by Wilbur Smith
'He overlooks us. He can turn my own spells back upon me! I cannot prevail against him. I sought only to save you from him, great Pharaoh.'
'You sought only to save your own blue-tattooed skin,' Trok snarled, and rushed in again to slam kicks into Ishtar's doubled-up body.
'I beg of you, first of all the gods,' Ishtar covered his head with both arms, 'give me my reward and let me go. Taita has dissipated my powers. I cannot confront him again. I can be of no further use to you.'
Trok stood with one foot drawn back, frozen in the act of delivering another kick. 'Your reward?' he demanded in astonishment. 'Surely you do not believe that I will reward your disloyalty with three lakhs of gold.'
Ishtar came up on his knees and tried to kiss Trok's foot. 'I have given you Babylon, great master. You cannot deny me what was promised.'
Trok laughed angrily. 'I can deny you anything I please to. Even life itself. If you wish to live another day then you will lead me to Gallala, and take your chances in a trial of magical strength with the Warlock.'
--
It seemed that all Egypt had heard that Nefer Seti had run the Red Road and was ordained in his kingship. Each day visitors from all over the country arrived in Gallala. Some were the colonels and captains of the regiments that Trok and Naja had left to guard Egypt in their absence. Others were emissaries of the elders of the great cities along the Nile - Avaris and Memphis, Thebes and Aswan - and the high priests from the temples in those cities. Sickened and saddened by the tyrannies and excesses of Naja and Trok, and emboldened by their absence in Babylon so far to the east, all had come to swear allegiance to Nefer Seti.
The populace of Egypt is ready to welcome you,' the emissaries told him.
'Our regiments will declare for you as soon as you step again on to the sacred soil, and they see your face, and know that the rumours of your survival are true,' the captains assured him.
Nefer and Taita questioned them keenly, demanding to know the muster of their regiments and their state of readiness. It soon became apparent that Trok and Naja had skimmed the cream of the regiments for their Mesopotamian adventure, and left only the reserve battalions, made up mostly of new recruits, the very young and untried, or the elderly nearing the end of their military lives, tired and unfit, already looking forward to the retirement and their little plot of land near the river where they could sit in the sun and play with their grandchildren.
'What of the chariots and horses?' Nefer asked the crucial question. The captains shook their grey heads and looked grave. 'Trok and Naja stripped the regiments bare. Almost every vehicle went with them on the western road. They left hardly enough to patrol the eastern borders to discourage the Bedouin raiders from the desert.'
'What about the workshops in Memphis, Avaris and Thebes?' Nefer wanted to know. 'Each of them can turn out at least fifty chariots in a month.'
'As soon as horses are trained to pull them, they are sent to the east to join the army of the twin pharaohs in Babylon.'
Taita assessed this information. 'The false pharaohs are fully aware of the threat we pose to their rear. They want to ensure that if the regiments they have left in Egypt rebel against them and declare for the true Pharaoh, Nefer Seti, they will lack cavalry and chariots to be an effective force.'
'You must return to your regiments,' Nefer ordered the officers. 'We are too many in Gallala already, and we are near the limits of our food and water. Do not allow any more vehicles or horses to leave Egypt. Keep your men in training, and equip the best of them with the new chariots as they become available. I will come to you soon, very soon, to lead you against the tyrants.' They left, praising his name, and with renewed assurances of their loyalty.
'You dare not fulfil your promise to them prematurely. You can only return to Egypt with a powerful force under your command, well trained and well equipped,' Taita advised Nefer. 'These captains who have come over to you are good, loyal men, and I know you can count on them. However, there will be many others who remain true to Trok and Naja, either in fear of the consequences when the false pharaohs return or because they believe in their divine right to rule. Also, there will be many who are undecided, but who will turn against you if they detect any weakness.'
Then we have much to do.' Nefer accepted this advice. 'We must still break the last of the horses we took at Thane and complete the repairs to the chariots from the dunes. Then our men must finish their training so that they can stand up against Trok and Naja's veterans. When we have done these things, we will return to Egypt.'
