Men of Bronze (21 page)

The afternoon sun shimmered on the surface of the Nile, reflecting the light a thousand times over. A stiff northerly wind belled the sails of Pharaoh’s barge, the
Khepri
, sending her prow slicing through the water like a wedge through sand. Sailors, naked save for leather loincloths, scurried about the deck of the ship, moving with a rhythm that suggested brachiating monkeys rather than men.

The
Khepri
was a massive vessel, well over two hundred feet long, a monument to the extraordinary skill of Pharaoh’s Phoenician shipwrights. Its cedar mast and railings were elaborately carved with images of Pharaoh receiving the blessings of falcon-headed Horus as a cavalcade of gods looked on. Hieroglyphs wove spells of protection around the ship. Statues of the goddesses Neith and Nekhebet, made of precious woods and inlaid with ivory and gold, stood watch over Pharaoh’s path, warning all and sundry that a son of heaven sailed the life-giving waters of the Nile. At the stern of the
Khepri
, under a white linen awning upheld by slender columns of gilded cedar, rested a replica of the Saite throne. Here, Ahmose held court, agitated, surrounded by ministers and advisors.

“I will not sit in the baggage train like a doddering old fool!” Pharaoh said. The awning covering the throne snapped in the wind. “Am I a coward to hide my face from Phanes?”

“No, Great One,” Pasenkhonsu, his senior admiral, wheedled. “But neither can you place your royal life in the van, in the thickest of the fighting. We could be sailing into an ambush, O Pharaoh. You must —”

“You would presume to order me about like a common serf?”

Pasenkhonsu wrung his hands. “No, Great One, a thousand times, no! But, your divine blood is too precious to spill in battle with mere rebels. Please, listen to reason!” The other ministers agreed, adding their assents with the perfect timing of a trained chorus. “Please!”

Ahmose dismissed them with a curt gesture. He turned and watched the landscape pass by, the villages of mud brick, the green fields, the temples and monuments. Men, women, and children flocked to the Nile’s edge, awe-struck at the glimmering splendor of the god-king’s procession. A deep melancholy gripped his soul, as if he stood witness to the ending of an age. His allies were gone, swallowed up by the Persians. Croesus of Lydia. The Chaldean, Nabonidus. Even Polycrates of Samos, once his staunchest ally, had given in to the lure of Cambyses’ gold. Ahmose was alone. Adrift on a sea of foes, all of whom wanted what he had devoted his life to rebuilding. And now, Phanes.

The hero of Sardis. Ahmose remembered that day well, when the combined armies of Egypt, Lydia, Babylon, and Sparta, stood strong against the swarming hordes of Cyrus the Mede. The Plain of Thymbra, before the walls of Sardis, ran red with blood; the slain circled the living like a ring of mountains. His forces alone fought the Persians to a standstill, fought with such fury that Cyrus granted them a separate treaty. His generals awarded the gold of valor to a young mercenary, a hoplite from Halicarnassus, who had waded into the thickest fighting to prevent the Egyptian standard from falling to the Persians.

That young mercenary was Phanes, and Sardis was just the beginning. Year piled upon year; battle upon battle. Phanes’ rise through the ranks had all the hallmarks of a Homeric saga, and his genius at warfare was beyond compare. He was a Hellenic ideal, a living Odysseus. A shame, Ahmose reckoned, that such an auspicious career had to end like this.

Pharaoh looked up and saw Nebmaatra approaching. The Calasirian commander maintained the perfect blend of nonchalance and watchfulness, his frame relaxed, his eyes never still. His hands did not stray far from knife and sword hilts. He stopped at the proscribed distance and bowed. Ahmose motioned him closer.

“I envy your iron nerves, my friend,” Pharaoh said, smiling. “Nothing gets under your hide, does it?”

“Just the opposite, Golden One. Everything gets under my hide. I just disguise it better,” Nebmaatra said. “I’ve heard you plan on fighting in the vanguard.”

Pharaoh’s eyes flickered to Pasenkhonsu, who stood among a knot of his underlings, talking is hushed voices. Ahmose sighed. “Will you counsel me otherwise, too? I am an old man, Nebmaatra. Old and sick. If you live to carry the weight of my years on your back, you will understand why I need one last taste of battle.”

“To die in battle, you mean,” Nebmaatra said.

“If I fall it is Amon’s will. Who am I to declare otherwise?”

Nebmaatra bowed. “And who am I to deny the will of Pharaoh? My Calasirians will fight at your side, Golden One.”

Ahmose pursed his lips. “On another matter, has any word reached you of Petenemheb? His father and I served together in Nubia. Surely, he is not part of this?”

“If Phanes has not disposed of him already, then my guess is he is in collusion with the Greeks. Even if he is not, his silence is suspect, to say the least.”

Ahmose grimaced, looking his age in the afternoon light. He stared off to the west. Nebmaatra felt Pharaoh withdraw into himself, bringing the audience to a close. He bowed and took his leave.

Nebmaatra left the stern of the
Khepri
, descending into the waist of the ship. He closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the thrum of wind in the cordage, to the snap of sails, to the creak of the hull, to the slap of water. Harsh sunlight seared his face. He opened his eyes and stared at the endless buffcolored cliffs and rich green marshlands. He, too, looked to the west.

Squadrons of chariots, the regiment of Amon, kept pace with the ships, raising a pall of dust that could be seen for miles. Behind them, marching at a punishing pace, came columns of infantry — spearmen and archers. The native militia, the
machimoi
, had mustered with uncommon speed, answering Pharaoh’s call to arms. In a few days’ time, Pharaoh’s displeasure with Phanes manifested itself as an army five thousand strong, including five hundred chariots, the Calasirian Guard, and Pasenkhonsu’s river fleet.

