The Horus Road (56 page)

“You have no choice,” she said calmly. “If you refuse him a royal interment, you will be casting doubt upon your own divinity.”

“How so?” He wiped his fingers on his tunic with quick, fierce movements. If grief is poisoning her mind, she will come under the special protection of the gods, he was thinking. As a madwoman her person will be sacrosanct and I can take her home and end this absurdity. Everyone at Weset will pity her for living among the Setiu so long that she has become unhinged. Oh, Tani, to see you sitting laughing on the verge of the pool with your bare feet dangling among the waterlilies and Ahmose-onkh beside you! She had taken a judicious sip of her own wine and he noticed critically that her hand was trembling.

“It is like this,” she went on. “You are a King by right of lineage, are you not?” He nodded. “And I am a fully royal Princess. The right of legitimization passes through the female blood, not the male, Ahmose. You married Aahmesnefertari, also a fully royal Princess. You had to in order to become eligible for divinity. Apepa married me. That made him a fully royal Egyptian King.” Rage boiled up in him and he clenched his fists.

“How dare you suggest that Apepa had any claim upon the throne of Egypt at all!” he shouted. “I wait for Amun to strike you dumb! Does all that the family has been through mean nothing to you? When did your Egyptian soul desert you in shame and leave a Setiu ka to slither into its place?”

“He was not so until he married me,” she said loudly, emphatically, cutting across the explosion of his anger. “But as soon as I signed that contract, Apepa became a rightful King of Egypt. If you refuse him the full honours due to such a King, you will be calling your own legitimacy into doubt.” Ahmose sat back. All at once he had gone cold.

“You whore,” he whispered. “I see the logic in your argument but it is evil, perverse.” Her face puckered but she did not cry. “I will do anything to ensure that his ka is not annihilated,” she said passionately. “He is a good man, Ahmose. A kind man. If the Setiu bury him, our gods will not recognize or acknowledge him, and that I could not bear! I want him to reach the fields of Osiris and sit under the sycamore tree in peace for all eternity! I am ruthless in this desire!”

A soft tongue of admiration licked him briefly. She may be Setiu but the blood of her stubborn grandmother surges through her veins, he thought. And she is right. To fling Apepa onto a dung heap somewhere is to deny her royalty and my divinity. Damn you, Tani!

“He cannot be beautified,” he reminded her crisply. “There is no House of the Dead here, no sem-priests, no natron enough for embalming. He rots even as he dies, and when he dies the process of putrefaction will be swift.”

She answered him eagerly, obviously sensing victory. “He can be packed in sand and transported quickly to Het-Uart,” she urged. “There is a House of the Dead in the city, built for the Egyptians who lived within its walls. Surely the sem-priests are still there! They could do something, and then I could lay him in the tomb outside Het-Uart with his ancestors.”

The irony was not lost on Ahmose. Moodily he tipped more wine into his cup.

“Supposing that I agree to this … this travesty,” he said. “I will allow you to travel with him, but not the rest of his family. I want no Setiu Princes loose again in Egypt.”

She drank, twirled her cup between her fingers, and raising it to her breast she held it there like a shield. “I do not care if you leave them here,” she said woodenly. “I only care about Apepa. His family never truly accepted me. His Chief Wife was jealous and his sons treated me with barely concealed disdain. Now they have repudiated me altogether for lowering myself so far as to beg for your help. They wanted him to die like a warrior.”

“Warriors do not die by falling down a set of stairs,” he retorted caustically. “Congratulations, Tani. It seems that you have managed to earn the contempt of Egyptian and Setiu alike. That is quite a feat.”

She flushed. “You are cruel, Ahmose,” she half-whispered. “Do you also hold me in derision?”

The soft tongue of pity licked him briefly. “No,” he said more gently. “You have sold the pride in your blood and heritage you once had and for that I can no longer respect you, but you are still my sister. There is still the affection of one family member for another.”

“Cold comfort,” she murmured. “But I suppose it must be enough.”

“Enough? It is a great deal considering the depths of selfishness and stupidity to which you have fallen!” he snapped, his moment of compassion gone. “Now tell me of Apepa’s sons. I need to know what they are like.” He saw the question in her eyes and the caution which forbade her to give it voice.

“He has several by his concubines,” she said, “but only two by his legitimate wife Uazet. Apepa the Younger and Kypenpen. Kypenpen is very like his father in temperament, mild and intelligent, but Apepa the Younger is arrogant, brash and impulsive. Before my husband had the fall that has destroyed him, his elder son pestered him constantly to confront your army, issue challenges, open the gates and fight. It was a ludicrous idea and Apepa knew it, but he could not silence his son’s loud importuning. I do not like Apepa the Younger, and he has hated me for being your sister.”

