Pharaoh. Уилбур Смит

turned, but in a leisurely and uninterested manner. But suddenly I sat bolt upright on the transom of the chariot, for there, only a hundred paces off the near bank of the Nile, was the flagship of our battle fleet, indubitably the finest and fastest trireme in existence. She could run down any other ship afloat, and board her with a hundred fighting crew.

      I was not able to remain sitting calmly. I scrambled to my feet, and before I could restrain myself I had blurted out, ‘By the brimming breasts and the unctuous slit of the great goddess Hathor! That ship is the Memnon!’

      ‘By the prime prick and turbulent testicles of the great god Poseidon! I believe that you are right; for once at least, Taita,’ Weneg mimicked me.

      I bridled for an instant and then, before I could prevent myself, I laughed and pounded him between the shoulder blades. ‘You should never have shown me such a beautiful ship. It will only serve to put a host of naughty ideas into my head.’

      ‘Which was fully my intention, I must confess.’ Weneg called to his team of greys, ‘Whoa now!’ The magnificent animals nodded their heads and arched their necks to the drag of the reins, and the chariot came to a halt on the bank, looking out across the Nile towards the great warship.

      The instant they recognized us on the bank the crew of the Memnon sprang to the windlass on the foredeck and winched up the heavy copper cross-shaped anchor. Then under staysails and a flying jib the warship sauntered in on the light westerly breeze towards the bank where we waited ecstatically to greet her.

      My enthusiasm in particular was overwhelming, because I sensed that my salvation was at hand, and I was being spared another assignation with the dreaded Doog at the Gates of Torment and Sorrow.

      ‘Memnon’ was the baby name of my beloved Pharaoh Tamose, he who had so recently been laid low by the Hyksos arrow that his corpse had not yet completed the embalming process which would enable him to be laid to rest in his tomb that stood ready to receive him in the Valley of the Kings on the westerly bank of the Nile. There he would lie with his ancestors through all of eternity.

      The Memnon was an enormous vessel. I know her specifications intimately because, after all, I was mainly responsible for her design. It is true that Pharaoh Tamose claimed full honours for that feat, but he is gone now and I am not so mean as to take the credit away from a dead man.

      In length the hull of the Memnon exceeded 100 cubits. She drew 3 cubits of water fully loaded. Her crew numbered 230. She shipped a total of 56 oars in 3 banks a side, as her designation of trireme suggests. The staggered lower rowing benches and the outriggers on the top tier of oars prevented the strokes of the oars interfering with each other. Her width was less than 13 cubits so she was lightning fast through the water, and easy to beach. Her single mast could be lowered, but when raised it spread a massive square sail. She was quite simply the most beautifully designed fighting ship afloat.

      As she came in to moor on the river-bank I noticed a tall mysterious figure in the stern. He was dressed in a long red robe and a hood of the same colour that covered his face, except for the eye slits. It was apparent that he did not wish to be recognized, and as the crew made the ship fast, he went below without revealing his features or giving any other suggestion of his identity.

      ‘Who is that?’ I demanded of Weneg. ‘Is this who we have come to meet?’

      He shook his head. ‘I cannot say. I will wait for you here ashore.’

      I did not hesitate but clambered up on to the Memnon’s bows and strode down the length of the upper deck until I reached the hatch down which the red-robed figure had disappeared. I stamped my foot on the deck, and immediately a deep but cultured voice replied. I did not recognize it.

      ‘The hatch is open. Come down and close it behind you.’

      I followed these instructions and stooped into the cabin below. The headroom was minimal, for she was a fighting ship and not a pleasure cruiser. My red-robed host was already seated. He made no attempt to rise, but he indicated the narrow bench facing him.

      ‘Please excuse my attire but for reasons that will be immediately clear to you I need to keep my identity hidden from the common flock, at least for the immediate future. I knew you well when I was a child, but circumstances have kept us apart since then. On the other hand you were well acquainted with my father, who held you in the highest regard, and more recently my elder brother who is less enthusiastic …’

      Before he finished speaking I knew beyond any doubt who it was that sat before me. I scrambled to my feet to accord him the respect that he so richly deserved, but in the process I cracked my head resoundingly on the beams of the upper deck above me. These were hewn from the finest Lebanese cedar, and my skull was no match for them. I collapsed again on my bench with both hands cradling my head and a thin trickle of blood running into my left eye.

      My host leaped to his feet but he had the good sense to remain crouching. He whipped the red hood off his own head and rolled it into a ball. Then he clapped it over my wound, pressing down hard to stem the flow of my life’s blood.

      ‘You are not the first to sustain the same injury,’ he assured me. ‘Painful but not fatal, I assure you, my Lord Taita.’ Now that his hood was adorning my scalp, rather than covering his features, I was able to confirm that this was indeed the Crown Prince Rameses who was tending my injury.

      ‘Please, Your Royal Highness, it is merely a scratch which I richly deserve for my clumsiness.’ I was embarrassed by his solicitude, but grateful for the opportunity to gather my wits again and reassess the prince at such close quarters.

      He ranked as Lord High Admiral of the Fleet, and he was so assiduous in his duties that he very seldom made himself available for light socializing and mingling with any other than his own naval officers or, naturally enough, his father. Of course I had romped with him as a child and had told him fairy tales of noble princes saving lovely maidens from dragons and other monsters, but as he approached puberty we had drifted apart and Rameses had come totally under his own father’s influence. Since then I had never again been familiar with him. So now I was surprised at how closely he resembled his father, Pharaoh Tamose. Of course, this resemblance reaffirmed the high regard in which I had always held him. If anything he was even more handsome than his father. It gave me a twinge of conscience to even think this; however, it was the truth.

      His jawline was stronger, and his teeth more even and white. He was a little taller than his father had been, but his waist was leaner, and his limbs more supple. His skin was a most remarkable shade of deep gold, reflecting his mother Queen Masara’s Abyssinian ancestry. His eyes were a brighter and more lustrous shade of the same hue, and their gaze was piercing, but at the same time intelligent and kindly.

      My heart went out to him once again, as though the intervening years had never existed. His next words confirmed my instincts: ‘We have many things in common, Taita. But at the moment the most pressing of them is my elder brother’s baleful and implacable enmity. Pharaoh Utteric Turo will never rest until he sees both of us dead. Of course, you are already under sentence of death. But so am I, although not as openly but with equal or even greater relish and anticipation.’

      ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why does your brother hate you?’ The question came easily to my lips. I felt that with this man I was perfectly in accord. I had nothing to hide from him, nor had he anything to hide from me.

      ‘It is simply because Pharaoh Tamose loved me and you more than he loved Utteric, his eldest son.’ He paused for a heartbeat, and then went on, ‘And also because my brother is mad. He is haunted by the ghosts and phantoms of his own twisted mind. He wishes to dispose of any person wiser and nobler than he is.’

      ‘You know of this for a certainty?’ I asked, and he nodded.

      ‘For a certainty, yes! I have my sources, Taita, as I know you do also. In secret and only to his sycophants, Utteric has boasted of his hostile intentions towards me.’

      ‘What are you going to do about it?’ I asked and his reply rang in my ears like my own voice speaking.

      ‘I