Moses (29 page)

The son translated and the father listened, his head cocked attentively, the mischievous glint of amusement never leaving his eyes. He nodded as the titles were spelled out, and then he replied, smiling tentatively. Moses wondered whether his son did not temper the translation, for the younger man interposed,

“If you wonder about my Egyptian, great Captain, I have traded a good deal with Karnak and once even at Tanis, but you must understand that I speak your language but poorly. Our language is different—more lowly, more intimate. My father says that he honours and reveres your great king—as who does not?—but he would be speechless were he to converse with such terrifying titles. Therefore, he asks, with due respect, whether he cannot talk to you as one man to another?”

“He talks to me as the servant of the God-King, or not at all,” Seti-Keph answered harshly.

Moses was at a loss to understand Seti-Keph's attitude. This was not the man he. had known or the voice of the man he had known or the spirit of the man he had known. Some impossible metamorphosis had taken place in SetiKeph; this was a harsh and brutal man who knew neither love nor mercy. On the other hand, Moses realized, the old king was no fool and he was carefully taking the measure of the man he had pitted himself against. He bowed his head in defeat and in homage, and then he talked expressively, his voice mounting slowly to the emotional pitch of rhetoric and pleading. Not knowing the words, Moses was nevertheless impressed by the very intensity of the old man's speech, by the earnest passion of his argument—and he noticed that not only his two sons, but the litter-beaters and the spearmen, were listening intently and not unmoved. When the son began to interpret, he had to control his own voice, telling Seti-Keph huskily.

“My father addresses you as the servant of the God-King, and my father says that if any action he is capable of will move you to love instead of anger, he will perform that action—yes, he will go down on his knees and abase himself before you, if by so doing the life of one of his children can be spared. So he says. You see, I call him father because his blood runs in my veins, for he lay with my mother that I might be born. But all my people call him father. In our tongue, the word is
podya
and
podya
is also the word for king. He says he speaks as
podya
but not as king, because he is an old, old man, too old to bear any title but father. He knows that some of his people are bad and wild, and he asks—Where are there a people who do not have some who are bad and wild? It broke his heart when he learned that wild young men of the Baynya went down to Upper Egypt and killed and stole—not only because they brought suffering to you, but because they brought suffering and dishonour to him. Therefore, he banished them for ever—and among our people, that is the most awful of punishments. My father also knows that the great God-King of Egypt sees and hears all iniquity, and when he heard that an army was coming to mete out punishment for what these wild young men had done, he embarked on a long, painful journey—for he is very old and very sick-in the hope that bloodshed might be averted. Now be asks you, 0 Captain of Hosts, what profit will come to any if our people meet in battle? Will not the mothers of Egypt weep as bitterly as the mothers of Kush? Will not the maidens of Egypt be as bereaved as the maidens of Kush? And will it bring back your dead to inflict death upon my people? I come humbly, great Captain of Egypt, but not out of cowardice, not out of fear. Egypt has warred with Kush before, and she knows well that we black folk are not afraid. But I am afraid—afraid for the children made fatherless, afraid for my own children, whom I love! So I say, great Captain, let us embrace in love and not in hatred!”

Listening to this, unaware even of the change of subject on the part of the son and listening as if the old man himself spoke, Moses felt his throat thicken and his heart went out to the wrinkled little black man. In his youthful impulsiveness, he found the arguments of the old man irresistible, and he had a sudden buoyant hope that the campaign would end right here and now and that only a matter of weeks would see him at the white house again. But there was no youthful impulsiveness in the stony features of Seti-Keph, who said coldly,

“How is it that these men who murdered and destroyed on the sacred soil of Egypt are not handed over to me? What is this banishment? Am I being made a fool of?”

The old man's face became grave, and the last glint of humour left his eyes; Moses had the feeling that he had anticipated this yet hoped that it would not come. Now he replied slowly and earnestly, and after he had spoken a little, he gestured towards the great blanket of bundles that were spread upon the ground and here and there heaped in mounds. He began to enumerate on his fingers, watching Seti-Keph carefully and thoughtfully as he spoke, as if he could not believe that the Egyptian was unable to understand his tongue. When he had finished, he crossed his hands over his thin, loose-skinned breast, and bowed slightly.

