by Wilbur Smith
It was enough for Taita. That faint rumor of Hyksosian connections in Naja’s background must have had substance, and if it was true the rest fell neatly into place. Once again, he was amazed at the width and breadth of Naja’s ambitions.
“Would it be possible to meet these noblemen and speak to them?” Taita asked carefully.
“Yes,” Naja confirmed. “We could reach them within days.”
For Taita the implications of that simple statement were enormous. The Regent of Egypt had covert allies in the ranks of the traditional enemy. What else about him was hidden? Where else had his avaricious fingers reached? A chill ran down Taita’s spine, and the silver hairs on the back of his neck came erect.
This is the loving friend who was at Pharaoh’s side when he was struck down. Here is the only witness to the manner of Pharaoh’s death. This creature of boundless ambition and cruel purpose admits to being an intimate and confidant of Hyksosian noblemen, and it was a Hyksosian arrow that killed Pharaoh. How deep does the plot run?
He let nothing of this show on his face, but nodded thoughtfully, and Naja went on quickly, “I am certain that we can reach agreement with the Hyksos, and I envisage a co-regency between Apepi and myself with a joint council of state. Then your influence would be needed to persuade our own councillors to ratify it. Perhaps you could consult the Mazes again, and make the wishes of the gods known.”
Naja was suggesting that he make a fraudulent divination. Did he suspect that that was what had happened at Busiris? Taita did not think so, but he must quash the idea at once. His expression became stern. “In any matter to do with the Mazes, to take the word or name of the god Ammon Ra in vain or to misrepresent his oracle would be to court terrible retribution.”
Quickly Naja retracted. “I suggested no such impiety, but through the Mazes the gods have already given sanction to me.”
Taita grunted. “First we must determine if this treaty is feasible. Apepi might believe his military position is unassailable and refuse to meet us. Despite any approaches from us for peace, he might decide to prosecute this war to the bitter end.”
“I do not think that will happen. I will give you the names of our allies on the other side. You must go to them secretly, Taita. You are well known and respected even among the Hyksos, and I will give you a talisman that will prove you come from me. You are the best emissary for our cause. They will listen to you.”
Taita sat a while longer in thought. He tried to see if he could wring any further advantage to Nefer and the princesses from the situation, but at this stage he could find none. Whatever happened, Nefer would still be in mortal danger.
There was only one certain course open to Taita if he were to ensure Nefer’s survival and that was to get him out of Egypt while Naja was still in power. Was there an opportunity to do that now? Naja was offering him a safe-conduct to the frontier. Could he use that to take Nefer with him? Within seconds he realized he could not. His contacts with the boy Pharaoh were still severely circumscribed by Naja. He was never allowed to be alone with him. He was not even allowed to sit close to him at sessions of the council, or to exchange even the most innocent messages with him. The only time in the last few weeks that he had been allowed close to him was when Nefer had developed an agonizing septic throat. Then Taita had been allowed into the royal bedchamber to tend him, but both Naja and Asmor had been present, watching everything that transpired, listening to every word that was spoken. Because of his affliction Nefer had not been able to speak above a whisper, but his eyes never left Taita’s face and he clung to his hand when the time came for them to part. That had been almost ten days ago.
Taita learned that Naja had chosen tutors to replace him, and Asmor had provided instructors from the Blue Guards to continue Nefer’s exercises in horsemanship and chariot handling, swordsmanship and archery. None of his old friends were allowed to visit him. Even his crony Meren had been ordered out of Pharaoh’s quarters.
If he made an attempt to get Nefer away and failed, not only would he have sacrificed Naja’s confidence, he would have placed Nefer in terrible peril. No, he could use this sortie across the lines into the Hyksosian territory only to make more careful and secure arrangements for the young Pharaoh’s safety.
“It is my duty, a duty placed upon me by the gods, to help you in every way. I will undertake this mission,” Taita said. “What is the safest way for me to pass through the Hyksosian lines? You say I am well known among them, and that I will be recognized.”
