by Wilbur Smith
The interior of the tent smelt like a garden. Even the ranks of courtiers, ambassadors and supplicants who sat facing the throne had been induced to bathe and perfume their bodies before entering the presence of the Regent. Likewise, Taita had followed the advice of the serjeant-at-arms. His hair was washed and combed into a silver cascade over his shoulders, and his linen was freshly laundered and bleached to purest white. At the entrance to the tent, he knelt to make obeisance to the throne. There was a hum of comment and speculation as he rose to his feet. The foreign ambassadors stared at him curiously, and he heard his name whispered. Even the warriors and priests nodded and leaned close together as they told each other, 'It is the Magus.', 'The holy Taita, adept of the Mazes.', 'Taita, the Wounded Eye of Horus.'
Lord Naja looked up from the papyrus he was scanning and smiled down the length of the tent. He was truly a handsome man, with sculpted features and sensitive lips. His nose was straight and narrow, and his eyes were the colour of golden agate, lively and intelligent. His naked chest was devoid of fat, and his arms were lean and covered with hard muscle.
Swiftly Taita surveyed the ranks of men who now sat closest to the throne. In the short time since the death of Pharaoh Tamose there had been a redistribution of power and favour among the courtiers and nobles. Many familiar faces were missing, and many others had emerged from obscurity into the sunshine of the Regent's goodwill. Not least of these was Asmor of the Phat Guards.
'Come forward, Lord Taita.' Naja's voice was pleasant and low. Taita moved towards the throne, and the ranks of courtiers opened to let him pass. The Regent smiled down at him. 'Know you that you stand high in our favour. You have discharged the duty that Pharaoh Tamose placed upon you with distinction. You have given the Prince Nefer Memnon invaluable instruction and training.' Taita was astonished by the warmth of this greeting, but he did not let it show. 'Now that the prince has become Pharaoh Seti, he will stand in even greater need of your guiding hand.'
'May he live for ever.' Taita responded, and the gathering echoed his words.
'May he live for ever.'
Lord Naja gestured. 'Take your seat here, in the shadow of my throne. Even I will have much need of your experience and wisdom when it comes to ordering the affairs of Pharaoh.'
'The royal Regent does me more honour than I deserve.' Taita turned a gentle face to Lord Naja. It was prudent never to let your hidden enemy recognize your animosity. He took the seat that was offered him, but declined the silken cushion, and sat on the woollen rug. His back was straight, and his shoulders square.
The business of the Regency proceeded. They were dividing up the estate of General Kratas: as a declared traitor everything Kratas owned was forfeited to the Crown. 'From the traitor Kratas, unto the temple of Hapi and the priests of the mysteries,' Naja read from the papyrus, 'all his lands and the buildings on the east bank of the river between Dendera and Abnub.'
As Taita listened he mourned his oldest friend, but he let no shadow of grief show on his face. During the long journey back from the desert, Hilto had related the manner of Kratas' death, then gone on to tell him, 'All men, even the noble and the good, walk softly in the presence of the new Regent of Egypt. Menset is dead, he who was president of the council of state. He died in his sleep, but there are those who say he had a little help to start him on the journey. Cinka is dead, executed for treason, though he had no longer the wits to cheat on his ancient wife. His estates are confiscated by the Regency. Fifty more have gone in company with the good Kratas to the underworld. And the council members are all Naja's dogs.'
Kratas had been Taita's last link with the golden days when Tanus, Lostris and he had been young. Taita had loved him well.
'From the traitor Kratas, unto the Regent of Egypt, all the store of millet held in his name in the granaries of Athribis,' Lord Naja read from the papyrus.
That was fifty bargeloads, Taita calculated, for Kratas had been a shrewd investor in the millet exchanges. Lord Naja had paid himself generously for the onerous work of assassination.
'These stores to be used for the common good.' The expropriation was qualified, and Taita wondered expressionlessly who would determine the public good.
The priests and the scribes were busily recording the division on their clay tablets. These would be stored in the archives of the temple. While Taita watched and listened, he kept his anger and his sorrow locked away in his heart.
