Warlock: A Novel of Ancient Egypt

She nodded, then reached across and moved a stone that in his preoccupation he had overlooked. He glanced down and almost discounted it, until he realized that his west castle was now under a forked attack. Three moves later she had broken his front. He kept up the losing battle for a while longer, but his forces were in disarray and the outcome was inevitable. 'You caught me when I was distracted by other things,' he groused. 'So much like a woman.'

'Your Majesty, I make no claims to being anything else than a woman.' She used his title with an irony that bit like the jewelled dagger she wore on her belt. Then she leaned close and whispered, 'If I were alone with you, would you promise to respect my chastity?'

'I swear by the wounded eye of the great god Horus that I will never, as long as I live, cause you shame,' he told her earnestly.

She smiled at him. 'My brothers will not be overpleased to hear that. They would welcome an excuse to slit your throat.' She slanted those magnificent dark eyes at him. 'Or, failing your throat, some other part of you might satisfy them.'

Their chance came the next day. One of the royal huntsmen came in from the hills above the village of Dabba to report that a lion had come out of the eastern wilderness and raided the cattle pens during the night. It had jumped the stockade and killed eight of the terrified beasts. In the dawn a horde of villagers, brandishing burning torches, blowing horns, beating drums and screaming wildly, had driven it off.

'When did this happen?' asked Naja.

'Three nights ago, Your Grace.' The man was prostrate before the throne. 'I came upriver as soon as I could, but the current runs strongly and the winds were flukey.'

'What has happened to the beast?' King Apepi interrupted eagerly.

'It has gone back into the hills, but I have sent two of my best Nubian trackers to follow it.'

'Did any man see it? What size is it? Lion or lioness?'

'The villagers say that it is a large male, with a full mane, thick and black.'

Up until the last sixty years lions had been almost unheard-of in the lands along the river. They were royal game, and had been hunted ruthlessly by successive pharaohs, not only because of the damage they inflicted on the livestock of the peasant farmers but also because they were the most sought-after trophy of the royal hunt.

During the long, bitter struggle of the Hyksos wars the pharaohs of both kingdoms had been preoccupied and the lions had been hunted seldom. In addition the human corpses left on the battlefields had provided an easy source of food for the lion prides. In the last few decades they had flourished, their numbers had increased many-fold and so had their boldness.

'I will have the chariots loaded on to the boats at once,' Apepi decided. 'With the state of the river we can be at Dabba early tomorrow morning.' He grinned and punched his fist into the horny palm of his sword hand. 'By Seueth, I would like a chance at this old black-mane. Since I have had to give up killing Egyptians, I am starved for real sport.'

Naja frowned at the sally. 'Majesty, you are expected to sail back to

Avaris the day after tomorrow morning.'

'You are right, Regent. However, most of our baggage is already loaded and the fleet lies ready to depart. Moreover, Dabba lies on my way homewards. I can afford a day or two to join in the hunt.'

Naja hesitated. He was not so addicted to the hunt that he wished to neglect the numerous affairs of state that awaited his attention. He had looked forward to the departure of Apepi, whose boisterous, uncouth presence in Thebes had long since palled. Also he had other plans afoot, which could only be furthered once Apepi had left Thebes. Yet he could not allow the Hyksosian Pharaoh to hunt alone in the Upper Kingdom. Not only would it be churlish to do so, but it would be impolitic to let Apepi behave in the southern kingdom as though he had sole right to it.

'Your Majesty,' Nefer intervened, before Naja could compose a suitable refusal, 'we will join in the hunt with the greatest of pleasure.' He saw an opportunity for magnificent sport, for he had never had the chance to run down a lion in his chariot and test his own courage by standing down the charge. But, a hundred times more important, the hunt might also delay Mintaka's dreaded departure. This happy circumstance might even provide the opportunity that had so far eluded them of spending a short time alone. Before Naja could prevent him Nefer had turned to the huntsman, who still lay with his forehead pressed to the tiled floor. 'Well done, my good fellow. The chamberlain will give you a gold ring for your trouble. Return to Dabba at once in the fastest felucca in our fleet. Make ready for our arrival. We will go after this beast in full array.'

Nefer's only cause for regret was that Taita would not be with him during his first lion hunt to offer counsel and advice. The old man had disappeared into the wilderness on another of his periodic and mysterious forays, and no one knew when he would return.

--

In the early morning of the next day the hunting party disembarked on the bank of the river below the village of Dabba. Then all the horses and twenty chariots were off-loaded from the small convoy of lighters and galleys. While this was being done, the lance-bearers sharpened the spear blades, restrung the hunting bows and checked the arrows for balance and straightness. While the horses were watered, fed and groomed, the hunters ate a hearty breakfast that the villagers had provided.

The mood was ebullient, and Apepi sent for the tracker who had returned from the hills to report. 'It is a very big lion. The biggest I have ever seen east of the river,' the man told them, increasing their excitement.

'You actually saw him?' Nefer demanded. 'Or did you only read his sign?'

'I saw him clearly but only at a distance. He stands as tall as a horse and he walks with the dignified tread of a monarch. His mane waves like a sheaf of dhurra millet stalks in the wind.'

'By Seth, the fellow is a poet,' Naja sneered. 'Stick to the facts and eschew the fine words, knave.'

The huntsman touched his heart with his fist to show his contrition, and went on with his report in a subdued tone. 'He lay up yesterday in a wooded wadi two leagues from here, but he left at the fall of night to prowl. It is four days since he last fed and he is hungry and hunting again. During the night he tried to drag down an oryx, but it kicked him off and ran free.'

'Where do you hope to find him today?' Nefer asked, in a kinder voice than Naja had used. 'If he hunted he will be thirsty as well as hungry. Where will he drink?'

The huntsman looked at him with respect, not only for his royal eminence but also for the knowledge of the wild he displayed. 'After his attempt to bring down the oryx, he went into stony ground where we could no longer read his tracks.' Apepi made a gesture of annoyance, and the huntsman hurried on, 'But I expect him to have drunk this morning at a small oasis. A hidden place little known to any except the Bedouin.'

'How long to reach this place?' Nefer asked, and the man swept his arm through part of an arc, indicating the sun's progress over the passage of three hours.

'Then we have little time to waste.' Nefer smiled at him, and turned away to shout at the troop captain of the chariots, 'How much longer, soldier?'

'All is ready, Majesty.'

'Sound the mount up,' Nefer ordered, and the ram's horns blared as the hunters scattered to the waiting chariots. Mintaka walked at Nefer's side. In these informal circumstances all royal dignity was forgotten, and they were simply boy and girl on an exciting outing. Lord Trok spoiled the illusion: just as he leaped into his own chariot and gathered up the reins, he called across to King Apepi, 'Your Majesty, it is not wise to let the Princess ride with an untried boy. This is not a gazelle we are hunting now.'

Nefer froze and stared at Trok with outrage. Mintaka laid a small hand on his bare arm. 'Do not provoke him. He is a formidable fighter with a terrible temper, and if you challenge him even your rank will not protect you.'

Nefer shrugged off her arm furiously. 'My honour will not allow me to ignore such an insult.'

'Please, my heart, for my sake, let it pass.' It was the first time she had used such an endearment. She did it deliberately, knowing the effect it must have on him: she was already learning to manage his volatile moods and tempers with a loving woman's instinct far beyond her years and experience. In the instant Nefer forgot Trok and the slur to his honour. 'What did you call me?' he asked huskily.

'You are not deaf, my darling.' He blinked at this second endearment. 'You heard quite clearly.' And she smiled into his face.

Apepi bawled into the silence, 'Do not worry, Trok. I am sending my daughter to take care of Pharaoh. He will be quite safe.' He gave a snort of laughter and shook the reins. As his team jumped forward he shouted again, 'We have wasted half the morning here. Huntsmen, take up the chase!'

Nefer steered his chariot behind Apepi, cutting steeply past the noses - of Lord Trok's team. As he went by he gave Trok a cold glare, and told him, 'You are impudent. Rest assured that this is not the end of it. We will speak further on this matter, Lord Trok.'

'I fear he is now your enemy, Nefer,' Mintaka murmured. Trok has an evil reputation and an even more evil temper.'

Led by the royal huntsman, who rode bareback astride a scrubby but tough little pony, the hunting column climbed into the bare, stony hills. They went at the trot, saving the horses, letting them blow after every steep gradient. Within the hour they found one of the Nubian trackers waiting for them on a hilltop, and he ran down to report to the huntsman. They spoke to each other earnestly, then the huntsman trotted back to report to the royal party. 'The Nubians have cast the hills but without rinding the spoor again. They are sure that he will drink at the waterhole, but not wanting to disturb him they have waited for us to catch up.'

'Lead us to the water,' Apepi ordered, and they went on.

Before midday they came down into a shallow valley. They were not far from the river, but this seemed like the deep desert, waterless and forbidding. The huntsman trotted alongside Apepi's chariot and said, The waterhole is at the head of this valley. The beast will probably be lying up nearby.'

Naturally Apepi, the old warrior, took command, and Nefer did not dispute his right to do so. 'We will split into three squadrons, and surround the oasis. If the chase breaks cover we will have him surrounded. My lord Regent, do you take the left wing. Pharaoh Nefer Seti, take the centre. I will cover the right flank.' He brandished his heavy war bow over his head. 'Whoever draws first blood will win the trophy.'

They were all expert charioteers and the new formation evolved swiftly and without check. They threw out a wide net to encircle the waterhole. Nefer had his bow over his shoulder and the reins unwrapped from his wrists, ready to drop them in an instant to leave both hands free to draw. Mintaka pressed close to his side. She held the long lance ready to hand to him. They had perfected this change of weapons over the past weeks, and he knew he could rely upon her to slap the grip of the lance into his palm at the very moment he needed it.

They approached the oasis at a walk, closing in steadily. The horses sensed the tension in their drivers, and perhaps they had picked up the lion scent. They flung up their heads, and rolled their eyes and blew through their nostrils, stepping high and nervously.

The line of vehicles closed slowly around the patch of low scrub and rank grass that concealed the waterhole. When the encirclement was complete, Apepi raised his hand above his head to signal the halt. The royal huntsman dismounted and went forward on foot, leading his pony. He approached the sparse brown cover cautiously.

'If the lion was here, surely we would have seen such a large animal by now.' Mintaka's voice shook, and Nefer loved her all the more for this little show of fear.

'A lion can flatten himself until he becomes part of the earth, and you could walk close enough to touch him without ever suspecting his presence,' he told her.

The huntsman went forward a few paces at a time, stopping to listen and search every bush and clump of rank grass in his path. An the edge of the scrub he stooped and picked up a handful of small stones, and began to lob them systematically at each possible hiding place.

'What is he doing?' Mintaka whispered.

'The lion will growl before it charges. He is trying to provoke it and make it reveal itself.'

The silence was broken only by the plop of the pebbles, the snorting of the horses and the restless stamping of their hoofs. Every one of the hunters had nocked an arrow and was poised to draw at an instant. Suddenly there was a squawk and clatter in the grass. Every bow went up at once and the lance-bearers hefted their weapons. They all relaxed and looked sheepish as a chocolate brown hammerhead stork launched itself into the air and flapped away down the valley in the direction of the river.

The huntsman took a minute to recover his nerve, then began to work his way, a pace at a time, deeper into the cover until he reached the seep. The brackish water came up a sluggish drop at a time, and filled a shallow basin in the rocky ground, hardly enough to quench the thirst of a great predator. The huntsman went down on one knee to search the rim of the basin for sign, then shook his head and stood up. More quickly he worked back through the scrub, and at last mounted the pony and trotted back to Apepi's chariot. The other hunters drove across to hear his report, but the huntsman was crestfallen. 'Majesty, I was mistaken in my judgement,' he told Apepi. 'The lion has not come this way.'

'What now, fellow?' Apepi was making no effort to hide his disappointment and irritation.

'This was the most promising place to look, but there are others. From where we last saw him, he could have crossed the valley, or he may be lying up close to here and waiting for darkness before drinking. There is cover further down.' He pointed back to the stony slopes.

'Where else?' Apepi demanded.

'There is another waterhole in the next valley, but there are Bedouin encamped there. They might have scared off the beast. There is another small water seep below those hills to the west.' He pointed out a low line of purple peaks on the horizon. 'The lion could be at any of those places, or at none,' the man admitted. 'Also he might have doubled back and be on the edge of the plain where there is an abundance of water. Perhaps he has been drawn by the smell of cattle and goats as well as by thirst.'

'You have not the least idea where he is hiding, have you?' Lord Naja demanded. 'We should call off the hunt and get back to the boats.'

'No!' Nefer cut in. 'We have barely begun. How can we give up so soon?'

'The boy is right,' Apepi agreed. 'We must go on, but there is much ground to cover.' He paused for a moment, then reached a decision. 'We will have to split up and search each area separately.' He looked across at Naja. 'My lord Regent, you take your squadron to the Bedouin encampment. If they have seen the chase they will direct you. I will ride to the seep below the hills.' He turned to Trok. Take three chariots down the valley. One of the trackers will go with you to search for sign.' To Asmor he said, Take three chariots and cast back along the edge of the plain to Dabba, in case he has returned to where he last killed.' Then he looked at Nefer. 'Pharaoh, you cast in the opposite direction, north towards Achmim.'

Nefer realized that he was being given the least promising ground to cover, but he had no complaint. This new plan meant that for the first time he and Mintaka would be away from the direct surveillance of his guardians. Naja, Asmor and Trok were being sent in different directions. He waited for someone to point this out, but they were all so wrapped up in the hunt that no one seemed to realize the significance of this move. Except Naja.

He looked hard at Nefer. Perhaps he was weighing the advisability of countermanding Apepi's orders, but in the end he must have realized that this would be unwise and concluded that Nefer was guarded by the desert as effectively as he would have been by Asmor: there was no place for him to run to, and if he took Mintaka with him on some wild adventure he would have the entire armies of both kingdoms upon him like swarms of wild bees.

Naja looked away from him as Apepi went on to nominate an assembly point, and to give his final orders. At last the ram's horns sounded the mount-up and the advance, and the five columns drove out of the valley. On the level ground they split into their separate squadrons and headed out in diverging directions.

As the last of the other squadrons disappeared among the stark hills, Mintaka leaned even closer to Nefer and murmured, 'At last Hathor has shown mercy to us.'

'I believe it is Horus who has granted us his favour,' Nefer grinned down at her, 'but I will accept this benevolence from whomsoever it comes.'

There were two other chariots in Nefer's squadron, commanded by Colonel Hilto, the old soldier who had discovered him and Taita when they had tried to escape from Egypt. He had served under Nefer's father and was loyal unto death: Nefer knew he could trust him without reservation.

Nefer led them fast, wanting to make the most of the remaining daylight, and within an hour's ride the vast vista of the river plain opened beneath them. He reined in to admire it for a few minutes. The river was an emerald mounted in the luscious green of fields and plantations that enclosed it.

'How beautiful it is, Nefer.' Mintaka spoke almost dreamily. 'Even when we are married, we must always remember that this land owns us, and that we do not own it.'

Sometimes he forgot that she had been born in Avaris and had as strong claim to the land as he had. He felt his heart swell with pride that she loved it as he did, and felt the same patriotic duty.

'I will never forget it, not with you at my side.' She lifted her face to him and her lips were parted slightly. He could smell her sweet breath, and the temptation to reach down for those lips with his own mouth was almost irresistible. Then he felt the gaze of Hilto and the other men on them, and from the corner of his eye saw one smile knowingly. He drew back and looked at Hilto coolly. He had been rehearsing his next order since they had left the rest of the hunting party. 'Colonel, if the lion is here it will probably be lying up somewhere on the slope of the hills down below us.' He indicated the area with a sweep of his arm. 'I want to extend in line abreast. The left flank must be on the edge of the plain and our right up here on the crest of the hills. We will sweep northwards.' He made a wide gesture, but Hilto looked dubious and scratched the scar on his cheek.

'That is a broad front, Your Majesty. It's almost half a league to the valley bottom. At times we will be out of sight of each other.'

Nefer could see that it went against all his military instincts to spread his front too thin, and he went on swiftly to mollify him. 'If we do become separated we will reassemble on the third ridge ahead of us, under that small hillock over there. It will give us a good landmark.' He pointed out a distinctive rock pile four miles ahead. 'If any of us is late to the rendezvous the others must wait until the sun is at that angle before coming back to look for the missing vehicle.'

He had given himself a few hours before they would begin to search for him and Mintaka. Still Hilto hesitated. 'I beg Your Majesty's indulgence, but the Lord Naja charged me most strictly-'

Nefer cut in with a sharp tone and cold expression: 'Do you presume to argue with your pharaoh?'

'Never, Majesty!' Hilto was shocked at the accusation.

'Then do your duty, fellow.'

Hilto saluted with deep respect and hurried back to his own chariot shouting urgent orders to his men as he ran. As the squadron wheeled out down the slope, Mintaka nudged Nefer and smiled. 'Do your duty, fellow!' She mimicked his haughty tone then laughed. 'Please never look at me like that or use that tone to me, Your Majesty. I am sure I would die of fright.'

'We have only a little time,' he replied. 'We must make the most of it, and find a place where we can be alone.'

He swung the chariot back over the skyline so that they could no longer be seen from the river valley or by the chariots lower down the slope, and as they trotted forward they were both craning eagerly ahead.

'Look, over there.' Mintaka pointed to the right. A small grove of thorn trees was almost hidden by a fold in the ground, only the dull green tops showing. Nefer turned towards it, and they found a narrow ravine that had been cut, over millennia, into the hillside by wind and weather, and rare thunderstorms. There must have been subterranean water for the thorn trees were robust. Their thick foliage offered shade and privacy in this hot midday. Nefer drove down the bank and into the shade. As soon as he stopped Mintaka hopped down from the footplate.

'Loosen the harness, and give the horses a rest,' she suggested.

Nefer hesitated, then shook his head. It was against his training: in a detached and unsupported position such as this, he must have the vehicle ready for any sudden alarm or excursion. He jumped down and went to fill the bucket from the waterskin to water the horses. Mintaka came to help him. They worked side by side in silence.

Now that the moment they had both longed for had arrived, they were shy and tongue-tied. Suddenly they turned to each other simultaneously, and spoke in unison.

Nefer said, 'I wanted to tell you-'

Mintaka said, 'I think that we should-'

They stopped and laughed shyly, standing close together in the shade. Mintaka blushed and looked down at her feet, and Nefer stroked the head of his stallion.

'What were you going to say?'

'It was nothing. Nothing important.' She shook her head and he saw that she was blushing. He so loved to watch the colour bloom in her cheeks. She was still not looking at him, and her voice was so soft as to be barely audible as she asked in her turn, 'What were you going to say?'

'When I think that you will be gone in just a few more days' time, I feel as though my right arm has been cut off, and I want to die.'

'Oh, Nefer.' She looked up at him and her eyes were huge and liquid with the turmoil and rapture of first love. 'I love you. I do truly love you.'

In the same instant they both lunged for each other, and their teeth came together with a click. His lower lip was caught between them and a drop of blood oozed from the nick, so their kiss was salt flavoured. Their embrace was unpractised and unrehearsed, clumsy and frenzied. It evoked wild and uncontrolled feelings in both of them. They clung together, moaning with the strength of these new sensations. Even though her body was flattened against his, he tried to pull her closer still, while she clung harder as though to weld their separate flesh into one entity, like potter's clay. She reached up and twisted her fingers into his thick dusty curls and said, 'Oh! Oh!' but her voice was blurred.

'I don't want to lose you.' He broke the kiss. 'I never want to lose you.'

'I don't want to leave you ever - ever!' she gasped, and they kissed again, if possible even more furiously than before. From here onwards they were in unexplored realms of mind and body. They rode together on a chariot that was out of their control drawn by the runaway horses of love and desire.

Still clinging together they sank down on the soft white sand of the wadi bottom, and clawed at each others bodies as though they were enemies. Their eyes were wild and unseeing, their breathing ragged and broken. The linen of her skirt tore like papyrus parchment in his hands, and he reached through the opening. She moaned as though in mortal agony but her thighs fell apart and she went limp and pliable. Neither had any inkling of where this was leading. All Nefer wanted was to feel his bare skin against her smoothness. It was a deep need on which his very life seemed to depend. He ripped away his own apron and they pressed their bodies together, both absorbed in the ecstatic sensation of her warm young flesh against his hardness. Then without any conscious thought he began to move against her, rocking rhythmically, and she rode his movements as thought she were flying in a chariot over rough ground.

