The Horus Road (40 page)

Abana will have reached Nekheb and begun his own journey north, Ahmose reflected, but he will continue to be two or three days behind my flotilla. I will put in at Khemmenu and pick up Ramose, but I will still arrive outside Het-Uart before my Admiral. It does not matter. In spite of my feeling for haste I must not presume to find the situation changed when I get there. The thought of seeing Ramose again brightened his spirits, but as he looked back at Ahmose-onkh, a small, rather forlorn figure holding his tutor’s hand amid a crowd of tall adults, his guilt returned. He scanned the house anxiously, hoping for a glimpse of his wife at the last moment, but the shadows cast over paths and garden by the early sun remained untenanted. She had meant what she had said.

Through the huge gateless aperture leading to the fore-court of the old palace he saw Sebek-nakht and his architects raise their hands and bow as he slid past. The peasants were already at work, swarming over and around the venerable building. Ahmose could hear the buzz of their cheerful conversations carried to him on the clear morning air. House and palace were receding, swallowed up by the larger picture of palm trees rearing above the thick green vegetation of early spring and between them the roof of the temple. Weset itself was mostly hidden from the river, but present in a continuous susurration of low noise, and the river path was busy. “The renovation of the palace will soon be complete,” Ankhmahor remarked. He had come up beside Ahmose and was leaning on the rail, watching the last of the city slide away. “I expect that Your Majesty will want to move into it as soon as you return from the north.”

“I suppose so,” Ahmose replied unwillingly. As the river curved and his home was lost to sight, his mood suddenly lightened and he did not want to think about Weset anymore.

12

IT WAS THE MIDDLE
of Tybi before Ahmose saw the walls of Het-Uart again. The wind had been fitful, not yet coming steadily out of the north to impede the ships’ progress as it would in summer, but beginning to be turbulent so that in spite of the northward current some time had been wasted in tacking back and forth. Ahmose had stopped in Khemmenu for longer than he had planned, sleeping for two nights in Ramose’s house while he gave audience to the mayor and various other dignitaries and consulted with his friend regarding the city’s ongoing reformation. Ramose seemed happy to inhabit once more the pleasant estate that had once belonged to his traitorous father, but Ahmose found himself haunted by a past that waited to ensnare him around every familiar corner of the big house. He had visited his mother’s cousin Teti and his wife Nefer-Sakharu many times as a child when Seqenenra had brought Aahotep to Khemmenu to observe Thoth’s feast days in his temple there. Teti had been a man who smiled a great deal and had liked to sit in the garden and throw sweetmeats for his and Seqenenra’s brood to catch, but Ahmose had been a little afraid of him and his richly decorated wife, although they were always kind to him. Now, of course, he knew why. Teti had proven himself to be a devious and deceitful man hiding behind an affable exterior and he had died for it.

On the third day Ramose had given his assistant governor his last-minute instructions and had joined Ahmose on board his ship. Messages had come from the divisions, who were now little more than a day behind. Paheri and Ahmose Abana were also on their way. Ahmose did not anticipate another halt. Now all I need is for those gates to swing open and my cup of satisfaction will be full, he thought wryly to himself. Perhaps if I petition Shu, he will blow them apart for me. The mental vision of the god of the air with puffed cheeks and bulging eyes attempting to destroy Het-Uart’s defences with the force of his wind made him chuckle. “You are happy, Ahmose.” Ramose smiled at him from over the rim of his beer mug. “It is good to be on the river again, is it not?”

“Yes, it is,” Ahmose agreed, pushing the image of his wife away, as it threatened to come between himself and the glitter of sunlight as the oars made little eddies on the water. He pointed. “Look, Ramose. Over there. A crocodile, just slipping through the papyrus swamp. An auspicious omen, do you think?” The word ‘omen’ coming out of his own mouth silenced him, and while the sailors ran to the side of the boat to see the beast, exclaiming excitedly, he turned and went into his cabin.

Akhtoy had his tent pitched in exactly the same spot beside the great tributary as it had been the year before, and while his belongings were being carried inside and his cook was setting up a field kitchen, Ahmose got into his chariot with Ankhmahor at the reins and had himself driven as close to Het-Uart as he could get. Then he dismounted and stood staring up at the familiar walls. He had sent Khabekhnet to his generals, summoning them to dine with him that evening. Word of his return had spread quickly among the soldiers who had remained to continue the siege. He could hear their anticipation in the level of noise rising from the vast array of tents spreading out on the plain to his right. But no sound seemed to be coming from Het-Uart.

