The Hippopotamus Marsh (18 page)

Once she had sent for a spray of persea blossom, pleased with herself for believing he had asked for flowers, but he had grabbed the branch and flung it across the room, showering her and the floor and the couch with pink petals. She had risen and begun to brush them away from him but he had slapped her arm, then gripped it. His right eye and the half-closed left one blazed sheer rage at her, but at her shocked glance the rage had faded and he had begun to weep without sound. His hand had crept to her shoulder, pulling her against his chest, and at last she too had broken down and cried, her face buried in persea blooms.

His children had finally been allowed to see him. Kamose, after kissing him, had said nothing, only stood and stared at him expressionlessly. Ahmose had been all jokes and smiles. Aahotep knew that Seqenenra had noted Aahmes-nefertari’s new slimness and the fact that she was wearing blue, the colour of mourning. She cursed herself for
her carelessness but Seqenenra managed a slow, laborious nod at his daughter and Aahotep knew that he had absorbed this news calmly. He beckoned Aahmes-nefertari, placed a hand on her stomach, tugged at her blue sheath, then indicated his own wound decorously hidden under the white scarf. They were both suffering, he was saying. They grieved together for all of it.

Tani surprised her mother. She began to come to her father every morning when he was strongest, taking a stool beside him and prattling on about the small incidents that made up her life. Teti and Ramose had sent good wishes for his recovery. Ramose had assured her of his love and support and would come to visit as soon as the river regained its banks and his sailors could struggle upstream. The hippopotamuses were enjoying the deeper water, and one of them had actually given birth. Tani described the new baby with such enthusiasm and vividness that she drew a twisted smile from her father. She also read to him from scrolls she had borrowed from the small library, retelling the stories he had known and loved as a child and had read to her when she was small. Aahotep saw a maturing taking place in the girl. Tani was becoming a strong and selfless young woman.

Through the months of Paophi and Athyr the river continued to rise and then spill over onto the parched land, softening it, flowing with cool fingers into the cracks, loosening and revivifying the dead earth. Small pools in the fields joined, became lakes reflecting blue sky and the march of palms whose drowned roots sucked once more at life. The air became limpid, the breezes did not cut with the fiery knife of Ra, and Khoiak was a month to sit on a roof
for hours and contemplate the still, peaceful expanse of submerged fields.

With the slow sinking of the river during Tybi, Seqenenra’s strength grew. The physician allowed him to be carried out into the garden and placed on a camp cot under the trees where he could lie and watch the branches, heavy with leaf buds, move against the sky. The garden was full of heady delights at that time of the year. The smell of wet soil mingled with the odours of freshly opened lotus flowers on the pool and the shoots in the vegetable plots. Behek was brought, an inspiration of Ahmose’s, and when Seqenenra was lying by the pool, the dog would lie beside him, muzzle resting on his paws or against the Prince’s hand, his nose twitching.

Soon Seqenenra was sitting upright against many pillows. Tani piled flowers on his lap and danced for him the steps she was learning in order to take her turn as a priestess of Amun in a few months. But Seqenenra grew restless. At last he was able to take a scribe’s brush in his hand, and while Aahotep held the piece of potsherd, scrawled “Kamose. Hor-Aha.”

Aahotep exclaimed, “Oh not yet, Seqenenra! I do not think you are strong enough yet. Wait a few days more.” He growled, his signal that he was impatient.

“Now,” he said. Aahotep rolled her eyes. “Oh, very well. Uni! Fetch Kamose and General Hor-Aha. You need not wave at me like that, Seqenenra. I am going into the house.” She kissed him swiftly and swayed towards the shady portico.

Seqenenra kept his eyes on her until the shadow claimed her. He heard her speak sharply to someone, heard her sandals slapping in the hall beyond. The garden was
riotous with birdsong, and close by a bee was hovering over a white, waxy bloom. Behek was snorting and running in his sleep and Seqenenra longed to wake him up, imagining that he bent down, rubbed the rough stomach, said “Come on Behek! They are only the devils of nightmare!” but he could not move.

