The Oasis

by Pauline Gedge

  “Ahmose has returned to a wife he does not know,” he chuckled. “That should add some spice to their reunion.” Becoming aware that they were no longer alone, he turned to see Ankhmahor, Hor-Aha and Ramose waiting for him a polite distance away. He sighed and made as if to rise, but Aahotep put a restraining hand on his wrist.

  “I know you have much to attend to,” she said. “But there is one other thing. It may be nothing, but …” She bit her lip. “Nefer-Sakharu has been going among the Princes constantly since they arrived, entertaining them in her quarters, sitting among them at meals, taking her litter into Weset with those who wanted to divert themselves in the town. I know she is lonely. It has all been very frivolous and probably harmless. I had no excuse to try to prevent it and I could not very well confine her to her rooms out of spite.” She met his eye. “I was ready to, several times, but after all she has done nothing wrong unless one can call ingratitude and dislike an offence.” Kamose lifted her soft hand and kissed her fingers as he rose.

  “I should have sent Ahmose down south and stayed here myself,” he said heavily. “Although it is doubtful how I might have done more than the three of you. I must go. I will see you this evening.” He walked towards his men in a sober frame of mind.

  The Princes and their personal retinues were all present in the reception hall that night. Kamose, his sharp gaze travelling the wigged and gold-spangled heads, suddenly saw a tall, rather stooped form lean back and hold up a winecup to be filled. “What is Meketra doing here?” he said quietly to his mother. “I gave him no command to join my army!” Aahotep, tearing apart a piece of chickpea bread beside him, paused and glanced out over the company.

  “He arrived with Intef,” she said. “He has been boring me with all the wonderful restorations he has personally sanctioned in Khemmenu. One would think he had trodden the mud and straw himself. I am sorry, Kamose. I did not know that he had no permission to leave his city. He spoke as though he had received a direct invitation from you.”

  Kamose watched him thoughtfully. He and the other nobles appeared to be in high spirits, trading sallies and witticisms with each other, drinking plenty of wine and tossing the abundant spring blooms that lay on their small tables at the servants, but their behaviour seemed to him to have an unpleasant undercurrent of impudence about it as though they were using their very exuberance to shut him and his family out.

  After reverencing him as he entered the hall, they had ventured him no further attention, answering him when he spoke to them but otherwise conversing among themselves. “They have been like this almost every night,” Tetisheri had muttered in his ear. “Getting drunk and bothering the staff like a crowd of undisciplined children. The hotheads! I will be more than glad to see you take them all north, Kamose. A few forced marches will dampen their enthusiasm for nonsense.” But Kamose decided, surveying them carefully, that there was nothing hotheaded about their noisy behaviour. Rather, their loud cacophony had an undercurrent of coldness to it, almost of calculation. The women are right to be uneasy, he told himself. Something is wrong here.

  Later he rose and addressed them, recounting all that he had done in Wawat and warning them that on the following day they were expected to attend the thanksgiving in the temple and the dedication of his stelae and the day after that they would be leaving to resume their war against Apepa. They listened politely, their painted faces turned up to him, but their hands and bodies were restless. “Tomorrow afternoon we will counsel together in my father’s office,” he ordered them crisply. “Tybi is advancing. I want to be outside Het-Uart by the beginning of Mekhir.”

  He wanted to shout at them, break through the invisible but keenly felt circle they had drawn around themselves, berate them for flooding his domain with unnecessary soldiers, but he sensed that such a display of anger would put him at a disadvantage. Why do I feel as though they are lions waiting for me to break and run? he wondered anxiously as he regained his cushions and waved at the musicians to continue playing. I must ask Ahmose if he shares these imaginings.

  But he was unable to speak with his brother that night. Ahmose had retired early and was closeted with his wife, and Kamose did not have the heart to disturb them. Taking Ramose and Ankhmahor, he made a slow circuit of the house, all three men silently absorbed in the cool beauty of the moon-washed gardens. They parted, Ankhmahor to check on the Followers taking the watch and Ramose to his couch where, Kamose mused, the enticing Senehat was doubtless waiting. Yet he did not feel deserted. With his arouras to himself he wandered under the trees, circled the moonlit silver of the pool, and finally took the passage to his own quarters. His sleep was deep and untroubled.

