Moses (20 page)

“And you would give me a Kushite to fight against his own people? Let me see the man from Hatti!”

Now they were at the end of the long shed, far enough from the crowd to converse in normal tones. Even in the warm sunlight, the interior of the shed was dark. Moses had the impression of many men, chained to posts or rails at the back of the shed, some of them sprawling on the floor, some standing, some crouched. Two Egyptian slaves, wearing the bright-red loincloths of the dealers and branded across the face, squatted on a granite slab—and then leaped to do Kotophar's bidding when he told them to bring the Hittite.

Moses had seen men of Hatti before, but his impressions had been formed by rich traders and diplomats at the court of the Great House. They were not at all like the bearded, tattered and gaunt young man they dragged before him now.

He crouched like an animal, his small blue eyes squinting to keep out the bright light of the sun, his long, tangled, honey-coloured hair like an animal's pelt over head and face. He still wore the Hittite trousers, ragged and dirty now, but from the waist up he was bare, and Moses drew back in disgust from the network of half-healed whip scars that encased him like a shirt.

“I assure you, Prince of Egypt,” the slave-dealer said, “that he is strong and young. Look at the muscles, not at the scars. Scars heal.”

“His spirit is broken. What would you sell me, a whipped dog to go to war?”

“He's a chariot man, through and through—”

Moses did not know that this was a programme of contrasts, that Kotophar had already decided which slave he would buy and was merely laying a proper groundwork for his price. The transgressor from Hatti was taken away and another Hittite appeared, a man of about thirty, welldressed in the stained but still impressive robes of a courtsier, his hair combed under his felted hat. When Moses turned on Kotophar in anger, the second Hittite was replaced by an Egyptian criminal, redeemed from a death sentence by the slavers, a short barrel of a man whose pig-eyes gleamed in murderous hatred. He was quickly removed for a brown-skinned Libyan who swaggered defiantly but whose face wore the dull mask of an idiot. This brought them to Kotophar's choice, a Sea Rover from Mycenae, who was the sole survivor of a ship that had foundered off the Delta, and who was found by the fishermen and sold to the slavers.

He was a tall, well-built and handsome man, his long brown hair hanging in two thick braids down his back, his face covered with a curly brown beard, his hands large and capable. Almost convinced that he had found what he was looking for, Moses asked,

“Can he talk our language?”

“Holiness, he was only taken three days ago.”

“Slaver, what do you take me for—a fool?” Moses cried. “We march for Kush in a few days and you would sell me a man I cannot speak to! I am tired of all this!”

Kotophar apologized with a mixture of frustration and sorrow. He begged Moses to forgive him and begged him to understand that it was not as easy as it might seem to furnish what he desired at a moment's notice. If the Prince of Egypt could only wait a day or two, then the request could be satisfied to the last detail.

“I have no time to wait,” Moses answered sharply. “Have you Bedouin slaves?”

“Bedouins?” Kotophar repeated in amazement.

“Yes. We will be going through desert much of the way, and they know the desert, don't they?”

“Forgive me, Prince of Egypt, but you are a young man and you have lived most of your life in the Great House. I have lived mine where mercy ends and knowledge begins. I tell you-you cannot trust a Bedouin. He will smile at you while he plots your death, and sooner or later, he will put a knife in your side—”

“Spare me a lecture on personal mannerisms and tell me whether you have a Bedouin slave who will suit me?”

A strange expression came over the face of the slave-dealer, and he nodded slowly, almost with pleasure. “Perhaps I have, but as to whether he will suit you, O Prince of Egypt, that is for you to say.”

“What do you mean by that?” Moses wondered.

“What could I mean, holiness? This Bedouin is young and strong and his spirit is not broken. He comes from a slave gang engaged upon public works at the edge of the Delta, and they have capable overseers, believe me. If they could not break his spirit—well, see for yourself.” And he called to the two slaves and gave them their instructions. At first, they did not move but looked at him in fear-until he shouted, “What are you afraid of, you dogs! The man is bound and hobbled!” And then apologized to Moses, explaining that their own slaves here at the mart were without spirit. The Prince of Egypt put such a store on spirit; and like a well-fed, sleek cat, Kotophar watched them drag a twisting, struggling slave up to the stone, and then when he would not mount it, attempt to drag him on to it. This was beyond their strength. It was not only that the slave was strong—Moses had seen strong men before—but he moved like a whip being cracked; and as if in answer to Moses' unspoken thought, Kotophar said,

“The amazing thing is his reserve of energy. Nothing destroys that. He is like an animal. He has been whipped more than that Hittite you saw before, but you won't see him cringe. And his strength!”

