The Amarnan Kings, Book 5: Scarab - Horemheb

by Overton, Max

  "He is dead? When? How?"

  "Eleven days ago. The Lord took him, removing him from the sight of the people, so he is not dead, but translated so that he may live with God."

  "Those sons of goats have killed him," Abrim muttered. "Killed him so the priests could take over. I bet he didn't want to do what they wanted. As for disappearing, they bundled him off and buried him somewhere."

  "Where is Khu, who I set as leader and protector of the Khabiru."

  "Gone, for we had no need of him. I am their leader and Yahweh is our protector," Levish said.

  "If you have harmed him, I will kill you and all your other priests."

  "Your threats are empty, woman. I do not fear you for I have Yahweh to strengthen me. It is said, 'The name of Yahweh is as a strong fortress and I will seek safety in it'."

  "Where is Khu?"

  "As I said, gone. He left us after the battle of Yariho, where Yahweh levelled the walls of that pagan city, and went north. Where he is now, I care not."

  "He left alone?"

  "No, he took a crowd of malcontents and traitors with him--all the Shechites, man, woman and child, and even a few faithless Khabiru."

  "Our women went with him?" Jesua asked.

  "Have I not said so, Shechite?"

  "Then we must seek him out," Jesua said to Scarab. "Will your gods lead us there?"

  "Blasphemy!" Levish cried. "There is no God but God. Kill the unbelievers."

  At once the Khabiru started forward with swords drawn, even Chemosh and Eli, and the Shechites defended themselves, falling back before the onslaught. Scarab retreated too, but made no move to defend herself--the gods did that for her. Khabiru warriors fell as they attacked her and Levish screamed for more men to kill the witch.

  "That son of a whore is starting to make me angry," Jesua growled. "Give me leave to kill him?"

  Scarab shook her head. "Levish, call your men off and we will depart peacefully. There is no reason for men to die."

  "The Khabiru will willingly die to defend their faith. Kill the witch."

  "Then face me alone, Levish, man against woman, your god against my god."

  Levish licked his lips and glanced at his warriors as they stood back. "I am not trained in weapons, and it is beneath my dignity to touch a woman."

  "Of course, if you are afraid...but Levish, I thought you said your god was a strong fortress. Perhaps just not strong enough."

  "You blaspheme again, witch, and for that you will surely die." Levish snatched a sword from a warrior and advanced on Scarab.

  "Are you sure you know what you are doing?" Jesua murmured. "We have all seen the power of Yahweh in the land of Kemet."

  "Indeed, but Yahweh is not in this man. He is nothing but a power hungry zealot."

  Levish paced back and forth, slashing with the sword and building up his courage. "Come witch, Yahweh demands your life."

  "Give me your sword, Jesua."

  Jesua grinned uncertainly. "You don't need one. The power of the god will turn back his evil, won't it?"

  "He has no divine power with which to hurt me, and I will not call on Set to aid me in this." Scarab took the sword from Jesua and walked out to meet Levish.

  "We only want to leave in peace to seek our friends and families," Scarab said. "Will you not allow us to do so?"

  "You have blasphemed the Lord God, so you must die."

  Levish leapt forward and slashed at Scarab, but the blow was clumsy and she easily turned it aside. She circled him, keeping her eye fixed on his eyes rather than his sword, seeing his intentions signalled long before he moved. Scarab parried again, then probed, forcing the tall man back.

  "I don't want to have to kill you, Levish. Let us go in peace."

  "Never." Levish ran at Scarab, and nearly impaled himself on her sword, but by chance his own blade knocked hers aside and he grappled with her, using his greater height and weight to advantage.

  Scarab felt herself weakening and opened her right eye. The golden-brown desert stone gleamed in the living socket and Levish sucked in his breath, his grip loosening.

  "Yahweh aid me," Levish gasped. "She uses her witch spells against me."

  "No. No, I will not harm you." Scarab prayed.

  Levish stumbled back, releasing Scarab, and stood staring from her to the sword in his hand. Abruptly, he threw it from him and looked around at the hundreds of armed men. "What are you doing?" he demanded. "What am I doing? These men are free to leave if they desire, or to join us and enjoy our hospitality."

