River God

by Wilbur Smith

  I bounded to my feet and saw Tanus crawl to his bleeding knees twenty paces beyond me. He was coated heavily with dust and seemed to have lost the skin from one half of his face. He tried to maintain his dignity as he pushed himself upright and staggered back to the wrecked chariot, but he was limping heavily.

  He stood for a long minute gazing down at the shattered ruins of my creation, and then abruptly he let out a roar like a wounded bull, and launched such a mighty kick at it that it flipped over again, as though it were a child's toy. He turned on his heel without even a glance in my direction and limped away. I did not see him again for a week, and when we did meet, neither of us mentioned the chariot.

  I think that might have been the end of the matter, and we would never have assembled our first chariot squadron, if it had not been for the fact that the stubbornness of my mistress's pride surpassed even that of her lover. She had given me the original order, and would not now retract it. When Tanus tried to inveigle her into doing so, he merely made my position stronger. Hui and I rebuilt the chariot within three days, and another identical to it.

  By the time the embalmers in the funerary chapel had completed the ritual seventy days of royal mummification, we had our first squadron of fifty chariots, and had trained drivers for them.

  SINCE WE HAD RETURNED TO THE PALACE of Memnon from our defeat at the battle of Abnub, my mistress had been occupied with the business of state thrust upon her by the regency. Long hours were spent with her ministers and advisers.

  It was now that the initial training which I had given her in the Palace of Elephantine was to bear fruit. I had taught her to pick her way unerringly through the labyrinth of power and influence/She was just twenty-one years of age, but she was a queen, and ruled like one.

  Very occasionally she encountered a problem which particularly vexed or perplexed her. Then she sent for me. I would drop my work in the armoury or the stables or in the small scribery that she had set aside for me just down the corridor from her audience chamber, and I would rush to her side.

  On occasion I spent days sitting below her throne and steering her through some troublesome decisions. Once again, my ability to read the lips of men without hearing their words stood us in good stead. Some nobleman at the back of the audience never realized, as he plotted or schemed with his neighbour, that I was relaying his exact words to my mistress. She swiftly acquired a reputation of sagacity and prescience. Neither of us enjoyed much rest during these dark and worrisome days.

  Even though our days were full, our nights were long. Those interminable councils of war and of state lasted well past midnight. No sooner was one crisis averted, than another loomed before us. Each day the Hyksos threatened us more directly, and Tanus' hold on the river-line weakened.

  Slowly, a sense of doom and despair permeated all of us. Men smiled little and never laughed out loud. Even the play of the children was muted and subdued. We had only to look across the river, and the enemy was there, gathering himself, growing stronger each day.

  After seventy days, the mummification of Pharaoh was completed. My early efforts in preserving the king's body had been highly successful, and the grand master of the guild of embalmers had commended me in the presence of my mistress. He had found no evidence of decay when he removed the king's corpse from the olive jar, and even his liver, which is the part most subject to mortification, was well preserved.

  Once the king had been laid out on the diorite slab in his mortuary chapel, the grand master had inserted the spoon up his nostril and scooped out the curdled contents of his skull which the pickle had hardened to the consistency of cheese. Then, still in the foetal position, the king was placed in the bath of natron salt with only his head left uncovered by the harsh fluid. When he was removed from the bath thirty days later, all the fatty tissue had dissolved, and the outer layers of the skin had peeled off, except for that of the head.

  They laid him upon the mottled stone slab once again and straightened him into an extended position. He was wiped and dried, and his empty stomach was filled with linen pads soaked in resins and wax and then sutured closed. Meanwhile, his internal organs were desiccated and placed in their milk-coloured alabaster Canopic jars, which were then sealed.

  For the remaining forty days, the body of the king was allowed to dry out thoroughly. The doors of the chapel had been aligned with the direction of the warm, dry prevailing winds, so that they blew over the funeral slab. By the end of the ritual period of seventy days, Pharaoh's body was as dry as a stick of firewood.

