Andre Norton - Shadow Hawk (22 page)

"So do I swear, standing in the way of Amon-Re," he replied with equal solemnity.

General Amony nodded. "You have our leave to depart, Captain. Leave your prisoners in our care and wait where you may be summoned again, should it prove necessary."

Rahotep saluted and withdrew with the archers. He longed to know the outcome of the trial, if trial it could be termed. But there was no appeal against such a forthright dismissal.

Out in the corridor again Kheti sighed. "It seems that we are once more in favor, Lord. Let us enjoy the sun while we can. But what will they do with those traitors in there?"

"That we shall have to wait and see," Rahotep answered absently. He was more intent upon another problem. The news that the Hyksos king had appointed a general who was even now on his way to Thebes was startling. This must be a crucial moment for Kamose. Would the new Pharaoh surrender a token tribute to Avaris as his Vizier and those behind him demanded? Or would they now go forward with the plans of Sekenenre and advance to meet the future defiantly with ready spears and bows?

Chapter 13

UP THE FLAIL

"Of the three, he was the greatest danger." Rahotep turned away from the window in the guest room of Sa-Nekluft's house to face Nereb. "Zau believed in the Tightness of his cause, Sheshang was ambitious, but Tothotep—" The captain discovered it difficult to find the right words to describe his mixed feelings concerning the priest of Anubis. "Yet the judges have seen fit to allow him to depart to his temple—" Nereb sighed. "We are bound by law and custom. Even the Son of Re has each hour of his life hedged in by regulations as old as the uniting of North and South Egypt. Tothotep has claimed the right of judgment by Anubis. But do not think that that will mean his freedom. He goes to face the Jackal in his own way. Pharaoh has already been assured that he has departed to the horizon— Those of the inner shrine have so taken their oaths upon it. It was the privilege of his office to claim the Great One's punishment over the punishment of man."

"It remains to ask—how great was his power within the temple?"

Nereb stared down at the floor, and there was an odd note in his voice as he replied.

"It is Pharaoh's belief that those who serve the Jackal in His shrine must not for a space be interrupted in their petitions to the Great One, since they must beg His forgiveness for the evil His Voice has seen fit to do. Therefore, a guard has been stationed about that temple that none may enter or leave until the ceremonies of atonement and purification are completed, and for a space longer than that!"

"The Son of Re is wise; his justice covers the earth." Rahotep repeated the conventional answer to judgment with more emphasis than usual.

"Also that guard is drawn from the personal following of Pharaoh when he was yet but the Royal Heir," Nereb added in a carefully emotionless voice.

"There was some reason to believe that a guard selected with less forethought—?" Rahotep began daringly and the other officer caught him up quickly.

"Those who are personally loyal to Pharaoh are bound to his interests by the warriors' code. That was revived in all its power in the regiments commanded by the two Royal Sons, though elsewhere it may be forgotten or practiced but in part."

"Zau was not alone among the nobles in believing that we do ill to provoke the wrath of the Hyksos. Which of the no- marchs have sent their hundreds behind their standards? Neb- ket—Elephantine—in part. But the rest?" Rahotep said.

"Pharaoh assembles his lords in council today," Nereb returned. "They have come to mourn the Pharaoh departed; they will listen to the Pharaoh who now reigns."

But Rahotep, as well as Nereb, knew the folly of hoping for much from that direction. The Nomarch of Nabket, the son of the Nomarch of Elephantine had come, true enough;

their state barges were moored at the docks of Thebes. But the other major nobles were represented by lesser men. There were pleas of border unrest from the Nomarch of "The Land in Front," which faced Nubia, a plea that might well be true. The captain wondered if Unis were still alive—or had the rebel Prince Teti already rid himself of one who might be a rival?

Nereb might have been reading Rahotep's ranging thoughts at that moment. "This Teti, did your brother support him?"

