Moses (23 page)

“Why do you hate me so? Have I been cruel to you?”

“No.”

“Did I enslave you?”

“No.”

“I gave you clothes for your back and sandals for your feet.”

“Yes, you gave me that, O Prince of Egypt,” Nun agreed, his voice level, his eyes empty as they regarded Moses.

“And you eat the same rations the free men eat, all the bread you want and meat and fruit when we have fruit. Do I feed you slop and filth, as Kotophar did?”

“You feed me well, O Prince of Egypt.”

“Then do I come between you and your gods, Nun? When you make the serpent of clay and the little figures that the Canaanites worship, do I forbid them? Do I tell you to worship the gods of Egypt?”

Nun smiled without humour and without joy. “I have seen enough of the gods of Egypt. It would not matter what you told me.”

“You are not just a slave,” Moses argued.

“What then?”

“We go up against Kush. We will stand side by side in a chariot and fight side by side—and if such is to be our fate, we'll die side by side.”

“If such is to be out fate, O Prince of Egypt,” Nun shrugged, his smile thin and evil, his eyes narrow, thoughtful and calculating—so that a chill of fear came over Moses, a sense of being trapped beyond help or hope. No more could he say, and still Nun looked at him and smiled—

But a few days later, Hetep-Re said to Moses, “If you will forgive me, O Prince of Egypt, some of us were talking about that slave of yours whom you call Nun, and it is our opinion—for what it is worth—that you would do well to slip a dagger between his ribs and give him to Mother Nile. If the task is distasteful to you, we will gladly see to it for you.”

If Hetep-Re had expected some violent reaction from Moses, he was disappointed; for the prince only studied him long and thoughtfully, and then asked,

“Why?”

“Because if you don't kill him, as surely as the Nile flows, he will kill you the first chance he has.”

Instead of denying this, Moses said, “I will need a driver.”

“Seti-Keph favours you. Ask him for a foot-soldier, and I'll train him to drive a team—just as I trained this one.”

“For what price?” Moses could not forbear asking.

“Now you do me an injustice, O Prince of Egypt,” Hetep-Re replied. “Who spoke of a price? Am I not to be permitted to serve you—or am I to be treated like a dog and kicked every time I come to lick your hand?”

“You are no dog, Hetep-Re,” Moses said tiredly. “I behaved badly. I am sorry.”

“Never apologize to me, godliness. Never, I say. In my small way, I desire to serve you. Only that. Shall I kill him?”

“No,” Moses said.

“You know that he will kill you, O Prince of Egypt.”

Moses nodded indifferently. “I suppose he will try,” he said, and he left it there, turning away from Hetep-Re with the detached and thoughtless arrogance that only a lifetime in the Great House could give an Egyptian of that time, leaving Hetep-Re cursing silently and thinking, “I've warned you—you stupid young sot; and if there weren't some profit to be had out of you yet, I wouldn't have done that.”

[10]

IF ON OCCASION Moses recalled Ramses' light reference to a punitive expedition against Kush, it was hard to balance the reference with the vast force that came together below Karnak. Seeing the masses of footsoldiers, the spears stacked like wheat in a broad field, the herds of horses and donkeys, and the seemingly endless ranks of chariots, Moses tried to comprehend the great campaigns he had read about, where a hundred and fifty thousand men had comprised the army. It was difficult to believe that any army could be larger than this.

The river trip, so slow and changeless, disappeared into his past; and once the chariots and horses had been landed at Abydos, Seti-Keph made it plain that he would brook no further delay. He forced a march for a day and a half to the assembly area, where footsoldiers and supplies had been marshalled for months now; and then, in an angry scene with his captains, denied them the right to a day's pleasure in Karnak. He knew full well that such a day, after the boredom of the long, river journey, could end only in violence between the men of the Delta and the half-hostile nobles of Karnak, and he had no desire to turn his campaign into fratricide before it had even begun. Instead, he laid out a programme of work and organization that would. permit them to begin the march against Kush early the following day.

