The Amarnan Kings, Book 2: Scarab - Smenkhkare

by Overton, Max

  The whole army waited on the hills and ridges above Lachish for the Amorite army, but nothing appeared. Scouts sent north returned empty handed and three days after the new moon, Paramessu, in consultation with Djedhor and the other commanders, decided their intelligence had been false. There was a very real danger that the Amorite army had slipped past them as they lay encamped by Lachish, and was even now marching south toward an unguarded Kemet. They sent out patrols in all directions, searching for any sign of a passing army. Those that returned reported movement toward the coast road. Several patrols disappeared, though not much attention was paid to the fact at the time. Any number of things could have delayed their return.

  Paramessu ordered the army north and west to intersect the coast road. Thousands of men are difficult to move as a cohesive whole. Not only do the different units of an army--light infantry, archers, spearmen, chariots--move at different speeds, but they also have different needs. A foot soldier can venture where a chariot cannot, whereas horses can, for the most part, forage in places where men would starve. Thus the Kemetu army split up into dozens of smaller units, taking road and track and path, maintaining contact with each other, or at least those closest, but only loosely. Stragglers and small units that became separated had a habit of disappearing, though this was often not noticed until the army camped for the night. The men knew the enemy was around, but the disappearances could not be due to enemy action as no attack took place, no hint was seen of either Amorite or Hittite. Officers, in touch with the deteriorating mood of the men, put the losses down to desertion and brutalized any soldiers genuinely caught slipping away. The full moon came and went.

  Then a large Hittite army group was seen by scouts moving south toward them on the plains along the coast. Paramessu hurriedly drew his splintered army together and advanced to meet them, arriving on the flat plains near the town of Ashdod close to dusk. The legions spread out and took up a defensive position, but when no attack eventuated, set up camp for the night. Opposite them, a thousand fires flickered on the dark plain as the enemy too settled down for the night, in preparation for the battle that must certainly ensue the following day.

  Paramessu met with the commanding officers of his legions--Hednakht of Re, Khui of Set, Djedhor of Heru and Amentep of Ptah. The commander of chariots was newly appointed. Merybastet commanded only fifty chariots, those that had been in pieces, being repaired at the time that Khaenmaat had led his squadron to its death.

  "Your thoughts, gentlemen." Paramessu looked round at the serious faces of his commanders. "What are your impressions of what lies before us?"

  "We can take them, General," Amentep said firmly. "There are only four or five thousand of them."

  "How can you tell?" Merybastet asked. "It was getting dark and we never saw them clearly."

  "Count the watchfires. Hittites customarily sleep five or six to a fire and my men counted close on eight hundred fires tonight."

  "We are sure they are Hittites?"

  "They were your patrols that brought the news, Hednakht," Djedhor said.

  "So where are the Amorites? I thought they were marching south with the men of Hatti."

  "That is a matter of some concern," Paramessu interposed. "I do not want a surprise tomorrow when we attack."

  "How much of a surprise could it be?" Amentep asked, smiling. "We outnumber them nearly three to one...No, let me finish." He held up a hand as Khui opened his mouth to speak. "We know the Amorite army is much larger, maybe eight or ten thousand, but how could an army that size be moved around without everyone knowing about it? It cannot be anywhere near. Certainly not within a day's march. I say we attack and destroy the Hittites immediately."

  "But why would they separate?" Merybastet asked. "That is foolishness when you know the enemy is near."

  "Exactly my thoughts," Khui growled. "As I was trying to say."

  Amentep grinned. "Who can explain the mind of a woman, a goat or an Amorite? Isn't that the old proverb? Never mind why they separated, let's just take advantage of it."

  "I like your balls, Amentep, though I could wish you thought before you leaped," Djedhor said slowly. "Incomplete intelligence has lost many a battle."

  "You are getting too old for this," smirked Amentep. "Maybe you should let the younger blood take over command."

  Djedhor's eyes narrowed and he clenched his fists by his side. "The day you manage your Ptah legion half as well as my Heru legion--that's the day I step aside."

