River god

The odour of sickness filled the chamber, sour and strong, and a wild grief seized me as I looked down at the Lady Lostris. She seemed to have shrunk in size, and her skin was pale as the ashes of an old camp-fire. She was asleep or in a coma, I could not be certain which, but there were dark, bruised shadows beneath her closed eyelids. Her lips had that dry and crusty look that filled me with dread.

I drew back the linen sheet that covered her and beneath it she was naked. I stared in horror at her body. The flesh had melted off her. Her limbs were thin as sticks and her ribs and the bones of her pelvis stuck out through the unhealthy skin, like those of drought-stricken kine. Tenderly, I placed my hand in her armpit to feel for the heat of fever, but her skin was cool. What kind of disease was this, I fretted. I had not encountered any like it before.

Without leaving her side, I yelled for her slave girls, but none of them had the courage to face the ghost of Taita. In the end I had to storm into their quarters and drag one of them whimpering from under her bed.

'What have you done to your mistress to bring her to this pass?' I kicked her fat backside to focus her attention on my question, and she whined and covered her face, so as not to have to look upon me.

'She will not eat. Barely a mouthful in all these weeks. Not since the mummy of Tanus, Lord Harrab was laid in his tomb in the Valley of the Nobles. She has even lost the child of Pharaoh that she was carrying in her womb. Spare me, kind ghost, I have done you no harm.'

I stared down at her in bewilderment for a moment, until I realized what had happened. My message of comfort to the Lady Lostris had never been delivered. Intuitively I guessed that the messenger whom Kratas had dispatched from Luxor to carry my letter to my mistress, had never reached Elephantine. He had probably become one more victim of the Shrikes, just another corpse floating down the river with an empty purse and a gaping wound in his throat. I hoped that my letter had fallen into the hands of some illiterate thief, and not been taken to Akh-Seth. There was no time to worry about that now.

I rushed back to my mistress's side and fell on my knees beside her bed. 'My darling,' I whispered, and stroked her haggard brow. 'It is me, Taita, your slave.'

She stirred slightly and mumbled something I could not catch. I realized that there was little time to spare; she was far-gone. It was over a month since Tanus' purported death. If the slave girl had spoken the truth, and she had indeed taken no food in all that time, then it was a wonder that she was still alive.

I leaped up again and ran to my own rooms. Despite my 'demise' nothing had been changed, and my medicine chest was in the alcove where I had left it. With it in my arms, I hurried back to my mistress. My hands were shaking as I lit a twig of the scorpion bush from the flame of the oil lamp beside her bed, and held the glowing end under her nose. Almost immediately she gasped and sneezed and struggled to avoid the pungent smoke.

'Mistress, it is I, Taita. Speak to me.'

She opened her eyes and I saw the dawn of pleasure in them swiftly extinguished by the fresh realization of her bereavement. She held out her thin, pale arms to me, and I took her to my breast.

'Taita,' she sobbed softly. 'He is dead. Tanus is dead. I cannot live without him.'

'No! No! He is alive. I come directly from him with messages of love and devotion from him to you.'

'You are cruel to mock me so. I know he is dead. His tomb is scaled?'

'It was .a, subterfuge to mislead his enemies,' I cried.

'Tanus lives. I swear it to you. He loves you. He waits for you.'

'Oh, that I could believe you! But I know you so well. You will lie to protect me. How can you tormept me with false promises? I hate you so?*' She tried to break from my arms.

'I swear it. Tanus is alive.'

'Swear on the honour of the mother you never knew. Swear on the wrath of all the gods.' She hardly had the strength to challenge me.

'On all these I swear, and on my love and duty to you, my mistress.'

'Can it be?' I saw the strength of hope flow back into her, and a faint flush of color bloom in her cheeks. 'Oh, Taita, can it truly be?'

'Would I look so joyful, if it were not? You know I love him almost as much as you do. Could I smile thus, if Tanus were truly dead?'

While she stared into my eyes, I launched into a recitation of all that had occurred since I had left her side so many weeks ago. I excluded only the details of the condition in which I had discovered Tanus hi the old shack in the swamps, and the female company I had found him keeping.

She said not a word, but her eyes never left my face as she devoured my words. Her pale face, almost translucent with starvation, glowed like a pearl as she listened to my account of our adventures at Gallala, of how Tanus led the fighting like a god, and of how he sang with the wild joy of battle.

'And so you see, it is true. Tanus is alive,' I ended, and she spoke for the first time since I had begun.

'If he is alive, then bring him to me. I will not eat a mouthful until I set my eyes upon his face once more.'

'I will bring him to your side as swiftly as I can send a messenger to him, if that is what you wish,' I promised, and reached for the polished bronze mirror from my chest.

I held the mirror before her eyes, and asked softly, 'Do you want him to see you as you are now?'

She stared at her own gaunt, hollow-eyed image.

'I will send for him today, if you order it. He could be here within a week, if you really want that.'

I watched her straggle with her emotions. 'I am ugly,' she whispered. 'I look like an old woman.'

'Your beauty is still there, just below the surface.'

'I cannot let Tanus see me like this.' Feminine vanity had triumphed over all her other emotions.

'Then you must eat.'

'You promise,' she wavered, 'you promise that he is still alive, and that you will bring him to me as soon as I am well again? Place your hand on my heart and swear it to me.'

I could feel her every rib and her heart fluttering like a trapped bird beneath my fingers. 'I promise,' I said.

'I will trust you this time, but if you are lying I will never trust you again. Bring me food!'

As I hurried to the kitchen, I could not help but feel smug. Taita, the crafty, had got his own way yet again.

I mixed a bowl of warm milk and honey. We would have to begin slowly, for she had driven herself to the very edge of starvation. She vomited up the contents of the first bowl, but was able to keep down the second. If I had delayed my return by another day, itmight have been too late.

SPREAD BY THE CHATTERING SLAVE GIRLS, the news of my miraculous return from the grave swept through the island like the smallpox.

Before nightfall Pharaoh sent Aton to fetch me to an audience. Even my old friend Aton was ??? strained and reserved in my presence. He leaped away nimbly when I tried to touch him, as though my hand might pass through his flesh like a puff of smoke. As he led me through the palace, slaves and nobles alike scurried out of my path, and inquisitive faces watched me from every window and dark comer as we passed.

Pharaoh greeted me with a curious mixture of respect and nervousness, most alien to a king and a god.

'Where have you been, Taita?' he asked, as though he did not really want to hear the answer.

I prostrated myself at his feet. 'Divine Pharaoh, as you yourself are part of the godhead, I understand that you ask that question to test me. You know that my lips are sealed. It would be sacrilege for me to speak of these mysteries, even to you. Please convey to the other deities who are your peers, and particularly to Anubis, the god of the cemeteries, that I have been true to the charge laid upon me. That I have kept the oath of silence imposed upon me. Tell them that I have passed the test that you set me.'

His expression glazed as he considered this, and he fidgeted nervously. I could see him forming question after question, and then discarding each of them in turn. I had left him no opening to exploit.

In the end he blurted out lamely, 'Indeed, Taita, you have passed the test I set you. Welcome back. You have been missed.' But I could see that all his suspicions were confirmed, and he treated me with that respect due to one who had solved the ultimate mystery.

I crawled closer to him and dropped my voice to a whisper. 'Great Egypt, you know the reason I have been sent back?'

He looked mystified, but nodded uncertainly. I came to my feet and glanced around suspiciously, as though I expected to be overlooked by supernatural forces. I made the sign against evil before I went on, 'The Lady Lostris. Her illness was caused by the direct influence of?' I could not say the name, but made the horn sign with two fingers, the sign of the dark god, Seth.

His expression changed from confusion to dread, and he shivered involuntarily and drew closer to me, as if for protection, as I went on, 'Before I was taken away, my mistress was already carrying in her womb the treasure of the House of Mamose when the Dark One intervened. Due to her illness, the son she was bearing you has been aborted from her womb.'

Pharaoh looked distraught. 'So that is the reason that she miscarried,' he began, and then broke off.

I picked up my cue smoothly. 'Never fear, Great Egypt, I have been sent back by forces greater than those of the Dark One to save her, so that the destiny that I foresaw in the Mazes of Ammon-Ra may run its allotted course. There will be another son to replace the one that was lost. Your dynasty will still be secured.'

'You must not leave the side of the Lady Lostris until she is well again.' His voice shook with emotion. 'If you save her and she bears me another son, you may ask from me whatever you wish, but if she dies?' he stopped as he considered what threat might impress one who had already returned from beyond, and in the end let it trail away.

'With your permission, Your Majesty, I shall go to her this instant.'

'This instant!'he agreed.'Go! Go!'

MY MISTRESS'S RECOVERY WAS SO SWIFT that I began to suspect that I had unwittingly invoked some force beyond my own comprehension, and I felt a superstitious awe at my own powers.

Her flesh filled out and firmed almost as I ??? watched. Those pitiful empty sacs of skin swelled into plump, round breasts once again, sweet enough to make the stone image of the god Hapi which stood at the doorway to her chamber burn with envy. Fresh young blood suffused the chalk of her skin until it glowed once more, and her laughter tinkled like the fountains of our water-garden.

Very soon it was impossible to keep her to her bed. Within three weeks of my return to Elephantine, she was playing games of toss with her handmaidens, dancing about the garden and leaping high to reach the inflated bladder above the heads of the others, until, fearful that she might overtax her returning strength, I confiscated the ball and ordered her back to her chamber. She" would obey me only after we had struck another bargain, and I had agreed to sing with her, or teach her the most arcane formulas of the bao board which would allow her to enjoy her first victory over Aton, who was an addict of the game.

Aton came almost every evening to enquire about my mistress's health on behalf of the king, and afterwards to play the board-game with us. Aton seemed to have decided at last that I was not a dangerous ghost, and although he treated me with a new respect, our old friendship survived my demise.

Each morning my Lady Lostris made me repeat my promise to her. Then she would reach for her mirror and study her reflection without the faintest trace of vanity, assessing every facet of her beauty to determine if it was ready yet to be looked upon by Lord Tanus.

'My hair looks like straw, and there is another pimple coming up on my chin,' she lamented. 'Make me beautiful again, Taita. For Tanus' sake make me beautiful.'

'You have done the damage to yourself, and then you call for Taita to make it better,' I grumbled, and she laughed and threw her arms around my neck.

'That's what you are here for, you old scallywag. To look after me.'

Each Evening when I mixed a tonic for her and brought the steaming bowl to her as she prepared for sleep, she would make me repeat my promise to her. 'Swear you will bring Tanus to me, just as soon as I am ready to receive him.'

I tried to ignore the difficulties and the dangers that this promise would bring upon us all. 'I swear it to you,' I repeated dutifully, and she lay back against the ivory headrest and went to sleep with a smile upon her face. I would worry about fulfilling my promise when the time came.

FROM ATON, PHARAOH HAD A FULL REPORT of Lostris' recovery and came in person to visit her. He brought her a new necklace of gold and lapis lazuli in the form of an eagle and sat until evening, playing word-games and setting riddles with her. When he was ready to leave, he called me to walk with him as far as his chambers.

'The change in her is extraordinary. It is a miracle, Taita.

When can I take her to bed again? Already she seems well enough to bear my son and heir.'

'Not yet, Great Egypt,' I assured him vehemently. 'The slightest exertion on the part of my mistress might trigger a relapse.' He no longer questioned my word, for now I spoke with all the authority of the once dead, although his previous awe of me had worn a little thin with familiarity.

The slave girls also were becoming accustomed to my resurrection, and were able to look at my face without having to make the sign. Indeed, my return from the underworld was no longer the most popular fare of the palace gossips. They had something else to keep them busy. This was die advent of Akh-Horus into the lives and consciousness of every person living in the land along the great river.

The first time I heard the name Akh-Horus whispered in the palace corridors, I did not immediately place it. The garden of Tiamat beside the Red Sea seemed so remote from the little world of Elephantine, and I had forgottetfcthe name that Hui had bestowed on Tanus. When, howeva, I heard the accounts of the extraordinary deeds ascribed to this demi-god, I realized who they were speaking about.

In a fever of excitement, I ran all the way back to the harem and found my mistress in the garden, besieged by a dozen visitors, noble ladies and royal wives, for she had so far recovered from her illness as to resume once more her role as court favourite.

I was so wrought up that I forgot my place as a mere slave, and to be rid of .them I was quite rude to the royal ladies. They flounced out of the garden squawking like a gaggle of offended geese, and my mistress rounded on me. "That was unlike you. What on earth has come over you, Taita?'

'Tanus!' I said the name like an incantation, and she forgot all her indignation and seized both my hands.

'You have news of Tanus! Tell me! Quickly, before I die of impatience.'

'News? Yes, I have news of him. What news! What extraordinary news. What unbelievable news!'

She dropped my hands and picked up her formidable silver fan. 'Stop your nonsense this instant,' she threatened me with it. 'I'll not put up with your teasing. Tell me, or I swear you'll have more lumps on your head than a Nubian has fleas.'

'Come! Let's go where nobody can hear us.' I led her down to the jetty and handed her into our little skiff. Out in the middle of the river we were safe from the flapping ears that lurked behind each corner of the palace walls.

"There is a fresh, clean wind blowing through the land,'

I told her. 'They call this wind Akh-Horus.'

'The brother of Horus,' she breathed it with reverence. 'Is this what they call Tanus now?'

'None of them know it is Tanus. They think he is a god.' 'He is a god,' she insisted. 'To me, he is a god.' 'That is how they see it also. If he were not a god, how then would he know where the Shrikes are skulking, how else would he march unerringly to their strongholds, how would he know instinctively where they are waiting to wayr lay the incoming caravans, and to surprise them in their own ambuscades?'

'Has he accomplished all these things?' she demanded in wonder.

'These deeds and a hundred others, if you can believe the wild rumours that are flying about the palace. They say that every thief and bandit in the land runs in terror of his life, that the clans of the Shrikes are being shattered one by one. They say that Akh-Horus sprouted wings, like those of an eagle, and flew up the inaccessible cliffs of Gebel-Umm-Bahari to appear miraculously in the midst of the clan of Basti the Cruel. With his own hands, he hurled five hundred of the bandits from the top of the cliffs?'

'Tell me more!' She clapped her hands, almost capsizing the skiff in her enthusiasm.

"They say that at every crossroads and beside every caravan route he has built tall monuments to his passing.' 'Monuments? What monuments are these?' 'Piles of human skulls, high pyramids of skulls. The heads of the bandits he has slain, as a warning to others.'

My mistress shuddered with delicious horror, but her face still shone. 'Has he killed so many?' she demanded.

'Some say he has slain five thousand, and some say fifty thousand. There are even some who say one hundred thousand, but I think those must be exaggerating a little.' 'Tell me more! More!'

"They say he has already captured at least six of the robber barons?'

'And chopped off their heads!' she anticipated me with ghoulish relish.

'No, they say that he has not killed them, but transformed them into baboons. They say he keeps them in a cage for his amusement.'

'Is all of this possible?' she giggled.

'For a god, anything is possible.'

'He is my god. Oh, Taita, when will you let me see him?'

'Soon,' I promised. 'Your beauty burns up brighter every day. Soon it will be fully restored.'

'In the meantime you must gather every story and every rumour of Akh-Horus and bring them to me.'

She sent me to the shipping wharf every day to question the crews of the barges coming down from theg north for news of Akh-Horus.

'They are saying now that nobody has ever seen the face of Akh-Horus, for he wears a helmet with a visor that covers all but his eyes. They say also that in the heat of battle the head of Akh-Horus bursts into flame, a flame that blinds his enemies,' I reported to her after one such visit.

'In the sunlight I have seen Tanus' hair seem to burn with a heavenly light,' my mistress confirmed.

On another morning I could tell her, "They say that he can multiply his earthly body like the images in a mirror, that he can be in many" different places at one time, for on the same day he can be seen in Qena and Kom-Ombo, a hundred miles apart.'

'Is that possible?' she asked, with awe.

'Some say this is not true. They say that he can cover these great distances only because he never sleeps. They say that in the night hours he gallops through the darkness on the back of a lion, and in the day he soars through the sky on the back of an enormous white eagle to fall upon his enemies when they least expect it.'

"That could be true.' She nodded seriously. 'I do not believe about the mirror images, but the lion and the eagle might be true. Tanus could do something like that. I believe it.'

'I think it more likely that everybody in Egypt is eager to set eyes upon Akh-Horus, and that the desire is father to the act. They see him behind every bush. As to the speed of his travels, well, I have marched with the guards and I can vouch for?' She would not allow me to finish, but interrupted primly.

"There is no romance in your soul, Taita. You would doubt that the clouds are the fleece of Osiris' flocks, and that the sun is the face of Ra, simply because you cannot reach up and touch them. I, for my part, believe Tanus is capable of all these things.' Which assertion put an end to the argument, and I hung my head in submission.

IN THE AFTERNOONS THE TWO OF US RESUMED our old practice of strolling through the streets and the market-places. As before her illness, "rny mistress was welcomed by an adoring populace, and she stopped to speak with all of them, no matter their station or their calling. From priests to prostitutes, none was immune to her loveliness and her unfeigned charm.

Always she was able to turn the conversation to Akh-Horus, and the people were as eager as she was to discuss the new god. By this time he had been promoted in the popular imagination from demi-god to a full member of the pantheon. The citizens of Elephantine had already begun a subscription for the building of a temple to Akh-Horus, to which my mistress had made a most generous donation.

A site for the temple had been chosen on the bank of the river opposite the temple of Horus, his brother, and Pharaoh had made the formal declaration of his intention to dedicate the building in person. Pharaoh had every reason to be grateful. There was a new spirit of confidence abroad. As the caravan routes were made secure, so the volume of trade between the Upper Kingdom and the rest of the world blossomed.

Where before one caravan had arrived from the East, now four made a safe crossing of the desert, and as many set out on the return journey. To supply the caravan masters, pack-donkeys were needed in their thousands, and the farmers and breeders drove them into the cities, grinning at the expectation of the high prices they would receive.

Because it was now safe to work the fields furthest from the protection of the city walls, crops were planted where for decades only weeds had grown, and the farmers, who had been reduced to beggars, began to prosper again. The oxen drew the sledges piled high with produce along the roads that were now protected by the legions of Akh-Horus, and the markets were filled with fresh produce.

Some of the profits of the merchants and the land-owners from these ventures were spent in the building of new villas in the countryside, where it was once more deemed safe to take their families to live. Artisans and craftsmen, who had walked the streets of Thebes and Elephantine seeking employment for their skills, were suddenly in demand, and used their wages to buy not only the necessities of life but luxuries for themselves and their families. The markets were thronged.

The volume of traffic up and down the Nile swelled dramatically, so that more craft were needed, and the new keels were laid down in every shipyard. The captains and crews of the river boats and the shipyard workers spent their new wealth in the taverns and pleasure-houses, so that the prostitutes and the courtesans clamoured for fine clothes and baubles, and the tailors and the jewellers thrived and built new homes, while their wives prowled the markets with gold and silver in their purses, looking for everything from new slaves to cooking-pots.

Egypt was coming to life again, after being strangled for all these years by the depredations of Akh-Seth and the Shrikes.

As a result of all this, the state revenues burgeoned, and Pharaoh's tax-collectors circled above it all with as much relish as the vultures above the corpses of the bandits that Akh-Horus and his legions were strewing across the countryside. Of course, Pharaoh was grateful.

So were my mistress and I. At my suggestion, the two of us invested in a share of a trading expedition that was setting out eastwards into Syria. When the expedition returned six months later, we found that we had made a profit of fifty times our original investment. My mistress bought herself a string of pearls and five new female slaves to make my life miserable. Prudent as always, I used my share to acquire five plots of prime land on the east bank of the river, and one of (the law scribes drew up the deeds and had them registered in the temple books.

