by Wilbur Smith
For the rest of that day Taita journeyed through the stony hills and the silent places, praying and searching to discover the way forward. In the late evening he turned back toward the river, and came at last to his ultimate destination. He could have chosen to come here by the direct means of a felucca, but too many eyes would have remarked his passing, and he had needed that time alone in the desert.
In the deep darkness when most men slept he approached the temple of Bes on the riverbank. A guttering torch burned in its niche above the gate. It lit the carved figure of the god Bes, which guarded the entrance. Bes was the deformed dwarf god of drunkenness and joviality. His tongue lolled out between his leering lips. In the wavering light of the torch he gave Taita an inebriated grin as he passed.
One of the temple acolytes was waiting to receive the Magus. He led him to a stone cell in the depths of the temple where a jug of goat’s milk stood on the table beside a platter of dhurra bread and honey in the comb. They knew that one of the Magus’ weaknesses was honey from the pollen of the mimosa blossom.
“There are three men already waiting your arrival, my lord,” the young priest told him.
“Bring Bastet to me first,” Taita instructed.
Bastet was the chief scribe of the Nomarch of Memphis. He was one of Taita’s most valued sources of information. Not a rich man, he was burdened with two pretty but expensive wives and a brood of brats. Taita had saved his children when the Yellow Flowers devastated the land. Although of little consequence in the scheme of things, he sat close to the seat of power, using his ears and phenomenal memory to good effect. He had much to tell Taita of what had transpired in the nome since the accession of the new Regent, and received his payment with genuine gratitude. “Your blessing would have been sufficient payment, mighty Magus.”
“Babes don’t grow fat on blessings,” Taita dismissed him.
Next came Obos, the high priest of the great Horus temple at Thebes. He owed his appointment to Taita, who had interceded for him with Pharaoh Tamose. Most of the nobles came to the temple of Horus to worship and make sacrifice, and they all confided in the high priest. The third man to report to Taita was Nolro, the secretary of the army of the north. He also was a eunuch, and there was a bond between those who had suffered such mutilation.
From the days of his youth, when Taita had first found himself directing affairs of state from the shadows behind the throne, he had been aware of the absolute necessity of having impeccable intelligence on which to base decisions. All the rest of that night and most of the following day he listened to these men and questioned them narrowly, so that when he was ready to return to the palace of Memnon he was informed of all the important events that had transpired, and the significant undercurrents and political whirlpools that had developed while he had been away in the wilderness of Gebel Nagara.
In the evening he started back toward the palace, taking the direct route along the bank of the river. The peasants returning from their labors in the fields recognized him, made the sign for good luck and long life and called to him, “Pray to Horus for us, Magus,” for they all knew he was a Horus man. Many pressed small gifts upon him, and a plowman called to him to share his dinner of millet cakes and crisply roasted locusts and goat’s milk warm from the udder.
As night fell Taita thanked the friendly plowman, bade him farewell and left him sitting beside his fire. He hurried on through the night, anxious not to miss the ceremony of the royal rising. It was dawn before he reached the palace, and he had barely time to bathe and change his raiment before he hurried to the royal bedchamber. At the door his way was barred by the two guards, who crossed their spears across the entrance.
Taita was astonished. This had never happened before. He was the royal tutor, appointed thirteen years ago by Pharaoh Tamose. He glared at the sergeant of the guard. The man dropped his eyes but remained steadfast in his denial of entry. “I mean no offense, mighty Magus. It is on the specific orders of the commander of the bodyguard, Colonel Asmor, and the palace chamberlain. No person not approved by the Regent is allowed in the royal presence.”
The sergeant was adamant, so Taita left him and strode down the terrace to where Naja was at breakfast with a small circle of his particular favorites and toadies. “My lord Naja, you are fully aware that I was appointed by Pharaoh’s own father as his tutor and mentor. I was given the right of access at any time of day and night.”
“That was many years ago, good Magus,” Naja replied smoothly, as he accepted a peeled grape from the slave who stood behind his stool and popped it into his mouth. “It was right for that time, but Pharaoh Seti is a child no more. He no longer needs a nursemaid.” The insult was casual, but that did not make it less cutting. “I am his regent. In the future he looks to me for advice and guidance.”
“I acknowledge your right and duty to the King, but to keep me from Nefer’s side is unnecessary and cruel,” Taita protested, but Naja waved a lordly hand to silence him.
“The safety of the King is paramount,” he said, and stood up from the breakfast board, to indicate that the meal and the interview were over. His bodyguard closed in around him so that Taita was forced to fall back.
He watched Naja’s entourage set off down the cloister toward the council chamber. He did not follow immediately but turned aside and sat down on the coping of one of the fish pools to ponder this development.
Naja had isolated Nefer. He was a prisoner in his own palace. When the time came he would be alone, surrounded by his enemies. Taita searched for some means to protect him. Once again he considered the idea of flight from Egypt, to spirit Nefer away across the desert to the protection of a foreign power until he had grown old and strong enough to return to claim his birthright. However, he could be certain that not only had Naja barred the door to the royal quarters but also every escape route from Thebes and Egypt would have already been closed.
