The Oasis (16 page)

“Paheri? The mayor of Nekheb? What is he doing at Het nefer Apu?” Tetisheri demanded irritably. “And what is this talk of a navy?” Kamose brushed a fly from his arm. It rose reluctantly and settled on Behek’s nose. The dog twitched once in his sleep by his master’s foot, but did not wake. “Nekheb is famed for its sailors and shipbuilders, as you know,” Kamose began to explain. “Ahmose and I decided to take five thousand soldiers and put them in cedar boats. The Medjay still occupy the hundred reed ships I commissioned. They remain in good condition.”

“What cedar boats?” Tetisheri interrupted him. “We have no cedar vessels.”

“Be patient and I will tell you in a moment,” Kamose said. “To continue, Paheri is expert in all matters relating to the care of ships and navigation. We have given Baba Abana the task of turning five thousand infantry into fighting sailors.”

Ahmose forestalled his grandmother’s next question. “Baba Abana is also from Nekheb,” he said. “You might remember him, Grandmother. He served under our father and now he captains one of our ships. He and Paheri are friends. His son Kay distinguished himself in the battles on the canals of the Delta. In fact he came roaring up to Kamose and me in the thick of one engagement, blood all over him, and shouted, “Majesty, how many Setiu must I kill before I am allowed to go home? I have dispatched twenty-nine so far in this little war of yours!” He made us laugh. It was the only time since leaving Weset that Kamose laughed.”

Tetisheri pursed her lips. “And how many infantry are at the oasis?”

“Fifty-five thousand,” Kamose told her. “Eleven divisions. I believe that we are now at our fullest strength. There will be no more recruits or conscripts. I brought the five thousand Medjay back with me.”

“So.” Tetisheri pondered for a moment, her eyes on the play of bright sunlight beyond the thin shade of the canopy. “But was it wise to leave the bulk of the army at Uah-ta-Meh, Kamose? The flood will of course prevent access to the oasis from the Nile, but the overland route from the Delta to Ta-she and then to the oasis is open all year round. If Apepa learns of the troops’ presence there he can march down and surround them.”

“Providing he can confirm that they are there,” Kamose responded quickly. “As far as he is concerned, we are nothing more than a rabble bent on burning and looting. The five thousand men I left at Het nefer Apu will be training all winter on the swollen river. They cannot hide. Apepa will presume that they are all the strength we have.”

“Why should he?” Tetisheri objected. “He had the chance to assess the number of our divisions during the siege last summer.”

“Not so,” he answered her patiently. “The siege encompassed miles of city wall. It was not a matter of soldiers drawn up stiffly in formation day after day. The army was fluid. There was much coming and going and besides, many of my men were occupied in sacking the Delta villages. The oasis is safe, Grandmother. It is a hundred miles from Ta-she, a hundred miles from the Nile, and the people there go nowhere. Any stranger entering it will be immediately arrested. Where else could we put fifty-five thousand men without discovery?” Tetisheri was only faintly mollified. She was about to speak again when Aahotep picked the persistent fly out of her hair and swung to Kamose.

“Tell us about the cedar ships now,” she said. “Where did they come from, Kamose?” The brothers looked at each other, grinning, and for a brief second the women saw in Kamose the return of the man who had left them whole and untainted.

“We have been saving this as a surprise,” he announced. “While we were sieging Het-Uart, Paheri and Abana captured thirty baw-ships of cedar loaded with treasure intended as New Year’s gifts for Apepa from his fellow chieftains in the east. They were taken easily. The sailors were confused, not knowing what had been happening in the Delta, for they had set sail from Rethennu. Kamose, send for Neshi to read the list.” Kamose nodded and beckoned Akhtoy.

“He should be in the temple storerooms,” he told the steward. “Have him come here, Akhtoy.” When the man had bowed and walked away, he held up a hand. “Neshi has proved himself an honest and meticulous Army Scribe, so I have appointed him Royal Treasurer,” he explained. “He takes his work very seriously. He calculated the long-term loss of the goods to Apepa in terms of court, army and commercial restraints down to the last uten’s weight. Of course there will be nothing for Apepa from Teti-en this year. All traffic from the south has to get past Weset. I foresee a rather lean future for the usurper.”

They waited in an expectant silence. Uni unobtrusively replenished the beer in their cups. Ahmose fell to stroking his wife’s warm head. Aahotep took a sweetmeat from the platter on the table and nibbled at it absently while Tetisheri’s ringed fingers drummed a rhythm on the arm of her chair, a frown creasing her kohled brows. “I suppose you have already decided on the distribution of this treasure,” she said at last. “We are not short of food for the winter, Kamose, but we do need lamp oil and sundry household effects. We gave everything we could spare to the army.”

