The Oasis (6 page)

2

THREE HOURS AFTER SUNSET
on the eighth day, the fleet was easing quietly past the beaten track that ran west from the river to the invisible town of Qes, its ranks now swelled by a motley collection of craft that held all the professional soldiers the Princes could provide. Behind Kamose came Ankhmahor and two hundred Shock Troops on the raft that had once been used to ferry granite, and behind them the Medjay in their reed boats. The remainder of the flotilla beat ponderously after. Prince Makhu of Akhmin had gathered together four hundred conscripts and Prince Iasen of Badari a further eight hundred. Mesehti of Djawati had driven an astounding three thousand to the river so that the army now numbered almost four divisions, the bulk of which marched three days behind the ships in a slow-moving snake whose tail could not be seen by the leading officers.

In order to preserve his secrecy for as long as possible, Kamose had elected not to wait for them until the Medjay had secured Dashlut. They were in many ways a nuisance, poorly armed or weaponless, barely disciplined and unwieldy, but he knew that they would come into their own in the heavily populated Delta where arrows shot from the river would no longer be enough. By then, if the gods willed it, the richer settlements would have been plundered of their swords and bows and he could leave his boat and march at the head of men armed and ready for assault.

His conversations with the Princes of Akhmin, Badari and Djawati as he was reunited with each one had followed much the same pattern as his encounters with Intef and to a lesser degree, Ankhmahor. They had greeted him with reverence and shown their willingness to fulfil their pledges of aid and loyalty, but they clearly did not like the prospect of sharing their responsibilities with, or worse, taking orders from, a black Wawat tribesman. Each agreed to reserve judgement. Each insinuated politely and indirectly that they were risking a great deal in supporting Kamose’s claim to the Horus Throne while the foreigner faced nothing more than a swift trek through the desert back to where he clearly belonged if they failed.

In vain, and with a mounting impatience that threatened to become rage, Kamose recounted Hor-Aha’s faithfulness to Seqenenra, his return to Weset with Apepa’s departure when he might have been wiser to stay safely in Wawat, the sealing of his commitment to the House of Tao when he accepted Egyptian citizenship and a title. “He will stay with us until he has amassed enough plunder and then he will disappear,” Iasen had said bluntly, before returning to the polite to-ing and fro-ing in which he and Kamose were engaged. “Foreigners are all the same and the barbarians of Wawat are the worst of all.” Ahmose had clutched his brother’s arm to prevent Kamose from an outburst of frustrated temper, and Kamose had clenched his teeth and made some pacifying reply. He understood their attitude. Egypt was an occupied nation. Foreigners held the power. Setiu or from Wawat, they were all suspect in the eyes of these men.

Hor-Aha himself did not seem much affected by the slights. “I will prove them all wrong,” was his response. “Give them time, Majesty. Insults cannot harm a man with confidence in himself and his own abilities.” Kamose thought his imperturbability in the face of such insults unnatural but quashed the niggle of doubt regarding his General by reminding himself that Hor-Aha had been spawned by a very different culture, one where perhaps it was not wise to rise to every bait. Iasen had been entirely correct in his assessment of the barbaric temperament. The men of Wawat were primitive in their beliefs and behaviour, their tribal vendettas and the petty squabbling of their chieftains over trifles, but Hor-Aha was different. He could see farther than his fellows. He had been born with the qualities of a leader. His Medjay obeyed him without question in their dumb, pagan way, and their coolness under fire, their awesome skill with the bow, their facility for going without food or water for long periods, spoke of a way of life unknown to the peasants who sweated and stumbled towards the north under the lash of their officers’ tongues and dreamed of their peaceful little hovels and the comfort of their tiny arouras.

Well, to Set with them, Kamose thought sourly as he stood beside Ahmose in the prow of his boat, the darkness of night around him and the darkness of water below. The sound of the muffled oars was an almost imperceptible creaking and the occasional whispers of captain to helmsman struck somehow sinister to Kamose’s straining ears. He glanced behind him to where the stern reared black against the scarcely lighter background of the sky but could not see beyond it to Ankhmahor’s raft or Hor-Aha’s boat beyond that. Hor-Aha is my right hand, and they will have to accept him as such. What would they say if they knew that at the first opportunity I intend to have my Egyptian bowmen trained by the Medjay and then placed under Medjay officers as free-wheeling units to harry the enemy’s flanks?

