Menkh bowed, his face under the blue helmet convulsed with glee. "A gift to Her Majesty from her loyal and adoring troops!" he called up to her, waving behind him at the chariot and the restless, dancing horses. She also sprang to the ground and walked up to the chariot, touching it, automatically checking the wheel axle, bits, and curbs.
Nehesi came forward. "This is no ceremonial chariot built for a royal progress," he said. 'This is a vehicle of war, fast and light, a gift from men of war to their Chief Officer."
She did not reply but leaped onto its floor, snatching up the reins and wrapping them around her gauntleted wrists. With a shout she was oflF, bent and tight, her face set and her legs apart for balance, while the men in her dust broke rank for a moment and cheered her on as if she were
a favored contender in their annual races. Once she completed a circuit, she alighted, her eyes sparkling, as she threw the reins to Menkh.
''Are you my charioteer, presumptuous one?" she asked him in passing. He bowed, grinning. She mounted the steps and stood once more beside a discomfited Thothmes, who was now starting to sweat as the sun gained strength. Hatshepsut raised an arm, and silence fell. She turned and addressed her own troops directly. *'I thank you for this display of love," she said, her voice ringing clear and high. ''Do not doubt but that I shall earn it fully, as I have earned your devotion. You are beautiful to me, fighting men of Egypt. I am proud to march with you this day. Now listen to the words of Pharaoh, Living Forever!"
Thothmes stepped forward, gesturing for Menena to ascend the steps with the incense. He was impressive in the tall crown, a massive Pharaoh, a bulk of power as he held his Crook and Flail over the company. The men caught a faint, faraway echo of his father as he spoke to them of glory and reward, of dangers faced for the continued safety of Egypt, and of honorable death on the field of battle. They forgot that it was the Queen who stood garbed simply as commander. When Thothmes had finished, they cheered him, the roar drifting faintly to the men who waited quietly on the roof of the audience chamber, leaning out in the hot sun.
Menena intoned the Prayers of Blessing and Victory, and Hapuseneb took over. ''Greatest of Fifty! Commanders of Hundreds, Captains, Troop Commanders, Standard-Bearers! Prepare to march! Form marching ranks!"
Hatshepsut and Thothmes left the stand. "Ride with me in my chariot," she offered, taking the reins.
"I will lead in my litter," he said. "It is too hot to stand in that thing," He left, followed by pen-Nekheb.
The men were forming new ranks now, shouldering their packs and adjusting their weapons.
Hatshepsut ordered Menkh out of the chariot. "For your folly you may march," she told him. "I want to drive myself for a while, so you can eat my dust." She snatched the whip from him and tapped him fondly on the head, clucking to her horses and trotting after Thothmes. Behind her Nehesi and her men fell in, and the vast cavalcade began to wind out upon the road south like an undulating, multicolored snake. The baggage trains straggled at the rear, for although the army was traveling light and swiftly, each man carrying his own needs, there were tents to bring, and food and water, and the royal couple's carpets, chairs, folding couches, and shrines. The men began to sing a battle hymn in time to the swinging of their feet, but the
music soon died away and all fell silent, striding grimly on, for the heat was great, and Assuan was a long way away.
Senmiit watched until the wind dissipated the last cloud of brown dust. He turned to Ineni. ''May all the gods go with them," he said softly.
llie old man smiled at his expression. 'This is but a small routing to be done," he said. "Do you doubt that they will all come marching back, laden with fresh spoil for the temple and gold for the treasury?"
Senmut forced a laugh as they went down the stairs and into the shadow of the cloister, 'i do not doubt," he said, his thoughts on the miles lengthening between himself and the army.
Ineni quickened his pace. 'Then think no more of war," he said over his shoulder, ''for the emissaries from Rethennu await us in the audience chamber, and there is much to be done, Prince." He chuckled, shaking his head.
