The Horus Road (32 page)

“I remember,” Ahmose said ruefully. “Every word was accompanied by the threat of a beating. My tutor was a stern taskmaster.”

“Beating will be my last resort,” Pa-she said indignantly and Aahmes-nefertari laughed.

“You may change your mind before long!” she said. “And if you do, you will have his nurse Raa to contend with. She grumbles about his disobedience but she is very protective.” Pa-she hesitated.

“Majesty, I would like you to consider giving me a room next to the Prince,” he said. “He must see me as a friend and guardian as well as a teacher. I want to be with him when he eats, swims, says his prayers. Every activity of his will be an opportunity for education.”

“It is an irregular request,” Ahmose mused, “but I suppose if you want to punish yourself, it can be arranged. Aahmes-nefertari, what do you think?” She studied the scribe’s face for a long time before replying.

“It is a peculiar method of teaching,” she said slowly. “However, I am willing to accede to Pa-she’s request for the time being. Khabekhnet!” The Chief Herald stepped forward from his post at the rear of the hall and bowed. “Find Ahmose-onkh and bring him here. He might as well meet the man at once who will make his life miserable.” She returned her gaze to Pa-she. “Never forget that you have a Hawk-in-the-Nest to nurture,” she reminded him. “Every word he hears from you will determine his fitness to reign as god when he sits upon the Horus Throne. You will report to me on his progress once a week.” Pa-she knelt and then prostrated himself.

“A thousand thanks, Majesties,” he said, his nose to the floor. “I will carry this responsibility as Khnum cradled in his divine hands the clay from which man was fashioned on the celestial potter’s wheel.” Ahmose left his chair.

“You have my permission to laugh occasionally as well, Pa-she,” he said dryly. “I wish you good fortune of your charge. Aahmes-nefertari, see to this momentous meeting.” And with that he signalled to Ipi and Akhtoy and left the hall.

In the middle of the following month, Pharmuthi, a flotilla of ships arrived from the north bearing the Keftian merchants Ahmose had addressed on Het-Uart’s northern mound. There were perhaps fifteen families in all, complete with their goods and servants, and Aahmes-nefertari arranged for their accommodation in Weset through Uni. The task was not easy. All of them wanted choice estates that bordered the Nile, and as Aahmes-nefertari listened to a harried Uni voice their complaints, it was brought home to her how indulgently Apepa had treated them. “We know that the Setiu are enamoured of Keftian goods and art,” she told her steward. “The King told me that these people inhabited the choicest property on a mound already crowded. But we must not antagonize them, Uni. They will bring us not only good trade, bronze, gold-chased swords and daggers, vases, lamps, and most importantly, poppy and dye, but also an opportunity to establish political ties with their island. I am also trying to lure Asi traders to Weset. Do your best for them.” Uni groaned ostentatiously in a rare show of irritation and acquiesced.

Not long afterwards Aahmes-nefertari received a message that Keftiu had despatched an ambassador to Ahmose’s court who would be expected to remain permanently at Weset. It was a triumph for her. She had opened negotiations with the Keftian ruler some months before, reminding him in the most polite and diplomatic terms that his previous ally, Apepa, was now no more than a stingless scorpion with no hope of ever regaining power in Egypt, but that the country’s rightful King would graciously welcome a continuation of the traditional relationship between Egypt and Keftiu.

An equally polite acknowledgement of her letter had come, full of courteous but ultimately meaningless words. She had not pressed the issue, but optimistically she had asked Sebek-nakht to add to his already crushing load of work by designing and erecting a series of large houses with gardens for the use of any foreign ambassadors to be lured to the new seat of power. The charming buildings had gone up to the south, between her own estate’s protecting outer wall and the now completed barracks that would lodge Ahmose’s two permanent divisions. But the Keftian King had obviously taken some time to investigate Apepa’s plight, and finding it irremediable had decided to transfer his commitment to a healthier regime. When the ambassador arrived in full pomp with all his household, Ahmose feted him lavishly and spent long hours discussing with him a renewed amity between the two nations, but it was the Queen and Neferperet as Chief Treasurer who hammered out the terms of the trading agreements. Aahmes-nefertari also made sure that one of the kitchen servants and one of the gardeners attached to the ambassador’s residence had spent some time in Esna, learning to spy.

