The Horus Road

by Pauline Gedge

  “From the city,” Ramose answered curtly. “You can see a dull glow even above the walls and when the sun rises I expect a pall of black smoke to be visible. They are burning bodies.” Ahmose took his arm and together they walked to where the tributary lay motionless, its surface glassy black, and turned towards Het-Uart. The walls bulked dark against a slightly lightened sky, but the stars usually visible above them were eclipsed by a sullen orange rim. Ahmose shivered. The ground struck cold through his thin reed sandals and the pre-dawn air was chill.

  For some time the two men watched. Then Ahmose said, “What do you think is happening, Ramose?”

  “I think that people are dying,” Ramose replied. “It is inevitable that a scarcity of water has resulted in the birth of disease, particularly in a place like this. Also there is no fresh food other than the handfuls of grain the citizens can grow on the rooftops. The poor, the farmers and traders visiting Het-Uart who became trapped inside when the siege began, the children, these will die first. Apepa’s stockpiles are limited by space. They are becoming depleted. He and his nobles will not be suffering, but I pity the inhabitants with no resources at all.”

  “They would have done better to fling the bodies over the wall for us to deal with,” a deep voice cut in, and Ahmose turned to find Hor-Aha at his elbow with Paheri and Kay Abana behind. “Thus they would have saved precious fuel and reduced the swift spreading of disease. The mayor is not a clever man.”

  “Perhaps Apepa does not want us to know the rate of human attrition,” Paheri suggested. “That fire may represent a hundred bodies or a thousand. How they stink!” Oh, Tani, Ahmose thought in despair. How much of the city’s agony are you able to see and hear? Did you lie awake last night with that first rank odour curling into your bedchamber so that you could not sleep? Are you deafened by the cries and wailings that do not drift down to us here? Or are you tightly held in Apepa’s lavish cocoon, in his remorseless arms? Do you speak out to him against this horror or has your heart become too hard?

  “Put the navy on full alert today, Paheri,” he said huskily. “And you, Hor-Aha, do not let the Medjay leave their ships. Khabekhnet, are you here?” His Chief Herald detached himself from the shadows and came forward. “Warn General Khety to beware of any archers appearing on the walls of the northern mound. He is to prepare for battle. General Turi and General Sebek-khu must likewise deploy their divisions as though the gates were about to open.”

  “Your Majesty expects this?” Kay asked hopefully. “Then I beg Your Majesty’s permission to anchor the North across from the gates leading to Apepa’s citadel.” Ahmose was too disturbed to smile.

  “Your superiors will decide where the North is to be placed,” he said. “As for what I expect, I can only believe that we are seeing the beginning of Apepa’s ruin and therefore we must be ready for anything he might do.” He shrugged. “Surrender is unlikely. Ramose, have my chariot brought round when you are ready.” They reverenced him and scattered, and he walked back to his tent with one hand pressed to his nose. It seemed to him that the smoke from the city had a more pungent reek than that of the burning Setiu soldiers two months before. His imagination was magnifying his sense of smell, that he knew, but he could not control his revulsion.

  He, his generals, and all his host waited in a state of battle readiness and tense anticipation while night after night the shifting blush of that macabre fire replaced the dwindling rose of sunset and blotted out the stars. Sometimes it sank to a few intermittent flares but it did not die completely, and its smell permeated hair, clothing and food so that the Egyptians wore, breathed and ate the testimony of death.

  Two weeks went by and Khoiak ended. The level of water in the tributary and the canals around the city began to recede. On the first day of Tybi the rest of Egypt, the sane, clean, Ma’at-filled land blessed by the gods, celebrated the Feast of the Coronation of Horus. Ahmose had ceased to think of the Delta as belonging to that privileged country. It was an aberration, a place without a name where he was condemned to live in a continual haze of greyness and try to confront an enemy who would not show his face.

  The troops shared his mounting apprehension. Increasingly he saw it in the eyes that turned to him as he was driven among them and heard it in the tones of his officers as they met him each morning to receive their orders. What shall I do if Apepa does nothing? he asked himself in the endless dark hours when sleep was a memory. How long can he withstand the suffering of his people? How stubborn is his will? What shall I do when the tributary shrinks to its summer level and the ditches tothe east of the mounds dry up and I am forced to withdraw the navy?

  No answers came to him, no dream in which his father or brother appeared with words of wisdom, no image of Amun holding symbols of victory to be interpreted by a grateful son. He remembered with envy the woman who had dominated Kamose’s thoughts and ultimately stolen his heart with the timely visions that had enabled him to accomplish so much. Was Kamose less intelligent, less astute than I, that you should have favoured him so? he asked the god as he knelt before the shrine in his tent. Or did you value him more highly for his sheer obsessiveness? And yet I am the one you have appointed to be King. Hear me, great Amun. I do not want rewards. I do not even want a vision. Give me this city, this prize for which my brother died. Give it to me and name your price, for I am tired and I have come to a place from which there is no escape save by retreating.

  He waited, but the silence around him remained unbroken and the thin column of incense rose from his outstretched hand undisturbed by any puff of ghostly wind. In the end he rose, prostrated himself before closing the doors of the shrine, and went to empty the spent incense holder outside the tent. Het-Uart still glowed. The air still stank. Bidding the Follower a good night, Ahmose retired to the tent. He listened to the small, innocuous noises beyond while his mind churned with alternatives, each more ludicrous than the last, and try as he might, he could not quiet his thoughts.

