The Oasis (61 page)

“We must do something,” Tetisheri urged. “Does Kamose really expect the three of us to cower here until Intef or Meketra comes blustering in to gloat?” Aahotep spread out her hands.

“What can we do?” she protested angrily. “Be reasonable, Tetisheri. Words will not keep my sons alive.”

“You speak as though they are already defeated,” the old woman snapped back. “But what do we really know? Nothing except that the Followers are dead and Kamose has gone to the watersteps. The rest is supposition. We must ascertain the truth.” At that moment Isis returned, visibly pale. “Well?” Tetisheri asked.

“The Lady Nefer-Sakharu is not in her room,” the servant told them. “Neither is Senehat.”

“Senehat will be in Ramose’s quarters,” Aahotep said tiredly. “Or would be if all was well. Do you have any suggestions, Tetisheri?”

“I do,” Aahmes-nefertari said faintly. She had been listening to the heated exchange between her mother and grandmother with little attention, her own mind racing furiously. There was indeed something to be tried, but everything in her cringed from its audacity. I am only a wife and mother, she said to herself in despair. If I stay here in Grandmother’s apartments the Princes will spare me as such, but if I interfere in whatever is going on out there, I will be killed. Then what of my children? I do not have the courage for this. Yet even as she felt her bowels turn to water at the thought, she was giving it voice. “I have spent much time out on the parade ground watching the men go through their paces and talking to the officers,” she went on more steadily. “They seem to have a respect for me. Let me put it to the test. I am of the ruling house. If the officers see me, hear me, they will be more inclined to obey me than any of the Princes.” She paused and gulped, reaching for the support of a nearby chairback. “If the gods are with me, the soldiers will not know that their King and his brother have been rendered impotent or even killed. They will fear retribution. I can undo any damage the Princes may have done out there if I am swift enough. If I am too late …” She shrugged with what she hoped might be seen as indifference. “… then the worst they can do is arrest me and drag me back here.”

The two other women stared at her, Tetisheri with eyes narrowed in speculation, Aahotep with her usual inscrutable gaze. Then Aahotep sighed.

“If anyone dares this, it should be me,” she said. “My authority carries more weight than yours, Aahmes-nefertari.” But Tetisheri stepped forward eagerly.

“No, Aahmes-nefertari is right,” she said. “The soldiers know her. They are used to seeing her on the dais with Ahmose-onkh. Let her go, Aahotep. It is a good plan.” Aahmes-nefertari felt a spasm of violent resentment as she looked into her grandmother’s face. You really are a ruthless woman, she thought. Your concern is not for my safety. All you care about is a chance to protect the unique place the family holds in Egypt. If I can do that, it does not matter to you whether I live or die in the trying.

“After all, Grandmother,” she could not resist saying aloud, “the Taos do have another son to rule if my husband and Kamose die. That is your only preoccupation, is it not?” She turned to her mother. “Have I your permission to go, Aahotep?” White to the lips, Aahotep nodded.

“I see no alternative and there is no time to come up with one,” she said, her voice breaking. “I have no intention of waiting here and going mad either, Aahmes-nefertari. I will go to the watersteps, and if they are not guarded, I will cross the river to Hor-Aha.” She opened her arms and her daughter stepped into her embrace. They held each other tightly until Aahotep broke away. “Take weapons with you,” she said. Aahmes-nefertari walked to the door and out into the passage beyond. It took all the courage she possessed to turn towards the rear of the house, but breathing a prayer to Amun and keeping her mind full of her husband’s genial face, she found it easier than she had imagined.

Aahotep prepared to follow her. “If Nefer-Sakharu is foolish enough to return to her rooms, she must be detained here,” she said to her mother-in-law. “Can you do that, Tetisheri?” The older woman pursed her lips.

“Not by the force of this aging carcase,” she replied hoarsely. “I can attempt to browbeat her, but if she chooses to leave again I will not be able to stop her. But dawn comes, Aahotep. Uni will have left his couch in the servants’ quarters. I can only pray that he is unmolested and will reach the house. He can restrain Nefer-Sakharu.” There was nothing else to say. Aahotep hesitated, a dozen conjectures running through her mind. Resisting the urge to discuss them and thus put off the moment when she would have to abandon the illusory safety of the women’s wing, she summoned a brief smile and slipped out, closing the door behind her.

