Alternate Generals II

The people of Sumura stared. They who formerly cooked in ovens now made open fires like nomads. Those who had lived under timber roofs now slept beneath tents of uncured hides of animals butchered prematurely for food during the siege. Women cried and wept, tears of joy for the presence of the Egyptian army commingled with tears of anger that they had not come sooner. Why, they asked, O why had Sumura been handed to the Amurrites? Why had Egypt abandoned them?

Horemheb had his officers round up the Amurrite troops, who had little choice but to cooperate as Pubahla lay bleeding and shackled beneath Horemheb's foot. By nightfall the Amurrites had been evicted and encamped outside the ramparts, corralled by Egyptian soldiers, while Nubians roamed the city so that the destitute did not loot each other. Soldiers and masons cleared rubble from the streets and brought baskets of earth to begin repairs on the ruined ramparts.

The troops of Hotep, the ones with writing-boxes tucked under their arms and rolls of papyrus in their hands, walked through the city like tax assessors. Everything that they could find for bread and beer, all the butchered flesh and fowl, they brought to an altar Hotep had constructed from stones dragged from the temple.

There Hotep summoned the city elders, who received amulets of gold, bright disks hung on braided gold chains.

One of the army officers, Troop Commander Sety, spoke with Horemheb that evening while they ate sitting in the shadow of the half-ruined temple. "Hotep's men carry gold as one Great King might give to another. I've seen the likes of this only when I brought royal caravans from Egypt to Babylon, and the Babylonian King was pleased indeed."

"Much gold for one Great King, or many little ones. Sumura will not be the end of our labors," Horemheb said, and Sety could only agree.

As they watched, Hotep redistributed the offerings from the altar to all the households of Sumura. "Ah, grain." Horemheb bit off a mouthful of bread. "Now that is the poor man's gold. And Amon goes hungry, even if the commonest lad of Sumura never does." He made a silent prayer to Amon now. What good, Horemheb wondered, was a common man's prayer without the rituals of the temples? What strength had an army without the blessings of the gods? He was afraid to learn.

"Hey, now," said Sety, "what's this?"

To each household in which a man or his wife could read, Hotep's men passed a clay tablet. This was something neither Horemheb nor Sety had ever seen before. Horemheb would ask Hotep about this, come morning.

Sety roused Horemheb before dawn. "There has been bloodshed."

Horemheb rolled from his camp bed, cursing. "How dare you engage in action without consulting me!"

When he emerged from his tent, it at once became apparent that neither Sety nor any of his men had shed this blood.

Bodies hung from the wall of the temple. Bodies not of Pubahla's men, nor even Egyptians or Nubians. Farmers and potters these were, housewives and priests, fourteen citizens of Sumura.

Horemheb raged: "The Amurrites will pay for this with their lives, and every Egyptian or Nubian lax at his guard shall lose his hand!"

Sety stayed Horemheb's hand and pointed to another wall.

The sun had emerged from the eastern horizon from which it drove away the clouds. Long rays of dawn reached over the hills to embrace the men who stood atop and below the wall with ropes, stringing up a fifteenth corpse by its feet.

At the ropes were men dressed in white linen. They were scribes and masons. Hotep's men.

To the elders of Sumura Hotep explained that Sumura had been abandoned to Aziru because the gods to whom they prayed were false. To Horemheb Hotep said, "They were vessels of treachery. This is the will of the King."

Citizens came forward, begging the Egyptians, but not for the bodies of their loved ones; they were afraid, Horemheb suspected, to admit kinship to the dead. Nor did they beg for gold, nor for their share of the morning's offerings of bread. The literate begged for tablets, the rest for spoken words.

By the time the King of Egypt arrived from Byblos with Prince Smenkhkare and a large retinue, none in Sumura wanted for shelter or for food. These had been provided in the name of the god the Egyptians worshipped and their King.

God, they had learned, was good. God provided all.

God, they had learned, was the Aten, and Neferkheprure-Sole-One-of-Re Akhenaten was his only son.

All eyes observe you in relationship

to themselves.

At last, at the direct command of the King, Aziru came south from Tunip. He bowed low and lower before the King, and never did Horemheb's archers lose their sight on him. Horemheb himself never ventured farther from Aziru than arm's reach, and his dagger was always near to hand. From the cities he had seized, the Amurrite chief brought gifts and, by the King's demand, his own young son as another hostage for the Royal Academy.

Akhenaten received him in the palace of Sumura. In exchange for Aziru's gifts, Akhenaten presented a large offering table bearing a single loaf of bread.

"I have heard," Akhenaten said, "that you have shared food and strong drink with Aitakama of Kadesh."

Aziru raised his hands in supplication. "O, but I am like a son to his majesty of Egypt. We were youths together in the Royal Academy."

"As was Aitakama. Then the Hittites took him in."

"O, but I am a vassal anointed by his majesty of Egypt," Aziru protested, touching his forehead to the ground at the King's feet. "I am loyal."

"Aitakama says the same, and Aitakama is an enemy. He and his father were captured years ago by Suppililiuma, King of Hatte, and now Aitakama is as a son of Hatte's royal academy. While protesting his loyalty to me he honors a treaty with the Hittites. Ribaddi and Abimilki and others say that Aziru does the same. They beg me to deal with him, just as they begged me to deal with his father. Remind Aziru of his father, Horemheb."

Horemheb, who remembered how Abdi-Ashirta had died, grabbed up Aziru by the shoulder. His dagger touched Aziru in exactly the same place it had pierced his father, near the liver.

Aziru shook with fear, but fear was not loyalty.

At the King's nod, Horemheb released the Amurrite, but not before pressing his blade a little into Aziru's flesh. Aziru cast himself at the King's feet, seven times on the belly and seven times on the back. "It has been so long since your majesty's forefathers came forth into Asia! Aitakama has firsthand seen the strength of Hatte and forgets the might of Egypt!"

"The sun is everywhere," Akhenaten said. "He created the earth according to his own desire. Without the Aten we would not exist. How can Aitakama doubt the Sole-One-of-Re?"

"He is an ignorant dog, my lord."

"And Hatte holds his lead. You will break bread with him again."

"My lord! I would not break your trust, not even give the appearance."

The King held out the loaf of bread. "You have perceived the Aten, Aziru."

"It is the sun, my lord, your god, the creator of life."

"You observe the Aten in relationship to yourself. Every man does." The King dropped the loaf to the ground and crushed it beneath his heel. "When the Aten is gone, nothing can exist. There is no perception, for there is no thing."

The King dismissed everyone from the hall but Aziru. Horemheb began to protest-this was the bandit chief of Amurru! — but what could he say against the King's command? Obedient, Horemheb made his way back to his tent that night, keenly aware of his own hunger, and keenly aware of the dark.

Aziru's troops departed Sumura with Horemheb's, heading for Kadesh. They displayed no knowledge of military discipline in the Egyptian fashion, but Horemheb did not underestimate their effectiveness. They had, after all, seized a great deal of territory under Aziru's command, and some had served Aziru's father equally well. Their proficiency, in fact, caused him some concern, which he made known to his officers. The Amurrites were not prisoners in tow. They were fighting men, properly armed, to be treated as such.