The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

On the third day, Horemheb divided his troops, sending some back to Jerusalem with the loot — for not many traders came to the battlefield itself after our slaves, cooking pots and grain — and another party he sent to herd the grazing cattle. I had set up a camp for the wounded, which was guarded by a lion tail of soldiers, but the greater number of the sick men died. Horemheb himself set off with his chariots in pursuit of the Habirus, for by questioning the prisoners he had learned that the fugitives had contrived to rescue and carry away their god.

He took me with him against my will, and I stood behind him in the chariot, clutching him round the waist and wishing I had never been born. He drove like a maniac, and I thought every instant we should overturn and I should be flung out headfirst amongst the stones. But he only laughed at me and mocked me and told me he would give me a taste of war since I had come to find out what it had to say to me.

He gave me a taste of it when I saw the chariots sweep like a storm over the happily singing, palm -waving Habirus as they drove their stolen cattle to their hiding place in the wilderness. His horses trampled down the aged and women and children, and he was wreathed in the smoke of burning tents, and in blood and tears the Habirus learned that it was better to live in poverty in the desert and starve to death in their dens than to raid wealthy, fertile Syria that they might smear their sun-dried skins with oil and stuff themselves with stolen grain. Thus I tasted war which was no longer war but persecution and murder, till Horemheb himself had had enough and, turning, ordered the setting up of the boundary stones that the Habirus had thrown down without bothering to move them further into the desert even if they were able to — for he said:

“I need to keep a semen of the Habirus alive, so that I can train my men. If I pacify them all with death, there is no place on earth where I can wage war. There has been peace on earth for forty years, and all nations are at peace with each other, and the Kings of great countries call each other brothers and friends in their letters, and Pharaoh sends them gold so that they could make a golden image of him and erect it in the temples of their gods. Therefore I need to keep the semen of the Habirus alive, because after a few years the hunger will drive them again from the desert and they shall forget what they just witnessed.”

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His chariots had caught up with the Habiru god, however, and he swooped upon it like a hawk, scattering the bearers who dropped their god and abandoned him and fled to the mountains to escape the chariots. The image was later chopped up into firewood and burned before Sekhmet. The warriors smote their chests, saying, “See how we burn the god of the Habirus.” The name of this god was Jehou or Yahweh, and it was the only one the Habirus possessed, for despite all their erstwhile palm waving and songs of joy, they had to return without a god to the wilderness and thus poorer than when they had set out.

Horemheb returned to Jerusalem, which was thronged with refugees from the border country, and he sold back to them their cattle and grain and cooking pots. At this, they tore their clothes and cried, “This robber is worse than the Habirus.” But they suffered no hardship, for they were able to borrow money from their temples, from the merchants and from the tax gatherers, and what they were unable to buy, that Horemheb sold to traders who had streamed into Jerusalem from all over Syria. Thus Horemheb converted the spoils into copper and silver, which he distributed among his soldiers. I understood now why most of the wounded had died despite my care. There remained so much more booty for their comrades, who had stolen the clothes and weapons and treasure of the sick and had given them neither water nor food so that they perished. What wonder it was that unskilled meat cutters were ever eager to follow the troops into battle or that, despite their incompetence, they returned so wealthy.

Jerusalem was full of noise and clamour and the din of Syrian instruments. The soldiers had copper and silver, and they drank beer and rejoiced with painted girls that were brought by the traders, and they fought wrestling and with weapons, and they wounded each other and robbed themselves and the traders, so that each day there were men hanging on the walls heads down. But this did not upset the soldiers, for they said, “So it has ever been and will ever be.” The soldiers squandered the copper and silver on beer and girls until the traders, having thus regained their copper and silver, went away. Horemheb levied a tax upon the merchants both when they came and when they left and was thus a rich man though he had abstained from his share of the spoils. He felt no elation, and when I went to take leave of him before setting forth for Zemar, he said to me:

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