Vengeance of Orion Part 26

That night I slept without dreams, without visiting the realm of the Creators. But in the morning I had formed a plan for dealing with Joshua. It was simple, perhaps even crude. I hoped it would work.

All that day was given to ceremonies of thanksgiving and atonement, the priests singing hymns of praise to their G.o.d in melodies that sounded somehow mournful and melancholy. The people of Israel arrayed themselves in their finest garments, many of them taken from Jericho, and gathered in ranks, tribe by tribe, and joined in the singing. I saw that although the words of their hymns were directed at their invisible G.o.d, their eyes were directed toward Joshua when they sang words of praise. He stood before them, decked in a long robe of many colors, silently acknowledging their homage.

By sunset the people had split up into their tribal and family units, each gathering around their own fires, and the singing was lighter, happier, songs of the home and the people themselves. Dancing started here and there, men and women in separate circles, laughing and weaving around their fires as they stamped their feet on the dusty ground.

Ben-Jameen sent a boy to invite me to his family's tent, but I politely declined, since his invitation did not include Helen. Israelite men and women ate separately, of course, just as they danced.

I was waiting for Joshua's summons, and sure enough, as we were finis.h.i.+ng dinner, a young man in a newly acquired bronze cuira.s.s approached our fire and told me that Joshua wished to have words with me.

I told Helen and Lukka to be ready to leave, then followed the young Israelite to his leader's tent.

Joshua's tent was crammed with the spoils of Jericho: beautiful cypress chests inlaid with bone and ivory and packed to the brim with fine clothing, piles of draperies and blankets, tables sagging under loads of gilded plates and goblets, intricately engraved daggers, swords and armor, enamelware, pottery and wine jugs, heaps of jewelry and carvings.

I took it all in with one swift glance, then looked up to Joshua. He was sitting on a mound of pillows at the far end of the tent, dressed in splendid robes like an oriental potentate. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the three serving girls, who ran past me on bare feet, leaving us alone in the tent.

"Take your pick," said Joshua, gesturing grandly toward the loot. "Whatever you want is yours. And take some jewelry for your beautiful companion."

I walked past the treasures, straight to him, and sat on the carpeting at his feet.

"Joshua, I neither want nor need any of this. I want you to live up to your promise, and let us go in peace now that we have helped you conquer Jericho."

There was no wine in sight. His hands were empty, his eyes clear. But he seemed almost drunk. Perhaps with victory. Perhaps with visions of future conquests.

"G.o.d has placed you in my hand, Orion," he said. "It would displease Him if I let you go."

"You speak for your G.o.d now?"

His eyes narrowed angrily. But he replied mildly enough, "Our next objective will be the Amalekites. They threaten our flank, and must be destroyed utterly."

"No," I said.

"You and your Hitt.i.te warriors are too valuable to give up," Joshua said. "Not while there are so many enemies around us."

"We must leave."

He raised a placating hand. "When we have made this region peaceful. When the Children of Israel can live here safely, without being threatened by their neighbors. Then you can leave."

"That could take years," I said.

He shrugged. "It is in G.o.d's hands, not mine."

I made myself smile at him. "Joshua, surely you of all men can understand the yearning of a man to be free. I have no desire to be a slave to you or your G.o.d."

"A slave?" He pointed toward the loot again. "Is a slave rewarded so handsomely?"

"A man who is not free to go where he wishes is a slave, no matter how many trinkets his master offers him."

He ran his fingers through the curls of his beard. "Then I'm afraid you will be a slave for a while longer, Orion. You and your Hitt.i.te soldiers."

"That cannot be," I insisted.

"If you resist," Joshua warned, his voice as mild as if he were discussing the weather, "your men will pay for your stubbornness. And your beautiful woman."

I had expected this so exactly that I was not even mildly surprised. Not even angry. I simply got to my feet and looked down at him.

"Ben-Jameen tells me," I said, "that your G.o.d struck the Egyptians with many plagues before their king would allow you to leave the land. I can't promise you plagues, but you will be sorry that you force us to stay."

Joshua's face turned deep red, whether from anger or shame I did not know. I left him sitting there and made my way back to my own tent.

Lukka and Helen both asked me eagerly if we were leaving.

"At dawn," I answered. "Now get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day."

Chapter 33.

HELEN was right about the Israelites' laxness that night. Jericho's men were slaughtered; the city's women and children cowered in the blackened remains of their burned and looted homes. There was no need for guards or sentries. The Israelites slept soundly after a day of ceremonies and celebration.

I picked my way silently through the darkness toward Joshua's tent. The only light came from the smoldering embers of campfires and the splendor of stars overhead. The hazy glow of the Milky Way split the heavens, and as I glanced upward I wondered once again which of those stars my love and I had been heading for when we died.

No time for memories. No time for bitterness. I reached Joshua's tent and stepped over the bodies of the servants sleeping just outside its entrance.

It was pitch-dark inside the tent. I felt my way toward Joshua, guided by the faint heat radiating from his body. Like a pit viper, I laughed to myself, although my heat-sensing abilities were mere vagaries compared to the refined sensitivities of a rattlesnake. Nonetheless, I sensed a faint emanation from the far end of the tent and groped toward it.

