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

  Yet another year drifted past, and even I began to lose faith in my own prophecy. I came to believe that the gods had changed their minds, or that what I had seen was my own wishful fantasy.

  In the end Prince Memnon was almost five years old and his mother twenty-one, when the messenger came flying wild-eyed from the north, in one of our scouting galleys.

  "The Delta had fallen. The red pretender is dead. The Lower Kingdom is in flames. The cities of Memphis and Avaris are destroyed. The temples are burned to the ground and the images of the gods thrown down,' he shouted to the king, and Pharaoh replied 'It is not possible. I long to believe this despatch, but I cannot. How could this thing come to pass without our knowledge? The usurper was possessed of great force, for more than fifteen years we have been unable to overthrow him. How has this been accomplished in a day, and by whom?'

  The messenger was shaking with fear and exhaustion, for his journey had been onerous, and he knew how the bearers of disastrous tidings were treated in Thebes.

  'The red pretender was destroyed with his sword still in the scabbard. His forces were scattered before the war trumpets could sound the alarm.'

  'How was this accomplished?'

  'Divine Egypt, I know not. They say that a new and terrible enemy has come out of the East, swift as the wind, and no nation can stand before his wrath. Though they have never seen him, our army is in full retreat from the northern borders. Even the bravest will not stay to face him.'

  'Who is this enemy?' Pharaoh demanded, and for the first time we heard the fear in his voice.

  'They call him the Shepherd King. The Hyksos.'

  Tanus and I had jested with that name. We would never do so again. .

  PHARAOH CALLED HIS WAR COUNCIL into secret conclave. It was only long afterwards that I learned from Kratas all that transpired in those deliberations. Tanus, of course, would never break his oath of secrecy, not even to me or my mistress. But I was able to worm it out of Kratas, for that lovable, brawling oaf was not proof against my wiles.

  Tanus had promoted Kratas to the rank of Best of Ten Thousand, and had given him the command of the Blue Crocodile Guards. The bond between them was still as solid as a granite stele. Thus, as a regimental commander, Kratas was entitled to a seat on the war council, and although at his lowly rank he was not called upon to speak, he faithfully relayed all that was said, to me and my mistress.

  The council was divided between the ancients, headed by Nembet, and the new blood of which Tanus was the leader. Unfortunately the final authority lay with the old men, and they forced their archaic views upon the others.

  Tanus wanted to draw our main forces back from the frontier and to set up a series of deep defences along the river. At the same time, he intended sending forward scouting and reconnaissance parties to assess and study the nature of the mysterious enemy. We had spies in all of the northern cities, but for some unknown reason no reports from them had as yet been received. Tanus wanted to gather these in and stiMy them, before he deployed his main force to battle.

  'Until we know what we are facing, we cannot devise the correct strategy to meet it,' he told the council.

  Nembet and his faction countered any of Tanus' suggestions. The old admiral had never forgiven Tanus for his humiliation on the day he saved the royal barge from destruction. His opposition to Tanus was based on principle rather than on reason or logic.

  'We will not yield a cubit of our sacred soil. To suggest it is cowardice. We will meet the enemy and destroy him wherever we find him. We will not dance and flirt with him like a gaggle of village maidens.'

  'My lord!' roared Tanus, incensed by the suggestion of cowardice. 'Only a fool, and an old fool at that, will make a decision before he knows the facts. We have no scrap of intelligence to act upon?'

  It was in vain. The seniority of the three generals above Tanus on the army lists prevailed in the end.

  Tanus was ordered north immediately, to steady and rally the retreating army. He was to hold the frontier, and make his stand on the boundary stones. He was forbidden to make a strategic withdrawal to the line of hills before Asyut, which was the natural defensive line, and from which the city walls provided a second line of defence. He would have the fleet and the northern army corps under his direct command, with three hundred warships to provide the transport, and to command the river.

  In the meantime, Nembet would bring in the rest of the army, even those regiments on the southern border with Gush. The black threat from the African interior must be ignored now in the face of this more pressing danger. As soon as they were assembled, Nembet would rush these reinforcements northwards to join up with Tanus. Within a month, there would be an invincible army of sixty thousand men and four hundred galleys lying before Asyut. In the meantime, Tanus must hold the frontier at all costs.

  Nembet ended with a strict injunction. 'Lord Harrab is further ordered to hold all his forces on the border. He is not to indulge in raids or scouting forays to the north.'

  'My Lord Nembet, these orders blindfold me, and bind my sword-arm. You are denying me the means of conducting this campaign in a prudent and efficient manner,' Tanus protested in vain. Nembet sneered with the satisfaction of having forced his authority upon his young rival, and in having gained a measure of retribution. On such petty human emotions pivots the destiny of nations.

  Pharaoh himself announced his intention of taking his rightful place at the head of his army. For a thousand years the pharaoh had been present on the field whenever the decisive battles of history had been fought out. Although I had to admire the king's courage, I wished he had not chosen this moment to demonstrate it. Pharaoh Mamose was no warrior, and his presence would do little to enhance our chances of victory. There might be some bolstering of morale when the troops saw him in the van, but on balance he and his train would be a greater hindrance than assistance to Lord Tanus.

  The king would not travel northwards to the battle-front alone. His entire court would attend him, including his senior wife and his son. The queen must have her retinue and Prince Memnon his tutors, and so I would be going north to Asyut and the battle-front.

  Nobody knew nor understood this enemy. I felt that my mistress and the prince were being placed in unnecessary danger. On the other hand, the safety of a slave was of no account, except to the slave himself. I slept little the night before we sailed northwards on the flood of the river for Asyut and the battle-front.

  THE FARTHER NORTH WE SAILED, THE more numerous and troublesome were the rumours and reports coming down from the front to feed upon our contentment and confidence, like locusts upon the standing crops. Often during the voyage, Tanus came aboard our vessel, ostensibly to discuss these with me. However, on each visit he spent some time with the prince and his mother.

  I have never held with the custom of women following the army into battle. In times of peace or war, they are a marvellous distraction?even a warrior of Tanus' calibre could be diverted from his main purpose. All his mind should have been on the task ahead, but when I told him so, he laughed and clapped my shoulder.

  "They give me a reason to fight. Don't worry, old friend, I shall be a lion defending his cub.'

  Soon we encountered the first elements of the retreating army, straggling groups of deserters who were looting the villages as they fled southwards along the banks of the river. With very little ceremony and no hesitation at all, Tanus beheaded several hundred of them and had their heads spiked on spears and planted along the bank as an example and a warning. Then he gathered up the others and regrouped them under reliable officers. There were no further desertions and the troops stood to the colours with a new spirit.