His head ached today. It ached most days with a constant, dull throb. Sometimes it itched, but the physician had warned him not to touch the wound, even through the linen that was changed every day. He did not remember the blow, did not remember going into the old palace, did not even remember the things he had said and done the day before he was attacked. Perhaps it was a merciful forgetting. His life before the blow and his life now were entirely separate. He did not know why he had not been allowed to die there on the roof of the women’s quarters. He did not think it was Amun who had spared him. It was Set, cruel wolfish Set who had intervened in a mood of cunning and revenge so that he, Seqenenra, might be punished for his sacrilege.

No. Seqenenra leaned forward to where his left leg was slipping from the cot, and struggled to lift it. Set would never commit an act of such horror on an Egyptian unless someone had deliberately insulted him deeply. Surely his pride revolted against the slow coupling of himself with the Setiu Sutekh. No, Seqenenra thought. Amun has spared me so that I might finish what I began. They tell me that they cannot find my attacker. I am not surprised. The arm of Apepa is longer than I imagined, and it struck, and was withdrawn. I have been warned, and if I lie quiet now, lick my wounds and behave myself, nothing more will happen.
Must I admit to myself that I have failed, and not only failed but been defeated?

At the image of the King gloating self-righteously in Het-Uart he groaned, and his body servant, standing patiently beside him, began to flick him with the whisk. It is not the flies! Seqenenra wanted to snap at him, but could not face the effort of making himself understood. My body has become a living tomb, he cried out silently, pushing away the panic that always waited to engulf him in such moments. My thoughts can no longer reach my tongue or my limbs. The way has been sealed against them. I look at Aahotep, at her anxious eyes, at the loneliness behind her forced cheerfulness, and I want to fold her in my arms and protect her, but those days are gone. Do not dwell on them. Do not see yourself balanced in the chariot, arrow to bow, with a lion bounding ahead of you across the desert. Try not to feel the glorious tensing of muscles and the rippling caress of water against your chin and shoulders as you strike out farther into the river.

And do not think, oh, never again think of Aahotep lifting the sleeping robe, letting it slide down her arms, her thighs, stepping towards you with eyelids swollen and a lazy smile. Sweat was trickling down his temples. He shook his head vigorously at the servant, then cried out in pain. The man laid aside the whisk, and taking up a cloth, wiped his face. Gods, Seqenenra thought, must I suffer these indignities for the rest of my life?

Voices reached him. Kamose, Hor-Aha and Si-Amun came round the corner of the house, Kamose and Hor-Aha keeping stride with each other, Si-Amun a little behind. His oldest son had been often at his bedside, particularly at
night. Seqenenra would wake to see him sitting, an indistinct shape in the faint glow of the night light, chin sunk in his hands and elbows on his knees, his face turned towards the bed. If Seqenenra stirred, Si-Amun would rise and bend over him, lift him gently to shake the pillow, call Uni if he was able to make it clear that he wished to relieve himself, yet he seldom addressed his father directly, though his hands betrayed his concern. His presence there in the night sometimes made Seqenenra uneasy, he did not know why. Perhaps, he reflected, watching them come, it was just the nightmares. My dreams were terrible.

They skirted the pool, came in under the shade, and bowed to him. He waved them down into the grass. Kamose and Hor-Aha sat close together, but Si-Amun took a place on the other side of the cot where, Seqenenra thought with a flash of irritation, I will have to turn my head to see him. He put away the spurt of an invalid’s querulousness. “I am well enough now to hear the state of the army,” he said slowly and carefully, forcing his distorted lips into exaggerated movements. At the sound of his voice Behek woke, sat up, and licked his arm before sinking into the grass once more. “Tell me how it fares.” Kamose and Hor-Aha were watching his mouth intently. There was a puzzled silence. Then Kamose put a hand on Seqenenra’s ankle.

“I am sorry, Father, but we cannot understand you. Shall I send for Mother?” Rage flowed over Seqenenra, followed by a feeling of helplessness that he abruptly refused. Struggling into a sitting position he signalled to Ipi, squatting motionless just out of earshot. The scribe came, laying his palette across Seqenenra’s legs and holding it steady. Seqenenra took a brush with his right hand, dipping it in
the ink and writing “how is army” before tossing the piece of pottery to Kamose.

“You wish to know about the army,” Kamose said. “We are still feeding it at great expense, Father, and Hor-Aha is still training it. Si-Amun and Uni have already begun to assess this year’s planting with regard to its continued support.”

