The Field of Reeds (Imhotep Book 4)

by Jerry Dubs

  “Ready?” he said over his shoulder.

  “Yes, commander,” Penhat said and they moved forward.

  ***

  “Lord Imhotep,” Wah said.

  Imhotep, who was standing beside his chariot beneath the olive tree where Thanuny had paused half an hour earlier, looked up at the charioteer.

  “Benia will stay here with you. I am going up this road,” Wah said, tilting his head to the eastern road.

  “Why?” Imhotep said. “Yehem is the other way.”

  “There are tracks,” Wah said.

  “Pharaoh Thutmose sent scouts up that road, didn’t he?” Imhotep asked.

  Wah nodded. “But I thought I saw a chariot here when we emerged from the mountain road.”

  Imhotep nodded. “Don’t be gone long. I want to make camp in Yehem.”

  ***

  Thanuny slowed his chariot as he reined the horses to the right. Watching carefully for holes and rocks, he directed the horses from the road toward a copse of trees beside a gathering of large boulders.

  At a walking pace, Thanuny looked over his shoulder at the rocky ground.

  I could be followed, he thought as he looked at the faint dark lines that marked his passing. He would hide the chariot and horses behind the boulders. From the shade of the trees he could watch the road. Anyone following him would approach across open ground, their eyes squinting in the light. Standing in the darkness beneath the trees, Thanuny would be safely hidden.

  As the chariot rocked toward the boulders, he touched the handle of his khopesh sword.

  ***

  General Djehuty took a deep breath and smiled.

  He hadn’t drawn a full breath since the army had entered the mountain pass this morning. Now, after scrambling up the sloping side of the mountain at the mouth of the pass, he could see that the way to Megiddo was unguarded.

  Pharaoh Thutmose was right! The gods have watched over us.

  As soon as he had emerged from the pass Djehuty had sent scouts to follow the jagged curve of the mountains to the north and to the south. He had sent other scouts to climb as high as they could to look beyond the distant plateau where the heavy walls of Megiddo reached skyward.

  Standing on the mountainside, he watched his infantry fan out from the mountain pass. The soldiers formed an expanding half circle that arched from the mountains on the north to the mountains on the south. Kebu’s archers followed the infantry, ready to provide cover if the Canaanites should attack.

  But from where? Djehuty wondered, scanning the empty horizon.

  My flanks are secure. The rear is secure. The front is empty of enemies. Where is the King of Kadesh?

  ***

  Wah’s fingers itched to grip his bow and send an arrow toward a fleeing chariot. His hands ached to heft his sword. His arms longed to swing the flashing blade.

  Yet he found himself farther and farther from the battle.

  Stopped on the road that wound east from Yehem to Taanakh, he searched for enemy scouts, a raiding party, the vanguard of an attack. Anyone at all.

  The chariot tracks he was following turned south and left the road. Squinting as he stared, Wah thought he could detect a faint echo of two lines crossing the ground, stones overturned, brush and dead leaves aligned. The track led toward a distant cluster of trees.

  He stepped down from his chariot. Holding the reins, he walked to the side of the dirt path and squatted as he stared at the trees. At ground level the track of the other chariot was clear now; it led directly to the trees.

  Standing, he glanced at the sky. Three hours of daylight remained and he needed to retrace his path to Imhotep, escort them south to Yehem and set up camp.

  He looked at the chariot tracks. The wheel ruts were narrow, so it was an Egyptian chariot, not one of the heavier chariots of the Canaanites.

  It is probably a scout sent by our army, he told himself. But they are resting in the shade instead of watching the road.

  The thought angered him. He longed for action and the charioteer who was hiding in the distant rocks was avoiding glory.

  I will teach him to neglect his duty.

  Climbing back onto his chariot, Wah guided his horses toward the trees.

  ***

  Re was turning orange as Pharaoh Thutmose set down the shaft of his chariot, arched his back to stretch and looked at the beaming face of General Djehuty who was hurrying toward him.

