by Paul Doherty
‘What do you want?’ Sobeck, weak with exhaustion, reined in his horses.
We’d reached the Royal Enclosure. Its gates were held open by the corpse of a priest whom our foot soldiers had disembowelled. From within I could hear the shrieks of a woman. I jumped down from the chariot and raced into the usurper’s pavilion, its beautiful gold-fringed cloths flapping in the breeze. Inside there was chaos. Corpses sprawled about in widening pools of blood. Two Kushite mercenaries had seized a kitchen maid and were holding her down whilst their companions were tipping over chests and pots. A soldier had found a jug of wine and was busy laying out cups, filling them to the brim, screaming at his companions to join him. I found an enemy scribe hiding behind a large couch; pinch-faced and bald-headed, he jabbered for his life. I seized him by his robe and pulled him to his feet.
‘Your life will be spared,’ I shouted, ‘on one condition. Where are the records? Where are the usurper’s letters, his proclamations?’
The man’s jaw quivered in fright.
‘The records?’ I repeated.
He pointed to the far corner of the tent, where three or four reed baskets had escaped the attention of the marauders. I went across and emptied the contents out on to the ground. Sobeck, using all his authority, ordered five of the mercenaries to come over and protect us whilst I went through the contents. The records were a mixture of papyrus rolls and clay tablets; all of them bore the cartouche or seal of Akenhaten. I wondered where the usurper had obtained this. Sobeck found me a leather sack and threw it at my feet. I filled it with anything which looked interesting. By the time I had finished, the scribe had disappeared. Sobeck told me he’d thrown off his robe, crawled under the awning of the tent and fled. He would do what many of the enemy would, dispose of anything which marked him as a follower of the usurper and merge with the victorious troops.
I sat for a while, soaked in sweat. The girl had stopped her screaming. She lay at the far end of the pavilion, throat cut, eyes staring sightlessly. Virtually all the furniture and furnishings had disappeared: chests, chairs, stools and weapons. As Sobeck grimly remarked, ‘If it was on two legs it was killed, otherwise it was taken.’ He dismissed our guard and crouched down beside me.
‘Is this what you were after, Mahu?’
‘It is my treasure trove.’ I pressed the sack to my chest. ‘My plunder.’
‘And?’ Sobeck asked.
Figures danced outside the tent, shouts and yells echoed, a firebrand was thrown in, whilst at the same time the awning around us was put to the torch. We left hastily. The Royal Enclosure had ceased to exist. The palisade had been broken down, the altars overturned, the fortress given over to wholesale devastation. Sobeck and I forced our way through. Our men were now fighting each other, some already drunk, quarrelling and bartering over the spoils of battle. The main gates had also been torched. Two great bonfires flared on either side of the entrance, flames leaping up into the afternoon sky, billows of smoke curling about. From the plain below we could still hear the clatter and clash of battle, the screams of dying men. Sobeck found a wineskin propped against the corpse of a Hittite officer and we went searching for our chariot. One of Nebamun’s officers, fearful of fire in the camp, had ordered it, together with the rest, to withdraw to the plain below. Drinking the wine and clutching my precious burden, we forced our way through the press of men down to where Nebamun’s men were milling about before the gates leading to the Field of Fire and the House of Darkness.
‘What’s in there?’ Nebamun demanded. His face was smudged with dust and smoke, and splashes of blood spoiled the finery and glitter of his leather mailed jacket and war kilt. ‘I daren’t go in lest there be a trap, yet the place seems deserted. What’s beyond there?’
I recalled the day we took the oath. ‘Why, Colonel, a vision of the Underworld. You are right to be prudent. Send across a few archers first.’
Nebamun repeated my request. A group of nimble-footed archers scaled the palisade; we heard their exclamations of surprise. The gates swung open. Nebamun, surrounded by his officers, walked in and stared speechlessly around.
‘By all that is in heaven and earth,’ he whispered. ‘How many, Mahu?’
‘Well over a hundred stakes, Colonel. Possibly two hundred. This is only a fraction of those the usurper killed.’
‘Shall we remove them?’ one of the officers shouted. ‘Sir, this is an abomination.’