Then abruptly she felt something hard pressing imperiously at the very portals of her womanhood, and she experienced the almost undeniable urge to meet thrust with thrust, to help him break through, to welcome him into her soft, secret places.

Then reality rushed back upon her. She kicked out wildly, arching her back and struggling with renewed strength like a gazelle in the jaws of a hunting cheetah. She tore her mouth from his and screamed, 'No, Nefer! You promised! By Horus' wounded eye, you promised!'

He sprang away from her, recoiling as though from a slash with a chariot whip. He stared at her with wide and terrified eyes. His voice was hoarse and panting, as though he had run far and fast. 'Mintaka, my love, my darling. I don't know what happened to me. It was a madness. I did not intend it.' He made a despairing gesture. 'I would rather die than break my oath, and bring dishonour upon you.'

Her breathing was so laboured that she could not answer him at once. She averted her eyes from his naked body, and he went on piteously, 'Please don't hate me. I did not know what was happening.'

'I don't hate you, Nefer. I could never hate you.' His distress was too much to bear, she wanted to throw herself back into his arms and to comfort him. But she knew how dangerous that would be. She used the wheel of the chariot to pull herself to her feet. 'I am as much at fault as you are. I should never have let that happen.' Her legs trembled under her, and she tried to push her hair back off her face with both hands.

He stood up guiltily, took one step towards her but when she recoiled he stopped at once. 'I have torn your skirt,' he said. 'I did not mean to.'

She looked down, and saw how blatantly she was exposed - she was almost as naked as he was. Hastily she pulled the ripped ends together and stepped further from him. 'You must dress yourself,' she whispered, and despite herself she looked down at him. He was so lovely, and she felt desire rise again. She forced herself to look away. He stooped quickly, gathered up the discarded chiton and fastened it around his waist.

They stood in guilty, awkward silence. Desperately Mintaka searched for words to distract them both from this terrible moment. Her own body came to her aid. She became aware of a real and pressing fullness in her bladder. 'I must go!'

'No,' he pleaded. 'I did not mean it. Forgive me. It won't happen again. Stay with me. Don't leave me.'

She smiled shakily, 'No. You don't understand. I will be gone for a short while only.' She made an unmistakable gesture with the hands holding her torn skirt together. 'I won't be long.'

His relief was almost pathetic. 'Oh, I understand. I will make the chariot ready.' He turned to the horses, and she left him and picked her way deeper into the grove of thorn trees.

--

The lion watched her come through the trees towards where he lay. He flattened his ears against his skull, and pressed his body closer to the stony earth.

He was an old beast, past his prime. There were grey hairs in the dark, shaggy bush of his mane. His back had once had a bluish sheen, but now it was lightly frosted with age. His teeth were worn and stained, and one of the long fangs was broken off close to the gum. Although he could still pull down a full-grown bullock and kill it with a single blow of one of his huge paws, his claws were worn and blunted so that it was difficult for him to cling to more agile prey. The previous night he had missed an oryx, and his hunger was a dull, insistent pain in his gut.

He watched the human creature with yellow eyes, and his upper lip lifted in a silent snarl. As a cub his dam had taught him to feed on the dead flesh that they scavenged from the battlefields. He did not have the natural repugnance that most other carnivorous animals feel for the taste of human flesh. Over the years he had killed and feasted upon this meat whenever the opportunity presented itself. He saw this creature come towards him through the low scrub as natural prey.

Mintaka stopped fifty paces short of where he lay, and looked around her. The instinct of the lion during the stalk was to avoid the direct gaze of its prey. He kept his head low to the ground and hooded his eyes to slits. This was not the moment for the attack, and his tail was held stiff and low.

Mintaka stepped behind the trunk of one of the trees, crouched down and voided her bladder. The lion's snout creased into deep wrinkles as he picked up the sharp scent of her urine. It quickened his interest. Mintaka stood again and let her torn skirt drop back around her thighs. She turned away from the lion, and started back towards where Nefer waited.

The lion slashed its tail back and forth, the prelude to the charge. He lifted his head, and the black tufted tail whipped against his flanks.

Mintaka heard the rhythmic swish and thud of the tail, stopped and looked back, puzzled. She looked straight into the yellow gaze of the beast. She screamed, a high-pitched sound that struck Nefer to the heart. He whirled round and in an instant took in the situation: the girl and the crouching beast facing her.

'Don't run!' he shouted. He knew that if she ran it would trigger the feline reflex of the lion to chase. 'I am coming!'

He snatched his bow and quiver from the rack on the dashboard, and raced towards her, nocking an arrow as he ran.

'Don't run!' he repeated desperately, but at that moment the lion growled. It was a terrible sound that seemed to vibrate in Mintaka's bones and make the ground tremble under her feet. She could not control the terror that overwhelmed her. She whirled and ran back blindly towards Nefer, sobbing with each stride.

Instantly the lion's mane rose like a dark aura around his head and he launched himself into his charge, coming straight after her, a dark, tawny streak through the trees. He overtook her as though she were still rooted to the earth.

Nefer stopped dead and dropped the quiver to free both hands, and he threw up the bow. He drew the fletching to his lips and set his aim on the massive heaving chest. Even though the range was short, it was a difficult shot. The beast was coming at an angle, so the deflection was critical, and Mintaka was in the direct line of his fire. On top of that, he knew that a wounding would not save Mintaka. He must drive an arrowhead through the beast's vital organs to pin it down, and give her the chance to get clear. Yet there was no time for precise calculation, the lion was almost on top of her.

It came grunting at each bound, clods and pebbles spurting up under the drive of its great paws. The yellow eyes were terrible. Nefer swung just a touch ahead, allowing a hand's breadth for the drop of the arrow in flight and he yelled, with all the urgency he could muster, 'Down, Mintaka! Clear my shot!'

They had developed a close accord over the weeks in which they had hunted together, and she had learned to trust him implicitly. Even in her transport of terror he could still reach her. She did not hesitate but from full run she threw herself flat upon the stony earth almost under the jaws of the onrushing lion.

In the same instant that she went down, Nefer let fly. The arrow sprang from his bowstring. To Nefer's fear-crazed eyes it seemed to move across the gap that separated them with the leisurely flight of some overburdened bird of prey. It passed over where Mintaka lay, already beginning to drop, seeming tiny, slow and ineffectual against such a massive animal.

Then it struck soundlessly and Nefer half expected the flimsy shaft to snap, be thrown aside contemptuously by the grunting, bounding animal.

Just as the lion's mouth gaped wide, showing the full array of ragged stained fangs, the flint arrowhead disappeared into the thick coating of dark hair that covered its chest. There was no sound of the impact but the slim straight shaft of the arrow slid in after it, until only a hand's span of shaft and the bright feathers of the fletching protruded.

Nefer thought that he had struck the heart. The lion leaped high in a monumental convulsion and its grunting changed to a barrage of continuous roars that shook a cloud of dried leaves from the thorn branches over its head. Then the beast spun in a circle snapping at its own chest, chewing the projecting end of the shaft of the arrow to splinters. Mintaka lay almost under his flying, slashing paws. 'Get away from him!' Nefer screamed. 'Run!'

He stooped and grabbed a second arrow from the quiver at his feet, and ran forward, nocking the arrow as he closed in. Mintaka sprang up. She had recovered enough of her wits not to impede his aim by racing to him for protection, and dodged behind the trunk of the nearest thorn tree.

The movement was enough to draw the wounded lion's attention back to her. Now in pain and fury, rather than in hunger, it lashed out at her. The hooked yellow claws tore a slab of wet bark from the tree trunk behind which Mintaka crouched.

'Come! Here I am! Come to me!' Nefer yelled wildly, trying to pull the lion off her. It swung its huge, mane-shaggy head towards him, and Nefer drew and shot the next shaft with one desperate movement. His arms were shaking and his aim was hurried and wild. The arrowhead took the beast too far back, lancing deep into its belly, and it coughed at its sting. It left Mintaka and hurled itself towards Nefer.

Though it was mortally wounded and already slowing, there was no chance for Nefer to evade this fresh charge. He had shot his last arrow and the quiver lay on the hard ground well out of his reach. He reached down and drew his dagger from the sheath on his belt.

It was a flimsy weapon against this furious beast. The thin bronze blade was not long enough to stab through to the heart, but he had heard the royal huntsman tell tales of miraculous escapes from just such a deadly predicament. As the lion launched itself into the death spring, Nefer fell backwards, not even attempting to resist the beast's weight and impetus. He lay between its forepaws, and the lion opened its jaws to full stretch and thrust its head down to crush Nefer's skull with those terrible fangs. Its breath was so foul, with the stench of rotten meat and open graves, that Nefer felt hot vomit rise in his throat. He steeled himself for the moment and thrust his right hand, with the dagger, deep into the open jaws. The lion bit down instinctively.

Nefer had the dagger held firmly in his fist, with the blade aligned upright, and as the lion's jaws closed the bronze point was driven up through the roof of its mouth. Nefer snatched away his hand before the fangs could crush the bones of his wrist, but the lion's jaws were fixed open by the dagger held between them, and it could not bite down.

It was ripping at him with both its forepaws, the claws fully extended. He wriggled and writhed beneath the heavy body, evading some of the claw strokes, but his apron was ripped from him, and he felt the bony hooks tearing into his flesh. He knew he could not hold out much longer. Involuntarily he screamed at the lion above him, 'Leave me, you filthy creature! Get off me!'

The lion was still roaring and the blood from its skewered palate blew out in a crimson cloud, mingled with its stinking breath and hot saliva, into Nefer's face.

His shouts galvanized Mintaka, and when she peered out from behind the bole of the thorn tree Nefer was a blood-soaked spectacle beneath the lion's bulk. He was being mauled to death, and her own fear was forgotten.

Nefer's bow was trapped under his body, and without it the quiver full of arrows was useless to her. She sprang out from behind the tree and raced towards the chariot. The screams and roars behind her goaded her on and she ran until her heart seemed on the point of bursting.

Ahead of her the horses were terrified by the scent of the beast and its roaring. They reared and threw their heads, kicking out at the traces. They would have bolted long ago had not Nefer secured the locking brake on one wheel so they could only turn in a tight, right-handed circle. Mintaka ran in under their flying hoofs, and jumped up on to the footplate. She seized the loose reins and called to the team, 'Ho there, Stargazer! Hold hard, Hammer!"

On many of their previous outings, Nefer had let her drive, so the horses knew her voice and recognized her touch on the traces. Swiftly she brought them under control, but it seemed to her an eternity for she could hear Nefer's screams and the lion's deafening bellows. The moment she had the pair in hand she leaned over the side and knocked off the brake. She brought the horses round in a hard left-hand turn then drove them forward straight at the lion and its victim.

Hammer balked, but Stargazer held true. She snatched up the whip that Nefer had never used on them, and laid a stroke across Hammer's glossy haunches that raised a welt as thick as her thumb.

'Ha!' she yelled. 'Pull, curse you, Hammer!'

Startled, Hammer leaped forward, and they pounded down on the lion. All its attention was on the shrieking, writhing victim between its front paws, and it did not look up at the chariot bearing down on it.

Mintaka dropped the whip, and instead snatched the long lance from its rack. She had carried it for Nefer during hours of hunting, and now it felt light and familiar in her right hand. Guiding the racing team with the reins in her left hand, she leaned far out over the side panel and raised the lance high. As they ran past the crouching lion, its head was lowered and the back of its neck was fully exposed. The exact juncture of spine and skull in the back of its neck was covered by the dense black bush of its mane, but she guessed at the spot and thrust down with all the strength of her fear and her love for Nefer.

Her lance hand had the impetus of the flying chariot behind it. To her amazement the blade slid in readily, full length through the taut hide, and deep into the back of the animal's neck. She felt the slight tick in her hand as the point found the joint between the vertebrae of the spine and went on to severe the spinal column.

As the chariot raced past, the haft of the lance was plucked from her grip. But the lion collapsed in a loose, inert heap on top of Nefer. It did not twitch again, killed on the instant.

It took her fifty cubits to bring the crazed horses to a halt, wheel them round and force them back to where Nefer lay beneath the huge carcass. She had the presence of mind to throw on the wheel brake before she jumped down from the footplate.

It was obvious how badly Nefer was hurt. From the sheets of blood that covered him she thought he might even be dead. She fell to her knees beside him. 'Nefer, speak to me. Can you hear me?'

To her immense relief he rolled his head towards her and his eyes were open and focused. 'You came back,' he breathed. 'Bak-her, Mintaka, bak-her!'

'I will get this off you.'

She could see that the enormous weight of the dead beast was crushing the wind from his lungs. She jumped up and tugged at its head. The tail,' Nefer whispered painfully through a running mask of blood. 'Roll him over by the tail.'

She was quick to obey him, and seized the long tufted tail then heaved with all her strength. Slowly the hindquarters began to swing, the whole carcass flopped over and he was free.

Mintaka knelt beside him and helped him into a sitting position, but he swayed drunkenly and reached out to her for support.

'Hathor help me,' she pleaded. 'You are desperately wounded. There is so much blood.'

'Not all of it is mine,' he blurted, but from his right thigh rose a feathery crimson fountain where the claws had ripped open a blood vessel. Taita had instructed him long and earnestly in the treatment of war wounds, and he thrust his thumb down into the torn flesh and pressed until the jet of blood shrivelled.

'Get the waterskin,' he said, and Mintaka ran to the chariot and brought it back to him. She held it for him while he drank thirstily, and then, tenderly, she washed the blood and filth from his face, relieved to find it unmarked. However, when she inspected his other injuries she had difficulty in hiding her shock at how grievous they were.

'My bedroll is in the chariot.' His voice was weaker. When she brought it to him he asked her to undo the bundle, where she found his housewife roll. She selected a needle and silk thread. He showed her how to tie off the spurting blood vessel. It was work that came easily to her, and she did not hesitate or flinch from it. Her hands were bloody to the wrists as, with nimble fingers, she pulled a thread around the open artery then closed the deeper rents in his flesh. Still under his instruction she used strips torn from his tattered chiton to bind up the wounds. It was rough, rudimentary surgery, but sufficient to stem the worst of the bleeding.

'That is all we can do now. I must help you into the chariot and get you to where a surgeon can do the rest. Oh, if only Taita were here.'

She ran to Stargazer's head and led the pair back to where he lay. Nefer was up on one elbow staring longingly at the carcass of the lion that lay beside him.

'My first lion,' he whispered ruefully. 'Unless we skin it, the trophy will spoil. The hair will slip and slough off.'

In the heat of emotion and her terrible concern for him, she lost her temper. 'That is the most stupid piece of man's nonsense I have ever heard uttered. Would you risk your very life for a stinking bit of fur?' Angrily she came to help him to his feet. It took the extreme efforts of both off them to raise him up. He leaned on her with all his weight as he hobbled to the chariot and collapsed weakly on to the footplate.

Mintaka used the sheepskin from the bedroll to make him as comfortable as she could, then climbed up and stood over him with the reins in her hands.

'Which way?' she asked.

'The rest of the squadron will be far up the valley by now, and they will be driving too fast for us to catch them. Also they are heading in the wrong direction,' he told her. 'The other hunters are scattered across the desert, We could search for them all day without finding them.'

'We must return to where the fleet is lying at Dabba. There is a surgeon with the ships.' She had reached the only feasible conclusion, and he nodded. She urged the horses into a walk, and they left the grove and climbed to the high ground heading south once again.

'It's three hours or more to reach Dabba,' she said.

'Not if we cut across the loop of the river,' he answered. 'We can shorten the return by at least four leagues.'

Mintaka hesitated and looked eastwards into the bleak desert, which he wanted her to attempt. 'I might lose the way,' she murmured fearfully.

'I will guide you,' he answered, confident in the instruction that Taita had given him in desert travel. 'It's our best chance.'

She swung the team to the left, marking a blue shale hillock in the direction Nefer had pointed out to her.

When they were strong and well they both delighted in the motion of a chariot running hard over broken ground, and they rode the pitch and roll with young legs. But now, even though she kept the horses down to a walk or a trot, the collision with every stone or hump, the drop into every hole, was transmitted through the rigid chassis into Nefer's torn body. He winced and sweated, but tried to hide his pain and discomfort from her. Yet as the hours wore on, his wounds stiffened, and the pain became unbearable. He groaned aloud at a particularly nasty impact, and slumped into unconsciousness.

Immediately Mintaka reined the pair to a halt, and tried to revive him. She soaked a pad of linen with water and squeezed a few drops between his lips. Then she sponged his pale, sweating face. But when she tried to rebandage his wounds she found that the gash in his thigh was bleeding again. She worked to staunch it, but succeeded only in reducing it to a slow leak. 'You are going to be all right, my darling,' she told him, with a confidence she did not feel. She embraced him gently, kissed the top of his dusty blood-caked head, and took up the reins again.

An hour later she gave the last of the water to Nefer and the horses, not drinking herself. Then she stood as high as she could on the dashboard of the chariot and looked about her at the gravel and shale hills that danced and wavered in the heat mirage. She knew she was lost. Have I drifted too far eastwards? she wondered, glancing up at the sun and trying to calculate its angle. At her feet Nefer stirred and moaned, and she looked down with a brave face and smiled. 'Not much further now, my heart. We should see the river over the next crest.'

She rearranged the sheepskin from the bedroll under his head, then stood up, gathered the reins and braced herself. Suddenly she realized how exhausted she was: every muscle in her body ached and her eyes were sore and red from the sun's glare and the dust. She forced herself and the team onwards.

Soon the horses were showing signs of distress. They had stopped sweating and the salt rime dried white across their backs. She tried to urge them into a trot but they could not respond, so she climbed down, took the stallion's head and led them on. Now she was staggering herself, but at last she found the tracks of a chariot in a sandy valley bottom, and her spirits lifted.

'They are heading west,' she whispered, through lips that were beginning to swell and crack. 'They will lead us back to the river.' She kept moving along the wheel ruts for some time, until she stopped in confusion as she found her own footprints in front of her. It took her some time to realize that she must have walked in a circle and was following her own tracks.

At last despair overtook her. She sank down to her knees, helpless and lost, and whispered to Nefer as he lay, still unconscious, 'I am sorry, my darling. I have failed you.' She stroked the matted hair from his face. Then she looked up at the low hilltop to the east, and blinked. She shook her head to clear her vision, glanced away to rest her burning eyes, then looked back. She felt her spirits surge upwards once again, but still she could not be sure that what she was seeing was illusion or reality.

On the crest of the hills above them, a gaunt figure stood on the skyline, leaning on his long staff. His silver hair shone like a cloud, and the hot light breeze off the desert flapped his skirts against his heron-thin legs. He was staring down at them.

'Oh, Hathor and all the goddesses, it can't be so,' she whispered.

Beside her, Nefer opened his eyes. Taita is near,' he murmured. 'I feel him close.'

'Yes. Taita is here.' Her voice was faint, and she held her own throat in shock. 'But how did he know where to find us?'

'He knows. Taita knows,' Nefer replied, closed his eyes and slumped back into unconsciousness.

The old man was striding down the rugged slope towards them now, and Mintaka pulled herself to her feet and tottered to meet him. Swiftly her fatigue fell away and she waved and screamed greetings at him, almost delirious with joy.

--

Taita drove down the escarpment towards the river and the village of Dabba. The horses responded to his touch, moving to an easy motion that cosseted the wounded boy on the footplate. Taita seemed to have known with some deep instinct just what medicines and dressings Nefer would need, and he had carried these with him. After he had re-dressed the wounds he had led the horses to a hidden water seep nearby, where the bitter water had revived them. He had taken Mintaka up on the footplate and turned the horses' heads unerringly in the direction of Dabba and the river.

Beside him, Mintaka had pleaded with him, almost tearfully, to explain to her how he had known that they needed him, and where to find them. Taita had smiled gently, and called to the horses, 'Gently now, Hammer! Steady, Stargazed'

On the floorboards Nefer was deep in the drugged sleep of the Red Shepenn, but his wounds were staunched, cleaned and bound with linen bandages.