'We will move on now to another important royal matter,' Lord Naja said, when Kratas' heirs had been deprived of all their inheritance, and he was richer by three lakhs of gold. 'I come to the consideration of the well-being and status of the princesses royal, Heseret and Merykara. I have consulted earnestly with the members of the council of state. All are agreed that, for their own good, I should take both the Princess Heseret and the Princess Merykara in marriage. As my wives, they will come under my full protection. The goddess Isis is the patron of both the royal maidens. I have ordered the priestesses of the goddess to consult the auguries, and they have determined that these marriages are pleasing to the goddess. Therefore, the ceremony will take place in the temple of Isis at Luxor on the day of the next full moon after the burial of Pharaoh Tamose, and the coronation of his heir, Prince Nefer Seti.'
Taita remained unmoving, his face blank, but all around him there was a rustle and murmur at this pronouncement. The political considerations of such a double marriage were monumental. All of those present knew that Lord Naja was intent on making himself a member through marriage of the royal House of Tamose, and thus the next in line of succession.
Taita felt chilled to his bones, as though he had just heard the death sentence of Pharaoh Nefer Seti cried aloud from the White Tower in the centre of Thebes. There remained only twelve more days of the required seventy for the Royal embalming of the dead pharaoh. Immediately after the interment of Tamose in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings on the west bank of the Nile, the coronation of his successor and the weddings of his surviving daughters would take place.
Then the cobra will strike again. Taita felt the certainty of it. He was roused from his preoccupation with the dangers that surrounded the prince by a general stir in the gathering around him, and he realized that, without him hearing it, the Regent had just declared the levee closed, and was rising and retiring through the tent flap behind the throne. He rose with the others to leave the tent.
Colonel Asmor stepped forward to stop him, with a smile and a courteous bow. 'Lord Naja, the Regent of Egypt, asks you not to leave. He invites you to a private audience.'
Asmor was now colonel of the Regent's bodyguard, with the rank of Best of Ten Thousand. In a short time he had become a man of power and influence. There was no point in or possibility of refusing the summons, and Taita nodded. 'I am the servant of Pharaoh and of his regent. May they both live a thousand years.'
Asmor led him to the back of the tent, and held open the curtaining for him to pass through. Taita found himself out in the open palm groves, and Asmor led him through the trees to where a smaller, single-roomed tent was pitched on its own. A dozen guards were posted in a ring around this pavilion, for this was a place of secret council which no person was permitted to approach without the Regent's summons. At a command from Asmor, the guards stood aside and the colonel ushered Taita into the shaded interior.
Naja looked up from the bronze bowl in which he was washing his hands. 'You are welcome, Magus.' He smiled warmly, and waved to the pile of cushions in the centre of the rug-covered floor. While Taita seated himself, Naja nodded to Asmor, who went to take up a guard position at the tent opening, his sickle sword drawn. There were only the three of them in the tent, and their conversation would not be overheard.
Naja had discarded his jewellery, and insignia of office. He was affable and friendly as he came to take a seat on one of the cushions facing Taita. He indicated the tray of sweetmeats and sherbet in golden bowls that stood between them. 'Please refresh yourself.'
Taita's instin
ct was to decline, but he knew that to refuse the Regent's hospitality would advertise his own hostility, and alert Naja to his deadly opposition.
As yet, Lord Naja had no reason to know that Taita was aware of his intentions towards the new Pharaoh, or of Naja's crimes and his further ambitions. He inclined his head in thanks and selected the golden bowl furthest from his hand. He waited for Naja to pick up the other bowl of sherbet. The Regent took it, raised it, drank and swallowed without hesitation.
Taita lifted the bowl to his lips, and sipped the cordial. He held it on his tongue. There were those who boasted of possessing poisons that were tasteless and undetectable, but Taita had studied all the corrosive elements, and even the tart fruit could not mask their flavours from him. The drink was uncontaminated, and he swallowed it with pleasure.
'Thank you for your trust,' said Naja gravely, and Taita knew that he referred to more than his acceptance of the refreshment.
