by Overton, Max
"If I do, will he also leave me in peace?"
Scarab shrugged. "That is for him to say. Am I my brother's keeper?"
Horemheb signalled to a guard and called him over, giving him instructions to bring the prisoner known as Yahmose and the woman with him to the Hall of Justice. After the guard had left, Horemheb arose and crossed to the door to the dining chamber.
"You interrupted me as I was about to eat. You may join me if you wish." Without waiting to see if they followed, he went through into the next room where servants rushed to wait on him.
The midday meal for the king was a light repast of broiled river fish, a slab of fatty beef, fresh-baked bread with new butter and a plate of ripe figs. He drank weak beer so as not to impair his judgment during the court proceedings. He was sitting at a low table eating when Scarab and her companions entered. Horemheb waved them towards the food. Scarab took a little bread and a fig, while Khu tucked into a sizeable helping of the fish, while Salom cut a slice of beef.
"I am glad to see you are not feasting while the country starves," Scarab said. She chewed the bread cautiously but the flour had been well sieved and she found no flakes of stone or grit in it. "Do you have a plan for feeding the people?"
"There are granaries I have not yet opened," Horemheb said around mouthfuls. "Also, I am buying grain from the Sea People and the Chaldeans."
"I am glad to hear it. You plan on lowering taxes as well?"
Horemheb swallowed the last of his fish and wiped his hands on a clean linen cloth a servant brought. "What, you would now be my Tjaty, and advise me?"
"Already the price of grain has risen beyond the means of your poorest subjects. Tax them as well, and they will die."
"Nobody will starve. I plan to increase my building programs and will be paying wages for an increased workforce. There will be money available for grain as well as taxes."
"And your unpaid workers? The Khabiru? Will they still have bread to eat?"
"They have lived off the fat of the land for generations, since their forefathers first sought sanctuary in Kemet. They will work to pay off their debt, yet they will still eat, though perhaps less well than before. Why should their fate concern you?"
"My mother was Khabiru."
"Ah yes, of course. Your red hair."
"You have singled them out for punishment. Why?"
"If a person accepts the good things in life they should expect to pay for them. The Khabiru have enjoyed every good thing in Kemet yet they would not fight for me when I asked it of them."
"I was there, remember? You asked them to fight against Ay who, despite being the wickedest man in Kemet was also the anointed king. On top of that, Ay was part Khabiru himself. You are setting a dangerous precedent if you encourage people to take up arms against a king."
"I admit that action angered me, but the action that made me vow to punish them came later, when Kemet was under attack from the Amorites. I came to Zarw seeking soldiers to fight for Kemet's survival, and not a single Khabiru man joined me. That is why I took their freedom from them. They do not deserve freedom because they have not fought for it." Horemheb looked at the two men with Scarab. "Khu I recognise and know you for a physician, but have you ever taken up arms in defence of your land? Do you know what I am talking about?"
Khu bowed respectfully. "I understand your argument, King Horemheb, and my answer is that I have fought when my king asked it of me."
Horemheb smiled mirthlessly. "Of course. You fought against me in Nubia for that other brother of Scarab. That is not exactly...well; I will not argue the point. What of you? What is your name?"
"My name is Salom, King Horemheb, and I will fight to the death to protect the Eye of Geb."
"You command great loyalty, Scarab."
"Not command, but rather, freely given."
A knock came on the outer door and a servant opened it to let the guards in with the prisoners. Horemheb dismissed the guards and looked at the unkempt man and woman with interest.
"So you are Akhenaten?" Horemheb asked. "Why did you not say that at the outset and we might have avoided this unpleasantness?"
"My name is Yahmose. I have been sent by 'I am' to free his people."
Horemheb turned to Scarab. "Is he denying who he is?
"He is denying who he was. I told you, Horemheb, this man is no danger to you."