A red and angry sunset was fading over the Nile like a dying bush-fire. The boats of the fleet were still anchored in the stream, like children's toys in the fading light.

Apepi and Naja rode out to meet them from the village of Dabba. Lord Naja was highly agitated, and Apepi bellowed at his daughter as soon as they were in range of his bull voice, 'Where have you been, you stupid child? Half the army is out looking for you.'

Lord Naja's agitation abated as soon as he came close enough to see Nefer bandaged and unconscious in the bottom of the chariot cockpit. He became almost sanguine when Taita explained to him the extent of Pharaoh's injury.

Barely conscious, Nefer was carried down to the riverbank on a litter and lifted gently aboard one of the galleys by a party of boatmen. 'I want Pharaoh taken up to Thebes with all possible speed,' Taita told Naja, 'even if it means a night journey. There is a very real danger that the wounds will putrefy. This happens with injuries received from one of the great cats. It is almost as though their fangs and claws are steeped in some virulent poison.'

'You can order the galley to sail at once,' Naja said, in front of the company, but then took Taita's arm and led him a short way along the riverbank to where they could not be overheard. 'Bear in mind, Magus, the charge laid on you by the gods. Clearly I discern their divine intervention in these extraordinary circumstances. If Pharaoh were to die from his wounds no person in either kingdom would take it as unnatural.' He said no more but gazed into Taita's face with those piercing yellow eyes.

'The will of the gods will prevail against all else,' Taita agreed quietly, but enigmatically.

Naja read in his reply what he wanted to hear. 'We are in accord, Taita. I place my trust in you. Go in peace. I will follow you back to Thebes after Apepi has been taken care of.' The phrasing of this last remark struck Taita as unusual, but he was too distracted to ponder it. Naja smiled mysteriously and went on, 'Who knows? We may have momentous news for each other when we meet again.'

When Taita hurried back on board the galley, and went to the small deck cabin in which Nefer lay, he found Mintaka kneeling beside the litter in tears.

'What is it, my darling?' he asked her gently. 'You have been as brave as a lioness. You have fought like a warrior of the guards. How can you dissolve into despair now?'

'My father is taking me back to Avaris in the morning, but I should be with Nefer. I am his betrothed. He needs me. We need each other.' She looked up at him piteously, and he could see that she was both physically and emotionally exhausted.

She seized his hand. 'Oh, Magus! Will you not go to my father and ask him to let me go back to Thebes to help you to take care of Nefer? My father will listen to you.'

But Apepi snorted with laughter when Taita attempted to persuade him. 'Place my lamb in Naja's pen?' He shook his head with amusement. 'I trust Naja as I would a scorpion. Who knows what tricks he would try if I gave him that coin to bargain with? As for that young puppy, Nefer, he would be up her skirts as quick as a hawk on a bustard, if he hasn't travelled that road already.' He laughed again. 'I don't want to debase the currency of her virginity. No, Warlock, Mintaka comes back under my wing to Avaris until her wedding day. And none of your magic spells will change my mind on that.'

Sadly Mintaka went to take her leave of Nefer. He was on the edge of consciousness, weak from the blood he had lost and the drug. But when she kissed him he opened his eyes. She spoke quietly, pledging her love, and he watched her eyes as she spoke. Before she rose to leave him, she took the golden locket that hung at her throat. 'This contains a lock of my hair. It is my soul, and I give it to you.' She placed it in his hand and he folded his fingers tightly around it.

So Mintaka stood alone on the bank of the Nile as the swift galley bearing Nefer and Taita breasted the current. With twenty oarsmen a side and a white curl under her prow she headed upstream towards Thebes. Mintaka did not wave at Taita's tall silhouette on the stern, but watched him forlornly.

--

The next morning there was a final meeting between Apepi and the Regent, Lord Naja, on board the Hyksosian royal barge. All Apepi's nine sons were present and Mintaka was seated beside her father. Apepi had kept her on a tight rein since the previous evening when the ship bearing Pharaoh Nefer Seti had left. From long experience, he knew his headstrong daughter well enough to trust neither her judgement nor her sense of filial duty and obedience when she had set her heart on a course of action.

The farewell ceremony took place on the deck of Apepi's galley, with protestations of mutual trust and devotion to the peace.

'May it last a thousand years!' Naja intoned, as he bestowed upon Apepi the Gold of Eternity, an honour he had created for this auspicious occasion.

'A thousand times a thousand,' Apepi replied, with equal gravity, as the chain of the order, encrusted with precious and semi-precious gems, was placed around his shoulders. The Regent and the king embraced with the affection of brothers, then Naja was rowed across to his own galley. As the two fleets diverged, one to return to Thebes the other to run down with the current hundreds of leagues to Memphis and Avaris, the crews cheered each other out of sight. Garlands and wreaths of palm fronds and blossoms tossed from one vessel towards the other bestrewed the surface of the wide river.

The urgency of King Apepi's voyage did not dictate that his fleet should sail on in the darkness of this moonless night, so that evening they anchored at Balasfura, opposite the temple of Hapi, the half hippopotamus hermaphroditic god of the Nile. The king and his family went ashore and made sacrifice of a pure white ox at the altar in the sanctuary. The high priest disembowelled the bellowing beast, and while it still lived he drew and inspected the entrails to read the auspice for the king. He was appalled to find that the animal's guts were infested with stinking white worms, which spilled on to the temple floor in a seething mass. He tried to hide this hideous phenomenon from the king by spreading his cloak and beginning to make up some mendacious nonsense, but Apepi shouldered him aside and stared at the horrible sight. Even he was visibly shaken, and for once he was subdued as they left the temple and went down to the riverbank where Trok and the officers under his command had arranged a banquet and entertainment for him.

Even the sacred black cockerels of the temple refused to peck at the contaminated entrails of the sacrifice. The priests threw the grisly mess on the temple fire, but rather than consume the entrails the fire, which had burned since antiquity, was extinguished by them. The signs could not have been more inauspicious, but the high priest ordered the entrails to be buried and the fire to be relit. 'I have never seen such an unhappy omen,' he told his acolytes. 'Such a sign from the god Hapi can only presage some terrible event, such as war or the death of Pharaoh. We must pray through all this night for the recovery of Pharaoh Nefer Seti from his wounds.'

On the riverbank Lord Trok had set up pavilions hung with vivid red, yellow and green curtains to receive the royal family. Whole oxen were grilling over the pits of glowing ash, and amphorae of the choicest wines were cooling in the river waters. Slaves staggered up the bank under the weight of them as one after the other they were drained by the company and Apepi bellowed for fresh jars to be brought.

The king's sombre mood lightened with each bowl he lowered, and soon he encouraged his sons to join him in singing the ribald marching songs of his army. Some were so scurrilous that Mintaka pleaded exhaustion and a sick headache, and she and her slave girls rose to retire to the royal barge anchored offshore. She tried to take her youngest brother, Khyan, with her, but Apepi intervened. The good wine had helped him to throw off the misgivings brought upon him by the divination in the temple. 'Leave the boy where he is, you little vixen. He should be taught to appreciate good music.' He hugged the boy to him in an excess of affection, and held the wine bowl to his lips. Take a sup. It will make you sing all the sweeter, my princeling."

Khyan adored his father, and such public comradeship reduced him to a transport of pride and hero-worship. At last his father was treating him like a man and a warrior. Even though he gagged upon it, he managed to drain the bowl and the company, led by Lord Trok, cheered him as though he had killed his first enemy in battle.

Mintaka hesitated. She felt an almost maternal sense of protection for her little brother, but she realized that her father was beyond reason. With all dignity she led her maids down to the riverbank and, to the ironic and inebriated cheers of the company, they went aboard the barge.

Mintaka lay on her mattress and listened to the sounds of revelry. She tried to compose herself to sleep, but Nefer was in the forefront of her mind. The sense of loss that she had held at bay all day, and her concern for Nefer's injuries, flooded back, and though she tried to prevent them, tears welled up. She smothered her sobs in her pillows.

At last she sank into a black, dreamless sleep, from which she woke with difficulty. She had sipped only a little of the wine, but she felt drugged and her head ached. She wondered what had roused her. Then she heard raucous voices through the side of the hull, and the barge rocked under her as a weight of men clambered aboard. There was drunken laughter and voices, and heavy footfalls from the deck over her head. From their comments it seemed that her father and her brothers were being carried on board. It was not unusual for the men in her family to drink themselves into this condition, but she was worried about little Khyan.

She dragged herself from her bed and began to dress, but she felt strangely listless and confused. She staggered as she climbed up on deck.

The first person she met was Lord Trok. He was directing the men who were carrying her father. It took six of them to handle his huge inert bulk. Her elder brothers were in no better case. She felt angry and ashamed of them.

Then she saw Khyan being carried by a boatman, and she ran to him. Now they have done it to Khyan also, she thought bitterly. They will not rest until they have turned him into a drunkard too.

She directed the boatman to carry Khyan down to the mattress in her father's cabin where she undressed him and forced a distillation of herbs between his lips to revive him. The potion was a cure-all that Taita had mixed for her, and it seemed to be efficacious. At last Khyan murmured and opened his eyes, then fell back immediately into a deep but natural sleep. 'I hope he learns from this,' she told herself. There was nothing more she could do other than leave him to sleep it off. Besides, she still felt lethargic and her headache was unbearable. She went back to her own cabin and, without bothering to undress, she dropped on to the mattress, and almost immediately succumbed to sleep again.

The next time she woke she believed that she was in nightmare for she could hear screams and she was choking on clouds of thick smoke that scalded the back of her throat. Before she was fully conscious she found herself bundled out of her bed, swaddled in a blanket of furs and carried on deck. She struggled, but she was as helpless as an infant in a powerful grip.

On deck the moonless night was lit by leaping flames. They were roaring out of the open forward hatch of the royal barge, climbing the masts and rigging in a hellish orange torrent. She had never seen a wooden hull burn before and the speed and ferocity of the flames appalled her.

She could not stare at it for long, for she found herself carried swiftly across the deck and down the side into a waiting felucca. Her senses returned to her in a rush, and she began again to struggle and scream. 'My father! My brothers! Khyan! Where are they?'

The felucca pushed off into the stream and now she fought with all her strength to free herself, but the arms that pinioned her were remorseless. She managed to twist her head and see the face of the man who held her.

'Trok!' She was angered by his presumption, at the way he was handling her, and ignoring her cries. 'Let me go! I command you!'

He did not respond. He held her easily but he was watching the burning galley with a calm, detached expression.

'Go back!' shrieked at him. 'My family! Go back and fetch them!'

His only response was to snap an order to the oarsmen. 'Hold the stroke!' They shipped their paddles and the felucca rocked on the current. The crew watched the burning hulk with fascination. There were agonizing screams from those trapped below the decks.

Abruptly part of the after-deck collapsed in a tower of flame and sparks. The mooring cables burned through and the galley swung round slowly on the current and drifted downstream.

'Please!' Mintaka changed her tone. 'Please, Lord Trok, my family! You cannot let them burn.'

Now the screams from inside the hull died away and were replaced by the low thunder of the flames. Tears poured down Mintaka's cheeks and dripped from her chin, but still she was helpless in his grasp.

Suddenly the main hatch on the burning deck was thrown open, and the crew of the felucca gasped with horror as a figure emerged. Lord Trok's arms tightened around Mintaka until it seemed that he would crush in her ribs. 'It cannot be!' he grated.

Seen through the smoke and flames it seemed like an apparition from the shades of the underworld. Naked and covered with hair, great belly bulging, Apepi staggered towards the side of the barge. He carried the body of his youngest son in his arms, and his mouth was wide open, gasping for air in the holocaust of flame.

'The monster is hard to kill.' Trok's anger was tinged with fear. Even in her own distress Mintaka read the meaning of his words.

'You, Trok!' she whispered. 'You have done this to them.' Trok ignored the accusation.

The hair on Apepi's body singed and in a puff of heat was gone, for a moment leaving him naked and blackened. Then his skin began to blister and fall away in tatters. His bush of beard and the hair upon his head burst into flame like a pitch-soaked torch. He was no longer moving forward, but he stood with legs astraddle and lifted Khyan high above his head. The boy was as scorched as he was, and the raw flesh showed red and wet where his skin had been burned away. Perhaps Apepi was attempting to throw him over the ship's side into the river to escape the flames, but his strength failed him at last and he stood like a colossus with his head in flames, unable to summon the last reserves to hurl his son to safety in the cool Nile waters.

Mintaka could not move and she was silenced by the horror of the spectacle. To her it seemed to last an eternity, until suddenly the deck under Apepi's feet burst open. He and his son dropped through, and in a tall fountain of flame, sparks and smoke were gone into the guts of the hull.

'It's over.' Trok's voice was dispassionate and detached. He released Mintaka so suddenly that she fell into the bilges of the felucca. He looked at his horrified crew. 'Row to my galley,' he ordered.

'You did this to my family,' Mintaka repeated, as she lay at his feet. 'You will pay for it. I swear it to you. I will make you pay.'

But she felt numbed and bruised as though she had been beaten with the knotted leather lashes of a flail. Her father was gone, that monumental figure in her life whom she had hated a little and loved a great deal. Her family was gone, all of her brothers, even little Khyan, who had been more a son than a sibling to her. She had watched him burn and she knew that the horror of it would stay with her all her days.

The felucca drew alongside Lord Trok's galley and she made no protest as he picked her up as though she were a doll and carried her on board, then down to the main cabin. He laid her on the mattress with uncharacteristic gentleness. 'Your slave girls are safe. I will send them to you,' he said, and went out. She heard the locking bar placed across the door then the sound of him climbing the companion ladder, and crossing the deck above her head.

'Am I a prisoner, then?' she whispered, but that seemed of little importance in the light of what she had just witnessed. She hid her face in pillows that smelt of Trok's stale sweat, and wept until her tears were exhausted. Then she slept.

--

The burning hull of Apepi's royal barge drifted up on to the riverbank opposite the temple of Hapi. In the dawn the smoke rose high into the still air. It was tainted by the stench of burned flesh. When Mintaka awoke the smell had penetrated into the cabin and sickened her. The smoke seemed to act like a beacon, for the sun had hardly risen above the eastern hills before the fleet of Lord Naja came sweeping around the bend of the river.

The slave girls brought the news to Mintaka. 'Lord Naja has come in full array,' they told her excitedly. 'Yesterday he left us to return to Thebes. Is it not strange that he could reach here so soon when he should be twenty leagues upriver?'

'Surpassing strange,' Mintaka agreed grimly. 'I must dress and be ready for whatever new atrocity awaits me now.'

Her baggage had all gone up in flames in the royal barge, but her maids borrowed clothing from the other noble ladies in the fleet. They washed and curled her hair, then dressed her in a simple linen shift, gold girdle and sandals.

Before noon an armed escort came aboard the galley, and she followed them on deck. Her eyes went first to the blackened timbers of the royal barge that lay on the far bank, burned down to the waterline. No effort was being made to recover any bodies from the wreck. It was her family's funeral pyre. The Hyksosian tradition called for cremation, not embalmment and elaborate funeral procedures and ceremonials.

Mintaka knew that her father would have approved of the manner of his own going, and this gave her some small comfort. Then she thought of Khyan and averted her eyes. It was with an effort that she held back further tears as she went down into the waiting felucca and was taken to the bank below the temple of Hapi.

Lord Naja was waiting with all his company assembled to meet her. She remained aloof and pale when he embraced her. 'This is a bitter time for all of us, Princess,' he said. 'Your father, King Apepi, was a mighty warrior and statesman. In view of the recent treaty between the two kingdoms, and the combining of this very Egypt into one sacred and historical whole, he leaves a dangerous gap. For the good of all, this must be filled immediately.'

He took her hand and led her to the pavilion, which had last evening been the scene of feasting and festivity, but where now were assembled in solemn conclave most of the nobility and officialdom of both the kingdoms.

She saw Trok in the forefront of this throng. He was a striking figure in full regimentals. He wore his sword on a gold-studded belt and carried his war bow over his shoulder. Behind him in packed ranks were all his officers, grim, cold-eyed and menacing despite the gay ribbons plaited in their beards. They stared at her, unsmilingy, and she was bitterly aware that she was the last of the Apepi line, abandoned and unprotected.

She wondered to whom she could appeal, and whose loyalty she still commanded. She searched for friendly familiar faces in the multitude. They were all there, her father's councillors and advisers, his generals and comrades of the battlefield. Then she saw their eyes slide away from her face. None smiled at her or returned her scrutiny. She had never felt so alone in her life.

Naja led her to a cushioned stool at one side of the pavilion. When she sat down Naja and his staff formed a screen around her, hiding her from view. She was certain that this had been deliberately arranged.

Lord Naja opened the conclave with a lamentation for the tragic death of King Apepi and his sons. Then he launched into a eulogy of the dead pharaoh. He recounted his numerous military triumphs and his feats of statesmanship, culminating with his participation in the treaty of Hathor, which had brought peace to the two kingdoms torn by decades of internecine warfare and strife.

'Without King Apepi, or a strong pharaoh to guide the affairs of the Lower Kingdom and to rule in conjunction with Pharaoh Nefer Seti and his regent in Thebes, the treaty of Hathor is in jeopardy. A return to the horrors and warfare of the last sixty years prior to the treaty is unthinkable.'

Lord Trok beat his sword scabbard against his bronze buckler, and shouted, 'Bak-her! Bak-her!' Immediately the applause was taken up by all the military commanders behind him, and spread slowly through the entire assembly until it was a deafening thunder.

Naja let it continue for a while, then held up both arms. When silence fell he continued, 'In the tragic circumstances of his death, King Apepi leaves no male heir to the Crown.' Smoothly he passed over any mention of Mintaka. 'As a matter of urgency I have consulted the senior councillors and nome governors of both kingdoms. Their choice for the new Pharaoh has been unanimous. With one voice they have asked Lord Trok of Memphis to pick up the reins of power, to take the double crown upon himself and steer the nation forward in the noble tradition set by King Apepi.'

The silence that followed this announcement was profound and drawn-out. Men looked at each other in blank astonishment, and only then became aware that while they had been absorbed in Lord Naja's address two regiments of the northern army commanded by, and loyal to Trok, had come silently out of the palm groves and surrounded the assembly. Their swords were sheathed, but every gloved hand was on the hilt. It would take a moment only to draw the bronze blades. An air of dismay and consternation fell upon them all. Mintaka seized the moment. She sprang off the stool where she had been hidden and cried, 'My lords and loyal citizens of this very Egypt ..."

She got no further. Four of the tallest Hyksosian warriors crowded around her, hiding her. They rattled their drawn swords against their shields and shouted in unison, 'Long live, Pharaoh Trok Uruk.' The shout was taken up by the rest of the army. In the joyous uproar that followed strong hands took Mintaka and spirited her away through the cheering press. She struggled ineffectually, her movements smothered and her voice unheard in the storm of cheering. On the riverbank she twisted in the arms of her captors and glanced back. Over the heads of the crowd she glimpsed Lord Naja raising the double crown over the head of the new Pharaoh.

Then she was hustled down the bank to the waiting felucca, and back to her locked and guarded cabin on board Lord Trok's galley.

--

Mintaka sat with her slave girls in the crowded little cabin and waited to learn what was to be her fate when the new Pharaoh returned on board. Her girls were terrified and as confused as she was. However, she tried to comfort them. When they had calmed a little she started them playing their favourite games. These soon palled so she called for a lute. Her own had been lost on her father's barge, but they borrowed one from a guard.

Mintaka held a competition, making each girl dance in turn in the confined space of the little cabin. They were laughing and clapping when they heard the new Pharaoh returning on board. The girls fell silent but she urged them to continue, and soon they were as rowdy as before.

Mintaka did not join in the merriment. Previously she had carefully explored her surroundings. Attached to her main cabin was a much smaller one, little more than a cupboard, which served as a latrine. It contained a large pottery toilet bowl with a lid and, beside it, a pitcher of water for washing. The bulkhead dividing it from the next cabin was thin and flimsy. The boat-builders had been concerned to save weight. Mintaka had been on board this galley in happier times, when she and her father had been guests of Lord Trok. She knew that the main cabin lay on the other side of this bulkhead.

