The Oasis (34 page)

He was woken, as before, with food and then escorted to the bath house, washed, shaved and oiled. Fresh clothes were provided for him and once more he was left alone. The solitary inactivity began to gall him, and he found his thoughts circling the prospect of imprisonment here, not only days of his own company but weeks, perhaps even years. I would rather die, he told himself fiercely. Attempting to remain calm, he said his prayers to Thoth and moved through the physical exercises for strength and flexibility he had learned as a boy, but nothing could prevent the flow of anxiety and in the end he succumbed to it, sitting cross-legged on the floor and watching the squares of sunlight pattern the wall.

More food was brought to him at noon but he was not hungry, although he drank the beer also provided and it was with a relief bordering on panic that some time later he saw the door flung open and the soldier’s beckoning arm. I must re-establish an inner discipline, he chided himself as he paced the crowded halls behind his guide. I was in the desert all winter. My ka expanded to fit that limitless space. I must prepare to have it shrink to the dimensions of a prison cell.

He was admitted to the same room where he had been questioned the day before, but this time more men were gathered around the table, military officers, Ramose judged, by the similarity of their attire. The table was a litter of used dishes and cups, scrolls and maps. Ramose made his reverence and stood waiting. Apepa addressed him at once. “I have decided to release twenty-four divisions to move against Kamose,” he said crisply. “Sixty thousand men under Pezedkhu’s command will travel from Het-Uart up to Het nefer Apu and engage his so-called navy there. The other sixty thousand will leave the Delta and march across the desert to Ta-she and from there to the oasis to destroy the enemy’s army. Kethuna will have the ordering of those troops and you will go with him. If all goes well, we will have effected a perfect pincer.” Twenty-four divisions, Ramose calculated rapidly. One hundred and twenty thousand men divided equally. Kamose has fifty-five thousand at the oasis and ten thousand at Het nefer Apu. The odds are two to one against him, but if he can join up with Paheri and the navy he may be victorious. It is a terrible risk. “I have already despatched scouts along the desert route,” Apepa went on. “It will take my generals five days to ready the army and in that time I expect word as to whether Kamose is still dithering at Uah-ta-Meh or has left it for Het nefer Apu. I am confident that he is still there. What do you think, son of Teti?” I think that I despise you, son of Sutekh, Ramose thought so clearly and vindictively that he was afraid he had spoken the words aloud. You tell me these things because you will make sure that I will die in the forefront of the battle. Well, I will tell you what you are, but not until I have seen Tani.

“He may indeed still be at the oasis, Majesty,” Ramose answered evenly. “But not for much longer. Otherwise the campaigning season will be too far advanced for any engagement.”

“Leave him there,” Pezedkhu muttered. “Let him march to and fro with his illusions. This is madness.” Apepa ignored him.

“A bland and non-committal comment,” he said. “But I suppose that you now know nothing more than we do.” He studied Ramose for a moment and Ramose stared back at him. “I did not express my sympathy for you on the execution of your father,” he went on. “Teti was my loyal subject. It is a pity that you chose to conspire in his downfall. My generals will wipe out Kamose and his deluded followers and then there will be great rewards for those who had the courage to remain faithful to me, their rightful King. You might have seen your lands restored to you. As it is, you betrayed first me and now Kamose. You are not to be trusted and I do not need you any more.”

“Between a purpose and its fulfilment there is a gulf that must be bridged, Awoserra,” Ramose declared through teeth clenched against the fume of rage curdling in him. “It cannot be leaped with fine and empty promises. Take care lest your splendid generals tumble into that abyss.” The men around the table murmured angrily, all but Pezedkhu, who was sitting expressionlessly with his chin in his hand. Apepa did not seem insulted. His cold smile managed to reduce Ramose’s words to the level of mere bluster.