THEN CAME THE DAY THAT I HAD BEEN dreading. One morning my mistress studied her reflection in the mirror with even more attention than usual, and declared that she was ready at last. In all fairness, I had grudgingly to agree that she had never looked more lovely. It was as though all she had suffered recently had tempered her to a new resilience. The last traces of girlishness, uncertainty, and puppy fat had evaporated from her features, and she had become a woman, mature and composed.

'I trusted you, Taita. Now prove to me that I was not silly to do so. Bring Tanus to me.'

When Tanus and I had parted at Safaga, we had been unable to agree on any sure method of exchanging messages.

'I will be on the march every day, and who can tell where this campaign will lead me. Do not let the Lady Lostris worry if she does not hear from me. Tell her I will send a message when my task is completed. But tell her that I will be there when the fruits of our love are ripe upon the tree, and are ready for plucking.'

Thus it was that we had heard nothing of him other than the wild rumours of the wharves and bazaars.

Once again it seemed that the gods had intervened to save me, this time from the wrath of my Lady Lostris. There was a fresh rumour in the market-place that day. A caravan coming down the northern road had encountered a recently erected pyramid of human heads at the roadside not two miles beyond the city walls. The heads were so fresh that they were stinking only a little and had not yet been cleaned of flesh by the crows and vultures.

'This means only one thing,' the gossips told each other. "This means that Akh-Horus is in the nome of Assoun, probably within sight of the walls of Elephantine. He has fallen upon the remnants of the clan of Akheku, who have been skulking in the desert since their baron had his head hacked off at Gallala. Akh-Horus has slaughtered the last of the bandits, and piled their heads at the roadside. Thanks be to the new god, the south has been cleared of the dreaded Shrikes!'

This was news indeed, the best I had heard in weeks, and I was in a fever to take it to my mistress. I pushed my way through the throng of sailors and merchants and fishermen on the wharf to find a boatman to take me back to the island.

Somebody tugged at my arm, and I shrugged the hand away irritably. Despite the new prosperity sweeping the land, or perhaps because of it, the beggars were more demanding than ever. This one was not so easily put off, and I turned back to him, angrily raising my staff to drive him off.

'Do not strike an old friend! I have a message for you from one of the gods,' the beggar whined, and I stayed the blow and gaped at him.

'Hui!' My heart soared as I recognized the sly grin of the erstwhile robber. 'What are you doing here?' I did not wait for a reply to my fatuous question, but went on swiftly, 'Follow me at a distance.'

I led him to one of the pleasure-houses in a narrow alley beyond the harbour that provided rooms to couples, of the same or of mixed gender. They rented the rooms for a short period measured by a water-clock set at the door, and charged a large copper ring for this service. I paid this exorbitant fee and the moment we were alone, I seized Hui by his ragged cloak.

'What news of your master?' I demanded, and he chuckled with infuriating insolence.

'My throat is so dry I can hardly speak.' Already he had adopted all the swagger and insolent panache of a trooper of the Blues. How quickly a monkey learns new tricks! I shouted for the porter to bring up a pot of beer. Hui drank like a thirsty donkey, then lowered the pot and belched happily.

'The god Akh-Horus sends greetings, to you and to another whose name cannot be mentioned. He bids me tell you that the task is completed and that all the birds are in the cage. He reminds you that it lacks only a few months to the next festival of Osiris and it is time to write a new script for the passion play for the amusement of the king.'

'Where is he? How long will it take for you to return to him?' I demanded eagerly.

'I can' be with him before Ammon-Ra, the sun god, plunges beyond the western hills,' Hui declared, and I glanced through the window at the sun which was halfway down the sky. Tanus was lying up very close to the city, and I rejoiced anew. How I longed to feel his rough embrace, and hear that great booming laugh of his!

Grinning to myself in anticipation, I paced up and down the filthy floor of the room while I decided on the message that I would give Hui to take back to him.

IT WAS ALMOST DARK WHEN I STEPPED ashore on our little jetty and hurried up the steps. One of the slave girls was weeping at the gate, and rubbing her swollen ear.

'She struck me,' the girl whimpered, and I saw that her dignity had suffered more than her ear. not refer to the Lady Lostris as "she",' I scolded her. 'Anyway, what have you to complain of? Slaves are there to be struck.'

None the less, it was unusual for my mistress to lift a hand to anyone in her household. She must indeed be in a fine mood, I thought, and slowed my pace. Proceeding warily now, I arrived just as another of the girls fled weeping from the chamber. My mistress appeared in the doorway behind her, flushed with anger. 'You have turned my hair into a hay-stack?'

She saw me then and broke off her tirade. She rounded on me with such gusto that I knew that I was the true object of her ire.

'Where have you been?' she demanded. 'I sent you to the harbour before noon. How dare you leave me waiting so long?' She advanced upon me with such an expression that I backed off nervously.

'He is here,' I told.her hastily, and then dropped my voice so that none of the slave girls could hear me. 'Tanus is here,' I whispered, 'the day after tomorrow I will make good my promise to you.'

Her mood swung in a full circle and she leaped up to throw her arms around my neck, then she went off to find her offended girls and to comfort them.

AS PART OF HIS ANNUAL TRIBUTE THE vassal king of the amorites had sent Pharaoh a pair of trained hunting cheetahs from his kingdom across the Red Sea. The king was eager to run these magnificent creatures against the herds of gazelle that abounded in the desert dunes of the west bank. The entire court, including my mistress, had been commanded to attend the course.

We sailed across to the west bank in a fleet of small river craft, white sails and bright-coloured pennants fluttering. There was laughter and the music of lute and sistrum to accompany us. The annual flooding of the great river would begin within days, and this expectation, together with the prosperous new climate of the land, enhanced the carnival mood of the court.

My mistress was in a gayer mood than any of them, and she called merry greetings to her friends in the other boats as our felucca cut through the green summer waters at such a rate as to deck our bows with a lacy white garland of foam and leave a shining wake behind us.

It seemed that I was the only one who was not happy and carefree. The wind had a harsh, abrasive edge to it, and was blowing from the wrong quarter. I kept glancing anxiously at the western sky. It was cloudless and bright, but there was a brassy sheen to the heavens that was unnatural. It was almost as though another sun was dawning from the opposite direction to the one we knew so well.

I put aside my misgivings and tried to enter into the spirit of the outing. I failed in this, for I had more than the weather to worry about. If one part of my plan went awry, my life would be in danger, and perhaps other lives more valuable than mine would be at risk.

I must have shown all this on my face, for my mistress nudged me with her pretty painted toe and told me, 'So glum, Taita? Everyone who looks at you will know that you are up to something. Smile! I command you to smile.'

When we landed on the west bank, there was an army of slaves waiting for us there. Grooms holding splendid white riding donkeys from the royal stables, all caparisoned with silk. Pack-donkeys laden with tents and rugs and baskets of food and'wine, and all the other provisions for a royal picnic. There was a regiment of slaves in attendance, some to hold sun-shades above the ladies, others to wait upon the noble guests. There were clowns and acrobats and musicians to entertain them, and a hundred huntsmen to provide the sport.

The cheetah cage was loaded on a sledge drawn by a team of white oxen, and the court gathered around the vehicle to admire these rare beasts. They did not occur naturally in our land, for they were creatures of the open grassy savannah, and there was none of this type of terrain along the river. They were the first that I had ever seen, and my curiosity was so aroused that for a while I forgot my other worries and went up as close to the cage as I could push through the crowd without jostling or treading on the toes of some irascible nobleman.

They were the most beautiful cats that I could imagine, taller and leaner than our leopards, with long, clean limbs and concave bellies. Their sinuous tails seemed to give expression to their mood. Their golden hides were starred with rosettes of deepest black, while from the inner corner of each of their eyes, a line of black was painted down the cheek like a runnel of tears. This, with their regal bearing, gave them a tragic and romantic air that I found enchanting. I longed to own one of these creatures, and I decided on the moment to put the thought into the mind of my mistress. Pharaoh had never refused one of her whims.

Too soon for my liking, the barque carrying the king across the river arrived on the west bank, and with the rest of the court we hurried to the landing to greet him.

Pharaoh was dressed in light hunting garb and for once seemed relaxed and happy. He stopped beside my mistress and while she made a ritual obeisance, he enquired graciously about her health. I was filled with dread that he might decide to keep her by his side throughout the day, which would have upset all my arrangements. However, the hunting cheetah caught his attention and he passed by without giving my mistress any order to follow.

We lost ourselves in the throng and made our way to where a donkey was being held for my Lady Lostris. While I helped her to mount, I spoke quietly to the groom. When he told me what I wanted to hear, I slipped a ring of silver into his hand, and it disappeared, as though by magic.

With one slave leading her and another holding a sunshade over her, my mistress and I followed the king and the sledge out into the desert. With frequent stops for refreshment, it took us half the morning to reach the Valley of the Gazelles. On the way we passed at a distance the ancient cemetery of Tras which dated from the time of the very first pharaohs. Some of the wise men said that the tombs had been carved from the cliff of black rock three thousand years ago, although how they reached this conclusion I could not tell. Without making it obvious, I studied the entrances of the tombs keenly as we passed. However, from so far off I could make out no trace of recent human presence around them, and I was unreasonably disappointed. I kept glancing back, as we went on.

The Valley of the Gazelles was one of the royal hunting preserves, protected by the decrees of a long line of pharaohs. A company of royal gamekeepers was permanently stationed in the hills above the valley to enforce the king's proclamation reserving all the creatures in it to himself. The penalty for hunting here Without the royal authority was death by strangulation.

The nobles dismounted on the crest of one of these hills overlooking the broad brown valley. With despatch the tents were set up to give them shade, and jars of sherbet and beer were broached to slake the thirst of their journey.

I made certain that my mistress and I secured a good vantage-point from which to watch the hunt, but one from which we could also withdraw discreetly without attracting undue attention to ourselves. In the distance I could make out the herds of gazelle through the wavering watery mirage on the floor of the valley. I pointed them out to my mistress.

'What do they find to eat down there?' my Lady Lostris asked. 'There is not a trace of green. They must eat stones, for there are enough of those.'

'Many of those are not stones at all, but living plants,' I told her. When she laughed in disbelief, I searched the rocky ground and. plucked a handful of those miraculous plants.

"They are stones,' she insisted, until she held one in her hand and crushed it. The thick juice trickled over her fingers, and she marvelled at the cunning of whatever god had devised this deception. "This is what they live on? It does not seem possible.'

We could not continue this conversation, because the hunt was beginning. Two of the royal huntsmen opened the cage and the hunting cheetahs leaped down to earth. I expected them to attempt to escape, but they were tame as temple cats and rubbed themselves affectionately against the legs of then- handlers. The cats uttered a strange twittering sound, more like a bird than a savage predator.

Along the far side of the brown, scorched valley bottom I could make out the line of beaters, their forms tiny and distorted by distance and mirage. They were moving slowly in our direction, and the herds of antelope were beginning to drift ahead of them.

While the king and his huntsmen, with the cheetahs on leash, moved down the slope towards the valley bottom, we and the rest of the court remained on the crest. The courtiers were already placing wagers with one another, and I was as eager as any of them to watch the outcome of the hunt, but my mistress had her mind on other matters.

'When can we go?' she whispered. 'When can we escape into the desert?'

'Once the hunt begins, all their eyes will be upon it. That will be our opportunity.' Even as I spoke, the wind that had blown us across the river and cooled us on the march suddenly dropped. It was as though a coppersmith had opened the door of his forge. The air became almost too hot to breathe.

Once again I looked to the western horizon. The sky above it had turned a sulphurous yellow. Even as I watched, the stain seemed to spread across the heavens. It made me uneasy. However, I was the only one in the crowd who seemed to notice this strange phenomenon.

Although the hunting party was now at the bottom of the hill, it was still close enough for me to observe the great cats. They had seen the herds of gazelle which were being driven slowly towards them. This had transformed them from affectionate pets into the savage hunters they truly were. Their heads were up, intent and alert, ears pricked forward, leaning against the leash. Their concave bellies were sucked in, and every muscle was taut as a bowstring drawn to full stretch.

My mistress tugged at my skirt, and whispered imperatively, 'Let us be gone, Taita,' and reluctantly I began to edge away towards a clump of rocks that would cover our retreat and screen us from the rest of the company. The bribe of silver to the groom had procured for us a donkey that was now tethered out of sight amongst the rocks. As soon as we reached it, I checked that it carried what I had ordered, the water-skin and the leather bag of provisions. I found that they were all in order.

I could not restrain myself, and I pleaded with my mistress, 'Just one moment more.' Before she could forbid it, I scrambled to the top of the rocky outcrop and peeped down into the valley below.

The nearest antelope were crossing a few hundred paces in front of where Pharaoh held the pair of cheetahs on the leash. I was just in time to watch him slip them and send them away. They started out at an easy lope, heads up, as if they were studying the herds of daintily trotting antelope to select their prey. Suddenly the herds became aware of their rapid approach, and they burst into full flight. Like a flock of swallows they skimmed away across the dusty plain.

The cats stretched out their long bodies, reaching far ahead with their forepaws and then whipping their hindquarters through, doubling their lean torsos before stretching out again. Swiftly they built up to the top of their speed, and I had never seen an animal so swift. Compared to them, the herds of gazelle seemed suddenly to have run into swampy ground and to have had their flight impeded. With effortless elegance, the two cats overhauled the herd, and ran past one or two stragglers before they caught up with the victims of their choice.

The panic-stricken antelopes tried to dodge the deadly rush. They leaped high and changed direction in mid-air, twisting and doubling back the moment their dainty hooves touched the scorched earth. The cats followed each of the convolutions with graceful ease, and the end was inevitable.

Each of them bore one of die gazelle to earth in a sliding, tumbling cloud of dust, and then crouched over it, jaws clamped across the windpipe to strangle it-while the gazelle's back legs kicked out convulsively, and then at last stiffened into the rigor of death.

I found myself shaken and breathless with the excitement of it all. Then my mistress's voice roused me. 'Taita! Come down immediately. They will see you perched up there.' And I slid down to rejoin her.

Although I was still wrought up, I boosted her into the saddle and led the donkey down into the dead ground where we were out of sight of the company on the hilltop behind us. My mistress could not sustain her irritation with me for very long, and when I slyly mentioned Tanus' name again she forgot it entirely, and urged her mount on towards the rendezvous.

Only after I had placed another ridge behind us and was certain that we were well clear of the Valley of the Gazelles, did I head back directly towards the cemetery of Tras. In the still, hot air, the sound of our donkey's hooves clinked and crackled on the stones as though it were passing over a bed of broken glass. Soon I felt the sweat break out upon my skin, for the air was close and heavy with a feeling of thunder. Long before we reached the tombs, I told my mistress, 'The air is dry as old bones. You should drink a little water?'

'Keep on! There will be plenty of time to drink your fill later.'

'I was thinking only of you? mistress,' I protested.

'We must not be late. Every moment you waste will give me that much less with Tanus.' She was right, of course, for we would have little enough time before we were missed by the others. My mistress was so popular that many would be looking to enjoy her company once the hunt was over and they were returning to the river.

As we drew closer to the cliffs, so her eagerness increased until she could no longer abide the pace of her mount. She leaped off its back and ran ahead to the next rise. 'There it is! That is where he will be waiting for me," she cried, and pointed ahead.

As she danced on the skyline, the wind came at us like a ravening wolf, howling amongst the hills and canyons. It caught my mistress's hair and spread it like a flag, snapping and tangling it around her head. It lifted her skirts high above her slim brown thighs, and she laughed and pirouetted, flirting with the wind as though it were her lover. I did not share her delight.

I turned and looked back and saw the storm coming out of the Sahara. It towered into the sullen yellow heavens, dun and awful, billowing upon itself like surf breaking on a coral reef. The wind-blown sand scoured my legs and I broke into a run, dragging the donkey behind me on its lead. The wind thrusting into my back almost knocked me off my feet, but I caught my mistress.

'We must be quick,' I shouted above the wind. 'We must reach the shelter of the tombs before it hits us.'

High clouds of sand blew across the sun, dimming it until I could look directly at it with my naked eye. All the world was washed with that sombre shade of ochre, and the sun was a dull ball of orange. Flying sand raked the exposed skin of our limbs and the backs of our necks, until I wound my shawl around my mistress's head to protect her, and led her forward by the hand.

Sheets of driven sand engulfed us, blotting out our surroundings, so that I feared I had lost direction, until abruptly a hole opened in the curtains of sand, and I saw the dark mouth of one of the tombs appear ahead of us. Dragging my mistress with one hand and our donkey with the other, I staggered into tne shelter of the cave. The entrance-shaft was carved from the solid rock. It led us deep into the hillside, and then made a sharp turn before entering the burial chamber where once the ancient mummy had been laid to rest. Centuries before, the grave-robbers had disposed of the embalmed body and all its treasures. Now all that remained were the faded frescoes upon the stone walls, images- of gods and monsters that were ghostly in the gloom.

My mistress sank down against the rock wall, but her first thoughts were for her love. 'Tanus will never find us now,' she cried in despair, and I who had led her to safety was hurt by her ingratitude. I unsaddled our donkey and heaped the load in a comer of the tomb. Then I drew a cup of water from the skin and made her drink.

'What will happen to the others, the king and all our friends?' she asked, between gulps from the cup. It was her nature to think of the welfare of others, even in her own predicament.

'They have the huntsmen to care for them,' I told her. "They are good men and know the desert.' But not well enough to have anticipated the storm, I thought grimly. Although I sought to reassure her, I knew it would go hard with the women and children out there.

'And Tanus?' she asked. 'What will become of him?' Tanus especially will know what to do. He is like one of the Bedouin. You can be sure he will have seen the storm coming.'

'Will we ever get back to the river? Will they ever find us here?' At last she thought of her own safety.

'We will be safe here. We have water enough for many days. When the storm blows itself out, we will find our way back to the river.' Thinking of the precious water, I carried the bulging skin further into the tomb, where the donkey would not trample it. By now it was almost completely dark, and I fumbled with the lamp that the slave had provided from the pack, and blew upon the smouldering wick. It flared and lit the tomb with a cheery yellow light.

While I was still busy with the lamp and my back was turned to the entrance, my mistress screamed. It was a sound so high and filled with such mortal terror that I was struck with equal dread, and the courses of my blood ran thick and slow as honey, although my heart raced like the hooves of the flying gazelle. I spun about and reached for, my dagger, but when I saw the monster whose bulk filled the doorway, I froze without touching the weapon on my belt. I knew instinctively that my puny blade would avail us not at all against whatever this creature might be.

In the feeble light of the lamp the form was indistinct and distorted. I saw that it had a human shape, but it was too large to be a man, and the grotesque head convinced me that this was indeed that dreadful crocodile-headed monster from the underworld that devours the hearts of those who are found wanting on the scales of Thoth, the monster depicted on the walls of the tomb. The head gleamed with reptilian scales, and the beak was that of an eagle or a gigantic turtle. The eyes were deep and fathomless pits that stared at us implacably. Great wings sprouted from its shoulders. Half-furled, they flapped about the towering body like those of a falcon at bate. I expected the creature to launch itself on those wings and to rend my mistress with brazen talons. She must have dreaded this as much as I, for she screamed again as she crouched at the monster's feet.

Then suddenly I realized that the creature was not winged, but that the folds of a long woollen cape, such as the Bedouin wear, were flogging on the wind. While we were still frozen by this horrible presence, it raised both hands and lifted off the gilded war helmet with the visor fashioned like the head of an eagle. Then it shook its head and a mass of red-gold curls tumbled down on to the broad shoulders.

'From the top of the eliff I saw you coming through the storm,' it said in those dear familiar tones.

My mistress screamed again, this time with wildly ringing joy. 'Tanus!'

