Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,63

The ridges were thickly wooded, so Kush didn’t see them until they were on them and shoving them down the cliffs into the waiting grasp of the mounted men.’

‘And who was leading the scouts on either ridge?’ I asked.

‘No one of consequence,’ he squirmed.

‘You, and which other? I demanded sternly.

‘Yes, it was I,’ Kheperren nodded. ‘And his name was Tuy; he was killed. My people come from the mountains they call the Edge of the World, and I was the only person present who knew anything about climbing. That’s why I volunteered; though the charioteers didn’t like it. They told Horemheb that they would not take orders from a scribe.

‘He told them that my orders were his orders, and if they got someone killed because they were being snobbish about rank, then he would personally flay them alive and leave their skins drying over a memorial stone that said, Here lies a moron rightfully executed by his captain. His name is forgotten.’

‘Did he mean it?’

‘With Horemheb it is always safer to believe that he does mean it. Can I have some more wine?’

I filled his cup and my own. I was getting used to the sound of his voice again. He had a sweet voice, my Kheperren, very pleasant to the ear.

‘So we poured down the cliffs after the Kush, and they were caught between a hammer and an anvil, and they were all killed. You know how we used to read accounts of battles, ’Hotep, where each move is described and the storyteller knows what is happening all over the field? It’s not like that. You can see maybe an arm’s length around you and it’s all dust and yelling and weapons appearing out of nowhere.

‘The only thing to do is try to stay alive and the only way to do that is to kill the man who is trying to kill you and I am no good at it, no good at all. The man who gave me this, he was young, strong, I looked into his fierce eyes and knew that he was a man like me. When he raised his weapon he saw the same and missed my heart, perhaps on purpose. Then he struck at Horemheb and I deflected the blow on my shield. I didn’t see what happened to him but he must have been killed, they were all killed, all of them. We despoiled the bodies and buried them all in a great pit in the sand, killing the wounded with a blow to the back of the neck. I made a note of them and their numbers. There were eighty-three corpses; only nine of us were killed.’ His eyes were filling with tears. They ran down his face and dripped into the wine, and I took away the cup and gathered him into my arms.

‘I’m not brave as the captain says,’ he said desolately. ‘I didn’t run away because there was nowhere to run. I fought because I was attacked.’

‘There, my brother,’ I held him close. ‘You need not go back, I can keep you here. No scandal can touch us while Meryt lies with me.’

‘No,’ he said, lifting his wet face to mine. ‘If I stay I will have to marry. I cannot marry. I tried to lie with a woman in a border wine-shop and I could not. I only desire men. I must go back with Horemheb, my brother. But it is you I love, and one day…’

‘One day, I replied as steadily as I could, for what he said was both true and painful. ‘We will draw the latch on our hut in the reeds, leave the dog Wolf on guard, and sleep together all night in peace.’

I could not see that it would ever be so, but it comforted him, and presently we went to bed and slept and made love and slept again.

Chapter Twelve

Mutnodjme

We sat at our teacher’s feet and construed the Satire of Trades, written years ago by Dua-Khety for the instruction of his son.

‘This was quoted to me so often by my father when I was a child that I loathed it, but it is nevertheless good literature,’ said Teacher Khons, giving Merope the scroll. She began to read:

It is miserable for the carpenter when he planes the beams of a roof. It is the roof of a room measuring ten by six cubits.

‘What’s a cubit?’ she asked.

‘The length of my forearm,’ said Khons. ‘A digit is the width of my finger. There are