  In the morning the house and grounds emptied and the temple filled as Kamose once more prostrated himself before his god in thanksgiving for his success in Wawat. His stelae had been erected, two sturdy blocks of granite almost as tall as he, their surfaces incised with the chronicles of his campaigns. Standing before them, he read their message aloud himself in proud tones that rang throughout the sacred precincts. Under the words he called out, those listening heard other truths. This is what I, Kamose Tao, have done. I have lifted shame from the shoulders of my family. I have avenged my father’s honour. I have proved myself worthy of the blood of my royal ancestors.

  When he had finished, he turned to the six Kushites who had been brought into the temple and who now stood awed and awkward between their guards, their black eyes shifting rapidly among the press of sumptuously arrayed worshippers. “I have seized your land,” he said to them slowly and deliberately. “That knowledge will be carved into my stela so that all who come here may read it. Look around you. You have had an opportunity to assess the might and majesty of Egypt. You see how any further attempt to invade Wawat will be met with all the hostile power of this country. Go home and tell your tribesmen that to those who merit it Egypt is merciful and just but retribution will be swift to those who try to threaten her. You are free. My soldiers will give you food and send you on your way.”

  As the crowd was flowing out of the temple on a cloud of incense and the last strains of the holy singers, Kamose found his sister beside him. She had come up behind the Followers and at a word they had let her through. “Ahmose has gone ahead with Mother,” she said. “I wanted to speak to you before your meeting with the Princes this afternoon, Kamose.”

  “I had intended to talk to you before I left Weset in any event,” he answered her. “There is not much time for anything. Have you been able to establish spies in Het-Uart?”

  “We have begun to organize something but it is a slow process,” she said. “We have been working through Paheri and Kay Abana in the north while the navy has been idle. They must find inhabitants of the city who can be trusted. You are not loved in the Delta, Kamose. You destroyed too much.” They had been approaching their litters. The bearers sprang up but Kamose waved them away.

  “We will walk,” he shouted. “So you do not yet have any useful information for me,” he said as he dropped his tone. “It was too much to hope that some obliging citizen of Het-Uart was already eager to open the city gates. Keep working at it, Aahmes-nefertari. Eventually the greed of the Setiu will win out. After all, making a profit is what they do best.” His tone was light and the girl laughed. “I hear that you have joined the army,” he went on. “Do you want me to make you an officer?” This time she did not respond to his humour.

  “You could do worse,” she said soberly. “It is the army I need to talk to you about, or rather, our local troops. Mother has obviously told you that I have taken a very great interest in their activities while you were away.” She glanced up at him and then down to where her sandalled feet were leaving soft impressions in the dirt of the path. “It began because I thought that Ahmose-onkh might be amused for a while if I took him out to the parade ground by the barracks. Raa has been very occupied with Hent-ta-Hent. So I asked the commander’s permission to sit on the dais with Ahmose-onkh and watch what went on. Of course the
little brat became bored before too long and wriggled and whined but I was fascinated.” She put up a hand to push one wind-whipped braid of her wig away from her mouth. “I talked to the Scribe of Assemblage, the Scribe of Recruits, the local officers. I know what the men eat and how much. I know how many pairs of sandals need mending every month. I know how many arrows get broken during archery practice. And I can sharpen a sword.” She looked across at him hesitantly as though he might laugh at her, but what she saw seemed to reassure her. “I have been inventing mock battles for them to fight,” she told him almost in a whisper, “but I am not very good at strategy, having had no experience in the field. I divide up the men and put some of them behind rocks or on top of hills, that sort of thing. I like it all very much, Kamose.” He did not know how to respond, so great was his astonishment. “I requested permission from the captain of the household guards to draw up a plan whereby the men who have been responsible for our safety might spend some time out on the desert with the other troops and so refresh their skills, and be replaced in rotation with some of the soldiers who are very competent but have not had the privilege of guarding us. He allowed me to do this. It is working well.” Kamose allowed himself a private grimace.

