With gritted teeth Kamose went to the floor, rose, and backed out of the room. I should have known that there would be a watchdog, he said to himself furiously as the door was closed firmly in his face. Apepa is right. I am a poor fool wandering in dreams, but they are not yet nightmares. Not yet.
As he strode angrily down the passage he almost collided with Uni. The steward had his arms full of starched linen and a servant trotted behind him. He bowed and Kamose grasped his arm, looking round. The guard was a discreet few paces behind. “Send a runner into Wawat,” he whispered into Uni’s ear. “Bring Hor-Aha and the other officers back. The King leaves tomorrow.” Uni nodded and stepped aside. Kamose went on down the passage.
In the garden the courtiers were gathering, freshly bathed, waiting for the evening feast to begin. Kamose glanced over their heads to the sky. Ra was rimming the horizon, his red sphere flattened and elongated as Nut slowly bit into him. His blood drenched the grass and splashed in long streamers against the walls of the house. The chattering, drifting people glowed in the warm bronze light. Kamose made his way towards the spot where two tents trembled in the evening breeze, scarcely aware of the way the crowd swayed and parted to let him through. He called softly outside Tani’s tent and was answered. The guard standing by the opening nodded curtly. He went in.
Tani was sitting hunched on cushions, the playing pieces of a board game scattered on the mat beside her. Several sheaths had been spread across the cot on which she slept. A flagon and cup sat on top of her tiring chest, together with two lamps waiting to be lit. She looked up when he entered. Kamose lowered himself beside her. As he did so, a great gust of laughter rose from the courtiers outside.
“Listen to them!” Tani said disdainfully. “The only worry they have is whether the goose will be roasted correctly tonight and the melons stuffed with enough sweetmeats. How Egypt ever gets governed by that crowd is beyond me!”
“Why are you alone, Tani?” Kamose asked gently. “You should not have been left by yourself.”
“They were all here,” she answered woodenly. “Grandmother talking of revenge, Mother with her arms around me, Ahmose clucking over Aahmes-nefertari who was swearing to hide her panic and vowing she would rather die than marry some filthy commoner. I sent them away.” Kamose looked at her in surprise. She was still deathly pale, but there was no sign of the hysteria that had threatened to erupt in the reception hall.
“Sent them away?”
“Yes. There is no point in wailing and cursing, is there, Kamose? Better to accept our fate, my fate.” She smiled at him, the curve of her lips carrying a cynicism he had never seen in her before. The sight shocked him. “I have always loved the old oath we use so freely,” she went on. “‘As I love life and hate death.’ Everyone says it. It has almost lost any meaning. We are indeed a people who love life and hate death, more passionately than the Setiu could ever understand. I have been pondering the words, Kamose. I love life. Love life. As long as I am alive, I may hope that the gods will send me a kinder fate. Is it not so?” He nodded gravely, overwhelmed by her calmness.
“It is so.”
“But what he said about Ramose …” She bent forward over the hands folded in her lap. “Ramose told me that he would refuse to consider any women his father put forward, that he would wait and see what the future brought. He need not wait any longer, need he?” Kamose felt her agony but admired her ruthless clear sightedness.
“No, Tani, he need not wait. Word of the King’s judgement will reach Khemennu very soon. But I think he will wait.” She give him a tight smile.
“So do I.”
There was a small silence, then Kamose reached over and, taking both her hands in his, he began to chafe them gently. When he spoke, he lowered his voice. The shadow of the patient guard lay against the sloping side of the tent. The happy noise in the garden was growing but Kamose did not want to take a foolish risk. “Tani, I want you to understand something,” he said quietly. “You are not going north simply because the King has taken a fancy to you. You are going as a hostage to ensure that the rest of us make no more trouble.” She did not look surprised. She merely raised her eyebrows wearily.
“I suspected it,” she replied. “If I were Apepa I would do the same thing.” Her gaze became alert and she withdrew her fingers from her brother’s grasp. “Is he being unduly cautious, Kamose?” Kamose sat back, pulling his feet further under him. He looked at her directly.
“No, he is not,” he answered frankly. “I cannot allow us to be broken and vanish into oblivion without one more attempt.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m waiting for Hor-Aha to come back. We have four months’ grace, Tani, a gift from Amun, and I cannot waste them in learning to accept my fate.” He cupped her face, feeling her olive skin so cool, so smooth. Her eyelashes fluttered against his thumbs. “But you will be the one to suffer,” he went on. “As a hostage, the King’s anger will fall on you if Ahmose and I stir up another small rebellion. And it will be small.” His hands fell to her delicate shoulders. “I am under no illusions about that. If you tell me so, Tani, I will wait here quietly for my escort to Sile and do nothing. It is your life I would be placing in jeopardy, and I will not do so without your permission.” Her fingers curled around his wrists but she was not looking at him. She was frowning into the gathering dimness of the tent.
“Do you think that Apepa is capable of executing me in reprisal?” she asked at length. Kamose sighed.
“I do not know. Under his arrogance he is insecure and insecure men are unpredictable, but he is also unnaturally sensitive to the opinions of his subjects.”
