The soldiers at either side of the gate had straightened at the sight of the royal flag flapping from the North’s tall mast. They had been peering warily at the trio of men waiting to disembark, their attention veering between the North and the two craft behind it, but as the ship came closer their expressions cleared. “It is His Majesty!” one of them exclaimed. “The flag spoke true!” They dropped their spears and rushed to steady the ramp. The gate behind them was opening. Faces appeared, then the gate was flung wide. Ankhmahor and the Followers walked down the ramp and Ahmose followed. He gave no orders. The Followers fanned out around him as he passed quickly through into his own domain, the scent of blooms and wet grass rising to meet him, the morning shadow of the house casting remembered shapes upon the glistening lawn, and farther away, the smudges of unfolded white and blue lotuses rocking almost imperceptibly on the glittering surface of the pond.
A canopy had been erected there and two figures sat side by side under it in a welter of scrolls. Alerted by the commotion, they looked up, then Ahmose-onkh detached himself and came racing along the path. Halfway to Ahmose he slowed to a dignified walk, but Ahmose could see his body tight with the effort the boy was making to control it. He came up, halted, and performed a deep bow. “I am overjoyed to see you so unexpectedly, my Father,” he said.
“And I you, my little Hawk-in-the-Nest,” Ahmose replied. He reached down and straightened the youth lock that lay in a glistening braid over one narrow shoulder. “Are you perhaps too grown-up now to allow me to embrace you?”
“No, indeed,” the child said gravely, then a smile split his face and he flung himself on Ahmose. For a moment he hung on Ahmose’s chest, all arms and legs, before Ahmose set him back on his feet. “We know that the impostor ran away to a fort called Sharuhen,” he remarked. “Have you captured him yet, Majesty?”
Ahmose studied the solemn little features. They had changed just since he had been away. The eyes were larger, the jawline wider, the cheeks thinner. He is beginning to leave his babyhood behind, Ahmose thought with a pang of love and pride. He will soon be a handsome youth. “Pa-she and I have been studying Rethennu,” Ahmose-onkh was saying. “Just beyond Sharuhen there is grassland and forests and mountains that sometimes shake, and locusts come and eat the crops. It sounds like a horrible place. Have you seen the mountains shake, Father?”
“No. All those things happen farther to the north-east. And no, I have not yet captured Apepa. Sharuhen is a mightily defended fort, my son. It will not be defeated soon.” He took the boy’s chin in his palm. “I have come back to see your mother and your new sister,” he explained gently. “Go back to your tutor now. We will talk later.”
“She is very sick,” Ahmose-onkh whispered. “Mother thinks she is cursed.” Herself or the baby? Ahmose wondered. Ahmose-onkh bowed again and turned back to where Pa-she had risen and was standing under the canopy, anxiously watching their interchange. Ahmose called a greeting to him before moving on and was rewarded with a reverence.
The Captain of the Household Guards had emerged from the house and was waiting for him as he approached the side entrance. “Welcome home, Majesty,” he said. “If I had known of your coming, I would have cleared the river path and placed more men at the watersteps. I will warn the rest of the household that you are here.”
“Thank you, Emkhu,” Ahmose answered, concealing his impatience. “I appreciate your conscientiousness. But I want to go to the Queen at once. Where is she?”
“Her Majesty spends most of each day in the nursery once the morning audiences are over,” Emkhu told him. He hesitated. “Majesty, I … we … I am very glad that you are here.”
“I understand,” Ahmose said quietly. “Make sure we are not disturbed.”
He passed rapidly through the house, startling the servants, who barely had time to recognize and bow to him before he was gone. A growing murmur of surprise and speculation had begun to grow behind him by the time he came to the women’s quarters and saw Uni rising from a stool outside Aahmes-nefertari’s door, eyes widening fleetingly with shock. “I am most relieved to see you, Majesty,” the steward said, his face already falling back into lines of customary politeness. “I had hoped that your mother’s letter might bring you home.”
“Did she exaggerate?” Ahmose demanded. Uni shook his head.
