Уилбур Смит – Pharaoh (страница 16)

Most of the crew of the Memnon had been given sufficient warning to be able to brace themselves and seize on to a handhold. The others were catapulted from the deck of the Memnon on to the deck of the pirate ship. I was one of these. I was unable to decelerate by my own endeavours, so I chose the softest obstacle in my path and steered myself into it. This happened to be the pirate captain in person. The two of us crashed to the deck in a heap, but with me on top, sitting astride the other man’s torso. I had lost my sword in this abrupt change of ships so I was unable to kill him immediately, which was probably just as well, for he groaned pitifully and pushed the visor of his bronze helmet to the back of his head, and stared up at me. Just then another lightning flash lit the face of the man beneath me.

‘In the name of Seth’s reeking fundament, Admiral Hui, what are you doing here?’ I demanded of him.

‘I suspect it’s exactly the same as what you are doing here, good Taita. Garnering a little spare silver to help feed the baby,’ he answered me hoarsely, trying to regain his breath and to struggle up into a sitting position. ‘Now, if only you would get off me I will give you a hug and offer you a bowl of good red Lacedaemon wine to celebrate our timely reunion.’

It took some time to get both crews on their feet, to care for the more seriously wounded and then to get the pumps on the pirate ship manned and working to prevent her from sinking, for the damage she had sustained in the collision was much worse than ours.

Only then did I have an opportunity to introduce Rameses to Hui. I did not do so as the next in line to the throne of Egypt, but simply as plain ship’s captain. Then in turn I introduced Hui to Rameses; not as his uncle-in-law but as admiral of the Lacedaemon fleet and part-time buccaneer.

Despite the discrepancy in their ages, they took to one another almost immediately, and by the time we started on the second jug of red wine they were chatting like old shipmates.

It took the rest of that night and most of the following day to repair the damage to both ships, and for me to stitch up the gashes and splint the broken limbs of the casualties which both sides had suffered. When eventually we set sail for the port of Githion on the south coast of Lacedaemon, Hui led the Memnon in his flagship which he had named, after his own wife, the Bekatha.

I left Rameses in command of the Memnon and I went aboard the Bekatha so I was able to explain to Hui in private the complicated circumstances of our sudden arrival. Hui listened to my explanation in silence and only when I had finished did he chuckle with amusement.

‘What do you find so funny?’ I demanded.

‘It could have been much worse.’

‘In what way, pray tell me? I am an outcast, denied entry to my homeland on pain of death, deprived of my estates and titles.’ It was the first time since being forced to fly from my very Egypt that I had the opportunity to bemoan my circumstances. I felt utterly wretched.

‘At least you are a rich outcast, and still very much alive,’ Hui pointed out. ‘All thanks to King Hurotas.’

It took me a moment to remember who that was. Sometimes I still thought of him as plain Zaras. However, Hui was right. Not only was I still a wealthy man, thanks to the treasure that Hurotas had in safe keeping for me, but I was also about to be reunited with my darling princesses after being parted from them for almost three decades.

Suddenly I felt rather jolly again.

The peaks of the Taygetus Mountains were the first glimpse of Lacedaemon that I ever laid my eyes upon. They were as sharp as the fangs of a dragon, steep as the gulf of Hades and although it was early springtime they were still decked with shining fields of ice and snow.

As we sailed in towards them they rose higher from the sea and we saw their lower slopes were verdant with tall forests. Closer still the shores were revealed to us, fortified with cliffs of grey rock. The serried ranks of waves marched in upon them like legions of attacking warriors and one after the other spent their fury upon them in thunderous creaming surf.

We entered the mouth of a deep bay many leagues wide. This was the Bay of Githion. Here the waves were more subdued and contained. We were able to approach the shore more closely. We sailed past the mouth of a wide river running down from the mountains.

‘The Hurotas River,’ Hui told me. ‘Named after somebody with whom you are well acquainted.’

‘Where is his citadel?’ I wanted to know.

‘Almost four leagues inland,’ Hui answered. ‘We have deliberately concealed it from the sea to discourage unwelcome visitors.’

