by Wilbur Smith
Startled, he glanced over his shoulder. The magus stood in the doorway.
He was naked. His body was lean and muscled like that of a much younger man, but the terrible scar of the old gelding wound showed silver in his crotch. His hair and beard were in disarray, but his eyes were bright. He raised his voice in a loud cry of alarm: ‘On me, the guards! Hilto, Habari! Meren! Here, Shabako!’ At once the cry was taken up and shouted across the camp.
Soe hesitated no longer. He swung up on to Windsmoke’s back and urged her away. Taita threw himself into her path and seized her halter rope. The mare came to such a sudden halt that Soe was thrown on to her neck. ‘Stand aside, you old fool!’ he shouted angrily.
He carries a knife. Fenn’s warning echoed in Taita’s head, and he saw the flash of a dagger in Soe’s right hand as he leant down from Windsmoke’s back to slash. If he had not been forewarned Taita would have received the thrust full in the throat, where it was aimed, but he had just enough time to duck to one side. The point of the dagger caught him high in the shoulder. He stumbled backwards, blood streaming down his shoulder and flank. Soe urged the mare forward to run him down.
Clutching the wound, Taita whistled sharply and Windsmoke shied again, then bucked furiously and hurled Soe headlong into the fire, knocking over the water-pot in a hissing cloud of steam. Soe crawled off the hot coals, but before he could regain his feet two burly troopers pounced on him and pinned him to the dust.
‘ ’Tis a little trick I taught the mare,’ Taita told Soe quietly, and picked the dagger out of the dust where he had dropped it. He placed the point against the soft skin of Soe’s temple just in front of the ear.
‘Lie still or I will skewer your head like a ripe pomegranate.’
Meren rushed from the hut naked, sword in hand. He took in the situation instantly, and pressed the bronze point into the back of Soe’s neck, then looked up at Taita. ‘The swine has wounded you. Shall I kill him, Magus?’
‘No!’ Taita told him. ‘This is Soe, the false prophet of the false goddess.’
‘By Seth’s sweaty testicles, I recognize him now. It was he who set the toads on Demeter at the ford.”
‘One and the same,’ Taita agreed. ‘Bind him well. As soon as I have seen to this cut I desire to converse with him.’
When Taita emerged from the hut a short while later, Soe was trussed up like a pig for market and laid in the full glare of the sun.
They had stripped him naked, to ensure he had no other blade concealed, and already his skin was reddening under the caress of the sun.
Hilto and Shabako were standing over him with drawn swords. Meren placed a stool with a seat of leather thongs in the shade thrown by the wall of the hut, and Taita took his ease upon it. He took time to survey Soe with the vision of the Inner Eye: the man’s aura was unchanged from the last time he had scried it, angry and confused.
At length Taita began to ask a series of simple questions to which he already knew the answers so that he could watch how Soe’s aura reacted to either the truth or a lie.
‘You are known as Soe?’
Soe glared at him in silent defiance. ‘Prick him,’ Taita ordered Shabako, ‘in the leg and not too deeply.’ Shabako delivered a finely judged stab. Soe jumped, shrieked and twisted against his bonds. There was a thin trickle of blood on his thigh.
‘I shall begin again,’ Taita told him. ‘You are Soe?’
‘Yes,’ he grated, through clenched teeth. His aura burned steadily.
Truth, Taita confirmed silently.
‘You are an Egyptian?’
Soe kept his mouth closed and stared at him sullenly.
Taita nodded at Shabako. ‘The other leg.’
‘I am,’ Soe answered quickly. His aura remained unchanged. Truth.
‘You preached to Queen Mintaka?’
‘Yes.’ The truth again.
‘You have promised her that you will bring her dead children back to life?’
‘No.’ Soe’s aura was suddenly shot through with greenish light.
The sign of a lie, Taita thought. He had the yardstick against which to measure Soe’s next replies.
‘Forgive my lack of hospitality, Soe. Are you thirsty?’
Soe licked his dry, cracked lips. ‘Yes!’ he whispered. Clearly the truth.
