The Oasis (37 page)

For perhaps two hours they marched, while the oasis grew and continued to fill their vision. It lay silent and peaceful. No cries of warning echoed from its limpid palms. No forms scurried to give an alarm. A collective murmur began to rise from the infantry behind Ramose and he heard Kethuna curse and then say, “He has gone. The oasis is empty.” Raising his voice, he called a halt, and gratefully Ramose sank to the ground in the shade of the two sweating beasts. The General seemed to have forgotten him for the time being. A scout was summoned and Ramose watched him vanish along the pebbled track that led between high dunes and into the village.

A babble of conversation broke out, a tide of cheerful excitement as the men realized that no engagement would take place that morning, and their optimism was confirmed by the return of the scout much later. Ramose, still crouching by the chariot, smiled slowly at his words. “Lord, I have been longer than I should,” he said breathlessly to Kethuna. “There is a mystery here. The oasis is abandoned. No soldiers, and no villagers either.”

“What do you mean?” Kethuna snapped. The man hesitated. Ramose could see his feet as he shifted his weight uncertainly.

“The villagers have gone,” the scout repeated. “The huts are empty. So are the fields. There are no animals, just a few goats.” The scout, and Ramose, waited. The silence lengthened. Ramose could almost feel the General thinking while the officers around him shuffled and whispered. Finally Kethuna dismissed the scout and called Ramose.

“Either Kamose has already withdrawn to Het nefer Apu or he is sitting beyond the oasis, waiting for us to occupy it so that he can surround us,” he said crisply. “The oasis is not easily defensible. Yet the scouts ventured far afield yesterday and reported no movement of troops at all.” He fixed Ramose with a hostile stare. “Which is it, son of Teti?”

“There is no point in asking me,” Ramose retorted. “I told the King the truth. Kamose and his army were here when I left. If he has changed his plans in the weeks since I saw him, then how would I know?” Kethuna was breathing heavily.

“Kamose’s scouts could have detected us days ago and alerted him,” he said. “I must choose whether to risk the oasis or go around it and continue on towards the river.” One of his officers spoke up.

“The men need water, General,” he reminded him. “They cannot hope to reach the Nile otherwise.” Kethuna continued to scrutinize Ramose’s face, his gaze pensive.

“It seems obvious that we are simply too late to trap Kamose here,” he said slowly. “Yet I am uneasy. Something about this situation is not right, not clear. What am I missing, Ramose?”

“You are the General, not me,” Ramose shot back at him recklessly, though he also felt a curious threat emanating from the tranquil scene beyond. “As I have told you, I know nothing of my Lord’s plans beyond another siege.”

“If he has gone, why did he take the villagers with him?” another officer queried. “What did he need them for?”

He did not need them, Ramose thought suddenly. But he could not leave them. Why? The reason is there, prowling in the back of my mind, but I cannot bring it forward. Oh, Kamose, implacable and devious, what have you done? He dropped his eyes so that Kethuna would not see them light up.

“Perhaps he took their flocks and herds, not them,” Kethuna mused. “Perhaps he was short of food and the villagers were forced to follow him or starve.” He shook his head in annoyance. “These speculations are vain,” he said irritably. “I must decide on a course of action. The sun is close to its zenith. Have the men rest here and eat. By the time they have finished, I will have made my decision.” His officers bowed and scattered and he himself got down from the chariot. “Watch this man,” he ordered his charioteer, pointing at Ramose, then he too strode away.

Ramose regained his spot in the shade. The shadows cast by the patient animals were shorter now and paler. Opening his pack, he took out some bread and his water skin. It was more than half-empty. He shook it, wondering whether to drink or not, then chided himself for being foolish. Kamose was on his way to link up with Paheri and the springs and wells of the oasis lay waiting for Kethuna’s thirsty troops, including himself. Yet he paused, the skin to his mouth. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the other men drinking copiously, tipping the precious liquid over hot faces, obviously reasoning as he did that abundant water lay close by. One of the horses, smelling the water being spilled all around it, whickered softly.

Ramose lowered his skin. His heart had begun to pound. How much water is left for the horses in the donkey carts? he wondered. Horses hate the desert. They have no stamina for arid places. All around me the men are wasting water because they believe that there is plenty more to be had a mere stone’s throw away. Hor-Aha would never allow such presumption, but Hor-Aha is a child of desert places and Kamose himself was raised on the edge of a pitiless barrens. Not like these sore, sunburned sons of the Delta.

