The Horus Road (26 page)

Senehat dressed her in a scarlet sheath that fell in soft, gold-shot folds from her shoulders to her brown ankles. A wide collar of bands of gold, lapis and jasper encircled her neck. Cobras of gold with lapis eyes twisted through her earlobes. The wig she chose was unbraided, a thick fall of black hair resting in three segments, one down her back and one in front of each collarbone, and she surmounted it with a coronet of gold from which a tiny likeness of the vulture goddess Mut, patroness of Queens, hung on her forehead. Senehat pushed bracelets of gold over her wrists and red leather sandals set with lapis beads between the toes of her hennaed feet. Lastly the palms of her hands were painted with red henna before she put on her rings, and as she was doing so Uni came in. “The mayor of Weset has arrived together with your Overseer of Grain,” he said. “They are waiting in the reception hall. Khunes has already gone there.”

“Good.” Aahmes-nefertari lifted her shoulders under the weight of the jewelled collar. “Have my litter ready to take me to the barracks after I have dealt with them,” she said. “Where are Mother and Grandmother this morning?”

“Queen Aahotep has gone to the temple with Yuf and Queen Tetisheri is having her canopy erected near the watersteps.” A small smile quirked his mouth. “She does not want to miss the King’s arrival.”

“Very well. Then let us start the day.”

She liked Tetaky, the mayor of Weset, and enjoyed his regular reports on the state of the city both he and she loved. They talked easily together while Khunes sat cross-legged at her feet, his palette resting on his bare knees, and noted the salient points of the conversation. When it was over, Aahmes-nefertari spent a few minutes discussing the progress of the spring sowing with the Overseer; then she walked with her scribe into the bright mid-morning sunshine and, getting onto her litter, they were carried to the barracks.

Emkhu, the man she had made Captain of the Household Troops, greeted her reverently, following her into the shade of his room and offering her beer, which she declined. She and her mother often came here to watch the soldiers practise their skill with bow and sword or to sit and pass the time with the officers. Both women felt oddly comfortable in such a masculine preserve, perhaps because they had earned the unqualified admiration of the troops during the desperate days following Kamose’s assassination, but also, Aahmes-nefertari privately and amusingly surmised, due to the distinct lack of any bracing male presence in the house. Ahmose-onkh did not count, of course. Neither did the servants, and the soldiers on duty in the passages and outside the doors were not expected to pass the time of day.

For an hour she and her Captain discussed the ranking and performance of the guard that would line the path from the watersteps to the house, escort the King through the garden, and line the walls of the reception hall should he arrive too late to feast outside. Aahmes-nefertari was proud of the net of able soldiers she had created and flung around both the estate and the clamorous city, and she wanted Ahmose to approve. So did Emkhu. Reminding him to have his men in position shortly after the noon meal, she and Khunes were conveyed back through the gate in the rear of the wall surrounding the estate, where she dismissed the litter bearers, told Khunes she would send for him later, and walked slowly through the garden towards the watersteps.

In order to reach the old palace it was no longer necessary to slip through a gap in the crumbling wall that used to divide it from the house. The first task Sebek-nakht had undertaken was its safe demolition under his direction, so that now Aahmes-nefertari could glance to her left as she went and see the ancient building gradually revealed with its towering angles, the heaving stones of its vast courtyard and the maze of scaffolding that clung to it. The front of its façade faced west and was still in deep shadow, the rows of columns flanking the great public entrance managing to project a message of silent warning into the gloom.

Halfway between the columns and the perimeter wall Sebek-nakht had set up his table under a permanent canopy, and it was here that he would confer with his junior architects and Aahmes-nefertari herself, the table littered with plans, while the scaffolding swarmed with sweating workmen and load after load of new bricks was trundled past from the pits near the river where Ahmose-onkh liked to play. The whole arena of industry was empty today on the Queen’s orders; nevertheless Aahmes-nefertari’s eyes were drawn to it as she passed and she thought of her brothers in an age that had gone, climbing through the forbidden rent in a wall that no longer existed to play their secret games, leaving her alone and envious on the other side.

