by Overton, Max
"No. I want to hear it now. If it is from my son, it must be important. Maybe too important to wait."
Meres bowed. "Yes, your majesty. May I suggest the court withdraws?"
"No. Get in with it."
Meres sighed, bowing to his king's will. "Captain Ament, rise and give your message to King Kheperkheperure in a clear voice."
Ament got up slowly and took a few deep breaths, focusing his attention on the fans above the king's head rather than on the royal face. "Your majesty, I am the captain of the naval vessel you sent to Gubla with your illustrious son, Lord Nakhtmin. There we acquired the woman known as Scarab and returned in haste to Kemet's shores. A day downriver from here, Lord Nakhtmin stopped the vessel and took his captive ashore to execute her..."
"You are certain of this, Captain...er, Ament?" Ay interrupted. "You actually saw the execution? The woman was to have been executed here, in front of me."
"No, your majesty, I did not see the execution," Ament said unhappily.
"Ah, then there was no execution. My son is still bringing her here to me." The king frowned. "Why do you waste my time with inconsequential chatter, captain? Give me Nakhtmin's message."
Ament swallowed, his face pale. "It...it is not a message from Lord Nakhtmin, your majesty, but about him. The message comes from...from General Paramessu."
"Paramessu! He was there? How? Where?" Ay rose from his throne in agitation but after a few moments, sat down again. "Tell me then, captain? What is this message from the good general?"
"Your majesty...Lord Nakhtmin is dead."
The people in the Hall erupted into a roar of surprise and shock, quickly silenced as the king held up his hand.
"That message is manifestly absurd, captain, and I'm surprised you should consent to carry it. You were transporting Nakhtmin yourself, so why would Paramessu say a thing like that?"
"Your majesty, I...I...it is true. I saw it myself. Lord Nakhtmin fell beneath the blade of the woman called Scarab."
Ay stared, the blood draining from his face. "You lie," he whispered. "This is a foul lie spread by that false general, Paramessu. Admit it."
The noise from the gathered courtiers and nobles increased again and this time Ay just sat there, staring at Ament, saying nothing. In the end, the Chamberlain restored order. He had one of the guards fetch a trumpet and blow a blast on it. Into the shocked silence, Meres spoke. "My lords, gentlemen of the court, the king is indisposed. Please leave us immediately and speak of this to no one." Another blast on the trumpet cut through the sudden babble. "Remember that rumour destroys Ma'at, the divine balance, my lords. Surely, you can see that. Leave us now and we shall question the messenger at length. I promise you we shall get to the bottom of this."
Slowly, the Hall of Judgment drained, the people who had heard the news immediately spreading the rumour of Nakhtmin's death within the palace and inside of an hour, throughout the city. People started thinking cautiously about the ability of the king to withstand the challenge that must now surely come from Lord Horemheb.
Alone in the Hall of Judgment with Meres and Ament, the king put aside his crook and flail, took off his crown and false beard, and put his head in his hands. The Chamberlain and the naval captain waited respectfully for the king's pleasure, each thinking his own thoughts.
Is that all , thought Ament with relief. That was not so bad. I must get back to my ship and...oh gods, I should have had the body taken to the House of the Dead. What if the king thinks I have treated his son disrespectfully ?
It has not sunk in yet , Meres thought. Soon he will demand answers for the death of his son. This captain brought a message from Paramessu. Does that mean the captain has been bought? There will be civil war and this captain may be the first casualty .
Ay looked up and stared at Ament, his eyes dry, steady and glittering, though his arms shook slightly. "Explain to me how my son died at the hands of this woman."
"Y...your majesty, Lord Nakhtmin commanded that I steer the ship to the bank. He went ashore to meet the woman, whom my men quickly surrounded. Then he..."
"I do not understand. You say my son took the woman off the ship, not that she was ashore alone?"
"No, your majesty. The woman and her companion escaped from the ship and swam ashore. We pursued, my men surrounded her and Lord Nakht..."
"She escaped? Here we come to the nub of it. This woman escaped your custody. She escaped and slew my son? Meres, I think you had better call the guard in. This man is responsible for my son's death."
