The Oasis

by Pauline Gedge

  “After we have sacked Het-Uart, you mean?” Kamose responded sarcastically. “Let us negotiate the river first, Ahmose. For now I am content to remain within this hour.”

  “Oh very well,” Ahmose said good-naturedly. “I must confess that it is good to be here on a boat in the middle of the Nile surrounded by men and embarking once again on a worthy adventure. I even feel free enough to get drunk once or twice before we rejoin the army.” He laughed. “I have no fears for the coming months, Kamose.”

  “Neither do I,” Kamose admitted. “And I agree with you. Although I love the family, I am not sorry to have left household affairs behind.”

  “Not that either of us have had much to do with them,” Ahmose commented. “The women seem to have found a quite laudable ability to not only run the estate but keep the local soldiers in line and guard the river. Next they will be wanting to go to war.”

  “That is certainly true of Tetisheri,” Kamose said, deliberately matching his brother’s light mood and watching himself do so. “When she was young, she pestered first her father and then Senakhtenra into letting her take sword and archery lessons. Womanhood sits uneasily on her. I think she would have liked to be born male. She still often mixes with the house bodyguards. She knows them all by name.”

  “That is rather sad,” Ahmose murmured. “Have you ever wished you were born female, Kamose?” Kamose felt his inner buoyancy collapse and grimly he relinquished the effort of sustaining it.

  “Yes,” he said shortly. “To have no responsibility other than that of domestic affairs, to make no decisions other than what jewellery to wear, to be nothing but a vehicle for the god’s blood, to have never killed, all this I envy women.”

  “But our women are not like that,” Ahmose objected after a moment. “You speak as though you have contempt for them, Kamose.”

  “Contempt? No,” Kamose said wearily. His brief joy in the morning had evaporated and he knew it would not return. “I merely envy them sometimes. Women are seldom lonely.”

  That night they moored at Qebt. The Prince of its nome was of course at the oasis with his troops, but Kamose received Intef’s deputy and heard a report on the projected use of the town’s fields and the mood of the people. The man told Kamose that Intef remained in communication with him regarding the welfare of the nome’s inhabitants and Kamose, remembering the acrid exchange that had taken place between Intef and Hor-Aha, was tempted to ask to see the scrolls, but he resisted the urge. Intef would not appreciate a show of distrust on the part of his King, and besides, Kamose knew that the voice whispering potential betrayal in his mind came from his own insecurity.

  He slept late the following morning, rising to find his boat already gliding north and Akhtoy clearing away the remains of Ahmose’s early meal. Ahmose himself squatted in the shade at the stern, surrounded by the sailors who were standing down, and judging by the loud chatter they were having much to say to each other. A burst of their laughter pursued Kamose as he went to lean over the thickly bundled reeds making up the perimeter of the deck. “We have passed Kift!” he exclaimed in surprise to his steward, who had left his task at once as Kamose emerged from the cabin and now stood waiting behind him. “We should make Aabtu the day after tomorrow at this speed!”

  “Will you wash first or eat, Majesty?” Akhtoy enquired. “There is bread, cheese and raisins. The cook begs your indulgence and expects to take on more fresh food at Aabtu.” Kamose considered.

  “Neither,” he said. “Have the captain slow our progress. I will swim. Ahmose! Join me in the water!” he called, trying vainly to still the worm of jealousy that had begun to undulate in his heart as the lively conversation in the stern died away. The sailors scrambled to their feet, their faces becoming solemn. “You should not become too familiar with them,” he said in a low voice as Ahmose came up smiling. “It is dangerous to foster the illusion that the gulf separating you from them can be crossed.” Ahmose gave him a quizzical look.

  “Of course it cannot be crossed,” he said quietly. “But neither must it be allowed to grow so wide that they can no longer see me. Or you, Kamose. What is the matter? Are you jealous of a few rough men?” No, Kamose thought, hating himself for his pettiness. Amun, help me, I am jealous of you.