Suddenly, the Bedouin stopped struggling and leaped on to the stone, flinging off the two slaves as if they were children. He stood there, his hobbled legs spread, stating at Moses—at the prince's golden trappings and glittering jewels. He was not a tall man, at least a head shorter than Moses, but he was very broad, his trunk barrel-like, his arms and legs wrapped in mighty casings of muscle. His neck was so heavy that it made his head seem smaller than it actually was. His face was flat and broad, covered with the curling beard of a young man, and his long black hair hung behind him in a single thick but tangled braid. Like many of the Bedouins, he had a short, thick nose, and his dark eyes, deep-set under a broad brow, watched Moses with a mixture of contempt and amusement. Suddenly, he said to Kotophar in a strangely accented, nasal Egyptian,

“Who is this gilded popinjay—a customer? Tell him he'll be cheated if he buys me!”

“This is a prince of Egypt, you dirty cur!” Kotophar shouted. “You stinking, filthy desert scum—this is a god you face! To be bought by him would be the greatest honour ever done you in your rotten life!”

Moses, all the while, was watching the Bedouin with fascination. He was naked and barefoot, a bit of rag serving as a loincloth. His trunk and legs were hairy-more so than with any Egyptian Moses had ever seen—but even through the hair Moses could see the whip scars that latticed his flesh. And for all his dirt and savageness, he had a certain winning quality, making Moses feel that here was a man other men would follow willingly and love greatly.

When Kotophar finished swearing at him, the slave broke into deep bellows of laughter.

“By all the gods in the world of death, I will kill you yet, you whore's bastard!”

“And lose a sale? Oh, no—Kotophar.

“Well, there you are,” the slaver shrugged, turning to Moses. “You wanted a man of spirit, O Prince of Egypt.”

“How old is he?” Moses asked.

“Who knows? He answers no questions unless it pleases him. I would say no more than twenty years. His teeth are good and his beard is soft and new. He's no good for work. He breaks tools and incites his fellow slaves. He's afraid of nothing on earth. You feed him slop that would kill another, and he thrives on it.”

To all this, the slave was listening with interest, an expression of amused contempt upon his face.

“What is his name?”

“Nun.”

“Nun? An Egyptian name.”

“He's no Egyptian, holiness. These Bedouins have lived outside the Delta for generations. They speak a sort of Egyptian and most of them have Egyptian names. They are a filthy, skulking lot. I've never seen one like him before.”

“Nun, can you drive horses?” Moses demanded.

The slave cocked his head thoughtfully, as if considering whether to answer or not. Then he grinned and said, “I have been driven, but driving is more in your way than mine, popinjay.”

“Men have died for saying less to a prince of Egypt,” Moses pointed out.

“But I am dead, popinjay, and if not one day, then it's the next. So I spit on your kind.”

“I am not angry,” Moses thought. “I have never been talked to this way before except by my cousins, but I will not be angry.” He wanted the man. There had been two men in his life to whom his heart went out, Amon-Teph and Neph—and here was a third; but strangely so, for what he actually felt was that if he could win the respect and loyalty of such a man as this, he would win a new and necessary belief in himself. Kotophar was watching him keenly, attempting to decide what his own role in the matter should be, whether he should let this bitter jest of his run its course, or whether he should prove his own regard for the god-kings of Egypt by calling the guards and having them run this miserable Bedouin through. All his knowledge of quality in slaves cried out against such destruction, but meanwhile he was feeding a man who would never find a master.

Moses decided for him. saying, “You, Nun—I go to the wars in the Land of Kush as a captain of chariots. I want a chariot driver and a man who will fight when he has to fight. Are you my man?”

“Grow up before you talk of wars, popinjay!”

“I will buy him,” Moses said quietly. “Untie his arms.”

Kotophar's face fell, for to take the price he and his companions had decided upon for this wild creature would be both outrageous and fraudulent. “But the price, Prince of Egypt?” he protested weakly.