So the little army of Gallala redoubled its efforts to build itself into a force to challenge the might of the false pharaohs. They were inspired by their young commander, for Nefer worked harder than any of them. He rode out with the first squadrons long before dawn, and with the other warriors of the Red Road at his side, and Taita to advise him, he gradually forged his divisions into a cohesive body. When he rode back into the city, weary and dusty, in the evening, he would go to the workshops where he cajoled and argued with the foremen armourers and chariot builders. Then, after he had eaten, he would sit up in the lamp-light with Taita, going over the battle plans and the dispositions of their forces. Usually it was after midnight when he stumbled to his bedchamber. Mintaka woke and rose from the bed without complaint to help him strip off his armour and sandals and to bathe his feet and massage aching muscles with sweet oils. Then she warmed a bowl of wine and honey to help him sleep. Often the bowl dropped from his hand before he had finished it, and his head flopped back on to the pillow. Then she would slip off her chiton, take his head on to her bosom and hold him until he woke to dawn's first promise.
--
Each day Meren sank a little lower from the wounds he had received on the Red Road. Taita had strapped his broken ribs and they had healed swiftly enough. He had sewn back the torn ear so neatly that now it was cocked only slightly awry, and Merykara thought that the half-moon scar down his cheek made him look older and more distinguished. However, the sword thrust under his arm worried even Taita: when he probed it he knew from its angle and depth that the weapon must have penetrated Meren's lung. Twice, when it seemed to have healed over, the wound broke open again and leaked foul-smelling pus and fluid. Sometimes Meren was lucid, able to sit up and eat without assistance. Then, when the morbid humours welled up again, he sank back into semi-consciousness and fever.
Merykara stayed at his bedside, changing his dressings and anointing the wound with the unguent Taita brewed for her. When Meren was stronger she sang to him and related all the news of the city and the army. She played bao with him, and made up rhymes and riddles to amuse him. When the wound turned again, she fed him and bathed him like a baby, stroking his sweat-soaked head until he calmed. At night she slept at the foot of his bed, coming awake immediately every time he stirred and muttered in delirium.
She came to know his body as intimately as if he had been her own child. She cleaned his teeth with the green twigs of the acacia tree, chewing the ends into a stiff brush with her own small white teeth. She dressed his hair, brushing it until it grew out long enough to plait again. She trimmed his nails, and came to know and love the shape of his fingers calloused by the hilt of sword and chariot reins. She scraped the wax from his ears, and the dried mucus from his nostrils without the slightest revulsion. She used her own ivory comb on the soft dark hair that grew in thick clumps under his arms, curled on his chest and nestled at the base of his belly.
Each morning she washed every part of him, every crease, plane and bulge of hard muscle, and mourned as his flesh melted off him in the fevers and his bones began to show through.
At first she averted her eyes from his manly parts as she washed them, but soon this seemed prudish to her. Then she cupped them in the hollow of her hand and studied them closely. They invoked in her feelings of tenderness and compassion. They were so soft and warm, the skin so smooth and flawless. Then her emotions changed when she gently drew back the skin in the way that Mintaka h
ad shown her, and the pink tip popped out, silky as an oleander petal. It stiffened and swelled in her hand until she could barely encompass its girth with her thumb and forefinger. When this happened she felt a strange, breathless sensation, and a warmth in the most unlikely parts of her own anatomy.
One night she woke with the moonlight from the window lying like a silver bar across the stone floor of the chamber. For a moment she thought she was in her own bedchamber in the river palace of Thebes, but then she heard Meren's painful breathing, the incoherent cries inspired by his nightmare, and it all came back to her with a rush of dread. She jumped up naked from her mattress at the foot of his couch and ran to him.
When she lit the lamp, she saw that his eyes were wide open but unseeing, and that his face was ashen and contorted, there was a white scum on his lips and his body was shining with running sweat. He was throwing himself about so violently on the crumpled linen sheets that she was terrified he would injure himself further. She knew that this was the crisis Taita had warned her to expect.
