Author: Wilbur Smith
Category: Literature
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He stood over me now and grinned as he flexed the long lash in his hands. Rasfer loved his work, and he hated me with all the force of his envy and the feelings of inferiority that my intelligence and looks and favour engendered in him.
My Lord Intef stroked my naked back and sighed. 'You are so wicked sometimes, my old darling. You try to deceive me to whom you owe the deepest loyalty. Nay, more than simple loyalty—to whom you owe your very existence.' He sighed again. 'Why do you force this unpleasantness upon me? You should know much better than to press the suit of that young jackanapes upon me. It was a ludicrous attempt, but I suppose that I understand why you made it. That childlike sense of compassion is one of your many weaknesses, and one day will probably be the cause of your complete downfall. However, at times I find it rather quaint and endearing and I might readily have forgiven you for it, but I cannot overlook the fact that you have endangered the market value of the goods that I placed in your care.' He twisted my head up so that my mouth was free to answer him. 'For that, you must be punished. Do you understand me?'
'Yes, my lord,' I whispered, but I rolled my eyes to watch the whip in Rasfer's hands. Once again my Lord Intef buried my face in his lap, and then he spoke to Rasfer above my head.
'With all your cunning, Rasfer. Do not break the skin, please. I do not want this delightfully smooth back marred permanently. Ten will do as a start. Count then aloud for us.'
I had watched a hundred or more unfortunates undergo this punishment, some of them warriors and vaunted heroes. Not one of them was able to remain silent under the lash of Rasfer. In any event it was best not to do so, for he took silence as a personal challenge to his skill. I knew this well, having travelled this bitter road before. I was quite prepared to swallow any stupid pride and pay tribute to Rasfer's art in a loud voice. I filled my lungs in readiness.
'One!' grunted Rasfer, and the lash fluted. The way a woman later forgets the full pain of childbirth, I had forgotten the exquisite sting of it, and I screamed even louder than I had intended.
'You are fortunate, my dear Taita,' my Lord Intef murmured in my ear. 'I had the priests of Osiris examine the goods last night. They are still intact.' I squirmed in his lap. Not only from the pain, but also at the thought of those lascivious old goats from the temple probing and prying into my little girl.
Rasfer had his own little ritual to draw out the punishment and to ensure that both he and his victim were able to savour the moment to the full. Between each stroke he jogged in a small circle around the barrazza, grunting exhortations and encouragement to himself, holding the whip at high port like a ceremonial sword. As he completed the circle he was in position for the next stroke, and he raised the lash high. 'Two!' he cried, and I shrieked again.
ONE OF LOSTRIS' SLAVE GIRLS WAS WAITING for me on the broad terrace of my quarters when I limped painfully up the steps from the garden.
'My mistress bids you attend her immediately,' she greeted me.
'Tell her that I am indisposed.' I tried to avoid the summons and, shouting for one of the slave boys to dress my injuries, I hurried through into my chamber in an attempt to rid myself of the girl. I could not face Lostris yet, for I dreaded having to report my failure, and having at last to make her face the reality "and the impossibility of her love for Tanus. The black girl followed me, ogling the livid weals across my back with delicious horror.
'Go tell your mistress that I am injured, and that I cannot come to her,' I snapped over my shoulder.
'She told me that you would try to wriggle out of it, but she told me also that I was to stay with you and see to it that you did not.'
'You are insolent for a slave,' I reprimanded her sternly as the boy anointed my back with a healing salve of my own concoction.
'Yes,' agreed the imp with a grin. 'But then so are you.' And she dodged the half-hearted slap I aimed at her with ease. Lostris is much too soft with her handmaidens.
'Go tell your mistress that I will come to her,' I capitulated.
'She said I must wait and make sure you did.'
So I had an escort as I passed the guards at the gate of the harem..The guards were eunuchs like myself, but, unlike me, they were portly and androgynous. Despite their corpulence, or perhaps because of it, they were powerful men and fierce. However, I had used my influence to secure both of them this cosy sinecure, so they passed me through into the women's quarters with a respectful salute.
