Pilot Who Knows the Waters, page 1
Table of Contents
Pilot Who Knows the Waters (The Lord Hani Mysteries, #6)
HISTORICAL NOTES
Characters
Glossary
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
Acknowledgments
About the Author
The Lord Hani Mysteries
Political intrigue and mystery in Akh-en-aten’s Egyptian
Finalist, Best Series of 2021, Next Generation Independent Book Award
Finalist, Best Series of 2022, Chanticleer Independent Book Awards
Bird in a Snare (2020) Grand Prize, Chaucer Award for best historical fiction of 2021
The Crocodile Makes No Sound (2020) Gold Medal, Adult Fiction, The Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2022
Scepter of Flint (2020)
The North Wind Descends (2020)
Lake of Flowers (2021)
Pilot Who Knows the Waters (2022)
The Empire at Twilight Series
Free-standing personal dramas with a touch of intrigue, set in the Hittite Empire
The Lightning Horse (2020)
The Singer and Her Song (2020)
The Queen’s Dog (2020)
The Sun at Twilight (2021)
The Moon That Fell from Heaven (Red Adept Publishing, Vella, 2021)
The Players (Red Adept Publishing, Vella, coming soon)
Coming Soon: The Hani’s Daughter Mysteries
Neferet carries on the family curiosity in the reign of Tut-ankh-amen
WayBack Press
P.O.Box 16066
Tampa, FL
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Pilot Who Knows the Waters
Copyright © 2022 by N. L. Holmes
The Lord Hani MysteriesTM2020
All rights reserved.
Quotes from “The Instructions of Any” and from “Hymn to Amun-Ra” from Ancient Egyptian Literature by Miriam Lichtheim, University of California Press (1976).
Cover art and map© by Streetlight Graphics.
Author photo© by Kipp Baker.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Dedicated to the women of my writers’ group, the best traveling companions a writer ever had.
HISTORICAL NOTES
Our story opens around the year 1335 BCE. The visit of Hani to Hattusha to obtain a Hittite bridegroom for the queen of Egypt is historical, although we don’t know which queen it was. Some scholars think she was the widow of Tut-ankh-aten, others one of the queens that preceded his reign. I have accepted the latter scenario.
The Egyptian phrase for “queen” was “king’s wife”, presupposing the normal situation of a male king. But since the “king” was simply whoever sat on the throne and wielded supreme power, that title could also be applied to a woman. In that case, she would take on many of the masculine signs of kingship, like the false beard. Especially under the Amarna revolution, the joined male and female principles were a potent symbol, and the royal couple together shared many duties. Thus, Nefert-iti or any other female ruler might take a “queen” (in this case, her daughter) to carry out the public duties of the king’s wife, despite the inappropriate gender.
The letter Hani recites to the Hittite king is real. We know, as well, that Hattusha-ziti was sent to reconnoiter the political situation in Egypt, and that Prince Zannanza died or was killed on his way to meet his bride, precipitating a long border war between the Hittites and Egypt that culminates in the Battle of Kadesh. This entire episode, including Hani’s meeting with the king, is described for us in a later Hittite document. Other parts of the plot are fictional, except for the enmity between Har-em-heb, who gains young King Tut-ankh-aten/amen’s confidence, and the boy’s grandfather Ay. The child who takes the throne under the name “Living Image of the Aten” will soon change it to “Living Image of Amen.”
Both Har-em-heb and Ay will succeed Tut-ankh-amen on the throne when he dies young. Ay rules for only four years, then Har-em-heb takes his place for an unknown but considerably longer period of time. It is he who will tear down the hated capital Akhet-aten and deface the monuments of Akh-en-aten, expunging him from the lists of kings. Still childless, he is succeeded by his adjutant Pa-ra-mes-su, who changes his name to Ramesses (I).
Although the new king is designated immediately after the death of his predecessor, the ceremonies that confirm his kingship go on for a full year. I have conflated one of the coronation ceremonies with the Ipet or Opet festival, enacted yearly to reinforce the king’s power through a ritual crowning, climaxed by the bestowal of a divine ka or identity.
