Pharaoh

by Wilbur Smith

  Then suddenly their peals of merry laughter were cut off abruptly by another more dreadful sound, which almost deafened us all. Hurotas reined in his steed and peered about him with a startled expression, and I confess that even I who am not readily alarmed was taken aback.

  I have only once heard anything as threatening before in my life and that was on the banks of the Nile River in Ethiopia. It was a sound that would have raised the hair on the back of a brave man’s neck and might even have loosened both the valve of his bladder and that of his bunghole. It was the roaring of a black-maned male lion, only much louder than in nature. Seemingly of its own accord my head swivelled in the direction from which the thunderous sound emanated.

  From the edge of the forest at the top end of the vineyard emerged an enormous squat head that seemed to belong to a creature from mythology. It was covered with curling tar-black hair. Its huge ears were sharp-pointed and pricked forward. Its eyes were bright and porcine vicious. Its snout was flattened at the tip, and its nostrils snuffled our scent. Its tusks were so long and curved that the razor-sharp tips almost met above the beast’s massive head.

  It uttered another lion-like bellow and I realized that this was the creation of a goddess’s whim, not something from nature. This monster could probably scream like an eagle, or bleat like a goat if it so chose. The trees of the forest buckled and toppled over as it pushed them carelessly aside and emerged into the open. Its hindquarters were heavily muscled, and its back rose into a shaggy hump between its shoulders. It tore up the ground with hooves which were many times larger than those of the wild buffalo which I had also hunted on the headwaters of the Nile. They raised a dense cloud of brown dust, which shrouded the boar and endowed it with a mystic presence that emphasized its menace. Then suddenly it hurled its great bulk into a charge down the slope of open vineyard directly at Hurotas, singling him out as though it recognized him as the principal enemy of its mistress Artemis.

  Immediately Hurotas couched his spear and rode to meet the boar’s headlong rush. He shouted a wild war cry, probably more to bolster his own courage than to frighten the beast, which answered him with a deafening cacophony of roars and grunts.

  The boar had the advantage of a downhill attack. Its bulk was as irresistible as an avalanche of rock down a mountain slope shattered by an earthquake. As they came together Hurotas rose in his stirrups and hefted his heavy hunting spear. He hurled it at the beast with all the strength of his right arm, which had been toughened and tempered in the furnace of many battles. The throw was perfection. The spear flew true and half its length drove through the beast’s shaggy coat and thick hide and buried itself deep in its chest cavity. I could only believe that it must have pierced its heart and other vital organs through and through.

  Yet the boar showed not the slightest reaction to the deep and terrible wound that Hurotas had inflicted upon it. It did not stagger or miss a stride. Its speed was uninterrupted; the bellowing of its fury was even more deafening as it swung its hideous head with all the skill and power of an executioner wielding his axe. The great curved white tusks gleamed and flashed in the air and then buried themselves in the stallion’s chest. They ripped through hide, flesh and bone in a single ghastly wound that laid the horse open from the centre of its chest, through its rib cage and shoulder bone and down its flank so all its vital organs and its guts spilled out from the wound; then the boar’s tusks ripped apart the stifle bone of its back leg. The horse collapsed with two of its offside legs severed. Hurotas should also have lost a leg but the savagery of the original impact hurled him from the saddle the instant before the tusks sliced his mount asunder. He was thrown well clear, but he landed on his head and despite his helmet he was knocked unconscious.

  The boar fixated on the downed horse and continued to gore it furiously. I was flogging my own horse up the steep incline but Tehuti was well ahead of me, charging in on the great boar and the downed horse without the least concern for her own safety. Serrena and Rameses were half a length behind her. Everyone was screaming wildly. Tehuti was cursing the boar for killing her husband and threatening it with its own demise, brandishing the blue sword over her head. Rameses and Serrena were urging each other on, maddened with excitement, all their powers of reason thrown to the winds of war. I was shouting to all three of them to have a care, to back off from the beast and leave it to me to deal with. As usual none of them took the slightest notice of my commands.

