Desert God

‘Ample time for you to bathe and rest, my Pharaoh.’ I glanced down at his attire.

‘It is good honest dirt, Taita, and paid for in Hyksos blood.’ Pharaoh grinned at me. ‘But as so often is the case, you are right. Have my slaves heat the water for my bath.’

By the time the high council of Egypt was fully assembled the third and last trireme had been unloaded and the bullion from its hold weighed on the balance. The formal triumph had been prepared and the sun was setting.

I went to inform Pharaoh, expecting him to be resting. To relieve him of the necessity of travelling to his palace and returning again before nightfall, I had ordered that his father’s burial chamber be set aside as his temporary lodging. It had never contained a corpse and so the chamber was not tainted with death. It was a quiet cool place and well aired by vents drilled through the rock to the surface. His servants had set up his cot and all his portable campaign furniture here.

Far from resting I found Pharaoh very much awake and alert, pacing the chamber and dictating despatches to three of his secretaries. He was dressed in a clean uniform, over which he wore a polished bronze breastplate embossed with gold. His hair was freshly washed and curled. He was as handsome as his mother had been beautiful.

When I went down on one knee before him, he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. ‘No, Taita,’ he chided me. ‘It is my fast intent to make you a nobleman and a member of my inner council before much longer. You must no longer kneel to me.’

‘Pharaoh is too gracious. I do not deserve such honour.’ I adopted my self-effacing role.

‘Of course you don’t,’ he agreed. ‘I do it only to prevent you from endlessly bobbing up and down in front of me. By Seth’s in-growing toenails, as Kratas might say, I swear you make me giddy. Stand up tall and tell me the full tally of the treasure you have garnered for me.’

‘I promised you 600 lakhs, my Pharaoh, but we are twenty lakhs short of that amount.’

‘That is enough and more than enough to win me back my kingdom, and for you to keep your head atop your shoulders.’ At times the royal sense of humour tends towards the ghoulish. ‘Are the other members of my council assembled?’

‘Every single one of them, including Lord Kratas. He arrived an hour ago.’

‘Take me to them.’

When we came out through the gates of the tomb I realized at once the magnitude and extent of what Aton had contrived in my honour. Pharaoh led me down between the ranks of royal guardsmen in full ceremonial uniform to the great tent that had been set up on the bank of the canal.

When we entered his entire court was already there, waiting to greet us. This included the royal family: his two sisters and his twenty-two wives and his 112 concubines. Then there were the noble lords, his military generals and the state councillors and their high-ranking staff; every man and woman in all of Egypt that Pharaoh dared trust with the secret of the Minoan millions was gathered here to greet me.

They rose to their feet in unison as we entered and the men drew their swords to form an arch for Pharaoh and me to pass beneath. At the same time a massed band of lutes and wind horns in the desert outside the tent burst into a heroic march.

It took Pharaoh and me some time to reach the seats that had been prepared for us. Every person in the assembly wanted to touch me, to grip both my hands and to shower me with compliments and salutations.

At close intervals around the wall of the tent stood enormous jars of wine, each of them taller than a man. When at last the entire company was seated the servants filled large goblets with red wine from the jars and set one in front of Pharaoh. He waved it away.

‘Taita is the one we are here to honour. Serve him the good red wine and let him be first to drink of it.’

Every eye in the great tent was on me as I came to my feet and raised the goblet towards Pharaoh.

‘All honour towards Pharaoh. He is our very Egypt. Without Pharaoh and Egypt we are but dust. All our petty strivings are nothing.’ I brought the goblet to my lips and I drank a deep draught while all those lords and ladies came to their feet and shouted my name. Even Pharaoh smiled.

I sensed that the less I said the more they would love me, so I bowed to Pharaoh and sat down again.

Pharaoh stood over me and laid his right hand on my shoulder. Then he spoke out in a strong clear voice that carried to every corner of the great tent.

‘Lord Taita has met with my favour,’ he began simply. ‘He has performed for me and for Egypt a service as great, or greater even, than any man before him. He deserves to be honoured by me and by every Egyptian born and yet to be born.

‘I have elevated him to the nobility. From henceforth he shall be known as Lord Taita of Mechir.’ Pharaoh paused and there was a polite silence in which most of the illustrious company tried to conceal expressions of mystification. Mechir is a village on the east bank of the Nile, thirty leagues south of Thebes. It is a cluster of nondescript mud huts, and a population made up of an equally nondescript assortment of specimens of the human race. Pharaoh let us ponder this conundrum for a short while.

‘I have also granted to him, to have and to hold for all time, all the royal estate situated on the east bank of the River Nile between the southern wall of the city of Thebes and the town of Mechir.’

A gasp of astonishment went up from the assembly. The river-bank from Mechir down to Thebes is thirty leagues of the richest irrigable land in the entire royal estates.

In a single breath Pharaoh had made me one of the ten richest men in Egypt.

I looked suitably stunned and delighted by his magnanimity. However, as I kissed his right hand the naughty thought did occur to me that since I had made him one of the richest kings in the world neither of us had suffered too bitterly by this exchange of favours.

