An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) (8 page)

Read An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) Online

Authors: Paul Doherty

Chapter 3
In the second month of the summer season shortly after the Festival of the Valley in the thirty-third year of the Magnificent One’s reign, the Land of Egypt went to war. Fires were lit in the Temple of Montu and the priestly chorus of Amun-Ra began their verbal assault on the assembled deities of Egypt. The Word of War had come from the King’s own mouth to be carried the length and breadth of the Kingdom of the Two Lands. The vile Kushites in the Eastern Desert had risen in revolt. They had put small garrisons to the sword and slaughtered the workers in the mines and settlements which produced the copper, gold and amethyst which had been placed there for the Divine One’s use. The reports brought by the Sand Dwellers were truly horrific. Royal roads had been attacked, imperial messengers butchered and the honour of Egypt gravely insulted. The King’s messengers, fleet of foot, took the decisions of the imperial will to every corner of the kingdom. The Kushite rebels were to be crushed.
Hotep himself, God’s Father, came down with Colonel Perra to announce that the entire division, the ‘Glory of Amun’, of 5,000 men, not counting mercenaries, foragers, scouts and commissariat, would be despatched to deal with the rebels. The Horus unit, the Children of the Kap, would be included. Hotep raised a hand to quell our excitement as we crouched around him in the courtyard.
‘Both Royal Princes will join the expedition. We depart in three days.’ He raised his fan, spreading it out with one flick of his wrist. ‘You, too, will go with them and bring glory to the Divine One’s name.’ His clever eyes searched each of our faces. ‘We live for Pharaoh! We die for Pharaoh!’ he added.
We thanked the Divine One for this opportunity to demonstrate our loyalty. Once he had left, accompanied by the palace guard, Colonel Perra provided further details: the Veiled One would be a member of the Horus unit. Weni’s untimely death was now forgotten. My suspicions were suppressed in the stirring preparations. We all readied to leave, though Maya fell ill of a fever. We found him sweating in the early hours, his fat body shaking so much he was despatched to the House of Life.
‘We won’t miss him,’ Horemheb muttered.
I doubt if any of us would have missed each other. Weni’s corpse had been embalmed and despatched to the Far West without a second thought. Maya sent us messages of good will and begged Sobeck to visit him but he was caught up in the frenetic preparation of war. Armour was distributed, weapons brought out of store, chariots readied, the horses carefully checked by leeches from the Royal Stud. The regimental units began to mass in the fertile Black Lands north of Thebes. Hotep was given the temporary title of ‘King’s Son of Eastern Kush’, with all the powers of a viceroy. We took our oaths of loyalty in the incense-filled outer courtyard of the Temple of Montu where the unit received its standard, the falcon head of Horus perched on the back of a crocodile. The Divine One himself deigned to show his face and the citizens of Thebes lined the Avenues of Sphinxes and Rams to throw flowers and greenery as we left the city in full battle regalia surrounded by the priests, choirs and imperial orchestras providing string music.
The army moved South by barge and boat, then force-marched to the great Fortress of Buhen just above the Second Cataract. By the time we reached it we were all sore, bruised, tired and dusty whilst the army could only be described as chaotic and confused. The High Command, the Viceroy, Scribes of the Army and the Lieutenants of Chariotry stayed in the fort whilst order was brutally restored. Both foot and chariots had organised into corps of companies of fifty under a pedjet. Our commanding officer was nominally Crown Prince Tuthmosis with Colonel Perra as second-in-command, being Standard Bearer of our platoon of fifty chariots. Our unit, now called the ‘Glory of Horus’, was composed of ten chariots, a small squadron with Horemheb as Captain.
The entire army paraded on the hard flat ground in front of the fortress, magnificent in its battle array. The Menfyt came first, the grizzled, battle-hardened veteran infantry in their stiffened body armour, wearing groin guards,
khopesh
swords thrust through their sashes, and carrying spears and shields, the latter adorned with the insignia of their unit. Behind them came the frightened raw recruits, similarly dressed – the Nakhtu-aa, the ‘Strong-Arm Boys’, who, in conflict, would stiffen the battleline. On our flanks marched irregular troops, hordes of Nubian archers, white plumes in their curled, bobbed hair, leopard or lion kilts around their waists, coloured baldrics stretching across their left shoulders then wrapped round their waists to form a sash. They wore thick, white tight collars round their necks and bracelets of a similar colour on their wrists. There were others: mercenaries from the Islands in the Great Green dressed in leather and carrying rounded shields and long swords, Libyan archers, virtually naked except for a phallus guard, their shoulders draped in ox or giraffe skin. All around these paraded the true power of Egypt led by the Maryannou, the Braves of the King, squadron after squadron of war-chariots, moving to the sound of rumbling wheels and neighing horses, a vivid array of different colours.
