Desert God

Zaras looked bemused. He had not thought about that. ‘Perhaps … well, certainly not Shan Daki. His people are corsairs, and he is the King of Thieves.’

‘What about Nimrod?’ I suggested. ‘I am not certain I would trust him with a piece of silver larger than my thumb.’

‘We have to trust somebody,’ he protested, ‘unless we find a deserted beach and bury the silver on it, until we can return to reclaim it?’

‘Five hundred lakhs!’ I reminded him. ‘It would take a year to dig a pit deep enough, and a mountain of sand to cover it.’ I was enjoying his confusion. ‘The wind favours us!’ I looked up at the Minoan ensign, the golden bull of Crete, which still flew at the masthead of the trireme I had allotted to him. ‘And the gods always favour the bold and the brave.’

‘No, Taita,’ he contradicted me. ‘The wind does not favour us. It is blowing in from the sea, directly up the channel. It is pinning us against the land. It will take all our oars to get us out into the open waters of the Middle Sea. If you trust neither Shan Daki nor Nimrod whom then do you trust? To whom should we turn?’

‘I trust only Pharaoh Tamose,’ I told him, and he let his frustration with me show for the first time.

‘So is your plan to return to Pharaoh by the same route we followed here? Shall we carry the treasure on our heads from Ushu through the Sinai Desert, and swim with it across the Red Sea? From there it will only be a short walk to reach Thebes. Pharaoh will be surprised to see you; of that you can be sure,’ he scoffed at me.

‘No, Zaras.’ I smiled back at him indulgently. ‘From here we are going to sail south down the Nile. We are going to sail all three of these Cretan monsters and the silver in their holds directly back to Thebes.’

‘Have you gone mad, Taita?’ He stopped laughing. ‘Beon commands every yard of the Nile from here as far as Asyut. We can’t sail three hundred leagues through the Hyksos hordes. That really is madness.’ In his agitation he had switched back from Hyksosian into Egyptian.

‘If you speak Hyksosian anything and everything is possible!’ I contradicted and rebuked him. ‘Anyway, we have already scuttled two of our boats and I am going to burn the third before we leave Tamiat, just to make certain that we leave no traces of our true identity behind us.’

‘In the name of the great mother Osiris and her beloved son Horus, I think that you really believe what you are saying, Taita.’ He started to grin again. ‘And your plan is to drive me as frothing-at-the-mouth mad as you already are, so that in my madness I will agree with you. Is that it?’

‘In battle, madness becomes sanity. It is the only way to survive. Follow me, Zaras. I am taking you home.’ I started up the gangplank to the deck of the trireme. There were twenty of Zaras’ men there before me. I saw that they already had control of the ship and every man aboard her. On the deck the Cretan crew were kneeling in a row with their heads bowed and their arms pinioned behind their backs; most of them were bleeding from fresh wounds. There were only six of them. Zaras’ men stood over them with drawn swords.

‘Good work, lads.’ I gave them encouragement. Then I turned back to Zaras. ‘Now, have your men strip the uniforms and armour from the prisoners, and send them ashore under guard.’ While he gave the orders, I ran down the companion ladder to the upper rowing deck. The benches were unmanned and the long oars were shipped. But I had fifty of my own men to fill them again. With barely a pause I dived down the next companionway that led to the lower slave deck. The reek came up to meet me. It was so powerful that I gasped, but I kept on down.

There were smoky oil lamps burning in the brackets set in the low roof which gave just enough light for me to make out the ranks of almost naked bodies crouching on the rowing benches or resting their heads on the long oars in front of them as they slept. Those of them who were awake looked up at me with blank and incurious eyes. As they moved the chains on their ankles clanked.

I had thought to make a little speech to them, perhaps offering them their freedom once we reached Thebes if they would row strong and long. But I abandoned this idea as I realized that they were only partly human. They had been reduced to the level of the beasts by their vile durance and cruel treatment. My kindly words would mean nothing to them. The only thing they still understood was the lash.

Almost doubled over to save my head from striking the low upper deck I ran aft down the walkway between the slave benches until I reached the door that I was certain would lead into the cargo hold. There was a heavy brass lock on the door. Zaras followed me closely. I stood aside and let him prise the lock loose with his sword and kick the door open.

Then I lifted one of the oil lamps from its bracket and held it high as I entered the commodious cargo hold. The chests of silver bullion were stacked from deck to deck. However, there was a large and gaping hole in the centre of the pile. I made a quick estimate of the number of the precious chests that had already been taken ashore by the Cretans. I reckoned it to be a hundred at the very least.

For a craven moment I considered abandoning that small part of the treasure and sailing away with what we had on board, but then I thrust the thought aside.

While the gods are smiling, Taita, take full advantage before they frown again, I told myself, and I turned back to Zaras. ‘Come with me. Bring as many men as you can spare.’

‘Where are we going?’