‘No, no.’ Nebamun, hand raised, walked towards the grotesque statue of the Destroyer. He paused at the roar from that hideous Mastaba. The ramp leading up to the great door was now unguarded.
‘Is it the din of the battle, or did I hear a lion roar?’ Sobeck explained what the Mastaba contained. Nebamun, shaking his head, told us to withdraw.
‘We will touch nothing here,’ he said, ‘until General Horemheb sees it for himself.’
We left that gruesome place and sat down on the grass outside, sharing the wineskin, half listening to the chatter of Nebamun’s officers. Now and again the Colonel would go back to convince himself of what he had seen; that he had not suffered a nightmare. Somebody asked him if we should rejoin the battle.
‘It’s no longer a battle.’ The old colonel shook his head. ‘It’s a massacre. General Horemheb’s orders are strict. We led the advance; let others finish it.’
The aftermath of a battle is always haunting, as if you have left life hanging between heaven and earth. All around us men were groaning, pleading for water, only to be dispatched with a swift thrust of a knife. Smoke billowed across the fortress. The late afternoon air was rent with ghastly cries and yells. Soldiers drunk on wine staggered about, arms laden with booty or leading away female captives. Hideous cruelties and brutalities were inflicted upon the dead as well as the dying. The sky blackened with smoke, through which the vultures curled, drawn by the scent of blood. The cacophony of sound eased, and was followed by the onset of a chilling silence, like sweat on your body after you have run a race. The sun began to set. Soldiers drifted back from where the massacre had ended, down near the river. They too were eager to plunder and were busy looting the dead, showing no mercy whatsoever to the enemy.
Horemheb must have called a halt to the killing. Lines of prisoners began to appear; most of them were naked except for their loincloths, arms and hands bound tightly behind their backs. They were forced to kneel. Some of them begged piteously for help for wounds, others cried for water, as their thirst must have been dreadful. They were herded together like frightened sheep under the guard of Nakhtu-aa, and a makeshift fence was formed around them: chariots were unhitched, the carriages used to pen them in whilst the horses were led away. At first there was only a trickle of prisoners, but eventually they came in one long, dusty column. Most were mercenaries, though Horemheb had captured a number of high-ranking Hittite officers. They too were shown no mercy but treated like the rest. Following them came the chariot squadrons, their horses exhausted. Finally, amidst a blare of trumpets and preceded by his fan-bearers and standard-carriers, Horemheb himself arrived, exulting in his moment of glory.
The entire plain outside the fortress now became a vast barracks housing victor and vanquished alike. The cries of the wounded faded. Officers moved through the ranks imposing order, beating the drunks with their sticks, confiscating booty, ordering the dead to be dragged out, their right hands chopped off so that Horemheb’s scribes could draw up a tally of the slain. Makeshift hospitals were set up with cloths and coverings filched from camp awnings. A line of water carriers was organised. Stretcher-bearers began to comb the entire battlefield. Armed with sharp knives, they finished off the enemy wounded but tenderly lifted on to pallets the Egyptian injured. Horemheb ignored us; surrounded by his own staff officers and entourage, he had solemnly processed around the fiercely burning fortress to receive the plaudits and salutes of his victorious troops. The triumphant procession ended in front of us. Horemheb, still clutching his bloody sword, his right arm splattered with gore up to his shoulder, st
epped off his chariot. Staff officers gathered round clapping their hands, kneeling before him to offer their congratulations. Standard-bearers came hurrying up to brief him and provide news of what was happening. Horemheb listened to them all, now and again turning to the scribe crouched on the ground beside him. He then climbed back into his chariot and raised his bloody sword skyward. A gust of smoke from the fortress came billowing down, carrying black soot. Horemheb waited until it had passed.
‘Gentlemen.’ His voice was hoarse. I was standing pressed against the chariot and noticed how his eyes were red-rimmed, his lips dry and caked with dust. I offered him a wineskin but he shook his head. ‘Gentlemen,’ he repeated, ‘a great victory! Our dead lie only in hundreds, but the enemy are in thousands. We have taken much plunder and booty. To be fair, all spoils of war must be gathered together and distributed evenly. No man shall profit more than another. Here.’ He gestured towards the main gates of the fortress. ‘Here I shall set up my altar and give thanks to Amun-Ra, the Ever Silent but All-Seeing God, who has provided us with victory.’