The harem was not nearly as grand nor as comfortable as the quarters of the slave boys, and it was clear where my Lord Intef's real interest lay. It was a compound of mud-brick hutments surrounded by a high mud wall. The only gardens or decorations were those that Lostris and her maids had undertaken, with my assistance. The vizier's wives were too fat and lazy and caught up in the scandals and intrigues of the harem to exert themselves.
Lostris' quarters were those closest to the main gate, surrounded by a pretty garden with a lily pond and song-birds twittering in cages woven of split bamboo. The mud walls were decorated with bright murals of Nile scenes, of fish and birds and goddesses, that I had helped her paint.
Her slave girls were huddled in a subdued group at the doorway, and more than one of them had been weeping. Their faces were streaked with tears. I pushed my way past them into the cool, dark interior, and at once heard my mistress's sobs from the inner chamber. I hurried to her, ashamed that I had been so craven as to try to avoid my duty to her.
She was lying face down on the low bed, her entire body shaking with the force of her grief, but she heard me enter and whirled off the bed and rushed to me.
'Oh, Taita! They are sending Tanus away. Pharaoh arrives in Karnak tomorrow, and my father will prevail upon him to order Tanus to take his squadron up-river to Elephantine and the cataracts. Oh, Taita! It is twenty days' travel to the first cataract. I shall never see him again. I wish I were dead. I shall throw myself into the Nile and let the crocodiles devour me. I don't want to live without Tanus—' All this in one rising wail of despair.
'Softly, my child.' I rocked her in my arms. 'How do you know all these terrible things? They may never happen.'
'Oh, they will. Tanus has sent me a message. Kratas has a brother in my father's personal bodyguard. He heard my father discussing it with Rasfer. Somehow my father has found out about Tanus and me. He knows that we were in the temple of Hapi alone. Oh, Taita, my father sent the priests to examine me. Those filthy old men did horrid things to me. It hurt so, Taita.'
I hugged her gently. It is not too often that I have the opportunity to do so, but now she hugged me back with all her strength. Her thoughts turned from her own injuries to her lover.
'I shall never see Tanus again,' she cried, and I was reminded of how young she truly was, not much more than a child, vulnerable and lost in her grief. 'My father will destroy him.'
'Even your father cannot touch Tanus,' I tried to reassure her. 'Tanus is a commander of a regiment of Pharaoh's own elite guard. He is the king's man. Tanus takes his orders only from Pharaoh, and he enjoys the full protection of the double crown of Egypt.' I did not add that this was probably the only reason that her father had not already destroyed him, but went on gently, 'While as for never seeing Tanus again, you will be playing opposite him in the pageant. I will make certain that there is a chance for the two of you to speak to each other between the acts.'
'My father will never let the pageant go on now.'
'He has no alternative, unless he is prepared to ruin my production and risk Pharaoh's displeasure, and you can be certain that he will never do that.'
'He will send Tanus away, and have another actor play Horus,' she sobbed.
"There is no time to rehearse another actor. Tanus will play the god Horus. I will make that clear to my Lord Intef. You and Tanus will have a chance to talk. We will find a way out for the two of you.'
She gulped back her tears and looked up at me with complete trust. 'Oh, Taita. I know that you will find a way. You always do—' She broke off sudd
enly and her expression changed. Her hands moved over my back, exploring the ridged welts that Rasfer's whip had raised across it.
'I am sorry, mistress. I tried to put forward Tanus' suit, as I promised you I would, and all this is the consequence of my stupidity.'
She stepped behind me and lifted the light linen tunic I had donned' to hide my injuries, and she gasped. "This is Rasfer's work. Oh, my poor dear Taita, why did you not warn me that this would happen, that my father was so violently opposed to Tanus and to me?'
I was hard put not to gasp at this artless piece of effrontery, I who had pleaded and warned them and in return been accused of disloyalty. I managed to hold my peace, however, although my back still throbbed abominably.
