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

He is the reflection and not the mirror.

He is the music and not the lyre.

He is the stone and not the chisel that forms it.

He will live for ever.

He will not die a second time.

  Then the high priest handed my mistress the golden spoon and led her by the hand to the funeral slab.

  Queen Lostris stooped over the body of Pharaoh and laid the spoon of life upon his painted lips.

  I open thy lips that thou mayest speak once more,

  I open thy nostrils that thou mayest breathe.

  She intoned the words and then touched his eyelids with the spoon.

  I open thy eyes that thou mayest behold once more

  the glory of this world, and the nether-world of the

  gods where you shall dwell from this day forward.

  She touched the spoon to his bandaged chest.

I quicken your heart, so that you may live for ever.

You shall not die a second time.

You shall live for ever!

  Then we waited while the embalmers bound up Pharaoh's head in the neat swathes of bandages and painted them with resin. They moulded the resin-wet bandages to the shape of his face beneath them. Finally, they placed over his blind bandaged face the first of the four funeral masks.

  This was the same funeral mask that we had watched being fashioned fron pure gold. While he was still alive, Pharaoh had posed for the sculptor, so the mask was amazingly lifelike. The eyes of shining rock-crystal and obsidian seemed to gaze upon me with all the humanity that the man beneath the mask had once possessed. The cobra head of the uraeus rose from the noble brow, regal and mystical.

  Then the wrapped mummy was placed in the golden inner coffin, which was sealed, and this went into the second golden coffin with another death-mask embossed upon the lid. Half the treasure recovered from Lord Intef's hoard had gone to make up that enormous weight of precious metal and jewels.

  There were seven coffins in all, including the massive stone sarcophagus standing upon the golden sledge, which waited ready to carry Pharaoh along the causeway to his tomb in the gaunt hills. But my mistress refused to give her sanction for this to happen.

  'I have given my sacred vow. I cannot place my husband in a tomb that may be plundered by the Hyksos barbarians.

  Pharaoh will lie here until I am able to make good my promise to him. I will find a secure tomb in which he may lie through eternity. I have given my word that no one will disturb his rest.'

  THE WISDOM OF QUEEN LOSTRIS' DECISION to delay the entombment was proved three nights later. The Hyksos made a determined effort to cross the river, and Tanus barely succeeded in turning them back. They made the attempt on an unguarded stretch of the river two miles north of Esna. They swam their horses across in a mass, and then followed with an armada of small boats which they had carried overland from Thebes in order to conceal their intentions from us.

  They actually succeeded in making a beachhead on the west bank before Tanus could rush his galleys to the spot, but he arrived before they could unload their chariots and harness the horses to them. Tanus destroyed their boats with the chariots still on board, and he then had almost three thousand Hyksos stranded on our side of the river. Their horses scattered and bolted away into the night when Tanus' troops made their first charge.

  Without their chariots the Hyksos were on even terms with our troops, but they had no means of escape and they fought with grim determination. In numbers they were almost evenly matched, for Tanus had managed to bring up only one full regiment. The rest of his army was thinly spread along the west bank. The fighting was bloody and ferocious, confused by the darkness which was lit only by the burning vessels that Tanus had fired on the beach.

  It was only by the wildest coincidence, or by another nudge from the gods, that Hui and I had brought our little squadron of fifty chariots and fledgling charioteers to Esna on training manoeuvres. In truth, we had driven these twenty miles from Thebes principally to escape from Tanus' disapproval and interference.

  We were encamped in the sacred grove of tamarind trees beside the temple of Horus at Esna. I was exhausted after a long day of galloping and manoeuvring at high speed. On return to our encampment, Hui had produced a jar of remarkably palatable wine, and I had been somewhat intemperate in my sampling of it. I was dead asleep when Hui staggered into my tent and shook me awake.

  'There are fires burning on the bank of the river downstream,' he told me, 'and when the wind shifts, you can hear the sound of cheering, and a little while ago I thought I heard many voices singing the battle hymn of the Blues. I think there is a fight going on down there.'

  I was as unsteady on my feet as he was, and reckless with wine, as I shouted for him to rouse the camp and harness the horses. We were all still novices, and it was almost dawn by the time we had caught the horses and put them in the traces. In the chilly drift of the river mist and the gloomy shiver of dawn, we trotted along the north road in column of route, two chariots abreast. I was driving the lead chariot, while Hui had command of the rear-guard. Our fifty chariots had been reduced to thirty by the previous day's exercises, for I had not yet succeeded in perfecting my spoked wheels. They had an alarming tendency to fly to pieces when driven at speed, and almosMialf my force was out of action.

  The passage of the wind over my bare chest made me shiver again, and counteracted the bravado of the wine. I was beginning to hope that Hui had been mistaken, when suddenly from far ahead there came that unmistakable chorus of shouting and cheering, and the clank and clash of bronze on bronze that could mean only one thing. Once you have heard them, the sounds of battle are not readily forgotten or mistaken. The rough farmer's track we were following along the river-bank took a turn to the left. As we came through it, the field lay open before us.

  The sun was just above the horizon, and it had turned the surface of the river into a shimmering sheet of beaten copper that was painful to the eye. The ships of Tanus' squadron lay just off-shore, crowding in close to, in an attempt to bring the archers on the decks in range of the Hyksos, and to cut off any retreat across the river.

  The stranded Hyksos regiment was making a stand in the centre of a field of knee-high green corn. They had formed a circle, facing outwards, shoulder to shoulder, with their shields locked together and their spears thrust forward. As we came into view, they had just repulsed another attempt by Tanus' troops to break their circle. The Egyptian regiment was pulling back to regroup, leaving their dead and wounded scattered around the periphery of the enemy circle.

  I am no soldier, although I have written scrolls on the conduct of war. I had accepted the rank of Commander of the Royal Horse, thrust upon me by my mistress, with the deepest reluctance. I had intended simply to perfect my chariot, train the first squadron, and then hand it over to Hui or some other person more suited to the warlike professions.

  I was cold and still half-drunk as I heard my voice giving the order to deploy in arrow-head formation. It was the evolution that we had practised the previous day, and the chariots that followed mine flared out on either side with reasonable proficiency. I was acutely aware of the sound of hooves in the soft earth and the creak of the chariot harness, the squeal of the wheels turning on their metal-lined hubs, and the rattle of javelins as my charioteers drew their darts from the quivers. I looked left and right, reviewing our little squadron drawn up in the shape of an arrow-head with my chariot at the apex. It was a formation I had copied from the Hyksos. I drew a deep breath.