Текст книги "River god"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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Текущая страница: 34 (всего у книги 48 страниц)

  Suddenly all my hatred of him came back to me with such force and clarity that my mind seethed with it. It was. as though a vein had burst behind my eyes, for my vision darkened, and was glazed over with the reddish sheen of blood. A savage, incoherent cry burst from my throat, and I wheeled the horses in a tight circle until we were headed back towards the causeway.

  Lord Intef stood directly in my path. He had lost his helmet and his weapons in the fall, and he seemed half-dazed, for he swayed upon his feet. I whipped the horses up into a gallop once more, and the heavy wheels rumbled forward. I aimed the chariot directly at him. His beard was dishevelled and the ribbons in it sullied with dust. His eyes also were dull and bemused, but as I drove the horses down on him, suddenly they cleared and his head came up.

  'No!' he shouted, and began to back away, throwing out his hands towards me as if to fend off the massive carriage and the running horses. I aimed directly for him, but at the last moment, his dark gods defended him one last time. As I was right upon him, he threw himself to one side. I had seen him staggering and I had supposed that he was weak and helpless. Instead, he was quick and nimble as a jackal pursued by the hounds. The chariot was heavy and unwieldy, and I could not turn it swiftly enough to follow his side-step and dodge.

  I missed him and went on by. I wrestled with the reins, but the horses carried me on a hundred paces before I could get them under control and swing the heavy vehicle round again. By the time we came around, Intef was running for the shelter of the ditch. If he reached it, he would be safe? I realized that. I swore bitterly as I drove the team after him.

  It was then that his gods finally abandoned him. He had almost reached the ditch, but he was looking back over his shoulder at me, and he was not watching his footing. He ran into a patch of clay clods, hard as rocks, and his ankle turned under him. He fell heavily but rolled back on to his feet like an acrobat. He tried to run again, but the pain in his broken ankle brought him up. He hobbled a pace or two and then tried to hop forward towards the ditch on one leg.

  'You are mine at last!' I screamed at him, and he spun around to face me, balanced on one leg as I drove the chariot down on him. His face was pale, but those leopard eyes blazed up at me with all the bitterness and hatred of his cruel and twisted soul.

  'He is my father!' my mistress cried at my side, holding the prince's face to her bosom so that he would not see it. 'Leave him, Taita. He is of my blood.'

  I had never disobeyed her in my life, this was the first time. I made no move to check the horses, but gazed into Lord Intef's eyes, for once without fear.

  At the very end, he almost cheated me again. He flung himself sideways, and such were his agility and his strength that he twisted himself clear of the truck and the wheels of the chariot, but he could not quite avoid the wheel-knives. One of the spinning blades hooked in the fish-scale links of his coat of mail. The point of the Joufe tore through the armour and hooked in the flesh of his belly. The knife was spinning and his entrails snagged and wrapped around it, so that his guts were drawn out of him, as though he was one of those big blue perch from the river being disembowelled by a fishwife on the market block.

  He was towed along behind us by the slippery ropes of his own entrails, but he fell slowly behind as more coils and tangles of his gut were torn from his open stomach cavity. He clutched at them with both hands, as they were stripped out of him, but they slid through his fingers like some grotesque umbilical cord that bound him to the turning wheel of the chariot.

  His screams were a sound that I wish never to hear again as long as I live. The echoes of them still sometimes haunt my nightmares, so that in the end he inflicted his last cruelty upon me. I have never been able to forget him, as I would so dearly have wished.

  When at last the gruesome rope by which he was being dragged across the black earth snapped, he was left lying in the centre of the field. At last those cries of his were stilled, and he lay without movement.

  I pulled up the horses and Tanus slid down off the. back of his mount and came back to the chariot. He lifted my mistress and the prince down and held them close to his chest. My mistress was weeping.

  'Oh, it was so terrible! Whatever he did to us, he was still my father.'

  'It's all right now,' Tanus hugged her. 'It's all over now.'

  Prince Memnon was peering back over his mother's shoulder at the sprawling figure of his grandfather with all the fascination that children have with the macabre. Suddenly he piped up in that ringing treble, 'He was a nasty man.'