“I have no wish to keep you sealed up for the next few days,” he said. “You may enjoy the freedom of the palace, with your guard of course. The Princess Tani will be keeping to the women’s quarters for the time being. You will be sent to her on the eve of your departure. You are dismissed.” I rather doubt that he has widened the bounds of my prison through any pity, Ramose thought grimly as he walked away. I am to die and he knows it. He is maliciously providing a condemned man with a last vision of all that will be taken from him. But I will thwart him. I will not look on the pleasures of this place with the eyes of a walking corpse but with the delight of a man in love with life. You pathetic sheep herder, he scorned Apepa in his mind. What do you know of the soul of an Egyptian? I refuse to be humiliated. I will take what you offer and more, and if there is any justice among the gods, Kamose will crush you like the ugly beetle you are. I only wish that I might survive to see it happen.

He did not go back to his room. Resolving to shut out the constant, silent presence of the soldier at his elbow, he roamed the halls and courtyards of the palace, letting his feet take him wherever they would. When he was tired, he sat on the grass in a small open court beside a fountain, curtly sending a passing servant for fruit and wine, lifting his face to the slanting afternoon sun as he waited. He ate slowly, with relish, afterwards making his way to the bath house and commanding a massage. He lay on the bench while the masseur’s firm hands kneaded his muscles and heated his skin, inhaling the mixture of perfumed oils and letting himself drowse. The man finished his work and Ramose thanked him, then asked him for directions to the gardens.

By the time he stepped out into the warm air of early evening, the sun was going down and the trees were casting long shadows across the many paths that ran in all directions through Apepa’s domain. But a few birds still sang and the hum of late bees in the fruit blossoms pursued Ramose as he wandered the pleasant arouras, pausing to shake the fragrant petals onto his head or drink in the riotous colours of the flowerbeds. Courtiers were drifting towards the palace as the sun sank lower. They glanced at Ramose and his tired escort curiously, greeting him politely as they passed. Ramose went on until he came to the frowning enclosure wall. Soldiers stood above it facing outward and beyond it the invisible city clamoured. He turned back, and by the time he re-entered the palace, full dark had fallen and the lamps and torches had been lit.

He thought of mingling with Apepa’s guests, even now streaming towards a night of feasting in the great hall from which arose a babble of voices and laughter. There would be entertainments. Magicians perhaps, or jugglers. Certainly there would be dancers and good music. He would have gone in if he had really wanted to, but examining his true desire, he found himself craving the silence that always fell over the oasis once the troops retired to their tents. Nothing but the intermittent, quiet challenges of the men on watch ever broke that dreaming hush.

Smiling wryly to himself, he sought the empty passages. Sometimes his way was barred by armed men guarding closed doors and at such times he realized that he had blundered close to the royal apartments or the treasury or the administrative offices, but more often he was free to simply meander through the painted maze that was the heart of Het-Uart. He returned to his room very late, and as soon as he entered it, he heard the exhausted soldier relinquish his responsibility to another. Grinning to himself, Ramose lay down and was instantly asleep.

Making his way to the bath house the following morning, he became aware that the mood in the palace had changed. Little knots of courtiers stood about in various stages of disarray, talking excitedly. Servants moved with fresh purpose. Women whispered behind their hands. Ramose, mounting a bathing slab, found himself standing next to a young and very pretty woman whose body servant was pouring hot water over her long black hair. She smiled at him, unselfconsciously running an eye over his nakedness and then looking into his face with a glint of brazen approval. “I’ve seen you here for several mornings,” she said. “You’re not a guest or you would be using a private bath house. Are you a new retainer?” Ramose felt his soldier come closer.

“Not exactly,” he replied carefully. “You could perhaps call me a messenger. I will not be enjoying the King’s hospitality for long.”

“That is a shame.” She stepped down from her slab and held out her arms so that her servant could wrap a towel around her. “Where are you from?” she went on, pulling her sopping hair forward and wringing it vigorously. “You don’t look like a Keftian. There are always a few of those in the palace.” Suddenly her busy hands were stilled. “Perhaps you’re a southerner. Are you? What news is there from beyond the Delta?” Ramose laughed.

“You speak as though everything south of the Delta is a wild wasteland,” he chided her. “Have you never seen it?”