“Not at all. The Princess becomes weaker every day and the Queen more despairing. She has been able to continue her governmental duties with Khunes’s help, but she herself is near to collapse. She has suffered much over her children.” There was no hint of condemnation in Uni’s tone. Ahmose had expected none. Uni, like Akhtoy, knew the minds and hearts of his charges better than they knew their own.
“Is she within?”
“She has had the door removed between her sleeping room and the nursery,” Uni explained. “She will no longer allow any servant or nurse to touch the Princess, which means of course that she wakes every time the Princess cries. And she cries a great deal. I have tried to reason with Her Majesty but to no avail.”
“I will go in now,” Ahmose said. “Bring wine and something to eat in about an hour. Don’t announce me.” Uni pulled open the door and he walked inside.
She was not in her little reception room, nor in her bedchamber beyond. Ahmose went through them quietly. He could hear her singing, her voice soft and low but with a note of such anguished tenderness imbuing it that Ahmose paused, unwilling for a second to intrude upon her privacy. He approached the doorway. He could see her through it, bending over a high cot on which a basket had been set. There was no one else in the room and the only furniture was an armless chair.
She must have sensed him standing there, for all at once she stopped singing and glanced up sharply, at first without recognition. Her face was pale, her eyelids swollen. Dark purple patches under the eyes themselves made it seem as though some scribe had smudged her with ink. Her naked collarbones protruded like rails beneath her throat and her arms were thin. Ahmose could see little of her body, for her sheath had billowed out in front of her as she inclined over the basket. Gods, she is dying too, he thought, love and fear suddenly rushing through him in a hot flood. She was staring at him as she slowly straightened, the whites of her eyes becoming visible for a moment as she saw who it was.
“Ahmose?” she choked, then she was rounding the foot of the cot and running towards him, fists clenched. Throwing herself on him, she began beating at him and shrieking his name. He managed to put his arms around her, holding her loosely, not dodging her blows, until suddenly she went limp against him, and laying her head on his breast she huddled there, sobbing harshly. “I hated you, I have been so angry with you, you left me all alone, I cannot bear it, I can take no more,” she was half-babbling, half-wailing, her fingernails digging into his skin, her forehead fever-hot where it was pressed to his ribs. His grip tightened around her and he swayed to and fro, dismayed at her fragility, awed by her complete loss of control. For a long time they stood thus, locked together, until the torrent of her pain and rage began to ebb and her sobs became intermittent, then he moved her gently away. “I have composed a new face for the overseers and ministers every morning,” she said. “It has been the most difficult challenge I have ever faced. I think I am going insane, Ahmose. What are you doing here?” There was still an edge of hysteria to her voice. He ran his thumbs across her cheeks, wiping away the tears, and kissed her wet mouth.
“Mother sent me a letter, dearest one,” he told her. “It filled me with remorse and anxiety and I knew I had to come. Now show me my daughter.” For answer she took him by the hand and led him to the basket. The action was almost shy, and although she was moving ahead of him, he had the impression that he was the one guiding and she a child. He was surprised that her violent outburst had not wakened Sat-Kamose. Any healthy baby would have been screaming at the sound. But he realized at once as he peered into the wicker cot that this Princess was too weak to respond to any shock.
She was lying on
her back, arms limp at her sides, black eyes partly closed, breathing rapidly. Ahmose drew down the small sheet covering her and had to repress a start of pity at the sight of the clearly discernable rib cage, the tiny, jutting hipbones. “She looks starved,” he murmured.
“She is starved,” Aahmes-nefertari answered. “She drinks greedily but then she vomits and curls up her little knees and cries. Oh, Ahmose, my heart is torn apart by her suffering. If there was anything I could do, even to the shedding of my own blood, I would do it! The physicians are impotent. I have consulted four of them. Our own Royal Physician wants to give her poppy, but I said no. It might harm her further. I did not know what to do!”
Ahmose reached down and lifted the body that was lighter than the pectoral he wore around his neck. Sat-Kamose gave a whimper, turning her head towards him, and in the moment that the tuft of her soft hair touched his chest he fell in love with her. Going to the chair he sat and cradled her, rocking slowly. One pale fist like the bud of a flower crept up and found his own wide chest, resting there with such immediate acceptance that he wanted to cry out himself.
