Bird in a Snare

by N. L. Holmes

  “Just so that I understand the dynamics between you and the leaders of the hapiru,” Hani began uncertainly, “I mustn’t conceal from you that someone told me a story about you and Abdi-ashirta in your youth.”

  “Ah?” said the old king, blowing on his tea.

  Hani didn’t know exactly how to approach the topic, but he wanted a definitive version of Lord Aper-el’s history.

  “I was told that Abdi-ashirta was your slave, my lord.”

  “Quite so. Isn’t that ironic?”

  Hani was silent while Rib-addi gummed the porridge noisily and swallowed. Perhaps this isn’t the best moment to get the king to embroider the story for me. Eating seemed to require a great deal of Rib-addi’s concentration and physical effort. As it was, driblets of food fell into his beard with every mouthful.

  “I was told that you kept him a sort of prisoner for years in punishment for some offense,” Hani began again tentatively. “Might I ask just what it was he did?”

  But the old king looked up, his blackcurrant eyes sparkling with ire. “Who told you that, my friend? Punishment? Offense? No, no, Hani. No, no. I was protecting him. He was just a boy.”

  Hani forgot to breathe for a moment. He felt as if he’d fallen and hit the ground hard—winded, stunned. He shot a quick glance at Maya, who gaped up at him with eyes as round as plates. “Protecting him?” he cried, a little skeptical. “From what?”

  “Rather say from whom.” Rib-addi wiped his mouth with a bony hand. “From Yapakh-addi, that’s whom.”

  I think we’ve found our murderer’s motive, Hani thought with a flash of relief. “What... what did Yapakh-addi want to do to him?”

  “Why, to bugger him. Don’t look so shocked, Hani. My goodhearted, honest little Hani. There are such men, you know. They’re not all from Gubla either.” The old king cackled sadly.

  “So you... you hid him in your room? For years?” On Hani’s temples, a sweat was breaking out that had nothing to do with the weather.

  “Not hid. I just assigned him to serve me there. Where there’d always be someone around— other slaves, at least—and where Yapakh-addi couldn’t go without me being present.”

  Hani fell silent as the king drained his mephitic tea and belched then excused himself politely like a little child. Hani hardly knew what to say. If Rib-addi’s version was the truth, he had disliked the king for no reason. The Kebnite was, in fact, a good man—or at least a man who had done a good deed. There was certainly a lesson here.

  Rib-addi said, still chuckling, “Some people thought I was buggering him, I kept him so close. But I was more of a ladies’ man, Hani. Believe it or not, quite the ladies’ man. There were some real beauties at your court in the old days. One in particular. Too bad she was married.”

  Hani forced a smile. “No wonder Yapakh-addi has hated you all these years. But tell me, my lord”—he kept his eyes closely on the old man’s face—“whatever made you borrow gold from a man who hated you?”

  Rib-addi looked up at him with a guileless expression. “I needed it. Where else was I supposed to get it if not from the richest son of Kebni? The hapiru have been bleeding me dry for years. I’m destitute.”

  “Forgive me, my lord, but I find that hard to believe. Kebni is a rich port, a caravan terminal. You have cedar. You make purple dye and beautiful works of art. Your merchants are highly successful. Surely they pay an enormous amount in customs...”

  “Not during a war. How many of the last fifty years have been at peace for me?” He took Hani’s hand confidentially. “And where have my friends the Egyptians been, eh? Where was Neb-ma’at-ra? Where was Yanakh-amu? Where was Ptah-mes? Again and again, I’ve written, begging for aid... and in the end, only Yapakh-addi would help me.” His eyes shriveled as if tears were imminent. “My friends have been crueler than my enemies.”

  Hani hung his head, remembering the cynical words of his superiors in Kemet. They’d let Rib-addi fight his way out of every tight corner alone, as long as he absorbed the blows for them.

  The slave returned with a platter of roast meat and some garlicky greens and bread for Hani and Maya. Rib-addi tried to pick up his feet so he could lie down on his bed, but Hani had to aid him, finally, then pull off the king’s down-at-heel shoes and set them beside the bed. Rib-addi sank with a grunt into a prone position, so thin he almost disappeared into his clothing. Hani seated himself on the floor next to Maya, and the two of them addressed themselves gratefully to the meal.