On his left the shrouded bank slid past, the end of the path along which the dwellers at Qes led their oxen and donkeys to drink showing briefly as a patch of grey. Ahmose’s head also turned towards it and Kamose knew that his brother’s thoughts were suddenly entangled in the past, even as his were. At the farther end of that ribbon his father’s blood had gushed into the sand and changed their lives forever. Then it was gone, replaced by an irregular row of tall palms, and Ahmose sighed lightly. “All the boats should be safely past Qes within the hour,” he said in a low voice. “We have seen nothing and no one, Kamose. I think we may risk some time to sleep before we approach Dashlut. How much farther is it?”

“About eight miles,” Kamose responded automatically. “We can put in soon. Besides, I want to send out scouts. I must know if there are any soldiers in the town and how the houses lie. What I ought to do is order one of the ships on past Dashlut to intercept anyone trying to escape and warn Teti at Khemmenu, but as Khemmenu is only a further eight miles north it will not matter. We will be on him before he can crawl from his couch, let alone summon his Setiu from their beds.” He made no attempt to disguise the tone of contempt. “Yes, we will rest, Ahmose. And beyond Dashlut I think we will rest again.” He must have betrayed the secret thought behind the words, for Ahmose swung to him, peering into his face.

“Kamose, what are you going to do to Dashlut?” he asked urgently. Kamose put a finger at his lips.

“I will rouse the mayor and give him one chance to surrender. If he refuses, I shall destroy the town.”

“But why?”

“For two reasons. First because it is Apepa’s southernmost outpost. Qes does not really count. Apepa rules all Egypt but his fingers only reach as far as Dashlut. Like the fool he is, he has not bothered to garrison anything farther south, although Esna and Pi-Hathor are actively his and of course he treatied with Teti the Handsome of northern Kush. Thus he presumed that the rest of Egypt was safely enclosed, and with the arrogance of all the Delta dwellers he saw us as crude, provincial and impotent. If I demolish Dashlut, I send a message to the whole country that I am bent on conquest, not talk. Secondly, I must leave fear at my back. There must be no doubt regarding my intention, no temptation on the part of the administrators I leave behind to hope for aid or send for it once my forces have passed by. The Setiu defeated us without one arrow being fired against them, Ahmose,” he finished emphatically. “Such complacency must never be allowed again.”

“Kamose, there are certainly Setiu in Dashlut,” Ahmose said anxiously. “Farmers and artisans. But there are also many Egyptians. Is it wise …”

“Wise?” Kamose broke in roughly. “Wise? Don’t you understand that if we stop at every village to sift through the populace to determine who is Setiu and who not, who will ally themselves with us and who will say the words only and then stab us in the back, we will never reach the Delta? How will you tell friend from foe, Ahmose? Will the man who smiles be a friend and the ill-favoured a foe?”

“That is not fair,” Ahmose protested quietly. “I am not as ingenuous as you suppose. But I shrink from such indiscriminate bloodshed. Why not simply station loyal troops in each town as we go?”

“Because such a strategy would bleed the army dry when every man will be needed at Het-Uart. How many professional soldiers has Apepa got in his capital? A hundred thousand? More? Certainly not less. Besides, when victory is ours, the men will want to take their earnings and go home. They will not wish to stay in northern towns and I cannot blame them. Then, if I were Apepa, if I fled and survived, I would plot a countermove. That must not happen.”

“Gods, how long have you been nursing this ruthlessness?” Ahmose muttered.

“What choice do I have?” Kamose whispered. “I hate the necessity, Ahmose. Hate it! I must maim Egypt in order to save her, and I pray every day that in wounding her I do not damn myself. Dashlut must go!”

Ahmose stepped back. “You hope the mayor refuses your offer of surrender, don’t you?” he said. “Oh, Kamose, I do know, I do understand. I was not able to reason it all through before. But it is horrible.”

