Ancient Evenings (47 page)

“I felt I was not only in a strange place, but at war. There was a most unfriendly spirit in these low trees, and I wondered at the animals I might find, the bears and the boars, and remembered talk of a hideous hyena native to these parts. The forest made me feel as if I voyaged through the maw of a beast. I perspired from the gloom and heat and felt the absence of Ra, and wondered what foreign Gods were here in such dark marshy land. Every time a small branch snapped across my face, the horses gave a lurch. My fears went through them like arrows. On we went, bumping from rut to rut and back to the mud again. Often I had to get out and dare the crocodiles.

“Then this narrow road mounted above the wetlands and the thicket diminished, the trees grew taller. Now it was easier to ride, except for great roots that grew across the road and near upended my vehicle whenever I put the horses in a trot. The height of the trees grew awesome, and I could no longer see the sun very well but merely felt Him above. My head was full of the oppression of all these bowers of leaves, and then I passed a terrible place where a great tree had fallen over. I could see that the roots were nearly as long as the branches, and the cavity left in the ground was as large as a cave and ugly like the mouth of a serpent. I knew the entrance to the Land of the Dead must look like this hole. Even the worms that crawled at the base were odious to me, and I began to shiver with fright at the thought of the battle to come. The naked roots of this tree made me know how my shoulder would look if my arm were chopped off by an axe.

“What fear I knew of such weapons. The Overseer of Carpenters in our squadron of charioteers was a wizard at working with wood and now I remembered him telling me that black people in the jungles would never cut down a tree unless they sacrificed a chicken first, and its blood was dripped on the roots. Then, after the first blow of the blade, you had to put your mouth to the cut and suck the sap until you were in brotherhood with the tree. But I knew I would never dare to put my tongue on the sap of these strange trees. They were too fierce. My horses trembled when we stopped, and Mu could no longer urinate, or did not dare.

“Still, I began to think of the goose we roasted on those dry silver boughs in the desert. Ra had held each branch in His hand and given heat to it. If I died in the sand, I might become as dry as my bones, but I would not burn for much. Yet each one of these trees would blaze with flames as high as themselves. It was then I had a vision of all the fire that lived in the forest, and felt again like a city through which soldiers were marching.

“By evening, I was completely out of the marshes and crossed my first ridge which gave me a sight I had never known before. Ahead were nothing but mountains covered with trees. These lands ahead must be as much unlike Egypt as a Syrian with his thick beard is different from our clean cheeks, and that made me sigh at the weight of this view. I could not believe how alone I was. For two days, no caravans had passed me in either direction—no merchants, it was evident, dared to be on the road—and every village through which I went was empty. What fear they kept of our army!

“On the next day, I learned much for I came to a place in the mountains where three roads could be taken to Megiddo, and it brought back the voice of my Pharaoh telling me of Thutmose the Third. For He was the Monarch who had come to this same fork with His armies only to learn that He could approach Megiddo by the long route to the north through Zefti, or by the open southern road through Taanash. There was also the Pass of Megiddo between, but that went over the Ridge of Carmel to the gates of the city itself, a dangerous trail, and narrow. ‘Horse will have to pass behind horse,’ said His officers, ‘and man behind man. Our advance guard will have to fight their armies on the other side while our rearguard is still here.’ I, having brooded so long on the nature of these strange trees and forests, must have come to live in the echo of the voices of these long-dead officers of Thutmose the Third, for I knew I would choose the route taken by Thutmose. ‘I shall go forth at the head of My army,’ Thutmose had said, ‘and I will show the way by My footsteps,’ and He brought most of His army through the pass before the Kings of Kadesh and Megiddo were ready to meet Him since they had thought He would go by the long southern road to Taanash.

