by Overton, Max
"I have already told you they can go, but as naked as when their forefathers came to Kemet. They take with them nothing they gained here."
"Does the suffering of your people mean nothing to you?" Mose asked. "Livestock are dying in the fields and your people in the towns and cities. It is in your hands to stop this."
"I will not give in to threats. Before I release the Khabiru, I will order my legions to slaughter every last one of them. If there is no-one to release, you have no power."
"Would you endanger your people, even your soldiers?" Scarab asked. "You oppose the gods and the gods will call you to account. You know the power I have."
"You are bluffing," Paramessu said. "I know you, Scarab, and you could not kill innocent people, even to achieve your ends. Get out of here and take this madman with you. Nobody will harm you, so if anyone comes to harm, their blood is upon your head."
Scarab and Mose had no option but to leave the palace and the soldiers escorted them down to the wharf where their boat was waiting. Despite the presence of the guard, people came out from their houses and watched them go. Word had been leaked of their part in the plagues and there was a rumble of anger from afflicted men and women.
"You are to blame," ordinary citizens called out. "You are Kemetu, yet you bring the plagues on us. Shame."
"Your king brings this on himself," Mose called back. "Blame him."
"You," called out one man. "I recognise you, daughter of Nebmaetre. You have the power to stop this. Help us, we are innocents caught up between kings and gods."
Scarab could only turn her head away and hurry on. "I can do nothing," she muttered to Khu. "The Nine command me to support Yahweh."
"Don't listen to him, Scarab. He is just an ignorant man."
"No, he is justified in his hurt and his anger. I should help him but I cannot."
They crossed the river and rejoined the other members of the Pillar, telling them what had transpired in Horemheb's court. Much debate ensued as to what should be done. Jesua was for calling the Khabiru to arms and leaving Kemet whether the kings liked it or not. Scarab argued that the trained legions would cut the refugees to pieces. In the end it was Mose who terminated the discussion.
"Yahweh has ordered that Horemheb be given the choice. If he rejects the Lord God, then terrible will be his fate. We should wait until the king relents."
They returned to their camp in the eastern desert to await the king's word. The isolation of the camp had prevented the worst of the disease infecting either people or livestock, and old Nebhotep had been busy treating any that fell ill. There had been a few camels lost and rather more sheep and goats, but no human life lost by the time Scarab and Khu returned.
Mose withdrew from the others, together with his daughter Merye, to meditate on the Lord's purpose, while Jesua and a large cadre of Shechite believers guarded him from all disturbances. Scarab and Khu kept themselves busy looking after the health of the tribe and enjoying the presence of the many children in the camp. They also took over the education of the boys and girls.
To the surprise of the adults, Khu was the one to teach the girls, showing them how to recognise herbs and medicinal plants, the preparation of tinctures and draughts, and how to tend to minor cuts and bruises. Scarab, on the other hand, guided the boys and instructed them in the use of weapons, demonstrating her skill with sword and spear, with the bow and in unarmed combat. As the months passed, the older boys developed skills as warriors and became fiercely devoted to their 'Eye of Geb'. Several of the older girls developed feelings for Khu and he found himself having to make sure he was never alone with one of them. He was viewed as good husband material and if a father had suspected him of inappropriate behaviour, marriage or death were the only choices. He explained to his most ardent admirers that he was promised to another.
"You mean the 'Eye'?" one astute girl guessed. "She is too old for you and probably cannot bear children any more. Besides, she is..." the girl shuddered delicately.
"Nevertheless, Mala," Khu replied. "I have sworn to accompany Scarab in her travels and only she can release me from my vow."
Khu found that the attention of the other young women waned shortly after this conversation.
In time, the disease ran its course and largely disappeared. Members of the tribe went into the towns and cities from time to time and there heard the news of the Kingdoms. Paramessu had been crowned and taken the names Menpehtyre Ramesses--'Established by the Strength of Re, Re bore him'. By all accounts he was an able monarch and had lifted a considerable part of the kingly burden from Horemheb's aging shoulders. The new king's son Seti, though only a young man, had been made Tjaty of Ta Shemau to rule Waset in his father's stead.
