Desert God (33 page)

Armoured legions marched in battle array across the high temple walls. Chariots wheeled and charged in storms of dust. Flights of arrows filled the skies. Cities burned and hordes of refugees fled before the rampaging armies. Weeping women held up their dead children, and pleaded for mercy from the conquerors. Great warships with rams of burnished bronze stove in the sides of lesser craft and hurled their crews into a sea already strewn with floating wreckage and corpses. Above the battlefield the goddess flew, pointing at the victors and condemning the vanquished.

‘War, love and sex …’ Phat Tur turned slowly, pointing to the other walls and then bending backwards to draw my attention to the arched and vaulted ceiling fifty cubits above us. ‘No other temple that I have ever heard of contains such a display of erotic and venereal art.’

I followed the sweep of his arms. Wherever I looked were graphic depictions of spurting men and gushing women locked in wanton embrace; or of some god with monstrous genitalia buried deeply in one of the bodily orifices of a goddess. Floating on a sea of steaming sperm and feminine ejaculants, the participants were eternally frozen in their voluptuous contortions.

Over all of them hovered Ishtar on shining white wings, her lovely head encircled in a nimbus of fire, exhorting them to ever greater abandon.

Phat Tur and I circled the nave slowly, marvelling at the imagination of the apocryphal two hundred artists who had laboured twenty years to conjure up these monumental works.

At intervals along each wall of the nave were large cubicles or booths. I counted fourteen of these adjuncts: seven on each side of the nave. We were unable to see into the doorways of these compartments because they were jammed with humanity, both men and women staring with fascination into the recesses beyond. I knew that Phat Tur was waiting for me to ask the question as to what was taking place within, but I declined to abandon my dignity. At last he spoke to our green-robed guide, and the priest led us to the nearest stall and with his staff fell upon the idlers who were crowded in the entrance, urging them in a loud voice to: ‘Make way for the honoured guests of King Nimrod!’ With sullen expressions and muttered protests the crowd opened for us and closed behind us again when we reached the front rank. From there we had an uninterrupted view into the interior of the stall.

Placed around the walls of the circular inner room were mattresses covered with woven woollen blankets in bright colours.

‘Fourteen compartments each with fourteen women on fourteen beds. Fourteen is the magical number of the goddess Ishtar to whom all this frantic activity is dedicated,’ Phat Tur explained gleefully. I knew he was a devotee of the goddess Hathor, and that he had scant respect for any other deity.

I peered into the chamber and counted the women to check his statement. His numbers were correct. However, none of the fourteen females on display were particularly attractive. Most of them were past even middle age, and a few of them were downright repulsive. I remarked on this to Phat Tur, and he agreed readily with my opinion.

‘King Nimrod has already made his choice of all the young and pretty ones. He has skimmed the cream from the jug, and picked the ripest cherries from the bough. These sorry creatures that remain are his rejects.’

I switched my attention back to the women in the room. Five of these were sitting cross-legged, each on her own mattress. They were all wearing crowns of red roses on their heads. This was their only clothing; otherwise they were naked. They waited patiently, with downcast eyes.

‘The red rose is the flower of the goddess.’ Phat Tur explained their head-dresses.

The remaining nine mattresses were occupied by the women who had discarded their floral crowns and were flagrantly coupling with men who were also in various stages of undress. The men grunted as they lunged into them, and the women under them chanted praises to the goddess as they received and reciprocated their devout ardour in full measure.

With mounting distaste I watched one of the men suddenly arch his back in a paroxysm of ecstasy and with a long shuddering cry topple off the female creature under him. His partner immediately rose to her feet, picked up her robe that lay at the head of the mattress, and pulled it over her head. She paused only to throw the small copper coin that the man must have paid her into his face, and then, weeping silently, she pushed her way through the spellbound crowd in the doorway and ran out into the street beyond the temple gates.

Standing behind me was a sailor. He elbowed me to one side and stepped into the stall. He went to one of the crowned women sitting there.

