Men of Bronze (24 page)

“What is it?” Ujahorresnet said, shading his eyes.

“Pharaoh’s barge, the
Khepri
, and she’ll dock within the hour.” Phanes turned to his men. “Get to your stations!”

Ujahorresnet hastened to stay abreast of the fighting men as they made their way down from the pylon and through the temple. He followed Phanes through the Temple of the Hearing Ear, built by great Ramses, and through a succession of decorative pylons dedicated to a smattering of different pharaohs. Their footfalls echoed about the great hypostyle hall. The noise and movement, the flash of sunlight on bronze, the cool shadows, all gave the priest a disjointed sensation, as if he stood outside his body and watched.

Word of the
Khepri ‘s
approach had circulated through the ranks. All around the temple enclosure, soldiers hurried to take up their positions. A squire hustled to Phanes’ side bearing his helmet and shield. The general caught up his helmet by its white horsehair crest.

“Any word from the scouts?”

The squire shook his head. “No word, sire.”

Silence fell over the temple precinct.

Phanes stopped and glanced around. Save for a single squad, a guard of honor, his men had faded into the shadows of the first pylon, called the Gate of the Dawn; they were ready to charge the quay at Phanes’ command. Nicias, he could barely discern, along with scores of hoplites, crouched down behind the row of sphinxes leading to the quay. All was in readiness.

“You are fond of tales and stories,” Ujahorresnet said. “My own misfortune reminds me of the Tale of the Doomed Prince. Perhaps you could apply its lesson to your own situation.”

“Enlighten me, priest.”

“The prince was a son of a Pharaoh from antiquity, an ambitious man who lusted after his father’s throne. This prince tried everything he could to remove his sire, from assassins in the night to fomenting uprisings among client-kings, all to no avail. At his wit’s end, the prince begged and pleaded with the demonic Apophis. The Great Serpent heard the young man’s cries and sent a cobra to do what had to be done. His father dead, the prince gained his throne.”

“An encouraging tale,” Phanes said, accepting his shield from the squire. The silvered Medusa head flashed in the sun.

“There is more to it. You see, even though he had attained his dream, this prince-turned-Pharaoh could not enjoy his triumph. He could not sleep without seeing his father’s poison-wracked face. He could not eat for fear of assassination. He could not trust for fear of betrayal. Be careful what you wish for, general. The reality of power is never as sweet as the dream of it.”

In the red haze of dawn, a horseman thundered through the northern suburbs of Memphis. He was a scout, dusty and haggard, his leather corselet streaked with blood. The narrow road he traveled widened into a tiled court with carefully manicured trees and a stone-curbed pool of water lilies. To the right lay a sheltered colonnade that led to a complex of buildings attached to the temple of Thoth; to the left, an avenue of hard-packed dirt wound down to the Nile’s edge; straight ahead, obelisks rose above the trees, marking the northern entrance to the temple of Sokar. The air smelled faintly of hyacinth.

The horseman reined in, unsure of his bearings. A solitary soldier, lounging near the pool, looked up, frowning.

“What word do you bring, brother?” the soldier said. He looked foreign, though he wore the bronze cuirass of a hoplite ranker, a line grunt; the bruises on his face bore silent witness to the brutality of their training.

The scout leapt from his horse. “T-the army!” he huffed. “Has it marched out yet? Quick, man!”

The soldier bolted upright. “Scarcely a half-hour gone, why?”

The scout cursed. “Their infantry landed a few miles north, a heavily reinforced regiment shored up by elements of the Calasirian Guard! Their vanguard engaged us north of Saqqara. I fought clear and hurried back with word.”

“They’ll be cut to ribbons!” the soldier said, fingering the hilt of his knife.

“That’ll be the right of it,” the scout nodded, kneeling at the pool’s edge and scooping up handfuls of water. “That’s why I have to warn them! See to my horse, friend,” the scout said. He looked askance at the powerfully built soldier. “I must …”

Fingers like iron clamped around the back of the scout’s neck. “You should have stayed and died with your mates, boy-fucker!” the soldier, Barca, hissed. The scout had time for a sharp intake of breath before Barca’s knife smashed through his heart.

The Phoenician eased the corpse to the ground.

Callisthenes and a handful of men crept out of hiding. “That was close,” the Greek whispered. Barca nodded, lost in thought.

Their numbers had swelled since acquiring Callisthenes’ aid. Another ten men had joined their cause. Ten farmers and one frightened Greek merchant. This smacked of suicide. Still, for the folk of Memphis to have any chance of aiding their Pharaoh, they had to have weapons beyond crude spears and hunting knives. Phanes had emptied the White Citadel of troops, sending half out to engage the chariots while the rest remained inside Ptah’s temple, supported by two companies of peltasts along the perimeter. These peltasts were the Phoenician’s target. They were mercenaries, archers and slingers, provincials from the Aegean who were only lightly armored and marginally trained. Barca knew if his Egyptians hit them hard enough, they would crack like sun-dried plaster.

And, the key to hitting them hard enough lay in weaponry. Javelins, swords, perhaps bows and arrows would do the trick. As for armor, Barca doubted they would find anything useful except for bucklers of hippopotamus hide. Body armor was out of the question. Each Greek cared for his own breastplate and helmet, or had a squire look after it for him.

With weapons, more Egyptians would follow. He had sent Amenmose, Hekaib, and Ibebi to spread the word, albeit quietly, and Jauharah to gather what medical supplies she could. Once the fight was joined, Egyptian casualties would be catastrophic. Still, it was the best he could hope for.