On that first day's march the army made a scant twenty-five miles, and at sunset the tents were erected beside the Nile. Hatshepsut bathed in the river with Thothmes, lying blissfully in the shallows while the sweat and dust fell from her. She wrapped herself in a loose robe and sat before her tent, watching the smoke spiral from the hundred cooking fires. Beside her hung her standard, limp in the evening stillness. She listened to the whickering of the horses and the subdued conversation of the men as she basked in the pleasant haze of physical exhaustion. The men were tired, too. No amount of drill could take the place of forced marching along hard, rutted tracks and over stony ground. Their feet were sore, their shoulders chafed. Thothmes was already preparing for sleep in the white and blue tent next to hers, and she smiled as she thought how glad he would be to reach the city of Assuan and fall onto a royal couch once more.
Hapuseneb came, squatting easily on the earth at her feet. She asked him when they would turn into the desert.
"Tomorrow we should make thirty or even forty miles," he answered. "We will enter Assuan two days from today. Another day's march will bring us to the turning point, and we will have to fill all barrels with water. Are you weary. Majesty?"
"A little. I think I will let Menkh drive me tomorrow. But the chariot runs well, and the horses are matched to perfection. Listen to the ibex and the coughing of the hippopotami in the marsh! If we could but stay here, we should have good hunting in the morning."
"Perhaps Pharaoh will venture forth from Assuan while we are gone," he replied.
They sat in companionable silence until she yawned. It was now so dark that the fires stood out like friendly, shining eyes, and the exchanges of the sentries on the riverbank came to them reassuringly. Hapuseneb bowed his good-night and melted swiftly away. She got up and went to her camp cot, pulling the blankets up to her chin and curling under them, hearing her guard take his place beyond the tent flap. Before he had settled his spear upon the ground, she was asleep.
Two days later, in the late afternoon, they reached Assuan and spread their tents outside the city. The men were coming into their second wind, and around the fires there was laughter and the rattle of gaming dice. Hatshepsut put on her coronet and wig and went with Thothmes to the royal residence, where he relaxed and immediately ordered wine and hot pastries.
''Stay here with me tonight,'' he begged her. ''We shall not see each other for some weeks, and I am sure that you wish to enjoy some comfort before you leave."
Looking into his soft, pleading face, she agreed. "We can rise early," he promised, "for this country has good hunting."
She smiled and went into his arms dutifully, not really caring, glad to give him her body while her mind ranged far ahead to one ruined garrison and the besieged and desperate soldiers who manned the walls of the other. She slept deeply beside him, worn out by travel and the demands of his eager body.
In the morning she said good-bye to him affectionately and lightly, with relief. It was good to be one again, to be free and alone, she thought as the horns blew and she swung herself up beside Menkh. She turned and waved to Thothmes and his courtiers, smiling back at Nehesi in his chariot. When Hapuseneb gave the signal to advance, she steadied herself for the jolt, humming a song to herself.
Assuan soon emptied, and the summer day filled the streets with silence as Thothmes got into his hunting skiff rather disconsolately.
But all around Hatshepsut was the jingle of harness, the creak of leather, and the slap-slap of sandals. She looked ahead to the jagged teeth and turbulent, fighting waters of the First Cataract with an almost delirious happiness, her skin already darkening under the fierce sun and her sinews tightening to a new strength.
In the morning, after one more night's camp, water barrels were carefully filled, harnesses checked, equipment tallied, and the horses watered. Their way would quickly turn into deser
t, and before them was hostility, mile upon mile of rock and sand, all burning under the full power of Ra,
and the mountains that liad marched with them upon their western flank would leave them to wander out into regions unknown. Their path would sometimes run over hard, haked earth; but more often than not, it would take them through cloying sand. Hatshepsut tightened the straps of her helmet, and Menkh took a last walk around the chariot, noting how already the wheels sank into the earth. Hapuseneb sent scouts before them to test the ground and to find the quickest route. It was a road used by men and soldiers on business to and from the garrisons or by caravans that went on to the oasis two hundred miles to the north, but it remained a desert track, and the men knew what was ahead. When Hapuseneb and Nehesi were finally satisfied, they set oflf, their feet hot, already scorched through their sandals by the hating sand, their bodies burned by copper chariots whose sides glittered malevolently.
