Desert God

by Wilbur Smith

  The depths of her despair cut me as deeply as the Jackal’s sword had wounded Zaras.

  In the time of the exodus when we Egyptians were driven from our homeland by the Hyksos invaders we escaped south through the cataracts of the Nile into remotest Africa. For many wandering years we survived in the wilderness, until we grew strong enough to return and win back our birthright. During that time I learned to know and understand the black tribes. They had strengths and special skills that I envied. I was particularly attracted to the Shilluk tribe, and I made many friends amongst them.

  One of these was an ancient medicine man named Umtaggas. Others of our company looked upon him as a primitive witch doctor who consorted with demons. They considered him to be barely one level above the wild animals that abounded in that far southern land. But I came to realize that he was a sage with a grasp of many things that eluded us interlopers from the north. He taught me more than I was able to teach him.

  When the weight of his years finally overwhelmed him and he was only days away from dying he pressed into my hands a leather bag of sun-dried black mushrooms of a type that I had never seen before. They were covered in a thick green mould. He cautioned me not to remove this mould, as it was an essential element of the medicine’s healing powers. Then he instructed me how to prepare from these fungi a draught which he warned me killed more often than it cured. I should employ it only when it was all that stood between my patient and the void.

  Over the years since the return to our very Egypt I have dared to use this infusion on only seven occasions. In each case my patient was moribund, with merely the weight of a sunbird’s feather preventing him from being tipped over the edge of eternity. Five of my patients expired almost as soon as the draught passed their lips. One struggled on the brink for ten days, slowly gaining ground all the time until the end came abruptly and unexpectedly.

  Only my seventh patient has survived the arrow through his lung and the evil humours that followed that wounding. He has grown strong again. He still lives in Thebes and each year on the anniversary of what he refers to as my miracle he comes to visit me with all his grandchildren.

  I know full well that one out of seven is hardly a score to boast about, but I could see that Zaras had about one hour of his life left to live, and Tehuti was looking at me with those huge reproachful eyes.

  There was less than a handful of the mouldy mushrooms remaining in the gazelle-skin bag. I boiled them in a copper pot of water until the juice was black and sticky. Then I allowed it to cool before I placed a wooden wedge in the corner of Zaras’ jaw to keep his mouth open while I spooned the concoction into him. I have tasted a drop of this elixir on only one previous occasion. It was an experiment which I have no intention of ever repeating.

  Zaras’ reaction to the taste accorded with mine. He fought so wildly that it took my six helpers and Tehuti to subdue him, and then he vomited up more than half of what I had forced him to swallow. I scraped up his returns and fed them to him a second time. Then I removed the wedge from between his jaws, and held his mouth closed until I was certain that my precious mushrooms remained below decks despite his repeated attempts to offload them once more.

  Then Tehuti and I wrapped him in saddle blankets and sent the others away. We sat one on each side of him and waited for him to die.

  By nightfall he seemed to have achieved this state. Despite the blankets his temperature had plummeted to that of a freshly netted catfish and his breathing was almost inaudible. The two of us took turns in placing an ear to his mouth to listen for it.

  A little after midnight when the moon had set Tehuti told me firmly, ‘He is cold as any corpse. I have to lie with him to keep him warm.’ She removed the bloodstained and ill-fitting clothes that I had collected for her from the carcasses of the Bedouin and climbed under the blanket with Zaras.

  Neither of us had slept for the last three days, but we did not sleep now, and we did not talk. There was nothing left for us to say to each other. We had given up hope.

  The graveyard hour came upon us: the darkest hour of the night. There was an aperture in the roof of our shelter where two blankets had been roughly joined. I looked up and saw that in it the great red wandering star, which we know is the eye of Seth, was perfectly framed.

  The evil god was looking in upon us. My spirit quailed. I knew that Zaras had lost the battle and that Seth had come to take him.

