by Wilbur Smith
He put aside those considerations for the moment. The main concern now was to get the pursuit in hand and to recapture her and the Warlock before they reached the shores of the Red Sea and crossed into the territories loyal to Sargon of Babylon. He smiled down at Soleth. 'I hope that your paramours will find the alterations I have made to your joy passage to their liking. I will deal with you further when I return. There are hungry hyenas and vultures to be fed.'
The two colonels were still in the banquet chamber, hogging the food and wine, although they had not been at it long enough to drink themselves stupid.
'How many chariots can we have manned and running eastward before midnight?' Trok demanded. They looked startled, but they were warriors and responded swiftly to his angry mood.
Colonel Tolma spat out the mouthful of wine he was about to swallow and leaped to his feet, only slightly unsteadily. 'I can have fifty on the road within two hours,' he blurted.
'I want that to be a hundred,' Trok demanded.
'I will have a hundred under command before midnight.' Colonel Zander sprang up, eager not to be outdone. 'And another hundred running east before dawn.'
--
Taita led them through the night under a moon only days from full. The tip of his staff clicked on the stony path, and his shadow flitted ahead of him like a monstrous black bat. The others had to stretch their legs to keep him in sight.
After midnight Mintaka began to fail. She was limping heavily and falling back steadily. Nefer shortened his stride to stay with her. He had not expected this from her: usually she was as strong as any boy he knew, and could outrun most of them. He murmured encouragement to her, not loud enough to reach the ears of Taita. He did not want the Magus to realize Mintaka's weakness, and to shame her in the sight of the others.
'It is not far now,' he told her, and took her hand to lead her faster. 'Bay will have the horses ready for us. We will ride the rest of the way to Babylon in royal style.' She laughed but it was a strained, painful sound. It was only then that he realized something was wrong with her.
'What is it that ails you?' he demanded.
'Nothing,' she said, 'I have been locked up in the palace too long. My legs have gone soft.'
He would not accept it. He took her arm and forced her to sit on 'a rock beside the path, lifted one of her small feet and unlaced the strap of the sandal. He pulled it off and gasped, 'Sweet Horus, how did you manage a single step on this?' The rough ill-fitting sandal had galled her grievously. The blood was black and shining in the moonlight. He lifted the other foot and gently eased off its sandal. Slabs of skin and flesh peeled away with it.
'I am sorry,' she whispered, 'but don't worry, I can go on barefoot.'
Furiously he hurled the bloodied footwear out among the rocks. 'You should have warned me of this earlier.' He stood up, lifted her to her feet, turned his back to her and braced himself to receive her weight. 'Put your arms around my neck and jump up'. Then he set off after the others who, by this time, were merely a dark moving shadow on the moonlit desert far ahead.
Her mouth was close to his ear, and she whispered to him as he toiled on, trying to distract him, and to encourage him. She told him how she had missed him, and how when she had heard of his reputed death she had not wanted to live without him. 'I wanted to die, so that I could be with you again.' Then she told him about the priestess of Hathor and how she had brought the serpent to her. Nefer was so appalled that he lowered her to the earth and scolded her angrily.
That was stupid.' In his agitation he shook her roughly. 'Don't ever think like that again, whatever happens in the future.'
'You cannot know how much I love you, my darling. You cannot imagine the devastation I felt when I thought you were gone.'
'We must make a pact. We must live for each other from this day onwards. We must never think of death again until it comes to us uninvited. Swear it to me!'
'I swear it to you. From now onwards I will live only for you,' she said, and kissed him to seal their bargain. He lifted her on to his shoulders again and they went on.
Her weight seemed to increase with every pace he took. Where the road was soft and sandy he lowered her and she leaned upon him, hobbling along beside him on her raw and bleeding feet. When the ground became rough and stony he lifted her again and trudged onwards. She told him of how Taita had overlooked her and saved her from her resolve to die. 'It was the most extraordinary feeling,' she said, 'As though he stood at my side and spoke to me in a strong clear voice. He told me that you were still alive. How far away were you when he overlooked me?'
'We were at Gebel Nagara in the south, fifteen days' travel from Avaris.'
'He could reach so far?' she asked incredulously. 'Is there no end to his powers?'
Once more they stopped to rest in the darkness and she leaned against his shoulder and whispered to him, 'There is something I want to tell you, about my wedding night with Trok ...'
'No!' he said vehemently. 'I don't want to hear. Do you think I have not tortured myself each day with the thought of it?'
'You must listen to me, my heart. I was never wife to him. Though he tried to force me, I was able to resist him. My love for you gave me the strength to deny him.'
'I have heard that he displayed the red-stained sheepskin on the palace walls.' The words were painful to him and he turned away his face.
'Yes, it was my blood,' she said, and he tried to pull away from her embrace but she held him. 'It was not my virgin blood. It was the blood from my nose and mouth where he had beaten me to force me to submit. I swear to you on the love I have for the goddess, and on my hope to bear your sons, that I am virgin still and will be until you accept my maidenhead from me as a proof of my love.'
He took her in his arms and kissed her and wept with relief and joy, and she wept with him.
