by Wilbur Smith
Taita stood over him, calculated the angle and depth of the cut, then made one swift, deep incision. Apepi let out a muffled bellow from between clamped teeth, but did not move. Taita stood back as a fountain of dark blood and thick yellow pus erupted from the wound. A gut-wrenching stench filled the chamber. Taita laid aside the scalpel and ran his forefinger deep into the opening. Blood bubbled up around it but he felt something hard and sharp in the bottom of the incision. He picked up the ivory forceps that he had placed ready to hand, and probed the opening until he felt the tip strike something solid.
Apepi had stopped yelling, and he lay without movement, except the involuntary shuddering of his back muscles. He breathed with loud porcine snuffles through his nose. At the third attempt Taita gripped the object with the jaws of the forceps, and tugged at it until he felt it give and start to rise towards the surface. It came out - the last inch with a rush of pus and detritus - and Taita held it up so that the light from the window fell upon it.
'An arrowhead,' he announced, 'and it's been in there for a long time. I am amazed it did not mortify years ago.'
Apepi spat out the belt and sat up, chuckling shakily. 'By the hairy testicles of Seueth, I recognize that pretty little bauble. One of your ruffians shot that into me at Abnub ten years ago. At the time, my surgeons said it lay so close to my heart that they could not reach it, so they left it in and I have been gestating it ever since.'
He took the triangle of shaped flint from Taita's bloody fingers and beamed at it with proprietary pride. 'I feel like a mother with her firstborn. I will have it made into a charm to wear around my neck on a gold chain. You can weave a spell over it. That should ward off any other missiles. What do you think, Warlock?'
'I am sure it will prove highly efficacious, my lord.' Taita filled his mouth with hot wine and honey from the bowl he had prepared and used a hollow brass tube to syringe out the pus and blood, squirting it deep into the wound.
'What a waste of good wine,' Apepi said, lifted the bowl with both hands and drained the remainder of the contents to the dregs. He hurled it against the far wall and belched. 'Now, as a reward for your services, I have an amusing tale for you, Warlock, that harks back to our last conversation on the tower top at Bubasti.'
'I am listening with fixed attention to your lordship's every word.' Taita bent over him and began to bandage the open wound with linen strips, murmuring the incantation for the binding up of wounds as he did so:
'I bind thee up, thing of Seth.
I stop thy red mouth, thing of great evil.'
Apepi interrupted harshly, Trok has offered a lakh of gold as a bride price for Mintaka.'
Taita's hands stopped moving. He stood with the bandage wound half around Apepi's barrel chest. 'What did you answer him, Majesty?'
He was so distressed that the royal title slipped out before he could check himself. This was a dangerous and unforeseen development. 'I told him the bride-price was five lakhs.' Apepi grinned. The dog is so hot for my little bitch that his prong is standing up between his eyes and blinding him, but despite the booty he has stolen from me over the years, even he can never find five lakhs.' He belched again. 'Do not worry, Warlock, Mintaka is too valuable to waste on someone like Trok, when I can use her to chain your little pharaoh into my realm.'
He stood up and lifted one thickly muscled arm, trying to peer under it at his bandaged back, like an old rooster with its head under its wing. 'You have made me into a mummy before my time,' he laughed, 'but it's a neat job. Go and tell your regent that I am ready to risk another whiff of his perfume, and I will meet him in the conference chamber again in an hour's time.'
--
Naja was mollified by Taita's success, and the message from Apepi. Any inkling he might have had of Taita's disloyalty was expunged. 'I have that old rogue Apepi at the brink,' Naja gloated. 'He is about to make even more concessions than he realizes, which is why I was so angry when he broke off the conference and went to his couch.' He was so delighted with himself that he could not remain seated. He jumped up and paced the stone floor. 'How is he, Magus? Did you give him any potion that might cloud his mind?'
'I sent a dose down his gullet that would have stunned a bull buffalo,' Taita assured him. Naja crossed to his cosmetics chest and sprinkled perfume from a green glass vial into the cup of his hand and stroked it down the back of his neck. 'Well, I shall take full advantage.' He started towards the door, then looked back over his shoulder. 'Come with me,' he ordered. 'I might have use of your powers before I am done with Apepi.'
