The Hippopotamus Marsh (48 page)

Although a vestige of the day lingered in the wide courtyard across whose rubble-strewn stone flags he cautiously picked his way, it was already night inside the palace. Cold, musty air greeted him as he stood for a moment just within the lofty entrance to what had once been the mighty reception hall, a breath out of the past from the lungs of the dead. He shook off the fancy, allowing himself to gradually become aware of the rows of pillars marching away into the gloom, the patch of paler air far to his left where part of the roof and a wall had fallen in hentis ago and scattered bricks and deep dust over the chipped tiling of the floor.

He had intended to go straight to the stairs leading to the roof above the women’s quarters, but his feet seemed to have a mind of their own and he began to wander the huge, dilapidated rooms where his lamp cast no more than a feeble glow against a weight of silence and lofty space. Here and there a remnant of life sprang out at him; the baleful glare of a Wadjet Eye that regarded him with hostility before sinking into obscurity as he moved quietly on, a splash of dull yellow, all that was left from some painted scene of a happier age, a seated likeness of some god or King
that seemed to emerge from its corner as though it were about to rise, its serene features gazing steadily into the motionless decay around it. Kamose had the uneasy notion that if he spoke to it, it would reply, that to address it would unleash some force that had lain dormant in this, the sacred home of his forebears. He shook his head at his foolishness, but he was careful to make no sound until he had left its vicinity.

He had not been allowed to play here in the old palace. Seqenenra had forbidden it as being too dangerous, and as he grew, Kamose had not often been tempted to explore its secrets. It was stark and cold, a place of tumbled masonry, a home for bats and rodents. Yet now as he paced like a ghost himself through rooms that opened out into other rooms, along corridors whose uneven floors led to doorless black pits or cracked terraces or yet another series of empty, half-ruined apartments, it came to him that its greatest danger did not lie in loose bricks or sagging walls. With his senses heightened, he seemed to catch errant whispers, soft laughter, the flicker of jewelled linen just beyond the periphery of his vision. The true danger was more subtle, more seductive, a siren call of past glories that had conspired with Apepa’s constant jibes to lure Seqenenra into the rebellion that had cast him, maimed and broken, into his tomb. Kamose felt the intoxication himself, stealing through his veins like a gentle elixir, the promise of purification, restoration, restitution. It was not a trap. The cause was just, it was right. The palace did not hold an evil magic. Its spell was redolent with Ma’at, the Ma’at of an Egypt gone, an Egypt that the ancestors who invisibly crowded this place waited for him to revive.

At last Kamose found himself in the throne room, standing before the dais on which the Horus Throne had once rested, that holy seat against whose gold and electrum back the spine of a usurper curved. He turned and faced the dusky vastness of the pillared chamber. “Hear all of you,” he said in a low voice. “I swear that, if Amun wills it, I will return victorious and I will set the Holy Throne once more upon this dais and I will rebuild this place so that once more the glory of Egypt will reside here. I swear it!” The echoes woke and murmured the words back at him, but with them came a long sigh and the flame of his lamp guttered suddenly as though a draught had found it. Controlling an urge to flee, he walked slowly towards the women’s quarters.

He emerged onto the roof and lowered himself beside the remains of the old windcatcher, blowing out the lamp and wrapping himself tightly in the cloak. It was here that Father used to come when he wanted to be alone, he thought, and it was here that Mersu attacked him. It is fitting that my last night of certitude and peace should be spent in this spot. Below him the halls of the palace dreamed on in stillness, but up here the stars and a moon almost at the full showed Kamose the vague outlines of the garden and part of the sleeping house.

His glance moved from there to the vine trellises and the dark palms clustered before the watersteps. Torches lit the night with their orange flares, some on the river, their reflections wavering on the water, some on either bank, both clustered and strung out along the river path. Shouts and the murmur of many voices came to him. His army was massing in obedience to his command, in faith that he
would lead the soldiers well. Watching it all from his high vantage point, he had a moment of despair coupled with deep inadequacy. I have done all this, he thought. I, Kamose, Prince of Weset. And who am I to accomplish what my father could not? They trust me, my mother and grandmother, my brother and sister, the officers below, the Princes even now gathering themselves for the gamble. They believe that I can perform that which I have promised. Oh, Amun, I need you now! And you, Osiris Seqenenra, my dear father, be here with me tonight!

He drew up his knees and closed his eyes against the ordered chaos. Through the hours while Ra was passing through the body of Nut, he alternately dozed and prayed until the sky in the east began to pale and the time for prayer was over. Then, rising and massaging his cramped limbs, he picked up the lamp and made his way down the stairs, through the now mute precincts of the palace, and out to where his fate awaited him.

END OF BOOK ONE

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

Aldred, Cyril.
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Aldred, Cyril.
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Baikie, James.
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Baines, John, and Jaromir Malek.
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Bietak, Manfred.
Avaris the Capital of the Hyksos: Recent Excavations at Tell el-Daba
. London: British Museum Press, 1996.

Breasted, James H.
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. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905.

Breasted, James H.
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Bryan, Cyril P.
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Budge, Wallace E.A.
A History of Egypt: from the End of the Neolithic Period to the Death of Cleopatra VII
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Budge, Wallace E.A.
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Budge, Wallace E.A.
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Budge, Wallace E.A.
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Budge, Wallace E.A.
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Cottrell, Leonard.
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David, Rosalie.
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Davidovits, Joseph, and Margie Morris.
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Gardiner, Sir Alan.
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James, T.G.H.
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Mertz, Barbara.
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Murnane, William J.
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Murray, Margaret A.
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. Westport: Greenwood Press Publishers, 1980.

Murray, Margaret A.
The Splendour that was Egypt
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Nagel’s Encyclopedia-Guide.
Egypt
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Newberry, Percy Edward.
Ancient Egyptian Scarabs: An Introduction to Egyptian Seals and Signet Rings
. Chicago: Ares, 1979.

Newby, Percy Howard.
Warrior Pharaohs: The Rise and Fall of the Egyptian Empire
. London, Boston: Faber and Faber, 1980.

Porter, Bertha, and Rosalind L.B. Moss.
Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings. Vol. VII, Nubia, The Deserts and Outside Egyp
t. Oxford: Griffith Institute Ashmolean Museum, 1995.

Richardson, Dan.
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. London: Penguin Books, 1996.

Shaw, Ian, and Paul Nicholson.
The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt
. London: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995.

Spalinger, Anthony J.
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. London: Yale University Press, 1982.

Watson, Philip J.
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. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.

Wilson, Ian.
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. London: Guild Publishing, 1986.

University Museum Handbooks.
The Egyptian Mummy Secrets and Science
. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania, 1980.

ATLASES

Oxford Bible Atlas
. 2nd. ed. London; New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.

The Harper Atlas of the Bible
. Edited by James A. Pritchard. Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1987.

The Cambridge Atlas of the Middle East and North Africa
. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

JOURNALS

K.M.T. a Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt
. San Francisco.

Volume 5, number 1,
Hyksos Symposium at the Metropolitan Museum
.

Volume 5, number 2,
Amunhotep I, Last King of the 17th Dynasty?

Volume 5, number 3,
Decline of the Royal Pyramid
.

Volume 6, number 2,
Buhen: Blueprint of an Egyptian Fortress
.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Heartfelt thanks to my researcher, Bernard Ramanauskas, without whose organizational skill and meticulous attention to detail these books could not have been written.