The corridor was no longer sunk in darkness. A grey predawn light suffused it, strengthening even as she went swiftly towards the main entrance of the house, bringing the disorderly sprawl of bodies from the realm of nightmare into the dreary focus of reality. A slight chill came with it and Aahotep shivered. She was not afraid of the dead. Nor did she allow her imagination to present her with images of ghosts newly created hovering in the rapidly dissolving shadows. It was terror for her sons that quickened her pulse and kept her gaze high. Anger uncurled in her like some tiny black worm, an emotion that had secretly plagued her from time to time ever since her husband had come home to her in a box full of sand.

She had not gone far when she rounded a corner to be confronted by two soldiers coming towards her. It was too late to hide. Halting, she waited while they approached, her heart tripping in her breast. I should have armed myself, she thought stupidly, but it did not seem to matter, for already they were bowing and the hands holding their swords remained low. “Where are you going?” she demanded.

“His Majesty commanded us to guard the women’s quarters,” one of them answered. “We are to keep you safe.”

“So Kamose is alive!” she breathed, encouraged. “How long ago did you see him? Where was he going?”

“His Majesty came out of the house and we were stationed under the pillars,” the same one explained. “He told us nothing other than to guard you. Majesty, what is happening?” Aahotep looked them over, wondering briefly whether or not to send them on to Tetisheri’s door before deciding that there they would be wasted. Nor did she want to take the time to explain a situation she herself did not understand, for if she did her nerve might fail her.

“You had better come with me,” she ordered. “Be prepared to kill anyone you do not recognize.” Bending down, she wrestled a knife from the belt of a corpse lying across the door-way to Seqenenra’s office and as she straightened she realized that the shroud of night had lifted altogether. Ra had rimmed the horizon.

At that, she was suddenly filled with a sense of urgency. Hurry, something whispered to her, hurry or you will be too late. She began to run along the passage, past the wide interior entrance to the reception hall, past the small room opposite which held the household shrines, and out under the pillars, the two men panting behind her. The stone beneath her feet struck cold through her sandals and the air was momentarily brisk but the garden beyond was already bathed in sparkling new light and sonorous with birdsong. Warmth struck her skin as she veered towards the path leading to the watersteps but she scarcely noticed it, so compelling was the need to rush on. Part of her consciousness stood back and watched her flight with astonishment. Is this you, Aahotep, moon worshipper, lover of dignity and the exercise of a placid authority, fleeing unpainted and with hair and linen streaming? it asked, and then was engulfed and forgotten in a tide of overwhelming panic, for she heard someone scream.

Tumbling out onto the path she paused, breast heaving, legs shaking with the unaccustomed stress. Beyond the grape trellis a group of men were struggling with each other. A few steps away from her one of them was down and clearly dead, his neck half-severed through. Another lay a little farther away, his limbs spreadeagled on the packed earth. Someone was cradling him, head lowered, his broad back smeared with dust, and with a shriek Aahotep recognized Ahmose. She started forward, dimly aware that the soldiers who had accompanied her had already rushed into a fray where one man wearing the blue-and-white livery of the royal house had been attempting to hold off three others.

Between her and the bowed spine of her younger son another man was running, a wooden club raised in both hands. His intent was clear and with a spurt of sheer despair Aahotep knew that he would reach Ahmose before she could. Her escort, closely engaged, had not seen the danger. She yelled at them as she sped, heard another scream behind her, but now all her attention was fixed on covering the ground. Sweat sprang out over her body, seeping into her eyes, but she hardly felt its sting.

The man with the club had come within striking distance of his victim. Slowing, he swung his weapon. “Ahmose!” Aahotep cried out but her voice was drowned in the shouts and curses of the fighting soldiers and he did not hear her. He went on rocking the body of the man he was holding so tightly. The attacker steadied his stance, feet apart, and it seemed to Aahotep that in the second before he brought his crude weapon thudding against her son’s defenceless skull the whole of her world ceased to exist. Time itself became torpid, oozing like thick honey. She was not moving at all and the leaves of the trees to right and left of the path as it wound away into nothingness were trapped into immobility. Silence filled her head. All she could hear was the muffled booming of her own pulse and her own sobbing breath.