But Aahmes-nefertari had sunk to the floor beside him, both arms around his calf, her head pressed to his thigh. She was still shuddering and he dared not add his newfound agony to her own. “Forgive me for my bitterness and my silence,” she whispered. “I have been cruel to you and I am sorry.”
“No,” he said thickly. “It is I who have behaved with the most boorish insensitivity. I love you, my wife, and I love my daughter.”
They sat there for some time in a mood of emotional exhaustion, she taking strength and comfort from the warmth of his flesh and he searching for the limits of this strange new passion and finding none. His eyes never left the baby’s face. He noted her resemblance to Aahmesnefertari in the shape of her jaw and the way her mouth quirked as Seqenenra’s had done. With a pang he saw that her ears followed the curves and hollows of his own. But most of all he was dismally aware of her pallor, the tinge of grey to her skin, the track the tears of bewilderment had made across the minute indentations of her temples. He wanted to place his lips against hers and force life into her with a gush of his own hot breath, crush her against him so that the beat of life pulsing so steadily beneath his own ribs might flood her with vitality. I am the King, he thought with anguish. I am the Son of the Sun, Amun’s Incarnation in Egypt. Every green spear of wheat in the fields, every ox standing drinking in the shallows of the Nile, every peasant, soldier and noble, exists to obey me. Yet I am powerless to command my baby to be healed.
Aahmes-nefertari stirred at last. “Put her back in the basket, Ahmose,” she said dully. “She is asleep,” and Ahmose saw with a jolt that the baby’s sunken eyelids had closed. Carefully he rose and laid her tenderly down. She made a little sucking sound but otherwise did not stir and her flaccid limbs fell loosely onto the mattress. Ahmose covered her with the sheet and turned to his wife.
“I have ordered Uni to bring food,” he began, hushing her protest by taking both her hands. “You will eat and drink and then you will go to the bath house and Senehat will bathe you. I will stay here until you return.” He saw consternation on her face and he shook her fingers gently. “I must speak to the Royal Physician and Mother, but I will come back afterwards,” he assured her. “I intend to have my couch moved in here. We will keep this terrible vigil together, Aahmes-nefertari, and from now on the morning audience will be my responsibility.” She began to cry again, but this time with a quiet gratitude.
“I have not asked you about Sharuhen,” she started to say. He cut her short.
“Sharuhen is a mirage today,” he said. “I only care about you and Sat-Kamose.”
There was a knock on the door and Uni entered with Senehat and Hekayib behind him. A fragrant steam rose from the trays they carried. This time it was Ahmose who led Aahmes-nefertari through into her reception room and sat her down beside the table, pouring wine for her as the servants set out the food. “Look, dearest, there is a fresh salad, surely the first of the season,” he said. “Lentil soup smelling of coriander, roasted beef with peppercorns, and hot barley bread sprinkled with sesame seeds. We must not waste a single mouthful!” He pushed the platters towards her, dismissing Uni as he did so. The door closed and he drew up another chair beside her. “Eat, Your Majesty, I command you,” he said sternly, “or I will have you thrown into Kamose’s jail.” She rewarded his effort with a wan smile and to his relief, picked up a thin, green onion shoot, twirling it around in her fingers before biting off a piece.
“Thank you, Ahmose,” she murmured. “I think perhaps I am a little hungry today. Will you fetch Sat-Kamose if she wakes?” He nodded. Placing his elbow on the table, he rested his chin in his palm and watched her with satisfaction, but long before she had finished the meal there was a thin cry from the nursery. Motioning her to stay where she was, he got up and went to attend to his daughter. He felt as though he were walking to his execution.
