The Oasis (15 page)

“He looks driven,” Aahotep said to Tetisheri in low tones. “Ill.”

“He must do nothing but eat and sleep for a while,” Tetisheri agreed. “What is it?” Her last words were addressed to the we’eb priest who had come up and was waiting patiently at her elbow.

“Your pardon, Majesty,” he said, “but I have been commanded to tell you that the Nile has begun to rise. Isis is crying.”

That night the reception hall was full, its shadows no longer melancholy reminders of days gone by. The little dining tables laden with fruit and delicacies were jammed against each other and the guests sat on their cushions almost back to back, garlanded in flowers, their skin gleaming as the fragrant oil in the cones on their wigs melted and ran down their necks. Servants threaded through the noisy crowds, wine jugs or trays of steaming food held high. Music blended with song that burst forth sweetly and intermittently as the excited conversations rose and fell. On the dais the family, resplendent in freshly starched linen, gold dust on their kohled eyelids and henna on their mouths, received the adoration of those who came to their feet to offer thanks and make their reverences. Ankhmahor sat with them, his son seated behind him. The mayor of Weset and other local dignitaries, Amunmose among them, also graced the high table. Ahmose and Aahmes-nefertari ate and drank with arms linked, chattering nonsense, intoxicated more with the sound of the other’s voice than with any words.

But Kamose remained silent. With his mother on his left hand and Tetisheri on his right, he ate and drank as one famished, gazing seemingly imperturbably at the happy chaos below. Behek leaned against him and he kept one hand on the dog’s grey head, passing him morsels of roast goose or barley bread dipped in garlic oil. Ankhmahor too had nothing to say. For once Tetisheri held her tongue and, after a few attempts to engage her grandson, turned her attention to her own pleasure at the occasion.

Egypt, with the minor exception of the city of Het-Uart, was back in the hands of its rightful rulers at last. Ma’at was about to be restored. Here, spread out before her in noise and laughter was the proof of Tao superiority and her grandson’s victorious right to ascend the Horus Throne. It will have to be purified before Kamose lowers himself onto it, she thought, closing her eyes and inhaling the mixed scents of perfumed bodies and flower wreaths that came gusting to her nostrils on a puff of night breeze. All trace of Setiu stench must be removed, but we will have a Setiu likeness etched into the gold of the King’s footstool. Yes, indeed we will. Kamose will have to marry whether he wants to or not, but perhaps we will wait until next year when Het-Uart has fallen. I wonder if Kamose has thought to send a message to the mayor of Pi-Hathor, telling him of our success. I would like to tell him myself how annoying it was to have to watch the river constantly for fear a message to Apepa might slip through. But I will tell Kamose nothing yet, she decided, painfully aware of his elbow touching hers, the near immobility of his body. He is in no state to hear me. He must recover first, gain strength. He and Ahmose have not exchanged one word since they arrived home. Now I have new things to worry about, but not tonight. With a sigh she held out her cup for Uni to fill and sipped her wine reflectively. Not tonight.

Long after the guests had staggered to their skiffs or been carried, happily drunk, to their litters, and the lamps in the refuse-strewn hall had been extinguished, Tetisheri still could not sleep. Too much wine and exhilaration had taken their toll and she lay restless and alert on her couch, listening to the pacing of the guard outside her door. The room was close and stuffy, as though the heat of the day had somehow shrunk to the confines of her four walls. Her sleeping gown irritated her skin where it clung and her pillow seemed full of hostile lumps. Sitting up, she folded her hands and gazed into the dimness, thinking how the whole atmosphere of the house had changed with the return of its masters, and hard upon the heels of that reflection came the knowledge that she herself could relax her authority. Major household decisions would be made by Kamose, at least until the flood had abated. That is both a relief and an annoyance, she mused. If I am honest with myself, I must admit that I like the power inherent in my position as matriarch of the Taos. I will try to be careful not to foist my judgements on any military discussions my grandson and I might have. And there is Aahotep. We have become confidantes in the past months and I have discovered that under her serenity lies a lake of stubbornness and implacability that mirrors my own. She must not be excluded from any policies Kamose and I devise. But the truth is that I do want to exclude her. I want to exclude everyone. Tetisheri, you are a domineering old woman.

