by Wilbur Smith
Mintaka returned almost immediately with a brimming jug of clean water. Taita prepared a potion of herbs, and heated it on the brazier.
'Help me give it to him,' he ordered the girl when it had brewed. He showed her how to position her brother's head and to stroke his throat as he dribbled the water into his mouth. Soon Khyan was swallowing freely.
'What can I do to help you?' the king asked.
'My lord, there is nothing for you here. You are better at destroying than at healing.' Taita dismissed him without looking up from his patient. There was a long silence, then the tramp of Apepi's bronze-studded sandals as he left the chamber.
Mintaka soon lost her terror of the Magus, and as a helper she was quick and willing. She seemed able to anticipate Taita's wishes. She forced her brother to drink while Taita brewed up another cup of medicine from his bag on the brazier. Between them they were able to get this down his throat without losing a drop. She helped him smear a soothing ointment on the burns that covered his chest. Then between them they wrapped Khyan in linen sheets and soaked them with well water to cool his burning body.
When she came to sit beside him to rest for a moment Taita took her hand and turned it palm up. He examined the red lumps on the inside of her wrist, but Mintaka tried to pull her hand away. 'Those are not plague spots.' She flushed with embarrassment. 'They are only flea-bites. The palace is crawling with fleas.'
'Where the flea bites, the plague follows,' Taita told her. Take off your shift.'
She stood up without hesitation and let her it drop around her ankles. Her naked body, though slim and nubile, was also athletic and strong. Her breasts were in first bud, the perky nipples pricking out like ripening mulberries. A triangle of soft fluff nestled between her long shapely legs.
A flea hopped from her pale belly. Deftly Taita picked it out of the air and crunched it between his fingernails. The insect had left a chain of pink spots around her neatly puckered belly button.
Turn round,' he ordered, and she obeyed. Another of the loathsome insects ran down her back towards the deep cleft between her hard round buttocks. Taita pinched it between his fingers and crushed its shiny black carapace. It popped in a spot of blood. 'You will be the next patient if we don't get rid of these little pets of yours,' he told her, and sent her to fetch a bowl of water from the kitchens. On the brazier he boiled up the dried purple flowers of the pyrethrum plant and washed her down from head to toe in the brew. He snapped four or five more fleas that tried to escape the pungent douche by leaping off her drenched skin.
Afterwards Mintaka sat beside him while her naked body dried, and chatted unselfconsciously as they picked over her clothes companionably, removing the last fleas and their eggs from the seams and pleats.
They were fast becoming good friends.
Before nightfall Khyan's bowels voided once more, but sparingly, and there was no blood in the stool. Taita sniffed the faeces, and the stench of the plague humours was milder. He administered a stronger distillation of the herbs, and between them they forced Khyan to drink another jugful of well water. By next morning the fever had broken and Khyan was resting more comfortably. He urinated at last, which Taita declared to be beneficial, even though his water was dark yellow and acrid. An hour later he passed more water, lighter in colour and not so evil-smelling.
'Look, my lord,' Mintaka exclaimed, stroking her brother's cheek, 'the red blotches are fading, and his skin feels cooler.'
'You have the healing touch of a nymph of paradise,' Taita told her, 'but do not forget the water jug. It is empty.'
She raced away to the kitchens, and came back almost immediately with a brimming jug. While she gave it to him, she began to sing a Hyksosian lullaby, and Taita was delighted by the sweetness and clarity of her voice:
'Listen to the wind in the grass, little darling,
Sleep, sleep, sleep.
Hear the sound of the river, my little baby,
Dream, dream, dream.'
Taita studied her face. In the Hyksosian way, it was a little too broad, and her cheekbones too prominent. Her mouth was large, her lips full, her nose strongly bridged. Not one of these features was perfect in itself, but each was finely balanced with and matched to all the others, and her neck was long and graceful. Her almond-shaped eyes were truly magnificent under arched black brows. Her expression was alert and bright. Hers was a different kind of beauty, he thought, but beauty none the less. 'Look!' She broke off the song and laughed. 'He is awake.'
Khyan's eyes were open and he was looking up at her.
