Lords of the Nile

by Jonathan Spencer

  They passed a remote cluster of white mud houses, startling a herd of goats, dark figures beside them in the shimmering distance: the men in baggy white trousers and long blue and white galabeyyah, the women in black from head to toe as they struggled with loads upon their heads or under their arms.

  ‘Fellahin,’ said Izzam.

  The fellahin paused to watch as the group rode past, as doubtless they watched the world and its changes go past, thought Hazzard. How would they fare as Bonaparte’s legions marched by? An old man with a twisted leg waved a stick over his head, calling angrily at them. It seemed as good an answer as any.

  The dust rose. Hazzard covered his face with the long hanging flap of the shemagh, tucking it into the side of the iqal rope circlet still snug round his head. Beyond the fellahin and another loose gathering of huts, heaps of smouldering ashen refuse spread at the side of the track, sending clouds of evil-smelling debris into the air. The pestilential flakes floated, mingling with countless flies, burning the eyes, and they kicked their heels in to gallop away.

  Eventually they passed a series of deserted wells, so many stone-rimmed holes in the blowing dust, leafless brush leaning away from the ceaseless wind, stark, dead, the wells dry.

  ‘The Nile in this last year,’ explained Masoud, riding up beside Hazzard, ‘it did not flood fully, effendi.’

  ‘Half a league to our right, following the old well trail,’ called Hammer over the wind, ‘a man could die. He will not find the water he expects. Only the locals and the Bedu know the deepest wells. We go southeast now.’

  ‘How much further?’ asked Hazzard.

  ‘Far enough.’

  They reached a full well at just past noon, the terrain a bright dazzle, broken by rocky ridges and distant low hills carved by the wind. They dismounted, and Hazzard looked down at the ground. He saw no shadow. The sand was hot beneath his boots, burning through the soles. The Bedouin saw to the well, pulling up the bulging goatskins, and helped them fill their own, then watered the horses beneath twisted thorn and gnarled acacias.

  Hazzard’s eye settled on a distant escarpment, the horizon blurred into cloud and dancing light. ‘What is that?’

  Hammer shielded his eyes and looked. ‘That is the beginning of Wadi el Natrun,’ he said, then, with amusement, ‘A great canyon carved in the rocks. How far do you think it is?’

  Hazzard looked again across the shimmering heat-haze. ‘Half a day away?’

  Hammer laughed. ‘Nearly twice that. In this barren place we wish not to be so alone. Our minds play tricks, and bring objects closer.’

  The horses struggled through soft sand, slowing the pace, tossing their heads with frustration, prancing through the hillocks and low dunes until they reached harder ground on dry flats, lying between rising craggy rock formations which would suddenly end, providing no shelter, only glowing heat. They regained the time with a harsh gallop, glimpses of drab green in the distance urging them on, marking the edge of the fertile Nile fields.

  Hazzard had forgotten how quickly light faded at such a latitude – twilight was short-lived, and they were soon dropped gratefully into a cool gloom. They stopped for the night, taking shelter under a stand of palms to the west of Alqam. The Bedouins built a fire, Izzam putting on the customary coffee-pot. Low swordlike shrubs studded the undergrowth, the wind whispering through the trailing fronds of the palms above. Small scorpions emerged from under nearby rocks, scuttling from the flames, and Izzam drove them away with his riding switch.

  Alahum made Bedouin bread, baked in coals in the sand, but had with him several small melons for their guests. Hazzard noticed the Bedu did not eat any, and asked why.

  Masoud translated the reply from Izzam. ‘They do not eat much of the wet food, he says, effendi, preferring the dry, for the health.’ Izzam said something more, spreading a thick layer of paste from a clay jar onto the flat sand-bread. Masoud added, ‘All that is wet, he says, is consumed by the dry sands. Hence this good bread is dry. The thirst of the desert, he says, cannot be satisfied. It will drink a man to nothing, leaving only dust. Better not to attract its appetite.’

  Alahum showed Cook his Turkish musket. It was nearly six feet long, its angular trumpet-shaped stock criss-crossed by decorative multi-coloured wood banding. Cook surprised none more than himself when he loaded, took a shot and hit the tip of the desert shrub he was aiming for, even in the dark, to the delight of the Bedouin.

  ‘Right ruddy luck that was,’ laughed Cook. ‘Should’ve ’ad a shilling on it.’

