Pyramid

PROLOGUE

The chariot swept around in a wide arc in front of the pharaoh, the horses kicking up a cloud of dust and coming to a halt stamping and snorting, their eyes bloodshot and their mouths flecked with foam. The charioteer held the reins while a portly official stepped off the back, and then he flicked his whip and drove off to join the others waiting in the wings on either side of the pharaoh. The official waddled up, his bare belly juddering, trying to fan the beads of sweat that were forming on his shaven head and jowls. He came to a halt, catching his breath, blinking the sweat out of his eyes as he knelt down and prostrated himself.

“Well, vizier, what news from the east?”

“May the light of the Aten shine on you, Neferkheperure-Waenre Akhenaten, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the East and the West, Lord of the Worlds, Lord of the Heavens and the Earth and all that lies between them.” The man wheezed, kneeling like a dog in front of the pharaoh and slowly lowering his belly into the dust.

“Yes, yes, you fool, get up. What news, I say?”

The vizier struggled to his feet, his knees and the front of his belly smudged with dust, and then shut his eyes as he declaimed, “Their kings prostrate themselves and beg for peace. Canaan is devastated, Ashkelon is vanquished, Gezer is taken, Yenoam is annihilated, the land of the Shasu is laid waste, its seed existing no more; Syria is made a widow for Egypt, and all the lands have been pacified.”

Akhenaten tapped his fingers impatiently. It was the same tired old formula, platitudes he had heard reeled out to his father, Amenhotep, and his grandfather, Thutmose, before that. He leaned forward in his palanquin chair, the slaves holding it on either side quickly adjusting their positions to keep it upright. “Yes, vizier, but what about Mât Urusalim, the Land of Jerusalem? That is what I sent you to resolve.”

The man reached into a leather pouch on his belt and pulled out a clay tablet. It was covered with the punched writing that Akhenaten recognized from the tiresome cascade of tablets he received in his royal capital of Amarna from the sea traders of Canaan, all of them wanting to do trade with him. The vizier gave a little cough and attempted to puff out his chest. “It is from the King of Jerusalem. It says: ‘To the pharaoh, my lord. Thus Abdu-Heba, your servant. At the two feet of my lord, the pharaoh, seven times and seven times again I fall. Behold, the pharaoh has set his name in the Land of Jerusalem forever, so he cannot abandon the lands of Jerusalem! Those who come from Egypt with the golden seal of the pharaoh will be welcome, and may stay.’ ”

Awash with relief, Akhenaten sat back under the shade of the parasol. Everything was as planned. He waved dismissively, but the vizier remained stock-still, uncertain what to do, expecting further instructions. He waved again and the man suddenly took the cue, awkwardly attempting a bow and then shuffling backward and scurrying out of sight. The chariot corps commander, who had been standing next to the chair, turned to him. “With the lands of Canaan vanquished and the King of Jerusalem your vassal, all we have to do now is destroy the renegades in front of us, and your conquest of the peoples of the east will be complete. No longer will the kings of Ashkelon or Canaan or Syria side with the Hittites against us. Today the weight of history is in your favor.”

Akhenaten looked toward the red glow of dawn in the east, above the place a mile from them where the level plain of the desert dropped in a cliff to the great gulf of the sea. “Indeed it is, Mehmnet-Ptah. Are your divisions ready?”

“The divisions of Ra and Seth are formed up, Pharaoh. All we await now is the division of Mina.”

“When the divisions are ready, when the sun glints above the horizon, you will lead the charge in my golden chariot, Mehmnet-Ptah. You will inspire your men, and strike fear into the hearts of the enemy.”

“It should be you who drives the golden chariot, Pharaoh.”

“The Aten has blinded me to everything but his brilliance, Mehmnet-Ptah. I can no longer see to drive an earthly chariot, but the rays of the Aten will reflect from my eyes and light your way. You will charge on my command.”