  His nails, which had been removed before he was soaked in the natron bath, were replaced and fixed in position on his fingers and toes with fine threads of gold wire. The first layer of pure white linen bandages was wound into place around his body, leaving his head and neck exposed. The binding was meticulous and intricate, with the bandages crossing and criss-crossing each other in elaborate patterns. Under the bindings were laid charms and amulets of gold and precious stones. The bandages were then soaked with lacquer and resins that dried to a stony hardness.

  Now it was time for the ceremony of Opening-the-Mouth, which traditionally was performed by the dead pharaoh's next of kin. Memnon was too young to take this part, so his regent was called in his stead.

  My mistress and I went to the chapel together in the gloom of dawn, and we were witnesses as the linen sheet that covered the king was drawn aside. Pharaoh's head was miraculously preserved. His eyes were closed and his expression was serene. The embalmers had rouged and painted his face, and he looked better in death than he had in life.

  While the high priest of Ammon-Ra and the grand master of the guild of embalmers prepared the instruments for the ceremony, we sang the Incantation against Dying for the Second Time.

  He is the reflection and not the mirror.

  He is the music and not the lyre.

  He is the stone and not the chisel that forms it.

  He will live for ever.

  He will not die a second time.

  Then the high priest handed my mistress the golden spoon and led her by the hand to the funeral slab.

  Queen Lostris stooped over the body of Pharaoh and laid the spoon of life upon his painted lips.

  I open thy lips that thou mayest speak once more,

  I open thy nostrils that thou mayest breathe.

  She intoned the words and then touched his eyelids with the spoon.

  I open thy eyes that thou mayest behold once more

  the glory of this world, and the nether-world of the

  gods where you shall dwell from this day forward.

  She touched the spoon to his bandaged chest.

  I quicken your heart, so that you may live for ever.

  You shall not die a second time.

  You shall live for ever!

  Then we waited while the embalmers bound up Pharaoh's head in the neat swathes of bandages and painted them with resin. They moulded the resin-wet bandages to the shape of his face beneath them. Finally, they placed over his blind bandaged face the first of the four funeral masks.

  This was the same funeral mask that we had watched being fashioned from pure gold. While he was still alive, Pharaoh had posed for the sculptor, so the mask was amazingly lifelike. The eyes of shining rock-crystal and obsidian seemed to gaze upon me with all the humanity that the man beneath the mask had once possessed. The cobra head of the uraeus rose from the noble brow, regal and mystical.

  Then the wrapped mummy was placed in the golden inner coffin, which was sealed, and this went into the second golden coffin with another death-mask embossed upon the lid. Half the treasure recovered from Lord Intef's hoard had gone to make up that enormous weight of precious metal and jewels.

  There were seven coffins in all, including the massive stone sarcophagus standing upon the golden sledge, which waited ready to carry Pharaoh along the causeway to his tomb in the gaunt hills. But my mistress refused to give her sanction for this to happen.

  'I have given my sacred vo
w. I cannot place my husband in a tomb that may be plundered by the Hyksos barbarians.

  Pharaoh will lie here until I am able to make good my promise to him. I will find a secure tomb in which he may lie through eternity. I have given my word that no one will disturb his rest.'

  THE WISDOM OF QUEEN LOSTRIS' DECISION to delay the entombment was proved three nights later. The Hyksos made a determined effort to cross the river, and Tanus barely succeeded in turning them back. They made the attempt on an unguarded stretch of the river two miles north of Esna. They swam their horses across in a mass, and then followed with an armada of small boats which they had carried overland from Thebes in order to conceal their intentions from us.

  They actually succeeded in making a beachhead on the west bank before Tanus could rush his galleys to the spot, but he arrived before they could unload their chariots and harness the horses to them. Tanus destroyed their boats with the chariots still on board, and he then had almost three thousand Hyksos stranded on our side of the river. Their horses scattered and bolted away into the night when Tanus' troops made their first charge.