Trumpets blew and the royal standards, depicting different gods all paying obeisance to Amun-Ra, were lifted. Priests made sacrifice on the makeshift altars and the order of march was issued. Three corps, ours in the centre, were to advance east to secure the mines, re-fortify the settlements and mete out Pharaoh’s justice to the rebels: any enemy taken captive was to be executed immediately.
We began our slow advance into hostile territory, Colonel Perra in charge. The Veiled One, travelling in his cart, was attached to our unit which was sent far ahead of the rest. We moved forward across a landscape so heinous I thought I was in the Underworld: boiling sun above grey, arid land, broken by the occasional oasis, or small village. Dust devils stung our eyes and filled our mouths. We progressed slowly, dependent on water, foraging both for ourselves as well as the horses, oxen and donkey trains. We left the protection of other great forts, ‘The Repelling of Seth’, ‘The Defence of the Bows’ and ‘The Power of Pharaoh’, a slow-moving column of chariots, carts, horses, donkeys, oxen and men. At first the trumpets blared and different units sang ribald songs about each other, but soon the fiery heat sucked the life and breath out of us. Our feet, despite the leather marching boots, became scarred and stubbed by the hard ground. Above us the sun, our constant torturer, like a hole of fiery gold in the light-blue sky, moved along with us. Clouds of shifting dust and storms of sand, whipped up by the wind, made us look like a troop of ghosts moving across the arid Red Lands. The heat haze played tricks with our eyes, and taunted our hearts as well as our tongues with the prospect of cool running water. We piled our armour onto the carts and fashioned makeshift masks and hoods for our heads and faces, rubbing thick black kohl around our eyes. Sobeck quietly joked that we were now all ‘Veiled Ones’, though Horemheb pointed out that the secretive Prince, travelling in his chariot, asked for no special favours.
We kept to the fortified royal roads built years previously across the Province of Waat. Our scouts went out before us armed with maps to locate the wells and any source of running water. Of the other two divisions moving parallel to us we saw no sign. Their mission was to secure the amethyst mines in the North, ours was to reassert control of the gold and copper mines.
The rigour of the march shattered any illusion about the beauty of war. No longer were we glorious chariot squadrons moving majestically across the plain to confront an enemy; now it was nothing but a searing trudge through a boiling cauldron, dependent on brackish water, hard bread and stringy, salted meat. We’d camp at night near some well or oasis. The stars hung low in the dark velvet sky whilst the biting cold made us pray for the heat of the day. All the beasts of the blackness closed in around us, attracted to the smells from our cooking pots as well as the fresh flesh of our oxen and horses. Yellow-skinned, dark-eyed lions coughed and roared. Jackals bayed like some demented choir at the moon but the greatest danger were the hyena packs, striped or spotted, great ruffs of hair round their necks. They would come in very close, so we’d catch their stench, hear their grunting and watch their amber eyes glow in the dark. They were ready to brave the fire, or the danger of an arrow through the darkness, to steal in and attack the horselines or oxen pens. Hideous neighs and dreadful animal screams would pierce the night. Trumpets sounded as the alarm was raised and archers brandishing flaring torches hurried to drive the night prowlers away.
We soon grew used to the horrors of the night, only too pleased to sleep on the ground and forget our present troubles. We would be kicked awake long before dawn to continue our march, and be given coarse biscuit to chew on with a couple of mouthfuls of watered beer. We’d kneel to pray to the rising sun and honour the Divine One with a hymn thundered out to the heavens:
‘Greetings, Perfect of Face!
Possessor of Radiance
Whom Montu has exalted!
To whom Thoth has given the beautiful visage of
the gods.
Your right eye is the evening sun.
Your left eye is the rising sun.
Your eyebrows the Nine Gods.
Your forehead is Amun.
Fair of form are you,
Fierce-eyed lion,
Smiter of Kushites,
Crusher of the Vile Asiatics!’
