River god - Smith Wilbur (чтение книг .TXT) 📗

  I nodded to the four strong guards that Queen Lostris had selected for me while I was busy with my preparations, and they took hold of Pharaoh's wrists and ankles and held him down firmly. Queen Lostris sat at the king's head and placed the wooden tube from my medical chest between his lips and deep back into his throat. This would keep his windpipe clear and open. It would also prevent him from biting or swallowing his own tongue, or grinding his teeth together and snapping them off, when the pain assaulted him too fiercely.

  'First I have to enlarge the wound around the shaft to enable me to reach the head of the arrow,' I muttered to myself, and I pressed the point of the scalpel down along the line of the shaft. Pharaoh's whole body stiffened, but the men held him down remorselessly.

  I worked swiftly, for I have learned that speed is crucial in an operation of this nature, if the patient is to survive. I opened a slit on each side of the shaft. The human skin is tough and elastic and would inhibit the entry of the spoons, so I had to get through it.

  I dropped the knife and took up the pair of lubricated spoons. Using the arrow-shaft as a guide, I eased them deeper and deeper into the wound, until only the long handles' still protruded.

  By this time Pharaoh was writhing and twisting in the grip of his restrainers. Sweat was pouring from every pore of his skin, and running back over his shaven skull with its stubble of thin grey hair. His screams rang through the tube in his mouth, and reverberated through the hull of the barge.

  I had taught myself to ignore the agonized distress of my patients, and I slid the spoons deeper into the widely distended mouth of the wound until I felt them touch the flint of the arrow-head. This was the delicate part of the operation. Using the handles like a pair of tweezers, I levered the spoons apart and worked them over the arrow-head. When I felt them close of their own accord, I hoped that I had entirely enclosed the coarse flint and masked the barbs.

  I took a careful grasp of the handles of the spoons and of the reed shaft of the arrow, and pulled back on them all together. If the barbs were still free, they would have immediately snagged in Pharaoh's flesh and resisted my pull. I could have shouted aloud with relief as I felt it all begin ter yield. Still, the suction of the wet and clinging flesh was considerable, and I had to use all my strength to draw the shaft.

  Pharaoh's agony was dreadful to hear and behold, as the mass of reed and stone and metal was dragged through his chest. The Red Shepenn drug had long ago ceased to be of any effect, and the pain was raw and savage. I knew I was doing fearful damage, and I could feel tissue and sinew tearing.

  My own sweat ran down into my eyes and burned and half-blinded me, but I never released my pull until suddenly the blood-smeared arrow came free in my hands and I staggered backwards across the cabin and crashed into the bulkhead. I leaned against it for a moment, exhausted with the effort. I watched the dark, half-congealed blood trickle and spurt from the wound for a long moment, before I could rally myself and stagger back to stem it. , I smeared the wound with precious myrrh and crystallized honey, and then bound it up tightly with clean linen bandages. As I worked, I recited the incantation for the binding Up of wounds:

I bind thee up, oh creature of Seth.

I stop up thy mouth.

Retreat before me, red tide.

Retire before me, red flower of death.

I banish you, oh red dog of Seth.

  This was the recitation for a bleeding wound caused by blade or arrow. There are specific verses for all types of wound, from burns to those inflicted by the fangs or claws of a lion. Learning these is a large part of the training of a physician. I am never certain in my own mind as to just how efficacious these incantations are; however, I believe that I owe it to my patients to employ any possible means at my disposal for their cure.

  In the event, Pharaoh seemed much easier after the bind-ing-up, and I could leave him sleeping in the care of his women and go back on deck. I needed the cool river airs to revive me, for the operation had drained me almost as much as it had Pharaoh.

  By this time it was evening, and the sun was settling wearily upon the stark western hills and throwing its last ruddy glow over the battlefield. There had been no assault by the Hyksos infantry, and Tanus was still bringing off the remains of his vanquished army from the river-bank to the galleys anchored in the stream.

  I watched the boatloads of wounded and exhausted men passing our anchored barge, and I felt a deep compassion for them, as I did for all our people. This would be for ever the most dire day in our history. Then I saw that the dust-cloud of the Hyksos chariots was already beginning to move southwards towards Thebes. The clouds were incarnadined by the sunset to the colour of blood. It was for me a sign, and my compassion turned to dread.

  IT WAS DARK BY THE TIME THAT TANUS himself came aboard the state barge. In the light of the torches he looked like one of the corpses from the battlefield. He was pale with fatigue and dust. His cloak was stiff with dried blood and mud, and there were dark, bruised shadows under his eyes. When he saw me, his first concern was to ask after Pharaoh.

  'I have removed the arrow,' I told him. 'But the wound I is deep and near the heart. He is very weak, but if he survives three days, then I will be able to save him.'

  'What of your mistress and her son?' He always asked this, whenever we met.

  'Queen Lostris is tired, for she helped me with the operation. But she is with the king now. The prince is as bonny as ever and sleeps now with his nurses.'

  I saw Tanus reel on his feet, and knew that he was close to the end of even his great strength. 'You must rest now?' "t began, but he shook off my hand.

  'Bring lamps here,' he ordered. 'Taita, fetch your writing-brushes and ink-pots and scrolls. I must send a warning to Nembet, lest he walk into the Hyksos trap even as I did.'

  So Tanus and I sat half that night on the open deck, and this was the despatch for Nembet that he dictated to me:

  I greet you Lord Nembet, Great Lion of Egypt, Commander of the Ra division of the army of Pharaoh. May you live for ever!

  Know you that we have encountered the enemy Hyksos at the plain of Abnub. The Hyksos in his strength and ferocity is a terrible foe, and possessed of strange, swift craft that we cannot resist.

  Know you further that we have suffered a defeat and that our army is destroyed. We can no longer oppose the Hyksos.

  Know you further that Pharaoh is gravely wounded and in danger of his life.

  We urge you not to meet the Hyksos in an open field, for his craft are like the wind. Therefore take refuge behind walls of stone, or wait aboard your ships, to turn the enemy aside.

  The Hyksos has no ships of his own, and it is by means of our ships alone that we may prevail against him.

  We urge you to await our coming before committing your forces to battle.

  I call the protection of Horus and all the gods down upon you.

  It is Tanus, Lord Harrab, Commander of the Ptah division of the army of Pharaoh, who speaks thus.

  I wrote out four copies of this message, and as I completed each, Tanus called for messengers to carry them to the Lord Nembet, Great Lion of Egypt, who was advancing from the south to reinforce us. Tanus sent two fast galleys speeding up-river, each with a fair copy of the despatches. Then he put his best runners ashore on the west bank, the opposite side of the river from the Hyksos army, and sent them off to find Nembet.

  'Surely one of your scrolls will win through to Nembet. You can do no more until morning,' I reassured him. 'You must sleep now, for if you destroy yourself, then all of Egypt is destroyed with you.'