by Overton, Max
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There was little argument among the men of the Pillar concerning what to do next--the rescue of the 'Eye of Geb' was paramount. What was discussed at some length was exactly how to go about it. Jesua favoured following the coast road, shadowing the vessel carrying Scarab, and looking for some opportunity to effect a rescue. This was possible because Kemetu naval vessels stuck close to the coastline and usually put in to shore at dusk, rather than risk the open ocean after dark. This would enable the Pillar, if they ran hard and diligently, to keep pace. This plan also had the added advantage of telling them exactly where the 'Eye' was at all times.
Khu disagreed. "We know where he's taking her--to Kemetu. We know also he'll be guarding her well as they must expect us to try something."
"So you will leave her in the enemy's hands?"
"For the moment, but I think we should not just react to Nakhtmin's moves. We should force the pace."
"How?"
"We have three horses, liberated from the Amorites. I will ride down as fast as I can and get ahead of the ship."
"And then what?"
"And then I'll think of something. I don't know, but at least Nakhtmin won't be expecting an enemy coming at him from that direction."
Jesua thought about it and then nodded. "We'll do both. Khu, you will take Terrik and Salom and ride as fast as you can to Kemet. The rest of us will follow the ship south."
Khu found out over the next eight days that there is a world of difference between knowing how to ride and actually riding hundreds of stadia at a fast pace. When he fell off his horse at sunset on the first day, he could hardly walk, screaming in agony at the way his muscles spasmed and clenched. The next morning he was so stiff he had difficulty standing up, let alone climbing onto the horse's back once more. He managed it, driven by his need to be there for Scarab. Terrik and Salom were little better, though because they were fitter and their muscles hardened, they could at least move without crying out.
By the fifth day, Khu had moved beyond pain, which was just as well. They rode past the first of the Kemetu forts and a squad of riders came after them. The soldiers did not pursue them far, loosing a few arrows after them, but they changed their tactics at the next fort. Instead of boldly riding past the fort, they dismounted and led their horses using the cover of the land, passing unseen by the guards. They passed several forts this way and went from Kenaan into the eastern desert of Kemet.
Late on day six, they reached the first of the lands watered by the diverging branches of the Great River, and the next morning their mounts drank from the sluggish, silted water.
"Where now?" Terrik asked. "Do we have to cross it?"
"It's very wide," Salom muttered. "Are there crocodiles in it?"
"I don't know which branch Nakhtmin will sail up. I think there are five altogether, but he will take the easternmost one probably--or maybe not. Zarw is on this branch and Horemheb is based there, I think. Maybe he'll take the next one."
"So we do have to cross it."
"Maybe, but not here. We'll ride upriver at least as far as Zarw, or further. I think the next branch joins it somewhere there. If Nakhtmin comes up that one, we'll be there."
"And then what? How do we three attack a boat?"
Khu shrugged. "The gods will show us a way."
They came to Zarw on the eighth day and passed through the city that lay beneath the inner walls. In their desert robes, they looked sufficiently like Khabiru to escape the notice of the armed guards at the gates. The men of the Pillar had objected strenuously to entering even the outer city but Khu insisted, saying he needed to know if Horemheb was there.
"You're not going to go looking for him, are you?" Salom asked nervously.
"No, but I can tell if he's there from the attitude of the soldiers." Khu looked keenly at the guards from the shadows under his hood as they rode through. "He's not there," he said, as they emerged on the southern side. "I wonder where he is."
Zarw lay a little distance from the easternmost branch but was connected to it by a canal. They passed swarms of townspeople and Khabiru women fetching water or beating their clothes against the stones lining the canal.
Suddenly, Terrik let out a shout and pointed. "There she is! The Eye of Geb! Praise the gods, she is safe." He dug his heels into his horse's sides and forced the tired animal into a lumbering walk. As he got closer to the red-haired woman, she turned and stared curiously at the mounted man. "Welcome, Eye..." He gaped at the strange woman and muttered something incoherent before turning away. "I...I thought it was her," he said when he rejoined the others. "It looked like her, from behind anyway. The hair."
