River God

by Wilbur Smith

  'Pull left!' Kratas bellowed. 'Pull till your balls bounce!' We steadied and aimed for the next gap in the rock, and the white water dashed over the deck and into my eyes. It hissed alongside, running in tandem with us, and the waves stood taller than our poop-deck.

  'By Seth's tattered and festering foreskin, I've not had so much sport since I tupped my first ewe!' Kratas laughed, and the rock sprang at us like a charging bull elephant.

  We touched once, and the rock rasped along our belly. The deck shuddered beneath our feet, and I was too afraid to scream. Then Memnon's team poled us free and we raced on down.

  Behind us I heard the shattering crash as one of the other galleys struck hard. I dared not look round as I judged our next turn, but soon there were wreckage and the heads of drowning men bobbing and swirling in the torrent on both sides of us. They screamed to us as they were borne away and dashed upon the spurs of rock, but we could offer them no succour. Death pressed hard upon our heels and we ran on with the stench of it in our nostrils.

  In that hour I lived a hundred lives, and died in every one of them. But at last we were hurled from the bottom of the cataract into the main body of the river. Of the twenty-three galleys that had entered the gorge, eighteen followed us out. The others had been smashed to flotsam, and the corpses of their drowned crew washed down beside us in the grey Nile flood.

  There was not time for us to celebrate our deliverance. Dead ahead lay the Island of Elephantine, and on both banks of the river stood the well-remembered walls and buildings of the city.

  'Archers, string your bows!' King Tamose called from the bows. 'Hoist the blue pennant! Drummer, increase the beat to attack speed!'

  Our tiny squadron flew into the mass of shipping that clogged the roads of Elephantine. Most of it was made up of trade barges and transports. We passed these by, and went for the Hyksos galleys. The Hyksos had manned their fighting ships with Egyptian sailors, for nobody knew the river better. Only their officers were Hyksos. Most of them were ashore, carousing in the pleasure-palaces of the docks.

  Our spies had told us which was the flag of the southern admiral, a swallowtail of scarlet and gold so long that the end of it dipped in the water. We steered for the ship that flew her, and Memnon boarded her over the side with twenty men at his back.

  'Freedom from the Hyksos tyrant!' they roared. 'Stand up for this very Egypt!'

  The crew gaped at them. They had been taken completely by surprise, and most of them were unarmed. Their weapons were locked away below decks, for the Hyksos officers trusted them not at all.

  The other galleys of our squadron had each picked out one of the enemy fighting-ships and boarded it as swiftly. On all of them the reaction of the crew was the same. After the first surprise they shouted the question, 'Who are you?'

  And the reply was, 'Egyptian! The army of the true Pharaoh Tamose. Join with us, countrymen! Cast out the tyrant!'

  They turned on their Hyksos officers and cut them down before we could reach them. Then they embraced our men, roaring out a welcome.

  'For Egypt!' they cheered. 'For Tamose! For Egypt and Tamose!'

  The cheering jumped from ship to ship. Men danced upon the rails and swarmed up the masts to tear down the Hyksos banners. They broke open the arms stores and passed out bows and swords.

  Then they poured ashore. They dragged the Hyksos from the taverns and hacked them to bloody shreds, so that the gutters discharged a scarlet flood into the harbour waters. They ran through the streets to the barracks of the garrison, and fell upon the guard.

  'For Egypt and Tamose!' they chanted.

  Some of the Hyksos officers rallied their men, and held out for a while in pockets surrounded by the rabble. Then Kratas and Memnon came ashore with their veterans, and within two hours the city was ours.

  Most of the Hyksos chariots were abandoned in their lines, but half a squadron was escaping through the east gate and galloping away over the causeway that crossed the inundated fields to the dry ground beyond.

  I had left the ship and hurried through the back alleys, that I knew so well, to the north tower on the city walls. From there I knew I would have the best view over the city and the surrounding countryside. Bitterly, I watched the escaping detachment of chariots. Every one that got away now would have to be fought later, and I wanted those horses. I was about to turn away and watch what was happening in the city below me, when I saw a little finger of dust rising from the foot of the harsh southern hills.

