by Wilbur Smith
By the second day we all knew that we had lost the way, and that we were wandering aimlessly. I was certain that we were doomed to die in these terrible mountains. Then we heard the river and, as we topped the next saddle between peaks, we found the infant Nile winding through the depths of the gorge below us. That was not all. On the banks of the river we saw a collection of coloured tents, and amongst them moved the shapes of men.
‘Civilized men,’ I said immediately, ‘for those tents must be of woven cloth.’
‘And those are horses,’ Memnon agreed eagerly, pointing out the animals tethered on the lines beyond the encampment.
‘There!’ Tanus pointed. ‘That was the flash of sunlight off a sword-blade or a spear-head. They are metal-workers.’
‘We must find out who these people are.’ I was fascinated by what tribe could live in such an inhospitable land.
‘We will get our throats cut,’ Tanus growled. ‘What makes you believe these mountaineers are not as savage as the land in which they live?’ Only later would we come to know these people as Ethiopians.
‘Those are magnificent horses,’ Memnon whispered. ‘Our own are not so tall, or so sturdy. We must go down and study them.’ The prince was a horseman above all else.
‘Lord Tanus is right.’ His warning had aroused my usual prudent nature, and I was ready to counsel caution. ‘These might be dangerous savages, with but the trappings of civilized men.’
We sat upon the shoulder of the mountain and debated for a while longer, but in the end curiosity got the better of all three of us and we crept down through one of the ravines to spy upon these strangers.
As we drew closer, we saw that they were tall, well-built people, probably more robust in stature than we Egyptians are. Their hair was thick and dark and curled profusely. The men were bearded, and we are clean-shaven. They wore full-length robes, probably woven of wool, and brightly coloured. We go bare-chested and our kilts are usually pure white in colour. They wore soft leather boots, as opposed to our sandals, and a bright cloth wound around their heads.
The women we saw working amongst the tents were unveiled and cheerful. They sang and called to each other in a language I had never heard before, but their voices were melodious as they drew water, or squatted over the cooking-fires, or ground corn on the millstones.
One group of men was playing a board-game that, from where I hid, looked very much like bao. They were wagering and arguing over the play of the stones. At one stage, two of them leapt to their feet and drew curved daggers from their belts. They confronted each other snarling and hissing, like a pair of angry tom-cats.
At that stage a third man, who had been sitting alone, rose to his feet and stretched, like a lazy leopard. He sauntered across and, with his sword, knocked up the daggers. Immediately the two protagonists subsided and slunk away.
The peace-maker was clearly the chief of the party. He was a tall man, with the wiry frame of a mountain goat. He was goat-like in other ways. His beard was as long and thick as that of an ibex ram, and his features were coarse and goaty; he had a heavy, hooked nose and a wide mouth with a cruel slant to it. I thought that he probably stank like one of the old rams that Tanus had shot from the cliff-face.
Suddenly I felt Tanus grip my arm, and he whispered in my ear, ‘Look at that!’
This chieftain wore the richest apparel of any of them. His robe was striped in scarlet and blue and his earrings were stones that glowed like the full moon. But I could not see what had excited Tanus.
‘His sword,’ Tanus hissed. ‘Look at his sword.’
I studied it for the first time. It was longer than one of our weapons and the pommel was obviously of pure gold filigree-work, of a delicacy that I had never seen before. The hand-guard was studded with precious stones. It was a masterpiece that clearly had occupied some master craftsman his lifetime.
This was not what had captured Tanus’ attention, however. It was the blade. As long as the chief’s own arm, it was made of a metal that was neither yellow bronze nor red copper. In colour it was a strange silvery glittering blue, like the living scales of a Nile perch taken fresh from the river. It was inlaid with gold, as if to highlight its unique value.
‘What is it?’ Tanus breathed. ‘What metal is that?’
‘I do not know.’
The chief resumed his seat in front of his tent, but now he laid the sword across his lap, and, with a phallus-shaped piece of volcanic rock, began lovingly to stroke the edge of the blade. The metal emitted a ringing thrill of sound to each touch of the stone. No bronze ever resounded like that. It was the purr of a resting lion.