I pointed to the empty space in the stack of chests. ‘We are going to the fort to find where the Cretans have stored those missing chests. There is enough silver in those alone to equip an entire army and to place them in the battlefield. We must prevent any part of it falling into Beon’s hands.’

We hurried back to the deck, and then Zaras followed me down the gangplank to the wharf. Ten of his men came behind us, bringing the captured Cretan sailors with them. They had stripped them naked. Inside the gates of the fort we found Dilbar and thirty of his men guarding the men and slaves that they had captured ashore.

I ordered Dilbar to strip these captives also. I needed as many of the Cretan uniforms and as much of their armour as we could find. The Minoan officers all wore necklaces, rings, armlets and wristlets of silver and gold and precious stones.

‘Take those from the prisoners also,’ I instructed Dilbar. I picked out two of the more exceptional pieces of jewellery from the pile and slipped them into my leather pouch. Like most women my two princesses do so love pretty and shiny trinkets.

I turned my attention to the captured slaves, who stood stolidly in their chains. I saw at once that although they were a mixed bag, which included Libyans, Hurrians and Sumerians, the majority were Egyptians. In all probability they had been captured by the Hyksos and handed over to the Cretans to help them build the fort. I picked out one of them, who had an intelligent face and who seemed not yet to have succumbed to despair.

‘Take that one into the next chamber,’ I ordered Dilbar, and he grabbed the Egyptian and dragged him into the antechamber of the fort. There I told him to leave us. When he had gone, I stared at the slave in silence for a while. His attitude was one of resignation but I saw the defiance in his eyes that he was trying to conceal.

Good! I thought. He is still a man.

At last I spoke to him softly in our own sweet language. ‘You are an Egyptian.’ He started and I saw he had understood me. ‘What regiment?’ I asked him but he shrugged, feigning incomprehension. He looked down at his own feet.

‘Look at me!’ I ordered him and I removed my bronze helmet and unwound the silken cloth that covered the lower half of my face. ‘Look at me!’ I repeated.

He lifted his head and started with surprise.

‘Who am I?’ I asked.

‘You are Taita. I saw you at Luxor in the Temple of Hathor when I was a child. My father told me you were one of the greatest living Egyptians,’ he whispered in awe, and then he threw himself at my feet. I was moved by this show of veneration, but I kept my voice stern.

‘Yes, soldier. I am Taita. Who are you?’

‘I am Rohim of the Twenty-sixth Charioteers. I was captured by the Hyksos swine five years ago.’

‘Will you return with me to our very Egypt?’ I asked, and he smiled. There was a tooth missing in his upper jaw, and his face was bruised. He had been beaten but he was still an Egyptian warrior and his reply was firm.

‘I am your man to the death!’

‘Where did the Cretans store the chests that they forced you to unload from the ship yesterday?’

‘In the strong room at the bottom of the stairwell, but the door is locked.’

‘Who has the key?’

‘The fat one with the green sash. He is the master of slaves.’

I had seen the man he described kneeling with the other prisoners. ‘Does he also have the keys to your chains, Rohim? You will need them, for you are a free man again.’ He grinned at the thought.

‘He keeps all the keys on a chain around his waist. He hides them under his sash.’

I learned from Rohim that over eighty of the slaves in the fort were captured Egyptian archers and charioteers. When we unchained them they worked with gusto to carry the silver chests back from the fort and stack them in the hold of Zaras’ trireme.

While this transfer of silver chests was taking place Rohim led me to the armoury. When we broke open the door, I was delighted to see the array of uniforms, armour and weapons that were stored there.

I ordered all this equipment to be taken to the ships and packed in the main rowing deck where it could be easily reached when we needed it.

Finally we locked all the captured Cretans into their own slave barracks, and we boarded the three waiting triremes.

I had divided our available men equally between the three ships, so all the rowing benches carried their full complements. At my orders the slaves still chained in the lower decks had been given a meal of hard bread, dried fish and beer that we had found in the store-rooms of the fort. It was pathetic to watch them cramming the food into their mouths with calloused hands blackened with filth and their own dried excrement. They gulped down the beer we gave them until their shrunken bellies could hold no more. Some of them vomited it back into the bilges between their bare feet. But the food and friendly treatment had revived them. I knew they would serve me well.

As the dawn was glimmering in the eastern sky we were ready to sail. I took my place in the bows of the leading trireme beside Zaras with the Hyksos helmet crammed down on my head and my nose and mouth covered with the silken scarf.

Zaras called the order to cast off, and the drum on each rowing deck sounded the stroke. The long oars dipped and pulled and rose again to the tempo of the drums. I passed the order to the men on the steering-oar, and we turned into the main channel of the river. The two other triremes turned in succession behind us. In line astern we headed boldly southwards for the Hyksos capital and two hundred leagues of enemy-held river.

The smoke from the boats that were still burning drifted in a dense bank across the river, from time to time blanketing the Cretan camp on the far side. But when a gust of the northerly wind parted the curtain of smoke I saw that my own crews were not the only ones who had been taken by surprise when I headed south.