The Oasis

by Pauline Gedge

  “The snake did not bite him because it knew he was just a baby,” he commented. “And it will return for its milk for the same reason.” He slid to the floor with his back to the wall beside Ahmose.

  “It is not an omen, Aahmes-nefertari,” her mother said. She was sitting on the stool in front of Tetisheri’s cosmetic table, the thick rope of her luxurious braid pulled forward over one shoulder and hanging against one red-clad breast. “Ahmose-onkh is becoming spoiled. Now that you are home, Ahmose, perhaps you can impose some discipline on him.”

  “Me?” Ahmose laughed in astonishment. “What can I do with a two-year-old child? He terrifies me!”

  “Think of it as training a dog,” Tetisheri offered. “Reward him when he is obedient. Punish him when he is naughty. A lazy and indulgent master makes an unruly dog and I cannot see that children are so very different from dogs.” She turned her severe gaze on the luckless Aahmes-nefertari. “You are not lazy, my dear, but you have certainly been over-indulgent with the boy. So has his nurse. From now on you must imagine him with grey fur and a tail when you look at him.” They all burst out laughing but sobered quickly, the moment of family cohesiveness and understanding giving way to a wary silence fraught with their unspoken questions. Kamose thought of Ramose’s mother, who had spent so much time with Ahmose-onkh when she first came to the house.

  “Tell me of Nefer-Sakharu,” he said. “Does she still grieve?” Aahotep tut-tutted.

  “Grieve?” she repeated almost contemptuously. “If sullenness and a very pointed desire for seclusion can be interpreted as grief then yes, she still grieves. We had to take Ahmose-onkh away from her if you remember, Kamose. The servants heard her belittling us all to him and one never knows how much of what is said to a young child remains in his mind. She is an ungrateful woman.” And perhaps dangerous also, Kamose added to himself. He made no rejoinder. Tetisheri’s rings rapped the table.

  “No more chatter,” she said briskly. “We want to hear of Tani. You dictated many words regarding Ramose’s foray into Apepa’s palace, Kamose, but what you did not say has caused us many worried hours. Tell us now. Tell us everything.” Kamose looked up at her from his position on the floor. She was staring down at him, her expression carefully composed, but he knew her well enough to sense apprehension beneath the motionless lines of her age-scored face. The knowledge increased his reluctance to speak, but he swallowed, drew up his knees, and began to recount the events Ramose had repeated to him with such bitterness.

  His words were arrows, each finding a mark in the listeners and burying deep and painfully. Aahmes-nefertari’s hands unfolded, found their way to the arms of her chair, and began to grip the gilded wood ever tighter. The colour gradually drained from her face. Aahotep slowly bent lower and lower on the stool until her forehead rested on her knees. Even Ahmose, who already knew of the fate his sister had chosen, felt the sting of Kamose’s voice as he told of Tani’s marriage to their enemy, her new title of Queen, the name the Setiu called her. He was pleating and then smoothing out the hem of his kilt repeatedly and scrutinizing the ceiling. Only Tetisheri sat immobile, scarcely blinking, her hooded eyes never leaving Kamose’s mouth. But it seemed to him that as the moments slipped away they carried her vitality with them, leaving her an ancient husk in which the life force had sunk to a flicker.

  He was not sure how long he spoke. The words could change nothing. At last he closed his mouth and a heavy silence rushed in.

  He expected an outburst of furious indignation from his grandmother, but when she spoke it was gently. “Poor child,” she croaked. “Poor Tani. She went to Het-Uart with such courage, not knowing what would become of her, determined to keep faith with the family through any torment Apepa could devise. But she was not prepared for a subtler kind of torture, one that was not recognized as an attack on her innocence. And poor Ramose. His alliance with this family has left him accursed.” Aahmes-nefertari had begun to cry.

  “How could she do such a thing?” she burst out hysterically. “How could she give her body to that … that aging reptile, the murderer of her father, the blasphemer!”

  “Calm yourself, Aahmes-nefertari, or you will disfigure your baby with your violence,” her mother said thickly. She had struggled upright and was clinging to her braid with both hands as though it might be a lifeline. Aahmes-nefertari continued to sob.

