City of the Horizon

by Anton Gill

  The sun had risen two hours above the horizon, and he was beginning to think after all that they had sailed too far upriver to fear attack, when his forward lookout hallooed that there was a sail. Ani squinted ahead. Behind him, neatly stacked in the broad open hold, the gold, mostly cast in rough ingots from moulds dug in the sand, and as yet still impure, shone dully. On either side, along the narrow strip of deck, his crew were taking up their positions by the stowed oars.

  For a moment the light was too bright to allow him to distinguish the pale tan of the advancing sail from the sky, but as soon as he had it fixed, he knew that he should prepare for the worst. This was no trading ship coming upriver to meet him, but a light merchantman, of the kind used for speed along the barren coast of the Eastern Sea, and also for war. As the pharaoh’s pennant did not fly from the mast, this was not a naval vessel on patrol.

  There was no avoiding the encounter, so the next hour was taken up with preparations. A huge linen tarpaulin was hauled over the cargo, and the Nubians stationed themselves about the prow and along the two forward sides of the barge, taking their bows and jamming their quivers upright next to them. The sailors released the oars, more to use as weapons or hindrances to a boarding party than to row with. The stream was with them, and that was an advantage; but on the other hand, the light boat approaching could run rings round them if it wanted to.

  In contrast to the long wait, the attack when it came was swift and unannounced. The two boats had not yet drawn level when from the prow of the oncoming vessel an arrow hurtled, striking one of the forward seamen in the neck. A lucky shot. The man keeled over and fell on to the tarpaulin covering the hold as if he had been poleaxed, his blood spreading rapidly over the dirty white linen where he lay. There was no time to react, however, for this first shot was followed by a hail of arrows, clattering as they glanced off the sides of the barge, or thudding into the wooden deck. In that first volley, two more sailors and a marine fell. One had taken the arrow in his stomach, and the marine had been hit full in the mouth. Blood gushed out, and he stared at it in disbelief before his eyes clouded. The other sailor had been shot through the shoulder, and now rolled on the tarpaulin next to his dead fellow, howling in agony until Ani told the boatswain to get down there and pull the arrow through and out.

  Glory-of-Ra began to return fire as the distance between the two ships closed. The pirate was striking her sail in order not to overshoot, and Ani realised that she meant to come alongside and grapple to his barge. Hastily he gave orders for the men on that side to put out their oars and stave off the other boat. He could see the enemy now, but their faces blurred. They were rough-looking men, the kind of sailors he’d pass over when selecting a crew. He’d have liked to feed the lot of them to the crocodiles.

  With a rending and splitting of wood, two oars snapped as the weight of the pirate ship crashed against them. The sailor holding one of the oars was tossed into the air, where he executed a perfect forward somersault before falling between the two boats, the moment before their sides smashed together. There was a splintering of more oars, and above the cries of the men, a snap like the crack of a whip as a great wooden blade sliced through the air and connected with the nape of the neck of one of the pirates, a large, swarthy Syrian with a prodigiously hooked nose.

  The marines had abandoned their bows and were thrusting forward with their lances, skewering with a cold, deliberate movement any of the enemy who came too close. For a moment they pressed forward, and Ani dared to hope that they would succeed in holding off the attack for long enough to enable his sailors to rally. He grasped his own bronze short-sword tighter and hacked at the wrist of a pirate who was gripping the deck-rail. The man jerked back with a howl of pain and shot Ani a look of such venom that the captain momentarily recoiled. It was going to be kill or be killed.

  The thought sent a wave of panic through him as he scanned the scene in front of him, trying to assess their chances. There were a great many pirates, and they continued to appear. Some of them must have come from the far north originally, for they wore beards, which, as a good Egyptian, Ani abominated as hot and disgustingly unhygienic. They wore their own hair, too, which was lank and dirty.

  ‘Come on, throw these buggers off!’ he roared to his men. The marines were still holding their ground, though they had not made progress and two more lay dead. As for his sailors, their defence was feeble and weakening. Scarcely were the words out of his mouth than Ani realised that they were going to lose. What was more, these pirates had no intention of grabbing what they could and making off with it. They were going to take the whole ship. That meant they would take no prisoners, and make sure there were no survivors.

  As he came to this realisation, another marine fell. The clamour around him could now be divided between the aggressive, increasingly triumphant cries of the pirates, and the howls of his own men. The marines fought silently, but when he looked at them, he could see that their expressions were set and grim. Blood ran along the decks and the water around the boats was slimy with it. Bodies floated near the interlocked hulls. Ani scanned the shore for crocodiles. It would only be a matter of time before they put in an appearance, attracted by the smell.

  The current had borne them towards the shore, and now the boats were jammed against a sandbank which ran just below the surface of the water. The pirates would have a job getting Glory-of-Ra free, and without her they would have to be content with as much of the prize as they could carry in their smaller craft, thought Ani, realising at the same time that he had given up the fight.

