by Wilbur Smith
The Memnon was an enormous vessel. I know her specifications intimately because, after all, I was mainly responsible for her design. It is true that Pharaoh Tamose claimed full honours for that feat, but he is gone now and I am not so mean as to take the credit away from a dead man.
In length the hull of the Memnon exceeded 100 cubits. She drew 3 cubits of water fully loaded. Her crew numbered 230. She shipped a total of 56 oars in 3 banks a side, as her designation of trireme suggests. The staggered lower rowing benches and the outriggers on the top tier of oars prevented the strokes of the oars interfering with each other. Her width was less than 13 cubits so she was lightning fast through the water, and easy to beach. Her single mast could be lowered, but when raised it spread a massive square sail. She was quite simply the most beautifully designed fighting ship afloat.
As she came in to moor on the river-bank I noticed a tall mysterious figure in the stern. He was dressed in a long red robe and a hood of the same colour that covered his face, except for the eye slits. It was apparent that he did not wish to be recognized, and as the crew made the ship fast, he went below without revealing his features or giving any other suggestion of his identity.
‘Who is that?’ I demanded of Weneg. ‘Is this who we have come to meet?’
He shook his head. ‘I cannot say. I will wait for you here ashore.’
I did not hesitate but clambered up on to the Memnon’s bows and strode down the length of the upper deck until I reached the hatch down which the red-robed figure had disappeared. I stamped my foot on the deck, and immediately a deep but cultured voice replied. I did not recognize it.
‘The hatch is open. Come down and close it behind you.’
I followed these instructions and stooped into the cabin below. The headroom was minimal, for she was a fighting ship and not a pleasure cruiser. My red-robed host was already seated. He made no attempt to rise, but he indicated the narrow bench facing him.
‘Please excuse my attire but for reasons that will be immediately clear to you I need to keep my identity hidden from the common flock, at least for the immediate future. I knew you well when I was a child, but circumstances have kept us apart since then. On the other hand you were well acquainted with my father, who held you in the highest regard, and more recently my elder brother who is less enthusiastic …’
Before he finished speaking I knew beyond any doubt who it was that sat before me. I scrambled to my feet to accord him the respect that he so richly deserved, but in the process I cracked my head resoundingly on the beams of the upper deck above me. These were hewn from the finest Lebanese cedar, and my skull was no match for them. I collapsed again on my bench with both hands cradling my head and a thin trickle of blood running into my left eye.
My host leaped to his feet but he had the good sense to remain crouching. He whipped the red hood off his own head and rolled it into a ball. Then he clapped it over my wound, pressing down hard to stem the flow of my life’s blood.
‘You are not the first to sustain the same injury,’ he assured me. ‘Painful but not fatal, I assure you, my Lord Taita.’ Now that his hood was adorning my scalp, rather than covering his features, I was able to confirm that this was indeed the Crown Prince Rameses who was tending my injury.
‘Please, Your Royal Highness, it is merely a scratch which I richly deserve for my clumsiness.’ I was embarrassed by his solicitude, but grateful for the opportunity to gather my wits again and reassess the prince at such close quarters.
He ranked as Lord High Admiral of the Fleet, and he was so assiduous in his duties that he very seldom made himself available for light socializing and mingling with any other than his own naval officers or, naturally enough, his father. Of course I had romped with him as a child and had told him fairy tales of noble princes saving lovely maidens from dragons and other monsters, but as he approached puberty we had drifted apart and Rameses had come totally under his own father’s influence. Since then I had never again been familiar with him. So now I was surprised at how closely he resembled his father, Pharaoh Tamose. Of course, this resemblance reaffirmed the high regard in which I had always held him. If anything he was even more handsome than his father. It gave me a twinge of conscience to even think this; however, it was the truth.
His jawline was stronger, and his teeth more even and white. He was a little taller than his father had been, but his waist was leaner, and his limbs more supple. His skin was a most remarkable shade of deep gold, reflecting his mother Queen Masara’s Abyssinian ancestry. His eyes were a brighter and more lustrous shade of the same hue, and their gaze was piercing, but at the same time intelligent and kindly.