  Tehuti rode straight up behind the boar and leaned out from the saddle to slash at the tendon in its back legs. At the same moment the boar kicked back viciously and its hoof caught the wrist of Tehuti’s sword hand. It cracked the bone and sent the blue sword spinning from her grip. The pain must have been intense for Tehuti lost her seat and tumbled from the saddle. She fell under the milling hooves of the great boar, clutching her injured wrist with her good hand. Rameses, who was riding close behind her, realized her predicament and swung down from his own saddle. Good lad that he is, he used his momentum to charge forward and scoop Tehuti up in his arms and roll down the slope of the field out of reach of the boar’s gnashing tusks and flying hooves.

  Serrena was so concerned for her mother’s safety that she was momentarily distracted and when the boar charged at her horse and the animal shied under her she was thrown from the saddle. She managed to land on her feet, but she had lost the lance she was bearing and she looked around her wildly for another weapon, or at least for escape from her predicament.

  Meanwhile I had seen where the blue sword had fallen in the mud amongst the scattered and torn vines. The blade of that magical silver metal glinting like a fresh-caught tuna fish had caught my eye.

  With the pressure of my knees I steered my horse to where it lay and I leaned far out from the saddle at full gallop. My fingers closed over the jewelled hilt. As I came upright in the saddle again I shouted at her, ‘Serrena!’ and my voice carried over the uproar of screams and wild shouts, the thunder of galloping hooves and the enraged roars of the great hog of the goddess Artemis.

  Serrena switched her eyes towards the sound of my voice and I swung the blue sword once around my head. ‘Here, Serrena! Catch it!’

  With all my strength I hurled the weapon high. It spun once as it fell towards where she stood. Serrena pivoted gracefully under it and then snatched it out of the air. Now that the marvellous weapon was in the right hand of a demi-goddess, the conundrum set for us by Artemis was on the point of reaching a solution. Serrena ran to meet the boar’s next charge. I watched her with my heart pounding, caught up in a contradictory surge of pride and terror. Pride in her beauty and courage; terror at the danger she was running into.

  The boar must have sensed her approach for it left the horse it was savaging and spun around to face Serrena. The instant its eyes fixed on to her it launched into its charge. Serrena stopped and balanced on the tips of her toes, flaunting herself before the great pig, but at the last possible moment she pirouetted aside. As it passed her the boar slashed at her with those wicked tusks with which it had so effortlessly disembowelled King Hurotas’ horse. One of the ivory points snagged in the folds of her tunic, but it tore free without upsetting her balance.

  Then as the beast barged past her she cut backhanded at it with the silver-blue blade. The bright edge caught the joint of the boar’s nearside back leg and severed it cleanly. The truncated limb remained upright, with its hoof buried in the clinging mud and its severed muscles twitching and jerking.

  However, on its three remaining legs the boar was almost as agile as it had been on four. It spun around, using its one remaining rear leg as a pivot. It was no longer bellowing but now it was chattering its jaws so that its tusks clashed together like castanets: a terrifying sound. Again Serrena let it come in close as it charged at her, then she whirled aside once more and the blade in her hand seemed to dissolve into a streak of quicksilver as it slashed across the boar’s front right elbow joint and sliced through it as if it was a stem of boiled asparagus. />
  Deprived of two of its legs the boar tumbled head first to earth and somersaulted over on to its back. In a wild attempt to regain its balance it stretched its neck out along the muddy ground. Its neck was as thick as a tree trunk. Serrena stood over it and with both hands on the hilt of the blue sword she swung it high over her head and then brought it down again in a glistening arc. The blade whistled sharply through the air with the power behind the stroke. The boar’s colossal head seemed to leap off its humped shoulders. Its mouth was wide open, and it uttered a mournful sound as it hit the ground, partly a howl of rage and partly a death lament. A fountain of dark blood spurted up out of its severed throat and drenched the skirts of Serrena’s tunic as she stood over it in an attitude of triumph.

