The Season of the Hyaena (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) (18 page)

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Authors: Paul Doherty

BOOK: The Season of the Hyaena (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries)
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We returned to the front of the fortress, a sprawling concourse, part travelling fair or market, with its many stalls and booths. We bought jugs of beer and some freshly baked bread, and settled down beneath a palm tree, studying the fortress which soared above us.
‘It seems,’ Sobeck declared between mouthfuls, ‘there are two camps. That’s the main one.’ He pointed towards the great double-barred gates, the avenue leading to them packed with soldiers, some wearing the striped head-dresses of Egyptian infantry, the rest a motley collection of mercenaries and Hittites. ‘And that’s formidable enough!’
‘What I would like to know,’ I gestured to the left, ‘is what is behind that palisade? What does the Mastaba contain and why are those mercenaries entering? They looked frightened. I glimpsed scorched earth, a stake, and heard the roar of a lion.’
‘I heard the same,’ Sobeck agreed. ‘And I keep thinking what that Hittite told us about the Place of Darkness and a Field of Fire. Many summers ago,’ he grinned at me, ‘when I was young and handsome and a Child of the Kap, I learnt the history of Egypt and the exploits of Ahmose, who drove the Hyksos out. Now, our history is full of tales about Hyksos cruelty, how they used to love to torture their prisoners in the most fiendish manner. I just wonder if that’s a place of Hyksos torture. If this usurper instils terror with his own slaughter yard. We have been round this camp, Mahu, through the town, but never once did I glimpse an Egyptian officer. Yet we know the usurper suborned some of our regiments.’
‘The officers may have been purged,’ I replied. ‘Intelligent men, they would soon realise they’d been tricked. Some of them must have seen the true Akenhaten and gazed upon the beauty of Nefertiti.’
Sobeck gazed around to make sure no one was listening, but this was not a royal palace where other people’s business was often your own. In a camp of mercenaries, in order to avoid fights and squabbles, people were only too willing to concede space to another.
‘Well, Mahu, I have asked you once and I’ll ask again. Why are we here? What shall we do?’
‘Gather as much information as we can; cause as much chaos as we are able.’
‘Chaos?’
‘If I am given the chance,’ I replied, ‘I would burn that fortress and kill the usurper.’
‘I do not want to end my days with a pointed stick up my arse!’ Sobeck complained. ‘How do we know Meryre won’t – hasn’t – sent messengers here?’
‘Because he’s too sly and cunning,’ I replied. ‘I doubt if there is anything in writing which ties him in with this.’
‘Did he believe you?’ Sobeck asked. ‘When you visited him before we left?’
‘He’s too closely guarded to send messages, whilst I am sure I didn’t convince him. However, I made him think. I apologised for my outburst before Colonel Nebamun. I pointed out that I too had been attacked by the Shabtis of Akenhaten, that my allegiance was solely to the Prince and not to the Lord Ay or anyone else.’
‘Did he believe you?’
‘He accepted my apology and listened. I didn’t tell him I was coming here, just that I was leaving Memphis to make other arrangements.’
‘Why should he trust you?’
‘Sobeck, why shouldn’t he? What do I owe Ay, Horemheb, Rameses or Huy? They only tolerate me because, in the end, I was Nefertiti’s enemy as much as theirs. They only accord me a privileged position because of my custody of the Prince. As I pointed out to Meryre, hadn’t I been Akenhaten’s close companion, his bodyguard, his friend? And do you know what he replied?’
Sobeck shook his head.
‘He said he always wondered where my true loyalties lay. I also claimed,’ I smiled, ‘all hurt and quivering, how never once had he approached me or shown me any gesture of friendship. He objected. I replied that I only accepted his offer to accompany him north because I thought it would heal any breach between us. But that after that attack, I was as suspicious of Sile as I was of Thebes.’
