28
I tried to stir, but pain danced through my body. My hands and feet were bound, my mouth was gagged with a filthy rag, and I seemed unable to open my eyes; a raging thirst parched my throat, and the brutal sun burned my face. I tried to make sense of things: the rumble of cartwheels, the irregular sound of horses’ hooves on the rough ground, and the casual banter, cheerful shouts and aggressive laughter of men all around, in a language I did not understand.
I managed to open one eye. The other was swollen shut. It throbbed uncomfortably. The first thing I made out in the squinting light was Nakht’s face, very close to mine. His mouth was open, his face bruised, and his lips parched. His eyes were closed. Beyond him lay Prince Zannanza, awake and terrified, his mouth also gagged, his desperate, beautiful eyes pleading with mine. On the far side of the cart lay Simut, unconscious. Dried blood caked his face and beard, and flies feasted around a large, open gash on his head. His face was badly bruised. I saw his lips twitch against the flies. We four were all still alive. Why? And what of the guards?
The cart rattled jarringly over stones. I could make out little of the men on horseback who surrounded us- they were shadows silhouetted against the dazzle of the sun. But one of them saw I was conscious, and called out. The cart suddenly halted. He leaned down, unknotted the gag, and threw it aside. I gasped in the hot, dry desert air. I tried to speak. ‘Water…’ My voice was cracked and broken. One of them said something to the others, which made them laugh. Then several stood up in their stirrups, pulled aside their robes, and began to piss on me. I closed my eyes and mouth against the hot, revolting spatter, but they only laughed harder as I tried to squirm away. Then they pissed on Nakht and Prince Zannanza, too. This woke Nakht from his torpor; he coughed and cried out in revulsion. I was suddenly possessed by the strength of outrage, and, despite my hands being bound behind my back, I yanked myself to my feet, off the cart, and ran at the men, screaming with rage, trying to butt them with my head; but my legs gave way, and I fell to the ground, humiliated. This only delighted them more, and they roared with laughter. Several got down from their horses, I supposed to beat me up. I picked myself up to run at them again. But then a woman’s voice, commanding and deep, berated the men, and they stepped back, obedient as a pack of snarling dogs.
She stood gazing at me, her hands on her hips, and her wild hair like a glorious mane about her face, smeared with dust and blood. She dashed water from her leather water-skin over my face, then gripped my head between her fingers and turned it this way and that, as if valuing a horse. She raised her sword, drew the point of the blade under each eye, down my nose, and across my lips, like a crude version of the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, as if she were a high priest, and I the corpse waiting to be resurrected in the Otherworld: ‘You are young again, you live again, you are young again, you live again, forever.’ I jerked my head back, out of her grip. She smacked me hard, but then, as if pleased about something, she shouted, in a voice that could have knocked down a stone temple, something that sounded like ‘Inanna!’-and her wild Army of Chaos screamed in respect.
She gripped my face again, prised my teeth apart, held the leather water-skin from her belt to my mouth, and poured a stream of clear, cool, blissful water for me to drink. Then she nodded to one of her men, who gave Nakht and Prince Zannanza brief draughts of water from his water-skin, too. Simut was still unconscious. The man splashed the water over his face, but it made no difference. I was afraid he might be dead. But the man cuffed Simut about the face, pulled him into a sitting position, and forced water down his throat. Suddenly Simut coughed and retched. He was alive.
The others were ordered to get out of the cart, and we were made to stand in a line. Now I could see more clearly the motley militia under Inanna’s command. They wore black, together with exotic assemblies of gold collars, bangles and jewels. Their hair and beards were worn braided or plaited in wild, different styles. They were extensively armed, and must have collected their weapons from a wide range of victims, for some of them I recognized as Egyptian, some as Hittite, and others were unfamiliar to me. But to the last man, they looked like brutal criminals.