“Why was the idea ludicrous?” Ahmose pressed. Something in his tone alerted her and she closed her mouth, fixing her gaze on the tip of her sandals under the folds of her patterned robe. “Let me guess,” he went on slowly. “Could it have been because Sharuhen is mostly full of common citizens and its garrison is very small? Rethennu as a whole is decidedly denuded of soldiers. My army killed most of them when they ventured into the Delta. Am I right?” She continued to stare at her feet without answering. Ahmose regained his chair and crossed his legs. “Look at me!” he demanded sharply. Reluctantly she met his eyes. “I am willing to command a royal burial for your husband,” he said. “A box full of sand will be waiting outside his tent within the hour. As soon as he expires, you will set out with him to Het-Uart and I will give you a scroll to General Sebek-khu giving you permission to go to the House of the Dead, mourn formally for seventy days, and engage whatever High Priest you can find to perform all the necessary rites before the tomb of Apepa’s ancestors. Then you are banished. You are never to return to Egypt. If you do, you will be killed. I will instruct Abana to arrange passage for you to Keftiu with sufficient gold to enable you to live comfortably. Marry again if you choose. In return you will tell me how many troops are stationed inside Sharuhen.”

She had gone very still while he was speaking. Even her breathing became almost imperceptible. But her eyes were fixed on his face with a persistent intensity.

“And if I refuse?” she whispered.

He shrugged. “Then I will have your husband’s body burned as soon as he is dead and I will imprison you at Weset for the crime of treason.”

“Ahmose!” she burst out. “You would not!”

“Yes, I would,” he replied with cold force. “Make up your mind now, Tani. The night passes.”

“What a magnificent choice,” she said bitterly. “What glorious alternatives. Damn my husband’s ka to annihilation or betray my benefactor the Chieftain of Sharuhen and go into exile. How merciful you are, Son of the Sun, upholder of Ma’at! How benign! Once more you have rubbed salt into a wound already throbbing with unbearable pain. Very well.” She rose, drawing her robe around her with graceful, regal gestures. “The garrison within Sharuhen holds no more than five thousand soldiers. They are well armed but not well disciplined. They are certainly no match for your army, as Apepa knew when he refused to listen to his son’s rash pleading. But they will not come out, Ahmose. The Chieftain will not release them.”

“Who rules in Sharuhen?” Ahmose urged. “Does the Chieftain or his brother to whom he gave sanctuary?”

“The Chieftain will bow to Apepa the Younger’s authority,” she admitted. “Now let me return to my husband’s bedside. I hope we will not meet again.” She did not wait for a dismissal. Gliding to the tent flap with head down, she left him.

I refuse to feel ashamed, he told himself sternly. I did what I had to do. I did more for her than many in my position would have done. Perhaps one day she will realize that my own choices were as limited and terrible as hers, and she will forgive me. Going to the tent opening, he shouted for Khabekhnet, and when the herald appeared and bowed, he issued his instructions. “I want a coffin full of sand for Apepa delivered at once,” he said. “See the Scribe of Distribution about it. Tell General Turi that as well as the Throne he will be escorting Queen Tautha and her husband’s corpse as far as the Delta. Send Ipi here at once and then find Prince Abana if he has returned.”

It did not take long for Ipi to appear, settle his palette across his knees, and prepare to take the dictation. Ahmose composed a letter to Aahmes-nefertari regarding the recovery of the Throne. He could not avoid describing Tani’s part in it but he did so as tactfully as possible, his mind filling with a vision of his wife and his beautiful little boy. The sanity of their images served to calm him, and he finished the letter to Sebek-khu at Het-Uart in a more collected mood.

Abana was already waiting by the time Ahmose had finished, and bidding Ipi stay and record the conversation, he invited his Admiral to enter. Abana bowed and took the chair Ahmose offered. His weeks at sea had etched a few lines more deeply into his face and turned his brown skin even darker, but he filled the tent with an aura of wellbeing and masculine vitality that Ahmose drank in with gratitude. “The shipments of water are to cease in three days,” Ahmose told him. “Before they do, I want you to fill every barrel we have. I am withdrawing the army.”

“So I hear.” Abana stretched out his legs, crossed them at the ankles, and regarded his King speculatively. “But the army will not need so much water to simply march to the Delta where there is plenty. Your Majesty has a plan.” Ahmose smiled at him.