Binding Apepi to the treaty was not the easy task that Naja had suggested it would be. He showed no ill effect from either his wound or from the medication, and he was still ranting, shouting and banging his clenched fist on the table long after the watchman on the temple walls had called the midnight hour. No compromise Naja offered seemed enough for him, and at last even Taita was exhausted by his intransigence. Naja adjourned the conference and, to the crowing of the roosters in the courtyard, staggered off to bed.
The next day, when they met again at noon, Apepi was no more amenable to reason, and if anything the negotiations were even more stormy. Taita used his best influences to calm him, but Apepi allowed himself to be wooed only very slowly. So it was only on the fifth day that the scribes could begin to write down the terms of the treaty on the clay tablets in both the hieratic script and in hieroglyphics, translated into Hyksosian and Egyptian. They laboured late into the night.
Up to this time Naja had excluded Pharaoh Nefer Seti from the conclave. He had kept him occupied with trivial tasks, lessons with his tutors, and practice at arms, meetings with ambassadors and delegations of merchants and priests, all of whom sought concessions or donations. In the end Nefer had rebelled so Naja sent him out hawking and hunting with Apepi's younger sons. These outings were not the most |, amiable of events, and the first day had ended in a loud dispute over the | bag, which had almost led to an exchange of blows.
On the second day, at Taita's suggestion, Princess Mintaka joined the hawking party to act as peace-maker between the two factions. Even her older brothers held her in considerable awe, and deferred to her when at any other time they might have drawn their weapons and rushed to wreak havoc on the Egyptian party. In like manner, when Mintaka was riding beside him in his hunting chariot, Nefer's warlike instincts were lulled. He took little notice of the threatening, boastful behaviour of her loutish siblings and enjoyed her wit and erudition, to say nothing of her close physical presence. In the confined cockpit of the chariot they were often thrown together as they bounced over the rough ground in pursuit of the fleeing gazelle herds. Then Mintaka would grab and hold him, even when the immediate danger was past.
When Nefer returned to the temple after the first outing, he sent for Taita, ostensibly to describe the day's sport to him but he was vague and distracted. Even when Taita questioned him on the performance of his favourite falcon, Nefer showed no great enthusiasm. Until he suddenly remarked dreamily, 'Does it not amaze you, Taita, just how soft and warm girls are?'
By the morning of the sixth day the scribes had completed their work and the fifty tablets of the treaty were ready to be ratified. Now Naja sent for Pharaoh to take part in the proceedings. Likewise, all Apepi's offspring, including Mintaka, were to be present at the ceremony.
Once again the courtyard of the temple was filled with a glittering congregation of royalty and nobility as, in stentorian tones, the Herald Royal began to read out the text of the treaty. Immediately Nefer was absorbed by what it contained. He and Mintaka had discussed it in detail during the days they had spent together, and exchanged significant glances whenever they thought they had detected a flaw or an oversight in the terms. However, these were few, and Nefer was certain that he detected Taita's shadowy influence in many areas of the long document. At last it was time to affix the seals. To a series of blasts on the rams' horns Nefer pressed his cartouche on to the damp clay and Apepi did the same. It annoyed Nefer to see that the Hyksosia
n king had usurped the pharaonic prerogative by adopting the sacred cartouche.
While Naja watched, with an enigmatic expression behind his heavy makeup, the new co-rulers of the two kingdoms embraced. Apepi folded Nefer's slim form in his bearlike embrace and the congregation exploded in loud shouts of 'Bak-her.' Bak-her!' Men rattled their weapons against their shields, or hammered the butts of their spears and lances on the stone flags.
Nefer found himself almost overcome by Apepi's powerful bodily odours. One of the Egyptian mores that the Hyksos had not adopted was their concept of personal hygiene. Nefer consoled himself with the thought that if he found the odour repugnant, then Naja was in for a shock when the king bestowed his affection upon him. Gently he eased himself out of the arms of his co-pharaoh, but Apepi beamed down on him in avuncular fashion and placed one hairy paw on his shoulder. Then he turned to face the crowded courtyard. 'Citizens of this mighty land, which is once again united, I pledge you my duty and my patriotic love. In token of these, I offer the hand of my daughter, Princess Mintaka, in marriage to the Pharaoh Nefer Seti who is my co-ruler of this very Egypt. Pharaoh Nefer Seti, who shares with me the double crown of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, and who shall be my son and whose sons shall be my grandsons!'