For some time he and Ankhmahor gazed at the city. Then Ahmose said, “Commander, do you sense that anything has changed since you stood here last?” Ankhmahor hesitated.

“It is a strange question, Majesty,” he replied. “I see nothing different, but you are right. It is as though Het-Uart were about to collapse, as though the foundations of its walls were invisibly and quietly crumbling. There is a tension in the air. I thought that it was my imagination.”

“I have felt it ever since Abana confessed that Apepa had almost been allowed to escape,” Ahmose said. “He has given up the fight, Ankhmahor. He wants to run to the bosom of his brothers in Rethennu and he is frantically trying to find a way to do it without having to personally surrender either himself or his city. Something is about to happen.”

“Het-Uart appears dead,” Ankhmahor commented. “No smoke is rising from cooking fires or funerals. I hear nothing either.” He turned to Ahmose. “Is it possible that the citizens are all dead?”

“No,” Ahmose said shortly. “The population is undoubtedly decimated by plague and starvation, but we have yet to see vultures circling above those damnable walls.”

A light rain began to fall towards evening, pocking the earth and making the surface of the tributary dance and darken, but by the time the generals drove up, it had ceased and the sky had cleared to reveal a sprinkling of faint stars in the blue-washed sky. Ahmose, wrapped warmly in a woollen cloak, sat at the end of the long table that had been set up outside his tent, with Ramose at his side and Ankhmahor and the Followers behind. Six lamps burned in a row down its centre. Camp stools lined it and the wine jugs stood ready. Akhtoy and his bevy of servants waited to serve simple spring fare: fresh lettuce, cucumber, green onions, radishes, crushed garlic cloves, soft cheese, roasted gazelle meat brought in earlier by hunting soldiers, and bread. No fruit would be available for some months, but dried dates and figs drenched in honey would be offered.

As his men left their chariots and came within reach of the lamplight, Ahmose greeted them, received their obeisances, and invited them to sit. Each face reminded him more vividly of the battle last year and with the memories came a profound contentment. They talked softly amongst themselves as the servants came forward to pour the wine, waiting for the latecomers and passing the time in soldier’s gossip, the single gold hoops or jasper coins or turquoise droplets hanging from their earlobes catching the lamps’ benign yellow glow, their black, kohl-circled eyes glinting. Some wore cloaks as Ahmose did but some were bare-chested, oil gleaming on their brown skin, the muscles of their broad shoulders tightening and loosening as they moved.

The sheer force of their combined masculinity struck Ahmose like a plunge into cold water. It was bracing and reviving. The men who now served him in Weset, his ministers and officials, were intelligent. Their discussions engaged and challenged him. But their virility was of a different kind, overlaid with the complexities of a life measured out in the sophisticated intricacies of a rapidly developing court. I prefer this, Ahmose thought, as Hor-Aha, the last to appear, bowed and slid onto a stool and Khabekhnet called for silence. For these strategists there are no unspoken objectives, no obsession with details that in the end have little importance. One day soon I suppose I shall have to commit my energies completely to the business of peaceful government, but in the meantime such a commonplace pursuit pales beside my task here, the salvation of Egypt. Signalling to Akhtoy to begin to serve the food, he smilingly surveyed the faces turned to him. “I am happy to be with you all again,” he said. “While you eat, you can give me your reports on the state of your divisions one by one. I trust that your soldiers have all enjoyed a proper rotation, that their health is satisfactory, and that they are eager to resume their duties.”

“Eager is not the word I would have chosen to describe their state of mind, Majesty,” Baqet said. “Resigned might better describe how they feel. The gains we made last year put heart into them and they looked for a corresponding end to the siege. But it did not happen.” He leaned back while a servant filled his wine cup. “I am not saying that there are mutinous grumblings among the troops. They have drilled and exercised and practised with their weapons with an admirable willingness. But the talk around the cooking fires is no longer idle soldiers’ talk. It is all of the height of the walls, their probable thickness, the strength of the gates, and so on. One mad scheme for breaching the city follows another. We now have the most highly trained army in the world but we are no closer to our goal than Kamose was.” There was a murmur of assent around the table.

“My men inside the northern mound talk of standing on its walls and shooting fire over into Het-Uart,” Khety put in. “But fire inside the city will not open the gates.” Ahmose held up a hand.

