Nile Builder: The Architect from the East

Chapter 99: Chapter 6, Part 2: The Enemy Yields — Nekhem Enters the Temple

That afternoon — hours before the last of the surrendered filed past the old sergeant’s table — word had come from the river bend.

The man in the white robe had ridden into Horenheb’s tent at a gallop, and his legs gave way when he dismounted; he went down on one knee. His horse stood behind him with its head down, lathered from the ride — the horse had been ridden hard, and the man harder. In his hands he held a roll of sheepskin. He said: ”The High Priest sends me to sue for peace. The East Camp is gone, the North Camp has surrendered, and the three thousand at the river bend are believers, not soldiers. The High Priest says — he alone bears the guilt. He asks only that the blade not be turned on the believers.”

The tent was still a moment. Horenheb took the sheepskin and unrolled it. The words were written in Nekhem’s own hand — the even, deliberate hand of a man who wrote slowly and meant every stroke. When he had read it he asked: ”Where is Nekhem?”

”At the river bend.” The white robe said. ”His health is failing; these nights he has coughed badly. He says, if the general permits, he will come out of his tent and withdraw into the great temple. From that day, he will not take a single step outside it.”

”Withdraw into the great temple.” Horenheb repeated the words. He looked at Lu Zhu. Lu Zhu stood at the tent’s mouth and nodded once.

”Go back.” Horenheb said. ”Tell Nekhem: the ceasefire — I grant it. The matter of the temple — that is not mine to decide; it must be reported to the new capital. Until the pharaoh’s answer comes, the men of the river bend lay down their arms where they stand, and no one will trouble them.”

”I thank the general.” The white robe knocked his forehead heavily against the ground, and rose to go.

”Wait.” Horenheb said. ”Carry him one more message — four months is enough. Let this war end today.”

”Yes.” The white robe said. ”I will carry those words.”

In the tent at the river bend, Nekhem had spent that whole afternoon taking stock of his things.

Not grain. Not weapons. Scriptures. Old texts, copies, and several rolls of oracles brought out of Thebes. The chest had stood in the corner of the tent through the whole war, and no one had opened it since the day it was carried in. He had the white robe open the chest, and he counted the rolls one by one, and wiped each one clean — rolling each out and back with a dry cloth, the way a man handles the things that cannot be replaced. When he came to a roll whose corner had been singed, he stopped, and said: ”This one — thirty years ago, when the old king lay dying, I copied it out with my own hand.”

”High Priest,” the white robe said, ”are all of these to be taken into the temple?”

”Taken.” Nekhem said. ”The god’s things, left outside, would be defiled. Taken into the temple, they will have a clean place to rest.” He closed the chest. ”Of men, I can keep only a few. The books must be kept. A thousand years from now, when the men are gone, these words will still be here — and the people who come after will read them and know that Egypt once had men who fought for the old gods with their lives.”

He walked to the tent’s mouth and looked west. The city’s torches were lit — denser than on any night before. He watched them a while, and said, suddenly: ”Tell me — tonight, will they light every lamp in the city?”

”They may well.” The white robe said. ”They have won.”

”Won.” Nekhem repeated the word, and said it very lightly, the way a man says a word that is too heavy to be said aloud. ”Four months. Thirty thousand men’s torches. And now — this one tent, this one lamp.” He turned and looked at the lamp on the table. The flame jumped; he reached out and straightened the wick. ”While the lamp burns, it is not finished.”

”High Priest,” the white robe said, ”do you... concede?”

”If I do not concede,” Nekhem said, ”what else is there? Fight on, and the three thousand of the river bend will truly be turned to ash.” He said it slowly. ”All my life I have fought against the throne, and against the new gods, and against that man from another land. At the end of it, I understand — what I could not defeat was not a man. It was food. When men are hungry, everything else scatters.” He paused. ”When you carry my words back, add this: I am not asking them to spare me. I am asking them to give the believers a road. If the road is given, I, Nekhem, will sit in the temple until I die.”

That evening, the men of the river bend laid down their arms.