  'Yes,' I agreed softly, 'he was a very nasty man.'

  'Is the nasty man dead now?'

  'Yes, Mem, he is dead. Now we can all sleep better at nights.'

  I had to drive the horses hard along the river-bank to catch up with our departing flotilla, but at last I drew level with Kratas' galley, and he recognized us in the unfamiliar vehicle. Even across that wide stretch of water, his astonishment was apparent. Later he told me that he had believed we were safely aboard one of the leading ships of the flotilla.

  I turned the horses loose before I left the chariot. Then we waded out into the water to reach the small boat which Kratas sent in to pick us up.

  THE HYKSOS WOULD NOT LET US GO that easily. Day after day, their chariots pursued our flotilla down both banks of the Nile as we fled southwards.

  Whenever we looked back over the stern of the Breath of Horus, we saw the dust of the enemy columns following us. Very often the dust was mingled with the darker clouds of smoke that rose from the towns and villages on the river-banks which the Hyksos burned as they sacked them. As we passed each of the Egyptian towns, a flock of small craft sailed out to join our fleet, so that our armada increased in numbers with each day that passed.

  There were times, when the wind was unfavourable, that the columns of chariots overhauled us. Then we saw then-cohorts gleaming on the banks on either side of us, and heard their harsh but futile jeers and challenges ring out across the water. However, eternal Mother Nile gave us her protection, as she had over the centuries, and they could not reach us out on the stream. Then the wind would veer back into the north and we drew ahead of them once more, and the dust-clouds fell back on to the northern horizon.

  "Their horses cannot keep up this chase much longer,' I told Tanus on the morning of the twelfth day.

  'Don't be too smug about it. Salitis has the lure of the treasure of Pharaoh Mamose and the legitimate heir to the double crown,' Tanus replied simply. 'Gold and power have a marvellous way of stiffening a man's resolve. We have not seen the last of the barbarian yet.'

  The next morning the wind had changed again, and the chariots slowly gained upon us once more, and overtook the leading ships of our flotilla just as we approached the Gates of Hapi, the first of the granite walls that constricted the river below Elephantine. Between them the Nile narrowed to less than four hundred paces across from bank to bank, and the black granite cliffs rose almost sheer on each side. The flow of the current was full against us as it swirled through the Gates of Hapi, so that our speed bled off and Tanus ordered fresh men to the rowing-benches.

  'I think you are right, Taita. This is where they will be waiting,' he told me grimly, and then almost immediately afterwards he pointed ahead. 'There they are.'

  Leading the fleet, the Breath of Horus was just entering the gates, so we had to throw our heads back to look up the cliff-faces. The figures of the Hyksos archers high up on the rocky ledges were foreshortened by the angle, so that they appeared as grotesque dwarfs.

  'From that height they could shoot their arrows clear across from bank to bank,' Tanus muttered. 'We will be in easy range for most of this day. It will be hard on all of us, but more especially on the women and the children.'

  It was even worse than Tanus expected. The first arrow, fired at our galley from the cliffs above us, left a trail of smoke against the blue vault of the sky as it arced down and struck the water only a cubit ahead of our bows.

  'Fire-arrows,' Tanus nodded. 'You were right once again, Taita. The barbarian does learn quickly.'

  'It's easy enough to teach an ape new tricks.' I hated the Hyksos as much as any man in the fleet.

  'Now let us see if your bellows can pump water into a ship as well as they pump it out,' Tanus said.

  I had anticipated this attack with fire and so, for the last four days, I had been working on those galleys that Tanus had fitted with the water-pumps which I had designed for him. Now, as each of our vessels came up, Tanus ordered the captain to lower his sails, and we pumped water over the decks and soaked the rigging. Leather buckets were filled and placed ready upon the decks, and then one of the galleys escorted the ship into the granite-lined gut of the river and the rain of Hyksos fire-arrows.

  It took two full days to get the flotilla through, for the cliffs blanketed the wind. It was hot and still in the gap, and each ship had to be rowed all the way against the current The arrows fell upon us in pretty, sparking parabolas, rapping into the masts and the decks. Each of them started its own blaze that had to be quenched by the bucket chains or by the leather hoses of the pumps on the escort galley. There was no way for us to retaliate against this attack, for the archers were high up on the cliff-faces. They were well out of range of our own less powerful bows. When Remrem led a shore party to dislodge them from their perches, they were able to fire down on his men and drive them back into the boats with heavy losses.