  Still, Rib-addi seemed to be relieved to be telling his side of the story at last. Collapsed into his pillows, he sighed. “The sad thing is that Abdi-ashirta wasn’t more grateful, eh, Hani.”

  “You mean by attacking you?”

  “Yes, among other things, the ingrate. But he wanted to be a king, and I was the one in his way. He wanted to be king of Amurru.”

  “Amurru in particular?”

  “No, it was just a big area at the very north of things. This was before we secured Ugarit as a part of our happy family. There was Kebni, and then there was Amurru, and that was it. After that was Kheta. You might have thought he wouldn’t have attacked Amurru, seeing as I held it. But he wanted very badly to be a king. After all, he turned out to be a vile ingrate. A vile ingrate—like everyone else.”

  “Perhaps not wholly—he always gave back what he conquered, which seemed odd. I find it less odd now.” Then after a moment, Hani asked, “Did you ever free him, Rib-addi?”

  The old king’s gaunt face grew long with guilt. “Why, no. I don’t think I ever did. He took off at some point into the desert, and I never gave him another thought until he turned up at the head of the hapiru.” He shot a pleading glance at the Egyptian from the corner of his eye. “I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate on my part. He took off into the desert.”

  From what Hani understood of slavery as the Amurrites practiced it, Abdi-ashirta was technically a runaway, and his sons were, too. No doubt many such men had found refuge among the hapiru. They had very little to lose. At least such a system had never taken ugly root in Kemet, where, at worst, a captive or a person who had sold his labor to pay a debt was only temporarily bound and never wholly unfree.

  Well, Abdi-ashirta is dead. His status in the eyes of men matters little now if Lord Djehuty accepts the cleanness of his soul.

  Hani turned back to ask Rib-addi a question, but a ripping snore informed him that the old king had sunk into his siesta. Hani stared at him for a moment, considering. Rib-addi’s pointed nose stuck up like the fin of a shark.

  My son’s in the clutches of a man who likes young boys, Hani thought with a frisson of unease, and no one is there to protect him. Laying a finger to his lips, he rose quietly to his feet, and he and Maya made their way out the door.

  ⸎

  “What exactly are we supposed to be doing here again, my lord?” Maya asked with a shirring of the eyebrows that might have been interpreted as confusion or peevishness.

  “Comforting Rib-addi.” Hani shot his secretary a thin smile. “Tomorrow, we try to talk Aziru out of attacking him. In general, we’re calming down the situation.”

  The two men were standing on the ramparts of the small citadel above its main gate. Below them, in his luxurious litter, Hotep son of Haya was in the process of abandoning the city, accompanied by a substantial escort. Hani wondered darkly how many soldiers the so-called commissioner had decided to leave after all. He wondered, as well, who had given the order to withdraw—surely not Yanakh-amu—or if it had been Hotep’s own initiative. If it had indeed been orders from above, Hani was no longer sure what his mandate was. The king had been vague in the extreme. Hani was to deflect Aziru’s siege by promising him something. But what else did Aziru want? Legitimacy. And how would he obtain it without a territory to rule? Hani had written Ptah-mes for a clarification, but the courier hadn’t had time to return with a response.

  Rib-addi stood some distance away, his hands behind his stooped back, gazing resignedly down at the departing Egypti
an garrison. The slight hot wind from the sea lifted the filmy ends of his beard and hair, and he looked no more substantial than a spider’s web. This poor old man was all that stood between Aziru and the takeover of Amurru. Hani wondered what was going though Rib-addi’s mind.

  As if he’d heard his name, the king looked up. “Do you think he’s going to leave us anyone, Hani, eh?” His thin mouth quirked cynically as he gestured with a thumb toward the departing commissioner.

  “You know, my lord,” said Hani, drawing near the king, “I may be able to convince Aziru to permit you a safe passage to Kebni. I don’t see any reason why you should be subjected to the rigors of a siege.”

  “But who will defend Tsumur?”

  “I suspect if we yield the city to him, Aziru will turn it back to us like his father. He’s presumably more interested in becoming a vassal than in simply taking over against Our Sun’s will.”

  Rib-addi stared at Hani with his black eyes between their drooping lids and the equally deep pouches below. He seemed to consider the idea. “I’m uneasy leaving my brother to rule Tsumur in my absence, I confess.”

