The Oasis (5 page)

Later, scrubbed, shaved and oiled, they were bowed into a reception hall redolent with the mingled odours of food, flowers and perfume, and seated before individual tables upon whose gleaming surfaces spring flowers quivered. Ankhmahor’s fam-ily, his wife, two sons and three daughters, came to offer their obeisances. They were handsome people, slender and dark-eyed, their features alike under the kohl and henna, their jewellery not so much an adornment as a part of what they were, aristocrats to their core. Kamose, relaxing among his own kind, found no lack of general conversation, while Ahmose exchanged views on hunting with Ankhmahor’s sons and expressed his regret that he would not be able to take advantage of Aabtu’s abundance of ducks and wild game, much of which had found its way, transformed and delectable, onto the succession of dishes placed before him.

Ankhmahor is brave to put all this in jeopardy, Kamose thought. For us it is a matter of survival or destruction, but he could go on enjoying this security for ever. As though the Prince had read his musings, he looked across at Kamose and smiled. “It is perhaps an illusion, is it not, Majesty?” he said. “My Abetch nome is rich and I live well. But always there is the shadow of the future, because I refuse to leave it in the hands of a minor noble and attend Apepa at court in the Delta. When Apepa passed through Aabtu on his way to pass judgement upon your House, he stopped here for a day and a night. I entertained him well, but I do not think he was pleased.” He paused to drink, his long throat working delicately against the golden filigreed necklaces he wore. “His eyes missed nothing. The abundant fertility of my arouras in granaries and storehouses, the opulence of my estate, the beauty and grace of my family, and perhaps above all, the contentment of my peasants and servants. I gave him no cause for complaint and yet I sensed distrust in him.” Ankhmahor shrugged. “I think without your war I might have looked forward to the same slowly intensifying harassments that drove your father to his desperate measures.”

“Apepa does not like to be reminded of his foreign roots,” Kamose answered slowly. “He likes to keep the native lords of Egypt around him in the Delta, for there they may be watched and also there they may be gradually corrupted by Setiu gods and Setiu ways.” He glanced at Ankhmahor. “But outside the Delta the hereditary lords do not forget so easily that sheep herders are an abomination to gods and men, nor can they be subtly persuaded to relinquish their hold on the purity of their blood and their memories of true Ma’at. The more hospitable and respectful you were, Ankhmahor, the more you rubbed salt in the wound of his foreignness. Yet you could avert his suspicious eye by sending one of your sons north.” Ankhmahor laughed and rose. At once the harpist ceased playing and the servants drew back.

“It would be like opening a wound in my own body and leaving it to fester, Majesty,” he said frankly. “No son of mine will be subjected to such corruption as long as I live. My elder son, Harkhuf, will come with us and fight beside me. Now, if Your Majesty pleases, we will retire to the pool and discuss our business.”

“I think I will do a little night fishing with these sons of yours, Ankhmahor,” Ahmose said as he scrambled to his feet. He met Kamose’s eye. You do not need me, was the message Kamose read. This Prince will not trouble us.

“Very well,” Kamose said aloud. “But we must leave here at dawn, Ahmose.”

“I need this,” his brother said simply, and Kamose turned away and followed his host out between the pillars of the hall and into the dim garden.

Cushions had been placed on the verge of the fishpond. A flagon of wine stood ready on the grass, together with fly whisks and cloaks, all illuminated in the flickering orange glow of the single torch that fluttered in the intermittent, lazy gusts of air. Kamose lowered himself to the ground and crossed his legs, shaking his head at the cloak Ankhmahor offered him but accepting a whisk and a brimming cup of wine. A few mosquitoes hummed nearby, the sound strident and yet somehow reassuring, a natural component of the sweet Egyptian night. Crickets rasped out their tuneless song. An unseen frog leaped into the pool with a plop, sending slow ripples across the dark surface and rocking the lotus pads resting there.

Ankhmahor sank down beside Kamose with a grunt, and for a moment he glanced across the fragrant serenity of his domain before his gaze returned to his guest. “I do not like your General Hor-Aha,” he said at last. “I think that his imperturbability comes from an overconfident estimation of his importance to you and an overweening belief in his invincibility as a military strategist. Thus he is not predictable, Majesty. Such excesses usually have their roots in a secret fear of failure. He may make a wrong decision and be unable to take the advice of others in order to change it.”