Mintaka slipped into the latrine. Even above the noise her girls were making, she heard men's voices from beyond the partition. She recognized Naja's clear, commanding tones, and Trok's gruff replies. Carefully she laid her ear against the planking of the bulkhead and immediately the voices were clearer, the words intelligible.

Naja was dismissing the guards who had accompanied them on board. She heard them stump away, and there was a long silence. So long that she thought Naja might be alone in the saloon. She heard the gurgle of wine being poured into a drinking bowl, and Naja's voice, heavy with sarcasm. 'Your Majesty, have you not over-refreshed yourself already?'

Then Trok's unmistakable laugh, and Mintaka could hear from the impediment to his speech that he was indeed already in his cups as he replied to Naja's jibe, 'Come, cousin, be not so severe. Take a bowl with me. Let us drink to the successful outcome of all our endeavours. Drink to the crown on my head, and the one that will soon bless yours.' Naja's tone mellowed a little. 'A year ago, when we first began to plan, it all seemed so impossible, so remote. Then we were disparaged and overlooked, as far from the throne as the moon is from the sun, and yet here we are, two pharaohs holding between us the whole of Egypt.'

'And two pharaohs gone on ahead of us,' Trok joined in, 'Tamose with your arrow through his heart and Apepi, the great hog, fried in his own lard along with all his piglets.' He shouted with triumphant laughter.

Tray, not so loud. You are indiscreet, even if we are alone,' Naja rebuked him gently. 'It would be best if we never repeated those things.

Let our little secrets go with Tamose to his tomb in the Valley of the

Kings, and with Apepi to the bottom of the river.'

'Come!' Trok insisted. 'Drink with me to all that we have achieved.'

'To what we have achieved,' Naja agreed. 'And to all that is to follow.'

'Today Egypt, and tomorrow the treasures and riches of Assyria, Babylon and the rest of the world! Nothing can stand in our way.'

Mintaka heard Trok gulp noisily. Then there was a crash against the bulkhead at the level of her ear. It startled her and she jumped back, then realized that Trok had hurled the empty wine bowl against the panel smashing it to shards. He belched loudly, and went on, 'Yet there is one detail that remains. Tamose's puppy has your crown upon his head still.'

As she listened Mintaka was in a whirlpool of emotion that tugged her one way then the other, and spun her until her senses reeled. She had listened in horror as, dispassionately, they discussed the murders of her father, her brothers and Pharaoh Tamose, but she was ill-prepared for what they had to say about Nefer.

'Not for much longer,' Naja said. 'That will be taken care of as soon as I return to Thebes. It is all arranged.'

Mintaka clamped her hands across her mouth to prevent herself crying out. They were going to murder Nefer as coldly as they had all the others. Her heart seemed to shrivel within her, and she felt helpless. She was a prisoner and without friends. She tried to think of some way in which she could send a warning to Nefer, for only in that moment did she know the full extent of her love for him: she would do anything in her power to save him.

''Tis a pity the lion did not do your work for you,' said Trok, 'instead of only scratching him a little.'

'The beast set the stage nicely. Nefer needs just a little push, and I will give him a funeral even more splendid than I gave his father.'

'You were always a generous man.' Trok chuckled drunkenly.

'While we speak of Tamose's brat, let us also speak of what remains of Apepi's brood,' Naja suggested silkily. 'The little princess was meant to burn with the rest of them, was that not what we agreed?'

'I decided to change that.' Trok's tone had become sulky. She heard him fill another wine bowl.

'It is dangerous to leave any seed of Apepi unreaped,' Naja warned him. 'Mintaka might easily become a figurehead in the years ahead, a rallying point for rebellion and insurrection. Get rid of her, cousin, and that soon.'

'Why did you not do the same with Tamose's girls? Why do they still live?' Trok challenged him defensively.

'I married them,' Naja pointed out, 'and Heseret dotes on me already. She would do anything I ask of her. We share the same ambitions. She is as hot to see her brother Nefer buried as I am. She lusts for the crown almost as much as for my royal sceptre.'

'Once she has felt my honey bee in her little pink lotus flower, Mintaka will be the same,' Trok declared.

Mintaka's flesh crawled. Once again she was thrown into the maelstrom. She was so appalled at the picture that Trok's boast conjured up that she almost missed Naja's next remark.

'So she has you by the testicles, cousin,' Naja said, but his tone was unamused. 'She is too bold and unruly for my taste, but I wish you joy of her. Be careful of her, Trok, there is a wildness in her. She may take more managing than you think.'

'I will marry her immediately and breed her as swiftly,' Trok assured him. 'With a bundle in her belly she will be more tractable. But for these many years past she has lighted a fire in my loins that cannot be extinguished except by her sweet young juices.'

'You should use your head more, cousin, and your prong less.' Naja's voice was resigned. 'Let us hope that we do not live to regret this passion of yours.' Mintaka heard the deck creak under his feet as Naja stood up, 'So, then, may the gods love and protect you, cousin.' Naja took his leave. 'We both have grave matters to attend. We must part on the morrow, but let us meet as already planned in Memphis at the end of the inundation of the Nile.'

--

During the rest of the voyage downriver from Balasfura, Mintaka was confined to Trok's galley. While they were under way she had the freedom of the deck, but at anchor or at moorings she was locked in her cabin, and there was a guard at the door.

That happened often, for at every temple along the way Trok went ashore to sacrifice and give thanks to the resident god or goddess for his elevation to the throne of Egypt. Though no others knew it as yet, Trok was also giving notice to those gods that he would soon be joining them in the pantheon as their equal.

Apart from these restrictions, Trok's attempts to ingratiate himself with Mintaka made up in perseverance for what they lacked in subtlety. Each day he presented her with at least one marvellous gift. Once it was a pair of white stallions, which she gave to the captain of the galley. The next day it was a gilt and jewelled chariot that had been captured from the king of Libya by her father. She gave it to the colonel of the palace guard, who had been a stalwart of Apepi. Another time it was a roll of gorgeous silk from the Orient, and on another a silver casket of gemstones, which she distributed among her slave girls. When they were decked in their finery Mintaka paraded them in front of Trok. 'These tawdry pieces look well enough on slaves,' she remarked dismissively, 'but not on any lady of quality.'

The new Pharaoh was undeterred and as soon as they sailed past Asyut into the Lower Kingdom he pointed out a lush and fertile estate that extended for almost a league along the east bank. 'That is yours now, Your Highness, my gift to you. Here is the deed of ownership.' Trok handed it to her with a flourish and a smirk.

She sent for the scribes that same day and had them draw up a charter of manumission, freeing all the slaves who were owned by the estate, and a second deed transferring the entire estate to the priestesses of the temple of Hathor in Memphis.

When Mintaka tried to throw off her sorrow and mourning by relaxing with her girls on the after-deck, dancing and singing, playing bao and setting riddles, Trok tried to join in the sport. He made two of the girls dance the Flight of the Three Swallows with him, then turned to Mintaka. 'Set me a riddle, Princess,' he pleaded.

'What smells like a buffalo bull, looks like a buffalo bull, and when it cavorts with the gazelles does so with all the grace of a buffalo bull?' she asked sweetly. The girls giggled while Trok scowled and flushed. 'Forgive me, Your Highness, that is too obscure for me,' he replied, and stalked away to join his officers.

The next day he had forgiven, but not forgotten, the insult. When they anchored at the village of Samalut, he ordered a troupe of itinerant entertainers, acrobats and musicians to come aboard the galley to entertain Mintaka. One of the magicians was a handsome fellow, with an amusing patter. However, his repertoire of tricks was stale and his execution lacking in finesse. Yet as soon as Mintaka learned that the troupe was taking advantage of the peace that had come with the treaty of Hathor and was on its way upriver to Thebes, where they hoped to play before the court of the southern Pharaoh, Mintaka became enthralled with their performances, particularly that of the magician whose name was Laso. After the performance she invited them to join her for refreshments of sherbet and honeyed dates. She gestured at the magician to sit on the cushions at her feet. He soon overcame his awe of her and regaled her with a few stories at which she laughed merrily.

Under the cover of the chatter and giggling of her girls she asked Laso to deliver a message to the famous Magus, Taita, when he reached Thebes. Almost overcome with her condescension Laso agreed readily. First she impressed upon him the secrecy and the delicacy of the task, then slipped into his hand a small roll of parchment, which he hid under his chiton.

She felt a great lift of relief as she watched the troubadours go ashore. She had been desperately seeking some means to convey a warning to Taita and Nefer. The parchment contained protestations of her love for Nefer as well as a warning of Naja's murderous intentions, and that his sister Heseret could no longer be trusted as she had joined their enemies. She went on to tell of the true circumstances surrounding the death of her father and brothers. Finally she told of how Trok planned to take her to wife, despite her betrothal to Nefer, and asked Nefer to intervene with all his authority to prevent this happening.

She estimated that it might take the troupe ten days or more to reach Thebes and prostrated herself on the deck to pray to Hathor that her warning would not arrive too late. That night she slept better than she had since the terrible events at Balasfura. In the morning she was almost gay, and her girls remarked on how beautiful she looked.

Trok insisted that she joined him for breakfast on the foredeck. His cooks had provided a lavish banquet. There were twenty other guests and Trok seated himself next to Mintaka. She determined that she would not allow even this imposition to dampen her spirits. Pointedly she ignored Trok and directed all her charm and wit to the officers of his army who made up most of the rest of the company.

At the end of the meal Trok clapped his hands for attention, and was rewarded with an obsequious silence. 'I have a gift for the Princess Mintaka.'

'Oh, no!' Mintaka shrugged. 'And what shall I do with this one?'

'I believe Your Highness will find it more to her taste than my other poor offerings.' Trok was looking so pleaseed with himself that she began to feel uneasy.

'Your generosity is misplaced, my lord.' She would not address him by any of his numerous new royal titles. 'Thousands of your subjects, victims of war and plague, are starving and stand in greater need than I.'

'This is something special, which will have value to you alone,' he assured her.

She threw up her hands in resignation. 'I am only one of your loyal subjects.' She made no effort to hide her sarcasm. 'If you insist, far be it from me to deny you anything.'

Trok clapped his hands again and two of his guardsmen came down the deck from the bows, carrying between them a large bag of untanned leather. The smell it gave off was strong and unpleasant. Some of the girls exclaimed with disgust, but Mintaka remained expressionless as the two soldiers stopped in front of her.

Trok nodded at them and they loosened the drawstring at the mouth of the bag, then tipped out the contents on to the deck. The girls shrieked with horror, and even some of the men started and exclaimed with disgust.

The severed human head rolled across the planking to Mintaka's feet, and lay there, staring up at her with a wide and startled gaze. The long dark locks were stiff with dried black blood.

'Laso!' Mintaka whispered the name of the inept magician whom she had entrusted with her message to Thebes.

'Ah! You recall his name.' Trok smiled. 'His tricks must have impressed you as much as they did me.'

In the summer heat the head had begun to decompose, and the smell was strong. The flies came swiftly and crawled on the open eyeballs. Mintaka's gorge rose, and she swallowed hard. She saw that a scrap of papyrus parchment protruded from between Laso's purple lips.

'Alas, it seems that his last trick was his most amusing.' Trok leaned over and retrieved the blood-smeared parchment. He held it so that Mintaka could be certain it was her own cartouche that sealed the message, then dropped the papyrus into the charcoal brazier on which the lamb kebabs were roasting. It burned quickly and the ashes curled into grey powder.

Trok gestured for the head to be removed. One of the soldiers picked it up by the hair, dropped it back into the bag and took it away. The company sat for a long minute in shocked silence, except that one of the girls was sobbing softly.

'Your Royal Highness, your divine father of illustrious memory must have had some premonition of the fate that awaited him,' Trok addressed her gravely. Mintaka was too disturbed to reply. 'Before his tragic death he spoke to me. He placed you under my protection. I gave him my oath, and I accepted this as a sacred charge. You need never appeal to any other for protection. I, Pharaoh Trok Uruk, am your oath man.' He placed his right hand upon her bowed head, and in the other hand he raised another scroll of parchment.

'This is my royal proclamation setting aside the betrothal of Princess Mintaka of the House of Apepi to Pharaoh Nefer Seti of the House of Tamose. Furthermore, it contains a proclamation of the marriage of the Princess Mintaka to Pharaoh Trok Uruk. The proclamation has been ratified by the cartouche of Lord Naja, accepting and confirming it in the name of Pharaoh Nefer Seti.' He handed the scroll to his chamberlain with a terse instruction. 'Have one hundred copies made of this proclamation and cause them to be publicly displayed in every city in every nome of this very Egypt.'

Then, with both hands, he lifted Mintaka to her feet. 'You will not be alone for much longer. You and I will be husband and wife before the rise of the Moon of Osiris.'

--

Three days later Pharaoh Trok Uruk arrived at Avaris, his military capital in the Lower Kingdom, and immediately plunged with indefatigable energy into securing to his own hand all the affairs of state, and the trappings of power.

The populace was delirious with joy at the news of the treaty of Hathor, and at the promise of peace and prosperity in the years ahead. However, there was some puzzlement and dismay when one of the first acts of the new Pharaoh was to put in hand another massive enforced draft of men for the army. It soon became clear that he was intent on doubling the size of his infantry regiments and building two thousand more fighting chariots.

The question was asked, but not to Trok's face, where he expected to find a new enemy now that Egypt was once more united and at peace. The loss of working men from the millet fields and pastures to the army resulted in a shortage of food and a sharp increase in the prices in the markets. The expenditure on new chariots, weapons and military equipment necessitated an increase in taxation. There were mutters now that Apepi, despite his warmongering, taxation and contempt of the gods, had not been as bad a ruler as they had believed him to be.

Within weeks Trok ordered work to commence on the extensive enlargements and refurbishment to the palace in Avaris into which he intended to move with his bride, Princess Mintaka. The architects estimated that these works would cost over two lakhs of gold. The muttering grew louder.

Well aware of the rising discontent, Trok met it with the proclamation of his own divinity and elevation to the pantheon. Work was to begin within the week on the construction of his temple on a choice site alongside the magnificent temple of Seueth in Avaris. Trok was determined that his temple would exceed that of his brother god in splendour. The architects estimated that the completion of the temple would require at the very least five thousand labourers, five years and another two lakhs of gold.

The revolt started in the delta where a regiment of foot, who had been unpaid for over a year, murdered their officers and marched on Avaris, calling on the population to rise and join them against the tyrant. Trok met them with three hundred chariots near Manashi and cut them to pieces with his first charge.

He emasculated and impaled five hundred mutineers on stakes. Like a macabre forest, they decorated both sides of the road for half a league beyond the village of Manashi. The ringleaders of the revolt were roped to the back of chariots and dragged to Avaris to state their grievances. Unfortunately none of the prisoners survived the journey: by the time they arrived they were barely recognizable as human - their skin and much of their flesh had been ripped away as they were dragged over the rough ground. Ragged pieces of flesh and splinters of bone were scattered over twenty leagues of the roadway, to the delight of the pi-dogs, jackals and carrion crows.

A few hundred mutineers escaped the massacre and disappeared into the desert. Trok did not bother to pursue them beyond the eastern borders, for this petty matter had already occupied too much of his attention and delayed his wedding by months. He hurried back to Avaris, using up three pairs of horses in his furious impatience.

While Trok was away, Mintaka had tried twice more to send a message to Taita in Thebes. The first of her messengers had been one of the eunuchs of the harem, a fat, kindly black man she had known all her life. There was a special bond between the eunuchs in both kingdoms that transcended race or country. Even during the years when the two kingdoms were split asunder, Soth, for that was the eunuch's name, had honoured this special tie to Taita, and had been his friend and confidant.

However, Trok's spies were ubiquitous and unsleeping. Soth never reached Assyut but was brought back in a leather bag barely alive. He died when his head was plunged into a cauldron of boiling water. His skull, with the flesh boiled away, the bone bleached and polished, the eye-sockets filled with orbs of lapis lazuli, was presented to Mintaka as a special gift from Pharaoh Trok.

After that Mintaka could not bring herself to recruit another messenger, and thus condemn him or her to a gruesome death. Nevertheless, one of her Libyan slave girls, Thana, who knew the depth of her mistress's love volunteered to carry her message. She was the not the prettiest of the girls, for she had a cast in one eye and a large nose, but she was loyal, loving and true. At her suggestion Mintaka sold her to a merchant who was travelling to Thebes the following day. He took Thana with him, but three days later she was back in Avaris, bound by wrists and ankles to the side frame of a chariot of the border guards.

Trok dealt with Thana on his return from Manashi: he condemned her to death by love and she was given to the regiment that had led the charge at Manashi. Over four hundred men took their pleasure with her until, at sunset on the third day, she bled to death.

For three days Mintaka wept for her without cease.

--

The wedding of Pharaoh Trok Uruk and Princess Mintaka Apepi was played out in the ancient Hyksosian tradition that had its origins a thousand years earlier, and a thousand leagues to the east, on the vast treeless steppe beyond the mountains of Assyria from which their ancestors had ridden to the conquest of Egypt.

At dawn on the day of the wedding, a party of two hundred of the relatives and members of the tribe of Princess Mintaka burst into the royal apartments where she had been kept captive ever since her return to Avaris. There was no resistance from the guards who had been expecting this incursion. The members of her faction carried Mintaka away, and rode towards the east in a tight formation with the princess in their midst, shouting defiance and brandishing clubs and staves. Edged weapons of any sort were banned from the festivities.

When the bridal party had been given a head-start the bridegroom led a party of his own tribe, the leopards, in pursuit. The fugitives had shown no urgency to escape, and as soon as the pursuers came into view they turned back and gleefully launched themselves into the fray. Even though swords and daggers were not allowed, two men suffered fractured limbs, and there were a few cracked skulls. Not even the bridegroom escaped without cuts and bruises. In the end Trok claimed his prize. He snatched up Mintaka with an arm around her waist and lifted her into his chariot.

Mintaka's resistance was not in the least play-acting, and with her fingernails she inflicted a deep scratch down the right side of Trok's face, which narrowly missed his eye, and the dripping blood spoiled the colourful splendour of his costume.

'She will give you many warlike sons!' his supporters shouted in admiration for the ferocity of the Mintaka's resistance.

Grinning delightedly at the belligerent spirit of his bride Trok drove her triumphantly back to his temple where the newly appointed priests of his order waited to perform the final rituals.

The temple was as yet only open foundation trenches and tall heaps of stone building blocks, but this did not detract from the pleasure of the wedding guests or the enthusiasm of the bridegroom as they stood under the canopy of woven reeds while the high priest bound Mintaka to him with a halter rope.

At the culmination of the ceremony, Trok cut the throat of his favourite war horse, a beautiful chestnut stallion, as a sign that he placed a higher value on his bride than on this other precious possession. As the animal fell kicking and spurting blood from the open carotid artery the company shouted their acclamation and lifted the couple into the flower-bedecked chariot.

Trok drove back to the palace with one arm still firmly around his bride, taking no chances on a second escape. The army lined the way, swarming around the vehicle, and showered gifts of amulets and good-luck charms into the cockpit. Others held up bowls of wine to Trok as he drove past, and he gulped them, spilling much of it down his tunic where it mingled with the blood from his torn cheek.

By the time they reached the palace Trok was soaked with blood and red wine, sweating and dusty from the ride and the fight to claim his bride, reckless with wine and wild-eyed with lust.

He carried Mintaka through the crowd into their new apartments, and the guards at the door turned back the wedding guests with drawn swords. However, they did not disperse but surrounded the palace, chanting encouragement to the bridegroom and ribald advice to the bride.

In the bedchamber Trok threw Mintaka on to the white sheepskin that covered the mattress and used both hands to struggle with his sword-belt, trying to loosen the clasp and cursing it lustily when it would not yield. Mintaka hit the bed and bounced off it like a rabbit startled from her burrow by a ferret.

She raced to the terrace door and tried to wrest it open. The locking bars on the outside had been put in place by Trok's orders. Desperately she tried to tear open the panel with her fingernails, but the doors were solid and thick and did not even tremble to her onslaught.

