River god

'Very well. Listen to my vision. I saw a great tree upon the bank of the Nile. Upon the summit of the tree was the crown of Egypt.'

'Pharaoh! The tree was the king.' She saw it at once, and I nodded. 'Go on, Taita. Tell me the rest of it.'

'I saw the Nile rise and fall five times.'

'Five years, the passing of five years!' She clapped her hands with excitement. She loves to unravel the riddles of my dreams.

"Then the tree was devoured by locusts, and thrown down and turned to dust.'

She stared at me, unable to utter the words, so I spoke for her. 'In five years Pharaoh will be dead, and you will be a free woman. Free from your father's thrall. Free to go to Tanus, with no man to stop you.'

'If you are lying to me, it will be too cruel to bear. Please say it is true.'

'It is true, my lady, but there is more. In the vision, I saw a new-born babe, a boy child, a son. I felt my love go out to the infant, and I knew that you were the mother of the child.'

'The father, who was the father of my baby? Oh, Taita, tell me please.'

'In the dream I knew with absolute certainty that the father was Tanus.' This was the first deviation from the truth that I had allowed myself, but once again I had the consolation of believing that it was for her benefit.

She was silent for a long time, but her face shone with an inner glow that was all the reward I could ever ask for. Then at last she whispered, 'I can wait for five years. I was prepared to wait all eternity for him. It will be hard, but I can wait five years for Tanus. You were right not to let me die, Taita. It would have been an offence in the face of the gods.'

My relief buoyed me up, and I now felt more confident that I would be able to steer her safely through all that lay ahead.

AT DAWN THE FOLLOWING DAY THE royal flotilla sailed south from Karnak. As the king had promised, my Lady Lostris and all her entourage were on board one of the small, fast galleys of the southern squadron.

I sat with my mistress on the cushions under the awning on the poop that the captain had arranged especially for her. We looked back at the lime-washed buildings of the city shining in the first tangerine tints of the rising sun.

'I cannot think where he has gone.' She was fretting over Tanus as she had a score of times since we had set. sail. 'Did you look everywhere for him?'

'Everywhere,' I confirmed. 'I spent half the morning scouring the inner city and the docks. He has disappeared. But I left your message with Kratas. You can be sure Kratas will deliver it to him.'

'Five years without him, will they ever pass?'

THE VOYAGE UP-RIVER PASSED PLEASANTLY enough in long, leisurely days spent sitting on the poop-deck in conversation with my mistress. We discussed every detail of our changed circumstances in great depth, and examined all that we might expect and hope for in the future. I explained to her alHhe complexities of life at the court, the precedent and the protocol. I traced for her the hidden lines of power and influence, and I listed all those whom it would be in our interest to cultivate and those whom we could safely ignore. I explained to her the issues of the day, and how Pharaoh stood on each of them. Then I went on to discuss with her the feeling and the mood of the citizenry. In a large measure I was indebted to my friend Aton, the royal chamberlain, for all this intelligence. It seemed that over the last dozen years every ship that had come downriver from Elephantine Island to Karnak had carried a letter from him to me full of these fascinating details, and on its return to Elephantine Island had carried a golden token of my gratitude back to my friend, Aton.

I was determined that we would soon be at the centre of the court and in the mainstream of power. I had not trained my mistress all these years to see the weapons that I had placed in her armoury rust with disuse. The sym of her many accomplishments and her talents was already formidable, but I was patiently adding to it each day. She had a keen and restless mind. Once I had helped her to throw off theblack mood that had threatened to destroy her, she was, as always, open to my instruction. Every chance I had, I fired up her ambition and her eagerness to take up the role I had planned for her.

I soon found that one of the most effective means of enlisting her attention and cooperation was to suggest that all this would be to the eventual benefit and advantage of Tanus. 'If you have influence at court, you will be better able to protect him,' I pointed out to her. "The king has set him an almost impossible task to fulfil. Tanus will need us if he is to succeed, and if he fails only you will be able to save him from the sentence that the king has placed upon him.'

'What can we do to help him carry out his task?' At the mention of Tanus I immediately had all her attention. 'Tell me truly, will any man be able to stamp out the Shrikes? Is it not too difficult a mission, even for a man like Tanus?'

The bandits that terrorized the Upper Kingdom called themselves the Shrikes, after those fierce birds. Our Nile shrike is smaller than a dove; a handsome little creature with a white chest and throat and a black back and cap, it plunders the nests of other birds and makes a grisly display of the pathetic carcasses of its victims by hanging them on the thorns of the acacia tree. Its vernacular name is the Butcher Bird.

In the beginning the bandits had used it as a cryptic name to conceal their identity and to hide their existence, but since they had grown so strong and fearless, they had adopted it openly and often used the black and white feather of the Butcher Bird as their emblem.

In the beginning they would leave the feather on the doorway of a home they had robbed or on the corpse of one of their victims. But in those days, so bold and so organized had they become that at times they might send a feather to an intended victim as a warning. In most cases that was all that was necessary to make the victim pay over a half of all he owned in the world. That was preferable to having all of it pillaged, and having his wives and daughters carried off and raped, and he and his sons thrown into the burning ruins of then- home to boot.

'Do you think it possible that even with the power of the hawk seal Tanus will be able to carry out the king's mission?' my mistress repeated. 'I have heard that all the bands of the Shrikes in the whole of the Upper Kingdom are controlled by one man, someone that they call the Akh-Seth, the brother of Seth. Is that true, Taita?'

I thought for a moment before I answered. I could not yet tell her all I knew of the Shrikes, for if I did so, then I would be forced to reveal how such knowledge had come into my possession. At this stage that would not be much to her advantage, nor to my credit. There might be a time for these disclosures later.

'I have also heard that rumour,' I agreed cautiously. 'It seems to me that if Tanus were to find and crush this one man, Akh-Seth, then the Shrikes would crumble away. But Tanus will need help that only I can give him.'

She looked at me shrewdly. 'How can you help him?' she demanded. 'And what do you know about this business?'

She is quick, and hard to deceive. She sensed at once that I was hiding something from her. I had to retreat swiftly and to play on her love of Tanus and her trust in me.

'For Tanus' sake, ask me no more now. Only give me your permission to do what I can to help him complete the task that Pharaoh has set him.'

'Yes, of course we must do all in our power. Tell meliow I can help.'

'I will stay with you at the court on Elephantine Island for ninety days, but then you must give me leave to go to him?'

'No, no,' she interrupted me, 'if you can be of help to Tanus, you must go immediately.'

'Ninety days,' I repeated stubbornly. That was the period of grace that I had won for her. Although I was torn between these two dear children of mine, my first duty was to my mistress.

I knew that I could not leave her alone at the court without a friend or a mentor. I also knew that I had to be with her when the king finally sent for her in the night.

'I cannot leave you yet, but don't wony. I have left a message for Tanus with Kratas. They will be expecting me, and I have explained to Kratas all that has to be done before I arrive back at Kamak.' I would not tell her more, and there can be few as obtuse or as evasive as I can be when I set myself to it.

The flotilla sailed only during the day. Neither the navigational skills of Admiral Nembet nor the comfort of the king and his court would stand up to a night passage, so every evening we moored and a forest of hundreds of tents sprang up on the river-bank. Always the royal stewards chose the most congenial spot to pitch camp, usually in a grove of palm trees or in the lee of a sheltering hillock, with a temple or a village nearby from which we were able to draw supplies.

The entire court was still in festive mood. Every camp was treated as a picnic. There was dancing and feasting in the light of the bonfires, while in the shadows the courtiers intrigued and flirted. Many an alliance both political and carnal was struck during those balmy nights, perfumed with the fruity aromas of the irrigated lands along the river and the spicier desert airs blown in from further afield.

I used every moment to the best advantage of both my mistress and myself. Of course she was now one of the royal ladies, but there were already several hundred of those, and she was still a very junior wife. Lord Intef's foresight might change her future status, but only if she bore Pharaoh a son. In the meantime it was up to me.

Almost every evening after we had gone ashore, Pharaoh sent for me, ostensibly to see to the cure of his ringworm, but in reality t& review the preparations for begetting a male heir to the double crown. While he watched with interest, I prepared my tonic for potency and virility from grated rhinoceros horn and mandrake root, which I mixed with warm goat's milk and honey. When he had taken this, I examined the royal member and was delighted for the sake of my mistress to find that it possessed neither the length nor the girth that one would have expected from a god. I was of the opinion that my mistress, even in her virgin state, would be able to cope with its modest dimensions without too much discomfort. Naturally I would do all in my power to avoid the dread moment, but if I was unable to stave it off, then I was determined to ease the passage to womanhood for her.

Having found the king to be healthy if unremarkable in these regions, I recommended a poultice of cornflour mixed with olive oil and honey to be applied to the royal member at night before retiring, and then I went on to deal with the ringworm. To the king's intense gratification my ointment cured the condition within the three days that I had promised, and my already considerable reputation as a physician was enhanced. The king boasted of my accomplishment to his council of ministers, and within days I was in huge demand throughout the court. Then, when it was known that I was not only a healer but also an astrologer whom even the king consulted, my popularity became boundless.

Every,evening there came to our tents a succession of messengers bearing expensive gifts for my mistress from this lady or that lord and begging that she allow me to visit them for a consultation. We acceded to only those with whom we wished to make better acquaintance. Once I was in the tent of a powerful and noble lord, he with his kilt up around his waist while I examined his haemorrhoids, it was a simple matter to extol my mistress and bring her many virtues to the attention of my patient.

The other ladies of the harem soon discovered that my Lady Lostris and I sang a beautiful duet together, and that we could compose the most intriguing riddles and tell even more amusing stories. We were in demand throughout the court, and especially amongst the children of the harem. This gave me special pleasure, for if there is anything I love more than animals, it is small children.

Pharaoh, who was responsible for our popularity in the first place, soon had the increase of it reported to him. This further spurred his interest in my mistress, if it were not already sufficiently intense. At sailing time on many mornings she was summoned on board the royal barge to spend the day in the king's company, while most evenings, at the royal invitation, my mistress dined at the king's board, and regaled him and the assembled company with her natural wit and childlike grace. Of course I was always in discreet attendance. When the king made no move to send for her in the night in order to force her to submit to those horrible but rather hazy terrors she had conjured up,' her feelings towards him began to moderate.

Beneath his glum exterior Pharaoh Mamose was a kind and decent man. My Lady Lostris soon realized this, and like me, she began to grow quite fond of him. Before we reached Elephantine Island she was treating him like a favourite uncle, and quite unaffectedly would sit on his knee to tell him a story, or would play throwing-sticks with him on the deck of the royal barge, both of them flushed with the exertion and laughing like children. Aton confided to me that he had never seen the king so gay.

All this was watched and noted by the court, who very soon recognized her as the king's favourite. Soon there were other visitors to our tents in the evening, those who had a petition which they wished my mistress to bring to Pharaoh's notice. The gifts they proffered were even more valuable than those offered for my services.

My mistress had rejected her father's gift in favour of a single slave, so she had begun the journey southwards as a pauper, dependent on my own modest savings. However, before the voyage was done she had accumulated not only a comfortable fortune, but also a long list of favours owed by her new rich and powerful friends. I kept a careful accounting of all these assets.

I am not so conceited that I should pretend that my Lady Lostris would not have achieved this recognition without my help. Her beauty and her cleverness and her sweet, warm nature must have made her a favourite in any circumstances. I only suggest that I was able to make it happen a little sooner and a little more certainly.

Our success brought with it some drawbacks. As always, there was jealousy from those who felt themselves displaced in Pharaoh's favour, and there was also the matter of Pharaoh's mounting carnal interest in my mistress. This was aggravated by the period of abstinence that I had enforced upon him.

One evening in his tent after I had administered his rhinoceros horn, he confided in me, 'Taita, this cure of yours is really most efficacious. I have not felt so virile since I was a young man, way back before my coronation and my divinity. This morning when I awoke I had a stiffening of the member which was so gratifying that I sent for Aton to view it. He was mightily impressed and he wished forthwith to fetch your mistress.'

I was thoroughly alarmed by this news, and I put on my sternest expression and shook my head and sucked air through my teeth and tut-tutted to show my disapproval. 'I am grateful for your good sense in not agreeing to Aton's suggestion, Your Majesty. It could so easily have undone all our efforts. If you want a son, then you must follow my regime meticulously.'

This brought home to me the swift passage of time, and how soon the ninety days of grace would be up. I began to condition my mistress for that night which Pharaoh would soon insist upon.

First I must prepare her mind, and I set about this by pointing out to her that it was inevitable, and that if she wished to outlive the king and eventually to go to Tanus, then she would have to submit to the king's will. She was always a sensible girl.

'Then you will have to explain exactly what it is he expects of me, Taita,' she sighed. I was not the best guide in this area. My personal experience had been ephemeral, but I was able to outline the fundamentals and to make it seem so commonplace as not to alarm her unduly.

'Will it hurt?' she wanted to know, and I hastened to reassure her.

'The king is a kind man. He has much experience of young girls. I am sure he will be gentle with you. I will prepare an ointment for you that will make things much easier. I will apply it every night before you retire. It will open the gateway. Think to yourself that one day Tanus will pass through those same portals, and that you are doing this to welcome him and no other.'

I tried to remain the aloof physician and take no sensual pleasure in what I had to do to help her. The gods forgive me, but I failed in my resolution. She was so perfect in her womanly parts as to overshadow the most lovely blossom that I had ever raised in my garden. No desert rose ever bore petals so exquisite. When I smoothed the ointment upon them they raised their own sweet dew, more oleaginous and silky to the touch than any unguent that I could concoct.

Her cheeks turned rosy and her voice was husky as she murmure.d, 'Up until now, I thought that part of me was meant for only one purpose. Why is it that when you do that, I long so unbearably for Tanus?'

She trusted me so implicitly, and had so little understanding of these unfamiliar sensations, that it required the exercise of all my ethics as a physician to proceed with the treatment only as long as was necessary. However, I slept only fitfully that night, haunted by dreams of the impossible.

AS WE SAILED DEEPER INTO THE SOUTH, so the belts of green land on each side of the river narrowed. Now the desert began to squeeze in upon us. In places brooding cliffs of black granite trod the verdant fields under foot and pressed so close as to overhang the turgid waters of the Nile.

The most forbidding of these narrows was known as the Gates of Hapi, and the waters were whipped into a wild and wilful temper as they boiled through the gap in the high cliffs.

We made the passage of the Gates of Hapi, and came at last to Elephantine, the largest of a great assembly of islands that were strung through the throat of the Nile, where the harsh hills constricted its flow and forced it through the narrows.

Elephantine was shaped like a monstrous shark pursuing the shoal of lesser islands up the narrows. On either side of the river the encroaching deserts were distinct in colour and character. On the west bank, the Saharan dunes were hot orange and savage as the Bedouin who were the only mortals able to survive amongst them. To the east, the Arabian desert was dun and dirty grey, studded with black hills that danced dreamlike in the heat mirage. These deserts had one thing in common?both of them were killers of men.

What a delightful contrast was Elephantine Island, set like a glistening green jewel in the silver crown of the river. It took its name from the smooth grey granite boulders that clustered along its bank like a herd of the huge pachyderms and also from the fact that the trade in ivory brought down from the savage land of Cush beyond the cataract had for a thousand years centred upon this place.

Pharaoh's palace sprawled over most of the island, and the wags suggested that he had chosen to build it here at the southernmost point in his kingdom to be as far from the red pretender in the north as possible.

The wide stretch of water that surrounded the island secured it from the attack of an enemy, but the remainder of the city had overflowed on to both main banks. After great Thebes, west and east Elephantine together made up the largest and most populous city in the Upper Kingdom, a worthy rival to Memphis, the seat of the red pretender in the Lower Kingdom.

As at no other place in the whole of Egypt, Elephantine Island was clad with trees. Their seeds had been brought down by the river on a thousand annual floods, and they had taken root in the fertile loams that had themselves been transported by the restless waters.

On my last visit to Elephantine, when I had come up-river to do a survey of the river gauges for my Lord Intef in his capacity as Guardian of the Waters, I had spent many months on the island. With the assistance of the head gardener, I had catalogued the names and natural histories of all the plants in the palace gardens, so I was able to point them out to my mistress. There were/Jews trees the like of which had never been seen elsewhere in Egypt. Their fruits grew not upon the branch but on the main trunk, and their roots twisted and writhed together like mating pythons. There were dragon's blood trees whose bark, when cut, poured out a bright red sap. There were Cushite sycamores and a hundred other varieties that spread a shady green umbrella over the lovely little island.

The royal palace was built upon the solid granite that lay below the fertile soil and formed the skeleton of the island. I have often wondered that our kings, the long line of phar-aohs of fifty dynasties that stretches back over a thousand years, have each of them devoted so much of his life and treasure to the building of vast and eternal tombs of granite and marble, while in their lifetimes they have been content to live in palaces with mud walls and thatched roofs. In comparison to the magnificent funerary temple that I was building for Pharaoh Mamose at Karnak, this palace was a very modest affair, and the dearth of straight lines and symmetry offended the instincts of both the mathematician and the architect in me. I suppose the sprawling jumble of red clay walls and roofs canted at odd angles did have a sort of bucolic charm, yet I itched to get out my ruler and plumb-line.

Once we had gone ashore and found the quarters that had been set aside for us, the true appeal of Elephantine was even more apparent. Naturally we were lodged hi the walled harem on the northern tip of the island, but the size and the furnishings of our lodgings confirmed our favoured position, not only with the king but with his chamberlain as well. Aton had made the allocation, and he, like most others, had proved completely defenceless against my mistress's natural charm, and was now one of her most shameless admirers.

He placed at our disposal a dozen spacious and airy rooms with our own courtyard and kitchens. A side-gate in the main wall led directly down to the riverside-and a stone jetty. That very first day I purchased a flat-bottomed skiff which we could use for fishing and water-fowling. I kept it moored at the jetty.

As to the rest of our new home, however comfortable it might have been, neither my mistress nor I was satisfied, and we immediately set about improving and beautifying it. With the cooperation of my old friend the head gardener, I laid out and planted our own private garden hi the courtyard, with a thatched barrazza under which we could sit in the heat of the day, and where I kept my Saker falcons tethered on their perches.

At the jetty I set up a shadoof to lift from the river a constant flow of water that I led through ceramic pipes to our own water-garden with lily-ponds dnd fish-pools. The overflow from the pools drained away in a narrow gutter. This gutter I directed through the wall of my mistress's chamber, across a screened corner of the room and out the far side, from whence it returned to the main flow of the Nile. I carved a stool of fragrant cedar wood, with a hole through the seat, and placed this over the gutter so that anything dropped through the bottom of the seat would be borne away by the never-ending flow of water. My mistress was delighted with this innovation and spent far more time perched upon the stool than was really necessary to accomplish the business for which it was originally intended.

The walls of our quarters were bare red clay. We designed a set of frescoes for each room. I drew the cartoons and transposed them on to the walls and then my mistress and her maids painted in the designs. The frescoes were scenes from the mythology of the gods, with fanciful landscapes peopled by wonderful animals and birds. Of course, I used my Lady Lostris as my model for the figure of Isis, but was it any wonder that the figure of Horus was central to every painting, or that on the insistence of my mistress, he was depicted as having red-gold hair and that he looked amazingly familiar?

The frescoes caused a stir throughout the harem and every one of the royal wives took turns to visit us, to drink sherbet and to view the paintings. We had set a fashion, and I was prevailed upon to advise on the redecoration of most of the private apartments in the harem, at a suitable fee, of course. In this process we made many new friends amongst the royal ladies and added considerably to our financial estate.