  Those vessels that won through were all scarred with black scorched patches. Many others were less fortunate. The flames aboard them had beaten the buckets and the pumps and engulfed them. They had to be cut free and left to drift down on the current, causing pandemonium amongst the rest of the fleet coming up into the gap. In most cases we managed to take the crew and passengers off before the flames were out of hand, but with some we were too late. The screams of the women and the children in the heart of the flames were enough to stop the blood in my heart. I am left for ever with an image from that dreadful day of a young woman leaping from the deck of a burning barge with her long hair wreathed in flames, like a wedding garland.

  We lost over fifty ships in the Gates of Hapi. There were mourning banners flying on every ship as we sailed on towards Elephantine, but at least the Hyksos seemed to have exhausted themselves and their horses in this long chase southwards. The dust-clouds no longer besmirched our northern horizon, and we had a respite in which to mourn our dead and repair our vessels.

  However, none of us believed that they had given up entirely. In the end, the lure of Pharaoh's treasure must prove too much to resist.

  CONFINED AS WE WERE TO THE DECK OF the galley, Prince Memnon and I spent much time together sitting under the awning on the poop-deck. There he listened avidly to my stories, or watched me design and whittle the first model of a new bow for our army, based on the Hyksos recurved type. He had by now learned the old trick of asking questions to keep my attention focused upon him.

  'What are you doing now, Tata?'

  'I am making a new bow.'

  'Yes, but why?'

  'All right, I will tell you. Our own single-curve bows, apart from lacking the same power and carry, are too long to be used from the chariot.' He listened gravely. Even when he was an infant I had tried never to indulge in baby-talk with him, and I always addressed him as an equal. If sometimes he did not understand, at least he was happy with the sound of my voice.

  'I am now totally convinced that our future lies with the horse and chariot, I am sure that Your Royal Highness agrees with me.' I looked up at him. 'You love horses too, don't you, Mem?'

  He understood that well enough. 'I love horses, especially Patience and Blade,' he nodded vehemently.

  I had already filled three scrolls with my musings and diagrams of how I conceived these military assets could be used to best advantage. I wished that I was able to discuss these in detail with Tanus, but the Great Lion of Egypt's interest in matters equine was grudging and superficial.

  'Build the cursed things if you must, but don't keep chattering about them,' Tanus told me.

  The prince was a much more receptive audience, and while I worked, we conducted these long discussions, which were only much later to bear their full harvest. As a companion, Memnon's first choice was always Tanus, but I was not far behind in his affections, and we spent long, happy hours in each other's company.

  From the very first he was an exceptionally precocious and intelligent child, and under my influence he developed his gifts more swiftly than any other I had ever instructed. Even my mistress at the same age had not been as quick to learn.

  I had made Memnon a toy bow of the design I was studying, and he mastered it almost immediately and could soon, shoot one of his tiny arrows the full length of the galley's deck, much to the agitation of the slave girls and nursemaids who were usually his targets. None of them dared bend over when the prince was armed with his bow, he seldom missed an inviting pair of feminine buttocks at under twenty paces.

  After his bow, his favourite toy was the miniature chariot and horse that I had carved for him. I had even made the tiny figure of a charioteer to stand in the cockpit, and reins for him to drive the pair. The prince promptly named the mannikin Mem, and the horses were christened Patience and Blade. He crawled tirelessly up and down the deck, pushing the chariot in front of him, making appropriate horsey noises and uttering cries of 'Hi up!' and 'Whoa!'

  For such a small boy he was always aware of his surroundings. Those sparkling dark eyes missed very little of what was happening around him. It was no surprise to me when he was the first of any of the crew of the Breath of Horns to spot the strange figure far ahead of us on the right bank of the river.

  'Horses!' he shrieked, and then moments later, 'Look, look! It is Hui!'

  I rushed up to where he stood in the bows, and my heart soared as I realized that he was right. It was Hui astride Blade coming down the river-bank to meet us at a full gallop.

