The Amarnan Kings, Book 2: Scarab - Smenkhkare by Overton Max

Author:Overton, Max [Overton, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Writers Exchange E-Publishing
Published: 2011-07-25T16:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Nineteen

Horemheb was in Waset. Somehow, in their passage down the flooded river, Scarab and Khu had passed him by; whether at night when the boat, wallowing heavily in the water under the weight of melons and cucumbers, tied up to the trunk of a tree; or just passed unseen during the day, the boats separated by the wide expanse of water. Certainly there had been many boats and any one of them could have held the General. On the other hand, maybe he had brought his army with him and traveled by the land route, bypassing the flooded valley. All Scarab could find for certain was that Horemheb had been in Ineb Hedj on his way south but left long before she had arrived.

"So what do we do?" Khu asked simply. "Turn around and go back to Waset?"

"I'm tempted," Scarab replied. "Even if only because I must see Horemheb. It's too dangerous though. If Ay caught even a hint we were near..."

"So what then?"

"We carry on up to Zarw. That is Horemheb's military base, he will be returning there."

Just north of the city of Ineb Hedj, the great river divided into several great channels and the number of smaller waterways and lagoons of the Delta of Lower Kemet. The annual flood turned the discrete channels into a broad sheet of water dotted here and there with clumps of trees, beds of papyrus sedge, the tops of their leafy stalks riffling the surface of the water, and low hillocks crowded with mournful herds of cattle. It was easy to get passage on a boat out of Ineb Hedj, especially heading north into the flooded lands. Farmers and herdsmen, out of work until the waters subsided, readily took on other work and there was fierce competition for the tiny shaving of gold on offer. In the end, Scarab settled on a boat owned by a young lad from a village that now lay under water. His name was Amenhotep, the same as her father, yet a more dissimilar person could not be imagined. Where Amenhotep the king was--or had been--tall and handsome, strong as a bull and beautiful to look at, the young lad Amenhotep was short and scrawny, with a squint that made his face a perpetual scowl. He had a sunny disposition though and he managed the boat with a consummate skill, as if born to the water trade.

The flooded river broadened as it reached the flat lands of the Delta, spreading out over the land almost as far as the eye could see. Only the pyramids, those mountains of stone so old not even the priests could truly say who had built them, men or gods, towered above the river valley on their own western plateau. The current carried them past and into Lower Kemet.

Khu looked over to where Amenhotep stood in the stern, lazily sweeping the rear oar as he kept the small boat stable, pointed down river. "Do you know where we are going?" he asked.

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