Briefly she glanced up to the roof where the windcatcher still opened its broken mouth towards the north. There her father, and after him Kamose, had sat looking out over the tops of the shuddering palms and the glint of the Nile in quiet deliberation and there Seqenenra had been brutally clubbed and partially paralyzed by Mersu, the Setiu steward whom he had trusted. Quickly Aahmes-nefertari averted her gaze. It would be good to see the palace come alive again, full of bustle and light, the roof merry with the chatter of women spreading colourful carpets under the stars to escape the heat of Shemu. Perhaps then the forlorn ghosts that hung in the dusty corners and sobbed out their pleas for justice would be satisfied.

Tetisheri was enthroned amid a pile of cushions on the grass at the edge of the path. She too was sumptuously arrayed in a white sheath belted and trimmed with gold ankhs. As Aahmes-nefertari approached, she thought how appropriate it was that the woman should wear the sign for Life, since she was nearing her sixty-seventh birthday and showed few signs of decrepitude. Tetisheri, hearing her come, turned a sour, heavily painted face towards her and waved one thin, gold-weighted arm. “Since the protecting wall around our arouras was heightened and extended, there is no view of the watersteps any more,” she grumbled. “If I want to see the Nile, I must order the guards on this side of the new gates to open them, go through, have them closed by the guards on the other side, and then spend less time by the steps than I would like because the soldiers becomevisibly nervous at my presence. It is a considerable nuisance, my dear.”

“I know,” Aahmes-nefertari offered, stooping to kiss her grandmother on one wrinkled cheek. “I am sorry, Tetisheri. But I was only following Ahmose’s orders. If you wanted to, you could go across the courtyard of the old palace and through the opening in the wall there where the new gates will be hung.”

“Humph,” Tetisheri grunted. Having made her protest, she was appeased. “New gates. He wants electrum, I suppose, for his fine new residence, if we can ever amass so much silver. The gold in the amalgam is no longer a problem since the Kushites have been cowed; indeed, lately it has been flowing into the treasury and the jewellers’ workshops with reassuring frequency. Teti the Handsome has been very quiet.”

“So my spies tell me.” Aahmes-nefertari lowered herself onto the cushions beside the older woman. “But Kush has never lain quiet for very long, unless my history teacher was wrong. I must confess a secret fascination with that mysterious Prince.” Her grandmother sniffed.

“Prince? I would not grace a man with a polluted mix of Egyptian and Kushite blood as such,” she said. “It would not surprise me if he also had a lick of the Setiu in his veins. Has he not been a staunch ally of Apepa and his father ever since he assumed the chieftainship of his barbaric tribe? Ahmose will do well to keep a steady watch on him.” Aahmes-nefertari did not reply. It would be pointless to remind Tetisheri that the King had been utterly involved in more important matters than the doings of a self-styled ruler many miles to the south, or even that she and Aahotep had woven a net of scouts who brought regular reports of conditions in both Wawat and Kush. To Tetisheri, Ahmose would always be the rather simple younger brother who needed constant advice and admonition.

For a while the two women sat in silence. Then Tetisheri said, “Next month we celebrate your father’s birth. We will go to his tomb and offer food, wine and oil. I hope Ahmose remembers without being told.”

“Of course he will,” Aahmes-nefertari retorted. “But I warn you, Grandmother, do not push him. In one week we bury Hent-ta-Hent and his attention will be fixed on the loss of his daughter. He will not think of Seqenenra until afterwards.” She turned to meet Tetisheri’s gaze. The kohled eyes, still sharp with intelligence though nested in a myriad of fine lines and hooded by skin as thin and papery as a dried leaf, met her own.

“I know what you are going to say,” Tetisheri forestalled her. “That I have never liked or respected your husband, that I live in the past, that I am full of arrogance and an unyielding pride. It is true, and I am sorry, Aahmesnefertari. Seqenenra was a King. Kamose I adored. There is nothing left for Ahmose, although you must believe me when I say that I try to overcome my prejudice.” She waved a skeletal hand at a fly that was attempting to settle on her neck. “One of the curses of encroaching old age is the return of many youthful memories long forgotten, while the events of the near past seem to melt away. I understand what Ahmose has done. But I cannot help looking behind him to the brilliance and desperation and self-sacrifice of his father and brother, without whom Ahmose would have achieved nothing.”

