The Oasis (63 page)

“I was not with His Majesty on any of his campaigns,” he replied frankly. “When the Weset division was quartered here, I was responsible for keeping order in the barracks. When I was left with only the household troops, I provided guards for the house and estate and maintained peace throughout the nome. I am Weset born and bred. I love my home and the lords who have done their best to make it safe. I remember when Apepa came, how humiliating it was for our soldiers to defer to Setiu officers.” He grimaced. “Highness, I did not want to see Weset come under the yoke of any Prince other than a Tao, but we were told that the deed was done and what could we say? We are only soldiers. We have little of our own. We serve whoever sits at the pinnacle of supremacy.”

“But the deed may not in fact be done,” Aahmes-nefertari broke in shrewdly. “And at this moment I sit at the pinnacle of supremacy. Will you keep me there, Amun-nakht?” He inclined his head.

“I will so long as I am able,” he said gravely. “Send me word from the house as soon as possible, Highness, and reinforcements from the Medjay. The Princes’ officers will not be happy men.”

“Very well.” She knew that he had given her the most candid answer she could expect. “You are dismissed, Amunnakht. I will not bring my couch to the dais just yet.” He did not smile at her little joke. Saluting her soberly, he made for the steps, but a dismaying thought struck her and she called after him, “Suppose that all seems lost and I am wrongly optimistic and Prince Ahmose-onkh is the only royal son left. Will you accept my position as King’s Regent and Commander of all the Forces of His Majesty, Amun-nakht?”

“Yes, Highness,” he called back without breaking his stride.

She stood for a moment watching him cross the empty expanse of the training ground now baking under the midmorning strength of the sun. I should have asked him about the other Princes, Mesehti and Makhu, she berated herself. And where is Meketra? Nefer-Sakharu? But perhaps if I had plied him with too many questions I would have sounded insecure. Then she laughed out loud and still grasping the knife she left the dais and began to retrace her steps the way she had come. Insecure? Meketra and that bitch may have full control of the house by now. Everyone may be dead. What if I am walking to my doom and everything I have attempted is a puff of wind?

She had reached the gate, and as she let herself through it the trees beyond began to shake. Blinding sunlight beating from the whitewashed walls of the servants’ quarters suddenly dissolved into bands of unfocused colour and the path wavered. I am going to faint, she thought distantly. Faltering left, she managed to find a private place behind a cluster of acacia bushes before collapsing with her back against the perimeter wall. With her head lolling between her knees, she waited while her vision cleared and the pricking in her face subsided, then she began to cry. Wracking sobs shook her, the terror of the morning taking their toll. Arms wrapped around herself, rocking to and fro in the acacia’s friendly shade, she wept for an action that had taken all her strength of mind and body, for Kamose and his loneliness, for her husband who had slipped from their couch to follow a simple pursuit that had probably taken him away from her forever. When she was spent, she wiped her face on her grimy sheath and came trembling to her feet. The sun still shone. Breezes fluttered through the lawns. A golden dragonfly flickered past, its wings glittering. Aahmes-nefertari made her way back to the path and set off determinedly for the house.

Entering quietly through the servants’ access, the knife still held but almost forgotten, she walked a little way along the wide passage and then halted, listening. Low voices came to her and far away someone was crying but there were no sounds of violent encounter. Whatever had happened, for good or ill, it had taken place while she was away. Moving on, she came to the painted doorway that signalled the wider corridors of the main quarters and stepped from beaten earth onto tiling. The floors were usually swept clean of their small accumulation of sand by this hour but now her sandals grated as she went and there was no sign of any servant wielding a broom.

She continued cautiously, aware once more that the knife she raised was really nothing but a show of bravado, until at the place where the passage divided, running ahead to the main entrance and the public rooms, left to the women’s apartments, or right to the men’s, she came upon four Medjay leaning against the wall and chattering excitedly. Seeing her, they sprang upright and bowed in the quick, perfunctory way they had. “Highness, Highness,” they clamoured, and Aahmes-nefertari realized that the house had been saved.

“Where is His Majesty?” she asked. They became very still, regarding her solemnly with their shiny dark eyes. One of them pointed.