I made out Joshua's sleeping form when I was a few feet from him. He lay on his side, his back to me, stretched out on the pillows where I had seen him a few hours earlier, still wearing his splendid robes.

He slept alone. Good.

I reached out and clamped my left hand over his mouth. He awoke instantly and started to thrash out with his arms and legs. I leaned my right forearm against his windpipe and whispered: "Do you want the angel of death to visit this tent?"

His eyes went wide. He recognized me and became still.

Without taking my hand from his mouth I pulled him to his feet and said, "You and I are taking a little journey."

Then I concentrated on s.h.i.+fting to the realm of the Creators. I closed my eyes for a moment and felt that instant of piercing cold, then the warmth that glowed all around us. Joshua was still in my grasp, my left hand over his mouth, my right gripping his shoulder.

We stood on a height overlooking a vast domed city. The entire landscape was bathed in golden radiance, and I realized that for the first time I could see details of this realm with some clarity. The city spread out below us was a wonderland of graceful towers and spires, all within the protective curve of a huge transparent dome.

Joshua's eyes were bugging out of his head. I took my hand away from his mouth, but no words came from him. He simply stared, his jaw hanging open.

"Orion, really! This is too much!"

I turned to see the slim dark-haired Hermes.

"Now you're bringing other creatures along with you," he scolded. "If any of the others see this..."

"You mean you don't tell them everything?" I gibed back at him.

He grinned. "Not immediately. We have no secrets among ourselves, of course; information is shared whether we like it or not. But if I were you, I would get out of here before the others decide you're becoming too bold."

"Thank you. I will."

"See to it," he said, and disappeared.

Joshua's knees gave way and I had to prop him up. With a final glance around, to register every detail as firmly in my mind as I could, I closed my eyes again and willed us back to where we had come from.

I opened my eyes in the darkness of Joshua's tent. He was collapsed in my arms, trembling uncontrollably.

"When dawn comes," I said, "I and my people will leave your camp. We have served you faithfully, and I expect you to live up to your side of our bargain. If you try to hinder us in any way, I will come to you in the night and send you to that golden land once again-and leave you there forever."

I let Joshua sag back onto his pillows and strode out of his tent. That was the last time I saw him.

BOOK III: EGYPT

Chapter 34

HELEN was right: Egypt was civilization. Even Lukka was impressed. "The towns have no walls around them," he marveled.

We had trekked across the rocky wilderness of Sinai, threading our way through mountain pa.s.ses and across sands that burned beneath the pitiless sun, lured westward by the goal of Egypt. The scattered tribes of the Sinai were suspicious of strangers, yet their laws of hospitality were stronger than their fears. We were not exactly welcomed by the nomadic herders we came across, but we were tolerated, fed, given water, and wished heartfelt good-speed when we departed from their tents.

I always gave them some small token from our treasures: an amber cameo from Troy, a leaf-thin stone drinking cup from Jericho. The nomads accepted such trinkets solemnly; they knew their worth, but more, they appreciated the fact that we understood the obligations of a guest as well as those of a host.

Still, the heat and barrenness of that wasteland took their toll. Three of our men died of fever. The oxen that pulled our wagons collapsed, one after the other, as did several of our horses. We replaced them with hardy little a.s.ses and treacherous evil-smelling camels bought from the nomads in exchange for jewels and fine weapons. We left the lumbering carts behind and piled our possessions onto the donkeys and a.s.ses.

Helen bore the strain better than most of the men. She now rode atop a braying, barely tamed camel, in a swaying palanquin of silks that kept the sun off her. We all became bone-thin, parched of fat and moisture by the pitiless sun. Yet Helen kept her beauty; she needed no makeup or fine clothes. She never complained about the hards.h.i.+ps of the desert; better than any of us, she realized that each step we took brought us closer to Egypt.

I did not complain, either. It would have done no good. And my goal was also Egypt and the great pyramid where I would meet the Golden One once more and make him return my beloved to me.

The morning finally came when our tiny band saw a palm tree waving on the horizon. To me it looked as if it were beckoning to us, telling us that our journey was nearly ended. We kicked our horses and camels to their best speed, the donkeys trailing behind us, and soon saw the land turning green before our eyes.

Trees and cultivated fields greeted us. Half-naked men and women bent over the crops, toiling amid an intricate network of narrow irrigation ca.n.a.ls. In the distance I could see a river flowing.

"The Nile," said Helen, from the camel on which she rode. One of the Hitt.i.tes was driving it, and she had made him pull it up beside me.

I turned in my makes.h.i.+ft saddle-merely a few blankets folded beneath me-and glanced back at her. "One of its arms, at least. This must be the delta country, where the river splits up into many branches."

The peasants took no notice of us. We were a band of armed men, too few to mean much to them, too many to question. We found a road soon enough and it led to the delta city of Tahpanhes.

Lukka was surprised at the lack of a defensive wall; I was surprised at how large a city it was. Where Troy and Jericho had huddled closely over a few acres, Tahpanhes sprawled nearly a mile across. I doubted that its population was much larger than Jericho's, but its people lived in s.p.a.cious airy houses that dotted wide, straight avenues.