"Take heed of the god Yah and of his prophet," Yahmose said. He stalked to the table and ripped off a crust of bread, dipping it into the pot of beer and eating it with obvious enjoyment.
"You then, Yahmose or whatever you call yourself, what do you want?"
The unkempt man lifted the pot of beer to his lips and drank, the milky fluid cascading down his chin and soaking his threadbare robe. He belched and handed the pot to the woman and she drank thirstily.
"You have fed me and given me drink. I want nothing more from you."
"I thought you said something about freeing your people?"
"That is what the Lord my God wants. He says that I am to tell you to let his people leave the land of Kemet."
"He speaks to you?" Horemheb asked. "You are a priest of this Yah?"
"He speaks in the bush that burns yet is not eaten up. He speaks in the desert wind and the babble of a brook, in the storm cloud and in the star-strewn heavens that sing in silence of his glory. His voice is the thunder and the crash of the lightning bolt, the roar of a palace consumed by fire and the deluge that falls from the sky. Yet he is also to be heard in the cry of a child or in the tears of a woman weeping for her dead husband. His is the still, tiny voice that speaks inside you when you contemplate who you are and whether the world is better off for your coming."
"Talkative fellow," Horemheb muttered. "And who are his people?"
"The Khabiru."
"And when he says to let them go, what does this Yah of yours mean exactly? Let them go where?"
"The Lord God says to let his people leave the land of Kemet."
"Just like that? Down tools and wander off?"
"They are to take their women and children, their pack animals and herds, their gold and their silver and every good thing they desire. They will follow me and I will lead them where Yah tells me."
Horemheb chuckled softly. "I see. Not only am I to lose my workforce, but I am to let them drain the wealth of Kemet from the land as well."
"The Lord God has spoken," Yahmose said confidently.
"What of you, Scarab? You support your brother in his wild claim, I suppose?"
"That is not why I am here, Horemheb," Scarab replied. "I came to persuade you to let my brother go. You have done so and I thank you. Now I shall leave."
"What if I just throw him back in prison?"
"That would be a mistake. I would have to come to you again and I would be less trusting next time. You might really find out how much the Nine support me."
Horemheb smiled. "I would not want that. If I found out you were toothless I might have to kill you, and you amuse me. As for your brother Yahmose, I give him and his daughter, his life. Go from here, Yahmose, and do not let me see you again."
"And you will let the Khabiru go too?"
"No. Now get out."
"I will not leave," Yahmose said.
"Scarab, please understand that I will do this man no harm but he is being unreasonable. My men will evict him from the city and I ask that you do not call down retribution on my men for obeying their orders."
"As long as he is not hurt, I will not do so," Scarab said. Khu looked at her questioningly so she drew him aside and whispered, "The Nine are silent on this. I will not make the mistake I made before and claim for my own what belongs to the gods."
The guards marched in and courteously took Yahmose and Merye into custody and marched them to the North Gate where they were released with fresh robes and provisions.
"King Horemheb instructs you to leave Ineb Hedj and never return," the officer of the guards said.
"I will do as the Lord i
nstructs," Yahmose told him.
"Then let is hope your lord is a sensible man." The officer marched his men back into the city.
Scarab and her companions had followed the soldiers out.
"Come brother, I have a place prepared for you."
"I must be doing the Lord's work," Yahmose said. He turned back toward the city.
"Re-enter the city now and Horemheb will likely lose patience and kill you. Then you would serve no purpose. Come away now, and consider your future."
Scarab took Yahmose in hand and journeyed with him, taking him to safety and restoring him to the care of Jesua.
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Chapter Thirty-Five
Yahmose was not happy that Scarab had forbidden him to go back and confront Horemheb. He felt he had a duty to force the king to let the Khabiru leave the country, but allowed that maybe some further preaching was necessary first. As Scarab pointed out--'what if you get permission and the people do not want to leave?' He drew up a list of the places where the Khabiru had been sent--Per-Wadjet, Zau, Djanet, Hut-waret, Per-Bast, Sena, Iunu, and the forts on the Heru Road--and journeyed to them all, telling them who he was and about the god he had met in the wilderness.
