The Horus Road

by Pauline Gedge

  “I thought it best not to use one of the household scribes to do this work,” she silently explained. “I trust them all, of course, for they are trained to keep their master’s counsel, but as their masters include our indomitable grandmother, it seemed wiser to recruit someone answerable to me alone. Khunes also brings the life of the temple to me when I am buried under my tasks and cannot attend there myself. When you come home, dearest husband, I shall remove him from Amun’s care entirely. He instructs those who must delve into the suitability of the names I select to act as your representatives with the Princes and governors. You have given me many difficult tasks, Ahmose, but this is the hardest. It is being slowly accomplished.”

  The remainder of the letter was taken up with small gossip regarding the doings of the children, the health of their mother, and finally an outpouring of her love for him before she placed her name and titles at the end. Ahmose let the scroll roll up, called for Ipi, and then sat biting his lip and frowning. The one reference Aahmes-nefertari had made to Tetisheri had been innocuous enough, but it made him uneasy. Was there a struggle for control taking place in the house? Was Tetisheri attempting to assert her own authority over the many enterprises he had left in his wife’s hands? I will not be returning to Weset for a very long time, he thought, as a shadow fell over him and he looked up to see Ipi come to a halt and bow. Aahmes-nefertari knows it, and that is why her letter was so full. I must remind her to seal her communications to me as soon as they are written and place them directly into the hands of the herald who will bring them. I must tell her to dictate everything done and said under her jurisdiction in the greatest detail. Better still, she must write the letters herself.

  Then he laughed abruptly. That would require more time and effort than she had, and the mute suggestion had come straight from the muddy pool of jealousy still rippling inside him. I should be pleased that she has found someone on whom she may rely, he thought. This Khunes is a scribe, a useful and necessary tool. Nothing more. If he enters her bedchamber, if he bows before her as she sits propped up on her couch, her filmy white sleeping robe spread out around her and her hair loose upon the pillows, it is because it is the only time in her crowded day when she is able to address this particular matter.

  I used to love her calmly, unreflectively, his thoughts ran on. I took her and that comfortable emotion for granted. She was my shy, pretty wife for whom I felt an indulgent, rather patronizing protectiveness. I made love to her with tenderness and enjoyment but passion for her was unknown to me. All that has changed. War and suffering has made me a man and brought out in her the qualities I ought to have seen in the beginning if I had not been so complacent with regard to her affection for me.

  Now I am in love with her and I did not realize it fully until this moment. I am jealous of her scribe, the officers of her household guard, the priests with whom she worships in the temple. The women who clothe her, the men who feed her, the cosmetician who is privileged to touch her face, I envy them all. I want to bury my face in her hair, her neck, between her breasts, inhale the scent of her, lap up the warmth of her, not sanely curbed within myself but to burn, to be lost. Not wife, not mother, but woman, you are woman to me, Aahmes-nefertari, and I want you with a ferocity I did not know I possessed.

  Ipi cleared his throat and Ahmose glanced up, dazed. “You wish to dictate, Majesty?” the scribe asked politely. Ahmose wrenched his attention back to the present.

  “No. No, Ipi,” he said huskily. He held out the scroll. “A letter from the Queen. Put a date on it and file it away. Tell me,” he went on as Ipi took the papyrus, “do you know anything of a temple scribe called Khunes? Her Majesty has recently hired him as her personal assistant.” Ipi frowned, considering.

  “I know every under-scribe in your employ, Majesty,” he replied, “but it is some time since I took notice of Amun’s servants. The name seems familiar. Would Your Majesty like me to make a few discreet enquiries into the character and ability of this person?” At once Ahmose felt besmirched.

  “No,” he answered slowly. “The Queen’s judgement is sound. I simply wondered what you could remember of him if you had ever met him. Thank you, Ipi. That is all.” Yet his eyes stayed fixed on the scroll in Ipi’s hand as the man hurried away, and he rose from his chair with reluctance. His head had begun to ache and the scar behind his ear to itch. He fingered it irritably. “Akhtoy!” he called. “Bring a sunshade! I will swim and then lie on the bank for a while before I eat.”

