Текст книги "River god"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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  It was I who pulled him up with a shout, and we stood shoulder to shoulder and stared ahead. The birds had caught my attention. I had picked out the commotioji of their wings from afar.

  'Vultures,' Tanus grunted with ragged breath. 'They have something dead amongst the rocks.' He drew his sword and we went forward cautiously.

  We found the man first, and chased the vultures off him in a flurrying storm of wings. I recognized him by the shock of blond hair as the husband I had met on the road the previous day. There was nothing left of his face, for he had lain upon his back and the birds had eaten the flesh away to the bones of the skull. They had picked out his eyes, and the empty sockets stared at the cloudless sky. His lips were gone and he grinned with bloody teeth, as though at the futile joke of our brief existence upon this earth. Tanus rolled him on to his stomach, and we saw at once the stab-wounds in his back that had killed him. There were a dozen of these thrust through his ribs.

  'Whoever did this was making sure of the job,' Tanus remarked, hardened to death as only a seasoned soldier can be.

  I walked on into the rocks and a buzzing black cloud of flies rose from the dead body of the wife. I have never understood where the flies come from, how they materialize so swiftly out of the searing dry heat of the desert. I guessed that the wife had aborted while they were busy with her. They must have left her alive after they had taken their pleasure with her. With the last of her strength she had taken the infant protectively in her arms. She had died like that, huddled against a boulder, shielding her still-born infant from the vultures.

  I went on deeper into the broken ground, and once again the flies led me to where the bandits had dragged the little girl. At least one of them had summoned up the compassion to cut her throat after they had finished with her, rather than let her bleed slowly to death.

  One of the flies settled on my lips. I brushed it away and began to weep. Tanus found me still weeping.

  'Did you know them?' he asked, and I nodded and cleared my throat to answer.

  'I met them on the road yesterday. I tried to warn?' I broke off, for it was not easy to continue. I took a deep breath. "They had a donkey. The Shrikes will have taken it.'

  Tanus nodded. His expression was bleak as he turned away and made a rapid cast amongst the rocks.

  222

  'This way?, he called, and broke into a run, heading out into the rocky desert.

  'Tanus!' I yelled after him. 'Kratas is waiting?' But he took not the least notice and I was left with no option but to follow him. I caught up with him again when he lost the tracks of the donkey on a bad piece of ground and was forced to cast ahead.

  'I feel for that family even more than you do,' I insisted. 'But this is folly. Kratas waits for us. We do not have time to waste?'

  He cut me off without even glancing in my direction, 'How old was that child? Not more than nine years? I always have time to see justice done.' His face was cold and vengeful. It was clear to see that he had recovered all his former mettle. I knew better than to argue further.

  The image of the little girl was still strong and clear in my mind. I joined him and we picked up the trail again. Now, with the two of us cooperating, we went forward even more swiftly.

  Tanus and I had tracked gazelle and oryx, and even lion, in this fashion and we had both become adept at this esoteric art. We worked as a team, running on each side of the spurs that our quarry had left, and signalling every twist or change in it to each other. Very soon our quarry reached a rough track that led eastward from the river and still deeper into the desert. They had joined it, and made our task of catching up with them that much simpler.

  It was almost noon, and our water-bottles were empty when at last we spotted them far ahead. There were five of them, and the donkey. It was clear that they had not expected to be followed deep into the desert which was their fastness, and they were moving carelessly. They had not even taken the trouble to cover then– back-trail.

  Tanus pulled me down behind the shelter of a rock while we caught our breath, and he growled at me, 'We'll circle out ahead of them. I want to see their faces.'

  He jumped up and led me in a wide detour out to one side of the track. We overtook the band of Shrikes, but well beyond then– line of sight. Then we cut in again to meet the track ahead of them. Tanus had a soldier's eye for ground, and set up the ambuscade unerringly.

  We heard them coining from afar, the clatter of the don-key's hooves and the sing-song of their voices. While we waited for them, I had the first opportunity to contemplate the prudence of my decision to follow along so unquestion-ingly. When the party of Shrikes at last came into view I was convinced that I had been over-hasty. They were as murderous-looking a bunch of ruffians as I had ever laid eyes upon, and I was armed only with my little jewelled dagger.

