Nile Builder: The Architect from the East

Chapter 98: Chapter 6, Part 1: The Decisive Battle — The Camps Fall Before Noon

The war horn sounded half an hour before dawn. It came from the slope south of the city, where the army camp’s watchmen had stood through the night with their hands on the horn, waiting for the sky to reach the agreed shade of grey.

The first note rolled out from behind the slope of the army camp south of the city, hugging the ground, pressing toward the East Camp. The second note was nearer, and more urgent. Before the third note had died, a black mass of men rose from the south slope — four thousand five hundred of them, blades still sheathed, shields held close to their bodies, moving like a silent tide spreading toward the south face of the East Camp. They had been lying on the cold ground in their ranks, and they rose the way a single body rises — no shouting, no clatter, only the sound of four thousand five hundred men standing up together and beginning to walk.

On the city wall, three torches were raised, and swung three times — slowly, evenly, the signal that had been agreed in daylight and rehearsed in daylight, now going out into the dark.

”Open the gate.” Lu Zhu said from the tower of the east gate. His voice carried down through the dark without being raised; the men in the tunnel had been listening for it.

The east gate’s bar was drawn out. The gate opened without a sound. In the tunnel, twelve hundred men crouched against the wall-foot, a black mass in the dark; their breath rose in the cold in one pale cloud and hung there. A whistle blew once, short: out.

The leading men went first. The plank bridges were passed forward one by one, laid across the trench, and the men crossed on their heels. Forty bridges became a road of boards. Each bridge had been numbered and matched to its place in the dark, so that no man had to hesitate on the edge. The men behind trod over them, footsteps low and quick. In the middle of the column moved Kamon’s sapper company — pry bars, grappling hooks, axes catching points of cold light in the dark.

A-Shi walked in the leading rank. The white cloth band was tied around his left arm; his shield was in his left hand, his blade still sheathed. At the moment he went out through the gate, he looked back once — at the lane mouth in the east of the city, a lantern was burning. The lantern was small against the dark of the city, but it was steady, and it was pointed at him.

”Father,” he said, low. ”I am coming back now.”

In the tunnel, Kamon was the last to come out. He turned and drew the two gate leaves gently together behind him — not barred shut. If the front went ill, the road back would still be open. He had learned the habit in the first nights of the siege, when a gate left unbarred was a gate that could be used twice.

”Forward.” Lu Zhu said from the tower. ”Today, no one looks back.”

On the arrow-platforms of the East Camp’s west palisade, torches blazed up all at once.

Panhesy’s men, after all, had not slept. They had lain through the night in their gear, blades beside them, watching the dark the way men watch a fire that has been burning toward them for months. All night the East Camp had heard the city’s hammers and the tramp of its columns; the last hour of waiting had been the longest of the war. The arrows came down in a sheet. But this time the city’s shields were in front, and the arrows struck the shields — thock, thock, thock, like a hard rain on a roof. The shields rang with it, and the men behind them held their line; the wall of shields did not give a step. The old soldier at the head of the column shouted from behind his shield: ”Guard the sappers! Push toward the palisade!”

From the tower, Lu Zhu saw it all clearly.

”Archers of the wall,” he said. ”Press down their arrow-platforms.”

The wall’s arrows had been nocked long since. At the word, they poured down under the torches on the East Camp’s west face. The torches marked the arrow-platforms, and as torch after torch went out, the arrows from that side thinned, volley by volley. The arrow-platforms went dark one after another, like eyes closing.

”One more volley.” Lu Zhu said. He gripped the crenellation and looked down. In the dark, the white cloth bands of his own men were creeping toward the palisade of the East Camp. ”Give the sappers’ hands room to work.”

”Chief Builder,” the soldier beside him said, ”stand lower. The arrows from outside have no eyes.”

”I have eyes.” Lu Zhu said. ”I can see the road.”

The shield wall had been practiced: the shields of the first rank slanted and overlapped like a row of eaves. Arrows struck the ”eaves,” slid off, and fell at the men’s feet. The sappers crouched under the eaves; arrows passed over their heads, and none of them looked up. They had been told once, and once was enough: look up, and the hands stop.

