this very day.’ His tone was calm and reasonable. ‘Will you come with me, Taita?’
‘I served your father with joy,’ I answered him. ‘I can do no less for you, my prince who should be Pharaoh.’ He came to me and clasped my right hand in a gesture of friendship and accord, and I went on speaking, ‘However, there are others who have put themselves at risk for my sake.’
‘Yes, I know who you mean,’ Rameses agreed. ‘Captain Weneg and his legionaries are fine and loyal men. I have spoken with them already. They will throw in their lot with us.’
I nodded. ‘Then I have no further quibble. Wherever you lead I will follow, my Lord Rameses.’ I knew very well where that was; better indeed than the prince himself. However, now was not yet the time to broach that subject.
The two of us went up on deck again and I saw that on the bank Weneg and his men had already dismantled the chariots; as we watched his men carried the parts over the gangplank and sent them down into the ship’s hold. Then they swayed the horses aboard and sent them down below also. In under an hour the Memnon was ready to sail. We cast off from the bank and turned the bows into the north. With the wind in our sails, the river current pushing us and the treble banks of oars beating the Nile waters to foam, we headed northwards towards the open sea and freedom from Pharaoh’s malignant and pernicious thrall.
One of the few benefits of being a long liver is to be gifted with remarkable powers of healing and recuperation from injury. Almost within the hour the self-inflicted wound to my scalp stopped oozing blood and began to dry up and shrivel away, and before we reached the estuarine mouth of the Nile where it debouched into the great Middle Sea the whip welts, bruises and other injuries inflicted upon me by the dreadful Doog and his minions had healed completely, leaving my skin smooth and glowing with health, like that of a young man again.
During the ensuing long days as we rowed northwards down the river towards the sea the prince and I had plenty of time to renew our acquaintance.
The next pressing decision we had to make was to decide our ultimate destination once we had left Egypt. It seemed that Rameses had conceived the horrifying notion of sailing out through the rocky Gates of Hathor at the end of the world – just to see what lay beyond them. I knew very well what lay beyond. The great nothingness lay beyond. If we were so ill advised as to take that course we would simply drop off the end of the world and fall in darkness through all eternity.
‘How do you know that is what will happen to us?’ Rameses demanded of me.
‘Because nobody has ever returned from beyond the Gates,’ I explained quite reasonably.
‘How do you know that?’ he wanted to know.
‘Name me one who has,’ I challenged him.
‘Scaeva of Hispan.’
‘I have never heard of him. Who was he?’
‘He was a great explorer. My great-grandfather met him.’
‘But did you ever meet him?’
‘Of course not! He died long before I was born.’
‘So your great-grandfather told you about him?’
‘Well, not really. You see he also died before I was born. My own father told me the story of Senebsen.’
‘You know how much I respect the memory of your father; however, I never had the opportunity to discuss this Senebsen’s travels with him. Moreover, I doubt I would have been sufficiently convinced by third-hand accounts of what lies beyond the Gates to take the risk of travelling there myself.’
Most fortuitously I had a dream two nights later. I dreamed that the princesses Bekatha and Tehuti together with all their multitudinous children had been captured by Farsian pirates and chained to a rock at the edge of the sea as an offering to appease the terrible sea monster which was known as the Tarquist. This creature has wings with which it is able to fly through the air like a great bird or swim through the sea like a mighty fish. It also has fifty mouths which are insatiable for human flesh and with which it is able to destroy even the greatest ships ever built by men.
Naturally I was extremely reluctant to tell Rameses of my dream, but in the end I had to take into account the solemn duty I had sworn to the royal house of Egypt. Of course, Rameses was fully aware of my reputation as a soothsayer and a reader of dreams. He listened quietly but seriously to my own interpretation of the dream, then without giving his own opinion he went to the bows of the ship where he sequestered himself for the remainder of the afternoon. He came back to me in the poop as the sun was setting, and wasted no words.
‘I charge you most strictly to tell me the truth about what happened to my two aunts when they were sent by my father, Pharaoh Tamose, to the Empire of Crete to become the wives of the Great Minos, the King of Crete. I understood that they carried out their duty as my father decreed and they became the wives of the Minos, but then they were killed in the violent eruption of Mount Cronus. This is what my father told me. But then I was present when my brother Utteric accused you of treachery and false pretences. He says that my aunts survived the volcanic eruptions which killed their husband, the Minos, but then they neglected their duty and rather than returning to Egypt they eloped with those two rogues Zaras and Hui and disappeared. I discounted Utteric’s accusations as the ravings of a lunatic, but now this dream of yours seems to endorse the notion that they are still alive.’ He broke off and regarded me with that piercing gaze of his. ‘Tell me the truth, Taita,’ he challenged me. ‘What really happened to my aunts?’
‘There were circumstances?’ I hedged at the direct question.
‘That is no answer,’ he chided me. ‘What do you mean by There were circumstances.’
‘Please let me give you another example, Rameses.’
He nodded. ‘I am listening.’
‘Suppose a prince of the royal house of Egypt becomes aware that his elder brother who is Pharaoh was intent on murdering him for no good reason, and he decided to flee his country rather than stay and be killed. Would you consider that to be dereliction of his duty?’ I asked, and Rameses rocked back on his heels and stared at me in astonishment.
At last he shook his head as if to clear it, and then said softly, ‘You mean, would I count that as extenuating circumstances?’
‘Would you?’
‘I suppose I would,’ he admitted, and then he grinned. ‘I suppose I already have.’
I seized upon his admission. ‘Very well. I will tell you about your two aunts. They were lovely girls, loyal and true as well as clever and very beautiful. Your father sent them to Crete as brides of the Minos. I was appointed their chaperon. They did their duty to your father and to Egypt. They married the Minos despite the fact they were in love with men of their own choice. Then the Minos was killed in the eruption of Mount Cronus and suddenly they were free. They eloped with the men they truly loved, and rather than discouraging them I assisted them.’
He stared at me in fascination as I went on, ‘You were correct in your suspicions. Both your aunts are still alive.’
‘How do you know that?’ he demanded of me.
‘Because, not more than a month ago, I discussed the subject with their husbands. I want you to come with me to visit them. You can travel incognito, as the captain of the Memnon, not as a prince of the royal house of Tamose. Then you will be in a position to judge them and compare their decision to disappear to your own decision to do exactly the same thing.’
‘What if I still think that my aunts reneged on their royal duty?’
‘Then I will sail with you through the Gates of Hathor and jump with you over the edge of the world into eternity.’
Rameses let out a shout of laughter, and when he regained his composure he wiped the tears of merriment from his cheeks and asked, ‘Do you know where to find these two elusive ladies?’
‘I