by Wilbur Smith
Taita used his dagger blade to lift the seals, and dropped them into his pouch so that they would not be evidence of tampering when next the cart doors were opened. He used the point of the dagger to unscrew the fastenings that held down the lid, then lifted it. The chest was filled with small leather pouches. Taita weighed one in his hand, and smiled. He opened the mouth of the pouch to see the unmistakable glint of the precious metal within.
While he had been busy, Nefer and Meren had dug a shallow hole in the soft sand under the wagon truck. Taita passed down the leather pouch to Nefer, who laid it in the bottom of the hole. In all Taita selected fifty of the heaviest leather bags from the first chest. Then he screwed back the lid. Using a lump of fresh damp clay that he had brought with him he resealed the lid. With the engraved ruby ring that Naja had given him as a gift when he had left Thebes, he imprinted the clay seal with the royal cartouche. Then he went on to the next chest in the row of four.
“We are not taking enough,” Meren grumbled. “We are leaving more than half of it for Naja and Trok.”
“Greed would be our undoing,” Taita grunted, as he prised up the lid of the last case. “This way they will not know that any of the bullion is missing until the paymaster opens the cases again and counts it, which may not be for several more months.”
From each case in the four carts they lifted fifty leather bags and buried them in the loose sand of the wadi bed. Though they worked as swiftly as care would allow, the sun was low in the western sky when they resealed the final chest and locked the rear doors of the last cart. One of the sleeping guards stirred and mumbled, and tried to sit up. Taita went to him and laid a gentle hand on his brow. The man sighed and lay back. Taita pulled open his mouth and sprinkled a pinch of white powder under his tongue, and he lay quiet.
“We must hurry now. They are beginning to revive.”
They spread sand over the rows of bags in the bottom of the hole beneath the last wagon, and then roughed and dotted the surface with footprints so that the smooth sand would not be conspicuous.
“How much do you estimate we took?” Nefer asked.
“Impossible to tell until we weigh it,” Taita said, “but I would guess we have at least three lakhs.”
“Enough to recruit and equip an army,” Nefer muttered, as he worked.
They made one last quick but thorough inspection of the carts and the area around them, to make sure that they had overlooked nothing. Then leaving the guards still in heavy, drugged sleep, they slipped away down the wadi.
They climbed into the foothills below the plateau, back to where they had left Hilto with the chariots. From this vantage-point they kept watch on where they had buried the plundered gold. They observed no evidence of any outcry or unusual activity in the wadi. Perhaps the guards felt too guilty when they woke to make any report on their dereliction of duty.
Just before dark they saw the straining teams of bullocks heave the four carts out of the sandy riverbed, and trudge away behind the royal litters as the host of the false pharaohs resumed the night march.
For five more days and nights the great army of Egypt streamed past this spot. There were successive squadrons of chariots, regiments of slingers, archers and spearmen. These were followed by marching columns of slaves who would be used for the heavy labor of building fortifications and sapping the walls of besieged cities. Then came the craftsmen, the chariot builders and carpenters, the armorers and arrow makers, and after them the camp-followers, the wives, sweethearts and whores with their slaves, servants and infants. They were followed by the merchants with wagonloads of goods and luxuries of every possible description to sell to the troops when they were rich with loot and plunder.
Yet out of all this multitude the watchers on the hills saw nobody enter the dried wadi where the gold was buried, and though each day companies and regiments camped nearby no one approached the wadi to use it as a latrine or a camping site.
When the last vehicle in that mighty host had trundled past and climbed up through the rocky Khatmia Pass, and the last straggler had limped by, Nefer and Taita were certain that the short-weight of bullion in the treasure carts had not been discovered by the army paymasters, and they were almost certain that the cache in the riverbed had not been stumbled upon by chance.
