River god - Smith Wilbur - Страница 132

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  The last rains might have fallen here a hundred years ago. It seemed impossible, but the seeds of that harvest had lain sleeping all that time. They had been burned and desiccated by sun and desert wind, while they waited for the rains to come once again. For any who doubted the existence of the gods, this miracle was proof. For any man who doubted that life was eternal, this held out the promise of immortality. If the flowers could survive thus, then surely the soul of man, which is infinitely more wonderful and valuable, must also live for ever.

  The landscape below us was painted with shades of soft greens, the contours and the outlines of the hills were picked out with sweeps of darker green. This formed a background to the wonderful rainbow of colour that lit the earth. The flowers grew in banks and drifts. The blooms of each variety seemed to seek the company of their own kind, as do the herds of antelope and the flocks of birds. The orange-coloured daisies grew in pools and lakes together, those with white petals frosted entire hillsides. There were fields of blue gladiolus, scarlet lilies and yellow ericas.

  Even the wiry brush plants in the gorges and nullahs, that had seemed seared and dried as mummies of men dead a thousand years, were now decked in fresh robes of green, with wreaths of yellow blooms crowning their ancient blasted heads. Lovely as it now was, I knew that it was ephemeral. Another month and the desert would triumph again. The flowers would wither on the stem, and the grass would turn to dust and blow away on the furnace blasts of the winds. Nothing would remain of this splendour except the seeds, tiny as grains of sand, waiting out the years with a monumental patience.

  'Such beauty should be shared with the one you love,' Tanus breathed in awe. 'Would that the queen were with me now!'

  That Tanus had been so moved by it proved the glory of the spectacle. He was a soldier and a hunter, but for once he gave no thought to the quarry, but gazed upon the spectacle with a religious awe.

  It was a shout from Kratas in one of the following chariots that roused us from this reverie of beauty. 'By Seth's stinking breath, there must be ten thousand of them down there.'

  The oryx were spread out to the green silhouette of the farther hills. Some of the old bulls were solitary, keeping all others away, but the rest of them were in herds of ten or a hundred, and some of the herds were beyond count. They were merely huge tawny stains, like cloud shadow upon the plains. It seemed to me that every oryx in all of Africa was gathered here.

  We watered the horses again before the hunt began. This gave me a chance to go forward and to gaze down upon this great concourse of living things. Of course, I took Mem-non with me, but when I tried to lead him by the hand he disentangled his fingers from my grip. 'Don't hold my hand in front of the men, Tata,' he told me solemnly. 'They will think I am still a baby.'

  As we stood on the sky-line, the nearest animals raised their heads and regarded us with mild curiosity. It occurred to me that they had probably never before seen a human being, and that they detected no danger in our presence.

  The oryx is a magnificent creature, standing as tall as a horse, with the same full, flowing, dark tail that sweeps the ground. Its face is painted with intricate whorls and slashes of black upon a pale, sand-coloured mask. A stiff, dark mane runs down the neck, enhancing the horse-like appearance, but its horns are like those of no other animal created by the gods. They are slim and straight and tipped like the dagger on my belt. Almost as long as the animal that bears them is tall, they are formidable weapons. Whereas all other antelope are meek and inoffensive, preferring flight to aggression, the oryx will defend itself even against the attack of the lion.

  I told Memnon of their courage and their powers of endurance, and explained how they could live their entire lives without drinking water from pool or river. "They take then-water from the dew, and from the desert roots and tubers which theyidig out of the earth with their hooves.'

  He listened avidly, for he had inherited the love of the chase in his father's blood, and I had taught him to revere all wild things.

  'The true huntsman understands and respects the birds and the animals that he hunts,' I told him, and he nodded seriously.

  'I want to be a true huntsman and a soldier, just like Lord Tanus.'

  'A man is not born with such gifts. He must learn them, in the same way that you must learn to be a great and just ruler.'

  I felt a pang of regret when Tanus called to me that the horses were watered, and I looked back to see the charioteers mounting up. I would have preferred to spend the rest of that day with my prince watching the royal show upon the plains below me. I went back reluctantly to take up the reins and to drive our chariot back to the head of the column.

  On the footplates of the other chariots, the archers had their bows strung, and the fever of the hunt gripped every man. They were like hounds on a short leash with the scent in their nostrils.

  'Ho, Lord Tanus!' Kratas shouted across to us. 'A wager on the outcome?'

  Before Tanus could reply, I murmured, 'Take one for me. The old braggart has never shot from the back of a flying chariot.'

  'Clean kills only,' Tanus called back to him. 'Any animal with another man's arrow in it, not to count.' Every archer marked the shaft of his arrow with his own motif, so that he might claim it later. Tanus' mark was the Wadjet, the wounded Eye of Horus. 'One gold deben for each oryx with your arrow in it.'

  'Make it two,' I suggested. 'One for me.' I am not a gambling man, but this was not a gamble. Tanus had his new recurved bow, and I was the best charioteer in the whole of our army.

  We were still novices, but I had studied the Hyksos' use of the chariot. Every evolution that their squadrons had performed on that terrible day on the plain of Abnub was graven on my memory. To me this was not merely a hunt for meat and sport, but practice and training for the much greater game of war. We had to learn to run our formations to the very best advantage and to control them in the full flight and confusion of battle, while circumstances changed with every movement of the enemy, and every chance and hazard of war.

  As we trotted down on to the plain, I gave the first signal, and the column split into three files. Smoothly we opened up like the petals of a lily. The flankers curled out like the horns of a bull to surround the quarry, while my column in the centre deployed into line abreast, with three chariot lengths between our wheel-hubs. We were the chest of the bull. The horns would hold the enemy while we came up and crushed him in our savage embrace.

  Ahead of us, the scattered herds of gazelle threw up their heads and gazed at us with the first stirring of alarm. They began to drift away, gathering up their fellows as they passed, small herds combining into larger, the way that a single boulder rolling down the slope will bring down the landslide. Soon the entire plain was alive with moving oryx. They cantered with a peculiar rocking motion, and dust rose in a pale mist and hung over their swaying backs. Their long, dark tails swished from side to side.

  I held my own squadron down to a walk. I did not want to tire the horses too soon with a long, stern chase. I was watching the denser, taller dust-clouds thrown up by the two flanking columns circling swiftly out on each side of the herd.

  At last they came together far ahead, and the ring was closed. The herds of oryx slowed down as they found their escape-route blocked. They began to mill in confusion as those in the lead turned back and ran into the ranks that followed.

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