by Wilbur Smith
Trok clapped his hands again and two of his guardsmen came down the deck from the bows, carrying between them a large bag of untanned leather. The smell it gave off was strong and unpleasant. Some of the girls exclaimed with disgust, but Mintaka remained expressionless as the two soldiers stopped in front of her.
Trok nodded at them and they loosened the drawstring at the mouth of the bag, then tipped out the contents on to the deck. The girls shrieked with horror, and even some of the men started and exclaimed with disgust.
The severed human head rolled across the planking to Mintaka's feet, and lay there, staring up at her with a wide and startled gaze. The long dark locks were stiff with dried black blood.
'Laso!' Mintaka whispered the name of the inept magician whom she had entrusted with her message to Thebes.
'Ah! You recall his name.' Trok smiled. 'His tricks must have impressed you as much as they did me.'
In the summer heat the head had begun to decompose, and the smell was strong. The flies came swiftly and crawled on the open eyeballs. Mintaka's gorge rose, and she swallowed hard. She saw that a scrap of papyrus parchment protruded from between Laso's purple lips.
'Alas, it seems that his last trick was his most amusing.' Trok leaned over and retrieved the blood-smeared parchment. He held it so that Mintaka could be certain it was her own cartouche that sealed the message, then dropped the papyrus into the charcoal brazier on which the lamb kebabs were roasting. It burned quickly and the ashes curled into grey powder.
Trok gestured for the head to be removed. One of the soldiers picked it up by the hair, dropped it back into the bag and took it away. The company sat for a long minute in shocked silence, except that one of the girls was sobbing softly.
'Your Royal Highness, your divine father of illustrious memory must have had some premonition of the fate that awaited him,' Trok addressed her gravely. Mintaka was too disturbed to reply. 'Before his tragic death he spoke to me. He placed you under my protection. I gave him my oath, and I accepted this as a sacred charge. You need never appeal to any other for protection. I, Pharaoh Trok Uruk, am your oath man.' He placed his right hand upon her bowed head, and in the other hand he raised another scroll of parchment.
'This is my royal proclamation setting aside the betrothal of Princess Mintaka of the House of Apepi to Pharaoh Nefer Seti of the House of Tamose. Furthermore, it contains a proclamation of the marriage of the Princess Mintaka to Pharaoh Trok Uruk. The proclamation has been ratified by the cartouche of Lord Naja, accepting and confirming it in the name of Pharaoh Nefer Seti.' He handed the scroll to his chamberlain with a terse instruction. 'Have one hundred copies made of this proclamation and cause them to be publicly displayed in every city in every nome of this very Egypt.'
Then, with both hands, he lifted Mintaka to her feet. 'You will not be alone for much longer. You and I will be husband and wife before the rise of the Moon of Osiris.'
--
Three days later Pharaoh Trok Uruk arrived at Avaris, his military capital in the Lower Kingdom, and immediately plunged with indefatigable energy into securing to his own hand all the affairs of state, and the trappings of power.
The populace was delirious with joy at the news of the treaty of Hathor, and at the promise of peace and prosperity in the years ahead. However, there was some puzzlement and dismay when one of the first acts of the new Pharaoh was to put in hand another massive enforced draft of men for the army. It soon became clear that he was intent on doubling the size of his infantry regiments and building two thousand more fighting chariots.
The question was asked, but not to Trok's face, where he expected to find a new enemy now that Egypt was once more united and at peace. The loss of working men from the millet fields and pastures to the army resulted in a shortage of food and a sharp increase in the prices in the markets. The expenditure on new chariots, weapons and military equipment necessitated an increase in taxation. There were mutters now that Apepi, despite his warmongering, taxation and contempt of the gods, had not been as bad a ruler as they had believed him to be.
Within weeks Trok ordered work to commence on the extensive enlargements and refurbishment to the palace in Avaris into which he intended to move with his bride, Princess Mintaka. The architects estimated that these works would cost over two lakhs of gold. The muttering grew louder.
