In the morning Hor-Aha refused to lie on his litter. “It is my shoulder that is injured, not my legs,” he snapped at the physician. “I am sufficiently rested now. I will walk.” He joined Si-Amun at the head of the column as they set off once more, and there was some comfort for the Prince in Hor-Aha’s long stride, his black braids moving rhythmically against the grubby folds of his woollen cloak, the occasional dart of his clear, dark eyes when they exchanged a word or two.
Three days later, at the town of Djawati, Si-Amun found what he was looking for. While the dignitaries of the place came out to gather around Kamose, shocked and unbelieving, and many sank to the ground by Seqenenra’s coffin and began to grieve, Si-Amun went to the quay and commandeered two flat barges used for the transport of grain to the Delta, ordering helmsmen and rowers at the same time. He had Kamose and his father carried aboard one, and the rest of the soldiers and necessary supplies loaded on the other. The river was nearing its lowest level and scarcely flowed.
Leaving a couple of officers to oversee the donkeys’ slow progress on the river road, Si-Amun settled with relief onto the floor of the barge and gave orders for canopies to be erected as it swung out from the shore. Only then did fatigue overtake him. He lay back. Servants had begun to distribute the afternoon’s water. Si-Amun watched them draw nearer but before the cup was offered to him he was asleep.
At noon on the tenth day they rounded the familiar bend and Weset slipped into view. Si-Amun and Kamose, reclining side by side, watched silently. Boats of every description still clustered against the town’s straggling wharves. The huts and houses still jostled each other haphazardly among the palms where stray dogs lolled in the shade and naked brown children squatted in the dirt. The temple pylon, its smooth sides gleaming under a sun that stood at its zenith, still sported tall flagstaffs upon which the triangular flags rippled, and beyond it the temple rose, its lines sharp against the blue of the sky. On the west bank the tumbled rise and fall of the cliffs, an uneven horizon as well-known and dear to Si-Amun as the angles of his own body, shook in the dust haze.
The barge slowed and at the helmsman’s shout began to veer towards the family’s watersteps. The old palace still bulked sleepily and mysteriously behind its crumbling walls and beside it, so dear, so achingly, poignantly precious, were the groups of flowering shrubs, now bare, the sycamore trees and trellised grape vines that provided an arboured walk through from the river to the garden and the pond and the unseen portico of Seqenenra’s low, rambling haven of peace. Si-Amun, his eyes drinking in every shabby, cheerful detail, felt his throat swell with emotion. “It is as if we have been away for years and have aged beyond imagining,” Kamose said beside him. Si-Amun nodded, overcome.
Now he could see a figure on the paving at the top of the steps, someone doing a dance of frantic, panic-stricken welcome. It was Tani, her bronze bracelets sliding up and down her bare arms, her long white sheath pressed to her legs in the wind. Si-Amun wished that he might die immediately and never have to look into his sister’s questioning eyes.
The barge bumped the steps. Servants appeared from behind Tani and ran to tether it. The ramp was run out. Si-Amun rose and Tani flung herself into his arms. “I have been watching here every day since the scrolls stopped coming,” she cried out. “Grandmother took to the roof where she could see the river better. Mother spent her afternoons praying. Oh, Si-Amun!” She hugged him tightly, still oblivious to all else. After a moment he disengaged himself.
“Tani,” he said, “where is Ahmose?” At his tone she sobered. Her glance took in the rest of the barge, halted at Kamose, and she walked to kneel beside him. Her hand went to the bloody bandage under his arm and the swollen stitches on his cheek. She paled.
“We lost, didn’t we?” she whispered. “Where is Father?”
“Yes, we lost,” Kamose said steadily. “I think we would have lost in any case, dear Tani, but we were betrayed very early. Father is dead. His body is over there.” Her gaze flew to the crude wooden box and she would have rushed to it but Kamose gripped her hand. “No,” he said. “It is not a sight for you. Go and find Ahmose.” Numbly she got to her feet and left the barge, walking as if in a trance. Si-Amun knew that the shock had not yet hit her. He shouted to one of the servants waiting for orders on the bank.
