The Hippopotamus Marsh (14 page)

“How in the name of Amun would I know?” he snapped. “Am I a Seer?” He felt trapped by her will, by the King, by his poverty, by his fate. Kamose and Ahmose had stopped conversing together at his loud tone and were both staring across at him. He wanted to apologize but instead swung away and started for the house.

“Where are you going?” she called after him, unperturbed.

“I want to march in three days’ time,” he shot back without slackening his pace. “There is much to do. Uni!” His steward fell in behind him. At Tetisheri’s impatient jerk of the hand Mersu went to her, but after that one gesture she stood still, frowning. The skiff nudged the watersteps and Kamose and Ahmose gathered their weapons and clambered aboard. Teti-sheri came to herself at the shouts of the helmsman and Ahmose’s lighthearted reply. The sun’s new rays were already dimpling the sluggish water.

“I am going back to bed,” she said. “Mersu, bring me beer at noon.”

Seqenenra spent the next two days conferring with Hor-Aha and checking every detail of his pitifully small army.
Of the three thousand three hundred soldiers, only three hundred could be said to be fit to function as Shock Troops, those who entered the field first and took the brunt of a chariot charge, and of those a mere hundred had the advantage of the Setiu’s composite bows. Their construction was time-consuming and although the craftsmen had been working feverishly, no more were ready.

Fifty men, the members of Seqenenra’s original bodyguard, were named Braves of the King, but Seqenenra insisted that the precious bows be used by the Shock Troops and not his personal defenders in the field. They would carry the smaller ancient weapons. The ten chariots had been refurbished, but again there had been no time to produce more and certainly no time to teach men to drive them. Horses were in short supply. So was food. Grain, water, onions and dried vegetables were piled in sacks and skins, waiting to be loaded onto donkeys. None of the men would shoulder bronze-tipped spears, bronze axes or bronze clubs. Neither Men nor Hor-Aha could obtain the new metal. But at least Men bartered well and they will all have new shields and tight sandals, Seqenenra thought as he moved from Uni’s disapproving face in the office to the baking hard-packed sand of the hidden training ground to a few stolen moments with Aahotep on his couch. And our ancient weapons may serve them better than the unfamiliar heft and weight of bronze. May Amun grant it may be so!

Kamose kept to himself during this time, apparently savouring the precarious security and last peace of the untidy estate. Ahmose wandered the riverbank with his throwing stick, and Si-Amun did not leave Aahmesnefertari’s side. The whole family had prayed that her
baby might be born before the men marched away, but the evening of the second day came and she was still moving awkwardly about her apartments, hot and uncomfortable, Si-Amun watching her disconsolately.

Seqenenra knew that his son had diligently prepared to march with Kamose. His steward had packed his clothes. His chief bodyguard had sharpened his spear, restrung and broken in his bow, cleaned his shield, and the chariot he would drive stood ready in its stall.

His travelling Amun shrine lay closed, a box of incense beside it. There was something pitiful in Si-Amun’s careful, dumb arrangements in the face of his heartfelt opposition that made Seqenenra’s heart ache. He would have liked to tell Si-Amun to stay home, to rule the nomes and run the estate in his absence, but he knew that would only increase the young man’s weight of misery. It is one thing to die for something one believes in, Seqenenra thought, but quite another to go to one’s death against every dictate of one’s ka.

He had tried to talk to Si-Amun, but his son had only confronted him, dark eyes large with rage and unhappiness, and begged him to send the soldiers home. Seqenenra had the impression that Si-Amun wanted to say more, but Si-Amun, on Seqenenra’s refusal, had pursed his lips, swung on his heel, and stalked away. If I had known in the beginning that he cared so violently I would have sent him away, Seqenenra thought. He could have gone to Teti perhaps, or even to Apepa’s court. His lack of pride in his blood cuts me deeply, but his anguish wounds me even more. I have not been a good father to him, my handsome young heir.

On that last night Seqenenra could not rest. He and Aahotep had made love, exchanging words that were reassuring
from long usage as they caressed each other in the dim, stifling room, but an hour after Aahotep had drifted into a deep sleep, Seqenenra lay beside her, eyes pricking with weariness, irritated by the damp sheet that stuck to his limbs and tormented by his racing thoughts. In a few hours the army would muster on the west bank. The chariots would flash in the sun. The blue-crested horses would stamp and chafe at their bits, eager to be gone. Amunmose and his acolytes would come with incense and a white ram to make the sacrifice for good fortune.

