warlock

This is Wilbur Smith at full gallop: war, betrayal, forbidden love and one of fiction's great narrators. Taita is the whole show - a eunuch slave who is smarter than everyone around him and knows it. Read it if you want ancient Egypt rendered as blood-and-sand spectacle rather than museum glass, or if you love stories told by servants who see everything. Ideal for long flights and long winters.

1. 1

   Act 1

   The Chariot and the Vow

   Open in the Egyptian desert. Taita watches his master, the officer Tanus, drive a chariot directly at a sheer cliff face, then wheel the horses at the last instant. Up on the cliff top, in a simple white linen dress, stands Lostris, daughter of Lord Intef, with her handmaidens. The sun shines through the fabric and outlines her body, and Tanus cannot take his eyes off her. He introduces himself plainly: 'I am Taita. I am a physician, an architect, a poet, a musician, an engineer, and a philosopher. Above all, I am a teller of tales.' He is a eunuch, a slave in Lord Intef's household - and his loyalty belongs not to his master but to Lostris and Tanus. That loyalty is tested at once. Lord Intef announces his plan: he will marry Lostris to Pharaoh Mamose, a man old enough to be her grandfather, to lock in his own political position. Lostris is horrified. She pleads. Intef does not move an inch. So the lovers go behind his back. In the temple of Hathor, Tanus and Lostris pledge themselves to each other. Tanus gives her the words that will echo through the whole book: 'You are my one true love. I will love you through all eternity, through a hundred lifetimes.' Taita witnesses the vow - and instead of reporting it, he agrees to help them. A slave, a princess and a soldier now share a secret that could kill them all, and the marriage to Mamose goes ahead anyway.

2. 2

   Act 2

   The Fall of Egypt

   The world breaks. The Hyksos invade, and at the Blue Crocodile Gate Tanus - now a general - leads the Egyptian army against them. What he finds is a new weapon Egypt has no answer to: horse-drawn chariots that outmaneuver the Egyptian infantry. The battle is a catastrophic defeat for Egypt. Then it gets worse. Pharaoh Mamose himself is killed by a Hyksos arrow, and as he dies he does something no one expects: he formally bequeaths the Double Crown to Lostris, making her regent. Taita, at his side, records the last words: 'Lostris shall rule. The gods have spoken.' The girl who was sold into a political marriage now carries the crown of a dying Egypt. There is no time to grieve. The Hyksos hunt the Egyptians up the Nile, and Lostris - now Pharaoh - must flee with the remnants of the army and the nobility. Taita takes charge of the exodus: he loads the royal treasury onto the boats, and the mummy of Mamose with it. At the first cataract, with the enemy fleet closing in, Taita does what only Taita can do. He designs and builds a massive chain across the Nile, anchored to the rocks on both banks, and blocks the Hyksos fleet outright. It buys the Egyptians their escape. The fugitives push on until they reach the confluence of the Blue Nile and the White Nile. Taita identifies it as the source of the Nile flood, a place of strategic and spiritual power, and there they decide to found a new kingdom. In exile, Lostris gives birth to Tanus's son. Taita delivers the baby himself and immediately places him with a wet nurse. Officially, the boy is Memnon, son of the dead Pharaoh Mamose - a necessary fiction to secure the dynasty.

3. 3

   Act 3

   The Traitor in the Family

   Exile hardens everyone, and it enriches the wrong man. Taita discovers that the tomb of Pharaoh Mamose has been robbed - the mummy intact, the grave goods gone. He works out that the robber must be someone inside the inner circle, and his suspicion falls on Lord Intef, who has grown wealthy in exile. Then Tanus comes home from a long campaign against the Hyksos, and he and Lostris reunite in secret. Taita watches them and gives the moment its perfect image: 'They came together like two halves of a broken amulet, fitting perfectly, becoming whole again.' But the reunion is shadowed. Intef, now Grand Vizier, is plotting to seize the throne - and he is negotiating secretly with the Hyksos, offering to betray the new Egyptian kingdom in exchange for being installed as their puppet ruler. Taita intercepts a coded message, and the trap closes. The trial of Lord Intef is Taita's masterpiece and Lostris's agony: he presents the evidence of treason before the royal court, the verdict is guilty, and Lostris - as Pharaoh - must sentence her own father to death. He is taken to the execution ground and beheaded.