Very soon the king heard about the decorations and came in person to examine them. Lostris gave him the grand tour of her chambers. Pharaoh noticed her new water-stool of which my mistress was so proud that when the king asked her to demonstrate it for him she did so without hesitation, perching upon it and giggling as she sent a tinkling stream into the gutter.

She was still so innocent as not to realize the effect that this display had upon her husband. I could tell by his expression that any attempt that I might make to delay him beyond the promised ninety days was likely to be difficult.

After the tour, Pharaoh sat under the barrazza and drank a cup of wine while he actually laughed aloud at some of my mistress's sallies. At last he turned to me. 'Taita, you must build me a water-garden and a barrazza just like this? only much bigger, and whilst you are about it, you can make a water-stool for me as well.'

When at last he was ready to leave, he commanded me to walk a little way alone with him, ostensibly to discuss the new water-garden, but I knew better. No sooner had we left the harem than he was at me.

'Last night I dreamed of your mistress,' he told me, 'and when I awoke, I found that my seed had spilled out upon the sheets. That has not happened to me since I was a boy. This little vixen of yours has begun to fill my thoughts both sleeping and waking. I have no doubt that I can make a son with her, and that we should delay no longer. What do you think, doctor, am I not yet ready for the attempt?'

'I counsel you most strongly to observe the ninety days, Majesty. To make the attempt before that would be folly.' It was dangerous to label the king's desire as folly, but I was desperate to contain it. 'It would be most unwise to spoil all our chances of success for so short a period of time.' In the end I prevailed, and left him looking glummer than ever.

When I returned to the harem, I warned my mistress of the king's intentions, and so thoroughly had I conditioned her to accept the inevitable that she showed no undue distress. She was by this time completely resigned to her role as the king's favourite, while my promise that there would be a term to her captivity here on Elephantine Island made it easier for her to bear. In all fairness, our sojourn on the island could not truly be described as captivity. We Egyptians are the most civilized men on earth. We treat our women well. I have heard of others, the Hurrians and the Cushites and the Libyans, for example, who are most cruel and unnatural towards their wives and daughters.

The Libyans make of the harem a true prison in which the women live their entire lives without sight of a living male apart from the eunuchs and the children. They say that even male dogs and cats are forbidden to pass through the gates, so great is their possessive frenzy.

The Hurrians are even worse. Not only do they confine their women and make them cover their bodies from ankle to wrist, but they force them to go masked as well, even within the confines of the harem. Thus only a woman's husband ever lays eyes upon her face.

The primitive tribes of Cush are the worst of all of them. When their women reach the age of puberty they circumcise them in the most savage manner. They cut away the clitoris and me inner lips of the vagina to remove the seat of sexual pleasure so that they may never be tempted to stray from their husbands.

This may seem so bizarre as to defy belief, but I have seen the results of this brutal surgery with my own eyes. Three of my mistress's slave girls were captured by the slavers only after they were matured and had been subjected to the knife by their own fathers. When I examined the gaping, scar-puckered pits they had been left with, I was sickened, and my instincts as a healer were deeply offended by this mutilation of that masterpiece of the gods, the human body. It has been my observation that this circumcision does not achieve its object, for it seems to deprive the victim of the most desirable female traits, and leaves her cold and calculating and cruel. She becomes a sexless monster.

On the other hand, we Egyptians honour our women and treat them, if not as equals, at least with consideration. No husband may beat his wife without recourse to the magistrate, and he has a legal duty to dress and feed and maintain her in accordance with his own station in society. A wife of the king, or of one of the nobles, is not confined to the harem, but, if suitably escorted by her entourage, may walk abroad in city street or countryside. She is not forced to hide her charms, but, according to the fashion of the moment and her own whim, she may sit at her husband's dinner-table with her face uncovered and her breasts bared, and entertain his male companions with conversation and song.

She may hold, in her own right, slaves and land and fortune separately from the estate of her husband, although the children she bears belong to him alone. She may fish, and fly hawks, and even practise archery, although such masculine endeavours as wrestling and swordsmanship are forbidden to her. There are, quite rightly, certain activities from which she is barred, such as the practice of law and architecture, but a high-born wife is a person of consequence, possessed of legal rights and dignity. Naturally it is not the same for the concubine or for the wife of a common man. They have the same rights as the bullock or the donkey.

Thus my mistress and I were free to wander abroad to explore the twin cities on each bank of the Nile and the surrounding countryside. In the streets of Elephantine my Lady Lostris was very soon a favourite, and the common people gathered round her to solicit her blessing and her generosity. They applauded her grace and beauty, just as they had done in her native Thebes. I was instructed by her always to carry a large bag of cakes and sweetmeats from which she stuffed the cheeks of every ragamuffin we encountered who seemed to her to require nourishing. Wherever we went, we seemed always to be surrounded by a shrieking, dancing flock of children.

My mistress always seemed happy to sit in the doorway of a poor shanty with the housewife, or under a tree in the field of a peasant fanner and listen to their woes and grievances. At the first opportunity she would take these up with Pharaoh. Often he would smile indulgently and agree to the redress that she suggested. So her reputation as a champion of the common man was bom. When she passed through even the saddest, poorest quarters of the city, she left smiles and laughter behind her.

On other days we fished together from our little skiff in the backwaters of the lagoons that the inundation of the Nile had created, or we laid out decoys for the wild duck. I had made a special bow for my mistress which was suited to her strength. Of course it was nothing like the great bow, Lan-ata, that I had designed for Tanus, but it was adequate for the water-fowl we were after. My Lady Lostris was a better marksman than most men I have watched at the archery butts, and when she loosed an arrow it was very seldom that I was not required to plunge overside and swim out to retrieve the carcass of a duck or a goose.

Whenever the king went out hawking, my mistress was invited to attend. I would walk behind her with my Saker falcons on my arm, as we skirted the edge of the papyrus beds. As soon as a heron rose with heavy wing-beats from a hidden pool in the reeds, she would take one of the falcons from me and kiss its hooded head. 'Fly fast and true, my beauty!' she would whisper to it, and slip the rufter to unmask the fierce yellow eyes, and launch the splendid little killer aloft.

We would watch entranced as the falcon towered high above the quarry, and then folded those sickle wings and stooped with a speed that made the wind sing over his dappled plumage. The shock of impact carried clearly to us over a distance of two hundred paces. A puff of pale blue feathers was smeared across the darker blue of the sky, and then was carried away like smoke on the river breeze. The falcon bound to its prey with hooked talons to bring it smashing to earth. My mistress shrieked in triumph and ran as fast as a boy to retrieve the bird, to lavish praise upon it and pamper it, and then to feed it the severed head of the heron.

I love all creatures of the water and the land and the air. My mistress has the same feelings. Why is it then, I often wonder, that both of us are so moved by these sports of the chase? I have puzzled over it without finding an answer. Perhaps it is simply that man, and woman also, are the earth's fiercest predator. We feel a kinship with the falcon, with his beauty and his speed. The heron and the goose were given to the falcon by the gods as his rightful prey. In the same way, man has been given dominance over all other creatures on earth. We cannot deny these instincts with which the gods have endowed us.

From the earliest age, when she had first developed the strength and the stamina to stay with us, I had allowed my Lady Lostris to accompany Tanus and myself on our hunting and fishing forays. For, perhaps to mask his hatred of his rival, Lord Harrab, my Lord Intef consented to my hunting sorties with young Tanus.

Years before, Tanus ancH had taken possession of a deserted fisherman's shack which we had discovered on the fringe of the swamp below Karnak. We had made this our secret hunting-lodge. It was only a short distance from the shack to the edge of the true desert. So from this comfortable base we had the options of fishing the lagoon or of wild-fowling or of hawking that noble bird, the giant bustard, in the open desert.

In the beginning Tanus had resented the intrusion of this gawky nine-year-old girl, skinny and flat-chested as a boy, into our private world. Soon, however, he had grown accustomed to her presence and even found it convenient to have someone to run errands for him and perform the irksome little chores around camp.

Thus, little by little, Lostris had picked up the lore and the wisdom of the outdoors, until she knew every fish and bird by its proper name, and could wield a harpoon or a hunting-bow with equal skill. In the end Tanus had become as proud of her as if it had been he who had invited her to join us in the first place.

She had been with us in the black rock hills above the river valley on the day that Tanus had hunted the cattle-killer. The lion was a scarred old male with a black mane that waved like a field of corn in the wind as he walked, and a voice like the thunder of the heavens. We set my pack of hounds upon him and followed them as they bayed the lion up from the paddock beside the Nile where he had killed his last bullock. The dogs cornered him at the head of a rocky defile. The lion fixed on us as soon as we came up and brushed the dogs aside as he charged through them.

As he came grunting and roaring towards us, my mistress had stood unwavering, only a pace behind Tanus' left shoulder, with her own puny little bow at full draw. Of course, it had been Tanus who had killed the beast, sending an arrow from the great bow Lanata hissing down his gaping throat, but we had bcJth seen Lady Lostris' courage displayed in full measure.

I think it was probably on that day that Tanus first became aware of his true feelings for her, while for my mistress, the hunt and the chase were for ever bound up with the images and memories of her lover. She had remained ever since an avid huntress. She had learned from Tanus and myself to respect and to love the quarry, but not to burden herself with guilt when she exercised her god-given rights over the other creatures of the earth, to use them as beasts of burden, to consume them as food, or to pursue them as game.

We may have dominance over the beasts, but in the same way, all men and women are Pharaoh's cattle, and none may gainsay him. Promptly on the ninetieth night the king sent Aton to fetch my mistress.

BECAUSE OF OUR FRIENDSHIP AND HIS own feelings for my mistress, Aton had given me ample warning before he came. I was able to make my final preparations well in advance of his arrival. For the last time I rehearsed my mistress in exactly what to say to the king and how to behave towards him. Then I applied the ointment that I had reserved for this occasion. It was not only a lubricant, but contained also the essence of a herb that I use on other patients to deaden the pain of tooth-ache and other minor afflictions. It had the property of numbing the sensitive mucous membranes of the body.

She was brave right up to the moment that Aton appeared in the doorway of her chamber, and then her courage deserted her and she turned to me with tears brimming against her lids. 'I cannot go alone. I am afraid. Please come with me, Taita.' She was pale beneath the make-up that I had applied so carefully, and a fit of shivering took hold of her so that her small white teeth chattered together softly.

'Mistress, you know that is not possible. Pharaoh has sent for you. This once I cannot help you.'

It was then that Aton came to her aid. 'Perhaps Taita could wait in the ante-chamber of the king's bedroom, with me. After all, he is the royal physician, and his services may be needed,' he suggested in his reedy voice, and my mistress stood on tiptoe to kiss his fat cheek.

'You are so kind, Aton,' she whispered, and he blushed.

My Lady Lostris held my hand tightly as we followed Aton through the labyrinth of passages to the king's apartments. In the ante-chamber she squeezed it hard, and then dropped my hand and went to the doorway to the king's chamber. She paused and looked back at me. She had never looked so lovely or so young and vulnerable. My heart was breaking, but I smiled at her to give her courage. She turned from me and stepped through the curtains. I heard the murmur of the king's voice as he greeted her and her soft reply.

Aton seated me on a stool at the low table, then without a word set up the bao board between us. I played without attention, moving the polished round stones in the cups carved into the wooden board, and Aton won three quick games in succession. He had very seldom beaten me before, but I was distracted by the voices from the room beyond, although they were too low for me to catch the actual words.

Then quite clearly I heard my mistress say, exactly as I had coached her, 'Please, Your Majesty, be gentle with me. I beseech you, do not hurt me,' and the appeal was so moving that ,even Aton coughed softly and blew his nose upon his sleeve, while it was all I could do to restrain myself from leaping to my feet and rushing through the curtain to drag her away.

For a while there was silence and then a single high, sobbing cry that rent my soul, and once again silence.

Aton and I sat hunched over the bao board, no longer making any pretence at playing. I do not know how long we waited, but it must have been in the last watch of the night when I heard at last the sound of an old man's snores from beyond the curtain. Aton looked up at me and nodded, then he rose ponderously to his feet.

Before he reached the curtains, they parted, and my mistress stepped through them and came directly to where I sat. 'Take me home, Taita,' she whispered.

Without thinking about it I picked her up in my arms, and she hugged mexaround the neck and laid her head on my shoulder, just like she used to as a little girl. Aton took up the oil lamp and lit the way for us back to the harem. He left us at the door to my mistress's bedchamber. I laid her on the bed, and while she drowsed I examined her gently. There was a little blood, just a smear of it on those silken thighs, but it had staunched itself.

'Is there any pain, my little one?' I asked softly, and she opened her eyes and shook her head.

Then quite unexpectedly she smiled at me. 'I don't know what all the fuss was about,' she murmured. 'In the end, it was not much worse than using your water-stool, and it didn't take much longer either.' And she curled herself in a ball and fell asleep without another sound.

I almost wept with relief. All my preparations and the numbing herbs I had employed had seen her through without damage to either her body or her sweet spirit.

IN THE MORNING WE WENT OUT HAWKING as though nothing untoward had happened, and my mistress mentioned the subject only once during the day. As we picnicked on the bank of the river, she asked thoughtfully, 'Will it be the same with Tanus, do you think, Taita?' 'No, mistress. You and Tanus love each other. It will be different. It will be the most wonderful moment in your entire life,' I assured her.

'Yes, I know deep in my heart that is how it should be,' she whispered, and involuntarily both of us looked northwards along the sweep of the Nile, towards Kamak far.below the horizon.

Although I knew well where my duty towards Tanus lay, life on the island was so idyllic, and I so much enjoyed the exclusive company of my mistress, that I delayed my departure with the excuse that she still needed me. In truth, although Pharaoh sent for her night after night, my mistress had a tough and resilient streak in her and was blessed with the instinct of survival in full measure. Very swiftly she learned how to please the king, but at the same time to remain untouched and emotionally unmoved by it. She did not need me as much as Tanus did. Indeed, it was she who began to nag me to leave her at Elephantine and to journey down-river once again.

I procrastinated until one evening, after a full day out in the field with the king, we returned late to the palace. I saw to it that my mistress was bathed and her evening meal was laid out for her before I went to my own rooms.

As I entered my chamber the delicious odour of ripe mangoes and pomegranates filled the air. In the centre of the floor stood a large closed basket which I could tell was filled with these two favourite fruits of mine. I was not surprised to find it there, for never a day passed without gifts being sent to my mistress and me by someone seeking our favours.

I wondered who it was this time, and my mouth filled with saliva as another whiff of the fragrance filled my nostrils. I had not eaten since noon. As I lifted the woven lid and reached for the reddest and ripest of the pomegranates, the fruit spilled and rolled across the floor. There was a sharp hissing sound and a great black ball of writhing coils and gleaming scales flopped out of the basket and lashed out at my legs.

I leaped backwards, but not fast enough. The open jaws of the serpent struck the leather heel of my sandal with such force that I very nearly lost my balance. A cloud of venom was released from the curved fangs. The clear but deadly fluid drenched the skin of my ankle, but with another leap, I managed to evade the second strike that followed immediately upon the first. I threw myself back against the wall in the far corner of the room.

The cobra and I confronted each other across the width of the floor. Half its body was coiled upon itself, but the front portion of it was raised as high as my shoulder. Its hood was extended to display the broad black and white bands which patterned it. Like some dreadful black lily of death swaying upon its stem, it watched me with those glittering, beady eyes, and I realized that it stood between me and the only door to the chamber.

It is true that some cobras are kept as pets. They are given the run of the household, and they keep down the numbers of rats and mice that infest the building. They will drink milk from a jug andx become as tame as kittens. There are others of these serpents that are trained by methods of torment and provocation to become deadly tools of the assassin. I was in no doubt as to which kind of cobra this was standing before me now.

I sidled along the wall, trying to outflank it and to reach safety. It launched itself at me, and the gape of its jaw was a pale sickly yellow and tendrils of venom drooled from the tips of its fangs. Involuntarily I yelled with terror as I sprang away from it and cowered in my corner again. The serpent recovered swiftly from the strike, and reared upright. It was still between me and the doorway. I knew that its poison sacs were charged with sufficient venom to kill a hundred strong men. As I watched, its lower body uncoiled slowly and it began to glide across the floor towards me, its flaring head held high and those terrible, bright little eyes fastened upon me.

I have seen one of these snakes mesmerize a fowl so that it made no move to escape at this sinuous approach, but lay before it with a patent air of resignation. I was paralyzed in the same way, and found that I could neither move nor cry out again as death glided towards me.

Then suddenly I saw a movement beyond the swaying cobra. My Lady Lostris appeared in the doorway, summoned by my first terrified cry. I found my voice again, and I screamed at her, 'Be careful! Come no closer!'

She paid no heed to my warning as she took in the scene at a glance. A moment's delay or hesitation on her part, and the serpent would have struck at me for the third and last time. My mistress had been at her dinner when she heard my cry for help. She stood now with a half-eaten melon in one hand and a silver knife in the other, and she reacted with the swift instinct of a true huntress.

Tanus had taught her to forsake the awkward double-jointed manner of throwing that is natural to the female, and she hurled the melon she held with the force and aim of a trained javelineer. It struck the cobra upon the back of its extended hood, and for a fleeting instant the blow knocked it flat upon the tiled floor. Like the release of a war bow, the serpent whipped erect and turned its dreadful head towards my mistress and then sped at her across the room in full attack.

I was released from my trance at last and started forward to help her, but I was too slow. Using its tail as a fulcrum, the cobra swung forward and aimed at her with its jaws so widely distended that venom sprayed from its erect fangs in a fine, pale mist. My mistress leaped back, agile and swift as a gazelle before the rush of the hunting cheetah. The cobra missed its strike, and for an instant the impetus threw it flat at her feet, extended to its full glistening, scaly length.

I do not know what possessed her, but she had never lacked in courage. Before the cobra could recover, she hopped forward again and landed with both those neat little sandalled feet upon the back of its head, pinning it to the tiles with her full weight.

Perhaps she had expected to crush its spine, but the snake was as thick as her wrist and resilient as the lash of Rasfer's whip. Although its head was pinned, the rest of its long body whipped up and over and coiled around her legs. A woman of lesser sense and nerve might have tried to escape that loathsome embrace. If she had done so my mistress would have died, for the instant the cobra's head was freed the death-strike would have followed.

Instead, she kept both feet planted firmly upon the writhing serpent, spreading her arms to balance herself, and she screamed out, 'Help me, Taita!'

I was, already halfway across the room, and now I dived full length and thrust my hands into the coils of the serpent's body that boiled around her legs. I groped along its sinuous length, down to where it narrowed into the neck, and I seized it and locked both my hands around the cobra's throat, with my fingers entwined.

'I have him!' I yelled, almost incoherent with my own horror and loathing for this cold, scaly creature that struggled in my grip. 'I have him! Get away from us! Stand clear!'

My mistress leaped back obediently, and I came to my feet clutching the creature with a frantic strength, trying to keep its gaping jaws away from my face. The tail whipped back and wound around my shoulders and my neck, threatening to strangle me as I clung to the head. With this grip upon me the snake now had purchase, and its strength was terrifying. I found that I could not hold it, even with both my fists locked around its throat. It was gradually forcing its head free, drawing it inexorably back through my fingers. I realized that the instant it broke out of my grip, it would lash out at my unprotected face.

'I can't hold it!' I screamed, more to myself than to Lady Lostris. I was holding it at arm's-length, but it was pulling itself towards my face, drawing closer to my eyes every moment as waves of power pulsed through it, contracting and tightening the coils around my throat, forcing the head back through my fingers.