  “Aahmes-nefertari,” he said gently, “you were right to reprimand me for disregarding your abilities, but do you not think that you are taking this a little too far? You need not prove yourself to me. I trust you fully.” She showed him a flushed face.

  “You have not listened,” she protested hotly. “Your captain approves of my involvement. The men expect to see me every day. I enjoy them. Do not imagine that I have immersed myself in their training and welfare because I miss my husband or do not have enough household chores to perform.” She took two hurried steps ahead and then rounded on him, bringing him to an abrupt halt. “I do not ever want to find myself as weak as Tani,” she said in a low voice. “I do not ever want to wake up one morning and find myself incapable of courage, drained of assertion or unable to make an act of the will because I have allowed childbearing and the gentle arts of womanhood to soothe me into an inappropriate submission. I have been close to that danger, Kamose. Yes I have. But no more. Oh please do not forbid me this service!” Kamose refrained from pointing out that it was neither childbearing nor the gentle arts of womanhood that had undone her sister, but a wily and unscrupulous adversary. Her reasons were irrational but perhaps her fear was not. After all, Kamose thought quickly, she has had a powerful example of uncompromising authority in her grandmother.

  “Is this why you accosted me today?” he asked her again. “If so, you need not fear. I will speak with my commander and my captains. If they sing your praises honestly, you may continue to work with them on the understanding that the word of my commander is your law. Of the two thousand troops I left here in Weset, only one thousand will remain. I intend to take the rest north with me, together with the Medjay, of course. Will that satisfy your thirst for death and destruction?” For a brief moment the Aahmes-nefertari of his earlier days shone through. Tears had come to her eyes and her lips trembled. Standing on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek.

  “Thank you, Majesty,” she said. “No, that is not why I accosted you today, but I am glad the matter is settled.” She resumed her pace and he began to walk also.

  For a while there was a companionable silence between them, broken by the measured thud of the Followers’ sandals. Far out on the river a small craft moved slowly by, its triangular sail flapping, its progress marked by the rhythmic tapping of a drum held under the arm of a young boy sitting in the stern. Its wash lapped the sandy bank in glittering waves. Kamose was in no hurry to hear what his sister had to say. In spite of the coming gathering with the Princes he was aware of a spreading contentment. The bounty of his harvest would be arrayed under the waiting canopies in his garden. The wine would be unsealed. Dark beer would be poured to quench his thirst. And tomorrow he would leave Weset once more for the north. He was not sorry to be going, but he knew that he would take with him the healing that had been so mysteriously accomplished in his soul and while he was away the thoughts of his home would be warm and guiltless.

  Then Aahmes-nefertari spoke without turning her head. “You should know that there has been trouble between myself and the Princes Intef and Meketra,” she said. “Grandmother, Mother and I had decided that since we were able to contain it we would not bring it to your attention but I have been pondering the matter, Kamose. You will be relying on all the Princes during the coming siege. Some more heavily than others.” She drew a deep breath. “If you leaned on a branch that broke, I would feel responsible. It was not a large storm,” she said hastily. “A puff of desert wind, that is all.”

  “You are painting a confusing picture,” Kamose interrupted impatiently. “We are nearly at the watersteps and I am hungry.” He spoke more harshly than he had intended out of a sudden foreboding, and she apologized at once.