‘I call upon you to pay your debt to the goddess,’ he challenged her, and he tossed a coin into her lap. She looked up at him dispassionately as he pulled his kilt up above his waist and with his free hand worked his member vigorously into full arousal. His belly was protuberant and covered with a dense carpet of black hair. The woman grimaced as she removed the floral crown from her head and lay back on the mattress, letting her knees fall apart.

I took Phat Tur by the arm and drew him out of the throng of spectators, and then led him firmly towards the temple gates.

The spectacle of sordid little people performing a grotesque parody of something so essentially beautiful inclines me towards melancholy rather than pleasure.

I
spent the afternoon of the following day with Nimrod, after he had returned from his morning devotions in the Temple of Ishtar. The king was attended by his military staff and senior advisers during our deliberations.

Lord Remrem and I were trying to persuade them to pursue the campaign against the Hyksos with more determination and vigour. But once a military machine has lost its direction and momentum, it is extremely difficult to get the wheels turning again.

What it all hinged upon was Nimrod’s lack of funds. The amount that I had paid him for the flotilla of six warships was insignificant when compared to his needs. Despite the fact that he had bled his citizens white with taxation, Nimrod had not been able to pay his army and navy for almost two years. Their weapons, chariots and other equipment were in ruinous condition. His remaining troops were on the verge of mutiny.

For Pharaoh and our very Egypt the situation was teetering on the brink of catastrophe. If Sumeria failed us then our entire eastern front would be exposed. Somehow I had to find a way to bail King Nimrod out of his predicament. Not for his sake, but for our own national survival.

I had calculated that King Nimrod needed a minimum of thirty lakhs of silver for Sumeria to become once more a military force of any consequence.

The crisis that I had to avert was double-pronged. Nimrod was the one prong and, although I hated to admit it, my own beloved Pharaoh was the second prong. Nimrod was destitute; while Memnon Tamose was wallowing in an ocean of silver. Nimrod had grown resigned to his state of penury, while Pharaoh was a newly rich skinflint. He was sitting on a fabulous treasure of almost six hundred lakhs of silver. It meant nothing that I alone and almost unaided had won that treasure for him. The treasure was his, but I knew my Mem so very well. I had raised him from early childhood and taught him everything he knew. I had taught him that silver is bitter hard to win and ridiculously easy to spend. Now somehow I had to make him unlearn my lesson. I had to get him to part with thirty lakhs of silver and give it to a man whom he did not know and did not trust. I was not at all certain that I trusted Nimrod myself. However, I knew that we had no choice. We had to trust him if our very Egypt was to survive.

After a challenging day spent in the company of King Nimrod and his staff, I retired to my own quarters early that evening. I dined alone on a single ripe fig and a little cheese and hard bread, for I had no appetite. Of course, I poured myself a few drops of wine, but the first sip tasted like raw vinegar. I pushed the goblet away and concentrated my mind on composing a message to Mem; a message that I must fit on to a scrap of light parchment that a pigeon could carry back to Thebes for me, a message which must convince Pharaoh Tamose to commit an act which he would consider to be abysmal folly.

Many hours later I had discarded my sixth draft of the message, and I was desperate. Bear in mind that I am a man who deals in words, but still I could not find the words which would convince Pharaoh. I knew that I had failed before I had even begun. I straightened my cramped legs and stood up from my writing table. I crossed to the doorway that led out on to the terrace. I looked up at the new moon and saw by its height that it was well past midnight.

While I watched, a cloud no larger than my hand drifted across the moon and plunged the world around me into darkness. I thought that loss of the moonlight must surely intensify my distress. But miraculously it had completely the opposite effect on my mood. I felt a sense of deep calm come over me, displacing the despair which had gripped me the moment before.

Then I heard a voice call my name. It was a quiet voice but clear as the piping of a thrush at the first light of dawn; so clear that I looked around me to find who had spoken. I was alone.

Suddenly the solution to my predicament presented itself to me full-blown. I wondered how I could have hesitated.

