Ramses, Volume III Read online

  CRITICS SALUTE RAMSES

  “HE DIED THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. BUT HE IS STILL THE LITERARY STAR OF THE YEAR. THE RAMSES II SAGA . . . IS A MUST-READ BESTSELLER.”

  —Paris Match

  “Officially, Christian Jacq was born in Paris in 1947. In fact, his real birth took place in the time of the pharaohs, along the banks of the Nile, where the river carries eternal messages. . . . Who could ever tell that Christian Jacq, Ramses’ official scribe, was not writing from memory?”

  —Magazine Littéraire

  “With hundreds of thousands of readers, millions of copies in print, Christian Jacq’s success has become unheard of in the world of books. This man is the pharaoh of publishing!”

  —Figaro Magazine

  “In 1235 B.C., Ramses II might have said: ‘My life is as amazing as fiction!’ It seems Christian Jacq heard him. . . . Christian Jacq draws a pleasure from writing that is contagious. His penmanship turns history into a great show, high-quality entertainment.”

  —VSD

  “It’s Dallas or Dynasty in Egypt, with a hero (Ramses), beautiful women, plenty of villains, new developments every two pages, brothers fighting for power, magic, enchantments, and historical glamour.”

  —Libération

  “He’s a pyramid-surfer. The pharaoh of publishing. His saga about Ramses II is a bookselling phenomenon.”

  —Le Parisien

  RAMSES

  Volume I: The Son of Light

  Volume II: The Eternal Temple

  Volume III: The Battle of Kadesh

  Volume IV: The Lady of Abu Simbel

  Volume V: Under the Western Acacia

  RAMSES VOLUME III: THE BATTLE OF KADESH. Copyright © 1996 by Editions Robert Laffont (Volume 3). All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  For information address Warner Books, Hachette Book Group, 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017.

  A Time Warner Company

  ISBN: 978-0-446-93024-6

  Originally published in French by Editions Robert Laffont, S.A. Paris, France.

  A trade paperback edition of this book was published in 1998 by Warner Books.

  The “Warner Books” name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: March 2001

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  ONE

  Danio’s horse galloped down the overheated track leading to the Abode of the Lion, a settlement in southern Syria founded by the illustrious Pharaoh Seti. Egyptian on his father’s side and Syrian on his mother’s, Danio had chosen the honorable profession of postman, eventually specializing in priority dispatches. The government furnished the horse, along with food and clothing; Danio also qualified for housing in Sile, an outpost on the northeastern frontier, as well as free lodging in post houses. In short, a good life; constant travel and romances with Syrian girls who were ready and willing, if sometimes too interested in settling down. The moment things started getting serious, the postman was gone.

  It was in his stars. Shortly after his birth, Danio’s parents had the village astrologer cast his horoscope, which showed he would be a wanderer. He hated feeling tied down, even by an enticing mistress. He lived for the open road.

  Reliable and efficient, he received excellent performance reviews, never having misplaced a single piece of mail and often making an extra effort to expedite an urgent message. The postal service was truly his calling.

  When Ramses assumed the throne after Seti’s death, Danio had misgivings. Like many of his countrymen, he feared the young Pharaoh had the makings of a warlord and might try to reassert Egypt’s regional dominance. Ramses had spent the first four years of his reign on an ambitious round of projects—enlarging the temple of Luxor, completing the gigantic colonnade at Karnak, breaking ground for his Eternal Temple, and building a new capital, Pi-Ramses, in the Delta. Yet he had not veered from his father’s foreign policy, the centerpiece of which was a mutual nonaggression pact with Egypt’s archenemy, the Hittites. This warlike people from the windswept plateaus of Anatolia seemed less intent than usual on conquering Egypt and challenging their claim to Syria.

  The future was looking rosy until Danio noted a dramatic increase in the military correspondence between Pi-Ramses and the fortresses along the Way of Horus. He had asked his supervisors about it and quizzed the officers he met; no one knew anything, but there was talk of unrest in northern Syria and even the Egyptian-controlled province of Amurru.*

  Evidently the messages Danio delivered were intended to alert frontier post commanders along the Way of Horus.

  Thanks to Seti’s military ability, Canaan,† Amurru, and Syria now formed a vast buffer zone between the warring empires. Of course, the local overlords bore careful watching and required the occasional reminder. Nubian gold was the remedy of choice when loyalties shifted with the winds of change. The presence of Egyptian troops and their military parades on state occasions was another effective means of preserving the fragile peace.

  In times past, the forts along the Way of Horus had more than once barred their doors and sealed off the northeastern border. The Hittites had never ventured this far south, and by now the fear of hard fighting had dissipated.

