by Paul Doherty
We cut the throats of the wounded enemy and tried to reboard the windows. Clouds of smoke billowed about; the attackers, eager for pillage, had also invaded the nearby mansion. Screams and yells carried faintly on the breeze, but there was nothing we could do to help. We hurried back. A fierce battle raged in the courtyard. The Egyptian ranks held, but a ferocious hand-to-hand combat had broken out. The Hittite’s officers were leading a pointed wedge, desperate to break through to assault Nebamun and his staff and, after that, penetrate the house. The press was so thick that those in the rear ranks could only stand and watch. Now and again archers tried to loose but grew increasingly fearful of hitting their own men. Black plumes of smoke rose from the riverside.
I reached Nebamun just as the Hittite wedge finally broke through. A furious blood-spilling scramble ensued, hacking with knife, sword and club. The ground grew slippery underfoot. The Hittites were so furious, wild-eyed and reckless in their bravery, I wondered if they had been drinking or were drugged. I did what I could, fearful yet more frightened of being a coward. One of Nebamun’s staff officers collapsed beside me, almost dragging me down in his death throes. We began to push the Hittites back even as we heard the shrill trumpet blast and the cheers of our men. The assault slackened. The surviving Hittite soldiers were looking over their shoulders. The lines in front of us gave way. Nebamun shouted that his chariot squadrons had arrived. Of course, the ground outside the gates was too narrow and restricted to deploy them, but the troops they brought now harassed the enemy’s rear. More importantly, the chariot squadron had also paused to fire the barges. The enemy’s retreat was blocked and a bloody massacre now took place. No quarter was given. The killing was relentless. The courtyard swilled with blood, and in places the corpses were piled two or three high. Some of the enemy escaped across the walls only to be hunted down; a number even broke into the house, but they were caught, dragged out and executed.
At last the enemy threw down their weapons. There must have been about forty or fifty prisoners who were cruelly shoved and pushed into the centre whilst Nakhtu-aa combed the courtyard. The Egyptian casualties were dragged out and taken through the gate, where a makeshift hospital was set up under the trees. The enemy wounded had their throats cut; those still able to stand were hauled to their feet and pushed over to join the rest of the prisoners. Nebamun ordered a part of the courtyard in front of the house to be cleared. The regimental standards of the Horus and Ptah were brought out and placed beside a hastily built altar dedicated to Seth the Destroyer. The line of prisoners, arms bound behind their backs, were hustled up and forced to kneel. Nebamun grabbed each by the hair and, with his own war club, dashed their brains out. The ominous silence of the slaughter yard echoed with the moans of the captives, the exclamations of their escort and that hideous rushing sound as the war club smashed bone and brain.
Two Hittite officers had survived. They were not treated as the rest. Instead, Nebamun took them down into the cavernous cellar of his house. He ordered them to be hung by their wrists from the beams, and a fire lit beneath their bare feet. Sobeck and I and Nebamun’s principal officers gathered round. We were joined by the Colonel’s chief scribe, who understood the Hittite tongue.
The blood lust was still upon us. We nursed bruises and injuries, whilst the cries of our wounded were pitiful. The Hittites were brave, their strange parrot-like faces laced with bloody sweat. The cavern was lit by the glow from the fires. At first they tried to curb their screams as they jerked in agony. The smell of their burning flesh was sickening. Nebamun’s interpreter kept up his questioning. Neither officer would answer, so Nebamun had the older one, who bore the insignia of office around his neck, cut down and blinded. The questioning continued. The Hittite who’d lost his sight, eyes gouged out by one of Nebamun’s men, eventually lost consciousness. Nebamun ordered his throat to be cut and turned to the other, whose face was contorted in pain. The scribe kept up his questions like a priest gabbling his prayers. Now and again I would intervene. The Hittite knew a little Egyptian, but still refused to answer. At last Nebamun kicked away the pile of glowing charcoal beneath the prisoner’s feet.
‘Tell him,’ he ordered the scribe, ‘that if he answers our questions he will be given an honourable death. He will die like a soldier.’
The scribe repeated this. The Hittite looked as if he was about to refuse. Nebamun held up his dagger, pricking the prisoner’s face just beneath his left eye.