Three thousand men. Blades, spears, bows, arrows — piled piece by piece on the river flats until they made a small hill. The men who piled them moved slowly, each man carrying his own blade to the heap and laying it down with both hands, the way a man lays down a thing he has carried for years. Behind the hill crouched a black stretch of men. Nekhem did not come out. His tent stood on the highest ground of the river bend, its door-curtain hanging closed, a lamp burning within. The lamp had not been trimmed all day; it burned low and stubborn, as if it too were waiting.

”The High Priest is not coming out?” A soldier of the king’s army asked.

”He says,” the white robe answered, ”that he waits for the pharaoh’s reply. When the reply comes, he will enter the temple.”

”The temple.” The soldier clicked his tongue. ”From now on, he will be the only one living in it?”

”There are a few old priests.” The white robe said. ”Men who keep the temple and light the lamps. Fewer than ten in all.”

The soldier said nothing more. He looked at the tent with the burning lamp for a long time, and then he turned and walked away.

Before dark, the peace boards in the city were changed.

The chief officiant wrote the new words himself, four characters: ”The southern rising is settled.” They were painted larger than any words that had gone before them on that board; this was a board the city would read for years. Those who could not read had the words read to them; when they had been read a third time, the lanes burst open. People ran into the streets. People clung to their doorframes and wept. People took the dates they had saved through four months and pressed them, handful by handful, into the children’s hands — the dates they had hoarded against a famine that would not come now. The old date-seller overturned his whole stall — ”Today, dates are free!” The whole market laughed, and laughed with tears in it. By the end, the laughing and the crying were the same sound; no one in the market could have told them apart.

”Four months.” An old woman said, holding the wall. ”Four months — this is the first time in my heart that I feel the sky is truly bright.”

”Bright.” The woman beside her said. ”Listen —”

From the direction of the Haven of Settled Lives, Dawn’s cry came, fresh and clear. The child was one day old today. Her crying wove itself into the laughter of the whole city, like the breath the city had held for four months, let out all at once.

In the Haven, Nefer carried Dawn to the door of the birthing room and held her up to the evening air, and said: ”Dawn — listen. The whole city is holding your one-day feast.”

”It is a one-day feast.” Sister Wei said, laughing, beside her.

”A day is still a feast.” Nefer said. ”This child’s first day is this city’s first day.”

The old knife-grinder had no customers that evening, but he pushed his cart up and down the lanes, round after round. He stopped everyone he met: ”Is it over? Truly over?” For every question he got the answer ”over.” When he had asked the tenth man, he sat down on his whetstone and said: ”Then tomorrow I will polish my tools till they shine. In peaceful days, a knife-grinder has no lack of work — every household will be sewing clothes and cutting shoe patterns.”

”Master,” someone laughed at him, ”your whetstone is worn thin.”

”Thin is good.” The old man said. ”A thin stone means four months of dull days have been ground away.”

The water-carrier carried his loads to the east of the city and went from door to door asking if anyone wanted water. He had carried water through the worst of the siege, when the wells ran low and the jars stood empty; tonight his buckets were full, and he meant everyone to know it. When someone said no, he poured half a bucket anyway: ”Take it. From tomorrow, water can be drawn freely and the river can be crossed freely. This half bucket is my treat.” He walked back with his empty buckets, moving fast, the carrying-pole bouncing on his shoulder like a song.

North of the city, in the Haven, the women brought out every piece of colored cloth they had saved, and pieced them into long strips — every color the siege had left them, faded blue and sun-bleached red and the grey of old linen, chosen as carefully as if they were choosing for a wedding. Nefer asked what they were making. ”Flags,” they said. ”To hang out tomorrow — so that the people going back to their villages can see that this city has good days every day now.” Nefer laughed: ”Make them! Make plenty! From now on, this city hangs them at every door.”

The children were wildest of all. They ran from the east of the city to the west waving little grass-woven flags, shouting ”It’s over! It’s over!” until their voices gave out — the first free shouting the lanes had heard in four months, and the adults let it run without a single hush. Then they remembered they were hungry, ran home, took half a date cake each, and squatted on the thresholds to eat. The thresholds had been empty of children for four months; tonight they were lined with them, like sparrows on a roof. As he ate, one child said: ”Tomorrow — do we still play at holding the city?”