After that our gruelling march would resume until the heat of the day grew so oppressive we would stop to camp. The Veiled One’s cart, no longer protected by his Kushites but by a unit of the Strong-Arm Boys, trundled in front of the donkey-train. He made no contact with me or anyone else until six days after leaving Buhen, in the first coolness of an afternoon whilst we camped at an oasis. Exhausted after finishing a march of about thirty miles, I was with the rest, crouching in the shade of a tree ready to share out bread and water. Any teasing or taunting, superficial conversation or arguments had long since ceased. We had neither the energy nor the inclination for them. Only three things mattered: food, water and sleep.
I was chewing on a crust when I received an invitation to join the Veiled One in his rectangular scarlet pavilion standing to the left of the makeshift altar to Amun-Ra where our standards were piled. The pavilion was quite small, erected so the vents caught the breeze. The Veiled One sat on a pile of cushions fanning himself vigorously. The small acacia table before him bore two reed platters of gazelle meat, bread and dried fruits, and a jar of white Charu wine. The pavilion was deserted. Some chests and boxes lay about. A clumsily erected camp bed screened by sheets stood in the corner, weapons were slung from a hook on a pole: a bow, a quiver of arrows, a leather corselet and a helmet of the same material. The Veiled One, however, was not dressed for war but in a gauffered linen robe with an embroidered sash. Beside him lay a curved sword and dagger, their blades glinting in the light of the oil lamps. He followed my gaze and smiled.
‘It looks impressive, Mahu, but we have to be ready.’ His smile widened. ‘Even though we know the rebels won’t attack.’
‘Where are your guards?’ I asked, obeying his gesture to sit at the other side of the table.
‘Left in Thebes,’ he replied lightly. ‘Can’t be trusted, or so my father says.’ He leaned across the table and pushed a small piece of gazelle meat into my mouth, his dark eyes glowing with humour. ‘We all know that’s nonsense. One of the reasons Egypt has been able to conquer Kush and Nubia is that their inhabitants hate each other more than they do us Egyptians.’ He bit into a piece of meat and I noticed how even and white his teeth were. He chewed his food slowly. The flap of the pavilion had been pulled back so he could watch the sun set behind the heat haze. He bowed his head and murmured a prayer then looked up, as if he was recalling something.
‘You are wondering why I am here, aren’t you?’ He lifted his cup and toasted me. ‘The answer is, I asked to come. Mother thought it was a good idea. Permission was granted surprisingly easily. I wonder,’ he laughed dryly. ‘I do wonder if the Magnificent One wants me back?’
I continued eating. The food was better than my own meal. Servants came and went, faint noises echoed from the camp: shouting, the neigh of horses, the lowing of oxen, whilst the wail of a conch horn marked the hours. The Veiled One asked about the Horus unit and the horrors of the march.
‘I feel so secure in my cart.’ His eyes held mine. ‘I have to sit there, whatever the heat, whatever the dust. Now, how about this campaign, Mahu?’
We discussed its finer points. The Veiled One showed a surprising knowledge, voicing the same concerns raised by Horemheb.
‘Our squadron is too small and too far ahead.’ He grasped his wine cup close to his shoulder and leaned across the table. ‘The nearest support is over thirty miles away, either to the North or West. We could easily be trapped and ambushed.’ He drank from the wine cup. ‘We could all be killed.’
‘You, too?’ I asked. The wine had emboldened me.
‘Not me,’ he replied lazily. ‘I shall not die here. My Father will protect me. You carry the scarab I gave you?’
I nodded.
‘Nor will you die.’ He drained the wine cup and grasped his walking cane. ‘Now it is cooler, we should go out.’
He crossed to the bed and picked up a pair of leather marching boots. Without asking I knelt and helped him put them on. He then demanded two military cloaks and, when they were brought, flung one at me. I’d heard the clatter and the neigh of horses as I finished the meal and found that a chariot had been prepared for us, a simple unadorned carriage with two horses. These were splendid creatures, with firm haunches and long legs, strong and black as the night. The Veiled One climbed in and handed me his cane. I took it and placed it in the javelin container. I wondered what was going to happen but was reluctant to ask. It was not yet sunset so the camp was still busy. No one stopped us as we rattled along the trackway past the horselines and quartermaster wagons into the brooding grey-brown desert. The sun was beginning to sink though it would be some time before it disappeared behind the horizon and the darkness came rushing in. The air was still hot and dry. The Veiled One clicked his tongue and shook the reins. We passed the picket lines; he then reined in and took the leather water jar from the pouch of gazelle skin attached to the side of the chariot. He pulled the stopper, handed it over and watched me drink.
