Queen of the Dawn A Love Tale of Old Egypt

QUEEN OF THE DAWN

Then as Khian still stayed swaying in the saddle, that most gallant man called some secret word to the horse he rode and the beast, understanding, stumbled onwards at a trot, nor could Khian stay it.

Once more there came the clash of arms and the sound of shoutings, and presently Khian, looking back, saw that of the pursuers but three remained. He urged his horse but it could do no more. Almost at the crest of the pass it whinnied and stood still.

The three struggled on grimly, for they were afoot, having left their spent beasts behind them. They were strong, soldierlike men, black with dust and sweat, and one of them had been wounded for blood ran down his face and robe, he who seemed to be an officer.

“We are commanded to take you dead or living, Prince Khian, for so you are. Shall we slay you or will you yield?” asked this man hoarsely.

Now when he heard these words Khian’s spirit came back to him, and with it some of his lost strength.

“Neither,” he answered in a low tone.

Then, changing his sword from the right hand to the left, from his belt he snatched his short javelin and hurled it with all his strength. The officer saw it coming and shrank aside, but in that narrow place it caught the man who stood behind him, piercing him through from breast to back, so that he fell down and died. Then the officer sprang at him and they fought with swords, a well-matched pair, though both were very weary, while the third man who could not come at Khian strove to drag the javelin from the breast of him who had fallen.

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The officer smote, somewhat wildly, perhaps the blood from his wound had run into his eyes. Khian parried, then bending himself, thrust forward and upward with all his strength, a trick of swordsmanship that he had learned in the Syrian wars. The bronze blade caught the officer in the throat just beneath the chin, and piercing to the neck bone, severed it, so that down he went like a stunned ox, in his fall twisting the sword from Khian’s sweating hand. Then it was that the third man, having recovered the javelin, cast it at him, though with no good aim, for it struck him, not in the body, but above the left knee, piercing the leg from front to back.

Khian reeled against the rocky side of the pass, supporting himself there, helpless and unarmed. He who had cast the spear, seeing his state, rushed at him. Perhaps he hoped to take him living, or perhaps he, too, had lost his weapons. At least he seized him with his hands whereon Khian fell backward to the ground with the man above him. Now those hands had him by the throat and were choking the life out of him.

“All is finished,” thought Khian.

It was then, just as his senses were leaving him, that he heard the sound of running feet and of a voice crying:

“Faith! Have faith!”

Next there followed the thud of a heavy blow and the grip upon his throat loosened. He lay still, regaining his breath, then sat up and looked about him. There at his side lay the soldier, dead, his head broken like a crushed egg, while over him stood the tall Temu, holding in both hands a great smooth stone.

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“None of them will move any more,” said Temu in the voice of one who marvels. “Who would have thought that I should live to kill a man in such a fashion, I, a Brother of the Dawn sworn to shed no blood? My brain swam; cooked in the sun; my mind was almost gone; that accursed horse – oh! may I never see another horse – jolted on with me, when I heard a noise, looked over my shoulder, and saw. I could not stop the horse, so I slid over its tail and ran back towards you. I had no weapon – I think I lost the sword in the river; at least, when I looked for it there was nothing but the scabbard. Still I ran, praying, and as I prayed, my eye fell upon that stone. I think that the holy Roy must have sent it there from Heaven. I picked it up and brought it down upon the head of that man of blood, as I used to bring down a flail on corn, and my arms being still strong – well, you see, Brother, the stroke was great and well aimed.”

“Very well aimed, most excellent Temu,” answered Khian faintly. “Now, if you can, pull this bronze out of my leg, for it pains me.”

Temu pulled with goodwill and Khian fainted.

When he came to his mind again, it was to see himself surrounded by tall square-bearded warriors clad in the Babylonian uniform, one of whom supported his head upon his knee and poured water down his throat from a gourd.

“Have no fear, Lord,” said the soldier. “We are friends who were warned that fugitives might reach us from Egypt and hearing sounds of war ran towards them, though little we thought to find you thus. Now we will bear you to our camp beyond the pass, there to recover of your wound.”