"Scarab's mother was of the Khabiru," Khu explained. "She lived here among them once, can speak their language, and knows their customs. She looks like them. These are her people, as much as are the royal family of Kemet."
A warship flying the colours of Horemheb lay tied up where the canal joined the river. There was a lot of activity around it. The three horsemen gave it a wide berth and continued up the river. As the sun sank across the heavens, they came to a split in the river, where a second, smaller channel broke off from the main one. The second channel rippled, even in the middle, and great wedges of matted reeds clogged its banks.
"I think it's too narrow and shallow to take a ship," Khu said. "That means Nakhtmin will use the third branch."
"Which is where?"
"Out there somewhere." Khu waved toward the setting sun. "Luckily we don't have to find it. We can just follow this branch upriver until they merge. Somewhere near Men-nefer, I think."
They continued south along the river, pushing their horses as fast as they would go. At times, the road angled away from the water and Khu worried that they might miss the merging of the third branch. Whenever the road took them close again, Khu would question a farmer or a fisherman and be reassured.
"He says it's at least two day's walk upriver," Khu told his companions after his latest query.
"Less by horse," Terrik commented. "Though at the rate these nags move..."
"And we still have the problem of attacking a ship," Salom added.
"I've been thinking about that," Khu said. "I think we need to hire a boat. It would be faster, and would take us along or across any branch. We'll try at the next village."
The tiny collection of huts on the river's edge had several fishing boats tied up by it. Several people gathered as the three horsemen rode into the village and dismounted.
"Can I help you?" a middle-aged man asked them cautiously. "I am the village elder."
"I hope so," Khu said with a smile. "We want to hire a boat."
The man nodded. "You have copper?"
"The horses."
The man grunted and ran his hand over one of the beasts. "We don't have much use for horses."
"You could trade them at Zarw."
"Why did you not trade there?"
"We need to get south quickly and they did not have boats for hire."
Another man, much older and with a hideously puckered scar that ran from the corner of his mouth to his chest, approached and examined the horses. "These are Amorite mounts," he said. "I recognise the marks from when I was in the army. Where did you get them?"
"We came by them honestly enough," Khu replied. "Their Amorite owners no longer needed them."
The scarred man laughed. "Good for you." He nodded at the elder and withdrew.
The elder now smiled. "My name is Ma-Re. We can do business. How long do you want the boat for, for what purpose, and how far do you need to go?"
Khu pursed his lips. "Do you need to know these things?"
"Not if you want to buy a boat outright. That would cost you all three horses. If you only want to hire one, I need to know if you are returning here or do you want to make a one way journey to somewhere. You are then hiring a boat and a man to sail it."
"We can sail it ourselves."
"I doubt that. Are you returning here?"
; Khu shrugged. "Probably, but I'd like to keep our options open."
"Alright," Ma-Re said, reaching a decision. "Here are my terms. For a single horse, I will hire you a fishing boat and a man to sail it for you..." He held up a hand as Khu started to protest. "Ride on to the next village if you do not like my terms. He will take you where you want for three days. Any more than that will cost you another horse. If you have not returned here in ten days to claim it, the third horse will be given to the wife of the man whose husband and livelihood you took away. Agreed?"
Khu nodded. "Agreed. We need food also."
"We will supply basic fare for three days--bread, onions, and radishes. You can catch fish."
They set sail within the hour. The fisherman, a gnarled man of about forty by the name of Hori, rowed them out of the shelter of the land, even though the current started swinging them away downriver. Hori hoisted the triangular sail and turned the boat with the steering oar so that the faint breeze caught them across the side. The boat heeled over and started forging slowly upriver. Hori brought them in closer to the bank, where the current ran less swiftly. He held the boat steady on an invisible line, balancing wind and water in a dance that sent them scudding upriver faster than a man could walk.
"Don' 'ee worry none, young sir," Hori told Khu. "Oi'll get yer where yer wants t' go."
