with bows unstrung, the battalions of slingers singing their marching songs in the barbaric language of the western islands. Next they passed the long lines of the horses of the remount division, twenty to a string, being led behind the fodder wagons and the water carts. Mintaka marvelled at the numbers: it did not seem possible that there were so many animals in all Egypt.
The soldiers looked at the two women, and not even their shoddy dress or the voluminous shawls wound around their heads could hide their youth and grace from such discerning eyes. They called suggestive compliments and lewd invitations as they passed, but the discipline of their officers and the stern presence of Lok and Lokka kept them from any further advances.
That evening they kept on travelling after the main army had encamped and after sunset they came upon a large zareba of poles and thornbushes just off the road. This had been set up in an easily defended defile of low hills. The entrance was heavily guarded, and there was much activity around it, the marching and counter-marching of the sentries, the scurrying of servants and orderlies, and the coming and going of chariots driven by officers of the Red. Above the gate of the stockade flew the gonfalon that Mintaka recognized at once: on it was depicted the severed head of a wild boar with its tongue lolling from the corner of its tusked jaws.
'This is the man we are looking for,' Mintaka whispered to Merykara.
'But how do we get in to see him?' Merykara asked doubtfully, eyeing the sentries.
They made their own rudimentary camp a little further down the road, but within sight of the gates of the regimental headquarters of General Prenn, centurion of the Red, and the commander of the rearguard of the pharaonic army.
From one of the leather saddlebags Mintaka brought out the precious oil lamp that had so far survived the journey, and by its light she wrote a short message on a scrap of papyrus parchment. It was addressed to 'Uncle Bear' and signed 'from your little cricket'.
The two women washed the dust from their faces, dressed each other's hair, and shook out their chitons. Then, hand in hand to give each other courage, they approached the gate of the stockade. The sergeant of the guard saw them coming and stepped out in front of them to head them off. 'Come now, you two juicy pieces of prong bait. You know better than to come flaunting your joy-clefts hereabouts. Get away with you.'
'You look like a kind and good man,' Mintaka told him primly. 'Would you allow any ruffian to talk to your own daughters in that coarse fashion?'
The sergeant checked, and gawked at her. She spoke the Hyksos language in the cultured tones and accent of the aristocracy. He lifted his lantern and shone the light upon them. Their dress was common, but their features made him draw breath sharply. These were clearly young women of high rank. In fact their faces were disturbingly familiar, even though he could not immediately place them.
'Forgive me, ladies,' he mumbled. 'Mistook you for-' He broke off, and Mintaka smiled graciously.
'Of course, you are forgiven. Will you deliver a message for us to Centurion Prenn?' She proffered the rolled parchment.
The sergeant hesitated a moment before he took it. 'I am sorry but I will have to ask you to wait here until I have an instruction from him.'
He came hurrying back within a very short time. 'My ladies! I am desolated to have kept you waiting. Please follow me.'
He led them to a pavilion of coloured linen in the centre of the stockade, and there was another short delay as he whispered to the junior officer in charge of the entrance. Then they were led through into the tent. The interior was sparsely furnished and the floor was covered by animal skins, oryx, zebra and leopard. On these a man was sitting cross-legged with maps and scrolls spread about him, and a wooden platter on his lap containing grilled ribs and a lump of dhurra bread. He looked up as the girls entered. His face was gaunt, his cheeks sunken, and even the ribbons in his beard could not disguise the fact that it was more grey than black. A leather patch covered one eye. He scowled at them.
'Uncle Tonka!' Mintaka stepped into the lamplight and threw back her head shawl. The man came to his feet slowly and stared at her. Then suddenly he grinned, and his single eye gleamed. 'I did not think it possible!' He embraced her and lifted her off her feet. 'I heard that you had deserted us and gone over to the enemy.'
When he put her down again and she had partially recovered from this display of affection, she gasped, 'That's what I have come to speak to you about, Uncle Tonka.'
'Who is this with you?' He glanced at Merykara, then blinked his one good eye. 'By Seth's foul breath, I know you.'
'It's the Princess Merykara,' Mintaka told him.
'Naja's runaway wife. He will be pleased to have you back.' Prenn chuckled. 'Have the two of you eaten?' Then, without waiting for a reply, he shouted to his servants to bring more meat and bread and wine. The two girls covered their faces again while they were served, but once the servants had gone Mintaka sat close to Prenn, on the side of his good ear, and dropped her voice so that they could not be overheard by a listener outside the tent walls.
He heard her out silently, but his expression changed as she described to him in detail the events of that terrible night when her father and all her brothers had died in the burning galley on the river at Balasfura. Mintaka thought she saw a tear gleam in the corner of his eye as she went on, but she knew that such a show of weakness was not possible in a centurion of the Red. Prenn turned away his face and when he looked back at her the tear was gone and she knew she had been mistaken.
When at last she finished speaking Prenn said simply, 'I loved your father, almost as much as I love you, little cricket, but what you are proposing is treason.' He was silent a while longer and then he sighed. 'All this I will have to think on. But in the meantime, you can't return whence you came. It is much too risky. You must stay under my care, both of you, until this affair is resolved.'
When they protested, he overrode them brusquely. 'It is not a request. It is an order.' He thought a moment. 'I will have you disguised as a pair of my pretty boys. That will cause little comment, for all my men know that I enjoy a slice of rump almost as much as a cut of breast.'
'Can I at least send a message to Nefer Seti?' Mintaka pleaded.
'That also is too great a risk. Have patience. It will not be for long. Naja is poised on the heights of the Khatmia. Within days he will begin the march on Ismailiya. The battle will be decided before the full moon of Osiris begins to wane.' His voice dropped to a growl. 'And I will be forced to a decision.'