After a time he stood up again and he lifted her on to his back. It was as though her vow had given him new strength and they went on more strongly.
It was after midnight before the others realized that something had befallen them, and came back to search for them. Taita bound up Mintaka's feet and after that Hilto and Meren took their turns at carrying her. They went on faster, but the stars were fading and the dawn light growing stronger when they finally reached the oasis where Bay waited for them with the horses.
All of them were exhausted by that time, but Taita would not allow them to rest. They watered the horses for the last time and refilled the waterskins until they were tight and shiny, with drops of moisture oozing from them.
While they were doing this Taita half filled a bucket with water from the well, and, using some foaming unguent, washed the dye from his hair until once more it shone silver.
'Why does he wash his hair at a time like this?' Meren wondered.
'Perhaps it restores some of his force that he lost when he dyed it,' Mintaka suggested, and no one questioned this.
When they were ready to leave Taita forced them to drink again from the well, to fill their bellies with all the water they could swallow without vomiting. While they were doing so Taita spoke quietly to Bay. 'Can you feel it?'
Bay scowled and nodded. 'It is in the air and I can feel it reverberating through the soles of my feet. They are coming.'
Despite the urgency of the moment and the menace of an enemy close at hand, Taita took one last opportunity to treat Mintaka's feet. He smeared the raw and bruised places with salve and re-bandaged them. Then at last he ordered them to mount.
Taita took Meren in the leading chariot as his lance-bearer. Nefer followed with Mintaka clinging to the dashboard to take the weight off her feet. Hilto and Bay brought up the rearguard in the last chariot.
The Assyrian merchant who had sold them the carpets was supervising his servants and slaves as they loaded up his wagons and draught animals. He turned to watch them as they passed, and he called a farewell to Taita. But his interest quickened as he saw the girl in the second chariot. Not even her dusty clothing and dis
hevelled hair could hide her striking looks. He was still staring after them as they topped the last rise and disappeared into the wilderness, heading east along the caravan road that would lead eventually to the shores of the Red Sea.
--
While Trok was waiting impatiently for his squadrons to assemble before the city gates he ordered Colonel Tolma to send his men to search the encampment of beggars and foreigners outside the walls of Avaris. 'Turn out every hovel. Make certain that Queen Mintaka is not hiding in any of them. Search for Taita the Warlock. Bring me any tall, thin old man you find. I will question him myself.'
There were screams and cries among the huts, the sounds of doors being broken down and flimsy walls smashed in as Tolma's men carried out his orders. Within a short time two of the troopers returned, dragging a filthy old Bedouin harridan to where Trok stood beside his chariot. The woman was screaming hysterical abuse at her captors as she kicked and struggled in their grip.
'What is it, soldier?' Trok demanded, as they threw the woman down at his feet. The trooper held up a pair of delicate golden sandals, decorated with turquoise studs that glittered in the torchlight.
'Your Majesty, we found these in her hut.'
Trok's face darkened with fury as he recognized them and he kicked the woman in the belly. 'Where did you steal them, you foul old she-baboon?'
'I never stole nothing, divine Pharaoh,' she whined. 'He gave them to me.'
'Who was he? Answer me straight or I will push your head up your cunt until you drown in your own stinking juices.'
'The old man, he gave them to me.'
'Describe him to me.'
Tall, he was, and skinny.'
'How old?'
'Old as the rocks of the desert. He gave them to me.'
'Was there a girl with him?'
'Three other men and a pretty little harlot dressed in fine stuff with paint on her face and ribbons in her hair.'
Trok jerked her to her feet and shouted into her startled face, 'Where did they go. Which way?'
With a shaking finger the woman pointed along the road that led into the hills and the desert beyond.
'When?' Trok demanded.
'That much of the moon's journey,' she said, indicating an arc of the sky that corresponded to four or five hours of the lunar orbit.
'How many horses did they have?' Trok snarled. 'Chariots? Wagons? How were they travelling?'
'No horses,' she answered. 'They went on foot, but in great haste.'
Trok pushed her away. He grinned at Tolma who stood beside him. 'They will not get far on foot. We will have them just as soon as you can get your idle ruffians out of their sleeping rugs and mounted.'
--
The sun was hot and halfway up the sky when Trok topped the hills above the oasis at the threshold of the wilderness. Two hundred chariots followed him in a column of fours. Five miles further back, their dustcloud clearly visible in the bright sunlight, came Zander with another two hundred. Each vehicle carried two heavily armed troopers, and was loaded with waterskins and sheaths of spare javelins and arrows.
Below them they saw the Assyrian trader coming up the slope from the well at the head of his caravan. Trok rode forward to meet him, and hailed him from a distance. 'Well met, stranger. Whence come you, and what is your business?'
The trader looked up at this warlike host in trepidation, not certain what to expect. Trok's friendly greeting meant little. On the long road from Mesopotamia he had met robbers, bandits and warlords.
Trok reined in his chariot in front of him. 'I am His Divine Majesty Pharaoh Trok Uruk. Welcome to the Lower Kingdom. Fear not. You are under my protection.'
