by Howard Fast
[8]
WHEN NUN WOULD ask him, “Master, when will we leave this place?” Moses would say tomorrow or the day after tomorrow; there was always time; but time was different here. These were not a people who were acutely aware of time; they kept no track of hours, days, weeks, years; the calendar was a mystery to them, and unlike the Egyptians, they did not split their days into endless and specified routine. Hour blended into hour and day into day; time was imperceptible and friendly, and like a balm it eased Moses’ soul. Sometimes for hours he lay on his back in the grass, watching the white, woolly clouds scudding and tumbling across the sky. There were no clouds in Egypt’s sky and no cool rain such as fell here. The soreness went out of his spirit, and the hard lines in his face relaxed into youthfulness again. He stayed and dreamed—and the only tug and tie was the white house on the cliff above the cataract. But tomorrow would still be time enough.
“I promised to hunt the elephant with them,” he told Nun. They had stalked lion the week before, bringing down a male and two females. The death of a lion was an occasion for rejoicing. And Nun was not hard-set against persuasion. With his acute ear, he was already managing a word or two of the language, and the young women were fascinated by his black beard and his braided hair. Where Moses was, he was content to be, and if he had anxieties at times over a place where no gods held sway, it was at the same time a relief to be away from them and not to think of his betrayal of Nehushtan, the serpent.
Any strangers would have been held holy to these people, but Moses and Nun won their hearts with their easy openness and simple delight in the black men’s way of living. Only with such a people—people who could neither conceive nor understand the notion of a prince or royalty—could Moses cease to be in any part a prince. When he sat and talked with Doogana, the old man chuckled with approval and observed that this was hardly the same man who had come to them. The magic of life, he pointed out, was not the least potent magic. Birth and manners meant little here—where all folk were loved for themselves. “Stay with us,” Doogana urged him. “Our women are strong for childbearing and our land is a good land. I will teach you all the secrets I know of the art of medicine and all the fakery I know of the art of witchcraft. And we will talk of all the mysteries in life.” But Moses answered that tomorrow or the next day, he must leave. Thus, too, did he answer the seven mothers, old, toothless, gentle women who were all the government the tribe needed. The game herds had increased since he and Nun arrived. What totem or clan was his, that he brought them such good fortune? Doogana interpreted for them, and explained to Moses that they were simple people and very much concerned with food for the tribe. These were times of plenty, but there were also times of want.
“Tomorrow, we must go,” Moses said.
He and Nun went on the elephant hunt, and both cast their war javelins in the target. When the mighty tusker went down, the javelins of the strangers had to be cut out with the butchering, for both were buried entirely in the beast’s flesh. They were heroes and great hunters, and that night at the elephant dance, they bared their backs to the symbolic whip of the dancer who wore the elephant mask. Ten light strokes did each receive—and thus the high honour of the hunt—the symbolic repentance of the elephant-slayer.
“We have stayed too long,” Moses began to say.
On his Kushite stave, the notches were cut from end to end, and more than one row. Eighty-two notches marked their stay with these people, and when they left, the people turned their backs so that their weeping might not be seen. Nor were Moses and Nun dry-eyed, for they knew that this leave-taking was for ever.
Doogana embraced Moses, the old man’s eyes wet with emotion. “I think,” he said, “that I have been living and waiting for you, my son, and now that you are leaving, I am not long for this earth. May your cruel gods be kind to you and take pity, for you will gather wisdom and humility with the years, and neither is beloved of your kings or your gods.” To Nun he gave a little bag of powder, telling him that it was to be mixed in water and drunk immediately if either of them suffered snake bite on their journey. “As for a road, follow the stream where it flows from the pool under the high cliff, and though it turn in this direction and that, never leave it, for in good time it will bring you to the River Nile and the Land of Kush. As for your master, watch over him and let his life be your life, for men like him are not many. He is full of pain and hope, and all his life these two will war inside of him. Understand this! And for all that you are an ugly, hairy Bedouin savage, I think you are not a fool. Respect his size and strength and wisdom, but do not be misled by them. He is a simple person.”