‘Good?’ he asked, lifting the reins.
‘Fresh,’ I replied.
The Veiled One nodded. He waited a while then with one hand took the water jar from me and drank himself. He had used me as his taster. No wonder he was so confident that he would not die. He pointed with the waterskin to the distant mountain range which rose above the heavy haze.
‘They change colour in the sun,’ he remarked. ‘And become so hot even the precious stones are transformed.’
He let the horses walk; the chariot swayed and creaked as the desert ground dipped and rose, treacherous land with its gullies, shallow valleys and rocky outcrops. The Veiled One made the chariot twist and turn. The horses were nervous and so was I. Dark threatening shapes appeared, then vanished. The silence was oppressive, abruptly shattered by a howl, roar or the scream of some bird. I checked the bow and quiver of arrows. I eased the javelin in and out of the container. We passed scouts and foragers returning to the camp. Some were empty-handed, others carried the meagre game they had slaughtered. Soon we were by ourselves. No camp behind us, nothing but the sun, reddening the sky and that grey, dangerous land. The Veiled One nudged me playfully.
‘They say we will soon be in the heart of enemy territory; until then we are safe.’ He stared up, whispering to himself. ‘My mother takes me out to the desert. She always has since – well, since I can remember. I like the desert. No mean streets, no pomp or ceremony.’
The horses whinnied and the Veiled One reined in. In a small rocky gully we glimpsed bones white and shattered, cracked and chipped; a skull lay next to a boulder like some broken toy. The Veiled One handed me the reins, grasped his cane and climbed down. He walked over and sifted amongst the bones.
‘No copper or bronze,’ he remarked as he squatted down. ‘They must have been Neferu – raw recruits, deserters. They left the camp and fled in the wrong direction.’
The roar of a hyena did not disturb him.
‘What do you think, Mahu?’ He picked up a thighbone already turning yellow. ‘This once belonged to a man. We know where his flesh went, into the belly of a hyena. But where is his
ka
? According to the shaven heads,’ he pointed the bone at me, ‘the
ka
of this man will never reach the Fields of the Blessed: his body hasn’t been mummified, the blessing of Osiris is lacking. He has no heart, so how can he be judged on the Scales of Truth? Do you think he deserved that? Or doesn’t it matter?’
He rose, resting on his cane, threw the bone away and came back to the chariot, lost in his thoughts. ‘What do you think, Mahu?’ he asked softly. ‘What happened to the
Ka
of that man?’ He rubbed his fingers together. ‘Is it like smoke after the fire has gone out? Is that all he meant? Or will his
Ka
go somewhere else, to a place we cannot see?’ He drew his eyebrows together, refused my offer of help and climbed back into the chariot. ‘And what happened when he reaches the Fields of the Blessed? They must be crowded. Don’t you have any answers, Mahu?’
‘I am a soldier, not a priest.’
‘“I am a soldier not a priest”,’ the Veiled One mimicked, face only a few inches from mine. He kissed me abruptly on the cheek. ‘Do you know what I think?’
I stared back.
‘I think the priests lie. They make up stories to keep their power strong and their bellies full. I don’t think there is a
Ka
.’
‘Nothingness?’ I replied. ‘That’s possible.’
‘No, I did not say that.’ The Veiled One gathered the reins. ‘I think there is a Blessed West and the souls, of the chosen ones, like flames of fire, go there.’
‘And who chooses them?’ I asked.
‘Why, the
One
who has chosen them from all eternity.’
‘And how do you know you are chosen?’
Intrigued, I waited for an answer, watching the sun sinking fast, splintering the sky with red and gold rays. The roar and growl of night prowlers echoed on the strengthening breeze, and I caught that hideous stench of rotting meat. We had entered another small gully; the rocks around us, transformed by the setting sun, were no longer part of a landscape but something else which had sprung to life with a brooding menace.
‘How do you know you are chosen?’ I repeated.
The Veiled One turned the chariot round, flicking the reins. ‘You know you are chosen, Mahu – just as today, I have chosen to eat and drink with you and share my thoughts with you.’