“Run to the House of the Dead and bring sem-priests! The rest of you, help your Prince onto the steps.”
By the time Kamose had been laid gently in the shade above the watersteps and Hor-Aha, after a brief word with Si-Amun, had gone to see to the dispersal and settling of the surviving soldiers, Ahmose, Tetisheri and Aahotep had arrived. Si-Amun did not notice them at first. They stood back on the path under the grape arbour, Ahmose watching, Tetisheri standing regally, Aahotep close to her, both hands clutching a robe under her chin.
Si-Amun helped the servants to unload the coffin and place it reverently under a tree, then he gave an order. The barge was untied. The helmsman clambered up to grasp the steering oar and the boat swung ponderously towards the west bank. Only then did Si-Amun turn and meet his family’s hesitant gaze. He ran towards them, and their arms opened. For a moment he was enveloped in the familiar touch, the soft flesh and the smell of them that carried him back vividly to the days of his early boyhood, then he stepped away. “You must be brave,” he said. Ahmose blinked.
“It was doomed from the start,” he said unsteadily. “We all knew that. But I had hoped Father’s life might be spared. We have prayed so hard …” He swallowed convulsively. “I have done my best to keep all in order for him.”
“Open the coffin,” Tetisheri said tonelessly. Si-Amun hesitated.
“He was grievously wounded about the head,” he warned, but she brushed him aside. Aahotep took her arm and together they walked out under the blinding sun. At a nod from him, the man guarding the coffin took out his knife and prised off the lid. Ahmose joined the women, but Si-Amun went to Kamose, squatting beside the litter, head hanging. When next he looked, his mother was on her knees brushing sand away from the corpse. She did not cry out at what she saw as Si-Amun thought she would. When Seqenenra’s face with its terrible gaping wounds was revealed, her hands were stilled. It was Ahmose who uttered a moan.
For many seconds Aahotep knelt, her fingertips light on the swollen, black flesh, Tetisheri’s motionless shadow over her, then she rose and bending, pressed her lips to Seqenenra’s open, agonized mouth. She straightened. Her shaking hands went to the low neck of her sheath and in a gesture of ancient grief she tore it from neck to waist, then she sank in the dust beside the paving and began to trickle the dry soil over her head.
Tetisheri turned on her heel and stalked towards the two young men, Ahmose behind her. Her face was stony with rage. Beyond her Si-Amun could see two sem-priests hurrying from the direction of the House of the Dead, their heads down and their robes held tight to their bodies for fear they might contaminate anyone unwary enough to brush by them. “Are your wounds serious?” Tetisheri asked Kamose through stiff lips.
“No, Grandmother,” he replied. “A spear thrust to the side and a knife in my cheek, that is all. I will be myself in a week or two.” She nodded once and turned her terrifying gaze on Si-Amun.
“Aahmes-nefertari is still on her couch,” she said. “She gave birth to a son yesterday at sunset. Go to her when you can. She does not yet know that you are home.” At that she left them, stalking into the house, her spine straight and her shoulders set. Si-Amun knew that none of them would see her weep. He got up and went to the coffin where the sem-priests were examining the corpse.
“Can he be beautified?” he asked peremptorily. One of the priests answered with his face averted so that he might not breathe on Si-Amun.
“It is not too late, Prince,” he said. “The sand has slowed the process of decomposition. But we cannot repair these wounds. The skin is already too dry to take stitches.” Relief flooded Si-Amun.
“That is not important,” he told them. “Do the best you can
. Take him away.” He could no longer bear to look down on the black and battered face of his father. Abruptly he went to Aahotep. She was kneeling with her dusty hands in her lap. Soil clung to her hair and stuck to the paint on her face. Si-Amun squatted before her but she turned away.
“Leave me alone, Si-Amun,” she whispered. “Go to your wife. There is nothing you can do for me.” Obediently he rose. She was strong, his beautiful mother. She would grieve by herself, she would mourn for the seventy days, but she would live.