There was a long moment of utter stillness in the courtyard as the assembly came to terms with this startling announcement. Then they burst out in even more enthusiastic cries of approval while the drumming of weapons and the stamp of armoured sandals became deafening. Pharaoh Nefer Seti had an expression on his face that in any lesser mortal would have been described as an idiotic grin. He was gazing across the courtyard at Mintaka. She was frozen, with one hand covering her mouth, as though to stop herself shrieking or squealing, and her eyes were wide open with astonishment as she gazed at her father. Slowly a dark blush suffused her face and shyly she turned her eyes to meet Nefer's. The two gazed at each other as if no other person was in the crowded courtyard.
Taita watched from the foot of Pharaoh's throne. He realized that Apepi's timing of the announcement had been masterly. Now there was no possible way in which anybody - Naja, Trok or any other - could stand in the way of the marriage.
Taita stood close to Naja's throne. Under his makeup the Regent was plainly in a state of deep consternation, especially aware of his own predicament. If Nefer married the princess he was beyond Naja's reach. He saw the double crown slipping from his grasp. Naja must have sensed Taita's eyes upon him, for he glanced in his direction. For a moment only Taita looked into his soul, and it was as though he had looked into a dry well filled with the live cobras for which the Regent was named. Then Naja veiled his fierce yellow eyes, smiled coolly and nodded in agreement and approval, but Taita knew that he was thinking furiously. However, those thoughts were so swift and complex that even he could not follow them.
Taita turned his head and sought out the burly figure of Lord Trok in the Hyksosian ranks opposite. Unlike the Regent, Trok was making no attempt to disguise his feelings. He was in a black rage. His beard seemed to bristle and his face was swollen with dark blood. He opened his mouth as if to shout an insult or a protest, then closed it, and placed one hand on the hilt of his sword. His knuckles glazed white with the pressure of his grip, and briefly Taita thought that he was about to draw his blade and rush across the courtyard to Nefer's slim figure. With a huge effort he regained control of himself, smoothed down his beard then turned abruptly and pushed his way out of the courtyard. The commotion was such that almost no one noticed him go. Only Apepi watched him with a cynical smile.
As Trok disappeared between the tall granite Hathor pillars, Apepi dropped his hand from Nefer's shoulder and crossed to Naja's throne. He lifted the Regent easily off his cushions and embraced him with even more vigour than he had Pharaoh. His lips were pressed to Naja's ear when he whispered softly, 'No more Egyptian tricks now, my sweet-smelling flower, or I shall ram them as far up your arse as my arm can reach.'
He dropped Naja back on his cushions, then took the throne that had been placed alongside for him. Naja blanched and held a linen pad soaked in perfume to his nose while he gathered his wits. Wave after wave of applause swept over the courtyard. As it died away Apepi slammed his huge paws on the arms of his throne to encourage them to fresh efforts, and the cheering began all over again. He was enjoying himself hugely and he kept them at it until they were almost exhausted.
With the deshret crown of lower Egypt on his head, his was the dominant figure. Beside him Nefer, even under the authority of the tall hedjet crown, was a mere stripling. At last, after a final burst of applause, Naja rose to his feet and held up both arms. A grateful silence at last descended.
'Let the holy virgin come forward!' Led out in procession by her acolytes from behind the carved screen of the chancel, the high priestess of the temple advanced to the double throne. Before her, two priestesses carried the pshent crowns of the double kingdom. While the temple choir sang praises to the goddess the venerable old woman removed the single crowns from the heads of the co-rulers and replaced them with the double crowns, signifying the reunification of Egypt. Then she pronounced her quavering blessing on the two pharaohs and the new land, and retired into the depths of the temple. There was a short pause of indecision, for this was the first time in the long history of Egypt that a ceremony of reunification had been held and there were no established protocols to follow.
