The Amarnan Kings, Book 2: Scarab - Smenkhkare

by Overton, Max

  "I have no choice," Scarab said, her chin rising defiantly. "I must go to my brother and...and my little Set will have to come too."

  "What is his name? Did you say Set?"

  "Yes." Scarab smiled faintly, seeing a look of pride steal over the old judge's face. "I named him for the desert god of soldiers because his father told me how important the name was to him."

  "Thank you," Seti whispered. He lowered his head and raised his hands to his face. After a few moments he looked up at the other men, his eyes glistening. "Gentlemen, would you leave me to talk with...with my daughter alone? She will be quite safe," he added, seeing Khu's face stiffen. "On my honour."

  "It will be all right," Scarab said calmly. "Wait for me outside, Khu."

  Seti waited until the men had left the courtyard before turning back to Scarab. He looked carefully at the girl in Khabiru clothing, her long reddish tinged hair so reminiscent of the old queen Tiye.

  "You are determined to go south to aid your brother? No, do not bother to answer; I can see it in your eyes. Well, you will do what you must, but I ask you not to put the child at risk."

  "Would you separate a child from his mother? What sort of a mother deserts her baby?"

  "What sort of mother knowingly takes her baby into danger?" Seti snapped.

  Scarab's eyes flashed again but she remained seated. She thought for the first time of the rigors of the journey and of the uncertainty that lay at the end of it. Smenkhkare and Horemheb would fight but only the gods knew the outcome. Am I being foolish taking Set with me ?

  "Forgive me," Seti said. "It was not my place to dispute with you, but with my son absent, the boy's father, I felt duty-bound to speak."

  "I...I would leave him with his father if he was here," Scarab sobbed. "But I cannot just abandon him to the care of strangers."

  "The Khabiru are your friends, your mother's people."

  "They are truly kind, but my son is Kemetu not Khabiru." She tried a small, tremulous smile. "Besides he bears the name of a god that is an abomination to them. I don't think they'd feel comfortable with it."

  "Khu then? He seems a likeable fellow."

  "Khu would not leave me. You see, there is no-one. I must take him with me."

  "There are his grandparents, lady Beketaten. Family who would love him as a treasured only grandson."

  "You, judge?"

  "And my wife Pentere. Our daughter is barren and though my son Paramessu was married, his wife and son died many years ago. Now you have arrived and given us another grandson. You must know we would protect him with our lives."

  Scarab looked hard at Judge Seti's lined face, searching his eyes. She saw only sincerity and strength and felt herself drawn to the idea. She was not abandoning little Set, but leaving him for a short time with his grandparents. She did not know Seti or Pentere but they were Paramessu's parents and she knew he loved them. "I wish I could talk to Paramessu, tell him what I intend, ask his thoughts."

  "Write him a letter; I will see he gets it. I have army messengers at my disposal and I am duty bound to tell him Horemheb's news anyway, so I will include your letter."

  "What shall I say? That I go to help my brother reclaim his throne and not to come after me with the army?"

  Seti chuckled drily. "Tell him you love him, child. Tell him of his son and that he will be in Zarw awaiting the arrival of his proud father. Tell him that you will be gone a short time only after which all three of you will be reunited." Seti got to his feet and drew Scarab up, walking across the sandy courtyard with her. "My scribe will write the letter if you wish. Just tell him what you want to say."

  "I can write it myself. It would be better."

  "Of course." He beckoned to a servant. "Take this lady to my study and provide her with writing materials. Bring her to me when she has finished."

  Seti immediately turned and went to find his wife Pentere. He found her in the small herb garden outside the kitchens, supervising the kitchen staff as they dug through the sandy soil, pulling weeds and watering the burgeoning rows of vegetables. Pulling her to one side, he led her through into the shade of a small orchard where he informed her of the afternoon's events.

  "Our son has a child by some loose Khabiru woman, a whore probably, and you want to adopt the brat?" Pentere tried to decide whether disgust or incredulity better mirrored her emotions.

