsman myself, I am a student of the art. So often had I

watched Rasfer at practice in the weapons-yard that I knew his style

intimately. I knew he was an exponent of the attack khamsin, the attack ’like

the desert wind’. It was a manoeuvre that perfectly suited his brute strength

and physique. I had seen him practise it on a hundred occasions and now I

divined by his footwork that he was gathering himself for it, for that one

last effort that would end it all.

Struggling in the grip of my captors, I screamed at Tanus again, ’Khamsin!

Be ready!’ I thought that my warning had been drowned and washed away by the

uproar that filled the temple, for Tanus showed no reaction. Later he told me

he had indeed heard me, and that with his impaired vision that second warning

of mine had certainly saved him once again.

Rasfer dropped back a half-pace, the classic prelude to the khamsin,

relaxing the pressure for an instant to position his opponent for the coup.

Then his weight shifted and his left foot swung forward into the lead. He

used his momentum and all the strength of his right leg to launch his entire

body into the attack, like some grotesque carrion-bird taking to flight. As

both his feet left the ground, the point of his blade was aimed at Tanus’

throat. It was inexorable. Nothing could prevent that deadly blade from

flying true to its mark except the one classic defence, the stop-hit.

At the precise instant that Rasfer was fully committed to the stroke, Tanus

launched himself with equal power and superior grace. Like an arrow leaving

the bowstring, he flew straight at his opponent. As they met in mid-air Tanus

gathered up Rasfer’s blade with his own and let it run down on to the pommel,

where it came up hard and short, stopping it dead. It was the perfectly

executed stop-hit.

The mass and speed of the two big men were thrown on to the bronze blade in

Rasfer’s fist, and it could not withstand the shock. It snapped cleanly, and

left him clutching only the sheared-off hilt. Then they were locked

chest-to-chest once more. Although Tanus’ sword was still undamaged, Rasfer

had got in under his guard and he could not wield it. Both Tanus’ hands, the

sword still held in his right fist, were locked behind Rasfer’s back as the

two men heaved and strained at each other.

Wrestling is one of the military disciplines in which every warrior in the

Egyptian army is trained. Bound to each other by the crushing embrace of

arms, they spun about the stage, each attempting to throw the other

off-balance, snarling into each other’s eyes, hooking a heel to trip, butting

at each other with the visors of their helmets, equally matched thus far in

strength and determination.

The audience had long since sensed that this was no longer a mock

engagement, but a fight to the death. I wondered that their appetites had not

been jaded by all they had witnessed that evening, but it was not so. They

were insatiable, howling for blood and yet more blood.

At last Rasfer tore his arm free of Tanus’ encircling grip. He still

clutched the hilt of the broken sword in his fist, and with the jagged edge

he struck at Tanus’ face, deliberately aiming at his eyes and the wound in

his brow, trying to enlarge and aggravate it. Tanus twisted his head to avoid

64

the blows, catching them on the peak of his bronze helmet. Like a python

shifting its coils around its prey, he used the moment to, adjust his

crushing hold around Rasfer’s chest. The strain that he was exerting was such

that Rasfer’s features began to swell and engorge with blood. The air was

being forced out of him, and he struggled against suffoca-- tion. He began

visibly to weaken. Tanus kept up the pressure until a carbuncle on Rasfer’s

back was stretched to bursting-point and the yellow pus erupted in a stinking

stream and trickled down into the waistband of his kilt.

Already suffocating, Rasfer grimaced at the pain of the bursting abscess

and checked. Tanus felt him falter, and he summoned some deep reserve of

strength. He changed the angle of his next effort, dropping his shoulders

slightly and forcing his opponent backwards and upwards on to his heels.

Rasfer was off-balance, and Tanus heaved again and forced him back a pace.

Once he had him moving backwards, he kept the momentum going. Still locked to

his opponent, he ran Rasfer backwards across the stage, steering him towards

one of the gigantic stone pillars. For a moment none of us realized Tanus’

intention, and then we saw him drop the point of his sword to the horizontal

and press the hilt hard against Rasfer’s spine.

At a full run the point of Tanus’ sword hit the unyielding column. The

metal screeched against the granite, and the shock was transmitted up the

blade. It stopped those two big men in their tracks, and the force of it

drove the hilt into Rasfer’s spine. It would have killed a lesser man, and

even Rasfer was paralyzed by it. With the last gust of his foul breath he let

out a cry of agony, and his arms flew open. The broken haft of his own sword

spun from his grip and skidded away across the stone pavement.

Rasfer’s knees buckled, and he sagged in Tanus’ arms. Tanus thrust his hip

into him, and, with a heave of his upper body, hurled Rasfer over backwards.

He landed so heavily that I heard more than one of his ribs crackle like dry

twigs in the flames of the camp-fire. The back of his skull bounced upon the

stone flags with a sound like a desert melon dropped from on high, and the

breath from his lungs whistled out of his throat.

He groaned in agony. He had barely the strength to lift his arms to Tanus

in capitulation. Tanus was so carried away by battle-rage, and inflamed by

the roar of the crowd, that he was a man berserk. He stood over Rasfer and

lifted his sword on high, gripping the hilt with both hands. He was a

dreadful sight. Blood from the wound in his forehead had painted his visage

into a glistening devil mask. Sweat and blood had soaked the hair of his

chest and stained his clothing.

’Kill him!’ roared the congregation. ’Kill the evil one!’

The point of Tanus’ sword was aimed at the centre of Rasfer’s chest, and I

steeled myself for the down-stroke that would impale that gross body. I

willed Tanus to do it, for I hated Rasfer more than any of them. The gods

know that I had reason, for here was the monster who had gelded me, and I

longed for my revenge.

It was in vain. I should have known my Tanus better than expect him to

skewer a surrendered enemy. I saw the fires of madness begin to fade from his

eyes. He shook his head slightly, as if to regain control of himself. Then,

instead of stabbing down, he lowered his sword-point slowly until it just

pricked Rasfer’s chest. The keen point raised a drop of blood, bright as a

garnet amongst the coarse hair of Rasfer’s chest. Then Tanus picked up the

lines of his script.

65

’Thus I bind you to my will, and I expel you from the light. May you wander

through all eternity in the dark places. May you nevet jnore have power over

the noble and the good amongst men. I give you to rule over the thief and the

coward, over the bully and the cheat, over the liar and the murderer, over

the grave-robber and the violater of virtuous women, over the blasphemer and

the breaker of faith. From henceforth you are the god of all evil. Get you

gone, and carry away with you the curse of Horus and of his resurrected

father, Osiris.’

Tanus lifted the point of his sword from Rasfer’s chest and tossed the

weapon aside, deliberately disarming himself in the presence of his enemy to

demonstrate his disdain and scorn. The blade clattered on the flagstones and

Tanus strode to the running waters of our stage Nile and went down on one

knee to scoop a handful and dash it into his own face, washing away the

blood. Then he tore a strip of linen from the hem of his kilt and swiftly

bound up the wound on his forehead to stem the bleeding.

Rasfer’s two apes released me and rushed on stage to succour their fallen

commander. They lifted him to his feet, and he staggered between them,

heaving and blowing like a great obscene bullfrog. I saw that he was

grievously injured. They dragged him from the stage, and the crowd howled its

derision and hatred at him.

I watched my Lord Intef, and his expression was for the moment unguarded. I

saw every one of my suspicions confirmed there. This was how he had planned

to wreak his vengeance on Tanus?to have him slain before the eyes of the

entire populace?and on his own daughter: to have her lover killed before her

eyes?that was to have been Lostris’ punishment for flouting her father’s

will.

My Lord Intef s frustration and disappointment now were enough to make me

feel a smug satisfaction as I considered what retribution must be in store

for Rasfer. He might have preferred more of the rough treatment that Tanus

had dealt out to him, to the punishment that my Lord Intef would inflict upon

him. My master was ever harsh with those who failed him.

Tanus was still gasping from the exertions of the duel, but now, as he

moved to the front of the stage, he drew a dozen deep breaths to steady

himself for the declamation that would bring the pageant to an end. As he

faced the congregation it fell silent, for in blood and anger he was an

awe-inspiring sight.

Tanus lifted up both his hands to the temple-roof and cried out in a loud

voice, ’Ammon-Ra, give me voice! Osiris, give me eloquence!’ The traditional

entreaty of the orator.

’Give him voice! Give him eloquence!’ the crowd responded, and their faces

were still rapt with all they had witnessed, but hungry for more

entertainment.

Tanus was that unusual creature, a man of action who was also a man of

words and ideas. I am sure that he would have been generous enough to admit

that many of those ideas were planted in his mind by that lowly slave, Taita.

However, once planted, they were in fertile ground.

When it came to oratory, Tanus’ exhortations to his squadrons on the eve of

battle were famous. Of course, I had not been present at all of these, but

they had been relayed to me verbatim by Kratas, his faithful friend and

lieutenant. I had copied many of these speeches down on a set of papyrus

66

scrolls, for they were worthy of preservation.

Tanus had the common touch, and the ability to appeal directly to the

ordinary man. I often thought that much of this special power of his sprang

from his transparent honesty and his forthright manner. Men trusted him and

followed willingly wherever he led them, even unto death itself.

I was still overwrought by the conflict we had all just witnessed and the

closeness of Tanus’ escape from the trap that my Lord Intef had laid for him.

Nevertheless, I was eager to listen to the declamation that Tanus had

prepared without my help or advice. To be truthful, I was still a little

resentful that he had declined my assistance, and more than a little nervous

as to what he might come out with. Tact and subtlety have never been Tanus’

most notable virtues.

Now Pharaoh made a gesture of invitation to him to speak, crossing and

uncrossing the ceremonial crook and flail, and inclining his head gracefully.

The congregation was silent and intent, leaning forward eagerly so as not to

miss a single word.

’It is I, Horus the falcon-headed, that speaks,’ Tanus began, and they

encouraged him.

’It is verily the falcon-headed! Hear him!’

’Ha-Ka-Ptahr Tanus used the archaic form from which the present name of

Egypt was derived. Very few realized that the original meaning was the temple

of Ptah. ’I speak to you of this ancient land given to us ten thousand years

since, in the time when all the gods were young. I speak to you of the two

kingdoms that in nature are one and indivisible.’

Pharaoh nodded. This was the standard dogma, approved by both temporal and

religious authority that neither recognized the impostor in the Lower

Kingdom, nor even acknowledged his existence.

’Oh, Kemitr Tanus used another ancient name for Egypt: the Black Land,

after the colour of the Nile mud brought down by the annual inundation. ’I

speak to you of this land riven and divided, torn by civil war, bleeding and

drained of treasure.’ My own shock was mirrored on the faces of all those who

listened to him. Tanus had just given voice to the unspeakable. I wanted to

rush on to the stage and clap my hand over his mouth to prevent him from

going on, but I was transfixed.

’Oh, Ta-Merir Another old name: the Beloved Earth. Tanus had learned well

the history I had taught him. ’I speak to you of old and feeble generals, and

admirals too weak and indecisive to-wrest back the stolen kingdom from the

usurper. I speak to you of ancient men in their dotage who waste your

treasure and spill the blood of your finest young men as though it were the

lees of bitter wine.’

In the second row of the audience I saw Nembet, the Great Lion of Egypt,

flush with anger and scratch furiously with chagrin at his beard. The other

elderly military men around him frowned and moved restlessly on their

benches, rattling their swords in their scabbards as a sign of their

disapproval. Amongst them all, only my Lord Intef smiled as he watched Tanus

escape from one trap only to blunder into the next.

’Our Ta-Meri is beset by a host of enemies, and yet the sons of the nobles

prefer to cut off their own thumbs rather than to carry the sword to protect

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her.’ As he said this, Tanus looked keenly at Menset and Sobek, Lostris’

older brothers, where they sat beside their father in the second row. The

king’s decree exempted from military service only those with such physical

disability as to render them unfit. The surgeon priests at the temple of

Osiris had perfected the art of removing the top joint of the thumb with

little pain or danger of infection, thus rendering it impossible for that

hand to wield a sword or pluck a bowstring. The young bucks proudly flaunted

their mutilations as they sat gambling and carousing in the riverside

taverns. They considered the missing digit a mark not of cowardice, but of

sophistication and independent spirit.

’War is the game played by old men with the lives of the young,’ I had

heard Lostris’ brothers argue. ’Patriotism is a myth conceived by those old

rogues to draw us into the infernal game. Let them fight as they will, but we

want no part of it.’ In vain I had remonstrated with them that the privilege

of Egyptian citizenship carried with it duties and responsibilities. They

dismissed me with the arrogance of the young and ignorant.

Now, however, beneath Tanus’ level stare they fidgeted and concealed their

left hands in the folds of their clothing. They were both of them

right-handed, but had convinced the recruiting officer to the contrary, with

their eloquence and a dash of gold.

The common people at the rear of the great hall hummed and stamped their

feet in agreement with what Tanus had said. It was their sons who filled the

rowing-benches of the war galleys, or marched under arms through the desert

sands.

However, in the wings of the stage I wrung my hands in despair. With that

little speech Tanus had made an enemy of fifty of the young nobles in the

audience. They were men who would one day inherit power and influence in the

Upper Kingdom. Their enmity outweighed a hundred times the adoration of the

common herd and I prayed for Tanus to cease. In a few minutes he had done

enough damage to last us all a hundred years, but he went on blithely.

’Oh, Ta-Nutri!’ This was yet another ancient name: the Land of the Gods. ’I

speak to you of the wrong-doer and the robber who waits in ambush on every

hilltop and in every thicket. The farmer is forced to plough with his shield

at his side, and the traveller must go with his sword bared.’

Again the commoners applauded. The depredations of the robber bands were a

terrible scourge upon them all. No man was safe beyond the mud walls of the

towns, and the robber chieftains who called themselves the Shrikes were

arrogant and fearless. They respected no law but their own, and no man was

safe from them.

Tanus had struck exactly the right note with the people, and suddenly I was

moved by the notion that this was all much deeper than it seemed. Revolutions

have been forged and dynasties of pharaohs overturned by just such appeals to

the masses. With Tanus’ next words my suspicion was strengthened.

’While the poor cry out under the lash of the tax-collector, the nobles

anoint the buttocks of their fancy boys with the most precious oils of the

orient?’ A roar went up from the rear of the hall, and my fears were replaced

by a tremulous excitement. Had this been carefully planned? Was Tanus more

subtle and devious than I had ever given him credit for?

’By HorusF I cried in my heart. ’The land is ripe for revolution, and who

better to lead it than Tanus?’ I felt only disappointment that he had not

68

taken me into his confidence and made me party to his design. I could have

planned a revolution as skilfully and as cunningly as I could design a

water-garden or write a play.

I craned to look over the heads of the congregation, expecting at the very

next moment to see Kratas and his brother officers burst into the temple at

the head of a company of warriors from the squadron. I felt the hair on my

forearms and at the nape of my neck lift with excitement as I pictured them

snatching the double crown from Pharaoh’s head and placing it upon the

blood-smeared brow of Tanus. With what joy I would have joined the cry of

’Long live Pharaoh! Long live King Tanus!’

Heady images swirled before my eyes as Tanus went on speaking. I saw the

prophecy of the desert oracle fulfilled. I dreamed of Tanus, with my Lady

Lostris beside him, seated on the white throne of this very Egypt, with

myself standing behind them resplendent in the apparel of the grand vizier of

the Upper Kingdom. But why, oh why, had he not consulted me before embarking

on this perilous venture?

With his next breath he made the reason plain. I had misjudged my Tanus, my

honest, plain and good Tanus, my noble, straight and trustworthy Tanus,

lacking only in guile and stealth and deceit.

This was no plot. This was simply Tanus speaking his mind without fear or

favour. The commoners, who only moments before had been clinging enraptured

to every word that fell from his tongue, were now quite unexpectedly given

the sharp edge of that organ as he rounded upon them.

’Hear me, oh Egypt! What is to become of a land where the mean-spirited try

to suppress the mighty amongst them; where the patriot is reviled; where

there is no man of yesterday revered for his wisdom; where the petty and the

envious seek to tear down the men of worth to their own base level?’

There was no cheering now as those at the back of the hall recognized

themselves in this description. Effortlessly my Tanus had succeeded in

alienating every man amongst them, great and small, rich and poor. Oh, why

had he not consulted me, I mourned, and the answer was plain. He had not

consulted me because he knew I would have counselled him against it.

’What order is there in society where the slave is free with his tongue,

and counts himself as equal to those of noble birth?’ he blazed at them.

’Should the son revile his father and scorn the wisdom paid for in grey hairs

and wrinkled brow? Should the waterfront harlot wear rings of lapis lazuli

and set herself above the virtuous wife?’

By Horus, he would not spare one of them from the lash of his tongue, I

thought bitterly. As always, he was completely oblivious to his own safety in

the pursuit of what he saw as the right and open way.

Only one person in the temple was enchanted with what he had to tell them.

Lostris appeared at my side and gripped my arm.

’Isn’t he wonderful, Taita?’ she breathed. ’Every word he utters is the

truth. Tonight he is truly a young god.’

I could find neither the words nor the heart to agree with her, and I hung

my head in sorrow as Tanus went on relentlessly.

69

’Pharaoh, you are the father of the people. We cry out to you for

protection and for succour. Give the affairs of state and war into the hands

o honest and clever men. Send the rogues and the fools to rot on their

estates. Call off the faithless priests and the usurious servants of the

state, those parasites upon the body of this Ta-Meri of ours.’

Horus knows that I am as good a priest-hater as the best of them, but only

a fool or very brave man would call down the wrath of every god-botherer in

Egypt upon his own head, for their power is infinite and their hatred

implacable. While as for the civil servants, their lines of influence and

corruption have been set up over the centuries and my Lord Intef was the

chief of them all. I shuddered in pity for my dear blunt friend as he went on

handing out instructions to Pharaoh on how to restructure the whole of

Egyptian society.

’Heed the words of the sage! Oh, king, honour the artist and the scribe.

Reward the brave warrior and the faithful servant. Root out the bandits and

the robbers from their desert fastnesses. Give the people example and

direction in their lives, so that this very Egypt may once again flourish and

be great.’

Tanus fell to his knees in the centre of the stage and spread his arms

wide. ’Oh, Pharaoh, you are our father. We protest our love to you. In

return, show us now a father’s love. Hear our entreaties, we beg of you.’

Up to that moment I had been stupefied by the depths of my friend’s folly,

but now, much too late, I regained my wits and signalled frantically for my

stage-hands to drop the curtain before Tanus could do any further damage. As

the gleaming folds of cloth floated down and hid him from their view, the

audience sat in stunned silence, as though they did not believe all that they

had heard and seen that night.

It was Pharaoh himself who broke the spell. He rose to his feet, and his

face behind the stiff white make-up was inscrutable. As he swept from the

temple, the congregation prostrated itself before him. Before he too went

down in obeisance, I saw my Lord Intef?s expression. It was triumphant.

I ESCORTED TANUS BACK FROM THE TEMPLE to his own sparsely furnished

quarters close to the dock at which his squadron was moored. Although I

walked beside him with my hand on the hilt of my dagger, prepared for the

consequences of his foolhardy honesty to be visited on us immediately, Tanus

was quite unrepentant. Indeed, he seemed oblivious to the depths of his folly

and inordinately pleased with himself. I have often remarked how a man

freshly released from terrible strain and mortal danger becomes garrulous and

elated. Even Tanus, the hardened warrior, was no exception.

’It was time somebody stood up and said what needed to be said, don’t you

agree, old friend?’ His voice rang clear and loud down the darkened alley, as

though he were determined to summon any awaiting assassin to us. I kept my

agreement muted.

’You did not expect it of me, did you now? Be honest with me, Taita. It

took you quite by surprise, did it not?’ ’It surprised us all.’ This time I

could agree with a little more enthusiasm. ’Even Pharaoh was taken aback, as

well he might be.’

70

’He listened, Taita. He took it all in, I could tell. I did good work this

evening, don’t you think so?’

When I attempted to raise the subject of Rasfer’s treacherous attack upon

him and broach the possibility that it might have been inspired by my Lord

Intef, Tanus would have none of it. ’That is impossible, Taita. You dreamed

it. Lord Intef was my father’s dearest friend. How could he wish me ill?

Besides, I am to be his son-in-law, am I not?’ And despite his injuries he

let out such a happy shout of laughter that it roused the sleepers in the

darkened huts that we were passing and they shouted grumpily back at us to be

quiet. Tanus ignored their protests.

’No, no, I am sure that you are wrong,’ he cried. ’It was simply Raster

working out his spite in his own charming way. Well, he’ll know better next

time.’ He threw his arm around my shoulders and hugged me so hard that it

hurt. ’You saved me twice tonight. Without your warnings Rasfer would have

had me both times. How do you do these things, Taita? I swear you are a

secret warlock, and have the gift of the inner eye.’ He laughed again.

How could I stifle his joy? He was like a boy, a big rumbustious boy. I

could not help but love him all the more. This was not the time to point out

the danger in which he had placed himself and all of us who were his friends.

Let him have his hour, and tomorrow I would sound the voice of reason and

of caution. So I took him home and stitched the gash in his forehead, and

washed his other wounds and anointed them with my special mixture of honey

and herbs to prevent mortification. Then I gave him a stiff draught of the

Red Shepenn and left the good Kratas to guard his slumbers.

When I reached my own quarters well after midnight, there were two

summonses awaiting me: one from my Lady Lostris and the other from the

vanquished Rasfer. There was no doubt as to which of them I would have

responded to if I had been given the choice, but I was not. Rasfer’s two

thugs almost dragged me away to where he lay on a sweat-soaked mattress,

cursing and moaning by turns, and calling on Seth and all die gods to witness

his pain and his fortitude.

’Good Taita!’ he greeted me, raising himself painfully on one elbow, ’you

will not believe the pain. My chest is afire. I swear every bone in it is

crushed, and my head aches as though it is bound by thongs of rawhide.’

With very little effort I was able to force back my tears of pity, but it

is a strange thing about those of us who are doctors and healers that we

cannot find it in our hearts to deny our skills to even the most abominable

creatures that require them. I sighed with resignation, unpacked the leather

bag that contained my medical equipment and set out my instruments and

unguents.

I was delighted to find that Rasfer’s self-diagnosis was perfectly valid,

and that apart from numerous contusions and shallow wounds, at least three of

his ribs were broken and there was a lump on the back of his head almost the

size of my fist. I had, therefore, a perfectly legitimate reason for adding

considerably to his discomfort. One of the broken ribs was seriously out of

alignment and there was genuine danger that it might pierce the lung. While

his two thugs held him down and Rasfer squealed and howled most

gra-tifyingly, I manipulated the rib back into place and strapped up his

chest with linen bandages well soaked in vinegar to shrink as they dried.

71

Then I addressed myself to the lump on the back of his skull where it had

struck the stone paving. The gods are often generous. When I held a lamp to

Rasfer’s eyes the pupils did not dilate. There was not the least doubt in my

mind as to what treatment was required. Bloody fluid was gathering inside

that unlovely skull. Without my help Rasfer would be dead by the following

sunset. I thrust aside the obvious temptation and reminded myself of the

surgeon’s duty to his patient.

There are probably only three surgeons in all of Egypt who are capable of

trepanning a skull with a good chance of success, and personally I would not

put much faith in the other two. Once again I ordered Rasfer’s two oafs to

take hold of him to control his struggles, and to hold him face down on his

mattress. By the roughness of their handling and their obvious disregard for

their master’s injured ribs, I surmised that they were not exactly

overflowing with loving feeling towards then- master.

Once again a chorus of howls and squeals turned the night hideous and

gladdened my labours, as I made a semicircular incision around the lump on

his scalp, and then peeled a large flap of skin away from the bone. Now not

even those two strapping ruffians could hold him down. His struggles were

splashing blood as high as the ceiling of the room and sprinkling us all, so

that we seemed to be inflicted with a red pox. At last, in exasperation, I

ordered them to bind his ankles and wrists to the bedposts with leather

straps.

’Oh, gentle and sweet Taita, the pain is beyond belief. Give me but a drop

of that flower juice, I beg you, dear friend,’ he blubbered.

Now that he was safely bound to the bed, I could afford to be frank with

him. ’I understand, my good Rasfer, just how you feel. I also would have been

grateful for a little of the flower when last you took the knife to me. Alas,

old comrade, my store of the drug is finished, and there will not be another

eastern caravan for at least a month,’ I lied cheerfully, for very few knew

that I cultivated the Red Shepenn myself. Knowing that the best was yet to

come, I reached for my bone-drill.

The human head is the only part of the body that puzzles me as a doctor. At

the orders of my Lord Intef the corpses of all executed criminals are handed

over to me. In addition Tanus has been able to bring me many fine specimens

from the battlefield, suitably pickled in vats of brine. All these I have

dissected and studied so that I know every bone and how it fits into its

exact place in the skeleton. I have traced the route by which food enters the

mouth and passes through the body. I have found that great and wondrous

organ, the heart, nestling between the pale air-bladders of the lungs. I have

studied the rivers of the body through which the blood flows, and I have

observed the two types of blood which determine the moods and emotions of

man.

There is, of course, that bright joyous blood that, when released by the

cut of a scalpel or the headsman’s axe, spurts out in regular impulses. This

is the blood of happy thoughts and fine emotions, it is the blood of love and

kindness. Then there is that darker sullen blood that flows without the

vigour and the bounding joy of the other. This is the blood of anger and of

sorrow, of melancholic thoughts and evil deeds.

All these matters I have studied, and have filled one hundred papyrus rolls

with my observations. There is no man in the world that I know of who has

gone to such lengths, certainly none of those quacks in the temple with their

amulets and their incantations have done so. I doubt any one of them could

72

tell the liver from the sphincter of the anus without an invocation to

Osiris, a casting of the divining dice and a fat fee paid in advance.

In all modesty I can say that I have never met a man who understands the

human body better than I, and yet the head is still a puzzle to me. Naturally

I understand that the eyes see, the nose smells, the mouth tastes and the

ears hear? but what is the purpose of that pale porridge that fills the gourd

of the skull?

I have never been able to fathom it myself, and no man has ever been able

to offer me a satisfactory explanation, except that Tanus came closest to it.

After he and I had spent an evening together sampling the latest vintage of

red wine, he had woken in the dawn and suggested with a groan, ’Seth has

placed this thing in our heads as his revenge on mankind.’

I once met a man who was travelling with a caravan from beyond those

legendary twin rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, who professed to have

studied the same problem. He was a wise man and together we debated many

mysteries over the course of half a year. At one point he suggested that all

human emotion and thought sprang not from the heart, but from those soft

amorphous curds that make up the brain. I mention this naive assertion only

to demonstrate how gravely even an intelligent and learned man can err.

Nobody who has ever considered that mighty organ, the heart, leaping with

its own life in the centre of our body, fed by great rivers of blood,

protected by the palisades of bone, can doubt that this is the fountain from

which all thought and emotion springs. The heart uses the blood to

disseminate these emotions throughout the body. Have you ever felt your heart

stir within you and quicken to beautiful music, or a lovely face, or the fine

words of a moving speech? Have you ever felt anything leaping around inside

your head? Even the wise man from the East had to capitulate before my

ruthless logic.

No rational man can believe that a bloodless puddle of curdled milk lying

inert in its bony jar could conjure up the lines of a poem or the design of a

pyramid, could cause a man to love or to wage war. Even the embalmers scoop

it out and discard it when they prepare a corpse for the long journey.

There is, however, a paradox here in that if this glutinous mass is

interfered with, even by the pressure of trapped fluid upon it, the patient

is certainly doomed. It requires an intimate knowledge of the structure of

the head and a quite marvellous dexterity to be able to drill through the

skull without disturbing the sac that contains this porridge. I have both

these attributes.

As I ground down slowly through the bone, encouraged by Rasfer’s bellows, I

paused regularly to wash away the bone chips and filings by splashing vinegar

into the wound. The sting of the liquid added little to the patient’s

well-being, but revived the flagging volume of his voice.

Suddenly the sharp bronze drill bit cleanly through the skull, and a tiny

but perfect circle of bone was blown out of the wound by the pressure within.

It was followed immediately by a spurt of dark, clotted blood that hit me in

the face. Immediately Rasfer relaxed under me. I knew, not without a sneaking

pang of regret, that he would survive. As I stitched the flap of scalp back

into place, covering the aperture in the depths of which the dura mater

pulsed ominously, I wondered if I had truly done mankind a great service by

preserving this specimen of it.

73

When I left Rasfer with his head swathed in bandages, snoring and

whimpering in porcine self-pity, I found that I was completely exhausted. The

excitements and alarums of the day had expended even my vast store of energy.

However, there was to be no rest for me yet, for my Lady Lostris’ messenger

still hovered on the terrace of my quarters and pounced on me as I set foot

on the first step. I was allowed only sufficient grace to wash away Rasfer’s

blood and change my soiled raiment.

As I tpttered into her chamber, barely able to place one . foot before the

other, my Lady Lostris met me with blazing eyes and ominously tapping foot.

’Just where do you think you have been hiding yourself, Master Taita?’ she

lashed out at me immediately. ’I sent for you before the second watch, and

it’s now not much short of dawn. How dare you keep me waiting so? Sometimes

you forget your station. You know full well the punishment for impertinent

slaves?’ She was in full flight, having let her impatience brew for all these

hours. In anger her beauty is stunning, and when she stamped her foot in that

adorable gesture that was so typically her own, I thought that my heart must

burst with my love for her.

’Don’t you stand there grinning at me!’ she flared at me. ’I am so truly

angry that I could order you flogged.’ She stamped her foot again, and I felt

the tiredness fall from my shoulders like a heavy load. Her mere presence had

the power to revitalize me.

’My lady, what a wondrous role you played this night. It seemed to me and

all who watched you that it was indeed the divine goddess that walked amongst

us?’

’Don’t you dare try your tricks with me.’ She stamped for the third time,

but without conviction. ’You’ll not wriggle out of this so easily?’

’Truly, my lady, as I walked back from the temple through the crowded

streets, your name was on every tongue. They said your singing was the finest

they had ever heard, and had quite stolen every heart.’

’I believe not a word,’ she declared, but she was clearly having difficulty

sustaining her fury. ’In fact I thought my voice was awful this evening. I

was flat at least once, and off-key on numerous?’

’I must contradict you, mistress. You were never better. And what beauty!

It lit the whole temple.’ She is not truly vain, my Lady Lostris, but she is

a woman.

’You awful man!’ she cried in exasperation. ’I was ready to have you

flogged this time, I truly was. But come and sit beside me on the bed and

tell me all about it. I am still so excited that I am sure I will not sleep

for a week.’ She took my hand and led me to the bed, babbling on happily

about Tanus, and how he must have won every heart as well as Pharaoh’s with

his wonderful performance and fearless speech, and how the infant Horus had

beshat her dress, and did I truly think that she had sung even passing well,

and wasn’t I just saying so?

At last I had to stop her. ’My lady, it is almost dawn and we must be ready

to leave with all the court to accompany the king when he crosses the river

to inspect his funerary temple and his tomb. You must get some sleep if you

are to look your best on such an important state occasion.’

’I’m not sleepy, Taita,’ she protested, and went chattering on, only to

slump against my shoulder a few minutes later, fallen asleep in mid-sentence.

74

Gently, I slipped her head down on to the carved wooden headrest and

covered her with a rug of colobus monkey furs. I could not bring myself to

leave immediately but hovered beside her bed. At last I placed a gentle kiss

upon her cheek. She did not open her eyes, but whispered sleepily, ’Do you

think there will be an opportunity for me to speak to the king tomorrow? Only

he will be able to prevent my father sending Tanus away.’

I could think of no ready answer for her, and while I still dithered, she

fell fully asleep.

I COULD SCARCELY DRAG MYSELF FROM my couch at dawn, for I seemed barely to

have closed my eyes to sleep before it was time to open them again. My

reflection in the bronze mirror was haggard and my eyes were underscored in

purple. Swiftly I touched on make-up to cover the worst of my sorry

condition, enhancing the hollows of my eyes with kohl and my pale features

with a brushing of antimony. Two of the slave boys combed out my hair and I

was so pleased with the result that I felt almost cheerful as I hurried down

to the grand vizier’s private dock where the great state barge lay moored.

I was amongst the last to join the throng upon the quay, but no one seemed

to notice my late arrival, not even my Lady Lostris who was already on the

deck of the barge. I watched her for a while.

She had been invited to join the royal women. These comprised not only the

king’s wives, but his numerous- concubines and all his daughters. Of course

these last were the cause of much of Pharaoh’s unhappiness, a flock of them

ranging in age from crawlers and toddlers to others of marriageable age, and

not a son amongst them. How was Pharaoh’s immortality to be maintained

without a male line to carry it forward?

It was difficult to believe that, like me, Lostris had not slept more than

an hour or two, for she seemed as sweet and fresh as one of the desert roses

in my garden. Even in mat glittering array of feminine beauty that had been

hand-picked by Pharaoh’s factors or sent to him in tribute by his satraps at

the ends of the empire, Lostris stood out like a swallow in a flock of drab

little desert larks.

I looked for Tanus, but his squadron was already lying well upstream, ready

to escort Pharaoh’s crossing, and the reflection of the rising sun turned the

surface of the river into a dazzling silver sheet that blinded the eye. I

could not look into it.

At that moment there was the steady boom of a drum, and the populace craned

to watch Pharaoh’s stately progress down from the palace to the royal barge.

This morning he wore the light nemes crown of starched and folded linen,

secured around his forehead with the gold band of the uraeus. The erect

golden cobra, with its hood flared and its garnet eyes glittering, rose up

from his brow. The cobra was the symbol of the powers of life and death that

Pharaoh held over his subjects. The king was not carrying the crook and

flail, only the golden sceptre. After the double crown itself, this was the

most holy treasure of all the crown jewels and was reputed to be over a

thousand years old.

Despite all the regalia and the ceremonial, Pharaoh wore no make-up. Under

the direct rays of the early sun, and without make-up to disguise the fact,

Mamose himself was unremarkable. Just a soft little godling of late middle

75

age, with a small round paunch bulging over the waistband of his kilt and

features intricately carved with lines of worry.

As he passed where I stood, it seemed he recognized me, for he nodded

slightly. I immediately prostrated myself on the paving, and he paused and

made a sign for me to approach. I crawled forward on hands and knees, and

knocked my forehead three times on the ground at his feet.

’Are you not Taita, the poet?’ he asked in that thin and petulant voice of

his.

’I am Taita the slave, your Majesty,’ I replied. There are times when a

little humility is called for. ’But I am also a poor scribbler.’

’Well, Taita the slave, you scribbled to good effect last night. I have

never been so well entertained by a pageant. I shall issue a royal edict

declaring your poor scribblings to be the official version.’

He announced this loud enough for all the court to hear, and even my Lord

Intef, who followed him closely, beamed with pleasure. As I was his slave,

the honour belonged to him more than to me. However, Pharaoh was not finished

with me yet.

’Tell me, Taita the slave, are you not also the same surgeon who recently

prescribed to me?’

’Majesty, I am that same humble slave who has the temerity to practise a

little medicine.’

"Then when shall your cure take effect?’ He dropped his voice so that only

I could hear the question.

’Majesty, the event wiE take place nine months after you have fulfilled all

those conditions that I listed for you.’ As we were now in a

surgeon-and-patient relationship, I felt emboldened to add, ’Have you

followed the diet I set you?’

’By Isis’ bountiful breasts!’ he exclaimed with an unexpected twinkle in

his eye. ’I am so full of bull’s balls, it is a wonder that I do not bellow

when a herd of cows passes the palace.’

He was in such pleasant mood that I tried a little joke of my own. ’Has

Pharaoh found the heifer I suggested?’

’Alas, doctor, it is not as simple as it would seem. The prettiest flowers

are soonest visited by the bee. You did stipulate that she must be completely

untouched, did you not?’

’Virgin and untouched, and within a season of her first red moon,’ I added

quickly, making it as difficult as possible to put my recipe to the test.

’Have you found one who meets that description, Majesty?’

His expression changed again, and he smiled thoughtfully. The smile looked

out of place on those melancholy features. ’We shall see,’ he murmured. ’We

shall see.’ And he turned and mounted the boarding-ladder of the barge. As my

Lord Intef drew level with me, he made a small gesture, ordering me to fall

in behind him, and so I followed him up on to the deck of the royal barge.

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The wind had dropped during the night and the dark waters of the river

seemed heavy and quiet as oil in the jar, disturbed only by those streaks and

whirlpools upon the surface where the eternal current ran deep and swift.

Even Nembet should be able to make the crossing in these conditions, although

Tanus’ squadron stood by in most unflattering fashion, as if Tanus was

preparing to rescue him from error once again.

My Lord Intef drew me aside as soon as we reached the deck. ’You still have

the power to surprise me sometimes, my old darling,’ he whispered, and

squeezed my arm. ’Just when I was seriously beginning to doubt your-loyalty.’

I was taken aback by this sudden flush of goodwill, since the welts from

Rasfer’s lash across my back still ached. However, I bowed my head to shield

my expression and waited for him to give me direction before committing

myself, which he did immediately.

’I could not have written a, more appropriate declamation for Tanus to

recite before Pharaoh if I had tried myself. Where that imbecile Rasfer

failed so dismally, you retrieved the day for me in your usual style.’ It was

only then that it all fell into place. He believed that I was the author of

Tanus’ monumental folly, and that I had composed it for his benefit. In the

uproar of the temple he could not have heard my shouted warnings to Tanus, or

he would have known better.

’I am pleased that you are pleased,’ I whispered back to him. I felt an

enormous sense of relief. My position of influence had not been compromised.

It was not my own skin I was thinking of at that moment?well, not entirely. I

was thinking of Tanus and Lostris. They would need every bit of help and

protection that I could give them during the stormy days that lay ahead for

both of them. I was grateful that I was still in a position to be of some use

to them.

’It was no less than my duty.’ Thus I made the most of this windfall.

’You will find me grateful,’ my Lord Intef replied. ’Do you remember the

piece of ground on the canal behind the temple of Thoth that we discussed

some time ago?’

’Indeed, my lord.’ We both knew that I had hankered after that plot for ten

years. It would make a perfect writer’s retreat and a place to which I could

retire in my old age.

’It is yours. At my next assize, bring the deed to me for my signature.’ I

was stunned and appalled by the vile manner in which it had come into my

possession, as payment for an imagined piece of treachery on my part. For a

moment I thought of rejecting the gift, but only for a moment. By the time I

had recovered from my shock we were across the river and pulling into the

mouth of the canal that led across the plain to Pharaoh Mamose’s great

funerary temple.

I had surveyed this canal with only minimal help from the royal architects,

as I had planned virtually single-handed the whole complicated business of

the transport of Pharaoh’s body from the place of his death to the funerary

temple where the mummification process would take place.

I had assumed that he would die at his palace on lovely little Elephantine

Island. Therefore his corpse would be brought down-river iri the state barge.

I had designed the canal to accommodate the huge ship snugly. So now she

slipped into it as neatly as the sword into its scabbard.

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Straight as the blade of my dagger, the canal cut through the black loam

soil of the riparian plain two thousand paces to the foot of the gaunt

Saharan foothills. Tens of thousands of slaves had laboured over the years to

build it, and to line it with stone blocks. As the barge nosed into the

canal, two hundred sturdy slaves seized the tow-ropes from the bows and began

to draw her smoothly across the plain. They sang one of the sad melodious

work chants as they marched in ranks along the tow-path. The peasants working

in the fields beside the canal ran to welcome us. They crowded to the bank,

calling blessing on the king and waving palm-fronds, as the great barge moved

majestically by.

When at last we slid into the stone dock below the outer walls of the

half-finished temple, the slaves made the tow-ropes fast to the

mooring-rings. So precise was my design that the. entry port in the bulwark

of the state barge lined up exactly’with the portals of the main gate to the

temple.

As the huge vessel came to rest, the trumpeter in the bows blew a fanfare

on his gazelle horn, and the portcullis was raised slowly, to reveal the

royal hearse waiting in the gateway attended by the company of embalmers in

their crimson robes and fifty priests of Osiris in rank behind them.

The priests began to chant as they trundled the hearse forward on its

wooden rollers, on to the deck of the barge. Pharaoh clapped his hands with

delight and hurried forward to examine this grotesque vehicle.

I had taken no part in the conception of this celebration of bad taste. It

was entirely the work of the priests. Suffice it only to say that in the

naked sunlight, the superabundant gold-work shone so brightly as to offend

the eye almost as painfully as did the actual design. Such weight of gold

forced the priests to pant and sweat as they manhandled the clumsy ark on to

the deck, and it listed even the great ship alarmingly. That weight of gold

could have filled all the grain stores of the Upper Kingdom, or built and

fitted out fifty squadrons of fighting ships and paid then- crews for ten

years. Thus the inept craftsman attempts to hide the paucity of his

inspiration behind a dazzle of treasure. If only they had given me such

material to work with, they might have seen something different.

This monstrosity was destined to be sealed in the tomb with Pharaoh’s dead

body. No matter that its construction had contributed largely to the

financial ruin of the kingdom, Pharaoh was delighted with it.

At my Lord Intef’s suggestion, the king mounted the vehicle and took his

seat on the platform designed to carry his sarcophagus. From there he beamed

about him, all his dignity and royal reserve forgotten. He was probably

enjoying himself as much as he ever had in all his gloomy life, I reflected

with a pang of pity. His death was to be the pinnacle to which most of his

living energy and anticipation were directed.

On what was clearly an impulse, he beckoned my Lord Intef to join him on

the ark and then looked around the crowded deck as if seeking someone else in

the throng. He seemed to find who he wanted, for he stooped slightly and said

something to the grand vizier.

My Lord Intef smiled and, following his direction, singled out my Lady

Lostris. With a gesture he ordered her to come to him on the ark. She was

clearly flustered, and blushed under her make-up, a rare phenomenon for one

who was so seldom caught out of countenance. However, she recovered swiftly,

and mounted the carriage with girlish, long-legged grace that as usual

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carried every eye with her.

She knelt before the king and touched her forehead three times to the floor

of the platform. Then, in front of all the priests and the entire court,

Pharaoh did an extraordinary thing. He reached down and took Lostris’ hand,

and lifted her to her feet, and seated her beside him on the platform. It was

beyond all protocol, there was no precedent for it, and I saw his ministers

exchange looks of amazement.

Then something else happened of which even they were not aware. When I was

very young there had lived in the boys’ quarters an old deaf slave who had

befriended me. It was he who had taught me to read men’s speech not only by

the sound of it, but also by the shape of their lips as they formed the

words. It was a very useful accomplishment. With it I could follow a

conversation at the far end of a crowded hall, with musicians playing and a

hundred men around me laughing anxl shouting at each other.

Now, before my eyes I saw Pharaoh say softly to my Lady Lostris, ’Even in

daylight you are as divine as was the goddess Isis in the torchlight of the

temple.’

The shock of it was like the blow of a fist in my stomach. Had I been

blind, I berated myself desperately, or had I merely been stupid? Surely any

imbecile must have anticipated the direction in which my capricious meddling

must incline the order in which the dice of destiny might fall.

My facetious advice to the king must inevitably have had the effect of

directing his attention towards my Lady Lostris. It was as though some

malignant impulse below the surface of my mind had set out to describe her

precisely to him as the mother of his first-born son. The most beautiful

virgin in the land, to be taken within the first season after her moon had

flowered?it was her exactly. And then, of course, by casting her as the

leading female in the pageant, I had managed to display her to the king in

the kindest possible light.

What I suddenly realized was about to happen was all of it my fault, as

much as though I had deliberately engineered it. What is more, there was

nothing I could do about it now. I stood in the sunlight so appalled and

stricken with remorse that for a while I was deprived of the powers of speech

and of reason.

When the sweating priests shoved the hearse off the deck and through the

gateway, the crowd around me started after it and I was borne along with them

willy-nilly, as though I were a leaf upon a stream without direction of my

own. Before I was able to recover my wits I found myself within the forecourt

of the funerary temple. I began to push my way forward, jostling those ahead

of me to get past them and to reach the side of the hearse before it came to

the main entrance of the royal mortuary.

As one team of priests pushed the vehicle forward, a second team picked up

the wooden rollers that were left behind it and ran forward to place them

ahead of the ponderous golden vehicle. There was a short delay as the

carriage reached that area of the courtyard that had not yet been paved.

While the priests spread straw ahead of the rollers to smooth the passage

over this rough ground, I slipped quickly around the back of the row of huge

carved stone lions that lined the carriageway, and hurried down this clear

space until I was level with the ark. When one of the priests tried to bar my

way and prevent me reaching the side of the vehicle, I gave him such a look

as would have made one of the stone lions quail, and spat a single word at

79

him that was seldom heard in the temple confines and caused him to step

hurriedly aside and let me pass.

When I reached the near side of the ark I found myself directly below

Lostris, close enough to stretch up and touch her arm, and to hear every word

she addressed to the king. I could tell at once that she had completely

recovered her poise which Pharaoh’s unexpected interest in her had disturbed,

and was now setting out to be as agreeable as possible to him. Miserably, I

recalled how she had planned to do exactly this, and to use his favour to

secure his agreement to her marriage to Tanus. As recently as last evening I

had dismissed it as girlish prattle, but now it was happening, and it was

beyond my power to prevent it or to warn her of the dangerous waters into

which she was steering. If, earlier in this chronicle, I have given the

impression that my Lady Lostris was a flighty child with not a thought in her

pretty head other than romantic nonsense and her own frivolous enjoyment of

life, then I have fallen short in my efforts as historian of these

extraordinary events. Although still so young, she was at times mature far

beyond her years. Our Egyptian girls bloom early in the Nile sunlight. She

was also a diligent scholar, with a bright mind and a thoughtful and

enquiring side to her nature, all of which I had done my very best over the

years to foster and develop.

Under my tutelage she had reached the stage where she could debate with the

priests the most obscure religious dogma, could hold her own with the palace

lawyers on such matters as the Land Tenure Acts and the extremely complicated

Irrigation Act that regulated the usage of the waters from the Nile. Of

course, she had read and absorbed every single one of the scrolls in the

palace library. These included several hundred of which I was the author,

from my medical treatises to my definitive essays on the tactics of naval

warfare, together with my astrological scrolls on the names and natures of

all the heavenly bodies, and my manuals on archery and swordsmanship,

horticulture and falconry. She could even argue with me my own principles of

architecture, and compare them to those of the great Imhotep.

Thus she was perfectly equipped to discuss any subject from astrology to

the practice of war, from politics or the building of temples to the

measurement and regulation of the Nile waters, all of which were subjects

that fascinated Pharaoh. In addition she could rhyme and riddle and coin an

amusing pun, and her vocabulary was almost as extensive as my own. In short,

she was an accomplished conversationalist, with a ready sense of humour. She

was articulate and had an enchanting voice and a merry little laugh. Truly,

no man or god could resist her, especially if she could offer to someone

without a son the promise of an heir.

I had to warn her, and yet how could a slave intrude upon the congress of

persons so infinitely high above his own station? I skipped nervously beside

the carriage, listening to my Lady Lostris’ voice at its most enthralling as

she set herself out to engage the king’s fancy.

She was describing to him the manner in which his funerary femple had been

laid out to conform to the most propitious astronomical aspects, those of the

moon and the zodiac at the time of Pharaoh’s birth. Of course she was merely

repeating knowledge that she had gleaned from me, for I was the one who had

surveyed and orientated the temple to the heavenly bodies. However, she was

so convincing that I found myself following her explanations as though I was

hearing them for the first time.

The funeral ark passed between the pylons of the inner court of the temple

and rolled down the long colonnaded atrium, past the barred and guarded doors

80

to the six treasuries in which were manufactured and stored the funerary

offerings which would go with the king to his tomb. At the end of the atrium

the acacia-wood doors, on which were carved the images of all the gods of the

pantheon, were swung open, and we entered the mortuary where Pharaoh’s corpse

would one day be embalmed.

Here in this solemn chapel the king dismounted from the carriage, and went

forward to inspect the massive table on which he would lie for the ritual of

mummification. Unlike the embalming of a commoner, royal embalming took

seventy days to accomplish. The table had been sculpted from a single block

of diorite, three paces long and two wide. Into the dark, mottled surface of

the stone had been chiselled the indentation that fitted the back of the

king’s head, and the grooves which would drain the blood and other bodily

fluids released by the scalpels and the instruments of the embalmers.

The grand master of the guild of embalmers was standing beside the table,

ready to explain the entire process to the king, and he had an attentive

audience, for Pharaoh seemed fascinated by every gruesome detail. At one

stage it seemed that he might so far forget his dignity as to climb up upon

the diorite block and try its fit, very much as though it were a new costume

of linen presented by his tailor.

However, he restrained himself with an obvious effort, and instead devoted

himself to the mortician’s description of how the first incision would be

made from his gullet to his groin, and how his viscera would be lifted out

cleanly and then divided into their separate parts?liver, lungs, stomach and

entrails. The heart, as the hearth of the divine spark, would be left in

place, as would the kidneys with their associations with water and thus with

the Nile, the source of life.

After this edifying instruction, Pharaoh minutely examined the fqur Canopic

jars that would receive his viscera. They stood on another smaller granite

table close at hand. The jars were carved from gleaming translucent alabaster

the colour of milk. Their stoppers were fashioned in the shapes of the

animal-headed gods: Anubis the jackal, Sobeth the crocodile, Thoth the

ibis-headed, Sekhmet with the head of a lioness. They would be the guardians

of Pharaoh’s divine parts until his awakening in the eternal life.

On the same granite table that held the Canopic jars, the embalmers had

laid out their instruments and the full array of pots and amphorae that

contained the natron salts, lacquers and other chemicals that they would use

in the process. Pharaoh was fascinated by the glistening bronze scalpels

which would disembowel him, and when the embalmer showed him the long pointed

spoon that would be pushed up his nostrils to scoop out the contents of his

skull, those cheesy curds over which I had pondered so long and fruitlessly,

the king was fascinated and handled the grisly instrument with reverential

awe.

Once the king had satisfied his curiosity at the mortuary table, my Lady

Lostris directed his attention to the painted bas-relief engravings that

covered the walls of the templi from floor to ceiling. The decorations were

not yet completed, but were none the less quite striking in their design and

execution. I had drawn most of the original cartoons with my own hand, and

had closely supervised the others drawn by the palace artists. These had been

traced on to the walls with charcoal sticks. Once the tracings were in place,

I had corrected and perfected them in free-hand. Now a company of master

sculptors was engraving them into the sandstone blocks, while behind them a

second company of artists was painting in the completed bas-relief.

81

The dominant colour I had chosen for these designs was blue in all its

variation: the blue of the starling’s wing, the blues of the sky and the Nile

in the sunlight, the blues of the petals of the desert orchid and the

shimmering blue of the river perch quivering in the fisherman’s net. However,

there were other colours as well, all thqse vibrant reds and yellows that we

Egyptians love so well.

Pharaoh, accompanied closely by my Lord Intef, in his capacity of Keeper of

the Royal Tombs, made a slow circuit of the high walls, examining every

detail, and commenting on most of them. Naturally the theme I had chosen for

the mortuary was the Book of the Dead, that detailed map and description of

the route to the underworld that Pharaoh’s shade must follow, and the

depictions of all the trials and dangers he would confront along the way.

He paused for a long while before my drawing of the god Thoth, with his

bird head and long curved ibis beak, weighing Pharaoh’s disembodied heart on

the scales against the feather of truth. Should the heart be impure, it would

tip the scales against the feather, and the god would immediately toss it to

the crocodile-headed monster that waited close at hand to devour it. Softly,

the king quoted the protective mantra laid down in the book to shield himself

from such a calamity, and then passed on to my next engraving.

It was almost noon before Pharaoh had completed his inspection of the

mortuary temple and led the way out into the forecourt where the palace chefs

had laid out a sumptuous open-air banquet.

’Come and sit here, where I can speak to you further on the matter of the

stars!’ Once again the king ignored precedent to place my Lady Lostris close

to him at the banquet table, even moving one of his senior wives to make a

place for her. During the meal he directed most of his conversation towards

my mistress. She was now completely at her ease and kept the king and all

those around her enthralled and merry with her wit and charm.

Of course, as a slave I did not have a seat at the table, nor could I even

inveigle myself within range of my mistress to warn her to moderate her

demeanour in the king’s presence. Instead, I found myself a place on the

pedestal of one of the granite lions, from where I could look down the length

of the banquet table and watch everything that took place there. I was not

the only observer, for my Lord Intef sat close to the king and yet withdrawn,

watching it alj with glittering, implacable eyes, like a handsome but deadly

spider at the centre of his web.

At one stage of the meal a yellow-billed kite wheeled high over head, and

uttered a screech, a sardonic and mocking cry. Hurriedly I made the sign

against the evil eye, for who knows what god it was that had taken the form

of the bird to muddle and confuse our petty endeavours?

After the midday meal it was customary for the court to rest for an hour or

so, especially at this the hottest season of the year. However, Pharaoh was

so wrought up that today he would have none of it.

’Now we will inspect the treasuries,’ he announced. The guards at the doors

of the first treasury stood aside and presented arms as the royal party

approached, and the doors were swung open from within.

I had planned these six treasuries not only as store-rooms to hold the vast

funerary treasure that Pharaoh had been collecting for the past twelve years,

ever since his accession to the double throne, but also as workshops in which

a small army of craftsmen and artisans was permanently employed in adding to

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that treasure.

The hall that we entered was the armoury that housed the collection of

weapons and accoutrements of the battlefield and the wild chase, both

practical and ceremonial, which the king would take with him into the

afterworld. With my Lord Intef’s concurrence, I had arranged for the

craftsmen to be at their benches so that the king would have the opportunity

of watching them at work.

As Pharaoh passed slowly down the row of benches, his questions were so

astute and technical that those nobles and priests to whom he addressed

himself could provide no answers, and they looked around frantically for

someone who could. I was summoned hastily from the back of the crowd and

pushed forward to face the king’s interrogation.

’Ah, yes,’ Pharaoh grimaced bleakly as he recognized me. ’It is none other

than the humble slave who writes pageants and cures the sick. No one here

seems to know the composition of this electrum wire that binds the stock of

the war-bow that this man is making for me.’

’Gracious Pharaoh, the metal is a mixture of one part of copper to five

parts of silver and four of gold. The gold is of die red variety found only

in the mines of Lot in the western desert. No other gives the wire the same

pliability or elasticity, of course.’

’Of course,’ the king agreed wryly. ’And how do you make the strands so

thin? These are no thicker than the hairs of my head.’

’Majesty, we extrude the hot metal by swinging it in a special pendulum

that I designed for the purpose. Later we can watch the process in the gold

foundry, if Your Majesty so wishes.’

Thus during the rest of the tour I was able to remain at the king’s side

and to deflect some of his attention away from Lostris, but I still could not

find the opportunity to speak to her alone.

Pharaoh passed down the armoury to inspect the huge array of weapons and

armour already in store. Some of these had belonged to his forefathers and

had been employed in famous battles; others were newly manufactured and would

never be used in war. All of them were magnificent, each a pinnacle of the

armourer’s art. There were helmets and breast-plates of bronze and silver and

gold, battle swords with ivory hilts set with precious stones, full-dress

ceremonial uniforms of the commander-in-chief of each of the king’s elite

regiments, shields and bucklers in hippo-hide and crocodile-skin, all starred

with rosettes of gold. It made a splendid array.

From the armoury we crossed the atrium to the furniture store, where a

hundred cabinet-makers laboured with cedar and acacia and precious ebony wood

to build the funeral furnishings for the king’s long journey. Very few

substantial trees grow in our riparian valley, and wood is a scarce and

costly commodity, worth very nearly its weight in silver. Almost every stick

of it must be carried hundreds of leagues across the desert, or shipped

downstream from those mysterious lands to the south. Here it was piled in

extravagant stacks, as though it were commonplace, and the fragrance of fresh

sawdust perfumed the hot air.

We watched while craftsmen inlaid the head-board of Pharaoh’s bed with

patterns of mother-of-pearl and woods of contrasting colour. Others decorated

the arm-rests of the chairs with golden falcons and the back-rests of the

83

padded sofas with the heads of silver lions. Not even the halls of the royal

palace at Elephantine Island contained such delicate workmanship as would

grace the rock cell of the king’s tomb.

From the furniture treasury we passed on to the hall of the sculptors. In

marble and sandstone and granite of a hundred differing hues, the sculptors

whittled and chipped away with chisel and file so that a fine, pale dust hung

in the air. The masons covered their noses and mouths with strips of linen on

which the dust settled and their features were powdered white with the

insidious stuff. Some of the men coughed behind their masks as they worked, a

persistent, dry cough that was peculiar to their profession. I had dissected

the corpses of many old sculptors who had worked thirty years and died at

their trade. I found their lungs petrified and turned to stone in their

bodies, thus I spent as little time as possible in the masons’ shop lest I

contract the same malady.

None the less, their products were wondrous to contemplate, statues of the

gods and of Pharaoh himself that seemed to vibrate with life. There were

life-sized images of Pharaoh seated on his throne or walking abroad, alive

and dead, in his god form or in the shape of a mortal man. These statues

wouMJine the long causeway that led from the funerary temple on the valley

floor up into the wall of black hills from which his final tomb was even at

this moment being excavated. At his death the golden hearse, drawn by a train

of one hundred white bullocks, was to bear his massive sarcophagus along that

causeway to its final resting-place.

This granite sarcophagus, only partially completed, lay in the centre of

the masons’ hall. Originally it had been a single block of pink granite

quarried from the mines at Assoun, and ferried down-river in a barge

especially constructed for that purpose. It had taken five hundred slaves to

haul it ashore and drag it over wooden rollers to where it now lay, an oblong

of solid stone five paces long, three wide and three tall.

The masons had begun by sawing a thick slab from the top of it. Upon this

granite hd a master mason was fashioning the likeness of the mummiform

Pharaoh, with his arms crossed and the crook and flail gripped in his dead

hands. Another team of masons was now engaged,in hollowing out the interior

of the main granite block to provide a nest into which the cluster of inner

coffins would fit perfectly. Including the huge outer sarcophagus, there

would be seven coffins hi all, fitting one within the other like a child’s

puzzle-toy. Seven was, of course, one of the magical numbers. The innermost

coffin would be of pure gold, and later we watched it being beaten out of the

formless mass of metal in the hall of the goldsmiths.

It was this multiple sarcophagus, this mountain of stone and gold housing

the king’s wrapped corpse, that the great golden hearse would carry along the

causeway to the hills, a slow journey that would take seven whole days to

complete. The hearse would stop each night in one of the small shrines that

were spaced at intervals along the causeway.

A fascinating adjunct to the hall of statues was the ushabti shop at the

rear where the servants and retainers who would escort the dead king were

being carved. These were perfect little manikins of wood representing all the

grades and orders of Egyptian society who would work for the king in the

hereafter, so as to enable him to maintain his estate and the style of his

existence in the underworld.

Each ushabti was a delightfully carved wooden doll dressed in the authentic

uniform of his calling and bearing the appropriate tools. There were farmers

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and gardeners, fishermen and bakers, beer-brewers and handmaidens, soldiers

and tax-collectors, scribes and barbers, and hundreds upon hundreds of common

labourers to perform every menial task and to go forward in the king’s place

if ever he were called upon by the other gods to work in the underworld.

At the head of this congregation of little figures there was even a grand

vizier whose miniature features closely resembled those of my Lord Intef.

Pharaoh picked out this manikin and examined him closely, turning him over to

read the description on his back.

My name is Lord Intef, grand vizier of the Upper Kingdom, Pharaoh’s sole

companion, three times the recipient of the Gold of Praise. I am ready to

answer for the king.

Pharaoh passed the doll to my Lord Intef. ’Is your physique truly so

muscular, my Lord Intef?’ he asked with a smile just below the surface of his

dour expression, and the grand vizier bowed slightly.

’The sculptor has failed to do me justice, Your Majesty.’

The last treasury that the king visited that day was the hall of the

goldsmiths. The infernal glow of the furnaces cast a strange glow on the

features of the jewellers as they worked with total concentration at their

benches. I had coached them well. At the entrance of the royal entourage, the

goldsmiths knelt in unison to make the triple obeisance to Pharaoh, and then

rose and resumed their work.

Even in that large hall the heat of the furnace flames was so sulphurous as

almost to stop the breath, and we were soon bathed in our own sweat. However,

the king was so fascinated by the treasure displayed for him that he seemed

not to notice the oppressive atmosphere. He went directly to the raised dais

in the centre of the hall where the most experienced and skilful smiths were

at work upon the golden inner coffin. They had perfectly captured Pharaoh’s

living face in the shimmering metal. The mask would fit exactly over his

bandaged head. It was a divine image with eyes of obsidian and rock-crystal,

and with the cobra-headed uraeus encircling the brow. I truly believe that no

finer masterpiece of the goldsmith’s art has ever been fashioned in all the

thousand years of our civilization. This was the peak and the zenith. All the

unborn ages might one day marvel at its splendour.

Even after Pharaoh had admired the golden mask from every angle, he seemed

unable to tear himself too far from it. He spent the remainder of the day on

the dais beside it, seated on a low stool while box after cedar-wood box of

exquisite jewels were laid at his feet and the contents catalogued for him.

I cannot believe that such a treasure was ever before accumulated in one

place at one time. To make a bald list of the items does not in the least way

suggest the richness and the diversity of it all. None the less, let me tell

you at the outset that, there were six thousand four hundred and fifty-five

pieces already in the cedar-wood boxes, and that each day more were added to

the collection as the jewellers worked on tirelessly.

There were rings for Pharaoh’s toes as well as his fingers; there were

amulets and charms, and gold figurines of the gods and goddesses; there were

necklaces and bracelets and pectoral medallions and belts on which were

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inlaid falcons and vultures and all the other creatures of the earth and the

sky and the river; there were crowns and diadems studded with lapis lazuli

and garnets and agate and carnelians and jasper and every gemstone that

civilized man holds dear.

The artistry with which all this had been designed and manufactured

eclipsed all that had been created over the preceding one thousand years. It

is often in decline that a nation creates its most beautiful works of art. In

the formative years of empire the obsession is with conquest and the

building-up of wealth. It is only once this has been achieved that there is

leisure and a desire to develop the arts, and?more importantly?rich and

powerful men to sponsor them.

The weight of gold and silver already used in the manufacture of the hearse

and the funeral mask and all the rest of this breathtaking collection of

treasure was in excess of five hundred takhs; thus it would have taken five

hundred strong men to lift it all. I had calculated that this was almost

one-tenth of the total weight of these precious metals that had been mined in

the entire one thousand years of our recorded history. All of this the king

intended taking with him to the tomb.

Who am I, a humble slave, to question the price that a king was willing to

pay for eternal life? Suffice it only to state that in assembling this

treasure, while at the same time conducting the war against the Lower

Kingdom, Pharaoh had, almost alone and unaided, plunged this very Egypt of

ours into beggary.

No wonder, then, that Tanus in his declamation had singled out the

depredation of the tax-collectors as one of the most terrible afflictions

visited upon the populace. Between them and the robber bands that ravaged

unchecked and unhindered through the countryside, we were all ruined and

crushed under the financial yoke that was too heavy for any of us to bear. To

survive at all, we had to evade the tax collector’s net. So as he set out to

beggar us for his own aggrandizement, the king made criminals of us at the

same moment. Very few of us, great or small, rich or poor, slept well at

night. We lay awake dreading at any moment the heavy knock of the

tax-collector upon the door.

Oh, sad and abused land, how it groaned beneath the yoke!

LAVISH QUARTERS HAD BEEN PREPARED in the necropolis in which the king would

spend that night upon the west bank of the Nile, close to his own final

resting-place in the gaunt black hills. The necropolis, the city of the dead,

was almost as extensive as Karnak itself. It was home to all those associated

with the building and the care of the funerary temple and the royal tomb.

There was a full regiment of the elite guard to protect the holy places, for

the usurper in the north was as avaricious for treasure as was our own dear

king, while the robber barons in the desert became each day bolder and more

daring. The treasuries of the funerary temple were a sore temptation to every

predator hi the two kingdoms, and beyond.

hi addition to the guards there were the companies of the craftsmen and the

artisans and all their apprentices to house. I was responsible for the

records of wages and rations, so I knew exactly how many there were. On the

last pay-day their number had been four thousand eight hundred and eleven.

Added to this, there were over ten thousand slaves employed upon the work.

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I will not weary myself by listing the numbers of oxen and sheep that had

to be slaughtered each day to feed them all, nor the cartloads of fish that

were brought up from the Nile, nor the thousands of jars of beer that were

brewed daily to slake the summef thirst of this multitude as they laboured

under the watchful eye and the ready lash of the overseers.

The pecropolis was a city, and in that city was a palace for the king. It

was with relief that we moved into it to spend the night, for it had been a

wearying day. But once again there was little rest for me.

I tried to reach my Lady Lostris, but it was almost as if there existed a

conspiracy to keep me away from her. According to her little black maids,

first she was at toilet, and after that she was in her bath, and then she was

resting and could not be disturbed. Finally, as I still waited in the

antechamber of her quarters, a summons reached me from her father, and I

could linger no longer, but must hurry to my master.

As soon as I entered my Lord Intef s bedchamber he dismissed all the others

in the room. When we were alone, he kissed me. I was once more surprised by

his benevolence and disturbed by his excited manner. Seldom had I seen him in

such mood, and always before it had adumbrated calamitous events.

’How often the gateway to power and fortune is found in the most unexpected

place!’ he laughed at me, and caressed my face. ’This time it lies between

the thighs of a woman. No, my old darling, don’t play the innocent. I know

just what a cunning hand you have taken in all of this. Pharaoh has told me

how you cajoled him into it by promising him a male heir to his line. By

Seth, but you are the cunning one, are you not? Not a word to me of your

design, but you schemed it all on your own account.’

He laughed again, and twisted a lock of my hair between his fingers. ’You

must have divined my ultimate ambition all along, even though we have never

discussed it openly. So you set out to achieve it for me. Of course, I should

have you punished for your presumption,’ he twisted the lock of hair until

tears started into my eyes, ’but how can I be angry with you when you have

placed the double crown within my grasp?’ He released the tress of my hair

and kissed me again. ’I have just come from the king’s presence. In two days,

at the culmination of the festival, he will announce his betrothal to my

daughter, Lostris.’ I felt a sudden darkness behind my eyes, and a chilly dew

formed on my skin.

’The wedding will take place the same day, immediately after the closing

ceremony of the festival, I saw to that. We don’t want any delay in which

something might happen to prevent it, do we?’

Such a swift royal wedding was unusual but not unheard of. When brides

were chosen to seal a political union, or to consolidate the conquest of a

new territory, the wedding often took place the very same day it was decided.

Pharaoh Mamose the First, forefather of our present pharaoh, had married the

daughter of a conquered Human chieftain on the actual battlefield. However,

such historical precedents were of little comfort to me now as I faced the

bleak maturation of my worst fears.

My Lord Intef seemed not to notice my distress. He was too concerned with

his own immediate interests, and he went on speaking. ’Before I gave my

formal consent to the union, I prevailed on the king to concede that if she

bore him a son then he would elevate my daughter to the rank of principal

wife and queen consort.’ He clapped his hands in unrestrained triumph.

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’Of course, you realize what that means. If Pharaoh should die before my

grandson is of age to rule, then I as his grandfather and closest male line

would become regent?’ He broke off suddenly and stared at me, and I knew him

so well that I- understood exactly what was running through his mind. He was

bitterly regretting that indiscretion, nobody should ever have heard that

thought expressed. It was purest treason. If Lostris bore a son to Pharaoh,

then the father would not live long thereafter. We both understood that. My

Lord Intef had given voice to regicide, and he was considering removing the

only one who had heard it spoken, the humble slave, Taita. We both understood

that clearly.

’My lord, I am only grateful that it has turned out the way I planned it. I

admit now that I have worked deviously to place your daughter in the king’s

way, and that I described her to him as the mother of his future son. I used

the pageant as a show-piece to focus his attention upon her. However, I could

not bring myself to speak to you of such momentous affairs until they had

been successfully engineered. But there still remains a great deal for us to

do, before we can count ourselves secure?’ and I began swiftly to extemporize

a list of all that might go awry before he could gain control of the crown

and the golden sceptre of Egypt. Tactfully I made it clear how much he still

needed me if he were to achieve his design. I saw him relax as he followed my

arguments, and I knew that at least for the immediate future I was safe.

It was some time before I could reasonably escape from his presence and

hurry to warn my Lady Lostris of the terrible predicament in which I had

placed her. However, before I reached her door I realized that my warning to

her would serve no purpose other than to distress her to the point of

dementia or even suicide. I could waste no further time if I were to prevent

events from rushing to their tragic conclusion.

There was only one person to whom I could turn now.

I LEFT THE NECROPOLIS AND SET OFF alone along the tow-path of the canal,

back towards the river-bank where I knew that Tanus’ squadrons were encamped.

The moon was only three days from full and it lit the jagged hills of the

western horizon with a cold yellow radiance and threw black shadows on the

plain below.

As I hurried along, I recited to myself a full list of all the possible

calamities and misfortunes that might befall Tanus, my Lady Lostris and

myself in the days ahead. I was goading myself the same way that a

black-maned desert lion lashes up his temper with the bony spike in the end

of his tail before he charges at the huntsman. Thus I was in fulminating mood

long before I reached the bank of the Nile. I found Tanus’ encampment without

difficulty, hard by the bank of the Nile and the mouth of the canal. The

ships of the squadron were anchored below the camp. The sentries challenged

me and then, when they recognized me, led me to Tanus’ tent.

Tanus was at late supper with Kratas and four other of his subordinate

officers. He rose to greet me with a smile and offered me the beer tankard in

his hand. "This is such an unexpected pleasure, old friend. Sit down beside

me and have a pull of my beer while my slave brings you a cup and platter.

You look hot and out of sorts?’ I cut short these pleasantries by rounding on

him furiously. ’To Seth with you, you great senseless oaf! Do you not

understand what jeopardy you have placed us in? You and that flapping jawbone

of yours! Do you have no thought for the safety and the well-being of my

mistress?’ In truth I had not meant to be so harsh on him, but once I had

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started, it seemed that I was unable to control my emotions, and all my fear

and anxiety came tumbling out in a flood of invective. Not all that I accused

him of was true or fair, but it made me feel better to have it out.

Tanus’ expression changed and he held up one hand as though to shield

himself. ’Whoa! You take me unawares. I am unarmed and unable to defend

myself from such a murderous assault.’ In front of his officers his tone was

jocular, but his smile was thin as he seized my arm and steered me out of the

tent into the darkness, and half-dragged me beyond the regimental lines into

the open moonlit fields beyond. I was like a child in the grip of that right

hand that was trained to wield the sword and draw the great bow Lan-ata.

’Now puke it up!’ he ordered me grimly. ’What has happened to put you in

such vile humour?’

I was still angry, but more afraid than angry, and my tongue took flight

again. ’I have spent half my life trying to protect you from your own

stupidity, and I am sick of it. Don’t you understand anything of life? Did

you truly believe that you would be allowed to escape unscathed from the

incredible folly into which you threw all of us last night?"

’Are you talking about my declamation at the pageant?’ He looked puzzled,

and released the crushing grip on my arm. ’How can you say it was folly? All

my officers, and every other person I have spoken to since then, are all

delighted with what I had to say?’

’You fool, don’t you see that the opinions of all your officers and all

your friends count for the price of a rotten fish in the scheme of things?

Under any other ruler you would already be dead, and even this weak and

vacillating old man of ours cannot afford to let you escape the consequences

of your insolence. It is more than his throne is worth. There will be a bill

for you to pay, Tanus, Lord Harrab. Horus knows, it will be a heavy bill.’

’You’ are speaking in riddles,’ he snapped at me. ’I did the king a great

service. He is surrounded by fawning toadies who feed him the lies they think

he wants to hear. It was past time that he learned the truth, and I know in

my heart that once he considers it, he will be grateful to me.’

My anger began to evaporate before his simple and steadfast belief in the

triumph of good. ’Tanus, my dearest friend, what an innocent you are! No man

is ever grateful for having the unpalatable truth rammed down his throat. But

apart from that, you have played directly into the hands of my Lord Intef.’

’My Lord Intef?’ He stared at me hard. ’What of my Lord Intef? You speak of

him as though he were my enemy. The grand vizier was my father’s dearest

friend. I know that I can trust him to protect me. He swore an oath to my

father as he lay on his death-bed?’

I could see that despite his sunny disposition and our friendship, he was

becoming truly angry with me, probably for the first time in his life. I knew

also that, although it was slow to rouse, Tanus’ anger was something to fear.

’Oh, Tanus!’ I curbed my own anger at last. ’I have been unfair to you.

There is so much that I should have told you, and never did. Nothing was as

you thought it. I was a coward, but I could not tell you that Intef was your

own father’s deadliest enemy.’

’How can this be true?’ Tanus shook his head. ’They were friends, the

dearest friends. My earliest memories are of them laughing together. My

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father told me that I could trust my very life to my Lord Intef.’

"The noble Pianki, Lord Harrab believed that, it is true. His faith cost

him his entire fortune, and in the end his life which he placed in Intef’s

hands.’

’No, no, you must be mistaken. My father was the victim of a series of

misfortunes?’

’And every one of those misfortunes was engineered by my Lord Intef. He

envied your father for his virtues and his popularity, for his wealth and his

influence with Pharaoh. He realized that Lord Harrab would be appointed grand

vizier before him and he hated him for all these things.’

’I cannot believe you. I cannot bring myself to believe you.’ Tanus shook

his head in denial, and the last of my anger was snuffed out.

’I will explain it all to you, as I should have done long ago. I will give

you all the proof you need. But there is no time for it now. You must trust

me. My Lord Intef hates you even as he hated your father. Both you and my

Lady Lostris are in danger. In danger of more than simply life itself, in

danger of losing each other for ever.’

’But how is that possible, Taita?’ He was confused and shaken by my words.

’I thought that my Lord Intef had agreed to our union. Have you not spoken to

him, then?’

’Yes, I have spoken to him,’ I cried, and I seized Tanus’ hand and thrust

it up under the back of my tunic. ’That was his reply. Feel the welts left by

the lash! He had me flogged for even suggesting the marriage between you and

my Lady Lostris. That is how much he hates you and your family.’

Tanus stared at me speechlessly, but I saw that he believed me at last, and

so I was able to come to the subject that was dominating my thoughts more

even than his intemperate speech, or the vendetta that the grand vizier had

conducted so successfully against him over so many years.

’Hear me now, my dear friend, and brace yourself for the very worst tidings

yet.’ There was no other way to tell him, except as directly as Tanus would

have told me. ’Far from agreeing to your marriage, my Lord Intef has this

very night pledged his daughter’s hand to another. She is to be married

immediately to Pharaoh Mamose, and after she bears his first son she will

become his principal wife and consort. The king will make the announcement

himself at the end of the festival of Osiris. The marriage will take place

that very same evening.’

Tanus swayed on his feet and in the moonlight his face turned ghostly pale.

Neither of us could speak for a long while and then Tanus turned away from me

and walked out alone into the field of standing corn. I trailed behind him,

keeping him in sight, until at last he found an outcrop of black rock and

seated himself upon it with the weary air of a very old man. I came up softly

and seated myself below him. Deliberately I remained silent until he sighed

and asked quietly, ’Has Lostris consented to this marriage?’

’Of course not. As yet she probably knows nothing about it. But dp you

think for one moment that her objections would count against the will of her

father and the king? She will have no say in the matter.’ ’What are we to do,

old friend?’

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Even in my distress I was grateful to him that he used the plural,

including me, reassuring me of our friendship. ’There is one other

probability that we must face,’ I warned him. ’And that is that in the same

speech that Pharaoh announces his betrothal to Lostris, he will order your

imprisonment, or worse still, issue your death warrant. My Lord Intef has the

king’s ear and he will certainly put him up to it. In truth he would have

good reason. You are certainly guilty of sedition.’

’I do not care to live without Lostris as my wife. If the king takes her

from me, then he is welcome to my head as a marriage gift.’ He said it

simply, without histrionics, so that I had difficulty in feigning anger and

putting the edge of contempt into my voice.

’You sound like a weak and pitiful old woman, giving herself up to the

fates without a struggle. What a fine and undying love is yours, if you will

not even fight for her!’

’How do you fight a king and a god?’ Tanus asked quietly. ’A king to whom

you have sworn allegiance, and a god who is as remote and as unassailable as

the sun?’

’As a king he does not deserve your allegiance. You set that out clearly in

your declamation. He is a weak and dithering old man who has divided the two

kingdoms and brought our Ta-Meri bleeding to her knees.’

’And as a god?’ Tanus again asked quietly, as though he were not really

interested in the answer, although I knew him to be a devout and religious

man, as so many great warriors are.

’A god?’ I made my tone derisive. ’You have more of the godhead in your

sword-arm than he has in all his soft little body.’

’Then what do you suggest?’ he asked with deceptive mildness. ’What would

you have me do?’

I drew a deep breath and then blurted it out. ’Your officers and your men

would follow you to the gates of the underworld. The populace loves you for

your courage and your honour?’ I faltered, for his expression in the

moonlight gave me no encouragement to continue. He was silent for twenty

beats of my racing heart and then he ordered me softly, ’Go on! Say what you

have to say.’

’Tanus, you would make the noblest pharaoh that this Ta-Meri, this

mother-land, has known for a thousand years. You with my Lady Lostris on the

throne beside you could lead this land and this people back to greatness.

Call out your squadrons, and lead your men down the causeway to where that

unworthy pharaoh lies unprotected and vulnerable. By dawn tomorrow you could

be ruler of the Upper Kingdom. By this time next year you could have defeated

the usurper and have reunited the two kingdoms.’ I leaped to my feet and

faced nun. ’Tanus, Lord Harrab, your destiny and that of the woman you love

await you. Seize them in both your strong warrior’s hands!’

’Warrior’s hands, yes.’ He held them up before my face. ’Hands that have

fought for my mother-land and have protected her rightful king. You do me a

disservice, old friend. They are not the hands of a traitor. Nor is this the

heart of a blasphemer, that would seek to cast down and destroy a god, and

take his place in the pantheon.’

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I groaned aloud in my frustration. ’You would be the greatest pharaoh of

the Isist five hundred years, and you need not proclaim your godhead, not if

the idea offends you. Do it, I beseech you, for the sake of this very Egypt

of ours, and of the woman that we both love!’

’Would Lostris still love a traitor as she loved a soldier and a patriot? I

think not.’ He shook his head.

’She would love you no matter what?’ I began, but he cut me short.

’You cannot convince me. She is a woman of virtue and of honour. As a

traitor and a thief, I would forfeit all right to her respect. What is of

equal importance, I would never respect myself again, or consider myself

worthy of her sweet love, if I did what you urge. Speak of it no more, as you

value our friendship. I have no claim to the double crown, nor will I ever

make such claim. Horus, hear me, and turn your face away from me if ever I

should break this pledge.’

The matter was closed, I knew him so well, that great infuriating oaf, whom

I loved with all my heart. He meant exactly what he said, and would cleave to

it at any cost.

"Then what will you do, damn your stubborn heart?’ I. flared at him.

’Nothing that I say has any weight with you. Do you want to face this on your

own? Are you suddenly too wise to heed my counsel?’

’I’m willing to take your counsel, just as long as it has sense to it.’ He

reached out and drew me down beside him. ’Come, Taita, help us. Lostris and I

need you now as never before. Don’t desert us. Help us find the honourable

way.’ ’I fear there is no such thing,’ I sighed, my emotions bobbing and

spinning like a piece of flotsam caught in the Nile flood. ’But if you will

not seize the crown, then you dare not stay here. You must sweep Lostris up

in your arms and bear her away.’

He stared at me in the moonlight. ’Leave Egypt? You cannot be serious. This

is my world. This is Lostris’ world.’ ’No!’ I reassured him. ’That is not

what I had in mind. There is another pharaoh in Egypt. One who has need of

warriors and honest men. You have much to offer such a king. Your fame in the

Lower Kingdom is as great as it is here at Karnak. Place Lostris on the deck

of the Breath of Horus and send your galley flying northwards. No other ship

can catch you. In ten days, with this wind and current, you can present

yourself at the court of the red pharaoh in Memphis, and swear allegiance

to?’

’By Horus, you are determined to make a traitor of me yet,’ he cut across

me. ’Swear allegiance to the usurper, you say? Then what of the allegiance I

swore to the true Pharaoh Mamose? Does that count for nothing with you? What

kind of man am I, that can make the same oath to every king or renegade that

crosses my path? An oath is not something to be bartered or reclaimed, Taita,

it is for life. I gave my oath to the true Pharaoh Mamose.’

’That true Pharaoh is the same one who will marry your love, and will order

the strangling-rope to be twisted around your neck,’ I pointed out grimly,

and this time even he wavered.

’You are right, of course. We should not stay in Karnak. But I will not

make myself a traitor or break my solemn oath by taking up the sword against

my king.’

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’Your sense of honour is too complicated for me.’ I could not keep the tone

of sarcasm from my voice. ’All I know is that it bodes fair to make corpses

of us all. You have told me what you will not do. Now tell me what you will

do to save yourself, and rescue my Lady Lostris from a hateful fate.’

’Yes, old friend, you have every right to be angry with me. I asked for

your help and advice. When you gave it freely, I scorned it. I beg your

patience. Bear with me a while longer.’ Tanus sprang to his feet and began to

prowl about like the leopard in Pharaoh’s menagerie, back and forth,

muttering to himself, shaking his head and bunching his fists, as if to face

an adversary.

At last he stopped in front of me. ’I am not prepared to play the traitor,

but with a heavy heart I will force myself to play the coward. If Lostris

agrees to accompany me, and only if she agrees, then I am prepared to take

flight. I will take her away from this land we both love so well.’

’Where will you go?’ I asked.

’I know that Lostris can never leave the river. It is not only her life and

mine, but her god also. We must stay with Hapi, the river. That leaves only

one direction open to us.’ He raised his right arm, gleaming with muscle in

the moonlight, and pointed south. We will follow the Nile southwards into the

depths of Africa, into the land of Gush and beyond. We will go up beyond the

cataracts into the un-fathomed wilderness where no civilized man has ever

gone before. There, perhaps, if the gods are kind, we will carve out another

Ta-Meri for ourselves.’

’Who will be your companions?’

’Kratas, of course, and those of my officers and men who are game for the

adventure. I’ll address them tonight and give them the choice. Five ships,

perhaps, and the men to work them. We must be ready to leave by dawn. Will

you go back to the necropolis and fetch Lostris to me?’

’And me?’ I asked quietly. ’You’ll take me with you?’

’You?’ He laughed at me. Now that the decision was made, his mood took

flight, high as the bating falcon launched from the gloved fist. ’Would you

truly give up your garden and your books, your pageants and your building of

temples? The road will be dangerous, and the life hard. Do you truly want

that, Taita?’

’I could hot let you go alone, without my restraining hand upon your

shoulder. What folly and danger would you lead my mistress into, if I were

not there to guide you?’

’Come!’ he ordered, and clapped me on the back. ’I never doubted that you

would come with us. I know that Lostris would not leave without you, anyway.

Enough chatter! We have work to do. First, we will tell Kratas and the others

what we intend, and let them make their choice. Then you must go back to the

necropolis and fetch Lostris, while I make the preparations for our

departure. I’ll send a dozen of my best men with you, but we must hurry. It

is past midnight, and well into the third watch.’

Silly romantic fool that I am, but I was as excited as he was as we hurried

back to the regiment’s encampment below the temple and the causeway. I was so

elated that my sense of danger was dulled. It was Tanus who picked out the

sinister movement in the moonlight ahead of us and seized my arm and drew me

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beneath the shelter of a stunted carob tree.

’An armed party,’ he whispered, and I saw the glint of bronze spearheads.

There was a large band of men, thirty or forty, I estimated.

’Bandits, perhaps, or a raiding party from the Lower Kingdom,’ Tanus

growled, and even I was alarmed by the stealthy behaviour of the armed men

ahead of us. They were not using the tow-path of the canal, but creeping

through the open fields, spreading out to surround Tanus’ encampment on the

river-bank.

’This way!’ With a soldier’s eye for ground he picked out a shallow wadi

that ran down to join the river, and he steered me to it. We jumped down and

ran doubled over until we reached the perimeter of the camp. Then Tanus

sprang out of the wadi and roused the camp with a bellow.

’Stand to arms! On me, the Blues! Form on me!’ It was the rallying cry of

the Blue Crocodile Guards, and it was taken up at once by the sergeants of

each company. Instantly the camp boiled to life. The men sleeping round the

fires leaped to their feet and snatched up their stacked weapons, while the

officers’ tents burst open as though the men within had never slept but had

been waiting, tensed and ready for Tanus’ command. Sword in hand, they raced

to their stations, and I saw Kratas in the forefront.

I was amazed by the swiftness of their response, even though I knew that

these were all battle-tested veterans. Before I could draw a dozen excited

breaths they had formed in their phalanxes, with overlapping shields and long

spears thrust outwards facing the darkness. The strange band out there in the

night must have been as startled as I was by this militant display, for

although I could still make out the vague shapes of many men and the gleam of

their weapons in the gloom, the murderous charge we were all expecting from

them never materialized.

The instant that Tanus had his formations in line, he ordered the advance.

We had often debated the advantages of offensive action over defence, and now

the massed squadrons moved forward, poised to break into a full charge at

Tanus’ command. It must have been a daunting spectacle to the men out there

in the darkness, for a voice hailed us with an edge of panic in its tone. ’We

are Pharaoh’s men on the king’s business. Hold your attack!’

’Hold hard, the Blues!’ Tanus stopped the menacing advance, and then called

back, ’Which pharaoh do you serve, the red usurper or the true pharaoh?’

’We serve the true king, the divine Mamose, ruler of the Upper and the

Lower Kingdoms. I am the king’s messenger.’

’Come forward, king’s messenger, who creeps around in the night like a

thief. Come forward and state your business!’ Tanus invited him, but under

his breath he told Kratas, ’Be ready for treachery. The smell of it is thick

in the air. Have the fires built up. Give us light to see.’

Kratas gave the order and bundles of dry rushes were flung on to the

watch-fires. The flames leaped up, and the darkness was thrown back. Into

this ruddy glow the leader of the strange band stepped forward and snouted,

’My name is Neter, Best of Ten Thousand. I am the commander of Pharaoh’s

bodyguard. I bear the hawk seal for the arrest and detention of Tanus, Lord

Harrab.’

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’By Horus, he lies in his teeth,’ Kratas growled. ’You are no felon with a

warrant on your head. He insults you and the regiment. Let us at them and

I’ll thrust that hawk seal up between his buttocks.’

’Hold!’ Tanus restrained him. ’Let us hear the fellow out.’ He raised his

voice again. ’Show us the seal, Captain Neter.’

Neter held it aloft. A small statuette in glistening blue faience, in the

shape of the royal hawk. The hawk seal was the king’s personal empowerment.

The bearer acted with all the force and validity of Pharaoh himself. On pain

of death, no man could question or hinder him in the course and commission of

the royal business. The bearer answered only to the king.

’I am Tanus, Lord Harrab,’ Tanus conceded. ’And I acknowledge the hawk

seal.’

’My lord, rny lord!’ Kratas whispered urgently. ’Do not go to the king. It

will mean your certain death. I have spoken to the other officers. The

regiment is behind you, nay, the entire army is behind you. Give us the word.

We’ll make you king before the new day breaks.’

’My ear is deaf to those words,’ Tanus told him softly, but with a weight

of menace in his tone more telling than any growl or bellow. ’But only this

once, Kratas, son of Maydum. Next time that you speak treason, I will deliver

you to the king’s wrath with my own hands.’

He turned from Kratas to me, and drew me a little to one side. ’It is too

late, old friend. The gods frown on our enterprise. I must trust myself to

the king’s good sense. If he is truly a god, then he will be able to look

into my heart and see for himself that it contains no evil.’ He touched my

arm, and that light gesture was to me more significant than the warmest

embrace. ’Go to Lostris, tell her what has happened, tell her why it has

happened. Tell her I love her and, whatever happens, I will do so through

this life and the next. Tell her I will wait for her, to the ends of

eternity, if need be.’

Then Tanus ran his sword back into the scabbard at his side and with empty

hands stepped forward to meet the bearer of the hawk seal. ’I stand ready to

do the king’s bidding,’ he said simply.

Behind him his own men hissed and growled, and rattled their swords against

their bucklers, but Tanus turned and quieted them with a gesture and a frown,

then strode out to confront Neter. The king’s guard closed in around him, and

then at a trot they moved away along the tow-path of the canal, back towards

the necropolis.

The camp was filled with angry, bitter young men when I left it and

followed Tanus and his escort at a discreet interval. When I reached the

necropolis, I went directly to my Lady Lostris’ quarters. I was distressed to

find them deserted except for three of her little black maids, who in their

usual lazy and lackadaisical manner were packing the last of their mistress’s

clothing into a cedar-wood chest.

’Where is your mistress?’ I demanded, and the eldest and most insolent of

them picked her nose as she gave me an airy reply, ’Where you can’t reach

her, eunuch.’ The others tittered at her powers of repartee. They are all of

them jealous of my favour with my Lady Lostris.

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’Answer me straight, or I’ll whip your insolent backside, you little

baggage.’ I had done so before, so she relented and muttered sulkily, "They

have taken her to Pharaoh’s own harem. You have no influence there. Despite

your missing balls, the guards will’never let you pass amongst the royal

women.’

She was right, of course, but still I had to make the attempt. My mistress

wouM need me now, as much as she ever had in all her life.

As I feared, the guards at the gate to the king’s harem were intractable.

They knew who I was, but they had orders that no one, not even the closest

members of Lostris’ retinue, was to be allowed to go to her.

It cost me a gold ring, but the best I could achieve, even with that

extravagance, was the promise that one of the guards would take my message to

her. I wrote it out on a scrap of papyrus parchment, a bland little attempt

at encouragement. I dared not relate all that had befallen us, nor the peril

in which Tanus now stood. I could not even mention him by name, and yet I had

to reassure her of his love and protection. As an investment, it was not

worth the price I was forced to pay. Hardest of all to bear, I learned later

that my gold had been entirely wasted and that she never received the

message. Is there no man we can trust in this perfidious world?

I was not to see either Tanus or my Lady Lostris again until the evening of

the last day of the festival of Osiris.

THE FESTIVAL ENDED IN THE TEMPLE OF the god. It seemed once more that all

the populace of Greater Thebes was packed into the courtyards. We were jammed

so tightly that I could scarcely breathe in the press and the heat.

I was feeling wretched, for I had slept little for two nights in succession

on account of the worry and the strain. Apart from the uncertainty of the

fate of Tanus, I had been further burdened by my Lord Intef with the onerous

duty of arranging the wedding ceremony of the king to his daughter, a duty

that ran so contrary to my own desires. Added to which, I was parted from my

mistress, and I could scarcely bear it. I do not know how I came through it.

Even the slave boys were concerned about me. They declared that they had

never seen my beauty so impaired, or my spirits so low.

Twice during Pharaoh’s interminable speech from the throne, I found myself

swaying on my feet, on the very point of fainting. However, I forced myself

to hold on, while the king droned out the platitudes and half-truths with

which he sought to disguise the true state of the kingdom and to placate the

populace.

As was only to be expected, he never referred directly to the red pharaoh

in the north or the civil war in which we were embroiled, except in such

broad terms as ’these troubled times’ or ’the defection and insurrection’.

However, after he had spoken for a while it suddenly became plain to me that

he was referring to every one of the issues that Tanus had raised in his

Reclamation, and attempting to find remedies for each of them.

It was true that he was doing so in his usual inept and vacillating

fashion, but the simple fact that he had taken notice of what Tanus had said

braced me and focused my wandering attention. I edged forward in the press of

humanity until I had a better view of the throne, by which time the king was

speaking about the impudence of the slaves and the disrespectful behaviour of

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the lower classes of our society. This was another issue that Tanus had

mentioned, and I was amused to hear Pharaoh’s solution. ’From henceforth the

slave-owner may order fifty lashes to the insolent slave, without recourse to

the magistrate to sanction such punishment,’ he announced.

I smiled when I remembered how this same king had almost wrecked the state

twelve years previously with another proclamation that ran in the exact

opposite direction to this latest pronouncement. Still idealistic at his

coronation, he had set out actually to abolish the ancient and honourable

institution of slavery. He had wanted to turn every slave in Egypt loose and

make him a free man.

Even at this remove in time, such folly is still incomprehensible to me.

Though I am myself a slave, I believe that slavery and serfdom are the

institutions on which the greatness of nations is founded. The rabble cannot

govern itself. Government should be entrusted only to those born and trained

to it. Freedom is a privilege, not a right. The masses need a strong master,

for without control and direction anarchy would reign. The absolute monarch

and slavery and serfdom are the pillars of a system that has allowed us to

develop into civilized men.

It had been instructive to see how the slaves themselves had rebelled at

the prospect of having freedom thrust upon them. I had been very young at the

time, but I too had been alarmed at the prospect of being turned out from my

warm and secure niche in the lioys’ quarters to scavenge on the rubbish-heaps

for my next crust of bread with a horde of other freed slaves. A bad master

is better than no master at all.

Of course, the kingdom had been thrown into chaos by this folly. The army

had been upon the brink of revolt. Had the red pharaoh in the north seized

the opportunity, then history might have been written differently. In the end

our own pharaoh had hastily withdrawn his misguided decree of manumission,

and managed to cling to his throne. Now here he was little more than a decade

later proclaiming increased punishments for the impudence of a slave. It was

so typical of this hesitant and muddling pharaoh that I pretended to mop my

brow in order to cover the first smile that had creased my face in the last

two days.

’The practice of self-mutilation for the purpose of avoiding military

service will in future be strongly discouraged,’ the king droned on. ’Any

eligible young man claiming exemption under this dispensation is to appear

before a tribunal of three army officers, at least one of whom is to be a

centurion or officer of superior rank.’ This time my smile was one of

reluctant approval. For once Pharaoh was on the right tack. I would dearly

love to see Menset and Sobek displaying their missing thumbs to some hardened

old veteran of the river wars. What tender sympathy they could expect! ’The

fine for such an offence will be one thousand rings of gold.’ By Seth’s

bulging belly, that would make those two young dandies pause, and my Lord

Intef would have to meet the fine on their behalf.

Despite my other concerns, I was beginning to feel a little more cheerful,

as Pharaoh continued, ’From this day forward it will be an offence punishable

by a fine of ten gold rings for a harlot to ply for trade in any public

place, other than one set aside by the magistrates for that purpose.’ This

time I could barely prevent myself from laughing aloud. Vicariously Tanus

would make puritans and honest men of all of Thebes. I wondered how the

sailors and the off-duty soldiers would welcome this interference in their

sporting lives. Pharaoh’s period of lucidity had been short-lived. Any fool

knows the folly of trying to legislate to man’s sexual foibles.

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Despite my doubts as to the wisdom of the king’s remedies, still I found

myself overtaken by a tremulous excitement. It was clear that the king had

taken serious notice of every issue that Tanus had brought forward in his

declamation. Could he now go on to condemn Tanus for sedition? I wondered.

However, Pharaoh had not finished yet. ’It has been brought to my notice

that certain officials of the state have abused the trust and faith that I

have placed in them. These officials, concerned with the collection of taxes

and the handling of public funds, will be called upon to account for the

monies placed in their care. Those found guilty of embezzlement and

corruption will be summarily sentenced to death by strangulation.’ The

populace stirred and sighed with disbelief. Would the king truly seek to

restrain his tax-collectors?

Then a single voice at the back of the hall cried out, ’Pharaoh is great!

Long live Pharaoh!’ The cry was taken up until the temple rang with the

cheering. It must have been an unusual sound for the king to hear, that

spontaneous applause. Even at the distance that I was from the throne I could

tell that he enjoyed it. His lugubrious expression lightened and the double

crown seemed to weigh less heavily on his head. I was certain that all of

this must improve Tanus’ chances of escaping the executioner’s noose.

When the cheering eventually subsided, the king went on in his particular

style to diminish everything that he had just achieved. ’My trusted grand

vizier, the noble Lord Intef, will be placed in sole and absolute charge of

this investigation of the civil service, with the full powers of search and

arrest, of life and of death vested in him.’ There was just the softest echo

of applause to greet this appointment, and I used it to disguise a sardonic

chuckle. Pharaoh was sending a hungry leopard to count the birds in his

chicken-coop. What sport my Lord Intef would have amongst the royal

treasuries, and what a redistribution of the nation’s wealth would now take

place with my master doing the counting, and milking the tax-collectors of

their secret hoards of savings!

Pharaoh had a rare talent for capsizing or running the noblest sentiments

and intentions on to the rocks with his blundering helmsmanship. I wondered

what other folly he would manage to perpetrate before he finished speaking

that day, and I did not have too long to wait.

’For some time it has been a cause for great concern to me that a state of

lawlessness exists in the Upper Kingdom, placing the lives and the estates of

honest citizens in the gravest jeopardy. I had made dispositions to deal with

this state of affairs at an appropriate time. However, the matter was

recently presented to me in such an untimely and ill-advised manner as to

reek of sedition. It was done under the dispensation of the festival of

Osiris. However, that dispensation does not cover treason or the crime of

blasphemy, an attack on the person and divinity of the king.’ Pharaoh paused

significantly. It was clear that he was speaking of Tanus, and I was once

again critical of his judgement. A strong pharaoh would not explain his

motives to the people, or seek to win their approval for his actions. He

would simply have ,pronounced sentence and have had done with the matter.

’I speak, of course, of Tanus, Lord Harrab, who played the role of the

great god Horus at the pageant of Osiris. He has been arrested for the crime

of sedition. My councillors are divided on the subject of this person’s

guilt. There are those amongst them who wish him to pay the supreme penalty?’

I saw my Lord Intef, standing below the throne, avert his gaze for a moment,

and it confirmed what I already knew, that he was the chief amongst those who

wished to see Tanus executed ’?and there are those who feel that his

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declamation at the festival was indeed inspired by divine forces and that it

was not the voice of Tanus, Lord Harrab, that spoke out on these matters, but

the veritable voice of the god Horus. If this latter be the case, then

clearly there can be no culpability to the mortal through whom the god chose

to speak.’

The reasoning was fair, but what pharaoh worth the double crown would deign

to explain it to this horde of common soldiers and sailors and farmers, of

tradesmen and labourers and slaves, most of whom were still suffering from

the ill-effects of too much wine and revelry? While I still pondered this,

the king gave a command to the captain of his bodyguard who stood below the

throne. I recognized him as Neter, the officer who had been sent to arrest

Tanus. Neter marched away smartly and returned a moment later, leading Tanus

from the sanctuary at the rear of the hall.

My heart leaped at the sight of my friend, and then with joy and hope I

realized that he was unbound, there were no chains on his ankles. Although he

carried no weapons and wore no badge of rank, and was dressed in a simple

white kilt, he walked with his accustomed elastic step and jaunty grace.

Apart from the,healing scab on his forehead where Rasfer had struck him, he

was unmarked. He had not been beaten or tortured, and I felt my optimism

revived. They were not treating him as a condemned man.

A moment later all my hopes were dashed to pieces. Tanus made his obeisance

before the throne, but when he rose to his feet again, Pharaoh looked down

upon him severely and spoke in a voice without pity. ’Tanus, Lord Harrab, you

stand accused of treason and sedition. I find you guilty of both these

crimes. I sentence you to death by strangulation, the traditional punishment

of the traitor.’

As Neter placed the noose of linen rope around Tanus’ neck to mark him as

one condemned to die, a groan went up from the people who watched. A woman

wailed, and soon the temple was filled with cries of lamentation and the

ululation of mourning. Never before had such a display accompanied the

passing of die death sentence. Nothing could demonstrate more clearly the

love which the populace bore Tanus. I wailed with them and the tears broke

from my lids and streamed down my face to pour like a waterfall on to my

chest.

The bodyguards fell upon the crowd, using the butts of their long spears in

an attempt to beat the mourners into silence. It was in vain, and I screamed

out over their heads, ’Mercy, bountiful Pharaoh! Mercy for the noble Tanus!’

One of the guards struck me on the side of the head, and I fell to the

ground half-stunned, but my cry was taken up. ’Mercy, we beseech you, oh

divine Mamose!’ It took all the efforts of the guards to restore some order,

but still a few of the women were sobbing.

Only when Pharaoh raised his voice again were we at last silent, so that

every one-of us heard his next pronouncement. "The condemned man has

complained of the lawless state of the kingdom. He has called upon the throne

to stamp out the bands of robbers who ravage the land. The condemned man has

been called a hero, and there are those who say that he is a mighty warrior.

If this be true, then he himself would be better suited than any other to

carry out those measures he demands.’

Now the people were confused and silent, and I struck the tears from my

face with my forearm as I strained to catch the next word. ’Therefore, the

sentence of death is deferred for two years. If the condemned man was truly

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inspired by the god Horus when he made his seditious speech, then the god

will assist him in the task I now place upon him.’

The silence was profound. None of us seemed able to understand what we were

hearing, although hope and despair filled my soul in equal measure.

At a signal from the king one of the ministers of the crown stepped forward

and offered Pharaoh a tray on which lay a tiny blue statuette. Pharaoh held

it aloft and announced, ’I issue to Lord Harrab the hawk seal of the

pharaohs. Under the auspice of the seal he may recruit all the men and

materials of war that he deems necessary to his task. He may employ whatever

means he chooses, and no man may prevent him. For two full years he is the

king’s man, and he answers only to the king. At the end of that time, on the

last day of the next festival of Osiris, he will come before the throne once

again, wearing the noose of death around his neck. If he has failed in his

task, the noose will be tightened and he will be strangled to death on the

spot where he now stands. If he has completed his task, then I, Pharaoh

Mamose, will lift the noose from around his neck with my own hands and

replace it with a chain of gold.’

Still none of us could speak or move, and we stared in fascination as

Pharaoh made a gesture with the crook and the flail. ’Tanus, Lord Harrab, I

charge you with the task of eradicating from the Upper Kingdom of Egypt the

outlaws and robber bands that are terrorizing this land. Within two years you

will restore order and peace to the Upper Kingdom. Fail me at your peril.’

A roar went up from the congregation, wild as the sound of storm surf

beating on a rocky shore. Though they cheered unthinkingly, I lamented. The

task that Pharaoh had set was too great for any mortal man to achieve. The

cloud of death had not been lifted from over Tanus. I knew that in two years

from today he would die on the very same spot where he now stood so young and

proud and tall.

FORLORN AS A LOST WAIF, SHE STOOD alone in the midst of the multitude, with

the river that was her patron god at her back and before her a sea of faces.

The long linen shift that fell to her ankles was dyed with the juice of

shellfish to the colour of the finest wine, a colour that proclaimed her as a

virgin bride. Her hair was loose. It flowed down on to her shoulders in a

soft dark tide that shone in the sunlight as though with an inner fire. On

those shining locks she wore the bridal wreath woven from the long stems of

the water-lily. The blossoms were an unearthly cerulean blue, with throats of

the clearest gold.

Her face was as white as freshly ground cornflour. Her eyes were so large

and dark that they reminded me heart-breakingly of the little girl whom, in

years gone by, I had so often woken from the grip of nightmare, and lit the

lamp and sat beside her cot until she slept again. This time I could not help

her, for the nightmare was reality.

I could not go to her, for the priests and Pharaoh’s guard surrounded her,

as they had all these days past, and they would not let me near unto her. She

was lost to me for ever, my little girl, and I could not support the thought

of it.

The priests had built the wedding canopy of river rushes on the bank above

the Nile, and my Lady Lostris waited beneath it for her bridegroom to come to

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claim her. At her side stood her father, with the Gold of Praise glittering

around his neck and the smile of the cobra on his lips.

The royal bridegroom came at last, to the solemn beat of the drum and the

bleat of gazelle-horn trumpets, and to me this wedding march was" die saddest

sound in all the earth.

Pharaoh wore the nemes crown and carried the sceptre, but behind the pomp

and the regalia, he was still a little old man with a pot-belly and a sad

face. I could not help but think of the other bridegroom who might have stood

under the canopy beside my mistress, if only the gods had been kinder.

Pharaoh’s ministers and high officials attended him so closely that my view

of my mistress was obscured. Despite the fact that it was I who had been

forced to arrange every detail of it, I was excluded from the wedding, and I

had only glimpses of my Lady Lostris during the ceremony.

The high priest of Osiris washed the hands and the feet of both the bride

and the groom with water freshly drawn from the Nile to symbolize the purity

of their union. Then the king broke a morsel from the ritual corn-loaf and

offered it to his young bride as a pledge. I glimpsed my mistress’s face as

he placed the crust between her lips. She could neither chew nor swallow but

stood with it ia her mouth as though it were a stone.

Once again she was hidden from my view, and it was only when I heard the

crunch of the empty jug that had contained the marriage wine as the

bridegroom shattered it with a blow of his sword, that I knew that it was

done and that Lostris was for ever more beyond the reach of Tanus’ arms.

The crowd beneath the canopy opened and Pharaoh led his newest bride

forward to the front of the platform to present her to the people. They

showed their love for Lostris in a chorus of adulation that went on and on

until my ears rang and my head swam.

I wanted to escape from the press and go to find Tanus. Although I knew

that he had been released from detention and was once again at liberty, he

had not attended the ceremony. He was perhaps the only man in Thebes who had

not come to the riverside today. I knew that wherever he might be, he stood

in as dire need of me as I was of him. The only small comfort that either of

us might find on this tragic day was with each other. However, I could not

tear myself away. I had to see it out to the final harrowing moment.

At last my Lord Intef came forward to take his farewell of his daughter. As

the crowd subsided into silence he embraced her.

Lostris was like a corpse in his embrace. Her arms hung limply at her side,

and her face was pale as death. Her father released her, but kept a grip on

her hand as he turned and faced the congregation to offer the ritual gift to

his daughter. Traditionally, this gift was made over and above the dowry that

went directly to the bridegroom. However, only the nobility observed this

custom, which was designed to give the bride an independent income.

’Now that you go from my house and from my protection to the house of your

husband, I bestow upon you the gift of parting, that you will remember me

always as the father that loved you.’ The words were inappropriate to the

circumstances, I thought bitterly. My Lord Intef had never loved another

living soul. However, he continued the ancient formula, as though the

sentiments were his own. ’Ask any boon of me, my beloved child. I will refuse

you nothing on this joyous day.’

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It was the usual practice for the extent of the gift to be agreed in

private between father and daughter before the ceremony, hi this case,

however, my Lord Intef had told his daughter unequivocally what she was

entitled to ask for. He had done me the honour of discussing the matter with

me the previous day, before .informing Lostris of his decision. ’I don’t want

to be extravagant, but on the other hand I do not wish to appear parsimonious

in Pharaoh’s eyes,’ he had mused. ’Let us say, five thousand gold rings and

fifty feddan of land?not on the riverfront, mind you.’

He had, with my prompting, finally decided on five thousand gold rings and

one hundred feddan of prime irrigable land as being a suitable gift for a

royal wedding. On his instruction I had already drawn up the deed of grant

for the land, and set aside the gold from a secret store that my master kept

out of the way of the tax-collectors.

The matter was settled. It remained only for Lostris to give voice to the

request before her groom and all the wedding guests. But she stood pale and

silent and withdrawn, seeming neither to see nor hear what was going on

around her.

’Speak up, my child. What is it that you desire from me?’ My Lord Intef s

tones of paternal love were becoming strained, and he shook his daughter’s

hand to rouse her. ’Come, tell your father what he can do to make this happy

day complete.’

My Lady Lostris stirred as though coming awake from a dreadful dream. She

looked about her and her tears welled up and threatened to break over her

quivering eyelids. She opened her mouth to speak, but what came from her

throat was the weak little cry of a wounded bird. She closed her lips again

and shook her head speechlessly.

’Come, child. Speak out.’ My Lord Intef was having difficulty sustaining an

expression of paternal affection. ’Name your marriage gift, and I will give

it to you, whatever it is that you desire.’

The effort that Lostris had to make was apparent to me, even though I stood

so far from her, but this time when she opened her mouth her request rang out

over our heads, clear as the music of the lyre. There could not have been a

soul in the crowd who did not hear every word of it.

’For my gift give me the slave, Taita!’

My Lord Intef reeled back a pace as though she had thrust a dagger into his

belly. He stared at her aghast, his mouth opening and closing without a sound

escaping. Only he and I knew the value of the gift that Lostris had demanded.

Not even he, with the store of wealth and treasure that he had garnered over

a lifetime, could afford such a payment.

He recovered swiftly. His expression was once more calm and benign, though

his lips stretched tight. ’You are too restrained, my darling daughter. A

single slave is no fitting gift for Pharaoh’s bride. Such stinginess is not

in my nature. I would rather you accepted a gift of real value, five thousand

rings of gold and?’

’Father, you have always been too generous with me, but I want only Taita.’

My Lord Intef smiled a white smile, white teeth, white lips and white rage.

While he still stared at Lostris I could see that his mind was racing.

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I was the most valuable of all his possessions. It was not simply my wide

range of extraordinary talents that made up the full measure of my worth to

him. Even more, it was that I knew intimately every convoluted thread of the

intricate tapestry of his affairs. I knew every informer and spy in his

network, every person whom he had ever bribed and who had bribed him. I knew

which favours were outstanding on each account, which favours remained to be

settled, and which grudges were still to be paid off.

I knew all his enemies, a long list; and I knew those he counted his

friends and allies, a much shorter list. I knew where every nugget of his

vast treasure was hidden, who were his bankers and his agents and his

nominees, and how he had concealed the ownership of great tracts of land and

stores of precious metals and gemstones in the legal labyrinth of deeds and

titles and servitudes. All of this was information that would delight the

tax-collectors and cause Pharaoh to revise his opinion of his grand vizier.

I doubted that my Lord Intef himself could remember and trace all his

wealth without my assistance. He could not properly order and control his

sprawling, shadowy empire without me, for he had kept himself aloof and

separated from the most unsavoury aspects of it. He had preferred to send me

to take care of those details which, if discovered, might incriminate him.

So it was that I knew a thousand dark secrets, and I knew of a thousand

fearful deeds, of embezzlement and extortion, of robbery and bloodiest

murder, all of which taken together could destroy even a man as powerful as

the grand vizier.

I was indispensable. He could not let me go. And .yet, before Pharaoh and

the entire population of Thebes, he could not deny Lostris her request.

My Lord Intef is a man full of ire and hatred. I have seen such rage in him

that must have made Seth, the god of anger, start up and take notice. But I

had never seen such fury as now that his own daughter had him cornered.

’Let the slave Taita stand forward,’ he called, and I saw that it was a

ruse for him to gain a respite. I pushed my way as swiftly as I was able to

the foot of the wedding platform, to give him as little time as possible to

plan his next mischief.

’I am here, my lord,’ I cried, and he stared down at me with those deadly

eyes. We have been together so long that he can speak to me with a look

almost as clearly as with the spoken word. He stared at me in silence until

my heart was racing and my fingers fluttered with fear, then at last he said

in soft, almost affectionate tones, ’Taita, you have been with me since you

were a child. I have come to regard you as a brother more than as a slave.

Still, you have heard my daughter’s request. I am by nature a fair and kind

man. After all the years it would be inhuman of me to discard you against

your wishes. I know that it is unusual for a slave to be given a say in his

own disposal, but then your circumstances are indeed unusual. Choose, Taita.

If you wish to stay in your home, the only home you have ever known, then I

cannot find the heart to send you away. Not even at the request of my own

daughter.’ He never took his eyes off me, those terrible yellow eyes. I am

not a coward but I am careful of my safety. I realized that I was staring

into the eyes of death, and I could not find my voice.

I tore my gaze from his, and looked towards my Lady Lostris. There was such

appeal there, such loneliness and terror, that my own safety counted for

nothing. I could not desert her" now, not at any price or under any threat.

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’How can a poor slave deny the wish of Pharaoh’s wife? I am ready to do the

bidding of my new mistress,’ I cried out at the top of my lungs, and I hoped

that my voice had a manly ring to it and was not as shrill as it sounded in

my own ears.

’Come, slave!’ my new mistress ordered. ’Take your place behind me.’

As I mounted the platform, I was forced to pass close to > my Lord Intef.

His white, stiff lips barely moved as he spoke: for my ears alone. ’Farewell,

my old darling. You are a dead; man.’

I shuddered as though a poisonous cobra had slid across my path and I

hurried to take my place in the retinue of my mistress, as though I truly

believed that I could find safety in her protection.

I STAYED CLOSE TO LOSTRIS DURING THE rest of the ceremony and I waited on

her personally at the wedding feast, hovering at her elbow and trying to make

her eat a little of the meats and fine fare that was spread before her. She

was so wan and sickly that I was certain that she had eaten nothing in the

last two days, not since her betrothal and the condemnation of Tanus.

In the end I succeeded in getting her to take a little watered wine, but

that was all. Pharaoh saw her drink and thought that she was toasting him. He

lifted his own gold chalice, and smiled at her over the rim as he returned

the toast, and the wedding guests cheered the couple delightedly.

’Taita,’ she whispered to me as soon as the king’s attention was diverted

by the grand vizier who sat at his other hand, ’I fear that I am going to

vomit. I cannot stay here another moment. Please take me back to my chamber.’

It was an impudence and a scandal, and had I not been able to adopt the

role of surgeon, I could never have achieved it, but I was able to creep on

my knees to the king’s side, and to whisper to him without causing an undue

comment amongst the wedding guests, most of whom were well along in wine at

this stage.

As I grew to know him better, I found that Pharaoh was a kindly man, and

this was the first proof he gave me of it. He listened to my explanations and

then clapped his hands and addressed the guests. ’My bride will go to her

chamber now to prepare for the night ahead,’ he told them, and they leered

and greeted the announcement with lewd comment and lascivious applause.

I helped my mistress to her feet, but she was able to make her obeisance to

the king and leave the banquet hall without my support. In her bedchamber she

threw up the wine she had drunk into the bowl that I held for her, and then

she collapsed upon the bed. The wine was all her stomach contained and my

suspicion that she had been starving herself was confirmed.

’I don’t want to live without Tanus.’ Her voice was weak, but I knew her

well enough to recognize that her will was as strong as ever.

Tanus is alive,’ I tried to console her. ’He is strong and young and will

live for another fifty years. He loves you and he promises to wait for you to

the end of time. The king is an old man, he cannot live for ever?’

She sat up on the fur bedcover and her voice became stern and determined.

’I am Tanus’ woman and no other man shall have me. I would rather die.’

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’We all die in the end, mistress.’ If only I could distract her for the

first few days of this marriage, I knew I could see her through. But she

understood me too well.

’I know what you are up to, but all your pretty words will do you no good.

I am going to kill myself. I order you to prepare a draught of poison for me

to drink.’

’Mistress, I am not versed in the science of poison.’ It was a forlorn

attempt, and she crushed it effortlessly.

’Many is the time that I have seen you give poison to a suffering animal.

Do you not remember your old dog, the one with abscesses in its ears, and

your pet gazelle that was mauled by a leopard? You told me that the poison

was painless, that it was the same as going to sleep. Well, I want to go to

sleep and be embalmed and go on to the other world to wait fpr Tanus there.?

I had to try other persuasion. ’But what about me, mistress? You have only

this day taken possession of me. How can you abandon me? What will become of

me without you? Have pity on me.’ I saw her waver, and I thought I had her,

but she lifted her chin stubbornly.

’You will be all right, Taita. You will always be all right. My father will

take you back gladly after I am dead.’

’Please, my little one,’ I used the childhood endearment in a last attempt

to cajole her, ’let us talk of this in the morning. Everything will be

different in the sunlight.’

’It will be the same,’ she contradicted me. ’I will be parted from Tanus,

and that wrinkled old man will want me in his bed to do horrid things to me.’

Her voice was raised so that the other members of the king’s harem might hear

every word. Fortunately most of them were still at the wedding feast, but I

trembled at the thought of her description of him being relayed to Pharaoh.

Her voice became shriller with the edge of hysteria in it. ’Mix me the

poison draught now, this instant, while I watch you do it. I order you to do

it. You dare not disobey me!’ This command was so loud that even the guards

at the outer gates must be able to hear her, and I dared not argue longer.

’Very well, my lady. I will do it. I must fetch my chest of medicine from

my rooms.’

When I returned with the chest under my arm, she was up from the bed and

pacing around her chamber with glittering eyes in that pale, tragic face.

’I am watching you. Don’t try any of your tricks on me now,’ she warned me,

as I prepared the draught from the scarlet glass bottle. She knew that colour

warned of the lethal contents.

When I handed the bowl to her, she showed no fear, and paused only to kiss

my cheek. ’You have been both father and loving brother to me. I thank you

for this last kindness. I love you, Taita, and I shall miss you.’

She lifted the bowl in both hands as though it were a wassail cup rather

than a fatal potion.

’Tanus, my darling,’ she toasted him with it, ’they shall never take me

from you. We shall meet again on the far side!’ And she drained the bowl at a

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swallow, then dropped it to shatter on the floor. At last, with a sigh, she

fell back upon the bed.

’Come, sit beside me. I am afraid to be alone when I die.’

Taken on her empty stomach, the effect of the draught was very rapid. She

had only time to turn her face to me and whisper, ’Tell Tanus again how much

I loved him. Unto the portals of death, and beyond.’ Then her eyes closed and

she was gone.

She lay so still and pale that for a moment I was truly alarmed, afraid

that I had misjudged the strength of the powder of the Red Shepenn which I

had substituted for the essence of the deadly Datura Pod. It was only when I

held a bronze hand-mirror to her mouth that the clouded surface reassured me

she still breathed. I covered her gently, and tried to convince myself that

in the morning she would be resigned to the fact that she was still alive,

and that she would forgive me.

At that moment there was a peremptory knock upon the door of the outer

chamber and I recognized the voice of Aton, the royal chamberlain, demanding

entrance. He was another eunuch, one of the special brotherhood of the

emasculated, so I could count him as a friend. I hurried through to greet

him.

’I have come to fetclTyour little mistress to the king’s pleasure, Taita,’

he told me, in high girlish tones so incongruous with such a large frame. He

had been gelded before puberty. ’Is she ready?’

’There has been a small mishap,’ I explained, and led him through to see

Lostris for himself.

He puffed out his rouged cheeks with consternation when he saw her

condition. ’What can I tell Pharaoh?’ he cried. ’He will have me beaten. I

will not do it. The woman is your responsibility. You must answer to the

king, and stand before his wrath.’

It was not a duty that I relished, but Aton’s distress was real, and at

least I had my medical status to afford me some protection from the king’s

frustrated expectations. Reluctantly, I agreed to accompany him to the royal

bedchamber. However, I made sure that there was one of the older and more

reliable slave maids in attendance in my mistress’s outer chamber before I

left her alone.

Pharaoh had removed his crown and his wig. His head was shaved as bare and

white as an ostrich egg. The effect startled even me, and I wondered how my

mistress would have responded to the sight. I doubt that it would have raised

either her ardour or her opinion of him.

The king seemed as startled to see me as I was to see him. We stared at

each other for a moment before I fell to my knees and made my obeisance.

’What is this, Taita the slave? I sent for another?’

’Merciful Pharaoh, on behalf of the Lady Lostris I come to beg your

understanding and indulgence.’ I launched into a harrowing description of my

Lady Lostris’ condition, larding it with obscure medical terms and

explanations that were intended to divert the royal appetite. Aton stood

beside me, nodding in emphatic corroboration of all I had to say.

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I am sure that it would not have worked with a younger and more vigorous

bridegroom, ready and rearing to get to the business, but Mamose was an old

bull. It would have been impossible to tally all the lovely women who over

the past thirty years or so had enjoyed his services. In single file they

would probably have encircled the city of Thebes of a hundred gates, possibly

more than once.

’Your Majesty,’ Aton interrupted my explanations at last, ’with your

permission, I will fetch you another female companion for the night. Perhaps

the little Human with the unusual control of her?’

’No, no,’ the king dismissed him. ’There will be plenty of time for it when

the child is recovered from her indisposition. Leave us now, chamberlain.

There is some other matter that I wish to discuss with the doctor?I mean,

with this slave.’

As soon as we were alone the king lifted his shift to display his belly.

’What do you think is the cause of this, doctor?’ I examined the rash that

adorned his protuberant paunch, and found it to be an infestation of the

common ringworm. Some of the royal women washed less frequently than is

desirable in our hot climate. I have noted that filth and the contagious itch

go together. The king had probably contracted the infection from one of them.

’Is it dangerous? Can you cure it, doctor?’ Fear makes commoners of us all.

He was deferring to me now as would any other patient.

With his permission, I went to my quarters to fetch my medicine chest, and

when I returned, I ordered him to lie on the ornate gold and ivory marquetry

bed while I massaged an ointment into the inflamed red circle of skin on his

belly. The ointment was of my own concoction and would heal the rash within

three days, I assured him.

’In a great measure you are responsible for the fact.that I have married

this child who is your new mistress,’ he told me as I worked. ’Your ointment

may cure my rash, but will your other treatment provide me with a son?’ he

demanded. ’These are troubled times. I must have an heir before I am another

year older. The dynasty is in jeopardy.’

We physicians are always reluctant to guarantee our cures, but then so is

the lawyer and the astrologer. While I procrastinated he gave me the escape I

was searching for.

’I am no longer a young man, Taita. You are a doctor and I can tell you

this. My weapon has been in many a fierce battle. Its blade is no longer as

keen as once it was. Of late it has failed me when I most had need of it. Do

you have something in that box of yours that would stiffen the wilting stem

of the lily?’

’Pharaoh, I am pleased that you have discussed this with me. Sometimes the

gooVwork in mysterious ways?’ we both made the sign to avert evil before I

went on, ’your first congress with my virgin mistress must be perfectly

executed. Any faltering, any bending from our purpose, any failure to raise

on high the royal sceptre of your manhood, will frustrate our efforts. There

will be only one opportunity, the first union must be successful. If we have

to try again there will be the danger of your fathering yet another female.’

My medical grounds for this prognosis were rather insubstantial.

Nevertheless, we both looked grave, he graver than I did.

107

I held up my forefinger. ’Had we made the attempt tonight, and?’ I said no

more, but let my forefinger droop suggestively, and shook my head. ’No, we

are fortunate to have been given another chance by the gods.’

’What must we do?’ he demanded anxiously, and I was silent for a long

while, kneeling in deep thought beside his bed.

It was difficult not to let my relief and satisfaction become apparent.

Within the first day of my mistress’s marriage, I was already working my way

into a position of influence with the king, and I had been offered a perfect

excuse for keeping her maidenhead intact for at least a little longer, long

enough perhaps for me to be able to prepare her for the brutal shock of her

first act of procreation with a man whom she did <w>t love and who was,

indeed, physically distasteful to her. I told myself that with clever

management of the situation, I might be able to draw out this period of grace

indefinitely.

’Yes indeed, Your Majesty, I can help you, but it will take some time. It

will not be as easy as curing this rash.’ My mind was racing. I had to wring

every drop out of this sponge. ’We will have to go on to a very strict diet.’

’No more bull’s balls, I beseech you, doctor.’

’I think you have had enough of those now. However, we will need to warm

youf blood and sweeten your generative fluids for the fateful attempt. Goat’s

milk, warm goat’s milk and honey three times a day, and of course the special

potions I will prepare for you from the horn of the rhinoceros and the root

of the mandrake.’

He looked relieved. ’You are certain this will work?’

’It has never failed before, but there is one other measure that is

essential.’

’What is that?’ His relief evaporated, and he sat up and peered at me

anxiously.

’Complete abstinence. We must allow the royal member to rest and regain its

full strength and force once again. You must forsake your harem and all its

pleasures for a while.’ I said this with the dogmatic air of the physician

that cannot be gainsaid, for it was the one sure way to ensure that my Lady

Lostris would remain untouched. However, I was worried by what his reaction

would be. He could conceivably have flown into a rage at the thought of being

denied his conjugal pleasures. He might have rejected me, and I could have

lost all the advantage that I had so newly won. But I had to take the risk

for the benefit of my mistress. I had to protect her just as long as I was

able.

The king’s reaction surprised me. He simply lay back on his headrest and

smiled complacently to himself. ’For how long?’ he asked quite cheerfully,

and I was struck by the realization that my strictures had come as a relief

to him.

For me, to whom the act of love with a beautiful woman would always be an

unattainable and elusive dream, it took an immense effort to understand that

Pharaoh was content to be relieved of a once pleasurable duty that, by reason

of being so often performed, had become onerous.

108

There must have been at least three hundred wives, and concubines in his

harem at that time, and some of those Asian women were notorious for their

insatiable appetites. I tried to sympathize with the effort that it must

require to act like a god night after night, and year after year. The

prospect did not daunt me as the actuality seemed to have wearied the king.

’Ninety days,’ I said.

’Ninety days?’ he repeated thoughtfully. ’Nine Egyptian weeks of ten days

each?’

’At least,’ I said firmly.

’Very well.’ He nodded without rancour and changed the subject easily.

’My chamberlain tells me, doctor, that apart from your medical skills, you

are also one of the three most eminent astrologers in this very Egypt of

ours?’

I wondered why my friend the chamberlain had qualified his assertion. For

the life of me I could not think who the other two might be, but I inclined

my head modestly. ’He flatters me, Your Majesty, but perhaps I do have some

little knowledge of the heavenly bodies.’

’Cast a horoscope for me!’ he ordered, sitting up eagerly.

’Now?’ I asked with surprise.