“Were he in Egypt,” his son said reflectively, as if he were uncertain that his father had taken the right tack, “he would worship the gods of Egypt and do their bidding. Here in Kush, he must do the bidding of the gods of Kush, and they would hate him were he to hand over his people to strangers. He acknowledges the truth and beauty of Egyptian justice, but he feels that we of Kush are also just. So he begs you to forgive him. Yet he knows that your God-King has been offended, and for that reason, he brings gifts which he pleads to ease the hurt. A thousand porters and a thousand bundles have marched with us, and they lie there. These gifts he humbly lays at your feet, in the hope that they will assuage your anger and the anger of your great king. We are not a wealthy people, and perhaps all the riches of our land are less than the wealth of one of your cities; but we have tried to bring gifts worthy of the God-King's majesty. Of pure gold, cleaned and hammered into strips, we bring ten thousand shekels, to measure it by your unit. Of silver bars, we bring twenty thousand shekels. Of the finest ivory from the tusks of the wild elephant, we bring one hundred thousand shekels, and of the red and yellow and white plumes of our jungle birds—they are very light, you know—we bring a thousand shekels. We bring diamonds to the weight of a hundred shekels and rubies to the weight of a thousand shekels. Of pure, fine copper, we bring three hundred thousand shekels in weight, and of cumin and coriander, a weight of two hundred thousand shekels. Of white wool from lambs and woven as fine and light as your best linen, we bring you to the measure of two thousand of your royal cubit, and of the woven cloth from the black lamb, we bring wool to the measure of three thousand of the royal cubit. We bring you a thousand tanned leopard skins and a thousand gazelle hides, soft as butter to the touch. We bring you the honey of the wild bee to the weight of five thousand shekels—and lastly (for my father urged that this be spoken last) we lay at the feet of your God-King ten thousand pearls, in colour from pink to white, and in size from the size of a lentil to the size of the end of my thumb. These pearls are the bulk of the sacred treasures of our gods, and as insular as we are, we know that one of these pearls, one small one, will buy ten slaves or a fine iron sword of Hatti. Our priests give them to you as an offering to the gods of Egypt—in the hope that they will look kindly and with love upon our gods.”

He finished the accounting and spread his hands before him, palms up. At first, Seti-Keph and his officers stood in silence; for even Moses, who from his childhood had been taught that wealth was of small matter and who had come to know that his own wealth was almost beyond measure, was amazed and astonished at the magnificence of these gifts. It gave him some inkling of how desperately they desired to avoid war—and also, for this was obvious, how far they would go to avoid meeting the Egyptian army in battle. Was the result then preordained, he wondered? Here was Seti-Keph with only fifteen thousand men—and a staggering distance from the southernmost cities of Egypt; surely a people who could provide such a gift could also do battle with an invader and drive him back! Yet it was obvious that they doubted the issue, while Seti-Keph was without doubts, for he replied harshly,

“Is this how you measure the justice of Egypt, by bribes and petty gifts? My God-King could open one store-room in his great house and reveal more than this! Do you take me for a fool that I can be bought so cheaply?”

The son translated, his voice sombre and full of defeat, and when the old king heard the verdict of Seti-Keph, his face contracted in sadness and hopelessness. His words were slow and heavy as he answered, and his son asked,

“Is not peace the measure of justice and love?”

“For a soldier,” Seti-Keph said dryly, “it is honour that must be measured, not love, and we have come to teach Kush to be humble, not to be generous. Therefore, I take these things not as gifts, but as the spoils of war—and as for your father, he is my prisoner to do with as I think best!”

“No—no!” the son cried. “For myself and my brother, yes, but my father is an old man and he came to you of his free will. How can you say that he is your prisoner? You spoke of honour, which you Egyptians hold so highly—”

“Enough of that!” Seti-Keph shouted.