”No more.” A bigger child said. ”We won at holding the city. From now on, we play at building houses.”

”Building houses!” The children shouted together. The shouting ran up and down the lanes, and made the lights of the whole city sway three times.

On the wall-foot below the south gate, the two lines of whitewash were still there. ”The South Camp is leveled; the four gates stand open. Remember the men who went out — do not forget the men who held the lamps.” A soldier passing by saw the words and stopped. He stood before them a while; then he untied his white cloth band and tied it to the wooden post beside the words.

”The four gates,” he said, ”are truly open now.”

At the lane mouth in the east of the city, the old warden’s lantern was blown out after dark. It was the first time in four months that the lane mouth had gone dark before the middle of the night.

A-Shi came home first. The white cloth band was still on his arm. He went straight to the water jar and drank half a gourdful in great gulps; the water ran down his chin, and he did not stop to wipe it until the gourd was empty. The old warden watched him and asked: ”Where is your brother?”

”Behind me.” A-Shi said. ”He is carrying in the last stretcher. Then he comes home.”

As he spoke, the door sounded — the younger brother came in. Both his legs were sound; only the soles of his shoes had worn through, and he walked a little lame, the way his elder brother had walked in the weeks before. When he saw the lantern he smiled first: ”Father — the lantern is still burning.”

”Burning.” The old warden said. ”That is what it is for — waiting for you.”

He went to the door, took the lantern down, and blew it out gently. The flame died; one thread of smoke rose straight up and scattered into the dusk.

”Four months.” The old warden said. ”This lantern — I have kept it burning for four months. Tonight, it does not burn.” He turned and drew his two sons to him, one on each side, and held them a moment — the way a man holds two things he has been afraid to let out of his sight. When he let go, his hands were shaking, and he hid them in his sleeves. ”The men are home; the lantern has earned its rest. From now on, we light the lamp inside the house. This lantern at the door — let it be for other people.”

”For whom?” A-Shi asked.

”For the ones who have not come home yet.” The old warden said. ”This city has many lamps. One of them, surely, will reach the door of every man who is still walking.”

On the city wall, the king’s banners were all replaced with new ones that day.

Horenheb did not go up on the wall. He walked with the old centurion from the East Camp to the North Camp, and from the North Camp to the river flats — the whole circuit of the day’s battle. The old centurion did not ask what they were looking for; he knew the general was memorizing the ground the war had been fought on. Wherever he passed, the surrendered men crouched by the roadside in black stretches. He did not speak; he only walked. At the last, he stood at the edge of the river flats and looked at the hill of surrendered blades — piled like a small mountain, dark red in the sunset. The blades had been carried there by the hands that had once carried them into battle; they lay now as quietly as tools at the end of a day.

”Old centurion,” he said. ”Four months — and this is what they come to.”

”Is it worth it?” The old centurion asked.

”It is not worth it.” Horenheb said. ”But if, from now on, the piles are smaller — then it becomes worth it.” He turned toward the army camp. ”Tonight, write the war reports. One for the new capital, one for the western line.”

”What shall they say?”

”Say this.” Horenheb said. ”Thebes is settled.”

The messengers left that same night.

Three relay horses, two riders — north, then west, swinging wide of the river bend, making straight for the new capital. They carried little: one war report, one copy of the register of the surrendered, and Nekhem’s petition for peace in the original — three things, wrapped in oilcloth and sealed with three seals, the whole weight of four months going north in a saddlebag. Before they rode, Horenheb said: ”When you reach the new capital, report to the war ministry first, then lay the petition on the pharaoh’s own table. Tell them — Thebes will wait for the reply, however long it takes. I hold things steady here.”

”Yes.” The rider said. ”We will be there within ten days.”

”Do not push the horses.” Horenheb said. ”The snow on the road is heavy; ride steady. A day early or a day late, the city will not run away.” He paused. ”But the war in the north does not wait for anyone. So do not linger either.”

The rider swung into the saddle. Two horses, ridden in turns, one rider going northwest at a gallop until he was a speck. The hoofprints ran in lines over the frozen earth, like the final strokes drawn under a war that had lasted four months.