  ‘Such things,’ laughed Hammer, ‘are very important to the Bedu.’

  Overjoyed with Cook’s marksmanship, Izzam tentatively offered him food from his bowl, a mixture of dried mutton and dates, uneasy that Cook might reject it. Cook and Hazzard were foreigners, and might not have the stomach for such things.

  Hazzard murmured, ‘As with the Mughals, I assume…’

  ‘Quite so,’ smiled Hammer.

  ‘Aye. First two fingers and thumb o’the right hand, I remember. And give him a belch for afters.’ Cook took a piece and muttered, ‘Used to get a slap for that…’

  The night spread overhead, a vast dome punctured by brilliant gemstones, clearer even than at sea, thought Hazzard. Hammer settled down next to him by the fire, an unlikely necessity, and they were grateful for it. ‘You did well on the ride, both of you, for a pair of sailors.’ Smiling, he watched him, then changed his tone, suddenly serious. ‘You are familiar with this place.’

  Hazzard looked out at the landscape in the moonglow. ‘More with Egypt’s past. My studies, some years ago.’

  ‘Mm. Cambridge I understand.’ Hazzard looked at him and he chuckled. ‘We diplomats have our ways, you know. I have read various works of Kircher and ibn Washiyyah in Vienna,’ he said with a laugh. ‘When I had the time to. It is how I met the wise Masoud here – working at the libraries.’ He looked into the deep blue distance. ‘This must be like a return home for you, as it was for me. I think we are both a type of explorer.’

  Hazzard wondered. ‘I wish I were here only to explore.’

  Hammer removed his headdress and ran his fingers through his thinning black hair, tired. He was certainly older than Hazzard, but still a vigorous man. ‘And both of us understand the motives of the French academics you mentioned.’ He sighed. ‘I know some of those names, Monge, Marcel, Fourier—’ he shook his head ‘—and especially Conté, he of the balloons. Extraordinary man. We cannot blame them for their excitement.’

  Hazzard thought of the Orient, the darkness of the Orlop deck, the fuse.

  Fortunes of war.

  ‘No. But they’re not coming just to explore. They’re coming with one of the best armies in Europe.’

  Hammer sat up. ‘You do realise you must convince the Mamluks? This is not England. You must have an argument to support action, not just influence. You must convince the Ottoman Pasha, the Sultan’s governor. And you must convince Murad, and Ibrahim, and the diwan, and they must convince their sanjaqs to send men to fight.’

  ‘Are the Mamluks as divided as they say?’

  ‘Worse. The Ottomans rule Egypt, technically, but the Ottoman Sultan cannot control them. The Mamluks have been here for many centuries, much longer than the Ottomans. Mamluks served under Saladin, remember. They are trained for war from childhood, the most formidable army in the East, and do not take kindly to interference. Insular, in a way, a law unto themselves.’

  Hazzard wondered what kind of reception he could expect. ‘They’ll find their own argument when Bonaparte lands.’

  Hammer laughed again. ‘Oh, very good. Very oblique, very Arabic,’ he said. ‘They might well listen. Prophets always come out of the desert.’

  ‘I am just a messenger,’ said Hazzard, ‘with bad news.’

  He laughed again. ‘So was John the Baptist.’

  Alahum offered his bowl to Hazzard and he ate from it, pleasing him. Hammer whispered, ‘Have you anything to offer him? A trinket as a keepsake? You will have
exchanged then, and become more than strangers.’

  Hazzard noticed Alahum’s gaze, directed curiously at his Bombay Marine jacket under the binish robe, particularly at the brass buttons. Hazzard reached under the binish and pulled one of them off. He held it out for him to examine. Alahum looked at it, fascinated, then gestured, For me? Hazzard nodded, offering it again.

  ‘Gift,’ he said, glancing at Masoud.

  Masoud translated for the Bedouin, ‘Hadeyya.’

  ‘It will prove of value,’ explained Hammer. ‘The Mamluk often decorate their armour with their gold and silver – that way they always have money wherever they go. They become their own treasure chest.’

  Alahum took it and showed it to Izzam. They watched the firelight flash on the anchor and chain motif, delighted, a prized token from the exotic foreigners.

  On the second day they were hit by the heat, further south and too far west of the Nile to enjoy any cooling breeze, and it pressed down upon them as the sun rose steadily. Hazzard could not believe such a force could come without sound – the roar of a furnace or the booming of a drum – all was silent. In that silence the only sound but for the muffled hoofbeats beneath them was the hiss of every grain of sand as it tumbled, whispering. By eleven he had reached too often for the water in his goatskin.