She flew to him, and he gathered her up as though she were a child and lifted her so high that her head brushed the rock roof. Then he brought her down and folded her to his chest. From the cradle of his arms, she reached up with her mouth for his, and it seemed that they might devour each other with the strength of their need.

I stood forgotten in the shadows of the tomb. Although I had conspired and risked so much to bring them together, I cannot bring myself to write down here the feelings that assailed me as I was made reluctant witness to their rapture. I believe that jealousy is the most ignoble of all our emotions, and yet I loved the Lady Lostris as well as Tanus did, and not with the love of a father or of a brother, either. I was a eunuch, but what I felt for her was the love of a natural man, hopeless of course, but all the more bitter because of that. I could not stay and watch them and I began to slink from the tomb like a whipped puppy, but Tanus saw me leaving and broke that kiss which was threatening to destroy my soul.

'Taita, don't leave me alone with the wife of the king. Stay with us to protect me from this terrible temptation. Our honour is in jeopardy. I cannot trust myself, you must stay and see that I bring no shame to the wife of Pharaoh.'

'Go,' cried my Lady Lostris from his arms. 'Leave us alone. I'll listen to no talk of shame or honour now. Our love has been too long denied. I cannot wait for the prophecy of the Mazes to run its course. Leave us alone now, gentle Taita.'

I fled from the chamber as though my life was in danger. I might have run out into the storm and perished there. That way I would have found surcease, but I was too much of a coward, and I let the wind drive me back. I stumbled to a corner of the shaft where the wind could no longer harry me, and I sank to the stone floor. I pulled my shawl over my head to stop my eyes and my ears, but although the storm roared along the cliff, it could not drown the sounds from the burial chamber.

For two days the storm blew with unabated ferocity. I slept for part of that time, forcing myself to seek oblivion, but whenever I awoke, I could hear them, and the sounds of their love tortured me. Strange that I had never known such distress when my mistress was with the king?but then on the other hand not so strange, for the old man had meant nothing to her.

This was another world of torment for me. The cries, the groans, the whispers tore at my heart. The rhythmic sobs of a young woman that were not those of pain threatened to destroy me. Her wild scream of final rapture was more agonizing to me than the cut of the gelding-knife.

At last the wind abated and died away, moaning at the foot of the cliffs. The light strengthened and I realized that it was the third day of my incarceration in the tomb. I roused myself and called to them, not daring to enter the inner chamber for fear of what I might discover. For a while there was no .reply, and then my mistress spoke in a husky, bemused voice that echoed eerily down the shaft. 'Taita, is that you? I thought that I had died in the storm and been carried to the western fields of paradise.'

ONCE THE STORM HAD DROPPED, WE HAD little time remaining. The royal huntsmen would already be searching for us. The storm had given us the best possible excuse for our absence. I was sure that the survivors of the hunting party would be scattered across these terrible hills. But the search-party must not discover us in the company of Tanus.

On the other hand, Tanus and I had barely spoken during these last days, and there was much to discuss. Hastily we made our plans, standing in the entrance to the shaft.

My mistress was quiet and composed as I had seldom seen her before. No longer the irrepressible chatterbox, she stood beside Tanus, watching his face with a new serenity. She reminded me of a priestess serving before the image of her god. Her eyes never left his face, and occasionally she reached out to touch him, as if to reassure herself that it was truly he.

When she did this, Tanus broke off whatever he was saying and gave all his attention to those dark green eyes. I had to call him back to the business we still had not completed. In the presence of such manifest adoration, my own feelings were base arid mean. I forced myself to rejoice for them.

It took longer to finish our business than I deemed wise, but at last I embraced Tanus in farewell and urged the donkey out into the sunlight that was filtered by the fine yellow dust that still filled the air. My mistress lingered, and I waited for her in the valley below.

Looking back, I saw them emerge from the cave at last. They stood gazing at each other for a long moment without touching, and then Tanus turned and strode away. My mistress watched until he was gone from her sight, then she came down to where I waited. She walked like a woman in a dream.

I helped her to mount, and while I adjusted the saddle girth, she reached down and took my hand. 'Thank you,' she said simply.

'I do not deserve your gratitude,' I demurred.

'I am the happiest creature in all the world. Everything that you told me of love is true. Please rejoice for me, even though?' she did not finish, and suddenly I realized that she had read my innermost feelings. Even in her own great joy, she grieved that she had caused me pain. I think I loved her more in that moment than I had ever done before.

I turned away and took up the reins, and led her back towards the Nile.

ONE OF THE ROYAL HUNTSMEN SPIED US from a far hilltop, and hailed us heartily.

'We have been searching for you at the king's command,' he told us, as he hurried down to join us.

'Was the king saved?' I asked. 'He is safe in the palace on Elephantine Island, and he has commanded that the Lady Lostris be brought to him directly she is found.'

As we set foot on the palace jetty, Aton was there, puffing out his painted cheeks with relief and fussing over my mistress. 'They have found the bodies of twenty-three unfortunates who perished in the storm,' he told us with ghoulish relish. 'All were certain that you would be found dead also. However, I prayed at the temple of Hapi for your safe return.' He looked pleased with himself, and I was annoyed that he tried to claim the credit for her survival for himself. He allowed us only time enough to wash hastily and anoint our dry skin with perfumed oil, before he whisked us away to the audience with the king.

Pharaoh was truly moved to have my mistress returned to him. I am sure he had come to love her as much as any of the others, and not merely for the promise of immortality that he saw in her. A tear tangled in his eyelash and smeared the paint on his cheek as she knelt before him.

'I thought you were lost,' he told her, and would have embraced her, had etiquette permitted it. 'Instead I find you prettier and livelier than ever.' Which was true, for love had gilded her with its special magic.

'Taita saved me,' she told Pharaoh. 'He guided me to a shelter and protected me through all those terrible days. Without him I would have perished, like those other poor souls.'

'Is this true, Taita?' Pharaoh demanded of me directly, and I assumed my modest expression, and murmured, 'I am but a humble instrument of the gods.'

He smiled at me, for I knew he had become fond of me also. 'You have rendered us many services, oh humble instrument. But this is the most valuable of them all. Approach!' he commanded, and I knelt before him.

Aton stood beside him, holding a small cedar-wood box. He lifted the lid and proffered it to the king. From the case Pharaoh lifted out a gold chain. It was of the purest unalloyed gold, and bore the marks of the royal jewellers to attest its weight of twenty deben.

The king held the chain over my head and intoned, 'I bestow upon you the Gold of Praise.' He lowered it on to my shoulders, and the oppressive weight was a delight to me. This decoration was the highest mark of royal favour, usually reserved for generals and ambassadors, or for high officials such as Lord IntefV I doubted that ever in the history of this very Egypt had the gold chain been placed around the neck of a lowly slave.

That was not the end of the gifts and awards that were to be bestowed upon me, for my mistress was not to be outdone. That evening while I was attending her bath, she suddenly dismissed her slaves and, standing naked before me, she told me, 'You may help me to dress, Taita.' She allowed me this privilege when she was especially well pleased with me. She knew just how much I enjoyed having her to myself in these intimate circumstances.

Her loveliness was covered only by the glossy tresses of her sable hair. It seemed that those days she had spent with Tanus had filled her with a new quality of beauty. It emanated from deep within her. A lamp placed inside an alabaster jar will shine through the translucent sides; in the same way, the Lady Lostris seemed to glow.

'I never dreamed that such a poor vessel as this body of mine could contain such joy.' She stroked her own flanks as she said it and looked down at herself, inviting me to do the same. 'All that you promised me came to pass while I was with Tanus. Pharaoh has bestowed the Gold of Praise upon you, it is fitting that I also show my appreciation to you. I want you to share my happiness in some way.'

'Serving you is all the reward I could wish for.' 'Help me to dress,' she ordered, and lifted her hands above her head. Her breasts changed shape as she moved. Over the year I had watched them grow from tiny immature figs into these round, creamy pomegranates, more beautiful than jewels or marble sculptures. I held the diaphanous nightdress over her, and then let it float down over her body. It covered her, but did not obscure her loveliness, in the same way that the morning mist decks the waters of the Nile in the dawn.

'I have commanded a banquet, and sent invitations to the royal ladies.'

'Very well, my lady. I shall see to it.' 'No, no, Taita. The banquet is in your honour. You will sit beside me as my guest.'

This was as shocking as any of the wild schemes she had thought up recently. 'It is not fitting, mistress. You will offend against custom.'

'I am the wife of Pharaoh. I set the customs. During the banquet I will have a gift for you, and I will present it to you in the sight of all.'

'Will you tell me what this gift is?' I asked, with some trepidation. I was never sure of what mischief she would dream up next.

'Certainly I will tell you what it is.' She smiled mysteriously. 'It is a secret, that's what it is.'

EVEN THOUGH I WAS THE GUEST OF HONOUR, I could not leave the arrangements for the banquet to cooks and giggling slave girls. After all, the reputation of my mistress as a hostess was at stake. I was at the market before dawn to procure the finest, freshest produce from the fields and the river. I promised Aton that he would be invited, and he opened the king's wine cellar and let me make my selection. I hired and rehearsed the best musicians and acrobats in the city. I sent out the slaves to gather hyacinth and lily and lotus from the banks of the river to augment the masses of blooms that already decorated our garden. I had the weavers plait tiny arks of reeds on which I floated coloured glass lamps and set them adrift on the ponds of our water-garden. I set out leather cushions and garlands of flowers for each guest, and jars of perfumed oil to cool them in the sultry night and drive away the mosquitoes.

At nightfall the royal ladies began to arrive in all their frippery and high fashion. Some of them had even shaved their heads and replaced their natural hair with elaborate wigs woven from the hair which the wives of the poor were forced to sell, in order to feed their brats. This was a fashion I abhorred and I vowed to do all in my power to prevent my mistress from succumbing to such folly. Her lustrous tresses were amongst my chief delights, but when it comes to fashion, even the most sensible woman is not to be trusted.

When, at the insistence of my mistress, I seated myself on the cushion beside her, rather than taking my usual position behind her, I could see that many of our guests were scandalized by such indecorous behaviour, and they whispered to each other behind their fans. I was just as uncomfortable as they were, and to cover my embarrassment, I signalled the slaves to keep the wine cups filled, the musicians to play, and the dancers to dance.

The wine was robust, the music rousing, and the dancers were all male. They gave ample proof of their gender, for I had ordered them to perform in a state of nature. The ladies were so enchanted by this display that they soon forgot their decent outrage, and did justice to the wine. I had no doubt that many of the male dancers would not leave the harem before dawn. Some of the royal ladies had voracious appetites, and many had not been visited by the king in years.

In this convivial atmosphere my mistress rose to her feet and called (for the attention of her guests. Then she commended me to them in terms so extravagant that even I blushed. She went on to relate amusing and touching episodes from the lifetime we had spent together. The wine seemed to have softened the attitude of the women towards me, and they laughed and applauded. A few of them even wept a little with wine and sentiment.

At last my mistress commanded me to kneel before her, and as I did so, there was a murmur of comment. I had chosen to wear a simple kilt of the finest linen, and the slave girls had dressed my hair in the fashion that best suited me. Apart from the Gold of Praise around my throat, I wore no other ornament. In the midst of such ostentation, my simple style was striking. With regular swimming and exercise I had kept the athletic body which had first attracted Lord Intef to me. In those years I was in my prime.

I heard one of the senior wives murmur to her neighbour, 'What a pity he has lost his jewels. He would make such a diverting toy.' This evening I could ignore the words that in other circumstances would have caused me intense pain.

My mistress was looking very pleased with herself. She had succeeded in keeping me ignorant of the nature of her gift. Usually she was not so adroit as to be able to outwit me. She looked down on my bowed head and spoke slowly and clearly, wringing the utmost enjoyment from the moment.

'Taita the slave. For all the years of my life you have been a shield over me. You have been my mentor and my tutor. You have taught me to read and to write. You have made clear to me the mysteries of the stars and the arcane arts. You have taught me to sing and to dance. You have shown me how to find happiness and contentment in many things. I am grateful.'

The royal ladies were once more beginning to become restive. They had never before heard a slave praised in such effusive terms.

'On the day of the khamsin you did me a service that I must reward. Pharaoh has bestowed the Gold of Praise upon you. I have my own gift for you.'

From under her robe she took a roll of papyrus secured with a coloured thread. 'You knelt before me as a slave. Now rise to your feet as a free man.' She held up the papyrus. 'This is your deed of manumission, prepared by the scribes of the court. From this day forward, you are a free man.

I lifted my head for the first time and stared at her in disbelief. She pressed the roll of papyrus into my numbed fingers, and smiled down at me fondly.

'You did not expect this, did you? You are so surprised that you have no words for me. Say something to me, Taita. Tell me how grateful you are for this boon.'

Every word she spoke wounded me like a poisoned dart. My tongue was a rock in my mouth as I contemplated a life without her. As a freed man, I would be excluded from her presence for ever. I would never again prepare her food, nor attend her bath. I would never spread the covers over her as she prepared for sleep, nor would I rouse her in the dawn and be at her side when first she opened those lovely dark green eyes to each new day. I would never again sing with her, or hold her cup, or help her to dress and have the pleasure of gazing upon all her loveliness.

I was stricken, and I stared at her hopelessly, as one whose life had reached its end.

'Be happy, Taita,' she ordered me. 'Be happy in this new freedom I give you.'

'I will never be happy again,' I blurted. 'You have cast me off. How can I ever be happy again?'

Her smile faded away, and she stared at me in perturbation. 'I offer you the most precious gift that it is in my power to give you. I offer you your freedom.'

I shook my head. 'You inflict the most dire punishment upon me. You are driving me away from you. I will never know happiness again.'

'It is not a punishment, Taita. It was meant as a reward. Please, don't you understand?'

'The only reward I desire is to remain at your side for the rest of my life.' I felt the tears welling up from deep inside me, and I tried to hold them back. 'Please, mistress, I beg of you, don't send me away from you. If you have any feeling towards me, allow me to stay with you.'

'Do not weep,' she commanded. Tor if you do, then I will weep with you, in front of all my guests.' I truly believe that she had not, until that moment, contemplated the consequences of this misplaced piece of generosity that she had dreamed up. The tears broke over my lids and streamed down my cheeks.

'Stop it! This is not what I wanted.' Her own tears kept mine good company. 'I only thought to honour you, as the king has honoured you.'

I held up the roll of papyrus. 'Please let me tear this piece of foolery to shreds. Take me back into your service. Give me leave to stand behind you, where I belong.'

'Stop it, Taita! You are breaking my heart.' Loudly she snuffled up her tears, but I was merciless.

'The only gift I want from you is the right to serve you for all the days of my life. Please, mistress, rescind this deed. Give me your permission to tear it.'

She nodded vigorously, blubbering as she used to do when she was a little girl who had fallen and grazed her knees. I ripped the sheet of papyrus once and then again. Not satisfied with this destruction, I held the fragments to the lamp flame and let them burn to crispy black curls.

'Promise me that you will never try to drive me away again. Swear that you will never again try to thrust my freedom upon me.'

She nodded through her tears, but I would not accept that. 'Say it,' I insisted. 'Say it aloud for all to hear.'

'I promise to keep you as my slave, never to sell you, nor to set you free," she whispered huskily through the tears, and then a beam of mischief shone out of those tragic dark green eyes. 'Unless, of course, you annoy me inordinately, then I will summon the law scribes immediately.' She put out a hand to lift me to my feet. 'Get up, you silly man, and attend to your duties. I swear my cup is empty.'

I resumed my proper position behind her, and refilled the cup. The tipsy company thought it all a bit of fun that we had arranged for their amusement, and they clapped and whistled and threw flower petals at us to show their appreciation. I could see that most of them were relieved that we had not truly flouted decorum, and that a slave was still a slave.

My mistress lifted the wine cup to her lips, but before she drank, she smiled at me over the rim. Though her eyes were still wet with tears, that smile lifted my spirits and restored my happiness. I felt as close to her then as ever I had in all the years.

THE MORNING AFTER THE BANQUET AND my hour of freedom, we woke to find that during the night the river had swollen with the commencement of the annual flood. We had no warning of it until the joyous cries of the watchmen down at the .??? port aroused us. Still heavy with wine, I left my bed and ran down to the riverside. Both banks were already lined with the populace of the city. They greeted the waters with prayers and songs and waving palm-fronds.

The low waters had been the bright green of the verdigris that grows on bars of copper. The waters of the inundation had flushed it all away, and now the river had swollen to an ominous grey. During the night it had crept halfway up the stone pylons of the harbour, and soon it would press against the earthworks of the embankment. Then it would force its way into the mouths of the irrigation canals that had been cracked and dry for so many months. From there it would swirl out and flood the fields, drowning the huts of the peasants, and washing away the boundary markers between the fields.

The surveying and replacement of the boundaries after each flood was the responsibility of the Guardian of the Waters. Lord Intef had multiplied his fortune by favouring the claims of the rich and the generous when the time came round each year to reset the marker stones.

From upstream echoed the distant rumble of the cataract. The rising flood overwhelmed the natural barrages of granite that were placed in its path, and, as it roared through the gorges, the spray rose into the hard blue sky, a silver column that could be seen from every quarter of the nome of Assoun. When the fine mist drifted across the island, it was cool and refreshing on our upturned faces. We delighted in this blessing, for it was the only rain we ever knew in our valley. Even as we watched, the beaches around our island were eaten up by the flood. Soon our jetty would be submerged, and the river would lap at the gates of our garden. Where it would stop was a question that could only be calculated by a study of the levels of the Milometer. On those levels hung prosperity or famine for the whole land and every person in it.

I hurried back to find my mistress and to prepare for the ceremony of the waters, in which I would play a prominent role. We dressed in our finest and I placed my new gold chain around my neck. Then, with the rest of our household and the ladies of the harem, we joined the spontaneous procession to the temple of Hapi.

Pharaoh and all the great lords of Egypt led us. The priests, plump with rich living, were waiting for us on the temple steps. Their heads were shaven, their pates shining with oil, and their eyes glittering with avarice, for the king would sacrifice lavishly today.

Before the king the statue of the god was carried from the sanctuary, and decked with flowers and fine crimson linen. Then the statue was drenched in oils and perfume while we sang psalms of praise and thanks to the god for sending down the flood.

Far to the south, in a land that no civilized man had ever visited, the god Hapi sat on top of his mountain and from two pitchers of infinite capacity he poured the holy waters into his Nile. The water from each pitcher was of a different colour and taste; one was bright green and sweet, the other grey and heavy with the silt which flooded our fields each season and charged them with new life and fertility.

While we sang, the king made sacrifice of corn and meats and wine and silver and gold. Then he called out his wise men, his engineers and his mathematicians, and bade them enter the Nilometer to begin their observations and their calculations.

In the time that I had belonged to Lord Intef, I had been nominated as one of the keepers of the water. I was the only slave in that illustrious company, but I consoled myself by the fact that very few others wore the Gold of Praise, and that they treated me with respect. They had worked with me before, and they knew my worth. I had helped to design the Milometers that measured the flow of the river, and I had supervised the building of them. It was I who had worked out the complex formula to determine the projected height and the volume of each flood from the observations.

Our way lit by flickering torches of pitch-dipped rushes, I followed the high priest into the mouth of the Nilometer, a dark opening in the rear wall of the sanctuary. We descended the incline shaft, the stone steps slippery with slime and the effusions of the river. From under our feet, one of the deadly black water cobras slithered away, and with a furious hiss plunged into the dark water that had already risen halfway up the shaft.

We gathered on the last exposed step and by the light of the torches studied the marks that my masons had chiselled in the walls of the shaft. Each of the symbols had values, both magical and empirical, allotted to it.