Although my knuckles were white with the strength of my grip, the cobra was so close to my face that I could see the fangs flicking back and forth in the roof of its wide gaping jaws. The cobra was able to erect or to flatten them at will. They were bony white needles, and pale, smoky jets of venom spurted from -their tips. I knew that if even a droplet of that poison entered my eyes, it would blind me, and the burning pain of it might drive me half-mad.

I twisted the snake's head away from my face so that the spray of poison was discharged into the air, and I screamed again in despair, 'Call one of the slaves to help me!'

'On the table!' my mistress spoke close beside me. 'Hold its head on the table!' I was startled. I had thought that she had obeyed my order and run to find help, but she was at my side, and I saw that she still brandished the silver table-knife.

Carrying the cobra with me, I staggered across the floor and fell to my knees beside the low table. With a supreme effort I managed to force the snake's head down across one edge of the table, and to hold it there. It gave my mistress a chopping-block against which to wield the knife. She hacked at the base of the cobra's neck, behind the hideous head.

The snake felt the first cut and redoubled its struggles. Coil after coil of rubbery flesh lashed and contorted around my head. Hissing bursts of air flew from its gape, almost deafening us, the awful din mingling with the spurts of venom from its fangs.

The little blade was sharp, and the scaly flesh parted under it. Slippery, cool, ophidian blood welled up over my fingers, but the blade bit down to the bone of the spine. With all her strength and with her face contorted by the effort, my mistress sawed at the bone, but now my fingers were lubricated by the cobra's blood. I felt the head slither out between them and the serpent was free, but at the same moment the knife found the joint between the vertebrae and slipped through, cleaving the spine.

Dangling by a thread of-skin, the head was thrown about loosely by the cobra's death-throes. Although almost severed from the body, the fangs still flickered and oozed poison. The lightest touch would be enough to drive them into my flesh. I tore at the body with frenzied, bloody fingers and at last managed to unwind it from around my throat, and to hurl it to the floor.

As the two of us backed away to the door, the snake continued its grotesque contortions, knotting itself and coiling into a ball, scaly turns sliding over each other.

'Are you harmed, my lady?' I asked, without being able to tear my eyes away from the death-throes of the carcass. 'Is there any of the venom in your eyes or on your skin?'

'I am all right,' she whispered. 'And you, Taita?' The tone of her voice alarmed me enough to make me forget my own distress, and I looked at her face. The reaction from danger had already seized her, and she was beginning to shake. Her dark green eyes were too large to fit that glassy white face. I had to find some way to release her from the icy grip of shock.

'Well,' I said briskly, 'that takes care of tomorrow evening's dinner. I do so love a nice piece of roast cobra.'

For a moment she stared at me blankly and then she let out a peal of hysterical laughter. My own laughter was no less wild and unrestrained. We clung helplessly to each other and laughed until tears poured down our cheeks.

I WOULD NOT TRUST OUR COOK WITH IT, so I prepared the cobra myself. I skinned and gutted it and stuffed it with wild garlic and other herbs, together with a dollop of mutton fat from the tail of a prime ram. Then I coiled it in a ball and wrapped ir\in banana leaves and covered the whole bundle with a thick coating of wet clay. I built over the lump of clay a hot fire which I kept burning all day.

That evening when I cracked open the hard-baked ball of clay, the aroma released by the succulent white flesh flooded our mouths with saliva. There are those who have dined at my table who say they have never eaten tastier food than that which I prepare, and who am I to contradict my friends?

I served the flaky fillets to my mistress with a wine of five-palm quality that Aton had chanced upon in Pharaoh's store-rooms. My Lady Lostris insisted that I sit with her under the barrazza in the courtyard and share the meal. We agreed that it was better than the tail of crocodile, or even than the flesh of the finest perch from the Nile.

It was only when we had eaten our fill and sent the rest of it to her slave maidens that we broached the matter of who it was that had sent me the gift of the basket of fruit.

I tried not to alarm my mistress, and made a joke of it: 'It must have been somebody who does not like my singing! ' However, she was not to be put off so easily.

'Don't play the clown with me, Taita. It is one direction in which you have little talent. I think you know who it was, and I think I do as well.'

I stared at her, not sure how to deal with what I suspected was coming. I had always protected her, even from the truth. I wondered how far she had seen through me.

'It was my father,' she said with such finality that there was no reply or denial I could give her. 'Tell me about him, Taita. Tell me all the things I should know about him, but which you never dared tell me.'

It came hard at first. A lifetime of reticence cannot be overcome in a moment. It was still difficult to realize that I was no longer completely under the thrall-of Lord Intef. Deeply as I had always hated him, he had dominated me body and soul since my childhood, and there persisted a kind of perverse loyalty that made it difficult for me to speak out freely against him. Weakly I attempted to fob her off with only the barest outlines of her father's clandestine activities, but she cut across me impatiently.

'Come now! Don't take me for a fool. I know more about my father than you ever dreamed. It is time for me to learn the rest of it. I charge you straight, tell me everything.'

So I obeyed her, and there was so much to tell that the full moon was halfway up the sky before I was done. We sat in silence for a long time afterwards. I had left out nothing, nor had I tried to deny or to excuse my own part in any of it.

'No wonder he wantsyou dead,' she whispered at last. 'You know enough to destroy him.' She was silent a little longer, and then she went on, 'My father is a monster. How is it possible that I am any different from him? Why, as his daughter, am I not also possessed by such unnatural instincts?'

'We must thank all the gods that you are not. But mistress, do you not despise me also for what I have done?'

She reached across and touched my hand: 'You forget that I have known you all my life, since the day that my mother died giving birth to me. I know what you really are. Anything you did, you were forced to do, and freely I forgive you for it.'

She sprang to her feet and paced restlessly around the lily pond before she returned to where I sat.

'Tanus is in terrible danger from my father. I never realized just how much until this evening. He must be warned so that he will be able to protect himself. You must go to him now, Taita, without delaying another day.'

'Mistress?' I began, but she cut me off brusquely.

'No, Taita, I will not listen to any more of your sly excuses. You will leave for Karnak tomorrow.'

SO BEFORE SUNRISE THE NEXT MORNING I set out fishing, alone in the skiff. However, I made certain that at least a dozen slaves and sentries saw me leave the island.

In a backwater of the lagoon I opened the leather bag in which I had concealed a tom-cat that had befriended me. He was a sad old animal riddled with mange and with agonizing canker in both ears. For some time I had been steeling myself to give him release from his misery. Now I fed him a lump of raw meat laced with Datura essence. I held him on my lap and stroked him as he ate, and he purred contentedly. As soon as he slipped painlessly into oblivion, I cut his throat.

I sprinkled the blood over the skiff, and dropped the carcass of the cat overboard where I knew that the crocodiles would soon dispose of it. Then, leaving my harpoons and lines and other gear on board, I pushed the skiff out into the slow current and waded through the papyrus beds to hard ground.

We had agreed that my mistress would wait until nightfall before she raised the alarm. It would be noon tomorrow before they found the blood-smeared skiff and concluded that I had been taken by a crocodile or been murdered by a band of the Shrikes.

Once I was ashore, I changed swiftly into the costume I had brought with me. I had chosen to impersonate one of the priests of Osiris. I would often ape their stilted gait and pompous manners for the amusement of my mistress. It needed only a wig, a touch of make-up and the correct costume to make the transformation. The priests are always on the move, up and down along the river, travelling between one temple and another, begging or rather demanding alms along the way. I would excite little interest, and my disguise might help to discourage an attack by the Shrikes. On superstitious grounds they were often reluctant to interfere with the holy men.

I skirted the lagoon and entered the town of West Elephantine through the poor quarter. At the docks I approached one of the barge captains who was loading a cargo of corn in leather bags and clay jugs of oil. With the right degree of arrogance I demanded free passage td Karnak in the name of the god, and he shrugged and spat on the deck, but allowed me to come aboard. All men are resigned to the extortions of the brotherhood. They may despise the priests, but they also fear their power, both spiritual and secular. Some say that the priesthood wields almost as much power as does Pharaoh himself.

The moon was full and the barge captain a more intrepid mariner than Admiral Nembet. We did not anchor at night. With the breeze and the full flood of the Nile behind us, we made a fair passage and on the fifth day rounded the bend of the river and saw the city of Karnak lying before us.

My stomach was queasy as I went ashore, for this was my town and every beggar and idler knew me well. If I were recognized, Lord Intef would hear about it before I could reach the city gates. However, my disguise held up, and I kept to the back alleys as I hurried in a purposeful and priestly manner to Tanus' house near the squadron base.

His front door was unbarred. I entered as though I had the right, and closed the door securely behind me. The starkly furnished rooms were deserted and when I searched diem, I found nothing to give me any indication of his whereabouts. Tanus had obviously been gone for a long time, possibly since my mistress and I had left Karnak. The milk in a jug by the window had thickened and dried like hard cheese, and a crust of sorghum bread on the plate beside it was covered with a blue mould.

As far as I could see, nothing was missing; even the bow Lanata still hung on its rack above his bed. For Tanus to have left that was extraordinary. Usually it was like an extension of his body. I hid it away carefully in a secret compartment below his sleeping-place, which I had built for him when first he had moved into these lodgings. I wished to avoid moving around the city in daylight, so I remained in Tanus' rooms for the rest of that afternoon, occupying myself with cleaning up the dust and filth that had accumulated.

At nightfall I slipped out and went down to the riverside. I saw immediately that the Breath ofHorus was at her moorings. She had obviously been in action since last I had seen her, and had suffered battle damage. Her bows were shattered and her timbers amidships had been scorched and charred.

I noted with a stir of proprietary pride that Tanus had made the modifications to her hull that I had designed. The gilded metal horn protruded from her bows, just above the water-line. From its battered condition I surmised that it fiad done fierce execution amongst the fleets of the red pretender.

However, I could see that neither Tanus nor Kratas was on deck. A junior officer whom I recognized had the watch, but I discarded the idea of hailing him, and instead set out to tour the sailors' haunts around the area of the docks.

It says a great deal for the morals and the sanctity of the priests of Osiris that I was welcomed in the dives and whorehouses like an habitue. In one of the more respectable taverns I recognized the impressive figure of Kratas. He was drinking and playing at dice with a group of his brother officers. I made no move to approach him, but I watched him across the crowded room. Meanwhile I fended off the advances of a succession of pleasure-birds of both sexes who were progressively lowering their tariffs in their efforts to tempt me out into the dark alleyway to sample their well-displayed charms. None of them were in the least deterred by my priestly collar of blue glass beads.

When "Kratas at last gave his companions a hearty goodnight and made his way out into the alley, I followed his tall figure with relief.

'What is it you want from me now, beloved of the gods?' he growled at me with scorn when I hurried up beside 'him. 'Is it my gold or my bum-splitter you crave?' Many of the priests had taken enthusiastically to this modern vogue for pederasty.

Til take the gold,' I told him. 'You have more of that than the other, Kratas.' He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me suspiciously. His bluff and handsome features were only a little flushed and befuddled by liquor.

'How do you know my name?' He seized me by the shoulder and dragged me into a lighted doorway, and studied my face. At last he snatched the wig from off my head.

'By the piles between Seth's buttocks, it's you, Taita!' he roared.

'I'd be obliged if you would refrain from shouting out my name to all the world,' I told him, and he turned serious at once.

'Come! We'll go to my rooms.'

Once we were alone, he poured two mugs of beer. 'Haven't you had enough of that?' I asked, and he grinned at me.

'We'll only know the answer to that in the morning. How now, Taita! Don't be too strict with me. We have been down-river raiding the red usurper's fleet for the past three weeks. Sweet Hapi, but that bow-horn of yours works wonders. We cut up nearly twenty of his galleys and we chopped the heads off a couple of hundred of his rascals. Although it was thirsty work, not a drop of anything stronger than water has passed my lips in all that time. Don't begrudge me a mouthful of beer now. Drink with me!' He raised his mug, and I was also thirsty. I saluted him in return, but as I put the mug down again, I asked, 'Where is Tanus?'

He sobered instantly v 'Tanus has disappeared,' he said, and I stared at him.

'Disappeared? What do you mean, disappeared? Did he not lead the raid down-river?'

Kratas shook his head. 'No. He's gone. Vanished. I have had my men scour every street and every house in all of Thebes. There is no sign of him. I tell you, Taita, I am worried, really worried.'

'When did you last see him?'

'Two days after the royal wedding, after the Lady Lostris married the king, on the evening of the day that you sailed with the royal flotilla for Elephantine. I tried to talk some sense into his thick head, but he would not listen.'-

'What did he say?'

'He handed over the command of the Breath of Horus and the entire squadron to me.'

'He could not do that, surely?'

'Yes, he could. He used the authority of Pharaoh's hawk

I nodded. 'And then? What did he do?' 'I have just told you. He disappeared.'

I sipped at the mug of beer as I tried to think it out. Meanwhile Kratas went to the window and urinated through it It splashed noisily into the street below and I heard a startled passer-by shout up at him, 'Careful where you spray, you filthy pig.?

Kratas leaned out and quite cheerfully offered to crack his skull for him, and the man's grumblings receded rapidly. Chortling with this small victory, Kratas came back to me and I asked, 'What mood was Tanus in when he left you?'

Kratas turned serious again. "The blackest and most ugly temper I have ever witnessed. He cursed the gods and Pharaoh. He even cursed the Lady Lostris and called her a royal whore.'

I winced to hear it. Yet I knew that this was not my Tanus speaking. It was the voice of despairing and hopeless love.

'He said that Pharaoh could carry out his threat to have him strangled for sedition and he would welcome the release. No, he was in terrible straits and there was nothing that I could do or say to comfort him.'

'That was all? He gave you no hint as to what he intended?' Kratas shook his head and refilled his beer mug.

'What happened to the hawk seal?' I asked.

'He left it with me. He said he had no further use for it. I have it safe aboard the Breath of Horus.'

'What of the other arrangements that I discussed with you? Have you done what I asked?'

He looked into his mug guiltily and muttered, 'I began to make the arrangements, but after Tanus was gone, there seemed no point to it. Besides, I have been busy down-river since then.'

'It is not like you, Kratas, to be so unreliable.' I had found that with Kratas hurt disappointment was more effective man anger. 'My Lady Lostris was relying on you. She told me that she trusted you completely. Kratas is a great rock of strength?those were her exact words.'

I could see that it was working yet again, for Kratas is also one of my mistress's ardent admirers. Even a hint of her displeasure would move him.

'Damn you, Taita, you make me sound like a weak-kneed idiot?' I kept silent, but silent can be more irksome than words. 'What in the name of Horus does the Lady Lostris want me to do?'

'Nothing more than I asked you to do before I left for Elephantine,' I told him, and he slammed down his mug.

'I am a soldier. I cannot leave my duties and take half the squadron to go off on some mad adventure. It was one thing when Tanus had the hawk seal?'

'You have the hawk seal now,' I told him softly.

He stared at me. 'I cannot use it without Tanus?'

'You are his lieutenant. Tanus gave you the hawk seal to use. You know what to do with it. Do it! I will find Tanus and bring him back, but you must be ready by then. There is desperate and bloody work ahead, and Tanus needs you. Don't let him down, not again.'

He flushed with anger at the jibe. Til make you swallow those words.' he promised.

'And that will be the finest meal you could set for me,' I told him. I love brave and honest men, they are so easily manipulated.

I WAS UNCERTAIN AS TO HOW I WOULD make good my promise to find Tanus, but I left Kratas to sleep off his debauch, and I went out into the town again to try. Once more I made the rounds of every one of his old haunts and questioned anyone who could possibly have seen him. I had no illusions as to the risk I was taking in pursuing my enquiries about Tanus, or as to just how flimsy was my disguise if I should run into anybody who knew me well, but I' had to find him. I kept going through the night, until even the shebeens and whorehouses along the waterfront had thrown out the last drunken customers and doused their lamps.

As the dawn broke over the river, I stood tired and disconsolate on the bank of the Nile, and tried to think if there was some possibility I had overlooked. A wild honking cry made me look up. High above me a straggling skein of Egyptian geese was outlined against the pale gold and coppery tonep of the eastern sky. Immediately they brought to my mind those happy days that the three of us, Tanus and the Lady Lostris and myself, had spent wild-fowling in the swamps.

'Fool!' I reviled myself. 'Of course that's it.'

By this time they alleyways of the souk were filled with a noisy, jostling crowd. Thebes is the busiest city in the world, no man is idle here. They blow glass and work gold and silver, they weave flax and throw pots. The merchant deals and haggles, the lawyer cants, the priest chants and the whore swives. It is an exciting, flamboyant city and I love it.

I forced my way through the throng and the hubbub of banter and bargaining as the merchants and the farmers displayed-their wares for the housewives and the bailiffs of the rich households. The souk stank fulsomely of spices and fruits, of vegetables and fish and meats, some of which were far from fresh. Cattle bellowed and goats bleated and added their dung to the human contribution of excrement that trickled down the open gutters towards old Mother Nile.

I thought of buying an ass, for it would be a long walk in this hottest season of the year, and there were some sturdy beasts on offer. In the end I decided against such extravagance, not only on the grounds of economy, for I knew that once I was out in the open countryside, an expensive animal would certainly attract the attention of the Shrikes. For such a prize they might overcome their religious scruples. Instead, I purchased only a few handfuls of dates and a loaf of bread, a leather bag to carry these provisions and a gourd water-bottle. Then I set out through the narrow streets for the main gate of the city.

I had not reached the gates when there was a commotion in the street ahead of me and a detachment of the palace guards came towards me, using their staves to force a passage through the market crowds. Close behind them a half-dozen slaves carried an ornate and curtained litter at a jog-trot. I was trapped against the clay-daub walls of one of the buildings and though I recognized both the litter and the commander of the bodyguards, I could not avoid a confrontation.

Panic seized me. I might survive a casual scrutiny from Rasfer, but I was certain that even under my disguise, my Lord Intef would know me instantly. Standing beside me was an old slave woman with breasts like two great amphorae of olive oil and a backside like a hippopotamus's. I wriggled sideways until her bulk hid me. Then I settled my wig over my eyes and peeped out from behind her.

Despite my fears I felt a tingle of professional pride that Rasfer was on his feet again so soon after my surgery. He led his troop of bodyguards towards where I hid, but it was only when he drew almost level that I noticed that one side of his face had collapsed. It was as though his unlovely features had been modelled in wax and then held close to a naked flame. This condition is often the consequence of even the most skilful trepanning. The other half of his face was set in its customary scowl. If Rasfer had been hideous before, now he should cause the children to cry and their elders to make the sign against the evil eye when they looked upon him.

He passed close by where I stood, and the litter followed him. Through a chink in the embroidered curtains I caught a glimpse of Lord Intef as he sprawled elegantly on pillows of pure silk imported from the East that must have cost at least five gold rings each.

His cheeks were freshly shaved and his hair was dressed in formal ringlets. On top of his coiffure was set a cone of perfumed beeswax that would melt in the heat and trickle over his scalp and down his neck to cool and soothe his skin. One hand, the fingers stiff with jewelled rings, lay languidly on the smooth brown thigh of a pretty little slave boy who must have been a recent addition to his collection, for I did not recognize him.

I was taken off-guard by the strength of my own hatred as I looked at my old master. All the countless injuries and humiliations that I had suffered at his hands rushed back to torment me, and these were aggravated by his most recent outrage. By sending the cobra to me he had endangered the life of my mistress. If I had been able to forgive all else, I would never be able to forgive him that.