There seemed no easy solution, and after an hour of deep thought, Taita rose to his feet. The guards at the door to the council chamber stood aside for him, and Taita went down the aisle and took his accustomed seat on the front bench.
Nefer was seated on the dais beside his regent. He wore the lighter hedjet crown of Upper Egypt, and he looked pale and peaky. Taita felt a flare of concern that he might already be the victim of slow poison, but he could detect no deadly aura surrounding the boy. He concentrated on sending a current of strength and courage to him, but Nefer gave him a cold, accusing stare to punish him for missing the royal rising ceremony.
Taita turned his attention to the council business. They were considering the latest reports from the northern front, where King Apepi had recaptured Abnub after a siege that had lasted the previous three years. That unfortunate city had changed hands eight times since the first Hyksosian invasion in the reign of Pharaoh Mamose, Tamose’s father.
If Pharaoh Tamose had not been struck down by the Hyksosian arrow, his bold strategy might have averted this tragic reversal of arms. Instead of now being forced to prepare for the next Hyksosian strike toward Thebes, the armies of Egypt might have been surging toward the enemy capital of Avaris.
Taita found that the council was bitterly divided in every consideration of the crisis. They were seeking to place the blame for this most recent defeat, when it was plain for any fool to see that Pharaoh’s untimely death had been the main cause. He had left his army without a head and a heart. Apepi had taken immediate advantage of his death.
Listening to them argue, Taita felt more strongly than ever that this war was a running abscess in the body of this very Egypt. Exasperated, he rose quietly and left the council chamber. There was nothing further he could accomplish here, for they were still wrangling over who should be given command of the northern armies to replace the dead Pharaoh Tamose. “Now that he has gone, there is not one of our commanders who can match Apepi, not Asmor or Teron or Naja himself,” Taita muttered, as he stalked away. “The land and our armies are bled white by sixty years of warfare. We mu
st have time to build up our strength again, and for a great military leader to emerge from our ranks.” He thought of Nefer, but it would be years before the lad could take over the role that Taita knew, from his study of the Mazes of Ammon Ra, destiny had devised for him.
I have to win him that time and keep him safe until he is ready.
Next he went to the women’s quarters of the palace. Because he was a eunuch he could pass through the gates, which were barred to other men. It was three days since the princesses had learned that they were soon to become brides, and Taita knew he should have visited them before. They would be confused and distressed, and sorely in need of his comfort and advice.
Merykara was the first to see him when he entered the courtyard. She sprang up from where a priestess of Isis had been instructing her with writing tablet and brush, and flew to him on those long legs, her side-lock bouncing on her shoulder. She flung her arms around his waist and hugged him with all her strength. “Oh, Taita, where have you been? I have searched for you these last days.”
When she looked up at him, Taita saw that she had been weeping, for her eyes were red-rimmed and heavily underscored with dark bruises. Now she started again, her shoulders shaking with her sobs. Taita picked her up and held her in his arms until she had quieted a little. “What is it, my little monkey? What has made you so unhappy?”
“Lord Naja is going to take me to a secret place and do terrible things to me. He is going to put something huge and sharp inside me that will hurt me and make me bleed.”
“Who told you that?” Taita controlled his anger with difficulty.
“Magara and Saak.” Merykara sobbed. “Oh, Taita, can’t you stop him doing these things to me? Please, oh, please.”
Taita should have known that the two Nubian slave girls had been responsible for her terror. Usually their tales were of African hobgoblins and ghouls, but now they had something else with which to torment their charge. Grimly Taita swore retribution on both little hussies, and set about calming the Princess’s fears. It needed all his tact and gentleness, for Merykara was terrified.
He led her to an arbor in a quiet corner of the garden, sat down, and she scrambled up onto his lap and pressed her cheek to his chest.
Of course, her fears were unfounded. Even after marriage, it was beyond nature, law and custom that Naja would take her to the marriage bed before Merykara had seen her first red moon, and that event was still years away. He succeeded at last in calming her, then took her down to the royal stables to admire and fondle the colt that had been born that morning.
When she was smiling and chattering again, Taita led her back to the zenana, and performed a few minor miracles for her amusement. He transformed a jug of Nile water into delicious sherbet by dipping his finger into it, and they drank this together. Then he threw a pebble into the air, which turned into a live canary and flew to the top branches of a fig tree. There it hopped and trilled while the child danced and squealed with glee beneath it.
He left her, went to find the two slave girls, Magara and Saak, and gave them such a verbal lambasting that soon they were clinging together and wailing dolefully. He knew that Magara was always the ringleader in any such unpleasantness, so he produced a live scorpion from her ear and held it inches in front of her face, which reduced her to such paroxysms of terror that she urinated in little squirts down her legs.
Satisfied, he went to look for Heseret. As he had anticipated, she was down on the bank of the river with her lyre. She looked up at him with a sad little smile but went on strumming. He sat down beside her, on the grassy verge under the trailing branches of the willow. The tune she was playing had been her grandmother’s favorite. Taita had taught it to her, and now she began to sing the words.
“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.”
