'Of course not. As yet she probably knows nothing about it. But dp you think for one moment that her objections would count against the will of her father and the king? She will have no say in the matter.' 'What are we to do, old friend?'
Even in my distress I was grateful to him that he used the plural, including me, reassuring me of our friendship. 'There is one other probability that we must face,' I warned him. 'And that is that in the same speech that Pharaoh announces his betrothal to Lostris, he will order your imprisonment, or worse still, issue your death warrant. My Lord Intef has the king's ear and he will certainly put him up to it. In truth he would have good reason. You are certainly guilty of sedition.'
'I do not care to live without Lostris as my wife. If the king takes her from me, then he is welcome to my head as a marriage gift.' He said it simply, without histrionics, so that I had difficulty in feigning anger and putting the edge of contempt into my voice.
'You sound like a weak and pitiful old woman, giving herself up to the fates without a struggle. What a fine and undying love is yours, if you will not even fight for her!'
'How do you fight a king and a god?' Tanus asked quietly. 'A king to whom you have sworn allegiance, and a god who is as remote and as unassailable as the sun?'
'As a king he does not deserve your allegiance. You set that out clearly in your declamation. He is a weak and dithering old man who has divided the two kingdoms and brought our Ta-Meri bleeding to her knees.'
'And as a god?' Tanus again asked quietly, as though he were not really interested in the answer, although I knew him to be a devout and religious man, as so many great warriors are.
'A god?' I made my tone derisive. 'You have more of the godhead in your sword-arm than he has in all his soft little body.'
'Then what do you suggest?' he asked with deceptive mildness. 'What would you have me do?'
I drew a deep breath and then blurted it out. 'Your officers and your men would follow you to the gates of the underworld. The populace loves you for your courage and your honour?' I faltered, for his expression in the moonlight gave me no encouragement to continue. He was silent for twenty beats of my racing heart and then he ordered me softly, 'Go on! Say what you have to say.'
'Tanus, you would make the noblest pharaoh that this Ta-Meri, this mother-land, has known for a thousand years. You with my Lady Lostris on the throne beside you could lead this land and this people back to greatness. Call out your squadrons, and lead your men down the causeway to where that unworthy pharaoh lies unprotected and vulnerable. By dawn tomorrow you could be ruler of the Upper Kingdom. By this time next year you could have defeated the usurper and have reunited the two kingdoms.' I leaped to my feet and faced nun. 'Tanus, Lord Harrab, your destiny and that of the woman you love await you. Seize them in both your strong warrior's hands!'
'Warrior's hands, yes.' He held them up before my face. 'Hands that have fought for my mother-land and have protected her rightful king. You do me a disservice, old friend. They are not the hands of a traitor. Nor is this the heart of a blasphemer, that would seek to cast down and destroy a god, and take his place in the pantheon.'
I groaned aloud in my frustration. 'You would be the greatest pharaoh of the Isist five hundred years, and you need not proclaim your godhead, not if the idea offends you. Do it, I beseech you, for the sake of this very Egypt of ours, and of the woman that we both love!'
'Would Lostris still love a traitor as she loved a soldier and a patriot? I think not.' He shook his head.
'She would love you no matter what?' I began, but he cut me short.
'You cannot convince me. She is a woman of virtue and of honour. As a traitor and a thief, I would forfeit all right to her respect. What is of equal importance, I would never respect myself again, or consider myself worthy of her sweet love, if I did what you urge. Speak of it no more, as you value our friendship. I have no claim to the double crown, nor will I ever make such claim. Horus, hear me, and turn your face away from me if ever I should break this pledge.'
The matter was closed, I knew him so well, that great infuriating oaf, whom I loved with all my heart. He meant exactly what he said, and would cleave to it at any cost.
"Then what will you do, damn your stubborn heart?' I. flared at him. 'Nothing that I say has any weight with you. Do you want to face this on your own? Are you suddenly too wise to heed my counsel?'
'I'm willing to take your counsel, just as long as it has sense to it.' He reached out and drew me down beside him. 'Come, Taita, help us. Lostris and I need you now as never before. Don't desert us. Help us find the honourable way.' 'I fear there is no such thing,' I sighed, my emotions bobbing and spinning like a piece of flotsam caught in the Nile flood. 'But if you will not seize the crown, then you dare not stay here. You must sweep Lostris up in your arms and bear her away.'
He stared at me in the moonlight. 'Leave Egypt? You cannot be serious. This is my world. This is Lostris' world.' 'No!' I reassured him. 'That is not what I had in mind. There is another pharaoh in Egypt. One who has need of warriors and honest men. You have much to offer such a king. Your fame in the Lower Kingdom is as great as it is here at Karnak. Place Lostris on the deck of the Breath of Horus and send your galley flying northwards. No other ship can catch you. In ten days, with this wind and current, you can present yourself at the court of the red pharaoh in Memphis, and swear allegiance to?'
'By Horus, you are determined to make a traitor of me yet,' he cut across me. 'Swear allegiance to the usurper, you say? Then what of the allegiance I swore to the true Pharaoh Mamose? Does that count for nothing with you? What kind of man am I, that can make the same oath to every king or renegade that crosses my path? An oath is not something to be bartered or reclaimed, Taita, it is for life. I gave my oath to the true Pharaoh Mamose.'
'That true Pharaoh is the same one who will marry your love, and will order the strangling-rope to be twisted around your neck,' I pointed out grimly, and this time even he wavered.
'You are right, of course. We should not stay in Karnak. But I will not make myself a traitor or break my solemn oath by taking up the sword against my king.'
'Your sense of honour is too complicated for me.' I could not keep the tone of sarcasm from my voice. 'All I know is that it bodes fair to make corpses of us all. You have told me what you will not do. Now tell me what you will do to save yourself, and rescue my Lady Lostris from a hateful fate.'
'Yes, old friend, you have every right to be angry with me. I asked for your help and advice. When you gave it freely, I scorned it. I beg your patience. Bear with me a while longer.' Tanus sprang to his feet and began to prowl about like the leopard in Pharaoh's menagerie, back and forth, muttering to himself, shaking his head and bunching his fists, as if to face an adversary.
At last he stopped in front of me. 'I am not prepared to play the traitor, but with a heavy heart I will force myself to play the coward. If Lostris agrees to accompany me, and only if she agrees, then I am prepared to take flight. I will take her away from this land we both love so well.'
'Where will you go?' I asked.
'I know that Lostris can never leave the river. It is not only her life and mine, but her god also. We must stay with Hapi, the river. That leaves only one direction open to us.' He raised his right arm, gleaming with muscle in the moonlight, and pointed south. We will follow the Nile southwards into the depths of Africa, into the land of Gush and beyond. We will go up beyond the cataracts into the un-fathomed wilderness where no civilized man has ever gone before. There, perhaps, if the gods are kind, we will carve out another Ta-Meri for ourselves.'