Well aware of the rising discontent, Trok met it with the proclamation of his own divinity and elevation to the pantheon. Work was to begin within the week on the construction of his temple on a choice site alongside the magnificent temple of Seueth in Avaris. Trok was determined that his temple would exceed that of his brother god in splendour. The architects estimated that the completion of the temple would require at the very least five thousand labourers, five years and another two lakhs of gold.
The revolt started in the delta where a regiment of foot, who had been unpaid for over a year, murdered their officers and marched on Avaris, calling on the population to rise and join them against the tyrant. Trok met them with three hundred chariots near Manashi and cut them to pieces with his first charge.
He emasculated and impaled five hundred mutineers on stakes. Like a macabre forest, they decorated both sides of the road for half a league beyond the village of Manashi. The ringleaders of the revolt were roped to the back of chariots and dragged to Avaris to state their grievances. Unfortunately none of the prisoners survived the journey: by the time they arrived they were barely recognizable as human - their skin and much of their flesh had been ripped away as they were dragged over the rough ground. Ragged pieces of flesh and splinters of bone were scattered over twenty leagues of the roadway, to the delight of the pi-dogs, jackals and carrion crows.
A few hundred mutineers escaped the massacre and disappeared into the desert. Trok did not bother to pursue them beyond the eastern borders, for this petty matter had already occupied too much of his attention and delayed his wedding by months. He hurried back to Avaris, using up three pairs of horses in his furious impatience.
While Trok was away, Mintaka had tried twice more to send a message to Taita in Thebes. The first of her messengers had been one of the eunuchs of the harem, a fat, kindly black man she had known all her life. There was a special bond between the eunuchs in both kingdoms that transcended race or country. Even during the years when the two kingdoms were split asunder, Soth, for that was the eunuch's name, had honoured this special tie to Taita, and had been his friend and confidant.
However, Trok's spies were ubiquitous and unsleeping. Soth never reached Assyut but was brought back in a leather bag barely alive. He died when his head was plunged into a cauldron of boiling water. His skull, with the flesh boiled away, the bone bleached and polished, the eye-sockets filled with orbs of lapis lazuli, was presented to Mintaka as a special gift from Pharaoh Trok.
After that Mintaka could not bring herself to recruit another messenger, and thus condemn him or her to a gruesome death. Nevertheless, one of her Libyan slave girls, Thana, who knew the depth of her mistress's love volunteered to carry her message. She was the not the prettiest of the girls, for she had a cast in one eye and a large nose, but she was loyal, loving and true. At her suggestion Mintaka sold her to a merchant who was travelling to Thebes the following day. He took Thana with him, but three days later she was back in Avaris, bound by wrists and ankles to the side frame of a chariot of the border guards.
Trok dealt with Thana on his return from Manashi: he condemned her to death by love and she was given to the regiment that had led the charge at Manashi. Over four hundred men took their pleasure with her until, at sunset on the third day, she bled to death.
For three days Mintaka wept for her without cease.
--
The wedding of Pharaoh Trok Uruk and Princess Mintaka Apepi was played out in the ancient Hyksosian tradition that had its origins a thousand years earlier, and a thousand leagues to the east, on the vast treeless steppe beyond the mountains of Assyria from which their ancestors had ridden to th
e conquest of Egypt.
At dawn on the day of the wedding, a party of two hundred of the relatives and members of the tribe of Princess Mintaka burst into the royal apartments where she had been kept captive ever since her return to Avaris. There was no resistance from the guards who had been expecting this incursion. The members of her faction carried Mintaka away, and rode towards the east in a tight formation with the princess in their midst, shouting defiance and brandishing clubs and staves. Edged weapons of any sort were banned from the festivities.
When the bridal party had been given a head-start the bridegroom led a party of his own tribe, the leopards, in pursuit. The fugitives had shown no urgency to escape, and as soon as the pursuers came into view they turned back and gleefully launched themselves into the fray. Even though swords and daggers were not allowed, two men suffered fractured limbs, and there were a few cracked skulls. Not even the bridegroom escaped without cuts and bruises. In the end Trok claimed his prize. He snatched up Mintaka with an arm around her waist and lifted her into his chariot.
