The Hippopotamus Marsh (39 page)

Kamose was ushered into his own quarters, where Apepa was sitting in a chair beside the rumpled couch. He had obviously just risen from his afternoon sleep. A square of white linen hid his shaven skull as the law decreed. He was clad in a short, crushed white kilt and nothing else. A servant had the royal foot in his lap and was carefully painting the sole with orange henna. Apepa was sipping water. On the table beside him lay his rings and the Royal Seal. “Prince Kamose, Majesty,” the herald announced, then bowed and withdrew. Apepa signalled. Kamose went forward with bowed back and hands on his knees, then he prostrated himself. Apepa allowed him to rise.

“I wish to return to the Delta tomorrow,” the King said. “Unfortunately the river is still too high to navigate safely
and I will have to endure my litter and the desert but I cannot wait. I summoned you to make sure that you fully understand your situation before I leave.” His cosmetician laid down the henna-stained brush and began to fan the royal foot to dry the liquid. Apepa regarded Kamose quizzically from beneath the loose cap of fine linen, his face creasing as he smiled. “Do you have any questions for me, Prince?”

“Majesty, I beg you to reconsider taking Tani away with you,” Kamose said. “She is still very young and has never been separated from her family. She …” Apepa silenced him with a wave of one freshly hennaed palm.

“She is sixteen, a woman, and capable of understanding her duty to her King,” he replied. His smile widened. He knows perfectly well that I have concluded her true status, Kamose thought. “My advisers recommended execution for all of you,” the King went on. “You do not seem grateful for my clemency.”

“I would guess that only your Setiu advisers recommended execution, Divine One,” Kamose said softly. “I would also guess that your native Egyptian administrators thought the idea horrifying and warned you against such a move for the sake of your security. They were wise.” The smile disappeared from Apepa’s face.

“My advisers are invited to give me their opinions because I value their wisdom,” he snapped, “but I alone in Egypt am all-wise. The final decision was mine.” He snatched his foot from the cosmetician’s grasp and leaned forward. “You have the arrogance to believe that I fear you, Kamose Tao, that one hint of a threat from you will send me scurrying to Sutekh in prayer for my survival. Not so. You and your
family live in a world of old dreams and dead glories where the Setiu are still enemies and you are still Kings.”

He held out a hand and a servant approached with an unguent jar. Pouring a drop of oil on the royal palm, he withdrew. Apepa rubbed his hands together and passed them over his face and neck and the heady aroma of lotus flowers filled the room. “I was born here,” Apepa said slowly. “My father, my grandfather and his before him, all gods of Egypt. I could have killed Aahmes-nefertari’s son, that child of your so-called royal brother, but I do not need to kill. All Egypt worships me, Kamose, for I am the god. I am almost moved to pity you for your delusions and your poverty.” He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply as Kamose wanted to do. The flower odour was bewitchingly sensuous. “My forefathers acknowledged your privileged place in the Egypt of old and concluded treaties with your family instead of wiping them out. Now I, too, reverence the past by rapping your knuckles instead of piercing your heart.” The royal eyes suddenly opened wide and fixed Kamose with a cold stare. “You will never see Weset again, I promise you. But I will also promise you that Tani will be surrounded with all respect and the luxury she deserves because of her station as a Princess and though your other sister cannot be allowed a noble husband, yet I will choose for her wisely so that she knows no want. Herald!” The door opened and Yku-didi bowed. “Show in the General.” A bareheaded, powerfully built man came in, bowing. “This is General Dudu,” Apepa told Kamose. “He is to stay here with fifty of his soldiers when I and my retinue leave tomorrow. He will assess all your holdings for appropriation and will send me weekly reports on you until the four months are up, at
which time his Second will escort Ahmose into Kush and he will bring you and the others north. You are dismissed. We shall not meet again.”

With gritted teeth Kamose went to the floor, rose, and backed out of the room. I should have known that there would be a watchdog, he said to himself furiously as the door was closed firmly in his face. Apepa is right. I am a poor fool wandering in dreams, but they are not yet nightmares. Not yet.