All were glad to camp that night. No fires were lit, for at the end of another day's hard marching lay the second garrison and they did not know what they would find there. At the falling of the sun the men put on their woollen cloaks, for the desert nights were very cold. Hatshepsut sat inside her tent, her lamp hanging on the center pole. She ordered wine for herself and Hapuseneb, pen-Nekheb, and her generals.
Nehesi was there, still half-naked, scorning a cloak, for he did not feel either heat or cold. Hatshepsut, shivering a little under her white woollen robe, wondered again about the heart of the man, his thoughts, his soul.
When Menkh came, reporting that the horses had been fed and watered and that the men were at rest, she asked about the morrow.
Nehesi answered her. ''After a day's march through the desert the men cannot stand and fight," he said. ''I think it would be well to camp for one more night and fall upon the enemy with the dawn if they are around the garrison."
''I know this country," pen-Nekheb said quietly. He looked tired and older than his years, but his eyes were clear, and he was secretly glad to be at war again. ''In half a day we come to a mass of high rock and tumbled canyons, and beyond that, back on the desert floor, lies the garrison. The rock will hide our approach, and we can camp this side of it tomorrow night, deploying secretly in the clefts. If we send the Shock Troops and the Braves of the King in the night to come up on the northern wall, then we may drive the Nubians toward the rock and the rest of the army."
"That depends on whether or not the enemy still besieges the garrison, or marches toward us, or has fled back into Kush," Hapuseneb said. "For myself, I would rather march openly in the dawn. If the garrison is taken, the enemy will be within or gone; and if it is not, we may make a swift ending to all."
''Send out more scouts," Hatshepsut said. ''Keep them moving through the day, and by tomorrow night we may know what has befallen. If not, then I suggest we wait in the shadow of these rocks until we do know."
"Your Majesty speaks wisely," Nehesi said, and for the first time she saw a smile play about his mouth. "What is the use of deployment in the face of ignorance?"
Hapuseneb nodded. "Very well. Since I am Minister of War, I counsel that we march tomorrow, camp under the rocks, and wait for word from the scouts. Until we pass the first garrison, we are still on Egyptian soil. Then we shall see."
They drank their wine, and Hatshepsut dismissed them early, unable to relax. When they had gone to their own tents, she remained seated at the table, the maps under her hands, wondering how it would be when they sighted the garrison. She finally folded the maps away and lay on the carpet before her shrine, praying to Amun for a swift victory. She did not doubt that victory would be theirs, but she sorrowed at the thought of the spilling of good Egyptian blood, and she saw with a woman's intuition the futility, the senselessness of war. She knew that, unchecked, the foolish people of Kush would gain confidence and strength, and this she could not permit; but she sat long on the edge of her cot, pondering the glories and wastages of revenge and conquest. When she at last took off her clothes and got under the covers, her dreams were full of fire and blood, and she awoke the next morning heavy with oppression and a foreboding that would not go away.
The ranks formed in a businesslike silence, and they were under way before the sun rose, Hatshepsut's mood intensified by the cloud of grim anticipation that hung over the files of marching infantry. She thought with dread of Wadjmose, the garrison's commander, the brother she had never seen.
Three times a halt was called, and the men ate and drank quickly, squatting over their packs. Even Menkh was subdued and lapsed into a stony silence as the day progressed. During the breaks he and Hatshepsut sat on the ground beside the chariot, in the shade cast by its gleaming prow, eating and drinking silently. Hatshepsut's throat was swollen from thirst, and her water ration served only to make her feverish for more, but they started off again in the full blaze of noon, and she could do nothing but stand, swaying, as Menkh lashed the weary horses.
She felt as if she had been riding forever, as if she was already dead and not permitted to enter the Barque of Ra, sentenced to follow him eternally, blinded and withered by his fiery breath.