Naja had foreseen this query. “You must use the old chariot road through the dunes and down the wadi at Gebel Wadun. My friends on the other side keep the road under surveillance.”
Taita nodded. “That is the road along which Pharaoh Tamose met his death. I have never traveled beyond Gallala. I will need a guide to show me the rest of the way.”
“I will send my own lance-bearer and a squadron of the Blues to take you through,” Naja promised. “But the road is long and hard. You must leave at once. Every day, every hour might make the difference.”
Taita had driven the chariot all the way from the ruined city of Gallala with only four halts. They had made the run in half a day less than it had taken Naja and Tamose to cover the same route, and at less cost to the condition of the animals.
The troopers in the nine vehicles that followed him were in awe of the Magus’ reputation. They knew him as the father of the corps of cavalry, for he had been the first Egyptian ever to build a chariot and harness a team to it. His celebrated ride from Thebes to Elephantine to carry the news of the victory of Pharaoh Tamose over the Hyksos was the stuff of legend. Now, as they followed his chariot through the dunes, they learned that the legend was well founded. The old man’s stamina was amazing, and his concentration never wavered. His gentle but firm hands on the reins never tired, as hour after hour he coaxed the horses into giving their best. He had impressed every man in the squadron, not least the one riding beside him in the cockpit.
Gil was Naja’s lance-bearer. He had a rugged, sundarkened face and was lightly built, which was desirable for a charioteer, but he possessed also a wiry strength and cheerful disposition. He had to have been one of the best to be selected to ride in the commander’s chariot.
With the moon waxing and the weather at its hottest they had driven through the cool of the night. Now, in the dawn, they halted to rest. When he had watered the horses, Gil came to where Taita sat on a boulder overlooking the wadi of Gebel Wadun and handed him a ceramic water jug. Taita took a long swig from the spout and swallowed the bitter water they had carried with them from Gallala with no sign of repugnance. It was the first drink he had taken since their last stop at midnight.
The old devil-rouser is tough as a Bedouin raider, Gil thought, with admiration, and squatted at a respectful distance to await any order that Taita might issue.
“Where is the place at which Pharaoh was struck down?” Taita asked at last.
Gil shaded his eyes against the glare of the rising sun and pointed down the wadi toward where the dry riverbed debouched onto the plains. “Down there, my lord. Near that distant line of hills.”
The first time Taita had questioned Gil had been before the council when the lance-bearer had given evidence on the circumstances of Pharaoh’s death. The council had called every person who might have any knowledge of it to testify at the inquiry. Taita remembered that Gil’s evidence had been coherent and credible. He had not been overawed by the pomp of the council and its illustrious members, but had spoken out like the honest, simple soldier he was. When it was shown to him, he had recognized the Hyksosian arrow as the one that had struck down Pharaoh Tamose. The shaft had been snapped in two. Lord Naja had broken it off to ease the pain of the wound.
That had been the first occasion of their meeting. They had spoken briefly once or twice since leaving Thebes, but until now there had not been the opportunity for any long conversation.
“Are any other men here who were with you on that day
?” Taita asked now.
“Only Samos, but he was waiting with the chariots in the wadi when we were attacked,” Gil replied.
“I want you to point out the exact place to me, and I want you to take me over the battleground,” Taita told him.
Gil shrugged. “It was no battle, just a skirmish. There will be precious little to see. ’Tis a barren place. However, it shall be as the mighty Magus commands.”
The troop mounted and descended the steep side of the wadi in single file. There had been no rain here in a hundred years and even the desert wind had not wiped away the tracks of Pharaoh’s chariots, which were still deeply scored and plain to read. When they reached the floor of the wadi Taita continued to follow them, his own wheels riding in the deep grooves that they had left.
They were alert for a Hyksos ambush and watched both banks of the wadi, but although the raw rock danced in the heat mirage, there was no sign of an enemy.
“There is the watchtower.” Gil pointed ahead, and Taita saw its gnarled silhouette leaning drunkenly against the unblemished pale blue of the sky.