‘I know the Hittite customs,’ he told the scribe. ‘If he loses his sight he will never see his Storm God.’
The scribe translated. The Hittite’s body fell slack. For a while he just swayed backwards and forwards, then he muttered something. The scribe smiled at Nebamun.
‘He will talk,’ he declared. ‘In return for a goblet of wine and a warrior’s death.’
metcha
(Ancient Egyptian for ‘to destroy, to slay’)
Chapter 5
A deep-bowled goblet of wine was brought for the Hittite. He sat with his back to the cellar wall, facing Nebamun and myself, who were flanked by officers. Behind us stood two Nubian archers, arrows notched to their bows. At first the Hittite sang softly to himself, head going backwards and forwards. I had met Hittites before in the mercenary corps, as well as those Akenhaten had garbed in women’s clothes and called his Orchestra of the Sun. The captive was a young man probably not yet twenty years, a blue tattoo on his right cheek. The scribe who writes these memoirs asks me why I recall such things. It’s because they are pictures in my mind. I have to call up the smell, the taste, and once I do, everything else comes back. I recall how musty that cellar smelt. The odour of drying blood, of cooling sweat, our bodies still tingling from the frenetic excitement of battle. The Hittite prayed to his strange Weather God, sipping his wine. Nebamun leaned across and tapped him on the wrist with his staff. A litany of questions began, translated by the scribe.
‘Where are you from?’
‘The land of the Hittites.’
Nebamun smacked him warningly on the wrist.
‘Where are you from?’
‘Sile, in the Delta.’
‘And who sent you?’
‘The ruler of the Two Lands – Neferheperure-Waenree, Akenhaten.’
‘How do you know it was he?’
‘He wore the Peschet, the Two Crowns.’
‘What does he look like?’
My heart skipped a beat as the Hittite gave a description which could fit Akenhaten: tall, thin, with misshapen body, wide hips, long face and strange eyes.
‘Who were his closest councillors?’
‘Two of your priests, Khufu and Djoser. They go everywhere with him.’
‘And who else?’
‘Hittite colonels. Commanders of the royal hosts.’
‘So this usurper does have the support of your king?’
‘Hittite commanders,’ the prisoner replied.
‘And how many men do you have?’
The Hittite sipped at the wine, and his gaze shifted to me, a spark of amusement in his eyes. He must have heard Nebamun use my name. He put down his cup and jabbed his finger at me.
‘He asks if you are the lord Mahu,’ the scribe turned to me, ‘and so wonders why you are not with the true Pharaoh.’
‘How many men?’ I repeated Nebamun’s question.
‘About ten thousand in all.’ The Hittite grinned as Nebamun whistled under his breath.
‘He’s lying,’ the scribe hissed.
‘And who else?’ Nebamun insisted. ‘Who advises this so-called Pharaoh?’
‘Aziru, King of Byblos!’
A collective sigh rose from Nebamun’s advisers.
‘Nothing we don’t already suspect,’ Nebamun murmured. ‘A usurper assisted by our enemies in Canaan, and of course, the Hittites love to dabble where they shouldn’t.’
‘Describe the woman,’ I asked. ‘This Pharaoh’s wife-queen.’
The Hittite put his hands to his head, talking excitedly. I c
aught the word ‘Nefertiti’.
‘She is so beautiful,’ the scribe translated. ‘Red hair and eyes so green like those of a cat.’
‘Then she is a pretender.’ I smiled at the Hittite. ‘The Nefertiti I knew had blue eyes.’ I tapped the scribe on the wrist. ‘Tell him that. Tell him I saw Nefertiti die.’
The scribe translated. The Hittite shrugged and drank greedily from his goblet.
‘He is only telling us what he knows,’ the scribe declared. I wondered what the Hittite really knew of the Egyptian language. He grinned at me through broken bloody teeth.
‘Perhaps we should kill him slowly and cruelly?’
A shift in the Hittite’s eyes.
‘You know our tongue?’ I taunted.
He made a cutting movement across his throat. I caught the words ‘Gerh en arit sapt.’
‘What was that?’
‘He says that all of us will die on the Night of Judgment. You are right, my lord Mahu, he does know our tongue.’