‘Where are your manners, Colonel Meren? Bring our honoured guest some water.’
Meren grinned and went to the waterskin. He filled a wooden drinking bowl, and came back to kneel beside Soe. He held the brimming bowl to the parched lips, and Soe gulped huge mouthfuls. Coughing, gasping and panting in his eagerness, he drained the bowl. Taita gave him a few moments to regain his breath.
‘So, are you scurrying back to your mistress?’
‘No,’ mumbled Soe. The green tinge to his aura marked the lie.
‘Is her name Eos?’
‘Yes.’ Truth.
‘Do you believe she is a goddess?’
‘The only goddess. The one supreme deity.’ The truth again, very much so.
‘Have you come face to face with her?’
‘No!’ Lie.
‘Has she allowed you to gijima her yet?’ Deliberately Taita used the coarse soldier’s word to provoke the man. The original meaning had been ‘to run’, which was what a soldier in a victorious army had to do to catch the womenfolk of the defeated enemy.
‘No!’ It was shouted with fury. Truth.
‘Has she promised to gijima you when you have obeyed all her commands, and secured Egypt for her?’
‘No.’ It was said softly. Lie. Eos had offered him a reward for his loyalty.
‘Do you know where she has her lair?’
‘No.’ Lie.
‘Does she live near a volcano?‘I ‘No.’ Lie.,!
‘Does she live beside a great lake in the south beyond the swamps?’
‘No.’ Lie.
‘Is she a cannibal?’
‘I do not know.’ Lie.
‘Does she devour human infants?’
“I do not know.’ Lie again.
‘Does she lure wise and powerful men into her lair, then strip them of all their knowledge and powers before she destroys them?’
‘I know nothing of this.’ A great and veritable lie.
‘How many men has she copulated with, this whore of all the worlds? A thousand? Ten thousand?’
‘Your questions are blasphemous. You will be punished for them.’
‘As she punished Demeter, the magus and savant? On her behalf, did you send the toads to attack him?’
‘Yes! He was an apostate, a traitor. It was a judgement he richly deserved. I will listen no longer to your filth. Kill me, if you like, but I will say no more.’ Soe struggled against the ropes that held him. His breathing was hoarse and his eyes were wild. The eyes of a fanatic.
‘Meren, our guest is overwrought. Let him rest awhile. Then peg him out where the morning sun can warm him. Take him outside the camp, but not so far that we cannot hear him sing when he is ready to converse once more, or when the hyenas find him.’
Meren strung the rope round his shoulders and began to drag him away. Then he paused and looked back at Taita. ‘Are you certain that you have no further use for him, Magus? He has told us nothing.’
‘He has told us everything,’ said Taita. ‘He has bared his soul.’
‘Take his legs,’ Meren ordered Shabako and Tonka, and between them they carried Soe away. Taita heard them hammering the pegs to hold him on the baked earth. In the middle of the afternoon Meren went out speak to him again. The sun had raised fat white blisters across his belly and loins; his face was swollen and inflamed.
‘The mighty magus invites you to continue your discussions with him,’
Meren told him. Soe tried to spit at him but could gather no saliva. His purple tongue filled his mouth, and the tip protruded between his front teeth. Meren let him lie.
The hyena pack found him a little before sunset. Even Meren, the hardened old veteran, was un
easy as their demented howling and giggling drew nearer.
‘Shall I bring him in, Magus?’ he asked.
Taita shook his head. ‘Leave him. He has told us where to find the witch.’
‘The hyenas will make it a cruel death, Magus.’
Taita sighed, and said quietly, ‘The toads made Demeter’s death as cruel. He is a minion of the witch. He spreads sedition through the kingdom. It is fitting that he should die, but not like this. Such cruelty will sit heavily on our consciences. It reduces us to his level of evil. Go out there and cut his throat.’
Meren came to his feet and drew his sword, then paused and cocked his head. ‘Something is amiss. The hyenas are silent.’
‘Quickly, Meren. Go and find out what is happening,’ Taita ordered sharply.
