He collapsed onto the couch and sat breathing heavily, looking at his hands. Blood encrusted them, and had splashed him to the elbow. His chest was smeared with it and his kilt mired. Mersu lay curled before him, staring sightlessly at his feet. Si-Amun waited for his heart to stop pounding, forcing himself to be aware only of the happening of each second. As it gradually settled he found himself pitying it, and smiled at the idiocy.
The alabaster jar stood where he had placed it an eternity ago. Getting up, he went to it and carried it back to the couch. Kamose will be a better governor than I ever could, he thought as he wrestled with the seal. He cares little for appearances and much for the welfare of the nomes, while I could only ever think of the glories of Het-Uart and a place beside the King. Curse him! Kamose will marry Aahmes-nefertari, that is the way of Ma’at for us, and he will adopt my son. He squeezed his eyes shut against the vision of his wife with the baby beside her, both naked and drowsy in the heat of the afternoon. Then he looked curiously into the jar. A small amount of dark liquid quivered under his gaze. He sniffed it cautiously. It had no odour. Carefully, so that none spilled on his hand, he lifted it and drank, grimacing as he did so, for it tasted rank and bitter.
Immediately his throat began to burn. Sweat broke out all over his body. With teeth clenched against the fire spreading through his stomach, he replaced the stopper and put the jar on Mersu’s table, then found he could not straighten. He wrapped his arms around himself, rocking and groaning, soon unable to stifle his shrieks as the pain engulfed him. He could not think, but his last emotion was one of an overwhelming loneliness.
Kamose was dreaming. The dream had recurred so many times that even in his sleep he was conscious of a sense of well-being and anticipation. In its opening scene he could be anywhere on the estate—in his quarters, in the garden, by the river, even in the reception hall, but wherever he was, the same sense of pleasurable expectation would steal over him. On this night he dreamed that he was sitting in the garden. It was dusk. Ra had just disappeared into the mouth of Nut and the pool reflected a calm, heavy red sky. Evening was beginning to render the lawn, the flower beds, the shrubs and clustering trees indistinct, and in the house a few lights had begun to shine out. With the irrationality of dreams Kamose found that he could still see quite well. He was on a mat on the verge of the pool, one hand trailing in the warm water. Lotus pads nudged his fingers and their blooms sent out a heady fragrance.
For a while, in the dream, he was content to savour the evening, but then his senses grew alert and the familiar excitement prickled over his scalp and stilled his fingers. He was facing the path that ran through the grape arbour to the watersteps. He knew it was winter, for the lushness of the growth all around him spoke of an Inundation not long over, yet grapes hung heavy and black from the vines, their clusters dusty and ripe. She is coming, he thought in the dream, his stomach tightening. She is coming. Sometimes she would be walking slowly away from him and he would run to try and catch her. Sometimes she would appear suddenly, always facing away from him, and he would scramble to confront her before the dream faded, but he was always too late. For many months the dream had been wrapping him in its delicious languor but he had never seen more than her back.
Now he looked towards the arbour where the path veered in under the darkness of the vine-hung trellis and yes she was there, standing with one hand raised, about to pluck a grape. Under the transparent white sheath that hung about her ankles her brown body flowed inward to a tight waist and then curved in the gentle slope of two rounded hips. She was tall. Between her shoulder blades the golden counterpoise of a pectoral hung suspended on a silver chain against her satin skin. She held her head erect. Her hair was thick, black and straight, with the sheen of a crow’s feathers in sunlight, and Kamose could see the gold band hung with tiny ankhs that encircled her forehead. Rising above it, just visible, was the back of a cobra. Armbands of electrum set with lapis lazuli gripped her soft upper arms, and the long fingers she held out towards the grapes were heavy with rings.