When at last the eastern highway was deserted they came down from the hills during the night and left the chariots on the high bank of the wadi with the horses still in the traces, ready for instant flight. Nefer and Meren went down into the sandy bed, and in the moonlight the tracks left by the treasure carts and the oxen were still plain to see. After only a few thrusts with the wooden spade Meren whistled with glee and turned up the first pouch of gold. As they lifted each bag from the hole they counted them, making certain that they overlooked not a single one. Then they carried them up the wadi bank, staggering under their weight, and stacked them beside the waiting chariots. Eight hundred leather bags filled with fine gold made an impressive pile.
“Too much! We will not be able to carry away all of it,” Nefer said doubtfully.
“It is one of the natural laws of this wicked world.” Taita shook his head. “Of gold there can never be too much.”
The light fighting chariots had not been designed as transport carts, but they loaded them until the axles sagged and the coachwork groaned. Still they had not taken half of it on board. Nursing the horses, leading them by the reins, they took the overloaded chariots up into the hills, then came back for the next load. It required two more trips to carry it all away.
They divided the treasure into five equal parts and buried four in separate caches, well dispersed, taking great care to conceal them and leave no sign. Thus, if one hoard was discovered they would not lose all. The fifth part they loaded onto thirteen of the chariots and Nefer sent them back to Gallala under the command of Hilto. Once he reached the city Hilto would return with a convoy of heavy wagons to fetch in the remainder.
Nefer kept back the remaining three chariots. They would be driven by himself, Taita and Meren. The two squadrons parted company, Hilto taking his laden vehicles south again, and Nefer leading his smaller group eastward, shadowing the army of the two pharaohs.
Nefer traveled by day, knowing that the army they were following would be resting in camp, and with a daylight view ahead they were unlikely to run into any surprises.
They went up through the pass onto the plateau where they found ample water, although much of it had been fouled by the thousands of animals and men who had been there ahead of them. The horses were well rested, and they traveled fast in the lightly laden chariots. They passed hundreds of abandoned campsites, marked by dead fires and sagging lean-to shelters, litter and scattered filth. There were also hastily dug graves, for an army on the march suffers constant attrition. Some had already been dug open by the hyena and the jackal, the corpses dragged out and partially consumed.
“We will need her,” Nefer said, as he dismounted and stood over the body of a young woman, probably one of the army whores. There was no way of telling how she had died, for the vultures had almost completed what the hyena had begun. Her eyes and lips were missing and her skull grinned at them through blood-blackened teeth.
“In all love of the gods,” Meren cried, “have you lost your senses? That thing stinks to the skies.”
“Help me wrap her.” Nefer ignored his protest. He had found a length of discarded linen, so torn and dirty that even the Bedouin who scavenged behind the army had found no use for it. Between them they lifted the remains of the dead woman onto it and wrapped her neatly. Then, to his loudly expressed disgust, they tied the bundle to the back of Meren’s chariot.
Though they had been traveling under the dust pall since dawn, it was mid-morning before they caught up with the rearguard of the army. The entire expeditionary force had already gone into laager for the day, and the smoke from the cooking fires marked the position of hundreds of separate encampments along the road ahead.
Nefer led t
hem off the road, and they circled out to avoid the baggage train, keeping out of sight of the road. Scouting the terrain ahead, they went forward cautiously. Eventually they caught up with the convoy of treasure carts and the tall litters of the royal wives halted in a grove of olive trees. It was well past noon when Nefer crept up close to them, and climbed a tamarind tree from which he could spy over the thornbush zareba that surrounded the camp.
Queen Merykara’s pavilion was set up at some distance from that of Heseret, but the two sisters were sitting under a linen awning, protected from the sun and picking at the lavish meal their serving maids had brought from the cooking fires.
Nefer was not close enough to overhear their conversation. Heseret sat facing him, chattering and laughing gaily. She was even more beautiful than Nefer remembered her. Even in these informal circumstances she was wearing carefully applied makeup, which was intended to make her resemble the statue of Hathor in Memphis. She was decked out in a suite of magnificent jewels, and her thick dark hair had been freshly oiled and crimped. Misha, the tall black slave girl with the legendary posterior, leaned over her shoulder to refill her golden bowl. A splash of the red wine spilled down the front of Heseret’s dress. She sprang to her feet and thrashed Misha over the head with a heavy fan of silver and ostrich feathers. The girl fell to her knees and covered it with both hands, but the blood sprang up between her fingers. Merykara tried to restrain her elder sister, but Heseret rained blows on Misha’s head until the shaft of the fan snapped in two, then hurled the broken end at Merykara and flounced away, yelling threats and abuse over her shoulder.
