Harry Turtledove (Editor) - Alternate Generals II

"The war that you have waged is to end," Ankhetkheprure wrote to Horemheb. "I have written to Suppililiuma, King of Hatte, to send a son."

At the hour of dawn, one of Horemheb's aides, Paramessu son of Sety, comes to him. "General, they are here. Shall I go out to meet them?"

Horemheb studies Paramessu. He is much like his father, hawk-nosed and tall. "No. This time let the Hittites come to us." He orders his troops into formation, a show of strength and precision.

Into the camp Hani, the Queen's messenger, leads a caravan of laden carts and asses, chariots and horses finely arrayed. Riding in a heavy chariot of the sort defeated at Kadesh, the prince, scarcely in the flush of adolescence, wears weapons tucked in his belt, but it is the gold amulet around his neck, a pendant in the form of some Hittite god, that most worries Horemheb. The length of Canaan and the breadth of Syria are the horizon of the Aten. What will become of it without the Sole-One-of-Re on the throne? What is the Queen's will?

Horemheb greets the prince in the names of Ankhetkheprure and of the Aten. "Which son of Suppililiuma are you?"

"Mursili, his second," replies the boy in a voice still high and fine.

Hani reaches out and snaps the amulet from around Mursili's neck. In two hands he holds it high, to the east, and, uttering the name of Ankhetkheprure-Beloved-of-the-Sole-One-of-Re, rolls his knuckles together. The soft gold bends in his hands before he drops it to the ground, where it glitters in the dawn. Mursili stares at it, broken-hearted.

But Horemheb's heart rises with the sun into the expanse of clear sky. The Horizon established by the Sole-One-of-Re shall indeed be preserved by his Beloved. The Aten is god.

"Your coming is a great occasion for me," Horemheb says to Mursili as the soldiers break camp. "I have not been home to Egypt in a very long time."

"Bring me home to Hattusa."

"My prince, now your home is Akhet-Aten."

As the sun rises toward its height, Horemheb directs the soldiers and the caravan and the prince southward.

He will obey Mursili, but not yet. Not until the tutors of the Royal Academy have taught the prince to pray to the Aten and his only bodily son. Not until he is returned to Hatte as a loyal vassal duly anointed by the Queen of Egypt.

Richard Coeur de Lion, King of the English, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou, and numerous other titles that his clerks exercised themselves to remember, was enjoying a great rarity in this country: a day without one of his endless fevers. His new physician was taking the credit, but he rather thought that the thing had simply run its course. This man, however, was remarkable in prescribing, not noxious potions, but cups of sherbet cooled with snow.

The snow came from Mount Hermon, and the Saracens imported great quantities of it, sealed in straw; one of his raiding companies had brought in enough to keep him in sherbet for a good month. He was not at all averse to the regimen. Cold sweetened nectar of lemon or orange or citron was more than pleasant in the hills near Jerusalem in June.

He sat in the shade of a canopy, sipping his medicine and watching a knight from Burgundy and a knight from Poitou settle a dispute by combat. The Burgundian was getting the worst of it: he was not as young or by any means as thin as his adversary, and the heat, even this early in the morning, was taking its toll. Richard watched with professional interest, because the Poitevin was a jouster of some renown; but when he laid a wager, he laid it on the Burgundian. The lesser fighter had the better horse, lighter and quicker and, though it sweated copiously, less visibly wilted by the heat. The Poitevin's charger was enormous even by the standard of the great horses of Flanders, and although it lumbered and strained through the turns and charges of the joust, no sweat darkened its heavy neck.

Having handed his gold bezant to Blondel the singer, who was keeping track of the wagers, Richard let his mind wander even as his eye took in the strokes of the fight. He liked to do that: it helped him think. And there was much to think about.

He would not camp in sight of Jerusalem. If it happened he must ride where he could see it, he had a squire hold up a shield in front of his eyes. He had sworn an oath: he would not look on those walls and towers or the golden flame of the Dome of the Rock, until he had come to take it for God and the armies of Christendom. But scouts who kept the city in sight said that it had been boiling like an anthill since shortly after sunset the evening before.

None of his spies had come in with reliable news. They did know that all the Saracen raiding parties had begun to swarm back toward the city, and messengers-all of whom, damn them, had escaped pursuit-had ridden out at a flat gallop on the roads to the north and east. Rumors were flying. The Sultan Saladin was preparing a killing stroke against the Franks; Islam was under siege from some hitherto unforeseen enemy; Jerusalem had been invaded in the night by an army of jinn and spirits of the air. There was even a rumor that no one credited: Saladin himself was ill or wounded or dead.

Richard had prayed for that. He was not fool enough to expect that it was true. The Old Man of the Mountain had sent his Assassins against Conrad of Monferrat the month before last and thrown the succession of the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem into great disorder, but if anyone was to be thought of as the Assassins' next target, that was Richard himself. He refused to live in fear because of it; that was not his way. But he did not turn his back on the possibility, either.

The Poitevin's horse collapsed abruptly, just as the Burgundian flailed desperately at the rider's head. The heavy broadsword struck the great casque of the helm with a sound like a hammer on an anvil. The Poitevin dropped like a stone.

The horse was dead-boiled in its own skin, without the relief of sweat to cool it. The knight was alive but unconscious. The unexpected victor sat motionless on the back of his heaving and sweat-streaming destrier, until his squire came running to get him out of the stifling confinement of the helm and lead him dazedly off the field. His face in its frame of mail was a royal shade of crimson.

As men from the cooks' tents hauled the dead horse off to the stewpots, a different disturbance caught Richard's attention. "See what that is," he said at random, waving off Blondel and the winnings of his wager. Several of the knights and squires nearby sprang up to obey, but Blondel was quickest on his feet.

Richard's eyes followed him as he went. He had the grace of a gazelle.

He came back so swiftly that he seemed to fly, and with such an expression on his face that Richard rose in alarm, half-drawing his sword. "Sire," he said. "Lord king, come. Please come."

Richard only paused to order his attendants to stay where they were. They did not like the order, but they obeyed it. With Blondel for guide and escort, Richard strode swiftly toward the camp's edge.

One of his scouting parties had come in with a captive: a slender man in desert robes, with the veil drawn over his face. He seemed not to care where he was or who had caught him. He sat on the rocky ground, cross-legged in the infidel fashion; his head was bent, his shoulders bowed. He had the look of a man on the raw edge of endurance.

"He was headed here, sire," the sergeant said. "He didn't resist us at all, except to stick a knife in Bernard when he tried to pull off the face-veil."