by Wilbur Smith
'I am going to strip the seal and that sword off you.' Kratas did not check his step. 'And afterwards I might give myself the pleasure of whipping your buttocks.'
At Naja's right hand Asmor whispered, 'The penalty for lèse-majesté is death.'
Instantly Naja realized his opportunity. He lifted his chin and looked into the old man's still bright eyes. 'You are an ancient bag of wind and dung,' he challenged. 'Your day has passed, Kratas, you doddering old idiot. You dare not lay a finger on the Regent of Egypt.'
As he had intended, the insult was too great for Kratas to bear. He let out a bellow and rushed the last few paces. He was surprisingly quick for a man of his age and bulk, and he seized Naja, lifted him off his feet and tried to rip the hawk seal from his arm.
'You are not fit-'
Without looking round, Naja spoke to Asmor, who stood only a pace behind his shoulder with his drawn sickle sword in his right hand.
'Strike!' said Naja softly. 'And strike deep!'
Asmor stepped to the side, opening Kratas' flank above the waistband of the kilt for the thrust low in the back, into the kidneys. In his trained hand the blow was true and powerful. The bronze blade slipped in silently, easily as a needle into a sheet of silk, right in to the hilt, then Asmor twisted it in the flesh to enlarge the wound channel.
Kratas' whole body stiffened and his eyes opened wide. He loosed his grip and let Naja drop back to his feet. Asmor pulled out the blade. It came away reluctantly against the suck of clinging flesh. The bright bronze was smeared with dark blood, and a sluggish trickle ran down to soak into Kratas' white linen kilt. Asmor stabbed again, this time higher, angling the blade upwards under the lowest rib. Kratas frowned and shook his great leonine head, as though annoyed at some childish nonsense. He turned away and began to walk towards the door of the chamber. Asmor ran after him and stabbed him again in the back. Kratas kept walking.
'My lord, help me kill the dog,' Asmor panted, and Naja drew the blue sword and ran to join him. The blade bit deeper than any bronze as Naja hacked and stabbed. Kratas reeled out through the doors of the chamber into the courtyard, blood spurting and pulsing from a dozen wounds. Behind him the other members of the council shouted, 'Murder! Spare the noble Kratas.'
Asmor shouted just as loudly, 'Traitor! He has laid hands on the Regent of Egypt!' And he thrust again, aiming for the heart, but Kratas staggered against the surrounding wall of the fish pond, and tried to steady himself. However, his hands were red and slick with his own blood and found no grip on the polished marble. He collapsed over the low coping and, with a heavy splash, disappeared under the surface.
The two swordsmen paused, hanging over the wall to catch their breath as the waters were stained pink by the old man's blood. Suddenly his bald head thrust out of the pool and Kratas drew a noisy breath.
'In the name of all the gods, will not the old bastard die?' Asmor's voice was filled with astonishment and frustration.
Naja vaulted over the wall into the pond and stood waist-deep over the huge, floundering body. He placed one foot on Kratas' throat and forced his head beneath the surface. Kratas struggled and heaved beneath him, and the waters were stained with blood and churned river mud. Naja trod down with all his weight and kept him under. ''Tis like riding a hippopotamus.' He laughed breathlessly, and immediately Asmor and the soldiers joined in with him, crowding the edge of the pool. They roared with laughter and jeered, 'Have your last drink, Kratas, you old sot.'
'You will go to Seth bathed and sweet smelling as a babe. Even the god will not recognize you.'
The old man's struggles grew weaker, until a vast exhalation of breath bubbled to the surface and at last he was still. Naja waded to the side of the pool and stepped out. Kratas' body rose slowly to the surface and floated there face down.
'Fish him out!' Naja ordered. 'Do not have him embalmed, but hack him into pieces and bury him with the other bandits, rapists and traitors in the Valley of the Jackal. Do not mark his grave.' Kratas was thus denied the chance to reach Paradise. He would be doomed eternally to wander in darkness.
