Desert God (28 page)

‘Speak!’ I commanded her. ‘Say that you understand.’

‘I understand.’ She spoke up clearly.

‘On the night of your wedding to the Minos I will prepare a lamb’s bladder of blood for you. It will burst when he takes you to his bed. It will convince him of your virginity and your chastity.’

‘I understand,’ she whispered.

‘You will tell nobody,’ I insisted. ‘Not even Bekatha; especially not Bekatha.’ Her little sister was an inveterate chatterbox and famously unable to keep a secret.

‘I will tell nobody,’ she agreed, ‘not even my little sister.’

‘Do you understand what danger you will be in, Tehuti? The Minos will have the power of life and death over you. It is foolhardy to cheat a king. You must take the utmost care never to be discovered.’

‘I understand. I know that you are taking the same risk as I am. I love you all the more for that.’

Of course it was madness, but I have done many mad things in my life. My only consolation was that I still had a tiny breathing space in which to make my preparations. Zaras’ wounds placed a restraint upon him. He was not yet in a condition to embark upon the wilder excesses of love. However, he was healing swiftly.

T
wo days later Zaras came to me and asked permission to speak.

‘Since when do you have to ask my permission? Lack of it has never held you back before.’ He looked embarrassed.

‘Princess Tehuti wants me to teach her the manual of arms, and to instruct her in use of the sword. I told her that I would need to have your permission to do this.’

‘That was probably not wise, Zaras. What Her Royal Highness wants; Her Royal Highness usually gets.’

‘I meant no disrespect,’ he hurried to assure me, and I laughed at his distress.

‘The princess is an excellent archer,’ I pointed out. ‘She is very quick. She has sharp eyes, and good strong arms. So I have little doubt that she will make a good sword fighter. It is a skill that could stand her in good stead at some time in the future. Who knows? It might even save her life one day.’ I am not sure why I said that. In the event it turned out to be one of the great understatements of my life. ‘Do you have any objection to doing as she requests of you, Zaras?’

‘Not the least objection, my lord,’ Zaras assured me hurriedly. ‘On the contrary, I would consider it to be a great honour and privilege.’

‘Then get on with it. I will be very interested to see what you can make of her.’ I thought no more of it, which statement is not the literal truth. I thought of very little else. I agonized a great deal over Zaras and Tehuti in the weeks that followed.

Zaras grew stronger every day. If he was hard on his men, he was utterly ruthless with himself.

From sunrise each morning until noon he led his men on a foot race over the roughest terrain. I ran with them. I have been blessed with extraordinary strength and powers of endurance, and I am able to match men half my age, or even younger.

In the beginning I could see how Zaras suffered and was impressed with how he was able to conceal his distress from everybody but me. But within days he was matching me stride for stride, leading his men in the battalion’s marching song and laughing freely at my jokes and sallies.

I approved his industry and his constant search for self-improvement. On the other hand there is a limit to all things. Behaviour that is acceptable in the common people is not always suitable to the dignity of the upper strata of our society.

When without consulting me Zaras decided that on the future morning runs every man must carry a bag of sand equal to a quarter of their own body weight, I realized that I had been neglecting other more important duties. Instead of mindlessly charging through the desert trying to compete with a gang of young hooligans, I had to tutor my princesses in the sciences of mathematics and astrology; and I had to write the final chapters of my treatise on the genealogy of the gods. As far as I am concerned, mind must always take precedence over muscle.

W
hile we lingered at Miyah Keiv to allow Lord Remrem and his party to precede us to Zaynab Oasis I had time to read, and plan ahead for our arrival in Babylon. Time passed pleasantly if not swiftly.

For others in our company there were more spectacular and explosive events. Chief amongst these was the termination of the friendship between Bekatha and Colonel Hui.

At Bekatha’s insistence Hui was giving her riding lessons each evening. Under his tutelage she was fast becoming an intrepid equestrienne. She had always been fearless, and her balance and her seat in the saddle surpassed that of most of Hui’s troopers. These fine gentlemen had always been charioteers by nature, and most of them preferred to be behind a horse rather than on top of it.

