The Oasis (13 page)

“I know,” Ramose said curtly. “I only pray that Meketra can find enough peasants to tend the vines properly. Father was proud of his vintage, and without pruning this winter the grapes will be small and bitter. It will be hard, though. You have killed them all.”

For a moment Kamose puzzled over how he and Ahmose might be responsible for the death of Teti’s fruit, but then he understood. He made no response. Will you ever forgive me? he asked Ramose in the tumult of his mind. Can we ever be friends again or will the exigencies of this appalling age drive us even farther apart? To his relief Ahmose gave his attention to his food, and in a daze of silent exhaustion Kamose watched his brother eat.

Later that night he woke from a sodden sleep to the faint sound of crying. The boat was rocking gently as it rode the current north. Dull light came and went in fitful bands across his cot as the lamps set at prow and stern swayed with the motion, and the only other sound was the constant, sweet murmur of water under the keel. They were floating, Kamose knew, drifting slowly with only the current for propulsion until the dawn, as the captain had advised. Turning onto his back, he lay listening to that muffled outpouring of desolation. It could have been one of the sailors or an expression of homesickness on the part of a servant, but Kamose knew it was not.

The grief belonged to Ramose, sobbing out his loss and loneliness under the cover of darkness. I should get up and go to him, Kamose thought. I should tell him that I feel it too, that for me also there is no longer any safe harbour, any welcoming arms. But no. If I were Ramose, I would not want any man to see my distress.

He closed his eyes and it seemed to him that the sound began to grow, to fill the cabin and reverberate across the invisible deck, to multiply until the boat and the water and the shrouded banks of the Nile were thrashing with the misery it carried. All of them, Kamose thought incoherently, wanting to press his hands over his ears. It is all their pain, the men who have died, the women I have widowed, I am not really hearing it, it is just my imagination, it is just Ramose, oh, Ramose, how much we need to help each other! Yet he knew that he had merely conjured an ephemeral imitation of the torment Ramose was so poignantly expressing. Kamose himself felt nothing at all.

4

TETISHERI HELD OUT HER HAND
and Uni, her steward, passed her the scroll. Taking one polite step backwards, he waited while she weighed it, frowning. “Hmmm,” she said. “It is very light. Very thin. Good news or bad, do you think, Uni? Shall I break the seal or fortify myself first with a little wine?” Uni grunted non-committally and Tetisheri lowered the papyrus onto her scarlet lap. It has become a game, she thought, her eyes fixed unseeing on the view of the garden around her. Since the middle of Pakhons the scrolls have been coming, big ones, small ones, neatly penned or scrawled by Ipi from some cramped, uncomfortable place, and each time I have hesitated, lost my nerve, spent a moment or an hour trying to assess their contents before cracking my grandson’s seal.

“… It is a fat one this week, Uni. Poison or medicine?”

“Hard to say, Majesty.”

“But fat means much time in which to dictate. Nothing hurried, like the one that came from Nefrusi with Aahotep’s cousin.”

“I am sure you are correct, Majesty….”

And always the fear, the shrinking. Has someone been slain? Wounded? Are we defeated at last? Has the dream turned to ashes?

But so far there had been no defeats. Mesore had begun, a month of harvest and stultifying heat, when time in Egypt seemed to stand still and man and beast struggled against the heavy desire to lie down, to sleep, while the river sank ever lower and the only greenery was to be found in the precincts of the nobles and the crests of the drooping palms. In the tiny fields the sickles rose and fell and in front of the granaries the air grew choking with dust from the winnowed wheat. Vines bowed down by clusters of fleshy black grapes were relieved of their burdens and the juice flowed purple and pregnant with promise into the vats.

Four months, Tetisheri sighed. Four months of this regular tension, this quick constriction of the heart, this flicker of cowardice before the wax crumbles under my fingers and Ipi’s hieratic figures jump out at me. It’s a wonder the constant anxiety hasn’t killed me. She thrust the scroll at her steward. “You read it to me, Uni,” she ordered. “My eyes are tired today.” Obediently the man took it from her, and breaking the seal, he unrolled the scroll. There was a short hiatus in which Tetisheri fixed her gaze on the surface of the pond that glittered just outside the shade cast by her canopy. Uni cleared his throat.

