Уилбур Смит – Pharaoh (страница 17)

Apart from these river denizens, there were small boys along the roadside selling bunches of pigeon and partridges that they had trapped, and stalls at which were displayed the carcasses of wild oxen and deer. There were herds of domesticated animals at pasture in the fields: cattle and goats, sheep and horses. All of these were in good condition, plump and sturdy with glossy coats. The men and women working the fields were mostly very young or very old, but all of them seemed equally contented. They shouted cheery greetings to us as we passed.

Only once we approached the citadel did the aspect of the population begin to change. They were younger, most of them of military age. They were living in well-built and expansive barracks and engaged in training and exercising battle tactics. Their chariots, armour and weapons seemed to be of the best and most modern type, including the recurved bow and the light but sturdy chariots each drawn by a team of four horses.

We paused more than once to watch them at their drill and it was immediately apparent that these were first-rate battle-ready troops, at the peak of their training. This was only to be expected with Hurotas and Hui as their commanding officers.

We had been climbing gradually ever since we left the coast. Finally after a ride of four leagues we topped another wooded rise and paused again, this time in amazement, as the citadel was laid out before us in the centre of a wide basin of open ground surrounded by the high ramparts of the mountains.

The Hurotas River ran through the middle of this basin. But it was split into two strong streams of fast-running water, in the centre of which rose the citadel. The river formed a natural moat around it. Then the streams were reunited on the lower side to continue their course to the sea at the port of Githion.

The citadel was formed by an up-thrust of volcanic rock from the earth’s centre. When after many hundreds of centuries he grew disenchanted with the citadel, he abandoned it. It was then appropriated by the savage and primitive tribe of the Neglints who lived in the Taygetus Mountains. In their turn the Neglints were defeated and enslaved more recently by King Hurotas and Admiral Hui.

Hurotas and Hui had used the newly captured slaves to strengthen the fortifications of the citadel until they were nigh on impregnable, and the interior was not only commodious but also extremely comfortable. Hurotas was determined to make this the capital city of his new nation.

I wasted very little time examining the citadel from afar, and listening to Hui reciting its history. A first-rate admiral he may very well be, but as a raconteur he makes a fine pedant. I shook up my steed and gave him a touch of my spurs, leading the party at a gallop down into the bowl and on towards the citadel. When I was still some distance off I saw the drawbridge being lowered and no sooner than it had touched the near bank but two riders came across it at full pelt, their faint squeals of excitement and high-pitched cries of joy increasing in volume as they approached.

I recognized the leading rider at once. Tehuti led the way as she has always done. Her hair flew out like a flag in the wind behind her. When last I had seen her it was a lovely russet colour, but now it was pure white and glistening in the sunlight like the snowy peaks of the Taygetus Mountains behind her. But even at this distance I could see she was as slim as the young girl I remembered so lovingly.

She was followed at a much more sedate pace by an older and larger lady whom I was certain I had never previously laid eyes on.

Tehuti and I came together still shouting endearments at each other. We both dismounted while our mounts were at almost full gallop and maintained our footing when we hit the ground, but used our residual impetus to come together in a ferocious embrace.

Tehuti was laughing and weeping simultaneously. ‘Where have you been hiding all these years, you naughty man? I thought I would never see you again!’ Tears of joy streamed down her cheeks and dripped from the tip of her chin.

My face was wet also. Of course the moisture was not my own. I had received it second-hand from the woman I was hugging. There was so much I wanted to say to her but the words jammed in my throat. I could only clasp her to my bosom and pray for us never to be parted again.

Then her companion trotted up to where we were involved. She dismounted carefully, and then she came to where we stood with both her arms extended.

‘Taita! I have missed you so bitterly. I thank Hathor and all the other gods and goddesses that they have allowed you to return to us,’ she said in that lovely musical voice which had come down unaltered through all the years, and which I remembered with sudden guilty delight.

