River god tes-1

by Wilbur Smith

  THAT AFTERNOON ON THE POOP-DECK OF the royal barge the state council of Upper Egypt convened before the throne. The high priest of Osiris represented the spiritual body, Lord Merseket: the chancellor stood for the temporal body of the: state, and Tanus, Lord Harrab stood for the military authority.

  Between them the three lords lifted Queen Lostris to the throne of this very Egypt, and placed her son upon her lap. While every man and woman on board the barge raised their voices in a loyal salute, the other ships of the fleet sailed past, and even the wounded soldiers dragged themselves to the rail to cheer the new regent and the young heir to the great throne of Egypt.

  The high priest of Osiris strapped the false beard of the kingship upon my mistress's chain, and it did nothing to detract from her beauty and manifest womanhood. Lord Merseket bound the lion's tail around her waist and settled the tall red and white crown upon her brow. Finally, Tanus mounted the throne to place the crook and golden flail to her hands. Now Memnon saw the shining toys that Tanus carried towards him, and reached out to snatch them from him.

  'A king indeed! He knows the crook is his by right,' Tanus applauded proudly, and the court roared their approval of this precocious behaviour.

  I think this was the first time that any of us had laughed since that dreadful day on the field of Abnub. It seemed to me that the laughter was a catharsis, and that it marked a new beginning for all of us. Up until that moment we had been overwhelmed by the shock of defeat and the loss of Pharaoh. But now, as the great lords of Egypt went forward one at a time to kneel before the throne on which sat this lovely young woman and her royal child, a fresh spirit sprang up in all of us. We were rescued from the apathy of despair, and our will to fight and to endure was resuscitated. Tanus was last of all of them to kneel before the throne and swear his allegiance. As she looked down upon him, Queen Lostris' adoration for him was so evident that it suffused her lovely face and shone like the sunrise from those dark green eyes. I was amazed that no other in all that throng seemed aware of it.

  That evening after the sun had set, my mistress sent me to the bridge of the state barge with a message for the commander of her armies. She summoned him to a council of war in the main cabin. This time Tanus dared not refuse her, for he had very recently sworn an oath of obedience.

  This extraordinary war council of which I was the only witness had barely begun, before the new regent of Egypt imperiously banished me from the cabin, and sent me to guard the door and turn away all other visitors. The last glimpse that I had of them as I drew the heavy curtain was as they fell into each other's arms. So great was their need, and so long had they been denied, that they rushed at each other like deadly enemies joining in mortal combat, rather than lovers.

  The happy sounds of this engagement persisted for most of the night, and I was relieved that we were not at anchor but driving on up-river in haste to join with Lord Nembet. The clunk and swish of the oars, the boom of the drum setting the stroke and the chants of the rowers on their benches almost drowned out the tumult in the royal cabin.

  When he came to the poop-deck at the change of the night-watch, Tanus had the smile and the satisfied air of a general who had just won a famous victory. My mistress followed him on deck shortly afterwards, and she glowed with a new and ethereal beauty that startled even me, who was accustomed to her loveliness. For the rest of that day she was loving and kind to all around her, and found numerous occasions to consult the commander of her army. Thus Prince Memnon and I were able to spend most of the day together, a circumstance that suited both of us very well.

  With the prince's dubious assistance I had already started carving a series of wooden models. One of these was a chariot and wooden horses. Another was a wheel on an axle that I was experimenting with.

  Memnon stood on tiptoe to watch the wheel spin smoothly on its miniature hub.

  'A solid disc is too heavy, don't you agree, Mem? See how swiftly it loses momentum and slows down.'

  'Give it to me!' he demanded, and snatched at the spinning disc. It flew form his chubby "fingers, dashed to the deck and shattered into four almost equal segments.

  'You are a Hyksos ruffian,' I told him sternly, which he seemed to take as a great compliment, and I went down on my knees to gather up my poor model.

  The broken segments still lay in a circular pattern, and, before my hand touched them, I had a strange aberration of vision. In the eye of my mind, the solid segments of wood became spaces, while the cracks between them appeared solid.