“Along there,” he said. “In the big room.” Thanking them on a wave of gratitude to the gods, she sped down the central passage. Kamose had been spared. He was in the reception hall with Ahmose and Hor-Aha and the others. Everything was going to be all right. On the way she passed several members of the household staff on hands and knees, scrubbing at the bloodstains where the Followers had fallen. The bodies were gone. Normality has been restored, she thought gladly, and I have done my part and survived. It is over.

But outside the interior doorway she came upon Akhtoy. The steward was sitting on a stool and the face he turned to her as she slowed was wet with tears. Rising awkwardly, he sketched a bow and Aahmes-nefertari’s fragile new confidence disintegrated. “What is it, what is it?” she croaked. “Is he wounded? Is Ahmose hurt too?” Akhtoy fought to compose his features before he spoke, and to Aahmes-nefertari his effort to re-establish the anonymously courteous mask of his stewardship was the most alarming thing she had ever seen.

“His Majesty is dead,” he said with the barest waver in his voice. “He was shot in the side as he went to the watersteps to warn His Highness.” He swallowed, and mesmerized, Aahmes-nefertari found her gaze fixed on the convulsion of his throat. “The Lady Tetisheri sent a soldier to meet you but obviously he did not find you. I am deeply distressed that it is I who have to give you this news. Forgive me, Highness. Your husband, the Prince, has been …” But Aahmes-nefertari did not wait to hear more. Pushing past him she ran into the reception hall.

Kamose’s body lay on the huge desk that had been brought from his father’s office. One wall of the pillared room was completely open to the garden and although no direct sunlight penetrated, the scene was horribly clear. A dishevelled Amunmose holding a smoking censer swayed at Kamose’s feet, chanting quietly. Ramose and Hor-Aha stood together at his mutilated side from which, Aahmes-nefertari saw with horror, the arrow still jutted. Hor-Aha was gripping Behek’s collar as the dog whimpered, struggling bewilderedly to jump up to his master, and even as Aahmes-nefertari went forward the General signalled to a servant to take him away. Ankhmahor had his back to them all. He was leaning against a pillar, head bowed, and beyond him on the edge of the garden the servants crowded, some squatting on the grass, some clustered in groups, all silent with grief.

Tetisheri sat at the far end of the hall on the bottom step of the dais where the family and important guests dined when there was feasting. She was motionless, her spine rigid, her knees together under the blue sheath, both gnarled hands gripping her thighs. To a distraught Aahmes-nefertari she seemed already mummified, the puckered and corrugated skin of her face tight and leathery, her thin, lined lips drawn back from yellowing teeth, her eyes sunken beneath pouched lids. She was staring straight ahead and scarcely blinked when her granddaughter bent over her. “Grandmother, where is Ahmose?” Aahmes-nefertari demanded. “Where is my mother?” She laid a hand on the tangled mat of grey hair and Tetisheri stirred.

“They must all die, every one of them,” she whispered. Her breath in the girl’s face was hot and fetid. “We must hunt them down and slay them like the wild animals they are.”

“Where is Ahmose?” Aahmes-nefertari repeated more loudly but the old woman ignored her, and feeling a hand descend on her shoulder she straightened.

“He was badly wounded,” Ramose said. “He is on his couch and the physician and your mother are with him. Where have you been, Highness? The sem-priests have been sent for and Kamose must go to the House of the Dead to be beautified. Your mother refused to release his body to them until you returned, but she did not say where you were.” Aahmes-nefertari looked full into his face. He too had been weeping. He was pale and his eyes were swollen. “I am partly responsible for this,” he said brokenly. “If I had understood the depth of my mother’s hatred, if I had reported her to Kamose …”

“Not now, Ramose!” Aahmes-nefertari cried out. “There will be time for recriminations later but I cannot bear them now! I must go to my husband.”

Nevertheless, in spite of her frantic concern for Ahmose and the guilty relief that was growing because he was still alive, she could not tear herself away from the corpse of her beloved older brother. Approaching the desk through a haze of acrid myrrh, the soft, formal lament of the High Priest piercing her with sadness, she stroked his cheeks, still bloodied and so cold, and pressed his grimed, limp fingers to her face. “Kamose, oh, Kamose,” she breathed. “The gods will welcome you, for surely your heart lay lightly against Ma’at’s feather, but for us who will not hear your voice again there is only sorrow. I wish that you had lived long enough to know that the rebellion has failed and your great work has not been undone.” Gently kissing the slack, blood-encrusted mouth, she turned to the High Priest. “Amunmose, what of my children?” she asked. The man stopped chanting and bowed to her.