  “Pharaoh Thutmose, long life!” Djehuty said, dropping to a knee.

  The happiness in Djehuty’s voice told Pharaoh Thutmose that his plan had succeeded. Nodding permission for his general to rise, Pharaoh Thutmose looked past Djehuty toward the empty plain of Megiddo.

  His first thought was that it would be an excellent field for his chariots to cross.

  His second thought was that the shadows told him that there was not enough daylight left to prepare his chariots and mount a charge across the brown field.

  His third thought was that there was no enemy to fight.

  “Where is the wretched King of Kadesh and his three hundred princes?”

  Djehuty pointed off to his right. “Our scouts found tracks of infantry heading to the east, toward Taanakh.” He pointed to his left. “They also found tracks heading north to Yokneam. It appears that he has split his army to defend both roads. He has left Megiddo undefended.”

  Pharaoh Thutmose shook his head. “The chariots, where are his chariots?”

  “We have not seen them, my lord,” Djehuty answered, pointing to the arc of soldiers and archers that bulged out into the plains. “I have secured space for the camp with room for the maryannu to corral their horses.”

  Pharaoh Thutmose nodded absently, his eyes searching the horizon, trying to see beyond the plateau fortress.

  Where are the enemy chariots?

  “Very well, General Djehuty,” he said at last. “Light fires so the cooks can feed the men. Bring all the commanders to my tent before Re sets. I would thank my father for guiding us through the pass safely.

  “Tomorrow we destroy the wretched King of Kadesh.”

  ***

  The copse of trees was more distant than Wah had thought.

  Each time he thought of turning around and rejoining Penhat to guard Imhotep and Queen Menwi, he imagined that he saw movement by the trees. The thought that a sentry was hiding in the shade instead of watching the road infuriated Wah. He had been sent from battle to babysit an old man and pregnant cow. If he had been given a sacred duty to guard the rear of the army, he wouldn’t have left the road to sleep in the shade.

  A horse whinnied from behind the group of boulders.

  Pausing now, Wah saw light dance there, too. The derelict soldier had made camp. Wah shook his head in disgust.

  Wah stepped from his chariot, found a rock and wrapped the reins about it. He put the rock on the ground, patted the neck of the nearest horse and touched the handle of his khopesh.

  Blood pounded in his heart as he paused to listen. He could hear the fire crackling now.

  I will frighten him, show him the danger of not being a good soldier. Then I will send him back to the road to watch for the enemy.

  Wah slipped from one tree to another, slowly circling the boulders.

  Ahead, hidden between two boulders, Thanuny gripped his sword and waited, his breath as shallow as a sleeping serpent.

  Eyes and ears intent on the camp fire and the snorting of a horse, Wah stepped past Thanuny’s hiding place. He placed a hand on a rock and leaned forward to look at the small campsite.

  He saw the horse and the chariot, a small Egyptian chariot as he had guessed. The small fire burned untended. A pair of sandals lay on the ground by the fire. He stared at them a moment, wondering why a man would shed his sandals and leave his campfire.

  The answer came to him as he heard a short intake of breath behind him.

  He turned, raising an arm in defense. But his arm was knocked aside as the heavy, angled blade of Thanuny’s khopesh sliced throu
gh the air and dug into his neck.

  ***

  Re surrendered to the night.

  The four thousand horses, watered and hobbled, rested in the cooling air.

  The ten thousand men of the army of the Two Lands had eaten, celebrated their uneventful passage through the mountains, and bragged of the glory they would claim tomorrow.

  Sentries stalked the edge of the encampment and climbed along the mountain range looking for the army of the wretched King of Kadesh.

  As quiet spread through the encampment, Tjaneni lit an oil lamp, leaned against a rock by the foot of the mountain, and pulled his lapboard onto his crossed legs.

  Selecting a fresh sheet of papyrus, he opened his travel case and selected a block of ash and a fresh reed. Moistening the reed, he composed his thoughts. Then as the million stars that adorned Nut’s belly watched silently, he bent over the papyrus and began to write.