At least my mistress's own misery was forgotten for the moment in her concern for my superficial injuries. She ordered me to sit on her bed and remove my tunic while she ministered to me, her genuine love and compassion making up for the lack of her medicinal skills. This distraction lifted her from the utter depths of her despair. Soon she was chattering away in her usual ebullient fashion, making plans to thwart her father's wrath and to reunite herself with Tanus. Some of these plans demonstrated her good common sense, while others, more far-fetched, merely pointed to her trusting youth and lack of knowledge and experience in the wicked ways of the world. 'I shall play such a fine role of Isis in the pageant,' she declared at one stage, 'and I shall make myself so, agreeable to Pharaoh that he will grant me any boon that I ask of him. Then I shall beg him for Tanus as my husband, and he will say—' here she mimicked the king's pompous ceremonial tones so cleverly that I was forced to grin, 'and he will say, "I declare the betrothal of Tanus, Lord Harrab, son of Pianki, and of the Lady Lostris, daughter of Intef, and I raise my good servant Tanus to the rank of Great Lion of Egypt and commander of all my armies. I further order that all the former estates of his father, the noble Pianki, Lord Harrab be returned to him—" ' Here she broke off in the middle of her ministrations to my wounds and flung her arms around my neck.
'It could happen like that, could it not, dear Taita? Please say that it could!'
'No natural man could resist you, mistress,' I smiled at her nonsense. 'Not even great Pharaoh himself.' If I had known then how close my words would turn out to being the truth, I think I should have placed a live coal on my tongue before I spoke them.
Her face was shining with hope once again. That was enough reward for me, and I donned my tunic again to bring to an end her too enthusiastic ministrations to my back.
'But now, mistress, if you are to make a beautiful and irresistible Isis, you must get some rest.' I had brought with me a potion of the powder of the sleeping-flower which is called the Red Shepenn. The seeds of this precious flower had first been brought into this very Egypt by the trade caravans from a mountainous land somewhere far to the east. I now cultivated the red blooms in my garden, and when the petals were fallen I scratched the seed carapace with a gold fork of three tines. Thick white milk flowed from these wounds, which I gathered and dried and treated in accordance with the formula I had evolved. The' powder could induce sleep, conjure up strange dreams or smooth out pain.
'Stay with me awhile, Taita,' she murmured as she settled down on the bed, curled like a sleepy kitten. 'Cuddle me to sleep like you did when I was a baby.' She was a baby still, I thought, as I took her in my arms.
'It will all turn out all right, won't it?' she whispered. 'We will live happily ever after, just like they do in your stories, won't we, Taita?'
When she was asleep" I kissed her forehead softly and covered her with a fur rug before I stole from her chamber.
ON THE FIFTH DAY OF THE FESTIVAL OF Osiris, Pharaoh came down-river to Karnak from his palace on Elephantine Island which was ten days' travel away by swift river galley. He came in full state with all his retinue to officiate at the —— festival of the god.
Tanus' squadron had left Karnak three days previously, speeding away upstream to meet the great flotilla and escort it on the last stage of the voyage, so neither Lostris nor I had seen him since we had all three returned from the great river-cow hunt. It was a special joy for both of us then to see his galley come flying around the bend in the river, full on the current and with a strong desert wind abeam. The Breath of Horus was in the van of the fleet, leading it up from the south.
Lostris was in the grand vizier's train, standing behind her two brothers, Menset and Sobek. The two boys were comely and well-favoured, but there was too much of their father in them for my taste. Menset, the elder of the two, I particularly mistrusted, and the younger followed where his brother led.
I was standing further back in the ruck of courtiers and lesser functionaries from where I could keep an eye both on Lostris and on my Lord Intef. I saw the back of her neck flush with pleasure and excitement at the glimpse she had of Tanus' tall figure on the stern-tower of the Breath of Horus. The scales on his crocodile-skin breastplate gleamed in the simlight, and the spray of ostrich feathers on his helmet floated in the draught of the galley's passage.
Lostris was hopping with excitement and waving both slim arms above her head, but her squeals and her antics were lost in the roar of the vast crowd that lined both banks of the Nile to welcome their pharaoh. Thebes is the most populous city in the world, and I guessed that almost a quarter of a million souls had turned out to welcome the king. Meanwhile Tanus looked neither left nor right, but stared sternly ahead with his unsheathed sword held before his face in salute. The rest of his squadron followed the Breath of Horus in the wide vee of the egret formation, named for the pattern that those birds fly in as they return in the sunset to their roosts. All their standards and battle honours were streaming out in a fluttering blaze of rainbow colours, a noble show that set the crowds cheering and waving their palm-fronds wildly.