The fisherman was willing to sail past sunset and set out again at dawn, so they made good time. By noon on the second day, they reached the point where the river divided again. Khu told Hori what he wanted and the fisherman nodded, continuing upriver another few hundred paces before swinging across the current with the wind at their back. The boat swung down the stream but cut across at the same time and shot into the third branch, sending spray crashing over the bow. Hori quickly lowered the sail, leaving just enough spread to give him some control of the tiny vessel, and let the current do its work.
"'Ow far yerse wants t' go, young sir?"
"We are looking for a naval vessel coming toward us."
"'Oi ain't tanglin' wiv no navy ship, sir. Yer hain't paid me fer tha'."
"You won't," Khu reassured him. He got to thinking about just what they were going to do when they found the ship. "I haven't thought this through," he admitted to Terrik. "I was so determined to find the ship I did not stop to think how we were going to rescue Scarab."
"Well, we can't just leap aboard the ship and carry her off," Terrik said with a grin, "So we'll have to try something more subtle. When we find the ship, how about we just follow it for a bit and observe it? Something may occur to us."
As it happened, they did not have that opportunity. The next day, a little past noon, they saw a naval vessel ahead of them on the river, but it was not thrusting upriver under the power of its oars, or under sail. Instead, it was moored by the riverside, its high-beaked prow nosing into the rushes and reeds of the water's edge.
"Swing wide around it," Khu instructed. "Then come in close behind it."
Hori grumbled but started easing his boat out into the current.
Salom looked back and remarked, "We have a small fleet coming up behind us fast. Anyone want to guess who that might be?"
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Chapter Thirty-Eight
Scarab and Nebhotep stood in lush pasture with the sun beating down on them from a clear sky and waited for Nakhtmin. There was no point in running as the sailors from the ship had swiftly overtaken them and turned them back toward the vessel. The sailors now stood in a wide circle, preventing escape. Nakhtmin hobbled into the circle, his face a mask of pain and hate.
"I will kill you for that, you bitch," the heir said in a low voice.
"You were going to kill me anyway," Scarab said calmly. "You look a bit the worse for wear, Nakhtmin. Perhaps raping women you thought were helpless does not agree with you."
Nakhtmin snarled and revealed the long dagger he held by his side. "I was going to take you to Men-nefer and have you executed swiftly and relatively painlessly as befitted your rank..."
"Like you tried last time you had me captive? I seem to remember swift and painless were not on your agenda then."
"You will die screaming for mercy!" Nakhtmin roared. He held his hip and winced before continuing. "Nobody challenges the king of Kemet and lives."
"You are not the king, Nakhtmin son of Djetmaktef of Waset, nor will you ever be."
"My father is Kheperkheperure Irimaat Ay, king of the Two Kingdoms, and you are nothing--a whore, a bitch, daughter of excrement, traitor and..."
"I am Princess Beketaten. My father was Nebmaetre Amenhotep, and my family was royal when yours was grubbing in the dirt."
The ring of sailors murmured and shifted uneasily. One or two looked to their captain who frowned. "My lord Nakhtmin," he said. "Is this true?"
"What of it?" Nakhtmin snarled. "She is a traitor to my father the king. The penalty for that is death. Do you dispute my right to mete out punishment in my father's name?"
The captain looked away. "No, my lord."
"Then watch as the traitorous bitch dies."
Nakhtmin threw off the support of the sailor helping him stand upright, and limped into the circle. He hefted the long-bladed dagger in his hand and watched Scarab carefully as she ushered Nebhotep to the edge of the circle. "Do not concern yourself, bitch," he said. "The physician does not interest me. It is you I want."
Scarab did not answer, but instead murmured in Nebhotep's ear. "Stay out of it, but watch him carefully. I would not put it past him to attack you if you get in range."
"Let me help. Together, we can take him."
"No. I'm sorry, Nebhotep. These sailors won't lift a finger to help you, but they might aid me because of who I am..." Scarab broke off and ran a few paces to the side as Nakhtmin came at her. He followed her, ignoring the physician.
