The Oasis (36 page)

“I hate you,” he said clearly, his voice ringing out in the limpid morning air. “The whole of Egypt hates you. You do not belong here and one day you will be driven from this sacred soil.” He stepped closer and with an almost insane delight he saw Apepa move back. “Your god is powerless against the combined forces of the holy divinities who have decided to engineer your downfall,” he finished. “I bid you farewell.” He expected an immediate reaction, a sword to sever his aching head from his neck, perhaps, or at least a roar of rage, but Apepa did no more than raise his plucked eyebrows. The attendants’ murmurs died away into a shocked silence. Turning from them with disdain, Ramose strode towards the palace gates, his soldier escort hurrying at his heels.

He was led to a waiting chariot where his guard handed him over to an officer and retreated without a word. Then his hands were tied together and he was taken back the way he had first come, down through the city streets and straight out onto the narrow plain between Het-Uart and its protecting canal.

He entered chaos. Clouds of dust obscured his view and in it men and horses resolved and dissolved suddenly like phantoms. Everywhere there was noisy confusion. Men shouted, horses whinnied, donkeys being loaded with provisions caught the prevailing mood of agitation and set up a hoarse and continuous braying. Ramose’s charioteer cursed under his breath as he tried to negotiate a way through the choking mob. I could escape now, Ramose thought. I could jump from the rear of this vehicle and vanish into the pandemonium before this man could turn his head. But just as he was tensing to launch himself to the ground the chariot stopped, the charioteer flung the reins to a boy already holding other harnesses, and the moment passed. Deftly the officer took the thong trailing from Ramose’s imprisoned wrists and knotted it to the chariot’s rim. “Stay here,” he said unnecessarily, and disappeared. Sighing, Ramose sank to the floor, ignoring the boy’s curious glances. His head still ached.

He had no way of telling how long he sat there, for the murk stirred up by the soldiers forming ranks continued to obscure the sun, but his joints had begun to protest their confinement long before. He was brought a full water skin and a bag of bread, which he put in his pack, and then he was led to stand in the centre of a troop of infantry waiting quietly for the order to march. One of his wrists was tied loosely to the soldier on his left. He saw Kethuna whirl by in his chariot, but the General did not even glance his way. Far ahead a standard was raised, a large, red-painted wooden fan on a tall pole, and at once a command was shouted. “At last we set out,” the soldier muttered. “It’s bad enough that I became betrothed last week, and now I must shepherd you and see that you don’t make a run for it. What’s your name?” The column began to move. Ramose shrugged his pack higher on his shoulder.

“I don’t think my name matters very much any more,” he replied curtly. “But I am Ramose, late of Khemmenu in the Un nome.”

“I hear Khemmenu is in the nothing nome now,” the soldier grunted. “The enemy sacked it. Did you lose relatives in that fight? Or were you in on the slaughtering?” He shook the length of leather joining them. “Are you a common criminal or a spy?”

“All of us here are in the nothing nome,” Ramose said grimly, and at that the soldier pressed him no longer.

If he had been free to swing both his arms, Ramose might have almost enjoyed the first few days of the expedition, as Kethuna’s sixty thousand men snaked through the Delta. It was the end of the month of Phamenoth, the weather cool, the orchards dropping the last of their blossoms, the vineyards making patterns of different shades of green with the dark grape leaves stirring over the lighter hue of the tiny grapes themselves. The water in the canals and tributaries calmly reflected a high, blue sky. Around Het-Uart, the depredations caused by Kamose’s Raiders the year before could still be seen. Burned trees stood black and skeletal. Withered vines rustled sadly in the scented breeze. Patches of scorched earth marked the places where bodies had been fired and occasionally the bones of cattle littered the paths, but as the host neared the western edge of the Delta’s lush cultivation the paradisiacal nature of Lower Egypt was restored.