  'Sweet Breath of Horus! You've done it, Mem.' I hugged him. 'A rim supported by struts from the hub! When you are Pharaoh, what other miracles will you perform for us?'

  Thus did the Prince Royal, Memnon the first of that name, Ruler of the Dawn?with just a little help from his friend? conceive of the spoke wheel. Little did I dream then that one day the two of us together would ride to glory upon it.

  WE CAME UPON THE FIRST OF THE EGYPTIAN dead before noon. He came floating down the river with his bloated belly buoying him up, and his face gazing blankly at the sky. There was a black crow perched upon his chest. It picked out his eyes and threw back its head to swallow them one at a time.

  In silence we stood at the ship's rail and watched the dead man float serenely by.

  'He wears the kilt of the Lion Guards,' Tanus said quietly.

  'The Lions are the spear-head of Nembet's army. I pray to Horus that there will be no others following this one down the river.'

  But there were. Ten more, then a hundred. More and still more, until the surface of the river from bank to bank was carpeted by floating corpses. They were thick as the leaves of the water-hyacinth which clog the irrigation canals in summer.

  At last we found one who still lived. He was a captain of the Lion Guards who had been seconded to Nembet's staff. He clung to a mat of floating papyrus stems in the current.

  We fished him from the water and I attended to his wounds. The head of a stone mace had shattered the bones of his shoulder and he would never use that arm again.

  When he had recovered sufficiently to speak, Tanus squatted beside his mattress.

  'What of Lord Nembet?'

  'Lord Nembet is slain, and all his staff with him,' the captain told him hoarsely.

  'Did Nembet not receive my despatch warning him of the Hyksos?'

  'He received it on the eve of the battle, and he laughed as he read it.'

  'Laughed?' demanded Tanus. 'How could he laugh?'

  'He said that the puppy was destroyed?forgive me, Lord Tanus, but that was what he called you?and now sought to cover his stupidity and cowardice with spurious messages. He said that he would fight the battle in the classic manner.'

  "The arrogant old fool,' Tanus lamented. 'But tell me the rest of it.'

  'Lord Nembet deployed upon the east bank, with the river at his back. The enemy fell upon us like the wind, and drove us into the water.'

  'How many of our men escaped?' Tanus asked softly.

  'I believe that I am the only one of those who went ashore with Lord Nembet who survived. I saw no other left alive. The slaughter upon the river-bank was beyond my power to describe to you.'

  'All our most famous regiments decimated,' Tanus mourned. 'We are left defenceless, except for our ships. What happened to Nembet's fleet? Was it anchored in midstream?'

  'Lord Nembet anchored the greater part of the fleet, but he beached fifty galleys in our rear.'

  'Why would he do that?' Tanus stormed. 'The safety of the ships is the first principle of our standard battle plan.'

  'I do not know Lord Nembet's mind, except he may have kept them at hand to re-embark our troops expeditiously, should your warning have proved justified.'

  'What then is the fate of our fleet? Nembet lost our army, but did ,he save the ships?' Tanus' tone was rough with anger and distress.

  'Of the ships that were anchored in midstream, most are scuttled and burned by the skeleton crews. I saw the flames and the smoke even from where I lay o
n my papyrus float. A few of the others cut the anchor-lines and fled south towards Thebes. I shouted to the crews as they sailed past me, but so great was their terror that they would not heave-to and pick me from the water.'

  'The fifty ships that lay upon the beach?' Tanus broke off and drew a deep breath before he finished the question. 'What has become of the squadron that was beached?'

  'It has fallen into the hands of the Hyksos.' The captain trembled as he answered, for he dreaded Tanus' anger. 'I looked back as I drifted with the current, and I saw the enemy swarming aboard the galleys on the beach.'

  Tanus stood up and strode to the bows. He stared upstream from where the corpses and the scorched and blackened planks of Nembet's fleet still drifted down upon the steady green flow of the river. I went to stand at his side, to be ready to halter his rage when it came.

  'So the proud old fool has sacrificed his life, and the lives of all his men, simply to spite me. They should build a pyramid to his folly, for Egypt has never seen the like of it.'

