'It was a trap,' Naja told them urgently. 'The hilltop is alive with the enemy. We must get Pharaoh away to safety.' But he could see by the way the king's head rolled weakly on his shoulders that he was past any help, and Naja's chest swelled with triumph. The blue war crown toppled from Pharaoh's brow and bumped down the path. Naja gathered it up as he ran past, fighting down the temptation to place it on his own head.
'Patience. The time is not yet ripe for that,' he chided himself silently, 'but already Egypt is mine, and all her crowns and pomp and power. I am become this very Egypt. I am become part of the godhead.'
He held the heavy crown protectively under his arm, and aloud he cried, 'Hurry, the enemy is on the path hard behind us. Hurry! The king must not fall into their hands.'
The troops below had heard the wild cries in the dawn, and the regimental surgeon was waiting for them beside the wheel of Pharaoh's chariot. He had been trained by Taita, and though lacking the old man's special magic he was a skilled doctor and might be capable of staunching even such a terrible wound as had pierced Pharaoh's chest. But Lord Naja would not risk having his victim returned to him from the underworld. He ordered the surgeon away brusquely. 'The enemy is hard upon us. There is no time for your quackery now. We must get him back to the safety of our own lines before we are overrun.'
Tenderly he lifted the king from the arms of the men who carried him and laid him on the footplate of his own chariot. He snapped off the shaft of the arrow that protruded from the king's chest and held it aloft so that all his men could see it clearly. This bloody instrument has struck down our Pharaoh. Our god and our king. May Seth damn the Hyksosian pig-swine who fired it, and may he burn in eternal flame for a thousand years.' His men growled in warlike agreement. Carefully Naja wrapped the arrow in a linen cloth, and placed it in the bin on the side wall of the chariot. He would deliver it to the council in Thebes to substantiate his report on Pharaoh's death.
'A good man here to hold Pharaoh,' Naja ordered, Treat him gently.'
While the king's own lance-bearer came forward, Naja unbuckled the sword-belt from around Pharaoh's waist, sheathed the blue sword and carefully stowed it in his own weapons bin.
The lance-bearer jumped on to the footplate and cradled Tamose's head. Fresh bright blood bubbled from the corners of his mouth as the chariot wheeled in a circle then sped back up the dry wadi with the rest of the squadron driving hard to keep up with it. Even though he was supported by the strong arms of his lance-bearer Pharaoh's limp body was jolted cruelly.
Facing forward so that none could see his expression, Naja laughed softly. The sound was covered by the grinding wheels and the crash of the chassis over the small boulders he made no attempt to avoid. They left the wadi and raced on towards the dunes and the natron lakes.
It was mid-morning and the blinding white sun was halfway up the sky before Naja allowed the column to halt and the surgeon to come forward again to examine the king. It did not need his special skills to tell that Pharaoh's spirit had long before left his body and started on its journey to the underworld.
'Pharaoh is dead,' the surgeon said quietly, as he stood up with the royal blood coating his hands to the wrists. A terrible cry of mourning started at the head of the column and ran down its entire length. Naja let them play out their grief then sent for his troop captains.
The state is without a head,' he told them. 'Egypt is in dire peril. Ten of the fastest chariots must take Pharaoh's body back to Thebes with all haste. I shall lead them for it may be that the council will wish me to take up the duties of regent to Prince Nefer.'
He had planted the first seeds and saw by their awed expressions that they had taken root almost immediately. He went on, with a grim, businesslike air that suited the tragic circumstances which had overtaken them, The surgeon must wrap the royal corpse before I take it home to the funeral temple. But in the meantime we must find Prince Nefer. He must be informed of his father's death and of his own succession. This is the single most urgent matter of state, and of my regency.' He had assumed that title smoothly, and no man questioned him or even looked askance. He unrolled a papyrus scroll, a map of the territory from Thebes down to Memphis, and spread it on the dashboard of his chariot. He pored over it. 'You must split up into your troops and scour the countryside for the prince. I believe that Pharaoh sent him into the desert with the eunuch to undertake the rituals of manhood, so we will concentrate our search here, from Gallala where we last saw him towards the south and east.' With the eye for ground of a commander of armies Naja picked out the search area, and ordered a net of chariots to be spread out across the land to bring in the prince.
--
The squadron returned to Gallala with Lord Naja in the van. Next in line came the vehicle carrying the partially embalmed body of Pharaoh. On the shore of the natron lake Waifra, the surgeon, had laid out the royal corpse and made the traditional incision in his left side. Through this he had removed the viscera and internal organs. The contents of the stomach and intestines had been washed in the viscous salt water of the lake. Then all the organs were packed with the white crystals of evaporated natron from the lake edge and stored in pottery wine jars. The king's body cavity was packed with natron salts, then wrapped in linen bindings soaked with the harsh salt. When they reached Thebes he would be taken to his own funerary temple and handed over to the priests and embalmers for the ritual seventy days of preparation for burial. Naja grudged every minute spent upon the road, for he was in desperate haste to return to Thebes before the news of the King's death preceded him. Yet at the gates of the ruined city he took more precious time to instruct the troop captains who were to undertake the search for the prince.
'Sweep all the roads to the east. The eunuch is a wily old bird and will have covered his tracks, but smell him out,' he ordered them. There are villages at the oases of Satam and Lakara. Question the people. You may use the whip and the hot iron to make certain they hide nothing. Search all the secret places of the wilderness. Find the prince and the eunuch. Fail me not, at your peril.'
When at last the captains had refilled their waterskins and were ready to take their divisions out into the desert, he held them with a final order, and they knew from his voice and his ferocious yellow eyes that this was the most fateful order of all, and that to disobey would mean death. 'When you find Prince Nefer, bring him to me. Give him into no other hand but mine.'
There were Nubian scouts with the divisions, black slaves from the wild southlands highly skilled in the art of tracking down men and beasts. They trotted ahead of the chariots as they fanned out into the wilderness, and Lord Naja spent another few precious minutes watching them go. His jubilation was tempered with unease. He knew that the ancient eunuch, Taita, was an adept; that he possessed strange and wonderful powers. If there is one single man who can stop me now, it is he. I wish that I could run them down myself, the eunuch and the brat, rather than send underlings to pit themselves against the Warlock's wiles. But my destiny calls to me from Thebes and I dare not linger.
He ran back to his chariot and seized the reins. 'Onwards!' He gave the command to advance with a clenched fist. 'Onwards to Thebes!'
