by Wilbur Smith
“Be not so parsimonious, Master of a Thousand Chariots.” Nefer smiled at him. “How can we make good your title with only a minor miracle? Let us put our faith in a major one.”
Taita stood on the black rock outcrop. Around him the sand dunes stretched away to the limit of the eye. From the base of the rock a hundred men watched him, puzzled but intrigued. The fame of the Magus was as boundless as the desert in which they found themselves. All of them were warriors who had come to Gallala of their own accord, forsaking the false pharaohs to offer their allegiance to Nefer Seti. That allegiance was wearing a little thin, for here they found themselves without weapons or chariots, and daily there were fresh rumors that either Trok or Naja or both were on the march to seek vengeance for their desertion.
Pharaoh Nefer Seti stood beside the Warlock on the pinnacle of rock. They were in deep discussion. Occasionally one or the other would gesticulate or point out toward the west, where there was nothing to see but sand, sand and more sand.
They waited patiently through the heat of the day. Not one expressed disenchantment or disbelief, for they were all in awe of Taita. As the shadows in the hollows of the dunes deepened to purple, that ill-assorted pair, young monarch and ancient Magus, came down from the pinnacle and walked out into the dunes. Without any apparent purpose the Warlock wandered back and forth along one of the dune faces. He stopped at intervals and made strange, esoteric gestures with his long staff, then went on again with Pharaoh and his officers following him.
At last in the gathering dusk the Magus planted his staff in the soft sand and spoke quietly to Pharaoh Nefer Seti. Now, suddenly, they were all galvanized by the shouted orders of the officers.
Twenty men ran forward carrying the digging tools with which they had been issued. Under the direction of Hilto and Meren, and under the daunting eyes of their king and the Magus, they began to dig. When the hole was shoulder-deep the loose sand ran back into it almost as fast as they shoveled it out, and they were forced to redouble their efforts to make any gains. The heads of the diggers sank slowly below the level of the surrounding earth, until abruptly there came an excited shout from the bottom of the excavation. Nefer strode forward and stood on the lip.
“There is something here, divine Majesty.” A man was kneeling in the bottom of the hole, and he looked up with sweat mixed with the grit that coated his face and body.
“Let me see.” Nefer jumped down and pushed the man out of the way. A patch of hide was exposed, still covered with hair but hard as cedarwood.
Nefer looked up at Taita. “It is the body of a horse!” he called.
“What color?” Taita asked. “Is it black?”
“How did you know that?” Nefer was not really surprised.
“Does the halter carry the golden cartouche of Pharaoh Trok Uruk?” Taita answered his question with another.
“Dig it open!” Nefer ordered the sweating men around him. “But gently now. Do no damage.”
They worked with great care, using their bare hands to sweep away the sand. Gradually they exposed the complete head of a black horse that wore on its forehead the cartouche of Trok, embossed on a gold disc, just as Taita had foreseen.
Then they went on to uncover the rest of the carcass. The animal had been wonderfully preserved by the hot dry sand. The embalmers in Thebes would have difficulty in matching what the desert had achieved. Beside it lay its harness mate, another stallion. Nefer recalled how he had last seen these magnificent animals as they drew Trok’s chariot forward under the louring dust clouds of the khamsin.
By this time night had fallen and the workmen lit the oil lamps and placed them on the lip of the excavation. They went on with the work through the night. The dead horses were unbuckled from the traces and lifted out. Their desiccated carcasses were so light that four men could carry them with ease.
Then they recovered the harness. It was in a perfect state of preservation, and Nefer set his grooms to work immediately, oiling the leather and polishing the gold and bronze parts.
Now they worked back to the chariot itself and a gasp went up from the diggers as the dashboard was cleared of the engulfing sand: it was covered with gold leaf, and gleamed in the lamplight, shooting out darts of light that pricked their eyes. The javelins and lances were still in their bins on either side of the cockpit, ready to the hand of the charioteer. Each weapon was a work of art in itself, the lance handles laminated for strength and the metal heads sharp as the scalpels of a surgeon. The arrows had been made by Grippa of Avaris, the shafts straight and true, the fletchings dyed crimson, yellow and green, the royal cartouche carved into the shaft.