‘Who sent him on this mission?’ I asked.
‘Heripetchiu, the commander of the mercenaries.’
‘What happens,’ I leaned across, pointing to my chest, ‘if we go as envoys to this usurper?’
The scribe translated.
‘Shemensuion.’ I used the Egyptian word. ‘Shemensuion,’ I repeated. ‘A royal envoy.’
‘Set saseer, sekht sasa,’ the Hittite replied.
‘Nonsense,’ I taunted back.
‘Per khet,’ the Hittite spat out. ‘Samu sabas ebu, seba sebu.’
‘He’s saying, my Lord Mahu …’ the scribe began.
‘I know what he’s saying.’ I held the Hittite’s gaze. ‘That if I go, I will enter the Field of Fire, the House of Darkness, where the demons and devourers are waiting for me.’
‘Mahu mahez.’ The Hittite was laughing now, making a pun on my name. ‘Mahu mahez.’
‘So I’ll be eaten by the fierce-eyed lion? Devoured by the lion-headed serpent?’
The Hittite nodded like an excited child. The scribe returned to his questioning about the attack. This time the Hittite was more forthcoming. We listened attentively as he described how they had sailed untroubled along the river under false standards, pretending to be mercenaries bound for the garrison at Memphis, the White-Walled City. How no one had challenged them, how at night they had sheltered in lonely places along the river.
‘He’s telling the truth,’ Nebamun agreed. ‘The lord Horemheb will be concerned. There are war barges on the river, armed men going backwards and forwards. There are stretches of the Nile to the north of this city where you could hide a fleet of barges. Ask him if he knew that Prince Tutankhamun was here?’
The Hittite replied that he did, and that was why they had come: to take back the Pharaoh’s true son and heir, together with his sister.
‘How did they know?’ I asked.
The Hittite shrugged his shoulders and gabbled quickly.
‘He says,’ the scribe translated, ‘that they knew but he does not know how or why.’
‘Did they have friends here?’ I asked. ‘Allies who helped them?’
Again, the shrug.
‘He’s a junior officer,’ Nebamun intervened. ‘I suspect they hoped to take the house.’ He fell silent; he did not wish to discuss such a matter with his officers present.
The questioning continued. The Hittite lapsed into Egyptian and began taunting us again. At last Nebamun made a cutting movement with his hand.
‘He’s told us what he can and he’s finished the wine.’ He raised his hands and snapped his fingers.
Behind us the Nubian archers pulled back their bows. The Hittite stretched up; one arrow took him deep in the chest, the other in the throat. He thrashed back against the wall, legs and arms twitching, head going backwards and forwards, blood spurting between his lips, then he gave a sigh and his head fell to one side.
‘Take his body and put it with the rest.’ Nebamun got to his feet.
We left the cellar and went back into the courtyard. I glanced up, Ankhesenamun was smiling down at me from a window, Meryre beside her. I stayed for a while, following Nebamun across that slaughter yard, where the enemy dead were being stripped, their right hands cut off, their corpses thrown into a cart. Nebamun had ordered them to be taken down to a nearby crocodile pool. The quartermasters were surveying the pile of bloody weapons. An army scribe was sitting on a camp stool, writing tray across his lap, busily counting the severed hands, coldly, methodically, as if he was making a tally of bushels of wheat or jugs of wine.
‘About four hundred in all, my lord.’ He raised his head as Nebamun approached. The colonel wafted away the hovering flies.
‘Finish the count,’ he said. ‘Some of the corpses we will never find.’ He gestured at the severed limbs. ‘These can join the rest.’ He raised his voice. ‘I want the courtyard cleaned with water and vinegar, baskets of flowers brought out to hide the smell. This is my house, not a slaughter pit.’
I was eager to talk to Nebamun but I could not discuss anything whilst the rest were present, so I excused myself and returned to my own chamber. I stripped and washed in salt water, anointed myself, put on a clean loincloth, robe and soft sandals. I was dazed and confused after the battle. I still felt as if there were blood swilling around my feet.
Djarka was waiting for me in the Prince’s quarters. He was kneeling on the floor; Tutankhamun was playing with toy soldiers. On either side sat Ankhesenamun and Amedeta, both garbed in loose white robes.