We made the first and most crucial reading together with extreme care. Over the following five days we would take it in turns to watch and record the rising waters, and time the readings with the flow, of a water-clock. From samples of the water, we would estimate the amount of silt it bore, and all these factors would influence our final conclusions. When the five days of observation were completed, we embarked on a further three days of calculations. These covered many scrolls of papyrus. Finally, we were ready to present our findings to the king. On that day Pharaoh returned to the temple in royal state, accompanied by his nobles and half the population of Elephantine to receive the estimates.

As the high priest read them aloud, the king began to smile. We had forecast an inundation of almost perfect proportions. It would not be too low, to leave the fields exposed and baking in the sun, depriving them of the rich black layer of silt so vital to their fertility. Nor would it be so high as to wash away the canals and earthworks, and to drown the villages and cities along the banks. This season would bring forth bountiful harvests and fat herds.

Pharaoh smiled, not so much for the good fortune of his subjects, but for the bounty that his tax-collectors would gather in. The annual taxes were computed on the value of the flood, and this year there would be vast new treasures added to the store-rooms of his funerary temple. To close the ceremony of the blessing of the water in the temple of Hapi, Pharaoh announced the date of the biennial pilgrimage to Thebes to participate in the festival of Osiris. It did not seem possible that two years had passed since my mistress had played the part of the goddess in the last passion of Osiris.

I had as little sleep that night as when I had kept vigil in the shaft of the Nilometer, for my mistress was too excited to seek her own couch. She made me sit up with her until dawn, singing and laughing and repeating those stories of Tanus to which she never tired of listening.

In eight days the royal flotilla would sail northwards on the rising flood of the Nile. When we arrived, Tanus, Lord Harrab would be waiting for us in Thebes. My mistress was delirious with happiness.

THE FLOTILLA THAT ASSEMBLED IN THE harbour roads of Elephantine was so numerous that it seemed to cover the water from bank to bank. My mistress remarked jokingly that a man might cross the Nile without wetting his feet by strolling over the bridge of hulls. With pennants and flags flying from every masthead, the fleet made a gallant show. We and the rest of the court had already embarked on the vessels that had been allotted to us, and from the deck we cheered the king as he descended the marble steps from the palace and went aboard the great, state barge. The moment he was safely embarked, a hundred horns sounded the signal to set sail. As one, the fleet squared away and pointed their bows into the north. With the rush of the river and the banks of oars driving us, we bore away.

There had been a different spirit abroad in the' land since Akh-Horus had destroyed the Shrikes. The inhabitants of every village we passed came down to the water's edge to greet their king. Pharaoh sat high on the poop, wearing the cumbersome double crown, so that all might have a clear view of him. They waved palm-fronds and shouted, 'May all the gods smile on Pharaoh!' The river brought down to them not only their king, but also the promise of its own benevolence, and they were happy.

Twice during the days that followed, Pharaoh and all his train went ashore to inspect the monuments that Akh-Horus had raised to his passing at the crossroads of the caravan routes. The local peasants had preserved these gruesome piles of skulls as sacred relics of the new god. They had polished each skull until it shone like ivory, and bound the pyramids with building clay so that they would stand through the years. Then they had built shrines over them and appointed priests to serve these holy places.

At both these shrines my mistress left a gold ring as an offering, joyously accepted by the self-appointed guardians. It was to no avail that I protested this extravagance. My mistress often lacked the proper respect for the wealth that I was so painstakingly amassing on her behalf. Without my restraining hand, she would probably have given it all away to the grasping priesthood and the insatiable poor, smiling as she did so.

On the tenth night after leaving Elephantine, the royal entourage camped on sTpleasant promontory above a bend in the river. The entertainment that evening was to include one of the most famous story-tellers in the land, and usually my mistress loved a good story above most other pleasures. Both she and I had been looking forward to this occasion and discussing it avidly since leaving the palace. It was therefore to my surprise and bitter disappointment that the Lady Lostris declared herself too fatigued and out of sorts to attend the story-teller. Although she urged me to go, and take the rest of our household with me, I could not leave her alone when she was unwell. I gave her a hot draught and I slept on the floor at the end of her bed, so that I could be near if she needed me during the night.

I was truly worried in the morning when I tried to wake her. Usually she would spring from her bed with a smile of anticipation, ready to seize and devour the new day, a glutton for the joy of living. However, this morning she pulled the covers back over her head and mumbled, 'Leave me to sleep a .little longer. I feel as heavy and dull as an old woman.'

"The king has decreed an early start. We must be aboard before the sun rises. I will bring you a hot infusion that will cheer you.' I poured boiling water over a bowl of herbs that I had picked with my own hands during the most propitious phase of the last moon.

'Do stop fussing,' she grumped at me, but I would not let her sleep again. I prodded her awake and made her drink the tonic. She pulled a face. 'I swear you are trying to poison me,' she complained, and then, without warning and before I could do anything to prevent it, she vomited copiously.

Afterwards she seemed as shocked as I was. We both stared at the steaming puddle beside her bed in consternation.

'What is wrong with me, Taita?' she whispered. 'Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.'

Only then did the meaning of it all dawn on me.

"The khamsin!' I cried. "The cemetery of Tras! Tanus!'

She stared at me blankly for a moment, and then her smile lit the gloom of the tent like a lamp. 'I am making a baby!' she cried.

'Not so loud, mistress,' I pleaded.

'Tanus' baby! I am carrying Tanus' son.' It could not be the king's infant, for I had successfully kept him from her bed since her starvation sickness and her miscarriage.

'Oh, Taita,' she purred, as she lifted her nightdress and inspected her flat, firm belly with awe. 'Just think of it! A little imp just like Tanus growing inside of me.' She palpated her stomach hopefully. 'I knew that such delights as I discovered in the tomb of Tras could not pass unremarked by the gods. They have given me a memory that will last all my lifetime.'

'You race ahead,' I warned her. 'It may be only a colic. I must make the tests before we can be sure.'

'I need no test. I know it in my heart and in the secret depths of my body.'

'We will still do the tests,' I told her wryly, and went to fetch the pot. She perched upon it to provide me with the first water of her day, and I divided this into two equal parts.

The first portion of her urine I mixed with an equal part of Nile water. Then I filled two jars with black earth and in each of them planted five seeds of dhurra corn. I watered one jar with pure Nile water, and the other with the mixture that my mistress had provided. This was the first test.

Then I hunted amongst the reeds in the lagoon near the camp and captured ten frogs. These were not the lively green and yellow variety with leaping back legs, but slimy, black creatures. Their heads are not separated from their sluggish, fat bodies by a neck, and their eyes sit on top of the flat skull, so that the children call them sky-gazers.

I placed five of each of the sky-gazers in two separate jars of river water. To the one I added my mistress's intimate emission and I left the other unadulterated. The following morning, in the privacy of my mistress's cabin on board the galley, we removed the cloth with which I had covered the jars and inspected the contents.

The com watered by the Lady Lostris had thrown tiny green shoots, while the other seeds were still inert. The five sky-gazers who had not received my mistress's blessing were barren, but the other more fortunate five had each laid long silvery strings which were speckled with black eggs.

'I told you so!' my mistress chirruped smugly, before I could give my official diagnosis. 'Oh, thanks to all the gods! No more beautiful thing has happened to me in all my life.'

'I will speak to Aton immediately. You will share the king's couch this very night,' I told her grimly, and she stared at me in bewilderment.

'Even Pharaoh who believes most things I tell him, will not believe that you were impregnated by the seeds blown in on the khamsin wind. We must have a foster-father for this little bastard of ours.' Already I considered the infant ours, and not hers alone. Though I tried to conceal it behind my levity, I was every bit as delighted with her fecundity as she was.

'Don't you ever call him a bastard again,' she flared at me. 'He will be a prince.'

'He will be a prince only if I can find a royal sire for him. Prepare yourself. I am going to see the king.'

'LAST NIGHT I HAD A DREAM, GREAT Egypt,' I told Pharaoh. 'It was so amazing that to confirm it I worked the Mazes of Ammon-Ra.'

Pharaoh leaned forward eagerly, for he had come to believe in my dreams and the Mazes as much as any of my other patients. 'This time it is unequivocal, Majesty. In my dream the goddess Isis appeared and promised to counter the baleful influence of her brother Seth, who so cruelly deprived you of your first son when he struck down the Lady Lostris with the wasting disease. Take my mistress to your bed on the first day of the festival of Osiris, and you will be blessed with another son. That is the promise of the goddess.'

'Tonight is the eve of the festival.' The king looked delighted. 'In truth, Taita, I have been ready to perform this pleasant duty all these past months, had you only allowed me to do so. But you have not told me what you saw in the Mazes of Ammon-Ra.' Again he leaned forward eagerly, and I was ready for him.

'It was the vision as before, only this time it was stronger and more vivid. The same endless forest of trees growing along the banks of the river, each tree crowned and imperial. Your dynasty reaching into the ages, strong and unbroken.'

Pharaoh sighed with satisfaction. 'Send the child to me.' When I returned to the tent, my mistress was waiting for me. She had prepared herself with good grace and humour.

'I shall close my eyes and imagine that I am back in the tomb of Tras with Tanus,' she confided, and then giggled saucily. 'Although to imagine the king as Tanus is to imagine that the tail of the mouse has become the trunk of the elephant.'

Aton came to fetch her to the king's tent soon after the king had eaten his dinner. She went with a calm expression and a firm step, dreaming perhaps of her little prince, and of his true father who waited for us in Thebes.

BELOVED THEBES, BEAUTIFUL THEBES OF the hundred gates?how we rejoiced as we saw it appear ahead of us, decorating the broad sweep of the river-bank with its temples and gleaming walls.

My mistress sang out with excitement as each of the familiar landmarks revealed itself to us. Then, as the royal barge put in to the wharf below the palace of the grand vizier, the joy of home-coming went out of both of us, and we fell silent. The Lady Lostris groped for my hand like a little girl frightened by tales of hob-goblins, for we had seen her father.

Lord Intef with his sons, Menset and Sobek, those two thumbless heroes, stood at the head of the great concourse of the nobles and the city fathers of Thebes that waited upon the quay to greet the king. Lord Intef was as handsome and suave as I had imagined him in my nightmares, and I felt my spirits quail.

'You must be vigilant now,' the Lady Lostris whispered to me. "They will seek to have you out of their way. Remember the cobra.'

Not far behind the grand vizier stood Rasfer. During our absence he had obviously received high promotion. He now wore the head-dress of a Commander of Ten Thousand and carried the golden whip of rank. There had been no improvement in his facial muscles. One side of his face still sagged hideously and saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth. At that moment he recognized me, and grinned at me with half his face across the narrow strip of water. He lifted his golden whip in ironic greeting.

'I promise you, my lady, that my hand will be upon my dagger and I will eat nothing but fruit that I have peeled with my own hands while Rasfer and I are in Thebes together,' I murmured, as I smiled at him and returned his salute with a cheery wave.

'You are to accept no strange gifts,' my mistress insisted, 'and you will sleep at the foot of my bed, where I can protect you at night. During the day you will stay at my side, and not go wandering off on your own.'

'I will not find that irksome,' I assured her, and over the following days I kept my promise to her and remained under her immediate protection, for I was certain that Lord Intef would not jeopardize his connection to the throne by putting his daughter in danger.

Naturally, we were often in the company of the grand vizier, for it was his duty to escort the king through all the ceremonies of the festival. During this time, Lord Intef played the role of loving and considerate father to the Lady Lostris, and he treated her with all the deference and consideration due to a royal wife. Each morning he sent her gifts, gold and jewels and exquisite little carvings of scarabs and godlets in ivory and precious woods. Despite my mistress's orders, I did not return these. I did not wish to warn the enemy, and besides, the gifts were valuable. I sold them discreetly and invested the proceeds in stores of corn held for us in the granaries of trustworthy merchants in the city, men who were my friends.

In view of the expected harvest, the price of com was the lowest it had been for ten years. There was only one direction it could go, and that was up, although we might have to wait a while for our profits. The merchants gave me receipts in the name of my mistress which I deposited in the archives of the law courts. I kept only a fifth part to myself, which I felt was a very moderate commission.

This gave me some secret pleasure whenever I caught Lord Intef watching me with those pale leopard's eyes. That look left me in no doubt that his feelings towards me had not moderated. I remembered his patience and his persistence when dealing with an enemy. He waited at the centre of his web like a beautiful spider, and his eyes glittered as he watched me. I remembered the bowl of poisoned milk and the cobra, and despite all my precautions, I was uneasy.

Meanwhile the festival rolled on with all the ceremony and tradition, as it had for centuries past. However, this season it was not Tanus' Blues but another squadron that hunted the river-cows in the lagoon of Hapi, while another company of actors played out the passion in the temple of Osiris. Because Pharaoh's decree was observed and the version of the play was mine, the words were as powerful and moving. However, this new Isis was not as lovely as my mistress had portrayed her, nor was Horus as noble or striking as Lord Tanus. On the other hand, Seth was winsome and lovable in comparison to the way that Rasfer had played him.

The day after the passion, Pharaoh crossed the river to inspect his temple, and on this occasion he kept me close at hand throughout the day. On numerous occasions he openly consulted me on aspects of the works. Of course I wore my golden chain whenever it was proper to do so. None of this was missed by Lord Intef, and I could see him musing on the favour the king showed to me. I hoped that this might further serve to protect me from the grand vizier's vengeance.

Since I had left Thebes, another architect had been placed in charge of the temple project. It was perhaps unfair that Pharaoh should expect this unfortunate to be able to maintain the high standards that I had set, or to push the work forward at the same pace.

'By the blessed mother of Horus, I wish you were still in charge here, Taita,' Pharaoh muttered. 'If she would part with you, I would buy you from your mistress, and keep you here in the City of .the Dead permanently to supervise the work. The cost seems to have doubled since this other idiot took over from you.'

'He is a naive young man,' I agreed. 'The masons and the contractors will steal his testicles from him and he will not notice that they are missing.'

'It is my balls mat they are stealing,' the king scowled. 'I want you to go over the bill of quantities with him and show him where we are being robbed.'

I was of course flattered by his regard, and there was nothing spiteful in my pointing out to Pharaoh the lapses of taste that the new architect had perpetrated when he redesigned the pediment to my temple facade, or the shoddy craftsmanship that those rogues in the guild of masons had been able to slip past him. The pediment was permeated with the decadent Syrian style that was all the rage in the Lower Kingdom, where the common tastes of the low-bom red pretender were corrupting the classical traditions of Egyptian art.

As for the workmanship, I demonstrated to the king how it was possible to slip a fragment of papyrus between the joints of the stone blocks that made up the side-wall of the mortuary temple. Pharaoh ordered both the pediment and the temple wall to be torn down, and he fined the guild of masons five hundred deben of gold to be paid into the royal store-rooms.

Pharaoh spent the rest of that day and the whole of the next reviewing the treasures in the store-rooms of the funerary temple. Here at least he could find very little to complain of. In the history of the world never had such wealth been assembled in one place at one time. Even I, who love fine things, was soon jaded by the abundance of it, and my eyes were pained by the dazzle of gold.

The king insisted that the Lady Lostris remain at his side all this time. I think that his infatuation with her was slowly turning into real love, or as close a facsimile of it as he was capable of. The consequence of his affection for her was that when we returned across the river to Thebes, my mistress was exhausted, and I feared for the child she was carrying. It was too soon to tell the king of her condition and to suggest that he showed her more consideration. It was less than a week since she had returned to his couch, and such an early diagnosis of pregnancy even from me must arouse his suspicion. To him she was still a healthy and robust young woman, and he treated her that way.

THE FESTIVAL ENDED, AS IT HAD FOR CENTURIES past, with the assembly of the people in the temple of Osiris to hear the proclamation from the throne.

On the raised stone dais in front of the sanctuary of Osiris, Pharaoh was seated on his tall throne so that all the congregation could have a clear view of him. He wore the double crown and carried the crook and the flail. This time there was an alteration to the usual layout of the temple, for I had made a suggestion to the king which he had been gracious enough to adopt. Against three walls of the inner temple he had ordered the erection of timber scaffolding. These rose in tiers halfway up the massive stone walls, and provided seating for thousands of the notables of Thebes from which they had a. privileged and uninterrupted view of the proceedings. I had suggested that these stands be decorated with coloured bunting and palm-fronds, to disguise their ugliness. It was the first time that these structures were built in our land. Thereafter, they were to become commonplace, and they were built at most public functions, along the routes of royal processions and around the fields of athletic games. To this day they are known as Taita stands.

There had been much bitter competition for seats upon these stands, but as their designer, I had been able to procure the very best for my mistress and myself. We were directly opposite the throne and a little above the height of the king's head, so we had a fine view of the whole of the inner courtyard. I had provided a leather cushion stuffed with lamb's-wool for the Lady Lostris and a basket of fruits and cakes, together with jars of sherbet and beer, to sustain us during the interminable ceremony.

All around us were assembled the noblest in the land, lords and ladies decked-oat in high fashion. The generals and admirals carrying their.golden whips and proudly flaunting the honours and standards of their regiments, the guild masters and the rich merchants, the priests and the ambassadors from the vassal states of the empire, they were all here.

In front of the king extended the courts of the temple, one opening into another like the boxes in a children's puzzle-game, but such was the layout of the massive stone walls that the gates were all perfectly aligned. A worshipper standing in the Avenue of Sacred Rams outside the pylons of the main gate could look through the inner gates and clearly see the king on his high throne almost four hundred paces away.

All the courts of the temple were packed with the multitudes of the common people, and the overflow spilled out into the sacred avenue and the gardens beyond the temple walls. Though I had lived almost my entire life in Thebes, I had never seen such a gathering. It was not possible to count their numbers, but I estimated that there must have been two hundred thousand assembled that day. From them rose such' a hubbub of sound that I felt myself but a single bee in the vast humming hive.

Around the throne was gathered a small group of the highest dignitaries, their heads at the level of Pharaoh's feet. Of course one of these was the high priest of Osiris. During the past year the old abbot had left this transitory world of ours and set off on his journey through the underworld to the western fields of the eternal paradise. This new abbot was a younger, firmer man. I knew that he would not be so easily manipulated by Lord Intef. In fact, he had collaborated with me in certain unusual arrangements for today's ceremony that I had put in hand while supervising the erection of the Taita stands.

However, the most impressive figure in the group, rivalling Pharaoh himself, was the grand vizier. Lord Intef drew all eyes. He was tall and stately in bearing, handsome as a legend. With the heavy chains of the Gold of Praise lying weightily upon his chest and shoulders, he was like a figure from the myth of the pantheon. Close behind him loomed the hideous shape of Rasfer.

Lord Intef opened the ceremony in the traditional manner by stepping into the clear space before the throne and beginning the address of welcome to the king from the twin cities of Thebes. As he spoke, I glanced sideways at my mistress, and even though I shared her loathing, I was shocked by the expression of anger and hatred that she made no attempt to conceal, and that she directed openly at her own father. I wanted to warn her to make it less obvious to all about her, but I knew that in doing so, I might merely draw further attention to her burning antagonism.

The grand vizier spoke at length, listing his own accomplishments and the loyal service he had rendered Pharaoh in the year past. The crowd murmured and rustled with boredom and discomfort. The heat was rising from so many bodies, and the rays of the sun beating down into the crowded courts were trapped within the temple walls. I saw more than one woman in the press swoon and collapse.

When at last Lord Intef finished speaking, the high priest stepped into his place. While the sun made its noon overhead, he reported to the king on the ecclesiastical affairs of Thebes. As he spoke, the heat and the stench increased; perfume and fragrant oils could no longer disguise the odour of hot, unwashed bodies and running sweat. There was no escape from the crowd to attend urgent bodily functions. Men and women simply squatted where they stood. The temple began to stink like a sty or a public latrine, I handed my mistress a silk kerchief drenched in perfume which she dabbed to her nose.