On the other hand Bekatha loved to ride high and handsome as I had taught her. She was always able to get the very best out of her mount. She loved to show off her skills and she always performed at her best when she had an audience.

One evening Hui was coaching her in the game of spheres. The sphere was a large and weighty ball composed of strips of woven rawhide. The opposing teams were made up of four riders each, and the object was to carry the sphere between two upright stakes at the end of a marked ground while the opposing team endeavoured to prevent that from happening. It was a rough and raucous contest usually watched and cheered on by a large crowd.

This particular evening Hui was making Bekatha practise leaning out from the saddle to pick up a sphere which was rolling and bouncing over the sandy ground ahead of her horse. As usual there was an audience of some fifty off-duty guardsmen and other loafers lining the field to watch the sport.

Bekatha came down the field at full gallop. She had both hands free of the reins and was guiding her mount with her knees.

Hui was standing on the sideline holding the sphere and waiting for her. As she came up he threw the sphere out ahead of her. She leaned from the saddle to make the pick-up; all her weight was on her near-side stirrup. In my informed and critical judgement I thought it was a most elegant and athletic performance. The crowd roared their encouragement, and I joined in with them.

Bekatha seemed almost elfin on the back of the enormous animal but still she was able to reach down far enough to grasp one of the four leather handles of the rolling sphere. Triumphantly she began to lift her prize.

Then her stirrup leather snapped, and to my consternation Bekatha sailed clear of the saddle. I began to run before she hit the ground. I was sure she was killed or at the least seriously injured. Hui was just as quick and he was closer to her than I was as she was unhorsed.

To my delighted relief Bekatha bounded to her feet again and stood there quivering with mortification and rage. She had landed in a mound of fresh horse manure. This had broken her fall and probably saved her life, but it had done little for her appearance and nothing at all for her dignity.

She was besmeared from the top of her fiery curls downwards with loose green dung. Hui came up short before he reached her, and he stood staring at her. I could see that he had not the faintest idea of what he should do next. Before I could reach him to mollify Bekatha and resolve the crisis, Hui did the one thing most certain to escalate it. He laughed.

Bekatha responded in the only way that was natural to her. She slipped the leash on her famous temper. She was still clutching the sphere in her right hand. She hurled it at his head. Hui was not expecting to be attacked and he was taken off guard. The range was point-blank. The sphere was heavy and the sundried leather was hard as bone. It hit him on the bridge of his prominent nose and the blood spurted in a jet. Even that was insufficient to appease Bekatha’s wounded pride.

She stooped and in one swift movement gathered up a double handful of horse dung from the pile in which she was standing; then she charged straight at Hui and slapped both handfuls on to his injured nose.

‘If you think that I am funny you should see yourself now, Colonel Hui,’ she told him in cold fury. Then she spun around and marched from the field heading for the royal compound. No one else in the crowd of spectators dared to laugh, not even I.

Hui was never again invited to dine at the royal table. He never again enjoyed the distinction of being bombarded with foodstuffs, or of giving riding lessons to royalty.

A few days later I overheard a conversation between Bekatha and Loxias. It was in Minoan and they were in the tent in the royal compound which I had set aside as the girls’ classroom. I was standing outside the back of the tent admiring the view of the multi-coloured cliffs above the encampment. Of course I was not deliberately eavesdropping on my pupils, but sometimes when I paused briefly at this particular spot before entering the tent I did inadvertently overhear interesting exchanges between them.

‘Have you forgiven Colonel Hui yet?’ I heard Loxias ask and Bekatha answered vehemently:

‘I shall never forgive him. He is an oaf and a barbarian. When I am Queen of Crete I shall probably have him beheaded.’

‘That should be amusing. Will you invite me to watch?’

‘I was not jesting, Loxias. I really mean it.’

‘But you told me and Tehuti that he was the only man in the world for you?’

‘I have changed my mind.’ Bekatha’s tone was lofty. ‘What would I want with an ugly old man with no manners and forty wives just as ugly as he is?’

‘He isn’t so old, Bekatha, and he is rather handsome. I know for a fact that he has only five wives in Thebes and some of them are quite pretty.’