  Both the letter and the revelation that had followed it made him restless. He did not want the food Akhtoy placed before him, nor could he fall asleep in the hour when the sun seemed to stand still and the heat was greatest. He was almost glad when Ankhmahor requested admittance to tell him that Mesehti and Makhu were waiting outside to speak with him. Leaving his cot, he pulled on the linen cap of custom and wound a kilt about his waist before allowing the Princes entrance.

  They came up to him and prostrated themselves, pressing their foreheads to the carpeted floor, before rising at his curt word. He studied them carefully and they gazed back at him solemnly, Mesehti’s eyes steady in his weathered face, Makhu betraying anxiety in the clenching of his strong jaw. “Well,” Ahmose said at last. “What do you wish to say to me?” Mesehti, as Ahmose might have expected, came straight to the point.

  “Majesty, you have brought us with you to the Delta and you have kept us idle,” he began. “We have no designated office here. We understand that we are under your divine discipline, that we accompanied you because you do not trust us, but we chafe at our inactivity. We humbly beg you to tell us how long we must dwell in the coldness of your disapproval.” He glanced at Makhu. “We are aware that Your Majesty reads our letters to our families in Djawati and Akhmin and their letters to us. They dictate nothing more than the affairs of our estates, the abundance of the harvest, the progress of our tombs and suchlike. As for us, we wander about the camp with our shame displayed for every active officer to see. We would rather be imprisoned than that!”

  “Would you indeed?” Ahmose broke in, his tone deceptively mild. “You were greatly averse to any such fate when you returned to Weset with Ramose and fell on your knees before me and the Queen. You were a hair’s breadth away from losing your heads. Indeed, if it had not been for the Queen’s clemency, you would even now be lying beautified in your tombs. And you dare to complain of such a small matter as your shame?” Makhu took one step forward.

  “It is not a small matter, our shame,” he said earnestly. “It is a disfigurement that we will carry on our kas for the rest of the lives the Queen so mercifully gave back to us. But, Majesty, we are not peasants. We are not stupid men. We erred from a confusion of loyalties, not from cowardice or indecision. We are Princes, with knowledge and skills that are at your disposal as our King. Do not waste us, Divine One! Give us work. Let us earn your trust once again!”

  Ahmose turned away from them and began to pace. Letters and trust, he thought grimly. Perhaps it is I who need to learn a lesson today. Are you speaking to me, Amun, King of Gods? Are you admonishing me or giving me a warning? “It is certain that I cannot send you to your homes,” he said, hands behind his back as he measured out the confined space of the tent. “It is also certain that I would be pleased to restore two nobles to my favour by allowing them to make amends for their mistakes. Such an indulgence would be most agreeable to Ma’at. But what atonement should I command?” He was half-playing with them, having already decided to bend his back to the caution of the god. “Oh sit down, both of you!” he snapped. “Take those stools. I understood your dilemma weeks ago and I fully expect you to understand mine. I can risk no more rebellions.” They loosened, pulling up the stools and lowering themselves even as Ahmose flung himself into his chair. “Akhtoy left some wine on the table,” he said. “Makhu, pour for us. I know that the divisions are short of charioteers and few Egyptians apart from the Princes know anything about horses. I desperately need someone to train drivers a
nd organize the stables. It is an honourable position, well suited to ancient blood. You can both begin by becoming Overseers of the Stables, inspecting the state of the horses belonging to each division and putting the fledgling charioteers through their paces. With the Inundation imminent the chariots will soon be of little use but next summer they will come into their own and one day, I hope, they will be matched with the Setiu chariots right here on the flood plains outside Het-Uart. Is this acceptable to you?” They nodded gravely, relief on their faces but not the servility that would have hidden an insincerity Ahmose feared. “Good. Then let us drink to the restoration of Ma’at and the health of our loved ones.” But I will still order your letters unsealed and read to me, Ahmose said to them silently as all three of them drank. And my eye will be on you constantly.