Dripping wet to the waist Naja strode back into the council chamber. By this time all the other members of the council had arrived. They had been witness to Kratas' fate and huddled, pale and shaken, on their benches. They stared at Naja aghast as he stood before them with the reeking blue blade in his hand. 'My noble lords, death has always been the penalty for treason. Is there any man among you who would question the justice of this execution?' He looked at each in turn and they dropped their eyes: the Phat Guards stood shoulder to shoulder around the wall of the chamber and, with Kratas gone, there was no man to give them direction.
'My lord Menset,' Naja singled out the president of the council, 'do you endorse my action in executing the traitor Kratas?'
For a long moment it seemed that Menset might defy him, but then he sighed and looked at his hands in his lap. 'The punishment was just,' he whispered. 'The council endorses the actions of the Lord Naja.'
'Does the council also ratify the appointment of Lord Naja as the Regent of Egypt?' Naja asked softly but his voice carried clearly in the fraught and silent chamber.
Menset raised his eyes and looked around at his fellow members, but not one would catch his eye. 'The President and all the councillors of this assembly acknowledge the new Regent of Egypt.' At last Menset looked directly at Naja, but such a dark, scornful expression blighted his usually jovial features that before the full of this moon he would be found dead in his bed. For the time being Naja merely nodded.
'I accept the duty and heavy responsibility you have placed upon me.' He sheathed his sword and mounted the dais to the throne. 'As my first official pronouncement in my capacity of Regent in Council I wish to describe to you the gallant death of the divine Pharaoh Tamose.' He paused significantly, then for the next hour he related in detail his version of the fatal campaign and the attack on the heights of El Wadun. Thus died one of Egypt's most gallant kings. His last words to me as I carried him down the hill were, "Care for my only remaining son. Guard my son Nefer until he is man enough to wear the double crown. Take my two small daughters under your wings, and see that no harm befalls them."'
Lord Naja made little attempt to hide his terrible grief and it took him some moments to bring his emotions under control. Then he went on firmly, 'I will not fail the god who was my friend and my pharaoh. Already I have sent my chariots into the wilderness to search for Prince Nefer and bring him back to Thebes. As soon as he arrives we will set him on the throne, and place the scourge and the sceptre in his hands.'
There was the first murmur of approval among the councillors, and Naja continued, 'Now send for the princesses. Have them brought to the chamber immediately.'
When they came hesitantly through the main doors, Heseret the elder was leading her little sister, Merykara, by the hand. Merykara had been playing pitch and toss with her friends. She was flushed from her exertions and her slim body was dewed with sweat. She was still several years from womanhood so her legs were long and coltish and her bare chest was as flat as a boy's. She wore her long black hair in a side-lock that hung over her left shoulder, and her linen breech clout was so diminutive that it left the lower half of her little round buttocks exposed. She smiled shyly around this formidable gathering of famous men, and clung harder to her elder sister's hand.
Heseret had seen her first red moon and was dressed in the linen skirts and wig of a marriageable woman. Even the old men looked at her avidly for she had inherited in full measure her grandmother Queen Lostris' celebrated beauty. Her skin was milky. Her limbs were smooth and shapely, and her naked breasts were like celestial moons. Her expression was serene but the corners of her mouth lifted in a secret, mischievous smile, and there were intriguing lights in her huge dark green eyes.
'Come forward, my pretty darlings,' Naja called to them, and only then they recognized the man who was the close and beloved friend of their father. They smiled and came towards him trust
ingly. He rose from the throne, went down to meet them and placed his hands on their shoulders. His voice and his expression were tragic. 'You must be brave now, and remember that you are princesses of the royal house, because I have bitter news for you. Pharaoh your father is dead." For a minute they did not seem to understand, then Heseret let out the high keening wail of mourning, followed immediately by Merykara.
Gently Naja put his arms around them, and led them to sit at the foot of the throne, where they sank to their knees and clung to each other, weeping inconsolably.
The distress of the royal princesses is plain for all the world to see,' Naja told the assembly. 'The trust and the duty that Pharaoh placed upon me is equally plain. As I have taken Prince Nefer Memnon into my care, so now I take the two princesses, Heseret and Merykara, under my protection.'
'Now he has all the royal brood in his hands. But no matter where he is in the wilderness, and how hale and strong the Prince Nefer may seem,' Talla whispered to his neighbour, 'methinks he is already sickening unto death. The new Regent of Egypt has made abundantly clear his style of government.'