It was some time before the first vessel of the main convoy came wallowing round the bend behind them. It was laden with ladies and nobles of the king's entourage. It was followed by another, and then by a great untidy horde of vessels great and small. They came swarming downstream, transports filled with palace servants and slaves and all their accoutrements and paraphernalia, barges laden with oxen and goats and chickens for the kitchens, gilded and gaily painted vessels bearing cargoes of palace furniture and treasure, of nobles and lesser creatures, all uncomfortably jumbled together in a most unseamanlike fashion. In what contrast was the display put up by Tanus' squadron as it rounded-to downstream and held its geometrically spaced formation against the swift Nile current!
At last Pharaoh's state barge lumbered around the bend, and the cheering of the crowd rose to a crescendo. This huge vessel, the largest ever built by man, made its ponderous way towards where we were waiting to welcome it at the stone wharf below the grand vizier's palace.
I had plenty of time in which to study it and to muse how aptly its size and design, and the handling of it, reflected the present state and government of this very Egypt of ours—Egypt as she stood in the twelfth year of the rule of Pharaoh Mamose, the eighth of that name and line,,and the weakest yet of a weak and vacillating dynasty. The state barge was as long as five of the fighting galleys laid end to end, but its height and breadth were so ill-proportioned that they gravely offended my artistic instincts. Its massive hull was painted in the riotous colours that were the fashion of the age, and the figurehead of Osiris on the bows was gilded with real gold leaf. However, as she drew closer to the landing where we waited, I could see that the brilliant colours were faded in patches and her sides were zebra-striped in dun where her crew had defecated over the rail.
Amidships stood a tall deck-house, Pharaoh's private quarters, that was so solidly constructed of thick planks of precious cedar, and so stuffed with heavy furniture that the sailing characteristics of the barge were sadly affected. Atop this grotesque edifice, behind an ornate railing that was woven of fresh lilies, beneath a canopy of finely tanned gazelle skins skilfully sewn together and painted with images of all the major g
ods and goddesses, sat Pharaoh in majestic isolation. On his feet were sandals of gold filigree and his robe was of linen so pure that it shone like the high cumulus clouds of full summer. On his head he wore the tall double crown; the white crown of Upper Egypt with the head of the vulture goddess Nekhbet, combined with the red crown and the cobra head of Buto, the goddess of the Delta.
Despite the crown, the ironic truth was that this beloved sovereign of ours had lost the Delta almost ten years previously. In our turbulent days another pharaoh ruled in Lower Egypt, one who also wore the double crown, or at least his own version of it, a pretender who was our sovereign's deadly adversary, and whose constant wars against us drained both kingdoms of gold and the blood of the young men. Egypt was divided and torn by internal strife. Over the thousand or so years of our history, it had always been thus when weak men took on the mantle of pharaoh. It needed a strong, bold and clever man to hold the two kingdoms in his fists.
In order to turn the unwieldy vessel into the current and bring her to her moorings at the palace wharf, the captain should have steered close in to the far bank. If he had done so, he would have had the full breadth of the Nile in which to complete his turn. However, he had obviously misjudged the strength of wind and current and he began his turn from midstream. At first the barge swung ponderously across the current, listing heavily as the height of the deck-house caught the hot desert wind like a sail. Half a dozen boatswains raged about the lower deck with their whips rising and falling, the snapping of the lash on bare shoulders carrying clearly across the water.
Under the goading of the lash the rowers plied their paddles in a frenzy that churned the waters alongside the hull to foam, one hundred paddles a side pulling against each other and none of them making any effort to synchronize the stroke. Their curses and cries blended with the shouted orders of the four helmsmen who were struggling with the long steering-oar in the stern. Meanwhile, on the poop-deck, Nembet, the geriatric admiral and captain of the barge, alternately combed his fingers through his long scraggy grey beard and flapped his hands in impotent agitation.