Readers of the Empire at Twilight series will remember the Hittite capital, Hattusha. The great causeway leading up to the citadel had not been built in the time of Hani. Shuppiluliuma I, a usurper, is credited with making Hatti Land a real empire, although kings of previous generations had pushed outside its limited borders. Hatti (Kheta) would become one of the major players in the Late Bronze Age, usually rivals of Egypt but eventually an ally.
In the Bronze Age, lions were to be found all around the eastern Mediterranean, from Egypt to Turkey and probably into Greece. Our hunt takes place in the mountains of Lebanon, in the great forests of cedars which exist today only in a few specimens.
The Egyptians believed the soul had five parts, which would be reunited, along with the body, in the afterlife ̶ hence the importance of preserving the physical remains by mummification. Otherwise, the deceased would be unable to enjoy his blessed eternity, which seemed to have been physical as well as spiritual. Thus, to have one’s body destroyed by burning, for example, was a particularly horrible fate. Hence also the custom of “opening the mouth” of the deceased to awaken their senses in the afterlife.
And finally, Egyptian women typically nursed their children for three or four years, which provided a kind of natural family planning (although they also had various forms of contraceptive).
Characters
(Characters marked with an * are purely fictional)
Hani’s Family
A’a*: gatekeeper of Hani’s family.
Amen-hotep known as Aha*: Hani and Nub-nefer’s elder son.
Amen-em-hut: Nub-nefer’s brother, Third Prophet of Amen.
Baket-iset*: Hani’s eldest daughter.
Bener-ib*: Neferet’s partner and fellow sunet.
Amen-hotep known as Hani: a diplomat.
In-hapy*: Maya’s mother, a royal goldsmith.
Mai-her-pri*: Maya’s third child and second son.
Amen-mes known as Maya*: Hani’s dwarf secretary and son-in-law, married to Sat-hut-haru.
Meret-seger*: the former palace handmaid now employed by Hani. Her tongue was cut out to prevent her telling anyone the secret of the young king’s birth.
Meryet-amen*: Mery-ra’s widowed lady friend.
Mery-ra: Hani’s father.
Mut-nodjmet*: Pipi’s daughter, the wife of Pa-kiki. The name is shared by Har-em-heb’s wife.
Pa-ra-em-heb known as Pipi*: Hani’s brother.
Nedjem-ib*: Pipi’s wife.
Neferet*: Hani and Nub-nefer’s youngest daughter, a physician to the royal women.
Nub-nefer*: Hani’s wife, a chantress of Amen.
Amen-em-ope known as Pa-kiki* (The Monkey): Hani and Nub-nefer’s younger son.
Sat-hut-haru*: also known as Sati, Hani and Nub-nefer’s second daughter, married to Maya.
Amen-hotep known as Tepy*: Maya and Sat-hut-haru’s eldest son.
Web-khet*: Maya and Sati’s youngest daughter.
Other Characters
Ah-mes*: grandson of Ptah-mes by his son Djehuty-mes, child of the royal Kap (the young companions raised with the king).
Ankhet-khepru-ra Nefer-nefru-aten: Nefert-iti, Aken-aten’s wife and successor on the throne.
Apeny: Ptah-mes’s first wife.
Ay: King Ankhet-khepru-ra’s father, known as the God’s Father, a cavalry commander.
Djefat-nebty*: former physician of the royal women; the teacher of Neferet and Bener-ib and wife of Pentju.
Djehuty-mes: elder son of Ptah-mes, priest of Amen-Ra.
Har-em-heb: infantry commander, married to Ay’s daughter Mut-nodjmet.
Hattusha-ziti: emissary of the Hittite king.
Hemet-min*: widow of Ipy.
Hu-may*: eldest son of Ipy, an apprentice goldsmith.
Huy: younger son of Ptah-mes.
Ipy*: In-hapy’s chief goldsmith, deceased.
Kurunuwa*: Hattusha-ziti’s secretary.
Mai: first prophet (high priest) of Amen-Ra under Amen-hotep III. A leader of the anti-Atenist forces.