  Just short of where we lay, the tall, bearded Bedouin who was obviously their leader stopped suddenly, and ordered one of the men who followed him to unload the water-skin from the donkey. He drank first and then passed it on to the others. My throat closed in sympathy as I watched them swallow down the precious stuff.

  'By Horus, look at the stains of the women's blood on their robes. I wish I had Lanata with me now,' Tanus whispered, as we crouched amongst the rocks. 'I could put an arrow through that one's belly and drain the water from him like beer from the vat.' Then he laid a hand on my arm. 'Don't move until I do, do you hear me? I want no heroics from you now, mind.' I nodded vigorously, and felt not the slightest inclination to protest against these very reasonable instructions.

  The Shrikes came on again directly to where we waited. They were all heavily armed. The Bedouin walked ahead. His sword was strapped between his shoulder-blades, but with the handle protruding up over his left shoulder, ready to hand. He had the cowl of his woollen cloak drawn over his head to protect him from the fierce sunlight. It impaired his side-vision and he did not notice us as he passed close in front of us.

  Two others followed him closely, one of them leading the donkey. The last two sauntered along behind the animal, engrossed in a listless squabble over a piece of gold jewellery that they had taken from the murdered woman. All their weapons were sheathed, except for the short, bronze-headed stabbing spears carried by the last pair.

  Tanus let them all pass, and then he stood up quietly and moved in. behind the last two men in the column. He appeared to move casually, as the leopard does, but it was in reality only a breath before he swung his sword at the neck of the man on the right.

  Although I had intended backing Tanus up to the full, somehow my good intentions had not been translated into action, and I still crouched behind my comforting rock. I justified myself with the thought that I would probably only have hindered him if I had followed him too closely.

  I had never watched Tanus kill a man before. Although I knew that it was his vocation and that he had, over the years, had every opportunity to hone these gruesome skills, still I was astonished by his virtuosity. As he struck, his victim's head leapt from its shoulders like a desert spring-hare from its burrow, and the decapitated trunk actually took another step before the legs buckled under it. As the blow reached the limit of its arc, Tanus smoothly reversed the stroke. With the same movement he struck back-handed at the next brigand. The second neck severed just as cleanly. The head toppled off and fell free, while the carcass slumped forward with the blood fountaining high in the air.

  The splash of blood and the weighty thump-thump of the two disembodied heads striking the rocky earth alerted the other three Shrikes. They spun about in alarm, and for a moment stared in bewildered disbelief at the sudden carnage in their ranks. Then with a wild shout they drew their swords and rushed at Tanus in a body. Rather than retreating before them, Tanus charged them ferociously, splitting them apart. He swung to face the man he had isolated from his mates, and his thrust ripped a bloody flesh-wound down the side of his chest. The man squealed and reeled backwards. But before Tanus was able to finish him off, the other two fell upon him from behind. Tanus was forced to spin round to face them, and bronze clashed on bronze as he stopped their charge. He held them off at sword's-length, engaging first one and then the other, until the lightly wounded man recovered and came at him from his rear.

  'Behind you!' I yelled at him, and he whipped round only just in time to catch the thrust on his own blade. Instantly the other two were upon him again, and he was forced to give ground in order to defend himself from all sides. His swordsmanship was breathtaking to watch. So swift was his blade that it seemed that he had erected a glittering wall of bronze around himself against which the blows of his enemies clattered ineffectually.

  Then I realized that Tanus was tiring. The sweat streamed from his body in the heat, and his features were contorted with the effort. The long weeks of wine and debauchery had taken their toll of what had once been his limitless strength and stamina.

  He fell back before the next rush with which the bearded Bedouin drove at him, until he pressed his back to one of the boulders on the opposite side of the track from where I still crouched helplessly. With the rock to cover his back, all three of his attackers were forced to come at him from the front. But this was no real respite. Their attack was relentless. Led by the Bedouin, they howled like a pack of wild dogs as they bayed him, and Tanus' right arm tired and moved slower.