I stared up at the rocky escarpment and caught the moving outline of a large head and ruffled mane. The Veiled One followed my gaze.
‘Don’t be anxious.’ He urged the horses up the escarpment and back onto the level plain. In the far distance the fires of our camp sparked and faded. The darkness was coming down, as it does in the desert, swift as a hawk from the sky. I looked to the left and right; shapes were slinking alongside us, watching the horses, searching for any weakness. I was concerned but the Veiled One began to sing:
‘Oh you who are beautiful on the horizon
Whose loving power never sleeps.’
He urged the horses into a gallop, guiding them skilfully back into the camp. Grooms and servants came hurrying up. Grasping his cane, the Veiled One climbed down and looked up at me.
‘You wonder why, Mahu, Baboon of the South, but in time you’ll learn.’
He walked away. I returned to my campfire. My companions had eaten well on a quail Horemheb had brought down. Now they were settling in for the night. I took my blanket, rolled myself in it and lay down, my head against a leather pannier. Horemheb asked me where I had been but I pretended not to hear.
Two days later, the enemy struck – but not to the bray of trumpets or standards flying. No, they came pouring out of a gully like locusts streaking towards our carts: warriors, black as night, armed with shields and spear, running silently, taking advantage of our column half-drowsy under the relentless sun. We barely had time to grasp our weapons then it was shield against shield, sobbing and cursing, hacking at oiled bodies, dodging and feinting. No glorious chariot war but a grim hand-to-hand struggle. Our unit was between the carts and the horses. The enemy had struck before we’d even realised it. They tried to break our line of march, dancing to the left and right, thrusting with spears, grim figures of death.
The swirl of battle pushed me back towards the carts, away from my companions. I grasped my shield and slippery-handled
khopesh
. I was knocked, spun around and came face to face with a Kushite standing on a cart, ostrich plumes in his hair. He’d speared the driver and, weapon up and shield to one side, was preparing to jump down. We clashed in a bloody sweaty embrace, his breath hot on me. A war-painted face, glaring eyes, body soaked in oil. There was a fierce tussle, but then he stumbled on a corpse. I drove my sword into the soft part of his neck, ripping through flesh and muscle. He fell, body slackening, blood gushing out of his nose and mouth. I thrust him away; my stomach felt heavy and sick, my legs were trembling. I had killed. Bending over, I hacked off his right hand, lifting the bloody flesh up to the sky. I forgot my pains, the heaviness in my chest and belly, but now attacked with fury, eyes half-closed, lashing out to the left and right.
The attack faded, our assailants retreating like shadows under the sun. Some of our men were wounded grievously and had to be despatched with a dagger-thrust across the throat. The Nakhtu-aa, the Strong-Arm Boys, did this, moving quickly along our column, speaking gently to those who were beyond our care and slicing with a knife. There’d be a gargle, a last sigh, as they turned the body over. Our unit was safe. Horemheb had killed four times, the bloody hands piled at his feet, Rameses twice and Sobeck once. Rameses had the bloodlust on him. I am not too sure whether it was from anger or fear. He was insistent that the enemy dead be mutilated and, when I objected, he just shrugged and, moving off, began to hack at bellies. The enemy wounded were bound hand and foot, pushed out into the hot sand and buried alive. Two were saved for questioning, spread across fires and tortured but they were brave and told us nothing. Sobeck cut their throats and left their flesh to burn. The vultures were now flocking in above us, black shapes against the blue sky. Perra ordered all the enemy dead to be decapitated, their heads placed on stakes thrust into the sand.
A lector priest led us in a hymn of victorious thanks to Amun-Ra: ‘Oh you who are All-Mighty, All-Seeing and All-Powerful … !’
Our dried throats croaked the words then we moved on. The column was now battle-ready, scouts and flankers out. I was congratulated on my kill. Horemheb noted the severed hand and placed it with the rest, a grisly pile for the hyenas to eat once the scribe had estimated the number slain. I made enquiries about the Veiled One: he had taken cover in his cart, untouched and untroubled – the Nakhtu-aa had seen to that.
As the days passed, such attacks became common, the enemy taking full advantage of the terrain with its hidden gullies, outcrops, ravines and shallow valleys. The attacks were always the same bloody, terrifying hand-to-hand clashes. The Kushite chiefs were intent on damaging our carts and causing as much destruction as possible amongst our horses and oxen. A second column began to follow us, the lions, hyenas and jackals and, above us, Pharaoh’s birds, the vultures, all keen on the bloody trail we left behind us.