  The days that drifted by were pleasant ones, the steady flow of the water under their keel, the unvarying glide of the riverbank, the simple routines of life on board their vessel, all fostered the fantasy that their journey was nothing more than a spring voyage. Even the appearance of scouts from the north and the dispatching of heralds in the same direction did little to dispel the air of relaxation that enveloped not only the brothers but the Medjay as well. Strung out in their craft, they spent the hours crowded against the edges of their decks exclaiming at the ever-changing view or dancing with arms outstretched to the monotonous beat of their small drums. At sunset the sound began to echo against the confines of the water as though the Nile was lined with invisible Medjay returning their kinsmen’s rhythmic greeting in some sort of tribal ritual.

  Ahmose complained that the unceasing sounds gave him a headache, but Kamose rather enjoyed the barbarity of the music. It stirred something primitive in him, insinuating itself beneath the rigid control he tried to maintain over his thoughts and scattering them to reveal a core of blind sensation into which he was plunged if the drumming went on very late and he lay drowsy on his camp cot. He often had the half-formed thought that under its sensuous compulsion the mysterious woman of his dreams might come back to him, that she might be lured into his sleep while his mental defences were weak, but though the images of his subconscious became soft with the sensuality he had long since denied himself in his waking hours, she remained elusive.

  At Aabtu he and Ahmose paused to worship Osiris and Khentiamentiu and pay their respects to Ankhmahor’s wife. Kamose allowed the Commander of the Followers a night and the better part of the next day in his home before casting off for Akhmin, and quickly the delightful habits of life on the river reasserted themselves. Kamose saw no need to put in at either Akhmin or Badari. The Nile had now completely regained its bed, the fields were bare, and to his practised eye the spring labours were proceeding as they should. Dykes were being repaired, irrigation canals shored up, and no day went by that he did not see the peasant women with sacks strung around their sturdy necks flinging showers of precious seed onto the waiting soil.

  Qes was approached and passed without a tremor. It seemed to Kamose that the ghosts of that tragic place had been exorcised last year when his fleet had crept in breathless silence past the path leading from the village to the river and his mind had been full of his father and the heat and desperation of Seqenenra’s last battle. Now it lay innocently shimmering in the morning’s bright sunlight, a dusty track inviting the traveller to turn aside and follow it to the tumbled cliffs and the cluster of houses beyond. “It looks very peaceful, doesn’t it?” Ahmose remarked as, side by side, they watched it dwindle. “Qes has a pretty little temple to Hathor I’m told. Aahmes-nefertari has always wanted to visit it. When we return, I must remember to take her there.” He turned to glance at Kamose. “Dashlut is next,” he said. “From then on we will not particularly like to keep our eyes on the bank, Kamose. The view will not be as idyllic. Perhaps you will wish to sit in the cabin with me and thrash out a policy to present to the Princes waiting for us in the oasis. We have been fallow long enough.”

  “I suppose we must,” Kamose acknowledged. “But there is not much to thrash out. Do we move the army close in to Het-Uart and begin another siege or do we stay in the oasis until we have devised a more efficient scheme for victory?”

  “What choice do we have but to siege again?” Ahmose said. “And this time we should make sure that we have placed spies inside the city with a plan for retrieving their information.” He touched Kamose’s arm. “Ramose would be perfect. He is intelligent and resourceful. He has been to Het-Uart with his father. And he would do anything to put himself closer to Tani.�
�� Kamose met his eyes. Ahmose regarded him coolly.

  “Ramose would be a perfect tool you mean,” Kamose said thoughtfully. “But could we trust him, Ahmose? We have killed his father, sundered him from his mother, given his inheritance to Meketra. He is a man of integrity, certainly, but how far can he be pushed? Besides,” he looked back to where a stand of palms shuddered in the breeze, “Ramose is my friend.”

  “All the more reason to use him,” Ahmose pressed. “Or rather, to let himself be used. The affection between the two of you goes back a long way, Kamose. Consider Hor-Aha.” His eyes left his brother’s and returned to the bank. “You have made him a Prince. You have set him over the other nobles in spite of their obvious resentment because of his ability. Or so you tell them. To me you say that it is a matter of loyalty. You are ruthless enough to reward loyalty with danger but you balk at putting friendship to the same test. Is loyalty then less admirable than friendship?” Kamose turned his head sharply but Ahmose refused to look at him. His gaze remained on the placid view slipping past. “Are we not all grist to the great stone of your implacable will? Why not Ramose also?”