“It is good news, Majesty,” he said. “Only two lines. ‘Sacrifice to Amun. I am coming home.’”

“Give me that.” She snatched it back and held it open on her knee, her forefinger tracing the flow of words. “‘I am coming home.’ What does he mean?” she snapped irritably. “Is he fleeing from a lost battle or bringing victory with him? How can I go to Amunmose in the temple unless I know?”

“I rather think,” Uni said carefully, “that if His Majesty was fleeing he would have been more specific in his message. He would have included a warning for the family, and instructions. Besides, Majesty, there has been no hint of disaster in his letters, only frustration.”

“You are right of course.” She let the papyrus roll up and began to tap it thoughtfully against her chin. “Go and tell Aahotep and Aahmes-nefertari. The silly boy has put no date on the communication so we cannot know when he may appear. We must prepare to see him at any time.” She graced Uni with a rare smile. “Perhaps he has taken Het-Uart and executed Apepa already.”

“Perhaps, Majesty, but I do not think so.”

“No, neither do I. It was a foolish hope. Go then.”

She watched him stride away and disappear under the shadow of the entrance hall, aware suddenly that her heart was palpitating painfully. Any surprise, pleasant or not, agitates my body, she thought. I am beginning to feel my age. So, Kamose, beloved, soon I shall look into your face and embrace you and it will not be the hazy fantasy in which I have indulged as sleep descended. You will have changed. I must be ready for that. Your words have given me no indication of the state of your ka. They have all been of skirmishes and little sieges, of burnings and slaughters, yet under them I have sensed a more sinister battle, invisible yet grave. Beware of the damage to your ka, I told you. Did you heed me, my implacable one? Or in laying waste to this precious land have you ravaged your soul as well?

Presently there was movement by the pillars and Aahmes-nefertari came bursting out of the dimness, her linen flying as she veered around the pond. She was barefoot, clutching a thin white cloak around her naked body, and Raa came hurrying after her, a pair of sandals and a cushion under her arm. Aahmes-nefertari ducked beneath the canopy and stood flushed and panting before Tetisheri. “Uni said there is great news!” she exclaimed as her body servant placed the cushion on the ground and withdrew. “Forgive my appearance, Majesty, but I was about to take my afternoon rest. May I see the scroll?”

“No, Aahmes-nefertari, you must wait until Aahotep has seen it,” Tetisheri said waspishly. “Sit down, girl!” She softened the tone of her words with a hand on Aahmes-nefertari’s elbow. “Be patient. Have we not all had to learn endurance? Let an old woman keep her secret for a while longer.” With the humility of instant obedience that gave her such charm, Aahmes-nefertari sank onto the cushion and dug her toes into the grass.

“They’ve won, haven’t they?” she said eagerly. “At last Het-Uart has fallen! Week after week the news has been the same, but Uni called it great today! Oh, I have prayed and prayed for this moment!”

“Always you jump to conclusions, Aahmes-nefertari,” Tetisheri said dryly. “No, as far as I know, Het-Uart is still on its feet. Here is Aahotep.” The woman came on slowly, Senehat behind her, and as always Tetisheri relished the sight of her daughter-in-law. The graceful carriage, the sensuous yet discreet fullness of her hips under the yellow sheath, the evenness of her features, spoke of both the beauty and the good breeding that had captivated Seqenenra and satisfied Tetisheri’s own stringent standards. Bowing as she entered the shade under which Tetisheri sat, she straightened and met her mother-in-law’s eyes.

“Is it what we have hoped for?” she asked quietly. For answer Tetisheri relinquished the scroll. Aahotep unrolled it without hesitation, read, smiled, and passing it down to Aahmes-nefertari she turned to her servant. “Senehat, set down my stool and then bring wine. We will celebrate.” As she settled herself, Aahmes-nefertari gave a cry.

“They are coming home! How wonderful!” She pressed the scroll to her mouth. “But have they left the Delta already or not? Ipi does not say.”