Adroitly Naja seized his opportunity. Once again he rose and stepped in front of Apepi. 'On this auspicious and joyous day, we rejoice not only in the joining of the two kingdoms, but also in the betrothal of Pharaoh Nefer Seti and the beautiful Princess Mintaka. Therefore, be it known throughout the two kingdoms that the marriage will take place in this temple on the day that Pharaoh Nefer Seti celebrates his majority, or fulfils one of the conditions to ratify his claim to the crown and rules in his own right without a regent to protect and advise him.'
Apepi frowned and Nefer made a small gesture of dismay, but it was too late. It had been announced in full session and, as regent, Naja spoke with the authority of both crowned heads. Unless Nefer captured his own godbird, or succeeded in running the Red Road, thereby ratifying his claim to the throne, Naja had effectively prevented the marriage taking place for a number of years.
That was a masterly stroke, Taita thought bitterly, but he admired the political acumen behind it. Naja had averted disaster for himself by his quick thinking and timely intervention. Now, while his opposition was off-balance, he went even further. 'On an equally happy note, I invite Pharaoh Apepi and Pharaoh Nefer Seti to celebrate my own marriage to the princesses Heseret and Merykara. This joyous ceremony will take place ten days from now, on the first day of the festival of Isis Ascending at the temple of Isis in the city of Thebes.'
So, in ten days' time Lord Naja will be a member of the Tamosian royal family, and will stand next in succession to Pharaoh Nefer Seti, Taita thought grimly. Now we know, past all doubt, who was the cobra in the nest of the royal falcon on the cliffs of Bir Umm Masara.
--
By the terms of the treaty of Hathor, Apepi's seat would remain at Avaris and Nefer Seti's at Thebes. Each would govern his former kingdom, but in the name of the biumvirate. Twice every year, at the beginning and the end of the inundation of the Nile, the two kings would hold a combined royal assize at Memphis where all matters concerning the two kingdoms would be dealt with, new laws enacted and legal appeals considered.
However, before the two pharaohs parted, each to take up his seat in his respective capital, Apepi and his train would sail upriver in company with Nefer Seti's fleet to Thebes. There they would attend Lord Naja's double wedding.
The simultaneous embarkation of both trains from the wharf below the temple was a chaotic affair that took up most of the morning. Taita mingled with the throng of boatmen and dockers, slaves and important passengers. Even he was amazed by the mountains of luggage and equipment piled upon the beach, waiting to be loaded on the lighters, feluccas and ga
lleys. Rather than drive the long, rough road back downriver, the regiments of both Thebes and Avaris had broken down their chariots and were loading them and the horses on to the lighters. This contributed greatly to the confusion on the riverbank.
For once Taita was not the centre of attraction: there was work to keep everyone fully occupied. Occasionally a man would look up from what he was doing, recognize him and ask for his blessing, or a woman would bring him a sick child to tend. However, he was able to work his way gradually along the beach, casually looking out for the chariots and equipment of Lord Trok's regiment. He recognized them by their green and red pennants, and as he approached he made out the unmistakable figure of Trok among his men. Taita edged closer and saw him standing over a pile of equipment and weapons, haranguing his lance-bearer: 'You brainless baboon, how have you packed my kit? That is my favourite bow lying there unprotected. Some oaf is sure to drive the horses over it.' His mood of the previous day had not improved, and he stamped away down the wharf, lashing out with his chariot whip at any unfortunate who stood in his way. Taita watched him pause to talk to another of his sergeants, then take the path up to the temple.
As soon as he had disappeared Taita approached the lance-bearer. The trooper was stripped to breech-clout and sandals, and as he stooped over one of the chests of Trok's equipment and staggered with it to the waiting lighter, Taita saw the distinctive circular rash of the ring-worm on his naked back. The lance-bearer handed up the chest to a boatman on the deck of the galley then came back. For the first time he noticed Taita standing nearby and touched his own breast with a clenched fist, saluting respectfully. 'Come here, soldier.' Taita called him across. 'How long have you had the itch on your back?'
Instinctively the fellow twisted up one arm between his shoulder-blades, and scratched himself so vigorously that he drew blood. 'Cursed thing has been bothering me ever since we captured Abnub. I think it's a gift from one of those dirty Egyptian whores-' He broke off guiltily. Taita knew that he was speaking about a woman he had raped during the capture of the city. 'Forgive me, Warlock, we are allies and fellow countrymen now.'