“The weapons are kept in there,” Callisthenes hissed, pointing through the colonnade. Barca spotted a squat building sitting off by itself, across a grassy square littered with stone blocks. High windows pierced the sides of the supposed armory, and the door looked ancient, its bronze bindings green with verdigris. “My father’s hired man was a scribe here. Before he died, he told me how the old Pharaohs had kept a spare weapons dump near the northern entrance of Sokar’s temple.”

Barca led his raiders through the colonnade. The precinct was a scriptorium, a scribal college where young men trained to serve the god Thoth and, by extension, Pharaoh. Here, the builders of Memphis chose function over ornamentation; mud brick walls plastered and whitewashed, decorated with simple scenes of scribes and officials. The dominant symbol was that of Thoth, baboon-god of wisdom. Painted hieroglyphs related the saga of man’s quest for knowledge and offered prayers for Thoth’s renewed patronage.

“Get in there quickly,” Barca told his companions. “But quietly. Phanes has Egyptian allies, too. No need to draw undue attention to ourselves. Stick to the shadows and keep your wits about you and we’ll get out of this with our hides intact. Any questions?” The Egyptians stared at him, their eyes glassy with fear. “Good. Let’s go.”

Thothmes led the way, keeping low to the ground, running with a long, loping stride that reminded Barca of a jackal; next came Callisthenes, the merchant sweating like a man going to his execution. One by one, the others followed, with Barca bringing up the rear.

The thick door stymied them.

“Locked,” Callisthenes whispered. The merchant rolled his eyes in terror.

“I can pick it,” Thothmes said. The others disagreed.

Barca snatched a sledge from a stonecutter named Khety and smashed the door open with a single explosive blow. “Grab everything you can and get out,” he said as the echo of splintering wood faded away.

Inside, dust swirled through the thin morning light seeping down from the high windows. Bronze swords stood ready for battle, rank after rank of spears stretched back into darkness. Bow staves and sheaves of arrows flanked a heap of round wood and leather shields bearing the
shenu
, the namerings, of Wahibre Psammetichus, first of the Saite kings. The Egyptians laughed among themselves as they scattered and looted the armory.

The place was a gift from the gods. The desiccated air of Egypt kept the wood unwarped, the bronze free of tarnish, the leather safe from rot. From a rack along the wall Barca selected a sword, long and straight with two edges of finely honed iron. Ivory and lapis lazuli adorned the hilt. It was a princely weapon, easily worth a year’s wages. The Phoenician looked around in wonder. How had all this material gone unclaimed through the years?

Callisthenes, following in his wake, picked up on Barca’s unspoken question. “It’s said that before the first Psammetichus became Pharaoh, he was but a prince of Sais and Memphis. During that time he built dozens of these armories and hid them from the prying eyes of his Assyrian overlord, Ashurbanipal. Most were looted through the years for this war or that, but this cache was forgotten, hidden by the priests of Thoth.” Callisthenes selected a sword not unlike Barca’s. “You think he knew?”

“Who?”

“The old Pharaoh. You think he knew that, in time, Egypt would again be beset by foreigners?”

“If he did, I doubt he would have welcomed the Greeks with such open arms.” The words came before Barca could think about it, a knee-jerk response to a long-cherished hatred. He regretted every last syllable.

Barca’s scorn struck Callisthenes like the blow of a mace. He turned away, his face downcast. “My people are a scourge! All my kinsmen ever did for Egypt was abuse her people and lust after her wealth. Every man, woman, and child of Hellas should be put to the sword before our blight spreads any farther!”

“Not all of you.” Barca clapped the smaller man on the shoulder. “You are not like those others, Callisthenes. You, I would call a friend.”

Callisthenes nodded, not trusting words for fear they would be rendered incoherent with emotion. He was spared answering by a commotion outside the armory.

“Barca!” Thothmes called, his voice quivering with trepidation. “Come, quick!”

The Phoenician scowled and darted past Callisthenes. Outside, the sun had risen above the surrounding buildings, flooding the scriptorium with bright yellow light. Barca shaded his eyes.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he grunted.

They were surrounded by dozens of Egyptians. More waited beyond the colonnade. Tradesmen, merchants, field workers, scribes, priests … every strata of Memphite culture was represented: rich and poor, learned and ignorant, pious and profane.

Barca drove his sword point-first into the ground.

One of the men stepped forward, a captain in the temple guard by his crisp white kilt and gold-scaled corselet. “I am Pentu, and my brothers and I have come to aid you, Phoenician. Last eve the Greek seized the leaders of our temples as his hostages and slew the First Servant of Ptah to drive home his point. We could do nothing to thwart Inyotef’s murder, but we can avenge him.”

A ripple of consternation went through Barca’s raiders. Inyotef? Murdered?

Another voice raised in anger. This from a man whose stained clothing marked him as a brick maker. “My sister died in the Greek’s ambush of your Medjay. Me and mine are with you, too!” The same tale echoed from every throat, from men fed up with Greek atrocities. Whole families stood ready: fathers and sons, nephews and brothers; from fresh-faced boys to gnarled grandfathers.

It was the rebellion Barca had hoped for.

“This will not be like the travesty in the Square,” Barca said. “This will be true battle. It will be savage and ugly; you will hear things and see things that will stay with you till your dying day, provided you live through this one.”

“We understand,” Pentu said. “This is our home. We will fight to defend it.”

“Make no mistake, most of you will die.”

Pentu smiled mirthlessly. “We are Egyptian, my friend. We die better than most men live.”