  'Hui has got the horses through to Elephantine. I forgive him all his other sins and stupidities. Hui has saved my horses.'

  'I am very proud of Hui,' said the prince gravely, imitating my words and intonation so exactly that my mistress and all those around us burst out laughing.

  WE WERE GIVEN A RESPITE ONCE WE reached Elephantine. There had been no sign of the pursuing chariots for so many days that a new optimism spread through the fleet and the city. Men started speaking of abandoning the flight to the south, and of remaining here below the cataracts to build up a new army with which to oppose the invader.

  I never allowed my mistress to be seduced by this spirit of confidence which was rooted in such shallow soil. I convinced her that my vision of the Mazes had shown us the true path and that our destiny still lay to the south. In the meantime, I continued my preparations for the voyage unabated. I think that by this time, it was the adventure itself that had cast its spell over me, even more than the necessity of running from the Hyksos.

  I wanted to see what lay beyond the cataracts, and in the nights after a full day's work in the docks, I sat up into the late watches in the palace library, reading the accounts of men who had taken that first step into the unknown before us.

  They wrote that the river had no end, that it ran on to the very ends of the earth. They wrote that after the first cataract, there was another more formidable, one that no man or ship could ever surmount. They said that to voyage from the first cataract to the next was a full year of travel, and still the river ran on.

  I wanted to see it. More than anything in my life I wanted to see where this great river, that was our life, began.

  When at last I fell asleep in the lamplight over the scrolls, I saw again in my dream the vision of the welcoming goddess seated on a mountain-top, with the twin spouts of water gushing from her great vagina. Although I had slept but little, I awoke with the dawn, refreshed and excited, and I rushed back to the docks to continue the preparations for the journey.

  I was fortunate in that most of the ropes for our shipping were woven and braided in the sail-yards here in Elephantine. Thus I had the pick of the finest linen cables at my disposal. Some of these were as thick as my finger, and others as thick as my thigh. With them I filled every available space in the holds of the ships not already crammed with stores. I knew just how desperately we would need these, when we came to the cataracts.

  It was not surprising that here in Elephantine those of our company with faint hearts and weak resolve made themselves known. The rigours of the flight from Thebes had convinced many of these that the compassion and mercy of the Hyksos were preferable to a continuation of the voyage into the burning southern deserts where even more savage men and beasts awaited them.

  When, Tanus heard that there were so many thousands of these citizens anxious to desert from the fleet, he roared, 'Damned traitors and renegades! I know what to do with them.' And he expressed his intention of turning his legions upon them, and driving them back on board the ships.

  At first he had my mistress's support in this. Her motives were very different from his. She was concerned only with the welfare of her subjects, and her vow that she would leave none of them to the Hyksos terror.

  I had to spend half the night arguing with both of them before I could convince them that we were better off without reluctant passengers. In the end, Queen Lostris issued a decree that any person who wished to remain in Elephantine might do so, but she added a neat little touch of her own to the proclamation. This was read aloud in every street of the city, and upon the docks where our ships lay.

I, Queen Lostris, regent of this very Egypt, mother of Prince Memnon, the heir to the double crown of the two kingdoms, now deliver to the people of this land my solemn promise.

  I make oath before the gods and call upon them to witness it. I swear to you that on the majority of the prince, I shall return with him to this city of Elephantine, here to elevate him to the throne of Egypt and place the double crown upon his brow that he may cast out the oppressor and rule over you with justice and in mercy all the days of his life.

  It is I, Queen Lostris, regent of this very Egypt, who speaks thus.

  This act and declaration increased one hundredfold the love and the loyalty that the common people felt towards my mistress and the prince. I doubt that in all our history mere had ever been a ruler so cherished as was she.

  When the lists were drawn up of those who would come with us beyond the cataracts, I was not surprised to see that it comprised most of those whose loyalty and skills we most valued. Those who wished to stay in Elephantine were the ones we were happiest to lose, including most of the priesthood.

  However, time would prove that those who remained behind us in Elephantine were of great value to us also. During the long years of the exodus they kept alive the flame in the hearts of the people, the memory of Prince Memnon and the promise of Queen Lostris to return to them.

