The Oasis

by Pauline Gedge

  “King Kamose the Mighty Bull of Ma’at, Beloved of Amun, desires to parley with the Governor Teti of Khemmenu,” he announced. “Let Teti appear.” There was a flurry among the men by the watersteps and then a long pause. Finally someone shouldered his way to the forefront, putting a hand up to shield his eyes and staring out at the three boats crowded with archers.

  “I am Sarenput, the governor’s right hand,” he called back. “The governor is not here. When word reached him of your cruel massacre at Dashlut, Prince, he left at once for Nefrusi to confer with Prince Meketra who commands the garrison there.”

  “Then I will speak with his son Ramose.” Sarenput did not reply for a moment. When he did, it was with hesitation.

  “The noble Ramose accompanied his father,” he said. Kamose laughed.

  “So Teti gathered up his family and ran away like the coward he is,” he mocked. “Leaving you, Sarenput, to defend Khemmenu. But it cannot be defended. Go back and warn all your women and children to stay within their houses if they wish to live.” Relief washed over him. I will not have to kill Teti today, he thought. That necessity has been postponed, thank the gods. He saw Sarenput’s gaze traverse the boats with their lethal cargo. The soldiers on the bank were surveying them also, their stance unsure. Then as if some silent signal had passed between them, they turned, weapons still in their hands, and made a rush for the safety of the walls. Kamose raised a hand. At once a hail of arrows from the boats descended on them. Many fell and the rest crouched low, running with their shields above their heads. Again the Medjay fired. Sarenput’s figure could be made out, dodging the fallen and falling bodies, making for the shelter of the town.

  “I do not think that these soldiers drill very often,” Ahmose remarked. “Listen to them yell!”

  “They could not have imagined an attack from the Nile,” Kamose replied tersely. “We will not pursue the survivors, Ahmose. Not yet. The army will be here at any moment.” He was interrupted by a cry from Ankhmahor, and turning he saw the spiral of dust that heralded Hor-Aha’s approach. Grimly he watched it spread until the vanguard could be seen, trudging four abreast and bearing down on Khemmenu relentlessly. He had no orders to give. Hor-Aha knew what to do. Now we will see how eager the Princes are to do as a black man will tell them, he thought.

  In a few moments the rhythmic thudding of the marchers’ feet could be heard, an ominous undercurrent to the sporadic shouts of the officers, and the sudden silence of a cornered animal descended on Khemmenu. The women had vanished from the walls. The roof of Thoth’s temple lay naked and shimmering in the sun and Kamose, gazing at it anxiously, remembered all at once that his mother had told him to sacrifice to the god before he attempted to take the town. Now it was too late. The infantry was approaching the walls, spreading out, drawing weapons, and that unnatural silence broke in the roar of impending slaughter. Kamose turned to the soldier behind him. “The Medjay are to sail at once for Nefrusi,” he said. “They are to surround the fort, all five thousand of them, and then wait. See that their officers feed and rest them, but they must remain alert. No one is to escape their net. Remind their commander that there is water to the west of Nefrusi as well as the Nile to the east and it must be watched. That is all.” The man saluted and left.

  “That lesser branch of the river runs all the way from Dashlut to Ta-she,” Ahmose pointed out. “Nefrusi is rightly called ‘Between-the-Banks.’ If I were Teti I would bundle my family onto a barge and sail north as fast as possible, avoiding the Nile itself. He may have gone by now, Kamose.”

  “He may,” Kamose nodded. “We know he is a coward. But I think he will pause long enough to assess his chances of a stand at the fort. He is not stupid. If he flees, leaving the defence of Nefrusi to Meketra, and Meketra somehow defeats us, his credibility is destroyed and he will have lost Apepa’s patronage. He believes that his means of escape is secure, therefore he can take some time to play the hero.”

  “What do we know of Nefrusi?” Ahmose asked. “Or of Meketra himself, for that matter? What manner of man is he?”

