The Amarnan Kings, Book 2: Scarab - Smenkhkare

by Overton, Max

  Scarab raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Have you forgotten you taught me to ride?" She took the reins of the gelding, grasped the mane and swung herself up in a lithe movement that had Paramessu blushing and looking away. He mounted his stallion with less grace, his weakened left leg letting him down, and pulled the horse's head round to face the compound gate, urging it forward with his heels. Scarab followed, her gelding trotting along behind.

  They rode out of the city of Zarw, westward with the sun at their backs along the great canal. The great road that ran toward the delta of the Great River and the heart of the Lower Kingdom passed through small villages clustered around the city and its arterial waterway. Many people used the road and for maybe an hour they walked or trotted their horses, moving through the carts and herds, around people carrying produce. The land around was pasture, with herds of cattle and goats, lush and green for the most part though bare earth and close-cropped scrub showed through in areas where the grazing was heaviest.

  Scarab urged her gelding alongside a silent Paramessu as they sat waiting for a herd of goats to pass a procession of laden carts, the oxen pulling them with heads held low, resigned to their thankless task. "Why do we follow the road?" she asked. "I thought a dashing soldier like you would be galloping across the countryside."

  Paramessu turned and looked across at the young girl. "My lady, were I by myself I would, but a gentleman must know when to curb his desires."

  Scarab clicked her tongue disapprovingly. "Then you must learn to be less of a gentleman." She jerked her reins, pulling her horse's head around and drummed her heels into its flanks. The gelding leaped forward, dashing between two carts, the oxen in the following one shying back with a bellow of surprise. The horse gathered itself and jumped across a narrow irrigation ditch, landing in the soft springy turf of the neighboring field. Scarab clung to her horse's back, her body leaning low over its neck, yelling encouragement as it laid its ears back and surged forward. Behind her, she briefly heard shouts and whistles and the crack of the ox-drivers' whips, before her attention was fully taken up with the task of staying on the galloping beast.

  The end of the field drew rapidly closer and Scarab could feel her mount's muscles bunch as it faltered for a moment then launched itself at the drainage canal lying between two fields. For a wonderful moment the pounding, jarring movement beneath her ceased and all she felt was the wind in her hair, the sun on her back and the flapping of her kilt skirts around her waist. The ground rushed up to meet them, there was a dreadful impact and for an awful moment she thought she would lose her seat as she slid forward over the animal's neck. Recovering with difficulty she risked a quick glance over her shoulder and saw Paramessu's roan stallion soaring behind her, a grim-faced man on its back.

  The gelding raced on, though its sides heaved and sweat slicked its flanks, saliva spattering back over Scarab's arms. She wondered how she was going to stop the horse or whether she would just have to let it run itself into exhaustion. Through the pounding of her horse's hoofs she heard another drumming, getting louder. Another glance saw Paramessu closing fast as he urged his stallion onward, his mouth open and apparently shouting, though she could hear nothing. She felt herself slipping and jerked, over-corrected and slid off the horse's back in the opposite direction. She threw her arms around its neck, gripping hard as her legs slipped, and she found herself hanging above the rushing ground, the gelding's forelegs slashing perilously close. The horse shied and dug its hoofs into the turf, pulling sideways and Scarab lost her grip, tumbling and rolling over the grass to end up on her back, half-stunned.

  Paramessu, only a dozen or so strides behind, pulled back hard on the stallion's reins. Its hindquarters dropped and he was off its back and running toward the prone figure of Scarab before the horse had come to a halt. His weakened leg collapsed and he rolled, cursing, before forcing himself up again and limping to the girl's side. He knelt beside her, indecisive for a moment, then cradled her head in his arms and brushed the dirt from her face.

  "My lady, are you hurt?" he muttered. "Oh gods, let no harm come to her, I beg you. I will do anything if only..."

  Scarab groaned softly and fluttered her eyelids open. "Paramessu? What happened?"

  "You little fool," he snapped, anger overflowing relief. "I taught you to ride sedately, not try and kill yourself."