’Now!’ he agreed. ’Why not? For on your orders there is nothing that I

should rather be doing at this moment/ That unexpected smile of his was

really quite endearing, and despite what he meant to Tanus and my mistress, I

found myself liking him.

’I shall have to fetch some of my scrolls from the palace library.’

’We have all night,’ he pointed out. ’Fetch whatever you need.’

The exact time and date of the king’s birth were well documented and I had

in the scrolls all the, observations of the movements of the heavenly bodies

made by fifty generations of astrologers before me. While the king watched

avidly, I made the first cast of the royal horoscope, and before I had half

finished it I saw the character of the man, as I had observed it, perfectly

endorsed by his stars. The great red wandering star, that we know as the eye

of Seth, dominated his destiny. It was the star of conflict and uncertainty,

of confusion and war, of sadness and misfortune, and in the end of violent

death.

But how could I tell him all these things?

I extemporized and put together a scantily veiled resume of the

well-documented facts of his life, and laced these with a few less well-known

details that I had gathered from my spies, one of whom was the royal

chamberlain. Then I followed with the usual assurances of good health and

long life that every client wants to hear.

The king was impressed. ’You have all the skills that your reputation made

me expect.’

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"Thank you, Your Majesty. I am pleased that I have been able to be of

service.’. I began to gather up my scrolls and my writing instruments

preparatory to taking my leave. It was very late by now. From the darkness

beyond the palace walls I had already heard the first cockerel crow.

’Wait, Taita. I have not given you permission to leave. You have not told

me what I really want to know. Will I have a son and will my dynasty

survive?’

’Alas, Pharaoh, those matters cannot be predicted by the stars. They can

give only the general inclination of your fate, and the overall direction

that your life will take, without making clear such details?’

’Ah, yes,’ he interrupted me, ’but there are other means of seeing into the

future, are there not?’ I was alarmed by the direction in which his questions

were leading, and I attempted to head him off, but he was determined.

’You interest me, Taita, and I have made enquiry about you. You are an

adept of the Mazes of Ammon-Ra.’ I was distressed. How had he found this out?

Very few knew of this esoteric gift of mine, and I wanted it to remain thus.

However, I could not blatantly deny it, so I remained silent.

’I saw the Mazes hidden at the bottom of your medicine chest,’ he said, and

I was relieved that I had not attempted to deny my gift and been caught out

in the lie. I shrugged with resignation, for I knew what was coming.

’Work the Mazes for me, and tell me if I am to have an heir and whether or

not my dynasty will survive,’ he ordered.

A horoscope is one thing; it requires only a knowledge of the configuration

of the stars and their properties. Some little patience, and the correct

procedure will result in a fairly accurate prediction. A divination by the

Mazes of Am-mon-Ra is another matter entirely. It requires an expenditure of

the life-forces, a burning up of something deep inside the seer that leaves

him worn out and exhausted.

These days I will go to lengths to avoid having to exercise this gift. It

is true that on rare occasions I can still be persuaded to work the Mazes,

but then for days thereafter I am spiritually and physically depleted. My

Lady Lostris, who knows of this strange power of mine, also knows of the

effect that it has upon me, and she has forbidden me, for my own sake, to

practise it, except occasionally on her behalf.

However, a slave cannot deny a king, and with a sigh I reached for the

leather bag in the bottom of my chest that contained the Mazes. I set the bag

aside and prepared a mixture of the herbs that are necessary to open the eyes

of the soul, to enable them to look into the future. I drank the potion, and

then waited until the familiar but dreaded sensation of rising out of my own

body assailed me. I felt dreamy and far from reality as I brought out the

leather bag which contained the Mazes.

The Mazes of Ammon-Ra consist of ten ivory discs. Ten is the mystical

number of the greatest potency. Each disc represents a single facet of human

existence, from birth to death and the hereafter. With my own hands I had

carved the symbols on the face of each of the Mazes. Each one was a tiny

masterpiece. By constantly handling and breathing upon them over the years I

had endowed them with part of my own life-force.

110

I poured them from the bag and began to fondle them, concentrating all my

powers upon them. Soon they began to feel warm as living flesh to my touch,

and I experienced the familiar sensation of depletion as my own strength

flowed.from me into the ivory discs. I arranged the Mazes face-down in two

random stacks and invited Pharaoh to take up each pile in turn, to rub them

between his fingers and to concentrate all his attention upon them at the

same time as he repeated his questions aloud: ’Will I have a son? Will my

dynasty survive?’

I relaxed completely and opened my soul to allow the spirits of prophecy to

enter. The sound of his voice began to penetrate into my soul, deeper and

deeper with each repetition, like missiles from a slingshot striking upon the

same spot.

I began to sway slightly where I sat, the same way that the cobra dances to

the flute of the snake-charmer. The drug took its full effect. I felt as

though my body had no weight to it and that I was floating in air. I spoke as

if from a great distance and my voice echoed strangely in my own head, as

though I sat in a cavern below the surface of the earth.

I ordered the king to breathe upon each stack and then to divide it into

halves, setting aside one half and retaining the other. Again and again I

made him split each pile and then combine the remainder, until he was left

with only two of the coin-shaped Mazes.

For the last time he breathed upon them and then at my instruction placed

one in each of my hands. I held them tightly and pressed them to my breast. I

could feel my heart pounding against my clenched fists as it absorbed the

influence of the Mazes.

I closed my eyes and from the darkness saw shapes begin to emerge, and

strange sounds filled my ears. There was no form or coherence to them, it was

all confusion. I felt dizzy, and my senses blurred. I felt myself grow

lighter still, until I seemed to float in space. I allowed myself to be

carried upwards as though I were a blade of dry grass caught in a whirlwind,

one of those dust devils of the Saharan summer.

The sounds in my head became clearer, and the dark images firmed.

’I hear a new-born infant cry.’ My voice was distorted, as though my palate

had been riven at birth.

’Is it a boy?’ Pharaoh’s question throbbed in my head, so that I felt

rather than heard it.

Then slowly my vision began to harden, and I looked down a long tunnel

through the darkness to a light at the far end. The ivory Mazes in my hands

were hot as embers from the hearth and seared the flesh of my palms.

In the nimbus of light at the end of the tunnel I saw a child, lying in the

bloody puddle of its own birth-waters, with the fat python of the placenta

still coiled upon its belly.

’I see a child,’ I croaked.

’Is it a boy?’ Pharaoh demanded from out of the surrounding darkness.

The infant wailed and kicked both legs in the air, and I saw rising from

between the chubby thighs a pale finger of flesh surmounted by a cap of

111

wrinkled skin.

’A boy,’ I confirmed, and I felt an unexpected tenderness towards this

phantom of my mind, as though it were truly flesh and blood. I reached out to

it with my heart, but the image faded, and the birth cry receded and was lost

in the blackness.

"The dynasty? What will become of my line? Will it endure?’ The king’s

voice reached me, and then was lost in a cacophony of other sounds that

filled my head?the sound of battle trumpets, the shouts of men in mortal

conflict, and the ring of bronze. I saw the sky above me, and the air was

dark with flights of arrows arcing overhead.

’War! I see a mighty battle that will change the shape of the world,’ I

cried to make myself heard above the sounds of conflict that filled my head.

’Will my line survive?’ The king’s voice was frantic, but I paid it no

heed, for there was a mighty roaring in my ears, like the sound of the

khamsin wind, or the waters of the Nile boiling through the great cataracts.

I saw a strange yellow cloud that obscured the horizon of my vision, and the

cloud was shot through with flashes of light, which I knew were the

reflection of the sun from weapons of war.

’What of my dynasty?’ Pharaoh’s voice tugged at my mind, and the vision

faded. There was a silence in my head and I saw a tree standing upon the bank

of the river. It was a great acacia in full leaf, and its branches were heavy

with fruit pods. On the topmost branch was perched a hawk, the royal hawk,

but even as I watched, the hawk changed shape and colour. It was transformed

into the’double crown of Egypt,’ red and white, the papyrus and the lotus of

the two kingdoms entwined. Then, before my eyes, the waters of the Nile rose

and fell, and rose and fell again. Five times in all I saw the waters flood.

While still I stared with burning eyes, abruptly the sk;; above the tree

darkened with flying insects, and a dens cloud of locusts descended upon the

tree. They covered ii completely. When they rose again the tree was

devastate* and bare of the last trace of green. Not a leaf remained on the

dry brown twigs. Then the dead tree toppled and fell ponderously to earth.

The fall shattered the trunk and thci crown was smashed into pieces. The

fragments turned to dust and were blown away on the wind. Nothing remained

but the wind and the driven sands of the desert.

’What is it that you see?’ Pharaoh demanded, but it all faded and I found

myself once more seated on the floor o> the king’s bedchamber. I was gasping

for breath, as though I had run a great distance, and salt sweat scalded my

eyesi and poured down my body in rivulets to soak the linen o) my kilt and to

form a pool on the tiles beneath me. I was shaking with a burning fever and

there was that familiar sicM and heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach that

I knew would be with me for days to come.

Pharaoh was staring at me and I realized what a haggard: and dreadful sight

I presented to him. ’What did you see?’ he whispered. ’Will my line survive?’

I could not tell him the truth of my vision, so I invented: another to

satisfy him. ’I saw a forest of great trees thali reached to the horizon of

my dream. There was no end ta their number and on top of each tree there was

a crown, the red and the white crown of the two kingdoms.’

Pharaoh sighed and covered his eyes with his hands fon a while. We sat in

silence, he in the release that my lie had) given him, and I in sympathy for

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him.

At last I lied softly. ’The forest that I saw was the line: of your

descendants,’ I whispered, to spare him. ’They reachi to the boundaries of

time, and each of them wears the crowni of Egypt.’

He uncovered his eyes, and his gratitude and his joy were; pathetic to

watch. ’Thank you, Taita. I can see how the: divination has taxed your

strength. You may go now andl rest. Tomorrow the court will sail for my

palace on Elephantine Island. I will have a galley set aside for the safe

passage of you and your mistress. Guard her with your life, for she is the

vessel that contains the seeds of my immortality.’

I was so weak that I had to use the frame of the bed to lift myself to my

feet. I tottered to the door and steadied myself agaiiist the jamb. However,

I was not so weakened that I could not think of my duty to my mistress.

’There is the matter of the marriage sheet. The populace will expect to

have it displayed,’ I reminded him. ’Both your reputation and that of my

mistress is at stake.’

’What do you suggest, Taita?’ This soon he was relying on me. I told him

what must be done, and he nodded. ’See to it!’

Carefully I folded the sheet that covered the royal bed. It was of the

finest linen, white as the high cirrus clouds of summer, embroidered with the

rare silk thread that the trade caravans occasionally bring in from the East.

I carried the folded sheet with me when I left the king’s bedchamber and made

my way back through the still dark and silent palace to the harem.

My mistress was sleeping like a dead woman, and I knew that with the amount

of the-Red Shepenn I had given her, she would sleep the day away and would

probably only wake that evening. I sat beside her bed for a while. I felt

exhausted and depressed for the Mazes had drained my soul. The images they

had evoked still troubled me. I felt certain that the infant I had seen was

that of my mistress, but then how could the rest of my vision be explained?

There seemed to be no answer to the riddle, and I set the thought aside for I

still had work to do.

Squatting beside Lostris’ bed, I spread the embroidered sheet upon the

floor. The blade of my dagger was sharp enough to shave the hair from my

forearm. I picked out one of the blue rivers of blood beneath the smooth skin

on the inside of my wrist, and I pricked it with the point of the dagger and

let the dark slow blood trickle on to the sheet. When I was satisfied with

the extent of the stain, I bound up my wrist with a strip of linen to staunch

the bleeding, and bundled the soiled sheet.

The slave girl was still in attendance in the outer chamber. I ordered that

Lostris was to be allowed to sleep undisturbed.

Knowing that she would be well cared for, I was content to leave her, and

climb the ladder to the top of the outer wall of the harem.

The dawn was only just breaking, but already an inquisitive crowd of old

women and loiterers had gathered below the walls. They looked up expectantly

when I appeared.

I made a show of shaking out the sheet before I draped it over the

ramparts of the outer wall. The bloodstain in the centre of the cloud-white

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ground was the shape of a flower, and the crowd buzzed with gossip at this

badge of my mistress’s virginity and her bridegroom’s virility.

At the rear of the crowd stood a figure taller than those around him. His

head was covered by a striped woolen shawl. It was only when he threw this

back and exposed his face and his head of red-gold hair that I recognized

him.

’Tanus!’ I shouted. ’I must speak to you.’

He looked up at me upon the wall, and his eyes were filled with such pain

as I wished never to see again. That stain upon the sheet had destroyed his

life. I also had known the agony of lost love and remembered every detail of

it even after all the long years. Tanus’ heart wound was fresh and bleeding

still, more agonizing than any hurt that he had received on the battlefield.

He needed my help now, if he were to survive it. ’Tanus! Wait for me.’

He threw the shawl over his head, covering his face, and he turned from me.

Unsteady as a drunkard, he stumbled away.

’Tanus!’ I shouted after him. ’Come back! I must talk to you.’ He did not

look round, but quickened his pace.

By the time that I had climbed down from the wall and run out of the main

gates, he had disappeared into the maze of alleys and mud huts of the inner

city.

I SEARCHED FOR TANUS HALF THE MORNING, but his quarters were deserted and

nobody had seen him in any of his customary haunts.

At last I had to abandon the search, and to make my wajfcback to my own

rooms in the quarters of the slave boys. The royal flotilla was preparing to

sail for the south. I had still to assemble and pack my possessions if my

mistress and I were to be ready for the departure. I forced aside the sense

of gloom that the Mazes and my glimpse of Tanus had left me, and I set about

bundling up my possessions and breaking up the only home that I had ever

known.

My animals seemed to sense that something untoward was happening. They

fretted and chirped and whined, each trying in his own way to attract my

attention. The wild birds hopped and fluttered on the paved terrace outside,

while in the corner nearest my bed, my beloved Saker falcons stretched their

wings and raised the feathers along their backs, and screeched at me from

their perches. The dogs and the cats and the tame gazelle crowded around my

legs, trying to brush against me, and hindered my efforts to pack my

possessions.

In exasperation I noticed the jug of soured goat’s milk beside my bed. It

is one of my favourite drinks, and the slave boys make certain that the jug

is always refilled. My animals also enjoy the thickened milk, so to distract

them I carried the jug out on to the terrace and filled their clay

drinking-bowls. They crowded around the bowls, pushing and shoving each

other, and I left them and went back to my task, closing the awnings of rush

matting to keep them out.

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It is curious how many possessions even a slave can gather about him over a

lifetime. The boxes and bundles were piled high against one wall before I was

at last finished. By this time my mood of depression and weariness was almost

prostrating, but I was still sufficiently alert to be aware of the silence. I

stood for a while in the centre of my room, listening uneasily. The only

sound was the jingle of the tiny bronze bells on the jesses of my female

falcon where she sat in the far corner and watched me with that intent,

implacable gaze of the raptor. The tiercel, smaller but more handsome than

she, was asleep on his own perch in the other corner, with the soft leather

hood of the rafter covering his eyes. None of my other pets made a sound. Not

one of the cats mewed or hissed at the dogs, nor did the wild birds chirrup

or sing, none of my puppies growled or tumbled over each other in boisterous

play.

I went to the rash awning and drew it aside. The sunlight burst into the

room and blinded me for a moment. Then my vision returned and I cried out

with horror. They were scattered upon the terrace and down into the garden

every bird and animal.

They lay in the abandoned attitudes of death, every one of them where he

had fallen. I rushed out to them, calling my favourites by name, kneeling to

pick one of them up in my armsi and hugging the slack warm body as I searched

for signs of life., There was no flicker of it in any of them, though I went

to eachi of them. The birds were small and light in my hand, their mar-velous

plumage undimmed by death.

I thought that my already heavy heart must now burst: with the sheer weight

of my grief. I knelt on the terrace with my family scattered around me and I

wept.

It was some time before I could bring myself to think about the cause of

this tragedy. Then I stood up and went to one of the empty bowls that lay on

the tiles. They had licked it clean, but I sniffed at it to try and fathom

the nature of the poison that had been intended for me. The odour of soured

milk disguised any other smell; all I knew was that it had been swift and

deadly.

I wondered who had placed the jug beside my bed, but it did not matter

whose hand had carried the vessel to me. I knew with utter certainty who had

given the order for it. ’Farewell, my old darling. You are a dead man,’ Lord

Intef had told me, and he had not waited long to transform the words into the

deed.

The anger that seized me was a form of madness. It was aggravated by my

unsteady state and sombre mood. I found that I was shaking with a rage that I

had never known before. I drew the little dagger from my belt and before I

realized what I was doing, I was rushing down the steps of the terrace with

the naked blade in my hand. I knew that at this time of the morning Intef

would be in his water-garden. I could no longer bear to think of him as my

Lord Intef. The memory of every outrage he had ever visited upon me, every

agony and every humiliation, was bright and clear in my mind. I was going to

kill him now, stab him a hundred times through that cruel and evil heart.

I was in sight of the gate to the water-garden before I regained my sanity.

There were half a dozen guards at the gate, and there would be as many more

beyond. I would never get within dagger-thrust of the grand vizier before

they cut me down. I forced my flying feet to check and turn back. I slipped

the dagger into the jewelled leather sheath, and brought my breathing under

control. I walked slowly back to the terrace and gathered up the pathetic

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bodies of my pets.

I had planned to plant a row of sycamore trees along the border of my

garden. The holes to take them had already been dug. The trees would never be

planted now that I was leaving Kamak, and the pits would serve as graves for

my beloved creatures. It was the middle of the afternoon before I had filled

the last grave, but my rage was unabated. If I could not yet have my full

vengeance, at least I could give myself a foretaste of it.

There was still a little of the sour milk left in the jug beside my bed. I

held the jug in my hands and tried to think of some way in which I could get

it to the grand vizier’s kitchens. It would be so fitting to pay him his own

vile coin, although I knew in my heart that the idea was futile. Lord Intef

was far too cunning to be taken so easily. I myself had helped him devise the

system he used to keep himself secure from poison and assassination. He could

not be reached without much careful planning. What was more, he would be

especially on his guard now. I would have to be patient, but that was

impossible. Even if I could not kill him yet, I could exact some lesser

payment as a deposit against what I was determined must follow.

Still carrying the fatal jug, I slipped out of one of the side-doors of the

boys’ quarters into the street. I did not have to go far to find a milkman

surrounded by his flock of nanny-goats. While I waited he stripped the rich

milk from the swollen udders of one of them, topping the jug to the brim.

Whoever had prepared the poison had used enough to murder half the citizens

of Karnak. I knew that more than sufficient remained in the jug for my

purpose.

One of the grand vizier’s bodyguards loafed at the door to Rasfer’s

chamber. The fact that he had him under guard proved to me that Rasfer was

still valuable to Lord Intef, and the loss of his personal lieutenant would

annoy if not seriously discommode him. ’

The guard recognized me and waved me into the sickroom that smelled like a

sty. Rasfer lay on his filthy bed, basting in his own sweat. However, I could

tell at once that my surgery had been successful, for he opened his eyes and

cursed me weakly. He must also be so certain of his own eventual recovery

that he need no longer toady to me.

’Where have you been, you ball-less freak?’ he growled at me, hardening my

resolve and ridding me of the last traces of any pity that I might have felt

for him. ’I have been in agony ever since you drilled into my skull. What

kind of physician are you?’

There was much more in this style, which I pretended to ignore as I unwound

the soiled bandage from around his head. My interest was purely academic as I

examined the small wound that the trepan had left in his scalp. It was

another perfectly executed operation, and I felt a certain professional

regret that it would be wasted.

’Give me something for the pain, eunuch!’ Rasfer tried to seize the front

of my tunic, but I was too quick for him and stepped back out of his reach.

I made a fuss of shaking a few crystals of harmless salt from a glass vial

into his drinking-bowl, and then topped it up with milk from my jug.

’If the pain becomes too bad, this will relieve it,’ I told him as I set

the bowl near to his hand. Even at this stage, I could not bring myself to

hand it to him directly.

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He heaved himself up on one elbow and reached for the bowl to guzzle it

down. Before his fingers touched it, I pushed it out of his reach with my

foot. At the moment I thought that this was merely a desire to prolong the

anticipation, and I felt satisfaction at his distress as he whined at me,

’Good Taita, give me the potion. Let me drink. This pain in my head will

drive me mad.’

’First let’s talk a while, good Rasfer. Did you hear that the Lady Lostris

asked for me as her parting gift from Lord Intef?’

Even in his pain, he grinned at me. ’You are a fool if you think he will

let you go. You are a dead man.’

"The very words Lord Intef used. Will you mourn for me, Rasfer? Will you

weep for me when I am gone?’ I asked softly, and he began to chuckle, then

broke it off and glanced at the bowl.

’In my own way, I have always been rather fond of you,? he grunted. ’Now

let me have the bowl.’

’How fond of me were you when you castrated me?’ I asked, and he stared up

at me.

’Surely you do not still bear a grudge for that? It was long ago, and

besides, I could not disobey the orders of Lord Intef. Be reasonable, Taita,

let me have the bowl.’

’You laughed as you cut me. Why did you laugh? Did you enjoy it so much?’

He shrugged and then winced at the pain that the movement caused him. ’I am

a jovial man. I always laugh. Come now, old friend, say you forgive me and

let me have the bowl.’

I nudged it towards him with my foot. He reached out and seized it, his

movements still uncoordinated. A few drops slopped over the rim as he raised

it greedily to his mouth.

I didn’t realize what I was about to do, until I had leapt forward and

struck the bowl out of his hands. It hit the floor without shattering and

rolled into the corner, splashing milk up on to the wall.

Rasfer and I stared at each other. I was appalled by my own stupidity and

my weakness. If ever a man deserved a death by the agony of poison, it was

this one. But then I saw again the contorted bodies of my pets strewn across

the terrace, and I knew why I had not been able to allow Rasfer to drink.

Only a fiend could commit such an act. I have too high a regard for myself

ever to descend to the ignominy of the poisoner.

I saw understanding dawn in Rasfer’s bloodshot eyes. ’Poison,’ he

whispered. ’The bowl was poisoned.’

’It was sent to me by Lord Intef.’ I don’t know why I told him this.

Perhaps I was trying to excuse myself for the atrocity that I had almost

committed. I don’t know why I was behaving so strangely. Maybe it was still

the aftereffects of working the Mazes. I staggered slightly as I turned for

the door.

Behind me Rasfer began to laugh, softly at first and then louder, until

great gusty bellows of laughter seemed to shake the walls.

117

’You are a fool, eunuch,’ he roared after me as I ran. ’You should have

done it. You should have killed me, for now as surely as I have a hole

between my buttocks, I will kill you.’

As I had expected, when at last I returned to her chamber my Lady Lostris

was still asleep. I settled at the foot of her bed, intending to wait for her

to wake on her own. However, the rigours and the exertions of the past day

and night had been too much for me. I slumped down and fell asleep, curled

like a puppy on the tiles.

I WOKE UNDER ATTACK. SOMETHING struck the side of my head such a painful

blow that I was on my feet before I was properly awake. The next blow took me

across the shoulder and stung like the bite of a hornet.

’You cheated me!’ my Lady Lostris screamed at me. ’You did not let me die.’

She swung the fan again. It was a formidable weapon, the bamboo handle was as

long as twice the span of my arms, and the comb at its head that held the fan

of ostrich feathers was of solid silver. Fortunately she was still groggy

from the drug and from oversleeping, and her aim was erratic. I ducked under

the blow, and the momentum of it swung her around so that she collapsed on

the bed again.

She dropped the fan and burst into tears. ’I wanted to die. Why did you not

let me die?’

It was some time before I could approach her, and put one arm around her to

comfort her. ’Did I hurt you, Taita?’ she asked. ’I have never beaten you

before.’

’Your first attempt was a very good one,’ I congratulated her ruefully. ’In

fact you are so good at it that I do not think you need practise it further.’

Theatrically I rubbed the side of my head, and she smiled through her tears.

’Poor Taita. I do treat you so badly. But you did deserve it. You cheated

me. I wanted to die and you disobeyed me.’ I saw it was time to change the

subject. ’Mistress, I have the most remarkable news for you. But you must

promise to tell no one of it, not even your maids.’ Not since she had first

learned to talk had she been able to resist a secret, but then what woman

can? The promise of one had always been enough to distract her, and it worked

yet again.

Even with her heart broken and the threat of suicide hanging over her, she

sniffed back the last of her tears and ordered, ’Tell me!’

Recently, I had accumulated a good store of secrets to choose from, and I

paused for a moment to make my selection. I would not tell her of the

poisoning of my pets, of course, nor of my glimpse of Tanus. I needed

something to cheer her rather than to depress her further.

’Last night I went to Pharaoh’s bedchamber and I spoke to him for half the

night.’

The tears rose to the surface of her eyes once more, ’Oh, Taita, I hate

him. He’s an ugly old man. I don’t want to have to?’

I wanted no more in that vein, in moments she would be weeping again, so I

hurried on, ’I worked the Mazes for him.’ Instantly I had her complete

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attention. My Lady Los-tris is totally fascinated by my powers of divination.

If it were not for the deleterious effect that the Mazes have upon my health,

she would make me work them every single day.

’Tell me! What did you see?’ She was riveted. No thought of suicide now,

all sadness forgotten. She was still so young and artless that I felt ashamed

of my trickery, even though it was for her own good.

’I had the most extraordinary visions, mistress. I have never had such

clear images, such depths of sight?’

Tell me! I declare I will die of impatience if you don’t tell me

immediately.’

’First you must swear secrecy. Not another soul must ever know what I saw.

These are affairs of state and dire consequence.’

’I swear. I swear.’

’We cannot take these matters lightly?’

’Get on with it, Taita. You are teasing me now. I order you to tell me this

very moment or, or,’ she groped for a threat to coerce me, ’or I shall beat

you again.’

’Very well. Listen to my vision. I saw a great tree upon the bank of the

Nile. Upon the summit of the tree was the crown of Egypt.’

’Pharaoh! The tree was the king.’ She saw it at once, and I nodded. ’Go on,

Taita. Tell me the rest of it.’

’I saw the Nile rise and fall five times.’

’Five years, the passing of five years!’ She clapped her hands with

excitement. She loves to unravel the riddles of my dreams.

"Then the tree was devoured by locusts, and thrown down and turned to

dust.’

She stared at me, unable to utter the words, so I spoke for her. ’In five

years Pharaoh will be dead, and you will be a free woman. Free from your

father’s thrall. Free to go to Tanus, with no man to stop you.’

’If you are lying to me, it will be too cruel to bear. Please say it is

true.’

’It is true, my lady, but there is more. In the vision, I saw a new-born

babe, a boy child, a son. I felt my love go out to the infant, and I knew

that you were the mother of the child.’

’The father, who was the father of my baby? Oh, Taita, tell me please.’

’In the dream I knew with absolute certainty that the father was Tanus.’

This was the first deviation from the truth that I had allowed myself, but

once again I had the consolation of believing that it was for her benefit.

She was silent for a long time, but her face shone with an inner glow that

was all the reward I could ever ask for. Then at last she whispered, ’I can

wait for five years. I was prepared to wait all eternity for him. It will be

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hard, but I can wait five years for Tanus. You were right not to let me die,

Taita. It would have been an offence in the face of the gods.’

My relief buoyed me up, and I now felt more confident that I would be able

to steer her safely through all that lay ahead.

AT DAWN THE FOLLOWING DAY THE royal flotilla sailed south from Karnak. As

the king had promised, my Lady Lostris and all her entourage were on board

one of the small, fast galleys of the southern squadron.

I sat with my mistress on the cushions under the awning on the poop that

the captain had arranged especially for her. We looked back at the

lime-washed buildings of the city shining in the first tangerine tints of the

rising sun.

’I cannot think where he has gone.’ She was fretting over Tanus as she had

a score of times since we had set. sail. ’Did you look everywhere for him?’

’Everywhere,’ I confirmed. ’I spent half the morning scouring the inner

city and the docks. He has disappeared. But I left your message with Kratas.

You can be sure Kratas will deliver it to him.’

’Five years without him, will they ever pass?’

THE VOYAGE UP-RIVER PASSED PLEASANTLY enough in long, leisurely days spent

sitting on the poop-deck in conversation with my mistress. We discussed every

detail of our changed circumstances in great depth, and examined all that we

might expect and hope for in the future. I explained to her alHhe

complexities of life at the court, the precedent and the protocol. I traced

for her the hidden lines of power and influence, and I listed all those whom

it would be in our interest to cultivate and those whom we could safely

ignore. I explained to her the issues of the day, and how Pharaoh stood on

each of them. Then I went on to discuss with her the feeling and the mood of

the citizenry. In a large measure I was indebted to my friend Aton, the royal

chamberlain, for all this intelligence. It seemed that over the last dozen

years every ship that had come downriver from Elephantine Island to Karnak

had carried a letter from him to me full of these fascinating details, and on

its return to Elephantine Island had carried a golden token of my gratitude

back to my friend, Aton.

I was determined that we would soon be at the centre of the court and in

the mainstream of power. I had not trained my mistress all these years to see

the weapons that I had placed in her armoury rust with disuse. The sym of her

many accomplishments and her talents was already formidable, but I was

patiently adding to it each day. She had a keen and restless mind. Once I had

helped her to throw off theblack mood that had threatened to destroy her, she

was, as always, open to my instruction. Every chance I had, I fired up her

ambition and her eagerness to take up the role I had planned for her.

I soon found that one of the most effective means of enlisting her

attention and cooperation was to suggest that all this would be to the

eventual benefit and advantage of Tanus. ’If you have influence at court, you

will be better able to protect him,’ I pointed out to her. "The king has set

him an almost impossible task to fulfil. Tanus will need us if he is to

succeed, and if he fails only you will be able to save him from the sentence

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that the king has placed upon him.’

’What can we do to help him carry out his task?’ At the mention of Tanus I

immediately had all her attention. ’Tell me truly, will any man be able to

stamp out the Shrikes? Is it not too difficult a mission, even for a man like

Tanus?’

The bandits that terrorized the Upper Kingdom called themselves the

Shrikes, after those fierce birds. Our Nile shrike is smaller than a dove; a

handsome little creature with a white chest and throat and a black back and

cap, it plunders the nests of other birds and makes a grisly display of the

pathetic carcasses of its victims by hanging them on the thorns of the acacia

tree. Its vernacular name is the Butcher Bird.

In the beginning the bandits had used it as a cryptic name to conceal their

identity and to hide their existence, but since they had grown so strong and

fearless, they had adopted it openly and often used the black and white

feather of the Butcher Bird as their emblem.

In the beginning they would leave the feather on the doorway of a home they

had robbed or on the corpse of one of their victims. But in those days, so

bold and so organized had they become that at times they might send a feather

to an intended victim as a warning. In most cases that was all that was

necessary to make the victim pay over a half of all he owned in the world.

That was preferable to having all of it pillaged, and having his wives and

daughters carried off and raped, and he and his sons thrown into the burning

ruins of then- home to boot.

’Do you think it possible that even with the power of the hawk seal Tanus

will be able to carry out the king’s mission?’ my mistress repeated. ’I have

heard that all the bands of the Shrikes in the whole of the Upper Kingdom are

controlled by one man, someone that they call the Akh-Seth, the brother of

Seth. Is that true, Taita?’

I thought for a moment before I answered. I could not yet tell her all I

knew of the Shrikes, for if I did so, then I would be forced to reveal how

such knowledge had come into my possession. At this stage that would not be

much to her advantage, nor to my credit. There might be a time for these

disclosures later.

’I have also heard that rumour,’ I agreed cautiously. ’It seems to me that

if Tanus were to find and crush this one man, Akh-Seth, then the Shrikes

would crumble away. But Tanus will need help that only I can give him.’

She looked at me shrewdly. ’How can you help him?’ she demanded. ’And what

do you know about this business?’

She is quick, and hard to deceive. She sensed at once that I was hiding

something from her. I had to retreat swiftly and to play on her love of Tanus

and her trust in me.

’For Tanus’ sake, ask me no more now. Only give me your permission to do

what I can to help him complete the task that Pharaoh has set him.’

’Yes, of course we must do all in our power. Tell meliow I can help.’

’I will stay with you at the court on Elephantine Island for ninety days,

but then you must give me leave to go to him?’

121

’No, no,’ she interrupted me, ’if you can be of help to Tanus, you must go

immediately.’

’Ninety days,’ I repeated stubbornly. That was the period of grace that I

had won for her. Although I was torn between these two dear children of mine,

my first duty was to my mistress.

I knew that I could not leave her alone at the court without a friend or a

mentor. I also knew that I had to be with her when the king finally sent for

her in the night.

’I cannot leave you yet, but don’t wony. I have left a message for Tanus

with Kratas. They will be expecting me, and I have explained to Kratas all

that has to be done before I arrive back at Kamak.’ I would not tell her

more, and there can be few as obtuse or as evasive as I can be when I set

myself to it.

The flotilla sailed only during the day. Neither the navigational skills of

Admiral Nembet nor the comfort of the king and his court would stand up to a

night passage, so every evening we moored and a forest of hundreds of tents

sprang up on the river-bank. Always the royal stewards chose the most

congenial spot to pitch camp, usually in a grove of palm trees or in the lee

of a sheltering hillock, with a temple or a village nearby from which we were

able to draw supplies.

The entire court was still in festive mood. Every camp was treated as a

picnic. There was dancing and feasting in the light of the bonfires, while in

the shadows the courtiers intrigued and flirted. Many an alliance both

political and carnal was struck during those balmy nights, perfumed with the

fruity aromas of the irrigated lands along the river and the spicier desert

airs blown in from further afield.

I used every moment to the best advantage of both my mistress and myself.

Of course she was now one of the royal ladies, but there were already several

hundred of those, and she was still a very junior wife. Lord Intef’s

foresight might change her future status, but only if she bore Pharaoh a son.

In the meantime it was up to me.

Almost every evening after we had gone ashore, Pharaoh sent for me,

ostensibly to see to the cure of his ringworm, but in reality t& review the

preparations for begetting a male heir to the double crown. While he watched

with interest, I prepared my tonic for potency and virility from grated

rhinoceros horn and mandrake root, which I mixed with warm goat’s milk and

honey. When he had taken this, I examined the royal member and was delighted

for the sake of my mistress to find that it possessed neither the length nor

the girth that one would have expected from a god. I was of the opinion that

my mistress, even in her virgin state, would be able to cope with its modest

dimensions without too much discomfort. Naturally I would do all in my power

to avoid the dread moment, but if I was unable to stave it off, then I was

determined to ease the passage to womanhood for her.

Having found the king to be healthy if unremarkable in these regions, I

recommended a poultice of cornflour mixed with olive oil and honey to be

applied to the royal member at night before retiring, and then I went on to

deal with the ringworm. To the king’s intense gratification my ointment cured

the condition within the three days that I had promised, and my already

considerable reputation as a physician was enhanced. The king boasted of my

accomplishment to his council of ministers, and within days I was in huge

demand throughout the court. Then, when it was known that I was not only a

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healer but also an astrologer whom even the king consulted, my popularity

became boundless.

Every,evening there came to our tents a succession of messengers bearing

expensive gifts for my mistress from this lady or that lord and begging that

she allow me to visit them for a consultation. We acceded to only those with

whom we wished to make better acquaintance. Once I was in the tent of a

powerful and noble lord, he with his kilt up around his waist while I

examined his haemorrhoids, it was a simple matter to extol my mistress and

bring her many virtues to the attention of my patient.

The other ladies of the harem soon discovered that my Lady Lostris and I

sang a beautiful duet together, and that we could compose the most intriguing

riddles and tell even more amusing stories. We were in demand throughout the

court, and especially amongst the children of the harem. This gave me special

pleasure, for if there is anything I love more than animals, it is small

children.

Pharaoh, who was responsible for our popularity in the first place, soon

had the increase of it reported to him. This further spurred his interest in

my mistress, if it were not already sufficiently intense. At sailing time on

many mornings she was summoned on board the royal barge to spend the day in

the king’s company, while most evenings, at the royal invitation, my mistress

dined at the king’s board, and regaled him and the assembled company with her

natural wit and childlike grace. Of course I was always in discreet

attendance. When the king made no move to send for her in the night in order

to force her to submit to those horrible but rather hazy terrors she had

conjured up,’ her feelings towards him began to moderate.

Beneath his glum exterior Pharaoh Mamose was a kind and decent man. My Lady

Lostris soon realized this, and like me, she began to grow quite fond of him.

Before we reached Elephantine Island she was treating him like a favourite

uncle, and quite unaffectedly would sit on his knee to tell him a story, or

would play throwing-sticks with him on the deck of the royal barge, both of

them flushed with the exertion and laughing like children. Aton confided to

me that he had never seen the king so gay.

All this was watched and noted by the court, who very soon recognized her

as the king’s favourite. Soon there were other visitors to our tents in the

evening, those who had a petition which they wished my mistress to bring to

Pharaoh’s notice. The gifts they proffered were even more valuable than those

offered for my services.

My mistress had rejected her father’s gift in favour of a single slave, so

she had begun the journey southwards as a pauper, dependent on my own modest

savings. However, before the voyage was done she had accumulated not only a

comfortable fortune, but also a long list of favours owed by her new rich and

powerful friends. I kept a careful accounting of all these assets.

I am not so conceited that I should pretend that my Lady Lostris would not

have achieved this recognition without my help. Her beauty and her cleverness

and her sweet, warm nature must have made her a favourite in any

circumstances. I only suggest that I was able to make it happen a little

sooner and a little more certainly.

Our success brought with it some drawbacks. As always, there was jealousy

from those who felt themselves displaced in Pharaoh’s favour, and there was

also the matter of Pharaoh’s mounting carnal interest in my mistress. This

was aggravated by the period of abstinence that I had enforced upon him.

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One evening in his tent after I had administered his rhinoceros horn, he

confided in me, ’Taita, this cure of yours is really most efficacious. I have

not felt so virile since I was a young man, way back before my coronation and

my divinity. This morning when I awoke I had a stiffening of the member which

was so gratifying that I sent for Aton to view it. He was mightily impressed

and he wished forthwith to fetch your mistress.’

I was thoroughly alarmed by this news, and I put on my sternest expression

and shook my head and sucked air through my teeth and tut-tutted to show my

disapproval. ’I am grateful for your good sense in not agreeing to Aton’s

suggestion, Your Majesty. It could so easily have undone all our efforts. If

you want a son, then you must follow my regime meticulously.’

This brought home to me the swift passage of time, and how soon the ninety

days of grace would be up. I began to condition my mistress for that night

which Pharaoh would soon insist upon.

First I must prepare her mind, and I set about this by pointing out to her

that it was inevitable, and that if she wished to outlive the king and

eventually to go to Tanus, then she would have to submit to the king’s will.

She was always a sensible girl.

’Then you will have to explain exactly what it is he expects of me, Taita,’

she sighed. I was not the best guide in this area. My personal experience had

been ephemeral, but I was able to outline the fundamentals and to make it

seem so commonplace as not to alarm her unduly.

’Will it hurt?’ she wanted to know, and I hastened to reassure her.

’The king is a kind man. He has much experience of young girls. I am sure

he will be gentle with you. I will prepare an ointment for you that will make

things much easier. I will apply it every night before you retire. It will

open the gateway. Think to yourself that one day Tanus will pass through

those same portals, and that you are doing this to welcome him and no other.’

I tried to remain the aloof physician and take no sensual pleasure in what

I had to do to help her. The gods forgive me, but I failed in my resolution.

She was so perfect in her womanly parts as to overshadow the most lovely

blossom that I had ever raised in my garden. No desert rose ever bore petals

so exquisite. When I smoothed the ointment upon them they raised their own

sweet dew, more oleaginous and silky to the touch than any unguent that I

could concoct.

Her cheeks turned rosy and her voice was husky as she murmure.d, ’Up until

now, I thought that part of me was meant for only one purpose. Why is it that

when you do that, I long so unbearably for Tanus?’

She trusted me so implicitly, and had so little understanding of these

unfamiliar sensations, that it required the exercise of all my ethics as a

physician to proceed with the treatment only as long as was necessary.

However, I slept only fitfully that night, haunted by dreams of the

impossible.

AS WE SAILED DEEPER INTO THE SOUTH, so the belts of green land on each side

of the river narrowed. Now the desert began to squeeze in upon us. In places

brooding cliffs of black granite trod the verdant fields under foot and

pressed so close as to overhang the turgid waters of the Nile.

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The most forbidding of these narrows was known as the Gates of Hapi, and

the waters were whipped into a wild and wilful temper as they boiled through

the gap in the high cliffs.

We made the passage of the Gates of Hapi, and came at last to Elephantine,

the largest of a great assembly of islands that were strung through the

throat of the Nile, where the harsh hills constricted its flow and forced it

through the narrows.

Elephantine was shaped like a monstrous shark pursuing the shoal of lesser

islands up the narrows. On either side of the river the encroaching deserts

were distinct in colour and character. On the west bank, the Saharan dunes

were hot orange and savage as the Bedouin who were the only mortals able to

survive amongst them. To the east, the Arabian desert was dun and dirty grey,

studded with black hills that danced dreamlike in the heat mirage. These

deserts had one thing in common?both of them were killers of men.

What a delightful contrast was Elephantine Island, set like a glistening

green jewel in the silver crown of the river. It took its name from the

smooth grey granite boulders that clustered along its bank like a herd of the

huge pachyderms and also from the fact that the trade in ivory brought down

from the savage land of Cush beyond the cataract had for a thousand years

centred upon this place.

Pharaoh’s palace sprawled over most of the island, and the wags suggested

that he had chosen to build it here at the southernmost point in his kingdom

to be as far from the red pretender in the north as possible.

The wide stretch of water that surrounded the island secured it from the

attack of an enemy, but the remainder of the city had overflowed on to both

main banks. After great Thebes, west and east Elephantine together made up

the largest and most populous city in the Upper Kingdom, a worthy rival to

Memphis, the seat of the red pretender in the Lower Kingdom.

As at no other place in the whole of Egypt, Elephantine Island was clad

with trees. Their seeds had been brought down by the river on a thousand

annual floods, and they had taken root in the fertile loams that had

themselves been transported by the restless waters.

On my last visit to Elephantine, when I had come up-river to do a survey of

the river gauges for my Lord Intef in his capacity as Guardian of the Waters,

I had spent many months on the island. With the assistance of the head

gardener, I had catalogued the names and natural histories of all the plants

in the palace gardens, so I was able to point them out to my mistress. There

were/Jews trees the like of which had never been seen elsewhere in Egypt.

Their fruits grew not upon the branch but on the main trunk, and their roots

twisted and writhed together like mating pythons. There were dragon’s blood

trees whose bark, when cut, poured out a bright red sap. There were Cushite

sycamores and a hundred other varieties that spread a shady green umbrella

over the lovely little island.

The royal palace was built upon the solid granite that lay below the

fertile soil and formed the skeleton of the island. I have often wondered

that our kings, the long line of phar-aohs of fifty dynasties that stretches

back over a thousand years, have each of them devoted so much of his life and

treasure to the building of vast and eternal tombs of granite and marble,

while in their lifetimes they have been content to live in palaces with mud

walls and thatched roofs. In comparison to the magnificent funerary temple

that I was building for Pharaoh Mamose at Karnak, this palace was a very

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modest affair, and the dearth of straight lines and symmetry offended the

instincts of both the mathematician and the architect in me. I suppose the

sprawling jumble of red clay walls and roofs canted at odd angles did have a

sort of bucolic charm, yet I itched to get out my ruler and plumb-line.

Once we had gone ashore and found the quarters that had been set aside for

us, the true appeal of Elephantine was even more apparent. Naturally we were

lodged hi the walled harem on the northern tip of the island, but the size

and the furnishings of our lodgings confirmed our favoured position, not only

with the king but with his chamberlain as well. Aton had made the allocation,

and he, like most others, had proved completely defenceless against my

mistress’s natural charm, and was now one of her most shameless admirers.

He placed at our disposal a dozen spacious and airy rooms with our own

courtyard and kitchens. A side-gate in the main wall led directly down to the

riverside-and a stone jetty. That very first day I purchased a flat-bottomed

skiff which we could use for fishing and water-fowling. I kept it moored at

the jetty.

As to the rest of our new home, however comfortable it might have been,

neither my mistress nor I was satisfied, and we immediately set about

improving and beautifying it. With the cooperation of my old friend the head

gardener, I laid out and planted our own private garden hi the courtyard,

with a thatched barrazza under which we could sit in the heat of the day, and

where I kept my Saker falcons tethered on their perches.

At the jetty I set up a shadoof to lift from the river a constant flow of

water that I led through ceramic pipes to our own water-garden with

lily-ponds dnd fish-pools. The overflow from the pools drained away in a

narrow gutter. This gutter I directed through the wall of my mistress’s

chamber, across a screened corner of the room and out the far side, from

whence it returned to the main flow of the Nile. I carved a stool of fragrant

cedar wood, with a hole through the seat, and placed this over the gutter so

that anything dropped through the bottom of the seat would be borne away by

the never-ending flow of water. My mistress was delighted with this

innovation and spent far more time perched upon the stool than was really

necessary to accomplish the business for which it was originally intended.

The walls of our quarters were bare red clay. We designed a set of frescoes

for each room. I drew the cartoons and transposed them on to the walls and

then my mistress and her maids painted in the designs. The frescoes were

scenes from the mythology of the gods, with fanciful landscapes peopled by

wonderful animals and birds. Of course, I used my Lady Lostris as my model

for the figure of Isis, but was it any wonder that the figure of Horus was

central to every painting, or that on the insistence of my mistress, he was

depicted as having red-gold hair and that he looked amazingly familiar?

The frescoes caused a stir throughout the harem and every one of the royal

wives took turns to visit us, to drink sherbet and to view the paintings. We

had set a fashion, and I was prevailed upon to advise on the redecoration of

most of the private apartments in the harem, at a suitable fee, of course. In

this process we made many new friends amongst the royal ladies and added

considerably to our financial estate.

Very soon the king heard about the decorations and came in person to

examine them. Lostris gave him the grand tour of her chambers. Pharaoh

noticed her new water-stool of which my mistress was so proud that when the

king asked her to demonstrate it for him she did so without hesitation,

perching upon it and giggling as she sent a tinkling stream into the gutter.

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She was still so innocent as not to realize the effect that this display

had upon her husband. I could tell by his expression that any attempt that I

might make to delay him beyond the promised ninety days was likely to be

difficult.

After the tour, Pharaoh sat under the barrazza and drank a cup of wine

while he actually laughed aloud at some of my mistress’s sallies. At last he

turned to me. ’Taita, you must build me a water-garden and a barrazza just

like this? only much bigger, and whilst you are about it, you can make a

water-stool for me as well.’

When at last he was ready to leave, he commanded me to walk a little way

alone with him, ostensibly to discuss the new water-garden, but I knew

better. No sooner had we left the harem than he was at me.

’Last night I dreamed of your mistress,’ he told me, ’and when I awoke, I

found that my seed had spilled out upon the sheets. That has not happened to

me since I was a boy. This little vixen of yours has begun to fill my

thoughts both sleeping and waking. I have no doubt that I can make a son with

her, and that we should delay no longer. What do you think, doctor, am I not

yet ready for the attempt?’

’I counsel you most strongly to observe the ninety days, Majesty. To make

the attempt before that would be folly.’ It was dangerous to label the king’s

desire as folly, but I was desperate to contain it. ’It would be most unwise

to spoil all our chances of success for so short a period of time.’ In the

end I prevailed, and left him looking glummer than ever.

When I returned to the harem, I warned my mistress of the king’s

intentions, and so thoroughly had I conditioned her to accept the inevitable

that she showed no undue distress. She was by this time completely resigned

to her role as the king’s favourite, while my promise that there would be a

term to her captivity here on Elephantine Island made it easier for her to

bear. In all fairness, our sojourn on the island could not truly be described

as captivity. We Egyptians are the most civilized men on earth. We treat our

women well. I have heard of others, the Hurrians and the Cushites and the

Libyans, for example, who are most cruel and unnatural towards their wives

and daughters.

The Libyans make of the harem a true prison in which the women live their

entire lives without sight of a living male apart from the eunuchs and the

children. They say that even male dogs and cats are forbidden to pass through

the gates, so great is their possessive frenzy.

The Hurrians are even worse. Not only do they confine their women and make

them cover their bodies from ankle to wrist, but they force them to go masked

as well, even within the confines of the harem. Thus only a woman’s husband

ever lays eyes upon her face.

The primitive tribes of Cush are the worst of all of them. When their women

reach the age of puberty they circumcise them in the most savage manner. They

cut away the clitoris and me inner lips of the vagina to remove the seat of

sexual pleasure so that they may never be tempted to stray from their

husbands.

This may seem so bizarre as to defy belief, but I have seen the results of

this brutal surgery with my own eyes. Three of my mistress’s slave girls were

captured by the slavers only after they were matured and had been subjected

to the knife by their own fathers. When I examined the gaping, scar-puckered

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pits they had been left with, I was sickened, and my instincts as a healer

were deeply offended by this mutilation of that masterpiece of the gods, the

human body. It has been my observation that this circumcision does not

achieve its object, for it seems to deprive the victim of the most desirable

female traits, and leaves her cold and calculating and cruel. She becomes a

sexless monster.

On the other hand, we Egyptians honour our women and treat them, if not as

equals, at least with consideration. No husband may beat his wife without

recourse to the magistrate, and he has a legal duty to dress and feed and

maintain her in accordance with his own station in society. A wife of the

king, or of one of the nobles, is not confined to the harem, but, if suitably

escorted by her entourage, may walk abroad in city street or countryside. She

is not forced to hide her charms, but, according to the fashion of the moment

and her own whim, she may sit at her husband’s dinner-table with her face

uncovered and her breasts bared, and entertain his male companions with

conversation and song.

She may hold, in her own right, slaves and land and fortune separately from

the estate of her husband, although the children she bears belong to him

alone. She may fish, and fly hawks, and even practise archery, although such

masculine endeavours as wrestling and swordsmanship are forbidden to her.

There are, quite rightly, certain activities from which she is barred, such

as the practice of law and architecture, but a high-born wife is a person of

consequence, possessed of legal rights and dignity. Naturally it is not the

same for the concubine or for the wife of a common man. They have the same

rights as the bullock or the donkey.

Thus my mistress and I were free to wander abroad to explore the twin

cities on each bank of the Nile and the surrounding countryside. In the

streets of Elephantine my Lady Lostris was very soon a favourite, and the

common people gathered round her to solicit her blessing and her generosity.

They applauded her grace and beauty, just as they had done in her native

Thebes. I was instructed by her always to carry a large bag of cakes and

sweetmeats from which she stuffed the cheeks of every ragamuffin we

encountered who seemed to her to require nourishing. Wherever we went, we

seemed always to be surrounded by a shrieking, dancing flock of children.

My mistress always seemed happy to sit in the doorway of a poor shanty with

the housewife, or under a tree in the field of a peasant fanner and listen to

their woes and grievances. At the first opportunity she would take these up

with Pharaoh. Often he would smile indulgently and agree to the redress that

she suggested. So her reputation as a champion of the common man was bom.

When she passed through even the saddest, poorest quarters of the city, she

left smiles and laughter behind her.

On other days we fished together from our little skiff in the backwaters of

the lagoons that the inundation of the Nile had created, or we laid out

decoys for the wild duck. I had made a special bow for my mistress which was

suited to her strength. Of course it was nothing like the great bow, Lan-ata,

that I had designed for Tanus, but it was adequate for the water-fowl we were

after. My Lady Lostris was a better marksman than most men I have watched at

the archery butts, and when she loosed an arrow it was very seldom that I was

not required to plunge overside and swim out to retrieve the carcass of a

duck or a goose.

Whenever the king went out hawking, my mistress was invited to attend. I

would walk behind her with my Saker falcons on my arm, as we skirted the edge

of the papyrus beds. As soon as a heron rose with heavy wing-beats from a

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hidden pool in the reeds, she would take one of the falcons from me and kiss

its hooded head. ’Fly fast and true, my beauty!’ she would whisper to it, and

slip the rufter to unmask the fierce yellow eyes, and launch the splendid

little killer aloft.

We would watch entranced as the falcon towered high above the quarry, and

then folded those sickle wings and stooped with a speed that made the wind

sing over his dappled plumage. The shock of impact carried clearly to us over

a distance of two hundred paces. A puff of pale blue feathers was smeared

across the darker blue of the sky, and then was carried away like smoke on

the river breeze. The falcon bound to its prey with hooked talons to bring it

smashing to earth. My mistress shrieked in triumph and ran as fast as a boy

to retrieve the bird, to lavish praise upon it and pamper it, and then to

feed it the severed head of the heron.

I love all creatures of the water and the land and the air. My mistress has

the same feelings. Why is it then, I often wonder, that both of us are so

moved by these sports of the chase? I have puzzled over it without finding an

answer. Perhaps it is simply that man, and woman also, are the earth’s

fiercest predator. We feel a kinship with the falcon, with his beauty and his

speed. The heron and the goose were given to the falcon by the gods as his

rightful prey. In the same way, man has been given dominance over all other

creatures on earth. We cannot deny these instincts with which the gods have

endowed us.

From the earliest age, when she had first developed the strength and the

stamina to stay with us, I had allowed my Lady Lostris to accompany Tanus and

myself on our hunting and fishing forays. For, perhaps to mask his hatred of

his rival, Lord Harrab, my Lord Intef consented to my hunting sorties with

young Tanus.

Years before, Tanus ancH had taken possession of a deserted fisherman’s

shack which we had discovered on the fringe of the swamp below Karnak. We had

made this our secret hunting-lodge. It was only a short distance from the

shack to the edge of the true desert. So from this comfortable base we had

the options of fishing the lagoon or of wild-fowling or of hawking that noble

bird, the giant bustard, in the open desert.

In the beginning Tanus had resented the intrusion of this gawky

nine-year-old girl, skinny and flat-chested as a boy, into our private world.

Soon, however, he had grown accustomed to her presence and even found it

convenient to have someone to run errands for him and perform the irksome

little chores around camp.

Thus, little by little, Lostris had picked up the lore and the wisdom of

the outdoors, until she knew every fish and bird by its proper name, and

could wield a harpoon or a hunting-bow with equal skill. In the end Tanus had

become as proud of her as if it had been he who had invited her to join us in

the first place.

She had been with us in the black rock hills above the river valley on the

day that Tanus had hunted the cattle-killer. The lion was a scarred old male

with a black mane that waved like a field of corn in the wind as he walked,

and a voice like the thunder of the heavens. We set my pack of hounds upon

him and followed them as they bayed the lion up from the paddock beside the

Nile where he had killed his last bullock. The dogs cornered him at the head

of a rocky defile. The lion fixed on us as soon as we came up and brushed the

dogs aside as he charged through them.

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As he came grunting and roaring towards us, my mistress had stood

unwavering, only a pace behind Tanus’ left shoulder, with her own puny little

bow at full draw. Of course, it had been Tanus who had killed the beast,

sending an arrow from the great bow Lanata hissing down his gaping throat,

but we had bcJth seen Lady Lostris’ courage displayed in full measure.

I think it was probably on that day that Tanus first became aware of his

true feelings for her, while for my mistress, the hunt and the chase were for

ever bound up with the images and memories of her lover. She had remained

ever since an avid huntress. She had learned from Tanus and myself to respect

and to love the quarry, but not to burden herself with guilt when she

exercised her god-given rights over the other creatures of the earth, to use

them as beasts of burden, to consume them as food, or to pursue them as game.

We may have dominance over the beasts, but in the same way, all men and

women are Pharaoh’s cattle, and none may gainsay him. Promptly on the

ninetieth night the king sent Aton to fetch my mistress.

BECAUSE OF OUR FRIENDSHIP AND HIS own feelings for my mistress, Aton had

given me ample warning before he came. I was able to make my final

preparations well in advance of his arrival. For the last time I rehearsed my

mistress in exactly what to say to the king and how to behave towards him.

Then I applied the ointment that I had reserved for this occasion. It was not

only a lubricant, but contained also the essence of a herb that I use on

other patients to deaden the pain of tooth-ache and other minor afflictions.

It had the property of numbing the sensitive mucous membranes of the body.

She was brave right up to the moment that Aton appeared in the doorway of

her chamber, and then her courage deserted her and she turned to me with

tears brimming against her lids. ’I cannot go alone. I am afraid. Please come

with me, Taita.’ She was pale beneath the make-up that I had applied so

carefully, and a fit of shivering took hold of her so that her small white

teeth chattered together softly.

’Mistress, you know that is not possible. Pharaoh has sent for you. This

once I cannot help you.’

It was then that Aton came to her aid. ’Perhaps Taita could wait in the

ante-chamber of the king’s bedroom, with me. After all, he is the royal

physician, and his services may be needed,’ he suggested in his reedy voice,

and my mistress stood on tiptoe to kiss his fat cheek.

’You are so kind, Aton,’ she whispered, and he blushed.

My Lady Lostris held my hand tightly as we followed Aton through the

labyrinth of passages to the king’s apartments. In the ante-chamber she

squeezed it hard, and then dropped my hand and went to the doorway to the

king’s chamber. She paused and looked back at me. She had never looked so

lovely or so young and vulnerable. My heart was breaking, but I smiled at her

to give her courage. She turned from me and stepped through the curtains. I

heard the murmur of the king’s voice as he greeted her and her soft reply.

Aton seated me on a stool at the low table, then without a word set up the

bao board between us. I played without attention, moving the polished round

stones in the cups carved into the wooden board, and Aton won three quick

games in succession. He had very seldom beaten me before, but I was

distracted by the voices from the room beyond, although they were too low for

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me to catch the actual words.

Then quite clearly I heard my mistress say, exactly as I had coached her,

’Please, Your Majesty, be gentle with me. I beseech you, do not hurt me,’ and

the appeal was so moving that ,even Aton coughed softly and blew his nose

upon his sleeve, while it was all I could do to restrain myself from leaping

to my feet and rushing through the curtain to drag her away.

For a while there was silence and then a single high, sobbing cry that rent

my soul, and once again silence.

Aton and I sat hunched over the bao board, no longer making any pretence at

playing. I do not know how long we waited, but it must have been in the last

watch of the night when I heard at last the sound of an old man’s snores from

beyond the curtain. Aton looked up at me and nodded, then he rose ponderously

to his feet.

Before he reached the curtains, they parted, and my mistress stepped

through them and came directly to where I sat. ’Take me home, Taita,’ she

whispered.

Without thinking about it I picked her up in my arms, and she hugged

mexaround the neck and laid her head on my shoulder, just like she used to as

a little girl. Aton took up the oil lamp and lit the way for us back to the

harem. He left us at the door to my mistress’s bedchamber. I laid her on the

bed, and while she drowsed I examined her gently. There was a little blood,

just a smear of it on those silken thighs, but it had staunched itself.

’Is there any pain, my little one?’ I asked softly, and she opened her eyes

and shook her head.

Then quite unexpectedly she smiled at me. ’I don’t know what all the fuss

was about,’ she murmured. ’In the end, it was not much worse than using your

water-stool, and it didn’t take much longer either.’ And she curled herself

in a ball and fell asleep without another sound.

I almost wept with relief. All my preparations and the numbing herbs I had

employed had seen her through without damage to either her body or her sweet

spirit.

IN THE MORNING WE WENT OUT HAWKING as though nothing untoward had happened,

and my mistress mentioned the subject only once during the day. As we

picnicked on the bank of the river, she asked thoughtfully, ’Will it be the

same with Tanus, do you think, Taita?’ ’No, mistress. You and Tanus love each

other. It will be different. It will be the most wonderful moment in your

entire life,’ I assured her.

’Yes, I know deep in my heart that is how it should be,’ she whispered, and

involuntarily both of us looked northwards along the sweep of the Nile,

towards Kamak far.below the horizon.

Although I knew well where my duty towards Tanus lay, life on the island

was so idyllic, and I so much enjoyed the exclusive company of my mistress,

that I delayed my departure with the excuse that she still needed me. In

truth, although Pharaoh sent for her night after night, my mistress had a

tough and resilient streak in her and was blessed with the instinct of

survival in full measure. Very swiftly she learned how to please the king,

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but at the same time to remain untouched and emotionally unmoved by it. She

did not need me as much as Tanus did. Indeed, it was she who began to nag me

to leave her at Elephantine and to journey down-river once again.

I procrastinated until one evening, after a full day out in the field with

the king, we returned late to the palace. I saw to it that my mistress was

bathed and her evening meal was laid out for her before I went to my own

rooms.

As I entered my chamber the delicious odour of ripe mangoes and

pomegranates filled the air. In the centre of the floor stood a large closed

basket which I could tell was filled with these two favourite fruits of mine.

I was not surprised to find it there, for never a day passed without gifts

being sent to my mistress and me by someone seeking our favours.

I wondered who it was this time, and my mouth filled with saliva as another

whiff of the fragrance filled my nostrils. I had not eaten since noon. As I

lifted the woven lid and reached for the reddest and ripest of the

pomegranates, the fruit spilled and rolled across the floor. There was a

sharp hissing sound and a great black ball of writhing coils and gleaming

scales flopped out of the basket and lashed out at my legs.

I leaped backwards, but not fast enough. The open jaws of the serpent

struck the leather heel of my sandal with such force that I very nearly lost

my balance. A cloud of venom was released from the curved fangs. The clear

but deadly fluid drenched the skin of my ankle, but with another leap, I

managed to evade the second strike that followed immediately upon the first.

I threw myself back against the wall in the far corner of the room.

The cobra and I confronted each other across the width of the floor. Half

its body was coiled upon itself, but the front portion of it was raised as

high as my shoulder. Its hood was extended to display the broad black and

white bands which patterned it. Like some dreadful black lily of death

swaying upon its stem, it watched me with those glittering, beady eyes, and I

realized that it stood between me and the only door to the chamber.

It is true that some cobras are kept as pets. They are given the run of the

household, and they keep down the numbers of rats and mice that infest the

building. They will drink milk from a jug andx become as tame as kittens.

There are others of these serpents that are trained by methods of torment and

provocation to become deadly tools of the assassin. I was in no doubt as to

which kind of cobra this was standing before me now.

I sidled along the wall, trying to outflank it and to reach safety. It

launched itself at me, and the gape of its jaw was a pale sickly yellow and

tendrils of venom drooled from the tips of its fangs. Involuntarily I yelled

with terror as I sprang away from it and cowered in my corner again. The

serpent recovered swiftly from the strike, and reared upright. It was still

between me and the doorway. I knew that its poison sacs were charged with

sufficient venom to kill a hundred strong men. As I watched, its lower body

uncoiled slowly and it began to glide across the floor towards me, its

flaring head held high and those terrible, bright little eyes fastened upon

me.

I have seen one of these snakes mesmerize a fowl so that it made no move to

escape at this sinuous approach, but lay before it with a patent air of

resignation. I was paralyzed in the same way, and found that I could neither

move nor cry out again as death glided towards me.

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Then suddenly I saw a movement beyond the swaying cobra. My Lady Lostris

appeared in the doorway, summoned by my first terrified cry. I found my voice

again, and I screamed at her, ’Be careful! Come no closer!’

She paid no heed to my warning as she took in the scene at a glance. A

moment’s delay or hesitation on her part, and the serpent would have struck

at me for the third and last time. My mistress had been at her dinner when

she heard my cry for help. She stood now with a half-eaten melon in one hand

and a silver knife in the other, and she reacted with the swift instinct of a

true huntress.

Tanus had taught her to forsake the awkward double-jointed manner of

throwing that is natural to the female, and she hurled the melon she held

with the force and aim of a trained javelineer. It struck the cobra upon the

back of its extended hood, and for a fleeting instant the blow knocked it

flat upon the tiled floor. Like the release of a war bow, the serpent whipped

erect and turned its dreadful head towards my mistress and then sped at her

across the room in full attack.

I was released from my trance at last and started forward to help her, but

I was too slow. Using its tail as a fulcrum, the cobra swung forward and

aimed at her with its jaws so widely distended that venom sprayed from its

erect fangs in a fine, pale mist. My mistress leaped back, agile and swift as

a gazelle before the rush of the hunting cheetah. The cobra missed its

strike, and for an instant the impetus threw it flat at her feet, extended to

its full glistening, scaly length.

I do not know what possessed her, but she had never lacked in courage.

Before the cobra could recover, she hopped forward again and landed with both

those neat little sandalled feet upon the back of its head, pinning it to the

tiles with her full weight.

Perhaps she had expected to crush its spine, but the snake was as thick as

her wrist and resilient as the lash of Rasfer’s whip. Although its head was

pinned, the rest of its long body whipped up and over and coiled around her

legs. A woman of lesser sense and nerve might have tried to escape that

loathsome embrace. If she had done so my mistress would have died, for the

instant the cobra’s head was freed the death-strike would have followed.

Instead, she kept both feet planted firmly upon the writhing serpent,

spreading her arms to balance herself, and she screamed out, ’Help me,

Taita!’

I was, already halfway across the room, and now I dived full length and

thrust my hands into the coils of the serpent’s body that boiled around her

legs. I groped along its sinuous length, down to where it narrowed into the

neck, and I seized it and locked both my hands around the cobra’s throat,

with my fingers entwined.

’I have him!’ I yelled, almost incoherent with my own horror and loathing

for this cold, scaly creature that struggled in my grip. ’I have him! Get

away from us! Stand clear!’

My mistress leaped back obediently, and I came to my feet clutching the

creature with a frantic strength, trying to keep its gaping jaws away from my

face. The tail whipped back and wound around my shoulders and my neck,

threatening to strangle me as I clung to the head. With this grip upon me the

snake now had purchase, and its strength was terrifying. I found that I could

not hold it, even with both my fists locked around its throat. It was

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gradually forcing its head free, drawing it inexorably back through my

fingers. I realized that the instant it broke out of my grip, it would lash

out at my unprotected face.

’I can’t hold it!’ I screamed, more to myself than to Lady Lostris. I was

holding it at arm’s-length, but it was pulling itself towards my face,

drawing closer to my eyes every moment as waves of power pulsed through it,

contracting and tightening the coils around my throat, forcing the head back

through my fingers.

Although my knuckles were white with the strength of my grip, the cobra was

so close to my face that I could see the fangs flicking back and forth in the

roof of its wide gaping jaws. The cobra was able to erect or to flatten them

at will. They were bony white needles, and pale, smoky jets of venom spurted

from -their tips. I knew that if even a droplet of that poison entered my

eyes, it would blind me, and the burning pain of it might drive me half-mad.

I twisted the snake’s head away from my face so that the spray of poison

was discharged into the air, and I screamed again in despair, ’Call one of

the slaves to help me!’

’On the table!’ my mistress spoke close beside me. ’Hold its head on the

table!’ I was startled. I had thought that she had obeyed my order and run to

find help, but she was at my side, and I saw that she still brandished the

silver table-knife.

Carrying the cobra with me, I staggered across the floor and fell to my

knees beside the low table. With a supreme effort I managed to force the

snake’s head down across one edge of the table, and to hold it there. It gave

my mistress a chopping-block against which to wield the knife. She hacked at

the base of the cobra’s neck, behind the hideous head.

The snake felt the first cut and redoubled its struggles. Coil after coil

of rubbery flesh lashed and contorted around my head. Hissing bursts of air

flew from its gape, almost deafening us, the awful din mingling with the

spurts of venom from its fangs.

The little blade was sharp, and the scaly flesh parted under it. Slippery,

cool, ophidian blood welled up over my fingers, but the blade bit down to the

bone of the spine. With all her strength and with her face contorted by the

effort, my mistress sawed at the bone, but now my fingers were lubricated by

the cobra’s blood. I felt the head slither out between them and the serpent

was free, but at the same moment the knife found the joint between the

vertebrae and slipped through, cleaving the spine.

Dangling by a thread of-skin, the head was thrown about loosely by the

cobra’s death-throes. Although almost severed from the body, the fangs still

flickered and oozed poison. The lightest touch would be enough to drive them

into my flesh. I tore at the body with frenzied, bloody fingers and at last

managed to unwind it from around my throat, and to hurl it to the floor.

As the two of us backed away to the door, the snake continued its grotesque

contortions, knotting itself and coiling into a ball, scaly turns sliding

over each other.

’Are you harmed, my lady?’ I asked, without being able to tear my eyes away

from the death-throes of the carcass. ’Is there any of the venom in your eyes

or on your skin?’

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’I am all right,’ she whispered. ’And you, Taita?’ The tone of her voice

alarmed me enough to make me forget my own distress, and I looked at her

face. The reaction from danger had already seized her, and she was beginning

to shake. Her dark green eyes were too large to fit that glassy white face. I

had to find some way to release her from the icy grip of shock.

’Well,’ I said briskly, ’that takes care of tomorrow evening’s dinner. I do

so love a nice piece of roast cobra.’

For a moment she stared at me blankly and then she let out a peal of

hysterical laughter. My own laughter was no less wild and unrestrained. We

clung helplessly to each other and laughed until tears poured down our

cheeks.

I WOULD NOT TRUST OUR COOK WITH IT, so I prepared the cobra myself. I

skinned and gutted it and stuffed it with wild garlic and other herbs,

together with a dollop of mutton fat from the tail of a prime ram. Then I

coiled it in a ball and wrapped ir\in banana leaves and covered the whole

bundle with a thick coating of wet clay. I built over the lump of clay a hot

fire which I kept burning all day.

That evening when I cracked open the hard-baked ball of clay, the aroma

released by the succulent white flesh flooded our mouths with saliva. There

are those who have dined at my table who say they have never eaten tastier

food than that which I prepare, and who am I to contradict my friends?

I served the flaky fillets to my mistress with a wine of five-palm quality

that Aton had chanced upon in Pharaoh’s store-rooms. My Lady Lostris insisted

that I sit with her under the barrazza in the courtyard and share the meal.

We agreed that it was better than the tail of crocodile, or even than the

flesh of the finest perch from the Nile.

It was only when we had eaten our fill and sent the rest of it to her slave

maidens that we broached the matter of who it was that had sent me the gift

of the basket of fruit.

I tried not to alarm my mistress, and made a joke of it: ’It must have been

somebody who does not like my singing! ’ However, she was not to be put off

so easily.

’Don’t play the clown with me, Taita. It is one direction in which you have

little talent. I think you know who it was, and I think I do as well.’

I stared at her, not sure how to deal with what I suspected was coming. I

had always protected her, even from the truth. I wondered how far she had

seen through me.

’It was my father,’ she said with such finality that there was no reply or

denial I could give her. ’Tell me about him, Taita. Tell me all the things I

should know about him, but which you never dared tell me.’

It came hard at first. A lifetime of reticence cannot be overcome in a

moment. It was still difficult to realize that I was no longer completely

under the thrall-of Lord Intef. Deeply as I had always hated him, he had

dominated me body and soul since my childhood, and there persisted a kind of

perverse loyalty that made it difficult for me to speak out freely against

him. Weakly I attempted to fob her off with only the barest outlines of her

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father’s clandestine activities, but she cut across me impatiently.

’Come now! Don’t take me for a fool. I know more about my father than you

ever dreamed. It is time for me to learn the rest of it. I charge you

straight, tell me everything.’

So I obeyed her, and there was so much to tell that the full moon was

halfway up the sky before I was done. We sat in silence for a long time

afterwards. I had left out nothing, nor had I tried to deny or to excuse my

own part in any of it.

’No wonder he wantsyou dead,’ she whispered at last. ’You know enough to

destroy him.’ She was silent a little longer, and then she went on, ’My

father is a monster. How is it possible that I am any different from him?

Why, as his daughter, am I not also possessed by such unnatural instincts?’

’We must thank all the gods that you are not. But mistress, do you not

despise me also for what I have done?’

She reached across and touched my hand: ’You forget that I have known you

all my life, since the day that my mother died giving birth to me. I know

what you really are. Anything you did, you were forced to do, and freely I

forgive you for it.’

She sprang to her feet and paced restlessly around the lily pond before she

returned to where I sat.

’Tanus is in terrible danger from my father. I never realized just how much

until this evening. He must be warned so that he will be able to protect

himself. You must go to him now, Taita, without delaying another day.’

’Mistress?’ I began, but she cut me off brusquely.

’No, Taita, I will not listen to any more of your sly excuses. You will

leave for Karnak tomorrow.’

SO BEFORE SUNRISE THE NEXT MORNING I set out fishing, alone in the skiff.

However, I made certain that at least a dozen slaves and sentries saw me

leave the island.

In a backwater of the lagoon I opened the leather bag in which I had

concealed a tom-cat that had befriended me. He was a sad old animal riddled

with mange and with agonizing canker in both ears. For some time I had been

steeling myself to give him release from his misery. Now I fed him a lump of

raw meat laced with Datura essence. I held him on my lap and stroked him as

he ate, and he purred contentedly. As soon as he slipped painlessly into

oblivion, I cut his throat.

I sprinkled the blood over the skiff, and dropped the carcass of the cat

overboard where I knew that the crocodiles would soon dispose of it. Then,

leaving my harpoons and lines and other gear on board, I pushed the skiff out

into the slow current and waded through the papyrus beds to hard ground.

We had agreed that my mistress would wait until nightfall before she raised

the alarm. It would be noon tomorrow before they found the blood-smeared

skiff and concluded that I had been taken by a crocodile or been murdered by

a band of the Shrikes.

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Once I was ashore, I changed swiftly into the costume I had brought with

me. I had chosen to impersonate one of the priests of Osiris. I would often

ape their stilted gait and pompous manners for the amusement of my mistress.

It needed only a wig, a touch of make-up and the correct costume to make the

transformation. The priests are always on the move, up and down along the

river, travelling between one temple and another, begging or rather demanding

alms along the way. I would excite little interest, and my disguise might

help to discourage an attack by the Shrikes. On superstitious grounds they

were often reluctant to interfere with the holy men.

I skirted the lagoon and entered the town of West Elephantine through the

poor quarter. At the docks I approached one of the barge captains who was

loading a cargo of corn in leather bags and clay jugs of oil. With the right

degree of arrogance I demanded free passage td Karnak in the name of the god,

and he shrugged and spat on the deck, but allowed me to come aboard. All men

are resigned to the extortions of the brotherhood. They may despise the

priests, but they also fear their power, both spiritual and secular. Some say

that the priesthood wields almost as much power as does Pharaoh himself.

The moon was full and the barge captain a more intrepid mariner than

Admiral Nembet. We did not anchor at night. With the breeze and the full

flood of the Nile behind us, we made a fair passage and on the fifth day

rounded the bend of the river and saw the city of Karnak lying before us.

My stomach was queasy as I went ashore, for this was my town and every

beggar and idler knew me well. If I were recognized, Lord Intef would hear

about it before I could reach the city gates. However, my disguise held up,

and I kept to the back alleys as I hurried in a purposeful and priestly

manner to Tanus’ house near the squadron base.

His front door was unbarred. I entered as though I had the right, and

closed the door securely behind me. The starkly furnished rooms were deserted

and when I searched diem, I found nothing to give me any indication of his

whereabouts. Tanus had obviously been gone for a long time, possibly since my

mistress and I had left Karnak. The milk in a jug by the window had thickened

and dried like hard cheese, and a crust of sorghum bread on the plate beside

it was covered with a blue mould.

As far as I could see, nothing was missing; even the bow Lanata still hung

on its rack above his bed. For Tanus to have left that was extraordinary.

Usually it was like an extension of his body. I hid it away carefully in a

secret compartment below his sleeping-place, which I had built for him when

first he had moved into these lodgings. I wished to avoid moving around the

city in daylight, so I remained in Tanus’ rooms for the rest of that

afternoon, occupying myself with cleaning up the dust and filth that had

accumulated.

At nightfall I slipped out and went down to the riverside. I saw

immediately that the Breath ofHorus was at her moorings. She had obviously

been in action since last I had seen her, and had suffered battle damage. Her

bows were shattered and her timbers amidships had been scorched and charred.

I noted with a stir of proprietary pride that Tanus had made the

modifications to her hull that I had designed. The gilded metal horn

protruded from her bows, just above the water-line. From its battered

condition I surmised that it fiad done fierce execution amongst the fleets of

the red pretender.

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However, I could see that neither Tanus nor Kratas was on deck. A junior

officer whom I recognized had the watch, but I discarded the idea of hailing

him, and instead set out to tour the sailors’ haunts around the area of the

docks.

It says a great deal for the morals and the sanctity of the priests of

Osiris that I was welcomed in the dives and whorehouses like an habitue. In

one of the more respectable taverns I recognized the impressive figure of

Kratas. He was drinking and playing at dice with a group of his brother

officers. I made no move to approach him, but I watched him across the

crowded room. Meanwhile I fended off the advances of a succession of

pleasure-birds of both sexes who were progressively lowering their tariffs in

their efforts to tempt me out into the dark alleyway to sample their

well-displayed charms. None of them were in the least deterred by my priestly

collar of blue glass beads.

When "Kratas at last gave his companions a hearty goodnight and made his

way out into the alley, I followed his tall figure with relief.

’What is it you want from me now, beloved of the gods?’ he growled at me

with scorn when I hurried up beside ’him. ’Is it my gold or my bum-splitter

you crave?’ Many of the priests had taken enthusiastically to this modern

vogue for pederasty.

Til take the gold,’ I told him. ’You have more of that than the other,

Kratas.’ He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me suspiciously. His

bluff and handsome features were only a little flushed and befuddled by

liquor.

’How do you know my name?’ He seized me by the shoulder and dragged me into

a lighted doorway, and studied my face. At last he snatched the wig from off

my head.

’By the piles between Seth’s buttocks, it’s you, Taita!’ he roared.

’I’d be obliged if you would refrain from shouting out my name to all the

world,’ I told him, and he turned serious at once.

’Come! We’ll go to my rooms.’

Once we were alone, he poured two mugs of beer. ’Haven’t you had enough of

that?’ I asked, and he grinned at me.

’We’ll only know the answer to that in the morning. How now, Taita! Don’t

be too strict with me. We have been down-river raiding the red usurper’s

fleet for the past three weeks. Sweet Hapi, but that bow-horn of yours works

wonders. We cut up nearly twenty of his galleys and we chopped the heads off

a couple of hundred of his rascals. Although it was thirsty work, not a drop

of anything stronger than water has passed my lips in all that time. Don’t

begrudge me a mouthful of beer now. Drink with me!’ He raised his mug, and I

was also thirsty. I saluted him in return, but as I put the mug down again, I

asked, ’Where is Tanus?’

He sobered instantly v ’Tanus has disappeared,’ he said, and I stared at

him.

’Disappeared? What do you mean, disappeared? Did he not lead the raid

down-river?’

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Kratas shook his head. ’No. He’s gone. Vanished. I have had my men scour

every street and every house in all of Thebes. There is no sign of him. I

tell you, Taita, I am worried, really worried.’

’When did you last see him?’

’Two days after the royal wedding, after the Lady Lostris married the king,

on the evening of the day that you sailed with the royal flotilla for

Elephantine. I tried to talk some sense into his thick head, but he would not

listen.’-

’What did he say?’

’He handed over the command of the Breath of Horus and the entire squadron

to me.’

’He could not do that, surely?’

’Yes, he could. He used the authority of Pharaoh’s hawk

I nodded. ’And then? What did he do?’ ’I have just told you. He

disappeared.’

I sipped at the mug of beer as I tried to think it out. Meanwhile Kratas

went to the window and urinated through it It splashed noisily into the

street below and I heard a startled passer-by shout up at him, ’Careful where

you spray, you filthy pig.?

Kratas leaned out and quite cheerfully offered to crack his skull for him,

and the man’s grumblings receded rapidly. Chortling with this small victory,

Kratas came back to me and I asked, ’What mood was Tanus in when he left

you?’

Kratas turned serious again. "The blackest and most ugly temper I have ever

witnessed. He cursed the gods and Pharaoh. He even cursed the Lady Lostris

and called her a royal whore.’

I winced to hear it. Yet I knew that this was not my Tanus speaking. It was

the voice of despairing and hopeless love.

’He said that Pharaoh could carry out his threat to have him strangled for

sedition and he would welcome the release. No, he was in terrible straits and

there was nothing that I could do or say to comfort him.’

’That was all? He gave you no hint as to what he intended?’ Kratas shook

his head and refilled his beer mug.

’What happened to the hawk seal?’ I asked.

’He left it with me. He said he had no further use for it. I have it safe

aboard the Breath of Horus.’

’What of the other arrangements that I discussed with you? Have you done

what I asked?’

He looked into his mug guiltily and muttered, ’I began to make the

arrangements, but after Tanus was gone, there seemed no point to it. Besides,

I have been busy down-river since then.’

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’It is not like you, Kratas, to be so unreliable.’ I had found that with

Kratas hurt disappointment was more effective man anger. ’My Lady Lostris was

relying on you. She told me that she trusted you completely. Kratas is a

great rock of strength?those were her exact words.’

I could see that it was working yet again, for Kratas is also one of my

mistress’s ardent admirers. Even a hint of her displeasure would move him.

’Damn you, Taita, you make me sound like a weak-kneed idiot?’ I kept

silent, but silent can be more irksome than words. ’What in the name of Horus

does the Lady Lostris want me to do?’

’Nothing more than I asked you to do before I left for Elephantine,’ I told

him, and he slammed down his mug.

’I am a soldier. I cannot leave my duties and take half the squadron to go

off on some mad adventure. It was one thing when Tanus had the hawk seal?’

’You have the hawk seal now,’ I told him softly.

He stared at me. ’I cannot use it without Tanus?’

’You are his lieutenant. Tanus gave you the hawk seal to use. You know what

to do with it. Do it! I will find Tanus and bring him back, but you must be

ready by then. There is desperate and bloody work ahead, and Tanus needs you.

Don’t let him down, not again.’

He flushed with anger at the jibe. Til make you swallow those words.’ he

promised.

’And that will be the finest meal you could set for me,’ I told him. I love

brave and honest men, they are so easily manipulated.

I WAS UNCERTAIN AS TO HOW I WOULD make good my promise to find Tanus, but I

left Kratas to sleep off his debauch, and I went out into the town again to

try. Once more I made the rounds of every one of his old haunts and

questioned anyone who could possibly have seen him. I had no illusions as to

the risk I was taking in pursuing my enquiries about Tanus, or as to just how

flimsy was my disguise if I should run into anybody who knew me well, but I’

had to find him. I kept going through the night, until even the shebeens and

whorehouses along the waterfront had thrown out the last drunken customers

and doused their lamps.

As the dawn broke over the river, I stood tired and disconsolate on the

bank of the Nile, and tried to think if there was some possibility I had

overlooked. A wild honking cry made me look up. High above me a straggling

skein of Egyptian geese was outlined against the pale gold and coppery tonep

of the eastern sky. Immediately they brought to my mind those happy days that

the three of us, Tanus and the Lady Lostris and myself, had spent

wild-fowling in the swamps.

’Fool!’ I reviled myself. ’Of course that’s it.’

By this time they alleyways of the souk were filled with a noisy, jostling

crowd. Thebes is the busiest city in the world, no man is idle here. They

blow glass and work gold and silver, they weave flax and throw pots. The

merchant deals and haggles, the lawyer cants, the priest chants and the whore

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swives. It is an exciting, flamboyant city and I love it.

I forced my way through the throng and the hubbub of banter and bargaining

as the merchants and the farmers displayed-their wares for the housewives and

the bailiffs of the rich households. The souk stank fulsomely of spices and

fruits, of vegetables and fish and meats, some of which were far from fresh.

Cattle bellowed and goats bleated and added their dung to the human

contribution of excrement that trickled down the open gutters towards old

Mother Nile.

I thought of buying an ass, for it would be a long walk in this hottest

season of the year, and there were some sturdy beasts on offer. In the end I

decided against such extravagance, not only on the grounds of economy, for I

knew that once I was out in the open countryside, an expensive animal would

certainly attract the attention of the Shrikes. For such a prize they might

overcome their religious scruples. Instead, I purchased only a few handfuls

of dates and a loaf of bread, a leather bag to carry these provisions and a

gourd water-bottle. Then I set out through the narrow streets for the main

gate of the city.

I had not reached the gates when there was a commotion in the street ahead

of me and a detachment of the palace guards came towards me, using their

staves to force a passage through the market crowds. Close behind them a

half-dozen slaves carried an ornate and curtained litter at a jog-trot. I was

trapped against the clay-daub walls of one of the buildings and though I

recognized both the litter and the commander of the bodyguards, I could not

avoid a confrontation.

Panic seized me. I might survive a casual scrutiny from Rasfer, but I was

certain that even under my disguise, my Lord Intef would know me instantly.

Standing beside me was an old slave woman with breasts like two great

amphorae of olive oil and a backside like a hippopotamus’s. I wriggled

sideways until her bulk hid me. Then I settled my wig over my eyes and peeped

out from behind her.

Despite my fears I felt a tingle of professional pride that Rasfer was on

his feet again so soon after my surgery. He led his troop of bodyguards

towards where I hid, but it was only when he drew almost level that I noticed

that one side of his face had collapsed. It was as though his unlovely

features had been modelled in wax and then held close to a naked flame. This

condition is often the consequence of even the most skilful trepanning. The

other half of his face was set in its customary scowl. If Rasfer had been

hideous before, now he should cause the children to cry and their elders to

make the sign against the evil eye when they looked upon him.

He passed close by where I stood, and the litter followed him. Through a

chink in the embroidered curtains I caught a glimpse of Lord Intef as he

sprawled elegantly on pillows of pure silk imported from the East that must

have cost at least five gold rings each.

His cheeks were freshly shaved and his hair was dressed in formal ringlets.

On top of his coiffure was set a cone of perfumed beeswax that would melt in

the heat and trickle over his scalp and down his neck to cool and soothe his

skin. One hand, the fingers stiff with jewelled rings, lay languidly on the

smooth brown thigh of a pretty little slave boy who must have been a recent

addition to his collection, for I did not recognize him.

I was taken off-guard by the strength of my own hatred as I looked at my

old master. All the countless injuries and humiliations that I had suffered

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at his hands rushed back to torment me, and these were aggravated by his most

recent outrage. By sending the cobra to me he had endangered the life of my

mistress. If I had been able to forgive all else, I would never be able to

forgive him that.

He began to turn his head in my direction, but before our eyes could meet,

I sank down behind the mountainous woman in, front of me. The litter was

borne away down the narrow alley, and as I stared after it, I found that I

was trembling just as I had after my struggle with the cobra.

’Divine Horus, hear this plea. Grant me no rest until he is dead and gone

to his master, Seth,’ I whispered, and I pushed my way on towards the city

gate.

THE INUNDATION WAS AT ITS HEIGHT, and the lands along the river were in the

fecund embrace of the Nile. As she had done every season from the beginning

of time, she was laying down on our fields another rich layer of black silt.

When she receded again, those glistening expanses would once more bloom with

that shade of green that is peculiar to this very Egypt. The rich silt and

the sunshine would raise three crops to harvest before the Nile poured over

its banks once more to deliver its bounty.

The borders of the flooded fields were hemmed with the raised dykes that

controlled the flood and also served as roadways. I followed one of these

footpaths eastward until I reached the rocky ground along the foothills, then

I turned southward. As I went, I paused occasionally to turn over a rock

beside the path, until I found what I was looking for. Then I struck out with

more determination.

I kept a wary eye on the rough and broken ground on my right-hand side, for

that was just the type of terrain that would afford a fine ambush for a band

of Shrikes. I was crossing one of the rocky ravines that lay across the

pathway when I was hailed from close at hand.

’Pray for me, beloved of the gods!’ My nerves were so tightly strung that I

had let out a startled cry and leapt in the air before I could prevent it.

A shepherd boy sat on the edge of the ravine just above me. He was not more

than ten years old, but he seemed as old as man’s first sin. I knew that the

Shrikes often used these children as their scouts and their sentinels. This

grubby little imp looked perfect for that role. His hair was matted with

filth, and he wore a badly tanned goat’s skin that I could smell from where I

stood. His eyes were as bright and as avaricious as those of a crow as he ran

them over me, assessing my costume and my baggage.

’Where are you headed, and what is your business, good father?’ he asked,

and blew a long warbling note on his reed flute that could have been a signal

to somebody hidden further up the hillside.

It took another few moments for my heart to steady its wild pace, and my

voice was a little breathless as I told him, ’You are impertinent, child.

What business is it of yours who I am or where I go?’

Immediately he changed his demeanour towards me. ’I am starved, gentle

priest, an orphan forced to fend for myself. Don’t you have a crust for me in

that big bag of yours?’

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’You look well-nourished to me.’ I turned away, but he scrambled down the

bank and danced beside me.

’Let me see in your bag, kind father,’ he insisted. ’Alms, I beg of you,

gentle sir.’

’Very well, you little ruffian.’ Out of the bag I brought a ripe date. He

reached out for it, but before his fingers touched it, I closed my hand and

when I opened it again the date had been transformed into a purple scorpion.

The poisonous insect lifted its tail menacingly over its head, and the boy

screamed and fled back up the bank.

At the top he paused only long enough to howl at me, ’You are not a priest.

You are one of the desert djinn. You are a devil, not a man.’ Frantically he

made the sign against the evil eye and spat three times on the ground, and

then he raced away up the hill.

I had captured the scorpion from under a flat rock farther back along the

path. Naturally, I had nipped the sting from the end of its tail before

slipping it into my bag in readiness for just such an eventuality. The old

slave who had taught me to read lips, had showed me a few other tricks while

he was about it. One of them was sleight-of-hand.

At the shoulder of the next hill I paused to look back. The shepherd boy

was on the crest far above me, but he was not alone. There were two men with

him. They stood in a group looking down at me, and the child was

gesticulating vehemently. As soon as they saw I had spotted them, all three

of them disappeared over the skyline. I doubted they would want further truck

with a demon priest.

I had not gone much farther when I saw movement on the track ahead of me,

and I stopped short and shaded my eyes against the dazzle of the noonday sun.

I was relieved to make out a small and innocent-seeming party coming in my

direction. I moved forward cautiously to meet it, and as we drew together, my

heart leaped as I thought I recognized Tanus. He was leading a donkey. The

doughty little animal was heavily burdened. Atop the large bundle on its back

sat a woman and a child, but it trotted on gamely. I saw that the woman was

herself heavily burdened, her belly swelling out with her pregnancy. The

child balanced behind her was a girl on the verge of puberty.

I was about to hail Tanus and hurry forward to meet him, when I realized

that I was mistaken and the man was a stranger. It was his tall,

broad-shouldered figure, the limber way he moved and the shining shock of

gold-blond hair that had deceived me. He was watching me suspiciously and had

drawn his sword. Now he pulled the donkey off the path and interposed himself

between me and the precious burden it carried.

’The blessings of the gods upon you, good fellow.’ I played out my role as

priest, and he grunted and kept the point of the sword aimed at my belly. No

man trusted a stranger in this very Egypt of ours.

’You risk the life of your family on this road, my friend. You should have

sought out the protection of a caravan. There are brigands in the hills.’ I

was truly worried for them. The woman seemed gentle and decent, while the

child was on the verge of tears at my warding.

’Pass on, priest!’ the man ordered. ’Keep your advice for those who value

it.’

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’You are kind, gentle sir,’ the woman whispered. ’We waited a week at Qena

for the caravan, and could not wait longer. My mother lives at Luxor, and she

will help with the birth of my baby.’

’Silence, woman!’ her husband growled at her. ’We want no truck with

strangers, even though they wear the robes of the priesthood.’

I hesitated, trying to fathom if there was anything that I could do for

them. The girl was a pretty little thing with dark obsidian eyes, and she had

quite touched my heart. However, at that moment the husband urged the donkey

past where I stood, and with a helpless shrug, I watched them go.

’You cannot bleed for all of mankind,’ I told myself. ’Nor can you force

your advice on those who reject it.’ Without looking back again, I went on

northwards.

It was late afternoon before I looked down on the spur of rock that thrust

out into the green swampland. Even from this vantage-point it was impossible

to pick out the shanty. It was hidden deep in the papyrus beds, and the roof

was of papyrus stems, so the concealment was perfect. I ran down the path,

leaping from rock to rock, until I reached the edge of the water. This far

from the main course of the Nile, the flood was not so significant.

I found our old dilapidated boat tied up at the landing. It was

half-flooded and I had to bale it out before committing it to the water. I

poled out cautiously along the tunnel through the papyrus. At low ebb of the

Nile the shanty stood on dry land, but now there was sufficient water under

the stilts that supported it to drown a standing man.

There was an empty boat in better shape than mine tied to one of the hut

stilts. I moored mine beside it, climbed the rickety ladder and peered into

our old hunting-lodge. It consisted of a single room, and the sunshine

streamed in through the holes in the"thatched roof, but no matter, for it

never rains in Upper Egypt.

The hut had not been in such disorder since the day Tanus and I had first

discovered it. Clothing and weapons and cooking-pots were scattered around

like the debris of a battlefield. The stink of liquor was even more powerful

than that of old food and unwashed bodies.

Those unwashed bodies were lying on an equally unwashed mattress in the far

corner. I crossed the littered floor gingerly to inspect them for signs of

life, and at that moment the woman grunted and rolled over. She was young and

her naked body was full and enticing, with big round breasts and a thatch of

crisp curls at the base of her belly. However, even in repose, her face was

hard and common. I had no doubt that Tanus had found her on the waterfront.

I had always known him to be fastidious, and he was never a drinking man.

This creature and the empty wine jars that were stacked against every wall

were merely an indication of. how far he had been brought down. I looked at

him now as he slept, and hardly recognized him. His face was mottled and

bloated with drink and covered with un-trimmed beard. It was clear that he

had not shaved since last I had seen him outside the harem walls.

At that moment the woman woke. Her eyes focused on me and in a single

catlike movement she was off the mattress and reaching for the sheathed

dagger hanging on the wall beside me. I snatched the weapon away before she

could reach it and offered her the naked point.

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’Go!’ I ordered softly. ’Before I give you something in your belly that

even you have never felt before.’

She gathered up her clothes and pulled them on hurriedly, all the while

staring at me venomously.

’He has not paid me,’ she said, once she was dressed.

’I am sure you have already helped yourself generously.’ I gestured towards

the door with the dagger.

’He promised me five rings of gold.’ She changed her tone and began to

whine. ’I have worked hard for him these last twenty days or more. I have

done everything for him, cooked and kept his house, serviced him and cleaned

up his puke when he was drunk. I must be paid. I will not leave until you pay

me?’

I seized her by a lock of her long black hair and ushered her to the

doorway. I helped her, still by means of her hair, into the more dilapidated

of the two boats. Once she had poled out of my reach, she turned upon me such

a stream of abuse that the egrets and other water-fowl were frightened from

the reed-beds around us.

When I returned to where Tanus lay, he had not moved. I checked the wine

jars. Most of them were empty, but there were still two or three that were

full. I wondered how he had accumulated such a store of liquor, and guessed

that he had probably sent the woman back to Karnak to find a ferryman to ship

it out to him. There had been enough to keep the entire corps of the Blue

Crocodile Guards drunk for a season. Little wonder that he was in such a

condition.

I sat beside his mattress for a while, letting my sympathy for him run its

full course. He had tried to destroy himself. I understood that, and did not

despise him for it. His love for my mistress was such that without it he did

not wish to continue living.

Of course I was also angry with him for abusing himself in such a fashion,

and for succumbing to such self-indulgent folly. However, even in this

pitiful drink-sodden state, I could still find much that was noble and

admirable about him. After all, he was not alone in guilt. My mistress had

tried to take poison for the very same reason as he had tried to destroy

himself. I had understood and forgiven her. Could I do less for Tanus? I

sighed for these two young people who were all that I had in Me of any real

value. Then I stood up and got to work.

Firstly, I stood over Tanus for a while, bolstering my anger to the extent

that I could be really harsh with him. Then I took him by the heels and

dragged him across the floor of the hut. He came half out of his stupor and

cursed weakly, but I took no notice of his protests and tumbled him through

the doorway. He plunged into the swamp head-first and raised a mighty splash

as he went under. I waited for him to come up and flounder about groggily on

the surface, still only half-conscious.

I dropped in beside him, grabbed a double handful of his hair and thrust

his head back under-water. For a moment he struggled only weakly and I was

able to hold him under with ease. Then his natural instincts of survival took

over and he heaved up with all his old strength. I was lifted clear of the

surface and thrown aside like a twig in a storm.

145

Tanus came out bellowing in the effort to draw breath, and striking out

blindly at his unseen adversary. One of those blows would have stunned a

hippopotamus, and I backed away hurriedly and watched him from a distance.

Coughing and choking, he floundered to the ladder and hung upon it with his

hair streaming into his eyes. He had obviously swallowed so much water and

sucked so much of it into his lungs that I felt a tingle of alarm. My cure

might have been a little too vigorous. I was just about to go to his aid,

when he opened his mouth wide and a foul mixture of swamp water and rotten

wine erupted out of him. I was astonished by the quantity of it.

He hung on to the ladder, gasping and gurgling for breath. I swam to one of

the stilts of the hut and waited until he had vomited again before I told

him, putting all the contempt 1 could muster into my voice, ’My Lady Lostris

would be so proud to see you now.’

He peered about with streaming eyes and focused on me at last. ’Taita, damn

you! Was it you that tried to drown me? You idiot, I could have killed you.’

’hi your present condition the only damage you could do would be to a jar

of wine. What a sorry, disgusting sight you are!’ I climbed the ladder into

the hut and left him in the water, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.

I set about tidying up the mess and the filth.

It was some time before Tanus followed me up the ladder and sat

shamefacedly in the doorway. I ignored him-and went on with my work, until at

last he was forced to break the silence.

’How are you, old friend? I have missed you.’

’Others have missed you also. Kratas, for one. The squadron has been

fighting down-river. They could have found use for another sword. My Lady

Lostris, for another. She speaks of you every day, and holds her love pure

and true. I wonder what she would think of that trollop I chased out of your

bed?’

He groaned and held his head. ’Oh, Taita, don’t speak your mistress’s name.

To be reminded of her is unbearable?’

’So broach another jug of wine and wallow in your own filth and your

self-pity,’ I suggested angrily.

’I have lost her for ever. What would you have me do then?’

’I would want you to have faith and fortitude, as she has.’

He looked up at me pitifully. Tell me about her, Taita. How is she? Does

she still think of me?’

’More is the pity,’ I grunted disgustedly. ’She thinks of little else. She

holds herself ready for the day that you two are brought together again.’

’That will never be. I have lost her for ever and I don’t want to go on

living.’

’Good!’ I agreed briskly. ’Then I’ll not waste further time here. I’ll tell

my mistress that you did not want to hear her message.’ I pushed past him,

swarmed down the ladder and dropped into the skiff.

146

’Wait, Taita!’ he called after me. ’Come back!’

’To what purpose? You want to die. Then get on with it. I’ll send the

embalmers out to pick up the corpse later.’

He grinned with embarrassment. ’All right, I am being a fool. The drink has

fuddled my mind. Come back, I beg of you. Give me the message from Lostris.’

With a show of reluctance I climbed back up the ladder, and he followed me

into the hut, staggering only a little.

’My mistress bids me tell you that her love for you is untouched by any of

the things that have been thrust upon her. She is still and will always be

your woman.’

’By Horus, she puts me to shame,’ he muttered.

’No,’ I disagreed. ’Your shame is of your own making.’

He snatched his sword from the scabbard that hung above the filthy bed and

slashed out at the row of wine amphorae that stood against the far wall. As

each one burst, the wine poured out and trickled through the slats of the

floor.

He was panting as he came back to me, and I scoffed at him. ’Look at you!

You have let yourself go until you are as soft and as short of wind as an old

priest?’

’Enough of that, Taita! You have had your say. Mock me no more, or you will

regret it.’

I could see he was becoming as angry as I had intended. My insults were

stiffening him up nicely. ’My mistress would have you take uj? the challenge

thrown to you by Pharaoh so that you will still be alive and a man of honour

and worth in five years’ time, when she is free to come to -you.’

I had his full attention now. ’Five years? What is this about, Taita? Will

there truly be a term to our suffering?’

’I worked the Mazes for Pharaoh. He will be dead in five years from now,’ I

told him simply. He stared at me in awe and I saw a hundred different

emotions pursue each other across his features. He is as easy to read as this

scroll on which I write.

"The Mazes!’ he whispered at last. Once long ago he had been a doubter, and

had disparaged my way with the Mazes. That had changed and he was now an even

firmer believer in my powers than my mistress. He had seen my visions become

reality too often to be otherwise.

’Can you wait that long for your love?’ I asked. ’My mistress swears that

she can wait for you through all eternity. Can you wait a few short years for

her?’

’She has promised to wait for me?’ he demanded.

’Through all eternity,’ I repeated, and I thought he might begin to weep. I

could not have faced that, not watched a man like Tanus in tears, so I went

on hastily, ’Don’t you want to hear the vision that the Mazes gave me?’

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He thrust back the tears. ’Yes! Yes!" he agreed eagerly, and so we began to

talk. We talked until the night fell, and then we sat in the darkness and

talked some more.

I told him the things that I had told my Lady Lostris, all the details that

I had kept from them both over the years. When I came to the details of how

his father, Pianki, Lord Harrab, had been ruined and destroyed by his secret

enemy, Tanus’ anger was so fierce that it burned away the last effects of the

debauchery from his mind, and by the time the dawn broke over the swamps, his

resolve was once more clear and strong.

’Let us get on with this enterprise of yours, for it seems the right and

proper way.’ He sprang to his feet and girded on his sword scabbard. Although

I thought it wise to rest a while and let him recover fully from the effects

of the wine, he would have no part of it.

’Back to Karnak at once!’ he insisted. ’Kratas is waiting, and the lust to

avenge my father’s memory and to lay eyes on my own sweet love again burns

like a fire in my blood.’

ONCE WE HAD LEFT THE SWAMP, TANUS took the lead along the rocky path, and I

followed him at a run. As soon as the sun came up above the horizon, the

sweat burst out across his back and streamed down to soak the waistband of

his kilt. It was as though the rancid old wine was being purged from his

body. Although I could hear him panting wildly, he never paused to rest or

even moderated his pace, but ran on into the rising heat from the desert

without a check.

It was I who pulled him up with a shout, and we stood shoulder to shoulder

and stared ahead. The birds had caught my attention. I had picked out the

commotioji of their wings from afar.

’Vultures,’ Tanus grunted with ragged breath. ’They have something dead

amongst the rocks.’ He drew his sword and we went forward cautiously.

We found the man first, and chased the vultures off him in a flurrying

storm of wings. I recognized him by the shock of blond hair as the husband I

had met on the road the previous day. There was nothing left of his face, for

he had lain upon his back and the birds had eaten the flesh away to the bones

of the skull. They had picked out his eyes, and the empty sockets stared at

the cloudless sky. His lips were gone and he grinned with bloody teeth, as

though at the futile joke of our brief existence upon this earth. Tanus

rolled him on to his stomach, and we saw at once the stab-wounds in his back

that had killed him. There were a dozen of these thrust through his ribs.

’Whoever did this was making sure of the job,’ Tanus remarked, hardened to

death as only a seasoned soldier can be.

I walked on into the rocks and a buzzing black cloud of flies rose from the

dead body of the wife. I have never understood where the flies come from, how

they materialize so swiftly out of the searing dry heat of the desert. I

guessed that the wife had aborted while they were busy with her. They must

have left her alive after they had taken their pleasure with her. With the

last of her strength she had taken the infant protectively in her arms. She

had died like that, huddled against a boulder, shielding her still-born

infant from the vultures.

148

I went on deeper into the broken ground, and once again the flies led me to

where the bandits had dragged the little girl. At least one of them had

summoned up the compassion to cut her throat after they had finished with

her, rather than let her bleed slowly to death.

One of the flies settled on my lips. I brushed it away and began to weep.

Tanus found me still weeping.

’Did you know them?’ he asked, and I nodded and cleared my throat to

answer.

’I met them on the road yesterday. I tried to warn?’ I broke off, for it

was not easy to continue. I took a deep breath. "They had a donkey. The

Shrikes will have taken it.’

Tanus nodded. His expression was bleak as he turned away and made a rapid

cast amongst the rocks.

222

’This way?, he called, and broke into a run, heading out into the rocky

desert.

’Tanus!’ I yelled after him. ’Kratas is waiting?’ But he took not the least

notice and I was left with no option but to follow him. I caught up with him

again when he lost the tracks of the donkey on a bad piece of ground and was

forced to cast ahead.

’I feel for that family even more than you do,’ I insisted. ’But this is

folly. Kratas waits for us. We do not have time to waste?’

He cut me off without even glancing in my direction, ’How old was that

child? Not more than nine years? I always have time to see justice done.’ His

face was cold and vengeful. It was clear to see that he had recovered all his

former mettle. I knew better than to argue further.

The image of the little girl was still strong and clear in my mind. I

joined him and we picked up the trail again. Now, with the two of us

cooperating, we went forward even more swiftly.

Tanus and I had tracked gazelle and oryx, and even lion, in this fashion

and we had both become adept at this esoteric art. We worked as a team,

running on each side of the spurs that our quarry had left, and signalling

every twist or change in it to each other. Very soon our quarry reached a

rough track that led eastward from the river and still deeper into the

desert. They had joined it, and made our task of catching up with them that

much simpler.

It was almost noon, and our water-bottles were empty when at last we

spotted them far ahead. There were five of them, and the donkey. It was clear

that they had not expected to be followed deep into the desert which was

their fastness, and they were moving carelessly. They had not even taken the

trouble to cover then- back-trail.

Tanus pulled me down behind the shelter of a rock while we caught our

breath, and he growled at me, ’We’ll circle out ahead of them. I want to see

their faces.’

149

He jumped up and led me in a wide detour out to one side of the track. We

overtook the band of Shrikes, but well beyond then- line of sight. Then we

cut in again to meet the track ahead of them. Tanus had a soldier’s eye for

ground, and set up the ambuscade unerringly.

We heard them coining from afar, the clatter of the don-key’s hooves and

the sing-song of their voices. While we waited for them, I had the first

opportunity to contemplate the prudence of my decision to follow along so

unquestion-ingly. When the party of Shrikes at last came into view I was

convinced that I had been over-hasty. They were as murderous-looking a bunch

of ruffians as I had ever laid eyes upon, and I was armed only with my little

jewelled dagger.

Just short of where we lay, the tall, bearded Bedouin who was obviously

their leader stopped suddenly, and ordered one of the men who followed him to

unload the water-skin from the donkey. He drank first and then passed it on

to the others. My throat closed in sympathy as I watched them swallow down

the precious stuff.

’By Horus, look at the stains of the women’s blood on their robes. I wish I

had Lanata with me now,’ Tanus whispered, as we crouched amongst the rocks.

’I could put an arrow through that one’s belly and drain the water from him

like beer from the vat.’ Then he laid a hand on my arm. ’Don’t move until I

do, do you hear me? I want no heroics from you now, mind.’ I nodded

vigorously, and felt not the slightest inclination to protest against these

very reasonable instructions.

The Shrikes came on again directly to where we waited. They were all

heavily armed. The Bedouin walked ahead. His sword was strapped between his

shoulder-blades, but with the handle protruding up over his left shoulder,

ready to hand. He had the cowl of his woollen cloak drawn over his head to

protect him from the fierce sunlight. It impaired his side-vision and he did

not notice us as he passed close in front of us.

Two others followed him closely, one of them leading the donkey. The last

two sauntered along behind the animal, engrossed in a listless squabble over

a piece of gold jewellery that they had taken from the murdered woman. All

their weapons were sheathed, except for the short, bronze-headed stabbing

spears carried by the last pair.

Tanus let them all pass, and then he stood up quietly and moved in. behind

the last two men in the column. He appeared to move casually, as the leopard

does, but it was in reality only a breath before he swung his sword at the

neck of the man on the right.

Although I had intended backing Tanus up to the full, somehow my good

intentions had not been translated into action, and I still crouched behind

my comforting rock. I justified myself with the thought that I would probably

only have hindered him if I had followed him too closely.

I had never watched Tanus kill a man before. Although I knew that it was

his vocation and that he had, over the years, had every opportunity to hone

these gruesome skills, still I was astonished by his virtuosity. As he

struck, his victim’s head leapt from its shoulders like a desert spring-hare

from its burrow, and the decapitated trunk actually took another step before

the legs buckled under it. As the blow reached the limit of its arc, Tanus

smoothly reversed the stroke. With the same movement he struck back-handed at

the next brigand. The second neck severed just as cleanly. The head toppled

off and fell free, while the carcass slumped forward with the blood

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fountaining high in the air.

The splash of blood and the weighty thump-thump of the two disembodied

heads striking the rocky earth alerted the other three Shrikes. They spun

about in alarm, and for a moment stared in bewildered disbelief at the sudden

carnage in their ranks. Then with a wild shout they drew their swords and

rushed at Tanus in a body. Rather than retreating before them, Tanus charged

them ferociously, splitting them apart. He swung to face the man he had

isolated from his mates, and his thrust ripped a bloody flesh-wound down the

side of his chest. The man squealed and reeled backwards. But before Tanus

was able to finish him off, the other two fell upon him from behind. Tanus

was forced to spin round to face them, and bronze clashed on bronze as he

stopped their charge. He held them off at sword’s-length, engaging first one

and then the other, until the lightly wounded man recovered and came at him

from his rear.

’Behind you!’ I yelled at him, and he whipped round only just in time to

catch the thrust on his own blade. Instantly the other two were upon him

again, and he was forced to give ground in order to defend himself from all

sides. His swordsmanship was breathtaking to watch. So swift was his blade

that it seemed that he had erected a glittering wall of bronze around himself

against which the blows of his enemies clattered ineffectually.

Then I realized that Tanus was tiring. The sweat streamed from his body in

the heat, and his features were contorted with the effort. The long weeks of

wine and debauchery had taken their toll of what had once been his limitless

strength and stamina.

He fell back before the next rush with which the bearded Bedouin drove at

him, until he pressed his back to one of the boulders on the opposite side of

the track from where I still crouched helplessly. With the rock to cover his

back, all three of his attackers were forced to come at him from the front.

But this was no real respite. Their attack was relentless. Led by the

Bedouin, they howled like a pack of wild dogs as they bayed him, and Tanus’

right arm tired and moved slower.

The spear carried by the first man whom Tanus had beheaded had fallen in

the middle of the track. I realized that I must do something immediately if I

were not to watch Tanus hacked down before my eyes. With a huge effort I

gathered up my slippery courage, and crept from my hiding-place. The Shrikes

had forgotten all about me in their eagerness for the kill. I reached the

spot where the spear lay without any one of them noticing me, and I snatched

it up. With the solid weight of the weapon in my hands, all my lost courage

came flooding back.

The Bedouin was the most dangerous of the three of Tanus’ adversaries, and

he was also the closest to me. His back was towards me, and his whole

attention was on. the unequal duel. I levelled the spear and rushed at him.

The kidneys are the most vulnerable target in the human back. With my

knowledge of anatomy, I could aim my thrust exactly. The spear-point went in

a finger’s-width to one side of the spinal column, all the way in. The broad

spear-head opened a gaping wound, and skewered his right kidney with a

surgeon’s precision. The Bedouin stiffened and froze like a temple statue,

instantly paralysed by my thrust. Then, as I viciously twisted the blade in

his flesh the way Tanus had taught me, mincing his kidney to pulp, the sword

fell from his fist and he collapsed with such a dreadful cry that his

comrades were distracted enough to give Tanus his chance.

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Tanus’ next thrust took one of them in the centre of his chest, and despite

his exhaustion it still had sufficient power in it to fly cleanly through the

man’s torso and for the blood-smeared point to protrude a hand-span from

between his shoulder-blades. Before Tanus was able to clear his blade from

the clinging embrace of live flesh and to kill the last Shrike, the survivor

spun round and ran.

Tanus took a few paces after him, then gasped, ’I’m all done in. After him,

Taita, don’t let that murderous jackal get away.’

There are very few men that can outrun me. Tanus is the only one I know of,

but he has to be on top form to do it. I put my foot in the centre of the

Bedouin’s back and held him down as I jerked the spearhead out of his flesh,

and then I went after the last Shrike.

I caught him before he had gone two hundred paces, and I was running so

lightly that he did not hear me coming up behind him. With the edge of the

spear-head I slashed the tendon in the back of his heel, and he went down

sprawling. The sword flew out of his hand. As he lay on his back kicking and

screaming at me, I danced around him, pricking him with the point of the

spear, goading him into position for a good clean killing thrust.

’Which of the women did you enjoy the best?’ I asked him, as I stabbed him

in the thigh. ’Was it the mother, with her big belly, or was it the little

girl? Was she tight enough for you?’

’Please spare me!’ he screamed. ’I did nothing. It was the others. Don’t

kill me!’

"There is dried blood on the front of your kilt,’ I said, and I stabbed him

in the stomach, but not too deeply. ’Did the child scream as loudly as you do

now?’ I asked.

As he rolled over into a ball to protect his stomach, I stabbed him in the

spine, by a lucky chance finding the gap between the vertebrae. Instantly he

was paralysed from the waist down, and I stepped back from him.

’Very well,’ I said. ’You ask me not to kill you, and I won’t. It would be

too good for you.’

I turned away and walked back to join Tanus. The maimed Shrike dragged

himself a little way after me, his paralysed legs slithering after him like a

fisherman dragging a pair of dead carp. Then the effort was too much and he

collapsed in a whimpering heap. Although it was past noon, the sun still had

enough heat in it to kill him before it set.

Tanus looked at me curiously as I came back to join him. "There is a savage

streak in you that I never suspected before.’ He shook his head in wonder.

’You never fail to amaze me.’

He pulled the water-skin from the back of the donkey and offered it to me,

but I shook my head. ’You first You need it more than I do.’

He drank, his eyes tightly closed with the pleasure of it, and then gasped,

’By the sweet breath of Isis, you are right I am soft as an old woman. Even

that little piece of sword-play nearly finished me.’ Then he looked around at

the scattered corpses, and grinned with satisfaction. ’But all in all, not a

bad start on Pharaoh’s business.’

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’It was the poorest of beginnings,’ I contradicted him, and when he crooked

an eyebrow at me I went on, ’We should have kept at least one of them alive

to lead us to the Shrikes’ nest. Even that one’, I gestured towards the dying

man lying out there amongst the rocks, ’is too far-gone to be of any use to

us. It was my fault. I allowed my anger to get the better of me. We won’t

make the same mistake again.’

We were halfway back to where we had left the bodies of the murdered family

before my true nature reasserted itself, and I began bitterly to regret my

callous and brutal treatment of the maimed brigand.

’After all, he was a human being, as we are,’ I told Tanus, and he snorted.

’He was an animal, a rabid jackal, and you did a fine job. You have mourned

him far too long. Forget him. Tell me, instead, why we must make this detour

back to look at dead men, instead of heading straight for Kratas’ camp.’

’I need the husband’s body.’ I would say no more until we stood over the

mutilated corpse. The pathetic relic was already stinking in the heat The

vultures had left very little flesh on the bones.

’Look at that hair,’ I told Tanus. ’Who else do you know with a bush’ like

that?’ For a moment he looked puzzled, and then he grinned and ran his

fingers through his own dense ringlets.

’Help me load him on the donkey,’ I ordered. ’Kratas can take him into

Karnak to the morticians for embalming. We’ll buy him a good funeral and a

fine tomb with your name on the walls. Then, by sunset tomorrow, all of

Thebes will know that Tanus, Lord Harrab perished in the desert, and was

half-eaten by the birds.’

’If Lostris hears of it?’ Tanus looked worried.

Til send a warning letter to her. The advantage we will win by letting the

world believe you dead will far outweigh any risk of alarming my mistress.’

KRATAS WAS CAMPED AT THE FIRST oasis on the caravan road to the Red Sea,

less than a day’s march from Karnak. He had with him a hundred men of the

Blue Crocodile Guards, all of them carefully selected, as I had commanded.

Tanus and I reached the encampment in the middle of the night. We had

travelled hard and were close to exhaustion. We fell on our sleeping-mats

beside the camp-fire and slept until dawn.

At first light, Tanus was up and mingling with his men. Their delight at

having him back was transparent. The officers embraced him and the men

cheered him, and grinned with pride as he greeted each of them by name.

At breakfast Tanus gave Kratas instructions to take the putrefying corpse

back to Karnak for burial and to make certain that the news of his death was

the gossip of all Thebes. I gave Kratas a letter for my Lady Lostris. He

would find a trustworthy messenger to carry it up-river to Elephantine.

Kratas selected an escort of ten men, and they prepared to set off with the

donkey and its odorous burden, back towards the Nile and Thebes.

’Try to catch up with us on the road to the sea. If you cannot, then you’ll

find us camped at the oasis of Gebel Nagara. We will wait for you there,’

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Tanus shouted after him, as the detachment trotted out ofVhe encampment. ’And

remember to bring Lanata, my bow, when you return!’

NO SOONER WAS KRATAS OUT OF SIGHT beyond the first rise on the westerly

road than Tanus formed up the rest of the regiment and led us away in the

opposite direction along the caravan road towards the sea.

The caravan road from the banks of the river Nile to the shores of the Red

Sea was long and hard. A large, unwieldy caravan usually took twenty days to

make the journey. We covered the distance in four days, for Tanus pushed us

in a series of forced marches. At the outset, he and I were probably the only

ones of all the company who were not in superb physical condition. However,

by the time we reached Gebel Nagara, Tanus had burned the excess fat off his

frame and sweated out the last poisons from the wine jar. He was once again

lean and hard.

As for myself, it was the first time that I had ever made a forced march

with a company of the guards. For the first few days I suffered all the

torments of thirst and aching muscles, of blistered feet and exhaustion that

the Ka of a dead man must be forced to endure on the road to the underworld.

However, my pride would not allow me to fall behind, apart from the facMjiat

to do so in this wild and savage landscape would have meant certain death. To

my surprise and pleasure, I found that after the first few days, it became

easier and easier to keep my place in the ranks of trotting warriors.

Along the way, we passed two large caravans moving towards the Nile, with

the donkeys bow-legged under their heavy loads of trade goods, and escorts of

heavily armed men far surpassing in number the merchants and their’ retainers

who made up the rest of the company. No caravan was safe from the

depredations of the Shrikes unless it was protected by a force of mercenaries

such as these, or unless the merchants were prepared to pay the crippling

toll money that the Shrikes demanded to allow them free passage.

When we met these strangers, Tanus pulled his shawl over his head to mask

his face and hide that golden bush of hair. He was too distinctive a figure

to risk being recognized and his continued existence being reported in

Karnak. We’did not respond to the greetings and questions that were flung at

us by these other travellers, but ran past them in aloof silence without even

glancing in their direction.

When we were still a day’s march from the coast, we left the main caravan

route and swung away southwards, following an ancient disused track that had

been shown to me some years previously by one of the wild Bedouin whom I had

befriended. The wells at Gebel Nagara lay on this old route to the sea, and

were seldom visited by humans these days, only by the Bedouin and the desert

bandits, if you can call these human.

By the time we reached the wells, I was as slim and physically fit as I had

ever been in my life, but I lamented the lack of a mirror, for I was

convinced that this new energy and force that I felt within myself must be

reflected in my features, and that my beauty must be enhanced by it. I would

have welcomed the opportunity to admire it myself. However, there seemed to

be no dearth of others to admire it in my place. At the camp-fire in the

evenings, many a prurient glance was flashed in my direction, and I received

more than a few sly offers from my companions, for even such an elite

fighting corps as the guards was contaminated by the new sexual licence that

permeated our society.

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I kept my dagger beside me in the night and when I pricked the first

uninvited visitor to my sleeping-mat with the needle-point, his yells caused

much hilarity amongst the others. After that, I was spared any further

unwelcome attentions.

Even once we had reached the wells, Tanus would allow us little rest. While

we waited for Kratas to catch up, he kept his men exercising at arms, and at

competitions of archery and wrestling and running. I was pleased to see that

Kratas had chosen these men strictly in accordance with my instructions to

him. There was not a single hulking brute amongst them. Apart from Tanus

himself, they were all small, agile men aptly suited to the role that I

planned for them.

Kratas arrived only two days behind us. Taking into account his return to

Karnak and the time taken up by the tasks that Tanus had set for him there,

this meant that he must have travelled even more swiftly than we had done.

’What held you up?’ Tanus greeted him. ’Did you find a willing maid on the

way?’

’I had two heavy burdens to carry,’ Kratas replied, as they embraced. ’Your

bow, and the hawk seal. I am glad to be rid of both of them.’ He handed over

both the weapon and the statuette with a grin, delighted as ever to be back

with Tanus.

Tanus immediately took Lanata out into the desert. I went with him and

helped him stalk close to a herd of gazelle. With these fleet little

creatures racing and leaping across the plain, it was an extraordinary sight

to watch Tanus bowl over a dozen of them at full run with as many arrows.

That night, as we feasted on grilled livers and fillets of gazelle, we

discussed the next stage of my plan.

In the morning we left Kratas in command of the guards, and Tanus and I set

out alone for the coast. It was only half a day’s travel to the small fishing

village which was our goal, and at noon we topped the last rise and looked

down from the hills on to the glittering expanse of the sea spread below us.

From this height we could see clearly the dark outline ofthe coral reefs

beneath the turquoise waters.

As soon as we entered the village, Tanus called for the headman, and so

apparent from his bearing was Tanus’ importance and authority, that the old

man came at a run. When Tanus showed him the hawk seal, he fell to the earth

in obeisance, as though it were Pharaoh himself who stood before him, and

beat his head upon the ground with such force that I feared he might do

himself serious injury. When I lifted him to his feet once more, he led us to

the finest lodgings in the village, his own filthy hovel, and turned his

numerous family out to make room for us.

Once we had eaten a bowl of the fish stew that our host provided and drunk

a cup of the delicious palm wine, Tanus and I went down to the beach of

dazzling white sand and bathed away the sweat and the dust of the desert in

the warm waters of the lagoon that was enclosed by the jagged barricade of

coral that lay parallel to the shore. Behind us the harsh mountains, devoid

of the faintest green tinge of growing things, thrust up into the aching blue

desert sky.

Sea, mountains and sky combined in a symphony of grandeur that stunned the

senses. However, I had little time to appreciate it all, for the fishing

fleet was returning. Five small dilapidated vessels with sails of woven

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palm-fronds were coming in through the pass in the reef. So great was the

load of fish that each of them carried, that they seemed in danger of

foundering before they could reach the beach.

I am fascinated by all the natural bounty that the gods provide for us, and

I examined the catch avidly as it was thrown out upon the beach, and

questioned the fishermen as to each of the hundred different species. The

pile of fish formed a glittering treasure of rainbow colours, and I wished

that I had my scrolls and paint-pots to record it all.

This interlude was too brief. As soon as the catch was unloaded, I embarked

on one of the tiny vessels that stank so abundantly of its vocation, and

waved back at Tanus on the beach as we put out through the pass in the reef.

He was to remain here until I returned with the equipment that we needed for

the next part of my plan. Once again, I did not want him to be recognized

where I was going. His job now was to prevent any of the fishermen or their

families from sneaking away into the desert to a secret meeting with the

Shrikes, to report the presence in their village of a golden-headed lord who

bore the hawk seal.

The tiny vessel threw up her bows at the first strong scent of the sea, and

the helmsman tacked across the wind and headed her up into the north, running

parallel to that dun and awful coast. We had but a short way to go, and

before nightfall the helmsman pointed over the bows at the clustered stone

buildings of the port of Safaga on the distant shore-line.

FOR A THOUSAND YEARS SAFAGA HAD been the entrepot for all trade coming into

the Upper Kingdom from the East. Even as I stood in the bows of our tiny

craft, I could make out the shapes of other much larger vessels on the

northern horizon as they came and went between Safaga and the

Arabian ports on the eastern shore of the narrow sea.

It was dark by the time that I stepped ashore on the beach at Safaga, and

nobody seemed to remark my arrival. I knew exactly where I was going, for I

had visited the port regularly on Lord Intefs nefarious business. At this

hour the streets were almost deserted, but the taverns were packed. I made my

way swiftly to the home of Tiamat the merchant. ; Tiamat was a rich man and

his home the largest in the old town. An armed slave barred the door to me.

’Tell your master that the surgeon from Karnak who saved his leg for him is

here,’ I ordered, and Tiamat himself limped out to greet me. He was taken

aback when he saw my clerical disguise, but had the good sense not to remark

on it, nor to mention my name in front of the slave. He drew me into his

walled garden, and as soon as we were alone he exclaimed, ’Is it really you,

Taita? I heard that you had been murdered by the Shrikes at Elephantine.’

He was a portly, middle-aged man, with an open, intelligent face and a

shrewd mind. Some years previously he had been carried in to me on a litter.

A party of travellers had found him beside the road, where he had been left

for dead after his caravan had been pillaged by the Shrikes. I had stitched

him together, and even managed to save the leg that had already mortified by

the time I first saw it. However, he would always walk with a limp.

’I am delighted to see that the reports of your death are premature,’ he

chuckled, and clapped his hands to have his slaves bring me a cup of cool

sherbet and a plate of figs and honeyed dates.

156

After a decent interval of polite conversation, he asked quietly, ’Is there

anything I can do for you? I owe you my life. You have only to ask. My home

is your home. All I have is yours.’

’I am on the king’s business,’ I told him, and drew out the hawk seal from

under my tunic.

His expression became grave. ’I acknowledge the seal of Pharaoh. But it was

not necessary to show it to me. Ask what you will of me. I cannot refuse

you.’

He listened to all I had to say without another word, and when I had

finished, he sent for his bailiff and gave him his orders in front of me.

Before he sent the man away, he turned to me and said, ’Is there anything

that I have forgotten? Anything else you need at all?’

