The New Kingdom, page 17
‘Speak,’ he said, as if he could read Hui’s mind.
‘I think a great deal about my sister, Ipwet,’ Hui began, ‘and about the life she is living in Lahun.’
Fareed had pieced together enough fragments to know Hui had fled his home under a cloud, but he’d never asked any questions.
‘You worry about her?’
‘She has no one to care for her,’ he said, as all his long-held fears rushed out. ‘No husband. No father to find her a husband. Her mother . . . Her brother . . . They will never look after her. She is not like them.’
My mother would kill her in an instant if the mood took her, he thought.
Fareed nodded. ‘You feel you have abandoned her to this fate?’
‘Yes! I thought only of myself. And she was ever selfless in helping me . . .’ His words trailed away.
‘Would she have come with you if you had asked her?’
‘No.’
‘Could you have stayed to care for her?’
‘No.’
‘Then why are you beating yourself around the head? Do you like to punish yourself? Do you enjoy misery?’
‘I want her to be well. Safe.’
‘Then you are a good brother. And one day you will find a way to make sure she is cared for, yes?’
‘Soon, Fareed. I must get back to her soon.’
‘Did you not learn your lesson?’
‘I must find a way.’ Hui paused. ‘Will you come with me?’
‘I am not a fool.’
‘If I find a way that is safe, will you come?’
Fareed didn’t reply.
‘I am growing better with the sword and the bow by the day. I train hard. I learn my lessons well. I will be able to protect us on any road I travel. And there will be rewards aplenty when we get to Lahun. Riches will have flowed to the city during my time away.’
Hui told Fareed of the Ka Stone, and how he had found it and brought it to Lahun. With any luck Lord Bakari would have taken it far away from Isetnofret’s grasp by now, but it still should have enriched his home as his father had imagined.
When he finished his tale, Fareed snorted.
‘The power of the gods,’ he sneered. ‘I have heard tell of these rocks that fall from the heavens. They have power, yes, but it is this – when they are heated in hot coals, a silver metal flows from them which can be shaped into unbreakable weapons.’
Hui shook his head. ‘Not this stone, my friend. Everyone who saw it has felt the gods touch them.’
Fareed snorted again.
‘But that is neither here nor there,’ Hui continued. ‘I am promising you riches beyond your wildest dreams. Will you join me?’
Fareed eyed him for a long moment and then walked away without giving an answer.
Twenty-nine days later, Khyan gathered his men. They squatted in a circle as he prowled around them, his voice rumbling. Hui couldn’t understand what the captain was saying, but Fareed had taken some time to learn the Hyksos tongue.
‘The man who rode into camp at dawn had orders from the Hyksos king,’ the desert wanderer translated. ‘The plans that have been long-flowering are coming to fruition.’
‘What plans?’
‘We are to attack a turquoise mine to capture supplies before the next orders to invade Egypt. The Hyksos have been pushing deeper into Egypt. They have kept their grand scheme a secret for a long time, but soon they will be ready to make their move.’ Fareed cocked his head, listening.
‘Surely they wouldn’t risk an invasion of Egypt. However good their bows and chariots are, they do not have the numbers . . . do they?’ Hui said hesitantly.
‘There are war bands like this across the Sinai and deep into Egypt. When they come together, are there enough to defeat the army that waits for them?’ He shrugged. ‘Egypt is divided. The rival pharaohs stare down their swords at each other in the Upper and Lower Kingdoms. And divided powers are weak.’
‘But even if the Hyksos won every battle, how could they keep control of so proud a people as the Egyptians?’ Hui asked.
‘In my experience, people want a quiet life. They will do anything to get it, as long as there is food in their belly.’ He jabbed his staff towards the east. ‘They have shown us time and again how they rule, with only small numbers. When the Hyksos conquer a city, they raise up those from amongst the vanquished who will do their bidding. Seeing their own in positions of power, the citizens go about their business as before. But the Hyksos are the true rulers, deciding what laws should be, what taxes or tributes should be paid.’