  Kamose shrugged. “I have never been farther north than Khemmenu,” he replied. “The scouts tell me that the fort is large and walled, that it lies closer to the main branch of the Nile than to the lesser tributary, and that the gates to the west and the east are wide enough to permit the passage of chariots. They estimate the force within at about fifteen hundred men. Teti will feel safe there for a while. As for Meketra …” Kamose hesitated. “He was once the Prince of Khemmenu and now commands at Nefrusi. That is all we know of him. I have done all I can for now, Ahmose. The Medjay will cover the four miles between us and the fort very quickly and by the middle of this afternoon they will be deploying around it. No matter how many Setiu troops huddle inside, they cannot stand for long against us. What worries me is the possibility of a siege, however short. We must not waste time and food on such a paltry undertaking, yet Nefrusi must not be left intact behind us.”

  His voice had been rising and his last words were almost shouted over the din assaulting them from across the water. A plume of black smoke was coiling into the air from a fire somewhere close to the temple, and even as they swung to watch it, they saw the dry leaves of a palm tree burst into orange flames. The strident sounds of panic and violent death beyond the walls fused into an invisible tumult that thundered in their ears and pounded almost physically against their hearts.

  By sunset it was over, and the riverbank teemed with soldiers bent on tending small wounds, slaking their thirst, and stowing what booty they had gleaned into their leather satchels. Many of them had plunged into the river to wash off the filth of engagement and were sending showers of sun-fired droplets high into the air as though the blood that had mired their bodies now infused the water. Officers moved among them restoring order, their shouts cheerful, but a darker stream wove between the relieved men. The women and children of Khemmenu were emerging to stand numbly staring at the activity around them. Kamose, who had remained on his feet as the hours went by, noted that in spite of the confusion around them, they were not jostled or taunted. The soldiers were ignoring them, and Kamose had the distinct impression that it was respect, not indifference, that was prompting the averted eyes and wide circles around the women’s vicinity.

  At last Hor-Aha appeared, surrounded by his junior officers. Kamose saw him pause, confer briefly with them, then step into the skiff awaiting him. Before long he was bowing before the brothers, bringing with him the stench of burning and the rank, coppery odour of fresh blood. “There is little left, Majesty,” he said in answer to Kamose’s curt query. “Most of the males are dead, as you ordered. The fires could not have been avoided, unfortunately. We found the stables, but they were empty and the chariots gone. To Nefrusi, I presume. I have detailed men for the burning of the bodies but it will take a long time. Khemmenu was not Dashlut.” He drew a brawny wrist across his cheek, leaving a smear of mud, and Kamose, chilled, did not miss the General’s use of the past tense. Khemmenu was.

  “Let the surviving male citizens see to the bodies,” he said. “We must move on. I have sent the Medjay to Nefrusi. How did you fare with the Princes, Hor-Aha?” The man smiled wearily.

  “I gave them no time to debate my orders and afterwards there would have been no point,” he said dryly. “They are seeing to the needs of their men.”

  “Good. Go and see to your own needs, then have the infantry mustered and ferried to the west bank. They must not eat or sleep within sight of what remains of Khemmenu. We do not want to give them time to brood over what has been done, therefore march them out of sight of the town. I intend to sail downstream and tie up close to Nefrusi for the night. Give the army no more than five hours’ rest, then bring them. You are dismissed.” When the General had left, Kamose took his brother’s arm. “I want to pray,” he said. “Come with me, Ahmose.”

  “Pray?” Ahmose repeated. “Where? In the temple? Are you mad?”

  “I forgot the promise I made to Aa
hotep,” Kamose said in a low voice. “I need this god’s indulgence. I have all but razed his city and I must explain to him why. We will take Ankhmahor and a contingent of Braves. We will be quite safe.”

  “From spears and daggers, perhaps, but not from the accusing gaze of women and priests,” Ahmose retorted gloomily. “I am tired and hungry and sick, Kamose.” But he followed Kamose across the deck and descended with him to the skiff that carried them the short distance to the shore.

  The sun had already set behind the western hills, but the last of its light washed softly against Khemmenu’s white walls and cast a fleeting, kindly glow upon the noisy groups of soldiers pushing to board the barges, the bodies strewn haphazardly in the sand, the knots of women still huddled aimlessly together. Kamose and Ahmose, surrounded by the Braves of the King, approached the gate on a wave of silence as they were recognized and reverenced. Then the babble broke out behind them again and they passed through into the wreck of the city.