There was little Scarab could do except continue to evade Nakhtmin. The length of the blade he wielded made it difficult for her to get past it, but she had the advantage of speed. The heir continued to hobble, still obviously in pain, but his anger drove him on. She backed away slowly, watching her opponent's eyes, turning as she moved. Whenever Nakhtmin hesitated, she flicked a glance at the ring of sailors, searching for any sign of sympathy but finding none. She weaved her head back and forth, conscious for the first time in four years that she had no depth perception and that she had no peripheral vision on her right side.
Nakhtmin leapt forward, stifling a cry of pain and the tip of the long blade swept toward her. Scarab stumbled back and the sharp point scored a trail over the inside of her left breast. Blood welled in tiny drops and she brushed them away, smearing her flesh. She retreated again, backing away with her blind side toward the encircling men.
I cannot keep this up for long. I am tiring already . Scarab felt the cumulative effect of the past several days of abuse and short rations eating at her strength. She prayed to the Nine of Iunu, but they were silent. The stone in her right eye socket remained a stone and no sign formed in the clear blue sky. She risked another glance at the sailors and caught only looks of interest, lust and pity. I must try .
"Men of Kemet, hear me. I am Lady Beketaten, youngest daughter of the great Nebmaetre Amenhotep, sister to kings Akhenaten, Smenkhkare and Tutankhamen. I am royal, while this man who calls himself Lord Nakhtmin is the natural son of a commoner and adopted son of another commoner..."
"Shut up, bitch!"
"...Ay, the father of Akhenaten's commoner queen. He has no royal blood and he took the throne..." Scarab leapt back, stumbling and weaving as Nakhtmin roared his anger and threw himself forward, the dagger slashing and stabbing as he tried to silence her. She backed into a sailor who grabbed and held her for a moment but she twisted free as Nakhtmin struck again. The blade scored her arm and dug into the sailor's chest. The man screamed and fell down. Scarab took advantage of the confusion to run to the other side of the circle. Nakhtmin wiped his dagger on his kilt and followed.
"Ay took
the throne by murder," Scarab called out. "He rebelled against Akhenaten, he tried to kill Smenkhkare and he murdered Tutankhamen as he lay in his bed recovering from his wounds. Ay is a traitor to Kemet and so is his adopted son Nakhtmin. His orders are void. Disobedience to his commands is blessed by the gods and will be rewarded handsomely. Do not..."
Nakhtmin laughed. "My men are loyal and follow strength, not the insane rantings of a discredited bitch from a rotten and diseased family. You will die and the last of your pestilential family will die with you."
Scarab stopped backing away and waited, crouched slightly, her breasts swinging. Nakhtmin smiled and came straight in, his dagger steady and low. Scarab feinted, then grabbed for his arm, swinging so her back was to her opponent. He brought his left hand up to claw at her face and she threw her head back. Nakhtmin howled, his nose spurting blood and then he pushed her violently away, wresting his dagger free as Scarab fell forward. She twisted as she fell and was face up when Nakhtmin landed on top of her.
Nakhtmin tried to bring his dagger in, but now the long blade proved a disadvantage. The point caught in the turf and Scarab was able to hold his hand away with hers. She tried to claw at his eyes with her free hand but he forced her hand away. For several minutes, both strained to gain the ascendancy but both failed.
Nakhtmin grinned down at Scarab and deliberately rubbed his chest against her breasts. His blood dripped from his nose onto her upturned face. "Perhaps I should continue where we left off," he sneered. He turned the dagger slightly and it cut through the grass until it pointed at Scarab, a little closer than before. "Measure your life in minutes, bitch." He glanced toward his dagger and her gaze was dragged after his. "I will get just as much pleasure pushing this into you as I had with my member."
"I think I will enjoy your dagger more, Nakhtmin. No wonder you are unmarried and have no children if you use other women in like manner."
"Bitch! Whore!"
"Truth is, I scarcely felt you in me you were so small and useless."