On the evening of the third day, they camped under the shelter of the last grove of palms before the desert began. Ramose and his jailer joined a group of soldiers sitting around one of the many cooking fires that lit up the deepening twilight. The other men talked as they ate, but Ramose was silent, his eyes on the hillocks of sand stretching away before him. His wrist was chafed but he did not mind the small niggle of pain. His thoughts flowed from Tani to Kamose to the probability of his impending death and back again. Examining his heart, he found no bitterness towards the girl he had loved for so long, indeed, it came to him that he had exaggerated the emotion to enable himself to survive the horror of Khemmenu and the following days of despair. Nevertheless, the core of his tenderness for her was still there, warm and steady, and he knew that it would outlast his death and the weighing of his ka. It was a thing of eternity, fated within the rightness of Ma’at.

As the dimness began to thicken into darkness and the desert became indistinct, he fancied that he saw the furtive shapes of men out among the dunes. He wondered if Kamose would send scouts as far as the Delta. The phantoms dissolved as he tried to focus on them, but one took on solidity and became an advance scout who came up unhurriedly and passed through the line of cheerful blazes on his way to report to Kethuna.

Early the next morning they set off towards Ta-she. Each soldier had been warned to fill his water skin and to drink only when rest halts were called. There was no danger in the trek, for the path was well travelled during Inundations when the river road was flooded and an ample supply of water waited for them. Still, by the end of the first day there was grumbling in the ranks. Many of the soldiers were too exhausted to eat, preferring to cast themselves down in the sand and go immediately to sleep. Many had surreptitiously disobeyed their officers and had emptied their skins long before the fiery desert day relinquished its hold.

They had become more sensible by the time a camp was made on their second evening, but Ramose, noting blistered feet and the angry red swellings of sunburn on exposed shoulders and faces, felt an impatient scorn. Apepa’s generals were idiots. Their troops had not experienced desert drilling. Delta-born and raised, or fresh from the temperate country of Rethennu, their training limited to mock battles within Het-Uart, they were too soft to embrace the rigours of hot sand and a sun undiluted by any sweet humidity.

He himself was tired. His muscles ached from the march, but that was all. The soldier to whom he was tied had not suffered much, but he also complained of a mild headache and chills to one of the army physicians who moved among the men with salves. When the physician had gone, the man hailed a passing officer and asked if he might be released from Ramose at least during the day, but the officer, returning from the General’s tent, told him that Kethuna had refused his request. “They could at least tie you to someone else and give me a rest for a while,” the soldier said resignedly. “I hope they remember to cut you loose before I need both my arms to heft my axe.” Ramose found the situation suddenly very funny but he knew better than to laugh. It occurred to him that the desert might prove a more implacable enemy than Kamose and his hardened troops.

Ta-she appeared on the horizon soon after sunrise on the seventh day out from Het-Uart, but it was not until late in the afternoon that the vast oasis was reached. By then the soldiers broke ranks without waiting for permission and ran towards the glint of water between the clustered palms, ignoring the shouts of their officers. Ramose watched them go with a secret delight. Hot and thirsty himself, he walked forward calmly, his soldier stumbling beside him. Once among the cultivated fields the Tjehenu villagers came out to stare at this wave of undisciplined military might and Ramose scanned them quickly for someone familiar, sure that here at Ta-she there would certainly be Kamose’s spies. But he recognized no one among the dark, withdrawn faces.

The army remained at Ta-she for the next day and night while equipment was checked and the men enjoyed a brief respite. They swam, ate and slept with renewed and noisy good spirits but their hurts were not healed in such a short time, and although the next leg of the march began optimistically, the unforgiving earth beneath already blistered feet and the brazen heat pouring on peeling skin soon reduced them to a plodding misery.