Mintaka's resistance was not in the least play-acting, and with her fingernails she inflicted a deep scratch down the right side of Trok's face, which narrowly missed his eye, and the dripping blood spoiled the colourful splendour of his costume.
'She will give you many warlike sons!' his supporters shouted in admiration for the ferocity of the Mintaka's resistance.
Grinning delightedly at the belligerent spirit of his bride Trok drove her triumphantly back to his temple where the newly appointed priests of his order waited to perform the final rituals.
The temple was as yet only open foundation trenches and tall heaps of stone building blocks, but this did not detract from the pleasure of the wedding guests or the enthusiasm of the bridegroom as they stood under the canopy of woven reeds while the high priest bound Mintaka to him with a halter rope.
At the culmination of the ceremony, Trok cut the throat of his favourite war horse, a beautiful chestnut stallion, as a sign that he placed a higher value on his bride than on this other precious possession. As the animal fell kicking and spurting blood from the open carotid artery the company shouted their acclamation and lifted the couple into the flower-bedecked chariot.
Trok drove back to the palace with one arm still firmly around his bride, taking no chances on a second escape. The army lined the way, swarming around the vehicle, and showered gifts of amulets and good-luck charms into the cockpit. Others held up bowls of wine to Trok as he drove past, and he gulped them, spilling much of it down his tunic where it mingled with the blood from his torn cheek.
By the time they reached the palace Trok was soaked with blood and red wine, sweating and dusty from the ride and the fight to claim his bride, reckless with wine and wild-eyed with lust.
He carried Mintaka through the crowd into their new apartments, and the guards at the door turned back the wedding guests with drawn swords. However, they did not disperse but surrounded the palace, chanting encouragement to the bridegroom and ribald advice to the bride.
In the bedchamber Trok threw Mintaka on to the white sheepskin that covered the mattress and used both hands to struggle with his sword-belt, trying to loosen the clasp and cursing it lustily when it would not yield. Mintaka hit the bed and bounced off it like a rabbit startled from her burrow by a ferret.
She raced to the terrace door and tried to wrest it open. The locking bars on the outside had been put in place by Trok's orders. Desperately she tried to tear open the panel with her fingernails, but the doors were solid and thick and did not even tremble to her onslaught.
Behind her Trok had at last rid himself of the sword-belt and the scabbard clattered on the mosaic tiles. He came lumbering unsteadily after her. 'Fight as much as you wish, prettyling,' he slurred. 'It sets my prong on fire when you kick and scream.'
He placed one arm around her waist, and reached around with the other hand to seize one of her breasts. 'By Seueth, what ripe, juicy fruit is this?' He squeezed hard with fingers calloused by the hilt of sword and by the reins of his chariot. The pain shot through her chest, and she screamed and twisted in his arms, raking for his eyes again. He caught her wrist. 'You'll not play that little trick twice.' He swung her off her feet and carried her back to the bed.
'Baboon!' she cried. 'You smelly hairy ape. You foul animal.'
'You sing a sweet love song, little one. My heart and my prong swell when I hear how much you desire me.'
He threw her down again and this time pinned her with one huge muscular arm across her chest. His face was inches from hers. His beard prickled her cheeks, and his breath smelt of sour wine. She twisted her face away. He laughed and hooked one finger in the neck of her shift and ripped the silk to below her waist.
He prised out her breasts and one after the other squeezed them hard enough to leave red fingermarks on the tender flesh. He pinched her nipples and pulled them out until they darkened in colour, then ran his right hand over her belly. Playfully he prodded one thick finger into her belly button, then tried to force his hand between her thighs. She locked her legs, one over the other, to deny him.
Suddenly he reared up, straddled her, sitting across her lower body with all his weight so that she could not struggle, and ripped off his tunic. Under it he was naked. His body was trained by war, hunting and rough games, and although her vision was distorted by pain, tears and terror, she had an impression of wide shoulders and bulging muscle, limbs thick and thewy as the branches of a cedar of Lebanon.