I held the hawk seal. I held all the powers of Pharaoh in my one hand. I knew that to rescue my country from disaster and my Pharaoh from ruin I must exert those powers. Even if my actions ran contrary to Pharaoh’s will; even if they invoked his fury.

As I made the decision, I wondered from where and from whom guidance had come. The solution was so alien to my deeply ingrained loyalties and creed of behaviour that I realized, with a pious sense of awe, that the decision had not been mine alone.

The little cloud that had shrouded the moon passed on and once again the soft lunar light burst forth to bathe the midnight world. It glowed on the marble walls of Ishtar’s temple.

The hooded lady was there on the terrace opposite where I stood, exactly where I had last seen her. As before, the hood of her silver-grey robe covered her face. I knew then from whence my inspiration had come.

I wanted desperately to see her face again. In some miraculous fashion she sensed my need. With a toss of her head she threw the hood back over her shoulders and her features were revealed. Her face was paler than the moonlight that played on it. She was lovelier than I remembered, more beautiful than anything I had ever seen or imagined.

I reached out with both my hands towards her across the deep void that divided us. But her expression became remote and sad. She receded from me. She faded away gradually into the night until she was gone, and the moonlight faded with her.

I
n the morning when Phat Tur came to my apartment I was fully dressed and waiting for him. My strength and determination had been bolstered, and I felt supremely confident. I walked through the halls and passages of the palace with such a light and eager step that Lord Remrem, Phat Tur and the rest of my entourage had to hurry to keep up with me.

Nimrod’s throne was empty when we entered the council chamber. However the room was filled with his councillors and military commanders. They stood to welcome me to the long table, and shortly after we had taken our seats the trumpeters outside the main doors sounded a fanfare.

King Nimrod paced into the room in solemn state. My first thought when I saw him this early in the day was that he had foregone his cream-skimming and cherry-picking in the Temple of Ishtar to be with us.

I was conscious of the respect which he was according to me, and this reinforced my confidence in what I was about to do. We went through the observation of royal protocol and then I came to my feet and addressed the king directly.

‘Your Majesty, I have a proposal which is so sensitive and confidential that I would like to restrict it to your royal person and to that of your single most trusted confidant. I give you my assurance that my offer will be very much to our mutual benefit and will go a long way towards resolving the predicament in which we find ourselves at this moment.’

Nimrod was clearly taken aback and for a while he tried to avoid making a decision, but I would not countenance an alternative and at last he yielded to my urgings.

I kept Lord Remrem at my right hand and Phat Tur at my left to translate. Nimrod gestured at Admiral Alorus to remain at the table. Then he dismissed the rest of his staff.

When only the five of us remained in the chamber I removed the hawk seal from the sleeve of my robe and placed it on the table between us.

‘I am sure that Your Majesty is aware of the significance of this token.’

‘Although this is the first time I have actually laid eyes upon it, I understand that this is the hawk seal which confirms that you speak with the voice and authority of Pharaoh Tamose of Egypt.’

‘That is correct, Majesty.’

King Nimrod fastened his cold dark eyes upon me. He said nothing more but waited with the intensity of a leopard at the waterhole sensing the approach of its prey. I regarded him every bit as intently.

‘Your Majesty, you and I both are battle-tempered warriors, with the experience and wisdom to know that wars are won not only with a gallant spirit and a keen blade, but also with the weight of silver we are able to hurl against the foe.’

‘I have never heard it expressed in those terms before, but they are wise words you speak and infused with the truth.’ Nimrod spoke quietly.

‘In the name of Pharaoh Tamose of Egypt and by the authority of the hawk seal which I bear I offer you silver to the weight and value of thirty lakhs on the single condition that you enter into a military alliance with Egypt and that you employ this bounty exclusively on the destruction of King Gorrab and his Hyksos horde.’

I heard Remrem draw breath sharply beside me. He knew that I did not have Pharaoh’s sanction for this offer; and he realized what a risk I was taking. But I did not deign to glance at him. Nimrod rocked back in his throne and he stared at me in silent disbelief. I saw a rash of tiny sweat drops ooze from the skin of his forehead beneath the rim of his crown.