That night, the watch-fires of the army camp burned brighter than on any night before.

For no other reason than warmth. The fires had burned through the war for light, for signals, for cooking; tonight they burned for the men themselves. The soldiers who had held the line for four months sat around the fires, not speaking, just warming themselves. They had not sat like this in four months — with nothing to watch for, nothing to listen for, nothing to do but warm their hands. Some turned captured shields over and sat on them. Some counted the white cloth bands in their hands — bands taken, during the day, from the men who had surrendered.

”What are you counting them for?” A soldier beside him asked.

”Counting for fun.” The soldier said. ”Four months ago, these men wore white cloth bands when they marched into Thebes. Today, band after band has been untied.” He threw the bands into the fire. ”Burned. From tomorrow, this city has no more use for white cloth bands.”

In the fire, the bands curled, turned to small grey ashes, and drifted up and away. The soldier watched the ash go, and then went back to the fire without saying anything more.

Later in the night, Lu Zhu went to the field hospital once more. He had been there on the night after the South Camp fell, and on a hundred nights before it; the walk was as familiar to him as the walk to his own door.

The lamp that never went out was still burning. In the hospital yard, the wounded who did not fit inside lay in the colonnade, one beside another, covered with pieced-together old felt from the shelter stores — lying in rows as even as the rows of a harvest. He walked softly, and stopped in the middle of the yard. The night sounds of the hospital had changed: where there had been the moaning of the city’s wounded, there were now the deep, even breaths of men sleeping.

”Chief Builder.” The medicine-boy on night duty said, low.

”Go on with your work.” Lu Zhu said. ”I only came to look.” He looked up at the lamp. The flame was small, and it stood steady in the night wind. ”This lamp has not gone out since the first day of the siege. Tonight, for the first time, it shines on both sides at once.”

”Both sides,” the medicine-boy said, ”have slept in the same rows of beds now.”

”Then it is right.” Lu Zhu said. ”While the lamp burns, the people do not scatter.”

He turned and went. Behind him the hospital lamp burned bright, like the gathered breath of everyone in this city who had lived through it all.

Mery’s word ”gather” had begun to run from the evening on. It was the fourth page of his list — the page he and Horenheb had added at the counsel — and tonight it was no longer a page; it was a command.

Woser’s keys opened the granary’s doors four times that day. The keys had hung at his belt for thirty years, and they had never once been used four times in a day; he counted the openings the way a man counts a blessing. The first time, the back door of the official granary — the grain for ten thousand men’s porridge, carted out load after load. The second time, the medicine store — the medicines for the badly wounded, all sent to the hospital. The third time, the stores of gear — rope, felt, straw bedding, hauled to the surrender point. The fourth time, the old storehouse — the worn clothes and scraps of cloth the city had saved through months, all brought out to wrap the surrendered men who had nothing to wear.

”Four times.” Woser said, swinging his keys. ”I have kept a granary half my life, and this is the first time I have opened its doors four times in one day. Every door I opened was a door that saved people.”

”From now on,” Mery said, ”it will be every day. This month, the granary doors will be busier than the city gates.”

”Busy is good.” Woser said. ”When the granary doors are busy, it means the people are alive.”

The first work was the counting. The surrendered of the East Camp and the North Camp — more than twelve thousand — were divided into twelve companies, each with its head, each head keeping the roll. The second work was the materials. The rebels’ palisades, wagons, felt, and iron: what could be kept was kept, what could be burned was burned. The timber yard’s carts ran from morning to night, and north of the city a new hill began to rise. The third work was the medicine. The wounded of both sides came to more than three thousand; the badly wounded went into the hospital, the lightly wounded were bound where they lay. Imset walked with his people from the East Camp to the North Camp, the whole day long. He had walked the same ground that morning when it was a battlefield; by the afternoon it was a place where men lay in rows and waited to be healed.

”Teacher,” Shafi said, ”the medicine is still enough.”

”Enough.” Imset said. ”Then treat them all. Not one is to be missed. These three thousand men are the labor of Egypt from now on. If the men are ruined, the fields will lie waste.”

”Not one will be missed.” Shafi said.