”Do not look up!” Kamon shouted from behind. ”If the sky falls, the shields will hold it. You mind only the work in your hands!”

The sapper company went forward at the run.

A-Ka was among the first to reach the palisade. He drove his pry bar into a seam of the palisade, shouted ”Up!”, and the first row of stakes split open with a crack. Grappling hooks flew up beside him; ten men heaved together — and thirty feet of the double-row palisade came down with a roar, a whole section falling at once — the sound of four months coming down, the sound men who had lived behind that line all winter would hear in their sleep for years after. Broken earth and wood-dust flew up and caked the men’s faces.

”Again!” Kamon’s voice came out of the dust. ”By the drill! In half a stick of incense, this whole stretch comes down!”

As the third section was being torn away, the arrows from inside the camp changed direction and poured at the sappers. A-Ka heard a hiss past his ear — an arrow grazed his neck and stuck in the earth behind him. He did not dodge — the arrow had come close enough to cut the collar of his coat, and he did not mention it to anyone. He only dropped his body half an inch lower and drove the pry bar deeper.

”A-Ka!” The team leader shouted. ”Two steps left!”

”I know!” A-Ka roared back. ”I have taken down this kind of palisade before — it is like the South Camp’s! Whatever men raise, men can find the seam in!”

His words made the sappers around him laugh. The laughter under the arrow rain was short, but bright. Pry bar after pry bar went in; hook after hook flew up; section after section came down. Half a stick of incense had barely passed when the thirty paces of the East Camp’s west face lay open in one wide gap.

South of the west face, the men of the army camp had arrived as well.

Horenheb was not on horseback — he walked at the head of the infantry, shield in his left hand, blade still in its sheath. Where the trench was too wide, the sappers bridged it first; where the palisade stood, the sappers took it down first. The army camp’s sapper company worked like the city’s — pry bars and hooks, one stroke after another. The two companies, one tearing from the west and one from the south, worked like two pairs of scissors, shearing away the two faces of the East Camp.

South of the camp, Horenheb was not on horseback — he walked at the head of the infantry, shield in his left hand, blade still in its sheath. Where the trench was too wide, the sappers bridged it first; where the palisade stood, the sappers took it down first. The army camp’s sapper company worked like the city’s — pry bars and hooks, one stroke after another.

The south trench was deeper than the west one. When the bridges were laid over it, the planks trembled under the men’s weight; a man walking on them felt the give with every step. The leading soldiers crossed one behind another, crouched low. One man’s foot slipped off the bridge edge, and half his leg went into the trench; the man behind caught him by the collar and hauled him up in one motion, and the two went on without stopping. Behind them, the rest of the column crossed without another slip.

”Walk on the middle of the bridge!” A squad leader called in a low voice. ”The edges are hollow!”

Beyond the trench stood the horse-stop stakes. The sappers of the army camp were ready — axes came down on the cross-timbers of the stakes, and after a few blows the frames fell apart. The wagons were levered at the axles with pry bars, and tipped over into the trench. The rebels watching from the camp’s south gate saw the line they had built through four months sinking, stretch by stretch, before their eyes. First a few of them turned and ran; then the whole pack of them ran at once.

”General!” The old centurion gasped. ”Their arrows are thinning.”

”When the arrows thin, the end is near.” Horenheb said. ”Pass the word: draw blades.”

The sound of blades leaving their sheaths ran through the dark like a low wind sweeping from the slope into the camp. Horenheb thrust his shield forward and was the first man to step across the leveled palisade gap. Behind him the gap filled with men pouring through two and three abreast, and the dark of the camp’s south face went bright with their blades. Behind him, more than four thousand men poured into the south face of the East Camp like a black tide.

On the slope to the north, the cavalry was moving too.