  He wondered if he could organise a retreat. If he could get at least some of his men to the shore, it might be that the pirates would make off. He couldn’t expect help from any of the tiny villages along this part of the River, but they had come too far downstream for there not to be a sizeable town soon, and the pirates, even if they succeeded in getting Glory-of-Ra free, would have to take her downriver, not up.

  Even with a sail, she was too heavily laden to make the journey south.

  He looked along the shore again, and saw a group of men on horseback watching the affray from a small sandstone prominence not twenty paces away. There was absolutely no doubt about it. They were Medjays.

  ‘Help us!’ he yelled. He was not the only one to have noticed them, for several of the sailors had turned away from the fight and were now facing the immobile horsemen, wailing and waving their arms beseechingly. Only the marines fought on, though they had been forced further and further back, and eight of them lay dead.

  The Medjays remained immobile. Meanwhile, taking advantage of the sailors’ distracted break in rank, the pirates swarmed over the side of Glory-of-Ra with a roar. Those who were not cut down scuttled across the deck and hurled themselves into the River, oblivious of the other threat from the crocodiles which were now launching themselves lazily into the water from the opposite bank. Ani fought on, continuing to call for help and looking in the direction of the Medjays with increasing disbelief. At last he, too, dived into the River. It was dark green and opaque, swirling with activity as the crocodiles feasted on the dead. Praying to Nekhbet to protect him, he swam underwater, hoping to reach the main current and be carried downstream.

  ‘But you can’t give up now.’

  ‘Can’t I? I have had enough misfortune. It would be foolish not to heed the warnings.’ Amotju turned away and looked out through the broad open window that overlooked the town and the River. Behind him in the room, Huy spread his hands and said nothing.

  ‘The loss of the gold is much; don’t you want to find out who was responsible?’

  ‘The shipments are secret. Only one man is powerful enough to extract that kind of information. Rekhmire. He has proved himself too powerful for me.’

  Word of the battle had come down from the villages, and no doubt the story had been exaggerated in the telling. Exaggerated and obscured, for the Medjays whom Ani had seen so clearly were described doubtfully as ‘a group of horsemen’. From the
crew of Glory-of-Ra it was said, there had been no survivors. Those bodies which could be rescued from the crocodiles had been hooked and hauled onshore. Their families could console themselves that, dying in the River and eaten by Sobek’s children, their souls would be doubly blessed. In addition, they could expect payment in consolation from Amotju. The pirates, unable to dislodge the barge from the sandbank, had plundered it as best they could and rowed off downstream. They had vanished at some point before reaching the Southern Capital, and there had been no sign of their vessel.

  ‘Besides, the loss of the gold is not so great that it outweighs my sense of self-preservation.’

  ‘If you let your enemies know that they have got you on the run, they will be unremitting. Now is not the time to retreat.’

  Amotju motioned to a servant to pour wine, and as he took it Huy saw that his hand shook. He drank the cup down fast, and had it refilled.

  ‘The gods are against me; I will not tempt them further.’

  ‘And Rekhmire?’

  Amotju looked at him. ‘I will not hinder you if you wish to pursue him. But that is all.’

  ‘This is your fight, not mine.’

  Amotju, Huy realised, was not the confident, strong creature of business and politics he had taken him for. It was possible, too, that these were the first misfortunes life had ever brought him, and they were coming too thick and fast for his liking. It must have seemed like the fulfilment of a prophecy.

  ‘We still only have political rivalry as a motive for Rekhmire’s attacks on you. Surely that isn’t enough reason? If he is as powerful as you say, why should he not simply…remove you, if he sees you as a threat?’

  ‘Better to ruin me than remove me.’

  ‘He has a long way to go, then.’

  ‘Meanwhile, he fills his treasury at my expense.’

  ‘Then let us stop him; but I will need more than financial support from you.’

  Amotju had turned to look out of the window again, and now a puzzled frown crossed his face.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘One of my seamen. He’s running up here as if Set were after him.’

  A matter of moments later the man was ushered into the room, bringing the smell of the River and his own sweat with him. Amotju recognised him as a boatswain in one of his smaller barges, which had been engaged in the work of refloating Glory-of-Ra. The work had had to be undertaken quickly, for left unguarded the barge was a prey to pilfering by the local villagers. It had been a poor flood that year and the fields had yielded a mean crop. Thus the farmers could not withstand the temptation of such a prize despite the harsh punishments for theft which Horemheb had decreed in the young pharaoh’s name.

  ‘What is it?’ Amotju asked the man.

  ‘Sir, Ani has been found.’

  Huy and Amotju exchanged glances. His was one of the bodies not recovered, and it had been in both their hearts that, however unthinkable, he could have been an accomplice.

  ‘Alive?’

  ‘He is more dead than alive, sir. He got away from the slaughter on the barge, but one of Sobek’s children tore a leg off below the knee. Some peasants found him and tended him.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘We brought him back with us. They are taking him to the Place of Healing. The wound is clean, but needs to be dressed and examined by the doctors.’

  ‘But how is he?’

