River god - Smith Wilbur - Страница 93

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  The crowd had long ago dispersed, and I sat alone on the empty stand. Not attempting to hide his disgust at such a brutal duty thrust upon him by the royal command, Tanus had stood to his post until sunset. Then finally he had handed over the death watch to one of his captains, and strode back into the city, leaving us to our vigil.

  There were only the ten guards below the gate, myself on the stand and a few beggars lying like bundles of rags at the foot of the wall. The torches on either side of the gate guttered and flickered in the night breeze off the river, casting an eerie light over the macabre scene.

  Rasfer groaned again, and I could stand it no longer. I took a jar of beer from my basket and climbed down to speak to the captain. Wejoiew each other from the desert, and he laughed and shook his head at my request. 'You are a soft-hearted fool, Taita. The bastard is so far-gone, he is not worth worrying about,' he told me. 'But I will look the other way for a while. Be quick about it.'

  I went to the gate, and Rasfer's head was on a level with my own. 1 called his name softly, and his eyes fluttered open. I had no way of telling how much he understood, but I whispered, 'I have a little beer to wet your tongue.

  He made a soft gulping sound in his throat. His eyes were looking at me. If he still had feeling, I knew his thirst must be a torment of hell. I dribbled a few drops from the jar over his tongue, careful not to let any of it run back into his nose. He made a weak and futile effort to swallow. It would have been impossible, even if he had been stronger; the liquid ran out of the corners of his mouth and down his cheeks into the dung-caked hair.

  He closed his eyes, and that was the moment I was waiting for. I slipped my dagger out of the folds of my shawl. Carefully I placed the point behind his ear, and then with a sharp movement drove it in to the hilt. His back arched in the final spasm, and then he relaxed into death. I drew out the blade. There was very tittle blood, and I hid the dagger in my shawl and turned away.

  'May dreams of paradise waft you through the night, Taita,' the captain of the guard called after me, but I had lost my voice and could not reply. I never thought that I would weep for Rasfer, and maybe I never did so. Perhaps I wept only for myself.

  AT PHARAOH'S COMMAND THE RETURN of the court to Elephantine was initially delayed for a month. The king had his new treasure to dispose of and was in buoyant mood. In all the time I had known him, I had never seen him so happy and contented. I was pleased for him. By this time I held the old man in real and warm affection. Some nights I sat up late with him and his scribes, going over the accounts of the royal treasury, which now emitted a decidedly rosy glow.

  At other times, I was summoned by Pharaoh to consultations on. the alterations to the mortuary temple and the royal tomb that he was now better able to afford. I calculated that at least half of the recently revealed treasure would go into the tomb with Pharaoh. He selected all the finest jewellery from Intef's hoard and sent almost fifteen takhs of bullion to the goldsmiths in his temple, to be turned into funerary objects.

  Nevertheless, he found time to send for Tanus to advise him on military matters. He had now recognized Tanus as one of the foremost generals in his army.

  I was present at some of these meetings. The threat from the false pharaoh in the Lower Kingdom was ever-present and preyed on all our minds. Such was Tanus' favour with the king that he was able to make the most of these fears and to persuade Pharaoh to divert a small part of Inters treasure to the building of five new squadrons of war galleys, and to re-equipping all the guards regiments with new weapons and sandals?although he was unable to persuade the king to make up the arrears in pay for the army. Many of the regiments had not been paid for the last half-year. Morale in the army was much boosted by these reinforcements, and every soldier knew whom to thank for them. They roared like lions and raised their clenched right fists in salute, when Tanus inspected their massed formations.

  Most times when Tanus was summoned to the royal audience, my mistress found some excuse to be present. Although she had the good sense to keep in the background on these occasions, she and Tanus directed such looks at each other that I feared they might scorch the false beard of the Pharaoh. Fortunately nobody but myself seemed to notice these flashing messages of passion.

  Whenever my mistress knew that I was to see Tanus in private, she burdened me with long and ardent messages for him. On my return I carried his replies which matched hers in length and fire. Fortunately these outpourings were highly repetitive, and memorizing them was not a great hardship.

  My Lady Lostris never tired of urging me to find some subterfuge by which she tod Tanus might be alone together once more. I admit that I feared enough for my own skin and for the safety of my mistress and our unborn child, not to devote all my energies and ingenuity to satisfying this request of hers. Once when I did tentatively approach Tanus with my mistress's invitation to a meeting, he sighed and refused it with many protestations of love for her.

  "That interlude in the tombs of Tras was sheer madness, Taita. I never intended to compromise the Lady Lostris' honour, but for the khamsin, it would never have happened. We cannot take that risk again. Tell her that I love her more than life itself. Tell her our time will come, for the Mazes of Ammon-Ra have promised it to us. Tell her I will wait for her through all the days of my life.'

  On receiving this loving message, my mistress stamped her foot, called her true love a stubborn fool who cared nothing for her, broke a cup and two bowls of coloured glass, hurled a jewelled mirror which had been a gift from the king into the river, and finally threw herself on the bed where she' wept until suppertime.

  APART FROM HIS MILITARY DUTIES, which included supervising the building of the new fleet of galleys, Tanus, these days, was much occupied with the reorganization of his father's estates that he had at last inherited.

  On these matters he consulted me almost daily. Not surprisingly, the estates had never been preyed upon by the Shrikes while they belonged to Lord Intef, and accordingly they were all prosperous and in good repair. Thus Tanus had become overnight one of the most wealthy men in the Upper Kingdom. Although I tried my best to dissuade him, he spent much of this private fortune in making up the arrears in pay to his men and in re-equipping his beloved Blues. Of course his men loved him all the more for this generosity.

  Not content with these profligate expenditures, Tanus sent out his captains, Kratas and Remrem and Astes, to gather up all the crippled and blinded veterans of the river wars who now existed by begging in the streets of Thebes. Tanus installed this riff-raff in one of the large country villas that formed part of his inheritance, and although slops and kitchen refuse would have been too good for them, he fed them on meat and corn-cakes and beer. The common soldiers cheered Tanus in the streets and drank his health in the taverns.

  When I told my mistress of Tanus' mad extravagances, she was so encouraged by them that she immediately spent hundreds of deben of the gold that I had earned for her, in buying and equipping a dozen buildings which she turned into hospitals and hostels for the poor people of Thebes. I had already earmarked this gold for investment in the corn market, and though I wrung my hands and pleaded with her, she could not be moved.

  Needless to say, it was the long-suffering slave Taita who was responsible for the day-to-day management of this latest folly of his mistress, although she visited her charity homes every day. Thus it was possible for any loafer and drunkard in the twin cities to scrounge a free meal and a comfortable bed from us. If that was not enough, they could have their bowl of soup served to them by my mistress's own fair hand, and their running sores and purging bowels treated by one of the most eminent physicians in this very Egypt.

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