  I shaded my eyes and stared at it. I felt the quickening of excitement. The dust was coming towards us swiftly, I could make out the dark shapes beneath it.

  'By Horus, it's Remrem!' I whispered with delight. The old warrior had brought the first division of chariots through the bad ground of the hills quicker than I would have believed possible. It was only two days since we had parted.

  I watched with professional pride as the first division opened from columns of four into line abreast. Hui and I had trained them well. It was perfectly done, and Remrem had the Hyksos in enfilade. Half their vehicles were still on the causeway. It seemed to me that the enemy commander was not even aware of the massed squadrons bearing down upon his exposed flank. I think he must still have been looking back over his shoulder. At the very last moment he tried to swing into line abreast to meet Remrem's charge, but it was far too late. He would have done better to have turned tail and run for it.

  Remrem's chariots poured over him in a wave, and he was washed away like debris in the stream of the Nile. I watched until I was certain that Remrem had captured most of the Hyksos horses, and only then did I sigh with relief and turn to look down into the city.

  The populace had gone wild with the joy of liberation.

  They were dancing through the streets, waving any piece of blue cloth that came to hand. Blue was the colour of Pharaoh Tamose. The women tied blue ribbons in their hair, and the men wound blue sashes around their waists and tied on blue arm-bands.

  There was still some isolated fighting, but gradually the surviving Hyksos were cut down or dragged from the buildings they were trying to defend. One of the barracks with several hundred men still inside it was put to the torch. I heard the screams of the men as they burned, and soon the aroma of scorched flesh drifted up to me. It smelled like roasting pork.

  Of course there was looting, and some of our upstanding citizens broke into the taverns and the wine shops and carried the jars out into the street. When one of the jars broke, they went down on all fours and guzzled the wine out of the gutter like hogs.

  I saw three men chase a girl down the alley below where I stood. When they caught her they threw her down and ripped her skirt away. Two of them pinned her limbs and held her spread-eagled while the third man mounted her. I did not watch the rest of it.

  As soon as Memnon and Kratas had stamped out the last pockets of Hyksos resistance, they set about restoring order to the city. Squads of disciplined troops trotted through the streets, using the shafts of their war spears as clubs to beat sense into the drunken and delirious mob.

  Memnon ordered a handful of those taken in the act of rape and looting to be strangled on the spot, and their corpses were hung by the heels from the city gates. By nightfall the city was quiet, and decent men and women could once more safely walk her streets.

  Memnon set up his headquarters in Pharaoh Mamose's palace, which had once been our home on Elephantine Island. The moment I stepped ashore I hurried to our old quarters in the harem.

  They were still luxuriously appointed and had escaped the looters. Whoever had occupied them had treated my murals with the respect they warranted. The water-garden was a profusion of lovely plants, and the ponds were filled with fish and lotus. The Egyptian gardener told me that the Hyksos garrison commander who had lived here had admired our Egyptian ways, and had tried to ape them. I was thankful for that.

  Within days I had restored the rooms and garden to a state in which they were once more fit to receive my mistress. Then I
went to Memnon to ask permission to bring the queen home.

  Pharaoh was distracted by the burden of taking firm hold of his kingdom. There were ten thousand matters that demanded his attention, but he put them aside for the moment and embraced me.

  'It all goes well, Tata.'

  'A happy return, Your Majesty,' I replied, 'but there is still so much to do.'

  'It is my royal command that when you and I are alone like this, you continue to call me Mem.' He smiled at me. 'But you are right, there is much to do, and little time left to us before Salitis and all his host marches up from the Delta to oppose us. We have won the first little skirmish. The great battles lie ahead of us.'

  'There is one duty that will give me great pleasure, Mem. I have prepared quarters for the queen mother. May I go up-river and bring her home to Elephantine? She has waited too long already to set foot on Egyptian soil.'