“I do not like you, old. man,” Nun nodded, “for I was always afraid of your spells and magic, but I think that feeling will change when I am out of the reach of your witchcraft. As you somehow knew, I am blood brother to this prince of Egypt, and I will give away my own life before I see harm come to him.”
So they left Doogana and his people and the beautiful table-land where they lived, and turned once more to the ravines and the wasteland. Moses marked their passage on his staff, and when the three hundred and eleventh notch was cut, they saw the walls of the City of Kush before them once again.
[9]
MOSES WAS PAST the time when he could wait on his homegoing with any equanimity or patience. He and Nun appeared as from the dead at a time when Sokar-Moses, who had left for Tanis some months ago, was not expected back for another sixty days. Moses would not discuss their exploration with anyone else, but Nun had a loose tongue and soon the Host was full of their adventures. Moses faced each day like an enemy, and the stagnant process of waiting for the return of the Captain of Hosts seemed to him the most difficult thing he had yet endured.
With three long years of war and exile between himself and Merit-Aton, it had been possible to make love a dream of an indefinite future; but now that he had passed his twenty-first year and the service of three years was almost finished, he felt as if he could stretch out his arms and touch her. He had lain with no woman in that time—his dream was too pure and fulfilling; now the heat of desire burned like fire and he told himself that he would wait sixty days for Sokar-Moses and no more—and then let any man stop him.
It was two days less than the sixty that Sokar-Moses had specified—he was a rigid and punctual man—and though he was surprised to see Moses alive, he passed it off with the studied air of one who considers such a journey routine. Even the fact that Nun and Moses had reached two separate sources of the River Nile did not impress him greatly, and he reminded Moses that the legendary source, the lake as wide as an ocean where the Nile was said to have its birth, had evaded them. So deliberately insolent was his manner that Moses could have exploded with rage, had he not fixed his mind on one thing—to go home. From this he would not be diverted.
“If you had discovered the golden city and could bring that knowledge to the God-King—”
“There is no golden city, which you know as well as I do,” Moses said flatly. If Sokar-Moses was different from what he had been, then so was the Prince of Egypt, and the Captain of Hosts was none too certain of himself, facing this tall, dry and competent young man. It was one thing for the God-King to indicate that he would be better pleased if the prince remained in Kush; it was another matter to keep Moses there. Sokar-Moses had heard the persistent rumours that this was the issue of Ramses’ seed in his own sister, Enekhas-Amon, and if that was so, then Moses was the closest heir to the throne. Ramses would not live for ever, and he, Sokar-Moses, was still young enough to think about the future. The Captain of Hosts decided to press the matter to a point and no further, and he raised with Moses the question of his term of service.
“Here is my service,” Moses answered, holding out his staff with the three hundred and eleven notches of their journey. “Long before I reach the Delta, my three years and more will be done. Will you put me in chains to keep me here?”
“And if I did?” Sokar-Moses asked, feeling for his ground.
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“Then my servant Nun and I would draw our swords and you would pay a price. You would also have to explain a good deal to Ramses, for the blood of the Great House is not shed so thoughtlessly.”
Sokar-Moses smiled and relaxed, making it clear that a jest is a jest. He wanted Moses to have nothing but the best memories of their association; and when Moses indicated that he would leave the following day, he did not try to dissuade him. Then they talked of Moses’ great journey and of the situation at the Delta. At home, nothing had changed significantly. It was a time of peace and plenty, and the engineer Neph was currently engaged in rearing a colossal stone figure of Ramses that would be one of the wonders of the world. All Egypt was talking about it. It would rival the Sphinx and, once constructed, it would stand for ever. As a matter of fact, even now Neph himself was scouring villages around Abydos to find a particular limestone without which the work could not proceed. What else? Well, a slave-trader had brought Ramses three slant-eyed, yellow-skinned women from the mysterious land at the end of the earth where silk was woven. The God-King was delighted with these new women, who were kept on a diet of aphrodisiacs and who graced his bed every night to the exclusion of all others. He, Sokar-Moses, had seen the women at a reception, and he thought them rather skinny and flat-breasted.