Sobeck whistled under his breath. ‘Mahu, Baboon of the South, very cunning.’ He toasted me with his cup. ‘Meryre may be convinced,’ he continued. ‘You did agree to accompany him. You were attacked by the Shabtis of Akenhaten, and you now blame—’
‘I now blame Ay for the attack at Memphis, or so I told Meryre. I left our pompous little High Priest confused, with plenty of food for thought. Perhaps he thinks we are travelling along the same road. If that attack at Memphis had been successful, I may have been spared. I may have been given a choice to either join the usurper or die. After all, I do have some influence with the Prince, as well as Ankhesenamun.’
‘Now she,’ Sobeck wagged a finger, ‘will have to be watched.’ He drained his cup. ‘That’s if we survive here.’ He called across to the potboy serving behind the stall. ‘We wish to join the army.’
The boy pointed to the tent, on the right of the avenue leading up to the main gates, guarded by mercenaries in striped robes holding rounded shields and spears. We went across and repeated our request. The men looked blankly at us. Sobeck lapsed into the lingua franca of the mercenary corps. A fat-cheeked, sweaty-faced scribe pulled up the tent flap and peered out.
‘We have enough riff-raff!’ he bawled. ‘Be on your way!’
‘We are soldiers,’ Sobeck retorted. ‘We have fought in the eastern and western Red Lands as well as in Kush. We have stood in the battle line and done more fighting in a day than you have done in your long, lazy life!’
‘Let us see them!’ a voice shouted from deep in the tent.
The scribe glowered at us, jabbered at the sentry to guard the donkey and beckoned us in. The tent was dark and musty and reeked of wine, sweat and fear. Soldiers lounged on either side, obscured by the poor light. Three men squatting on thick rugs faced the entrance; to the right of these was a line of scribes with writing palettes. The three men, officers by their collars and glittering armlets, were dressed in linen or leather vests; each had a club, sword and dagger by his side. Behind them stood six Nubian archers, bows in hand, arrow quivers hanging by their sides, feathered shafts ready to be plucked out.
‘Come here!’
The officer in the middle gestured at us to kneel before him. He was Usurek, a soldier from Avaris, a former standard-bearer from the Ptah regiment and, as we discovered later, one of the few to survive the usurper’s ruthless purge of the regiment’s officers. In many ways he reminded me of Sobeck: narrow-faced, with high cheekbones, sharp eyes and a cruel mouth. Usurek was a born soldier, a killer to the bone. What was that ancient phrase?
Seka er Sekit
, ‘a slaughterer from the slaughterhouse’. The other two officers I forget. They remain nameless and faceless. Like Usurek, their bones are now the playthings of jackals whilst vipers nest in their skulls. At that time they had the power of life and death. The tent we had entered, despite its shabby tawdriness, was the Utcha Netu, the Place of Judgement. Our three judges sat sharing a wineskin.
‘You look fit,’ Usurek began, ‘for visitors from Abydos.’
‘Who said we were from Abydos?’ Sobeck retorted. ‘We come from Thebes. My cousin is Mahu. We are of the Medjay, former soldiers in the regiment of Amun Ra.’
‘And?’
‘We were discharged.’
‘And?’
‘For thieving.’
‘Then what?’
Sobeck shrugged. ‘We served here and there: bodyguards for merchants, princes.’
The questions began, Usurek watching us all the time. They asked about where we had served, what weapons we had used. At the end Usurek shook his head and addressed Sobeck.
‘I don’t know about you, your speech is soft.’
‘My cousin and I were trained in the House of Life.’
‘Ah yes, the Silent One.’ Usurek turned on me. ‘You say you are from Thebes? Served in the regiment of Amun Ra? Then tell me, in the Temple of Karnak, what lies to the right of the Precinct of Montu?’
‘The Temple of Tuthmosis.’ I kept my voice steady and hoped he wouldn’t notice the bead of sweat coursing down my cheek.
‘And in the Precincts of Amun Ra, what temple stands by itself near the northern gate?’
‘The Temple of Ptah.’
‘And how do you know that?’
‘Because I have stood on guard there.’
‘Karnak has its own police.’
‘Units of our regiment still stand on guard,’ I persisted. ‘You know that as well as I do.’
‘Do you have service records?’
‘We destroyed them. They were more trouble than they were worth.’
‘And what Gods do you serve?’
‘My right arm and my penis.’
