The Hippopotamus Marsh (5 page)

“I told him I would muzzle the hippopotamuses,” he said. “I think Uni was horrified at my presumption.” Tetisheri laughed.

“Uni is an old woman,” she commented. “Well, thank the gods, that is that. A brilliant solution, as always. Aahotep and I are going to visit a friend today. What will you do?” He glanced over her head, above the trees and the sheltering wall, to the mute invitation of the old palace baking in the sun. No, he thought determinedly. Not today.

“Tani and I will take a skiff to the marshes,” he said, “and we will tell the children of Set how fortunate they are!”

He and his daughter, with several bodyguards striding beside the litters and Behek and the other dogs lolloping behind, rode the short distance to the edge of the marshes. There they got into a skiff, Tani hauling Behek down beside her and leaving the others in the care of the soldiers, and were poled between the whispering papyrus swamps and beds of lotus that floated, waxy and fragrant, in their small
wake. Fish flicked away just out of Tani’s reach. Frogs leaped with sudden abandon from the reed pads into the pale, cool water. A cloud of blue dragonflies settled briefly on Tani’s linen and she cried out in delight. Egrets rose beside them with a flutter of white wings and beat their way up towards the sun. Tani was soon drenched.

Seqenenra watched her contentedly. At length she became quiet and from the shelter of the river growth they peered out at the hippopotamuses. Today only three of them were standing shoulder deep in the river, ears flicking lazily, bright eyes narrowed. One yawned, exposing a cavernous throat, water running from its nostrils, its teeth festooned with limp weeds. “I do love them so,” Tani whispered. “Even though they belong to Set. If the One could only see them thus, he would not want to kill them, I know.”

“He has seen them,” Seqenenra reminded her. “But perhaps you were too young to remember.” He kept a careful eye on the beasts as he spoke. They were slow, their movements cumbersome, but they could also be dangerous. “You were only six. The One had just ascended the Horus Throne in Het-Uart and he wanted to visit all his governors. He came and stayed with us, or rather he stayed on the royal barge tethered at the watersteps. We had some grand feasts while he was here.” One of the hippopotamuses lowered itself until only its nostrils and tiny eyes could be seen, then it started for the bank. Seqenenra signalled to the servant and the skiff turned and began to glide back through the papyrus.

“I think I remember,” Tani said doubtfully. “Did he have a beard?”

“Yes. A small one. I believe he did not keep it long.”

“Oh. Father, look up! A falcon!” Seqenenra followed her pointing finger. He shaved off the beard, he thought, but there was nothing he could do about his eyes, set too close together, or the clumsiness of his hands as he held the Crook and the Flail. “Go on, Behek!” Tani was urging the dog. “Jump in and swim! Call him, Hor-Aha!” Seqenenra dismissed his own pettiness and gave himself up to the pleasures of the afternoon.

KAMOSE STARED
at the scuffed, baking dirt of the practice ground now inches from his nose. He flexed his shoulders slightly, testing Si-Amun’s lock on his throat, and felt his brother’s elbow tighten against his neck. Si-Amun’s spare hand gripped Kamose’s wrists like a vise behind his back. Both young men were pouring sweat and breathing hard. Si-Amun’s harsh breath rasped in Kamose’s ear. “You still must put me on the ground,” Kamose croaked with difficulty. “My feet are firm.” If I can make him shift his centre of balance, he thought, I can throw him. Si-Amun was bent over Kamose’s slick back. Kamose let himself go slightly limp, felt his brother move imperceptibly to automatically adjust his hold, and in the second when Si-Amun’s balance was disturbed Kamose spread his legs and leaned forward. With a shout Si-Amun dove into the dust. In a flash Kamose was on him, kneeling well back on his chest so as not to be toppled forward. “Last throw,” he panted, grinning and rising, holding down a grimy hand to his brother. “I can’t believe I actually won this time.” Si-Amun pulled himself to his feet and they embraced.

“Make the most of your victory,” Si-Amun teased him. “It will not be repeated. You won because I am not in top form today. I drank too much wine last night.”