At nightfall, Shafi lit her lamp and went over the day’s medicine account. As she worked, her brush stopped. She took out the book that had just been bound, turned to the section ”wounds and medicine-consumption,” and checked today’s numbers against its lines, one by one.

”Teacher,” she said, ”look — in this one battle, the wound medicine and the staunching cloth were used up at more than twice the rate of the night of the decisive battle at the South Camp. The consumption matches the line drawn in this book almost exactly.”

”Which line?”

”The line for storming a camp — the consumption always doubles.” Shafi pointed at the page. ”In the months of siege and tug-of-war, the medicine was consumed steadily. When a hard battle comes, the line jumps. Last time, at the South Camp, it jumped one notch. This time, at the East Camp, it jumped higher. It is written here.”

Imset bent over the page and looked, and read the line twice, the way he read every line that mattered. After a while he nodded: ”The four months of war were not fought for nothing. This is the first time this book has met a real battle and matched it number for number.” He paused. ”From now on, when the medical houses of every region lay in their supplies, they can follow this line — and the wounded will never again have to wait for medicine.”

”They will not.” Shafi said. She closed the ledger and pressed her fingers on its cover, the way a person presses down a stone that has settled into place.

In the hospital that day, more than half of the men carried in were from the East Camp. The stretchers came in through the same gate that had carried the city’s own wounded for four months; the bearers were the same bearers, and their pace was the same pace.

For four months the hospital’s door had faced the city. For the first time, the men lying inside it still wore the cloth bands of the rebels on their arms. The bands were worn and grey, and the arms under them were thin — the arms of men who had eaten too little for too long. One badly wounded man was carried in half-conscious, mumbling ”Mother” under his breath — the same word in every army, in every language of the river. The bearers looked at one another and said nothing. The soldier guarding the hospital door looked at Imset. Imset said: ”Carry him in. Untie the band, lay the man down — and he is a wounded man.” The soldier untied the band with his own hands — the first rebel band he had untied without cutting.

When the wounded man woke, he found himself lying on clean straw, his arm bound in new cloth — white and clean, cleaner than anything that had touched him in months. He stared for a long time, and then said: ”I... where am I?”

”The hospital.” The medicine-boy changing his dressing said. ”The hospital of Thebes.”

”They... treat us?” The wounded man’s voice floated.

”They do.” The medicine-boy said. ”Priest Imset has said it: whoever is laid down is a wounded man. In this city, medicine does not ask which side a man fought on.” He paused. ”Lie easy. When you are well, you will be enrolled in the work-teams. That arm of yours will still be needed.”

The wounded man said nothing more. He buried his face in the straw, and his shoulders shook — like a man crying, or like a man laughing, or both. The medicine-boy did not hurry him; some healings begin with a face buried in straw.

Panhesy was there too, and the men of both armies who passed the door of his room learned to walk quietly past it. His burst shoulder wound had brought him to the hospital, and the hospital had put him in a quiet room at the back, with a window looking out on the yard. He had not once looked out of it. The old army doctor was not there — he had collapsed from hunger the week before, and now sat in the shed next door drinking porridge, slowly coming back to himself. It was Neht who dressed Panhesy’s wound. Neht had dressed the wounds of both armies by now; his hands made no distinction, and his voice made none either. The old apothecary cleaned it with slow, even strokes, the way he cleaned every wound, and said: ”This wound of yours — the old scab has burst. If it is not cared for properly, the left arm will be lost.”

”Then let it be lost.” Panhesy said. ”What does a beaten commander need an arm for?”

”It is needed.” Neht said. ”Digging ditches, ramming earth, mending walls — which of these does not need an arm?” His hands did not stop. ”General Horenheb has given the order: treat you by the same rule as our own wounded. And he asked me to carry you a message — the western line does not lack soldiers. It lacks hands that are willing to take up a spade.”

Panhesy said nothing. After a long time he asked, suddenly: ”And the High Priest?”

”At the river bend.” Neht said. ”Tonight he withdraws into the great temple.”

Panhesy looked at the ceiling for a long while, and at last said: ”That is well, then. These four months — he has grown very tired.” He said it to the ceiling, and the ceiling said nothing back; there are some things a beaten man can only say to a ceiling.