  “The thought of our blood mingling with Apepa’s in some bastard child Tani may produce makes me sick!” Aahotep said loudly, with such venom that Kamose was shocked. “Tell me she is not pregnant, Kamose! Tell me she has not been so stupid! What would Seqenenra say?”

  “He would say that she is a casualty of war,” Kamose responded harshly. “And no, as far as Ramose could ascertain she carries no child, nor has she given birth. If it were so, I think Apepa would have taunted him with the fact. Tani has no Setiu blood in her. The title of Queen is an honorary one. Apepa already has a Chief Wife who is fully Setiu and whom he regards as therefore fully royal, not to mention numerous secondary Setiu wives. Apepa’s sons have no tincture of Egypt running through their veins. To him they are pure. You know in what disdain the Setiu hold us. Tani must know it also. Surely she would not risk giving birth to a baby of mixed parentage, even if Apepa was intelligent enough to see such an event as an opportunity to lay claim to a heritage that has always been ours. Besides, it is much too late for him to rally any support by considering that particular alternative.” Noting the hectic flush on Aahotep’s cheeks and the unnatural brightness of her eyes, he pulled himself to his feet and taking the winecup from his grandmother he carried it to his mother, winding her trembling fingers around its stem and helping her to lift it to her lips. She gulped at it, then pushed him away.

  “It is easy for you to talk that way,” she said shrilly. “Casualty of war! We are all casualties of war yet we have clung to our integrity.” The wine glistened on her mouth. A few drops hung quivering, netted in the dark strands of her braid. “You men,” she went on more coherently. “You are able to purge yourselves of your suffering by action. March, sweat, swing your swords, engulf your pain in the mindless exultation of bloodlust. But what of us? Tetisheri, your sister, myself? How may we rid ourselves of this hurting? May we hunt? Net fowls in the marshes? Swim? Eat too much? Sleep too often?” With one motion she threw back her head and drained the cup, then set it upside down on the table with a crash. “Those polite pursuits are too weak to burn away a pain that grows and grows in the heart. You are fortunate, my sons. You can kill by killing.” She rose clumsily, the stool tumbling to the floor behind her, and walked to the door. The others watched her in a dumbfounded silence. When she had gone, Tetisheri cleared her throat.

  “Tani is her daughter,” she said. “She feels this more than any of us, even me. She will view it more sanely in the morning. Ahmose, take your wife to her quarters and have Raa put her to bed. Eat a spoonful of honey, Aahmes-nefertari, it will soothe you and help you to sleep. Go now.” The girl nodded and allowed her husband to assist her out of the chair. She had stopped weeping. Together they reached the door.

  “May I return, Tetisheri?” Ahmose asked. She looked at him for a long time, and presently her face was lit by a slow smile.

  “You may indeed,” she said, “and not a word will pass between your brother and myself until that moment.” Her tone held no sarcasm. Ahmose nodded and he and Aahmes-nefertari left. Uni appeared around the open door.

  “Has Your Majesty need of anything?” he enquired.

  “Yes. Bring more wine and two clean cups and whatever sweetmeats remain from the meal in the garden,” she ordered. “And make sure Kares and Hetepet are with Aahotep. Ask Kares to bring me word on his mistress’s condition in an hour or two. Tell Isis I will undress myself tonight. She can go to bed.” The steward bowed himself out. Tetisheri rose stiffly and began to pace. “My joints ache,” she murmured. “Why do they ache in summer? It is usually the cold winter nights that seep into them.” She sighed. “Ah, Kamose. The
news of Tani has taken the bloom from your victory. We must bring her home when you finally kill the impostor. Pick up that cushion from the floor and put it on my chair for me. The bones of my old buttocks jut out like a donkey’s pelvis. Thank you. The three of us have much to discuss when your brother returns.” She continued to walk up and down until with a discreet knock Uni and a servant entered and set pastries and wine on the table. Ahmose came back as they were withdrawing. The door was closed. Tetisheri lowered herself into her chair. “Is she asleep?” she wanted to know.

  “Not yet, but she is more peaceful,” Ahmose replied. He took up a platter and a cup, filled them both, then regained his position on the floor. Kamose joined him.