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Then Khian fainted again, for he had lost much blood. Yet they carried him to the camp where he was doomed to lie for many a day, for his hurt festered so that he could not be moved and it was thought that he must lose his leg. Moreover, this camp was beleaguered by desert men in the pay of Apepi so that escape from it was impossible.

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CHAPTER 20

THE MARCH FROM BABYLON

Long must Nefra wait in that scented palace at Babylon before the great army, gathered to set her on her throne, was ready for its work. From all parts of the vast empire troops must be collected, hillsmen and plainsmen and men from the borders of the sea; archers, drivers of chariots, infantry, spearmen, and those who rode upon camels. Slowly they came together and then must be exercised and welded to a whole; also provisions and water for so huge a force must be provided, and companies sent forward with these and to prepare the road. Thus it came about that three full moons went by before ever the vanguard marched out of the brazen gates of Babylon.

To Nefra soon that city grew hateful. She loathed its pomps and ceremonies and its staring crowds. Its religion was not hers, and, unlike her mother, to its gods she put up no prayer; indeed, scarcely could she bring herself to bow when her grandsire led her with him to rituals in its enormous terraced temples, she, the pupil of Roy and the Sister of the Dawn who was sworn to a purer faith.

The unending ceremonies of that ancient Court, the adulation accorded to its king, and even to her, his granddaughter who was known to be a queen; the prostrations, the shouts of “May the King live for ever!” addressed to one who soon must

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die, wearied and revolted her. Moreover, the confinement and the hot airlessness of the place where she could only move in palace courts or in formal gardens, told upon the spirits of this free daughter of the desert, till Kemmah, watching her, noted that she turned from her food and grew pale and thin.

Lastly her spirit was tormented with fear and doubt. Through the secret service of the Brethren of the Dawn, news reached Babylon that the Prince Khian and the priest Temu had escaped from Tanis and repaired to the pyramids, whence they had again escaped towards Arabia, guided by certain men who had been deputed to aid them.

Then after a while came other news, namely, that both of them, together with those guides, had been cut off by Apepi’s outposts beyond the borders of Egypt and either killed or taken captive, as it was thought the former, because the bodies of some of their company were reported to have been seen. After this there was silence which, had Nefra but known it, was not strange.

When the Shepherd captain of the border fort learned that those whom he had been commanded to watch for and snare had slipped from his hand, and having killed certain of his people, had, it was believed, reached the Babylonian outpost in the hills alive, although he did not dare to attack that outpost, which was very strongly placed, first because he had not sufficient strength, and secondly because, in a time of truce, it would be an open act of war upon Babylon for which he had no warrant, still he surrounded it with skirmishers with orders to kill or capture any who set foot on the desert roads. Thus it came about that when messengers were sent bearing

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news that Khian lay sick and wounded at this camp, they were cut off. Thrice this chanced, and when at last, owing to the recall of the skirmishers at the opening of the war, a letter came in safety to Babylon, the army had marched already by another road to attack Egypt, and with it Nefra and the Brethren of the Dawn. Therefore the letters must be sent after it and never came to Nefra’s hands till she was far upon her path.

Meanwhile, when first she heard these rumours at Babylon telling her that Khian was dead or captured, her heart seemed to break within her. For a while she sat silent with a face of stone. Then she bade Kemmah bring Tau to her and when he had come, said to him:

“You have heard, my uncle. Khian is dead.”

“No, Niece, I have heard a report that he may be dead or captured.”

“If Roy were alive he would tell us the truth, he whose soul could see afar,” said Nefra bitterly. “But he is gone and only men remain whose eyes are set upon the ground and whose hearts are filled with matters of the world.”

“As it seems that yours is, Niece. Yet Roy being dead, leaving me, all unworthy in his place, still speaks. Did he not tell you that however great your troubles, you and Khian would come together at the last, and was the holy Roy an utterer of empty prophecies?”

“Aye, he said that, but he to whom flesh and spirit were much the same, may have meant that we should come together in the Underworld. Oh! why did you ever suffer the Prince to return to the Court at Tanis? Although I could not say it, it was my desire that he should bide with us at the pyramids. Then

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he might have fled safely with us to Babylon and by now, perchance, we should have been wed.”