The burial pits were dug behind the slope, downwind. There were no grave markers — only a row of low earthen mounds, the same color as the field; by spring they would be grass, like the rest of it. The chief officiant came and burned a stick of incense — the same sticks he had burned for the city’s own dead, brought from the old temple. The dead of either side could not tell the difference, and neither could he. The smoke could not rise straight in the wind; it circled the mounds once, and scattered. The chief officiant stood until the last of it was gone, and then he turned and walked back toward the city.

”Whichever side they were on,” the chief officiant said, ”once they are in the earth, they are all people of Egypt.” He bowed once. ”Go in peace. The days that remain — the living will live them for you.”

At nightfall, Horenheb and Lu Zhu stood on the tower of the east gate. The two men had not stood on a tower together since the night the South Camp fell; both noticed it, and neither spoke of it.

Below them the torches lay in one wide sheet. In the direction of the East Camp the sappers had not stopped work; the sound of palisades being taken down came near and far. The lamps of the city were more numerous, and brighter, than on any night before — they had been lit early, by hands that could not wait for the dark.

”Twenty days.” Horenheb said. ”You said: in twenty days, feed the city a little fatter. And now, it is exactly so.”

”Exactly so.” Lu Zhu said. ”What comes next is the work of the days after a war — mending the walls, reopening the markets, settling the people. And —” he looked north, ”— the north.”

”The north.” Horenheb said. ”I ride north tomorrow.”

”Wait two more days.” Lu Zhu said. ”The south has only just been settled; the camps are not yet cleared. If you leave now, the hearts of the city will hang in the air again.”

”I take no soldiers.” Horenheb said. ”I go first to the northern border, to look at the wall. When I have seen it, I come back for the men.” He pressed his hand on his sword-hilt. ”The snow has already fallen. The sky of the north does not wait.”

Lu Zhu did not argue further. He looked at the northern night sky — black and heavy, showing nothing. But he knew that behind that blackness stood Seb’s wall, and Old Camel’s carts, and the Hittite camp — and a clock that walked faster than any man. The clock had been walking since the first snow; he could almost hear it, if he stood still enough.

”Then go.” Lu Zhu said. ”The city has me.”

”The city has you.” Horenheb said. ”The north has me. Both ends of this country have their man.”

”The war report,” Lu Zhu asked, ”what shall it say?”

”The truth.” Horenheb said. ”The East Camp fell in half a day. The North Camp surrendered without a fight. The river bend laid down its arms. Our own losses — more than seven hundred wounded, and three hundred gone.” He paused. ”I do not like to speak these numbers. But the new capital must know that this war was not picked up from the ground.”

”And Panhesy?”

”He is being treated.” Horenheb said. ”When his wound is healed, he is to be taken to the new capital, and the pharaoh will decide his fate.” He paused. ”I will not speak for him. But in four months of war, he fought well. Men who came off the western line acknowledge that.”

Lu Zhu said nothing. The two men stood on the tower a while; The wind came off the river and lifted both their coats, carrying the sounds of the night with it — the hammers of the sappers, the far-off laughter of the city, the river moving past in the dark. After a long time Lu Zhu said: ”Another letter came from the north this evening. Seb wrote it. The snow has fallen twice; the frozen earth will not take a pick, but the wall is still growing. He says the soldiers of the northern border are wearing the padded coats sent from the city, and drinking the hot porridge from Old Camel’s carts. He wrote it plainly, the way he wrote everything, as a report of work done — and the plainness of it warmed the men who read it. He asks how the south is doing.”

”Answer him.” Horenheb said. ”Tell him: the south is settled. Raise your wall in peace; when the snow stops, I will come and see him.”

”And Old Camel.” Lu Zhu said. ”He writes that the Hittite camp’s fires grow denser every day. The war in the north may not wait for the snow to stop.”

”If it will not wait, we fight in the snow.” Horenheb said. ”I have kept thirty winters on the western line. Snow is a blade — and it is also a wall.” He turned and walked toward the army camp. ”I leave at first light.”

”With whom?”

”Two hundred riders, thirty craftsmen.” Horenheb said. ”First I will walk the northern line and learn its shape. The rest of the soldiers stay with you — the south has only just settled, and the city needs its men.”