“I have indeed. I have learned that the garrison inside Sharuhen is small and the city itself is commanded by a very arrogant, very rash young man. I intend to take three of my five divisions back to Egypt, leaving one in full view of Sharuhen and one hidden a few miles away behind the dunes to the west. I want you to become an infantry soldier for a while, Prince.” Abana nodded equably.

“I am yours to command,” he said. “This sounds intriguing. You will attempt to lure this stupid young man into pitched battle and, having persuaded him to come out, reinforce your troops and defeat him. Is Sharuhen to be sacked, even though Apepa is as good as dead?”

“You are the one who will entice him out of his stronghold,” Ahmose said. “You have a way with impudence, Prince. Every day you will parade beneath the walls shouting insults. It is only a matter of time before the gates open.” Abana looked thoughtful.

“How many troops does the fort have?” he wanted to know. “And who am I mocking?”

“Five thousand, which is why I will leave a full division, five thousand men, in plain sight and another five thousand secreted in the dunes. The man who will not be able to resist your challenge is Apepa’s eldest son, Apepa the Younger.” Abana’s eyes narrowed.

“You cannot afford to let them live, can you, Majesty?” he said softly. “Apepa dies but his sons live on, a threat to everything you have accomplished. When the battle is over and I am victorious, I am to execute them?”

“In this I have no choice,” Ahmose replied. “The soldiers may loot Sharuhen. They deserve it. But no citizen is to be murdered. I care only that Apepa the Younger and his brother Kypenpen are correctly identified and killed. Leave the children of Apepa’s concubines alone. They have no claim to Egypt. Am I understood?”

“Perfectly,” Abana assured him.

“There is one more thing,” Ahmose went on. “My sister is to take ship to Keftiu after Apepa is buried. I have given her permission to conduct his funeral rites in Het-Uart but then she must leave Egypt. You have become acquainted with many Keftiu traders. Arrange a safe passage for her. I will give her a letter to the Keftian ruler.” He could see one conjecture follow another behind Abana’s alert, dark eyes. I do not have to explain any of this, he thought with relief. Abana is astute enough to reach his own conclusions regarding the source of my information and how I bartered for it. “She will mourn for the full seventy days,” he finished. “Surely in that time you will have humbled Sharuhen and returned to the Delta. Take any of Apepa’s officials with you. They will provide Tani with company on her journey and form the core of her new household when she arrives.”

“The Keftians and the Setiu have always respected one another,” Abana said, rising. “You may trust me to do all as you would wish, Majesty.”

“Good. Then you are dismissed.”

He went to his couch early but he could not sleep. No sounds came to him from the tent next door, but he was preternaturally aware of what it contained and his mind insisted on supplying exaggerated pictures of the physician bending over Apepa’s decaying form on one side and Tani on the other, both of them casting grotesque shadows on the tent walls. When his imagination supplied a third shadow, tall and sinister, he got up, wrapped himself in a cloak, and leaving his own tent he let himself quietly into the other.

The physician was dozing in a chair and Tani was asleep on her stool beside the couch, one arm stretched across her husband’s shallow chest, her head resting on the pillow next to his. Unconsciousness had erased the evidences of weariness and sadness from her face and in the dim lamp-light Ahmose saw again the young, unsullied girl she had been. He wanted to go up to her and stroke the dishevelled hair back from her brow, murmur words of reassurance and comfort, but instead he sank to the floor just inside the entrance and watched her.

The physician had been roused by Ahmose’s small noises. Yawning, he stood and bowed. “His breathing has become very faint and erratic, Majesty,” he said in a low voice. “It is a matter now of moments, not hours.” Ahmose nodded and put a finger to his lips. The physician moved back to his chair.

Ahmose was woken by Tani’s cry. She had overturned the stool and was half-sitting, half-lying on the couch, Apepa cradled in her arms, rocking him and wailing. Finding himself curled up on the floor of the tent, Ahmose struggled blearily to his feet. The physician was tidying away his phials and spoons. “Give me leave to go to my quarters, Majesty,” he said. “It has been a long night. I will see that the bed linen is burned in the morning.” Ahmose waved his permission and turned to Tani, intending to say some word, make some gesture of commiseration, but he hesitated. She was oblivious to all but her grief, her eyes closed, her whole body mutely shouting her pain as the tent filled with her keening. Nothing I could say or do would be sincere, Ahmose thought. I am glad he is dead, and any expression to the contrary would be a lie. He slipped away as noiselessly as he had come.