  ‘The peasants took good care of him. They expect a reward, for they knew who he was. He still had your seal round his neck and they must have recognised it from the ships.’

  Amotju glanced at Huy. ‘Let us go and see what he can tell us.’

  Ani was lucky not to have joined the ancestors, and that there was food enough available for the crocodiles not to have pursued him downstream. If he hadn’t brushed against an animal and stimulated the attack he might have escaped entirely; but the River had caught him up the moment after the mighty jaws had crushed down and torn his leg free of his body with a pain so searing that he passed out. That he hadn’t drowned was due to a twist in the current which had swept him round a bend and on to a narrow strip of beach before he could take too much water into his lungs; but he had lost much blood before the peasants had found him.

  ‘And you are sure that they were Medjays?’ Huy asked him, after he had given them his account of what had happened.

  ‘Yes. At least, they wore the tunic.’

  ‘Did you recognise any of them?’

  ‘I couldn’t take in details in the heat of the fighting. But one who sat near the front was tall for an Egyptian, and broad-shouldered. I noticed him because he sat so still in the saddle, just watching us die. He might have been from Mitanni, or Syria. He had high cheekbones. But I can’t tell.’ Ani’s face flickered between Huy’s face and Amotju’s. He was exhausted, and clearly could tell them nothing more.

  ‘Thank you. You are a brave man,’ said Huy.

  The three men fell silent.

  ‘What will happen to me now?’ said Ani, hesitantly. The tone of his voice indicated how fearful he was of the answer.

  ‘You will rest,’ said Amotju. ‘When you are well, you will take a command again. You do not need two good legs to manage a ship.’

  As they left the Place of Healing, Huy thought that despite his earlier doubts, his friend was still someone worth fighting for.

  That night, Amotju lay with his eyes gratefully closed, his face close to her warm breasts, her arms safely around him, protecting and comforting.

  ‘You are good to me,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t expect you always to come here simply to perform,’ replied Mutnefert. ‘Sometimes it is better to talk.’

  Sighing, he opened his eyes and disengaged himself from her long enough to pour wine and drink it. Mutnefert watched him. She wore a long tight gown, but she had not offered to take it off, nor had he asked her to, and she was relieved, for though they had subsided, she did not want him to see the bruises on her back and buttocks. Rekhmire had been more violent than usual. She had thought of an excuse — a fall from a horse that she rode side-saddle, for pleasure; but she did not want to have to use it. It was good that he had come to her tonight simply for comfort, and to talk.

  She reflected that for all the attraction of his power, the sacrifices she made for Rekhmire were too great. If only she could trust herself to do without his protection. Sooner or later, she would have to find a way out of that labyrinth; but not now, not tonight. Now, she would think of other things. She stroked Amotju’s head, and bent over and kissed it, gently, enjoying her own kind of power. It brought its own problems, but she was glad that Amotju had come to her with his tonight, and unburdened himself of them. She loved him.

  FIVE

  The snout of the monster pushed itself out of the molten copper and nudged his leg; but he knew he was safe; he was hovering just above the liquid in the blackness. If he chose, he could fly higher, out of reach of the snapping jaws. For a moment the snout withdrew slightly, dipping below the surface which closed over it like mercury, leaving not a ripple. He hovered where he was, watching the smooth copper mirror just below him, courting danger, excited and repelled by it at the same time. Why didn’t he have the sense to fly higher? Some madness prevented him.

  At that instant the snout appeared again, lunging out and up, without hesitation this time, the jaws opening as they broke the surface. He was looking straight down into a red mouth edged with seven rows of ragged teeth, like the flint blades of embalmers’ knives. The lolling tongue, like the giant larva of some other prodigious beast, lay ready to embrace him, dissolve him, to eat away at the tissue of his body with its saliva.

  He had to get away now, to fly straight up, beyond the reach of those vile jaws. He could see the eyes now — the whole head was revealed. Human eyes staring from a face made of rubble; eyes with thick, woman’s lashes. He flapped his vulture’s wings and they beat upwards — against a ceiling. He had not known, had not seen it or sensed it above him in
the blackness, but he was already against it, pinned there. The jaws snapped at air a hair’s-breadth below his naked belly.

  He could feel the rush of the wind they made as they closed, and smell the choking odour of long-dead fish and sulphur which blocked and caked his nostrils so that he could not breathe. He could see the beast swimming below him in the murk, gathering its strength for a second attack, the eyes looking straight up at him with a flat stare. No pity, no mercy, not even enjoyment — just calculation. Vainly he flapped his wings, but he was tiring, and the monster knew it. When it dived, he knew it would be in order to shoot up vertically from the copper-water again, and this time he would fall headfirst into the vile maw. Already he could feel the coldwarm, sticky fondling of that tongue.

  His shoulders ached with the effort of keeping himself aloft; for a moment he closed his eyes to concentrate his strength. When he opened them, the creature had gone. It had dived. But even before he had time to react, it came roaring up through the water and engulfed him.