”They stay with me.” Lu Zhu said. ”Within ten days I will have the southern camps cleared and the city fed again. Ten days after that, the grain and the soldiers will be ready for you.”

”Good.” Horenheb said. ”Ten days.” He walked a few steps, and turned back. ”Lu Zhu — for four months you have been the last man in this city still burning himself down. Tonight, sleep.”

Lu Zhu smiled and said nothing. He stood on the tower and watched Horenheb’s back vanish into the dark — the figure growing small against the fires of the camp until the dark took it. He stood a moment longer, and then went down.

The wind came off the river and set the banners of the wall snapping. He stood alone for a long time. Below, the lamps of the city burned one after another, and the whole city lay like an island floating on the night.

”Four months.” He said, low. ”From holding the city, to breaking the camp, to gathering the men. This city has come through.”

He turned to go down. After two steps he stopped and looked north once more. The northern sky was black and heavy. He knew that behind the blackness the snow was still falling, and the fires were still burning, and the road was still long.

”Still long.” He said. ”Then we go on walking.”

Late in the night, the gate of the great temple opened. It was the first time the gate had opened since the war began, and the sound of the hinges carried far in the still air.

It was the gate guards who opened it — the pharaoh’s reply had not come, but the white robe had come again from the river bend, saying that the High Priest was coughing so badly he could no longer stand, and asked to enter the temple first, so that his life could be saved while he waited for the reply. The guards had not expected to open the gate that night; they stood aside with their spears grounded, not knowing whether to salute the man in the chair or not. Horenheb and the chief officiant had talked the matter over through the night, weighing the mercy against the risk, and in the end the mercy had weighed more. It was granted: Nekhem might withdraw into the great temple. Not one blade was to be carried in; he might bring nine men.

At the Zi hour, Nekhem set out from the river bend. The Zi hour was the deepest hour of the night, and the road to the temple lay dark and empty in it.

He wore a clean white robe — washed that afternoon by the white robe’s own hands and dried by the fire — and rode in an old carrying-chair — the chair the old priests used to carry their sick, mended twice, swaying with every step of its four bearers. Behind him came the white robe and eight old priests; behind them, a company of the king’s soldiers — not to guard him, but to light the road. They carried torches instead of drawn blades, and they walked at a distance, so that the chair went ahead alone.

The road ran from the camp at the river bend to the great temple — the same road the rebels had marched out of Thebes on, four months before; the ruts of their carts were still in it. On both sides crouched the believers who had laid down their arms. When they saw the carrying-chair coming, they stood up, one after another. No one spoke. No one knelt. They only stood by the roadside and watched the old chair pass, slowly. Some of them had followed him out of Thebes four months before; they stood now with their hands empty, and their emptiness was the loudest thing on the road. An old woman holding an empty jar bowed deeply toward the chair.

On the far city wall, watchers stood in a long line, their torches joining into a line of light. Nekhem looked at the line once, and said nothing.

”High Priest,” the white robe said, low, ”the wall is full of the city’s people.”

”I see them.” Nekhem said. ”Let them look. After four months, they are owed the sight.”

At the stone steps of the great temple, the chair was set down. The four bearers lowered it slowly, as if they did not want to let it go. Nekhem stepped out, straightened his white robe, and looked up at the black mass of the temple. The temple door stood open; inside, there was no light — only the dark that had been waiting for him, patient as an old servant.

The chief officiant stood on the steps, waiting for him, his hands folded in the old position of the rites. He had come out of the city that evening, walking out through the east gate alone and without escort, the way he walked to the temple on the days of the great rites — as the city’s priest, to make the handover at the temple steps. Two men in priestly robes, one at the top of the steps and one at the bottom, twelve stone steps between them; neither spoke first. The wind moved between them, carrying the sound of the river and, from far off, the sound of the city. Four months before, the man at the top of the steps had been shut up in the old temple of the city by the man at the bottom. Now the places were turned about.

”The temple,” the chief officiant said first, ”is kept for you. The eternal lamps will be lit every day.”