  Without their chariots the Hyksos were on even terms with our troops, but they had no means of escape and they fought with grim determination. In numbers they were almost evenly matched, for Tanus had managed to bring up only one full regiment. The rest of his army was thinly spread along the west bank. The fighting was bloody and ferocious, confused by the darkness which was lit only by the burning vessels that Tanus had fired on the beach.

  It was only by the wildest coincidence, or by another nudge from the gods, that Hui and I had brought our little squadron of fifty chariots and fledgling charioteers to Esna on training manoeuvres. In truth, we had driven these twenty miles from Thebes principally to escape from Tanus' disapproval and interference.

  We were encamped in the sacred grove of tamarind trees beside the temple of Horus at Esna. I was exhausted after a long day of galloping and manoeuvring at high speed. On return to our encampment, Hui had produced a jar of remarkably palatable wine, and I had been somewhat intemperate in my sampling of it. I was dead asleep when Hui staggered into my tent and shook me awake.

  'There are fires burning on the bank of the river downstream,' he told me, 'and when the wind shifts, you can hear the sound of cheering, and a little while ago I thought I heard many voices singing the battle hymn of the Blues. I think there is a fight going on down there.'

  I was as unsteady on my feet as he was, and reckless with wine, as I shouted for him to rouse the camp and harness the horses. We were all still novices, and it was almost dawn by the time we had caught the horses and put them in the traces. In the chilly drift of the river mist and the gloomy shiver of dawn, we trotted along the north road in column of route, two chariots abreast. I was driving the lead chariot, while Hui had command of the rear-guard. Our fifty chariots had been reduced to thirty by the previous day's exercises, for I had not yet succeeded in perfecting my spoked wheels. They had an alarming tendency to fly to pieces when driven at speed, and almost half my force was out of action.

  The passage of the wind over my bare chest made me shiver again, and counteracted the bravado of the wine. I was beginning to hope that Hui had been mistaken, when suddenly from far ahead there came that unmistakable chorus of shouting and cheering, and the clank and clash of bronze on bronze that could mean only one thing. Once you have heard them, the sounds of battle are not readily forgotten or mistaken. The rough farmer's track we were following along the river-bank took a turn to the left. As we came through it, the field lay open before us.

  The sun was just above the horizon, and it had turned the surface of the river into a shimmering sheet of beaten copper that was painful to the eye. The ships of Tanus' squadron lay just off-shore, crowding in close to, in an attempt to bring the archers on the decks in range of the Hyksos, and to cut off any retreat across the river.

  The stranded Hyksos regiment was making a stand in the centre of a field of knee-high green corn. They had formed a circle, facing outwards, shoulder to shoulder, with their shields locked together and their spears thrust forward. As we came into view, they had just repulsed another attempt by Tanus' troops to break their circle. The Egyptian regiment was pulling back to regroup, leaving their dead and wounded scattered around the periphery of the enemy circle.

  I am no soldier, although I have written scrolls on the conduct of war. I had accepted the rank of Commander of the Royal Horse, thrust upon me by my mistress, with the deepest reluctance. I had intended simply to perfect my chariot, train the first squadron, and then hand it over to Hui or some other person more suited to the warlike professions.

  I was cold and still half-drunk as I heard my voice giving the order to deploy in arrow-head formation. It was the evolution that we had practised the previous day, and the chariots that followed mine flared out on either side with reasonable proficiency. I was acutely aware of the sound of hooves in the soft earth and the creak of the chariot harness, the squeal of the wheels turning on their metal-lined hubs, and the rattle of javelins as my charioteers drew their darts from the quivers. I looked left and right, reviewing our little squadron drawn up in the shape of an arrow-head with my chariot at the apex. It was a formation I had copied from the Hyksos. I drew a deep breath.

  'Squadron will advance!' I screamed, and my voice shrilled with fear. 'At the gallop, forward!'

  I had only to lift my left hand that held the traces, and Patience and Blade bounded forward. I was almost thrown over backwards, but I grabbed at the dashboard with my free hand, and we went straight at the Hyksos circle.