Aahmes-nefertari and Ahmose had arrived at an uneasy, unspoken truce, a compromise in the duties and concerns of the administration that extended painfully into their private dealings with each other. Once they had shared every joy and concern, but now they found themselves stepping cautiously around those areas of the soul where aches still throbbed, aware that some hurts were too fresh to be aired. They had begun to make love again but with the same caution they brought to their private conversations and the spending of their passion had become an exercise performed in silence.

Aahmes-nefertari tried not to remember the joyful unselfconsciousness that had imbued their sexual union in the past. Such thoughts would only serve to rub salt into wounds already bleeding. At the end of Pakhons she discovered that she was pregnant once more and she held in her womb not only the new life growing there but also the hope that with its eventual expulsion there might be a purging of every bitterness both she and her husband endured. When she told him her news, he had smiled with obvious delight, kissed and embraced her, and gone to the temple to offer thanks to Amun. But between them lay the deaths of two of her children, Hent-ta-Hent and the first son she had borne to Si-Amun, and her hope was tempered by fear.

Reports from the army and navy still stationed in the Delta arrived regularly. The situation there had not altered. Het-Uart remained closed in upon itself. Ahmose and Aahmes-nefertari read the letters in Seqenenra’s office, seated with their backs to the sunshine pouring in between the pillars. Hor-Aha was with them. His hair had grown. It was still too short to fashion into the braids he had worn for as long as Aahmes-nefertari could remember but it was already touching his shoulders in a welter of thick, shining waves which he had taken to smoothing back with one impatient palm.

She had seen little of him since he had returned to Weset. He had divided his time between his Medjay in their village across the Nile and long hunting expeditions out on the desert where he stalked hyena, antelope and lion. Now he folded his fingers around the stem of his wine cup and leaned over the table as Ahmose let the scroll that had just arrived roll up before passing it down to Ipi, sitting at his feet. “How are they surviving, Majesty?” he wondered. “When we left the city, it was full of disease and short of water. It should have capitulated within weeks.”

“Plagues have a way of running their course and then withdrawing,” Ahmose said. “No doubt many hundreds of citizens died. We saw the smoke from their funeral pyres ourselves. It is a coldly practical assessment, General, but I would presume that their deaths allowed the supply of water from the additional wells the survivors undoubtedly dug to be sufficient. As for food, they garden on the roofs of their hovels. A slim diet but perhaps enough to keep body and ka united.”

“They have become like a recurring nightmare,” Aahmes-nefertari put in. “Will it ever end?”

“Of course it will,” Ahmose assured her. “The divisions in the east are holding the Horus Road and the forts of the Wall of Princes without any effort. It is only a matter of time.” He drummed the table briefly. “The troop rotations will be complete by the end of Epophi,” he went on. “Then I think you can take the Medjay home to Wawat for a few months, Hor-Aha. They have earned a visit to their families. Abana can bring a portion of the navy here and Turi and Kagemni can move the divisions of Amun and Ra from the Delta into their new quarters south of the estate. We must do our best to ignore Apepa and the remnant of his power until he compels us to do otherwise.” Hor-Aha scanned his face thoughtfully.

“It will not be wise to leave the Medjay in their villages for long, Majesty,” he said. “They will quickly burrow back into the life of their tribes and ferreting them out and retraining them to Egyptian standards of discipline will be a daunting task. Have you considered bringing their families here? They are creatures of the present. They would happily turn the barracks they inhabit now into a community if their women and children were with them.”

“If I do it for the Medjay, I must do it for every soldier in my two Weset divisions,” Ahmose objected. “Ten thousand men can be housed without too much trouble or expense but add their wives and children and I create yet another branch of administration.” He made a face. “At least, you do,” he said, turning to Aahmes-nefertari. His generous acknowledgement of her efforts warmed her.

“But, Ahmose, if you want permanent troops stationed here, you must provide for them to see their families,” she reminded him. “Otherwise their morale will gradually be eroded.” He tutted, mildly distressed.

“The idea of permanence is still strange to me,” he admitted. “My life has been one of movement for the last few years. Yet permanence is taking hold all around me, around us.”