Leaning her head against the rim of the couch, she closed her eyes, uselessly seeking the first drowsy approach of sleep, then with an exclamation of impatience she tossed back her sheet and reached for a cloak. Outside her door, she greeted the guard, assured him that he need not accompany her, and made her way out into the dusky garden.

The night air was delightfully cool, the heavens thick with a dusting of stars, the grass still damp from its evening watering. I should have put on my sandals, she thought guiltily. Isis will grumble when she anoints my feet tomorrow. But at my age one lapse does not matter. How peaceful this is! As though with Kamose’s return the ineffable harmony of Ma’at has suffused Weset with tranquillity.

Drawing the cloak around her, she began to wander slowly towards the river, skirting the shrouded entrance pillars of the house where the guards rose from their stools to reverence her, and taking the short path to the water-steps. The paving, now slightly chilly to her footfalls, was still sticky with the purifying libation Amunmose had poured, and Tetisheri smiled briefly into the darkness as she went. It had been a glorious moment.

The Medjay had left the boats for their quarters and the jumble of empty craft bulked black and misshapen, obscuring the surface of the water. Several guards were gathered around a small fire in a patch of sand beside the watersteps, talking and laughing softly. At her approach they scrambled up in confusion and bowed and for a while she stood with them, comfortable in their presence as she always was with soldiers. They answered her questions respectfully regarding their welfare—were they fed enough? did their captains treat them fairly? were their physical complaints attended to promptly by the army physicians?—and Tetisheri resisted the urge to examine them regarding the details of Kamose’s campaigns. Bidding them a safe watch, she turned back, leaving the path and making her way slowly past the fish pond towards the rear of the house.

Coming to the corner and starting around it, she paused. At the far reach of her vision the staff quarters showed as a low rectangle huddled against the outer wall of the estate. A little closer in was the kitchen, set at right angles to the scuffed courtyard that also met the house granary, and closer still were the shrubs and clusters of trees that marked the division between masters’ and servants’ domain. They had been planted thickly to protect the privacy of the family, and under the sanctuary of their leaves something moved.

Tetisheri froze, one hand against the comforting roughness of the house wall, not quite knowing what had alarmed her. A lone guard would have been upright and pacing. Perhaps the crouching shape was a servant who, like her, could not sleep. It was rocking to and fro, to and fro as though it were a woman with a baby clutched to her breast, but no woman possessed such broad shoulders. Puzzled, her senses sharpened, Tetisheri probed the dimness. The set of those shoulders was familiar, the rhythmic motion conveying an interior agitation that intensified the longer Tetisheri watched, until the space between her and the man was filled with a silent agony.

All at once Tetisheri felt a touch on her arm. Startled, she turned to find Aahotep’s shadowed face inches from her own. “I could not sleep either,” Aahotep whispered. “The day has been too eventful. What do you see, Tetisheri?” For answer, Tetisheri pointed.

“It is Kamose,” she whispered back. “Look at him, swaying like a drunkard.”

“Not like a drunkard,” Aahotep responded, her eyes on her son. “Like a man trembling on the verge of insanity. He came home just in time, Tetisheri. I feel helpless in the face of such inner pain. He said nothing at the feast. Nothing at all.”

“At least he ate his fill,” Tetisheri reminded her in a low voice. “That is a good sign. But you are right, Aahotep. I shudder to think in what state he might have arrived if he had not been forced back to Weset by the Inundation.” Taking Aahotep’s elbow, she drew the other woman away. “He must not know that he has been seen,” she said. “Come to my quarters and we will talk.” They retraced their steps together in silence for a while, each deep in worried thought, then Aahotep said, “First he needs much sleep. Our physician can prescribe a soporific for him until such time as he is calm enough to sleep without aid. We must make sure he is not burdened with many duties.”

“Senehat is a beautiful girl,” Tetisheri put in. “In a few days I will send her to his bedchamber. If he can forget himself in making love, that will be a healing thing. It is all the killing,” she went on more forcefully. “Necessary, we agreed on that, but Kamose has had to carry the weight of it on his conscience for months. It has almost broken him.”

