The vicious combat continued until the western horizon was stained with the blood-red glow of evening. Then commands went out for the Egyptians to fall back, when exhaustion had sapped them of all that it could.
28
Memphis awaited news of the Sinai campaign — with a confident calm, due to the overwhelming trust she had in the great nation's army, and her overweening contempt for the marauding Bedouin tribes. Yet great hearts still feared for the fate of those fighting on Egypt's behalf.
Among them was the mighty monarch of the Nile, who, in his old age, had turned toward wisdom as he continued to compose, from the inkwell of his soul, his immortal message to his beloved people. Another was Zaya, consumed by pain, tormented by dread, and haunted by insomnia. And there was another heart, which had not before known the meaning of agony or the bitter taste of terror. This belonged to Princess Meresankh, whom the gods had endowed with the most splendid beauty on earth, and with the most pleasing opulence and comfort, rendering the most magnificent of all human hearts subservient to her affection. The gods went so far as to hold her harmless from the powers of nature: the cold of winter did not sting her, the heat of summer did not sear her; the wind from the South did not fall upon her, nor did the rain from the North. All the while she had continued to sport and play until her heart was touched by love, as the newborn infant's fingertips are first touched by flame. Burned by the fire, she opened her breast to its torture, and its humiliation.
Her condition was noted by her handmaidens, and by her servant Nay in particular. One day Nay said to her, as she observed her with a fearful, worried eye, “Did you sigh, My Mistress? What then, would one do, if they were not one to whom the gods and the pharaohs pay heed? Are you kneeling down to beg and plead? But to whom, then, can we do the same? You're lowering your eyes, My Mistress? But for whom was your haughtiness made?”
Yet the princess's dream held no room for her servant's banter. During those long, empty, difficult days, all she thought of was her own plight. If she had been able, she would have wanted to keep to what she said to her sweetheart — that she would not leave the palace until she heard the horns blowing the call of his triumphant return. Yet she found herself yearning to visit the palace of her brother, the heir apparent, to pay a heartfelt tribute to the place where her love used to meet her whenever she came.
When the crown prince received her, he did not conceal feelings that she had not known of before. These were his discontent over the king's policies, to the point that he told her angrily, “Our father is becoming senile very quickly.”
She looked at him with disbelief. “True,” Khafra continued, “he has preserved his physical health and the sharpness of his mind. Yet his heart is getting old and feeble. Don't you see that he's turning his back on state policy, distracted — in both his heart and his mind — by meditation and compassion? He spends his precious time writing! Where is this found among the duties of the powerful ruler?”
“Compassion, like power, is among the virtues of the perfect sovereign,” she replied with irritation.
“My father did not teach me this saying, Meresankh,” he answered sarcastically. “Instead, he taught me immortal examples of the monuments of creative power, the most majestic of works. He utilized the nation of believers to build his pyramid, to move mountains and to tame the recalcitrant rocks. He roared like the marauding lion, and hearts dropped down submissively in horror and fright, and souls approached him, out of obedience — or from hate. He would kill whomever he pleased. That was my father, whom I miss, and whom I do not find. I see nothing but that old man who passes all but a few nights in his burial chamber, pondering and dictating. That old man who avoids war, and who feels for his soldiers as though they were made for something other than fighting.”
“Do not speak of Pharaoh this way, O Prince,” said Meresankh. “Our father served our homeland in the days when he was strong. And he will go on serving it doubly so — with his wisdom.”
Yet not all her visits to the prince's palace — were spent in conversations like this one. For, when twenty days had passed since the Egyptian army's departure, she found the heir apparent pleased and happy. As she looked at him, she saw the tough features soften briefly with a smile, and her heart fluttered, her thoughts flying away to her distant sweetheart.
“What's behind this, O Your Highness?” she asked her brother.
“The wonderful news has reached me that our army has won some outstanding victories,” he said. “Soon they will take the enemy's fortress.”
She cried out to him, “Do you have more of this happy news to tell me?”
“The messenger says that our soldiers advanced behind their shields until they came to within an arm's length of the wall — on which it was impossible for the tribesmen to appear without being hit. And so our arrows brought many of them down.”
This was the happiest news she had heard from her brother in her life. She left the prince's palace headed for the Temple of Ptah, and prayed to the mighty lord that the army would be victorious and her sweetheart safe. She remained deeply immersed in prayer for a long time, in the way that only lovers know. But as she returned to Pharaoh's palace, unease crept into her heart — whose patience diminished the closer she came to its goal.
29
The egyptian troops had gotten so close to the fortress's wall that they could touch it with the tips of their spears. Faced by marksmen all around, each time a man appeared on it, they would sight him — with their bows — and fell him. There was no means left for the enemy but to throw rocks down upon them, or to hunt — with their arrows anyone — who tried to scale the wall. Things remained in this state for a time, each side lying in — wait for his adversary. Then at dawn on the twenty-fifth day of siege, Djedef issued his order to the archers to make a general attack. They broke into two groups: one to watch the wall, and the other to advance bearing wooden ladders, protected by their great shields, and armed with bows and arrows. They leaned their ladders against the wall and climbed up, holding their shields before them like standards. Then they secured their shields on top of the wall, making it look like the rampart of an Egyptian citadel armored with “domes.” Once on the wall they were met with thousands of arrows, shot at them from every direction, and more than a few men perished. They answered their enemy's fire, continuously filling the air with the terrifying whoosh of their lethal shafts, as loud cries pierced the clouds in the sky, the cheers of hitting a target mixing with the moans of pain and the screams of fear. During the desperate struggle, a group of foot soldiers attacked the great gate with battering rams made from the trunks of date palms. They rattled it immensely, creating an appalling din.
Djedef stood astride his war chariot, surveying the battle apprehensively, his heart braced for combat. His head turned from side to side as he shifted his gaze from the soldiers scaling the wall and those rushing to do so, then to the men assaulting the towering doorway whose four corners had begun to loosen, and whose frame to throb.
After some time, he saw the archers leaping down inside the wall. Then he saw the infantrymen, their spears at the ready, climbing the ladders, brandishing their shields. He then knew that the enemy had started to abandon an area behind the wall, and was retreating — within the peninsula.
Hours of grueling combat and anxious suspense went by. The squadron of chariots — the young commander at its lead — was waiting tensely, when suddenly the gate flew open after the Egyptian troops inside the — wall raised its bolt. The horses — were given free rein as the vehicles charged through it, with a rumble like the sound of a falling mountain, kicking up a gale of dust and sand behind them. One by one they flew past the portal, this going to the right, that to the left, forming two broad wings that joined behind the commander's chariot.