CHAPTER 33
But the next season I could not truly keep my promise: we stole some evenings, to be sure, but the war against Egypt had me deeply committed, while everywhere else, it seemed, my vassals took advantage of the unsettled state of affairs to alter their status and increase their borders.
Word came to me that Tushratta had been murdered by agents of Artatama and his son Suttarna, who were plundering in Mitanni, regardless of the fact that Assyria and her ally Alshe were taking over the country. And soon it became clear to me that Assur-uballit of Assyria was in league with the king of Hurri, with whom I yet had treaty, but with whom I would not long maintain friendly relations if he continued to aid and receive aid from my father-in-law’s former vassal, Assyria. Since Burnaburiash’s enemies were my enemies, and Babylon was incensed to the point of incoherency, I was in a very difficult position as long as I maintained a relationship with Artatama of Hurri, and he maintained a relationship with Assur-uballit of Assyria.
My life, it seems to me, has always displayed a certain pattern; like the calm within a storm’s center, my life has always had events taking place within and without at different intensities. On the outer edges, matters foment and wild winds blow; on the inner, things display themselves to meticulous examination under a clear sky. When things are without, a man sends arrows into the dark. When the dawn shines, he may see what he has taken down. Sometimes he finds not a dead foe, but one merely enraged by his wounds. And in the clarity of the center, there is no advantage to anyone. But it is a clean contest, when man faces man across the sum of each one’s endeavor; the stronger triumphs, and survives. I carried the hunger, yet, for that sort of contest with Tushratta of Mitanni, murdered by his own blood in the same treacherous manner that killed Zannanza. That is no way for a king, or a prince, either, to die.
I was brooding upon the sad end of Tushratta when word came to me by messenger that the son of murdered Tushratta, Mattiwaza of Mitanni, begged me to come meet him at the Red River, for into Hattian territory any further he dared not come, and those who had killed his sire were close upon his trail, awaiting his ejection from my country so that they could murder him, as they had almost succeeded in doing when he had sought asylum in Babylon and was refused it by sneering Burnaburiash, who sent him to me.
And I was still sore of heart from losing Zannanza, and I thought of how this boy must feel, and so I went, with Tarkhunta-zalma supporting me, down to the Marassantiya River to give him audience.
A sorry sight was Mattiwaza of Mitanni, wild eyed and disheveled, in a single rent garment insufficient to ward off the nip in the air, with but two Hurrians and two servants, and nothing else. No sandals, no kingly jewels, not a wagon or even an ass had the youth on the opposite bank of the river, so that I was not sure, momentarily, if this even was Tushratta’s son at all.
Oh, but he was Tushratta’s son, and of an age with Zannanza, of fine and manly form, though his bones bit sharply through his skin and he was faint with hunger.
At my bidding he and his crossed the ford, and he threw himself down at the feet of the Sun, calling me Great King and Hero, Beloved of the Storm God, and father to the orphaned who, are right with the gods.
And when he threw himself upon my mercy, telling me that Oath Gods had surely decided the case in his favor by allowing him to escape the purge that killed his family, and begging me to help him regain his kingdom, then I took him by the hand and rejoiced over him, giving him wine to drink and food to eat.
And on the river bank I questioned him about all things concerning the land of Mitanni, and as he wolfed down sustenance he explained all that I asked.
And when I had hearkened to all things concerning the land of Mitanni, I spoke to him thus:
“I shall take you as my adopted son. I shall cause you to sit on your father’s throne.”
And the prince of Mitanni fell at my feet weeping.
So I took him home to Hattusas, and installed him like a prince of the blood, and chariots plated with gold, horses, harness, splendid attire, all sorts of jewelry and everything conceivable did I give unto him.
Malnigal’s eyes fairly shone when she looked at the boy. And, her daughter being marriageable, she asked me if I would arrange their union, and this I was willing to do for it gave me a plausible opportunity to get the boy’s seal on a treaty stronger than I otherwise would have made.