‘I want it,’ Tanus whispered. ‘I will never rest until I have that sword.’
I gave him a startled glance, for I had never heard such a tone in his voice. I saw that he meant what he said. He was a man struck with a sudden overpowering passion.
‘We cannot remain here longer,’ I told him softly. ‘We will be discovered.’ I took his arm, but he resisted. He was staring at the weapon.
‘Let us go to look at their horses,’ I insisted, and at last he allowed me to draw him away. I led Memnon by the other hand. At a safe distance we circled the camp, and crept back towards the horse-lines.
When I saw the horses close up, I was struck with a passion as fierce as Tanus had conceived for the blue sword. These were a different breed from our Hyksos horses. They were taller and more elegantly proportioned. Their heads were noble and their nostrils wider. I knew those nostrils were the mark of stamina and good wind. Their eyes were situated further forward in the skull and were more prominent than those of our animals. They were great soft eyes, shining with intelligence.
‘They are beautiful,’ whispered Memnon at my side. ‘Look at the way they hold their heads and arch their necks.’
Tanus longed for the sword, we coveted the horses with a passion that equalled his.
‘Just one stallion like that to put to our mares,’ I pleaded to any god who was listening. ‘I would exchange my hope of eternal life for a single one.’
One of the foreign grooms glanced in our direction, then said something to the fellow beside him and began to walk in our direction. This time I had no need to insist, and all three of us ducked down behind the boulder that sheltered us and crawled away. We found a secure hiding-place further down-river, amongst a tumbled heap of boulders, and immediately launched into one of those discussions in which all spoke together and none listened.
‘I will go in and offer him a thousand deben of gold,’ Tanus swore, ‘I must have that sword.’
‘He would kill you first. Did you not see him stroke it as though it was his first-born son?’
‘Those horses!’ marvelled Memnon. ‘I never dreamed of such beauty. Horus must have beasts like that to draw his chariot.’
‘Did you see those two fly at each other?’ I cautioned. ‘They are savage men, and bloodthirsty. They would rip out your guts before you opened your mouth to utter a word. Besides, what do you have to offer in return? They will see we are destitute beggars.’
‘We could steal three of their stallions tonight and ride them down on to the plain,’ Memnon suggested, and though the idea had appeal, I told him sternly, ‘You are the crown prince of Egypt, not a common thief.’
He grinned at me. ‘For one of those horses, I would cut throats like the worst footpad in Thebes.’
As we debated thus, we were suddenly aware of the sound of voices approaching along the river-bank from the direction of the foreign camp. We looked about for better concealment and hid away.
The voices drew closer. A party of women came into view and they stopped below us at the water’s edge. There were three older women, and a girl. The women wore robes of a drab hue, and cloths of black around their hair. I thought that they were servants or nursemaids. It did not occur to me then that they were gaolers, for they treated the girl with unusual deference.
The girl was tall and slim, so that when she walked, she moved like a
papyrus stem in the Nile breeze. She wore a short robe of rich wool, striped in yellow and sky blue, which left her knees bared. Though she wore short boots of soft stitched leather, I could see that her legs were lithe and smooth.
The women stopped below our hiding-place, and one of the older women began to disrobe the girl. The other two filled the clay jars that they had carried down on their heads with water from the Nile. The river was still swollen with flood-water. No one could safely enter that icy torrent. It was clear that they intended bathing the girl from the jars.
One of the women lifted the girl’s robe over her head and she stood naked at the water’s edge. I heard Memnon gasp. I looked at him and saw that he had forgotten entirely about stealing horses.
While two of the women poured the water from the jars over the girl, the third woman wiped her down with a folded cloth. The girl held her hands above her head and circled slowly to allow them to wet every part of her body. She laughed and squealed at the cold, and I saw tiny goose-bumps rise around her nipples, which were the rich ruby of polished garnets, mounted like jewels on the peak of each smooth, round breast.