  Gradually, through all the long, bitter years of the Hyksos tyranny, the legend of the return of the prince spread through the two kingdoms. In the end, all the people of Egypt, from the first cataract to the seven mouths of the Nile in the great Delta, believed that he would come back, and they prayed for that day.

  HUI HAD MY HORSES WAITING FOR ME ON the fields of the west bank, below the orange dunes hard by the river. The prince and I visited them every day, and although he was growing heavier, Memnon rode upon my shoulder to have a better view over the herd. By now Memnon knew all his favourites by name, and Patience and Blade came to eat corn-cakes from his hand when he called them. The first time he rode upon her back without my hand to steady him, Patience was as gentle with him as she was with her own foal, and the prince shouted out loud with the thrill of cantering alone around the field. Hui had learned a great deal about the management of the herds on the march, and using this knowledge, we planned in detail for their welfare on the next stage of the journey. I also explained to Hui the role that I wished the horses to play in the passage of the cataracts, and set him and the charioteers and grooms to work plaiting and splicing harness.

  At the very first opportunity, Tanus and I went up-river to scout the cataract. The water was so low that all the islands were exposed. The channels between them were so shallow that in places it was possible for a man to wade through without the water covering his head.

  The cataracts extended for many miles, a vast confusion of shining, water-worn granite boulders and serpentine streams that wriggled and twisted their way between them. Even I was daunted and discouraged by the task that lay ahead of us, while Tanus was his usual brutally straightforward self.

  'You won't be able to push a skiff through here without ripping the belly out of it. What will you do with a heavily laden galley? Carry it through on the back of one of your cursed horses?' he laughed, but without the least trace of humour.

  We started back to Elephantine, but before I reached the city, I had made up my mind that the only way forward was to abandon the ships and go on overland. The hardships that this course would bring down upon us were difficult to imagine. However, I reckoned that we might be able to rebuild the flotilla on the river-banks above the cataracts.

  When we returned to the palace on Elephantine Island, Tanus and I went directly to the audience chamber to report to Queen Lostris. She listened to everything that we told her, and then shook her head.

  'I do not believe that the goddess has deserted us so soon,' and she led us and all her court to the temple of Hapi on the south tip of the island.

  She made a generous sacrifice to the goddess, and we prayed all that night and asked for the guidance of Hapi. I do not believe that the favour of the gods can be bought by cutting the throats of a few goats and placing bunches of grapes upon the stone altar, nevertheless, I prayed with all the fervour of the high priest, although by dawn my buttocks ached hideously from the long vigil on the stone benches.

  As soon as the rays of the rising sun struck through the doors of the sanctuary and illuminated the altar, my mistress sent me down the shaft of the Nilometer. I had not reached the bottom step before I found myself ankle-deep in water.

  Hapi had listened to our prayers. Although it was weeks early, the Nile had begun to rise.

  THE VERY DAY AFTER THE WATERS BEGAN to rise, one of our fast scouting galleys that Tanus had left to watch the movements of the Hyksos cohorts came speeding up-river on the wings of the north wind. The Hyksos were on the march again. They would be in Elephantine within the week.

  Lord Tanus left immediately with his main force to prepare for the defence of the cataracts, leaving Lord Merkeset and myself to see to the embarkation 6f our people. I was able to prise Lord Merkeset off the belly of his young wife just long enough for him to sign the orders which I had prepared for him so meticulously. This time we were able to avoid the chaos and panic that had overtaken us at Thebes, and the fleet prepared to sail for the tail of the cataracts in good order.

  Fifty thousand Egyptians lined both banks of the river, weeping and singing psalms to Hapi and waving palm-fronds in farewell as we sailed away. Queen Lostris stood in the bows of the Breath ofHorus with the little prince at her side, and both of them waved to the crowds on the bank as they passed slowly up-river. At twenty-one years of age, my mistress was at the zenith of her beauty. Those who gazed upon her were struck with an almost religious awe. That beauty was echoed in the face of the child at her side, who held the crook and the flail of Egypt hi his small, determined hands.