Behind her Trok had at last rid himself of the sword-belt and the scabbard clattered on the mosaic tiles. He came lumbering unsteadily after her. 'Fight as much as you wish, prettyling,' he slurred. 'It sets my prong on fire when you kick and scream.'

He placed one arm around her waist, and reached around with the other hand to seize one of her breasts. 'By Seueth, what ripe, juicy fruit is this?' He squeezed hard with fingers calloused by the hilt of sword and by the reins of his chariot. The pain shot through her chest, and she screamed and twisted in his arms, raking for his eyes again. He caught her wrist. 'You'll not play that little trick twice.' He swung her off her feet and carried her back to the bed.

'Baboon!' she cried. 'You smelly hairy ape. You foul animal.'

'You sing a sweet love song, little one. My heart and my prong swell when I hear how much you desire me.'

He threw her down again and this time pinned her with one huge muscular arm across her chest. His face was inches from hers. His beard prickled her cheeks, and his breath smelt of sour wine. She twisted her face away. He laughed and hooked one finger in the neck of her shift and ripped the silk to below her waist.

He prised out her breasts and one after the other squeezed them hard enough to leave red fingermarks on the tender flesh. He pinched her nipples and pulled them out until they darkened in colour, then ran his right hand over her belly. Playfully he prodded one thick finger into her belly button, then tried to force his hand between her thighs. She locked her legs, one over the other, to deny him.

Suddenly he reared up, straddled her, sitting across her lower body with all his weight so that she could not struggle, and ripped off his tunic. Under it he was naked. His body was trained by war, hunting and rough games, and although her vision was distorted by pain, tears and terror, she had an impression of wide shoulders and bulging muscle, limbs thick and thewy as the branches of a cedar of Lebanon.

Still pinning her under him, he twisted round until his belly pressed against hers, and the coarse hair that covered his chest rasped against her breasts. With mounting terror she felt his massive penis prodding against her.

She fought not only for her dignity and modesty, but as if for her very life. She tried to bite his face but her small sharp teeth were smothered in his beard. She clawed at his back and the skin peeled away to jam under her nails, but he did not seem to feel it.

He was trying to force a knee between her thighs, but she kept them locked together, hooking one of her legs over the other. Every muscle in her lower body was frozen in a rigor of fear and revulsion, hard and as impenetrable as a granite statue of the goddess.

Both of them were sweating, he more heavily. It poured from his body, greasing their skin so that his huge member slithered over her belly and pounded at the junction of her thighs.

Suddenly he heaved his upper body free, and swung a heavy blow, flat-handed, across her face. It jarred her clenched jaws, crushing her lips and nose. She felt blood flood into her mouth and darkness fill her head.

'Open up, bitch!' he panted above her. 'Open that hot little slit and let me in.' He was thrusting hard with his hips, and she felt the loathsome thing slithering over her. Even in the pain and darkness of the blow she managed to deny him entry, but she knew she could not last out much longer. He was too heavy and powerful.

'Hathor, help me!' She closed her eyes and prayed. 'Sweet goddess, do not let it happen!'

She heard him groan above her, and her eyes flew open. His face was swollen and dark with congested blood. She felt him arch his back, and he moaned as though in pain. His eyes were wide, sightless and shot with blood. His mouth opened in a terrible rictus.

Mintaka did not understand what was happening. For a moment she thought that the goddess must have heard her plea and struck him through the heart with a divine dart. Then she felt hot liquid spray over her stomach, so hot it seemed to scald her skin. She tried to twist away to avoid it, but he was too heavy and strong. At last the loathsome stream shrivelled and dried up. Suddenly he groaned again and collapsed on top of her. He lay quiescent, and she dared not move lest it incite him to further efforts. They lay for a long time, until in the quiet chamber they both became aware of the lewd cries of the crowd waiting outside the palace walls. Trok roused himself and looked down at her. 'You have shamed me, you little slut. You have made me spill my seed in vain.'

Before she knew what he was about, he grabbed her by the back of her neck and forced her face into the white sheepskin.

'Never fear, I shall use the blood from your nose if I can't have it from your honeypot.'

He rolled her aside and inspected the crimson stain from her bleeding face on the pure white wool with grim satisfaction. Then he jumped to his feet, strode, stark naked, to the shutters and kicked them open with a crash of shattering timber. He disappeared out into the bright daylight.

With a fold of the bed linen Mintaka wiped away the loathsome slime that was clotting on her ivory smooth belly. There were angry red marks on her breasts and on her limbs. Her fear turned to fury.

His sword-belt lay where he had dropped it. Quietly she slipped from the bed and drew the burnished bronze blade from its scabbard. She crept to the door that led on to the terrace and flattened herself against the jamb.

Outside, Trok was acknowledging the applause of the crowd and flapping the stained sheepskin for all to see. 'She loved it!' he answered some shouted comment. 'When I finished with her, she was wide and wet as the delta swamps, as hot as the Sahara.'

Mintaka tightened her grip on the haft of the heavy sword and gathered herself.

'Farewell, my friends,' Trok shouted. 'I am going back for another bite at that sweet fig.'

She heard his bare feet swish on the tiles as he returned and then his shadow fell across the entrance. She drew back the sword with both hands, and held the point at belly height.

As he stepped into the chamber she braced herself and then with all her strength thrust at him, aiming halfway between the pit of his navel and the dense black bush from which dangled the heavy excrescence of his genitals.

Once, long ago, while hunting with her father, she had watched him aim at a monster male leopard that was unaware of their presence. The cat had been alerted by the twang and hum of her father's bowstring, and instantly leaped aside before the arrow reached its mark. Trok possessed the same feral instinct for danger and survival.

Her thrust was still in the air, when he twisted away from the sharp bronze point. It flew the width of a finger past his hairy stomach, without cutting skin or drawing a drop of blood. Then he clamped both her wrists in one of his huge paws. He squeezed until she felt the bones in her wrist crushing and she had to let the weapon drop and clatter on the floor.

He was laughing as he dragged her across the room, but it was an ugly sound. He threw her back on to the rumpled and sweat-sour bed. 'You are my wife now,' he said, as he stood over her. 'You belong to me, like a brood mare or a bitch-dog. You must learn to obey and respect me.'

She lay face down, pressing her face into the soiled linen, refusing to look at him. He picked up the sword scabbard from where it lay beside the bed. 'This lesson in obedience is for your own good. A little pain now will save us both a great deal of unhappiness and suffering later.'

He weighed the scabbard in his right hand. It was of polished leather, bound with gold and electrum bands, studded with metal rosettes. He swung it down across the back of her naked legs. It slapped across the white flesh and left a welt with the raised pattern of rosettes in brighter scarlet. She was so taken by surprise that despite herself she shrieked aloud.

He laughed at her pain, and lifted the scabbard again. She tried to roll away from him but the next blow caught her across her raised right arm, and the next across her shoulder. She stopped herself crying out again, and tried to hide her distress by forcing a wicked smile and spitting at him like a lynx. This infuriated him, and he struck with more venom.

He knocked her off the bed and followed her as she crawled across the floor. He beat her across the back, and when she rolled herself into a ball he lashed her across her back, shoulders and buttocks. He spoke to her while he kept the blows falling to a steady rhythm, punctuating his words with the exhalation of effort as he struck. 'You will never lift a hand to me again, hah! Next time I come to you, hah! You will behave as a loving wife, hah! Or I will have four of my men hold you down, hah! While I mount you, hah! Then when I have finished, hah! I will beat you again, hah! Like this, hah!'

She clenched her jaws as the blows rained down upon her until at last she could no longer fight back, but mercifully he stepped away, breathing heavily.

He pulled on his stained and dust-streaked tunic, belted the scabbard around his waist and thrust his sword into the scabbard that was smeared with her blood, and stalked to the door of the chamber. There he paused and looked back at her. 'Remember one thing, wife, either I break my mares,' he said, 'or, by Seueth, they die under me.' He turned and was gone.

Mintaka lifted her head slowly and stared after him. She could not speak. Instead she filled her mouth with spittle and spat it after him. It splattered on the tiles streaked with blood from her swollen mouth.

--

It was long after the waning of the Moon of Isis before the scabs fell off Mintaka's injuries and the bruises faded to greenish-yellow stains on her smooth, creamy skin. Either by design or luck, Trok had not knocked out any of her teeth, broken any bones or left her face scarred.

Since their calamitous wedding day he had left her alone. Most of that time he was campaigning in the south. Even when he returned for brief periods to Avaris he avoided her. Perhaps he was repelled by her unsightly injuries, or perhaps he was shamed by his inability to consummate their marriage. Mintaka did not ponder the reason too deeply, but she rejoiced in being free for a while of his brutish attentions.

There had been further serious rebellion in the south of the kingdom. Trok had responded savagely. He had fallen on the insurgents and had slaughtered those who opposed him, seized their property and sold their families into slavery. Lord Naja had sent two regiments to assist in these operations against the rebels, supporting his cousin and pharaoh, and at the same time sharing in the spoils.

Mintaka knew that Trok had returned triumphantly to Avaris three days ago, but she had still not seen him. She thanked the goddess for that, but it was premature. The summons came from him on the fourth day. Mintaka was to attend an extraordinary session of the state council. So urgent was the matter that she was allowed only an hour to prepare herself. His message warned her that should she choose to ignore his summons he would send his bodyguards to drag her to the conclave. She had no option, and her girls dressed her.

This was the first occasion on which Mintaka had appeared in public since her wedding. With her makeup carefully applied she was as lovely as ever as she took her seat on the queen's throne, below of that of Pharaoh, in the lavishly redecorated assembly hall of the palace. She tried to make her expression remote, and to keep aloof from the proceedings, but her reserve slipped as she recognized the royal herald who came in and prostrated himself before the twin thrones. She leaned forward attentively.

Trok acknowledged the herald then called upon him to rise and state his news to the council. When he rose to his feet Mintaka saw that he was in the grip of deep emotion. He had to clear his throat several times before he could utter a word, and then at last he spoke, in a voice so shaken that at first Mintaka did not understand what he was saying. She heard the words but could not bring herself to accept them.

'Your Sacred Majesty Pharaoh Trok Uruk, Queen Mintaka Apepi Uruk, distinguished members of the state council, citizens of Avaris, brothers and fellow countrymen of this reunited Egypt, I bring tragic tidings from the south. I would rather die outnumbered a hundred to one in battle than have to tell you this.' He paused and coughed again. Then his voice rose stronger and clearer.

'I have made the voyage by fast galley downriver from Thebes. Travelling day and night, stopping only to change rowers, I have taken twelve days to reach Avaris.'

He paused again and spread his arms in a gesture of despair. 'Last month, on the eve of the festival of Hapi, the young Pharaoh Nefer Seti whom we all loved, and in whom we placed so much trust and hope, died of the grievous wounds that he received at Dabba while hunting a cattle-raiding lion.' There was concerted sigh of despair. One of the councillors covered his eyes and began to weep silently.

The herald spoke into the silence: 'The Regent of the Upper Kingdom, Lord Naja, who is of the royal family of Tamose by marriage, and who is next in the line of succession, has been raised to the throne in the place of the departed Pharaoh. He purifies the land in his name of Kiafan, he endures unto eternity in his name of Naja, the fear of him through all the world is great in his name of Pharaoh Naja Kiafan.'

The cries of mourning for the dead Pharaoh, and the clamour of acclamation for his successor filled the hall.

In the uproar, Mintaka stared at the herald. Under the makeup she had turned chalky pale and her eyes needed no kohl to make them huge and tragic. The world seemed to turn dark around her, and she swayed on her stool. Although she had heard Nefer's death being planned and plotted, she had convinced herself that it would not happen. She had made herself believe that, even without her warnings, Nefer, with Taita to help him, would somehow avoid the malignant web spun by Naja and Trok.

Trok was watching her with a sly, gloating smile, and she knew he was revelling in her pain. She did not care any longer. Nefer was gone and with him her will and her reason to resist and to go on living herself. She stood up from the throne and, like a sleep-walker left the hall. She expected her husband to order her back, but he did not. In the general consternation and lamentation few of the other guests noticed her leave. Those who did were aware of her terrible sorrow. They recalled that she had once been betrothed to the dead Pharaoh, and they forgave her this breach of decorum and protocol.

Mintaka stayed in her own chamber for three days and nights without eating. She drank only a little wine mixed with water. She ordered everyone to leave her, even her girls. She would see nobody, not even the physicians Trok sent to her.

On the fourth day she asked for the chief priestess of the temple of Hathor. They were alone together for the entire morning, and when the old woman left the palace she had covered her shaven head with her white shawl as a sign of mourning.

The next morning the priestess returned with two of her acolytes, who carried a large basket of woven palm fronds. They placed the basket in front of Mintaka, then covered their heads and withdrew.

The priestess knelt beside Mintaka and asked her quietly, 'Are you certain that you wish to take the way of the goddess, my daughter?'

'There is nothing further for me to live for,' Mintaka said simply.

The priestess had tried for hours the previous day to dissuade her, but now she made one last attempt. 'You are young still ...'

Mintaka held up one slim hand. 'Mother, I may not have lived many years, but in that short time I have experienced more pain than most encounter in all their long lives.'

The priestess bowed her head and said, 'Let us pray to the goddess.' Mintaka closed her eyes as she went on, 'Blessed lady, mighty cow of the sky, mistress of music and love, all-seeing, all-powerful, hear the prayers of your daughters who love you.'

Something in the basket in front of them moved and there was a faint susurration like the river breeze in the papyrus beds. Mintaka felt the coldness in her stomach, and knew that it was the first chill of death. She listened to the prayer, but her thoughts were with Nefer. She recalled vividly so much that they had shared together, and in her mind a picture of him appeared as though he still lived. She saw again his smile and the way he held his head so perfectly balanced on his strong, straight neck. She wondered what point he had reached on his dread journey through the netherworld, and she prayed for his safety. She prayed for him to reach the green hills of paradise, and that she should soon be reunited with him there. I shall follow you soon, my heart, she promised him.

'Your beloved daughter, Mintaka, the wife of the divine Pharaoh Trok Uruk, begs from you the favour you have promised to those who have suffered too much in this world. Allow her to meet your dark messenger, and through him to find peace in your bosom, mighty Hathor.'

The priestess ended her prayer and waited. The next step must be taken by Mintaka alone. Mintaka opened her eyes, and studied the basket as though seeing it for the first time. Slowly she reached out with both hands and lifted the lid. The interior of the basket was dark, but there was movement within, a heavy, languid coiling and uncoiling, a glinting of black upon black like oil spilled on water in a deep well.

Mintaka leaned forward to peer within, and slowly a scaled head rose to meet her. As it emerged into the light the hood distended until it was wide as a woman's fan, patterned in black and ivory. The eyes were as shiny as glass beads. The thin lips were curved in a sardonic grin, and the feathery black tongue flickered out between them, tasting the air, and the scent of the girl who sat in front of it.

They stared at each other, the girl and the cobra, for a hundred slow beats of her heart. Once the serpent swayed back as though to strike, then came gently upright once more like some fatal flower on a long stem.

'Why will it not do its work?' Mintaka asked, with her lips close enough to those of the cobra to exchange a kiss. She reached out her hand and the serpent turned his head to watch her fingers come towards him. Mintaka showed no fear. Gently she stroked the back of the cobra's widely distended hood. Instead of attacking the cobra turned half away from her, almost like a cat offering its head to be caressed.

'Make it do what has to be done,' Mintaka begged the priestess, but the old woman shook her head in puzzlement.

'This I have never seen before,' she whispered. 'You must strike the messenger with your hand. That will surely make him deliver the gift of the goddess.'

Mintaka drew back her hand, with open palm and fingers spread. She aimed at the ophidian head of the serpent and was on the point of striking, when she started with surprise and lowered her hand. Puzzled, she glanced around the darkened chamber, into the shadowed corners, then looked directly at the priestess.

'Did you speak again?' she asked.

'I said nothing.'

Mintaka raised her hand again, but this time the voice was closer and clearer. She recognized it with a rush of superstitious fear, and felt the hairs rise upon the back of her neck.

'Taita?' she whispered, looking around. She expected him to be standing at her shoulder, but the chamber was still empty except for the two of them kneeling in front of the basket. 'Yes!' Mintaka said, as though replying to a question or an instruction. She listened to the silence and twice nodded, then softly, 'Oh, yes!'

The priestess heard nothing, but she knew and understood that there had been some mystical intervention in their proceedings. She was unsurprised when the cobra sank back slowly into the depths of the basket. She replaced the lid, and stood up.

'Forgive me, Mother,' Mintaka said softly, 'I will not take the way of the goddess. There is still much for me to do in this world.'

The priestess picked up the basket, and said to the girl, 'May the goddess bless you and grant you eternal life hereafter.' She backed away to the door of the chamber, and left Mintaka sitting in the gloom. She seemed to be listening still to a voice that the old woman could not hear.

--

Taita brought Nefer back to Thebes from Dabba in the deep sleep of the Red Shepenn. As soon as the galley carrying them moored at the stone jetty below the palace, Taita had him carried ashore on a litter, curtained from the gaze of the common people. It would have been unwise for Pharaoh's critical condition to become widely known in the city. There had been previous occasions when the death of a king had plunged the city and the entire state into wild despair, and caused devastating speculation in the millet exchange, riots, looting and a breakdown of all the mores and conventions of society.

Once Nefer was safely ensconced in his royal quarters at the palace, Taita was able to work on him in safety and seclusion. His first concern was to examine again the terrible lacerations down the front of the boy's legs and lower abdomen and assess if there had been any morbid changes.

His greatest fear was that the entrails had been punctured and that their contents had leaked into the stomach cavity. If this had happened then his skills would be to little avail. He unwrapped the bandages, probed the openings gently, sniffed the effluent for the stink of faeces, and was greatly relieved to find no taint of that contamination. He syringed the deepest wounds with a mixture of vinegar and Oriental spices. Then he stitched them closed with cat-gut and bandaged them with all his skill, touching them with the golden Periapt of Lostris, commending her grandson to the goddess with each wrap of the linen strip.

Over the days that followed Taita gradually reduced the dosage of the Red Shepenn and was rewarded when Nefer recovered consciousness, and smiled at him. 'Taita, I knew you were with me.' Then he looked around him, still drowsy with the drug. 'Where is Mintaka?'

When Taita explained her absence, Nefer's disappointment was almost palpable, and he was too weak to conceal it. Taita tried to console him by telling him that the parting was only temporary, and that he would soon be well enough to make the voyage northwards to visit Avaris. 'We will find a fine excuse for Naja to allow you to make the journey,' Taita assured him.

For a while Nefer's recovery was encouraging. The following day he was sitting up, and ate a hearty meal of dhurra bread and chick-pea soup. The next day he took a few steps on the crutches Taita had carved for him, and asked for meat with his meal. In order not to heat his blood, Taita forbade red meat, but allowed him fish and poultry.

The next day Merykara came to visit her brother, and spent most of the day with him. Her merry laughter and her childlike prattle cheered him. Nefer asked after Heseret, and wanted to know why she had not come also. Merykara answered evasively and invited him to play another game of bao. This time he deliberately opened his centre castle to let her win.

The next day the terrible news of the tragedy at Balasfura reached Thebes. The first reports were that Apepi and his entire family, including Mintaka, had perished in the flames. Nefer was stricken down again, this time by grief. Taita had to mix him another potion of the Red Shepenn, but within hours the wounds in his leg had turned. Over the next few days his condition worsened, and soon he was at the very frontiers of death. Taita sat with him and watched him tossing and raving in delirium while the livid scarlet lines of morbidity ran like rivers of fire up his limbs and his belly.

Then news came from the Lower Kingdom that Mintaka had survived the tragedy that had engulfed the rest of her family. When Taita whispered these wonderful tidings in his ear Nefer seemed to understand and respond. The next day he was weak but lucid, and he tried to convince Taita that he was strong enough to make the long journey to be with Mintaka in her bereavement. Gently Taita dissuaded him, but promised that as soon as Nefer was strong enough he would use all his influence to convince Lord Naja to allow him to go. With this goal to strive towards, Nefer rallied strongly once again. Taita could see him subduing the fevers and evil humours in his blood by sheer strength of will.