Merykara lifted the slave girl to her feet and led her away to her own pavilion. Nefer waited patiently, hidden in the top branches of the tamarind tree. Some time later, Misha left the tent with her head bandaged. Still weeping she disappeared among the trees. Nefer did not move, until Merykara appeared in the opening of her pavilion.
When they had last spoken, Nefer had warned her to keep alert and to wait for him to come to her. Now she looked around her carefully, spoke to the guard at the door of the tent and began to wander, without any apparent purpose, around the periphery of the camp. Clearly she had taken Nefer’s instructions seriously and was searching the surrounding countryside for a glimpse of her rescuers. She was the only person stirring: most of the others were sheltering from the sun and the heat, and even the sentries showed no interest in her.
Nefer took a small polished silver mirror from his pouch, picked up the sun’s reflection and shot a ray of light into Merykara’s face. She stopped instantly, shaded her eyes and peered in his direction. He flashed thrice more, the agreed signal, and, even from that distance, saw her smile become as radiant as the reflected sunbeam that danced over her lovely face.
Merykara lay in the swaying, jolting litter, on cushions and a mattress stuffed with swansdown. Misha was curled at her feet like a sleeping puppy, but Merykara was awake and alert. The curtains of the litter were drawn back to let in the cool night air and she could hear the sounds of the army on the march: the clatter of hoofs, the creak and rattle of the wagons, the lowing of the draft oxen, the cries of the wagoners and the tramp of the guards alongside the litter.
Suddenly there was a commotion ahead, the swish and crack of whips, the crash of wheels over rocks, the sound of running water and the splashing of animals and vehicles. Then Merykara heard her sister’s querulous voice: “Ho there! What is happening?”
“Your Majesty, we are fording a small stream. I must beg you to dismount, lest the litter capsize. The safety of your divine person is all our concern.”
She heard Heseret complain bitterly about the inconvenience, and Merykara took advantage of the diversion to whisper her final instructions to Misha. Then they climbed down from the litter. Slaves waited with lanterns to lead them down to the riverbank, where Heseret was already waiting.
“They woke me when I was sleeping,” she told Merykara. “I shall report that oaf of a caravan master to my husband, the Pharaoh of Upper Egypt.”
“I am sure that it will be beneficial to your health to have the skin flogged from his back,” Merykara agreed, with sweet irony. Heseret tossed her head and turned away.
At that moment a nightingale called upstream from where they stood, and Merykara thrilled to the sound. As children Nefer had tried to teach her how to imitate that low, warbling note, but she had never mastered it. Three times the bird called, but only she took notice of it. The others were engrossed in getting the ungainly litters and the heavy treasure carts across the treacherous riverbed. The thousands of vehicles ahead of them had cut up the entrance to the ford, and churned the bottom to a morass. It was after midnight before the crossing was accomplished and the last treasure cart was dragged through with loud exhortations to the oxen to “Heave away!” and the flourish and cracking of whips up the far bank.
Then the caravan master brought up sedan chairs for the royal wives. They were helped into the seats and carried over by teams of slaves. When they reached the far bank there was further consternation and confusion, for one of the treasure carts had lost a wheel and was blocking the road ahead. Now, in addition to this mishap, the slaves who had carried Heseret across in the sedan chair had allowed the water to flow over her feet and ruin her sandals. Heseret insisted that they were punished on the spot, and the slash of the overseers’ whips and the howls of the miscreants added to the uproar.
Over it all Merykara heard the nightingale call again, this time close at hand and on the same side of the stream. “Do not fail me,” she said to Misha.
“My life is yours, mistress,” the girl replied, and Merykara kissed her.
“You have proved that often, and I shall never forget it.” She turned from Misha and walked calmly into the darkness.