--
Nefer sat in the shadow of the cliff that towered above Gebel Nagara. He had not moved since the sun had first shown its upper rim above the mountains across the valley. At first the effort of remaining still had burned along his nerve endings and made his skin itch as though poisonous insects were crawling upon it. But he knew that Taita was watching him so he had forced his wayward body slowly to his will and risen above its petty dictates. Now at last he sat in a state of exalted awareness, his every sense tuned to the wilderness about him.
He could smell the water that rose from its secret spring in the cleft in the cliff. It came up a slow drop at a time and dripped into the basin in the rock that was not much larger than the cup of his two hands, then overflowed and dribbled down into the next basin, green-lined with slippery algae. From there it ran down to disappear for ever into the ruddy sands of the valley bottom. Yet much life was supported by this trickle of water: butterfly and beetle, serpent and lizard, the graceful little gazelle that danced like whiffs of saffron dust on the heat-quivering plains, the speckled pigeons with their ruffs of wine-coloured feathers that nested on high ledges all drank here. It was because of these precious pools that Taita had brought him to this place to wait for his godbird.
They had begun to make the net on the day of their arrival at Gebel Nagara. Taita had bought the silk from a merchant in Thebes. The hank of thread had cost the price of a fine stallion, for it had been brought from a land far to the east of the Indus river on a journey that had taken years to complete. Taita had shown Nefer how to weave the net out of the fine threads. The mesh was stronger than thick strands of linen or thongs of leather but almost invisible to the eye.
When the net was ready Taita had insisted that the boy catch the decoys himself. 'It is your godbird. You must take it yourself,' he had explained. 'That way your claim will be more secure in the sight of the great god Horus.'
So, in the baking daylight out on the valley floor, Nefer and Taita had studied the route up the cliff. When darkness fell Taita had sat beside the small fire at the base of the cliff and softly chanted his incantations, at intervals throwing a handful of herbs on to the fire. When the crescent moon rose to illuminate the darkness of midnight Nefer had started the precarious climb to the ledge where the pigeons roosted. He had seized two of the big, fluttering birds while they were still disorientated and confused by the darkness and the spell that Taita had cast over them. He brought them down in the leather saddlebag slung on his back.
Under Taita's instruction Nefer had plucked the feathers from one wing of each bird, so that they were no longer able to fly. Then they had selected a spot close to the base of the cliff and the spring, but exposed enough to make the birds clearly visible from the sky above. They tethered the pigeons by the leg with a thread of horsetail hair and a wooden peg driven into the hard earth. Then they had spread the gossamer net above them, and supported it on stalks of dried elephant grass, which would snap and collapse under the stoop of the godbird.
'Stretch the net gently,' Taita had shown him, 'not too tight, nor again too slack. It must catch in the bird's beak and his talons and tangle him so that he cannot struggle and damage himself before we can free him.'
When all was set up to Taita's satisfaction, they began the long wait. Soon the pigeons had become accustomed to their captivity, and pecked greedily at the handfuls of dhurra millet that Nefer scattered for them. Then they sunned and dusted themselves contentedly under the silken net. One day succeeded the next hot, sun-riven day, and still they waited.
In the cool of the evening they brought in the pigeons, furled the net, and then they hunted for food. Taita climbed to the top of the cliff where he sat cross-legged on the edge, overlooking the long valley. Nefer waited in ambush below, never in the same place so that the game were always surprised when they came to drink at the spring. From his vantage-point Taita wove his spell of enticement, which seldom failed to seduce the dainty gazelle within fair shot of where Nefer lay with his arrow nocked and bow held at draw. Every evening they grilled gazelle steaks over the fire at the entrance to the cave.
The cave had been Taita's retreat during all the years after the death of Queen Lostris when he had lived here as a hermit. It was his place of power. Although Nefer was a novice, and had no deep understanding of the old man's mystical skills, he could not doubt them, for every day they were demonstrated to him.
They had been at Gebel Nagara for many days before Nefer began to understand that they had not come here to find the godbird alone: this interlude was an extension of the training and instruction Taita had lavished upon him from as far back as Nefer's young memory stretched. Even the long hours of waiting beside the decoys was a lesson in itself. Taita was teaching him control over his body and being, teaching him to open doors within his mind, teaching him to look inward, to listen to the silence and hear whispers to which others were deaf.