The left wing — three hundred horse — stood fast on the high ground between the East Camp and the North Camp, blades sheathed, drawn up in two ranks, one facing forward and one held back. The horses stood with their ears forward, reading the trembling of the ground through their hooves, while their riders held them still with their knees. The North Camp had sent out two parties before dawn. The first, a scouting party, had been driven back by a shout from the horsemen. The second, several hundred men who truly meant to break out, reached the foot of the slope — saw the two silent ranks of horses above them — and scattered back into their own camp by themselves. The horses had not moved a step; the charge had broken on the sight of them alone.

”They dare not fight.” The old rider said to the horseman beside him. ”You can read it in their walk — that is not a charge, that is a flight. A man who is fleeing meets a horse, and his legs go soft first.”

”Then we—?”

”We hold.” The old rider said. ”The general’s order: block, do not chase. If they shrink back, let them shrink. When the sun comes up, they will come out by themselves — holding up white cloth.”

At the mouth of the river channels, Meru’s six boats lay in a line.

Men fleeing east came pouring out of the camp in a black flood toward the river flats. Some waded into the water; some seized the camp’s small boats and jumped into the river in confusion. Meru’s boats swung across their path, torches raised, and the boatmen shouted: ”Do not panic! Do not panic! There are boats on the river — we fish out anyone in the water!”

The bamboo poles went down into the black water. Hand after hand caught hold of a pole and was hauled up, the boatmen working without a word, the way men work when the water is cold and the night is not yet over. The boy was shivering when he came over the side, though the night was not cold; the shaking came from somewhere inside him. Those hauled up lay dripping on the deck planks, gasping for breath. A half-grown boy clung to a pole with both hands, and when he was aboard his first words were: ”I... I was not trying to run. The men behind me pushed me in.”

”I know.” A boatman said. ”Pushed in or not, you are fished out. Sit steady. When it is light, we take you to get porridge.”

A-Tu’s boat lay farther north. He watched the direction of the river bend, torch after torch lit, until the river surface was bright for half a li around. The torches turned the water to hammered copper; a man watching from the far bank could count every boat. ”If boats come from over there,” A-Tu said to his boatmen, ”call out to them first, then block them. This river, today, is a road of mercy — not a road of death.”

”Master,” a boatman asked, ”will they truly come down?”

”I do not know.” A-Tu said. ”If they come, we receive them. If they do not come, we wait.” He leaned on his pole, his eyes fixed on the north. ”I want to see, with my own eyes, when the lamp in that tent at the river bend goes out.” He said it without malice; it was simply the one thing left in the war that he wanted to know.

Inside the East Camp, all was chaos.

The front was fighting; the rear was running. And the men who ran were not running out — they were running east, toward the river flats. Panhesy stood in the middle of the camp with his blade in his hand, shouting himself hoarse: ”No one falls back! Return to your posts!” His voice was swallowed in the noise of the camp, the way a man’s voice is swallowed by a river in flood. No one listened. In the firelight, the soldiers swarmed eastward like an anthill that had been flooded — the firelight catching their backs and their piled gear, no one fighting anymore, everyone only running.

”General!” His guards pulled at him. ”The west palisade is broken! They are up over the south face too! The camp... the camp cannot be held!”

”If it cannot be held,” Panhesy said, ”it will still fall like a soldier’s camp.” He shook off his guards and, with the last two hundred of his personal men, charged west. The two hundred had been with him since the South Camp; they knew what the charge was worth, and they came anyway.

Before the charge, he turned once and looked at his soldiers. In the firelight, the two hundred faces — dark, thin, but every one of them standing straight. The straightness was the last thing the hunger had not taken from them. He said: ”Brothers — the High Priest said this of this battle: win, and the city is ours; lose, and we lose under the wall. Now we lose under the wall. Let us lose it plainly.”

”General,” the guards’ leader said, ”we follow you to the end.”

”Good.” Panhesy said. ”Go.”

