The Horus Road (39 page)

Since Abana had come with the news of Apepa’s near escape, the city had never been far out of Ahmose’s thoughts and he knew now that he would not be able to wait patiently at home for another two months until Aahmes-nefertari’s baby was born. The prospect made him physically agitated, not only because he feared the event itself but also because he had a strong intuition that the wearying situation in the Delta was at last about to change. No omens or dreams told him so, but he had lived for years with the stubbornness of Apepa’s city lodged in his gut like the broken haft of a dagger, its ache a constant discomfort. Now that discomfort had changed to moments of intense anxiety made worse by their sourcelessness. He dreaded the coming confrontation with his wife but he feared inaction more.

He was settling for the night as well as he could when he heard a Follower’s challenge, and presently Mereruka’s face loomed out of the dimness. “My work in Pi-Hathor and Esna is done, Majesty,” he said after Ahmose had greeted him. “I will be preparing a report for Queen Aahmes-nefertari, but in the meantime is there anything you desire of me?”

“I am glad you came,” Ahmose told him. “Please send another message to Djeb. My mother and grandmother are free to return to Weset whenever they wish, providing it is within the next two months.” Aahmes-nefertari would need them, but he did not tell this to the spy. “I have appointed Ahmose Abana as governor of the Nekhen nome,” he went on. “You may be useful to his assistant governor, but that is for the Queen to decide. You have provided faithful service, Mereruka, and I am grateful. Does she pay you enough?” Even in the semi-darkness Ahmose could see that the man did not know whether to smile at a joke or be nonplussed at what might seem to be an attempt to subvert his loyalty to his first employer.

“Yes indeed, Majesty.” Mereruka answered. “The Queen is generous with goods and I have my donkeys.” There was genuine affection for the beasts in the man’s words and Ahmose warmed to him.

“Good,” he said. “Abana goes south again. Travel with him as far as Nekheb. And do not forget to address him correctly, Mereruka. He is now a Prince.” Strange that a peasant should prove himself honest when Princes have died for their perfidy, Ahmose reflected, as he shifted about under his blanket to try and find an adequate spot for sleep on the hummocked ground. A donkey breeder, and a spy as well. An honest spy. He chuckled to himself and closed his eyes.

He was home again by the evening of the following day, dusty and tired. His men disbanded and hurried to their barracks and he himself went to the bath house at once to have the soil of travel sluiced away. Hekayib had just finished drying him and was winding a clean kilt about his waist when Aahmes-nefertari came in, stepping gingerly over the damp stone floor. “I saw Ankhmahor crossing the garden,” she said. “I am so glad that you are back safely, and so soon! Are you hungry? Ahmose-onkh and I have not eaten yet.” She was dressed in a long, filmy sheath whose white folds glimmered with silver thread. A thin silver band encircled her forehead and her own hair fell waving to her shoulders. Ahmose thought that she had never looked more beautiful. I can’t tell her, he said to himself in despair. I can’t bear to see that smile vanish from her lips and her eyes darken in anger and disappointment. Going to one of the benches by the wall, he sat so that Hekayib could put on his sandals.

“It was a very easy little foray,” he told her. “There is no need to worry about Esna and Pi-Hathor any more. I have made Ahmose Abana a Prince and have given him the governorship of the Nekhen nome.” Her eyebrows rose.

“An uncharacteristically hasty decision, my husband! He is fortunate to have earned your trust so quickly.” Was there an implied criticism behind her words? Ahmose glanced up at her swiftly but she was continuing to smile at him warmly.

“I am starving,” he admitted, rising and giving her his arm. “The evening is still early. Shall we eat in the garden? Then I must dictate some things.” She did not ask what things. I assured her that I would be here for the baby’s birth, he thought guiltily as her soft hand slid along his forearm and her perfume enveloped him. So she is content. She does not question me regarding the rout of the townsmen or the business I must conduct with Ipi. All she cares about is having me with her.

Shame made him excessively solicitous of her when they came out into the gentle dusk and paced to her cushions and carpet. He helped her down, drew a short cloak around her shoulders, took the dishes from Uni as they appeared and served her himself. He whisked the few late, lazy flies from her neck and several times reminded Ahmose-onkh, who had leaned across her to empty a platter, not to be so clumsy. She submitted to his care complacently, saying only, “You should go away more often, Ahmose, if missing me makes you so loving when you return!” It was his opportunity to break his news to her, but still his tongue would not form the words.

