The Horus Road (10 page)

“Paheri and I have been fully engaged in the care and training of the eleven thousand marines here, Majesty,” he said apologetically. “I did not want to delegate the responsibility for the task your brother assigned us to anyone for whom I would be reluctant to answer. Therefore I sent Kay north.” The young man was flicking his whisk over his cup where a cloud of flies was trying unsuccessfully to settle. He put his hand over its rim and looked up with a smile.

“My men and I made the journey three times, Majesty,” he said promptly. “Twice when the Inundation was at its height. Of course my ship is sturdy and my sailors entirely reliable, so I found the Delta tributaries to be reasonably navigable. We penetrated the Delta along its eastern branch, past the remains of the fort at Nag-ta-Hert, and then tied up some way below the Setiu strongholds. I sent out small sorties. Most of the swamps and lakes that become fully flooded are in the eastern portion of the Delta and the ditches and canals from which the water drains back into the Nile in the spring were full, but by making a detour around Het-Uart and poling our skiffs across the canals, we were able to reach the Horus Road.”

Ahmose watched him with a secret humour and a great deal of astonishment. Kay was speaking nonchalantly, almost carelessly, of a foray that must have taxed him and his crew to the utmost. Sitting back with one sandalled foot planted on a hummock of grassy earth, shards of sunlight playing fitfully on the one small gold hoop he wore in his ear as the linen above him billowed and collapsed, he was the picture of confident self-possession. “There was no point in exploring the western Delta,” he went on dismissively. “Het-Uart sits right on the eastern edge of the Nile’s great eastern tributary and between that and the western tributary the Inundation is more polite. There are orchards and vineyards and grazing for cattle and of course beyond the western waterway itself there are the marshes and then the desert. The Osiris One Kamose devastated it all two years ago to try and prevent the Setiu from storing much food. I believed that your Majesty would be more interested in any activity along the Horus Road.”

You have changed, Kay Abana, Ahmose thought. Your brashness is no longer a shower of arbitrary sparks. You were an eager, boastful child, and although you are still full of overweening confidence, it is being tempered by the intelligence of an approaching maturity. Kamose did right to give you your own command. “It was a courageous thing to do,” he said aloud and Kay smiled delightedly.

“It was,” he answered promptly. “But my men are fearless and I lead them well. Between us we only wish to please you, Majesty.”

“The Horus Road,” Turi put in bitterly. “What a two-edged knife it is! A lifeline from the eastern trading centres straight into the heart of the Delta in times of peace but in times of war it becomes a channel along which every danger can flow. Your ancestor Osiris Senwasret built the forts of the Wall of Princes across it to control the influx of foreigners, Majesty, but now the Wall is in Apepa’s power and the Setiu pour into Egypt in a steady stream.”

“I know,” Ahmose said. “Go on, Captain. What did you see?” Kay crossed his legs, leaned forward, and again applied the whisk, this time to the insects seeking salt from the sweat that beaded in the crook of his arm.

“Setiu troops, heavily armed,” he answered promptly. “They do not march in formation, they advance in loose groups with much noise and little discipline, but they keep coming. They cannot all be contained in Het-Uart. There is no room in that pest hole for even another rat. They are camping in groups as close to the city as they can. The Delta is liberally sprinkled with them.”

“If Het-Uart is to fall, we must somehow clear the Delta and then hold the Horus Road,” Hor-Aha said. “Kamose did his best to scour the Delta, but during the Inundation the Princes of the East sent more reinforcements along the Horus Road.”

“Then the solution is obvious,” Ahmose summed up. “Kamose did not speak of this, but I think that in creating the navy and insisting on its competence, he was preparing to begin a full year of campaigning, not just during the dry months. We cannot afford to keep gaining ground only to lose it. We will move north at once, as soon as the last soldiers have arrived. Five divisions will deploy around the mounds on which the city rests and besiege them together with the Medjay archers. The flood plains are dry and hard. Chariots can be used to advantage. The other six divisions will patrol the Delta and engage the contingents of fresh Setiu troops wherever they find them. Again, the ditches and canals will hold only the merest trickles of water and movement throughout the Delta should be relatively easy. Kay, can you estimate the number of Setiu soldiers coming in from Rethennu?”