  The spear carried by the first man whom Tanus had beheaded had fallen in the middle of the track. I realized that I must do something immediately if I were not to watch Tanus hacked down before my eyes. With a huge effort I gathered up my slippery courage, and crept from my hiding-place. The Shrikes had forgotten all about me in their eagerness for the kill. I reached the spot where the spear lay without any one of them noticing me, and I snatched it up. With the solid weight of the weapon in my hands, all my lost courage came flooding back.

  The Bedouin was the most dangerous of the three of Tanus' adversaries, and he was also the closest to me. His back was towards me, and his whole attention was on. the unequal duel. I levelled the spear and rushed at him.

  The kidneys are the most vulnerable target in the human back. With my knowledge of anatomy, I could aim my thrust exactly. The spear-point went in a finger's-width to one side of the spinal column, all the way in. The broad spear-head opened a gaping wound, and skewered his right kidney with a surgeon's precision. The Bedouin stiffened and froze like a temple statue, instantly paralysed by my thrust. Then, as I viciously twisted the blade in his flesh the way Tanus had taught me, mincing his kidney to pulp, the sword fell from his fist and he collapsed with such a dreadful cry that his comrades were distracted enough to give Tanus his chance.

  Tanus' next thrust took one of them in the centre of his chest, and despite his exhaustion it still had sufficient power in it to fly cleanly through the man's torso and for the blood-smeared point to protrude a hand-span from between his shoulder-blades. Before Tanus was able to clear his blade from the clinging embrace of live flesh and to kill the last Shrike, the survivor spun round and ran.

  Tanus took a few paces after him, then gasped, 'I'm all done in. After him, Taita, don't let that murderous jackal get away.'

  There are very few men that can outrun me. Tanus is the only one I know of, but he has to be on top form to do it. I put my foot in the centre of the Bedouin's back and held him down as I jerked the spearhead out of his flesh, and then I went after the last Shrike.

  I caught him before he had gone two hundred paces, and I was running so lightly that he did not hear me coming up behind him. With the edge of the spear-head I slashed the tendon in the back of his heel, and he went down sprawling. The sword flew out of his hand. As he lay on his back kicking and screaming at me, I danced around him, pricking him with the point of the spear, goading him into position for a good clean killing thrust.

  'Which of the women did you enjoy the best?' I asked him, as I stabbed him in the thigh. 'Was it the mother, with her big belly, or was it the little girl? Was she tight enough for you?'

  'Please spare me!' he screamed. 'I did nothing. It was the others. Don't kill me!'

  "There is dried blood on the front of your kilt,' I said, and I stabbed him in the stomach, but not too deeply. 'Did the child scream as loudly as you do now?' I asked.

  As he rolled over into a ball to protect his stomach, I stabbed him in the spine, by a lucky chance finding the gap between the vertebrae. Instantly he was paralysed from the waist down, and I stepped back from him.

  'Very well,' I said. 'You ask me not to kill you, and I won't. It would be too good for you.'

  I turned away and walked back to join Tanus. The maimed Shrike dragged himself a little way after me, his paralysed legs slithering after him like a fisherman dragging a pair of dead carp. Then the effort was too much and he collapsed in a whimpering heap. Although it was past noon, the sun still had enough heat in it to kill him before it set.

  Tanus looked at me curiously as I came back to join him. "There is a savage streak in you that I never suspected before.' He shook his head in wonder. 'You never fail to amaze me.'

  He pulled the water-skin from the back of the donkey and offered it to me, but I shook my head. 'You first You need it more than I do.'

  He drank, his eyes tightly closed with the pleasure of it, and then gasped, 'By the sweet breath of Isis, you are right I am soft as an old woman. Even that little piece of sword-play nearly finished me.' Then he looked around at the scattered corpses, and grinned with satisfaction. 'But all in all, not a bad start on Pharaoh's business.'

  'It was the poorest of beginnings,' I contradicted him, and when he crooked an eyebrow at me I went on, 'We should have kept at least one of them alive to lead us to the Shrikes' nest. Even that one', I gestured towards the dying man lying out there amongst the rocks, 'is too far-gone to be of any use to us. It was my fault. I allowed my anger to get the better of me. We won't make the same mistake again.'

  We were halfway back to where we had left the bodies of the murdered family before my true nature reasserted itself, and I began bitterly to regret my callous and brutal treatment of the maimed brigand.