  Behold, His Majesty has come forth together with his victorious army and they have filled the valley. Our victorious lord gathered his people upon the plain before the fortress of Megiddo.

  Tomorrow we will fight against these Asiatics.

  Campsites

  “Something must have happened to Wah,” Imhotep told Benia as the charioteer wiped down his horses. Reaching Yehem, they had found that the few residents had decided to seek safety in Gaza.

  And so they had moved south of the settlement to a water hole.

  “He should be here by now,” Imhotep said, looking about the camp site. There were trees by the well, set off the road, but close enough to see travelers or messengers.

  “Should I go look for him?” Benia asked, turning from his horse to look at Imhotep.

  Imhotep glanced at the cab of his chariot where Akila sat beside Queen Menwi. Holding her stomach, Queen Menwi leaned against the side of the chariot’s cab, her face tight with pain.

  Before he could answer Queen Menwi screamed.

  “Go fill the water skins,” Imhotep told Benia. He turned to hurry to Akila and Queen Menwi. “And then go back to Yehem and search for linen,” he said over his shoulder.

  Akila was kneeling in the sandy dirt behind the chariot, her hands on Menwi’s stomach as the queen clenched her teeth.

  “I sent Benia for water and linens. Let’s take her over there,” he said, pointing his walking staff toward the water hole where there were broken fronds fallen beside a palm tree.

  “We can make a bed,” he said.

  “She is in labor, but her water hasn’t broken yet,” Akila said as she and Imhotep leaned forward to help Queen Menwi from the chariot.

  “Have you examined her?” he asked in English as they took Queen Menwi’s arms. Bent over her swollen belly, Menwi staggered and almost slipped from their grip.

  “You will be fine, Bes will aid you,” Akila reassured her as she shook her head at Imhotep. “Not yet,” Akila told Imhotep in English.

  Menwi regained her balance and said, “I do not know your Egyptian gods. Will they still aid me, even though I do not know them?”

  “We are here, Queen Menwi,” Imhotep said, guiding her toward the palm fronds. “Akila has helped with many births. You are in good hands.”

  They reached the shade at the same time as Benia, who laid two water skins on the ground and said, “I will search Yehem quickly.”

  “Any cloth will do,” Imhotep said as the charioteer ran into the night.

  He turned to Akila. “What can I do?”

  “Give us a minute,” she answered in English. Then she knelt beside Queen Menwi. “I will examine you, Queen Menwi,” she said in a gentle voice.

  ***

  “The baby is breech,” Akila told Imhotep a few minutes later. “Her water broke while I was examining her. She hasn’t begun to dilate, but the real problem is the breech.”

  “OK,” Imhotep said. “What can we do for her?”

  Akila wiped sweat from her forehead. “I can try to manipulate the baby from outside.” She shrugged as she thought. “I am not a midwife, Tim. I don’t know how successful this will be.”

  “You mean turning the baby?”

  “I mean this delivery.”

  ***

  Thanuny wiped his sword clean on Wah’s shendyt, then grabbing the dead soldier’s ankles he dragged him behind the boulders. With the body out of sight, Thanuny walked across the plain to the chariot and horses Wah had left tethered to a rock.

  He led the horses to the shade of the trees and unharnessed them. Tethering the horses to a low branch, he returned to search the chariot. There were a dozen arrows in a leather quiver tied to the inside of the chariot beside a simple bow, still unstrung. On the left side of the chariot he found a linen sack that held a few silver deben and some salted fish.

  Eating the fish, he carried a burning branch to the rocks to examine Wah in the fading light. Bending over the dead soldier, he saw that he wore a single gold band around his right biceps. Thanuny laid the burning branch on the ground and tugged the gold band from Wah’s limp arm. The band was stamped with the cartouche of Pharaoh Thutmose.

  Thanuny slipped the band onto his arm and pulled it snugly over his elbow.

  Picking up the torch, he returned to his campsite and leaned against the warm rocks. He thought back to earlier in the day when he had spotted the chariots emerging from the road to Aruna. There had been three.

