The Hippopotamus Marsh (19 page)

Si-Amun answered hotly and the two of them began to argue over Seqenenra’s head, chins almost touching, necks taut and fists clenched. Kamose’s voice stayed controlled, but Si-Amun’s rapidly became shrill. Hor-Aha stood with his eyebrows raised and his brawny arms folded, his woollen cloak loose about him. Seqenenra waited, and then, reaching up, he slapped each cheek smartly in turn. Kamose stepped back.

“I am sorry, Father,” he said. “We forgot where we were. May we be dismissed?”

For a moment Seqenenra bitterly resented Kamose’s formality. He waved them away.

Now he had the garden to himself. He knew that before long someone would come, Tani perhaps, to wriggle onto the narrow cot at his feet and talk to him as though she were chattering to a friend, or Aahotep with Isis or Mersu in attendance, or perhaps Tetisheri. Ahmose would be on the river in the late afternoon with rod and throwing stick and would bring his catch to display before his father with beaming pride. I am becoming like a household god, Seqenenra thought wryly. They come to me bringing the gift of their words and thoughts. But we no longer revolve around each other. Soon I will be able to stand, yet still my
progress through the house will be occasions of fuss and proclamation like a divine journey. I should have told them that I intend to ride with the army in the summer. I cannot send them out to fight and perhaps to die while I hobble about the estate like a lame horse. I can no longer dream of the Horus Throne, power and might for myself, the unifying of Egypt under my strong hands, but I can end this agony with honour and pray that Si-Amun wears the Double Crown.

He was tired and uncomfortable. Signalling to the servant that he wished to be laid down, he began to turn onto his side, but he saw Aahmes-nefertari leave the dimness of the portico and come quickly towards him. “Oh, I see you are tired,” the girl said, lowering herself beside him and taking his useless hand. Her pale linen floated into the grass around her and her thick copper bracelets clinked. Seqenenra, receiving her kiss, thought that she looked drawn under the blue eyepaint and hennaed mouth. “Don’t try to speak to me,” she went on. “I could hear Si-Amun and Kamose shouting all the way to the reception hall where Mother and I were making lotus wreaths. It was inconsiderate of them to tire you.” Seqenenra felt his left eyelid begin to twitch as it usually did when he had attempted too much. He put a finger to it and the impulse stopped. He turned his right hand palm upwards and Aahmes-nefertari nodded. “I just came to tell you that I am pregnant again, Father. You are the first to know. I haven’t even told Si-Amun yet.” She paused. “I hope he will be pleased. So little pleases him these days.”

Seqenenra felt a surge of joy coupled with anxiety. He knew that she was still grieving for the little corpse whose
beautified body lay alone in Si-Amun’s tomb. Doubtless Aahotep had urged her to have another child to help erase the old memories. He thought of himself being carried down from the roof of the old palace, of her standing there at the bottom, of how terrible the sight must have been. Kamose had told him. She herself had not mentioned it.

He reached over with his right hand and squeezed her fingers, smiling his lopsided smile. She responded. “You must not worry about me,” she went on. “We are a tough family. All of us are strong. I must go now. Shall I dismiss Ipi and tell the servants to take you back to bed?” He nodded gratefully. He had forgotten his scribe who still sat cross-legged somewhere behind him. Aahmes-nefertari spoke briefly, smiled at him again, and walked away.

I am guilty, Seqenenra thought, as Ipi bowed and left him and other servants came hurrying with a litter. She thinks it is all over but it is not. It has only just begun. His head was throbbing, and though the servants were reverently careful he could not help crying out as he was lifted from the cot to the litter. Before he was rolled onto the couch in his bedchamber, he had fallen into a light doze.

He insisted on being carried out into the fields to see the peasants complete the sowing, lying under a canopy with Uni beside him and his servants ranged around him, watchful in case his litter should sway and tip him into the warm mud. Sometimes Ahmose accompanied him, running along the dykes, weaving in and out of the date palms with Behek at his heels, and Seqenenra found comfort in his youngest son’s vigour and unquestioning lust for life.