Still pinning her under him, he twisted round until his belly pressed against hers, and the coarse hair that covered his chest rasped against her breasts. With mounting terror she felt his massive penis prodding against her.
She fought not only for her dignity and modesty, but as if for her very life. She tried to bite his face but her small sharp teeth were smothered in his beard. She clawed at his back and the skin peeled away to jam under her nails, but he did not seem to feel it.
He was trying to force a knee between her thighs, but she kept them locked together, hooking one of her legs over the other. Every muscle in her lower body was frozen in a rigor of fear and revulsion, hard and as impenetrable as a granite statue of the goddess.
Both of them were sweating, he more heavily. It poured from his body, greasing their skin so that his huge member slithered over her belly and pounded at the junction of her thighs.
Suddenly he heaved his upper body free, and swung a heavy blow, flat-handed, across her face. It jarred her clenched jaws, crushing her lips and nose. She felt blood flood into her mouth and darkness fill her head.
'Open up, bitch!' he panted above her. 'Open that hot little slit and let me in.' He was thrusting hard with his hips, and she felt the loathsome thing slithering over her. Even in the pain and darkness of the blow she managed to deny him entry, but she knew she could not last out much longer. He was too heavy and powerful.
'Hathor, help me!' She closed her eyes and prayed. 'Sweet goddess, do not let it happen!'
She heard him groan above her, and her eyes flew open. His face was swollen and dark with congested blood. She felt him arch his back, and he moaned as though in pain. His eyes were wide, sightless and shot with blood. His mouth opened in a terrible rictus.
Mintaka did not understand what was happening. For a moment she thought that the goddess must have heard her plea and struck him through the heart with a divine dart. Then she felt hot liquid spray over her stomach, so hot it seemed to scald her skin. She tried to twist away to avoid it, but he was too heavy and strong. At last the loathsome stream shrivelled and dried up. Suddenly he groaned again and collapsed on top of her. He lay quiescent, and she dared not move lest it incite him to further efforts. They lay for a long time, until in the quiet chamber they both became aware of the lewd cries of the crowd waiting outside the palace walls. Trok roused himself and looked down at her. 'You have shamed me, you little slut. You have made me spill my seed in vain.'
Before she knew what he wa
s about, he grabbed her by the back of her neck and forced her face into the white sheepskin.
'Never fear, I shall use the blood from your nose if I can't have it from your honeypot.'
He rolled her aside and inspected the crimson stain from her bleeding face on the pure white wool with grim satisfaction. Then he jumped to his feet, strode, stark naked, to the shutters and kicked them open with a crash of shattering timber. He disappeared out into the bright daylight.
With a fold of the bed linen Mintaka wiped away the loathsome slime that was clotting on her ivory smooth belly. There were angry red marks on her breasts and on her limbs. Her fear turned to fury.
His sword-belt lay where he had dropped it. Quietly she slipped from the bed and drew the burnished bronze blade from its scabbard. She crept to the door that led on to the terrace and flattened herself against the jamb.
Outside, Trok was acknowledging the applause of the crowd and flapping the stained sheepskin for all to see. 'She loved it!' he answered some shouted comment. 'When I finished with her, she was wide and wet as the delta swamps, as hot as the Sahara.'
Mintaka tightened her grip on the haft of the heavy sword and gathered herself.
'Farewell, my friends,' Trok shouted. 'I am going back for another bite at that sweet fig.'
She heard his bare feet swish on the tiles as he returned and then his shadow fell across the entrance. She drew back the sword with both hands, and held the point at belly height.
As he stepped into the chamber she braced herself and then with all her strength thrust at him, aiming halfway between the pit of his navel and the dense black bush from which dangled the heavy excrescence of his genitals.
Once, long ago, while hunting with her father, she had watched him aim at a monster male leopard that was unaware of their presence. The cat had been alerted by the twang and hum of her father's bowstring, and instantly leaped aside before the arrow reached its mark. Trok possessed the same feral instinct for danger and survival.