Trok’s great war bow was still in its rack, and only the bowstring needed to be replaced. Nefer flexed the shaft in his hands and wondered if he had the strength to wield it in battle.
When the entire chariot had been uncovered they passed ropes under the chassis and lifted it out of the excavation. The gold leaf had been beaten so thin that it added no more than two taels to the total weight of the vehicle, and to compensate for this the chassis had been carved from dark hardwoods, hewn in the sinister rain-forests far to the south of Egypt’s borders. These timbers were more resilient than the finest bronze, but light and tough. They could be fined down to save weight without sacrificing strength.
Now it was morning, and the sun was climbing above the horizon. Nefer and Taita circled the chariot as it gleamed in the light. It was so sleek and graceful that it seemed already in motion. Its single shaft seemed to pine like a lover for the touch of two proud horses. Nefer stroked the gold work. It was smooth as a lovely woman’s skin and warm beneath his hand.
“It seems to be a living creature,” he breathed. “Surely there was never a more magnificent weapon of war ever conceived.”
“Fifty years ago I built a chariot for Lord Tanus.” Taita sniffed and shook his head. “You should have seen that one. But it rests with him in his tomb in far-off Ethiopia.”
Nefer hid a smile—the old man would never admit second best. “Then I shall have to be content with this inferior work cart,” he said seriously. “I need only the blue sword that Naja stole from my father to complete my armory.”
Over the weeks and months that followed, Taita pinpointed the other buried vehicles and their accoutrements. Teams of workmen dug them out and sent them to the chariot makers who had set up a workshop in the lee of the rock pinnacle, roofed over with palm thatch. Here, fifty of them and nearly a hundred armorers labored through the daylight hours, never letting up even in the furious heat of noon. The armorers polished and sharpened swords, javelins and lances. They rebound the shafts and reset the heads. Over slow fires they straightened the arrows that had warped. The chariot makers stripped each vehicle as it came out from under the sand, checked each component, painted and lacquered the chassis and the panels and balanced and lubricated the wheels to run true and sweetly. Then they reassembled them and sent them on to Gallala, loaded with the restored weapons, to equip the army that Hilto, Shabako and Socco were training.
Many of the vehicles were so deeply buried under the burning yellow dunes that they were lost forever, or until the next great storm uncovered them, but in the end they salvaged a hundred and five. Enough to equip five squadrons.
When Nefer drove through the gates of Gallala in the royal chariot, Meren was on the footplate by his side.
Mintaka and Merykara stood together on the roof pediment of the temple of Hathor, and strewed oleander petals upon them as they passed below.
“He is so handsome.” Merykara’s voice was husky with awe. “So tall and handsome.”
“So tall and handsome and strong,” Mintaka agreed. “He will be the greatest pharaoh in the history of this very Egypt.”
“I did not mean Nefer,” said Merykara.
By this time a thriving smuggling route existed between the city and Egypt, and other caravans came in regularly from the port of Safaga on the eastern sea. Since the capture of the treasure of Trok and Naja,
Gallala had become a city rich with gold. Like hyenas the merchants sniffed the aroma of the yellow metal from afar and brought in their wares from the ends of the world. Nowadays there was no luxury or necessity that could not be obtained in the city’s souks, so Mintaka was able to procure a wagonload of the finest red wine from the vineyards of the temple of Osiris at Busiris for the welcome banquet she had arranged for the evening that the charioteers returned.
At her orders, the butchers spitted and roasted ten whole oxen, and chickens and geese by the hundred. Fast relays of the new chariots brought up fresh fish, and baskets of lobsters in seaweed from the coast. Most of the long-whiskered crustaceans were still alive when they were dropped squeaking into the boiling pots. Hunters scoured the surrounding desert and came in with gazelle, oryx and the flesh and eggs of the ostrich.
