by Jerry Dubs
I Ride With the Maryannu
Anun was a veteran charioteer.
He had driven a chariot alongside Pharaoh Thutmose on that day when Shu had lifted the desert to shield Pharaoh Thutmose and his company of maryannu. He had been second in command of the young heroes two days earlier when they carried their chariots through the narrow Aruna Pass. Then, yesterday, when cowardly soldiers dropped rocks from the walls of Megiddo onto the head of Neferhotep, Anun had become the new commander of the maryannu.
Knowing it had come at the cost of Neferhotep’s life, Anun carried his new title with quiet dignity. He bowed his head respectfully to Lord Amenhotep that morning. And then he nodded to me, tilting his head to show me which chariot I should mount.
The charioteer assigned to drive me was a short man with wide shoulders and heavy legs. He had a round face with thick eyebrows above eyes that, although almond shaped, still seemed to be always squinting. He had a wide mouth that was always eager to break into a smile, especially when his horses pulled his chariot so fast that the invisible hand of Shu pushed hard against his face and chest.
His name was Pairy.
We left camp with the horses moving at a gentle walk.
I had ridden in a chariot before, standing beside Nakht as we rolled along the smooth streets of Waset. We had moved at a pace that allowed Nakht to converse with shopkeepers we passed, one that allowed children to come up and touch the strong flanks and the braided manes of our horses.
And so I thought I understood riding in a chariot.
Once Anun’s small company of charioteers had curled behind a low ridge that hid the western road from the army, Anun raised his whip overhead and shouted, “Heya!”
I didn’t see whether Anun flicked the whip at the horses because at that moment Pairy turned to me, his eyes round with excitement. “Grab the railing, scribe!” he shouted as he raised the reins in his hands. I looked down to place my hands. At the side of my vision, I saw Pairy slap the reins to the backs of the horses. I heard him shout “Heya!” and, suddenly, the chariot took flight.
Do horses fly?
I have never seen them soaring overhead, but I have seen them run at such speed that all four of their elegant legs were airborne. Is that a type of flight? I do not know.
But I do know that I will never be a charioteer.
My legs do not enjoy balancing on a rocking chariot. My hands grow tired of gripping the narrow rail of the chariot. My stomach bangs against the frail cage of my chest, threatening to spew its contents.
But the charioteers came alive with each bounce, with each narrow escape from overturning, with each jolt, with each tap of a stone thrown by the horses against the front of the chariot, with each sudden lift and equally sudden drop.
I wanted to shout to Pairy to slow down, or better yet — to stop. But I was afraid. Would my stomach empty itself? Would an insect, overtaken by our rush, fly into my gaping mouth?
Lips pressed tightly together, I stayed silent.
I gripped the rail. I gritted my teeth, I closed my eyes, and I tried to pray, but I couldn’t decide which god would grant my stomach serenity or give strength to my hands or allow my legs to sway like young palm trees in a windstorm.
***
Eventually we slowed.
When I opened my eyes, I saw Pairy grinning. Whether it was at the joy of racing along the road or at my discomfort I didn’t know.
(I came to know Pairy well. He was an honest man, a man who embraced life. He was fearless, except at the thought of touching a dead person, although he once carried a dead man on his shoulders for several days to take the man’s body to a temple for proper care. I suspect that his pleasure that day was at the speed we had traveled, although my discomfort no doubt added to his enjoyment — much as the tang of an onion accents the taste of roasted goose.)
I saw that we had slowed to a walk along a road that I had never traveled. Off to our right, the brown wasteland of Sinai, dotted with half-grown shrubs and dust-covered boulders, stretched out to a series of mountains that shielded our army from view. To our left I saw a level field covered with fist-sized rocks leading to a collection of gray boulders with a few low-branched trees growing among them.
Pairy tugged on the reins, and the horses came to a stop.
“Is this where Wah was found?” I asked.
Pairy nodded, his eyes on the boulders.
Dismounting from his chariot, Anun handed his reins to one of the charioteers and walked to our chariot, his right hand carrying his khopesh sword. Its wickedly angled blade looked hungry for blood.