‘Bekatha!’ I cried instead, and rushed to seize her in my embrace. But I kept Tehuti firmly in the circle of my other arm as I hugged her little sister, who no longer merited that diminutive adjective.

The three of us clung together sobbing and gabbling joyous nonsense at each other, thereby trying to expunge the memory of all the years that we had been separated.

Suddenly Tehuti, who had always been the more observant of the two, said, ‘It really is uncanny, Tata my lovely old darling, but you have not changed an iota since I waved goodbye to you all those years ago. If anything you seem to have grown younger and more beautiful.’

Of course I made dissenting noises, but Tehuti has always had the knack of choosing the most appropriate description of any subject.

‘Both of you are far more lovely than ever I remember you,’ I countered. ‘You must know that I have recently heard much about you from your doting husbands, but that was only sufficient to whet my appetite rather than assuage it. I have met all four of your sons, Bekatha, when they came to Egypt to help free the homeland from the Hyksos domination. But it was only a brief meeting and now I want to learn everything about them from you.’ For any mother her whelps are the most fascinating objects in creation and so Bekatha regaled us all the way back to the citadel with a minute account of the virtues of her four sons.

‘They are not quite as perfect as my sister paints them.’ Tehuti gave me a surreptitious wink. ‘But then no man alive is.’

‘That’s pure jealousy,’ Bekatha interjected complacently. ‘You see, my poor sister has only one child, and that is a girl.’ Tehuti took the jibe with equanimity. Obviously it had grown stale with over-usage.

Despite her silver mane of hair, or probably because of it, Tehuti was still a magnificent-looking woman. Her countenance was unlined by time or the elements. Her limbs were lean but elegantly sculpted from hard muscle. Her raiment was not festooned with ribbons and flowers and feminine frippery; instead she wore a military officer’s dress tunic. She moved with feminine grace and elegance, but also with masculine power and purpose. She laughed easily but not loudly or without ample reason. Her teeth were white and even. Her gaze was deep and searching. She smelled like a fruiting apple tree. And I loved her.

When I turned back to Bekatha I saw she was the diametric opposite to her elder sister. If Tehuti was Athena the goddess of war, then Bekatha was the earth goddess Gaia personified. She was plump and rosy. Even her face was rounded like the full moon, but more highly coloured, pink and glossy. She laughed often and loudly, for no good reason other than the joy of life itself. I remembered her as a pretty little slip of a girl just coming into puberty, half the size of Hui her husband. But now that she had grown large with repeated childbirth he still adored her, and I soon discovered that I did also.

The three of us rode well ahead of the rest of the party. Hui and Rameses hung back tactfully to let the two sisters and me resume our very singular relationship. There was so much for us to recall and delight in that the time was not enough, before we found ourselves before the main gates of the citadel of Sparta, the Loveliest One.

Although an army of slaves had been labouring upon it for many decades it was not yet completed, but I judged that its mighty walls and systems of moats and fortifications would be able to repel the greatest and most determined army of any potential enemy of which I was aware. I reined in my horse in order to admire it in detail, and while I was doing so Hui and Rameses rode up to join us.

Both Tehuti and Bekatha immediately transferred their attention from me to Rameses. I did not resent this. They had given me more than my full share, and Rameses was truly a striking-looking man. In all fairness I knew of no other to match him; well, perhaps that is not strictly correct but modesty precludes me from further comparisons. So I retired gracefully into the background.

‘And who might you be, young sir?’ Bekatha was never one to hang back. She studied Rameses boldly.

‘I am not anybody of particular account, Your Royal Highness.’ Rameses dismissed her query with a modest smile. ‘I am merely the captain of the ship which brought Lord Taita to visit you on your lovely island. I am named Captain Rammy.’ He and I had agreed not to prattle about his close links to the throne of Egypt. We were both fully aware that Pharaoh Utteric Turo the Great had his spies in high and unlikely places.