Still Nefer could not speak. He felt nauseated by what Taita had suggested. Surely no living person could make that climb and survive. Taita understood what he was feeling and did not insist on a reply.
'I think ...' Hesitantly Nefer started to refuse, then fell silent and stared at the pair of young birds in the nest. He knew that this was his destiny. One of them was his godbird, and this was the only way to achieve the crown of his fathers. To turn away now was to deny everything for which the gods had chosen him. He must go.
Taita sensed the moment when the boy beside him accepted the task and thus became a man. He rejoiced deep in his heart, for this also was his destiny.
'I will make the attempt,' Nefer said simply, and rose to his feet. 'Let us go down and prepare ourselves.'
--
The next morning they left their rudimentary camp and started upwards while it was still dark. Somehow Taita was able to place his feet on a path that even Nefer's young eyes could not discern. Each of them carried a heavy coil of rope, plaited from linen and horsehair and used to tether the horses. They had also brought one of the small waterskins: Taita had warned that it would be hot on the pinnacle once the sun reached its height.
By the time they had worked their way round to the far side of the eastern pinnacle the light had strengthened and they could see the face above them. Taita spent an hour surveying the route up it. At last he was satisfied. 'In the name of great Horus, the all-powerful, let us begin,' he said, and made the sign of the god's wounded eye. Then he led Nefer back to the point he had chosen from which to begin the ascent.
'I will lead the way,' he told the boy, as he knotted one end of the rope around his waist. 'Pay out the rope as I go. Watch what I do, and when I call you, tie it to yourself and follow me. If you slip I will hold you.'
At first Nefer climbed cautiously, following the route that Taita had taken, his expression set and his knuckles white with tension as he fastened on each hold. Taita murmured encouragement from above, and the boy's confidence grew with each move upwards. He reached Taita's side and grinned at him. 'That was easy.'
'It will grow harder,' Taita assured him drily, and led up the next pitch of rock. This time Nefer was scampering behind him like a monkey, chattering with excitement and enjoyment. They stood below a chimney in the rock face that tapered near the top into a narrow crack.
'This is like the climb you will have to make down to the nest when we reach the top. Watch how I wedge my hands and feet into the crack.' Taita stepped up into the chimney and went up slowly but without pause. When the chimney narrowed he kept on steadily, like a man climbing a ladder. His kilts flapped about his skinny old legs, and Nefer could see up under the linen to the grotesque scar where his manhood had been cut away. Nefer had seen it before, and grown so accustomed to it that the terrible mutilation no longer appalled him.
Taita called to him from above, and this time Nefer danced up the rock, falling naturally into the rhythm of the ascent.
Why should it not be so? Taita tried to keep his pride within reasonable bounds. In his veins runs the blood of warriors and great athletes. Then he smiled and his eyes sparkled as though he were young again. And he has had me to teach him - of course he excels.
The sun was only halfway up the sky when at last they stood together on the summit of the eastern peak. 'We will rest awhile here.' Taita took the waterskin from his shoulder and sank down.
'I am not tired, Tata.'
'Nevertheless, we will rest.' Taita passed him the skin and watched as he gulped down a dozen mouthfuls. 'The descent to the nest will be more difficult,' he said, when Nefer stopped for breath. 'There will be nobody to show you the way, and there is one place where you cannot see your feet when the rock leans away from you.'
'I will be all right, Tata.'
'If the gods allow,' Taita agreed, and turned away his head as if to admire the glory of mountain, sea and desert spread below them but in fact so that the boy would not see his lips move as he prayed. 'Spread your wings over him, mighty Horus, for this is the one you have chosen. Cherish him, my mistress Lostris, who has become a goddess, for this is the fruit of your womb and the blood of your blood. Turn your hand from him, foul Seth, and touch him not, for you cannot prevail against those who protect this child.' He sighed as he reconsidered the wisdom of challenging the god of darkness and chaos, then softened his admonition with a small bribe: 'Pass him by, good Seth, and I will sacrifice an ox to you in your temple at Abydos when next I pass that way.'
He stood up. 'It is time to make the attempt.'
He led the way across the summit and stood on the far lip, looking down at the campsite and the grazing horses, which were rendered tiny as new-born mice by the drop. The female falcon was in flight, circling out over the gorge. He thought there was something unusual in her behaviour, particularly when she uttered a strange, forlorn cry, such as he had never before heard from a royal falcon. There was no sign of her mate, though he searched the heavens for him.
Then he lowered his eyes and looked across the abyss at the main peak of the mountain and the ledge on which they had stood the previous day. This enabled him to orientate himself, for the bulge of the rock face under him hid the nest from sight. He moved slowly along the lip until he found the beginning of the crack, which he recognized as the one that ran down and opened into the cleft in which the falcons had built their nest.
He picked up a loose pebble and dropped it over the edge. It clattered as it dropped down the wall and out of sight. He hoped that it might alarm the tiercel off the nest and so confirm its exact position, but there was still no sign of it. Only the female bird continued her aimless circles and uttered her strange, lonely cries.
Taita called Nefer to him and tied the end of the rope around his waist. He checked the knot carefully and then, an inch at a time, drew the full length of the rope through his fingers, checking for any frayed or weakened spot. 'You have the saddlebag to carry the fledgling.' He checked the knot with which Nefer had secured it over his shoulder so that it would not hamper his movements on the climb.
'Stop fussing so, Tata. My father says that sometimes you are like an old woman.'
'Your father should show more respect. I wiped his arse when he was a mewling infant, just as I wiped yours.' Taita sniffed, and again checked the knot at the boy's waist, delaying the fateful moment. But Nefer walked to the edge and stood straight-backed above the drop without any sign of hesitation.
'Are you ready?' He looked over his shoulder, and smiled with a flash of white teeth and a sparkle of his dark green eyes. Those eyes reminded Taita so vividly of Queen Lostris. With a pang he thought Nefer even more comely than his father had been at the same age.