He began to turn his head in my direction, but before our eyes could meet, I sank down behind the mountainous woman in, front of me. The litter was borne away down the narrow alley, and as I stared after it, I found that I was trembling just as I had after my struggle with the cobra.

'Divine Horus, hear this plea. Grant me no rest until he is dead and gone to his master, Seth,' I whispered, and I pushed my way on towards the city gate.

THE INUNDATION WAS AT ITS HEIGHT, and the lands along the river were in the fecund embrace of the Nile. As she had done every season from the beginning of time, she was laying down on our fields another rich layer of black silt. When she receded again, those glistening expanses would once more bloom with that shade of green that is peculiar to this very Egypt. The rich silt and the sunshine would raise three crops to harvest before the Nile poured over its banks once more to deliver its bounty.

The borders of the flooded fields were hemmed with the raised dykes that controlled the flood and also served as roadways. I followed one of these footpaths eastward until I reached the rocky ground along the foothills, then I turned southward. As I went, I paused occasionally to turn over a rock beside the path, until I found what I was looking for. Then I struck out with more determination.

I kept a wary eye on the rough and broken ground on my right-hand side, for that was just the type of terrain that would afford a fine ambush for a band of Shrikes. I was crossing one of the rocky ravines that lay across the pathway when I was hailed from close at hand.

'Pray for me, beloved of the gods!' My nerves were so tightly strung that I had let out a startled cry and leapt in the air before I could prevent it.

A shepherd boy sat on the edge of the ravine just above me. He was not more than ten years old, but he seemed as old as man's first sin. I knew that the Shrikes often used these children as their scouts and their sentinels. This grubby little imp looked perfect for that role. His hair was matted with filth, and he wore a badly tanned goat's skin that I could smell from where I stood. His eyes were as bright and as avaricious as those of a crow as he ran them over me, assessing my costume and my baggage.

'Where are you headed, and what is your business, good father?' he asked, and blew a long warbling note on his reed flute that could have been a signal to somebody hidden further up the hillside.

It took another few moments for my heart to steady its wild pace, and my voice was a little breathless as I told him, 'You are impertinent, child. What business is it of yours who I am or where I go?'

Immediately he changed his demeanour towards me. 'I am starved, gentle priest, an orphan forced to fend for myself. Don't you have a crust for me in that big bag of yours?'

'You look well-nourished to me.' I turned away, but he scrambled down the bank and danced beside me.

'Let me see in your bag, kind father,' he insisted. 'Alms, I beg of you, gentle sir.'

'Very well, you little ruffian.' Out of the bag I brought a ripe date. He reached out for it, but before his fingers touched it, I closed my hand and when I opened it again the date had been transformed into a purple scorpion. The poisonous insect lifted its tail menacingly over its head, and the boy screamed and fled back up the bank.

At the top he paused only long enough to howl at me, 'You are not a priest. You are one of the desert djinn. You are a devil, not a man.' Frantically he made the sign against the evil eye and spat three times on the ground, and then he raced away up the hill.

I had captured the scorpion from under a flat rock farther back along the path. Naturally, I had nipped the sting from the end of its tail before slipping it into my bag in readiness for just such an eventuality. The old slave who had taught me to read lips, had showed me a few other tricks while he was about it. One of them was sleight-of-hand.

At the shoulder of the next hill I paused to look back. The shepherd boy was on the crest far above me, but he was not alone. There were two men with him. They stood in a group looking down at me, and the child was gesticulating vehemently. As soon as they saw I had spotted them, all three of them disappeared over the skyline. I doubted they would want further truck with a demon priest.

I had not gone much farther when I saw movement on the track ahead of me, and I stopped short and shaded my eyes against the dazzle of the noonday sun. I was relieved to make out a small and innocent-seeming party coming in my direction. I moved forward cautiously to meet it, and as we drew together, my heart leaped as I thought I recognized Tanus. He was leading a donkey. The doughty little animal was heavily burdened. Atop the large bundle on its back sat a woman and a child, but it trotted on gamely. I saw that the woman was herself heavily burdened, her belly swelling out with her pregnancy. The child balanced behind her was a girl on the verge of puberty.

I was about to hail Tanus and hurry forward to meet him, when I realized that I was mistaken and the man was a stranger. It was his tall, broad-shouldered figure, the limber way he moved and the shining shock of gold-blond hair that had deceived me. He was watching me suspiciously and had drawn his sword. Now he pulled the donkey off the path and interposed himself between me and the precious burden it carried.

'The blessings of the gods upon you, good fellow.' I played out my role as priest, and he grunted and kept the point of the sword aimed at my belly. No man trusted a stranger in this very Egypt of ours.

'You risk the life of your family on this road, my friend. You should have sought out the protection of a caravan. There are brigands in the hills.' I was truly worried for them. The woman seemed gentle and decent, while the child was on the verge of tears at my warding.

'Pass on, priest!' the man ordered. 'Keep your advice for those who value it.'

'You are kind, gentle sir,' the woman whispered. 'We waited a week at Qena for the caravan, and could not wait longer. My mother lives at Luxor, and she will help with the birth of my baby.'

'Silence, woman!' her husband growled at her. 'We want no truck with strangers, even though they wear the robes of the priesthood.'

I hesitated, trying to fathom if there was anything that I could do for them. The girl was a pretty little thing with dark obsidian eyes, and she had quite touched my heart. However, at that moment the husband urged the donkey past where I stood, and with a helpless shrug, I watched them go.

'You cannot bleed for all of mankind,' I told myself. 'Nor can you force your advice on those who reject it.' Without looking back again, I went on northwards.

It was late afternoon before I looked down on the spur of rock that thrust out into the green swampland. Even from this vantage-point it was impossible to pick out the shanty. It was hidden deep in the papyrus beds, and the roof was of papyrus stems, so the concealment was perfect. I ran down the path, leaping from rock to rock, until I reached the edge of the water. This far from the main course of the Nile, the flood was not so significant.

I found our old dilapidated boat tied up at the landing. It was half-flooded and I had to bale it out before committing it to the water. I poled out cautiously along the tunnel through the papyrus. At low ebb of the Nile the shanty stood on dry land, but now there was sufficient water under the stilts that supported it to drown a standing man.

There was an empty boat in better shape than mine tied to one of the hut stilts. I moored mine beside it, climbed the rickety ladder and peered into our old hunting-lodge. It consisted of a single room, and the sunshine streamed in through the holes in the"thatched roof, but no matter, for it never rains in Upper Egypt.

The hut had not been in such disorder since the day Tanus and I had first discovered it. Clothing and weapons and cooking-pots were scattered around like the debris of a battlefield. The stink of liquor was even more powerful than that of old food and unwashed bodies.

Those unwashed bodies were lying on an equally unwashed mattress in the far corner. I crossed the littered floor gingerly to inspect them for signs of life, and at that moment the woman grunted and rolled over. She was young and her naked body was full and enticing, with big round breasts and a thatch of crisp curls at the base of her belly. However, even in repose, her face was hard and common. I had no doubt that Tanus had found her on the waterfront.

I had always known him to be fastidious, and he was never a drinking man. This creature and the empty wine jars that were stacked against every wall were merely an indication of. how far he had been brought down. I looked at him now as he slept, and hardly recognized him. His face was mottled and bloated with drink and covered with un-trimmed beard. It was clear that he had not shaved since last I had seen him outside the harem walls.

At that moment the woman woke. Her eyes focused on me and in a single catlike movement she was off the mattress and reaching for the sheathed dagger hanging on the wall beside me. I snatched the weapon away before she could reach it and offered her the naked point.

'Go!' I ordered softly. 'Before I give you something in your belly that even you have never felt before.'

She gathered up her clothes and pulled them on hurriedly, all the while staring at me venomously.

'He has not paid me,' she said, once she was dressed.

'I am sure you have already helped yourself generously.' I gestured towards the door with the dagger.

'He promised me five rings of gold.' She changed her tone and began to whine. 'I have worked hard for him these last twenty days or more. I have done everything for him, cooked and kept his house, serviced him and cleaned up his puke when he was drunk. I must be paid. I will not leave until you pay me?'

I seized her by a lock of her long black hair and ushered her to the doorway. I helped her, still by means of her hair, into the more dilapidated of the two boats. Once she had poled out of my reach, she turned upon me such a stream of abuse that the egrets and other water-fowl were frightened from the reed-beds around us.

When I returned to where Tanus lay, he had not moved. I checked the wine jars. Most of them were empty, but there were still two or three that were full. I wondered how he had accumulated such a store of liquor, and guessed that he had probably sent the woman back to Karnak to find a ferryman to ship it out to him. There had been enough to keep the entire corps of the Blue Crocodile Guards drunk for a season. Little wonder that he was in such a condition.

I sat beside his mattress for a while, letting my sympathy for him run its full course. He had tried to destroy himself. I understood that, and did not despise him for it. His love for my mistress was such that without it he did not wish to continue living.

Of course I was also angry with him for abusing himself in such a fashion, and for succumbing to such self-indulgent folly. However, even in this pitiful drink-sodden state, I could still find much that was noble and admirable about him. After all, he was not alone in guilt. My mistress had tried to take poison for the very same reason as he had tried to destroy himself. I had understood and forgiven her. Could I do less for Tanus? I sighed for these two young people who were all that I had in Me of any real value. Then I stood up and got to work.

Firstly, I stood over Tanus for a while, bolstering my anger to the extent that I could be really harsh with him. Then I took him by the heels and dragged him across the floor of the hut. He came half out of his stupor and cursed weakly, but I took no notice of his protests and tumbled him through the doorway. He plunged into the swamp head-first and raised a mighty splash as he went under. I waited for him to come up and flounder about groggily on the surface, still only half-conscious.

I dropped in beside him, grabbed a double handful of his hair and thrust his head back under-water. For a moment he struggled only weakly and I was able to hold him under with ease. Then his natural instincts of survival took over and he heaved up with all his old strength. I was lifted clear of the surface and thrown aside like a twig in a storm.

Tanus came out bellowing in the effort to draw breath, and striking out blindly at his unseen adversary. One of those blows would have stunned a hippopotamus, and I backed away hurriedly and watched him from a distance.

Coughing and choking, he floundered to the ladder and hung upon it with his hair streaming into his eyes. He had obviously swallowed so much water and sucked so much of it into his lungs that I felt a tingle of alarm. My cure might have been a little too vigorous. I was just about to go to his aid, when he opened his mouth wide and a foul mixture of swamp water and rotten wine erupted out of him. I was astonished by the quantity of it.

He hung on to the ladder, gasping and gurgling for breath. I swam to one of the stilts of the hut and waited until he had vomited again before I told him, putting all the contempt 1 could muster into my voice, 'My Lady Lostris would be so proud to see you now.'

He peered about with streaming eyes and focused on me at last. 'Taita, damn you! Was it you that tried to drown me? You idiot, I could have killed you.'

'hi your present condition the only damage you could do would be to a jar of wine. What a sorry, disgusting sight you are!' I climbed the ladder into the hut and left him in the water, shaking his head and mumbling to himself. I set about tidying up the mess and the filth.

It was some time before Tanus followed me up the ladder and sat shamefacedly in the doorway. I ignored him-and went on with my work, until at last he was forced to break the silence.

'How are you, old friend? I have missed you.'

'Others have missed you also. Kratas, for one. The squadron has been fighting down-river. They could have found use for another sword. My Lady Lostris, for another. She speaks of you every day, and holds her love pure and true. I wonder what she would think of that trollop I chased out of your bed?'

He groaned and held his head. 'Oh, Taita, don't speak your mistress's name. To be reminded of her is unbearable?'

'So broach another jug of wine and wallow in your own filth and your self-pity,' I suggested angrily.

'I have lost her for ever. What would you have me do then?'

'I would want you to have faith and fortitude, as she has.'

He looked up at me pitifully. Tell me about her, Taita. How is she? Does she still think of me?'

'More is the pity,' I grunted disgustedly. 'She thinks of little else. She holds herself ready for the day that you two are brought together again.'

'That will never be. I have lost her for ever and I don't want to go on living.'

'Good!' I agreed briskly. 'Then I'll not waste further time here. I'll tell my mistress that you did not want to hear her message.' I pushed past him, swarmed down the ladder and dropped into the skiff.

'Wait, Taita!' he called after me. 'Come back!'

'To what purpose? You want to die. Then get on with it. I'll send the embalmers out to pick up the corpse later.'

He grinned with embarrassment. 'All right, I am being a fool. The drink has fuddled my mind. Come back, I beg of you. Give me the message from Lostris.'

With a show of reluctance I climbed back up the ladder, and he followed me into the hut, staggering only a little.

'My mistress bids me tell you that her love for you is untouched by any of the things that have been thrust upon her. She is still and will always be your woman.'

'By Horus, she puts me to shame,' he muttered.

'No,' I disagreed. 'Your shame is of your own making.'

He snatched his sword from the scabbard that hung above the filthy bed and slashed out at the row of wine amphorae that stood against the far wall. As each one burst, the wine poured out and trickled through the slats of the floor.

He was panting as he came back to me, and I scoffed at him. 'Look at you! You have let yourself go until you are as soft and as short of wind as an old priest?'

'Enough of that, Taita! You have had your say. Mock me no more, or you will regret it.'

I could see he was becoming as angry as I had intended. My insults were stiffening him up nicely. 'My mistress would have you take uj? the challenge thrown to you by Pharaoh so that you will still be alive and a man of honour and worth in five years' time, when she is free to come to -you.'

I had his full attention now. 'Five years? What is this about, Taita? Will there truly be a term to our suffering?'

'I worked the Mazes for Pharaoh. He will be dead in five years from now,' I told him simply. He stared at me in awe and I saw a hundred different emotions pursue each other across his features. He is as easy to read as this scroll on which I write.

"The Mazes!' he whispered at last. Once long ago he had been a doubter, and had disparaged my way with the Mazes. That had changed and he was now an even firmer believer in my powers than my mistress. He had seen my visions become reality too often to be otherwise.

'Can you wait that long for your love?' I asked. 'My mistress swears that she can wait for you through all eternity. Can you wait a few short years for her?'

'She has promised to wait for me?' he demanded.

'Through all eternity,' I repeated, and I thought he might begin to weep. I could not have faced that, not watched a man like Tanus in tears, so I went on hastily, 'Don't you want to hear the vision that the Mazes gave me?'

He thrust back the tears. 'Yes! Yes!" he agreed eagerly, and so we began to talk. We talked until the night fell, and then we sat in the darkness and talked some more.

I told him the things that I had told my Lady Lostris, all the details that I had kept from them both over the years. When I came to the details of how his father, Pianki, Lord Harrab, had been ruined and destroyed by his secret enemy, Tanus' anger was so fierce that it burned away the last effects of the debauchery from his mind, and by the time the dawn broke over the swamps, his resolve was once more clear and strong.

'Let us get on with this enterprise of yours, for it seems the right and proper way.' He sprang to his feet and girded on his sword scabbard. Although I thought it wise to rest a while and let him recover fully from the effects of the wine, he would have no part of it.

'Back to Karnak at once!' he insisted. 'Kratas is waiting, and the lust to avenge my father's memory and to lay eyes on my own sweet love again burns like a fire in my blood.'

ONCE WE HAD LEFT THE SWAMP, TANUS took the lead along the rocky path, and I followed him at a run. As soon as the sun came up above the horizon, the sweat burst out across his back and streamed down to soak the waistband of his kilt. It was as though the rancid old wine was being purged from his body. Although I could hear him panting wildly, he never paused to rest or even moderated his pace, but ran on into the rising heat from the desert without a check.

It was I who pulled him up with a shout, and we stood shoulder to shoulder and stared ahead. The birds had caught my attention. I had picked out the commotioji of their wings from afar.

'Vultures,' Tanus grunted with ragged breath. 'They have something dead amongst the rocks.' He drew his sword and we went forward cautiously.

We found the man first, and chased the vultures off him in a flurrying storm of wings. I recognized him by the shock of blond hair as the husband I had met on the road the previous day. There was nothing left of his face, for he had lain upon his back and the birds had eaten the flesh away to the bones of the skull. They had picked out his eyes, and the empty sockets stared at the cloudless sky. His lips were gone and he grinned with bloody teeth, as though at the futile joke of our brief existence upon this earth. Tanus rolled him on to his stomach, and we saw at once the stab-wounds in his back that had killed him. There were a dozen of these thrust through his ribs.

'Whoever did this was making sure of the job,' Tanus remarked, hardened to death as only a seasoned soldier can be.

I walked on into the rocks and a buzzing black cloud of flies rose from the dead body of the wife. I have never understood where the flies come from, how they materialize so swiftly out of the searing dry heat of the desert. I guessed that the wife had aborted while they were busy with her. They must have left her alive after they had taken their pleasure with her. With the last of her strength she had taken the infant protectively in her arms. She had died like that, huddled against a boulder, shielding her still-born infant from the vultures.

I went on deeper into the broken ground, and once again the flies led me to where the bandits had dragged the little girl. At least one of them had summoned up the compassion to cut her throat after they had finished with her, rather than let her bleed slowly to death.

One of the flies settled on my lips. I brushed it away and began to weep. Tanus found me still weeping.

'Did you know them?' he asked, and I nodded and cleared my throat to answer.

'I met them on the road yesterday. I tried to warn?' I broke off, for it was not easy to continue. I took a deep breath. "They had a donkey. The Shrikes will have taken it.'

Tanus nodded. His expression was bleak as he turned away and made a rapid cast amongst the rocks.

222

'This way?, he called, and broke into a run, heading out into the rocky desert.

'Tanus!' I yelled after him. 'Kratas is waiting?' But he took not the least notice and I was left with no option but to follow him. I caught up with him again when he lost the tracks of the donkey on a bad piece of ground and was forced to cast ahead.

'I feel for that family even more than you do,' I insisted. 'But this is folly. Kratas waits for us. We do not have time to waste?'

He cut me off without even glancing in my direction, 'How old was that child? Not more than nine years? I always have time to see justice done.' His face was cold and vengeful. It was clear to see that he had recovered all his former mettle. I knew better than to argue further.

The image of the little girl was still strong and clear in my mind. I joined him and we picked up the trail again. Now, with the two of us cooperating, we went forward even more swiftly.

Tanus and I had tracked gazelle and oryx, and even lion, in this fashion and we had both become adept at this esoteric art. We worked as a team, running on each side of the spurs that our quarry had left, and signalling every twist or change in it to each other. Very soon our quarry reached a rough track that led eastward from the river and still deeper into the desert. They had joined it, and made our task of catching up with them that much simpler.

It was almost noon, and our water-bottles were empty when at last we spotted them far ahead. There were five of them, and the donkey. It was clear that they had not expected to be followed deep into the desert which was their fastness, and they were moving carelessly. They had not even taken the trouble to cover then- back-trail.

Tanus pulled me down behind the shelter of a rock while we caught our breath, and he growled at me, 'We'll circle out ahead of them. I want to see their faces.'

He jumped up and led me in a wide detour out to one side of the track. We overtook the band of Shrikes, but well beyond then- line of sight. Then we cut in again to meet the track ahead of them. Tanus had a soldier's eye for ground, and set up the ambuscade unerringly.

We heard them coining from afar, the clatter of the don-key's hooves and the sing-song of their voices. While we waited for them, I had the first opportunity to contemplate the prudence of my decision to follow along so unquestion-ingly. When the party of Shrikes at last came into view I was convinced that I had been over-hasty. They were as murderous-looking a bunch of ruffians as I had ever laid eyes upon, and I was armed only with my little jewelled dagger.