“Excuses.” Kamose walked to where their kilts lay in a white pile on the hot earth. “I think I am going to be the better wrestler in the end, Si-Amun. I spend a lot more time training with Hor-Aha than you do. You’re getting lazy.” He flung Si-Amun’s kilt at him and wound his own around his waist.

“You’re right,” Si-Amun agreed good-naturedly. “I like to keep fit but I don’t want to attain the physical perfection of the soldier. I can’t see why you bother either.” He waved an arm towards the far end of the training ground where a large number of men were being drilled. The sunlight glinted on the tips of their spears and their sun-blackened, muscular bodies gleamed with oil. The sharp commands of the officer in charge came echoing to the two brothers as they watched the formation wheel smartly. “They are an expensive toy for Father,” Si-Amun went on, wiping his forehead vigorously with his kilt before fastening it in place. “Of course, the bodyguards are necessary, and a few retainers when we travel, and perhaps a spare contingent or two for the nomes when there’s trouble, but with the King’s whole army available for any serious defence, Father could send half his five hundred troops back to their homes. Supporting them drives Uni crazy.”

“They may be needed one day,” Kamose replied, picking up his sandals and shaking them free of sand, and Si-Amun jumped on his words with an immediacy that betrayed his secret preoccupation.

“To do what?” he snapped. “The only need Father might have for a true private army would be against the One himself and I know such thoughts are in his mind because of the way he reacted to the King’s scroll. No one is more aware than I that royal blood flows in our veins, which is why I do not understand our self-imposed exile in this lamentable burning backwater when we might be sitting beside Apepa in Het-Uart and enjoying his favour. Father has too much pride.”

“It is the pride of a Prince who would rather govern his ancetral seat with authority than lick the King’s leather boots every day in a region of Egypt where he has no friends and no roots,” Kamose shot back irritably. “I wish I had been born before you, Si-Amun, for then you would be free to go north and fawn upon our King while I prepared to take upon myself the responsibilities of a Prince of Weset.”

“How humourless you are!” Si-Amun mocked him gently. “How sober! Don’t you ever just have fun, Kamose, make love to a few serving girls, get drunk in your skiff at midnight on the river? You are so solemn most of the time!” Kamose bit back a stinging answer.

“I take life a little more seriously than you, Si-Amun, that is all,” he said, beginning to walk towards the gate in the wall that gave onto the rear of the courtyard. Si-Amun hurried to keep pace with him.

“I apologize,” he said. “If we were similar in more than our looks, our lives would be simpler. Yet I love you.” Kamose smiled across at him.

“I love you also.”

“All the same,” Si-Amun emphasized, always needing the last word, “if Father ever took it into his head
to commit treason against Ma’at and march against the King I would not join him. I worry about that.”

“So do I,” Kamose admitted, “but not out of loyalty to the King. I worry at the dissolution of the family and the destruction of the life we lead here at Weset. But we are foolish to make ourselves even more sweaty than we are already by arguing over a puff of cloud. Let’s bathe. I want to be oiled before my muscles stiffen into soreness. In any case,” and here he graced Si-Amun with one of his rare, dazzling full smiles, “Apepa is not Ma’at in Egypt. Father is.”

To that, Si-Amun had no reply. They pushed through the gate, crossed the courtyard beyond in the sudden shade of the granaries, and headed for the bath house together.

No reply to Seqenenra’s letter came from the King. Men returned from the Delta several weeks later and reported that he had not personally been received by Apepa. He had handed the scroll to Itju, the King’s Chief Scribe, and had been told the next day that he could go. He had toured his master’s cattle, which were growing fat and sleek on the lush pastures watered by an abundant Nile that branched out and meandered slowly through the Delta to the Great Green, and could tell Amunmose that Amun’s cattle likewise fared excellently. He had watched the King’s charioteers practising manoeuvres outside Het-Uart. On his way home he had spent a day admiring the marvels of Saqqara, the ancient city of the dead, and had climbed one of the lesser pyramids close by, as so many other travellers did.