  'Leave at once, Tata,' he commanded, 'and bring Queen Masara down with you.'

  The river was too high and the desert road too rough. One hundred slaves carried the litters of the two queens along the banks of the Nile, through the gorge and down into our green valley.

  It was not pure coincidence that the first building we came to as we crossed the border was a small temple. I had planned our route to bring us here.

  'What shrine is this, Taita?' my mistress drew aside the curtain of her litter to ask.

  'It is the temple of the god Akh-Horus, mistress. Do you wish to pray here?'

  'Thank you,' she whispered. She knew what I had done. I helped her down from the litter, and she leaned heavily upon me as we entered the cool gloom of the stone building.

  We prayed together, and I felt certain that Tanus was listening to the voices of the two people in all the world who had loved him most. Before we went on, my mistress ordered me to hand over all the gold that we had with us to the priests, and promised to send more for the upkeep and the beautification of the temple.

  By the time we reached the Palace of Elephantine, she was exhausted. Each day the thing in her womb grew larger as it fed upon her wasting body. I laid her on a couch under the barrazza in the water-garden, and she closed her eyes and rested for a while. Then she opened them again and smiled at me softly. 'We were happy here once, but will I ever see Thebes again before I die?' I could not answer her. It was idle to make promises to her that were not mine to keep.

  'If I die before that, will you promise to take me back and build me a tomb in the hills from where I can look across and see my beautiful city?'

  'That I promise you with all my heart,' I replied.

  IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, ATON and I resuscitated our old spider's web of spies and informers across the Upper Kingdom. Many of those who had once worked for us were long dead, but there were also many who were not. With the bait of gold and patriotism, they recruited other younger spies in every village and city.

  Soon we had spies in the palace of the Hyksos satrap in Thebes, and others as far north as the Delta of the Lower Kingdom. Through them we learned which Hyksos regiments were billeted in each town, and which of them were on the march. We learned their strength, and the names and foibles of their commanders. We had an exact count of the numbers of their ships and their chariots, and as the flood-waters of the Nile receded, we were able to follow the southward movement of this huge mass of men and fighting machines, as King Salitis marched on Thebes.

  I smuggled secret messages in the name of Pharaoh Tamose to those Egyptians in the regiments of the enemy, urging them to revolt. They started to trickle in through our lines, bringing more valuable intelligence with them. Soon the trickle of deserters from the Hyksos armies became a flood. Two full regiments of archers came marching in under arms, with the blue banner waving over them, and chanting, 'Egypt and Tamose!'

  The crews of a hundred fighting galleys mutinied and slew their Hyksos officers. When they came sailing up-river to join us, they drove before them a fleet of barges that they had captured in the port of Thebes. These were laden with grain and oil and salt and flax and timber, all the sinews of war.

  By this time, all our own forces were down through the cataract and deployed around the city, except only the small herd of tame gnu. These I had left until the very last. From my lookout in the north tower, I could see the horse-lines extending for miles along both banks, and the smoke from the cooking-fires of the regimental encampments turned the air blue.

  Each day we were growing stronger, and the whole of Egypt was in a ferment of excitement and anticipation. The heady aroma of freedom perfumed each breath we drew. Kemit was a nation in the process of rebirth. They sang the patriotic anthems in the streets and the taverns, and the harlots and the wine merchants grew fat.

  Aton and I, poring over our maps and secret despatches, saw a different picture emerging. We saw the Hyksos giant shaking itself awake, and stretching out a mailed fist towards us. From Memphis and every city and town in the Delta, King Salitis' regiments were on the march. Every road was crowded with his chariots, and the river ran with his shipping. All of this was moving south upon Thebes.

  I waited until knew that Lord Apachan, the commander of the Hyksos chariots, had reached Thebes and was encamped outside the city walls with all his vehicles and all his horses. Then I went before the war council of Pharaoh Tamose.

  'Your Majesty, I have come to report that the enemy now have one hundred and twenty thousand horses and twelve thousand chariots massed at Thebes. Within two months, the Nile will have subsided to the level that will enable Apachan to begin his final advance.'

