He jumped up and continued to pace as restlessly as a caged lion. He was a man of action, eager to take to the sword. The very thought of war had lifted his spirits. Taita and Meren watched his face as the ideas came to him in floods. Every once in a while he would slap the scabbard at his side and exclaim, ‘Yes! By Horus and Osiris, that is it!’ At last he turned back to Taita. ‘I shall lead another campaign against this Eos.’
‘Pharaoh, she has already gobbled up two Egyptian armies,’ Taita reminded him.
Nefer Seti sobered a little. He resumed pacing, then stopped again.
‘Very well. As Demeter did at Etna, you will work a spell of such power against her that she will fall from her mountain and burst like an overripe fruit as she hits the ground. What think you, Tata?’
‘Your Majesty, do not underestimate Eos. Demeter was a mightier magus than I am. He struggled against the witch with all his powers, but in the end she destroyed him, seemingly without effort, as you might crush a tick between your fingernails.’ Taita shook his head regretfully.
‘My spells are like javelins. Thrown at extreme range, they are feeble and easily deflected with a flick of her shield. If I come close enough to her, and am able to discern her whereabouts exactly, then my aim will improve. If I have her in my eye, my dart may be good enough to fly past her shield. I cannot touch her at this great distance.’
‘If she is so all-powerful as to destroy Demeter, why has she not done the same to you?’ He answered his own question immediately. ‘Because she fears that you are stronger than she is.’
‘I wish it were that simple. No, Pharaoh, it is because she has not yet struck at me with all her strength.’
Nefer Seti looked puzzled. ‘But she killed Demeter, and she grinds my kingdom between the millstones of her malice. Why does she spare you?’
‘She had no further use for Demeter. I told you how when he was in her clutches she sucked from him, like a great vampire, all his learning and skills. When at last he escaped she did not trouble to pursue him vigorously. He was no longer a threat to her, and had nothing more to offer. That is, until he and I united. Then her interest quickened again. Together we had become such a significant force that she was able to detect me. She does not wish to destroy me until she has sucked me dry, as she did Demeter, but she could not lure me into her snares unless she isolated me. So she struck down my ally.’
‘If she wants to preserve you for her foul purposes, I will take you with my army. You will be my stalking horse. I will use you to come within striking distance, and while you distract her, both of us will attack her,’
Nefer Seti proposed.
‘Desperate measures, Pharaoh. Why should she allow you close enough to her when she can kill you from a distance, as she did with Demeter?’
‘From what you tell me, she seeks dominion over Egypt. Very well. I will tell her that I have come to surrender myself and my land to her. I will ask to be allowed to kiss her feet in submission.’
Taita kept a grave expression, although he wanted to chuckle at this naive suggestion. ‘Sire, the witch is a savant.’
‘What is that?’ Nefer Seti demanded.
‘With her Inner Eye she is able to scry a man’s soul as readily as you read a battle plan. You would never come close to her with such anger displayed in your aura.’
‘Then how do you propose to draw within range without being scried by her mysterious eye?’
‘As she is, so am I a savant. I throw no aura for her to read.’
Nefer Seti was becoming angry. He had been a god long enough to resent any check or restraint. His voice rose: ‘I am no longer a child for you to baffle with your esoteric cant. You are too quick to point out the flaws in my plans,’ he said. ‘Learned Magus, be kind and gracious enough to propose an alternative so that I may have the pleasure of treating it as you have treated mine.’
‘You are the pharaoh, you are Egypt. You must not walk into the web she weaves. Your duty is here with your people, with Mintaka and your children, to protect them if I should fail.’
‘You are a devious and crafty rogue, Tata. I know where this is moving. You would leave me here in Thebes, killing toads, while you and Meren set out on another adventure. Am I to be left cowering in my own harem like a woman?’ he asked bitterly.
‘Nay, Majesty, like a proud pharaoh on the throne, ready to defend the Two Kingdoms with your life.’