“Whatever your price is, go to Seti-Moses, and he will pay you. Now untie his arms.”

“Now he is yours, O Prince of Egypt, so please untie his arms yourself.”

“I said, untie his arms, slaver!” Moses snapped.

Kotophar shrugged. His hand on the hilt of his knife, he approached the stone slab cautiously and warily, and when he came within three feet of the slave, Nun stepped forward and spat in his face. Enraged, Kotophar drew his knife and flung back his arm, but Moses shouted,

“He is mine, Kotophar! You kill him—so help me, I will kill you!”

Trembling with frustrated anger, and rage at the prince as well as the slave, Kotophar withdrew, knowing that SetiMoses, the palace steward, would take all excess profit from the deal, and also knowing that he could do nothing about it. He told the slaves in attendance to untie Nun, and this they did, the Bedouin remaining rigid. The moment his arms were free, legs still hobbled, he made a mighty leap from the stone, his arms outstretched for Kotophar's throat. The slave-dealer, trying frantically to get away, tripped and sprawled on the ground, where he lay screaming for the guards. Meanwhile, Moses, in a motion as quick as the Bedouin's, stepped in, caught one outstretched wrist, and met the charging Nun with a lowered shoulder. He heaved and jerked the man's arm, and with the force of Nun's charge, flung him like a sack, head over heels, so that he hit the ground on his back with a mighty crash that knocked the breath out of him.

The guards came running with their long spears lowered to stick the slave like a wounded animal, where he lay, but Moses stopped them with a roar of warning.

“He's mine! Hands off!”

Nun staggered to his feet now and advanced on Moses as fast as his hobbles would permit, and already they were ringed by a crowd of buyers, dealers, slaves and loiterers. Head down, shouting hatred at Moses in his own tongue, they closed, and Moses felt the grip of that awful strength. He drew his dagger and slammed the weighted hilt against Nun's head. The slave staggered and lost his grip, and Moses flung him off and struck him on the side of the face with his clenched fist. The blow was a hard one; it was like striking a post; yet the slave only reeled, and once again Moses seized his wrist, braced, and flung him over his shoulder on to his back. Moses stood over him this time, and when Nun attempted to rise, Moses drove his heel into the man's face. Again, Nun tried to fling himself erect, his face covered with blood, and this time Moses seized the chain that hobbled him and pulled it out, sending the slave crashing back on the ground, where the man lay, not trying to rise again, but watching Moses with a new look of wariness and respect on his bloody face.

For the first time, Moses became conscious of the frenzied screaming of the crowd. It was applause. He was being applauded for the triumph of subduing a hobbled and unarmed Bedouin slave—and they were all too fogged with the chance to cheer one of the godly inhabitants of the palace to realize that the victory was sheer luck, abetted by a dagger hilt and a bronze chain. Suddenly Moses felt sick to his soul, sick with the memory of the viciousness he had displayed towards the slave, sick with the knowledge that they all feared any slave who could not be broken by the whip, sick with the spectacle he had made of himself in a bloody hand-to-hand fight at the slave mart.

Then Moses did something that was unthinkable for any prince of Egypt, something that was remembered by the people of old Tanis when most else about him was forgotten—something that changed him in a moment from a hero of the crowd to the complete opposite, for those who cheer heroes on the street. He became a prince who was unprincely in this manner: He tore off his linen kilt, leaving himself naked to his loincloth; he walked over to the fallen slave and went down on one knee beside him; and with the holy linen cloth, he wiped the blood and dirt from the man's face and neck and body.

The crowd fell silent, and Moses heard the silence as he had heard the cheering. Better, he thought, and told himself that never again in all his life would he want to hear cheering over anything he did. He called to Kotophar to open the hobble.

“He is your man, O Prince of Egypt,” sneered Kotophar, throwing him the key. It fell close to Nun, but Moses did not move to pick it up. Instead he rose and looked at Kotophar—a look that Amon-Teph or Neph or his mother would have remarked upon as something in Moses that they had never seen, something frightening and hard as a diamond and implacable too. Nun saw the look and so did Kotophat and so did those in the crowd, and if they had any notion of playing with insult, they gave that up. Kotophar stared back for only a moment; then he picked up the key and unlocked the hobble, and Nun smiled thinly at him, a smile as humourless as his master's expression.