“They are safe in my own cell in the temple, Highness,” he assured her huskily, the marks of his own grief clearly visible on his face. “The Lady Nefer-Sakharu is also there. She told me that you had sent her to help Raa with Ahmose-onkh. Raa denied her words, and as I did not know the truth I put the Lady in the care of a temple guard.”

“Thank you,” Aahmes-nefertari said grimly. “When His Majesty’s body is removed and you return to the temple, make sure that Nefer-Sakharu does not escape. She is a liar.” Feeling Ramose’s agonized glance she refused to meet it.

Beckoning to Hor-Aha, she drew him a short way away and rapidly told him of the events on the parade ground. As she spoke, she saw his expression change from a stony suffering to shock to incredulity. “You did this, Highness?” he exclaimed quietly. “You? Truly the House of Tao has been blessed with hearts of divine courage! Neither Ankhmahor nor I knew of the size of the threat. We believed that the attack on your brothers was limited to the estate.”

“Mother and Grandmother and I suspected more,” Aahmes-nefertari explained, “and if she did not tell you it was because Kamose’s murder drove all else from her mind.”

“Your mother stabbed Meketra as he wounded your husband,” Hor-Aha said. “You did not know that, Highness? Already she is being hailed as a saviour. His body is still lying out on the path to the watersteps. She commanded that it be left there for all to see.”

Aahmes-nefertari stared at him in appalled amazement. Shock had followed upon shock since Kamose had come to her bedchamber and each impact was a fresh blow, unblunted by repetition, but she was not free to fully absorb any of them. Not now, she said to herself silently, as she had exclaimed aloud to Ramose. I will deal with all of it later. “General, you must go to the soldiers’ cells to reinforce my orders,” she urged. “The Commander of the Barracks, Amun-nakht, is trustworthy I think, but our other officers may already be deciding to disobey me and the troops the Princes brought with them absolutely must be contained. Detail as many Medjay as you can spare and take them with you. Otherwise it is still possible that my brother’s death will have been in vain. And send to the prison to make sure that Intef and Iasen are safely guarded. Try to find out where Mesehti and Makhu are.” He understood her immediately. Saluting her, he strode towards the garden, and Aahmes-nefertari, with a last lingering look at the husk that only a few brief hours ago had held the soul of Kamose, made her way to the door.

As she was leaving, she encountered the sem-priests. They drew back at her approach, hiding their faces and pulling their robes close to their bodies so that they should not contaminate her, but today she did not care that they were considered unclean. “Beautify him well,” she said to them. “Make the cuts with reverence and bind him with respect. He was our King.”

And now Ahmose is King. The knowledge struck her like a blow as she hurried to his rooms. Ahmose must take the liberation of Egypt into his hands. Oh gods, I do not know if I am worthy to be a Queen.

Ahmose’s door was open, and as she entered her mother rose from her chair beside the couch. She was still wearing the sheath Aahmes-nefertari had seen her in earlier, the front of it now mired with brown splashes of dried blood. The hands she held out to her daughter were also filthy with flecks of blood but Aahmes-nefertari hardly noticed. With a sob she threw herself into Aahotep’s embrace and the two women clung together tightly for a long time, rocking and moaning. Then Aahotep pulled away. “You can tell me later what happened out there,” she said abruptly. “First you must know that Ahmose was violently clubbed and is unconscious. The physician has just left. He has stitched up the gash on Ahmose’s head and applied a mixture of honey, castor oil and rowan wood with a small amount of soil from the peasants’ burial ground to prevent infection and dry up any suppuration. His skull was not broken, and for that we must thank Amun. I fancy that the surprise of my advance and Behek’s sudden barking helped to weaken the assassin’s blow.”

“Will he live?”

Aahotep smiled grimly. “The physician thinks that his condition is severe but not fatal. He will regain consciousness in time.”

“It is a cold comfort.” Aahmes-nefertari sank into the chair her mother had just left and pointed at Aahotep’s dress. “And is that …” Aahotep laughed harshly, her face falling into ugly lines of exhaustion and scorn. To Aahmes-nefertari the sound held an alarming quality of hysteria.