The seasons turned and the flood came, the river overflowing its banks and inundating the fields, clearing away the remaining miasma of disease and reinvigorating the land. When the water receded, the farmers planted their crops and soon the whole river valley and as far as the irrigation ditches could reach was green and bursting with life. The wheat and barley stood tall in the fields, the ears swelling with the promise of a magnificent harvest. The people celebrated the end of hunger.
Then Yahweh spoke to Mose again.
"I must go to Horemheb again," Mose told Scarab.
"I will come with you."
Horemheb was indisposed when they reached Ineb Hedj and they were shown into the presence of King Ramesses. The king laughed at them.
"Have you not seen the countryside? This is the best harvest in living memory. The gods of Kemet have overcome your little god, Akhenaten or Mose or whatever you call yourself now. Go away and trouble us no more."
"The Lord God commands you to let his people depart from Kemet with all their wealth."
"Commands? Who is this pitiful god to command me? Scarab, tell this fool the realities of his position."
"Listen to him Paramessu. For the sake of all that lies between us..."
"Nothing lies between us. You forget yourself. Now take this fool with you and go, before I order my guards to throw you out."
"The Lord God commands..."
Ramesses leapt to his feet and pointed at the man and woman standing before him. "Guards, throw them out of the city."
The guards ran forward to do the king's bidding. The first one grabbed Scarab by the arm and doubled over in pain. The next took hold of Mose and staggered back as a massive cramp hit his arm muscles. Two more bumped into each other and fell to the floor. The rest hesitated.
Scarab smiled. "We are going, Paramessu, but you would do well to listen to the words of Yahweh before more ill befalls you and the land of Kemet." She and her brother turned and left the presence of the king, followed by a large contingent of guards who hemmed them in and escorted them to the wharves, but laid not a finger on them.
Half way across the river, a cold wind came out of the north and heeled their little boat over so far it started taking in water. The boatman got his craft under control quickly, but the wind from the north grew in strength, whipping up white-topped waves in the river. On the northern horizon, a line of dark clouds appeared, rapidly increasing in size. By the time they reached the far shore, the storm covered half the sky to the north and flashes of light lit the underside of the roiling black clouds.
"We should find shelter quickly," Scarab said. "This is going to be a bad storm."
Jesua and Khu waited for them in the little village of Dendrit, a half-hour's walk inland, at the limits of the usual flood. They had rented a hut and prepared a meal.
"I presume the king rejected your request," Jesua said, "Judging by the results."
"King Ramesses would not listen," Mose replied. "Yahweh will judge him accordingly."
There was a brilliant flash of light and a crash of thunder nearby.
"Er, this Yahweh does know we are on his side, doesn't he?" Khu asked, nervously peering out into the gathering gloom.
Clouds raced overhead, covering the sky from horizon to horizon. The light
failed except where the landscape was lit up by flashes of brilliant light and rolling peals of thunder. Screams could be heard from the villagers, and the panicked bellows of cattle out in the pasture. There was no rain, but bolt after bolt of lightning slashed down, blowing some huts apart and setting fire to others. Diaphanous grey curtains fell from the skies and a rapidly approaching roar downed out even the crash of the thunder.
"Gods protect us," Khu muttered. "We are in for torrents of rain. Still, it will put the fires out."
It did not rain. Instead, hail scythed down from the sky, smashing its way through the roofs of the huts and breaking any pottery vessel left outside. The screams of men and animals rose again as the icy chunks beat at unprotected bodies, bruising and battering them. Interspersed with the sheets of ice were flashes of lightning, and light coruscated off the falling chunks, making them look as if they were on fire.
Scarab and her friends huddled close to the walls of their hut, praying to their gods, and when the storm ceased, found they were still unharmed. They emerged and looked around at the devastation wrought by the hail and lightning. The clouds dispersed and the heat grew once more, rapidly melting the drifts of ice, covering the land with runnels of water. The crops in the fields were flattened, stripped and shredded beyond hope of harvest, and any unprotected livestock lay dead or injured in the pastures.
