Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,183

that effect.

I was still, to my astonishment, Great Royal Judge Ptah-hotep, possibly because I was too well guarded to poison and too well-regarded to dismiss.

Apart from his meanness, which was legendary—it was said that Ay would skin a louse for its hide—the new Pharaoh spent most of his time ordering an exceptionally grand tomb, in which we all hoped that he would soon lie.

And General Horemheb still did not come home. He and his thousand men were the only effective force left on the borders of Canaan and he could not leave. Mutnodjme and I worried about him and Kheperren, and kept the household going and advised the king when he would take advice, and we waited.

No one expected the manner of the general’s return.

Late one night, I was out keeping watch on the high walls. I quite often had trouble sleeping, and I liked to walk where the little king had walked and remember that the present Pharaoh was his murderer. The night was still—it was Ephipi, still and hot, before the Southern Snake’s breath scorches Egypt, crisping every leaf.

A lone horseman came galloping straight across the plain. I heard the hoofbeats. A soldier, perhaps. Another warning from the edges of mismanaged Egypt that another fortress was about to fall. Another spokesman from some small town ringed with bandits. And nothing I could do because all of the soldiers were home on their farms, waiting for harvest.

I heard the sentry’s challenge, saw them fall back and salute as the horse passed into the courtyard. So, an officer of some sort, and one whom the sentries recognised.

Idle and uncomfortable, the heat pearling my skin with sweat, I marked the horseman’s progress as he dismounted in the yard. He grunted as his feet hit the ground, and the horse staggered and almost fell. A servant led it away to be groomed and watered, and the soldier strode into the king’s side of the palace.

For no good reason, I followed him. I had been hoping for some major invasion, in a way, something which would force a few debens of silver out of Ay’s fist. I did not know the news which the soldier brought, but it was probably dire.

I passed the guards on the king’s door and came into the outer apartment, which had no guards and no attendants. Divine Father the Pharaoh Ay had dismissed most of the servants to save their board. A sleepy Master of the House was standing by the door to the inner apartment, obviously listening. He clutched at my wrist.

‘Lord Judge, go in, I fear that the Pharaoh Ay may he live is in danger.’

I went.

Under a huge painting of Maat who is truth, Pharaoh Ay was backed up against the wall and General Horemheb was confronting him. I had never heard the general talk in the voice he was using this night. It was low, clear, and almost toneless. It was the voice of one tried beyond endurance and weary almost to death.

‘I have come from the Canaan border, Pharaoh Ay. You left me my one thousand men, with which I have been attempting to hold a stretch of land almost as long as the Nile.’

‘Soldiers are expensive. You did not need all those men.’

‘So you say,’ said General Horemheb, ‘but you have not seen what I have seen. Villages raided, smoking ruins with weeping, dazed children lying on the bodies of their dead mothers. Violated women swallowing hemlock rather than live a moment longer with their pain. The Shasu have crossed the border at twenty points, all of them little raiding parties, and I am like a man who is trying to put out a hundred little fires with only one bucket.’

‘You are the Chief of the Army,’ sneered Ay. ‘It is your job to hold the border.’

‘I have held it, for the moment,’ he replied. ‘I left ten men at each little post, you see, to hold it against the raiders. They do not want to stay. The Shasu, they just whip across the border, slay a few men, rape a few women, steal the flocks and drive them back. In a well-run country they would only be a pest. But we cannot hold them off.’

‘Then we shall appoint another general, one who can manage his post,’ said Ay. He seemed to feel no fear, even though Horemheb stood over him, a cubit taller and strong as an ox.

‘The Assyrians are coming,’ said Horemheb, quietly. ‘You will not be able to ignore