“So there is a chance that he would hesitate, that he might fear the disapproval of the nobles?”
“I think so.” Her hands slid along his arms in an almost voluptuous gesture and she kissed him tremulously before pushing him away.
“Then hazard the throw, dear brother. I would rather think of you as dead when I sit in the palace of Het-Uart than living the life of a common soldier, being hungry and thirsty, sleeping wherever you can, surrounded by strangers, trying to hold onto the memory of our faces as the years go by …” Her voice failed her.
“I think of you, all of you, in the same way,” Kamose replied harshly. “Ahmose beaten and burned by the Kush sun, Grandmother weakening as she is forced to make bread or weave, Aahmes-nefertari and her little son reduced to the life of a merchant’s family and Mother humbled to the station of a mere servant or at best an unwanted companion to her relatives, barely tolerated in her own home. We could do it, Tani, all of us. But the thought of the memories fading, the daily adjustments becoming easier until we begin to take on the colour of our surroundings, the forgetting, the accepting … No. Such an end is not for us. Death is preferable.” She had recovered a little.
“When is the King leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning. You must be brave, Tani. Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said with a touching grimness. “I am sure. Make another war, Kamose. Perhaps the King will grow genuinely fond of me and be reluctant to see me dead. Perhaps you will win.” Kamose thought that in spite of her protestations of desire to go on living, she found the prospect bleak and hardly bearable without Ramose, and his plans meant little to her. She has already suffered as much as any of us, perhaps more, he mused with resignation. Her fate now is not just. “It is my last night with you all,” she was saying. “I want us to eat together here in my tent. Let the northerners have the reception hall. A tent is more suitable for the children of the desert anyway.” He got up awkwardly.
“I will arrange it,” he promised. “And, Tani, do not mention my plans to the others. You are the only one so far who knows.” She nodded and fell to playing with the scattered pieces from the Dogs and Jackals game. He pushed out of the tent into the gathering twilight.
Kamose did not seek permission to eat separately. He merely told Nehmen what the family would do and the ste
ward, after a moment’s hesitation, agreed. Uni was requested to supply food and servants, and an hour after sunset a small parade crossed from the kitchens to Tani’s tent bearing food and wine. The garden was now empty. Sounds of revelry from the hall came in gusts through the open tent flap as Uni and Isis, Hetepet, Heket and other family retainers filled the tent with spicy aromas, trimmed lamps, and bent to serve their masters. Outside, their harpist sat on the grass and played softly.
Tani had asked that Behek be allowed to join them. He lay beside her panting noisily and accepting the scraps she passed to him. Occasionally she threw her arms around him, hugging his grey, massive body. She took no part in the sporadic conversation going on around her, merely listening and smiling, but Kamose knew that she was storing up every detail to be examined later on the long trek north. A burst of strident music reached him from the hall, momentarily eclipsing the gentler tones of the harp. Tetisheri gave an order and the remains of the meal were removed. Kamose bade the servants go to their own quarters and the family settled back on the cushions.
For a long while nothing was said. Tani gazed into a lamp’s mesmerizing glow, one arm slung across Behek’s sleeping back. Ahmose drank without relish, his legs splayed out before him. Aahmes-nefertari sat close to her mother, toying with the ornaments on her belt. Suddenly she looked around at them all. “This is goodbye to Tani,” she said loudly. “The rest of us must linger on here a little longer. It is unbearable. Unbearable! Father began it all. It is his fault. He is dead, he is at peace, while we must suffer the consequences of his foolishness. I am so angry!” No one reprimanded her. She finished speaking, but her bitter voice still coiled about them.
“You forget what Father faced,” Tani said mildly. “You forget how Apepa trapped him, baited him until he had no other choice. Be angry, Aahmes-nefertari, but not with him.” Behek stirred at the sound of her voice but did not waken. His ears twitched.
“What is to become of my son?” Aahmes-nefertari said urgently. “What man already smarting from the King’s order to marry me will want a dead and disgraced noble’s son for his own? Ahmose-onkh is an innocent child. He does not deserve this.”
“It depends how you look at it,” Ahmose said reasonably. “From one point of view we are all traitors and we have been let off lightly. I can see that.”
“So can I,” Kamose agreed. “Recriminations are vain. Perhaps we are not within the true Ma’at after all and have been deluding ourselves.” With one accord they looked at him suspiciously. He spoke brightly, with a smile. “We must not waste the night digging over such old and acrid soil,” he went on. “We will be joyful. We will drink and laugh, we will share our memories, hold one another. Aahmes-nefertari, the gods expect that Princes as well as peasants will do good and behave with an honest courage. Let us not fail them.” Tetisheri grunted.
“You sound like your father,” she said caustically. “Too much pride, too much by half.”
Such a comment coming from the proudest Tao of them all cut the tension. They burst out laughing. Tetisheri, after an affronted stare, managed a small chuckle.