When I had drawn up the treaty, my daughter came to me in tears, saying:
“How could you do this to him? How could you do this to us?” and I reminded myself that before me was Malnigal’s daughter, with all the expedientist inclinations of her dam. Now this girl was a beauty, though we had expected her to be overly broad and clumsy, as had been her brother Mursili when he entered his teens. But, unlike Mursili, she had grown no more after her eleventh year, and so was not at all tall, but wraith-thin and supple as the king’s ox-hides, with Malnigal’s fine features and my own massive straight hair and broad shoulders that made her waist look the finer, and flaring hips so round that if we had all been Egyptians I might have been tempted to marry her myself. But then, I suppose if I were going to submerge myself in incest with any of my get, it would more likely have been Muwattish, Khinti’s daughter who was still looking for a man to love though she was in her twenty-second year.
“How could you?” she demanded again, her voice breaking.
“How could I what?”
“How could you say these things to him? How dare you say such things? How am I to make a life with a man whom you have bound up before the Oath Gods like a kid to be slaughtered?”
“How dare I? How dare you, girl: you are queen of nothing at all right now. You will remain so, if you do not recollect your manners, and I will let this Mattiwaza kill himself trying to regain his throne without my aid.”
Her eyelids fluttered, and her firm jaw trembled, and she sniffed, but did not apologize. Rather, she quoted from the treaty, on which I had worked long and hard, saying bitterly: “If you, Mattiwaza, the prince, and you the sons of the Hurri country do not fulfill the words of this treaty, may the gods, the lords of the oath, blot you out, you Mattiwaza and you the Hurri men together with your country, your wives, and all that you have. May they draw you like malt from its hull. Just as one does not obtain a plant from bad seed, even so may you, Mattiwaza, with a second wife that you may take, and you, the Hurri men with your wives, your sons and your country have no seed. May these gods of the contracting parties bring misery and poverty over you. May they overturn your throne. May the oaths sworn in the presence of these gods break you like reeds, you, Mattiwaza, together with your country. May they exterminate from the earth your name and your seed born from a second wife that you may take. Much as you may seek uninterrupted peace for your country, from the midst of the Hurrians may that be banned. May the earth be coldness so that you fall down slipping. May the soil of your country be a hardened quagmire so that you break in, but never get across. May you, Mattiwaza, and you, the Hurrians, be hateful to the thousand gods, may they pursue you.” And when she had finished quoting my words to me, she raised up her gaze and fire issued forth therefrom. “He cannot sign this. I will not allow him! Shall my nights in my husband’s bed be blighted by the wrath and the curses of my own father?” And she began in earnest to cry.
I called for the Meshedi to remove her, and while I was awaiting them, spoke to her as gently as I could manage, and recited to her the following clause in the treaty, saying that I was just trying to protect her in her place and all of my other sons in their places, reminding her:
“I have said this: ‘If you, Mattiwaza, the prince, and you, the Hurrians, fulfill this treaty and this oath, may the gods protect you, Mattiwaza, together with your wife, the daughter of the Hatti land, her children and her children’s children, and also you, the Hurrians, together with your country. May the Mitanni country return to its place which you occupied before, may it thrive and expand. May you, Mattiwaza, your sons and your sons’ s
ons from the daughter of the Great King of the Hatti land, and you, the Hurrians, exercise kingship forever. May the throne of your father persist, may the Mitanni country persist.’
“Now, considering that I wore my youth away chasing Mattiwaza’s cowardly, overweening father throughout the countryside, and considering that I have adopted this Mattiwaza and given him you, my daughter, in marriage, and considering that he has not a shirt to call his own and a mere handful of supporters and that I must also bring forth the army and fund it and field it and provide generals to direct it and even provide the blood of Hattian soldiers to install this husband of yours in any kingship whatsoever, then whatever regulations I choose to make upon him and his country, I will make. I am a generous man, as the gods decree a king must be, but I am not a foolish man, to make a man a king and then call him my equal. He is married to you: so what? I am not giving him such a critical kingship and then worrying about how he will do administrating it so that you, his wife, can salve his pride and save yourself a few bedroom altercations. He will be a vassal; it is better than being dead. He will be acknowledged by the lands; he will have enough honor and glory. But that land he will rule, will be ruled under my advisement, and that of Arnuwandas’ after me, or not at all. You tell him I want it sealed by him by the morrow, or out he goes with what he brought into Hatti: one ragged garment, two Hurrians, two slaves. Oh, and you – he can take you with him, for if you cannot understand and implement even this tiny portion of my will, if kingly diplomacy is so much beyond you, then you are no daughter of mine, and your mother has either been deceiving me, or has herself been deceived by some wet-nurse. Now get you from my sight: I will see neither yourself nor your spouse until I have the attested treaty in my hands.” And I motioned to the Meshedi, who had entered and were awaiting quietly, talking among themselves and pretending not to listen, to escort my princess from the Sun’s presence.