Nebmaatra caught sight of Tjemu leaning against the railing, staring at the western bank of the Nile — no, beyond it. Nebmaatra walked to his side.

“Your thoughts are far from here,” he said.

Tjemu started, then ducked his head to spit into the water. “Funny how you sometimes remember things at the most inopportune times.” He nodded off to the southwest. “My home is a week’s ride in that direction, the oasis of Siwa. I have … had … a wife, two sons. I still can recall the smell of her bread as she baked it, the sounds of my boys playing in the dust, the cool taste of freshly drawn water.” He laughed sadly. “Hell, I doubt the lot of them would remember me.”

“Why haven’t you returned?”

“I have, as my wife put it, a restless soul.”

Nebmaatra leaned on the rail beside him. “Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we have this urge to see what lies over the next hill, as if it might be better than the valley we are in? I blame it on Fate.”

Tjemu looked askance at him. “Fate?”

“Yes. Look at how Fate makes one man a farmer, one man a carpenter, and one man a soldier. I envy those men who can take a wife and settle down to till the land, or turn lumps of clay into elegant vases. But, such is not for us, my friend. By some whim of Fate, we are destined to tread the battlefields of the world, in search of that one thing that we each long for.”

“Which is?” Tjemu said.

“Immortality.”

Tjemu laughed. “You sound like a fucking philosopher!”

“But you don’t deny it, do you?”

“No,” Tjemu said. “No, what you say is true. I may die tomorrow, if that’s the gods’ will. It does not concern me greatly if I do. I’ve made my peace with them. What saddens me is knowing that, in a thousand years, no man will remember Tjemu of Siwa. Who will speak my name so I might taste eternity if no one knows I ever drew breath?”

Nebmaatra straightened. “I can offer you no solace, brother, save this: the gods will know what kind of men we were. They will know which man cheated, which man lied; they know which man showed the enemy his back, and they will know which man stood firm and faced his death with courage. So long as the gods remember, I am content.”

They stood in silence as the sun dropped behind the western cliffs, bathing the sky in fiery shades of orange, red, and violet. Purple shadows crept across the Nile. It was the eve of battle; the last sunset many of them would ever see.

It stretched like a long drawn-out sigh into twilight.

The throne room at Memphis was cavernous, a wonderland of granite and gold that could have been hewn from living rock by the hand of a god. Glorious scenes incised and painted on the walls told the tale of Egypt’s antiquity … the peoples conquered, the cities razed, the offerings made to Ptah, Osiris, and Horus. The wavering light of a handful of oil lamps imbued the carvings with life. They danced and flickered in the gloom, reenacting the pageantry of the past in endless cycles: birth to death to rebirth.

There was nothing like this in Halicarnassus, Phanes thought, nothing like this in all of Hellas. My son would …

My son
.

Phanes frowned. He had not thought of his boy in years. Nor would he be a boy any longer. Menander would be over twenty, by now. Probably with a wife and a clutch of brats all his own. He wondered what kind of man his son had turned into. A merchant like his grandsire? Perhaps a politician of Halicarnassus? Whatever he was, Phanes wished him health and long life.

For all his prowess, his genius at slaughter, all Phanes ever truly wanted was to rear his son. But when the Daughters of Themis, the Fates, wove the cloth of his life, the thread that came off the spindle was not earthy as a farmer, or gilded as a merchant. The threads of his life were as red as the blood spattering his arms.

Movement caught Phanes’ eye. He looked up as one of his men escorted Ujahorresnet through a side door. The Greek noticed fading bruises decorating the old priest’s throat.

“I would have thought your sport kept you too busy for social visits,” Phanes said.

“And I thought yours would have left you little time to entertain delusions of grandeur,” the priest replied, indicating the throne Phanes occupied. “Barca has escaped.”

“Leaving you alive? Perhaps your gods
are
greater than mine.” Phanes leaned back in the golden throne, his fingers caressing the armrests. His eyes were glassy, feverish.

“Not without conditions. I must leave Memphis.”

“Must you, now.”

“I felt the need to warn you. The Phoenician will doubtless seek to cause you trouble. Do with Barca what you will. It is no longer my concern.” Ujahorresnet’s shoulders slumped in defeat.

Phanes smiled. “I see. You’ve gleaned a valuable insight, priest. You’ve learned that pride is often the first victim of ambition. Good for you. Unfortunately, you can’t leave the city.”

“You do not understand …” Ujahorresnet began.

“No!” Phanes said. “It’s you who doesn’t understand! Tomorrow, when I remove the double crown from Amasis’ bleeding corpse, I will be king, and it is your king’s will that you remain.”

“You forget yourself, Greek,” Ujahorresnet said, indignation raising his voice a level. “And you forget our bargain.”

“Ah, our bargain … would it not be interesting to see the reaction of the people of Memphis to news of your dealings with the hated Greeks? I imagine they would drag you out in the streets and tear you limb from limb! And what would your fellow priests say?”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Would I not?” Phanes motioned to his door wardens, who opened the doors to the throne room to admit a cortege of shaven-headed, robed men. A squad of his soldiers flanked them, seeming less like a guard of honor than herdsmen. The reaction of the priests was one of almost comical diversity. Some goggled in abject terror at the hoplites. Others maintained a mask of politesse, adopting the air of honored guests. Still others were livid at the Greek’s sacrilege.

“What is the meaning of this?” the eldest of them, Inyotef, high priest of Ptah, snapped.

Ujahorresnet stood rooted to the spot, his face a mask of anger tinged with dread. He glared at the smiling Greek reclining on the throne. “Gentlemen,” Phanes said. “Calm yourselves. I’ve brought you here for a reason …”