“It will be so, Pharaoh.” The general strode off, followed by his retinue of staff officers. On either side, the chariots of the two divisions stood in long lines as far as the eye could see, the horses drinking from buckets carried up and down the line by slaves, the charioteers and bowmen sitting in the sand behind, resting and checking the torsion of their bows. Their chariots were of a new design, lithe, well sprung, copied from the chariots of the Mitanni that Mehmnet-Ptah had so admired when he had campaigned in the ancient land of the two rivers when he was a youth. It had been Moses the Israelite who had given them the design, who had brought before Mehmnet-Ptah an Assyrian chariot-maker from among the slaves who was willing to trade the secrets for his freedom — Moses who with his people was now concealed behind that distant ridge overlooking the sea, waiting for the trumpets to blare and the chariots to come thundering toward them across the desert.

Akhenaten stared again at the horizon and shifted his head slightly from side to side. His eyesight was not as bad as he had made out, but the image of the sun was seared into his eyes from the time he had spent staring up at it in the desert, soaking in the rays of the Aten. He contented himself with imagining the shimmer of the great gulf of the sea beyond, and on the cliff top above it the encampment of the Israelites. He had told Moses to camp there, brazenly so, on the very edge of the cliff, their campfires burning through the night so that when the Egyptian scouts saw them there should be no uncertainty, and the massed army that followed would know where to aim their chariots with the coming of dawn in order to destroy the Israelites once and forever.

He thought of that word: Israelite. It was Akhenaten who had given it to them, plucked from among the multitude of their origins because it was the name of Moses’ own tribe, and he who had first written it down for them in a hieroglyphic cartouche. Yet those few hundred encamped by the sea were of many origins — Syrian, Canaanite, Elamite, Hurrian — from all the tribes and kingdoms between Egypt and the Hittites and the empire of the Assyrians, prisoners of war and their descendants from the many campaigns waged by Egypt in those lands. To be called Israelite, to accept it, did not give the slaves the illusion of one origin, but the dream of one destiny. It had been the dream of Moses, the one who had been his slave and had become his brother, who had travelled with him to the desert of Nubia and shared the revelation of the Aten, the god whom Moses in his language called Jehovah, the one and only god.

After today both men would be able to fulfil the dream they had shared in the desert. Akhenaten would return to his capital stronger than before, a vanquisher of enemies, a warrior-pharaoh like his father and grandfather, unhindered by those of the old religion who would seek to undermine him; Moses and his people could celebrate their miraculous deliverance from the army of the pharaoh and go to the haven that Akhenaten had found for them, far away on the rocky mount of Jerusalem. Together they would build not one City of Light but two, shining beacons of the one god that would unify all the peoples of the world and make wisdom and knowledge the new religion.

Akhenaten felt a presence to his right and turned, seeing past the slaves holding up his chair to a chariot that had drawn up alongside. Through his blurred vision and the dust, the chariot seemed monochrome, a coppery red, as if it had somehow driven up from the underworld, and for a second he remembered the cold fear he had felt as a boy when he was still in the grips of the old religion and its superstitions. He then heard the voice of a woman, hoarse and sharp edged. “Akhenaten,” she said contemptuously, looking down from the chariot on him. “Who is this Akhenaten? I know only Amenhotep, the weakling child who always had his head in papyrus scrolls.” She spoke in a language incomprehensible to those around them, the language of their great-great-grandmother Ahhotep, first Mistress of the Shores, wife of the pharaoh Ahmose, a language learned in secret by all in the royal line who descended from her.

“A lot has happened since you were last here, Mina,” he replied, speaking in her tongue. “I am now pharaoh, and you are Mistress of the Shores.”

“Pah.” She spat the words out. “Mistress of the Shores. I am more than that. We hold the men of Mycenae in our thrall. They think they control our island that you Egyptians call Hau-nebut because when they came after the gods inundated our palaces with the great wave, we retreated to the mountains and the southern shore. But we seduce their warriors and breed with them and take our female offspring as our own, training them in all the skills that Ahhotep passed down to us. I am no longer merely Mistress of the Shores. Now, I am Mistress of War.”

Akhenaten smiled to himself. Mina had come from her island fastness to the north at his beckoning; she had been promised gold but was lured more by the prospect of war. Her warriors had sailed across the sea in sleek ships, so unlike anything Egyptian, vessels that Akhenaten would one day use for his own final voyage. Mina had always been one for posturing, but unlike many male warriors who boasted, her posturing was backed up by a bloodcurdling ability on the battlefield, with what she called kharme, battle lust. Mina’s female warriors had been the mercenaries of choice for his father and grandfather, preferred over the Nubians, who had now become too integrated into Egypt and her intrigues. Mina was perfect for Akhenaten’s task. He needed mercenaries who would do exactly as they were bidden, who would leave with their gold and never tell the truth of what had happened on this day.