  Because, in spite of everything, Ramose loves me, Kamose wanted to say. Because the men around me show the faces of obedience and respect but I cannot know what is in their hearts, even Hor-Aha’s. Time and again he has demonstrated the loyalty of which you speak, but I know that it is tinged with ambition, not love. I do not condemn. I am grateful. Yet there are few who truly love me, Ahmose, and I value them too much to put that affection in jeopardy.

  “No,” he answered finally. “Loyalty can endure beyond friendship for it is a steadier and deeper emotion that will survive many abuses before it dies. But Ramose has been through enough. It is that simple.”

  The conversation veered into safer waters, but his brother’s words came back to Kamose in quiet moments and he found himself pondering them dispassionately. Ramose was indeed resourceful and intelligent. He did indeed know the city of Het-Uart. If we were not childhood comrades, if he were one of my officers, would I be hesitating to turn him into a spy? he asked himself with as much honesty as he could muster. Am I putting my loneliness above the well-being of Egypt? In the end he pushed the questions away. There would be time to bring them out later on the long, hot trek from the Nile to the oasis.

  They passed Dashlut just after sunset, when the sun had gone but its glow still lingered. A silence fell on the travellers as the village, already drowned in shadows, went by. Nothing moved. No dogs barked, no children splashed in the twilit water, no odours of cooking food wafted from the darkened doorways. A large patch of black sand filled the ground between the river and the first houses and as he looked at it Kamose felt again the arrow pressed into his palm and the smooth weight of his bow as he unslung it. The mayor’s name had been Setnub, he remembered. Setnub, angry and bewildered, Setnub whose charred bones lay mingled with those of his villagers in that cold residue of fire. “Where are they?” he muttered. Ahmose stirred beside him.

  “They are there,” he said quietly. “The fields are unkempt but someone has been making an attempt at the spring sowing. It had to be done, Kamose. We both know that. The women and plenty of children remain. Dashlut is not completely dead.” Kamose did not reply, and the hush that had overtaken the Medjay was not broken until the melancholy village had disappeared into the dimness behind them.

  They spent the night just out of sight of Khemmenu, but Kamose sent a message to Meketra warning him of their approach, and in the morning a delegation was waiting above the watersteps to welcome them. Kamose, striding down the ramp and onto the stone to receive the homage of the men gathered there, noted with relief that the Prince had not wasted the winter months. No evidence of the carnage of last year met his eye. The docks were busy. Laden donkeys thronged the space between Nile and town. Children ran and shouted, the large communal ovens smoked, and a group of women stood knee-deep on the edge of the river slapping their laundry against the rocks and gossiping. “You have not been idle, Prince,” he remarked approvingly as Meketra straightened from his obeisance and together they walked towards the town. Meketra smiled.

  “I have taken in the male survivors of Dashlut with their families,” he said eagerly. “There were not many, but I put them to work at once. The streets are clean and the houses whitewashed. Many are empty of course. The widows have moved in with relatives. They labour in Khemmenu’s fields in exchange for food from the granaries and storehouses. All discarded weapons have been collected and repaired for you, Majesty, if you need them. I cannot yet reopen the calcite and alabaster quarries at Hatnub. There are not enough men for such heavy labour. But Your Majesty will send us men when the war is won, will you not?”

  Kamose fought against the irritation Meketra’s flood of self-congratulatory words spawned in him. The Prince had achieved a great deal since Kamose had ordered him out of Nefrusi and back to the estate Teti had occupied. The streets had been raked of blood-clotted soil, the refuse cleared away, and the walls of the houses gleamed where once they had been splashed with mire. “I congratulate you,” he managed, forcing warmth into his voice. “You have done very well, Meketra. I cannot promise you anything yet, of course, and even when we are victorious I will have to maintain a standing army, but I will not forget your request.” They had come to the wide avenue leading to Thoth’s temple and Kamose halted. “I must pay my respects to the god,” he went on. “Then we will break our fast with you.” He did not wait for Meketra’s bow but turned from him hastily, Ahmose at his elbow.