Nefer Seti placed his clenched fists on his hips and glared. ‘I should not listen to your siren song. You spin a web with as strong a thread as any witch.’ Then he spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. ‘Sing on, Tata, and I perforce will listen.’
‘You might consider giving Meren a small force to command, not more than a hundred picked warriors. They will travel fast, living off the land without recourse to a lumbering supply train. Numbers alone are no threat to the witch. She will not be concerned by a contingent of this size. As Meren projects no complex psychic aura to arouse her suspicions, she will scry him as a bluff, simple soldier. I will go with him. She will recognize me from afar, but by coming to her I am playing into her hands. In order to take from me the knowledge and power she desires, she must let me come close to her.’
Nefer Seti growled and muttered under his breath as he stamped up and down. Finally he confronted Taita again: ‘It is hard for me to accept that I should not lead the expedition. However, your arguments, convoluted though they are, have swayed me from my good sense.’ His glowering features cleared a little. ‘Above all men in Egypt, I trust you and Meren Cambyses.’ He turned to Meren. ‘You shall have the rank of colonel. Choose your hundred, and I will give you my royal Hawk Seal so that you can equip them from the state armouries and remount stations anywhere in my dominions.’ The Hawk Seal delegated Pharaoh’s royal power to the bearer. ‘I want you ready to ride with the new moon at the latest. Be guided in all things by Taita. Return safely and bring me the witch’s head.’
When word got out that he was recruiting a flying column of elite cavalry, Meren was besieged by volunteers. He chose as his captains three hardy veterans, Hilto-bar-Hilto, Shabako and Tonka. None had ridden and fought with him during the civil war they were too young for that - but their fathers had, and their grandfathers had all been companions of the Red Road.
‘The warrior blood breeds true,’ Meren explained to Taita. His fourth choice was Habari, whom he had come to like and trust. He offered him the command of one of his four platoons.
He mustered all four captains, confirmed their selection and questioned them closely: ‘Have you a wife or woman? We travel light. There will be no place with us for camp-followers.’ Traditionally Egyptian armies travelled with their women.
‘I have a wife,’ Habari said, ‘but I will be pleased to escape from her scolding for five years, or ten, even longer if you require it, Colonel.’ The other three agreed with this sensible view.
‘Colonel, if we are to live off the land, then we will take our women where we find them,’ said Hilto-bar-Hilto, the son of old Hilto, now long dead. He had been the Best of Ten Thousand and had worn the Gold of Praise at his throat, awarded to him by Pharaoh after the battle at Ismalia when they had overthrown the false pharaoh.
‘Spoken like a true legionary.’ Meren laughed. He delegated to the chosen four the selection of the troopers to fill their platoons. Within less than ten days they had assembled a hundred of the finest warriors in the entire Egyptian army. Each man was equipped, armed and sent to the remount station to pick out two chargers and a pack mule. As Pharaoh had commanded, they were ready to march from Thebes on the night of the new moon.
Two days before the departure, Taita crossed the river and rode to the Palace of Memnon to take his leave of Queen Mintaka. He found her thinner, wan and cast down. The reason for this she confided to him within the first few minutes of their meeting.
‘Oh, Tata, dear Tata. The most dreadful thing has transpired. Soe has vanished. He has gone without taking leave of me. He disappear
ed three days after you saw him in my audience chamber.’
Taita was not surprised. That had been the day of Demeter’s gruesome death.
‘I have sent messengers to find him in every possible place. Taita, I know you will be as distressed as I am. You knew and admired him We both saw in him the salvation of Egypt. Can you not use your special powers to find him for me, and bring him back to me? Now that he has gone I will never see my dead babies again. Egypt and Nefer will remain in perpetual agony. The Nile will never flow.’