As his strength improved, he tried to return to his former routine: being woken early so that he might be
carried into the temple for the morning rites where Amunmose as his delegate performed the ceremonies he could no longer attempt, receiving Men who came from the Delta with the twice-yearly report on his and Amun’s cattle, and feasting with the heralds and other ministers of the King who plied the river between Het-Uart and the vast holdings of Teti-the-Handsome, Prince of Kush and Apepa’s friend.

He did not try to hide his condition from these men. It was good that they should see him maimed and disfigured, should go back north to Apepa with tales of the proud Seqenenra’s twisted mouth and drooping eye, his leg and arm like a doll’s limbs stuffed with straw. Let them gloat, he thought in the evenings when he sat in the reception hall, propped in his chair with pillows, his left arm supine in his lap. Let Apepa hear of me chastened and cowed, my lesson learned. The laughter and chatter flowed around him on these occasions. The harpist sent rippling music over the throng, the dishes steamed in the hands of the servants, his women arrayed themselves in their best linen and jewels. Seqenenra presided mutely, Aahotep close by, Uni at his right hand to anticipate his every need.

The soldiers had gone back to their villages, Hor-Aha’s Medjay to see to their tribal affairs in Wawat and the Egyptians to till and plant their tiny fields. Seqenenra knew that this word also had gone north.

But the bows of palm ribs continued to come from the hands of the military craftsmen and pile up in the armoury, and in the granaries, grain from the last harvest was laid aside for next year’s assault. Hor-Aha had sent a scout to buy horses, a few here, a few there, and chariots were being
made. This time, Seqenenra reflected grimly, we will be prepared. The men will be better trained, the stores more plentiful. Kamose and Si-Amun will be older and hardier. Yet by the time he allowed Aahotep to usher him to his couch at night, he was always feverish and consumed with a despair that he hid from them all.

The hole in his head that he came to regard with a mounting disgust and horror was closing slowly. New bone was growing on the old, jagged teeth of the wound. Yet to him it was a symbol of everything he now was, an object of concern and pity to his family and an affront to himself. He would not allow Aahotep to kiss him on his lips, or anyone but his body servant to touch his face. At night, with throbbing head and anguished heart, he wished that Apepa’s crafty tool, whomever he might be, had struck a little deeper.

The months of Mekhir and Phamenoth passed. The crops began to spring up lush and thick in the fields. The canals, still full of calm, stagnant water, became playgrounds for the brown peasant children who leaped and splashed in them with innocent abandonment. The nights were soft, the stars gentle in a black sky.

Aahmes-nefertari had announced her pregnancy to the family and once more Taurt was honoured, but Seqenenra, watching her come and go, sometimes with her arm linked through Si-Amun’s but more often followed by Raa, sensed her unhappiness. She was afraid. He did not try to draw her out. Words could not soothe her. Only a healthy baby would restore her confidence.

He himself was struggling to walk. Uni had produced a crutch that bit the tender flesh under his good arm and
raised blisters on his palm that soon turned to thick calluses, but he could at least move haltingly from his room to the garden, dragging his left leg behind him. He spent many hours learning to negotiate the steps of the portico. He was also better able to make himself understood, although his speech remained slurred. Tani told him, giggling, that he sounded drunk all the time, but at least with great effort on his part and concentration on the part of his hearer, he could communicate. Fiercely he disregarded the fatigue, the disappointment, the black depression that crept over him every sunset. He wanted to be ready to ride when the time came.

His naming day had been celebrated on the third day of Phamenoth. He was now thirty-seven years old. He was able to stand in the temple and make the offering of a bull for a thanksgiving and he watched Tani dance proudly in his honour with the other temple women. She was now fifteen. In the following two months the twins would turn twenty-one and in the summer Ahmose would become eighteen. Seqenenra, seeing Tani dip and swirl in her garland of bright flowers, tinkling systra in her hands, felt a stab of apprehension at the swift passing of time. Life was a dream that slid by while he stood in his sleep and followed it with his eyes, unable to reach out and grasp a corner of the pageant, slow it down, force it to stand so that he could consider its implications properly.