Moses, with little to do, once he and Nun had seen to the horses, spent the hours before sunset wandering through the encampment of the foot—soldiers, excited at this assembly of so many warriors from so many strange and distant places. He gaped at the golden-haired Achaeans with their splendid beards, their plumed bronze helmets, and their mighty ninefoot spears—and grinned mutely as they crowded around him to examine his iron sword and dagger. He listened to the guttural, consonantal speech of the Babylonians, picking out a word here and there that he could understand, and fingered their fine woollen cloaks, softer than the finest linen and dyed colourfully with stripes of yellow and red and black. When he came to the men of Hatti, they laughed and poked fun at him in their strange tongue, so soft and musical and so different from either Egyptian or Babylonian. From his golden ornaments, they recognized him as noble and they doffed their high, truncated hats to him. With gestures, Moses praised their marvellous laminated bows, and in return, they made him drink a cup of their heavy fig wine. Strangest of all were these carefree men of Hatti, with their tight trousers, their high boots, and their sparkling blue eyes.

So he wandered among the mercenaries of the nations, swaggering a little in the company of soldiers, and tasting the freedom of a young man far from home and bound for adventures at the unknown ends of the earth just before night fell the thin notes of the silver chariot trumpets called the soldiers to their places, and Moses ran to join the press of warriors and drivers around the chariot of one Sokar-Moses, second in command under the Captain of Hosts. A giant of a man, muscled and scarred and barbaric in the dress he affected, heavy gold earrings in the style of the Sea Rovers and a helm of shining silver, he had a voice as thunderous as his appearance; and clapping his hands to make his points, he named the order of march. Hetep-Re—in whose guard was Moses—and a dozen other captains were to lead with their hosts and act as scouts and bodyguards for Seti-Keph if the need should arise, while the remainder of the chariots brought up the rear.

Moses ordered Nun to sleep near the chariot, to which their horses were tethered; and he himself spread his cloak on the warm sand directly behind the chariot. But sleep would not come. All night long, the motion and sound of the camp continued, the muffled tones of men, the heavier tread of horses, and sometimes the hard shout of an officer. Hetep-Re came by once, saw that Moses was awake, and said, “Not every night like this, Prince of Egypt. When we match, they'll treasure sleep and fight for it.” And once, having dozed fitfully, Moses opened his eyes and saw Nun standing by the chariot. “The horses were restless,” Nun said. “I saw to them.” And Moses lay back, his heart tight in the pinch of fear—yet wondering whether Nun could kill a man who slept, kill him in cold blood. He thought not, but they said that you never knew a Bedouin or the blackness in his heart. Moses lay stretched out, looking at the brilliant canopy of stars over his head, recalling how the companions of Amon-Teph studied them and measured them, wondering what they were and what they meant, his fear mixed with the thrill of wonder, the starry heavens turning his young heart and plucking at his dreams. Thus, in the gleaming face of the heavens his fear of Nun was forgotten.

Then the stars began to dull; the black sky greyed itself—and suddenly, the drums beat. So it was that the army came awake, to begin the march upon Kush.

[11]

THEY MARCHED ON the western bank of the Nile, with the river between them and Karnak. The road—packed sand with the larger rocks removed, it was a road by grace of name only—ran for the most part under the desert escarpment; but since the river had not yet reached its full ebb, they would find themselves plodding in mud—when the river canyon narrowed; and then it would be drivers and warriors out to put their shoulders to the wheels of the chariots—and often enough a call back for the footsoldiers to come forward and help the mired chariots. This was the occasion for the hostility between the man on foot and the mounted man, and with the heat and the mud and the swarms of black mud-flies, it was often enough that Sokar-Moses came running to break up a fight with his heavy, undiscriminating bullwhip.

Moses was fortunate, for there were no situations beyond the strength of himself and Nun; yet soon enough he had abandoned his kilt and weapons and harness, and marched naked in a loincloth. They were still below the First Cataract, so they envied the slaves who paddled the little supply boats; but later, the situation would be reversed, and the slaves would toil like beasts in the water, waist-deep, fighting the boats upstream.