There was a sigh of relief when at last the high priest ended his address with a blessing on the king in the name of the god Osiris, and, with a deep bow, retreated to his place behind the grand vizier. For the first time since it had begun to assemble before dawn that morning, the crowd fell completely silent. The boredom and discomfort was forgotten, and they craned forward eagerly to hear Pharaoh speak.

The king rose to his feet. I wondered at the old man's fortitude, for he had sat all this time like a statue. He spread his arms in benediction, and at that moment the hallowed chalice of custom and tradition was shattered by an event that plunged the entire congregation?priests, nobles and commoners?into consternation. I was one of the few in the crowd who was not surprised by what followed, for I had done more than my share to arrange it all.

The great burnished capper doors to the sanctuary swung open. There seemed to be no human agency to the movement, it was as though the doors opened of their own accord.

A gasp, a sigh of expelled breath passed like a wind through temple courts, and rustled the densely packed ranks as though they were the leaves of a tamarind tree. Then suddenly a woman screamed, and immediately a groan of superstitious horror shook them all. Some fell to their knees, some lifted their hands above their heads in terror, others covered their faces with their shawls so that they should not be struck blind by looking on sights that were not for mortal eyes.

A god strode out through the sanctuary doors, a tall and terrifying god, whose cloak swirled about his shoulders as he moved. His helmet was crowned with a plume of egret's feathers, and his features were grotesque and metallic, half-eagle and half-man, with a hooked beak and dark slits for eyes.

' Akh-Horus!' screamed a woman, and she collapsed in a dead faint upon the stone flags.

'Akh-Horus!' the cry was taken up. 'It is the god!' Row after row, they fell upon their knees in the attitude of reverence. Those on the high tiers of stands knelt and many of them made the sign to avert misfortune. Even the group of nobles around the throne went down. In all the temple only two persons remained on their feet. Pharaoh posed on the steps of his throne like a painted statue; and the grand vizier of Thebes stood tall and arrogant.

Akh-Horus stopped in front of the king and looked up at him through those slitted eyes in the bronze mask, and even then Pharaoh never flinched. The king's cheeks were painted dead white, so I could not tell whether he blanched, but there was a glitter in his eyes that may have been either religious ecstasy, or terror.

'Who are you?' Pharaoh challenged. 'Are you ghost or man? Why do you disturb our solemn proceedings?' His voice was strong and clear. I could detect no tremor in it, and my admiration for him was enhanced. Weak and aging and gullible perhaps, but still the old man had his full share of courage. He could face up to man or god and stand his ground like a warrior.

Akh-Horus answered him in a voice that had commanded regiments in the desperate din of battle, a voice that echoed amongst the stone pillars. 'Great Pharaoh, I am a man, not a ghost. I am your man. I come before you in response to your command. I come before you to account to you for the duty that you laid upon me in this place on this very day of Osiris two years ago.'

He lifted the helmet from his head, and the fiery curls tumbled down. The congregation recognized him instantly. A shout went up that seemed to rock the foundations of the temple.

'Lord Tanus! Tanus! Tanus!'

It seemed to me that my mistress screamed the loudest of them all, fairly deafening me, who sat so close beside her.

'Tanus! Akh-Horus! Akh-Horus!' The two names mingled and crashed against the temple walls like storm-driven surf.

'He has risen from his tomb! He has become a god amongst us!'

It did not abate until suddenly Tanus drew the sword from his scabbard and held it aloft in an unmistakable command for silence. This was obeyed, and in the silence he spoke again.

'Great Egypt, do I have your permission to speak?'

I think by now the king could no longer rely on his powers of speech, for he made a gesture with crook and flail, and then his legs seemed to give way beneath him and he dropped back on his throne.

Tanus addressed him in ringing tones that carried to the outer court. 'Two years ago you charged me with the destruction of those viperous nests of murderers and robbers who were threatening the life of the state. You placed in my trust the royal hawk seal.'

From under his cloak, Tanus drew out the blue statuette and placed it on the steps of the throne. Then he stepped back and spoke again.

'In order better to carry out the king's orders, I pretended my own death and caused the mummy of a stranger to be sealed in my tomb.'

'Bak-Her!' shouted a single voice, and they took up the cry until Tanus once more commanded silence.

'I led a thousand brave men of the Blues into the deserts and the wild places and sought out the Shrikes in their secret fortresses. There we slew them in their hundreds and piled their severed heads at the roadside.'

'Bak-Her!' they screamed. 'It is true. Akh-Horus has done all these things.' Once again Tanus silenced them.

'I broke the power of the barons. I slaughtered their followers without mercy. In all this very Egypt of ours there remains only one who still calls himself a Shrike.'

Now at last they were silent, gobbling up every word he said, fascinated and intent. Even Pharaoh could not hold his impatience in check. 'Speak, Lord Tanus, whom men now know as Akh-Horus. Name this man. Give me his name so that he may come to know the wrath of Pharaoh.'

'He hides behind the name of Akh-Seth,' Tanus roared. 'His deeds of infamy rank with those of his brother, the dark

-'Give me his true name,' Pharaoh commanded, rising once more to his feet in his agitation. 'Name this last of all the Shrikes!'

Tanus drew out the moment. He looked around the temple slowly and deliberately. When our eyes met, I nodded so slightly that only he saw the movement, but his gaze passed on without a pause and he looked towards the open doors of the sanctuary.

The attention of all the congregation was so fixed upon Lord Tanus that they did not at first see the file of armed men that issued swiftly and silently from the sanctuary. Although they wore full armour and carried their war shields, I recognized most of them under the helmets. There were Remrem and Astes and fifty other warriors of the Blues. Swiftly, they formed up around the throne like a royal bodyguard, but, without making it obvious, Remrem and Astes moved up behind Lord Intef. As soon as they were in position, Tanus spoke again.

'I will name this Akh-Seth for you, Divine Pharaoh. He stands unashamedly in the shadow of your throne.' Tanus pointed with his sword. "There he is, wearing the Gold of Praise about his traitor's throat. There he stands, Pharaoh's sole companion who has turned your kingdom into a playground for murderers and bandits. That is Akh-Seth, governor of the nome of Thebes, grand vizier of the Upper Kingdom.'

An awful hush fell upon the temple. There must have been ten thousand or more in the congregation who had suffered grievously at Lord Intef's hands and who had every reason to hate him, but not a voice spoke out in jubilation or in triumph against him. All knew just how terrible was his wrath, and just how certain his retribution. I could smell the stink of their fear in the air, thick as the incense smoke. Every one of them understood that even Tanus' reputation and his mighty deeds were not sufficient for his unproven accusation to prevail against such a person as Lord Intef. To show joy or open agreement at this stage would be mortal folly.

In that hush Lord Intef laughed. It was a sound full of disdain, and with a dismissive gesture he turned his back upon Tanus and spoke directly to the king. 'The desert sun has burned his brain. The poor lad has gone mad. There is not a single word of truth in all his ravings. I should be angry, but instead I am saddened that a warrior of reputation has fallen so low.' He held out both hands to Pharaoh, a dignified and loyal gesture. 'All my life I have served Pharaoh and my people. My honour is so invulnerable that I see no need to defend myself against these wild rantings. Without fear I place my trust in the wisdom and justice of the divine king. I let my deeds and my love of Pharaoh speak, in place of my tongue.'

I saw the confusion and indecision on the king's painted face. His lips trembled and his brow was furrowed, for he was not blessed with a swift and incisive mind. After a moment he opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter any fateful or irredeemable judgement, Tanus lifted his sword again and pointed beyond the throne to the open doors of the sanctuary.

Through the doors came another procession of men so unusual that Pharaoh gaped at them with his mouth still open. Kratas led, with his visor raised and a sword in his right hand. Those who followed him wore only loin-cloths, and their heads and feet were bare. Their arms were bound behind their backs, and they shuffled like slaves on their way to the auction block.

I was watching Lord Intef s face, and I saw the shock assail him and force him to flinch, as though he had received a blow in the face. He had recognized the captives, but he had obviously believed that they were long dead, and their skulls grinning at the roadside. He darted a sideways glance at the small sacristy door in the wall that was almost hidden by the hanging linen bunting. It was his only escape from the crowded inner court, but Remrem moved one pace to his right and blocked his path to the doorway. Lord Intef looked back at the throne and lifted his chin in a confident and defiant gesture.

The six bound captives lined up before the throne and then, at a quiet order from Kratas, dropped to their knees and bowed their heads.

'Who are these creatures?' Pharaoh demanded, and Tanus stood over the first of them, seized his bound wrists and hauled him to his feet. The captive's skin was studded with the old healed scars of the smallpox and his blind eye reflected the light like a silver coin.

"The divine Pharaoh asks who you are,' Tanus said softly. 'Reply to the question.'

'Great Egypt, I am Shufti,' he said. 'I was once a baron of the Shrikes before Akh-Horus scattered and slew my clan at the city of Gallala.'

'Tell the king who was your overlord,' Tanus insisted.

'Akh-Seth was my overlord,' Shufti replied. 'I swore a blood-oath of allegiance to Akh-Seth, and I paid a bounty of one-quarter of all my plunder to him. In return Akh-Seth gave me immunity from the forces of law, and provided me with information on my intended victims.'

'Point out to the king the man you know as Akh-Seth,' Tanus ordered, and Shufti shuffled forward until he faced Lord Intef. He filled his mouth with spittle and spat it on to the grand vizier's gorgeous uniform. "This is Akh-Seth,' he cried. 'And may the worms feast on his guts!'

Kratas dragged Shufti to one side and Tanus lifted the next captive to his feet. 'Tell the king who you are,' he ordered.

'I am Akheku, and I was a baron of the Shrikes, but all my men are killed.'

'Who was your overlord? To whom did you pay your bounty?' Tanus demanded.

'Lord Intef was my overlord. I paid my bounty into the coffers of the grand vizier.'

Lord Intef stood proud and aloof, showing no emotion as these accusation were hurled at him. He offered no defence as, one after the other, the barons were dragged before him and each made the same declaration.

'Lord Intef was my overlord. Lord Intef is Akh-Seth.' The silence of the multitudes in the temple was as oppressive as the heat. They watched in horror, or in silent hatred, or in confusion and disbelief. However, not one of them dared yet to speak out against Lord Intef, or to show emotion until Pharaoh had first spoken.

The last of the barons was brought forward to confront the grand vizier. He was a tall, lean man with stringy muscles and sun-blasted skin. There was Bedouin blood in his veins, for his eyes were black and his nose beaked. His beard was thick and curling, and his expression arrogant. 'My name is Basti.' He spoke more clearly than any of the others. 'Men call me Basti the Cruel, though I know not the reason why.' He grinned with a raffish hangman's humour. 'I was a baron of the Shrikes until Akh-Horus destroyed my clan. Lord Intef was my overlord.'

This time he was not dragged away as the others had been. Tanus spoke to him again. 'Tell the king. Did you know Pianki, Lord Harrab, who in former times was a nobleman of Thebes?'

'I knew him well. I had dealings with him.'

'What were these dealings?' Tanus asked, with death in his voice.

'I plundered his caravans. I burned his crops in the fields. I raided his mines at Sestra, and I slew the miners in such amusing fashion that no others ever came to work the copper there. I burned his villas. I sent my men into the cities to speak evil of him, so that his honesty and his loyalty to the state were tarnished. I helped others to destroy him so that in the end he drank the poisonous Datura seed from his own cup.'

I saw the hand of Pharaoh that held the royal flail shake as he listened, and one of his eyelids twitched in a manner that I had noticed before-when he was sore distressed.

'Who was it that ordered these things?'

'Lord Intef commanded these things and rewarded me with a takh of pure gold.'

'What did Lord Intef hope to gain from this persecution of Lord Harrab?'

Basti grinned and shrugged. 'Lord Intef is grand vizier, while Pianki, Lord Harrab is dead. It seems to me Lord Intef achieved his purpose.'

'You acknowledge that I have offered you no clemency in return for this confession? Do you understand that death awaits you?'

'Death?' Basti laughed. 'I have never been afraid of that. It is the flour of the loaf I bake. I have fed it to countless others, so now why should I be afraid to feast on it myself?' Was he fool or brave man, I wondered, as I listened to the boast. Either way, I could find neither pity nor admiration for him in my heart. I remembered that Pianki, Lord Harrab had been a man like his son, and that is where my pity and my admiration lay.

I saw the merciless expression in the eyes of Tanus. I knew that he shared my feelings, and his grip upon the hilt of his sword tightened until his fingers turned as white as those of a drowned man.

'Take him away!' he grated. 'Let him await the king's pleasure.' I saw him compose himself with an effort, then he turned back to face the king. He went down on one knee before him.

'I have done all that you asked of me, Divine Mamose, god and ruler of Kemit. I wait for you to command me further.' His dignity and his grace closed up my throat so that I could not swallow. It took an effort to compose myself.

The silence in the temple persisted. I could hear my mistress's laboured breathing beside me and then I felt her take my hand and squeeze it with a strength that threatened to crack my finger-bones.

At last Pharaoh spoke, but with dismay I heard the doubt in his voice, and I sensed intuitively that he did not want any of this to be true. He had trusted Lord Intef so deeply for so long that it shook the foundations of his faith.

'Lord Intef, you have heard the accusations against you. How say you to them?'

'Divine Pharaoh, are these indeed accusations? I thought them merely the fantasies of a young man driven insane with envy and jealousy. He is the son of a convicted criminal and a traitor. Lord Tanus' motives are plain to see. He has convinced himself that the traitor Pianki might have become grand vizier in my place. In some perverse fashion, he holds me responsible for his father's downfall.'

With a wave of his hand he dismissed Tanus. It was so skilfully done that I saw the king waver. His doubts were growing stronger. For a lifetime he had implicitly trusted Lord Intef, and it was difficult for him to adjust his thinking. He wanted to believe in his innocence.

'What of the accusations of the barons?' Pharaoh asked at last. 'What reply do you make to them?'

'Barons?' Lord Intef asked. 'Must we flatter them with such a title? By their own testimony they are criminals of the basest kind?murderers, thieves, violators of women and children. Should we look for truth in them any more than we should look for honour and conscience in the beasts of the field?' Lord Intef pointed to them, and they were indeed half-naked and bound like animals. 'Let us gaze upon them, Divine Majesty. Are these not the kind of men that can be bribed or beaten into saying anything for the sake of then-own skins? Would you take the word of one of these against a man who has served you faithfully all his life?'

I saw the small, involuntary nod of the king's head as he accepted the reasoning of the man he had looked upon as a friend, the man upon whom he had heaped trust and rewards.

'All you say is true. You have always served me without vice. These rogues are strangers to truth and honour. It is possible that they may have been coerced.' He vacillated, and Lord Intef sensed his advantage.

'So far I have had only words thrown at me. Surely there must be some other evidence to support such mortal charges against me? Is there one person in this very Egypt who will bring evidence against me, real evidence and not mere words? If there is, let him come forward. Then I will answer this charge. If there is no one who has this evidence, then I have nothing to answer to>'

His words troubled Pharaoh deeply, I could see that. He gazed about the hall as if seeking the evidence that Lord Intef demanded, and then he obviously reached a decision.

'Lord Tanus, what proof do you have of these things, apart from the words of murderers and criminals?'

'The beast has covered his tracks well,' Tanus admitted, 'and he has taken cover in the densest thicket where it is difficult to come at him. I have no further evidence against Lord Intef, but there may be some other who does, somebody who will be inspired by what he has heard here today. I beg you, Royal Egypt, ask your people if there is not one of them who can bring forth anything to help us here.'

'Pharaoh, this is provocation. My enemies will be emboldened to come out of the shadows where they lurk to attack me,' cried Lord Intef in vehement protest, but Pharaoh silenced him with a brusque gesture. 'They will bear false witness against you at their peril,' he promised, and then addressed the congregation.

'My people! Citizens of Thebes! You have heard the accusations made against my trusted and well-beloved grand vizier. Is there one of you who can provide the proof that Lord Tanus lacks? Can any of you bring forward evidence against the Lord Intef? If so, I charge you to speak.'

I was standing before I realized what I had done, and my voice was so loud in my own ears that it startled me.

'I am Taita, who was once the slave of Lord Intef,' I shouted, and Pharaoh looked across at me and frowned. 'I have aught that I wish to show Your Majesty.'

'You are known to us, Taita the physician. You may approach.'

As I left my seat on the stand and went down to stand before the king, I looked across at Lord Intef and I missed my step. It was as though I had walked into a stone wall, so tangible was his hatred.

'Divine Egypt, this thing is a slave.' Lord Intef's voice was cold and tight. "The word of a slave against a lord of the Theban circle, and a high officer of the state?what mockery is this?'

I was still so conditioned to respond to his voice and to succumb to his word, that my resolve wavered. Then I felt Tanus' hand on my arm. It was only a brief touch, but it manned and sustained me. However, Lord Intef had noticed the gesture, and he pointed it out to the king.

'See how this slave is in the thrall of my accuser. Here is another one of Lord Tanus' trained monkeys.' Lord In-tef's voice was once more smooth as warm honey. 'His insolence is unbounded. There are penalties laid down in the law codes?'

Pharaoh silenced him with a gesture of his flail. 'You presume on our good opinion of you, Lord Intef. The codes of law are mine to interpret or amend. In them there are penalties laid down for the high-born as well as the common man. You would be well advised to remember that.'

Lord Intef bowed in submission and remained silent, but suddenly his face was haggard and drawn as he realized his predicament.

Now the king looked down at me. 'These are unusual circumstances, such as allow of unprecedented remedy. However, Taita the slave, let me warn you that if your words should prove frivolous, should they lack proof or substance, the strangling-rope awaits you.'

That threat and the poisonous bane of Lord Intef s gaze upon me made me stutter. 'While I was the slave of the grand vizier, I was his messenger and his emissary to the barons. I know all these men.' I pointed to the captives that Kratas held near to the throne. 'It was I who carried Lord Intef's commands to them.'

'Lies! More words, lacking proof,' Lord Intef called out, but now the edge of desperation was in his voice. 'Where is the proof?'

'Silence!' the king thundered with sudden ferocity. 'We will hear the testimony of Taita the slave.' He was looking directly at me, and I drew breath to continue.

'It was I who carried the command of Lord Intef to Basti the Cruel. The command was to destroy the estate and the fortune of Pianki, Lord Harrab. At that time I was the confidant of Intef, I knew that he desired the position of grand vizier to himself. All these things that Lord Intef commanded were accomplished. Lord Harrab was destroyed, and he was deprived of Pharaoh's favour and love, so that he drank the Datura cup. I, Taita, attest all these things.'

'It is so.' Basti the Cruel lifted his bound arms to the throne. 'All that Taita says is the truth.'

'Bah-Her!' shouted the barons. 'It is the truth. Taita speaks the truth.'

'Still these are only words,' the king mused. 'Lord Intef has demanded proof. I, your Pharaoh, demand proof.'

'For half my lifetime I was the scribe and the treasurer of the grand vizier. I kept the record of his fortune. I noted his profits and his expenses on my scrolls. I gathered in the bounty that the barons of the Shrikes paid to Lord Intef, and I disposed of all this wealth.'

'Can you show me these scrolls, Taita?' Pharaoh's expression shone like the full moon at the mention of treasure. Now I had his avid attention.

'No, Majesty, I cannot do so. The scrolls remained always in the possession of Lord Intef.'

Pharaoh made no effort to conceal his chagrin, his face hardened towards me, but I went on doggedly, 'I cannot show you the scrolls, but perhaps I can lead you to the treasure that the grand vizier has stolen from you, and from the people of your realm. It was I who built his secret treasuries for him, and hid within them the bounty that I gathered from the barons. It was in these store-rooms that I placed the wealth that Pharaoh's tax-collectors never saw.'