I caught Sobeck’s eye and grinned. Horemheb was getting the protocols right. The day of the Aten, of the One, was over. This was a victory for the old Gods of Egypt, especially Amun-Ra of Thebes.
‘Before this altar I shall sacrifice the prisoners, or at least their chiefs and princes. I shall make a tally of the hands, a true count of those Horus had delivered into our power. I give thanks to Horus of Henes.’ This was a reference to his birthplace, not far from where the battle had taken place.
On and on Horemheb went, the same message over and over again. How Amun-Ra and Horus had chosen him, their divine son, to shatter the power of Egypt’s enemies. As Sobeck drily remarked later, if the Lord Ay wished for any evidence about Horemheb’s secret dreams, then this speech provided it. Horemheb saw himself as divinely selected, a man anointed by God himself. Of course, he was carried away with elation and the victory of the moment; only when he caught me staring at him did he begin to falter and bring his bombastic speech to an end.
He climbed off the chariot.
‘Now, Lord Mahu, I will take the wine.’ His rugged face was wreathed in smiles as he realised he might have said too much and, perhaps, not acknowledged the contribution of others. ‘You know how it is,’ he declared, wiping the dust from his lips with the back of his hand. ‘When the blood is hot, the tongue babbles.’
He paused as a staff officer pushed his way through the throng and whispered in his ear. Horemheb’s smile faded.
‘My lord General.’ I stepped forward. ‘I too am a member of the Royal Circle. What has happened?’
Horemheb’s eyes, full of fury, glared at me. ‘I know who you are Mahu,’ he whispered. ‘I recognise what you have done, but the usurper and his entourage have escaped!’
Senfiu
(Ancient Egyptian for ‘the Gods of Blood’)
Chapter 8
Horemheb listened to the reports from his officers.
‘At least twenty,’ the standard-bearer declared. ‘The usurper, his woman, the two priests, Djoser and Khufu, and Prince Aziru, escorted by Hittite officers, left the fortress early. Scouts saw them heading due east.’
‘The Horus Road,’ I intervened. ‘They’ll take the Horus Road across the Sinai. They are hoping to flee back to Canaan to plot again.’
‘And what do you advise?’ Horemheb demanded.
‘That we pursue and kill them.’ I pointed to a line of horses being taken away. ‘Your mounts are exhausted, they need food, water and rest, and so do we.’
Horemheb wiped the sweat from his face. ‘They left the battle early?’
‘They never struck a blow,’ the standard-bearer confirmed. ‘One of the Hittite captains is very bitter; he believes they were deserted.’
‘I can well understand that,’ Horemheb replied. He walked forward, staring out over the plain, oblivious to the groans and moans coming from the lines of prisoners and the war cries and cheers of his own men.
‘We trapped them near the river, my lord Mahu,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘The dead are piled five or six deep there, the waters tinged with blood. Oh! I mustn’t forget.’ He called across a herald. ‘Tell the men to be careful: the crocodiles and other night prowlers will feast well tonight. Now,’ he pointed to the entrance of the palisade leading to the Field of Fire, ‘show me this.’
We took him in. Horemheb later confessed to me that, despite the blood-spilling, bitter conflict he had just won, never had a place provoked such a sense of horror. He advanced towards the Mastaba, climbed the ramp and listened to the roar of the savage beasts within.
‘I am tempted,’ he declared, walking back to where his officers and I waited, fearful of those blood-curdling growls, ‘to take the Hittite commanders and thrust them through that trap-door.’ His harsh face creased into a smile. ‘But we never know how fortune may turn: one day Egyptian officers may be taken prisoner.’
Horemheb promptly ordered archers to bring scaling ladders, remove the trap-door and loose arrow after arrow into the darkness. The roars and growling were fearsome; as one archer became exhausted, another took his place. The beasts within, maddened and hungry, flung themselves at the doorway, making easy targets. Darkness was falling when the captain of archers pronounced both beasts dead. Horemheb ordered the door to be broken down. Torches were brought, and those who dared followed their general into the foul-smelling interior.