“Not really, Majesty. I am sorry. A few days spent watching the road were not enough to give me an accurate count. But they came with regularity.” He emptied his cup, setting it back on the table with a bang. “And what of the navy?” he asked with relish. “What is your desire for your most faithful fighting men, Majesty? The
North
is manned, equipped and ready for engagement!”

“The marines will become farmers until Thoth,” Ahmose replied firmly. “There are ten thousand men here, Kay, and a whole town to be fed. The harvest must be conducted as efficiently as possible. The infantry divisions will plunder the Delta villages as they go.”

“And at Thoth?” It was Paheri who interrupted this time, and Ahmose swung to him.

“Then if the gods will it, Isis will cry,” he said. “The Inundation will spread. But we will not go home. The navy will proceed into the Delta by water and we will give the Setiu no time to rest and regroup.” Paheri grunted and an expression of relief crossed Kay Abana’s face. “I wish to discuss the details now,” Ahmose went on. “Ipi, bring up the maps. Akhtoy, have the table cleared.”

By the time each General had received his orders, questioned them, and had them elucidated, the sun had begun to set behind the town in a flood of molten bronze. Ahmose finally dismissed them, and walking wearily to his tent he passed his guards and entered, lowering himself into the collapsible travelling chair beside the cot with a sigh and lifting his feet so that his waiting body servant could remove his sandals. “Your feet are swollen, Majesty,” the man commented as he wrestled with the ties. “I will bring warm water and a salve.”

He went away and for a time Ahmose sat alone in the gathering dimness. Outside footsteps sounded. Men came and went. His guard barked a challenge that was answered. Somewhere close by a donkey began to bray hoarsely. The pleasant odour of roasting gazelle wafted through the tent flap. I suppose the soldiers have been out on the desert hunting, Ahmose thought. He looked about him at the lamp, soon to be lit, the neatness of his cot waiting for him to raise the sheets, his clothes chest against one wall, his closed shrine against another. Flax matting had been laid on the earth under him. He was in a protected oasis of orderliness and silence, and all at once a wave of loneliness overtook him. Its source was not the uniqueness of his position as King, he knew. Nor was it solely the absence of his brother in a situation they had always experienced together, or a homesickness for Aahmes-nefertari. I miss the way it was, he thought despondently. I miss all the Princes, Intef and Iasen and yes, even Meketra, all of us around the council table, Kamose with his moodiness and harshness, the grumbles of the nobles, the uncertainties and horrors of that time but a kind of comradeship all the same. I fashion a new order but I long for the familiarity of the old.

Akhtoy came into the tent with the body servant, and while Ahmose’s feet were soaked and massaged he moved quietly about, lighting the lamp, putting fresh drinking water beside the cot, and gathering up the day’s soiled linen. Ahmose watched him for a moment. Then he said, “Akhtoy, I do not want to be alone tonight. Please have another cot brought in and ask Turi to sleep here.” Imperturbably the steward bowed and went out. The body servant eased papyrus slippers onto Ahmose’s oiled feet and rose with the bowl of water in his arms. Ahmose thanked and dismissed him. A short time later Akhtoy returned.

“The General Turi’s aides tell me that he has taken a bodyguard and gone night fishing with Idu, his Standard Bearer, Majesty,” Akhtoy told him. “Is there anyone else Your Majesty wishes to see?” Night fishing, Ahmose repeated to himself with an inward pang. And why not? It is a pastime we both enjoyed before he went away, before we grew up. We would sit in a skiff under the stars, dangle our lines in the dark river, and talk and laugh the peaceful hours away. He has not forgotten, but the nature of the affinity between us has changed. We can no longer be equals in friendship no matter how much we desire it, and he is forming bonds within the Division I have entrusted to him. Akhtoy was regarding him with an understanding sympathy that Ahmose could not find insulting.

“No,” he said slowly. “No, Akhtoy, I rather think that a King must draw a circle of detachment around himself. He cannot incite jealousy.” Akhtoy’s expression did not change.

“That is true,” he replied. “However, a mere servant will incite no man’s apprehension. With your permission I will bring my pallet in here.” Ahmose said nothing, and taking his silence for consent Akhtoy leaned out into the new darkness and shouted an abrupt command. Presently his under-steward bowed his way to the far side of the tent and proceeded to unroll Akhtoy’s mattress, laying sheets and a pillow on it before bowing himself out again. “Majesty, I have chores for the morning to perform,” Akhtoy said, “but I will return quickly. There are pomegranates and black grapes, newly picked, and your cook has baked freshly ground reed bulbs today, mixed with plenty of honey, the way you like them. Let me bring you a light meal.” Ahmose looked up at him reflectively.