As he strode angrily down the passage he almost collided with Uni. The steward had his arms full of starched linen and a servant trotted behind him. He bowed and Kamose grasped his arm, looking round. The guard was a discreet few paces behind. “Send a runner into Wawat,” he whispered into Uni’s ear. “Bring Hor-Aha and the other officers back. The King leaves tomorrow.” Uni nodded and stepped aside. Kamose went on down the passage.

In the garden the courtiers were gathering, freshly bathed, waiting for the evening feast to begin. Kamose glanced over their heads to the sky. Ra was rimming the horizon, his red sphere flattened and elongated as Nut slowly bit into him. His blood drenched the grass and splashed in long streamers against the walls of the house. The chattering, drifting people glowed in the warm bronze light. Kamose made his way towards the spot where two tents trembled in the evening breeze, scarcely aware of the way the crowd swayed and parted to let him through. He called softly outside Tani’s tent and was answered. The guard standing by the opening nodded curtly. He went in.

Tani was sitting hunched on cushions, the playing pieces of a board game scattered on the mat beside her. Several
sheaths had been spread across the cot on which she slept. A flagon and cup sat on top of her tiring chest, together with two lamps waiting to be lit. She looked up when he entered. Kamose lowered himself beside her. As he did so, a great gust of laughter rose from the courtiers outside.

“Listen to them!” Tani said disdainfully. “The only worry they have is whether the goose will be roasted correctly tonight and the melons stuffed with enough sweetmeats. How Egypt ever gets governed by that crowd is beyond me!”

“Why are you alone, Tani?” Kamose asked gently. “You should not have been left by yourself.”

“They were all here,” she answered woodenly. “Grandmother talking of revenge, Mother with her arms around me, Ahmose clucking over Aahmes-nefertari who was swearing to hide her panic and vowing she would rather die than marry some filthy commoner. I sent them away.” Kamose looked at her in surprise. She was still deathly pale, but there was no sign of the hysteria that had threatened to erupt in the reception hall.

“Sent them away?”

“Yes. There is no point in wailing and cursing, is there, Kamose? Better to accept our fate, my fate.” She smiled at him, the curve of her lips carrying a cynicism he had never seen in her before. The sight shocked him. “I have always loved the old oath we use so freely,” she went on. “‘As I love life and hate death.’ Everyone says it. It has almost lost any meaning. We are indeed a people who love life and hate death, more passionately than the Setiu could ever understand. I have been pondering the words, Kamose. I love life. Love life. As long as I am alive, I may hope that the gods will send me a kinder fate. Is it not
so?” He nodded gravely, overwhelmed by her calmness.

“It is so.”

“But what he said about Ramose …” She bent forward over the hands folded in her lap. “Ramose told me that he would refuse to consider any women his father put forward, that he would wait and see what the future brought. He need not wait any longer, need he?” Kamose felt her agony but admired her ruthless clear sightedness.

“No, Tani, he need not wait. Word of the King’s judgement will reach Khemennu very soon. But I think he will wait.” She give him a tight smile.

“So do I.”

There was a small silence, then Kamose reached over and, taking both her hands in his, he began to chafe them gently. When he spoke, he lowered his voice. The shadow of the patient guard lay against the sloping side of the tent. The happy noise in the garden was growing but Kamose did not want to take a foolish risk. “Tani, I want you to understand something,” he said quietly. “You are not going north simply because the King has taken a fancy to you. You are going as a hostage to ensure that the rest of us make no more trouble.” She did not look surprised. She merely raised her eyebrows wearily.

“I suspected it,” she replied. “If I were Apepa I would do the same thing.” Her gaze became alert and she withdrew her fingers from her brother’s grasp. “Is he being unduly cautious, Kamose?” Kamose sat back, pulling his feet further under him. He looked at her directly.

“No, he is not,” he answered frankly. “I cannot allow us to be broken and vanish into oblivion without one more attempt.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m waiting for Hor-Aha to come back. We have four months’ grace, Tani, a gift from Amun, and I cannot waste them in learning to accept my fate.” He cupped her face, feeling her olive skin so cool, so smooth. Her eyelashes fluttered against his thumbs. “But you will be the one to suffer,” he went on. “As a hostage, the King’s anger will fall on you if Ahmose and I stir up another small rebellion. And it will be small.” His hands fell to her delicate shoulders. “I am under no illusions about that. If you tell me so, Tani, I will wait here quietly for my escort to Sile and do nothing. It is your life I would be placing in jeopardy, and I will not do so without your permission.” Her fingers curled around his wrists but she was not looking at him. She was frowning into the gathering dimness of the tent.