The other son, who had remained silent until now, dropped his hand to his dagger; and Sokar-Moses, in a single swift motion, drew his sword and cut him down. The interpreter reached for his own dagger, but Seti-Keph, moving with a speed Moses would not have believed him capable of, plunged his dagger into the black man's heart. It had happened so quickly that the spearmen had not yet reacted—but the old king stumbled forward and fell upon his son's body, caressing his face and weeping like a little child. He had not long to weep. Sokar-Moses brought his sword down and the old man's head rolled upon his son's body and then on to the sand, a wrinkled little ball grinning up at the blue sky. And then, as the spearmen sounded a wild, fearful cry of hate and anger, Seti-Keph raised both arms and the archers of Hatti began to loose their deadly shafts. Half the spearmen fell before they could move from where they stood, and the others had moved only paces when the chariots thundered upon them.

For the first time, Moses saw a war chariot of Egypt in battle, and he realized why Kush would go down before this army. The spearmen made no attempt to close their shields and form a wall. Each man fought for himself, and the horses and chariots thundered over them or tore them open with the spinning axle-blades. Meanwhile, other chariots thundered after the fleeing porters, cutting them down that none should leave there with the story of what had happened.

A single spearman broke through to the officers, and as he hurtled upon them, crying his war cry, Sokar-Moses seized the man's spear and ran the point into the earth, while a dozen swords were buried in the Kushite's flesh.

[17]

FROM NUN, THE slave, as they made their chariot ready for the match, there came a comment to break the silence, “Yes, Prince of Egypt, I have seen Egypt at war, and they fight bravely and with honour,” using the word
macaat
, the expression of the soul of Egypt—and smiling at Moses as he spoke. “Kill him too?” Moses' thoughts asked, while his silence defined the coils of his own agony wrapped around him. War is death, the negation of life, the violation of civilization and hope and mercy—but this was his career, chosen by the royal god, So do the gods, on earth and elsewhere, make war. Why then was he surprised? He had lost Seti-Keph, whom he would never be able to face with an open heart again, and would he not, in the same way, lose every man in this army? Until they were joined in battle, and he himself was struck down by the hand of this hateful, mocking Bedouin? Yet so savagely had every joy of life and living been crushed and dulled within him that he cared for nothing, not for the woman he had pledged his heart to, not for life and not for death.

The army marched. Seti-Keph and Sokar-Moses, fierce and implacable men now, had put down and settled an angry situation among the officers, who wanted to parcel out this first spoil among the ranks. It would go to the God-King, Seti-Keph decided. Were they fools to dream of taking what was signed and deeded to him? Did they think that because they were so far from the Great House that the Great House had ceased to exist? Did they imagine that if they stole the fair spoil of the king that no one in the army would speak the truth to the God-King one day?

So the goods were loaded into empty supply boats and sent down the Nile. The dead of Kush were left lying on the plain, and the army advanced. But now they advanced in battle order, and from hour to hour and from day to day they looked for the hatred of Kush to appear before them. In spite of the speed of the chariots, a handful of the thousand porters had escaped, fleeing into the wild river gorge and hiding themselves in rock clefts until darkness fell. Their feet would be winged with fear and horror, and soon enough the people of Kush would learn how their king, Irgebayn, had died.

The army marched: the best spearmen first, then the archers and slingers, then the ranks of chariots, and then the bulk of the footsoldiers—and in the rear, the slaves and the herd of extra horses. The footsoldiers had donned the heavy armour that was dragged up the Nile in the baggage boats, and as they marched under the hot sun, their armour and weapons burned with heat. The chariots were geared for battle, a dozen javelins racked and rattling in each one, the arrows out and ready to hand, the big laminated bows waiting to be strung. The whole army became tense and silent, an ominous and oppressive mantle upon them that would be lifted only when they were released from themselves, their fears and their own dark thoughts.

So they moved southward, day after day, and day after day they ascended the slope to a great tableland. Clump grass, dry and tough that it might exist on desert fare, became greener and more abundant—and presently the clumps became patches and the patches broad stretches of rippling grass. The nights became increasingly cool, and every so often in the daytime they would see high white clouds laced across the sky. Trees began to appear, at first only an occasional twisted desert shrub, then taller single trees, and then stands of trees. They saw herds of tiny antelope in the distance and large flights of birds would appear out of the south and circle above them. They sent out a hunting party once, but the little antelope were too fleet to be approached, and once, when a lordly, black-maned lion and three sleek lionesses stepped out of a thorn thicket to observe the army, the captains pleaded with Seti-Keph to allow a lion hunt; but he would do nothing to break their ranks or halt the even progress of their march.