“There, my friend,” said Hatib when the girl set down drink and a tray with a tiny brazier and a straw-like tube of metal whose end was turned up and which was balanced on an alabaster jar no bigger than my wife’s unguent jars. “Try this.”
Attempting to appear cosmopolitan, I did what Hatib did, and coughed, and then felt very strange as the sweet smoke did its work. That was the first time I had smoked the sap of the poppy; and I liked not at all the lethargy it imparts.
Such candor as then overtook me I credited later to the gummy black paste, but at the time I did not even notice the loosening of my tongue.
“How are you faring up on the ramparts?” Hatib asked.
“With the king, ill. My sons turned frisky while my guard was off at liberty, and their escapades scandalized the palace. Moreover, when the king came to me and asked what was to be done about my princes, whom his guard had apprehended and incarcerated forthwith, I said: ‘Leave them there.’ Now, according to my wife this horrified the king, her uncle, more than all that the boys had done, and all Alashiyans are now convinced that indeed I do eat babies. Having earned the title of ‘barbarian’ here in three days, I must find some way to turn it to my advantage, but I have not yet sniffed out how.”
My Sutu laughed his chilling gurgle, and uptipped his jaw to gulp the wine, and I saw again that pale scar encircling his throat, and wondered how he had acquired it. But I could no more ask of that than of how he came to be pectoraled and kilted in linen and bearing all the gilded trappings of Amenhotep’s foreign service.
“How my esteemed friend? You have already done it: those posturers know only their manners and their presumption; anything unpredictable they fear. You will get more from them if they think you ready to eat their sons and daughters than if you spend a hundred double-hours in their tiresome entertainments. My lord must know that these folk faint at the sight of blood and fear most desperately that which cannot be predicted by their astrologers and their seers. When I want some concession on the docks, I merely loom frighteningly. Sometimes I find I must growl a little, but sometimes, a sharp look sends them scurrying.”
“You are Egypt to them.”
“And you are Hatti.”
“The two are not yet equally fearsome.”
“Soon,” Hatib promised, “soon,” and with slitted eyes puffed once more on the pipe.
“I have heard that this paste ensnares the mind,” I refused.
“And wine does not? Do I seem to you dimwitted?”
“Nevertheless, I want no more. What have you for me?”
“Ah, many things, my lord, many things. Some for the present, most for the future. I am here with a man whom you should meet, to meet with another whose face you might wish to know, and all of us are supping with the Alashiyan king on the morrow. If he has for you any other entertainment for the evening, demur, and you will find yourself in company and conversation which I promise will hold your interest. Only do not give the slightest sign that we are acquainted, for this man who is with me, one Lord Hani, is the Good God’s missionary unto the foreign lands, and he is sharp as a falcon. Do you not underestimate him for his youth, or for his gentleness, or for his talent for making men do just that. He is a close friend to the friendless son of Pharaoh, and will someday hold the reins of Syria in his hand.”
“You have written to me that the young king and the old are embattled on the very throne. What means this?”
“Impatient, my lord?”
“After a fashion. My new Queen is likely to summon out the army if she finds me gone when she returns from her cousin’s estate.”
“Then, my lord, consider: the young king, Nefer-Kheprure Wanre Amenhotep IV is infirm and twisted of countenance and limb, and has taken his father’s political ploy to neuter the priesthood into his heart and made of it an obsession.”
“Hatib?”
“My lord, when Neb-Maat-Re Amenhotep III, whom you call Nimmuria, lost a son to the priesthood’s “carelessness,” he raised up a minor god, the Aten, lord of the solar disk. He has continually strengthened this god, once only a part of the triune aspect Re-Horakty-Aten, and with this ploy has put the priests of the ram-headed Amun in the ranks of his enemies. He has taken them and made them small, and wealth they held as theirs he has given to his favorite, the Aten. It is a brilliantly conceived counterweight to the power of that over-rich priesthood, but it has made him great and resourceful enemies over the years. The dedication of his successor son early in life to the Aten must have seemed innocent politicking; but the boy is long of skull and jaw, and his lips thick as a horse’s, and he is mad as that mendicant there.”
