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

  'Tanus, you would make the noblest pharaoh that this Ta-Meri, this mother-land, has known for a thousand years. You with my Lady Lostris on the throne beside you could lead this land and this people back to greatness. Call out your squadrons, and lead your men down the causeway to where that unworthy pharaoh lies unprotected and vulnerable. By dawn tomorrow you could be ruler of the Upper Kingdom. By this time next year you could have defeated the usurper and have reunited the two kingdoms.' I leaped to my feet and faced nun. 'Tanus, Lord Harrab, your destiny and that of the woman you love await you. Seize them in both your strong warrior's hands!'

  'Warrior's hands, yes.' He held them up before my face. 'Hands that have fought for my mother-land and have protected her rightful king. You do me a disservice, old friend. They are not the hands of a traitor. Nor is this the heart of a blasphemer, that would seek to cast down and destroy a god, and take his place in the pantheon.'

  I groaned aloud in my frustration. 'You would be the greatest pharaoh of the Isist five hundred years, and you need not proclaim your godhead, not if the idea offends you. Do it, I beseech you, for the sake of this very Egypt of ours, and of the woman that we both love!'

  'Would Lostris still love a traitor as she loved a soldier and a patriot? I think not.' He shook his head.

  'She would love you no matter what?' I began, but he cut me short.

  'You cannot convince me. She is a woman of virtue and of honour. As a traitor and a thief, I would forfeit all right to her respect. What is of equal importance, I would never respect myself again, or consider myself worthy of her sweet love, if I did what you urge. Speak of it no more, as you value our friendship. I have no claim to the double crown, nor will I ever make such claim. Horus, hear me, and turn your face away from me if ever I should break this pledge.'

  The matter was closed, I knew him so well, that great infuriating oaf, whom I loved with all my heart. He meant exactly what he said, and would cleave to it at any cost.

  "Then what will you do, damn your stubborn heart?' I. flared at him. 'Nothing that I say has any weight with you. Do you want to face this on your own? Are you suddenly too wise to heed my counsel?'

  'I'm willing to take your counsel, just as long as it has sense to it.' He reached out and drew me down beside him. 'Come, Taita, help us. Lostris and I need you now as never before. Don't desert us. Help us find the honourable way.' 'I fear there is no such thing,' I sighed, my emotions bobbing and spinning like a piece of flotsam caught in the Nile flood. 'But if you will not seize the crown, then you dare not stay here. You must sweep Lostris up in your arms and bear her away.'

  He stared at me in the moonlight. 'Leave Egypt? You cannot be serious. This is my world. This is Lostris' world.' 'No!' I reassured him. 'That is not what I had in mind. There is another pharaoh in Egypt. One who has need of warriors and honest men. You have much to offer such a king. Your fame in the Lower Kingdom is as great as it is here at Karnak. Place Lostris on the deck of the Breath of Horus and send your galley flying northwards. No other ship can catch you. In ten days, with this wind and current, you can present yourself at the court of the red pharaoh in Memphis, and swear allegiance to?'

  'By Horus, you are determined to make a traitor of me yet,' he cut across me. 'Swear allegiance to the usurper, you say? Then what of the allegiance I swore to the true Pharaoh Mamose? Does that count for nothing with you? What kind of man am I, that can make the same oath to every king or renegade that crosses my path? An oath is not something to be bartered or reclaimed, Taita, it is for life. I gave my oath to the true Pharaoh Mamose.'

  'That true Pharaoh is the same one who will marry your love, and will order the strangling-rope to be twisted around your neck,' I pointed out grimly, and this time even he wavered.

  'You are right, of course. We should not stay in Karnak. But I will not make myself a traitor or break my solemn oath by taking up the sword against my king.'

  'Your sense of honour is too complicated for me.' I could not keep the tone of sarcasm from my voice. 'All I know is that it bodes fair to make corpses of us all. You have told me what you will not do. Now tell me what you will do to save yourself, and rescue my Lady Lostris from a hateful fate.'

  'Yes, old friend, you have every right to be angry with me. I asked for your help and advice. When you gave it freely, I scorned it. I beg your patience. Bear with me a while longer.' Tanus sprang to his feet and began to prowl about like the leopard in Pharaoh's menagerie, back and forth, muttering to himself, shaking his head and bunching his fists, as if to face an adversary.

  At last he stopped in front of me. 'I am not prepared to play the traitor, but with a heavy heart I will force myself to play the coward. If Lostris agrees to accompany me, and only if she agrees, then I am prepared to take flight. I will take her away from this land we both love so well.'

  'Where will you go?' I asked.

  'I know that Lostris can never leave the river. It is not only her life and mine, but her god also. We must stay with Hapi, the river. That leaves only one direction open to us.' He raised his right arm, gleaming with muscle in the moonlight, and pointed south. We will follow the Nile southwards into the depths of Africa, into the land of Gush and beyond. We will go up beyond the cataracts into the un-fathomed wilderness where no civilized man has ever gone before. There, perhaps, if the gods are kind, we will carve out another Ta-Meri for ourselves.'

  'Who will be your companions?'

  'Kratas, of course, and those of my officers and men who are game for the adventure. I'll address them tonight and give them the choice. Five ships, perhaps, and the men to work them. We must be ready to leave by dawn. Will you go back to the necropolis and fetch Lostris to me?'

  'And me?' I asked quietly. 'You'll take me with you?'

  'You?' He laughed at me. Now that the decision was made, his mood took flight, high as the bating falcon launched from the gloved fist. 'Would you truly give up your garden and your books, your pageants and your building of temples? The road will be dangerous, and the life hard. Do you truly want that, Taita?'

  'I could hot let you go alone, without my restraining hand upon your shoulder. What folly and danger would you lead my mistress into, if I were not there to guide you?'

  'Come!' he ordered, and clapped me on the back. 'I never doubted that you would come with us. I know that Lostris would not leave without you, anyway. Enough chatter! We have work to do. First, we will tell Kratas and the others what we intend, and let them make their choice. Then you must go back to the necropolis and fetch Lostris, while I make the preparations for our departure. I'll send a dozen of my best men with you, but we must hurry. It is past midnight, and well into the third watch.'

  Silly romantic fool that I am, but I was as excited as he was as we hurried back to the regiment's encampment below the temple and the causeway. I was so elated that my sense of danger was dulled. It was Tanus who picked out the sinister movement in the moonlight ahead of us and seized my arm and drew me beneath the shelter of a stunted carob tree.

  'An armed party,' he whispered, and I saw the glint of bronze spearheads. There was a large band of men, thirty or forty, I estimated.

  'Bandits, perhaps, or a raiding party from the Lower Kingdom,' Tanus growled, and even I was alarmed by the stealthy behaviour of the armed men ahead of us. They were not using the tow-path of the canal, but creeping through the open fields, spreading out to surround Tanus' encampment on the river-bank.