River god - Smith Wilbur (бесплатные онлайн книги читаем полные версии .txt) 📗

  'This way!' With a soldier's eye for ground he picked out a shallow wadi that ran down to join the river, and he steered me to it. We jumped down and ran doubled over until we reached the perimeter of the camp. Then Tanus sprang out of the wadi and roused the camp with a bellow.

  'Stand to arms! On me, the Blues! Form on me!' It was the rallying cry of the Blue Crocodile Guards, and it was taken up at once by the sergeants of each company. Instantly the camp boiled to life. The men sleeping round the fires leaped to their feet and snatched up their stacked weapons, while the officers' tents burst open as though the men within had never slept but had been waiting, tensed and ready for Tanus' command. Sword in hand, they raced to their stations, and I saw Kratas in the forefront.

  I was amazed by the swiftness of their response, even though I knew that these were all battle-tested veterans. Before I could draw a dozen excited breaths they had formed in their phalanxes, with overlapping shields and long spears thrust outwards facing the darkness. The strange band out there in the night must have been as startled as I was by this militant display, for although I could still make out the vague shapes of many men and the gleam of their weapons in the gloom, the murderous charge we were all expecting from them never materialized.

  The instant that Tanus had his formations in line, he ordered the advance. We had often debated the advantages of offensive action over defence, and now the massed squadrons moved forward, poised to break into a full charge at Tanus' command. It must have been a daunting spectacle to the men out there in the darkness, for a voice hailed us with an edge of panic in its tone. 'We are Pharaoh's men on the king's business. Hold your attack!'

  'Hold hard, the Blues!' Tanus stopped the menacing advance, and then called back, 'Which pharaoh do you serve, the red usurper or the true pharaoh?'

  'We serve the true king, the divine Mamose, ruler of the Upper and the Lower Kingdoms. I am the king's messenger.'

  'Come forward, king's messenger, who creeps around in the night like a thief. Come forward and state your business!' Tanus invited him, but under his breath he told Kratas, 'Be ready for treachery. The smell of it is thick in the air. Have the fires built up. Give us light to see.'

  Kratas gave the order and bundles of dry rushes were flung on to the watch-fires. The flames leaped up, and the darkness was thrown back. Into this ruddy glow the leader of the strange band stepped forward and snouted, 'My name is Neter, Best of Ten Thousand. I am the commander of Pharaoh's bodyguard. I bear the hawk seal for the arrest and detention of Tanus, Lord Harrab.'

  'By Horus, he lies in his teeth,' Kratas growled. 'You are no felon with a warrant on your head. He insults you and the regiment. Let us at them and I'll thrust that hawk seal up between his buttocks.'

  'Hold!' Tanus restrained him. 'Let us hear the fellow out.' He raised his voice again. 'Show us the seal, Captain Neter.'

  Neter held it aloft. A small statuette in glistening blue faience, in the shape of the royal hawk. The hawk seal was the king's personal empowerment. The bearer acted with all the force and validity of Pharaoh himself. On pain of death, no man could question or hinder him in the course and commission of the royal business. The bearer answered only to the king.

  'I am Tanus, Lord Harrab,' Tanus conceded. 'And I acknowledge the hawk seal.'

  'My lord, rny lord!' Kratas whispered urgently. 'Do not go to the king. It will mean your certain death. I have spoken to the other officers. The regiment is behind you, nay, the entire army is behind you. Give us the word. We'll make you king before the new day breaks.'

  'My ear is deaf to those words,' Tanus told him softly, but with a weight of menace in his tone more telling than any growl or bellow. 'But only this once, Kratas, son of Maydum. Next time that you speak treason, I will deliver you to the king's wrath with my own hands.'

  He turned from Kratas to me, and drew me a little to one side. 'It is too late, old friend. The gods frown on our enterprise. I must trust myself to the king's good sense. If he is truly a god, then he will be able to look into my heart and see for himself that it contains no evil.' He touched my arm, and that light gesture was to me more significant than the warmest embrace. 'Go to Lostris, tell her what has happened, tell her why it has happened. Tell her I love her and, whatever happens, I will do so through this life and the next. Tell her I will wait for her, to the ends of eternity, if need be.'

  Then Tanus ran his sword back into the scabbard at his side and with empty hands stepped forward to meet the bearer of the hawk seal. 'I stand ready to do the king's bidding,' he said simply.

  Behind him his own men hissed and growled, and rattled their swords against their bucklers, but Tanus turned and quieted them with a gesture and a frown, then strode out to confront Neter. The king's guard closed in around him, and then at a trot they moved away along the tow-path of the canal, back towards the necropolis.

  The camp was filled with angry, bitter young men when I left it and followed Tanus and his escort at a discreet interval. When I reached the necropolis, I went directly to my Lady Lostris' quarters. I was distressed to find them deserted except for three of her little black maids, who in their usual lazy and lackadaisical manner were packing the last of their mistress's clothing into a cedar-wood chest.

  'Where is your mistress?' I demanded, and the eldest and most insolent of them picked her nose as she gave me an airy reply, 'Where you can't reach her, eunuch.' The others tittered at her powers of repartee. They are all of them jealous of my favour with my Lady Lostris.

  'Answer me straight, or I'll whip your insolent backside, you little baggage.' I had done so before, so she relented and muttered sulkily, "They have taken her to Pharaoh's own harem. You have no influence there. Despite your missing balls, the guards will'never let you pass amongst the royal women.'

  She was right, of course, but still I had to make the attempt. My mistress wouM need me now, as much as she ever had in all her life.

  As I feared, the guards at the gate to the king's harem were intractable. They knew who I was, but they had orders that no one, not even the closest members of Lostris' retinue, was to be allowed to go to her.

  It cost me a gold ring, but the best I could achieve, even with that extravagance, was the promise that one of the guards would take my message to her. I wrote it out on a scrap of papyrus parchment, a bland little attempt at encouragement. I dared not relate all that had befallen us, nor the peril in which Tanus now stood. I could not even mention him by name, and yet I had to reassure her of his love and protection. As an investment, it was not worth the price I was forced to pay. Hardest of all to bear, I learned later that my gold had been entirely wasted and that she never received the message. Is there no man we can trust in this perfidious world?

  I was not to see either Tanus or my Lady Lostris again until the evening of the last day of the festival of Osiris.

  THE FESTIVAL ENDED IN THE TEMPLE OF the god. It seemed once more that all the populace of Greater Thebes was packed into the courtyards. We were jammed so tightly that I could scarcely breathe in the press and the heat.

  I was feeling wretched, for I had slept little for two nights in succession on account of the worry and the strain. Apart from the uncertainty of the fate of Tanus, I had been further burdened by my Lord Intef with the onerous duty of arranging the wedding ceremony of the king to his daughter, a duty that ran so contrary to my own desires. Added to which, I was parted from my mistress, and I could scarcely bear it. I do not know how I came through it. Even the slave boys were concerned about me. They declared that they had never seen my beauty so impaired, or my spirits so low.