Even at night we were not safe. Figures, like wraiths from the Underworld, leaped across our defences, scrambled under our carts, bringing death with a swift spearthrust. Horemheb came into his own now; albeit not as experienced, he proved to be a better combat officer than Perra. Every night when we camped he insisted on digging a shallow ditch and throwing up an escarpment on which the Menfyt placed their war-shields to form an interlocking wall. The night attacks stopped but, during the day, they still came, these stealthy warriors, fighting for their homes and families. We killed and killed again. My number of hands increased. My fears disappeared, the trembling stopped. I was a butcher doing what I was supposed to do. In truth I was more concerned at betraying my fear in front of my comrades than to the enemy.
Horemheb declared himself proud of our unit. No one mentioned how Pentju and Meryre always disappeared during these attacks though, I suppose, Meryre prayed and Pentju did tend to our cuts and bruises. Horemheb said he would recommend me for the Gold Collar of Valour. I shrugged, more desperate for pure water, soft bread and succulent meat. The Veiled One sent me another amulet, of purest gold, depicting a rampant sphinx trampling an Asian. The gift was delivered secretly. I did not show it to the rest but kept it close, as I did the other, during that long frenetic march. The number of our dead rose. Corpses were given quick burial but the Horus unit remained untouched. Pentju took a cut across his cheek which Horemheb claimed would mark him for life as a brave man. Pentju didn’t understand the sarcasm. Meryre, ever gabbling his prayers, lost a tooth from a slingshot. Huy took a spearthrust in the fleshy part of his leg which made him dance, as Rameses remarked, ‘like a temple heset’. Sobeck remained untouched: a cold, resolute fighter, quick and deadly as a striking snake. Horemheb and Rameses positively thrived, as Huy murmured, ‘like the true drinkers of blood they were’. As the attacks continued, Horemheb and Rameses often came to confer with me; ‘The Mighty General’, as I now called Horemheb, studying me with those small black eyes in that strong face, Rameses, his perpetual shadow, smirking behind him as he clicked his tongue, nodding at my replies. The mood in our corps had changed and Horemheb was deeply worried.
‘I am concerned,’ he confided one night, as we sheltered in a small oasis eager for its water which the Kushites hadn’t polluted. ‘I am most concerned, Baboon of the South,’ he repeated. ‘The Kushites are great in number, more than we thought. It’s as if …’ He played with the bracelets on his wrist.
‘It’s as if what?’ I snapped. I was tired and they had stopped me on my way to fill a waterskin. I wasn’t in the mood for military strategy.
‘It’s as if the Kushites are concentrating on us.’ Rameses finished the sentence for his companion. ‘Their attacks are persistent. Two other corps are also moving East, the Glory of Ptah to the North and the Vengeance of Isis to the South.’
‘We also know,’ Horemheb took up the complaint, ‘that behind us are the supply wagons and reserves, not to mention our main force. The Magnificent One’s ships are sailing down the coast yet the enemy seem to be massing solely against us.’
‘Perhaps they know you are here?’ I teased.
Horemheb tapped me on the cheek and walked away shaking his head, his evil genius trotting behind him.
Eventually we entered the mining area and discovered the true devastation caused by the Kushite attacks. Whole villages had been wiped out, houses burned, the small temples polluted, the inhabitants slaughtered in every way the human heart can devise. Men, women and children had been bound hand and foot, placed in thornbushes which were then saturated with oil and set alight. Corpses, stripped by the vultures and animals, were impaled on stakes; the wells were swollen with carcasses. Miners, priests, officials and soldiers had been bound, staked out under the blazing sun or buried alive. In one village we found a cauldron, taken from the mine workings, filled to the brim with severed limbs.
We secured the mines, left a protective force and moved on. Horemheb’s agitation deepened. Our force was being slowly reduced and we were now in the heart of enemy country. We entered their villages, abandoned and deserted, except for the old and weak who had been left behind. Rameses delighted in lining these people up, then moving quickly down the line, slitting one throat after the other. We came across refugees, or so they claimed, destitute, naked and unarmed. Horemheb ordered the war-chariots out to disperse or crush them. The Horus unit became the cutting edge of our corps, the point of the spear, the razor edge of the sword. As our tally of dead rose, the Veiled One’s words came back to haunt me. What did it really matter? We were nothing but marauders moving across the landscape of Hell: the life-force of those men killed was a mere puff of breath, smoke from a dying fire, glimpsed briefly then quickly forgotten.