'I am the servant of the King, and therefore of his regent.'
'You are a person of inestimable value to the Crown,' Naja countered, 'You have faithfully served three pharaohs and all of them have relied on your advice without question.'
'You overestimate my worth, my lord Regent. I am an old man and feeble.'
Naja smiled. 'Old? Yes, you are old. I have heard it said that you are more than two hundred years old.' Taita inclined his head, neither confirming nor denying it. 'But feeble, no! You are old and as monumental as a mountain. All men know that your wisdom is boundless. Even the secrets of eternal life are yours.'
The flattery was blatant and unashamed, and Taita searched behind it for the hidden reason and meaning. Naja was silent, watching him expectantly. What was he waiting to hear? Taita looked into his eyes, and tuned his mind to catch the other man's thoughts. They were as fleeting and evanescent as the darting shapes of cave bats against the darkling sky at sunset.
He captured one thought entire, and suddenly understood what Naja wanted from him. The knowledge gave him power, and the way ahead opened before him like the gates of a captured city.
'For a thousand years, every king and every learned man has searched for the secret of eternal life,' he said softly.
'Perhaps one man alone has found it.' Naja leaned forward eagerly, with his elbows on his knees.
'My lord, your questions are too profound for an old man like me. Two hundred years is not life eternal.' Taita spread his hands deprecatingly, but dropped his eyes, allowing Naja to read what he wanted to hear in the half-hearted denial. The double crown of Egypt, and eternal life, he thought, and smiled inwardly, keeping his expression solemn. This regent's wants are few and simple.
Naja straightened. 'We will speak of these deep matters another time.' There was a triumphant light in his yellow eyes. 'But now there is something else I would ask of you. It would be a way for you to prove that my good opinion of you is fully justified. You would find my gratitude without bounds.'
He twists and turns like an eel, Taita thought, and I once believed him to be a dull clod of a soldier. He has been able to hide the light of his lantern from all of us. Aloud he said simply, 'If it is within my power, I would deny Pharaoh's regent nothing.'
'You are an adept of the Mazes of Ammon Ra.' Naja said, with a finality that brooked no denial.
Once more Taita glimpsed the shadowy depths of this man's ambition. Not only the crown and eternal life! He wishes also to have the future revealed to him, Taita marvelled, but nodded humbly and replied, 'My lord Naja, all my life I have studied the mysteries, and perhaps I have learned a little.'
'All your very long life.' Naja placed his own emphasis on the phrase. 'And you have learned a very great deal.'
Taita bowed his head and remained silent. Why did I ever dream that he would have me killed? he asked himself. He will protect me with his own life, for that is what he believes I hold in my hands - the key to his immortality.
'Taita, beloved of kings and gods, I wish you to work the Mazes of Ammon Ra for me.'
'My lord, I have never worked the Mazes for anyone who was not a queen or a pharaoh, or one who was not destined to sit upon the throne of this very Egypt.'
'It may well be that one such person asks you now,' said Lord Naja, with deep significance in his tone.
Great Horus has delivered him to me. I have him in my hands, Taita thought, and said, 'I bow to the wishes of Pharaoh's regent.'
'Will you work the Mazes for me this very day? I am most anxious to know the wishes of the gods.' Naja's handsome features were alive with excitement and avarice.
'No man should enter the Mazes lightly,' Taita demurred. 'There are great dangers, not only for me but also for the patron who requests the divination. It will take time to prepare for the journey into the future.'
'How long?' Naja's disappointment was evident.
Taita clasped his forehead in a pantomime of deep thought. Let him sniff the bait for a while, he thought. It will make him more eager to swallow the hook. At last he looked up. 'On the first day of the festival of the Bull of Apis.'