  Scarab smiled tremulously. "Don't be angry with me, Paramessu. I could not bear it. I just...I just wanted you to enjoy your ride with me, not feel constrained."

  Paramessu let out a ragged breath. "I am not angry, my lady, but you must promise me never to do anything like that again."

  "I will." Scarab struggled to sit up, wincing at the pain.

  "Sit quietly, lady, you may have hurt yourself in the fall. Let me check your bones quickly. One learns these things in the army." He ran his hands gently over Scarab's arms and legs, then probed her neck and stomach with his fingers. "Does this hurt? Or this?"

  Scarab shook her head. "I might fall again if this is how you treat me," she murmured.

  "What?"

  "Nothing." Scarab grinned as his hands fell back to his sides. "Am I all right?"

  Paramessu nodded. "Nothing is broken, that I can see anyway, my lady. I'll get Nebhotep to examine you when we return though." He looked around and spotted the two horses grazing a little way off. "I'll get the horses and we can head back," he said, getting to his feet.

  "Wait. I think I'll rest a little bit first." Scarab touched her thighs gingerly. "That horse's back is harder than I thought."

  Paramessu trotted off to catch the horses and returned shortly with them walking sedately behind him. He tied them up to a small scrubby tree on the edge of the drainage ditch and let them graze again, before walking back over to Scarab and sitting back down on the springy turf. They sat in silence for a few minutes, each studiously avoiding the other's gaze.

  "Could I persuade you to call me 'Scarab' instead of 'my lady'?"

  Paramessu pondered for a moment. "It would not be proper. You are sister to...to the king. I am just a soldier."

  "You did once before."

  "You were but a girl then, a runaway, and I only half believed you when you said you were sister to the king."

  "That is not true, Paramessu. Later, when you found out who I really am, you still were kind and gentle and called me Scarab."

  "Things have changed, my lady. You have grown into a woman."

  "Yes, things have changed, and not just in the way you think. My brother Akhenaten reigns still though he is all but deposed; my brother Smenkhkare has been murdered; and my brother Tutankhaten is now king in name only. My uncle Ay controls him and seeks my death." Scarab wrestled a small stone free of the black earth at the base of a clod of grass and threw it into the drainage ditch. A small white heron flew up with a cry of alarm, beating its wings frantically as it fled across the field. "Make no mistake, brave General Paramessu, I am no longer a princess. I am...I am a woman without skills, without means of support and probably without a future. I would think that a soldier could call such a woman 'Scarab' without impropriety."

  Paramessu sat and stared at the ground in front of him, his hands plucking grass blades and ripping them into shreds, a frown on his face. At length he nodded. "A soldier might call such a woman 'Scarab', but you are not without resources. Many men in Kemet love you and would come to your aid." He turned to the young woman and smiled wryly. "In truth I would like to call you 'Scarab'. I often think back on those times and remember those days and nights we spent together."

  "I remember them too," Scarab said softly.

  "Then...Scarab, I shall be honoured to be your friend."

  "Friend only, dear Paramessu? I am a woman and..." she blushed, looking away.

  Paramessu's lips quirked upward in a smile but he quickly controlled his expression. "There too I would be honoured, my...Scarab. But you are young..."

  "I am seventeen."

  "...and I am considerably older than you--twe
nty years older. Why I have even been married."

  "You are not now?"

  "No Scarab. I married young, at my father's bidding, but she died after a year. I joined the army and have never sought the company of women."

  "But you enjoy my company, do you not?"

  "Indeed I do, young Scarab. You have a...a lively mind."

  "That is not all I have," Scarab murmured. She rose to her feet and brushed the dirt and grass off her kilt. "We had best be getting back, Paramessu." She groaned as she started to move, clutching her buttocks. "I am sore and I'm not sure I can ride back."

  "It is too far to walk, Scarab." Paramessu got up and walked over to her. "Come, I shall help you onto your horse." He held his hands cupped for her to step up, looking away politely as she swung her leg over the horse's back.

  Scarab grinned down at him from the gelding's back. "Ever the gentleman, my Paramessu. I am tempted to test your resolve." Instead, she twitched the reins and started her horse back toward the road at a sedate walk. Paramessu scrambled onto his stallion and joined her.