They swept around another bend in the riverbed, and even from two hundred paces Taita could make out the area of confused wheel-tracks where the chariots of Pharaoh’s squadron had halted and circled, and where many men had dismounted and remounted in the soft sand of the wadi bottom. Taita signaled his small force to slow down and they moved forward at a walk.
“This is where Pharaoh dismounted and we went forward with Lord Naja to scout the camp of Apepi.” Gil pointed over the side of the dashboard.
Taita halted the chariot and signaled the others to do the same. “Wait for me here,” he ordered the sergeant of the following vehicle, then turned to Gil. “Come with me. Show me the battleground.”
Gil led the way up the rude pathway. At first he went slowly, in deference to the old man, but he soon realized that Taita was matching him step for step and speeded up. The gradient increased and the surface became more uneven as they went on. Even Gil was breathing hard when at last they reached the tumble of large boulders halfway up the hill that almost blocked the pathway.
“This is as far as I went,” Gil explained.
“So where did Pharaoh fall?” Taita looked around him at the steep but open hillside. “Where were the Hyksosian troops hidden? From where was the fatal arrow fired?”
“I cannot tell you, lord.” Gil shook his head. “I and the rest of the men were ordered to wait here, while Lord Naja went forward beyond that outcrop of boulders.”
“Where was Pharaoh? Did he go forward with Naja?”
“No. Not at first. The King waited with us. Lord Naja heard something up ahead, went to scout and disappeared from our view.”
“I do not understand. At what point were you attacked?”
“We waited here. I could see that Pharaoh was becoming impatient. After a while Lord Naja whistled from beyond the rocks. Pharaoh sprang up. ‘Come, follow me,’ he told us, and went up the path.”
“Were you close behind him?”
“No, I was near the rear of the file.”
“Did you see what happened next?”
“Pharaoh disappeared behind the boulders. Then there was shouting and the sound of fighting. I heard Hyksos voices and arrows and spears striking the rocks. I ran forward, but the path was crowded with our men who were trying to get round the boulders here to reach the fight.”
Gil ran forward to show him how the path narrowed and wove around the tallest boulder. “This was as far as I got to. Then Lord Naja was shouting that Pharaoh had been struck down. The men ahead of me were milling around, and suddenly they dragged the King down to where I was standing. I think he was dead even then.”
“How close were the Hyksos? How many were they? Were they cavalry or infantry? Did you recognize their regiments?” Taita demanded. All the Hyksos wore distinctive regalia, which the Egyptian troops had come to know well.
“They were very close,” Gil told him, “and there were a lot of them. At least a squadron.”
“What regiment?” Taita insisted. “Did you pick out their plumes?”
For the first time Gil looked uncertain and a little shamefaced. “My lord, I did not actually set eyes on the enemy. You see, they were behind the rocks up there.”
“Then how do you know their strength and numbers?” Taita frowned at him.
“Lord Naja was shouting—” Gil broke off and dropped his eyes.
“Did any of the others, apart from Naja, see the enemy?”
“I do not know, honorable Magus. You see, Lord Naja ordered us back down the pathway to the chariots. We could see that the King was mortally wounded, probably already dead. We had all lost heart.”
“You must have discussed it later with your companions. Did any of them tell you he had engaged an enemy? That he had hit one of the Hyksos with arrow or lance?”
Gil shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t remember. No, I don’t think so.”
“Apart from the King, were any others wounded?”
“None.”
“Why did you not tell this to the council? Why did you not tell them that you had not seen an enemy?” Taita was angry now.
“Lord Naja told us to answer the questions simply and not to waste the council’s time with idle boasting and long tales of our part in the fighting.” Gil hunched his shoulders with embarrassment. “I suppose that none of us wanted to admit that we ran without a fight.”
“Do not feel ashamed, Gil. You carried out your orders,” Taita told him, in a kinder tone. “Now, climb up on the rocks there, and keep your eyes open. We are still deep in Hyksosian territory. I shall not be long.”