The captain shrugged. "You saw how welcome the prince was in Semna when you were there. I had been away from the Viceroy's court more than five years. I have no knowledge of any pact that might have united Unis and Teti. But Unis is heir to the Lady Meri-Mut, and her family once held partial dominion over Egypt itself during the Years of Disturbance. However, if he thought to use Teti to climb to the high seat, I believe he has already had an unhappy awakening from some foolish dream. Teti is not such as will 'kiss earth' before any man. Nor was Unis one who could enforce his power upon Nubia. He is the eldest son of Ptahhotep, but he is not Ptahhotep!"

"Time!" Nereb sprang up from the stool where he had been sitting. "But give our lord time! We are between two snakes spitting poison—either or both must be slain for our safety, but we cannot kill them at the same instant!"

"I do think we have a measure of time in this," Rahotep said slowly. "Teti is not lacking in wits. He will wish to secure what he now holds beyond any question before he moves to gulp anything outside his present borders. To take the field against Thebes, and those who hold for Thebes, while Unis may still have some power in Semna is a folly he will not commit. And there has been no news that my brother has abruptly departed to the horizon. But I tell you, Lord, should we hear that Unis unfortunately trod upon some poisonous thing in the garden—then let us pound drums and mount archers upriver to await a storm. If Pharaoh will move at once against this Hyksos threat before Teti can make sure of his authority—"

T hat suspense seemed to be a part of the very air of Thebes. Under the ceremonial mourning for the Pharaoh departed was the unrest concerning the next moves of the Pharaoh present and future. Rahotep discovered that Zau was very far from being alone in his conservative fear of arousing the Hyksos and destroying the state of uneasy peace that had existed through the years of stalemate. Perhaps a goodly portion of the city was willing to pay tribute, willing even to welcome the alien general now on his way upriver, because they had no confidence in their ability to strike back. The battles that had crushed all their defiance generations earlier had grown worse in the telling, so that among the ignorant, the Hyksos were granted the powers and malice of evil gods, to whom men must resign themselves as they did to the searing winds from the desert.

The treason that had murdered Sekenenre remained a carefully guarded secret. Lest the Vizier and his fellow conspirators be considered martyrs to their cause, they were said to have died of the plague. But as yet no word had come as to how Thebes was to receive the Hyksos general or what was to happen to the army camped in the highlands.

It was given to Rahotep to be present as one of the royal guard when Kamose met with that small handful of nobles who had gathered at Thebes to greet their new ruler. Only two standards from the south—those signs of nomarchs or their heirs—were present. A second pair of standards of nomes near Thebes showed among a body of lesser courtiers— a handful of men standing in a hall where the passing of centuries had faded the paintings. Thebes was old, tired, worn— The court was shabby and shrunken. A prince of Thebes on the throne, daring to wear the double crown and defy the might of a widespread empire, was only a shadow Pharaoh as

Rahotep was the shadow Hawk, Pharaoh and Nomarch in name more than fact.

The Prince Ahmose stood beside his brother's throne, the crooked sword of a royal commander across his arm, point upward, as the Crook and the Flail were balanced by Kamose. And in that tired company the younger prince, in spite of his statue-stillness, was doubly vibrant and alive.

"Life! Health! Prosperity! Blessed be the name of the Son of Re!" droned the chamberlain. "Let him sojourn in the Two Lands until the white bird turns black, and the black bird turns white, until the hills arise to depart from us, and until water flows upstream! Hail the One whom Re has set as a shepherd for His people!"

The company saluted, but it seemed to the captain that there was nothing spontaneous or enthusiastic in their greeting to their new lord. All were tired old men—for even those courtiers who were young in years had the selfsame air of weariness. There was no more vitality left here than there was in a sun-dried bone found in the sands of the outer wastes.

"Lord of the Two Lands—" After the ceremonious call of the chamberlain, Kamose's voice was the crack of a bow cord upon discharge of an arrow. He sat like a statue of his own divine royalty, but that flame that burned within his frail body licked out feverishly at the men before him.

"We have gathered to mourn him who has departed, aye, even Sekenenre, Son of Re, Lord of the White and the Red, Amon-on-Earth! Yet that is but a part of a greater whole—"

There was a faint stir in the lines of those men and women drawn up strictly according to their rank, standing each on the spot prescribed to his birth or office centuries before. No one spoke before the face of the Pharaoh without orders. But neither had the Son of Re ever addressed a court in the words Kamose now used. And that departure from rite and custom sent a decorous ripple across the hall, as a wind ripples a growing field of young grain.