“And you did so without grumbling, Grandmother,” he rejoined, “but the needs of this estate are still low on my scale of priorities. Ah! Here is Neshi.” The Royal Treasurer’s litter had been lowered some distance away and he and his scribe came briskly over the dry grass, the latter struggling with a large box on top of which he had balanced his palette. Neshi came to a halt and bowed and the scribe followed suit after laying his burdens on the ground.

Tetisheri looked them over carefully. The Royal Treasurer was a young man with a downturned mouth and two deep grooves between his eyebrows that gave him a perpetually worried expression. He also had large ears, and rather than try to hide them he had accentuated their size by hanging them with fat golden pendants. Tetisheri approved. Such a man would not be easily cowed. “Greetings, Neshi,” Kamose said. “Please give an accounting of the goods taken from Apepa’s baw-ships.” Neshi smiled and gestured to his scribe. They are all very pleased with themselves over this feat, Tetisheri thought, amused. It has been an accomplishment lifted out of its proper proportion and placed against the grinding miseries of the campaign. Truly a gift from Amun, who saw the desperation in their hearts. But as Neshi began to read from the scroll handed to him, she drew in her breath at the magnificence of the prize.

“Of gold dust, forty sacks. Of gold bars, three hundred. Five pieces of lapis of the finest quality measuring three widths of Your Majesty’s hands. Of pure silver, five hundred bars. Of green turquoise of the finest quality, sixty pieces. Of copper axes, two thousand and fifty. Of olive oil, one hundred barrels. Of incense, ninety-four sacks. Of fat, six hundred and thirty jars, and of honey five hundred. Of precious woods, nine lengths of ebony and one thousand seven hundred and twenty lengths of cedar.”

“And all ours!” Ahmose exulted as Neshi passed the scroll back to his scribe. “What do you think of that, Grandmother?”

“I am rendered almost speechless,” Tetisheri answered, and Aahotep cut in, “Almost but not quite!” They all laughed.

“Is Amun pleased with his share?” Kamose asked the Royal Treasurer. Neshi bowed again.

“The tallying is complete, Majesty,” he said. “The High Priest will doubtless come to you in person to express his gratitude.”

“Thank you. You can go.” He turned to Tetisheri. “The axes have already been distributed among the troops,” he explained. “That was done before we sailed for home. I sent most of the oil to the oasis together with the fat and honey. The troops must not exhaust themselves foraging in the unlikely event that their supplies of those things run out, and in any case it will be well to begin the next battle season with plenty of these commodities on hand. However, the gold, silver and precious stones have been stored in Amun’s treasury against the day when I ascend the Horus Throne. I have given to Amun for his own use and for the citizens of Weset ten sacks of gold dust and one hundred bars of gold.”

“How did gold in such quantity get to the Delta?” Aahmes-nefertari wondered. “It cannot all have been tribute from Rethennu, for that country does not have gold mines. Only Kush and Wawat can supply that kind of wealth. And what of the lapis? That also comes from Kush. No ship has passed our watch here, Kamose.” He shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “The same is true of the incense. Perhaps Apepa has established caravan routes from Kush to the Delta so as to avoid Weset entirely. We can only speculate. In any case it was a marvellous stroke of luck and we must thank Amun for it.”

“For the cedar in particular,” Ahmose added. “We can send it to Nekheb and build more ships to replace the reed ones, use them to establish a southern branch of the navy.” Tetisheri reached across and took Kamose’s hand, feeling the bones under her fingers where the flesh had melted away, and skin as cold as her own.

“It was a miraculous surprise,” she said gently. “A sign of approval from the gods.” She hesitated, wanting to ask of Hor-Aha, how he had fared in his relations with the Princes, whether he could maintain control of them at the oasis during the months of winter, anything rather than the question that burned, she knew, on Aahotep’s tongue. “But we long to hear of a greater treasure, Kamose. Is there any news of Tani?” Kamose’s hand slid out of her grip and another silence fell, this one fraught with uneasiness. Ahmose shifted on his chair and folded his arms. Aahotep bent her head and began to study her fly whisk. Aahmes-nefertari was chewing her lip with henna-stained teeth.