"The hand of Yahweh stretched out and smote the Kemetu," Mose exulted.
"Be quiet, brother," Scarab said. "These are ordinary people who had no choice in the matter and who must now suffer the loss of yet another harvest. Think of what they must undergo because your god wants to teach the king a lesson."
Several of the villagers had heard Mose's cry of triumph and were giving all four of them hard looks. Scarab led them away from the village, back toward their own camp. Strangely, the damage lessened as they got further from the river, and the Shechites reported no more than an overcast sky.
"Yahweh protects his people," Jesua said. He proceeded to tell the tribe about the visitation of the Lord God on the Kemetu.
"The king must surely give in now," Mose declared.
They waited, but no word came from Ineb Hedj, no summons to appear in front of the kings.
"There is something else we should do while we wait," Merye said to Scarab. "Father tells the king to let God's people go, but nobody has asked them if they really want to. Should we not find out if they will follow us?"
"A good idea," Scarab agreed. "We could send out messengers to all the scattered groups of Khabiru telling them of God's purpose, and bidding them be ready should the king agree to their release." She drew up a list of the cities that had Khabiru slaves and trained up members of the Pillar, instructing them in the things to tell the people, and the questions to ask. "They are to be ready to move at short notice," she said. "Assure them that they will be protected."
Scarab sent her men out in pairs, several pairs to each of the Khabiru work colonies, and in a month was receiving the first reports. The initial resistance to the message of Mose's god had melted away in the face of repeated plagues. Although the Khabiru had suffered almost as much as their Kemetu masters, they bore the blows with greater equanimity. In their minds, the plagues had been directed against the king, and if they suffered too, they could be sure that the king and Kemetu suffered more.
Word came back from the elders of each group that they would follow the commands of Yahweh and only awaited the signal from Scarab and Mose.
Return to Contents
* * *
Chapter Forty
Ramesses paced the wide verandas of the Ineb Hedj palace, his hands forming fists by his sides. Increasingly he found it hard to thrust away anger and examine the problems facing him with a cool head. His ascension to the throne had not been the unadulterated joy he had anticipated. Instead, Kemet had lurched from one catastrophe to another, suffering body blows at the hands of a foreign god. Kemet's own gods seemed reluctant to act, leaving the kings to cope as best they could.
King Horemheb appeared in public less often, his failing health giving Ramesses ample opportunity to hone his kingly skills, but the problems facing the Kingdoms meant he drew little satisfaction from his duties. The one area of contentment for Ramesses was the news from the southern Kingdom where his son Seti ruled as Tjaty. Ta Shemau had been untouched by the hail and the harvest would be under way already. A good harvest in the south could hold off hunger in the north, so it was vitally important that every deben weight of grain be gleaned from the southern fields and sent by barge downriver. The management skills of Seti would no doubt benefit from this exercise.
Several times in the month or more since the hail mixed with fire had destroyed the crops, Ramesses had sallied out at the head of a squadron of chariots, determined to chastise Kemet's enemies. The problem was, he admitted to himself, there was no obvious enemy at which to strike--only a god and a handful of followers who vanished into the desert like water into sand. He vented his frustration by holding Courts of Justice in the cities of Ta Mehu and handing down savage sentences for relatively minor offences.
Ramesses was returning from Zarw with a squadron of chariots, moving fast along the road that led from the east bank opposite the northern capital, past Iunu to Zarw. It was a route he took often because it was one where he was most likely to come across the accursed followers of Yahweh. Their refuge was somewhere in the trackless eastern desert, but they came out sometimes to visit the towns and villages, trading camel's hair and wool for fish and vegetables.
With the king rode Raia, the Lieutenant of Chariotry, who was now in the enviable position of being brother-in-law to the king. A wealth of other titles had come his way recently, most notably Overseer of the King's Horse, Fan Bearer on the King's Right Hand, and Keeper of the King's Wine Cup. These extra titles and duties meant he never had to actually drive a chariot again, but he enjoyed his old life and liked King Ramesses, so he often joined him in his punitive expeditions.
