Lords of the Nile

by Jonathan Spencer

  He took Hazzard by the hand and they lurched to the stern, the gunboat rocking with another explosion from the Mamluk flagship. In that moment, Hazzard saw Jeanne Arnaud. He recognised her from the Orient. She saw him, the sword, the red coat.

  ‘L’anglais…’

  She ran to him and Hazzard took her hand. ‘Is she here?’

  Jeanne knew who he meant but shook her head, distraught. ‘I came back for her but cannot find her! You must go, go quickly.’

  ‘Was she wounded on the Orient?’ Jeanne would not say, her eyes wide and frightened. ‘Answer me!’

  ‘No! No, not wounded.’

  It was enough.

  Alive.

  Her little face twisted with despair and she sobbed. ‘We should be in Rosette…! But came to this…’

  ‘Come with me! Venez,’ he said. ‘Izzam—’ taking them both by the hands, he looked at her, ‘—we jump, or I boot your derrière into the river, comprends?’

  ‘Ha,’ she said with a little laugh, wiping away her tears, ‘You must be an anglais…’

  Izzam looked at the water uncertainly, but nodded, ‘Hazar Pasha…’ Another round burst and hit the afterdeck, and the three jumped. The rush of water muffled the thud of cannon and the raging of the battle above. His hands round Jeanne’s slim waist, he lifted her up to the surface, holding her safe, her arms tight round his neck. She coughed, her hair plastered to her cheeks, her eyes bright and frightened.

  ‘Merci, m’sieur,’ she said. ‘M’sieur l’anglais.’

  Shouts from the rescue boat, and hands stretched down for her, others reaching for him, M’sieur, m’sieur, ici! He lifted her up to them and said, close to her ear, ‘Tell her, tell her to find Joseph Hammer of Vienna. Ça va?’

  ‘Oui…’ she kissed him and squeezed him tight round the neck a moment, then let go as two cavalry officers pulled her from the water, her eyes not leaving his. Hands reached down for him, M’sieur, venez! Come!

  Beyond their sight, a thousand yards away, the French infantry squares drew closer to the riverbank, pushing back the Mamluk footsoldiers. The Nile erupted with French artillery fire. The savants and civilians cried out, and their rescue boat veered off. Fountains of mud and spray rose from the bank, the barrage rolling across the Nile.

  Hazzard heard the splashing behind, Izzam, floundering badly, calling his name, ‘Hazar…’ a shot and another, and Hazzard swam back to him, catching a piece of shattered timber wreckage, setting Izzam’s hands firmly on it for support. ‘Hasanan? Eh? Hasanan?’ All right? The Bedouin’s breath came back to him, ‘Shokran, Hazar Pasha, shokran…’ Thank you.

  More rounds howled overhead as Hazzard clung to the broken timbers beside him and watched. He had to reach the rearmost boats, the transport barges, to find Sarah. Clouds of thick smoke belched across the river, the shattered gunboats drifting in the current, one half-sunk, its prow raised at a sharp angle. The Cerf emerged from the black curtain, charging towards the Mamluk flagship. French troops opened fire from her decks, shots whistling past, the water leaping, whining off the broken wood by their heads. Hazzard tried to cover Izzam and they swam, kicking their legs to get away, back to the riverbank.

  A volley of fire boomed overhead and the French muskets stopped, cries of men, some falling into the water. Ahead, on the mudflats of the riverbank, Hazzard saw Alahum and Cook with a group of mounted Bedouin, cheering, waving their carbines in the air, shouting Kuq! Kuq! Kuq! Alahum rode his horse out into the shallows, Cook running after, a line round his waist. He dived in.

  Cook struck out into the deeper water and reached them in minutes, taking hold of the frightened Izzam, still keeping his hands tight on the floating wood, a broken cask bumping into them, a body drifting by. He tied the line round the Bedouin and the wreckage. Artillery rounds howled above, the crash of flying spray mingling with the rattle and whine of musket-fire.

  ‘Can you hold him? I’ve got to get to the other boats!’

  ‘You can’t! The Frogs are linin’ up their guns on the river!’

  He saw Hazzard’s face, the blood and cuts, his eyes wide. It was as if Hazzard had not seen him. French field artillery boomed and shells hurtled down, round-shots, howitzers, the water thudding with impacts, sending up grey fountains, the distant crump of a hit on a Mamluk ship.

  ‘Was she here, sir?’