  Then a strange and wonderful thing happened. The light of the star was snuffed out in an instant. My heart jumped against my ribs. I could not fathom the omen, but I knew it must be good. I rose silently to my feet so as not to alarm Tehuti where she was huddled in the litter with Zaras. I ducked through the entrance to our shelter and I lifted my head to look up at the night sky.

  The entire firmament blazed with the glow of countless stars – except in the spot directly above my head where a moment earlier I had seen the red eye of Seth staring down at me. Now the eye had been obscured.

  A tiny dark cloud covered it. It was the only cloud in the sky. It was no larger than my fist, but the malignant god Seth had been blinded by it.

  Then I heard voices. They came not from the starry sky above me, but from the rude shelter which I had just left.

  ‘Where am I?’ whispered the voice of Zaras. ‘And why does my belly ache so abominably?’

  Then the voice I knew so well answered him immediately, ‘Don’t try and stand up, Zaras, you silly man. You must lie still. You have been sorely wounded.’

  ‘Princess Tehuti! You are in my bed.’ Zaras voice rose with shock and trepidation. ‘And you are without clothing. If Taita finds us like this he will kill the both of us.’

  ‘Not this time, Zaras,’ I assured him as I ducked back into the shelter with my heart singing, and knelt beside the litter on which the couple lay. ‘But the next time I will do so for certain.’

  As soon as the daylight was strong enough I examined Zaras minutely. His skin had cooled so that it was the same temperature as my hand. The vivid inflammation had faded from the punctures of the stitches I had placed in the great wound in his belly. I sniffed the scabs and they were clean.

  Zaras was thirsty and Tehuti brought him a large bowl of water. He drank it and asked for more. I was elated. This was a certain sign that he was on the mend. However, it was also a reminder that the water-skins were almost empty and that the nearest fresh water was at the cavern where we had left Bekatha and the rest of our company. We must start the return immediately.

  Although Zaras protested that he was able to walk, or at the very least to ride a camel, I ignored this bravado and I designed and assembled a drag litter for him. This was composed of two long lances with saddle-cloth stretched between them. This I attached to each side of a camel saddle with the tips of the lance poles dragging behind the beast. We laid Zaras on this stretcher.

  Tehuti insisted on riding on his camel. She sat facing backwards so she could watch over him. When the ground was uneven and rocky she jumped down and climbed into the litter with Zaras: to hold him and cushion him from being shaken too roughly.

  During the course of our journey she fussed over him and bullied him shamelessly; and although he protested I could tell he was revelling in her attentions.

  On the afternoon of the third day he insisted on climbing out of his litter and walking beside it for a short stretch; doubled over and hobbling along like an old man. He supported himself with one hand on the litter. Tehuti took his other arm to balance him and encourage him. She chattered to him, making silly little jokes and telling him what a clever boy he was. When she made him laugh he had to stop to clutch his belly with both hands, but that didn’t seem to place a limit on his capacity for mirth.

  When we stopped to rest I examined Zaras’ stitches anxiously, and was relieved to find that they were intact. I administered the last mouthful of the Red Sheppen which remained in the flask and he slept like an infant.

  On the following day he was stronger and he walked further and
faster. I knew that for him Tehuti’s company was more therapeutic than mine, so I moved forward to the vanguard of our column. Although I kept discreetly out of earshot, I was able to follow their conversation.

  Both of them were still totally oblivious to my skills as a lip-reader. So they spoke to each other without restraint. Some of their humour was ribald and indelicate for a young lady of such high birth. But I let them enjoy the moment for none of us knew when they might share another.

  There was one exchange between them that has stayed with me to this day, although they must have thought that they were the only persons in the world to have been party to it.

  The rate of our progress had been limited by Zaras’ condition, so our return to the Miyah Keiv was much slower than our pursuit of the Jackal and his gang of bandits had been. On the fifth day we had still not reached our destination. I had sent five fast camels ahead to fetch water for us, but they had still not yet returned. Almost all the water-skins were empty and we had very little food remaining. I had been obliged to reduce the daily ration to three small mugs of water and half a loaf of hard bread per man. Naturally this restriction did not apply to the princess. It was her royal right to eat and drink whatever she wished from our well-nigh exhausted stores. I kept a few items in reserve for her exclusive use: half a round of cheese and an even lesser amount of salted dry beef. However, despite my urging she refused to take advantage of my largesse, and she restricted herself to the general ration.