“You should stay here, scribe,” he said. Then he nodded to Pairy, who jumped lightly from the chariot. I stepped off, careful to keep one hand on the chariot until I was sure that my legs would support me. Once I had dismounted, Pairy began to lead the horses across the broken field toward the boulders. With the other charioteers leading their chariots behind him, Anun led the way toward the place where Wah’s body had been found.
Watching how the chariots bounced and how the horses had to step carefully over the rocks, I wondered why Wah would have chosen to drive his chariot across such a rocky field.
I looked skyward, orienting myself to the path of Re. Standing here on the road, I saw that Re would have risen from beyond the boulders. In the morning, his light would have blinded a person looking toward the boulders, and it would have cast shadows from those rocks, shrouding the trees in darkness.
I lowered my head and wondered: Why was Wah on this road instead of the road that leads from the Aruna Pass toward Gaza?
I could only imagine that Lord Imhotep and the charioteers — from a distance too great to see clearly — had seen someone turn up this road. Wah was dispatched to make sure the stranger was not a scout from the king of Kadesh.
Closing my eyes, I crossed my arms behind my back and gripped my forearms — a stance Lord Imhotep had taught me when he saw that my restless hands sometimes distracted my thoughts. I felt Re’s heat on my face, I felt it rise from the rocks below me, I felt it swirl around me, enveloping me.
A light breeze caressed my back. It curled up over my shoulders and whispered in my ears. I knew it was the breath of Thoth and that it carried truth. There were no words, just a murmur, but it brought understanding.
When I opened my eyes, I saw that the charioteers had disappeared beyond the boulders. I was alone on the road. As Wah had been.
I looked toward the boulders. With the charioteers out of sight, I saw no reason to leave the road to cross the field of stones to the boulders. Then Shu stirred a breeze that raised a small whirlwind of dust at my feet. The whirlwind lost form and the dust danced like smoke.
I understood: Smoke from a campfire had drawn Wah to the boulders.
I walked toward the boulders, moving quietly as Wah must have moved. I squinted my eyes as Wah would have to shield himself from Re’s glare. When I did, the trees that skirted the boulders suddenly became a forest of shadows.
Reaching the trees, I paused a moment to let my eyes adjust to the shadows.
I was hidden from Re’s comforting gaze now, and I felt vulnerable. A desert lion could be crouching on the hidden tree limbs and I would not see it. Neither would Wah.
Thoth whispered to me again and I dropped to a crouch.
Looking at my feet I saw darker shadows on the stones. I picked one up and sniffed. It smelled of iron and death. Now I saw a splash of blood on the stones and, leading off to the edge of the boulders, a trail of overturned rocks, their exposed bellies stained with blood.
I followed the trail, turned past the last of the boulders, and saw the charioteers gathered in a tight circle. Beyond the tangle of their legs I saw a body.
Edging close to Pairy, I asked, “Was he attacked from behind?”
Pairy nodded.
“Can you check his shoulders?” I asked Anun who was kneeling by Wah. When he looked at me questioningly, I said, “Are they torn and scraped?”
Anun lif
ted one of Wah’s shoulders and then looked back at me quickly.
“I found blood beneath a tree,” I explained, pointing beyond the boulders. “There was a wide trail of blood leading from there.”
Anun stood, a frown on his face, and walked toward me.
***
Lord Imhotep told me once that people are either curious or they are afraid.
I did not understand.
Lowering himself to sit on the unstacked section of a pillar — I had been tying strings on pegs hammered into the ground to align the pillars in the temple he and Senenmut were carving from the red sandstone cliff west of Waset — he said, “Imagine that you are standing alone on a road. Looking up the road you see a man approach. He is backlit by the sky and you cannot see him clearly. I believe that you would be either curious about the man or you would be afraid of him.”
I remember looking at the man-god with unsure eyes.
Seeing my doubt, he said, “You think that you could be both. You are right. But eventually one emotion would win. If curiosity won, you would stand your ground and meet the man. If fear overtook you, you would turn and walk away, avoiding the man.”