“Yet I am Commander-in-Chief and I am not so much in his thrall that I would not make such a change if it became necessary,” Kamose objected. He knew that the Prince’s words did not come from the murky well of a prejudice against Hor-Aha’s foreignness and he had no wish to thank Ankhmahor for the virtue. To do so would have implied that he had expected less from a member of Egypt’s oldest aristocracy. “Besides, Ankhmahor, our strategy will be plotted together; I, the Princes and the General working as one. I understand the Princes’ fear that I owe this man a debt that may weaken my ability to lead with clearsightedness. It is true that I owe him a great deal, but Hor-Aha knows his place. He will not step outside it.”

“I hope you are right.” Ankhmahor pulled a cushion under him and reclined, his elbow in its soft depths. He sipped his wine. “There was some grumbling on the part of the others on our way north from the council,” he said frankly. “I grumbled myself. But let this man prove his worth to us as he has done to you and we will gladly accept his authority in the field.”

“I do not anticipate the need for any sophisticated battle plans until we reach the Delta,” Kamose said. “It is a matter of sailing from town to town, overcoming any resistance, weeding out any Setiu, and making sure that the mayors and governors we leave behind are fully loyal to us. I think our first problem will come at Dashlut.” Ankhmahor nodded.

“Of that I have no doubt, but it is Khemmenu that will try the mastery of the Medjay archers and the obedience of the soldiers. Teti does not love you, Majesty, in spite of his ties with your mother, and of course there is the Setiu garrison a mere nine miles downstream from the city.”

“A good testing place,” Kamose agreed. “Tell me, Prince, how many men have you gathered here? The number seems large.”

“It is.” Ankhmahor sat straight. There was a pardonable pride in his movement and in his words. “I have eighteen hundred for you from my own nome and a further eight hundred gleaned from Quena. Two hundred of them are volunteers. That warms my heart. I have also expropriated thirty craft of various kinds, everything from fishing skiffs to a raft for the transportation of granite from Swenet. It was on its way to Het-Uart, heavy with a piece of undressed stone to be used to construct a new statue of Apepa in honour of his forthcoming Jubilee, I believe, when the load shifted and the raft was damaged. Another raft was sent for from Nekheb and the damaged one left here. I have had it repaired.”

“Thank you,” Kamose said evenly. “I intend to take the professional soldiers from each nome and group them together as Shock Troops. I would like you to command them.” Ankhmahor, his cup halfway to his mouth, paused. The cup was lowered.

“Your Majesty is generous,” he said in a low voice. “I am humbled at your trust. But what of Prince Ahmose? Should he not be their commander?”

Kamose gripped his knees. He sighed, looking up at the roof of white stars blazing in their black setting and then closing his eyes. Ahmose should not be placed with men who bear the brunt of any attack, he wanted to say. Ahmose is still in many ways a sunny youth, uncomplicated and innocent, given to flashes of surprising maturity, it is true, but not yet ready to be broken by the harshness and brutality of war. He has killed, but the killing was still somehow a part of that dream in which he lives. It is not time yet for him to awaken. “My brother will be the last surviving male of the House of Tao if I die,” he said instead. “Si-Amun left a son but he is still a baby, and Egypt will need a man to continue the fight. Ahmose will not be cossetted into cowardice, but neither do I want him exposed to danger unnecessarily.” He stared unseeingly at his fingers that now curled into fists. “My Grandfather Osiris Senakhtenra Glorified left a son and three grandsons. Now only two of us remain.”

“Your reasoning is understandable,” Ankhmahor commented. “The gamble you take is terrible, Majesty. We Princes will only lose our lands and our lives if you are defeated, but the House of Tao will lose divinity.” Kamose glanced at him sharply but read only sympathy under the shadows playing across his face.

“Then let us refuse to consider any such thing.” Kamose forced his fingers apart and relaxed, smiling at the man. “Tell me what weapons you have, Ankhmahor, and then I must sleep before an early start in the morning.”

They talked desultorily for a further hour while the torch burned low and the wine jug was emptied. Kamose decided to leave Aabtu’s men where they were, to be gathered into the rest of the army as it passed through. Ankhmahor’s store of weapons, though more comprehensive than that of Intef, was still disappointing. Only the Setiu garrisons of the north would yield what Kamose needed, and only the Medjay archers could so far be relied upon to get it for him.