  "She is no whore, nor a Khabiru, though she is related to the late queen Tiye. She is..." Seti grinned widely, enjoying his wife's look of puzzlement. "...sister to both kings." He decided to say nothing about Smenkhkare. That would probably come to nothing anyway. It was not important; certainly not as important as whom she was. "She is of the Great House, and our son has brought her to child. Do you know what that means?"

  Pentere shrugged, but a gleam of avarice lit her eyes. "Wealth?" she asked hopefully. "Comfort in our old age and a fine tomb?"

  "Oh, much more, dear Pentere. The child, she even named him Seti, has title to the throne of Kemet. Neither of the kings has a son. If they die, we could yet see our grandson crowned King of the Two Lands." Seti rubbed his hands together as Pentere's eyes opened wide. "I've always rather fancied the title of Divine Father."

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  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Khaemnum sat in the little room that served as his headquarters in Akhet-Aten. A table and chair filled most of the room, with a ramshackle set of shelves against the crumbling plaster of one wall. Scrolls filled the shelves and littered the floor and table as he scratched away with a splintery reed on coarse papyrus. The splayed tip of the reed caught on a knot in the uneven surface of the papyrus, releasing a flood of ink over the scroll. Khaemnum cursed and blotted at the scroll with a linen pad, seeking to lessen the disfigurement of the careful rows of pictographs.

  Despite being the ranking officer in Akhenaten's capital city of the sun, Khaemnum preferred to do his own accounting and report writing. He had a scribe ready to do all his work for him, but he sent him away, enjoying a duty that occupied his mind, dragging it away from the mundane. For four years he had held the post of commander in Akhet-Aten, four years in which other more junior officers had been rotated out to other duties, had secured advancement and glory, while he played nursemaid to a forgotten king with a tiny detachment of guards. Akhenaten was truly forgotten outside of this little city, as no event of the king's life was recorded any longer. Once, the records might have stated 'On the eighth day of the third month of the sixteenth year of our glorious king Waenre Akhenaten...' but that had stopped in his seventeenth year. Events since then had been recorded as happening in the 'year of King Nebkheperure Tutankhaten'. Even the minor events, such as the arrival of a new batch of wine bore the ownership seals of the boy king rather than his elder half-brother. Here, Khaemnum sometimes felt the injustice of it and took a perverse pleasure in altering some of the seals. Only last month he had altered a new pressing of the sweet dark wine from Syria to read 'In the twenty-first year of Waenre Akhenaten', but no-one noticed. In truth, no-one cared. Akhenaten had already been relegated to the recesses of history.

  Khaemnum sat back on his stool and stretched his arms up and back, feeling his muscles and tendons creak with the effort. Sweat trickled between his shoulderblades, running down to stain his kilt. He ran a tongue over his dry lips and glanced out of the small window toward the dark green slick of the river. The room usually caught the breezes off the river but today the air hung heavy and still, holding the stench of the city close instead of dispersing and cleansing it. A new city, raised pristine from the desert sands a mere twenty years before, Akhet-Aten possessed none of the overcrowded squalor of Great Waset, yet despite a falling population, the smells and filth had grown--another thing about which few people cared.

  "Boy! Where are you, Hepu?" A tousle-headed boy stuck his head around the corner of the door. "Get me some beer, and make it cold." Khaemnum flipped a small piece of copper across the room. Hepu snatched it out of the air an
d ran. "A pitcher, mind. Not just a mug."

  Khaemnum got to his feet and started tidying away the scrolls, sticking them in the shelves in no particular order. His scribe had tried to show him how to organize them but the commander soon gave up, content to have the scribe come in afterward and rearrange things. He poked his head out of the door and squinted up into the faded blue sky, judging the position of the sun. He felt a faint clenching in his belly and remembered he had eaten nothing since his breakfast of bread and dates at dawn before the king's daily audience. For a few minutes he debated whether to find some food, but his throat told him only to find drink.

  Hepu arrived back, hauling a large stoppered pitcher of beer and a mug. The foaming liquid hissed and sputtered around the imperfect seal of the container's neck, and moisture beaded on the glazed pottery surface. Khaemnum's throat constricted at the sight and he poured himself a mug of the thin sour brew. He gulped but it felt as if his dry mouth soaked up the liquid before it got to his throat. He poured himself another but stopped with it half way to his lips as a shadow fell across the doorway.