Lord Naja returned from the north, and within hours Heseret came to visit Nefer for the first time since his mauling by the lion. She brought him gifts of sweetmeats, a pot of wild honey in the comb, and a magnificent bao board made of coloured agate, with stones of carved ivory and black coral. She was sweet, infinitely gentle and concerned with his suffering, excusing herself for having neglected him.

'My dear husband, the Regent of the Upper Kingdom, the illustrious Lord Naja, has been away all these weeks,' she explained, 'and I have pined so much for his return that I was not fit company for anyone as ill as you have been. I was afraid that my unhappiness might affect you badly, my poor darling Nefer.' She stayed an hour, sang to him, and related some of the doings of the court, much of it scandalous. At last she excused herself: 'My husband, the Regent of the Upper Kingdom, does not like me to leave his side for long. We are so much in love, Nefer. He is a wonderful man, so kind and dedicated to you and Egypt. You must learn to trust him completely, as I do.' She rose to her feet and then, as though as an afterthought, she remarked lightly, 'You must have been relieved to hear that Pharaoh Trok Uruk and my dear husband, the Regent of Upper Egypt, have agreed for reasons of state to cancel your betrothal to that little Hyksosian barbarian, Mintaka. I was so sorry for you when I heard that such a disgraceful marriage was thrust upon you. My husband, the Regent of Upper Egypt, was against it from the very beginning, as I was.'

After she had gone Nefer sank back weakly on the pillow and closed his eyes. When Taita came to him a little later he was puzzled by the way in which he had relapsed. He removed the bandages and found that the infection in his injuries had flared up again, and that the malodorous pus streaming from the deepest wound was thick and yellow. He stayed with him through that night, exerting all his skill and his powers to ward off the shadows of evil that surrounded the young Pharaoh.

At dawn Nefer was in a coma. Taita was truly alarmed by his condition. It could not be explained entirely by the boy's grief. Suddenly he was startled and angered by a commotion at the door. He was about to call for silence when he heard Lord Naja's commanding voice ordering the guards to stand aside. The RRegent strode into the chamber and, without greeting Taita, stooped over Nefer's still form and peered into his pale, drawn face. After a long moment he straightened up and signed to Taita to follow him on to the terrace.

When Taita came out behind him he was gazing across the river. On the far bank a squadron of chariots was practising their evolutions, changing formations at full gallop. Strangely, there had been much warlike preparation since the treaty of Hathor. 'You wished to speak to me, my lord?' Taita asked.

Naja turned to him. His expression was grim. 'You have disappointed me, old man,' he said, and Taita bowed his head but made no reply. 'I had hoped that my way forward, my destiny as predicted by the gods, would be cleared by now of impediment.' He stared hard at Taita. 'Yet it seems that, far from allowing this come to pass, you have done all in your power to prevent it.'

This has been pretence. I have made a show of caring for my patient, while in reality I have been fostering your interests. As you can see for yourself, Pharaoh hangs over the great abyss.' Taita made a gesture towards the sick chamber where Nefer lay. 'Surely you can sense the shades drawing in more closely around him. My lord, we have almost obtained our object. Within days the way ahead will be cleared for you.' Naja was not convinced. 'I am reaching the limit of my patience,' he warned, and strode from the terrace. He passed through the chamber without another glance at the still form upon the bed.

During that day Nefer's condition fluctuated between deep coma and bouts of restless sweating and delirious ravings. When it became clear that the leg was giving him intense agony, Taita removed the linen bandages and found the whole of his thigh grotesquely swollen. The stitches holding the wound closed were strained and cutting deeply into the hot, purple flesh. Taita knew that he dared not move the boy while his life hung on such a slender thread. The plans that he had laid so carefully over the past weeks could not go forward unless he took drastic action. To interfere further with the wound in this condition was to risk a fatal poisoning of the blood, but there was no other course open to him. He laid out his instruments and bathed the entire leg in a solution of vinegar. Then he forced another heavy dose of the Red Shepenn between Nefer's lips, and while he waited for the drug to take effect he prayed to Horus and to the goddess Lostris for their protection. Then he took up the scalpel and cut one of the stitches that held the lips of the wound together.

He was taken aback by the way in which the flesh burst open and at the gagging flood of yellow corruption that poured out. He used a gold spoon to scrape it clean, and when he felt the metal strike some hard obstruction in the depths of the wound, he probed with ivory forceps and gripped the object in the jaws. At last he prised it free. He took it to the light from the doorway and found that it was a ragged splinter of the lion's claw, half as long as his little finger, which must have broken off as the beast was savaging Nefer.

He placed a gold tube in the wound to allow it to drain, then rebandaged it. By evening Nefer's recovery was miraculous. In the morning he was weak but the fever in his blood had abated. Taita gave him a tonic to fortify him, and placed the Periapt of Lostris on his leg. While he sat beside him in the noonday, gathering his resolve, there was a soft scratching at the shutters. When he opened them a crack, Merykara slipped into the chamber. She was distraught and had been weeping. She flung herself against Taita and hugged his legs.

'They have forbidden me to come here,' she whispered and she did not have to explain who 'they' were, 'but I know the guards on the terrace and they let me pass.'

'Gently, my child.' Taita stroked her hair. 'Do not distress yourself so.'

'Taita, they are going to kill him.'

'Who are they?'

'The two of them.' Merykara started sobbing again and her explanation was barely coherent. 'They thought I was asleep or that I would not understand what they were discussing. They never said his name, but I knew they were talking about Nefer.'

'What did they say?'

'They will send for you. When you leave Nefer alone, they say that it won't take long.' She broke off and gulped, 'It's so horrible, Taita! Our own sister, and that awful man - that monster.'

'When?' Taita shook her gently to brace her.

'Soon. Very soon.' Her voice steadied.

'Did they say how, Princess?'

'Noom, the surgeon from Babylon. Naja says that he will push a thin needle up through Nefer's nostril and into his brain. There will be no bleeding or any other sign.' Taita knew Noom well: they had debated against each at the library of Thebes, arguing the correct treatment for fractured limbs. Noom had come away smarting from the lash of Taita's eloquence and knowledge. He was deeply jealous of Taita's reputation and his powers. He was a rival and a bitter enemy.

'The gods will reward you, Merykara, for daring to come and warn us. But you must go now, before they find out that you have been here. If they suspect you, they will treat you as they plan to do Nefer.'

When she had gone Taita sat for a while collecting his thoughts, reviewing his plans. He could not do it alone, and he would have to rely on others, but he had chosen the best and most reliable. They were ready to act, and they had been waiting for his word. He could delay no longer.

--

At his bidding the slaves brought kettles of hot water and Taita washed Nefer carefully from head to foot and rebandaged his wounds, placing a dressing of lambswool over the gaping opening in his thigh that was still draining.

When he had finished, he warned the guards not to let anybody pass, and barred all the entrances to the chamber. He prayed for a while and then threw incense on the brazier and in the blue and aromatic smoke made an ancient, potent incantation to Anubis, the god of death and cemeteries.

Only then did he prepare the elixir of Anubis in a new and unused oil lamp. He warmed the mixture on the brazier until it was the temperature of blood, and took it to the bed where Nefer was sleeping quietly. Gently he turned his head to one side and placed the spout of the lamp in his ear. He poured the elixir into the eardrum, a heavy viscid drop at a time. Carefully he wiped away the excess, taking care that it should not touch his own skin. Then he plugged Nefer's ear with a small ball of wool and pushed it deeply into the passage until it could not be detected by any but a detailed examination.

He emptied what remained of the elixir on to the coals of the brazier, and it flared in a puff of acrid steam. Then he filled the lamp with oils and lit the wick. He placed it with the other lamps in the corner of the chamber.

He went back to the bed and squatted beside it. He watched Nefer's chest rise and fall to his breathing. Each breath was slower and the intervals between them longer. At last they ceased altogether. He placed two fingers on Nefer's throat beneath his ear, and felt the slow deliberate pulsing of the life force within him. Gradually that also faded away until it was only a flutter like the wing of tiny insect that took all his skill and experience to detect. With the fingers of his left hand he counted the beating of the life force in his own neck, and compared the two.

At last his own beat was three hundred to a single barely detectable flutter in Nefer's neck. Gently he closed the boy's eyes, placed an amulet on the lids in the traditional preparation of the corpse. Next he bound a strip of linen over them, and another strip under his jaw to keep his mouth from gaping open. He worked quickly for there was danger in every minute that Nefer remained under the influence of the elixir. At last he went to the door and removed the locking bar.

'Send word to the Regent of the Upper Kingdom. He should come immediately to hear terrible tidings of Pharaoh.'

Lord Naja arrived with surprising alacrity. Princess Heseret was with him, and they were followed by a crowd of their intimates, which included Lord Asmor, the Assyrian doctor Noom, and most of the members of the council.

Naja ordered the others to watt in the corridor outside the royal apartments, while he and Heseret came into the chamber. Taita rose from beside the bed to greet them.

Heseret was weeping ostentatiously and covering her eyes with an embroidered linen shawl. Naja glanced at the bandaged body laid out stiffly on the couch, then glanced at Taita with a question in his eyes. In reply Taita nodded slightly. Naja masked the gleam of triumph in his eyes, then knelt beside the bed. He laid one hand on Nefer's chest and felt the warmth slowly ebbing to be replaced by a spreading coolness. Naja prayed aloud to Horus, who was the patron god of the dead pharaoh. When he rose to his feet again he took Taita's upper arm in a firm grip.

'Console yourself, Magus, you did all that we could require of you. You will not lack reward.' He clapped his hands, and when the guard hurried through the door he ordered, 'Summon the members of the council to assemble.'

They filed into the room in solemn procession and formed up around the bed three deep.

'Let the good doctor Noom come forward,' Naja ordered. 'Let him confirm the Magus' pronouncement of Pharaoh's death.'

The ranks opened for the Assyrian to reach the couch. His long locks had been curled with hot tongs and dangled to his shoulders. His beard had also been curled in the fashion of Babylon. His robe swept the floor and was decorated with embroidered symbols of strange gods and magical patterns. He knelt beside the deathbed and began an examination of the corpse. He sniffed at Nefer's lips with a huge hooked nose from whose nostrils protruded clumps of black hair. Then he placed his ear against Nefer's chest and listened, during a hundred beats of Taita's anxious heart. He had placed much store in the Assyrian's ineptitude.

Then Noom took a long silver pin from the hem of his robe and opened Nefer's limp hand. He pricked the point deeply up under the fingernail and watched for a muscular reaction or for a drop of blood to form.

At last he stood up slowly, and Taita thought that there was evidence of deep disappointment in his curled lip and lugubrious expression as he shook his head. Taita reflected that he had certainly been offered untold rewards to use the silver pin to other effect. 'Pharaoh is dead,' he announced, and those around the bed made the sign against the evil eye and the wrath of the gods.

Lord Naja threw back his head and gave the first cry of lamentation, and Heseret, standing behind him, took up the wailing cry in her lovely soaring voice.

Taita hid his impatience while he waited for the mourners to file past the couch, and one by one to leave the chamber. When only Naja and Heseret, Noom and the viziers of the nomes of the Upper Kingdom remained, Taita stepped forward again. 'Lord Naja, I beg your indulgence. You are aware that I have been Pharaoh Nefer Seti's tutor and servant since his birth. I owe him respect and duty, even now in death. I beg you to grant me a boon. Will you allow me to be the one to convey his corpse to the Hall of Sorrow, and there to make the incision to remove his heart and viscera? I would take that as the greatest honour you could bestow on me.'

Lord Naja thought for a while, then nodded. 'You have earned that honour. I charge you with the duty of conveying Pharaoh's sacred body to the funeral temple, and of beginning the process of embalming by making the incision.'

--

The old warrior, Hilto, came swiftly to Taita's summons. He had been waiting in the guardroom at the palace gates. With him he brought the Nubian shaman, Bay, and four of his most trusted men. One of these was Meren, the friend and companion of Nefer's childhood. He was now a handsome ensign of the guards, tall of stature and clear of eye. Taita had asked for him particularly to take part in these duties.

Between them they carried the long woven basket that the embalmers used to transport their cadavers to the funerary temple. The empty basket appeared heavier than one might have expected.

Taita let them into the death chamber and whispered to Hilto, 'Swiftly now! Every second is precious.'

He had already wrapped Nefer in a long white winding sheet, with a loose fold of linen covering his face. The pall-bearers laid the basket beside the couch and lifted Nefer reverently into it. Taita packed bolsters around the body to cushion it during the move, then closed the lid, and nodded. To the temple,' he said. 'All is in readiness.'

Taita trusted his bag to Meren, and they moved quickly through the passages and courtyards of the palace. The sounds of mourning and lamentation followed them. The guards lowered the points of their weapons and knelt as the dead Pharaoh passed. The women covered their faces, and wailed. All the lamps had been extinguished, and the fires in the kitchens had been drawn so that no smoke rose from the chimneys.

In the entrance courtyard a squadron of Hilto's chariots was drawn up with the horses in the traces. The bearers laid the long basket on the footplate of the leading chariot and secured it with leather straps. Meren placed Taita's leather instrument bag in the cockpit, and Taita mounted and took the reins. The ram's horns of the regiment sounded a dirge, and the column moved out through the gates at a walk.

The news of Pharaoh's death had spread through the city like the plague. The citizens crowded around the gates, wailing and ululating as the column passed. Crowds lined the route along the river. Women, howling their grief, ran forward and threw the sacred lotus blossoms on to the basket.

Taita pushed the horses into a trot, then into a canter. He was desperate to get the basket into the sanctuary of the funerary temple. The temple of Nefer's father had not yet been demolished even though Pharaoh Tamose had been taken months ago to his tomb in the bleak hills to the west. No temple had yet been built for Nefer: he was so young that the expectation of his life stretched far ahead of him. His death now was untimely and left them no alternative but to use the building prepared for his father.

The tall, rose-coloured granite walls and portico of the temple were set upon a low prominence overlooking the green river. The priests, hastily assembled, were waiting to greet the column. Their heads were freshly shaven and anointed with oil. The drums and sistrum beat a slow tempo as Taita drove up the wide causeway and halted the chariot at the foot of the staircase that mounted to the Hall of Sorrow.

Hilto and his warriors lifted the basket and climbed the staircase with it balanced on their shoulders. The priests fell in behind them, singing mournfully. Before the open wooden doors of the Hall of Sorrow the pall-bearers paused, and Taita looked back at the priests,

'By the grace and authority of the Regent of Egypt, I, Taita, have been charged with lifting Pharaoh's viscera." He fixed the high priest with a mesmeric gaze. 'All others will wait without while I perform this sacred charge.'

There was a hum of consternation among the brotherhood of Anubis. This was a solecism, against tradition and their own authority. But Taita held the priest's eye sternly, then slowly lifted his right hand holding the Periapt of Lostris. The priest knew, by fearful repute, the power of that relic. 'As the Regent of Egypt has decreed,' he capitulated. 'We will pray without while the Magus performs his duty.'

Taita led Hilto and the bearers through the doorway and they solemnly laid the basket on the floor beside the black diorite slab in the centre of the Hall of Sorrow. Taita glanced at Hilto, and the grizzled old commander marched to the doors with great dignity and shut them in the faces of the assembled priests. Then he hurried back to Taita's side. Between them they opened the basket and lifted out Nefer's wrapped body. They laid it on the black slab.

Taita turned back the fold of cloth that covered Nefer's face. He looked pale and lovely as an ivory carving of the young god Horus. Gently Taita turned his head to one side, and nodded at Bay who placed the leather instrument bag close to his right hand and opened it. Taita selected the ivory forceps, slipped the points into Nefer's ear and drew out the woollen plug. He filled his own mouth with dark ruby-coloured liquid from a glass jar, and through a gold tube carefully sluiced the dregs of the elixir of Anubis from Nefer's eardrums. When he looked deep into the ear passages he was relieved to see that there was no inflammation. Next he introduced a soothing ointment into the ear orifices and replugged them. Bay had the antidote to the elixir ready in another phial. When he opened the stopper it released a sharp odour of camphor and sulphur. Hilto helped them to lift Nefer into a sitting position and Taita administered the entire contents of the phial.

Meren and the others had been watching this with blank incomprehension. Suddenly Nefer coughed harshly and, with superstitious dread, they sprang back from the slab and made the sign against evil. Taita massaged Nefer's bare back and he coughed again, vomiting a little yellow bile. While Taita kept working steadily at reviving him, Hilto ordered his men to their knees and made them swear a dreadful oath of secrecy as to all that they were witnessing. Shaken and pale they swore their lives into jeopardy.

Taita placed his ear to Nefer's back, listened for a while then nodded. He massaged him again, and listened once more. He signed to Bay, who took a twist of dried herbs from the bag and lit the end at one of the temple lamps. He held it under Nefer's nose. The boy sneezed and tried to turn his head away. Satisfied at last Taita rewrapped him in the linen sheet, and made another sign to Bay and Hilto.

The three turned back to the basket. The others gaped as Taita lifted out the false bottom and revealed another corpse laid in the compartment beneath. This body also was wrapped in a white linen winding-sheet.

'Come!' Hilto ordered. 'Lift it out!'

Under Taita's sharp eye and Hike's stern instruction they exchanged the two bodies. They laid Nefer in the hidden compartment in the bottom of the basket, but did not yet replace the false bottom. Bay squatted beside the basket to watch Nefer and to check his condition. The others laid the strange corpse on the diorite slab.

Taita swept away the winding sheet and revealed the body of a youth of about the same age and bodily shape of Nefer. He had the same thick dark hair. It had been Hilto's responsibility to procure this corpse. In the present climate in the land this had not been difficult. The plague was still flourishing in the poorer outlying areas of the nome. In addition, there were the nightly gleanings from the streets and alleys of the city, the victims of brawling, outright murder, or footpads.

Hilto had considered all these sources. However, in the end he had found, in circumstances so perfect to the quest that they could not have been coincidental, the ideal substitute for the young Pharaoh. The city bailiffs had arrested this lad in the very act of slitting the purse of one of the most influential millet merchants in Thebes, and the magistrates had not hesitated to sentence him to death by strangulation. The condemned lad was so like in body and general complexion to Nefer as to be able to pass as his brother. In addition he was well set-up and healthy, not like the starvelings and plague victims. Hilto had spoken to the commander of the city guards who had been charged with carrying out the execution, and during this friendly exchange three heavy gold rings had found their way into that worthy's purse. It was agreed that the strangulation be delayed until Hilto gave him the word, and that it would be carried out with as little apparent damage to the victim as the executioner's skill could encompass. The prisoner had been given justice that very morning and his body was not yet cold.

The canopic jars were arranged in the small shrine at the end of the hall. Taita ordered Meren to fetch them and open the stoppers ready for filling. While he was doing this, Taita rolled the corpse over and made a sweeping incision down his left side. There was little time for surgical finesse. He thrust his hand into the opening and drew forth the viscera then, using both hands, he worked the scalpel deep into the interior of the corpse. First he cut through the diaphragm to gain access to the chest cavity, then reached deeper, past the lungs, liver and spleen, until he could sever the windpipe above its juncture with the lungs. Finally he rolled the corpse over, ordered Meren to hold the buttocks apart and with sure strokes freed the sphincter muscles of the anus. Now all the contents of the interior of the chest and abdomen were unanchored.

He brought them out on to the diorite slab in a single mass. Meren blanched, swayed on his feet and clapped his hand over his mouth.

'Not on the floor, in the sink,' Taita ordered brusquely. Meren had fought against Apepi's regiments in the north. He had killed a man and been unaffected by the carnage of the battlefield, but now he fled to the stone basin in the corner and puked noisily into it.

Bloodied to the elbows, Taita began to separate the liver, lungs, stomach and entrails into piles. As soon as this was done he took the entrails and stomach to the sink, wherein already reposed Meren's contribution. He flushed out the contents of the dismembered stomach and entrails and packed them into their jars. He filled every jar with the pickling natron salts, and sealed the stoppers. Then he washed his hands and arms in the bronze basins filled with water expressly for that purpose. He glanced enquiringly at Bay, and the Nubian nodded his bald, scarified head, reassuring Taita as to Nefer's condition. Working with controlled haste Taita stitched the abdominal incision closed. Then he bandaged the head until its features were hidden. When that was done, he and Hilto carried the corpse to the large natron bath and lowered it into the harsh alkali mixture, until only the bandaged head was not immersed. It would remain in the bath, with the head covered, for the next sixty days. At the end of that time the priests would remove the bandage, and discover the substitution. By that time, however, Taita and Nefer would be far away.