  'After all, he was a human being, as we are,' I told Tanus, and he snorted.

  'He was an animal, a rabid jackal, and you did a fine job. You have mourned him far too long. Forget him. Tell me, instead, why we must make this detour back to look at dead men, instead of heading straight for Kratas' camp.'

  'I need the husband's body.' I would say no more until we stood over the mutilated corpse. The pathetic relic was already stinking in the heat The vultures had left very little flesh on the bones.

  'Look at that hair,' I told Tanus. 'Who else do you know with a bush' like that?' For a moment he looked puzzled, and then he grinned and ran his fingers through his own dense ringlets.

  'Help me load him on the donkey,' I ordered. 'Kratas can take him into Karnak to the morticians for embalming. We'll buy him a good funeral and a fine tomb with your name on the walls. Then, by sunset tomorrow, all of Thebes will know that Tanus, Lord Harrab perished in the desert, and was half-eaten by the birds.'

  'If Lostris hears of it?' Tanus looked worried.

  Til send a warning letter to her. The advantage we will win by letting the world believe you dead will far outweigh any risk of alarming my mistress.'

  KRATAS WAS CAMPED AT THE FIRST oasis on the caravan road to the Red Sea, less than a day's march from Karnak. He had with him a hundred men of the Blue Crocodile Guards, all of them carefully selected, as I had commanded. Tanus and I reached the encampment in the middle of the night. We had travelled hard and were close to exhaustion. We fell on our sleeping-mats beside the camp-fire and slept until dawn.

  At first light, Tanus was up and mingling with his men. Their delight at having him back was transparent. The officers embraced him and the men cheered him, and grinned with pride as he greeted each of them by name.

  At breakfast Tanus gave Kratas instructions to take the putrefying corpse back to Karnak for burial and to make certain that the news of his death was the gossip of all Thebes. I gave Kratas a letter for my Lady Lostris. He would find a trustworthy messenger to carry it up-river to Elephantine.

  Kratas selected an escort of ten men, and they prepared to set off with the donkey and its odorous burden, back towards the Nile and Thebes.

  'Try to catch up with us on the road to the sea. If you cannot, then you'll find us camped at the oasis of Gebel Nagara. We will wait for you there,' Tanus shouted after him, as the detachment trotted out ofVhe encampment. 'And remember to bring Lanata, my bow, when you return!'

  NO SOONER WAS KRATAS OUT OF SIGHT beyond the first rise on the westerly road than Tanus formed up the rest of the regiment and led us away in the opposite direction along the caravan road towards the sea.

  The caravan road from the banks of the river Nile to the shores of the Red Sea was long and hard. A large, unwieldy caravan usually took twenty days to make the journey. We covered the distance in four days, for Tanus pushed us in a series of forced marches. At the outset, he and I were probably the only ones of all the company who were not in superb physical condition. However, by the time we reached Gebel Nagara, Tanus had burned the excess fat off his frame and sweated out the last poisons from the wine jar. He was once again lean and hard.

  As for myself, it was the first time that I had ever made a forced march with a company of the guards. For the first few days I suffered all the torments of thirst and aching muscles, of blistered feet and exhaustion that the Ka of a dead man must be forced to endure on the road to the underworld. However, my pride would not allow me to fall behind, apart from the facMjiat to do so in this wild and savage landscape would have meant certain death. To my surprise and pleasure, I found that after the first few days, it became easier and easier to keep my place in the ranks of trotting warriors.

  Along the way, we passed two large caravans moving towards the Nile, with the donkeys bow-legged under their heavy loads of trade goods, and escorts of heavily armed men far surpassing in number the merchants and their' retainers who made up the rest of the company. No caravan was safe from the depredations of the Shrikes unless it was protected by a force of mercenaries such as these, or unless the merchants were prepared to pay the crippling toll money that the Shrikes demanded to allow them free passage.

  When we met these strangers, Tanus pulled his shawl over his head to mask his face and hide that golden bush of hair. He was too distinctive a figure to risk being recognized and his continued existence being reported in Karnak. We'did not respond to the greetings and questions that were flung at us by these other travellers, but ran past them in aloof silence without even glancing in their direction.