I looked briefly where he pointed, at a rag-covered beggar crawling among the tables on his hands and knees, spittle and giggle frothing cracked lips.
Then I looked back at Hatib and raised an eyebrow. “You do not expect me to believe that?”
“Believe what you will, my lord. The years will tell the true tale. Amenhotep III will live awhile longer: the Goddess Istar of Nineveh who Tushratta’s father sent down from Mitanni to heal the Good God of Egypt twenty years ago did her work well. For an old man he is spry enough. Now take heed:”
And Hatib leaned close to me, whispering: “Your correspondent Nimmuria Amenhotep III went to Sidon himself to quell the unrest there: he hunted and killed one hundred eighty elephants at the headwaters of the Mala river afterwards. He is sending troops this very moment into the city of Byblos, to help Ribaddi the Egyptian governor against his neighbor the King of Amurru. Now this man of Amurru has sent his son to parlay with us and the youth will be at tomorrow night’s fête. My lord, I cannot too strongly direct your attention to the matter of these coastal principalities. Though Abdi-asirta, king of Amurru, profess to love the head of Pharaoh, he does not love it; and though he professes to love the person of the Pharaoh, he loathes the very kiss of the Two Lands. He plunders wherever he can on land and most especially on sea, and the letters that have been coming in from the governors of the Egyptian protectorates would bring tears to the eyes of a strong man, should he read them. Long those affairs have lain festering, unattended, yet no one in the palace at Thebes has time to concern their Royal selves with affairs outside the family’s.”
“And so?”
“And so, my most honored employer, if this continues, it is doubtful that any action upon Egypt’s part would be forthcoming should Mitanni suddenly fall silent. Pharaoh’s lack of interest in all but barges for his pleasure lake and statues and wrestling with the priesthood could well serve the man who chooses carefully his moment.”
“And the man who lends a helping hand to Amurru when none is forthcoming elsewhere might thereby acquire a valuable ally.”
“My very thought. For the surreptitious kind of war you favor, the Amurrites are well suited. Myself, if besides my other sources I could add the coastal view, if I may so call it, then we would be better informed than previously I had dared hope.”
“Upon that, how goes it with my new Queen’s father?”
“Had he but one teat, I would wed him on the spot.”
“Hatib, if all ends as we now dream it, and if my new Queen will oblige us and bear one, I will give you a princess.”
His eyes lowered, his smile came and went, and he reminded me that he had never met my new wife.
I answered him that on the morrow he would sit to table with her, if all went well, and the talk fell to that less dangerous than what had gone before.
I went not out of there until the moon had set, but then took with me all else I had sought from Hatib: details of reportage pertaining to the next year, changes in couriers lest they have by now drawn suspicion, and his views on what my vassals had been doing behind my back. Since none of it was other than I expected and well within my tolerance, I was pleased enough: princes will be princes, and autonomy is a dream that all rulers share. My way with vassals is to give them that dream in substance, and remind them only when they err that they rule with my spears
to their throats.
“Suppiluliumas,” husked Khinti, and turned from the dawn coming in the tower window, her little fists clenched behind her.
“Surely you did not fear for me in the city you love so well.”
“My lord, fear is one thing, concern another.”
“My husband,” she murmured in my embrace, when I had given her to drink and to eat and she lay soft and yielding like a furrow newly dug, “I waited and waited, and when I saw you would not come, I had my uncle release the princes Arnuwandas and Piyassilis, on my order, for he could not have slept otherwise. Are you angry?”
I tickled her, wondering whether or not I had begotten my princess on her this night, and then why she was so hard to settle, and then thought of Titai who never bore me so much as a runt, and then spoke to still my thoughts: “No, I am not angry. But they are your responsibility, released on your say so. In the matter of your uncle’s sleep, I cannot see how my affairs can so concern him.”