We found an inn near the edge of the town, a low set of dried-brick buildings arranged around a central courtyard where stately palms and willows provided shade against the constant sun. A grape arbor also stretched its trellises across one section of the courtyard. There was an orchard on the river side of the inn; the stables were on the other side. Depending on which way the wind blew, the atmosphere could be scented with lemons and pomegranates or with horse manure and the annoying buzz of flies.

The innkeeper was overjoyed at receiving two dozen travel-weary guests. He was a short, round, bald, jovial man of middle age who constantly held his hands clasped over his ample belly. His skin was as dark as Lukka's cloak, his eyes like two glittering pieces of coal-especially when he was engaged in his favorite pursuit, estimating how much he could charge for his services.

The innkeeper's staff was his family, a wife who was just as dark as her rotund husband and even fatter than he, and a dozen dark-skinned children ranging in age from about twenty to barely six. And cats. I counted ten of them in the courtyard alone, watching us with slitted eyes, padding silently atop the balcony rail or along the dirt floor. The innkeeper's children scampered sweatily, helping to unload our possessions, tend our animals, show us to our rooms. There was not an ounce of fat on any of the children.

I found that I could speak the language of Egypt as easily as any other. If Lukka marveled at my gift of tongues, he kept it to himself. Helen took it for granted, even though she could speak only her own Achaian tongue and the dialect of it spoken at Troy.

Once we were unpacked and comfortably settled in our rooms, I found the innkeeper at the outdoor kitchen, shouting orders to two teenaged girls who were baking loaves of round flat bread in the beehive-shaped oven. They wore only loincloths against the heat of the oven; their bare young b.r.e.a.s.t.s were firm and lovely, their lithe dark bodies covered with a sheen of sweat.

If the innkeeper objected to my seeing his daughters bare-breasted, he made no show of it. In fact, he smiled at me and tilted his head toward them when he noticed me standing at the entrance in the wall that surrounded the open-roofed kitchen.

"My wife insists that they learn to cook properly," he said, without preamble. "It is necessary if they are to catch husbands, she says. I believe other skills are necessary, eh?" He laughed suggestively.

Apparently he was not opposed to offering his daughters to his guests, a fact that Lukka would appreciate. I ignored his insinuation, though, and said: "I have brought these men to your land to offer their services to the king."

"The mighty Merneptah? He resides in Wast, far up the river."

"My men are professional soldiers from the land of the Hitt.i.tes. They seek service with your king."

The innkeeper's smile vanished. "Hitt.i.tes? They have been our enemies..."

"The Hitt.i.te empire no longer exists. These men are without employment. Is there a representative of the king in this city? Some official or officer of the army that I can speak to?"

He bobbed his round bald head hard enough to make his cheeks bounce. "The king's overseer. He is here, in the courtyard, waiting to see you."

I said nothing, but allowed the innkeeper to lead me to the courtyard. The king's overseer was already here at the inn to look us over. The innkeeper must have sent one of his children running to him the instant we rode up to his door.

Several cats slinked out of our way as the fat innkeeper led me along a columned hallway and through a side entrance into the courtyard. Sitting in the shade of the grape arbor was a gray-haired man with a thin, hollow-cheeked face, clean shaven, as all the Egyptians were. He rose to his feet as I approached him. He was no taller than the innkeeper, the top of his gray head hardly reached my shoulder. His skin was a shade lighter, though, and he was as slim as a sword blade. His face was serious, his eyes unwaveringly studying me as I approached. He wore a cool white caftan so light that I could see through it to the short skirt beneath. He carried no weapons that I could see. His only emblem of office was a gold medallion on a chain around his neck.

Suddenly I felt distinctly grubby. I still wore the leather kilt and harness I had been wearing for many months, under a light vest. From long habit I still carried a dagger strapped to my thigh, beneath the kilt. My clothes were worn and travel-stained. I needed a bath and a shave, and I wondered if I should try to stay downwind from this obviously civilized man.

"I am Nefertu, servant of King Merneptah, ruler of the Two Lands," he said, keeping his hands at his sides.

"I am Orion," I replied.

There were two wooden benches beneath the arbor's twining vines. Nefertu gestured for me to sit. He is polite, I thought, or perhaps he simply feels uncomfortable stretching his neck to look up at me. My head grazed the grape vines.

Our genial host scuttled out of the kitchen area with a tray that bore a stone pitcher beaded with condensation, two handsome stoneware drinking cups, and a small bowl heaped with wrinkled black olives. He placed the tray down on a small wooden table within Nefertu's easy reach, then bowed and smiled his way back to the kitchen. Nefertu poured the wine and offered me a cup. We drank together. The wine was poor, thin and acid, but it was cold and for that I felt grateful.

"You are not a Hitt.i.te," he said calmly, putting down his cup. His voice was low and measured, like a man accustomed to speaking to those both below and above his station.

"No," I admitted. "I come from far away."

He listened patiently to my story of Troy and Jericho and Lukka's men who sought service with his king. He showed no surprise at the fall of the Hitt.i.te empire. But when I spoke of the Israelites at Jericho his eyes widened slightly.