Just short of where we lay, the tall, bearded Bedouin who was obviously their leader stopped suddenly, and ordered one of the men who followed him to unload the water-skin from the donkey. He drank first and then passed it on to the others. My throat closed in sympathy as I watched them swallow down the precious stuff.

'By Horus, look at the stains of the women's blood on their robes. I wish I had Lanata with me now,' Tanus whispered, as we crouched amongst the rocks. 'I could put an arrow through that one's belly and drain the water from him like beer from the vat.' Then he laid a hand on my arm. 'Don't move until I do, do you hear me? I want no heroics from you now, mind.' I nodded vigorously, and felt not the slightest inclination to protest against these very reasonable instructions.

The Shrikes came on again directly to where we waited. They were all heavily armed. The Bedouin walked ahead. His sword was strapped between his shoulder-blades, but with the handle protruding up over his left shoulder, ready to hand. He had the cowl of his woollen cloak drawn over his head to protect him from the fierce sunlight. It impaired his side-vision and he did not notice us as he passed close in front of us.

Two others followed him closely, one of them leading the donkey. The last two sauntered along behind the animal, engrossed in a listless squabble over a piece of gold jewellery that they had taken from the murdered woman. All their weapons were sheathed, except for the short, bronze-headed stabbing spears carried by the last pair.

Tanus let them all pass, and then he stood up quietly and moved in. behind the last two men in the column. He appeared to move casually, as the leopard does, but it was in reality only a breath before he swung his sword at the neck of the man on the right.

Although I had intended backing Tanus up to the full, somehow my good intentions had not been translated into action, and I still crouched behind my comforting rock. I justified myself with the thought that I would probably only have hindered him if I had followed him too closely.

I had never watched Tanus kill a man before. Although I knew that it was his vocation and that he had, over the years, had every opportunity to hone these gruesome skills, still I was astonished by his virtuosity. As he struck, his victim's head leapt from its shoulders like a desert spring-hare from its burrow, and the decapitated trunk actually took another step before the legs buckled under it. As the blow reached the limit of its arc, Tanus smoothly reversed the stroke. With the same movement he struck back-handed at the next brigand. The second neck severed just as cleanly. The head toppled off and fell free, while the carcass slumped forward with the blood fountaining high in the air.

The splash of blood and the weighty thump-thump of the two disembodied heads striking the rocky earth alerted the other three Shrikes. They spun about in alarm, and for a moment stared in bewildered disbelief at the sudden carnage in their ranks. Then with a wild shout they drew their swords and rushed at Tanus in a body. Rather than retreating before them, Tanus charged them ferociously, splitting them apart. He swung to face the man he had isolated from his mates, and his thrust ripped a bloody flesh-wound down the side of his chest. The man squealed and reeled backwards. But before Tanus was able to finish him off, the other two fell upon him from behind. Tanus was forced to spin round to face them, and bronze clashed on bronze as he stopped their charge. He held them off at sword's-length, engaging first one and then the other, until the lightly wounded man recovered and came at him from his rear.

'Behind you!' I yelled at him, and he whipped round only just in time to catch the thrust on his own blade. Instantly the other two were upon him again, and he was forced to give ground in order to defend himself from all sides. His swordsmanship was breathtaking to watch. So swift was his blade that it seemed that he had erected a glittering wall of bronze around himself against which the blows of his enemies clattered ineffectually.

Then I realized that Tanus was tiring. The sweat streamed from his body in the heat, and his features were contorted with the effort. The long weeks of wine and debauchery had taken their toll of what had once been his limitless strength and stamina.

He fell back before the next rush with which the bearded Bedouin drove at him, until he pressed his back to one of the boulders on the opposite side of the track from where I still crouched helplessly. With the rock to cover his back, all three of his attackers were forced to come at him from the front. But this was no real respite. Their attack was relentless. Led by the Bedouin, they howled like a pack of wild dogs as they bayed him, and Tanus' right arm tired and moved slower.

The spear carried by the first man whom Tanus had beheaded had fallen in the middle of the track. I realized that I must do something immediately if I were not to watch Tanus hacked down before my eyes. With a huge effort I gathered up my slippery courage, and crept from my hiding-place. The Shrikes had forgotten all about me in their eagerness for the kill. I reached the spot where the spear lay without any one of them noticing me, and I snatched it up. With the solid weight of the weapon in my hands, all my lost courage came flooding back.

The Bedouin was the most dangerous of the three of Tanus' adversaries, and he was also the closest to me. His back was towards me, and his whole attention was on. the unequal duel. I levelled the spear and rushed at him.

The kidneys are the most vulnerable target in the human back. With my knowledge of anatomy, I could aim my thrust exactly. The spear-point went in a finger's-width to one side of the spinal column, all the way in. The broad spear-head opened a gaping wound, and skewered his right kidney with a surgeon's precision. The Bedouin stiffened and froze like a temple statue, instantly paralysed by my thrust. Then, as I viciously twisted the blade in his flesh the way Tanus had taught me, mincing his kidney to pulp, the sword fell from his fist and he collapsed with such a dreadful cry that his comrades were distracted enough to give Tanus his chance.

Tanus' next thrust took one of them in the centre of his chest, and despite his exhaustion it still had sufficient power in it to fly cleanly through the man's torso and for the blood-smeared point to protrude a hand-span from between his shoulder-blades. Before Tanus was able to clear his blade from the clinging embrace of live flesh and to kill the last Shrike, the survivor spun round and ran.

Tanus took a few paces after him, then gasped, 'I'm all done in. After him, Taita, don't let that murderous jackal get away.'

There are very few men that can outrun me. Tanus is the only one I know of, but he has to be on top form to do it. I put my foot in the centre of the Bedouin's back and held him down as I jerked the spearhead out of his flesh, and then I went after the last Shrike.

I caught him before he had gone two hundred paces, and I was running so lightly that he did not hear me coming up behind him. With the edge of the spear-head I slashed the tendon in the back of his heel, and he went down sprawling. The sword flew out of his hand. As he lay on his back kicking and screaming at me, I danced around him, pricking him with the point of the spear, goading him into position for a good clean killing thrust.

'Which of the women did you enjoy the best?' I asked him, as I stabbed him in the thigh. 'Was it the mother, with her big belly, or was it the little girl? Was she tight enough for you?'

'Please spare me!' he screamed. 'I did nothing. It was the others. Don't kill me!'

"There is dried blood on the front of your kilt,' I said, and I stabbed him in the stomach, but not too deeply. 'Did the child scream as loudly as you do now?' I asked.

As he rolled over into a ball to protect his stomach, I stabbed him in the spine, by a lucky chance finding the gap between the vertebrae. Instantly he was paralysed from the waist down, and I stepped back from him.

'Very well,' I said. 'You ask me not to kill you, and I won't. It would be too good for you.'

I turned away and walked back to join Tanus. The maimed Shrike dragged himself a little way after me, his paralysed legs slithering after him like a fisherman dragging a pair of dead carp. Then the effort was too much and he collapsed in a whimpering heap. Although it was past noon, the sun still had enough heat in it to kill him before it set.

Tanus looked at me curiously as I came back to join him. "There is a savage streak in you that I never suspected before.' He shook his head in wonder. 'You never fail to amaze me.'

He pulled the water-skin from the back of the donkey and offered it to me, but I shook my head. 'You first You need it more than I do.'

He drank, his eyes tightly closed with the pleasure of it, and then gasped, 'By the sweet breath of Isis, you are right I am soft as an old woman. Even that little piece of sword-play nearly finished me.' Then he looked around at the scattered corpses, and grinned with satisfaction. 'But all in all, not a bad start on Pharaoh's business.'

'It was the poorest of beginnings,' I contradicted him, and when he crooked an eyebrow at me I went on, 'We should have kept at least one of them alive to lead us to the Shrikes' nest. Even that one', I gestured towards the dying man lying out there amongst the rocks, 'is too far-gone to be of any use to us. It was my fault. I allowed my anger to get the better of me. We won't make the same mistake again.'

We were halfway back to where we had left the bodies of the murdered family before my true nature reasserted itself, and I began bitterly to regret my callous and brutal treatment of the maimed brigand.

'After all, he was a human being, as we are,' I told Tanus, and he snorted.

'He was an animal, a rabid jackal, and you did a fine job. You have mourned him far too long. Forget him. Tell me, instead, why we must make this detour back to look at dead men, instead of heading straight for Kratas' camp.'

'I need the husband's body.' I would say no more until we stood over the mutilated corpse. The pathetic relic was already stinking in the heat The vultures had left very little flesh on the bones.

'Look at that hair,' I told Tanus. 'Who else do you know with a bush' like that?' For a moment he looked puzzled, and then he grinned and ran his fingers through his own dense ringlets.

'Help me load him on the donkey,' I ordered. 'Kratas can take him into Karnak to the morticians for embalming. We'll buy him a good funeral and a fine tomb with your name on the walls. Then, by sunset tomorrow, all of Thebes will know that Tanus, Lord Harrab perished in the desert, and was half-eaten by the birds.'

'If Lostris hears of it?' Tanus looked worried.

Til send a warning letter to her. The advantage we will win by letting the world believe you dead will far outweigh any risk of alarming my mistress.'

KRATAS WAS CAMPED AT THE FIRST oasis on the caravan road to the Red Sea, less than a day's march from Karnak. He had with him a hundred men of the Blue Crocodile Guards, all of them carefully selected, as I had commanded. Tanus and I reached the encampment in the middle of the night. We had travelled hard and were close to exhaustion. We fell on our sleeping-mats beside the camp-fire and slept until dawn.

At first light, Tanus was up and mingling with his men. Their delight at having him back was transparent. The officers embraced him and the men cheered him, and grinned with pride as he greeted each of them by name.

At breakfast Tanus gave Kratas instructions to take the putrefying corpse back to Karnak for burial and to make certain that the news of his death was the gossip of all Thebes. I gave Kratas a letter for my Lady Lostris. He would find a trustworthy messenger to carry it up-river to Elephantine.

Kratas selected an escort of ten men, and they prepared to set off with the donkey and its odorous burden, back towards the Nile and Thebes.

'Try to catch up with us on the road to the sea. If you cannot, then you'll find us camped at the oasis of Gebel Nagara. We will wait for you there,' Tanus shouted after him, as the detachment trotted out ofVhe encampment. 'And remember to bring Lanata, my bow, when you return!'

NO SOONER WAS KRATAS OUT OF SIGHT beyond the first rise on the westerly road than Tanus formed up the rest of the regiment and led us away in the opposite direction along the caravan road towards the sea.

The caravan road from the banks of the river Nile to the shores of the Red Sea was long and hard. A large, unwieldy caravan usually took twenty days to make the journey. We covered the distance in four days, for Tanus pushed us in a series of forced marches. At the outset, he and I were probably the only ones of all the company who were not in superb physical condition. However, by the time we reached Gebel Nagara, Tanus had burned the excess fat off his frame and sweated out the last poisons from the wine jar. He was once again lean and hard.

As for myself, it was the first time that I had ever made a forced march with a company of the guards. For the first few days I suffered all the torments of thirst and aching muscles, of blistered feet and exhaustion that the Ka of a dead man must be forced to endure on the road to the underworld. However, my pride would not allow me to fall behind, apart from the facMjiat to do so in this wild and savage landscape would have meant certain death. To my surprise and pleasure, I found that after the first few days, it became easier and easier to keep my place in the ranks of trotting warriors.

Along the way, we passed two large caravans moving towards the Nile, with the donkeys bow-legged under their heavy loads of trade goods, and escorts of heavily armed men far surpassing in number the merchants and their' retainers who made up the rest of the company. No caravan was safe from the depredations of the Shrikes unless it was protected by a force of mercenaries such as these, or unless the merchants were prepared to pay the crippling toll money that the Shrikes demanded to allow them free passage.

When we met these strangers, Tanus pulled his shawl over his head to mask his face and hide that golden bush of hair. He was too distinctive a figure to risk being recognized and his continued existence being reported in Karnak. We'did not respond to the greetings and questions that were flung at us by these other travellers, but ran past them in aloof silence without even glancing in their direction.

When we were still a day's march from the coast, we left the main caravan route and swung away southwards, following an ancient disused track that had been shown to me some years previously by one of the wild Bedouin whom I had befriended. The wells at Gebel Nagara lay on this old route to the sea, and were seldom visited by humans these days, only by the Bedouin and the desert bandits, if you can call these human.

By the time we reached the wells, I was as slim and physically fit as I had ever been in my life, but I lamented the lack of a mirror, for I was convinced that this new energy and force that I felt within myself must be reflected in my features, and that my beauty must be enhanced by it. I would have welcomed the opportunity to admire it myself. However, there seemed to be no dearth of others to admire it in my place. At the camp-fire in the evenings, many a prurient glance was flashed in my direction, and I received more than a few sly offers from my companions, for even such an elite fighting corps as the guards was contaminated by the new sexual licence that permeated our society.

I kept my dagger beside me in the night and when I pricked the first uninvited visitor to my sleeping-mat with the needle-point, his yells caused much hilarity amongst the others. After that, I was spared any further unwelcome attentions.

Even once we had reached the wells, Tanus would allow us little rest. While we waited for Kratas to catch up, he kept his men exercising at arms, and at competitions of archery and wrestling and running. I was pleased to see that Kratas had chosen these men strictly in accordance with my instructions to him. There was not a single hulking brute amongst them. Apart from Tanus himself, they were all small, agile men aptly suited to the role that I planned for them.

Kratas arrived only two days behind us. Taking into account his return to Karnak and the time taken up by the tasks that Tanus had set for him there, this meant that he must have travelled even more swiftly than we had done.

'What held you up?' Tanus greeted him. 'Did you find a willing maid on the way?'

'I had two heavy burdens to carry,' Kratas replied, as they embraced. 'Your bow, and the hawk seal. I am glad to be rid of both of them.' He handed over both the weapon and the statuette with a grin, delighted as ever to be back with Tanus.

Tanus immediately took Lanata out into the desert. I went with him and helped him stalk close to a herd of gazelle. With these fleet little creatures racing and leaping across the plain, it was an extraordinary sight to watch Tanus bowl over a dozen of them at full run with as many arrows. That night, as we feasted on grilled livers and fillets of gazelle, we discussed the next stage of my plan.

In the morning we left Kratas in command of the guards, and Tanus and I set out alone for the coast. It was only half a day's travel to the small fishing village which was our goal, and at noon we topped the last rise and looked down from the hills on to the glittering expanse of the sea spread below us. From this height we could see clearly the dark outline ofthe coral reefs beneath the turquoise waters.

As soon as we entered the village, Tanus called for the headman, and so apparent from his bearing was Tanus' importance and authority, that the old man came at a run. When Tanus showed him the hawk seal, he fell to the earth in obeisance, as though it were Pharaoh himself who stood before him, and beat his head upon the ground with such force that I feared he might do himself serious injury. When I lifted him to his feet once more, he led us to the finest lodgings in the village, his own filthy hovel, and turned his numerous family out to make room for us.

Once we had eaten a bowl of the fish stew that our host provided and drunk a cup of the delicious palm wine, Tanus and I went down to the beach of dazzling white sand and bathed away the sweat and the dust of the desert in the warm waters of the lagoon that was enclosed by the jagged barricade of coral that lay parallel to the shore. Behind us the harsh mountains, devoid of the faintest green tinge of growing things, thrust up into the aching blue desert sky.

Sea, mountains and sky combined in a symphony of grandeur that stunned the senses. However, I had little time to appreciate it all, for the fishing fleet was returning. Five small dilapidated vessels with sails of woven palm-fronds were coming in through the pass in the reef. So great was the load of fish that each of them carried, that they seemed in danger of foundering before they could reach the beach.

I am fascinated by all the natural bounty that the gods provide for us, and I examined the catch avidly as it was thrown out upon the beach, and questioned the fishermen as to each of the hundred different species. The pile of fish formed a glittering treasure of rainbow colours, and I wished that I had my scrolls and paint-pots to record it all.

This interlude was too brief. As soon as the catch was unloaded, I embarked on one of the tiny vessels that stank so abundantly of its vocation, and waved back at Tanus on the beach as we put out through the pass in the reef. He was to remain here until I returned with the equipment that we needed for the next part of my plan. Once again, I did not want him to be recognized where I was going. His job now was to prevent any of the fishermen or their families from sneaking away into the desert to a secret meeting with the Shrikes, to report the presence in their village of a golden-headed lord who bore the hawk seal.

The tiny vessel threw up her bows at the first strong scent of the sea, and the helmsman tacked across the wind and headed her up into the north, running parallel to that dun and awful coast. We had but a short way to go, and before nightfall the helmsman pointed over the bows at the clustered stone buildings of the port of Safaga on the distant shore-line.

FOR A THOUSAND YEARS SAFAGA HAD been the entrepot for all trade coming into the Upper Kingdom from the East. Even as I stood in the bows of our tiny craft, I could make out the shapes of other much larger vessels on the northern horizon as they came and went between Safaga and the

Arabian ports on the eastern shore of the narrow sea.

It was dark by the time that I stepped ashore on the beach at Safaga, and nobody seemed to remark my arrival. I knew exactly where I was going, for I had visited the port regularly on Lord Intefs nefarious business. At this hour the streets were almost deserted, but the taverns were packed. I made my way swiftly to the home of Tiamat the merchant. ; Tiamat was a rich man and his home the largest in the old town. An armed slave barred the door to me.

'Tell your master that the surgeon from Karnak who saved his leg for him is here,' I ordered, and Tiamat himself limped out to greet me. He was taken aback when he saw my clerical disguise, but had the good sense not to remark on it, nor to mention my name in front of the slave. He drew me into his walled garden, and as soon as we were alone he exclaimed, 'Is it really you, Taita? I heard that you had been murdered by the Shrikes at Elephantine.'

He was a portly, middle-aged man, with an open, intelligent face and a shrewd mind. Some years previously he had been carried in to me on a litter. A party of travellers had found him beside the road, where he had been left for dead after his caravan had been pillaged by the Shrikes. I had stitched him together, and even managed to save the leg that had already mortified by the time I first saw it. However, he would always walk with a limp.

'I am delighted to see that the reports of your death are premature,' he chuckled, and clapped his hands to have his slaves bring me a cup of cool sherbet and a plate of figs and honeyed dates.

After a decent interval of polite conversation, he asked quietly, 'Is there anything I can do for you? I owe you my life. You have only to ask. My home is your home. All I have is yours.'

'I am on the king's business,' I told him, and drew out the hawk seal from under my tunic.

His expression became grave. 'I acknowledge the seal of Pharaoh. But it was not necessary to show it to me. Ask what you will of me. I cannot refuse you.'

He listened to all I had to say without another word, and when I had finished, he sent for his bailiff and gave him his orders in front of me. Before he sent the man away, he turned to me and said, 'Is there anything that I have forgotten? Anything else you need at all?'

'Your generosity is without limits,' I told him. 'However, there is one other thing. I long for my writing materials.'

He turned back to the bailiff. 'See to it that there are scrolls and brushes and ink-pot in one of the packs.'

After the bailiff had left, we sat on talking for half the night. Tiamat stood at the centre of the busiest trading route in the Upper Kingdom, and heard every rumour and whisper from the farthest reaches of the empire, and from beyond the sea. I learned as much in those few hours in his garden as I would in a month in the palace at Elephantine.

'Do you still pay your ransom to the Shrikes to allow your caravans through?' I asked, and he shrugged with resignation.

'After what they did to my leg, what option do I have? Each season then" demands become more exorbitant. I must pay over one-quarter of the value of my goods to them as soon as the caravan leaves Safaga, and half my profits once The goods are sold in Thebes. Soon they will beggar us all, and grass will grow on the caravan roads, and the trade of the kingdom will wither and die.'