My heart went out to him once again, as though the intervening years had never existed. His next words confirmed my instincts: ‘We have many things in common, Taita. But at the moment the most pressing of them is my elder brother’s baleful and implacable enmity. Pharaoh Utteric Turo will never rest until he sees both of us dead. Of course, you are already under sentence of death. But so am I, although not as openly but with equal or even greater relish and anticipation.’
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why does your brother hate you?’ The question came easily to my lips. I felt that with this man I was perfectly in accord. I had nothing to hide from him, nor had he anything to hide from me.
‘It is simply because Pharaoh Tamose loved me and you more than he loved Utteric, his eldest son.’ He paused for a heartbeat, and then went on, ‘And also because my brother is mad. He is haunted by the ghosts and phantoms of his own twisted mind. He wishes to dispose of any person wiser and nobler than he is.’
‘You know of this for a certainty?’ I asked, and he nodded.
‘For a certainty, yes! I have my sources, Taita, as I know you do also. In secret and only to his sycophants, Utteric has boasted of his hostile intentions towards me.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’ I asked and his reply rang in my ears like my own voice speaking.
‘I cannot bring myself to strike him down. My father loved him: that is enough to stay my hand. But neither am I going to let him murder me. I am leaving Egypt this very day.’ His tone was calm and reasonable. ‘Will you come with me, Taita?’
‘I served your father with joy,’ I answered him. ‘I can do no less for you, my prince who should be Pharaoh.’ He came to me and clasped my right hand in a gesture of friendship and accord, and I went on speaking, ‘However, there are others who have put themselves at risk for my sake.’
‘Yes, I know who you mean,’ Rameses agreed. ‘Captain Weneg and his legionaries are fine and loyal men. I have spoken with them already. They will throw in their lot with us.’
I nodded. ‘Then I have no further quibble. Wherever you lead I will follow, my Lord Rameses.’ I knew very well where that was; better indeed than the prince himself. However, now was not yet the time to broach that subject.
The two of us went up on deck again and I saw that on the bank Weneg and his men had already dismantled the chariots; as we watched his men carried the parts over the gangplank and sent them down into the ship’s hold. Then they swayed the horses aboard and sent them down below also. In under an hour the Memnon was ready to sail. We cast off from the bank and turned the bows into the north. With the wind in our sails, the river current pushing us and the treble banks of oars beating the Nile waters to foam, we headed northwards towards the open sea and freedom from Pharaoh’s malignant and pernicious thrall.
One of the few benefits of being a long liver is to be gifted with remarkable powers of healing and recuperation from injury. Almost within the hour the self-inflicted wound to my scalp stopped oozing blood and began to dry up and shrivel away, and before we reached the estuarine mouth of the Nile where it debouched into the great Middle Sea the whip welts, bruises and other injuries inflicted upon me by the dreadful Doog and his minions had healed completely, leaving my skin smooth and glowing with health, like that of a young man again.
During the ensuing long days as we r
owed northwards down the river towards the sea the prince and I had plenty of time to renew our acquaintance.
The next pressing decision we had to make was to decide our ultimate destination once we had left Egypt. It seemed that Rameses had conceived the horrifying notion of sailing out through the rocky Gates of Hathor at the end of the world – just to see what lay beyond them. I knew very well what lay beyond. The great nothingness lay beyond. If we were so ill advised as to take that course we would simply drop off the end of the world and fall in darkness through all eternity.
‘How do you know that is what will happen to us?’ Rameses demanded of me.
‘Because nobody has ever returned from beyond the Gates,’ I explained quite reasonably.
‘How do you know that?’ he wanted to know.
‘Name me one who has,’ I challenged him.
‘Scaeva of Hispan.’
‘I have never heard of him. Who was he?’
‘He was a great explorer. My great-grandfather met him.’