  “Give me until tomorrow, my lord. Aziru has yet to take up his position outside the gates. It will cost him nothing to abandon a siege at this stage.”

  Rib-addi sighed and gazed up into the sky. A hawk circled far above.

  Hani shaded his eyes with a hand and squinted at it. “Kestrel. A male, I think. Probably hunting for his bride while she hatches their eggs.”

  Rib-addi stared at him, intrigued. “Do you know its name and the name of its father, too, eh?”

  Hani chuckled, suspecting he had revealed more than he needed to about his passion. “I’ve watched them a lot in Kharu and Djahy, my lord. They have a unique way of hovering in the air when they choose.”

  “They kill smaller birds,” the king observed disconsolately, returning his eyes to the raptor, whose circle was growing wider and wider.

  “Not so much. Mostly mice and such.” Hani hesitated, trusting that he understood Rib-addi’s unexpressed thoughts. “If a mouse were to want to scurry home to safety, this might be a good time to do it. The kestrel’s gyre is widening; he’s losing interest.”

  Rib-addi cast him a sharp glance. “Talk to Aziru, Hani. Let me know how that goes, son. Then... we’ll see. We’ll see.”

  ⸎

  Hani set off alone that afternoon, armed only with the staff of a herald, having reassured Maya that he would be safer if he looked harmless than if he went accompanied by a contingent of soldiers. He didn’t have far to go to find the besieger’s sprawling camp, which sat upon the low hills a bare few iterus inland from Simurru, in the shadow of the snowcapped mountains looming farther east.

  It looked less like an army encampment than a troop of nomads—an undisciplined splatter of tents of brown leather and pale linen, linked by clotheslines as often as by picket lines. But along with the women and children were a substantial number of young men of fighting age. Among the donkeys were tethered horses, and he even saw chariots mingled with the oxcarts here and there, piled with baggage. The hapiru eyed him suspiciously as he approached, his staff raised, but no one stopped him or even came to inquire after his mission. Heralds were sacrosanct. Nonetheless, his heart in his mouth, he could feel the nomads’ hostile stares on his back, the crowd closing around him as he pierced deeper into their camp. He’d penetrated well into the center of the city of tents before a burly shaven-headed man approached at a determined pace. Hani recognized Aziru’s brother, Pu-ba’alu.

  “Who comes under the conventions of the herald?” Pu-ba’alu began in a menacing rumble, then his face lit with recognition. “Ah, Lord Hani. You’re alone?”

  “I am, my lord. I’ve come to speak with your brother in the hopes of preventing a siege of Simurru, which would serve no one’s best interests.”

  Pu-ba’alu raised his eyebrows dubiously, but he gestured to Hani to follow him, and together, the two men forced their way through the encampment. They arrived at last at a red-dyed tent, small in size but royal in its pretensions to luxury. Pu-ba’alu stood in the doorway and called to the occupant, “It’s that Hani, the emissary. He wants to talk peace.”

  An indecipherable voice spoke from within, and Pu-ba’alu jerked his head sideways at Hani, indicating that he should enter.

  Within, the tent was lit by a fiery scarlet light that seemed an apt expression of its airless heat. Aziru and another man—a big fellow with a mashed nose—stood inside along with the youth Hani remembered as the hapir’s heir. A pungent reek of sweat assaulted his nostrils.

  Hani bowed over the herald’s staff. “My lord Aziru. Prince Bet-ilu.”

  Aziru’s face cracked a little in a dry smile as he took in the flattery of the address. “Ah, Hani. We meet again. What can I do for you?” He indicated the thick rug spread across the tent’s floor, and the four men seated themselves cross-legged. Aziru shouted out to some invisible servant that he should bring wine.

  “I’ve come in the name of my king in the hopes that your difference of opinion with Rib-addi of Kebni can be resolved peaceably, my lord,” Hani said. “A siege is costly to you both, and you risk losing the goodwill of Nefer-khepru-ra Wa-en-ra. He is willing to propose a substitution. Something else you value in place of Simurru.”

  Aziru’s eyes lit with amusement. “Is he willing to make me a vassal, Hani?”

  The servant slipped into the tent with a ewer and a tray full of cups, which he set down on the floor at his master’s side. He withdrew discreetly.