Then the club came down. Ahmose collapsed onto his side. But with a fierce shout Aahotep drove the knife into his assassin’s back. Pain exploded from her wrist to her shoulder and she knew in a burst of fear that she had merely struck a rib. The man began to turn. It was Prince Meketra, a look of astounded disbelief on his face. Gasping and weeping, Aahotep almost dropped the knife, recovered, and gripping its hilt in both slippery hands she raised it high and drove it into Meketra just beneath his shoulder. This time it sank deep. Meketra fell clumsily to his knees taking her with him, his bewildered glance going to the weapon protruding so incongruously from his flesh. Aahotep placed one foot on his chest and jerked the knife free. Meketra tumbled backwards and Aahotep followed, this time pushing the blade into the hollow of his throat. His eyes widened and he tried to cough.

Aahotep did not see him die. On hands and knees she scrambled at once to Ahmose. He was lying limply with his eyes half-closed, one side of his head a mass of blood, his mouth also smeared. Beside him Kamose rested, an arrow jutting from his side, one hand on his chest and the other outflung as though waiting to receive something that might be placed on his brown palm. He was smiling gently but his gaze was fixed. He was dead.

All at once the world came back. The birds began to pipe again. The trees dipped and quivered in the morning breeze. Sunlight poured onto the path. And Aahotep, crouching dazed between her sons, heard a confusion of noise coming closer from the direction of the watersteps. They will certainly kill me now, she thought dully. The knife. I must get the knife. I must try to defend myself somehow. But she continued to stare in the direction of Meketra’s body in a kind of stupor, unable to move.

Orders were called. Heavy feet came pounding up from behind. She hunched her shoulders against the blow she knew must fall but instead she heard Ramose’s voice say, “Oh gods, oh gods. Kamose!” and turned her head to see him fall to his knees beside her.

“Majesty?” someone else said. “May I help you? Are you hurt?” Slowly she looked up to see Ankhmahor limned against the brightness of the sky. She nodded wearily, feeling his arms go around her and lift her to her feet.

“Aahmes-nefertari,” she managed. “Leave me, Ankhmahor. I do not need you but she does. She has gone to the parade ground to try and bring our troops to heel. The Princes …” She could not finish. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hor-Aha running, his black face a mask of fury. When his glance fell on Kamose he stopped, stunned. Then he let out a sound, half animal howl, half shriek, that pierced Aahotep’s strange lethargy. “How many Medjay have you brought with you, General?” she demanded. He stared at her wildly for a moment, trembling like an agitated horse.

“I swore to my master that I would protect my lord,” he blurted. “I have failed in my duty.” Aahotep realized with a shock that he was referring to Seqenenra.

“This is not the time, Hor-Aha,” she said sharply. “How many?” He came to himself at her tone.

“Five hundred, Majesty,” he answered. “They are disembarking now.”

“Then get them to the barracks at once,” she commanded. “Aahmes-nefertari is trying to stop an insurrection. Put yourself under her. Now, General! And you also, Ankhmahor!” She swung to Ramose who had risen but was staring down at Kamose’s corpse, himself pale to the lips. “Ramose, your mother is under arrest,” she said in a low voice. “Some of this is her doing. If you find her, do not let her speak to you, I beg. I do not want you responsible for putting her in the prison. Do you understand?” Tears were running down his cheeks but he seemed to be unaware of them. He nodded expressionlessly. “Good,” Aahotep went on. “Cull twenty men from the Medjay. I want Kamose carried into the reception hall, but Ahmose must be placed on his own couch. He is still alive. The house is full of …” She faltered and swallowed. “It is full of corpses, Ramose. Have them removed to the House of the Dead.”

Suddenly she wanted to fall into this young man’s arms, to be held and stroked, to sob out the agony that had only just begun, but she knew she could not. Kares was hurrying towards her from the rear of the house with Uni and a dozen servants in an anxious gaggle behind. I cannot collapse, she thought as she turned to deal with them. The physician must be summoned for Ahmose. Kamose must be washed and the sem priests sent for. Kares must have the corridors cleansed. Food must be prepared for Tetisheri. Someone must go and make sure that Ahmose-onkh and the baby arrived safely at the temple. I cannot give way. Not until the Princes are in prison and the army secure. But what if the Princes triumph? Oh, my sons. My beautiful sons. How am I to tell Tetisheri that the light of her life is dead? Stepping over Meketra’s prone form with a shudder, she composed herself for her steward.