‘But did you ever meet him?’
‘Of course not! He died long before I was born.’
‘So your great-grandfather told you about him?’
‘Well, not really. You see he also died before I was born. My own father told me the story of Senebsen.’
‘You know how much I respect the memory of your father; however, I never had the opportunity to discuss this Senebsen’s travels with him. Moreover, I doubt I would have been sufficiently convinced by third-hand accounts of what lies beyond the Gates to take the risk of travelling there myself.’
Most fortuitously I had a dream two nights later. I dreamed that the princesses Bekatha and Tehuti together with all their multitudinous children had been captured by Farsian pirates and chained to a rock at the edge of the sea as an offering to appease the terrible sea monster which was known as the Tarquist. This creature has wings with which it is able to fly through the air like a great bird or swim through the sea like a mighty fish. It also has fifty mouths which are insatiable for human flesh and with which it is able to destroy even the greatest ships ever built by men.
Naturally I was extremely reluctant to tell Rameses of my dream, but in the end I had to take into account the solemn duty I had sworn to the royal house of Egypt. Of course, Rameses was fully aware of my reputation as a soothsayer and a reader of dreams. He listened quietly but seriously to my own interpretation of the dream, then without giving his own opinion he went to the bows of the ship where he sequestered himself for the remainder of the afternoon. He came back to me in the poop as the sun was setting, and wasted no words.
‘I charge you most strictly to tell me the truth about what happened to my two aunts when they were sent by my father, Pharaoh Tamose, to the Empire of Crete to become the wives of the Great Minos, the King of Crete. I understood that they carried out their duty as my father decreed and they became the wives of the Minos, but then they were killed in the violent eruption of Mount Cronus. This is what my father told me. But then I was present when my brother Utteric accused you of treachery and false pretences. He says that my aunts survived the volcanic eruptions which killed their husband, the Minos, but then they neglected their duty and rather than returning to Egypt they eloped with those two rogues Zaras and Hui and disappeared. I discounted Utteric’s accusations as the ravings of a lunatic, but now this dream of yours seems to endorse the notion that they are still alive.’ He broke off and regarded me with that piercing gaze of his. ‘Tell me the truth, Taita,’ he challenged me. ‘What really happened to my aunts?’
‘There were circumstances,’ I hedged at the direct question.
‘That is no answer,’ he chided me. ‘What do you mean by There were circumstances.’
‘Please let me give you another example, Rameses.’
He nodded. ‘I am listening.’
‘Suppose a prince of the royal house of Egypt becomes aware that his elder brother who is Pharaoh was intent on murdering him for no good reason, and he decided to flee his country rather than stay and be killed. Would you consider that to be dereliction of his duty?’ I asked, and Rameses rocked back on his heels and stared at me in astonishment.
At last he shook his head as if to clear it, and then said softly, ‘You mean, would I count that as extenuating circumstances?’
‘Would you?’
‘I suppose I would,’ he admitted, and then he grinned. ‘I suppose I already have.’
I seized upon his admission. ‘Very well. I will tell you about your two aunts. They were lovely girls, loyal and true as well as clever and very beautiful. Your father sent them to Crete as brides of the Minos. I was appointed their chaperon. They did their duty to your father and to Egypt. They married the Minos despite the fact they were in love with men of their own choice. Then the Minos was killed in the eruption of Mount Cronus and suddenly they were free. They eloped with the men they truly loved, and rather than discouraging them I assisted them.’
He stared at me in fascination as I went on, ‘You were correct in your suspicions. Both your aunts are still alive.’
‘How do you know that?’ he demanded of me.
‘Because, not more than a month ago, I discussed the subject with their husbands. I want you to come with me to visit them. You can travel incognito, as the captain of the Memnon, not as a prince of the royal house of Tamose. Then you will be in a position to judge them and compare their decision to disappear to your own decision to do exactly the same thing.’
‘What if I still think that my aunts reneged on their royal duty?’
