Shadow Hawk by Andre Norton

Author:Andre Norton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11: PHARAOH DEPARTS TO THE HORIZON

Rahotep fought down the excitement that was making his heart pump too rapidly. His breath came like a runner’s. The desert cloak muffled him well from any prying eye, or so he trusted. He had crossed the river from the temple to Thebes without any unmasking. But the hardest part of his exploit was still before him. He must leave the protection of the wall against which he had flattened himself, walk boldly between those sentries at the gate, giving the countersign, and find his way to Commander Methen’s quarters without being revealed for what he was--an outlawed fugitive.

With his hand tight about the hilt of his dagger, he approached the gate. It was still early evening, so early that the men who had leave within the city were only now straggling back to the barracks. The captain attached himself to the tail of one such group, a good pace or two behind so that none of the men might be too inquisitive.

Those returning exchanged rude chaff with the sentries, which was abruptly silenced when the officer of the guard appeared. Rahotep cursed his ill luck under his breath. But the officer did not glance at the cloaked figure standing a little to one side--rather he employed his powers of caustic comment on the now sheepish leave men whom he lined up and marched smartly away.

With a vast sigh of relief Rahotep threw back his hood, allowing his warrior’s headdress with its improvised insignia to show. It all depended now on whether the sentries could recognize him. But his service with the royal forces had been of such limited duration that he hoped he had more than an even chance of bringing it off.

A spear swung down as a barrier before him.

“Re rises in glory.” Rahotep pinned his future to the password that Mahu, scouting the barracks wall, had whispered to him only moments earlier.

The spear snapped up and the sentry saluted. Rahotep was free to enter the barracks court, which to his mind was far too well lighted, with its torches set in regularly spaced brackets along the walls. Luckily he had been several times to visit Methen in the veteran’s quarters and needed no guide. The last obstacle, that the commander might not be in his room, remained.

By great effort the captain kept his pace to a leisurely one, though every nerve in his body hammered. He crossed the court and mounted the narrow stairs leading to the smaller apartments where the senior officers had their private rooms. Then he was at the right doorway, a little weak with relief to see that its mat curtain was down. Methen was there.

He stood listening for any murmur of voice that would betray a visitor. And so intent was he on that that he was doubly startled when the curtain bulged near floor level and a flat black shape squirmed frantically under it to fall upon his sandals and claw a welcome at shin height.

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