Usurek laughed. ‘You say you were in the regiment of Amun Ra.’ He leaned forward. ‘The regiment had a famous song, a love poem. How does it go?’ He squinted up at the roof of the tent. Sobeck’s hand slipped down and grazed my thigh, warning me to be careful.
‘Ah yes, I remember. “The little sycamore that she has planted with her own hands opens its mouth to sing.”’ Usurek peered at me. ‘I had a friend in the Amun Ra regiment. It was their marching song. Well, have you heard it?’
‘Yes, I have, but you have it wrong. The line should read, “opens its mouth to speak, singing of its gardens”.’
Usurek smiled. ‘You may recite your poem, but we still don’t need you. We have enough archers and foot men.’
‘But not charioteers?’ Sobeck retorted.
‘What?’
‘You have few charioteers. It is a matter of fact. Few mercenary armies do.’
The atmosphere in the tent changed. The soldiers lounging about got to their feet, going for their swords. Behind Usurek the archers notched arrows to their bows.
Sobeck had made his gamble.
‘You didn’t tell us you were charioteers.’ Usurek was no longer smiling. ‘Why should charioteers, hired by any army, trek from Thebes to Sile in the Delta?’
‘Because we are charioteers,’ Sobeck replied outrageously. ‘My cousin and I are very good. I am the driver, he is the bowman.’
‘You still haven’t answered my question. You said you were discharged?’
‘We discharged ourselves.’
‘For what?’
‘For stealing a chariot and two horses from the Royal Stables.’
Usurek laughed.
‘We were in trouble anyway,’ Sobeck continued blithely. ‘The officers were always picking on us, latrine duty here, picket duty there. So we decided to help ourselves. We cannot go back to Thebes.’
Usurek got to his feet. ‘In which case, you’d best come with me.’
He took us out of the tent, shouting at the guards to lead the donkey and calling up others as an escort, then marched us through the camp to the rear of the fortress and into the chariot park. Again, more orders; a collection of harnesses was brought, and two fine bay horses together with a chariot of wood with a floor of interlaced thongs. Thankfully it was a regimental chariot, two-wheeled and six-spoked. I checked the gleaming casing. It must have been an officer’s, with its gold and blue electrum embossed and ornamented with silver palmettes interlaced with spirals. There was a leather quiver for arrows embroidered with red and silver, whilst the javelin sheath was a resplendent gold and yellow with a charging lion along the outside. The harness was of good leather, polished and strong and studded with bronze clasps. I felt the yoke pins and axle; they were firm.
At last we were ready. Usurek leading the way, we were taken down to the chariot meadow with its range of straw targets fastened to poles at the far end. At first the horses were strange, the chariot clumsy, but we soon got the feel of the animals, the way the chariot would tilt and sway. All the skills we were taught in our years of training at the House of Residence quickly returned. Usurek became impatient and started shouting. Sobeck, ignoring him, wheeled the chariot round and round.
You know the way it is when horses and driver become one, a glorious weapon of war, wheels spinning, chariot bucking, the horses beginning to stretch out, guided by the reins and a touch of the whip. Our circuits became faster, more skilful, until Sobeck at one end of the meadow urged the horses into a full charge. The chariot thundered forward, racing like an arrow from the bow, the horses moving as one, swaying and turning under Sobeck’s careful direction. I grasped the bow, arrow notched. We swirled round the men of straw, loosed arrow after arrow into the target and thundered back. We ignored Usurek’s orders to halt, but charged again. The wind whipped our faces. I grasped the javelin, bracing my feet, careful to keep my distance from Sobeck. One after another, the javelins hit their mark. The chariot turned, bucking dangerously; the horses faltered. Sobeck, reins grasped round his wrists, gently steadied them before thundering straight towards Usurek and his companions, who were forced to scatter. Sobeck slowed the horses into a canter and gently brought them to a halt. He dropped the reins and, like any good charioteer, jumped down to congratulate the horses, letting them muzzle his hand, speaking to them softly. Usurek, splattered with mud but grinning from ear to ear, came up to congratulate us.
‘No wonder they didn’t catch you when you stole the horses. You wish to join the army? Then come, take the oath.’

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