It took only a little longer to sluice down the slab with leather buckets of water, and to pack Taita's instruments, before they were ready to leave. Taita knelt beside the basket in which Nefer lay, and laid a hand on his naked chest to feel the warmth of his skin and to check his breathing. It was slow and even. He drew down one eyelid and watched the pupil react to the light. Satisfied, he stood up and gestured for Hilto and Bay to cover the hidden compartment. When this was done and they began to replace the basket lid, Taita stopped them. 'Leave it open,' he ordered. 'Let the priests see that it is empty.'

The bearers lifted the basket by its handles and Taita led them to the doors. As they approached Hilto threw them open, and the assembly of priests craned forward. They gave the empty basket only a cursory glance as it was carried out, then rushed into the Hall of Sorrow with almost indecent haste to take over the duties that had been usurped from them. Ignored by the crowds that had gathered outside the temple, Taita's men loaded the basket on to the leading chariot and drove in column back to the city.

When they entered the main gates they found the narrow streets almost deserted. The populace had either flocked to the funerary temple to pray for the young pharaoh, or they had hurried to the palace to await the announcement of his successor, although there was little doubt in anyone's mind as to who would be the next pharaoh of the upper kingdom.

Hilto drove the chariot to the guards' barracks near the east gate, and the basket was carried through the back entrance of his private quarters. Here, everything was in readiness to receive Nefer. They lifted him out of the bottom compartment and Taita, with Bay assisting him, went to work to revive Nefer fully. Within hours he was well enough to eat a little millet bread and drink a bowl of warm mare's milk and honey.

At last Taita judged it safe to leave him for a while in Bay's charge, and drove through the narrow empty streets. Ahead of him he heard the sudden din of wild cheering. When he reached the environs of the palace he found himself enveloped in a dense crowd of citizens celebrating the ascension of the new pharaoh. 'Eternal life to His Sacred Majesty Pharaoh Naja Kiafan!' they howled, with loyal fervour, and passed the wine jugs from hand to hand.

So thick were the crowds that Taita was forced to leave the chariot with Meren to go the rest of the way on foot. At the palace gate the guards recognized him, and used the butts of their spears to clear the way for him to pass. Once he was in the grounds he hurried to the great hall, and there he found another press of obsequious humanity. All the military officers, courtiers and state dignitaries were waiting to swear loyalty and fealty to the new pharaoh, but Taita's reputation and his unnerving gaze ensured that the crowd made way for him to pass to the front ranks.

Pharaoh Naja Kiafan and his queen were in the private cabinet beyond the doors at the end of hall, but Taita had to wait only a short while before he was granted access to the royal presence.

To his astonishment he found that Naja was already wearing the double crown, and holding the flail and the crook crossed over his chest. Beside him Queen Heseret seemed to have blossomed like the desert rose under the caress of rain. She was as lovely as Taita had ever known her, pale and serene under her makeup, her eyes made enormous by skilfully applied kohl.

When Taita entered Naja dismissed those around him and soon the three were alone. This, in itself, was a sign of high favour. Then Naja laid aside the flail and the crook and came to embrace Taita. 'Magus, I should never have doubted you,' he said, his voice even more sonorous and commanding than before. 'You have earned my gratitude.' He took from his right hand a magnificent ring of gold and ruby, and placed it on Taita's right index finger. This is but a small token of my favour.' Taita wondered that he had placed such a powerful talisman in his hands: only a lock of Naja's hair or the clippings of his nails would have been more potent.

Heseret came forward and kissed him. 'Dearest Taita, you have always been faithful to my family. You shall have gold, land and influence beyond anything you have ever coveted.'

After all these years she knew so little of him. 'Your generosity is exceeded only by your beauty,' he said, and she simpered. Then he turned back to Naja. 'I have done what the gods required of me, Your Grace. But it has cost me dear. It is not a light or easy matter to go against my sense of duty and the dictates of my own heart. You know that I loved Nefer. Now I owe you that same duty and love. But for a space I must mourn Nefer, and make my peace with his shade.'

'It would be strange indeed if you did not feel for the dead Pharaoh,' Naja agreed. 'What do you wish of me, Magus? You have only to speak the words.'

'Your Grace, I ask your dispensation to go out into the desert to be alone for a time.'

'How long?' Naja asked, and Taita could see he was alarmed by the thought of losing the key to eternal life, which he truly believed Taita held in his hands.

'Not too long, Majesty,' Taita assured him.

Naja thought about it for a while. He was never a man for hasty decisions. At last he sighed and went to the low table upon which stood stylus and papyrus. Swiftly he wrote out a safe pass and sealed it with his royal cartouche. It was clear that the seal had been carved long ago in anticipation of his succession. While Naja waited for the ink to dry he said, 'You may absent yourself until the next inundation of the Nile begins, but then you must return to me. This safe-conduct will allow you to travel at large and to avail yourself of whatever food and equipment you may need from my royal storehouses anywhere in my domains.'

Taita prostrated himself in gratitude, but Naja lifted him to his feet in another extraordinary act of condescension. 'Go, Magus! But return to us on the appointed day to receive the rewards you so richly deserve.'

Clutching the roll of papyrus Taita backed towards the door, making the signs of blessing and benediction.

--

They left Thebes in the early hours of the next morning while most of the city still slept and even the guards at the east gate were yawning and heavy-eyed.

Nefer was laid in the back of the wagon drawn by a team of four horses. These draught animals had been chosen carefully by Hilto. They were strong and healthy, but not exceptional in any way that might excite envy or comment. The wagon was loaded with essential supplies and the equipment they might need once they had left the river valley. Hilto was dressed as a wealthy farmer, Meren as his son and Bay as their slave.

Nefer was laid on a straw mattress in the bed of the wagon, under a screen of tanned leather. He was now fully conscious and able to understand all that Taita had to tell him. Despite the royal safe-conduct the sergeant of the guard was officious. He did not recognize Taita under his hood, so he climbed into the back of the wagon to inspect the contents. When he pulled back the screen and Nefer peered out at him with his gaunt, pale features spotted with the unmistakable scarlet stigmata of the plague that Taita had applied, the sergeant of the guard swore with horror and leaped down from the wagon signing so vehemently against evil that he dropped his lamp, which shattered at his feet.

'Get you gone!' he shouted frantically at Hilto on the reins. 'Take that filthy poxy wretch out of the city.'

Twice more during the days that it took them to cross the littoral plain of the river and to reach the hills that marked the frontiers of the cultivated lands and the desert they were stopped by military patrols. Each time the royal scroll and the plague victim were enough to send them on their way again with only the briefest delay.

It was clear from the attitude of the patrols that in Thebes the substitution of corpses had not been discovered, and that no alarm had been raised. All the same Taita was relieved when they climbed the hills into the desert and followed the old trade route eastwards towards the Red Sea.

Now Nefer was able to climb down from his bed in the wagon, and for short periods limp along beside it. At first it was clear that, despite his denials, the leg was painful, but soon he was walking more easily and for longer periods.

They rested for three days at the ancient ruined city of Gallala. They refilled the waterskins at the meagre and bitter well and let the horses recover from the rigours of the hard, stony road. Bay and Taita tended their hocks and hoofs. When they were fit to resume the journey, they turned aside from the known way: travelling in the cool of the night, they took the path known only to Taita that led to Gebel Nagara. Bay and Hilto swept their back-trail and covered all signs of their passage.

They arrived at the cave in the middle of a night lit by bright stars. There was not enough water in the tiny seep to supply so many men and horses, so once the wagon was unloaded Hilto and Bay started back, leaving only Meren to serve Taita and Nefer. Hilto had resigned from his regiment on the pretext of ill-health, so he was free, with Bay, to return with every full moon to bring supplies, medicine and news from Thebes.

The first month at Gebel Nagara passed swiftly. In the clean, dry desert air Nefer's wounds closed without further reverses, and soon he was limping out into the desert to hunt with Meren. They startled the desert hares and bowled them over with their throwing sticks, or Taita sat on the crags of the hills above the spring and worked his charm of concealment to entice the herds of gazelle within arrow shot.

At the end of that month Hilto returned from Thebes with Bay. They brought the news that Taita's subterfuge had not yet been discovered and Pharaoh Naja Kiafan, along with all the populace, still believed that Nefer's corpse was pickling in the natron bath in the Hall of Sorrow.

They also brought news of insurrections in the Lower Kingdom, and the terrible reprisals by Pharaoh Trok at Manashi. Unrest had also flared in the Upper Kingdom where Naja, like Trok, had increased taxation and ordered an enlistment of men into the army. 'The people are angry that there should be such an enlargement of the armed forces when there is peace throughout the land,' Hilto reported. 'I think that the armed insurrection will soon spread to the Upper Kingdom, where Naja will deal with it as kindly as Trok has in the north. Those who cheered the ascension of these two pharaohs will soon have reason to regret it.'

'What other news have you from the Lower Kingdom?' Nefer asked eagerly. Hilto launched into a long recitation of trade news and millet prices, of the visit of the Assyrian special envoy to the court of Pharaoh Trok. Nefer listened impatiently, and when Hilto had finished he asked, 'What news is there of Princess Mintaka?'

Hilto looked puzzled. 'None that I know of. I should think she is in Avaris, but I cannot be certain.'

On the incoming leg of his journey Hilto had crossed the spoor of a large herd of oryx, and asked Taita's permission to follow them up and hunt them. Dried venison would eke out their supplies, so Taita agreed readily. But he decreed that Nefer was not yet strong enough to join the hunting party. Strangely, this did not seem to make Nefer unhappy: instead, he suggested that Taita go out with the hunting party to use his powers to find the game, and to conceal the hunters when they closed in.

As soon as he was alone in the cave, Nefer unpacked the small cedarwood chest of fresh papyrus scrolls and writing material that Hilto had brought him, and began to compose a letter to Mintaka. He knew with all certainty that by now the reports of his death would have been received in Avaris. He remembered his own terrible suffering when he had heard the false reports of Mintaka's death with her family at Balasfura, and he wanted to spare her the same kind of agony. He wanted also to explain that it was Naja and Trok who had annulled their betrothal, but that as far as he, Nefer, was concerned he still loved her beyond his own hope of eternal life, and would never rest until she was his wife.

All this had to be couched in language that, should the scroll fall into the wrong hands, would be meaningless to any person other than Mintaka.

He saluted her in his opening as 'The First Star'. She would remember how, when they had discussed the derivation of her name, she had told him, 'I am called after the third star in the belt of the celestial Hunter.'

He had replied, 'No, not the third. The very first in all the firmament.'

He drew the symbols of the hieratic with great care - he had always excelled at penmanship. He signed himself as the 'Fool from Dabba', sure that she would recognize the reference to his solecism when they had been alone in the desert.

That evening when the hunters had returned and they were feasting on fresh oryx steaks, Nefer waited his opportunity to speak to Hilto in private. This came when Taita left the circle around the camp fire to stalk out into the desert night for a while. Hilto had brought several large jars of beer among the load of supplies from Thebes, and Taita had enjoyed a bowl or two, but one of the few signs he showed of his age was the rate at which the brew passed through him.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Nefer leaned closer to Hilto and whispered, 'I have a special duty for you to perform for me.'

'I shall be greatly honoured, Your Majesty.'

Nefer passed him the tiny roll of papyrus. 'Guard this with your very life,' he ordered, and when Hilto had hidden it in his shawl Nefer gave him the orders for its delivery to the princess in Avaris. He ended with a further caution: 'Tell nobody of this. Not even the Magus. On your sacred oath!'

The following evening Hilto and Bay left Gebel Nagara at the setting of the sun, when the air had started to cool. They made their loyal obeisance to Nefer, asked Taita for his blessing and a charm of protection, then struck out into the starlit wilderness. The horses toiled up the first slope of the dune hills and into the jumble of moon silver rocks that crackled as they cooled in the night.

Walking ahead of the horses, Bay suddenly recoiled, gave a startled exclamation in his savage tongue and reached for the lion-bone charm on his necklace. He pointed it at the strange shape that had emerged from the shadows of the rocks.

Hilto was even more agitated, 'Stand aside, evil shade,' he shouted, cracked his whip, and made the sign against evil then gabbled an incantation to turn aside all ghosts and hobgoblins.

'Peace, Hilto!' The apparition spoke at last. The moon was so bright that it threw a long shadow along the shale-hard earth and made the head of the creature glow like molten silver in the crucible. 'It is I, Taita the Magus.'

'It cannot be you!' Hilto shouted. 'I left Taita at Gebel Nagara at sunset. I know you. You are some dreadful shade from the netherworld, pretending to be the Magus.'

Taita strode forward and seized Hike's whip hand. 'Feel the warmth of my flesh,' he said, then lifted Hilto's hand to his face, 'Feel my face, and listen to my voice.'

However, it was only when Bay had touched Taita's breast with the lion bone, smelt his breath for the stench of the tomb and declared him to be who he claimed he was that the old warrior was reluctantly convinced. 'But how did you reach this place ahead of us?' he demanded plaintively.

These are the ways of the adept,' Bay told him mysteriously. 'It is best never to ask that question.'

'Hilto, you have something on your person that places all of us in mortal danger.' Taita cut through the trivialities. 'It exudes the smell of death and confusion.'

'I cannot think what that might be,' Hilto said uneasily.

'It is something that was entrusted to you by the very Egypt,' Taita insisted, 'and you know it well enough.'

'By the very Egypt.' Hilto scratched his beard, and shook his head.

Taita held out his hand, and Hilto sighed and capitulated without further resistance. He reached into the leather purse on his belt and brought out the roll of parchment. Taita took it from him. 'Say nothing of this,' Taita warned him, 'not to anybody, not to Pharaoh himself. Do you hear me, Hilto?'

'I hear you, Magus.'

Taita held the papyrus in his right hand and stared hard at it. After a few seconds a tiny glowing spot appeared on the scroll, a wisp of smoke curled up into the night air, then abruptly it burst into flame.

Taita let it burn out between his fingers without flinching at the heat, then crumbled the ashes to dust.

''Tis magic,' Hilto gasped.

'A simple feat,' Bay muttered, 'one that even an apprentice could perform.'

Taita raised his right hand in benediction. 'May the gods keep you safe during your journey,' he said, and watched the wagon roll away and merge with the gloom.

--

When Taita stood once again beside the small hearth fire in the cave of Gebel Nagara, warming his old bones from the desert chill, he studied Nefer's sleeping form covered by a sheepskin, against the back wall.

He felt no anger at the boy's pathetic attempt to outwit him. Age had not withered his humanity, or dimmed his memories of the torments of passion, and he empathized with Nefer's wish to allay Mintaka's fears and her suffering. Added to which was the deep affection, verging on love, that he had conceived for Mintaka.

He would never confront Nefer with what might have been the consequences of this deed of compassion. He would allow him the opiate of believing that Mintaka would soon know that he still lived.

He squatted down beside Nefer and, without touching him, gently worked his way into the boy's inner being. From long exercise of this power over his patient, he achieved it readily. Nefer stirred, groaned and gabbled something that made no sense. Even in deep sleep Taita's power, cast like a web over him, had touched him and brought him almost awake.

His body has journeyed well along the road to full recovery. Taita delved deeper. His spirit is strong, and he has lost nothing by the ordeal through which he has passed. It will not be long now before we can move on to our next endeavour.

He went back to the fire, and placed a few more acacia sticks upon it. Then he settled back, not to sleep, for at his age he needed only a few hours each night, but to open his mind to the currents generated by events, some distant and others much closer. He let them eddy around him as though he were a rock in the stream of existence.

--

The next moon passed more swiftly than the last, as Nefer grew stronger and more restless. Each day his limp became less noticeable until at last it disappeared. Soon he was racing Meren from the valley floor to the crest of the hills. These contests became a regular part of their lives at the oasis. At first Meren won easily, but soon that changed.

At dawn on the twentieth day after the departure of Hilto, they started at the mouth of the cave and flew across the stony valley bottom shoulder to shoulder, but when they started the climb up the dune face Nefer edged ahead. Halfway up he unleashed a sudden, powerful rush and left Meren struggling after him. On the crest of the hill he turned back and laughed down at Meren, placing his hands on his hips in a triumphant gesture. In the dawn wind his long dense tresses floated on his shoulders. The early sun was rising behind him and the golden rays cast a nimbus of light around his head.

Taita had watched it all from below, and was about to turn back into the cave when an eerie sound in the desert silence stopped him. He lifted his face to the sky to see a dark speck describing a high circle against the blue, and felt the divine presence of the god close at hand. The cry sounded again, small and faint, but it pierced to the heart: the unforgettable cry of a royal falcon.

On the crest of the dune Nefer heard it also, and turned his head to search for the source. He picked out the tiny shape and lifted both hands towards it. As though the gesture was a command the falcon dropped into a stoop, seeming to swell in size. The wind across its cocked wings sighed as it dived straight at Nefer. If it struck at that speed it would rip flesh and break bone, but Nefer did not flinch as it came straight for his upturned face.

At the last possible second the falcon flared out of the stoop, and hovered above the boy's head. Nefer reached up and could almost touch the sleek, beautiful plumage of its breast. For a moment Taita thought that the bird might allow itself to be captured, but then it changed its wingbeats and rose on high. Once again it uttered that forlorn and lovely cry, then sped away towards the sun and seemed to disappear into the flaming orb.

--

On his last visit to Gebel Nagara Hilto had brought with him a full-weight war bow. Under Taita's instruction Nefer practised with it every day, building up the muscles in his back and shoulders until he had the strength to throw up the weapon, draw to full stretch and hold his aim without his arms beginning to tire and shake. Then, at Taita's word of command, he would send an arrow arcing high to drop on to the target two hundred cubits distant.

Nefer cut himself a heavy acacia-wood staff from a hidden grove in the foothills and shaped, scraped and polished it until it had perfect balance and length in his hands. In the cool of the dawn, he and Taita fought in the traditional fashion. At first Nefer held back in deference to Taita's age, but the Magus bloodied his shins and raised a lump on his scalp. Furious and humiliated, Nefer attacked in earnest, but the old man was quick and nimble. He hopped just out of reach of Nefer's slashing staff, then darted in to impart a painful rap on an unprotected elbow or knee.

Taita had lost little of his skill with the blade. Hilto had brought them a rack of heavy sickle swords, and when Taita decided that they had had sufficient practice with the fighting staffs, he brought out the swords and led Nefer and Meren through the entire repertoire of cuts, thrusts and parries. He made them repeat every manoeuvre fifty times, then start again. By the time he called a halt for supper both Nefer and Meren were flushed and running with sweat as though they had plunged into a pool of the Nile. Taita's skin, though, was dry and cool. When Meren remarked ruefully on this, he chuckled. 'I sweated my last drop of juice before you were ever born.'

On other evenings Nefer and Meren stripped naked, oiled their bodies and wrestled, while Taita umpired their bouts and called advice and instruction. Although Meren was taller by a hand and heavier in the shoulders and limbs, Nefer had natural balance and Taita had taught him how to use his opponent's weight against him. They matched each other throw for throw.

In the evenings and late into the night Taita and Nefer sat by the fire and debated every subject from medicine and politics to war and religion. Often Taita would outline a theory, then require Nefer to discover any flaws in his postulates and arguments. He placed hidden traps and illogicalities in these lessons, and more often now, and with greater alacrity, Nefer would uncover and question them. Then there was always the bao board to puzzle over in the attempt to unravel the laws and infinite possibilities inherent in the movements and patterns of the stones.

'If you could understand all there is to know of the bao stones, you would know all there is to know of life itself,' Taita told him. 'The subtleties and nuances of the game tune and sharpen the mind to the greater mysteries.'

The month passed so swiftly that it was with a small shock of surprise that Nefer, while running hard through the desert in pursuit of a mortally wounded gazelle, suddenly descried on the horizon, distorted by the mirage, a tiny cloud of yellow dust, and beneath it the distant shape of the wagon returning from the river valley. On the instant, he forgot the gazelle he was chasing and raced to meet Hilto. Even though Hilto was accustomed to feats of physical prowess from his men, he was impressed with the speed at which Nefer covered the ground through the shimmering heat.