“My Sun,” she said very slowly, weighing her words, “you have left me to rule Hattusas on my own in your absence, yet when you are returned you treat me like a concubine and speak not to me of the affairs of your kingship. You say to me you would meet with the Alashiyans concerned with Amurru and Ugarit to buy cloth. Do you think I am so lacking in statecraft that I could not see your intention?”
I laughed, she stiffened, and I said that I was sorry I had insulted her and would try not to repeat the oversight.
“My king, why will you not take me seriously? You made me Tawananna.”
I groaned, and rolled over, and fled the bed. “Khinti, I surely did not mean to devalue you. Yes, I want more than cloth from Ugarit and Amurru. I want a place at the table your uncle prepares for Egyptians and Amurrites on the morrow. Can you provide it?”
I heard her surprised little gasp while I was looking out the window on the harbor and the dawn-fired sea. I continued to stare down the terraced slope.
“I was going to ask you if you would attend, but…”
“But?” Then I did turn. “Is there perhaps a reluctance in you to expose your barbarian husband to these privy councils of your peers?”
“My Sun!” Her breasts, swaying, stared accusingly at me as she crossed the floor. She stopped before me with her fists clenched on her hips. “How denigrating is my husband! I try to present a Queenly dignity, and for that you carp! Dear King, I – oh –” Fists uncurled, her fingers sought her throat. Her eyes, pupils so huge in them they were deep golden-ringed pits of black, bored into me. “Suppiluliumas, I have loved no man but you. I venerate you above all others, so much that I wonder, of late, if I am not denying the Sun Goddess, my Lady, what is hers… it is hard for me to speak, yet if I do not and things go ill it will be my fault. Please, do not take offense: you are so mighty, yet with my people you are small and uncertain, compromised by little things. And you think no one sees it, and try to hide behind gruffness and roughness: you are a caricature of yourself, in these environs. Must you give them so completely what they expect? If your smile is any indication, you see humor here. I do not. Talk is a deadly weapon that flies across lands and seas unhampered. By this first sojourn out of your homeland people will judge you. Will you have them saying that out from behind the reins of your chariot you are no better than a common soldier? They will call you less formidable, not more so, if you continue your little show, for all know that kingdoms are not held from any man’s car, but are only looted and lost again with no lord of astute judgment and diplomatic skill upon the throne.”
“Are you entirely finished, instructress?”
She looked away, and nibbled on her upper lip, and nodded, swallowing repeatedly.
“Then tell me what plan you have in mind to undo all the mistakes of which I am guilty, and perhaps we can set things right.”
With a little cry she flung her arms about my neck and it was not until much later that we found time to talk again.
I remembered to warn her that Hatib who was with Lord Hani was the Hatib from whom she had received letters and messengers in my stead, and not to show any curiosity, and that I myself would let slip not the slightest sign of recognition.
Unfortunately, in the press of matters, I did not consider warning Arnuwandas, who yet wore Hatib’s gift of the lapis Bastet around his neck. And, since Khinti had no inkling that Arnuwandas had learned his rough-and-tumble ways at Hatib’s knee, she blithely arranged to seat my boys at the banquet table, thinking it as good a moment as any to fill their princely ears with those matters she considered more important than military campaigns; but not thinking to inform their father.
So, when my wife and two sons made a glittering entrance onto the portico overlooking the terraced drop to the harbor, it was a good thing that I was standing near to the door, and equally as fortunate that Hatib and his master the Honorable Lord Hani were admiring the view with their backs turned away.
I broke off in mid-sentence what I was saying to Khinti’s uncle the King and pushed Khinti out of my path roughly, but still only reached the boys when the frown of concentration had faded from Arnuwandas’ face and he was opening his mouth.
“Ha – AAH!” spoke my eldest, the first syllable of Hatib’s name giving way to an exclamation of pain as I grabbed him by the hair and thrust him back against a limestone column.
“Speak that name, and you commend its owner to an untimely death!” I whispered, while still the exclamation hung on his lips, one hand in his hair and the other twisted in his festive tunic so that his feet barely touched the ground.
I saw the pain fade, and surprise with it, and understanding take its place.
Nodding, I let him go and stepped back, thinking that with any luck nothing would be made of it, or no more than could be credited to my barbaric nature.