  Then on the evening of the fourth day I saw her surreptitiously slip a thick slice of the hard cheese and another of the dry beef from the sleeve of her robe and try to persuade Zaras to accept them.

  ‘You are wounded, Zaras. We must husband your strength.’

  ‘I am just a common soldier, Your Highness,’ he protested. ‘You are too condescending towards me. I am grateful for your kindness, but I am not at all hungry.’

  ‘Gallant Zaras.’ She spoke so softly and shyly that even I had difficulty reading her lips. ‘You saved my life, and almost sacrificed your own to do so. I would gladly give you anything you want from me.’ If her words were suggestive, then her expression was unambiguous

  My heart softened towards them. Their budding love was a beautiful thing to watch. I above all men knew that it must soon be overtaken and crushed by stern duty.

  So at last we reached the striated cliffs that towered above the Miyah Keiv, and those of our company who waited for us there came thronging to meet us. They surrounded us with shouts of joy, and prostrated themselves at the feet of Princess Tehuti. Then they lifted her high and carried her to where her sister Bekatha waited with Lord Remrem and Colonel Hui to welcome her.

  We feasted for three nights in succession. We killed three young camels and roasted their sweet flesh on the coals of fifty fires. Each evening Princess Tehuti ordered fifteen large amphorae of beer to be opened and distributed to all. I thought this was excessive, but nonetheless I supressed my scruples and sampled a mug or two of the brew. However, I paid more respect to the less abundant offerings of wine from the cellars of Pharaoh’s palace. I justified myself with the knowledge that this nectar would have been wasted on a rabble of unsophisticated soldiers.

  The court musicians played for us and the company danced and sang around the fires until the moon set. Then the royal princesses prevailed on me to sing, but I called upon Zaras to join me. I had been coaching him when I had the opportunity. I had been able to give his natural ability a lustre and sophistication which was only excelled by my own. When the two of us sang a duet the audience hardly dared breathe lest they miss a single exquisite note of it.

  I went to bed feeling rather pleased with myself. Within a very short space of time I had fallen asleep. I seldom sleep very deeply. My mind is too active and alert to allow for that form of indulgence.

  I awoke with the certainty that somebody had entered my tent with elaborate stealth, and in the complete darkness was hovering over my cot. I could hear his breathing, and I knew that for him to have evaded the sentries at the gates to the royal enclosure his intentions were evil and he must be a serious threat and menace.

  Without altering the pace of my own breathing or uttering the faintest untoward sound I reached for the dagger which always hangs in its special sheath at the head of my cot.

  The starlight was filtering through the cloth of my tent, and I have excellent night vision so I was able to make out the shape of the assassin’s head above me. I drew my dagger from its sheath with my right hand and at the same time I whipped my left arm around the villain’s neck in a strangle hold.

  ‘If you move I will kill you!’ I warned him and he squeaked like a young girl. Then I smelled the sweet milky odour of his breath and felt the unmistakable swells and hollows of his body that I had locked against my own.

  ‘Don’t kill me, Taita. It’s me, Bekatha! And I am already dying. I came to you to save me. I am bleeding to death. Please don’t let me die.’

  I released her with alacrity and jumped up from my cot. It took me only a minute to rekindle the wick of my oil lamp. By that time Bekatha was curled up on my cot, sobbing pitifully and holding her stomach. ‘It’s so sore, Taita. Please make the pain go away.’

  I took her tenderly in my arms. ‘Where is the bleeding, my little one?’

  ‘It’s bleeding between my legs. Please make it stop. I don’t want to die.’

  I groaned inwardly. So now I had to deal with not one but two little fillies in oestrus.