“Neither does he say that they are coming home,” Tetisheri reminded her. “He says only ‘I am coming home.’ Where is your cousin, Aahotep?”

“Asleep in her quarters,” Aahotep replied. “It would be best if this news could be kept from her for now. We do not know whether Kamose is coming because the Inundation is at hand or for other reasons. Nefer-Sakharu is unpredictable. She is still grieving. If I had not sent a bodyguard with her to Teti’s funeral, she would have run to the Delta afterwards. Doubtless Kamose will send word just before he reaches Weset, and then we can warn her.” Aahmes-nefertari had been listening with only half an ear. Now she sat up.

“She has grown to love Ahmose-onkh,” she commented. “When she plays with him, she forgets about Teti for a while. And she is not weeping as often as she did.”

“Grief cannot last,” Aahotep said. “Time blunts its edges. But the deep things, the memories and the love, they refuse to die. Poor woman. Yet have we not all suffered terribly since Apepa’s insulting letter came to Osiris Seqenenra? Here is the wine. We will forget the past and drink to a blessed reunion.”

Afterwards, when the gentle effect of the wine had prompted the reminiscences that had long remained untold through fear of what the future might bring, the women returned to the house. Aahotep and Aahmes-nefertari drifted away to their couches, but Tetisheri sat before the table in her bedchamber and requested of her steward the chest in which she had kept all of Kamose’s letters. Now I can read them again, she thought, dismissing Uni to his own couch and lifting the lid of the gold-chased box. They cannot hurt me with doubts or set me worrying about the army’s next move or fill me with impotent exasperation because I am unable to question the wisdom of Kamose’s decisions.

Removing them all, she set the chest aside and arranged them carefully according to the dates her scribe had written on them. The first few made her hesitate, then briskly she replaced them, not wishing to relive the intense emotions that had accompanied their arrival. We were all terrified in those days, she thought. Kamose with his miserable one division from Weset, not knowing if the Princes would go back on their word or not, and his five thousand Medjay who could have proved lethal but ungovernable. Thank all the gods for Hor-Aha! And here at home every morning had brought a shrinking, a secret, unvoiced certainty that Apepa’s hordes would appear around the bend in the river with Kamose’s corpse hanging from a mast. Each scroll could have held damnation, but did not, and gradually our dread began to fade. Then came the triumph of Nefrusi, and from that moment the opening of the letters became a matter of ceremony. Still worrisome, still with that drawing in of courage, but with a swift return to confidence.

I never liked Prince Meketra, her thoughts ran on as she tossed Kamose’s message following the taking of the fort back into the casket. I remember him well from the very early days. There was always something faintly unwholesome about him, as though he often neglected to wash. But he has proved himself now and I suppose I ought to revise my opinion of him. After all, it has been a very long time since we met.

Choosing a scroll dated “Payni, day two,” she smoothed it open. “To Their Majesties the Queens Tetisheri and Aahotep, honoured Grandmother and Mother, greetings,” it began. “Tonight our boat is moored at Het nefer Apu. It has taken us a full seven days to travel here from Nefrusi due to the increasing number of villages we are encountering as we draw closer to the Delta. Our ignorance of everything north of Khemmenu has also slowed us down. We must rely on and wait for the reports from our scouts as we go. We engaged and overran one garrison, putting all soldiers to the sword, but the small fort here at Het nefer Apu surrendered as soon as its commander saw our approach. It seems that peasants from Khemmenu and Nefrusi have been struggling north to seek protection, carrying with them tales of our might and exaggerated stories of our ruthlessness.”

Here Tetisheri looked up for a moment, her gaze fixed absently on the wall across from her. Exaggerated? she repeated silently. What were you trying to say, Kamose? Every letter from you has paired words of wholesale butchery together with the plea of necessity. We agreed that it was the only way you could secure your rear without thinning the ranks of the army. Then why that subtle lie? Had the killing become routine, until in the dictating of this epistle you felt a fleeting guilt? Is it even possible for the peasants to exaggerate the essential brutality of this campaign? With a grimace she resumed reading.