“Then pray that the winter may heal him,” Aahotep said grimly, “or we will find ourselves in the direst predicament. I miss my husband tonight, Tetisheri. Seqenenra always seemed to know what to do. I felt secure when his presence filled this house.”

“It was an illusion,” Tetisheri said brutally as they went in under the shadow of the pillars and entered the shrouded entrance hall. “My son was a brave and intelligent man, but it was not within his power to guarantee us our safety, although he tried. No one can, Aahotep. Kamose also is trying and he has almost succeeded, but that is not the kind of security you mean, is it?”

“No,” Aahotep said shortly. “I want the security of never having to make any decision of importance. I do not wish to be anything other than the widow of a great man.” They had reached Tetisheri’s door and her guard had opened it obligingly for them.

“Go and wake Isis,” Tetisheri said. “Tell her to bring us beer and cakes and oil for my lamp. Come in, Aahotep. We are not going to sleep, so we might as well pass the hours until dawn in some fruitful conversation.”

They were not able to sit down with Kamose for the next few days. The month of Thoth began with the traditional celebration of both the rising of the river and the appearance of the Sopdet Star, and all Weset participated in the festivities. No one worked. Homes were thrown open to relatives and friends and Amun’s temple resounded with the shouts and songs of priests and worshippers. A stream of dignitaries kept Aahotep busy with the organization of servants and it was not until the second week of Thoth that the household emerged, relieved and dishevelled, to find that peace had once more descended.

But the flow of another kind did not abate. Scouts and heralds arriving from the north continued to dock at the watersteps and disappear with Kamose and Ahmose into Seqenenra’s old office and twice between the rituals and feasts the two men had gone to confer with the officers of the Medjay, enjoying their own brand of holiday. The women and the servants had their own many duties and it was with a collective groan of satisfaction that the pace finally slowed and the family could meet together on the lawn under a canopy on a hot, cloudless morning. “I love the New Year celebrations,” Aahmes-nefertari said. She was seated on a cushion at her husband’s feet, leaning against his bare calf. “There is always the tiny dread that the Nile will not rise and there will be no sowing, and when it does I’m surprised that I worried at all. Besides, I like the cycle of everything beginning again, the feasts of the gods and the familiar routines in the house and in the fields.” Ahmose looked down on her with fondness.

“And for me there is time to hunt and fish while the land floods,” he added jovially. “You forgot to add how much you like to lie in the bottom of the skiff and daydream, Aahmes-nefertari, while the ducks fly overhead squawking scornfully at my efforts with the throwing stick!”

Tetisheri scrutinized him with a mixture of annoyance and disbelief. The weeks of tension, the dulling, brutish round of killing and burning right to the gates of Het-Uart itself did not seem to have left any mark on him at all. It was as though he had been on a prolonged visit to somewhere tedious and now was overjoyed to be home. He was sleeping well in his wife’s arms, eating and drinking with pleasure, and beaming upon everyone. He always was an unimaginative boy, she thought waspishly. No wonder he cannot suffer. It is unfortunate that Kamose has inherited the sensitivity that should have gone to Ahmose as well as his own.

But no, she corrected herself immediately. I am not being fair. Ahmose may lack the visionary quality that is a part of Kamose’s torture but in intelligence he is any man’s equal. And I know very well that he is adept at hiding his personality behind this façade of good humour. Why does he do so?

“This year the Inundation has an added value,” she said quickly. “It enables the two of you to rest and plan your next campaigns and the army to regroup.” She turned deliberately to Kamose. “Where is the army, Kamose?” He smiled across at her and she noted that his eyes had become clearer in the short time he had been home. His face, though still gaunt, now showed a faint suggestion of more fullness, but the stamp of his experiences remained too evident.

“The infantry is quartered at the Uah-ta-Meh oasis,” he answered. “It is a hundred miles from the Nile road and there are only two ways to approach it, both across the desert. One runs from Ta-she, the other from the river. There is plenty of water for the troops and no lack of food. Het nefer Apu sits precisely where the track to the oasis meets the Nile road, and is in full control of the navy. So no messages from the Delta can slip past and no one can trek to Uah-ta-Meh without Paheri’s permission.”