The king's excitement rekindled, hot as the coals on the coppersmith's forge. He leaned forward intently. Although every eye in the temple was fastened upon me, and the nobles were crowding forward the better to hear each word, I was watching Lord Intef without seeming to look in his direction. The burnished copper doors of the sanctuary were tall mirrors in which his reflection was magnified. Every nuance of his expression and every movement he made, however slight, was clear to me.

I had taken a fatal risk in assuming that his treasure still remained in the secret places where I had stored it for him. He might have moved it at any time during the past two years. Yet moving such quantities of treasure would have been a major work and the risk of doing so as great as letting it rest where it lay. He would have been forced to take others into his trust, and that was not easy for Lord Intef to do. He was by nature a suspicious man. Added to which was the fact that, until recently, he had believed me dead, and my secret with me.

I calculated that my chances were evenly balanced, and I risked my life on it. Now I held my breath as I watched Lord Intef's reflection in the copper doors. Then my heart raced and my spirits soared on the wings of eagles. I saw from the pain and panic in his expression that the arrow I had fired at him had struck the mark. I had won. The treasure was where I had left it. I knew that I could lead Pharaoh to the plunder and the loot that Lord Intef had gathered up over his lifetime.

But he was not yet defeated. I was rash to believe it would be so easily accomplished. I saw him make a gesture with his right hand that puzzled me, and while I dallied, it was almost too late.

In my triumph, I had forgotten Rasfer. The signal that Lord Intef gave him was a flick of the right hand, but Rasfer responded like a trained boar-hound to the huntsman's command to attack. He launched himself at me with such sudden ferocity that he took all of us by complete surprise. He had only ten pace's to cover to reach me, and his sword rasped from its scabbard as he came.

There were two of Kratas' men standing between us, but their backs were turned to him, and Rasfer barged into them and knocked them off their feet, so that one of them sprawled across the stone flags in front of Tanus and blocked his path when he tried to spring to my aid. I was on my own, defenceless, and Rasfer threw up his sword with both hands to cleave through my skull to my breast-bone. I lifted my hands to ward off the blow, but my legs were frozen with shock and terror, and I could not move or duck away from the hissing blade.

I never saw Tanus throw his sword. I had eyes for nothing but the face of Rasfer, but suddenly the sword was in the air. Terror had so enhanced my senses that time seemed to pass as slowly as spilled oil dribbling from the jar. I watched Tanus' sword turning end over end, spinning slowly on its axis, flashing at each revolution like a sheet of summer lightning, but it had not completed a full turn when it struck, and it was the hilt and not the point that crashed into Rasfer's head. It did not kill him, but it snapped his head over, whipping his neck like the branch of a willow in the wind, so that his eyes rolled back blindly in their sockets.

Rasfer never completed the blow he aimed at me. His legs collapsed under him and he fell in a pile at my feet. His sword flew from his nerveless fingers, spinning high in the air, and then fell back. It pegged into the side of Pharaoh's throne, and quivered there. The king stared at it in shocked disbelief. The razor edge had touched his arm, and split the skin. As we all watched, a line of ruby droplets oozed from the shallow wound, and dripped on to Pharaoh's cloud-white linen kilt.

Tanus broke the horrified silence. 'Great Egypt, you saw who gave the signal for this beast to attack. You know who was to blame for endangering your royal person.' He leaped over the downed guardsman and seized Lord Intef by the arm, twisting it until he fell to his knees and cried out with pain.

'I did not want to believe this of you.' Pharaoh's expression was sorrowful as he looked down on his grand vizier. 'I have trusted you all my life, and you have spat upon me.'

'Great Egypt, hear me!' Lord Intef begged on his knees, but Pharaoh turned his face away from him.

'I have listened to you long enough.' Then he nodded to Tanus. 'Have your men guard him well, but show him courtesy, for his guilt is not yet fully proven.'

Finally Pharaoh addressed the congregation. 'These are strange and unprecedented events. I adjourn these proceedings to consider fully the evidence that Taita the slave will present.to me. The population of Thebes will assemble once again to hear my judgement in this same place at noon tomorrow. I have spoken.'

WE ENTERED THROUGH THE MAIN DOORWAY to the audience hall of the grand vizier's palace. Pharaoh paused at the threshold. Although the wound from Rasfer's sword was slight, I had bandaged it with linen and placed his arm in a sling.

Pharaoh surveyed the hall slowly. At the far end of the long room stood the grand vizier's throne. Carved from a solid block of alabaster, it was hardly less imposing than Pharaoh's own in the throne room at Elephantine. The high walls were plastered with smooth clay and on this background were painted some of the most impressive frescoes that I had ever designed. They transformed the huge room into a blazing garden of delights. I had painted them while I was Lord Intef's slave, and even though they were my own creations, they still gave me a deep thrill of pleasure when I looked upon them.

I have no doubt that these works alone, without consideration of any other of my achievements, would support my claim to the title of the most significant artist in the history of our land. It was sad that I who had created them was now to demolish them. It detracted from the triumph of this tumultuous day.

I led Pharaoh down the hall. For once we had dispensed with all protocol, and Pharaoh was as eager as a child. He followed me so closely that he almost trod upon my heels, and his royal train fell in as eagerly behind him.

I led them to the throne wall and we stopped below the huge mural depicting the sun god, Ammon-Ra, on his daily journey across the heavens. Even in his excitement, I could see the reverent expression in the king's eyes as he looked up at the painting.

Behind us, the great hall was half-filled with the king's train, the courtiers and the warriors and the noble lords, to say nothing of the royal wives and concubines who would rather have given up all their rouges and paint-boxes of cosmetics than miss such an exciting moment as I had promised them. Naturally, my mistress was in the forefront. Tanus marched only a pace behind the king. He and his Blues had taken over the duties of the royal bodyguard.

The king turned back to Tanus now. 'Have your men bring forward the Lord Intef!'

Treating him with elaborate and icy courtesy, Kratas led Intef to face the wall, but he interposed himself between the prisoner and the king and stood with his naked blade at the ready.

'Taita, you may proceed,' the king told me, and I measured the wall, stepping out exactly thirty paces from the furthest corner and marking the distance with the lump of chalk that I had brought with me for the purpose.

'Behind this wall lie the private quarters of the grand vizier,' I explained to the king. 'Certain alterations were made when last the palace was renovated. Lord Intef likes to have his wealth close at hand.'

'Sometimes you are garrulous, Taita.' Pharaoh was less than captivated by my lecture on the palace architecture. 'Get on with it, fellow. I am aflame to see what is hidden here.'

'Let the masons approach!' I called out, and a small band of these sturdy rogues in their leather aprons came down the aisle and dropped their leather tool-bags at the foot of the throne wall. I had summoned them across the river from their work on Pharaoh's tomb. The white stone-dust in their hair gave them an air of age and wisdom that few of them deserved.

I borrowed a wooden set-square from their foreman, and with it marked out an oblong shape on the clay-plastered wall. Then I stepped back and addressed the,master mason.

'Gently now! Damage the frescoes as little as you can. They are great works of art.'

With their wooden mallets and their chisels of flint, they fell upon the wall, and they paid little heed to my strictures. Paint and plaster flew in clouds as slabs of the outer wall were stripped away and thumped to the marble floor. The dust offended the ladies and they covered their mouths and noses with their shawls.

Gradually from under the layer of plaster emerged the outline of the stone blocks. Then Pharaoh exclaimed aloud and, ignoring the flying dust, he drew closer, and peered at the design that appeared from beneath the plaster skin. The regular courses of stone blocks were marred by an oblong of alien-coloured stone that followed almost exactly the outline I had chalked upon the outer layer of plaster.

"There is a hidden door in there,' he cried. 'Open it immediately!'

Under the king's urging, the masons attacked the sealed doorway with a will, and once they had removed the keystone, the other blocks came out readily. A dark opening was revealed, and Pharaoh, who had by now taken charge of the work, called excitedly for torches to be lit.

'The entire space behind this wall is a secret compartment,' I told Pharaoh, while we waited for the torches to be brought to us. 'I had it constructed on Lord Intef's orders.'

When the torches were brought, Tanus took one of them and lit the king's way into the gaping secret door. The king stepped through, and I was the next to enter after him and Tanus.

It was so long since I had last been in there that I looked around me'with as much interest as the others. Nothing had changed in all that time. The chests and casks of cedar and acacia wood were stacked exactly as I had left them. I pointed out to the king those cases to which he should first devote his attention, and he ordered, 'Have them carried out into the audience hall.'

'You will need strong men to carry them,' I remarked drily. They are rather heavy.'

It took three of the biggest men of the Blues to lift each case and they staggered out through the jagged opening in the wall with them.

'I have never seen these boxes before,' Lord Intef protested, as the first of them was carried out and laid on the dais of the grand vizier's throne. 'I had no knowledge of a secret chamber behind the wall. It must have been built by my predecessor, and the cases placed there at his command.'

'Your Majesty, observe the seal on this lid.' I pointed it out to him and the king peered at the clay tablet.

'Whose seal is this?' he demanded.

'Observe the ring on the left forefinger of the grand vizier, Majesty,' I murmured. 'May I respectfully suggest that Pharaoh match it to the seal on this chest?'

'Lord Intef, hand me your ring if you please,' the king asked with exaggerated courtesy, and the grand vizier hid his left hand behind his back.

'Great Egypt, the ring has been on my finger for twenty years. My flesh has grown around it and it cannot now be removed.'

'Lord Tanus.' The king turned to him. 'Take your sword. Remove Lord Intef's finger and bring it to me with the ring upon it.' Tanus smiled cruelly as he stepped forward to obey, half-drawing his blade.

'Perhaps I am mistaken,' Lord Intef admitted with alacrity. 'Let me see if I cannot free it.' The ring slipped readily enough from his finger, and Tanus went down on one knee to hand it to the king.

Pharaoh bent studiously over the chest and made the comparison of ring to seal. When he straightened up again his face was dark with anger.

'It is a perfect match. This seal was struck from your ring, Lord Intef.' But the grand vizier made no reply to the accusation. He stood with his arms folded and his- expression stony.

'Break the seal. Open the chest!' Pharaoh ordered, and Tanus cut away the clay tablet and prised up the lid with his sword.

The king cried out involuntarily as the lid fell away and the contents were revealed, 'By all the gods!' And his courtiers crowded forward without ceremony to gaze into the chest, exclaiming and jostling each other for a better view.

'Gold!' The king scooped both hands full with the glittering yellow rings, and then let them cascade back between his fingers. He kept a single ring in his hand and held it close to his face to study the mint marks upon it. 'Two deben weight of fine gold. How much will this case contain, and how many cases are there in the secret store-room?' His question was rhetorical, and he was not expecting an answer, but I gave him a reply nevertheless.

'This case contains?' I read the manifest that I had inscribed on the lid so many years before. 'It contains one takh and three hundred deben of pure gold. As to how many cases of gold, if my memory serves me well, there should be fifty-three of gold and twenty-three of silver in this store. However, I have forgotten exactly how many chests of jewellery we hid here.'

'Is there no one I can trust? You, Lord Intef, I treated as my brother. There was no kindness that you did not receive from my hands, and this is how you have repaid me.'

AT MIDNIGHT THE CHANCELLOR AND THE chief inspector of the royal taxes came to the king's chamber where I was changing the dressing on his injured arm. They presented their final tally of the amount of the treasure and Pharaoh read it with awe. Once again, his emotions warred with each other, outrage vying with euphoria at this staggering windfall.

'The rogue was richer than his own king. There is no punishment harsh enough for such evil. He has cheated and robbed me and my tax-collectors.'

'As well as murdering and plundering Lord Harrab and tens of thousands of your subjects,' I reminded him, as I secured the bandage on his arm. It was perhaps impudent of me. However, he was by now so deep in my debt that I could risk it.

'That too,' he agreed readily enough, my sarcasm wasted upon him. 'His guilt is deep as the sea and high as the heaven. I will have to devise a suitable punishment. The strangler's rope is too kind for Lord Intef.'

'Majesty, as your physician, I must insist that you rest now. It has been a day that has taxed even your great strength and endurance.'

'Where is Intef? I cannot rest until I am assured that he is well taken care of.'

'He is under guard in his own quarters, Majesty. A senior captain and a detachment of the Blues have that duty.' I hesitated delicately. 'Rasfer is also under guard.'

'Rasfer, that ugly drooling animal of his? The one who tried to kill you in the temple of Osiris? Did he survive the crack that Lord Tanus gave him?'

'He is well if not happy, Pharaoh,' I assured him. 'Did Your Majesty know that Rasfer is the one who, so long ago, used the gelding-knife upon me?' I saw the beam of pity in the king's eye, as I blurted it out.

'I will deal with him as I deal with his master,' Pharaoh promised. 'He will suffer the same punishment as Lord Intef. Will that satisfy you, Taita?'

'Your Majesty is just and omniscient.' I backed out of his presence and went to find my mistress.

She was waiting for me and, although it was after midnight and I was exhausted, she would not let me sleep. She was far too overwrought, and she insisted that for the rest of the night I sit beside her bed and listen to her chatter about Tanus and other topics of lesser importance.

DESPITE THE DEARTH OF SLEEP, I WAS bright and clear-headed when I took my place in the temple of Osiris the following morning.

If anything, the congregation was even larger than it had been the day before. There was not a ___ soul in Thebes who had not heard of the downfall of the grand vizier, and who was not eager to witness his ultimate humiliation. Even those of his underlings, who had most prospered under his corrupt administration, now turned upon him, like a pack of hyena who devour their leader when he is sick and wounded.

The barons of the Shrikes were led before the throne in their rags and bonds, but when Lord Intef entered the temple, he wore fine linen and silver sandals. His hair was freshly curled, his face painted, and the chains of the Gold of Praise hung around his neck.

The barons knelt before the king, but even when one of the guards pricked him with the sword, Lord Intef refused to bend the knee, and the king made a gesture for the guard to desist.

'Let him stand!' the king ordered. 'He will lie in his tomb long enough.' Then Pharaoh rose and stood before us in all his grandeur and his rage. This once he seemed a true king, as the first of his dynasty had been, a man of might and force. I, who had come to know him and his weaknesses so well, found that I was overcome with a sense of awe.

'Lord Intef, you are accused of treason and murder, of brigandage and piracy, and of a hundred other crimes no less deserving of punishment. I have heard the supported testimony of fifty of my subjects from all walks and stations of life, from lords and freemen and slaves. I have seen the contents of your secret treasury wherein you hid your stolen wealth from the royal tax-collectors. I have seen your personal seal upon the treasure chests. By all these matters your guilt is proven a thousand times over. I, Mamose the eighth of that name, Pharaoh and ruler of this very Egypt, hereby find you guilty of all the crimes of which you are accused, and deserving of neither royal clemency nor mercy.'

'Long live Pharaoh!' shouted Tanus, and the salute was taken up and repeated ten times by the people of Thebes. 'May he live for ever!'

When silence fell, Pharaoh spoke again. 'Lord Intef, you wear the Gold of Praise. The sight of that decoration on the breast of a traitor offends me.' He looked across at Tanus. 'Centurion, remove the gold from the prisoner.'

Tanus lifted the chains from Lord Intef's neck and carried them to the king. Pharaoh took the gold in his two hands, but when Tanus started to withdraw, he stayed him with a word.

"The name Lord Harrab was tarnished with the slur of treason. Your father was hounded to a traitor's death. You have proven your father's innocence. I rescind all sentences passed against Pianki, Lord Harrab, and posthumously restore to him all his honours and titles that were stripped from him. Those honours and titles descend to you, his son.'

'Bak-Her!' shouted the congregation. 'May Pharaoh live for ever! Hail, Tanus, Lord Harrab!'

'In addition to those titles which now come down to you as your inheritance, I bestow upon you new distinction. You have carried out my charge to you. You have destroyed the Shrikes and delivered their overlord to justice. In recognition of this service to the crown, I bestow upon you the Gold of Valour. Kneel, Lord Harrab, and receive the king's favour.'

'Bak-Her!' they cried, as Pharaoh placed the jangling gold chains, that had so recently belonged to Lord Intef, but to which he had now added the star pendant of the warrior's decoration, about Tanus' neck. 'Hail, Lord Harrab!'

As Tanus withdrew, Pharaoh turned his attention back to the prisoners. 'Lord Intef, you are deprived of your title as a lord of the Theban circle. Your name and rank will be erased from all the public monuments, and from your tomb that you have prepared in the Valley of the Nobles. Your estates and all your possessions, including your illicit treasure, are forfeited to the crown, except only those estates that once belonged to Pianki, Lord Harrab, and which by fell means have come into your possession. These are now returned in their entirety to his heir, my goodly Tanus, Lord Harrab.'

'Bak-Her! Pharaoh is wise! May he live for ever!' the people cheered wildly, and beside me my mistress was weeping unashamedly, but then so were half the royal women. Very few of them could resist that heroic figure whose golden hair seemed to dim the chains upon his breast.

Now the king took me by surprise. He looked directly at where I sat beside my mistress. 'There is one other who has done the crown loyal service, the one who revealed the whereabouts of the stolen treasure. Let the slave, Taita, stand forth.'

I went down to stand before the throne, and the king's voice was gentle. 'You have suffered unspeakable harm at the hands of the traitor Intef and his henchman Rasfer. You have been forced by them to commit nefarious deeds and capital crimes against the state, by conniving with bandits and robbers and by concealing your master's treasure from the royal tax-collectors. However, these were not crimes of your own inspiration. As a slave, you were forced to the will of your master. Therefore I absolve you from all guilt and liability. I find you innocent of any crime, and I reward you for your service to us with a bounty of two takhs of fine gold to be paid out of the treasure confiscated from the traitor, Intef.'

A murmur of astonishment greeted this announcement, and I gasped aloud. It was a staggering amount. A fortune to match those of all but the wealthiest lords in the land, enough to buy -great tracts of the most fertile land along the river, and to furnish magnificent villas upon that land, to buy three hundred strong slaves to work the land, enough to fit out a fleet of trading vessels and send them to the ends of the earth to bring back more treasure. It was a sum large enough to boggle even my imagination, but the king had not finished.

'As a slave, this bounty will be paid not to you, but to your mistress, the Lady Lostris, who is a junior wife of Pharaoh.' I should have guessed that Pharaoh would keep it in the family.

I, who for a fleeting moment had been one of the richest men in Egypt, bowed to the king and returned to my place beside my mistress. She squeezed my hand to console me, but in truth I was not unhappy. Our destinies were so entwined that I was a part of her, and I knew that we would never again want for any material thing. I was already planning how I would invest my mistress's fortune for her.

At last the king was ready to pass sentence on the line of prisoners, though he looked only at Intef as he spoke.

'Your crimes are unparalleled. No punishment before meted out is harsh enough to fit your case. This then is the sentence I pass upon you. At dawn on the day after the end of the festival of Osiris, you will be marched through the streets of Thebes, bound and naked. While you still live you will be nailed by your feet to the main gate of the city, with your heads hanging downwards. You will be left there until your bones are picked clean by the crows. Then your bones will be taken down and ground to powder and cast into Mother Nile.'

Even Intef paled and swayed on his feet as he listened to the sentence. By dispersing their earthly bodies so that they could never be embalmed and preserved, Pharaoh was condemning the prisoners to oblivion. For an Egyptian there could be no harsher punishment. They were being denied for all eternity the fields of paradise.

WHEN MY MISTRESS EXPRESSED HER DETERMINATION to attend the executions and to watch her father being nailed upside-down to the main gate, I do not think that she truly realized the horror of what she would witness. I was equally determined that she should not be there to see it. There had never been a sadistic streak in her. I believe that her decision was influenced by the fact that most of the other royal women were going to enjoy the diverting spectacle, and that Tanus would be in command of the execution. She would never pass up an opportunity to gaze at him, even from a distance.