Menna
Meryet-aten: eldest daughter of Akh-en-aten and Nefert-iti, who served as her mother’s queen after the death of her own husband, the coregent Akh-khepru-ra Smenkh-kha-ra. A leader of the anti-Atenist forces.
Mut-em-wia: eldest daughter of Ptah-mes, chantress of Amen-ra.
Neb-khepru-ra Tut-ankh-aten: successor and presumed son of Nefert-iti and Akhe-en-aten, who took the throne at the age of ten.
Pa-ra-mes-su: an army officer and adjutant to General Har-em-heb.
Pa-shedu*: a journeyman goldsmith.
Pentju: former royal physician under Akh-en-aten and vizier of the Upper Kingdom under Tut-ankh-aten.
Pi-ay*: In-hapy’s senior goldsmith.
Pirwa*: son of the governor of Ura and Hani’s guide.
Ptah-mes known as Maya: treasurer of the kingdom, Hani’s friend and former superior, now married to Neferet. A member of the old Theban nobility. I have conflated the historical characters of Ptah-mes, vizier and high priest of Amen-Ra under Amen-hotep III, with Maya, Tut-ankh-aten’s treasurer.
Shuppiluliuma I: considered the founder of the Hittite Empire, he usurped the throne and expanded Kheta Land’s territories extensively.
Si-mut: second prophet of Amen-Ra under Amen-hotep III. A leader of the anti-Atenist forces.
Tarrupishni*: governor of the port of Ura.
Glossary
Alashiya: the island kingdom of Cyprus.
Amen-Ra: Amen, the Hidden One, was a local god of Thebes. When a Theban dynasty came to power in Egypt, Amen became the high god of the entire country and was merged with the all-important sun god Ra.
Ammit: a monster that waited at the balance where hearts were weighed in the afterworld. If one failed to measure up to ma’at, it was tossed to Ammit, who devoured it, annihilating it forever.
the Aten: god of the visible sun-disk, whose worship replaced those of Egypt’s other gods under the pharaoh Akh-en-aten.
Bes: lion-like dwarf god, protector of women and children.
cloison: a fine strip of metal on edge, soldered to a background, that separates one color from another in the enamel technique called cloisonné.
deben: a 91-gram weight of silver or copper, cast in the form of a large ring, that was used as a kind of metal standard for payments, generally made in kind.
Djehuty: Thoth, the patron god of scribes and judge of souls in the afterlife.
doum palm: a kind of palmetto that bears large, edible fruit.
Geb: god of the earth.
Gebtu: modern Qift, a town at the juncture of the Nile and the Wadi-hammamat, leading to the Red Sea.
Great House (Per-a’o): the palace and by extension, the government and especially the king (cf. our expression “the White House”). Our word pharaoh comes from this term.
hapiru: a mixed group of social outcasts (runaway slaves, displaced peoples, and the landless poor) who lived at the margins of settlement in the Levant, harassing farmers, robbing caravans, and even attacking cities.
harper’s song: a kind of funeral song that often expressed a cynical or agnostic view of death and the afterlife.
Haru: the solar hawk god, “the one on high”, son of Osir. The living king was considered to be the incarnation of Haru.
Haru lock: a braided lock of hair hanging from the side of an otherwise shaven head, often worn by children.
Hattusha: the capital of the Hittite empire, located at modern Boğazköy (Turkey).
Ipet-isut: the great temple of Amun-Ra at Waset (Karnak). On the occasion of certain festivals, it was the northern pole of a procession leading to the “southern Ipet” a mile away in Luxor.
iteru: a unit of distance equalling about one mile.
ka: One of the elements of the human (or divine) soul which survived death. It seemed to be the vital essence and determined the nature of the person, human or divine. The king was thought to have a divine ka, renewed annually in the Ipet Festival.
Kemet: the Black Land, the Egyptians’ name for their country because of the rich, dark alluvium of the Nile Valley. Also called the Two Lands.
khat: the mortal remains of the dead. It was considered necessary to the afterlife, hence the care with which bodies were embalmed.