  The dust had embedded itself in every fine line and wrinkle on their faces and set hard in the oils and sweat of their skin. As Hazzard moved his eyes, the coating cracked and he could feel his skin crack painfully with it.

  India had not been like this. Here the air was hot and dry, baking Hazzard’s throat and lungs, and he knew a few sips of water would not cure it. The robes protected him from the pressure of the sun but the heat was everywhere, in everything. Hazzard looked over at Cook. He had wrapped his face as well, his normally brick-red skin coated in dust, as white as the sand.

  The winds picked up and their course brought them curving closer towards the Nile, but the Bedouin had grown quiet and watchful, driving the pace harder and faster south rather than east, off the roads and into the sand, miles from the river in a more direct route to the capital. At one point Izzam held his hand out to the west and swept his arm across the horizon.

  Hazzard looked. He had seen it on maps in London with Dr Muhammad, a great depression stretching across to Libya, of salt flats, wadis and stone towers, then nothing but a sea of dunes, where distances were measured not in miles or leagues, but in time, two weeks to here, three weeks to there. On the map it had looked like the ocean, but he knew its name.

  Izzam nodded with a warning and lifted his chin, as if to say, far out there. ‘Al-Sahraa…’

  Hammer pulled the mask from his mouth, a cloud of dust and sand blowing behind him, his beard powdered with white.

  ‘Desert, he says,’ he called, ‘Sahara.’

  Nearly an hour later, the Bedouin slowed and eventually stopped. Izzam looked back at them and put a hand up to halt.

  Cautious, Alahum rode on a short way further, then dismounted. He ran forward to a low dune and peered over the top. Cook and Hazzard pulled in the reins and stopped.

  The horizon stretched all around them, white, blinding. Gusts of wind tossed the sand into clouds, the dried bushes nodding, then standing still. Everywhere was silence.

  Hazzard peeled the scarf from his face.

  ‘What is it?’

  Hammer looked. ‘Something.’

  The Bedouin watched steadily. From his vantage point Hazzard could see nothing, only the endless scrub and rock-strewn sands. The glare was terrible. Masoud trotted up beside him and pointed.

  ‘There.’

  Still Hazzard saw nothing. Masoud pointed again. Cook looked out, his hands cupped round his eyes.

  ‘Where?’

  Hazzard stared, his eyes stinging. ‘Got it.’

  Dots.

  ‘How many?’

  They were moving.

  A long line of them, the heat distorting the distance like waves on water.

  ‘A caravan perhaps, effendi, from Siwa, the oasis, perhaps come through the al-Beheira sands.’

  Some dots detached from the line. After several minutes, they grew larger.

  Hazzard watched them. Five, and a sixth behind.

  ‘Trouble?’

  Izzam pulled his horse round and returned to them, pointing over his shoulder. ‘Bedu,’ he said. He was tense, thought Hazzard. ‘Mamaliq.’

  The five figures drew nearer, the sixth taking its time. They were on camels. Alahum and Izzam rode out and stopped. They waited.

  ‘Herr Hammer?’ asked Hazzard. ‘Are we safe?’

  ‘I think so. But let us be careful.’

  ‘Sar’nt.’

  ‘Aye…’

  Cook thumbed back the cock on his pistol. The ratchet was loud in the tomb-like stillness. Hazzard cleared his robe from the pommel of his sword. They trotted their horses forward, slowing, drawing closer to Izzam and Alahum.

  Hazzard saw there were five men, in voluminous maghrib headdresses, their dark faces barely visible, a variety of colours in their robes, their camels hung with heavy knots, tassels and adornments. They were possibly from the same clan or house, thought Hazzard. But the lone man riding behind was something altogether different.

  He wore white, and held his riding switch and reins out to the sides, elbows out, showing flowing sleeves of silk, more Turkish than anything Hazzard might have taken for Egyptian. Covering his face was a mask of black silk, hung with fine sparkling chains strung with small gold discs or possibly coins, his chest similarly decorated, a type of armour, Hazzard wondered. On his head was a white turban wrapped tightly about a spiked conical Ottoman steel helm. On each hip hung a curved sword, their jewelled ivory mounts flashing as the camel approached.