Kamose’s litter was just disappearing into the shaded garden, Ahmose and Uni following. Kares, his mother’s steward, passed him with a bow and took up his station a few steps from Aahotep, folding his arms. Si-Amun wondered anxiously where Tani was licking her wounds, and like cold water flung in his face he remembered Mersu and what must be done. Mentally shaking off the panic that had begun to wrap itself around him, he started towards the women’s quarters. I will deal with one thing at a time, he thought. Aahmes-nefertari first, and my son.
Her room was cooler than the burning hands of the sun that beat upon the walls. Puffs of stale air entered from the windcatcher on the roof, stirring the plaited reed window hangings and the wisps of disordered hair that lay on Aahmes-nefertari’s cheeks as she drowsed, propped high with pillows. Si-Amun motioned to Raa, on a stool by the couch, and with a welcoming smile the woman crept out. Si-Amun approached and kissed his wife’s pale lips. She woke with a start, shrieked in joy, and twining her arms about his neck, drew him down. “Si-Amun! I cannot believe it! We have been so worried since the scrolls stopped coming. Have you seen him yet? He is so strong, so lusty! What has happened? Is Father in Het-Uart already?”
He silenced her chatter, kissing her with a sudden ferocity in order to shrink the weight of his pain and loss, but already it was stopping his breath and squeezing his heart. “Si-Amun!” she exclaimed, pulling free. “You are crying!” He nodded helplessly, laying his head against her breasts, no longer trying to quell the sobs that shook him. She held him loosely and waited until he had spent himself, then she offered him a corner of the sheet on which to wipe his face and pushed him down onto the stool. “Victory was too much to ask,” she said.
“I know.” He did not feel foolish for breaking down. Not with her. She was eyeing him warily, fear of the unknown making her face suddenly all questioning eyes, and he knew that he must tell her everything. His guilt had begun to put a wall between them long before he left Weset. It had poisoned their relationship slowly. Now he must put it right.
He began incoherently, not knowing where to start, whether with his discontented life here on the estate, his boredom and disdain for Weset, or with the visit to Teti where in a moment of spiritual greed he had succumbed, but gradually his story grew sane, and cold, and terrible.
Her eyes never left his face. Occasionally they wandered to his mouth, to his curly black hair, but returned always to his gaze. He read disbelief, shock, sympathy and pain there, but towards the end he did not see what he had feared most. There was no scornful condemnation in her face. When he had finished, she lay back and stared at the ceiling. “Father is dead?” she asked, her voice thin. “The sem-priests …” He swallowed.
“Yes.”
“But he would have died anyway, Si-Amun, surely you see that? On the plain of Dashlut or in the canals outside Het-Uart, what does it matter?” She sat up and turned to him urgently. “The rebellion was doomed from the start, with or without the things you have done in secret!” Her fists clenched. “I do not want to lose you! Say nothing, my brother. Have Mersu killed. Persuade the others that no trial is necessary. Ramose did not know about you, did he? Then neither must anyone else. I do not want to lose you!” Her voice had risen.
Si-Amun sat dumb. She was speaking without thought, her first female instinct one of preservation for herself and her baby that overrode conscience or the thought of consequence, and he let her express it.
When she had fallen silent, her head moving agitatedly on the pillow, he leaned forward and imprisoned both her hands in his. “I cannot,” he said. “I must confess everything and take what comes. How could our life go on as before? It would lie between us, you as my accomplice, until perhaps you might grow to hate me. And as for me, a man with a dishonest secret gradually loses his pride and his virility. It seeps away, Aahmes-nefertari, until only the secret and the guilt are left. I cannot live that way.”
“But if you deliver yourself up to justice, the family will execute you! They will have no choice!” Her knees came up under the white bedding and her tight fists pounded them. “It will not bring Father back nor avert the King’s retribution.” With a sudden thought she twisted towards him, sitting bundled on the edge of the couch. “You are the eldest son,” she pressed, eyes taking fire. “You are now Prince of Weset and governor of the Five Nomes. Oh Si-Amun, justice is in your hands and yours alone! Pardon yourself!”