  When we were still a day's march from the coast, we left the main caravan route and swung away southwards, following an ancient disused track that had been shown to me some years previously by one of the wild Bedouin whom I had befriended. The wells at Gebel Nagara lay on this old route to the sea, and were seldom visited by humans these days, only by the Bedouin and the desert bandits, if you can call these human.

  By the time we reached the wells, I was as slim and physically fit as I had ever been in my life, but I lamented the lack of a mirror, for I was convinced that this new energy and force that I felt within myself must be reflected in my features, and that my beauty must be enhanced by it. I would have welcomed the opportunity to admire it myself. However, there seemed to be no dearth of others to admire it in my place. At the camp-fire in the evenings, many a prurient glance was flashed in my direction, and I received more than a few sly offers from my companions, for even such an elite fighting corps as the guards was contaminated by the new sexual licence that permeated our society.

  I kept my dagger beside me in the night and when I pricked the first uninvited visitor to my sleeping-mat with the needle-point, his yells caused much hilarity amongst the others. After that, I was spared any further unwelcome attentions.

  Even once we had reached the wells, Tanus would allow us little rest. While we waited for Kratas to catch up, he kept his men exercising at arms, and at competitions of archery and wrestling and running. I was pleased to see that Kratas had chosen these men strictly in accordance with my instructions to him. There was not a single hulking brute amongst them. Apart from Tanus himself, they were all small, agile men aptly suited to the role that I planned for them.

  Kratas arrived only two days behind us. Taking into account his return to Karnak and the time taken up by the tasks that Tanus had set for him there, this meant that he must have travelled even more swiftly than we had done.

  'What held you up?' Tanus greeted him. 'Did you find a willing maid on the way?'

  'I had two heavy burdens to carry,' Kratas replied, as they embraced. 'Your bow, and the hawk seal. I am glad to be rid of both of them.' He handed over both the weapon and the statuette with a grin, delighted as ever to be back with Tanus.

  Tanus immediately took Lanata out into the desert. I went with him and helped him stalk close to a herd of gazelle. With these fleet little creatures racing and leaping across the plain, it was an extraordinary sight to watch Tanus bowl over a dozen of them at full run with as many arrows. That night, as we feasted on grilled livers and fillets of gazelle, we discussed the next stage of my plan.

  In the morning we left Kratas in command of the guards, and Tanus and I set out alone for the coast. It was only half a day's travel to the small fishing village which was our goal, and at noon we topped the last rise and looked down from the hills on to the glittering expanse of the sea spread below us. From this height we could see clearly the dark outline ofthe coral reefs beneath the turquoise waters.

  As soon as we entered the village, Tanus called for the headman, and so apparent from his bearing was Tanus' importance and authority, that the old man came at a run. When Tanus showed him the hawk seal, he fell to the earth in obeisance, as though it were Pharaoh himself who stood before him, and beat his head upon the ground with such force that I feared he might do himself serious injury. When I lifted him to his feet once more, he led us to the finest lodgings in the village, his own filthy hovel, and turned his numerous family out to make room for us.

  Once we had eaten a bowl of the fish stew that our host provided and drunk a cup of the delicious palm wine, Tanus and I went down to the beach of dazzling white sand and bathed away the sweat and the dust of the desert in the warm waters of the lagoon that was enclosed by the jagged barricade of coral that lay parallel to the shore. Behind us the harsh mountains, devoid of the faintest green tinge of growing things, thrust up into the aching blue desert sky.

  Sea, mountains and sky combined in a symphony of grandeur that stunned the senses. However, I had little time to appreciate it all, for the fishing fleet was returning. Five small dilapidated vessels with sails of woven palm-fronds were coming in through the pass in the reef. So great was the load of fish that each of them carried, that they seemed in danger of foundering before they could reach the beach.

  I am fascinated by all the natural bounty that the gods provide for us, and I examined the catch avidly as it was thrown out upon the beach, and questioned the fishermen as to each of the hundred different species. The pile of fish formed a glittering treasure of rainbow colours, and I wished that I had my scrolls and paint-pots to record it all.