The charge met the king’s men pouring through the gap, and the two sides churned together in the firelight. Panhesy’s blade was fast — but his soldiers were too hungry to lift their shields. One round of fighting, and a rank of them went down. Another round, and only a dozen men were left at his side; the rest lay where the first two rounds had put them, in the trampled space between the two sides. In the crush, a shield slammed into his wounded left shoulder — the old wound burst open, and blood ran down along the seams of his armor. He sank to one knee, driving his blade into the earth to hold himself up, refusing to fall flat. The blood had soaked his sleeve through, and the ground under his knee had gone dark with it.

”General!” His guards lunged to support him.

”Do not move.” Panhesy said. ”When the fight cannot be won, the fight stops.” He raised his head and shouted toward the men across from him: ”Who commands here? I, Panhesy, will surrender — but I will surrender to the commander’s face!”

”Panhesy!” A voice answered from the other side. ”Put down your blade! You will be treated for your wounds!”

Panhesy looked up. In the firelight he saw Horenheb standing ten paces away, the point of his blade resting on the ground.

”A man of the western line,” Panhesy said, ”does not kill men who surrender.”

”He does not.” Horenheb said. ”And you are not surrendering. You are beaten. A beaten commander is no disgrace.” He said it without softness and without contempt — the way one soldier speaks to another at the end of a fight.

Panhesy looked at him for a long time. Then, slowly, he drew his blade out of the earth, laid it across his knee — and cast it down with a clatter.

”Beaten.” He said. ”Panhesy is beaten.”

Behind him, the dozen guards threw down their blades one after another. The blades struck the ground, ringing, like a string of bells that had run out of breath. The sound died, and the silence that followed it was the silence of a war ending.

It was at that moment that the sky grew light — grey at first, then gold, as if the day itself had been waiting for the blades to fall silent before it showed itself.

Inside the east gate, the dressing point had been open since midnight.

Sister Wei and the women had boiled strips of cloth, pot after pot; the pots steamed in a row along the wall of the lane, and the smell of boiling cloth hung over the whole eastern quarter. The lightly wounded came in, were bound up, sat a while, and went back out — on their own feet, which was the whole point of the binding. The badly wounded were set on stretchers and carried at a run, four men to a stretcher, toward the hospital. The four-to-a-stretcher rule came from the siege: two carried and two spelled them, so that the pace never dropped. The stretcher teams ran back and forth until the earth of the lane was packed hard under their feet. The lane had become the hospital’s front yard, and the stretchers moved through it in a rhythm that never broke — a river running in both directions, men going out to the fight and men coming back from it, and the city letting it run.

”Sister Wei!” Someone shouted. ”Three more down from the west side!”

”Bring them here!” Sister Wei did not raise her head; her hands were binding the arm of a bleeding soldier, moving fast — with the economy of a woman who has done the work ten thousand times, her fingers knowing it better than her eyes. ”The light ones sit on the left, the heavy ones on the stretchers. No crowding!”

Inside, Shafi was checking the medicines — pack by pack, against the list that had come back from the boats at dawn, the way she had promised. As she worked, she glanced at the lane mouth — A-Shi’s brother, the young man whose leg had just healed, was carrying a stretcher in through the city gate. The leg that the medical point had bound up weeks before carried him now at a run, and it did not give. The man on the stretcher had a grey face, but his chest still rose and fell faintly. The young man saw Shafi and called: ”Sister Shafi! This one is still breathing!”

”Bring him in!” Shafi said.

The young man set his teeth and carried the stretcher into the shed. He set it down, turned, and ran — then stopped after two steps and looked back: ”Sister Shafi... my brother — have you seen my brother?”

”I have seen him.” Shafi said. ”He is well. He is at the palisade gap on the west side, with the sappers. He will be back soon.”

”Then all is well.” The young man wiped his forehead and grinned. ”I will keep running, then!”

He ran out through the door. In the lane, the sky was fully light by now; the stretcher teams moved back and forth, like a living river.

On the open ground east of the city, when the light came, the scene had changed utterly.

Where the camp had stood the night before lay a great expanse of trampled earth. Palisades lay fallen or torn apart; the trenches were covered with bridges; horse-stop stakes and wagons lay overturned this way and that. And on the open ground crouched a black stretch of men, ranked from east to west — the surrendered. They hugged their knees, saying nothing, only lifting their heads to watch the sun of the east as it climbed, little by little.

