A blood-curdling scream echoed from the house. Nebamun gestured at me. I took some archers and a group of Nakhtu-aa and we entered the Hall of Audience. At least seven or eight of the enemy had flanked the house and broken through a window. They’d killed the meagre guard and were now trying to force the stairs. Dark, heavy shapes in their dyed animal skins, carrying sword and shield, they were being held back by Djarka and household servants armed with bows. Even Ankhesenamun was there, beautiful as Sekhmet the Destroyer, bow in hand, a quiver of arrows held by Amedeta. Three of the enemy were already down. We hurried across even as a black shape raced in front of us. Nebamun’s war dog had broken free from its chain. A ferocious mastiff, it tore down one of the attackers, jaws slashing his throat. We closed with the rest, hacking and cutting. I heard a shout and turned. A Libyan had slipped behind me, sword raised, face snarling. An arrow pierced him full in his throat, whilst another smacked into his chest. Djarka, bow in hand, smiled at me, Ankhesenamun behind him. To this day I never really knew who shouted my name or loosed that first arrow.
We cut the throats of the wounded enemy and tried to reboard the windows. Clouds of smoke billowed about; the attackers, eager for pillage, had also invaded the nearby mansion. Screams and yells carried faintly on the breeze, but there was nothing we could do to help. We hurried back. A fierce battle raged in the courtyard. The Egyptian ranks held, but a ferocious hand-to-hand combat had broken out. The Hittite’s officers were leading a pointed wedge, desperate to break through to assault Nebamun and his staff and, after that, penetrate the house. The press was so thick that those in the rear ranks could only stand and watch. Now and again archers tried to loose but grew increasingly fearful of hitting their own men. Black plumes of smoke rose from the riverside.
I reached Nebamun just as the Hittite wedge finally broke through. A furious blood-spilling scramble ensued, hacking with knife, sword and club. The ground grew slippery underfoot. The Hittites were so furious, wild-eyed and reckless in their bravery, I wondered if they had been drinking or were drugged. I did what I could, fearful yet more frightened of being a coward. One of Nebamun’s staff officers collapsed beside me, almost dragging me down in his death throes. We began to push the Hittites back even as we heard the shrill trumpet blast and the cheers of our men. The assault slackened. The surviving Hittite soldiers were looking over their shoulders. The lines in front of us gave way. Nebamun shouted that his chariot squadrons had arrived. Of course, the ground outside the gates was too narrow and restricted to deploy them, but the troops they brought now harassed the enemy’s rear. More importantly, the chariot squadron had also paused to fire the barges. The enemy’s retreat was blocked and a bloody massacre now took place. No quarter was given. The killing was relentless. The courtyard swilled with blood, and in places the corpses were piled two or three high. Some of the enemy escaped across the walls only to be hunted down; a number even broke into the house, but they were caught, dragged out and executed.
At last the enemy threw down their weapons. There must have been about forty or fifty prisoners who were cruelly shoved and pushed into the centre whilst Nakhtu-aa combed the courtyard. The Egyptian casualties were dragged out and taken through the gate, where a makeshift hospital was set up under the trees. The enemy wounded had their throats cut; those still able to stand were hauled to their feet and pushed over to join the rest of the prisoners. Nebamun ordered a part of the courtyard in front of the house to be cleared. The regimental standards of the Horus and Ptah were brought out and placed beside a hastily built altar dedicated to Seth the Destroyer. The line of prisoners, arms bound behind their backs, were hustled up and forced to kneel. Nebamun grabbed each by the hair and, with his own war club, dashed their brains out. The ominous silence of the slaughter yard echoed with the moans of the captives, the exclamations of their escort and that hideous rushing sound as the war club smashed bone and brain.
Two Hittite officers had survived. They were not treated as the rest. Instead, Nebamun took them down into the cavernous cellar of his house. He ordered them to be hung by their wrists from the beams, and a fire lit beneath their bare feet. Sobeck and I and Nebamun’s principal officers gathered round. We were joined by the Colonel’s chief scribe, who understood the Hittite tongue.
The blood lust was still upon us. We nursed bruises and injuries, whilst the cries of our wounded were pitiful. The Hittites were brave, their strange parrot-like faces laced with bloody sweat. The cavern was lit by the glow from the fires. At first they tried to curb their screams as they jerked in agony. The smell of their burning flesh was sickening. Nebamun’s interpreter kept up his questioning. Neither officer would answer, so Nebamun had the older one, who bore the insignia of office around his neck, cut down and blinded. The questioning continued. The Hittite who’d lost his sight, eyes gouged out by one of Nebamun’s men, eventually lost consciousness. Nebamun ordered his throat to be cut and turned to the other, whose face was contorted in pain. The scribe kept up his questions like a priest gabbling his prayers. Now and again I would intervene. The Hittite knew a little Egyptian, but still refused to answer. At last Nebamun kicked away the pile of glowing charcoal beneath the prisoner’s feet.
‘Tell him,’ he ordered the scribe, ‘that if he answers our questions he will be given an honourable death. He will die like a soldier.’
The scribe repeated this. The Hittite looked as if he was about to refuse. Nebamun held up his dagger, pricking the prisoner’s face just beneath his left eye.
‘I know the Hittite customs,’ he told the scribe. ‘If he loses his sight he will never see his Storm God.’
The scribe translated. The Hittite’s body fell slack. For a while he just swayed backwards and forwards, then he muttered something. The scribe smiled at Nebamun.
‘He will talk,’ he declared. ‘In return for a goblet of wine and a warrior’s death.’
metcha
(Ancient Egyptian for ‘to destroy, to slay’)
Chapter 5
A deep-bowled goblet of wine was brought for the Hittite. He sat with his back to the cellar wall, facing Nebamun and myself, who were flanked by officers. Behind us stood two Nubian archers, arrows notched to their bows. At first the Hittite sang softly to himself, head going backwards and forwards. I had met Hittites before in the mercenary corps, as well as those Akenhaten had garbed in women’s clothes and called his Orchestra of the Sun. The captive was a young man probably not yet twenty years, a blue tattoo on his right cheek. The scribe who writes these memoirs asks me why I recall such things. It’s because they are pictures in my mind. I have to call up the smell, the taste, and once I do, everything else comes back. I recall how musty that cellar smelt. The odour of drying blood, of cooling sweat, our bodies still tingling from the frenetic excitement of battle. The Hittite prayed to his strange Weather God, sipping his wine. Nebamun leaned across and tapped him on the wrist with his staff. A litany of questions began, translated by the scribe.
‘Where are you from?’
‘The land of the Hittites.’
Nebamun smacked him warningly on the wrist.
‘Where are you from?’
‘Sile, in the Delta.’
‘And who sent you?’
‘The ruler of the Two Lands — Neferheperure-Waenree, Akenhaten.’