  Hazzard’s gaze searched the scene on the water. He could not answer. ‘I’ve got to bloody look for her!’

  * * *

  Not fifty yards downriver, Sarah floated gently in the churned, muddy waters of the Nile, her feet kicking against the current, her skirts floating, blossoming, then enveloping her, dragging her down – until she felt the pressure of a large object splash behind her, and hands at her back taking rough hold of her bodice.

  With a rush of air from her bursting lungs she was pulled choking to the surface. She coughed and retched blindly, her hands finding the arms of her rescuer, her world a blur, bobbing in the water. She looked up and saw the side of a small boat – then the deep, staring eyes of Jules-Yves Derrien, leaning over the side, reaching out to her.

  ‘Take my hand.’

  She nearly screamed, but could not.

  ‘Isabelle. Come.’

  With the help of two men, she reached the gunwale and fell in, tumbling against a number of sacks, coughing, wheezing, her throat burning, bringing up water. A soaked marine, evidently her saviour, looked down at her, Ça va, ma belle? and several tattered savants gathered round her with concern. One held her wrist, taking her pulse, a doctor. ‘You are all right now, mademoiselle, do not distress yourself.’

  Sarah looked about, their faces unfamiliar – something was wrong. The boat was filled with sacks of meal and grain, heaps of rope and boxes of French stores – it was a trading felucca, not the rescue gunboat, and it was turning away from the French flotilla.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We are going to safety, mademoiselle,’ said Derrien patiently, ‘to Rosetta. Downriver.’

  Derrien shouted over his shoulder in Arabic to make sail, ‘Abhur!’ The Egyptian rivermen jumped to it, hauling up the lateen yard to make sail. The canvas caught the Nile wind and billowed.

  ‘No…’ She looked at the other passengers. ‘Jeanne! Where is Jeanne? Jeanne! Jeanne!’

  * * *

  The felucca glided slowly into mid-channel, the blasts from the artillery echoing in the distance, the thick fog of smoke drifting. For the briefest moment the wind picked up, the charred clouds parting, revealing a grey darkening sky and the river beyond – then Hazzard saw them.

  ‘Jory.’

  He saw the savants, and the marines – and the figure beside her. It was Derrien.

  ‘Jaysus,’ Cook kept his head down. ‘It’s him…!’

  ‘Oh my Christ.’ Hazzard could not bear it – the sight of her, at last, but with Derrien. She was looking out across the water, straight at them, calling for Jeanne, no sign that she had seen them. Her gaze moved on.

  Hazzard shoved off violently from the wreckage to swim out into the current but Cook took firm hold of his arm. ‘No—’

  ‘I’ve got to—’

  ‘Look at her, sir, just look.’

  Five marines sat guard, watching the river, muskets and bayonets held ready. The savants spoke with her, comforted her – she was not a prisoner. She was one of them.

  ‘If she sees you, sir, that bastard’ll know she’s one of us. And he’ll do for her, no mistake.’

  Hazzard watched. ‘How is he here… how!’ Derrien had his back to them, looking away from the flotilla, from the battle, looking downriver to his destination. Hazzard tried to pull away.

  ‘Sir…’ urged Cook, ‘he mustn’t see.’

  ‘Damn it, Jory, I’m going to kill him! Bloody kill him!’

  Cook dragged him back to their cover and Hazzard thrashed about until, at last, he hung still, quiet, defeated, and put his hands on the timber wreckage. He knew Cook was right. If he swam out to them, t
he marines would pick him off or bayonet him. Worse, Derrien would take his ultimate revenge on him – and kill her before his eyes, before he had the chance even to climb into the boat. She must have no connection to him, none. If Derrien divined the truth, especially after his escape from the Orient, she was lost, condemned.

  Hazzard put his forehead against the flotsam, his anger draining silently into the Nile. He slid behind the floating timbers, the tangled lines, watching her, her hopeless expression, her shape slowly receding, her shivering body, her head now hanging low in resignation. Wisps of smoke slowly shrouded her.

  ‘Got to let her go, sir…’

  Hazzard could hardly think, for his anger, his fear, his pain. He let her be taken, for her own good.

  But the scene was abruptly obliterated from sight. As the felucca pulled away in the downstream current, further upriver the Cerf drew alongside the Mamluk flagship just beyond the riverbend. The former Inspector of Foundries Gaspard Monge finally had a clear line of sight, and loosed a broadside of his guns. The cannons roared, and one of the iron rounds struck home, hitting the Mamluk powder magazine. The ship blew itself to pieces.