Ahmose-onkh left them to perch by the pool where the fish were rising to snap at the mosquitoes between the fragrant lotus blooms that floated, blue and white, on the rippling water, and still Ahmose could not speak. Taking his hand suddenly she placed it on her abdomen and held it there and with a flood of distaste, pity, love and dread he felt his child kick vigorously against his palm. “It will not be long now,” she said, kissing his ear. “A son this time, do you think, Ahmose? Or better still, a daughter!” He could not answer. Aching with grief he gathered her into his arms.

Later he summoned Ipi and dictated Abana’s elevation for the archives and letters to his commanders in the north warning them of his imminent return. The scrolls were to go out with Khabekhnet the next morning. He also sent to Hor-Aha, Turi and Ankhmahor, telling them to be prepared to march in two days. Then he made his way to Aahmesnefertari’s apartments. There were spring flowers in vases all about her bedchamber, pink tamarisk, blue cornflowers, red poppies, the delicate white spears of daisies, spreading a profusion of colour and aroma throughout the room. Lamps burning perfumed oil filled the air with a heavy sensuality. She welcomed him effusively from her couch, arms raised to him, and in spite of his consternation his body responded to her exuberant invitation. “I do not want to hurt you or endanger the baby,” he said awkwardly even as he was drawn to the promise of her body, glimpsed tantalizingly through the transparency of her gossamer-sheer linen, and the blatant invitation in her eyes.

“Next month perhaps not,” she answered huskily. “But tonight let us put anger aside, my dear brother. We love and need each other, and what could be more important than that?” Het-Uart is more important, he thought as he sank onto the couch beside her. Killing Apepa is more important. Amun help me, how can I make you understand that although you fill my heart and dominate my mind there is a necessity that must temporarily take precedence, consuming me even over my preoccupation with you? He squeezed his eyelids shut and buried his face between her swollen breasts, taut with her pregnancy, as though by hiding in the sweetness of her skin he might become invisible to the world.

“Nothing,” he lied, not knowing whether she had heard him or not and presently not caring. “Nothing at all, my dearest.”

The storm struck him the next afternoon. Khabekhnet had left for the north, the Division of Amun, the Division of Ra and the Medjay were collecting their weapons, counting their arrows, and oiling their leather, and Ahmose had ordered Akhtoy to see to his packing. His travelling cot, tent, collapsible chair, carpets, and his moveable Amun shrine were already on board the ship tethered to his water-steps. He had been woken by the Hymn of Praise, held the usual audience in the reception hall together with Aahmesnefertari, and gone with her to inspect the progress Sebeknakht was making on the old palace. She had not left her quarters until the time of audience and was obviously too preoccupied to notice the flurry of activity in the house or hear the bustle on the river beyond the gate, and Ahmose was cravenly glad. They had shared the noon meal, after which she had gone to her rooms to rest.

Ahmose himself went to the office. There were many details to be attended to and he had just finished giving one of the under-scribes the instruction to be alert for any letter coming up from Aahotep and Tetisheri at Djeb when the door opened and his wife swept in unannounced. She was very pale but her eyes in their rims of black kohl impaled him at once on his own cowardice. “Get out!” she snapped at the under-scribe. After one horrified glance at her the man did not wait for Ahmose’s dismissal. Snatching up his palette, he scurried past her and out the door. Aahmes-nefertari kicked it closed behind him with one savage movement. “You lied to me,” she said evenly, but there was such an intensity of rage beneath the artificial calm of her words that Ahmose had to repress the urge to step backwards.

“No, I did not lie,” he began reasonably. “Before Abana brought his news from Het-Uart, I eagerly intended to be with you until the baby was born. But he changed everything.”

“He did not change what you led me to believe,” she cut in glacially. “What was it you said to me only a few days ago? ‘I will be at your side on the first day of Tybi when we celebrate the Feast of the Coronation of Horus.’ Perhaps you were speaking to Apepa. Or perhaps you were just breaking wind.” He put out a hand, desperate to do something to avert the avalanche of pain he knew he deserved, desperate to silence her.