But all were staring, so I said: “You will have to excuse me, while I clarify certain matters with my sons.”
And before I turned away and motioned that my two princes proceed me through the arch into the darkened interior of the palace hall, I saw Khinti’s agonized face, she holding to her uncle’s kingly robe as if without his support she would faint dead away; and the Lord Hani peering after me like a very Horus through keen black eyes, stroking his chin.
“We will just wait here a moment, and then we will go back in, and you both will look sufficiently chastised that none will think twice about all this.”
My boys looked at me, unspeaking.
“Do you understand, princes?”
Arnuwandas fingered the little lapis amulet he wore, as if he might remove it.
Piyassilis’ touch stopped him before I had the need. “That is right, the Lord Hani may already have seen it,” I commended.
“And if I am asked? Where shall I say I got it?”
“Never lie, it is too hard to keep track of lies. Just be circumspect in your presentation of facts. Tell him you got it from a Sutu.”
They looked sideways at each other, and as on one face their wolfish grins flashed out, and elbows jogged sides. It was then that I saw them clearly for the first time in years, and wondered on what night their boyishness had crept off, never to return. Dressed as elegantly as Khinti could manage, of a height though Piyassilis was broader and would surely be the larger man, they lacked only the official trappings of manhood.
“Before we return to royal games, let me say something: I have been negligent as concerns you both. It happens. Now Arnuwandas, you are of an age with me when I begat you on your mother in a moment of incontinence. I paid for that moment a thousand times more than it was worth. Take care in that regard: you need nothing less than a wife. The proof of that I hold out to you in the person of the shipmaster’s daughter who is now your first lawful concubine.”
I left off while he sputtered, then thanked me as Piyassilis pulled at the treasured fringing of hair about his mouth. There was no mistaking the difference in them: Arnuwandas had his mother’s bones; and Piyassilis the great hands and neck and thews of hi
s sire, making him look the older though he was younger by a year. In the black Hattian tunic whose golden stags strained to encompass his shoulders, Piyassilis might have been my very self – if a man could remake his past.
Even to the sardonic worldly smile he affected as he said softly that in the morning he would sniff out some suitable female to rape, that he too might acquire a bed-warmer, was he in my image.
I told him what I would do to him if he did, holding my unfamiliar pride tight to my breast. But when I followed them back onto the portico, I was glad enough to flaunt them before a man who had seen the pointed-skulled, inbred weaklings who were said to simper on southern thrones.
The Lord Hani was shaven and bewigged and robed with gaudy magnificence. Some Egyptians are tall as men of Hatti or Ethiopia, and sturdy like trees. Hani was not one of those, but a small, quick fellow with nut-brown skin and eyes so elongated with paint that they seemed to extend halfway round his head. The braids of his wig must have numbered five hundred, each one bound with golden cylinders that tinkled about his shoulders. His kilt was girded with a magnificent belt of beaded mesh that echoed the lotus motif of his pectoral, which again appeared on the blue and gold cloak that brushed his sandals.
But by Khinti’s wiles the king of Hatti’s appearance put him in shadow, as rightly should a king when confronting an emissary of kings. I had almost not worn what she had laid out for me: the tunic of finest black wool from the chest hair of lambs, custom fitted to my torso so that neither my arms nor shoulders strained it, all worked with the legend of the dragon Illuyankas in colored thread about the armholes and sleeves and at the hem. On my feet I wore black boots of softest ox and goat. About my waist hung the dagger from that same festival, its silver scabbard overlaid with raised depictions of the Storm God’s attempts to defeat the Dragon all in gold, but for the eyes of them, which were precious stones. On my head I had a plain golden circlet, the dragon with tail in mouth, and about my neck the great seal of Hatti dangled from a chain whose every link was in the likeness of a fierce beast. The short, curved sword which I wore on my hips was my iron one, though the scabbard was gold, and it and the military cut of the tunic lent the whole affair the somber air without which I would have felt foolish, for however much you may terrace and plant a mountain, its peak looms no less lofty.
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