  "Commander Khaemnum?"

  "Who asks?" Khaemnum reluctantly put the mug on the table beside the pitcher and stared at the man filling the open doorway. Thickset and muscular, he gave the impression of height, though the top of his bald head missed the door lintel by at least a hand breadth. Khaemnum's eyes traveled over the bulging muscles and pillar-like legs before coming reluctantly to the man's face. He drew a sharp breath but managed to control himself, covering his slip with a cough. Flint hard eyes stared back at him over a hawked nose and large loose lips that even in this savage heat were moist and glistening.

  "You are Commander Khaemnum?" the man repeated. "I have a letter for you from Tjaty Ay."

  "And you are?"

  "I am Mentopher, his steward." The man reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled out a folded papyrus. He held it out for Khaemnum and as he did so, a white scar in the form of the hawk of Heru gleamed against the dark side of the man's chest. "Yes, Khaemnum," Mentopher said, noting the direction of the Commander's glance. "I am one of Ay's chosen ones."

  Khaemnum accepted the folded letter and turned it over. There was no name on it, nor was the seal imprinted with any symbol. He cracked the wax and picked it away with his fingernails until the loose edge came away. Unfolding it, he scanned the few lines of script.

  "You can read it, can you?" Mentopher asked. "Ay said you could read and wouldn't need a scribe."

  "I can read it." Khaemnum sat on the edge of the table and read the message slowly. It was in Ay's rather stilted script and was short and to the point. Nothing in it could be construed as treasonous; indeed, if he had not had prior warning of the message it would be meaningless. He re-read it, in the hopes he might have missed something. It said, 'The time has come. Take him to the desert and let him commune with his god. The bearer will go with you as witness.' Looking up at Ay's hulking steward, Khaemnum asked, "You know what the letter says?"

  "I cannot read, but Ay told me its contents. I am to come with you to see it done." Mentopher grinned, revealing stained and rotting teeth.

  "Very well. I will give the matter some thought and determine a suitable time."

  "What's wrong with now? The sooner we kill the bastard the better."

  Khaemnum sighed. "We are not going to kill anyone. The killing of..." he dropped his voice, "...a king is god-cursed and anyway, Ay says nothing of killing, only of leaving him in the desert."

  Mentopher shrugged. "So grab him and take him out and leave him now. You've got soldiers haven't you? Set's hairy buttocks, I could carry him myself."

  "You would have a riot on your hands and that is something Ay would not want. There are still a lot of Aten worshipers here."

  "So fix it, Commander." Mentopher picked up the pitcher and sniffed the contents, grinning delightedly at the sharp smell of the sour beer. He poured a mug full, splashing some carelessly on the table, and drained the contents. Belching loudly, he poured another mug. "Just don't take too long. I'm sure the Tjaty would not be happy to hear you are delaying unnecessarily."

  "You can find a bed in the barracks. See the quartermaster. I will send for you when everything is ready."

  "I will stay in the North Palace. Ay has told me to use his rooms there. The accommodation is better." Mentopher finished the mug of beer and dropped it onto the table before leaving.

  Khaemnum carefully wiped the mug before pouring himself the last of the beer in the pitcher. Sitting on his stool, he tipped it back, leaning against the wall with his feet on the table. He sipped and thought about the king and his daughter Meryetaten. She had foreseen this situation over a year ago and had appealed for Khaemnum's help. Now the day had arrived but he still did not know what he was going to do. It's a dreadful thing to kill a king, even just by exposing him in the desert heat, but disobeying the Tjaty is unthinkable. Isn't it? That is why Mentopher is here - to ensure my cooperation .

  Swinging his legs down, Khaemnum went to the door and looked out on the sun-baked city. The heat from the sun beat down on the anvil of the earth, the air itself shuddering and shimmering with each stroke. Pools of water appeared to lie in the streets, and the figures of distant people were distorted and strange. A man could die right here in the city if exposed to the Aten for a few hours. He recalled the ancient penalty for blasphemy against the sun god, Re. The criminal was staked out in the pitiless glare of the god. Madness took the blasphemer within hours, as he ranted and railed against his fate, followed swiftly by death. Could I do this if I thought of Akhenaten as a blasphemer? He did try to abolish the gods.