  It was another week before reports from the six divisions fighting in the Delta began to dribble in and Ahmose read them with increasing disquiet. The situation was less reassuring than he had hoped. It was not dire, as Hor-Aha pointed out during the strategy meeting Ahmose had called to discuss the news, but it was troubling nonetheless. “Kamose ignored the Horus Road for too long,” Turi remarked as the five men sat about the table in the shade of Ahmose’s tent. “It is like an untended hole in an irrigation dyke. As long as troops from Rethennu keep flowing into Egypt, we will be unable to lure Apepa from the safety of his stronghold. His fellow Princes in the east will keep us in a state of impotence.”

  “He had little choice,” Khety objected. “His immediate concern was the need to secure the rest of Egypt and that is where his energy went. He accomplished that goal.”

  “It seems as though Rethennu has an unlimited supply of men and arms,” Sebek-khu said irritably. “Where are they coming from?”

  “Do not forget that Rethennu is an alliance of several tribal chieftains who call themselves Princes,” Ahmose reminded them. “Apepa’s grandfather Sekerher was only one of them. I have no doubt that they are pledged to help one another in times of war.”

  “And in trade,” Hor-Aha put in. “Much of the wealth of the Delta has surely been channelled into their coffers. We must plug up that hole.”

  “These foreign soldiers are not phantoms,” Ahmose said. “Nor can the women of Rethennu produce them fully grown on demand.” He went on speaking through a ripple of laughter. “There must be a time when the supply is exhausted. But we cannot wait. Het-Uart must fall, and soon.”

  He had a quick vision of discouraged generals, discontented and homesick troops, desertions, and through it all his enemy feasting at a table laden with all manner of delicacies in an impregnable palace, the Double Crown on his head and Tani at his right hand, weighed down with the gold of Wawat. Mentally shaking himself, he placed both hands flat on the table.“I must venture farther into the Delta and see for myself what is happening,” he told them. “You all know what must be done here. Hor-Aha, keep the soldiers and citizens from the walls. Have the Medjay shoot at anyone who shows his head. The docks are destroyed. No Keftian or Asi trading vessels will be appearing until the Inundation fills the tributary, but if you spot any coming in from the Great Green to the north have them boarded, denuded and sent home politely. We do not wish to antagonize our future partners in prosperity.” Hor-Aha nodded. Ahmose turned to the others. “Khety, defend the perimeter of the northern mound. Keep the soldiers bottled up inside it and prevent anyone from entering. Turi, Sebek-khu, see that the gates of Het-Uart do not open. Nothing must pass in or out.”

  For a while longer they discussed details, then Ahmose left them, signalling to Khabekhnet as he went. “Delegate your position to your second and prepare to travel with me,” he ordered. “Make sure that your heralds continue their nightly challenge. Send to Kay Abana. If I do not return before the Nile begins to rise, he is to do his utmost to prevent the irrigation canals from being opened. He has my authority to summon other ships from Het nefer Apu if necessary. Bring me the Scribes of Victualling, the Army and Distribution.” Khabekhnet saluted. Ankhmahor, conferring with a group of the Followers, turned to Ahmose inquiringly as he strode up. “We are moving into the Delta,” Ahmose told him. “Your men can strike their tents. Have them ready to leave tomorrow morning.”

  He found Akhtoy and Ipi sitting together on the bank where several of the army’s servants were washing linen, standing knee-deep while they beat the surface of the placid water with skeins of sopping white cloth. “Pack up my belongings,” he said to Akhtoy, “and you, Ipi, bring plenty of papyrus and ink. It is time to see what my other thirty thousand men are doing.”

  He did not sleep much that night. His tent was empty, his effects shut away in the chests Akhtoy had piled up outside. Drowsing occasionally, he would wake to a series of random but worrying thoughts that flitted in succession across his mind and would not let him rest. Mesore was almost over. Thoth would mark the beginning of a new year and, if the gods willed it, a copious flood. The Horus Road wound tortuously between pools that would become lakes and reed-filled moist ground that turned into treacherous swamps, a thoroughfare that never became impassable, but that would have to be held by infantry alone without the aid of chariots. And what of the Wall of Princes? he asked himself, as he turned and turned again, his body tense. Can it be reinforced against the Setiu infiltrators without bleeding my army dry of men? Those are the keys to the eventual destruction of Het-Uart, the Wall of Princes and the Horus Road, and I am condemned to remain in the north until they are utterly mine.