“Aahmes-nefertari, you are right and I am sorry,” he offered. “But try to understand why …”

“Why what? Why you played me for a fool? Why everyone in the house but me knew that you are leaving again tomorrow and no one dared to speak the words to me? Why you lacked the courage, let alone the compassion, to tell me that you were leaving? It is not the reasons for your going that have cut me to my soul,” she shouted, “it is the lie. The lie!” She came forward clumsily, one arm across her belly and the other reaching for the gilded back of a chair. “Ahmose-onkh burst into my bedchamber wanting to know if he could go with you,” she went on furiously. “That was when I knew. You made love to me last night and even on my couch you spewed lies!” She paused for breath and he stepped to her, but she flinched away. “I know what it is,” she said hoarsely. “My babies are weak. My babies die. You do not want to be here to see what feeble creature my womb expels and you do not care that I am also afraid, that I am terrified, that I need you with me. You want another wife.”

Horrified, he stared at her, aware that she had probed his deepest agony but had not been able to discern the greater truth, that he loved her completely and would only take another woman in the direst dynastic necessity. Nothing I can say will stem the tide of her hurt, he thought. I have brought this on myself. “I am indeed a coward,” he ventured. “I did indeed shrink from having to tell you that I must go north at once. Let me try to explain.”

“Explain is such a passionless word,” she said bitterly. “So cold in its connotation, so damningly reasonable. No, Ahmose. Do not insult me with your explanations. They are phrases of the mind that cannot touch the scorpion stinging my heart.”

He would have poured it all out to her then, the Seer’s prediction, his own terrible feeling of fatalism, his intense desire to run from her because he could not protect her from what was to come, his intuition that he must stand before the walls of Het-Uart as soon as possible or all would be lost. But the clamour of his thoughts confused him and he could say nothing. Letting go the chair, she turned back to the door. “I do not want to see you before you go,” she said. “I do not care if Het-Uart falls or not and neither should you until this baby is born. To Set with you, Ahmose Tao. Do not expect any letter from me while you are gone. I shall be too busy to dictate.”

Heartsick, he watched her leave, her head high, her whole body trembling. Once the door had closed he called her name, his throat suddenly released from its paralysis, but she did not come back. “Aahmes-nefertari, you are a Queen now,” he said aloud into the stunningly quiet room. “You have crafted a new administration, you have ruled in my absence, surely you understand the sometimes sharp distinctions between you and me as we were, you and me as we would like to be, and you and me now, divinities who carry the weight of a country on our shoulders.” But his words melted into the shaft of sunlight gleaming on the surface of the table and were absorbed by the dust motes floating in the air. It is not the divinity you wounded and misled, Ahmose, you fool, he said to himself. It is the woman. And no amount of prayers and prostrations will restore you to her favour.

He had hoped that the venting of her wrath would be enough, that she would be standing on the watersteps to give him her blessing when he and his entourage embarked just after dawn the next day, but though he waited as long as he could, using various pretexts to delay the moment when he must turn and walk up the ramp of his ship, she did not appear. Ahmose-onkh hugged him fiercely. “I have been practising with my bow and my sword,” he said as Ahmose swung him high and kissed him before setting him back on his feet. “Are you sure you do not need me, Majesty Father?” Ahmose swallowed past the lump in his throat.

“I need you very much,” he answered gravely. “But this time your mother needs you more. Spend some time with her when you are not at your lessons, Ahmose-onkh.” He glanced at Pa-she, who nodded his understanding. “Amuse her with board games. Talk to her. She will be lonely until your new brother or sister is born.”

“She has become very grumpy,” the child muttered. “But I will obey you, Divine One. As the Hawk-in-the-Nest I will take your place and comfort her.”

There was little left to say, no other family members to bid farewell. To the accompaniment of Amunmose’s chanting and the clicking of the finger cymbals held by the temple dancers, Ahmose finally stepped onto the ramp, Ankhmahor and the Followers behind him. The servants cast off, the captain shouted to the helmsman, and the rowers bent to their task, backing the craft out to where the north-running current would catch it. At the rear came the other vessels bearing Ahmose’s staff and the senior officers, Hor-Aha, Turi, Idu, Kagemni, Khnumhotep and Khaemhet. The Medjay and the divisions were already on the march along the edge of the desert under the command of junior men.