  Beneath me the chariot leaped and jolted over the lumpy ploughed earth, and I looked over the plunging hindquarters of my horses and saw the wall of Hyksos shields, glittering and impenetrable in the early sunlight, drawing closer with every stride we took.

  On either side of me, men were howling and cheering to hide their terror, and I howled with them, like a pariah dog at full moon. The horses were snorting and neighing, and suddenly Patience lifted the long plume of her tail and began to fart in rhythm and in time to her own stride. This struck me as immoderately funny. My howls of terror turned to screams of laughter. The helmet that I had borrowed from Hui was too large for me. It bounced off my head and the wind flung my hair out behind me.

  Patience and Blade were the fastest pair in the squadron, and our chariot pulled ahead of the rest of the formation. I tried to slow our charge by hauling back on the traces, but Patience would have none of it. Her glee was evident, she was as excited as any of us, and she straightened her neck and ran away with me.

  We tore through the retiring lines of Egyptian infantry coming back from the failed assault on the Hyksos circle, and they scattered out of our path and gawked at us in astonishment.

  'Come on!' I howled with laughter. 'We will show you the way!' They turned and followed us back towards the enemy at the run. Behind me, I heard the trumpeters sounding the charge, and the braying horns seemed to spur our horses. Out on my right I saw Tanus' battle standard waving, and recognized his crested helmet standing taller than the other men around him.

  'What do you think of my cursed brutes now?' I yelled at him, as we tore past, and Patience farted again, bringing on fresh gales of my nervous laughter.

  The chariot on my left was running almost level with me, and then its near-side wheel burst under the strain and it went flying end over end, throwing the charioteers, and bringing the horses down screaming. The rest of us tore on without a check. .

  The first rank of the enemy was now so close that I could see their eyes staring at me over the top edge of their shields. Their arrows hissed around my ears. I could make out clearly the figures of beasts and demons embossed on their tall metal helmets, see the beads of sweat glittering in their plaited and beribboned beards, hear their chanted war-cry— and then we were into them.

  My horses leaped together into the' barrier of shields and it shattered before the weight and fury of our charg
e. I saw a man tossed head-high, and heard his bones crackle like kindling in the fire. On the footplate behind me, my javeineer was making deadly practice. I had chosen him as the best from amongst all my recruits, and he proved my choice now, as he stood firm and hurled his darts down into the enemy.

  In succession the following chariots tore into the gap' we had opened, and we hardly checked as we raced through, breaking out through the far side of the Hyksos circle, then wheeling in pods of three and coming back at them.

  Tanus seized the moment and threw his infantry into the breach that we had torn open. The Hyksos formation broke up into knots of struggling men. These in turn disintegrated, and the Hyksos panicked and ran for the river. The moment they came within range, the archers on the decks of our galleys sent clouds of arrows over them.

  Ahead of me there was an isolated pocket of Hyksos warriors still fighting back-to-back, and holding off our men. I swerved the chariot and drove at them in full gallop. Before I reached them, my right wheel burst asunder, the light carapace of the chariot flipped over, and I soared free and then, with a gut-tearing lurch, fell back to earth. My head struck first, and my eyes filled with stars and meteors of bright light. Then there was only darkness.

  I woke again under the awning on the deck of Tanus' flagship. I found myself lying on a sheepskin mattress, with Tanus leaning over me. As soon as he saw that I was conscious, he masked the expression of concern and worry that had twisted his features.

  'You crazy old fool.' He forced a grin at me. 'What, in the name of Horus, were you laughing about?'

  I tried to sit up, but my head ached abominably and I groaned, then clutched his arm as it all came back to me.

  'Tanus, the enemy horses that swam across last night—I must have them.'

  'Don't worry that battered head of yours'. I have already sent Hui to gather them up,' he assured me. 'If I am to have five hundred of those contraptions of yours for my new chariot division, I will need a thousand of those cursed brutes to pull them. However, those new-fangled wheels of yours ' are more dangerous than a regiment of Hyksos. I will not ride with you again until you do something about them.'