  The ride back to Zarw was amiable but quiet, both riders silent for the most part, each absorbed in their own thoughts. Several times, each rider found an excuse to drop back slightly and at those times, devoured the other with their eyes.

  Rides into the countryside around Zarw became a daily event. Khu disapproved but could find no diplomatic way of voicing his jealousy, so withdrew sulkily.

  Nebhotep on the other hand, heartily approved as he could see his patient's strength returning. Besides , he thought, he enjoys her company and any fool can see she is infatuated with him .

  The heat of summer enveloped the land and the fields dried, the crops ripened and the harvesting finished. The green and springy fields of grass turned brown and sere and the air itself baked. The time came when the rides to the north and south and west of Zarw, into the rich farmlands of the Delta, no longer held an attraction. One morning, just before dawn, when a gentle coolness still enveloped the land, Scarab came down to the stables to find Paramessu waiting with an extra horse, laden with packs.

  "I have something different planned today, Scarab."

  Paramessu led them east toward the desert of the peninsula of Sin, the rising sun blinding them as they rode. Within an hour they left the last of the dry farmlands and entered a scrubby wilderness that stretched out ahead of them. The sun rose higher, a ball of fire that burnt the remaining vegetation away and rippled the dusty air. Breaths of wind, hot as if from a baker's oven, gusted over them, lifting the dust and sand into a stinging cloud and making them cough.

  "Set's breath, we call it," Paramessu said. "Don't worry. It will not gain strength. It lasts only until the sun is about so high." He pointed to a spot in the heavens about halfway from the rippled horizon to the pale washed out blue of the zenith.

  "Why are we out here?" Scarab gasped. "We'd be better off in the Zarw barracks."

  "I want to show you something." Paramessu would not be drawn further but rode silently on until Set ceased his panting and the shadows shortened, walking beside them in the heat. He pointed off to the right, toward a small hill and turned the horses' heads, guiding them across sand and rock toward the rising land.

  Close to the top they found a series of huge rocks that had split away from the stone core of the hill, and for the first time that day, a modicum of shade. They dismounted and Paramessu led the horses into the shelter of a large boulder where a dusty cavity in the shade told of desert animals that used the place for shelter. The horses shied at the rank animal stench but faced with the choice of baking sun or cool shadow, overcame their fears. Paramessu unpacked feed and gave each horse a drink of water from a collapsible leather bucket before carrying the rest of the packs around to the northeast flank of the hill. Working quickly, he erected a lean-to with the aid of two long staves and linen rope, thin linen cloth shading a tiny area of the hillside from the sun.

  Scarab joined him in picking the rocks out from underneath the shelter and sweeping sand in to replace the larger ones, filling in the depressions. At the last, Paramessu spread a large army blanket over the sand and gestured, grinning.

  "Lady, your palace awaits."

  "Thank you, noble lord." Scarab sketched a bow and bending over, walked into the low shelter. She sank down onto her knees and looked at Paramessu as he entered and sat beside her, clutching the smaller pack. "So, what's this all about?" she asked. "It seems a lot of trouble to go to just to get me alone. I would have come to your room if you asked."

  Paramessu chuckled. "Don't think I haven't thought about it. But I brought you out here for quite another purpose."

  "Is it going to take all day?"

  "Not long, Scarab, but it is important."

  "Good." Scarab grinned and settled herself comfortably. "When you have finished showing me things, I will show you something too."

  Paramessu raised an eyebrow but refused to comment further. He opened the pack and took out water, dried meat, bread and fruit. "First, we eat."

  "No wine?" Scarab grumbled. "Don't I rate wine then?"

  "Never drink wine or beer in the desert if you have water. Wine will make you thirsty and beer will make you want to...er, pass water. You must guard against thirst and water loss at all times."

  Scarab reached out and helped herself to a small melon, digging her thumbs through the tough rind and into the orange juicy centre. "Is this going to be a lecture? You are starting to sound like one of the scribes in the palace." She broke off a piece and passed it to Paramessu, biting into another. The sweet juice flooded her mouth and trickled down her chin, dripping onto her breasts.