'Taita!' she screamed. 'Please, we need you now.' Taita's cell was across the courtyard from theirs, and he always slept with his door open so that he could hear her call.
Taita!' she shrieked again, as she threw herself across Meren's chest to restrain him. Then she remembered that the Magus had gone into the desert with Nefer and a squadron of chariots on some mysterious expedition, and it was unlikely that they would return for many days. She thought of calling Mintaka, but her chamber was at the other end of the ancient palace, and she dared not leave Meren.
She was on her own. She knew that Meren's life was in her hands, and at that thought she felt her panic subside. A cool determination took its place. She lay against him and held him tightly, whispering encouragement and reassurance. After a while he calmed so that she could leave him for a moment. She went to the chest against the window wall, found the vial that Taita had left for her, mixed the pungent contents with wine and warmed it on the brazier as he had instructed her.
When she held the goblet to Meren's lips he tried to refuse, but she forced him to drink. When the bowl was empty she heated water and washed the sweat from his face, the scum from his lips. She was about to wash his body when a sudden seizure racked him, and he began to shake and groan. Her terror returned in full force. She flung herself on him and clung to him with all her strength. 'Do not die, my darling,' she pleaded with him, and then in a stronger voice, 'I will not let you die. O Hathor, help me. I will drag him back from the underworld with my own hands.' She knew she was in a battle, and she fought with him, extending all her strength and adding it to his. When she felt him go limp in her arms and his sweat-drenched body start to cool, she cried out, 'No, Meren, come back! Come back to me. You cannot go without me.
She placed her mouth over his and tried to breathe her own life into him. Suddenly he gave an explosive gasp, emptying his lungs, and she thought it was all over. She hugged him with both arms around his bony chest, and when she released the pressure he took another noisy breath, then another and another. The flutter of his heart become a strong, regular thumping that reverberated through her frame.
'You have come back,' she whispered. 'You have come back to me.' He was still cold, and when he shivered, she held him with both her arms around his chest, and wrapped her legs around his hips, warming him with her own body. Slowly, his breathing became deep and regular, and she felt the warm blood flowing back into his veins. She lay with him and felt a deep sense of fulfilment, for she knew that she had saved him, and that from this night onwards he would belong to her alone.
In the dawn another miracle occurred. She felt his body awaken, and what she had once held soft and small in the palm of her hand now swelled against her once more, becoming enormous, hard as bone, pressing up between her spread thighs.
She looked into his face and saw that he was conscious, his eyes dark and sunken in the wasted sockets, but with an expression of such awe and tenderness in them that her heart swelled within her chest so that she felt she might suffocate with the strength of her own torrential emotions.
'Yes?' he asked.
'Yes,' she answered. 'It is what I want more than anything else in all the world.' She spread herself, and reached down to guide him, aching inside with her need for him, taking him in deeply to the core of her existence, rising with him as if on wings to a place she had never been before, then crying out as she felt him fill her with a hot flood, as though she had drawn out of him and into her own body all his fever and pain and suffering, sensing the deep peace in him as he slumped against her and slept.
She lay quietly beside him, careful not to disturb him, revelling in the sound of his breathing and the warmth of his thin, ravaged body, savouring the ache where he had been deep within her.
She felt him coming awake and kissed him gently on the lips to welcome him back. He opened his eyes and looked into hers, first with bewilderment and then with dawning joy as the events of the night came back to him.
'I want you to be my wife,' he said.
'I am your wife already,' she replied, 'and I will be your wife until the day I die.'
--
Nefer looked back along the column of chariots. They were at full gallop, four abreast. The platoon commanders were watching for his signal. He looked ahead and saw the line of enemy foot soldiers out in the plain, distorted by the heat mirage so that they seemed to be a wriggling serpent, swimming in a lake of shimmering water where there was no water. He steered for their centre. Under Taita's care, Dov had fully recovered from her wound and now she ran strongly, matching Krus' long stride.