  I shouted with wild approbation, and immediately a hundred other voices joined with mine. Rameses ran forward to embrace her with relief. Tehuti dragged herself to her feet and, mastering the agony of her shattered wrist, which she still clutched to her bosom, she rushed to join him. The foreign kings and generals, led by Admiral Hui at the head of his Spartans, came swarming up the vineyard to laud and extol Serrena’s courage and warlike skills. One after the other they dropped to their knees before her and heaped their praise and adulation upon her. She acknowledged them all with a sweeping gesture, then placed one arm around Tehuti’s shoulders and helped her to where King Hurotas still lay unconscious.

  Within a very short time they had revived him, and he sat up and looked around him blearily. Only then did the two women I loved more than anything in this creation turn towards me in unison and smile their gratitude over the heads of the clamorous multitude.

  With that simple acknowledgment I was replete.

  Ber Argolid of Boeotia in Thebes, the man known as ‘Strong-arm’ for the weight of the sword he wields, was the most important and powerful of the petty chieftains. He had ordered his minions to bring his throne to the hunting field for his comfort, but more importantly to emphasize his importance. Now, however, he insisted that Serrena should take her seat upon the throne in recognition of her feat of arms in killing the great boar. Not to be outdone, the other visiting kings and chieftains demonstrated their respect by carrying her on the throne in a procession of honour. Eight at a time, they took turns to hoist her on to their shoulders and singing her praises they marched with her down from the Taygetus Mountains to the citadel.

  The news of her marvellous kill had preceded her by word of mouth, so what seemed to me to be the entire population of Lacedaemon had turned out to line the roadway, cheering her and pelting her with flower petals and wild acclaim. I walked at her left-hand side, the position of honour. My inherent modesty dictated that I should not thrust myself forward, but Princess Serrena insisted.

  The return home took most of the rest of the day, and the sun was lowering towards the horizon when the portable throne was finally placed upon the dais in the courtyard of the citadel. Even then Serrena was not allowed to descend from it.

  Her father, King Hurotas, had by this time completely recovered from his brush with the great boar and, always the opportunist, he seized the opportunity to confirm and weld the loyalty of the sixteen petty chieftains to the standard of Spartan Lacedaemon.

  The importance and excitement of the occasion were irresistible. If Serrena’s beauty had been dazzling before, it was now ineffable as she glowed with the adulation which was being heaped upon her. Nobody – man or woman, old or young noble or commoner – was able to resist it. The royal visitors and Serrena’s erstwhile suitors were carried along with it as helplessly as the rest of us.

  When King Hurotas stood to address them with his wounded queen beside him, looking noble and brave with her damaged hand in a sling which I had prepared for her, and his lovely daughter at his other hand, they hung on every word he uttered and they cheered him at the end of each sentence he emoted. Most of the kings had by this time equipped themselves with flagons of Hurotas’ good red wine, which they were treating with respectful attention. Slaves were standing ready to refill the vessels before they were half empty.

  Hurotas told the assembled kings and dignitaries how he had come to look upon them as his brothers, united by a common cause and a mutual respect. This raised an exceptionally loud and enthusiastic burst of applause. When it eventually died down King Ber Argolid rose to his feet determined not to be outdone by Hurotas’ extravagant oratory.

  ‘From now onwards, an offence to one of our number is an offence to all of us equally,’ he cried. ‘Let us join hands and swear an oath of mutual protection.’

  ‘Who will hear our oath?’ demanded Hurotas.

  ‘Who else but the most beautiful woman in the world?’ Ber Argolid answered him. ‘Who else but the bravest woman alive who slew the Laconian boar?’

  So one after the other, in no particular order, the sixteen kings came forward and bent the knee before Princess Serrena and swore the Oath of the Great Boar. The ceremony and the celebration that accompanied it went on long after nightfall. One might have thought that the company would have been exhausted by this time but it was only a beginning. The dancing, drinking and carousing had only just begun, and Serrena was the most tireless of us all. She danced with all the kings, including her own father and Rameses who was not yet a king. She even danced with me more than once, and complimented me that I was the lightest on my feet of all the men who had been her partners, except for Rameses. But then she was duty-bound to say that because she was betrothed to him, was she not?