“Do you think that Apepa is capable of executing me in reprisal?” she asked at length. Kamose sighed.

“I do not know. Under his arrogance he is insecure and insecure men are unpredictable, but he is also unnaturally sensitive to the opinions of his subjects.”

“So there is a chance that he would hesitate, that he might fear the disapproval of the nobles?”

“I think so.” Her hands slid along his arms in an almost voluptuous gesture and she kissed him tremulously before pushing him away.

“Then hazard the throw, dear brother. I would rather think of you as dead when I sit in the palace of Het-Uart than living the life of a common soldier, being hungry and thirsty, sleeping wherever you can, surrounded by strangers, trying to hold onto the memory of our faces as the years go by …” Her voice failed her.

“I think of you, all of you, in the same way,” Kamose replied harshly. “Ahmose beaten and burned by the Kush sun, Grandmother weakening as she is forced to make bread or weave, Aahmes-nefertari and her little son reduced to the life of a merchant’s family and Mother humbled to the station of a mere servant or at best an unwanted companion to her relatives, barely tolerated in her own home. We could do it, Tani, all of us. But the thought of the memories fading, the daily adjustments becoming easier until we begin to take on the colour of our surroundings, the forgetting, the accepting … No. Such an end is not for us. Death is preferable.” She had recovered a little.

“When is the King leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning. You must be brave, Tani. Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said with a touching grimness. “I am sure. Make another war, Kamose. Perhaps the King will grow genuinely fond of me and be reluctant to see me dead. Perhaps you will win.” Kamose thought that in spite of her protestations of desire to go on living, she found the prospect bleak and hardly bearable without Ramose, and his plans meant little to her. She has already suffered as much as any of us, perhaps more, he mused with resignation. Her fate now is not just. “It is my last night with you all,” she was saying. “I want us to eat together here in my tent. Let the northerners have the reception hall. A tent is more suitable for the children of the desert anyway.” He got up awkwardly.

“I will arrange it,” he promised. “And, Tani, do not mention my plans to the others. You are the only one so far who knows.” She nodded and fell to playing with the
scattered pieces from the Dogs and Jackals game. He pushed out of the tent into the gathering twilight.

Kamose did not seek permission to eat separately. He merely told Nehmen what the family would do and the steward, after a moment’s hesitation, agreed. Uni was requested to supply food and servants, and an hour after sunset a small parade crossed from the kitchens to Tani’s tent bearing food and wine. The garden was now empty. Sounds of revelry from the hall came in gusts through the open tent flap as Uni and Isis, Hetepet, Heket and other family retainers filled the tent with spicy aromas, trimmed lamps, and bent to serve their masters. Outside, their harpist sat on the grass and played softly.

Tani had asked that Behek be allowed to join them. He lay beside her panting noisily and accepting the scraps she passed to him. Occasionally she threw her arms around him, hugging his grey, massive body. She took no part in the sporadic conversation going on around her, merely listening and smiling, but Kamose knew that she was storing up every detail to be examined later on the long trek north. A burst of strident music reached him from the hall, momentarily eclipsing the gentler tones of the harp. Tetisheri gave an order and the remains of the meal were removed. Kamose bade the servants go to their own quarters and the family settled back on the cushions.

For a long while nothing was said. Tani gazed into a lamp’s mesmerizing glow, one arm slung across Behek’s sleeping back. Ahmose drank without relish, his legs splayed out before him. Aahmes-nefertari sat close to her mother, toying with the ornaments on her belt. Suddenly she looked around at them all. “This is goodbye to Tani,”
she said loudly. “The rest of us must linger on here a little longer. It is unbearable. Unbearable! Father began it all. It is his fault. He is dead, he is at peace, while we must suffer the consequences of his foolishness. I am so angry!” No one reprimanded her. She finished speaking, but her bitter voice still coiled about them.

“You forget what Father faced,” Tani said mildly. “You forget how Apepa trapped him, baited him until he had no other choice. Be angry, Aahmes-nefertari, but not with him.” Behek stirred at the sound of her voice but did not waken. His ears twitched.