  'That is not all his folly,' I murmured, and Tanus nodded grimly.

  'No, not all his folly. He has given the Hyksos the means to cross the river. Sweet milk of Isis' breast, but once they are across the Nile we are truly finished.'

  Perhaps the goddess heard him call her name, for at that moment I felt the wind that had blown so long into our faces veer. Tanus felt it also. He spun on his heel and roared an order to his officers on the poop-deck.

  "The wind turns fair. Make a general signal to the fleet. Set all sail. Relieve the men at the oars every hour by the water-clock. Drummers, increase the beat to flank speed. Make all haste southwards.'

  The wind settled strongly into the north. Our sails filled and stiffened like the bellies of pregnant women. The drums gave the rowers the stroke, and we breasted the flow of the river as the whole battle-fleet raced southwards.

  'All thanks to the goddess for this wind,' Tanus shouted. 'Divine Isis, let us be in time to catch them on the water.'

  THE STATE BARGE WAS SLOW AND UNGAINLY. She began falling astern of the fleet. It seemed that the fates has intervened once more, for Tanus' old galley that he had loved so well, the Breath ofHorus, was sailing close to us in the formation.

  She was under a new captain now, but she was still a formidable little vessel, built for speed and attack. The sharp bronze ramming-horn protruded from her bows, just above the water line. Tanus hailed her alongside the barge and transferred his Blue Crocodile standard into her, taking over the command from her new captain.

  My place was with my mistress and the prince. I am not certain how I found myself on board the Breath ofHorus, standing on the poop beside Tanus, as we tore along upstream. Sometimes I am guilty of folly almost as monumental as that recently demonstrated by Lord Nembet. I remember only that as soon as the state barge began to fall away astern, I began bitterly to regret my impetuosity. I thought of telling Tanus that I had changed my mind, and asking him to put about and drop me once more on the deck of the barge. But after one glance at his face, I decided that I would rather face the Hyksos again.

  From the deck of the Breath of Horus, Tanus issued his orders. By flag and voice-hail, they were passed from vessel to vessel. Without slackening the pace of our advance, Tanus redeployed the fleet. He gathered up the galleys around him, as he forged his way to the head of the flotilla.

  The wounded and those no longer fit to fight were transferred to the slower vessels which fell back to keep pace with the state barge. The faster galleys in the van were cleared for action. They were manned mostly by Remrem's fresh troops whom we had relieved from the siege of Asyut. They were spoiling for a chance to avenge the disgrace of Abnub. Tanus hoisted the Blue Crocodile standard at his masthead of the Breath of Horus, and they roared with the lust of battle. How swiftly he had been able to stiffen their spirit since that bloody defeat!

  The signs of Nembet's recent catastrophe became ever more obvious with each league that we covered. The corpses and wreckage and all the flotsam of war were stranded in the papyrus beds on each side of the river. Then, at last, in the sky ahead of us we saw once again the dust of the chariots mingling with the smoke from the cooking-fires of the Hyksos camp.

  'It is as I had hoped,' Tanus exulted. 'They have halted their headlong advance on Thebes, now that Nembet has presented them with the means of crossing the river. But they are not sailors, and they will have difficulty embarking their men and chariots. If Horus is kind, we will arrive in time to help them on their way.'

  In extended battle order we swept around the last wide bend of the river, and we found the Hyksos before us. By one of those happy freaks of war, we had arrived precisely at the moment that they were fully committed to the crossing of the Nile.

  There were the fifty captured galleys straggling across the river in the most lubberly fashion. The sails and sheets were in a tangle and every oarsman was keeping his own stroke. The paddles were splashing and crab-catching. The steering of each vessel was shaky and erratic, completely out of phase with the ships around it.

  We could see that most of the Hyksos manning the decks were in full bronze armour. Clearly they had not realized just how difficult it is to swim in that state of dress. They stared at us in consternation as we bore down upon them. Now at last the roles were reversed. We were in our element, and they were flying in the wind like a torn sail.

  I had a few moments to study the enemy, as we closed. The vast bulk of the Hyksos army was still upon the east bank. They had gone into bivouac, and they were so numerous that their encampment stretched away to the foothills of the desert, as far as I could see from the deck of the Breath of Horus.

