The Oasis (2 page)

Nehmen—the King’s Chief Steward

Yku-didi—his Chief Herald

Itju—his Chief Scribe

Peremuah—the Keeper of the Royal Seal

Sakhetsa—a herald

Yamusa—a herald

Pezedkhu—a General

Kethuna—a General

Hat-Anath—a female courtier

INTRODUCTION

AT THE END
of the Twelfth Dynasty the Egyptians found themselves in the hands of a foreign power they knew as the Setiu, the Rulers of Uplands. We know them as the Hyksos. They had initially wandered into Egypt from the less fertile eastern country of Rethennu in order to pasture their flocks and herds in the lush Delta region. Once settled, their traders followed them, eager to profit from Egypt’s wealth. Skilled in matters of administration, they gradually removed all authority from a weak Egyptian goverment until control was entirely in their hands. It was a mostly bloodless invasion achieved through the subtle means of political and economic coercion. Their kings cared little for the country as a whole, plundering it for their own ends and aping the customs of their Egyptian predecessors in a largely successful effort to lull the people into submission. By the middle of the Seventeenth Dynasty they had been securely entrenched in Egypt for just over two hundred years, ruling from their northern capital, the House of the Leg, Het-Uart.

But one man in southern Egypt claiming descent from the last true King finally rebelled. In the first volume of this trilogy,
The Hippopotamus Marsh
, Seqenenra Tao, goaded and humiliated by the Setiu ruler Apepa, chose revolt rather than obedience. With the knowledge and collusion of his wife, Aahotep, his mother, Tetisheri, and his daughters, Aahmes-nefertari and Tani, he and his sons, Si-Amun, Kamose and Ahmose planned and executed an uprising. It was an act of desperation doomed to failure. Seqenenra was attacked and partially paralyzed by Mersu, Tetisheri’s trusted steward, who was also a spy in his household. Despite his injuries he marched north with his small army, only to be killed during a battle against the superior forces of the Setiu King Apepa and his brilliant young General Pezedkhu.

His eldest son, Si-Amun, should have assumed the title of Prince of Weset. But Si-Amun, his loyalty divided between his father’s claim to the throne of Egypt and the Setiu King, had been duped into passing information regarding his father’s insurrection to Teti of Khemmenu, his mother’s relative and a favourite of Apepa, through the spy Mersu. In a fit of remorse he killed Mersu and then himself.

Believing that the hostilities were over, Apepa travelled south to Weset and passed a crushing sentence on the remaining members of the family. He took Seqenenra’s younger daughter, Tani, back to Het-Uart with him as a hostage against any further trouble, but Kamose, now Prince of Weset, knew that his choice lay between a continued struggle for Egypt’s freedom or the complete impoverishment and separation of the members of his family. He chose freedom.

1

KAMOSE HAD HIMSELF BATHED
and dressed in a mood of conscious calm, standing in the centre of his denuded bedchamber while his body servant wound a simple white kilt about his waist and set plain leather sandals on his feet. His tiring boxes lay open and empty, his clothes having already been stowed aboard his boat. The small household shrine containing an effigy of Amun now rested in the cabin. There was a square of dust on the floor where it had been. His lamps, his favourite cup, his ivory headrest were also waiting for him in their new places. Most of his jewellery had gone, used to buy supplies, but Kamose took up the pectoral he had commissioned and set it about his neck. The cool, impersonal touch of the gold, warming slowly to the heat of his skin, seemed to cast a cloak of divine protection around him, and his fingers rose to clasp the god of eternity nestling just under his breastbone in a gesture that was already becoming habitual. “Send Uni to me,” he ordered the servant who had finished painting his eyes and was closing the cosmetic box before it too disappeared. “Give me the helmet. I will put it on myself.” The man passed him the headdress and bowed himself out the door.

Kamose did not need a mirror to set the white leather on his brow. Its wings brushed his shoulders and its rim cut pleasingly and familiarly across his forehead. Sliding his commander’s bracelets onto his wrists and buckling the belt from which hung his sword and dagger around his waist were actions he had repeated innumerable times but today, he reflected grimly, it is as though I have never done these things before. Today they are the accoutrements of war, heavy with purpose. He gave Uni a tight smile as the steward entered and bowed. “I am of course taking Akhtoy with me,” he told the man. “Therefore you will be the senior steward here. It is up to you to maintain order in the house, Uni, as well as seeing to the needs of my grandmother. You are aware of the instructions I have left with her and my mother regarding the sowing throughout my nome, the watch upon the river, the regular reports that are to follow me. I require reports from you also. No,” he said impatiently at the changed expression on Uni’s face. “I am not asking for confidential information no steward’s loyalty would allow him to divulge. Tell me of the health of the women, their spirits, how they are able to cope with the administrative problems that will inevitably arise. I will miss them,” he finished quietly. “Homesickness assails me already. I want to see them through your words.” Uni nodded sympathetically.

“I understand, Majesty. I will do as you desire. But if any conflict arises between a thing you wish to know and a thing my mistress wishes kept a secret, I must disobey you.”

“Certainly. Tell Tetisheri of my request to you. Thank you.” Uni cleared his throat.

“I pray for complete success in your endeavour to continue the fight your blessed father began, and free Egypt from the yoke of our oppressors, Divine One,” he offered, “and a speedy return to the peace of this blessed place.”

“May it be so.” He dismissed the man, following him out into the passage and then parting from him, walking with measured steps across the deserted reception hall towards the new light of the early morning.