The sun came out — a winter sun, white and bright, not warm, but bright, and higher now over the trampled field than it had been when the first horn sounded. The crouching men narrowed their eyes. A half-grown surrendered soldier said, suddenly: ”In four months, this is the first time I feel the sun is shining on me.”

No one beside him answered. But on many faces, the tightness slowly let go. It was the first time in four months that so many of them had looked at the sun, in the same moment, without fear.

On the channels, Meru’s boats went on working, trip after trip. The men fished from the water were wrapped in blankets from the boats’ stores and huddled in the hulls. A boatman shared out water to them and said: ”No more fear. The war is over. Your blades are piled on the river flats; your men are crouching on the open ground. From today, this river — cross it on whichever side you please.”

”Truly... truly over?” A man who had been fished out asked.

”Over.” The boatman said. ”Listen —”

Across the river, the horn sounded once more. This note did not urge, and did not frighten. It was long, and steady, as if someone were blowing a breath over the field that had fought for four months. The men on the boats rested on their poles and listened, and even the water seemed to go still with them.

Before dark, Meru’s boats came in to the beach, with the day’s last light lying level on the water. He stood in the bow and spread out, one last time, the river map that had ridden at his belt for four months.

On the map, side channel after side channel, reed bed after reed bed — every line bought with lives. Now the North Camp was settled, and the river-patrol boats had been gathered in as well. He looked at the map a while; then, with a charcoal stick, he rubbed out the crooked little channels, one by one, slowly. He erased one, and paused. He erased another, and paused again. When the last one was gone, the whole map held nothing but one thick, straight river — running from south to north, clean and open. The clean map looked strange after four months of crooked lines; it looked the way the river itself must look from the sky.

”Boss,” Shunzi said, coming close, ”you are truly erasing them? These roads were all drawn with men’s lives.”

”Drawn with men’s lives,” Meru said, ”so that one day they could be erased.” He rolled the map up and tucked it inside his coat. ”From today, the guild’s boats sail by day and by night. On this river, there are no more hidden roads.”

”Then this map—?”

”The map goes home and is framed.” Meru said. ”It will hang on the dock of the West Bank, so that the boatmen who come after can see how many black roads this river once had — and how they all became open water.” He knocked out his pipe. ”That is worth more than any trade I have ever made.”

Shunzi said nothing. He crouched in the bow and looked at the clean river for a long time. The water was turning gold in the sunset, running from south to north, bright and open.

In the North Camp, that night, there was chaos too.

The sound of the fighting in the east had run from the middle of the night until dawn, coming over the slope in waves — now the roar of a stretch of palisade going down, now the long cry of men, now a silence so sudden that the men holding their breath heard their own hearts. The men of the North Camp crowded at their camp gate to listen, standing in their gear, the way men listen to weather they cannot see. The bolder ones climbed up on the palisade to look, and climbed down to report: ”The fires of the East Camp are burning low.” A while later they climbed up again: ”The arrows of the East Camp have stopped.” When the sky was fully grey, the climber stopped climbing. He stood at the foot of the palisade and said: ”The East Camp is gone.”

The camp was still one moment — and then it exploded. The explosion had no direction in it; it was the sound of four months of fear coming out all at once. Men wept, men cursed, men seized blades and made to charge out — saying they were going to fight, but really going to flee. Several centurions tried to hold them back with whips; they stopped the east end of the camp but not the west.

It was then that the old sergeant stood up. He had been silent through the whole night’s panic, the way he had been silent through everything — and the camp, without knowing why, went quiet when he spoke.

He had been squatting by a broken wagon, and he spat out the grass stem he was chewing. ”Hear me out, all of you.” His voice was not loud, but every man in the camp knew him — an old pressed man who had been in this camp for nearly a year, and who knew every family’s story in it. He had no rank; his authority was the authority of a man who had simply lasted, and watched, and remembered.