When Aahmes-nefertari returned from the bath house, Ahmose left her and made his way to his father’s office. Both Akhtoy and Ipi had gathered with Uni outside Aahmesnefertari’s door and Ahmose sent his steward for the Royal Physician and Ipi to Aahotep with a warning that he would come to her apartments presently. Once inside the room that he still thought of as belonging to Seqenenra he felt more calm. Something of his father’s serenity lingered here and Ahmose remembered him with a spurt of longing. You never seemed disturbed or agitated, Osiris one, he spoke to him in his mind. You were always meditative in your speech and dignified in your manner, even after Mersu’s savage attack left you crippled and paralyzed. Whatever inner turmoil you endured did not reveal itself in your demeanour. Amun give me the same grace and power over myself, and the courage to bear both my wife’s despair and my own grief as this tragedy is played out to its inevitable end.
By the time the Royal Physician was admitted and had bowed, Ahmose had recovered his equilibrium. The man looked almost as tired as Aahmes-nefertari. He waited impassively.
“There is no hope for my little daughter, is there, physician?” Ahmose demanded without preamble. The physician wetted his lips.
“None, Majesty,” he said frankly. “I am sorry. The Princess keeps down neither her mother’s milk nor the wet nurse’s nor the goat’s milk I was forced to recommend. I am ashamed to say that I do not know why.” Ahmose thought for a moment.
“The Queen tells me that you wished to give the baby poppy but that she refused you.” The physician raised his shoulders under his yellow tunic, a gesture of futility.
“The Princess is dying a slow and painful death by starvation,” he said. “Poppy would not prolong her life but it would ease her pain and give her the gift of unconsciousness.” His words were hesitant and Ahmose pounced on them.
“Why do you think the Queen refused such help for a child whose affliction is sapping her own life?” The man looked at the floor.
“I could not say, Majesty.” Ahmose stepped closer to him.
“Yes, you could!” he snapped. “You are my Royal Physician. You are wise, and skilled in your profession. Answer me!” The physician raised his head unwillingly.
“I have no definite conclusion,” he admitted, “but it seems to me as if Her Majesty is punishing herself for something I do not understand by denying poppy to the Princess. She wishes to drink the dregs of the baby’s suffering to the full as an expiation. Perhaps Your Majesty has more knowledge of such a matter than I.” Ahmose stared at him, frowning. An expiation, he reflected. Yes, of course. My poor Aahmes-nefertari. You blame yourself for your dead and dying children, don’t you? You are terrified that I will reject you because of what you see as your failure and you flog yourself mercilessly with guilt.
“Perhaps I do,” he said reflectively. “Prepare the poppy and come to the Queen’s apartments later this afternoon. Wait there for me. You are dismissed.” I feel as though I have been home for a week at least, he mused as he set out for his mother’s rooms, but
it has only been a few hours. Yet I do not believe that I will be eager to leave again as I was the last time, nor do I fear the boredom that dogged me then. Sat-Kamose has captured my heart, and because of her my domain shines with the light of fulfilment. I will not have her long. I am resigned to her loss even as I discover the joy of loving her. I embrace the bitter with the sweet, for I suspect that she has begun to show me dimensions of myself to which I was utterly blind. How might Hent-ta-Hent have changed me if I had been with her at her dying?
It occurred to him hazily that his recent, hurtful encounters with Tani might have had something to do with his almost instant recognition of his daughter as something precious, that Tani’s unwavering, implausible defection had awakened him to the unpredictability of life in a way that his military escapades never could. He was briefly pondering the matter when his mother’s steward saw him coming, saluted him, and he was admitted into her presence.
He was taken aback to see Tetisheri there also, sitting on the chair by Aahotep’s couch, her feet resting on a stool and her gnarled hands in her lap. He thought that he had hidden his surprise that was almost alarm very well but as he approached her, bending over to kiss her ring-encrusted fingers, she gave a grunt. “You did not expect to see me, did you, Majesty?” she said. “But it has been a very long time since we met and when I heard that you had arranged to see Aahotep I hurried to be here.” Her tone held mild reproof. You should have at least sent me your greetings if you did not intend to visit me, it implied, and Ahmose did his best to quell the familiar irritation mixed with shame that her unspoken criticisms always conjured.
“You are looking well, Grandmother,” he murmured, forcing himself to meet the fierce, knowing eyes that still glittered with intelligence although she was nearly seventy years old.
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