'You have come back to us, you horrid little beast.' When she laughed her teeth were square and very white in the lamplight. 'We were so worried. You must not do that again, ever.' She hugged him to hide the tears of joy and relief that suddenly sparkled in her eyes.
Taita looked beyond the pair on the bed and saw the bulky figure of Apepi in the doorway. Taita did not know how long he had been there, but now he nodded at Taita without smiling, then turned and disappeared.
By that evening Khyan was able to sit up with a little help from his sister, and to drink from the soup bowl she held to his lips. Two days later his rash had disappeared.
Three or four times a day Apepi visited the chamber. Khyan was still too weak to rise, but as soon as his father appeared, he touched his heart and his lips in a gesture of respect.
On the fifth day he tottered from the couch and tried to prostrate himself before the King, but Apepi stopped him and lifted him back on to the pillows. Even though his feelings for the boy were clear, Apepi had little to say and left again almost immediately, but in the doorway he looked back at Taita and ordered him to follow with a curt inclination of his head.
--
They stood alone on the summit of the highest tower of the palace. They had climbed two hundred steps to reach this height, and from here they had a view upriver over the captured citadel of Abnub, which lay ten miles upstream. Thebes was less than a hundred miles beyond that.
Apepi had ordered the sentries to go down and leave them alone in this lofty place, so that they would not be spied upon or overheard. He stood staring out over the great grey river towards the south. He was in full war costume, hard leather greaves and breastplate, sword-belt studded with gold rosettes, and his beard was plaited with crimson ribbons to match his ceremonial apron. Incongruously he wore the golden uraeus, the vulture and cobra crown, over his dense silver-shot curls. It infuriated Taita that this invader and despoiler considered himself Pharaoh of all Egypt, and wore the sacred regalia, but his expression was serene. Instead he tuned his mind to catch Apepi's thoughts. They were a tangled web, so deep and devious that even Taita could not discern them clearly, but he could sense the force within that made Apepi such a dreadful adversary.
'At least something they say of you is true, Magus.' Apepi broke the long silence. 'You are a physician of great skill.' Taita remained silent.
'Can you work a charm to heal the plague in my army as you have in my son?' Apepi asked. 'I would pay you a lakh of gold. As much gold as ten strong horses can carry.'
Taita smiled bleakly. 'My lord, if I could work such a charm I could as well conjure a hundred lakhs out of the thin air without the effort of curing your ruffians.'
Apepi turned his head and returned his smile, but it lacked any humour or goodwill. 'How old are you, Warlock? Trok says you are over two hundred years old. Is that true?'
Taita gave no indication of having heard him, and Apepi went on, 'What is your price, Warlock? If not gold then what can I offer you?' The question was rhetorical and he did not wait for an answer, but stamped away to the northern parapet of the tower, and stood with his fists on his hips. He looked down over the encampments of his army, and the cremation fields beyond. The fires were still burning and the smoke drifted low across the green waters of the river and out into the desert beyond.
'You have won a victory, my lord,' Taita said softly, 'but you do well to contemplate the pyres of your dead. Pharaoh wi
ll have reinforced and regrouped his forces before the plague burns itself out and your men are ready to fight again.'
Apepi shook himself with annoyance, like a lion shaking off flies. 'Your persistence irks me, Warlock.'
'Nay, lord, it is not me but the truth and the logic that irk you.'
'Nefer Seti is a child. I have defeated him once, I will do it again.'
'What is more crucial to you, there is no plague in his army. Your spies will have told you that Pharaoh has five more legions at Aswan, and another two at Asyut. They are already on the river coming north with the current. They will be here before the new moon.'
Apepi growled softly, but made no response. Taita went on relentlessly, 'Sixty years of war have bled both kingdoms white. Would you pass on the legacy of Salitis, your own father, sixty years of bloodshed? Is that what your sons will inherit from you?'
Apepi rounded on him, scowling, 'Do not press me too hard, old man. Do not insult my father, the divine god Salitis.' After an interval long enough to express his disapproval, Apepi spoke again. 'How long will it take you to arrange a parley with this so-called Regent of the Upper Kingdom, this Naja?'