In the end I persuaded her only by employing the most poignant argument in my arsenal. 'My lady, such cruel sights as these will certainly affect your unborn son. Surely you do not wish to blight his young unformed mind.'

'That is not possible,' she faltered for the first time in our argument. 'My son could know nothing of it.'

'He will see through your eyes, and the screams of his dying grandfather will pass through the walls of your stomach and enter his tiny ears.' It was an evocative choice of words, and they had the effect I was striving for.

She thought about it at length, and then sighed. 'Very well then, but I shall expect you to bring me back a full description of it all. You are not to miss a single detail. Especially I will want to know what the other royal wives were wearing.' Then she grinned at me wickedly to prove that she had not been totally gulled by my arguments. 'You can whisper it all to me, so the child sleeping in my belly cannot overhear us.'

At dawn on the day of the execution the gardens of the palace were still shrouded in darkness when I left the harem. I hurried through the water-gardens, and the stars were reflected in the black surfaces of the ponds. As I approached the wing of the palace where Lord Intef was being held in his own quarters, I saw the blaze of torches and lamps lighting the windows, and heard the frantic yelling of orders and invective from within.

I knew instantly that something was seriously amiss, and I broke into a run. I was almost speared by the guard at the door to Lord Intef's private quarters, but he recognized me at the last moment before he skewered me, and lifted his weapon and let me pass.

Tanus was in the centre of the ante-chamber. He was roaring like a black-maned lion in a trap, and aiming blows with his clenched fists at whoever came within range. Even though he had always had a stormy temper, I had never before seen him so incapacitated by rage. He seemed to have lost the power of reason or of articulate speech. His men, those mighty heroes of the Blues, cowered away from him, and the rest of the palace wing was in an uproar.

I went straight up to him, ducked under another wild punch, and shouted in his face, 'Tanus! It is I! Control yourself! In the name of all the gods, are you mad?'

He almost struck me, and I saw him wrestle with his emotions and at last take control of them.

'See what you can do for them.' He pointed at the bodies that were scattered about the ante-chamber as though a battle had raged through it.

With horror I recognized that one of them was Khetkhet, a senior captain of the regiment and a man I respected. He was curled in the corner clutching his stomach, with such agony etched on his rigid features that I hoped never to see again. I touched his cheek and the skin was cold and dead.

I shook my head, 'He is past all help that I can give him.' I lifted his eyelid with my thumb and gazed into his dead eye, then I leaned forward and smelled his mouth. The faint musty odour of mushrooms on it was dreadfully familiar.

'Poison.' I stood up. 'The others will be the same.' There were five of them curled on the tiles.

'How?' asked Tanus, in a tone of forced calm, and I picked up one of the bowls piled on the low table from which they had obviously eaten their dinner, and I sniffed it. The smell of mushrooms was stronger.

'Ask the cooks,' I suggested. Then, in a sudden access of anger, I hurled the bowl against the wall. The crumpled bodies reminded me of my pets who had died the same death, and Khetkhet had been my friend.

I took a deep breath to calm myself before I asked, 'No doubt your prisoner has escaped?' Tanus did not reply, but led me through into the grand vizier's bedchamber. Immediately I saw the painted panel that had been removed from the far wall of the empty room, and the opening behind it.

'Did you know that there was a secret passage?' Tanus demanded coldly, and I shook my head.

'I thought I knew all his secrets, but I was wrong.' My voice was resigned. I think that in my heart I had known all along that we would never bring Intef to justice. He was a favourite of the dark gods and enjoyed their protection.

'Has Rasfer escaped with him?' I asked, and Tanus shook his head.

'I have him locked in the arsenal with the barons. But Intef's two sons, Menset and Sobek, have disappeared. Almost certainly they were the ones who arranged this murder of my men, and their father's escape.' Tanus had full control of that wild temper of his once more, but his anger was still there beneath it. 'You know Intef so well, Taita. What will he do? Where will he go? How can I catch him?'

'One thing I know, he will have made plans against such a day as this. I know he has treasure stored for him in the Lower Kingdom, with merchants and lawyers there. He has even had commerce with the false pharaoh. I think that he sold military information to him and his generals. He would receive a friendly welcome in the north.'

'I have already sent five fast galleys to the north, with orders to search all vessels that they overtake,' Tanus told me.

'He has friends across the Red Sea,' I said. 'And he has sent treasure to merchants in Gaza on the shores of the northern sea, to be held for him. He has had dealings with the Bedouin. Many of them are in his pay. They would help him to cross the desert.'

'By Horus, he is like a rat with a dozen escape-routes to his hole,' swore Tanus. 'How can I cover all of them?'

'You cannot,' I said. 'And now Pharaoh is waiting to witness the executions. You will have to report this to him.'

'The king will be angry, and with good reason. By allowing Intef to escape, I have failed in my duty.'

But Tanus was wrong. Pharaoh accepted the news of Intef's escape with remarkable equanimity. I cannot fathom the reason for this, except perhaps that the vast quantity of treasure he had acquired so unexpectedly had mellowed him. Deep in his heart he may still have cherished some sneaking affection for his grand vizier. On the other hand, Pharaoh was a kindly man, and may not have truly relished the prospect of watching Lord Intef being nailed to the city gates.

It is true he showed some passing annoyance, and spoke of justice being cheated, but all the time we were in his presence, he was surreptitiously studying the manifest of the treasure. Even when Tanus admitted his responsibility for the prisoner's escape, Pharaoh brushed it aside.

"The fault lies with the captain of the guard, and he has already been sufficiently punished from the poison bowl that Intef provided for him. You have sent galleys and troops in pursuit of the fugitive. You have done all that can be expected of you, Lord Harrab. It remains only for you to carry out my sentence on these other criminals.'

'Is Pharaoh ready to witness the execution?' Tanus asked, and Pharaoh looked about him for an excuse to remain with his manifests and tax-collectors' reports.

'I have much to do here, Lord Tanus. Proceed without me. Report to me when the sentences have been carried out.'

SO GREAT WAS THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN the executions that the city fathers had erected a Taita stand in front of the main gates. They charged a silver ring for a seat upon it. There was no lack of customers, and the stand was packed to capacity. The crowds who could not find a seat upon it overflowed out into the fields beyond the walls. Many of them had brought beer and wine to make a celebration of it, and to toast the barons on their way. Very few of them had not suffered from the ravages of the Shrikes, and many of them had lost husbands or brothers or sons to them.

Stark naked and bound together, as Pharaoh had ordered, the condemned men were led through the streets of Kamak. The crowd lined their way and hurled dung and filth at them as they passed, screaming insults and shaking their fists. The children danced ahead of the procession singing bits of doggerel made up on the spur of the moment:

Nails in my tooties, bare bum to the sky,

I am a baron, and that's how I die.

Obedient to my mistress's wishes, I had taken up a place on the stand to watch the sentence carried out. In truth I had no eyes for the clothing and jewellery of the women of fashion around me when the prisoners were at last led through the open gates. I looked instead at Rasfer and I tried to revive and inflate my hatred for him. I forced myself to recite every cruel and wicked act that he had ever committed against me, to relive the agony of the lash and the knife that he had inflicted upon me. Yet there he stood with his white belly sagging almost to his knees, with excrement in his hair and filth streaking his face and running down his grotesque body. It was difficult to hate him as much as he deserved.

He saw me on the stand and he grinned up at me. The paralysed muscles on one side of his face made it only half a grin, a sardonic grimace, and he called, 'Thank you for coming to "wish me godspeed, eunuch. Perhaps we will meet again in the fields of paradise, where I hope to have the pleasure of cutting off your balls once again.'

That taunt should have made it easier for me to hate him, but somehow it failed, although I called back to him, 'You are going no further than the mud in the river bottom, old friend. The next catfish that I roast on the spit I will call Rasfer.'

He was the first prisoner to be lifted on to the wooden gate. It took three men on the parapet of the wall, straining on the rope, while at the same time, four more shoved from below. They held him there as one of the regimental armourers climbed the ladder beside him with a stone-headed mallet in his fist.

There were no more jokes from Rasfer when the first of the thick copper nails was driven through the flesh and bones of his huge, callused feet. He roared and swore and twisted in the grip of the men who held him, and the crowd cheered and laughed and urged on the sweating armourer. It was only when the nails had been driven home and the hammerman had climbed down to admire his handiwork that the flaws in this novel form of punishment became evident. Rasfer howled and roared, swinging upside-down, with the blood trickling slowly down his legs. The hang of his pendulous paunch was reversed, and the huge hairy bunch of his genitalia flapped against his belly-button. As he twisted and struggled, the nails slowly 'ripped through the web of flesh between his toes, until finally they tore entirely free. Rasfer fell back to earth and flopped around like a beached fish. The spectators loved the show, and howled with mirth at his antics.

Encouraged by the spectators, his executioners lifted him back on to the gate, and the armourer with his hammer climbed back up the ladder to drive in more nails. In order to pin Rasfer more securely and to prevent him struggling, Tanus ordered his hands as well as his feet to be nailed to the gate.

This time it was more successful. Rasfer hung head down, his limbs spread like some monstrous star-fish. He was no longer bellowing, for the mass of intestines in his belly were sagging down and pressing on his lungs. He struggled for every breath he drew, and had none over for shouting.

One at a time, the other condemned men were lifted on to the gate and nailed there, and the crowd hooted and applauded. Only Basti the Cruel made no sound and gave them poor sport.

As the day wore on, the sun beat down upon the crucified victims, and the heat grew steadily stronger. By noon the prisoners were so weak with pain and thirst and loss of blood that they hung as quietly as the carcasses on butchers' hooks. The spectators began to lose interest and drifted away. Some of the barons lasted longer than the others. Basti went on breathing all that day. Only as the sun was setting did he take one deep shuddering breath and finally hang inert. Rasfer was the toughest of them all. Long after Basti was gone, he hung on. His face was filled with dark blood so it swelled to twice its normal size. His tongue protruded from between his lips, like a thick slice of purple liver. Once in a while he would utter a deep groan and his eyes would flutter open. Every time this happened, I shared his agony. The last of my hatred for him had long ago shrivelled and died, and I was racked with pity, as I would have been for any other tortured animal.

The crowd had long ago dispersed, and I sat alone on the empty stand. Not attempting to hide his disgust at such a brutal duty thrust upon him by the royal command, Tanus had stood to his post until sunset. Then finally he had handed over the death watch to one of his captains, and strode back into the city, leaving us to our vigil.

There were only the ten guards below the gate, myself on the stand and a few beggars lying like bundles of rags at the foot of the wall. The torches on either side of the gate guttered and flickered in the night breeze off the river, casting an eerie light over the macabre scene.

Rasfer groaned again, and I could stand it no longer. I took a jar of beer from my basket and climbed down to speak to the captain. Wejoiew each other from the desert, and he laughed and shook his head at my request. 'You are a soft-hearted fool, Taita. The bastard is so far-gone, he is not worth worrying about,' he told me. 'But I will look the other way for a while. Be quick about it.'

I went to the gate, and Rasfer's head was on a level with my own. 1 called his name softly, and his eyes fluttered open. I had no way of telling how much he understood, but I whispered, 'I have a little beer to wet your tongue.

He made a soft gulping sound in his throat. His eyes were looking at me. If he still had feeling, I knew his thirst must be a torment of hell. I dribbled a few drops from the jar over his tongue, careful not to let any of it run back into his nose. He made a weak and futile effort to swallow. It would have been impossible, even if he had been stronger; the liquid ran out of the corners of his mouth and down his cheeks into the dung-caked hair.

He closed his eyes, and that was the moment I was waiting for. I slipped my dagger out of the folds of my shawl. Carefully I placed the point behind his ear, and then with a sharp movement drove it in to the hilt. His back arched in the final spasm, and then he relaxed into death. I drew out the blade. There was very tittle blood, and I hid the dagger in my shawl and turned away.

'May dreams of paradise waft you through the night, Taita,' the captain of the guard called after me, but I had lost my voice and could not reply. I never thought that I would weep for Rasfer, and maybe I never did so. Perhaps I wept only for myself.

AT PHARAOH'S COMMAND THE RETURN of the court to Elephantine was initially delayed for a month. The king had his new treasure to dispose of and was in buoyant mood. In all the time I had known him, I had never seen him so happy and contented. I was pleased for him. By this time I held the old man in real and warm affection. Some nights I sat up late with him and his scribes, going over the accounts of the royal treasury, which now emitted a decidedly rosy glow.

At other times, I was summoned by Pharaoh to consultations on. the alterations to the mortuary temple and the royal tomb that he was now better able to afford. I calculated that at least half of the recently revealed treasure would go into the tomb with Pharaoh. He selected all the finest jewellery from Intef's hoard and sent almost fifteen takhs of bullion to the goldsmiths in his temple, to be turned into funerary objects.

Nevertheless, he found time to send for Tanus to advise him on military matters. He had now recognized Tanus as one of the foremost generals in his army.

I was present at some of these meetings. The threat from the false pharaoh in the Lower Kingdom was ever-present and preyed on all our minds. Such was Tanus' favour with the king that he was able to make the most of these fears and to persuade Pharaoh to divert a small part of Inters treasure to the building of five new squadrons of war galleys, and to re-equipping all the guards regiments with new weapons and sandals?although he was unable to persuade the king to make up the arrears in pay for the army. Many of the regiments had not been paid for the last half-year. Morale in the army was much boosted by these reinforcements, and every soldier knew whom to thank for them. They roared like lions and raised their clenched right fists in salute, when Tanus inspected their massed formations.

Most times when Tanus was summoned to the royal audience, my mistress found some excuse to be present. Although she had the good sense to keep in the background on these occasions, she and Tanus directed such looks at each other that I feared they might scorch the false beard of the Pharaoh. Fortunately nobody but myself seemed to notice these flashing messages of passion.

Whenever my mistress knew that I was to see Tanus in private, she burdened me with long and ardent messages for him. On my return I carried his replies which matched hers in length and fire. Fortunately these outpourings were highly repetitive, and memorizing them was not a great hardship.

My Lady Lostris never tired of urging me to find some subterfuge by which she tod Tanus might be alone together once more. I admit that I feared enough for my own skin and for the safety of my mistress and our unborn child, not to devote all my energies and ingenuity to satisfying this request of hers. Once when I did tentatively approach Tanus with my mistress's invitation to a meeting, he sighed and refused it with many protestations of love for her.

"That interlude in the tombs of Tras was sheer madness, Taita. I never intended to compromise the Lady Lostris' honour, but for the khamsin, it would never have happened. We cannot take that risk again. Tell her that I love her more than life itself. Tell her our time will come, for the Mazes of Ammon-Ra have promised it to us. Tell her I will wait for her through all the days of my life.'

On receiving this loving message, my mistress stamped her foot, called her true love a stubborn fool who cared nothing for her, broke a cup and two bowls of coloured glass, hurled a jewelled mirror which had been a gift from the king into the river, and finally threw herself on the bed where she' wept until suppertime.

APART FROM HIS MILITARY DUTIES, which included supervising the building of the new fleet of galleys, Tanus, these days, was much occupied with the reorganization of his father's estates that he had at last inherited.

On these matters he consulted me almost daily. Not surprisingly, the estates had never been preyed upon by the Shrikes while they belonged to Lord Intef, and accordingly they were all prosperous and in good repair. Thus Tanus had become overnight one of the most wealthy men in the Upper Kingdom. Although I tried my best to dissuade him, he spent much of this private fortune in making up the arrears in pay to his men and in re-equipping his beloved Blues. Of course his men loved him all the more for this generosity.

Not content with these profligate expenditures, Tanus sent out his captains, Kratas and Remrem and Astes, to gather up all the crippled and blinded veterans of the river wars who now existed by begging in the streets of Thebes. Tanus installed this riff-raff in one of the large country villas that formed part of his inheritance, and although slops and kitchen refuse would have been too good for them, he fed them on meat and corn-cakes and beer. The common soldiers cheered Tanus in the streets and drank his health in the taverns.

When I told my mistress of Tanus' mad extravagances, she was so encouraged by them that she immediately spent hundreds of deben of the gold that I had earned for her, in buying and equipping a dozen buildings which she turned into hospitals and hostels for the poor people of Thebes. I had already earmarked this gold for investment in the corn market, and though I wrung my hands and pleaded with her, she could not be moved.

Needless to say, it was the long-suffering slave Taita who was responsible for the day-to-day management of this latest folly of his mistress, although she visited her charity homes every day. Thus it was possible for any loafer and drunkard in the twin cities to scrounge a free meal and a comfortable bed from us. If that was not enough, they could have their bowl of soup served to them by my mistress's own fair hand, and their running sores and purging bowels treated by one of the most eminent physicians in this very Egypt.

I was able to find a few young unemployed scribes and disenchanted priests who loved people more than gods or money. My mistress took them into her employ. I led this little band on nocturnal hunts through the back alleys and slum quarters of the city. Nightly we gathered up the street orphans. They were a filthy, verminous bunch of little savages, and very few of them came with us willingly. We had to pursue and catch them like wild cats. I received many lusty bites and scratches in the process of bathing their filth-encrusted little bodies and shaving their hair that was so thick with lice and nits that it was impossible to drag a comb through it.

We housed them in one of my mistress's new hostels. Here the priests began the tedious process of taming them, while the scribes started on the long road of their education. Most of our captives escaped within the first few days, and returned to the gutters where they belonged. However, some of them stayed on in the hostel. Their slow transformation from animals to human beings delighted my mistress and gave me more pleasure, than I had suspected could ever come from such an unlikely source.

All my protests against the manner in which my mistress was wasting our substance were in vain, and I vowed that if I were to be embalmed and laid in my tomb before my allotted time, the blame would surely rest entirely with these two young idiots whom I had taken under my wing, and who rewarded me by consistently ignoring my best advice.

Needless to say, it was my mistress and not me whom the widows and the cripples blessed and presented with their pitiful little gifts of wilting wild flowers, cheap beads and tattered scraps of papyrus containing poorly written texts from the Book of the Dead. As she walked abroad, the common people held up their brats for her blessing and tried to touch the hem of her skirt as though it were some religious talisman. She kissed the grubby babies, a practice which I warned her would endanger her health, and she scattered copper pieces to the loafers with as much care as a tree drops its autumn leaves.

'This is my city,' she told me. 'I love it and I love every person in it. Oh, Taita, I dread the return to Elephantine. I hate to leave my beautiful Thebes.'

'Is it the city you hate to leave?' I asked. 'Or is it a certain uncouth soldier who lives here?' She slapped me, but lightly.

'Is there nothing you hold sacred, not even love that is pure and true? For all your scrolls and grand language, you are at heart a barbarian.'

THUS THE DAYS PASSED SWIFTLY FOR all of us, until one morning I consulted my calendar and discovered that over two months had passed since my Lady Lostris had resumed her marital duties on Pharaoh's couch. Although she still showed no evidence of her condition, it was time to apprise the king of his great good fortune, his approaching paternity. When I told my mistress what I intended, only one matter engaged her consideration. She made me promise that before I discussed it with the king, I must first tell Tanus that he was the true father of the child she was carrying. I set out to fulfil my promise that very afternoon. I found Tanus at the shipyards on the west bank of the river, where he was swearing at the shipwrights and threatening to throw them into the river to feed the crocodiles. He forgot his anger when he saw me, and took me on board the galley that they had launched that morning. Proudly, he showed me the new pump to remove water from the bilges, if the ship should ever be damaged in battle. He seemed to have forgotten that I had designed the equipment for him, and I had to remind him tactfully.

'Next you will want me to pay you for your ideas, you old rogue. I swear you are as stingy as any Syrian trader.' He clapped me on the back, and led me to the far end of the deck where none of the sailors could overhear us. He dropped his voice.