Ramose found himself enveloped in a deepening peace as the miles slid away under his sandals. Life in the desert was still life. Aware of each hot breath he drew, each grain of sand clinging to his calves, each bead of sweat that trickled down his spine, he marvelled at the mystery that had been his existence, the memories that were his alone. This desert journey would be his last before the one whose gate opened onto the Judgement Hall. It would end as no other he had ever taken, yet he was not afraid. I will not live to see Kamose victorious and crowned in Weset, he thought, unperturbed. I will not greet my mother again until I stand beside my father to do so. I will never hold Tani naked in my arms or see my offspring grow like sturdy weeds in the garden of the estate that might have been mine. Yet I am content. I have loved. I have kept my honour. I have proved my worthiness in the sight of gods and men. Will the desert, this place of a unique and arid magic, preserve my body so that the gods may find me? All I can do is pray that it might be so.

The army spent the night of the fourth day out from Ta-she in a state of battle-readiness. The oasis of Uah-ta-Meh loomed close, an ominous wide blackness against a star-strewn sky. Word had come down from the General that his scouts had detected no activity there, but they had not ranged too close for fear of discovery. Nothing could hide the approach of sixty thousand men in any case, but a few hours’ warning was better than a whole day. The infantry was now formed up in fighting blocks, each division behind its squadron of twenty-five chariots, its standard bearer before.

The men slept uneasily without breaking ranks. Ramose did not sleep at all. He knew that Kamose and all his troops had gone, that Kethuna would find no one but villagers in the oasis and would have to begin yet another long trek across the punishing sand, this time towards the Nile. His men had nerved themselves for action in the morning. When it did not come, the let-down, coupled with the prospect of more heat and pain, would be demoralizing. Kamose and Paheri, fresh and eager, would be waiting for their dispirited arrival. I wonder whether I will still be alive by then, Ramose thought. I doubt it. Kethuna will order me killed when he finds the oasis empty. Well, at least my bonds will be loosed!

10

AT DAWN
the men were roused and told to eat and drink. They did so quietly, each turned inward upon his own thoughts as the time of battle drew nearer. Some prayed. Others fingered amulets or charms while they stowed the remainder of their rations and tightened their sandals.

An officer appeared and to Ramose’s great relief severed the thong that had bound him to the soldier. The feeling of freedom did not last long, however. Curtly he was told to accompany the man to the front ranks, where Kethuna already stood in his chariot behind his charioteer, his squadron around him. New sunlight flashed on the spokes of the vehicles as the restless little horses shuffled and tossed their plumed heads. Already the boulder-strewn desert gave off a blinding glare. Ramose shaded his eyes as he looked up at the General. Kethuna surveyed him impassively for a moment. “My orders are to set you in the forefront of my troops,” he said. “I am commanded to do no more than that. If you are recognized by the foe before you are killed, then so much the better for you. But if I discover that you have lied to the One or misrepresented the situation here at the oasis, I am to execute you at once. Walk beside the horses.” For answer Ramose bowed and took his place in front of the chariot. Outwardly calm, his thoughts seethed. There would, of course, be no one to give battle. The oasis would be barren of soldiers. Would Kethuna blame him, or would he simply presume that they had set out too late to intercept Kamose as he moved towards a siege of Het-Uart, and it would be up to Pezedkhu to engage his combined army along the Nile? Would there be an opportunity to disappear into one of the villages in the oasis during the first moments of confusion? The word to march was being shouted down the lines and the standards were being raised. Ramose mentally shrugged. I will not allow myself to hope, he told himself. Today will unfold as the gods desire and with that I will be satisfied.

The chariot began to roll and doggedly Ramose went with it, inhaling the comforting, sane smell of horseflesh and leather. The oasis slowly took form, becoming smudges of green on the ground and haphazard clusters of palms against the blue sky. Nothing moved out there where the horizon shook in waves of heat. Ramose’s responsibilities as a scout had been carried out along this track and he saw that the tents once sprouting at this northerly approach had gone. The horses stumbled as they trod the sharp gravel that lay black and glinting under their hoofs. The charioteer spoke to them soothingly. The sound of the thousands of men behind was a low susurration of footfalls.