  Except for the men engaged in dragging bodies to the riverbank, the streets were deserted. No evening candles glowed in the deepening shadows of gaping doorways that had vomited the contents of the rooms beyond onto the packed mud of the thoroughfares. Pots, stained linen, crude ornaments, cooking utensils, wooden toys, everything rifled and then rejected by the soldiers had been flung out. Here and there, the dimness was pierced by garish flames that carried with them the choking smell of burning flesh or blackening wood. Dark pools underfoot that Ahmose took to be donkey urine turned glossy crimson in the intermittent, leaping light and with an exclamation of disgust he veered, only to find himself inches from the wall of a house streaked with the same repulsive substance. Occasionally cries or half-articulated laments came echoing from the increasing darkness and Ahmose was fervently glad of the bodyguard before and behind him.

  To Kamose’s great relief, the avenue leading to the temple seemed untouched, lined as it was with graceful date palms whose fronds trembled in the night breeze. No soldier had dared to desecrate the precincts. As if by unspoken agreement, he and Ahmose walked faster, passing under Thoth’s pylon and entering the wide outer court almost at a run; then they halted abruptly. The vast, pillared space was full of people. Women and children squatted against the walls or sat crowded together with their arms around one another as though for comfort. A few men lay sprawled on blankets, their moaning a pathetic harmony to the quiet sobbing melody of many of the women. Priests were moving from group to group, carrying lamps and food, and Kamose saw at least one physician kneeling beside an ungainly form, his dishes of herbs and pots of unguents beside his busy hands.

  Kamose let out a long breath. “There are lamps still burning in the inner court,” he said quietly. “Ankhmahor, stand with your men under the pylon until we return.”

  With his hand on his brother’s shoulder, he began to cross the court, and as he did so heads began to turn in their direction, the faces indistinct in the fitful light. There was no mistaking the growing hostility in the air. “Murderers, blasphemers,” someone called, but the words were timbreless, almost thoughtful, and the taunt was not taken up by others. Kamose gritted his teeth and tightened his hold on Ahmose’s shoulder.

  The sound of chanting came floating towards them, gaining in strength as they went. “The priests are singing the evening hymn,” Ahmose whispered. “Soon the shrine will be closed.” Kamose did not reply. The feeling of peace that had engulfed him as he stepped over Thoth’s threshold had fled, leaving him cold and apprehensive. It is too late, he thought with dismay. Thoth will not be appeased. I should have remembered. Why, how did I forget? Mother, forgive me.

  Either the newly charged atmosphere in the outer court or that curiously apathetic cry must have alerted the men gathered around the High Priest at the entrance to the sanctuary. The singing faltered and broke off and before the brothers could step through into the inner court they found themselves face to face with Thoth’s servants. There was a moment of shocked silence. In the steady flare of the lamps Kamose studied them. Expressionless dark eyes stared back. Then the High Priest shouldered his way through. “I know you, Prince,” he said hoarsely. “I remember you from the days of your first youth. You often worshipped here with your family when your mother came to visit her cousin, a priestess of this temple. But now you do not bring your worship, you bring torment and death. Look around you! You are not welcome in this sacred place.” Kamose swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.

  “I bring a return to Ma’at,” he said as evenly as he could, “and Thoth gave Ma’at to Egypt together with his gift of writing. I am not here to argue with you, High Priest. I have come to abase myself before the god and beg his forgiveness for what I have done to his city in the name of that same Ma’at.”

  “Forgiveness?” the man said sharply. “Are you contrite then, Prince? Would you undo the horror you have caused?”

  “No,” Kamose replied. “It is not forgiveness for my deed that I seek. I wish to apologize to Thoth for neglecting to bring gifts and explanations to him before I fell upon Khemmenu.”

  “Do you bring a gift?”

  “No.” Kamose looked straight into the man’s angry face. “It is too late for that. I bring only a plea for his understanding and the promise of a cure for his Egypt.”