Now Pharaoh lifted his silver goblet of wine and smiled around the assembled company. ‘My queens, my princes and princesses, my lords and ladies, I give you the toast. Here are gratitude, honour and long life to my Lord Taita.’

They came to their feet with cups held high, and they shouted out together, ‘Here are gratitude, honour and long life to Lord Taita.’

It was probably the first time in our history that an Egyptian pharaoh had toasted one of his own subjects. But now he resumed his seat and gestured for the rest of the company to do the same.

‘Lord Aton!’ he called down the length of the table. ‘The wine is excellent. I know that the banquet will be no less.’ Aton has the reputation of being the greatest connoisseur in the land. Some say that this is the main reason he had reached the exalted status of Master of the Royal Household.

Reputations are not always deserved. Aton is good but not the best. The fillets of Nile perch he served had been insufficiently salted, and the desert bustard was a trifle overdone. In addition he had allowed the palace chef too liberal a hand with the Baharat spice. If I had been given the task I suspect that the fare would have been better prepared, but the wine was good enough to dilute these trivial shortcomings.

The company was in fine and boisterous fettle by the time Aton rose to introduce the eulogy. I had given passing thought as to which poet I might have chosen if I had been in his sandals. Naturally I was disqualified from selection by the fact that I was the subject of the composition. So I expected it would probably be either Reza or Thoiak that Aton had selected for this great honour.

In the event Aton stunned us all. Although he gave credit and praise to the recognized bards of Egypt, he tried to justify his final decision by emphasizing the fact that the one he had chosen had been an eyewitness to the actual events. Of course, this was a preposterous idea. Since when have the facts been of any great importance to a good story?

‘Great Pharaoh and royal ladies, please draw close and lend your ear to a valiant officer of the Blue Crocodile Guards who sailed with Lord Taita.’ He paused dramatically. ‘I give you Captain Zaras.’

The assembly was unmoving and unmoved as Zaras stepped in through the curtains of the tent and bent the knee to Pharaoh, who looked as surprised as any person present. I thought that I was probably the only one in the assembly who had ever heard of Captain Zaras of the Blue Crocodile Guards. Then something snicked into place in my mind as neatly as a blade into its scabbard.

I glanced quickly at Princess Tehuti where she was placed between Lord Kratas and Lord Madalek, who was Pharaoh’s treasurer. Now she was sitting forward on her stool with her face aglow and her expression rapt, staring at Zaras. She was not so blatant as to draw attention to herself by applauding or in any other manner signifying her approval of Aton’s choice; but I knew she had done it. Somehow she had forced Aton to make this ridiculous decision.

I have never underestimated the diplomatic skills of my two princesses but this seemed to smack of witchcraft. I switched my attention to Bekatha and I saw instantly that she was part of the conspiracy.

From the opposite end of the banquet table she was rolling her eyes and pulling inane faces, trying to catch her elder sister’s attention. Tehuti was studiously ignoring her.

I was as angry as I have ever been. But also I was filled with compassion for Zaras. He was a fine young man and a good officer and I had come to love him as a father might love a son. Now he was standing up before all the world to make himself into a laughing stock. These two heartless royal vixens had contrived this terrible cruelty.

I looked back at Zaras. He seemed to be oblivious to the disaster that was rushing down on him. He stood tall and handsome and composed in his uniform. I wished that there was something I could do to save him, but I was helpless. Perhaps he might be able to stumble his way through an awkward recitation like a schoolboy, but forever his efforts would be compared by these strict judges to those of Reza and Thoiak or even, the gods and goddesses forbid it, to the acclaimed masterpieces penned by my very own hand.

Then I was aware of a soft susurration of female voices, a sound like bees on a bed of spring flowers in my garden as they sucked up the nectar. I looked back at the company and I saw that Tehuti was not the only woman who was appraising Zaras. Some of the older women were even more blatant in their interest. They were smiling and whispering behind their fans. Zaras had never been at court and thus they had never laid their lascivious eyes upon him before.

Then Zaras made a commanding gesture and the tent went still and quiet so I could hear a distant jackal wailing out in the desert.

Zaras started to speak. I had heard his voice giving orders to his men, commanding them in the din of battle or encouraging them when they faltered, but I had never realized the timbre and depth of it. His voice rang like a bell and soared like the khamsin over the dunes of the desert. It thundered like the storm sea on the reef, and soughed like wind in the high branches of the cedar.

Within the first few stanzas he had captivated the entire company.

His choice of words was exquisite. Even I could probably not have greatly improved upon them. His timing was almost hypnotic, and his narrative was irresistible. He swept them along like debris caught in the floodwaters of the Nile.

When he described the flight of the three arrows with which I slew the Hyksos impostor Beon, all the lords of Egypt leaped to their feet and shouted their acclamation, while Pharaoh seized my upper arm in a grip so fierce that the bruises it left on my flesh persisted for many days thereafter.

I found myself laughing and weeping along with the rest of the audience and in the end I stood up with them to applaud him.

As Zaras uttered the final stanza he turned towards the entrance of the great tent and spread his arms.