A little north of Iunu, ten men crossed the road ahead of the column of chariots, moving east into the red lands. Ramesses shaded his eyes and stared at them from a distance before pointing.
"What do you make of them, Raia? Do they look like Shechites to you?"
Raia, who had the honour of driving the chariot for his king, took his attention from the horses and looked ahead. "Could be, sire. Shall we intercept them?"
Ramesses looked at the desert beside the road, judging its firmness. "Yes. They will provide us with a bit of sport." He turned and made hand signals at the other chariots in the squadron. Immediately, six raced past the king and thundered off down the road, and the other eight chariots veered off the road in the path of their king.
The men had seen the onrushing chariots and were running as fast as they could toward a distant patch of rocky ground. It became obvious very quickly that they could never outrun the chariots.
Ramesses shouted in triumph. "We have them!"
The six chariots on the road had now passed the route of the fleeing men and wheeled round in line abreast to pursue them. The chariots with the king spread out also and Ramesses signalled 'No Quarter'. He strung his bow and fitted an arrow, his feet slipped through leather straps on the floor of the bouncing chariot enabling him to remain standing without holding on. The king drew back and loosed an arrow at extreme range, missing, and Ramesses cursed his impatience. It did not set a good example for his men. He loosed another and this time one of the running men took it high in his back and nose-dived into the hot sand.
Two men stopped for the fallen man, but ran on when they found him dead. The chariots raced closer and then, just as Ramesses drew back on his bow again, there were only three men running across the sand.
"Set's balls," Ramesses yelled, lowering his bow. "What happened to them? Where did they go?"
The first chariots passed the fallen man and the sand erupted around them as robed men vaulted into the moving vehicles, blades flashing. Six charioteers and
several of the accompanying archers toppled and the horses bolted, throwing the squadron into confusion. The remaining chariots wheeled away from the chaos and eight men resumed their flight toward the rocks.
Ramesses waved his chariots in pursuit again and Raia guided the king at breakneck speed to cut off the fugitives. As he came in range, Ramesses loosed arrow after arrow, swiftly cutting down the fleeing men. Other chariots followed the king's lead, and more men fell. The last two gave up their futile flight and turned and ran toward the chariots. One took an arrow in the throat, but the last grabbed the harness of one of the horses and stabbed the beast, killing it dead in its traces. The chariot flew into the air as the horse collapsed, killing the charioteer and breaking bones in the archer. The Shechite was found crushed under the dead horse.
Ramesses flew into a rage when he counted up the loss of his chariots and men to these few simple tribesmen. He ordered his own men brought back to Iunu for burial, but that the heads of the tribesmen be detached from their bodies and mounted on stakes along the road as a deterrent for other rebels.
"I will wipe this brood from the earth," Ramesses told Raia on the way back to Ineb Hedj. "Too long have I allowed that bitch to live." Raia made no comment, though he knew the woman in question was his son-in-law's mother.
A messenger from the south was waiting in the audience chamber for Ramesses when he returned, though, so he put aside his dreams of revenge and hurried to find what he was sure was a letter from his son. When he got there, he found King Horemheb alone, clutching a papyrus scroll, a look of anguish on his aged face.
"What is it?" Ramesses blurted. "Is it...has anything happened to..." Horemheb handed him the letter without comment and Ramesses scanned it quickly.
"Thank the gods..." he muttered when he saw it was from Seti himself. Nothing has happened to him . Then the blood drained from his face as he read on.
"...the sky darkened and famine came on clattering wings from the south...locusts...countless...swarm after swarm settling on the fields and when they rose every green thing had vanished...I sent men and boys out into the fields to beat shields and pots, making noise to drive off the locusts but as fast as they flew away, other swarms arrived. When my men fell exhausted, the locusts ate everything. They invade the granaries...temples, palace...homes of the common people...no food remains. All is gone and my people face starvation. Send grain from the north, I beseech you."