The Horus Road (15 page)

“What would Your Majesty have them shout?”

“Let us make it a threat.” Ahmose stood and stretched. “They must say this. ‘Uatch-Kheperu Ahmose, Son of the Sun, Horus, the Horus of Gold, demands the surrender of the foreign usurper Apepa, unless he wishes to see the city of Het-Uart burned to the ground.’ Every night, Khabekhnet. You are dismissed.”

“Very good, Majesty.”

When he had gone, Ahmose climbed onto his cot, and snuffing the lamp he closed his eyes. There should be reports soon from the divisions warring free in the Delta, he thought as his body began to relax, and perhaps some word from Weset. I must have Ipi make a note regarding the Gold of Valour for the crew of the
North
. I can do little more with the city until the Inundation and then I must send for the navy. Ramose is right. Keep fresh water out of Het-Uart. With that he fell asleep, half-waking several times before morning to hear, far off but very clearly, the voices of his heralds as they circled the flood plain, crying his warning.

But it was the Scribe of the Army who came to him with the first light of Ra, brandishing the lists of hands taken from the enemy dead who had been shot by the Medjay and fallen outside the walls and who had perished in the battle before the open gates.

Ahmose was more concerned with the numbers of his own men who had died and with any soldiers qualifying for an award due to bravery. There were several. The fighting in front of that tantalizingly open gate had been fierce and sustained. Greasy black smoke was already hazing the bright morning from the piles of burning Setiu bodies, but the Scribe of the Army assured Ahmose that the Egyptian dead were being washed and wrapped in clean linen before being buried. There were not many of them, for the Setiu had been grossly outnumbered. Their names had been meticulously recorded so that later they might be carved into stone; otherwise the gods would not be able to find them and give them life in the next world. It was the greatest hazard in war, Ahmose reflected as the scribe gathered up his papyrus and bowed himself away from the table under the willows where Ahmose had eaten his first meal of the day. A soldier risked dying twice, the second death being the more appalling.

The rumble of the city seemed louder this morning, the sound of its activity somehow more frantic. Ahmose, sipping his beer and watching his officers moving among the thousands of men squatting in the dirt with their rations in their hands, wondered if the heralds’ stern message had done more than he had hoped. He did not underestimate the way in which the mood of the population could influence the ultimate decisions of those in authority, and it could be that the vermin of Het-Uart, waking to lie half-conscious and vulnerable in the darkness, had heard words that troubled the remainder of their sleep. No archers had appeared atop the wall. The city was ignoring the teeming host outside, as it had done when Kamose had surrounded it. Yet Ahmose sensed, very faintly, a change.

Hor-Aha and General Khety had both sent to him for orders and he had told them to simply hold their positions, firing upon anyone foolish enough to raise his head above the level of the wall but otherwise maintaining a watchful inactivity. No word had yet come from the six divisions ranging to the east, and Ahmose expected none for some time. Mesore was almost over. Thoth would mark the beginning of winter and the flood, and until the Inundation filled the tributaries of the Delta he could do little but drill his men and wait.

Mounting his chariot with Ankhmahor, he spent several hours inspecting the troops, talking with General Turi and General Sebekh-khu, and boarding the Medjay’s vessels. He would have liked to invite Hor-Aha to keep him company through the day but purposely he refrained from showing the man any particular favour.

He sought out those officers of the Medjay who had been given command over Egyptian soldiers by Kamose and who had since been returned to the company of their own kind, and in talking to them he found no evidence of rancour. They responded to his carefully worded questions simply and respectfully but absently, and when he sent them away, they went back happily to the tasks he had interrupted. It is not that they lack intelligence, he mused, as he swung down one ramp and walked towards another. They are quick to grasp a practical idea or solve a functional problem. But most of them seem to live entirely in the present, discarding both the disappointments and the triumphs of the past. Such an innate ability must give them a primitive contentment. Hor-Aha isa glaring exception, perhaps because his mother is Egyptian.