’Your generosity is without limits,’ I told him. ’However, there is one

other thing. I long for my writing materials.’

He turned back to the bailiff. ’See to it that there are scrolls and

brushes and ink-pot in one of the packs.’

After the bailiff had left, we sat on talking for half the night. Tiamat

stood at the centre of the busiest trading route in the Upper Kingdom, and

heard every rumour and whisper from the farthest reaches of the empire, and

from beyond the sea. I learned as much in those few hours in his garden as I

would in a month in the palace at Elephantine.

’Do you still pay your ransom to the Shrikes to allow your caravans

through?’ I asked, and he shrugged with resignation.

’After what they did to my leg, what option do I have? Each season then"

demands become more exorbitant. I must pay over one-quarter of the value of

my goods to them as soon as the caravan leaves Safaga, and half my profits

once The goods are sold in Thebes. Soon they will beggar us all, and grass

will grow on the caravan roads, and the trade of the kingdom will wither and

die.’

’How do you make these payments?’ I asked. ’Who determines the amount, and

who collects them?’

’They have then- spies here in the port. They watch every cargo that is

unloaded, and they know what each caravan carries when it leaves Safaga.

Before it even reaches the mountain pass, it will be met by one of the robber

chieftains who will demand the ransom they have set.’

It was long past midnight before Tiamat called a slave to light me to the

chamber he had set aside for me.

’You will be gone before I rise tomorrow.’ Tiamat embraced me. ’Farewell,

my good friend. My debt to you is not yet paid in full. Call upon me again,

whenever you have need.’

The same slave woke me before dawn, and led me down to the seafront in the

darkness. A fine trading vessel of Tiamat’s fleet was moored inside the reef.

The captain weighed anchor as soon as I came aboard.

In the middle of the morning we crept in through the pass in the coral and

dropped anchor in front of the little fishing village where Tanus stood on

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the beach to welcome me.

DURING MY ABSENCE TANUS HAD MANAGED to gather together six decrepit

donkeys, and the sailors from Tiamat’s ship waded ashore carrying the bales

that we had brought with us from Safaga, and loaded them on to these

miserable creatures. Tanus and I left the captain of the trading vessel with

strict orders to await our return, then, leading the string of donkeys, we

headed back, inland towards the wells at Gebel Nagara.

Kratas’ men had obviously suffered the heat and the sand-flies and the

boredom with poor grace, for they accorded us a welcome that was out of

keeping with the period that we had been absent. Tanus ordered Kratas to

parade them. The ranks of warriors watched as I unpacked the first bale that

we had brought in on the donkey train. Almost immediately their interest gave

way to mild amusement as I laid out the costume of a slave girl. In its turn,

this was replaced by a buzz of speculation and argument as the bales yielded

up a further seventy-nine* complete female costumes.

Kratas and two of his officers helped me place one of these on the sand in

front of each guardsman, and then Tanus gave the order: ’Disrobe! Put on the

dress in front of you!’ There was a roar of protest and incredulous hilarity,

and k was only when Kratas and his officers passed down the ranks with

assumed expressions of sternness to reinforce the order, that they began to

obey it.

Unlike our women who dress but lightly and often leave their bosom bared

and their legs free and naked, the women of Assyria wear skirts that sweep

the ground and sleeves that cover their arms to the wrist. For reasons of

misplaced modesty they even veil their faces when they walk abroad, although

perhaps these restrictions are placed upon them by the possessive jealousy of

their menfolk. Then again there is a wide difference between the sunny land

of Egypt and those more sombre climes where water falls from the sky and

turns solid white upon the moun-taintops, and the winds chill the flesh and

the bones of men like death.

Once they had weathered the first shock of seeing each other in’this

outlandish apparel, the nien entered into the spirit of the moment. Soon

there were eighty veiled slave girls prancing and mincing about in the long

skirts that reached to their ankles, tweaking each other’s buttocks and

casting exaggerated sheep’s eyes at Tanus and his officers.

The officers could no longer maintain their gravity. Perhaps it is because

of my peculiar circumstances that I have always found the spectacle of men

dressed as women to be vaguely repulsive, but it is strange how few other men

share my feelings of distaste, and it needs only some hairy ruffian to don a

skirt to reduce his audience to a state of incontinence.

In the midst of this uproar, I congratulated myself that I had insisted

that Kratas choose only the smallest and slimmest men from the squadron.

Looking them over now, I was certain that they would be able to carry through

the deception. They would need only a little schooling in feminine

deportment.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING OUR STRANGE caravan passed through the little fishing

village and wound its way down on to the beach, where the trading vessel

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waited. Kratas and eight of his officers made up the escort. Complete lack of

any armed escort for such a valuable consignment would surely have aroused

suspicion. Nine armed men dressed in the motley garb of mercenaries would be

sufficient to allay this, but would not deter a large raiding party of

Shrikes.

At the head of the caravan marched Tanus, dressed in the rich robes and

beaded head-dress of a wealthy merchant from beyond the Euphrates river. His

beard had grown out densely, and I had curled it for him into those tight

ringlets that the Assyrians favoured. Many of these Asians, particularly

those from the high mountainous regions further north, have the same

complexion and skin coloration as Tanus, so he looked the part I had chosen

for him.

I followed close behind him. I had overcome my aversion to wearing female

garb, and donned the long skirts and veil, together with the gaudy jewellery

of an Assyrian wife. I was determined not to be recognized when I returned to

Safaga.

The voyage was enlivened by the sea-sickness of most of the slave girls and

not a few of the officers, for they were accustomed to sail on the placid

waters of the great river. At one stage so many of them were lining the rail

to make their offerings to the gods of the sea, that the ship took on a

distinct list.

We were all relieved to step on to the beach at Safaga, where we caused

much excitement The Assyrian girls were famous for their skills on the love

couch. It was said that some of them were capable of tricks that could bring

a thousand-year-old mummy back to life. It was obvious to those who watched

us come ashore that behind the veils our slave girls must be images of

feminine loveliness. A shrewd Asian merchant would not transport his wares so

far and at such expense, unless he was certain of a good price in the

slave-markets on the Nile.

One of the Safaga merchants approached Tanus immediately and offered to buy

the entire bevy of girls on the spot, and spare him the onerous journey

across the desert with them. Tanus waved ffim away with a scornful chuckle.

’Have you been warned of the perils of the journey that you intend making?’

the merchant insisted. ’Before you reach the Nile, you will be forced to pay

a ransom for your safe passage that will eat up most of your profits.’

’Who will force me to pay?’ Tanus demanded. ’I pay only what I owe.’

"There are those who guard the road,’ the merchant warned him. ’And even

though you pay what they demand, there is no certainty that they will let you

pass unharmed, especially with such tempting goods as you have with you. The

vultures on the road to the Nile are so fat from feeding on the carcasses of

stubborn merchants that they can hardly fly. Sell to me now at a good

profit?’

’I have armed guards’, Tanus indicated Kratas and his small squad, ’who

will be a match for any robbers we may meet.’ And the onlookers who had

listened to the exchange tittered and nudged each other at the boast.

The merchant shrugged. ’Very well, my brave friend. On my next journey

through the desert, I will look for your skeleton beside the road. I will

recognize you by that blustering red beard of yours.’

159

As he had promised me he would, Tiamat had forty donkeys waiting for us.

Twenty of them were laden with filled water-skins, and the remainder with

pack-saddles to carry the bales and bundles that we brought ashore from the

trading ship.

I was anxious that we should spend as little time as possible in the port,

under all those prying eyes. It would take only a single lapse by one of the

slave girls to reveal his true gender, and we would be undone. Kratas and his

escort hurried them through the narrow streets, keeping the bystanders at a

distance, and making certain that the slave girls kept thek veils in place

and their eyes downcast, and that none of them responded in gruff masculine

tones to the ribald comment that followed us, until we were out into the open

country beyond the town.

We camped that first night still within sight of Safaga. Although I did not

anticipate an attack until we were beyond the first mountain pass, I was

certain that we were already being watched by the spies of the Shrikes.

While it was still light, I made sure that our slave girls conducted

themselves as women, that they kept their faces and bodies covered, and that

when they went into the nearby wadi to attend to nature’s demands, they

squatted in decorous fashion and did not uncouthly spray their water while

standing.

It was only after darkness fell that Tanus ordered the bundles carried by

the donkeys to be opened and the weapons they contained to be issued to the

slave girls. Each of mem slept with his bow and his sword concealed under his

sleeping-mat.

Tanus posted double sentries around the camp. After we had inspected them

and made sure that they were all well placed and fully alert, Tanus and I

slipped away, and in the darkness returned to the port of Safaga. I led him

through the dark streets to the house of Tiamat. The merchant was expecting

our arrival, and had a meal laid ready to welcome us. I could see that he was

excited to meet Tanus.

’Your fame proceeds you, Lord Harrab. I knew your father. He was a man

indeed,’ he greeted Tanus. ’Although I have heard persistent rumours that you

died in die desert not a week since, and that even at this moment your body

lies with the morticians on the west bank of the Nile, undergoing the ritual

forty days of the embalming process, you are welcome in my humble house.’

While we enjoyed the feast he provided, Tanus questioned him at length on

all he knew of the Shrikes, and Tiamat answered him freely and openly.

At last Tanus glanced at me and I nodded. Tanus turned back to Tiamat and

said, ’You have been a generous friend to us, and yet we have been less than

honest with you. This was from necessity, for it was of vital importance that

no one should guess at our real purpose in mis endeavour. Now I will tell you

that it is my purpose to smash the Shrikes and deliver their leaders up to

Pharaoh’s justice and wrath.’

Tiamat smiled and stroked his beard. ’This comes as no great surprise to

me,’ he said, ’for I have heard of the charge mat Pharaoh placed upon you at

the festival of Osiris. That and your patent interest in those murderous

bandits left little doubt in my mind. I can say only that I will sacrifice to

the gods for your success.’

’To succeed, I will need your help again,’ Tanus told him.

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’You have only to ask.’

’Do you think that the Shrikes are as yet aware of our caravan?’

’All of Safaga is talking about you,’ Tiamat replied. ’Yours is the richest

cargo that has arrived this season. Eighty beautiful slave girls will be

worth at least a thousand gold rings each in Karnak.’ He chuckled and shook

his head at the joke. ’You can be certain that the Shrikes already know all

about you. I saw at least three of their spies in the crowd at the waterfront

watching you. You can expect them to meet you and make their demands even

before you reach the first pass.’

When we rose to take our leave, he walked with us as far as his own door.

’May all the gods attend your endeavours. Not only Pharaoh, but every living

soul in the entire kingdom will be in your debt if you can stamp out this

terrible scourge that threatens to destroy our very civilization, and drive

us all back into the age of barbarism.’

IT WAS STILL COOL AND DARK THE FOLLOWING morning when die column started

out. Tanus, with Lanata slung over his shoulder, was at die head of die

caravan, widi myself, in all my womanly grace and beauty, following him

closely. Behind us the donkeys were harnessed hi single file, moving nose to

tail down the middle of die well-beaten track. The slave girls were hi double

columns on die outer flanks of the file of donkeys. Their weapons were

concealed in die packs upon the backs of die animals. Any of die men needed

only to reach out to lay a hand upon die hilt of his sword.

Kratas had split his escort into diree squads of six men each, commanded by

Astes, Remrem and himself. Astes and Remrem were warriors of renown and more

than deserving of dieir own commands. However, bodi of diem had, on numerous

occasions, refused promotion in order to remain with Tanus. That was die

quality of loyalty mat Tanus inspired in all who served under him. I could

not help thinking yet again what a pharaoh he would have made.

The escorts now slouched along beside die column, making every attempt to

forsake their military bearing. It would seem to die spies who were certainly

watching us from die hills that they were diere solely to prevent any of die

slaves from escaping. In north diey were fully occupied widi preventing their

charges from breaking into marching step and sounding off a chorus of one of

die rowdy regimental songs.

’You diere, Kernit!’ I heard Remrem challenge one of diem. ’Don’t take such

long steps, man, and swing that fat arse of yours a little! Try to make

yourself alluring.’

’Give me a kiss, captain,’ Kernit called back, ’and I’ll do anything you

say.’

The heat was rising, and the mirage was beginning to make die rocks dance.

Tanus turned back to me. ’Soon I will call our first rest-stop. One cup of

water for each?’

’Good husband,’ I interrupted him, ’your friends have arrived. Look ahead!’

Tanus turned back, and instinctively gripped die stock of die great bow

that hung at his side. ’And what fine fellows they are, too!’

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At that moment our column was winding through the first foothills below the

desert plateau. On either hand we were walled in by the steep sides of the

rocky hills. Now three men stood in the track ahead of us. The one who led

them was a tall, menacing figure swathed in the woollen robe of the desert

traveller, but his head was bared His skin was very dark, and deeply pitted

with the scars of the smallpox. He had a nose that was hooked like the beak

of a vulture, and his right eye was an opaque jelly from the blind-worm that

burrows deep into the eyeball of its victims.

’I know the one-eyed villain,’ I said softly, so that Tanus alone could

hear. ’His name is Shufti. He is the most notorious of the barons of the

Shrikes. Be wary of him. The lion is a gentle beast compared to this one.’

Tanus gave no sign of having heard me, but lifted his right hand to show

that it held no weapon, and called out cheerfully, ’May all your days be

scented with jasmine, gentle traveller, and may a loving wife welcome you at

your own front door when at last your journey is done.’

’May your water-skins stay filled and cool breezes fan your brow when you

cross the Thirsty Sands,’ Shufti called back, and he smiled. That smile was

fiercer than a leopard’s snarl, and his single eye glared horribly.

’You are kind, my noble lord,’ Tanus thanked him. ’I would like to offer

you a meal and the hospitality of my camp, but I pray your indulgence. We

have a long road before us, and we must pass on.’

’Just a little more of your time, my fine Assyrian.’ Shufti moved forward

to block the path. ’I have something which you need, if you and your caravan

are ever, to reach the Nile in safety.’ He held up a small object.

’Ah, a charm!’ Tanus exclaimed. ’You are a magician, perhaps? What manner

of charm is this you are offering me?’

’A feather.’ Shufti was still smiling. "The feather of a shrike.’

Tanus smiled, as though to humour a child. ’Very well then, give me this

feather and I’ll delay you no longer.’

’A gift for a. gift. You must give me something in return,’ Shufti told

him. ’Give me twenty of your slaves. Then, when you return from Egypt, I will

meet you on the road again and you will give me half the profits from the

sale of the other sixty.’

’For a single feather?’ Tanus scoffed. "That sounds like a sorry bargain to

me.’

"This is no ordinary feather. It is a shrike’s feather,’ Shufti pointed

out. ’Are you so ill-informed that you have never heard of that bird?’

’Let me see this magical feather.’ Tanus walked towards him with his right

hand outstretched, and Shufti came forward to meet him. At the same time

Kratas, Remrem and Astes wandered up inquisitively, as though to examine the

feather.

Instead of taking the gift from his hand, suddenly Tanus seized Shufti’s

wrist and twisted it up between his shoulder-blades. With a startled cry,

Shufti fell to his knees and Tanus held him easily. At the same time Kratas

and his men darted forward, taking the other two bandits by as much surprise

as their chief. They knocked the weapons out of their hands, and dragged them

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to where Tanus stood.

’So, you little birds think to frighten Kaarik, the Assyrian, with your

threats, do you? Yes, my fine vendor of feathers, I have heard of the

Shrikes. I have heard that they are a flock of chattering, cowardly little

fledglings, that make more noise than a flock of sparrows.’ He twisted

Shufti’s arm more viciously, until the bandit yelled with pain and fell flat

on his face. ’Yes, I have heard of the Shrikes, but have you heard of Kaarik,

the terrible?’ He nodded at Kratas, and quickly and efficiently they stripped

the three Shrikes stark naked and pinned them spread-eagled upon the rocky

earth.

’I want you to remember my name, and fly away like a good little shrike

when next you hear it,’ Tanus told him, and nodded to Kratas again. Kratas

flexed the lash of his slave-whip between his fingers. It was of the same

type as Rasfer’s famous tool, whittled from the cured hide of a bull

hippopotamus. Tanus held out his hand for it, and reluctantly Kratas handed

it over to him.

’Don’t look so sad, slave-master,’ Tanus told him. ’I’ll let you have your

turn later. But Kaarik, the Assyrian, always takes the first spoonful from

the pot.’

Tanus slashed the whip back and forth through the air, and it whistled like

the wing of a goose in flight. Shufti squirmed where he lay, and twisted his

head around to hiss at Tanus, ’You are mad, you Assyrian ox! Do you not.

realize that I am a baron of the Shrike clan? You dare not do this to me?’

His naked back and buttocks were stippled with pox scars.

Tanus lifted the whip on high, and then brought it down in a full-armed

stroke with all his weight behind it. He laid a purple welt as fat as my

forefinger across Shufti’s back. So intense was the pain of it that the

bandit’s entire body convulsed and the ah- hissed out of his lungs, so that

he could not scream. Tanus lifted the lash and then meticulously laid another

ridged welt exactly parallel to the first, almost, but not quite, touching

it. This time Shufti filled his lungs and let out a hoarse bellow, like a

buffalo bull caught in a pitfall. Tanus ignored his struggles and his

outraged roars, and worked on assiduously, laying on the strokes as though he

were weaving a carpet.

When at last he was done, his victim’s legs, buttocks and back were

latticed with the fiery weals. Not one of the blows had overlaid another. The

skin was intact and not a drop of blood had spilled out, but Shufti was no

longer wriggling or screaming. He lay with his face in the dirt, his breath

snoring in his throat, so that each exhalation raised a puff of dust. When

Remrem and Kratas released him, he made no effort to sit up. He did not even

stir.

Tanus tossed the whip to Kratas. "The next one is yours, slave-master. Let

us see whdt a pretty pattern you can tattoo on his back.’

Kratas’ strokes hummed with power, but lacked the finesse that Tanus had

demonstrated. Soon the bandit’s back was leaking like a flawed jar of red

wine. The droplets of blood fell into the dust and rolled into tiny balls of

mud.

Sweating lightly, Kratas was satisfied at last, and he passed the whip to

Astes as he indicated the last victim. ’Give that one something to remind him

of his manners, as well.’

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Astes had an even more rustic touch than Kratas. By the time he had

finished, the last bandit’s back looked like a side of fresh beef that had

been cut up by a demented butcher.

Tanus signalled the caravan to move forward, towards the pass through the

red rock mountains. We lingered a while beside the three naked men.

At last Shufti stirred and lifted his head, and Tanus addressed him

civilly. ’And so, my friend, I beg leave of you. Remember my face, and step

warily when you see it again.’ Tanus picked up the fallen shrike’s feather

and tucked it into his headband. ’I thank you for your gift. May all your

nights be cradled in the arms of lovely ladies.’ He touched his heart and

lips in the Assyrian gesture of farewell, and I followed him up the road

after the departing caravan.

I looked back before we dropped over the next rise. All three Shrikes were

on their feet, supporting each other to remain upright. Even at this distance

I could make out the expression on Shufti’s face. It was hatred distilled to

its essence.

’Well, you have made certain that we will have every Shrike this side of

the Nile upon us, the moment we take our first step beyond the pass,’ I told

Kratas and his ruffians, and I could not have pleased them more, had I

promised them a shipload of beer and pretty girls.

FROM THE CREST OF THE PASS WE looked back at the cool blue of the sea for

the last time and then dropped down into that sweltering wilderness of rock

and sand that stood between us and the Nile.

As we moved forward, the heat came at us like a mortal enemy. It seemed to

enter through our mouths and nostrils as we gasped for breath. It sucked the

moisture from our bodies like a thief. It dried out our skin and cracked it

until our lips burst open like over-ripe figs. The rocks beneath our feet

were hot, as though fresh from the pot-maker’s kiln, and they scalded and

blistered our feet, even through the leather soles of our sandals. It was

impossible to continue the march during the hottest hours of the day. We lay

in the flimsy shade of the linen tents that Tiamat had provided, and panted

like hunting dogs after the chase.

When the sun sank towards the jagged rock horizon, we went on. The desert

around us was charged with such a brooding nameless menace that even the high

spirits of the Blue Crocodile Guards were subdued. The long slow column wound

like a maimed adder through the black rock outcrops and tawny lion-coloured

dunes, following the ancient road along which countless other travellers had

passed before us.

When night fell at last, the sky came alive with such a dazzle of stars and

the desert was lit so brightly that, from my place at the head of the

caravan, I could recognize the shape of Kratas at the tail, although two

hundred paces separated us. We marched on for half the night before Tanus

gave the order to fall out. Then he had us up before dawn and we marched on

until the heat-mirage dissolved the rocky outcrops around us and made the

horizon swim so that it seemed to be moulded from melting pitch.

We saw no other sign of life, except that once a troop of dog-headed

baboons barked at us from the cliffs of a stark rock tableland as we passed

below them, and the vultures soared so high in the hot blue sky that they

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appeared to be but dust motes swirling in slow and deliberate circles high

above us.

When we rested in the middle of the day the whirlwinds pirouetted and

swayed with the peculiar grace of dancing houris across the plains, and the

cupful of water that was our ration seemed to turn to steam in my mouth.

’Where are they?’ Kratas growled angrily. ’By Seth’s sweaty scrotum, I hope

these little birds will soon puff up their courage and come in to roost.’

Although they were all tough veterans and inured to hardship and

discomfort, nerves and tempers were wearing thin. Good comrades and old

friends began to snarl at each other for no reason, and bicker over the water

ration.

’Shufti is a cunning old dog,’ I told Tanup. ’He will gather his forces and

wait for us to come to him, rather than hurry to meet us. He will let us tire

ourselves with the journey, and grow careless with our fatigue, before he

strikes.’

On the fifth day I knew that we were approaching the oasis of Gallala when

I saw that the dark cliffs ahead of us were riddled with the caves of ancient

tombs. Centuries ago, the oasis had supported a thriving city, but then an

earthquake had shaken the hills and damaged the wells. The water had dwindled

to a few seeping drops. Even though the wells had been dug deeper to reach

the receding water, and the earthen steps reached down to where the surface

of the water was always in shade, the city had died. The roofless walls stood

forlorn in the silence, and lizards sunned themselves in the courtyards where

rich merchants had once dallied with their harems.

Our very first concern was to refill the water-skins. The voices of the men

drawing water at the bottom of the well were distorted by the echoes in the

deep shaft. While they were busy, Tanus and I made a swift tour of the ruined

city. It was a lonely and melancholy place. In its centre was the dilapidated

temple to the patron god of Gallala. The roof had fallen in and the walls

were collapsing in places. It had but a single entrance through the crumbling

gateway at the western end.

’This will do admirably,’ Tanus muttered as he strode across it, measuring

it with his soldier’s eye for fortification and ambuscade. When I questioned

him on his intentions, he smiled and shook his head. ’Leave that part of it

to me, -old friend. The fighting is my business.’

As we stood at the centre of the temple I noticed the tracks of a troop of

baboons in the dust at our feet, and I pointed them out to Tanus. "They must

come to drink at the wells,’ I told him.

That evening when we sat around the small, smoky fires of dried donkey dung

in the ancient temple, we heard the baboons again, the old bull apes barking

a challenge in the hills that surrounded the ruined city. Their voices boomed

back and forth along the cliffs, and I nodded at Tanus across the fire. ’Your

friend, Shufti, has arrived at last. His scouts are in the hills up there

watching us now. It is they who have alarmed the baboons.’

’I hope you are right. My blackguards are close to mutiny. They know mis is

all your idea, and if you are wrong, I might have to give them your head or

your backside to appease them,’ Tanus growled, and went to speak to Astes at

the neighbouring cooking-fire.

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Swiftly a new mood infected the camp as they realized that the enemy was

near. The scowls evaporated and the men grinned at each other in the

firelight, as they surreptitiously tested the edges of the swords concealed

beneath the sleeping-mats on which they sat. However, they were canny

veterans and they went through the motions of normal caravan life, so as not

to alert the watchers in the dark hills above us. At last we were all bundled

on our mats, and the fires died down, but none of us slept. I could hear them

coughing and fidgeting restlessly all around me in the dark. The long hours

drew out, and through the open roof I watched the great constellations of the

stars wheel in stately splendour overhead, but still the attack never came.

Just before dawn, Tanus made his round of the sentries for the last time,

and then, on his way back to his place beside the cooling ashes of last

night’s fire, he stopped by my mat for a moment and whispered, ’You and your

friends the baboons, you deserve each other. All of you bark at shadows.’

’The Shrikes are here. I can smell them. The hills are full of them,’ I

protested.

’All you can smell is the promise of breakfast,’ he grunted. He knows how I

detest the suggestion that I am a glutton. Rather than reply to such callow

humour, I went out into the darkness to relieve myself behind the nearest

pfle of ruins.

As I squatted there, a baboon barked again, the wild, booming cry

shattering the preternatural silences of that last and darkest of the

night-watches. I turned my head in that direction and heard, faint and

faraway, the sound of metal strike rock, as though a nervous hand had dropped

a dagger up there on the ridge, or a careless shield had brushed against a

granite outcrop as an armed man hurried to take up his station before the

dawn found him out.

I smiled complacently to myself; there are few pleasures in my life

compared to that of making Tanus eat his words. As I returned to my mat, I

whispered to the men mat I passed, ’Be ready. They are here,’ and I heard my

warning passed on from mouth to sleepless mouth.

Above me the stars began to fade away, and the dawn crept up on us as

stealthily as a lioness stalking a herd of oryx. Then abruptly I heard a

sentry on the west wall of the temple whistle, a liquid warble that might

have been the cry of a nightjar except that we all knew better, and instantly

a stir ran through the camp. It was checked by the low but urgent whispers of

Kratas and his officers, ’Steady, the Blues! Remember your orders. Hold your

positions!’ and not a man stirred from his sleeping-mat.

Without rising, and with my shawl masking my face, I turned my head slowly

and looked up at the crests of the cliffs that stood higher than the temple

walls. The shark’s-tooth silhouette of the granite hills began to alter most

subtly. I had to blink my eyes to be certain of what I was seeing. Then

slowly I turned my head in a full circle, and it was the same in whichever

direction I looked. The skyline all about us was picketed with the dark and

menacing shapes of armed men. They formed an unbroken palisade around us

through which no fugitive could hope to escape.

I knew then why Shufti had delayed his retaliation so long. It would have

taken him all this time to gather together such an army of thieves. There

must be a thousand or more of them, although in the poor light it was not

possible to count their multitudes. We were outnumbered at least ten to one,

and I felt my spirits quail. It was poor odds, even for a company of the

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Blues.

The Shrikes stood as still as the rocks around them, and I was alarmed at

this evidence of their discipline. I had expected them to come streaming down

upon us in an untidy rabble, but they were behaving like trained warriors.

Their stillness was more menacing and intimidating than any wild shouting and

brandishing of weapons would have been.

As the light strengthened swiftly, we could make them out more clearly. The

first rays of the sun glanced off the bronze of their shields and their bared

sword-blades, and struck darts of light into our eyes. Every one of them was

muffled up, a scarf of black wool wound around each head so that only their

eyes showed in the slits, eyes as malevolent as those of the ferocious blue

sharks that terrorize the waters of the sea we had left behind us.

The silence drew out until I thought that my nerves might tear and my heart

burst with the pressure of blood within it. Then suddenly a voice rang out,

shattering the dawn silence and echoing along the cliffs. ’Kaarik! Are you

awake?’

I recognized Shufti then, despite the scarf that masked him. He stood in

the centre of the west wall of the cliff, where the road cut through it.

’Kaarik!’ he called again. ’It is time for you to pay what you owe me, but

the price has risen. I want everything now. Everything!’ he repeated, and

flung aside the scarf so that his pock-marked features were revealed. ’I want

everything you have, including your stupid and arrogant head.’

Tanus rose from his mat and threw aside his sheepskin rug. "Then you will

have to come down and take % from me,’ he shouted back, and drew his sword.

Shufti raised his right arm, and his blind eye caught the light and gleamed

like a silver coin. Then he brought his arm down abruptly.

At his signal, a shout went up from the ranks of men that lined the high

ground, and they lifted their weapons and shook them to the pale yellow dawn

sky. Shufti waved them forward and they streamed down the cliffs in a torrent

into the narrow valley of Gallala.

Tanus raced to the centre of the temple court where the ancient inhabitants

had raised a tall stone altar to their patron Bes, the dwarf god of music and

drunkenness. Kratas and his officers ran to join him, while the slave girls

and I crouched on our mats and covered our heads, wailing with terror. ’

Tanus leaped up on to the altar, and went down on one knee as he flexed the

great bow Lanata. It took all of his strength to string it, but when he stood

erect again it shimmered in its coils of silver electrum wire, as though it

were a living thing. He reached over his shoulder and drew an arrow from the

quiver on his back and faced the main gateway through which the horde of

Shrikes must enter.

Below the altar, Kratas had drawn up his men into a single rank, and they

also had strung their bows and faced the entrance to the square. They made a

pitifully small cluster around the altar, and I felt a lump rise in my throat

as I watched them. They were so heroic and undaunted. I would compose a

sonnet in their honour, I decided on a sudden impulse, but before I could

find the first line, the head of the mob of bandits burst howling through the

ruined gateway.

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Only five men abreast could climb the steep stairway into the opening, and

the distance to where Tanus stood on the altar was less than forty paces.

Tanus drew and let his first arrow fly. That single arrow killed three men.

The first of them was a tall rogue dressed in a short kilt, with long greasy

tresses of hair streaming down his back. The arrow took him in the centre of

his naked chest and passed through his torso as cleanly as though he were

merely a target cut from a sheet of papyrus.

Slick with the blood of the first man, the arrow struck the man behind him

in the throat. Although the force of it was dissipating now, it still went

through his neck and came out behind him, but it could not drive completely

through. The fletchings at the back of the shaft snagged in his flesh, while

the barbed bronze arrow-head buried itself in the eye of the third man who

had crowded up close behind him. The two Shrikes were pinned together by the

arrow, and they staggered and thrashed about in the middle of the gateway,

blocking the opening to those who were trying to push then-way past them into

the courtyard. At last the arrow-head tore out of the third man’s skull, with

the eye impaled .upon the point. The two stricken men fell apart, and a

throng of screaming bandits poured over them into the square. The small band

around the altar met them with volley after volley of arrows, shooting them

down so that then- corpses almost blocked the opening, and those coming in

from behind were forced to scramble over the mounds of dead and wounded.

It could not last much longer, the pressure of warriors from behind was too

great and their numbers too overwhelming. Like the bursting of an earthen

dyke unable to stem the rising flood of the Nile, they forced the opening,

and a solid mass of fighting men poured into the square and surrounded the

tiny band around the altar of the god Bes.

It was too close quarters for the bows now, and Tanus and his men cast them

aside and drew their swords. ’Horus, arm me!’ Tanus shouted his battle-cry,

and the men around him took it up, as they went to work. Bronze rang on

bronze as the Shrikes tried to come at them, but they had formed a ring

around the altar, facing outwards. No matter from which side they came, the

Shrikes were met by the point and the deadly sword-play of the guards. The

Shrikes were not short of courage, and they pressed in serried ranks around

the altar. As one of them was cut down, another leaped into his place.

I saw Shufti in the gateway. He was holding back from the fray, but cursing

his men and; ordering them into the thick of it with horrid howls of rage.

His blind eye rolled in its socket as he exhorted them, ’Get me the Assyrian

alive. I want to kill him slowly and hear him squeal.

The bandits completely ignored the women who cowered on their

sleeping-mats, their heads covered, waiting and screeching with terror. I

wailed with the best of them, but the struggle in the centre of the yard was

too uncomfortable for my liking. By this time, there were over a thousand men

crowded into the confined space. Choking in the dust, I was kicked and

pummelled by the sandalled feet of the battling horde, until I managed to

crawl away into a corner of the wall.

One of the bandits turned aside from the fighting and stooped over me. He

tore the shawl away from my face and for a moment stared into my eyes.

’Mother of Isis,’ he breathed, ’you are beautiful!’

He was an ugly devil with gaps in his teeth and a scar down one cheek. His

breath stank like a sewerage gutter as he lusted into my face. ’Wait until

this business is over. Then I’ll give you something to make you squeal with

joy,’ he promised, and twisted my face up to his. He kissed me.

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My natural instinct was to pull away from him, but I resisted it and

returned his kiss. I am an artist of the love arts, for I learned my skills

in the boys’ quarters of Lord Intef. My kisses can turn a man to water.

I kissed him with all my skill, and he was transfixed by it. While he was

still paralysed, I slipped my dagger from its sheath beneath my blouse and

slid the point through the gap between his fifth and sixth ribs. When he

screamed, I muffled the sound with my own lips and clasped him lovingly to my

breast, twisting the blade in his heart until, with a shudder, he relaxed

completely against me, and I let him roll over on his side.

I looked around me quickly. In the few moments that it had taken me to

dispose of my admirer, the plight of the small group of guards around the

altar had worsened. There were gaps in their single rank. Two men were down

and Amseth was wounded. He had switched his sword into his left hand, while

the other arm hung bleeding at his side.

With a rush of relief I saw that Tanus was still untouched, still laughing

with the savage joy of it all as he plied the sword.’But he had left it too

late to spring the trap, I thought. The eitee band of Shrikes were crowded

into the square and bafying around him like hounds around a treed leopard.

Withiri’ moments he and his gallant little band must be cut down.

Even as I watched, Tanus killed another of them with a straight thrust

through the throat, and then he jerked his blade free of the clinging flesh

and stepped back. He threw back his head and let loose a bellow that rang

from the crumbling walls around us. ’On me, the Blues!’

On the instant every one of the cringing slave girls leapt up and flung

aside their trailing robes. Their swords were already bared and they fell

upon the rear of the robber horde. The surprise was complete and

overwhelming. I saw them kill a hundred or more before their victims even

realized what they were about, and could rally to meet them. But when they

did turn to face this fresh attack, they exposed their backs to Tanus and his

little band.

They fought well, I’ll give them that, though I am sure it was terror,

rather than courage, that drove them on. However, their ranks were too

close-packed to allow them free play with the sword, and the men they faced

were some of the finest troops in Egypt, which is to say the entire world.

For a while yet they held on. Then Tanus bellowed again from the midst of

the turmoil. For a moment I thought it was another command, then I realized

that it was the opening bar of the battle hymn of the guards. Though I had

often heard it spoken in awe that the Blues always sang when the battle was

at its height, I had never truly believed it possible. Now all around me the

song was taken up by a hundred straining voices:

We are the Breath of Horus,

hot as the desert wind,

we are the reapers of men?

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Their swords beat an accompaniment to the words, like the clangour of

hammers on the anvils of the underworld. In the face of such arrogant

ferocity the remaining Shrikes wavered, and then suddenly it was no longer a

battle, but a massacre.

I have seen a pack of wild dogs surround and tear into a flock of sheep.

This was worse. Some of the Shrikes threw down their swords and fell to their

knees begging quarter. There was no mercy shown them. Others tried to reach

the gateway, but guardsmen waited for them there, sword in hand.

I danced on the fringes of the fighting, screaming across at Tanus, trying

to make myself heard in the uproar, ’Stop them. We need prisoners.’

Tanus could not hear me, or more likely he simply ignored my entreaties.

Singing and laughing, with Kratas at his left hand and Remrem on the other,

he tore into them. His beard was soaked with the spurted blood of those he

had killed, and his eyes glittered in the running red mask of his face with a

madness I had never seen in them before. Joyous Hapi, how he thrived on the

heady draught of battle!

’Stop it, Tanus! Don’t kill them all!’ This time he heard me. I saw the

madness fade, and he was once more in control of himself.

’Give quarter to those who plead for it!’ he roared, and the guards obeyed

him. But in the end, out of the original thousand, fewer than two hundred

Shrikes grovelled unarmed on the bloody stone flags and pleaded for their

lives.

For a while I stood dazed and uncertain on the fringe of this carnage, and

then from the corner of my eye I caught a furtive movement.

Shufti had realized that he could not escape through the gateway. He threw

down his sword and darted to the east wall of the court, close to where I

stood. This was the most ruined section, where the wall was reduced to half

its original height. The tumbled mud-bricks formed a steep ramp, and Shufti

scrambled up it, slipping and falling, but rapidly nearing the top of the

wall. It seemed that I was the only one who had noticed his flight. The

guards were busy with their other prisoners, and Tanus had his back turned to

me as he directed the mopping-up of the shattered enemy.

Almost without thinking, I stooped and picked up half ai mud-brick. As

Shufti topped the wall, I hurled the brick up at him with all my strength. It

thumped against the back off his skull with such force that he dropped to his

knees, and! then the treacherous pile of loose rubble gave way beneath) him

and he came sliding back down in a cloud of dust to) land at my feet, only

half-conscious.

I pSunced upon him where he lay, straddling his chest,, and I firessed the

point of my dagger to his throat. He stared! up at me, his single eye still

glazed with the crack I hadl dealt him.

’Lie still,’ I cautioned him, ’or I will gut you like a fish."

I had lost my shawl and head-dress, and my hair hadl come down on to my

shoulders. He recognized me then,, which was no surprise. We had met often,

but in differentt circumstances.

’Taita, the eunuch!’ he mumbled. ’Does Lord Intef know what you are about?’

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’He will find out soon enough,’ I assured him, andi pricked him until he

grunted, ’but you will not be the one to enlighten him.’

Without removing the point from his throat, I shouted to two of the nearest

guards to take him. They flipped him on to his face and bound his wrists

together with linen twine before they dragged him away.

Tanus had seen me capture Shufti, and he strode across to me now, stepping

over the dead and wounded. ’Good throw, Taita! You have forgotten nothing

that I taught you.’ He clapped me on the back so hard that I staggered.

’There is plenty of work for you still. We’ve lost four men killed, and there

are at least a dozen wounded.’

’What about their camp?’ I asked, and he stared at me.

’Whatcamp?’

’A thousand Shrikes did not spring up from the sands like desert flowers.

They must have pack-animals and slaves with them. Not far from here, either.

You must not let them escape. Nobody must escape to tell the tale of today’s

battle.

None of them must be allowed to carry the news to Karnak that you are still

alive.’

’Sweet Isis, you are right! But how will we find them?’ It was obvious that

Tanus was still bemused with battle lust. Sometimes I wondered what he would

do without me.

’Back-track them,’ I told him impatiently. ’A thousand pairs of feet will

have trodden a road for us to follow back to where they came from.’

His expression cleared, and he hailed Kratas across the length of the

temple. ’Take fifty men. Go with Taita. He will lead you to their base-camp.’

’The wounded?’ I began to protest. I had enjoyed enough fighting for one

day, but he brushed my objections aside. ’You are the best tracker I have.

The wounded can wait for your care, my ruffians are all as tough as fresh

buffalo steaks, very few of them will die before you return.’

FINDING THEIR CAMP WAS AS SIMPLE AS I had made it sound. With Kratas and

fifty men following me closely, made a wide cast around the city, and behind

the first line of hills I picked up the broad track that they had made as

they came in and deployed to surround us. We followed it back at a trot, and

had covered less than a mile before we topped a rise and found the camp of

the Shrikes in the shallow valley below us.

Their surprise was complete. They had left fewer than twenty men to guard

the donkeys and women. Kratas’ men overran them at the first rush, and this

time I was too late to save any prisoners. They spared only the women, and

once the camp was secure, Kratas let his men have them as part of the

traditional reward of the victors.

The women seemed to me to be a more comely selection than I would have

expected in such company. I saw quite a few pretty faces amongst them. They

submitted to the rituals of conquest with a remarkably good grace. I even

heard some of them laughing and joking as the guardsmen threw dice for them.

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The vocation of camp-follower to a band of Shrikes could not be considered

the most delicate calling, and I doubted that any of these ladies were

blushing virgins. One by one, they were led by their new owners behind the

cover of the nearest clump of rocks, where their skirts were lifted without

further ceremony.

New moon follows the death of the old, spring follows winter, none of the

ladies showed any signs of mourning for their erstwhile spouses. Indeed, it

seemed probable that new and perhaps lasting relationships were being struck

up here on the desert sand.

For myself, I was more interested in the pack-donkeys and what they

carried. There were over a hundred and fifty of theses ;and most of them were

sturdy animals in prime condition which would fetch good prices in the market

at Karnak or Safaga. I reckoned that I should be entitled to at least a

centurion’s share when the prize money was divided up. After all, I had

already dispensed large amounts of my own savings in the furtherance of this

enterprise, and should be entitled to some compensation. I would speak

seriously to Tanus about it, and could expect his sympathy. His is a generous

spirit.

By the time we returned to the city of Gallala, leading the captured

pack-animals laden with booty and followed by a straggle of women who had

attached themselves quite naturally to their new menfolk, the sun had set.

One of the smaller ruined buildings near the wells had been turned into a

field hospital. There I worked through the night, by the light of torch and

oil lamp, sewing together the wounded guardsmen. As always, I was impressed

by their stoicism, for many of their wounds were grave and painful. None the

less, I lost only one of my patients before dawn broke. Amseth succumbed to

loss of blood from the severed arteries in his arm. If I had attended to him

immediately after the battle, instead of going off into the desert, I might

have been able to save him. Even though the responsibility rested with Tanus,

I felt the familiar guilt and sorrow in the face of a death that I might have

prevented. However, I was confident that my other patients would heal swiftly

and cleanly. They were all strong young men in superb condition.

There were no wounded Shrikes to attend. Their heads had been lopped off

where they lay on the battlefield. As a physician, I was perturbed by this

age-old custom of dealing with the wounded enemy, yet I suppose there was

logic in it. Why should the victors waste their resources on the maimed

vanquished, when it was unlikely they would have any value as slaves, and, if

left alive, might recover to fight against them another day?

I worked all night with only a swallow of wine and a few mouthfuls of food

taken with bloody hands to sustain me, and I was almost exhausted, but there

was to be no rest for me yet. Tanus sent for me as soon as it was light

THE UNWOUNDED PRISONERS WERE BEING held in the temple of Bes. Their wrists

were bound behind their backs, and they were squatting in long lines along

the north wall, with the guards standing over them.

As soon as I entered the temple, Tanus called me to where he stood with a

group of his officers. I was still in the dress of an Assyrian wife, so I

lifted my blood-splattered skirts and picked my way across the floor littered

with the debris of the battle.

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’There are thirteen clans of Shrikes?isn’t that what you told me, Taita?’

Tanus asked, and I nodded. ’Each clan with its own baron. We have Shufti.

Let’s see if you recognize any of the other barons amongst this gathering of

the fair and gentle people.’ He indicated the prisoners with a chuckle, and

took my arm to lead me down the ranks of squatting men.

I kept my face veiled so that none of the prisoners could recognize me. I

glanced at each face as I passed, and recognized two of them. Akheku was head

of the southern clan that preyed on the lands around Assoun, Elephantine and

the first cataract, while Setek was from further north, the baron of

Kom-Ombo.

It was clear that Shufti had gathered together whatever men he could find

at such short notice. There were members of all the clans amongst those that

we had captured. As I identified their leaders with a tap on the shoulder,

they were dragged away.

When we reached the end of the line Tanus asked, ’Are you sure that you

missed none of them?’

’How can I be sure? I told you that I never met all of the barons.’

Tanus shrugged. ’We could not hope to catch every little bird with one

throw of the net. We must count ourselves fortunate that we have taken as

many as three so soon. But let us look at the heads. We might be lucky enough

to find a few more amongst them.’

This was a gruesome business that might have affected a more delicate

stomach than mine, but human flesh, both dead and living, is my

stock-in-trade. While we sat at our ease on the steps of the temple enjoying

our breakfast, the severed heads were displayed to us, held up one at a time

by the blood-caked hair, tongues lolling from between slack lips, and dull

eyes powdered with dust staring into the other world whither they were bound.

My appetite was as healthy as ever, for I had eaten very little during the

last two days. I devoured the delicious cakes and fruits that Tiamat had

provided, while I pointed out those heads I recognized. There was a score or

so of common thieves that I had encountered during the course of my work for

Lord Intef, but only one more of the barons. He was Nefer-Temu of Qena, a

lesser member of the ghastly brotherhood.

"That makes four of them,’ Tanus grunted with satisfaction, and ordered

Nefer-Temu’s head to be placed on the pinnacle of the pyramid of skulls that

he was erecting in front of the well of Gallala.

’So now we have accounted for four of them. We must find the other nine

barons. Let us begin by putting the question to our prisoners.’ He stood up

briskly, and I hastily gulped down the remains of my breakfast and followed

him reluctantly back into the temple of Bes.

Although I was the one who had made clear to Tanus the necessity of having

informers from within the clans, and indeed it was I who had suggested how we

should recruit them, still now that the time to act upon my suggestion had

arrived, I was stricken with remorse and guilt. It was one thing to suggest

ruthless action, but another thing entirely to stand by and watch it

practised.

I made a feeble excuse that the wounded men in the makeshift hospital might

need me, but Tanus brushed it away cheerfully. ’None of your fine scruples

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now, Taita. You will stay with me during the questioning to make certain that

you overlooked none of your old friends on your first inspection.’

The questioning was swift and merciless, which I suppose was only

appropriate to the character of the men we were dealing with.

To begin with, Tanus sprang up on to the storie altar of Bes, and, with the

hawk seal in one hand, he looked down on the ranks of squatting prisoners

with a smile %at must have chilled them, even though they sat in the full

rays of the desert sun.

’I am the bearer of the hawk seal of Pharaoh Mamose, and I speak with his

voice,’ he told them grimly, as he held the statuette high. ’I am your judge

and your executioner.’ He paused and let his gaze pass slowly over their

upturned faces. As each of them met his eyes, they dropped their own. Not one

of them could hold firm before his penetrating scrutiny.

’You have been taken in the act of pillage and murder. If there is one of

you who would deny it, let him stand before me and declare his innocence.’

He waited while the impatient shadows of the vultures, circling in the sky

above us, criss-crossed the dusty courtyard. ’Come now! Speak up, you

innocents.’ He glanced upwards at the circling birds with their grotesque

pink bald heads. ’Your brethren grow impatient for the feast. Let us not keep

them waiting.’

Still none of them spoke or moved, and Tanus lowered the hawk seal. ’Your

actions, which all here have witnessed, condemn you. Your silence confirms

the verdict. You are guilty. In the name of the divine Pharaoh, I pass

sentence upon you. I sentence you to death by beheading. Your severed heads

will be displayed along the caravan routes. All law-abiding men who pass this

way will see your skulls grinning at them from the roadside, and they will

know that the Shrjke has met the eagle. They will know that the age of

lawlessness has passed from the land, and that peace has returned to this

very Egypt of ours. I have spoken. Pharaoh Mamose has spoken.’

Tanus nodded, and the first prisoner was dragged forward and forced to his

knees before the altar.

’If you answer three questions truthfully, your life will be spared. You

will be enlisted as a trooper in my regiment of the guards, with all the pay

and privileges. If you refuse to answer the questions, your sentence will be

carried out immediately,’ Tanus told him.

He looked down on the kneeling prisoner sternly. ’This is the first

question. What clan do you belong to?’

The condemned man made no reply. The blood oath of the Shrikes was too

strong for him to break.

’This is the second question. Who is the baron that commands you?’ Tanus

asked, and still the man was silent.

’This is the third and the last question. Will you lead me to the secret

places where your clan hides?’ Tanus asked, and the man looked up at him,

hawked in his throat and spat. His phlegm spattered yellow upon the stones.

Tanus nodded to the guardsman who stood over him with the sword.

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The stroke was clean and the head toppled on to the steps at the foot of

the altar. ’One more head for the pyramid,’ Tanus said quietly, and nodded

for the next prisoner to be brought forward.

He asked the same three questions, and when the Shrike answered him with a

defiant obscenity, Tanus nodded. This time the headsman mistimed the blow and

the corpse flopped about with the neck only half-severed. It took three more

strokes before the head bounced down the steps.

Tanus lopped twenty-three heads, I was counting them to distract myself

from the waves of debilitating compassion that assailed me, until the first

of the condemned men broke down. He was young, not much more than a boy. In a

shrill voice he gabbled out the replies before Tanus could actually pose the

three questions to him.

’My name is Hui. I am a blood-brother of the clan of Basti the Cruel. I

know his secret places, and I will lead you to them.’ Tanus smiled with grim

satisfaction and gestured for the lad to be led away. ’Care for him well,’ he

warned his gaolers. ’He is now a trooper of the Blues, and your

companion-in-arms.’

After the defection of one of them, it went more readily, although there

were still many who defied Tanus. Some of them cursed him, while others

laughed their defiance at him until the blade swept down, and their bravado

ended with their very last breath that burst from the severed windpipe in a

crimson gust.

I was filled with admiration for those who, after a base and despicable

life, at the end chose to die with some semblance of honour. They laughed at

death. I knew #iat I was not capable of that quality of courage. Offered that

choice, I am certain that I would have responded as some of the weaker

prisoners did.

’I am a member of the clan of Ur,’ one confessed.

’I am of the clan of Maa-En-Tef, who is baron of the west bank as far as El

Kharga,’ said another, until we had informers to lead us to the strongholds

of every one of the remaining robber barons, and a shoulder-high pile of

recalcitrant heads to add to the pyramid beside the well.

ONE OF THE MATTERS TO WHICH TANUS and I had given much thought was the

disposal of the three robber barons we had already captured, and the score of

informers we had gleaned from the ranks of the condemned Shrikes. ___ We knew

that the influence of the Shrikes was so pervasive that we dared not keep our

captives in Egypt. There was not a prison secure enough to prevent Akh-Seth

and his barons from reaching them, either to set them free by bribery or

force, or to have them silenced by poison or some other unpleasant means. We

knew that Akh-Seth was like an octopus whose head was hidden, but whose

tentacles reached into every facet of our government and into the very fabric

of our existence.

This was where my friend Tiamat, the merchant of Saf-aga, came into my

reckoning.

Matching now as a unit of the Blue Crocodile Guards, and not as a slave

caravan, we returned to the port on the Red Sea in half the time that it had

taken us to reach Gallala. Our captives were hustled aboard one of Tiamat’s

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trading vessels that was waiting for us in the harbour, and the captain set

sail immediately for the Arabian coast, where Tiamat maintained a secure

slave-compound on the small off-shore island of Jez Baquan, run by his own

warders. The waters around the island were patrolled by packs of ferocious

blue sharks. Tiamat assured us that no one who had attempted escape from the

island had ever avoided both the vigilance of the warders and the appetites

of the sharks.

Only one of our captives was not sent to the island. He was Hui from the

clan of Basti the Cruel, the same youngster who had been the first to

capitulate to the threat of execution. During the march to the sea, Tanus had

kept the lad close to him and had turned all the irresistible force of his

personality upon him. By this time Hui was his willing slave. This special

gift of Tanus’ to win loyalty and devotion from the most unlikely quarters

never failed to amaze me. I was sure that Hui, who had buckled so swiftly

under the threat of execution, would now willingly lay down his worthless

life for Tanus.

Under Tanus’ spell, Hui poured out every detail that he could remember of

the clan to which he had once sworn a blood-oath. I listened quietly, with my

writing-brush poised, as Tanus questioned him and I recorded all he had to

tell us.

We learned that the stronghold of Basti the Cruel was in the fastness of

that awful desert of Gebel-Umm-Bahari, on the summit of one of the

flat-topped mountains that was protected by sheer cliffs on every side.

Hidden and impregnable, but less than two days’ march from the east bank of

the Nile and the busy caravan routes that ran along its banks, it was the

perfect nest for the raptor.

"There is one path to the top, cut like a stairway from the rock. It is

wide enough for only one man to climb at a time,’ Hui told us.

"There is no other way to the summit?’ Tanus asked, and Hui grinned and

laid his finger along his nose in a conspir-atory gesture.

’There is another route. I have used it often, to return to the mountain

after I had deserted my post to visit a lady Mend. Basti would have had me

killed if he had known I was missing. It is a dangerous climb, but a dozen

godd men could make it and hold the top of the cliff while the main force

came up the pathway to them. I will lead you up it, Akh-Horus.’

It was the first time that I heard the name. Akh-Horus, the brother of the

great god Horus. It was a good name for Tanus. Naturally, Hui and our other

captives could not know Tanus’ real identity. They knew only in their simple

way that Tanus must be some kind of god. He looked like a god and he fought

like a god, and he invoked the nametrf Horus in the midst of battle. So, they

had reasoned, he must be the brother of Horus.

Akh-Horus! It was a name that all Egypt would come to know well in the

months ahead. It would be shouted from hilltop to hilltop. It would be

carried along the caravan routes. It would travel the length of the river on

the lips of the boatmen, from city to city, and from kingdom to kingdom. The

legend would grow up around the name, as the accounts of his deeds were

repeated and exaggerated at each telling.

Akh-Horus was the mighty warrior who appeared from nowhere, sent by his

brother Horus to continue the eternal struggle against evil, against

Akh-Seth, the lord of the Shrikes.

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Akh-Horus! Each time the people of Egypt repeated the name, it would fill

their hearts with fresh hope.

All that was in the future as we sat in the garden of Tia-mat the merchant.

Only I knew how hot Tanus was for Basti, and how eager to lead his men into

the Gebel-Umm-Bahari to hunt him down. It was not only that Basti was the

most rapacious and pitiless of all the barons. There was much more to it than

that. Tanus had a very personal score to settle with that bandit.

From me, Tanus had learned that Basti had been the particular instrument

that Akh-Seth had used to destroy the fortune of Pianki, Lord Harrab, Tanus’

father.

’I can lead you up the cliffs of Gebel-Umm-Bahari,’ Hui promised. ’I can

deliver Basti into your hands.’

Tanus, was silent awhile in the darkness as he savoured that promise. We

sat and listened to the nightingale singing at the bottom of Tiamat’s garden.

It was a sound totally alien from the evil and desperate affairs that we were

discussing. After a while Tanus sighed and dismissed Hui.

’You have done well, lad,’ he told him. ’Fulfil your promise, and you will

find me grateful.’

Hui prostrated himself, as though before a god, and Tanus nudged him

irritably with his foot. ’Enough of that nonsense. Away with you now.’

This recent, unlooked-for elevation to the godhead embarrassed Tanus. No

one could ever accuse him of being either modest or humble, but he was at

least a pragmatist, with noi false illusions of his own station; he never

aspired to become either a pharaoh or a divine, and he was always short with

any servility or obsequious behaviour from those around him.

As soon as the lad was gone, Tanus turned back to me. ’So often I lie awake

in the night and consider all that you have told me about my father. I ache

in every fibre of my body and soul for revenge against the one who drove him

into penury and disgrace and hounded him to his death. I can barely restrain

myself. I am filled by the desire to abandon this devious way that you have

devised of trapping Akh-Seth. Instead, I long to seek him out directly, and

tear out his foul heart with my bare hands.’

’If you do that, you will lose everything,’ I said. ’You know that well. Do

it my way and you will restore not only your own reputation, but that of your

noble father into the bargain. My way, you will retrieve the estate and the

fortune that was stolen from you. My way will not only give you your full

measure of revenge, but will also lead you back to Lostris and the fulfilment

of the vision that I divined for the pah- of you in the Mazes of Ammon-Ra.

Trust me, Tanus. For your sake and the sake of my mistress, trust me.’

’If I don’t trust you, then who can I trust?’ he asked, and touched my arm.

’I know you are right, but I have always lacked patience. For me the swift

and direct road has always been easiest.’

’For the time being, put Akh-Seth out of your mind. Think only of the next

step along the devious way that we must travel together. Think of Basti the

Cruel. It was Basti who destroyed your father’s trade caravans as they

returned from the East. For five seasons, not one of the caravans of Lord

Harrab ever returned to Karnak. They were all attacked and looted along the

road. It was Basti who destroyed your father’s copper-mines at Sestra and

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murdered the engineers, and their slave workers. Since then those rich veins

of ore have lain untapped. It was Basti who systematically pillaged your

father’s estates along the Nile, who slaughtered his slaves in the fields and

burned the crops, until in the end, only weeds grew in Lord Harrab’s fields,

and he was forced to sell them at a fraction of their real worth.’

’All that may be true, but it was Akh-Seth who gave Basti his orders.’

’No one will believe that. Pharaoh will not believe that, unless he hears

Basti confess it,’ I told him impatiently. ’Why are you always so stubborn?

We have gone over this a hundred times. The barons first, and then at last

the head of the snake, Akh-Seth.’

’Yours is the voice of wisdom, I know it. But it is hard to bear the

waiting. I long for my revenge. I long to cleanse the stain of sedition and

treason from my honour, and I long?oh, how I long for Lostris!’

He leaned across and clasped my shoulder with a grip that made me wince.

’You have done enough here, old friend. I could never have accomplished so

much without you. If you had not come to find me, I might still be sodden

with drink and lying in the embrace of some stinking whore. I owe you more

than I can ever repay, but I must send you away now. You are needed

elsewhere. Basti is my meat, and I don’t need you to share the feast with me.

You will not be coming with me to Gebel-Umm-Bahari. I am sending you back

where you belong?where I also belong, but where I cannot be?at the side of

the Lady Lostris. I envy you, old friend, I would give up my hope of

immortality to be going to her in your place.’

I protested most prettily, of course. I swore that all I wanted was another

chance at those villains, and that I was his companion and that I would be

seriously aggrieved if he would not give me a place at his side in the next

campaign. All the time I was secure in the knowledge that when Tanus set his

mind on a course of action he was adamant and could not easily be dissuaded,

except very occasionally by his friend and adviser, Taita the slave.

The truth was that I had enjoyed my fill of wild heroics and people trying

to kill me. I was not by nature a soldier, not some insensitive clod of a

trooper. I hated the rigours of campaigning in the desert. I could not bear

another week of heat and sweat and flies without even a glimpse of the sweet

green waters of Mother Nile. I longed for the feel of clean linen against my

freshly bathed and anointed skin. I missed my mistress more than I could

express in mere words. Our quiet, civilized life in the painted rooms on the

Island Of Elephantine, our music and long, leisurely conversations together,

my pets and my scrolls, all these exerted an irresistible draw upon me.

Tanus was right, he no longer needed me, and my place was with my mistress.

However, to acquiesce too readily to his orders might lower his opinion of

me, and I did not want that either.

At last I allowed him to convince me, and, concealing my eagerness, I began

my preparations for my return to Elephantine.

TANUS HAD ORDERED KRATAS BACK TO Karnak, to assemble and bring up

reinforcements for the expedition into the desert of Gebel-Umm-Bahari. I was

to travel under his protection as far as Karnak, but taking leave of Tanus

was not a simple matter. Twice when I had already left the house of Tiamat to

join Kratas where he waited for me on the outskirts of the town, Tanus called

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me back to give me another message to take to my mistress.

’Tell her that I think of her every hour of every day!’ ’You have already

given me that message,’ I protested. ’Tell her that my dreams are filled with

images of her lovely face.’

’And that one also. I can recite them by heart. Give me something new,’ I

pleaded.

’Tell her that I believe the vision of the Mazes, that in a few short years

we will be together?’

’Kratas is waiting for me. If you keep me here, how can I deliver your

message?’

’Tell her that everything I do is for her. Every breath I draw is for her?’

he broke off, and embraced me. ’The truth is, Taita, I doubt I can live

another day without her.’

’Five years will pass like that single day. When next you meet her, your

honour will be restored and you will once more stand high in the land. She

can only love you the more for that.’

He released me. ’Take good care of her until I am able to assume that

joyous duty from you. Now, away vyjth you. Speed to her side.’

"That has been my intention this hour past,’ I told him wryly, and made

good my escape.

With Kratas at the head of our small detachment, we made the journey to

Karnak in under a week. Fearful of discovery by Rasfer or Lord Intef, I spent

as little time in my beloved city as it took me to find passage on one of the

barges heading southwards. I left Kratas busily recruiting from amongst the

elite regiments of Pharaoh’s guards the thousand good men that Tanus had

demanded, and I went aboard the barge.

We had the north wind in our sails all the way, and we tied up at the wharf

of East Elephantine twelve days after leaving Thebes. I was still dressed in

the wig and garb of the priesthood, and nobody recognized me as I came

ashore.

For the price of a small copper ring I hired a felucca to take me across

the river to the royal island, and it put me down at the steps that led up to

the water-gate to our garden in the harem. My heart pounded against my ribs

as I bounded up the stairs. I had been away from my mistress far too long. It

was at times such as these that I realized the full strength of my feelings

for her. I was certain that Tanus’ love was but a light river breeze in

comparison to the khamsin of my own emotions.

One of Lostris’ Cushite maidens met me at the gate, and tried to prevent me

from entering. ’My mistress is unwell, priest. There is another doctor with

her at this moment. She will not see you.’

’She will see me,’ I told her, and stripped off my wig.

’Taita!? she squealed, and fell to her knees, frantically making the sign

to ward off evil. ’You are dead. This is not you, but some evil apparition

from beyond the grave.’

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I brushed her aside and hurried to my mistress’s private quarters, to be

met at the doors by one of those priests of Osiris who consider themselves

physicians.

’What are you doing here?’ I demanded of him, appalled that one of these

quacks had been anywhere near my mistress. Before he could answer, I bellowed

at him, ’Out! Get out of here! Take your spells and charms and filthy

potions, and don’t come back.’

He looked as though he were prepared to argue, but I placed my hand between

his shoulder-blades and gave him a running start towards the gate. Then I

rushed to my mistress’s bedside.

The odour of sickness filled the chamber, sour and strong, and a wild grief

seized me as I looked down at the Lady Lostris. She seemed to have shrunk in

size, and her skin was pale as the ashes of an old camp-fire. She was asleep

or in a coma, I could not be certain which, but there were dark, bruised

shadows beneath her closed eyelids. Her lips had that dry and crusty look

that filled me with dread.

I drew back the linen sheet that covered her and beneath it she was naked.

I stared in horror at her body. The flesh had melted off her. Her limbs were

thin as sticks and her ribs and the bones of her pelvis stuck out through the

unhealthy skin, like those of drought-stricken kine. Tenderly, I placed my

hand in her armpit to feel for the heat of fever, but her skin was cool. What

kind of disease was this, I fretted. I had not encountered any like it

before.

Without leaving her side, I yelled for her slave girls, but none of them

had the courage to face the ghost of Taita. In the end I had to storm into

their quarters and drag one of them whimpering from under her bed.

’What have you done to your mistress to bring her to this pass?’ I kicked

her fat backside to focus her attention on my question, and she whined and

covered her face, so as not to have to look upon me.

’She will not eat. Barely a mouthful in all these weeks. Not since the

mummy of Tanus, Lord Harrab was laid in his tomb in the Valley of the Nobles.

She has even lost the child of Pharaoh that she was carrying in her womb.

Spare me, kind ghost, I have done you no harm.’

I stared down at her in bewilderment for a moment, until I realized what

had happened. My message of comfort to the Lady Lostris had never been

delivered. Intuitively I guessed that the messenger whom Kratas had

dispatched from Luxor to carry my letter to my mistress, had never reached

Elephantine. He had probably become one more victim of the Shrikes, just

another corpse floating down the river with an empty purse and a gaping wound

in his throat. I hoped that my letter had fallen into the hands of some

illiterate thief, and not been taken to Akh-Seth. There was no time to worry

about that now.

I rushed back to my mistress’s side and fell on my knees beside her bed.

’My darling,’ I whispered, and stroked her haggard brow. ’It is me, Taita,

your slave.’

She stirred slightly and mumbled something I could not catch. I realized

that there was little time to spare; she was far-gone. It was over a month

since Tanus’ purported death. If the slave girl had spoken the truth, and she

had indeed taken no food in all that time, then it was a wonder that she was

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still alive.

I leaped up again and ran to my own rooms. Despite my ’demise’ nothing had

been changed, and my medicine chest was in the alcove where I had left it.

With it in my arms, I hurried back to my mistress. My hands were shaking as I

lit a twig of the scorpion bush from the flame of the oil lamp beside her

bed, and held the glowing end under her nose. Almost immediately she gasped

and sneezed and struggled to avoid the pungent smoke.

’Mistress, it is I, Taita. Speak to me.’

She opened her eyes and I saw the dawn of pleasure in them swiftly

extinguished by the fresh realization of her bereavement. She held out her

thin, pale arms to me, and I took her to my breast.

’Taita,’ she sobbed softly. ’He is dead. Tanus is dead. I cannot live

without him.’

’No! No! He is alive. I come directly from him with messages of love and

devotion from him to you.’

’You are cruel to mock me so. I know he is dead. His tomb is scaled?’

’It was .a, subterfuge to mislead his enemies,’ I cried.

’Tanus lives. I swear it to you. He loves you. He waits for you.’

’Oh, that I could believe you! But I know you so well. You will lie to

protect me. How can you tormept me with false promises? I hate you so?*’ She

tried to break from my arms.

’I swear it. Tanus is alive.’

’Swear on the honour of the mother you never knew. Swear on the wrath of

all the gods.’ She hardly had the strength to challenge me.

’On all these I swear, and on my love and duty to you, my mistress.’

’Can it be?’ I saw the strength of hope flow back into her, and a faint

flush of color bloom in her cheeks. ’Oh, Taita, can it truly be?’

’Would I look so joyful, if it were not? You know I love him almost as much

as you do. Could I smile thus, if Tanus were truly dead?’

While she stared into my eyes, I launched into a recitation of all that had

occurred since I had left her side so many weeks ago. I excluded only the

details of the condition in which I had discovered Tanus hi the old shack in

the swamps, and the female company I had found him keeping.

She said not a word, but her eyes never left my face as she devoured my

words. Her pale face, almost translucent with starvation, glowed like a pearl

as she listened to my account of our adventures at Gallala, of how Tanus led

the fighting like a god, and of how he sang with the wild joy of battle.

’And so you see, it is true. Tanus is alive,’ I ended, and she spoke for

the first time since I had begun.

’If he is alive, then bring him to me. I will not eat a mouthful until I

set my eyes upon his face once more.’

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’I will bring him to your side as swiftly as I can send a messenger to him,

if that is what you wish,’ I promised, and reached for the polished bronze

mirror from my chest.

I held the mirror before her eyes, and asked softly, ’Do you want him to

see you as you are now?’

She stared at her own gaunt, hollow-eyed image.

’I will send for him today, if you order it. He could be here within a

week, if you really want that.’

I watched her straggle with her emotions. ’I am ugly,’ she whispered. ’I

look like an old woman.’

’Your beauty is still there, just below the surface.’

’I cannot let Tanus see me like this.’ Feminine vanity had triumphed over

all her other emotions.

’Then you must eat.’

’You promise,’ she wavered, ’you promise that he is still alive, and that

you will bring him to me as soon as I am well again? Place your hand on my

heart and swear it to me.’

I could feel her every rib and her heart fluttering like a trapped bird

beneath my fingers. ’I promise,’ I said.

’I will trust you this time, but if you are lying I will never trust you

again. Bring me food!’

As I hurried to the kitchen, I could not help but feel smug. Taita, the

crafty, had got his own way yet again.

I mixed a bowl of warm milk and honey. We would have to begin slowly, for

she had driven herself to the very edge of starvation. She vomited up the

contents of the first bowl, but was able to keep down the second. If I had

delayed my return by another day, itmight have been too late.

SPREAD BY THE CHATTERING SLAVE GIRLS, the news of my miraculous return from

the grave swept through the island like the smallpox.

Before nightfall Pharaoh sent Aton to fetch me to an audience. Even my old

friend Aton was ??? strained and reserved in my presence. He leaped away

nimbly when I tried to touch him, as though my hand might pass through his

flesh like a puff of smoke. As he led me through the palace, slaves and

nobles alike scurried out of my path, and inquisitive faces watched me from

every window and dark comer as we passed.

Pharaoh greeted me with a curious mixture of respect and nervousness, most

alien to a king and a god.

’Where have you been, Taita?’ he asked, as though he did not really want to

hear the answer.

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I prostrated myself at his feet. ’Divine Pharaoh, as you yourself are part

of the godhead, I understand that you ask that question to test me. You know

that my lips are sealed. It would be sacrilege for me to speak of these

mysteries, even to you. Please convey to the other deities who are your

peers, and particularly to Anubis, the god of the cemeteries, that I have

been true to the charge laid upon me. That I have kept the oath of silence

imposed upon me. Tell them that I have passed the test that you set me.’

His expression glazed as he considered this, and he fidgeted nervously. I

could see him forming question after question, and then discarding each of

them in turn. I had left him no opening to exploit.

In the end he blurted out lamely, ’Indeed, Taita, you have passed the test

I set you. Welcome back. You have been missed.’ But I could see that all his

suspicions were confirmed, and he treated me with that respect due to one who

had solved the ultimate mystery.

I crawled closer to him and dropped my voice to a whisper. ’Great Egypt,

you know the reason I have been sent back?’

He looked mystified, but nodded uncertainly. I came to my feet and glanced

around suspiciously, as though I expected to be overlooked by supernatural

forces. I made the sign against evil before I went on, ’The Lady Lostris. Her

illness was caused by the direct influence of?’ I could not say the name, but

made the horn sign with two fingers, the sign of the dark god, Seth.

His expression changed from confusion to dread, and he shivered

involuntarily and drew closer to me, as if for protection, as I went on,

’Before I was taken away, my mistress was already carrying in her womb the

treasure of the House of Mamose when the Dark One intervened. Due to her

illness, the son she was bearing you has been aborted from her womb.’

Pharaoh looked distraught. ’So that is the reason that she miscarried,’ he

began, and then broke off.

I picked up my cue smoothly. ’Never fear, Great Egypt, I have been sent

back by forces greater than those of the Dark One to save her, so that the

destiny that I foresaw in the Mazes of Ammon-Ra may run its allotted course.

There will be another son to replace the one that was lost. Your dynasty will

still be secured.’

’You must not leave the side of the Lady Lostris until she is well again.’

His voice shook with emotion. ’If you save her and she bears me another son,

you may ask from me whatever you wish, but if she dies?’ he stopped as he

considered what threat might impress one who had already returned from

beyond, and in the end let it trail away.

’With your permission, Your Majesty, I shall go to her this instant.’

’This instant!’he agreed.’Go! Go!’

MY MISTRESS’S RECOVERY WAS SO SWIFT that I began to suspect that I had

unwittingly invoked some force beyond my own comprehension, and I felt a

superstitious awe at my own powers.

Her flesh filled out and firmed almost as I ??? watched. Those pitiful

empty sacs of skin swelled into plump, round breasts once again, sweet enough

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to make the stone image of the god Hapi which stood at the doorway to her

chamber burn with envy. Fresh young blood suffused the chalk of her skin

until it glowed once more, and her laughter tinkled like the fountains of our

water-garden.

Very soon it was impossible to keep her to her bed. Within three weeks of

my return to Elephantine, she was playing games of toss with her handmaidens,

dancing about the garden and leaping high to reach the inflated bladder above

the heads of the others, until, fearful that she might overtax her returning

strength, I confiscated the ball and ordered her back to her chamber. She"

would obey me only after we had struck another bargain, and I had agreed to

sing with her, or teach her the most arcane formulas of the bao board which

would allow her to enjoy her first victory over Aton, who was an addict of

the game.

Aton came almost every evening to enquire about my mistress’s health on

behalf of the king, and afterwards to play the board-game with us. Aton

seemed to have decided at last that I was not a dangerous ghost, and although

he treated me with a new respect, our old friendship survived my demise.

Each morning my Lady Lostris made me repeat my promise to her. Then she

would reach for her mirror and study her reflection without the faintest

trace of vanity, assessing every facet of her beauty to determine if it was

ready yet to be looked upon by Lord Tanus.

’My hair looks like straw, and there is another pimple coming up on my

chin,’ she lamented. ’Make me beautiful again, Taita. For Tanus’ sake make me

beautiful.’

’You have done the damage to yourself, and then you call for Taita to make

it better,’ I grumbled, and she laughed and threw her arms around my neck.

’That’s what you are here for, you old scallywag. To look after me.’

Each Evening when I mixed a tonic for her and brought the steaming bowl to

her as she prepared for sleep, she would make me repeat my promise to her.

’Swear you will bring Tanus to me, just as soon as I am ready to receive

him.’

I tried to ignore the difficulties and the dangers that this promise would

bring upon us all. ’I swear it to you,’ I repeated dutifully, and she lay

back against the ivory headrest and went to sleep with a smile upon her face.

I would worry about fulfilling my promise when the time came.

FROM ATON, PHARAOH HAD A FULL REPORT of Lostris’ recovery and came in

person to visit her. He brought her a new necklace of gold and lapis lazuli

in the form of an eagle and sat until evening, playing word-games and setting

riddles with her. When he was ready to leave, he called me to walk with him

as far as his chambers.

’The change in her is extraordinary. It is a miracle, Taita.

When can I take her to bed again? Already she seems well enough to bear my

son and heir.’

’Not yet, Great Egypt,’ I assured him vehemently. ’The slightest exertion

on the part of my mistress might trigger a relapse.’ He no longer questioned

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my word, for now I spoke with all the authority of the once dead, although

his previous awe of me had worn a little thin with familiarity.

The slave girls also were becoming accustomed to my resurrection, and were

able to look at my face without having to make the sign. Indeed, my return

from the underworld was no longer the most popular fare of the palace

gossips. They had something else to keep them busy. This was die advent of

Akh-Horus into the lives and consciousness of every person living in the land

along the great river.

The first time I heard the name Akh-Horus whispered in the palace

corridors, I did not immediately place it. The garden of Tiamat beside the

Red Sea seemed so remote from the little world of Elephantine, and I had

forgottetfcthe name that Hui had bestowed on Tanus. When, howeva, I heard the

accounts of the extraordinary deeds ascribed to this demi-god, I realized who

they were speaking about.

In a fever of excitement, I ran all the way back to the harem and found my

mistress in the garden, besieged by a dozen visitors, noble ladies and royal

wives, for she had so far recovered from her illness as to resume once more

her role as court favourite.

I was so wrought up that I forgot my place as a mere slave, and to be rid

of .them I was quite rude to the royal ladies. They flounced out of the

garden squawking like a gaggle of offended geese, and my mistress rounded on

me. "That was unlike you. What on earth has come over you, Taita?’

’Tanus!’ I said the name like an incantation, and she forgot all her

indignation and seized both my hands.

’You have news of Tanus! Tell me! Quickly, before I die of impatience.’

’News? Yes, I have news of him. What news! What extraordinary news. What

unbelievable news!’

She dropped my hands and picked up her formidable silver fan. ’Stop your

nonsense this instant,’ she threatened me with it. ’I’ll not put up with your

teasing. Tell me, or I swear you’ll have more lumps on your head than a

Nubian has fleas.’

’Come! Let’s go where nobody can hear us.’ I led her down to the jetty and

handed her into our little skiff. Out in the middle of the river we were safe

from the flapping ears that lurked behind each corner of the palace walls.

"There is a fresh, clean wind blowing through the land,’

I told her. ’They call this wind Akh-Horus.’

’The brother of Horus,’ she breathed it with reverence. ’Is this what they

call Tanus now?’

’None of them know it is Tanus. They think he is a god.’ ’He is a god,’ she

insisted. ’To me, he is a god.’ ’That is how they see it also. If he were not

a god, how then would he know where the Shrikes are skulking, how else would

he march unerringly to their strongholds, how would he know instinctively

where they are waiting to wayr lay the incoming caravans, and to surprise

them in their own ambuscades?’

’Has he accomplished all these things?’ she demanded in wonder.

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’These deeds and a hundred others, if you can believe the wild rumours that

are flying about the palace. They say that every thief and bandit in the land

runs in terror of his life, that the clans of the Shrikes are being shattered

one by one. They say that Akh-Horus sprouted wings, like those of an eagle,

and flew up the inaccessible cliffs of Gebel-Umm-Bahari to appear

miraculously in the midst of the clan of Basti the Cruel. With his own hands,

he hurled five hundred of the bandits from the top of the cliffs?’

’Tell me more!’ She clapped her hands, almost capsizing the skiff in her

enthusiasm.

"They say that at every crossroads and beside every caravan route he has

built tall monuments to his passing.’ ’Monuments? What monuments are these?’

’Piles of human skulls, high pyramids of skulls. The heads of the bandits he

has slain, as a warning to others.’

My mistress shuddered with delicious horror, but her face still shone. ’Has

he killed so many?’ she demanded.

’Some say he has slain five thousand, and some say fifty thousand. There

are even some who say one hundred thousand, but I think those must be

exaggerating a little.’ ’Tell me more! More!’

"They say he has already captured at least six of the robber barons?’

’And chopped off their heads!’ she anticipated me with ghoulish relish.

’No, they say that he has not killed them, but transformed them into

baboons. They say he keeps them in a cage for his amusement.’

’Is all of this possible?’ she giggled.

’For a god, anything is possible.’

’He is my god. Oh, Taita, when will you let me see him?’

’Soon,’ I promised. ’Your beauty burns up brighter every day. Soon it will

be fully restored.’

’In the meantime you must gather every story and every rumour of Akh-Horus

and bring them to me.’

She sent me to the shipping wharf every day to question the crews of the

barges coming down from theg north for news of Akh-Horus.

’They are saying now that nobody has ever seen the face of Akh-Horus, for

he wears a helmet with a visor that covers all but his eyes. They say also

that in the heat of battle the head of Akh-Horus bursts into flame, a flame

that blinds his enemies,’ I reported to her after one such visit.

’In the sunlight I have seen Tanus’ hair seem to burn with a heavenly

light,’ my mistress confirmed.

On another morning I could tell her, "They say that he can multiply his

earthly body like the images in a mirror, that he can be in many" different

places at one time, for on the same day he can be seen in Qena and Kom-Ombo,

a hundred miles apart.’

’Is that possible?’ she asked, with awe.

186

’Some say this is not true. They say that he can cover these great

distances only because he never sleeps. They say that in the night hours he

gallops through the darkness on the back of a lion, and in the day he soars

through the sky on the back of an enormous white eagle to fall upon his

enemies when they least expect it.’

"That could be true.’ She nodded seriously. ’I do not believe about the

mirror images, but the lion and the eagle might be true. Tanus could do

something like that. I believe it.’

’I think it more likely that everybody in Egypt is eager to set eyes upon

Akh-Horus, and that the desire is father to the act. They see him behind

every bush. As to the speed of his travels, well, I have marched with the

guards and I can vouch for?’ She would not allow me to finish, but

interrupted primly.

"There is no romance in your soul, Taita. You would doubt that the clouds

are the fleece of Osiris’ flocks, and that the sun is the face of Ra, simply

because you cannot reach up and touch them. I, for my part, believe Tanus is

capable of all these things.’ Which assertion put an end to the argument, and

I hung my head in submission.

IN THE AFTERNOONS THE TWO OF US RESUMED our old practice of strolling

through the streets and the market-places. As before her illness, "rny

mistress was welcomed by an adoring populace, and she stopped to speak with

all of them, no matter their station or their calling. From priests to

prostitutes, none was immune to her loveliness and her unfeigned charm.

Always she was able to turn the conversation to Akh-Horus, and the people

were as eager as she was to discuss the new god. By this time he had been

promoted in the popular imagination from demi-god to a full member of the

pantheon. The citizens of Elephantine had already begun a subscription for

the building of a temple to Akh-Horus, to which my mistress had made a most

generous donation.

A site for the temple had been chosen on the bank of the river opposite the

temple of Horus, his brother, and Pharaoh had made the formal declaration of

his intention to dedicate the building in person. Pharaoh had every reason to

be grateful. There was a new spirit of confidence abroad. As the caravan

routes were made secure, so the volume of trade between the Upper Kingdom and

the rest of the world blossomed.

Where before one caravan had arrived from the East, now four made a safe

crossing of the desert, and as many set out on the return journey. To supply

the caravan masters, pack-donkeys were needed in their thousands, and the

farmers and breeders drove them into the cities, grinning at the expectation

of the high prices they would receive.

Because it was now safe to work the fields furthest from the protection of

the city walls, crops were planted where for decades only weeds had grown,

and the farmers, who had been reduced to beggars, began to prosper again. The

oxen drew the sledges piled high with produce along the roads that were now

protected by the legions of Akh-Horus, and the markets were filled with fresh

produce.

Some of the profits of the merchants and the land-owners from these

ventures were spent in the building of new villas in the countryside, where

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it was once more deemed safe to take their families to live. Artisans and

craftsmen, who had walked the streets of Thebes and Elephantine seeking

employment for their skills, were suddenly in demand, and used their wages to

buy not only the necessities of life but luxuries for themselves and their

families. The markets were thronged.

The volume of traffic up and down the Nile swelled dramatically, so that

more craft were needed, and the new keels were laid down in every shipyard.

The captains and crews of the river boats and the shipyard workers spent

their new wealth in the taverns and pleasure-houses, so that the prostitutes

and the courtesans clamoured for fine clothes and baubles, and the tailors

and the jewellers thrived and built new homes, while their wives prowled the

markets with gold and silver in their purses, looking for everything from new

slaves to cooking-pots.

Egypt was coming to life again, after being strangled for all these years

by the depredations of Akh-Seth and the Shrikes.

As a result of all this, the state revenues burgeoned, and Pharaoh’s

tax-collectors circled above it all with as much relish as the vultures above

the corpses of the bandits that Akh-Horus and his legions were strewing

across the countryside. Of course, Pharaoh was grateful.

So were my mistress and I. At my suggestion, the two of us invested in a

share of a trading expedition that was setting out eastwards into Syria. When

the expedition returned six months later, we found that we had made a profit

of fifty times our original investment. My mistress bought herself a string

of pearls and five new female slaves to make my life miserable. Prudent as

always, I used my share to acquire five plots of prime land on the east bank

of the river, and one of (the law scribes drew up the deeds and had them

registered in the temple books.

THEN CAME THE DAY THAT I HAD BEEN dreading. One morning my mistress studied

her reflection in the mirror with even more attention than usual, and

declared that she was ready at last. In all fairness, I had grudgingly to

agree that she had never looked more lovely. It was as though all she had

suffered recently had tempered her to a new resilience. The last traces of

girlishness, uncertainty, and puppy fat had evaporated from her features, and

she had become a woman, mature and composed.

’I trusted you, Taita. Now prove to me that I was not silly to do so. Bring

Tanus to me.’

When Tanus and I had parted at Safaga, we had been unable to agree on any

sure method of exchanging messages.

’I will be on the march every day, and who can tell where this campaign

will lead me. Do not let the Lady Lostris worry if she does not hear from me.

Tell her I will send a message when my task is completed. But tell her that I

will be there when the fruits of our love are ripe upon the tree, and are

ready for plucking.’

Thus it was that we had heard nothing of him other than the wild rumours of

the wharves and bazaars.

Once again it seemed that the gods had intervened to save me, this time

from the wrath of my Lady Lostris. There was a fresh rumour in the

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market-place that day. A caravan coming down the northern road had

encountered a recently erected pyramid of human heads at the roadside not two

miles beyond the city walls. The heads were so fresh that they were stinking

only a little and had not yet been cleaned of flesh by the crows and

vultures.

’This means only one thing,’ the gossips told each other. "This means that

Akh-Horus is in the nome of Assoun, probably within sight of the walls of

Elephantine. He has fallen upon the remnants of the clan of Akheku, who have

been skulking in the desert since their baron had his head hacked off at

Gallala. Akh-Horus has slaughtered the last of the bandits, and piled their

heads at the roadside. Thanks be to the new god, the south has been cleared

of the dreaded Shrikes!’

This was news indeed, the best I had heard in weeks, and I was in a fever

to take it to my mistress. I pushed my way through the throng of sailors and

merchants and fishermen on the wharf to find a boatman to take me back to the

island.

Somebody tugged at my arm, and I shrugged the hand away irritably. Despite

the new prosperity sweeping the land, or perhaps because of it, the beggars

were more demanding than ever. This one was not so easily put off, and I

turned back to him, angrily raising my staff to drive him off.

’Do not strike an old friend! I have a message for you from one of the

gods,’ the beggar whined, and I stayed the blow and gaped at him.

’Hui!’ My heart soared as I recognized the sly grin of the erstwhile

robber. ’What are you doing here?’ I did not wait for a reply to my fatuous

question, but went on swiftly, ’Follow me at a distance.’

I led him to one of the pleasure-houses in a narrow alley beyond the

harbour that provided rooms to couples, of the same or of mixed gender. They

rented the rooms for a short period measured by a water-clock set at the

door, and charged a large copper ring for this service. I paid this

exorbitant fee and the moment we were alone, I seized Hui by his ragged

cloak.

’What news of your master?’ I demanded, and he chuckled with infuriating

insolence.

’My throat is so dry I can hardly speak.’ Already he had adopted all the

swagger and insolent panache of a trooper of the Blues. How quickly a monkey

learns new tricks! I shouted for the porter to bring up a pot of beer. Hui

drank like a thirsty donkey, then lowered the pot and belched happily.

’The god Akh-Horus sends greetings, to you and to another whose name cannot

be mentioned. He bids me tell you that the task is completed and that all the

birds are in the cage. He reminds you that it lacks only a few months to the

next festival of Osiris and it is time to write a new script for the passion

play for the amusement of the king.’

’Where is he? How long will it take for you to return to him?’ I demanded

eagerly.

’I can’ be with him before Ammon-Ra, the sun god, plunges beyond the

western hills,’ Hui declared, and I glanced through the window at the sun

which was halfway down the sky. Tanus was lying up very close to the city,

and I rejoiced anew. How I longed to feel his rough embrace, and hear that

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great booming laugh of his!

Grinning to myself in anticipation, I paced up and down the filthy floor of

the room while I decided on the message that I would give Hui to take back to

him.

IT WAS ALMOST DARK WHEN I STEPPED ashore on our little jetty and hurried up

the steps. One of the slave girls was weeping at the gate, and rubbing her

swollen ear.

’She struck me,’ the girl whimpered, and I saw that her dignity had

suffered more than her ear. not refer to the Lady Lostris as "she",’ I

scolded her. ’Anyway, what have you to complain of? Slaves are there to be

struck.’

None the less, it was unusual for my mistress to lift a hand to anyone in

her household. She must indeed be in a fine mood, I thought, and slowed my

pace. Proceeding warily now, I arrived just as another of the girls fled

weeping from the chamber. My mistress appeared in the doorway behind her,

flushed with anger. ’You have turned my hair into a hay-stack?’

She saw me then and broke off her tirade. She rounded on me with such gusto

that I knew that I was the true object of her ire.

’Where have you been?’ she demanded. ’I sent you to the harbour before

noon. How dare you leave me waiting so long?’ She advanced upon me with such

an expression that I backed off nervously.

’He is here,’ I told.her hastily, and then dropped my voice so that none of

the slave girls could hear me. ’Tanus is here,’ I whispered, ’the day after

tomorrow I will make good my promise to you.’

Her mood swung in a full circle and she leaped up to throw her arms around

my neck, then she went off to find her offended girls and to comfort them.

AS PART OF HIS ANNUAL TRIBUTE THE vassal king of the amorites had sent

Pharaoh a pair of trained hunting cheetahs from his kingdom across the Red

Sea. The king was eager to run these magnificent creatures against the herds

of gazelle that abounded in the desert dunes of the west bank. The entire

court, including my mistress, had been commanded to attend the course.

We sailed across to the west bank in a fleet of small river craft, white

sails and bright-coloured pennants fluttering. There was laughter and the

music of lute and sistrum to accompany us. The annual flooding of the great

river would begin within days, and this expectation, together with the

prosperous new climate of the land, enhanced the carnival mood of the court.

My mistress was in a gayer mood than any of them, and she called merry

greetings to her friends in the other boats as our felucca cut through the

green summer waters at such a rate as to deck our bows with a lacy white

garland of foam and leave a shining wake behind us.

It seemed that I was the only one who was not happy and carefree. The wind

had a harsh, abrasive edge to it, and was blowing from the wrong quarter. I

kept glancing anxiously at the western sky. It was cloudless and bright, but

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there was a brassy sheen to the heavens that was unnatural. It was almost as

though another sun was dawning from the opposite direction to the one we knew

so well.

I put aside my misgivings and tried to enter into the spirit of the outing.

I failed in this, for I had more than the weather to worry about. If one part

of my plan went awry, my life would be in danger, and perhaps other lives

more valuable than mine would be at risk.

I must have shown all this on my face, for my mistress nudged me with her

pretty painted toe and told me, ’So glum, Taita? Everyone who looks at you

will know that you are up to something. Smile! I command you to smile.’

When we landed on the west bank, there was an army of slaves waiting for us

there. Grooms holding splendid white riding donkeys from the royal stables,

all caparisoned with silk. Pack-donkeys laden with tents and rugs and baskets

of food and’wine, and all the other provisions for a royal picnic. There was

a regiment of slaves in attendance, some to hold sun-shades above the ladies,

others to wait upon the noble guests. There were clowns and acrobats and

musicians to entertain them, and a hundred huntsmen to provide the sport.

The cheetah cage was loaded on a sledge drawn by a team of white oxen, and

the court gathered around the vehicle to admire these rare beasts. They did

not occur naturally in our land, for they were creatures of the open grassy

savannah, and there was none of this type of terrain along the river. They

were the first that I had ever seen, and my curiosity was so aroused that for

a while I forgot my other worries and went up as close to the cage as I could

push through the crowd without jostling or treading on the toes of some

irascible nobleman.

They were the most beautiful cats that I could imagine, taller and leaner

than our leopards, with long, clean limbs and concave bellies. Their sinuous

tails seemed to give expression to their mood. Their golden hides were

starred with rosettes of deepest black, while from the inner corner of each

of their eyes, a line of black was painted down the cheek like a runnel of

tears. This, with their regal bearing, gave them a tragic and romantic air

that I found enchanting. I longed to own one of these creatures, and I

decided on the moment to put the thought into the mind of my mistress.

Pharaoh had never refused one of her whims.

Too soon for my liking, the barque carrying the king across the river

arrived on the west bank, and with the rest of the court we hurried to the

landing to greet him.

Pharaoh was dressed in light hunting garb and for once seemed relaxed and

happy. He stopped beside my mistress and while she made a ritual obeisance,

he enquired graciously about her health. I was filled with dread that he

might decide to keep her by his side throughout the day, which would have

upset all my arrangements. However, the hunting cheetah caught his attention

and he passed by without giving my mistress any order to follow.

We lost ourselves in the throng and made our way to where a donkey was

being held for my Lady Lostris. While I helped her to mount, I spoke quietly

to the groom. When he told me what I wanted to hear, I slipped a ring of

silver into his hand, and it disappeared, as though by magic.

With one slave leading her and another holding a sunshade over her, my

mistress and I followed the king and the sledge out into the desert. With

frequent stops for refreshment, it took us half the morning to reach the

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Valley of the Gazelles. On the way we passed at a distance the ancient

cemetery of Tras which dated from the time of the very first pharaohs. Some

of the wise men said that the tombs had been carved from the cliff of black

rock three thousand years ago, although how they reached this conclusion I

could not tell. Without making it obvious, I studied the entrances of the

tombs keenly as we passed. However, from so far off I could make out no trace

of recent human presence around them, and I was unreasonably disappointed. I

kept glancing back, as we went on.

The Valley of the Gazelles was one of the royal hunting preserves,

protected by the decrees of a long line of pharaohs. A company of royal

gamekeepers was permanently stationed in the hills above the valley to

enforce the king’s proclamation reserving all the creatures in it to himself.

The penalty for hunting here Without the royal authority was death by

strangulation.

The nobles dismounted on the crest of one of these hills overlooking the

broad brown valley. With despatch the tents were set up to give them shade,

and jars of sherbet and beer were broached to slake the thirst of their

journey.

I made certain that my mistress and I secured a good vantage-point from

which to watch the hunt, but one from which we could also withdraw discreetly

without attracting undue attention to ourselves. In the distance I could make

out the herds of gazelle through the wavering watery mirage on the floor of

the valley. I pointed them out to my mistress.

’What do they find to eat down there?’ my Lady Lostris asked. ’There is not

a trace of green. They must eat stones, for there are enough of those.’

’Many of those are not stones at all, but living plants,’ I told her. When

she laughed in disbelief, I searched the rocky ground and. plucked a handful

of those miraculous plants.

"They are stones,’ she insisted, until she held one in her hand and crushed

it. The thick juice trickled over her fingers, and she marvelled at the

cunning of whatever god had devised this deception. "This is what they live

on? It does not seem possible.’

We could not continue this conversation, because the hunt was beginning.

Two of the royal huntsmen opened the cage and the hunting cheetahs leaped

down to earth. I expected them to attempt to escape, but they were tame as

temple cats and rubbed themselves affectionately against the legs of then-

handlers. The cats uttered a strange twittering sound, more like a bird than

a savage predator.

Along the far side of the brown, scorched valley bottom I could make out

the line of beaters, their forms tiny and distorted by distance and mirage.

They were moving slowly in our direction, and the herds of antelope were

beginning to drift ahead of them.

While the king and his huntsmen, with the cheetahs on leash, moved down the

slope towards the valley bottom, we and the rest of the court remained on the

crest. The courtiers were already placing wagers with one another, and I was

as eager as any of them to watch the outcome of the hunt, but my mistress had

her mind on other matters.

’When can we go?’ she whispered. ’When can we escape into the desert?’

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’Once the hunt begins, all their eyes will be upon it. That will be our

opportunity.’ Even as I spoke, the wind that had blown us across the river

and cooled us on the march suddenly dropped. It was as though a coppersmith

had opened the door of his forge. The air became almost too hot to breathe.

Once again I looked to the western horizon. The sky above it had turned a

sulphurous yellow. Even as I watched, the stain seemed to spread across the

heavens. It made me uneasy. However, I was the only one in the crowd who

seemed to notice this strange phenomenon.

Although the hunting party was now at the bottom of the hill, it was still

close enough for me to observe the great cats. They had seen the herds of

gazelle which were being driven slowly towards them. This had transformed

them from affectionate pets into the savage hunters they truly were. Their

heads were up, intent and alert, ears pricked forward, leaning against the

leash. Their concave bellies were sucked in, and every muscle was taut as a

bowstring drawn to full stretch.

My mistress tugged at my skirt, and whispered imperatively, ’Let us be

gone, Taita,’ and reluctantly I began to edge away towards a clump of rocks

that would cover our retreat and screen us from the rest of the company. The

bribe of silver to the groom had procured for us a donkey that was now

tethered out of sight amongst the rocks. As soon as we reached it, I checked

that it carried what I had ordered, the water-skin and the leather bag of

provisions. I found that they were all in order.

I could not restrain myself, and I pleaded with my mistress, ’Just one

moment more.’ Before she could forbid it, I scrambled to the top of the rocky

outcrop and peeped down into the valley below.

The nearest antelope were crossing a few hundred paces in front of where

Pharaoh held the pair of cheetahs on the leash. I was just in time to watch

him slip them and send them away. They started out at an easy lope, heads up,

as if they were studying the herds of daintily trotting antelope to select

their prey. Suddenly the herds became aware of their rapid approach, and they

burst into full flight. Like a flock of swallows they skimmed away across the

dusty plain.

The cats stretched out their long bodies, reaching far ahead with their

forepaws and then whipping their hindquarters through, doubling their lean

torsos before stretching out again. Swiftly they built up to the top of their

speed, and I had never seen an animal so swift. Compared to them, the herds

of gazelle seemed suddenly to have run into swampy ground and to have had

their flight impeded. With effortless elegance, the two cats overhauled the

herd, and ran past one or two stragglers before they caught up with the

victims of their choice.

The panic-stricken antelopes tried to dodge the deadly rush. They leaped

high and changed direction in mid-air, twisting and doubling back the moment

their dainty hooves touched the scorched earth. The cats followed each of the

convolutions with graceful ease, and the end was inevitable.

Each of them bore one of die gazelle to earth in a sliding, tumbling cloud

of dust, and then crouched over it, jaws clamped across the windpipe to

strangle it-while the gazelle’s back legs kicked out convulsively, and then

at last stiffened into the rigor of death.

I found myself shaken and breathless with the excitement of it all. Then my

mistress’s voice roused me. ’Taita! Come down immediately. They will see you

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perched up there.’ And I slid down to rejoin her.

Although I was still wrought up, I boosted her into the saddle and led the

donkey down into the dead ground where we were out of sight of the company on

the hilltop behind us. My mistress could not sustain her irritation with me

for very long, and when I slyly mentioned Tanus’ name again she forgot it

entirely, and urged her mount on towards the rendezvous.

Only after I had placed another ridge behind us and was certain that we

were well clear of the Valley of the Gazelles, did I head back directly

towards the cemetery of Tras. In the still, hot air, the sound of our

donkey’s hooves clinked and crackled on the stones as though it were passing

over a bed of broken glass. Soon I felt the sweat break out upon my skin, for

the air was close and heavy with a feeling of thunder. Long before we reached

the tombs, I told my mistress, ’The air is dry as old bones. You should drink

a little water?’

’Keep on! There will be plenty of time to drink your fill later.’

’I was thinking only of you? mistress,’ I protested.

’We must not be late. Every moment you waste will give me that much less

with Tanus.’ She was right, of course, for we would have little enough time

before we were missed by the others. My mistress was so popular that many

would be looking to enjoy her company once the hunt was over and they were

returning to the river.

As we drew closer to the cliffs, so her eagerness increased until she could

no longer abide the pace of her mount. She leaped off its back and ran ahead

to the next rise. ’There it is! That is where he will be waiting for me," she

cried, and pointed ahead.

As she danced on the skyline, the wind came at us like a ravening wolf,

howling amongst the hills and canyons. It caught my mistress’s hair and

spread it like a flag, snapping and tangling it around her head. It lifted

her skirts high above her slim brown thighs, and she laughed and pirouetted,

flirting with the wind as though it were her lover. I did not share her

delight.

I turned and looked back and saw the storm coming out of the Sahara. It

towered into the sullen yellow heavens, dun and awful, billowing upon itself

like surf breaking on a coral reef. The wind-blown sand scoured my legs and I

broke into a run, dragging the donkey behind me on its lead. The wind

thrusting into my back almost knocked me off my feet, but I caught my

mistress.

’We must be quick,’ I shouted above the wind. ’We must reach the shelter of

the tombs before it hits us.’

High clouds of sand blew across the sun, dimming it until I could look

directly at it with my naked eye. All the world was washed with that sombre

shade of ochre, and the sun was a dull ball of orange. Flying sand raked the

exposed skin of our limbs and the backs of our necks, until I wound my shawl

around my mistress’s head to protect her, and led her forward by the hand.

Sheets of driven sand engulfed us, blotting out our surroundings, so that I

feared I had lost direction, until abruptly a hole opened in the curtains of

sand, and I saw the dark mouth of one of the tombs appear ahead of us.

Dragging my mistress with one hand and our donkey with the other, I staggered

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into tne shelter of the cave. The entrance-shaft was carved from the solid

rock. It led us deep into the hillside, and then made a sharp turn before

entering the burial chamber where once the ancient mummy had been laid to

rest. Centuries before, the grave-robbers had disposed of the embalmed body

and all its treasures. Now all that remained were the faded frescoes upon the

stone walls, images- of gods and monsters that were ghostly in the gloom.

My mistress sank down against the rock wall, but her first thoughts were

for her love. ’Tanus will never find us now,’ she cried in despair, and I who

had led her to safety was hurt by her ingratitude. I unsaddled our donkey and

heaped the load in a comer of the tomb. Then I drew a cup of water from the

skin and made her drink.

’What will happen to the others, the king and all our friends?’ she asked,

between gulps from the cup. It was her nature to think of the welfare of

others, even in her own predicament.

’They have the huntsmen to care for them,’ I told her. "They are good men

and know the desert.’ But not well enough to have anticipated the storm, I

thought grimly. Although I sought to reassure her, I knew it would go hard

with the women and children out there.

’And Tanus?’ she asked. ’What will become of him?’ Tanus especially will

know what to do. He is like one of the Bedouin. You can be sure he will have

seen the storm coming.’

’Will we ever get back to the river? Will they ever find us here?’ At last

she thought of her own safety.

’We will be safe here. We have water enough for many days. When the storm

blows itself out, we will find our way back to the river.’ Thinking of the

precious water, I carried the bulging skin further into the tomb, where the

donkey would not trample it. By now it was almost completely dark, and I

fumbled with the lamp that the slave had provided from the pack, and blew

upon the smouldering wick. It flared and lit the tomb with a cheery yellow

light.

While I was still busy with the lamp and my back was turned to the

entrance, my mistress screamed. It was a sound so high and filled with such

mortal terror that I was struck with equal dread, and the courses of my blood

ran thick and slow as honey, although my heart raced like the hooves of the

flying gazelle. I spun about and reached for, my dagger, but when I saw the

monster whose bulk filled the doorway, I froze without touching the weapon on

my belt. I knew instinctively that my puny blade would avail us not at all

against whatever this creature might be.

In the feeble light of the lamp the form was indistinct and distorted. I

saw that it had a human shape, but it was too large to be a man, and the

grotesque head convinced me that this was indeed that dreadful

crocodile-headed monster from the underworld that devours the hearts of those

who are found wanting on the scales of Thoth, the monster depicted on the

walls of the tomb. The head gleamed with reptilian scales, and the beak was

that of an eagle or a gigantic turtle. The eyes were deep and fathomless pits

that stared at us implacably. Great wings sprouted from its shoulders.

Half-furled, they flapped about the towering body like those of a falcon at

bate. I expected the creature to launch itself on those wings and to rend my

mistress with brazen talons. She must have dreaded this as much as I, for she

screamed again as she crouched at the monster’s feet.

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Then suddenly I realized that the creature was not winged, but that the

folds of a long woollen cape, such as the Bedouin wear, were flogging on the

wind. While we were still frozen by this horrible presence, it raised both

hands and lifted off the gilded war helmet with the visor fashioned like the

head of an eagle. Then it shook its head and a mass of red-gold curls tumbled

down on to the broad shoulders.

’From the top of the eliff I saw you coming through the storm,’ it said in

those dear familiar tones.

My mistress screamed again, this time with wildly ringing joy. ’Tanus!’

She flew to him, and he gathered her up as though she were a child and

lifted her so high that her head brushed the rock roof. Then he brought her

down and folded her to his chest. From the cradle of his arms, she reached up

with her mouth for his, and it seemed that they might devour each other with

the strength of their need.

I stood forgotten in the shadows of the tomb. Although I had conspired and

risked so much to bring them together, I cannot bring myself to write down

here the feelings that assailed me as I was made reluctant witness to their

rapture. I believe that jealousy is the most ignoble of all our emotions, and

yet I loved the Lady Lostris as well as Tanus did, and not with the love of a

father or of a brother, either. I was a eunuch, but what I felt for her was

the love of a natural man, hopeless of course, but all the more bitter

because of that. I could not stay and watch them and I began to slink from

the tomb like a whipped puppy, but Tanus saw me leaving and broke that kiss

which was threatening to destroy my soul.

’Taita, don’t leave me alone with the wife of the king. Stay with us to

protect me from this terrible temptation. Our honour is in jeopardy. I cannot

trust myself, you must stay and see that I bring no shame to the wife of

Pharaoh.’

’Go,’ cried my Lady Lostris from his arms. ’Leave us alone. I’ll listen to

no talk of shame or honour now. Our love has been too long denied. I cannot

wait for the prophecy of the Mazes to run its course. Leave us alone now,

gentle Taita.’

I fled from the chamber as though my life was in danger. I might have run

out into the storm and perished there. That way I would have found surcease,

but I was too much of a coward, and I let the wind drive me back. I stumbled

to a corner of the shaft where the wind could no longer harry me, and I sank

to the stone floor. I pulled my shawl over my head to stop my eyes and my

ears, but although the storm roared along the cliff, it could not drown the

sounds from the burial chamber.

For two days the storm blew with unabated ferocity. I slept for part of

that time, forcing myself to seek oblivion, but whenever I awoke, I could

hear them, and the sounds of their love tortured me. Strange that I had never

known such distress when my mistress was with the king?but then on the other

hand not so strange, for the old man had meant nothing to her.

This was another world of torment for me. The cries, the groans, the

whispers tore at my heart. The rhythmic sobs of a young woman that were not

those of pain threatened to destroy me. Her wild scream of final rapture was

more agonizing to me than the cut of the gelding-knife.

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At last the wind abated and died away, moaning at the foot of the cliffs.

The light strengthened and I realized that it was the third day of my

incarceration in the tomb. I roused myself and called to them, not daring to

enter the inner chamber for fear of what I might discover. For a while there

was no .reply, and then my mistress spoke in a husky, bemused voice that

echoed eerily down the shaft. ’Taita, is that you? I thought that I had died

in the storm and been carried to the western fields of paradise.’

ONCE THE STORM HAD DROPPED, WE HAD little time remaining. The royal

huntsmen would already be searching for us. The storm had given us the best

possible excuse for our absence. I was sure that the survivors of the hunting

party would be scattered across these terrible hills. But the search-party

must not discover us in the company of Tanus.

On the other hand, Tanus and I had barely spoken during these last days,

and there was much to discuss. Hastily we made our plans, standing in the

entrance to the shaft.

My mistress was quiet and composed as I had seldom seen her before. No

longer the irrepressible chatterbox, she stood beside Tanus, watching his

face with a new serenity. She reminded me of a priestess serving before the

image of her god. Her eyes never left his face, and occasionally she reached

out to touch him, as if to reassure herself that it was truly he.

When she did this, Tanus broke off whatever he was saying and gave all his

attention to those dark green eyes. I had to call him back to the business we

still had not completed. In the presence of such manifest adoration, my own

feelings were base arid mean. I forced myself to rejoice for them.

It took longer to finish our business than I deemed wise, but at last I

embraced Tanus in farewell and urged the donkey out into the sunlight that

was filtered by the fine yellow dust that still filled the air. My mistress

lingered, and I waited for her in the valley below.

Looking back, I saw them emerge from the cave at last. They stood gazing at

each other for a long moment without touching, and then Tanus turned and

strode away. My mistress watched until he was gone from her sight, then she

came down to where I waited. She walked like a woman in a dream.

I helped her to mount, and while I adjusted the saddle girth, she reached

down and took my hand. ’Thank you,’ she said simply.

’I do not deserve your gratitude,’ I demurred.

’I am the happiest creature in all the world. Everything that you told me

of love is true. Please rejoice for me, even though?’ she did not finish, and

suddenly I realized that she had read my innermost feelings. Even in her own

great joy, she grieved that she had caused me pain. I think I loved her more

in that moment than I had ever done before.

I turned away and took up the reins, and led her back towards the Nile.

ONE OF THE ROYAL HUNTSMEN SPIED US from a far hilltop, and hailed us

heartily.

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’We have been searching for you at the king’s command,’ he told us, as he

hurried down to join us.

’Was the king saved?’ I asked. ’He is safe in the palace on Elephantine

Island, and he has commanded that the Lady Lostris be brought to him directly

she is found.’

As we set foot on the palace jetty, Aton was there, puffing out his painted

cheeks with relief and fussing over my mistress. ’They have found the bodies

of twenty-three unfortunates who perished in the storm,’ he told us with

ghoulish relish. ’All were certain that you would be found dead also.

However, I prayed at the temple of Hapi for your safe return.’ He looked

pleased with himself, and I was annoyed that he tried to claim the credit for

her survival for himself. He allowed us only time enough to wash hastily and

anoint our dry skin with perfumed oil, before he whisked us away to the

audience with the king.

Pharaoh was truly moved to have my mistress returned to him. I am sure he

had come to love her as much as any of the others, and not merely for the

promise of immortality that he saw in her. A tear tangled in his eyelash and

smeared the paint on his cheek as she knelt before him.

’I thought you were lost,’ he told her, and would have embraced her, had

etiquette permitted it. ’Instead I find you prettier and livelier than ever.’

Which was true, for love had gilded her with its special magic.

’Taita saved me,’ she told Pharaoh. ’He guided me to a shelter and

protected me through all those terrible days. Without him I would have

perished, like those other poor souls.’

’Is this true, Taita?’ Pharaoh demanded of me directly, and I assumed my

modest expression, and murmured, ’I am but a humble instrument of the gods.’

He smiled at me, for I knew he had become fond of me also. ’You have

rendered us many services, oh humble instrument. But this is the most

valuable of them all. Approach!’ he commanded, and I knelt before him.

Aton stood beside him, holding a small cedar-wood box. He lifted the lid

and proffered it to the king. From the case Pharaoh lifted out a gold chain.

It was of the purest unalloyed gold, and bore the marks of the royal

jewellers to attest its weight of twenty deben.

The king held the chain over my head and intoned, ’I bestow upon you the

Gold of Praise.’ He lowered it on to my shoulders, and the oppressive weight

was a delight to me. This decoration was the highest mark of royal favour,

usually reserved for generals and ambassadors, or for high officials such as

Lord IntefV I doubted that ever in the history of this very Egypt had the

gold chain been placed around the neck of a lowly slave.

That was not the end of the gifts and awards that were to be bestowed upon

me, for my mistress was not to be outdone. That evening while I was attending

her bath, she suddenly dismissed her slaves and, standing naked before me,

she told me, ’You may help me to dress, Taita.’ She allowed me this privilege

when she was especially well pleased with me. She knew just how much I

enjoyed having her to myself in these intimate circumstances.

Her loveliness was covered only by the glossy tresses of her sable hair. It

seemed that those days she had spent with Tanus had filled her with a new

quality of beauty. It emanated from deep within her. A lamp placed inside an

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alabaster jar will shine through the translucent sides; in the same way, the

Lady Lostris seemed to glow.

’I never dreamed that such a poor vessel as this body of mine could contain

such joy.’ She stroked her own flanks as she said it and looked down at

herself, inviting me to do the same. ’All that you promised me came to pass

while I was with Tanus. Pharaoh has bestowed the Gold of Praise upon you, it

is fitting that I also show my appreciation to you. I want you to share my

happiness in some way.’

’Serving you is all the reward I could wish for.’ ’Help me to dress,’ she

ordered, and lifted her hands above her head. Her breasts changed shape as

she moved. Over the year I had watched them grow from tiny immature figs into

these round, creamy pomegranates, more beautiful than jewels or marble

sculptures. I held the diaphanous nightdress over her, and then let it float

down over her body. It covered her, but did not obscure her loveliness, in

the same way that the morning mist decks the waters of the Nile in the dawn.

’I have commanded a banquet, and sent invitations to the royal ladies.’

’Very well, my lady. I shall see to it.’ ’No, no, Taita. The banquet is in

your honour. You will sit beside me as my guest.’

This was as shocking as any of the wild schemes she had thought up

recently. ’It is not fitting, mistress. You will offend against custom.’

’I am the wife of Pharaoh. I set the customs. During the banquet I will

have a gift for you, and I will present it to you in the sight of all.’

’Will you tell me what this gift is?’ I asked, with some trepidation. I was

never sure of what mischief she would dream up next.

’Certainly I will tell you what it is.’ She smiled mysteriously. ’It is a

secret, that’s what it is.’

EVEN THOUGH I WAS THE GUEST OF HONOUR, I could not leave the arrangements

for the banquet to cooks and giggling slave girls. After all, the reputation

of my mistress as a hostess was at stake. I was at the market before dawn to

procure the finest, freshest produce from the fields and the river. I

promised Aton that he would be invited, and he opened the king’s wine cellar

and let me make my selection. I hired and rehearsed the best musicians and

acrobats in the city. I sent out the slaves to gather hyacinth and lily and

lotus from the banks of the river to augment the masses of blooms that

already decorated our garden. I had the weavers plait tiny arks of reeds on

which I floated coloured glass lamps and set them adrift on the ponds of our

water-garden. I set out leather cushions and garlands of flowers for each

guest, and jars of perfumed oil to cool them in the sultry night and drive

away the mosquitoes.

At nightfall the royal ladies began to arrive in all their frippery and

high fashion. Some of them had even shaved their heads and replaced their

natural hair with elaborate wigs woven from the hair which the wives of the

poor were forced to sell, in order to feed their brats. This was a fashion I

abhorred and I vowed to do all in my power to prevent my mistress from

succumbing to such folly. Her lustrous tresses were amongst my chief

delights, but when it comes to fashion, even the most sensible woman is not

to be trusted.

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When, at the insistence of my mistress, I seated myself on the cushion

beside her, rather than taking my usual position behind her, I could see that

many of our guests were scandalized by such indecorous behaviour, and they

whispered to each other behind their fans. I was just as uncomfortable as

they were, and to cover my embarrassment, I signalled the slaves to keep the

wine cups filled, the musicians to play, and the dancers to dance.

The wine was robust, the music rousing, and the dancers were all male. They

gave ample proof of their gender, for I had ordered them to perform in a

state of nature. The ladies were so enchanted by this display that they soon

forgot their decent outrage, and did justice to the wine. I had no doubt that

many of the male dancers would not leave the harem before dawn. Some of the

royal ladies had voracious appetites, and many had not been visited by the

king in years.

In this convivial atmosphere my mistress rose to her feet and called (for

the attention of her guests. Then she commended me to them in terms so

extravagant that even I blushed. She went on to relate amusing and touching

episodes from the lifetime we had spent together. The wine seemed to have

softened the attitude of the women towards me, and they laughed and

applauded. A few of them even wept a little with wine and sentiment.

At last my mistress commanded me to kneel before her, and as I did so,

there was a murmur of comment. I had chosen to wear a simple kilt of the

finest linen, and the slave girls had dressed my hair in the fashion that

best suited me. Apart from the Gold of Praise around my throat, I wore no

other ornament. In the midst of such ostentation, my simple style was

striking. With regular swimming and exercise I had kept the athletic body

which had first attracted Lord Intef to me. In those years I was in my prime.

I heard one of the senior wives murmur to her neighbour, ’What a pity he

has lost his jewels. He would make such a diverting toy.’ This evening I

could ignore the words that in other circumstances would have caused me

intense pain.

My mistress was looking very pleased with herself. She had succeeded in

keeping me ignorant of the nature of her gift. Usually she was not so adroit

as to be able to outwit me. She looked down on my bowed head and spoke slowly

and clearly, wringing the utmost enjoyment from the moment.

’Taita the slave. For all the years of my life you have been a shield over

me. You have been my mentor and my tutor. You have taught me to read and to

write. You have made clear to me the mysteries of the stars and the arcane

arts. You have taught me to sing and to dance. You have shown me how to find

happiness and contentment in many things. I am grateful.’

The royal ladies were once more beginning to become restive. They had never

before heard a slave praised in such effusive terms.

’On the day of the khamsin you did me a service that I must reward. Pharaoh

has bestowed the Gold of Praise upon you. I have my own gift for you.’

From under her robe she took a roll of papyrus secured with a coloured

thread. ’You knelt before me as a slave. Now rise to your feet as a free

man.’ She held up the papyrus. ’This is your deed of manumission, prepared by

the scribes of the court. From this day forward, you are a free man.

I lifted my head for the first time and stared at her in disbelief. She

pressed the roll of papyrus into my numbed fingers, and smiled down at me

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fondly.

’You did not expect this, did you? You are so surprised that you have no

words for me. Say something to me, Taita. Tell me how grateful you are for

this boon.’

Every word she spoke wounded me like a poisoned dart. My tongue was a rock

in my mouth as I contemplated a life without her. As a freed man, I would be

excluded from her presence for ever. I would never again prepare her food,

nor attend her bath. I would never spread the covers over her as she prepared

for sleep, nor would I rouse her in the dawn and be at her side when first

she opened those lovely dark green eyes to each new day. I would never again

sing with her, or hold her cup, or help her to dress and have the pleasure of

gazing upon all her loveliness.

I was stricken, and I stared at her hopelessly, as one whose life had

reached its end.

’Be happy, Taita,’ she ordered me. ’Be happy in this new freedom I give

you.’

’I will never be happy again,’ I blurted. ’You have cast me off. How can I

ever be happy again?’

Her smile faded away, and she stared at me in perturbation. ’I offer you

the most precious gift that it is in my power to give you. I offer you your

freedom.’

I shook my head. ’You inflict the most dire punishment upon me. You are

driving me away from you. I will never know happiness again.’

’It is not a punishment, Taita. It was meant as a reward. Please, don’t you

understand?’

’The only reward I desire is to remain at your side for the rest of my

life.’ I felt the tears welling up from deep inside me, and I tried to hold

them back. ’Please, mistress, I beg of you, don’t send me away from you. If

you have any feeling towards me, allow me to stay with you.’

’Do not weep,’ she commanded. Tor if you do, then I will weep with you, in

front of all my guests.’ I truly believe that she had not, until that moment,

contemplated the consequences of this misplaced piece of generosity that she

had dreamed up. The tears broke over my lids and streamed down my cheeks.

’Stop it! This is not what I wanted.’ Her own tears kept mine good company.

’I only thought to honour you, as the king has honoured you.’

I held up the roll of papyrus. ’Please let me tear this piece of foolery to

shreds. Take me back into your service. Give me leave to stand behind you,

where I belong.’

’Stop it, Taita! You are breaking my heart.’ Loudly she snuffled up her

tears, but I was merciless.

’The only gift I want from you is the right to serve you for all the days

of my life. Please, mistress, rescind this deed. Give me your permission to

tear it.’

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She nodded vigorously, blubbering as she used to do when she was a little

girl who had fallen and grazed her knees. I ripped the sheet of papyrus once

and then again. Not satisfied with this destruction, I held the fragments to

the lamp flame and let them burn to crispy black curls.

’Promise me that you will never try to drive me away again. Swear that you

will never again try to thrust my freedom upon me.’

She nodded through her tears, but I would not accept that. ’Say it,’ I

insisted. ’Say it aloud for all to hear.’

’I promise to keep you as my slave, never to sell you, nor to set you

free," she whispered huskily through the tears, and then a beam of mischief

shone out of those tragic dark green eyes. ’Unless, of course, you annoy me

inordinately, then I will summon the law scribes immediately.’ She put out a

hand to lift me to my feet. ’Get up, you silly man, and attend to your

duties. I swear my cup is empty.’

I resumed my proper position behind her, and refilled the cup. The tipsy

company thought it all a bit of fun that we had arranged for their amusement,

and they clapped and whistled and threw flower petals at us to show their

appreciation. I could see that most of them were relieved that we had not

truly flouted decorum, and that a slave was still a slave.

My mistress lifted the wine cup to her lips, but before she drank, she

smiled at me over the rim. Though her eyes were still wet with tears, that

smile lifted my spirits and restored my happiness. I felt as close to her

then as ever I had in all the years.

THE MORNING AFTER THE BANQUET AND my hour of freedom, we woke to find that

during the night the river had swollen with the commencement of the annual

flood. We had no warning of it until the joyous cries of the watchmen down at

the .??? port aroused us. Still heavy with wine, I left my bed and ran down

to the riverside. Both banks were already lined with the populace of the

city. They greeted the waters with prayers and songs and waving palm-fronds.

The low waters had been the bright green of the verdigris that grows on

bars of copper. The waters of the inundation had flushed it all away, and now

the river had swollen to an ominous grey. During the night it had crept

halfway up the stone pylons of the harbour, and soon it would press against

the earthworks of the embankment. Then it would force its way into the mouths

of the irrigation canals that had been cracked and dry for so many months.

From there it would swirl out and flood the fields, drowning the huts of the

peasants, and washing away the boundary markers between the fields.

The surveying and replacement of the boundaries after each flood was the

responsibility of the Guardian of the Waters. Lord Intef had multiplied his

fortune by favouring the claims of the rich and the generous when the time

came round each year to reset the marker stones.

From upstream echoed the distant rumble of the cataract. The rising flood

overwhelmed the natural barrages of granite that were placed in its path,

and, as it roared through the gorges, the spray rose into the hard blue sky,

a silver column that could be seen from every quarter of the nome of Assoun.

When the fine mist drifted across the island, it was cool and refreshing on

our upturned faces. We delighted in this blessing, for it was the only rain

we ever knew in our valley. Even as we watched, the beaches around our island

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were eaten up by the flood. Soon our jetty would be submerged, and the river

would lap at the gates of our garden. Where it would stop was a question that

could only be calculated by a study of the levels of the Milometer. On those

levels hung prosperity or famine for the whole land and every person in it.

I hurried back to find my mistress and to prepare for the ceremony of the

waters, in which I would play a prominent role. We dressed in our finest and

I placed my new gold chain around my neck. Then, with the rest of our

household and the ladies of the harem, we joined the spontaneous procession

to the temple of Hapi.

Pharaoh and all the great lords of Egypt led us. The priests, plump with

rich living, were waiting for us on the temple steps. Their heads were

shaven, their pates shining with oil, and their eyes glittering with avarice,

for the king would sacrifice lavishly today.

Before the king the statue of the god was carried from the sanctuary, and

decked with flowers and fine crimson linen. Then the statue was drenched in

oils and perfume while we sang psalms of praise and thanks to the god for

sending down the flood.

Far to the south, in a land that no civilized man had ever visited, the god

Hapi sat on top of his mountain and from two pitchers of infinite capacity he

poured the holy waters into his Nile. The water from each pitcher was of a

different colour and taste; one was bright green and sweet, the other grey

and heavy with the silt which flooded our fields each season and charged them

with new life and fertility.

While we sang, the king made sacrifice of corn and meats and wine and

silver and gold. Then he called out his wise men, his engineers and his

mathematicians, and bade them enter the Nilometer to begin their observations

and their calculations.

In the time that I had belonged to Lord Intef, I had been nominated as one

of the keepers of the water. I was the only slave in that illustrious

company, but I consoled myself by the fact that very few others wore the Gold

of Praise, and that they treated me with respect. They had worked with me

before, and they knew my worth. I had helped to design the Milometers that

measured the flow of the river, and I had supervised the building of them. It

was I who had worked out the complex formula to determine the projected

height and the volume of each flood from the observations.

Our way lit by flickering torches of pitch-dipped rushes, I followed the

high priest into the mouth of the Nilometer, a dark opening in the rear wall

of the sanctuary. We descended the incline shaft, the stone steps slippery

with slime and the effusions of the river. From under our feet, one of the

deadly black water cobras slithered away, and with a furious hiss plunged

into the dark water that had already risen halfway up the shaft.

We gathered on the last exposed step and by the light of the torches

studied the marks that my masons had chiselled in the walls of the shaft.

Each of the symbols had values, both magical and empirical, allotted to it.

We made the first and most crucial reading together with extreme care. Over

the following five days we would take it in turns to watch and record the

rising waters, and time the readings with the flow, of a water-clock. From

samples of the water, we would estimate the amount of silt it bore, and all

these factors would influence our final conclusions. When the five days of

observation were completed, we embarked on a further three days of

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calculations. These covered many scrolls of papyrus. Finally, we were ready

to present our findings to the king. On that day Pharaoh returned to the

temple in royal state, accompanied by his nobles and half the population of

Elephantine to receive the estimates.

As the high priest read them aloud, the king began to smile. We had

forecast an inundation of almost perfect proportions. It would not be too

low, to leave the fields exposed and baking in the sun, depriving them of the

rich black layer of silt so vital to their fertility. Nor would it be so high

as to wash away the canals and earthworks, and to drown the villages and

cities along the banks. This season would bring forth bountiful harvests and

fat herds.

Pharaoh smiled, not so much for the good fortune of his subjects, but for

the bounty that his tax-collectors would gather in. The annual taxes were

computed on the value of the flood, and this year there would be vast new

treasures added to the store-rooms of his funerary temple. To close the

ceremony of the blessing of the water in the temple of Hapi, Pharaoh

announced the date of the biennial pilgrimage to Thebes to participate in the

festival of Osiris. It did not seem possible that two years had passed since

my mistress had played the part of the goddess in the last passion of Osiris.

I had as little sleep that night as when I had kept vigil in the shaft of

the Nilometer, for my mistress was too excited to seek her own couch. She

made me sit up with her until dawn, singing and laughing and repeating those

stories of Tanus to which she never tired of listening.

In eight days the royal flotilla would sail northwards on the rising flood

of the Nile. When we arrived, Tanus, Lord Harrab would be waiting for us in

Thebes. My mistress was delirious with happiness.

THE FLOTILLA THAT ASSEMBLED IN THE harbour roads of Elephantine was so

numerous that it seemed to cover the water from bank to bank. My mistress

remarked jokingly that a man might cross the Nile without wetting his feet by

strolling over the bridge of hulls. With pennants and flags flying from every

masthead, the fleet made a gallant show. We and the rest of the court had

already embarked on the vessels that had been allotted to us, and from the

deck we cheered the king as he descended the marble steps from the palace and

went aboard the great, state barge. The moment he was safely embarked, a

hundred horns sounded the signal to set sail. As one, the fleet squared away

and pointed their bows into the north. With the rush of the river and the

banks of oars driving us, we bore away.

There had been a different spirit abroad in the’ land since Akh-Horus had

destroyed the Shrikes. The inhabitants of every village we passed came down

to the water’s edge to greet their king. Pharaoh sat high on the poop,

wearing the cumbersome double crown, so that all might have a clear view of

him. They waved palm-fronds and shouted, ’May all the gods smile on Pharaoh!’

The river brought down to them not only their king, but also the promise of

its own benevolence, and they were happy.

Twice during the days that followed, Pharaoh and all his train went ashore

to inspect the monuments that Akh-Horus had raised to his passing at the

crossroads of the caravan routes. The local peasants had preserved these

gruesome piles of skulls as sacred relics of the new god. They had polished

each skull until it shone like ivory, and bound the pyramids with building

clay so that they would stand through the years. Then they had built shrines

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over them and appointed priests to serve these holy places.

At both these shrines my mistress left a gold ring as an offering, joyously

accepted by the self-appointed guardians. It was to no avail that I protested

this extravagance. My mistress often lacked the proper respect for the wealth

that I was so painstakingly amassing on her behalf. Without my restraining

hand, she would probably have given it all away to the grasping priesthood

and the insatiable poor, smiling as she did so.