He thanked the Prince for his hospitality and returned to his skiff through the tranquil night. Falling into an exhausted slumber, he did not hear Ahmose come aboard in the early hours of the morning and did not wake until he felt the craft tremble under him as it left its mooring and the rowers fought to turn it against the current. “I knew Ankhmahor would be more than acquiescent,” Ahmose said as, over their meal of freshly grilled fish, salad and bread, Kamose related to him the conversation by the pool. “He has courage and besides, as a scion of one of our most ancient families he can be assured of an important post when you set up your court at Weset. This fish is good, is it not?” He gestured with his knife on the point of which a piece steamed. “I thoroughly enjoyed catching it and I gave the others to Ankhmahor’s younger son for the family to eat. He is intelligent, that boy. He wanted to know all about Tani and what you will do with her when you have liberated Het-Uart.” He grinned happily across at Kamose’s bewildered frown. “Don’t worry,” he went on with his mouth full. “I explained about Ramose and added that the best way to further one’s ambitions in these unpredictable times was on the field of battle. Was Ankhmahor able to furnish us with more than a few blunt swords and a handful of rakes, Kamose?” I love you but I do not know what to make of you, Kamose thought fondly as his brother chattered on. Is your artlessness a studied pose to hide a swiftly building complexity beneath or are you truly guileless? Well, I would trust you with my life as I would trust no other. You are a favourite of the gods and with that I must be content.

They rejoined the army on the evening of the third day and received Hor-Aha’s report as soon as they disembarked. The divisions were taking shape, but were still a long way from being the tight fighting units Hor-Aha and Intef envisioned. The peasants’ response to commands was slow but increasingly willing. Pride in their cohesiveness was beginning to sprout and the grumbling had diminished. For three days they had drilled and feinted at imaginary enemies. “But no one has told them yet that as well as Setiu those enemies will include their fellow Egyptians,” Hor-Aha pointed out as he squatted before Kamose under the shadow of one of the reed boats. “By the time that necessity arises, they must be trained to follow orders without thought. It is a hard lesson to learn.” Kamose did not comment.

“There are messages from the Princes of Badari and Djawati,” Intef said. “They have finished with the conscription and wish to know when you will arrive. Mesehti reports that the miles below Djawati are quiet. Qes and Dashlut are unaware of us so far.”

“Send a runner and a skiff to Badari and Djawati,” Kamose ordered Hor-Aha. “Tell them we left here in the morning, for that is what we will do. Aabtu is organized and ready.”

“It is the first day of Pakhons tomorrow,” Ahmose remarked, and at that they all fell silent. Shemu had begun, the hottest time of the year, when the crops ripened towards the harvest and then Egypt waited breathlessly for the Inundation. Kamose rose abruptly.

“Bring Ipi to me,” he said. “I want to dictate a scroll to everyone at Weset.” He was seized with an overwhelming need to speak to his women, to be strengthened by his grandmother and reassured by his mother, to touch the roots from which he had sprung. “I will be in the cabin,” he added over his shoulder as he walked towards the ramp. “Pass the word to the officers that we march on in a few hours, General.”

Once behind the privacy of the cabin’s drapery he exhaled, a long gust of frustration and, undoing his sandals, he pulled them off and tossed them beside him. The town of Qes was well back from the river, huddled against the cliffs. Could they perhaps creep past it unnoticed during the night and so not have to expend the energy needed to deal with it before the undoubted hostility of Dashlut? Ipi knocked politely on the lintel of the cabin door and Kamose bade him enter. He did so, greeting his lord and preparing his palette and brushes to receive the dictation. Kamose, watching the scribe’s calm face and routine motions, felt himself loosen.

I address my home also, he thought. The vines clinging to the trellises and heavy with dusty grapes, the pool with its scattering of crisp sycamore leaves, the warm curves of the entrance pillars against which I liked to brush my hand before walking into the dim coolness of the reception hall, all of you harken to my voice and remember me, for I love you, and surely the better part of me lingers there, my breath going forth to mingle with the rustle of warm wind in your grasses at morning and my shadow blending with your own as Ra descends behind the western cliffs. He opened his mouth and began to speak.