Pharaoh. Уилбур Смит
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out their hulls.’
‘Excellent, Taita!’ Hui applauded me generously, allaying my irritation with his childish guessing games. ‘The hulls of our galleys are hidden behind the sea wall of the harbour we have built for them. Only a few of them have their masts still stepped. Most of them have lowered theirs, which makes them ever more difficult to detect.’
‘They are cunningly concealed,’ I conceded magnanimously.
We headed towards the hidden harbour with the Memnon following us. When we were as close as half a bowshot offshore the entrance was abruptly revealed to us. It was doubled back upon itself to conceal it from seawards. As we entered it we lowered our own sails and plied the oars to carry us into the passage. We passed through the final bend and the inner harbour was revealed to us with the entire Lacedaemon fleet tied up to their berths along the sea wall. This concealed harbour was a hive of industry. On every ship men were busy preparing for sea: repairing sails and hulls or carrying aboard fresh supplies of food, equipment and weapons.
However, all this industry came to an abrupt hiatus as our two galleys came through the entrance. The Memnon caused a stir amongst the men ashore. I doubt they had ever seen anything like her afloat, but then something else happened to divert their attention from even such a magnificent sight as Rameses’ flagship. The men switched their attention back to the leading trireme: Hui’s Bekatha. They began pointing at our small group of officers on the poop deck. They started calling to each other and I heard my name – ‘Taita’ – being bandied back and forth.
Of course most of them knew me well, not only as an erstwhile companion in arms and a person of exceptional and striking appearance but for another reason eminently more memorable to the common sailor or charioteer.
Before I had parted from them after the capture of the city of Memphis, the defeat of Khamudi and the annihilation of the Hyksos hordes, I had asked King Hurotas to distribute a small part of my share of the booty to his troops in recognition of the part they had played in the battle. This amounted to a mere lakh of silver out of the ten lakhs that were mine, the equivalent of approximately ten silver coins of five deben’s weight for each man. Of course, this is a trifling amount for you and me, or any other nobleman, but for the common herd it is almost two years’ salary; in other words it is a veritable fortune. They remembered it, and would probably continue to do so until their dying day.
‘It is Lord Taita!’ they called to one another, pointing me out.
‘Taita! Taita!’ Others took up the chant and they swarmed down to the jetty to welcome me. They tried to touch me as I came ashore and some of them even had the temerity to attempt to slap me on my back. I was nearly knocked off my feet a number of times until Hui and Rameses formed a bodyguard for me with twenty of their own men to protect my person. They hustled me through the hubbub to where horses were waiting to carry us up the valley to the site where King Hurotas and Queen Sparta were building their citadel.
Once we left the coast the countryside became lovelier with every league we travelled. The constant backdrop of the snow-clad mountains was always in full sight to remind us of the winter just past. The meadows beneath them were a luscious green, waist-deep in fresh grass and myriad gorgeous flowers nodding their heads to the light breeze bustling down from the Taygetus heights. For a while we rode along the bank of the Hurotas River. Its waters were still swollen by the snowmelt, but clear enough to make out the shapes of the large fish lying deep and nose-on to the current. There were half-naked men and women wading chest-deep in the icy waters, dragging long loops of woven netting between them; sweeping up these fish and piling them in glittering heaps upon the bank. Hui stopped for a few minutes to bargain for fifty of the largest of these delicious creatures and have them delivered to the kitchens of the royal citadel.
Apart from these river denizens, there were small boys along the roadside selling bunches of pigeon and partridges that they had trapped, and stalls at which were displayed the carcasses of wild oxen and deer. There were herds of domesticated animals at pasture in the fields: cattle and goats, sheep and horses. All of these were in good condition, plump and sturdy with glossy coats. The men and women working the fields were mostly very young or very old, but all of them seemed equally contented. They shouted cheery greetings to us as we passed.
Only once we approached the citadel did the aspect of the population begin to change. They were younger, most of them of military age. They were living in well-built and expansive barracks and engaged in training and exercising battle tactics. Their chariots, armour and weapons seemed to be of the best and most modern type, including the recurved bow and the light but sturdy chariots each drawn by a team of four horses.
We paused more than once to watch them at their drill and it was immediately apparent that these were first-rate battle-ready troops, at the peak of their training. This was only to be expected with Hurotas and Hui as their commanding officers.
We had been climbing gradually ever since we left the coast. Finally after a ride of four leagues we topped another wooded rise and paused again, this time in amazement, as the citadel was laid out before us in the centre of a wide basin of open ground surrounded by the high ramparts of the mountains.
The Hurotas River ran through the middle of this basin. But it was split into two strong streams of fast-running water, in the centre of which rose the citadel. The river formed a natural moat around it. Then the streams were reunited on the lower side to continue their course to the sea at the port of Githion.
The citadel was formed by an up-thrust of volcanic rock from the earth’s centre. When after many hundreds of centuries he grew disenchanted with the citadel, he abandoned it. It was then appropriated by the savage and primitive tribe of the Neglints who lived in the Taygetus Mountains. In their turn the Neglints were defeated and enslaved more recently by King Hurotas and Admiral Hui.
Hurotas and Hui had used the newly captured slaves to strengthen the fortifications of the citadel until they were nigh on impregnable, and the interior was not only commodious but also extremely comfortable. Hurotas was determined to make this the capital city of his new nation.
I wasted very little time examining the citadel from afar, and listening to Hui reciting its history. A first-rate admiral he may very well be, but as a raconteur he makes a fine pedant. I shook up my steed and gave him a touch of my spurs, leading the party at a gallop down into the bowl and on towards the citadel. When I was still some distance off I saw the drawbridge being lowered and no sooner than it had touched the near bank but two riders came across it at full pelt, their faint squeals of excitement and high-pitched cries of joy increasing in volume as they approached.
I recognized the leading rider at once. Tehuti led the way as she has always done. Her hair flew out like a flag in the wind behind her. When last I had seen her it was a lovely russet colour, but now it was pure white and glistening in the sunlight like the snowy peaks of the Taygetus Mountains behind her. But even at this distance I could see she was as slim as the young girl I remembered so lovingly.
She was followed at a much more sedate pace by an older and larger lady whom I was certain I had never previously laid eyes on.
Tehuti and I came together still shouting endearments at each other. We both dismounted while our mounts were at almost full gallop and maintained our footing when we hit the ground, but used our residual impetus to come together in a ferocious embrace.
Tehuti was laughing and weeping simultaneously. ‘Where have you been hiding all these years, you naughty man? I thought I would never see you again!’ Tears of joy streamed down her cheeks and dripped from the tip of her chin.
My face was wet also. Of course the moisture was not my own. I had received it second-hand from the woman I was hugging. There was so much I wanted to say to her but the words jammed in my throat. I could only clasp her to my bosom and pray for us never to be parted again.
Then her companion trotted up to where we were involved. She dismounted carefully, and then she came to where we stood with both her arms extended.
‘Taita! I have missed you so bitterly. I thank Hathor and all the other gods and goddesses that they have allowed you to return to us,’ she said in that lovely musical