“Tani,” Kamose said heavily. “The closer we came to the Delta the more she was on my mind. Ramose and I spoke of her constantly in the long nights. We would storm Het-Uart, rush the palace, run to the harem, and Ramose would sweep her into his embrace and carry her away. Of course we knew we were dreaming, but we needed the dream. Needed it badly.” His face twisted in distress. “The reality was a city girt by a long high wall and impregnable gates that we could not storm. We could see the palace, though. Its roof loomed above the wall. I gave orders that no arrows were to be wasted on the soldiers who patrolled the top of the encircling fortification. What would have been the point? And once the women of the palace realized that they were in no danger from flying missiles, they began to gather on that roof every evening to stare down at us. A flock of beautiful birds they were, in their brocades and gauzy veils.” He stopped speaking and swallowed, running a hand through his black mane, and Tetisheri thought idiotically that she must order Akhtoy to see that it was cut. Kamose glanced almost appealingly at his brother but Ahmose was looking grimly away. “Our soldiers enjoyed the sight,” Kamose went on eventually. “They would stand in the shadow of the wall, looking up and taunting the women. ‘Come down and let us show you what a real man can do,’ they would call. ‘Your Setiu lord is impotent. Come down!’ The women never answered the teasing, and after a time I put a stop to it for fear they would not come to the roof, for fear a chance to see Tani might be lost. But she did not come. Sunset after sunset I stood with Ramose and Ahmose, craning up until our necks ached and our eyes watered, but she did not appear.”

“Either she is dead or Apepa deliberately forbade her to show herself to us,” Ahmose put in roughly. “Ramose wanted to seek admittance to the city under the excuse of a parley but Kamose would not let him.” Kamose rounded on his brother.

“We will never parley with him,” he said fiercely. “Never! Not for Tani, not for anyone!” Tetisheri felt Aahotep stiffen. This wound was obviously still fresh between the young men.

“You were right in your decision to have no verbal dealings with Apepa,” Tetisheri said swiftly. “To do so at this stage would be seen by him as a suspicion of weakness. We are all preoccupied with Tani’s fate. It is the dark river running under all our actions and conversations. But Ahmose, for the sake of our sanity we must presume that she still lives. We must hope without evidence that Amun has decreed her preservation.”

“Where is Ramose?” Aahotep wanted to know. “His mother will want to see him.”

“He elected to stay at Het nefer Apu with the navy,” Ahmose told her. “He somehow feels that if he stays closer to the Delta than Weset, Tani might feel his presence. It is a sweet but illogical fantasy.”

“Perhaps,” Kamose said hoarsely. “But I understand him. I am well acquainted with the power of the ephemeral.” Are you indeed? Tetisheri thought, regarding him carefully. I wonder what you mean. She eased herself from her chair, shook out her linens, and snapped her fingers at Uni.

“It is time to eat,” she announced. “Aahotep, find your cousin and tell her what is happening with her son. She is probably in the nursery with Ahmose-onkh. Your news is good, Kamose. Rest now.” They scrambled up obediently and Tetisheri left them, walking towards the house under the protection of the small sunshade Isis had hurriedly lifted over her head.

The sultry weight of a hot afternoon descended on the house. Servants and family alike shut themselves up in darkened rooms to lie drowsy and languorous under Ra’s molten breath. Ahmose and his wife made love and then fell asleep, their sweat-slick bodies entangled together. Aahotep, after trying to staunch the flow of her cousin’s ready tears, also slipped into an uneasy slumber. But Kamose lay awake, his mind far away with Hor-Aha and his army, and Tetisheri, though she yawned under the expert fingers of her masseur, had no desire to waste the hours in unconsciousness. She had too much to think about.

When the household began to stir and the first fragrant odours of the evening meal began to drift into the garden, Tetisheri made her way determinedly to her grandson’s quarters, only to be told by Akhtoy that Kamose had gone out. Enquiries revealed that he had not taken a skiff, nor was he in the temple. With a glance up at a sky beginning to acquire the slightly pearly hue of the impending sunset, Tetisheri strode across the lawn and picked her way through the rubble of the wall that separated the estate from the environs of the old palace.

She seldom went there, afraid of the danger of falling bricks from which, at her age, she would not be able to flee. Besides, the gloomy rooms and empty pedestals made her both angry and melancholy, reminding her both of the depths to which her illustrious family had fallen and of her son who had loved to meditate on the crumbling roof where Apepa’s long arm had at last reached out to destroy him. Seeing her intent, the guard who was with her began to remonstrate, but she thanked him warmly for his concern, told him to wait for her by the cavernous main entrance, and went forward into the reception hall.