Three hours into the afternoon her Standard-Bearer turned back to her
with a shout, and she saw, shimmering on the horizon, a broken and serried ridge of gray that seemed to hang, quivering, above the surface of the desert. She called a brief halt and sent Menkh to Aahmes pen-Nekheb. The young man came panting back with the news that it was indeed the pile of rock they sought and not a cunning vision of the sand. The host seemed to come to new life, and the ground was covered swiftly, all eyes greedily following the slow rise and the firming of the ground. Just before they clattered into the first gully, the scouts returned, and Hatshep-sut and the other generals gathered briefly around Nehesi.
'The garrison appears to be deserted," they were told, **but all about it lie bodies and spent arrows and other evidences of combat. We rode no nearer for fear of being seen."
*'Of what nation are the bodies?" Hatshepsut asked quickly.
The scout gave her a wolfish, tired grin. ''Black, mostly black—and red, Majesty," he said. "I think that there has been a battle but not a victory, for the bodies are only some hundred or so, and a trail of booty and discarded pots leads on into the desert."
She looked around at them, and pen-Nekheb spoke.
**I am for going forth," he said. "It sounds to me as if the garrison was besieged but is yet intact. Though I am not a gambling man, I would stake my bow on a fort still held."
The others nodded.
"Then let us waste no more time," Hapuseneb said. "Once through the rocks let the division fan out, and put the Shock Troops to the fore, under you, Nehesi. It does not pay to be too confident."
"And let us hurry," Hatshepsut put in. "Before we get through, the sun will have begun to sink, and I do not fancy an approach in the darkness."
They walked back to their chariots, and the horn sounded advance. The way was rougher now, and the horses picked their way daintily between cliflFs that reared high above, shutting out much of the light but soon giving way to lower screes, jumbles of fallen stone that narrowed the track so that the men walked warily in single file, their eyes on the heights above. The flatland was gained in a further two hours, and Hatshepsut looked for the first time on her garrison.
It was little more than a high wall ringing a wide enclosure, and the square points of a tower could be glimpsed between the sentry boxes. Great wooden gates stood firmly shut, and Menkh muttered under his breath, "Deserted indeed. By Amun! What a gloomy spot!"
Nehesi called to her, "See, Majesty! The white and blue still flutters from the pole!"
With a rush of relief she saw that indeed the Imperial flag still hung.
They left the shelter of the cliffs, and as her chariot rolled onto the sand once more, she heard the orders shouted behind her that would thin out the ranks and bring the Squadron of Chariots to the fore. The assault troops thundered past her and went into th
e lead, their standards filling in the evening breeze, and Nehesi brought his chariot up beside hers. They moved slowly on, and in the bloodred light of the setting sun the garrison loomed steadily nearer.
Soon they began to pass huddles in the sand, and Hatshepsut looked down on them, steeling herself for her first look at death, but the dark, sprawled figures seemed so far removed from life that she took them for carrion until, on her left, she saw two hyenas slink away, gray shapes that filled her with revulsion, dragging between them a human arm. She felt nausea churn her stomach, and she fixed her eyes on the baked mud of the garrison wall, now so close that she could see the cracks between the great blocks.
With nerves ever tightening they covered the ground, each man at the ready, holding his bow or spear warily. Hatshepsut held her breath, rigid, waiting for the doors to open and pour a screaming horde onto the plain. But the sand glided by slowly, red beneath them, and the silence went on.
Suddenly there was a shout from the wall. ''Egypt! It is Egypt!" She caught a glimpse of white leather and a blurred face and a bare arm that waved wildly and disappeared. More faces ringed the walls, and the gates swung slowly open.
Nehesi called a halt and got down from his chariot. Six soldiers came from within; three wore the long, flowing robes and swathed heads of the Medjay. They were led by a tall man in the white helmet of commander. Hatshepsut also got down stiffly, surprised to find that her legs were weak and trembling. She walked with Nehesi to meet them.
The commander embraced Nehesi joyfully, but when he saw the slight woman beside him, her eyes smiling at him, the Cobra glowing red in the sunset, he fell to the ground. ''Majesty! This is a great honor! We had hoped—we did not know—we saw your scouts yesterday, moving among the rocks, but we feared they were the enemy."
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