--
The following noon the mighty army of Egypt camped below the high plateau where the sandy desert and the dry lands ended. They had almost completed the crossing and tomorrow they would go up through the pass into the cooler lands where the oases were only a day's journey apart, where forests and fields and vineyards grew and mountain streams flowed all year round.
When the escort of the royal wives began to set up camp for the day, they found that the young Queen Merykara was fractious and overbearing, not at all her usual sweet and gracious self. She wanted her own tent set further apart from that of her sister, Queen Heseret, and when this was done she insisted that they move the carts that carried the army war chests down into a narrow wadi two hundred paces from the main encampment. In vain the commander of the guard pointed out that the bed of the wadi was soft and sandy and the wheels of the heavy vehicles would sink in deeply.
'I don't care if they disappear into the sand completely,' she told him. 'I am sick of looking at those ugly carts and listening to the mooing of the bullocks. Get them out of my sight.'
The commander thought of appealing to Pharaoh Naja Kiafan to ratify this unreasonable order from his youngest wife. Then he contemplated the fact that the column was spread out over almost four leagues of desert. It would take an hour of hard riding to reach Pharaoh at it's head, and the return ride would be just as arduous. The day was even hotter than those that had preceded it and, besides, he had a tryst with one of Merykara's slave girls, an enchanting little black Nubian who knew more tricks than a performing monkey. He moved the carts into the wadi bottom and, as a sop to his conscience, doubled the guard upon them.
Having got her own way, Merykara became once again the endearing girl they all loved so well.
'I am so sorry I was hard on you, Moram. It must be this awful heat that affects us all,' she told the commander of the guard sweetly in front of his men. 'I am going to have Misha bring you five jars of the finest beer from my private stores to make it up to you. But be certain that you share it equally with all your men for I have given them extra work and trouble too.'
Misha, the statuesque Nubian maid with an imperious carriage and a legendary pair of buttocks, brought the beer jars to Moram's tent, and the men lined up to receive their share, calling down the gods' blessings on Queen Merykara and toasting her health as they swigged down the first draught of the frothing liquor.
Despite his promise to Merykara, the beer was of such surpassing excellence that Moram drank more than his share. As soon as they were alone in his tent he pounced on Misha who, squealing and resisting playfully, finally allowed him to lift her clothing and unveil her prodigious buttocks. They sprang out from under her short linen skirts, shining black as new mined anthracite, great quivering rounds, dark full moons that overflowed his clutching hands.
In a transport of lust he mounted her, but after less than a dozen mighty thrusts, he keeled over slowly, fast asleep before he reached the floor. Misha stared at him in astonishment. Nothing like this had ever happened to her in all her short but busy lifetime. Moram let out a snore that reverberated like distant thunder, and she sprang to her feet, pulled on her skirt, delivered one furious kick to his sleeping form and stormed out of the tent back to her mistress. The guard at the entrance to the royal tent was also sleeping like a dead man.
'All men are pigs,' Misha said, in her savage native tongue, and kicked him with all the strength of her long and shapely right leg.
--
Nefer led a small party of his men down the dry riverbed. They kept close under the bank, and the soft sand muffled their footsteps.
The four treasure carts were drawn up side by side, and their wheels were chained together so that they could not be driven off in haste by bandits or robbers.
Eight armed men were posted around them as sentries, and every one was laid out on the soft sand like a corpse awaiting the embalmers. Taita went to each in turn, felt for the pulse in the throat then drew back a lid to examine the eye of the unconscious man. Finally he nodded to Nefer, and went to the rear door of the first cart.
He took a long bronze probe from his pouch and worked intently on the massive bronze lock. It fell open and the hasp snapped back. Taita swung open the heavy metal door to reveal the four small cases that were tied down to ringbolts in the wagon bed. The lids of the treasure chests were sealed with a clay tablet that carried the cartouche of Pharaoh Naja Kiafan.
Taita used his dagger blade to lift the seals, and dropped them into his pouch so that they would not be evidence of tampering when next the cart doors were opened. He used the point of the dagger to unscrew the fastenings that held down the lid, then lifted it. The chest was filled with small leather pouches. Taita weighed one in his hand, and smiled. He opened the mouth of the pouch to see the unmistakable glint of the precious metal within.
While he had been busy, Nefer and Meren had dug a shallow hole in the soft sand under the wagon truck. Taita passed down the leather pouch to Nefer, who laid it in the bottom of the hole. In all Taita selected fifty of the heaviest leather bags from the first chest. Then he screwed back the lid. Using a lump of fresh damp clay that he had brought with him he resealed the lid. With the engraved ruby ring that Naja had given him as a gift when he had left Thebes, he imprinted the clay seal with the royal cartouche. Then he went on to the next chest in the row of four.
'We are not taking enough,' Meren grumbled. 'We are leaving more than half of it for Naja and Trok.'
'Greed would be our undoing,' Taita grunted, as he prised up the lid of the last case. 'This way they will not know that any of the bullion is missing until the paymaster opens the cases again and counts it, which may not be for several more months.'
From each case in the four carts they lifted fifty leather bags and buried them in the loose sand of the wadi bed. Though they worked as swiftly as care would allow, the sun was low in the western sky when they resealed the final chest and locked the rear doors of the last cart. One of the sleeping guards stirred and mumbled, and tried to sit up. Taita went to him and laid a gentle hand on his brow. The man sighed and lay back. Taita pulled open his mouth and sprinkled a pinch of white powder under his tongue, and he lay quiet.
'We must hurry now. They are beginning to revive.'
They spread sand over the rows of bags in the bottom of the hole beneath the last wagon, and then roughed and dotted the surface with footprints so that the smooth sand would not be conspicuous.
'How much do you estimate we took?' Nefer asked.