  "I think we will leave," Scarab said.

  "Then do so with our blessing, and may Yahweh guide your feet in safety."

  The Shechites withdrew and moved off to the north. Jesua walked close to Scarab, looking at her, his face screwed up in puzzlement.

  "What happened back there? Did a god intervene?"

  Scarab smiled. "Yes, but not Set. It never occurred to me that I could use another gift under such circumstances, until the thought suddenly came to me. I prayed to Geb instead."

  "Geb? But he is the god of..."

  "Healing. Yes. I prayed that the narrow mind of Levish be cured and it was."

  The road north from the Khabiru tents was easier to follow as the population of the plains and the valleys did not run and hide from strangers. They were wary, but not afraid, and readily shared food, telling them of a tribe that had passed through and had healed many people. Yes, they said, a man called Khu led them.

  The further north they got, the more recent was the contact of the local tribes with the wanderers. They passed beyond the borders of Kemetu occupied Kanaan and into the land of the Hittites, but they were treated like the nomads they were and at last, in the valley of the Orontes River near the town of Kadesh, they caught up with their friends and family.

  After a stunned silence, as if people could not believe their senses, the two groups ran to each other, embracing, kissing, weeping with joy and sorrow, men reunited with wives and children, friends with friends, and those who had lost husbands, sons, fathers and brothers consoled one another. Every family experienced some loss that day, but every family also experienced the joy of a family reunited.

  Scarab and Khu found each other amid the passionate outpourings of their adopted people and after a few moments of just looking at each other, they embraced and held each other tightly.

  "Is it over?" Khu asked.

  "Yes...and no."

  Khu raised an eyebrow and Scarab smiled. "Yes, the life as we knew it is over and...no, for the rest of our life is just beginning."

  "Where? Up here?"

  "Anywhere where you are, dear Khu."

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  Chapter Fifty-One

  I am an old woman and I have seen much in my life. I have seen nine kings reign over Kemet, I have seen a great empire crumble and fall, then rise again like the fabled phoenix bird of the East. Gods have come and gone; whole tribes and peoples multiplying and disappearing. Once, I moved in the centre of events, conversing with gods and kings and priests, eating choice foods and wearing gold and fine linen; but now I sit by the fireside and toothlessly mumble my barley bread and goat's milk, listening to the women talk of children and husbands and wearing only a coarse camel-hair robe and a copper bracelet. Times have changed indeed.

  I married Khu a month after we met up in the Orontes Valley, and we are still together forty years later. He was a faithful friend all his life and a faithful husband half of it, and he still dotes on me, our daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter. Yes, despite being almost past child-bearing age, the goddess Auset granted me a child of my own at last. My first was given to Kemet and in due course ascended to the throne of the Two Kingdoms, my second was a gift to the goddess, serving out her chaste life as a priestess in Iunu, but my third and last was a child conceived and reared in love. I named her Dania and she has grown up intelligent and strong willed. She learned how to read and write, and how to give due reverence to the g
ods--all the gods. I have never believed in slighting a god just because I do not agree with his laws. Khu taught her medicine, and together with such herbal remedies as are passed down by the Shechite women, Dania has become a skilled physician, and has a family of her own.

  Kemet survived the sudden death of Horemheb, and his untimely demise created hardly a ripple in the fabric of society--certainly you will find no reference to it, or the circumstances leading to it, in the accounts written on temple walls. Ramesses was already king so he raised Seti up to be co-ruler with him and ruled with the might of the army behind him. Despite this, he reigned for little more than a year before he died. Under other circumstances, I might have mourned his passing, for I loved him once. However, he had changed in later years, becoming a hard and unforgiving man. Perhaps I had a hand in that.