The banquet was a joyous celebration of their achievements and small victories over the false pharaohs. The wine had flowed to great effect when Nefer rose to welcome the guests and announce the recovery of the five squadrons of chariots from under the sands. “With the horses that we freed from the tyranny of Trok…” there were hoots and guffaws at this “…and the weapons and chariots we now have, we are well able to defend ourselves against Trok and Naja. As you are aware, every day that passes sees fresh recruits to the blue banner. Soon it will not be merely a case of defending ourselves, but of taking back what was stolen from us and avenging the terrible deeds that those two monsters have perpetrated. They have the blood of true and noble kings upon their hands. They are the murderers of King Apepi, who was the father of the noble lady at my side, and they slew my own father, Pharaoh Tamose.”
The guests were silent and puzzled now, looking at each other for guidance. Then Hilto rose to his feet. Nefer had primed him, and placed the question on his lips. “Divine Majesty, forgive my ignorance, for I am just a simple man, but I do not understand. All the world knows that King Apepi died in an accident when his barge caught fire while anchored at Balasfura. Now you lay the guilt for his death on the pretenders. How can that be?”
“There is one among us who was a witness to the true events of that tragic night.” Nefer reached down and drew Mintaka to her feet. The company cheered her, for they had all come to love her for her beauty and her gracious spirit. When Nefer held up his hand they fell silent and listened to her with all their attention as she related the story of the murder of her father and brothers. She used simple words and spoke to them as friends and comrades, yet she was able to share with them her own horror and grief. When she had finished they were growling like a cage of hungry lions at feeding time.
Now Shabako rose and asked his prepared question: “But, divine Pharaoh, you spoke also of the death of your own father, King Tamose of blessed memory. How was he murdered—and by whom?”
“For the answer to this question I must call upon the Magus, Lord Taita, from whom no secret, however devious and grisly, can be hidden.”
Taita faced them and spoke in a whisper that riveted their attention. His every word carried to the ears of even those on the outskirts of the gathering, and the softness of those words contrasted so effectively with the gruesome circumstances they described that men shuddered and women wept.
At the end Taita held up the broken arrow with its crimson, green and yellow feathers. “This is the instrument of Pharaoh Tamose’s death. The arrow that bears the signet of Trok, but which was loosed by Naja, the man whom Pharaoh loved and trusted as a brother.”
They howled their outrage and their craving for justice to the starlit skies above Gallala. Taita hurled the arrow onto the nearest fire over which one of the oxen was roasting. It would not have borne closer inspection, for it was not the arrow that had killed Pharaoh but one of those he had taken from the buried chariot. He sat down and closed his eyes, as if composing himself to sleep.
Nefer let the guests give full vent to their feelings and when they began to quieten a little he signaled for more wine flagons to be carried out.
There was one last proclamation he had to make, and he waited until the mood had mellowed further before he stood up again. All fell silent and watched him in anticipation heightened by the good wine from Busiris. The night had already held so many marvels and they wondered what was yet to come.
“Before a king leads his armies against the enemies of this sacred land of our forefathers, he should be a King indeed, a true and veritable King. I purpose to lead you against the usurpers, but I am not yet ordained as Pharaoh. I can achieve this confirmation if I wait until the year of my majority, but that is still far off, and I do not choose to wait that long. Nor will my enemies allow me that grace.” He paused and they watched him, fascinated—so young yet so tall and straight, as his father had been before him. Now he raised his right hand in the gesture of oath-taking.
“In the sight of my people and my gods, I will run the Red Road to prove to you that I am your king.”
Some sighed and shook their heads, others started to their feet and cried out, “No! Pharaoh, we will not see you killed,” while others called, “Bak-her! If he fails then he fails as a brave man.”
That night Mintaka wept as she asked him, “Why did you not tell me first?”
“Because you would have tried to stop me.”
“But why must you do it?”