“Or perchance other things would have happened, Niece. If any knew the decrees of Heaven, that man was Roy, and he held that believing his honour to be at stake, the Prince, his embassy accomplished, must be allowed to follow his desire and make report to Apepi his father. So he departed to fulfil his mission, and since then matters have not gone so ill for you.”

“I think that they have gone very ill,” she said stubbornly. “How so, Niece? We know through our spies that the Prince and the priest Temu escaped from Tanis and came to the pyramids where they lay hid a while. We know also that by the help of those high-born warrior brethren of our Order whom I deputed to the task, they escaped again from the pyramids and fled safely out of Egypt. It seems that they were followed and that there was fighting in which it well may be that those brethren, or some of them, lost their lives, as they were sworn to do. If so, peace be to their gallant spirits. But of the death of the Prince, or even of Temu, there is no certain word, nor,” he added slowly, “does a dream or voice tell me or

any of us that he is dead.”

“As it would have told Roy,” interrupted Nefra.

“As mayhap it would have told Roy, and as mayhap Roy, being still living though elsewhere, would have told me who fill his office. Niece, be not so rough-tongued and ungrateful. Have not all things happened according to your desire? Has not the royal Ditanah, my father, given you a great army to set you on your throne? Has he not at your prayer, and, as I can

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tell you now, at mine made in secret, abandoned his policy of wedding you to his heir, Mir-bel, and sent that prince far from Babylon to where he cannot molest you? Has he not– though this has been hid from you – set me in command of that army, that it may be handled according to your desire and mine, putting trust in me that when its work is done, I will lay down my generalship and from a mighty prince of war once more become a priest, I, who were I evil-hearted might use it to set the crown upon my head?”

“It seems that he has done all these things, Uncle, but what of them if Khian is dead? Then I seek no throne; then I seek nothing but a grave. Nay, first I seek vengeance. I tell you that of Apepi and his Shepherds I will not leave one living, of his cities not one stone shall remain upon another.”

“Kind words from a Sister of the Dawn, and from her one of whose titles is Uniter of Lands – not their destroyer!” exclaimed Tau, shrugging his shoulders, and adding, “O Child, do you not understand that all life is a trial and that as we pass the trials, so we shall be rewarded or condemned? You are mad with fear for one whom you love, and therefore I do not blame you overmuch, though I think that you will live to grieve over those fierce threats.”

“You are right. I am mad, and being mad, I will cause others to drink of my cup of fear and sorrows, that cup in which they have mixed the wine. Send Ru to me, my Uncle, that although I be woman he may teach me how to fight. And bid those Babylonian smiths come measure me for armour of the best.”

Then Tau departed, smiling. Still he sent Ru and with him came the royal armourer.

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So it happened that soon, had there been any to look over the wall of a certain courtyard of the palace, a strange sight might have been seen of a lissom maid clad in silver mail cutting and thrusting at a huge black giant, who often enough cried out beneath the smart of her blows, and once, stung beyond endurance, smote her so shrewdly on the helm with the flat of a wooden sword that she fell headlong to the ground, only to spring up again, while he stood dismayed, and deal him such a thrust beneath the breast bone, that his breath left him and he did likewise. Yes, there he lay, grunting out between his gasps:

“The gods help Apepi if this lion’s whelp gets him in her claws!” while she bade him be silent because by all the laws of swordsmanship he was dead.

At other times she would practise shooting with a bow, an art in which she had no small skill, or when she wearied of this, at the driving of chariots in the private circus of the palace, taking with her one of the slave women, a bold, desertbred girl, for passenger, because Ru was too heavy and Kemmah said that she was mad and refused to come.

“So you thought when I began to climb the pyramids, yet they served me my turn, Nurse,” she answered, and went on driving more furiously than ever woman drove before.

Now when her grandsire, the old King Ditanah, heard of these things, he was amazed, and caused himself to be hidden in places whence he could watch her secretly at her warlike exercises. Having done so and listened to the tale of her conquest of the pyramids, he sent for Tau and said to him with a curious smile upon his puckered face:

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