Ancient Evenings (51 page)

“Yet I did not even say her name, and would not see her again. A night so beautiful as this could not be repeated unless one was ready to live with the woman forever. I speak now out of the extravagance of four lives and twenty such women, twenty such lost empires, but the secret whore of the King of Kadesh was the first, and we held each other until the dawn, and laughed, and told each other little things like the common name in Egyptian for the common act. She was much amused that it is written with the sign for water above the sign of a cup. ‘Nak,’ she kept saying, and repeated after me, ‘Nak-nak,’ giggling as if it were a wonderful sound and had a true echo, all the while pretending she had never heard it before.

“I wanted to know about her, I, who had never had curiosity for a woman’s story, but all I learned was that she had been kidnapped by Phoenicians when a child. A boat came to her island in Greece, and the captain sent two sailors to shore. Would the chief and his daughters come out to the ship? She had gone with her sister and her father. As soon as they were on board, the boat pulled up anchor. So she had been brought to Tyre. Now, she was the High Priestess of all the whores in the Temple of Astarte, yet remained true (except on festival nights) to the King of Kadesh. She even had three children by him.

“How much of this was so, I cannot say. She told it like a tale she had told often. Besides her use of our language was limited. Still, I was certain she hated the King. Finally, she told me where she thought he was hiding. With her finger she made a small circle on the purple sheets to show me Kadesh, and drew another finger down from the circle to show me a river. Then she made small hills with her cupped hands. ‘He is in the forest,’ she said to me, ‘but not for long. He has boasted too much of how his army can destroy the Egyptians. Still I never know when he will visit. Maybe your Pharaoh will not know either.’ She sighed. ‘I think you need your eyes.’ She kissed me then on each one of them, and prepared to leave. It was close to dawn, and I had to wonder if she would join the other whores in the Temple of Astarte.

“After she was gone, I stepped across to my room and lay on my red sheets and tried to sleep but I could only think of the war to come and all the ways a soldier could die, and I hoped I was not afraid of the King of Kadesh but that he would know fear of me. Before the sun was up, I took the ferry back to Old Tyre, returned to the House of the Royal Messenger, and inquired about roads into the mountains toward the East.

“I soon had a decision to make. The shaft of my chariot had been repaired by the carpenter to the Royal Messenger, but since he did not have a piece of seasoned napeca wood and the other chariots had shafts too small to borrow, he had merely made new splints and attached fresh thongs. I did not think it would hold me to Kadesh, nor did I want to ride by the main road. There could be Hittites on the route to capture me. So I decided to leave my chariot and go by horse. That was certainly a change in my feelings from the way I arrived in Tyre, but I had no information then, and did not wish to meet Ramses the Second with neither a report nor a vehicle. Now my message would take care of the loss. So I packed my equipment on Mu, saddled Ta—traded the chariot for the two new harnesses—and went up into the mountains by a trail that must have belonged to a wild ram, or maybe a wild rabbit, it was that narrow. The horses’ bellies were soon raw both sides from the scratch of branches. Yet I enjoyed it. I knew I could make no great error. The sun was up and I could take direction from that. Besides, I needed only to climb up an ascending floor, then cross a great ridge, travel across another valley, climb another great ridge and beyond would be the valley of the Orontes. I knew I would find the armies of my Pharaoh near that river. It was the only route He could follow. The great cart that held His great tent had six wheels to a side, and eight horses drew it. You would not have to wonder which road He was on, only that it be wide enough.

“On my route, however, I was not halfway up to the first ridge before the thicket grew dense and the briers so agitated the horses that I was in a lather of perspiration myself what with pulling thorns from their hide without getting kicked as they thrashed, and the cedars were now so tall I could not see the sky. To the rear, the sun was only a dull glow and cast no shadow. I might never have left Tyre if I had known the gloom of these steep woods.

“So I made camp and slept. Next morning I was up to travel through all of the day and then another, and thought I would never come to the end of the forest. In great gloom, I had to sit each night with no fire. I did not dare. There could be Hittite scouts in these hills. Shivering, I was on the move with the dawn, leading my horses through the early mists while thinking for the first time in many a year of Osiris and how His Ka must have traveled through mists like these in the time of His great loneliness when His body was still in fourteen scattered parts, yes, these were sights appropriate to the Lord of the Land of the Dead, the pillars of these forests coming forward like sentries one by one as we walked in file through the fog, and I only kept my direction by the knowledge that I had not turned astray for the moss still grew on the same side of the rocks. I kept the moss to the right of us. Through a long day that made me feel as old as some of these trees, we climbed to the second ridge and by evening made it through a gorge where the boulders were so huge I had fear of serpents lurking in the caves of these great rocks. Then, after we had gotten through, it grew dark. I tried to sleep with my back against a tree, but I was no longer in Lebanon, I calculated, rather in Syria, and these great cedars belonged to another God. No strength came to me. I felt weaker than at any time since I left Megiddo and knew then that the secret whore of the King of Kadesh had taken more of my strength than she had given me of hers, although, of course, I had to suppose such strength had come in the first place from the thief whose back I had beaten with my sword, which was a thought to suggest that those who make love for a night had better be as adept as thieves. At last, I fell asleep between the horses, all three of us together for warmth, and let no one say a horse is not the equal of a plump woman except no woman ever passed so much wind.

“Then, in the morning, the dawn was up before I awoke, and through the thinning of the trees, I could see the fields of Syria in a long plain. Far in the distance, half a day’s march, must be Kadesh, and I thought I saw the glint of sun on chariots, hundreds, or was it thousands of chariots, somewhere behind the town to the north.