Sore.

Sunburned.

And soon to be thirsty again.

Ramose sat very still. But is it even possible? he asked himself as the unformed thought that had been stalking him sprang forward and took on the shape of fear. Could it be done? And sufficiently completely that a whole army would be destroyed? No wonder you took everything with you, even the animals, my ruthless friend. Never in his moments of wildest conjecture could Kethuna arrive at such a startling conclusion. Pezedkhu might, but even if Pezedkhu was here instead of Kethuna, even if he suspected the truth, he would still find himself trapped at the point of no return.

But was it the truth or was he having a fit of insanity? Ramose’s gaze travelled the sun-drenched road, the humps of the rock-strewn dunes, the half-hidden trees. His throat was parched and he longed to drink but he did not dare.

It was not long before Kethuna returned, his officers straggling behind him. A decision had obviously been made. Shouts rang out and the soldiers began struggling to their feet. The standards waved. Kethuna mounted his chariot. So they were going forward. Ramose checked the stopper of his water skin as he stood, and Apepa’s army began to cover the last few miles between it and the oasis.

Just before they passed between the dunes, Kethuna’s vanguard surged ahead and fanned out, the chariots rolling swiftly, their occupants with bows unslung and arrows at the ready. Glancing back, Ramose saw the loose lines of soldiers draw together and become a thick snake in order to keep to the track, its rear winding to be lost to sight in the dust. A mixture of anxiety and exultation gripped him as he himself was forced to walk closer to the horses. Putting out a hand, he touched the nearer animal, its flank warm and wet. At once he felt the sting of the charioteer’s whip on his wrist and he withdrew.

The northern village was in view now, a collection of mud huts beyond the hectic green of sturdy crops, the small dwellings half-obscured by palm trunks and sparse shrubs. Nearer was the pool where Kamose’s tent had been pitched, the ground around it disturbed and littered with the detritus of the departing troops. Kethuna’s horses, once again smelling water, picked up their pace so that Ramose was forced to break into a run. The charioteer was trying to hold them in, without much success, and Kethuna, clinging to the swaying sides of the vehicle, was shouting at him angrily.

Panting and stumbling, afraid of the lick of the whip, Ramose strove to keep up. The pool was closer now, they were almost upon it, and in spite of his discomfort a puzzlement grew in Ramose. The shrubbery around the water had been cut down. Raw stumps showed yellowish above the sand. In many places the plants had been actually ripped up by the roots, leaving untidy depressions where they had been growing.

The horses came to the verge of the pool and halted. Their heads went down. Behind the chariot the soldiers broke rank, water skins at the ready, hands cupped and knees already bending. Breathing hard, Ramose scanned the surface of the scummed water. Twigs and white petals floated on it gently and thicker branches, crushed to reveal the fibres within the bark, stuck out like brown bones. Someone has killed the shrubs, hacked them up and tossed them methodically into the pool, Ramose thought. But why? It looks like an act of petty spite but to what purpose? The horses’ muzzles were hesitating just above the murky liquid, their nostrils distended, whinnying softly. Soldiers were kneeling to lift the glittering wet life to their lips. Behind them their fellows waited eagerly for their turn to quench their thirst. The whole area was crowded with cheerful, jostling troops.

But Ramose, catching a whiff of sweet flower perfume brought to him on the hot breeze, drew back on a wave of horror, his own knees suddenly weak. It was death that the horses scented in their distress, death slipping down the throats of the men leaning over that seemingly innocuous expanse. Frozen to the spot by sheer dread, he watched the happy confusion. The oasis is full of it, he thought. From here to the southern village, around every spring it grows in profusion, beautiful and harmless unless, of course, its leaves are inadvertently chewed, or its seeds crushed, or one eats honey made from its flowers.

Or unless one drinks the water in which it has been immersed.

A bubble of hysterical laughter expanded in him and he clenched his teeth against it. How perfect, he thought again. How amazingly, logically, damnably perfect. Oleander, so white and delicate, yet even touching it can make a man’s palms itch. Did the inspiration come to you, Kamose, or to Ahmose, or perhaps to Hor-Aha? No. This is not the work of the Prince or the General. This bears the stamp of a sophisticated mind that revolves coldly and inexorably around a victory at any cost. Kamose, I salute your cunning.