Meren ran out into the gathering darkness. Moments later his voice echoed from the hills in a wild shout. Taita jumped up and ran after him. ‘Meren, where are you?’
‘Here, Magus.’
Taita found him standing on the spot where they had pegged Soe down, but he was gone. ‘What happened, Meren? What did you see?’
‘Witchcraft!’ Meren stuttered. ‘I saw—’ He broke off, at a loss to describe what he had seen.
‘What was it?’ Taita urged. ‘Tell me quickly.’
‘A monstrous hyena as large as a horse, with Soe upon its back. It must have been his familiar. It galloped off into the hills, bearing him away. Shall I follow them?’
‘You will not catch them,’ Taita said. ‘Instead you will place yourself in mortal peril. Eos possesses even greater powers than I had thought possible to have rescued Soe at such a great distance. Let him go now. We will reckon with him at some other time and place.’
They went on, night after stifling night, week after wearying week, and month after gruelling month. The knife wound in Taita’s shoulder healed cleanly in the hot dry air, but the horses sickened and faltered, and the men were flagging long before they reached the second cataract. This was where Taita and Queen Lostris had rested for a season to await the renewed flood of the Nile, which would ensure sufficient depth for the galleys to surmount the cataract. Taita looked down upon the settlement they had built: the stone walls were still standing - the ruins of the crude royal palace he had built to shelter Lostris. Those were the lands where they had planted the dhurra crop, still demarcated by the furrows of the wooden ploughshare. Those were the stands of tall trees from which they had cut the timber to build chariots and repair the battered hulls of the galleys. The trees were still alive, sustained by the deep roots that reached down to the underground pools and streams. Over there was the forge that the coppersmiths had built.
‘Magus, look to the pool below the cataract!’ Meren had ridden up beside him and his excited cry interrupted Taita’s memories. He looked in the direction Meren was pointing. Was it a trick of the early light? he wondered.
‘Look at the colour of the water! It is no longer blood red. The pool is green - as green as a sweet melon.’
‘It might be another ruse of the witch.’ Taita doubted his eyes, but already Meren was racing down the slope, standing high in his stirrups and yelling, his men following him. Taita and Windsmoke maintained a more sedate and dignified pace to the edge of the pool, which was lined now with men, horses and mules. The animals’ heads were down and they were sucking up the green water like shadoofs, the waterwheels of the peasant farmers, as the men scooped handfuls to pour it over their own faces and down their throats.
Windsmoke sniffed the water suspiciously, then began to drink. Taita loosened her girth rope to allow her belly to expand. Like a pig’s bladder, she blew up before his eyes. He left her to it, and waded out into the pool, then sat down. The tepid water reached his chin and he closed his eyes, an ecstatic smile on his face.
‘Magus!’ Meren called from the bank. ‘This is your doing, I am sure. You have cured the river of her foul disease. Is it not so?’
Meren’s faith in him was limitless and touching. It would not do to disappoint him. Taita opened his eyes to see that a hundred men were waiting attentively for his reply. It was also prudent to build their trust in him. He smiled at Meren, then dropped his right eyelid in an enigmatic wink. Meren looked smug and the men cheered. They waded into the pool, still in sandals and shirts, and splashed sheets of water at each other, then wrestled each other’s heads beneath the surface. Taita left them to their revelry and waded to the bank. By this time Windsmoke was so bloated with both water and foal that she waddled rather than walked. He took her to roll in the crisp white river sand and sat down. While he watched her he pondered the change in their fortunes and the miracle of the clear water that Meren had ascribed to him.
This is as far as the contamination has spread, he decided. From here southwards the river will be clear. Wasted and shrivelled, but clear.
They camped that morning in the shade of the grove.
‘Magus, I plan to stay at this place until the horses are recovered. If we go on immediately we will begin to lose them,’ Meren said.
Taita nodded. ‘You are wise,’ he said. ‘I know this place well. I lived here for a full season during the great exodus. There are plants in the forest whose leaves the horses will eat. They are rich in nutrients and will put fat and condition on them within days.’ And Windsmoke will soon drop her foal. It will have a better chance of survival here than out in the desert, Taita thought but did not say.