Seqenenra had few questions for him. In the days that followed, his anxiety lessened and finally disappeared as he watched royal craft ply the river on their way to Kush or
from Kush to the Delta, passing Weset with oars flashing and flags afloat. Apepa’s quixotic demand and Seqenenra’s equally irrational reply were relegated to the back of Seqenenra’s mind and often forgotten altogether.

2

AS SPRING MOVED INTO SUMMER
and the season of Shemu began, Seqenenra left Kamose to govern in his absence and took Aahotep and the rest of the family north to Khemennu where Teti, Aahotep’s relative by marriage, was governor. Tetisheri declined to go, preferring to order her time as she wished. Kamose was more than content to see to the affairs of the nomes, do a little hunting in the desert hills, and enjoy the peace of his own solitary routine. Seqenenra did not insist that Si-Amun fulfil the duties of an heir. He would get much more pleasure from the bustle of Teti’s estate than Kamose. Ahmose was content to make no choices. He was happy wherever he found himself. The crops had sprung up thick and promising in the little fields. The canals bordering them were full of the water imprisoned by mud dykes as the Nile sank after the last Inundation. In the gardens the leeks and onions, radishes, lettuce and melons were forming and flowers trembled, pink, blue and white, beside the pool. Monkeys perched in the palm trees that lined river and canal, gibbering at passersby, and in the thick papyrus beds young crocodiles lurked, watching with lazy greed the antics of the newly hatched fledglings.

The Inundation had been generous. Isis had cried copiously, flooding Egypt with fecundity, and Seqenenra knew
that the resultant crops would pay his taxes to the One and leave his personal treasury amply filled for another year. Si-Amun and his older daughter had come to him just before they were all due to leave, both solemn and full of importance, with the news that Aahmes-nefertari was pregnant with their first child. Delighted, Seqenenra congratulated them. Aahotep gave Aahmes-nefertari a menat-amulet for special protection and the whole family burned incense before Taurt, who stood fat and smiling, her great hippopotamus’s body swollen with her own promise at the entrance to the women’s quarters. Tani had always treated the statue of the goddess with happy affection, rubbing the vast stomach as she ran to and from her room beside her mother’s, but now Aahmes-nefertari brought a flower or two daily to lay on the goddess’s feet and assiduously said her prayers there morning and evening.

It was a cheerful group that waved farewell to Kamose and Tetisheri. Aahotep watched until the last glimpse of the tree-shrouded house and the glint of sun on the white watersteps had sunk from view. Behind her barge came the one carrying Si-Amun and Aahmes-nefertari. Ahmose and Tani shared the third craft. The servants who would set up quarters for the family on the bank each evening had gone on ahead. Aahotep signalled, going to the mats laid under the canopy against the small cabin where Seqenenra already sat, and as she went down beside him, Isis handed her a cup of water.

Already Weset, with its clusters of whitewashed mud houses, narrow donkey-crowded streets and women squatting to slap their linen against the river’s surface, had receded and the Nile wound peacefully through reed
marshes that opened on the east to fields in which peasants bent and on the west to uncultivated tangles of papyrus and then blinding sand that covered the feet of the western cliffs.

“I wish Tetisheri had decided to come with us,” Aahotep remarked, sipping the water. “It would have done her good to get away from Weset for a while.”

“Khemennu is under the One’s direct control,” Seqenenra reminded her. “My mother likes to foster the illusion that we are all free, or at least she does not like to have to swallow her words or bite her tongue. She and Kamose understand one another very well. They will enjoy the opportunity to tussle over minor matters of administration.”

“I suppose you are right. And I know she will spend much time taking offerings to your father’s shrine and praying there. She speaks of him so little, yet I know she misses him a great deal. I shall go to my parents’ tomb in Khemennu also while we are there, and eat a memorial meal. Seqenenra, could you talk to their priest and make sure the endowment is being used correctly? Kares exchanges correspondence with him, but in these times one never knows … Seqenenra?” He came to himself with a start.