Tomorrow I will cease to be Prince Seqenenra Tao, governor of Weset, he said to himself, moving restlessly against Aahotep’s soft, relaxed body. I will greet the dawn as King Seqenenra Tao, Son of the Sun, the Mighty Bull of Ma’at, Lord of the Two Lands, the Horus of Gold. A Fledgling no longer. How long will I keep the titles, I wonder? How far will we march before Apepa crooks his little finger and we are scattered like chaff under the winnowing fork? Best not to think of that. Think of the nobles and governors along the Nile who will see us pass and flock to join us. Think of arriving outside Het-Uart in the morning mists of the Delta, ringing the city, taking the Double Crown from Apepa’s barbaric head, the Crook and Flail from his filthy hands …

It was no use. Behind the images of success with which he tried to lull himself to sleep was the fear, a black pulse beating like a muffled oar on the lightless waters of the Underworld. He sat up, felt for his sandals, and wrapped his discarded kilt around his waist. On impulse he crept to Aahotep’s side of the couch, and bending, he kissed her temple then her cheek. She groaned a little and opened
her eyes. “Seqenenra,” she murmured. “Can’t you sleep? Shall I go to my own quarters so you can have the couch to yourself?”

“No,” he whispered back. “I think I will walk a little, and pray. I love you, Aahotep.” Wide awake now, she heard the loneliness in his voice. Reaching up, she drew him close and kissed him on the mouth.

“If I could fight beside you I would,” she said. “Come home safely, my lord.” Gently he pushed her back onto the pillows.

“Go back to sleep,” he replied.

The passage was dark. Two of the torches had gone out and only one sputtered beside Uni’s door, open in case his master called him in the night. Seqenenra heard him mutter as he passed. No soldier stood on guard where the corridor branched. All men were sleeping across the river. Seqenenra hesitated, looking along each untenanted, drowsy arm, then turned towards the garden and the crumbled cleft in the wall through which he could clamber and so come to the old palace. He slipped past the door to Mersu’s room. His mother’s steward had lodgings close to the way to the women’s quarters so that Isis could rouse him if Tetisheri needed him. The door was ajar. Glancing in, Seqenenra saw a hump on the couch. It was hard to imagine the stately and silent Mersu with limbs disordered in sleep. Seqenenra smiled and went on.

The night was hushed, hot and still. As he padded across the garden, skirting the black square that was the pool and ducking in under the dry trees, he spared a glance for the sky. The moon was already setting, a stark white sliver in a spangle of stars whose sharp brilliance held his breath for a
moment. He paused, whispering a prayer to Thoth, god of the moon and its soul, before stepping carefully over the almost invisible rubble that had tumbled from the wall of the palace and squeezing through the hole.

The palace loomed above him, a jumble of sharp angles high against the velvet sky. He was not intimidated. Many feared the night because of the dead, but here Seqenenra felt only the welcome of ages gone, time peopled by his own flesh and blood. He had a right to be walking across the churned courtyard and plunging into the shadowed great reception hall. He crossed it swiftly, moving more by instinct than by the faint grey light filtering down from the clerestory windows. In the audience room he did not look towards the throne dais. I will rebuild this place, he thought as he passed on. I will bring the Holy Throne from Het-Uart and place it here.

At the foot of the stairs leading to the roof of the women’s quarters he suddenly stopped, listening. It seemed to him that he had heard a sound behind him. “‘Is anyone there?” he called quietly, but the darkness was undisturbed. “Osiris Mentuhotep neb-hapet-Ra, if it is the flutter of your ba-wings I hear, please bless me and protect me, I beg,” he called again, but if the bird with Mentuhotep’s head had left his tomb and was exploring the ancient King’s derelict home, it did not show itself. Still, Seqenenra was comforted. He mounted the stairs quickly and came out on the roof.

As he folded onto the still-warm brick, he felt his tension flow away. He had imagined that to come here would be to order his thoughts, but in the end there were no thoughts to order. Only a dreaming reverie that calmed and raised his spirits. His house was in darkness but for one
pale light in the women’s quarters that he knew was Aahmes-nefertari, unable to rest. A night bird sang briefly and harshly. Down by the river he caught the whicker and shuffle of the tethered horses, and the water itself drifted on towards the north, in the direction he himself would soon go, faint moonlight greying its surface. As usual, he turned for a moment towards the desert, but the horizon was indistinct. I talked to Tani today but not Aahmes-nefertari, he thought. I meant to go to her, my quiet one, but I was afraid that my farewells would only upset her further. Better a brief embrace in tomorrow’s chaos. His eyes were drawn back to the faint glow of her lamp and he began his prayers to Amun.