  This interlude was too brief. As soon as the catch was unloaded, I embarked on one of the tiny vessels that stank so abundantly of its vocation, and waved back at Tanus on the beach as we put out through the pass in the reef. He was to remain here until I returned with the equipment that we needed for the next part of my plan. Once again, I did not want him to be recognized where I was going. His job now was to prevent any of the fishermen or their families from sneaking away into the desert to a secret meeting with the Shrikes, to report the presence in their village of a golden-headed lord who bore the hawk seal.

  The tiny vessel threw up her bows at the first strong scent of the sea, and the helmsman tacked across the wind and headed her up into the north, running parallel to that dun and awful coast. We had but a short way to go, and before nightfall the helmsman pointed over the bows at the clustered stone buildings of the port of Safaga on the distant shore-line.

  FOR A THOUSAND YEARS SAFAGA HAD been the entrepot for all trade coming into the Upper Kingdom from the East. Even as I stood in the bows of our tiny craft, I could make out the shapes of other much larger vessels on the northern horizon as they came and went between Safaga and the

  Arabian ports on the eastern shore of the narrow sea.

  It was dark by the time that I stepped ashore on the beach at Safaga, and nobody seemed to remark my arrival. I knew exactly where I was going, for I had visited the port regularly on Lord Intefs nefarious business. At this hour the streets were almost deserted, but the taverns were packed. I made my way swiftly to the home of Tiamat the merchant. ; Tiamat was a rich man and his home the largest in the old town. An armed slave barred the door to me.

  'Tell your master that the surgeon from Karnak who saved his leg for him is here,' I ordered, and Tiamat himself limped out to greet me. He was taken aback when he saw my clerical disguise, but had the good sense not to remark on it, nor to mention my name in front of the slave. He drew me into his walled garden, and as soon as we were alone he exclaimed, 'Is it really you, Taita? I heard that you had been murdered by the Shrikes at Elephantine.'

  He was a portly, middle-aged man, with an open, intelligent face and a shrewd mind. Some years previously he had been carried in to me on a litter. A party of travellers had found him beside the road, where he had been left for dead after his caravan had been pillaged by the Shrikes. I had stitched him together, and even managed to save the leg that had already mortified by the time I first saw it. However, he would always walk with a limp.

  'I am delighted to see that the reports of your death are premature,' he chuckled, and clapped his hands to have his slaves bring me a cup of cool sherbet and a plate of figs and honeyed dates.

  After a decent interval of polite conversation, he asked quietly, 'Is there anything I can do for you? I owe you my life. You have only to ask. My home is your home. All I have is yours.'

  'I am on the king's business,' I told him, and drew out the hawk seal from under my tunic.

  His expression became grave. 'I acknowledge the seal of Pharaoh. But it was not necessary to show it to me. Ask what you will of me. I cannot refuse you.'

  He listened to all I had to say without another word, and when I had finished, he sent for his bailiff and gave him his orders in front of me. Before he sent the man away, he turned to me and said, 'Is there anything that I have forgotten? Anything else you need at all?'

  'Your generosity is without limits,' I told him. 'However, there is one other thing. I long for my writing materials.'

  He turned back to the bailiff. 'See to it that there are scrolls and brushes and ink-pot in one of the packs.'

  After the bailiff had left, we sat on talking for half the night. Tiamat stood at the centre of the busiest trading route in the Upper Kingdom, and heard every rumour and whisper from the farthest reaches of the empire, and from beyond the sea. I learned as much in those few hours in his garden as I would in a month in the palace at Elephantine.

  'Do you still pay your ransom to the Shrikes to allow your caravans through?' I asked, and he shrugged with resignation.

  'After what they did to my leg, what option do I have? Each season then" demands become more exorbitant. I must pay over one-quarter of the value of my goods to them as soon as the caravan leaves Safaga, and half my profits once The goods are sold in Thebes. Soon they will beggar us all, and grass will grow on the caravan roads, and the trade of the kingdom will wither and die.'

  'How do you make these payments?' I asked. 'Who determines the amount, and who collects them?'

  'They have then– spies here in the port. They watch every cargo that is unloaded, and they know what each caravan carries when it leaves Safaga. Before it even reaches the mountain pass, it will be met by one of the robber chieftains who will demand the ransom they have set.'

  It was long past midnight before Tiamat called a slave to light me to the chamber he had set aside for me.