  So Danio remained hopeful; the Hittites had respect for the Egyptian army, and the Egyptians feared their enemy’s violence and cruelty. Neither party would emerge unscathed from direct confrontation. It was therefore in the best interest of both to maintain the status quo and confine themselves to a war of words. Ramses, absorbed in his grandiose building program
, had no intention of provoking a fight.

  Danio thundered past the marker that showed he was entering the Abode of the Lion’s dependent farmland. Suddenly he pulled up short and retraced his path: something looked wrong.

  The postman dismounted next to the marker.

  He noted indignantly that the point of the stone slab had been damaged and several hieroglyphs defaced. The magical inscription, no longer legible, had lost the power to protect the site. The vandals would be severely punished; tampering with a royal stela was punishable by death.

  The postman realized that he was the first to stumble upon the desecration. He would lose no time reporting it to the regional commander, who would bring it to the Pharaoh’s immediate attention.

  A brick wall surrounded the complex, with two sphinxes guarding the main entrance. The postman froze in his tracks: the ramparts lay in ruins, the sphinxes lay on their sides, mutilated.

  The Abode of the Lion had been attacked.

  No sound issued from the settlement, usually so animated with infantry drills, horse training, discussions around the fountain in the center of town, noisy children, braying donkeys . . . the eerie silence caught at Danio’s throat. He uncorked his drinking gourd and took a cooling swig.

  Curiosity won out over fear. He should have turned back and alerted the nearest garrison, but he had to see for himself. Danio knew almost everyone in town, from the commander to the innkeeper. He had friends here.

  Danio’s horse whinnied and bucked; stroking his neck, the postman soothed him. Still, the beast refused to take one step forward.

  Danio made his way toward the silent town on foot.

  Grain bins slashed, jars shattered. Nothing was left of the stores of food and drink.

  The small two-story houses lay in ruins; not a single one had escaped the attackers’ fury, not even the governor’s residence.

  Not one wall of the town’s small temple stood intact. The divine likeness had been hacked at and beheaded.

  And still the thick, oppressive silence.

  Dead donkeys floated in the well; by the fountain, the remains of a bonfire where furniture and documents had been piled and burned.

  The smell.

  A clinging, sickening stench sent him in the direction of the meat market, on the north side of the complex, beneath a broad, shaded portico, where animals were butchered, carcasses cooked in a huge cauldron, fowl roasted on spits. A busy place where the postman liked to eat lunch once his messages were delivered.

  When he saw them, Danio stopped breathing.

  They were all there: soldiers, tradesmen, craftsmen, old people, women, children, babies. Heaped on top of each other, their throats slit. The governor had been impaled, the three officers hung from the crossbeams.

  On a wooden pillar, Hittite script proclaimed: Victory to the army of Muwattali, powerful sovereign of Hatti. Thus shall all of his enemies perish.

  Hittite commandos—a typical bloodthirsty raid, leaving no survivors. But this time they had pushed past their sphere of influence and struck close to the border of Egypt’s northeastern provinces.

  A sick panic swept over him. What if the Hittite strike force was still on the prowl?

  Danio backed away, still staring dumbly at the horrid spectacle. Such cruelty—taking human life without a thought for a decent burial—was beyond comprehension.

  The postman staggered toward the main gate and the toppled sphinxes. His horse had disappeared.

  He anxiously scanned the horizon for any sign of the Hittite raiders.

  Chariots . . . chariots heading in his direction!

  Wild with terror, Danio ran as fast as his feet would carry him.

  TWO

  Pi-Ramses, the Pharaoh’s new capital deep in the Delta, already had a population of more than one hundred thousand. The Nile looped around it in two branches, the Ra and the Avaris, keeping the climate pleasant even in summer. A network of canals facilitated transport, an artificial lake was delightful for boating, and ponds teemed with prize catches.

  The lush countryside provided ample food for the “Turquoise City,” as Pi-Ramses was dubbed because of the shiny tiles that graced its buildings.

  The town was a strange blend of pleasure dome and military base, with an army division headquartered in each quadrant and a weapons depot close to the palace. For months now, workers had been there day and night to manufacture chariots, armor, swords, spears, shields, and arrowheads. The central foundry boasted a specialized section for bronze work.

  A war chariot, sturdy but light, was just rolling out of the factory. It stood at the top of the ramp leading to the courtyard where such vehicles were stored under a portico. As a woodworker checked the fittings, the overseer tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Look, at the bottom of the ramp, there he is!”

  “Who?”

  The woodworker squinted and saw for himself: the Pharaoh, Lord of upper and lower Egypt, the Son of Light, Ramses.