‘That could never happen in Egypt. Egyptians are too proud.’
Fareed didn’t reply. Hui watched Khyan pounding his fist into the palm of his hand, and remembered his brother talking about making common cause with the Hyksos in Lahun. To prevent bloodshed, Qen had said.
Now Hui dreaded what waited for him in his home.
‘You see it?’ Khyan barked.
The captain stood in his chariot and pointed through the heat haze. He was speaking to Fareed, who had led the way along one of the habiru tracks to the turquoise mine in the west of the Sinai, but Hui heard and squinted ahead. A column of smoke was twisting up from the featureless plain in the distance. The Hyksos’ eyes were better than his, used as they were to traversing this land where distant-sight made the difference between life and death. But even he could now smell the acrid hints on the breeze.
‘That is where the mine lies,’ Fareed replied.
The captain tapped a long finger on the board of his chariot as he weighed his choice. Finally, he raised one hand and snapped it forward. The war band trundled on. He’d expected Khyan to order an attack, but his suspicions had made him cautious. As the chariots and riders moved on, Hui jogged alongside them, sweating in the heat.
When the outlines of mine buildings were clear in the brassy light, the captain brought the war band to a halt. He watched the line of black smoke rising, and he listened. Someone at the mine must surely have seen the cloud of dust rolling across the flat land. But there were no cries of alarm, no shouts of panic.
Khyan reached a decision. Holding his hand aloft, he waited for a moment and then tilted his head back and bellowed a furious command. As one, the war band heaved forward. The air boomed with the battle cry of the warriors, and the ground throbbed. Hui choked from the billowing dust and lost sight of the attacking band, but he felt his heart thunder in response. He imagined the terror that must strike in the hearts of those witnessing a Hyksos attack. The speed of those chariots hurtling towards them, faster than the wind. The pounding of the mighty horses. Those blood-curdling war cries. Scimitars whirling like bands of light above every man’s head.
Into the thick cloud he raced, with the other grooms running beside him, pulling his scarf across his mouth against the ochre dust. Soon, the battle cries died away and the ground grew still. He was sure something disastrous had happened to the barbarians.
The wind whisked the dust away, and then Hui was staring at the war band, which had ground to a halt on the edge of the mine. Their swords had fallen to their sides, as those seasoned warriors observed something which Hui could not see. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd.
On the edge of the rubble-strewn mine compound stood a mound of heads.
On the ground, the blood had baked dry in the sun. The eyes had been pecked away and strips of flesh dangled from the skulls where the desert birds had torn at their meal. But the bones were far from picked clean. The atrocity had only happened perhaps a day before.
‘Shrikes!’ Fareed’s voice rang out through the still air.
Hui looked from the grisly display to Khyan’s darkening face. Everyone knew that if the bandits had raided the mine, there would be slim pickings for the barbarians.
The captain pointed from left to right, and the warriors fanned out across the compound, swords drawn in case any resistance remained. Hui’s thoughts returned to that night in the Shrike camp in the hills when he had stolen the Ka Stone, and he felt acid burn his throat. He couldn’t imagine which would have been a worse fate – attacked by the barbarians or the bandits.
Several low mud-brick buildings simmered in the heat. All around, vast holes in the rough ground gaped, as if giant worms had burrowed out of the desert depths. Wooden cranes creaked over the voids, used for lowering the miners into the dusty depths and raising buckets of the precious turquoise to the surface. Hui eased to the edge of one excavation and peered in. It was a bell-pit. The labourers had dug down with their shovels and picks, and then out as far as they dared go, propping up the overhang with columns of mud bricks.
As Hui’s eyes grew accustomed to the gloom at the foot of the shaft, he could make out ghostly shapes: the headless corpses of the miners who had been tossed into the dark where they had lived their lives and now walked in death.
A hand dropped on his shoulder and he cried out, almost losing his balance. Fareed tugged him back.
‘Pray that we do not linger here too long,’ the desert wanderer breathed. ‘Once word gets out that the turquoise trade has been disrupted, the army will be here soon enough.’