Meren was speaking animatedly: ‘I saw the tracks of oryx near the pool. The men will enjoy hunting them, and be grateful for the fine meat. We can dry and smoke the rest to take with us when we ride again.’
Taita stood up. ‘I will go to search out fodder for the animals.’
‘I will come with you. I want to see more of this little paradise.’ They wandered together among the trees and Taita pointed out edible shrubs and vines. They were desert adapted and hardened to the drought conditions. Sheltered from direct sunlight by the tall trees, they were thriving. They gathered armfuls, and took them back to camp.
Taita offered samples of the wild harvest to Windsmoke. After due consideration she nibbled one of his offerings, then nuzzled him for more.
Taita assembled a large foraging party and took the men into the forest to show them the edible plants and to harvest them. Meren took a second party, and they scouted at the edge of the forest for game. Two large antelopes were disturbed by the sound of axes and ran within easy arrow shot of the hunters.
When the warm carcasses were brought into camp to be butchered, Taita examined them carefully. The male carried stout horns, and had a dark, beautifully patterned hide. The female was hornless and more delicately built, her coat red brown and soft. ‘I recognize these beasts,’ he said. ‘The males are aggressive when brought to bay. During the exodus one of our hunters was gored by a big buck. It severed the blood vessel in his groin and he bled to death before his companions could summon me. However, the flesh is delicious, the kidneys and liver in particular.’
While they were encamped at the pools Meren allowed his men to return to the diurnal pattern of activity. After they had fed the horses, he set them to build a sturdy and readily defensible stockade of logs cut in the forest to accommodate the horses and themselves. They feasted that evening on antelope meat grilled on the fire, wild spinach and herbs that Taita had selected, with rounds of dhurra bread hot off the coals.
Before he retired to his mattress, Taita wandered down to the pool to study the night sky. The last vestige of the Star of Lostris had disappeared, but there were no other celestial phenomena of import. He meditated for a while, but sensed no psychic presence. Since the escape of Soe, the witch seemed to have lost contact with him.
He returned to the camp and found only the sentries still awake. In a whisper, so that he did not disturb the sleepers, he wished them a safe watch then went to his sleeping mat.
Windsmoke woke him by nuzzling his face. Sleepily he pushed away her head, but she was insistent. He sat up. ‘W
hat is it, my sweet? What ails you?’ She kicked at her belly with a back foot, and gave a soft groan that alarmed him. He stood up and ran his hands over her head and neck, then down her flank. Deep in her swollen belly he felt the strong contractions of her womb. She groaned again, spread her back legs apart, raised her tail high and urinated. Then she nuzzled her flank. Taita placed one arm round her neck and led her to the far end of the stockade.
He knew how important it was to keep her quiet. If she was disturbed or alarmed the contractions might stop and delay the birth. He squatted to watch over her in the moonlight. She fretted and shifted restlessly, then lay down and rolled on to her back.
‘What a clever girl,’ he encouraged her. She was instinctively positioning the foal correctly for birth. She came to her feet and stood with her head down. Then her belly heaved and the waters broke. She turned and licked the grass on which the fluid had spilled. Now her tail was towards him and he saw the pale opaque bulge of the birth sac appear beneath it.
She heaved again, contracting strongly and regularly. Through the thin membrane he discerned the outline of a pair of tiny hoofs then, with each contraction, the fetlocks appeared. At last, to his relief, a little black muzzle peeped out between them. He would not be called on to perform a breech delivery.
‘Bak-her.!’ he applauded her. ‘Well done, my darling.’ He restrained the urge to go to her assistance. She was doing perfectly well on her own, the contractions regular and strong.
The foal’s head popped out. ‘Grey like its mother,’ he whispered, with pleasure. Then, abruptly, the entire sac and the foal within it were ejected. As it hit the ground the placenta parted and the sac was free.
Taita was amazed. It had been the swiftest of thousands of equine births he had witnessed. Already the foal was struggling to break out of the membrane.