“Because my gods and my duty require it.”
“Even if it kills you.”
“Even if it kills me.”
She stared long into his green eyes and saw how steadfast was his resolve. Then she kissed him and said, “I am proud that I am to be wife to such a man as you.”
The astrologers among the priests of Horus, assisted by the Magus, consulted the calendars and set the date for the trial of the Red Road to be held on the day of the new moon of the god. Therefore, as Taita had remarked, Nefer had little time to prepare for the ordeal. He withdrew from all his other duties, leaving even the conduct of affairs of state to Taita and the council while he gave all his attention to the first task required of him. Before a novice could present himself for trial he must break and train his own team of horses to carry him on the Red Road.
Nefer had to pick out a team of horses from the herd they had captured at Thane, then train them to the shaft of the chariot. He would have liked to ask Socco to help him with the selection of his team: not only was he a famous horseman, but he knew each of the captured animals. However, Socco was one of only five Red Road warriors in Gallala and was one of those who would examine Nefer. He could not assist him in his preparations for the ordeal.
There was another to whom Nefer could appeal: Taita’s knowledge, understanding and experience of horsemanship and chariot tactics exceeded even Socco’s. Yet Taita was not a Red Road warrior. His physical imperfections precluded him from the brotherhood, and added to that he had religious scruples. He would never forswear Horus and the other gods of the pantheon to pledge himself to the mysterious Red God of war, a god whose name was known only to his adepts.
The two spent the first day on the hillside above the green fields where the unbroken horses grazed. They sat together and watched the animals below them, discussing those that caught the eye. Nefer pointed out a handsome white colt, but Taita shook his head. “A gray looks good in the traces, but I have always been wary of them. I have found they lack stamina and heart. Let us look for either black or bay, matched in color.”
Nefer picked out a filly with a white blaze on her forehead, but again Taita shook his head. “The Bedouin say that a white mark is the touch of a devil or a djinn. I want not a trace of white on the animals we choose.”
“Do you believe what they say?”
Taita shrugged. “A blaze or a sock mars their symmetry. You and your team should have the look of a pharaoh when you ride out.”
Taita and Nefer stayed on the hillside until nightfall, and went out again the next morning, as soon as it was light enough to see the path, with Meren and three grooms. They began to sort the horses, driving a
ny imperfect animal into the adjacent field. By noon they had whittled down the herd to twenty-three animals, all clean-limbed and strong, no scars, no blemish, no obvious impediment in their gait. There was not a single white hair on any of them.
They let them settle down, and when the horses were grazing quietly they sat in the grass and watched them.
“I like that black colt,” Nefer said.
“He is lame. Almost certainly he has a cracked left front hoof.”
“He does not limp,” Nefer protested.
“Watch his left ear. He flicks it at every pace. Tell Meren to drive him out.”
A little later Nefer marked a black filly. “She has a fine head and a bright eye.”
“She is too highly strung. The eye is more nervous than intelligent. She will wilt in the din of battle. Meren can let her go.”
“What of the black colt with the long tail and mane?”
“The tail disguises the fact that he is half a thumb’s length short in the back.”
By late afternoon there were only six horses left in the field. In a pact of silence, they had avoided speaking of one particular colt. He was too obviously the choice they must make. He was a marvelous beast, not too tall or heavy, well proportioned, with strong legs and back. His neck was long and his head noble. They watched him a while longer.
At last Magus spoke, “I can find no vice in him. There is a spark in his eyes that comes from the fire in his heart.”
“I will call him Krus,” Nefer decided. “It is the Bedouin name for fire.”
“Yes, the name is important. I never knew a good horse with an ugly name. It as if the gods are listening. Let Krus be your right-hander, but now you need a lefthander.”
“Another colt—” Nefer started, but Taita stopped him.
“No, we need a filly on the left. A feminine influence to keep Krus in check, and steady him in the heat of the fight. A great heart to pull with him when the road is hard.”
“You have chosen already, have you not?” Nefer asked.