Her hair was a dark bush of tight curls, her skin was the colour of the heart-wood of the acacia, when it has been buffed and oiled to a high patina. It was a rich, ruddy brown, that glowed in the high sunlight of the mountains.
Her features were delicate, her nose narrow and chiselled. Her lips were soft and full, but without any thickness. Her eyes were large and dark, slanted above high cheek-bones. Her lashes were so thick that they tangled together. She was beautiful. I have only known one other woman who was more so.
Suddenly she said something to the women with her. They stood aside, and she left them and climbed on those long naked legs towards us. But before she reached our hiding-place, she stepped behind a boulder that shielded her from her companions, but left her full in our view. She glanced around quickly, but did not see us. The cold water must have affected her, for she squatted quickly and her own water tinkled on the rock beneath her.
Memnon groaned softly. It was instinctive, not intentional, a sound of longing so intense as to have become agony. The girl sprang to her feet and stared directly at him. Memnon was standing a little to one side of Tanus and me. While we were concealed, he was full in her view.
The two of them stared at each other. The girl was trembling, her dark eyes enormous. I expected her to run or scream. Instead, she looked back over her shoulder in a conspiratorial gesture, as if to make certain that the women had not followed her. Then she turned back to Memnon and, in a soft sweet voice, asked a question, at the same time holding out her hand to him in a gesture of appeal.
‘I do not understand,’ Memnon whispered, and spread his own hands in a gesture of incomprehension.
The girl stepped up to him and repeated the question impatiently, and when Memnon shook his head, she seized his hand and shook it. In her agitation, her voice rose as she demanded something of him.
‘Masara!’ One of her attendants had heard her. ‘Masara!’ It was obviously the girl’s name, for she made a gesture of silence and caution to Memnon and turned to go back.
However, the three women had all started up the slope after Masara. They were chattering with alarm and agitation, and they came round the side of the boulder in a pack and stopped when they saw Memnon.
For a moment nobody moved, and then all three women screamed in unison. The naked girl seemed poised to run to Memnon’s side, but as she started forward, two of the women seized her; all four of them were screaming now, as the girl struggled to be free.
‘Time to go home,’ Tanus jerked my arm, and I was after him in a bound.
From the direction of the camp came the shouts of many men aroused by the screams of the women. When I paused to look back, I saw them coming over the ridge in a body. I saw also that Memnon had not followed us, but had leaped forward to the girl’s assistance.
They were all big women and held the girl hard, redoubling their screams. Although Masara was trying desperately to pull free, Memnon could not get her away from them.
‘Tanus!’ I yelled. ‘Memnon is in trouble.’
We turned back and between us grabbed him and hauled him away. He came reluctantly. ‘I will come back for you,’ he shouted to the girl, looking back over his shoulder as we ran with him between us. ‘Be brave. I will come back for you.’
When somebody tells me nowadays that there is no such thing as love at first sight, I smile quietly to myself and think of the day that Memnon first saw Masara.
We had lost time in the struggle to get Memnon away, and our pursuers were already pressing us hard as we took to one of the goat-tracks and ran for the crest of the slope. An arrow flitted past Memnon’s shoulder and clattered against the rocks beside the path. It spurred us to greater speed.
We were in single file along the narrow path. Memnon led us and Tanus followed him. I was last in the file, and, burdened by the heavy medicine chest on my back, I began to fall further behind. Another arrow passed over our heads, and then the third struck the pack on my back with a force that made me stagger. But the chest stopped the arrow that would otherwise have transfixed my body.
‘Come on, Taita,’ Tanus shouted back at me. ‘Throw off that cursed box of yours, or they will have you.’
He and Memnon were fifty paces ahead of me and drawing away, but I could not discard my precious chest. At that moment the next arrow struck, and this time I was not so fortunate. It hit me in the leg, in the fleshy part of the thigh, and I went tumbling across the path and fell hard.