As they raced in he saw the enemy formation change: like a giant hedgehog, the line rolled itself into a ball, a tight circle two ranks deep, facing outwards, the outer rank with their long lances levelled, and the second rank with their lances thrust through the gaps, so that they offered a glittering wall of bronze spearheads. Nefer raced straight at the centre of the double row of lances, and then, when they were only two hundred paces away, he gave the hand signal for the 'wings of Horus'.
The formation of chariots opened like a blossom in the sun, successive ranks wheeling alternately right and left, spreading the wings of Horus to envelop the hedgehog of crouching infantrymen. The chariots whirled around them like the rim of a wheel around the hub, and the arrows from the short recurved cavalry bows flew into them in a dark cloud.
Nefer gave the signal to break off the attack and withdraw. Smoothly the chariots re-formed into columns of four and wheeled away. Another signal, and they split down the centre and came racing back, their javelins poised and the throwing thongs wound around their wrists.
As he swept past the infantry circle, Nefer raised his right fist in a salute, and shouted, 'Well done! That was much better.'
The foot-soldiers raised their lances to acknowledge his praise and shouted, 'Nefer Seti and Horus!'
Nefer slowed the horses and turned them, trotting back to halt his squadron in front of the ranks of infantry. Taita stepped out of the defensive circle to greet him.
'Any injuries?' Nefer asked. Even though the tips of the practice arrows they had shot into the hedgehog were padded with leather, they could still knock out an eye or inflict other damage.
'A few bruises.' Taita shrugged.
'They have done well,' Nefer said, then shouted to the centurion commanding the infantry, 'Let your lads fall out. I want to speak to them. Afterwards they can eat and drink. Then we will practise the false retreat again.'
There was an outcrop of rock that formed a natural podium, and Nefer climbed to the top of it while all the men, infantry and charioteers, gathered below him.
Taita squatted at the base of the rock and watched and listened. Nefer reminded him strongly of Pharaoh Tamose, his father, at the same age. He had the easy manner, and spoke simply but effectively in the colloquial language that his men understood best. At times like these he became one of them, and the warmth and respect they felt for him
was evident in the way they responded, grinning and crowding closer to catch every word, laughing at his jests, scowling with shame at his rebukes, and glowing at his compliments.
Nefer reviewed the morning's exercises, giving them the credit they deserved, but ruthlessly picking out every deficiency in their performance.
'I think you are almost ready to give Trok and Naja the surprise of their pretty lives,' he ended. 'Now, get something to eat. We have not finished for the day - in fact we have barely begun.' They laughed and began to disperse.
Nefer jumped down from the rock, and as he did so Taita sprang to his feet and said quietly but urgently, 'Stop, Nefer! Do not move!' Nefer froze where he stood.
The cobra must have had its nest in the rock pile, but the noise and the trampling of feet and hoofs had disturbed it. It came slithering out of the crack in the dark rock just as Nefer jumped down and landed almost on top of it. The serpent reared up behind him, almost as high as his waist. Its hood was flared open, and its feathery black tongue flickered between the thin grinning lips. Its eyes were beads of polished onyx, with sparks of light in the black centres, and they were fastened on Nefer's long bare legs within easy striking distance in front of it.
The nearest men had heard Taita's warning and they turned back. Now almost five hundred men were gathered around Nefer, but none dared move. They stared in horror at the mortal predicament of their pharaoh.
The cobra gaped wide, the preliminary to the attack, and the bony fangs came erect in the pale roof of its mouth. Drops of venom sparkled on the needle points.
Taita swung the Periapt of Lostris on its long chain like a pendulum, and it twinkled in the sunlight. He sent it swinging past the cobra's raised head. Distracted, the serpent swivelled its eyes away from Nefer to stare at the glittering charm. Taita had his staff in his other hand, and he edged closer. 'When I strike, jump clear,' he whispered, and Nefer nodded. Taita moved gradually out to one side and the cobra turned with him, fascinated by the golden charm.