'How do you make these payments?' I asked. 'Who determines the amount, and who collects them?'

'They have then- spies here in the port. They watch every cargo that is unloaded, and they know what each caravan carries when it leaves Safaga. Before it even reaches the mountain pass, it will be met by one of the robber chieftains who will demand the ransom they have set.'

It was long past midnight before Tiamat called a slave to light me to the chamber he had set aside for me.

'You will be gone before I rise tomorrow.' Tiamat embraced me. 'Farewell, my good friend. My debt to you is not yet paid in full. Call upon me again, whenever you have need.'

The same slave woke me before dawn, and led me down to the seafront in the darkness. A fine trading vessel of Tiamat's fleet was moored inside the reef. The captain weighed anchor as soon as I came aboard.

In the middle of the morning we crept in through the pass in the coral and dropped anchor in front of the little fishing village where Tanus stood on the beach to welcome me.

DURING MY ABSENCE TANUS HAD MANAGED to gather together six decrepit donkeys, and the sailors from Tiamat's ship waded ashore carrying the bales that we had brought with us from Safaga, and loaded them on to these miserable creatures. Tanus and I left the captain of the trading vessel with strict orders to await our return, then, leading the string of donkeys, we headed back, inland towards the wells at Gebel Nagara.

Kratas' men had obviously suffered the heat and the sand-flies and the boredom with poor grace, for they accorded us a welcome that was out of keeping with the period that we had been absent. Tanus ordered Kratas to parade them. The ranks of warriors watched as I unpacked the first bale that we had brought in on the donkey train. Almost immediately their interest gave way to mild amusement as I laid out the costume of a slave girl. In its turn, this was replaced by a buzz of speculation and argument as the bales yielded up a further seventy-nine* complete female costumes.

Kratas and two of his officers helped me place one of these on the sand in front of each guardsman, and then Tanus gave the order: 'Disrobe! Put on the dress in front of you!' There was a roar of protest and incredulous hilarity, and k was only when Kratas and his officers passed down the ranks with assumed expressions of sternness to reinforce the order, that they began to obey it.

Unlike our women who dress but lightly and often leave their bosom bared and their legs free and naked, the women of Assyria wear skirts that sweep the ground and sleeves that cover their arms to the wrist. For reasons of misplaced modesty they even veil their faces when they walk abroad, although perhaps these restrictions are placed upon them by the possessive jealousy of their menfolk. Then again there is a wide difference between the sunny land of Egypt and those more sombre climes where water falls from the sky and turns solid white upon the moun-taintops, and the winds chill the flesh and the bones of men like death.

Once they had weathered the first shock of seeing each other in'this outlandish apparel, the nien entered into the spirit of the moment. Soon there were eighty veiled slave girls prancing and mincing about in the long skirts that reached to their ankles, tweaking each other's buttocks and casting exaggerated sheep's eyes at Tanus and his officers.

The officers could no longer maintain their gravity. Perhaps it is because of my peculiar circumstances that I have always found the spectacle of men dressed as women to be vaguely repulsive, but it is strange how few other men share my feelings of distaste, and it needs only some hairy ruffian to don a skirt to reduce his audience to a state of incontinence.

In the midst of this uproar, I congratulated myself that I had insisted that Kratas choose only the smallest and slimmest men from the squadron. Looking them over now, I was certain that they would be able to carry through the deception. They would need only a little schooling in feminine deportment.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING OUR STRANGE caravan passed through the little fishing village and wound its way down on to the beach, where the trading vessel waited. Kratas and eight of his officers made up the escort. Complete lack of any armed escort for such a valuable consignment would surely have aroused suspicion. Nine armed men dressed in the motley garb of mercenaries would be sufficient to allay this, but would not deter a large raiding party of Shrikes.

At the head of the caravan marched Tanus, dressed in the rich robes and beaded head-dress of a wealthy merchant from beyond the Euphrates river. His beard had grown out densely, and I had curled it for him into those tight ringlets that the Assyrians favoured. Many of these Asians, particularly those from the high mountainous regions further north, have the same complexion and skin coloration as Tanus, so he looked the part I had chosen for him.

I followed close behind him. I had overcome my aversion to wearing female garb, and donned the long skirts and veil, together with the gaudy jewellery of an Assyrian wife. I was determined not to be recognized when I returned to Safaga.

The voyage was enlivened by the sea-sickness of most of the slave girls and not a few of the officers, for they were accustomed to sail on the placid waters of the great river. At one stage so many of them were lining the rail to make their offerings to the gods of the sea, that the ship took on a distinct list.

We were all relieved to step on to the beach at Safaga, where we caused much excitement The Assyrian girls were famous for their skills on the love couch. It was said that some of them were capable of tricks that could bring a thousand-year-old mummy back to life. It was obvious to those who watched us come ashore that behind the veils our slave girls must be images of feminine loveliness. A shrewd Asian merchant would not transport his wares so far and at such expense, unless he was certain of a good price in the slave-markets on the Nile.

One of the Safaga merchants approached Tanus immediately and offered to buy the entire bevy of girls on the spot, and spare him the onerous journey across the desert with them. Tanus waved ffim away with a scornful chuckle.

'Have you been warned of the perils of the journey that you intend making?' the merchant insisted. 'Before you reach the Nile, you will be forced to pay a ransom for your safe passage that will eat up most of your profits.'

'Who will force me to pay?' Tanus demanded. 'I pay only what I owe.'

"There are those who guard the road,' the merchant warned him. 'And even though you pay what they demand, there is no certainty that they will let you pass unharmed, especially with such tempting goods as you have with you. The vultures on the road to the Nile are so fat from feeding on the carcasses of stubborn merchants that they can hardly fly. Sell to me now at a good profit?'

'I have armed guards', Tanus indicated Kratas and his small squad, 'who will be a match for any robbers we may meet.' And the onlookers who had listened to the exchange tittered and nudged each other at the boast.

The merchant shrugged. 'Very well, my brave friend. On my next journey through the desert, I will look for your skeleton beside the road. I will recognize you by that blustering red beard of yours.'

As he had promised me he would, Tiamat had forty donkeys waiting for us. Twenty of them were laden with filled water-skins, and the remainder with pack-saddles to carry the bales and bundles that we brought ashore from the trading ship.

I was anxious that we should spend as little time as possible in the port, under all those prying eyes. It would take only a single lapse by one of the slave girls to reveal his true gender, and we would be undone. Kratas and his escort hurried them through the narrow streets, keeping the bystanders at a distance, and making certain that the slave girls kept thek veils in place and their eyes downcast, and that none of them responded in gruff masculine tones to the ribald comment that followed us, until we were out into the open country beyond the town.

We camped that first night still within sight of Safaga. Although I did not anticipate an attack until we were beyond the first mountain pass, I was certain that we were already being watched by the spies of the Shrikes.

While it was still light, I made sure that our slave girls conducted themselves as women, that they kept their faces and bodies covered, and that when they went into the nearby wadi to attend to nature's demands, they squatted in decorous fashion and did not uncouthly spray their water while standing.

It was only after darkness fell that Tanus ordered the bundles carried by the donkeys to be opened and the weapons they contained to be issued to the slave girls. Each of mem slept with his bow and his sword concealed under his sleeping-mat.

Tanus posted double sentries around the camp. After we had inspected them and made sure that they were all well placed and fully alert, Tanus and I slipped away, and in the darkness returned to the port of Safaga. I led him through the dark streets to the house of Tiamat. The merchant was expecting our arrival, and had a meal laid ready to welcome us. I could see that he was excited to meet Tanus.

'Your fame proceeds you, Lord Harrab. I knew your father. He was a man indeed,' he greeted Tanus. 'Although I have heard persistent rumours that you died in die desert not a week since, and that even at this moment your body lies with the morticians on the west bank of the Nile, undergoing the ritual forty days of the embalming process, you are welcome in my humble house.'

While we enjoyed the feast he provided, Tanus questioned him at length on all he knew of the Shrikes, and Tiamat answered him freely and openly.

At last Tanus glanced at me and I nodded. Tanus turned back to Tiamat and said, 'You have been a generous friend to us, and yet we have been less than honest with you. This was from necessity, for it was of vital importance that no one should guess at our real purpose in mis endeavour. Now I will tell you that it is my purpose to smash the Shrikes and deliver their leaders up to Pharaoh's justice and wrath.'

Tiamat smiled and stroked his beard. 'This comes as no great surprise to me,' he said, 'for I have heard of the charge mat Pharaoh placed upon you at the festival of Osiris. That and your patent interest in those murderous bandits left little doubt in my mind. I can say only that I will sacrifice to the gods for your success.'

'To succeed, I will need your help again,' Tanus told him.

'You have only to ask.'

'Do you think that the Shrikes are as yet aware of our caravan?'

'All of Safaga is talking about you,' Tiamat replied. 'Yours is the richest cargo that has arrived this season. Eighty beautiful slave girls will be worth at least a thousand gold rings each in Karnak.' He chuckled and shook his head at the joke. 'You can be certain that the Shrikes already know all about you. I saw at least three of their spies in the crowd at the waterfront watching you. You can expect them to meet you and make their demands even before you reach the first pass.'

When we rose to take our leave, he walked with us as far as his own door. 'May all the gods attend your endeavours. Not only Pharaoh, but every living soul in the entire kingdom will be in your debt if you can stamp out this terrible scourge that threatens to destroy our very civilization, and drive us all back into the age of barbarism.'

IT WAS STILL COOL AND DARK THE FOLLOWING morning when die column started out. Tanus, with Lanata slung over his shoulder, was at die head of die caravan, widi myself, in all my womanly grace and beauty, following him closely. Behind us the donkeys were harnessed hi single file, moving nose to tail down the middle of die well-beaten track. The slave girls were hi double columns on die outer flanks of the file of donkeys. Their weapons were concealed in die packs upon the backs of die animals. Any of die men needed only to reach out to lay a hand upon die hilt of his sword.

Kratas had split his escort into diree squads of six men each, commanded by Astes, Remrem and himself. Astes and Remrem were warriors of renown and more than deserving of dieir own commands. However, bodi of diem had, on numerous occasions, refused promotion in order to remain with Tanus. That was die quality of loyalty mat Tanus inspired in all who served under him. I could not help thinking yet again what a pharaoh he would have made.

The escorts now slouched along beside die column, making every attempt to forsake their military bearing. It would seem to die spies who were certainly watching us from die hills that they were diere solely to prevent any of die slaves from escaping. In north diey were fully occupied widi preventing their charges from breaking into marching step and sounding off a chorus of one of die rowdy regimental songs.

'You diere, Kernit!' I heard Remrem challenge one of diem. 'Don't take such long steps, man, and swing that fat arse of yours a little! Try to make yourself alluring.'

'Give me a kiss, captain,' Kernit called back, 'and I'll do anything you say.'

The heat was rising, and the mirage was beginning to make die rocks dance. Tanus turned back to me. 'Soon I will call our first rest-stop. One cup of water for each?'

'Good husband,' I interrupted him, 'your friends have arrived. Look ahead!'

Tanus turned back, and instinctively gripped die stock of die great bow that hung at his side. 'And what fine fellows they are, too!'

At that moment our column was winding through the first foothills below the desert plateau. On either hand we were walled in by the steep sides of the rocky hills. Now three men stood in the track ahead of us. The one who led them was a tall, menacing figure swathed in the woollen robe of the desert traveller, but his head was bared His skin was very dark, and deeply pitted with the scars of the smallpox. He had a nose that was hooked like the beak of a vulture, and his right eye was an opaque jelly from the blind-worm that burrows deep into the eyeball of its victims.

'I know the one-eyed villain,' I said softly, so that Tanus alone could hear. 'His name is Shufti. He is the most notorious of the barons of the Shrikes. Be wary of him. The lion is a gentle beast compared to this one.'

Tanus gave no sign of having heard me, but lifted his right hand to show that it held no weapon, and called out cheerfully, 'May all your days be scented with jasmine, gentle traveller, and may a loving wife welcome you at your own front door when at last your journey is done.'

'May your water-skins stay filled and cool breezes fan your brow when you cross the Thirsty Sands,' Shufti called back, and he smiled. That smile was fiercer than a leopard's snarl, and his single eye glared horribly.

'You are kind, my noble lord,' Tanus thanked him. 'I would like to offer you a meal and the hospitality of my camp, but I pray your indulgence. We have a long road before us, and we must pass on.'

'Just a little more of your time, my fine Assyrian.' Shufti moved forward to block the path. 'I have something which you need, if you and your caravan are ever, to reach the Nile in safety.' He held up a small object.

'Ah, a charm!' Tanus exclaimed. 'You are a magician, perhaps? What manner of charm is this you are offering me?'

'A feather.' Shufti was still smiling. "The feather of a shrike.'

Tanus smiled, as though to humour a child. 'Very well then, give me this feather and I'll delay you no longer.'

'A gift for a. gift. You must give me something in return,' Shufti told him. 'Give me twenty of your slaves. Then, when you return from Egypt, I will meet you on the road again and you will give me half the profits from the sale of the other sixty.'

'For a single feather?' Tanus scoffed. "That sounds like a sorry bargain to me.'

"This is no ordinary feather. It is a shrike's feather,' Shufti pointed out. 'Are you so ill-informed that you have never heard of that bird?'

'Let me see this magical feather.' Tanus walked towards him with his right hand outstretched, and Shufti came forward to meet him. At the same time Kratas, Remrem and Astes wandered up inquisitively, as though to examine the feather.

Instead of taking the gift from his hand, suddenly Tanus seized Shufti's wrist and twisted it up between his shoulder-blades. With a startled cry, Shufti fell to his knees and Tanus held him easily. At the same time Kratas and his men darted forward, taking the other two bandits by as much surprise as their chief. They knocked the weapons out of their hands, and dragged them to where Tanus stood.

'So, you little birds think to frighten Kaarik, the Assyrian, with your threats, do you? Yes, my fine vendor of feathers, I have heard of the Shrikes. I have heard that they are a flock of chattering, cowardly little fledglings, that make more noise than a flock of sparrows.' He twisted Shufti's arm more viciously, until the bandit yelled with pain and fell flat on his face. 'Yes, I have heard of the Shrikes, but have you heard of Kaarik, the terrible?' He nodded at Kratas, and quickly and efficiently they stripped the three Shrikes stark naked and pinned them spread-eagled upon the rocky earth.

'I want you to remember my name, and fly away like a good little shrike when next you hear it,' Tanus told him, and nodded to Kratas again. Kratas flexed the lash of his slave-whip between his fingers. It was of the same type as Rasfer's famous tool, whittled from the cured hide of a bull hippopotamus. Tanus held out his hand for it, and reluctantly Kratas handed it over to him.

'Don't look so sad, slave-master,' Tanus told him. 'I'll let you have your turn later. But Kaarik, the Assyrian, always takes the first spoonful from the pot.'

Tanus slashed the whip back and forth through the air, and it whistled like the wing of a goose in flight. Shufti squirmed where he lay, and twisted his head around to hiss at Tanus, 'You are mad, you Assyrian ox! Do you not. realize that I am a baron of the Shrike clan? You dare not do this to me?' His naked back and buttocks were stippled with pox scars.

Tanus lifted the whip on high, and then brought it down in a full-armed stroke with all his weight behind it. He laid a purple welt as fat as my forefinger across Shufti's back. So intense was the pain of it that the bandit's entire body convulsed and the ah- hissed out of his lungs, so that he could not scream. Tanus lifted the lash and then meticulously laid another ridged welt exactly parallel to the first, almost, but not quite, touching it. This time Shufti filled his lungs and let out a hoarse bellow, like a buffalo bull caught in a pitfall. Tanus ignored his struggles and his outraged roars, and worked on assiduously, laying on the strokes as though he were weaving a carpet.

When at last he was done, his victim's legs, buttocks and back were latticed with the fiery weals. Not one of the blows had overlaid another. The skin was intact and not a drop of blood had spilled out, but Shufti was no longer wriggling or screaming. He lay with his face in the dirt, his breath snoring in his throat, so that each exhalation raised a puff of dust. When Remrem and Kratas released him, he made no effort to sit up. He did not even stir.

Tanus tossed the whip to Kratas. "The next one is yours, slave-master. Let us see whdt a pretty pattern you can tattoo on his back.'

Kratas' strokes hummed with power, but lacked the finesse that Tanus had demonstrated. Soon the bandit's back was leaking like a flawed jar of red wine. The droplets of blood fell into the dust and rolled into tiny balls of mud.

Sweating lightly, Kratas was satisfied at last, and he passed the whip to Astes as he indicated the last victim. 'Give that one something to remind him of his manners, as well.'

Astes had an even more rustic touch than Kratas. By the time he had finished, the last bandit's back looked like a side of fresh beef that had been cut up by a demented butcher.

Tanus signalled the caravan to move forward, towards the pass through the red rock mountains. We lingered a while beside the three naked men.

At last Shufti stirred and lifted his head, and Tanus addressed him civilly. 'And so, my friend, I beg leave of you. Remember my face, and step warily when you see it again.' Tanus picked up the fallen shrike's feather and tucked it into his headband. 'I thank you for your gift. May all your nights be cradled in the arms of lovely ladies.' He touched his heart and lips in the Assyrian gesture of farewell, and I followed him up the road after the departing caravan.

I looked back before we dropped over the next rise. All three Shrikes were on their feet, supporting each other to remain upright. Even at this distance I could make out the expression on Shufti's face. It was hatred distilled to its essence.

'Well, you have made certain that we will have every Shrike this side of the Nile upon us, the moment we take our first step beyond the pass,' I told Kratas and his ruffians, and I could not have pleased them more, had I promised them a shipload of beer and pretty girls.

FROM THE CREST OF THE PASS WE looked back at the cool blue of the sea for the last time and then dropped down into that sweltering wilderness of rock and sand that stood between us and the Nile.

As we moved forward, the heat came at us like a mortal enemy. It seemed to enter through our mouths and nostrils as we gasped for breath. It sucked the moisture from our bodies like a thief. It dried out our skin and cracked it until our lips burst open like over-ripe figs. The rocks beneath our feet were hot, as though fresh from the pot-maker's kiln, and they scalded and blistered our feet, even through the leather soles of our sandals. It was impossible to continue the march during the hottest hours of the day. We lay in the flimsy shade of the linen tents that Tiamat had provided, and panted like hunting dogs after the chase.

When the sun sank towards the jagged rock horizon, we went on. The desert around us was charged with such a brooding nameless menace that even the high spirits of the Blue Crocodile Guards were subdued. The long slow column wound like a maimed adder through the black rock outcrops and tawny lion-coloured dunes, following the ancient road along which countless other travellers had passed before us.

When night fell at last, the sky came alive with such a dazzle of stars and the desert was lit so brightly that, from my place at the head of the caravan, I could recognize the shape of Kratas at the tail, although two hundred paces separated us. We marched on for half the night before Tanus gave the order to fall out. Then he had us up before dawn and we marched on until the heat-mirage dissolved the rocky outcrops around us and made the horizon swim so that it seemed to be moulded from melting pitch.

We saw no other sign of life, except that once a troop of dog-headed baboons barked at us from the cliffs of a stark rock tableland as we passed below them, and the vultures soared so high in the hot blue sky that they appeared to be but dust motes swirling in slow and deliberate circles high above us.

When we rested in the middle of the day the whirlwinds pirouetted and swayed with the peculiar grace of dancing houris across the plains, and the cupful of water that was our ration seemed to turn to steam in my mouth.