Akhenaten looked sideways at the chariot again, suddenly seeing her. She was standing on the platform, one hand on her hip, holding the reins. Her thick black hair was wound around her head and fell in tresses down her back, hanging over her bow. She wore a skirt and corset, which pushed up and exposed her ample breasts. Two big snakes curled over them and around her neck, and with her free hand she slowly caressed them. Behind her Akhenaten could see more chariots drawn up, a division that he knew amounted to no more than two hundred warriors but would be easily enough for his purpose.

Mina gestured toward the cliff edge to the east. “It will be suicidal for your chariots. Is this your intention?”

He refused to answer directly. “When I give the signal, you and your warriors will charge ahead of the two Egyptian divisions. They will already be stoked up, and seeing your women take the lead, bravado and lust will drive them farther. But only you will know that the Israelite encampment is right on the cliff edge, leaving the Egyptians no room to wheel once they have driven through it. At the last moment before reaching the camp, you will wheel to the right and left and leave the two Egyptian divisions to charge straight through.”

“Over the cliff into the sea.”

“Are your chariots up to the task?”

She snorted. “It is not the chariot that matters, but the charioteer. We all drive the same chariots, your divisions and mine. They all have wheels at the back, six spoked, and the leather harnesses that yoke the horses. They can be driven as fast as the sound of their coming, but drive them that fast and you will never be able to turn them. Your charioteers are inexperienced, and train too little. You have been lazy in war, Akhenaten, unlike your father and grandfather. You have been spending too much time staring at the sun. But today the inexperience of your charioteers will work to your advantage. They think that the ease with which they can gather speed makes them nimble and warlike, when it will just hurtle them to their deaths. My charioteers know how to fly toward an enemy and then wheel at the last minute to loose their arrows at close range. We will do the same maneuver today.”

“Prepare your division.”

Mina pulled on the reins and turned her chariot back toward the others. Akhenaten remembered the last time she had been in Egypt, when he had called on her to protect the border to the south against nomadic raiding. She had visited him and Nefertiti in Amarna and held their child Tutankh-aten, a sickly boy whom nobody expected to live long enough to succeed his father. Mina had suggested that they expose him to the elements, as they did unwanted infants in the mountains of her island. She had said that if he did survive, he would be too weak to resist a resurgence of the old religion, plunging Egypt back into an obsession with the afterlife, and the priests would once again be in control. Akhenaten had known that she was right, but he could not bring himself to kill his own son. It was then he knew that his legacy would have to be a secret one, not open for all to see as the new Jerusalem would be, but something hidden, secreted away in the most venerated place in Egypt, where its presence could be safeguarded for the future by a new priesthood sworn to serve only the Aten.

The line of trumpeters to his left had been gaping at Mina and her bare-breasted warriors, and now looked at him expectantly. To the east the glow of dawn had become stronger, and a crack of sunlight appeared between land and sky. Akhenaten extended his left hand, and the trumpeters instantly raised their instruments and blew, a ragged noise at first that levelled out and became a deafening blare across the desert. It was the signal to mount up. The men turned from leering at the women and leapt on their chariots, the drivers unleashing the reins and standing with their whips at the ready, the archers pulling arrows out of their quivers and stringing them loosely in their bows. Out of the dust to his right, Mehmnet-Ptah appeared in his royal chariot, glinting now in the sunlight, his great curved sword upraised, and pulled to a halt just ahead of the start line. Stamped into the gold and electrum shield at the front of the chariot were the wings of Horus, the falcon god, and above it Akhenaten could see the rays of the Aten and the cartouche containing his own name. Behind him Mina drew up with a section of her chariots, and he saw others of her division stream off to the left and right to take up positions on either flank of the Egyptian charioteers, ready to funnel them toward the encampment below the rising sun.