I rolled into a sitting position and looked with horror at the reed shaft of the arrow that protruded from my leg. Then I looked back at our pursuers. The bearded chieftain in the striped robe led them, and he had outdistanced his own men by a hundred paces. He was coming up the track in a series of great elastic bounds, covering the ground as swiftly as one of the ibex rams that he resembled in so many other ways.
‘Taita!’ Tanus called back at me. ‘Are you all right?’ He had paused on the brow of the slope, and was looking back anxiously. Memnon had crossed over and was out of sight.
‘I am arrowed!’ I yelled back. ‘Go on and leave me. I cannot follow.’
Without a moment’s hesitation, Tanus turned back, and came leaping down towards where I lay. The Ethiopian chieftain saw him coming and bellowed a challenge. He drew the glittering blue sword and brandished it as he came on up the hillside.
Tanus reached the spot where I sat, and tried to lift me to my feet. ‘It’s no use. I am hard hit. Save yourself,’ I told him, but the Ethiopian was almost upon us. Tanus dropped my arm, and drew his own sword.
The two of them came together, going for each other in a murderous rush. I was not in any doubt as to the outcome of this duel, for Tanus was the strongest and most skilled swordsman in all Egypt. When he killed the Ethiopian, we would all be doomed, for we could expect no mercy from his henchmen.
The Ethiopian swung first with a full-blooded overhand cut at Tanus’ head. It was an imprudent stroke to aim at a swordsman of his opponent’s calibre. I knew that Tanus’ response would be a parry in the line of the head and a natural riposte, with all the momentum of his shoulder behind it, that would drive the point through the chieftain’s beard and into his throat. It was one of Tanus’ favourite strokes.
The two blades met, but there was no ringing clash. The blue blade hacked clean through Tanus’ yellow bronze, as though it were a wand of green willow. Tanus was left with the hilt in his hand and a finger’s-length remaining from that once long and deadly bronze blade.
Tanus was stunned by the ease with which the Ethiopian had disarmed him, and he was slow to defend himself from the next stroke that followed like a thunderbolt. He leaped backwards just in time, but the blue point opened a long, shallow cut across the bulging muscles of his naked chest, and the blood came swiftly.
‘Run, Tanus!’ I screamed. ‘Or he will kill us both.’
The Ethi
opian went for him again, but I was lying in the middle of the narrow path. He was forced to leap over me to get at Tanus. I seized him around the knees with both arms, and brought him down on top of me in a snarling, thrashing heap.
The Ethiopian was trying to drive the point of the blue sword into my belly, as I lay under him, and I twisted so violently aside that both of us rolled off the path and began to slide away down the steep slope of loose scree. As we rolled more swiftly, gathering momentum, I had one last glimpse of Tanus peering down over the edge of the path, and I screamed in a despairing wail, ‘Run! Take care of Memnon!’
The shale and loose scree were as treacherous as swamp quicksands, and gave no anchor or purchase. The Ethiopian and I were flung apart, but both of us were carried to the edge of the torrent. I was battered and hammered to the edge of consciousness, and lay there groaning until rough hands dragged me to my feet, and blows and harsh curses rained upon my head.
The chieftain stopped them from killing me and throwing my body into the river. He was covered with dust, as I was, and his robe was torn and filthy from the fall, but the blue sword was still gripped in his right fist and he snarled at his men. They began to drag me away towards the encampment, but I looked around me desperately and saw my medicine chest amongst the rocks. The leather harness had snapped, and it had come off my back.
‘Bring that,’ I ordered my captors with as much force and dignity as I could muster, and pointed to the chest. They laughed at my insolence, but the chieftain sent one of his men to retrieve it.
Two men were obliged to support me, for the shaft in my thigh was beginning to cause me crippling pain. Every pace back to the camp was agony, and when they reached it, they threw me roughly to the ground in the open space in the centre of the ring of tents.
Then they argued long and fiercely. It was obvious that they were puzzling over my origins and my motives, and trying to decide what they should do with me. Every once in a while, one of them would stand over me and kick me in the ribs, while he shouted questions at me. I lay as quietly as I could, so as not to provoke further violence.