Kamose felt faint with desire and something more, for this dream did not have the quality of the tiring and lustful dreams of youth. This unknown woman was the sum of all his longing. She took a grape between thumb and forefinger, turning slightly as she did so, and Kamose held his breath. Slowly, quietly, he came to his feet and began to creep towards her. The vine swayed as she pulled the grape free and bore it to her mouth. Kamose caught a tantalizing glimpse of her cheek as she did so. He moved carefully, not daring to make a sound. In dreams past he had called to her, stumbled after her, shouting, but at any sound from him she had melted away. So now he resorted to stealth. Her hand had fallen to her side. Kamose saw the silver-shot linen stirring at her touch. With lips parted in concentration, fists clenched, he eased closer. He was almost there. She stood very still as if listening. Now he could smell her perfume. The aura of myrrh around her made him dizzy with delight. He had never been able to get so near to her before. His heart was racing madly as he stopped. His hand went out reaching for her shoulder and for one delirious second his fingers touched her. She was cool and his touch slid over skin like soft oils.
But he felt his wrist gripped and he was no longer in the garden. He was on his back, on his couch in the dimness of a stifling summer night, and someone was bending over him. Aching with loss and full of confusion, he struggled to sit up. “Kamose!” a voice hissed in his ear. “Oh please wake up! I am worried.” He came to a sitting position, trembling. His neck rest had tumbled to the floor and he had been sleeping with his head on the naked mattress. He rubbed his shoulders.
“Tani!” he said in surprise, still struggling to retain the dream, still liquid with his loss. “Whatever is the matter?” She sank down by his knees.
“It’s Si-Amun,” she blurted. “I couldn’t sleep tonight and I was wandering about the house. I met him in the passage close to Mersu’s cell. He had a knife and a jar in his hands. He admitted that he was going to kill Mersu and I agreed that his reasons were good ones. But the jar …” She clutched at him again in her distress. “I’m frightened, Kamose. He seemed so detached, so cool, but his eyes were strange. It didn’t strike me until a little later. What was in the jar?” Kamose put a soothing hand on her head and swung his legs over the edge of the couch.
“Don’t worry,” he said, though unease was filling him too. “He should not have taken the law into his own hands, even though Mersu deserved to die. It is not easy to kill a man, Tani, not even in the heat of battle. No wonder if Si-Amun looked strange. Wait outside. I will wrap on a kilt and we will find him.”
“Thank you, Kamose. You are a very comforting person.” She left the couch and hurried to the door. Kamose stood up and pulled a kilt from the chest by the wall. Comforting, am I? he thought. Oh Tani, you should see me in my dreams! Si-Amun, I wish you had not lost your head over this business with Mersu. A proper trial and execution would have been more in keeping with Ma’at. Grandmother will have sharp words for you. He joined Tani in the passage.
Night still hung thick in the house and the torches fixed on the walls were guttering. The two of them set off for Si-Amun’s quarters, not far from Kamose’s own. Tani’s hand slipped into his. On the way they passed Ahmose’s door. Ahmose’s guard acknowledged them and they were about to walk on when the door opened and Ahmose’s bleary face appeared. “What is going on?” he said. “I heard the guard salute someone a while ago, and now you two.”
“It must have been Si-Amun,” Tani exclaimed. “Did he come back?” she asked the soldier.
“No, Princess,” he answered. “He spoke to me briefly and went on. I have not seen him since.”
“Well, we will look in his rooms anyway,” Kamose decided. “Come with us, Ahmose.” He did not understand the formless anxiety tugging at him. Ahmose was clutching a sheet. He wound it around his waist.
“Si-Amun has killed Mersu?” he said as they rushed on. “How very odd! He is such a stickler for the right way of
doing things. I can hardly believe it!” So he is, Kamose thought with a jolt. Si-Amun, lover of protocol and defender of the rules by which Princes live.
Presently they came to Si-Amun’s door. It was closed. Kamose greeted the guard. “Is my brother within?” he enquired. The man shook his head.
“No, Prince, he is not. He went out about an hour ago. He told me to give you this when my watch was over.” Kamose took the scroll. The anxiety that had been growing in him was now a silent shriek of haste. He wanted to run to Si-Amun wherever he was, but did not know why. The message was not sealed. Kamose unrolled it, and holding it under the light of a torch he quickly read. With a cry he read it again. Then he thrust Tani at the soldier.
“Stay here!” he ordered. “You are not to move, do you understand? Wait for me. Look after her,” he flung back over his shoulder at the guard as he ran down the passage. “Ahmose! Come!”
“What is in the scroll?” Ahmose panted behind him. “This is insane!”