  “Be careful, Kamose,” Ahmose whispered as they approached the pylon. “He must not see how you dislike him. He has indeed performed a miracle here.”

  “I know,” Kamose said. “The fault is mine, not his. Yet something tells me that for every feat and favour he accomplishes he will expect to be rewarded tenfold, either in preferments or in kind. That is not loyalty.”

  “It is loyalty of a sort,” Ahmose murmured dryly, “but not what one might anticipate from a noble. Still, he is useful.” Loyal, Kamose thought. Useful. Are we back to that, Ahmose? He bent down, and removing his sandals, began to cross the wide outer court.

  He recognized the priest who was standing just inside the inner court and watching them come. The man inclined his head, an impersonal greeting, and nothing could be read from his expression. As they reached him, Kamose held up his sandals. “There is no blood on them this time,” he said. The cool eyes flicked to Kamose’s hand and back to his face.

  “Have you brought a gift, Kamose Tao?” he enquired.

  “Yes,” Kamose replied smoothly. “I have given you Prince Meketra. Let me warn you, priest. I am indulgent towards your veiled insolence because last time I entered Thoth’s domain I was not purified, but here my tolerance ends. I can command Meketra to have you replaced. You are a man who is unafraid to defend his god and his concept of Ma’at and for that I admire you, but I will not hesitate to have you disciplined if you refuse to accord me the reverence my blood demands. Am I understood?”

  “Perfectly, Majesty.” The man stepped aside but his spine did not bend. “Enter and pay your vows to Thoth.”

  They crossed the smaller inner court and prostrated themselves before the doors to the sanctuary, praying silently, but Kamose doubted that his words were heard, for he could not keep his mind on them. He remembered the wounded that had lain in the outer court, the sobbing women, the few harried physicians, the atmosphere of hostility through which he and Ahmose had waded as though it were dirty water. Khemmenu will never be mine, he thought as he came to his feet. It was Teti’s and therefore Apepa’s for too long. And what of you, great Thoth, with your ibis beak and your tiny, knowing eyes? Do you rejoice to see Egypt re-forming or is your divine will opposed to the will of Amun? He sighed, the sound magnified in sibilant echoes, and taking his brother’s arm he went out past the priest’s exaggerated bow and into the brilliant sunshine.

  It was unsettling to sit in the reception hall of
the house to which he had come many times in his youth and see strangers leaning across the little tables to speak to him in voices that struck no chord of recognition. Most of Teti’s furniture had gone, but Kamose noticed that the pieces Meketra’s wife had kept were the most beautiful and costly. He thought of his own mother who in the same circumstances would most certainly have given it all away rather than profit in even the smallest way from another’s downfall. I am not being just, Kamose tried to tell himself as he nodded and smiled at the conversation directed at him. This house was theirs before it was Teti’s. They must regard its contents as reparation for the years of exile at Nefrusi. But he liked Meketra’s wife no better than the Prince himself, and one of Meketra’s young sons was wearing an earring Kamose had last seen dangling from Ramose’s lobe.

  Meketra sat smiling indulgently while his family prattled on artlessly, regaling the royal pair with stories of their hardships outside the fort, the coldness and rudeness of Teti’s wife, and of course Meketra’s monumental and selfless efforts to restore Khemmenu. In the end Kamose was forced to remind them with unmistakable authority that they were maligning his relatives by marriage and it was with considerable relief that he and Ahmose at last took their leave. “It is entirely likely that Apepa sent Meketra to Nefrusi to rid Khemmenu of that woman’s gossiping tongue,” Ahmose remarked as Ankhmahor and the Followers closed in around them and they made their way back to their boat. “She has got rid of Teti’s servants, did you notice, Kamose? but she has kept the silver dishes Aahotep gave to Nefer-Sakharu.” He followed Kamose up the ramp and flung himself down under the sunshade. Kamose waved at his captain, and at once the sailors on shore began to untie the mooring lines.