Once he had been conditioned to the silence, Nefer was more amenable to the deeper wisdom and learning that Taita had to impart. They sat together in the desert night, under the swirling patterns of the stars that were eternal but ephemeral as the winds and the currents of the oceans, and Taita described to him wonders that seemed to have no explanation but could only be perceived by an opening and extension of the mind. He sensed that he stood merely on the shadowy periphery of this mystical knowledge, but he felt growing inside him a great hunger for more.
One morning when Nefer left the cave in the grey light before dawn, he saw a huddle of dark, silent figures sitting out in the desert beyond the spring of Gebel Nagara. He went to tell Taita, and the old man nodded. 'They have been waiting all night.' He spread a woollen cloak over his shoulders and went out to them.
When they recognized Taita's gaunt figure in the half-light they burst into wails of supplication. They were people of the desert tribes and they had brought children to him, children stricken by the Yellow Flowers, hot with fever and covered with the terrible sores of the disease.
Taita ministered to them, while they remained camped beyond the spring. None of the children died, and after ten days the tribe brought gifts of millet, salt and tanned hides, which they left at the entrance to the cave. Then they were gone into the wilderness. After that there came others, suffering from disease and wounds inflicted by men and beasts. Taita went out to all of them, and turned none away. Nefer worked beside him and learned much from what he saw and heard.
No matter if there were the sick and ailing Bedouin to care for, or food to be gathered, or instruction or learning to be imparted, each morning they set out the decoys under the silken net and waited beside them.
Perhaps they had fallen under the calming influence of Taita, for the once-wild pigeons became docile and quiescent as chickens. They allowed themselves to be handled without any sign of fear, and uttered soft throaty coos as their legs were secured to the pegs.
Then they settled and fluffed up their feathers.
On the twentieth morning of their stay, Nefer took up his position over the decoys. As always, even without looking directly at Taita, Nefer was deeply aware of his presence. The old man's eyes were closed and he, like the pigeons, seemed to be dozing in the sunlight. His skin was criss-crossed with innumerable fine wrinkles and dappled with age spots. It seemed so delicate that it might tear as easily as the finest papyrus parchment. His face was hairless, no trace of beard or eyebrows; only fine lashes, colourless as glass, surrounded his eyes. Nefer had heard his father say that neutering had left Taita's face beardless and little marked by the passage of time, but he was certain that there were more esoteric reasons for his longevity and the persistence of his strength and life-force. In vivid contrast to his other features, Taita's hair was dense and strong as that of a healthy young woman, but bright burnished silver in colour. Taita was proud of it and kept it washed and groomed in a thick plait down his back. Despite his learning and age, the old Magus was not inured to vanity.
This little touch of humanity heightened Nefer's love for him to the point where it stabbed his chest with a strength that was almost painful. He wished that there was some way in which he could express it, but he knew that Taita already understood, for Taita knew everything.
He reached out surreptitiously to touch the old man's arm as he slept, but suddenly Taita's eyes opened, focused and aware. Nefer knew that he had not been asleep at all, but that all his powers had been concentrated on bringing in the godbird to the decoys. He knew that, in some way, his wandering thoughts and his movement had affected the outcome of the old man's efforts, for he sensed Taita's disapproval as clearly as if it had been spoken.
Chastened, he composed himself, and brought his mind and body under control again in the manner that Taita had taught him. It was like passing through a secret doorway into the place of power. The time passed swiftly, without being counted or grudged. The sun climbed to its zenith and seemed to hang there for a long while. Suddenly Nefer was blessed with a marvellous sense of prescience. It was almost as if he, too, hung above the world and saw everything happening below him. He saw Taita and himself sitting beside the well of Gebel Nagara, and the desert stretching away around them. He saw the river that contained the desert like a mighty barrier and marked out the boundaries of this very Egypt. He saw the cities and the kingdoms, the lands divided under the double crown, great armies in array, the machinations of evil men, and the striving and sacrifice of the just and good. In that moment he was aware of his destiny with an intensity that almost overwhelmed and crushed his courage.