  Seti completed the work that Horemheb had started--bringing the country back to the worship of the old gods by wiping out all mention of the kings of Akhet-Aten. That city had already reverted back to a village and soon was lost in the sands. The people scattered, persecuted by the priests of Amun, but some of the artisans came north to cities of Kemet's allies or even Kemet's enemies. A few found their way to the Shechite village on the Orontes and stayed, most notably Thutmose who once carved a beautiful likeness of Queen Nefertiti, and Bek. This last one was not Bek, the principal sculptor of Akhenaten, but rather Bek the painter, student of Neb who helped us escape from Akhet-Aten all those years ago. For Neb's sake if no other, I employed him and I never regretted it for I have never seen a painter like him. I commissioned him to paint the walls of the antechambers of my tomb...but I am getting ahead of myself.

  I stepped down from all leadership of the Shechites when I married Khu, leaving the management of the tribe to Jesua. Instead, my role became educative and I told stories and taught many children to read and write Kemetu, Khabiru and the Shechite tongues.

  When I reached my sixtieth year, the tribe sought to honour me by building a tomb for me, fit for royalty. I told them there was no need, but they insisted. The fugitive Kemetu artisans included builders and masons and they surveyed a sandstone cliff down one of the side valleys of the Orontes. A deep cave existed there and it was said that men had used it time out of mind. The masons quarried out three great chambers in the sandstone near the cave entrance and dressed the walls ready for the usual paintings and prayers found in every Kemetu tomb. I stopped them and explained what I wanted. I engaged Bek to paint me some great murals of scenes that had meant something to me--a huge golden Aten, the Nine of Iunu, and the Battle at Waset, and a number of lesser scenes.

  For the rest, I had the walls smoothed and whitewashed, then had columns drawn ready for script. I have a scribe willing to paint the symbols on the walls, but I decided to do this myself for as long as I had strength. It is my story, after all, and I should tell it. Even at sixty years old my hand was steady and the sight in my left eye was still good. Besides, it gave me something to do, now that I was an old woman.

  I have been twenty years telling my story, for I did not want to give up my teaching duties. Every day, I would bring my pot of paint, my brushes and an oil lamp and sit until the lamp burned low, casting my mind back and writing of things that happened to people whose faces mist and blur in my memory. Some stand clear and strong--my beloved Khu, my brothers, an old glassmaker from Waset, the young Paramessu, my darling infant son Set. Others I never saw--like the kings of foreign nations or Jebu the Amorite who killed his king and disappeared years ago, but I heard stories of their exploits and decided to include them in my narrative as they touched on the people closest to me.

  I even met my grandson. My darling Seti died as a relatively young man and his son Ramesses succeeded him. This new king of Kemet was energetic and belligerent, determined to raise the Two Kingdoms to their former glory. He marched north with his legions and met the Hittites at a place called Kadesh, not far from here. The battle was inconclusive; both sides claiming victory, but it did at least result in peace for many years. To an old woman, that means more than gold.

  My whereabouts were obviously not as secret as I thought, for Ramesses surrounded the Shechite village and marched in to confront me, having heard garbled stories in his youth. I convinced him that it was in his interests to have more respect for his grandmother, and we ended up talking for a time over wine (supplied by him) and honey cakes (baked by me). He left one of his royal seals with me as a token that my village need not pay taxes during his lifetime, or to demand a service in his name, and left. I never saw him again.

  So I have come close to the end of my story, which is just as well, as I have nearly run out of wall...I stopped there for a few moments and laughed to myself. We Kemetu are strange people with strange customs, particularly our burial customs. I have spent twenty years writing my story and when I am dead and buried, they will seal up these chambers and nobody will ever see what I have written. Nobody but me, that is. I do not know what the realm of death is like, and whether memory persists, but if it does not I will be able to read my life story anew and learn what sort of person I was. I hope I will like what I see...I have tried to tell the truth in all...

  I think I have written enough for today. I suddenly feel very tired and cold and the lamp has dimmed. I will rest for a few minutes and then go home to my beloved Khu. I love him so...

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  Epilogue

  Dani broke off her translating to stare at the few columns of hieroglyphs still unread. "This is in a different hand. It is less...what should I say...less tutored, less skilled?"

  "Does it say who it is?" Daffyd asked.

