Desert God

Desert God
Wilbur Smith

The Number One Bestseller.A novel of Ancient Egypt from the bestselling author of River God. Wilbur Smith is a master at the helm of one of the greatest stories of all time.On the banks of the Nile, a hero will riseEgypt is under threat. Taita, a freed slave and the Pharaoh’s closest advisor, must create a master plan to crush the kingdom’s historic enemy and return Egypt to its former glory.He must call on his powers as both tactician and warrior to lead a great army up the Nile, through Arabia to the magical city of Babylon, then across the open seas to Crete.This army will meet battle and betrayal head on. But their greatest challenge will not be found on the battleground and it will threaten not only Taita’s plan, but the very future of Egypt.

Desert God

WILBUR SMITH

Copyright (#u89ed201e-bfeb-5ebf-9476-2cde1e8600c7)

HarperCollinsPublishers

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London

SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

Copyright © Wilbur Smith 2014

Map © Nicolette Caven 2014

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com (http://www.shutterstock.com)

Wilbur Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Source ISBN: 9780007535682

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007535675

Version: 2017-08-04

Dedication (#u89ed201e-bfeb-5ebf-9476-2cde1e8600c7)

I dedicate this novel to my precious wife and cherished companion, Niso. I never really knew what happiness was until I met you. Now you fill every day of mine with love, laughter and happiness

With you by my side I scorn to change my state with Kings

Contents

Cover (#ub1a1ce33-5ed0-52f8-b6ee-b330802ddcfb)

Title Page (#ud4f408ca-aa8d-5f18-93f9-0f1f0aeeb4ed)

Copyright (#ub6b83e4c-c63a-5c21-9c88-392551f504be)

Dedication (#u0a4ff94d-6f7b-5468-9c24-a8af6daef2d7)

Map (#u7f0c91a6-ac7f-5e31-96b2-ac122e845799)

Desert God (#ud53da615-fc1e-5070-a567-5563f3f4677e)

About the author (#litres_trial_promo)

Read on … (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Wilbur Smith (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Aton blinked his little eyes that were set deep in their rolls of fat, and then raised them from the bao board laid out between us. He turned his gaze on the two young princesses of the royal house of Tamose who were disporting themselves naked in the limpid water of the lagoon.

‘They are no longer children,’ he remarked casually, without a trace of lascivious interest in the subject. We sat facing each other under an open barrazza thatched with palm fronds beside one of the lagoons in the backwaters of the great Nile River.

I knew that his reference to the girls was an attempt to distract my attention from his next move of the bao stones. Aton does not enjoy losing, so he is not overly scrupulous about how he wins.

Aton has always been high on the list of my oldest and dearest friends. Like me he is a eunuch and was once a slave. During the period of his slavery, and long before he reached puberty, his master had singled him out for his exceptional intellect and his acute mental powers. He wished to nurture and concentrate these gifts; and prevent them from being diluted by the distractions of his libido. Aton was an extremely valuable property and so his master employed the most renowned physician in Egypt to perform the castration. His master is long dead, but Aton has risen high above his slave status. He is now the chamberlain of the royal palace of Pharaoh at Thebes, but he is also a master of spies who administers a network of informers and clandestine agents across the civilized world. There is only one organization that exceeds his, and that is my own. In this, as in most things, we are in friendly competition with each other and very little gives us greater pleasure and satisfaction than to score a coup, the one over the other.

I enjoy his company immensely. He amuses and often surprises me with his good advice and perception. On occasion he can test my skill on the bao board. He is usually generous with his praise. But mostly he acts as a foil to my own genius.

Now both of us studied Bekatha, who was the younger of the royal princesses by almost two years, although you might not have guessed that fact, for she was tall for her age and already her breasts were beginning to swell and in the cool lagoon waters her nipples perked out jauntily. She was lithe, agile and she laughed readily. On the other hand she was possessed of a mercurial temper. Her features were nobly chiselled, her nose narrow and straight, her jaw strong and rounded and her lips finely arched. Her hair was thick and sparkled with glints of copper in the sunlight. She had inherited that from her father. Although she had not yet shown the red flower of womanhood, I knew that her time was not far off.

I love her, but truth to tell I love her elder sister a shade better.

Tehuti was the senior and the more beautiful of the two sisters. Whenever I looked upon her it seemed to me that I was seeing again her mother. Queen Lostris had been the one great love of my life. Yes, I had loved her as a man loves a woman. For unlike my friend Aton, I was gelded only after I had grown to full manhood and known the joy of a woman’s body. True it is that my love for Queen Lostris was never consummated for I was castrated before she was born, but it was all the more intense for never having been assuaged. I had nursed her as a child and had shepherded her through her long and joyous life, counselling her and guiding her, giving all of myself to her without stinting. In the end I held her in my arms as she died.

Before she went on into the underworld Lostris whispered to me something which I will never forget: ‘I have loved only two men in my life. You, Taita, were one of them.’

Those were the sweetest words I have ever heard spoken.

I planned and supervised the building of her royal tomb and laid her once beautiful but then wasted body in it, and I wished that I could go with her into the nether world. However, I knew that I could not; for I had to stay and take care of her children as I had cared for her. Truly, this has not been an onerous burden, for my life has been enriched by this sacred charge.

At sixteen years of age Tehuti was already a woman fully fledged. Her skin was lustrous and unblemished. Her arms and her legs were slim and elegant as those of a dancer, or the limbs of her father’s great war bow which I had carved for him, and which I had placed on the lid of his sarcophagus before I sealed his tomb.

Tehuti’s hips were full but her waist was narrow as the neck of a wine jug. Her breasts were round and taut. The dense golden curls that covered her head were a gleaming glory. Her eyes were as green as her mother’s had been. She was lovely beyond the telling of it; and her smile wrung my heart whenever she turned it upon me. Her nature was gentle, slow to anger but fearless and strong-willed once she was roused.

I love her almost as much as I still love her mother.