4. 4

   Act 4

   Ten Thousand Years

   The war ends where it began - in chariots, but this time Egypt has them. Tanus leads the final, decisive battle against the Hyksos at the new capital, fighting from his chariot with Memnon - now a young man, his true son though Egypt believes him Mamose's - at his side. The Hyksos are routed and driven from Egypt forever. Victory, at last. And in the moment of victory, Tanus is mortally wounded. He dies on the battlefield in Lostris's arms, and his last words to her are the book's heartbeat: 'I have loved you for ten thousand years, and I will love you for ten thousand more.' The vow in the temple of Hathor kept itself, all the way to the end. Lostris, heartbroken, orders a magnificent tomb built for him. Taita designs it - and hides a secret chamber inside, so that Lostris can be buried beside Tanus when her time comes, their love concealed for eternity. Her time comes soon. Lostris dies shortly after Tanus; some say of a broken heart. Taita, as her chief embalmer, prepares her body with his own hands, then secretly places her in the hidden chamber beside Tanus and seals the tomb so no one will ever disturb them. He is an old man now. He stands alone before the sealed tomb, reflects on his life of service to the two lovers, and speaks to their spirits: 'I have done all that you asked of me. Now let me rest.' Then he walks away into the desert. His final words close the book: 'This is the story of my masters, Tanus and Lostris. I have told it truly. Let it be my legacy, for I am Taita the eunuch, and I have loved them both.'

• TTaitaEunuch slave, physician, architect, poet, engineer and self-declared teller of tales, serving Lord Intef's household while giving his true loyalty to Lostris and Tanus. He builds the chain that saves the exodus, exposes the traitor, embalms his queen, and seals the lovers in their hidden tomb before walking into the desert.
• LLostrisLord Intef's daughter, married against her will to the aged Pharaoh Mamose, then regent and Pharaoh of a fleeing Egypt. She sentences her own father to death for treason, bears Tanus's son in secret, and dies shortly after Tanus - some say of a broken heart.
• TTanusChariot officer turned general, Lostris's true love from the temple vow onward. He drives the Hyksos from Egypt forever and is mortally wounded in the moment of victory, dying in Lostris's arms.
• LLord IntefLostris's father, who sells her into a political marriage and grows wealthy robbing Mamose's tomb in exile. As Grand Vizier he plots with the Hyksos to become their puppet ruler, is exposed by Taita, and is beheaded on his daughter's order.
• MMemnonSon of Lostris and Tanus, delivered by Taita and passed off publicly as the dead Mamose's child to secure the dynasty. He grows into a young man and fights beside his true father in the final battle.
• PPharaoh MamoseThe aged Pharaoh Lostris is forced to marry. Killed by a Hyksos arrow, he leaves the Double Crown to Lostris with his dying breath.

The chariot

The chain across the Nile

The hidden chamber

The broken amulet

The ending is deliberately quiet after all the noise of war. The kingdom is saved, the lovers are dead, and what remains is Taita - old, alone, speaking to spirits before a sealed tomb. One reading is devotional: Taita has spent his life in service to a love larger than himself, and sealing the tomb is his final act of faith, his way of making the temple vow physically permanent. Another is darker: Taita has outlived everyone he loved, and his walk into the desert is the emptiness of a man whose entire identity was other people. The book lets both stand. What makes it land is the last line - Taita claiming the story itself as his legacy. He was a slave who could own nothing, yet the tale of Tanus and Lostris is his, told truly, and that is enough. It reframes the whole novel as the eunuch's act of love, equal to the lovers' own.

1. 1.Taita claims to be a teller of tales, yet insists he has 'told it truly.' Can a narrator this invested in his subjects - and this capable of engineering events - be trusted, and does the novel want you to trust him?
2. 2.Lostris sentences her own father to death for treason. Is her justice an act of duty, of revenge for the marriage he forced on her, or both - and what does the execution cost her?
3. 3.The novel hides Memnon's true parentage to secure the dynasty. Compare the 'necessary fictions' of the book - Memnon's father, the hidden tomb - and ask whether the lies serve love or power.

Readers who want ancient Egypt as a living, bleeding world of war and intrigue, told by one of fiction's great servant-narrators. Also anyone who likes their epics with a love story that refuses to die.

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