By the middle of the hot season we had secured all the mines, pushing the Kushites back until they were forced to make a stand. Our chariot squadrons were deployed, we made the offering to Horus; incense was burned on a scalding rock, we intoned the litany of supplication and hitched up our horses, now not so plump, ribs showing through their dusty coats but still eager and ready for war. We deployed in a line of battle. The Veiled One sent a messenger to Colonel Perra: he wanted to be with us. Perra shrugged and, shamefaced, Horemheb ordered Sobeck to stand down whilst we waited for him to arrive. He came leaning on his cane, walking in ungainly fashion in his leather kilt and jerkin. He wore no sandals and his head was now completely shaven: the reddish-haired sidelock had gone. The Veiled One had decided he was now an adult, a warrior. He climbed into the chariot beside me, grasped the reins, nodded to his left and right, then passed his hand gently up and down my arm.
‘You wonder why?’ he murmured. ‘Because I have to, Mahu. My Father wishes it.’
I was sweat-streaked, thirsty and tired.
‘Your father?’ I asked. ‘The Magnificent One?’
‘The One I love, Mahu, who is in the very air I breathe.’ He wrapped the reins round his wrists and glanced away. Colonel Perra and Horemheb were now moving their chariots forward, standards displayed.
‘Horus the Victor!’ a lector priest intoned. ‘Spread your wings above us. Devour the enemy! Let your heart be with us!’
The refrain was taken up by the rest. I remained silent. The Veiled One whispered a different prayer to his Father, face turned towards the sun. Ahead of us lay the Kushite host, formed into three distinct battalions across the desert, blocking our advance. They carried their own grisly standards, long poles bearing the heads of slaughtered Egyptians, and their raucous war-chant echoed across the plain. I was aware of the sweat, the clinging dust, the shifting heat haze, the hordes of flies. I briefly thought of Aunt Isithia and wished she was with me, to suffer from the flies. The Veiled One was singing softly under his breath. Horemheb was eager to move, the Horus squadron taking pride of place in the centre of the battleline. Perra, shading his eyes, seemed anxious.
‘The Kushite line is moving,’ the Veiled One whispered.
I strained my eyes. The heat haze hung like a shifting veil between us and the enemy. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks.
‘They
are
moving,’ I replied. ‘They are retreating!’
They were gone. Horemheb was furious. He insisted on a pursuit, and a shouting match broke out between him and Colonel Perra, who was determined that we would stay in line and not follow.
‘It’s a trap,’ he warned Horemheb. ‘Only the gods know where they have gone or what they can see.’
In the end he had his way. Our battleline broke up and we drifted back to the camp. The Veiled One threw the reins at me, grasped his cane and left the chariot without a second glance. We fortified the camp and made ready lest the Kushites attack. Colonel Perra was now in constant communication with the army high command. Now the province behind us was clear of a hostile force, messengers could move quickly backwards and forwards. Late that evening, just before darkness, a chariot pulled by the finest horses in the imperial stables clattered into the camp. The messenger reported to Colonel Perra, who came to discuss the matter with Horemheb and the rest of the Horus unit. Colonel Perra was anxious and dust-streaked. Despite his personal bravery and military bluster, Perra depended heavily on Horemheb for advice and guidance.
‘I have news,’ Perra peered down at us squatting in a circle round the fire, ‘from the Viceroy himself.’ He held up the sheet of papyrus, kissed the seal mark and showed it to us. We bowed our heads. ‘The Kushite chiefs have sued for peace and are eager to surrender. Early tomorrow morning I am to go out to accept their surrender.’
‘I’ll come.’ Horemheb got to his feet.
Rameses of course joined him.
‘That’s why they vanished, wasn’t it?’ Huy remarked. ‘A last act of defiance.’
‘I don’t care about that.’ Perra made a cutting movement with his hand. ‘Horemheb, you will stay. I will go with five chariots and some Nakhtu-aa. You will be left in command. Oh,’ Perra smiled grimly at me, ‘and you are to come with me.’
‘He will not accompany you.’

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