'Hilto!' Nefer yelled, still at a distance, and without any sign of laboured breathing. 'May the gods love you and grant you eternal life! What news? What news?'

Hilto pretended to misunderstand the significance of the question, and as Nefer walked at his side he began a long-winded recital of political and social events in the kingdoms. There has been another rebellion in the north. This time Trok found it harder to put down. He lost four hundred men in three days of hard fighting, and half the rebels escaped his wrath.'

'Hilto, you know that is not what I wanted to hear from you.'

Hilto indicated Bay with a jerk of his head. 'Perhaps this is not the time to touch on certain matters,' he suggested tactfully. 'Your Majesty, should we not speak later and in private?'

Nefer was forced to contain his impatience.

As they sat that evening around the campfire in the cave, it was agony for Nefer to have to listen to Hilto making another long, detailed report to Taita, the most important part of which was that the substitution of bodies had been discovered when the priests of Anubis had unwrapped the head of the corpse in the Hall of Sorrow. Pharaoh Naja Kiafan had done his best to suppress the news and to prevent it becoming public knowledge for the foundations of his throne would be undermined if the populace suspected that Nefer was still alive. However, it was impossible to keep such an extraordinary event secret when many people, priests and courtiers were privy to it. Hilto reported that rumours were rife in the streets and market-places of the city of Thebes and the outlying towns and villages.

Partly as a result of these rumours, the unrest in both kingdoms had become more widespread and concerted. The rebels were calling themselves the Blue Faction. Blue was the colour of the Tamosian dynasty; Naja had selected green as his own royal colour, and Trok's was red.

Added to this, trouble was brewing in the east. The Egyptian pharaohs had sent the Hurrian ambassador back to his master, King Sargon of Babylon, that mighty kingdom between the Tigris and Euphrates, demanding that Sargon's annual tribute be increased to twenty lakhs of gold. It was a crippling amount to which Sargon could never agree.

'So, this accounts for the build-up of the armies in both kingdoms,' Taita said, as Hilto paused in his report. 'It is clear at last that the two pharaohs are greedy for the riches of Mesopotamia. They are intent on conquest. After Babylon, they will turn on Libya and Chaldea. They will not rest until the entire world comes under their sway.'

Hilto looked amazed. 'I had not considered that, but you must be right.'

'They are as cunning as two old baboons raiding the farmers' fields along the riverbank. They know that war is a uniting factor. If they march on Mesopotamia the populace will rally behind them in a patriotic frenzy. The army loves the prospect of booty and glory. The merchants love the prospect of increased trade and profit. It is a marvellous way to take the minds of the people off their grievances.'

'Yes.' Hilto nodded. 'I see it now.'

'Of course, this is to our advantage,' Taita mused. 'I have been seeking a haven for us. If he is at war with Trok and Naja, then Sargon will welcome us to his side."

'We are leaving Egypt?' Hilto interjected.

Taita explained, 'Now that Naja and Trok know that Nefer still lives, ., they will come after us. The road to the east is the only one open to us. It will not be for long, just until we have built up our strength and support throughout the two kingdoms and have made ourselves powerful allies. Then we will return to reclaim Pharaoh Nefer's birthright.'

They all stared at him silently as they recovered from the shock , of this prospect. They had not thought so far ahead, and it had never occurred to them that they would be forced to leave their native land.

It was Nefer who broke the silence. 'We can't do that,' he said. 'I cannot leave Egypt.'

Taita glanced at the others, and jerked his head in dismissal. Obediently Hilto, Bay and Meren stood up and filed out of the cave.

Taita had been anticipating this situation. He knew it would take all his cunning to resolve it, for Nefer wore his set expression and had made his declaration in a stubborn tone that Taita recognized. He knew it was going to be difficult to move Nefer from this position. The boy was staring into the fire, and Taita realized he must force him to break his silence. When he did so, Taita's position would be strengthened.

'You should have discussed this plan with me,' Nefer said at last. 'I am no longer a child, Taita. I am man and Pharaoh.'

'I told you my intentions,' Taita said quietly.

They sat in silence again, staring into the flames of the fire, and Taita could sense the cracks appearing in Nefer's resolve.

At last Nefer spoke again. 'You see, there is Mintaka.'

Still Taita said nothing. Intuitively he understood that they were approaching a crisis in their relationship. It had had to come at some time, so he made no effort to avoid it.

'I sent Mintaka a message,' Nefer said. 'I told her I loved her, and I gave her an oath on my life and eternal spirit that I would not desert her.'

Now Taita broke his silence. 'Are you certain that Mintaka received this foolhardy oath of yours that placed you, her and all around you in mortal danger?'

'Yes, of course. Hilto-' Nefer stopped and his expression changed as he stared at Taita across the flames of the campfire. Suddenly he sprang up and strode to the cave entrance. He moved not like a boy but like a man, an angry man. In these last few short months he had changed completely. Taita experienced a deep satisfaction. The way ahead would be hard, and Nefer would need all this new-found strength and determination.

'Hilto!' Nefer called into the darkness. 'Come to me.' Perhaps Hilto heard the new authority in his tone because he came swiftly and dropped to one knee before Nefer.

'Majesty?' he asked.

'Did you deliver the message I entrusted to you?' Nefer demanded.

Hilto glanced at Taita beside the fire.

'Don't look to him,' Nefer snapped. 'I am asking you the question. Answer me.'

'I did not deliver the message,' Hilto answered. 'Do you wish to know the reason why I did not?'

'I know the reason well enough,' Nefer said ominously. 'But hear this. If ever you wilfully disobey me at any time in the future you will pay the full penalty.'

'I understand,' Hilto said stolidly.

'If there is ever again a choice between Pharaoh and an interfering old man, you will choose Pharaoh. Is that clear to you?'

'It is clear as the midday sun.' Hilto hung his head penitently, but smiled into his beard.

'You have been evading my questions, Hilto. Now, what news do you have of the princess?'

Hilto stopped smiling, and opened and closed his mouth, trying to find the courage to tell him the dire news.

'Speak!' Nefer ordered. 'Have you so soon forgotten your duty?'

'Gracious Majesty, the news will not please you. Six weeks ago the Princess Mintaka was married in Avaris to Pharaoh Trok Uruk.'

Nefer stood as still as if he had been turned into a granite statue. For a long time the only sound in the cave was the crackle of the acacia logs in the fire. Then, without another word, Nefer walked past Hilto, out into the desert night.

When he returned the dawn was a faint red promise in the eastern sky. Hilto and Meren were wrapped in their sheepskins at the back of the cave, but Taita sat in exactly the same position as Nefer had left him. For a moment he thought that the old man was asleep also. Then Taita raised his head and looked at him with eyes that were bright and alert in the firelight.

'I was wrong, and you were right. I need you now, more than ever, old friend,' said Nefer. 'You will not desert me?'

'You need not ask,' Taita said softly.

'I cannot leave her with Trok,' Nefer said.

'No.'

Nefer came back to his seat opposite Taita, who took a slow, deep breath. The storm had passed. They were still together.

Nefer picked up a charred stump of firewood and pushed it deeper into the flames. Then he looked up at Taita again. 'You have tried to teach me to overlook at a distance,' he said. 'I have never acquired the gift. Not until this last night. Out there in the darkness and the great silence, I tried again to overlook Mintaka. This time I saw something, Taita, but only dimly and I did not understand it."

'Your love for her has made you sensitive to her aura,' Taita explained. 'What did you see?'

'I saw only shadows, but I felt devastating sorrow and grief. I sensed despair so insupportable that it made me wish for death myself. I knew that these were Mintaka's emotions and not my own.'

Taita stared expressionlessly into the fire, and Nefer went on, 'You must overlook her for me. There is something terribly wrong. Only you can help her now, Taita.'

'Do you have anything of Mintaka's?' he asked. 'Any gift or token that she gave you?'

Nefer's hand went to the necklace at his throat. He touched the tiny golden locket that hung in the centre of the chain. 'It is my most precious possession.'

Taita held out his hand across the fire. 'Give it to me.' Nefer hesitated, then opened the clasp and held the amulet in his closed fist.

'Other than my own, hers were the last fingers to touch it. It contains a lock of her hair.'

'Then it is highly potent. It contains her essence. Give it to me, if you wish me to help her.' Nefer passed it to him.

'Wait here,' Taita said, and stood up. Although he had squatted cross-legged through all the hours of darkness, there was no stiffness in his movements, which were those of a young, virile man. He went out into the dawn and climbed to the crest of the dunes, then gathered the skirts of his chiton around his skinny shanks and squatted in the sand, facing the dawn.

He pressed Mintaka's amulet to his forehead and closed his eyes. He began to rock slightly from side to side. The sun cleared the horizon and struck fully into his face.

The amulet in his right hand seemed to take on some strange life of its own. Taita felt it pulse softly in rhythm to his own heartbeats. He opened his mind and let the currents of existence enter freely, swirling around him like a great river. His own spirit broke free of his body and he soared aloft. As though he was borne on the wings of some gigantic bird, he saw fleeting, confused images of lands and cities, forests, plains and deserts far below him. He saw armies on the march, the squadrons throwing up thunderclouds of yellow dust in which spearheads glinted. He saw ships on high seas battered by wave and wind. He saw cities burning as they were sacked, and he heard strange voices in his head, and knew they were from the past and the future. He saw the faces of those long dead, and those not yet born.

He moved on, his spirit ranging wide, always with the amulet his lodestone. In his mind he called for her, Mintaka! and felt the amulet grow warm then burning hot in his hand.

Slowly the images cleared away, and he heard her sweet voice reply, 'I am here. Who is it that calls?'

'Mintaka, it is, Taita,' he replied, but he was aware that something evil had intervened and broken the stream between them. Mintaka had gone and instead there was a fateful presence. He focused all his powers upon it, trying to disperse the dark clouds. They seemed to coalesce, and took the shape of a rearing cobra, the same baleful influence that he and Nefer had encountered in the nest of the royal falcon on the cliffs of Bir Umm Masara.

In his mind he wrestled with the cobra, extending his powers to drive it back, but rather than succumbing, the image of the serpent became clearer and more menacing. Suddenly he knew that this was not a psychic manifestation, but a direct and mortal threat exerted against Mintaka. He redoubled his efforts to break through the curtains of evil and to reach her, but so much pain and grief was interposed between them that it was an impenetrable barrier.

Then, suddenly, he saw a hand, slim and graceful, reach out towards the sinister scaly head. He knew it was Mintaka's hand, for the blue lapis lazuli ring on the index finger was engraved with her cartouche. He held the venomous serpent in check with all his life force, and prevented it striking at Mintaka's hand as she stroked the back of its extended hood. The cobra turned half away from her, almost like a cat offering its head to be caressed.

'Make it do what has to be done.' Taita heard Mintaka's voice, and another voice he recognized replied, 'This I have never seen before. You must strike the messenger with your hand. That will surely make him deliver the gift of the goddess.' It was the voice of the high priestess of the temple of Hathor in Avaris, and Taita understood. Mintaka, overwhelmed with grief, was about to take the way of the goddess.

'Mintaka!' He exerted himself to reach her, and was rewarded at last.

Taita?' she whispered, and because Mintaka was at last aware of him, Taita's view expanded so that he could see it all clearly.

Mintaka was in a stone-walled bedchamber. She was kneeling in front of a basket. The holy priestess was at her side, and in front of her reared the deadly snake.

'You must not take this road,' Taita ordered her. 'It is not for you. The gods have prepared a different destiny for you. Do you hear me?'

'Yes!' Mintaka turned her head towards him, as though she could see his face.

'Nefer is alive. Nefer lives. Do you hear me?'

'Yes! Oh, yes.'

'Be strong, Mintaka. We will come for you. Nefer and I will come for you.'

So fierce was his concentration that he dug his fingernails deeply into the palms of his hands until the blood welled, but he could hold her no longer. She began to slip away from him, her image blurred and faded, but before she was gone he saw her smile, a beautiful thing, full of love and renewed hope.

'Be strong!' he urged her. 'Be strong, Mintaka!' The echo of his voice came back to him as though from a great distance.

--

Nefer was waiting for him at the foot of the dunes. When Taita was only halfway down the boy realized that something momentous had taken place. 'You saw her!' he shouted, and it was not a question. 'What has happened to her?' and he ran forward to meet Taita.

'She needs us,' Taita said, and laid a hand on Nefer's shoulder. He could never tell him of the extremes of sorrow and despair in which he had found Mintaka, nor of the fate she had prepared for herself. Nefer could never bear that. It might easily drive him to some wild endeavour that would destroy both the lovers. 'You were right,' Taita went on. 'All my plans to leave this land and find sanctuary in the east must be set aside. We have to go to Mintaka. I have promised her that.'

'Yes!' Nefer agreed. 'When can we leave for Avaris?'

Taita replied, 'There is great urgency. We will leave at once.'

--

It took them fifteen days of hard travel to reach the tiny garrison and remount station of Thane a day's travel south of Avaris. They had changed horses four times on the road - Taita used the royal requisition order that Naja had given him to replace the worn-out animals and to replenish their supplies at the military garrisons and camps they had passed along the way.

Since leaving Gebel Nagara they had discussed their plans endlessly, knowing that they were pitted against the might of Pharaoh Trok Uruk. The officers they spoke to at the garrisons estimated that Trok now had twenty-seven fully trained and equipped regiments at his disposal, and almost three thousand chariots. To oppose this multitude they had a wagon showing the effects of long, hard service with a back wheel that showed a marked propensity to fall off at the most inappropriate times and bodywork held together with twine and leather strips. There were only the four of them: Nefer and Meren, Hilto and Bay. But the fifth was Taita.

'The Magus is worth twenty seven regiments at least,' Hilto pointed out, 'so we are evenly matched against Trok.'

Hilto knew the captain in charge of the encampment at Thane, a scarred and grizzled old warrior named Socco. Long ago they had run the Red Road together. They had fought, roistered and whored together. After they had reminisced for an hour and shared a pot of sour beer, Hilto handed him the requisition scroll. Socco held it upside down at arm's length and looked wise.

'See the cartouche of Pharaoh.' Hilto touched the seal.

'If I know you at all, Hilto, and by Horus I do, you probably drew that pretty picture yourself.' Socco handed the scroll back to Hilto. 'What do you need, you old rogue?'

They selected fresh horses from the herd of several hundred in the remount herd, then Taita went over the ranks of parked chariots in the garrison pool that had just been sent out from the makers in Avaris. He selected three vehicles, and they harnessed the fresh horses.

When they left Thane, Taita was driving the old wagon. Meren, Hilto and Nefer each drove a chariot, while Bay brought up the rear herding twenty spare horses. They did not head directly for Avaris but made a detour to the east of the city.

On the edge of the desert there was a small oasis used by the Bedouin and by merchant caravans heading out to and returning from the Orient.

While the others unloaded the fodder they had carried from Thane in the wagon, hobbled the horses and greased the wheel hubs of the new chariots, Taita went to barter with the Assyrian master of the caravan that was encamped nearby. He bought an armful of dirty, tattered clothing, and twenty woollen rugs woven in the land along the Further Sea. They were of inferior workmanship and material, but he was forced to pay an extortionate price for them. 'That Assyrian ape is a cut-throat and a robber,' he muttered, as they loaded the carpets on to the wagon.

'Why do we need them?' Nefer wanted to know, but Taita pretended not to hear the question.

That night Taita dyed his mane of silver hair with an extract of mimosa bark, which altered his appearance dramatically. In the darkness of early morning they left Bay in charge of the herd of horses and the chariots, climbed into the dilapidated wagon and, sitting high on the pile of dusty carpets, headed west towards Avaris. They were dressed in the rags and cast-offs that Taita had procured. Taita wore a long robe and sash, and the lower half of his face was veiled in the fashion of a citizen of Ur of the Chaldeas. With his dyed dark hair he was unrecognizable as the Magus.

It was evening when they reached the royal city of the north. There was a permanent encampment of several thousand souls outside the walls, mostly beggars, itinerant players, foreign traders and other riff-raff. They set up camp among them, and early the next morning they left Meren to watch the wagon and went to join the throng waiting outside the city for the gates to open at sunrise.

Once they were past the city guard, Hilto went to tour the taverns and brothels in the narrow streets of the old quarter where he hoped to find some of his cronies and former comrades-in-arms and gather the latest news from them. Taita took Nefer with him and they made their way through the crowded streets of the awakening city to the palace gates. Here they joined the beggars, tradesmen and supplicants. Taita made no effort to gain entry to the palace, rather they spent the morning listening to the chatter of those around them, and gossiping with the other idlers.

At last Taita struck up a conversation with a merchant from Babylon, dressed in similar style to himself, who introduced himself as Nintura. Taita spoke the Akkadian language like a native of Mesopotamia, which was why he had chosen this particular disguise. The two shared a pot of coffee brewed with rare and expensive beans imported from Ethiopia, and Taita exerted all his wiles to charm Nintura, who had been loitering outside the palace for the last ten days, waiting for his turn to display his wares to Trok's new bride. He had already paid the exorbitant baksheesh demanded by the palace vizier to be allowed to enter the presence of the young consort, but many others were ahead of him.

They say that Trok has been cruelly treated by his young wife. She will not allow him into her bed.' Nintura chuckled. 'He is wild for her, like a stag in rut, but she keeps her legs crossed and the door to her chamber locked. Trok is trying to win her favours with expensive gifts. They say he will refuse her nothing. Also she buys everything that is offered to her and then, to spite him, she immediately resells it for a fraction of what he was forced to pay and distributes the proceeds to the poor of the city.' He slapped his knee and roared with laughter. 'They say she buys the same things over and over, and Trok keeps paying.'

'Where is Trok?' Taita asked.

'He is campaigning in the south,' Nintura replied. 'He is stamping out the flames of rebellion, but no sooner does he turn his back than they flare up again behind him.'

'Whom should I approach to enter the presence of this Queen Mintaka?'

'The palace vizier. Soleth, is his name, the fat, gelded freak.' Nintura had not realized Taita's own physical status.

Taita knew Soleth only by reputation and that he was one of the secret brotherhood of eunuchs. 'Where can I find him?' Taita asked.

'It will cost you a gold ring just to enter his presence,' Nintura warned him.

Soleth was sitting beside the lotus pond in his own walled garden. He did not rise when one of the harem-keepers brought Taita to him.

The Hyksos had so forsaken their ancient customs, and taken to Egyptian ways, that they no longer kept their wives sequestered in the zenana. The eunuchs still exercised much of their former power over the royal women, but when suitably chaperoned their charges were allowed much freedom. They could walk abroad, sail on their pleasure barges on the river, have merchants visit them to display their wares or dine, sing, dance and play games with their friends.

Taita made a dignified salutation as he introduced himself to Soleth under an assumed name. He followed that with the recognition sign of the brotherhood, crooking both his little fingers and touching them together. Soleth blinked with surprise and ran his eyes down Taita's lean frame: he did not have the shape or the look of a eunuch. Nevertheless he waved to Taita to seat himself on the cushions opposite him. Taita accepted the bowl of sherbet a slave offered, and they talked for a while of seemingly trivial matters, but swiftly they established Taita's credentials and common acquaintances within the brotherhood. Without seeming to do so, Soleth was studying Taita's features thoughtfully, looking beyond the veil and the dyed hair. Slowly recognition bloomed in his eyes and at last he asked softly, 'In your travels you might have met the famous Magus, known through both kingdoms, and beyond, as Taita?'

'I know Taita well,' Taita agreed.

'Perhaps as well as you know yourself?' Soleth asked.

'At least as well as I know myself,' Taita affirmed, and Soleth's chubby face creased in a smile.

'Say no more. What service can I perform for you? You need only ask.'

--

That evening Nefer, Meren and Hilto were on the carpet load when Taita drove the creaking wagon, its incorrigible back wheel wobbling lopsidedly, up to one of the side gates of the palace where a gang of ragged urchins skulked in the mean, narrow lane. Taita gave one a copper ring to guard the wagon, then banged on the gate with the butt of his staff. It swung open at once, but they were confronted by a file of levelled spears. The entrance to the zenana was heavily guarded: Trok was taking good care of his little hind.