There was a thud behind him as Kethuna jumped to the ground, then the General was beside him, his charioteer’s whip clutched in his hand, his face gone suddenly haggard. “Get away from the water!” he shouted, his voice hoarse with panic. Rushing to the edge of the pool he began to flog the men who were already drinking, the ones pressing forward. “It’s poisoned, you fools! Get back! Get back!”

Ramose came to himself with a jolt and looked swiftly about. Already the soldiers who had been first to the water were lying doubled up on the ground, retching. The horses were neighing, the perplexed officers milling about, and the thousands flowing in from the desert, not knowing what was happening, were noisily demanding to fill their skins. When Kethuna regained control of his army, he would send scouts through the oasis to the south to see if the wells there were pure, but Ramose knew that the spiking would have been thorough, that Kamose would not have left one spring, pool or well unsullied in all the fifteen miles that comprised Uah-ta-Meh, and Kethuna and his men were doomed.

True there was another oasis at Ta-iht, a hundred miles farther south, but once there the General’s army would be trapped. From Ta-iht to the Nile the distance was almost twice as that from Uah-ta-Meh, and even if the troops could endure the trek to Ta-iht without water and then by some miracle survive the even longer march to the Nile, they would emerge from the desert near Khemmenu and be faced with dragging themselves north to where Kamose waited at Het nefer Apu. No, Ramose thought, as he backed away from the chaos of vomiting, terror-stricken men, Kethuna will try to cut his losses. He will make straight for the Nile, taking the track to Het nefer Apu. And without water, most of these men will die.

Using trees and the tumble of boulders everywhere, Ramose gradually worked his way towards the deserted village. He was little better off than the soldiers who had not drunk the contaminated water, although his instinct had been to conserve the meagre supply remaining to him while the others had been almost literally pouring it onto the ground. He knew that he did not have enough to sustain him until he reached safety. He also knew that Kethuna would send officers to ransack the village for any pure water the villagers might have left, and he wanted to find it first. It would be hours before the General could re-establish any sense of order.

Going from hut to hut, Ramose searched every corner, peered into every pot, but only succeeded in adding perhaps half a cup of stale and brackish liquid to the precious drops in his water skin. He had not drunk since early morning. His whole body screamed for relief, but he knew the symptoms of a thirst that has become life-threatening and he was not yet in such extreme danger. The mud shacks were dim and cool, but he forced himself to leave them. When Kethuna came to his senses, he would want Ramose’s blood, believing that Ramose had known from the beginning what Kamose would do. Walking out behind the village, Ramose found a semi-circular dune with a scattering of black rocks at its foot. Here he curled up in such shade as it afforded, digging himself a depression between sand and stones and pulling his tattered cloak over his head. He fell into an uneasy sleep.

He was woken by the sound of voices close by, and lifting a corner of his cloak he saw the desert flooded in red light. The sun was going down. The ground transmitted the vibration of the soldiers’ heavy footfalls as they sought him and he lay very still, trying to breathe quietly, until they went away. Then he crawled out of his hole and came cautiously to his feet. Stiff and sore, he stood for a moment while the blood flowed back into his limbs before scrambling to the top of the dune and peering carefully down into the village and beyond it to the pool. The whole area seethed with activity but it was now brisk and purposeful. Kethuna had obviously reimposed his authority. Soldiers moved in and out of the villagers’ huts and to and fro by the water, but Ramose, after observing them for a while, realized that the scene was strangely silent. No one was laughing or talking. No cooking fires had been lit. Poor devils, he thought. Are they aware yet that they are already dead? Sliding back down the dune, he unstoppered his water skin and allowed himself one scant mouthful, then he settled down to wait.

Twilight and then full darkness came. One by one the stars winked into life until eventually the great dome of the sky blazed with glimmering points of light. The moon was new, an indistinct sliver among the brilliant clusters around it. Ramose lay with his knees up and his arms outstretched, caressed by the blessed coolness of a desert night. He heard shouts now and the subdued, formless sounds of the thousands of men preparing to march. The horses were protesting, their neighing edged with an animal pleading. They would die also in a mute incomprehension somehow more pitiful than the vision of the men stumbling to their end. Kethuna was taking the only solution open to him. He was leaving the oasis while the sun was down. He would lead his army a little way south until he struck the track to Het nefer Apu and then he would head east. And I will follow, Ramose told himself. I have no intention of trudging ahead of them to perhaps be caught and put to the sword. I alone have a chance to survive. He had no desire to watch them go. He continued to lie quietly looking up at the sky until the last sound of their passing had died away.