  Nearly everyone on the last French gunboat was knocked off their feet by the explosion, the Mamluk gun-crews and Bedouins on the banks of the Nile thrown flat. Hazzard felt the percussion, the shock of the river as the blast-wave lashed the surface.

  The French on the Cerf cheered, Monge, Fourier and Berthollet and others, saved, ecstatic with relief, pointing, waving their hats – as the sky filled with the slowly whirling corpses of mutilated Greek and Mamluk soldiers and sailors, gently turning end over end, then falling, splashing one after the other into the Nile, some limbless, some headless, so much macabre flotsam.

  Hazzard felt the drag of the shallows, the reeds, stones and mud clutching at his legs, Izzam finding his feet on the river bottom. Within a few minutes, Alahum and Cook’s Bedouins were pulling them in, and they staggered through a stand of tall rushes, collapsing onto the mudflats.

  The shell of the flaming Mamluk flagship listed and settled, the smoke sending a pungent cloud over the battlefield, the blast stunning the Mamluk cavalry to a standstill. The Mamluk artillerymen abandoned their guns on the Nile and fled, the footsoldiers falling back.

  Further distant, Murad looked over Shubra Khit, over his dead, over the spiked castles in the sand. The enemy had not been tempted to break. He called for retreat.

  ‘Al-Qahira…!’

  Murad Bey raised his sword and the remaining five thousand horse swept away, a flock of swooping birds, pausing briefly to gather, then galloping off, the remnants of the foot-army following.

  Alahum dropped down next to Izzam, and the pair stared mutely across the scene. Izzam wrung out his keffiyah headdress, his tightly cropped curls glistening and wet. Alahum shook him by the hair and laughed. The other Bedouins handed them food and goatskins of water, repeating their names in awe, Kuq, Hazar.

  Cook said, ‘Sir, may I present the warriors of the Beni Qassim clan…’ They bowed and touched their fingers to their hearts in greeting. Cook tipped a goatskin up to his lips and drank. ‘Bloody lunatics, the lot, just the job.’

  Hazzard stared at the water, burning debris still falling as the flames crackled on the flagship.

  ‘I could have had Derrien…’

  Cook looked downriver through the tall reeds. The felucca was almost out of sight, the figures indistinct in the smoky haze, the faces pale dots among the lengthening shadows of twilight.

  ‘What now, sir? Alex? Rosetta?’

  Hazzard thought of her, the Nile pulling her away from him. The further from him she went, the safer she was.

  Let her go.

  ‘Can’t go home, Jory,’ he murmured. ‘Can’t go anywhere. No ship, no fleet. May as well be at sea with those bloody barrels again…’

  The French drummers began to pound slow and steady. The castles of men wheeled ponderously, their grunting rhythm reaching them on the wind, un deux, un deux, un deux. They began to march southwards across the landscape in the failing light.

  ‘Cairo,’ said Hazzard. ‘Bonaparte wants Cairo.’

  Cook looked downriver, towards Alexandria and Rosetta, then upriver at the French boats, still heading south for the capital. ‘We can’t save ’em, sir.’

  Hazzard watched the formations move through the sand, kicking up dust, so many giant preternatural beasts. He thought of Murad. The fortress walls remained unbroken. They had not yet been made to bleed.

  ‘Got to try…’ said Hazzard, struggling to his feet, ‘…because I promised Ali Qarim.’

  Al-Qahira

  The people of Cairo had awoken in the hope that Murad had been victorious, and had stopped the French demons from drawing ever closer – Ibrahim had said they would feast with their talons upon the flesh and blood of the righteous. But on that Sunday, the first day of the month of Safar, news of Murad’s defeat reached the city. Yet, still, with the coming of dawn the call to prayer of the muezzin remained the same, drifting high above their fears, that God was great, and that all should come to praise Him. Hazzard heard it, and took some comfort.

  He and Cook waited in the cloistered courtyard of the Al-Azhar Mosque, its elaborate arches punctuated with still smaller arches within, decorated with geometric or floral ornament. It had a cathedral silence, and Hazzard retreated into it, trying to lose himself and quell the tyranny of his thoughts. A fountain tinkled, still audible though Cairo was in turmoil beyond the mosque’s high walls.