The evening became night. The wine passed from hand to hand, the reminiscences and ancient family jokes from mouth to mouth. Our cohesiveness cannot really be assailed by separation, Kamose reflected, watching Tani giggle at something Ahmose had said. It is a matter of the soul. We are all mourning under these gales of mirth, all frightened and lonely, all longing for what used to be, but we know that we are simply pieces of a larger body that will endure and that cannot be dissolved by exile or death.
Much later as they clung half-drunk to each other with nothing left to say, Kamose knew he was right. Seqenenra and Si-Amun were with them also, perhaps hovering unseen in the tent but certainly pouring warm through their veins and being renewed in the red darkness of their hearts where Osiris Mentuhotep-neb-hapet-Ra and the other ancestors also lingered. It was a slim comfort but it was all they had.
After much hugging and tearful kisses they slipped away. Ahmose headed for the river for his customary walk along the bank. Aahmes-nefertari wanted to hold her son. Aahotep would spend the night with Tani. Tetisheri and Kamose walked through the scented darkness towards her quarters, the ever-present guards, sleepy and bored, pacing behind them. “I cannot believe that you are letting her go without a fight, without remonstrance, without a public objection,” Tetisheri accused Kamose. “It is almost as though you want to see her taken away! And what of Aahmes-nefertari? Marry her quickly, Kamose, so that at least her fate may be kinder. What is the matter with you?” Kamose fought down his rage.
“I did make a public objection, Grandmother, remember?”
“Yes, but hardly a forceful one!” she hissed back. “Stall him, speak to him of a dowry, anything …”
Kamose rounded on her, and thrusting his face close he hissed back, “Are you entirely mad? I will tell you once, Tetisheri, and then not again. I need time. Tani must go north, the reparation must be paid, we must be docile and accepting. Apepa must be lulled into thinking that we at last will lie quiet. I need time!”
“She is sacrificed?”
“If you care to put it like that—yes. She knows.” His grandmother paused. He could sense her thinking furiously in the darkness though he could barely see her face.
“When we take Het-Uart, we can get her back,” she whispered. “What of General Dudu?”
Kamose suppressed a burst of wild laughter. Take Het-Uart? Get Tani back? It was fruitless to be angry with Tetisheri, to reproach her, to scorn her grand schemes. She was who she was.
“Dudu is my first order of business once the King has left,” he replied, resuming his walk. “You realize it is all hopeless anyway?”
“What I think is not important,” she answered more loudly. “What any of us thinks does not matter. It is what we do and what we say. We must always behave as though certain things were going to happen. Good night, Kamose.”
“Good night, Grandmother.” She is a little mad, he thought as he plunged into the torchlit silence of the sleeping house. I envy her.
Ahmose came to bed an hour later. “There is much activity beyond the walls,” he told a drowsy Kamose. “Tents are already being struck and the donkeys loaded. The King wants an early start.”
“Good,” Kamose murmured before turning over. “I can have my rooms back if they are not too full of the stink of Setiu incense.”
Two hours after dawn the family gathered at the rear of the house to watch Tani leave. Heket had volunteered to go with her and now busied herself in pulling the warm cloak higher on her mistress’s shoulders and making sure there were enough cushions in the litter already waiting on the sand, the bearers standing silently beside it. General Pezedkhu himself had been detailed to guard Tani’s progress and he watched the family embrace her once more, his soldiers shuffling into rank around him. The plain beyond them was a churned mess where the majority of the courtiers’ tents had been pitched. Dead flowers, cracked jars, a broken tent pole, a few scraps of coloured linen that flapped forlornly in the faint breeze of morning, flowed right up to the edge of the training ground. The barracks were devoid of life.
The caravan stretched out towards the north. Donkeys stood patiently with heads lowered. Dogs ran between their hoofs and sniffed at the already shrouded litters. Soldiers and servants checked their gear and exchanged short comments. There was no sign of the King or his immediate entourage. No one had taken leave of the family or thanked them formally for their hospitality. Now that the sentence had been passed they were already forgotten.
Pezedkhu motioned and Tani’s bearers straightened and prepared to lift the litter. One by one, her relatives held her, kissing the cold lips and smiling with a feigned encouragement into the dull eyes, giving her the age-old farewell, “May the soles of your feet be firm.” Her goods had been hurriedly packed onto the donkeys but each person thrust gifts into her hands before she finally turned and clambered among the cushions of the litter. Heket made as if
to join her, but Pezedkhu barred her way. “Not you,” he said roughly. “You walk.” Tani leaned out.
“She rides in here with me,” she said emphatically, “or I shall scream and make such a fuss that you will have to chain me to the litter.” Tight-lipped, the General stood back, and Heket scrambled up beside Tani. The bearers stooped, the conveyance was raised, and the soldiers ran to push a place for it in the already moving cavalcade. Tani’s hand appeared, twitching the curtains closed, and the last they saw of her was a pale, grim little face and the early sun winking on her rings.
“Pray, Tani!” Ahmose shouted after her. “Pray to Amun every day for our deliverance!” The rest of them were silent. Dust already billowed from the hoofs of the animals and the feet of the walkers, causing Aahotep to lift her cloak over her nose. Tani had disappeared into the murk.
The Hippopotamus Marsh Page 30