Listening to him, Moses was filled with nostalgia—brought on chiefly by the mention of Neph’s name. He could well imagine Neph’s contempt for the creation of a giant stone figure that would endure for ever. How much more rewarding must have been the white house of Aton-Moses, and he had to ask Sokar-Moses whether he had paused there either going or coming. The Captain of Hosts shook his head, putting aside the question and it was plain to Moses that without the protection of Seti-Keph, he would not pursue further acquaintance with the physician. Had he heard anything of the family of Aton-Moses? There again, nothing.
The following day, Moses and Nun left Kush to return to Egypt. Since the journey was downstream, they decided to travel in one of the dugout canoes that the Kushites used, and while this would not hasten their journey—they would have to drag the boat overland during the stretches of cataract—it would make it easier and surely no longer. Most of his baggage and clothes Moses left behind, giving away their belongings to men in the army; he kept only an extra kilt and his princely jewels and trappings-as a gift for Merit-Aton. They loaded the canoe with bread and their weapons, pushed off into the river, and swirled downstream, leaving Kush behind them.
They were both of them in high spirits, laughing like two boys on an outing, almost capsizing a dozen times until they learned the trick of balance and the use of the paddles. Nun was a child in his delight, remarking that he had never dreamed he would be this eager to see the Delta again. And Moses, throwing off all the burden of doubt and uncertainty, talked for hours about Merit-Aton, her family, and of the life they would have together.
So they went down the river—days and days of the kind of joy and freedom neither of them had known before. Time raced with them, now that they were in motion homeward, and Moses did not count the days. It came almost as a surprise one morning to see the white house on the cliff above the river, its walls shining in the light of the rising sun.
[10]
AS THEY STOOD in the shallow, rushing water of the river’s edge, cleaning and grooming each other, they guessed at the time that had elapsed since they first left Egypt—but no matter how they tried, they could not draw it finer than thirty days or so. They knew it to be more than three years because the flood had ebbed more than on their outgoing; yet if they had wanted to find some gauge to measure themselves, they would have reckoned by change rather than time.
They had broken the barriers between them, and they knew each other now by motion and gesture, without words. They remained master and slave, but it was Nun who manipulated the distinction, sensitive to every mood and emotion that took hold of Moses. So that now, as it was fitting that the master should be princely and clean, it was necessary that the slave should be clad to serve him. Even as Nun brushed and combed the black mass of Moses’ hair, so did Moses braid the heavy plaits of the Bedouin’s hair. Even as Moses lay flat and motionless on the sand, that Nun might shave his face as smooth as a child’s, so did Moses trim Nun’s beard. It was the first time in all their association that they had meticulously groomed and dressed themselves for an occasion, and even Nun was caught up in the excitement and expectation of the moment.
The change in themselves was not anything they considered consciously, yet they were not unaware of it: Manhood in all its fullness had come to a prince and a slave in various islands of battle and wilderness and exile; now they were taking their maturity back to civilization. Moses let Nun bedeck him. For hours, Nun had polished every bit of gold and silver with a mixture of fat and ashes. The great golden collar lay high upon the massive chest of Moses and tight around his neck, and he recalled the time he had first worn it in the audience chamber, when it covered his shoulders and weighted him like the oppressive prescience of doom. This morning it lay lightly on the white scar-tissue of battle, and though all the rings and bracelets were commonplace to him, they seemed to Nun to make a wall between the two of them. The girdle of gold plates set with rubies that encircled his waist and held a tiny symbolic hammer of royalty would have bought the lives of a thousand like Nun. The Bedouin wore a striped Babylonian kilt of soft wool that Moses had purchased before they left Kush; and if as a slave he could not wear the royal colour of gold, the silver belt Moses had given him was the finest thing he had ever put on. Yet it accented rather than lessened their difference.