Her voice was sweet and true, and Taita felt his own tears brimming. It was as though he were listening to Lostris once again. He joined in with the chorus. His voice was still clear and steady, without the quavering of age. Out on the river the rowers on a passing galley rested on their oars while they listened with rapt expressions as the current carried the vessel past where the pair sat together.
When the song ended, Heseret laid aside the lyre, and turned to him. “Darling Taita, I am so glad you have come.”
“I am sorry to have kept you waiting, moon of all my nights.” She smiled faintly at the pet name, for she had always had a romantic side to her nature. “What service do you wish of me?”
“You must go to Lord Naja, and present him with my sincere apologies, but I cannot marry him.”
She was so much like her grandmother had been at the same age. Lostris, too, had saddled him with an impossible task, with the same assurance and confidence in his ability to accomplish it. Heseret now turned those enormous green eyes on him. “You see, I have already promised Meren that I will be his wife.” Meren was the grandson of Kratas, and the boon companion of Prince Nefer.
Taita had noticed him looking at Heseret with calf’s eyes, but had never suspected that she returned his feelings. Fleetingly he wondered how far they had gone toward the consummation of their passions, but put aside the thought. “Heseret, I have explained to you many times that you are not like other girls. You are a princess royal. Your marriage cannot be undertaken in the light fancy of youth. It is something of dire political consequence.”
“You don’t understand, Taita,” Heseret said softly, but with the sweet obstinacy he dreaded. “I love Meren, I have loved him since I was a little girl. I want to marry him, not Lord Naja.”
“I cannot overrule the decree of the Regent of Egypt,” he tried to explain, but she shook her head and smiled at him.
“You are so wise, Taita. You will think of something. You always do,” she told him, and he felt as though his heart would break.
Lord Taita, I refuse to discuss your access to Pharaoh or my impending marriage to the royal princesses. In both these matters my mind is set.” To emphasize that he had closed the subject, Naja returned his full attention to the scroll spread on the writing table in front of him. Enough time passed for a flock of wild geese to rise from the swampland on the east bank, cross the wide gray Nile waters on heavy wingbeats and pass over the palace gardens where they sat. At last Taita brought his eyes down from the sky, and rose to leave. As he bowed to the Regent and began to back away, Naja looked up at him. “I have not given you leave to go.”
“My lord, I thought you had no further need of me.”
“On the contrary, I have the most urgent need.” He glared at Taita and gestured for him to sit again. “You are testing my good temper and favor. I know that you were wont to work the Mazes for Pharaoh Tamose whenever he called upon you to do so. Why do you procrastinate with me? As the Regent of this land, I will brook no further delay. I ask this not for my own profit, but for the very survival of our nation in this war with the north. I need the guidance of the pantheon of the gods. You are the only one who can provide that for me.”
Naja stood up so suddenly that the table in front of him overturned, spilling scrolls of papyrus, brushes and ink onto the terracotta tiles. He paid it no attention, but his voice rose to a shout: “I command you, with all the authority of the hawk seal…” he touched the amulet on his right arm “…I command you to work the Mazes of Ammon Ra on my behalf.”
Taita bowed his head in theatrical resignation. For weeks past he had been prepared for this ultimatum, and had delayed only to extend to the limit that period of grace during which Nefer would be relatively safe from the ambitions of the Regent. He was still convinced that Lord Naja would make no fatal move toward Nefer until he had been given the sanction of the Mazes.
“The full of the moon is the most propitious period for the Mazes,” Taita told him. “I have already made the preparations.”
Naja sank back o
n his stool. “You will do it here, in my quarters,” he said.
“Nay, Lord Regent, that would not be ideal.” Taita knew that if he were to gain ascendancy over Naja, he must keep him off-balance. “The closer we can be to the influence of the gods, the more accurate will be the predictions. I have arranged with the priests at the temple of Osiris at Busiris. That is where I will work the Mazes at midnight in the full of the moon. I will conduct the mystery in the inner sanctum of the temple. The backbone of the god, the djed-pillar, dismembered by his brother, Seth, is held there. This holy relic will magnify the force of our deliberations.” Taita’s voice was heavy with arcane meaning. “Only you and I will be present in the sanctuary. No other mortal must overhear what the gods have to tell you. One of Asmor’s regiments will guard the approaches to the sanctuary.”
Naja was an Osiris man, and his expression was solemn. Taita had known that he would be impressed by the time and place he had chosen.
“As you say, so let it be,” Naja agreed.
The journey to Busiris in the royal barge took two days, with Asmor’s regiment following in four naval galleys. They landed on the yellow beach under the walls of the temple, and the priests were waiting to welcome the Regent with psalms and offerings of gum arabic and myrrh. The Regent’s delight in sweet-smelling substances was already known throughout the land.
They were shown to the quarters that had been prepared for them. While Naja bathed, perfumed and refreshed himself with fruit and sherbet, Taita visited the sanctuary in company with the high priest and made sacrifice to the great god Osiris. Afterward, at Taita’s subtle suggestion, the high priest withdrew and left him alone to make his preparations for the evening. Lord Naja had never been present at the working of the Mazes—there were few living persons who had. Taita would put on an impressive show for him, but he had no intention of subjecting himself to the exhausting and harrowing ordeal of the authentic ritual.