  King Salitis was sending only a small force across the river. Almost certainly they were under orders to race down the west bank and to capture the funerary temple of Pharaoh Mamose, before we were able to remove the treasure.

  We bore down rapidly on the convoy of Hyksos ships, and I shouted to Tanus above the beat of the drums and the bloodthirsty cheers of our rascals, "They have taken their horses across already. Look over there!'

  Almost unprotected, except for a few armed guards, there was a huge herd of these terrible animals gathered on the west bank. I guessed there were several hundred of them; even at this distance, we could make out their long, flowing manes and tails streaming in the strong north wind. They were a disturbing sight to us. Some of the men around me shuddered and swore with loathing of them. I heard one of them mutter darkly, 'The Hyksos feed those monsters of theirs on human flesh, like tame lions or jackals. That is the reason for this slaughter. They must have food for them. We can only guess how many of our comrades are already in their bellies.'

  I could not contradict him, and I even had a queasy feeling in my guts that he might be speaking the truth. I turned my attention from those beautiful but gory monsters to the galleys in the stream ahead of us.

  'We have caught them taking the chariots and the men over,' I pointed out to Tanus. The decks of Nembet's captured vessels were piled high with chariots and equipment, and crowded with the Hyksos charioteers who were being ferried across. As they realized their predicament, some of the Hyksos tried to turn and run back for the east bank. They collided with the ships that followed them, and locked together, they drifted helplessly on the current.

  Tanus laughed savagely to see their confusion, and shouted into the wind, 'General signal. Increase the beat to attack speed. Light the fire-arrows.'

  The Hyksos had never experienced an attack with fire-arrows, and at the thought of what was coming, I laughed with Tanus, but nervously. Then suddenly I stiffened and my laughter choked off.

  !Tanus!' I seized his arm. 'Look! Look at the galley dead ahead! On the poop. There is our traitor.'

  For a moment Tanus did not recognize the tall, stately figure at the rail of the galley, for he wore fish-scale armour and a tall Hyksos war helmet. Then abruptly he roared with anger and outrage, 'Intef! Why did we not guess it was him?'

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p; 'I see it so clearly now. He has guided Salitis to this very Egypt. He went east and deliberately tempted the Hyksos with accounts of the treasures of Egypt.' My outrage and hatred matched those of Tanus.

  Tanus threw up the bow Lanata and loosed an arrow, but the range was long and the point glanced off Lord Intef's armour. I saw his head jerk round at the shock, and he looked across the water directly at us. He singled us out, Tanus and myself, and for a moment I thought I saw fear in his eyes. Then he ducked out of sight below the gunwale of the galley.

  Our leading squadron flew into the pack of confused and milling shipping. With a tearing crunch, our bronze ramming-horn struck Intef's galley amidships, and I was thrown off my feet by the impact. When I struggled up again, the oarsmen had already backed water, and with another rending screech of timbers we disengaged from the stricken ship.

  At the same time, our archers were pouring a heavy rain of fire-arrows into her. The heads were bound with pitch-soaked papyrus stems that burned like comets, each leaving a trail of sparks and smoke as they flew into the sails and top hamper. The north wind fanned the flames and they leaped up the rigging with a fiendish exuberance.

  The waters flooded in through the gaping hole we had ripped in her belly, and she listed over sharply. The sails caught fire and burned with startling rapidity. The heat singed my eyelashes even at that distance. The heavy mainsail, burning fiercely, fluttered down over the deck, trapping the crew and crowded charioteers beneath it. Their screams shrilled in our ears as their hair and clothing burst into flames. I remembered the plain at Abnub and felt no pity as they leaped in flames from the ship's side and were drawn under by the weight of their armour. Only a swirl of ripples and a lingering puff of steam marked where each of them had disappeared.

  All down the line, the Hyksos galleys were burning and sinking. They had neither the experience nor the skill to counter our attack, and they were as helpless as we had been before the assault of their chariots. Our ships backed off and charged again, crushing in their hulls and sending torrents of flaming arrows into them.