“You are a compassionate and tactful man as well as a superior steward, Akhtoy,” he said. “Tell me, are you happy?” Akhtoy’s eyebrows rose into his rigidly even black fringe of hair.

“That is a large word, encompassing many lesser states of being, Majesty,” he answered. “I am deeply honoured to be first among your servants, even as I loved and served your brother. I am content with my wife and daughters at home in Weset. My life is full and satisfying and the work on my tomb in West-of-Weset is progressing well. All these things make me happy.”

“Then I am pleased.” Ahmose got out of the chair. “No, do not bring me food, but if any scrolls have arrived from my family I want to see them before I retire.”

Once Akhtoy had gone, Ahmose got onto his cot, and sliding between the cool sheets he lay back with a sigh. His depression had lifted. One day I will promote that man, he thought. We take the fidelity of our servants for granted but we ought not to. Their unobtrusive reliability deserves to be rewarded.

He was drowsing when Akhtoy returned. The lamp was extinguished. Ahmose heard the small sounds as the steward lowered himself onto his pallet and composed himself for sleep, and bidding him a good night he closed his eyes and surrendered to the feeling of security the other man’s presence had brought. What is his wife’s name? Ahmose’s thoughts ran on. And his daughters? He keeps his other life very private, but I must ask him if there is anything I can do for them. I have a vague memory of two rather pretty girls holding his hands when I saw him once in the temple during a holiday. I wonder how my own little Hent-ta-Hent is faring?

Three days later the army left Het nefer Apu. Ahmose had decided to continue the journey north by ship rather than with his division, but it was with an odd sense of proprietary loss that he stood on the edge of the desert and watched the long phalanxes of men march away, the standards bobbing half-obscured by their dust, the whirling spokes of the chariots glinting dully in the sullen heat.

Just beyond him to the west, the track to the oasis ran away to vanish on the hazed horizon and, gazing along it with eyes half closed against the fierce morning light, he thought of the time when he and Kamose had waited for the remnants of Kethuna’s parched and dying troops to come staggering out of that rock-pitted waste. But it was not of Kethuna that I was thinking then, Ahmose reflected. No, it was Pezedkhu, sitting just north of Het nefer Apu with his thousands of soldiers, waiting even as we did, to see what would happen. He had melted away as Kamose’s men fell upon those hapless, half-crazed Setiu and cut them down, dissolving back towards the Delta like some silent phantom rather than risk an engagement that might have brought him failure. Pezedkhu. I wonder what he is doing right now, shut up in Apepa’s palace, what his spies and scouts have been telling him. Does he think of me with a shiver of fear, as I do of him? Pezedkhu, the most formidable military mind brought against me. Apepa himself is nothing, a crude painting on papyrus beside the force and subtlety of this foreign General who looms like a towering statue behind my every decision.

Mentally shrugging, Ahmose turned his back on the blinding stretch of tumbled ground that now held no hint of the carnage that had once taken place there. On an impulse that was half instinct, half good sense, he had ordered a delighted Kay Abana to accompany his and the Medjay’s vessels with the
North
. Kay and his marines had scouted the Delta. They might be useful in some way Ahmose could not foresee, although Apepa had few ships himself that were not trading vessels and Ahmose did not anticipate any hostile engagement on water. Not yet.

As he walked towards the river through the litter left by the army’s camp, Kay himself approached, bowing profusely, one outstretched arm clutching a young boy who was trotting beside him. At Ahmose’s signal his entourage came to a halt. Kay came up, fell to his knees, and touched his forehead to the earth. After a moment’s hesitation the boy did the same. “Rise,” Ahmose said. “What can I do for you, Captain? Nothing too complicated I hope. I am ready to embark and you should be also.”

“Oh I am, Majesty!” Kay assured him, getting up and brushing the grit from his calves. “The
North
is victualled and prepared. I and my men are humbled by this opportunity to distinguish ourselves still further in your service. We fly the blue and white with unsurpassed pride.” Ahmose smiled at him coolly.