Hui stepped back from the open grave. The dry air was filled with the drone of fat flies. He watched the barbarians stalk around the compound, investigating the offices and the stores. Khyan’s face was like thunder as he observed their failure. What now for the Hyksos’ rapidly depleting supplies?
From the drag marks in the dust, the Shrikes seemed to have hauled off as much of the precious turquoise as they could carry, along with the miners’ food provisions. The translucent stone was adored by the members of the pharaoh’s court, Hui knew, as much for its magical ability to ward off evil spirits and bad luck as for its great beauty. Every necklace that adorned the nobles’ necks was a silent prayer to Hathor, the Mistress of Turquoise. She was also supposed to watch over the miners who laboured here, little good though it had done them. But the Shrikes would be able to barter their fabulous bounty for riches beyond measure, and enough bread and beer to keep their bellies full from one flooding of the Nile to the next.
Hui looked to where Khyan was standing. Something had caught his eye – a movement deep in the shadows beneath the timber.
A muscular man was crawling out of a hiding place, his naked body covered in white dust. As he emerged, he cowered like a cornered animal, wild eyes filled with madness born of the terrible things he had witnessed. He grasped a copper knife and when he saw Khyan, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a feral snarl.
Hui was crying out even as his feet flew across the hard ground. As the captain jerked round at the noise, the crazed miner lunged. With a desperate leap, Hui slammed into the attacker just as the glittering blade slashed towards Khyan’s back.
Limbs tangling, the two men crashed down in a cloud of dust. The miner thrashed beneath Hui as if he were having a fit, but then Hui felt hands lift him off. Scimitars pointed towards the downed man’s chest, but the madness consumed him and he seemed determined to continue fighting despite the risk to his life. Khyan grunted, and three of his men dragged the miner to the edge of a pit and tossed him in before Hui could protest. A scream spiralled through the air and ended in a crunch of bones, and then silence.
Khyan barked an order and his warriors returned to the chariots and the horses. The captain placed a hand on Hui’s shoulder.
‘You showed courage, and foresight,’ Khyan said, ‘and it seems I now owe you my life. I pay my debts, Little Rat. There will be a reward for you tonight.’
The war band made their way across the wastes and into the foothills, where camp was made beside a green pond in a narrow valley with a clear view of the approach. Once Khyan had dispatched the sentries and the warriors were busying themselves erecting their tents and building the campfire, he beckoned to Hui. They circled the camp to where the horses grazed and the rows of chariots gleamed in the low sun.
Hui saw one stallion was still yoked, though the leather armour had been stripped from its flanks by the waiting groom. Khyan climbed into the wheeled vehicle and beckoned to Hui. Once he’d jumped onto the chariot, he gripped the board at the front as if he might suddenly fly high in the sky.
‘There is no better time to ride than when the sun is setting,’ the captain said. ‘The air is cool and the wind on your face is soothing. Are you ready?’
Hui nodded.
Khyan grasped two long leather thongs attached to the horse’s neck and head and tugged.
‘These are the reins,’ he said. ‘By exerting pressure, it is possible to guide the horse this way and that, or to speed up or slow down.’
With a flick of his wrist, the captain signalled to the stallion and the horse heaved forward, the chariot moving as smoothly as if it were on the waters of the Nile. Hui cried out, gripping the board so tight his knuckles whitened.
‘Enjoy this moment, Little Rat. You will never know its like again – your first ride in a chariot.’
Down the steep track from the camp, they trundled, along one of the many constantly used routes criss-crossing the high land, worn flat by feet and hooves and carts, and perfect for the Hyksos chaiots. They wound around jagged outcroppings and wind-blasted trees until they straightened on to the flat plain. Khyan released a whooping, high-pitched cry that ended with several clicks of his tongue. He snapped the reins hard and the stallion thundered forward at such speed that Hui was almost thrown off the back.
Holding on for dear life, Hui screwed his eyes shut tight. He might well have been howling like a babe torn from its mother’s breast, but the pounding of the hooves and the whine of the wind in his ears swallowed all other sound.