The sun was high overhead when he retraced the steps to his tent and the drooping willow beneath which he lowered himself again. Akhtoy at once emerged from his own shelter, sending for hot water and the noon meal, and Ahmose found himself approached by a herald who saluted and presented him with a scroll bearing Aahmes-nefertari’s seal. Delighted, he broke the seal and began to read. “To my dear husband and King, greetings,” she had dictated. “It seems as though you have been gone for many hentis and I and the children miss you very much, but there is plenty to keep me occupied on the estate and in Weset. I received your letter regarding the architect Prince Sebek-nakht of Mennofer. You have obviously decided to trust him and I suppose that while he is here in Weset he cannot be fomenting sedition farther north. Several days after your scroll arrived, he himself wrote to me explaining your invitation and expressing his regret that he has work to do for Apepa in Het-Uart before he can comply with your request for his services, but since you are now sieging that city and no one can enter or leave it, he must wait for the Inundation to complete the assignment his master had given him. I wrote back to him explaining that you were not withdrawing your armies this year, therefore he should travel to Weset as soon as possible. I thought it could do no harm, as the flood is little more than a month away.”

Here Ahmose paused and smiled to himself. Clever Aahmes-nefertari, he thought, pleased. Once she has Sebek-nakht in her grasp, she will treat him like a brother and give him such satisfying work that he will never want to leave the pleasures of the estate or the challenge of the tasks. And if Amun wills it, there will be no mortuary temples left to be razed in Het-Uart. There will be no Het-Uart left at all. He lowered his gaze once more.

“Work has begun on raising the height of the wall surrounding the entire estate,” the letter went on, “and I have taken it upon myself to order the one dividing our house from the old palace torn down. I have commissioned gates to be hung above the watersteps as you desired. Ahmose-onkh is much occupied in watching all this activity. I have been forced to detail a guard to accompany him so that he does not wander into danger. I have dictated an official letter in my capacity as your Queen to the ruler of the Keftiu, requesting the opening of trade negotiations that will entirely omit any dealings through the Setiu. I have also received a shipment of gold from Wawat which has been stored in the temple. I do not think that we can expect regular consignments from the mines there until you are able to turn your attention to the southern forts that used to guard the gold routes, and I have insufficient men and officers under me to send out such an expedition.”

“Gods, I should hope so!” Ahmose exclaimed aloud with mingled shock and amusement. “Does the Commander of the Household Guard yearn to be created a General? General Aahmes-nefertari!” He shook his head, still chuckling. “What next, my beautiful warrior?”

“The children are well,” he read on. “Your mother is overseeing the tallying of the harvest and the winemaking and she and I have been assessing the taxes to be levied this year. My duties in the temple are not onerous. Amunmose begs me to convey to you his greatest respect. He tells me that the omens for a successful conclusion to our long struggle are excellent.

“The scrolls I call for at night and read on my couch before I sleep are no longer love poems or the tales of our ancestors. They contain the lists of men you have drawn up for my investigation and judgement. My scribe, Khunes, sits on the floor beside me and records my thoughts regarding each one. He is, incidentally, a very talented and efficient young man. I found him among Amun’s scribes in the temple where I go to perform the duties of a Second Prophet with which you charged me.”

Once more Ahmose’s eyes left the papyrus and strayed blankly to the delicately stirring tracery of thin branches. A moment of jealousy moved within him, echoing the fitful motion of the willow’s fingers. Khunes, his mind whispered. A very talented and efficient young man, sitting on the floor of her bedchamber in the night with his undoubtedly handsome head bent obediently over his palette. I asked you to be my eyes and ears in the temple, Aahmes-nefertari. Is this man another link you have forged with those you must watch, or a little diversion for you? A pleasant titillation? He grunted and slapped the scroll against his knee, pushing the unworthy emotion away. Take care that you do not become unbalanced in your suspicions, Ahmose Tao, he reprimanded himself. The pit of madness waits for you as it did for Kamose, and the first step down into that darkness has “lack of trust” rendered large upon it. Swallowing, he bent over his wife’s words.

“I thought it best not to use one of the household scribes to do this work,” she silently explained. “I trust them all, of course, for they are trained to keep their master’s counsel, but as their masters include our indomitable grandmother, it seemed wiser to recruit someone answerable to me alone. Khunes also brings the life of the temple to me when I am buried under my tasks and cannot attend there myself. When you come home, dearest husband, I shall remove him from Amun’s care entirely. He instructs those who must delve into the suitability of the names I select to act as your representatives with the Princes and governors. You have given me many difficult tasks, Ahmose, but this is the hardest. It is being slowly accomplished.”

