Queen of the Dawn: A Love Tale of Old Egypt

by H. Rider Haggard

Anath waited for no more. Yet when he turned at the doorway to make the customary obeisance, though Apepi could not see it in the shadow, there was a very evil look upon his face.

“Struck!” he murmured to himself. “I the great officer, I, the Vizier, struck before the Council and the servants! Well, if Apepi has a staff I have a sword. Now come on, Babylon! I must to my work. Oh! Khian, where are you?”

Apepi, the Pharaoh of the North, dismissed his councillors and his generals and sat in the chamber of the fort that he had built, brooding and alone. Although often he was possessed by that devil of rage who sleeps so lightly in the breasts of tyrants, also by other passions, he was a far-seeing statesman and a good general, having inherited from his forefathers the gifts by help of which they had conquered Egypt. Thus he knew that Anath, the old Vizier, the clearest and most cunning thinker in the land, was right when he told him that he could not stand against all the strength of Babylon, drilled and martialled as never it had been before, and marching under the guidance of those wizards of the Dawn who had escaped him, leaving behind them their high priest to lay upon him ere he died the curse of the oath-breaker and the seeker of innocent blood. Yet for telling him this truth he had offered public insult to Anath, smiting him as he would a slave, such insult as the old noble and officer in whose veins, it was said, ran the pure blood of Egypt, never would forget.

Would it not be better, then, to follow the blow on the head with a thrust to the heart and to have done with Anath? Nay, it was not safe; he was too powerful, he had too many in his pay. They might rise against him, now when all complained at being forced into a war they hated; they might destroy him as they believed he had destroyed his son, Prince Khian, whom they loved. He must send for Anath and crave pardon for what he had done when beside himself with rage and doubt, promising him great atonement and more honours, and biding his time to balance their account.

Yet could he accept this Anath’s counsel, and to save his life and the shattering of the Shepherds’ power, bow his neck beneath the yoke of Babylon? What did it mean? That he must abandon his throne and in favour of Khian if he still lived, of Khian, who had stolen from him the woman upon whose beauty he had set his heart, and sent her to call up the Babylonian hordes against him, his king and father. Or if Khian were dead, then this Nefra, Queen of the South and indeed of all Egypt by right of blood, would take that throne as the vassal of Babylon and doubtless wed its heir. Therefore what could he gain by surrender? One thing only—to live on in exile as a private man, eating out his heart with memories of the glory of the past and watching the Egyptians and their great ally stamp upon the Shepherd race.

It was not to be borne. If he must fall, it should be fighting as his forefathers would have done. How could he succeed against so mighty a foe? Not in a set battle; there they would overwhelm him, or if he kept to the walls of his forts, surround them and sweep on to capture Egypt. Yet generalship and craft might still give him victory. He had it; he would send all his best horsemen, twenty thousand or more of them of the old fighting Shepherd blood, to make a circuit in the desert and fall upon the rear of the Babylonians as they advanced to give battle, which doubtless according to their custom they would do while it was still dark, in order that they might attack in the uncertain light of dawn. By some such unexpected thrust their array might be confused and broken, so that he would have to deal not with an army, but with a mob. At least since no other offered, the plan should be tried.

The five thousand despatched by Tau came safely to the stronghold in the hills, and reported themselves and their mission to the captain of the outpost, and to his wounded guest whom all knew to be the Prince Khian, though none called him by that name. Khian heard their tale and grew faint with joy when he learned that the great army of Babylon was near to him and that with it, safe and sound, was Nefra his beloved, as a writing in her own hand told him. Sad and heavy had been his long confinement in this place, crippled as he was, but now at length the night of fear and waiting had passed away and there in front of him burned the dawn of joy.

Until the following morning the five thousand rested themselves and their horses; then, taking with them the garrison of the outpost who were glad enough to bid it good-bye, they started to rejoin the Babylonian army that they had planned to meet at a certain spot on the frontier of Egypt. In the centre of their array, in a chariot because he could not ride, went Khian, followed by Temu in another chariot because he would not ride, having sworn an oath, unless Fate forced him, never to mount another horse.

So they passed on safely across the desert, for Apepi’s skirmishers who had hemmed them in for so long had vanished away. They could not travel fast because of the soldiers of the garrison who must march on foot; indeed their progress was so slow that Khian, who was on fire to rejoin Nefra, wished to gallop on to the Babylonian army escorted only by a few horsemen. But this the officer in command of the five thousand would not suffer, having been strictly charged by Tau, who foresaw that such a thing might happen, to keep him who was called the Scribe Rasa safe in the heart of his force. In vain did Khian plead. Those, said the officer, were his orders and he must obey them.

On the third afternoon of their march, they learned from desert men that they drew near to the Babylonian host which was encamped over against the forts that Apepi had built. As it was still too far away to be reached that night and those on foot were very weary, its general halted the five thousand to eat and rest at a place where there was water, giving orders that the force was to march again at midnight by the light of the setting moon, which, if all went well, should bring them to the army shortly after dawn.