A public message came from Het-Uart and was read in the market-place of Weset to the dusty, restless crowd. The King would attain his fortieth year in the month of Mesore, and in recognition of his naming day and the Anniversary of his Appearing, taxes would be lowered. The citizens of
Weset, traditionally an independent and haughty breed, did not cheer and clamour. They simply waited until the herald had finished and then walked away, talking among themselves. Of more interest to them was the fact that their Prince had been able to stand throughout his own naming day ceremonies in the temple and had received their mayor with gifts of two days of holiday and an extra hundred acres to be drained and cultivated for them for one year.

7

RAMOSE HAD COME
, sailing to the watersteps one morning in the middle of Phamenoth and fending off Behek and the other dogs as he walked to the house with his escort. Seqenenra was sitting in the garden, Uni behind him and Tetisheri reclining on a mat beside him, her cushions piled around her, when the young man came to pay his respects. Isis and Mersu stood some way off. Isis was flinging blooms into the water of the pool to stir the fish that flickered, a sullen gold, in the murky depths.

Ramose came forward and bowed, his two bodyguards and his steward following suit. Then he straightened and waited for Seqenenra to speak. Seqenenra felt the man’s eyes on his mouth, his eye travelling his body, but the appraisal was open and kindly. “Greetings, Ramose,” he enunciated carefully. Ramose’s gaze flew to his face. There was a moment of deciphering that Seqenenra had become used to. It had taught him patience.

Then Ramose said, “I greet you, Prince, for myself and on behalf of my father who was most distressed at the news of your misfortune. I almost expected a scroll from you telling me not to come. I would have understood.” He turned and bowed slightly to Tetisheri. “Princess, I am honoured to see you again.” Tetisheri smiled, shading her eyes as she looked up at him.

“Ramose, you become more handsome each time I see you,” she answered. “You have your mother’s even features and your father’s big eyes. How is your mother?”

“She is well. She has sent you and her cousin a vial each of a new perfume being mixed on Asi. She hopes you will like it. I will have it unpacked later, as I have brought many gifts for Tani also.”

Tetisheri chuckled. “New perfume! And has she sent me a man to appreciate it also? Thank you, Ramose. The gift is a generous one.” Seqenenra waved him down. Ramose ordered his escort back to the boat and sank into the sycamore’s spreading shade with a sigh.

“Your hurts are grievous, Prince,” he said frankly, as Tetisheri sharply commanded Mersu to have a greeting meal brought from the kitchens. “I am appalled. How could a fall of rock cause such damage?” Seqenenra looked at him blankly and then remembered the letter that had gone to Het-Uart from Kamose.

“The chariot was rolling fast under an overhang,” he replied, pausing between words to make sure that Ramose understood. “I thought of nothing but the lion to be shot. Something loosened the rocks and I remember nothing more than the sound of them falling.”

Ramose nodded. “Father wishes to know if you need anything, another physician, the loan of overseers?” Seqenenra’s hand went to the linen cap tied around his head. He fingered it absently.

“Thank him for me,” he replied, “but I need nothing. My physician is the best in Egypt.”

There was a movement by the house and Tani stepped into the sunlight with Heket trailing her dutifully. As she
saw who had come, her wide mouth broke into a smile and she held both hands out to Ramose. He scrambled up and took them. “How lovely you are, Princess!” he exclaimed, kissing her cheek. She pulled away, gazed at him for a moment, then settled herself beside Tetisheri.

“So!” she said. “Are we to be betrothed this visit, Ramose? I must confess I am tired of waiting. Father is perfectly capable of putting his name and title on the document, and if you tell me you did not bring your father’s signature and seal I shall throttle you!” Yes, Seqenenra thought. A betrothal quickly now, and then a marriage. He glanced at Ramose who had resumed his cross-legged position.