"To what purpose is the power of Re—of Egypt—when our enemy sits safe in Avaris, a city built of stone torn from our hills, the blocks laid by slaves of our blood. One chieftain claims the two crowns in Avaris, while in Nubia another raises his hand to snatch the Crook and the Flail! We have lain in the years of darkness as did our fathers before us. Did not the divine Amenemhet generations ago set up his standard here in Thebes, tearing down the evil rule that was before him? And not easy then was the winning of his battle against Set.

"So I say to you now, the spider in the north grows fat upon its sucking of the Black Land. The shrines of our Great Ones have been thrown to earth or given over to the worship of their vile god. Upon our necks rests the yoke of oxen, for to the barbarians we are less than the beasts who break the fields for planting.

"The Son of Re cannot call upon the gods in sacred Memphis. Nor can he send grain from the fields, cloth from the warehouses to his people in their need. We are worn thin and old with servitude to a barbarian who knows not the Great Ones. And I say to you that the time has come to grapple with the aliens, to deliver Egypt from their defilement, bringing once more the ancient light to this land!"

The force of his words drew an odd hollow echo from the roof above them. Lie made a little sign to the chamberlain who produced a role of papyrus and stood ready to read.

"Listen now to the words of those who say they speak for you!"

There was a curtness in that, and once again a ripple of surprise passed over the court. Rahotep did not doubt that more than one courtier in that company already knew the text that the chamberlain was reading, perhaps had a voice in its writing. And what did such a man think now at hearing his own argument put so baldly?

"True it is that the aliens have advanced far into our land, and they have mocked us bitterly and laid upon us burdens of tribute and the force of their stern rule. But we of Thebes are secure in our possession of our lands here and to the southward, even right to the border of the Land of the Bow. Elephantine is a strong fortress to hold against Nubia, and its lord is with us, as are other lords. Do not the men of the south till for us the finest of their lands, and our cattle graze fat in the marshes? What is the north to us? Let the Asiatics hold the swamps of the north; ours is the heart of the Two Lands. If they bring out their strong men and war upon us, then shall we raise spear and bow in our defense. Then only will it be time for Pharaoh to lead us into battle."

" 'We of Thebes are secure in our possession of our lands.' " Kamose repeated the words with searing bitterness. "Foolish men! While one of the Flyksos remains on the Black Earth, no man is secure! Even at this hour a general appointed by Avaris approaches Thebes, and he does not come alone—an army marches with him! I am the Shepherd of Egypt under Re. Remember"—Kamose stood up—"though I hold a Crook for the safekeeping of my people, also do I hold a Flail for the lashing of their enemies! Thus do I answer those who are 'secure in Thebes'!"

He raised the ceremonial Flail and brought its thongs singing down to rip the papyrus roll from the chamberlain's hands, sending it torn to the floor.

"Re has spoken!"

"Re has spoken!" the chamberlain echoed, his voice a startled whinny as he stared at the roll on the floor.

"Re has spoken!" A few of those assenting voices were firm, emphatic, but others trailed off as the Pharaoh turned and left the hall. There was a sigh of relaxation as the curtain fell across the doorway, the faintest trickle of whispering. Now the uncertainty of the city was gone. Thebes might not be happy, but her lord had made his decision. Sekenenre the warrior was dead, but Kamose the warrior was living.

And Kamose, the warrior, having made his decision, firmly and publicly, moved fast from that moment. Within the hour royal messengers flashed off in chariots, in fast-oared ships. The camp in the highlands was alerted; the naval vessels on the river gathered through the rising swell of the flood waters; the Hundreds of the neighboring nomes were summoned to join the standard of Pharaoh. Kamose broke with custom and decree. He might mourn his father in his heart, but he lingered to make no lengthy sacrifices at his tomb. Egypt, at last, was on the march!