  "That'll be tomorrow then," Amentep jeered. "You just stay back with your men and guard the camp. My Ptah's could take those Hittites by themselves."

  "Enough!" Paramessu snapped. "I will not have my commanders squabbling among themselves like children. I called you here to get reasoned argument, not vainglorious posturing. If you cannot control yourselves I will remove you from command and give your legions to someone else."

  Djedhor bristled. "With respect, General, it was Horemheb who gave us our commands. It is he who will tell me to go, no-one else."

  "And General Horemheb passed the command of this army over to me." Paramessu spoke softly, looking at the faces of his commanders one by one. "Each of you inherited a legion that existed under another commander, yet you have all made changes. Why? Because as commander you have the right, the duty even, to make changes for the good of your legion. Well, I have that same right, gentlemen, and I don't give a mouse's turd what you think of it. Defy me and I will break you, so hard and so fast you will pray that the ranks are as far as you fall. Do you understand? Amentep? Hednackht?" He continued around the circle of commanders, extracting words of acquiescence or at least a curt nod from each man in turn. "Djedhor?"

  The commander of the Heru legion met Paramessu's eyes, his own smoldering with anger. Jaw clenched he gave a curt nod and turned away, staring out of the raised tent flap at the swarm of watchfires across the valley.

  "So this is what we will do," Paramessu said. "We will attack the Hittites at first light, falling upon them with our superior numbers. Ptah on the left, Set in the centre and Heru on the right. Re and the chariot squadron will stay in reserve. If the Hittites have a surprise for us, I can deploy you as needed. If the Amorites somehow come up on us from the rear, then we will have warning. Now, see to your men and rouse them at moonrise. Be ready to move at first light."

  The commanders bowed and left the General's tent, some with a smile, Djedhor still angered and stiff with resentment. The murmur of men on edge rose from the camp, the veterans trying to grab a few hours of sleep, the new recruits too keyed up to rest, sat or stood and watched the Hittite fires, their weapons in hand. A glimmer of light appeared in the east, too faint for the great barque of Re. The waning moon, now only a sliver, rose above the hills, casting a wan light. The great army gathered itself, moving as silently as possible into position on the darkened plain. Ahead, the Hittite camp lay in silence, the watchfires burning low in the chill pre-dawn air.

  "Are they asleep?" Paramessu muttered to Hednakht as he waited by the Re standard at the rear of the army. "Well, it will be their last sleep so we will not disturb them just yet."

  The moon slowly ascended the paling sky and a pink flush tinged the eastern sky. The valley plain became visible, and by degrees the deserted campsite of the Hittite army.

  "They've gone," Hednakht said incredulously. "They've crept away in the night."

  "They will not have gone far," Paramessu said grimly. "We will catch them and show them they cannot play games with us."

  "Which way do you think they have gone, sir? If they know where the Amorites are they may try to join them."

  Paramessu turned and called messengers to his side. "Tell Heru and Set to move toward the Hittite camp. Find out which way they have gone and signal us. Ptah is to move five thousand paces to the east and march parallel to the main column. Re will do the same to the west. Go." He watched impassively as the messengers raced off and a little later as the legions set off in the slowly strengthening light of the
new day.

  They found the trail of the retreating Hittites and set off in pursuit. As the day drew on the Kemetu army units slowly lost cohesion, spread out in a looser formation than the commanders liked, but the dust of the Hittites hung on the horizon and they fed their anger on the sight. Increasingly, reports of light fighting, skirmishing, came in from the rear and the extreme edges, but never in sufficient strength to warrant a response. The army picked up the pace, determined to close with the fleeing enemy.

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  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  "I feel like a cow, a great gravid cow. How can any woman actually want to have children?"

  Khu wisely refrained from comment. In the months since Paramessu had left Zarw, Scarab had, by degrees, swung from outright hostility toward the man responsible for her condition and, in his absence, any other man at hand; to weeping over her missing soldier and finding great delight in babies and young animals. Thankfully, her mood swings had calmed, as had her temper, though Khu knew enough to agree with most of her remarks but ignore others. Instead, he sought to divert her.