Taita went forward slowly and stepped round the boulder that blocked the path. He paused and surveyed the ground ahead. From this angle he could just make out the top of the ruined watchtower. The path went up toward it in a series of dog-legs. Then it disappeared over the crest of a slope, which was fairly open, with little cover for a Hyksosian ambush, just a few clumps of rock and scattered sun-blasted thorn trees. Then he remembered that it had happened at night. But something disturbed him. Taita felt a vague sense of evil, as though he was being watched by a powerful malignant force.
This feeling grew so strong that he stood motionless in the sunlight and closed his eyes. He opened his mind and his soul, becoming a dry sponge to soak up any influence from the air around him. Almost at once the feeling grew stronger still: there were terrible things here, but the focus of evil emanated from somewhere not far ahead of him. He opened his eyes and walked slowly toward it. There was nothing to be seen, other than heat-blasted rock and thorn, but now he could even smell evil in the hot air, a faint but rank odor like the breath of a carrion-eating wild beast.
He stopped and sniffed, like a hunting dog, and immediately the air smelt dusty and dry, but clean. This proved to him that the elusive stench was something outside natural law. He was catching the faint echo of an evil that had been perpetrated in this place, but when he tried to pinpoint it, it disappeared. He took a pace forward, then another, and once more the nauseating stench wafted around him. Another pace, and now the smell was accompanied by a feeling of great sorrow, as though he had lost something of inestimable value, something that could never be replaced.
He had to force himself to take the next step up the rocky pathway, and at that instant something struck him with a force that drove the air from his lungs. He cried out in agony and dropped to his knees, clutching his chest, unable to breathe. It was extreme pain, the pain of death, and he struggled with it as though with a serpent that had wound its coils about him. He managed to throw himself back down the path, and immediately the pain fell away.
Gil had heard him cry out and came bounding up the path. He seized Taita, and helped him to his feet. “What is it? What ails you, my lord?”
Taita thrust him away. “Go! Leave me! You are in danger here. This is a thing not of men but of gods and demons. Go! Wait for me at the bottom of the hill.�
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Gil hesitated, but then he saw the look in those glittering eyes and recoiled as if from a ghost.
“Go!” Taita said, in a voice Gil wanted never to hear again, and he fled.
For a long time after he had gone Taita struggled to bring his body and mind back under his own control, to enable him to counter the forces arrayed against him. He reached into the pouch on his belt and brought out the Periapt of Lostris. He held it in his right hand and stepped forward again.
As he came to the exact spot on the pathway the pain struck once more with even more savage intensity, like a flint-tipped arrow through the chest, and he could barely prevent himself from screaming as he reeled backward and the pain fell away as it had before.
Panting, he stared down at the stony ground. At first it seemed unmarked and no different from any other point on the rugged pathway he had traversed. Then, a small ethereal shadow appeared on the earth. As he watched, it changed, became a shimmering dark scarlet pool. Slowly he sank to his knees. “The heart blood of a king and a god,” he whispered. “Here, on this very spot, died Pharaoh Tamose.”
He rallied himself and in a quiet yet firm voice spoke the invocation to Horus, so potent that only an adept of the seventh degree dared voice it. On the seventh repetition he heard the rustle of unseen wings, which stirred the desert air around him. “The god is here,” he whispered, and he began to pray. He prayed for his Pharaoh and his friend, entreating Horus to relieve his suffering and lift his torture.
“Allow him to escape from this dread place,” he beseeched the god. “It must have been murder for his soul to have been trapped here.”
As he prayed he made the signs for the exorcism of evil. Before his eyes the pool of blood began to shrink, as though it were soaking away into the dry earth. As the last drop disappeared, Taita heard a soft, formless sound, like the cry of a sleepy child, and the terrible weight of loss and sorrow that had burdened him fell from his shoulders. As he stood up he felt a great sense of release. He stepped forward onto the spot where the pool of blood had been. Even when his sandalled feet were firmly planted upon it he felt no pain and his sense of well-being remained intact.