”To fight to the death,” he said, ”you have to have a life to spend. Look at yourselves — how many of you can even lift a blade? Eight thousand men of the East Camp could not hold; what will seven thousand starving skeletons hold?” He stood up and slapped the dust off his backside. ”I have lived forty years, and I have learned one thing: a blade is for a man who can stand. A man who cannot stand should put it down while he still can.”

”Put it down,” a man asked in a choked voice, ”and we live?”

”We live.” The old sergeant said. ”I have listened to the hailing from the west every day. Surrender, and no punishment; those who farmed go back to their farms. I am putting my words down here this morning: those of you who want to fight — fight by yourselves. I am going to surrender. Whoever wants to come with me, throw down your gear and follow.”

The camp was still again. After a long moment, first a few old soldiers threw their blades to the ground. Then, sparsely at first and then in a stream, more men threw down their spears, their bows, and the wooden clubs that no one remembered issuing. The sound of blades falling ran from the east end of the camp to the west — ding, ding, ding — like an iron rain. When the last blade fell, the camp stood empty of weapons and full of men, and the men looked at one another as if seeing themselves for the first time.

”Where are our commanders?” Someone asked.

”Gone long since.” The old sergeant said. ”In the middle of the night they took their trusted men and fled to the river bend. They did not even take the grain with them — they did not mean to come back.”

”Then we—?”

”We,” the old sergeant said, ”find our own road to living.”

Once the East Camp fell, the North Camp never fought. It was not that the North Camp had no fight left in it; it was that the fight had nowhere left to go.

Before the army camp’s soldiers had even turned that way, the North Camp’s gate opened by itself — slowly, the way a gate opens when the men behind it are not sure their legs will hold them. The first man out was an old soldier, bent at the back, holding up a ragged flag — a white flag, pieced together from men’s shirt-linings, snapping in the wind. The flag had been sewn in the dark, by men who had decided during the night what the morning would bring. Behind him came a black stretch of men, empty-handed, walking in ranks toward the earthworks. They walked without orders and without drums; the only thing that held their ranks together was the habit of four months, and it held.

”Do not shoot!” The old soldier shouted at the top of his voice. ”The North Camp surrenders!”

The squad leader of the hailers knew him — this was the old soldier he had watched, day after day from behind the earth wall, the one who sat nearest the trench and listened longest. The squad leader went to meet him and asked: ”Where are your commanders?”

”Fled.” The old sergeant said. ”They left in the middle of the night.” He gestured behind him. ”These seven thousand and more are all pressed men. They asked me to lead them out — to be the first one out of the gate, so that your side would not take it for a trick and shoot.”

”The first man out of the gate,” the squad leader said, ”is a brave man.”

”Brave, nothing.” The old sergeant waved a hand. ”I am a coward. It is cowards who know that surrender should come early.” He paused. ”Give me a straight answer — if we surrender, will we truly not be killed?”

”Truly not killed.” The squad leader said. ”Look at the pot to the west.”

The old sergeant looked west. The surrender point’s ten great cauldrons were already lit; the porridge bubbled in them, and the smell of it drifted north. The smell had reached him on every wind for the past month, through every meal he had not eaten; now it was close enough to touch.

”Come on, then.” The squad leader said. ”The first bowl is yours.”

The old sergeant swallowed, and waved his hand at the men behind him. Seven thousand men, slowly, began to move — the way a field of grain moves when the wind reaches it: all together, and all one way.

In the city, the chief officiant had not slept all night. He had spent the hours between the lamps and the dawn on his feet, and his eyes were red, but his voice was steady.

At daylight he stood at the door of the old temple, listening east. The sound of fighting had gone far away; only scattered noises remained. He turned to the warden beside him: ”Go. Knock on the doors of the eastern half of the city, one by one. Tell them — it is over. Those who should come out, come out. The fires on the stoves should burn bright again.”

”Over?” The warden was dazed. ”Truly over?”

”Listen.” The chief officiant said.