On the tenth night after leaving Elephantine, the royal entourage camped on

sTpleasant promontory above a bend in the river. The entertainment that

evening was to include one of the most famous story-tellers in the land, and

usually my mistress loved a good story above most other pleasures. Both she

and I had been looking forward to this occasion and discussing it avidly

since leaving the palace. It was therefore to my surprise and bitter

disappointment that the Lady Lostris declared herself too fatigued and out of

sorts to attend the story-teller. Although she urged me to go, and take the

rest of our household with me, I could not leave her alone when she was

unwell. I gave her a hot draught and I slept on the floor at the end of her

bed, so that I could be near if she needed me during the night.

I was truly worried in the morning when I tried to wake her. Usually she

would spring from her bed with a smile of anticipation, ready to seize and

devour the new day, a glutton for the joy of living. However, this morning

she pulled the covers back over her head and mumbled, ’Leave me to sleep a

.little longer. I feel as heavy and dull as an old woman.’

"The king has decreed an early start. We must be aboard before the sun

rises. I will bring you a hot infusion that will cheer you.’ I poured boiling

water over a bowl of herbs that I had picked with my own hands during the

most propitious phase of the last moon.

’Do stop fussing,’ she grumped at me, but I would not let her sleep again.

I prodded her awake and made her drink the tonic. She pulled a face. ’I swear

you are trying to poison me,’ she complained, and then, without warning and

before I could do anything to prevent it, she vomited copiously.

Afterwards she seemed as shocked as I was. We both stared at the steaming

puddle beside her bed in consternation.

’What is wrong with me, Taita?’ she whispered. ’Nothing like this has ever

happened to me before.’

Only then did the meaning of it all dawn on me.

"The khamsin!’ I cried. "The cemetery of Tras! Tanus!’

She stared at me blankly for a moment, and then her smile lit the gloom of

the tent like a lamp. ’I am making a baby!’ she cried.

’Not so loud, mistress,’ I pleaded.

’Tanus’ baby! I am carrying Tanus’ son.’ It could not be the king’s infant,

for I had successfully kept him from her bed since her starvation sickness

and her miscarriage.

’Oh, Taita,’ she purred, as she lifted her nightdress and inspected her

flat, firm belly with awe. ’Just think of it! A little imp just like Tanus

growing inside of me.’ She palpated her stomach hopefully. ’I knew that such

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delights as I discovered in the tomb of Tras could not pass unremarked by the

gods. They have given me a memory that will last all my lifetime.’

’You race ahead,’ I warned her. ’It may be only a colic. I must make the

tests before we can be sure.’

’I need no test. I know it in my heart and in the secret depths of my

body.’

’We will still do the tests,’ I told her wryly, and went to fetch the pot.

She perched upon it to provide me with the first water of her day, and I

divided this into two equal parts.

The first portion of her urine I mixed with an equal part of Nile water.

Then I filled two jars with black earth and in each of them planted five

seeds of dhurra corn. I watered one jar with pure Nile water, and the other

with the mixture that my mistress had provided. This was the first test.

Then I hunted amongst the reeds in the lagoon near the camp and captured

ten frogs. These were not the lively green and yellow variety with leaping

back legs, but slimy, black creatures. Their heads are not separated from

their sluggish, fat bodies by a neck, and their eyes sit on top of the flat

skull, so that the children call them sky-gazers.

I placed five of each of the sky-gazers in two separate jars of river

water. To the one I added my mistress’s intimate emission and I left the

other unadulterated. The following morning, in the privacy of my mistress’s

cabin on board the galley, we removed the cloth with which I had covered the

jars and inspected the contents.

The com watered by the Lady Lostris had thrown tiny green shoots, while the

other seeds were still inert. The five sky-gazers who had not received my

mistress’s blessing were barren, but the other more fortunate five had each

laid long silvery strings which were speckled with black eggs.

’I told you so!’ my mistress chirruped smugly, before I could give my

official diagnosis. ’Oh, thanks to all the gods! No more beautiful thing has

happened to me in all my life.’

’I will speak to Aton immediately. You will share the king’s couch this

very night,’ I told her grimly, and she stared at me in bewilderment.

’Even Pharaoh who believes most things I tell him, will not believe that

you were impregnated by the seeds blown in on the khamsin wind. We must have

a foster-father for this little bastard of ours.’ Already I considered the

infant ours, and not hers alone. Though I tried to conceal it behind my

levity, I was every bit as delighted with her fecundity as she was.

’Don’t you ever call him a bastard again,’ she flared at me. ’He will be a

prince.’

’He will be a prince only if I can find a royal sire for him. Prepare

yourself. I am going to see the king.’

’LAST NIGHT I HAD A DREAM, GREAT Egypt,’ I told Pharaoh. ’It was so amazing

that to confirm it I worked the Mazes of Ammon-Ra.’

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Pharaoh leaned forward eagerly, for he had come to believe in my dreams and

the Mazes as much as any of my other patients. ’This time it is unequivocal,

Majesty. In my dream the goddess Isis appeared and promised to counter the

baleful influence of her brother Seth, who so cruelly deprived you of your

first son when he struck down the Lady Lostris with the wasting disease. Take

my mistress to your bed on the first day of the festival of Osiris, and you

will be blessed with another son. That is the promise of the goddess.’

’Tonight is the eve of the festival.’ The king looked delighted. ’In truth,

Taita, I have been ready to perform this pleasant duty all these past months,

had you only allowed me to do so. But you have not told me what you saw in

the Mazes of Ammon-Ra.’ Again he leaned forward eagerly, and I was ready for

him.

’It was the vision as before, only this time it was stronger and more

vivid. The same endless forest of trees growing along the banks of the river,

each tree crowned and imperial. Your dynasty reaching into the ages, strong

and unbroken.’

Pharaoh sighed with satisfaction. ’Send the child to me.’ When I returned

to the tent, my mistress was waiting for me. She had prepared herself with

good grace and humour.

’I shall close my eyes and imagine that I am back in the tomb of Tras with

Tanus,’ she confided, and then giggled saucily. ’Although to imagine the king

as Tanus is to imagine that the tail of the mouse has become the trunk of the

elephant.’

Aton came to fetch her to the king’s tent soon after the king had eaten his

dinner. She went with a calm expression and a firm step, dreaming perhaps of

her little prince, and of his true father who waited for us in Thebes.

BELOVED THEBES, BEAUTIFUL THEBES OF the hundred gates?how we rejoiced as we

saw it appear ahead of us, decorating the broad sweep of the river-bank with

its temples and gleaming walls.

My mistress sang out with excitement as each of the familiar landmarks

revealed itself to us. Then, as the royal barge put in to the wharf below the

palace of the grand vizier, the joy of home-coming went out of both of us,

and we fell silent. The Lady Lostris groped for my hand like a little girl

frightened by tales of hob-goblins, for we had seen her father.

Lord Intef with his sons, Menset and Sobek, those two thumbless heroes,

stood at the head of the great concourse of the nobles and the city fathers

of Thebes that waited upon the quay to greet the king. Lord Intef was as

handsome and suave as I had imagined him in my nightmares, and I felt my

spirits quail.

’You must be vigilant now,’ the Lady Lostris whispered to me. "They will

seek to have you out of their way. Remember the cobra.’

Not far behind the grand vizier stood Rasfer. During our absence he had

obviously received high promotion. He now wore the head-dress of a Commander

of Ten Thousand and carried the golden whip of rank. There had been no

improvement in his facial muscles. One side of his face still sagged

hideously and saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth. At that moment he

recognized me, and grinned at me with half his face across the narrow strip

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of water. He lifted his golden whip in ironic greeting.

’I promise you, my lady, that my hand will be upon my dagger and I will eat

nothing but fruit that I have peeled with my own hands while Rasfer and I are

in Thebes together,’ I murmured, as I smiled at him and returned his salute

with a cheery wave.

’You are to accept no strange gifts,’ my mistress insisted, ’and you will

sleep at the foot of my bed, where I can protect you at night. During the day

you will stay at my side, and not go wandering off on your own.’

’I will not find that irksome,’ I assured her, and over the following days

I kept my promise to her and remained under her immediate protection, for I

was certain that Lord Intef would not jeopardize his connection to the throne

by putting his daughter in danger.

Naturally, we were often in the company of the grand vizier, for it was his

duty to escort the king through all the ceremonies of the festival. During

this time, Lord Intef played the role of loving and considerate father to the

Lady Lostris, and he treated her with all the deference and consideration due

to a royal wife. Each morning he sent her gifts, gold and jewels and

exquisite little carvings of scarabs and godlets in ivory and precious woods.

Despite my mistress’s orders, I did not return these. I did not wish to warn

the enemy, and besides, the gifts were valuable. I sold them discreetly and

invested the proceeds in stores of corn held for us in the granaries of

trustworthy merchants in the city, men who were my friends.

In view of the expected harvest, the price of com was the lowest it had

been for ten years. There was only one direction it could go, and that was

up, although we might have to wait a while for our profits. The merchants

gave me receipts in the name of my mistress which I deposited in the archives

of the law courts. I kept only a fifth part to myself, which I felt was a

very moderate commission.

This gave me some secret pleasure whenever I caught Lord Intef watching me

with those pale leopard’s eyes. That look left me in no doubt that his

feelings towards me had not moderated. I remembered his patience and his

persistence when dealing with an enemy. He waited at the centre of his web

like a beautiful spider, and his eyes glittered as he watched me. I

remembered the bowl of poisoned milk and the cobra, and despite all my

precautions, I was uneasy.

Meanwhile the festival rolled on with all the ceremony and tradition, as it

had for centuries past. However, this season it was not Tanus’ Blues but

another squadron that hunted the river-cows in the lagoon of Hapi, while

another company of actors played out the passion in the temple of Osiris.

Because Pharaoh’s decree was observed and the version of the play was mine,

the words were as powerful and moving. However, this new Isis was not as

lovely as my mistress had portrayed her, nor was Horus as noble or striking

as Lord Tanus. On the other hand, Seth was winsome and lovable in comparison

to the way that Rasfer had played him.

The day after the passion, Pharaoh crossed the river to inspect his temple,

and on this occasion he kept me close at hand throughout the day. On numerous

occasions he openly consulted me on aspects of the works. Of course I wore my

golden chain whenever it was proper to do so. None of this was missed by Lord

Intef, and I could see him musing on the favour the king showed to me. I

hoped that this might further serve to protect me from the grand vizier’s

vengeance.

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Since I had left Thebes, another architect had been placed in charge of the

temple project. It was perhaps unfair that Pharaoh should expect this

unfortunate to be able to maintain the high standards that I had set, or to

push the work forward at the same pace.

’By the blessed mother of Horus, I wish you were still in charge here,

Taita,’ Pharaoh muttered. ’If she would part with you, I would buy you from

your mistress, and keep you here in the City of .the Dead permanently to

supervise the work. The cost seems to have doubled since this other idiot

took over from you.’

’He is a naive young man,’ I agreed. ’The masons and the contractors will

steal his testicles from him and he will not notice that they are missing.’

’It is my balls mat they are stealing,’ the king scowled. ’I want you to go

over the bill of quantities with him and show him where we are being robbed.’

I was of course flattered by his regard, and there was nothing spiteful in

my pointing out to Pharaoh the lapses of taste that the new architect had

perpetrated when he redesigned the pediment to my temple facade, or the

shoddy craftsmanship that those rogues in the guild of masons had been able

to slip past him. The pediment was permeated with the decadent Syrian style

that was all the rage in the Lower Kingdom, where the common tastes of the

low-bom red pretender were corrupting the classical traditions of Egyptian

art.

As for the workmanship, I demonstrated to the king how it was possible to

slip a fragment of papyrus between the joints of the stone blocks that made

up the side-wall of the mortuary temple. Pharaoh ordered both the pediment

and the temple wall to be torn down, and he fined the guild of masons five

hundred deben of gold to be paid into the royal store-rooms.

Pharaoh spent the rest of that day and the whole of the next reviewing the

treasures in the store-rooms of the funerary temple. Here at least he could

find very little to complain of. In the history of the world never had such

wealth been assembled in one place at one time. Even I, who love fine things,

was soon jaded by the abundance of it, and my eyes were pained by the dazzle

of gold.

The king insisted that the Lady Lostris remain at his side all this time. I

think that his infatuation with her was slowly turning into real love, or as

close a facsimile of it as he was capable of. The consequence of his

affection for her was that when we returned across the river to Thebes, my

mistress was exhausted, and I feared for the child she was carrying. It was

too soon to tell the king of her condition and to suggest that he showed her

more consideration. It was less than a week since she had returned to his

couch, and such an early diagnosis of pregnancy even from me must arouse his

suspicion. To him she was still a healthy and robust young woman, and he

treated her that way.

THE FESTIVAL ENDED, AS IT HAD FOR CENTURIES past, with the assembly of the

people in the temple of Osiris to hear the proclamation from the throne.

On the raised stone dais in front of the sanctuary of Osiris, Pharaoh was

seated on his tall throne so that all the congregation could have a clear

view of him. He wore the double crown and carried the crook and the flail.

This time there was an alteration to the usual layout of the temple, for I

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had made a suggestion to the king which he had been gracious enough to adopt.

Against three walls of the inner temple he had ordered the erection of timber

scaffolding. These rose in tiers halfway up the massive stone walls, and

provided seating for thousands of the notables of Thebes from which they had

a. privileged and uninterrupted view of the proceedings. I had suggested that

these stands be decorated with coloured bunting and palm-fronds, to disguise

their ugliness. It was the first time that these structures were built in our

land. Thereafter, they were to become commonplace, and they were built at

most public functions, along the routes of royal processions and around the

fields of athletic games. To this day they are known as Taita stands.

There had been much bitter competition for seats upon these stands, but as

their designer, I had been able to procure the very best for my mistress and

myself. We were directly opposite the throne and a little above the height of

the king’s head, so we had a fine view of the whole of the inner courtyard. I

had provided a leather cushion stuffed with lamb’s-wool for the Lady Lostris

and a basket of fruits and cakes, together with jars of sherbet and beer, to

sustain us during the interminable ceremony.

All around us were assembled the noblest in the land, lords and ladies

decked-oat in high fashion. The generals and admirals carrying their.golden

whips and proudly flaunting the honours and standards of their regiments, the

guild masters and the rich merchants, the priests and the ambassadors from

the vassal states of the empire, they were all here.

In front of the king extended the courts of the temple, one opening into

another like the boxes in a children’s puzzle-game, but such was the layout

of the massive stone walls that the gates were all perfectly aligned. A

worshipper standing in the Avenue of Sacred Rams outside the pylons of the

main gate could look through the inner gates and clearly see the king on his

high throne almost four hundred paces away.

All the courts of the temple were packed with the multitudes of the common

people, and the overflow spilled out into the sacred avenue and the gardens

beyond the temple walls. Though I had lived almost my entire life in Thebes,

I had never seen such a gathering. It was not possible to count their

numbers, but I estimated that there must have been two hundred thousand

assembled that day. From them rose such’ a hubbub of sound that I felt myself

but a single bee in the vast humming hive.

Around the throne was gathered a small group of the highest dignitaries,

their heads at the level of Pharaoh’s feet. Of course one of these was the

high priest of Osiris. During the past year the old abbot had left this

transitory world of ours and set off on his journey through the underworld to

the western fields of the eternal paradise. This new abbot was a younger,

firmer man. I knew that he would not be so easily manipulated by Lord Intef.

In fact, he had collaborated with me in certain unusual arrangements for

today’s ceremony that I had put in hand while supervising the erection of the

Taita stands.

However, the most impressive figure in the group, rivalling Pharaoh

himself, was the grand vizier. Lord Intef drew all eyes. He was tall and

stately in bearing, handsome as a legend. With the heavy chains of the Gold

of Praise lying weightily upon his chest and shoulders, he was like a figure

from the myth of the pantheon. Close behind him loomed the hideous shape of

Rasfer.

Lord Intef opened the ceremony in the traditional manner by stepping into

the clear space before the throne and beginning the address of welcome to the

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king from the twin cities of Thebes. As he spoke, I glanced sideways at my

mistress, and even though I shared her loathing, I was shocked by the

expression of anger and hatred that she made no attempt to conceal, and that

she directed openly at her own father. I wanted to warn her to make it less

obvious to all about her, but I knew that in doing so, I might merely draw

further attention to her burning antagonism.

The grand vizier spoke at length, listing his own accomplishments and the

loyal service he had rendered Pharaoh in the year past. The crowd murmured

and rustled with boredom and discomfort. The heat was rising from so many

bodies, and the rays of the sun beating down into the crowded courts were

trapped within the temple walls. I saw more than one woman in the press swoon

and collapse.

When at last Lord Intef finished speaking, the high priest stepped into his

place. While the sun made its noon overhead, he reported to the king on the

ecclesiastical affairs of Thebes. As he spoke, the heat and the stench

increased; perfume and fragrant oils could no longer disguise the odour of

hot, unwashed bodies and running sweat. There was no escape from the crowd to

attend urgent bodily functions. Men and women simply squatted where they

stood. The temple began to stink like a sty or a public latrine, I handed my

mistress a silk kerchief drenched in perfume which she dabbed to her nose.

There was a sigh of relief when at last the high priest ended his address

with a blessing on the king in the name of the god Osiris, and, with a deep

bow, retreated to his place behind the grand vizier. For the first time since

it had begun to assemble before dawn that morning, the crowd fell completely

silent. The boredom and discomfort was forgotten, and they craned forward

eagerly to hear Pharaoh speak.

The king rose to his feet. I wondered at the old man’s fortitude, for he

had sat all this time like a statue. He spread his arms in benediction, and

at that moment the hallowed chalice of custom and tradition was shattered by

an event that plunged the entire congregation?priests, nobles and

commoners?into consternation. I was one of the few in the crowd who was not

surprised by what followed, for I had done more than my share to arrange it

all.

The great burnished capper doors to the sanctuary swung open. There seemed

to be no human agency to the movement, it was as though the doors opened of

their own accord.

A gasp, a sigh of expelled breath passed like a wind through temple courts,

and rustled the densely packed ranks as though they were the leaves of a

tamarind tree. Then suddenly a woman screamed, and immediately a groan of

superstitious horror shook them all. Some fell to their knees, some lifted

their hands above their heads in terror, others covered their faces with

their shawls so that they should not be struck blind by looking on sights

that were not for mortal eyes.

A god strode out through the sanctuary doors, a tall and terrifying god,

whose cloak swirled about his shoulders as he moved. His helmet was crowned

with a plume of egret’s feathers, and his features were grotesque and

metallic, half-eagle and half-man, with a hooked beak and dark slits for

eyes.

’ Akh-Horus!’ screamed a woman, and she collapsed in a dead faint upon the

stone flags.

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’Akh-Horus!’ the cry was taken up. ’It is the god!’ Row after row, they

fell upon their knees in the attitude of reverence. Those on the high tiers

of stands knelt and many of them made the sign to avert misfortune. Even the

group of nobles around the throne went down. In all the temple only two

persons remained on their feet. Pharaoh posed on the steps of his throne like

a painted statue; and the grand vizier of Thebes stood tall and arrogant.

Akh-Horus stopped in front of the king and looked up at him through those

slitted eyes in the bronze mask, and even then Pharaoh never flinched. The

king’s cheeks were painted dead white, so I could not tell whether he

blanched, but there was a glitter in his eyes that may have been either

religious ecstasy, or terror.

’Who are you?’ Pharaoh challenged. ’Are you ghost or man? Why do you

disturb our solemn proceedings?’ His voice was strong and clear. I could

detect no tremor in it, and my admiration for him was enhanced. Weak and

aging and gullible perhaps, but still the old man had his full share of

courage. He could face up to man or god and stand his ground like a warrior.

Akh-Horus answered him in a voice that had commanded regiments in the

desperate din of battle, a voice that echoed amongst the stone pillars.

’Great Pharaoh, I am a man, not a ghost. I am your man. I come before you in

response to your command. I come before you to account to you for the duty

that you laid upon me in this place on this very day of Osiris two years

ago.’

He lifted the helmet from his head, and the fiery curls tumbled down. The

congregation recognized him instantly. A shout went up that seemed to rock

the foundations of the temple.

’Lord Tanus! Tanus! Tanus!’

It seemed to me that my mistress screamed the loudest of them all, fairly

deafening me, who sat so close beside her.

’Tanus! Akh-Horus! Akh-Horus!’ The two names mingled and crashed against

the temple walls like storm-driven surf.

’He has risen from his tomb! He has become a god amongst us!’

It did not abate until suddenly Tanus drew the sword from his scabbard and

held it aloft in an unmistakable command for silence. This was obeyed, and in

the silence he spoke again.

’Great Egypt, do I have your permission to speak?’

I think by now the king could no longer rely on his powers of speech, for

he made a gesture with crook and flail, and then his legs seemed to give way

beneath him and he dropped back on his throne.

Tanus addressed him in ringing tones that carried to the outer court. ’Two

years ago you charged me with the destruction of those viperous nests of

murderers and robbers who were threatening the life of the state. You placed

in my trust the royal hawk seal.’

From under his cloak, Tanus drew out the blue statuette and placed it on

the steps of the throne. Then he stepped back and spoke again.

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’In order better to carry out the king’s orders, I pretended my own death

and caused the mummy of a stranger to be sealed in my tomb.’

’Bak-Her!’ shouted a single voice, and they took up the cry until Tanus

once more commanded silence.

’I led a thousand brave men of the Blues into the deserts and the wild

places and sought out the Shrikes in their secret fortresses. There we slew

them in their hundreds and piled their severed heads at the roadside.’

’Bak-Her!’ they screamed. ’It is true. Akh-Horus has done all these

things.’ Once again Tanus silenced them.

’I broke the power of the barons. I slaughtered their followers without

mercy. In all this very Egypt of ours there remains only one who still calls

himself a Shrike.’

Now at last they were silent, gobbling up every word he said, fascinated

and intent. Even Pharaoh could not hold his impatience in check. ’Speak, Lord

Tanus, whom men now know as Akh-Horus. Name this man. Give me his name so

that he may come to know the wrath of Pharaoh.’

’He hides behind the name of Akh-Seth,’ Tanus roared. ’His deeds of infamy

rank with those of his brother, the dark

-’Give me his true name,’ Pharaoh commanded, rising once more to his feet

in his agitation. ’Name this last of all the Shrikes!’

Tanus drew out the moment. He looked around the temple slowly and

deliberately. When our eyes met, I nodded so slightly that only he saw the

movement, but his gaze passed on without a pause and he looked towards the

open doors of the sanctuary.

The attention of all the congregation was so fixed upon Lord Tanus that

they did not at first see the file of armed men that issued swiftly and

silently from the sanctuary. Although they wore full armour and carried their

war shields, I recognized most of them under the helmets. There were Remrem

and Astes and fifty other warriors of the Blues. Swiftly, they formed up

around the throne like a royal bodyguard, but, without making it obvious,

Remrem and Astes moved up behind Lord Intef. As soon as they were in

position, Tanus spoke again.

’I will name this Akh-Seth for you, Divine Pharaoh. He stands unashamedly

in the shadow of your throne.’ Tanus pointed with his sword. "There he is,

wearing the Gold of Praise about his traitor’s throat. There he stands,

Pharaoh’s sole companion who has turned your kingdom into a playground for

murderers and bandits. That is Akh-Seth, governor of the nome of Thebes,

grand vizier of the Upper Kingdom.’

An awful hush fell upon the temple. There must have been ten thousand or

more in the congregation who had suffered grievously at Lord Intef’s hands

and who had every reason to hate him, but not a voice spoke out in jubilation

or in triumph against him. All knew just how terrible was his wrath, and just

how certain his retribution. I could smell the stink of their fear in the

air, thick as the incense smoke. Every one of them understood that even

Tanus’ reputation and his mighty deeds were not sufficient for his unproven

accusation to prevail against such a person as Lord Intef. To show joy or

open agreement at this stage would be mortal folly.

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In that hush Lord Intef laughed. It was a sound full of disdain, and with a

dismissive gesture he turned his back upon Tanus and spoke directly to the

king. ’The desert sun has burned his brain. The poor lad has gone mad. There

is not a single word of truth in all his ravings. I should be angry, but

instead I am saddened that a warrior of reputation has fallen so low.’ He

held out both hands to Pharaoh, a dignified and loyal gesture. ’All my life I

have served Pharaoh and my people. My honour is so invulnerable that I see no

need to defend myself against these wild rantings. Without fear I place my

trust in the wisdom and justice of the divine king. I let my deeds and my

love of Pharaoh speak, in place of my tongue.’

I saw the confusion and indecision on the king’s painted face. His lips

trembled and his brow was furrowed, for he was not blessed with a swift and

incisive mind. After a moment he opened his mouth to speak, but before he

could utter any fateful or irredeemable judgement, Tanus lifted his sword

again and pointed beyond the throne to the open doors of the sanctuary.

Through the doors came another procession of men so unusual that Pharaoh

gaped at them with his mouth still open. Kratas led, with his visor raised

and a sword in his right hand. Those who followed him wore only loin-cloths,

and their heads and feet were bare. Their arms were bound behind their backs,

and they shuffled like slaves on their way to the auction block.

I was watching Lord Intef s face, and I saw the shock assail him and force

him to flinch, as though he had received a blow in the face. He had

recognized the captives, but he had obviously believed that they were long

dead, and their skulls grinning at the roadside. He darted a sideways glance

at the small sacristy door in the wall that was almost hidden by the hanging

linen bunting. It was his only escape from the crowded inner court, but

Remrem moved one pace to his right and blocked his path to the doorway. Lord

Intef looked back at the throne and lifted his chin in a confident and

defiant gesture.

The six bound captives lined up before the throne and then, at a quiet

order from Kratas, dropped to their knees and bowed their heads.

’Who are these creatures?’ Pharaoh demanded, and Tanus stood over the first

of them, seized his bound wrists and hauled him to his feet. The captive’s

skin was studded with the old healed scars of the smallpox and his blind eye

reflected the light like a silver coin.

"The divine Pharaoh asks who you are,’ Tanus said softly. ’Reply to the

question.’

’Great Egypt, I am Shufti,’ he said. ’I was once a baron of the Shrikes

before Akh-Horus scattered and slew my clan at the city of Gallala.’

’Tell the king who was your overlord,’ Tanus insisted.

’Akh-Seth was my overlord,’ Shufti replied. ’I swore a blood-oath of

allegiance to Akh-Seth, and I paid a bounty of one-quarter of all my plunder

to him. In return Akh-Seth gave me immunity from the forces of law, and

provided me with information on my intended victims.’

’Point out to the king the man you know as Akh-Seth,’ Tanus ordered, and

Shufti shuffled forward until he faced Lord Intef. He filled his mouth with

spittle and spat it on to the grand vizier’s gorgeous uniform. "This is

Akh-Seth,’ he cried. ’And may the worms feast on his guts!’

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Kratas dragged Shufti to one side and Tanus lifted the next captive to his

feet. ’Tell the king who you are,’ he ordered.

’I am Akheku, and I was a baron of the Shrikes, but all my men are killed.’

’Who was your overlord? To whom did you pay your bounty?’ Tanus demanded.

’Lord Intef was my overlord. I paid my bounty into the coffers of the grand

vizier.’

Lord Intef stood proud and aloof, showing no emotion as these accusation

were hurled at him. He offered no defence as, one after the other, the barons

were dragged before him and each made the same declaration.

’Lord Intef was my overlord. Lord Intef is Akh-Seth.’ The silence of the

multitudes in the temple was as oppressive as the heat. They watched in

horror, or in silent hatred, or in confusion and disbelief. However, not one

of them dared yet to speak out against Lord Intef, or to show emotion until

Pharaoh had first spoken.

The last of the barons was brought forward to confront the grand vizier. He

was a tall, lean man with stringy muscles and sun-blasted skin. There was

Bedouin blood in his veins, for his eyes were black and his nose beaked. His

beard was thick and curling, and his expression arrogant. ’My name is Basti.’

He spoke more clearly than any of the others. ’Men call me Basti the Cruel,

though I know not the reason why.’ He grinned with a raffish hangman’s

humour. ’I was a baron of the Shrikes until Akh-Horus destroyed my clan. Lord

Intef was my overlord.’

This time he was not dragged away as the others had been. Tanus spoke to

him again. ’Tell the king. Did you know Pianki, Lord Harrab, who in former

times was a nobleman of Thebes?’

’I knew him well. I had dealings with him.’

’What were these dealings?’ Tanus asked, with death in his voice.

’I plundered his caravans. I burned his crops in the fields. I raided his

mines at Sestra, and I slew the miners in such amusing fashion that no others

ever came to work the copper there. I burned his villas. I sent my men into

the cities to speak evil of him, so that his honesty and his loyalty to the

state were tarnished. I helped others to destroy him so that in the end he

drank the poisonous Datura seed from his own cup.’

I saw the hand of Pharaoh that held the royal flail shake as he listened,

and one of his eyelids twitched in a manner that I had noticed before-when he

was sore distressed.

’Who was it that ordered these things?’

’Lord Intef commanded these things and rewarded me with a takh of pure

gold.’

’What did Lord Intef hope to gain from this persecution of Lord Harrab?’

Basti grinned and shrugged. ’Lord Intef is grand vizier, while Pianki, Lord

Harrab is dead. It seems to me Lord Intef achieved his purpose.’

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’You acknowledge that I have offered you no clemency in return for this

confession? Do you understand that death awaits you?’

’Death?’ Basti laughed. ’I have never been afraid of that. It is the flour

of the loaf I bake. I have fed it to countless others, so now why should I be

afraid to feast on it myself?’ Was he fool or brave man, I wondered, as I

listened to the boast. Either way, I could find neither pity nor admiration

for him in my heart. I remembered that Pianki, Lord Harrab had been a man

like his son, and that is where my pity and my admiration lay.

I saw the merciless expression in the eyes of Tanus. I knew that he shared

my feelings, and his grip upon the hilt of his sword tightened until his

fingers turned as white as those of a drowned man.

’Take him away!’ he grated. ’Let him await the king’s pleasure.’ I saw him

compose himself with an effort, then he turned back to face the king. He went

down on one knee before him.

’I have done all that you asked of me, Divine Mamose, god and ruler of

Kemit. I wait for you to command me further.’ His dignity and his grace

closed up my throat so that I could not swallow. It took an effort to compose

myself.

The silence in the temple persisted. I could hear my mistress’s laboured

breathing beside me and then I felt her take my hand and squeeze it with a

strength that threatened to crack my finger-bones.

At last Pharaoh spoke, but with dismay I heard the doubt in his voice, and

I sensed intuitively that he did not want any of this to be true. He had

trusted Lord Intef so deeply for so long that it shook the foundations of his

faith.

’Lord Intef, you have heard the accusations against you. How say you to

them?’

’Divine Pharaoh, are these indeed accusations? I thought them merely the

fantasies of a young man driven insane with envy and jealousy. He is the son

of a convicted criminal and a traitor. Lord Tanus’ motives are plain to see.

He has convinced himself that the traitor Pianki might have become grand

vizier in my place. In some perverse fashion, he holds me responsible for his

father’s downfall.’

With a wave of his hand he dismissed Tanus. It was so skilfully done that I

saw the king waver. His doubts were growing stronger. For a lifetime he had

implicitly trusted Lord Intef, and it was difficult for him to adjust his

thinking. He wanted to believe in his innocence.

’What of the accusations of the barons?’ Pharaoh asked at last. ’What reply

do you make to them?’

’Barons?’ Lord Intef asked. ’Must we flatter them with such a title? By

their own testimony they are criminals of the basest kind?murderers, thieves,

violators of women and children. Should we look for truth in them any more

than we should look for honour and conscience in the beasts of the field?’

Lord Intef pointed to them, and they were indeed half-naked and bound like

animals. ’Let us gaze upon them, Divine Majesty. Are these not the kind of

men that can be bribed or beaten into saying anything for the sake of

then-own skins? Would you take the word of one of these against a man who has

served you faithfully all his life?’

216

I saw the small, involuntary nod of the king’s head as he accepted the

reasoning of the man he had looked upon as a friend, the man upon whom he had

heaped trust and rewards.

’All you say is true. You have always served me without vice. These rogues

are strangers to truth and honour. It is possible that they may have been

coerced.’ He vacillated, and Lord Intef sensed his advantage.

’So far I have had only words thrown at me. Surely there must be some other

evidence to support such mortal charges against me? Is there one person in

this very Egypt who will bring evidence against me, real evidence and not

mere words? If there is, let him come forward. Then I will answer this

charge. If there is no one who has this evidence, then I have nothing to

answer to>’

His words troubled Pharaoh deeply, I could see that. He gazed about the

hall as if seeking the evidence that Lord Intef demanded, and then he

obviously reached a decision.

’Lord Tanus, what proof do you have of these things, apart from the words

of murderers and criminals?’

’The beast has covered his tracks well,’ Tanus admitted, ’and he has taken

cover in the densest thicket where it is difficult to come at him. I have no

further evidence against Lord Intef, but there may be some other who does,

somebody who will be inspired by what he has heard here today. I beg you,

Royal Egypt, ask your people if there is not one of them who can bring forth

anything to help us here.’

’Pharaoh, this is provocation. My enemies will be emboldened to come out of

the shadows where they lurk to attack me,’ cried Lord Intef in vehement

protest, but Pharaoh silenced him with a brusque gesture. ’They will bear

false witness against you at their peril,’ he promised, and then addressed

the congregation.

’My people! Citizens of Thebes! You have heard the accusations made against

my trusted and well-beloved grand vizier. Is there one of you who can provide

the proof that Lord Tanus lacks? Can any of you bring forward evidence

against the Lord Intef? If so, I charge you to speak.’

I was standing before I realized what I had done, and my voice was so loud

in my own ears that it startled me.

’I am Taita, who was once the slave of Lord Intef,’ I shouted, and Pharaoh

looked across at me and frowned. ’I have aught that I wish to show Your

Majesty.’

’You are known to us, Taita the physician. You may approach.’

As I left my seat on the stand and went down to stand before the king, I

looked across at Lord Intef and I missed my step. It was as though I had

walked into a stone wall, so tangible was his hatred.

’Divine Egypt, this thing is a slave.’ Lord Intef’s voice was cold and

tight. "The word of a slave against a lord of the Theban circle, and a high

officer of the state?what mockery is this?’

I was still so conditioned to respond to his voice and to succumb to his

word, that my resolve wavered. Then I felt Tanus’ hand on my arm. It was only

217

a brief touch, but it manned and sustained me. However, Lord Intef had

noticed the gesture, and he pointed it out to the king.

’See how this slave is in the thrall of my accuser. Here is another one of

Lord Tanus’ trained monkeys.’ Lord In-tef’s voice was once more smooth as

warm honey. ’His insolence is unbounded. There are penalties laid down in the

law codes?’

Pharaoh silenced him with a gesture of his flail. ’You presume on our good

opinion of you, Lord Intef. The codes of law are mine to interpret or amend.

In them there are penalties laid down for the high-born as well as the common

man. You would be well advised to remember that.’

Lord Intef bowed in submission and remained silent, but suddenly his face

was haggard and drawn as he realized his predicament.

Now the king looked down at me. ’These are unusual circumstances, such as

allow of unprecedented remedy. However, Taita the slave, let me warn you that

if your words should prove frivolous, should they lack proof or substance,

the strangling-rope awaits you.’

That threat and the poisonous bane of Lord Intef s gaze upon me made me

stutter. ’While I was the slave of the grand vizier, I was his messenger and

his emissary to the barons. I know all these men.’ I pointed to the captives

that Kratas held near to the throne. ’It was I who carried Lord Intef’s

commands to them.’

’Lies! More words, lacking proof,’ Lord Intef called out, but now the edge

of desperation was in his voice. ’Where is the proof?’

’Silence!’ the king thundered with sudden ferocity. ’We will hear the

testimony of Taita the slave.’ He was looking directly at me, and I drew

breath to continue.

’It was I who carried the command of Lord Intef to Basti the Cruel. The

command was to destroy the estate and the fortune of Pianki, Lord Harrab. At

that time I was the confidant of Intef, I knew that he desired the position

of grand vizier to himself. All these things that Lord Intef commanded were

accomplished. Lord Harrab was destroyed, and he was deprived of Pharaoh’s

favour and love, so that he drank the Datura cup. I, Taita, attest all these

things.’

’It is so.’ Basti the Cruel lifted his bound arms to the throne. ’All that

Taita says is the truth.’

’Bah-Her!’ shouted the barons. ’It is the truth. Taita speaks the truth.’

’Still these are only words,’ the king mused. ’Lord Intef has demanded

proof. I, your Pharaoh, demand proof.’

’For half my lifetime I was the scribe and the treasurer of the grand

vizier. I kept the record of his fortune. I noted his profits and his

expenses on my scrolls. I gathered in the bounty that the barons of the

Shrikes paid to Lord Intef, and I disposed of all this wealth.’

’Can you show me these scrolls, Taita?’ Pharaoh’s expression shone like the

full moon at the mention of treasure. Now I had his avid attention.

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’No, Majesty, I cannot do so. The scrolls remained always in the possession

of Lord Intef.’

Pharaoh made no effort to conceal his chagrin, his face hardened towards

me, but I went on doggedly, ’I cannot show you the scrolls, but perhaps I can

lead you to the treasure that the grand vizier has stolen from you, and from

the people of your realm. It was I who built his secret treasuries for him,

and hid within them the bounty that I gathered from the barons. It was in

these store-rooms that I placed the wealth that Pharaoh’s tax-collectors

never saw.’

The king’s excitement rekindled, hot as the coals on the coppersmith’s

forge. He leaned forward intently. Although every eye in the temple was

fastened upon me, and the nobles were crowding forward the better to hear

each word, I was watching Lord Intef without seeming to look in his

direction. The burnished copper doors of the sanctuary were tall mirrors in

which his reflection was magnified. Every nuance of his expression and every

movement he made, however slight, was clear to me.

I had taken a fatal risk in assuming that his treasure still remained in

the secret places where I had stored it for him. He might have moved it at

any time during the past two years. Yet moving such quantities of treasure

would have been a major work and the risk of doing so as great as letting it

rest where it lay. He would have been forced to take others into his trust,

and that was not easy for Lord Intef to do. He was by nature a suspicious

man. Added to which was the fact that, until recently, he had believed me

dead, and my secret with me.

I calculated that my chances were evenly balanced, and I risked my life on

it. Now I held my breath as I watched Lord Intef’s reflection in the copper

doors. Then my heart raced and my spirits soared on the wings of eagles. I

saw from the pain and panic in his expression that the arrow I had fired at

him had struck the mark. I had won. The treasure was where I had left it. I

knew that I could lead Pharaoh to the plunder and the loot that Lord Intef

had gathered up over his lifetime.

But he was not yet defeated. I was rash to believe it would be so easily

accomplished. I saw him make a gesture with his right hand that puzzled me,

and while I dallied, it was almost too late.

In my triumph, I had forgotten Rasfer. The signal that Lord Intef gave him

was a flick of the right hand, but Rasfer responded like a trained boar-hound

to the huntsman’s command to attack. He launched himself at me with such

sudden ferocity that he took all of us by complete surprise. He had only ten

pace’s to cover to reach me, and his sword rasped from its scabbard as he

came.

There were two of Kratas’ men standing between us, but their backs were

turned to him, and Rasfer barged into them and knocked them off their feet,

so that one of them sprawled across the stone flags in front of Tanus and

blocked his path when he tried to spring to my aid. I was on my own,

defenceless, and Rasfer threw up his sword with both hands to cleave through

my skull to my breast-bone. I lifted my hands to ward off the blow, but my

legs were frozen with shock and terror, and I could not move or duck away

from the hissing blade.

I never saw Tanus throw his sword. I had eyes for nothing but the face of

Rasfer, but suddenly the sword was in the air. Terror had so enhanced my

senses that time seemed to pass as slowly as spilled oil dribbling from the

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jar. I watched Tanus’ sword turning end over end, spinning slowly on its

axis, flashing at each revolution like a sheet of summer lightning, but it

had not completed a full turn when it struck, and it was the hilt and not the

point that crashed into Rasfer’s head. It did not kill him, but it snapped

his head over, whipping his neck like the branch of a willow in the wind, so

that his eyes rolled back blindly in their sockets.

Rasfer never completed the blow he aimed at me. His legs collapsed under

him and he fell in a pile at my feet. His sword flew from his nerveless

fingers, spinning high in the air, and then fell back. It pegged into the

side of Pharaoh’s throne, and quivered there. The king stared at it in

shocked disbelief. The razor edge had touched his arm, and split the skin. As

we all watched, a line of ruby droplets oozed from the shallow wound, and

dripped on to Pharaoh’s cloud-white linen kilt.

Tanus broke the horrified silence. ’Great Egypt, you saw who gave the

signal for this beast to attack. You know who was to blame for endangering

your royal person.’ He leaped over the downed guardsman and seized Lord Intef

by the arm, twisting it until he fell to his knees and cried out with pain.

’I did not want to believe this of you.’ Pharaoh’s expression was sorrowful

as he looked down on his grand vizier. ’I have trusted you all my life, and

you have spat upon me.’

’Great Egypt, hear me!’ Lord Intef begged on his knees, but Pharaoh turned

his face away from him.

’I have listened to you long enough.’ Then he nodded to Tanus. ’Have your

men guard him well, but show him courtesy, for his guilt is not yet fully

proven.’

Finally Pharaoh addressed the congregation. ’These are strange and

unprecedented events. I adjourn these proceedings to consider fully the

evidence that Taita the slave will present.to me. The population of Thebes

will assemble once again to hear my judgement in this same place at noon

tomorrow. I have spoken.’

WE ENTERED THROUGH THE MAIN DOORWAY to the audience hall of the grand

vizier’s palace. Pharaoh paused at the threshold. Although the wound from

Rasfer’s sword was slight, I had bandaged it with linen and placed his arm in

a sling.

Pharaoh surveyed the hall slowly. At the far end of the long room stood the

grand vizier’s throne. Carved from a solid block of alabaster, it was hardly

less imposing than Pharaoh’s own in the throne room at Elephantine. The high

walls were plastered with smooth clay and on this background were painted

some of the most impressive frescoes that I had ever designed. They

transformed the huge room into a blazing garden of delights. I had painted

them while I was Lord Intef’s slave, and even though they were my own

creations, they still gave me a deep thrill of pleasure when I looked upon

them.

I have no doubt that these works alone, without consideration of any other

of my achievements, would support my claim to the title of the most

significant artist in the history of our land. It was sad that I who had

created them was now to demolish them. It detracted from the triumph of this

tumultuous day.

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I led Pharaoh down the hall. For once we had dispensed with all protocol,

and Pharaoh was as eager as a child. He followed me so closely that he almost

trod upon my heels, and his royal train fell in as eagerly behind him.

I led them to the throne wall and we stopped below the huge mural depicting

the sun god, Ammon-Ra, on his daily journey across the heavens. Even in his

excitement, I could see the reverent expression in the king’s eyes as he

looked up at the painting.

Behind us, the great hall was half-filled with the king’s train, the

courtiers and the warriors and the noble lords, to say nothing of the royal

wives and concubines who would rather have given up all their rouges and

paint-boxes of cosmetics than miss such an exciting moment as I had promised

them. Naturally, my mistress was in the forefront. Tanus marched only a pace

behind the king. He and his Blues had taken over the duties of the royal

bodyguard.

The king turned back to Tanus now. ’Have your men bring forward the Lord

Intef!’

Treating him with elaborate and icy courtesy, Kratas led Intef to face the

wall, but he interposed himself between the prisoner and the king and stood

with his naked blade at the ready.

’Taita, you may proceed,’ the king told me, and I measured the wall,

stepping out exactly thirty paces from the furthest corner and marking the

distance with the lump of chalk that I had brought with me for the purpose.

’Behind this wall lie the private quarters of the grand vizier,’ I

explained to the king. ’Certain alterations were made when last the palace

was renovated. Lord Intef likes to have his wealth close at hand.’

’Sometimes you are garrulous, Taita.’ Pharaoh was less than captivated by

my lecture on the palace architecture. ’Get on with it, fellow. I am aflame

to see what is hidden here.’

’Let the masons approach!’ I called out, and a small band of these sturdy

rogues in their leather aprons came down the aisle and dropped their leather

tool-bags at the foot of the throne wall. I had summoned them across the

river from their work on Pharaoh’s tomb. The white stone-dust in their hair

gave them an air of age and wisdom that few of them deserved.

I borrowed a wooden set-square from their foreman, and with it marked out

an oblong shape on the clay-plastered wall. Then I stepped back and addressed

the,master mason.

’Gently now! Damage the frescoes as little as you can. They are great works

of art.’

With their wooden mallets and their chisels of flint, they fell upon the

wall, and they paid little heed to my strictures. Paint and plaster flew in

clouds as slabs of the outer wall were stripped away and thumped to the

marble floor. The dust offended the ladies and they covered their mouths and

noses with their shawls.

Gradually from under the layer of plaster emerged the outline of the stone

blocks. Then Pharaoh exclaimed aloud and, ignoring the flying dust, he drew

closer, and peered at the design that appeared from beneath the plaster skin.

The regular courses of stone blocks were marred by an oblong of

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alien-coloured stone that followed almost exactly the outline I had chalked

upon the outer layer of plaster.

"There is a hidden door in there,’ he cried. ’Open it immediately!’

Under the king’s urging, the masons attacked the sealed doorway with a

will, and once they had removed the keystone, the other blocks came out

readily. A dark opening was revealed, and Pharaoh, who had by now taken

charge of the work, called excitedly for torches to be lit.

’The entire space behind this wall is a secret compartment,’ I told

Pharaoh, while we waited for the torches to be brought to us. ’I had it

constructed on Lord Intef’s orders.’

When the torches were brought, Tanus took one of them and lit the king’s

way into the gaping secret door. The king stepped through, and I was the next

to enter after him and Tanus.

It was so long since I had last been in there that I looked around me’with

as much interest as the others. Nothing had changed in all that time. The

chests and casks of cedar and acacia wood were stacked exactly as I had left

them. I pointed out to the king those cases to which he should first devote

his attention, and he ordered, ’Have them carried out into the audience

hall.’

’You will need strong men to carry them,’ I remarked drily. They are rather

heavy.’

It took three of the biggest men of the Blues to lift each case and they

staggered out through the jagged opening in the wall with them.

’I have never seen these boxes before,’ Lord Intef protested, as the first

of them was carried out and laid on the dais of the grand vizier’s throne. ’I

had no knowledge of a secret chamber behind the wall. It must have been built

by my predecessor, and the cases placed there at his command.’

’Your Majesty, observe the seal on this lid.’ I pointed it out to him and

the king peered at the clay tablet.

’Whose seal is this?’ he demanded.

’Observe the ring on the left forefinger of the grand vizier, Majesty,’ I

murmured. ’May I respectfully suggest that Pharaoh match it to the seal on

this chest?’

’Lord Intef, hand me your ring if you please,’ the king asked with

exaggerated courtesy, and the grand vizier hid his left hand behind his back.

’Great Egypt, the ring has been on my finger for twenty years. My flesh has

grown around it and it cannot now be removed.’

’Lord Tanus.’ The king turned to him. ’Take your sword. Remove Lord Intef’s

finger and bring it to me with the ring upon it.’ Tanus smiled cruelly as he

stepped forward to obey, half-drawing his blade.

’Perhaps I am mistaken,’ Lord Intef admitted with alacrity. ’Let me see if

I cannot free it.’ The ring slipped readily enough from his finger, and Tanus

went down on one knee to hand it to the king.

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Pharaoh bent studiously over the chest and made the comparison of ring to

seal. When he straightened up again his face was dark with anger.

’It is a perfect match. This seal was struck from your ring, Lord Intef.’

But the grand vizier made no reply to the accusation. He stood with his arms

folded and his- expression stony.

’Break the seal. Open the chest!’ Pharaoh ordered, and Tanus cut away the

clay tablet and prised up the lid with his sword.

The king cried out involuntarily as the lid fell away and the contents were

revealed, ’By all the gods!’ And his courtiers crowded forward without

ceremony to gaze into the chest, exclaiming and jostling each other for a

better view.

’Gold!’ The king scooped both hands full with the glittering yellow rings,

and then let them cascade back between his fingers. He kept a single ring in

his hand and held it close to his face to study the mint marks upon it. ’Two

deben weight of fine gold. How much will this case contain, and how many

cases are there in the secret store-room?’ His question was rhetorical, and

he was not expecting an answer, but I gave him a reply nevertheless.

’This case contains?’ I read the manifest that I had inscribed on the lid

so many years before. ’It contains one takh and three hundred deben of pure

gold. As to how many cases of gold, if my memory serves me well, there should

be fifty-three of gold and twenty-three of silver in this store. However, I

have forgotten exactly how many chests of jewellery we hid here.’

’Is there no one I can trust? You, Lord Intef, I treated as my brother.

There was no kindness that you did not receive from my hands, and this is how

you have repaid me.’

AT MIDNIGHT THE CHANCELLOR AND THE chief inspector of the royal taxes came

to the king’s chamber where I was changing the dressing on his injured arm.

They presented their final tally of the amount of the treasure and Pharaoh

read it with awe. Once again, his emotions warred with each other, outrage

vying with euphoria at this staggering windfall.

’The rogue was richer than his own king. There is no punishment harsh

enough for such evil. He has cheated and robbed me and my tax-collectors.’

’As well as murdering and plundering Lord Harrab and tens of thousands of

your subjects,’ I reminded him, as I secured the bandage on his arm. It was

perhaps impudent of me. However, he was by now so deep in my debt that I

could risk it.

’That too,’ he agreed readily enough, my sarcasm wasted upon him. ’His

guilt is deep as the sea and high as the heaven. I will have to devise a

suitable punishment. The strangler’s rope is too kind for Lord Intef.’

’Majesty, as your physician, I must insist that you rest now. It has been a

day that has taxed even your great strength and endurance.’

’Where is Intef? I cannot rest until I am assured that he is well taken

care of.’

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’He is under guard in his own quarters, Majesty. A senior captain and a

detachment of the Blues have that duty.’ I hesitated delicately. ’Rasfer is

also under guard.’

’Rasfer, that ugly drooling animal of his? The one who tried to kill you in

the temple of Osiris? Did he survive the crack that Lord Tanus gave him?’

’He is well if not happy, Pharaoh,’ I assured him. ’Did Your Majesty know

that Rasfer is the one who, so long ago, used the gelding-knife upon me?’ I

saw the beam of pity in the king’s eye, as I blurted it out.

’I will deal with him as I deal with his master,’ Pharaoh promised. ’He

will suffer the same punishment as Lord Intef. Will that satisfy you, Taita?’

’Your Majesty is just and omniscient.’ I backed out of his presence and

went to find my mistress.

She was waiting for me and, although it was after midnight and I was

exhausted, she would not let me sleep. She was far too overwrought, and she

insisted that for the rest of the night I sit beside her bed and listen to

her chatter about Tanus and other topics of lesser importance.

DESPITE THE DEARTH OF SLEEP, I WAS bright and clear-headed when I took my

place in the temple of Osiris the following morning.

If anything, the congregation was even larger than it had been the day

before. There was not a ___ soul in Thebes who had not heard of the downfall

of the grand vizier, and who was not eager to witness his ultimate

humiliation. Even those of his underlings, who had most prospered under his

corrupt administration, now turned upon him, like a pack of hyena who devour

their leader when he is sick and wounded.

The barons of the Shrikes were led before the throne in their rags and

bonds, but when Lord Intef entered the temple, he wore fine linen and silver

sandals. His hair was freshly curled, his face painted, and the chains of the

Gold of Praise hung around his neck.

The barons knelt before the king, but even when one of the guards pricked

him with the sword, Lord Intef refused to bend the knee, and the king made a

gesture for the guard to desist.

’Let him stand!’ the king ordered. ’He will lie in his tomb long enough.’

Then Pharaoh rose and stood before us in all his grandeur and his rage. This

once he seemed a true king, as the first of his dynasty had been, a man of

might and force. I, who had come to know him and his weaknesses so well,

found that I was overcome with a sense of awe.

’Lord Intef, you are accused of treason and murder, of brigandage and

piracy, and of a hundred other crimes no less deserving of punishment. I have

heard the supported testimony of fifty of my subjects from all walks and

stations of life, from lords and freemen and slaves. I have seen the contents

of your secret treasury wherein you hid your stolen wealth from the royal

tax-collectors. I have seen your personal seal upon the treasure chests. By

all these matters your guilt is proven a thousand times over. I, Mamose the

eighth of that name, Pharaoh and ruler of this very Egypt, hereby find you

guilty of all the crimes of which you are accused, and deserving of neither

royal clemency nor mercy.’

224

’Long live Pharaoh!’ shouted Tanus, and the salute was taken up and

repeated ten times by the people of Thebes. ’May he live for ever!’

When silence fell, Pharaoh spoke again. ’Lord Intef, you wear the Gold of

Praise. The sight of that decoration on the breast of a traitor offends me.’

He looked across at Tanus. ’Centurion, remove the gold from the prisoner.’

Tanus lifted the chains from Lord Intef’s neck and carried them to the

king. Pharaoh took the gold in his two hands, but when Tanus started to

withdraw, he stayed him with a word.

"The name Lord Harrab was tarnished with the slur of treason. Your father

was hounded to a traitor’s death. You have proven your father’s innocence. I

rescind all sentences passed against Pianki, Lord Harrab, and posthumously

restore to him all his honours and titles that were stripped from him. Those

honours and titles descend to you, his son.’

’Bak-Her!’ shouted the congregation. ’May Pharaoh live for ever! Hail,

Tanus, Lord Harrab!’

’In addition to those titles which now come down to you as your

inheritance, I bestow upon you new distinction. You have carried out my

charge to you. You have destroyed the Shrikes and delivered their overlord to

justice. In recognition of this service to the crown, I bestow upon you the

Gold of Valour. Kneel, Lord Harrab, and receive the king’s favour.’

’Bak-Her!’ they cried, as Pharaoh placed the jangling gold chains, that had

so recently belonged to Lord Intef, but to which he had now added the star

pendant of the warrior’s decoration, about Tanus’ neck. ’Hail, Lord Harrab!’

As Tanus withdrew, Pharaoh turned his attention back to the prisoners.

’Lord Intef, you are deprived of your title as a lord of the Theban circle.

Your name and rank will be erased from all the public monuments, and from

your tomb that you have prepared in the Valley of the Nobles. Your estates

and all your possessions, including your illicit treasure, are forfeited to

the crown, except only those estates that once belonged to Pianki, Lord

Harrab, and which by fell means have come into your possession. These are now

returned in their entirety to his heir, my goodly Tanus, Lord Harrab.’

’Bak-Her! Pharaoh is wise! May he live for ever!’ the people cheered

wildly, and beside me my mistress was weeping unashamedly, but then so were

half the royal women. Very few of them could resist that heroic figure whose

golden hair seemed to dim the chains upon his breast.

Now the king took me by surprise. He looked directly at where I sat beside

my mistress. ’There is one other who has done the crown loyal service, the

one who revealed the whereabouts of the stolen treasure. Let the slave,

Taita, stand forth.’

I went down to stand before the throne, and the king’s voice was gentle.

’You have suffered unspeakable harm at the hands of the traitor Intef and his

henchman Rasfer. You have been forced by them to commit nefarious deeds and

capital crimes against the state, by conniving with bandits and robbers and

by concealing your master’s treasure from the royal tax-collectors. However,

these were not crimes of your own inspiration. As a slave, you were forced to

the will of your master. Therefore I absolve you from all guilt and

liability. I find you innocent of any crime, and I reward you for your

service to us with a bounty of two takhs of fine gold to be paid out of the

treasure confiscated from the traitor, Intef.’

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A murmur of astonishment greeted this announcement, and I gasped aloud. It

was a staggering amount. A fortune to match those of all but the wealthiest

lords in the land, enough to buy -great tracts of the most fertile land along

the river, and to furnish magnificent villas upon that land, to buy three

hundred strong slaves to work the land, enough to fit out a fleet of trading

vessels and send them to the ends of the earth to bring back more treasure.

It was a sum large enough to boggle even my imagination, but the king had not

finished.

’As a slave, this bounty will be paid not to you, but to your mistress, the

Lady Lostris, who is a junior wife of Pharaoh.’ I should have guessed that

Pharaoh would keep it in the family.

I, who for a fleeting moment had been one of the richest men in Egypt,

bowed to the king and returned to my place beside my mistress. She squeezed

my hand to console me, but in truth I was not unhappy. Our destinies were so

entwined that I was a part of her, and I knew that we would never again want

for any material thing. I was already planning how I would invest my

mistress’s fortune for her.

At last the king was ready to pass sentence on the line of prisoners,

though he looked only at Intef as he spoke.

’Your crimes are unparalleled. No punishment before meted out is harsh

enough to fit your case. This then is the sentence I pass upon you. At dawn

on the day after the end of the festival of Osiris, you will be marched

through the streets of Thebes, bound and naked. While you still live you will

be nailed by your feet to the main gate of the city, with your heads hanging

downwards. You will be left there until your bones are picked clean by the

crows. Then your bones will be taken down and ground to powder and cast into

Mother Nile.’

Even Intef paled and swayed on his feet as he listened to the sentence. By

dispersing their earthly bodies so that they could never be embalmed and

preserved, Pharaoh was condemning the prisoners to oblivion. For an Egyptian

there could be no harsher punishment. They were being denied for all eternity

the fields of paradise.

WHEN MY MISTRESS EXPRESSED HER DETERMINATION to attend the executions and

to watch her father being nailed upside-down to the main gate, I do not think

that she truly realized the horror of what she would witness. I was equally

determined that she should not be there to see it. There had never been a

sadistic streak in her. I believe that her decision was influenced by the

fact that most of the other royal women were going to enjoy the diverting

spectacle, and that Tanus would be in command of the execution. She would

never pass up an opportunity to gaze at him, even from a distance.

In the end I persuaded her only by employing the most poignant argument in

my arsenal. ’My lady, such cruel sights as these will certainly affect your

unborn son. Surely you do not wish to blight his young unformed mind.’

’That is not possible,’ she faltered for the first time in our argument.

’My son could know nothing of it.’

’He will see through your eyes, and the screams of his dying grandfather

will pass through the walls of your stomach and enter his tiny ears.’ It was

an evocative choice of words, and they had the effect I was striving for.

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She thought about it at length, and then sighed. ’Very well then, but I

shall expect you to bring me back a full description of it all. You are not

to miss a single detail. Especially I will want to know what the other royal

wives were wearing.’ Then she grinned at me wickedly to prove that she had

not been totally gulled by my arguments. ’You can whisper it all to me, so

the child sleeping in my belly cannot overhear us.’

At dawn on the day of the execution the gardens of the palace were still

shrouded in darkness when I left the harem. I hurried through the

water-gardens, and the stars were reflected in the black surfaces of the

ponds. As I approached the wing of the palace where Lord Intef was being held

in his own quarters, I saw the blaze of torches and lamps lighting the

windows, and heard the frantic yelling of orders and invective from within.

I knew instantly that something was seriously amiss, and I broke into a

run. I was almost speared by the guard at the door to Lord Intef’s private

quarters, but he recognized me at the last moment before he skewered me, and

lifted his weapon and let me pass.

Tanus was in the centre of the ante-chamber. He was roaring like a

black-maned lion in a trap, and aiming blows with his clenched fists at

whoever came within range. Even though he had always had a stormy temper, I

had never before seen him so incapacitated by rage. He seemed to have lost

the power of reason or of articulate speech. His men, those mighty heroes of

the Blues, cowered away from him, and the rest of the palace wing was in an

uproar.

I went straight up to him, ducked under another wild punch, and shouted in

his face, ’Tanus! It is I! Control yourself! In the name of all the gods, are

you mad?’

He almost struck me, and I saw him wrestle with his emotions and at last

take control of them.

’See what you can do for them.’ He pointed at the bodies that were

scattered about the ante-chamber as though a battle had raged through it.

With horror I recognized that one of them was Khetkhet, a senior captain of

the regiment and a man I respected. He was curled in the corner clutching his

stomach, with such agony etched on his rigid features that I hoped never to

see again. I touched his cheek and the skin was cold and dead.

I shook my head, ’He is past all help that I can give him.’ I lifted his

eyelid with my thumb and gazed into his dead eye, then I leaned forward and

smelled his mouth. The faint musty odour of mushrooms on it was dreadfully

familiar.

’Poison.’ I stood up. ’The others will be the same.’ There were five of

them curled on the tiles.

’How?’ asked Tanus, in a tone of forced calm, and I picked up one of the

bowls piled on the low table from which they had obviously eaten their

dinner, and I sniffed it. The smell of mushrooms was stronger.

’Ask the cooks,’ I suggested. Then, in a sudden access of anger, I hurled

the bowl against the wall. The crumpled bodies reminded me of my pets who had

died the same death, and Khetkhet had been my friend.

227

I took a deep breath to calm myself before I asked, ’No doubt your prisoner

has escaped?’ Tanus did not reply, but led me through into the grand vizier’s

bedchamber. Immediately I saw the painted panel that had been removed from

the far wall of the empty room, and the opening behind it.

’Did you know that there was a secret passage?’ Tanus demanded coldly, and

I shook my head.

’I thought I knew all his secrets, but I was wrong.’ My voice was resigned.

I think that in my heart I had known all along that we would never bring

Intef to justice. He was a favourite of the dark gods and enjoyed their

protection.

’Has Rasfer escaped with him?’ I asked, and Tanus shook his head.

’I have him locked in the arsenal with the barons. But Intef’s two sons,

Menset and Sobek, have disappeared. Almost certainly they were the ones who

arranged this murder of my men, and their father’s escape.’ Tanus had full

control of that wild temper of his once more, but his anger was still there

beneath it. ’You know Intef so well, Taita. What will he do? Where will he

go? How can I catch him?’

’One thing I know, he will have made plans against such a day as this. I

know he has treasure stored for him in the Lower Kingdom, with merchants and

lawyers there. He has even had commerce with the false pharaoh. I think that

he sold military information to him and his generals. He would receive a

friendly welcome in the north.’

’I have already sent five fast galleys to the north, with orders to search

all vessels that they overtake,’ Tanus told me.

’He has friends across the Red Sea,’ I said. ’And he has sent treasure to

merchants in Gaza on the shores of the northern sea, to be held for him. He

has had dealings with the Bedouin. Many of them are in his pay. They would

help him to cross the desert.’

’By Horus, he is like a rat with a dozen escape-routes to his hole,’ swore

Tanus. ’How can I cover all of them?’

’You cannot,’ I said. ’And now Pharaoh is waiting to witness the

executions. You will have to report this to him.’

’The king will be angry, and with good reason. By allowing Intef to escape,

I have failed in my duty.’

But Tanus was wrong. Pharaoh accepted the news of Intef’s escape with

remarkable equanimity. I cannot fathom the reason for this, except perhaps

that the vast quantity of treasure he had acquired so unexpectedly had

mellowed him. Deep in his heart he may still have cherished some sneaking

affection for his grand vizier. On the other hand, Pharaoh was a kindly man,

and may not have truly relished the prospect of watching Lord Intef being

nailed to the city gates.

It is true he showed some passing annoyance, and spoke of justice being

cheated, but all the time we were in his presence, he was surreptitiously

studying the manifest of the treasure. Even when Tanus admitted his

responsibility for the prisoner’s escape, Pharaoh brushed it aside.

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"The fault lies with the captain of the guard, and he has already been

sufficiently punished from the poison bowl that Intef provided for him. You

have sent galleys and troops in pursuit of the fugitive. You have done all

that can be expected of you, Lord Harrab. It remains only for you to carry

out my sentence on these other criminals.’

’Is Pharaoh ready to witness the execution?’ Tanus asked, and Pharaoh

looked about him for an excuse to remain with his manifests and

tax-collectors’ reports.

’I have much to do here, Lord Tanus. Proceed without me. Report to me when

the sentences have been carried out.’

SO GREAT WAS THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN the executions that the city fathers

had erected a Taita stand in front of the main gates. They charged a silver

ring for a seat upon it. There was no lack of customers, and the stand was

packed to capacity. The crowds who could not find a seat upon it overflowed

out into the fields beyond the walls. Many of them had brought beer and wine

to make a celebration of it, and to toast the barons on their way. Very few

of them had not suffered from the ravages of the Shrikes, and many of them

had lost husbands or brothers or sons to them.

Stark naked and bound together, as Pharaoh had ordered, the condemned men

were led through the streets of Kamak. The crowd lined their way and hurled

dung and filth at them as they passed, screaming insults and shaking their

fists. The children danced ahead of the procession singing bits of doggerel

made up on the spur of the moment:

Nails in my tooties, bare bum to the sky,

I am a baron, and that’s how I die.

Obedient to my mistress’s wishes, I had taken up a place on the stand to

watch the sentence carried out. In truth I had no eyes for the clothing and

jewellery of the women of fashion around me when the prisoners were at last

led through the open gates. I looked instead at Rasfer and I tried to revive

and inflate my hatred for him. I forced myself to recite every cruel and

wicked act that he had ever committed against me, to relive the agony of the

lash and the knife that he had inflicted upon me. Yet there he stood with his

white belly sagging almost to his knees, with excrement in his hair and filth

streaking his face and running down his grotesque body. It was difficult to

hate him as much as he deserved.

He saw me on the stand and he grinned up at me. The paralysed muscles on

one side of his face made it only half a grin, a sardonic grimace, and he

called, ’Thank you for coming to "wish me godspeed, eunuch. Perhaps we will

meet again in the fields of paradise, where I hope to have the pleasure of

cutting off your balls once again.’

That taunt should have made it easier for me to hate him, but somehow it

failed, although I called back to him, ’You are going no further than the mud

in the river bottom, old friend. The next catfish that I roast on the spit I

will call Rasfer.’

229

He was the first prisoner to be lifted on to the wooden gate. It took three

men on the parapet of the wall, straining on the rope, while at the same

time, four more shoved from below. They held him there as one of the

regimental armourers climbed the ladder beside him with a stone-headed mallet

in his fist.

There were no more jokes from Rasfer when the first of the thick copper

nails was driven through the flesh and bones of his huge, callused feet. He

roared and swore and twisted in the grip of the men who held him, and the

crowd cheered and laughed and urged on the sweating armourer. It was only

when the nails had been driven home and the hammerman had climbed down to

admire his handiwork that the flaws in this novel form of punishment became

evident. Rasfer howled and roared, swinging upside-down, with the blood

trickling slowly down his legs. The hang of his pendulous paunch was

reversed, and the huge hairy bunch of his genitalia flapped against his

belly-button. As he twisted and struggled, the nails slowly ’ripped through

the web of flesh between his toes, until finally they tore entirely free.

Rasfer fell back to earth and flopped around like a beached fish. The

spectators loved the show, and howled with mirth at his antics.

Encouraged by the spectators, his executioners lifted him back on to the

gate, and the armourer with his hammer climbed back up the ladder to drive in

more nails. In order to pin Rasfer more securely and to prevent him

struggling, Tanus ordered his hands as well as his feet to be nailed to the

gate.

This time it was more successful. Rasfer hung head down, his limbs spread

like some monstrous star-fish. He was no longer bellowing, for the mass of

intestines in his belly were sagging down and pressing on his lungs. He

struggled for every breath he drew, and had none over for shouting.

One at a time, the other condemned men were lifted on to the gate and

nailed there, and the crowd hooted and applauded. Only Basti the Cruel made

no sound and gave them poor sport.

As the day wore on, the sun beat down upon the crucified victims, and the

heat grew steadily stronger. By noon the prisoners were so weak with pain and

thirst and loss of blood that they hung as quietly as the carcasses on

butchers’ hooks. The spectators began to lose interest and drifted away. Some

of the barons lasted longer than the others. Basti went on breathing all that

day. Only as the sun was setting did he take one deep shuddering breath and

finally hang inert. Rasfer was the toughest of them all. Long after Basti was

gone, he hung on. His face was filled with dark blood so it swelled to twice

its normal size. His tongue protruded from between his lips, like a thick

slice of purple liver. Once in a while he would utter a deep groan and his

eyes would flutter open. Every time this happened, I shared his agony. The

last of my hatred for him had long ago shrivelled and died, and I was racked

with pity, as I would have been for any other tortured animal.

The crowd had long ago dispersed, and I sat alone on the empty stand. Not

attempting to hide his disgust at such a brutal duty thrust upon him by the

royal command, Tanus had stood to his post until sunset. Then finally he had

handed over the death watch to one of his captains, and strode back into the

city, leaving us to our vigil.

There were only the ten guards below the gate, myself on the stand and a

few beggars lying like bundles of rags at the foot of the wall. The torches

on either side of the gate guttered and flickered in the night breeze off the

river, casting an eerie light over the macabre scene.

230

Rasfer groaned again, and I could stand it no longer. I took a jar of beer

from my basket and climbed down to speak to the captain. Wejoiew each other

from the desert, and he laughed and shook his head at my request. ’You are a

soft-hearted fool, Taita. The bastard is so far-gone, he is not worth

worrying about,’ he told me. ’But I will look the other way for a while. Be

quick about it.’

I went to the gate, and Rasfer’s head was on a level with my own. 1 called

his name softly, and his eyes fluttered open. I had no way of telling how

much he understood, but I whispered, ’I have a little beer to wet your

tongue.

He made a soft gulping sound in his throat. His eyes were looking at me. If

he still had feeling, I knew his thirst must be a torment of hell. I dribbled

a few drops from the jar over his tongue, careful not to let any of it run

back into his nose. He made a weak and futile effort to swallow. It would

have been impossible, even if he had been stronger; the liquid ran out of the

corners of his mouth and down his cheeks into the dung-caked hair.

He closed his eyes, and that was the moment I was waiting for. I slipped my

dagger out of the folds of my shawl. Carefully I placed the point behind his

ear, and then with a sharp movement drove it in to the hilt. His back arched

in the final spasm, and then he relaxed into death. I drew out the blade.

There was very tittle blood, and I hid the dagger in my shawl and turned

away.

’May dreams of paradise waft you through the night, Taita,’ the captain of

the guard called after me, but I had lost my voice and could not reply. I

never thought that I would weep for Rasfer, and maybe I never did so. Perhaps

I wept only for myself.

AT PHARAOH’S COMMAND THE RETURN of the court to Elephantine was initially

delayed for a month. The king had his new treasure to dispose of and was in

buoyant mood. In all the time I had known him, I had never seen him so happy

and contented. I was pleased for him. By this time I held the old man in real

and warm affection. Some nights I sat up late with him and his scribes, going

over the accounts of the royal treasury, which now emitted a decidedly rosy

glow.

At other times, I was summoned by Pharaoh to consultations on. the

alterations to the mortuary temple and the royal tomb that he was now better

able to afford. I calculated that at least half of the recently revealed

treasure would go into the tomb with Pharaoh. He selected all the finest

jewellery from Intef’s hoard and sent almost fifteen takhs of bullion to the

goldsmiths in his temple, to be turned into funerary objects.

Nevertheless, he found time to send for Tanus to advise him on military

matters. He had now recognized Tanus as one of the foremost generals in his

army.

I was present at some of these meetings. The threat from the false pharaoh

in the Lower Kingdom was ever-present and preyed on all our minds. Such was

Tanus’ favour with the king that he was able to make the most of these fears

and to persuade Pharaoh to divert a small part of Inters treasure to the

building of five new squadrons of war galleys, and to re-equipping all the

guards regiments with new weapons and sandals?although he was unable to

persuade the king to make up the arrears in pay for the army. Many of the

231

regiments had not been paid for the last half-year. Morale in the army was

much boosted by these reinforcements, and every soldier knew whom to thank

for them. They roared like lions and raised their clenched right fists in

salute, when Tanus inspected their massed formations.

Most times when Tanus was summoned to the royal audience, my mistress found

some excuse to be present. Although she had the good sense to keep in the

background on these occasions, she and Tanus directed such looks at each

other that I feared they might scorch the false beard of the Pharaoh.

Fortunately nobody but myself seemed to notice these flashing messages of

passion.

Whenever my mistress knew that I was to see Tanus in private, she burdened

me with long and ardent messages for him. On my return I carried his replies

which matched hers in length and fire. Fortunately these outpourings were

highly repetitive, and memorizing them was not a great hardship.

My Lady Lostris never tired of urging me to find some subterfuge by which

she tod Tanus might be alone together once more. I admit that I feared enough

for my own skin and for the safety of my mistress and our unborn child, not

to devote all my energies and ingenuity to satisfying this request of hers.

Once when I did tentatively approach Tanus with my mistress’s invitation to a

meeting, he sighed and refused it with many protestations of love for her.

"That interlude in the tombs of Tras was sheer madness, Taita. I never

intended to compromise the Lady Lostris’ honour, but for the khamsin, it

would never have happened. We cannot take that risk again. Tell her that I

love her more than life itself. Tell her our time will come, for the Mazes of

Ammon-Ra have promised it to us. Tell her I will wait for her through all the

days of my life.’

On receiving this loving message, my mistress stamped her foot, called her

true love a stubborn fool who cared nothing for her, broke a cup and two

bowls of coloured glass, hurled a jewelled mirror which had been a gift from

the king into the river, and finally threw herself on the bed where she’ wept

until suppertime.

APART FROM HIS MILITARY DUTIES, which included supervising the building of

the new fleet of galleys, Tanus, these days, was much occupied with the

reorganization of his father’s estates that he had at last inherited.

On these matters he consulted me almost daily. Not surprisingly, the

estates had never been preyed upon by the Shrikes while they belonged to Lord

Intef, and accordingly they were all prosperous and in good repair. Thus

Tanus had become overnight one of the most wealthy men in the Upper Kingdom.

Although I tried my best to dissuade him, he spent much of this private

fortune in making up the arrears in pay to his men and in re-equipping his

beloved Blues. Of course his men loved him all the more for this generosity.

Not content with these profligate expenditures, Tanus sent out his

captains, Kratas and Remrem and Astes, to gather up all the crippled and

blinded veterans of the river wars who now existed by begging in the streets

of Thebes. Tanus installed this riff-raff in one of the large country villas

that formed part of his inheritance, and although slops and kitchen refuse

would have been too good for them, he fed them on meat and corn-cakes and

beer. The common soldiers cheered Tanus in the streets and drank his health

in the taverns.

232

When I told my mistress of Tanus’ mad extravagances, she was so encouraged

by them that she immediately spent hundreds of deben of the gold that I had

earned for her, in buying and equipping a dozen buildings which she turned

into hospitals and hostels for the poor people of Thebes. I had already

earmarked this gold for investment in the corn market, and though I wrung my

hands and pleaded with her, she could not be moved.

Needless to say, it was the long-suffering slave Taita who was responsible

for the day-to-day management of this latest folly of his mistress, although

she visited her charity homes every day. Thus it was possible for any loafer

and drunkard in the twin cities to scrounge a free meal and a comfortable bed

from us. If that was not enough, they could have their bowl of soup served to

them by my mistress’s own fair hand, and their running sores and purging

bowels treated by one of the most eminent physicians in this very Egypt.

I was able to find a few young unemployed scribes and disenchanted priests

who loved people more than gods or money. My mistress took them into her

employ. I led this little band on nocturnal hunts through the back alleys and

slum quarters of the city. Nightly we gathered up the street orphans. They

were a filthy, verminous bunch of little savages, and very few of them came

with us willingly. We had to pursue and catch them like wild cats. I received

many lusty bites and scratches in the process of bathing their

filth-encrusted little bodies and shaving their hair that was so thick with

lice and nits that it was impossible to drag a comb through it.

We housed them in one of my mistress’s new hostels. Here the priests began

the tedious process of taming them, while the scribes started on the long

road of their education. Most of our captives escaped within the first few

days, and returned to the gutters where they belonged. However, some of them

stayed on in the hostel. Their slow transformation from animals to human

beings delighted my mistress and gave me more pleasure, than I had suspected

could ever come from such an unlikely source.

All my protests against the manner in which my mistress was wasting our

substance were in vain, and I vowed that if I were to be embalmed and laid in

my tomb before my allotted time, the blame would surely rest entirely with

these two young idiots whom I had taken under my wing, and who rewarded me by

consistently ignoring my best advice.

Needless to say, it was my mistress and not me whom the widows and the

cripples blessed and presented with their pitiful little gifts of wilting

wild flowers, cheap beads and tattered scraps of papyrus containing poorly

written texts from the Book of the Dead. As she walked abroad, the common

people held up their brats for her blessing and tried to touch the hem of her

skirt as though it were some religious talisman. She kissed the grubby

babies, a practice which I warned her would endanger her health, and she

scattered copper pieces to the loafers with as much care as a tree drops its

autumn leaves.

’This is my city,’ she told me. ’I love it and I love every person in it.

Oh, Taita, I dread the return to Elephantine. I hate to leave my beautiful

Thebes.’

’Is it the city you hate to leave?’ I asked. ’Or is it a certain uncouth

soldier who lives here?’ She slapped me, but lightly.

’Is there nothing you hold sacred, not even love that is pure and true? For

all your scrolls and grand language, you are at heart a barbarian.’

233

THUS THE DAYS PASSED SWIFTLY FOR all of us, until one morning I consulted

my calendar and discovered that over two months had passed since my Lady

Lostris had resumed her marital duties on Pharaoh’s couch. Although she still

showed no evidence of her condition, it was time to apprise the king of his

great good fortune, his approaching paternity. When I told my mistress what I

intended, only one matter engaged her consideration. She made me promise that

before I discussed it with the king, I must first tell Tanus that he was the

true father of the child she was carrying. I set out to fulfil my promise

that very afternoon. I found Tanus at the shipyards on the west bank of the

river, where he was swearing at the shipwrights and threatening to throw them

into the river to feed the crocodiles. He forgot his anger when he saw me,

and took me on board the galley that they had launched that morning. Proudly,

he showed me the new pump to remove water from the bilges, if the ship should

ever be damaged in battle. He seemed to have forgotten that I had designed

the equipment for him, and I had to remind him tactfully.

’Next you will want me to pay you for your ideas, you old rogue. I swear

you are as stingy as any Syrian trader.’ He clapped me on the back, and led

me to the far end of the deck where none of the sailors could overhear us. He

dropped his voice.

’How goes it with your mistress? I dreamed about her again last night. Tell

me, is she well? How are those little orphans of hers? What a loving heart

she has, what beauty!

All of Thebes adores her. I hear her name spoken wherever I go, and the

sbund of it is as sharp as a spear thrust in my chest.’

"There will soon be two of her for you to love,’ I told him, and he stared

at me with his mouth agape like a man suddenly bereft of his senses. ’It was

much more than just the khamsin that struck that night in the tombs of Tras.’

He seized me in a hug so powerful that I could not breathe. ’What is this

riddle? Speak plainly, or I shall throw you into the river. What are you

saying, you old scallywag? Don’t juggle words with me!’

"The Lady Lostris is carrying your child. She sent me to tell you so that

you should be the first to know it, even before the king,’ I gasped. ’Now set

me free before I am permanently damaged.’ He released me so suddenly, that I

almost fell overboard.

’My child! My son!’ he cried. It was amazing how both of them had made that

immediate assumption of the poor little mite’s gender. "This is a miracle.

This is a direct gift from Horus.’ It was clear to Tanus in that moment that

no other man in the history of the world had ever fathered an infant.

’My son!’ he shook his head in wonder. He was grinning like an idiot. ’My

woman and my son! I must go to them this very moment.’ He set off down the

deck, and I had to run to catch him. It took all my powers of persuasion to

prevent him from storming the palace and bursting into the royal harem. In

the end, I led him to the nearest riverside tavern to wet the baby’s head.

Fortunately a gang of off-duty Blues was already drinking there. I ordered

and paid for a butt of the tavern’s best wine and left them to it. There were

men from some of the other regiments in the tavern, so there would probably

be a riot later, for Tanus was in a rumbustious mood and the Blues never

needed much encouragement to fight.

234

I went directly from the tavern to the palace, and Pharaoh was delighted to

see me. ’I was about to send for you, Taita. I have decided that we have been

too niggardly with the entrance-gates to my temple. I want something

grander?’

’Pharaoh!’ I cried. ’Great and Divine Egypt! I have wonderful tidings. The

goddess Isis has kept her promise to you.

Your dynasty will be eternal. The prophecy of the Mazes> of Ammon-Ra will

be fulfilled. The moon of my mistress; has been trodden under the hooves of

the mighty bull off Egypt! The Lady Lostris is bearing your son!’

For once all thought of funerals and temple-building was driven from

Pharaoh’s mind, and, like Tanus, his very first instinct was to go to her.

Led by the king, we rushed through the palace corridors, a solid stream of

nobles and courtiers turbulent as the Nile in spate, and my mistress was

waiting for us in the garden of the harem. With the natural wiles of the

female, she had composed the setting perfectly to show off hert loveliness to

full effect. She was seated on a low bench with flower-beds around her and

the broad river behind her. For ai moment I thought the king might throw

himself to his knees; in front of her, but even the prospect of immortality

could nott cause him to forget his dignity to that extent.

Instead, he showered her with congratulations and compliments and earnest

enquiries after her health. All the while: his fascinated gaze was fastened

on her belly from which i the miracle would in the fullness of time emerge.

Finally he; asked her, ’My dear child, is there anything that you lack: for

your happiness? Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable

during this trying time in your life?’

I was filled once more with admiration for my mistress. She would have made

a great general or corn trader, for her sense of timing was impeccable. ’Your

Majesty, Thebes is the city of my birth. I cannot be truly happy anywhere

else in Egypt. I beg you in your generosity and understanding to allow your

son to be born here in Thebes. Please do not make me return to Elephantine.’

I held my breath, the siting of the court was an affair of state. To remove

from one city to another was a decision which affected the lives of thousands

of citizens. It was not one to be made on the light whim of a child not yet

sixteen years of age.

Pharaoh looked amazed at the request, and scratched his false beard. *You

want to live in Thebes? Very well, then, the court will move to Thebes!’ He

turned to me. ’Taita, design me a new palace.’ He looked back at my mistress.

’Shall we site it there, on the west bank, my dear?’ He pointed across the

river.

’It is cool and pretty on the west bank,’ my mistress agreed. ’I shall be

very happy there.’

’On the west bank, Taita. Do not stint yourself in the design. It must be a

fitting home for the son of Pharaoh. His name will be Memnon, the ruler of

the dawn. We will call it the Palace of Memnon.’

With such simple ease my mistress saddled me with a mountain of labour, and

accustomed the king to the first of many such demands in the name of the

child in her womb. From this moment on, Pharaoh was not disposed to deny her

aught that she asked for, whether it was titles of honour for those she loved

or liked, alms for those she had taken under her protection, or rare and

235

exotic dishes that were fetched for her from the ends of the empire. Like a

naughty child, I think that she enjoyed testing the limits of this new power

she wielded over the king.

She had never seen snow, though she had heard me speak of it from my

fragmentary childhood memories of the mountainous land where I had been born.

My mistress asked for some to be brought to her to cool her brow in the heat

of the Nile valley. Pharaoh immediately commanded a special athletics games

to be held, during which the hundred fastest runners in the Upper Kingdom

were selected. They were despatched to Syria to bring back snow to my

mistress in a special box of my design, which was intended to prevent it

melting. This was probably the only one of all her whims that remained

unsatisfied. All we received back from those far-off mountain peaks was a

damp patch in the bottom of the box.

In all other things she was fully accommodated. On one occasion she was

present when Tanus presented a report to the king on the order of battle of

the Egyptian fleet. My mistress sat quietly in the background until Tanus had

finished and taken his leave, then she remarked quietly, ’I have heard it

said that Lord Tanus is the finest general we have. Don’t you think it may be

wise, divine husband, to promote him to Great Lion of Egypt and place him in

command of the northern corps?’ Once again I gasped at her effrontery, but

Pharaoh nodded thoughtfully.

’That same thought had already occurred to me, my dear, even though he is

still so young for high command.’

The following day, Tanus was summoned to a royal audience, from which he

emerged as Great Lion of Egypt and the commander of the northern wing of the

army. The ancient general who had preceded him was palmed off with a

substantial pension and relegated to a sinecure in the royal household. Tanus

now had three hundred galleys and almost thirty thousand men under his

command. The promotion meant that he stood fourth in the army lists, with

only Nem-bet and a couple of old dodderers above him.

’Lord Tanus is a proud man,’ the Lady Lostris informed me, as if I were

completely ignorant of this fact. ’If you should ever tell him that I had any

hand in his promotion, I shall sell you to the first Syrian trader I come

upon,’ she threatened me ominously.

All this time her belly, once so smooth and shapely, was distending

gradually. With all my other work I was obliged to relay daily bulletins on

this progression, not only to the palace, but also to army headquarters,

northern command.

I BEGAN WORK ON THE CONSTRUCTION of the Palace of Memnon five weeks after

Pharaoh had given me the original instructions, for it had taken me that long

to draw up the final plans. Both my mistress and the king agreed that my

designs exceeded their expectations, and that it would be by far the most

beautiful building in the land.

On the same day that the work began, a blockade runner who had succeeded in

bribing his way past the fleets of the red pretender in the north docked in

Thebes with a cargo of cedar wood from Byblos. The captain was an old friend

of mine and he had interesting news for me.

236

Firstly, he told me that Lord Intef had been seen in the city of Gaza. It

was said that he was travelling in state with a large bodyguard towards the

East. He must therefore have succeeded in crossing the Sinai desert, or he

had found a vessel to carry him through the mouth of the Nile and thence east

along the coast of the great sea.

The captain had other news that at the time seemed insignificant, but which

was to change the destiny of this very Egypt and of all of us who lived along

the river. It seemed that a new and warlike tribe had come out of an unknown

land to the east of Syria, carrying all before them. Nobody knew much about

these warrior people, except that they seemed to have developed a form of

warfare that had never been seen before. They could cross vast distances very

swiftly, and no army could stand against them.

There were always wild rumours of new enemies about to assail this very

Egypt. I had heard fifty like this one before, and thought as little of this

one as I had of all the others. However, the captain was usually a reliable

source, and so I mentioned his story to Tanus when next we met.

’No one can stand against this mysterious foe?’ Tanus smiled. ’I would like

to see them come against my lads, I’ll show them what the word invincible

truly means. What did you say they are called, these mighty warriors who come

like the wind?’

’It seems that they call themselves the Shepherd Kings,’ I replied, ’the

Hyksos.’ The name would not have slid over my tongue so smoothly if I

understood then what it would mean to our world.

"The shepherds, hey? Well, they will not find my rascals an easy flock to

herd? Jie dismissed them lightly, and was much more interested in my news of

Lord Intef. ’If only we could be certain of his true whereabouts, I could

send a detachment of men to arrest him, and bring him back to face up to

justice. Wherever I walk on the estates that once belonged to my family, I

feel the spirit of my father beside me. I know he will never rest until I

avenge him.’

’Would that it were so easy.’ I shook my head. ’Intef is as cunning as a

desert fox. I don’t think we will ever see him in Egypt again.’ As I said

this, the dark gods must have chuckled to themselves.

AS MY MISTRESS’S PREGNANCY ADVANCED, I was able to insist that she limited

her many activities. I forbade her to visit the hospitals or the orphanage,

for fear of infecting herself and her unborn infant with the vermin and the

diseases of the poor. During the heat of the day I made her rest under the

barrazza that I had built in the water-garden for the grand vizier. When she

protested at the boredom of this enforced inactivity, Pharaoh sent his

musicians to the garden to entertain her, and I was persuaded to leave my

work on the Palace of Memnon to keep her company, to tell her stories and to

discuss Tanus’ latest exploits with her.

I was very strict with her diet, and allowed her no wine or beer. I had the

palace gardeners provide fresh fruits and vegetables each day, and I carved

all the fat off her meat, for I knew that it would make the child in her

belly sluggish. I prepared each of her meals myself and every night when I

saw her to her bedchamber, I mixed a special potion with herbs and juices

that would strengthen her infant.

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Of course, when she suddenly declared that she must have a stew made from

the liver and kidneys of a gazelle, or a salad of larks’ tongues or the

roasted breast of the wild bustard, the king immediately sent a hundred of

his huntsmen into the desert to procure these delicacies for her. I refrained

from telling Lord Tanus of these strange cravings of my mistress, for I

dreaded to learn that rather than prosecuting the war against the false

pharaoh, the northern army had been sent into the desert to hunt gazelle or

larks or bustard.

As the day of her confinement approached, I lay awake at night worrying. I

had promised the king a prince, but he was not expecting his heir to arrive

so expeditiously. Even a god can count the days from the first of the

festival of Osiris. There was nothing that I could do if the child turned out

to be a princess, but at least I could prepare Pharaoh for her early arrival.

Pharaoh had now conceived an interest in the subject of pregnancy and

parturition, which temporarily rivalled his obsession with temples and tombs.

I had to reassure him almost daily that the Lady Lostris’ rather narrow hips

were no obstacle to a normal birth, and that her tender age, far from being

prejudicial, was highly favourable to a successful conclusion to our

enterprise.

I took the opportunity to inform him of the interesting but little-known

fact that many of the great athletes, warriors and sages of history had been

prematurely exposed to the light of day.

’I believe, Your Majesty, that it’s rather like the case of the sluggard

who lies too long abed, and thus wastes his energy, while the great men are

invariably early risers. I have noticed that you, Divine Pharaoh, are always

about before sunrise. It would not surprise me to learn that you were also a

premature birth.’ I knew that he was not, but naturally he could not now

contradict me. ’It would be a most propitious circumstance if this prince of

yours should imitate his sire, and start early from his mother’s womb.’ I

hoped that I had not belaboured my point, but the king seemed convinced by my

eloquence.

In the end, the child cooperated most handsomely by overstaying its

allotted term by almost two weeks, and I did nothing to hurry it along. The

time span was so close to the normal that no tongues could wag, but Pharaoh

was blessed with the premature birth that he had come to believe was sd

desirable.

It was no surprise to me that my mistress began her labour at a most

inconvenient hour. Her waters broke in the third watch of the night. She was

not in the habit of making matters too easy for me. At least this gave me the

excuse of dispensing with the-services of a midwife, for I had little faith

in those hags with the black, dried blood crusted under their long, ragged

fingernails.

Once she had begun, my Lady Lostris carried it off with her usual despatch

and aplomb. I had barely time to shake myself fully awake, scrub my hands in

hot wine and bless my instruments in the flame of the lamp, before she

grunted and said quite cheerfully, ’You had better take another look, Taita.

I think something is happening.’ Although I knew it was much too soon, I

humoured her. One glance was enough, and I shouted for her slave girls.

’Hurry, you lazy strumpets! Fetch the royal wives!’

238

’Which ones?’ The first girl to answer my call tottered into the room

half-naked and half-asleep.

’All of them, any of them.’ No prince could inherit the double crown unless

his birth had been witnessed, and it was formally attested that no exchange

had taken place.

The royal women began to arrive just as the child revealed itself for the

first time. My lady was seized by an overpowering convulsion, and then the

crown of the head appeared. I had dreaded that it might be surmounted by a

shock of red-gold curls, but what I saw was a thick dark pelt like that of

one of the river otters. It was much later that the colour would change and

the red would begin to sparkle in the black locks, like points of polished

garnets, and then only when the sun shone upon it.

’Push!’ I called to my mistress. ’Push hard!’ And she responded lustily.

The young bones of her pelvis, not yet tempered to rigidity by the years,

spread to give the infant fair passage, and the way was well oiled. The child

took me unawares. It came out like a stone from a sling-shot, and the tiny,

slippery body almost flew from my hands.

Before I had a good hold on it, my mistress struggled up on her elbows. Her

hair was plastered to her scalp with sweat and her expression was desperate

with anxiety. ’Is it a boy? Tell me! Tell me!’

The roomful of royal ladies crowding around the bed were witness to the

very first act the child performed, as it entered this world of ours. From a

penis as long as my little finger, the Prince Memnon, the first of that name,

shot a fountain almost as high as the ceiling. I was full in the path of this

warm stream, and it drenched me to the skin.

’Is it a boy?’ my mistress cried again, and a dozen voices answered her

together.

’A boy! Hail, Memnon, the royal prince of Egypt!’

I could not speak yet, for my eyes burned not only with royal urine, but

with tears of joy and relief as his birth cry rang out, angry and hot with

temper.

He waved his arms at me and kicked out so strongly that I almost lost my

grip again. As my vision cleared I was able to make out the strong, lean body

and the small, proud head with the thick pelt of dark hair.

I LOST COUNT LONG AGO OF HOW MANY infants I have birthed, but there had

been nothing in my experience to prepare me for this. I felt all the love and

devotion of which I was capable crystallized into that moment. I knew that

something which would last a lifetime, and which would grow stronger with

each passing day, had begun. I knew that my life had taken another random

turn, and that nothing would ever be the same again.

As I cut the cord and bathed the child, I was filled with a sense of

religious awe such as I had never known in the sanctuary of any one of

Egypt’s manifold gods. I feasted my eyes and my soul upon that perfect little

body and upon the red and wrinkled face in which the signs of strength and

stubborn courage were stamped as clearly as upon the features of his true

father.

239

I laid him in his mother’s arms, and as he found and latched on to her

swollen nipple like a leopard on to the throat of a gazelle, my mistress

looked up at me. I could not speak, but then there were no words that could

frame what passed silently between us. We both knew. It had begun, something

so wonderful that as yet neither of us could fully comprehend it.

I left her to the joy of her son and went to report to the king. I was in

no hurry. I knew that the news would have been carried to him long since. The

royal ladies are not renowned for their reticence. He was probably on his way

to the harem at this very moment.

I dawdled in the water-garden, possessed by a dreaming sense of unreality.

The dawn was breaking, and the sun god, Ammon-Ra, showed the tip of his fiery

disc above the eastern hills. I whispered a prayer of thanks to him. As I

stood with my eyes uplifted, a flock of the palace pigeons circled above the

gardens. As they turned, the rays of the sun caught their wings and they

flashed like bright jewels in the sky.

Then I saw the dark speck high above the circling flock, and even at that

distance I recognized it immediately. It was a wild falcon, come out of the

desert. It folded back its sharp wings and began its stoop. It had chosen the

leading bird in the flock, and the dive was deadly accurate and inexorable.

It struck the pigeon in a burst of feathers, like a puff of pale smoke, and

the bird was dead in the air. Always a falcon will bind to its prey and drop

to earth with it gripped in its talons.

This, time that did not happen. The falcon killed the pigeon and then

opened his talons and released it. The shattered carcass of the bird fell

free, and, with a harsh scream, the falcon circled over my head. Three times

it circled and three times it uttered that thrilling, warlike call. Three is

one of the most potent magical numbers. From all these things I realized that

this was no natural occurrence. The falcon was a messenger, or even the god

Horus in his other form.

The carcass of the pigeon fell at my feet, droplets of its warm blood

splattered my sandals. I knew that it was a token from the god. A sign of his

protection, and patronage for the infant prince. I understood also that it

was a charge to me. The god was commending him to my care.

I took the dead pigeon in my hands, and lifted it to the sky. ’Joyfully I

accept this trust that you have placed upon me, oh Horus. Through all the

days of my life I will be true to it.’

The falcon called again, one last wild shriek, and then it banked away and

on quick, stabbing wing-beats, flew out across the wide Nile waters and

disappeared into the wilderness, back towards the western fields of paradise

where the gods live.

I plucked a single wing-feather from the pigeon. Later I placed it under

the mattress of the prince’s cot, for good luck.

PHARAOH’S JOY AND PRIDE IN HIS HEIR were unbounded. He declared a nativity

feast in his honour. For one entire night the citizens of Upper Egypt sang

and danced in the streets, and gorged on the meat and wine that Pharaoh

provided, and they blessed the Prince Memnon with every bowlful that went

down their gullets. The fact that he was the son of my Lady Lostris, whom

they loved, made the occasion of his birth all the more joyous.

240

So young and resilient was my mistress that within days, she was well

enough to appear before the full court of Egypt, bearing her infant at her

breast. Seated on the lesser throne below that of the king, she made a

picture of lovely young motherhood. When she opened her robe and lifted out

one of her milk-swollen breasts and before the assembled court gave the

infant suck, they cheered her so loudly as to startle the infant. He spat out

the nipple and roared at them in scarlet-faced outrage, and the nation took

him to its heart.

’He is a lion,’ they declared. ’His heart is pumped up with the blood of

kings and warriors.’

Once the prince had been quieted again, and his mouth stopped up with the

nipple, Pharaoh rose to address us, his subjects.

’I acknowledge this child to be my issue and the direct line of my blood

and succession. He is my first-born son, and shall be Pharaoh after me. To

you noble lords and ladies, to all my subjects, I commend the Prince Memnon.’

The cheers went on and on, for no one amongst them wanted to be the first

to fall silent and bring his loyalty into question.

During all of this I stood with other servants and slaves of the royal

household in one of the upper galleries which overlooked the hall. By craning

my head, I was able to pick out the tall figure of Lord Tanus. He was

standing in the third rank below the throne with Nembet and the other

military commanders. Although he cheered with the rest of them, I could read

the expression on his broad, open face that he strove to disguise. His son

was claimed by another and it was beyond his power to prevent it. Even I, who

knew and understood him so well, could only guess at what agony he was

suffering.

When at last the king ordered silence and he had their attention once more,

he continued, ’I commend to you also the mother of the prince, the Lady

Lostris. Know all men that she sits now closest to my throne. From this day

forward she is elevated to the rank of chief consort and the senior wife of

Pharaoh. From henceforth, in name she will become Queen Lostris, while in

precedence and preferment she ranks after the king and his prince alone.

Furthermore, until the prince has reached the age of his majority, Queen

Lostris shall act as my regent and, when I am unable to do so, she will stand

at the head of the nation in my stead.’

I did not think there was a soul in all the Upper Kingdom who did not love

my mistress, except perhaps some of the royal wives who had been unable to

provide the king with a male heir, and who now found themselves outranked by

her and superseded in the order of precedence. All the rest showed their love

in the acclaim with which they greeted this pronouncement.

To end the ceremony of the naming of Pharaoh’s heir, the royal family left

the hall. In the main courtyard of the palace, Pharaoh mounted the sledge of

state, and with Queen Lostris seated at his side and the prince in her arms,

they were drawn by the span of white bullocks down the Avenue of Rams to the

temple of Osiris to make sacrifice to the god. Both sides of the sacred

avenue were lined a hundred deep by the citizens of Thebes. With a mighty

voice they demonstrated their devotion to the king and their love for the

queen and her new-born prince.

That night, as I waited on her and the child, she whispered to me, ’Oh,

Taita, did you see Tanus in the crowd? What a day of mixed joy and sorrow

241

this has been. I could have wept for my love. He was so tall and brave, and

he had to watch and listen when his son was taken from him. I wanted to jump

to my feet in all that throng and cry out, "This is the son of Tanus, Lord

Harrab, and I love them both." ’

’I am pleased for the sake of all of us, Your Majesty, that for once you

were able to restrain that wayward tongue of yours.’

She giggled. ’It is so strange to have you call me that? Your Majesty?it

makes me feel like an impostor.’ She transferred the prince from one breast

to the other, and at the movement he released from both ends of his tiny body

a double blast of air which in volume and resonance was truly imperial.

’It is apparent that he was conceived in a wind-storm,’ I remarked drily,

and she giggled again and then immediately afterwards sighed dolefully.

’My darling Tanus will never share these intimate moments with us. Do you

realize that he has not yet held Memnon in his arms, and it is possible he

never will? I think I am about to cry again.’

’Restrain yourself, mistress. If you weep, it might sour your milk.’ A

warning which was untrue but effective in bending her to my will. She sniffed

back her tears.

’Is there no way that we can let Tanus enjoy our baby as we do?’

I thought about it for a while and then made a suggestion which caused her

to cry out with pleasure. As if to endorse what I had said, the prince broke

resounding wind once more.

The very next day when Pharaoh came to visit his son, the queen put my

suggestion into effect. ’Dear and divine husband, have you given thought to

selecting official tutors for Prince Memnon?’

Pharaoh laughed indulgently. ’He is still only an infant. Should he not

first learn to walk and talk, before he is instructed in other skills?’

’I think his tutors should be appointed now, so they can grow to know him,

and he them.’

’Very well.’ The king smiled, and took the child on to his knee. ’Who do

you suggest?’

’For his schooling we need one of our great scholars. Some person who

understands all the sciences and mysteries.’

The king’s eyes twinkled. ’I cannot think of one who answers that

description,’ and he grinned at me. The child had altered Pharaoh’s

disposition; since Memnon’s birth, he had become almost jovial, and for a

moment I expected him to wink at me. However, his new, congenial attitude to

life did not extend quite that far.

The queen continued, unruffled by this exchange, "Then we need a soldier

well versed in the warlike arts, and the exercise of arms to train him as a

warrior. He should, I think, be young and of good breeding. Trustworthy, of

course, and loyal to the crown.’

’Who do you suggest for that position, my dear? Very few of my soldiers

answer to all those virtues.’ I do not think there was any guile or malice in

242

Pharaoh’s question, but nevertheless my mistress was no fool. She inclined

her head gracefully and said, "The king is wise, and knows who, from all his

generals, best suits that role.’

At the very next assize the king announced the prince’s tutors. The slave

and physician, Taita, was to be responsible for Memnon’s schooling and

deportment. This surprised very few, but there was a buzz of comment when the

king went on, ’For his training in arms and in military tactics and strategy,

the Great Lion bf Egypt, Lord Harrab, shall henceforth be responsible.’

Accordingly it became the duty of Lord Harrab, when he was not on campaign,

to wait upon the prince at the beginning of each week.

While my mistress waited for her quarters in the new palace that I was

building across the river to be -completed, she had moved from the harem into

a wing of the grand vizier’s palace that overlooked the water-garden I had

built for her father. This was in accordance with her new status as the

senior wife and consort. The weekly audience that Prince Memnon held for his

official tutors took place under the barrazza, with Queen Lostris in

attendance. Very often there was a score of other officials or courtiers

present, and occasionally Pharaoh himself arrived with all his train, so we

were under considerable constraint.

However, once in a while there were just the four of us present. On the

very first occasion that we had such privacy, Queen Lostris placed the prince

in his father’s arms for the first time and I was witness to the incoherent

joy with which Tanus looked down into the face of his son. Memnon rose to the

occasion by puking down the front of his father’s uniform, but even then

Tanus would not relinquish him.

From then onwards we reserved any special event in the child’s life for

when Tanus was with us. Tanus fed him his first spoonful of gruel, and the

prince was so startled by this unaccustomed fare that he screwed up his face

and spat the offending mess down his chin. Then he howled loudly for his

mother’s milk to wash the taste from his mouth. Queen Lostris took him on her

lap and while Tanus watched fascinated, she gave him the breast. Suddenly

Tanus reached across and tweaked the nipple from the tiny mouth. This amused

everybody but the prince and me. Memnon was outraged at this cavalier

treatment and made that fact known, while I was shocked. I imagined the king

arriving unexpectedly to find the Great Lion of Egypt with a right royal

handful which he seemed in no hurry to relinquish.

When I quite rightly protested, my mistress told, me, ’Don’t be such a prim

old woman, Taita. We are only having a little innocent fun.’

’Fun, yes. However, there is some doubt as to the innocence of it,’ I

muttered, for I had seen both their faces light up at the intimate touch, and

sensed their mutual passion like thunder in the air. I knew that they could

not restrain themselves for much longer, and that even Tanus’ sense of duty

and honour must in the end succumb to so great a love as theirs.

That very evening I visited the temple of Horus and made a generous

sacrifice. Then I prayed and asked the god, ’May the prophecy of the Mazes be

not too long delayed, for they cannot help themselves. It will mean death and

disgrace to all of us.’

Sometimes it is best for men not to attempt to interfere with destiny. Our

prayers can be answered in ways which we do not expect and do not welcome.

243

I WAS PHYSICIAN TO THE PRINCE, BUT IN truth he had little need of my

medical skills. He was blessed with his father’s rude and abundant health,

and precocious strength. His appetite and digestion were ?xemplary. Anything

placed in his mouth was devoured with leonine voracity, and promptly

re-emerged from his nether end in the desired shape and consistency.

He slept without interruption and woke bellowing for food. If I showed him

a finger, he would watch it move from side to side with those huge dark eyes,

and the moment it came within range, he would seize it and attempt to haul

himself into a sitting position. In this he succeeded sooner than any other

child that I had attended. He raised himself and crawled at the age when

others had only begun to sit up. He took his first tottering step when others

would only begin to crawl.

Tanus was present on that remarkable day. He had been on campaign for the

past two months, for the forces of the red usurper had captured Asyut. That

city was the pivot on which our northern defences turned, and Pharaoh had

ordered Tanus down-river with all his fleet to retake the city. Much later I

heard from Kratas just how terrible had been the fighting, but in the end

Tanus breached the walls and was at the head of his beloved Blues when they

broke in.

They drove the pretender from the city and back beyond his own borders with

bloody losses.

Tanus sailed back to Thebes and the gratitude of the kingdom. Pharaoh laid

another chain upon his shoulders, the Gold of Valour, and made up the

back-pay of all the troops who had helped him achieve this victory.

Tanus came almost directly from the king to the barrazza in the

water-garden where we were waiting for him. While I stood guard at the

gateway, Tanus and my mistress embraced with all the fire that had burned up

so brightly while they had been apart. At last I had to separate them, for

that embrace could lead in only one direction.

’Lord Tanus,’ I called sharply, ’Prince Memnon grows impatient.’

Reluctantly they drew apart, and Tanus went to where the infant sprawled

naked on a robe of jackal skins that I had spread for him in the shade. Tanus

went down on one knee before him.

’Greetings, Your Royal Highness. I bring you tidings of the triumph of our

arms?’ Tanus mocked him lovingly, and Memnon gave a happy shout as he

recognized his father, and then the sparkling gold chain caught his eye. With

a mighty heave he hoisted himself to his feet. He took four lurching steps,

seized the chain and clung to it with both hands.

All of us applauded this feat, and, supporting himself by the chain, Memnon

beamed about him, accepting this praise as his due.

’By the wings of Horus, he has as sharp an eye as you do for the yellow

metal, Taita,’ Tanus laughed.

’It is not the gold that draws him, but the winning of it,’ my mistress

declared. ’One day he too will wear the Gold of Valour upon his chest.’

’Never doubt it!’ Tanus swung the boy high, and Memnon shrieked with

pleasure and kicked his legs to urge Tanus to further rough play.

244

Thus, for Tanus and me, the child’s advances seemed to mark the change of

seasons, just as surely as did the rise and fall of the river. On the other

hand my mistress’s life revolved around those hours spent alone with the

child and the man. Each interval between Tanus’ visits seemed too long for my

mistress to support, each visit too short for her to bear.

THE INUNDATION OF THAT SUMMER WAS as benevolent as any that we had forecast

at the ceremony of the waters in Elephantine. When the flood receded, the

fields glistened under their new coat of black mud. In their turn, they were

soon obliterated by the dense green stands of corn and fruit. By the time the

prince took his first upright step the granaries of Egypt were brimming, and

the larders of even the poorest of her subjects were filled. On the west bank

the Palace of Memnon was taking shape, and the war in the north was running

in our favour. The gods smiled on Pharaoh and all his realm.

The only discontent in all this was that the two lovers, though close

enough to touch, were cleaved apart by a gulf wider than the valley in which

we lived. Each of them on separate but numerous occasions taxed me with the

prophecy of the Mazes of Ammon-Ra, as though I were personally responsible

for the fulfilment of the dream visions. It was in vain to protest that I was

merely the mirror in which the future was reflected, and not the one who

moved the stones on the bao board of destiny.

The old year died,"~and the river began to rise once more, completing the

endless cycle. This was the fourth flood that the Mazes had foretold. I, as

much as any of them, expected my vision of the Mazes to be fulfilled before

the end of the season. When this did not happen, both my mistress and Tanus

taxed me severely.

’When will I be free to go to Tanus?’ Queen Lostris sighed. ’You must do

something, Taita.’

’It is not me, but the gods, whom you must question. I can pray to them,

but that is all I can do.’

Then another year passed without any change in our circumstances, and even

Tanus was bitter. ’So much faith I have placed in you that I have based my

future happiness on your word. I swear to you, Taita, that if you do not do

something soon?’ He broke off and stared at me. The threat was all the more

forceful for not being spoken.

Yet another year drifted past, and even I began to lose faith in my own

prophecy. I came to believe that the gods had changed their minds, or that

what I had seen was my own wishful fantasy.

In the end Prince Memnon was almost five years old and his mother

twenty-one, when the messenger came flying wild-eyed from the north, in one

of our scouting galleys.

"The Delta had fallen. The red pretender is dead. The Lower Kingdom is in

flames. The cities of Memphis and Avaris are destroyed. The temples are

burned to the ground and the images of the gods thrown down,’ he shouted to

the king, and Pharaoh replied ’It is not possible. I long to believe this

despatch, but I cannot. How could this thing come to pass without our

knowledge? The usurper was possessed of great force, for more than fifteen

years we have been unable to overthrow him. How has this been accomplished in

a day, and by whom?’

245

The messenger was shaking with fear and exhaustion, for his journey had

been onerous, and he knew how the bearers of disastrous tidings were treated

in Thebes.

’The red pretender was destroyed with his sword still in the scabbard. His

forces were scattered before the war trumpets could sound the alarm.’

’How was this accomplished?’

’Divine Egypt, I know not. They say that a new and terrible enemy has come

out of the East, swift as the wind, and no nation can stand before his wrath.

Though they have never seen him, our army is in full retreat from the

northern borders. Even the bravest will not stay to face him.’

’Who is this enemy?’ Pharaoh demanded, and for the first time we heard the

fear in his voice.

’They call him the Shepherd King. The Hyksos.’

Tanus and I had jested with that name. We would never do so again. .

PHARAOH CALLED HIS WAR COUNCIL into secret conclave. It was only long

afterwards that I learned from Kratas all that transpired in those

deliberations. Tanus, of course, would never break his oath of secrecy, not

even to me or my mistress. But I was able to worm it out of Kratas, for that

lovable, brawling oaf was not proof against my wiles.

Tanus had promoted Kratas to the rank of Best of Ten Thousand, and had

given him the command of the Blue Crocodile Guards. The bond between them was

still as solid as a granite stele. Thus, as a regimental commander, Kratas

was entitled to a seat on the war council, and although at his lowly rank he

was not called upon to speak, he faithfully relayed all that was said, to me

and my mistress.

The council was divided between the ancients, headed by Nembet, and the new

blood of which Tanus was the leader. Unfortunately the final authority lay

with the old men, and they forced their archaic views upon the others.

Tanus wanted to draw our main forces back from the frontier and to set up a

series of deep defences along the river. At the same time, he intended

sending forward scouting and reconnaissance parties to assess and study the

nature of the mysterious enemy. We had spies in all of the northern cities,

but for some unknown reason no reports from them had as yet been received.

Tanus wanted to gather these in and stiMy them, before he deployed his main

force to battle.

’Until we know what we are facing, we cannot devise the correct strategy to

meet it,’ he told the council.

Nembet and his faction countered any of Tanus’ suggestions. The old admiral

had never forgiven Tanus for his humiliation on the day he saved the royal

barge from destruction. His opposition to Tanus was based on principle rather

than on reason or logic.

’We will not yield a cubit of our sacred soil. To suggest it is cowardice.

We will meet the enemy and destroy him wherever we find him. We will not

dance and flirt with him like a gaggle of village maidens.’

246

’My lord!’ roared Tanus, incensed by the suggestion of cowardice. ’Only a

fool, and an old fool at that, will make a decision before he knows the

facts. We have no scrap of intelligence to act upon?’

It was in vain. The seniority of the three generals above Tanus on the army

lists prevailed in the end.

Tanus was ordered north immediately, to steady and rally the retreating

army. He was to hold the frontier, and make his stand on the boundary stones.

He was forbidden to make a strategic withdrawal to the line of hills before

Asyut, which was the natural defensive line, and from which the city walls

provided a second line of defence. He would have the fleet and the northern

army corps under his direct command, with three hundred warships to provide

the transport, and to command the river.

In the meantime, Nembet would bring in the rest of the army, even those

regiments on the southern border with Gush. The black threat from the African

interior must be ignored now in the face of this more pressing danger. As

soon as they were assembled, Nembet would rush these reinforcements

northwards to join up with Tanus. Within a month, there would be an

invincible army of sixty thousand men and four hundred galleys lying before

Asyut. In the meantime, Tanus must hold the frontier at all costs.

Nembet ended with a strict injunction. ’Lord Harrab is further ordered to

hold all his forces on the border. He is not to indulge in raids or scouting

forays to the north.’

’My Lord Nembet, these orders blindfold me, and bind my sword-arm. You are

denying me the means of conducting this campaign in a prudent and efficient

manner,’ Tanus protested in vain. Nembet sneered with the satisfaction of

having forced his authority upon his young rival, and in having gained a

measure of retribution. On such petty human emotions pivots the destiny of

nations.

Pharaoh himself announced his intention of taking his rightful place at the

head of his army. For a thousand years the pharaoh had been present on the

field whenever the decisive battles of history had been fought out. Although

I had to admire the king’s courage, I wished he had not chosen this moment to

demonstrate it. Pharaoh Mamose was no warrior, and his presence would do

little to enhance our chances of victory. There might be some bolstering of

morale when the troops saw him in the van, but on balance he and his train

would be a greater hindrance than assistance to Lord Tanus.

The king would not travel northwards to the battle-front alone. His entire

court would attend him, including his senior wife and his son. The queen must

have her retinue and Prince Memnon his tutors, and so I would be going north

to Asyut and the battle-front.

Nobody knew nor understood this enemy. I felt that my mistress and the

prince were being placed in unnecessary danger. On the other hand, the safety

of a slave was of no account, except to the slave himself. I slept little the

night before we sailed northwards on the flood of the river for Asyut and the

battle-front.

THE FARTHER NORTH WE SAILED, THE more numerous and troublesome were the

rumours and reports coming down from the front to feed upon our contentment

and confidence, like locusts upon the standing crops. Often during the

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voyage, Tanus came aboard our vessel, ostensibly to discuss these with me.

However, on each visit he spent some time with the prince and his mother.

I have never held with the custom of women following the army into battle.

In times of peace or war, they are a marvellous distraction?even a warrior of

Tanus’ calibre could be diverted from his main purpose. All his mind should

have been on the task ahead, but when I told him so, he laughed and clapped

my shoulder.

"They give me a reason to fight. Don’t worry, old friend, I shall be a lion

defending his cub.’

Soon we encountered the first elements of the retreating army, straggling

groups of deserters who were looting the villages as they fled southwards

along the banks of the river. With very little ceremony and no hesitation at

all, Tanus beheaded several hundred of them and had their heads spiked on

spears and planted along the bank as an example and a warning. Then he

gathered up the others and regrouped them under reliable officers. There were

no further desertions and the troops stood to the colours with a new spirit.

Our flotilla came to the walled city of Asyut, overlooking the river. In

defiance of his orders from Nembet, Tanus left a small strategic reserve of

five thousand men here under the command of Remrem. Then we sailed on

northwards to take up our positions on the border, there to await the

approach of the mysterious Shepherd King.

The fleet lay at anchor across the river in its battle formations, but the

vessels were under skeleton crews. The fighting men were disembarked with the

main body of infantry and deployed upon the east bank of the river.

I prevailed upon Pharaoh to allow my mistress and the prince to remain on

board the large and comfortable barge that had brought them here. It was

cooler and healthier out on the water, and their escape would be swifter if

our army met with any reverse of arms.

The king went ashore with the army, and set up his camp on the higher

ground above the inundated fields. There was a deserted village here; years

ago the peasants had fled from this disputed border with the false pharaoh.

There were always foraging troops and bloody little skirmishes hereabouts,

and the farmers had given up any attempts to work these fertile but dangerous

fields. The name of the derelict village was Abnub.

The flood of the Nile had begun to subside some weeks prior to our arrival

at Abnub, and although the irrigation canals were still running strongly, and

the fields were morasses of black mud, the main waters had retreated back

between the permanent banks of the Nile.

Within the restrictions placed upon him by Nembet, Tanus set about

preparing to meet the threat. The regiments encamped in their order of

battle. Astes commanded the fleet on the river, Tanus himself had the centre

with his left flank anchored on the Nile, while Kratas had the right wing.

The desert stretched to the eastern horizon, dun and forbidding. No army

could survive out in that burning, waterless waste. It was our right flank,

secure and impregnable.

All that we knew of the Hyksos was that he had come overland, and that he

possessed no fleet of his own. Tanus expected to meet him on land, and to

fight an infantry engagement. Tanus knew that he could prevent the Hyksos

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from crossing the river, and so he should be able to bring him to battle on

the field of his own choice. Ideally, this would not have been at Abnub, but

Nembet had made that decision for him.

The village of Abnub stood on a low ridge with open untended fields around

it. At least it commanded a good view, and the enemy would be under our

observation long before it could engage and drive in our pickets.

Tanus had thirty thousand of the finest troops in Egypt under his command.

I had never seen such a large force. Indeed, I doubt that an army of this

size had ever before been assembled in the valley of the Nile. Soon Nembet

would arrive with another thirty thousand. Then it would be the greatest army

in history.

I went with Tanus to inspect them, and the troops’ morale had soared since

he had taken command in person. Perhaps the presence of Pharaoh in the camp

had also helped to steady them. They cheered Tanus as he strode along their

massed ranks, and I felt much encouraged and relieved at the multitudes of

their host, and the spirit in them.

I could not imagine an enemy powerful enough to overwhelm us. There were

twelve thousand archers with polished leather helmets and padded leather

breastplates that would stop an arrow, except if it were fired at very short

range. There were eight thousand heavy spearmen, with long shields of

hippo-skin as tough and hard as bronze. The ten thousand swordsmen in

leopard-skin caps were also armed with sling-shots, the stones from which

could split a skull at fifty paces.

I felt more confident with each day that passed, as I watched Tanus

exercising these huge masses of armed men. Yet it worried me that we still

knew so little about the Hyk-sos and the forces that he commanded. I pointed

out to Tanus that the war council had forbidden him to send land forces

forward to reconnoitre, but had said nothing of vessels being used for this

purpose.

’You should have been a law scribe,’ Tanus laughed, ’you can make words

dance to any tune you play.’ But he ordered Hui to take a single squadron of

fast galleys northwards as far as Minieh, or until he encountered the enemy.

This was the same Hui whom we had captured at Gallala, and who had been one

of Basil’s Shrikes. Under Tanus’ favour, that young rogue had advanced

swiftly, and now commanded a squadron of galleys.

Hui had strict orders to avoid action and to report back within four days.

Dutifully, he returned on the fourth day. He had reached Minieh without

seeing another ship or encountering any resistance. The villages along the

river were all deserted, and the town of Minieh itself had been sacked and

was in flames.

Hui had, however, captured a handful of deserters from the false pharaoh’s

shattered army. These were the first persons we had questioned who were

actual eye-witnesses of the Hyksos invasion. However, none of them had ever

stood to engage and actually fight the Shepherd King. They had all fled at

his first approach. Their reports were therefore so far-fetched and garbled

as to be completely incredible.

How could we believe in the existence of an army that sailed across the

open desert on ships that were as swift as the wind? According to our

informants, the dust-clouds that hung over this strange fleet were so tall as

to obscure their numbers and to strike terror into any army that watched

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their advance.

’These are not men,’ the prisoners reported, ’they are fiends from the

underworld, and they ride on the devil winds out of the desert.’

Having questioned the prisoners carefully, and finding that even hot coals

on their heads could not make them alter their stories, Tanus ordered their

summary execution. He did not want these wild tales circulating and spreading

despondency amongst our forces who had only recently regained their courage.

ON THE TENTH DAY OF WAITING AT ABNUB, we received word that Nembet was at

last on his way with reinforcements, and that he expected to reach Asyut

within the next two weeks. The effect on the men was marvellous to behold.

They were transformed at a stroke from sparrows to eagles. Tanus issued an

extra ration of beer and meat to celebrate the news, and the cooking-fires

were a field of stars upon the plain before Abnub. The luscious odour of

burning mutton fat filled the night, and the sound of laughter and singing

only died away in the final watches.

I had left my mistress on board the barge with her son, and had come ashore

in response to a summons from Tanus. He wanted me to attend the final war

council with his regimental commanders. ’You are always a well of ideas and

wisdom, you old rascal. Perhaps you can tell us how to sink a fleet of ships

that comes sailing over dry land?’

Our deliberations went on until after midnight, and for once I was able to

contribute very little of value. It was too late to return to the ship that

night, so Tanus gave me a straw mattress in the corner of his tent. I awoke

before dawn, as was my habit, but Tanus was gone from his bed, and beyond the

coarse linen wall of the tent, the camp was already astir. I felt guilty of

indolence, and hastened out to watch the dawn breaking over the desert.

I climbed the hill behind the camp. From there I looked first towards the

river. The blue smoke from the cooking-fires was smeared out across the

surface, mingling with the streamers of river mist. The riding lamps on board

the ships were reflected in the "dark waters. It was still too dark and far

to pick out the vessel upon which my mistress lay.

I turned then towards the east and saw the light bloom over the desert with

the nacreous glow of pearly oyster-shells. The light hardened and the desert

was soft and lovely, the hillocks and dunes shaded with mauve and soft

purple. In the limpid air the horizons seemed close enough to touch with an

outstretched hand.

Then I saw the cloud suspended on the horizon beneath the unblemished

aquamarine sheen of the sky. It was no larger than the end of my thumb, and

my gaze wandered past it and then drifted back to it. I felt no initial

alarm, for I had to stare at it for a while before I realized that it was

moving.

’How strange,’ I murmured aloud. ’The beginning of the khamsin, perhaps.’

But it was out of season, and there had been no charging of the air with

those malevolent forces which herald the desert storms. The morning was cool

and balmy.

Even as I pondered it, the distant cloud spread and grew taller. The base

of the cloud was upon the earth, not suspended above it, and yet it was too

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swift and wide to be of any earthly origin. A flock of birds might move that

fast, locusts may rise that thickly to the skies, but this was neither of

these things.

The cloud was ochre-yellow, but at first I could not believe it was dust. I

have watched herds of scimitar-horned oryx galloping through the dunes in

their hundreds upon their annual migrations, but they had never raised a

dust-cloud such as this. It might have been the smoke from a fire, but there

was nothing out there in the desert to burn. It had to be dust, and yet I

still could not wholly believe it. . Swiftly it grew, and drew ever closer,

while I stared in wonder and in awe.

Suddenly I saw reflected light twinkle at the base of the towering cloud.

Instantly I was transported back to the vision of the Mazes of Ammon-Ra. This

was the same scene. The first had been fantasy, but this was reality. I knew

that those beams of light were shot from war armour and from blades of

polished bronze. I started to my feet, and alone upon the hilltop I shouted

to the wind a warning that nobody heard.

Then I heard the war trumpets sounding in the camp below me. The pickets on

the heights had at last seen the approaching dust-cloud and sounded the

alarm. The sound of the trumpets was a part of my vision. Their urgent

warning shrilled in my ears and threatened to split my skull, it thrilled my

blood and chilled my heart. I knew from my vision that on this fateful day a

dynasty would fall and the locusts from the East would devour the substance

of this very Egypt. I was filled with dread, and with terror for my mistress

and the child that was part of the dynasty.

The camp below me was a tumult of men running to arms. Their armour glinted

and their spear-heads sparkled as they brandished them on high. They were

bees from the overturned hive, massing and swarming in disarray. The shouts

of the sergeants and the rallying cries of the captains were almost drowned

by the braying horns.

I saw Pharaoh carried from his tent in the centre of a knot of armed men.

They hustled him up the slope of the hill to where his throne was set amongst

the rocks, overlooking the plain and the wide sweep of the river. They lifted

him to the throne and placed the crook and the flail in his hands and the

tall double crown upon his head. Pharaoh sat like a marble statue with an

ash-white face, while below him his regiments fell into their battle

formations. Tanus had trained and exercised them well, and out of the

confusion of the first alarm, order swiftly emerged.

I ran down the hill to be near the king, and so rapid was the response of

Lord Tanus’ divisions that by the time I reached the foot of his throne, his

army lay upon the plain like a coiled serpent to meet the menace of that

boiling yellow dust-cloud that swept down upon it.

Kratas stood with his division on the right flank. I could recognize his

tall figure on the first slope of the hill. His regimental officers were

grouped around him, their plumes nodding and waving in the light morning

breeze from the river. Tanus and his staff were directly below me, close

enough for me to overhear their conversation. They discussed the advance of

the enemy in cool, academic tones, as though this were a sandbox problem at

an officers’ training course.

Tanus had disposed his force in the classical formations. His heavy

spearmen formed the front ranks. Their shields were interlocked and the

spears’ butts grounded. The bronze spear-heads sparkled in the early

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sunlight, and the men’s demeanour was calm and grave. Drawn up behind them

were the archers. Their bows were strung and ready. Behind each man stood his

quiver boy with bundles of spare arrows. During the battle they would gather

up the expended arrows of the enemy to replenish their own bundles. The

swordsmen were in reserve, light and quick troops that could rush in to stop

a breach or to exploit a weak point in the enemy formations.

The moves of any battle were like those of the bao board. There were

classic openings with set defences that had been developed over the

centuries. I had studied these and written three of the definitive scrolls on

military tactics that were the prescribed reading of officers training in

Thebes.