  Leaving Hasim Bey to his bodyguard, Hazzard and Cook had made good time back to Cairo with Sharif Nazir, Izzam and Alahum – and twenty-five men of the Beni Qassim, the fierce clan of Bedouin who guarded the flanks, threatening any stray Mamluk who dared challenge them. None did.

  Confused reports of the Red Devil defying Hasim Bey, trying to direct the guns at the French squares yet fighting Greeks and Turks on the boats, had mingled with reports of his saving women from the river, fighting the Frenchman in black, and his Beni Qassim shooting down French soldiers. The Beni Qassim praised him, and would not move from his side. This was proof enough to Murad Bey, who had heard his warning of the castles of men.

  Masoud appeared at Hazzard’s elbow. ‘Hazar-effendi? The bey will see us now.’

  They sat on cushions on a dais in a library lined with large books stacked flat on tall, ornate shelves, a low table in the centre, servants setting out coffee, water, fruit, and minted tea. A breeze blew in from tall arched windows, diaphanous silk curtains floating gently. Across the table sat Sheikh al-Jabarti and Muhammad Bey al-Elfi. Muhammad Bey was a quiet, thoughtful man, with an elegant jawline beard and trimmed moustache beneath a long white keffiyah headdress, topped by a golden iqal circlet. He had led a troop of cavalry against Desaix before Shubra Khit, but for all this, he had the placid bearing of a spiritual imam.

  The pair watched in benign silence as their guests took refreshment, and then did so themselves. Once they were satisfied, Muhammad Bey asked, ‘I understand you have knowledge of the ancient world here, Hazar-effendi. Have you studied in the East?’

  Hazzard thought of Hammer. He must have briefed some of the beys. ‘I was fortunate to know one who did, sir.’

  ‘It is said Egypt holds a special place for you,’ said Al-Jabarti.

  Hazzard nodded, still far-off. ‘I am a student of history, Sheikh, yes.’

  ‘In conversation with me, the Herr von Hammer has said you know much of our science, of the works of scholars on the strange writings we see everywhere.’ He gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘It would be more than I know of, quite certainly, yet I am fascinated…’ Muhammad Bey watched him, aware of some torment hidden from his gaze. His conversation was a distraction, as if discussing the weather. ‘The stone idols here are magnificent, are they not? They speak of times long past, indeed, long forgot – as all times of men will be.’

  ‘I have studied them, sir, yes,’ said Hazzard quietly. ‘Many years ago.’

  ‘I
t is at times most difficult,’ the bey added, ‘to discern the true Egypt from among the new religions. Christianity, Islam, the Copts, and the Gnostics in their caves. Which, indeed, is the Real, and which the Unreal?’

  Hazzard’s shoulders burned with fatigue, his hands still raw with blisters from riding, from wielding Ali Qarim’s shamshir. He could still see the Mamluks throwing the severed heads into the Nile.

  Hazzard must have been silent for too long, for Muhammad Bey leaned forward and said gently, ‘Hazar-effendi, a people fighting for their lives, so it is understood by wiser heads than mine, cannot be held accountable,’ he said, ‘to the normal laws of civilised men.’

  Hazzard considered this but said nothing. Muhammad Bey al-Elfi sensed his unease. ‘But, these stone relics teach us, do they not, that all civilisations must come to an end. Despite our laws. So. What will come to us, Hazar-effendi, should the French be victorious at Cairo?’

  Hazzard took this to be more oblique conversation than anything else. ‘The French Sultan will occupy the city,’ he said dully, tired of avoiding the truth. ‘He will make himself supreme ruler. And kill any who resist.’

  Al-Jabarti asked, ‘And what of the true faith?’

  ‘He has none, apart from himself,’ said Hazzard. He thought of Malta, the gardens, and the man behind it all. ‘He will adapt, Sheikh. Copt, Hebrew or Muslim, it will make no difference so long as he can command. He is a scholar, a friend to science, if it serves his purpose. He will treat the Al-Azhar with tolerance.’

  Al-Jabarti seemed doubtful. ‘How strange. An Unbeliever who looks well upon Islam. Do you, Captain?’

  Hazzard simply stared and Muhammad Bey nodded to a servant who handed Hazzard his untouched cup of mint tea. ‘Effendi?’

  Hazzard took it and drank. His hands shook so much he nearly dropped the cup to the table, but the servant caught it expertly and set it down.

  Muhammad Bey regarded Hazzard for a time, then spoke. ‘You carry a great burden, Captain. This thing that the French work against Egypt – it is not your responsibility alone. It is God’s will.’