“Yes, it is,” Kamose spat back at him grimly. “Our spy was Mersu but Si-Amun had been passing information to him all the time. He intends to kill Mersu and then himself. Hurry!”
“Gods!” Ahmose managed. They spun towards the women’s quarters. Before long they were tumbling to a halt outside Mersu’s cell. The guard, pale and visibly relieved to see them, saluted shakily.
“Oh, Prince Kamose, I am so glad to see you! Prince Si-Amun is inside. He ordered me not to enter the room no matter what and I cannot disobey him, but something terrible has happened in there and he has not come out.”
“You fool!” Kamose snapped. “A good soldier must sometimes use his own judgement! Unlock the door and go in.”
The man fumbled with the door and pushed it open. Laying down his spear, he drew his knife and went cautiously inside, Kamose and Ahmose after him. The light was very dim. The lamp by the cot was already sputtering, exhausted of oil, and cast gyrating shadows around the small room. Kamose almost tripped over the body of Mersu. Swiftly he knelt, his practised eye seeing past the welter of blood, now almost dry and darkening to a murky brown, to the death wound under the ear. He pulled the corpse onto its back. Mersu’s abdomen was a torn mess.
Ahmose had sprung past him to the body sprawled across the cot. He stopped as if struck by a spell. “Kamose!” he whispered in a strangled voice. His brother came to his feet slowly, feeling the weight of grim certainty make his movements clumsy. He forced himself to step past Mersu and raise his eyes to the burden on the cot. Si-Amun’s face was contorted with his last agony. His lips were rimmed in a black froth. Such pain and resignation were expressed in the rigid features that Kamose knew the sight was imprinted so vividly on his consciousness that the details would never fade.
“Si-Amun!” he cried out. “Si-Amun!” He fell across the cot, and drawing Si-Amun’s still-warm body into his arms, began to sway with his cheek resting on Si-Amun’s hair. Ahmose stood watching as if stunned. Kamose was vaguely aware of his stiff figure. Though he wanted to shout to his brother to go away so that he could give full rein to his bitter regret, he forced himself to consider what must be done. “Ahmose, wake the women and bring them. Do not let them in, though. Guard, fetch help and have Mersu’s body carried to the stables for the time being. Alert the servants. I want this room washed and the linen on the cot changed immediately.” Both men left.
For a precious few minutes Kamose was alone with his twin. He was not given to easy tears, even now. He continued to cradle Si-Amun, stroking his head, his thoughts coherent and loud to him in the new silence. In better times your weakness would not have mattered, Si-Amun, he said to himself, consumed by a cold anger. If Father had been King from the beginning, if you had not cared so much about what is correct over what is right, if you could have learned to be reckless … He kissed the lifeless forehead, and as he did so he felt the germ of true hatred begin to uncurl in his soul. Rapidly it sprouted, a dark and evil sprig. You, Apepa, Kamose thought with ferocity. You are to blame. Father and now Si-Amun. The family is decimated and it is your fault. Setiu pig. Foreign disease. The epithets he flung at the King eased his grief but they were more than a comfort. They clung to the roots of this new hatred and fed it so that its grip on him became firm.
Servants came running, and in a frightened silence interspersed with Uni’s murmured commands, they mopped up the blood and spread fresh sand on the floor. Mersu’s body was taken away. Uni and Kamose lifted Si-Amun so that the sheet on the cot could be removed and a fresh one laid, then they placed him gently on the sweet-smelling linen. A bowl of hot water appeared and Kamose, glancing up, saw Tani in the act of wringing out a cloth. Tears were pouring down her cheeks. “Ahmose!” he shouted angrily. “I told you to keep the women away!” Ahmose’s face peered around the door.
“She insisted,” he said. “Grandmother is here, and Mother. Aahmes-nefertari is coming. I will wait for the word to let them in.”
“This is no sight for you,” Kamose said brusquely to Tani, but she smiled wanly at him, the dripping cloth in her hands.
“It is my fault,” she said brokenly. “I was too stupid to see what was happening when I met him in the passage. If I had argued with him. If I had run to you immediately … Let me do this, Kamose.”