Only Heseret paid her the least notice. “Where are you going, Merykara?”
“To drown the bad fairies.” Merykara used their childhood euphemism. Heseret shrugged, climbed back into her own litter and drew the curtains.
As soon as she was hidden from the road, Merykara stopped and gave her own inept version of the bird call. Almost at once a firm hand closed on her upper arm and her brother whispered in her ear, “Pray desist, little one, you will terrify every nightingale from here to Beersheba.”
She spun round, threw her arms about his neck and hugged him with all her strength, too overcome to speak. Gently he loosened her grip, then took her hand and led her along the dark riverbank. He went swiftly and he seemed to have the night eyes of a leopard, for he never stumbled or hesitated. He did not speak except to whisper a warning when there was a hole or an obstacle in the path. She followed him blindly. After what seemed half the night, he stopped to allow her to rest.
“Does Misha know what to do?” he asked.
“She will keep the curtains of the litter closed and tell anyone who asks that I am sleeping and will not be disturbed. No one will know that I am gone.”
“Until they halt tomorrow,” he qualified. “We have only that much time to get away. Are you ready to go on? We must cross back over the river here.”
He picked her up easily and carried her across, and she was amazed at how strong he had grown. She was a doll in his arms. He set her down again on the opposite bank, and they went on.
After a while she tugged on his hand. “What is that awful smell?” She gagged.
“It’s you,” he told her. “Or, at least, one who shall take your place.”
Before he finished speaking two dark figures stepped out into the starlight on the path ahead of them, and Merykara gave a small gasp of fright.
“ ’Tis only Taita and Meren,” Nefer reassured her. They led her into a coppice in which they were screened by the dense growth of leafy branches, and Meren opened the shutter of the lantern he carried. Merykara gasped again as, by the feeble yellow light, she saw the gruesome object stretched on the ground. It was a corpse, but so dreadfully mutilated that it was difficult to tell that it was human and female.
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“Quickly, now!” Nefer told her. “Give me all your jewelry and your clothing.”
Merykara stripped herself naked, and handed everything to Nefer. Taita handed her a small bundle of spare clothing, tunic, skirt and sandals, to replace her own.
Nefer knelt beside the corpse and placed the strings of necklaces around the dead girl’s neck, and the rings and bracelets on her skeletal fingers and wrists. He could not work Merykara’s skirt and loincloth up over the rigid legs, so he ripped them to tatters and rubbed them in the dirt, then he stabbed his own thumb with the point of his dagger and dribbled fresh blood on the fine cloth. From near at hand there came the shrieking, whooping chorus of a pack of hungry hyenas.
Merykara shuddered. “They have smelt the body.”
“They will leave only enough evidence to convince Naja that you were devoured by wild animals.” He stood up. “Now we must go.”
The chariots were waiting a little farther upstream. Nefer had not wanted to leave their tracks too close to the body of the dead girl. As he pulled his sister up onto the footplate beside him, he looked into the east. “The morning star,” he said quietly. “It will be light in an hour. We must make the most of the darkness that remains.”
When the dawn bloomed, like a bouquet of roses and mimosa blossoms, across the sky behind them they were already halfway down the escarpment of the plateau, and the desert was spread out below them.
It was such a grand sight that involuntarily they reined in the horses and stared out across the ocean of golden sands in awe. All except Meren. With the air of a pilgrim who has traveled across half the world to reach the shrine of the goddess he worshipped, he stared at Merykara as she stood beside her brother in the leading chariot. Through the long night ride she had been hidden from him by the darkness, but now the early sun played upon her, and he stared. He had known her for most of his life as the saucy, impish little sister of his best friend, but this was the first time in two years that he had laid eyes upon her. Time had wrought a miracle of change. Now, every movement she made, each gesture and turn of her head, was perfect grace. Every angle and plane of her face, every curve and line of her slim body, was exquisite. Her skin was cream and mother-of-pearl, her eyes greener and brighter than any emerald, her voice and laughter the most enchanting music he had ever heard.