'Where are they?' Kratas growled angrily. 'By Seth's sweaty scrotum, I hope these little birds will soon puff up their courage and come in to roost.'

Although they were all tough veterans and inured to hardship and discomfort, nerves and tempers were wearing thin. Good comrades and old friends began to snarl at each other for no reason, and bicker over the water ration.

'Shufti is a cunning old dog,' I told Tanup. 'He will gather his forces and wait for us to come to him, rather than hurry to meet us. He will let us tire ourselves with the journey, and grow careless with our fatigue, before he strikes.'

On the fifth day I knew that we were approaching the oasis of Gallala when I saw that the dark cliffs ahead of us were riddled with the caves of ancient tombs. Centuries ago, the oasis had supported a thriving city, but then an earthquake had shaken the hills and damaged the wells. The water had dwindled to a few seeping drops. Even though the wells had been dug deeper to reach the receding water, and the earthen steps reached down to where the surface of the water was always in shade, the city had died. The roofless walls stood forlorn in the silence, and lizards sunned themselves in the courtyards where rich merchants had once dallied with their harems.

Our very first concern was to refill the water-skins. The voices of the men drawing water at the bottom of the well were distorted by the echoes in the deep shaft. While they were busy, Tanus and I made a swift tour of the ruined city. It was a lonely and melancholy place. In its centre was the dilapidated temple to the patron god of Gallala. The roof had fallen in and the walls were collapsing in places. It had but a single entrance through the crumbling gateway at the western end.

'This will do admirably,' Tanus muttered as he strode across it, measuring it with his soldier's eye for fortification and ambuscade. When I questioned him on his intentions, he smiled and shook his head. 'Leave that part of it to me, -old friend. The fighting is my business.'

As we stood at the centre of the temple I noticed the tracks of a troop of baboons in the dust at our feet, and I pointed them out to Tanus. "They must come to drink at the wells,' I told him.

That evening when we sat around the small, smoky fires of dried donkey dung in the ancient temple, we heard the baboons again, the old bull apes barking a challenge in the hills that surrounded the ruined city. Their voices boomed back and forth along the cliffs, and I nodded at Tanus across the fire. 'Your friend, Shufti, has arrived at last. His scouts are in the hills up there watching us now. It is they who have alarmed the baboons.'

'I hope you are right. My blackguards are close to mutiny. They know mis is all your idea, and if you are wrong, I might have to give them your head or your backside to appease them,' Tanus growled, and went to speak to Astes at the neighbouring cooking-fire.

Swiftly a new mood infected the camp as they realized that the enemy was near. The scowls evaporated and the men grinned at each other in the firelight, as they surreptitiously tested the edges of the swords concealed beneath the sleeping-mats on which they sat. However, they were canny veterans and they went through the motions of normal caravan life, so as not to alert the watchers in the dark hills above us. At last we were all bundled on our mats, and the fires died down, but none of us slept. I could hear them coughing and fidgeting restlessly all around me in the dark. The long hours drew out, and through the open roof I watched the great constellations of the stars wheel in stately splendour overhead, but still the attack never came.

Just before dawn, Tanus made his round of the sentries for the last time, and then, on his way back to his place beside the cooling ashes of last night's fire, he stopped by my mat for a moment and whispered, 'You and your friends the baboons, you deserve each other. All of you bark at shadows.'

'The Shrikes are here. I can smell them. The hills are full of them,' I protested.

'All you can smell is the promise of breakfast,' he grunted. He knows how I detest the suggestion that I am a glutton. Rather than reply to such callow humour, I went out into the darkness to relieve myself behind the nearest pfle of ruins.

As I squatted there, a baboon barked again, the wild, booming cry shattering the preternatural silences of that last and darkest of the night-watches. I turned my head in that direction and heard, faint and faraway, the sound of metal strike rock, as though a nervous hand had dropped a dagger up there on the ridge, or a careless shield had brushed against a granite outcrop as an armed man hurried to take up his station before the dawn found him out.

I smiled complacently to myself; there are few pleasures in my life compared to that of making Tanus eat his words. As I returned to my mat, I whispered to the men mat I passed, 'Be ready. They are here,' and I heard my warning passed on from mouth to sleepless mouth.

Above me the stars began to fade away, and the dawn crept up on us as stealthily as a lioness stalking a herd of oryx. Then abruptly I heard a sentry on the west wall of the temple whistle, a liquid warble that might have been the cry of a nightjar except that we all knew better, and instantly a stir ran through the camp. It was checked by the low but urgent whispers of Kratas and his officers, 'Steady, the Blues! Remember your orders. Hold your positions!' and not a man stirred from his sleeping-mat.

Without rising, and with my shawl masking my face, I turned my head slowly and looked up at the crests of the cliffs that stood higher than the temple walls. The shark's-tooth silhouette of the granite hills began to alter most subtly. I had to blink my eyes to be certain of what I was seeing. Then slowly I turned my head in a full circle, and it was the same in whichever direction I looked. The skyline all about us was picketed with the dark and menacing shapes of armed men. They formed an unbroken palisade around us through which no fugitive could hope to escape.

I knew then why Shufti had delayed his retaliation so long. It would have taken him all this time to gather together such an army of thieves. There must be a thousand or more of them, although in the poor light it was not possible to count their multitudes. We were outnumbered at least ten to one, and I felt my spirits quail. It was poor odds, even for a company of the Blues.

The Shrikes stood as still as the rocks around them, and I was alarmed at this evidence of their discipline. I had expected them to come streaming down upon us in an untidy rabble, but they were behaving like trained warriors. Their stillness was more menacing and intimidating than any wild shouting and brandishing of weapons would have been.

As the light strengthened swiftly, we could make them out more clearly. The first rays of the sun glanced off the bronze of their shields and their bared sword-blades, and struck darts of light into our eyes. Every one of them was muffled up, a scarf of black wool wound around each head so that only their eyes showed in the slits, eyes as malevolent as those of the ferocious blue sharks that terrorize the waters of the sea we had left behind us.

The silence drew out until I thought that my nerves might tear and my heart burst with the pressure of blood within it. Then suddenly a voice rang out, shattering the dawn silence and echoing along the cliffs. 'Kaarik! Are you awake?'

I recognized Shufti then, despite the scarf that masked him. He stood in the centre of the west wall of the cliff, where the road cut through it. 'Kaarik!' he called again. 'It is time for you to pay what you owe me, but the price has risen. I want everything now. Everything!' he repeated, and flung aside the scarf so that his pock-marked features were revealed. 'I want everything you have, including your stupid and arrogant head.'

Tanus rose from his mat and threw aside his sheepskin rug. "Then you will have to come down and take % from me,' he shouted back, and drew his sword.

Shufti raised his right arm, and his blind eye caught the light and gleamed like a silver coin. Then he brought his arm down abruptly.

At his signal, a shout went up from the ranks of men that lined the high ground, and they lifted their weapons and shook them to the pale yellow dawn sky. Shufti waved them forward and they streamed down the cliffs in a torrent into the narrow valley of Gallala.

Tanus raced to the centre of the temple court where the ancient inhabitants had raised a tall stone altar to their patron Bes, the dwarf god of music and drunkenness. Kratas and his officers ran to join him, while the slave girls and I crouched on our mats and covered our heads, wailing with terror. '

Tanus leaped up on to the altar, and went down on one knee as he flexed the great bow Lanata. It took all of his strength to string it, but when he stood erect again it shimmered in its coils of silver electrum wire, as though it were a living thing. He reached over his shoulder and drew an arrow from the quiver on his back and faced the main gateway through which the horde of Shrikes must enter.

Below the altar, Kratas had drawn up his men into a single rank, and they also had strung their bows and faced the entrance to the square. They made a pitifully small cluster around the altar, and I felt a lump rise in my throat as I watched them. They were so heroic and undaunted. I would compose a sonnet in their honour, I decided on a sudden impulse, but before I could find the first line, the head of the mob of bandits burst howling through the ruined gateway.

Only five men abreast could climb the steep stairway into the opening, and the distance to where Tanus stood on the altar was less than forty paces. Tanus drew and let his first arrow fly. That single arrow killed three men. The first of them was a tall rogue dressed in a short kilt, with long greasy tresses of hair streaming down his back. The arrow took him in the centre of his naked chest and passed through his torso as cleanly as though he were merely a target cut from a sheet of papyrus.

Slick with the blood of the first man, the arrow struck the man behind him in the throat. Although the force of it was dissipating now, it still went through his neck and came out behind him, but it could not drive completely through. The fletchings at the back of the shaft snagged in his flesh, while the barbed bronze arrow-head buried itself in the eye of the third man who had crowded up close behind him. The two Shrikes were pinned together by the arrow, and they staggered and thrashed about in the middle of the gateway, blocking the opening to those who were trying to push then-way past them into the courtyard. At last the arrow-head tore out of the third man's skull, with the eye impaled .upon the point. The two stricken men fell apart, and a throng of screaming bandits poured over them into the square. The small band around the altar met them with volley after volley of arrows, shooting them down so that then- corpses almost blocked the opening, and those coming in from behind were forced to scramble over the mounds of dead and wounded.

It could not last much longer, the pressure of warriors from behind was too great and their numbers too overwhelming. Like the bursting of an earthen dyke unable to stem the rising flood of the Nile, they forced the opening, and a solid mass of fighting men poured into the square and surrounded the tiny band around the altar of the god Bes.

It was too close quarters for the bows now, and Tanus and his men cast them aside and drew their swords. 'Horus, arm me!' Tanus shouted his battle-cry, and the men around him took it up, as they went to work. Bronze rang on bronze as the Shrikes tried to come at them, but they had formed a ring around the altar, facing outwards. No matter from which side they came, the Shrikes were met by the point and the deadly sword-play of the guards. The Shrikes were not short of courage, and they pressed in serried ranks around the altar. As one of them was cut down, another leaped into his place.

I saw Shufti in the gateway. He was holding back from the fray, but cursing his men and; ordering them into the thick of it with horrid howls of rage. His blind eye rolled in its socket as he exhorted them, 'Get me the Assyrian alive. I want to kill him slowly and hear him squeal.

The bandits completely ignored the women who cowered on their sleeping-mats, their heads covered, waiting and screeching with terror. I wailed with the best of them, but the struggle in the centre of the yard was too uncomfortable for my liking. By this time, there were over a thousand men crowded into the confined space. Choking in the dust, I was kicked and pummelled by the sandalled feet of the battling horde, until I managed to crawl away into a corner of the wall.

One of the bandits turned aside from the fighting and stooped over me. He tore the shawl away from my face and for a moment stared into my eyes. 'Mother of Isis,' he breathed, 'you are beautiful!'

He was an ugly devil with gaps in his teeth and a scar down one cheek. His breath stank like a sewerage gutter as he lusted into my face. 'Wait until this business is over. Then I'll give you something to make you squeal with joy,' he promised, and twisted my face up to his. He kissed me.

My natural instinct was to pull away from him, but I resisted it and returned his kiss. I am an artist of the love arts, for I learned my skills in the boys' quarters of Lord Intef. My kisses can turn a man to water.

I kissed him with all my skill, and he was transfixed by it. While he was still paralysed, I slipped my dagger from its sheath beneath my blouse and slid the point through the gap between his fifth and sixth ribs. When he screamed, I muffled the sound with my own lips and clasped him lovingly to my breast, twisting the blade in his heart until, with a shudder, he relaxed completely against me, and I let him roll over on his side.

I looked around me quickly. In the few moments that it had taken me to dispose of my admirer, the plight of the small group of guards around the altar had worsened. There were gaps in their single rank. Two men were down and Amseth was wounded. He had switched his sword into his left hand, while the other arm hung bleeding at his side.

With a rush of relief I saw that Tanus was still untouched, still laughing with the savage joy of it all as he plied the sword.'But he had left it too late to spring the trap, I thought. The eitee band of Shrikes were crowded into the square and bafying around him like hounds around a treed leopard. Withiri' moments he and his gallant little band must be cut down.

Even as I watched, Tanus killed another of them with a straight thrust through the throat, and then he jerked his blade free of the clinging flesh and stepped back. He threw back his head and let loose a bellow that rang from the crumbling walls around us. 'On me, the Blues!'

On the instant every one of the cringing slave girls leapt up and flung aside their trailing robes. Their swords were already bared and they fell upon the rear of the robber horde. The surprise was complete and overwhelming. I saw them kill a hundred or more before their victims even realized what they were about, and could rally to meet them. But when they did turn to face this fresh attack, they exposed their backs to Tanus and his little band.

They fought well, I'll give them that, though I am sure it was terror, rather than courage, that drove them on. However, their ranks were too close-packed to allow them free play with the sword, and the men they faced were some of the finest troops in Egypt, which is to say the entire world.

For a while yet they held on. Then Tanus bellowed again from the midst of the turmoil. For a moment I thought it was another command, then I realized that it was the opening bar of the battle hymn of the guards. Though I had often heard it spoken in awe that the Blues always sang when the battle was at its height, I had never truly believed it possible. Now all around me the song was taken up by a hundred straining voices:

We are the Breath of Horus,

hot as the desert wind,

we are the reapers of men?

Their swords beat an accompaniment to the words, like the clangour of hammers on the anvils of the underworld. In the face of such arrogant ferocity the remaining Shrikes wavered, and then suddenly it was no longer a battle, but a massacre.

I have seen a pack of wild dogs surround and tear into a flock of sheep. This was worse. Some of the Shrikes threw down their swords and fell to their knees begging quarter. There was no mercy shown them. Others tried to reach the gateway, but guardsmen waited for them there, sword in hand.

I danced on the fringes of the fighting, screaming across at Tanus, trying to make myself heard in the uproar, 'Stop them. We need prisoners.'

Tanus could not hear me, or more likely he simply ignored my entreaties. Singing and laughing, with Kratas at his left hand and Remrem on the other, he tore into them. His beard was soaked with the spurted blood of those he had killed, and his eyes glittered in the running red mask of his face with a madness I had never seen in them before. Joyous Hapi, how he thrived on the heady draught of battle!

'Stop it, Tanus! Don't kill them all!' This time he heard me. I saw the madness fade, and he was once more in control of himself.

'Give quarter to those who plead for it!' he roared, and the guards obeyed him. But in the end, out of the original thousand, fewer than two hundred Shrikes grovelled unarmed on the bloody stone flags and pleaded for their lives.

For a while I stood dazed and uncertain on the fringe of this carnage, and then from the corner of my eye I caught a furtive movement.

Shufti had realized that he could not escape through the gateway. He threw down his sword and darted to the east wall of the court, close to where I stood. This was the most ruined section, where the wall was reduced to half its original height. The tumbled mud-bricks formed a steep ramp, and Shufti scrambled up it, slipping and falling, but rapidly nearing the top of the wall. It seemed that I was the only one who had noticed his flight. The guards were busy with their other prisoners, and Tanus had his back turned to me as he directed the mopping-up of the shattered enemy.

Almost without thinking, I stooped and picked up half ai mud-brick. As Shufti topped the wall, I hurled the brick up at him with all my strength. It thumped against the back off his skull with such force that he dropped to his knees, and! then the treacherous pile of loose rubble gave way beneath) him and he came sliding back down in a cloud of dust to) land at my feet, only half-conscious.

I pSunced upon him where he lay, straddling his chest,, and I firessed the point of my dagger to his throat. He stared! up at me, his single eye still glazed with the crack I hadl dealt him.

'Lie still,' I cautioned him, 'or I will gut you like a fish."

I had lost my shawl and head-dress, and my hair hadl come down on to my shoulders. He recognized me then,, which was no surprise. We had met often, but in differentt circumstances.

'Taita, the eunuch!' he mumbled. 'Does Lord Intef know what you are about?'

'He will find out soon enough,' I assured him, andi pricked him until he grunted, 'but you will not be the one to enlighten him.'

Without removing the point from his throat, I shouted to two of the nearest guards to take him. They flipped him on to his face and bound his wrists together with linen twine before they dragged him away.

Tanus had seen me capture Shufti, and he strode across to me now, stepping over the dead and wounded. 'Good throw, Taita! You have forgotten nothing that I taught you.' He clapped me on the back so hard that I staggered. 'There is plenty of work for you still. We've lost four men killed, and there are at least a dozen wounded.'

'What about their camp?' I asked, and he stared at me.

'Whatcamp?'

'A thousand Shrikes did not spring up from the sands like desert flowers. They must have pack-animals and slaves with them. Not far from here, either. You must not let them escape. Nobody must escape to tell the tale of today's battle.

None of them must be allowed to carry the news to Karnak that you are still alive.'

'Sweet Isis, you are right! But how will we find them?' It was obvious that Tanus was still bemused with battle lust. Sometimes I wondered what he would do without me.

'Back-track them,' I told him impatiently. 'A thousand pairs of feet will have trodden a road for us to follow back to where they came from.'

His expression cleared, and he hailed Kratas across the length of the temple. 'Take fifty men. Go with Taita. He will lead you to their base-camp.'

'The wounded?' I began to protest. I had enjoyed enough fighting for one day, but he brushed my objections aside. 'You are the best tracker I have. The wounded can wait for your care, my ruffians are all as tough as fresh buffalo steaks, very few of them will die before you return.'

FINDING THEIR CAMP WAS AS SIMPLE AS I had made it sound. With Kratas and fifty men following me closely, made a wide cast around the city, and behind the first line of hills I picked up the broad track that they had made as they came in and deployed to surround us. We followed it back at a trot, and had covered less than a mile before we topped a rise and found the camp of the Shrikes in the shallow valley below us.

Their surprise was complete. They had left fewer than twenty men to guard the donkeys and women. Kratas' men overran them at the first rush, and this time I was too late to save any prisoners. They spared only the women, and once the camp was secure, Kratas let his men have them as part of the traditional reward of the victors.

The women seemed to me to be a more comely selection than I would have expected in such company. I saw quite a few pretty faces amongst them. They submitted to the rituals of conquest with a remarkably good grace. I even heard some of them laughing and joking as the guardsmen threw dice for them. The vocation of camp-follower to a band of Shrikes could not be considered the most delicate calling, and I doubted that any of these ladies were blushing virgins. One by one, they were led by their new owners behind the cover of the nearest clump of rocks, where their skirts were lifted without further ceremony.

New moon follows the death of the old, spring follows winter, none of the ladies showed any signs of mourning for their erstwhile spouses. Indeed, it seemed probable that new and perhaps lasting relationships were being struck up here on the desert sand.

For myself, I was more interested in the pack-donkeys and what they carried. There were over a hundred and fifty of theses ;and most of them were sturdy animals in prime condition which would fetch good prices in the market at Karnak or Safaga. I reckoned that I should be entitled to at least a centurion's share when the prize money was divided up. After all, I had already dispensed large amounts of my own savings in the furtherance of this enterprise, and should be entitled to some compensation. I would speak seriously to Tanus about it, and could expect his sympathy. His is a generous spirit.

By the time we returned to the city of Gallala, leading the captured pack-animals laden with booty and followed by a straggle of women who had attached themselves quite naturally to their new menfolk, the sun had set.

One of the smaller ruined buildings near the wells had been turned into a field hospital. There I worked through the night, by the light of torch and oil lamp, sewing together the wounded guardsmen. As always, I was impressed by their stoicism, for many of their wounds were grave and painful. None the less, I lost only one of my patients before dawn broke. Amseth succumbed to loss of blood from the severed arteries in his arm. If I had attended to him immediately after the battle, instead of going off into the desert, I might have been able to save him. Even though the responsibility rested with Tanus, I felt the familiar guilt and sorrow in the face of a death that I might have prevented. However, I was confident that my other patients would heal swiftly and cleanly. They were all strong young men in superb condition.