The remainder of the letter was taken up with small gossip regarding the doings of the children, the health of their mother, and finally an outpouring of her love for him before she placed her name and titles at the end. Ahmose let the scroll roll up, called for Ipi, and then sat biting his lip and frowning. The one reference Aahmes-nefertari had made to Tetisheri had been innocuous enough, but it made him uneasy. Was there a struggle for control taking place in the house? Was Tetisheri attempting to assert her own authority over the many enterprises he had left in his wife’s hands? I will not be returning to Weset for a very long time, he thought, as a shadow fell over him and he looked up to see Ipi come to a halt and bow. Aahmes-nefertari knows it, and that is why her letter was so full. I must remind her to seal her communications to me as soon as they are written and place them directly into the hands of the herald who will bring them. I must tell her to dictate everything done and said under her jurisdiction in the greatest detail. Better still, she must write the letters herself.

Then he laughed abruptly. That would require more time and effort than she had, and the mute suggestion had come straight from the muddy pool of jealousy still rippling inside him. I should be pleased that she has found someone on whom she may rely, he thought. This Khunes is a scribe, a useful and necessary tool. Nothing more. If he enters her bedchamber, if he bows before her as she sits propped up on her couch, her filmy white sleeping robe spread out around her and her hair loose upon the pillows, it is because it is the only time in her crowded day when she is able to address this particular matter.

I used to love her calmly, unreflectively, his thoughts ran on. I took her and that comfortable emotion for granted. She was my shy, pretty wife for whom I felt an indulgent, rather patronizing protectiveness. I made love to her with tenderness and enjoyment but passion for her was unknown to me. All that has changed. War and suffering has made me a man and brought out in her the qualities I ought to have seen in the beginning if I had not been so complacent with regard to her affection for me.

Now I am in love with her and I did not realize it fully until this moment. I am jealous of her scribe, the officers of her household guard, the priests with whom she worships in the temple. The women who clothe her, the men who feed her, the cosmetician who is privileged to touch her face, I envy them all. I want to bury my face in her hair, her neck, between her breasts, inhale the scent of her, lap up the warmth of her, not sanely curbed within myself but to burn, to be lost. Not wife, not mother, but woman, you are woman to me, Aahmes-nefertari, and I want you with a ferocity I did not know I possessed.

Ipi cleared his throat and Ahmose glanced up, dazed. “You wish to dictate, Majesty?” the scribe asked politely. Ahmose wrenched his attention back to the present.

“No. No, Ipi,” he said huskily. He held out the scroll. “A letter from the Queen. Put a date on it and file it away. Tell me,” he went on as Ipi took the papyrus, “do you know anything of a temple scribe called Khunes? Her Majesty has recently hired him as her personal assistant.” Ipi frowned, considering.

“I know every under-scribe in your employ, Majesty,” he replied, “but it is some time since I took notice of Amun’s servants. The name seems familiar. Would Your Majesty like me to make a few discreet enquiries into the character and ability of this person?” At once Ahmose felt besmirched.

“No,” he answered slowly. “The Queen’s judgement is sound. I simply wondered what you could remember of him if you had ever met him. Thank you, Ipi. That is all.” Yet his eyes stayed fixed on the scroll in Ipi’s hand as the man hurried away, and he rose from his chair with reluctance. His head had begun to ache and the scar behind his ear to itch. He fingered it irritably. “Akhtoy!” he called. “Bring a sunshade! I will swim and then lie on the bank for a while before I eat.”

Both the letter and the revelation that had followed it made him restless. He did not want the food Akhtoy placed before him, nor could he fall asleep in the hour when the sun seemed to stand still and the heat was greatest. He was almost glad when Ankhmahor requested admittance to tell him that Mesehti and Makhu were waiting outside to speak with him. Leaving his cot, he pulled on the linen cap of custom and wound a kilt about his waist before allowing the Princes entrance.