Now, reviewing Tanus’ dispositions, I could find no fault in them, and my

confidence soared. How could an enemy preVail against this mighty host of

trained and battle-hardened veterans, and their brilliant young general, who

had never lost a battle?

Then I looked once more beyond our ranks at that ominous, rolling yellow

cloud, and my confidence wavered. This was something beyond military

tradition, beyond the experience of any general in all our long, proud

history. Were these mortal men that we were facing, or, as rumour suggested,

were they fiends?

When I stared into the swirling clouds, they were now so close that I could

make out dark shapes in the dun and gloomy veils of dust. My skin crawled

with a kind of religious horror as I recognized the shiplike shapes that our

prisoners had warned us of. But these were smaller and swifter than any

vessel that had ever been launched on water, swifter even than any creature

that had ever moved upon the surface of the earth.

It was difficult to follow one of these shapes with the eye, for they were

ethereal and quick as moths in the light of a lantern. They wheeled and wove

and disappeared in the moving clouds, so that when they reappeared, it was

impossible to tell whether it was the same or another like it. There was no

way to count their numbers, or even to guess at what followed the first ranks

of their advance. Behind them, the dust-cloud extended back to the horizon

from which they had come.

Although our own ranks stood firm and steady in the sunlight,! could sense

the wonder and trepidation that gripped them all. The studied conversation of

Tanus’ officers had dried up, and they stood in silent awe and watched the

enemy deploy before us.

Then I realized that the dust-cloud was no longer advancing upon us. It

hung in the sky, and gradually began to settle and clear, so that I was able

dimly to make out the stationary vehicles in the vanguard. But I was now so

confused and alarmed that I could not tell whether there were a thousand of

them or more.

We would learn later that this hiatus was always part of the Shepherd

King’s attack plan. I did not know it then, but during this lull they were

regrouping and watering and gathering themselves for the final advance.

A terrible stillness had fallen on our ranks. It was so profound that the

whisper of the breeze was loud through the rocks and the wadis of the hill on

which we stood. The only movement was the flutter and swirl of our battle

standards at the head of each division. I saw the Blue Crocodile banner

waving in the centre of our line, and I took comfort from it.

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Slowly, the dust-clouds subsided and row after row of the Hyksos’ craft

were revealed to us. They were still too distant to make out details, but I

saw that those in the rear were much larger than those leading their army. It

seemed to me that they were roofed over with sails of cloth or leather. From

these I saw that men were unloading what looked like large water jars and

carrying them forward. I wondered what men could consume such large

quantities of water. Everything these foreigners did was a puzzle and made no

sense to me.

The silence and the waiting drew out until every muscle and nerve in my

body screamed out with the -strain. Then suddenly there was movement again.

From the front ranks of the Hyksos formations some of these strange

vehicles started towards us. A murmur went up from our ranks avwe saw how

fast they were moving. After that short period of rest, they seemed to have

doubled their speed. The range closed and another cry went up from our host

as we realized that these vehicles were each being drawn by a pair of

extraordinary beasts.

They stood as tall as the wild oryx, with the same stiff, upstanding mane

along the crest of their arched necks. They were not horned like the oryx,

but their heads were more gracefully formed. Their eyes were large and their

nostrils flared. Their legs were long and hoofed. Striding out with a

peculiar daintiness, they seemed merely to brush the surface of the desert.

Even now, after all these years, I can recapture the thrill of gazing at a

horse for the first time. In my mind the beauty of the hunting cheetah paled

beside these marvellous beasts. At the same time we were all filled with fear

of them, and I heard one of the officers near me cry out, ’Surely these

monsters are killers, and eaters of human flesh! What abomination is this

that is visited upon us?’

A ’stirring of horror ran through our formations, as we expected these

beasts to fall upon us and devour us, like ravening lions. But the leading

vehicle swung away and sped parallel to our front rank. It moved on spinning

discs, and I stared at it in wonder. For the first few moments I was so

stunned by what I was looking at that my mind refused to absorb it all. If

anything, my first sight of a chariot was almost as moving as the horses that

drew it. There was a long yoke-pole between the galloping pair, connected to

what I later came to know as the axle. The high dashboard was gilded with

gold leaf and the side-panels were cut low to allow the archer to shoot his

arrows to either side.

All this I took in at a glance, and then my whole attention focused on the

spinning discs on which the chariot sailed so smoothly and swiftly over the

rough ground. For a thousand years we Egyptians had been the most cultured

and civilized men on earth; in the sciences and the religions we had far

outstripped all other nations. However, in all our learning and wisdom we had

conceived nothing like this. Our sledges churned the earth on wooden runners

that dissipated the strength of the oxen that dragged them, or we hauled

great blocks of stone over wooden rollers without taking the next logical

step.

I stared at the first wheel I had ever seen, and the simplicity and the

beauty of it burst in upon me like lightning flaring in my head. I understood

it instantly, and scorned myself for not having discovered it of my own

accord. It was genius of the highest order, and now I realized that we stood

to be destroyed by this wonderful invention in the same way as it must have

annihilated the red usurper in the Lower Kingdom.

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The golden chariot sped across our front, just out of bowshot. As it drew

opposite us, I dragged my gaze from those miraculously spinning wheels and

the fierce and terrifying Creatures that drew them, and I looked at the two

men in the cockpit of the chariot. One was clearly the driver. He leaned out

over the dashboard and he seemed to control the galloping team by means of

long plaited cords of leather attached to their heads. The taller man who

stood behind him was a king. There was no doubting his imperial bearing.

I saw instantly that he was an Asian, with amber skin and a hooked,

aquiline nose. His beard was black and thick, cut square across his

breastplates, curled and intricately plaited with coloured ribbons. His body

armour was a glittering skin of bronze fish-scales, while his crown was tall

and square; the gold was embossed with images of some strange god and set

with precious stones. His weapons hung on the side-panel of the chariot,

close to his hands. His broad-bladed sword in its leather and gold scabbard

had a handle of ivory and silver. Beside it, two leather quivers bulged with

arrows, and each shaft was fletched with bright feathers. Later I would come

to know how the Hyksos loved gaudy colours. The king’s bow on its rack beside

him was of an unusual shape that I had never seen before. It was not the

simple, clean arc of our Egyptian bows; on the Hyksos bow, the upper and

lower limbs recurved at the tips.

As the chariot flew down our line, the king leaned out and planted a lance

in the earth. It was tipped with a crimson pennant, and the men around me

growled in perturbation. ’What is he doing? What purpose does the lance

serve? Is it a religious symbol, or is it a challenge?’

I gaped at the fluttering pennant, but my wits were dulled by all that I

had seen, it meant nothing to me. The chariot sped on, still just out of

bowshot, and the crowned Asian planted another lance, then wheeled and came

back. He had seen Pharaoh on his throne and he halted below him. The horses

were lathered with sweat, it foamed on their flanks like lace. Their eyes

rolled ferociously and their nostrils flared so that the pink mucous lining

was exposed. They nodded their heads on long, arched necks and their manes

flew like the tresses of a beautiful woman in the sunlight.

The Hyksos greeted Pharaoh Mamose, Son of Ra, Divine Ruler of the Two

Kingdoms, May He Live For Ever, with contempt. It was a laconic and ironic

wave of a mailed hand, and he laughed. The challenge was as clear as if it

had been spoken in perfect Egyptian. His mocking laughter floated across to

us, and the ranks of our army growled with anger, a sound like far-off

thunder in the summer air.

A small movement below me caught my attention, and I looked down just as

Tanus took one step forward and flung up the great bow Lanata. He loosed an

arrow and it rose in a high arcing trajectory against the milky-blue sky. The

Hyksos was out of range to any other bow, but not to Lanata. The arrow

reached its zenith and then dropped like a stooping falcon, full at the

centre of the Asian king’s chest. The watching multitude gasped with the

length and power and aim of that shot. Three hundred paces it flew, and at

the very last moment the Hyksos threw up his bronze shield and the arrow

buried its head in the centre of the target. It was done with such

contemptuous ease that we were all amazed and confounded.

Then the Hyksos seized his own strangely shaped bow from the rack beside

him. With one movement he nocked an arrow, and drew and let it fly. It rose

higher than Tanus had reached, and it sailed over his head. Fluting like the

wing of a goose, it dropped towards me. I could not move and it might have

impaled me without my attempting to avoid it, but it passed my head by an

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arm’s-length and struck the base of Pharaoh’s throne behind me. It quivered

in the cedar strut like an insult, and the Hyksos king laughed again and

wheeled his chariot and sped away, back across the plain, to rejoin his own

host.

I knew then that we were doomed. How could we stand against these speeding

chariots, and the recurved bows that so easily outranged the finest archer in

our ranks? I was not alone in my dreadful expectations. As the squadrons of

chariots began their final fateful evolutions out on the plain and sped

towards us hi waves, a moan of despair went up from the army of Egypt. I

understood then how the forces of the red pretender had been scattered

without a struggle, and the usurper had died with his sword still in its

scabbard.

On the run, the flying chariots merged into columns four abreast and came

directly at us. Only then did my mind clear, and I started down the slope at

full pelt. Panting, I reached Tanus’ side and shouted at him, ’The pennant

lances mark the weak points in our line! Their main strike will come through

us there and there!’

Somehow the Hyksos had known our battle order, and had recognized the laps

in our formation. Their king had planted his pennants exactly between our

divisions. The idea of a spy or a traitor occurred to me even then, but in

the urgency of the moment I thrust it aside, and it was for the moment

forgotten.

Tanus responded to my warning instantly, and shouted an order for our

pickets to race forward and seize the pennants. I wanted him to move them, so

that we could receive the enemy thrust on our strongest front, but there was

no time for that. Before our pickets could reach and throw down the markers,

the spear-head of flying chariots bore down upon them. Some of our men were

shot down with arrows from the bouncing, swerving chariots. The aim of the

enemy charioteers was uncanny.

The survivors turned and raced back, trying to regain the illusory safety

of our lines. The chariots overhauled them effortlessly. The drivers

controlled the galloping, plunging teams of horses with a lover’s touch. They

did not run their victims down directly, but swerved to pass them at the

length of less than a cubit. It was only then that I noticed the knives. They

were curved outwards from the spinning hub of the wheels like the fangs of

some monstrous crocodile.

I saw one of our men struck squarely by the whirling blades. He seemed to

dissolve in a bright cloud of blood. One of his severed arms was thrown high

in the air and the bleeding chunks of his mutilated torso were dashed into

the rocky earth as the chariot flew on without the least check. The phalanx

of chariots was still aimed directly at the lap in our front line, and though

I heard Kratas yelling orders to reinforce it, it was far too late.

The column of chariots crashed into our defensive wall of shields and

spears, and tore through it as though it were as insubstantial as a drift of

river mist. In one instant our formation, that had stood the assault of the

finest Syrian and Human warriors, was cleaved and shattered.

The horses spurned our strongest and heaviest men under their hooves. The

whirling wheel-knives hacked through their armour and lopped off heads and

limbs, as though they were the tenderest shoots of the vine. From the high

carriages the charioteers showered arrows and javelins into our tightly

packed ranks, then they tore on through the breach they had forced, passing

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entirely through our formations, fanning out behind us and driving at full

tilt along our rear files, still hurling their missiles into our unprotected

rear.

When our troops turned to face this assault on their rear, another phalanx

of racing chariots crashed into them from the open plain. The first assault

split our army in twain, dividing Tanus from Kratas on the right wing. Then

those that followed so swiftly cut up the two halves into smaller, isolated

groups. We were no longer a cohesive whole. Little bands of fifty and a

hundred men stood back-to-back and fought with the courage of the doomed.

Across the plain on wings of swirling dust, the-Hyksos came on endlessly.

Behind the light two-wheeled chariots followed the heavy four-wheeled war

carts, each carrying ten men. The sides of the carts were screened with sheep

fleeces. Our arrows slapped ineffectually into the thick, soft wool, our

swords could not reach the men in the high body of the carts. They shot their

points down into us and broke up the confused masses of our fighting men into

scattered knots of terrified survivors. When one of our captains rallied a

few men to counter-attack them, the war carts wheeled away and stopped out of

range. With their awful recurved bows, they broke up our gallant charges, and

the moment we wavered, they came rolling back upon us.

I was intensely aware of the moment when the conflict ceased to be a battle

and became nothing more than a massacre. The remains of Kratas’ division out

on our right flank had fired the last of their arrows. The Hyksos had picked

out their captains by their plumed helmets and shot nearly every one of them

down. The men were disarmed and lead-erless. They broke into rout. They threw

down their weapons and ran for the river. But it was not possible to outrun a

Hyksos chariot.

The broken troops ran into Tanus’ division below the hillock, and tangled

with it. With their panicking, struggling masses they clogged and smothered

what little resistance Tanus was still capable of offering. The terror was

infectious and the centre of our line broke and tried to fly, but the deadly

chariots circled them, like wolves around the flock.

In all that chaos, in the bloody shambles and the tumult of defeat, only

the Blues stood firm around Tanus and the Crocodile standard. They were a

little island in the torrent of defeated men, even the chariots could not

break them up, for, with the instinct of a great general, Tanus had gathered

them and pulled them back into the one patch of rocks and gulleys where the

Hyksos could not cqme at them. The Blues were a wall, a bulwark around the

throne of Pharaoh. Because I had been at the king’s side, I was in the centre

of this ring of heroes. It was difficult to keep my feet, for all around me

men struggled and surged, washed back and forth by the waves of battle, like

seaweed clinging to a rock in the full stream of tide and surf.

I saw Kratas fight his way through from the shattered right whig to join

us. His plumed helmet attracted the Hyk-sos arrows and they flew around his

head thickly as locusts, but he came through unscathed, and our ring opened

for him. He saw me, and he laughed with huge delight. ’By Seth’s steaming

turds, Taita, this is more fun than building palaces for little princes, is

it not?’ He was never famous for his repartee, was Kratas, and I was too busy

staying on my feet to bother with a reply.

He and Tanus met close to the throne. Kratas grinned at him like an idiot.

’I’d not have missed this for all Pharaoh’s treasure. I want one of those

Hyksos sledges for myself.’ Neither was Kratas one of Egypt’s greatest

engineers. Even now he still believed that the chariots were some type of

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sledge. That was as far as his imagination reached.

Tanus tapped the side of his helmet with the flat of his sword in greeting,

and although his tone was light, his expression was grim. He was a general

who had just lost a battle and an army, and an empire.

’Our work here is finished for today,’ he told Kratas. ’Let us see if these

Hyksos monsters can swim as well as they run. Back to the river!’ Then,

shoulder-to-shoulder, the two of them shoved their way through the ranks

towards the throne where I still stood.

I could see over their heads, over the periphery of our little defensive

ring, out over the plain where our broken army was streaming away towards the

river, still harried by the squadrons of chariots.

I saw the golden chariot of the Hyksos king wheel out of formation and

cleave its way towards us, trampling our men under the flying hooves and

chopping them up with the glittering wheel-knives. The driver brought the

horses to a rearing, plunging halt before he reached the barrier of rocks

which, protected us. Balancing easily on the footplates, the Hyksos drew his

recurved bow and aimed at me, or so it seemed. Even as I ducked, I realized

that the arrow was not meant for me. It shrieked over my head and I turned to

watch its flight. It struck Pharaoh high in the chest, and buried half its

length in his flesh.

Pharaoh gave a hoarse cry and tottered on his high throne. There was no

blood, for the shaft had plugged the wound, but the feathers were a pretty

scarlet and green. Pharaoh slid sideways and collapsed forward towards me,

and I opened my arms to receive him. His weight bore me to my knees, so I did

not see the Hyksos king’s chariot wheel away, but I heard his mocking

laughter receding as he dashed back across the plain to lead the slaughter.

Tanus stooped over me as I held the king. ’How badly is he struck?’ he

demanded.

’He is killed,’ the reply rose to my lips unthinkingly. The angle of entry

and the depth of the wound could mean that only one outcome was possible, but

I choked off the words before they were spoken. I knew that our men would

lose heart if Great Egypt was slain. Instead I said, ’He is hard hit. But if

we carry him back aboard the state barge, he may recover.’

’Bring me a shield here!’ Tanus roared, and when it came we gently lifted

Pharaoh on to it. There was still no blood, but I knew his chest was filling

like a wine jar. Quickly, I felt for the head of the arrow, but it had not

emerged from his back. The point was still buried deep within the cage of his

ribs. I snapped off the protruding shaft, and covered him with his linen

shawl.

’Taita,’ he whispered. ’Will I see my son again?’

’Yes, Mighty Egypt, I swear it to you.’

’And my dynasty will survive?’

’Even as the Mazes of Ammon-Ra have foretold.’

’Ten strong men here!’ Tanus bellowed. They crowded around the makeshift

litter, and lifted the king between them.

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’Form the tortoise! Close up on me, the Blues!’ With interlocking shields,

the Blues formed a wall around the king.

Tanus raced to the Blue Crocodile which still waved in our midst and tore

it from its pole. He wound it around his waist and knotted the ends across

his belly.

’If the Hyksos want this rag, they had better come and take it from me,’ he

shouted, and his men cheered this piece of foolish bravado.

’All together now! Back to the ships! At the double!’

The moment we left the shelter of our little rocky redoubt, the chariots

came at us.

’Leave the men!’ Tanus had found the key. ’Kill then-beasts! ’ As the first

chariot bore down upon us, Tanus flexed Lanata. His bowmen drew with him, and

they all fired on his example.

Half our arrows flew wide, for we were running over uneven ground and the

archers were winded. Others struck the bodywork of the leading chariot, and

the shafts snapped or pegged into the wood. Still other arrows rattled off

the bronzed plates that covered the chests of the horses.

Only one arrow flew hard and true. From the great bow Lanata it sang with

the wind in its feathers, and struck the offside horse in the forehead. The

creature went down like a rockslide, tangling the traces and dragging its

team-mate down in a cloud of dust and kicking hooves. The charioteers were

hurled from the cockpit as the carriage somersaulted, and the other chariots

veered away to avoid the wreckage. A jubilant shout went up from our ranks,

and our pace picked up. This was our first success in all that dreadful day,

and it manned and encouraged our little band of Blues.

’On me, the Blues!’ Tanus roared, and then, incredibly, he began to sing.

Immediately the men around him shouted the opening chorus of the regimental

battle hymn. Their voices were strained and rough with thirst and effort, and

there was little tune or beauty to it, but it was a sound to lift the heart

and thrill the blood. I threw back my head and sang with them, and my voice

soared clear and sweet.

’Horus bless you, my little canary,’ Tanus laughed at me, and we raced for

the river. The chariots circled us with the first wariness to their

manoeuvres that they had demonstrated all that day. They had seen the fate of

their comrade. Then three of them swung across the front of our tortoise, and

in vee-formation charged at us head-on.

’Shoot at the heads of the beasts!’ Tanus shouted, and led them with an

arrow that brought another horse crashing to its knees. The chariot

overturned and was smashed to pieces on the stony ground, and the other

vehicles in the formation veered away.

As our formation passed the shattered chariot, some of our men ran out to

stab the squealing horses that were trapped in the wreckage. Already they

hated and feared these animals with an almost superstitious dread, which was

reflected in this vindictive piece of cruelty. They killed the fallen

charioteers also, but without the same rancour.

With two of their chariots destroyed, the Hyksos seemed reluctant to attack

our little formation again, and we were rapidly approaching the morass of

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muddy fields and flooded irrigation ditches that marked the river-bank. I

think that at that stage I was the only one of us who realized that the

wheeled enemy could not follow us into the swamp.

Although I ran beside the king’s litter, I could see, through the gaps in

our ranks, the dying acts of the battle that were being played out around us.

Ours was the only surviving detachment that still showed any cohesion. The

rest of the Egyptian army was a formless and terrified rabble streaming

across the plain. Most of them had thrown aside their weapons. When one of

the chariots drove at them, they dropped to their knees and held up their

hands in supplication. The Hyksos showed them no quarter. They did not even

waste arrows upon them but swung in close to chop them to tatters with the

spinning wheel-knives, or to lean out of the cockpit with the lance and cut

them down, or to smash in their skulls with the stone-headed maces. They

dragged the victim behind them, still spiked on the lance, until the barbed

spear-head disengaged, and only then did they leave the crumpled corpse lying

in their dust.

I had never seen such butchery. I had never read of anything like it in all

the accounts of ancient battles. The Hyksos slaughtered our people in their

thousands and their tens of thousands. The plain of Abnub was like a field of

dhurra corn after the reapers had been through it with their scythes. Our

dead were piled in drifts and windows.

For one thousand years our armies had been invincible and our swords had

triumphed across the world. Here on the field of Abnub an age had come to an

end. In the midst of this carnage the Blues sang, and I with them though my

eyes burned with tears of shame.

The first irrigation ditch was just ahead when another chariot formation

swung out on our flank and came driving hard at us, three abreast. Our arrows

fell all about them, but they came on with the horses blowing hard through

gaping red mouths and with the drivers screaming encouragement at them. I saw

Tanus shoot twice, but each time his arrows were deflected or were cheated by

the erratic swerve and bounce of the chariots. The formation thundered into

us and broke the tortoise of interlocking shields.

Two of the men carrying Pharaoh’s litter were cut to shreds by the

wheel-knives, and the wounded king was tumbled to the earth. I dropped to my

knees beside him and covered him with my own body to protect him from the

Hyksos lances, but the chariots did not linger. It was then-concern never to

allow themselves to become entangled or surrounded. They raced on and clear

before our men could reach them with the sword. Only then did they wheel and

regroup, and come back.

Tanus reached down and hauled me to my feet. ’If you get yourself killed,

who will be left to compose a hero’s ode to us?’ he scolded trie, then he

shouted for men. Between them they picked up the king’s litter and ran with

it for the nearest ditch.

I could hear the squeal of the chariot wheels bearing down on us, but I

never looked back. In ordinary circumstances I am a strong runner, but now I

outdistanced the litter-bearers as though their feet were chained to the

earth. I attempted to hurdle the ditch, but it was too wide for me to cross

in a single leap, and I landed knee-deep in the black mud. The chariot that

was following me struck the bank of the ditch and one of its wheels

shattered. The body of the vehicle toppled into the ditch and almost crushed

me, but I managed to throw myself aside.

259

Swiftly the Blues stabbed and hacked the horses and men as they lay

helplessly in the mud, but I took the moment to wade back to the chariot.

The up-ended wheel was still spinning in the air. I placed my hand upon it

as I studied it, and let it rotate beneath my fingers. I stood there only as

long as it took me to draw three’deep breaths, but at the end of that time I

had learned as much about wheel construction as any Hyksos, and had the first

inkling of the improvements I could make to it.

’By Seth’s melodious farts, Taita, you’ll have us all killed, if you start

daydreaming now!’ Kratas yelled at me.

I shook myself and seized one of the recurved bows from the rack on the

side of the chariot body and an arrow from the quiver. I wanted to examine

these at my leisure. Then I waded across the ditch with them in my hand, just

as the squadron of chariots came thundering back, running parallel to the

ditch and firing their arrows down amongst us.

The men carrying the king were a hundred paces ahead of me, and I was the

last of our little band. Behind me the charioteers roared with frustration

that they were unable to follow us, and they shot their arrows around me as I

ran. One of them struck my shoulder, but the point failed to penetrate and

the shaft glanced away. It left a purple bruise which I only discovered much

later.

Although I had started from so far behind them, I caught up with the

litter-bearers by the time we reached the main bank of the Nile. The

river-bank was crowded with the survivors of the battle. Nearly all of these

were weaponless and very few were unwounded. They were all driven by a single

desire, to return as swiftly as possible to the ships that had brought them

down-river from Thebes.

Tanus singled me out and called me to him as the litter-bearers came up. ’I

place Pharaoh in your hands now, Taita. Take him on board the royal barge and

do all you can to save his life.’

’When will you come aboard?’ I asked him.

’My duty is here, with my men. I must save all of them mat I can, and get

them embarked.’ He turned from me and strode away, picking out the captains

and commanders from amongst his beaten rabble, and shouting his orders.

I went to the king and knelt beside the Utter. He was still alive. I

examined him briefly and found that he hovered on the edge of consciousness.

His skin was as clammy-cold as that of a reptile, and his breathing was

shallow. There was only a thin rime of blood around that arrow-shaft which

had seeped up from the wound, but when I laid my ear to his chest I heard the

blood bubbling in his lungs with each breath he drew, and a thin red snake of

it crawled from his mouth down his chin. I knew that whatever I could do to

save him, I must do quickly. I shouted for a boat to take him out to the

barge.

The litter-bearers lifted him into the skiff, and I sat in the bilges

beside him as we sculled out to where the great state barge lay anchored in

the main flow of the current.

260

THE KING’S SUITE CROWDED THE SHIP’S side to watch us approach. There was a

gaggle of the royal women and all those courtiers and priests who had taken

no part in the fighting. I recognized my mistress standing amongst them as we

drew closer. Her face was very anxious and pale, and she held her young son

by his hand.

As soon as those on board the barge looked down into our skiff and saw the

king on his litter, with the blood on his face that I had been unable to wipe

away, a terrible cry of alarm and mourning went up from them. The women

keened and wailed, and the men howled with despair, like dogs.

Of all the women> my mistress stood closest at hand as the king was lifted

up the ship’s side and his Utter laid on the deck. As the senior wife, hers

was the duty to attend him first. The others gave her space as she stooped

over him and wiped the mud and the blood from his haggard face. He recognized

her, for I heard him breathe her name and ask for his son. My mistress called

the prince to him, and he smiled softly and tried to raise his hand to touch

the boy, but he did not have the strength, and the hand dropped back to his

side.

I ordered the crew to carry Pharaoh to his quarters, and my mistress came

to me quickly and asked low and urgently, ’What of Tanus? Is he safe? Oh,

Taita, tell me that he is not slain by this dreadful enemy!’

’He is safe. Nothing can harm him. I have given you the vision of the

Mazes. All this was foreseen. But now I must go to the king, and I will need

your help. Leave Memnon with his nursemaids, and come with me.’

I was still black and crusted with river mud, and so was Pharaoh, for he

had fallen in the same ditch as I had. I asked Queen Lostris and two of the

other royal women to strip and bathe him and lay him on fresh white linen

sheets, while I returned to the deck to bathe in buckets of river water that

the sailors hauled up over the side. I never operate in filth, for I have

found by experience that for some reason it affects the patient adversely and

favours the accumulation of the morbid humours.

While I was thus occupied, I was watching the east bank where our broken

army was huddled behind the protection of ditch and swamp. This sorry rabble

had once been a proud and mighty force, and I was filled with shame and fear.

Then I saw the tall figure of Tanus striding amongst them, and wherever he

moved, the men stood up out of the mud, and reassembled into the semblance of

military discipline. Once I even caught the sound of ragged and unconvincing

cheers on the wind.

If the enemy should send their infantry through the swamps now, the

slaughter and the rout would be complete. Not a man of all our mighty army

would survive, for even Tanus would be able to offer little resistance.

However, although I peered anxiously into the east, I could make out no sign

of infantry shields in phalanx or the sparkle of advancing spear-heads at the

shoulder-slope.

There was still that terrible dust-cloud hanging over the plain of Abnub,

so the chariots were at work out there, but without enemy infantry falling

upon him, Tanus could still salvage some little comfort out of this dreadful

day. It was a lesson I was to remember, and which stood us in good stead in

the years ahead. Chariots might win the battle, but only the foot-soldiers

could consolidate it.

261

The battle out there on the river-bank was now entkely Tanus’ affair, while

I had another battle to fight with death in the cabin of the state barge.

’WE ARE NOT ENTIRELY WITHOUT HOPE,’ I whispered to my mistress, when I

returned to the king’s side. ’Tanus is rallying his troops, and if any man

alive is capable of saving this very Egypt from the Hyksos, he is the one.’

Then I turned to the king, and for the moment all else was forgotten but my

patient.

As is often my way, I murmured my thoughts aloud as I examined the wound.

It was less than an hour, measured by a water-clock, since the fateful arrow

had struck, and yet the flesh around the broken-off stub’of the shaft was

swollen and empurpled.

’The arrow must come out. If I leave the barb in there, he will be dead by

tomorrow’s dawn.’ I had thought the king could no longer hear me, but as I

spoke, he opened his eyes and looked directly into mine.

’Is there a chance that I will live?’ he asked.

’There is always a chance.’ I was glib and insincere. I heard it in my own

voice, and the king heard it also.

"Thank you, Taita. I know you will strive for me, and I absolve you now

from all blame, if you should fail.’ This was generous of him, for many

physicians before me have felt the strangling-rope as punishment for letting

the life of a king slip through their fingers.

"The head of the arrow is deeply lodged. There will be a great deal of

pain, but I will give you the powder of the Red Shepenn, the sleeping-flower,

to still it.’

’Where is my senior wife, Queen Lostris?’ he asked, and my mistress replied

immediately, ’I am here, my lord.’

’There is aught that I would say. Summon all my ministers and my scribes,

that my proclamation may be witnessed and recorded.’ They crowded into the

hot little cabin and stood in silence.

Then Pharaoh reached out to my mistress. ’Take my hand, and listen to my

words,’ he ordered, and she sank down beside him and did as she was ordered,

while the king went on speaking in a soft and breathless whisper.

’If I should die, Queen Lostris will stand as regent for my son. I have

learned in the time that I have known her that she is a person of strength

and good sense. If she were not, I would not have laid this charge upon her.’

’Thank you, Great Egypt, for your trust,’ Queen Lostris murmured low, and

now Pharaoh spoke directly to her, although every person in the cabin could

hear him.

’Surround yourself with wise and honest men. Instruct my son in all the

virtues of kingship that you and I have discussed.’You know my mind on all

these matters.’

’I will, Majesty.’

262

’When he is old enough to take up the flail and the crook, do not attempt

to withhold it from him. He is my lineage and my dynasty.’

’Willingly I shall do what you order, for he is not only the son of his

father, but my son also.’

’While you rule, rule wisely and care for my people. There will be many who

seek to wrest the emblems of kingship from your grasp?not only this new and

cruel enemy, (his Hyksos, but others who stand even closer to your throne.

But you must oppose them all. Keep the double crown intact for my son.’ ?Even

as you say, divine Pharaoh.’

The king fell silent for a while and I thought that he had slipped over the

edge into unconsciousness, but suddenly he groped for the hand of my mistress

again.

’There is one last charge I have for you. My tomb and my temple are

incomplete. Now they are threatened, as is all my realm, by this terrible

defeat that we have suffered. Unless my generals can stop them, these Hyksos

will sweep on to Thebes.’

’Let us petition the gods that it does not come to pass,’ my mistress

murmured.

’I charge you most strictly that you will see me embalmed and interred with

all my treasure in accordance with the strictest protocols of the Book of the

Dead.’

My mistress was silent. I think that she realized even then just what an

onerous charge this was that Pharaoh had laid upon her.

His grip upon her hand tightened until his knuckles turned white, and she

winced. ’Swear this to me on your own life and hope for immortality. Swear it

before my ministers of state and all my royal suite. Swear it to me in the

name of Hapi, your patron god, and on the names of the blessed trinity,

Osiris and Isis and Horus.’

Queen Lostris looked across at me with a piteous appeal in her eyes. I knew

that once she had given it, she would honour her word at all and any cost to

herself. In this, she was like her lover. She and Tanus were bound by the

same code of chivalry. I knew also that those close to her must expect to pay

the same price. An oath to theking now might one day return to burden us all,

Prince Memnon and the slave Taita included. And yet there was no manner in

which she could gainsay the king as he lay upon his death-bed. I nodded to

her almost imperceptibly. Later I would examine the finer points of this

oath, and like a law scribe I would mould it a little closer to reasonable

interpretation.

’I swear on Hapi, and on all the gods,’ Queen Lostris said, softly but

clearly, and there would be a hundred times in the years ahead when I would

wish she had not done so.

The king sighed with satisfaction and let her hand slip from his. ’Then I

am ready for you, Taita. And for whatever fate the gods have decreed. Only

let me kiss my son once more.’

While they brought our fine young prince to him, I drove the crowd of

nobles from the cabin with little ceremony. Then I prepared a draught of the

Red Shepenn for him and made it as strong as I dared, for I knew that pain

263

could undo all my best efforts and destroy my patient as swiftly as a slip of

my scalpel.

When he had drunk it all, I waited for the pupils of his eyes to contract

to pinpoints, and for the lids to droop over them. Then I sent the prince

away with his nursemaids.

ON LEAVING THEBES I HAD EXPECTED TO have to deal with arrow wounds, so I

had brought my spoons with me. I had designed this instrument myself,

although there was a quack in Gaza and another in Memphis who both claimed it

was their invention. I blessed the spoons and my scalpels in the lamp flame,

and then washed my hands in hot wine.

’I do not think it is wise to use one of your spoons when the head of the

arrow is so deep and so near the heart,’ my mistress told me as she watched

my preparations. There are occasions when she speaks as though the student

had outpaced the master.

’If I leave the arrow, it will certainly mortify. I will have killed him

just as surely as if I had chopped his head off his shoulders. This is the

only way that I will have a chance of saving him.’

For a moment we looked into each other’s eyes, and we spoke without words.

This was the vision of the Mazes of Ammon-Ra. Did we wish to avoid the

benevolent consequences to ourselves?

’He is my husband. He is Pharaoh.’ My mistress took my hand to emphasize

her words. ’Save him, Taita. Save him, if you can.’

’You know that I will,’ I answered.

’Do you need me to help you?’ She had assisted me so very often before. I

nodded my assent, and stooped over the king.

There were three ways that I might have attempted to withdraw the arrow.

The first would be to pluck it out. I have heard of a surgeon in Damascus who

bends down the supple branch of a tree and attaches this to the shaft When

lie releases the branch, the arrow is whipped out of the living flesh by the

strength of the sapling. I have never tried such brutal treatment for I am

convinced that very few men would survive it.

The second method would be to push the arrow through the limb or the torso

until the barbed head emerges on the far side. To achieve this, it can be

driven along its original path with a mallet, like a nail through a plank.

Then the barb is sawn off and the shaft drawn free. This treatment is almost

as brutal as the first.

My method is the Taita spoon. I have named the spoon after myself in all

modesty, for the claims of those others are spurious, and posterity needs to

be informed of my genius.

Firstly, I examined the Hyksos arrow that I had salvaged along with the bow

from the overturned chariot. I was surprised to find that the arrow-head was

of worked flint rather than of bronze. Of course, flint is cheaper and easier

to pro-sure in quantity, but I have seldom known a general who tries |o

economize when setting out to seize a kingdom. This flint isow-head spoke

eloquently of the Hyksos’ limited resources, and suggested a reason for his

264

savage attack upon :: this very Egypt. Wars are fought for land or wealth,

and it seemed that the Hyksos was short of both these commodities.

I had to hope that the arrow-head buried in Pharaoh’s breast was of the

same shape and design. I matched a pair of my spoons to the razor-edged piece

of stone. My spoons are of various sizes, and I selected a pair that enclosed

the head snugly, masking the wicked barbs with smoothly polished metal.

By this time, the drug had worked its full magic, and Pharaoh lay

unconscious upon his cloud-white linen sheets, with the snapped-off arrow

standing out as far as my forefinger from the skin, which was wrinkled with

age and covered with the frosted curls of his body hain I laid my ear on his

chest once more and heard his breath sigh and gurgle in his lungs. Satisfied

that he still lived, I greased the spoons that I had selected with mutton

fat, to lubricate their entry into the wound. I laid the spoons close at hand

and took up one of my keenest scalpels.

I nodded to the four strong guards that Queen Lostris had selected for me

while I was busy with my preparations, and they took hold of Pharaoh’s wrists

and ankles and held him down firmly. Queen Lostris sat at the king’s head and

placed the wooden tube from my medical chest between his lips and deep back

into his throat. This would keep his windpipe clear and open. It would also

prevent him from biting or swallowing his own tongue, or grinding his teeth

together and snapping them off, when the pain assaulted him too fiercely.

’First I have to enlarge the wound around the shaft to enable me to reach

the head of the arrow,’ I muttered to myself, and I pressed the point of the

scalpel down along the line of the shaft. Pharaoh’s whole body stiffened, but

the men held him down remorselessly.

I worked swiftly, for I have learned that speed is crucial in an operation

of this nature, if the patient is to survive. I opened a slit on each side of

the shaft. The human skin is tough and elastic and would inhibit the entry of

the spoons, so I had to get through it.

I dropped the knife and took up the pair of lubricated spoons. Using the

arrow-shaft as a guide, I eased them deeper and deeper into the wound, until

only the long handles’ still protruded.

By this time Pharaoh was writhing and twisting in the grip of his

restrainers. Sweat was pouring from every pore of his skin, and running back

over his shaven skull with its stubble of thin grey hair. His screams rang

through the tube in his mouth, and reverberated through the hull of the

barge.

I had taught myself to ignore the agonized distress of my patients, and I

slid the spoons deeper into the widely distended mouth of the wound until I

felt them touch the flint of the arrow-head. This was the delicate part of

the operation. Using the handles like a pair of tweezers, I levered the

spoons apart and worked them over the arrow-head. When I felt them close of

their own accord, I hoped that I had entirely enclosed the coarse flint and

masked the barbs.

I took a careful grasp of the handles of the spoons and of the reed shaft

of the arrow, and pulled back on them all together. If the barbs were still

free, they would have immediately snagged in Pharaoh’s flesh and resisted my

pull. I could have shouted aloud with relief as I felt it all begin ter

yield. Still, the suction of the wet and clinging flesh was considerable, and

I had to use all my strength to draw the shaft.

265

Pharaoh’s agony was dreadful to hear and behold, as the mass of reed and

stone and metal was dragged through his chest. The Red Shepenn drug had long

ago ceased to be of any effect, and the pain was raw and savage. I knew I was

doing fearful damage, and I could feel tissue and sinew tearing.

My own sweat ran down into my eyes and burned and half-blinded me, but I

never released my pull until suddenly the blood-smeared arrow came free in my

hands and I staggered backwards across the cabin and crashed into the

bulkhead. I leaned against it for a moment, exhausted with the effort. I

watched the dark, half-congealed blood trickle and spurt from the wound for a

long moment, before I could rally myself and stagger back to stem it. , I

smeared the wound with precious myrrh and crystallized honey, and then bound

it up tightly with clean linen bandages. As I worked, I recited the

incantation for the binding Up of wounds:

I bind thee up, oh creature of Seth.

I stop up thy mouth.

Retreat before me, red tide.

Retire before me, red flower of death.

I banish you, oh red dog of Seth.

This was the recitation for a bleeding wound caused by blade or arrow.

There are specific verses for all types of wound, from burns to those

inflicted by the fangs or claws of a lion. Learning these is a large part of

the training of a physician. I am never certain in my own mind as to just how

efficacious these incantations are; however, I believe that I owe it to my

patients to employ any possible means at my disposal for their cure.

In the event, Pharaoh seemed much easier after the bind-ing-up, and I could

leave him sleeping in the care of his women and go back on deck. I needed the

cool river airs to revive me, for the operation had drained me almost as much

as it had Pharaoh.

By this time it was evening, and the sun was settling wearily upon the

stark western hills and throwing its last ruddy glow over the battlefield.

There had been no assault by the Hyksos infantry, and Tanus was still

bringing off the remains of his vanquished army from the river-bank to the

galleys anchored in the stream.

I watched the boatloads of wounded and exhausted men passing our anchored

barge, and I felt a deep compassion for them, as I did for all our people.

This would be for ever the most dire day in our history. Then I saw that the

dust-cloud of the Hyksos chariots was already beginning to move southwards

towards Thebes. The clouds were incarnadined by the sunset to the colour of

blood. It was for me a sign, and my compassion turned to dread.

IT WAS DARK BY THE TIME THAT TANUS himself came aboard the state barge. In

the light of the torches he looked like one of the corpses from the

battlefield. He was pale with fatigue and dust. His cloak was stiff with

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dried blood and mud, and there were dark, bruised shadows under his eyes.

When he saw me, his first concern was to ask after Pharaoh.

’I have removed the arrow,’ I told him. ’But the wound I is deep and near

the heart. He is very weak, but if he survives three days, then I will be

able to save him.’

’What of your mistress and her son?’ He always asked this, whenever we met.

’Queen Lostris is tired, for she helped me with the operation. But she is

with the king now. The prince is as bonny as ever and sleeps now with his

nurses.’

I saw Tanus reel on his feet, and knew that he was close to the end of even

his great strength. ’You must rest now?’ "t began, but he shook off my hand.

’Bring lamps here,’ he ordered. ’Taita, fetch your writing-brushes and

ink-pots and scrolls. I must send a warning to Nembet, lest he walk into the

Hyksos trap even as I did.’

So Tanus and I sat half that night on the open deck, and this was the

despatch for Nembet that he dictated to me:

I greet you Lord Nembet, Great Lion of Egypt, Commander of the Ra division

of the army of Pharaoh. May you live for ever!

Know you that we have encountered the enemy Hyksos at the plain of Abnub.

The Hyksos in his strength and ferocity is a terrible foe, and possessed of

strange, swift craft that we cannot resist.

Know you further that we have suffered a defeat and that our army is

destroyed. We can no longer oppose the Hyksos.

Know you further that Pharaoh is gravely wounded and in danger of his life.

We urge you not to meet the Hyksos in an open field, for his craft are like

the wind. Therefore take refuge behind walls of stone, or wait aboard your

ships, to turn the enemy aside.

The Hyksos has no ships of his own, and it is by means of our ships alone

that we may prevail against him.

We urge you to await our coming before committing your forces to battle.

I call the protection of Horus and all the gods down upon you.

It is Tanus, Lord Harrab, Commander of the Ptah division of the army of

Pharaoh, who speaks thus.

I wrote out four copies of this message, and as I completed each, Tanus

called for messengers to carry them to the Lord Nembet, Great Lion of Egypt,

who was advancing from the south to reinforce us. Tanus sent two fast galleys

speeding up-river, each with a fair copy of the despatches. Then he put his

best runners ashore on the west bank, the opposite side of the river from the

Hyksos army, and sent them off to find Nembet.

’Surely one of your scrolls will win through to Nembet. You can do no more

until morning,’ I reassured him. ’You must sleep now, for if you destroy

yourself, then all of Egypt is destroyed with you.’

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Even then he would not go to a cabin, but curled on the deck like a dog, so

that he could be instantly ready for any new emergency. But I went to the

cabin to be near my king " and to give comfort to my mistress.

I was on deck again before the first glimmer of dawn. I arrived to hear

Tanus giving orders to burn our fleet. It was not for me to question this

decision, but he saw me gape incredulously at him, and when the messengers

had been sent away he told me brusquely, ’I have just received the roll-call

from my regimental commanders. Of the thirty thousand of my men who stood

yesterday on the plain of Abnub to meet the chariots of the Hyksos, only

seven thousand remain. Five thousand of those are wounded, and many will

still die. Of those who are unwounded, very few are sailors. I am left with

only sufficient men to work half our j fleet. I must abandon the rest of our

ships, but I cannot let them fall into the hands of the Hyksos.’

They used bundles of reeds to start the fires, and once they were set, they

burned fiercely. It was a sad and terrible sight to watch, even for me and my

mistress, who were not sailors. For Tanus it was far worse. He stood alone in

the bows of the state barge, with despair and grief in every line of his face

and in the set of those wide shoulders, as hewatched his ships bum. For him

they were living things, and beautiful.

Before all the court my mistress could not go to his side where she

belonged, but she took my hand surreptitiously, and the two of us mourned for

Tanus and for all Egypt as we watched those gallant craft burn like torches.

The roaring pillars of flame from each vessel were sullied with black smoke,

but still their ruddy light rivalled the approach of the sunrise.

At last Tanus gave the order to his hundred remaining galleys to weigh

anchor, and our little fleet, laden with wounded and dying men, turned back

into the south.

Behind us, the smoke from the funeral pyre of our fleet stood high into the

early morning sky, while ahead of us fee yellow dust-cloud stretched taller

and wider along the east bank of the Nile as the chariot squadrons of the

Hyksos drove deeper into the Upper Kingdom, towards helpless Thebes and all

her treasures.

It seemed that the gods had turned their backs on Egypt and deserted us

completely, for the wind, which usually blew so strongly from the north at

this season of the year, died away completely, and then sprang up again with

re--newed vigour from the south. Thus we were forced to contend with both

current and wind, and our ships were deeply laden with their cargoes of

wounded. We were slow and heavy in the water, with the depleted crews slaving

at the oars. We could not keep pace with the Hyksos army, and it drew away

from us inexorably.

I was absorbed with my duties as physician to the king. However, on every

other vessel in the fleet, men whom I could have saved were dying in their

scores. Every time that

I went on deck for a little fresh air and a short break from my vigil at

the bedside of Pharaoh, I saw corpses being thrown over the side of the other

galleys near us. At each

splash there was a swirl of crocodiles beneath the surface. Those awful

reptiles followed the fleet like vultures.

268

Pharaoh rallied strongly, and on the second day I was able to feed him a

small bowl of broth. That evening he asked to see the prince again, and

Memnon was brought to him.

Memnon was already at the age when he was as restless as a grasshopper and

as noisy as a flock of starlings. Pharaoh had always been good with the boy,

if inclined to over-indulgence, and Memnon delighted in his company. Already

he was a beautiful boy, with clean, strong limbs and his mother’s skin and

great dark green eyes. His hair was curled like the pelt of a new-born black

lamb, but in the sunlight, it was sparked with the flames of Tanus’s ruddy

mop.

Pharaoh’s delight in Memnon was even more poignant than usual. The child

and the promise that he had wrung from my mistress were his hope of

immortality. Against my wishes he kept the child with him until after.sunset.

I knew that Memnon’s boundless energy and his demands for attention were

tiring the king, but I could not intervene until it was time for the prince’s

supper and he was led away by his nurses.

My mistress and I stayed on at the king’s bedside, but he fell almost

instantly into a death-like sleep. Even without his white make-up, he was as

pale as the linen sheets on which he lay.

The next day was the third since the wounding, and therefore the most

dangerous. If he could survive this day, then I knew I could save him. But

when I woke in the dawn the cabin was thick with the musky stench of

corruption. When I touched Pharaoh’s skin, it burned my fingers like a kettle

from the hearth. I called for my mistress, and she came stumbling through

from her alcove behind the curtain where she slept.

’What is it, Taita?’ She got no further, for the answer was plain upon my

face. She stood beside me as I unbound the wound. The binding-up is a high

art of the surgeon’s skills, and I had sewn the linen bandages hi place. Now

I snipped the threads that held them and peeled them away.

’Merciful Hapi, pray for him!’ Queen Lostris gagged at the stench. The

crusted black scab that corked the mouth of the wound burst open, and thick

green pus poured out in a slow and viscous stream.

’Mortification!’ I whispered. This was the surgeon’s nightmare, this evil

humour that struck upon the third day and spread through the body like winter

fire in the dry papyrus beds.

’What can we do?’ she asked, and I shook my head.

’He will be dead before nightfall,’ I told her, but we waited beside his

bed for the inevitable. As the word spread through the ship that Pharaoh was

dying, so the cabin filled with priests and women and courtiers. We waited hi

silence.

Tanus was the last to arrive, and he stood at the back of the throng with

his helmet under his arm, in the position of respect and mourning. His gaze

rested not on the death-bed, but upon Queen Lostris. She kept her face

averted from his, but I knew that she was aware of him in every fibre of her

body.

She covered her head with an embroidered linen shawl, but above the

waistband of her skirt, she was naked. Since Ihe prince had been weaned, her

breasts had lost their heavy burden of milk. She was as slim as a virgin, and

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childbirth had not scarred her bosom or her supple belly with silver lines of

striae. Her skin was as smooth and unblemished as though it had been freshly

anointed with perfumed oil. I laid wet cloths upon Pharaoh’s burning body in

an attempt to cool the fever, but the heat evaporated the moisture and I was

forced to change them at short intervals. Pharaoh tossed about restlessly and

cried out in delirium, haunted by all the terrors and monsters of the other

world, who waited to receive him.

At times he recited snatches from the Book of the Dead. From childhood the

priests had taught him to memorize the book that was the key and the map

through the shades to the far fields of paradise:

The crystal path has twenty-one turnings.

The narrow way is thin as the blade of bronze.

The goddess who guards the second pylon

is treacherous and her ways are devious.

Lady of flame, whore of the universe,

with the mouth of a lioness,

your vagina swallows men up,

they are lost in your milky dugs.

Gradually his voice and his movements became weaker, a little after the sun

had made its noon, he gave one t shuddering sigh and was still. I stooped

over him and : for the life-throb in his throat, but there was none, and skin

was cooling under my touch.

’Pharaoh is dead,’ I said softly, and closed the lids over his staring eyes.

’May he live for ever!’

The mourning cry went up from all who were assembled there, and my mistress

led the royal women in the wild ululation of grief. It was a sound mat

chilled me and made invisible insects crawl upon my skin, so I left the cabin

as soon as I was able. Tanus followed me out on to the deck and seized my

arm.

’You did all in your power to save him?’ he demanded roughly. ’This was not

another of your devices?’

I knew that this unkind treatment of me was an expression of his own guilt

and fear, so I was gentle in my reply. ’He was slain by the Hyksos arrow. I

did all that was in my power to save him. It was the destiny of the Mazes of

Am-mon-Ra, and there is no guilt or fault in any of us.’

He sighed and placed one strong arm around my shoulders. ’I had not

foreseen any of this. I thought only of my love for the queen and for our

son. I should rejoice that she is free, but I cannot. Too much is lost and

destroyed. All of us are merely grains of dhurra corn in the grinding-mill of

the Mazes.’

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"There will be a time of happiness for all of us hereafter," I reassured

him, although I had no basis for this claim. ’But there is still a sacred

duty on my mistress, and through her, on you and me also.’ And I reminded him

of the oath that Queen Lostris had sworn to the king, that she would preserve

his earthly body and give it proper burial to allow his Ka to move on to the

fields of paradise.

’Tell me how I can help in this,’ Tanus replied simply, ’but remember that

the Hyksos is sweeping through the Upper Kingdom ahead of us, and I cannot

guarantee that Pharaoh’s tomb will not be violated.’

"Then, if needs be, we must find another tomb for him. Our first concern

must be to preserve his body. In this heat it will be decaying and crawling

with maggots before the sun sets. I am not skilled in the embalmer’s art, but

I know of only one way in which we can keep our trust.’

Tanus sent his sailors down into the barge’s hold, and they swung up one of

the huge clay jars of pickled olives from our stores. Then, under my

instructions, he emptied the jar and refilled it with boiling water. While

the water was still hot, he mixed into it three sacks of the finest-quality

sea salt. Then he filled four smaller wine jars with the same brine and set

them all out on the deck to cool.

In the meantime I was working alone in the cabin. My mistress had wanted to

help me. She felt that it was part of her duty to her dead husband, but I

sent her away to care for the prince.

I slit open Pharaoh’s corpse down his left flank from ribs to hip-bone.

Through this opening I removed the contents of chest and belly, freeing them

along the diaphragm with the knife. Naturally, I left his heart in place, for

this is the organ of life and intelligence. I left the kidneys also, for

these are the vessels of water and represent the sacred Nile. I packed the

cavity with salt and then sutured it closed with cat-gut. I did not have an

embalming-spoon to push up through the nostrils and remove that soft yellow

mush from the gourd of the skull, so I left it in place. In any event, it was

of no importance. The viscera I divided into its separate parts: liver,

lungs, stomach and entrails. I washed out the stomach and intestines with

brine, which was a loathsome task.

When this was done, I took the opportunity to examine the king’s lungs

minutely. The right lung was healthy and pink, but the left lung had been

pierced by the arrow, and had collapsed like a punctured bladder. It was

filled with rotten black blood and pus. I was amazed that trie old man had

lived so long with such an injury. I felt that I was absolved. No physician

could have saved him, and there was no fault or failure in my treatment.

At last I ordered the sailors to bring in the cooled jars of brine. Tanus

helped me to fold Pharaoh’s body into the foetal position and we placed him

in the olive vat. I made certain that he was completely immersed in the

strong brine. We packed his viscera into the smaller Canopic wine jars. We

sealed all the jars with pitch and wax, and lashed them securely into the

reinforced compartment below decks in which the king stored his treasure. I

think Pharaoh must have been content to rest thus, surrounded by gold and

bars of silver.

I had done my best to help my mistress make good her vow. In Thebes I would

hand the king’s body over to the embalmers, if the Hyksos had not arrived

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there first, and if the city and its inhabitants still existed by the time we

reached it.

WHEN WE REACHED THE WALLED CITY of Asyut, it was apparent that the Hyksos

had left only a small force to invest it, and had continued southwards with

their main army. Even though it was merely a detachment with less than a

hundred chariots, the Hyksos besiegers were far too strong for us to attack

them with our decimated army.

Tanus’ main aim was to rescue Remrem and his five thousand, who were within

the city walls, and then to push on up-river to join forces with Lord Nembet

and his thirty thousand reinforcements. Anchored out in the main stream of

the river, secure from attack by those deadly chariots, Tanus was able to

signal his intentions to Remrem on the city walls.

Years before, I had helped Tanus draw up a system of signals, using two

coloured flags by means of which he could spell out a message to any other

within sight, across a valley, from peak to peak, or from city wall to plain

and river. With the flags Tanus was able to warn Remrem to be ready for us

that night. Then, under cover of darkness, twenty of our galleys raced into

the beach below the city walls. At the same moment, Remrem threw open the

side-gates, and, at the head of his regiment, fought his way through the

Hyksos pickets. Before the enemy were able to harness their horses, Remrem

and all his men were safely embarked.

Immediately, Tanus signalled the rest of the flotilla to weigh anchor. He

abandoned the city of Asyut to sack and plunder, and we bore on upstream

under oars. For the rest of that night, whenever we looked back over the

stern, we saw the flames of the burning city lighting the northern horizon.

’Let those poor bastards forgive me,’ Tanus muttered to me. ’I had no

choice but to sacrifice them. My duty lies south of here in Thebes.’

He was soldier enough to make the hard choice without flinching, but man

enough to grieve bitterly over it. I admired him then as much as I loved him.

REMREM TOLD US THAT OUR SIGNAL frigates had sailed past Asyut the previous

day, and that by now the despatches that I had drawn up on Tanus’ behalf must

be in Lord Nembet’s hands.

Remrem was also able to give us some intelligence and news of the Hyksos,

and his sweep to the south. Remrem had captured two Egyptian deserters and

traitors who had gone over to the enemy and who had entered Asyut to spy on

the defenders. Under torture they had howled like the jackals they were, and

before they died, had told Remrem much about the Hyksos that was of value and

interest to us.

The Hyksos king, whom we had so disastrously encountered on the plain of

Abnub, was named Salitis. His tribe was of Semitic blood and originally a

nomadic and pastoral people who had lived in the Zagros mountains near Lake

Van. In this my first impression of these terrible Asians was confirmed. I

had guessed at their Semitic origins from their features, but I wondered how

a pastoral people had evolved such an extraordinary vehicle as a wheeled

chariot, and where they had found that marvellous animal that we Egyptians

now spoke of as a horse, and feared as though it were a creature from the

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underworld.

In other areas it seemed that the Hyksos were a backward people. They were

unable to read or write, and their government was a harsh tyranny by their

single king and ruler, this bearded Salitis. We Egyptians hated him and

feared him even more than we did those wild creatures that drew his chariot.

The chief god of the Hyksos was named Sutekh, the god of storms. It needed

no deep religious instruction to recognize in him our own dreaded Seth. Their

choice of god was fitting, and their behaviour did the god honour.

No civilized people would burn and plunder and murder as they did. The fact

that we torture traitors cannot be weighed in the same scale as the

atrocities committed by these barbarians.

It is a truth that I have often observed, that a nation chooses its gods to

suit its own nature. The Philistines worship Baal, and cast live infants into

the fiery furnace that is his mouth. The black Cushite tribes worship

monsters and creatures from the underworld with the most bizarre rituals. We

Egyptians worship just and decent gods who are benevolent towards mankind and

make no demands for human sacrifice. Then the Hyksos have Sutekh.

It seemed that Remrem’s captives were not the only Egyptian traitors

travelling with the enemy host. With a hot coal in his anus, one of Remrem’s

captives had told of some great Egyptian lord from the Upper Kingdom who sat

upon King Salitis’ war council. When I heard this, I remembered how I had

wondered at the knowledge that the Hyksos had displayed of our order of

battle upon the plain of Abnub. I had guessed then at the presence of a spy

among them who knew our secrets.

If any of this was true, then we must expect that the enemy knew all our

strengths and weaknesses. They must know the plans and defences of all our

cities. Especially they would know of that rich treasure that Pharaoh had

accumulated in his funerary temple.

’Perhaps this explains the haste with which King Salitis is driving on

towards Thebes,’ I suggested to Tanus. ’We can expect them to attempt a

crossing of the Nile at the first opportunity that presents itself to them.’

And Tanus cursed bitterly.

’If Horus is kind, he will deliver this traitorous Egyptian lord into my

hands.’ He punched his fist into the palm of his other hand. ’We must prevent

Salitis from crossing the river, our ships are the only advantage that we

hold over him. I must exploit them to full advantage.’

He stamped about the deck, and looked up at the sky. ’When will this foul

wind swing back into the north? Every hour the enemy’s chariots draw farther

ahead of us. Where is Nembet’s fleet? We must join our forces and hold the

river-line.’

THAT AFTERNOON ON THE POOP-DECK OF the royal barge the state council of

Upper Egypt convened before the throne. The high priest of Osiris represented

the spiritual body, Lord Merseket: the chancellor stood for the temporal body

of the: state, and Tanus, Lord Harrab stood for the military authority.

Between them the three lords lifted Queen Lostris to the throne of this

very Egypt, and placed her son upon her lap. While every man and woman on

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board the barge raised their voices in a loyal salute, the other ships of the

fleet sailed past, and even the wounded soldiers dragged themselves to the

rail to cheer the new regent and the young heir to the great throne of Egypt.

The high priest of Osiris strapped the false beard of the kingship upon my

mistress’s chain, and it did nothing to detract from her beauty and manifest

womanhood. Lord Merseket bound the lion’s tail around her waist and settled

the tall red and white crown upon her brow. Finally, Tanus mounted the throne

to place the crook and golden flail to her hands. Now Memnon saw the shining

toys that Tanus carried towards him, and reached out to snatch them from him.

’A king indeed! He knows the crook is his by right,’ Tanus applauded

proudly, and the court roared their approval of this precocious behaviour.

I think this was the first time that any of us had laughed since that

dreadful day on the field of Abnub. It seemed to me that the laughter was a

catharsis, and that it marked a new beginning for all of us. Up until that

moment we had been overwhelmed by the shock of defeat and the loss of

Pharaoh. But now, as the great lords of Egypt went forward one at a time to

kneel before the throne on which sat this lovely young woman and her royal

child, a fresh spirit sprang up in all of us. We were rescued from the apathy

of despair, and our will to fight and to endure was resuscitated. Tanus was

last of all of them to kneel before the throne and swear his allegiance. As

she looked down upon him, Queen Lostris’ adoration for him was so evident

that it suffused her lovely face and shone like the sunrise from those dark

green eyes. I was amazed that no other in all that throng seemed aware of it.

That evening after the sun had set, my mistress sent me to the bridge of

the state barge with a message for the commander of her armies. She summoned

him to a council of war in the main cabin. This time Tanus dared not refuse

her, for he had very recently sworn an oath of obedience.

This extraordinary war council of which I was the only witness had barely

begun, before the new regent of Egypt imperiously banished me from the cabin,

and sent me to guard the door and turn away all other visitors. The last

glimpse that I had of them as I drew the heavy curtain was as they fell into

each other’s arms. So great was their need, and so long had they been denied,

that they rushed at each other like deadly enemies joining in mortal combat,

rather than lovers.

The happy sounds of this engagement persisted for most of the night, and I

was relieved that we were not at anchor but driving on up-river in haste to

join with Lord Nembet. The clunk and swish of the oars, the boom of the drum

setting the stroke and the chants of the rowers on their benches almost

drowned out the tumult in the royal cabin.

When he came to the poop-deck at the change of the night-watch, Tanus had

the smile and the satisfied air of a general who had just won a famous

victory. My mistress followed him on deck shortly afterwards, and she glowed

with a new and ethereal beauty that startled even me, who was accustomed to

her loveliness. For the rest of that day she was loving and kind to all

around her, and found numerous occasions to consult the commander of her

army. Thus Prince Memnon and I were able to spend most of the day together, a

circumstance that suited both of us very well.

With the prince’s dubious assistance I had already started carving a series

of wooden models. One of these was a chariot and wooden horses. Another was a

wheel on an axle that I was experimenting with.

274

Memnon stood on tiptoe to watch the wheel spin smoothly on its miniature

hub.

’A solid disc is too heavy, don’t you agree, Mem? See how swiftly it loses

momentum and slows down.’

’Give it to me!’ he demanded, and snatched at the spinning disc. It flew

form his chubby "fingers, dashed to the deck and shattered into four almost

equal segments.

’You are a Hyksos ruffian,’ I told him sternly, which he seemed to take as

a great compliment, and I went down on my knees to gather up my poor model.

The broken segments still lay in a circular pattern, and, before my hand

touched them, I had a strange aberration of vision. In the eye of my mind,

the solid segments of wood became spaces, while the cracks between them

appeared solid.

’Sweet Breath of Horus! You’ve done it, Mem.’ I hugged him. ’A rim

supported by struts from the hub! When you are Pharaoh, what other miracles

will you perform for us?’

Thus did the Prince Royal, Memnon the first of that name, Ruler of the

Dawn?with just a little help from his friend? conceive of the spoke wheel.

Little did I dream then that one day the two of us together would ride to

glory upon it.

WE CAME UPON THE FIRST OF THE EGYPTIAN dead before noon. He came floating

down the river with his bloated belly buoying him up, and his face gazing

blankly at the sky. There was a black crow perched upon his chest. It picked

out his eyes and threw back its head to swallow them one at a time.

In silence we stood at the ship’s rail and watched the dead man float

serenely by.

’He wears the kilt of the Lion Guards,’ Tanus said quietly.

’The Lions are the spear-head of Nembet’s army. I pray to Horus that there

will be no others following this one down the river.’

But there were. Ten more, then a hundred. More and still more, until the

surface of the river from bank to bank was carpeted by floating corpses. They

were thick as the leaves of the water-hyacinth which clog the irrigation

canals in summer.

At last we found one who still lived. He was a captain of the Lion Guards

who had been seconded to Nembet’s staff. He clung to a mat of floating

papyrus stems in the current.

We fished him from the water and I attended to his wounds. The head of a

stone mace had shattered the bones of his shoulder and he would never use

that arm again.

When he had recovered sufficiently to speak, Tanus squatted beside his

mattress.

’What of Lord Nembet?’

275

’Lord Nembet is slain, and all his staff with him,’ the captain told him

hoarsely.

’Did Nembet not receive my despatch warning him of the Hyksos?’

’He received it on the eve of the battle, and he laughed as he read it.’

’Laughed?’ demanded Tanus. ’How could he laugh?’

’He said that the puppy was destroyed?forgive me, Lord Tanus, but that was

what he called you?and now sought to cover his stupidity and cowardice with

spurious messages. He said that he would fight the battle in the classic

manner.’

"The arrogant old fool,’ Tanus lamented. ’But tell me the rest of it.’

’Lord Nembet deployed upon the east bank, with the river at his back. The

enemy fell upon us like the wind, and drove us into the water.’

’How many of our men escaped?’ Tanus asked softly.

’I believe that I am the only one of those who went ashore with Lord Nembet

who survived. I saw no other left alive. The slaughter upon the river-bank

was beyond my power to describe to you.’

’All our most famous regiments decimated,’ Tanus mourned. ’We are left

defenceless, except for our ships. What happened to Nembet’s fleet? Was it

anchored in midstream?’

’Lord Nembet anchored the greater part of the fleet, but he beached fifty

galleys in our rear.’

’Why would he do that?’ Tanus stormed. ’The safety of the ships is the

first principle of our standard battle plan.’

’I do not know Lord Nembet’s mind, except he may have kept them at hand to

re-embark our troops expeditiously, should your warning have proved

justified.’

’What then is the fate of our fleet? Nembet lost our army, but did ,he save

the ships?’ Tanus’ tone was rough with anger and distress.

’Of the ships that were anchored in midstream, most are scuttled and burned

by the skeleton crews. I saw the flames and the smoke even from where I lay

on my papyrus float. A few of the others cut the anchor-lines and fled south

towards Thebes. I shouted to the crews as they sailed past me, but so great

was their terror that they would not heave-to and pick me from the water.’

’The fifty ships that lay upon the beach?’ Tanus broke off and drew a deep

breath before he finished the question. ’What has become of the squadron that

was beached?’

’It has fallen into the hands of the Hyksos.’ The captain trembled as he

answered, for he dreaded Tanus’ anger. ’I looked back as I drifted with the

current, and I saw the enemy swarming aboard the galleys on the beach.’

Tanus stood up and strode to the bows. He stared upstream from where the

corpses and the scorched and blackened planks of Nembet’s fleet still drifted

down upon the steady green flow of the river. I went to stand at his side, to

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be ready to halter his rage when it came.

’So the proud old fool has sacrificed his life, and the lives of all his

men, simply to spite me. They should build a pyramid to his folly, for Egypt

has never seen the like of it.’

’That is not all his folly,’ I murmured, and Tanus nodded grimly.

’No, not all his folly. He has given the Hyksos the means to cross the

river. Sweet milk of Isis’ breast, but once they are across the Nile we are

truly finished.’

Perhaps the goddess heard him call her name, for at that moment I felt the

wind that had blown so long into our faces veer. Tanus felt it also. He spun

on his heel and roared an order to his officers on the poop-deck.

"The wind turns fair. Make a general signal to the fleet. Set all sail.

Relieve the men at the oars every hour by the water-clock. Drummers, increase

the beat to flank speed. Make all haste southwards.’

The wind settled strongly into the north. Our sails filled and stiffened

like the bellies of pregnant women. The drums gave the rowers the stroke, and

we breasted the flow of the river as the whole battle-fleet raced southwards.

’All thanks to the goddess for this wind,’ Tanus shouted. ’Divine Isis, let

us be in time to catch them on the water.’

THE STATE BARGE WAS SLOW AND UNGAINLY. She began falling astern of the

fleet. It seemed that the fates has intervened once more, for Tanus’ old

galley that he had loved so well, the Breath ofHorus, was sailing close to us

in the formation.

She was under a new captain now, but she was still a formidable little

vessel, built for speed and attack. The sharp bronze ramming-horn protruded

from her bows, just above the water line. Tanus hailed her alongside the

barge and transferred his Blue Crocodile standard into her, taking over the

command from her new captain.

My place was with my mistress and the prince. I am not certain how I found

myself on board the Breath ofHorus, standing on the poop beside Tanus, as we

tore along upstream. Sometimes I am guilty of folly almost as monumental as

that recently demonstrated by Lord Nembet. I remember only that as soon as

the state barge began to fall away astern, I began bitterly to regret my

impetuosity. I thought of telling Tanus that I had changed my mind, and

asking him to put about and drop me once more on the deck of the barge. But

after one glance at his face, I decided that I would rather face the Hyksos

again.

From the deck of the Breath of Horus, Tanus issued his orders. By flag and

voice-hail, they were passed from vessel to vessel. Without slackening the

pace of our advance, Tanus redeployed the fleet. He gathered up the galleys

around him, as he forged his way to the head of the flotilla.

The wounded and those no longer fit to fight were transferred to the slower

vessels which fell back to keep pace with the state barge. The faster galleys

in the van were cleared for action. They were manned mostly by Remrem’s fresh

troops whom we had relieved from the siege of Asyut. They were spoiling for a

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chance to avenge the disgrace of Abnub. Tanus hoisted the Blue Crocodile

standard at his masthead of the Breath of Horus, and they roared with the

lust of battle. How swiftly he had been able to stiffen their spirit since

that bloody defeat!

The signs of Nembet’s recent catastrophe became ever more obvious with each

league that we covered. The corpses and wreckage and all the flotsam of war

were stranded in the papyrus beds on each side of the river. Then, at last,

in the sky ahead of us we saw once again the dust of the chariots mingling

with the smoke from the cooking-fires of the Hyksos camp.

’It is as I had hoped,’ Tanus exulted. ’They have halted their headlong

advance on Thebes, now that Nembet has presented them with the means of

crossing the river. But they are not sailors, and they will have difficulty

embarking their men and chariots. If Horus is kind, we will arrive in time to

help them on their way.’

In extended battle order we swept around the last wide bend of the river,

and we found the Hyksos before us. By one of those happy freaks of war, we

had arrived precisely at the moment that they were fully committed to the

crossing of the Nile.

There were the fifty captured galleys straggling across the river in the

most lubberly fashion. The sails and sheets were in a tangle and every

oarsman was keeping his own stroke. The paddles were splashing and

crab-catching. The steering of each vessel was shaky and erratic, completely

out of phase with the ships around it.

We could see that most of the Hyksos manning the decks were in full bronze

armour. Clearly they had not realized just how difficult it is to swim in

that state of dress. They stared at us in consternation as we bore down upon

them. Now at last the roles were reversed. We were in our element, and they

were flying in the wind like a torn sail.

I had a few moments to study the enemy, as we closed. The vast bulk of the

Hyksos army was still upon the east bank. They had gone into bivouac, and

they were so numerous that their encampment stretched away to the foothills

of the desert, as far as I could see from the deck of the Breath of Horus.

King Salitis was sending only a small force across the river. Almost

certainly they were under orders to race down the west bank and to capture

the funerary temple of Pharaoh Mamose, before we were able to remove the

treasure.

We bore down rapidly on the convoy of Hyksos ships, and I shouted to Tanus

above the beat of the drums and the bloodthirsty cheers of our rascals, "They

have taken their horses across already. Look over there!’

Almost unprotected, except for a few armed guards, there was a huge herd of

these terrible animals gathered on the west bank. I guessed there were

several hundred of them; even at this distance, we could make out their long,

flowing manes and tails streaming in the strong north wind. They were a

disturbing sight to us. Some of the men around me shuddered and swore with

loathing of them. I heard one of them mutter darkly, ’The Hyksos feed those

monsters of theirs on human flesh, like tame lions or jackals. That is the

reason for this slaughter. They must have food for them. We can only guess

how many of our comrades are already in their bellies.’

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I could not contradict him, and I even had a queasy feeling in my guts that

he might be speaking the truth. I turned my attention from those beautiful

but gory monsters to the galleys in the stream ahead of us.

’We have caught them taking the chariots and the men over,’ I pointed out

to Tanus. The decks of Nembet’s captured vessels were piled high with

chariots and equipment, and crowded with the Hyksos charioteers who were

being ferried across. As they realized their predicament, some of the Hyksos

tried to turn and run back for the east bank. They collided with the ships

that followed them, and locked together, they drifted helplessly on the

current.

Tanus laughed savagely to see their confusion, and shouted into the wind,

’General signal. Increase the beat to attack speed. Light the fire-arrows.’

The Hyksos had never experienced an attack with fire-arrows, and at the

thought of what was coming, I laughed with Tanus, but nervously. Then

suddenly I stiffened and my laughter choked off.

!Tanus!’ I seized his arm. ’Look! Look at the galley dead ahead! On the

poop. There is our traitor.’

For a moment Tanus did not recognize the tall, stately figure at the rail

of the galley, for he wore fish-scale armour and a tall Hyksos war helmet.

Then abruptly he roared with anger and outrage, ’Intef! Why did we not guess

it was him?’

’I see it so clearly now. He has guided Salitis to this very Egypt. He went

east and deliberately tempted the Hyksos with accounts of the treasures of

Egypt.’ My outrage and hatred matched those of Tanus.

Tanus threw up the bow Lanata and loosed an arrow, but the range was long

and the point glanced off Lord Intef’s armour. I saw his head jerk round at

the shock, and he looked across the water directly at us. He singled us out,

Tanus and myself, and for a moment I thought I saw fear in his eyes. Then he

ducked out of sight below the gunwale of the galley.

Our leading squadron flew into the pack of confused and milling shipping.

With a tearing crunch, our bronze ramming-horn struck Intef’s galley

amidships, and I was thrown off my feet by the impact. When I struggled up

again, the oarsmen had already backed water, and with another rending screech

of timbers we disengaged from the stricken ship.

At the same time, our archers were pouring a heavy rain of fire-arrows into

her. The heads were bound with pitch-soaked papyrus stems that burned like

comets, each leaving a trail of sparks and smoke as they flew into the sails

and top hamper. The north wind fanned the flames and they leaped up the

rigging with a fiendish exuberance.

The waters flooded in through the gaping hole we had ripped in her belly,

and she listed over sharply. The sails caught fire and burned with startling

rapidity. The heat singed my eyelashes even at that distance. The heavy

mainsail, burning fiercely, fluttered down over the deck, trapping the crew

and crowded charioteers beneath it. Their screams shrilled in our ears as

their hair and clothing burst into flames. I remembered the plain at Abnub

and felt no pity as they leaped in flames from the ship’s side and were drawn

under by the weight of their armour. Only a swirl of ripples and a lingering

puff of steam marked where each of them had disappeared.

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All down the line, the Hyksos galleys were burning and sinking. They had

neither the experience nor the skill to counter our attack, and they were as

helpless as we had been before the assault of their chariots. Our ships

backed off and charged again, crushing in their hulls and sending torrents of

flaming arrows into them.

I was watching the first galley that we had attacked, seeking another

glimpse of Lord Intef. She was almost gone when suddenly he reappeared. He

had thrown off his helmet and his armour, and wore only a linen breech clout.

He balanced easily on the gunwale of the sinking ship, and then, as the

flames reached out to embrace him, he joined his hands above his head and

dived overboard.

He was a son of the Nile, at home in her waters. He knifed through the

surface, and came up a minute later and fifty paces from where he had struck,

with his long wet hair sleeked back, so that he looked like a swimming otter.

"There he goes!’ I screamed at Tanus. ’Run the swine under.’

Instantly Tanus gave the order to turn the Breath of Ho-rus, but quick as

the helmsman was on the steering-oar, she was slow to come around. Meanwhile,

Lord Intef slipped through the water like a fish, reaching out overarm for

the east bank and the protection of his Hyksos allies.

’Swing hard!’ Tanus signalled his starboard bank of oars, and they thrust

the bows around. As soon as we were on line with the swimmer; JTanus gave the

order to pull together, and we shot in pursuit. By now Lord Intef was far

ahead and close in to the bank, where five thousand Hyksos archers waited

with their long recurved bows strung and ready to give him covering fire.

’Seth piss on them!’ Tanus yelled in defiance. ’We will take Intef out from

under their noses.’ And he drove the Breath of Horus directly at them,

bearing down upon the lone swimming figure.

As we came within range of the shore, the Hyksos loosed a volley at us that

darkened the sky, and their arrows fell in a whistling cloud around us. They

dropped so thickly that the deck soon bristled with them like the quills in a

goose’s wing, and some of our sailors were struck and fell writhing and

bleeding from their benches.

But we were already close on Intef, and he looked back over his shoulder

and I saw the terror in his face as he realized he could not escape our sharp

prow. I ignored the arrows and ran to the bows to scream down at him, ’I

hated* you from the first day we met. I hated every loathsome touch. I want

to watch you die. You are evil! Evil!’

He heard me. I saw it in his eyes, and then his dark gods intervened yet

again. One of the sinking Hyksos galleys drifted down upon us, spouting fire

and smoke. If she had touched us we would have gone up with her in a tower of

flame. Tanus was forced to put the steering-oar over, and to signal urgently

for his oarsmen to back-water. The burning galley drifted between the shore

and where we lay heaved-to. Lord Intef was hidden from my view, but when the

burning galley was past, I saw him again. Three brawny Hyksos charioteers

were dragging him from the water and up the steep bank.

He paused at the top of the bank and looked back at us, and then

disappeared from sight, leaving me trembling with rage and frustration. Our

men were still being struck down by the falling arrows, so Tanus gave the

order, and we wheeled away and sped back to join in the destruction of those

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few vessels of the convoy that were still afloat.

As the last of these listed over and then rolled on to her back, the green

Nile waters poured into her and quenched the flames in a hissing cloud of

steam. Our archers leaned over the side and shot the few surviving Hyksos who

splashed weakly on the surface.

Immediately they were all drowned, Tanus turned his attention to the west

bank and to the small party of the enemy and the herd of horses that were

stranded there. As our galley sped in to the shore, the Hyksos herders

scattered and ran, but our men leaped ashore, sword in hand, and raced after

them! The Hyksos were charioteers, and accustomed to riding into battle. Our

lads were foot-soldiers and trained to run. Like a pack of hounds after a

jackal, our men isolated and surrounded them. They hacked them down and left

a hundred bleeding corpses scattered across the green fields of standing

dhurra corn.

I had jumped ashore behind the first wave of our troops. I had serious

business in mind. There was no point in making models and designing chariots

without a means of driving the spoked wheels that I had seen in my

imagination.

It required an enormous act of courage on my part to start towards that

herd of terrible creatures that the Hyksos herders had abandoned close to the

water’s edge. Each step was an effort of will, for there were many hundreds

of them, and they were obviously restless and alarmed by the shouting and the

running of men and the clash of arms. I was certain that at any moment they

would rush at me like wounded lions. I imagined them gobbling my still warm

and twitching flesh, and my courage evaporated and I could go no closer. From

a distance of a hundred paces, I stood staring in dreadful fascination at

these savage predators, but I was poised to turn and rush back to the safety

of the galley at the first sign of an attack.

This was the first opportunity that I had been given to study these

animals. They were mostly of a dun colour, but with subtle shadings of bay

and chestnut and roan. One or two of them were as black as Seth. They stood

as tall as a man, with a full barrel-chest, and long necks that arched

gracefully. Their manes were like the tresses of a beautiful woman, and their

hides glowed in the sunlight, as though they had been burnished.

One of those nearest to me threw back its head and rolled its upper lip,

and I recoiled as I saw the great square white teeth that lined its jaw. It

kicked its hind-legs and emitted such a terrifying neighing sound that I

turned and started back towards the ship with some alacrity.

Then a hoarse yell from one of our soldiers near me arrested my cowardly

retreat. ’Kill the Hyksos monsters!’

’Kill the monsters!’ The cry was taken up by the others.

’No!’ I screamed, and my concern for my own safety was forgotten. ’No! Save

the horses. We need them.’

My voice was lost in the angry war-cry of our troops, as they rushed at the

herd of horses, with their shields raised and their swords still dripping

with the blood of the herders. Some of the men paused to nock arrows to the

bow and fire them into the herd.

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’No!’ I cried, as a glossy black stallion reared and screamed, with an

arrow standing out of his withers.

’No! Please, no!’ I cried again, as one of the sailors ran in with a light

war-axe and hacked through the fetlock joint of a young mare. She was

crippled by the blow and could not escape the next stroke of the axe that

caught her between the ears and dropped her kicking in the dust.

’Leave them! Leave them!’ I pleaded, but the arrows brought down a dozen of

the animals, and the swords and axes maimed and killed a dozen more before

the herd broke under the assault, and three hundred horses bolted and went

galloping out in a mass across the dusty western plain towards the desert.

I shaded my eyes to watch them go, and it seemed to me that part of my

heart went with them. When they had disappeared, I ran to protect and tend to

those animals that were left maimed and arrowed amongst the papyrus beds. But

the soldiers were ahead of me. So great was their fury that they gathered

around the fallen carcasses. In a frenzy of hatred, they plunged their blades

into the unresisting flesh and hacked at the broken heads.

A little to one side stood an isolated clump of papyrus reeds. Behind this,

and screened from the rampaging soldiers, stood the black stallion that I had

first seen hit by an arrow. He was sorely struck and staggering as he limped

forward, the arrow deep in his chest. Without thought for my own safety, I

ran towards him, and then stopped as he turned to face me.

Only then did I realize my danger. Here was a wounded beast that, like a

lion in the same straits, must surely charge at me. The stallion and I stared

at each other, and I felt fear fall away like a discarded cloak from my

shoulders.

His eyes were huge and swimming with pain. Gentle eyes, beautiful eyes that

made my heart swell with pity. He made a soft, fluttering sound, and limped

towards me. I held out my hand and touched his muzzle and it felt like warm

Arabian silk. He came directly to me, and pressed his forehead to my chest in

a gesture of trust and appeal that was almost human. I knew that he was

asking for my help.

Instinctively I flung my arms around his neck and embraced him. I wanted

more than anything in my life at that moment to save him, but from his

nostrils warm blood trickled down my chest. I knew he was hit through the

lungs and that he was dying. He was far beyond any help that I could give

him.

’My poor darling. What have those stupid, ignorant bastards done to you?’ I

whispered. Dimly in my distress and spiritual agony, I realized that my life

had changed again, and that this dying creature had made that change. Somehow

I seemed to sense that, in the years ahead, wherever I left my footsteps in

the African earth, the hoof-prints of a horse would lie beside them. I had

found another great love to fill my days.

The stallion made that fluttering sound once more and his breath was warm

on my skin. Then his legs collapsed under him and he fell heavily on his side

and lay gasping air into his punctured lungs. Bright red bubbles frothed from

the wound in his chest. I went down beside him, and lifted that noble head

into my lap and waited with him until he died. Then I stood up and went back

to where the Breath ofHorus was beached.

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It was difficult to see my way, for my own hot tears blinded me. Once again

I cursed myself for a soft and sentimental fool, but that never did much to

help me brace myself. I was always so vulnerable to suffering in another

creature, human or otherwise, especially in one that was noble and beautiful.

’Damn you, Taita! Where have you been?’ Tanus railed at me as I scrambled

aboard. ’There is a battle raging. The whole army cannot wairaround while you

have another of your famous daydreams.’ Yet for all his bluster, he had not

deserted me.

TANUS WOULD NOT EVEN HEAR ME OUT, but cut brusquely across my request for

leave to follow the herd of runaway horses out into the desert, and for men

to go with me.

’I want no truck with those foul and unholy creatures!’ he shouted at me.

’I only regret that my men let them escape and that they did not slaughter

the lot of them. Let us hope that the lions and the jackals make good that

default.’ I realized then that he hated them as much as did the most ignorant

lout in his regiments.

’Were you there on the plain of Abnub?’ I do not usually indulge in loud

argument, but his intransigence infuriated me. ’Or was that some other

dull-witted oaf standing beside me? Did you not see the future charge at you

on hooves and wheels and chop your men to jackal-food? Do you not understand

that without chariot and horse, you and this Egypt we know are finished?’

This amicable discussion was taking place on the poop-deck of the Breath

ofHorus. Tanus’ officers were silent and stiff with shock to hear a slave

address a Great Lion of Egypt and the commander of all her armies as a

dull-witted oaf. However, I was past all restraint and I rushed on.

’The gods have given you this wonderful gift. Three hundred horses placed

in your hands! I will build you the chariots to go with them. Are you so

blind that you cannot see it?’

’I have my ships!’ Tanus roared back at me. ’I don’t need these foul

man-eating beasts. They are an abomination in the face of decent men and all

benevolent gods. They are creatures of Seth and Sutekh, and I want no part of

them.’

Too late I realized that I had pushed Tanus into a position from which he

could not retreat. He was a clever and intelligent man, until his pride

hamstrung his reason. I moderated my tone and made my voice mellifluous.

’Tanus, please listen to me. I have held the head of one of these animals

in my hands. They are strong, but strangely gentle. Their eyes shine with the

intelligence of a faithful dog. They do not eat meat?’

’How could you tell that from one brief touch?’ he sneered at me, still

proud and affronted.

"The teeth,’ I answered. ’They do not possess the fangs or claws of a

carnivore. Pigs are the only hoofed creatures that eat flesh, and these are

no pigs.’

I saw him waver at last, and I pressed my advantage. ’If that is not

enough, look then at the stores that the Hyksos have brought across the

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river. Do they need that mountain of fodder to feed a pride of meat-eating

lions?’

’Meat or fodder, I will not argue further. You have heard my decision. We

will let those cursed horses perish in the wilderness. That is my decision,

and it is final.’ He stamped away, but I muttered under my breath, ’Final, is

it? We will see about that.’

There have been very few occasions when I have not been able to have my own

way with my mistress, and hers was now the highest authority in this very

Egypt. I went to her that very evening, as soon as the royal barge came once

more under the protection of the war galleys.

Without the knowledge of her commander and lover, I showed her the tiny

working model of a chariot with the miniature carved horses in the traces,

which I had crafted for her. Queen Lostris was enchanted by it. Naturally she

had never seen the squadrons of war chariots in full flight, and had not

conceived for them the same hatred as had the bulk of her army. Having

captured her full attention with the model chariot, I then described the

death of the stallion in such harrowing detail that both of us were reduced

to tears. She can resist my tears as little as I am able to resist hers.

’You must go immediately and rescue these marvellous animals from the

desert. When you have them, I order you to build a squadron of chariots for

my armies,’ she cried.

If Tanus had spoken to her before I had the chance to persuade her, I doubt

that she would have given that order, and the history of our world would have

been very different. As it was, Tanus was furious with my deception, and we

came as close to a permanent rift in our relationship as we ever had in all

the year.

It was fortunate that I had been summarily ordered ashore by Queen Lostris,

and was able to escape the full force of his wrath. I had only a few hours in

which to gather around me a few helpers, and the chief of these was the most

unlikely of them all.

I had never taken to Hui, the Shrike whom we had captured at Gallala and

who had commanded one of the galleys which Tanus had scuttled at Abnub. He

was now a captain without a ship, and a man looking for a reason to go on. He

sought me out as soon as rumour of my mission spread through the fleet.

’What do you know about horses?’ he challenged me, which was a question I

was not prepared to answer at that moment.

’Obviously not as much as you do?’ I made it a cautious question.

’I was once a syce,’ he boasted, in his usual endearing fashion.

’And what creature is that?’

’A groom, one who cares for horses,’ he replied, and I stared at him in

amazement.

’Where did you ever see a horse before that bloody day at Abnub?’ I

demanded.

’As an infant my parents were killed, and I was captured by a tribe of

barbarians who roamed .the plains far to the east, a year’s travel beyond the

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Euphrates river. My captors were people of the horse and, as a child, I lived

each day with those animals. Mare’s milk was my food and I slept beneath the

horses’ bellies for shelter in the night, for a slave was not allowed into

the tents of the tribe. When I escaped from slavery, it was upon the back of

my favourite stallion. He carried me fast and far. But he died long before we

reached the Euphrates.’

Thus Hui was with me when a galley set down my small party of reluctant

horse-catchers upon the west bank. Sixteen men were all that I could recruit,

and most of them were the dregs and riff-raff of the army. Tanus had seen to

it that none of his best men would join me. He could not countermand the word

of the regent of all Egypt, but he made it as difficult as he could for me to

carry out her orders.

At Hui’s suggestion, I had equipped my men with light linen ropes and bags

of crushed dhurra corn. All of them, except Hui and myself, were terrified to

the point of incontinence by the mere thought of the creatures that we had

set out to follow. When I woke in the morning after our first night’s camp, I

found that every single one of these stalwarts had disappeared, and I never

saw them again.

’We will have to turn back,’ I despaired. ’There is nothing we can do

alone. Lord Tanus will be pleased. This was exactly what he knew would

happen.’

’You are not alone,’ Hui pointed out cheerfully. ’You have me.’ This was

the first time that my feelings began to warm towards the young swaggerer. We

divided the load of ropes and the leather bags of crushed corn, and we went

on.

By this time the tracks of the horses were three days old, but they had

stayed together in a single herd and so had beaten a road that was easy to

follow. Hui assured me that the herd instinct was strong amongst them, and

that with such lush grazing along the river-bank, they would not have

wandered far. He was certain they would not have gone out into the desert, as

I had feared that they might.

’Why would they do that? There is no food or water for them out there.’ And

in the .end Hui proved right.

With the coming of the Hyksos, the peasants had deserted their farms and

gone into the shelter of the walled towns. The fields were untended and the

com half-grown. We found the herd before noon the second day. It was spread

out and grazing peacefully in one of the fields. Even after my experience

with the wounded stallion, I was still rather nervous of these mysterious

creatures.

’It will surely be a difficult and dangerous matter to capture a few of

them,’ I confided in Hui, seeking his reassurance and advice. At this stage,

the notion of capturing all three hundred horses had not even occurred to me.

I would have been satisfied with twenty, and delighted with fifty of them. I

imagined that we would be forced to run each of them down and bind it with

the ropes we had brought with us for that purpose.

’I have heard that you have the reputation of being a very clever slave,’

Hui grinned at me, cocky and delighted by his superior understanding of the

subject. ’Clearly, it is a reputation that is ill-founded.’

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He showed me how to twist and braid a halter from the ropes. We made a

dozen of these before he was satisfied. Then each of us armed himself with

one of these and a leather sack of crushed corn, and we started towards the

grazing herd. Following Hui’s example, we never walked directly towards them,

but strolled obliquely at a leisurely pace past the animals in the fringe of

the herd.

’Slowly now,’ Hui cautioned me, when they flung up then-heads and studied

us with that peculiarly frank and almost childlike gaze that I would come to

know so well.

’Sit down.’ We sank into the standing corn and remained motionless, until

the horses started feeding again. Then we moved forward until they became

restless once more.

’Down,’ Hui ordered, and when we were crouched in the corn, he went on,

’They love the sound of a gentle voice. When I was a child, I sang to my

horses to quieten them. Watch this!’ He started to sing a refrain in a

strange language, which I presumed was the barbaric tongue of his childhood

captors.

Hui’s voice was as melodious as the squawking of crows squabbling over the

rotting carcass of a dead dog. The nearest horses stared at us curiously. I

laid my hand on Hui’s arm to quieten him. I was certain that the herd must

find his efforts at song as distressing as I did.

’Let me try,’ I whispered. I sang the lullaby that I had composed for my

prince.

Sleep, little Mem, who rules the dawn,

sleep, little prince, who will rule the world,

rest that curly head, filled with wondrous dreams,

rest those arms, make them strong for sword and bow.

One of the mares closest to us took a few steps towards me, and when she

stopped, she made that same soft fluttery sound with her lips. She was

inquisitive, and I sang on softly and seductively. She had a foal at her

heels, a lovely little bay-coloured creature with an appealing head and

pricked-up ears.

With my special feeling for and understanding of birds and animals, I was

already beginning to recognize the desirable points of breed in these new

animals. I was learning swiftly and instinctively how to deal with them. I

was no longer completely reliant on Hui to instruct me.

Still singing gently, I scooped up a handful of the crushed cornmeal and

held it out to the mare. I could see at once that she had been hand-fed

before, and that she understood my offer. She blew noisily through wide

nostrils, and took another few paces towards me. Even now I can remember the

thrill that almost stopped the beating of my heart when she took the last

pace up to me, and delicately lowered her muzzle into my hand to taste the

white meal. It powdered her whiskers as she ate, and I laughed with the joy

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and excitement of it. She made no effort to pull away from me as I slipped my

other arm around her neck and laid my cheek softly against hers to inhale the

strange, warm smell of her hide.

’The halter,’ Hui reminded me softly, and I slipped it over her head, as he

had shown me.

’She is yours,’ Hui said.

’And I am hers,’ I replied without thinking, but it was true. We had

captured each other.

The rest of the herd had watched all this. As soon as the halter was on the

mare, they settled down and trustingly allowed Hui and me to walk freely

amongst them. They came to eat from the hand and allowed us to lift their

hooves and stroke their necks and massive shoulders.

All this seemed to me at the time to be miraculous, but after only a little

consideration I realized that it was quite natural. They were accustomed from

birth to being handled and petted, to being fed and harnessed. They had lived

always with the close and constant presence of man. The true miracle came

later, when I realized that they recognized affection, and that they were

able to return it in full measure.

Hui had selected and haltered one of the other mares, all the time

lecturing me and displaying his learning and experience in matters equine. I

was in such a euphoric mood that for once his bumptiousness did not annoy me.

’Very well,’ he said at last, ’we will mount up now.’ And to my utter

astonishment he placed both hands on his mare’s back, drew himself up and

flung one leg over her, to sit astride her back. I gawked at him in

disbelief, expecting the mare to react violently; $o rear up and dash Hui to

earth, or, at the very least, to seize his naked leg in those powerful white

teeth and drag him from his perch. She did none of these things, but stood

quietly and subserviently.

’Hi up, my darling!’ he called to her, and dug his heels into her ribs. The

mare started forward obediently; and when he urged her on again she broke

into a trot and then a gallop. Hui guided her effortlessly in a manner that

was not then apparent to me. Horse and rider traced out elegant patterns of

movement across the field, and then circled back to where I stood.

’Come up, Taita. Try a gallop!’ I could see that he was expecting me to

refuse, and it was that which made me overcome my reluctance. I would not

allow the little whip-persnapper to have the better of me.

My first attempt at mounting up was unsuccessful, but the mare stood

stoically, and Hui laughed. ’She has a great deal to teach you. You should

call the poor animal Patience.’ I did not see the humour of it then, but the

name stuck and the mare was Patience from then onwards.

’Pull yourself higher before you swing your leg over, and be careful not to

trap your balls under you when you come down,’ Hui counselled, and then

howled with laughter. ’And that’s a piece of advice that you need not worry

about. My guess is that you would love still to have a pair of those to sit

on!’

All the warm feelings I was beginning to have towards Hui cooled again at

that sally, and I threw myself on to the mare’s back and clung with both

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hands around her neck, in fear of broken limbs and cracked skull.

’Sit up straight!’ Hui began my instruction, and Patience assisted me with

her sweet and forgiving nature.

I surprised myself by thinking of these creatures in human terms, but over

the following days as we rode south towards Thebes, I discovered that they

could be stupid or clever, suspicious or trusting, dour or mischievous,

friendly or aloof, brave or timid, nervous or phlegmatic, long-suffering or

impatient, surprising or predictable?in short, as close to man in temperament

as any creature that walks on four legs. The more I learned about them, the

more I wanted to learn. The longer I spent working with them, the more I grew

to love them.

I rode ahead on Patience, her foal at heel. The herd trailed after us

compliantly, all three hundred and sixteen of them. Hui brought up the rear

to sweep up any stragglers. With each league we covered, I became more

confident and proficient upon Patience’s back, and the rapport between us

became firmer. The mare became an extension of my own body, but so much

swifter and stronger than my own feeble limbs. It felt so natural and right

to be astride that broad and sturdy back that I was amazed that so few others

were willing to share the experience with me.

Perhaps it was not only the terror that had struck them so devastatingly on

the plain of Abnub, but also the words and attitude of Tanus, Lord Harrab

that affected the regiments of our army. Whatever the reason, I could find no

Egyptian who would mount upon the back of a horse, except Hui and, very much

later, Prince Memnon. Of course, they learned to husband and breed the horse

and care for him. Under my tutelage they became dexterous and dashing

charioteers, but I never saw a man of them mounted on horseback, save only

myself and Hui and the prince. When the chariots that I would design with

their light, spoked wheels swept all before them, and made Egypt the master

of this creation, Tanus never followed our example, and I never heard him

express a kind sentiment towards those willing and brave animals who dragged

him into battle.

Even in later years, when the horse was commonplace through all our realm,

it was considered somehow indecent and obscene to mount them. When the three

of us rode past astride, many of the common people spat on the ground three

times and made the sign against the evil eye.

ALL THAT WAS IN THE FUTURE AS I LED my herd up the west bank of the river

towards Thebes, and we arrived to the gratitude of my mistress, and to a

gruff and unenthusiastic welcome from the commander-in-chief of the Egyptian

armies.

’Just keep those evil brutes out of my sight,’ Tanus told me. He still had

norforgiven me for going above him to my mistress.

In fairness to him, he had more than enough excuse for his evil temper. The

safety of the state and our nation were in the direst jeopardy. There had

never been a time in our history when our civilization was so threatened by

the barbarian.

Already Asyut was lost, and the whole east bank of the river as far as

Dendera. Completely undaunted and undeterred by the naval reverse that Tanus

had inflicted upon him, King Salitis with his chariots had swept on and

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surrounded the walled city of Thebes.

Those walls should have withstood siege for a decade, but that reckoned

without the baleful presence of Lord Intef in the camp of the enemy. It

transpired that while still grand vizier of the Upper Kingdom, he had

secretly ordered the construction of a concealed passage beneath the city

walls. Even I who knew most of his other secrets had never suspected this,

and Lord Intef had murdered the workmen who had carried out this

construction, so that he alone was aware of its existence. I have no idea why

he should have constructed the tunnel in the first place, except that his

devious mind was much given towards such devices. The palace was riddled with

trap-doors and concealed corridors, like the warren of a rabbit or the lair

of a desert fox.

When Lord Intef disclosed its existence to him, King Salitis sent a small

party of his best men through the secret passage, and once within the walls,

they stormed the unsuspecting Egyptian guards on the main gate, slaughtered

them and threw the gates wide. The main Hyksos horde poured into the city,

and within days of the siege commencing, the city was lost and half her

inhabitants massacred.

From the west bank where Tanus now had his headquarters in the half-built

Palace of Memnon, we could see the burnt and blackened roofs of those

buildings in the city across the river that the Hyksos had put to the torch.

Each day we watched the dust-clouds of their chariots, as they raced up and

down the far bank, and the glint of their spearheads at the shoulder-slope,

as they prepared for the battle that all of us knew was coming.

With his sadly depleted fleet, Tanus had thus far managed to hold the

river-line, and during my absence had beaten back another attempt by the

Hyksos to get across the Nile in strength. However, our defences were thinly

spread, for we had to guard a great sweep of the river, while the Hyksos

could make a crossing at any point they chose. We learned from our spies on

the east bank that they had commandeered every single craft they could lay

hands on, from barge to skiff. They had captured many of our boatmakers, and

had them at work in the boatyards of Thebes. Of course, we could be sure that

Lord Intef would give them pertinent advice in all these matters, for he must

have been every bit as eager as the barbarian Salitis to seize Pharaoh’s

treasure.

The crews of our galleys stood to arms every watch of the day and night,

and Tanus only slept when he could, which was not often. Neither my mistress

nor I saw much of him, and when we did, he was haggard and short-tempered.

Every night saw the arrival on the west bank of many hundreds of refugees.

Of both sexes and all ages, they crossed the Nile in an odd assortment of

rafts and small craft. Many of the stronger ones even swam the wide stretch

of water. All of them were desperate to escape the Hyksos terror. They

brought us horror-stories of rapine and plunder, but also detailed and

up-to-date news of Hyksos movements.

Of course we welcomed these people, they were countrymen and relatives, but

their numbers strained our resources. Our main granaries had all been in

Thebes, and most of the herds of cattle and sheep had fallen into the hands

of the enemy. Queen Lostris gave me the responsibility of gathering up all

the supplies of grain and the herds on the west bank. I drew up lists and

rosters for rationing our supplies of meat and grain. Fortunately, the date

palms were in full bearing, and the supply of fish from the river was

inexhaustible. The Hyksos could never starve us out.

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My mistress had also appointed me Master of the Royal Horse. There was no

intense competition for this appointment, particularly as no pay or

privileges were attached to it. I made Hui my deputy, and he managed, by

means of bribes, threats and blackmail, to recruit a hundred grooms to help

him care for our little herd. Later we would train them as our first

chariot-drivers.

It was no hardship for me to make time every day to visit our makeshift

stables in the necropolis. The mare Patience always came running to greet me,

and I carried corn-cakes for her and her foal. Often I was able to sneak

Prince Mem-non away from his mother and his nurses and carry him into the

stables on my shoulders. He squealed with excitement as soon as he saw the

horses.

I held the prince on my lap as Patience and I galloped along the riverbank,

and he made clucking noises and rocked his little backside, imitating the way

in which I urged Patience to a harder gallop. I made certain that the route

we followed on these rides would never cross Tanus’ path. He had still not

forgiven me, and if he had seen his son on the back of a cursed horse, I knew

that I would have been in physical danger.

I also spent a great deal of my time in the armoury workshop of Pharaoh’s

funerary temple, where I had the assistance of some of the finest craftsmen

in the world to help me build my first chariot. It was here, while working on

the design of these vehicles, that I conceived devices that were to become

our first line of defence against the Hyksos chariots. These were simply long

wooden staves sharpened at both ends, and with the points fire-hardened. Each

of our infantrymen would carry ten of these in a bundle upon his back. At the

approach of a squadron of cavalry, the staves were planted in the earth at an

angle, with the points at the level of the horses’ chests. Our men took up

their positions behind this barrier of wicked spears, and fired their arrows

over them.

When I demonstrated these to Tanus, he threw his arm around my shoulders

for the first time since our quarrel over the horses, and said, ’Well, at

least you have not turned senile on me yet,’ and I knew that I had been at

least partially forgiven.

The ground that I had gained with him here was almost completely lost over

the affair of the Taita chariot.

My workmen and I at last completed the first chariot. The dashboard and

sides were of split bamboo, woven into bas-ketwork. The axle was of acacia

wood. The hubs were of hand-forged bronze, greased with mutton fat, and the

spoked wheels were bound with bronze rims. It was so light that two

charioteers could lift it between them, and carry it over broken ground where

the horses could not pull it. Even I realized that it was a masterpiece, and

the workmen called it the Taita chariot. I did not object to the name.

Hui and I harnessed up two of our best horses, Patience and Blade, and took

the Taita chariot for its first gallop. It took us some time to learn how to

control the rig, but we learned swiftly, and the horses were bred to this and

showed us the way. In the end, we were flying across the ground, and hurtling

through tight turns at full gallop.

When we drove back into the stables, flushed with excitement and jubilant

with our achievement, both of us were convinced that our chariot was swifter

and handier than any that the Hyksos could send against us. We tested and

modified this creation of mine for ten full days, working by lamplight in the

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armoury until the late watches of every night, before I was satisfied that I

could show it to Tanus.

Tanus came to the stables with surly reluctance, and balked at climbing up

into the cockpit of the chariot behind me.

’I trust this contraption of yours as much as I trust those cursed brutes

who tow it,’ he grumbled, but I was persuasive, and at last he stepped up

gingerly on to the footplate and we were off.

At first I kept the horses to an easy trot, until I felt him relaxing and,

despite himself, beginning to enjoy the exhilarating ride. Then I pushed them

into a canter. ’See the speed of it. You can be upon the enemy before he

knows you are there,’ I exulted.

Tanus laughed for the first time, and I was encouraged. ’With your ships

you rule the river. With this chariot you rule the land. Between the two, you

rule the world. Nothing can stand against you.’ I was careful not to

disparage his beloved ships, or to make unfavourable comparisons.

’Is this your best speed?’ he shouted in the wind and the pounding of

hooves. ’With a fair wind, Breath of Horus is faster than this.’ Which was a

lie and a challenge.

’Hold on to the sides and take a deep breath,’ I warned him. ’I am going to

take you up where the eagles fly,’ and I let Patience and Blade go.

No man has ever travelled faster. The wind seared our eyes, and the tears

pouring from them were blown back into our hair.

’Sweet breath of Isis!’ Tanus shouted with excitement. "This is?’ I never

knew what he thought this was. Tanus never finished his sentence, for at that

instant our off-wheel hit a rock and the rim exploded.

The chariot capsized and somersaulted, and both Tanus and I were thrown

high and clear. I struck the hard earth with a force that should have

crippled me, but I was so concerned with how Tanus would be affected by this

little mishap, and how my dreams and plans would be dashed, that I felt no

pain.

I bounded to my feet and saw Tanus crawl to his bleeding knees twenty paces

beyond me. He was coated heavily with dust and seemed to have lost the skin

from one half of his face. He tried to maintain his dignity as he pushed

himself upright and staggered back to the wrecked chariot, but he was limping

heavily.

He stood for a long minute gazing down at the shattered ruins of my

creation, and then abruptly he let out a roar like a wounded bull, and

launched such a mighty kick at it that it flipped over again, as though it

were a child’s toy. He turned on his heel without even a glance in my

direction and limped away. I did not see him again for a week, and when we

did meet, neither of us mentioned the chariot.

I think that might have been the end of the matter, and we would never have

assembled our first chariot squadron, if it had not been for the fact that

the stubbornness of my mistress’s pride surpassed even that of her lover. She

had given me the original order, and would not now retract it. When Tanus

tried to inveigle her into doing so, he merely made my position stronger. Hui

and I rebuilt the chariot within three days, and another identical to it.

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By the time the embalmers in the funerary chapel had completed the ritual

seventy days of royal mummification, we had our first squadron of fifty

chariots, and had trained drivers for them.

SINCE WE HAD RETURNED TO THE PALACE of Memnon from our defeat at the battle

of Abnub, my mistress had been occupied with the business of state thrust

upon her by the regency. Long hours were spent with her ministers and

advisers.

It was now that the initial training which I had given her in the Palace of

Elephantine was to bear fruit. I had taught her to pick her way unerringly

through the labyrinth of power and influence/She was just twenty-one years of

age, but she was a queen, and ruled like one.

Very occasionally she encountered a problem which particularly vexed or

perplexed her. Then she sent for me. I would drop my work in the armoury or

the stables or in the small scribery that she had set aside for me just down

the corridor from her audience chamber, and I would rush to her side.

On occasion I spent days sitting below her throne and steering her through

some troublesome decisions. Once again, my ability to read the lips of men

without hearing their words stood us in good stead. Some nobleman at the back

of the audience never realized, as he plotted or schemed with his neighbour,

that I was relaying his exact words to my mistress. She swiftly acquired a

reputation of sagacity and prescience. Neither of us enjoyed much rest during

these dark and worrisome days.

Even though our days were full, our nights were long. Those interminable

councils of war and of state lasted well past midnight. No sooner was one

crisis averted, than another loomed before us. Each day the Hyksos threatened

us more directly, and Tanus’ hold on the river-line weakened.

Slowly, a sense of doom and despair permeated all of us. Men smiled little

and never laughed out loud. Even the play of the children was muted and

subdued. We had only to look across the river, and the enemy was there,

gathering himself, growing stronger each day.

After seventy days, the mummification of Pharaoh was completed. My early

efforts in preserving the king’s body had been highly successful, and the

grand master of the guild of embalmers had commended me in the presence of my

mistress. He had found no evidence of decay when he removed the king’s corpse

from the olive jar, and even his liver, which is the part most subject to

mortification, was well preserved.

Once the king had been laid out on the diorite slab in his mortuary chapel,

the grand master had inserted the spoon up his nostril and scooped out the

curdled contents of his skull which the pickle had hardened to the

consistency of cheese. Then, still in the foetal position, the king was

placed in the bath of natron salt with only his head left uncovered by the

harsh fluid. When he was removed from the bath thirty days later, all the

fatty tissue had dissolved, and the outer layers of the skin had peeled off,

except for that of the head.

They laid him upon the mottled stone slab once again and straightened him

into an extended position. He was wiped and dried, and his empty stomach was

filled with linen pads soaked in resins and wax and then sutured closed.

Meanwhile, his internal organs were desiccated and placed in their

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milk-coloured alabaster Canopic jars, which were then sealed.

For the remaining forty days, the body of the king was allowed to dry out

thoroughly. The doors of the chapel had been aligned with the direction of

the warm, dry prevailing winds, so that they blew over the funeral slab. By

the end of the ritual period of seventy days, Pharaoh’s body was as dry as a

stick of firewood.

His nails, which had been removed before he was soaked in the natron bath,

were replaced and fixed in position on his fingers and toes with fine threads

of gold wire. The first layer of pure white linen bandages was wound into

place around his body, leaving his head and neck exposed. The binding was

meticulous and intricate, with the bandages crossing and criss-crossing each

other in elaborate patterns. Under the bindings were laid charms and amulets

of gold and precious stones. The bandages were then soaked with lacquer and

resins that dried to a stony hardness.

Now it was time for the ceremony of Opening-the-Mouth, which traditionally

was performed by the dead pharaoh’s next of kin. Memnon was too young to take

this part, so his regent was called in his stead.

My mistress and I went to the chapel together in the gloom of dawn, and we

were witnesses as the linen sheet that covered the king was drawn aside.

Pharaoh’s head was miraculously preserved. His eyes were closed and his

expression was serene. The embalmers had rouged and painted his face, and he

looked better in death than he had in life.

While the high priest of Ammon-Ra and the grand master of the guild of

embalmers prepared the instruments for the ceremony, we sang the Incantation

against Dying for the Second Time.

He is the reflection and not the mirror.

He is the music and not the lyre.

He is the stone and not the chisel that forms it.

He will live for ever.

He will not die a second time.

Then the high priest handed my mistress the golden spoon and led her by the

hand to the funeral slab.

Queen Lostris stooped over the body of Pharaoh and laid the spoon of life

upon his painted lips.

I open thy lips that thou mayest speak once more,

I open thy nostrils that thou mayest breathe.

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She intoned the words and then touched his eyelids with the spoon.

I open thy eyes that thou mayest behold once more

the glory of this world, and the nether-world of the

gods where you shall dwell from this day forward.

She touched the spoon to his bandaged chest.

I quicken your heart, so that you may live for ever.

You shall not die a second time.

You shall live for ever!

Then we waited while the embalmers bound up Pharaoh’s head in the neat

swathes of bandages and painted them with resin. They moulded the resin-wet

bandages to the shape of his face beneath them. Finally, they placed over his

blind bandaged face the first of the four funeral masks.

This was the same funeral mask that we had watched being fashioned fron\

pure gold. While he was still alive, Pharaoh had posed for the sculptor, so

the mask was amazingly lifelike. The eyes of shining rock-crystal and

obsidian seemed to gaze upon me with all the humanity that the man beneath

the mask had once possessed. The cobra head of the uraeus rose from the noble

brow, regal and mystical.

Then the wrapped mummy was placed in the golden inner coffin, which was

sealed, and this went into the second golden coffin with another death-mask

embossed upon the lid. Half the treasure recovered from Lord Intef’s hoard

had gone to make up that enormous weight of precious metal and jewels.

There were seven coffins in all, including the massive stone sarcophagus

standing upon the golden sledge, which waited ready to carry Pharaoh along

the causeway to his tomb in the gaunt hills. But my mistress refused to give

her sanction for this to happen.

’I have given my sacred vow. I cannot place my husband in a tomb that may

be plundered by the Hyksos barbarians.

Pharaoh will lie here until I am able to make good my promise to him. I

will find a secure tomb in which he may lie through eternity. I have given my

word that no one will disturb his rest.’

THE WISDOM OF QUEEN LOSTRIS’ DECISION to delay the entombment was proved

three nights later. The Hyksos made a determined effort to cross the river,

and Tanus barely succeeded in turning them back. They made the attempt on an

unguarded stretch of the river two miles north of Esna. They swam their

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horses across in a mass, and then followed with an armada of small boats

which they had carried overland from Thebes in order to conceal their

intentions from us.

They actually succeeded in making a beachhead on the west bank before Tanus

could rush his galleys to the spot, but he arrived before they could unload

their chariots and harness the horses to them. Tanus destroyed their boats

with the chariots still on board, and he then had almost three thousand

Hyksos stranded on our side of the river. Their horses scattered and bolted

away into the night when Tanus’ troops made their first charge.

Without their chariots the Hyksos were on even terms with our troops, but

they had no means of escape and they fought with grim determination. In

numbers they were almost evenly matched, for Tanus had managed to bring up

only one full regiment. The rest of his army was thinly spread along the west

bank. The fighting was bloody and ferocious, confused by the darkness which

was lit only by the burning vessels that Tanus had fired on the beach.

It was only by the wildest coincidence, or by another nudge from the gods,

that Hui and I had brought our little squadron of fifty chariots and

fledgling charioteers to Esna on training manoeuvres. In truth, we had driven

these twenty miles from Thebes principally to escape from Tanus’ disapproval

and interference.

We were encamped in the sacred grove of tamarind trees beside the temple of

Horus at Esna. I was exhausted after a long day of galloping and manoeuvring

at high speed. On return to our encampment, Hui had produced a jar of

remarkably palatable wine, and I had been somewhat intemperate in my sampling

of it. I was dead asleep when Hui staggered into my tent and shook me awake.

’There are fires burning on the bank of the river downstream,’ he told me,

’and when the wind shifts, you can hear the sound of cheering, and a little

while ago I thought I heard many voices singing the battle hymn of the Blues.

I think there is a fight going on down there.’

I was as unsteady on my feet as he was, and reckless with wine, as I

shouted for him to rouse the camp and harness the horses. We were all still

novices, and it was almost dawn by the time we had caught the horses and put

them in the traces. In the chilly drift of the river mist and the gloomy

shiver of dawn, we trotted along the north road in column of route, two

chariots abreast. I was driving the lead chariot, while Hui had command of

the rear-guard. Our fifty chariots had been reduced to thirty by the previous

day’s exercises, for I had not yet succeeded in perfecting my spoked wheels.

They had an alarming tendency to fly to pieces when driven at speed, and

almosMialf my force was out of action.

The passage of the wind over my bare chest made me shiver again, and

counteracted the bravado of the wine. I was beginning to hope that Hui had

been mistaken, when suddenly from far ahead there came that unmistakable

chorus of shouting and cheering, and the clank and clash of bronze on bronze

that could mean only one thing. Once you have heard them, the sounds of

battle are not readily forgotten or mistaken. The rough farmer’s track we

were following along the river-bank took a turn to the left. As we came

through it, the field lay open before us.

The sun was just above the horizon, and it had turned the surface of the

river into a shimmering sheet of beaten copper that was painful to the eye.

The ships of Tanus’ squadron lay just off-shore, crowding in close to, in an

attempt to bring the archers on the decks in range of the Hyksos, and to cut

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off any retreat across the river.

The stranded Hyksos regiment was making a stand in the centre of a field of

knee-high green corn. They had formed a circle, facing outwards, shoulder to

shoulder, with their shields locked together and their spears thrust forward.

As we came into view, they had just repulsed another attempt by Tanus’ troops

to break their circle. The Egyptian regiment was pulling back to regroup,

leaving their dead and wounded scattered around the periphery of the enemy

circle.

I am no soldier, although I have written scrolls on the conduct of war. I

had accepted the rank of Commander of the Royal Horse, thrust upon me by my

mistress, with the deepest reluctance. I had intended simply to perfect my

chariot, train the first squadron, and then hand it over to Hui or some other

person more suited to the warlike professions.

I was cold and still half-drunk as I heard my voice giving the order to

deploy in arrow-head formation. It was the evolution that we had practised

the previous day, and the chariots that followed mine flared out on either

side with reasonable proficiency. I was acutely aware of the sound of hooves

in the soft earth and the creak of the chariot harness, the squeal of the

wheels turning on their metal-lined hubs, and the rattle of javelins as my

charioteers drew their darts from the quivers. I looked left and right,

reviewing our little squadron drawn up in the shape of an arrow-head with my

chariot at the apex. It was a formation I had copied from the Hyksos. I drew

a deep breath.

’Squadron will advance!’ I screamed, and my voice shrilled with fear. ’At

the gallop, forward!’

I had only to lift my left hand that held the traces, and Patience and

Blade bounded forward. I was almost thrown over backwards, but I grabbed at

the dashboard with my free hand, and we went straight at the Hyksos circle.

Beneath me the chariot leaped and jolted over the lumpy ploughed earth, and

I looked over the plunging hindquarters of my horses and saw the wall of

Hyksos shields, glittering and impenetrable in the early sunlight, drawing

closer with every stride we took.

On either side of me, men were howling and cheering to hide their terror,

and I howled with them, like a pariah dog at full moon. The horses were

snorting and neighing, and suddenly Patience lifted the long plume of her

tail and began to fart in rhythm and in time to her own stride. This struck

me as immoderately funny. My howls of terror turned to screams of laughter.

The helmet that I had borrowed from Hui was too large for me. It bounced off

my head and the wind flung my hair out behind me.

Patience and Blade were the fastest pair in the squadron, and our chariot

pulled ahead of the rest of the formation. I tried to slow our charge by

hauling back on the traces, but Patience would have none of it. Her glee was

evident, she was as excited as any of us, and she straightened her neck and

ran away with me.

We tore through the retiring lines of Egyptian infantry coming back from

the failed assault on the Hyksos circle, and they scattered out of our path

and gawked at us in astonishment.

’Come on!’ I howled with laughter. ’We will show you the way!’ They turned

and followed us back towards the enemy at the run. Behind me, I heard the

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trumpeters sounding the charge, and the braying horns seemed to spur our

horses. Out on my right I saw Tanus’ battle standard waving, and recognized

his crested helmet standing taller than the other men around him.

’What do you think of my cursed brutes now?’ I yelled at him, as we tore

pa?t, and Patience farted again, bringing on fresh gales of my nervous

laughter.

The chariot on my left was running almost level with me, and then its

near-side wheel burst under the strain and it went flying end over end,

throwing the charioteers, and bringing the horses down screaming. The rest of

us tore on without a check. .

The first rank of the enemy was now so close that I could see their eyes

staring at me over the top edge of their shields. Their arrows hissed around

my ears. I could make out clearly the figures of beasts and demons embossed

on their tall metal helmets, see the beads of sweat glittering in their

plaited and beribboned beards, hear their chanted war-cry? and then we were

into them.

My horses leaped together into the’ barrier of shields and it shattered

before the weight and fury of our charge. I saw a man tossed head-high, and

heard his bones crackle like kindling in the fire. On the footplate behind

me, my javel-ineer was making deadly practice. I had chosen him as the best

from amongst all my recruits, and he proved my choice now, as he stood firm

and hurled his darts down into the enemy.

In succession the following chariots tore into the gap’ we had opened, and

we hardly checked as we raced through, breaking out through the far side of

the Hyksos circle, then wheeling in pods of three and coming back at them.

Tanus seized the moment and threw his infantry into the breach that we had

torn open. The Hyksos formation broke up into knots of struggling men. These

in turn disintegrated, and the Hyksos panicked and ran for the river. The

moment they came within range, the archers on the decks of our galleys sent

clouds of arrows over them.

Ahead of me there was an isolated pocket of Hyksos warriors still fighting

back-to-back, and holding off our men. I swerved the chariot and drove at

them in full gallop. Before I reached them, my right wheel burst asunder, the

light carapace of the chariot flipped over, and I soared free and then, with

a gut-tearing lurch, fell back to earth. My head struck first, and my eyes

filled with stars and meteors of bright light. Then there was only darkness.

Iwoke again under the awning on the deck of Tanus’ flagship. I found myself

lying on a sheepskin mattress, with Tanus leaning over me. As soon as he saw

that I was conscious, he masked the expression of concern and worry that had

twisted his features.

’You crazy old fool.’ He forced a grin at me. ’What, in the name of Horus,

were you laughing about?’

I tried to sit up, but my head ached abominably and I groaned, then

clutched his arm as it all came back to me.

’Tanus, the enemy horses that swam across last night?I must have them.’

’Don’t worry that battered head of yours’. I have already sent Hui to

gather them up,’ he assured me. ’If I am to have five hundred of those

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contraptions of yours for my new chariot division, I will need a thousand of

those cursed brutes to pull them. However, those new-fangled wheels of yours

’ are more dangerous than a regiment of Hyksos. I will not ride with you

again until you do something about them.’

For a moment it did not penetrate my aching skull, then I realized that it

had happened. Tanus had quashed his pride, and given in to me. My orphan

chariot squadron was at last to be part of the standing army, and he would

give me the men and gold to build five hundred more. He would even ride with

me again, if only I could fix my wheels.

But what truly filled me with joy was that he had forgiven me at last, and

we were friends once more.

THE SUCCESS OF MY CHARIOTS AT ESNA, and the feeling of confidence that it

instilled in us all, were short-lived. Secretly, I had expected and dreaded

what would happen next. It was the enemy’s logical move, and both Salitis and

Lord Intef should have made it much earlier. We knew that when he swept

through the Lower Kingdom, Salitis had captured most of the fleet of the red

pretender intact. Those ships were lying abandoned in the docks of Memphis

and Tanis in the Delta. However, there must be droves of renegade Egyptians

from the usurper’s navy available to Salitis, and even if that were not the

case, it would certainly be possible to recruit enough mercenary Syrian

sailors in Gaza and Joppa, and the other ports along the eastern coast of the

great sea, to man several hundred of these galleys and transports.

I had realized that this must happen, but I had refrained from warning

either Tanus or my mistress of the likelihood, for I did not wish to add to

the feeling of gloom, and heighten the despondency of our people. I had

searched my heart for a counter to this move when Salitis and Intef made it,

but there was none that I could think of. Therefore, since I could do nothing

to allay these fears, I thought it best to keep them to myself.

When it finally happened, and our spies on the east side of the river

opposite Asyut warned us of the approach of this fleet from the Delta, Tanus

rushed his own ships northwards to meet them. His fleet was superior in every

way to the one which Salitis and Intef had assembled, but the battle they

fought lasted for almost a week before Tanus destroyed or drove them back

into the Delta.

However, Salitis had brought his transports up behind the screen of

fighting galleys, and while the river battle still raged, he was able to

embark almost two full regiments of horse and chariot, and ferry them intact

to our side of the river, without our galleys being able to reach them.

These regiments comprised nearly three hundred of Salitis’ fast war

chariots, his elite divisions which he led himself. At last he had turned our

flank. There was nothing to stop him now, as his chariots came bowling

southwards along our side of the river. All our galleys could do was to ny to

keep pace with the dust-cloud he threw up, as he raced for the funerary

temple of Mamose and all its treasures.

QUEEN LOSTRIS CALLED HER WAR COUNCIL when the news of the Hyksos crossing

reached us in the Palace of Memnon. She addressed her first question to

Tanus.

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’Now that he is across the river, can you check the barbarian?’ ’I can slow

him down, perhaps,’ he replied frankly. ’We have learned a great deal about

him. We can wait for him behind walls of stone, or behind barriers of the

sharp staves that Taita has equipped us with. But Salitis need not give

battle. His chariots are so fast that he can swing around our positions as he

did at Asyut. No, I cannot stop him.’

Queen Lostris looked at me. ’Taita, what about your chariots? Can they not

give battle to the Hyksos?’

’Your Majesty, I have forty chariots that I can send in to meet him. He has

three hundred. My chariots are swifter than those of Salitis, but my men

cannot match his in skill and training. There is also the matter of the

wheels. I have not perfected them. Salitis will overwhelm and destroy us very

easily. If I am given the time and the material, I can build new and better

chariots with wheels that do not burst, but I cannot replace the horses. We

dare not risk the horses. They are our only hope for eventual victory.’

While we thus debated, another messenger arrived, this time from the south.

He had fled to us on the current and the wind, so his news was only a day

old. Tanus ordered him into the council chamber, and the messenger fell to

his knees before Queen Lostris.

’Speak, fellow,’ Tanus invited him. ’What do you have to tell us?’

The messenger stuttered in fear of his life, ’Divine Majesty, while our

fleet was busy at Asyut, the barbarian made another crossing at Esna. They

swam the horses over as they did before, but this time there were none of our

galleys ready to turn back their boats. Two Hyksos regiments are across.

Their horses are in the traces and they are coming on a cloud of dust,

swiftly as the flight of the swallow. They will be here in three days.’

None of us spoke until Tanus had sent the man away with orders that he be

fed and cared for. The messenger, who had expected to be killed, kissed Queen

Lostris’ sandals.

When we were alone, Tanus said softly, ’Salitis has four regiments across

the river. Six hundred chariots. It is over.’

’No!’ my mistress’s voice shook with the force of her denial. "The gods

cannot desert this very Egypt now. Our civilization cannot perish. We have

too much to give to the world.’

’I can fight on, of course,’ Tanus agreed. ’But in the end it will all be

the same. We cannot prevail against their chariots.’

My mistress turned back to me. ’Taita, I have not asked you before, because

I know how dearly it costs you. But I must ask you now before I make the

final decision. I ask you to work the Mazes of Ammon-Ra for me. I must know

what the gods require of us.’

I bowed my head in acquiescence, and whispered, ’I will fetch my chest.’

THE SITE THAT I CHOSE FOR THE DIVINATION was the inner sanctuary of the

shrine to Horus in the half-completed Palace of Memnon. The shrine had not

yet been dedicated to the god, and his image had not yet been set up, but I

was certain that Horus had already cast his benevolent influence over the

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building.

My mistress sat before me with Tanus at her side, and watched in

fascination as I drank the witches’ potion to open the eyes of my soul, my

Ka, the little bird-like creature that lives in the heart of every one of us,

and which is our alter ego.

I laid the ivory Mazes before them and asked both Queen Lostris and Tanus

to stroke and handle them, to endow them with their spirit and the spirit of

the nation that they represented, this very Egypt. As I watched them divide

the stacks of ivory counters, I felt the drug in my blood grow stronger, and

the beat of my heart slowed as the little death crept over me.

I took up the two remaining Mazes from the last stack, and I held them to

my breast. They began to grow hot against my skin, and my instinct was to

draw back from the darkness that I felt coming over me. Instead, I

surrendered to it and let it carry me away.

I heard my mistress’s voice, as though from a great distance. ’What will

become of the double crown? How can we resist the barbarian?’

The visions began to form before my eyes, and I was carried up into the

days that were still to come, and I saw events that had not yet come to pass.

The morning sunlight was streaming through the aperture in the roof and

striking the altar of Horus, when at last I returned from the far journey of

the Mazes. I was shaken and nauseated with the effect of the hallucinatory

drug, giddy and trembling with the memories of the strange sights that I had

seen.

My mistress and Tanus had stayed with me during the long night. Their

anxious faces were the first things that I saw on my return, but they were

still so distorted and wavering that I thought they were part of the vision.

’Taita, are you all right? Speak to us. Tell us what you saw.’ My mistress

was concerned. She could not hide the guilt she felt at having forced me to

enter the Mazes of Ammon-Ra once more.