‘He is ancient,’ Bekatha replied firmly. ‘He is probably even older than Taita. And he does not strike me as rather handsome with a broken nose and horseshit all over his face. His five wives can have him. I don’t want anything more to do with him ever again.’

I excused Bekatha’s robust choice of words, and her derogatory reference to my age. At least one of my immediate problems had been resolved for me. It was no longer necessary for me to stand guard over Bekatha’s virginity in addition to that of her big sister.

I allowed myself be overtaken with a fit of coughing and the voices within the tent stilled. When I stooped in through the opening the two young ladies’ heads were bowed over their writing tablets. They were both most laudably absorbed in the task that I had set them of copying a scroll of Egyptian history from the authoritative version which I had written myself some years previously, and translating it into the Cretan language. Bekatha barely glanced up at me when I paused beside her.

‘I am very impressed with your industry and the perfection of your hieroglyphics, Your Highness. But why is your sister not with you?’

‘Oh, she’s too busy out there.’ She pointed with her brush. ‘She told me that she would come to join us later.’ Then she returned her full attention to the scroll she was working on.

I had been aware of the chanting of the guardsmen coming from the improvised drill ground on the edge of our encampment, but this was so commonplace that I had paid no mind to it. Now that Bekatha had piqued my curiosity I left the tent and went out to investigate. There was a swarm of grooms, entertainers, servants, slaves and other non-combatants lining the drill ground. They were so absorbed that I had to prod them with my staff before they opened the way for me to pass through. I reached the edge of the drill ground, and I stood there and looked around for Tehuti but I could not immediately spot her.

Zaras was standing facing the ranks of his men. They were all wearing half-armour. However, the visors of their helmets were raised to reveal their faces. They stood to attention holding their drawn swords at the salute, the naked blades touching their lips.

‘Passage of Arms!’ Zaras ordered at a bellow. ‘The twelve advancing cuts and lunges. One …’

‘One!’ chanted his men, and in perfect unison they lunged low left, and then recovered. The blades glittered like gold in the low sunlight.

Then suddenly my eyes alighted on a smaller figure in the centre of the leading rank. For a moment I doubted what I was seeing. Then I realized that I was not mistaken, and that it was indeed Tehuti. She wore a perfectly fitting guard’s uniform. At least three of her Nubian handmaidens were expert needlewomen who could have sewn that together in an evening. Any one of the regimental blacksmiths might have altered the half-armour to fit her slender form. She was brandishing a heavy regulation sword that had been forged for a man half again her size.

Her face was flushed. Her hair was sodden with sweat, as was her tunic. I was appalled. She looked like a peasant girl who had spent the day scything corn or hoeing her husband’s fields. She was surrounded by a gang of rough soldiers, and she was behaving as though she felt no shame for her appearance or respect for her rank and exalted station.

Of course I had agreed to her receiving lessons in sword-play from Zaras. I admit that I had even encouraged the plan. However, I had taken it for granted that those lessons would have taken place in private; and well screened from the common horde.

The good gods will readily attest that I am no snob, but there should be limits to royal condescension.

My first impulse was to rush out on to the drill ground, seize Tehuti by the scruff of her neck, drag her back into the privacy of the royal compound and insist in the strongest terms that in future she was more suitably attired and that her behaviour was more seemly when she was under public scrutiny.

Then my good sense prevailed. I knew that she would not hesitate to defy me in front of an entire regiment, and to dilute the respect and awe in which they hold me. While I dithered the opportunity passed me by.

I watched her glide through the Passage of Arms with such consummate skill and grace that she made the hard warriors who surrounded her seem to be lumbering ploughmen. She never missed a step nor lost the rhythm. Smoothly she switched her sword from hand to hand, lunging and cutting as swiftly and accurately with the left as with the right. Her face was a mask of concentration and determination. Her performance was a thing of high skill and great beauty, and there was no mistaking the power in the slender arms that wielded the heavy blade. She made it whisper and sing a song of deadly menace as she moved through the exercises. At the end she stopped as still as an ivory statue, balancing in full extension and holding her sword as though it were made of gossamer, not heavy metal.