They were already waiting for him, standing huddled together on the brink of the watersteps in the shadow cast by the reed boat moored there, his boat, its decks alive with the frenetic activity of purposeful men whose time is short. To right and left along the Nile’s banks the other craft rocked gently, their bowels churning with the same furore, the sweet, slightly rank scent of the bundled reeds from which they were constructed hanging thickly in the motionless dawn air. Beyond the family, along the river path, the conscripts were forming ranks in clouds of dust and a tumult of voices that mingled with the screeching of pack asses and the sharp shouts of harried officers. But around the solemn little group lay a pool of silence.

Kamose approached them swiftly and they watched him come, their faces grave, their eyes holding the mixture of awkwardness and gravity he himself felt. Only Ahmoseonkh grumbled fretfully in his nurse’s arms, hungry and bored. With a tug at his heart Kamose saw that the women had arrayed themselves as carefully as though they had been bidden to a royal feast. Their gilded, semi-transparent linen, heavy face paint and oiled wigs should have appeared garish and unseemly at that hour, but instead the adornments served to lift them out of the dust and noise, away from the looming hulk of the boat and the still-dark water lapping so close to them, taking them out of this moment and this circumstance and placing them on some other, more mysterious plane. Kamose was unwillingly reminded of their gathering before the joint funeral of his father, Seqenenra, and his twin brother, Si-Amun, both casualties in different ways of this terrible conflict. Seqenenra, who had first been grievously injured by an assassin’s vicious attack and then later slain in that intial, abortive battle, and Si-Amun, dying by his own hand after betraying his father’s plans to the enemy. The same cloud of mute resignation hung over them now and seemed to enfold him as he came up to them and halted.

For a while they simply looked at him and he regarded them in turn. There was everything and yet nothing to say and whatever word might be ejected into the cool air would inevitably sound trite. Yet the emotions filling each one, love, anxiety, fear, the pain of separation, thickened the space between them and in the end drew their bodies together. Arms around each other, heads lowered, they rocked slowly as if they too were a craft of Egypt, adrift on the bosom of unknown waters. When they broke apart, Aahmes-nefertari’s eyes were large with tears and her hennaed mouth quivered. “The High Priest is on his way,” she said. “He sent a message. The bull that had been selected for sacrifice this morning died in the night and he did not think that you would want to choose another. It is a terrible omen.” Panic knifed through Kamose and he did not fight its sudden sting.

“For Apepa, not for us,” he objected firmly. “The usurper took to himself the title of Kings, Mighty Bull of Ma’at, and in slaying a bull today we would have been not only binding Amun to our aid but also making the first move in destroying the Setiu’s power. However, it is dying of its own accord. There is no need to slit its throat here on the watersteps. The omen is good, Aahmes-nefertari.”

“Nevertheless,” Tetisheri broke in tartly, “you must make sure that the soldiers do not hear about it, Kamose. They are too simple to fathom such a sophisticated reason for what they will see as a future disaster. I will inspect the remains of this beast myself when you have gone, and order it burned so that any negative influence its death may have will not linger. Do not forget the hawk, Aahmes-nefertari, and try not to start and tremble at every sign or you will end up seeing portents in the lees of your wine and calamities in the dust whorls under your couch.” The harshness of her speech was belied by the rare smile that lit her creased face.

“You all believe that I cannot be strong,” the girl said, “but you err. I do not forget the hawk, Grandmother. My husband will be King one day and I shall be Queen. It is for Kamose that I start and tremble, not for Ahmose or for myself, and he knows this. I love him. How could I not then be afraid, and watch for the omens that will tell of victory or defeat? I only say aloud what you all think in your hearts.” She turned to Kamose, her chin high.

“I am not a child, dear brother,” she said defiantly. “Prove the omen wrong. Wield the sacred power of a King before which all omens of doom melt into nothing.” He could not answer either the force of her words or the agony in her face. Bending, he kissed her and turned to his mother. Aahotep was pale under her paint.

“I am a daughter of the moon,” she said in a low voice, “and my roots are in Khemennu, the city of Thoth. Teti is my kinsman. You know this, Kamose. If you are wondering what you will do there, if you are afraid of meting out justice because Teti’s blood is also mine, do not worry. If the city proves recalcitrant, purge it. If Teti fights you, slaughter him. He corrupted Si-Amun on behalf of his master, Apepa, and deserves to die. But before you move against either, sacrifice to Thoth.” A tiny, bitter smile twisted her features. “I do not doubt that the god of my youth waits eagerly for the cleansing your sword will bring. Yet I beg you to show mercy to Ramose if you can, for Tani’s sake. He has shown himself loyal to our cause while still attempting to remain obedient to Teti. Such a division within himself must surely have brought him much grief. It was not in his power to prevent Apepa from promising our nome to his father once this family was scattered.” The smile became frozen as she tried to control herself. “Word of your insurrection is bound to reach the Delta before long. What it will mean to Tani, imprisoned there as a hostage, we dare not think. But we must hope that Apepa is not fool enough to execute her and that Ramose still loves her and will try to save her if his life is spared.”

“I will do everything possible to reason with Teti for your sake,” Kamose replied, a lump in his throat. “Yet we both know he cannot be trusted. If I must kill him, then it will be as a last resort. As for Ramose, his testing in this matter is his own affair, but I shrink from any necessity to destroy him. His choice will be hard.”