"There was a serpent.’ My voice still echoed strangely in my own ears, as

though I stood apart. ’A great green serpent that crawled through the

desert.’

I saw the puzzled expression on their faces, but I had not yet considered

the meaning of it all myself, so I could give them no guidance.

’I am thirsty,’ I whispered. ’My throat is dry and my tongue like a stone

covered with moss.’

Tanus fetched a jar of wine and poured it into the bowl for me, and I drank

greedily.

Tell us of the serpent,’ my mistress demanded, as soon as I lowered the

bowl.

’There was no end to its sinuous body, and it shimmered green in the

sunlight. It crawled through a strange land, in which lived tall naked men

and strange and wonderful beasts.’

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’Could you see the head or the tail of the serpent?’ my mistress asked, and

I shook my head.

’Where were you? Where did you stand?’ she insisted. I had forgotten how

keenly she enjoyed my visions, and what pleasure she took in interpreting

them.

’I was riding upon the back of the serpent,’ I answered. ’But I was not

alone.’

’Who was with you?’

’You were at my side, mistress, and Memnon with you. Tanus was on my other

hand, and the serpent carried us all.’

"The Nile! The serpent was the river,’ she cried triumphantly. ’You foresaw

voyage that we were making upon the river.’

’Which way?’ Tanus demanded. He was as rapt as she was. ’Which way did the

river run?’

I made an effort to recall every detail. ’I saw the sun rise on my left

hand.’

’South!’ he cried.

’Into Africa,’ said my mistress.

’At last I saw the heads of the serpent ahead of us. The body of the

serpent was bifurcated, and on each branch was a head.’

’Does the Nile have two branches?’ my mistress wondered aloud. ’Or is there

some deeper meaning to the vision?’

’Let us hear the rest of what Taita has to tell us,’ Tanus stopped her

speculation. ’Continue, old friend.’

’Then I saw the goddess,’ I went on. ’She sat upon a high mountain. Both

the heads of the serpent worshipped her.’

My mistress could not restrain herself. ’Which of the goddesses did you

see? Oh, tell me quickly who it was.’

’She had the bearded head of a man but the breasts and the pudenda of a

woman. From her vagina she spurted out two great streams of water into the

open mouths of the double-headed serpent.’

’It is the goddess Hapi, the river god,’ Queen Lostris whispered. ’She

generates the river within herself, and pours it out to flow through the

world.’

’What else did the vision show you?’ Tanus demanded.

"The goddess smiled at us, and her face shone with love and benevolence.

She spoke in a voice’that was the sound of the wind and the sea. The sound of

thunder on the peaks of far-away mountains.’

’What did she say to us?’ Queen Lostris asked in awe.

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’She said, "Let my child come to me. I will make her strong so that she

will prevail and my people will not perish in the face of the barbarian." * I

repeated the words that still beat like a drum in my head.

’I am the child of the river goddess,’ said my mistress simply. ’At birth I

was dedicated to her. Now she summons me, and I must go to the place where

she dwells at the end of the Nile.’

’This is the same voyage that Taita and I contemplated once before,’ Tanus

mused. ’And now the goddess commands it. We cannot refuse her.’

’Yes, we must go, but we will come back,’ my mistress vowed. ’This is my

land, this very Egypt. This is my city, this beautiful Thebes of the hundred

gates. I cannot leave them for ever. I will return to Thebes. This I swear

and I call upon the goddess Hapi to witness my oath. We shall return!’

THE DECISION TO FLY TO THE SOUTH, UP above the cataracts into the wild and

unexplored land beyond, was one that Tanus and I had made once before. The

first time had been to escape the wrath and vengeance of Pharaoh. Now we were

flying from an even more merciless foe. It was almost as though the gods were

determined that we should undertake this voyage, and that they would not be

denied.

There was little time for us to make our preparations for such a fateful

departure. The Hyksos were coming down on us from two directions, and our

pickets reported that their cohorts would be in view from the roof of the

Palace of Memnon within three days at the very latest.

Tanus placed Kratas in charge of half his available force and sent him to

meet King Salitis who was driving hard from Asyut in the north and was likely

to be the first column to reach the necropolis and the palace. Kratas had

orders to fight a running battle. Using the staves and defending every

fortified position, he was to delay Salitis as long as was possible, without

risking being cut off or overwhelmed. When he could hold them no longer, he

was to evacuate his men on to the galleys.

Tanus himself took the other half of our army and moved south to fight

another delaying battle against the Hyksos division coming at us from Esna.

While they were thus engaged, my mistress was to embark our people and all

their possessions aboard the remaining ships of our fleet. My mistress

delegated this duty to Lord Merkeset, but of course she made me his

assistant. Lord Merkeset was not nly well into his dotage, but had recently

taken to himself a sixteen-year-old wife. He was not, therefore, of much use

either to himself or to me. The entire planning and execution of the

evacuation fell squarely on my shoulders.

However, before I could turn my mind to this, I had to take care of my

horses. Even at this early stage I realized with stark clarity that they were

the key to our survival as a, nation and a civilized people. With those

animals that we had captured at Esna, we now had several thousand in our

herd. I split this herd into four parts so that they could more readily find

grazing on the march. Further, the smaller herds would throw up less dust,

and it would be easier for them to avoid the Hyksos scouts.

I sent Hui and my charioteers and grooms south with these herds towards

Elephantine, with orders to avoid the river-bank down which the Hyksos

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chariots were advancing and to keep inland, closer to the edge of the desert.

Once the horses were despatched, I could turn my attention to the humans. I

realized that we were limited by the number of ships available as to how many

of our people were able to accompany us on the long voyage. I was certain

that almost every Egyptian wanted to be part of the exodus. The cruelty and

ferocity of the Hyksos were evident in every city they burned and in every

atrocity that they inflicted on our people. All the unknown dangers of the

African wilderness were preferable to these bloodthirsty monsters who were

racing down upon us in their chariots.

In the end I calculated that we could accommodate only twelve thousand

souls aboard the escaping fleet, and I reported this to my mistress.

’We will have to be ruthless in those we select and those we leave behind,’

I told her, but she would not listen to my advice.

’These are my people. I would give up my own place rather than leave one of

them to the Hyksos.’

’But, Majesty, what about the old and the decrepit? The sick and the very

young?’

’Every citizen will be given the choice of coming with us. I will not leave

a greybeard or a beggar, a day-old infant or a leper. They are my people, and

if they cannot go, then Prince Memnon and I will stay with them.’ Of course,

she mentioned the prince to make doubly certain of her victory over me.

The ships would be gunwale-deep under this great weight of humanity, but I

had no choice. Still, I had some satisfaction in first embarking all the most

useful and creative citizens. I chose men from every trade and profession,

masons and weavers, coppersmiths and potters, tanners and sail-makers,

scribes and artists, shipbuilders and carpenters, all of them leaders in

their particular discipline. These I saw safely on board the waiting

transports. It gave me a particular pleasure to allocate the most

uncomfortable berths in the most squalid vessels to the priesthood and the

law scribes, those blood-sucking fleas on the healthy body of the state.

When all of these were boarded, I allowed the rabble to come swarming on to

the wharf below the temple.

As a result of my mistress’s intransigence, I had to be careful in choosing

what cargo we would load. There would be no room for idle fripperies. I

gathered up the weapons and tools and the raw materials that we would need to

build up another fcivilization in the unknown lands. For the rest of the

cargo I tried in every way to reduce weight and bulk. For instance, rather

than grain and fruits, I loaded the seeds of every desirable plant in clay

jars sealed with pitch and wax.

Every deben-weight of cargo that we loaded in our holds meant that

something else must be left behind. Our voyage might last ten years or a

lifetime. The road would be hard. We knew that the great cataracts lay ahead

of us. We dared not burden ourselves with anything but the most essential,

but then there remained my mistress’s promise to Pharaoh. There was barely

room for the living?how much space could we afford to give over to the dead?

’I gave my vow to the king as he lay dying,’ my mistress insisted. ’I

cannot leave him here.’

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’Your Majesty, I will find a secure hiding-place for the king’s body, an

unmarked grave in the hills where no man will find him. When we return to

Thebes, we will exhume him, and give him the royal burial that you promised

him.’

’If I break my vow, the gods will desert us and our voyage will be doomed.

The, body of the king must go with us.’

One glance at her expression warned me that there would be no profit in

further argument. We opened the massive granite sarcophagus and lifted out

the six inner coffins. Even these were so bulky that it would have needed a

galley to carry them alone.

I made a decision without consulting Queen Lostris. I had the workmen

remove only the two innermost golden coffins. These we covered with a thick

linen canvas shroud which we stitched over them as protection. The size and

weight were thus reduced to acceptable proportions, and we stowed these two

canvas-covered coffins in the hold of the Breath of Horus.

The bulk of Pharaoh’s treasure, all the gold and silver and the precious

stones, was packed into cedar-wood boxes. I ordered the goldsmiths to strip

the bullion from the discarded coffins and from the wooden frame of the great

funeral sledge, and melt it down into bars. I was secretly delighted to be

the instrument of destruction of that tasteless monstrosity. The treasure

chests and the bars of bullion were carried down to the wharf and loaded on

board the waiting ships. I distributed these so that every ship carried at

least one chest or a stack of bullion bars. In this way, the risk that the

entire treasure could be lost at a single stroke of misfortune was greatly

reduced.

There was much of the funerary treasure that we could not take with us, all

the furniture and the statuary, the ceremonial armour and the boxes of

ushabti statues, and of course the ungainly framework of the hearse from

which I had stripped the gold. Rather than have it fall into the hands of the

Hyksos, we piled all of this in the temple courtyard, and I personally hurled

a burning torch OH top of the mountain of treasure, and watched it burn to

ashes.

All this was done in dreadful haste, and before the last ship was loaded

the lookouts on the roof of the palace shouted the warning that the

dust-clouds of the Hyksos chariots were in sight. Within the hour, our

exhausted and battle-weary troops who, under command of Tanus and Kratas, had

been fighting the long grim rear-guard action, began to pull back into the

necropolis, and to embark on the waiting galleys.

I met Tanus as he came up on to the causeway at the head of a squad of the

guards. So far, by dint of courage and sacrifice, he and his men had managed

to win a few extra days for us to complete the evacuation. They could do no

more, and the enemy was driving them in.

When I waved and called his name, Tanus saw me and shouted over the heads

of the crowd, ’Queen Lostris and the prince? Have they gone aboard the Breath

of Horus?’

I forced my way through the throng to his side. ’My mistress will not leave

until all her people are on board the ships. She ordered me to take you to

her as soon as you arrived. She is waiting for you in her quarters in the

palace.’

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He looked at me aghast. ’The enemy are pressing us hard. Queen Lostris and

the prince are more precious than all this rabble. Why did you not force

her?’

I laughed. ’She is not an easy lady to force. You should know that as well

as I do. She will leave none of her people to the Hyksos.’

’Seth blast that woman’s pride! She will get all of us killed.’ But his

harsh words were belied by the expression of pride and admiration on his

dusty, sweat-streaked face, and he grinned at me. ’Well, if she will not come

on her own, we shall have to go and fetch her.’

We pushed our way through the long lines of passengers, laden with bundles

of their possessions and carrying their infants, that were streaming down to

the dock to go aboard the ships. As we hurried along the causeway, Tanus

pointed over the battlements at the ominous clouds of dust bearing down upon

us from both directions.

’They are moving faster than I had believed possible. They have not even

halted to water their horses. Unless we speed up the embarkation, they will

catch us with half our people still ashore,’ he said grimly, and pointed down

on to the wharf below us.

The wharf was wide enough to allow only two vessels to come alongside at

one time. The masses of refugees clogged the causeway and congested the

entrance gates to the dock. Their weeping and lamentation added to the

confusion, and at that moment someone at the rear of the column screamed,

"The Hyksos are here! Run! Save yourselves! The Hyksos are here!’

The panic spread through the crowd and it surged forward mindlessly. Women

were crushed against the stone gates, and children were trampled under foot.

All order and control were breaking down, decent and dignified citizens and

disciplined soldiers were being reduced to a desperate mob struggling for

survival.

I had to use the sharpened stave I carried to force a way through them, as

Tanus and I fought our way back towards the palace. At last we broke out of

the crowd and ran to the palace gates.

The halls and corridors were empty and deserted except for a few looters

who were picking through the empty rooms. They ran when they saw Tanus. He

was a dreadful sight, gaunt and dusty and battle-worn, with a ruddy stubble

of beard covering his jaw. Ahead of me, he burst into the private quarters of

the queen, and we found her chamber unguarded and the door standing wide. We

rushed through it.

My mistress sat alone on the terrace under the spreading vine, with Prince

Memnon on her lap. She was pointing out to him the fleet of ships on the Nile

below the terrace, and the two of them were enthusing over the spectacle.

’Look at the pretty ships.’

Queen Lostris stood up smiling when she saw us, and Memnon slid off her lap

and ran to Tanus.

Tanus swung him up on to his shoulder, and then embraced my mistress with

his free hand.

’Where are your slaves? Where are Aton and Lord Merseket?’ Tanus demanded.

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’I sent them to the ships.’

’Taita says that you refused to go yourself. He is very angry with you, and

rightly so.’

’Forgive me, dear Taita.’ Her smile could light my life, or break my heart.

’Rather beg the forgiveness of King Salitis,’ I suggested stiffly. ’He will

be here soon enough.’ I seized her arm. ’Now that this rude soldier of yours

has at last arrived, can we please go to the ships?’

We hurried from the terrace and back through the palace corridors. We were

entirely alone, even the looters and the thieves had disappeared like rats

into their holes. The only one of us who was completely unconcerned was

Prince Memnon. For him it was another jolly game. Sitting astride Tanus’

shoulders, he dug in his heels and shouted, ’Hi up!’ as he had learned from

me when we were riding Patience.

We raced across the palace gardens to the stone staircase that led up on to

the causeway. That was the shortest way to the temple dock. As we hurried

along the causeway, I realized that circumstances had changed drastically in

the time that had passed since we had left to fetch my mistress and the

prince from the palace. Ahead of us the causeway was deserted, the last of

the refugees had gone on board the ships in the dock. Beyond the stone

battlements I could see their masts moving slowly down the canal towards the

open river.

With a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, I realized that we were the

last persons left ashore, and that we still had half a mile to cover before

we reached the empty dock. All of us stopped together, and watched the last

galleys sail away.

’I told the captain to wait,’ I groaned, ’but with the Hyksos so close,

their only concern is with then1 own safety.’

’What can we do now?’ my mistress breathed, and even Memnon’s happy cries

dried up.

’If we can reach the river-bank, surely Remrem or Kratas will see us and

send in a skiff to pick us up?’ I suggested, and Tanus agreed immediately.

’This way! Follow me!’ he cried. ’Taita, see to your mistress.’

I took her arm to help her along, but she was as strong and agile as a

shepherd boy and ran easily at my side. Then suddenly I heard the horses, and

the squeal of chariot wheels. The sounds were unmistakable and terrifyingly

near at hand.

Our own horses had left three days ago, and must be well on their way to

Elephantine by this time. Our own chariots were dismantled and loaded in the

holds of the departing fleet. The chariots I heard now were still out of

sight below the wall of the causeway, but we knew to whom they belonged.

’The Hyksos!’ I said softly, and we stopped in a tight little group. ’It

must be one of their advance scouting parties.’

’It sounds like only two or three of their chariots,’ Tanus agreed, ’but

that is enough. We are cut off.’

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’It seems that we have left it a little late,’ said my mistress with a

calmness that I knew was feigned, and she looked at Tanus and myself with

complete trust. ’What do you suggest now?’

Her effrontery flabbergasted me. Her obstinacy was entirely responsible for

our predicament. If she had followed my urging we would all of us have been

on the Breath of Horus and making our way up-river to Elephantine by this

time.

Tanus held up his hand for silence, and we stood and listened to the sounds

of the enemy chariots driving along the pathway at the foot of the wall. The

closer they came, the more certain it became that this was only a small

advance party.

Suddenly the sounds of turning wheels stopped, and we heard the horses

blowing and stamping, then men’s voices speaking a harsh and guttural tongue.

They were just below us, and Tanus made another urgent signal for silence.

Prince Memnon was not accustomed to restraint, nor to keeping the peace

against his inclinations. He also had heard and recognized the sounds.

’Horses!’ he shouted in his usual high and ringing tones. ’I want to see

the horses.’

There was an instant outcry. Hyksos voices shouted orders, and weapons

rattled in their scabbards. Then heavy footfalls pounded upon the stone

staircase as a party of the enemy came dashing up on to the causeway.

Their tall helmets appeared above the stone balustrade just ahead of us,

and then the rest of them came into view. There were five of them in a body

and they rushed up at us with drawn swords, big men with fish-scale shirts of

mail and brightly coloured ribbons in their beards. But one of them was

taller than the rest. I did not recognize him at first, for he had grown a

beard and decorated it with ribbons in the Hyksos fashion, and the visor of

his helmet hid half his face. Then he shouted in that voice that I would

never forget, ’So it’s you, young Harrab! I killed the old dog, and now I

will kill his puppy!’

I should have known that Lord Intef would be the very first of them to come

sniffing like a hungry hyena after Phar-aoh’s treasure. He must have raced

ahead of the main Hyksos division to be the first into the funerary temple.

Despite his boast, he did not rush to meet Tanus, but waved the band of

Hyksos charioteers forward to do the job for him.

Tanus swept Prince Memnon from his shoulders and tossed him to me as though

he were a doll.

’Run!’ he ordered. ’I will buy you a little time here.’ He rushed the

Hyksos while they were still bunched on the staircase and had no room to

wield their swords. He killed the first one cleanly, with that thrust through

the throat which he always performed so skilfully.

’Don’t stand there gawking,’ he shouted over his shoulder. ’Run!*

I was not gawking, but with the child clutched to my chest, I knew how

futile was his command. Burdened as I was, I would never reach the

river-bank.

I stepped to the parapet of the causeway and glanced over. There were two

Hyksos chariots parked directly below me, with the horses blowing and

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stamping in the traces. Only one man had been left to hold them, while his

companions rushed up the staircase. He stood at the heads of the two teams

and his whole attention was fixed on his charges. He had not seen me on the

causeway above his head.

Still clutching Memnon, I threw my legs over the parapet and pushed myself

outwards. The prince shrieked with alarm as we dropped. From the top of the

causeway to where the Hyksos charioteer stood was four times the height of a

tall man. I might easily have broken a leg in the fall, except that I landed

neatly on the unsuspecting Hyksos’s head. The impact broke his neck; clearly

I heard the vertebrae snap, and he crumpled under us, breaking our fall.

I scrambled to my feet, with Memnon howling in outrage at this rough

treatment, but there was more of it to follow. I dropped him into the cockpit

of the nearest chariot and looked up at my mistress. She was peeping over the

parapet high above me.

’Jump!’ I shouted. ’I will catch you!’ She never even hesitated, but flung

herself over the edge so promptly that I was not yet braced to receive her.

She came hurtling down on top of me, witirher short skirts blowing up and

exposing those long sleek thighs. She hit me squarely and knocked the wind

out of my lungs. We went down together in a heap.

I scrambled up wheezing for breath, and dragged her to her feet. I shoved

her roughly over the footplate of the chariot and shouted at her, ’See to

Memnon!’ She grabbed him just as he tried to escape from the cockpit of the

chariot. He was still howling with anger and fright. I had to scramble over

the top of them to reach the reins and take control of the horses.

’Hang on tight!’ The pair of horses responded instantly to my hands, and I

wheeled the whole rig smartly under the wall. One wheel bounced over the body

of the man that I had killed with my fall.

’Tanus!’ I screamed. ’This way!’

High above us he jumped up on to the parapet, and balanced there easily,

exchanging parry and thrust with the group of charioteers who bayed around

him, like hounds around a treed leopard.

Tump, Tanus, jump!’ I yelled, and he stepped out over the edge of the stone

wall and let himself drop. With his cloak billowing around his head and

shoulders, he landed astride the back of the off-side horse. His sword jerked

out of his hand and clattered on the hard earth, and Tanus threw both arms

around the animal’s neck.

’Hi up!’ I called to the pair, and whipped the end of the reins around

their hindquarters. They surged forward into a full gallop. I steered them

across the pathway and into the open fields that led down to the river-bank.

I could see the sails of our fleet out there in midstream, and I could even

recognize the pennant of the Breath ofHorus flying amongst the forest of

masts. We had half a mile to go to reach the bank, and I glanced over my

shoulder.

Lord Intef and his men had rushed down the staircase. Even as I watched,

they were climbing up into the other chariot. I cursed myself that I had not

disabled it. It would have taken only a moment to cut the traces and chase

away the horses, but I had been in a panic to get my mistress and the prince

away.

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Now Lord Intef was coming after us. His chariot had not covered a hundred

paces before I realized that it was faster than the one I was driving. Tanus’

weight on the back of the off-side horse was hampering its gallop; he was a

heavy man and he still clung to its neck with both arms. He seemed frozen

with terror. I think that this was the first time that I had ever seen him

truly afraid. I have seen him stand firm and shoot down a charging lion with

his bow, but the horse terrified him.

I tried to ignore the following chariot, and I looked ahead and

concentrated all my newly acquired skill on piloting us over the open

cultivated fields and through the maze of irrigation canals and ditches to

the bank of the Nile. The Hyksos chariot was heavy and unwieldy, compared to

my Taita vehicle. The solid wooden wheels with their glinting and turning

knives around the rims bit deeply into the clay loam of the ploughed lands,

and all that bronze armour and Ornamentation on the dashboard and side-frames

weighed us down. The horses must have been driven hard before I took control

of them. They were lathered with sweat and white froth dripped from their

muzzles.

We had not covered half the distance to the river-bank when I heard the

shouts of the Hyksos charioteer closing with us, and the pounding of hooves.

I glanced back to see them not three lengths behind. The driver was lashing

the horses with a whip of knotted leather tails and yelling at them in that

coarse and ugly language. Beside him, Lord Intef was leaning out eagerly over

the dashboard. His ribboned beard was streaming back on either side of his

jaw, and his handsome features were lit by the rapture of the hunter.

He shouted at me, and his voice carried over the sounds of the two

labouring teams of horses. ’Taita, my old darling, do you still love me? I

want you to prove it once more before you die.’ And he laughed. ’You are

going to kneel in front of me and die with your mouth full.’ My skin prickled

with insects’ feet of horror at the image his words conjured up.

There was an irrigation ditch ahead of us, and I swerved to run alongside

it, for the sides were deep and sheer. The Hyksos chariot followed us round,

gaining on us with every stride.

’And you, my lovely daughter, I will give you to the Hyksos soldiers to

play-with. They will teach you a few tricks that Harrab forgot to show you. I

don’t need you, now that I have your brat.’ Queen Lostris clutched the prince

closer to her chest and her face was pale and set.

I understood Lord Intef’s design immediately. A child of the royal blood of

Egypt, even as a satrap of the Hyksos, would command the loyalty of all our

people. Prince Mem-non was the puppet through which King Salitis and Lord

Intef intended to rule the two kingdoms. It was an ancient and effective

device of the conqueror. I pushed my horses to their utmost, but they were

tiring and slowing, and Lord Intef closed with us so swiftly that he no

longer needed to shout to make himself heard.

’Lord Harrab, this is a pleasure long delayed. What shall we do with you? I

wonder. First, you and I will watch the soldiers entertain my daughter?’ I

tried to stop my ears to his filth, but his voice was insidious.

I was still gazing ahead, concentrating on the rough and dangerous ground,

but from the corner of my eye I saw the heads of the Hyksos pair draw level

with our vehicle. Their manes flowed back, and their eyes were wild as they

tore up beside us at full gallop.

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I looked back at them. The burly Hyksos archer on the footplate behind

Intef nocked an arrow to his short recurved bow. The range was so short that

even from the bouncing and leaping platform, he could not miss hitting one of

us.

Tanus was out of the fight. He had dropped his sword. He was still clinging

to the neck of the horse on the side furthest from the overtaking chariot. I

had only my little dagger, and Queen Lostris was down on her knees trying to

shield the prince with her own body.

It was only then that I realized the mistake that the Hyksos driver had

made. He had pushed his team of horses into the gap between us and the deep

irrigation ditch. He had left himself no room to manoeuvre.

The archer lifted his bow and drew the fletchings of the arrow to his lips.

He aimed at me. I was looking into his eyes over the barbed flint of the

arrow-head. His brows were black and dense and bushy, his eyes as dark and

implacable as those of a lizard. The Hyksos horses were running level with

the hub of my near-side wheel, and I gathered my reins and swerved towards

them. The flashing bronze knives that stood out of my wheel-rims buzzed

softly as they spun towards the legs of the horses.

The Hyksos driver shouted with consternation as he realized his error. His

horses were trapped between the ditch and those cruel knives. The blades were

less than a hand-span from the knees of the big bay stallion running nearest

to me.

At that same instant, the Hyksos archer loosed his arrow, but my sudden

swerve had beaten him also. The arrow seemed to fly quite slowly towards my

head, but this was an illusion produced by my terror. In reality it flashed

like a beam of sunlight over my shoulder, the flint edge touched my ear, and

a drop of blood dripped from the grazed skin on to my chest.

The other driver had tried to counter my swerve by turning away from me,

but now his far wheel was running along the lip of the irrigation ditch. It

was crumbling away beneath the bronze-bound rim, and the chariot lurched and

teetered on the edge.

I gathered my horses and swung them again, turning into the other chariot.

My wheel-blades hacked into the legs of the nearest horse, and the poor beast

squealed with agony. I saw pieces of skin and hair fly into the air above the

sideboard of my chariot, and I steeled myself to the whinnying cry of the

horse, and turned hard into him again. This time blood and bone chips flew in

a mush from the broken legs, and the horse went down, kicking and squealing,

pulling his team-mate down with him. The Hyksos chariot went over the edge of

the ditch. I saw the two passengers in the cockpit thrown clear, but the

driver was carried over and crushed beneath the capsized truck and the heavy,

spinning wheels.

Our own chariot was now tearing along dangerously close to the edge of the

ditch, but I managed to gather the horses and bring them back in hand.

’Whoa!’ I slowed them, and turned to look back. A cloud of dust hung over

the ditch where the Hyksos chariot had disappeared. I brought my team down to

a trot. The river-bank was two hundred paces ahead, and nothing stood hi our

way to safety.

I turned for one last look behind me. The Hyksos archer, who had fired his

arrow’at me, lay in a crumpled and broken heap where he had been thrown. Lord

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Intef lay a little further from the edge of the ditch. I truly believe I

might have left him there if he had not stirred, but at that moment he sat up

and then pushed himself unsteadily to his feet.

Suddenly all my hatred of him came back to me with such force and clarity

that my mind seethed with it. It was. as though a vein had burst behind my

eyes, for my vision darkened, and was glazed over with the reddish sheen of

blood. A savage, incoherent cry burst from my throat, and I wheeled the

horses in a tight circle until we were headed back towards the causeway.

Lord Intef stood directly in my path. He had lost his helmet and his

weapons in the fall, and he seemed half-dazed, for he swayed upon his feet. I

whipped the horses up into a gallop once more, and the heavy wheels rumbled

forward. I aimed the chariot directly at him. His beard was dishevelled and

the ribbons in it sullied with dust. His eyes also were dull and bemused, but

as I drove the horses down on him, suddenly they cleared and his head came

up.

’No!’ he shouted, and began to back away, throwing out his hands towards me

as if to fend off the massive carriage and the running horses. I aimed

directly for him, but at the last moment, his dark gods defended him one last

time. As I was right upon him, he threw himself to one side. I had seen him

staggering and I had supposed that he was weak and helpless. Instead, he was

quick and nimble as a jackal pursued by the hounds. The chariot was heavy and

unwieldy, and I could not turn it swiftly enough to follow his side-step and

dodge.

I missed him and went on by. I wrestled with the reins, but the horses

carried me on a hundred paces before I could get them under control and swing

the heavy vehicle round again. By the time we came around, Intef was running

for the shelter of the ditch. If he reached it, he would be safe? I realized

that. I swore bitterly as I drove the team after him.

It was then that his gods finally abandoned him. He had almost reached the

ditch, but he was looking back over his shoulder at me, and he was not

watching his footing. He ran into a patch of clay clods, hard as rocks, and

his ankle turned under him. He fell heavily but rolled back on to his feet

like an acrobat. He tried to run again, but the pain in his broken ankle

brought him up. He hobbled a pace or two and then tried to hop forward

towards the ditch on one leg.

’You are mine at last!’ I screamed at him, and he spun around to face me,

balanced on one leg as I drove the chariot down on him. His face was pale,

but those leopard eyes blazed up at me with all the bitterness and hatred of

his cruel and twisted soul.

’He is my father!’ my mistress cried at my side, holding the prince’s face

to her bosom so that he would not see it. ’Leave him, Taita. He is of my

blood.’

I had never disobeyed her in my life, this was the first time. I made no

move to check the horses, but gazed into Lord Intef’s eyes, for once without

fear.

At the very end, he almost cheated me again. He flung himself sideways, and

such were his agility and his strength that he twisted himself clear of the

truck and the wheels of the chariot, but he could not quite avoid the

wheel-knives. One of the spinning blades hooked in the fish-scale links of

his coat of mail. The point of the Joufe tore through the armour and hooked

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in the flesh of his belly. The knife was spinning and his entrails snagged

and wrapped around it, so that his guts were drawn out of him, as though he

was one of those big blue perch from the river being disembowelled by a

fishwife on the market block.

He was towed along behind us by the slippery ropes of his own entrails, but

he fell slowly behind as more coils and tangles of his gut were torn from his

open stomach cavity. He clutched at them with both hands, as they were

stripped out of him, but they slid through his fingers like some grotesque

umbilical cord that bound him to the turning wheel of the chariot.

His screams were a sound that I wish never to hear again as long as I live.

The echoes of them still sometimes haunt my nightmares, so that in the end he

inflicted his last cruelty upon me. I have never been able to forget him, as

I would so dearly have wished.

When at last the gruesome rope by which he was being dragged across the

black earth snapped, he was left lying in the centre of the field. At last

those cries of his were stilled, and he lay without movement.

I pulled up the horses and Tanus slid down off the. back of his mount and

came back to the chariot. He lifted my mistress and the prince down and held

them close to his chest. My mistress was weeping.

’Oh, it was so terrible! Whatever he did to us, he was still my father.’

’It’s all right now,’ Tanus hugged her. ’It’s all over now.’

Prince Memnon was peering back over his mother’s shoulder at the sprawling

figure of his grandfather with all the fascination that children have with

the macabre. Suddenly he piped up in that ringing treble, ’He was a nasty

man.’

’Yes,’ I agreed softly, ’he was a very nasty man.’

’Is the nasty man dead now?’

’Yes, Mem, he is dead. Now we can all sleep better at nights.’

I had to drive the horses hard along the river-bank to catch up with our

departing flotilla, but at last I drew level with Kratas’ galley, and he

recognized us in the unfamiliar vehicle. Even across that wide stretch of

water, his astonishment was apparent. Later he told me that he had believed

we were safely aboard one of the leading ships of the flotilla.

I turned the horses loose before I left the chariot. Then we waded out into

the water to reach the small boat which Kratas sent in to pick us up.

THE HYKSOS WOULD NOT LET US GO that easily. Day after day, their chariots

pursued our flotilla down both banks of the Nile as we fled southwards.

Whenever we looked back over the stern of the Breath of Horus, we saw the

dust of the enemy columns following us. Very often the dust was mingled with

the darker clouds of smoke that rose from the towns and villages on the

river-banks which the Hyksos burned as they sacked them. As we passed each of

the Egyptian towns, a flock of small craft sailed out to join our fleet, so

that our armada increased in numbers with each day that passed.

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There were times, when the wind was unfavourable, that the columns of

chariots overhauled us. Then we saw then-cohorts gleaming on the banks on

either side of us, and heard their harsh but futile jeers and challenges ring

out across the water. However, eternal Mother Nile gave us her protection, as

she had over the centuries, and they could not reach us out on the stream.

Then the wind would veer back into the north and we drew ahead of them once

more, and the dust-clouds fell back on to the northern horizon.

"Their horses cannot keep up this chase much longer,’ I told Tanus on the

morning of the twelfth day.

’Don’t be too smug about it. Salitis has the lure of the treasure of

Pharaoh Mamose and the legitimate heir to the double crown,’ Tanus replied

simply. ’Gold and power have a marvellous way of stiffening a man’s resolve.

We have not seen the last of the barbarian yet.’

The next morning the wind had changed again, and the chariots slowly gained

upon us once more, and overtook the leading ships of our flotilla just as we

approached the Gates of Hapi, the first of the granite walls that constricted

the river below Elephantine. Between them the Nile narrowed to less than four

hundred paces across from bank to bank, and the black granite cliffs rose

almost sheer on each side. The flow of the current was full against us as it

swirled through the Gates of Hapi, so that our speed bled off and Tanus

ordered fresh men to the rowing-benches.

’I think you are right, Taita. This is where they will be waiting,’ he told

me grimly, and then almost immediately afterwards he pointed ahead. ’There

they are.’

Leading the fleet, the Breath of Horus was just entering the gates, so we

had to throw our heads back to look up the cliff-faces. The figures of the

Hyksos archers high up on the rocky ledges were foreshortened by the angle,

so that they appeared as grotesque dwarfs.

’From that height they could shoot their arrows clear across from bank to

bank,’ Tanus muttered. ’We will be in easy range for most of this day. It

will be hard on all of us, but more especially on the women and the

children.’

It was even worse than Tanus expected. The first arrow, fired at our galley

from the cliffs above us, left a trail of smoke against the blue vault of the

sky as it arced down and struck the water only a cubit ahead of our bows.

’Fire-arrows,’ Tanus nodded. ’You were right once again, Taita. The

barbarian does learn quickly.’

’It’s easy enough to teach an ape new tricks.’ I hated the Hyksos as much

as any man in the fleet.

’Now let us see if your bellows can pump water into a ship as well as they

pump it out,’ Tanus said.

I had anticipated this attack with fire and so, for the last four days, I

had been working on those galleys that Tanus had fitted with the water-pumps

which I had designed for him. Now, as each of our vessels came up, Tanus

ordered the captain to lower his sails, and we pumped water over the decks

and soaked the rigging. Leather buckets were filled and placed ready upon the

decks, and then one of the galleys escorted the ship into the granite-lined

gut of the river and the rain of Hyksos fire-arrows.

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It took two full days to get the flotilla through, for the cliffs blanketed

the wind. It was hot and still in the gap, and each ship had to be rowed all

the way against the current The arrows fell upon us in pretty, sparking

parabolas, rapping into the masts and the decks. Each of them started its own

blaze that had to be quenched by the bucket chains or by the leather hoses of

the pumps on the escort galley. There was no way for us to retaliate against

this attack, for the archers were high up on the cliff-faces. They were well

out of range of our own less powerful bows. When Remrem led a shore party to

dislodge them from their perches, they were able to fire down on his men and

drive them back into the boats with heavy losses.

Those vessels that won through were all scarred with black scorched

patches. Many others were less fortunate. The flames aboard them had beaten

the buckets and the pumps and engulfed them. They had to be cut free and left

to drift down on the current, causing pandemonium amongst the rest of the

fleet coming up into the gap. In most cases we managed to take the crew and

passengers off before the flames were out of hand, but with some we were too

late. The screams of the women and the children in the heart of the flames

were enough to stop the blood in my heart. I am left for ever with an image

from that dreadful day of a young woman leaping from the deck of a burning

barge with her long hair wreathed in flames, like a wedding garland.

We lost over fifty ships in the Gates of Hapi. There were mourning banners

flying on every ship as we sailed on towards Elephantine, but at least the

Hyksos seemed to have exhausted themselves and their horses in this long

chase southwards. The dust-clouds no longer besmirched our northern horizon,

and we had a respite in which to mourn our dead and repair our vessels.

However, none of us believed that they had given up entirely. In the end,

the lure of Pharaoh’s treasure must prove too much to resist.

CONFINED AS WE WERE TO THE DECK OF the galley, Prince Memnon and I spent

much time together sitting under the awning on the poop-deck. There he

listened avidly to my stories, or watched me design and whittle the first

model of a new bow for our army, based on the Hyksos recurved type. He had by

now learned the old trick of asking questions to keep my attention focused

upon him.

’What are you doing now, Tata?’

’I am making a new bow.’

’Yes, but why?’

’All right, I will tell you. Our own single-curve bows, apart from lacking

the same power and carry, are too long to be used from the chariot.’ He

listened gravely. Even when he was an infant I had tried never to indulge in

baby-talk with him, and I always addressed him as an equal. If sometimes he

did not understand, at least he was happy with the sound of my voice.

’I am now totally convinced that our future lies with the horse and

chariot, I am sure that Your Royal Highness agrees with me.’ I looked up at

him. ’You love horses too, don’t you, Mem?’

He understood that well enough. ’I love horses, especially Patience and

Blade,’ he nodded vehemently.

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I had already filled three scrolls with my musings and diagrams of how I

conceived these military assets could be used to best advantage. I wished

that I was able to discuss these in detail with Tanus, but the Great Lion of

Egypt’s interest in matters equine was grudging and superficial.

’Build the cursed things if you must, but don’t keep chattering about

them,’ Tanus told me.

The prince was a much more receptive audience, and while I worked, we

conducted these long discussions, which were only much later to bear their

full harvest. As a companion, Memnon’s first choice was always Tanus, but I

was not far behind in his affections, and we spent long, happy hours in each

other’s company.

From the very first he was an exceptionally precocious and intelligent

child, and under my influence he developed his gifts more swiftly than any

other I had ever instructed. Even my mistress at the same age had not been as

quick to learn.

I had made Memnon a toy bow of the design I was studying, and he mastered

it almost immediately and could soon, shoot one of his tiny arrows the full

length of the galley’s deck, much to the agitation of the slave girls and

nursemaids who were usually his targets. None of them dared bend over when

the prince was armed with his bow, he seldom missed an inviting pair of

feminine buttocks at under twenty paces.

After his bow, his favourite toy was the miniature chariot and horse that I

had carved for him. I had even made the tiny figure of a charioteer to stand

in the cockpit, and reins for him to drive the pair. The prince promptly

named the mannikin Mem, and the horses were christened Patience and Blade. He

crawled tirelessly up and down the deck, pushing the chariot in front of him,

making appropriate horsey noises and uttering cries of ’Hi up!’ and ’Whoa!’

For such a small boy he was always aware of his surroundings. Those

sparkling dark eyes missed very little of what was happening around him. It

was no surprise to me when he was the first of any of the crew of the Breath

of Horns to spot the strange figure far ahead of us on the right bank of the

river.

’Horses!’ he shrieked, and then moments later, ’Look, look! It is Hui!’

I rushed up to where he stood in the bows, and my heart soared as I

realized that he was right. It was Hui astride Blade coming down the

river-bank to meet us at a full gallop.

’Hui has got the horses through to Elephantine. I forgive him all his other

sins and stupidities. Hui has saved my horses.’

’I am very proud of Hui,’ said the prince gravely, imitating my words and

intonation so exactly that my mistress and all those around us burst out

laughing.

WE WERE GIVEN A RESPITE ONCE WE reached Elephantine. There had been no sign

of the pursuing chariots for so many days that a new optimism spread through

the fleet and the city. Men started speaking of abandoning the flight to the

south, and of remaining here below the cataracts to build up a new army with

which to oppose the invader.

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I never allowed my mistress to be seduced by this spirit of confidence

which was rooted in such shallow soil. I convinced her that my vision of the

Mazes had shown us the true path and that our destiny still lay to the south.

In the meantime, I continued my preparations for the voyage unabated. I think

that by this time, it was the adventure itself that had cast its spell over

me, even more than the necessity of running from the Hyksos.

I wanted to see what lay beyond the cataracts, and in the nights after a

full day’s work in the docks, I sat up into the late watches in the palace

library, reading the accounts of men who had taken that first step into the

unknown before us.

They wrote that the river had no end, that it ran on to the very ends of

the earth. They wrote that after the first cataract, there was another more

formidable, one that no man or ship could ever surmount. They said that to

voyage from the first cataract to the next was a full year of travel, and

still the river ran on.

I wanted to see it. More than anything in my life I wanted to see where

this great river, that was our life, began.

When at last I fell asleep in the lamplight over the scrolls, I saw again

in my dream the vision of the welcoming goddess seated on a mountain-top,

with the twin spouts of water gushing from her great vagina. Although I had

slept but little, I awoke with the dawn, refreshed and excited, and I rushed

back to the docks to continue the preparations for the journey.

I was fortunate in that most of the ropes for our shipping were woven and

braided in the sail-yards here in Elephantine. Thus I had the pick of the

finest linen cables at my disposal. Some of these were as thick as my finger,

and others as thick as my thigh. With them I filled every available space in

the holds of the ships not already crammed with stores. I knew just how

desperately we would need these, when we came to the cataracts.

It was not surprising that here in Elephantine those of our company with

faint hearts and weak resolve made themselves known. The rigours of the

flight from Thebes had convinced many of these that the compassion and mercy

of the Hyksos were preferable to a continuation of the voyage into the

burning southern deserts where even more savage men and beasts awaited them.

When, Tanus heard that there were so many thousands of these citizens

anxious to desert from the fleet, he roared, ’Damned traitors and renegades!

I know what to do with them.’ And he expressed his intention of turning his

legions upon them, and driving them back on board the ships.

At first he had my mistress’s support in this. Her motives were very

different from his. She was concerned only with the welfare of her subjects,

and her vow that she would leave none of them to the Hyksos terror.

I had to spend half the night arguing with both of them before I could

convince them that we were better off without reluctant passengers. In the

end, Queen Lostris issued a decree that any person who wished to remain in

Elephantine might do so, but she added a neat little touch of her own to the

proclamation. This was read aloud in every street of the city, and upon the

docks where our ships lay.

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I, Queen Lostris, regent of this very Egypt, mother of Prince Memnon, the

heir to the double crown of the two kingdoms, now deliver to the people of

this land my solemn promise.

I make oath before the gods and call upon them to witness it. I swear to

you that on the majority of the prince, I shall return with him to this city

of Elephantine, here to elevate him to the throne of Egypt and place the

double crown upon his brow that he may cast out the oppressor and rule over

you with justice and in mercy all the days of his life.

It is I, Queen Lostris, regent of this very Egypt, who speaks thus.

This act and declaration increased one hundredfold the love and the loyalty

that the common people felt towards my mistress and the prince. I doubt that

in all our history mere had ever been a ruler so cherished as was she.

When the lists were drawn up of those who would come with us beyond the

cataracts, I was not surprised to see that it comprised most of those whose

loyalty and skills we most valued. Those who wished to stay in Elephantine

were the ones we were happiest to lose, including most of the priesthood.

However, time would prove that those who remained behind us in Elephantine

were of great value to us also. During the long years of the exodus they kept

alive the flame in the hearts of the people, the memory of Prince Memnon and

the promise of Queen Lostris to return to them.

Gradually, through all the long, bitter years of the Hyksos tyranny, the

legend of the return of the prince spread through the two kingdoms. In the

end, all the people of Egypt, from the first cataract to the seven mouths of

the Nile in the great Delta, believed that he would come back, and they

prayed for that day.

HUI HAD MY HORSES WAITING FOR ME ON the fields of the west bank, below the

orange dunes hard by the river. The prince and I visited them every day, and

although he was growing heavier, Memnon rode upon my shoulder to have a

better view over the herd. By now Memnon knew all his favourites by name, and

Patience and Blade came to eat corn-cakes from his hand when he called them.

The first time he rode upon her back without my hand to steady him, Patience

was as gentle with him as she was with her own foal, and the prince shouted

out loud with the thrill of cantering alone around the field. Hui had learned

a great deal about the management of the herds on the march, and using this

knowledge, we planned in detail for their welfare on the next stage of the

journey. I also explained to Hui the role that I wished the horses to play in

the passage of the cataracts, and set him and the charioteers and grooms to

work plaiting and splicing harness.

At the very first opportunity, Tanus and I went up-river to scout the

cataract. The water was so low that all the islands were exposed. The

channels between them were so shallow that in places it was possible for a

man to wade through without the water covering his head.

The cataracts extended for many miles, a vast confusion of shining,

water-worn granite boulders and serpentine streams that wriggled and twisted

their way between them. Even I was daunted and discouraged by the task that

lay ahead of us, while Tanus was his usual brutally straightforward self.

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’You won’t be able to push a skiff through here without ripping the belly

out of it. What will you do with a heavily laden galley? Carry it through on

the back of one of your cursed horses?’ he laughed, but without the least

trace of humour.

We started back to Elephantine, but before I reached the city, I had made

up my mind that the only way forward was to abandon the ships and go on

overland. The hardships that this course would bring down upon us were

difficult to imagine. However, I reckoned that we might be able to rebuild

the flotilla on the river-banks above the cataracts.

When we returned to the palace on Elephantine Island, Tanus and I went

directly to the audience chamber to report to Queen Lostris. She listened to

everything that we told her, and then shook her head.

’I do not believe that the goddess has deserted us so soon,’ and she led us

and all her court to the temple of Hapi on the south tip of the island.

She made a generous sacrifice to the goddess, and we prayed all that night

and asked for the guidance of Hapi. I do not believe that the favour of the

gods can be bought by cutting the throats of a few goats and placing bunches

of grapes upon the stone altar, nevertheless, I prayed with all the fervour

of the high priest, although by dawn my buttocks ached hideously from the

long vigil on the stone benches.

As soon as the rays of the rising sun struck through the doors of the

sanctuary and illuminated the altar, my mistress sent me down the shaft of

the Nilometer. I had not reached the bottom step before I found myself

ankle-deep in water.

Hapi had listened to our prayers. Although it was weeks early, the Nile had

begun to rise.

THE VERY DAY AFTER THE WATERS BEGAN to rise, one of our fast scouting

galleys that Tanus had left to watch the movements of the Hyksos cohorts came

speeding up-river on the wings of the north wind. The Hyksos were on the

march again. They would be in Elephantine within the week.

Lord Tanus left immediately with his main force to prepare for the defence

of the cataracts, leaving Lord Merkeset and myself to see to the embarkation

6f our people. I was able to prise Lord Merkeset off the belly of his young

wife just long enough for him to sign the orders which I had prepared for him

so meticulously. This time we were able to avoid the chaos and panic that had

overtaken us at Thebes, and the fleet prepared to sail for the tail of the

cataracts in good order.

Fifty thousand Egyptians lined both banks of the river, weeping and singing

psalms to Hapi and waving palm-fronds in farewell as we sailed away. Queen

Lostris stood in the bows of the Breath ofHorus with the little prince at her

side, and both of them waved to the crowds on the bank as they passed slowly

up-river. At twenty-one years of age, my mistress was at the zenith of her

beauty. Those who gazed upon her were struck with an almost religious awe.

That beauty was echoed in the face of the child at her side, who held the

crook and the flail of Egypt hi his small, determined hands.

’We will return,’ my mistress called to them, and the prince echoed her,

’We will return. Wait for us. We will return.’

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The legend that would sustain our blighted and oppressed land through its

darkest times was born that day on the banks of the mother river.

WHEN WE REACHED THE TAIL OF THE cataract the following noon, the

rock-studded gorge had been transformed into a smooth green chute of rushing

waters. In places it tumbled and growled in white water and froth, but it had

not yet unleashed its full and terrible power. This was the moment in the

life-cycle of the river most favourable to our enterprise. The waters were

high enough to allow our ships through without grounding in the shallows, but

the flood was not yet so wild and headstrong as to hurl them back and dash

them to driftwood on the granite steps of the cataract.

Tanus himself managed the ships, while Hui and I, under the nominal command

of Lord Merkeset, managed the shore party. I placed the jovial old man, with

a large jar of the very best wine on his one hand and his pretty little

sixteen-year-old wife on the other, under a thatched shelter on the high

ground above the gorge. I ignored the garbled and contradictory orders that

the noble lord sent down to me from time to time over the ensuing days, and

we got on with the business of the transit of the first cataract.

The heaviest linen lines were laid out upon the bank, and our horses were

harnessed in teams of ten. We found out quickly enough that we were able to

bring forward ten teams at a time?one hundred horses?and couple them to the

main ropes. Any greater numbers were unmanageable.

In addition to the horses, we had almost two thousand men upon the

secondary ropes and the guide-lines. Horses and men were changed every hour

so that the teams were always fresh. At every dangerous turn and twist of the

river, we stationed other parties upon the bank, and on the exposed granite

islands. These were all armed with long poles to fend the hulls off the rocks

as they were dragged through.

Our men had been born on the river-banks and understood men- boats and the

moods of the Nile better than they did their own wives’. Tanus and I arranged

a system of hom signals between the ships and the shore party that functioned

more smoothly even than I had hoped.

On board the vessels, the sailors were also armed with poles to punt

themselves forward and to fend off the bows. They sang the ancient river

shanties as they worked, and the Breath ofHorus was the first to make the

attempt. The sound of song and the cries of the horse-handlers mingled with

the muted thunder of the Nile waters as we hauled her forward and she thrust

her bows into the first chute of smoothly racing waters.

The green waters piled up against her bows, but their thrust was unable to

overcome our determination and the strength of two thousand men and one

hundred straining horses. We dragged the Breath ofHorus up the first rapid,

and we cheered when she glided into the deep green pool at the head.

But there were six miles still to go. We changed the men and horses and

dragged her bows into the next tumbling, swirling stretch of broken water in

which the rocks stood like the heads of gigantic hippopotami ready to rip out

her frail timbers with fangs of granite. There were six miles of these

hellish rapids to negotiate, with death and disaster swirling around every

rock. But the ropes held, and the men and the horses plodded on and upwards

in relays.

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My mistress walked along the bank beside the teams of sweating men. She

looked as fresh and cool as a flower, even in the baking sunlight, and her

laughter and banter gave them fresh purpose. She sang the working songs with

them, and I joined with her in the chorus. We made up fresh words as we went

along. The men laughed at the saucy couplets and hauled on the ropes with

renewed strength.

Prince Memnon rode on the back of Blade, in the leading team of horses. Hui

had tiei a rope around the horse’s chest behind the front legs to give him a

hand-hold, because Memnon’s legs were still too short to afford him a firm

grip, and stuck out at an undignified angle on each side of Blade’s broad

back. The prince waved back proudly at his father on the poop-deck of the

galley.

When at last we broke out into the deep, unruffled flow of the main river

above the rapids, the working chant of the boatmen turned to a hymn of praise

to Hapi, who had seen us through.

Once my mistress had gone back on board the galley, she called for the

master mason. She ordered him to cut an obelisk from the granite massif that

hemmed in the gorge. While we laboured to bring the rest of the fleet through

the gorge, the masons worked with fire and chisel to lift a long, slender

column of mottled stone from the mother lode. When they had freed it from the

matrix, they chiselled the words that my mistress dictated to them, using the

pharaonic hieroglyphics in which her name and that of the prince were

enclosed in the royal cartouche.

AS WE PROCEEDED WITH THE TRANSIT OF the cataract, we became more expert

with each pace we gained against the river.

It had taken us a full day to bring the Breath of Horus up the rapids.

Within the following week we were making the transit in half that time, and

we had five or six vessels in the gorge simultaneously. It was almost a royal

procession with one galley coming up behind the other, stem to stern. Ten

thousand men and nearly a thousand horses were in the traces at any one time.

There were over a hundred vessels moored along the bank in the quiet, deep

green reach of the Nile above the rapids, when the Hyksos fell upon us once

more.

King Salitis had been delayed by his sack and plunder of the city of

Elephantine, and he had not realized immediately that we had continued on

up-river with the great bulk of Pharaoh’s treasure in the holds of our

galleys. Everything that he knew about the river, all that his spies and Lord

Intef had been able to tell him, had convinced him that the cataracts were a

barrier that could not be navigated. He had wasted all that time in the city

of Elephantine before setting after us again.

He had ransacked the city and the palace on the island; he had paid

informers and tortured captives in an attempt to learn what had become of the

treasure and the prince. The citizens of Elephantine had served their prince

well. They had held out against the Hyksos in order to give our flotilla a

chance to complete the transit.

Of course, it could not last indefinitely, and at last some poor soul broke

under the torture of the tyrant. King Salitis harnessed up his horses yet

again and came storming after us into the gorge of the cataract.

320

However, Tanus was well prepared to meet him. Under his command, Kratas and

Remrem and Astes had made their dispositions with care. Every single man who

could be spared from the work of hauling the ships through the gorge was sent

back to help defend it.

The terrain was our greatest ally. The gorge was steep and rocky. The path

along the bank was narrow and twisted with the broken ground crowding down

upon it. At every turn of the river there rose high bluffs and cave-riddled

cliffs, each of them a natural fortress for us to exploit.

In the confines of the gorge the chariots were unable to manoeuvre. They

were unable to leave the river and make a detour around the gorge through the

open desert. There was neither water nor fodder for their horses out there in

the sandy wastes, and the going was soft and treacherous. Their heavy

chariots would have bogged down and been lost in the trackless desert, before

they could reach the river again. There was no alternative for them, they

were forced to come at us in single file along the narrow river-bank.

On the other hand, Kratas had been given ample grace in which to improve

the natural defences of the ground by building stone walls in the most

readily defensible places. He positioned his archers in the cliffs above

these obstacles, and set up man-made rock-slides on the high ground

overlooking the pathway.

As the Hyksos vanguard came up the gorge, they were met with a downpour of

arrows from stone-walled redoubts on the high ground above them. Then, when

they dismounted from their chariots and went forward to clear the stone

barriers that had been placed across the track, Kratas yelled the order and

the wedges were knocked from under the rock-slides balanced on the lip of the

precipice.

The landslides came tumbling and rolling down upon the Hyksos, sweeping men

and horses and chariots off the bank into the surging green waters of the

Nile. Standing on the top of the cliff with Kratas, I watched their heads go

bobbing and spinning through the cascades, and heard their faint and

desperate cries echoing from the cliffs, before the weight of their armour

pulled them below the surface and the river overwhelmed them.

King Salitis was tenacious. He sent still more of his legions forward to

clear the pathway, and others to climb up the cliffs and dislodge our troops

from the heights. The Hyksos’ losses in men and horses were frightful, while

we were almost unscathed. When they laboured up the cliffs in their heavy

bronze armour, we rained our arrows down upon them. Then, before they could

reach our positions, Kratas ordered our men to fall back to the next prepared

strong-point.

There’could be only one outcome to this one-sided encounter. Before he had

fought his way halfway up the gorge, King Salitis was forced to abandon the

pursuit.

Tanus and my mistress were with us on the cliff-tops when the Hyksos began

their retreat back down the gorge. They left the path strewn with the

wreckage of then- chariots and cluttered with abandoned equipment and the

detritus of their defeat.

’Sound the trumpets!’ Tanus gave the order, and the gorge echoed to the

mocking fanfare that he sent after the retreating Hyksos legions. The last

chariot in that sorry cavalcade was the gilded and embossed vehicle of the

king himself. Even from our perch on top of the precipice, we could recognize

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the tall and savage figure of Salitis, with his high bronze helmet and his

black beard flowing back over his shoulders. He raised his bow, that he held

in his right hand, and shook it at us. His face was contorted with

frustration and rage.

We watched him out of sight. Then Tanus sent our scouts after them to

follow them back to Elephantine, in case this was a ruse, a false withdrawal.

In my heart I knew that Salitis would not come after us again. Hapi had

fulfilled her promise, and offered us her protection once more.

Then we turned, and followed the pathway made by the wild goats along the

precipice, back to where the flotilla was moored.

THE MASONS HAD FINISHED WORK ON the obelisk. It was a shaft of solid

granite three times the height of a man. I had marked out the proportions and

the shape of it upon the mother rock before the masons had made their first

cut. Because of this, the lines of the monument were so elegant and pleasing

that it appeared to be much taller, once it was set on the summit of the

bluff above the last wild stretch of the cataract, overlooking the scene of

our triumph. All our people gathered below it, as Queen Lostris dedicated the

stone to the goddess of the river. She read aloud the inscription that the

masons had engraved upon the polished stone.

I, Queen Lostris, Regent of Egypt and widow of Pharaoh Mamose, the eighth

of that name, mother of the Crown Prince Memnon, who shall rule the two

kingdoms after me, have ordained the raising of this monument.

This is the mark and covenant of my vow to the people of this very Egypt,

that I shall return to them from the wilderness whence I have been driven by

the barbarian.

This stone was placed here in the first year of my rule, the nine-hundredth

year after the building of the great pyramid of Pharaoh Cheops.

Let this stone stand immovable as the pyramid until I make good my promise

to return.

Then, in sight of all the people, she placed the Gold of Valour upon the

shoulders of Tanus and Kratas and Remrem and Astes, all those heroes who had

made possible the transit of the cataract.

Then, last of all, she called me to her, and as I knelt at her feet, she

whispered so I alone might hear, ’How could I forget you, my dear and

faithful Taita? We could never have come this far without your help,’ she

touched my cheek lightly, ’and I know how dearly you love these pretty

baubles.’ And she placed around my neck the heavy Gold of Praise. I weighed

it later at thirty deben, five deben heavier than the chain that Pharaoh had

bestowed upon me.

On the way back down the side of the gorge, I walked beside my mistress to

hold the sun-shade of ostrich feathers over her head, and she smiled at me

more than once. Each smile was more precious to me than the heavy chain upon

my shoulders.

The following morning we went back on board the Breath of Horns and turned

our bows once more towards the south. The long voyage had begun.

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WE FOUND THAT THE RIVER HAD changed its mien and character. It was no

longer the broad and serene presence that had comforted and sustained us all

our lives. This was a sterner, wilder being. There was little gentleness and

compassion in its spirit. It was narrower and deeper.

The land on each side of it was steeper and more rugged, and the gorges and

nullahs were crudely gouged from the harsh earth. The brooding and darkling

cliffs frowned down upon us with furrowed brows.

In some places the bottom lands along the banks narrowed down so that the

horses and cattle and sheep had to pass in single file along the crude track

that the wild goats had trodden between the cliffs and the water. In other

places the track disappeared completely, as the bluffs and the cliffs pushed

boldly into the flood of the Nile. Then there was no way forward for our

herds. Hui was forced to drive them into the river and swim them across the

green expanse of water to the far bank, where the cliffs had retreated and

left the way open for them to pass.

As the weeks wore on, we saw little sign of any human presence. Once, our

scouts found the worm-eaten hull of a crude dugout canoe washed up on a

sand-bank, and upon the bottom land an abandoned cluster of huts. The sagging

roofs were thatched with reeds and the sides were open. There were the

remains of fish-smoking racks and the ashes of the fires, but that was all.

Not a shard of pottery or a bead to hint at who these people might be.

We were anxious to make our first contact with the tribes of Cush, for we

needed slaves. Our entire civilization was based on the keeping of slaves,

and we had been able to bring very few of them with us from Egypt. Tanus sent

his scouts far ahead of the fleet, so that we might have good warning of the

first human habitations in ample time to organize our slave-catchers. I found

no irony in the fact that I, a slave myself, spent so much of my time and

thought in planning the taking of other slaves.

All wealth can be counted in four commodities, land and gold and slaves and

ivory. We believed that the land that lay ahead of us was rich in all of

these. If we were to grow strong enough to return and drive the Hyksos from

our very Egypt, then we must discover this wealth in the unexplored land to

which we were sailing.

Queen Lostris sent out her gold-finders into the hills along the river as

we passed. They climbed up through the gorges and the dry nullahs, scratching

and digging in every likely spot, chipping fragments off the exposed reefs of

quartz and schist, crushing these to powder, and washing away the dross in a

shallow clay dish, hoping always to see the gleaming precious tail remaining

in the bottom of the dish.

The royal huntsmen went out with them to search for game with which to feed

our multitudes. They searched also for the first sign of those great grey

beasts who carry the precious teeth of ivory in their monstrous heads. I made

vigorous enquiry through the fleet for any man who had ever seen one of these

elephant alive, or even dead. Though their teeth were a commonplace

throughout the civilized world, there was not a single man who could help me

in my enquiries. I felt a strange and unaccountable excitement at the thought

of our first encounter with these fabulous beasts.

There was a host of other creatures inhabiting this wild land, some of them

familiar to us and many that were strange and new.

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Wherever reeds grew upon the river-bank, we found herds of hippopotami

lying like rounded granite boulders in the shallows. After long and erudite

theological debate, it was still uncertain whether these beasts above the

cataract belonged to the goddess; as did those below, or whether they were

royal game belonging to the crown. The priests of Hapi were strongly of one

persuasion, and the rest of us, with an appetite for the rich fat and tender

flesh of these animals, were of the opposite opinion.

It was entirely by coincidence that at this point the goddess Hapi chose to

appear to me in one of my celebrated dreams. I saw her rise from *he green

waters, smiling beneficently, and place in my mistress’s hand a tiny

hippopotamus no bigger than a wild partridge. As soon as I awoke, I lost no

time in relaying the substance of this weird and thrilling dream to the

regent. By now my dreams and divination were accepted by my mistress, and

therefore by the rest of our company, as the manifest will and law of the

gods.

That evening we all feasted on luscious river-cow steaks grilled on the

open coals on the sand-bank against which the ships had moored. My reputation

and popularity, which were already high throughout the fleet, were much

enhanced by this dream. The priests of Hapi alone were not carried along by

the general warmth of feeling towards me.

The river teemed with fish. Below the cataract, our people had fished the

river for a thousand years and longer. These waters were untouched by man or

his nets. We drew from the river shining blue perch heavier than the fattest

man in our company, and there were huge catfish, with barbellate whiskers as

long as my arm, that were too strong and weighty to be captured in the nets.

With a flick of their great tails they ripped the linen threads as though

they were the fragile webs of spiders. Our men hunted them in the shallows

with spears, as though they were river-cows. One of these giants could feed

fifty men with rich yellow flesh that dripped fat into the cooking-fires.

In the cliffs above the river hung the nests of eagles and vultures. From

below they appeared like masses of driftwood, and the droppings of the huge

birds painted the rocks beneath them with streaks of shining white. The birds

floated above us on wide pinions, circling and swaying on the heated air that

rose from the black rocks of the gorge.

From the heights, flocks of wild goats watched us pass with regal and

disdainful mien. Tanus went out to hunt them on their airy crags, but it was

many weeks before he succeeded in bringing back one of these trophies. They

had the eyesight of vultures and the agility of the blue-headed rock lizards

that could run effortlessly up a vertical wall of granite.

One of these old rams stood as tall as a man’s shoulder. His beard flowed

from his chin and throat to sweep the rock on which he posed. His horns

curled upon themselves from mighty crenellated bases. When Tanus finally

brought him down, it was with an arrow shot across a gorge a hundred paces

deep, from peak to pinnacle of these rugged hills. The goat dropped into the

gulf and twisted over and over in the air before it hit the rocks below.

Because of my passionate interest in all wild things, after he had skinned

out and butchered the carcass, Tanus carried the head and the horns home for

me. It took all his vast strength to bring down such a burden from those

murderous crags. I cleaned and bleached the skull and set it up on the bows

of our galley as a figurehead, as we sailed on into the unknown.

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THE MONTHS PASSED, AND BELOW OUR keels the river began to dwindle away as

the inundation abated. As we passed the sheer headlands, we could see the

height of the river measured upon the cliff where all the previous

inundations had left their watermarks.

At night Memnon and I sat up on deck as late as his mother would allow us,

and together we studied the stars that illuminated the firmament of the sky

with a milky radiance. I taught him the name and the nature of each of these

fiery points of light and how they affected the destiny of every man born

under them. By watching the heavenly bodies, I was able to determine that the

river was no longer taking us directly into the south, but that we were

veering towards the west. These observations stirred up another heated

controversy amongst the scholars and the wise men of our company.

’The river is taking us directly to the western fields of paradise,’

suggested the -priests of Osiris and Ammon-Ra. ’It is a ruse of Seth. He

wishes to confuse and confound us,’ argued the priests of Hapi, who up until

now had exerted undue influence over our councils. Queen Lostris was a child

of their goddess, and it had been generally accepted by most of us that Hapi

was the patron of our expedition. The priests were angry to see their

position weakened by this wayward perambulation of the river. ’Soon the river

will turn south once more,’ they promised. It always appalls me to watch how

unscrupulous men manipulate the wishes of the gods to coincide with their

own.

Before the matter could be resolved, we came to the second cataract.

This was as far as any civilized man had ever ventured, and not one of them

had reached further. When we scouted and surveyed the cataract, the reason

for this was abundantly evident. These rapids were more extensive and

formidable than those we had already negotiated.

Over a vast area, the stream of the Nile was split by several massive

Islands and hundreds of smaller ones. It was low-water now, and at most

places the bed of the river was exposed. A maze of rock-strewn canals and

branches extended for miles ahead of us. We were awed by the grandeur and

menace of it.

’How do we know that there is not another cataract, and men another,

guarding the river?’ those who were easily discouraged asked each other. ’We

will expend our strength and in the end find ourselves trapped between the

rapids without the strength to advance or retreat. We should turn back now,

before it is too late,’ they agreed amongst themselves.

’We will go on,’ decreed my mistress. ’Those who wish to turn back now, are

free to do so. However, there will be no vessels to carry them nor horses to

draw them. They will return on their own, and I am certain the Hyksos will

bid them a hearty welcome.’

There were none who accepted her magnanimous offer. Instead, they went

ashore on the fertile islands that choked the course of the river.

The spray from the rapids during the flood, and the water filtering up

through the soil during low ebb, had transformed these islands into verdant

forests, in stark contrast to the dry and terrible deserts on either bank.

Springing from seeds brought down by the waters from the ends of the earth,

tall trees, of a kind that none of us had ever seen before, grew on the silt

that Mother Nile had piled up on the granite foundation of the islands.

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We could not attempt a transit of these rapids until the Nile brought down

her next inundation and gave us sufficient depth of water for our galleys.

That was still many months away.

Our farmers went ashore and cleared land to plant the seeds that we had

brought with us. Within days the seed had sprouted, and in the hot sunlight

the plants seemed to grow taller under our eyes. Within a few short months

the dhurra corn was ready to be harvested, and we were gorging on the sweet

fruits and vegetables that we had missed so much since leaving Egypt. The

muttering amongst our people died away.

In fact these islands were so attractive, and the soil so fertile, that

some of our people began to talk about settling here permanently. A

delegation from the priests of Ammon-Ra went to the queen and asked for her

permission to erect a temple to the god on one of the islands. My mistress

replied, ’We are travellers here. In the end we will return to Egypt. That is

my vow and promise to all my people. We will build no temples or other

permanent habitation. Until we return to Egypt we will live as the Bedouin,

in tents and huts.’

I NOW HAD AT MY DISPOSAL THE TIMBER from those trees we had felled upon the

islands. I was able to experiment with these and to explore their various

properties.

There was an acacia whose wood was resilient and strong. It made the finest

spokes for my chariot wheels of any material which I had so far tested. I put

my carpenters and weavers to work on reassembling the chariots that we had

brought with us, and building new-ones from the woods and bamboos that grew

on the islands.

The flat bottom lands were several miles wide on the left bank below the

cataract. Soon our squadrons of chariots were training and exercising upon

these smooth and open plains once more. The spokes of the wheels still broke

under hard driving, but not as frequently as they once had. I was able to

entice Tanus back on to the footplate; however, he would not ride with any

driver but myself.

At the same time, I was able to complete the first successful recurved bow

upon which I had been working since we had left Elephantine. It was made from

the same composite materials as was Lanata, wood and ivory and hom. However,

the shape was different. When it was unstrung, the upper and lower limbs were

curved out and away from the archer. It was only when the weapon was strung

that they were forced back into the familiar bow shape, but the tension in

the stock and the string was multiplied out of all proportion to the much

shorter length of the bow.

At my gentle insistence, Tanus finally agreed to shoot the bow at a series

of targets that I had erected upon the east bank. After he had shot twenty

arrows he said little, but I could see that he was astonished by the range

and accuracy of it. I knew my Tanus so well. He was a conservative and a

reactionary to the marrow of his bones. Lanata was his first love, both the

woman and the bow. I knew it would be a wrench for him to acknowledge a new

love, so I did not pester him for an opinion, but let him come to it in his

own time.

It was then that our scouts came in to report a migration of oryx from out

of the desert. We had seen several small herds of these magnificent animals

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since we had passed the first cataract. Usually they were grazing upon the

river-bank, but they fled back into the desert as our ships sailed towards

them. What our scouts reported now was a massive movement of these animals

such as took place only very occasionally. I had witnessed it just once

before. With the freak occurrence of a thunderstorm in the desert fastnesses

once in twenty years or so, the flush of green grass that sprang from the wet

earth would attract the scattered herds of oryx from hundreds of miles

around.

As they moved towards the fresh grazing grounds, the herds amalgamated into

one massive movement of animals across the desert. This was happening now,

and it offered us the chance of a change of diet and the opportunity to run

our chariots in earnest.

For the first time, Tanus showed a real interest in my chariots, now that

there was game to pursue with them. As he took his place on the footplate of

my vehicle, I noticed mat it was the new recurved bow that he hung on the

rack, and not his faithful old Lanata. I said not a word, but shook up the

horses and headed them towards the gap irt the hills mat offered us a route

out of the narrow valley of the Nile and gave access to the open desert.

We were fifty chariots in the squadron, followed by a dozen heavy carts

with solid wheels that carried sufficient fodder and water for five days. We

trotted in column of route, two vehicles abreast, and with three lengths

between the files. This had already become our standard travelling formation.

To keep down the weight, we were stripped to loin-cloths, and all our men

were in superb physical condition from long months of work on the

rowing-benches of the galleys. Their muscled torsos were all freshly oiled

and gleamed in the sunlight, like the bodies of young gods. Each chariot

carried its brightly coloured recognition pennant on a long, whippy bamboo

rod. We made a brave show as we came up the goat track through the hills.

When I looked back down the column, even I, who never was a soldier, was

affected by the spectacle.

I did not clearly recognize the truth then, but the Hyksos and the exodus

had forced a new military spirit upon the nation. We had been a race of

scholars and traders and priests, but now, with the determination of Queen

Lostris to expel the tyrant, and led by Lord Tanus, we were fast becoming a

warlike people.

As we led the column over the crest of the hills, and the open desert lay

ahead of us, a small figure stepped out from behind the last pile of rocks

where it had been lying in ambush.

’Whoa!’ I reined down the horses. ’What are you doing out here so far from

the ships?’

I had not seen thexprince since the previous evening, and had believed that

he was safe with his nursemaids. To come across him here on the edge of the

desert was a shock, and my tone was outraged. At that time he was not quite

six years of age, but he had his toy bow over his shoulder and a determined

expression on his face that mirrored that of his father, when Tanus was in

one of his most intractable moods.

’I am coming on the hunt with you,’ said Memnon.

’No, you are not,’ I contradicted him. ’I am sending you back to your

mother this very instant. She will know how to deal with small boys who sneak

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out of the camp without telling their tutors where they are going.’

’I am the crown prince of Egypt,’ declared Memnon, but his lip trembled

despite this weighty declaration. ’No man durst forbid me. It is my right and

my sacred duty to lead my people in time of need.’

We had now moved on to dangerous ground. The prince knew his rights and his

responsibilities. It was I who had taughf them to him. However, in all truth,

I had not expected him to exercise them so soon. He had made it an affair of

royal protocol, and it was difficult, even impossible, to argue with him.

Desperately I sought for an escape.

’Why did you not ask me before?’ I was merely bidding for time.

’Because you would have gone to my mother,’ he said with simple honesty,

’and she would have supported you, as she always does.’

’I can still go to the queen,’ I threatened, but he looked back into the

valley where the ships were small as toys, and he grinned at me. We both knew

that I could not order the entire squadron to drive all that way back.

’Please let me come with you, Tata,’ he changed his tune. The little devil

was attacking me on all fronts. I found it impossible to resist him when he

exerted all his charm. Then I was struck with inspiration. ’Lord Harrab is

the commander of this expedition. You must ask him.’

The relationship between these two was a strange one. Only three of us?the

two parents and myself?were aware of Memnon’s true paternity. The prince

himself thought of Tanus as his tutor and the commander of his armies.

Although he had come to love Tanus, he still held him in considerable awe.

Tanus was not the type of man that a small boy, even a prince, would trifle

with.

The two of them looked at each other now. I could see Memnon was pondering

his best plan of attack, while I could feel Tanus trembling with the effort

of holding back his laughter.

’Lord Harrab,’ Memnon had decided on the formal approach, ’I wish to come

with you. I think it will be a very useful lesson for me, After all, one day

I will have to lead the army.’ I had taught him logic and dialectic. He was a

student to be proud of.

’Prince Memnon, are you giving me an order?’ Tanus managed to cover his

amusement with a horrific scowl, and I saw tears begin to well up in the

prince’s eyes.

He shook his head miserably. ’No, my lord.’ He was a small boy once more.

’But I would very much like to come hunting with you, please.’

’The queen will have me strangled,’ said Tanus, ’but hop up here in front

of me, you little ruffian.’

The prince loved Tanus to call him a ruffian. It was a term that he usually

reserved for the men of his old Blues regiment, and it made Memnon feel that

he was one of them. He let out a yelp of glee and almost tripped over his own

feet in his haste to obey. Tanus reached down and caught his arm. He swung

him up and placed him securely between us on the footplate.

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’Hi up!’ Memnon shouted to Patience and Blade, and we drove out into the

open desert, but not before I had sent a messenger back to the fleet with a

message for the queen to tell her that the prince was safe. No lioness could

be as fierce as my mistress in the care of its cub.

When we struck the migration road, it was a broad swathe of churned sand

many hundreds of yards wide. The hooves of the oryx are broad and splayed to

cover the soft desert sands. They leave a distinctive track, the shape of a

Hyksos spear-head. Many thousands of the huge antelope had passed this way.

’When?’ Tanus asked, and I dismounted to examine the trail. I took Memnon

down with me, for I never missed an opportunity to instruct him. I showed him

how the night breeze had eroded the spoor, and how small insects and lizards

had superimposed their own tracks over those of the herd.

"They passed here yesterday evening at sunset,’ I gave my opinion, and had

it endorsed by the prince. ’But they are travelling slowly. With luck we can

catch them before noon.’

We waited for the wagons to come up. We watered the horses, and then went

on, following the broad trodden road through the dunes.

Soon we found the carcasses of the weaker animals that had succumbed. They

were the very young and the oldest, and now the crows and the vultures

squawked and squabbled over their remains, while the little red jackals slunk

around the fringes, hoping for a mouthful.

We followed the broad road until at last we saw the thin filtering of dust

upon the southern horizon, and we quickened our pace. When we topped a line

of rugged hills whose crests danced in the heat-mirage, we saw the herds

spread out below us. We had reached the area where the thunderstorm had

broken weeks before. As far ahead as we could see, the desert had been

transformed into a garden of flowers.

The last rains might have fallen here a hundred years ago. It seemed

impossible, but the seeds of that harvest had lain sleeping all that time.

They had been burned and desiccated by sun and desert wind, while they waited

for the rains to come once again. For any who doubted the existence of the

gods, this miracle was proof. For any man who doubted that life was eternal,

this held out the promise of immortality. If the flowers could survive thus,

then surely the soul of man, which is infinitely more wonderful and valuable,

must also live for ever.

The landscape below us was painted with shades of soft greens, the contours

and the outlines of the hills were picked out with sweeps of darker green.

This formed a background to the wonderful rainbow of colour that lit the

earth. The flowers grew in banks and drifts. The blooms of each variety

seemed to seek the company of their own kind, as do the herds of antelope and

the flocks of birds. The orange-coloured daisies grew in pools and lakes

together, those with white petals frosted entire hillsides. There were fields

of blue gladiolus, scarlet lilies and yellow ericas.

Even the wiry brush plants in the gorges and nullahs, that had seemed

seared and dried as mummies of men dead a thousand years, were now decked in

fresh robes of green, with wreaths of yellow blooms crowning their ancient

blasted heads. Lovely as it now was, I knew that it was ephemeral. Another

month and the desert would triumph again. The flowers would wither on the

stem, and the grass would turn to dust and blow away on the furnace blasts of

the winds. Nothing would remain of this splendour except the seeds, tiny as

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grains of sand, waiting out the years with a monumental patience.

’Such beauty should be shared with the one you love,’ Tanus breathed in

awe. ’Would that the queen were with me now!’

That Tanus had been so moved by it proved the glory of the spectacle. He

was a soldier and a hunter, but for once he gave no thought to the quarry,

but gazed upon the spectacle with a religious awe.

It was a shout from Kratas in one of the following chariots that roused us

from this reverie of beauty. ’By Seth’s stinking breath, there must be ten

thousand of them down there.’

The oryx were spread out to the green silhouette of the farther hills. Some

of the old bulls were solitary, keeping all others away, but the rest of them

were in herds of ten or a hundred, and some of the herds were beyond count.

They were merely huge tawny stains, like cloud shadow upon the plains. It

seemed to me that every oryx in all of Africa was gathered here.

We watered the horses again before the hunt began. This gave me a chance to

go forward and to gaze down upon this great concourse of living things. Of

course, I took Mem-non with me, but when I tried to lead him by the hand he

disentangled his fingers from my grip. ’Don’t hold my hand in front of the

men, Tata,’ he told me solemnly. ’They will think I am still a baby.’

As we stood on the sky-line, the nearest animals raised their heads and

regarded us with mild curiosity. It occurred to me that they had probably

never before seen a human being, and that they detected no danger in our

presence.

The oryx is a magnificent creature, standing as tall as a horse, with the

same full, flowing, dark tail that sweeps the ground. Its face is painted

with intricate whorls and slashes of black upon a pale, sand-coloured mask. A

stiff, dark mane runs down the neck, enhancing the horse-like appearance, but

its horns are like those of no other animal created by the gods. They are

slim and straight and tipped like the dagger on my belt. Almost as long as

the animal that bears them is tall, they are formidable weapons. Whereas all

other antelope are meek and inoffensive, preferring flight to aggression, the

oryx will defend itself even against the attack of the lion.

I told Memnon of their courage and their powers of endurance, and explained

how they could live their entire lives without drinking water from pool or

river. "They take then-water from the dew, and from the desert roots and

tubers which theyidig out of the earth with their hooves.’

He listened avidly, for he had inherited the love of the chase in his

father’s blood, and I had taught him to revere all wild things.

’The true huntsman understands and respects the birds and the animals that

he hunts,’ I told him, and he nodded seriously.

’I want to be a true huntsman and a soldier, just like Lord Tanus.’

’A man is not born with such gifts. He must learn them, in the same way

that you must learn to be a great and just ruler.’

I felt a pang of regret when Tanus called to me that the horses were

watered, and I looked back to see the charioteers mounting up. I would have

preferred to spend the rest of that day with my prince watching the royal

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show upon the plains below me. I went back reluctantly to take up the reins

and to drive our chariot back to the head of the column.

On the footplates of the other chariots, the archers had their bows strung,

and the fever of the hunt gripped every man. They were like hounds on a short

leash with the scent in their nostrils.

’Ho, Lord Tanus!’ Kratas shouted across to us. ’A wager on the outcome?’

Before Tanus could reply, I murmured, ’Take one for me. The old braggart

has never shot from the back of a flying chariot.’

’Clean kills only,’ Tanus called back to him. ’Any animal with another

man’s arrow in it, not to count.’ Every archer marked the shaft of his arrow

with his own motif, so that he might claim it later. Tanus’ mark was the

Wadjet, the wounded Eye of Horus. ’One gold deben for each oryx with your

arrow in it.’

’Make it two,’ I suggested. ’One for me.’ I am not a gambling man, but this

was not a gamble. Tanus had his new recurved bow, and I was the best

charioteer in the whole of our army.

We were still novices, but I had studied the Hyksos’ use of the chariot.

Every evolution that their squadrons had performed on that terrible day on

the plain of Abnub was graven on my memory. To me this was not merely a hunt

for meat and sport, but practice and training for the much greater game of

war. We had to learn to run our formations to the very best advantage and to

control them in the full flight and confusion of battle, while circumstances

changed with every movement of the enemy, and every chance and hazard of war.

As we trotted down on to the plain, I gave the first signal, and the column

split into three files. Smoothly we opened up like the petals of a lily. The

flankers curled out like the horns of a bull to surround the quarry, while my

column in the centre deployed into line abreast, with three chariot lengths

between our wheel-hubs. We were the chest of the bull. The horns would hold

the enemy while we came up and crushed him in our savage embrace.

Ahead of us, the scattered herds of gazelle threw up their heads and gazed

at us with the first stirring of alarm. They began to drift away, gathering

up their fellows as they passed, small herds combining into larger, the way

that a single boulder rolling down the slope will bring down the landslide.

Soon the entire plain was alive with moving oryx. They cantered with a

peculiar rocking motion, and dust rose in a pale mist and hung over their

swaying backs. Their long, dark tails swished from side to side.

I held my own squadron down to a walk. I did not want to tire the horses

too soon with a long, stern chase. I was watching the denser, taller

dust-clouds thrown up by the two flanking columns circling swiftly out on

each side of the herd.

At last they came together far ahead, and the ring was closed. The herds of

oryx slowed down as they found their escape-route blocked. They began to mill

in confusion as those in the lead turned back and ran into the ranks that

followed.

Obedient to my orders, once the flanking columns had completed the

encircling movement, they also slowed to an easy walk, and turned in towards

the centre of the circle. We had the huge herd of oryx in our fist, and

slowly we closed our grip upon them. Most of the bewildered animals came to a

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halt, uncertain in which direction to run. Every way they gazed, they saw the

lines of chariots bearing down upon them.

Closer we came, at a steady walk, and our horses were still fresh and eager

to run. They had sensed the excitement, and threw their heads, fighting with

the traces, snorting and rolling their eyes until the whites showed. The oryx

herd began to move again, but in no definite direction. They milled upon

themselves, making uncertain dashes in one direction before coming up short

and then swinging around and rushing back again.

I was pleased with the control and discipline of our squadrons. They held

their formations rigidly, without bunching up and leaving gaps in the ranks.

The signals that I gave were repeated down the line and acted upon instantly.

We were at last becoming an army. Soon we would be able to meet any foe on

favourable terms, even the Hyksos veterans who had spent their entire lives

on the footplate of a chariot.

I reached behind me and took Prince Memnon by the arm. I drew him forward

and placed him against the dashboard. I wedged him there with my own body,

and he gripped the front panel. Now Tanus had both hands free to shoot his

bow, and the prince was safe.

’Let me take the reins, Tata. I will drive,’ Memnon pleaded. I had let him

drive before, so he meant it seriously, though he was barely tall enough to

see over the dashboard. I dared not laugh at him, for he took himself very

seriously.

’Next time, Mem. This time just watch and learn.’

At last we were less than a hundred paces from the nearest oryx, the

pressure was too great for them to tolerate. Led by one scarred old cow, a

hundred of them charged straight at our line in a mass. At my signal we

shortened Our line until we were running hub to hub, a solid wall of horses

and men, and the trumpeters sounded the charge. I lashed my team into a full

gallop and we raced headlong to meet them.

Tanus was firing past my right shoulder. I could watch each of his arrows

fly out across the closing gap. This was the first time he had shot from a

running chariot, and his first three arrows flew wide of the mark, as the

chariot careered into the herd of racing oryx. But he was a master archer,

and he adjusted his aim swiftly. His next arrow took the old cow, who was

still leading the charge, full in the chest. It must have split her heart,

for she went down, nose into the sand, and rolled over her own head. The

animals following her swerved out on either side of her, offering Tanus

broadside targets. It was fascinating to watch his next two arrows curl away

and fall behind the racing oryx.

The temptation is always to shoot directly at a running target, and not at

the place in the empty air ahead of it, where it will be when the arrow

reaches it. This calculation of forward aim is further complicated by the

movement of the chariot in relation to the target. I was trying to give him

the easiest shot by turning the chariot with the run of the game. All the

same, I was not surprised when two more of Tanus’ arrows missed behind the

target.

Then, like the master of the bow that he is, he adjusted his aim, and the

following arrow plunged feathers-deep into the chest of the next oryx. He

killed three more with three arrows, while all around us the hunt

disintegrated into the wild confusion of battle, and dust obscured all but

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the closest glimpses of running chariots and racing animals.

I was driving close behind a pair of oryx, overhauling them slowly, when

the flying hooves of one of them threw up a chip of sharp flint the size of

the last joint of my thumb. Before he could duck, it struck Memnon on the

forehead, and when he looked up at me I saw the blood trickling from the

shallow cut above his eye.

’You are hurt, Mem,’ I cried, and started to rein down the horses.

’It is nothing,’ he told me, and used the corner of his shawl to mop the

blood. ’Don’t stop, Tata! Keep after them. Kratas will beat us, if you

don’t.’

So I drove on into the dust, and beside me Tanus’ bow sang its awful song,

and the prince yipped and yelped with excitement like a puppy the first time

that it chases a rabbit.

Some of the oryx broke free of our lines and escaped into the open desert,

while others were turned back into the trap. Men shouted with excitement and

triumph, horses whinnied, and the oryx snorted and bellowed as the arrows

slapped into them and brought them crashing down in a tangle of flying hooves

and scimitar horns. All around us was the thunder of hooves and wheels, and

we were immersed in the yellow fog of dust.

There is a limit to how long even the finest and most willing team of

horses can be driven at full gallop. When finally I reined Patience and Blade

down to a walk, the dust had caked like mud in the sweat that lathered their

flanks, and they hung their heads with exhaustion.

Slowly, the dust-clouds that had obscured the field drifted aside and

dissipated. The field was a terrible sight.

Our squadron was scattered over the entire plain. I counted five chariots

whose wheels had shattered during the chase, and the up-ended vehicles looked

like the broken toys of a petulant giant. The injured men lay on the sandy

earth beside their shattered chariots, with their comrades kneeling over them

as they tended their wounds.

Even those chariots that had survived undamaged were halted. The horses

were blown and exhausted. Their flanks heaved as they strained for breath,

and the white froth dripped from their muzzles. Each one of them was soaked

with sweat, as though it had swum across the river.

The game was scattered upon the field in the same disorder and lack of

purpose or design. Many of the great beasts were dead, and their carcasses

lay stretched out on their sides. Many others were crippled and maimed. Some

stood with their heads hanging. Others limped away through the dunes with

slow and halting gait. Each arrow-shaft left a dark stain of wet blood upon

the pale, roan-coloured hide.

This was the pitiful end to every hunt, when the heat and excitement have

cooled and the wounded game has to be gathered up and put out of its misery.

Near us I saw one old bull oryx sitting on his paralysed haunches with his

front legs stiff in front of him. The arrow that had crippled him stood out

so high from his back that I knew that die point had severed his spine. I

took the second bow from the rack on the side-panel of our chariot, and I

jumped down from the footplate to the ground. As I walked towards the

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crippled bull, he swung his head to watch me. Then he made one last

courageous effort, and dragged his crippled back legs as he came at me. He

slashed those long black horns at me, but his eyes swam with the tears of

mortal agony. I was forced to drive two arrows deep into the cavity of his

chest before he gave one last groan and rolled over on to his side, kicked

once convulsively, and was still.

When I climbed back into the chariot, I glanced at the prince’s face. His

eyes were wet with tears and his blood-smeared face was crumpled into an

expression of pity for the oryx. He turned his face away from me, so that I

could not see his tears, but I was proud of them. He who lacks compassion for

the game he pursues is no true huntsman.

I took his curly head in my hands and turned his face back to me. Gently, I

cleaned the wound on his forehead and bandaged it with a strip of linen.

We camped that night upon the plain of flowers, and their sweet perfume

scented the darkness, and overlaid the smell of fresh-spilled blood.

There was no moon, but the stars filled the entire sky. The hills were

bathed in their silver luminosity. We sat late at the camp-fires and feasted

on the livers and hearts of oryx roasted on the coals. To begin with, the

prince sat between Tanus and me at the fireside, but the officers and men

vied for his attention. He had stolen all their hearts, and at their

invitation he moved easily from one group to the next. They mended their

language and banter to fit his ears, and the prince was at ease in their

company.

They made a great fuss of his bandaged head. ’Now you are a real soldier,’

they, told him, ’just like one of us.’ And they showed him their own scars.

’You did the right thing by allowing him to come with us,’ I told Tanus, as

we both watched him proudly. "This is the best training any young cadet can

ever have.’

’The men love him already,’ Tanus agreed. "There are two things that a

general needs. One is luck and the other is the devotion of his troops.’

’Memnon must be allowed to go out with every expedition, just as long as it

is not too dangerous,’ I decided, and Tanus chuckled.

’I leave you to convince his mother of that. There are some things that are

beyond my powers of persuasion.’

On the other side of the camp-fire, Kratas was teaching Memnon the

expurgated version of the lyrics of the regimental marching songs. The prince

had a sweet, clear voice, and the men clapped the time, and came in on the

chorus. They protested loudly and rudely when at last I tried to send Memnon

to the bed I had prepared for him under the body of the chariot, and even

Tanus supported them.

’Let the boy stay with us a little longer,’ he ordered, and it was well

after midnight when at last I was able to roll the prince in my sheepskin

rug.

’Tata, will I ever be able to shoot the way that Lord Tanus does?’ he asked

sleepily.

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’You will be one of the great generals of our very Egypt, and one day I

will carve an account of your victories on obelisks of stone, so that all the

world will know of them.’

He thought about that for a while and then sighed. ’When will you make me a

real bow, not just a baby’s toy?’

’As soon as you can draw it,’ I promised.

’Thank you, Tata. I should like that.’ And he went to sleep as suddenly as

I would blow out the flame of a lamp.

WE RETURNED IN TRIUMPH TO THE fleet, the wagons loaded with the salted and

sun-dried meat of the oryx herd. I had expected my mistress to tax me

severely for having abducted the prince. I had prepared my defence and was

determined to place the blame squarely on the broader shoulders of Lord

Harrab.

However, her censure was milder than I had anticipated. She told Memnon

that he was a wicked child for having caused her worry, and then hugged him

until he was in danger of suffocation. When she turned to me, I launched into

a long explanation of Tanus’ role in the affair, and the valuable training

and experience that the prince had received, but she seemed to have dismissed

the entire episode. ’When did you and I last go fishing together?’ she asked.

’Fetch your fishing-spears, Taita. We will take one of the skiffs. Just the

two of us on the river, the way we used to be in the old days.’

I knew that we would do little fishing. She wanted me alone on the water

where we could not be overheard. Whatever was troubling her was of serious

importance.

I paddled downstream on the shrunken and slow green waters until the bend

of the river and the high rocky bluff hid us from the fleet. All my attempts

at conversation had failed, so I put aside my paddle and took up my lute. I

strummed and sang the tunes she loved best, and waited for her to speak.

At last she looked up at me, and her eyes were filled with a strange

mixture of joy and worry.

’Taita, I think I am going to have another baby.’

I can think of no reason why this statement should have surprised me so.

After all, every night since we had left Elephantine, she and the commander

of her army had been locked in secret conclave, while I kept guard at the

door of her cabin. Nevertheless, I was so alarmed that my hand froze on the

lute strings and the song died in my throat. It was some moments before I

could regain my voice.

’My lady, did you use the infusion of herbs that I prepared for you?’ I

asked diffidently.

’At times I did, but at others I forgot.’ She smiled shyly. ’Lord Tanus can

be a very impatient man. Besides which, it is so unromantic to fiddle with

pots and jars, when there are better and more urgent things waiting to be

done.’

’Things like making babies who have no royal father to claim them.’

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’It is rather serious, isn’t it, Taita?’

I struck a chord on the rate while I framed a reply. ’Rather serious? Oh, I

think that is the wrong word. If you give birth to a bastard, or if you take

a husband, then you will be obliged to relinquish the regency. That is the

custom and the law. Lord Merkeset would be the next in line as regent, but

there will be covert warfare amongst all the nobility for the position.

Without your protection as regent, the prince would be in great danger. We

would be torn by internecine strife?’ I broke off, and shuddered at the

prospect of it.

’Tanus could become regent in my stead, and then I could marry him,’ she

suggested brightly.

’Don’t think I have not thought of that before,’ I told her sombrely. ’It

would be the solution to all our difficulties. But then there is Tanus.’

’If I ask him, he will do it gladly, I am sure of that,’ she smiled with

relief, ’and I will be his wife. We need no longer play these shams and

subterfuges to be alone together.’

’I wish it were that easy. But Tanus will never agree. He cannot?’’

’What is this silliness?’ The first sparks of anger lit her eyes, and I

hurried on.

’That night at Thebes, the night that Pharaoh sent men to arrest Tanus on

charges of sedition, we tried to force Tanus to declare for the crown. Kratas

and all his officers swore their support, and that of all the army. They

wanted to march on the palace and place Tanus on the throne.’

’Why did Tanus not agree to them? He would have been a fine king, and it

would have saved all of us so much heartache.’

’Tanus spurned their offer. He declared that he was not a traitor, and that

he would never mount the throne of Egypt.’

"That was long ago. Things have all changed,’ she cried with exasperation.

’No, they have not changed. Tanus swore an oath that day, and he called on

the god Horus to witness it. He swore that he would never take the crown.’

’But it no longer counts. He can go back on that oath.’

’Would you go back on an oath that you had sworn in the sight of the god

Horus?’ I demanded, and she looked away and hung her head.

’Would you?’ I insisted, and she shook her head reluctantly.

’No,’ she whispered, ’I could not.’

’The same code of honour binds Tanus. You cannot call upon him to do what

you dare not do yourself,’ I explained gently. ’Of course, we can put it to

him, but you and I both know what his reply must surely be.’

"There must be something that you can do?’ She looked at me with that blind

trust that angered me. Whenever she had run herself into the deepest danger,

she simply turned to me and said, ’There must be something that you can do?’

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"There is something, but you will not agree to it, any more than Tanus will

agree to wear the crown.’

’If you care anything for me, you will not even suggest it.’ She understood

me immediately, and recoiled from me as though I had struck her. ’I would

rather die myself than kill this miracle of love that Tanus has placed in my

womb. The child is him and me and our love. I could never murder all of

that.’

"Then, Your Majesty, there is nothing more that I can suggest to you.’

She smiled at me with such sublime trust and confidence that it took my

breath away. ’I know you will think of something, my darling Taita. You

always do.’

And so I had a dream.

I RELATED MY DREAM BEFORE A FULL SESSION of the council of state called by

the regent of this very Egypt.

Queen Lostris and Prince Memnon were seated upon the throne high on the

poop-deck of the Breath of Horus. The galley was moored to the west bank of

the Nile. The members of the council were seated upon the beach below her.

Lord Merkeset and the nobility represented the secular arm of the state.

The high priests of Ammon-Ra and Osiris and Hapi represented the sacred arm.

Lord Harrab and fifty of his senior officers stood for the military.

I stood upon the opemdeck below the throne and faced this distinguished

gathering. I had taken even greater pains than usual with my appearance. My

make-up was subtle and cunning. My hair was dressed with fragrant oils, and

coiled in the fashion that I had made popular. I wore the two chains of the

Gold of Praise around my neck, and my chest and arms were shaped and hardened

by chariot-driving. I must have presented an extraordinary figure of beauty

to them, for many of them gaped at me, and I saw the lust in the eyes of

those whose inclinations ran in that direction.

’Your Majesties,’ I made the low salutation to the pair upon the throne,

and Prince Memnon grinned at me cheekily. His head was still bandaged,

although it was no longer necessary. He was so proud of his war wound that I

had let him keep it on. I frowned at him, and he adjusted his expression to

be more in keeping with the occasion.

’Your Majesties, last night I dreamed a strange and wonderful dream which I

feel it is my duty to relate. I beg your leave to speak.’

Queen Lostris replied graciously, ’Every person in this company is aware of

the sacred gift that you have. The prince and I know that you are able to see

into the future, and to divine the will and the wishes of the gods through

dreams and visions. I command you now to speak of these mysteries.’

I bowed again and turned to face the council.

’Last night I slept at the door to the royal cabin, as is my duty. Queen

Lostris lay alone upon her couch, and the prince slept in his alcove beyond

her bed.’

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Even Lord Merkeset leaned forward and held his cupped hand behind his good

ear, the other being stone-deaf. They all loved a good story and a fruity

prophecy.

’In the third watch of the night I awoke, and there was a strange light

glowing throughout the ship. I felt a cold wind blowing upon my cheek

although every door and porthole was closed.’

My audience stirred with interest. I had struck the right ghostly tone.

"Then I heard footsteps echoing through the hull, slow and majestic

footsteps, such as never were made by mortal man.’ I paused dramatically.

’These weird and eerie sounds came from the hold of the galley.’ I paused

again for them to absorb this.

’Yes, my lords, from the hold where the gold coffin of Pharaoh Mamose, the

eighth of that name, lies awaiting burial.’

Some of my audience shuddered with awe, while others made the sign against

evil.

"These footsteps drew closer to where I lay at the queen’s door. The

heavenly glow of light grew stronger, and while I trembled, a figure appeared

before me. It was the shape of a man, but it was not human, for it glowed

like the full moon and its face was a divine reincarnation of the king as I

had known him, yet altered and filled with all the terrible divinity of his

godhead.’

They were rapt and silent. Not a man stirred. I searched their faces for

any sign of incredulity, but I found none.

Then suddenly a child’s voice broke the silence, as the prince cried out

high and clear, ’Bak-Her! It was my father. Bak-Her! It was Pharaoh!’

They took up the cry, ’Bak-Her! It was Pharaoh. May he live for ever!’

I waited for the silence, and when it returned I let it draw out to the

point where they were almost overwhelmed by the suspense.

’Pharaoh came towards me, and I could not move. He passed me and entered

the cabin of Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Lostris. Though I could neither move

nor utter a sound, I saw all that came to pass. While the queen still slept,

the divine pharaoh mounted upon her in all his splendour, and he took his

husbandly pleasure with her. Their bodies were joined as man and woman.’

There was still no sign of disbelief on any face. I waited for the full

effect of my words and then I went on, ’Pharaoh rose from the bosom of the

sleeping queen, and he looked upon me and he spoke thus.’

I am able to mimic the sound of other men’s voices so faithfully that

others believe they hear the one I am imitating. I spoke now in the voice of

Pharaoh Mamose.

’I have endowed the queen with my godhead. She has become one with me and

the gods. I have impregnated her with my divine seed. She who has known no

man but me, will bear a child of my royal blood. This will be a sign to all

men that she enjoys my protection, and that I will watch over her still.’

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I bowed once more to the royal pair upon the throne. ’Then the king passed

back through the ship, and entered once more his golden coffin where he now

rests. That was all my vision.’

’May Pharaoh live for ever!’ shouted Lord Tanus, as I had coached him, and

the cry was taken up.

’Hail, Queen Lostris! May she live for ever! Hail, the divine child she

bears! May all her children live for ever!’

That night when I prepared to retire, my mistress called me to her, and she

whispered, ’Your vision was so vivid and you told it so well that I shall not

be able to sleep lest Pharaoh come again. Guard the door well.’

’I dare say there may be one bold and importunate enough to disturb your

royal slumber, but I doubt that it will be Pharaph Mamose. If some rascal

does come to take advantage of your kind and loving nature, what should I

do?’

’Sleep soundly, dear Taita, and stop your ears.’ Her cheeks glowed pink in

the lamplight as she blushed.

Once again my premonition of future events was proved accurate. That night

there came a secret visitor to my mistress’s cabin, and it was not the ghost

of Pharaoh. I did what Queen Lostris had ordered. I stopped my ears.

THE NILE FLOODED ONCE AGAIN, REMINDING us that another year had passed. We

had reaped the corn that we had planted upon the islands, and we gathered in

our herds. We broke down the chariots and packed them on the open decks of

the galleys. We rolled up the tents and stowed them in the holds. Finally,

when all was ready for our departure, we laid out the ropes upon the bank and

put every able-bodied man and horse into the traces.

It took us almost a month of heart-breaking labour to make the transit of

this fearsome cataract. We lost sixteen men drowned, and five galleys broken

and chewed to splinters by the fangs of black rock. But at last we were

through, and we set sail upon the smooth flow of the river above the rapids.

As the weeks turned to months, the Nile described a slow and majestic bend

beneath our keels. Since leaving Elephantine, I had charted the course of the

river. I had used the sun and the stars to give me direction, but I had come

upon a great difficulty in measuring the distance that we travelled. At first

I had ordered one of the slaves to walk along the bank and count every pace

he took, but I knew that this method was so inaccurate that it would set all

my calculations to nought.

The solution came to me one morning while we were out on chariot

manoeuvres. I watched my right-hand wheel turning, and realized that each

revolution of the rim made an exact measure of the ground that it had

covered. Thereafter a chariot followed the bank of the river. One wheel had a

flag on the rim, and a reliable man sat on the footplate and made a mark on a

scroll for each time the flag came around.

Each evening I calculated the direction and distance we had travelled

during the day, and marked it up on my chart. Slowly, the design and shape of

the river made itself clear to me. I saw that we had made a vast loop out

into the west, but that now the river had turned back into the south, as the

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priests of Hapi had predicted.

I showed my findings to Tanus and the queen. Many nights we sat late in the

royal cabin, discussing the course of the river and how it would affect our

plans to return to Egypt. It seemed that every mile along the river that we

travelled, far from dimming my mistress’s determination, served but to

enhance the force of the vow she had made to return.

’We will build no temple nor palace of stone in the wilderness,’ she

ordered. ’We will set up no monument or obelisk. Our sojourn here is

transitory. We will build no cities, but will live in our ships, or under

tents and huts made of grass and reeds. We are a caravan on a journey that in

the end will take us back to the city of my birth, beautiful Thebes of a

hundred gates.’

In private she counselled me, ’Keep your charts well, Taita. I trust you to

find the easy way home for us.’

So our river caravan journeyed onwards, and the desert on either hand

changed its face with every mile, and yet in the end was unchanged.

We who sailed upon the river had become a close-knit community, almost an

itinerant city without walls or permanent structure. Life burgeoned and

faded. Our numbers increased, for most of those who had come with us from

Elephantine were in the full bloom of life, and the women were fruitful.

Young couples married upon the river-bank, and broke the jar of Nile water

between them. Children were born, and we watched them grow.

Some of our old people died, and there were accidents and dangers that took

toll of the younger ones. We embalmed them and dug tombs for them in the wild

hills and left them to their slumber, and went onwards.

We observed the festivals and prayed to our gods. We feasted and fasted in

the correct season, and danced and sang and studied the sciences. I held

lessons for the older children upon the deck of the galley, and Memnon was

the prize of all my students.

Before the year had run out, and whHe the course of the river still ran

southwards, we came upon the third cataract that bestrode the course of the

Nile. Once again we went ashore and cleared the land and planted our crops,

while we waited for the Nile to rise and help us through.

IT WAS HERE AT THE THIRD GREAT CATARACT that another joy came to fill my

life to overflowing.

In a linen tent upon the bank of the river, I attended my mistress in her

labour, and brought forth into this world the Princess Tehuti, the

acknowledged daughter of the long-dead Pharaoh Mamose.

In my eyes Tehuti was beautiful as only a miracle might be. Whenever I had

the opportunity, I sat beside her cot and examined her tiny feet and hands

with wonder and awe. When she was hungry and waited for her mother’s nipple,

I would sometimes place my little finger in her mouth for the pleasure of

feeling her chewing on it with her bald gums.

The river rose at last and allowed us to make the transit of the third

cataract. We sailed onwards, and almost imperceptibly the river turned back

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into the east, describing a vast loop beneath our keels.

Before the year was out it was necessary for me to dream another of my

famous dreams, for my mistress had once more suffered a virgin pregnancy that

could only be explained by supernatural means. The ghost of the dead phar aoh

had been on the prowl again.

My mistress was huge with child when we reached the fourth great cataract

of the river. This chute of tumbling waters and rocks like the teeth of

crocodiles was even more formidable than those that had come before, and

there was much despondency in our company. When they thought that no one

could overhear them they complained to each other, ’We are beset by these

infernal rock barriers. The gods have placed them across the river to prevent

us going onwards.’

I read their lips as they huddled together on the bank of the river. None

of them realized that I was able to understand what they said without hearing

their words.

’We will be trapped behind these terrible rapids, and we will never be able

to return down-river. We should turn back now, before it is too late.’

Even at the councils of state, I saw the words on the lips of some of the

great lords of Egypt who sat at the back of the gathering and spoke to each

other in muted tones. ’If we go on, we shall all die in this desert, and our

souls will wander eternally through it without rest.’

There was an element amongst the young nobility that was both arrogant and

headstrong. They were fostering discontent, and hatching insurrection. I knew

that we had to act swiftly and with resolution, when I saw the Lord Aqer say

to one of his henchmen, ’We are in the hands of this woman, this little

harlot of a dead king, when what we really need is a strong man to lead us.

There must be some way we can rid ourselves of her.’

Firstly, with the help of my old friend Aton, I ferreted out the names of

all the malcontents and potential traitors. It did not surprise me that at

the head of this list was this same Lord Aqer, the eldest son of Lord

Merkeset, on whose lips I had read those traitorous sentiments. Aqer was an

angry young man with inflated ideas of his own worth and importance. I

suspected that he had the gall to see a vision of himself seated upon the

throne of the two kingdoms with the double crown upon his head.

When I explained to Tanus and my mistress what I thought must be done, they

called a full and solemn state council on the river-bank.

Queen Lostris opened the conclave. ’I know very well how you pine for your

own land, and how you weary of this long voyage. I share with you every dream

of Thebes.’

I saw Aqer exchange meaningful glances with his cronies, and had my

suspicions strengthened.

’However, citizens of Egypt, nothing is as bad as it seems. Hapi has

watched over our expedition, as he promised. We are much closer to Thebes

than any one of you can imagine. When we return to our beloved city, we will

not have to retrace our same weary footsteps. We will not have to face once

again the dangers and the hardships of those hellish cataracts that block the

course of the river.’

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There was a stirring through her audience, and whispers of doubt and

disbelief. Aqer laughed, not loud enough to cross the borders of respect and

propriety, nevertheless my mistress singled him out. ’I see, Lord Aqer, that

you question my word?’

’By no means, Your Majesty. I curse such a disloyal thought.’ Aqer made a

hasty retreat. He was not yet strong enough, nor sure enough of his support,

to force a confrontation. I had caught him out before he was prepared.

’My slave, Taita, has plotted the course of the river that we have covered

in these last years,’ Queen Lostris went on. ’You have all seen the chariot

with the flagged wheel that has measured the ground, and Taita has studied

the heavenly bodies to find the direction of our journey. I order him now to

arise before the council and reveal to us his calculations.’

Prince Memnon had helped me to trace copies of my chart on to twenty new

scrolls. At nine years of age, the prince was already a fine pen-man. I

passed these out to all the senior nobles, so that they might follow my

lecture more clearly. I drew their attention to the almost circular course

that we had followed since we had left Elephantine.

Their astonishment was evident. Only the priests had some prior knowledge

of what had occurred, they also studied the stars and had some expertise in

navigation. But even they were taken aback by the extent of the river’s loop.

This was not surprising, since the copies of the map that I showed them were

not entirely accurate. I had taken certain liberties with the facts for the

benefit of Aqer and his faction, and made the distance across the bight seem

shorter than my calculations suggested was the case.

’My lords, as you can see by these charts, since we left the second

cataract we have travelled very nearly a thousand miles, but we stand now not

much more than a few hundred miles from the point of our departure.’

Kratas rose to his feet to ask a question that I had placed in his mouth

before the meeting began. ’Does this mean that it should be possible to take

this short cut across the desert and reach the second cataract in the same

time as it takes to travel from Thebes to the Red Sea and return? I have made

that journey several times.’

I turned to him. ’I was your companion on that same journey. Ten days in

each direction it took us, and we did not have horses then. The crossing of

this narrow strip of desert would be no more onerous. It means that from here

one could be back in the city of Elephantine within a few short months, and

it would be necessary to transit only the first cataract at Assoun.’

There was a buzz of comment and amazement. The maps were passed from hand

to hand and scrutinized avidly. The entire mood of the assembly changed, as I

watched. There was a pathetic eagerness amongst all of them to accept my

theory. This unexpected proximity to home and the land they knew cheered all

of them.

Only Aqer and his friends were out of countenance. He had been deprived of

the top dice in the game he was playing. As I had hoped he would do, he rose

angrily to his feet now to put the next question to me.

’How accurate are this slave’s scribblings?’ His tone was offensive and his

expression haughty. ’It is a simple matter to make a few pen-strokes on a

scroll, but when those are turned into miles of sand and rock, it is another

matter entirely. How will this slave prove that these wild theories of his

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are fact?’

’My lord Aqer has come to the very heart of the matter,’ my mistress

intervened pleasantly, ’and, in so doing, has proven his astute grasp of the

problem that faces us. I intend to send an expedition of good men to cross

the neck of the desert and to open up our return route to the north, the road

home to beautiful Thebes.’

I saw Aqer’s expression change suddenly as he caught the slant of the

queen’s speech and realized the trap that had been set for him. He sat down

again hurriedly, and tried to appear remote and disinterested. However, my

mistress continued remorselessly, ’I was undecided as to who was best suited

to lead this expedition, but now Lord Aqer has, by his perception and

understanding, proposed himself for this vital task. Is that not the case, my

lord?’ she asked sweetly, and then went on smoothly before he could refuse.

’We are grateful to you, Lord Aqer. You are to have whatever’men and

equipment you require. I command that you make your departure before the next

full moon. The moon will make it easier for you to travel during the night,

and so avoid the heat of the day. I will send with you men who are able to

navigate by the stars. You could win through to the second cataract and be

back here before the end of the month, and, if you succeed, I will place the

Gold of Praise upon your shoulders.’

Lord Aqer stared at her with open mouth, and he was still sitting rigid

with shock on his stool after all his companions had dispersed. I fully

expected him to find some excuse to back out of the task that we had tricked

him into, but in the end he surprised me by coming to me to ask for my advice

and help in arranging the scouting party. It seemed that I might have

misjudged him, and that now he had been given some worthwhile mission, there

was a chance that he would change from a trouble-maker to a useful member of

the company.

I selected some of our best men and horses for him and gave him five of our

most sturdy carts, which could carry water-skins that, if used sparingly,

would last them for thirty days. By the time the full moon came around, Aqer

was quite cheerful and optimistic, and I felt guilty about having minimized

the distance and the hazards of the journey.

When the expedition set out, I went a short way into the desert with them

to point them on the right road, and then I stood alone and watched them

merge into the silvery moonlit wastes, aimed at that set of stars we call the

Lute which marks the northern horizon.

I thought of Aqer every day over the weeks that followed while we lay below

the fourth cataract, and I hoped that the map I had given him was not as

inaccurate as I feared it was. At least the immediate threat of a rebellion

had disappeared with him into the north.

While we waited, we planted our crops on the cleared islands and the

river-banks. However, the lie of the land was steeper than at the other sites

lower down the river. It was more difficult to raise the water to irrigate

our crops, and I could see that the quantity and the quality of the harvest

must suffer in consequence.

Naturally, we had set up the traditional shadoofs on their long,

counter-balanced arms to lift the water from the river. These were worked by

a slave who swung the clay pot at the end of the arm into the water and then

lifted and spilled it into the irrigation ditch on the bank. It was a slow

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and back-breaking task. When the bank was high, as it was here, it was also

an extremely wasteful method of collecting water.

Each evening Memnon and I drove our chariot along the river-bank, and I was

troubled by the paucity of the harvest that we watched growing there. We had

many thousands of mouths to feed, and cornmeal was still the staple of our

diet. I foresaw a time of famine, unless we were able to bring more water to

the fields.

I do not know what made me think of the wheel for this purpose, except that

the science of the wheel had by this time become an obsession and a passion

in my life. I was still plagued by the problem of the bursting of the wheels

of our chariots. My dreams were filled with turning and spinning and

shattering wheels, wheels with bronze knives on the rim or with flags to

measure the distance run. Large wheels and small, the images haunted me and

troubled my sleep.

I had heard from one of the priests of Hapi that some varieties of timber

can be made harder and more resilient by soaking them in water for a long

period, so I was driven to experiment with this idea. As we were lowering one

of the chariot wheels into the river for this purpose, the current playing on

the rim began to turn the wheel on its hub. I watched this idly, but as the

wheel sank lower in the water, the movement ceased, and I thought no more

about it.

Some days later, one of the small boats crossing between the islands

capsized, and the two men in it were swept into the rapids and drowned.

Memnon and I watched this tragedy from the bank, and we were both distressed

by it. I took the opportunity to warn the prince once more of the danger and

the power of the river.

’It is so strong that it will even turn the wheel of a chariot.’

’I don’t believe you, Tata. You are saying that to frighten me. You know

how I love to swim in the river.’

So I arranged an exhibition for him, and we were both duly impressed by the

wheel turning, seemingly of its own accord, when it was dipped into the

running water.

’It would go faster, Tata, if it had paddles fixed around the rim,’ Memnon

gave his opinion at last, and I stared at him in wonder. He was a little over

ten years old at the time, and yet he saw all things with a fresh and

enquiring eye.

By the time the full moon came around again, we had built a wheel driven by

the river which lifted the water in a series of small baked-clay jars and

spilled it into a canal lined with clay tiles at the top of the high Nile

bank. Even with her big belly, my mistress came ashore to watch this wondrous

contraption. She was delighted by it.

’You are so clever with the things you do with water, Taita,’ she told me.

’Do you remember the water-stool you built for me at Elephantine?’

’I could make another for you now, if only you would allow us to live in a

decent home like civilized people.’

Tanus was similarly impressed with the water-wheel, though of course he

would not show it. Instead, he grinned at me.

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’Very clever, but when will it burst like one of your famous chariot

wheels?’ he demanded, and Kratas and those other military oafs thought that

was hugely funny. Thereafter, whenever a chariot wheel broke, they said that

it had ’gone Tata’, the pet name that the prince called me.

Despite this levity, the fields of dhurra soon grew dense and green in the

loamy soil on the high banks, and the ears of golden corn drooped heavily in

the bright Nile sunlight. This was not the only harvest that we gathered in

at the fourth cataract. Queen Lostris gave birth to another little royal

princess. If anything, the infant was more exquisite than her elder sister.

It was passing strange that Princess Bekatha was born with a cap of

golden-red curls. Her divine and ghostly father, Pharaoh Mamose, had been of

swarthy cast, and her mother’s hair was dark as the wing of the black eagle.

No one could think of any reason for this aberrant coloration, but all agreed

how pretty it was.

Princess Bekatha was two months old when the Nile began to rise once more,

and we made our preparation for the transit of the fourth cataract. By now we

were experienced in what had become an annual labour, and we had learned

every trick and artifice to beat the rapacious river.

WE HAD NOT YET BEGUN THE TRANSIT, when there was tremendous excitement in

the encampment. I heard the shouting and the cheering from the far bank of

the river where Prince Mem-non and I were inspecting the horses and making

certain that all was ready for the ascent of the cataract.

We hurried back to the boats and crossed to the east bank, to find the camp

in an uproar. We pushed our way through the crowds who were all waving

palm-fronds and singing the songs of welcome and honour. At the centre of all

this we found a small caravan of battered wagons and skeletal horses, and a

band of lean, travel-hardened veterans, burned black by the sun and tempered

by the desert.

’Seth damn you and that map of yours, Taita,’ Lord Aqer shouted at me from

the leading wagon. ’I don’t know which of you lies worst. It was almost twice

as far as you promised us.’

’Did you truly reach the north side of the river loop?’ I shouted back at

him, hopping with excitement and trying to fight my way through the crowd.

"There and back!’ he laughed, mightily pleased with his accomplishment. ’We

camped at the second cataract and dined on fresh fish from the Nile. The road

back to Thebes is open.’

My mistress ordered a feast to welcome back the travellers, and Lord Aqer

was the man of the day. At the height of the celebration, Queen Lostris

placed the Gold of Praise around his neck, and promoted him to the rank of

Best of Ten Thousand. My gorge rose to see the fellow preen and strut. As if

that was not enough, she gave him command of the fourth division of chariots,

and issued him a warrant that would entitle him to one hundred feddan of

prime land on the river-bank when we returned to Thebes.

I thought all this a little excessive, especially the gift of so much land

which must come out of my mistress’s own estate. After all, Aqer had been on

the brink of mutiny, and though his achievement had been laudable, it was I

who had proposed and planned the expedition. In the circumstances, it seemed

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to me that another gold chain for the poor slave Taita might not have been

out of place.

Nevertheless, I had to applaud my mistress’s cunning and statesmanship. She

had transformed Lord Aqer, who had been potentially one of her most dangerous

enemies, into an ardent and loyal adherent who would prove his value to her

many times in the years ahead. She had a way with all men, and was gaining in

statecraft each day.

The taming of Lord Aqer and the discovery of the route across the bight had

secured our rear, and we could go on above the fourth cataract with high

spirits and brave heart.

WE HAD NOT TRAVELLED MORE THAN A month before we realized how our fortunes

had changed and how the goddess had made good her promise.

It was clearer each day that we had come through the worst. The desert was

behind us at last, and the broad, smooth flow of the river turned into the

south once more and carried us into a land such as none of us had seen

before.

It was here that for the first time many of our company witnessed the

miracle of rain. Although of course I had seen it in the Lower Kingdom, they

had never seen water fall from the sky. The rain beat down into our upturned

and astonished faces, while the thunder rolled across the heavens and the

lightning blinded us with its white fire.

These copious and regular rains engendered a new and exciting landscape,

the like of which we could only wonder at. On either bank of the Nile, as far

as we could see from the deck of the leading galley, stretched a broad

savannah grassland. This magnificent plain, rich with grazing for our horses,

set no boundaries to the range of our chariots. We could drive out at will,

with no dunes or rocky hills to block our progress.

This was not the only blessing that the goddess had bestowed. There were

trees. In the narrow valley that was bur home, there might once have been

forests, no man could tell. But they had fallen centuries before to the

appetite and axes of man. Wood was to us Egyptians a rare and treasured

commodity. Each stick of it had to be carried in by ship or on the back of

beasts of burden, from far and foreign lands.

Now, wherever we looked, we saw great trees. They grew, not in the same

dense forests that we had found on the islands in the cataracts, but in lofty

groves with broad grassy spaces between the majestic trunks. There was timber

enough upon these plains to rebuild all the fleets of all the nations on all

the seas of the worlds. More than that, there was enough to rebuild the

cities of all the civilized world, and to roof and furnish every room in

them. After that there would still be enough left over to burn as fuel over

the centuries to come. We who all our lives had cooked our food on bricks

made from the dung of our animals, stared around us in wonder.

This was not the only treasure that we found for our taking in this

legendary land of Cush that we had reached at last.

I saw them first in the distance and thought that they were monuments of

grey granite. They stood upon the yellow grass plains and in the shade

beneath the spreading branches of the acacia groves. Then, as we watched in

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perplexity, these great rocks began to move.

’Elephants!’ I had never seen one before, but they could be nothing else.

The cry was taken up by those on the deck around me.

’Elephants! Ivory!’ These were riches that Pharaoh Ma-mose, with all his

funerary treasure, could not have dreamed of. Wherever we looked, the vast

herds stood.

’There are thousands of them.’ Tanus gazed around him, the passion of the

huntsman beginning to dawn in his eyes. ’Just look at them, Taita. There is

no end to their numbers.’

The plains were thronged with living creatures, not only the herds of

elephant. There were antelopes and gazelle, some of which we knew, and others

that we had never seen or heard of before. We would come to know all of them

well in the future, and find names for their abundant and diverse species.

Oryx mingled with herds of purple waterbuck whose horns curved like the bow

that I had built for Tanus. There were spotted giraffe with necks that

reached to the top branches of the acacia trees. The horns that grew from the

snouts of the rhinoceros were as tall as a man and as sharp as his spear. The

buffalo wallowed in the mud at the river’s edge. They were huge bovine

beasts, black as Seth’s beard, and every bit as ugly. We would soon learn the

malevolence behind that melancholy stare with which they regarded our

passing, and the menace of those drooping black horns.

’Unload the chariots from the holds,’ Tanus roared with impatience. ’Put

the horses into the traces. The hunt is on!’

If I had known the danger that we were riding into, I would never have

allowed Prince Memnon to mount the footplate behind me as we drove out on our

first elephant hunt. To us who knew no better, they appeared such docile

brutes, slow and clumsy and stupid. Surely they would be easy game.

Tanus was bristling with impatience to go out against this new quarry, and

he would not wait for all four divisions of our chariots to be reassembled.

As soon as the first division of fifty vehicles was ready, he gave the order

to mount up. We shouted challenges to the other drivers, and made our wagers

on the outcome of the hunt as the long columns of chariots rolled out through

the groves along the river-bank.

’Let me drive, Tata,’ the prince demanded. ’You know I drive as well as you

do.’ Although he was a natural horseman with gentle hands and an instinctive

way with his team, and he practised the art almost every day, the prince’s

boast was unfounded. He certainly was not as good a charioteer as I was, no

man in the army could make that claim, certainly not a scamp of eleven years.

’Watch me and learn,’ I told him sternly, and when Memnon turned to Tanus,

he supported me for once.

’Taita is right. This is something none of us has done before. Keep your

mouth closed and your eyes open, boy.’

Ahead of us a small herd of these strange grey beasts were feasting on the

seed-pods that had fallen from the top branches of the trees. I studied them

with avid curiosity as we approached at a trot. Their ears were enormous, and

they fanned them out and turned to face us. They lifted their trunks high,

and I guessed that they were taking up our scent. Had they ever smelled a man

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or a horse before, I wondered.

There were small calves with them, and the mothers gathered them into the

centre of the herd and stood guard over them. I was touched to see this

maternal concern, and I had the first inkling then that these animals were

not as slow and stupid as they appeared to be. "These are all females,’ I

called over my shoulder to Tanus on the footplate. ’They have young at heel,

and their ivory is small and of little value.’

’You are right.’ Tanus pointed over my shoulder. ’But look beyond them.

Those two must surely be bulls. See how tall they stand and how massive is

their girth. Look how their tusks shine in the sun.’

I gave the signal to the chariots that followed us, and we veered away from

the breeding herd of cows and calves. We ran on, still in column, through the

acacia grove towards those two great bulls. As we drove forward, we were

forced to swerve around the branches that had been torn from the trees, and

to dodge the trunks of giant acacia that had been uprooted. As yet we knew

nothing of the unbelievable strength of these creatures, and I called back to

Tanus, ’There must have been a great storm through this forest to wreak such

destruction.’ It did not even occur to me then that the elephant herds were

responsible; they seemed so mild and defenceless.

The two old bulls we had selected had sensed our approach and turned to

face us. It was only then that I realized the true size of them. When they

spread their ears they seemed to block out the sky, like a dark grey

thundercloud.

’Just look at that ivory!’ Tanus shouted. He was unperturbed, and concerned

only with the trophy of the chase, but the horses were nervous and skittish.

They had picked up the scent of this strange quarry, and they threw their

heads up and crabbed in the traces. It was hard to control them and keep them

running straight.

"That one on the right is the biggest,’ squeaked Memnon.

’We should take him first.’ The pup was every bit as keen as his sire.

’You heard the royal command,’ Tanus laughed. ’We will take the one on the

right. Let Kratas have the other, it’s good enough for him.’

So I raised my fist and gave the hand-command that split the column into

two files. Kratas wheeled away on our left with twenty-five chariots

following him in line astern, while we ran on straight at the huge grey beast

that confronted us with the yellow shafts of ivory, thick as the columns of

the temple of Horus, standing out from his vast grey head.

’Go hard at him!’ Tanus shouted. ’Take him before he turns to run.’

’Hi up!’ I called to Patience and Blade, and they opened up into a gallop.

We both expected the huge animal to run from us as soon as he realized that

we menaced him. No other game we had ever hunted had stood to receive our

first charge. Even the lion runs from the hunter until he is wounded or

cornered. How could these obese animals behave differently?

’His head is so big, it will make a fine target,’ Tanus exulted, as he

nocked an arrow. ’I will kill him with a single shaft, before he can escape.

Run in close under that long, ridiculous nose of his.’

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Behind us the rest of our column was strung out in single file. Our plan

was to come in and split on each side of the bull, firing our arrows into him

as we passed, then wheeling around and coming back in classic chariot

tactics.

We were right on the bull now, but still he stood his ground. Perhaps these

animals were every bit as dull-witted as they looked. This would be an easy

kill, and I sensed Tanus’ disappointment at the prospect of such poor sport.

’Come on, you old fool!’ he shouted contemptuously. ’Don’t just stand

there. Defend yourself!’

It was as though the bull heard and understood the challenge. . He threw up

his trunk and loosed a blast of sound that stunned and deafened us. The

horses shied wildly, so that I was thrown against the dashboard with a force

that bruised my ribs. For a moment I lost control of the team, and we swerved

away.

Then the bull squealed again, and he ran.

’By Horus, look at him come!’ Tanus roared with astonishment, for the beast

was not running from us, but directly at us, in a furious charge. He was

swifter than any horse, and nimble as an angry leopard set upon by the

hounds. He kicked up bursts of dust with each long flying stride, and was on

us before I could get the horses under control again.

I looked up at him, for he towered directly over us, reaching out with his

trunk to pluck us from the cockpit of the chariot, and I could not believe

the size of him, nor the fury in those eyes. They were not the eyes of an

animal, but those of an intelligent and alert human being. This was no

porcine sloth, but a courageous and terrible adversary that we had challenged

in our arrogance and ignorance.

Tanus got off a single arrow. It struck the bull in the centre of his

forehead, and I expected to see him collapse as the bronze point pierced the

brain. We did not know then that the brain of the elephant is not situated

where you would expect it to be, but is far back in the mountainous skull and

protected by a mass of spongy bone that no arrow can penetrate.