"Yah has sent me to you to deliver you from the hands of the king. You will follow Yah and become his people, and he will become your god."
Some men scoffed. "Who is this Yah? We know only the Lord our God."
"He is the same," Yahmose cried. "He is the god of your forefathers. I spoke with him and he told me."
"Our god has no name and has no form. If you say you saw him, you lie, for no man can see god."
"I saw him only as a flame burning in a bush, and heard him as a voice in my head. He is the 'I am' from the beginning of time to the end. He told me to come to you and tell you of him."
The young men jeered, but an elder, old and wrinkled with a grey beard counselled they at least listen to Yahmose.
"Who knows, maybe god has really sent him."
"You are senile, Levach," said a young man. "How can this wild and dirty man be a prophet of god?"
"If he is not a prophet, then it will become evident very quickly, but if he is--then do you want to be seen fighting against god?"
The men grumbled a while longer, but decided in the end to at least listen to Yahmose. He told them what he could of god, and when he ran out of things to say, started talking about the land they were going to when the king let them go.
"Imagine a land filled with every good thing, where there is fresh water and green grass all year round for your flocks and your herds. So rich will be the pasture that the milk will leak from the udders of your cows and goats, flowing over the land. Fruit trees grow there, olive, fig and grape, and every grain and herb good to eat. Bees dwell in every tree and rock, their sweet honey dripping down for your delight. Your wives will live in happiness, with servants to do their every whim, and your children will play in safety. As for you men, you will not have to work at all, except for building altars to the One God. For this is what Yah has said--'Go to my people and free them from the hand of the oppressor and bring them out of the land of slavery to a land which I shall give them. I will be their god, and they will be my people'."
Yahmose moved on, leaving the Khabiru men in that city discontented with their lot. Although they worked for mere food and shelter, yet they were not abused by the Kemetu, and they took pride in their work, even when the structure that took shape beneath their hands was a temple to a foreign god. After his words, though, they thought to themselves of the pleasure of building their own houses and altars to their god, not those of the Kemetu.
Jesua and a few of the men of the Pillar accompanied Yahmose and his daughter, but the Shechite leader was not pleased with Yahmose's latest message.
"How can you promise them such things?" Jesua asked. "You do not know where they will be going."
"Do not upbraid my father," Merye said. "He is the prophet of Yah, not you. If he says a thing will be, it will."
"There is no land like that under the sun," Jesua snapped.
"Do not the legends of your people tell of a golden age, when men lived in peace and the land brought forth its abundance? I remember such stories from my childhood and I'm sure all my listeners did too."
"But they are just stories."
"What if they are not? What if they describe a time before sin entered the world, when god produced every good thing for men to eat and drink? Could not god create such a land again for his chosen people?"
Though they were within the delta region of the Great River, where the flow had split into several channels, food was not easy to come by. Yahmose relied, to a great extent, on the generosity of his hosts, but as these people had little enough to start with, he and his companions often went hungry. Now that the drought was well into its second year, the pastures between the papyrus beds were turning brown and what cattle as remained were thin and bony. Even the river channels had shrunk and formed little more than a series of interconnected pools choked with weed. Sometimes, when they ran out of food, the men of the Pillar would hire themselves out to towns, wading into the still pools to cut the water weed as forage. At such times, there was danger from crocodiles and p'ehe'mau, but lookouts would be posted and few people were lost. None of the Pillar died, and Yahmose credited this to god's intervention.
One day, as they slowly worked their way down toward Iunu, they were hired by a town to cut papyrus along a stretch of river where the water still flowed, albeit sluggishly. They waded in up to their thighs, wielding copper scythes and chopping through the stems of the plants, passing them back to their fellows on the banks. Lookouts wandered the water's edge, armed with bow and a handful of arrows, keeping an eye out for a pair of yellow eyes barely breaking the surface of the still water, or a fast-forming ripple as a crocodile swum toward the source of the disturbance.