  When Hurotas challenged Ber Strong-arm Argolid to a bout of single-handed wrestling most of the men left the dance floor to place their bets on the outcome of the contest. The amounts they wagered were ruinous, and their excitement was commensurate as they bellowed encouragement to their favourites. Stripped to their loin-cloths the protagonists faced each other across the oaken feasting table and grunted and groaned and sweated as they tried to rip each other’s arms off at the shoulders.

  I was probably the only one present whose hearing was acute enough to discern anything above the pandemonium they and their audience were creating. But I gradually became aware of the faint strains of sweet singing emanating from beyond the citadel walls.

  I left the contest and climbed to the parapet of the outer wall and looked down on an array of no fewer than fifty women, all dressed in ankle-length white robes, and with their faces also painted a deathly hue with white lead, and their eyes circled with black kohl. They were climbing the causeway to the citadel gates, each carrying a lighted lantern and chanting an ode to Artemis. I recognized by their make-up and religious robes that they were acolytes of the goddess. I knew that Hurotas and his stalwarts would not look kindly on having their revels curtailed by Artemis’ minions whining and wailing about the death of their favourite pig. So I rushed down the stairway to the main gates of the citadel to warn the guards to deny them entry, only to find that I was too late. The guards had recognized the procession of priestesses and had thrown the gates open to welcome them.

  Fifty priestesses of Artemis and twice as many armed guards had jammed the passageway into the citadel, which had been designed to be defensively narrow. I was forced back by their multitude and found myself once more in the courtyard where I was immediately embroiled with Hurotas and his new allies, the petty chieftains headed up by Ber Strong-arm Argolid. Everybody was shouting, including me. But none of us were listening.

  Then quite unexpectedly a clearer and more lyrical voice cut through the uproar. It was so compelling that silence immediately descended upon us all. All heads turned towards the sound of it, and an opening appeared in the serried ranks confronting each other, through which stepped the lithe and lovely form of Princess Serrena.

  ‘Reverend Mother!’ She genuflected to the High Priestess. ‘You are welcome here in my father’s citadel.’

  ‘My lovely child, I bring you greetings and a message from the goddess Artemis. Are you willing to accept her holy word? If you are, then I beg you please kneel to rec
eive it,’ answered Sister Hagne, who was the reverend mother of the Order of the Sisters of the Golden Bow. The Golden Bow was one of the many symbols of the goddess Artemis.

  King Hurotas started forward at this, his expression bellicose and his eyes aglow with pugnacity. ‘We’ll see about that …’ he started. But fortunately I was close enough to him to seize his naked arm, all greasy with the sweat of his recent exertions.

  ‘Restrain yourself, Zaras,’ I whispered so he alone could hear me. I used his former name, exerting my dominance over him from long ago. At once he checked himself and subsided. Our minor contretemps went unnoticed in the religious intensity of the moment.

  Serrena sank obediently to her knees before the high priestess, who with her forefinger drew the symbol of the bow upon her forehead and then began to speak again in more profound and awesome tones, which even raised the goose pimples on my forearms: ‘The goddess Artemis recognizes you as her sister of blood and bone …’

  I could not prevent myself from glancing at Tehuti where she stood beside her husband, clinging to his other arm. Like me she was trying to restrain his temper. Instinctively she returned my look as soon as she felt my eyes on her. She flushed and dropped her eyes as we both remembered what she had told me of her dream, her very real and palpable dream of the conception of this her only child. Then I switched my attention back to the high priestess. Like everyone else present I was anxious to hear what she had to say.

  ‘Artemis recognizes and applauds the blow you struck today for the exaltation and prestige of all womankind. You have proven that we females are fully equal to the men who would seek to dominate and subjugate us.’ As she said this I saw Hurotas open his mouth to protest with renewed outrage and vigour. However Tehuti kicked his shin to prevent him from blaspheming. It was a shrewd blow for I heard the power behind it, and Hurotas bellowed with the pain.