Angered the more I gave thought to the stupidity of my daughter, I summoned Malnigal, of whom I had been seeing as little as possible, and who no longer shared my bed, to me. And upon her head I laid this matter of the prince Mattiwaza and her daughter, and also a great number of complaints I had previously been prudent enough not to air, and we had a screaming argument that rang through the halls of the palace so that no mouse dared move anywhere in the whole extent of wood and plaster and stone.
It was snowing, when all things irretrievable had been said, when I lost all remnants of control and slapped her flat-handed so that she went sprawling; and from the floor she spat forth all manner of curses upon the Sun, the like of which I had not even laid upon the prince Mattiwaza in that part of the treaty which had so horrified her daughter.
Then I stalked out and found my brother Zida, and we… sought out Hattu-ziti together, and the three of us found Arnuwandas, and then all four sat together and between us we divided up the commands for spring and sketched, as well as one party to a war may, our strategy for the season about to commence.
Arnuwandas upon one point was adamant: he and no one else, whoever that person might be, was going to lead our forces against General Horemheb’s Egyptian troops. It was said that Horemheb himself had been just recently in Amqa, setting the fortifications to right and increasing the garrisons there, and it had been Aziru who sent the news, so we knew it was true. Anxious was Arnuwandas to revenge his brother and Teshub-zalma, the Shepherd’s boy. And all that he asked of me I gave him in the way of troops, excepting one man: Tarkhunta-zalma.
“I am going to send Piyassilis, should he be willing –” and everyone laughed; Piyassilis was the most willing of warriors – “to install prince Mattiwaza, my son-in-law,” and I could not hold back a grimace, for I thought of my daughter’s untimely and ill-conceived interference, “in the seat of kingship in Hurri, that which was his father’s.”
“You are going to put him in Washuganni?” Zida disbelieved, shaking his head.
“I am going to put us in Washuganni. We need a buffer against the Assyrian; Mattiwaza will be it. Assur-uballit backs Suttarna III for that seat: if this Suttarna, counterclaimant, son of Artatama, resides in Washuganni, we will all be spending the majority of our days trying to insure Piyassilis’ kingdom of Carchemish.”
Thus I envisioned it; thus did it come to be.
Mattiwaza and Piyassilis and the armies of my son, whom I could hardly ever remember to call by his throne-name Sarrikusuh, went forth into battle. And at first I, the Sun, was not with them.
My son led the armies forth into the country of Harran and burned it down. From Harran he went to Washuganni and razed that country, and then he went onward. But when the Assyrian heard that the king of Carchemish had come, he marched forth with troops and chariots of Assur and went to the town Taite in which my son and the Hurrians were fighting. And he came to the aid of Suttarna.
But when the King of Carchemish, Piyassilis/Sarrikusuh, saw the extent of the troops of Assur-uballit, he went back to Washuganni and sent word to me.
And I was like a newly-manned general, as I raised up the Sun’s own army, and with my personal thirty, and Zida, my brother the Gal Meshedi, and all of us who pawed the stone floors of our pasture, went out to rescue the troops of Mattiwaza, my son-in-law, and Piyassilis/Sarrikusuh.
When we arrived in the town where they were fighting, we were just in time to relieve the beleaguered Hattian soldiers, and the soldiers of Carchemish, and what Hurrians had come over to Mattiwaza, else all would have died in the awful fashion that Assyrians mete out death.