Inanna walked up and down imperiously, assessing us in turn. She gazed at Prince Zannanza, marvelling and whistling at his perfect white teeth, his smooth face, and his delicate hands whose unblemished skin showed a lifetime of luxurious leisure. She called out ribald comments, and her men guffawed, and slapped each other’s hands. Some approached the Prince aggressively, brandishing their weapons and mocking him. Inanna seemed curious about Nakht, too.
‘What is your name, Egyptian?’ She spoke in broken, strangely accented Egyptian.
‘I am Userhat,’ he lied.
‘What are you?’ she demanded.
‘I am a merchant.’
‘What do you trade? This delicate beauty next to you?’ she said.
‘He is a young scholar of the Hittite court, and we are accompanying him to Ugarit,’ he said.
She laughed out loud. ‘How beautiful are the young scholars of the Hittites! He must be very valuable.’ Nakht said nothing. She cuffed him hard across the face. ‘You lie,’ she said, simply. ‘I know who you are.’
But Nakht’s spirit seemed to revive within him, and he stared her down.
‘Egyptian armed forces will be looking for us, even now,’ he said. ‘The Hittite army will vow revenge against any harm that comes to this man, or us. You have committed a foolish crime against the empires of Egypt and Hatti, and it will be best for you if you supply us with horses and water, and release us now.’
During this, Inanna began cleaning her long nails with the tip of a dagger, shaking her head with amusement. But suddenly she pushed the point of the blade right against Nakht’s lips.
‘Open your mouth, Egyptian liar,’ she hissed. He complied, and she slowly pushed the blade deep into his mouth. He gagged, desperate not to have it cut his lips or his face open. His eyes blazed with the dishonour of it. She forced him down on his knees.
‘For lying to Inanna, I should slice off your tongue and your lips and make you swallow them. Your lies would not be so elegant, then.’
The moments passed in agony. Nakht tried to return her gaze, and waited for his fate.
‘You understand me now,’ she said. ‘It is I who speak the truth. You are all my slaves. Do not think of attempting to escape. Egypt is far away. You will not see your land again. Here lives death. She is standing before you now.’
And she withdrew the dagger and raised her fist, commanding a jubilant roar from her men.
Our path veered south, away from the westerly direction where the Way of Horus, and our chosen route to safety and home, lay. We were entering unknown territory. The chances of our being rescued or found were extremely slight. For who would venture into these wastelands, and even if they did, how could they locate us? Far in the distance rose a line of mountains, pale misty shapes like sleeping monsters in the afternoon heat. We continued through the barren wastes all day, and the sun was descending when we reached the grey and silver foothills that ran along the eastern slopes of the mountains. We slowly climbed up and up, until eventually we reached a cool, high, rocky pass which gave way to a spectacular vision: an amazing hidden valley falling away below us on the far side, its wide floor and lower slopes to the south packed full of intensely green fields, spreading as far as the eye could see to a far mountain peak, topped with snow, which shone with the light of the setting sun in the furthest distance. Everything was illuminated by the long, incongruously golden light of the early evening; after so long in the dry lands, it felt as if we had arrived in the Field of Reeds as depicted in our Books of the Dead. It looked like the promised bounty of the Otherworld.
Inanna raised her sword, rose up on her stirrups, and cried out her name down into the valley, where it echoed briefly. Her men yelled and whooped all around us, relishing the echoes that came back to them; and then we began the descent, following an established route down the rocky slopes, and around the scattered boulders. Soon we were riding down through densely cultivated fields. It was warmer on the valley floor. Poor, aggressive- looking farmers prostrated themselves in fear and awe, but turned their faces away from the sight of us, making the sign of the evil eye. Children ran alongside, until Inanna’s men chased them away, and they raced, shouting, into the fields to hide. Peasants were labouring everywhere. Countless white, red and pink flowers rose from the richly green plants. And then I was suddenly struck by a revelation: these flowers were poppies. They were growing opium.
Near sunset, we stopped at a spring, to refresh the horses. Our hands were unbound and we were allowed to