  At twenty-six, Seti’s successor enjoyed the love and admiration of his people. Tall and athletic, a magnificent head of red-gold hair topped his square-jawed countenance with its broad, high forehead; thick brows arching over deep, sparkling eyes; long, slightly hooked nose; rounded, delicately rimmed ears; and full lips. Ramses radiated strength which some were apt to call supernatural.

  His father had trained him in the art of kingship by testing his mettle. Over a span of years, Ramses had earned the right to his glorious predecessor’s mantle of authority. Even without his ritual garments, his mere presence inspired respect.

  The king climbed the ramp and inspected the chariot. The awestruck overseer and joiner braced themselves for his opinion. A surprise visit to the factory showed Pharaoh’s personal interest in the quality of their product.

  Ramses did far more than glance at it casually. He inspected each piece of wood, prodded the shaft, tapped the wheels to make sure they were solid.

  “Nice work,” he said, “but how do we know it will hold up in battle?”

  “We have a plan, Your Majesty,” the overseer ventured. “Spare parts will be sent along for on-the-spot repairs.”

  “Have there been many incidents?”

  “No, Your Majesty. We log all problems so that design flaws can be corrected.”

  “Keep up the good work.”

  “Majesty . . . may I ask a question?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “How soon will it be?”

  “Afraid of war, are you?”

  “We’re gearing up for it, but yes, we’re frightened. How many Egyptian men will die, how many women will be widowed, how many children left fatherless? May the gods spare us from such a conflict!”

  “May they hear your prayer! But what would our duty be if Egypt were under threat?”

  The overseer hung his head.

  “Egypt is our mother, our past and our future,” Ramses reminded him. “She gives unstintingly, a constant bounty . . . Are we to respond with ingratitude, selfishness, and cowardice?”

  “We want to live, Majesty.”

  “If need be, Pharaoh will give his life for Egypt. Work in peace, my good man.”

  What a thriving place his capital was! Pi-Ramses was a dream come true, where the sun seemed always to shine. The former site of Avaris, despised stronghold of earlier Asian invaders, had been transformed into a charming and elegant city, where rich and poor alike could bask in the shade of the sycamore and the acacia.

  The king liked to walk in the countryside with its luxuriant vegetation, flower-lined paths, and canals perfect for swimming. He stopped to taste a sweet apple, then a plump onion, crossed the vast olive groves that produced an unending flow of oil, and savored the fragrance of garden flowers. His outing would end at the dockyards, which grew busier by the day, crammed with storehouses where the city’s wealth of precious metal, rare woods, and grain was kept.

  For the past few weeks, however, Ramses had had little time to stroll country lanes or the streets of his Turq
uoise City. Most of his time was spent on base, with commanding officers, charioteers, and infantrymen, all quite content with their fine new installations.

  The members of the standing army, which included a number of mercenaries, were delighted with their wages and excellent rations, but grumbled about the constant drilling. They were sorry they had joined during peacetime when they were convinced it would last. Even the most hardened veterans blanched at the prospect of passing from training, however intensive, to a full-blown war with the Hittites. The Anatolians had a reputation for cruelty and were undefeated in recent memory.

  Ramses had sensed the fear gradually infiltrating his troops and tried to quell it by visiting each of the four bases, leading the various units through their drills. He must appear serene and keep the men’s confidence high, although his soul was in torment.

  How could he feel at ease in the city he had built with the help of Moses, his boyhood friend, when Moses was gone? Wanted for the murder of Sary, the king’s disgraced brother-in-law, Moses had fled soon after his teams of Hebrew brickmakers finished the Turquoise City. Yet Ramses still found the accusation hard to believe, since Sary, his onetime tutor, had been an inveterate plotter who badly mistreated the brickmakers. The murder must simply have been an argument gone terribly wrong.

  When his long-lost friend was not on his mind, the king spent long hours with his older brother and secretary of state, Shaanar, and Ahsha, head of the Secret Service. Shaanar had done everything in his power to keep Ramses off the throne, but now he seemed to have learned his lesson and took his new role quite seriously. As for Ahsha, the rising star of the Foreign Service, he was a brilliant schoolmate of Ramses and Moses whom the king trusted implicitly.

  Each day the three men reviewed the intelligence from Syria and tried to assess the situation. At what point would Egypt be forced to check the Hittite advance?

  Ramses was obsessed with the huge map of the Near East and Asia on view in his office. To the north was the kingdom of Hatti. The capital, Hattusa, was in the heart of the Anatolian plateau. Farther south lay Syria, a vast stretch bordering the Mediterranean. He traced the Orontes River, which flowed through it. The country’s main stronghold was Kadesh, under Hittite control. South of that was the province of Amurru and the ports of Byblos, Tyre, and Sidon, controlled by Egypt. Next was Canaan, also faithful to the Pharaoh.