Warlock: A Novel of Ancient Egypt (Novels of Ancient Egypt)

by Wilbur Smith

  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 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 traveling 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 the 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 toward 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 playacting, 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 colorful splendor of his costume.

  “She will give you many warlike sons!” his supporters shouted in admiration for the ferocity of 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 Trok with a halter rope.

  At the culmination of the ceremony, Trok cut the throat of his favorite 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 onto 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 color, 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, an
d 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 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 shriveled 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 was 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 onto 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.

  Her thrust was still in the air when he twisted away from the sharp bronze point. It flew the width of a finger past his hairy stomach, without cutting skin or drawing a drop of blood. Then he clamped both her wrists in one of his huge paws. He squeezed until she felt the bones in her wrist crushing and she had to let the weapon drop and clatter on the floor.

  He was laughing as he dragged her across the room, but it was an ugly sound. He threw her back onto the rumpled and sweat-sour bed. “You are my wife now,” he said, as he stood over her. “You belong to me, like a brood mare or a bitch-dog. You must learn to obey and respect me.”

  She lay face down, pressing her face into the soiled linen, refusing to look at him. He picked up the sword scabbard from where it lay beside the bed. “This lesson in obedience is for your own good. A little pain now will save us both a great deal of unhappiness and suffering later.”

  He weighed the scabbard in his right hand. It was of polished leather, bound with gold and electrum bands, studded with metal rosettes. He swung it down across the back of her naked legs. It slapped across the white flesh and left a welt with the raised pattern of rosettes in brighter scarlet. She was so taken by surprise that despite herself she shrieked aloud.

  He laughed at her pain, and lifted the scabbard again. She tried to roll away from him, but the next blow caught her across her raised right arm, and the next across her shoulder. She stopped herself from crying out again, and tried to hide her distress by forcing a wicked smile and spitting at him like a lynx. This infuriated him, and he struck with more venom.

  He knocked her off the bed and followed her as she crawled across the floor. He beat her across the back, and when she rolled herself into a ball he lashed her across her back, shoulders and buttocks. He spoke to her while he kept the blows falling to a steady rhythm, punctuating his words with the exhalation of effort as he struck. “You will never lift a hand to me again, hah! Next time I come to you, hah! You will behave as a loving wife, hah! Or I will have four of my men hold you down, hah! While I mount you, hah! Then when I have finished, hah! I will beat you again, hah! Like this, hah!”

  She clenched her jaws as the blows rained down upon her until at last she could no longer fight back, but mercifully he stepped away, breathing heavily.

  He pulled on his stained and dust-streaked tunic, belted the scabbard around his waist and thrust his sword into the scabbard that was smeared with her blood and stalked to the door of the chamber. There he paused and looked back at her. “Remember one thing, wife, either I break my mares,” he said, “or, by Seueth, they die under me.” He turned and was gone.

  Mintaka lifted her head slowly and stared after him. She could not speak. Instead she filled her mouth with spittle and spat it after him. It splattered on the tiles streaked with blood from her swollen mouth.

  It was long after the waning of the Moon of Isis before the scabs fell off Mintaka’s injuries and the bruises faded to greenish-yellow stains on her smooth, creamy skin. Either by design or luck, Trok had not knocked out any of her teeth, broken any bones or left her face scarred.

  Since their calamitous wedding day he had left her alone. Most of that time he was campaigning in the south. Even when he returned for brief periods to Avaris he avoided her. Perhaps he was repelled by her unsightly injuries, or perhaps he was shamed by his inability to consummate their marriage. Mintaka did not ponder the reason too deeply, but she rejoiced in being free for a while of his brutish attentions.

  There had been further serious rebellion in the south of the kingdom. Trok had responded savagely. He had fallen on the insurgents and had slaughtered those who opposed him, seized their property and sold their families into slavery. Lord Naja had sent two regiments to assist in these operations against the rebels, supporting his cousin and pharaoh, and at the same time sharing in the spoils.

  Mintaka knew that Trok had returned triumphantly to Avaris three days ago, but she had still not seen him. She thanked the goddess for that, but it was premature. The summons came from him on the fourth day. Mintaka was to attend an extraordinary session of the state council. So urgent was the matter that she was allowed only an hour to prepare herself. His message warned her that should she choose to ignore his summons he would send his bodyguards to drag her to the conclave. She had no option, and her girls dressed her.

  This was the first occasion on which Mintaka had appeared in public since her wedding.
With her makeup carefully applied she was as lovely as ever as she took her seat on the Queen’s throne, below that of Pharaoh, in the lavishly redecorated assembly hall of the palace. She tried to make her expression remote, and to keep aloof from the proceedings, but her reserve slipped as she recognized the royal herald who came in and prostrated himself before the twin thrones. She leaned forward attentively.

  Trok acknowledged the herald, then called upon him to rise and state his news to the council. When he rose to his feet Mintaka saw that he was in the grip of deep emotion. He had to clear his throat several times before he could utter a word, and then at last he spoke, in a voice so shaken that at first Mintaka did not understand what he was saying. She heard the words but could not bring herself to accept them.

  “Your Sacred Majesty Pharaoh Trok Uruk, Queen Mintaka Apepi Uruk, distinguished members of the state council, citizens of Avaris, brothers and fellow countrymen of this reunited Egypt, I bring tragic tidings from the south. I would rather die outnumbered a hundred to one in battle than have to tell you this.” He paused and coughed again. Then his voice rose stronger and clearer.

  “I have made the voyage by fast galley downriver from Thebes. Traveling day and night, stopping only to change rowers, I have taken twelve days to reach Avaris.”

  He paused again and spread his arms in a gesture of despair. “Last month, on the eve of the festival of Hapi, the young Pharaoh Nefer Seti whom we all loved, and in whom we placed so much trust and hope, died of the grievous wounds that he received at Dabba while hunting a cattle-raiding lion.” There was a concerted sigh of despair. One of the councillors covered his eyes and began to weep silently.

  The herald spoke into the silence: “The Regent of the Upper Kingdom, Lord Naja, who is of the royal family of Tamose by marriage, and who is next in the line of succession, has been raised to the throne in the place of the departed pharaoh. He purifies the land in his name of Kiafan, he endures unto eternity in his name of Naja, the fear of him through all the world is great in his name of Pharaoh Naja Kiafan.”