My mistress sat before me with Tanus at her side, and watched in fascination as I drank the witches' potion to open the eyes of my soul, my Ka, the little bird-like creature that lives in the heart of every one of us, and which is our alter ego.
I laid the ivory Mazes before them and asked both Queen Lostris and Tanus to stroke and handle them, to endow them with their spirit and the spirit of the nation that they represented, this very Egypt. As I watched them divide the stacks of ivory counters, I felt the drug in my blood grow stronger, and the beat of my heart slowed as the little death crept over me.
I took up the two remaining Mazes from the last stack, and I held them to my breast. They began to grow hot against my skin, and my instinct was to draw back from the darkness that I felt coming over me. Instead, I surrendered to it and let it carry me away.
I heard my mistress's voice, as though from a great distance. 'What will become of the double crown? How can we resist the barbarian?'
The visions began to form before my eyes, and I was carried up into the days that were still to come, and I saw events that had not yet come to pass.
The morning sunlight was streaming through the aperture in the roof and striking the altar of Horus, when at last I returned from the far journey of the Mazes. I was shaken and nauseated with the effect of the hallucinatory drug, giddy and trembling with the memories of the strange sights that I had seen.
My mistress and Tanus had stayed with me during the long night. Their anxious faces were the first things that I saw on my return, but they were still so distorted and wavering that I thought they were part of the vision.
'Taita, are you all right? Speak to us. Tell us what you saw.' My mistress was concerned. She could not hide the guilt she felt at having forced me to enter the Mazes of Ammon-Ra once more.
"There was a serpent.' My voice still echoed strangely in my own ears, as though I stood apart. 'A great green serpent that crawled through the desert.'
I saw the puzzled expression on their faces, but I had not yet considered the meaning of it all myself, so I could give them no guidance.
'I am thirsty,' I whispered. 'My throat is dry and my tongue like a stone covered with moss.'
Tanus fetched a jar of wine and poured it into the bowl for me, and I drank greedily.
Tell us of the serpent,' my mistress demanded, as soon as I lowered the bowl.
'There was no end to its sinuous body, and it shimmered green in the sunlight. It crawled through a strange land, in which lived tall naked men and strange and wonderful beasts.'
'Could you see the head or the tail of the serpent?' my mistress asked, and I shook my head.
'Where were you? Where did you stand?' she insisted. I had forgotten how keenly she enjoyed my visions, and what pleasure she took in interpreting them.
'I was riding upon the back of the serpent,' I answered. 'But I was not alone.'
'Who was with you?'
'You were at my side, mistress, and Memnon with you. Tanus was on my other hand, and the serpent carried us all.'
"The Nile! The serpent was the river,' she cried triumphantly. 'You foresaw voyage that we were making upon the river.'
'Which way?' Tanus demanded. He was as rapt as she was. 'Which way did the river run?'
I made an effort to recall every detail. 'I saw the sun rise on my left hand.'
'South!' he cried.
'Into Africa,' said my mistress.
'At last I saw the heads of the serpent ahead of us. The body of the serpent was bifurcated, and on each branch was a head.'
'Does the Nile have two branches?' my mistress wondered aloud. 'Or is there some deeper meaning to the vision?'
'Let us hear the rest of what Taita has to tell us,' Tanus stopped her speculation. 'Continue, old friend.'
'Then I saw the goddess,' I went on. 'She sat upon a high mountain. Both the heads of the serpent worshipped her.'
My mistress could not restrain herself. 'Which of the goddesses did you see? Oh, tell me quickly who it was.'
'She had the bearded head of a man but the breasts and the pudenda of a woman. From her vagina she spurted out two great streams of water into the open mouths of the double-headed serpent.'
'It is the goddess Hapi, the river god,' Queen Lostris whispered. 'She generates the river within herself, and pours it out to flow through the world.'
'What else did the vision show you?' Tanus demanded.
"The goddess smiled at us, and her face shone with love and benevolence. She spoke in a voice'that was the sound of the wind and the sea. The sound of thunder on the peaks of far-away mountains.'
'What did she say to us?' Queen Lostris asked in awe.
'She said, "Let my child come to me. I will make her strong so that she will prevail and my people will not perish in the face of the barbarian." * I repeated the words that still beat like a drum in my head.
'I am the child of the river goddess,' said my mistress simply. 'At birth I was dedicated to her. Now she summons me, and I must go to the place where she dwells at the end of the Nile.'
'This is the same voyage that Taita and I contemplated once before,' Tanus mused. 'And now the goddess commands it. We cannot refuse her.'
'Yes, we must go, but we will come back,' my mistress vowed. 'This is my land, this very Egypt. This is my city, this beautiful Thebes of the hundred gates. I cannot leave them for ever. I will return to Thebes. This I swear and I call upon the goddess Hapi to witness my oath. We shall return!'
THE DECISION TO FLY TO THE SOUTH, UP above the cataracts into the wild and unexplored land beyond, was one that Tanus and I had made once before. The first time had been to escape the wrath and vengeance of Pharaoh. Now we were flying from an even more merciless foe. It was almost as though the gods were determined that we should undertake this voyage, and that they would not be denied.
There was little time for us to make our preparations for such a fateful departure. The Hyksos were coming down on us from two directions, and our pickets reported that their cohorts would be in view from the roof of the Palace of Memnon within three days at the very latest.
Tanus placed Kratas in charge of half his available force and sent him to meet King Salitis who was driving hard from Asyut in the north and was likely to be the first column to reach the necropolis and the palace. Kratas had orders to fight a running battle. Using the staves and defending every fortified position, he was to delay Salitis as long as was possible, without risking being cut off or overwhelmed. When he could hold them no longer, he was to evacuate his men on to the galleys.
Tanus himself took the other half of our army and moved south to fight another delaying battle against the Hyksos division coming at us from Esna.
While they were thus engaged, my mistress was to embark our people and all their possessions aboard the remaining ships of our fleet. My mistress delegated this duty to Lord Merkeset, but of course she made me his assistant. Lord Merkeset was not ®nly well into his dotage, but had recently taken to himself a sixteen-year-old wife. He was not, therefore, of much use either to himself or to me. The entire planning and execution of the evacuation fell squarely on my shoulders.
However, before I could turn my mind to this, I had to take care of my horses. Even at this early stage I realized with stark clarity that they were the key to our survival as a, nation and a civilized people. With those animals that we had captured at Esna, we now had several thousand in our herd. I split this herd into four parts so that they could more readily find grazing on the march. Further, the smaller herds would throw up less dust, and it would be easier for them to avoid the Hyksos scouts.