--
The next morning, when he emerged from the great tent, Pharaoh Seti was transformed from the dusty and odorous little rapscallion who had entered the oasis of Boss the previous day. ' With a regal fury and fire that had dismayed his entourage, he had resisted the attempts of the barbers to shave his head. Instead, his dark curls had been shampooed and combed until they shone in the early sunlight with russet lights. On top of them he wore the uraeus, the circlet of gold depicting Nekhbet, the vulture goddess, and Naja, the cobra. Their images were entwined on his forehead, with eyes of red-and blue-coloured glass. On his chin was the false beard of kingship. His makeup was skilfully created so that his beauty was enhanced, and the packed crowds who waited before the tent sighed with admiration and awe as they sank to the ground in adoration. His false fingernails were of beaten gold, and there were gold sandals on his feet. On his chest was one of the most precious of the Crown Jewels of Egypt: the pectoral medallion of Tamose, a jewelled portrait of the god Horus the Falcon. He walked with a stately tread for one so young, carrying the flail and the sceptre crossed over his heart. He stared solemnly ahead until, from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Taita in the front rank of the crowd: he rolled his eyes at the old man then made an impish moue of resignation.
In a cloud of perfume, Lord Naja walked a pace behind him, splendid with jewels and awesome with authority. On his hip hung the blue sword, and on his right arm he wore the hawk seal.
Next came the princesses, with the golden feathers of the goddess Isis on their heads, and golden rings on their fingers and toes. They were no longer in the stiff, encrusted robes of yesterday: from throat to ankles they were encased in long dresses, but the linen was so fine and transparent that the sunlight struck through it, as though through the river mist at dawn. Merykara's limbs were slim, and her chest boyish. The outline of Heseret's body was moulded into voluptuous curves, her breasts were rosy-tipped through the diaphanous folds, and at the base of her belly, in the fork of her thighs, nestled the shadowy triangle of womanhood.
Pharaoh mounted the processional carriage and took his seat on the elevated throne. Lord Naja stood at his right hand, and the princesses sat at his feet.
The companies of priests from every one of the fifty temples of Thebes fell in ahead, strumming the lyre, beating drum and shaking sistrum, sounding the horns, chanting and wailing praises and supplications to the gods.
Then Asmor's bodyguard took up their positions in the procession, and after them came Hilto's squadron of chariots, all freshly burnished and decked with pennants and flowers. The horses were curried until their hides glowed like precious metal, and ribbons were plaited into their manes. The bullocks in the traces of the royal carriage were all of unblemished white, their massive humps decorated with bouquets of lilies and water-hyacinth. Their widespread horns and even their hoofs were covered with gold leaf.
The drivers were stark naked Nubian slaves. E
very hair had been plucked from their heads and bodies which greatly emphasized the size of their genitals. They had been anointed from head to foot with rich oils so that they glistened in the sunlight, black as the eye of Seth, in magnificent contrast to the snowy hides of their bullocks. They goaded the team forward, and the bullocks plodded through the dust. A thousand warriors of the Phat Guards fell in behind them and burst with one voice into the anthem of praise. The populace of Thebes had opened the main gates of the city in welcome and were lining the tops of the walls. From a mile outside it they had covered the dusty surface of the road with palm fronds, straw and flowers.
The walls, towers and buildings of Thebes were all built of sun-baked mud bricks - stone blocks were reserved for the construction of tombs and temples. It hardly rained in the Nile valley so these constructions never deteriorated; they had all been freshly whitewashed and hung with banners in the sky blue of the House of Tamose. The procession passed through the gates, with the crowds dancing, singing and weeping with joy, filling the narrow streets so that the pace of the royal carriage was that of a giant tortoise. At every temple along the way the royal carriage came to a ponderous halt, and Pharaoh dismounted in solemn dignity to sacrifice to the god who dwelt within.
It was late afternoon before they reached the docks at the riverside where the royal barge waited to ferry Pharaoh's party across to the palace of Memnon on the west bank. Once they had gone on board, two hundred rowers in massed banks plied their paddles. To the beat of the drum they rose and fell in unison, wet and shining like the wings of a gigantic egret.
Surrounded by a fleet of galleys, feluccas and other small craft they made the crossing in the late sunlight. Even when they reached the west bank the King's duties for his first day were not completed. Another royal carriage bore him through the crowds to the funerary temple of his father, Pharaoh Tamose.