The first night, as Hetep-Re had predicted, the tired army slept well and deeply, but as the days wore on, the march became the rhythm and reason of their being—and their bodies hardened to the task. There were stretches where the escarpment narrowed cliff-like over the water, and then ropes were rigged to haul the chariots aloft to the desert, while the horses were led up narrow paths. In other places, the escarpment receded, and the river valley between the cliffs was ten, fifteen and even twenty miles wide; and in such places it was not uncommon for the army to make a march of thirty and even thirty-five miles between dawn and dusk. Here sunset and sunrise took on qualities that Moses had never seen before; there were certain minerals, streaks of quartz and striated rock in the cliffs on the east bank of the Nile that turned them into shimmering walls of beauty each night, such beauty that no slave or foot-soldier could look at unmoved.

Between Karnak and the First Cataract, a matter of two hundred miles as the river flowed, the drab little peasant villages with their plain squat huts of sunbaked mud brick and their hard-working, insular and superstitious peasants became fewer and fewer. When the army was sighted in the distance, the mothers and maidens of the family climbed the escarpment and hid in the desert. The men worked stolidly, clearing their irrigation ditches of the fertile alluvial deposit and preparing their fields for planting, and only the children came to stand open-mouthed and awe-stricken as the army marched by. The once glorious city of Edfu, far south of Karnak, was little more than an abandoned ruin, its still-splendid temples served by priests without worshippers, its population reduced to a dozen landed families—and their slaves; for today more and more of Upper Egypt was perishing as the poor peasants sought better fortune in the Delta country.

The march itself was savage and unrelenting—and it would become more so as Egypt was left to the north. If slave or foot-soldier fell sick or broke a leg or suffered some other disabling injury, he was left behind at the wayside to fare for himself as best he could; but Moses noticed how few fell sick or suffered injury. Their feet developed hide like a bullock's, so that even a whole day with only thin sandals between foot and burning sand did not bother them; their skins tanned to a deep burnished brown, and with the short, measured rations, every man in the army became lean and hard as whipcord. Constantly dehydrated and in need of saline, they ate the dry, tough salt meat and salt fish as if they were the most delectable fruit, and the River Nile gave them all the water they needed. Now the air of Kush blew to them from the south, and they did not lag. Mercenaries, professional soldiers and the dregs of the Delta ports all licked their lips for the still distant reward of the soldier—gold and women.

As they neared the First Cataract, Seti-Keph sent word for Moses to bring his chariot up alongside. This was the first time since the march began at Abydos that Seti-Keph had sent for Moses; but on many occasions Moses had seen his glittering, brass-veneered chariot dash down the column, and every evening he saw the lamps lit in the linen tent, where Seti-Keph and his high captains pored over maps and made their plans for the campaign. Seti-Keph was no bureaucrat in the field; every detail of the army came under his own eye, and if he didn't interfere with the prestige of his captains in their exercise of command and discipline, he nevertheless saw and filed in his memory their methods of command. Day by day, Moses' respect, for the qualities of this strange, hard little man, in whom compassion and brutality were so curiously mixed, increased—and day by day he set more store on the indications of liking that Seti-Keph had expressed for him. Now, he welcomed the invitation as a pleasant break in the monotony of the march, and he felt pleased and honoured as Nun drove the chariot up the column to where Seti-Keph and his staff led. Seeing him approach, Seti-Keph pulled ahead so that Moses could drive alongside him, and then, as the two chariots slowed to a walk that matched the pace of the footsoldiers, the Captain of Hosts cried out good-naturedly,

“A good welcome to you, Moses of the half-name, and how do you like campaigning?”

“I like it well,” Moses grinned.

“Ah, now, and I believe you do, O Prince of Egypt. What would your godly father say if he could see you like this, naked to a loincloth and dirty and muddy as any foot-soldier or porter?”

“He's not my father, Seti-Keph, and I don't give a fig for what he would say. But this is a better life than I've lived until now, I tell you that, sir!”

“Wait until you see blood run before you decide that. Anyway I like the look of you. A soldier dresses as a soldier should. I also like a shaven face. When an Egyptian grows careless in his shaving, I feel something is breaking inside of him. Do you shave each morning, Moses?”

“I do, Seti-Keph.”