'How goes it with your mistress? I dreamed about her again last night. Tell me, is she well? How are those little orphans of hers? What a loving heart she has, what beauty!

All of Thebes adores her. I hear her name spoken wherever I go, and the sbund of it is as sharp as a spear thrust in my chest.'

"There will soon be two of her for you to love,' I told him, and he stared at me with his mouth agape like a man suddenly bereft of his senses. 'It was much more than just the khamsin that struck that night in the tombs of Tras.'

He seized me in a hug so powerful that I could not breathe. 'What is this riddle? Speak plainly, or I shall throw you into the river. What are you saying, you old scallywag? Don't juggle words with me!'

"The Lady Lostris is carrying your child. She sent me to tell you so that you should be the first to know it, even before the king,' I gasped. 'Now set me free before I am permanently damaged.' He released me so suddenly, that I almost fell overboard.

'My child! My son!' he cried. It was amazing how both of them had made that immediate assumption of the poor little mite's gender. "This is a miracle. This is a direct gift from Horus.' It was clear to Tanus in that moment that no other man in the history of the world had ever fathered an infant.

'My son!' he shook his head in wonder. He was grinning like an idiot. 'My woman and my son! I must go to them this very moment.' He set off down the deck, and I had to run to catch him. It took all my powers of persuasion to prevent him from storming the palace and bursting into the royal harem. In the end, I led him to the nearest riverside tavern to wet the baby's head. Fortunately a gang of off-duty Blues was already drinking there. I ordered and paid for a butt of the tavern's best wine and left them to it. There were men from some of the other regiments in the tavern, so there would probably be a riot later, for Tanus was in a rumbustious mood and the Blues never needed much encouragement to fight.

I went directly from the tavern to the palace, and Pharaoh was delighted to see me. 'I was about to send for you, Taita. I have decided that we have been too niggardly with the entrance-gates to my temple. I want something grander?'

'Pharaoh!' I cried. 'Great and Divine Egypt! I have wonderful tidings. The goddess Isis has kept her promise to you.

Your dynasty will be eternal. The prophecy of the Mazes> of Ammon-Ra will be fulfilled. The moon of my mistress; has been trodden under the hooves of the mighty bull off Egypt! The Lady Lostris is bearing your son!'

For once all thought of funerals and temple-building was driven from Pharaoh's mind, and, like Tanus, his very first instinct was to go to her. Led by the king, we rushed through the palace corridors, a solid stream of nobles and courtiers turbulent as the Nile in spate, and my mistress was waiting for us in the garden of the harem. With the natural wiles of the female, she had composed the setting perfectly to show off hert loveliness to full effect. She was seated on a low bench with flower-beds around her and the broad river behind her. For ai moment I thought the king might throw himself to his knees; in front of her, but even the prospect of immortality could nott cause him to forget his dignity to that extent.

Instead, he showered her with congratulations and compliments and earnest enquiries after her health. All the while: his fascinated gaze was fastened on her belly from which i the miracle would in the fullness of time emerge. Finally he; asked her, 'My dear child, is there anything that you lack: for your happiness? Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable during this trying time in your life?'

I was filled once more with admiration for my mistress. She would have made a great general or corn trader, for her sense of timing was impeccable. 'Your Majesty, Thebes is the city of my birth. I cannot be truly happy anywhere else in Egypt. I beg you in your generosity and understanding to allow your son to be born here in Thebes. Please do not make me return to Elephantine.'

I held my breath, the siting of the court was an affair of state. To remove from one city to another was a decision which affected the lives of thousands of citizens. It was not one to be made on the light whim of a child not yet sixteen years of age.

Pharaoh looked amazed at the request, and scratched his false beard. *You want to live in Thebes? Very well, then, the court will move to Thebes!' He turned to me. 'Taita, design me a new palace.' He looked back at my mistress. 'Shall we site it there, on the west bank, my dear?' He pointed across the river.

'It is cool and pretty on the west bank,' my mistress agreed. 'I shall be very happy there.'

'On the west bank, Taita. Do not stint yourself in the design. It must be a fitting home for the son of Pharaoh. His name will be Memnon, the ruler of the dawn. We will call it the Palace of Memnon.'

With such simple ease my mistress saddled me with a mountain of labour, and accustomed the king to the first of many such demands in the name of the child in her womb. From this moment on, Pharaoh was not disposed to deny her aught that she asked for, whether it was titles of honour for those she loved or liked, alms for those she had taken under her protection, or rare and exotic dishes that were fetched for her from the ends of the empire. Like a naughty child, I think that she enjoyed testing the limits of this new power she wielded over the king.

She had never seen snow, though she had heard me speak of it from my fragmentary childhood memories of the mountainous land where I had been born. My mistress asked for some to be brought to her to cool her brow in the heat of the Nile valley. Pharaoh immediately commanded a special athletics games to be held, during which the hundred fastest runners in the Upper Kingdom were selected. They were despatched to Syria to bring back snow to my mistress in a special box of my design, which was intended to prevent it melting. This was probably the only one of all her whims that remained unsatisfied. All we received back from those far-off mountain peaks was a damp patch in the bottom of the box.

In all other things she was fully accommodated. On one occasion she was present when Tanus presented a report to the king on the order of battle of the Egyptian fleet. My mistress sat quietly in the background until Tanus had finished and taken his leave, then she remarked quietly, 'I have heard it said that Lord Tanus is the finest general we have. Don't you think it may be wise, divine husband, to promote him to Great Lion of Egypt and place him in command of the northern corps?' Once again I gasped at her effrontery, but Pharaoh nodded thoughtfully.

'That same thought had already occurred to me, my dear, even though he is still so young for high command.'

The following day, Tanus was summoned to a royal audience, from which he emerged as Great Lion of Egypt and the commander of the northern wing of the army. The ancient general who had preceded him was palmed off with a substantial pension and relegated to a sinecure in the royal household. Tanus now had three hundred galleys and almost thirty thousand men under his command. The promotion meant that he stood fourth in the army lists, with only Nem-bet and a couple of old dodderers above him.

'Lord Tanus is a proud man,' the Lady Lostris informed me, as if I were completely ignorant of this fact. 'If you should ever tell him that I had any hand in his promotion, I shall sell you to the first Syrian trader I come upon,' she threatened me ominously.

All this time her belly, once so smooth and shapely, was distending gradually. With all my other work I was obliged to relay daily bulletins on this progression, not only to the palace, but also to army headquarters, northern command.

I BEGAN WORK ON THE CONSTRUCTION of the Palace of Memnon five weeks after Pharaoh had given me the original instructions, for it had taken me that long to draw up the final plans. Both my mistress and the king agreed that my designs exceeded their expectations, and that it would be by far the most beautiful building in the land.

On the same day that the work began, a blockade runner who had succeeded in bribing his way past the fleets of the red pretender in the north docked in Thebes with a cargo of cedar wood from Byblos. The captain was an old friend of mine and he had interesting news for me.

Firstly, he told me that Lord Intef had been seen in the city of Gaza. It was said that he was travelling in state with a large bodyguard towards the East. He must therefore have succeeded in crossing the Sinai desert, or he had found a vessel to carry him through the mouth of the Nile and thence east along the coast of the great sea.

The captain had other news that at the time seemed insignificant, but which was to change the destiny of this very Egypt and of all of us who lived along the river. It seemed that a new and warlike tribe had come out of an unknown land to the east of Syria, carrying all before them. Nobody knew much about these warrior people, except that they seemed to have developed a form of warfare that had never been seen before. They could cross vast distances very swiftly, and no army could stand against them.

There were always wild rumours of new enemies about to assail this very Egypt. I had heard fifty like this one before, and thought as little of this one as I had of all the others. However, the captain was usually a reliable source, and so I mentioned his story to Tanus when next we met.

'No one can stand against this mysterious foe?' Tanus smiled. 'I would like to see them come against my lads, I'll show them what the word invincible truly means. What did you say they are called, these mighty warriors who come like the wind?'

'It seems that they call themselves the Shepherd Kings,' I replied, 'the Hyksos.' The name would not have slid over my tongue so smoothly if I understood then what it would mean to our world.

"The shepherds, hey? Well, they will not find my rascals an easy flock to herd? Jie dismissed them lightly, and was much more interested in my news of Lord Intef. 'If only we could be certain of his true whereabouts, I could send a detachment of men to arrest him, and bring him back to face up to justice. Wherever I walk on the estates that once belonged to my family, I feel the spirit of my father beside me. I know he will never rest until I avenge him.'

'Would that it were so easy.' I shook my head. 'Intef is as cunning as a desert fox. I don't think we will ever see him in Egypt again.' As I said this, the dark gods must have chuckled to themselves.

AS MY MISTRESS'S PREGNANCY ADVANCED, I was able to insist that she limited her many activities. I forbade her to visit the hospitals or the orphanage, for fear of infecting herself and her unborn infant with the vermin and the diseases of the poor. During the heat of the day I made her rest under the barrazza that I had built in the water-garden for the grand vizier. When she protested at the boredom of this enforced inactivity, Pharaoh sent his musicians to the garden to entertain her, and I was persuaded to leave my work on the Palace of Memnon to keep her company, to tell her stories and to discuss Tanus' latest exploits with her.

I was very strict with her diet, and allowed her no wine or beer. I had the palace gardeners provide fresh fruits and vegetables each day, and I carved all the fat off her meat, for I knew that it would make the child in her belly sluggish. I prepared each of her meals myself and every night when I saw her to her bedchamber, I mixed a special potion with herbs and juices that would strengthen her infant.

Of course, when she suddenly declared that she must have a stew made from the liver and kidneys of a gazelle, or a salad of larks' tongues or the roasted breast of the wild bustard, the king immediately sent a hundred of his huntsmen into the desert to procure these delicacies for her. I refrained from telling Lord Tanus of these strange cravings of my mistress, for I dreaded to learn that rather than prosecuting the war against the false pharaoh, the northern army had been sent into the desert to hunt gazelle or larks or bustard.

As the day of her confinement approached, I lay awake at night worrying. I had promised the king a prince, but he was not expecting his heir to arrive so expeditiously. Even a god can count the days from the first of the festival of Osiris. There was nothing that I could do if the child turned out to be a princess, but at least I could prepare Pharaoh for her early arrival.

Pharaoh had now conceived an interest in the subject of pregnancy and parturition, which temporarily rivalled his obsession with temples and tombs. I had to reassure him almost daily that the Lady Lostris' rather narrow hips were no obstacle to a normal birth, and that her tender age, far from being prejudicial, was highly favourable to a successful conclusion to our enterprise.

I took the opportunity to inform him of the interesting but little-known fact that many of the great athletes, warriors and sages of history had been prematurely exposed to the light of day.

'I believe, Your Majesty, that it's rather like the case of the sluggard who lies too long abed, and thus wastes his energy, while the great men are invariably early risers. I have noticed that you, Divine Pharaoh, are always about before sunrise. It would not surprise me to learn that you were also a premature birth.' I knew that he was not, but naturally he could not now contradict me. 'It would be a most propitious circumstance if this prince of yours should imitate his sire, and start early from his mother's womb.' I hoped that I had not belaboured my point, but the king seemed convinced by my eloquence.

In the end, the child cooperated most handsomely by overstaying its allotted term by almost two weeks, and I did nothing to hurry it along. The time span was so close to the normal that no tongues could wag, but Pharaoh was blessed with the premature birth that he had come to believe was sd desirable.

It was no surprise to me that my mistress began her labour at a most inconvenient hour. Her waters broke in the third watch of the night. She was not in the habit of making matters too easy for me. At least this gave me the excuse of dispensing with the-services of a midwife, for I had little faith in those hags with the black, dried blood crusted under their long, ragged fingernails.

Once she had begun, my Lady Lostris carried it off with her usual despatch and aplomb. I had barely time to shake myself fully awake, scrub my hands in hot wine and bless my instruments in the flame of the lamp, before she grunted and said quite cheerfully, 'You had better take another look, Taita. I think something is happening.' Although I knew it was much too soon, I humoured her. One glance was enough, and I shouted for her slave girls.

'Hurry, you lazy strumpets! Fetch the royal wives!'

'Which ones?' The first girl to answer my call tottered into the room half-naked and half-asleep.

'All of them, any of them.' No prince could inherit the double crown unless his birth had been witnessed, and it was formally attested that no exchange had taken place.

The royal women began to arrive just as the child revealed itself for the first time. My lady was seized by an overpowering convulsion, and then the crown of the head appeared. I had dreaded that it might be surmounted by a shock of red-gold curls, but what I saw was a thick dark pelt like that of one of the river otters. It was much later that the colour would change and the red would begin to sparkle in the black locks, like points of polished garnets, and then only when the sun shone upon it.

'Push!' I called to my mistress. 'Push hard!' And she responded lustily. The young bones of her pelvis, not yet tempered to rigidity by the years, spread to give the infant fair passage, and the way was well oiled. The child took me unawares. It came out like a stone from a sling-shot, and the tiny, slippery body almost flew from my hands.

Before I had a good hold on it, my mistress struggled up on her elbows. Her hair was plastered to her scalp with sweat and her expression was desperate with anxiety. 'Is it a boy? Tell me! Tell me!'

The roomful of royal ladies crowding around the bed were witness to the very first act the child performed, as it entered this world of ours. From a penis as long as my little finger, the Prince Memnon, the first of that name, shot a fountain almost as high as the ceiling. I was full in the path of this warm stream, and it drenched me to the skin.

'Is it a boy?' my mistress cried again, and a dozen voices answered her together.

'A boy! Hail, Memnon, the royal prince of Egypt!'

I could not speak yet, for my eyes burned not only with royal urine, but with tears of joy and relief as his birth cry rang out, angry and hot with temper.

He waved his arms at me and kicked out so strongly that I almost lost my grip again. As my vision cleared I was able to make out the strong, lean body and the small, proud head with the thick pelt of dark hair.

I LOST COUNT LONG AGO OF HOW MANY infants I have birthed, but there had been nothing in my experience to prepare me for this. I felt all the love and devotion of which I was capable crystallized into that moment. I knew that something which would last a lifetime, and which would grow stronger with each passing day, had begun. I knew that my life had taken another random turn, and that nothing would ever be the same again.

As I cut the cord and bathed the child, I was filled with a sense of religious awe such as I had never known in the sanctuary of any one of Egypt's manifold gods. I feasted my eyes and my soul upon that perfect little body and upon the red and wrinkled face in which the signs of strength and stubborn courage were stamped as clearly as upon the features of his true father.

I laid him in his mother's arms, and as he found and latched on to her swollen nipple like a leopard on to the throat of a gazelle, my mistress looked up at me. I could not speak, but then there were no words that could frame what passed silently between us. We both knew. It had begun, something so wonderful that as yet neither of us could fully comprehend it.

I left her to the joy of her son and went to report to the king. I was in no hurry. I knew that the news would have been carried to him long since. The royal ladies are not renowned for their reticence. He was probably on his way to the harem at this very moment.

I dawdled in the water-garden, possessed by a dreaming sense of unreality. The dawn was breaking, and the sun god, Ammon-Ra, showed the tip of his fiery disc above the eastern hills. I whispered a prayer of thanks to him. As I stood with my eyes uplifted, a flock of the palace pigeons circled above the gardens. As they turned, the rays of the sun caught their wings and they flashed like bright jewels in the sky.

Then I saw the dark speck high above the circling flock, and even at that distance I recognized it immediately. It was a wild falcon, come out of the desert. It folded back its sharp wings and began its stoop. It had chosen the leading bird in the flock, and the dive was deadly accurate and inexorable. It struck the pigeon in a burst of feathers, like a puff of pale smoke, and the bird was dead in the air. Always a falcon will bind to its prey and drop to earth with it gripped in its talons.

This, time that did not happen. The falcon killed the pigeon and then opened his talons and released it. The shattered carcass of the bird fell free, and, with a harsh scream, the falcon circled over my head. Three times it circled and three times it uttered that thrilling, warlike call. Three is one of the most potent magical numbers. From all these things I realized that this was no natural occurrence. The falcon was a messenger, or even the god Horus in his other form.

The carcass of the pigeon fell at my feet, droplets of its warm blood splattered my sandals. I knew that it was a token from the god. A sign of his protection, and patronage for the infant prince. I understood also that it was a charge to me. The god was commending him to my care.

I took the dead pigeon in my hands, and lifted it to the sky. 'Joyfully I accept this trust that you have placed upon me, oh Horus. Through all the days of my life I will be true to it.'

The falcon called again, one last wild shriek, and then it banked away and on quick, stabbing wing-beats, flew out across the wide Nile waters and disappeared into the wilderness, back towards the western fields of paradise where the gods live.

I plucked a single wing-feather from the pigeon. Later I placed it under the mattress of the prince's cot, for good luck.

PHARAOH'S JOY AND PRIDE IN HIS HEIR were unbounded. He declared a nativity feast in his honour. For one entire night the citizens of Upper Egypt sang and danced in the streets, and gorged on the meat and wine that Pharaoh provided, and they blessed the Prince Memnon with every bowlful that went down their gullets. The fact that he was the son of my Lady Lostris, whom they loved, made the occasion of his birth all the more joyous.

So young and resilient was my mistress that within days, she was well enough to appear before the full court of Egypt, bearing her infant at her breast. Seated on the lesser throne below that of the king, she made a picture of lovely young motherhood. When she opened her robe and lifted out one of her milk-swollen breasts and before the assembled court gave the infant suck, they cheered her so loudly as to startle the infant. He spat out the nipple and roared at them in scarlet-faced outrage, and the nation took him to its heart.

'He is a lion,' they declared. 'His heart is pumped up with the blood of kings and warriors.'

Once the prince had been quieted again, and his mouth stopped up with the nipple, Pharaoh rose to address us, his subjects.

'I acknowledge this child to be my issue and the direct line of my blood and succession. He is my first-born son, and shall be Pharaoh after me. To you noble lords and ladies, to all my subjects, I commend the Prince Memnon.'

The cheers went on and on, for no one amongst them wanted to be the first to fall silent and bring his loyalty into question.

During all of this I stood with other servants and slaves of the royal household in one of the upper galleries which overlooked the hall. By craning my head, I was able to pick out the tall figure of Lord Tanus. He was standing in the third rank below the throne with Nembet and the other military commanders. Although he cheered with the rest of them, I could read the expression on his broad, open face that he strove to disguise. His son was claimed by another and it was beyond his power to prevent it. Even I, who knew and understood him so well, could only guess at what agony he was suffering.

When at last the king ordered silence and he had their attention once more, he continued, 'I commend to you also the mother of the prince, the Lady Lostris. Know all men that she sits now closest to my throne. From this day forward she is elevated to the rank of chief consort and the senior wife of Pharaoh. From henceforth, in name she will become Queen Lostris, while in precedence and preferment she ranks after the king and his prince alone. Furthermore, until the prince has reached the age of his majority, Queen Lostris shall act as my regent and, when I am unable to do so, she will stand at the head of the nation in my stead.'

I did not think there was a soul in all the Upper Kingdom who did not love my mistress, except perhaps some of the royal wives who had been unable to provide the king with a male heir, and who now found themselves outranked by her and superseded in the order of precedence. All the rest showed their love in the acclaim with which they greeted this pronouncement.

To end the ceremony of the naming of Pharaoh's heir, the royal family left the hall. In the main courtyard of the palace, Pharaoh mounted the sledge of state, and with Queen Lostris seated at his side and the prince in her arms, they were drawn by the span of white bullocks down the Avenue of Rams to the temple of Osiris to make sacrifice to the god. Both sides of the sacred avenue were lined a hundred deep by the citizens of Thebes. With a mighty voice they demonstrated their devotion to the king and their love for the queen and her new-born prince.