Praise for Pauline Gedge
“Gedge excels at setting the scene and subtly evoking a sense of the period as she tells a timeless story of greed, love, and revenge.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Gedge makes the past so accessible. You can imagine walking between the pillars into a magnificent hall and watching it come alive with the smell of the fresh paint on the frescoes.”
—The Globe and Mail
“Gedge vividly renders the exotic, sensuous world of ancient Memphis, the domestic rituals of bathing and dressing, the social ambience of superstition and spells.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Gedge has such a terrific feel for ancient Egypt that the reader merrily suspends disbelief and hangs on for the ride.”
—Calgary Herald
“Her richly colourful descriptions … hit the reader with photographic clarity.”
—The Ottawa Sun
“Gedge has brought Egypt alive, not just the dry and sandy Egypt we know from archaeology, but the day-today workings of what was one of the greatest and most beautiful kingdoms in the history of the world.”
—Quill & Quire
“Each volume is a carefully devised segment, with its own distinct flavour and texture. When put together, then the skill and workmanship of the whole undertaking stand out clearly. The trilogy is one of Pauline Gedge’s most appealing works.”
—Edmonton Journal
“Gedge … has the magical ability to earn a reader’s suspension of disbelief.”
—Toronto Star
“Pauline Gedge’s strengths—imagination, ingenuity in plotting, and convincing characterization—are here in abundance.”
—Books in Canada
“Gedge draws another vivid picture of Ancient Egypt and skillfully weaves her dramatic tale of intrigue, treachery, and manipulation. Her historical novels have the ability to bring a period fully before us; it is possible to feel the heat and experience the pageantry she so ably describes.”
—The Shuswap Sun
“Pauline Gedge’s knowledge of Egyptian history is both extensive and intimate, and has enabled her to produce an entire society of the time of Ramses II with admirable vitality. She has a sharp eye for the salient detail, and an evocative way with landscape and interiors. She can produce a mood and suggest an atmosphere … A very good story well told, and it engrosses the reader from the first page to the last.”
—The Globe and Mail
PENGUIN CANADA
THE OASIS
PAULINE GEDGE is the award-winning and bestselling author of eleven previous novels, eight of which are inspired by Egyptian history. Her first, Child of the Morning, won the Alberta Search-for-a-New Novelist Competition. In France, her second novel, The Eagle and the Raven, received the Jean Boujassy award from the Société des Gens des Lettres, and The Twelfth Transforming, the second of her Egyptian novels, won the Writers Guild of Alberta Best Novel of the Year Award. Her books have sold more than 250,000 copies in Canada alone; worldwide, they have sold more than six million copies and have been translated into eighteen languages. Pauline Gedge lives in Alberta.
ALSO BY PAULINE GEDGE
Child of the Morning
The Eagle and the Raven
Stargate
The Twelfth Transforming
Scroll of Saqqara
The Covenant
House of Dreams
House of Illusions
The Hippopotamus Marsh:
Lords of the Two Lands, Volume One
The Horus Road: Lords of the Two Lands, Volume Three
The Twice Born
THE
OASIS
Lords of the Two Lands
VOLUME TWO
PAULINE
GEDGE
PENGUIN CANADA
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in a Viking Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1999
Published in Penguin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2000
Published in this edition, 2007
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (OPM)
Copyright © Pauline Gedge, 1999
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Gedge, Pauline, 1945–
The oasis / Pauline Gedge.
(Lords of the two lands ; v. 2)
Sequel to: The hippopotamus marsh.
Originally publ.: Toronto : Viking, 1999.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-14-316746-4
1. Kamose, King of Egypt—Fiction. 2. Egypt—History—To 332 B.C.—Fiction.
I. Title. II. Series: Gedge, Pauline, 1945– Lords of the two lands ; v. 2.
PS8563.E33O27 2007 C813’.54 C2007-903369-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-14-316746-4
ISBN-10: 0-14-316746-4
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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This trilogy is dedicated to Prince Kamose, one of the most obscure and misunderstood characters in Egyptian history. I hope that in some small way I have contributed to his rehabilitation.
CHARACTER LIST
THE FAMILY
Kamose Tao—Prince of Weset
Aahotep—his mother
Tetisheri—his grandmother
Ahmose—his brother
Aahmes-nefertari—his sister and Ahmose’s wife
Tani—his second sister
Ahmose-onkh—Aahmes-nefertari’s son by her eldest brother and first husband, Si-Amun, now deceased
Hent-ta-Hent—daughter to Ahmose and Aahmes-nefertari
MALE SERVANTS
Akhtoy—the Chief Steward
Kares—Steward to Aahotep
Uni—Steward to Tetisheri
Ipi—the Chief Scribe
Khabekhnet—the Chief Herald
FEMALE SERVANTS
Isis—Tetisheri’s and later Aahotep’s body servant
Hetepet—Aahotep’s body servant
Heket—Tani’s body servant
Raa—Ahmose-onkh’s nurse
Senehat—a servant
RELATIVES AND FRIENDS
Teti—Governor of Khemennu, Inspector of Dykes and Canals, and husband of Aahotep’s cousin
Nefer-Sakharu—Teti’s wife and Aahotep’s cousin
Ramose—their son and Tani’s betrothed
Amunmose—High Priest of Amun
Turi—Ahmose’s childhood companion
THE PRINCES
Hor-Aha—a native of Wawat and leader of the Medjay
Intef of Qebt
Iasen of Badari
Makhu of Akhmin
Mesehti of Djawati
Ankhmahor of Aabtu
Harkhuf—his son
Sebek-nakht of Mennofer
Meketra of Nefrusi
OTHER EGYPTIANS
Paheri—Mayor of Nekheb
Het-uy—Mayor of Pi-Hathor
Baba Abana—Guardian of Vessels
Kay Abana—his son
Setnub—Mayor of Dashlut
Sarenput—Assistant Governor of Khemennu
THE SETIU
Awoserra Aqenenra Apepa—the King
The Hawk-in-the-Nest Apepa—his eldest son
Kypenpen—a younger son
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.
The Oasis Page 1