Although the Mastaba looked large from the outside, it housed only a passageway leading into a grim square chamber. Bones and human remains, globules of fat and flesh, caked floor and walls. The place reeked like a charnel house. Two of Nebamun’s officers had to leave to be sick. Horemheb inspected both the chamber and the lions; these were the African kind, huge and powerful black-maned beasts. We could tell from the wounds on their hides that they had been turned into man-eaters, possibly because they had been injured by hunters and found humans easier prey than the fleet-footed gazelles. If anyone ever asks me, ‘Have you visited the Halls of the Underworld, the Place of the Scavengers?’ I always answer that I have. Now, years later, when I have nightmares, that chamber in the Mastaba comes back to haunt me, with its brooding aura of unspoken horror, of cruel death and torture.
Horemheb ordered the place to be fired. Oil skins were emptied, flooding the floor; brushwood, anything which could burn, was thrown in. The same happened to the Field of Fire. The stakes were knocked down, the entire ground soaked in oil, into which the archers loosed fiery shafts. The night was lit up by roaring flames and clouds of smoke. The fortress too was levelled, its bothies and tents now cleared of all plunder. Once their right hands had been severed, the enemy dead were thrown on to the fire.
A gruesome, fearful night of fire and smoke. All sound was drowned by the roar of the flames. The destruction continued until the early hours. Horemheb seemed to have forgotten those who had fled. He had his great camp chair brought into the pool of light from the fires and held a summary court-martial of the prisoners. I, as a member of the Royal Circle, sat on his right, with Colonel Nebamun on his left. The Hittite officers were brought first. Horemheb asked for their defence. Why had they invaded the land of Egypt? Of course they could only reply that they were mercenaries hired by the usurper.
‘In which case,’ Horemheb declared, ‘you are no better than outlaws and pirates.’
He ordered their execution by decapitation, and the men were hustled away into the darkness. Soon after came the hideous sound of the falling axe as it smote through necks, cutting into the log on which they had to place their heads. Horemheb then dealt with the other prisoners. Any Egyptian was condemned immediately as a traitor and a rebel; they were to be dispatched to Sile, Avaris and the other cities of the Nile to be executed and hung upside down in chains above the city gates. Some of the other nationalities were to be executed; the rest would serve as slaves in the mines and quarries of Egypt.
Horemheb paused now and again for food or wine. My limbs
began to ache. I felt cold. I wanted to sleep. Horemheb, however, was not only a general but an expert on military law; he was insistent that justice be done quickly and ruthlessly as a warning to every other rebel. At the same time his officers were busy in the camp enforcing discipline, putting drunkards under arrest, taking the women they had found into the slave pens and demanding, on pain of death, that all booty be handed over. A makeshift altar to Amun-Ra had been set up, surrounded by Horemheb’s standards, and through the night the mound of severed hands grew higher. The place reeked of smoke, blood and burning flesh.
Once Horemheb announced himself satisfied, he turned and gestured at the leather bag Sobeck was jealously guarding.
‘My lord Mahu, I said all plunder.’
‘My lord Horemheb,’ I replied. ‘If we may have a word in private?’
Groaning and muttering, he pushed himself up from his chair. He wiped his face and washed his hands in natron and water, though he still remained smeared with blood, streaks of sweat marking his dusty face. Horemheb, at peace, was not the most easy of men, but when the blood lust of battle was upon him, he was truculent and dangerous. He had imposed his will on the imperial army, his men regarded him as a God, and the stream of orders he had given as we sat in judgement on the prisoners had been accepted without protest. The mound of plunder was at least two yards high and about five yards across. It comprised chairs, tables, gleaming cabinets, couches and beds, personal jewellery, precious jars, skins full of wine and pots of spices. Horemheb grunted in satisfaction and, gesturing at me, left the place of judgement to stand some distance away from his entourage.
‘My lord Mahu, you have difficulty with my orders?’
‘My lord Horemheb, do you have difficulty with mine? May I remind you I am a member of the Royal Circle? I am official Protector of the Crown Prince, an imperial envoy.’