  Khaemnum took a faded linen headdress from the shelves and draped it over his head, tying it in place with a flax cord before venturing out into the streets. He walked away from the marginally cooler area near the river toward the dazzling brightness of the painted palace in the heart of Akhet-Aten. In the rippling heat the sweat on his body dried instantly, leaving just a fine incrustation of salt behind. Inquiries determined that Lady Meryetaten was taking her ease in the shaded gardens of the women's quarters and was not to be disturbed. Khaemnum thought for a moment before handing the maidservant the folded and dusty letter from Ay.

  "Take this to your mistress," he instructed. "She is expecting it."

  The girl was back within minutes, and took the commander by a roundabout route to the gardens where Meryetaten stood waiting under the heavy shade of a citrus tree, the letter in her hand.

  Dismissing the maidservant, the king's daughter handed the letter back to Khaemnum. "So, it has come at last. What do you intend to do?"

  "Ay has sent his steward to see it done. If I do not do it, he will."

  "He is your king," Meryetaten said softly. "You took an oath of loyalty to him."

  "I know. And when I stand before the judges in the afterlife, I do not want to face them with such a sin weighing down my heart." Khaemnum sighed. "I will help you if I can."

  "How exactly? I do not need ifs or maybes. I need a definite plan."

  "Then let me think for a moment."

  "Do it out loud," Meryetaten said. "It may be that something you dismiss is right."

  "Very well." The commander started pacing, three steps, a turn, and three more, turn again. "I am to take Akhenaten out into the desert and let his god kill him. Mentopher is to go with me to see it done. I cannot kill him directly, even Ay does not command that, so I have to be able to say I left him with food and water." Khaemnum stopped and looked at the king's daughter. "Anything?" he asked hopefully.

  "What if the Aten does not kill my father? He is his servant after all."

  Khaemnum grimaced. "My lady, we are not talking about the godhead of the sun's disc, something spiritual; we are talking about a desert sun hotter than a coppersmith's furnace. Make no mistake, if he is left out there, he will die, king or not."

  Meryetaten nodded. "So he will die under the desert sun. Look at it another way. What would save him?"


  "Once he was out there?" Khaemnum considered the question. "Shade, water, rescue?"

  "Let me ask something else, commander. You and Mentopher take my father out there. Do you leave him or watch him die? Do you go alone or take soldiers?"

  "I...I suppose I would take soldiers, if it was my intent to leave him."

  "What if Mentopher wanted to stay and see him die? Could you dissuade him?"

  "If I had to, my lady. I would kill him."

  "No, that you must not do. He is the witness that the deed was carried out. If there is even a hint that my father still lives, Ay will hunt him down and kill him for certain. If Mentopher wants to stay, you must find a way to dissuade him."

  Khaemnum resumed his pacing, thinking through the lady Meryetaten's words. "So the king is alone with a small flask of water and a loaf of bread. How does he survive?"

  "Leave that to me, Khaemnum. Do you know the desert between Akhet-Aten and the Eastern Sea?"

  "Moderately well, my lady. I have been on patrols to about five days out."

  "It is enough. Do you know the trade route that runs from just north of here to Gharib on the sea?"

  "Yes, but Mentopher would never accept that. Too many people travel that route."

  Meryetaten's lips tightened and she directed a glare at Khaemnum. "Did I suggest such a thing, Commander?" She waited, staring the man down until he lowered his eyes, murmuring an apology. "As I was saying, about half way along the road there is a well...it is called the Well of Khons, I believe. Turn south and travel half a day south to a pillar of rock that sticks out of the desert like...like a young man's member. You know it, Commander?"

  "I know it." Khaemnum could not control a grin. "The soldier's call it 'King's Phallus'."

  Meryetaten stared stony-faced. "Indeed? Then it must have been some other king they named it for." After a moment she relented, her face softening into a faint smile. "Well, that is where you will leave my father."

  "Then what?"

  "Then you leave him there and forget about him. What follows is none of your concern, and for the safety of all of us, it is better you do not know."