“Now I had to take my own way through the pass. If I had not known that an army had gone through already, I might have given up. The hills were steep and the trees grew as high as the columns of the Temple of Karnak. So, it was cool in this forest, and strange. The road kept climbing upward and the hill on one side of the trail was high above, but to the other it fell away so steeply I could see the tops of trees beneath me, and that was different from what I expected, and soft to the eye like pillows. I felt faint and wished to fall upon them so powerful was the spirit of those trees calling me down to them (and I did not even know the names of the spirits!). I had only been in this kind of forest for a morning, yet I felt as if I had lived here half so long as the years of my life in Egypt, and my heart never stopped beating in fear, not for a moment, as I rode through. There was no place where you could feel close to the sun. Instead of the pale gold of the desert, everything was green, and even the sky, where I could see it, looked more white to me than the blue of our sky above the Nile. How twisted were the spirits of this forest. The horses kept crying to one another.

“Then we came to a place where the hill fell away on one side; on the other it rose straight up. I could see the sun at last. We had climbed above the trees. The trail was now so narrow I did not know if I could take the chariot through. To the one side was a wall of rock, by the other a precipice, and the horses would not move. I had to free Mu, who was nearest to the fall, from her harness, and then tied the tail of Ta to her bridle so that Mu could walk behind. The chariot I pushed myself. In that way we proceeded, step by step, the outside wheel of the chariot hanging—it happened—over the abyss. I, at the rear, leaned all my weight to the side of the chariot that was near to the wall. You may be sure I cursed in terror whenever a rock made us stop, and I had to lift the chariot over. Before we were through, I knew why Thutmose the Third was a great King.

“Yes, it was difficult. Never once, may I say, did I think of that other wall in the Place of Truth where we climbed up to the tomb of Usermare, nor did I want such memories, although I believe the fear in which I lived on this trip, a fear so great as to make me think of myself as another person, and a weak one—came from my abject silence when He took me by the hair. No matter, I was one sweating charioteer by the time the horses and I came through and reached a rise from which I could see ahead. Below, the pass widened, and there on a hill in the distance up the other side of the valley across green forests and plowed fields was the town of Megiddo. I saw it through the battlement of the mountains.

“Thutmose the Third had descended this pass, and gone into battle, and captured chariots of gold and silver and left the champions of the enemy ‘stretched out like fish’—such was the word of Ramses. Thutmose took thousands of cattle and two thousand horses and much gold and silver. Hearing of such plunder I had supposed the city would be a rich sight with white marble palaces like our own Memphi, or temples of gold, or, at the least, wooden mansions painted in the richest of colors. Yet, on the next day, as I came near, it was only a poor town, and dirty in appearance. Maybe it had been poor ever since Thutmose had conquered it. All the same, it was a fort, the first Syrian fort I had seen, and it was not built square like ours with our straight brick walls. These palisades were made of rough stone, and went up and down with the land, the walls following the hills. Every few hundred steps was a high tower so that you could not charge the doors of Megiddo without a hundred arrows shooting down. A mean place. You would look to starve it out. I began to see the argument of Amen-khep-shu-ef.

“On this day, however, the gates were open and the market was busy. I did not enter. There was no need. The King of Kadesh would not be hiding an army inside the walls of Megiddo when you could walk into the city and look about. So I knew that Monarch was not here with his men. Besides, Usermare would reach Megiddo in a few days, although by an easier road, and He would ask the questions that receive good answers. Whereas one dirty soldier with a battered chariot and two unseemly horses was more likely to be tortured himself than coax any truth out of strange tongues. So I drove around the walls of the town which took a long time, for the lanes were muddy, and it was a big town, but then I found a road on the other side that some had spoken of in Gaza. This road was easy to recognize, for it had paving stones and oak trees planted on each side, a royal road straight out of Megiddo to the north, yet I was the only vehicle on it.

“I soon knew why. The paving stones ended on the other side of the first hill and now I was on a wagon trail that had to be renowned for its ruts. Soon the fields disappeared and the forest grew in on me, and the horses and myself were afraid again. We were on the direct road to Tyre, but it was not direct. It curved like a snake and even coiled back and forth on itself to climb the higher hills. In the dark of late afternoon, I thought again of all I had heard of this road and its bandits. Even before I left Gaza, I listened to stories of how they raided caravans, and any merchant who did not know them well enough to pay tribute, was sold as a slave. Usually a merchant could write, and thereby serve as a scribe—a valuable slave! Then the bandits kept the horses and sold the goods. There were so many thieves that it gave occupation to the men of Megiddo. They could always hire out as an armed guard on a caravan.

