The panic spread through the crowd and it surged forward mindlessly. Women were crushed against the stone gates, and children were trampled under foot. All order and control were breaking down, decent and dignified citizens and disciplined soldiers were being reduced to a desperate mob struggling for survival.
I had to use the sharpened stave I carried to force a way through them, as Tanus and I fought our way back towards the palace. At last we broke out of the crowd and ran to the palace gates.
The halls and corridors were empty and deserted except for a few looters who were picking through the empty rooms. They ran when they saw Tanus. He was a dreadful sight, gaunt and dusty and battle-worn, with a ruddy stubble of beard covering his jaw. Ahead of me, he burst into the private quarters of the queen, and we found her chamber unguarded and the door standing wide. We rushed through it.
My mistress sat alone on the terrace under the spreading vine, with Prince Memnon on her lap. She was pointing out to him the fleet of ships on the Nile below the terrace, and the two of them were enthusing over the spectacle.
'Look at the pretty ships.'
Queen Lostris stood up smiling when she saw us, and Memnon slid off her lap and ran to Tanus.
Tanus swung him up on to his shoulder, and then embraced my mistress with his free hand.
'Where are your slaves? Where are Aton and Lord Merseket?' Tanus demanded.
'I sent them to the ships.'
'Taita says that you refused to go yourself. He is very angry with you, and rightly so.'
'Forgive me, dear Taita.' Her smile could light my life, or break my heart.
'Rather beg the forgiveness of King Salitis,' I suggested stiffly. 'He will be here soon enough.' I seized her arm. 'Now that this rude soldier of yours has at last arrived, can we please go to the ships?'
We hurried from the terrace and back through the palace corridors. We were entirely alone, even the looters and the thieves had disappeared like rats into their holes. The only one of us who was completely unconcerned was Prince Memnon. For him it was another jolly game. Sitting astride Tanus' shoulders, he dug in his heels and shouted, 'Hi up!' as he had learned from me when we were riding Patience.
We raced across the palace gardens to the stone staircase that led up on to the causeway. That was the shortest way to the temple dock. As we hurried along the causeway, I realized that circumstances had changed drastically in the time that had passed since we had left to fetch my mistress and the prince from the palace. Ahead of us the causeway was deserted, the last of the refugees had gone on board the ships in the dock. Beyond the stone battlements I could see their masts moving slowly down the canal towards the open river.
With a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, I realized that we were the last persons left ashore, and that we still had half a mile to cover before we reached the empty dock. All of us stopped together, and watched the last galleys sail away.
'I told the captain to wait,' I groaned, 'but with the Hyksos so close, their only concern is with then1 own safety.'
'What can we do now?' my mistress breathed, and even Memnon's happy cries dried up.
'If we can reach the river-bank, surely Remrem or Kratas will see us and send in a skiff to pick us up?' I suggested, and Tanus agreed immediately.
'This way! Follow me!' he cried. 'Taita, see to your mistress.'
I took her arm to help her along, but she was as strong and agile as a shepherd boy and ran easily at my side. Then suddenly I heard the horses, and the squeal of chariot wheels. The sounds were unmistakable and terrifyingly near at hand.
Our own horses had left three days ago, and must be well on their way to Elephantine by this time. Our own chariots were dismantled and loaded in the holds of the departing fleet. The chariots I heard now were still out of sight below the wall of the causeway, but we knew to whom they belonged.
'The Hyksos!' I said softly, and we stopped in a tight little group. 'It must be one of their advance scouting parties.'
'It sounds like only two or three of their chariots,' Tanus agreed, 'but that is enough. We are cut off.'
'It seems that we have left it a little late,' said my mistress with a calmness that I knew was feigned, and she looked at Tanus and myself with complete trust. 'What do you suggest now?'
Her effrontery flabbergasted me. Her obstinacy was entirely responsible for our predicament. If she had followed my urging we would all of us have been on the Breath of Horus and making our way up-river to Elephantine by this time.
Tanus held up his hand for silence, and we stood and listened to the sounds of the enemy chariots driving along the pathway at the foot of the wall. The closer they came, the more certain it became that this was only a small advance party.
Suddenly the sounds of turning wheels stopped, and we heard the horses blowing and stamping, then men's voices speaking a harsh and guttural tongue. They were just below us, and Tanus made another urgent signal for silence. Prince Memnon was not accustomed to restraint, nor to keeping the peace against his inclinations. He also had heard and recognized the sounds.
'Horses!' he shouted in his usual high and ringing tones. 'I want to see the horses.'
There was an instant outcry. Hyksos voices shouted orders, and weapons rattled in their scabbards. Then heavy footfalls pounded upon the stone staircase as a party of the enemy came dashing up on to the causeway.
Their tall helmets appeared above the stone balustrade just ahead of us, and then the rest of them came into view. There were five of them in a body and they rushed up at us with drawn swords, big men with fish-scale shirts of mail and brightly coloured ribbons in their beards. But one of them was taller than the rest. I did not recognize him at first, for he had grown a beard and decorated it with ribbons in the Hyksos fashion, and the visor of his helmet hid half his face. Then he shouted in that voice that I would never forget, 'So it's you, young Harrab! I killed the old dog, and now I will kill his puppy!'
I should have known that Lord Intef would be the very first of them to come sniffing like a hungry hyena after Phar-aoh's treasure. He must have raced ahead of the main Hyksos division to be the first into the funerary temple. Despite his boast, he did not rush to meet Tanus, but waved the band of Hyksos charioteers forward to do the job for him.
Tanus swept Prince Memnon from his shoulders and tossed him to me as though he were a doll.
'Run!' he ordered. 'I will buy you a little time here.' He rushed the Hyksos while they were still bunched on the staircase and had no room to wield their swords. He killed the first one cleanly, with that thrust through the throat which he always performed so skilfully.
'Don't stand there gawking,' he shouted over his shoulder. 'Run!*
I was not gawking, but with the child clutched to my chest, I knew how futile was his command. Burdened as I was, I would never reach the river-bank.
I stepped to the parapet of the causeway and glanced over. There were two Hyksos chariots parked directly below me, with the horses blowing and stamping in the traces. Only one man had been left to hold them, while his companions rushed up the staircase. He stood at the heads of the two teams and his whole attention was fixed on his charges. He had not seen me on the causeway above his head.
Still clutching Memnon, I threw my legs over the parapet and pushed myself outwards. The prince shrieked with alarm as we dropped. From the top of the causeway to where the Hyksos charioteer stood was four times the height of a tall man. I might easily have broken a leg in the fall, except that I landed neatly on the unsuspecting Hyksos's head. The impact broke his neck; clearly I heard the vertebrae snap, and he crumpled under us, breaking our fall.
I scrambled to my feet, with Memnon howling in outrage at this rough treatment, but there was more of it to follow. I dropped him into the cockpit of the nearest chariot and looked up at my mistress. She was peeping over the parapet high above me.