  “We will put Tani out of our minds,” Tetisheri said determinedly. “Not out of our hearts or our prayers, of course, but it will do no good to endlessly hurl imprecations at Apepa and accusations at Tani. I want to hear of the campaign and the battle. The oasis, the desert march, the spiking of the wells and springs of the oasis, everything. The Abanas and Paheri gave me a clear vision of your navy’s composition, morale and purpose this afternoon, so do not bore me with things I have heard already. You have good men there, Kamose.” The brothers looked at each other, then raised their cups in unspoken agreement.

  “We salute you, Grandmother,” Ahmose said with a grin. “You are truly an unstoppable force.”

  “Do not be impertinent,” she retorted as they drank, but she was obviously pleased.

  Their gesture had lightened the sombre atmosphere that had lingered in the room. All at once it became a cozy haven. The lamps sent out a steady glow, softening the grooves in Tetisheri’s face, creating warm shadows, serving to draw the three of them together. The food on the table smelled sweet, its odour mingling with the faint tang of the wine, and Kamose thought briefly how it was the memory of simple sensual pleasures accumulating over a lifetime that yielded an ultimate sanity and wholeness. He was not hungry. As Ahmose cleared his plate and refilled it, Kamose drank his wine and began an account of all that had happened since he last left Weset. There was much to say that had been impossible to express in the regular reports he had dictated. Tetisheri listened attentively, interrupting him sometimes with abrupt questions.

  When Ahmose had finished eating, he joined in and gradually Kamose realized that Ahmose was taking over the conversation. Neither his grandmother nor his brother seemed to notice that he himself had fallen silent. There was a harmony between them that Kamose had never seen before. Ahmose talked easily and vividly, answering Tetisheri with smiles and gestures, and she in turn became animated, leaning forward, her own withered fingers moving like fans through the still air. Kamose watched them bemused, but slowly his surprise dwindled and the sense of dislocation that had almost unmanned him on the boat returned.

  They have an understanding, he thought. After years of polite distance between them they have suddenly learned to respect each other. When did this happen? And how? Grandmother always regarded Ahmose as sweet but rather stupid, and Ahmose himself chafed under what he saw as her domineering ways. I have lost my place in her esteem. I have been demoted. Jealousy surged up in him and just as quickly vanished. I am not a part of the fabric of this family or this place any more, he told himself sadly. I am a Tao, I rule this nome, but the boy, the young man I was, no longer exists. It is as if he died and I, this imitation Kamose, have come from somewhere far away to replace him. It is not simply that war has changed me. It has changed me, but I think I have been moving towards this moment since the day Si-Amun killed himself. I love them all, my royal kin, but I can never stand among them again.

  He came to himself to realize that conversation had ceased and they were both staring at him inquiringly. “I’m sorry,” he said with an effort. “What did you say?”

  “Grandmother asked you what plans you have for next season,” Ahmose explained. “After the thanksgiving and celebrations we must endure the Inundation but what then, Kamose?” Kamose had been so far sunk in his own reflections that he did not know whether they had discussed Hor-Aha’s request on behalf of the Medjay. He broached it hesitantly. In spite of the wine he had drunk he was coldly sober and his throat was still dry.

  “Wawat is being threatened by the Kushites,” he said, pulling his thoughts together. “Hor-Aha wants us to take a punitive force south on their behalf. It might be a good idea.” Immediately Tetisheri bristled.

  “Why?” she demanded. “Let the savages sort out their own problems. We cannot afford to draw the Kushites’ attention to us. We cannot open a new battle front to the south and thus dissipate our divisions.”

  “You do not feel that we owe a debt to Hor-Aha?” he suggested wryly. “That if we do not aid the Medjay, they will desert us or worse?”

  “Hor-Aha has been well rewarded for his loyalty to this house by his promotion to General and then by a princely title and the promise of a nome to govern in the Delta,” she retorted. “That was a very foolish move, Kamose. It will ultimately antagonize every Egyptian noble.”