'If you give me safe conduct through your lines, and a fast galley to carry me, I can be in Thebes in three days. The return with the current will be even swifter.'
'I will send Trok with you to see you safely through. Tell Naja I will meet him at the temple of Hathor on the west bank at Perra beyond Abnub. Do you know it?'
'I know it well, my lord,' Taita said.
'We can talk there,' Apepi said. 'But tell him not to expect too many concessions from me. I am the victor, and he the vanquished. You can go now.'
Taita stood his ground.
'You may go, Warlock.' Apepi dismissed him a second time.
'Pharaoh Nefer Seti is almost of an age with your daughter, Mintaka,' Taita said stubbornly. 'You might wish to bring her with you to Perra.'
'To what purpose?' Apepi stared at him suspiciously.
'An alliance between your dynasty and that of the Tamosian pharaohs might seal a lasting peace in the two kingdoms.'
Apepi stroked the ribbons in his beard to hide his smile, 'By Seueth, you intrigue as cunningly as you mix a potion, Warlock. Now, get you gone before you irk me past forbearance.'
--
The temple of Hathor had been excavated out of the rocky hillside above the river in the reign of Pharaoh Sehertawy hundreds of years previously, but had been added to by every pharaoh since then. The priestesses were a rich, influential sisterhood who had contrived somehow to survive during the long civil wars between the kingdoms and even to prosper in difficult times.
Dressed in their yellow robes they were gathered in the courtyard of the temple, between the two massive statues of the goddess. One of these depicted Hathor as the piebald cow with golden horns, and the other was her human manifestation, the tall, beautiful lady wearing the crown of horns and the golden sun disc on her head.
The priestesses chanted and rattled the sistrum as the suite of Pharaoh Nefer Seti filed into the courtyard from the eastern wing, while King Apepi's courtiers entered through the western colonnade. The order of arrival at the conference had been a matter of such heated debate that the negotiations had almost broken down before they had begun. The first arrival would have the prestige of the incumbent in the position of power, while the second arrival would appear as the supplicant begging for peace. Neither side had been willing to forgo the advantage.
It was Taita who had suggested the expedient of a simultaneous arrival. He had also tactfully settled the equally vexing question of the regalia to be worn by the two protagonists. Both would eschew the double crown. Apepi would wear the red deshret crown of Lower Egypt, while Nefer Seti would confine himself to the white hedjet crown of Upper Egypt.
The entourages of both rulers packed the spacious courtyard, their ranks facing each other unsmiling and grim. Only a few paces separated them physically, but the bitterness and hatred of sixty years' strife formed a mighty barrier between them.
The hostile silence was shattered by a rolling fanfare of rams' horns, and the thunder of bronze gongs. This was the signal for the royal parties to emerge from the opposite wings of the temple.
Lord Naja and Pharaoh Nefer Seti paced out solemnly and took their places on the high-backed thrones, while the two princesses, Heseret and Merykara, followed them meekly and took their seats at the foot of Naja's throne, for they were his betrothed. Both girls were so heavily made-up that their faces were as expressionless as that of the statue of Hathor in whose shadow they sat.
At the same time the Hyksosian royal family emerged from the opposing wing of the temple. Apepi led them, an impressive, warlike figure in full battle armour. He glared across the courtyard at the boy pharaoh. Eight of his sons followed him; only Khyan, the youngest, had not recovered sufficiently from the plague to make the journey upriver. Like their father they were armed and armoured, and strutted and posed with the same bravado.
A formidable coterie of bloodthirsty ruffians, Taita thought, as he surveyed them from where he stood close to Nefer's throne.
Apepi had brought only one of his many daughters with him. Like a desert rose in a thicket of spiny cactus, the contrast to her brothers made Mintaka's beauty shine out. She picked out Taita's tall lank figure and silver hair in the crowd opposite and her face lit in a smile so radiant that it seemed for a moment that the sun had burst through the awnings stretched over the courtyard. None of the Egyptians had ever laid eyes on her before, and there was a subdued .rustle and murmur through their ranks. They had been unprepared for her. The myth was that all Hyksosian women were as heavily built as their menfolk and twice as ugly.