“Weset is expanding almost daily,” Aahmes-nefertari put in. “People are being drawn here by the prospect of advancement or better commerce or ambition for their children because Weset is becoming the seat of power in Egypt. There is room for many more. Apportion some land for the families of your soldiers. Some may decide not to uproot their relatives, but at least they will then have a choice. I can appoint an Overseer of Army Resettlement if you like, to organize everything. Then rotation will mean a short walk from barracks to town, not a long journey down the Nile to remote villages. Your men will be available to you at all times.”

“I suppose you are right,” he said reluctantly. “I can do it for the Medjay as well, Hor-Aha. I do not know why these things are causing such quakings in my soul. See to it, Aahmes-nefertari, as you said. I cannot face the prospect.” It is the loss of complete control that is afflicting you my husband, Aahmes-nefertari thought as she left the office on his arm. You can no longer be aware of every action your ministers perform and not every order comes from your mouth any more. You are being forced to trust to the intelligence and honesty of others and it is driving you to distraction.

Pakhons slipped into Payni and then Epophi. The summer heat intensified, tightening its grip on man and beast, and the pace of life slowed. Noble and peasant alike slept the long, hot afternoons away, but in the warm nights the streets of Weset were lively as the citizens emerged to conduct their business or simply drink beer and gossip.

For Aahmes-nefertari, plagued by nausea each morning, the hours of soft darkness were an added blessing. At sunset she would go to the bath house to have the sweat and fatigue of the day washed away, then clad in a loose tunic she would mount the stairs to the roof of the house where Senehat had spread rugs and cushions and set out lamps whose flames in the thin alabaster vessels glowed golden against the darkness. There would be bowls of fruit and ewers of water and wine, sennet and Dogs and Jackals to play, blankets to cover her when at last she fell asleep under the forest of white summer stars, but Aahmes-nefertari was lonely. She missed the other women of the household, her mother and grandmother, who in other summers would be up there with her to while away the time in idle feminine chatter.

There had been scrolls from Aahotep and less frequently from Tetisheri. The two of them had been well received in both Esna and Pi-Hathor and had tarried in each town for some days but neither of them had enjoyed their time there. Tetisheri protested that the servants in the mayors’ houses were slovenly and inept and the commoners careless in their obeisances when she ventured out. She reminded Aahmes-nefertari that the penis of Osiris had been swallowed by a fish at Esna, “and thus the eating of fish is not allowed by anyone including your mother and me,” her letter stated waspishly. “In my opinion it would have been better if the god’s penis had been left to wash up on the shore and the fish had decided to feast on the town instead.”

But Aahotep wrote of vague undercurrents of unrest in both places. She had spoken briefly with the spies and they had told her of the docks and warehouses lying derelict, the abandoned estates of men who had once grown rich under the Setiu, the atmosphere of uncertainty that pervaded both Esna and Pi-Hathor. “These towns shared the privilege of building, equipping and repairing ships for our invaders,” Aahotep had written. “That source of prosperity has now gone to Nekheb. Another source of security for them was the trade route to and from Kush. They are situated halfway between Het-Uart and Kush. But seeing that Weset, a mere twenty-three miles downstream from them, has become the heart of Egypt, their situation is no longer an advantage. All that remains to them is the limestone quarry near Pi-Hathor, and since Ahmose has not yet begun to erect any large monuments, the quarrymen sit idle and hungry. I sense the possibility of a danger to our new stability and I am glad that we devised such a fine web of spies. Tomorrow we move on to Nekheb with great relief. We hope to stay there for at least a month. It will be very hot there, and hotter still as we approach Djeb, but there is health and peace in the air of the southern towns.”

Aahmes-nefertari had shown the letters to Ahmose, who had read them and grunted. “Kamose did not trust them either,” he had remarked. “But they are impotent, Aahmes-nefertari, caught as they are between Weset and Nekheb. What can they do but accept their fate? I cannot employ the limestone diggers just to keep them in bread and onions, although I am sorry for them and the shipbuilders of Nekheb under Paheri and the Abanas are more reliable than the remnants of the Setiu at Pi-Hathor. At least Kamose did not raze their homes as he did at Dashlut.” He had planted a swift kiss on her chin. “You and Mother and your spies!” he had chuckled.