‘All hail the returning hero.’ Ankhesenamun smiled. She rose and filled a goblet of wine, and, coming across, pressed it into my hand. Her perfume was fragrant after the stench of slaughter, the tang of blood and the sweaty mustiness of that cellar. ‘We prayed for you, my lord Mahu. How did it all happen?’
I sipped at the white wine. Ankhesenamun stepped back and surveyed me from head to toe.
‘Your eyes look strange and your cheeks are unshaven,’ she murmured, ‘but otherwise not a cut or a mark. What would have happened, my lord Mahu, if they had broken through?’
‘They would not have found you.’ Djarka spoke up. ‘I have told you, my lady, what my orders were.’
I glanced round at the Prince, playing with his toy soldiers, unaware of my presence. Usually he would jump to his feet and run towards me. I went and crouched beside him. He was muttering under his breath, pushing one wooden soldier against another, the usual childish game, but now he did it with an intensity I had never seen before.
‘My lord, Your Highness.’ I stroked his head.
He kept banging the soldiers one against the other.
‘My lord,’ I repeated.
Again, no reply, so I took one soldier from his hand. He turned quickly, holding the other up as if he were about to strike me; his face was pale, his eyes empty.
‘My lord?’ I took the other soldier from his hand; his fingers were clammy and cold. I sat down and pulled him towards me. He didn’t resist, but just sat there whispering as if he was talking to someone I couldn’t see. I glared furiously at Djarka.
‘He’s only frightened.’ Ankhesenamun came up. ‘The clatter of weapons and screams below were hideous. He’s only a child, aren’t you, my beloved?’
She knelt beside me. For a moment that word, ‘beloved’, and the smell of her perfume, the softness of her shoulder and arm, recalled Nefertiti. Tutankhamun jumped from my lap and flung his arms around her. For a while he just stood there, face buried in her neck. Ankhesenamun patted him gently on the back, rocking him gently as if he were a babe. I got to my feet, indicating to Djarka to follow. In the corridor outside I took him to a window enclosure overlooking the courtyard.
‘Is that fear?’ I asked.
Djarka blew his cheeks out. ‘The fighting was ferocious when those men burst in. Amedeta began screaming; so did the Prince. I dismissed his mood as the result of fear; I let him play.’
‘Has that happened before?’
‘Once,
twice, but it’s usually a passing mood.’
‘Does he become violent?’ I insisted.
‘On one occasion, yes. He hit me with a toy scabbard; a piece of flint scored my cheek, and he ran away and hid. When I found him he was fine, though he had no recollection of what he had done. He’s only a child.’ Djarka repeated Ankhesenamun’s words. ‘He’s been snatched from one palace to another, then brought to this place of slaughter. They were guided in, weren’t they? We have a traitor in our midst.’
‘Possibly.’ I stared down at the courtyard, now empty of corpses; the servants were busy swilling it with water mixed with salt and vinegar. All the dead and weapons had been removed; only a splash of blood on the wall gave any indication of what had happened just a short while earlier. I suddenly felt weak, slightly dizzy. I pressed myself against the wall.
‘My lord, you are well?’
‘You know what it is like,’ I sighed. ‘I’ll eat and I’ll drink. Sleep as if I haven’t for days. One thing is certain, Djarka.’ I smiled at him. ‘We are no longer envoys. Keep an eye on the Prince and tell me if that ever happens again.’
I was halfway down the stairs when a servant delivered a message: Colonel Nebamun wished to see me in his private chamber. When I arrived, Sobeck and Meryre were already present, seated around a small table. Nebamun himself was acting as servant, pouring wine, serving freshly baked bread with spiced duck. He too had washed and changed. No longer the warrior, but the veteran soldier in his white robes and gold collars of office. Nevertheless, his face was drawn and lined, his eyes bloodshot. He nursed a savage cut on his forearm which the physician had already bandaged. Sobeck, who had received a similar cut on his thigh, was trying to tighten the bandage.
‘Don’t do that,’ Nebamun warned. ‘I don’t know why, but the wound will go putrid. Keep the bandage as loose as possible. My lord Mahu.’ He gestured at the cushions.