Today he knows that his prayer was granted. Today the army is strong and ready for the Hittites approaching at the Queen's request.
At dusk Hapiru scouts come into camp with new word of the Hittite prince's progress: Hani, the Queen's messenger, travels with him as guarantee of safety through the kingdom of Kizzuwadna.
The Hapiru also say: "And we met the Ignorant along the way." That is the word the nomads use for those who have not pledged loyalty to Egypt. They hold out a bag, which Horemheb instructs a scribe to weigh. Shortly there is the sharp ting of small bits of metal being dumped onto the ground.
Horemheb also remembers the first time he heard exactly this sound.
Ianhamu, the highest commissioner in Syria, was leading him through Byblos to meet with the King. They passed a native smith working under the direction of an Egyptian soldier. People passed by, dropping before him little statuettes and amulets of bronze. Horemheb used to see vast quantities of such things offered for sale in the markets. The smith was melting them again, casting images of gods, of Reshef, Baal, and Baalat, into tips for arrows, blades for daggers and axes, and scales for armored shirts.
What pleasure that sound gave him, assurance that the troops would be well armed. Ianhamu assigned him reinforcements, a bureaucracy of scribes and workmen under the direction of Hotep, whose father had been commissioner of Sumura. Despite his promises, Ianhamu said, Aziru had not rebuilt Sumura. Hotep would correct that oversight.
The efficiency of it all, the promise of arms, a competent bureaucracy, blinded Horemheb.
He sees well enough now, even though darkness hovers over the land and the Hittite prince comes closer yet. Sumura opened Horemheb's eyes very wide, and he must pray that it likewise opened the Queen's.
You know that the King does not fail when he rages against all of Canaan.
Sumura indeed remained in ruins.
The siege had been hard. The surrounding plain, once fertile cropland and pasture, had been churned up by horses and charred by flames, and was only now coming to life again under the half-hearted efforts of farmers and herdsmen. Much of the city had burned. Plague had claimed many. Those who remained shuffled along, their faces slack, their hearts as broken as their city. The sky itself wept for Sumura.
Amurrite chariots and foot soldiers swarmed through the ruined ramparts to meet Horemheb. Among the chariots Horemheb recognized none of Hittite make, which gave him small comfort. Ribaddi and Abimilki had claimed that Aziru honored a treaty with the Hittites.
Horemheb demanded: "Where is Aziru?"
"In Tunip," said an Amurrite. This was one of Aziru's brothers, Pubahla. "The Hittites are near Ugarit, which is not far from there."
"Would Aziru prefer to be near the King of Hatte or the King of Egypt?"
Pubahla blanched. "Near…? We had heard such a thing but did not believe."
"Did not believe or did not want to believe?"
Horemheb struck Pubahla with his staff and had him tied behind his chariot. Pubahla trotted along wretchedly, ordering the Amurrites to lay down arms and to dismount. "Aziru your lord is an anointed vassal of Egypt and these are royal troops! Obey!"
The Amurrites obeyed, warily. Horemheb led his troops in, dragging Pubahla along when he fell.
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.