There was no Captain-of-Captains of the Royal Bodyguard save Neyah. When I became Pharaoh I had appointed Zeb my standard-bearer, and during the expedition to Punt he had won the rank of captain. Maates, the other captain to whom I now gave command, I had known since the days when he used to go swan-shooting with Neyah and me in the reeds. He was the only son of Maata’s brother, the Overseer of the Grain-Lands of the Royal City.
Within the hour soldiers were filing down to the quay. Since the time of the Zuma invasion led by Sardok, swift river-boats, on which three thousand men could be embarked, were kept fully provisioned with grain and wine, arrows, linen for wounds, and other things for war. Six trade barges were at the Royal City, and these were added to our fleet for the transporting of the horses and chariots and the remainder of our army. I ordered that another barge should follow us with two hundred jars of burning-oil so that the bodies of the Zumas should be burnt, for they were unworthy to have Kam as shroud.
I went to the Room of Seals and took my father’s great war helmet from a chest where it had lain, wrapped in fine linen, since he had worn it into victory.
When I said good-bye to Tchekeea she dung to me—the noisy preparation for battle is frightening for a child. Her cheek was smooth against mine, and as I held her close, I thought that soon my body might be mine no longer, but in my child it would still live in Kam, while my spirit journeyed on through time. I picked up a ceremonial flail and put it in her hands, “See, Tchekeea, till I return you shall rule for me, and then you shall sit at the banquet and no one shall send you early to bed.”
“Mother, you are dressed as a warrior, and warriors are killed.”
“Zeb will look after me; how can I be hurt when I have my soldiers round me? We shall drive the Zumas from our country and they will scuttle like guilty puppies from the goose-tender’s wife when she finds them nosing round the nests. Smile, my Tchekeea, and be worthy of the Flail.…Now I must go, but come with me and see the warriors start.”
Within three hours all my soldiers had embarked; followed by Zeb, I galloped my chariot to join them at the quay. The news that Pharaoh would lead them into battle had reached their ears, and they greeted me with our battle cry, ‘Atet and Light’, as in one great voice they proclaimed their rejoicing in my leadership.
The rowers bent to their oars as the ships were unleashed from their moorings, and we swept upstream to the song that the steersman sang to keep them to their rhythm:
The Goddess of the Winds smiled upon us, and when the wind fell idle at evening, our rowers had rested and we swept on up-river. I talked long with Zeb and Maates, and with Ptah-kefer, who together with Zertar and five healer priests accompanied us. Our battle plan was shared among all. The boats were near enough for a strong swimmer to take messages from one to another: diving from the stem of one boat, he would swim to the one behind, and to return, a rope was thrown to him and he was pulled back to the leading boat.
When I was a child I had longed to be a warrior and follow Neyah into battle; now in my heart I prayed to Ptah that I might not fail my country. I could remember when I had fought with the sword and lived the life of a warrior in Athlanta; but that was long ago, and it is difficult to keep the warrior scarlet in a woman’s body. What if I should be afraid and instil with my fear those to whom the courage of Pharaoh should be as a standard and a battle cry?
It was the dark of the moon, and the sky was singing-bright with stars, which the smooth water mirrored as though they had rained down from the heavens and been unquenched. The sleeping villages were silent as we passed. Faintly across the still air I heard the shrill bark of a hunting jackal. The reeds rustled as an animal that had come down to drink fled from the sound of our oars. Kam was tranquil as a sleeping child, who breathes quietly though a cobra slides towards it across the floor. Suddenly I knew that I should be fearless in battle. Even a water-rat has courage when its young, nested under the bank, are threatened; the people of Kam are my children and the Two Lands are the shelter wherein I must house them in safety. Hound-dogs can drive a lion out of the reeds, but a lioness with cubs is a match for six of them, and Kam shall be tranquil in the shelter of our swords.
We travelled for two days and two nights, and upon the third day, an hour after high noon, we reached the Amphitheatre of Grain. Here are two great granaries, disused for nearly a hundred years. Before the Two Lands were re-united, this place had been one of the chief grain-lands of the Lotus, but now that the corn came from the Land of the Papyrus, it had returned to pasture and none lived here but a few herdsmen. It is here that our finest bulls and cows are put to roam so that the best of our cattle multiply themselves, and the young bulls are sent throughout the country to beget strong calves.
Our boats could not get close in to the bank, for there was no quay, so the horses had to walk along landing planks. Some of them squealed and reared until their charioteers calmed them and could lead them to the bank.
Ptah-kefer told me that the Zumas had not yet reached their encampment, and that, not daring to seem to doubt the commands and promises of Set, they had sent forward no outposts. So instead of waiting for the cover of night, we marched across the Amphitheatre of Grain and encamped near to the foot of the cliffs.
Five hours before dawn, Maates with his twelve hundred macebearers left to take up his position in the battle plan. He was to climb a path up the cliff to the south of the gorge and wait as near to the head of it as he could without danger of being heard. Then, when the last of the Zumas had entered the gorge on their way down to the plain, he would block their retreat, so that when we drove them back towards him they would run their heads against a wall of stone.
Zeb with his archers went up the defile to hide with his men in the north river-bed, which joined it midway between the Zuma camp and the plain. He would let half their army pass and then assail them with a burning rain of arrows, until their columns writhed like a snake whose back is broken by a stick.
Before the warriors left, I spoke to them, “We are outnumbered four to one, so we must fight like warrior gods. This is a battle of Light against Darkness, and in each man you kill, you kill an evil one, and in their death the Gods rejoice with you. At dawn I will lead you into victory as the great Atet led your fathers.”