Now, Mattiwaza was very grateful not to be a piece of tanned hide with his name and the date of his demise inscribed upon it, and no sooner had he finished praising me and my gods than Piyassilis pulled me aside and asked how I had done it, for when we had seen the trap in which Mattiwaza was caught like a fox, I had called upon the gods in my wrath, and raised my fist skyward.
And as I raised it, an Assyrian arrow had caught my brother Zida square in the heart, and he had died there, from the matter of trying to save Mattiwaza, who was no kin of mine.
And in the midst of the battle, I bellowed out to the Storm God in my rage, saying: “I showed mercy in the ways the Gods recommended to me. I took my enemy’s son and made him a son of mine. And because of that, O my lord, my brother have the Assyrians killed! And I had done no evil to the Assyrians, but they came and started doing evil against me. Storm God, O my lord, and all you lords of the oaths, because of that you have taken my brother from me. Now, my lords, all you gods, because of that evil the Assyrians did to me, pronounce a judgment!” I had screamed it, spreadlegged, fist upraised, unconscious of the deadly shafts whizzing all around me. When anger overcame me there, and I beseeched my gods, my lords, the gods heard the words of my mouth. In the middle of the dry and arid spring, there was in the sky no cloud. But after the words issued forth from me, the sky turned dark and there was rain. First came the black clouds on a wailing wind, and the ground seemed to tremble a little, and forth from the clouds burst the Storm God’s lightning and then it thundered vehemently.
And we heard later that in the Hatti land it never rained at all, but there in the town Taite near Washuganni in the Hurrian country it kept raining. And when the Assyrians saw my might and that the Storm God lent me his thunder and his lightning which speared down into the midst of the enemy troops, they became sore afraid. Some howled and fell upon their knees, some turned upon their brothers and killed them and fled in chariots, others fled upon feet that slipped and twisted from under them in the mire and in the mud. And so I defeated the enemy, so that the enemy died in multitude. And captives the troops kept leading away from there for three days.
Then I went back to Washuganni with Mattiwaza, and with Piyassilis/Sarrikusuh, and we drew up a second treaty, between kings, for now Mattiwaza was king of his father’s castle. And in that treaty I fixed boundaries and divided the captured countries, increasing Piyassilis’ country eastward, and in the treaty I said:
“After I took Mattiwaza by the han
d, I set him on the throne of his father that the country of Mitanni not perish. I, Great King, brought Mitanni to life for the sake of my daughter. Mattiwaza is truly king thereof, my daughter is truly queen. And you, Mattiwaza may take concubines, but no other wife. You may not allow any other woman to be as well-born as she. None shall sit beside her. She shall exercise queenship; her spawn shall be of noble birth.”
So it was, in Carchemish where she could make no objection, that I consolidated the matter of Mattiwaza and provided for Malnigal’s daughter by treaty that which few fathers can ever provide: a loyal and continent husband.
When I returned to Hattusas, it was to receive word that Arnuwandas’ army had defeated the Egyptian troops of Horemheb guarding Amqa’s borders, and taken many prisoners. But a plague had broken out among the captives, and soldiers of Egypt and soldiers of Hatti were dying therefrom.
But when Arnuwandas arrived in Hattusas, he was well, and those of the Hittite army that were with him, they were well. And I was more concerned with whether or not I would be able to maintain this Mattiwaza my son-in-law in his kingship: a battle is not a war. Suttarna, the counterclaimant and Assur-uballit’s excuse for making war upon the Hurri land, had not died in the battle, but escaped.
And I fêted Arnuwandas, who was content in his revenge, but also thought he would be awhile longer on Egyptian campaigns until his dead brother’s shade was fully placated.
Once I had done that, since Arnuwandas was in Hattusas and the winter not yet down upon the mountains, I went to the Priest and stayed long in his holy city of Halap, and Khinti’s lap, also.
Not that I did no business of kingship; in fact, as the years have grown smaller and more fleeting, I have been doing more and more. Through Khinti I was negotiating with her country of “exile”, Ahhiyawa, which was growing stronger and hence less friendly. And we set up an exchange of delegations to be mobilized in the following year: architects, princes to learn the arts of the horse; whomsoever they chose to send, I would let them send.
I, the Sun Page 53