The warden pricked up his ears. From the east came a muffled, dragging sound — not the sound of fighting and killing, but the sound of thousands of men walking in ranks. The sound had no anger in it — that was the strangest thing of all. Four months of war had made no sound like this; this was the sound of men going somewhere they were allowed to go. No blades, no drums — only footsteps, and on the wind, a faint smell of porridge.

”It is over.” The warden said. ”I will go and knock on the doors.”

The doors of the eastern half of the city opened, one after another — the way doors open when the thing they were shut against is gone. First a crack, then half a door, then the whole door wide. People peered out; some ran straight into the middle of the lane and stood looking east — standing in the middle of a road they had not dared to use for four months. After a long look, someone asked: ”Have our men come back?”

”They are back!” A fast-running child came back from the city gate, shouting all the way. ”They are back! All is well! The soldiers of the East Camp are squatting on the ground drinking porridge!”

”Porridge?” An old woman asked. ”Who boiled porridge for them?”

”We did!” The child shouted. ”Old Sun’s pots — all ten of them!”

The old woman clapped her hands: ”Then what are you waiting for? Light the stoves! Today, the whole city eats hot food!”

In the lanes, stove after stove was lit. Smoke rose from the roofs, one wisp here, one wisp there, until the wisps joined into a sheet that wrapped the whole city in a warm haze of cooking fires. The smoke was the city’s own flag now; it flew over every roof.

From that day, the surrender point became the busiest pot in Egypt. The line of men waiting for it reached from the pot across the trampled ground to where the camp had stood that morning, and beyond.

Ten great cauldrons, Old Sun in charge, A-He feeding the fires. The porridge was thick — thick enough to stand a chopstick in it. The surrendered lined up in four queues: register first, then porridge, then assignment to teams — those with a craft in one line, those who had farmed in another, the half-grown boys in a third. The queues stretched out of sight.

”Uncle Sun,” A-He said as he fed the fire, ”have the men of my village come?”

”See for yourself.” Old Sun said. ”The line on the east — that is the Wheat Village men. When they came into the camp they were asking after you.”

A-He set down his firewood and ran east. After two steps he stopped — in the line, several dusty-faced men were waving to him. Among them was one of his cousins, thin past recognition, but still standing. His clothes moved on him like a loose sack, but his eyes were the same eyes A-He remembered.

”Brother!” A-He shouted.

”A-He!” His cousin shouted back. ”We... we are all alive!”

A-He ran to them, and could not say a word — he only took the two date cakes he had been keeping warm inside his coat and pressed them into their hands, one after another. The cakes had been given to him at the kitchen that morning, and he had not eaten them, though he had been hungry since dawn. When they were given, he ran back, crouched at the stove, and fed the fire until it blazed.

”Uncle Sun,” he said, wiping his face, ”I will feed this fire until dark!”

”Until dawn, if you like.” Old Sun said. ”Today, this fire is burning for them.”

The screening was done by the chief officiant in person.

He set up a long table at the east end of the surrender point, with six wardens under him. The table was the same kind he had used at the landing on the night the refugees came in — long, plain, and patient. Each man who came was asked: which village, how many in the family, had he farmed, what craft did he know. Those who answered readily were given a wooden token and sent to the assignment lines. Those who stumbled in their answers were asked a few more questions — where the village well was, whose house stood at the head of the lane. Those who could not answer at all were not beaten or scolded; they were led to a thatched shelter at the side and told: ”Drink a bowl of water first. When you have thought it through, come again.”

”Chief Officiant,” one of the wardens asked, ”how many men will be asked today?”

”Twelve thousand.” The chief officiant said. ”If we do not finish today, we continue tomorrow — until the last man has been asked and answered. These men will go back to farm their villages and come into the city to work. If we do not ask them clearly, how can we give them the right work? To give a man the wrong work is to do him harm.”

”Asking closely is doing them good.” The warden nodded. ”I understand.”