“All the same, I was more afraid of the forest than the thieves. It would take four or five such robbers to bring me down. Afterward, one would be without an arm, another a foot, and maybe a third would never see again. I would die with my thumbs in somebody’s eyes. They would gain nothing but a body, two mediocre horses, and a chariot they probably could not sell. The cart was close to coming apart. Unless I was carrying a sum of gold—which I was, but hardly looked so prosperous—I was not worth attacking. They would see me as a soldier who was lost, or a deserter ready to join any pack of thieves, or even as the scout I was indeed. And if they saw me as the last, why, they could do worse than offer a favor to an Egyptian scout in the army of Ramses the Second. Among our allies in Gaza had been a few Asiatics from nearby tribes, and by what they said, I knew there was a large fear of the new Pharaoh. Syrians might be used to Egyptian garrisons living among them, but in a quiet year no more than a few envoys would arrive from Thebes to collect tribute and talk to the Prince of the territory. They did not try to change the laws, nor interfere with the foreign temples. We Egyptians had a saying, ‘Amon is interested in your gold, not your God.’ A sensible arrangement. Usually there was no trouble.

“When a new Pharaoh ascended the Throne, however, it was different. The young Princes of Asia were more defiant. So, in all these lands of Lebanon and Syria had come the word: Ramses the Second was arriving with the largest army ever to march out of Egypt. If I were a thief, in that case, hiding in these dark hollows, with many a merchant offering a bounty for me, I would look to make an Egyptian my friend. Therefore, I did not hesitate. I took the most dangerous road to Tyre. Maybe I would fall in with a few brigands who could give me information. My fear of travel might be great, but even larger was my fear of rejoining Usermare-Setpenere with no information to offer.

“So I kept moving. Here, the trail was wide enough for both my horses. Yet by evening the forest and hills were still around me. I bedded down in a grove, fed my horses some grain, ate of it myself with care not to crack my teeth on any pebble, and then prepared to sleep, using my charioteer’s cloak for a ground-cloth. It proved, however, too cold, and I soon preferred to sit with my back against a tree. That was better. The trunk felt like a friend behind me. It was as if we sat on watch, back against back, and searched the darkness. To my surprise there was more to see than I would have thought. No farther away than four or five long throws of a stone, a spark flew up in the darkness, and watching, I soon saw a small campfire.

“The spirits in this wood were silent. They encouraged silence. I could feel those spirits going deep into the earth, yet I could also feel them returning to the tree, and they were light as the feather of Maat. I heard the leaves speak to them on every little wind. So, too, was I able to hear the quiet of these woods, and by their hush did I pass through the wall of my own ears and into the movements of every small animal. The keenness of my hearing was so fine that I wondered if I had been blessed by the spirits of my tree since I felt no fear, and was strong for the first time in weeks.

“I kept looking at the campfire. I could see little more than its light, yet by the sound, there could not be more than three men around it, probably two, and they spoke in a language whose tones were strange.

“In the wild of this forest, I found it peaceful to hear these thieves’ voices. I knew it was the peace that comes when you can choose what to do with another man. You can kill, or let him go. There is no peace so calm as that. Indeed, my Pharaoh always seemed to live in just such a way.

“Now I felt the same power. My arm was ready to slay the first thief before the second would know I was there.

“I stood up then. The horses were asleep and I sent them a thought as sure as the flick of my reins. ‘Sleep in peace,’ I told them, ‘and blow no wind through any hole.’ I meant it. Then I took off the coat of mail so that my skin could feel the nearness of any low bush, and in the darkness I began to walk toward the fire. Almost at once I lost my strength. My hearing disappeared. The fear came back. The forest was no longer my friend, and I had to sit down once more against a tree.

“Now I could hear the voices of the men again. Courage returned to my loins and my back. I was eager to move, but so soon as I was on my feet, these powers departed. Only the touch of the tree, it seemed, could give me strength. Was I not like a blind priest in the Temple of Karnak feeling his way from column to column?