  Paramessu sighed and pointed out into the desert, sweeping his hand to encompass the north and the east. "What do you see?"

  Scarab shrugged, biting into the melon again. "Sand, sky, nothing. Why?"

  "Kemet is blessed by the gods, Scarab. We have good soil, a never-failing supply of sweet water and an equitable climate. We are further blessed by gold and precious stones. Is it any wonder that the nations of the world, the lands of our nine enemies, covet Kemet? What is it that protects the Two Kingdoms?"

  "The army?"

  "In part. But if we had good gentle lands adjoining ours, the armies of our enemies would sweep in and conquer us whenever they chose. The land itself defends us--the desert, the sand, the sun."

  Scarab frowned and tossed her melon rind down. She wiped her sticky hands on her kilt and took a small loaf of bread. Nibbling on the crust she folded her long legs under her. "You could have told me all this at Zarw, Paramessu. Why did you bring me all the way out here?"

  "I wanted to show you the reality of it. My army is out there somewhere, maybe twelve thousand men, but the desert doubles my strength if I use it properly. A commander must always be aware of the land and look for ways in which he can ally himself with it." Paramessu fell silent for a while, brooding over the bare landscape. "There are gods out here, Scarab. The sun rules all, Re is king. But there are others--Geb is the land beneath us, Shu the wind that cools, blessed Tefnut that grants moisture if we learn where to look for her bounty, the star-spangled body of Nut during the night--even Set has his place."

  "Set I can believe, out here in the desert," Scarab agreed with a shudder. "Why would anyone want a god like Set?"

  Paramessu picked up a handful of dates and started eating them, talking around the sweet fruit. "You think of Set as evil, as the opposer of Asar and Heru. But the soldiers worship him, not just because he is violent but because he personifies the desert. Many soldiers are named for Set--even my own father is named Seti."

  Scarab nodded. "I think I understand. When you talked of the gods of the desert I remembered the Nine of Iunu. I sidetracked to the temples of Iunu on my way to Zarw." She stopped with the half-eaten loaf at her mouth and put it down suddenly, breathing out raggedly. "I...I had a vision in the temple of Atum, the god spoke to me."

  Paramessu turned to stare into her face, searching her
eyes and expression for any hint of a jest. He found none. "Go on," he said gently. "What did the god say?"

  "I'm not sure. I thought I understood it when I came out of the temple but my thoughts just disappeared like water on the sand." Scarab sat silently for several moments. "I think he said something about my brothers and I know he said I should honour the Nine."

  "It is often the way when the gods speak." Paramessu nodded. "Yes, they speak clearly but to men's ears it is as a dimly remembered riddle. It will come back to you when it is fulfilled."

  "What's the use of that? I want to know what's going to happen."

  "Only the gods know the future. Men are better off not knowing."

  Scarab made a face. "Men maybe, but I'm a woman."

  Paramessu smiled. "Yes, I had noticed that."

  Scarab looked at Paramessu with a neutral expression for a moment then looked down at the food and drink and the remnants of their meal. "What a mess we have made." She tidied away everything back into the leather bag and tucked it to one side of the lean-to. "I suppose we had better be thinking about going back."

  "Not yet, it is too hot. Wait until the sun is sinking or we'll roast on the way home."

  "If we left now it would be all right. It is not yet noon." Scarab leaned past Paramessu to look outside at the position of the sun and her arm brushed his bare chest.

  For an instant he did nothing, then with a groan he reached for her, gripping her upper arms in his huge hands and pulling her close. His lips descended on hers roughly. Scarab stiffened and pulled back, starting to struggle then abruptly she flung herself forward, taking Paramessu by surprise and they both fell sideways, with Scarab on top. She raised her head and looked deep into the General's deep brown eyes.

  "What took you so long?" she whispered.

  "Scarab," Paramessu said shakily. "We shouldn't." But even as he said it, his hands fumbled with the catch around her neck and he drew the linen shoulder-shawl aside, exposing her firm young breasts, still streaked with sticky melon juice.