  'We will return,' my mistress called to them, and the prince echoed her, 'We will return. Wait for us. We will return.'

  The legend that would sustain our blighted and oppressed land through its darkest times was born that day on the banks of the mother river.

  WHEN WE REACHED THE TAIL OF THE cataract the following noon, the rock-studded gorge had been transformed into a smooth green chute of rushing waters. In places it tumbled and growled in white water and froth, but it had not yet unleashed its full and terrible power. This was the moment in the life-cycle of the river most favourable to our enterprise. The waters were high enough to allow our ships through without grounding in the shallows, but the flood was not yet so wild and headstrong as to hurl them back and dash them to driftwood on the granite steps of the cataract.

  Tanus himself managed the ships, while Hui and I, under the nominal command of Lord Merkeset, managed the shore party. I placed the jovial old man, with a large jar of the very best wine on his one hand and his pretty little sixteen-year-old wife on the other, under a thatched shelter on the high ground above the gorge. I ignored the garbled and contradictory orders that the noble lord sent down to me from time to time over the ensuing days, and we got on with the business of the transit of the first cataract.

  The heaviest linen lines were laid out upon the bank, and our horses were harnessed in teams of ten. We found out quickly enough that we were able to bring forward ten teams at a time?one hundred horses?and couple them to the main ropes. Any greater numbers were unmanageable.

  In addition to the horses, we had almost two thousand men upon the secondary ropes and the guide-lines. Horses and men were changed every hour so that the teams were always fresh. At every dangerous turn and twist of the river, we stationed other parties upon the bank, and on the exposed granite islands. These were all armed with long poles to fend the hulls off the rocks as they were dragged through.

  Our men had been born on the river-banks and understood men– boats and the moods of the Nile better than they did their own wives'. Tanus and I arranged a system of hom signals between the ships and the shore party that functioned more smoothly even than I had hoped.

  On board the vessels, the sailors were also armed with poles to punt themselves forward and to fend off the bows. They sang the ancient river shanties as they worked, and the Breath ofHorus was the first to make the attempt. The sound of song and the cries of the horse-handlers mingled with the muted thunder of the Nile waters as we hauled her forward and she thrust her bows into the first chute of smoothly racing waters.

  The green waters piled up against her bows, but their thrust was unable to overcome our determination and the strength of two thousand men and one hundred straining horses. We dragged the Breath ofHorus up the first rapid, and we cheered when she glided into the deep green pool at the head.

  But there were six miles still to go. We changed the men and horses and dragged her bows into the next tumbling, swirling stretch of broken water in which the rocks stood like the heads of gigantic hippopotami ready to rip out her frail timbers with fangs of granite. There were six miles of these hellish rapids to negotiate, with death and disaster swirling around every rock. But the ropes held, and the men and the horses plodded on and upwards in relays.

  My mistress walked along the bank beside the teams of sweating men. She looked as fresh and cool as a flower, even in the baking sunlight, and her laughter and banter gave them fresh purpose. She sang the working songs with them, and I joined with her in the chorus. We made up fresh words as we went along. The men laughed at the saucy couplets and hauled on the ropes with renewed strength.

  Prince Memnon rode on the back of Blade, in the leading team of horses. Hui had tiei a rope around the horse's chest behind the front legs to give him a hand-hold, because Memnon's legs were still too short to afford him a firm grip, and stuck out at an undignified angle on each side of Blade's broad back. The prince waved back proudly at his father on the poop-deck of the galley.

  When at last we broke out into the deep, unruffled flow of the main river above the rapids, the working chant of the boatmen turned to a hymn of praise to Hapi, who had seen us through.

  Once my mistress had gone back on board the galley, she called for the master mason. She ordered him to cut an obelisk from the granite massif that hemmed in the gorge. While we laboured to bring the rest of the fleet through the gorge, the masons worked with fire and chisel to lift a long, slender column of mottled stone from the mother lode. When they had freed it from the matrix, they chiselled the words that my mistress dictated to them, using the pharaonic hieroglyphics in which her name and that of the prince were enclosed in the royal cartouche.

  AS WE PROCEEDED WITH THE TRANSIT OF the cataract, we became more expert with each pace we gained against the river.