  “It is you who are sick, Prince Kamose, not Egypt.” The High Priest’s voice trembled. “You have not even washed yourself. There is blood on your sandals. Blood! The blood of Khemmenu clings to your feet and you want to tread this holy ground? The god repudiates you!” Kamose felt his brother tense before speaking, and forestalled him. Jerking his head curtly he spun on his heel and walked away, and after hesitating, Ahmose followed. When they reached the pylon, Ankhmahor and the Braves gathered once more around them and they set off for the river.

  Full night had now fallen and Kamose found himself close to panic as they trod the disordered streets whose black shadows were surely swollen with the spirits of the men who had fallen. He felt himself watched. Invisible eyes followed his progress with steady malevolence and he resisted the urge to draw closer to his brother. Thoth will give me no support, he thought, but I will not let it matter. Thoth is a god of peaceful times, of wisdom in prosperity and lawmaking in security. Amun has willed this thing. Amun protects the Princes of Weset and his power is not the gentle power of slow enlightenment. Henceforth I will bow before no other god but Amun. He must have spoken the last words aloud, for Ahmose glanced across at him. “It was the High Priest speaking, not the god, Kamose,” he offered. “Thoth will remember the devotion of our mother and her family and will not punish.”

  “I don’t care,” Kamose snapped back. “Amun will be our salvation. I must eat something soon, Ahmose, or I will collapse on this accursed ground.”

  Before they entered the skiff to return to their boat, Kamose wrenched off his blood-soaked sandals and flung them into the river. The acrid smoke from the burnings hung so thickly in the air that he only heard them strike the surface of the water. Ahmose began to cough, but bending, he did the same. “Let us eat while the rowers work to take us away from here, Kamose,” he said. “Khemmenu was a dirty business. Nefrusi is a garrison and will give us a clean fight.”

  3

  NEFRUSI WAS ONLY FOUR MILES downriver from Khemmenu and Kamose ordered his captain to find a suitable place to tie up a mile south from the fort. Word was passed to the following craft and one by one they left the ruin of Thoth’s city behind. Food was brought. Ahmose ate heartily but Kamose forced down the herbed bread and dishes of vegetables without appetite, knowing that he needed sustenance. He drank his wine sparingly and was overcome with weariness before he had emptied his cup for the second time. Stumbling into the cabin, he flung himself onto his cot and was asleep at once.

  It seemed to him that his feet had only just left the floor before a light fell on his face and he heard Akhtoy’s voice pierce his dreams. “Majesty, forgive me,” the man was saying, “but someone wishes to see you urgently.” Kamose fo
ught to unglue his eyelids, and when he had done so, he saw Akhtoy retreating and Hor-Aha’s dark visage taking the steward’s place.

  “Light another lamp, Akhtoy,” Ahmose was saying. He was already standing and wrapping a kilt around his waist. Groggily Kamose sat up, and Hor-Aha bowed. He too was clad in nothing but a kilt. His braid had come undone and tendrils of waving black hair trailed across his chest. His expression was grave.

  “What is it?” Kamose demanded, now fully alert. The General raised a dismissive hand.

  “The army is safely bivouacked and the Medjay have a cordon around the fort,” he said. “Don’t worry. But Prince Meketra is outside with half a dozen Setiu soldiers. He begs to speak with you.”

  “Meketra?” Kamose blinked. “Was he captured somehow, Hor-Aha?”

  “My archers seized him as he tried to slip through their lines,” Hor-Aha explained. “He was coming south, not north, so I presume that he was not trying to get a message to Apepa. It seems that he is anxious to see you.”

  “Bring him in then, and, Akhtoy, send for Ipi, but find me a clean kilt first.”

  The man who was ushered in was so tall that he was forced to bend his head to avoid the lintel of the cabin door, and Kamose recognized him immediately. Bald-headed, with bushy eyebrows above heavy-lidded eyes and a prominent adam’s apple, he had been on the periphery of Kamose’s youthful vision during visits to Teti’s estate at Khemmenu. Kamose had never spoken with him. He had simply been one of Teti’s innumerable guests, a man of Seqenenra’s generation, holding no interest for the children who raced about the gardens and played with Teti’s collection of cats and monkeys. The memories surged in Kamose, colourful and sweet, and then receded. Meketra bowed. “You resemble your father, the noble Seqenenra, Prince Kamose,” he said. “And you, Prince Ahmose, I am honoured to find myself in your presence.”