  Hani smiled tolerantly and shrugged. “What is your country, my lord? We’re speaking here of realistic substitutions.”

  “Then what am I to say? Gold? Horses? Ships? No, my friend. I want only to honor my father’s dream and to provide our people with the security of being a state, under the protection of the Black Land. Because...” He fixed Hani with a grin that could only be called foxlike and then, turning aside, poured him a goblet of wine. “There are now options.”

  A wave of unease rolled over Hani, as it was no doubt intended to. He cocked his head, maintaining his pleasant expression, and awaited an elaboration.

  Aziru passed him the cup. “You may have heard that the men of Kheta are becoming restless under their energetic young king. They are, as we speak, poised to attack Nuhasshe.”

  Hani’s stomach clenched in dread. The Mitannian territory of Nuhasshe was just inland of Kemet’s isolated northernmost vassal at Ugarit. That rich maritime city would be a juicy target, far from any other ally of the Black Land—separated by the no-man’s-land of Amurru from Kebni and the friendly states of the Fenkhu coast. Nuhasshe was just to the north of Qadesh and Tunip as well—strategic caravan stops on the River Arantu that were more or less loyal vassals to Kemet.

  Hani wondered what the likelihood of a Hittite Nuhasshe did to Nefer-khepru-ra’s ideal of an unattached buffer in Amurru—because the new and dreadful specter now arose of Aziru going over to the Hittites. They would be only too happy to grant him vassal-king status in Amurru—a red-hot pincer ready to close from the south on Ugarit while the men of Kheta pressed down from the north and east.

  Hani drew as deep a breath as he could manage inconspicuously and made a show of lifting his goblet to his lips. “I can promise nothing without consulting my superiors, Lord Aziru, but it’s possible that something can be done peacefully, without a siege. It may be that Lord Rib-addi would consider ceding Simurru—”

  “Rib-addi!” Aziru laughed caustically. “All I have to do is outlast him. His son and brother already want to ‘cede’ Tsumur, as you put it. He’s the only one left who’s hanging on to his status with Kemet. No doubt a sentimental attachment to the days when he cut a fine figure at your court.”

  Hani hesitated then said, pained, “My lord, I’ve been told that Rib-addi protected your father when they were young. It seems to me this determination to cut his kingdom in half is a little cruel.”

  Aziru’s face grew as crimson as the t
ent over his head. He said heatedly, with a tremble of suppressed passion under his words, “Cruel? Lord Hani, neither cruelty nor affection have anything to do with statecraft. My people need a place to live, and Rib-addi has a hinterland he doesn’t use. His heir and his advisor don’t even want Amurru; holding onto it stretches their resources. But the hardheaded old bastard won’t let go. He’s got one foot in his tomb, and he won’t uncurl his greedy fingers from the least little plot of land to help feed a hungry people. Who among us is cruel?” Aziru’s nostrils were stiff, and his breath had grown jagged. He took a swig from his cup and set it down on the floor beside him with barely controlled anger.

  Hani nodded his understanding.

  “And don’t deceive yourself. Rib-addi was no better a master than he had to be. I think ‘protecting’ my father might be a euphemistic way of putting it. Did my father never show you the scars on his back left by the ‘protection’ of that dog turd Rib-addi?” Aziru’s handsome features were warped with bitterness. The broken-nosed man beside him, who had said not a word through the whole meeting, sat in stone-faced silence.

  Hani was curious, but he didn’t want to provoke an outburst that might harden the hapir leader against a compromise by risking a personal question. “Then, my lord, must I tell my master that you are unwilling to consider a bloodless cession of the city? Although that seems to be precisely what you want—land to feed your people.”

  “And what would that make me, Hani? A governor? A mayor, as you so insultingly address us? A king?”

  Hani wished he knew what his superiors were willing to yield. Once, it would not have been such a mystery to him, but he no longer felt he understood his country’s policies in the north. He wished he knew how much of Aziru’s outrage was a posture he struck in the presence of his son and the other man who sat at Aziru’s shoulder—whoever he might be. Idle wishes.

  Hani said honestly, “I can’t answer that in my own name, my lord. But I’ll certainly have an answer for you as fast as a courier can reach us from Urusalim, where Lord Yanakh-amu is headquartered at the moment. If you can be patient for just a few days...”