  Colonel Hui might soon have more to worry about other than simply ducking pellets of bread and dates thrown at him across the dinner table.

  We lingered at the Miyah Keiv while I waited for Zaras’ injuries to heal sufficiently to allow him to commence the last part of the journey to the Land of the Two Rivers and the city of Babylon. This would be the longer and most arduous leg, so I was determined not to take any risks with his health.

  It often surprises me how much punishment a young body can accept, and how swiftly it can recover. Despite the sword that only a few days previously the Jackal had driven up into his innards, and the fact that I had gutted him and then sewn him up again, Zaras acted as though he was in training for the annual athletic games that Pharaoh holds during the first week in Epiphi before the temple of Horus in Thebes to celebrate the harvest.

  At first these exertions were only a limited and laboured walk along the base of the cliff accompanied by Tehuti. Every fifty paces or so he would be forced to stop and clutch at his stomach, trying not to groan and shrugging off Tehuti’s proffered hand.

  Despite my warnings and protests, each day he extended his range and increased his speed. Soon he took to wearing full armour and carrying a slab of sandstone on his shoulder.

  Each day I ordered him to strip naked while I examined his wounds. They seemed to close and shrivel into pale scars even as I watched. He had a rare ability to ignore and subdue bodily pain. He forced his injured muscles to work when another less courageous person would be crippled and incapacitated for weeks and even longer. In his case this activity seemed to accelerate the healing process, rather than retard it.

  However, Zaras’ injuries had taken him to the very edge of the void. Even my vast skills had been only just sufficient to save him, and the memories of the other patients that I had treated with mouldy mushrooms were still too fresh in my mind.

  Quite apart from the fondness that I had developed for Zaras, and the fact that he had become a symbol and proof of my curative skills, I saw in his debilitated physical condition the perfect opportunity to separate him from Princess Tehuti before the two of them had an opportunity to completely ruin my carefully laid plans to establish an alliance between the Supreme Minos of Crete and my own Pharaoh Tamose, an alliance essential to the survival of Egypt as a sovereign nation.

  So it was that on the fifth evening following our return to the striated cliffs I summoned Lord Remrem and Hui to my tent to give them their new orders. I also ordered Zaras to attend the meet
ing. Naturally I intended that he and Hui would be merely observers and not participants in any of the principal discussions.

  The four of us had just settled down to the business in hand, each of us with a goblet of fine wine on the table in front of him to ease the anguish of making the difficult decisions which confronted us, when abruptly I felt a cool draught of evening air on the back of my neck. I turned quickly, expecting to discover an eavesdropper to our deliberations. But to my consternation Princess Tehuti floated through the entrance of the tent on a wave of her particular perfume.

  ‘Do not let me interrupt your deliberations, my lords. Please ignore me entirely. I shall say not a single word. I shall sit so quietly you will soon forget my presence entirely.’

  To make herself entirely unobtrusive, she was wearing a splendid dress of rare golden gossamer silk which I had purchased for her at great expense in the souk in Thebes. At the time she had willingly agreed with my stricture not to wear it until we arrived in Crete and she was presented to the Supreme Minos for the first time. Perhaps she had forgotten our pact?

  On her feet she wore slippers of silver. At her throat hung the Hathor necklace, and another of sparkling coloured stones, mainly sapphires and emeralds. Her hair was a glossy miracle, exceeded only by her smile.

  She was as lovely as I had ever seen her.

  With a swirl of the golden skirts she sat at my feet, placed her elbows on her knees and her chin in the cup of her hand so that the diamond ring which I had given her sparkled with lights. Then she cast a sidelong smile at Zaras and tried to appear innocent.

  How do women know these things that are so obscure to us lesser mortals of the other gender? I had not informed her of our meeting; in fact I had only summoned the others an hour previously and I had given them no inkling of what I proposed to discuss. She could not possibly have known what was afoot. But here she was dressed for battle and with the determined glint in her eyes that I knew so well.