Taita did his best to console her. He could see that her health was deteriorating, and her proud spirit was on the point of breaking under the weight of her despair. He cursed Eos and her works while he did all in his power to calm Mintaka, and give her hope. ‘Meren and I are setting out on an expedition beyond the southern borders. I will make it my first duty to search for and make enquiry for Soe at every point along our way. In the meantime I divine that he is alive and unharmed. Unexpected circumstances and events forced him to depart hurriedly, without taking leave of Your Majesty. However, he intends to return to Thebes at the first opportunity to continue his mission in the name of the new nameless goddess.’ All of which were reasonable assumptions, Taita told himself. ‘Now I must bid you farewell. I shall hold you always in my thoughts and my dutiful love.’
The Nile was no longer navigable so they took the wagon road south along the bank of the dying river. Pharaoh rode the first mile at Taita’s side, belabouring him with commands and instructions. Before he turned back, he addressed the troopers of the column in an exhortation and rallying call: ‘I expect each of you to do his duty,’ he ended, and embraced Taita in front of them. As he rode away, they cheered him out of sight.
Taita had planned the stages of the journey to bring them each evening to one of the many temples situated along the banks of the Nile in the Upper Kingdom. At each his reputation had preceded him. The high priest came out to offer him and his men shelter. Their welcome was sincere because Meren carried the king’s Hawk Seal, which allowed him to draw additional food from the quarter-masters of the military forts that guarded each town. The priests expected their own meagre rations to be augmented by this windfall.
Each evening, after a frugal meal in the refectory, Taita retired to the inner sanctuary of the temple. Devotions and prayers had been said in these precincts for hundreds or even thousands of years. The passion of the worshippers had built spiritual fortifications that even Eos would have the greatest difficulty in penetrating. For a while he would be protected from her overlooking. He could appeal to his own gods without fear of intervention by evil wraiths sent by the witch to deceive him. He prayed to the god to whom each temple was dedicated for strength and guidance in his looming conflict with the witch. In the calm and serenity of such surroundings he could meditate and marshal his physical and spiritual strength.
The temples were the centre of each community and the repositories of learning. Although many of the priests were dull creatures, some were erudite and educated, aware of all that was happening in their nomes and in tune with the mood of their flock. They were a reliable source of information and intelligence. Taita spent hours conferring with them, interrogating them keenly. One question he put to them all: ‘Have you heard of strangers moving covertly among your people, preaching a new religion?’
Each one replied that they had. ‘They preach that the old gods are failing, that they are no longer able to protect this very Egypt. They preach of a new goddess who will descend among us and lift the curse from the river and the land. When she comes she will bid the plagues cease and Mother Nile once more to flood and deliver to Egypt her bounty. They tell the people that Pharaoh and his family are secret adherents of the new goddess, that soon Nefer Seti will renounce the old gods, and declare his allegiance to her.’ Then, worried, they demanded, ‘Tell us, great Magus, is this true? Will Pharaoh declare for the alien goddess?’
‘Before that happens the stars will fall from the sky like raindrops. Pharaoh is devoted to Horus, heart and soul,’ he assured them. ‘But tell me, do the people hearken to these charlatans?’
‘They are only human. Their children are starving and they are in the depths of despair. They will follow anyone who offers them surcease from their misery.’
‘Have you met any of these preachers?’
None had. ‘They are secretive and elusive,’ said one. ‘Although I have sent messengers to them, inviting them to explain their beliefs to me, none has come forward.’
‘Have you learnt the names of any?’
‘It seems they all use the same name.’
‘Is it Soe?’ Taita asked.
‘Yes, Magus, that is the name they use. Perhaps it is a title rather than a name.’
‘Are they Egyptians or foreigners? Do they speak our language as though born to it?’
‘I have heard that they do and that they claim to be of our blood.’
The man he was conversing with on this occasion was Sanepi; the high priest of the temple of Khum at Iunyt, in the third nome of Upper Egypt. When Taita had heard all he had to offer on this matter, he moved on to more mundane topics: ‘As an adept of the natural laws, have you tried to find some way in which to render the red waters of the river fit for human use?’