“Beneath me, not an hour’s ride straight down the last of these slopes, I could see the van of my own armies. The Honor Guard of Usermare-Setpenere was camped there by a ford of the river. Looking on them, I knew—for I can still feel this sensation to a certainty—that other eyes were watching as well. Back of me in the forest, like a rock falling with my thought, came the sound of hooves as a horse began to ride away with news to be brought to the King of Kadesh, yes, the echo of fast-moving hooves.”

EIGHT

“The fields were empty, and I must have been visible from a long distance as I cantered in on the last long slope to the river. The outpost of my Pharaoh’s armies nearest to me had Libyans for soldiers, and they promptly tied me up in the Egyptian fashion. May I say how well it works. To sit on the ground with your wrists lashed behind your neck is cruel. I thought my sword arm would come out of my shoulder. However, a charioteer recognized me as I came down the ridge, and he galloped over and soon had me released.

“It was a sure sign, however, that the outposts were fearful. On our ride into camp, I found out from my charioteer that the bivouac here at the ford of Shabtuna would not be broken this morning. So the troops could have an afternoon to take care of equipment and rest their feet. The officers, however, were not at ease. Usermare-Setpenere was in a great state of anger, I was told. His scouts had still picked up no knowledge of our enemy, and everything was taking too long. The vanguard might be here at Shabtuna, but only the Division of Amon was close behind. The Division of Ra was half a morning back and stuck in the passes of the Orontes. The trail being too narrow for any quick passage of wagons, the Divisions of Ptah and Set were just at the beginning of this march, a full day to the rear. I had a picture then of how they must be stuck in the middle of the gorge, and I could even hear the cursing of the wagoners and the fearful voices of the horses.

“Worse than that, explained my friend, nobody knew what we would find at Kadesh. Last night Usermare-Setpenere had said to His officers, ‘The Monarch of the Hittites does not deserve to be a King.’ Our Ramses was in a rage. It was maddening that He must advance to Kadesh without knowing whether it would be battle or siege.

“I was trying to decide the worth of my news. Would He be ready to hear? I was not, however, to see our Pharaoh so quickly. There were ten officers waiting to speak to Him, and I, full of the most unusual uneasiness, went walking around the camp with a void in my torso as if my stomach had died.

“In those days, we still made camp in the same manner as in the age of Thutmose the Great. So, on this morning, the pavilion of the King was erected in the middle of the officers’ tents, and the royal chariots were on all four sides. This square was surrounded by our cattle and provenance, and infantrymen were placed to the outside, their tall shields planted vertically on the ridge of an earthwork dug the night before. In that way, we were like a fortress of four walls of shields, and you even entered through gates, except they were not real gates, just the road and a platoon of infantrymen either side of that opening. Inside, you could stroll about, and visit your friends. If not for my message, it might have been good to feel like a soldier again. On ordinary days little made me happier than to be inside a camp, even if many did nothing but snore, or sharpen the blade of a dagger for one hour and then another.

“On this day, in the expectation that we might still be marching into battle—what life had an army without rumors?—many a Nubian put on his helmet, and would not take it off. These blacks, some in leopard skins, some wearing long white skirts with an orange sash slung from the right shoulder, made quite a sight. The blacks liked to be seen, and I watched five of them arguing in one place, and ten sitting so quietly in another that their silence was stronger than clamor, curious soldiers about whom we charioteers disagreed, some saying the Nubians would prove brave in combat, others said no. I knew they were strong, but I thought of them as horses, brave until frightened, and much in love with their plumage. Like horses, the Nubians would put at least one yellow feather at the top of their leather helmets. What a contrast they made to the Syrians who often had bald heads, no helmets, and big black beards.

“About the time I realized it would be afternoon before my King might see me, all discomfort went away, and I relaxed in the sun with other charioteers and told of my adventures, keeping the best to myself, and walked back and forth through the inner and outer square, the goodness of Ra warming my flesh, so that at last I was down to no more than my sandals and a loincloth, lolling about like half the soldiers on that ground, and the day grew lazy. I stopped for a while at the shop of the Royal Carpenter to tell him of the loss of my cart, but he was too busy to care, for he was putting together a chariot from two broken buggies, and promised to do better for me than that, since his workmen could return you six chariots ready for battle out of seven half-dismembered carcasses, and I listened to him while he stood in the middle of his shop with chariot wheels in one stack, the spokes for wheels in another pile, and heaps of broken parts on the ground. I did not know how he would ever be able to move.

“Then I watched other infantrymen carrying paniers of water up from the ford to a large leather bag hung from three sticks in the center of camp, and horses being walked to the blacksmith shop. I watched soldiers drinking wine, and a few were wrestling, and two others led a couple of cows to the field kitchen. I smelled the sweat of the day and the odor of roasting meat. Two of the soldiers drinking wine began to skirmish with daggers. They had been doing it for a long time and knew how to lunge at each other, then stop short. A Sherden, sweating like a fountain in his red and blue woolen cape, was beating a donkey who had gotten his nose into a bag of provisions. The food so excited the beast that he promptly got an erection. The Sherden kept beating on him and the donkey kept scampering away but never lost his excitement, nor took his head out of the bag, not while I watched. Next to him, another donkey, excited by all this, was rolling in the dust.

“Most of the men were sleeping. The afternoon grew lazier still, and I could feel the fatigue of all the days of the march that had brought these troops this far, and then felt my own fatigue, and went back to a tent I was sharing with other charioteers and fell asleep on a ground-cloth, only to be awakened by word the King would see me now. In bewilderment, still dreaming of forests and thieves, I stood up, threw water on my face from a bowl, and went over to the King’s Pavilion. I had been dreaming of the Hittites and saw a road where they planted sharpened stakes, and Egyptian soldiers were dying on them. Slowly in my dreams, bodies slid down the stakes. My bowels were cold. I took a slug of wine from a skin, and that made me sweat. Looking like a man whose insides must belong to others, I entered the great tent of Ramses the Second.