At first he felt cold terror. Surely no man should ever move this fast? But then he felt the tingle of exhilaration and he dared open his eyes again. Khyan was grinning, lost to the euphoria of his ride, his right hand cracking a leather whip to urge the stallion to go faster still.
They surged across the plain and, with a twist of the reins, Khyan guided the horse in a wide arc to head back the way they had come. Hui felt disappointment that this magical journey was soon to be over, but Khyan had been right – he would never forget it.
Once they’d trotted back into camp and the captain had handed over the stallion to the groom, Hui said, ‘You have my thanks.’
Khyan grinned. ‘There is no better feeling, is that not right? You will dream of flying tonight.’
Hui nodded, but for all the joy of the experience, he knew he had also learned another lesson in the ways of being a warrior.
In the days that followed, the captain allowed Hui to ride the chariot time and again, teaching his raw recruit the skills he had acquired over years as a charioteer.
‘You learn well,’ Khyan said. ‘Perhaps you have Hyksos blood in you after all. I have seen you practising with a sword and bow. We may make a warrior of you yet.’
‘Teach me to ride, then,’ Hui said. ‘With these skills, I will be of value to you in days yet to come.’
Khyan tweaked his beard in thought. Giving no response, he walked away. But later a sour-faced Uthan led Moon over.
‘If you break your neck, it is your own fault,’ he grunted.
Hui felt his hands trembling as the gruff warrior heaved him onto Moon’s back. Sweat prickled his skin and his heart pounded. It was unnatural to be on such a beast. He felt the power beneath him, throbbing in the muscles as he held on for dear life.
But Moon seemed pleased to have him there. The horse tossed its mane and all but danced on the spot.
Uthan muttered some simple directions and then slapped Moon’s flank. The horse cantered away. Hui felt as if he was flying; a moment later he was – off the steed’s back. He crashed onto the hard ground, winding himself.
At least Uthan didn’t laugh. Hui suspected Khyan had given strict instructions.
‘Again!’ Uthan barked.
Four more times Hui dragged himself onto Moon’s back. Four times he dashed himself upon the ground. But he felt his confidence growing with each failure. Determination burned inside him. Everything he could learn here amongst the Hyksos would help him when he finally returned to Lahun.
After the fifth time, Khyan strode over.
‘Every bruise is a lesson,’ he said. ‘Praise them. Soon you will have the knowledge you desire.’
One morning, after Hui had finally managed to remain on Moon’s back, the captain pointed towards the chariot.
Hui narrowed his eyes. ‘Alone?’
‘You have earned it. Let us see if this little rat has what it takes to be a Hyksos charioteer.’
Hui clambered onto the back of the chariot. He gave the reins a flick and the horse tossed its mane in response. Within moments, the chariot was gliding out of the camp. Sweat slicked Hui’s brow as he gripped the leather thongs, but soon he relaxed into the ride. His turns were awkward, the horse did not always respond as he wanted, but he felt a rush of exhilaration.
When he brought the chariot back, he climbed from the platform and accepted the captain’s nod.
‘Should a chariot ever come free,’ Khyan said, ‘you will fight alongside us, eh?’
Ten warm nights drifted by, and Hui could almost imagine the hardships he’d endured in Lahun were little more than a dream and he’d been reborn into a new life. He was growing stronger, harder, more skilled in the ways that would help him take vengeance on his father’s murderer.
On the eleventh night, he was stirred from sleep by the sound of hooves along the rocky track into the camp. Moon, his constant companion, was framed against the starry sky, and the air smelled of woodsmoke from the dying fire.
He glimpsed shadows stirring from tents and lumbering towards the fire’s red embers. The barbarians were gathering.
At this hour, the sight was rare enough that Hui’s curiosity was piqued. He crept towards the campfire. Khyan stood in the circle of warriors with a tall, hawk-faced man Hui didn’t recognize, no doubt the one who had just arrived in the camp. Despite the hour, the fighting men were alert – eyes bright, faces turned towards the captain as they waited to hear what he had to say.