“You are speaking of things that might or might not have been,” Aahmes-nefertari said, struggling to contain her anger. “Such thoughts are vain and dangerous. You are the only one, the only one, Tetisheri, who has indulged in the fruitless game of what if. If Father and Kamose had fallen into the trap you step into so willingly and so often, we would have accepted Seqenenra’s defeat at Pezedkhu’s hands and been separated and gone into exile under Kamose. And if my husband did not possess a more complex mind than Kamose, he would not be coming home today leaving Het-Uart a tiny island in an ocean of Egyptian triumph. Seqenenra began our rebellion. Kamose continued it. Ahmose’s task is to complete it. Why can you not see the harmonious weaving of Ma’at in the different destinies of all three precious lives?” She got up and smoothed down her sheath with stiff fingers. “History will pity Seqenenra and vilify Kamose because what he had to do will not be understood. But future generations will worship my husband as Egypt’s saviour. What they will say of you I cannot guess. Perhaps that she was beautiful in her youth.” An expression of pain twisted the dignified old features and Aahmes-nefertari knew that she had gone too far. Squatting, she took Tetisheri’s face in both her hands. “Forgive me, Grandmother,” she begged. “That was unfair.”

“But probably true.” Tetisheri pulled herself out of Aahmes-nefertari’s grasp. “I sit here waiting for him so that I can be the first to greet him, so that I can capture his attention, so that he will see me, be conscious of me,” she said hoarsely. “I am not stupid, Aahmes-nefertari. I know that he deliberately excluded me from the strategy meetings he held with you and your mother, that in response to my dislike of him he has firmly but politely relegated me to the women’s quarters, that in his own gentle but entirely implacable way he has taken away any power I might have exercised. It is my own fault, yet I cannot conjure a warmth for him that is not there.”

“Then do not try.” Aahmes-nefertari sighed and straightened. “You are his grandmother and as such you have his respect. Do not weaken it by dishonesty. Remember that his blood is yours and he is the King.” She looked down at her grandmother’s distress. “Kamose recognized his ability to rule,” she said harshly. “Kamose knew that he himself would not have made a good King. He was a warrior. He was fated to die by violence and he knew that too. If he had lived, his reign would have been an increasingly ruthless one. He fulfilled his destiny, Tetisheri. It was not the one you would have chosen for him, but your love for him blinded you to his faults, although he saw them clearly. Ahmose was born to restore Egypt to peace and prosperity. Not as glorious a fate as that of a commander who gives his life in the struggle for his country. That is how you see it, is it not?” She paused. Tetisheri was staring expressionlessly at the ground. “You were not born a man and neither was I,” she finished in a burst of sudden insight. “We cannot wield the sword or don the Double Crown. Only despair waits for you if you allow the bitterness of your sex to consume you, Grandmother. Ahmose is King. If you will only leave your self-absorption behind you and give thanks for his divinity, you will find in him a kind and forgiving grandson as well.”

Turning on her heel, she strode towards the new gate, and seeing her approach the guards swung it wide. I should not blame her for my own private resentment, she thought as she walked through. In berating her I realize that I was castigating myself. Thus I myself am warned. I am not the Son of the Sun. I am not a warrior. Yet I am a Queen, and with that I will be content. Amun forbid that I should end my life swimming in a hot sea of self-pity like Tetisheri!

“Majesty, you should not take the river path unescorted,” one of the soldiers called as she set off in the direction of the temple. “The citizens of Weset are already congregating along the bank to see the King arrive. You might be jostled.” I might be jostled. Aahmes-nefertari smiled to herself. Not so long ago I might have been the target of an assassin, but today my august person might be jostled. Yet she remembered what Ahmose had said on the last occasion she and he had strolled by the river together, that it was not good for royalty to be so nakedly visible, so approachable to commoners.

“Two of you come with me then,” she conceded reluctantly. “I do not intend to go all the way to the temple. I just want to watch the Nile.” And to get away from the frenetic preparations going on in the house, she said to herself as the men swung in behind her and she began to tread the beaten track that wound between the high wall of the estate and the spring verdure edging the river. She sensed their disapproval. They think I should be sequestered behind the curtains of my litter, her thoughts ran on. I daresay Senehat would agree with them. My feet will need washing and softening after the dust of the path.