  Now there are two chariots and one carries only Imhotep, his woman, and the pregnant queen.

  Leaning against the boulders that hid him from the road, Thanuny put his hands behind his head and looked up into the million stars of night. He closed his eyes and imagined the snake in his leg resting its head on its coiled body.

  Thanuny smiled.

  His belly was full and tomorrow he would have his revenge on Imhotep.

  The Battle of Megiddo

  Pharaoh Thutmose, third of the name, lowered his arms and turned his face from the red glare of Re rising. Behind him his generals rose from the ground, brushed their knees free of dirt and slowly raised their heads to the sun.

  The sound of their chanted prayers drifted over their army to lap at the hills behind them where the Egyptian scouts shielded their eyes as they watched the army of the King of Kadesh assemble across the plain.

  With his army rested and eager for battle, Pharaoh Thutmose felt not just the blessings of the gods, but their power as well.

  He turned to his generals and spread his arms wide to give them his blessing.

  “I am Horus, the smiter, lord of power, like Montu. My father strengthens my arms,” Pharaoh Thutmose said, his voice rising in the still air. “Together we are the fist of Amun, and the wretched King of Kadesh, his weak princes and their army, will fall to us. We will take their chariots and their weapons and their gold and their women and their children.

  “As Amun is my father, I tell you, we will take their hands!”

  The generals clanged their swords together and chanted the name of the ruler and the names of the gods who spoke through him and gave them strength.

  The chanting spread outward from the tight circle of commanders to their lieutenants and to the charioteers and the archers and the foot soldiers. Rising from ten thousand throats, it filled the plains of Megiddo, echoed from the mountains behind them, and swelled against the tall walls of the enemy fortress.

  As the generals dispersed to take command of their troops, Tjaneni, who sat cross-legged beneath the canopy in front of the tent of Pharaoh Thutmose, picked up a reed, moistened its tip, scraped it across ash and wrote:

  Year twenty-three, the first month of the third season, the twenty-first day, day of the feast of the new moon.

  Early in the morning, behold, command was given to the entire army to move. His majesty went forth in a chariot of electrum, arrayed in his weapons of war, like Horus, the Smiter, lord of power; like Montu of Waset, while his father, Amun, strengthened his arms.

  While Tjaneni wrote, General Djehuty’s infantry formed three divisions at the fro
nt of the army. Behind them Kebu’s archers formed three groups, strung their bows and prepared to fill the sky with their arrows.

  Standing beside their chariots, the maryannu and the archers who would ride formed a tight, hidden fist at the center of the Egyptian army.

  ***

  Her face and neck drenched in sweat, Queen Menwi lapsed into sleep, her body searching for the strength to continue.

  She had labored through the night, sometimes lying on her back, other times squatting while Imhotep and Akila supported her shoulders. When morning arrived, exhaustion overtook her and now she woke only when contractions pulled her from unconsciousness.

  While Imhotep squeezed water from a linen rag to wipe Queen Menwi’s forehead, Akila leaned back against a palm tree and stretched her arms overhead. Shaking her hands to relieve cramps that were twitching into life, she stared at the brightening sky and wondered how much longer Menwi could last and what else she could do to help the queen deliver her child.

  There were no hospitals, no drugs. The baby remained turned, its feet instead of its head pointed downward. She had tried to help the baby orient itself for delivery, but she had to be wary of the unborn child becoming tangled in its umbilical cord.

  Akila had assisted in hundreds of births since she had arrived in the Two Lands and she knew that if the baby didn’t miraculously turn it was likely that either it or the mother would die.

  Or both of them.

  As Menwi became exhausted, yet continued to push, her blood pressure would rise until a vessel burst and she would die of a stroke or internal hemorrhaging or the failure of a major organ. Or, in distress, the baby would thrash about and tangle its umbilical cord, pinching or knotting it so that the blood flow was diminished. At the least, brain impairment would follow; at worst, death.