  There was in fact very little to do in the almost deserted army garrison now that the able-bodied men had been swept from the city. Crippled men guarded the gates and old men, racked with infirmities and stiffening joints, polished weapons and mended equipment. The tasks which Scarab had attended to previously had almost disappeared and what little remained could be handled by the handful of low grade scribes left behind. Khu still assisted Nebhotep the physician, but here too there was little to do. The medical man had avoided conscription into Paramessu's band of reinforcements, quietly but firmly refusing the General's commands. He had a greater duty, he said, to the daughter of Nebmaetre. Paramessu had nodded and dropped the matter. Since the departure, Khu had filled the tiny workroom on the upper floor with a plethora of unguents, powders and pastes, all prepared under Nebhotep's careful scrutiny. Now with fewer patients, Khu too had little to do. So he turned to Scarab and together they found diversions in the city.

  After the streets of Waset, the alleys of Zarw were cramped and poor. Yet even here there were new sights and sounds and smells--different foods to be tasted, strange tongues to listen to, a whole new culture to absorb. This was a city on the borders of Kemet, open to the flow of traders still braving the war-torn barrier lands of Kenaan and Lebanon, bringing with them not only exotic trading goods, but also strange and wonderful people, far removed from the comfortable and comforting familiarity of Kemetu life.

  Sex between consenting adults is a normal part of that life, providing neither party is married. However, precautions are taken to reduce the chance of an unwanted child. Scarab had not taken even the most elementary of these precautions--a linen plug soaked in honey and ground acacia seeds--and now paid the price. Pregnant women are seldom seen in public unless they are poor and must work. Scarab now ranked as poor but she had no work to allow her in public, so she dressed to conceal her condition. The thin linens of Kemetu women provided scant covering so she adopted the dress of her Khabiru kinfolk--voluminous woolen robes that hid all hint of figure, allowing only the head and extremities to be seen. Her flowing hair with its strong reddish tinge, courtesy of her mother, Queen Tiye, completed the disguise and none gave her a second glance.

  Scarab and Khu stood in one of the market places of the sprawling city watching the ebb and flow of foreigners. They munched on honey cakes and sipped from a common pot of thin beer, bought with a piece of copper from the meager army wage allowed them for their services.

  "They shouldn't be allowed in," Khu said firmly. "They are probably all spies for the Hittites and Amorites anyway."

  Scarab laughed, crumbs of honey cake falling from her mouth. "Those aren't foreigners; they're mostly Khabiru, my own people. I can see a party of Cretans though...over there." She pointed. "...And that merchant probably hails from Syria or Lebanon. Some Nubians too, but I cannot see any spies."

  "You wouldn't, that's the whole point. And Khabiru are foreign...well, as good as, though I suppose they've lived in Kemet so long they are almost the same as Kemetu."

  The noise of the market place rose all around them, people crying their wares, men and women haggling and arguing, others in loud conversation. Children screamed and laughed, darting between the legs of the adults, with thin and hungry dogs keeping their eyes open for the opportunity to steal food from careless stall holders.

  "You think Khabiru and Kemetu are the same, Khu?" Scarab shook her head. "They have kept their own language, their own customs, and their own gods. I don't know of another tribe that has kept so separate while living among us."

  Khu grunted and stared sourly at a group of young Khabiru men passing by. They returned his stare and one called out an incomprehensible phrase. Khu rounded on Scarab as the youths swaggered away. "What did they say?"

  Scarab shook her head again. "Nothing. It was just an impolite phrase concerning my choice in men. They don't like their women being seen with Kemetu, and they thought I was one, dressed like this." She plucked at her woolen robes.

  "Well, if they don't like us, why don't they just go home? I certainly wouldn't miss them."

  "Where would they go? Most of them were born here, as were their parents and grandparents. This is their home."

  "I thought they came from Kenaan or the land of Sin-ai or something."