”I thank you.” Nekhem said. He paused, and for a moment the two priests stood looking at each other across the width of the steps, the way two men look at each other across the width of a war. Then Nekhem said: ”Do you hate me?”

”I hated you once.” The chief officiant said. ”Later, I stopped. These four months — you besieged the city, and yet you made me understand one thing: a temple is dead, and people are alive. For that, I owe you a thanks.”

”No thanks.” Nekhem said. ”Each of us keeps his own road.”

He mounted the steps — one, then another. When he reached the chief officiant’s side he paused and said: ”Keep the lamps burning. From now on, inside there, I will look at those lamps.”

”They will burn.” The chief officiant said.

”Four months.” Nekhem said, low, as if speaking to the steps themselves. ”I went out with thirty thousand men’s torches. And now I come back — with nothing but this white robe.”

He reached the door, and stopped, and looked back once. The lights of the city lay in one sheet behind him.

”How bright it is.” He said.

Then he walked into the temple.

The door closed behind him, slowly. The sound of it was the sound of a page turning — the last page of the war, turned at last.

Inside, the sanctuary was dark. The white robe felt his way along the wall and lit the eternal lamps, one after another — his hands knew the way; he had lit these lamps a thousand times, in the years before the war, when this temple had been his home. As the lamps multiplied, shadows appeared in the hall. The image of the god stood as it had always stood — very tall, its face indistinguishable. Nekhem walked to the middle of the sanctuary, looked up at it for a long time, and then, slowly, knelt — the kneeling slow, the way a man kneels when his knees have forgotten the motion.

”God.” He said. ”I have brought them back. Fewer came back alive than went out. But those who remain — they still have their lives.”

The sanctuary was very still. The nine old priests stood behind him; no one spoke. They had followed him from the river bend without being asked, and they would follow him into the dark of the temple the same way. Only the flames of the eternal lamps swayed gently, stirred by their breathing.

In the small hours, the white robe came in softly and knelt — moving without sound, the way he had moved through the tents of the camp for four months. ”High Priest,” he said, low, ”everything outside is settled. The men of the river bend have laid down their arms, received their porridge, and no one has troubled them. The wounded have been taken in by the city’s hospital. The men of the East Camp and the North Camp have been formed into companies. General Horenheb says he will wait for the pharaoh’s reply. The soldiers at the temple gate are there to guard — not to imprison.”

”Good.” Nekhem said. ”All of it is good.”

”And —” the white robe hesitated, ”— the people of the city have gone home. Some of them bowed toward the temple as they passed. And someone set a bowl of porridge on the temple gate.”

Nekhem said nothing. After a long moment he asked: ”The porridge?”

”It stands on the steps outside the hall.” The white robe said. ”It is still warm.”

”Bring it in.” Nekhem said. ”I will eat it.”

The white robe went out, and after a while came back carrying the bowl — with both hands, the way he had carried the offerings in the old days, though it was only a bowl of porridge. The porridge was thick; steam rose from it in a thin thread. Nekhem took the bowl and held it, and did not eat at first. The warmth came through the clay into his cold hands, and he held the bowl the way a man holds a fire. He looked at the porridge in the light of the eternal lamps, and looked for a long time. Then he said: ”I besieged this city for four months. And in the end, the people of the city brought me a bowl of porridge.” He lowered his head and drank. ”This is the hardest mouthful I have ever swallowed — and the best.”

He drank it to the last drop. The bottom of the bowl was clean — clean the way the bowls of his own camp had been clean in the last months of the war, scraped to the clay, nothing wasted, nothing left.

After a long while, the white robe went to the farthest corner of the sanctuary and trimmed the smallest lamp — a very small flame, set on the window ledge. He trimmed it with the same care he had given the great lamps, though it was no bigger than a thumbnail. Seen through the crack of the door, that one point of light flared and dimmed, like an eye that refused to sleep.

Outside the gate, the people of the city had gradually gone home. Some looked back at the temple door as they went. No one spoke. Only the wind moved the lights of the city, making them brighten, sheet by sheet.

And in the east of the city, the sound of palisades being taken down still went on — stroke after stroke, like the four months turning over, page by page, to their last leaf.

(End of Chapter 6, Part 2)