  “Hor-Aha’s mother was an Egyptian,” Kamose reminded her, “and he regards himself as Egyptian, notwithstanding his colour. As for a Medjay revolt, I do not fear it. They are more likely to simply disappear if they are disaffected.” He straightened his legs and getting up from the floor he poured himself more wine, then took the chair Aahmes-nefertari had vacated. “No,” he went on. “There are better reasons for leading a punitive expedition into Wawat and rescuing the Medjay’s families from their nasty neighbours.”

  “Teti-En,” she said at once. It was a statement, not a question. Kamose nodded.

  “He is one. You know of the messenger who was intercepted near the oasis. He was carrying a plea for assistance from Apepa to Teti the Handsome. Obviously that request did not get through, but if Teti-En does indeed regard himself as Apepa’s ally, we cannot discount an attack from the south at some time. He must be aware of what has been happening in Egypt.”

  “But surely that very awareness will keep him quiet,” Ahmose objected. “We have talked about this before, Kamose. Teti-En might have been able to make a small incursion into Egypt, perhaps even capture Weset. He would have had to subdue Wawat first but he might have managed it. It is too late for him now that we hold the whole country but for one city and its environs. Defeat would be certain for him.”

  “All the same I do not like a threat, no matter how small, at my back,” Kamose said. “But there is an even better reason why I have decided to aid the Medjay.” His cup was empty again, although he did not remember drinking. “I am going to claim the gold routes. We need gold and plenty of it, for the gods, for ourselves if I am to be crowned King, to pay the Princes and rebuild Egypt. We know nothing of the forts our ancestors built to safeguard the gold sources, whether they still stand, whether the tribesmen have taken them. The Setiu have cared nothing for them because they and the gold have straddled both Teti-En’s territory and Wawat and Teti-En has a treaty with the Setiu. I will take them back.”

  “So it seems that you have made up your mind,” Tetisheri said. “The Princes will not like it. They will want to siege Het-Uart yet again next winter.” Ahmose shot her a warning glance that Kamose did not miss.

  “The Princes cannot see farther than their own aristocratic noses!” he exploded. “They will do as they are told or suffer my extreme displeasure! I hold almost all of Egypt and yet they are still looking over their shoulders, afraid that they will wake up one morning to find that Apepa has somehow magically taken it all back! They are cowardly mice terrified of the snake!”

  “Alienate them and we could still lose everything,” Ahmose warned at once. “There is a fine balance between keeping them reassured and making them do what you want, Kamose.” Kamose, his anger evaporating, only grunted. Tetisheri pushed herself out of the chair.

  “Go to bed, both of you,” she said. “I am tired now. You will go to the temple tomorrow, Kamose, and arrange the thanksgiving?”

  “Yes.” H
e and Ahmose had also risen and were at the door. “Sleep well, Grandmother.” She waved them away and the door closed softly behind them.

  The guard in the passage saluted them as they walked side by side towards their own quarters. “You have come to an agreement with Tetisheri,” Kamose remarked as they paused outside Ahmose’s rooms before parting. Ahmose smiled.

  “I suppose you could call it that,” he said. “It is certainly more than a truce. Last time we were home I was brave enough to march into her den and demand recognition. She took it well. I think she even learned some respect for me because I stood up for myself. It has taken me a long time to grow up.” He shrugged and gave Kamose a shrewd look. “However, you need not fear that you have lost her greater affection,” he finished. “I will always be on trial to her, proving myself without hope of a final verdict.” His words made Kamose feel petty. He returned his brother’s smile and left him.

  He entered his own quarters and stood for a while absorbing the familiarity. It had been many months since he had lain on that couch, sat in that chair, watched his body servant raise the hanging on that small window. He had longed to be here, indeed, in his imagination he had often closed his door and turned to face the things that spoke to him of his true identity and in whose mute embrace he would be able to think of Tani, even cry for her. Now that his comforting fantasy had become reality, the invitation was there but his willingness to answer it was not. I am not ready, he told himself resignedly. I will sleep in my cabin on the boat. Taking up his headrest and a blanket, he blew out the lamp Akhtoy had left burning for him and left the house, intending to make his way to the watersteps, but somehow his feet found the narrow, uneven little track leading to the break in the crumbling wall surrounding the old palace and so to the ancient pillars marking the entrance to the reception hall. Behek materialized from somewhere close by and padded after him.