"No, your majesty!" Ament fell to his knees again, arms outstretched imploringly. "Hear me, I beg you. It was not my fault. I did everything Lord Nakhtmin asked of me. He kept her in my cabin...his cabin and...and spoke with her continually. I was not allowed to put her in chains below decks as I would normally have done for a prisoner."
Meres had walked to the door to summon the guard, but Ay called him back. "He kept the woman in his own cabin? Why?"
"He questioned her, your majesty. Many times when I or one of my men brought him food or drink she would be tied to a ceiling hook or pillar, naked and bleeding."
"Naked?" Ay curled his lip with distaste. "Did he get some perverse pleasure...? No, never mind. How then did she escape?"
"I...I was not there, your majesty. I cannot be cer...certain."
"But you suspect. Tell me."
"Lord Nakhtmin sometimes took her bonds off to...to humiliate her, if you understand me, your majesty. This time we heard a cry and assumed he had hurt her while...while...I sent a man to ask if all was well but Lord Nakhtmin sent him away. Then we saw the woman and her companion swimming to shore. I sent men down to the cabin immediately where Lord Nakhtmin lay naked and in pain on the floor."
"She had stabbed him? Strangled him? He died of these wounds?"
"No, your majesty. She...she had squeezed his sack. He was in considerable pain."
"What happened then?"
"We landed, pursued the woman and her companion and surrounded them. Lord Nakhtmin took his dagger out and went into the circle of my men to kill her. She...she fought very well, your majesty, and he was still in pain."
"She must have fought very well to overcome a man with a dagger. Where does Paramessu come into this tale?"
"While they fought, Paramessu and his soldiers landed and took over."
"In overwhelming force?"
"No, your majesty, but my men are just sailors, oarsmen really. They are not fighting men and Paramessu brought perhaps fifty well-armed soldiers. There was nothing I could do."
"But you fought bravely for your master nonetheless. How many casualties did you take?"
Ament hung his head. "One, and that by Lord Nakhtmin's hand."
"And then my son died. How?"
"General Paramessu allowed Lord Nakhtmin to continue to fight the woman, but armed her, sword on sword. She won."
Ay sat silently for many minutes. "What happened then?" he asked at length.
"General Paramessu bid me bring Lord Nakhtmin's body to Men-nefer. He took the woman and her companion with him. To meet Lord Horemheb at Zarw, I think."
"Where is my son's body?"
Ament gulped. "Er, he is in the ship, your majesty...waiting...er, your instructions."
"Meres, make sure Nakhtmin is taken with honour to the House of Death. He is to be treated royally. What is the state of his tomb?"
"I do not know, your majesty," Meres said, "But I will give instructions that it is to be completed at once."
"Spare no expense. He is my son who would have been king beside me had he lived a day longer." Ay glanced at the kneeling man and added. "Send in the guard."
Meres bowed and opened the doors. The captain of the guard and a squad of six soldiers entered smartly and saluted. "What is your pleasure, Great King?"
"Take this man out and kill him. Then throw his body into the desert for the wild dogs to eat."
The guards hauled Ament to his feet and dragged him away. The shutting o
f the doors cut off his wails of terror and pleas for mercy. Ay stood and watched, and then called the Chamberlain over to him again. He leaned on him, suddenly an old man.
"Send for the commanders of my legions and organise my chariot. I will need the war crown." Ay patted the Chamberlain's shoulders. "You know what to do, Meres. I will be in my suite. Let me know when all is in readiness." He walked off slowly; waving away any servants that ran forward to help, and moved slowly through corridors filled with people who fell silent as he approached.
In his bedroom, King Ay stood still for a long time, staring out of a window that faced west. Beyond the city and a thin strip of farming land, the red desert dominated the landscape. The West , he thought. Our whole lives are a movement to the West, to the end of our lives in the land of the living, to death and the everlasting darkness of the tomb. Oh, my son, you have gone to death before me. Today was to have been a day of rejoicing, when I passed the reins of government on to you, but instead ..."Nakhtmin, my son," he cried out, tears filling his eyes. "Why have you left me? You were everything to me--you gave me a reason to live, to govern. You were to be king beside me, king after me--and now you are gone. May the gods smile upon you, my son. Nakhtmin!"