“I know,” he said firmly. “However, you are wrong, General Baqet, when you say that we have made no progress since the days of my brother. Scrolls were waiting for me from the divisions in the eastern Delta. The whole of that region has been returned to Egypt, the Horus Road is ours, and the forts comprising the Wall of Princes have all been evacuated by the enemy and subsequently occupied by our men. Nothing, nothing remains of the Setiu but that.” He pointed towards Het-Uart, bulking vast and high in the gathering gloom. “All we need now is patience and we will have won.”

“Patience is one virtue we Egyptians have in abundance,” Kagemni said sardonically. Everyone laughed. Ahmose rapped the table.

“Tomorrow the Medjay, the Division of Amun and Division of Ra, and Paheri and Prince Abana with their ships should arrive,” he said crisply. “I believe that this will be our last siege season. But I do not want to spend the evening in fruitless speculation or wild schemes. I want to know about my soldiers. Khety, you begin. How has the Division of Horus fared?”

They ate in silence, waited on by the quiet servants, while each stood up in turn and told Ahmose how the months of his absence had been spent. Ipi was busy at his feet noting down any complaints. There were few. A temporary shortage of new kilts for the Osiris Division under General Meryrenefer, a shipment of beer intended for Sebek-khu and his Montu Division that had somehow gone astray. “Food is being rationed at the moment,” Sebek-khu had finished. “The flood was ample and the sowing will begin very soon, but as Your Majesty knows, the responsibility for feeding all your thousands of troops is a very heavy one for the Scribes of Distribution. Last summer’s crops were good, but you cannot continue to direct most of Egypt’s harvest to the north. The Delta has been scoured as you say, but many of the villages are in disarray. It will take time for the peasants to feel safe enough to prepare their fields and orchards. We can look for nothing from them until next year. And please the gods,” he said with a shudder, “let us not be here next year.”

Once the reports had been delivered and the platters emptied, the men settled down to drink and talk and there was much loud laughter. Ahmose listened contentedly to the hum of the conversations going on all around him, but he did not join in. He felt detached, his mind lazily circling the problem of maintaining a steady supply of food while behind it flowed a river of half-formed thoughts mixed with the sensations the night was bringing to him. The moist Delta air was cool, almost cold, the stars misted by fine streamers of barely visible grey cloud. Behind him Ankhmahor was keeping his watch, so close to Ahmose that he was sure he could feel the heat of the man’s body on his upper back. By turning a little on his stool, he could see a lamp shining through the bellied folds of his tent, casting a diffused light on the trunk of the sycamore beneath which it was pitched and being dissipated in the denser blackness of the shrubs beyond. In spite of my frustration I am at peace, he thought. I shall miss the weeks I have spent here keeping vigil beside this obstinate city, this wide tributary. He left the stool and at once a hush fell. “I am going to my couch,” he said. “Leave when you will. Ankhmahor, order my sentries.” The men did not stay. Bowing their good nights, they slipped away into the dimness. The servants began to clear the debris they had left and Akhtoy accompanied Ahmose into the tent.

“The city will fall,” Akhtoy said suddenly. Startled, Ahmose swung to him. He was pouring scented oil into a basin of water and Hekayib stood by, waiting to wash Ahmose.

“Why did you say that?” Ahmose wanted to know. Akhtoy replaced the stopper on the vial and snapped his fingers at Hekayib who moved at once to remove Ahmose’s belt and kilt.

“I dreamed last night on the boat that you were killing a goose, Majesty,” he explained. “It is a very favourable omen.”

“It is indeed,” Ahmose agreed. “So I will kill my enemies. Was the dream vivid, Akhtoy?”

“To the last detail and in the brightest of colours,” the steward assured him. “Hekayib, wring out that linen. You are dripping water all over the carpet.”

Before noon the next day Paheri and Abana arrived and, after a few words of welcome, Ahmose ordered them to concentrate their ships all along the western edge of the city, covering the Civilians’ Gate, the Royal Entrance Gate on the northern tip, and the Traders’ Gate. “Will Your Majesty require your flagship?” Abana asked hopefully. Ahmose shook his head.

“Keep the
Kha-em-Mennofer
moored here to the south where I can board her quickly if need be,” he replied. “But I want you to take up a position from which you can direct all our vessels.” Paheri shot him a keen glance.

“Does Your Majesty expect a new confrontation with the Setiu?” Ahmose sighed.

“I don’t know what I am expecting,” he admitted. “Everyone is restless, having dreams and intuitions, swearing that everything has changed when the eye reveals no change at all. But something tells me to be prepared. However, let your sailors sleep on land at night, Paheri. I doubt if we are facing any cataclysm so soon!”