Kamose could not reply. He was suddenly cold and the hand that rose to silently grasp his pectoral was shaking. Amun, have pity on me, he begged his totem. It is horrible indeed.

They tethered the boats loosely to the western bank but no ramps were run out. At once Kamose dispatched scouts in the skiffs and then retired to the cabin, but he could not sleep. Neither could Ahmose. They lay side by side in the dimness, each knowing by the speed of the other’s breath that unconsciousness was eluding them. There was nothing to say. Kamose thought of the woman of his dreams, escaping briefly into a fantasy he missed and longed for, and he had no doubt that his brother’s thoughts were with Aahmes-nefertari, surely lying peacefully asleep on the couch they had shared with such joy in the house whose tranquillity they had forfeited in order to save it.

Yet in the end he must have dozed, for he came to himself at the sound of footsteps crossing the deck. Shaking Ahmose gently by the shoulder, he answered the request to enter, and Akhtoy’s head appeared around the curtain, haloed in the light of the lamp he held. “The scouts have returned, Majesty,” the man said. “I have ordered a meal to be brought to you.”

“Good.” Kamose rose, his joints cracking. His sleep had not refreshed him. He felt heavy and slow. “Let them also break their fast, Akhtoy, and while they eat I want to shave and bathe. Tell Hor-Aha to gather the Princes.”

“How late is it, Akhtoy?” Ahmose asked. He too was on his feet, tousled and yawning.

“Ra will rise in about five hours, Highness,” the steward replied, and placing the lamp on the floor of the cabin, he retired.

“The scouts made good time,” Ahmose remarked. “Gods, I am weary! I dreamed that all my teeth were rotten and falling out one by one.”

“It is a false vision of impotence, nothing more,” Kamose said. “After Dashlut it will not return.”

They held a hurried meeting with the General and the Princes on the shrouded bank. Night still hung thick and unrelieved around them as the scouts made the report, laying out for them the plan of the town and the details of the small garrison fronting the Nile. “There can be no more than thirty Setiu soldiers within it,” Kamose was told, “and we saw no watch. Dashlut will offer little resistance.”

“Very well.” Kamose turned to Ankhmahor. “I will not need Shock Troops yet,” he said. “Therefore I ask you to fall back and shadow my boat to the east. Hor-Aha, take my western flank with the Medjay craft close around you and have the Followers board my boat at once. Let us go.”

He stood in the prow with Ahmose, the royal bodyguard crowding stiffly around and behind them, as Ra moved ponderously and invisibly towards his birth and the miles slipped away, taking with them the last shreds of his fatigue. To his left, the oars of Hor-Aha’s boat made rhythmic grey smudges on the dark surface of the water. To his right, he could faintly hear the slap of the current against Ankhmahor’s craft, and to his rear he could sense the comforting presence of the remainder of the Medjay, their bows unslung, the black pebbles of their eyes questing the darkness before them. Mutely he began his morning prayers, and by the time Dashlut slid into view, limned in the fleeting softness of a pearly dawn, he was ready.

His ramp and the ramps of his flanking boats were run out and a contingent of Medjay had their arrows trained on the unsuspecting garrison before anyone in the town was aware of their presence. But they did not have long to wait. Two young women appeared, empty water jugs on their heads, chattering to each other as they made their way towards the river. They halted, dumbfounded, as the morning shadow of the three great hulks bristling with armed men fell across them, and the sound of one of the water jugs smashing on the ground echoed clearly in the limpid air. One of them screamed. Both of them turned and ran shrieking into a narrow lane between the squat mud houses and impassively Kamose watched them go. “No one is to disembark and no arrow is to be loosed until I give the word,” he called to Hor-Aha. “Stand to arms.”

Dashlut was stirring in the wake of the girls’ loud panic. Anxious faces began to appear, sleepy, puzzled, wary, and a whispering crowd began to gather, well away from the silent men on the decks. A few children straggled closer, staring up at them in wonder until sharp words from the women sent them scurrying back. Kamose waited.