‘Then I will sail with you through the Gates of Hathor and jump with you over the edge of the world into eternity.’
Rameses let out a shout of laughter, and when he regained his composure he wiped the tears of merriment from his cheeks and asked, ‘Do you know where to find these two elusive ladies?’
‘I do.’
‘Then show us the way,’ he invited me.
Two days later we reached the mouth of the Nile without further serious delays. The Hyksos fleet was destroyed, and there was no other ship afloat that dared challenge our right of way, for the Memnon ruled the river just as her namesake had ruled the land. The Middle Sea lay ahead of us. We passed out through the Phatnic mouth, the largest of the seven mouths of the River Nile, and my heart rejoiced within me to ride once more the waves of the greatest of all oceans.
I knew that on the northerly course we had to take we would be out of sight of the land for days and possibly even as long as a week at a time. At this season of the year the clouds would probably blot out the sun for days on end. Navigation was always a problem in these circumstances, so it was time to show Rameses my magic fish. This had been given to me many years ago by an African medicine man. I had saved his eldest son from death by snakebite and his gratitude had been fulsome.
This magic fish is carved out of a rare and weighty type of black stone found only in Ethiopia above the last Nile cataract. It is known to the tribesmen as the ‘going-home stone’, for with it they are able to find their way home. There are many that disparage the wisdom of the black tribesmen, but I am not one of those.
My magic fish is about as long as my little finger but merely a sliver thick. When needed I glue it to a piece of wood carved to the shape of the hull of a boat. This miniature boat with the fish on board is floated in a round bowl of water. The bowl must also be made of wood and decorated with esoteric African designs in vivid colours. Now comes the magical part. The carved stone fish swims slowly but doggedly towards the northernmost point on the bowl’s circumference, no matter in which direction the bows of the ship are pointed. On this leg of our voyage we had only to point the bows of the Memnon slightly to the left of the direction in which the nose of the fish was aiming. Night or day the magical fish is infallible. On our return journey we would simply point the Memnon’s nose in the reciprocal direction; that is always supposing that we would ever have call to return to Egypt.
Rameses sc
offed at my little fish. ‘Can it also sing an ode to the gods, or fetch me a jug of good wine, or point the way to a pretty girl with a cunny that tastes sweet as honey?’ he wanted to know. I was deaf to such unbecoming levity.
Our first night on the open sea the sky was obscured completely by cloud. There was no sun, moon or stars to guide us. We sailed all night in Stygian darkness with only the going-home stone to show us the way. Long before dawn the two of us went up on deck and sat over the wooden bowl, watching it in the feeble light of a sputtering oil lamp. Rameses passed the time by making more of his little jokes at my expense. He was mortified when the day broke and the clouds cleared to reveal that the Memnon and my little fish were holding the precise course slightly west of north.
‘It really is magic,’ I heard him mutter to himself when this happened the third morning in succession. Then on the fourth morning, as the sun pushed its fiery head above the horizon, the blighted island of Crete lay not more than five leagues dead ahead of our bows.
Many years previously, when I first laid eyes on them, the mountains of Crete had been green and heavily forested. Great cities and ports had marked the island’s shores as the most prosperous in the world. The waters around its coast had teemed with shipping: both men-of-war and cargo ships.
Now both forests and cities had gone, scorched to blackened ashes by the fiery breath of the great god Cronus, who in a fit of pique had destroyed the mountain wherein his own son Zeus had enchained him; blowing it apart in a fiery volcanic eruption. The remains of his singular mountain had sunk beneath the waters, leaving not a trace of its previous existence. We altered course and sailed in as close to the land as seemed safe, but I could recognize no features that had previously existed. Even after all these years the air still reeked of sulphur and the odour of dead things, both animals and fishes. Or perhaps that was really only my vivid imagination and my keen sense of smell. In any event the waters under our keel were devoid of life; the coral reefs had been killed off by the boiling sea. Even Rameses and his crew, who had never known this world, were subdued and appalled by such total destruction.