There were no wounded Shrikes to attend. Their heads had been lopped off where they lay on the battlefield. As a physician, I was perturbed by this age-old custom of dealing with the wounded enemy, yet I suppose there was logic in it. Why should the victors waste their resources on the maimed vanquished, when it was unlikely they would have any value as slaves, and, if left alive, might recover to fight against them another day?

I worked all night with only a swallow of wine and a few mouthfuls of food taken with bloody hands to sustain me, and I was almost exhausted, but there was to be no rest for me yet. Tanus sent for me as soon as it was light

THE UNWOUNDED PRISONERS WERE BEING held in the temple of Bes. Their wrists were bound behind their backs, and they were squatting in long lines along the north wall, with the guards standing over them.

As soon as I entered the temple, Tanus called me to where he stood with a group of his officers. I was still in the dress of an Assyrian wife, so I lifted my blood-splattered skirts and picked my way across the floor littered with the debris of the battle.

'There are thirteen clans of Shrikes?isn't that what you told me, Taita?' Tanus asked, and I nodded. 'Each clan with its own baron. We have Shufti. Let's see if you recognize any of the other barons amongst this gathering of the fair and gentle people.' He indicated the prisoners with a chuckle, and took my arm to lead me down the ranks of squatting men.

I kept my face veiled so that none of the prisoners could recognize me. I glanced at each face as I passed, and recognized two of them. Akheku was head of the southern clan that preyed on the lands around Assoun, Elephantine and the first cataract, while Setek was from further north, the baron of Kom-Ombo.

It was clear that Shufti had gathered together whatever men he could find at such short notice. There were members of all the clans amongst those that we had captured. As I identified their leaders with a tap on the shoulder, they were dragged away.

When we reached the end of the line Tanus asked, 'Are you sure that you missed none of them?'

'How can I be sure? I told you that I never met all of the barons.'

Tanus shrugged. 'We could not hope to catch every little bird with one throw of the net. We must count ourselves fortunate that we have taken as many as three so soon. But let us look at the heads. We might be lucky enough to find a few more amongst them.'

This was a gruesome business that might have affected a more delicate stomach than mine, but human flesh, both dead and living, is my stock-in-trade. While we sat at our ease on the steps of the temple enjoying our breakfast, the severed heads were displayed to us, held up one at a time by the blood-caked hair, tongues lolling from between slack lips, and dull eyes powdered with dust staring into the other world whither they were bound.

My appetite was as healthy as ever, for I had eaten very little during the last two days. I devoured the delicious cakes and fruits that Tiamat had provided, while I pointed out those heads I recognized. There was a score or so of common thieves that I had encountered during the course of my work for Lord Intef, but only one more of the barons. He was Nefer-Temu of Qena, a lesser member of the ghastly brotherhood.

"That makes four of them,' Tanus grunted with satisfaction, and ordered Nefer-Temu's head to be placed on the pinnacle of the pyramid of skulls that he was erecting in front of the well of Gallala.

'So now we have accounted for four of them. We must find the other nine barons. Let us begin by putting the question to our prisoners.' He stood up briskly, and I hastily gulped down the remains of my breakfast and followed him reluctantly back into the temple of Bes.

Although I was the one who had made clear to Tanus the necessity of having informers from within the clans, and indeed it was I who had suggested how we should recruit them, still now that the time to act upon my suggestion had arrived, I was stricken with remorse and guilt. It was one thing to suggest ruthless action, but another thing entirely to stand by and watch it practised.

I made a feeble excuse that the wounded men in the makeshift hospital might need me, but Tanus brushed it away cheerfully. 'None of your fine scruples now, Taita. You will stay with me during the questioning to make certain that you overlooked none of your old friends on your first inspection.'

The questioning was swift and merciless, which I suppose was only appropriate to the character of the men we were dealing with.

To begin with, Tanus sprang up on to the storie altar of Bes, and, with the hawk seal in one hand, he looked down on the ranks of squatting prisoners with a smile %at must have chilled them, even though they sat in the full rays of the desert sun.

'I am the bearer of the hawk seal of Pharaoh Mamose, and I speak with his voice,' he told them grimly, as he held the statuette high. 'I am your judge and your executioner.' He paused and let his gaze pass slowly over their upturned faces. As each of them met his eyes, they dropped their own. Not one of them could hold firm before his penetrating scrutiny.

'You have been taken in the act of pillage and murder. If there is one of you who would deny it, let him stand before me and declare his innocence.'

He waited while the impatient shadows of the vultures, circling in the sky above us, criss-crossed the dusty courtyard. 'Come now! Speak up, you innocents.' He glanced upwards at the circling birds with their grotesque pink bald heads. 'Your brethren grow impatient for the feast. Let us not keep them waiting.'

Still none of them spoke or moved, and Tanus lowered the hawk seal. 'Your actions, which all here have witnessed, condemn you. Your silence confirms the verdict. You are guilty. In the name of the divine Pharaoh, I pass sentence upon you. I sentence you to death by beheading. Your severed heads will be displayed along the caravan routes. All law-abiding men who pass this way will see your skulls grinning at them from the roadside, and they will know that the Shrjke has met the eagle. They will know that the age of lawlessness has passed from the land, and that peace has returned to this very Egypt of ours. I have spoken. Pharaoh Mamose has spoken.'

Tanus nodded, and the first prisoner was dragged forward and forced to his knees before the altar.

'If you answer three questions truthfully, your life will be spared. You will be enlisted as a trooper in my regiment of the guards, with all the pay and privileges. If you refuse to answer the questions, your sentence will be carried out immediately,' Tanus told him.

He looked down on the kneeling prisoner sternly. 'This is the first question. What clan do you belong to?'

The condemned man made no reply. The blood oath of the Shrikes was too strong for him to break.

'This is the second question. Who is the baron that commands you?' Tanus asked, and still the man was silent.

'This is the third and the last question. Will you lead me to the secret places where your clan hides?' Tanus asked, and the man looked up at him, hawked in his throat and spat. His phlegm spattered yellow upon the stones. Tanus nodded to the guardsman who stood over him with the sword.

The stroke was clean and the head toppled on to the steps at the foot of the altar. 'One more head for the pyramid,' Tanus said quietly, and nodded for the next prisoner to be brought forward.

He asked the same three questions, and when the Shrike answered him with a defiant obscenity, Tanus nodded. This time the headsman mistimed the blow and the corpse flopped about with the neck only half-severed. It took three more strokes before the head bounced down the steps.

Tanus lopped twenty-three heads, I was counting them to distract myself from the waves of debilitating compassion that assailed me, until the first of the condemned men broke down. He was young, not much more than a boy. In a shrill voice he gabbled out the replies before Tanus could actually pose the three questions to him.

'My name is Hui. I am a blood-brother of the clan of Basti the Cruel. I know his secret places, and I will lead you to them.' Tanus smiled with grim satisfaction and gestured for the lad to be led away. 'Care for him well,' he warned his gaolers. 'He is now a trooper of the Blues, and your companion-in-arms.'

After the defection of one of them, it went more readily, although there were still many who defied Tanus. Some of them cursed him, while others laughed their defiance at him until the blade swept down, and their bravado ended with their very last breath that burst from the severed windpipe in a crimson gust.

I was filled with admiration for those who, after a base and despicable life, at the end chose to die with some semblance of honour. They laughed at death. I knew #iat I was not capable of that quality of courage. Offered that choice, I am certain that I would have responded as some of the weaker prisoners did.

'I am a member of the clan of Ur,' one confessed.

'I am of the clan of Maa-En-Tef, who is baron of the west bank as far as El Kharga,' said another, until we had informers to lead us to the strongholds of every one of the remaining robber barons, and a shoulder-high pile of recalcitrant heads to add to the pyramid beside the well.

ONE OF THE MATTERS TO WHICH TANUS and I had given much thought was the disposal of the three robber barons we had already captured, and the score of informers we had gleaned from the ranks of the condemned Shrikes. ___ We knew that the influence of the Shrikes was so pervasive that we dared not keep our captives in Egypt. There was not a prison secure enough to prevent Akh-Seth and his barons from reaching them, either to set them free by bribery or force, or to have them silenced by poison or some other unpleasant means. We knew that Akh-Seth was like an octopus whose head was hidden, but whose tentacles reached into every facet of our government and into the very fabric of our existence.

This was where my friend Tiamat, the merchant of Saf-aga, came into my reckoning.

Matching now as a unit of the Blue Crocodile Guards, and not as a slave caravan, we returned to the port on the Red Sea in half the time that it had taken us to reach Gallala. Our captives were hustled aboard one of Tiamat's trading vessels that was waiting for us in the harbour, and the captain set sail immediately for the Arabian coast, where Tiamat maintained a secure slave-compound on the small off-shore island of Jez Baquan, run by his own warders. The waters around the island were patrolled by packs of ferocious blue sharks. Tiamat assured us that no one who had attempted escape from the island had ever avoided both the vigilance of the warders and the appetites of the sharks.

Only one of our captives was not sent to the island. He was Hui from the clan of Basti the Cruel, the same youngster who had been the first to capitulate to the threat of execution. During the march to the sea, Tanus had kept the lad close to him and had turned all the irresistible force of his personality upon him. By this time Hui was his willing slave. This special gift of Tanus' to win loyalty and devotion from the most unlikely quarters never failed to amaze me. I was sure that Hui, who had buckled so swiftly under the threat of execution, would now willingly lay down his worthless life for Tanus.

Under Tanus' spell, Hui poured out every detail that he could remember of the clan to which he had once sworn a blood-oath. I listened quietly, with my writing-brush poised, as Tanus questioned him and I recorded all he had to tell us.

We learned that the stronghold of Basti the Cruel was in the fastness of that awful desert of Gebel-Umm-Bahari, on the summit of one of the flat-topped mountains that was protected by sheer cliffs on every side. Hidden and impregnable, but less than two days' march from the east bank of the Nile and the busy caravan routes that ran along its banks, it was the perfect nest for the raptor.

"There is one path to the top, cut like a stairway from the rock. It is wide enough for only one man to climb at a time,' Hui told us.

"There is no other way to the summit?' Tanus asked, and Hui grinned and laid his finger along his nose in a conspir-atory gesture.

'There is another route. I have used it often, to return to the mountain after I had deserted my post to visit a lady Mend. Basti would have had me killed if he had known I was missing. It is a dangerous climb, but a dozen godd men could make it and hold the top of the cliff while the main force came up the pathway to them. I will lead you up it, Akh-Horus.'

It was the first time that I heard the name. Akh-Horus, the brother of the great god Horus. It was a good name for Tanus. Naturally, Hui and our other captives could not know Tanus' real identity. They knew only in their simple way that Tanus must be some kind of god. He looked like a god and he fought like a god, and he invoked the nametrf Horus in the midst of battle. So, they had reasoned, he must be the brother of Horus.

Akh-Horus! It was a name that all Egypt would come to know well in the months ahead. It would be shouted from hilltop to hilltop. It would be carried along the caravan routes. It would travel the length of the river on the lips of the boatmen, from city to city, and from kingdom to kingdom. The legend would grow up around the name, as the accounts of his deeds were repeated and exaggerated at each telling.

Akh-Horus was the mighty warrior who appeared from nowhere, sent by his brother Horus to continue the eternal struggle against evil, against Akh-Seth, the lord of the Shrikes.

Akh-Horus! Each time the people of Egypt repeated the name, it would fill their hearts with fresh hope.

All that was in the future as we sat in the garden of Tia-mat the merchant. Only I knew how hot Tanus was for Basti, and how eager to lead his men into the Gebel-Umm-Bahari to hunt him down. It was not only that Basti was the most rapacious and pitiless of all the barons. There was much more to it than that. Tanus had a very personal score to settle with that bandit.

From me, Tanus had learned that Basti had been the particular instrument that Akh-Seth had used to destroy the fortune of Pianki, Lord Harrab, Tanus' father.

'I can lead you up the cliffs of Gebel-Umm-Bahari,' Hui promised. 'I can deliver Basti into your hands.'

Tanus, was silent awhile in the darkness as he savoured that promise. We sat and listened to the nightingale singing at the bottom of Tiamat's garden. It was a sound totally alien from the evil and desperate affairs that we were discussing. After a while Tanus sighed and dismissed Hui.

'You have done well, lad,' he told him. 'Fulfil your promise, and you will find me grateful.'

Hui prostrated himself, as though before a god, and Tanus nudged him irritably with his foot. 'Enough of that nonsense. Away with you now.'

This recent, unlooked-for elevation to the godhead embarrassed Tanus. No one could ever accuse him of being either modest or humble, but he was at least a pragmatist, with noi false illusions of his own station; he never aspired to become either a pharaoh or a divine, and he was always short with any servility or obsequious behaviour from those around him.

As soon as the lad was gone, Tanus turned back to me. 'So often I lie awake in the night and consider all that you have told me about my father. I ache in every fibre of my body and soul for revenge against the one who drove him into penury and disgrace and hounded him to his death. I can barely restrain myself. I am filled by the desire to abandon this devious way that you have devised of trapping Akh-Seth. Instead, I long to seek him out directly, and tear out his foul heart with my bare hands.'

'If you do that, you will lose everything,' I said. 'You know that well. Do it my way and you will restore not only your own reputation, but that of your noble father into the bargain. My way, you will retrieve the estate and the fortune that was stolen from you. My way will not only give you your full measure of revenge, but will also lead you back to Lostris and the fulfilment of the vision that I divined for the pah- of you in the Mazes of Ammon-Ra. Trust me, Tanus. For your sake and the sake of my mistress, trust me.'

'If I don't trust you, then who can I trust?' he asked, and touched my arm. 'I know you are right, but I have always lacked patience. For me the swift and direct road has always been easiest.'

'For the time being, put Akh-Seth out of your mind. Think only of the next step along the devious way that we must travel together. Think of Basti the Cruel. It was Basti who destroyed your father's trade caravans as they returned from the East. For five seasons, not one of the caravans of Lord Harrab ever returned to Karnak. They were all attacked and looted along the road. It was Basti who destroyed your father's copper-mines at Sestra and murdered the engineers, and their slave workers. Since then those rich veins of ore have lain untapped. It was Basti who systematically pillaged your father's estates along the Nile, who slaughtered his slaves in the fields and burned the crops, until in the end, only weeds grew in Lord Harrab's fields, and he was forced to sell them at a fraction of their real worth.'

'All that may be true, but it was Akh-Seth who gave Basti his orders.'

'No one will believe that. Pharaoh will not believe that, unless he hears Basti confess it,' I told him impatiently. 'Why are you always so stubborn? We have gone over this a hundred times. The barons first, and then at last the head of the snake, Akh-Seth.'

'Yours is the voice of wisdom, I know it. But it is hard to bear the waiting. I long for my revenge. I long to cleanse the stain of sedition and treason from my honour, and I long?oh, how I long for Lostris!'

He leaned across and clasped my shoulder with a grip that made me wince. 'You have done enough here, old friend. I could never have accomplished so much without you. If you had not come to find me, I might still be sodden with drink and lying in the embrace of some stinking whore. I owe you more than I can ever repay, but I must send you away now. You are needed elsewhere. Basti is my meat, and I don't need you to share the feast with me. You will not be coming with me to Gebel-Umm-Bahari. I am sending you back where you belong?where I also belong, but where I cannot be?at the side of the Lady Lostris. I envy you, old friend, I would give up my hope of immortality to be going to her in your place.'

I protested most prettily, of course. I swore that all I wanted was another chance at those villains, and that I was his companion and that I would be seriously aggrieved if he would not give me a place at his side in the next campaign. All the time I was secure in the knowledge that when Tanus set his mind on a course of action he was adamant and could not easily be dissuaded, except very occasionally by his friend and adviser, Taita the slave.

The truth was that I had enjoyed my fill of wild heroics and people trying to kill me. I was not by nature a soldier, not some insensitive clod of a trooper. I hated the rigours of campaigning in the desert. I could not bear another week of heat and sweat and flies without even a glimpse of the sweet green waters of Mother Nile. I longed for the feel of clean linen against my freshly bathed and anointed skin. I missed my mistress more than I could express in mere words. Our quiet, civilized life in the painted rooms on the Island Of Elephantine, our music and long, leisurely conversations together, my pets and my scrolls, all these exerted an irresistible draw upon me.

Tanus was right, he no longer needed me, and my place was with my mistress. However, to acquiesce too readily to his orders might lower his opinion of me, and I did not want that either.

At last I allowed him to convince me, and, concealing my eagerness, I began my preparations for my return to Elephantine.

TANUS HAD ORDERED KRATAS BACK TO Karnak, to assemble and bring up reinforcements for the expedition into the desert of Gebel-Umm-Bahari. I was to travel under his protection as far as Karnak, but taking leave of Tanus was not a simple matter. Twice when I had already left the house of Tiamat to join Kratas where he waited for me on the outskirts of the town, Tanus called me back to give me another message to take to my mistress.

'Tell her that I think of her every hour of every day!' 'You have already given me that message,' I protested. 'Tell her that my dreams are filled with images of her lovely face.'

'And that one also. I can recite them by heart. Give me something new,' I pleaded.

'Tell her that I believe the vision of the Mazes, that in a few short years we will be together?'

'Kratas is waiting for me. If you keep me here, how can I deliver your message?'

'Tell her that everything I do is for her. Every breath I draw is for her?' he broke off, and embraced me. 'The truth is, Taita, I doubt I can live another day without her.'

'Five years will pass like that single day. When next you meet her, your honour will be restored and you will once more stand high in the land. She can only love you the more for that.'

He released me. 'Take good care of her until I am able to assume that joyous duty from you. Now, away vyjth you. Speed to her side.'

"That has been my intention this hour past,' I told him wryly, and made good my escape.

With Kratas at the head of our small detachment, we made the journey to Karnak in under a week. Fearful of discovery by Rasfer or Lord Intef, I spent as little time in my beloved city as it took me to find passage on one of the barges heading southwards. I left Kratas busily recruiting from amongst the elite regiments of Pharaoh's guards the thousand good men that Tanus had demanded, and I went aboard the barge.

We had the north wind in our sails all the way, and we tied up at the wharf of East Elephantine twelve days after leaving Thebes. I was still dressed in the wig and garb of the priesthood, and nobody recognized me as I came ashore.

For the price of a small copper ring I hired a felucca to take me across the river to the royal island, and it put me down at the steps that led up to the water-gate to our garden in the harem. My heart pounded against my ribs as I bounded up the stairs. I had been away from my mistress far too long. It was at times such as these that I realized the full strength of my feelings for her. I was certain that Tanus' love was but a light river breeze in comparison to the khamsin of my own emotions.

One of Lostris' Cushite maidens met me at the gate, and tried to prevent me from entering. 'My mistress is unwell, priest. There is another doctor with her at this moment. She will not see you.'

'She will see me,' I told her, and stripped off my wig.

'Taita!? she squealed, and fell to her knees, frantically making the sign to ward off evil. 'You are dead. This is not you, but some evil apparition from beyond the grave.'

I brushed her aside and hurried to my mistress's private quarters, to be met at the doors by one of those priests of Osiris who consider themselves physicians.

'What are you doing here?' I demanded of him, appalled that one of these quacks had been anywhere near my mistress. Before he could answer, I bellowed at him, 'Out! Get out of here! Take your spells and charms and filthy potions, and don't come back.'

He looked as though he were prepared to argue, but I placed my hand between his shoulder-blades and gave him a running start towards the gate. Then I rushed to my mistress's bedside.