Pharaoh Nefer Seti leaned forward slightly and despite the solemnity of the occasion tugged at his earlobe under the bottle-shaped white crown. It was a habit Taita had tried to break, and Nefer only did it when he was intensely interested in something, or when he was distracted. Taita had not seen Nefer for over two months - Naja had kept them separated since his return from Apepi's headquarters at Bubasti -yet he was so familiar with the boy, so attuned to his mind, that he could still read his thoughts with ease. He sensed that Nefer was in a ferment of elation and excitement, as intense as if he had just spotted a gazelle moving within arrow range, or was about to mount an unbroken colt, or had launched a hawk at a heron and was watching it begin its stoop.
Taita had never known him react like this to the presence of a member of the opposite sex. Nefer had always looked upon all females, including his sisters, with a regal disdain. However, it was less than a year since he had been launched on to the troubled waters of puberty, and most of that time he had been sequestered with Taita in the wilderness of Gebel Nagara where there had been nothing to rivet his attention in the way that Mintaka was now doing.
Taita felt smug at what he had achieved with so little effort. It would have complicated all his plans and enhanced the danger in which they found themselves if Nefer had taken a violent dislike to the Hyksosian girl. If the two married, Nefer would be the son-in-law of Apepi and come under his protection. Even Naja must pause before giving offence to someone so powerful and dangerous. Mintaka might unwittingly save Nefer from the Regent's machinations and ambitions. That at least was Taita's intention in fostering the union.
During the short time they had nursed and cared for her brother Taita and Mintaka had formed a firm friendship. Now Taita nodded almost imperceptibly and returned her smile. Then Mintaka's gaze moved past him. She looked with interest at the noble Egyptian women opposite her. She had heard much about them, but these were the first she had seen. Swiftly she singled out Heseret. With sure feminine instinct she recognized someone as attractive as herself, and a possible future rival. Heseret reacted to her in exactly the same way, and they exchanged a brief but haughty and mutually hostile glance. Then Mintaka raised her eyes to the impressive figure of Lord Naja and stared at him with fascination.
He was s
uch a splendid sight, so different from her own father and brothers. He shone with gold and precious stones, and his linen was dazzling in its purity. She could smell his perfume across the distance that separated them, like a field of wild flowers. His face was a mask of makeup, his skin almost luminous and his eyes outlined and enhanced with kohl. Yet she thought that his was the fatal beauty of a snake or a poisonous insect. She shivered and turned her eyes to the figure on the throne beside the Regent.
Pharaoh Nefer Seti was staring at her with such intensity that she caught her breath. His eyes were so green - that was the first thing that struck her and she wanted to look away but found she could not. Instead she started to blush.
Pharaoh Nefer Seti looked so dignified and divine under the white crown and with the false goatee beard on his chin that she felt flustered. Then, suddenly, Pharaoh gave her a warm and conspiratorial smile. Instantly his face was boyish and appealing, and unaccountably her breath came faster and she blushed deeper. With an effort she tore away her eyes, and studied the cow statue of the goddess Hathor with great attention.
It took her some time to bring herself under control, and by that time Lord Naja, the Regent of Upper Egypt, was speaking. In measured tones he greeted Apepi, diplomatically referring to him as King of the Hyksos but avoiding any reference to his claims to Egyptian territory. Mintaka watched his lips intently, but she was aware of Nefer's eyes on her, and determined not to look at him.
Lord Naja's voice was sonorous and boring, and at last she could hold out no longer. She sneaked a quick sideways glance at Nefer, intending to look away again immediately, but his eyes were still fastened on her. They glinted with silent laughter and fascinated her. Hers was not a timid nature, but this time her smile was shy and hesitant, and she felt her colour rise again. She dropped her eyes and looked at her hands in her lap, twisting her fingers together until she realized that she was fidgeting and stopped herself. She kept her hands still, but now she was irritated with Nefer for having ruffled her calm. He is only a precious Egyptian fop. Any one of my brothers is more of a man and twice as handsome. He is only trying to make me look a fool by staring at me in that boorish way. I will not look at him again. I will ignore him completely, she decided, and her resolve lasted until Lord Naja stopped speaking, and her father rose to answer him.