“Things do not look good,” Si-Amun broke in, and Seqenenra rolled his head in order to see him. “The flood was bountiful and the planting has begun, but as you know we had to open the family’s personal treasury to help support the soldiers last year in spite of the wonderful harvest. Must we continue to impoverish ourselves in this way?” Seqenenra took up the brush again and Ipi set another piece of potsherd before him. “Their health, readiness, prowess,” he wrote, all at once tired and wanting to sleep. He lay back, pulled his left arm onto his stomach, and cradled it. Ipi handed the piece to Kamose who glanced at it and passed it to Hor-Aha.

“The health of the soldiers is good, providing the officers keep them working hard,” Hor-Aha responded, his dark face upturned thoughtfully, his long black braids stirring on his naked chest. “But, Prince, it seems wasteful to have them on battle alert continually. They are drilled every day and more and more of them are becoming proficient with the bows the craftsmen are turning out, but they grumble and often fight among themselves. They want to go home if there is to be no war.” Seqenenra considered, watching a scarlet butterfly hover over Behek’s oblivious head before fluttering erratically in the direction of the blue lotus blooms resting on the limpid surface of the pool.

“Disband them, Father.” The voice was Si-Amun’s. He had risen and was standing over Seqenenra, his shadow deepening the shade in which Seqenenra lay. “Your dream of rebellion has come to nothing. The gods considered, and moved against you. They are content with Apepa, and if you take your plans to the limit, their retribution will be final. I am afraid of a curse falling on us all, I am afraid of Apepa’s loss of patience. Besides,” he cast a glance at his brother and Hor-Aha, “we cannot afford a standing army. We never really could. Every day that goes by drains our emergency stores. I, for one, would be relieved to see Weset return to its state of peaceful somnolence.” Kamose laughed with amusement.

“I never thought to hear you of all people plead for a peaceful life!” he joked. “Yet there is truth in what you say. Amunmose should be consulted as to the will of the gods for us.”

“He only knows the will of Amun,” Seqenenra put in, “and I believe his will to be clearly against a letting-go.” At their polite, expectant expressions he cursed inwardly, grabbed another piece of potsherd from Ipi’s dwindling supply, and applied the brush furiously, feeling his face redden with exertion and frustration. “Send them home for own sowing,” he wrote. “Bring back end of Pharmuti.” He flung the message at Si-Amun.

“No,” the young man said, passing it to Kamose. “No, Father, please.” He sank beside the cot, kneeling in the warm grass, his hands rising to grip Seqenenra’s arm. Seqenenra turned to him with difficulty. He was frowning, his lips pursed, his eyes troubled. “We have braved loss of wealth, the King’s anger, the disapproval of the
gods,” Si-Amun went on passionately. “You have been grievously wounded, perhaps for ever. I have lost a son. All this to pursue the righting of what you see as a wrong.” He glanced at his twin and away again. Kamose was staring at him without expression. Hor-Aha’s gaze had gone to his smooth, folded knees. “Fate has answered your dream with the sternest suffering. Turn back and do not fight it any more. Please!”

Kamose broke in. “It was more than that, Si-Amun,” he said. “The letters, the knowing that we were, we are, being driven. That has not changed.”

They all turned to Seqenenra. Suddenly he was too tired to pick up the scribe’s brush. Gathering his energy, he said, “No. We … go … on.” This time they understood. Kamose came to his feet, Hor-Aha after him.

“I am sorry, but I will of course obey,” Kamose said. “I will send the conscripts and the men of Wawat home, and the officers can round them up again at the end of the planting season. It may be that the King, seeing us send the soldiers home, will be mollified and cease to suspect us.” He smiled across at his brother, and Seqenenra, lying under them, watched Si-Amun try to answer Kamose’s gesture of optimism. For a moment they were still, their identical profiles etched against the softly moving leaves of the sycamore and the densely brilliant sky beyond like two figures from a painting on some palace wall. Then Si-Amun said curtly, “Father’s assassin was not caught. We do not know who did this terrible thing, but if we have been warned and do not heed the warning he may try again. I for one do not want Father’s blood on my conscience!” He spoke with such fervour
that Seqenenra was surprised, and the uneasiness of the nights returned.

“But Father has made the decision, not us,” Kamose objected. “We are not responsible for his death in any case, because he will stay here and you or I will command in the field, Si-Amun. Supposing we have been warned by Apepa. How does that change anything? He is determined to destroy us whether or not we choose war.”