The bull did not even check or swerve. He merely reached up with his trunk

and -gripped the shaft of the arrow with the tip, as a man might do with his

hand. He pulled the shaft from his own flesh and threw it aside and came on

after us, reaching out towards us with the blood-smeared trunk.

Hui in the second chariot of our line saved us, for we were defenceless

against the old bull’s fury. Hui came in from the side, lashing his horses

and yelling like a demon. His archer from the footplate behind him fired an

arrow into the bull’s cheek a hand’s-span below the eye, and that pulled his

attention from us.

The elephant wheeled to chase after Hui, but he was at full gallop and

raced clean away. The next chariot in line was not so fortunate. The driver

lacked Hui’s skill, and his turn away was inept. The bull lifted his trunk

high and then swung it down like an executioner’s axe.

He struck the near-side horse across the back, just behind the withers, and

broke its spine so cleanly that I heard the vertebrae shatter like a brittle

potsherd. The maimed horse went down and dragged its teammate down with it.

The chariot rolled over and the men were hurled from it. The elephant placed

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one forefoot on the body of the fallen charioteer and, with its trunk,

plucked off his head and tossed it aloft like a child’s ball. It spun in the

air spraying a bright feather of pink blood from the severed neck.

Then the next chariot in line tore in, distracting the bull from his

victim.

I pulled up my horses at the edge of the grove, and we stared back aghast

at the carnage of our shattered squadron. There were broken chariots

scattered across the field, for Kratas out on the left had fared no better

than we had.

The two great bull elephants bristled with arrow-shafts, and the blood

streamed down their bodies, leaving wet streaks on their dusty grey hide.

However, the wounds had not weakened them, but seemed only to have aggravated

their fury. They rampaged through the grove, smashing up the capsized

chariots, stamping the carcasses of the horses under those massive padded

feet, throwing the bodies of screaming men high in the air and trampling them

as they fell back to earth.

Kratas raced up alongside us, and shouted across at us, ’By the itching

crabs in Seth’s crotch, this is hot work! We have lost eight chariots in the

first charge.’

’Better sport than you expected, Captain Kratas,’ Prince Memnon yelled back

at him. He would have done better to keep his opinion to himself, for up

until that moment we had forgotten about the boy in the confusion. Now,

however, both Tanus and I rounded on him together.

’As for you, my lad, you have had enough sport for one day,’ I told him

firmly.

’It’s back to the fleet with you, and that right swiftly,’ agreed Tanus,

and at that moment an empty chariot cantered by. I do not know what had

happened to the crew, they had probably been thrown from the cockpit or been

plucked out of it bodily by one of the infuriated beasts.

’Catch those horses!’ Tanus ordered, and when the empty chariot was brought

back to us, he told the prince, ’Out you get. Take that chariot back to the

beach and wait there for our return.’

’My Lord Tanus,’ Prince Memnon drew himself to his full height, reaching as

high as his father’s shoulder, ’I protest?’

’None of your royal airs with me, young man. Go back and protest to your

mother, if you must.’ He lifted the prince with one hand and dropped him into

the vacant cockpit of the other vehicle.

’Lord Tanus, it is my right?’ Memnon made one last despairing attempt to

remain in the hunt.

’And it is my right to wrap the scabbard of my sword around your royal

backside, if you are still here when I look around again,’ said Tanus, and

turned his back on him. Both of us put the boy out of our minds.

’Gathering ivory is not quite as easy as picking up mushrooms,’ I remarked.

’We will have to think up a better plan than this.’

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’You cannot kill these creatures by shooting them in the head,’ Tanus

growled. ’We will go in again and try an arrow through the ribs. If they have

no brain in their skull, then surely they have lungs and a heart.’

I gathered up the reins, and lifted the heads of the team, but I could feel

that Patience and Blade were as nervous as I was at the prospect of returning

to the field. None of us had enjoyed our first taste of elephant hunting.

Til go at him head-on,’ I told Tanus, ’and then turn out to give you a

broadside shot into his ribs.’

I put the horses into a trot, and then gradually pushed up their speed as

we entered the acacia grove. Dead ahead of us our bull rampaged over the

ground that was littered with the wreckage of overturned chariots and the

bodies of dead men and broken horses. He saw us coming and let out another of

those terrible squeals that chilled my blood, and the horses flicked their

ears and shied again. I gathered them up with the reins and drove them on.

The bull charged to meet us, like a landslide of rock down a steep

hillside. He was a terrible sight in his rage and his agony, but I held my

team steady, not yet pushing them to the top of their speed. Then, as we came

together, I lashed them up and yelled them into a full, mad gallop. At the

same moment I swung out hard left, opening the bull’s flank.

At a range of less than twenty paces, Tanus fired three arrows in quick

succession into his chest. All of them went in behind the shoulder, finding

the gaps between the ribs, and burying themselves full-length in the seared

grey skin.

The bull squealed again, but this time in mortal agony. Though he reached

out for us, we raced clear of the stretch of his trunk. I looked back and saw

him standing in our dust, but when he bellowed again, the blood spurted from

the end of his trunk, like steam from a kettle.

"The lungs,’ I shouted. ’Good work, Tanus. You have hit him through the

lungs.’

’We have found the trick of it now,’ Tanus exulted. ’Take us back. I will

give him another one through the heart.’

I wheeled about and the horses were still strong and willing.

’Gome on, my beauties,’ I called to them. ’One more time. Hi up!’

Though he was mortally struck, the old bull was still far from death. I

would learn just how tenacious of life these magnificent beasts were, but now

he charged to meet us once again with a courage and splendour that filled me

with reverence. Even in the heat of the hunt and terror for my own safety, I

felt shame at the torture we were inflicting on him.

Perhaps it was because of this that I let the horses go in very close. Out

of respect for him, I wanted to match his courage with my own. When it was

almost too late, I swung my horses out of the charge, meaning to pass him

just out of reach of that wicked trunk.

Just then the off-side wheel of the chariot burst under us. There was that

giddy moment as I somersaulted through the air like an acrobat, but this was

not the first time I had been thrown, and I had learned to fall like a cat. I

rode the shock and let myself roll twice. The earth was soft and the grass as

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thick as a mattress. I came up on my feet unhurt and with my wits still all

about me. I saw at a glance that Tanus had not come through as well as I had.

He was sprawled flat out and unmoving.

The horses were up, but anchored by the dead weight of the broken chariot.

The bull elephant attacked them. Blade was nearest to him and he broke my

darling mare’s back with a single blow of the trunk. Blade went down on her

knees screaming, and Patience was still linked to her. The bull thrust one

thick tusk through Blade’s chest and jerked his head up, lifting the kicking

and struggling animal high in the air.

I should have run then, while the bull was so distracted, but Patience was

still unhurt. I could not leave her. The elephant was turned half-away from

me, his own ears, spread like a ship’s sail, blanketed me from his view, and

he did not see me run in. I snatched Tanus’ sword from the scabbard on the

rack of the capsized chariot, and darted to Patience’s side.

Although the great bull was dragging her along by the leather harness that

attached her to Blade, and although the blood from the other horse splashed

over her neck and shoulders, she was still unhurt. Of course, she was wild

with terror, squealing and kicking out with both back legs, so that she

almost cracked my skull as I darted up behind her. I ducked as her hooves

flew past my head and grazed my cheek.

I hacked at the rawhide tackle that pinned her to the drive-shaft of the

chariot. The sword was sharp enough to shave the hair from my head, and the

leather split under that bright edge. Three hard strokes, and Patience was

free to run. I snatched at her mane- to pull myself up on to her back, but

she was so terror-struck that she bounded away before I could find a grip.

Her shoulder crashed into me and sent me spinning away. I was thrown heavily

to the ground, under the side of the wrecked chariot.

I struggled up to see Patience dashing off through the grove; she ran with

a free and light stride, so I knew she was unhurt. I looked for Tanus next.

He lay ten paces away from the chariot, face down against the earth, and I

thought he was dead, but at that moment he raised his head and looked around

at me with a bewildered and groggy expression. I knew that any sudden

movement might draw the bull elephant’s attention to him, and I willed him to

lie still. I dared not utter a sound, for the enraged animal was still

standing over me.

I looked up at the bull. Poor Blade was impaled upon his tusk, and the

rawhide traces were entangled with his trunk. The bull started to move off,

dragging the battered chariot with him. He was attempting to dislodge the

weight of Blade’s dangling carcass from his tusk. The point of the tusk had

ripped open the horse’s belly, and the stink of the stomach contents mingled

with the reek of blood and the elephant’s peculiar rank and gamey odour.

Stronger than all that, the stench of the sweat of my own fear filled my

nostrils.

I made sure that the bull’s head was still turned away from me, before I

pushed myself up and ran doubted-over to where Tanus lay. ’Up! Get up!’ I

croaked in a hoarse whisper, and I tried to lift him to his feet, but he was

a heavy man and still only half-conscious. Desperately I looked back at the

bull. He was moving away from us, still dragging the whole tangle of broken

equipment and the dead horse with him.

I draped Tanus’ arm around my neck and put my shoulder into his armpit.

With all my strength I managed to lever him to his feet, and he hung against

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me unsteadily. I swayed under his weight. ’Brace up!’ I whispered urgently.

’The bull will spot us at any moment.’

I tried to drag Tanus along with me, but he took only one pace before he

gave a groan and fell back against me. ’My |:, leg,’ he grunted. ’Can’t

move. Knee gone. Twisted the | cursed thing.’

The full realization of our predicament struck me then, as I it had not

before. My old sin of cowardice overwhelmed me once more, and the strength

went out of my own legs.

’Get out of it, you old fool,’ Tanus grated in my ear. ’Leave me. Run for

it!’

The elephant lifted his head and shook it in the same way that a dog shakes

the water from its ears after it has swum back to the shore. Those vast

leathery ears slapped and rat-| tied against his own shoulders, and Blade’s

crushed carcass slid off the tusk and was hurled aside as if it were no

heavier I than a dead rabbit. The strength of the elephant bull was I past

all belief. If he could toss the weight of horse and | chariot so easily,

what might he do with my own frail body? ’Run, for the love of Horus, run,

you fool!’ Tanus urged |. me, and tried to push me away, but some strange

obstinacy prevented me from leaving him, and I hung on to his shoul-| der.

Afraid as I was, I could not leave him.

The bull had heard the sound of Tanus’ voice and he swung around with those

ears flaring wide open like the mainsail of a fighting galley. He stared full

at us, and we were less than fifty paces from him.

I did not know then, as I would learn later, that the eyesight of the

elephant is so poor that he is almost blind. He relies almost entirely on his

hearing and his sense of smell. Only movement attracts him, and if we had

stood still he would not have seen us.

’He has seen us,’ I gasped, and I dragged Tanus with me, forcing him to hop

on his good leg beside me. The bull saw the movement and he squealed. I shall

never forget that sound. It deafened and stunned me, sending us both reeling

so that we staggered together and almost fell.

Then the bull charged straight at us.

He came with long, driving strides, and his ears flapped about his head.

Arrows bristled from the great weathered forehead, and blood streamed down

his face like tears. Each time he squealed, the lung blood spurted in a cloud

from his trunk. As tall as a cliff, and as black as death, he came at us in

full charge. I could see every seam and crease in the folded skin around his

eyes. The lashes of his eyes were thick as those of a beautiful girl, but

such a glare of rage shone through them that my heart turned to a stone in my

chest, and weighed down my legs so I could not move.

The passage of time seemed to slow down, and I was overcome with a sense of

dreamlike unreality. I stood and watched death bear down upon us with a slow

and stately deliberation, and could make no move to avoid it.

’Tata!’ A child’s voice rang in my head, and I knew that it was a delusion

of my terror. ’Tata, I am coming!’

In total disbelief I swung my head away from the vision of death before me.

Across the open ground of the grove a chariot was tearing towards us at full

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gallop. The horses were stretched out and their heads were going like the

hammers on a coppersmith’s anvil. Their ears were laid back, and their

nostrils flared wide open, pink and wet. I could see no driver at the reins.

’Get ready, Tata!’ Only then did I see the neat little head, barely showing

above the dashboard. The reins were gripped in two small fists, the knuckles

white with tension.

’Mem,’ I cried, ’go back! Turn back!’

The wind blew his hair out in a cloud behind his head, and the sunlight

struck ruby sparks from the thick dark curls. He came on without a pause or

check.

’I’ll thrash the little ruffian for disobeying me,’ growled Tanus, as he

teetered on one leg. We had both of us forgotten our own danger.

’Whoa!’ Memnon cried, and brought the team down from a full gallop. He

wheeled the carriage into such a sharp turn that the inside wheel stopped

dead and swivelled on its rim. He had cut in front of the two of us,

shielding us for an instant from the charging bull, and as the chariot spun

about there was a moment when it was standing still. It was beautifully done.

I heaved my shoulder up under Tanus’ armpit and threw him sprawling on the

footplate. The very next instant I hurled myself headlong on top of him. As I

landed, Memnon gave the horses their heads, and we bounded forward so sharply

that I was almost jerked backwards off the platform, but I grabbed at the

side-panel and steadied myself.

’Go, Mem,’ I screamed, ’for all you’re worth!’

’Hi-up!’ Memnon screamed. ’Yah hah!’ The chariot careered away with the

frightened horses driven to full flight by the enraged squeals of the

charging bull close behind.

All three of us stared back over the tail-board. The head of the bull hung

over us, seeming to fill all my vision. The trunk reached out for us, so

close that each time the bull squealed, the bloody cloud sprayed over us and

speckled our upturned faces, so that we looked like the victims of some

horrible plague.

We could not draw clear of his rush, and he was unable to overtake us.

Matched in speed, we went racing through the glade with the great bloody head

hanging over us as we cowered on the floorboards of the bouncing chariot. It

needed only one small mistake from our driver to send us into a hole or rip

our wheels off against a stump of a fallen tree, and the bull would have been

upon us in an instant. But the prince handled the traces like a veteran,

picking his route through the grove with a cool hand and practised eye. He

sent the chariot careening through the turns on one wheel, within an ace of

capsizing, holding off the bull’s mad charge. He never faltered once, and

then suddenly it was all over.

One of the arrows buried in the bull’s chest had worked itself in deeper

and sliced open the heart. The elephant opened his mouth wide, and a flood of

bright blood shot up his throat and he died in his tracks. His legs went out

from under him and he came down with a crash that jarred the earth under us,

and lay upon his side with one long curved tusk thrust up in the air as if in

a last defiant and regal gesture.

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Memnon pulled in the horses, and Tanus and I stumbled down out of the

carriage and stood together staring back at that mountainous carcass. Tanus

clung to the side of the chariot to favour his damaged leg, and slowly turned

back to look at the boy who did not know he was his father.

’By Horus, I have known some brave men in my time, but none of them better

than you, lad,’ he said simply, and then he lifted Memnon in his arms and

hugged him to his chest.

I did not see much more of it, for those everlasting and tedious tears of

mine blotted out my vision. Even though I knew myself for a sentimental fool,

I could not staunch them. I had waited too long to see this happen, to watch

the father embrace his son.v -.

I only managed to regain control of my errant emotions when I heard the

faint sound of distant cheers. What none of us had realized was that the

chase had taken place in full view of the fleet. The Breath of Horus lay

close in against the bank of the Nile, and I could see the slim figure of the

queen upon the high poop. Even at this distance her face looked pale and her

expression set.

THE GOLD OF VALOUR IS THE WARRIOR’S prize, higher in honour and in esteem

than the Gold of Praise. It is only ever worn by heroes.

We gathered on the deck of the galley, those closest to the queen and the

commanders of all the divisions of her army. Stacked against the mast, the

tusks of the elephants were on display like the spoils of war, and the

officers wore all their regimental finery. The standard-bearers stood to

attention behind the throne, and the trumpeters blew a fanfare as the prince

knelt before the queen.

’My beloved subjects!’ the queen spoke out clearly. ’Noble officers of my

council, generals and officers of my army, I commend to you the crown prince,

Memnon, who has found favour in my sight and in the sight of you all.’ She

smiled down on the eleven-year-old boy who was being treated like a

victorious general.

’For his courageous conduct in the field, I command that he be received

into the regiment of the Blue Crocodile Guards, with the rank of subaltern of

the second class, and I bestow upon him the Gold of Valour, that he may wear

it with pride and distinction.’

The chain had been especially forged by the royal goldsmiths to fit the

neck of a boy of Memnon’s age, but with my own hands I had sculpted the tiny

golden elephant that was suspended from the chain. It was perfect in every

detail, a miniature masterpiece with garnet chips for eyes and real ivory

tusks. It looked well as it hung against the smooth, unblemished skin of the

prince’s chest.

I felt my tears coming on again as the men cheered mv beautiful prince, but

I fought them back with an effort." I was not the only one who was wallowing

in sentiment like a wart-hog in a mud bath; even Kratas and Remrem and Astes,

for all their hardbitten and cavalier attitudes which they usually cultivated

so assiduously, were grinning like idiots, and I swear I saw more than one

pair of wet eyes in their ranks. In the same way as his parents, the boy had

a way with the affections and loyalties of men. Every officer of the Blues

came forward at the end to salute the prince and embrace him gravely as a

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comrade-in-arms.

That evening, as we drove together along the bank of the Nile in the

sunset, Memnon suddenly reined in the horses and turned to me. ’I have been

called to my regiment. I am a soldier at last, so you must make me my own bow

now, Tata.’

’I will make you the finest bow that any archer has ever drawn,’ I

promised.

He considered me gravely for a while, and then he sighed, ’Thank you, Tata.

I think this is the happiest day of all my life.’ The way he said it made

eleven years seem like hoary old age.

The next day after the fleet had moored for the night, I went to look for

the prince and found him alone upon the bank in a spot that was hidden from

casual observation. He had not seen me, so I could observe him for a while.

He was stark naked. Despite my warnings about currents and crocodiles, it

was obvious that he had been swimming in the river, for his hair was sopping

wet upon his shoulders. However, I was puzzled by his behaviour, for he had

selected two large round stones from the beach and was holding one of these

in each hand, raising and lowering them in some strange ritual.

’Tata, you are spying on me,’ he said suddenly, without turning his head.

’Do you want something from me?’

’I want to know what you are doing with those stones. Are you worshipping

some strange new Cushite god?’

’I am making my arms strong so that I can draw my new bow. I want it to

have a full draw-weight. You are not to fob me off with another toy, Tata, do

you hear?’

THERE WAS ONE MORE CATARACT across the river, the fifth and what would

later prove to be the penultimate that we would encounter upon our voyage.

However, this was not the same barrier to our progress that the other four

had been. With the change in the surrounding terrain, we were no longer

restricted to the course of the river.

While we waited for the Nile to rise again, we planted our crops as usual,

but we were able to send out our chariots to range far and wide across the

savannah. My mistress despatched expeditions southwards to pursue the

elephant herds and bring back the ivory.

Those vast herds of the magnificent grey beasts that had greeted us so

trustingly when first we had sailed into Cush, were now flown and scattered.

We had hunted them ruthlessly wherever we found them, but these sage

creatures learned their lesson well and right swiftly.

When we arrived at the fifth cataract, we found the herds grazing in the

groves on either bank. The elephant were in their thousands, and Tanus

ordered the chariots into action immediately. We had refined our tactics of

hunting them and we had learned how to avoid the losses that those first two

bulls had inflicted upon us. At the fifth cataract, on the very first day, we

killed one hundred and seven elephant, for the loss of only three chariots.

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The following day there was not a single elephant in sight from the decks

of the ships. Although the chariots pursued the herds, following the roads

they had left through the forest as they fled, it was five days before they

caught up with them again.

Very often now the hunting expeditions returned to our encampment below the

cataract after being out for many weeks on end without having found a single

elephant or gathered a single tusk. What had seemed to us at first to be an

endless supply of ivory had proved an illusion. As the L prince had remarked

on that very first day, elephant-hunting was not as simple as it first

seemed.

However, those chariots ranging southwards did not return entirely

empty-handed. They had found something even more valuable to us than ivory.

They had found men.

I had not left the encampment for several months for I had been involved in

the eternal experimentation with my chariot wheels. It was at this period

that I at last found the solutions to the problem which had plagued me from

the very beginning, and which had been such a source of amusement and

ridicule to Tanus and his military cronies?the occasional failure of some of

my designs.

In the end, it was not a single answer, but a combination of factors,

beginning with the material from which the spokes of the wheels were made. I

now had an almost unlimited selection of various types of wood to work with,

and ’ the horn of oryx and rhinoceros which we hunted close to our

settlement, and which, unlike the elephant herds, did not move away after

being harassed.

I found that soaking the red heartwood of the giraffe acacia rendered it so

hard that it would turn the edge of the sharpest bronze axe-head. I

compounded this wood with layers of horn and bound it all up together with

bronze wire, very much in the same fashion as I had done with the bowstock of

Lanata. The result was that at last I had a wheel that could be driven to the

utmost over any type of terrain without collapsing. When Hui and I had

completed the first ten chariots with these new wheels, I challenged Kratas

and Remrem, who were the most notoriously heavy-handed and destructive

drivers in all the army, to try to smash them up. The wager that we agreed on

was ten deben of gold a side.

This was a game much to the liking of those two overgrown children, and

they entered into the spirit of it with boyish gusto. For weeks thereafter,

their raucous cries and the sound of pounding hooves rang through the groves

on the banks of the Nile. By the time their limit was up, Hui came to me

complaining bitterly that they had worn out twenty teams of horses. However,

it was some consolation to him that we had won the wager. Our new wheels had

stood the most stringent test.

’If you had given us a few days more,’ Kratas groused as he handed over his

gold with a marked lack of sporting grace, ’I know I would have managed

another Tata.’ And he treated us to a pantomime which he thought amusing and

which was supposed to suggest a shattering wheel and a somersaulting driver.

’You are a gifted clown, brave Kratas, but I have your gold.’ I jingled it

under his nose. ’All you have is a tired old jest that has gone sour on you.’

It was then that the scouting expedition, led by Lord Aqer, that had gone

out to find elephant, came back with the news that instead they had found

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human habitation further to the south.

We had expected to come across the tribes as soon as we passed the first

cataract. For centuries the land of Cush had produced slaves. These had been

captured by their own people, probably in tribal warfare, and carried down

with other commodities of trade?ivory and ostrich feathers and rhinoceros

horn and gold dust?to the outposts of our empire. Queen Lostris’ saucy black

handmaidens were natives of this land and had come to her from the

slave-markets in Elephantine.

I still cannot explain why we had not found people before this. Perhaps

they had been driven back by wars and slave raids,’ in the same way as we had

scattered the elephant herds. They may have been wiped out by famine or

plague, it was impossible to say. Up until now we had found scant evidence of

human presence.

However, now that we had finally caught up with them, the excitement was an

epidemic in our company. We needed slaves more even than we needed ivory or

gold. Our whole civilization and way of life was based upon the system of

slave ownership, a system that was condoned by the gods and sanctified by

ancient usage. We had been able to bring very few of our own slaves with us

from Egypt, and now it was imperative for our survival and growth as a nation

that we capture more to replace those we had been forced to abandon.

Tanus ordered a full-scale expeditionary force to be sent out immediately.

He would lead it himself, for we were uncertain what we would find up-river.

Apart from those taken as prisoners of war, we Egyptians had always purchased

our slaves from foreign traders, and this was the first time in centuries, as

far as I knew, that we were forced to resort to catching our own. It was

sport as new to us as elephant-hunting, but at least this time we did not

expect our quarry to be either docile or dull-witted.

Tanus would still not ride with any other driver than me, and even Kratas’

and Remrem’s unsuccessful efforts to destroy them had not yet convinced him

of the virtue of my new chariots. We led the column, but the second chariot

in line was driven by the youngest subaltern of the Blues, the crown prince,

Memnon.

I had chosen the two very best charioteers to act as crew for Memnon. His

own weight was so light that the chariot could carry an extra man, and the

prince’s strength had not developed sufficiently for him to be able to lift

his end of the chariot when it was necessary to dismount and carry it over

the obstacles that could not be driven over. He needed that extra man to help

him.

The first villages we came across were on the river-bank, three days’

travel above the cataract. They were groups of miserable grass shelters too

rudimentary to be called huts. Tanus sent scouts forward to reconnoitre, and

then in the dawn we surrounded them with a single swift rush.

The people that stumbled out of these crude shelters were too dazed and

shocked to offer any resistance, or even attempt to run from us. They clung

together and chattered and gaped at the ring of chariots and shields that we

had thrown around them.

’A fine catch!’ Tanus was delighted as we looked them over. The men were

tall and lean, with long, slim limbs. They towered over most of the men in

our ranks; even Tanus seemed short in comparison as we walked amongst them,

sorting them into groups as a farmer might apportion his herds.

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’There are some really good specimens,’ he enthused. ’Look at that beauty.’

He had picked out a young man of exceptional physique. ’He would fetch ten

rings of gold on the slave-market at Elephantine on any day.’

Their women were strong and healthy. Their backs were straight and their

teeth were white and even. Every mature female carried an infant on her hip

and led another by the hand.

Yet they were the most primitive peoples I had ever encountered. Neither

men nor women wore a shred of clothing, and they left their pudenda

shamelessly bared, though the younger girls wtire. a single string of beads

made from the shells of ostrich eggs around their waist. I could see at once

that the mature women had all been circumcised in the most brutal fashion.

Later I learned that either a flint knife or a sliver of bamboo was used for

this operation. Their vaginas were scarred and deformed into open pits, and

then infibulated with slivers of bone or ivory. The younger girls had not yet

suffered this mutilation, and I determined that this custom would be outlawed

in the future. I was certain that I could rely on the support of my mistress

in this.

Their skins were so dark that their naked bodies appeared purple in the

early sunlight, the colour of an over-ripe black grape. Some of them had

smeared themselves with a paste of ashes and white clay, on which they had

daubed crude patterns with their fingertips. They had dressed their hair with

a mixture of ox-blood and clay into a tall, shiny helmet which exaggerated

their already impressive height.

One thing that struck me immediately was that there were no old people

among them. I learned later that it was their custom to break the legs of the

elderly with their war clubs and leave them on the bank of the river as a

sacrifice to the crocodiles. They believed that the crocodiles were

reincarnations of their dead ancestors, and that by feeding them, the victim

became a part of this process.

They had forged no metal artefacts. Their weapons were wooden clubs and

sharpened sticks. The potter’s art had eluded them and their vessels were the

gourds of wild plants. They planted no crops, but lived on the fish they

caught in basket-traps, and on the herds of stunted long-horned cattle ,

which were their most prized possessions. They bled them from a vein in the

neck and mixed the blood with milk warm from the udder, and drank the curdled

mess with the utmost relish.

When I studied them over the months that followed, I found that they could

neither read nor write. Their only musical instrument was a drum hollowed

from a tree-trunk, and their songs were the grunting and braying of wild

animals. Their dances were flagrant parodies of the sexual act in which ranks

of naked men and women approached each other, stamping and grinding their

hips until they met. When this happened, the imitation was transformed into

reality, and the most licentious debaucheries were enacted.

When Prince Memnon questioned me as to what right we had to capture these

people and take possession of them like cattle, I told him, ’They are

savages, and we are civilized people. As a father has a duty to his son, it

is our duty to lift them from their brutish state, and to show them the true

gods. Their part of the bargain is that they repay us with their labour.’

Memnon was a bright lad, and after I had explained it to him he never again

questioned the logic or the morality of it.

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At my suggestion, my mistress had allowed two of her black hand-maidens to

accompany the expedition. My personal relationship with these little hussies

had not been entirely untroubled, but now they rendered invaluable service.

Both these girls had childhood memories of the time before their capture, and

they retained a rudimentary knowledge of the language of these tribes of

Cush. This was just sufficient for us to begin the process of taming our

captives. As a musician, I have an ear tuned to the sounds of the human

voice; added to this, I have also a natural linguistic ability.

Within a very few weeks I was able to speak the language of the Shilluk,

which was what these people were called.

Their language was as primitive as their customs and their way of life.

Their entire vocabulary did not exceed five hundred words, which I recorded

on my scrolls and taught to the slave-masters and to the army instructors

whom Tanus appointed over the fresh-caught slaves. For among these people

Tanus had found his infantry regiments to complement the chariot divisions.

This first raid gave us no real warning of the true warlike nature of the

Shilluk. It had all gone too easily, and we were unprepared for what followed

when we swept down on the next straggle of villages. By this time the Shilluk

had been alerted, and they were ready to meet us.

They had driven away their cattle herds and hidden their women and

children. Naked and armed only with wooden clubs, they came in their hordes

against our chariots and recurved bows and swords, with a courage and

tenacity that surpassed belief.

’By the putrid wax in Seth’s ear-hole,’ Kratas swore with delight after we

had driven back another charge, ’every one of these black devils is a soldier

born.’

’Trained and armed with bronze, these Shilluk will stand out against any

other foot-soldiers in the world,’ Tanus agreed. ’Leave the bows on the

racks. I want as many of them as we can catch alive.’

In the end, Tanus ran them to exhaustion with the chariots, and only when

they fell to their knees with even their extraordinary stamina and reckless

courage totally expended, could the slave-masters put the ropes on them.

Tanus selected the best of them for his infantry regiments, and he learned

their language as readily as I did. The Shilluk soon looked upon him as a god

to replace their crocodiles, and Tanus came to love them almost as much as I

loved my horses. In the end it was no longer necessary to catch the Shilluk

like animals. These marvellously tall and willowy spearmen came out of their

hiding-places in the reeds and bushy gulleys of their own accord, to seek

Tanus out and to beg to be allowed to join his regiments.

Tamis armed them with long bronze-tipped spears and shields made from

elephant Viide, and he uniformed them in kilts of wild-cat tails and

head-dresses of ostrich feathers. His sergeants drilled them in all the

classic evolutions of war, and we learned swiftly to integrate these tactics

with those of the chariots.

Not all the Shilluk were selected for the army. The others proved to be

indefatigable oarsmen on the rowing-benches of the galleys, and dedicated

herdsmen and grooms, for they were born to tend their herds.

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We very soon learned that their hereditary enemies were the tribes that

lived further to the south, the Dinka and the Mandari. These other tribes

were even more primitive, and lacked the righting instincts of our Shilluk.

Nothing pleased Tanus’ new Shilluk regiments better than to be sent south

with their Egyptian officers and supported by the chariots against their

ancient foes. They rounded up the Dinka and Mandari in their thousands. We

used them for the heavy unskilled work. None of them came in willingly, as

some of our Shilluk had done.

ONCE WE HAD BROUGHT THE FLEET UP through the fifth cataract, the entire

land of Cush lay open to us. With our Shilluk now to guide us, the fleet

sailed on up-river, while our chariot divisions ranged widely along each

bank, and returned with more ivory and fresh levies of slaves. Soon we

reached a wide river-course that joined the main flow of the Nile from the

east. The flow of this river was restricted to a sullen trickle down its

shrunken pools. However, the Shilluk assured us that in its season this

river, which we named the Atbara, would become a raging torrent, and its

waters would augment the annual flood of the Nile. Queen Lostris despatched

an expedition of gold-seekers, with Shilluk guides, to follow the Atbara as

far as they were able. The fleet sailed on southwards, hunting and

slave-raiding along the way.

I worried to see it, and tried to prevent it, but so often these days

Prince Memnon’s chariot was at the head of one of these flying columns.

Naturally, he was supported by good men, I could at least see to that, but

there was constant hazard and danger out there in the African bush, and he

was still only a boy.

I felt he should spend more time with me and his scrolls studying on the

deck of the Breath of Horus, rather than disporting himself with the likes of

Kratas and Remrem. Those two hooligans had as little concern for the prince’s

safety as they had for their own. They egged him on with wagers and

challenges and extravagant praise for his more daring feats. He was soon as

much of a dare-devil as any of them, and when he returned from these forays,

he took great pleasure in horrifying me with accounts of his escapades.

When I protested to Tanus, he merely laughed. ’If he is to wear the double

crown one day, he must learn to spurn danger and lead men.’ My mistress

agreed with Tanus in the training of Memnon. I had to content myself with

making the most of what time I still had to be alone with my prince.

At least I had my two little princesses. They were a wonderful consolation.

Tehuti and Bakatha grew more enchanting each day, and I was their slave in

more than name alone. Because of our peculiar circumstances I was closer to

them than their true father could be. The first word that Bakatha ever said

was ’Tata’, and Tehuti refused to sleep unless I first told her a story. She

pined when I was obliged to leave the fleet on other business. I think that

this was the most happy period of my life. I felt that I was at the centre of

my family, and solid in the affections of all of them.

The fortunes of our nation were almost as bright as my own. Soon one of our

gold-seekers returned from the expedition up the Atbara river. He knelt

before Queen Lostris and laid a small leather bag at her feet. Then, at her

bidding, he opened the neck of the bag and poured from it a stream of

gleaming pebbles. Some of these were as small as grains of sand, and others

as large as the end of my thumb. All of them shone with that peculiar

radiance that cannot be mistaken.

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The goldsmiths were summoned and they worked with their furnaces and clay

crucibles, and finally declared these nuggets to be veritable gold of an

extraordinary purity. Tanus and I rode back up the Atbara to the site where

this gold had been discovered. I helped to plan the methods that were used to

mine the gravel-beds in the water-course of the river in which the gold had

been trapped.

We used thousands of Mandari and Dinka slaves to scoop out basketloads of

gravel and carry these up to the sluices that the masons had carved out of

the granite slopes in the hills above the river.

To take back to my mistress I sketched pictures of the long lines of naked

black slaves, their wet skins gleaming in the sunlight, toiling up the

hillside, each with a heavy basket balanced on his head. When we left the

miners hard at work and went back to rejoin the fleet, we carried with us

five hundred deben of newly smelted gold rings.

WE ENCOUNTERED YET ANOTHER CATARACT on our voyage southwards. This was the

sixth and final set of rapids, but this transit proved swifter and easier

than any of the others. Our chariots and wagons were able to detour around

the rapids, and so at last we reached the mystical confluence of two mighty

rivers that between them became the Nile we knew and loved so well.

’This is the place that Taita saw in his vision of the Mazes of Ammon-Ra.

Here Hapi lets her waters flow and mingle. This is the sacred site of the

goddess,’ Queen Lostris declared. ’We have completed our voyage. It is at

this place that the goddess will strengthen us for the return to Egypt. I

name it Qebui, the Place of the North Wind, for it is that wind which blew us

here.’

’It is a propitious place. Already the goddess has shown her favour by

providing us with slaves and gold,’ the great lords of the state council

agreed. ’We should voyage no further.’

’It remains only to find a site for the tomb of my husband, Pharaoh

Mamose,’ Queen Lostris decreed. ’Once the tomb is built and Pharaoh sealed in

it, then my vow will have been fulfilled and it will be time to return in

triumph to our very Egypt. Only once that has been done can we go up against

the Hyksos tyrant and drive him from our motherland.’

I think that I was one of the very few of all our company who was not happy

and relieved by this decision. The others were consumed by home-sickness and

weary of the long years of travel. I, on the other hand, had been stricken by

a malady even more pernicious, that of wanderlust. I wanted to see what lay

beyond the next bend of the river and over the crest of the next hill. I

wanted to go on and on, to the very end of the world. Therefore I was

delighted when my mistress chose me as the one to seek out the site of the

royal tomb, and ordered Prince Memnon to escort me on this expedition with

his squadron of chariots. Not only would I be able to indulge this new

appetite of mine for travel, but I would once more have the undiluted

pleasure of the prince’s company.

At fourteen years of age, Prince Memnon was placed in command of the

expedition. This was not exceptional. There have been pharaohs in our history

who commanded great armies in battle when they were no older. The prince took

his responsibilities on this his first independent command most seriously.

The chariots were made ready, and Memnon inspected each horse and vehicle

personally. We had two spare teams of horses for each chariot, so that these

could be changed and rested regularly.

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Then the two of us deliberated at great length and in even greater detail

as to which direction we should follow in our search for the ideal site for

the king’s tomb. This should be in some rugged and uninhabited area not

readily accessible to grave-robbers. There must be a cliff into which the

tomb with all the subsidiary passages could be cut.

There was no area that we had come upon since we had entered the land of

Cush that satisfied these requirements. We reviewed what we knew of the land

behind us and tried to divine what lay ahead. Where we stood now at Qebui,

the meeting-point of the two rivers, was the loveliest place we had visited

on all the long voyage.

It seemed that all the birds of the air had gathered here, from tiny

jewelled kingfishers to stately blue cranes, from whistling flocks of duck

that darkened the sun in their multitudes to plovers and lapwings that

scurried along the water’s edge, pausing only to ask the plaintive question,

’Pee-wit? Pee-wit?’ In the silvery acacia groves and out on the open

savannah, the herds of antelope grazed in their countless millions. It was

almost as though this seat of the goddess was sacred to all degrees of life.

The waters below the juncture of the rivers roiled with shoals of fish, while

in the sky above the white-headed fish eagles turned slow circles against the

startling blue of the African sky and uttered their weird, yelping chant.

Each of these twin rivers expressed a different character and mood, just as

two infants sprung from the same womb can vary in every detail of body and

mind. The right-hand branch was slow and yellow, greater in volume than the

other, but not so assertive. The eastern branch was a murky grey-blue, an

angry, overbearing flood that shoved its twin aside when they met, refusing

to mingle its waters, crowding the other against the bank and retaining its

own turbid character for many miles down-stream before sullenly allowing

itself to be absorbed by the gentler yellow stream.

’Which river must we follow, Tata?’ Memnon demanded, and I sent for the

Shilluk guides.

’The yellow river comes out of a vast and pestilent swamp that has no end.

No man can enter there. It is a place of crocodiles and hippopotamus and

stinging insects. It is a place of fever where a man might lose his way and

wander for ever,’ the Shilluk told us.

’What of the other river?’ we asked.

"The dark river comes out of the sky, down cliffs of stone that rise up

into the clouds. No man can climb the dreadful gorges.’

’We will follow the dark left-hand fork,’ the prince decided. ’In those

rocky places we will find a resting-place for my father.’

So we journeyed into the east until we saw the mountains rise on the

horizon. They formed a blue rampart so tall and formidable as to surpass

anything that we had ever seen or believed possible. Beside these great

mountains, the hills we had known in the Nile valley were like the scratching

of little birds in the sand-banks of the river. Each day as we journeyed

towards them they climbed higher into the heavens and dwarfed all the world

below.

’No man can go up there,’ Memnon marvelled. "That must be the abode of the

gods.’

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We watched the lightning play upon the mountains, flickering and flaring

inside the tumbling banks of cloud that blanketed the peaks from our view. We

listened to the thunder growling like a hunting lion amongst the gorges and

the sheer valleys, and we were awestruck.

We ventured no further than the foothills of this terrible range, and then

the cliffs and gorges barred our way and turned our chariots back. In these

foothills we found a hidden valley with vertical sides of stone. For twenty

days the prince and I explored this wild place, until at last we stood before

a black cliff-face and Memnon spoke quietly. ’This is where my father’s

earthly body will rest for all eternity.’ He stared up at the sheer stone

with a dreamy and mystical expression. ’It is as though I can hear his voice

speaking in my head. He will be happy here.’

So I surveyed this place and marked out the cliff, driving bronze pegs into

the cracks in the rock, setting out the direction and the angle of the

entrance passage for the masons who would come to begin this work. When this

was done, we extricated ourselves, from the maze of valleys and snarling

gorges, and returned down the Nile to the meeting-place of the rivers, where

our fleet lay.

WE WERE CAMPED ON THE GREAT PLAINS only a few days’ travel from Qebui when

I was awakened in the night by the eerie grunting cries and the sound of a

moving mass of animals that seemed to come from the darkness all around us.

Memnon ordered the trumpeter to blow the call to arms, and we stood to,

within the circle of chariots. We threw wood on the watch-fires and stared

out into the night. In the flicker of the flames we saw a dark flood, like

the spate of the Nile, streaming past us. The eerie honking cries and the

snorting sounds were almost deafening, and the press of animals in this

throng was so heavy that they bumped into the outer ring of chariots, and

some of the vehicles were thrown over on their sides. It was not possible to

rest in this uproar, and we stood to arms all the rest of that night. The

flood of living creatures never abated in all that time.

When dawn lit the scene, we were presented with the most extraordinary

spectacle. In every direction as far as the eye could see, the plains were

covered with a carpet of moving animals. They were all travelling in the same

direction, trudging onwards with a strange fatalistic determination, heads

hanging, shrouded in the dust of their own passage, uttering those weird,

mournful cries. Every so often, some section of this endless herd took

fright, for no reason, and tossed up their heels. They cavorted and snorted

and chased each other in aimless circles, like whirlpools in the surface of a

smoothly flowing river. Then they would settle back into the same plodding

gait and follow the swarms ahead of them into the hazy distance.

We stood and stared in amazement. Every animal in this vast concourse was

of the same species, and each individual was identical in every respect to

the next. They were all of a dark purplish hue, with a shaggy-maned dewlap

and horns shaped like the crescent moon. Their heads were misshapen, with

ugly bulbous noses, while their bodies sloped back from high shoulders to

spindly hindquarters.

When at last we harnessed the chariots and resumed our own journey, we

passed through this living sea of animals like a fleet of galleys. They

opened to allow us passage, streaming by on either hand so close that we

could reach out and touch them. They were completely unafraid, and stared at

us with dull, incurious eyes.

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When it was time for the midday meal, Memnon strung his bow and killed five

of these antelope with as many arrows. We skinned and butchered the carcasses

as their fellows streamed by us at arm’s-length. Despite the animals’ strange

appearance, their flesh, when grilled on the coals of an open fire, was as

good to eat as any wild game I had tasted.

’This is another gift from the gods,’ Memnon declared. ’As soon as we

rejoin the main army, we will send out an expedition to follow these herds.

We will be able to smoke enough meat to feed all our armies and our slaves

from now until these beasts come again next year.’

From our Shilluk guides we learned that this incredible migration was an

annual occurrence as the herds moved from one grazing-ground to another,

several hundred miles apart. The Shilluk called these beasts gnu, in

imitation of their strange honking cry. ’This will be a never-ending supply,

one that is replenished each year,’ I informed the prince.

None of us was then able to foresee the catastrophic events which would

flow from this visitation of the ungainly gnu. I might have been warned by

the manner in which they threw up their heads and snorted without reason, or

by the discharge of mucus from the nostrils of some of these beasts, that I

noticed as they streamed past us. However, I gave little thought to this

behaviour, and judged them to be mild and harmless creatures who could bring

us nothing but great benefit.

As soon as we reached the twin rivers, we reported the migration of gnu to

Queen Lostris, and she agreed with Prince Memnon’s suggestion. Assisted by

Kratas and Rem-rem, she put him in command of a column of two hundred

chariots, supported by wagons and several thousand Shilluk. She ordered him

to slaughter as many gnu as could be cut up and smoked for army rations.

I did not accompany the expedition, for the role of butcher’s assistant was

not to my fancy. However, we could soon see the smoke from the fires, on

which the meat was curing, darkening the horizon, and before many more days

had passed, the wagons started to return, each one loaded high with blackened

slabs of cured meat.

Exactly twenty days from our first encounter with the gnu herds, I was

sitting under a shady tree on the bank of the Nile, playing bao with my old

and dear friend Aton. As a small indulgence to myself and out of deference to

Aton, I had opened one of the precious jars of three-palm quality wine that

remained from the stock which I had brought from Egypt. Aton and I played and

haggled as old friends do, and sipped the wine with deep appreciation.

We had no means of knowing that catastrophe was rushing down upon us to

overwhelm us all. On the contrary, I had every reason to be pleased with

myself. The previous day I had completed the drawings and plans for the

building of Pharaoh’s tomb, in which I had incorporated several features to

deter and frustrate the depredations of any grave-robber. Queen Lostris had

approved these plans and appointed one of the master masons as the overseer.

She told me that I might requisition all the slaves and equipment that I

needed. My mistress was determined that she would not stint in making good

her vow to her dead husband. She would build him the finest tomb that my

genius could design.

I had just won the third successive board of bao from Aton and was pouring

another jar of the truly excellent wine, when I heard the beat of hooves and

looked up to see a horseman coming at full gallop from the direction of the

chariot lines. When he was still at a distance I recognized Hui. Very few

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others rode astride, and certainly not at such a headlong pace. As he raced

towards where we sat, I saw the expression on his face, and it alarmed me so

that I stood up abruptly enough to spill the wine and upset the bao board.

’Taita!’ he screamed at me from a hundred yards. ’The horses! Sweet Isis

have mercy on us! The horses!’

He reined down his mount, and I swung up behind him and seized him around

the waist. ’Don’t waste time talking,’ I shouted in his ear. ’Ride, fellow,

ride!’

I went to Patience first. Half the herd was down, but she was my first

love. The mare lay upon her side with her chest heaving. She was old now,

with grey hairs frosting her muzzle. I had not used her in the traces since

the day that Blade had been killed by the elephant bull. Although she no

longer pulled a chariot, she was the finest brood mare in all our herds. Her

foals all inherited her great heart and vivid .intelligence. She had just

weaned a beautiful little colt who stood near her now, watching her

anxiously.

I knelt beside her. ’What is it, my brave darling?’ I asked softly, and she

recognized my voice, and opened her eyes.

The lids were gummed with mucus. I was appalled by her condition. Her neck

and throat were swollen to almost twice their normal girth. A vile-smelling

stream of yellow pus streamed from her mouth and nostrils. The fever was

burning her up, so that I could feel the heat radiate from her, as though

from a campfire.

She tried to rise when I stroked her neck, but she was too weak. She fell

back, and her breath gurgled and wheezed in her throat. The thick, creamy pus

bubbled out of her nostrils, and I could hear that she was drowning in it.

Her throat was closing, so that she had to battle for each breath.

She was watching me with an almost human expression of trust and appeal. I

was overcome with a sense of helplessness. This affliction was beyond my

previous experience. I slipped the snowy-white linen shawl from my shoulder

and used it to mop the streaming pus from her nostrils. It was a pathetically

inadequate attempt, for as fast as I wiped it away, fresh trickles of the

stinking stuff poured from her.

’Taita!’ Hui called to me. ’Every one of our animals has been stricken by

this pestilence.’ Grateful for the distraction, I left Patience and went

through the rest of the herd. Half of them were down already, and those still

upright were mostly staggering or beginning to drool the thick yellow pus

from their mouths.

’What must we do?’ Hui and all the charioteers appealed to me. I was

burdened with their trust. They expected me alone to avert this terrible

disaster, and I knew that it was beyond my powers. I knew of no remedy, and

could not think of even the most drastic and unlikely treatment.

I stumbled back to where Patience lay, and wiped away the latest flood of

stinking discharge from her muzzle. I could see that she was sinking away

swiftly. Each breath she drew now was a terrible struggle. My grief weakened

me, and I knew that in my helplessness I would soon melt into tears and be of

no further use to any of them, neither horses nor men.

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Somebody knelt beside me, and I looked up to see that it was one of the

Shilluk grooms, a willing and likely fellow whom I had befriended and who now

looked upon me as his master. ’It is the sickness of the gnu,’ he told me in

his simple language. ’Many will die.’

I stared at him, as what he said began to make sense in my muddled mind. I

remembered the snorting, drooling herds of slate-coloured animals darkening

the plains with their numbers, and how we had thought it a gift of the

benevolent gods.

"This sickness kills our cattle when the gnu come. Those that live through

it are safe. They are never sick again.’

’What can we do to save them, Habani?’ I demanded, but he shook his head.

"There is nothing to be done.’

I was holding Patience’s head in my arms when she died. The breath choked

away in her throat and she shuddered and her legs stiffened and then relaxed.

I let out a low moan of grief and was on the very edge of the abyss of

despair, when I looked up and through my tears saw that Patience’s colt was

down, with the yellow slime bubbling up from his throat.

In that moment my despair was replaced with a burning anger. ’No!’ I

shouted. ’I will not let you die also.’

I ran to the foal’s side and shouted to Habani to bring leather buckets of

hot water. With a linen cloth I bathed the colt’s throat in an attempt to

reduce the swelling, but it had no effect. The pus still poured from his

nostrils, and the hot skin of his neck stretched out as the flesh ballooned

like a bladder filling with air.

’He is dying.’ Habani shook his head. ’Many will die.’

’I will not let it happen,’ I swore grimly, and sent Hui to the galley to

fetch my medicine chest.

By the time he returned, it was almost too late. The colt was in extremis.

His breath was choking out of him and I could feel his strength draining away

under my frantic hands. I felt for the ridged rings of his windpipe at the

juncture of his throat and his chest. With one shallow cut through the skin I

exposed the white sinewy pipe, and then I pressed the point of my scalpel

into it and pierced the tough sheath. Immediately air hissed through the

aperture and I saw the colt’s chest swell as his lungs inflated. He began to

breathe again to a steady and even rhythm, but I saw almost immediately that

the puncture-wound in his throat was closing again with blood and mucus.

In frantic haste I hacked a length of bamboo from the framework of the

nearest chariot, and I cut a hollow tube from the end of it and pushed this

into the wound. The bamboo tube held the wound open and the colt relaxed his

struggles as the air sucked and blew unimpeded through it.

’Hui!’ I yelled for him. ’I will show you how to save them.’

Before night fell, I had trained a hundred or more of the charioteers and

grooms to perform this crude but effective surgery, and we worked on through

the night by the wavering, uncertain light of the oil lamps.

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There were over thirteen thousand horses in the royal herds by this time.

We could not save them all, although we tried. We worked on, with the blood

from the severed throats caking black up to our elbows. When exhaustion

overcame us, we fell on a bale of hay and slept for an hour and then

staggered up and went back to work.

Some of the horses were not as badly affected by this pestilence, which I

had named the Yellow Strangler. They seemed to have an in-born resistance to

its ravages. The discharge from their nostrils was no more copious than I had

seen in the gnu herds, and many of these remained on their feet and threw off

the disease within days.

Many others died before we were able to open the windpipe, and even some of

those, on which we had successfully operated, died later from mortification

and complication of the wound which we had inflicted. Of course, many of our

horses were out on expeditions into the plains and beyond my help. Prince

Memnon lost two out of every three of his steeds and had to abandon his

chariots and return to the Qebui rivers on foot.

In the end we lost over half our horses, seven thousand dead, and those

that survived were so weakened and cast down that it was many months before

they were strong and fit enough to pull a chariot. Patience’s colt survived

and replaced his old dam in my affections. He took the right-hand trace in my

chariot, and was so strong and reliable that I -called him Rock.

’How has this pestilence affected our hopes of a swift return to Egypt?’ my

mistress asked me.

’It has set us back many years,’ I told her, and saw the pain in her eyes.

’We lost most of our best-trained old horses, those like Patience. We will

have to breed up the royal herds all over again, and train young horses to

take their places in the traces of the chariots.’

I waited for the annual migration of the gnu the following year with dread,

but when it came and their multitudes once more darkened the plains, Habani

was proved correct. Only a few of our horses developed the symptoms of the

Yellow Strangler, and these in a mild form that set them back for only a few

weeks before they were strong enough to work again.

What struck me as strange was that the foals born in the period after the

first infection of the Yellow Strangler, those who had never been exposed to

the actual disease, were as immune as their dams who had contracted a full

dose. It was as though the immunity had been transferred to them in the milk

that they sucked from their mother’s udder. I was certain that we would never

again have to experience the full force of the plague.

MY MAJOR DUTY NOW, LAID UPON ME BY my mistress, was the construction of

Pharaoh’s tomb in the mountains. I was obliged to spend much of my time in

that wild and forbidding place, and I became fascinated by those mountains

and all their moods.

Like a beautiful woman, the mountains were unpredictable, sometimes remote

and hidden in dense moving veils of clouds that were shot through with

lightning and riven with thunder. At other times they were lovely and

seductive, beckoning to me, challenging me to discover all their secrets and

experience all their dangerous delights.

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Although I had eight thousand slaves to prosecute the task, and the

unstinted assistance of all our finest craftsmen and artists, the work on the

tomb went slowly. I knew it would take many years to complete the elaborate

mausoleum which my mistress insisted we must build, and to decorate it in a

fashion fit for the Lord of the Two Kingdoms. In truth there was no point in

hurrying the work, for it would take as long to rebuild the royal horse herds

and train the Shilluk infantry regiments until they were a match for the

Hyksos squadrons against which they would one day be matched.

When I was not up in the mountains working at the tomb, I spent my time at

Qebui, where there were myriad different tasks and pleasures awaiting me.

These ranged from the education of my two little princesses to devising new

military tactics with Lord Tanus and the prince.

By this time it was clear that, whereas Memnon would one day command all

the chariot divisions, Tanus had never outgrown his first distrust of the

horse. He was a sailor and an infantryman to the bone, and as he grew older,

he was ever more conservative and traditional in his use of his new Shilluk

regiments.

The prince was growing into a dashing and innovative charioteer. Each day

he came to me with a dozen new ideas, some of them farfetched, but others

quite brilliant. We tried them all, even the ones that I knew were

impossible. He was sixteen years old when Queen Lostris promoted him to the

rank of Best of Ten Thousand.

Now that Tanus rode with me so seldom, I slowly took over the role of

Memnon’s principal driver. We developed a rapport which became almost

instinctive, and which extended to our favourite team of horses, Rock and

Chain. When we were on the march, Memnon still liked to drive, and I stood on

the footplate behind him. However, as soon as we engaged in action, he would

toss me the reins and seize his bow or his javelins from the rack. I would

take the chariot into the fray and steer it through the evolutions we had

dreamed up together.

As Memnon matured and his strength increased, we began to win some of the

prizes at the games and the military tattoos that were a feature of our lives

at Qebui. First, we triumphed in the flat races where our team of Rock and

Chain could display its paces to the full; then we began to win the shooting

and javelin contests. Soon we were known as the chariot that had to be beaten

before anyone could claim the champion’s ribbon from Queen Lostris.

I remember the cheers as our chariot flew through the final gate of the

course, myself at the traces and Memnon on the footplate hurling a javelin

right and left into the two straw-filled dummies as we passed, then the mad

dash down the straight, with the prince howling like a demon and the long

wind-blown plait of his hair standing out behind his head, like the tail of a

charging lion.

Soon there were other encounters in which the prince began to distinguish

himself, and those without any assistance from me. ’Whenever he strode past

the young girls, with the Gold of Valour gleaming on his chest and the

champion’s ribbon knotted into his plait, they giggled and blushed and

slanted their eyes in his direction. Once I entered his tent in haste with

some important news for him, only to come up short as I found my prince well

mounted and oblivious to all but the tender young body and the pretty face

beneath him. I withdrew silently, a little saddened that the age of his

innocence was past.

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Of all these pleasures, none for me could compare with those precious hours

that I was still able to spend with my mistress. In this her thirty-third

year she was in the very high summer of her beauty. Her allure was enhanced

by her sophistication and her poise. She had become a queen indeed, and a

woman without peer.

All her people loved her, but none of them as much as I did. Not even Tanus

was able to surpass me in my devotion to her. It was my pride that she still

needed me so much, and relied upon me and my judgement and my advice so

trustingly. Notwithstanding the other blessings that I had to adorn my

existence, she would ever be the one great love of my life.

I SHOULD HAVE BEEN CONTENTED AND replete, but there is a restlessness in my

nature that was exacerbated by this new wanderlust that had come to plague

me. Whenever I paused from my labours at Pharaoh’s tomb, and looked up at

them, the mountains beckoned me. I began to make short excursions into their

lonely gorges, often alone but sometimes with Hui or some other companion.

Hui was with me when I first saw the herds of wild ibex high above us in

the lofty crags of the mountain. They were of a species we had never seen

before. They stood twice as tall as the wild goats that we knew from the Nile

valley, and some of the old billy-goats carried such a mass of curling horn

that they seemed as monstrous as some fabulous beast.

It was Hui who carried reports of these huge ibex back to the twin rivers

where the fleet lay at Qebui, and within the month, Lord Tanus arrived at the

valley of the king’s tomb, with his bow over his shoulder and Prince Memnon

at his side. The prince was fast becoming as ardent a huntsman as his father,

and was every bit as eager for the chase. As for myself, I welcomed the

chance to explore those fascinating highlands in such company.

We had meant to venture only as far as the first line of peaks, but when we

climbed to their crest, we were presented with a vista that was breathtaking.

We saw other mountains against the sky that were shaped like flat-topped

anvils, and were the tawny colour of lions. They dwarfed the peaks on which

we stood and lured us onwards.

The Nile climbed in concert with us up through precipitous valleys and dark

gorges that churned its waters to gleaming white. We could not always follow

its course, but in places were forced to climb above it and follow giddy

goat-tracks across the face of a frowning mountain.

Then, when we had been lured deep into its maw, the mountain loosed its

full fury upon us.

We were one hundred men in our company, with ten pack-horses to carry our

provisions. We were camped in the depths of one of these fathomless gorges,

with the fresh trophies of Tanus’ and Memnon’s latest hunt laid out upon the

rocky floor for our appraisal and admiration. These were two goat’s heads,

the largest we had seen in all our travels, so heavy in horn that it took two

slaves to lift one of them. Suddenly it began to rain.

In our Egyptian valley it may rain once in twenty years. None of us had

ever imagined anything even remotely like the rain that fell upon us now.

First, dense black clouds roofed over the narrow strip of sky that showed

between the cliffs that walled us in, so that we were plunged from sunny noon

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into deep twilight. A cold wind raced down the valley and chilled our bodies

and our spirits. We huddled together in dismay.

Then lightning lanced from the sombre belly of the clouds and shattered the

rocks around us, filling the air with the smell of sulphur and sparks struck

from flint. Thunder burst upon us, magnified as it rolled from cliff to

cliff, and the earth jumped and trembled beneath our feet.

Then the rain fell. It did not come down upon us in the form of drops. It

was as though we stood under one of the cataracts of the Nile when the river

was in full flood. There was no longer ah- to breathe, water filled our

mouths and our nostrils so that we felt that we were drowning. The rain was

so thick that we could see only the blurred outline of the man who stood an

arm’s-length away. It battered us so that we were thrown down and cringed

beneath the nearest rock for shelter. Still it assaulted all the senses and

stung our exposed skin like a swarm of angry hornets.

It was cold. I had never known such cold, and we were covered only with our

thin linen shawls. The cold sucked the force out of my limbs, and we shivered

until our teeth clattered together in our mouths, and we could not still them

even though we bit down with all the strength of our jaws.

Then, above the sound of the falling rain, I heard a new sound. It was the

sound of water which had become a ravening monster. Down the narrow valley

where we lay swept a wall of grey water. It stretched from cliff to cliff,

and carried everything before it.

I was caught up in it and tumbled end over end. I felt life being beaten

out of me as I was thrown against the rocks, and icy water filled my throat.

Darkness overwhelmed me, and I thought that I was dead.

I have a vague recollection of hands dragging me from the flood, and then I

was wafted away to some dark and distant shore. The voice of my prince called

me back. Before I could open my eyes I smelled wood-smoke, and felt the

warmth of the flames on one side of my body.

’Tata, wake up! Speak to me.’ The voice was insistent, and I opened my

eyes. Memnon’s face floated before me, and he smiled at me. Then he called

over his shoulder, ’He is awake, Lord Tanus.’

I found that we were in a rock cave and that outside, the night had fallen.

Tanus came across from the smoky fire of damp wood and squatted beside the

prince.

’How are you, old friend? I don’t think you have broken any bones.’

I struggled into a sitting position, and gingerly tested every part of my

body before I replied, ’My head is cracked through, and every limb aches.

Apart from that, I am cold and hungry.’

’You will live then,’ Tanus chuckled, ’though a while ago I doubted any of

us would. We have to get out of these cursed mountains before something worse

happens. It was madness ever to venture into a place where the rivers come

out of the sky.’

’What about the others?’ I asked.

Tanus shook his head. "They are all drowned. You were the only one that we

were able to drag from the flood.’

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’What about the horses?’

’Gone,’ he grunted. ’All gone.’

’Food?’

’Nothing,’ Tanus replied. ’Even my bow is lost in the river. I have only

the sword at my side and the clothes on my body.’

AT DAWN WE LEFT OUR ROCK SHELTER and started back down that treacherous

valley. At the foot of the gorge we found the bodies of some of our men and

the horses strewn upon the rocks where they had been stranded when the flood

receded.

We scavenged amongst the rocks and scree, and we managed to recover some of

our stores and equipment. To my great joy I found my medicine chest still

intact, though flooded with water. I laid out the contents on a rock, and

while they dried, I fashioned a sling from a leather harness to carry the

chest upon my back.

In the meantime, Memnon had cut strips of meat from the carcass of one of

the horses and grilled them over another fire of driftwood. When we had eaten

our fill, we saved the rest of the meat, and set out on the return.

The journey slowly descended into nightmare as we scaled steep rocky slopes

and dropped into the gorges beyond. There seemed to be no end to this

terrible wilderness, and our bruised feet in open sandals protested each

step. At night we shivered miserably around a smoky little fire of driftwood.

By the second day we all knew that we had lost the way, and that we were

wandering aimlessly. I was certain that we were doomed to die in these

terrible mountains. Then we heard the river and, as we topped the next saddle

between peaks, we found the infant Nile winding through the depths of the

gorge below us. That was not all. On the banks of the river we saw a

collection of coloured tents, and amongst them moved the shapes of men.

’Civilized men,’ I said immediately, ’for those tents must be of woven

cloth.’

’And those are horses,’ Memnon agreed eagerly, pointing out the animals

tethered on the lines beyond the encampment.

’There!’ Tanus pointed. ’That was the flash of sunlight off a sword-blade

or a spear-head. They are metal-workers.’ ’We must find out who these people

are.’ I was fascinated by what tribe could live in such an inhospitable land.

’We will get our throats cut,’ Tanus growled. ’What makes you believe these

mountaineers are not as savage as the land in which they live?’ Only later

would we come to know these people as Ethiopians.

’Those are magnificent horses,’ Memnon whispered. ’Our own are not so tall,

or so sturdy. We must go down and study them.’ The prince was a horseman

above all else.

’Lord Tanus is right.’ His warning had aroused my usual prudent nature, and

I was ready to counsel caution. These might be dangerous savages, with but

the trappings of civilized men.’

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We sat upon the shoulder of the mountain and debated, for a while longer,

but in the end curiosity got the better of all three of us and we crept down

through one of the ravines to spy upon these strangers.

As we drew closer, we saw that they were tall, well-built people, probably

more robust in stature than we Egyptians are. Their hair was thick and dark

and curled profusely. The men were bearded, and we are clean-shaven. They

wore full-length robes, probably woven of wool, and brightly coloured. We go

bare-chested and our kilts are usually pure white in colour. They wore soft

leather boots, as opposed to our sandals, and a bright cloth wound around

their heads. The women we saw working amongst the tents were unveiled and

cheerful. They sang and called to each other in a language I had never heard

before, but their voices were melodious as they drew water, or squatted over

the cooking-fires, or ground corn on the millstones.

One group of men was playing a board-game that, from where I hid, looked

very much like bao. They were wagering and arguing over the play of the

stones. At one stage, two of them leapt to their feet and drew curved daggers

from their belts. They confronted each other snarling and hissing, like a

pair of angry tom-cats.

At that stage a third man, who had been sitting alone, rose to his feet and

stretched, like a lazy leopard. He sauntered across and, with his sword,

knocked up the daggers. Immediately the two protagonists subsided and slunk

away.

The peace-maker was clearly the chief of the party. He was a tall man, with

the wiry frame of a mountain goat. He was goat-like in other ways. His beard

was as long and thick as that of an ibex ram, and his features were coarse

and goaty; he had a heavy, hooked nose and a wide mouth with a cruel slant to

it. I thought that he probably stank like one of the old rams that Tanus had

shot from the cliff-face.

Suddenly I felt Tanus grip my arm, and he whispered in my ear, ’Look at

that!’

This chieftain wore the richest apparel of any of them. His robe was

striped in scarlet and blue and his earrings were stones that glowed like the

full moon. But I could not see what had excited Tanus.

’His sword,’ Tanus hissed. ’Look at his sword.’

I studied it for the first time. It was longer than one of our weapons and

the pommel was obviously of pure gold filigree-work, of a delicacy that I had

never seen before. The hand-guard was studded with precious stones. It was a

masterpiece that clearly had occupied some master craftsman his lifetime.

This was not what had captured Tanus’ attention, however. It was the blade.

As long as the chief’s own arm, it was made of a metal that was neither

yellow bronze nor red copper. In colour it was a strange silvery glittering

blue, like the living scales of a Nile perch taken fresh from the river. It

was inlaid with gold, as if to highlight its unique value.

’What is it?’ Tanus breathed. ’What metal is that?’

’I do not know.’

The chief resumed his seat in front of his tent, but now he laid the sword

across his lap, and, with a phallus-shaped piece of volcanic rock, began

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lovingly to stroke the edge of the blade. The metal emitted a ringing thrill

of sound to each touch of the stone. No bronze ever resounded like that. It

was the purr of a resting lion.

’I want it,’ Tanus whispered. ’I will never rest until I have that sword.’

I gave him a startled glance, for I had never heard such a tone in his

voice. I saw that he meant what he said. He was a man struck with a sudden

overpowering passion.

’We cannot remain here longer,’ I told him softly. ’We will be discovered.’

I took his arm, but he resisted. He was staring at the weapon.

’Let us go to look at their horses,’ I insisted, and at last he allowed me

to draw him away. I led Memnon by the other hand. At a safe distance we

circled the camp, and crept back towards the horse-lines.

When I saw the horses close up, I was struck with a passion as fierce as

Tanus had conceived for the blue sword. These were a different breed from our

Hyksos horses. They were taller and more elegantly proportioned. Their heads

were noble and their nostrils wider. I knew those nostrils were the mark of

stamina and good wind. Their eyes were situated further forward in the skull

and were more prominent than those of our animals. They were great soft eyes,

shining with intelligence.

’They are beautiful,’ whispered Memnon at my side. ’Look at the way they

hold their heads and arch their necks.’

Tanus longed for the sword, we coveted the horses with a passion that

equalled his.

’Just one stallion like that to put to our mares,’ I pleaded to any god who

was listening. ’I would exchange my hope of eternal life for a single one.’

One of the foreign grooms glanced in our direction, then said something to

the fellow beside him and began to walk in our direction. This time I had no

need to insist, and all three of us ducked down behind the boulder that

sheltered us and crawled away. We found a secure hiding-place further

down-river, amongst a tumbled heap of boulders, and immediately launched into

one of those discussions in which all spoke together and none listened.

’I will go in and offer him a thousand deben of gold,’ Tanus swore, ’I must

have that sword.’

’He would kill you first. Did you not see him stroke it as though it was

his first-born son?’

’Those horses!’ marvelled Memnon. ’I never dreamed of such beauty. Horus

must have beasts like that to draw his chariot.’

’Did you see those two fly at each other?’ I cautioned. "They are savage

men, and bloodthirsty. They would rip out your guts before you opened your

mouth to utter a word. Besides, what do you have to offer in return? They

will see we are destitute beggars.’

’We could steal three of their stallions tonight and ride them down on to

the plain,’ Memnon suggested, and though the idea had appeal, I told him

sternly, ’You are the crown prince of Egypt, not a common thief.’

374

He grinned at me. ’For one of those horses, I would cut throats like the

worst footpad in Thebes.’

As we debated thus, we were suddenly aware of the sound of voices

approaching along the river-bank from the direction of the foreign camp. We

looked about for better concealment and hid away.

The voices drew closer. A party of women came into view and they stopped

below us at the water’s edge. There were three older women, and a girl. The

women wore robes of a drab hue, and cloths of black around their hair. I

thought that they were servants or nursemaids. It did not occur to me then

that they were gaolers, for they treated the girl with unusual deference.

The girl was tall and slim, so that when she walked, she moved like a

papyrus stem in the Nile breeze. She wore a short robe of rich wool, striped

in yellow and sky blue, which left her knees bared. Though she wore short

boots of soft stitched leather, I could see that her legs were lithe and

smooth.

The women stopped below our hiding-place, and one of the older women began

to disrobe the girl. The other two filled the clay jars that they had carried

down on their heads with water from the Nile. The river was still swollen

with flood-water. No one could safely enter that icy torrent. It was clear

that they intended bathing the girl from the jars.

One of the women lifted the girl’s robe over her head and she stood naked

at the water’s edge. I heard Memnon gasp. I looked at him and saw that he had

forgotten entirely about stealing horses.

While two of the women poured the water from the jars over the girl, the

third woman wiped her down with a folded cloth. The girl held her hands above

her head and circled slowly to allow them to wet every part of her body. She

laughed and squealed at the cold, and I saw tiny goose-bumps rise around her

nipples, which were the rich ruby of polished garnets, mounted like jewels on

the peak of each smooth, round breast.

Her hair was a dark bush of tight curls, her skin was the colour of the

heart-wood of the acacia, when it has been buffed and oiled to a high patina.

It was a rich, ruddy brown, that glowed in the high sunlight of the

mountains.

Her features were delicate, her nose narrow and chiselled. Her lips were

soft and full, but without any thickness. Her eyes were large and dark,

slanted above high cheek-bones. Her lashes were so thick that they tangled

together. She was beautiful. I have only known one other woman who was more

so.

Suddenly she said something to the women with her. They stood aside, and

she left them and climbed on those long naked legs towards us. But before she

reached our hiding-place, she stepped behind a boulder that shielded her from

her companions, but left her full in our view. She glanced around quickly,

but did not see us. The cold water must have affected her, for she squatted

quickly and her own water tinkled on the rock beneath her.

Memnon groaned softly. It was instinctive, not intentional, a sound of

longing so intense as to have become agony. The girl sprang to her feet and

stared directly at him. Memnon was standing a little to one side of Tanus and

me. While we were concealed, he was full in her view.

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The two of them stared at each other. The girl was trembling, her dark eyes

enormous. I expected her to run or scream. Instead, she looked back over her

shoulder in a conspiratorial gesture, as if to make certain that the women

had not followed her. Then she turned back to Memnon and, in a soft sweet

voice, asked a question, at the same time holding out her hand to him in a

gesture of appeal.

’I do not understand,’ Memnon whispered, and spread his own hands in a

gesture of incomprehension.

The girl stepped up to him and repeated the question impatiently, and when

Memnon shook his head, she seized his hand and’ shook it. In her agitation,

her voice rose as she demanded something of him.

’Masara!’ One of her attendants had heard her. ’Masara!’ It was obviously

the girl’s name, for she made a gesture of silence and caution to Memnon and

turned to go back.

However, the three women had all started up the slope after Masara. They

were chattering with alarm and agitation, and they came round the side of the

boulder in a pack and stopped when they saw Memnon.

For a moment nobody moved, and then all three women screamed in unison. The

naked girl seemed poised to run to Memnon’s side, but as she started forward,

two of the women seized her; all four of them were screaming now, as the girl

struggled to be free.

’Time to go home,’ Tanus jerked my arm, and I was after him in a bound.

From the direction of the camp came the shouts of many men aroused by the

screams of the women. When I paused to look back, I saw them coming over the

ridge in a body. I saw also that Memnon had not followed us, but had leaped

forward to the girl’s assistance.

They were all big women and held the girl hard, redoubling their screams.

Although Masara was trying desperately to pull free, Memnon could not get her

away from them.

’Tanus!’ I yelled. ’Memnon is in trouble.’

We turned back and between us grabbed him and hauled him away. He came

reluctantly. ’I will come back for you,’ he shouted to the girl, looking back

over his shoulder as we ran with him between us. ’Be brave. I will come back

for you.’

When somebody tells me nowadays that there is no such thing as love at

first sight, I smile quietly to myself and think of the day that Memnon first

saw Masara.

We had lost time in the struggle to get Memnon away, and our pursuers were

already pressing us hard as we took to one of the goat-tracks and ran for the

crest of the slope.

An arrow flitted past Memnon’s shoulder and clattered against the rocks

beside the path. It spurred us to greater speed.

We were in single file along the narrow path. Memnon led us and Tanus

followed him. I was last in the file, and, burdened by the heavy medicine

chest on my back, I began to fall further behind. Another arrow passed over

376

our heads, and then the third struck the pack on my back with a force that

made me stagger. But the chest stopped the arrow that would otherwise have

transfixed my body.

’Come on, Taita,’ Tanus shouted back at me. ’Throw off that cursed box of

yours, or they will have you.’

He and Memnon were fifty paces ahead of me and drawing away, but I could

not discard my precious chest. At that moment the next arrow struck, and this

time I was not so fortunate. It hit me in the leg, in the fleshy part of the

thigh, and I went tumbling across the path and fell hard.

I rolled into a sitting position and looked with horror at the reed shaft

of the arrow that protruded from my leg. Then I looked back at our pursuers.

The bearded chieftain in the striped robe led them, and he had outdistanced

his own men by a hundred paces. He was coming up the track in a series of

great elastic bounds, covering the ground as swiftly as one of the ibex rams

that he resembled in so many other ways.

’Taita!’ Tanus called back at me. ’Are you all right?’ He had paused on the

brow of the slope, and was looking back anxiously. Memnon had crossed over

and was out of sight.

’I am arrowed!’ I yelled back. ’Go on and leave me. I cannot follow.’

Without a moment’s hesitation, Tanus turned back, and came leaping down

towards where I lay. The Ethiopian chieftain saw him coming and bellowed a

challenge. He . drew the glittering blue sword and brandished it as he came

on up the hillside.

Tanus reached the spot where I sat, and tried to lift me to my feet. ’It’s

no use. I am hard hit. Save yourself,’ I told him, but the Ethiopian was

almost upon us. Tanus dropped my arm, and drew his own sword.

The two of them came together, going for each other in a murderous rush. I

was not in any doubt as to the outcome of this duel, for Tanus was the

strongest and most skilled swordsman in all Egypt. When he killed the

Ethiopian, we would all be doomed, for we could expect no mercy from his

henchmen.

The Ethiopian swung first with a full-blooded overhand cut at Tanus’ head.

It was an imprudent stroke to aim at a swordsman of his opponent’s calibre. I

knew that Tanus’ response would be a parry in the line of the head and a

natural riposte, with all the momentum of his shoulder behind it, that would

drive the point through the chieftain’s beard and into his throat. It was one

of Tanus’ favourite strokes.

The two blades met, but there was no ringing clash. The blue blade hacked

clean through Tanus’ yellow bronze, as though it were a wand of green willow.

Tanus was left with the hilt in his hand and a finger’s-length remaining from

that once long and deadly bronze blade.

Tanus was stunned by the ease with which the Ethiopian had disarmed him,

and he was slow to defend himself from the next stroke that followed like a

thunderbolt. He leaped backwards just in time, but the blue point opened a

long, shallow cut across the bulging muscles of his naked chest, and the

blood came swiftly.

’Run, Tanus!’ I screamed. ’Or he will kill us both.’

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The Ethiopian went for him again, but I was lying in the middle of the

narrow path. He was forced to leap over me to get at Tanus. I seized him

around the knees with both arms, and brought him down on top of me in a

snarling, thrashing heap.

The Ethiopian was trying to drive the point of the blue sword into my

belly, as I lay under him, and I twisted so violently aside that both of us

rolled off the path and began to slide away down the steep slope of loose

scree. As we rolled more swiftly, gathering momentum, I had one last glimpse

of Tanus peering down over the edge of the path, and I screamed in a

despairing wail, ’Run! Take care of Memnon!’

The shale and loose scree were as treacherous as swamp quicksands, and gave

no anchor or purchase. The Ethiopian and I were flung apart, but both of us

were carried to the edge of the torrent. I was battered and hammered to the

edge of consciousness, and lay there groaning until rough hands dragged me to

my feet, and blows and harsh curses rained upon my head.

The chieftain stopped them from killing me and throwing my body into the

river. He was covered with dust, as I was, and his robe was torn and filthy

from the fall, but the blue sword was still gripped in his right fist and he

snarled at his men. They began to drag me away towards the encampment, but I

looked around me desperately and saw my medicine chest amongst the rocks. The

leather harness had snapped, and it had come off my back.

’Bring that,’ I ordered my captors with as much force and dignity as I

could muster, and pointed to the chest. They laughed at my insolence, but the

chieftain sent one of his men to retrieve it.

Two men were obliged to support me, for the shaft in my thigh was beginning

to cause me crippling pain. Every pace back to the camp was agony, and when

they reached it, they threw me roughly to the ground in the open space in the

centre of the ring of tents.

Then they argued long and fiercely. It was obvious that they were puzzling

over my origins and my motives, and trying to decide what they should do with

me. Every once in a while, one of them would stand over me and kick me in the

ribs, while he shouted questions at me. I lay as quietly as I could, so as

not to provoke further violence.

There was a distraction when the party that had pursued Tanus and Memnon

returned empty-handed. There was more shouting and arm-waving as bitter

recriminations and insults were exchanged. I was cheered by the thought that

the two of them had got clean away.

After a while my captors remembered me, and they came back to vent their

frustration on me with more kicks and blows. In the end their chieftain

called them off, and ordered them not to torment me further. After that, most

of them lost interest in me and wandered away. I was left lying on the bare

ground, covered with dirt and bruises, with the arrow still lodged in my

flesh.

The Ethiopian chieftain resumed his seat in front of the largest tent,

which was clearly his own, and while he stropped the edge of his sword, he

regarded me with a steady but inscrutable expression. Occasionally he

exchanged a few low words with one of his men, but it seemed that my

immediate danger was past.

378

I judged my moment carefully, and then addressed him directly. I pointed to

my medicine chest, which had been thrown against one of the tents, and I made

my voice mild and placatory. ’I need my chest. I must tend this wound.’

Although the chieftain did not understand the words, he understood my

gestures. He ordered one of his men to bring the chest across to him. He made

them set it down in front of him and opened the lid. He unpacked the chest

methodically, examining each separate item. Anything that particularly caught

his attention he held up, and asked a question to which I tried to give an

answer with signs.

He seemed satisfied that, apart from my scalpels, the chest contained no

dangerous weapon. I am not sure if he realized at this stage that these were

medical items. However, with signs I showed him what I needed to do, pointing

to my leg and making a pantomime of pulling the arrow. He stood over me with

the sword in his hand, and made it clear that he would lop off my head at the

first sign of treachery, but he allowed me to use my instruments.

The arrow had entered at an angle and position which made it awkward for me

to reach. In addition to this, the pain that I inflicted upon myself, as I

used the Taita spoons to trap and mask the barbs that were buried deep in my

flesh, brought me more than once to the point of fainting away.

I was panting and drenched in sheets of sweat when at last I was ready to

draw the arrow-head. By this time I had an audience of half the men in camp.

They had returned to crowd around me and watch my surgery with garrulous

interest.

I took a firm hold on the handles of the spoons, placed a wooden wedge

between my teeth and bit down on it hard, and drew the clamped arrow-head out

of the wound. There were shouts of wonder and amazement from my audience.

Obviously none of them had ever seen a barb drawn with such ease and with so

little damage to the victim. They were impressed even further when they

watched the skill and dexterity with which I laid on the linen bandages.

In any nation and in any culture, even the most primitive, the healer and

the physician have a special place of honour and esteem. I had demonstrated

my credentials in the most convincing manner, and my status in the Ethiopian

camp was drastically altered.

At the orders of the chief, I was carried to one of the tents and laid on a

straw mattress. My medicine chest was placed at the head of my bed, and one

of the women brought me a meal of corn-bread and chicken stew and thick sour

milk.

In the morning, when the tents were struck, I was placed in a pole-litter

behind one of the horses in the long caravan, and pulled along the rough and

precipitous tracks. To my dismay, I saw from the angle of the sun that we

were headed back into the fastness of the mountains, and I feared that I was

lost to my own people, probably for all time. The fact that I was a physician

had probably saved my life, but it had also placed such value on me that I

would never be turned free. I knew that I was now a slave in more than name

alone.

DESPITE THE JOLTING OF THE LITTER, MY leg began to heal cleanly. This

further impressed my captors, and soon they were bringing to me any member of

the band who was sick or injured.

379

I cured a ringworm and lanced a whitlow under a thumbnail. I sewed together

a man who had won too much gambling with his quick-tempered friends. These

Ethiopians had a penchant for settling arguments with the dagger. When one of

the horses threw its rider down a gul-ley, I set his broken arm. It knitted

straight, and my reputation was enhanced. The Ethiopian chieftain looked at

me with a new respect, and I was offered the food-bowl after he had made his

selection of the choice cuts, before any of the other men were allowed to

eat.

When* my leg had healed sufficiently for me to walk again, I was given the

run of the camp. However, I was not allowed out of sight. An armed man

followed me and stood over me, even when I was on the most private and

intimate business amongst the rocks.

I was kept away from Masara and only saw her from afar at the start of each

day’s journey, and again when we camped for the night. During the long day’s

ride through the mountains we were separated; I rode near the head of the

caravan, while she was brought along at the rear. She was always accompanied

by her female gaolers, and usually surrounded by armed guards.

Whenever we did catch sight of each other, Masara cast the most desperate

and appealing looks at me, as though I would be able to help her in some way.

It was obvious that she was a prisoner of rank and of importance. She was

such a lovely young woman that I often found myself thinking of her during

the day, and trying to fathom the reason for her captivity. I decided she was

either an unwilling bride, being taken to meet her future husband, or that

she was a pawn in some political intrigue.

Without a knowledge of the language I could not hope to understand what was

taking place, or to learn anything about these Ethiopians. I set out to learn

the Geez tongue.

I have the ear of a musician, and I played my tricks upon them. I listened

attentively to all the chatter around me, and picked up the cadence and the

rhythm of their speech. Very early on, I was able to deduce that the

chieftain’s name was Arkoun. One morning before the caravan set out, Arkoun

was giving orders for the day’s march to his assembled band. I waited until

he had delivered a long and heated harangue, and then I repeated it in

precisely the same tone and cadence.

They listened to me in stunned silence, and then burst into uproar. They

roared with laughter and beat each other on the back, tears of mirth streamed

down their cheeks, for they had a direct and uncomplicated sense of humour. I

had not the least idea what I had said, but it was obvious that I had got it

exactly right.

They shouted excerpts from my speech at each other, and wagged their heads,

mimicking Arkoun’s pompous manner. It took a long time for order to be

restored, but at last Arkoun strutted up to me and shouted an accusatory

question at me. I did not understand a word of it, but I shouted the same

question back at him, word for exact word.

This time there was pandemonium. The joke of it was too rich to be borne.

Grown men clung to each other for support, they screamed and wiped their

streaming eyes. One of them fell into the fire and singed his beard.

Even though the joke was on him, Arkoun laughed along with them and patted

me on the back. From then onwards, every man and woman in the camp was my

teacher. I had only to point at any object and the Geez word for it was

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shouted at me. When I began to string those words into sentences, they

corrected me eagerly, and were inordinately proud of my progress.

It took me some time to fathom the grammar. The verbs were declined in a

manner which had no relationship to Egyptian, and the gender and plurals of

the nouns were strange. However, within ten days I was speaking intelligible

Geez, and had even built up a good selection of choice curses and invective.

While I learned the language and treated their ailments, I studied their

mores and manners. I learned that they were inveterate gamblers, and that the

board-game that they played endlessly was a passion. They called it dom, but

it was a simplified and rudimentary form of bao. The number of cups in the

board and the quantity of stones brought into play varied from bao. However,

all the objects and the principles were similar.

Arkoun himself was the dom champion of the band, but as I studied his play,

I saw that he had no inkling of the classic rule of seven stones. Nor did he

understand the protocol of the four bulls. Without a thorough knowledge of

these, no bao player could aspire to even the lowly third grade of masters. I

debated with myself the risk that I would run in humiliating such a vain and

overbearing tyrant as Arkoun, but in the end I decided that it was the only

way to gain ascendancy over him.

The next time he sat in front of his tent and set up the board, smirking

and twirling his moustaches as he waited for a challenger to step forward, I

elbowed aside the first aspirant and settled myself cross-legged opposite

Arkoun.

’I have no silver to wager,’ I told him in my still rudimentary Geez. ’I

play for love of the stones.’

He nodded gravely. As an addict of the board, he understood that sentiment.

The news that I was taking the board against Arkoun ran through the camp, and

they all came laughing and jostling to watch.

When I allowed Arkoun to lay three stones in the east castle they nudged

each other and chuckled with disappointment that the game would be so swiftly

lost. One more stone in the east, and the board was his. They did not

understand the significance of the four bulls that I had banked in the south.

When I loosed my bulls, they strode invincibly across the board, splitting

his unsupported stones and isolating the east castle. He was powerless to

prevent it. Four moves and the board was mine. I had not even been called

upon to demonstrate the rule of seven stones.

For some moments they all sat in shocked silence. I do not think that

Arkoun realized the extent of his defeat for a while. Then, when it sank in

upon him, he stood up and drew the terrible blue sword. I thought that I had

miscalculated, and that he was about to lop my head, or at least an arm.

He lifted the sword high and then swung it down with a shout of fury. With

a dozen strokes he hacked the board to kindling and scattered the stones

about the camp. Then he strode out into the rocks, tearing his beard and

shouting my death threats to the towering cliffs, that hurled them onwards

down the valleys in a series of diminishing echoes.

It was three days before Arkoun set up the board again, and gestured to me

to take my seat opposite him. The poor fellow had no inkling of what lay in

store for him.

381

EACH DAY MY COMMAND OF THE GEEZ language increased, and I was at last able

to glean some understanding of my captor and the reason for this long journey

through the canyons and gorges.

I had underrated Arkoun. He was not a chieftain but a king. His full name

was Arkoun Gannouchi Maryam, Negusa Naghast, King of Kings and ruler of the

Ethiopic state of Aksum. It was only later that I learned that in this land

any mountain brigand with a hundred horses and fifty wives was likely to set

himself up as a king, and that at any one time there might be as many as

twenty Kings of Kings on the rampage for land and loot.

Arkoun’s nearest neighbour was one Prester Beni-Jon, also claiming to be

King of Kings and ruler of the Ethiopic state of Aksum. There appeared to be

a certain amount of ill-feeling and rivalry between these two monarchs. They

had already fought a number of inconclusive battles.

Masara was the favourite daughter of Prester Beni-Jon. She had been

kidnapped by one of the other robber chieftains, one of those who had not yet

crowned himself, nor taken the obligatory title of King of Kings. In a

straightforward trading arrangement, Masara had been sold to Arkoun for a

horse-load of silver bars. Arkoun intended using her to gain political ground

from her doting father. It seemed that hostage-taking and ransom were very

much a part of Ethiopian statesmanship.

Not trusting any of his own men with such a valuable commodity, Arkoun had

gone himself to take possession of Princess Masara. Our caravan was carrying

her back to Arkoun’s stronghold. I gathered this and other information from

the gossipy women slaves who brought me my meals, or in casual conversation

over the dom board. By the time we reached Amba Kamara, the mountain fortress

of King Arkoun Gannouchi Maryam, I was an expert on the complicated and

shifting politics of the various Ethiopic states of Aksum, and the numerous

claimants to the throne of the empire.

I was aware of an increasing excitement running through our caravan as we

approached our journey’s end, and at last we climbed the narrow winding

pathway, no more than just another goat-track, to the summit of yet another

amba. These ambas were the massifs that made up the mountain ranges of

central Ethiopia. Each of them was a flat-topped mountain with sheer sides

that plunged like a wall into the valley that divided it from the next

mountain.

It was easy to see, when I stood at the top of the precipice, how the land

was fragmented into so many tiny kingdoms and principalities. Each amba was a

natural and impregnable fortress. The man on top of it was invincible, and

might call himself a king without fear of being challenged.

Arkoun rode up beside me and pointed to the mountains on the southern

sky-line. ’That is the hiding-place of that horse-thief and scoundrel,

Prester Beni-Jon. He is a man of unsurpassed treachery.’ He hawked in his

throat and spat over the edge of the cliff in the direction of his rival.

I had come to know Arkoun as a man of not inconsiderable cruelty and

treachery himself. If he conceded Prester Beni-Jon as his master in these

fields, Masara’s father must be a formidable man indeed.

We crossed the tableland of the Amba Kamara, passing through a few villages

of stone-walled hovels, and fields of sorghum and dhurra corn. The peasants

382

in the fields were all tall, bushy-haired ruffians, armed with swords and

round copper shields. They appeared as fierce and warlike as any of the men

in our caravan.

At the far end of the amba, the path led us to the most extraordinary

natural stronghold that I had ever seen. From the main table of the mountain

a buttress had eroded until it stood alone, a sheer pinnacle of rock with

precipitous sides, separated from the table by an awe-inspiring abyss.

This gulf was bridged by a narrow causeway, a natural arch of stone, that

joined it to the tableland. It was so narrow that two horses could not pass

each other on the pathway, so narrow that once a horse started out across the

bridge, it could not turn round and return, until it had reached the other

side.

The drop under the causeway was a thousand feet, straight into the river

gorge below. It was so unnerving to the horses that the riders were forced to

dismount, blindfold them, and lead them over. When I was halfway across, I

found myself trembling with vertigo, and I dared not peer over the edge of

the pathway into the void. It required all my self-control to keep walking,

and not to throw myself flat and cling to the rocks beneath my feet.

Perched on top of this pinnacle of rock was an ungainly, lopsided castle of

stone blocks and reed thatch. The open windows were covered with curtains of

rawhide, and the raw sewage and odious refuse running from the fortress

stained and littered the cliff beneath it.

Festooning the walls and battlements like pennants and decorations

celebrating some macabre festival, were the corpses of men and women. Some

had hung there so long that their bones had been picked white by the flocks

of crows that circled above the abyss or roosted squawking upon the roofs.

Other victims were still alive, and I watched their feeble last movements

with horror as they hung by their heels. However, most of them were already

dead and in various stages of decomposition. The smell of rotting human

carcasses was so thick that even the wind that whined eternally around the

cliffs could not disperse it.

King Arkoun called the crows his chickens. Sometimes he fed them on the

walls, and at other times he threw their food from the causeway into the

gorge. The dwindling wail of another unfortunate victim falling away into the

depths was a feature of our life on the pinnacle of Adbar Seged, the House of

the Wind Song.

These executions and the daily floggings and chopping-off of hands or feet,

or the pulling-out of tongues with red-hot tongs were King Arkoun’s principal

diversions when he was not playing dom, or planning a raid on one of the

other neighbouring king of kings. Very often Arkoun wielded the axe or the

tongs in person, and his roars of laughter were as loud as the screams of his

victims.

As soon as our caravan had crossed the causeway and pulled into the central

courtyard of Adbar Seged, Masara was whisked away by her female gaolers into

the labyrinth of stone passageways, and I was led to my new quarters which

abutted those of Arkoun.

I was allotted a single stone cell. It was dark and draughty. The open

fireplace blackened the walls with soot and gave out little heat. Though I

wore the woollen robes of the land, I was never warm in Adbar Seged. How I

longed for the sunlight on the Nile and the bright oasis of my very Egypt! I

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sat on those wind-swept battlements and pined for my family, for Memnon and

Tanus, for my little princesses, but most of all for my mistress. Sometimes I

woke in the night with the tears chilling my face, and I had to cover my head

with my sheepskin blanket, so that Arkoun would not hear my sobs through the

thick stone wall.

Often I pleaded with him to release me.

’But why do you want to leave me, Taita?’

’I want to go back to my family.’

’I am your family now,’ he laughed. ’I am your father.’

I made a wager with him. If I won a hundred successive boards of dom from

him, he agreed that he would let me go and give me an escort back down the

Nile to the great plains. When I won the hundredth game, he chuckled and

shook his head at my naivety.

’Did I say a hundred? I think not. Surely it was a thousand?’ He turned to

his henchmen. ’Was the bargain a thousand?’

’A thousand!’ they chanted. ’It was a thousand!’

They all thought it a grand joke. When in a pique I refused to play another

board with Arkoun, he hung me naked from the walls of the citadel by my heels

until I squealed for him to set up the board.

When Arkoun saw me naked, he laughed and prodded me. ’You may have a way

with the dom board, but it seems you have lost your own stones, Egyptian.’

This was the first time since my capture that my physical mutilation had been

revealed. Once again, men called me ’eunuch’, much to my shame and

mortification.

However, in the end the consequences were beneficial. If I had been a man

entire, they would never have let me go to Masara.

THEY CAME FOR ME IN THE NIGHT AND led me shivering through the passages to

Masara’s cell. The room was lit by a dim oil lamp and smelled of vomit. The

girl was curled on a straw mattress in the centre of the floor, with her

vomit puddled on the stone floor beside her. She was in terrible pain,

groaning and weeping and holding her stomach.

I set to work immediately, and examined her carefully. I was afraid that I

would find her stomach as hard as a stone, the symptom of the swelling and

bursting of the gut that would drench her insides with the contents of her

intestines. There was no remedy for this condition. Not even I, with all my

skills, could save her, if this was her affliction.

To my great relief I found her stomach warm and soft. There was no fever in

her blood. I continued my examination, and though she groaned and screamed

with agony when I touched her, I could not find any cause for her condition.

I was puzzled and I sat back to think about it. Then I realized that although

her face was contorted with agony, she was watching me with a candid gaze.

’This is worse than I feared.’ I turned to her two female attendants and

spoke in Geez. ’If I am to save her, I must have my chest. Fetch it

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immediately.’

They scrambled for the door, and I lowered my head to hers and whispered,

’You are a clever girl and a good actress. Did you tickle your throat with a

feather?’

She smiled up at me and whispered back, ’I could think of no other way to

meet you. When the women told me that you had learned to speak Geez, I knew

that we could help each other.’

’I hope that is possible.’

’I have been so lonely. Even to speak to a friend will be a joy to me.’ Her

trust was so spontaneous that I was touched. ’Perhaps between us we will find

a way to escape from this dreadful place.’

At that moment we heard the women returning, their voices echoing along the

outside passage. Masara seized my hand.

’You are my friend, aren’t you? You will come to me again?’

’I am and I will.’

’Quickly, tell me before you must go. What was his name?’

’Who?’

"The one who was with you on that first day beside the river. The one who

looks like a young god.’

’His name is Memnon.’

’Memnon!’ She repeated it with a peculiar reverence. ’It is a beautiful

name. It suits him.’

The women burst into the room, and Masara clutched her healthy little belly

and groaned as though she were at the point of death. While I clucked and

shook my head with worry for the benefit of her women, I mixed a tonic of

herbs that would do her some good, and told them that I would return in the

morning.

In the morning Masara’s condition had improved, and I was able to spend a

little longer with her. Only one of the women was present, and she soon

became bored and wandered away to the far side of the room. Masara and I

exchanged a few quiet words.

’Memnon said something to me. I could not understand. What was it he said?’

’He said, "I will come back for you. Be brave. I will come back for you." ’

’He could not mean that. He does not know me. He had met me only

fleetingly.’ She shook her head, and tears filled her eyes. ’Do you think he

meant it, Taita?’ There was a haunting plea in her tone that moved me, and I

could not allow her to suffer more than she had already.

’He is crown prince of Egypt, and a man of honour. Memnon would not have

said it unless he meant every word.’

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That was all we could say then, but I came back the next day. The very

first thing she asked of me was, ’Tell me again what Memnon said to me,’ and

I had to repeat his promise.

I told Arkoun that Masara was improving in health, but that she must be

allowed out each day to walk on the battlements. ’Otherwise I cannot answer

for her health.’

He thought about that for a day. However, Masara was a valuable asset for

which he had paid a horse-load of silver bars, and at last he gave his

permission.

Our daily exercise periods slowly extended, as the guards became accustomed

to seeing us together. In the end Masara and I were able to spend most

mornings hi each other’s company, strolling around the walls of Adbar Seged

and talking endlessly.

Masara wanted to know everything that I had to tell about Memnon, and I

racked my memory for anecdotes about him to entertain her. She had favourite

stories which I was obliged to repeat until she knew them by heart, and she

corrected me when I erred in the retelling. She particularly enjoyed the

account of how he had rescued Tanus and me from the wounded bull elephant,

and how he had received the Gold of Valour for his deed.

’Tell me about his mother the queen,’ she demanded, and then, ’Tell me

about Egypt. Tell me about your gods. Tell me about when Memnon was a baby.’

Always her questions returned to him, and I was glad to appease her demands,

for I longed for my family. Speaking about them made them seem closer to me.

One morning she came to me distraught. ’Last night I had a dreadful dream.

I dreamed that Memnon came back to me, but I could not understand what he

said to me. You must teach me to speak Egyptian, Taita. We will start today,

this very minute!’

She was desperate to learn and she was a clever little thing. It went very

quickly. Soon we were talking only Egyptian between ourselves, and it was

useful to be able to speak privately in front of her guards.

When we were not talking about Memnon, we were discussing our plans to

escape. Of course, I had been thinking of this ever since our arrival at

Adbar Seged, but it helped to have her thoughts on the same subject to

compare with my own.

’Even if you escape from this fortress, you will never pass through the

mountains without help,’ she warned me. "The paths are like a skein of

twisted wool. You will never unravel them. Every clan is at war with the

next. They trust no strangers, and they will cut your throat as a spy.’

’What must we do, then?’ I asked.

’If you are able to get away, you must go to my father. He will protect you

and guide you back to your own people. You will tell Memnon where I am, and

he will come to save me.’ She said this with such shining confidence that I

could not meet her eyes.

I realized then that Masara had built up an image of Memnon in her mind

that was not based on reality. She was in love with a god, not a stripling as

young and untried as she was herself. I was responsible for this, with my

clever stories about the prince. I could not wound her now and shatter her

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hope by telling her how forlorn all these imaginings truly were.

’If I go to Prester Beni-Jon, your father, he will think I am one of

Arkoun’s spies. He will have my head.’ I tried to extricate myself from the

responsibilities she had laid upon me.

’I will tell you what to say to him. Things that only he and I know. That

will prove to him that you come from me.’

She had blocked me there, so I tried a different escape. ’How would I find

my way to your father’s fortress? You have told me that the path is a tangled

skein.’

’I will explain the way to you. Because you are so clever you will remember

everything I tell you.’

By this time, naturally, I loved her almost as much as I loved my own

little princesses. I would take any risk to shield her from hurt. She

reminded me so strongly of my mistress at the same age that I could deny her

nothing.

’Very well. Tell it to me.’ And so we began to plan our escape. It was a

game for me, which I played mostly to keep her hopes alive and her spirits

buoyant. I had no serious expectation of finding a way off this pinnacle of

rock.

We discussed ways of making a rope to lower ourselves down the cliff,

although every time I looked over the causeway from the terrace outside her

cell, I shuddered at that gaping void of space. She began to collect scraps

of wool and cloth which she hid under her mattress. From these she planned to

plait a rope. I could not tell her that a rope long enough and strong enough

to support our weight and take us down to the floor of the valley would fill

her cell to the ceiling.

For two long years we languished on the height of Adbar Seged, and we never

were able to devise a plan of escape, but Masara never lost faith. Every day

she asked me, ’What did Memnon say to me? Tell me again what he promised.’

’He said, "I will come back for you. Be brave." ’

’Yes. I am brave, am I not, Taita?’

’You are the bravest girl I know.’

’Tell me what you will say to my father when you meet him.’

I repeated her instructions, and then she would reveal to me her latest

plan of escape.

’I will catch the little sparrows that I feed on the terrace. You will

write a letter to my father to tell him where I am. We will tie it to the

sparrow’s leg, and it will fly to him.’

’It is more likely to fly to Arkoun, who will have us both thrashed, and we

will not be allowed to see each other again.’

In the end I escaped from Adbar Seged by riding out on a fine horse. Arkoun

was going out on another raid against King Prester BeniJon. I was commanded

to accompany him, in the capacity of personal physician and dom player.

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As I walked my blindfolded horse across the causeway, I looked back and saw

Masara standing on her terrace looking down at me. She was a lovely, lonely

figure. She called to me in Egyptian. I could just make out her words above

the sough of the wind.

’Tell him I am waiting for him. Tell him I have been brave.’ And then

softly, so I was not certain that I had heard the words right, ’Tell him I

love him.’

The wind turned the tears upon my cheeks as cold as ice, as I rode away

across Amba Kamara.

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE, ARKOUN kept me sitting late in his tent. While

he gave his last orders to his commanders, he stropped the edge of the blue

sword. Once in a while he would shave a few hairs off his wrist with the

steely, glittering blade to test the edge, and nod with satisfaction. At last

he rubbed down the blade with clarified mutton fat. This strange, silver-blue

metal had to be kept well greased, otherwise a red powder would form upon it,

almost as though it was bleeding.

The blue sword had come to exert the same fascination on me as it had on

Tanus. Occasionally, when he was in a specially benevolent mood, Arkoun would

allow me to handle it. The weight of the metal was surprising, and the

sharpness of the edge was incredible. I imagined what havoc it could wreak in

the hands of a swordsman like Tanus. I knew that if we ever met again, Tanus

would want every detail of it, and so I questioned Arkoun, who never tired of

boasting about it.

He told me that the sword had been forged in the heart of a volcano by one

of the pagan gods of Ethiopia. Arkoun’s great-grandfather had won it from the

god in a game of dom that had lasted for twenty days and twenty nights. I

found all this quite plausible, except the part of the legend about winning

the weapon in a dom game. If Arkoun’s greatgrandfather had played dom at the

same standard as Arkoun, then it must have been a very stupid god who lost

the sword to him.

Arkoun asked my opinion of his battle plan for the next day. He had learned

that I was a student of military tactics. I told him his plan was brilliant.

These Ethiopians had as much grasp of military tactics as they had of the

play of the dom stones. Of course, the terrain would not allow full use of

the horses, and they had no chariots. Nevertheless, their battles were fought

in a haphazard and desultory manner.

Arkoun’s grand strategy for the morrow would be to split his forces into

four raiding parties. They would hide among the rocks and rush out, seize a

few hostages, slit a few throats, and then run for it.

’You are one of the great generals of history,’ I told Arkoun, ’I would

like to write a scroll to extol your genius.’ He liked the idea, and promised

to provide me with whatever materials I required for the project, as soon as

we returned to Adbar Seged.

It seemed that King Prester Beni-Jon was a commander of equal panache and

vision. We met his forces the following day in a wide valley with steep

sides. The battlefield had been mutually agreed upon some months in advance,

and Prester Beni-Jon had taken up his position at the head of the valley

before we arrived. He came forward to shout insults and challenges at Arkoun

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from a safe distance.

Prester Beni-Jon was a stick of a man, thin as a staff, with a long white

beard and silver locks down to his waist. I could not make out his features

over that distance, but the women had told me that as a young man he had been

the most handsome swain in Ethiopia and that he had two hundred wives. Some

women had killed themselves for love of him. It seemed clear to me that his

talents might be more gainfully employed in the harem than on the

battlefield.

Once Prester Beni-Jon had had his say, Arkoun went forward and replied at

length. His insults were flowery and poetic, they rolled off the cliffs and

echoed down the gorge. I committed some of his pithier remarks to memory, for

they were worth recording.

When Arkoun subsided at last, I expected that battle would be joined, but I

was mistaken. There were several other warriors on both sides who wished to

speak. I fell asleep against a rock in the warm sun, smiling to myself as I

imagined what sport Tanus and a company of his Blues would enjoy against

these Ethiopian champions of rhetoric.

It was afternoon when I woke and started up at the clash of arms. Arkoun

had loosed his first assault. One of his detachments raced forward against

Prester Beni-Jon’s positions, beating their swords against their copper

shields. Within a remarkably short space of time they returned with great

alacrity to their starting-point, without having inflicted or suffered

casualties.

Further insults were exchanged, and then it was Prester Beni-Jon’s turn to

attack. He charged and retired with equal verve and similar results. So the

day passed, insult for insult, charge for charge. At nightfall both armies

retired. We camped at the foot of the valley and Arkoun sent for me.

’What a battle!’ he greeted me triumphantly, as I entered his tent. ’It

will be many months before Prester Beni-Jon will dare take the field again.’

’There will be no battle on the morrow?’ I asked.

’Tomorrow we will return to Adbar Seged,’ he told me, ’and you will write a

full account of my victory in your scrolls. I expect that after this salutary

defeat Prester Beni-Jon will soon sue for peace.’

Seven of our men had been wounded in this ferocious encounter, all by

arrows fired at extreme range. I drew the barbs and dressed and bandaged the

wounds. The following day I saw the wounded loaded on to the litters and

walked beside them, as we started back.

One of the men had received a stomach wound and was in much pain. I knew he

would be dead from gangrene within the week, but I did my best to ease his

suffering and to cushion the bouncing of the litter over the rougher sections

of the track.

Late that afternoon we came to a ford in the river, one that we had crossed

on our way to give battle to Prester Beni-Jon. I had recognized this ford

from the description that Masara had given me of the countryside and the

route to her father’s stronghold. The river was one of the numerous

tributaries of the Nile that descended from the mountains. There had been

rain over the preceding days, and the level of the ford was high.

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I began the crossing, wading beside the litter of my patient with the

stomach wound. He was already delirious. Halfway across the ford I realized

that we had underestimated the height and strength of the water. The flood

caught the side of the litter and swung it sideways. It twisted the horse

around, dragging the poor animal into deeper water where its hooves lost

purchase on the gravel bottom.

I was hanging on to the harness, and the next moment the horse and I were

both swimming. We were washed away downstream in the icy green flood. The

wounded man was tumbled out of the litter, and when I tried to reach him, I

lost my hold on the horse’s harness. We were swept apart.

The wounded man’s head disappeared below the surface, but by this time I

was swimming for my own life. I rolled on to my back and pointed my feet

downstream. This way I was able to fend off the rocks with my feet, as the

current hurled me against them. For a short while some of Ar-koun’s men ran

along the bank beside me, but soon the river swept me through a bend and they

could not find a way around the base of the cliff. The horse and I were alone

in the river.

Below the bend, the speed of the current slackened, and I was able to swim

back to the horse and throw one arm over its neck. For the moment I was safe.

For the first time I thought of escape, and realized that the gods had made

an opportunity for me. I muttered a prayer of thanks, and used a handful of

the horse’s mane to steer it on down the middle of the river.

We had come downstream several miles and it was dark before I steered my

horse into the bank. We clambered ashore on a sand-bar. I judged that I was

safe from pursuit and recapture until morning. None of Arkoun’s men would

venture down the gorge in darkness. However, I was so chilled that my whole

body shivered in uncontrollable spasms.

I led the horse to a sheltered place out of the wind, and then pressed my

body to his flank. His wet hide steamed in the moonlight. Gradually the

warmth of the animal permeated me, and my shivering subsided. Once I was

half-warmed, I was able to gather up driftwood from the sand-bank. Using the

Shilluk method, I managed with much difficulty to start a fire. I spread my

robes out to dry, and crouched over the fire for the rest of that night.

As soon as it was light enough to see the path, I dressed myself and

mounted the horse. I headed away from the river, for I knew that Arkoun’s men

would concentrate their search along the banks.

Two days later, following the directions that Masara had given me, I

reached one of the fortified hilltop villages in the domain of Prester

Beni-Jon. The headman of the village expressed the intention of cutting my

throat immediately and taking my horse. I made full use of all my persuasive

gifts, and eventually he agreed to keep the horse but lead me to the fortress

of Prester Beni-Jon.

THE GUIDES WHO WERE ESCORTING ME to King Prester Beni-Jon spoke of him in

warm and affectionate terms. The villages that we passed along the way were

cleaner and more prosperous than those of Arkoun. The herds of kine were

fatter, the crops well cultivated and the people better fed. The horses I saw

were magnificent. Their beauty brought tears to my eyes.

390

When at last we came in sight of the castle high on another amba, it was in

a better state of repair than that of Arkoun, and no grisly trophies

decorated the walls.

From close at hand, King Prester Beni-Jon was indeed an extremely handsome

man. His silver hair and beard endowed him with a singular air of dignity.

His complexion was fair and his eyes dark and intelligent. At first he was

highly sceptical of my story, but gradually his manner changed towards me, as

I recited the intimate knowledge with which Masara had armed me.

He was deeply affected by the messages of love and duty that I brought to

him from his daughter, and he questioned me eagerly as to her health and

welfare. Then his servants led me to quarters that, by Ethiopian standards,

were sumptuous, and I was provided with fresh woollen robes to replace my

rags.

After I had eaten and rested, the servants led me back to the dank and

smoky cell that was Prester Beni-Jon’s audience chamber.

’Your Majesty, Masara has been a prisoner of Arkoun these past two years,’

I pointed out to him immediately. ’She is a young and tender girl. She pines

away in his stinking dungeons.’ I embroidered the facts a trifle, to bring

home to him the urgency of her plight.

’I have tried to assemble the ransom that Arkoun demands for my daughter,’

Prester Beni-Jon excused himself. ’But I would have to melt down every plate

and bowl in Aksum to put together such a hoard of silver as would satisfy his

greed. In addition, he demands great tracts of my land and scores of my

principal villages. To relinquish these to him would weaken my realm and

condemn tens of thousands of my subjects to his tyranny.’

’I could lead your army to his stronghold of Adbar Seged. You could lay

siege to the castle and force him to hand over Masara to you.’

Prester Beni-Jon looked startled by this proposal. I do not think such a

course of action had occurred to him. It was not the Ethiopian way of waging

war.

’I know Adbar Seged very well, but it is impregnable,’ he answered me

primly. ’Arkoun has a mighty army at his back. We have fought many fierce

battles against him. My men are lions, but we have never been able to defeat

him.’ I had seen the lions of Prester Beni-Jon in battle, and I saw that his

estimate of the situation was correct. The army he commanded could never hope

to storm Adbar Seged and free Masara by force of arms.

The following day I returned with another proposal. ’Great Emperor of

Aksum, King of Kings, as you well know, I am of the Egyptian nation. Queen

Lostris, the regent of Egypt, lies with her armies at the confluence of the

two rivers, where the Nile meets its twin.’

He nodded. ’This I know. These Egyptians have entered my territory without

my leave. They are digging mines in my valleys. Soon I will fall upon them

and annihilate them.’

It was my turn to be startled. Prester Beni-Jon was aware of the work on

Pharaoh’s tomb, and our people there were in danger of attack. Accordingly, I

modified the suggestion that I was about to put to him.

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’My people are skilled in the art of siege and war,’ I explained. ’I have

influence with Queen Lostris. If you send me safely back to her side, I will

prevail on her to extend you her friendship. Her troops will storm the

fortress of Adbar Seged and free your daughter.’

Although Prester Beni-Jon tried to disguise the fact, I saw that my

suggestion appealed to him. ’What would your queen require in return for her

friendship?’ he asked carefully.

We haggled for five days, but in the end the bargain was struck. ’You will

allow Queen Lostris to continue the mining work in your valley, and you will

declare those valleys a prohibited area. Your own people will be forbidden to

enter there on pain of death,’ I told him. This was for my mistress. It would

secure the tomb of Pharaoh from desecration.

’I agree,’ said Prester Beni-Jon.

’You will deliver to Queen Lostris two thousand horses that I will choose

from your herds.’ This was for me.

’One thousand,’ said the king.

’Two thousand.’ I was firm.

’I agree,’ said Prester Beni-Jon.

’Once she is free, the Princess Masara shall be allowed to marry any man

she chooses. You will not forbid it.’ That was for Memnon and the girl.

’It is against our custom,’ he sighed. ’But lagree.’

’When we capture them, Arkoun and the stronghold of Adbar Seged will be

handed over to you.’ He looked more cheerful and nodded vigorously.

’Finally, we Egyptians shall be allowed to keep all the spoils of war that

we capture from Arkoun, including the legendary blue sword.’ That was for

Tanus.

’I agree,’ said Prester Beni-Jon, and I could see that he thought that he

had made a bargain.

He gave me an escort of fifty men, and I set out the following day on the

return to Qebui, riding a fine stallion that was the king’s parting gift to

me.

WE WERE STILL FIVE DAYS’ RIDE FROM Qebui, when I saw the swift dust-cloud

ahead of us, racing towards us across the plain. Then I saw the chariots

dancing through the heat-mirage. As they approached, the columns deployed

into attack formation at the gallop. It was beautiful to watch. The dressing

was perfect, and the spacing between each vehicle so exact that they looked

like a string of beads. I wondered who commanded them.

I shaded my -eyes as they drew closer, and my heart leaped as I recognized

the horses of the leading chariot. They were Rock and Chain, my own darlings.

However, I did not immediately recognize the charioteer behind them. It was

almost three years since last I had laid eyes on Mem-non. The difference in

age between seventeen and twenty is the difference between the boy and the

man.

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I had taken to riding with saddle-cloth and stirrups, in the Ethiopian

manner, and so now I stood high in the stirrups and waved. I saw the chariot

swerve, as Memnon recognized me and whipped up the team to full charge.

’Mem!’ I howled. ’Mem!’ and his answering shout came back to me on the

wind.

’Tata! By the sweet milk of Isis, it’s you!’ He pulled up the horses,

sprang from the footplate and dragged me from my horse. First he hugged me,

then he held me at arm’s-length and we studied each other avidly. ’You are

pale and thin, Tata. The bones are sticking out of you. Are those grey hairs

I see here?’ He tugged at my temples.

He was taller than I was now, lean in the waist and broad in the shoulder.

His skin was tanned and oiled to the colour of burnished amber, and cords of

muscle stood out in his throat when he laughed. He wore wrist-guards of gold

and the Gold of Valour on his bared chest. Although it seemed impossible, he

was more handsome than when I had last seen him. He reminded me of a leopard,

supple and sleek.

He lifted me bodily and set me on the footplate of the chariot. ’Take up

the traces,’ he ordered. ’I want to see if you have,lost any of your old

skill.’ ’Which way?’ I asked.

’West, to Qebui, of course,’ he ordered. ’My mother will be angry if I do

not bring you directly to her.’

That night we sat at a camp-fire together, away from the other officers, so

that we could talk in private. We sat in silence for a while, looking up at

the silver blaze of stars, and then Memnon said, ’When I thought I had lost

you, it was as though I had lost a part of myself. You are woven into my very

first memory of life.’

I, who deal in words, could find no words to answer him. We were silent

again, and then at last he laid a hand on my shoulder.

’Did you ever see the girl again?’ he asked, and though his tone was

casual, his grip upon my shoulder was not. ’Which girl?’ I asked, to tease

him. ’The girl at the river, on the day we were parted.’ ’Was there a girl?’

I frowned, as I tried to remember. ’What did she look like?’

’Her face was a dark lily, and her skin was the colour of wild honey. They

called her Masara, and the memory of her still troubles my sleep.’

’Her name is Masara Beni-Jon,’ I told him, ’and I have spent two years

imprisoned with her in the fortress of Adbar Seged. There I learned to love

her, for her nature is even sweeter than her face.’

He seized me with both hands now and shook me without mercy. ’Tell me about

her, Tata! Tell me everything. Leave nothing out.’

So we sat the rest of that night beside the fire and we talked about the

girl. I told him how she had learned to speak Egyptian for his sake. I told

him how his promise to her had sustained her through the dark, lonely days,

and in the end I told" him the message that she had sent to him, the message

she had called out to me from the battlements of Adbar Seged as I rode away

and left her. ’Tell him I was brave. Tell him I love him.’ He was silent for

a long while, staring into the flames, and then he said softly, ’How can she

love me? She does not know me.’

393

’Do you know her any better than she knows you?’ I asked, and he shook his

head. ’Do you love her?’

’Yes,’ he answered simply. ’Then she loves you in the same way.’ ’I made

her a promise. Will you help me make good my promise to her, Tata?’

I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE KNOWN SUCH joy as was mine on my return to Qebui

when I went aboard the Breath of Horus.

Memnon had sent a messenger ahead to warn them of my return, and they were

all waiting for me. ’By the stinking crust between Seth’s toes!’ Kra-tas

shouted. ’I thought we had got rid of you at last, you old rogue.’ And he

crushed me to his chest until I thought my ribs were all staved in.

Tanus seized my shoulders and stared into my eyes for a moment before he

grinned, ’But for you, that hairy Ethiop would have had me. He got the better

bargain when he took you instead. Thank you, old friend.’ I saw how Tanus had

aged. Like me, there was grey in his hair now, and his face was

weather-beaten, beginning to erode like a granite cliff.

My little princesses were no longer little, but they were still adorable.

They were shy towards me, for their memory of me had faded. They stared at me

with big eyes as I made my obeisance. The colour of Bekatha’s hair had

darkened to copper. I looked forward to rekindling her affection.

Tehuti recognized me at last. ’Tata!’ she said. ’Did you bring me a

present?’

’Yes, Your Highness,’ I replied, ’I have brought you my heart.’

My mistress smiled at me as I walked towards her along the deck. She wore

the light nemes crown and the golden head of the cobra on her brow. When she

smiled, I saw that she had lost her first tooth, and the gap marred her

smile. She had thickened around the waist, and the heavy affairs of state had

furrowed her brow and etched crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. To me,

however, she was still the most lovely woman in the world.

She stood up from the throne as I knelt before her. This was the highest

mark of her favour. She laid her hand on my bowed head, and it was a caress.

’You have been away from us too long, Taita,’ she said, so softly that only

I could hear her. ’Tonight you will sleep at the foot of my bed once more.’

That night, when she had drunk the bowl of herb broth that I had prepared

for her, and I had covered her with a fur blanket, she murmured softly as she

closed her eyes, ’Can I trust you not to kiss me when I am asleep?’

’No, Your Majesty,’ I replied, and stooped over her. She smiled as my lips

touched hers.

’Never leave us again for so long, Taita,’ she said.

MEMNON AND I HAD PLANNED OUR TACTICS meticulously, and we executed them

with the same precision as one of our chariot manoeuvres. Tanus was easy to

convince. His defeat by Ar-koun still rankled. In his presence Memnon and I

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discussed the ease with which the blue sword had sheered his bronze blade,

and how Arkoun would certainly have killed him, if I had not intervened.

Tanus bristled with humiliation.

Then Memnon questioned me on the magical origins and properties of the

legendary weapon. Tanus forgot his pique and joined in with avid questions of

his own.

’This Prester Beni-Jon has declared the blue sword a prize of war. Whoever

can seize it, may hold it,’ I told them.

’If we went against Arkoun, we would not be able to use chariots in those

valleys,’ Memnon mused. ’It would have to be the infantry. How do you think

your Shilluk would fare against the Ethiops, Lord Tanus?’ Memnon still

addressed Tanus formally. "Obviously he had not learned in my absence that

Tanus was his real father.

By the time we had finished with him, Tanus was as hot for the venture as

either of us. He was totally in league with us as we started our campaign on

Queen Lostris.

From the very beginning my mistress had understood, as Tanus never had,

just how vital the horses and chariots would be, if ever we were to fulfil

the dream of the return to our very Egypt. I displayed the stallion that

Prester Beni-Jon had given me, and pointed out to my mistress his finer

points of breed.

’Look at his nostrils, Majesty. See the depth of his chest, and the balance

of muscle to bone. The Hyksos have nothing to match these Ethiopian horses.’

Then I reminded her of her promise to the dead pharaoh, and told her,

’Prester Beni-Jon will cede the valley of the tomb to you. His warriors will

guard it against the grave-robbers. He will place a taboo upon the valley,

and these Ethiops are superstitious people. They will respect the prohibition

even long after we have returned to Thebes.’

I warned Memnon not to mention to Queen Lostris his amorous interest in an

expedition against Arkoun. It would do our cause no good. Every mother is

also a lover; she seldom takes any pleasure in seeing her son led away by

another younger woman.

No woman, not even a queen, could resist the combined charm and cunning of

the three of us, Tanus and Memnon and myself. Queen Lostris gave her consent

to our expeditionary force marching on Adbar Seged.

WE LEFT THE WAGONS AND THE CHARIOTS at the valley of Pharaoh’s tomb, and

struck out into the mountains. Prester Beni-Jon had sent a company of guides

to meet us. They were a hundred of his best and most reliable men.

Tanus had selected a full division of his wild and bloodthirsty Shilluk,

and promised them all the cattle they could capture. Each of these black

pagans carried a cloak of thick jackal fur rolled upon his back, for we

remembered the cold wind of the mountain passes.

For support we had three companies of Egyptian archers, led by Lord Kratas.

That old ruffian had joined the company of nobles during my sojourn in Adbar

Seged. He was spoiling for a real fight. He and every one of his men were

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armed with the new compound recurved bows that could outdrive the Ethiopian

long-bows by two hundred paces.

Memnon had selected a small band of the finest swordsmen and rough fighters

that we had. Remrem was one of these, of course, as were Lord Aqer and Astes.

I was part of this special detachment, not for my warlike skills, but simply

because I was the only one who had ever entered the fortress of Adbar Seged.

Hui wanted to come with us and offered me every bribe at his disposal. In

the end I gave in to him, mainly because I needed an expert to help me select

the horses that Prester Beni-Jon had promised me.

I impressed on both Tanus and the prince how vital it was to move swiftly,

not only for reasons of surprise, but also because the rains must soon break

upon the mountains. During my days in Adbar Seged I had studied the patterns

of the weather and the seasons. If the rains caught us in the valleys, they

would prove a more dangerous enemy than any Ethiop army.

We made the approach march to Amba Kamara in less than a month. Our column

wound through the passes like a long, deadly cobra. The bronze spear-heads of

the Shilluk glittered in the high sunlight like the scales of the serpent. We

met no person to oppose us. The villages we passed through were deserted. The

inhabitants had fled and taken their herds and their women with them.

Although each day the clouds gathered black and sullen on the mountain peaks,

and at night the thunder muttered at us, the rains held off and the fords of

the rivers were low.

Twenty-five days after setting out, we stood in the valley below the massif

of Amba Kamara, and looked up the winding track to the heights looming over

us.

On my previous journeys up and down the mountain I had studied the defences

that Arkoun had erected along the pathway. These comprised rockfalls and

stone-walled redoubts. I pointed these out to Tanus, and we could make out

the bushy, unhelmeted heads of the defenders showing above the walls of the

strongpoints.

’The weakness of a roekfall is that you can only let it come down once, and

my Shilluk are quick enough on their feet to dodge a charging buffalo,’ Tanus

said thoughtfully.

He sent them up the path in small parties, and when the defenders knocked

out the wedges from under the roekfall and sent it rolling down on the track,

those long-legged black spearmen ran out to the side with the agility of

mountain goats. Once the slide of boulders had rumbled past them, they turned

straight up the almost sheer mountainside. Bounding from rock to rock, and

howling in such a horrible fashion that they started the hair on the nape of

my neck, they drove the defenders up the mountain and over the crest.

They were held up only by Arkoun’s archers hidden behind the walls of the

stone redoubts. When this happened, Kratas led his archers up the mountain.

With their superior bow-range, the Egyptians were able to stand back and

shoot massed volleys, almost straight into the sky.

It was fascinating to watch a swarm of arrows climb into the air like a

flock of black birds and then drop down on to the redoubt so steeply that the

stone wall afforded the men behind it no protection. We heard their screams

and then saw them break and scurry away up the slope. Immediately the Shilluk

were after them, baying like a pack of hunting dogs. Even from the bottom of

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the valley I could hear their battle cry, ’Kajan! Kajan! Kill! Kill!’

Though my legs were hard and my wind strong with so much marching, I had

difficulty keeping up with Memnon and the rest of our small group. The years

were beginning to take their toll.

We were all wearing long woollen Ethiopic robes, and we carried the

traditional round shields of our enemies. However, we had not yet placed the

horse-hair wigs on our heads. It would have been extremely unwise to resemble

the Ethiopian too closely while the Shilluk were in their present mood.

When at last I came out on the flat tableland of the amba, I saw at a

glance that Tanus was rallying and regrouping his infantry. The one fault of

the Shilluk as fighting men is that once they have wet their spears with

blood, they go berserk, and it is almost impossible to control them. Tanus

was roaring like a bull elephant and laying about him with his golden whip of

rank. Once more in hand, the Shilluk formed ranks and moved forward against

the first village where the Ethiopians were waiting behind the stone walls.

As the wave of tall black figures, topped by a foam of white ostrich-feather

head-dresses, washed towards them, they loosed a shower of arrows from their

long bows. But the Shilluk had their tall shields up.

As the Shilluk charge burst upon them, some of the Ethiopians rushed

forward, brandishing their swords. They were not lacking in courage, but this

type of warfare was new to them. They had never been forced to meet a charge

that was carried through to the death.

I stayed long enough to see them heavily engaged, and then I called to

Memnon and his band, ’The wigs!’ Each of them pulled one of the wigs of black

horse-hair over his scalp. I had made these with my own hands, and styled

them on the Ethiopian model of beauty, full and floccose. Clad in the long

striped robes and with the wigs on our heads, we could pass as a mob of

Arkoun’s clansmen.

"This way! Follow me!’ I cried, and let out an ululating Ethiopic war cry.

They yodelled and howled behind me, as we skirted the village where the fight

was still raging, and ran in a disorderly bunch through the cornfields.

We had to reach the fortress and be at Masara’s side to protect her when

Arkoun finally realized that he had lost the day. I knew that he would not

hesitate to kill her as soon as she was no longer of value to him. I thought

that he would probably take the blue sword to her or throw her from the

causeway into the gorge. Those were his favourite means of despatching his

victims.

As we made our way across the amba, we found the entire tableland in

turmoil. Bands of bushy-headed warriors milled about in confusion. Women

dragged their children by the arm, their possessions piled on their heads,

wailing with terror as they ran about like frightened chickens who smell the

fox. Herds of goats bleated, and cattle lowed and churned the dust. The

herd-boys had fled. Nobody paid us the least attention as we trotted through

the fields and kept clear of the villages.