  “I am sorry,” she blurted. “It is this. Intef and Meketra came to the parade ground one morning. I think they were taken aback to see me there. They wanted to add their soldiers to yours, mingle the troops and assume command of the men themselves. Of course they would have had authority over a mere commander and a few captains, and if no one in the house had cared to make sure that the officers were being diligent while you were away, they could have drilled the men as they wished. Their arguments were logical, Kamose. Let us foster co-operation between the fighters of our nomes. Let the soldiers befriend one another to maintain solidity in battle.” Now she looked across at him. The tears had gone and the mouth no longer quivered. It was set in a grim line. “Meketra even complained that as he had been left behind to put Khemmenu to rights he had been denied practice in the field and needed the experience of a varied command. I watched your officers as he and Intef were speaking to me. They were afraid that I would allow them to be placed under the Princes’ control. I could see no harm in it. After all, the drills and mock battles were simply to keep the troops alert and occupied and why should the soldiers the Princes brought with them be idle? But Intef’s insistence that the two of them be placed in authority instead of your commander seemed too urgent. There was something about the whole situation that I did not like. So I refused.” She laughed shortly. “They pressed me as far as they dared. I could see the contempt in their eyes before they bowed and withdrew. They had their retainers set up targets and they drew bows until I left the reviewing dais. It was like a challenge.” Kamose felt his throat go dry. I am not angry, he thought. Why? The answer came at once. Because anger will only serve to blind me to something I need to be coldly sober in order to examine. “I went to the officers’ quarters that evening,” Aahmes-nefertari was saying. “They told me that they had been invited several times to drink with the officers who came with the Princes and our own soldiers have been receiving gifts from the men in the Princes’ ranks. I do not know what it means, Kamose. Perhaps it is simply the comradeship of a serving army, but I do not think so. Neither did Grandmother and Mother when I told them. Am I being foolish? We have all lived with uneasiness for so long.”

  They had reached the watersteps and were crossing the stone paving. Glancing to his left along the path to the house, Kamose caught a glimpse of the crowd beyond the thickly leaved trellis and the gleam of sunlight on white canopies. The murmur of many voices came to him clearly. They are waiting for me to arrive so that they can eat, he thought. It is a day of celebration. Six disconcerted Kushites and the nobility of Egypt stood in the temple while I narrated my victories. He touched his sister’s shoulder.

  “You did well,” he said evenly. “I am very proud of you, Aahmes-nefertari. Does Ahmose know of this?” She shook her head.

  “We had more important things to do last night,” she said a trifle defiantly. “In any case, you are the King. My duty was to tell you first.”

  “Good. Keep your counsel. I intend to keep mine. Tomorrow I will take them all away, but I will not forget your words. I use th
em, you know, but I cannot bring myself to like them. What have they done for Egypt in the past but grow fat and complacent on the scraps the Setiu have flung to them?” He could feel the rage beginning to curdle inside, acrid and despairing. “I will certainly warn Ahmose and Hor-Aha, but I do not want to confront Intef and Meketra over something that may mean nothing,” he finished with a struggle against the irrational tide of betrayal and offence sweeping through him. “They have grumbled, but so far they have been obedient and trustworthy. I still need them. Let us go and break our fast.” And that is the source of the real wound, he admitted to himself as together they passed under the dense curtain of the vine-hung trellis and out again into the sun. I need them, need them desperately, but they do not need me.

  He ate and drank, smiled and conversed, received the obeisances and congratulations of the cheerful assembly, while striving to quell his anger and put what his sister had told him into a sane perspective. He had no intention of voicing his displeasure to the Princes, much less his nebulous suspicions regarding their loyalty. To do so would only raise their indignation, perhaps justly. Yet Aahmes-nefertari, as well as the other women, had been alarmed out of all proportion to the event and he himself was left with a tiny but definite pulse of warning when his ire was finally dispelled.

  Drowsy and satiated, the guests finally scattered to their couches for the afternoon rest and Kamose also retired to his rooms but he did not attempt to sleep. Sitting in his chair, he went over in his mind what he intended to say to the Princes, what plans he had for this, his third campaigning season. They were few and simple. Egypt was his up to the Delta, therefore he would gather in the army from each nome as he went north, surround Het-Uart, and pull down its walls, brick by brick, if necessary, until the last lesion on the body of his country was healed. He had ascertained that Kush and Teti-En would be no threat. His southern flank was secure. Only Pezedkhu could hamper his drive for complete freedom, and if Pezedkhu ventured forth from the spurious safety of his city, he would be defeated. Kamose discounted Apepa. The struggle would be between himself and the General, straightforward and clean. Apepa’s schemes and wiles belonged to the febrile world of negotiation and as such would be useless to him. Physical weapons and good military strategy were all that remained.