Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,184

them. The King of Khatti is a persuasive man. I have just fought a battle; I have just met Assyria,’ he said. ‘Shall I tell you how I won?’

‘If you must,’ Ay yawned.

‘I took the shepherds and the goatherds of the threatened village,’ Horemheb’s voice had never risen above an ordinary speaking tone. ‘I gave them no weapons because I had none, and in any case they were used to pruning hooks and mattocks.

‘I am a soldier, I have always been a soldier, and they might have made good troops if I had had time to train them, but I had no time. You gave me no time, Ay. It was a small village but they were proud of it and wished to save it and they had courage, those shepherds.

‘I could see no way of keeping the Assyrians back but by encircling them in a narrow place and blocking the ends of the pass. It was a reasonable strategy and it worked. But they are all dead, Ay. Every one of those goatherds has died, cut to pieces by the Assyrians, calling for their mothers as they bled. If they had had real weapons they might have survived. My own ten men are dead, except for one whom I left in the village to live or die under the care of the women. They had been with me for years. But they are soldiers and soldiers face death willingly, it is part of their service,’ he said.

‘But the goatherds of Palm Tree Village are yours, Ay; the deaths of seventy men and boys almost too young to hold a stick are your fault.’

Even then, perhaps, Ay might have retrieved the situation if he had demonstrated some remorse. But instead he sneered.

‘What are goatherds?’ he asked. ‘We have plenty of goatherds in the Black Land. And what are armies? Open mouths and open hands. I care nothing for the deaths of a thousand such. I will not have to feed them.’

Horemheb’s great hands were around his throat in a second, crushing the life out of him. And in the doorway the crone Tey shrieked, ran and clawed at Horemheb and was shoved backward with such force that her head impacted against a table and she fell to the floor.

I said, ‘Let him go, he is dead,’ and Horemheb dropped the body of the Pharaoh Ay-Osiris and wiped his hands on his shirt.

I bent and inspected the body of the woman. ‘She is also dead,’ I told the general. He sank into a chair and passed his hand across his forehead. It came away black with dirt. He stared at it, as though he wondered whether he had turned into a Nubian overnight.

‘He murdered Tutankhamen, you know,’ I commented. ‘Maat has been done.’

I pointed to the picture on the wall. The Goddess of Truth, crowned with her feather, had not altered her expression.

Ay-Osiris lay where he had fallen, a broken doll. I reflected that we had better get him to the House of Life immediately. Bruises putrefy faster than other flesh.

I sat the old Master of Household down and gave him some wine.

‘They’re both dead?’ he quavered.

‘Yes, do you want to join them?’

‘No. He was as bad as she and they were both as mean as rats,’ he said frankly. ‘I’m glad they are dead.’

‘Good. Summon the priests of Osiris. We are about to have another royal funeral. Ay-Osiris is going to his tomb before his decorations are complete,’ I observed.

Then I went into the inner room, where Horemheb still sat slumped in his chair. I knelt down and slid into a full ‘kiss earth’ and nearly kissed his feet. They were filthy.

‘Why are you kneeling to me, Ptah-hotep?’ he asked with unutterable weariness.

‘Because you are now Pharaoh,’ I told him. ‘Come along. You need a wash, and Mutnodjme has been worried about you. General.’

Then I asked the question which was making my heart as cold as ice, ‘What of Kheperren?’

‘I left him in the Village of the Palm Tree,’ said Horemheb, still bemused. ‘He’s got a broken arm, which means that his scribing days may be finished. I’ll ask… no, I’ll send, by all the gods, I can send a whole regiment to get him. For he fought like a lion, and only fell at the last.’

Relieved, I dragged the corpse of Ay-Osiris into his room and laid him on his bed, his wife beside him. I looked for the last time on the face of greed, then closed his