  Towards dawn he was finally able to drift into an unconsciousness broken only by the regular calling of the heralds as they drove around the towering walls of the city, and a dream in which he stood on one side of a Nile that was dangerously and uncharacteristically raging. Aahmes-nefertari stood on the other, pale and motionless, staring at him, while darkness grew between them and eventually she was lost to sight. Akhtoy’s voice mingling with the new sunlight and the aroma of warm bread woke him, and he swung his legs over the edge of his cot and greeted his steward with massive relief. “I must make sure that Mesehti and Makhu travel with us,” he said aloud as the cloud of preoccupations returned. Akhtoy did not reply, and Ahmose began his morning meal.

  6

  IT WAS A FULL SIX WEEKS before Ahmose turned his chariot back towards Het-Uart, and in that time the river had begun its swift rise towards the fullness of its flood two months away. The celebration of the new year took place on the first day of Thoth, when the rising of the Sopdet Star was marked by the solemn panoply of ritual in the temples and the full festivity of a holiday throughout the country.

  Ahmose hardly noticed its passing, for the soldiers from Rethennu had no knowledge of true religion and no respect for its necessary observances. The fighting in the Delta did not stop for gods or men. Ahmose found himself plunged into the kind of frustrating, unresolved warfare he had thought left behind in the years with Kamose and before that, his father. Sallying forth from the outskirts of Het-Uart with Ramose, Ankhmahor and the Followers—Akhtoy, Ipi and his personal staff behind and Khabekhnet and his scouts ahead—he had rapidly been made aware of his defencelessness. A contingent of troops from the Division of Ptah intercepted him three days east of the city as he was about to enter a deceptively peaceful village of whitewashed huts and shady groves of tamarisk and acacia. Their senior officer pushed past the Followers’ challenges and came up to Ahmose’s chariot, while his men quickly formed a protective cordon around Ahmose’s entourage. “General Akhethotep sent me to escort you to his headquarters, Majesty,” he explained. “Your scouts found the Division yesterday, but we are continually on the move and the General was afraid that you might come too late to find him.” He pointed at the cluster of little houses half-hidden amongst the random trees. “We fought the Setiu in that place,” he said. “In and out of the dwellings. But we had to leave it before the whole area was secure. The Division of Khonsu needed our support.”

  “Why?” Ahmose asked sharply. “Where were they?” As he looked down into the
officer’s strained face, he felt the first intimations of genuine anxiety.

  “Twenty-five miles farther along the Horus Road, Majesty,” the man replied. “General Iymery was attempting to hold off a large force of the enemy that had converged by one of the lakes. Most of the fighting is a matter of small skirmishes,” he went on, almost apologetically, “but this was a standing battle for which Iymery was not prepared. None of the generals expected such concerted opposition.”

  Ahmose’s gaze wandered over the sun-drenched walls of the village without seeing them. All my time and energy has been bent on the siege around Het-Uart while the real battle for Egypt is taking place elsewhere, he thought with a spurt of panic. How could I have been so blind? Even while my mouth was speaking of the necessity for scouring the Delta of foreign troops, my mind was fully on a vision of the city’s daunting gates. I was not listening. What was I imagining? That Kamose had cleaned out the Delta once and for all? That somehow the foreigners would dissolve and melt away once their feet touched Egyptian soil? Or is it simply that my brush with death has left me afraid to face yet again the sheer sweat and terror and brutality of firsthand combat? A siege is relatively bloodless. It is a slow and predictable enterprise. Amun help me, I cannot yet afford to slip comfortably into any slow and predictable enterprise. I have been deluding myself. Realizing that his men had fallen silent and were watching him inquiringly, he gestured.

  “Come up and stand behind me,” he ordered the officer. “Let your charioteer drive on alone and we will follow. Tell me what has been happening.” The soldier sketched a bow and swung himself onto the floor of Ahmose’s chariot. Ahmose signalled and the cavalcade began to move. The slumbering village gradually receded, lost behind a dappled confusion of dense foliage.