He leaned across and clasped my shoulder with a grip that made me wince. 'You have done enough here, old friend. I could never have accomplished so much without you. If you had not come to find me, I might still be sodden with drink and lying in the embrace of some stinking whore. I owe you more than I can ever repay, but I must send you away now. You are needed elsewhere. Basti is my meat, and I don't need you to share the feast with me. You will not be coming with me to Gebel-Umm-Bahari. I am sending you back where you belong?where I also belong, but where I cannot be?at the side of the Lady Lostris. I envy you, old friend, I would give up my hope of immortality to be going to her in your place.'
I protested most prettily, of course. I swore that all I wanted was another chance at those villains, and that I was his companion and that I would be seriously aggrieved if he would not give me a place at his side in the next campaign. All the time I was secure in the knowledge that when Tanus set his mind on a course of action he was adamant and could not easily be dissuaded, except very occasionally by his friend and adviser, Taita the slave.
The truth was that I had enjoyed my fill of wild heroics and people trying to kill me. I was not by nature a soldier, not some insensitive clod of a trooper. I hated the rigours of campaigning in the desert. I could not bear another week of heat and sweat and flies without even a glimpse of the sweet green waters of Mother Nile. I longed for the feel of clean linen against my freshly bathed and anointed skin. I missed my mistress more than I could express in mere words. Our quiet, civilized life in the painted rooms on the Island Of Elephantine, our music and long, leisurely conversations together, my pets and my scrolls, all these exerted an irresistible draw upon me.
Tanus was right, he no longer needed me, and my place was with my mistress. However, to acquiesce too readily to his orders might lower his opinion of me, and I did not want that either.
At last I allowed him to convince me, and, concealing my eagerness, I began my preparations for my return to Elephantine.
TANUS HAD ORDERED KRATAS BACK TO Karnak, to assemble and bring up reinforcements for the expedition into the desert of Gebel-Umm-Bahari. I was to travel under his protection as far as Karnak, but taking leave of Tanus was not a simple matter. Twice when I had already left the house of Tiamat to join Kratas where he waited for me on the outskirts of the town, Tanus called me back to give me another message to take to my mistress.
'Tell her that I think of her every hour of every day!' 'You have already given me that message,' I protested. 'Tell her that my dreams are filled with images of her lovely face.'
'And that one also. I can recite them by heart. Give me something new,' I pleaded.
'Tell her that I believe the vision of the Mazes, that in a few short years we will be together?'
'Kratas is waiting for me. If you keep me here, how can I deliver your message?'
'Tell her that everything I do is for her. Every breath I draw is for her?' he broke off, and embraced me. 'The truth is, Taita, I doubt I can live another day without her.'
'Five years will pass like that single day. When next you meet her, your honour will be restored and you will once more stand high in the land. She can only love you the more for that.'
He released me. 'Take good care of her until I am able to assume that joyous duty from you. Now, away vyjth you. Speed to her side.'
"That has been my intention this hour past,' I told him wryly, and made good my escape.
With Kratas at the head of our small detachment, we made the journey to Karnak in under a week. Fearful of discovery by Rasfer or Lord Intef, I spent as little time in my beloved city as it took me to find passage on one of the barges heading southwards. I left Kratas busily recruiting from amongst the elite regiments of Pharaoh's guards the thousand good men that Tanus had demanded, and I went aboard the barge.
We had the north wind in our sails all the way, and we tied up at the wharf of East Elephantine twelve days after leaving Thebes. I was still dressed in the wig and garb of the priesthood, and nobody recognized me as I came ashore.
For the price of a small copper ring I hired a felucca to take me across the river to the royal island, and it put me down at the steps that led up to the water-gate to our garden in the harem. My heart pounded against my ribs as I bounded up the stairs. I had been away from my mistress far too long. It was at times such as these that I realized the full strength of my feelings for her. I was certain that Tanus' love was but a light river breeze in comparison to the khamsin of my own emotions.
One of Lostris' Cushite maidens met me at the gate, and tried to prevent me from entering. 'My mistress is unwell, priest. There is another doctor with her at this moment. She will not see you.'
'She will see me,' I told her, and stripped off my wig.
'Taita!? she squealed, and fell to her knees, frantically making the sign to ward off evil. 'You are dead. This is not you, but some evil apparition from beyond the grave.'
I brushed her aside and hurried to my mistress's private quarters, to be met at the doors by one of those priests of Osiris who consider themselves physicians.
'What are you doing here?' I demanded of him, appalled that one of these quacks had been anywhere near my mistress. Before he could answer, I bellowed at him, 'Out! Get out of here! Take your spells and charms and filthy potions, and don't come back.'
He looked as though he were prepared to argue, but I placed my hand between his shoulder-blades and gave him a running start towards the gate. Then I rushed to my mistress's bedside.
The odour of sickness filled the chamber, sour and strong, and a wild grief seized me as I looked down at the Lady Lostris. She seemed to have shrunk in size, and her skin was pale as the ashes of an old camp-fire. She was asleep or in a coma, I could not be certain which, but there were dark, bruised shadows beneath her closed eyelids. Her lips had that dry and crusty look that filled me with dread.
I drew back the linen sheet that covered her and beneath it she was naked. I stared in horror at her body. The flesh had melted off her. Her limbs were thin as sticks and her ribs and the bones of her pelvis stuck out through the unhealthy skin, like those of drought-stricken kine. Tenderly, I placed my hand in her armpit to feel for the heat of fever, but her skin was cool. What kind of disease was this, I fretted. I had not encountered any like it before.
Without leaving her side, I yelled for her slave girls, but none of them had the courage to face the ghost of Taita. In the end I had to storm into their quarters and drag one of them whimpering from under her bed.
'What have you done to your mistress to bring her to this pass?' I kicked her fat backside to focus her attention on my question, and she whined and covered her face, so as not to have to look upon me.
'She will not eat. Barely a mouthful in all these weeks. Not since the mummy of Tanus, Lord Harrab was laid in his tomb in the Valley of the Nobles. She has even lost the child of Pharaoh that she was carrying in her womb. Spare me, kind ghost, I have done you no harm.'
I stared down at her in bewilderment for a moment, until I realized what had happened. My message of comfort to the Lady Lostris had never been delivered. Intuitively I guessed that the messenger whom Kratas had dispatched from Luxor to carry my letter to my mistress, had never reached Elephantine. He had probably become one more victim of the Shrikes, just another corpse floating down the river with an empty purse and a gaping wound in his throat. I hoped that my letter had fallen into the hands of some illiterate thief, and not been taken to Akh-Seth. There was no time to worry about that now.
I rushed back to my mistress's side and fell on my knees beside her bed. 'My darling,' I whispered, and stroked her haggard brow. 'It is me, Taita, your slave.'