“Aahmes-nefertari,” he said lightly, distinctly, “how could I respect myself? Dispense justice to others? How long would I hold your regard?”
“Well, what of me? What of your son? Raa!” The woman opened the door and bowed. “Bring the baby for Si-Amun to hold!” She turned back to her husband tensely. “If you insist on destroying yourself, what of us? I love you, I need you, your child needs a father, Si-Amun do not leave us!”
She had scarcely finished speaking when Raa appeared cradling a tiny sheet-shrouded form. With a lump in his throat Si-Amun rose, holding out his arms. His son opened his eyes and gazed up at his father sleepily. One small red hand was clutching the corner of the linen that surrounded him. With a shock Si-Amun recognized Seqenenra’s strong cheekbones and slightly slanted eyes. The baby smelled sweetly of natron and warm new flesh. Aahmes-nefertari watched them with a painful eagerness. “He is so helpless,” she hissed. “So am I, Si-Amun. Please!” Si-Amun kissed his son’s damp forehead and passed him back to Raa.
“Forgive me, my sister,” he said. “I cannot.” He tried to take her in his arms but she pushed him away savagely and buried her head in the pillows. She was sobbing by the time he had reached the door. Justice is in my hands alone, he thought with despair as he shut out the sound of her weeping and started along the passage. She spoke more truly than she knew. My hands alone.
After leaving his wife, he sought out Tani. He found her on the roof of the old palace, in the place where Seqenenra had been struck down, her linen in shreds where she had torn at her clothes, rocking back and forth silently. Seeing him come, she threw herself into his arms and he comforted her as best he could before persuading her to go to her quarters.
On the way back from the palace he saw his mother still huddled in the dust, but now she was protected from the sun by a canopy and both Kares and Hetepet stood nearby, waiting for her grief to be spent. Si-Amun left her undisturbed. Ahmose had disappeared, probably into the marshes to indulge his sorrow alone. Many of the servants who bowed to Si-Amun as he passed were in tears.
He himself wanted nothing more than to shut himself away, to husband whatever energy was left him, but he forced himself to enquire after Tetisheri. Fortunately his grandmother’s steward was nowhere to be seen. Isis answered his knock and told him that Tetisheri was resting and did not wish to be disturbed. Incense drifted into the passage through the open door and Si-Amun thought he heard the low chanting of Tetisheri’s priest.
He went away with relief and sought Kamose, who had ordered his litter to be placed by the pond in the garden. Si-Amun sank gratefully into the grass beside him. “There is such peace here,” Kamose said as Si-Amun folded his long legs. “Next to the desert, this place has the power to heal and bring all into a proper perspective.” When Si-Amun did not comment, he went on, “Are they all right? How is Tani?”
“I handed her over to Heket. She is taking it very hard.”
“She is carrying a double load.” Kamose stirred and winced, fingering the bandage under his arm. “She needs Ramose more than she needs any of us. Tell me, Si
-Amun, what do you intend to do?”
Si-Amun was startled. “About what?”
Kamose grunted. “You are Father’s heir. You must make the decisions now.”
“You sound so pompous!” Si-Amun flared and Kamose apologized hastily.
“I am sorry, brother. But something must be done about Mersu. If he suspects that we know what he has done, he will simply disappear, and soon.”
Si-Amun nodded unwillingly. “I know. I intend to have him arrested before sunset. But we are in mourning, Kamose. He can be tried but not executed until Father goes to his tomb. It would be simpler to put a knife through his throat in the dark.”
Kamose’s head rolled towards his brother. “Simpler but against every law of Ma’at,” he answered. “Whether we like it or not, Mersu must be properly tried before us, the mayor of Weset, and Uni as the estate’s Chief Steward. How Apepa must be laughing at us! “
I knew as much, Si-Amun thought, watching the play of moving shadow across Kamose’s naked legs splayed on the litter, but it was worth a small probing. Kamose might have agreed to have Mersu quietly put away if he thought a trial too humiliating and painful for us all.
The Hippopotamus Marsh Page 21