Ay's body shook as uncontrollable grief swept over him and he uttered cry after cry, howling his anguish, his heart aching inside his chest, his eyes streaming and mucus dripping from his nose and mouth. He threw himself on the bed and muffled his cries in the bedding, gripping the linen sheets as if he could hold his son back from death. Gradually his shaking stopped and as the shadows slid across the walls of his bedroom, he fell into a fitful sleep, his anguished dreams full of the face of his son and the red-haired stone-eyed witch that had killed him.
He woke toward noon, aware as he opened his eyes that time had passed. I do not have much time. I have things to do . He rose and crossed to the door, calling for his servants. "Draw me a bath. I want clean clothes, food and wine. Tell my legion commanders I want to see them as soon as I have eaten." Ay turned to the window while he waited for his servants to carry out his commands. The pain in his chest nagged at him and he massaged his loose flesh absently. Small wonder my heart pains me still.
An hour later, Meres showed the commanders into the king's outer chamber. The king entered wearing a clean white Shendyt kilt, a leopardskin shouldercloak over leather harness, and the blue leather war crown on his head. Despite his thin body and limbs and white chest hairs, he still looked imposing and his eyes glittered with determination as he looked at Ptahwery of the Shu legion, Iurudef of the Sobek legion, and Nebamen of the Sept.
"Is everything ready?" Ay asked. Ptahwery, as senior commander, answered that the legions were assembled and ready to carry out the wishes of the king.
"Good. We march against Lord Horemheb. He is in Zarw with the northern legions...What? Speak up, Ptahwery."
"Your majesty, you know we are loyal and ready to die for you, but...Lord Horemheb? He is unbeaten in the field, and his generals and commanders are skilled in warfare."
"I do not believe it will come to battle. I go to arrest Horemheb, Paramessu and Lady Beketaten for treason against their king and the murder of my son. Those three will fight, as will some of their commanders, but the men are loyal to me, I am certain of it. They will desert his army."
"You will announce this when we meet their army?"
"Of course. I do not wish the deaths of any save those three. If they are handed over, then all will be well."
"And if they are not? Forgive me, your majesty, but I seek only to clarify our position."
"If they are not surrendered, then army fights army." Ay looked from commander to commander, his face still. "Will you fight or will you step down now? I can have no reluctant officers with me."
"We will face your enemies, your majesty," Ptahwery said for them all, "Even though they are the gods themselves. We will face them and win."
Ay nodded slowly. "Then let us away to the barges. We must join the legions on the east bank. I mean to be well to the northeast by sunset."
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Chapter Forty
The legions of the northern army were on the march, with Horemheb at its head, astride a magnificent stallion. The General of All the Armies of Kemet had gathered the Heru and Khent-abt legions from their station north of the line of forts and reconstituted the Re legion under its new commander, Mose. He withdrew men from the forts, stripping bare Kemet's defences in a gamble that the Amorites would stand by the terms of their supposed treaty with Nakhtmin long enough for the fate of Kemet to be decided on the battlefield.
Where that battle would take place was unknown. It could be as far north as Iunu if Ay reacted swiftly to the news that civil war had erupted, or outside the walls of Men-nefer if he vacillated. Either way would see the defeat and death of the king or himself. There was no going back now. The dice were rattling across the board, out of control, and only the gods could say how they would land. The General of All the Armies was used to high stakes and risk-taking, so the only factor that made Horemheb breathe faster, made his heart thud in his chest, was not knowing whether Nakhtmin was dead yet.
If Paramessu had been successful, his three battle-hardened legions would face Ay's half-trained men led by officers untested in war. If he had failed, then his own men, faced with an able general like Nakhtmin, might well desert to the king's side. They were gambling with their lives and the lives of their families by supporting Horemheb's rebellion.