“It is not your fault,” he said harshly. “Si-Amun chose this moment a long time ago.” She did not answer. He stood back and watched her wash Si-Amun’s tortured face, the crust of blood from his limp hands and motionless chest, her movements sure. He knew that he would never take Tani for granted again.
By the time Kamose allowed the other women into the room, Si-Amun lay composed, arms at his side, white linen draped across his loins. Nothing could be done, however, to disguise the pain and terror in which he died and which was reflected so graphically on his face. Aahmes-nefertari flew to him, and falling beside him, laid her head on his chest. “I did not know that he was suffering so much!” she sobbed. “He told me everything and I did nothing!” She lifted a distorted face to Kamose. “I wanted him to kill Mersu and then keep silent!” She went on crying. Aahotep simply sat on the cot and her hand found her son’s thigh. She seemed dazed. Tetisheri stalked to the cot and stood with folded arms over her sleeping robe, her grey hair dishevelled, her complexion drained. Tani, her task completed, squatted in a corner with her head on her knees.
“I have read the scroll,” Tetisheri said at last. “He did the right thing. He was weak but the blood of his ancestors won out in the end.” Kamose glanced at her. She seemed calm, but she was unconsciously pinching her arms so fiercely that they were already bruising. He was about to go to her when Aahotep jerked to her feet. Her eyes were blazing.
“Is that all you can say?” she shouted. “This is my son, your grandson! No words of love, Tetisheri, no tears for your own flesh? How can you be so cold? I would have spared him this, I would have taken his place if I thought I could put it right, and yet it was his own father he betrayed! To Set with your arrogance, your cruel adherence to an unfeeling code of conduct!” She made an effort to control her agitation. “He is not only guilty of treason,” she went on in a choked voice, “he is a suicide. How can he possibly be properly beautified and buried? What god will receive him?” Tetisheri had listened impassively. Now she went around the cot and pulled Aahotep to her feet.
“I did not say that I did not love him,” she responded harshly. “It was not necessary. This family is my life. My life! I said that he had done the right thing. I paid him the supreme compliment, my poor grandson. Weset is the only place left in Egypt where men still know what is right.” All at once her iron control wavered. Blindly her hands went out, and Aahotep embraced her.
“Kamose, you are our authority now,” Ahmose said. “Mersu deserves complete annihilation, of course, and you will order that his body be thrown into the Nile, but what of Si-Amun? Was his last act not one of brave expiation? His suicide was not a matter of a man turning away from his responsibilities or the trials of his life.”
“I know.” Kamose bent and pulled Aahmes-nefertari from Si-Amun’s corpse. “That is enough!” he said to her roughly. “You will make yourself ill. Think of your son, Aahmes-nefertari. Si-Amun would be ashamed of this outburst.” She stopped her loud sobbing and nodded against his chest. “He cannot be properly beautified,” Kamose answered Ahmose. “To allow it would be to condone all he has done. But I will not see him forfeit his soul. Let the sem-priests preserve his body whole, without the organs being removed, without the separate prayers, without ceremony. Then he will be wrapped in sheepskins and buried quickly.”
“Sheepskins?” Aahmes-nefertari croaked. “Not that, Kamose! That is disgrace! That is shame!”
“It is what he deserves and nothing more,” Kamose said, and the tone of his voice brooked no argument. “He would approve if he could, Aahmes-nefertari.” Aahotep broke in.
“You are right,” she said sadly. “It is just, Kamose.” Kamose signalled to Uni, hovering by the door
“Bring the sem-priests and give them those instructions,” he said. Uni bowed and disappeared. “Ahmose, please tell Raa and Isis to come. Mother, Grandmother, you need rest. Aahmes-nefertari, I will send the physician to you.” Gradually he saw to their needs, shepherding them out, sending a servant for the physician, until at last the sem-priests came to take Si-Amun away. He felt sick, and so tired that his limbs were unco-ordinated. There had been no time for memories, not for any of them. That would come later in the long hours of peace, when together they could learn to speak of Si-Amun without grief and exorcise the shame he had brought to the house.
He was about to leave the room that seemed to have been his prison forever when he remembered Tani. Turning, he called her, holding out a hand. She came and grasped it gratefully. “Thank you for not forgetting me,” she said. He summoned a smile.
The Hippopotamus Marsh Page 24