  "Probably originally. My mother told me her father Yuya came to Kemet as a young man when famine struck Syria. Khabiru have been settling in Kemet for generations. Later, after he rose in power, his kinfolk came too. They talk of going home sometimes, somewhere north in a land of bread and wine, but I doubt they ever will. Life is too good here."

  They continued walking through the market and though they had little copper in their purses, they stopped to examine the wares laid out on trestle tables beneath brightly dyed awnings. Carved figurines of the gods of Kemet jostled with piles of dates and olives; papyrus mats with tubs of live eels; loaves of bread still warm from the ovens, with cheap copper and faience jewelry.

  Khu picked through the trinkets with one finger, occasionally holding a piece up to the light. "There's not much here," he grumbled. "Nothing like the quality you find in Waset or even Akhet-Aten."

  "Well, there wouldn't be, would there?" Scarab replied. "In those cities you have a royal court to make jewelry for. Who could afford it here?"

  "You would be surprised, young lady," cut in a deep voice in the Khabiru tongue. A tall man got up from a heavy-set chair in the shadows and approached the table. Dressed in the usual heavy wool robes despite the heat, and a full beard in the Khabiru fashion, his eyes burned beneath hooded brows and a long scar on his forehead stood out pale on his dark skin. The man continued in Kemetu, "There are a scattering of nobles around Zarw and besides, by the time the traveling merchants have sold their wares, there is gold to spend on elegant fripperies for wives and mistresses back home." The jeweler eyed Scarab and Khu doubtfully. "Perhaps you would care to see my finer work?"

  "Yes, please," Scarab said eagerly.

  The jeweler removed the seat cushion from the heavy wooden chair behind him and swung a hinged lid up. Lifting a tray from the depths, he carried it over to the trestle table.

  "Aren't you worried about thieves?" Khu asked. "I mean, you've just shown us and whoever else is watching, just where your valuables are."

  "That's why I pay the mayor extra for this site. See?" The jeweler jerked his head to either side. Looking round, Scarab and Khu saw two fully armed soldiers standing attentively a few paces away. They scanned the faces of everyone in the vicinity, but paid far more attention to the jewelry table. "I pay extra for the site, but I get two guards with it." He grinned. "Nobody steals from Jeheshua the jeweler."

  "You are Khabiru." Scarab stated.

  Jeheshua inclined his head gravely. "Indeed." He regarded the young couple before him. "The lad is Kemetu," he continued, speaking to Scarab in Khabiru again, "But you are
Khabiru, are you not?"

  A man pushed in from the side, reaching across Scarab to finger the bracelets and earrings scattered on the table. Picking up a copper bangle with green and blue glass paste inlaid in a swirling pattern, the man grunted and held it out. "How much?"

  Jeheshua and the customer haggled for a few minutes, before the man nodded and dug into his purse, coming up with a small piece of silver. He held it out for inspection and it was Jeheshua's turn to nod. When the man had left he slipped the silver into the folds of his robe and turned back to Scarab.

  "You are Khabiru, are you not?"

  "On my mother's side."

  Jeheshua nodded. "Of what tribe?"

  Scarab hesitated. "I don't know. My mother said of the same tribe as Yuya."

  Jeheshua lifted his eyebrows. "If that is true, then you are related to the king."

  "Only distantly, I'm sure." Scarab smiled. "What have you got to show us?"

  The jeweler lifted a cloth from the wooden tray and revealed a sparkling array of gold, silver and semi-precious stones. Khu murmured in appreciation and Scarab gasped at the beauty of the pieces. Necklaces of chalcedony and rich dark amber glowed up from the deeply dyed blue wool of the tray base, the stones, together with lozenges of glass paste in beautiful reds and blues held together by threads of gold. Delicate filigree work surrounded the centre stones, drawing the eye onward from one wonder to the next.

  "These are...are beautiful, Jeheshua. No, they are more--you have a gift from the gods." Scarab found her fingers trembling with the desire to pick the pieces up and hold them against her throat, to feel them against her naked skin. With an effort she controlled herself, forcing an expression of calm onto her face. "The gods have given you a great gift that you can create such beauty."