By noon, the four lines had become four rivers without visible ends. The men in them stood the way men stand after a long hunger — patient, because patience is all that is left. At the porridge pots, the bowls ran out; Old Sun had the chipped bowls washed and pressed into service. A bowl with a chip in it holds the same porridge as a whole one; the men did not mind, and the children counted the chips like decorations. Those who received porridge squatted by the roadside to eat. As they ate, some burst into tears, and some buried their faces in their bowls and could not lift them for a long time. The tears ran down into the porridge, and the men ate them with it; no one in the line thought the less of them.

”Let them cry.” Old Sun said, ladle after ladle. ”Eat their fill, cry their fill — after today, there will be no more crying.”

”Uncle Sun,” A-He came close, ”which team were my cousins put into?”

”Your cousin weaves reed matting.” Old Sun said. ”He is in the craftsmen’s team. Tomorrow he goes north of the city to build shelters.” He scooped up a ladle of the thick porridge and scraped it clean on the rim of the pot. ”Do not worry. With work and food, a man does not collapse.”

A-He nodded hard and crouched back at the stove. The firelight lit his face, still smudged with ash, bright and warm — the ash of the morning’s fires, the color of the work that had fed him.

The lame old veteran and the boy soldier were found before noon.

They had been mixed in among the East Camp’s surrendered, one old and one young, holding each other up. The veteran’s lame leg had been twisted again in the night running, and it was swollen badly. The boy soldier was not hurt, but he was too frightened to speak, and he kept a tight grip on the veteran’s coat. His eyes were the eyes of a boy who had seen the war from the inside of it, and they did not leave the veteran’s face.

The registrar asked which village they were from. The veteran said: Tash village, in Upper Egypt. The registrar wrote it down and said: ”Your village still has fields over there. When the releases begin, the two of you can travel together. Road grain — five sheng for each man.”

”Five sheng.” The veteran murmured. ”Will it last until we reach home?”

”It will.” The registrar said. ”At every supply point along the road, show the king’s banner and you can ask for a bowl of hot soup. That rule has stood for a month now.”

The veteran said nothing. He looked down and rubbed the boy soldier’s hand between his own palms, the way a man warms a hand that has been cold for a long time. After a while he raised his head: ”May I ask one thing — does this city still take in men who know how to farm?”

”It does.” The registrar said. ”The work-teams are short of hands. That leg of yours — have it seen at the medical stall first. When it is well, you carry a work-tally, and meals are provided.”

”Then I am not leaving.” The veteran said. ”My family’s fields have lain fallow for two years. Going back, they would still lie fallow.” He paused. ”Let me stay in this city first, and pay back these two years of strength.”

The boy soldier looked up: ”Uncle, I am not leaving either. Wherever you go, I go.”

”Good.” The veteran said. ”Then the two of us will stay in this city, and learn to farm again, from the beginning.”

The old sergeant was put into a team as well. He had come in with the seven thousand, and he had expected to be put to digging with the rest; the assignment surprised him, and he hid it badly.

Not the work-teams — he was too old for that, and his legs were slow. The man in charge of the assignments looked at him and said: ”You have led soldiers, and you know men. The assignment post is short of one man who knows faces. From now on, you help with the roll call. Call a man’s name, and a man gets his meal.”

”Roll call?” The old sergeant laughed. ”I held roll call in the camp every day too. Back then I was counting blades. Now I am counting bowls.” He paused. ”All right. I can do this work.”

On the first day, he stood at the assignment post, recognizing the men one by one, letting them through one by one. He called each man by the name that had been entered for him, and the men straightened when they heard it. He recognized men until the sun went down; his voice was hoarse, but his back was straighter than anyone’s. Someone said: ”Old sergeant, rest a while.” He said: ”No rest. This name-calling reputation of mine was earned by leading seven thousand men out of the camp. Now I have to earn it into seven thousand men’s hearts.”

He looked up at the western sky. The sun was going down behind the city, and it lit the ten great cauldrons of the surrender point until they shone.

”Tomorrow,” he said, ”I call the roll at this same hour.” He said it to no one in particular, and half the men within hearing nodded, as if the promise had been made to each of them.

(End of Chapter 6, Part 1)