  It was a medieval Moor, he thought, ridden straight from the 11th-century tales of El Cid.

  ‘This,’ murmured Hammer, ‘is a Mamluk.’

  The Mamluk lowered his hands and the camel slowed to a halt with no evident command. The Bedouin escort called in a demanding tone to Izzam and Alahum, who answered aggressively, pointing back at Hazzard and Cook – they did not address the Mamluk, perhaps out of deference.

  ‘What is the name of the man we need to meet in Cairo?’ Hazzard asked Hammer.

  ‘Murad. His proper style is Murad Bey. A bey is much like a duke. He commands the elite Mamluk cavalry. This man will know the name.’

  Hazzard walked his horse forward. Cook followed. Masoud called, ‘Hazar-effendi, please…’ then trotted after him unhappily. The Mamluk turned his head slowly, noting their approach.

  ‘As-salamu aleikum,’ said Hazzard, slowly raising his open right hand in salute.

  The Mamluk tilted his head, curious. After a moment he touched his fingertips first to his heart, his lips, and then his forehead. The gesture was measured, graceful, elegant. A deep voice replied, ‘Wa aleikum as-salam.’

  Izzam and the others argued in terse snatches, the five escorts of the Mamluk riding round Hazzard in a loose circle, then round Cook, looking them up and down, then shouting a command at Izzam and Alahum.

  To prove a point, Alahum then held out the brass button Hazzard had given him. One Bedouin rider snatched it from his hand, and the others crowded round it, looking. Then one of them made a comment and the others agreed but Izzam did not, and shouted back at them.

  ‘So,’ said Hammer from behind.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘They demand you and Mr Cook as prisoners,’ said Masoud fearfully. ‘To ransom to the East India Company at Kosseir on the Red Sea. They are Maaza from the east – they are not Awlad ’Ali. They are on the wrong side of the Nile. Izzam is angry.’

  With contempt Izzam said, ‘Maaza…’ and spat.

  They began shouting again and the Mamluk watched. One of the Maaza prodded Izzam with his riding crop then drew a large dagger, reaching out as if to take him by the arm.

  Hazzard spoke. ‘Jory.’

  Cook fired his pistol. At the sound of
the shot, the camels jerked their heads and roared, the riders calling in alarm as the man cried out and dropped from his saddle into the sand, clutching his arm.

  ‘Only winged him,’ said Cook. ‘Must be the sun.’

  ‘It’ll do…’ said Hazzard.

  Hammer made to move forward. ‘I had best speak to them—’

  ‘No,’ said Hazzard. He put his hand out to Cook, not taking his eyes from the Mamluk. ‘Give me the pistol.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Gift.’

  Cook glanced at him. ‘I liked that one.’

  ‘Give me the bloody thing.’

  Cook handed it over. Masoud rode up beside Hazzard. The Mamluk’s camel reared its head, sensing a challenge, the tassels swinging from its heavy woven and embroidered bridle. Hazzard moved in front of Izzam and Alahum and they bowed their heads, withdrawing. The Mamluk noted this too, with another tilt of the head. Hazzard halted his horse, and bowed.

  ‘I am Hazzard, a captain of the English.’ He threw open the long shemagh scarf and binish robe, revealing the braided scarlet of the Bombay Marine beneath, and the hilt of the Navy sword at his hip. The Bedouin escort fell silent and stared, forgetting their groaning comrade. The Mamluk studied the uniform curiously. Masoud translated.

  ‘These are my guides, under my protection. They meant no offence.’ Hazzard held out the empty pistol in the flat of his hand. ‘Please accept a gift from a stranger seeking friendship among the Mamluk. A London pistol, made for my king.’

  The Mamluk’s face was entirely hidden, the vision slit in his black veil only shadow. He listened to Masoud’s words, then walked the camel forward slowly. He reached out carefully and took the pistol. He weighed it in his hand, nodding with appreciation, examining the gold inlay. He held it up to the light and Hazzard guessed he was reading the gunmaker’s mark, H.W. Mortimer, London. Gunmaker to His Majesty.

  ‘We ride to Cairo,’ said Hazzard. ‘I seek an audience with Murad Bey.’

  The Mamluk looked up from the pistol at the sound of the name.

  ‘A large army,’ continued Hazzard, ‘led by a French Sultan, is coming to invade your lands. This French Sultan is the enemy of the English. I come as a friend to warn Murad Bey and help him defeat the invader.’