Akhenaten’s own chariot drew up alongside. He got up, waved the charioteer aside, and took his place at the reins. He would drive the chariot himself, spurring his army on like the warrior pharaohs of old, but he would fall back behind the main body before they converged on the cliff encampment. He stared to the east, narrowing his eyes. The light was stronger now, searing his vision on either side of his blind spot. If he did not give the signal soon, the horses might shy away from it and refuse to gallop, but he wanted to wait long enough that the sun would blind the drivers as they hurtled closer to the edge. The blare of the trumpets had also been the last warning to any of the Israelites who might remain in the camp. Moses should by now have spirited them away along the perilous path just beneath the lip of the cliff, and they should be far away to the north. If all went according to plan, after this morning there would no longer be an Egyptian chariot army to pursue the Israelites; they should be able to make their way across the northern isthmus of the gulf beyond the border of Egypt and to safety.

Mehmnet-Ptah looked back to him. Akhenaten raised his arm again, and then dropped it. With a huge battle cry, the general whipped his horses forward, his sword flashing. On either side the ground rumbled, and, like a great wave breaking on a beach, the line of chariots surged forward in a cacophony of yelling and neighing and screeching of wheels. Then Mina and her chariots followed, hurtling ahead like a spear thrust through the center of the line. For an instant Akhenaten saw her as he whipped his horses forward, saw the snakes held high above her head like batons, writhing and turning, heard her warriors shrieking and ululating as they shot past. Soon they had overtaken Mehmnet-Ptah and disappeared in the cloud of dust that had risen above the plain. Far out on either side he could see the two flanking lines sweeping ahead and closing in to constrict the main force, driving it toward the cliff-top encampment. As the dust enveloped the last of the charioteers, all he could hear was an extraordinary din, like the sound of a rushing sandstorm heading out from the desert and dropping into the canyon of the sea.

He veered right, reached the cliff edge, and turned to look back at the Israelite encampment. The dust cloud had rolled ahead of the chariots and erupted like a huge exhalation from the desert, billowing and swirling out over the sea. An astonishing sight met his eyes, almost impossible to register. In the final seconds as the first rank of charioteers had realized their mistake in driving too fast at the cliff edge, they had tried to rein in their horses, slowing them enough that the following ranks had crashed into them, each successive rank doing the same. The combined momentum of horses and chariots and men had pushed the entire army in one impacted mass over the cliff, the leading edge appearing out of the dust cloud hundreds of feet above the sea. For a moment the mass seemed suspended in space, like a great frieze of battle carved into the wall of a temple, and then with a cacophony of shrieking and whinnying and bellowing it plummeted to the sea, a thrashing, seething mass of limbs and wheels and spars that fell like some monstrous apparition from the heavens, hitting the water with a mighty crash. Giant waves erupted around the edges, throwing dismembered parts of horses and men far into the air to rain down on either side. Within the tumult it was as if the seas themselves had parted, exposing a sloping sandy seabed littered with chariots that still seemed to be driving forward into the depths, their horses and charioteers gone.

Churning waters enveloped the scene, with shattered and burst bodies and slicks of blood lying thick on the surface. Akhenaten peered along the cliff face to the north, imagining the Israelites who he knew would have been left behind to watch before catching up with the main exodus. He knew that what they had seen today, the destruction of an army, the parting of the seas, would become a legend of their people as they fled along the great canyon of the gulf to the north. It truly had been the work of the Aten, the chariot army having been blinded by the rays of the sun, but only he and Moses would know that it was a deliverance planned not by divine wisdom but by two men intent on saving those whom they had chosen to be the people to carry forth the worship of the one god.

Then on the cliff edge out of the dust on either side he saw a distant line of chariots streaming off to the north and south, looping around to their rendezvous point somewhere behind him; it was Mina’s division, their job done. But from the center of the dust storm there was nothing, no longer any sound, no chariots returning. He had achieved what no enemy of Egypt had achieved in a thousand years. He had driven a pharaoh’s army, his own army, to utter destruction, over a cliff into the sea, leaving no survivors and no trace of their passing.

He reined around and turned his back on the scene, looking to the left and then right, and seeing the emptiness where the army had once been, the dust still settling on the scuffed hoof prints and the shallow depressions where the soldiers had been resting mere minutes before. He felt the warmth of the sun on his neck, and looking to the west he saw only the burning white disk in his vision that blotted out all but the shimmering sands of the desert. It was with him all the time now, the light of the Aten shining through all his thoughts and his deeds.

Now was the time for his own destiny.