It was still before noon when they finished their preparations. They left the dugout high on the bank. Moses went without weapons, for even a dagger would have marred him today, and Nun wore only belt weapons, sword and dagger. Thus did they set put for the white house, high on the cliff and a good distance from where they had halted.
As they climbed the escarpment they lost sight of the house, nor did they see it again until they were almost upon it; but first they saw the little temple where Merit-Aton’s mother worshipped. She would worship there no more. Stone from stone, the temple was violated and it lay as a ruin of anger and violence. Moses and Nun approached it slowly and neither spoke, but in Nun’s thoughts the gods of Kush had been here. The bodies of two children who must have fled to the temple for shelter lay there, the children of the houseslaves, and on the little bodies the flesh was dry as leather.
Moses looked at Nun wildly and wordlessly, his eyes full of fear, and Nun was afraid to speak. The house was still ahead of them, but close as they were now, they saw its ruin. All the vegetation had withered for want of irrigation; there was rubble around the house; one wall had been broken down and fire had raged through the outhouses at the back. The verandah was littered with rubble and dirt, and there had been no rain to wash away the black mark of blood.
“Master, stay here and let me look,” Nun pleaded, but Moses heard nothing. They found the doctor first, a body without a head; the head had been taken away to make embalming impossible, but not so with the women. Merit-Aton lay in the sand on her face, a long Kushite spear still in her back, pinning to earth the sand- and sundried thing that had been her body, as if still screaming, “So did ye to the women of Kush!” Thus had she lain there, even as the shrivelled remains of her mother lay huddled beside the verandah.
It was Nun who dug the sand and buried the bodies. Moses stood on the verandah without moving or speaking, and finally Nun had to take him by the hand and lead him away. “They will not change in the sand, master,” he explained, “and you can make arrangements at Karnak for the embalming. More than two years do I reckon they have been dead. Let your grief out, master—let it out.” But Moses remained mute and heard nothing.
[11]
IT WAS THE engineer Neph who, much later, out of his wisdom and sympathy said to Moses, “Did you slay her then? For life and death are a coming and going that we are never far from, and unl
ess one can look at death, he cannot look at life either.” “I slew her,” Moses answered—and to that Neph said flatly that Kush had slain Aton-Moses and his family. Kush was mortally hurt. “So all that bore the name Egypt was a target for Kush, and we ride a wheel of war that we turn like terrible and foolish children.” But that was nearly a month afterward, when Moses came to see Neph again.
To Karnak down the River Nile, he was silent, but Nun could see the hurt and guilt swelling and festering inside him. He spoke a word or two when he had to speak, but no more, and they made the passage in silence, divested of every joy.
Once they were in Karnak, he gave Nun some of his jewels to sell to pay for funerary services. But before Nun returned up the river, he attended to a mission of his own. He was quite insistent about this—certainly his master was in no state to pay much attention to a sudden purpose on the part of his slave—and only when he was sure it was accomplished did Nun embark with the embalmers.
Moses was not entirely clear as to his own motives for proceeding with the embalming. Long ago, it seemed to him, he had divested himself of any real belief in the mumbo jumbo of tomb and body and ka and afterlife, yet the ritualized memories of childhood remained. It had even occurred to him that once Nun departed with the embalmers, he would know some peace; but instead grief and anxiety and guilt filled his mind.
In the riverside tavern where they had found lodgings, he began the process of drowning his misery in wine. He sat on the common bench at the dirty wooden table and consumed mug after mug of the sour southern vintage. So far as the innkeeper and the fishermen, the boatmen and stevedores who frequented the tavern, knew, he was just another captain of chariots on his way back to Tanis from the conquered and occupied Land of Kush, and he was of such a size and appearance that no one bothered him. His white scar-traces, his stubble of beard and his great spread of shoulder invited neither companionship nor interference. He paid for his wine with the little plates of gold that he had broken off the royal neckpiece—the bulk of which he kept in his pouch—but all manner of gold came from Kush, and where gold was concerned, men were open-minded and understanding.