‘Then where is your fleet anchored? Surely it would be difficult to hide such an array of war galleys as I know that you possess?’

‘Look around you, Taita,’ Hui suggested. ‘They are hidden in plain sight.’

I have very sharp eyesight but I was unable to pick out what Hui was challenging me to discover. This irritated me. I do not enjoy being ridiculed. He must have sensed it because he relented and gave me a hint.

‘Look over there where the mountains run down to the sea.’ Then of course it all jumped into focus and I realized that what I had presumed to be a few dead trees scattered along the shoreline were rather too straight and lacking branches and foliage.

‘Are those not the bare masts of a number of war galleys? But they seem to be beached ashore, for I cannot make out their hulls.’

‘Excellent, Taita!’ Hui applauded me generously, allaying my irritation with his childish guessing games. ‘The hulls of our galleys are hidden behind the sea wall of the harbour we have built for them. Only a few of them have their masts still stepped. Most of them have lowered theirs, which makes them ever more difficult to detect.’

‘They are cunningly concealed,’ I conceded magnanimously.

We headed towards the hidden harbour with the Memnon following us. When we were as close as half a bowshot offshore the entrance was abruptly revealed to us. It was doubled back upon itself to conceal it from seawards. As we entered it we lowered our own sails and plied the oars to carry us into the passage. We passed through the final bend and the inner harbour was revealed to us with the entire Lacedaemon fleet tied up to their berths along the sea wall. This concealed harbour was a hive of industry. On every ship men were busy preparing for sea: repairing sails and hulls or carrying aboard fresh supplies of food, equipment and weapons.

However, all this industry came to an abrupt hiatus as our two galleys came through the entrance. The Memnon caused a stir amongst the men ashore. I doubt they had ever seen anything like her afloat, but then something else happened to divert their attention from even such a magnificent sight as Rameses’ flagship. The men switched their attention back to the leading trireme: Hui’s Bekatha. They began pointing at our small group of officers on the poop deck. They started calling to each other and I heard my name – ‘Taita’ – being bandied back and forth.

Of course most of them knew me well, not only as an erstwhile companion in arms and a person of exceptional and striking appearance but for another reason eminently more memorable to the common sailor or charioteer.

Before I had parted from them after the capture of the city of Memphis, the defeat of Khamudi and the annihilation of the Hyksos hordes, I had asked King Hurotas to distribute a small part of my share of the booty to his troops in recognition of the part they had played in the battle. This amounted to a mere lakh of silver out of the ten lakhs that were mine, the equivalent of approximately ten silver coins of five deben’s weight for each man. Of course, this is a trifling amount for you and me, or any other nobleman, but for the common herd it is almost two years’ salary; in other words it is a veritable fortune. They remembered it, and would probably continue to do so until their dying day.

‘It is Lord Taita!’ they called to one another, pointing me out.

‘Taita! Taita!’ Others took up the chant and they swarmed down to the jetty to welcome me. They tried to touch me as I came ashore and some of them even had the temerity to attempt to slap me on my back. I was nearly knocked off my feet a number of times until Hui and Rameses formed a bodyguard for me with twenty of their own men to protect my person. They hustled me through the hubbub to where horses were waiting to carry us up the valley to the site where King Hurotas and Queen Sparta were building their citadel.

Once we left the coast the countryside became lovelier with every league we travelled. The constant backdrop of the snow-clad mountains was always in full sight to remind us of the winter just past. The meadows beneath them were a luscious green, waist-deep in fresh grass and myriad gorgeous flowers nodding their heads to the light breeze bustling down from the Taygetus heights. For a while we rode along the bank of the Hurotas River. Its waters were still swollen by the snowmelt, but clear enough to make out the shapes of the large fish lying deep and nose-on to the current. There were half-naked men and women wading chest-deep in the icy waters, dragging long loops of woven netting between them; sweeping up these fish and piling them in glittering heaps upon the bank. Hui stopped for a few minutes to bargain for fifty of the largest of these delicious creatures and have them delivered to the kitchens of the royal citadel.