When the soup sits over the hot fire, it boils down to Paramessu . Not for the first time, Horemheb considered the man who had been his friend and protégé for over twenty years. Though Paramessu was a general of great ability, and a proven leader and source of inspiration to his men, he was still capable of occasional bursts of bad judgment. The decimation of the northern army still rankled in Horemheb's mind.
Still, do I want a faultless man to follow me? That is, if there is anything left to follow . Horemheb was childless though there had been a son once. Holy Heru, I cannot even remember his name . That had been forty years before, when Horemheb was a lowly Leader of Fifty, just starting out on his long career. His wife died in childbirth, and the boy soon after, and then there was only the army. Until Paramessu . The young man reminded him of a son he never had, of a boy who had never been, a youth to mould and train. To follow me, when I am king...as what? My Tjaty? My heir ? He put aside his musings as premature, and concentrated on spurring his men onward.
The march of the legions was different from the normal progression of an army, where more often than not outlying scouts and patrols were necessary to report on the movements of the enemy. Here they were moving through the borderlands and into the cultivated lands of Ta Mehu, the delta homeland. A lot of the countryside was locked into large estates owned by the nobility, and the priests of the many gods owned most of the rest. It would not help his cause if crops were damaged or pasture destroyed by thousands of marching feet, so Horemheb split his army into three and each legion took a separate road. Scouts galloped between the legions, maintaining contact and carrying a steady stream of orders and information. His spies told him that Ay had made no move from Men-nefer, and that the loyal legions were still on the eastern bivouac fields. Marching in open order was therefore safe enough for now.
Horemheb approached Zarw. His agents had been active in the city, aided by Paramessu's father, Seti. Men, forgotten by the king so far away in Waset, flocked to the standard of the general who had fought for them so many times. Several hundred more soldiers awaited the northern army, ready to join its ranks, but one group failed in its duty, at least in Horemheb's eyes.
The Khabiru had lived in Kemet for generations, mostly centred on the city of Zarw, but also spreading out into the delta lands and even farther afield. They took advantage of the wealth and opportunity offered by the Two Kingdoms, and made wealth for themselves as merchants and artisans, farmers and herders. In the days of the old ki
ng, Nebmaetre Amenhotep, they had come into their own when a young Khabiru girl, Tiye, daughter of Tjaty Yuya and his Kemetu wife, caught the eye of the king. He took the almost unprecedented step of making her his queen, a status seldom afforded to any woman not of royal birth. The Khabiru held the children of Nebmaetre, especially Akhenaten, whose god Aten so closely resembled their own, in high regard. When he fell, Smenkhkare and Tutankhamen followed, two other kings springing from the blood of the Khabiru. Even the present king was looked on with some favour as Ay was a brother of Queen Tiye.
But not Horemheb. This man was unrelated to the Khabiru and had none of the blood of Nebmaetre flowing in his veins. He was an adventurer in their eyes and had always been closer to the old gods of Kemet rather than the Aten Lord that they worshipped. They could see no advantage in throwing in their lot with Horemheb.
Mose, commander of Re, reported to Horemheb as the army marched past Zarw and down the southern side of the canal that connected the city with the river. "Four hundred and thirty-seven men, my lord. Soldiers, ex-soldiers and youths. Not all trained, but enthusiastic."
"Good, and how many Khabiru?"
"None, my lord."
"None? Has the importance of my mission been explained to them?"
"It has, my lord."
Horemheb scowled and thought for a moment about turning his troops loose on the Khabiru encampment. A bit of rape and pillage might get the troops in the right frame of mind . Then he thought of the time wasted when the real enemy lay out there still. He shook his head and rode on, leaving Mose to rejoin his legion. I will not forget , he promised himself.
The air was cooler alongside the canal and everyone's spirits lifted when the Great River, reed-lined and bordered by lush pastures came into view. A naval vessel was docked by the river and Horemheb went aboard with his aides. He would travel the next section by water, hoping to forge ahead of his army and see for himself the disposition of the king's forces. In addition, he hoped that he might have early news of Paramessu and the success or failure of his mission. The army could safely be left in the hands of Djedhor, the newly promoted general.