The trader fell to his knees and made his obeisance. For once Trok was impatient of the honours being paid to him, and he cut the man short. 'Stand and speak up, my brave fellow. If you are honest with me and tell me what I need to know, I shall give you a licence to trade throughout my kingdom free of any tax, and send ten chariots to escort you to the gates of Avaris.'
The merchant scrambled to his feet, and began to express his deep gratitude, although he knew from long experience that such royal condescension was usually costly. Trok cut him short. 'I am in pursuit of a band of criminal fugitives. Have you seen them?'
'I have met a number of travellers along the way,' the Assyrian replied cautiously. 'Would Your Divine Majesty deign to describe these villains to me, and I will do my best to place you upon their tracks?'
'Probably five or six in number. They will be heading towards the east. One young woman with them, and the rest of them men. Their leader is an ancient rogue. Tall and thin. He may have dyed his hair black or brown.'
Trok got no further with his description, before the Assyrian broke in excitedly. 'Your Majesty, I know them well. Some days ago the old man with dyed hair purchased carpets and old clothing from me. At that time the woman was not with him. He left horses and three chariots at the oasis down yonder, in the charge of an ugly black ruffian. With the others in an old wagon loaded with the carpets I had sold him, he took this high road we are standing on towards Avaris.'
Trok grinned triumphantly. 'That is the one I want. Have you seen him since? Did he return to pick up the chariots?'
'He and the other three came back early this morning, on foot from the direction of Avaris. With them was the young woman you asked after. She seemed to be injured in some way, for they carried her.'
'Where have they gone, fellow? Which way?' Trok demanded eagerly, but the Assyrian would not be hurried.
'The woman was young. Though she was injured and could only walk with difficulty, she wore fine cloth. She was clearly of high rank and beautiful, with long dark hair.'
'Enough of that. I know the woman well enough without your description. After they left the oasis, which way did they go?'
'They harnessed the horses to the three chariots and left immediately.'
'Which way, man? Which direction did they take?'
'East along the caravan road.' He pointed out the winding track that climbed the low hills into the dune country. 'But the old man's hair was no longer dyed. When last I saw him, it shone like a cloud in the summer sky.'
'When did they leave?'
'An hour after sunrise, Majesty.'
'What was the condition of their horses?'
'Well watered and rested. They had been lying up at the oasis for three days and they had brought a load of fodder with them when they arrived. When they left this morning their waterskins were filled at the well and they seemed to be provisioned for the long journey to the sea.'
'Then they are only hours ahead of us.' Trok exulted. 'Well done, fellow. You have earned my gratitude. My scribes will issue you with the licence to trade, and Colonel Tolma will assign you an escort to Avaris. You will be further rewarded when I return to the city with the fugitives in bonds. You shall have a fine seat in the front row of spectators at their execution. Until then I wish you a good journey and much profit in my kingdom.'
He turned from him and began issuing orders to Colonel Tolma who followed him closely in the second chariot of the column. 'Give this fellow a trade licence and an escort to Avaris. Top up the waterskins at the well, and let the horses drink their fill. But swiftly, Tolma. Be ready to leave again before noon. In the meantime send your wizards and the regimental priests to me.'
The troopers took the horses down to the well in batches of twenty at a time to drink. The men who were not busy with this work stretched out in the shade thrown by their own vehicles to rest and eat a frugal meal of millet bread and dried meat, the staple diet of the cavalry.
Trok found a patch of shade under a gnarled tamarind near the well. The wizards and holy men came in response to his summons and squatted in a circle around him. There were four of them, two shaven priests of Seueth in their black robes, a Nubian shaman hung with necklaces and bracelets of charms and bones, and a sorcerer from the east known as Ishtar the Mede. Ishtar had one wall eye and his face was tattooed with
purple and red whorls and circles.
'The man we are pursuing is an adept of the occult arts,' Trok warned them. 'He will exert all his powers to frustrate us. It is said that he can weave a spell of concealment, and that he can conjure up images that might dismay our legions. You will have to work your own spells to turn aside his powers.'
'Who is this charlatan?' asked Ishtar the Mede. 'You can be certain that he will not prevail against our combined force.'
'His name is Taita,' Trok replied, and only Ishtar showed no dismay at the identity of their adversary.
'I know Taita only by reputation,' he said, 'but I have long looked for an opportunity to match him.'
'Weave your magic,' Trok ordered them.
The priests of Seueth went aside a short distance and laid out their accoutrements and mystical trappings on the sand. They began to chant softly and shake their rattles over them.
The Nubian searched among the rocks around the well, until he found a venomous horned adder under one of them. He lopped off its head and dribbled the blood over his own head. With it running down his cheeks and dripping off the tip of his nose, he hopped in circles like a great black toad. As he completed each turn he spat copiously towards the east where Taita lay.
Ishtar built a small fire near the well and squatted over it, rocking on his heels and muttering incantations to Marduk, the most powerful of all the two thousand and ten gods of Mesopotamia.
Once he had given his orders to Tolma, Trok went across to watch him at work. 'What magic are you making here?' he asked at last, as Ishtar opened a vein in his wrist and let a few drops of his own blood drip and sizzle in the flames of the fire.