We followed the general movement towards Adbar Seged at the far end of the

table, and as we neared the causeway the crowds thickened and congealed until

we were obliged to force our way through them. There were guards at the head

of the causeway. They were turning the fugitives back with drawn swords and

clubs. Women were screaming and pleading for shelter in the fortress, holding

up their babies for mercy’s sake. Some of them were knocked down in the press

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and were trampled under the feet of those coming on from behind.

’Form the tortoise.’ Memnon gave the order quietly, and our small band

closed up and locked the edges of our Ethiopian shields. We cut through the

crowd like a shark through a shoal of sardines. Some of the weaker ones at

the front were pushed forward and forced over the edge of the precipice.

Their screams added to the panic. When we reached the head of the causeway,

the guards there tried to stop us, but they were themselves so crowded by the

mob that they could not swing their weapons, and were in danger of being

overwhelmed and thrown over the cliff.

’We are under King Arkoun’s direct orders. Stand aside!’ I shouted at them

in Geez.

"The password?’ the captain of the guard yelled at me, as he struggled to

stay on his feet. The crowd surged back and forward in panic. ’You must give

the password.’ He poked his sword at me, but Memnon struck the blade aside.

During my imprisonment I had heard the password repeated a thousand times,

for my cell had been above the main gate. It might have been changed since

then, and I was ready to have the captain killed, as I yelled the old

password at him: "The mountain is high!’

’Go across!’ He stood aside, and we struggled out of the throng, kicking

and shoving back those who tried to follow us. We ran out on to the bridge.

So urgent was the need to reach Masara that I barely noticed the drop on

either hand, and without a qualm I led them across the gaping void.

’Where is King Arkoun?’ I shouted at the guards who blocked the gateway.

When they hesitated, I told them, "The mountain is high! I have urgent

despatches for the king. Stand aside! Let us pass!’ We barged through the

open gate before they could decide to oppose us, and, with twelve good men at

my back, I raced for the outer staircase that led to the upper terrace.

There were two armed men at the door to Masara’s chamber, and I rejoiced to

see them. I had worried that the girl might have been moved to another part

of the fort, but the presence of the guards assured me that she had not.

’Who are you?’ one of them shouted, and drew his sword. ’By wh’at

authority?’ He did not finish the challenge. I stepped aside and allowed

Memnon and Remrem to brush past me. They flew at the guards and cut them down

before they could defend themselves.

The door to Masara’s chamber was barred from within, and when we hurled our

combined weight against it, there came a chorus of feminine screams and wails

from the other side. At the third attempt the door gave way and I was

propelled through the opening into the room beyond. It was. in deep gloom,

and I could barely make out the huddle of women in the far corner.

’Masara!’ I called her name, as I plucked the wig from my head, and let my

own hair fall around my shoulders. She recognized me by it.

’Taita!’ She bit the wrist of the woman who tried to hold her, and ran to

me. She flung both arms around my neck, and then she looked over my shoulder

and her grip slackened, her dark eyes opened wide and the colour flooded her

cheeks.

Memnon had pulled off his wig. Without it, he was strikingly and

unmistakably a prince. I stepped aside and left Masara standing alone. The

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two of them stared at each other. Neither of them moved or spoke for what

seemed like an eternity, but was a moment only. Then Masara said softly and

shyly in Egyptian, ’You came. You kept your promise. I knew that you would.’

I think that this was the only time that I ever saw Memnon at a loss. He

could only nod his head, and then I witnessed an amazing phenomenon. Blood

flooded up his neck and suffused his face, so that even in the gloom of the

chamber it glowed. The Crown Prince of Egypt, son of Pharaoh, commander of

the first division of chariots, Best of Ten Thousand, holder of the Gold of

Valour, stood there blushing and as tongue-tied as a peasant clod.

Behind me one of the women squawked like a startled hen, and before I could

put out a hand to hold her, she had ducked under my arm and darted down the

inner staircase. Her screams reverberated up the stairwell. ’Guards! The

enemy has broken into the east wing. Come quickly!’ and almost immediately

there was a rush of booted feet on the staircase.

On the instant, Memnon was transformed from the blushing young lover to a

hard-faced guardsman. ’Take care of her, Tata, Let no harm come to her,’ he

told me grimly, and stepped past me to the head of the stairs.

He killed the first man coming up with that classic thrust to the throat

that Tanus had taught him. Then he placed his foot in the centre of his

chest. As he jerked his blade free, he kicked the dead man backwards down the

stair-well. The falling corpse tumbled into the other men coming up from

below, and swept the stairs clean.

Memnon looked at me. ’Do you think we can reach the gate before they close

it?’

’We must,’ I answered. ’Our best route is back down the outer staircase.’

’Remrem, lead us. Tata and the princess in the centre. I will bring up the

rear-guard,’ he said crisply, and stabbed the next man coming up the stairs

in the eye.

The Ethiopian dropped his weapon and clutched his face with both hands.

Memnon stabbed him again through the chest and pushed him backwards down the

stairs, clearing them a second time. ’Follow Remrem,’ he shouted at me.

’Don’t stand there. After him as fast as you can.’

I grabbed Masara’s arm, but there was no need to pull her along. She came

with me readily, so quick and agile that she was leading me.

The sunlight struck us as we ran out on to the terrace. After the dark room

it dazzled me. I blinked to clear my vision, and then I looked across the

causeway to the edge of the tableland on the far side of the gulf. Tanus’

Shilluks were there. I saw their feathers dancing and their shields held

high.

’Kajan! Kill! Kill!’ they sang, and their spear-heads were dulled with

fresh blood. The panic-stricken peasants scattered before them, and they

reached the head of the causeway.

There were two or three hundred of Arkoun’s soldiers there. They had the

abyss at their backs, and necessity made heroes of every one of them. Now

they had truly become lions. Although a score of them were driven back over

the edge, and plunged to their death in the valley far below, the survivors

hurled back the first charge of the Shilluk.

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I saw Tanus then, exactly where I expected him to be, holding the centre.

His helmet shone like a beacon in the dark sea of Shilluk warriors. I saw him

throw back his head and begin to sing.

The savage Shilluk words carried over the gulf to where I stood on the

terrace of the fortress. The men around him took up the chorus, and they

surged forward, still singing. This time nothing could stand before them.

They stabbed and hacked their way through the defenders, and Tanus was the

first man on to the causeway. He ran lightly for such a big man, and he was

still singing. His Shilluk followed him on to the stone arch, but it was so

narrow that they were forced into single file.

Tanus was halfway across, when the song died on his lips, and he stopped.

From the gateway of Adbar Seged, below where I stood, another man stepped

out on to the causeway to confront Tanus. I was looking down and so could not

see his face, but there was no mistaking the weapon in his right hand. The

blue sword caught the sunlight and flashed like a sheet of summer lightning.

’Arkoun!’ Tanus bellowed. ’I have been looking for you.’

Arkoun could not understand the words, but the sense of them was

unmistakable. He laughed into the wind, and his beard blew out like smoke

around his goaty face.

’I know you!’ He swung the silver-blue blade around his head, and it hissed

and whined in the air. ’This time I will kill you.’ He started forward, out

along the narrow arch of stone, running with long, lithe strides straight at

Tanus.

Tanus altered his grip on the handle of his bronze shield, and tucked his

head in behind it. He now knew the power in that glittering blade, and I saw

that he did not intend meeting it with his own softer bronze. Arkoun had also

learned discretion from their last brief encounter. From the way he carried

the blue sword, I guessed that he would not attempt another rash overhand

stroke.

As they came together, Arkoun gathered himself. I saw his shoulders brace

and his weight swing forward. He used the impetus of his charge to send the

straight thrust at Tanus’ head. Tanus lifted the shield and caught the blue

blade in the centre of the heavy bronze target. It would have snapped a sword

of inferior metal, but the blue sword sheared through it as if it were

goat-skin. Half its silver length was buried in the yellow bronze.

Then I realized Tanus’ intention. He twisted the shield at an angle so that

the blade was trapped. Arkoun struggled to withdraw his weapon, he wrestled

and heaved, throwing his full weight backwards, but Tanus had the blue sword

in a vice of bronze.

Arkoun gathered all his strength and pulled back again. This time Tanus did

not resist him. He leaped forward in the direction that Arkoun was heaving,

and this unexpected move threw Arkoun off-balance.

Arkoun staggered away, tripped and teetered on the brink of the chasm. In

order to keep his balance, he was forced to relinquish his grip on the hilt

of the blue sword, and to leave it still embedded in the shield.

He windmilled his arms as he swayed out over the drop. Then Tanus shifted

his ground, put his shoulder behind the shield and barged forward. The shield

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crashed into Arkoun’s chest, and the pommel of the blue sword caught him in

the pit of his belly with all Tanus’ weight and strength behind it.

Arkoun was thrown backwards, out into empty space. He turned a slow

somersault in the air and then went straight down, with his robe ballooning

around him, and his beard streaming like a chariot pennant in the wind of his

fall.

From where I stood, I watched him make the same last journey on which he

had sent so many other unfortunate souls. From the causeway until he struck

the rocks a thousand feet below, he screamed all the way down, on a high,

receding note that was cut off abruptly at the end.

Tanus stood alone in the middle of the causeway. He still held the shield

on high with the sword buried in the metal.

Slowly the tumult and the fighting died away. The Ethiopians had seen their

king vanquished and cast down. The heart went out of them. They threw down

their weapons and grovelled for mercy. The Egyptian officers were able to

save some of them from the blood-crazed Shilluk, and these were dragged away

to where the slave-masters waited to bind them.

I had no eyes for any of this, for I was watching Tanus out there on the

bridge. He began to walk towards the gateway, of the fortress, and the men

cheered him and raised their weapons in salute.

’There is plenty of fight in the old bull yet,’ Memnon laughed in

admiration, but I did not laugh with him. I felt the chill premonition of

some awful tragedy, like the air stirred by the beat of vultures’ wings as

they settle to their gruesome feast.

’Tanus,’ I whispered. He walked with a slow and hampered gait. He lowered

the shield as he came down the bridge of stone, and only then did I see the

stain spreading on his breastplate.

I thrust Masara into Memnon’s arms and ran down the outer staircase. The

Ethiopian guards at the gate tried to surrender their weapons to me, but I

pushed my way past them and ran out on to the causeway.

Tanus saw me running towards him and he smiled at me, but the smile was

lop-sided. He stopped walking and slowly his legs buckled beneath him, and he

sat down heavily in the middle of the bridge. I dropped on my knees beside

him, and saw the rent in the crocodile-skin of his breastplate. Blood oozed

from it, and I knew that the blue sword had bitten deeper than I had believed

possible. Arkoun had driven the point through the bronze shield, on through

the tough leather breastplate, and into Tanus’ chest.

Carefully I untied the straps that held his armour, and lifted away the

breastplate. Tanus and I both looked down at the wound. It was a penetrating

slit the exact width of the blade, like a tiny mouth with wet red lips. Every

breath that Tanus drew frothed through that horrid opening in a rash of pink

bubbles. It was a lung wound, but I could not bring myself to say it. No man

can survive a sword-cut through one of his lungs.

’You are wounded.’ It was an asinine remark, and I could not look at his

face as I said it.

’No, old friend, I am not wounded,’ he replied softly. ’I am killed.’

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TANUS’ SHILLUK MADE A LITTER WITH their spears, and covered it with a rug

of sheepskin. They lifted him and carried him, gently and slowly, into the

fortress of Adbar Seged.

We laid him on the bed of King Arkoun, and then I sent them all away. When

they were gone, I placed the blue sword upon the bed beside him. He smiled

and laid his hand on the gold and jewelled hilt. ’I have paid a high price

for this treasure,’ he murmured. ’I would have liked to wield it just once

upon the battlefield.’

I could offer him no hope or comfort. He was an old soldier, and he had

seen too many lung wounds. I could not hope to deceive him as to the final

outcome. I bound up the wound with a pad of wool and a linen bandage. While I

worked, I recited the incantation to quell the bleeding, ’Retreat from me,

creature of Seth?’

But he was sinking away from me. Each breath he drew was an effort, and I

could hear the blood stirring in his lungs like a hidden creature in the deep

swamps.

I mixed a draught of the sleeping-flower, but he would not drink it. ’I

will live every minute of my life,’ he told me. ’Even the very last one.’

’What else is there that I can do for you?’

’You have done so much already,’ he said. ’But there is no end to the

demands that we all make upon you.’ ’ I shook my head, ’There is no end to

what I would give.’

’These last things then I ask of you. Firstly, you will never tell Mernnon

that I am his sire. He must always believe that the blood of the pharaohs

runs in his veins. He will need every strength to meet the destiny that

awaits him.’

’He would be as proud to share your blood as that of any king.’

’Swear to me you will not tell him.’

’I swear it,’ I replied, and he lay a while gathering his strength.

’There is one other boon.’

’I grant it before you name it,’ I said.

’Take care of my woman who was never my wife. Shield and succour her as you

have done all these years past.’

’You know I will.’

’Yes, I know you will, for you have always loved her as much as I have.

Take care of Lostris and of our children. I give them all into your hands.’

He closed his eyes, and I thought that the end was close, but his strength

surpassed that of other men. After a while he opened them again.

’I wish to see the prince,’ he said.

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’He waits for you on the terrace,’ I answered, and went to the curtained

doorway.

Memnon stood at the far end of the terrace. Masara was with him, and the

two of them stood close together but not touching. Their expressions were

grave and their voices muted. They both looked up as I called.

Memnon came immediately, leaving the girl standing alone. He went directly

to Tanus’ bed and stood looking down at him. Tanus smiled up at him, but the

smile was unsteady. I knew what effort it had cost him.

’Your Highness, I have taught you all I know of war, but I cannot teach you

about life. Each man must learn that for himself. There is nothing else I

have to tell you before I start out on this new journey, except to thank you

for the gift of knowing and serving you.’

’You were ever more than a tutor to me,’ Memnon answered softly. ’You were

the father I never knew.’

Tanus closed his eyes, and his expression twisted.

Memnon stooped and took his arm in a firm grip. ’Pain is just another enemy

to be met and overcome. You taught me that, Lord Tanus.’ The prince thought

it was the wound that had affected him, but I knew that it was the pain of

the word ’father’.

Tanus opened his eyes. ’Thank you, Your Highness. It is good to have you to

help me through this last agony.’

’Call me friend, rather than highness.’ Memnon sank on one knee beside the

bed, and he did not release the grip on Tanus’ arm.

’I have a gift for you, friend.’ The congealing blood in Tanus’ lungs

blurred his voice. He groped for the handle of the blue sword that still lay

on the mattress beside him, but he did not have the strength to lift it.

He took Memnon’s hand from his arm and placed it upon the jewelled hilt.

"This is yours now,’ he whispered.

’I will think of you whenever I draw it from its scabbard. I will call your

name whenever I wield it on the battlefield.’ Memnon took up the weapon.

’You do me great honour.’

Memnon stood up, and with the sword in his right hand took the classic

opening stance in the centre of the room. He touched the blade to his lips,

saluting the man lying on the bed.

’This is the way you taught me to do it.’

Then he began the exercise of arms, in which Tanus had drilled him when he

was still a child. He performed the twelve parries, and then the cuts and the

lunges with an unhurried perfection. The silver blade circled and swooped

like a glittering eagle. It fluted and whined through the air, and lit the

gloom of the chamber with darting beams of light.

Memnon ended it with the straight thrust, aimed at the throat of an

imaginary enemy. Then he placed the point between his feet and rested both

hands upon the pommel.

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’You have learned well,’ Tanus nodded. ’There is nothing more that I can

teach you. It is not too soon for me to go.’

’I will wait with you,’ Memnon said.

’No.’ Tanus made a weary gesture. ’Your destiny waits for you beyond the

walls of this dreary room. You must go forward to meet it without looking

back. Taita will stay with me. Take the girl with you. Go to Queen Lostris

and prepare her for the news of my death.’

’Go in peace, Lord Tanus.’ Memnon would not degrade that solemn moment with

futile argument. He crossed to the bed and kissed his father on the lips.

Then he turned and, without a backward glance, he strode from the room with

the blue sword in his hand.

’Go on to glory, my son,’ Tanus whispered, and turned to face the stone

wall. I sat at the foot of his bed and looked at the dirty stone floor. I did

not want to watch a man like Tanus weep.

I WOKE IN THE NIGHT TO THE SOUND OF drums, those crude wooden drums of the

Shilluk, beating out there in the darkness. The doleful sound of the

Shilluk’s voices chanting their savage dirge made me shudder with dread.

The lamp had burned low, and was guttering beside the bed. It threw

grotesque shadows on the ceiling, like the beating and fluttering of the

wings of vultures. I crossed slowly and reluctantly to where Tanus lay. I

knew that the Shilluk were not mistaken?they have a way of sensing these

things.

Tanus lay as I had lastvseen him, with his face to the wall, but when I

touched his shoulder I felt the chill in his flesh. That indomitable spirit

had gone on.

I sat beside him for the remainder of that night and I lamented and mourned

for him, as his Shilluk were doing.

In the dawn I sent for the embalmers.

I would not let those crude butchers eviscerate my friend. I made the

incision in His left flank. It was not a long, ugly slash, such as the

undertakers are wont to perform, but the work of a surgeon.

Through it I drew his viscera. When I held Tanus’ great heart in my hands,

I trembled. It was as though I could still feel all his strength and power

beat in this casket of flesh. I replaced it with reverence and love in the

cage of his ribs, and I closed the gash in his side and the wound in his

chest, that the blue sword had made, with all the skill at my command.

I took up the bronze spoon, and pressed it up his nostril until I felt it

touch the thin wall of bone at the end of the passage. This flimsy partition

I pierced with one hard thrust, and scooped out the soft matter from the

cavity of his skull. Only then was I content to deliver him over to the

embalmers.

Even though there was no more for me to do, I waited with Tanus through the

forty long days of the mummification in the cold and gloomy castle of Adbar

Seged. Looking back upon it now, I realize that this was weakness. I could

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not bear the burden of my mistress’s grief when first she heard the news of

Tanus’ death. I had allowed Memnon to assume the duty that was rightfully

mine. I hid with the dead, when I should have been with the living who needed

me more. I have ever been a coward.

There was no coffin to hold Tanus’ mummified body. I would make him one

when at last we reached the fleet at Qebui. I had the Ethiopian women weave a

long basket for him. The mesh of the weave was so fine that it resembled

linen. It would hold water like a pot of fired clay.

WE CARRIED HIM DOWN FROM THE mountains. His Shilluk easily bore the weight

of his desiccated body. They fought each other for the honour. Sometimes they

sang their wild songs of mourning as we wound our way through the gorges and

over the windswept passes. At other times they sang the fighting songs that

Tanus had taught them.

I walked beside his bier all that weary way. The rains broke on the peaks

and drenched us. They flooded the fords so that we had to swim ropes across.

In my tent at night, Tanus’ reed coffin stood beside my own cot. I spoke

aloud to him in the darkness, as if he could hear and answer me, just as we

had done in the old days.

At last we descended through the last pass, and the great plains lay before

us. As we approached Qebui, my mistress came to meet our sad caravan. She

rode on the footplate of the chariot behind Prince Memnon.

As they came towards us through the grassland, I ordered the Shilluk

bearers to lay Tanus’ reed coffin under the spreading branches of a giant

giraffe acacia. My mistress dismounted from the chariot and went to the

coffin. She placed one hand upon it, and bowed her head in silence.

I was shocked to see what ravages sorrow had wrought upon her. There were

streaks of grey in her hair, and her eyes were dulled. The sparkle and the

zest had gone out of them. I realized that the days of her youth and her

great beauty were gone for ever. She was a lonely and tragic figure. Her

bereavement was so evident, that no person who looked upon her now could

doubt that she was a widow.

I went to her side to warn her. ’Mistress, you must not make your grief

clear for all to see. They must never know that he was more than just your

friend and the general of your armies. For the sake of his memory and the

honour that he held so dear, hold back your tears.’

’I have no tears left,’ she answered me quietly. ’My grief is all cried

out. Only you and I will ever know the truth.’

We placed Tanus’ humble reed coffin in the hold of the Breath ofHorus,

beside the magnificent gold coffin of Phar-oah. I stayed at the side of my

mistress, as I had promised Tanus I would, until the worst agonies of her

mourning had subsided into’ the dull eternal pain that would never leave her

again. Then, at her orders, I returned to the valley of the tomb to supervise

the completion of Pharaoh’s sepulchre.

Obedient to my mistress, I also selected a site further down the valley for

the tomb of Tanus. Though I did my very best with the material and craftsmen

available to me, Tanus’ resting-place would be the hut of a peasant compared

to the funerary palace of Pharaoh Mamose.

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An army of craftsmen had laboured all these years to complete the

magnificent murals that decorated the passages and the subterranean chambers

of the king’s tomb. The store-rooms of the tomb were crammed with all the

treasure that we had carried with us from Thebes.

Tanus’ tomb had been built in haste. He had accumulated no treasure in his

lifetime of service to the state and the crown. I painted scenes upon the

walls that depicted the events of his earthly existence, his hunting of

mighty beasts and his battles with the red pretender and the Hyk-sos, and the

last assault on the fortress of Adbar Seged. However, I dared not show his

nobler accomplishments, his love for my mistress and his steadfast friendship

to me. The love of a queen is treason, the friendship of a slave is

degrading.

When at last it was completed, I stood alone in Tanus’ modest tomb, where

he would spend all eternity, and I was suddenly consumed by anger that this

was all I could do for him. In my eyes he was more a man than any pharaoh who

had ever worn the double crown. That crown could have been his, it should

have been his, but he had spurned it. To me he was more a king than ever

Pharaoh had been.

It was then that the thought first dawned upon me. It was so outrageous

that I thrust it from me. Even to contemplate it seriously was a terrible

treason, and offence in the eyes of men and the gods.

However, over the weeks that followed, the thought kept creeping back into

my mind. I owed Tanus so much, and Pharaoh so little. Even if I was damned to

perdition, it would be a fair price to pay. Tanus had given me more than that

over my lifetime.

I could not accomplish it alone. I needed help, but who was there to turn

to? I could not enlist either Queen Lostris or the prince. My mistress was

bound by the oath she had sworn to Pharaoh, and Memnon did not know which of

the two men was his natural father. I could not tell him without breaking my

oath to Tanus.

In the end there was one person only who had loved Tanus almost as much as

I had, who feared neither god nor man, and who had the brute physical

strength I lacked.

’By Seth’s unwiped backside!’ Lord Kratas roared with laughter when I

revealed my plan to him. ’No one else but you could have dreamed up such a

scheme. You are the biggest rogue alive, Taita, but I love you for giving me

this last chance to honour Tanus.’

The two of us planned it carefully. I even went to the lengths of sending

the guards at the entrance to the hold of the Breath of Horus a jug of wine

heavily laced with the powder of the sleeping-flower.

When Kratas and I at last entered the hold of the ship where the two

coffins lay, my resolve wavered. I sensed that the Ka of Pharaoh Mamose

watched me from the shadows and that his baleful spirit would follow me all

the days of my life, seeking vengeance for this sacrilege.

Big, bluff Kratas had no such qualms, and he set to work with such a will

that several times during the course of the night, I had to caution him

against the noise he was making as we opened the golden lids to the royal

coffin and lifted out the mummy of the king.

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Tanus was a bigger man than Pharaoh, but fortunately the coffin-makers had

left us some space, and Tanus’ body had shrunk during the embalming. Even so,

we were obliged to unwind several layers of his wrappings before he fitted

snugly into the great golden cask.

I mumbled an apology to Pharaoh Mamose as we lifted him into the humble

wooden coffin, painted on the outside with a likeness of the Great Lion of

Egypt. There was room to spare, and before we sealed the lid we packed this

with the linen bandages that we had unwrapped from Tanus.

AFTER THE RAINS HAD PASSED AND THE cool season of the year returned, my

mistress ordered the funeral procession to leave Qebui and set out for the

valley of the tomb.

The first division of chariots, headed by Prince Memnon, led us. Behind

followed fifty carts loaded with the funerary treasure of Pharaoh Mamose. The

royal widow, Queen Lostris, rode on the wagon that carried the golden coffin.

I rejoiced to see her take this last journey in the company of the one man

she had loved, even though she thought it was another. I saw her glance back

more than once towards the end of the long caravan that crept dolefully

across the plains, five miles from its head to its tail.

The wagon at the rear of the column that carried the lighter wooden coffin

was followed by a regiment of Shil-luk. Their magnificent voices carried

clearly to us at the head of the column as they sang the last farewell. I

knew that Tanus would hear them and know for whom the song was sung.

WHEN WE AT LAST REACHED THE VALLEY of the tomb, the golden coffin was

placed beneath a tabernacle outside the entrance to the royal mausoleum. The

linen roof of the tent was illuminated with texts and illustrations from the

Book of the Dead.

There were to be two separate funerals. The first was the lesser, that of

the Great Lion of Egypt. The second would be the grander and more elaborate

royal funeral.

So it was that three days after our arrival at the valley, the wooden

coffin was placed in the tomb that I had prepared for Tanus, and the tomb was

consecrated by the priests of Horus, who was Tanus’ patron, and then sealed.

During this ritual, my mistress was able to restrain her grief and to show

nothing more than the decent sorrow of a queen towards a faithful servant,

although I knew that inside her something was dying that would never be

reborn.

All that night the valley resounded to the chant of the Shilluk regiment as

they mourned for the man who had now become one of their gods. To this day

they still shout his name in battle.

Ten days after the first funeral, the golden coffin was placed on its

wooden sledge and dragged into the vast royal tomb. It required the efforts

of three hundred slaves to manoeuvre the coffin through the passageways. I

had designed the tomb so precisely that there was only the breadth of a hand

between the sides and the lid of the coffin and the stone walls and roof.

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To thwart all future grave-robbers and any others who would desecrate the

royal tomb, I had built a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the mountain. From the

entrance in the cliff-face, a wide passage led directly to an impressive

burial vault that was decorated with marvellous murals. In the centre of this

room stood an empty granite sarcophagus, with the lid removed and cast

dramatically aside. The first grave-robber to enter here would believe that

he was too late and that some other had plundered the tomb before him.

In fact, there was another tunnel leading off at right-angles from the

entrance passage. The mouth of this was disguised as a store-room for the

funerary treasure. The coffin had to be turned and eased into this secondary

passage. From there it entered a maze of false passages and dummy burial

vaults, each’more serpentine and devious than the last.

In all there were four burial chambers, but three of these would remain

forever empty. There were three hidden doors and two vertical shafts. The

coffin had to be lifted up one of these, and lowered down the other.

It took fifteen days for the coffin to be inched through this maze, and

installed at last in its final resting-place. The roof and walls of this tomb

were painted with all the skill and genius with which the gods have gifted

me. There was not a space the size of my thumbnail that was not blazing with

colour and movement.

Five store-rooms led off from the chamber. Into these were packed that

treasure which Pharaoh Mamose had accumulated over his lifetime, and which

had come close to beggaring bur very Egypt. I had argued with my mistress

that, instead of being buried in the earth, this treasure should be used to

pay for the army and the struggle that lay ahead of us in our efforts to

expel the Hyksos tyrant and to liberate our people and our land.

"The treasure belongs to Pharaoh,’ she had replied. ’We have built up

another treasure of gold and slaves and ivory here in Cush. That will

suffice. Let the divine Mamose have what is his?I have given him my oath on

it.’

Thus on the fifteenth day, the golden coffin was placed within the stone

sarcophagus that had been hewn out of the native rock. With a system of ropes

and levers, the heavy lid was lifted over it and lowered into place.

The royal family and the priests and the nobles entered the tomb to perform

the last rites.

My mistress and the prince stood at the head of the sarcophagus, and the

priests droned on with their incantations and their readings from the Book of

the Dead. The sooty smoke from the lamps and the breathing of the throng of

people in the confined space soured the air, so it was soon difficult to

breathe.

In the dim yellow light I saw my mistress turn pale and the perspiration

bead on her forehead. I worked my way through the tightly packed ranks, and I

reached her side just as she swayed and collapsed. I was able to catch her

before she struck her head on the granite edge of the sarcophagus.

We carried her out of the tomb on a litter. In the fresh mountain air she

recovered swiftly, but still I confined her to her bed in her tent for the

rest of that day.

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That night as I prepared her tonic of herbs, she lay quietly and

thoughtfully, and after she had drunk the infusion she whispered to me, ’I

had the most extraordinary sensation. As I stood in Pharaoh’s tomb, I felt

suddenly that Tanus was very close to me. I felt his hand touch my face and

his voice murmur in my ear. That was when I fainted away.’

’He will always be close to you,’ I told her.

’I believe that,’ she said simply.

I can see now, though I could not see it then, that her decline began on

the day that we laid Tanus in his grave. She had lost the joy of living and

the will to go on.

I WENT BACK INTO THE ROYAL TOMB THE next day with the masons and the corps

of slave labourers to seal the doorways and the shafts, and to arm the

devices that would guard the burial chamber.

As we retreated through the maze of passageways, we blocked the secret

doorways with cunningly laid stone and plaster, and painted murals over them.

We sealed the mouths of the vertical shafts so that they appeared to be

smooth floor and roof.

I set rockfalls that would be triggered by a footstep on a loose paving

slab, and I packed the vertical shafts with balks of timber. As these decayed

over the centuries and the fungus devoured them, they would emit noxious

vapours that would suffocate any intruder who succeeded in finding his way

through the secret doorways.

But before we did all this, I went to the actual burial chamber to take

leave of Tanus. I carried with me a long bundle wrapped in a linen sheet.

When I stood for the last time beside the royal sarcophagus, I sent all the

workmen away. I would be the very last to leave the tomb, and after me the

entrance would be sealed.

When I was alone I opened the bundle I carried. From it I took the long

bow, Lanata. Tanus had named it after my mistress and I had made it for him.

It was a last gift from the two of us. I placed it upon the sealed stone lid

of his coffin.

There was one other item in my bundle. It was the wooden ushabti figure

that I had carved. I placed it at the foot of the sarcophagus. While I carved

it, I had set up three copper mirrors so that I could study my own features

from every angle and reproduce them faithfully. The doll was a miniature

Taita.

Upon the base I had inscribed the words: ’My name is Taita. I am a

physician and a poet. I am an architect and a philosopher. I am your friend.

I will answer for you.’

As I left the tomb, I paused at the entrance and looked back for the last

time.

’Farewell, old friend,’ I said. ’I am richer for having known you. Wait for

us on the other side.’

409

IT TOOK ME MANY MONTHS TO COMPLETE the work on the royal tomb. As we

retreated through the labyrinth, I personally inspected every sealed doorway

and every secret device that we left behind us.

I was alone, for my mistress and the prince had gone up into the mountains

to the fortress of Prester Beni-Jon. They had gone with all the court to

prepare for the wedding of Memnon and Masara. Hui had accompanied them to

select the horses from the Ethiopian herds that were part of our payment for

the storming of Adbar Seged, and the recovery of Masara.

When at last my work in the tomb was completed and my workmen had sealed

the outer entrance in the cliff-face, I also set off into the mountains, over

those cold and windy passes. I was anxious not to miss the wedding feast, but

I had left it late. The completion of the tomb had taken longer than I had

planned. I travelled as hard as the horses could stand.

I reached Prester Beni-Jon’s palace five days before the wedding, and I

went directly to that part of the fortress where my mistress and her suite

were lodged.

’I have not smiled since last I saw you, Taita,’ she greeted me. ’Sing for

me. Tell me your stories. Make me laugh.’

It was not an easy task she set me, for the melancholy had entered deeply

into her soul, and the truth was that I was not myself cheerful or

light-hearted. I sensed that more than sorrow alone was affecting her. Soon

we abandoned our attempts at merriment, and fell to discussing affairs of

state.

It might have been a love match, and a meeting of twin souls blessed by the

gods as far as the two lovers were concerned, but for the rest of us, the

joining of Memnon and Masara was a royal wedding and a contract between

nations. There were agreements and treaties to negotiate, dowries to be

decided, trade agreements to draw up between the King of Kings and ruler of

Aksum, and the regent of Egypt and the wearer of the double crown of the two

kingdoms.

As I had predicted, my mistress had been at first less than enchanted by

the prospect of her only son marrying a woman of a different race.

’In all things they are different, Taita. The gods they worship, the

language they speak, the colour of their skins? oh! I wish he had chosen a

girl of our own people.’

’He will,’ I reassured her. ’He will marry fifty, perhaps a hundred

Egyptians. He will also marry Libyans and Hurri-ans and Hyksos. All the races

and nations he conquers in the years to come will provide him with wives,

Cushites and Hittites and Assyrians?’

’Stop your teasing, Taita.’ She stamped her foot with something of her old

fire. ’You know full well what I mean. Those others will all be marriages of

state. This, his first, is a marriage of two hearts.’

What she said was true. The promise of love that Mem-non and Masara had

exchanged in those fleeting moments beside the river was now blossoming.

I was especially privileged to be close to them in these heady days. They

both acknowledged and were grateful for my part in bringing them together. I

was for both of them a friend of long standing, somebody that they trusted

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without question.

I did not share my mistress’s misgivings. Though they were different in

every way that she had listed, their hearts were turned from the same mould.

They both possessed a sense of dedication, a fierceness of the spirit, a

touch of the ruthlessness and the cruelty that a ruler must have. They were a

matched pair, he the tiercel and she the falcon. I knew that she would not

distract him from his destiny, but rather that she would encourage and incite

him to greater endeavour. I was content with my efforts as a matchmaker.

One bright mountain day, watched by twenty thousand men and women of

Ethiopia and of Egypt who crowded the slopes of the hills around them, Memnon

and Masara stood together on the river-bank and broke the jar of water that

the high priest of Osiris had scooped from the infant Nile.

The bride and the groom led our caravan down from the mountains, -laden

with the dowry of a princess and the treaties and the protocols of kinship

sealed between our two nations.

Hui and his grooms drove a herd of five thousand horses behind us. Some of

these were in payment for our mercenary services, and the rest made up

Masara’s dowry. However, before we reached the junction of the two rivers at

Qebui, we saw the dark stain on the plains ahead as though a cloud had cast

its shadow over the savannah?but the sun shone out of a cloudless sky.

The gnu herds had returned on their annual migration.

Within weeks of this contact with the gnu, the Yellow Strangler disease

fell upon our herd of Ethiopian horses, and it swept through them like a

flash-flood in one of the valleys of the high mountains.

Naturally, Hui and I had been expecting the plague to strike when the gnu

returned, and we had made our preparations. We had trained every groom and

charioteer to perform the tracheotomy, and to treat the wound with hot pitch

to prevent mortification until the animal had a chance to recover from the

Strangler.

For many weeks none of us enjoyed much sleep, but in the end, fewer than

two thousand of our new horses died of the disease, and before the next

flooding of the Nile, those that survived were strong enough to begin

training in the chariot traces.

WHEN THE FLOODS CAME, THE PRIESTS sacrificed on the banks of the river,

each to his own god, and they consulted the auguries for the year ahead. Some

consulted the entrails of the sacrificial sheep, others watched the flight of

the wild birds, still others stared into vessels filled with water from the

Nile. They divined in their separate ways.

Queen Lostris sacrificed to Hapi. Although I attended the service with her

and joined in the liturgy and the responses of the congregation, my heart was

elsewhere. I am a Horus man, and so are Lord Kratas and Prince Memnon. We

made a sacrifice of gold and ivory to our god and prayed for guidance.

It is not usual for the gods to agree with each other, any more than it is

for men to do so. However, this year was different from any other that I had

known. With the exception of the gods Anubis and Thoth and the goddess Nut,

the heavenly host spoke with one voice. Those three, Anubis and Thoth and

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Nut, are all lesser deities. Their counsel could be safely discounted. All

the great gods, Ammon-Ra and Osiris and Horus and Hapi and Isis and two

hundred others, both great and small, gave the same counsel: ’The time has

come for the return to the holy black earth of Kemit.’

Lord Kratas, who is a pagan at heart and a cynic by nature, suggested that

the entire priesthood had conspired to place these words in the mouths of

their patron gods. Although I expressed shocked indignation at this

blasphemy, I was secretly inclined to agree with Kratas’ opinion.

The priests are soft and luxurious men, and for almost two decades we had

lived the hard lives of wanderers and warriors in the wild land of Cush. I

think they hungered for fair Thebes even more than did my mistress. Perhaps

it was not gods, but men who had given this advice to return northwards.

Queen Lostris summoned the high council of state, and when she made the

proclamation that endorsed the dictates of the gods, the nobles and the

priests stood and cheered her to a man. I cheered as loud and as long as any

of them, and that night my dreams were filled with visions of Thebes, and

images of those far-off days when Tanus and Lostris and I had been young and

happy.

SINCE THE DEATH OF TANUS, THERE HAD been no supreme commander of our

armies, and the war council met in secret conclave. Of course, I was excluded

from this assembly, but my mistress repeated to me every word that was

spoken.

After long argument and debate, the command was offered to Kratas. He stood

before them, grizzled and scarred like an old liori, and he laughed that

great laugh of his and he said, ’I am a soldier. I follow. I do not lead.

Give me the command of the Shilluk, and I will follow one man to the borders

of death and beyond.’ He drew his sword then and pointed with it at the

prince. ’That is the man I will follow. Hail, Memnon! May he live for ever.’

’May he live for ever!’ they shouted, and my mistress smiled. She and I had

arranged exactly this outcome.

At the age of twenty-two years Prince Memnon was elevated to the rank of

Great Lion of Egypt and commander of all her armies. Immediately he began to

plan the Return.

Though my rank was only that of Master of the Royal Horse, I was on Prince

Memnon’s staff. Often he appealed to me to solve the logistical problems that

we encountered. During the day I drove his chariot with the blue pennant

fluttering over our heads as he reviewed the regiments, and led them in

exercises of war.

Many nights the three of us, the prince and Kratas and I, sat up late over

a jar of wine as we discussed the Return. On those nights Princess Masara

waited upon us, filling the cups with her own graceful brown hand. Then she

sat on a sheep-skin cushion at Memnon’s feet and listened to every word. When

our eyes met, she smiled at me.

Our main concern was to avoid the hazardous and onerous transit of all the

cataracts on the way down-river. These could only be navigated in flood

season, and would thus limit the periods in which we could travel.

412

I proposed that we build another fleet of barges below the fifth cataract;

with these we could transport our army down to the departure-point for the

desert crossing of the great bight. When we regained the river above the

first cataract, we would rebuild another squadron of fast fighting galleys

and barges to carry us down to Elephantine.

I was sure that if we timed it correctly, and if we could shoot the rapids

and surprise the Hyksos fleet anchored in the roads of Elephantine, we would

be able to deal the enemy a painful blow and capture the galleys we needed to

augment our force of fighting ships. Once we had secured a foothold, we would

then be able to bring down our infantry and our chariots through the gorge of

the first cataract, and engage the Hyksos on the flood-plains of Egypt,

We began the first stage of the Return the following flood season. At

Qebui, which had been our capital seat for so many years, we left only a

garrison force. Qebui would become merely a trading outpost of the empire.

The riches of Cush and Ethiopia would flow northwards to Thebes through this

entrepot.

When the main fleet sailed back into the north, Hui and I, with five

hundred grooms and a squadron of chariots, remained behind to await the

return of the gnu migration. They came as suddenly as they always did, a vast

black stain spreading over the golden savannah grasslands. We went out to

meet them in the chariots.

It was a simple matter to capture these ungainly brutes. We ran them down

with the chariots, and dropped a noose of rope over their ugly heads as we

ran alongside them. The gnu lacked the speed and the spirit of our horses.

They fought the ropes only briefly and then resigned themselves to capture.

Within ten days, we had penned over six thousand of them in the stockades on

the bank of the Nile which we had built for this purpose.

It was here in the stockades that their lack of stamina and strength was

most apparent. Without cause or reason, they died in their hundreds. We

treated them kindly and gently. We fed them and watered them as we would our

horses. It was as though their wild wandering spirits would not be fettered,

and they pined away.

In the end we lost over half of those that we had captured, and many more

died on the long voyage to the north.

TWO FULL YEARS AFTER QUEEN LOSTRIS had commanded the Return, our people

assembled on the east bank of the Nile above the fourth cataract. Before us

lay the desert road across the great bight of the river.

For the whole of the previous year the caravans of wagons had set out from

here. Each of them had been laden with clay jars filled to the brim with Nile

water, and sealed with wooden plugs and hot pitch. Every ten miles along the

dusty road we had set up watering stations. At each of these, thirty thousand

water jars had been buried to prevent them cracking and bursting in the rays

of that furious sun.

We were nearly fifty thousand souls and as many animals, including my

dwindling herd of captured gnu. The water-carts set out from the river each

evening. Their task was unending.

413

We waited on the river-bank for the rise of the new moon to light our way

across the wilderness. Although we had planned our departure for this the

coolest season of the year, still the heat and the sun would be deadly to

both man and beast. We would travel only at night.

Two days before we were due to begin the crossing, my mistress said,

’Taita, when did you and I last spend a day together fishing on the river?

Make ready your fish-spears and a skiff.’

I knew that she had something of deep import that she wished to discuss

with me. We drifted down on those green waters until I could moor the skiff

to a willow tree on the far bank, where we were out of earshot of the

inquisitive.

First we spoke of the imminent departure along the desert road, and the

prospects of the return to Thebes.

’When will I see her shining walls again, Taita?’ my mistress sighed, and I

could only tell her that I did not know.

’If the gods are kind, we might be in Elephantine by this time next season

when the Nile flood carries our ships down the first cataract. After that,

our fortunes will ebb and flow like the river, with the hazards and fortunes

of war.’

However, this was not what she had brought me out on to the river to

discuss, and now her eyes swam with tears as she asked, ’How long has Tanus

been gone from us, Taita?’

My voice choked as I answered, ’He set out on his journey to the fields of

paradise over three years ago, mistress.’

’So it is longer than that by many months that I last lay in his arms,’ she

mused, and I nodded. I was uncertain in which direction her questions were

leading us.

’I have dreamed of him almost every night since then, Taita. Is it possible

that he might have returned to leave his seed in my womb while I still

slept?’

’All things in heaven are possible,’ I replied carefully. ’We told the

people that was how Tehuti and Bekatha were conceived. However, in all truth

and seriousness, I have never heard of it happening before.’

We were both silent for a while, and she trailed her hand in the water and

then lifted it to watch the drops fall from her fingertips. Then she spoke

again without looking at me. ’I think I am to have another child,’ she

whispered. ’My red moon has waned and withered away.’

’Mistress,’ I answered her quietly, and with tact, ’you are approaching

that time of your life when the rivers of your womb will begin to dry up.’

Our Egyptian women are like desert flowers that bloom early but fade as

swiftly.

She shook her head. ’No, Taita. It is not that. I feel the infant growing

within me.’

I stared at her silently. Once again I felt the wings of tragedy brush

lightly past me, stirring the air and raising the hair upon my forearms.

414

’You do not have to ask me if I have known another man.’ This time she

looked directly into my eyes as she spoke. ’You know that I have not.’

’This I know full well. Yet I cannot believe that you have been impregnated

by a ghost, no matter how beloved and welcome that ghost might be. Perhaps

your desire for another child has fathered your imagination.’

’Feel my womb, Taita,’ she commanded. ’This is a living thing within me.

Each day it grows.’

’I will do so tonight, in the privacy of your cabin. Not here upon the

river where prying eyes might discover us.’

MY MISTRESS LAY NAKED UPON THE linen sheets, and I studied first her face

and then her body. When I looked upon her with the eyes of a man, she was

still lovely to me, but as a physician I could see clearly how the years and

the hardships of this life in the wilderness had wrought their cruel change.

Her hair was more silver than sable now, and bereavement and the cares of the

regency had chiselled their grim message on her brow. She was growing old.

Her body was the vessel which had given life to three other lives.’But her

breasts were empty now, there was none of the milk of a new pregnancy

swelling them. She was thin. I should have noticed that before. It was an

unnatural thinness, almost an emaciation. Yet her belly protruded like a pale

ivory ball out of proportion to those slim arms and legs.

I laid my hands lightly upon her belly, upon the silvery streaks where the

skin had once stretched to accommodate a joyful burden. I felt the thing

within her and I knew at once that this was not life beneath my fingers. This

was death.

I could not find words. I turned away from her and went out on to the deck

and I looked up at the night stars. They were cold and very far away. Like

the gods, they did not care. There was no profit in appealing to them, gods

or stars.

I knew this thing that was growing within my mistress. I had felt it in the

bodies of other women. When they died, I had opened the dead womb and seen

the thing that had killed them. It was horrible and deformed, bearing no

resemblance to anything human or even animal. It was a shapeless ball of red

and angry flesh. It was a thing of Seth.

It was a long time before I could gather the courage to return to the

cabin.

My mistress had covered herself with a robe. She sat in the centre of the

bed and looked at me with those huge, dark green eyes that had never aged.

She looked like the little girl I once had known.

’Mistress, why did you not tell me about the pain?’ I asked gently.

’How do you know about the pain?’ she whispered back. ’I tried to hide it

from you.’

415

OUR CARAVAN SET OUT INTO THE DESERT, traveling by moonlight across the

silver sands. Sometimes my mistress walked at my side, and the two princesses

frolicked along with us, laughing and excited by the adventure. At other

times, when the pain was bad, my mistress rode in the wagon that I had

equipped for her comfort. Then I sat beside her and held her hand until the

powder of the sleeping-flower worked its magic and gave her surcease.

Every night we travelled just as far as the next watering-station along the

road that was now well beaten by the thousands of vehicles that had preceded

us. During the long days we lay beneath the awning of the wagon and drowsed

in the sweltering heat.

We had been thirty days and nights upon the road when in the dawn we saw a

remarkable sight. A disembodied sail upon the desert, moving gently

southwards over the sands. It was not until we had journeyed on for many more

miles that we saw how we had been deceived. The hull of the galley had been

hidden from us by the bank of the Nile, and below the dunes the river ran on

eternally. We had crossed the loop.

Prince Memnon and all his staff were there to greet us. Already the

squadron of new galleys had almost completed fitting out. It was the sail of

one of these that we had first descried as we approached the river again.

Every plank and mast had been cut and sawn on the great plains of Cush, and

transported across the loop of the river. All the chariots were assembled.

Hui had herded all the horses across the desert, and the wagons had carried

their fodder with them. Even my gnu were waiting in their stockades upon the

river-bank.

Although the wagon caravans carrying the women and the children still

followed, the main body of our nation had been brought across. It had been an

undertaking that almost defied belief, a labour of godlike proportions. Only

men like Kratas and Remrem and Memnon could have accomplished it in so short

a time.

Now only the first cataract still stood between us and the sacred earth of

our very Egypt.

We went on northwards again. My mistress sailed in the new barge that had

been built for her and the princesses. There was a large and airy cabin for

her, and I had equipped it with every luxury that was available to us. The

hangings were of embroidered Ethiopian wool, and the furniture was of dark

acacia wood inlaid with ivory and the gold of Cush. I decorated the bulkheads

with paintings of flowers and birds and other pretty things.

As always, I slept at the foot of my mistress’s bed. Three nights after we

sailed, I woke in the night. She was weeping silently. Although she had

stifled her sobs with a pillow, the shaking of her shoulders had awakened me.

I went to her immediately.

’The pain has come again?’ I asked.

’I did not mean to wake you, but it is like a sword in my belly.’

I mixed her a draught of the sleeping-flower, stronger than I had ever

given to her before. The pain was beginning to triumph over the flower.

She drank it and lay quietly for a while. Then she said, ’Can you not cut

this thing out of my body, Taita?’

416

’No, mistress. I cannot.’

’Then hold me, Taita. Hold me the way you used to do when I was a little

girl.’

I went into her bed, and I took her in my arms. I cradled her, and she was

as thin and light as a child. I rocked her tenderly, and after a while she

slept.

THE FLEET REACHED THE HEAD OF THE first cataract above Elephantine, and we

moored against the bank in the quiet flow of the river before the Nile felt

the urging of the cascades and plunged into the gorge.

We waited for the rest of the army to be ferried down to us, all the horses

and the chariots and Lord Kratas’ pagan Shilluk regiments. We waited also for

the Nile to rise and open the cataract for us to pass down into Egypt.

While we waited, we sent spies down through the gorge. They were dressed as

peasants and priests and merchants with goods to trade. I went down with

Kratas into the gorge to map and mark the passage. Now, at low water, every

hazard was exposed. We painted channel-markers on the rocks above the

high-water line, so that even when the flood covered them, we would still

know where those obstacles lurked.

We were many weeks at this labour, and when we returned to where the fleet

was moored, the army was assembled there. We sent out scouting parties to

find a route for the chariots and the horses through the rock desert down

into Egypt. We could not risk such a precious cargo to the wild waters of the

cataract.

Our spies began to return from Elephantine. They came in secretly and

singly, usually in the night. They brought us the very first news of our

mother-land that we had heard in all the years of exile.

King Salitis still reigned, but he was old now, and his beard had turned

silver-white. His two sons were the mighty men of the Hyksos legions. Prince

Beon commanded the infantry and Prince Apachan commanded the chariots.

The might of the Hyksos exceeded all our estimates. Our spies reported that

Apachan disposed of twelve thousand chariots. We had brought down only four

thousand from Cush. Beon had forty thousand archers and infantry. Even with

Kratas’ Shilluk, we could muster only fifteen thousand. We were heavily

outnumbered.

There was cheering news also. The great bulk of the Hyksos force was held

in the Delta, and Salitis had made his capital at the city of Memphis. It

would take months for him to move his forces south to Elephantine and Thebes.

He would not be able to bring his chariots up-river until the floods abated

and the land dried. There was only a single squadron of chariots guarding the

city of Elephantine, one hundred chariots to oppose our entry. They were of

the old solid-wheel type. It seemed that the Hyksos had not yet perfected the

spoked wheel.

Prince Memnon laid out his battle plan for us. We would pass through the

cataract on the flood, and seize Elephantine. Then, while Salitis moved

southwards to oppose us, we would march on Thebes, raising the populace in

insurrection as we went.

417

We could expect Salitis to give battle with his full army on the

flood-plains before Thebes, once the Nile waters had subsided. By then we

could hope that the disparity in the numbers of the two armies would be

redressed in part by the Egyptian troops that would rally to our standard.

We learned from our spies that the Hyksos did not suspect the presence of

our army of liberation so close to their border, and tha.t we could expect to

gain the element of surprise with our first assault. We learned also that

Salitis had adopted our Egyptian way of life. These days he lived in our

palaces and worshipped our gods. Even his old Sutekh had changed his name to

Seth, and was, very appropriately, still his principal god.

Although all his senior officers were Hyksos, many of Salitis’ captains and

sergeants had been recruited from amongst the Egyptians, and half the common

soldiers were of our own nation. Most of these would have been infants or not

yet born at the time of our exodus. We wondered where their loyalties would

lie, when Prince Memnon led our army down into Egypt.

All was in readiness now. The scouts had marked a road through the desert

of the west bank, and the water wagons had laid down stores of fodder and

water jars along the length of it, enough to see our chariots through to the

fertile plains of our very Egypt. Our galleys were rigged and manned for

battle. When the Nile flooded, we would sail, but in the meantime there was

one last ritual to complete.

We climbed the bluff above the river to where the obelisk that my mistress

had raised over two decades before, still stood, a tall and elegant finger of

stone pointing into the cloudless blue of the African sky.

My mistress was too weak to climb the rugged pathway to the summit. Ten

slaves carried her up in a sedan-chair, and set her down below the tall

monument. She walked painfully slowly to the foot of the pillar on the arm of

Prince Memnon, and gazed up at the inscription carved in the granite. Our

whole nation watched her, all those souls who had found their way back to

this point from which we had set out so long ago.

My mistress read the inscription aloud. Her voice was soft, but still so

musical that it carried clearly to where I stood behind the great lords and

the generals.

’I, Queen Lostris, Regent of Egypt and widow of Pharaoh Mamose, the eighth

of that name, mother of the Crown Prince Memnon, who shall rule the two

kingdoms after me, have ordained the raising of this monument.

When she had finished the reading, she turned to face her people and spread

her arms.

’I have done that which was required of me,’ she said, and her voice

regained some of its old power. ’I have led you back to the border of your

land. My task is completed and I relinquish the regency.’ She paused, and for

a moment her eyes met mine over the heads of the nobles. I nodded slightly to

encourage her, and she went on.

’Citizens of Egypt, it is fitting that you have a true Pharaoh to lead you

the last steps of the way home. I give to you the divine Pharaoh Tamose, who

once was the Crown Prince Memnon. May he live for ever!’

’May he live for ever!’ the nation roared in one voice. ’May he live for

ever!’

418

Pharaoh Tamose stepped forward to face his people. ’May he live for ever!’

they shouted the third time, and our new pharaoh drew the blue sword from its

jewelled scabbard and saluted them with it.

In the silence that followed, his voice rang and echoed from the gaunt red

crags of the hills.

’I take up this sacred trust. I swear on my hope of eternal life to serve

my people and my land all my days. I shall not flinch from this duty, and I

call upon all the gods to witness my oath.’

THE FLOOD CAME. THE WATERS ROSE UP the rocks that guarded the entrance to

the gorge, and the colour changed from green to grey. The cataract began to

growl like a beast in its lair and the spray-cloud rose into the sky and’

stood as high as the hills that flanked the Nile. I went aboard the leading

galley with Lord Kratas and Pharaoh. We dropped our mooring and shoved off

into the stream. The rowers on the benches were stripped to their

breech-clouts, their faces turned up to watch Kratas as he stood high in the

stern, gripping the steering-oar in his bear-like fists.

In the bows two teams of sailors under the king stood ready with heavy oars

to fend off. I stood beside Kratas, with the map of the rapids spread on the

deck in front of me, ready to call the twists and turns of the channel to him

as we came to them. I did not really need the map, for I had memorized every

line drawn upon it. In addition to which, I had stationed reliable men on the

sides of the gorge and on the islands in the main stream ahead of us. They

would use signal flags to show us the way through.

As the current quickened beneath our keel, I cast one last glance backwards

and saw the rest of the squadron fall into line astern behind us, ready to

follow us down the cataract. Then I looked forward again, and felt the fist

of fear tighten on my bowels so that I was forced to squeeze my buttocks

together. Ahead of us the gorge smoked like the mouth of a furnace.

Our speed built up with deceptive stealth. The rowers touched the surface

lightly with the blades of the oars, just enough to keep our bows pointed

downstream. We floated so lightly and so smoothly that we seemed to be

drifting. It was only when I looked at the banks, and saw them streaming past

us, that I realized how fast we were running. The rock portals of the gorge

flew to meet us. None the less, it was only when I noticed the grin on

Kratas’ craggy face that I realized the true danger of what we were

attempting. Kratas only grinned like that when he saw death crook a bony

finger at him.

’Come on, you rogues!’ he shouted at his crew. "This day I’ll make your

mothers proud of you, or I’ll find work for the embalmers.’

The river was split by three islands, and the channel narrowed.

’Bear to port, and steer for the blue cross.’ I tried to sound casual, but

at that moment I felt the deck tip beneath my feet, and I clutched at the

rail.

We flew down a chute of grey water, and our bows swung giddily. I thought

that we were already out of control, and waited for the crunch of rock and

for the deck to burst open beneath my feet. Then I saw the bows steady, and

the blue cross painted on the wall of rock was dead ahead.

419

’Hard to starboard as we come up to the flag!’ my voice squeaked, but I

picked out the man on the centre island flagging us into the turn, and Kratas

put the steering-oar over and yelled at the benches, ’All back right, pull

together left!’ The deck canted sharply as we spun into the turn.

The wall of rock flashed past us, and we were going at the speed of a

galloping horse. One more turn and the first rapids lay ahead. Black rock

stood across our path, and the waters piled upon it. The water took on the

shape of the rocks beneath it. It bulged and stood in tall static waves. It

opened into smooth green gulleys. It curled upon itself and exploded into

veils of white through which the rock snarled at us with black fangs. My

stomach clenched as we leaped over the edge and dropped down the slope. At

the bottom we -wallowed and spun, like a stalk of dry grass in a whirlwind.

’Pull left!’ Kratas bellowed. ’Pull till your balls bounce!’ We steadied

and aimed for the next gap in the rock, and the white water dashed over the

deck and into my eyes. It hissed alongside, running in tandem with us, and

the waves stood taller than our poop-deck.

’By Seth’s tattered and festering foreskin, I’ve not had so much sport

since I tupped my first ewe!’ Kratas laughed, and the rock sprang at us like

a charging bull elephant.

We touched once, and the rock rasped along our belly. The deck shuddered

beneath our feet, and I was too afraid to scream. Then Memnon’s team poled us

free and we raced on down.

Behind us I heard the shattering crash as one of the other galleys struck

hard. I dared not look round as I judged our next turn, but soon there were

wreckage and the heads of drowning men bobbing and swirling in the torrent on

both sides of us. They screamed to us as they were borne away and dashed upon

the spurs of rock, but we could offer them no succour. Death pressed hard

upon our heels and we ran on with the stench of it in our nostrils.

In that hour I lived a hundred lives, and died in every one of them. But at

last we were hurled from the bottom of the cataract into the main body of the

river. Of the twenty-three galleys that had entered the gorge, eighteen

followed us out. The others had been smashed to flotsam, and the corpses of

their drowned crew washed down beside us in the grey Nile flood.

There was not time for us to celebrate our deliverance. Dead ahead lay the

Island of Elephantine, and on both banks of the river stood the

well-remembered walls and buildings of the city.

’Archers, string your bows!’ King Tamose called from the bows. ’Hoist the

blue pennant! Drummer, increase the beat to attack speed!’

Our tiny squadron flew into the mass of shipping that clogged the roads of

Elephantine. Most of it was made up of trade barges and transports. We passed

these by, and went for the Hyksos galleys. The Hyksos had manned their

fighting ships with Egyptian sailors, for nobody knew the river better. Only

their officers were Hyksos. Most of them were ashore, carousing in the

pleasure-palaces of the docks.

Our spies had told us which was the flag of the southern admiral, a

swallowtail of scarlet and gold so long that the end of it dipped in the

water. We steered for the ship that flew her, and Memnon boarded her over the

side with twenty men at his back.

420

’Freedom from the Hyksos tyrant!’ they roared. ’Stand up for this very

Egypt!’

The crew gaped at them. They had been taken completely by surprise, and

most of them were unarmed. Their weapons were locked away below decks, for

the Hyksos officers trusted them not at all.

The other galleys of our squadron had each picked out one of the enemy

fighting-ships and boarded it as swiftly. On all of them the reaction of the

crew was the same. After the first surprise they shouted the question, ’Who

are you?’

And the reply was, ’Egyptian! The army of the true Pharaoh Tamose. Join

with us, countrymen! Cast out the tyrant!’

They turned on their Hyksos officers and cut them down before we could

reach them. Then they embraced our men, roaring out a welcome.

’For Egypt!’ they cheered. ’For Tamose! For Egypt and Tamose!’

The cheering jumped from ship to ship. Men danced upon the rails and

swarmed up the masts to tear down the Hyksos banners. They broke open the

arms stores and passed out bows and swords.

Then they poured ashore. They dragged the Hyksos from the taverns and

hacked them to bloody shreds, so that the gutters discharged a scarlet flood

into the harbour waters. They ran through the streets to the barracks of the

garrison, and fell upon the guard.

’For Egypt and Tamose!’ they chanted.

Some of the Hyksos officers rallied their men, and held out for a while in

pockets surrounded by the rabble. Then Kratas and Memnon came ashore with

their veterans, and within two hours the city was ours.

Most of the Hyksos chariots were abandoned in their lines, but half a

squadron was escaping through the east gate and galloping away over the

causeway that crossed the inundated fields to the dry ground beyond.

I had left the ship and hurried through the back alleys, that I knew so

well, to the north tower on the city walls. From there I knew I would have

the best view over the city and the surrounding countryside. Bitterly, I

watched the escaping detachment of chariots. Every one that got away now

would have to be fought later, and I wanted those horses. I was about to turn

away and watch what was happening in the city below me, when I saw a little

finger of dust rising from the foot of the harsh southern hills.

I shaded my eyes and stared at it. I felt the quickening of excitement. The

dust was coming towards us swiftly, I could make out the dark shapes beneath

it.

’By Horus, it’s Remrem!’ I whispered with delight. The old warrior had

brought the first division of chariots through the bad ground of the hills

quicker than I would have believed possible. It was only two days since we

had parted.

I watched with professional pride as the first division opened from columns

of four into line abreast. Hui and I had trained them well. It was perfectly

done, and Remrem had the Hyksos in enfilade. Half their vehicles were still

421

on the causeway. It seemed to me that the enemy commander was not even aware

of the massed squadrons bearing down upon his exposed flank. I think he must

still have been looking back over his shoulder. At the very last moment he

tried to swing into line abreast to meet Remrem’s charge, but it was far too

late. He would have done better to have turned tail and run for it.

Remrem’s chariots poured over him in a wave, and he was washed away like

debris in the stream of the Nile. I watched until I was certain that Remrem

had captured most of the Hyksos horses, and only then did I sigh with relief

and turn to look down into the city.

The populace had gone wild with the joy of liberation.

They were dancing through the streets, waving any piece of blue cloth that

came to hand. Blue was the colour of Pharaoh Tamose. The women tied blue

ribbons in their hair, and the men wound blue sashes around their waists and

tied on blue arm-bands.

There was still some isolated fighting, but gradually the surviving Hyksos

were cut down or dragged from the buildings they were trying to defend. One

of the barracks with several hundred men still inside it was put to the

torch. I heard the screams of the men as they burned, and soon the aroma of

scorched flesh drifted up to me. It smelled like roasting pork.

Of course there was looting, and some of our upstanding citizens broke into

the taverns and the wine shops and carried the jars out into the street. When

one of the jars broke, they went down on all fours and guzzled the wine out

of the gutter like hogs.

I saw three men chase a girl down the alley below where I stood. When they

caught her they threw her down and ripped her skirt away. Two of them pinned

her limbs and held her spread-eagled while the third man mounted her. I did

not watch the rest of it.

As soon as Memnon and Kratas had stamped out the last pockets of Hyksos

resistance, they set about restoring order to the city. Squads of disciplined

troops trotted through the streets, using the shafts of their war spears as

clubs to beat sense into the drunken and delirious mob.

Memnon ordered a handful of those taken in the act of rape and looting to

be strangled on the spot, and their corpses were hung by the heels from the

city gates. By nightfall the city was quiet, and decent men and women could

once more safely walk her streets.

Memnon set up his headquarters in Pharaoh Mamose’s palace, which had once

been our home on Elephantine Island. The moment I stepped ashore I hurried to

our old quarters in the harem.

They were still luxuriously appointed and had escaped the looters. Whoever

had occupied them had treated my murals with the respect they warranted. The

water-garden was a profusion of lovely plants, and the ponds were filled with

fish and lotus. The Egyptian gardener told me that the Hyksos garrison

commander who had lived here had admired our Egyptian ways, and had tried to

ape them. I was thankful for that.

Within days I had restored the rooms and garden to a state in which they

were once more fit to receive my mistress. Then I went to Memnon to ask

permission to bring the queen home.

422

Pharaoh was distracted by the burden of taking firm hold of his kingdom.

There were ten thousand matters that demanded his attention, but he put them

aside for the moment and embraced me.

’It all goes well, Tata.’

’A happy return, Your Majesty,’ I replied, ’but there is still so much to

do.’

’It is my royal command that when you and I are alone like this, you

continue to call me Mem.’ He smiled at me. ’But you are right, there is much

to do, and little time left to us before Salitis and all his host marches up

from the Delta to oppose us. We have won the first little skirmish. The great

battles lie ahead of us.’

’There is one duty that will give me great pleasure, Mem. I have prepared

quarters for the queen mother. May I go up-river and bring her home to

Elephantine? She has waited too long already to set foot on Egyptian soil.’

’Leave at once, Tata,’ he commanded, ’and bring Queen Masara down with

you.’

The river was too high and the desert road too rough. One hundred slaves

carried the litters of the two queens along the banks of the Nile, through

the gorge and down into our green valley.

It was not pure coincidence that the first building we came to as we

crossed the border was a small temple. I had planned our route to bring us

here.

’What shrine is this, Taita?’ my mistress drew aside the curtain of her

litter to ask.

’It is the temple of the god Akh-Horus, mistress. Do you wish to pray

here?’

’Thank you,’ she whispered. She knew what I had done. I helped her down

from the litter, and she leaned heavily upon me as we entered the cool gloom

of the stone building.

We prayed together, and I felt certain that Tanus was listening to the

voices of the two people in all the world who had loved him most. Before we

went on, my mistress ordered me to hand over all the gold that we had with us

to the priests, and promised to send more for the upkeep and the

beautification of the temple.

By the time we reached the Palace of Elephantine, she was exhausted. Each

day the thing in her womb grew larger as it fed upon her wasting body. I laid

her on a couch under the barrazza in the water-garden, and she closed her

eyes and rested for a while. Then she opened them again and smiled at me

softly. ’We were happy here once, but will I ever see Thebes again before I

die?’ I could not answer her. It was idle to make promises to her that were

not mine to keep.

’If I die before that, will you promise to take me back and build me a tomb

in the hills from where I can look across and see my beautiful city?’

’That I promise you with all my heart,’ I replied.

423

IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, ATON and I resuscitated our old spider’s web of

spies and informers across the Upper Kingdom. Many of those who4iad once

worked for us were long dead, but there were also many who were not. With the

bait of gold and patriotism, they recruited other younger spies in every

village and city.

Soon we had spies in the palace of the Hyksos satrap in Thebes, and others

as far north as the Delta of the Lower Kingdom. Through them we learned which

Hyksos regiments were billeted in each town, and which of them were on the

march. We learned their strength, and the names and foibles of their

commanders. We had an exact count of the numbers of their ships and their

chariots, and as the flood-waters of the Nile receded, we were able to follow

the southward movement of this huge mass of men and fighting machines, as

King Salitis marched on Thebes.

I smuggled secret messages in the name of Pharaoh Ta-mose to those

Egyptians in the regiments of the enemy, urging them to revolt. They started

to trickle in through our lines, bringing more valuable intelligence with

them. Soon the trickle of deserters from the Hyksos armies became a flood.

Two full regiments of archers came marching in under arms, with the blue

banner waving over them, and chanting, ’Egypt and Tamose!’

The crews of a hundred fighting galleys mutinied and slew their Hyksos

officers. When they came sailing up-river to join us, they drove before them

a fleet of barges that they had captured in the port of Thebes. These were

laden with grain and oil and salt and flax and timber, all the sinews of war.

By this time, all our own forces were down through the cataract and

deployed around the city, except only the small herd of tame gnu. These I had

left until the very last. From my lookout in the north tower, I could see the

horse-lines extending for miles along both banks, and the smoke from the

cooking-fires of the regimental encampments turned the air blue.

Each day we were growing stronger, and the whole of Egypt was in a ferment

of excitement and anticipation. The heady aroma of freedom perfumed each

breath we drew. Kemit was a nation in the process of rebirth. They sang the

patriotic anthems in the streets and the taverns, and the harlots and the

wine merchants grew fat.

Aton and I, poring over our maps and secret despatches, saw a different

picture emerging. We saw the Hyksos giant shaking itself awake, and

stretching out a mailed fist towards us. From Memphis and every city and town

in the Delta, King Salitis’ regiments were on the march. Every road was

crowded with his chariots, and the river ran with his shipping. All of this

was moving south upon Thebes.

I waited until \ knew that Lord Apachan, the commander of the Hyksos

chariots, had reached Thebes and was encamped outside the city walls with all

his vehicles and all his horses. Then I went before the war council of

Pharaoh Tamose.

’Your Majesty, I have come to report that the enemy now have one hundred

and twenty thousand horses and twelve thousand chariots massed at Thebes.

Within two months, the Nile will have subsided to the level that will enable

Apachan to begin his final advance.’

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Even Kratas looked grave. ’We have known worse odds?’ he began, but the

king cut him short.

’I can tell by his face that the Master of the Royal Horse has more to tell

us. Am I right, Taita?’

’Pharaoh is always right,’ I agreed. ’I beg your permission to bring down

my gnu from above the cataract.’

Kratas laughed. ’By Seth’s bald head, Taita, do you intend riding out

against the Hyksos on one of those clownish brutes of yours?’ I laughed with

him politely. His sense of humour has the same subtlety as that of the savage

Shilluk he commands.

The next morning Hui and I set off up-river to bring down the gnu. By this

time there were only three hundred of these sorry creatures left alive out of

the original six thousand, but they were quite tame and could be fed from the

hand. We herded them down at a gentle pace, so as not to weaken them further.

The horses that Remrem had captured in that first brief battle with the

escaping Hyksos chariots had on my orders been kept separated from our own

horses that we had brought down with us from Cush. Hui and I moved the gnu

into the same pasture with them, and after the first uneasiness between the

two species, they were all feeding peaceably together. That night we penned

gnu and Hyksos horses in the same stockade. I left Hui to watch over them and

returned to the palace on Elephantine Island.

I will admit now to a great deal of uncertainty and worry over the days

that followed. I had invested so much faith in the success of this ruse,

which, after all, depended on a natural event that I did not fully

understand. If it failed, we would be faced with the full fury of an enemy

that outnumbered us by at least four to one.

I had worked late with Aton and had fallen asleep over my scrolls in the

palace library, when I was shaken awake by uncouth hands, and Hui was

shouting in my ear. ’Come on, you lazy old rascal! Wake up! I have something

for you.’

He had horses waiting at the landing. We hurried to them as soon as the

ferry put us ashore, and mounted up. We galloped all the way along the

river-bank in the moonlight, and rode into the horse-lines with our mounts in

a lather.

The grooms had lamps lit and were working in the stockade by their feeble

yellow light.

Seven of the Hyksos horses were down already with the thick yellow pus

pouring from their mouths and nostrils. The grooms were cutting into their

windpipes and placing the hollow reeds to save them from choking and

suffocating.

’It worked!’ Hui shouted, and seized me in a coarse embrace and danced me

in a circle. ’The Yellow Strangled It worked! It worked!’

’I thought of it, didn’t I?’ I told him with all the dignity that his

antics allowed me. ’Of course it worked.’

The barges had been moored against the bank these weeks past, ready for

this day. We loaded the horses immediately, all of those who could still

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stand upright. The gnu we left in the stockade. Their presence would be too

difficult to explain where we were going.

With one of the captured Hyksos galleys towing each of the barges, we rowed

out into the current and turned northwards. With fifty oars a side and the

wind and current behind us, we made good speed as we hurried down to Thebes

to deliver our gift to Lord Apachan.

AS SOON AS WE PASSED KOM-OMBO WE lowered the blue flag, and hoisted

captured Hyksos banners. Most of the crew of the galleys that were towing the

barges had been born under Hyksos rule, some of them were of mixed parentage

and spoke the foreign language with colloquial fluency. Two nights north of

Kom-Ombo, we were hailed by a Hyksos galley. They laid alongside and sent a

boarding party over to inspect our cargo.

’Horses for the chariots of Lord Apachan,’ our captain told them. His

father was Hyksos but his mother was an Egyptian noblewoman. His deportment

was natural and his credentials convincing. After a cursory inspection they

passed us through. We were stopped and boarded twice more before we reached

Thebes, but each time our captain was able to deceive the Hyksos officers who

came aboard. My chief concern by this time was the state of the horses.

Despite our best efforts, they were beginning to die, and half of those

still alive were in a pitiful condition. We threw the carcasses overboard,

and ran on northwards at our best speed.

My original plan had been to sell the horses to the Hyksos quartermasters

in the port of Thebes, but no man who knew horseflesh would look at this

pitiful herd. Hui and I decided upon another course.

We timed the last leg of our voyage to arrive at Thebes as the sun was

setting. My heart ached as I recognized all the familiar landmarks. The walls

of the citadel glowed pinkly in the last rays of the sun. Those three elegant

towers that I had built for Lord Intef still pointed to the sky, they were

aptly named the Fingers of Horus.

The Palace of Memnon on the west bank, which I had left uncompleted, had

been rebuilt by the Hyksos. Even I had to admit that the Asiatic influence

was pleasing. In this light the spires and watch-towers were endowed with a

mysterious and exotic quality. I wished that my mistress was there to share

this moment of homecoming with me. We had both longed for it over half her

lifetime.

In the fading light we were still able to make out the vast concourse of

men and horses and chariots and wagons that lay outside the city walls.

Although I had received accurate reports, it had not been possible to

visualize such multitudes. My spirits quailed as I looked upon them, and

remembered the gallant little army I had left at Elephantine.

We would need every favour of the gods, and more than a little good fortune

to triumph against such a host.’ As the last light faded into night, the

fires of the Hyksos bloomed and twinkled upon the plain, like a field of

stars. There was no end to them?they stretched away to the limit of the eye.

As we sailed closer, we smelled them. There is a peculiar odour that a

standing army exudes. It is a blend of many smells, of dung-fires and of

cooking food, the sweet smell of new-cut hay and the ammoniacal smell of the

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horses, and the stench of human sewage in open pits, of leather and pitch and

horse-sweat and woodshavings and sour beer. Most of all it is the smell of

men, tens of thousands of men, living close to each other in tents and huts

and hovels.

We sailed on, and the sounds floated across the star-lit waters to our

silent ship; the snort and the whinny of horses, the sound of the

coppersmiths’ hammers on the anvil beating our spear-heads and blades, the

challenges of the sentries, and the voices of men singing and arguing and

laughing.

I stood beside the captain on the deck of the leading galley and guided him

in towards the east bank. I remembered the wharf of the timber merchants

outside the city walls. If it still stood, it would be the best point at

which to disembark our herd.

I picked out the entrance to the dock, and we pushed in under oars. The

wharf was exactly as I remembered it. As we came alongside, the

harbour-master came fussing on board, demanding our papers and our licence to

trade.

I fawned upon him, bowing and grinning obsequiously. ’Excellency, there has

been a terrible accident. My licences were blown from my hand by the wind, a

trick of Seth, no doubt.’

He blew himself up like an angry bullfrog, and then subsided again as I

pressed a heavy gold ring into his fat paw. He tested the metal between his

teeth, and went away smiling.

I sent one of the grooms ashore to douse the torches that illuminated the

wharf. I did not want curious eyes to see the condition of the horses that we

brought ashore. Some of our animals were too weak to rise, others staggered

and wheezed, they drooled the stinking mucus from mouth and nostrils. We were

forced to place head-halters on them and coax them out of the barge on to the

wharf. In the end there were only a hundred horses strong enough to walk.

We led them down the wagon-track to the high ground where our spies had

told us the main horse-lines were laid out. Our spies had also provided us

with the password of the Hyksos first division of chariots, and the linguists

among us replied to the challenges of the sentries.

We walked our horses the entire length of the enemy encampment. As we went,

we began to turn our stricken animals loose, leaving a few of them to wander

through the lines of every one of the Hyksos’ twenty chariot divisions. We

moved so casually and naturally that no alarm was raised, we ’even chatted

and joked with the enemy grooms and horse-handlers we met along the way.

As the first streaks of dawn showed in the eastern sky, we trudged back to

the timber wharf on which we had disembarked. Only one of the galleys had

waited to take us off, the rest of the flotilla had cast off and turned back

southwards as soon as they had discharged their cargo of diseased horses.

We went aboard the remaining ship, and although Hui and the other grooms

threw themselves exhausted upon the deck, I stood at the stern-rail and

watched the walls of my beautiful Thebes, washed by the pure early light,

sink from view behind us.

Ten days later, we sailed into the port of Elephantine, and after I had

reported to Pharaoh Tamose, I hurried to the water-garden in the harem. My

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mistress lay in the shade of the barrazza. She was pale and so thin that I

could not keep my hands from trembling as I stretched out to her in

obeisance. She wept when she saw me.

’I missed you, Taita. There is so little time left for us to be together.’

THE NILE BEGAN TO SHRINK BACK INTO her bed. The fields emerged from under

the inundation, glistening black under a thick new coat of rich mud. The

roads began to dry out, opening the way northwards. Soon it would be time for

the plough, and the time for war. Aton and I waited anxiously, perusing every

report from our spies in the north. It came at last, the intelligence for

which we had waited and prayed. The news was carried by a fast felucca,

flying to us on the wings of the north wind. It docked in the third watch of

the night, but the messenger found Aton and me still working by lamplight in

his cell.

I hurried with the dirty scrap of papyrus to the royal apartments. The

guards had orders to let me pass at any hour, but Queen Masara met me at the

curtained doorway to the king’s bedchamber.

’I will not let you wake him now, Taita. The king is exhausted. This is his

first night’s uninterrupted sleep in a month.’

’Your Majesty, I must see him. I am under his direct orders?’

While we still argued, a deep young voice called to me from beyond the

curtain, ’Is that you, Tata?’ The curtain was thrown aside and the king stood

before us in all his naked splendour. He was a man as few others I have ever

known, lean and hard as the blade of the blue sword, majestic in all his

manly parts, so that I was all the more conscious of my own disability when I

looked upon him.

’What is it, Tata?’

’Despatches from the north. From the camp of the Hyk-sos. A terrible

pestilence is sweeping through the lines of the Hyksos. Half their horses are

stricken, and thousands of others fall prey to the disease with each new

day.’

’You are a magician, Tata. How could we have ever mocked you and your gnu!’

He gripped my shoulders and stared into my eyes. ’Are you ready to ride to

glory with me?’

’I am ready, Pharaoh.’

’Then put Rock and Chain into the traces, and fly the blue pennant over my

chariot. We are going home to Thebes.’

SO WE STOOD AT LAST BEFORE THE CITY of a hundred gates with four divisions

of chariots and thirty thousand foot. King Salitis’ host lay before us, but

beyond his multitudes the Fingers of Horus beckoned to us, and the walls of

Thebes shone with a pearly radiance in the dawn light. The Hyksos army

deployed ponderously in front of us, like the uncoiling of some gigantic

python, column after column, rank upon rank. Then- spear-heads glittered and

the golden helmets of the officers blazed in the early sunlight. ’Where is

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Apachan and his chariots?’ the king demanded, and I stared at the Finger of

Horus that stood nearest the river. I had to strain my eyesight to make out

the tiny coloured scraps that waved from the top of the tower.

’Apachan has five divisions in the centre, and he holds six more in

reserve. They are hidden beyond the city wall.’

I read the flag signals of the spy I had posted in the tallest of the three

towers. I knew that from there he had a falcon’s view across the battlefield.

’That is only eleven divisions, Tata,’ the king fumed. ’We know he has

twenty. Where are the others?’

’The Yellow Strangler,’ I answered him. ’He has fielded every horse that

can still stand.’

’By Horus, I hope you are right. I hope that Apachan is not planning a

pretty little surprise for us.’ He touched my shoulder. ’The dice are hi the

cup, Tata. It is too late to change them now. We must play this coup with

what the gods have given us. Drive out in review.’

I took up the reins and wheeled the chariot out in front of our army. The

king was showing himself to his troops. His presence would give them heart,

and stiffen their spines. I took the horses down the long ranks at a tight

hand-trot. Rock and Chain were brushed until their coats shone like polished

copper in the sunlight. The carriage of the royal chariot was dressed in a

thin skin of gold-leaf. This was the only concession I had made, in my quest

for lightness.

The gold was beaten thinner than a papyrus sheet, and it added less than a

hundred deben to the overall weight of our vehicle, yet it made a dazzling

display. Friend or enemy who looked upon it could not doubt that this was

Pharaoh’s chariot, and take heart or be struck by awe in the thick of battle.

On its long, whippy bamboo rod the blue pennant nodded and streamed in the

breeze high above our heads, and the men cheered us as we drove down their

ranks.

On the day we had left Qebui to begin the Return, I had made a vow not to

cut my hah- until I had made sacrifice in the temple of Horus in the centre

of Thebes. Now my hah- reached to my waist, and to hide the streaks of grey

hi it, I had dyed it with henna imported from those lands beyond the Indus

river. It was a ruddy gold mane that set off my beauty to perfection. I wore

a simple starched kilt of the whitest linen, and the Gold of Praise upon my

naked chest. I did not wish in any way to detract from the glory of my young

pharaoh, so I wore no make-up and no other ornament.

We passed in front of the massed regiments of the Shilluk spearmen in the

centre. Those magnificent bloodthirsty pagans were the rock that anchored our

line. They cheered us as we rode by, ’Kajan! Tanus! Kajan! Tamose!’ Their

ostrich feathers seethed white as the foam of the river in the cataracts as

they raised their spears in salute. I saw Lord Kratas there in the midst of

them, and he shouted at me. His words were lost in the roar of ten thousand

voices, but I read his lips: ’You and I will get puking drunk tonight in

Thebes, you old hooligan.’

The Shilluk were stacked in depth, file upon file and regiment upon

regiment. Kratas had exercised them ceaselessly in the tactics that I had

helped him evolve to deal with chariots. Apart from their long spears, each

of them carried a bundle of javelins, and a sling of wood and leather to

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launch these with added power. They had set the sharpened wooden staves into

the earth to form a palisade in front of then" line. The Hyksos chariots had

to break through that spiny barrier to reach them.

The Egyptian archers were drawn up behind them, ready to move forward

through their ranks or retreat again, as the vagaries of the battle called

for each differing tactic. They raised their recurved bows on high and

cheered Pharaoh. ’Tamose! Egypt and Tamose!’

Pharaoh wore the blue war crown, with the golden circlet of the uraeus

around his brow, the heads of the vulture and the cobra of the two kingdoms

entwined, their jewelled eyes glittering. He returned their salute with the

bare blade of the blue sword held high.

We wheeled around our own left flank, and before we started back, Memnon

stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. For a short while we looked back over

the field. The Hyksos were moving forward already. Their front line was twice

the length of our own.

’From your own treatise, Tata,’ he quoted, ’ "A circumspect defence until

the enemy is committed, and then the rapid and audacious attack." ’

’You have remembered the lesson well, sire.’

’It is certain we will be outflanked, and Apachan will probably throw in

his first five chariot divisions at the start.’

’I agree with you, Mem.’

’But we know what we have to do, don’t we, Tata?’ He tapped my shoulder and

we started back to where our own chariots were holding in the rear.

Remrem headed the first division, Astes had the second, and Lord Aqer the

third. Newly promoted to the rank of Best of Ten Thousand, Captain Hui

commanded the fourth division. Two regiments of Shilluk guarded our baggage

and the spare horses.

’Look at that old hunting dog,’ Memnon nodded at Remrem. ’He is chafing to

be away. By Horus, I’ll teach him a little patience before this day is done.’

We heard the horns sounding in the centre.

’It begins now.’ Memnon pointed to the front, and we saw the Hyksos

chariots looming through the dust-clouds. ’Yes, Apachan has turned loose his

chariots.’

He looked back at our divisions, and Remrem raised his sword high. "The

first is ready, Majesty,’ he called agerly, but Memnon ignored him and

signalled to Lord Aqer. The third division came forward in column of fours

behind us, and Pharaoh led them out.

The Hyksos chariots lumbered forward, heavy and majestic, aimed at the

centre of our line. Memnon cut across in front of them, interposing our thin

column between their hordes and the infantry. Then, at his signal, we wheeled

into line abreast and we flew straight at them. It seemed suicidal, as futile

as charging one of our frail wooden galleys at the rocks of the cataract.

As we came together, our archers fired head-on into the Hyksos, aiming for

the horses. Gaps opened in their line as the animals were brought down by our

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arrows, then at the last possible moment our own line dissolved like

wind-driven smoke. Our drivers used their superior speed and manoeuvrability.

Instead of coming into collision with the Hyksos line and being crushed

beneath the juggernaut, we swerved into the gaps and raced through them. Not

all our chariots escaped, and some were broken and overturned, but Lord Aqer

led four out of every five of them through.

We emerged in the rear of the Hyksos charge and spun around in a

full-locked turn, re-forming the line at the gallop and again using our speed

to overhaul the Hyksos, coming into them from the rear, firing our arrows

into them at shortening range.

The Hyksos chariots were designed to give protection to the crew from the

front, and their archers were stationed on the footplate to fire their arrows

forward. Confusion spread down their line as they tried to meet our attack

from the rear. Hard-pressed, some of the drivers attempted to turn back to

confront us, and they collided with the chariots alongside. Those fearsome

wheel-scythes cut into the legs of the neighbouring horses, and brought them

down in a screaming, whinnying tangle.

The confusion spread among them just as the first volley of arrows from the

Egyptian archers rose up over the massed ranks of Shilluk and dropped among

the Hyksos. Immediately this happened, Memnon gave the order, and we wheeled

away and let them run down on that palisade of sharpened staves. Half their

horses were maimed or killed by those fierce points. Those who broke through

were met by the Shilluk and a cloud of javelins. Struck by stake and arrow

and javelin, their horses panicked, kicking and rearing in the traces.

Those chariots that were still under control hurled themselves into the

Shilluk phalanx. They met no resistance. The black ranks opened before them,

allowing the horses to run through, but then they closed up behind them.

Every one of those tall, willowy black devils was an athlete and an

acrobat. They leaped up on to the footplate of the racing chariots from

behind, and they stabbed and hacked at the crew with dagger and spear. They

swallowed that first charge of chariots the same way a jellyfish engulfs a

swift silver sardine in its myriad arms and amorphous body.

The Hyksos spearmen were moving forward to follow up and exploit the

chariot charge, but now they were exposed. Loose horses and the surviving

chariots tore back into their massed ranks, and forced them to open up and

let them through. For the moment they were stranded in disorder in the middle

of the field, and Memnon skilfully seized the opportunity.

Lord Aqer’s horses were blown, and Memnon led them back into reserve. He

and I changed teams. It was but a moment’s work for the grooms to loosen the

tack that coupled Rock and Chain, and to lead in a fresh team from the horses

being held in reserve. We had six thousand fresh horses ready in the rear. I

wondered how many Hyksos horses had escaped the Strangler, how many fresh

teams they were holding.

As we wheeled back into line, Remrem called to us desperately, ’Your

Majesty! The first! Let my first division go!’

Pharaoh ignored him and signalled to Astes. The second moved forward behind

us and formed up at the trot.

The Hyksos infantry was still tangled in the middle of the field. They had

extended to overlap our shorter line, but had lost their dressing. The line

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was crumpled and twisted. With a general’s eye, Memnon picked out the weakest

point, a salient in their left flank.

’The second division will advance. Trot-march! Forward! Pods of eight,

charge!’

We tore into the salient in the line, eight chariots abreast. Pod after

pod, we crashed into them and ripped them open. Their left flank buckled,

while their right still pressed forward. We had them canted across the field,

their centre was shearing, and Memnon re-formed the third division at the

gallop, and set them up to tear open the enemy centre.

At the moment before we were committed to the charge, I glanced across at

the city. Dust had almost obscured the range, but I glimpsed the two white

flags on the summit of the Finger of Horus. It was the warning signal from my

lookout posted there, and I swivelled round and looked back at the eastern

fort of the city.

’Sire!’ I cried, and pointed back. The king followed my arm, and saw the

first squadron of Hyksos chariots trot out from concealment behind the curve

of the wall. The others followed, like a column of black warrior ants on the

march.

’Apachan is throwing in his reserves to save his infantry,’ Memnon shouted,

above the din of battle. ’A moment more, and he would have had us in

enfilade. Well done, Tata.’

We had to let the infantry escape, as we wheeled into line to face

Apachan’s chariots. We charged at each other across a field littered with

smashed and overturned chariots, loose arrows and javelins, dead and wounded

horses and dying men. As we came together, I stood taller on the footplate

and peered ahead. There was something unusual about the run of the enemy

chariots, and then it dawned upon me.

’Sire,’ I cried, ’look at the horses! They are running sick animals.’ The

chests of the leading teams were painted with a glistening coat of yellow

mucus that streamed from their gaping mouths. Even as I watched, one of the

horses coming towards us staggered and fell headlong, bringing its teammate

down with it.

’Sweet Isis, you are right. Their horses are finished before they have

begun,’ Memnon answered. He saw instantly what he had to do. It was the

measure of his superb control that he was able to deflect a charge of his

chariots once it was fully launched. At this very last moment he declined the

head-on engagement.

We opened like a flower before their charge, peeling away on either side of

them, turning and running back for our own lines, drawing them on, straining

their sick and gasping horses to their utmost.

We ran before them in a tight, compact formation. Their own line began to

waver and fall apart as the weaker horses broke down. Some of them fell as

though struck in the head by an arrow. Others merely slowed and stopped,

standing with their heads hanging, mucus pouring from their mouths in shiny

golden ropes.

Lord Aqer’s own horses were almost blown by now. They had driven two

furious charges without a rest. Still pursued by the remnants of Apachan’s

division, Memnon led them back to where Hui’s fourth division was drawn up

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alongside Remrem and his first.

’Pharaoh! The first is ready. Let me go! In the name of all the gods, let

me go!’ Remrem howled with frustration.

Memnon hardly glanced in his direction. I turned my chariot in alongside

that of Hui. A team of grooms slipped our sweat-soaked horses from the traces

and led in a fresh pair. While Lord Aqer’s exhausted division streamed back

past us, we faced the oncoming Hyksos.

’Are you ready, Captain Hui?’ Memnon called to him, and Hui raised his bow

in salute.

’For Egypt and Tamose!’ he shouted.

’Then forward march. Charge!’ Memnon laughed, and our horses jumped against

the traces and we shot forward.

There were six full divisions of Apachan’s chariots scattered across the

field in front of us. Half of them were broken down, with the horses fallen

or drooping in the traces, suffocated and dying from the Yellow Strangler.

Most of the others were reduced to a walk, the horses staggering and

wheezing. However, the remaining chariots came on in good order.

We went out to meet them face to face. In the centre of their charge rode a

tall chariot, its coachwork clad in shining bronze. On the footplate stood a

man so tall that he towered above his driver. He wore the high golden helmet

of Hyksos royalty, and his dark beard was plaited with coloured ribbons that

fluttered in the wind like pretty butterflies hovering over a flowering

shrub.

’Apachan!’ Memnon challenged him. ’You are a dead man.’

Apachan heard him, and he picked out our golden chariot. He swerved to meet

us, and Memnon tapped my shoulder.

’Lay me alongside the bearded hog. It’s time for the sword, at last.’

Apachan loosed two arrows at us as we closed. Memnon caught one on his

shield. I ducked under the other, but I never lost my concentration. I was

watching those terrible spinning scythes on the hubs of Apachan’s wheels.

They could hack my horses’ legs out from under them.

Behind me I heard the gravelly rasp as Memnon drew the blue sword from its

scabbard on the side panel, and from the corner of my eye I caught the steely

flash of the blade as he went on guard.

I swung my horses’ heads over, feinting to the right to confuse the Hyksos

driver, but the instant we started to turn away, I changed direction again. I

avoided his scythes and passed him close, then I turned in sharply behind

him. With my free hand I snatched up the grappling-hook and tossed it over

the side-panel of the other chariot. Now we were locked together, but I had

achieved the advantage, for we lay across his stern.

Apachan swivelled around, and aimed a sword-cut at me, but I fell to my

knees under it, and Memnon gathered up the blow on his shield, then swung the

blue sword. A shard of bronze curled from the edge of Apachan’s weapon,

sliced away by the steel, and he shouted in angry disbelief, and flung up his

copper shield at the next blow.

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Apachan was a superb swordsman, but no match for my king and the blue

sword. Memnon mangled his shield to strips, and then swung hard at his bronze

blade, as Apachan tried to defend his head. The blue blade sheared the bronze

cleanly, and Apachan was left with only the hilt in his fist.

He opened his mouth wide and bellowed at us. The teeth in the back of his

jaw were black and rotten, and his spittle blew into my face in a cloud.

Memnon used that classic straight thrust to end it. He drove the point of the

blue blade through Apachan’s open mouth, deeply into the back of his throat.

His angry bellow was drowned out by the torrent of bright blood that burst

through his hairy lips.

I cut the rope of the grappling-hook, and let the Hyksos chariot run free.

The horses were out of control and they slewed away and ran down the line of

locked and battling chariots. Apachan clutched at the dashboard, holding

himself erect even though he was dying, and the blood spurted from his mouth

and cascaded down his breastplate.

It was a sight that struck dismay into the hearts of his charioteers. They

tried to disengage their sick and staggering-horses, but we ran hub-to-hub

with them and hurled our javelins into them. We followed them all the way

back, until we came within range of their archers, and flocks of arrows fell

around us and forced us to break off.

’It is not over yet,’ I warned Memnon, as we walked our tired horses back.

’You have broken Apachan’s chariots, but you still have to deal with Beon’s

infantry.’

’Take me to Kratas,’ Pharaoh ordered.

I stopped our chariot in front of the massed regiments of Shilluk, and

Memnon called across to Kratas, ’What heart, my Lord?’

’I fear, sire, that my fellows will fall asleep if you cannot find a little

work for us to do.’

’Then let us hear a tune from them as you take them forward to seek

employment.’

The Shilluk began their advance. They moved with a curious shuffling gait,

and every third pace they stamped in unison with a force that made the ground

jump beneath their horny bare feet. They sang in those deep, melodious

African voices, a sound like a swarm of angry black bees, and they drummed

their spears upon their rawhide shields.

The Hyksos were disciplined and brave, they could not have conquered half

the world if they had not been so. We had smashed up their chariots, but they

stood to meet Kratas’ advance behind a wall of bronze shields.

The two armies came together like fighting temple bulls. The black and the

white bulls locked horns and fought it out breast-to-breast and

spear-to-spear.

While the two armies of foot-soldiers mauled each other, Pharaoh held back

his chariots, using them with skill and daring only when there was an opening

or a weakness in the enemy positions. When a pocket of the Hyksos infantry

was isolated on the left, he sent in Aqer’s division, and annihilated them

with two swift charges. When Lord Beon tried to send reinforcements forward

to assist his beleaguered front, Pharaoh despatched Astes with five hundred

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chariots to frustrate him.

The Hyksos rallied every one of their remaining chariots, and every one of

their horses that could still stand, and threw them against our right. Memnon

sent Hui and Astes out to meet them, and to break up their attack. He left

Remrem cursing and pleading and stamping up and down beside his chariot, and

ignored his pleas.

Pharaoh and I circled the fighting in the golden chariot, watching each

shift and change in the conflict. He pushed in his reserves in exactly those

places where they were most needed, and with the timing and anticipation that

can never be taught or learned. It was as though the pulse and the tempo of

the battle beat in his heart, and he sensed it in his blood.

Always I looked for Kratas in the thick of it. Many times I lost him, and I

dreaded that he was down, but then his helmet showed again with the

ostrich-feather plume cut away, and the bronze splattered with his own blood

and the blood of other men.

It was there in the centre where Kratas fought that the Hyksos ranks began

to give. It was like the first trickle through the earth wall of a dam, their

line bulged and stretched to the breaking-point. Their rear ranks began to

fall in upon themselves under the relentless pressure.

’By the love of Horus and the compassion of all the gods, Tata, this is the

moment of our victory.’ Memnon saw it even before I did.

We galloped across to where Remrem still waited, and Pharaoh hailed him,

’Are you ready, my Lord Remrem?’

’I have been ready since dawn, sire, but I am no lord.’

’Would you argue with your king, sir? You are a lord now. The enemy centre

is breaking. Take your chariots and chase them back to Memphis!’

’May you live for ever, Pharaoh!’ Lord Remrem roared, and he sprang to the

footplate. He led out the first. Their horses were fresh and strong, and

their fighting spirit was chafed raw and angry with long restraint.

They crashed into the Hyksos right flank. They cut through them with barely

a check, and swung round1 and went into the enemy centre from the rear. It

was the perfect moment when the battle teetered, and the Hyksos centre broke.

Within the time it takes to draw and hold a long breath, they were in rout.

They streamed back towards the city gates, but even Kra-tas’ Shilluk were

too far-gone to follow them. They stood knee-deep in the piles of dead and

dying men, they rested on their spears and let the Hyksos go. This was when

the genius of Memnon was made apparent. He had kept the first in hand for

this moment. They took up the chase, and I saw Remrem’s sword rise and fall

to a terrible rhythm as he drove them on.

The first of the fleeing enemy reached the city gates, but they found them

slammed closed in their faces. My spies and agents had done their work well.

The populace of Thebes was in revolt, and the city was ours. They barred the

gates to the broken Hyksos legions.

Remrem pursued the Hyksos until night fell and his horses were exhausted.

He drove them back thirty miles, and every yard of the north road was

littered with their discarded weapons and the bodies of the slain.

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I DROVE PHARAOH’S GOLDEN CHARIOT up to the main gate of the city, and he

stood tall on the footplate and shouted to the sentinels on the parapet above

us. ’Open the gates! Let me pass through!’

’Who is it that demands entry to Thebes?’ they called down.

’I am Tamose, ruler of the two kingdoms.’

’Hail Pharaoh! May you live for ever!’

The gates swung open, and Memnon touched my shoulder. ’Drive through,

Tata.’

I turned to face him. ’Forgive me, Majesty. I have taken oath that I will

not enter the city, except at the side of my mistress, Queen Lostris. I must

pass the reins to you.’

’Dismount,’ he ordered me gently. ’Go! Fetch your mistress and make good

your oath.’

He took the reins from my hand, and I climbed down into the dusty roadway.

I watched him drive the golden chariot through the gateway, and the sound of

cheering was like the thunder of waters in the cataracts at high flood. The

people of Thebes greeted their king.

I stood at the roadside as our depleted and battered army followed Pharaoh

into the city. I realized what a bitter price we had paid for our victory. We

would not be fit to pursue the Hyksos until we had rebuilt our army. By this

time King Salitis would be strong again, and his horses recovered from the

Yellow Strangler. We had won the first battle, but I knew that many more lay

ahead of us before the tyrant could be cast out of this very Egypt.

I looked for Kratas as the Shilluk regiments marched past, but he was not

there.

Hui had a chariot and fresh horses for me. ’I will ride with you, Taita,’

he offered, but I shook my head.

’I will travel faster alone,’ I told him. ’Go into the city and enjoy your

triumph. A thousand pretty maids are waiting to welcome you home.’

Before I took the south road, I drove first to the battlefield. The jackals

and the hyena were already at the feast that we had set for them, their

growls and howls blended with the groans of the dying. The dead were piled

like the flotsam on the river-bank when the flood-waters recede.

I drove the chariot through to where I had last seen Kratas, but this was

the most gruesome corner of that awful field. The corpses were piled high as

my chariot wheels. I saw his helmet lying in the dust that blood had turned

to thick mud. I dismounted and took it up. The crest was gone and the helm

was all dented and battered in by heavy blows.

I threw the helmet aside and began to search for Kratas’ body. I saw his

leg protruding like the branch of a giant acacia from beneath a pile of

bodies. They were Shilluk and Hyksos lying together in the truce of death. I

dragged them aside and found Kratas on his back. He was drenched in clotted

black blood, his hair was matted with it and his face was a black, crusted

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mask.

I knelt beside him, and I whispered softly, ’Must they all die? Every one I

truly love, must they all die?’ I leaned forward and kissed his bloody lips.

He sat up and stared at me. Then he grinned that wide boyish grin of his.

’By the plug of dried snot in Seth’s left nostril, that was a real fight,’ he

greeted me.

’Kratas!’ I stared at him with delight. ’You will truly live for ever.’

’Never doubt it for a moment, my lad. But right now I need a noggin.’

I ran to the chariot and fetched the wine flask. He held it at arm’s-length

and let the red wine squirt down his throat without swallowing. When the

flask was empty he threw it aside and belched.

’That will do well enough for a start,’ he winked at me. ’Now point me

towards the nearest tavern, you old reprobate.’

FASTER THAN ANY SHIP COULD SAIL against the current, I carried the news to

Elephantine. I was one man in the chariot, and the horses ran lightly. I

changed the teams at every relay station along the south road, and galloped

on without a check. The grooms handed me a flask or a crust of corn-bread and

cheese as they changed the horses, and I never slept or even rested.

During the night, the stars and the moon revealed the path to me, and Horus

guided my weary hands upon the traces,

for though’ I ached in every limb and I reeled on the footplate with

fatigue, I met with no mishap.

At each relay station and in each village along the way, I shouted the

joyous news. ’A victory! A mighty victory! Pharaoh has triumphed at Thebes.

The Hyksos is cast down.’

’Praise to all the gods!’ they cheered me. ’Egypt and Ta-mose.’

I galloped on, and they still speak of my ride to this day along the south

road. They tell of the gaunt rider with wild bloodshot eyes, his robe thick

with dust and the stains of dried blood, his long hair blowing in the wind,

the harbinger of victory, bringing the news to Elephantine of the battle that

set Egypt on the road to freedom.

I drove from Thebes to Elephantine in two days and two nights, and when I

reached the palace, I barely had the strength left to stagger into the

water-garden where my mistress lay, and throw myself down beside her couch.

’Mistress,’ I croaked through cracked lips and a throat that was parched

with dust, ’Pharaoh has won a mighty victory. I have come to take you home.’

WE SAILED DOWN-RIVER TO THEBES. THE princesses were with me to keep their

mother company and to cheer her. They sat with her on the open deck and sang

to her. They rhymed and riddled and laughed, but there were tones of sadness

in their laughter and deep concern in their eyes as they watched over my

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mistress.

Queen Lostris was as frail as a wounded bird. There was no weight to her

bones and her flesh was as translucent as mother-of-pearl. I could lift and

carry her as easily as I had done when she was ten years of age. The powder

of the sleeping-flower was no longer able to still the pain that gnawed into

her belly like some terrible clawed crab.

I carried her to the bows of the galley when at last the walls of Thebes

opened to our view around the last bend in the river. With an arm around her

thin shoulders I supported her, as we delighted together in all those

long-remembered scenes, and lived again a thousand joyous memories of our

youth.

But the effort tired her. When we docked below the Palace of Memnon, half

the populace of Thebes was waiting to welcome her. Pharaoh Tamose stood at

the head of this vast throng.

When the litter-bearers carried her ashore, they cheered her. Although most

of them had never laid eyes upon her, the legend of the compassionate queen

had persisted during her long exile. Mothers lifted up their infants for her

blessing, and they reached out to touch her hand as it trailed from the edge

of the litter.

’Pray to Hapi for us,’ they pleaded. ’Pray for us, Mother of Egypt.’

Pharaoh Tamose walked beside her litter like the son of a commoner, and

Tehuti and Bekatha followed close behind. Both the princesses smiled

brightly, though the tears jewelled their eyelids.

Aton had prepared quarters for the queen. At the door I sent them all away,

even the king. I laid her on the couch beneath the vine arbour on the

terrace. From there she could look across the river to the shining walls of

her beloved Thebes.

When darkness fell, I carried her to her bedchamber. As she lay upon the

linen sheets, she looked up at me. ’Taita,’ she murmured, ’one last time,

will you work the Mazes of Ammon-Ra for me?’

’Mistress, I can refuse you nothing.’ I bowed my head and went to fetch my

medicine chest.

I sat beside her bed, cross-legged upon the stone slabs, and she watched me

prepare the herbs. I crushed them in the alabaster pestle and mortar, and

heated the water in the copper kettle.

I raised the steaming cup and saluted her with it.

’Thank you,’ she whispered, and I drained the cup. I closed my eyes and

waited for the familiar but dreaded slide, over the edge of reality, into the

world of dreams and visions.

When I returned, the lamps were guttering and smoking in their brackets,

and the palace was silent. There was no sound from the river or from the

sleeping city on the far bank, only the sweet trill of a nightingale in the

gardens, and the light breath of my mistress as she lay upon her silken

pillow.

438

I thought she was sleeping. But the moment I lifted my trembling hand to

wipe the cold and nauseous sweat from my face, she opened her eyes. ’Poor

Taita, was it so bad?’

It had been worse than ever before. My head ached and my vision swam. I

knew that I would never work the Mazes again. This was the last time, and I

had done it for her alone.

’I saw the vulture and the cobra stand on either side of the river, divided

by the waters. I saw the waters rise and fall one hundred seasons. I saw one

hundred sheaths of corn, and one hundred birds fly over the river. Below

them, I saw the dust of battle and the flash of swords. I saw the smoke of

burning cities mingle with the dust.

’At last I saw the cobra and the vulture come together in congress. I saw

them mating and entwined on a sheet of pure blue silk. There were blue

banners on the city walls and banners of blue flew on the temple pylons.

’I saw the blue pennants on the chariots that drove out across the world. I

saw monuments so tall and mighty that they would stand for ten thousand

years. I saw the peoples of fifty different nations bow down before them.’

I sighed and pressed my fingers into my temples to still the throbbing in

my skull, and then I said, ’That was all my vision.’

Neither of us spoke or moved for a long while thereafter, then my mistress

said quietly, ’One hundred seasons must pass before the two kingdoms are

united, one hundred years of war and striving before the Hyksos are at last

driven from the sacred soil of this very Egypt. It will be hard and bitter

for my people to bear.’

’But they will be united under the blue banner, and the kings of your line

will conquer the world. All the nations of the world will pay homage to

them,’ I interpreted the rest of my vision for her.

’With this I am content.’ She sighed and fell asleep.

I did not sleep, for I knew that she still needed me near her.

She woke again in that hour before dawn which is the darkest of the night.

She cried Out, ’The pain! Sweet Isis, the pain!’

I mixed the Red Shepenn for her. After a while she said, ’The pain has

passed, but I am cold. Hold me, Taita, warm me with your body.’

I took her in my arms and held her while she slept.

She awoke once more as the first timid rays of dawn crept in through the

doorway from the terrace.

’I have loved only two men in my life,’ she murmured, ’and you were one of

those. Perhaps in the next life, the gods will treat our love more kindly.’

There was no reply I could give. She closed her eyes for the last time. She

stole away quietly and left me. Her last breath was no louder than the one

before, but I felt the chill in her lips when I kissed them.

’Goodbye, my mistress,’ I whispered. ’Farewell, my. heart.’

439

I HAVE WRITTEN THESE SCROLLS DURING the seventy days and nights of the

royal embalming. They are my last tribute to my mistress.

Before the undertakers took her away from me, I made the incision in her

left flank, as I had done for Tanus. I opened her womb and took from it that

terrible incubus that had killed her. It was a thing of flesh and blood, but

it was not human. When I cast it into the fire, I cursed it, and I cursed the

foul god Seth who had placed it in her.

I have prepared ten alabaster jars to hold these scrolls. I will leave them

with her. I am painting all the murals of her tomb with my own hand. They are

the finest I have ever created. Each stroke of my brush is an expression of

my love.

I wish that I could rest with her in this tomb, for I am sick and weary

with grief. But I still have my two princesses and my king to care for. They

need me.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

On 5 January 1988, Doctor Duraid ibn al Simma of the Egyptian Department of

Antiquities opened and entered a tomb on the west bank of the Nile in the

Valley of the Nobles. The reason why this tomb had not been previously

excavated was that in the ninth century AD an Islamic mosque had been built

over the site. It was only after long and delicate negotiations with the

religious authorities that the excavation was permitted.

Immediately upon entering the passage that led to the burial chamber, Dr Al

Simma was greeted by a marvellous display of murals which covered all the

walls and the ceilings. They were the most elaborate and vivacious that he

had ever encountered in a lifetime spent studying the monuments.

He told me that he knew at once that he had made a significant find, for

from amongst the hieroglyphics on the walls stood out the royal cartouche of

an Egyptian queen who had not been previously recorded.

His excitement and anticipation increased as he approached the burial

chamber, only to be dashed as he saw that the seals upon the doorway had been

damaged, and the entrance had been forced. In ancient times, the tomb had

been robbed and stripped of its sarcophagus and all its treasures.

Nevertheless, Dr Al Simma was able to date the tomb with reasonable

accuracy to that dark night of strife and disaster that overwhelmed Egypt in

about 1780 BC. For the next century the Two Kingdoms were in a state of flux.

We have little record of the events of this period, but from the chaos

eventually rose a line of princes and pharaohs that finally expelled the

Hyksos invader, and lifted Egypt into its period of greatest glory. It gives

me pleasure to think that the blood of Lostris and Tanus and Memnon ran

strongly in their veins.

It was almost a year after the tomb was first opened, while Dr Al Simma’s

assistants were copying and photographing the decorations of the walls, that

a section of the plaster fell away to reveal a hidden niche in which stood

ten sealed alabaster vases.

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When Dr Al Simma asked me to assist in the transcription of the scrolls

contained in the vases, I was both honoured and filled with trepidation. I

was not, of course, qualified to work on the original scrolls, which were

written in the hieratic script. This work was done at Cairo Museum by a team

of international Egyptologists.

Dr Al Simma asked me to rewrite this original transcription in a style that

would make it more accessible to the modern reader. With this end in view I

have included some anachronisms in the text. For instance I have, in places,

used such comparatively modern measures of distance and weight as miles and

ounces. I have also indulged myself with words such as ’djinn’ and ’houri’

and ’hooligan’ which Taita never employed, but which, I feel certain, he

would have used if they had formed part of his vocabulary.

Very soon after beginning work on the texts all my reservations began to

evaporate as I became totally involved in the times and character of the

ancient author. Despite all his bombast and vainglory, I developed an

affinity and affection for the slave Taita that reached back over the

millennium.

I am left with a realization of how little the emotions and aspirations of

man have changed in all that time, and a lingering excitement that to this

day somewhere in the Abyssinian mountains near the source of the Blue Nile

the mummy of Tanus still lies in the unviolated tomb of Pharaoh Mamose.

EXPLORE THE MYSTERIES OF THE SEVENTH SCROLL?

WILBUR SMITH’S NEXT UNFORGETTABLE

EPIC NOVEL, COMING SOON FROM

ST. MARTIN’S PRESS. AN EXCERPT FOLLOWS:

"The Seventh Scroll." She whispered, and steeled herself to touch it. It

was three thousand years old, written by a genius out of time with history, a

man who had been dust for all these millennia, but who she had come to know

and respect as she did her own husband. His words were eternal, and they

spoke to her clearly from beyond the grave, from the fields of paradise, from

the presence of the great Trinity, Osiris and Isis and Horus, in whom he had

believed so devoutly. As devoutly as she believed in another more recent

Trinity.

She carried the scroll to the long table at which Duraid, her husband, was

already at work. He looked up as she laid it on the table-top before him and

for a moment she saw the same mystical mood in his eyes that had affected

her. He always wanted the scroll there on the table, even when there was no

real call for it. He had the photographs and the microfilm to work with. It

was as though he needed the unseen presence of the ancient author close to

him as he studied the texts.

Then he threw off the mood and was the dispassionate scientist once more.

"Your eyes are better than mine, my flower," he said. "What do you make of

this letter?"

She leaned over his shoulder and studied the hieroglyph on the photograph

of the scroll that he pointed out to her. She puzzled over the character for

a moment before she took the magnifying glass from Duraid’s hand, and peered

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through it again.

"It looks as though Taita has thrown in another cryptic of his own creation

just to bedevil us." She spoke of the ancient author as though he were a

dear, but sometimes exasperating, friend who still lived and breathed, and

played tricks upon them.

"We’ll just have to puzzle it out, then," Duraid declared with obvious

relish. He loved the ancient game. It was his life’s work.

The two of them laboured on into the cool of the night. This was when they

did their best work. Sometimes they spoke Arabic and sometimes English; for

them the two languages were as one. Less often they used French, which was

their third common language. They had both received their education at

universities in England and the United States, so far from this Very Egypt of

theirs. Royan loved the expression "This Very Egypt" that Taita used so often

in the scrolls.

She felt a peculiar affinity with this ancient Egyptian in so many ways.

After all she was his direct descendant. She was a Coptic Christian, not of

the Arab line that had so recently conquered Egypt, less than two thousand

years ago. The Arabs were newcomers in this Very Egypt of hers; while her own

blood line ran back to the dawn of sanguine man, to the time of the pharaohs

and the great pyramids.

At ten o’clock Royan made coffee for them, heating it on the charcoal stove

that Alia had left for them before she went off to her own family in the

village. They drank the sweet strong brew from thin cups that were half

filled with the heavy grounds. While they sipped they talked as old friends.

For Royan that was their relationship, old friends. She had known Duraid

ever since she had returned from England with her doctorate in archaeology

and won her job with the Department of Antiquities, of which he was the

director and professor.

She had been his assistant when he had opened the tomb in the Valley of the

Nobles; the tomb of Queen Lostris of the Ramessidian line of pharaohs, the

tomb that dated from 1780 BC.

She had shared his disappointment when they discovered that the tomb had

been robbed in ancient times and all its treasures plundered. All that

remained were the marvellous murals that covered the walls and the ceilings

of the tomb.

It was Royan herself who had been working at the wall behind the plinth on

which the sarcophagus had once stood, photographing the murals, when a

section of the plaster had fallen away to reveal in their niche the ten

alabaster jars. Each of the jars had contained a papyrus scroll. Every one of

them had been written and placed there by Taita, the slave of the queen.

Since then their lives, Duraid’s and her own, seemed to have revolved

around those scraps of parchment. Although there was some damage and

deterioration, in the main they had survived three and a half thousand years

remarkably intact.

What a fascinating story they contained of a nation attacked by a superior

enemy, armed with horse and chariot that were still alien to the Egyptians of

that time. Crushed by the Hyksos hordes, the people of the Nile were forced

to flee. Led by their queen, Lostris of the tomb, they followed the great

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river southwards almost to its source amongst the brutal mountains of the

Ethiopian highlands.

Here amongst those forbidding mountains, Lostris had entombed the mummified

body of her husband, the Pharaoh Mamose, who had been slain in battle against

the Hyksos.

Long afterwards Queen Lostris had led her people back northwards to this

Very Egypt. Armed now with their own horses and chariots, forged into hard

warriors in the African wilderness they had come storming back down the

cataracts of the great river to challenge once more the Hyksos invader, and

in the end to triumph over him and wrest the double crown of upper and lower

Egypt from his grasp.

It was a story that appealed to every fibre of her being, and that had

fascinated her as they had unravelled each hieroglyph that the old slave had

penned on the papyrus.

It had taken them all these years, working at night here in the villa of

the oasis after all their daily routine work at the museum in Cairo was done,

but at last all of the ten scrolls had been deciphered, all except the

seventh scroll. This was the one that was the enigma, the one which the

author had cloaked in layers of esoteric shorthand and allusions so obscure

that they were unfathomable at this remove of time. Some of the symbols he

used they had never encountered before in all the thousands of texts that

they had studied in their combined lifetimes. It was obvious to them both

that Taita had not intended that the scrolls should be read and understood by

any eyes other than those of his beloved queen. These were his last gift for

her to take with her beyond the grave.

It had taken all their combined skills, all their imagination and

ingenuity, but at last they were approaching the conclusion of the task.

There were still many gaps in the translation and many areas where they were

uncertain whether or not they had captured the true meaning, but they had

laid out the bones of the manuscript in such order that they were able to

discern the outline of the creature it represented.

Now Duraid sipped his coffee and shook his head as he had done so often

before as he said, "It frightens me. The responsibility. What to do with this

knowledge we have gleaned? If it should fall into the wrong hands." He sipped

and sighed before he spoke again. "Even if we take it to the right people,

will they believe this story that is three and a half thousand years old?"

"Why must we bring in others?" Royan asked with an edge of exasperation in

her voice. "Why can we not do alone what has to be done?" At times like these

the differences between them were most apparent. His was the caution of age,

while hers was the impetuosity of youth.

"You do not understand," he said. It always annoyed her when he said that;

when he treated her as the Arabs treated their women in a totally masculine

world. She had known the other world where women demanded and received the

right to be treated as equals. She was a creature caught between those

worlds?the Western world and the Arab world.

Duraid was still speaking and she had not been listening to him. She gave

him her full attention once more. "I have spoken to the Minister again, but I

do not think he believes in me. I think that Nahoot has convinced him that I

am a little mad." He smiled sadly. Nahoot Guddabi was his ambitious and

well-connected deputy. "At any rate the minister says that there are no

443

government funds available, and that I will have to seek outside finance. So,

I have been over the list of possible sponsors again, and have narrowed it

down to four. There is the Getty Museum, of course?but I never like to work

with a big impersonal institution. I prefer to have a single man to answer

to. Decisions are always easier to reach." None of this was new to her, but

she listened dutifully.

"Then there is Herr Von Schiller. He has the money and the interest in the

subject, but I do not know him well enough to trust him entirely." He paused,

and Royan had listened to these musings so often before that she could

anticipate him.

"What about the American? He is a famous collector." She forestalled him.

"Peter Walsh is a difficult man to work with. His passion to accumulate

makes him unscrupulous. He frightens me a little."

"So who does that leave?" she asked.

He did not answer for they both knew the answer to her question. Instead he

turned his attention back to the material mat littered the working table.

"It looks so innocent, so mundane. An old papyrus scroll, a few photographs

and notebooks, a computer print-out. It is difficult to believer how

dangerous these might be in the wrong hands." He sighed again. "You might

almost say that they are deadly dangerous."

Then he laughed. "I am being fanciful. Perhaps it is the late hour. Shall

we get back to work? We can worry about these other matters once we have

worked out all the conundrums set for us by this old rogue, Taita, and

completed the translation."

He picked up the top photograph from the pile in front of him. It was an

extract from the central section of the scroll. "It is the worst luck that

the damaged piece of papyrus falls where it does." He picked up his reading

glasses and placed them on his nose before he read aloud.

"There are many steps to ascend on the staircase to the abode of Hapi. With

much hardship and endeavour we reached the second step and proceeded no

further, for it was here that the prince received a divine revelation. In a

dream his father, the dead God Pharaoh visited him and commanded him, ’I have

travelled far and I am grown weary. It is here that I will rest for all

eternity.’ "

Duraid removed his glasses and looked across at Royan. "The second step. It

is a very precise description for once. Taita is not being his usual devious

self."

"Let’s go back to the satellite photographs," Royan suggested, and drew the

glossy sheets toward her. Duraid came around the table to stand behind her.

"To me it seems most logical that the natural feature that would obstruct

them in the gorge would be something like a set of rapids or a waterfall. If

it were the second waterfall that would put them here?" Royan placed her

finger on a spot on the satellite photograph where the narrow snake of the

river threaded itself through the dark massifs of the mountains on either

hand.

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At that moment she was distracted and she lifted her head. "Listen!" Her

voice changed, sharpening with alarm.

"What is it?" Duraid looked up also.

"The dog." She answered.

"That damn mongrel." He agreed. "It’s always making the night hideous with

its yapping. I have promised myself to get rid of it."

At that moment the lights went out.

They froze with surprise in the darkness. The soft thudding of the decrepit

diesel generator in its shed at the back of the palm grove had ceased. It was

so much a part of the oasis night that they noticed it only when it was

silent.

Their eyes adjusted to the faint starlight that came in through the terrace

doors. Duraid crossed the room and took the oil lamp down from the shelf

beside the door where it waited for just such a contingency. He lit it, and

looked across at Royan with an expression of comical resignation.

"I will have to go down?"

"Duraid." She interrupted him. "The dog!"

He listened for a moment, and his expression changed to mild concern. The

dog was silent out there in the night.

"I am sure it is nothing to be alarmed about." He went to the door, and for

no good reason she suddenly called after him.

"Duraid, be careful!" He shrugged dismissively and stepped out onto the

terrace.

She thought for an instant that it was the shadow of the vine over the

trellis moving in the night breeze off the desert, but the night was still.

Then she realized that it was a human figure crossing the flagstones silently

and swiftly,coming in behind Duraid as he skirted the fish pond in the centre

of the paved terrace.

"Duraid!" She screamed a warning, and he spun around, lifting the lamp

high.

"Who are you?" he shouted. "What do you want here?"

The intruder closed with him silently. The traditional full length

dishdaasha robe swirled around his legs, and the white ghutrah head cloth

covered his head. In the light of the lamp Duraid saw that he had drawn the

corner of the head cloth over his face to mask his features.

The intruder’s back was turned towards her so Royan did not see the knife

in his right hand, but she could not mistake the upward stabbing motion that

he aimed at Duraid’s stomach. Duraid grunted with pain and doubled up at the

blow, and his attacker drew the blade free and stabbed again, but this time

Duraid dropped the lamp and seized the knife arm.

The flame of the fallen oil lamp was guttering and flaring. The two men

struggled in the gloom, but Royan saw a dark stain spreading over her

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husband’s white shirt front.

"Run!" He bellowed at her. "Go! fetch help! I cannot hold him?" The Duraid

she knew was a gentle person, a soft man of books and learning. She could see

that he was outmatched by his assailant.

The pain roused Duraid. It had to be that intense to bring him back from

that far place on the very edge of life to which he had drifted.

He groaned. The first thing he was aware of as he regained consciousness

was the smell of his own flesh burning, and then the agony struck him with

full force. A violent tremor shook his whole body and he opened his eyes and

looked down at himself.

His clothing was blackening and smouldering, and the pain was as nothing he

had ever experienced in his entire life. He realized in a vague way that the

room was on fire all around him. Smoke and waves of heat washed over him so

that he could barely make out the shape of the doorway through them.

The pain was so terrible that he wanted it to end. He wanted to die then

and not to have to endure it further. Then he remembered Royan. He tried to

say her name through his scorched and blackened lips but no sound came.

Only the thought of her gave him the strength to move. He rolled over once

and the heat attacked his back that up until that moment had been shielded.

He groaned aloud and rolled again, just a little nearer to the doorway.

Each movement was a mighty effort and evoked fresh paroxysms of agony, but

when he rolled onto his back again he realized that a gale of fresh air was

being sucked through the open doorway to feed the flames. A lungful of the

sweet desert air revived him and gave him just sufficient strength to lunge

down the step onto the cool stones of the terrace. His clothes and his body

were still on fire. He beat feebly at his chest to try to extinguish them but

his hands were black burning claws.

Then he remembered the fish pond. The thought of plunging his tortured body

into that cold water spurred him to one last effort and he wriggled and

wormed his way across the flags like a snake with a crushed spine.

The pungent smoke from his still cremating flesh choked him and he coughed

weakly, but kept doggedly on. He left slabs of his own grilled skin on the

stone coping as he rolled across it and flopped into the pond. There was a

hiss of steam and a pale cloud of it obscured his vision so that for a moment

he thought he was blinded. The agony of cold water on his raw burned flesh

was so intense that he slid back over the edge of consciousness.

When he came back to reality through the dark clouds he raised his dripping

head, and he saw a figure staggering up the steps at the far end of the

terrace, coming up out of the garden.

For a moment he thought it was a phantom of his agony, but when the light

of the burning villa fell full upon her, he recognized Royan. Her wet hair

hung in tangled disarray over her face, and her clothing was torn and running

with lake water and stained with mud and green algae. Her right arm was

wrapped in muddy rags and her blood oozed through, diluted pink by the dirty

water.

She did not see him. She stopped in the centre of the terrace and stared in

horror into the burning room. It was like looking into the depths of a

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furnace, and she believed Duraid must still be in there. She started forward

but the heat was like a solid wall and it stopped her dead. At that moment

the roof collapsed, sending a roaring column of sparks and flames high into

the night sky. She backed away from it, shielding her face with an upraised

arm.

Duraid tried to call to her but no sound issued from his smoke-scorched

throat. Royan turned away and started down the steps. He realized that she

must be going to call help. Duraid made a supreme effort and a crow-like

croak came out between his black and blistered lips.

Royan spun around and stared at him, and then she screamed. His head was

not human. His hair was gone, frizzled away, and his skin hung in tatters

from his cheeks and chin. Patches of raw meat showed through the black

crusted mask. She backed away from him as though he were some hideous

monster.

"Royan." He croaked and his voice was just recognizable. He lifted one hand

towards her in appeal and she ran to the pond and seized the outstretched

hand.

"In the name of the Virgin, what have they done to you?" She sobbed, but

when she tried to pull him from the pond the skin of his hand came away in

hers in a single piece, like some horrible surgical rubber glove, leaving the

bleeding claw naked and raw.

Royan fell on her knees beside the coping and leaned over the pond to take

him in her arms. She knew that she did not have the strength to lift him out

without doing him further dreadful injury. All she could do was hold him and

try to comfort him. She realized that he was dying; no man could survive such

fearsome injury.

"They will come soon to help us," she whispered to him in Arabic. "Someone

must see the flames. Be brave, my husband, help will come very soon."

He was twitching and convulsing in her arm, tortured by his mortal injuries

and racked by the effort to speak.

"The scroll?" His voice was barely intelligible. Royan looked up at the

holocaust that enveloped their home, and she shook her head.

"It’s gone," she said. "Burned or stolen."

"Don’t give it up." He mumbled, "All our work?"

"It’s gone," she repeated. "No one will believe us without?"

" No." His voice was faint but fierce.’’ For me, my last?’’ "Don’t say

that." She pleaded, "You will be all right." "Promise." He demanded, "Promise

me!" "We have no sponsor. I am alone. I cannot dp it alone." "Harper!" he

said. Royan leaned closer so that her ear touched his fire-ravaged lips.

"I don’t understand." She told him. "Harper." He repeated,

"Strong?hard?clever man?" and she understood then. Harper was the fourth and

last name on the list of sponsors that he had drawn up. Although he was the

last on the list, somehow she had always known that Duraid’s order of

preference was inverted. Nicholas Quenton-Harper was his first choice. He had

spoken so often of this man with respect and warmth, and sometimes even with

awe.

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"But what do I tell him? He does not know me. How will I convince him? The

seventh Scroll is gone?"

"Trust him." He whispered, "Good man. Trust him?" There was a terrible

appeal in his, "Promise me!"

Then she remembered the notebook in the Giza flat, and the Taita material

on the hard drive of her P.C. Not everything was gone. "Yes," she agreed, "I

promise you, My Husband, I promise you."