River god - Smith Wilbur - Страница 116

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  'Just keep those evil brutes out of my sight,' Tanus told me. He still had norforgiven me for going above him to my mistress.

  In fairness to him, he had more than enough excuse for his evil temper. The safety of the state and our nation were in the direst jeopardy. There had never been a time in our history when our civilization was so threatened by the barbarian.

  Already Asyut was lost, and the whole east bank of the river as far as Dendera. Completely undaunted and undeterred by the naval reverse that Tanus had inflicted upon him, King Salitis with his chariots had swept on and surrounded the walled city of Thebes.

  Those walls should have withstood siege for a decade, but that reckoned without the baleful presence of Lord Intef in the camp of the enemy. It transpired that while still grand vizier of the Upper Kingdom, he had secretly ordered the construction of a concealed passage beneath the city walls. Even I who knew most of his other secrets had never suspected this, and Lord Intef had murdered the workmen who had carried out this construction, so that he alone was aware of its existence. I have no idea why he should have constructed the tunnel in the first place, except that his devious mind was much given towards such devices. The palace was riddled with trap-doors and concealed corridors, like the warren of a rabbit or the lair of a desert fox.

  When Lord Intef disclosed its existence to him, King Salitis sent a small party of his best men through the secret passage, and once within the walls, they stormed the unsuspecting Egyptian guards on the main gate, slaughtered them and threw the gates wide. The main Hyksos horde poured into the city, and within days of the siege commencing, the city was lost and half her inhabitants massacred.

  From the west bank where Tanus now had his headquarters in the half-built Palace of Memnon, we could see the burnt and blackened roofs of those buildings in the city across the river that the Hyksos had put to the torch. Each day we watched the dust-clouds of their chariots, as they raced up and down the far bank, and the glint of their spearheads at the shoulder-slope, as they prepared for the battle that all of us knew was coming.

  With his sadly depleted fleet, Tanus had thus far managed to hold the river-line, and during my absence had beaten back another attempt by the Hyksos to get across the Nile in strength. However, our defences were thinly spread, for we had to guard a great sweep of the river, while the Hyksos could make a crossing at any point they chose. We learned from our spies on the east bank that they had commandeered every single craft they could lay hands on, from barge to skiff. They had captured many of our boatmakers, and had them at work in the boatyards of Thebes. Of course, we could be sure that Lord Intef would give them pertinent advice in all these matters, for he must have been every bit as eager as the barbarian Salitis to seize Pharaoh's treasure.

  The crews of our galleys stood to arms every watch of the day and night, and Tanus only slept when he could, which was not often. Neither my mistress nor I saw much of him, and when we did, he was haggard and short-tempered.

  Every night saw the arrival on the west bank of many hundreds of refugees. Of both sexes and all ages, they crossed the Nile in an odd assortment of rafts and small craft. Many of the stronger ones even swam the wide stretch of water. All of them were desperate to escape the Hyksos terror. They brought us horror-stories of rapine and plunder, but also detailed and up-to-date news of Hyksos movements.

  Of course we welcomed these people, they were countrymen and relatives, but their numbers strained our resources. Our main granaries had all been in Thebes, and most of the herds of cattle and sheep had fallen into the hands of the enemy. Queen Lostris gave me the responsibility of gathering up all the supplies of grain and the herds on the west bank. I drew up lists and rosters for rationing our supplies of meat and grain. Fortunately, the date palms were in full bearing, and the supply of fish from the river was inexhaustible. The Hyksos could never starve us out.

  My mistress had also appointed me Master of the Royal Horse. There was no intense competition for this appointment, particularly as no pay or privileges were attached to it. I made Hui my deputy, and he managed, by means of bribes, threats and blackmail, to recruit a hundred grooms to help him care for our little herd. Later we would train them as our first chariot-drivers.

  It was no hardship for me to make time every day to visit our makeshift stables in the necropolis. The mare Patience always came running to greet me, and I carried corn-cakes for her and her foal. Often I was able to sneak Prince Mem-non away from his mother and his nurses and carry him into the stables on my shoulders. He squealed with excitement as soon as he saw the horses.

  I held the prince on my lap as Patience and I galloped along the riverbank, and he made clucking noises and rocked his little backside, imitating the way in which I urged Patience to a harder gallop. I made certain that the route we followed on these rides would never cross Tanus' path. He had still not forgiven me, and if he had seen his son on the back of a cursed horse, I knew that I would have been in physical danger.

  I also spent a great deal of my time in the armoury workshop of Pharaoh's funerary temple, where I had the assistance of some of the finest craftsmen in the world to help me build my first chariot. It was here, while working on the design of these vehicles, that I conceived devices that were to become our first line of defence against the Hyksos chariots. These were simply long wooden staves sharpened at both ends, and with the points fire-hardened. Each of our infantrymen would carry ten of these in a bundle upon his back. At the approach of a squadron of cavalry, the staves were planted in the earth at an angle, with the points at the level of the horses' chests. Our men took up their positions behind this barrier of wicked spears, and fired their arrows over them.

  When I demonstrated these to Tanus, he threw his arm around my shoulders for the first time since our quarrel over the horses, and said, 'Well, at least you have not turned senile on me yet,' and I knew that I had been at least partially forgiven.

  The ground that I had gained with him here was almost completely lost over the affair of the Taita chariot.

  My workmen and I at last completed the first chariot. The dashboard and sides were of split bamboo, woven into bas-ketwork. The axle was of acacia wood. The hubs were of hand-forged bronze, greased with mutton fat, and the spoked wheels were bound with bronze rims. It was so light that two charioteers could lift it between them, and carry it over broken ground where the horses could not pull it. Even I realized that it was a masterpiece, and the workmen called it the Taita chariot. I did not object to the name.

  Hui and I harnessed up two of our best horses, Patience and Blade, and took the Taita chariot for its first gallop. It took us some time to learn how to control the rig, but we learned swiftly, and the horses were bred to this and showed us the way. In the end, we were flying across the ground, and hurtling through tight turns at full gallop.

  When we drove back into the stables, flushed with excitement and jubilant with our achievement, both of us were convinced that our chariot was swifter and handier than any that the Hyksos could send against us. We tested and modified this creation of mine for ten full days, working by lamplight in the armoury until the late watches of every night, before I was satisfied that I could show it to Tanus.

  Tanus came to the stables with surly reluctance, and balked at climbing up into the cockpit of the chariot behind me.

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