“No. I’ve been no farther than the city of Iunu. My father is an assistant scribe in the office of the King’s Overseer of Cattle, and all the King’s cattle are in the Delta. Besides,” she shrugged, “what can there be to see but little villages and a temple or two and miles and miles of nothing but fields? They do say that even those things don’t exist any more, that the Prince of Weset has raged through it all like a rogue beast.” Taking a comb from the servant, she began to tug it through the heavy tangles of her mane, giving Ramose a sidelong glance. “I would like to meet such an animal,” she purred. “But I don’t suppose I shall ever have the opportunity. The palace is buzzing with the news that the King is releasing his army at last against this Kamose.” Ramose feigned astonishment.

“The whole of the army?”

“Well no,” she began, “not the whole army, of course not, just …” Before she could finish, the soldier pushed his way roughly between them.

“This man is the King’s prisoner,” he said loudly. “Tell him no more. Get about your business.” Her eyebrows rose and she did not so much as glance at the guard.

“Really?” she said, completely unperturbed. “Then why are you allowed the freedom of the public bath house? Will you be whisked back to a cell when you are clean? What have you done?”

“Nothing criminal,” Ramose assured her. “I am from the south.” A sudden thought occurred to him. “If you see the Princess Tani today, tell her that Ramose is here. Ramose. I have been granted a meeting with her but if it happens that …” This time the soldier grasped the girl’s arm roughly and pulled her away.

“Enough!” he bellowed. “One more word and I will have you arrested also!”

“I know of no one answering to that name,” she called back over her shoulder as she was propelled towards the massage room. “But I am Hat-Anath, and if you should escape, come to my quarters! Oh take your hand off me!” The guard released her and she vanished into clouds of steam.

Ramose endured his ablutions in a puzzled frame of mind. Why was it that Hat-Anath did not at least know of Tani? But then, the palace was huge, full of hundreds of courtiers and their hangers-on, and perhaps one little Princess from an obscure town far to the south would excite no interest. There was the matter of Apepa’s army, too. If twenty-four divisions did not make up its total, as the girl had implied, then how many troops did the King in fact control? Twice that number? And where did they all come from? Ramose inwardly cursed the interfering soldier. One more moment and he would have heard something valuable. But of what use would such information be, seeing that I cannot get out of here to take it to Kamose? his thoughts ran on. Besides, he must deal with Pezedkhu and Kethuna before he can turn to the remnants of Apepa’s forces.

In spite of his determination to make the most of his few days in the palace, those two enigmas nagged at him as he continued his explorations. By the end of his second day of relative freedom he had traversed the precincts from one end to the other, and on the third day he was content to move from a secluded corner of the garden he had particularly liked to a part of the roof where he could sit in the shade of one of the windcatchers and look out over the whole of the palace grounds. His view encompassed part of the barracks. A constant cloud of dust spoke of the frenetic activity going on there as the army prepared to mobilize. Sometimes the sharp commands of the officers came faintly to Ramose’s ears and occasionally he caught the glint of hazy sunlight on the spokes of a chariot’s wheel.

The roof was a favourite place for many of the women, who had mats and cushions spread out for them under their fringed canopies. At first they pretended to ignore him. They gossiped and played board games and worked idly at their looms, weaving the many-coloured fabrics so many of them wore. But by the fourth day they welcomed him warmly, offering him wine and sweetmeats and including him in their conversations. Ramose talked to them cautiously, the soldier always breathing at his elbow. He did not dare to ask about Tani, afraid that the soldier would report his words and Apepa would deny him the interview he had been promised. Neither did he look for her among the soft, painted faces. He knew that she had been ordered to keep to her rooms.

No further summons came from the King. Nevertheless, on the evening of the fourth day Ramose had himself washed again and donned fresh linen. Asking for the services of a cosmetician, he sat docilely while the man kohled his eyes and temples and oiled his unruly hair. He had no jewellery to put on, no earring to brush his neck, no rings or bracelet to emphasize the grace of his strong fingers, but he did not imagine that Tani would care about such things. Alone again he lit the lamp and sat on the edge of the couch to wait.

Perhaps an hour went by and Ramose was beginning to wonder with despair whether Apepa had decided to go back on his promise, when the door opened. The herald Sakhetsa stood there, resplendent in his white robes. “You may come with me now,” he said. “She has been warned.” The words struck Ramose as ominous, but with beating heart he got up and followed Sakhetsa into the passage.