  Dani shook her head. "I can guess though. Listen..."

  The light has passed from my life. I have no special gift for words or for writing, but in my clumsy hand I will finish off this account for her sake.

  I found my Scarab deep inside the chambers that were carved to be her tomb, paint pot and fine brush beside her. I had come to bring her a drink of cool water and some honey cakes but found her passed beyond such small pleasures. She lay serenely on the stone floor and had obviously had time to put her paint and brush aside when she felt death steal up upon her. I read her last words and sat with her for hours until they came to find where we had gone. Such was my grief as I sat beside her, that for a long time I wrestled with a choice that, had I succumbed to it would have filled me with shame and horror for the rest of my days. I took out her golden scarab and sat with it in my hand, wondering if I dare try to call her back from death. The token from Atum would probably not have worked for me, but I shall never know, for in the end I knew that only one selfish thing could come of it. I would be able to say goodbye and give my wife and heart-companion one last kiss before she would leave me again. However, I could not face that second permanent loss after one short hour, so I said my goodbyes to my silent wife and lover and kissed her cold lips for the last time, hoping that her spirit still hovered close to hear my words of love.

  They came for us at last, and Dania and I, together with such artisans had joined us from Akhet-Aten, prepared her for burial. Forty days she lay in natron brought from the Salt Lake, and then was wrapped in spices and fine linen, with golden amulets and written prayers to the gods. The gilded wooden coffins were ready, screens carved and painted with the requisite prayers, and all the accoutrements of a funeral ready to hand, but then I decided against it--I will not bury my Scarab here in the Orontes Valley. These carefully hollowed out and painted chambers will not house her body, only her life story.

  Scarab is more than just my wife and mother of our daughter. She is also truly crowned King of the Two Kingdoms--'Truth is the Ka of Atum-Re, She of the good laws who pacifies the Two Lands, She who wears the crown and satisfies the gods, Beautiful of forms, Khnumt-Atum Kheper'. She is the legitimate successor of her brother Smenkhkare, anointed by Aanen, priest of Amun; and all the other kings of Kemet from Tutankhamen to Ramesses father of Seti have been mere pre
tenders. The true blood passes from her to Seti and to the second Ramesses who men already call 'The Great'. As such, she must lie in a royal tomb.

  I will take her back to the land of her forefathers--to Kemet--and bury her with her brother Smenkhkare. I know he will welcome his sister and share his grave goods. I will perform the opening of the mouth ceremony so she may enjoy all good things in the next world. It is the last thing I can do for her, for there is no way I can ever be buried with her and serve her as I would wish. I can only hope the gods will be merciful and let me find her in the afterlife...

  ...All is ready. Dembrax the grandson of Jesua will accompany me with some of his friends. They have camels and carry trade goods far and wide, but never have they carried anything as precious as the wrapped and preserved body of my Scarab. They will take me south to the city of Waset, but from there I shall go alone, for none must know of the place where my love will lie dreaming for eternity. It is not that I do not trust Dembrax, or any of my tribal brothers, but what they do not know they cannot be forced to tell, and there are wicked men who still walk the earth.

  I remember the place. Three days upriver from Waset, at a place where the cliffs recede from the river is a crack in the rock where water seeps, allowing vegetation to grow like an arrow pointing the way. The trail up the cliff is hidden, but I know I can find it, for a notch guides the setting sun at the foot of the trail. Somehow I must move the rock that seals the tomb and place her in darkness beside her brother. I shall move the rest of Smenkhkare's treasure there from its hiding place farther up the river. She never touched it during her lifetime, but she can enjoy it for eternity now, for kings should have gold. I shall seal up the tomb again and spend the days remaining to me within sight of her tomb, because I cannot bear the thought of parting. If I ask it, the villagers will bury me in the desert sands above the cliffs when my days end.

  Dembrax will return to the Orontes and guard what was to have been her tomb. I have given him the seal of Ramesses to use should anyone breach the walls. He will seal up her life as I will seal up her death, and Scarab will pass from living memory but live for evermore in the palaces of the gods.