A yell came from upriver, and twenty men stopped what they were doing, turning and shading eyes against the glare. The yell came again, with just a hint of panic, and some of the men started sloshing through the muddy water to the safety of dry land. There was no cry of 'crocodile' though, and the watchman had not fitted an arrow to his bow, so most remained where they were, alert but not alarmed.
"Look! Look at the water," cried the watchman again.
Those who had reached the bank ran upriver to see what was wrong, and the others started to wade to shore.
"Blood!" cried a youth. "The river has turned to blood."
Yahmose lifted his arms to the heavens. "The Lord Yah strikes down the god Hapy, turning his waters to blood."
Jesua stared, the hairs on his neck lifting in superstitious dread. "It...it is red, but not like blood."
Some of the younger men started running away from the water, but others crowded close to the water's edge as the slow swirls of colour crept closer in the sluggish current.
"Thus does Yah strike down the false gods of Kemet," Yahmose exulted. "The 'I am' is becoming--Yah becomes--Yah is Yahweh."
Jesua waded out to where the first curls of red drifted past and cupped his hands, scooping the water up. He stared at it and then sniffed. "It stinks, but it does not stink of blood."
"What else can it be?" someone asked.
"I do not know," Jesua said. "Pass me a water skin though, I must take some."
"Why?"
"To show to someone."
Jesua exerted his authority and the group bypassed Iunu, heading inland toward the wandering tribe where Scarab was currently residing. They found them a few days later, and Jesua recounted the strange events of the river of blood.
"It is not blood though. See?" Jesua poured the contents of his water skin into a bowl, where it formed a muddy brown liquid.
"That does not look like blood at all," Khu said. "Are you sure you did not just stir up some mud and think that was blood?"
"Do I look like a fool?" Jesua snarled. "It looked like blood, I tell you. As
k these others, they saw it too."
"It was a judgment from God," Yahmose said. "Yahweh smote the false god Hapy with his wrath."
"Yahweh?" Khu asked. "I thought his name was just Yah."
"Yah is becoming, thus he is more properly Yahweh. I am the prophet of Yahweh."
The other members of the Pillar who had been with Jesua confirmed his story. "It did look like blood in the river," said one.
"Could it actually have been blood?" Scarab asked. "From a battle upstream or something?"
"It only looked like blood, but it smelled different. It was not real blood."
"It was the blood of the enemies of Yahweh," Yahmose said.
Nebhotep dabbled his fingers in the bowl of muddy water and sniffed his fingertips. Then he tasted the water. "The smell is...what is it? Rotting vegetation? And it tastes slightly...bitter? It is certainly not blood."
"That is what I have been trying to tell you," Jesua said.
"I think we should go and see this for ourselves," Scarab said.
Almost every member of the Pillar present in the camp wanted to see this wonder, so it was a large party that set off for the nearest branch of the river. Not having to search for their destination, the trip back to the river took only two days, but the stink met them long before they saw the water. The river had almost stopped flowing and a thick red fluid filled the channel. Dead fish littered the shores and flocks of herons and egrets were gorging on the unexpected bounty. Frogs too, teemed in the grass and reeds, clambering out of the red-brown liquid, unafraid of the people gathering along the river banks.
Scarab stared at the blood-coloured water, shaking her head. "I have never seen its like," she said. "Perhaps this really is from the god Yahweh."
Nebhotep stirred the water with a stick. "I have seen it before, but never in such quantity. I do not say it is a natural occurrence, but neither is it divine."
"You've seen it before?" Khu asked. "Where?"
"When I was a child. A midden contaminated some pools near our village, and in a few days became thick with tiny specks. One pool was bright green, another dark green and another red. After a few days they rotted and stank."