He prayed for bravery in battle, for a public vindication of his claim as Amun’s Incarnation, for the safety of his sons. He was just beginning the thanksgiving when again he fancied that he heard a noise behind him, this time the rattle of a piece of dislodged brick on the stairs. The words died on his lips. A sudden foreboding swept over him, prickling his scalp and running down his spine, and the dread of a terrible certainty seized him even as he swung round and began to scramble clumsily to his feet. He did not complete the movement. There was a rushing shadow between himself and the black stairwell, the dull glint of waning moonlight on the blade of an axe, and a blow so swift and stunning that he did not have the time to raise his arms in defence or to cry out.

The sun had already risen above the eastern horizon, dispelling the strange grey shadows of dawn, when Seqenenra’s body servant knocked on Uni’s door. It was customary for the Prince to be woken, bathed and dressed
before the steward was summoned to accompany his master to Amun’s ablutions, and Seqenenra had left instructions that he was to be roused a little earlier than usual on this morning. The body servant, bowing his way into the Prince’s bedchamber before dawn, had found only Aahotep breathing quietly, lost in unconsciousness. Waking her timorously he had enquired whether the Prince had already gone to the bath house. Aahotep muttered that she did not know, and went back to sleep.

The servant accordingly searched the bath house, and thinking that the Prince might even now be enjoying an early breakfast, he hurried to the reception hall. Kamose and Si-Amun were eating fresh black bread and dried grapes, standing silently while they were served. Tetisheri was there also, the remains of her meal before her, already painted and wigged in order to face the army’s farewell. The servant questioned them nervously. His duties never extended beyond the chores of the bedchamber. But they answered him absently. Having wandered throughout the house, he went to Seqenenra’s steward.

Uni was already up, kilted, fed, and waiting for the Prince’s summons. Seqenenra had given him instructions for the running of the house in his absence and they had discussed what Uni, together with Mersu, might do if the King’s armies came, but there were always last-minute matters to be aired even when the family made short trips, and Uni had a scribe squatting in the passage outside to accompany him and the Prince to the temple and take notes if necessary on the way.

“Have you looked in the women’s quarters?” Uni asked after hearing the servant’s complaint. “The Prince was
intending to visit the Princess Aahmes-nefertari for a moment.” The man nodded. “Well, what about the kennels? You know how the Prince loves his animals.” The servant spread his hands.

“I have looked everywhere, Master.” Uni considered. Perhaps the Prince had gone to the temple early and alone on this fateful day. Perhaps Hor-Aha had called for him with some military problem. Uni dismissed the servant.

“Send Isis to the Princess if she is not yet up,” he ordered, “and then you can take the linen to the wash house and begin the cleaning. Do not bother to put fresh linen on the Prince’s couch.” The man hurried out and Uni followed him more slowly.

As soon as he reached the end of the passage, he saw how high the sun already was. A din of men shouting, horses neighing and donkeys screaming reached him from the opposite river bank where the army was beginning to rank for the coming march. As Uni stepped from the portico down into the garden, Kamose and his brother hurried by, bows slung over their shoulders and quivers bouncing against their backs.

In the garden Aahmes-nefertari turned at the steward’s approach. She was swathed in wafting linen to modestly hide her pregnancy but she had tied a white ribbon around her sleekly brushed hair and her eyes had been kohled. “Uni, have you seen my father?” she asked. “He promised to meet me here before we all went to the river to say goodbye. Has something detained him?” Uni bowed.

“I do not know, Princess,” he replied, “but I will find him. You should not stand here in the sun. Send Raa for a mat and a canopy.” Aahmes-nefertari spoke to her companion
and as she did so Uni’s eyes found the cleft in the wall and the palace beyond, its walls now warm beige in the morning light. He smiled sourly and walked towards it. Of course. Where else would the Prince go to snatch a few minutes of peace before the day’s events claimed him? But he should have kept watch on the sun, Uni thought, annoyed, as he strode across the empty courtyard, now full of blinding light that made him squint. By now he should have completed his duties in the temple, said goodbye to his family, and be gone. It is not like him to keep the soldiers waiting under this sun.