  Even Kratas looked grave. 'We have known worse odds—' he began, but the king cut him short.

  'I can tell by his face that the Master of the Royal Horse has more to tell us. Am I right, Taita?'

  'Pharaoh is always right,' I agreed. 'I beg your permission to bring down my gnu from above the cataract.'

  Kratas laughed. 'By Seth's bald head, Taita, do you intend riding out against the Hyksos on one of those clownish brutes of yours?' I laughed with him politely. His sense of humour has the same subtlety as that of the savage Shilluk he commands.

  The next morning Hui and I set off up-river to bring down the gnu. By this time there were only three hundred of these sorry creatures left alive out of the original six thousand, but they were quite tame and could be fed from the hand. We herded them down at a gentle pace, so as not to weaken them further.

  The horses that Remrem had captured in that first brief battle with the escaping Hyksos chariots had on my orders been kept separated from our own horses that we had brought down with us from Cush. Hui and I moved the gnu into the same pasture with them, and after the first uneasiness between the two species, they were all feeding peaceably together. That night we penned gnu and Hyksos horses in the same stockade. I left Hui to watch over them and returned to the palace on Elephantine Island.

  I will admit now to a great deal of uncertainty and worry over the days that followed. I had invested so much faith in the success of this ruse, which, after all, depended on a natural event that I did not fully understand. If it failed, we would be faced with the full fury of an enemy that outnumbered us by at least four to one.

  I had worked late with Aton and had fallen asleep over my scrolls in the palace library, when I was shaken awake by uncouth hands, and Hui was shouting in my ear. 'Come on, you lazy old rascal! Wake up! I have something for you.'

  He had horses waiting at the landing. We hurried to them as soon as the ferry put us ashore, and mounted up. We galloped all the way along the river-bank in the moonlight, and rode into the horse-lines with our mounts in a lather.

  The grooms had lamps lit and were working in the stockade by their feeble yellow light.

  Seven of the Hyksos horses were down already with the thick yellow pus pouring from their mouths and nostrils. The grooms were cutting into their windpipes and placing the hollow reeds to save them from choking and suffocating.

  'It worked!' Hui shouted, and seized me in
a coarse embrace and danced me in a circle. 'The Yellow Strangled It worked! It worked!'

  'I thought of it, didn't I?' I told him with all the dignity that his antics allowed me. 'Of course it worked.'

  The barges had been moored against the bank these weeks past, ready for this day. We loaded the horses immediately, all of those who could still stand upright. The gnu we left in the stockade. Their presence would be too difficult to explain where we were going.

  With one of the captured Hyksos galleys towing each of the barges, we rowed out into the current and turned northwards. With fifty oars a side and the wind and current behind us, we made good speed as we hurried down to Thebes to deliver our gift to Lord Apachan.

  AS SOON AS WE PASSED KOM-OMBO WE lowered the blue flag, and hoisted captured Hyksos banners. Most of the crew of the galleys that were towing the barges had been born under Hyksos rule, some of them were of mixed parentage and spoke the foreign language with colloquial fluency. Two nights north of Kom-Ombo, we were hailed by a Hyksos galley. They laid alongside and sent a boarding party over to inspect our cargo.

  'Horses for the chariots of Lord Apachan,' our captain told them. His father was Hyksos but his mother was an Egyptian noblewoman. His deportment was natural and his credentials convincing. After a cursory inspection they passed us through. We were stopped and boarded twice more before we reached Thebes, but each time our captain was able to deceive the Hyksos officers who came aboard. My chief concern by this time was the state of the horses.

  Despite our best efforts, they were beginning to die, and half of those still alive were in a pitiful condition. We threw the carcasses overboard, and ran on northwards at our best speed.

  My original plan had been to sell the horses to the Hyksos quartermasters in the port of Thebes, but no man who knew horseflesh would look at this pitiful herd. Hui and I decided upon another course.