The urbane and devout man was appalled at the suggestion. ‘The river is cursed. No one dare bathe in it, let alone drink it. The kine that do so waste away and die within days. The river has become the abode of gigantic carrion-eating toads, such as have never been seen before in Egypt or any other land. They defend the stinking pools ferociously, and attack anyone who approaches. I would rather die of thirst than drink that poison,’ Sanepi replied, his features twisted in an expression of disgust. ‘Even the temple novices believe, as I do, that the river has been desecrated by some malevolent god.’
So it was that Taita took it upon himself to conduct a series of experiments to ascertain the true nature of the red tide, and to find some method of purifying the Nile waters. Meren was pushing the column southwards at a punishing pace and he knew that, unless he could find some means of augmenting their water supply, the horses would soon die of thirst. Pharaoh’s newly dug wells were situated at long intervals, and their yield was not nearly sufficient for the needs of three hundred hard-driven horses. This was the easiest stage of the journey. Above the white water of the first cataract, the river road ran thousands of leagues through hard, forbidding deserts where there were no wells. It rained there once in a hundred years and was the haunt of scorpions and wild animals such as the oryx, which could survive without surface water in the domain of the tyrannical sun. Unless he could find some reliable source of water, the expedition would perish in those scorching wastes, never to reach the confluence of the Nile, let alone its source.
At every overnight camp, Taita spent hours on his experiments, aided by four of Meren’s youngest troopers who had volunteered to assist him.
They were honoured to work side by side with the mighty magus: it was a tale they would tell their grandchildren. When he presided over them they had no fear of demons and curses, for all had a blind faith in Taita’s ability to protect them. They laboured night after night without complaint, but even the magus’s genius could find no way to sweeten the stinking waters.
Seventeen days after they had set out from Karnak they reached the large temple complex dedicated to the goddess Hathor on the riverbank at Kom Ombo. The high priestess extended the usual warm welcome to the celebrated magus. As soon as Taita had seen his helpers put copper pots upon the fires to boil the Nile water, he left them to it and went to the inner sanctuary of the temple.
No sooner had he entered it than he became aware of a benevolent influence. He went to the image of the cow goddess, and sat cross-legged before it. Since Demeter had warned him that the images of Lostris he was receiving were almost certainly untrustworthy, conjured by the witch to deceive and confuse him, he had not dared to invoke her presence.
Howeve
r, in this place he felt he had the protection of Hathor, one of the most powerful goddesses in the pantheon. As patroness of all women, surely she would shield Lostris in her sanctuary.
He prepared himself mentally by reciting aloud three times the rites of approach to a deity, then opened his Inner Eye and waited quietly in the shadowy silences. Gradually the silence was broken by his own pulse beating in his ears, the harbinger of a spiritual presence drawing near to him. It grew stronger and he waited for the sensation of cold to envelop him, prepared to break off the contact at the first touch of frost in the air. The sanctuary remained quiet and pleasantly warm. His sense of security and peace increased and he drifted towards sleep. He closed his eyes and beheld a vision of limpid water, then heard a sweet, childlike voice call his name: ‘Taita, I am coming to you!’ He saw something flash in the depths of the water, and thought a silver fish was rising to the surface. Then he saw that he had been mistaken: it was the slim white body of a child swimming towards him. A head broke the surface, and he saw that she was a girl of about twelve. Her long sodden hair streamed down over her face and tiny breasts in a golden veil.
‘I heard you call.’ The laughter was a happy sound, and he laughed in sympathy. The child swam towards him, reached a white sandbank just below the surface and stood up. She was a girl: although her hips had not yet taken on feminine curves, and the outline of her ribs was all that adorned her torso, there was a tiny hairless crease between her thighs.
‘Who are you?’ he asked. With a toss of her head she threw back her hair to reveal her face. His heart swelled until it hampered his breathing.
It was Lostris.
‘Fie on you that you do not know me, for I am Fenn,’ she said. The name meant Moon Fish.
‘I knew you all along,’ Taita told her. ‘You are exactly as you were when first I met you. I could never forget your eyes. They were then and still are the greenest and prettiest in all Egypt.’
‘You lie, Taita. You did not recognize me.’ She stuck out a pointed pink tongue.