Kheta Land: Egyptian term for the homeland of the Hittite empire (Hatti Land), centered in northern Anatolia (modern Turkey).
Khonsu the Traveler: the moon, son of Amen-Ra and patron of travelers.
Kidjuwadna (Kizzuwatna in Hittite): a mountainous kingdom in what is today eastern Turkey that had just been annexed by Kheta Land at the time of our story.
Luwian: the Indo-European language spoken most commonly in the Hittite empire. Closely resembled Neshite.
ma’at: the concept of truth, justice, and cosmic order. With a capital M, the goddess who personified all these.
Marasshantiya River: today’s Kizilirmak River, which outlines the Hittite homeland.
Master of the Double House of Silver and Gold: the title of the royal treasurer, although much of the king’s wealth was in commodities.
Master of the King’s Stables: an honorary title granted to the historical Hani.
Men-nefer: one of Egypt’s traditional capitals, located not far from modern Cairo.
menut: mourning dove
Meret-seger and Wadjet: the goddess of the Western tombs—the “lover of silence”—and “the green one”, protector of Lower Egypt, both represented as cobras.
Mizri: the name by which most of its neighbors knew Egypt (cf. modern Arabic Misr and Hebrew Mizraim).
Neshite: Hittite, the Indo-European language of the ruling class in the Hittite empire.
Osir: divine king of the underworld, with whom the dead were believed to be configured. Hence, any deceased person.
Pa-yom A’a-en-mukhed: the Red Sea.
Per-nefer: a seaport in the Nile Delta near modern Tell el-Dab’a.
Pwenet (or Punt): a land on the Horn of Africa (probably Eritrea) with which Egypt traded in the New Kingdom.
quern: a flat grindstone on short legs used to grind flour by hand.
the River: the Nile, which, curiously enough, was never personified as a god or goddess.
sedge nuts: the tuber-like roots of a grassy plant that grows along the Nile.
Sekhmet: lion-headed goddess of plague and healing. According to her legend, she once grew so angry with humans that she determined to destroy them completely and drink their blood. She was tricked by dying beer red. Mistaking it for blood, she drank it and became so drunk that she passed out, forgetting her terrible mission.
sole friend of the king: a high honorific title.
Ta-nehesy: Nubia, today’s Sudan, just south of Egypt. At our period, it was an Egyptian-administered territory.
tawananna: the religious and political title of the Hittite queen, held for life, even if her husband should die before her.
Tsumur: the local name for the capital of the Syrian vassal kingdom of Amurru (A’amu); in Egyptian, Simurru. Once part of Egypt’s empire (see The Crocodile Makes No Sound), it now belonged to the Hittites.
Ura: a port on the south coast of modern Turkey which had just been annexed by Kheta from the formerly independent kingdom of Kidjuwadna (Kizzuwatna in Hittite).
wab priests: “pure” priests, one of the lower categories of men of the gods.
Waset: City of the Scepter, one of Egypt’s traditional capitals and seat of the cult of Amen-Ra. Today’s Karnak and Luxor.
weshket: a broad collar of beads that lay on the shoulders.
CHAPTER 1
Spring—harvest season for wheat and barley—had poured itself generously over the Two Lands, and on the farm, the laborers were bent over, sickles in hand, a line of white, red, and black, moving methodically across the vast golden fields. Despite Hani’s misgivings about the politics of the kingdom, he had to confess life was good. The harvest would be rich that year. His granaries would be full. He might even have to build another one.
His wife, Nub-nefer, slipped an arm around his waist and said in a dreamy voice, “It’s been so nice to have you here in Waset, my love, and it’s been so good for the grandchildren. I hope the king never gets around to reassigning overseas missions.”
They were standing in the road between the house and its vegetable gardens and the broader fields of grain. The sky stretched overhead, a vast, piercingly blue canopy like lapis lazuli, shot with the bright flash of pigeon wings as a flock settled in the stubble to glean. Hani drew a deep breath of satisfaction, squeezing Nub-nefer to his side.