He leaned forward and picked up a handful of sand — an action that he took at great cost, for everyone knew of Lord Imhotep’s dislike of sand. He allowed the sand to drizzle from his closed fist. “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives,” he said in a strange, distant voice. Then he laughed, but it was a sad laugh, the kind of sound one makes when one realizes that the gods have played a trick on him.
He clapped his hands to shake off the sand and then wiped them meticulously on his kilt.
“My mother loved that show,” he said as he cleaned his hands, talking to himself with words of nonsense as he sometimes did.
“It was curiosity that brought me here, Suti,” he said, using his great wooden staff to push himself to his feet. “Curiosity leads us to knowledge. Fear leads to regret. Always favor curiosity over fear.”
***
As Anun approached me, I wondered if he was curious about my knowledge or if he was fearful that my words had diminished his leadership in the eyes of the charioteers.
I glanced at his sword. I didn’t fear for my life — I was scribe to Lord Amenhotep, after all — but I had seen soldiers hit each other with the flat side of the sword or pummel them with the blunt end of the handle. I didn’t wish to experience either.
Curiosity helped me stand my ground, with my head steady and my eyes welcoming. (Although my legs did tremble, it was because of cramps caused by having stood so long in the rocking chariot, I told myself.)
Anun stopped and cocked his head at me. A small smile overpowered his frown.
“Neferhotep told me about you,” he said now, his voice clear and calm. “He said that his grandfather had taught you the magic of seeing what is hidden to others. What else have you seen?”
Lowering my head, I silently promised to donate some of my best stones (not the red-speckled black stone, though) to the temple of Thoth to thank Lord Imhotep for his words and to ease Neferhotep’s passage through Duat.
Then, called to me by my thoughts, Thoth spoke to me. I raised my face to Anun and offered him the words Thoth formed in my mouth. “Queen Menwi and Lord Imhotep left the Aruna Pass early yesterday morning. As they approached the crossroads, they saw someone turn back down this road.
“Wah was sent to make sure that it wasn’t a scout from the king of Kadesh or some other danger.” I turned and pointed past the boulders to the road. “It was morning and this campfire wouldn’t be visible from beyond the boulders, so the intruder used green wood, to make smoke, and attract Wah.”
Pairy ran over to the circle of stones that marked the campfire. Beside it lay a heap of green branches. He kicked the branches angrily and then looked at me with a touch of respect in his eyes.
“Wah followed the smoke,” I said, seeing as clearly as a temple painting. “The sun was in his eyes and he couldn’t see the assassin waiting in the trees.” I pointed to the tree tops that rose above the boulders. “The assassin attacked him there and dragged him back here.”
“Why?’ Anun asked.
I lowered my head, waiting for Thoth’s whisper.
When the god remained silent, I stepped close to Wah’s body to search for an answer.
“Not to steal from him: he was a soldier, not a merchant,” I said, thinking aloud.
I looked at Wah’s slack face. His eyes were closed, and, aside from the dried blood caked over his ear and the sad grimace of his mouth, the face could have been of a man enjoying a nap. He wore a necklace made of a leather cord with a small silver amulet. I knelt beside him and lifted the amulet. It was the head of a bull.
“Bakha,” Anun said from behind me.
I nodded. Of course Wah would ask Montu, taking the form of an enraged bull, to give him courage.
I laid the amulet on Wah’s chest. Still searching for answers, I saw a swath of light skin on his right biceps.
Anun saw where I was looking.
“He wore an armband.” He turned to show me his arm and the wide gold arm band that encircled his biceps, identifying him as a member of the maryannu and someone trustworthy enough to approach our ruler.
Or his wife.
I stood as Anun and I shared the same thought: Queen Menwi was in danger.
“Ahmose, Meryre,” Anun said, nodding at two of the charioteers. “Tie Wah’s body to the floor of the chariot that was left here, then tow the chariot with you. Pairy, Aperia,” he raised his voice, “mount up, I want to get to Yehem.”
As I turned to follow Pairy to his chariot, Anun grabbed my arm. Then he shouted to Pairy, “Grab the water skins from the floor of my chariot. The scribe will ride with me.”