  But he was jerked to full awareness by a sound he had not heard in a long time and his body responded to it, tumbling to rush outside before he recognized it as the tuneless blaring of horns. The sun had just lipped the eastern horizon and the cool air was full of glittering dust motes. Birds crowded above the water, noisily engaged in their morning feeding, and the surface of the water itself was broken into tiny rippling circles as fish rose to snap at the hovering clouds of newly hatched mosquitoes. The trees glistened wetly with dew. Ahmose noticed none of these things for the harsh, tuneless music was coming from the city and all around it the Egyptians were running to and fro as though a stone had been hurled into an anthill. Ahmose’s heart skipped a beat and then thudded painfully in his chest. “Khabekhnet!” he shouted. “Where are you?”

  “Here, Majesty,” the man panted. He was loping towards Ahmose, fastening his kilt, one sandal still in his hand. Stumbling up, he sketched a bow, balancing precariously on one foot while he thrust the sandal onto the other.

  “Run to Makhu. I want my chariot at once. You will need one also. Send your heralds to the generals. I want reports. I want Ramose. Tell him so, but do it last.” The herald spun away. Ahmose turned to Harkhuf, Ankhmahor’s son, temporarily in command of the Followers. He too was half-dressed but clutching his sword belt. His bow and quiver were slung over one naked shoulder. “Assemble the Followers, Harkhuf,” Ahmose told him. “Have them fully armed. I am going to walk a little way towards the city but do not be distressed. Bring them when they are ready.” The young man hesitated, doubt in his eyes.

  “Majesty, my father … I do not think …”

  “You will do very well,” Ahmose said firmly. “Your father trained you and I approved you as his replacement while he is at Aabtu. You will protect me. Now go.” Harkhuf bit his lip and nodded. Ahmose left, wanting to take to his heels and pelt along the tributary bank in the direction of the uproar but forcing himself to stand straight and stride calmly. No one must suspect that the King might be in a state of agitation.

>   Someone came rushing up behind him, and he paused to see Akhtoy burdened with a variety of objects. He waved the steward away impatiently but Akhtoy stood his ground. “Your pardon, Majesty, but you have time for this,” he said obstinately. “The Followers are not yet ready and your chariot has not appeared.” He handed Ahmose a small bowl of white cheese and fresh dates and a cup of beer. At once Ahmose became aware of his hunger. Grunting his thanks, he drank quickly and began to toss the food into his mouth. When he had finished, Akhtoy took back the bowl, saying, “Your Majesty cannot fight on an empty stomach. Nor with your sleeping cap on your head and no insignia for the troops to recognize.” Ahmose’s hand went to his head and he laughed, pulling off the covering. Akhtoy held out the great pectoral, its gold glinting in the new light, its lapis and turquoise gleaming dully, and Ahmose settled it around his neck.

  As he felt its weight against his naked chest, all consternation left him. Akhtoy now passed him a starched blueand-white striped linen helmet. Its rim was of gold surmounted by the vulture of Nekhbet. Ahmose set it on his shaved scalp and held out his arms so that the steward could slip the golden Supreme Commander’s armbands onto his wrists. Akhtoy had not forgotten the sword belt from which both sword and dagger hung. Ahmose buckled it on and smiled into Akhtoy’s eyes.

  “Thank you,” he said simply. On the periphery of his vision he saw the spokes of a moving chariot flashing in the sun. Akhtoy gestured.

  “Your chariot comes and the Followers are right behind you, Majesty,” he said. “May Amun give us victory.” He melted unobtrusively away. The chariot came to a halt, Makhu holding the reins, and Harkhuf and his men came running up. Ahmose stepped onto the vehicle’s floor.

  “There is no need for haste, I think,” he said. “Harkhuf, deploy your men to either side of me and be ready to move as I move. Makhu, let us go.”

  The brazen voice of the horns had fallen silent so that now even the roar of the thousands of Egyptian soldiers as they milled about on the flood plain seemed muted. The sun was fully risen. A brisk breeze was shredding the omnipresent plume of grey smoke rising above Het-Uart and in its murk Ahmose could see hundreds of figures spreading out along the rim of the wall. He glanced left and was reassured. Already the Medjay were lining the decks of their boats, bows bristling, and even as he looked a forest of arrows soared aloft, their tips catching the light before they began their deadly descent. Ahmose had full confidence in the Medjay’s skill. He knew that no missile would fall among his own men crowding the foot of the walls.

  But the Setiu had learned a painful lesson. This time they were crouching or squatting to fire, drawing upward before swinging their bows down and loosing their arrows at the soldiers below so as to provide the Medjay with a less visible target. Some were even lying on their stomachs, holding their bows sideways over the outer edge of the wall. Makhu snorted. “The idiots!” he said scornfully. “They bring into Egypt the most powerful and accurate bows ever invented but they use them so clumsily that one might imagine the weapons were of our own devising. We have certainly surpassed them in proficiency.”

  “They will rake their inner arms and the leather armguards will deflect their aim,” Ahmose murmured. “Those crouching will almost certainly nick their knees. It is impossible to fire lying down. At the least they are in danger of dropping their arrows. They are afraid to stand.”

  “I would be afraid also if I had to expose myself to the Medjay,” Makhu admitted. “Here comes Ramose, Majesty.” At Ahmose’s invitation Ramose clambered up beside him. He was sweating and out of breath.

  “I could not sleep, so I got up and rode the perimeter of the city with the heralds,” he explained in answer to Ahmose’s enquiring glance. “I had left one of them on the far side of the mound and was talking to one of the sentries just as the sun began to rise. Then the horns sounded. I ran here.”

  “What did you see?” Ahmose wanted to know. Ramose considered.

  “Not much,” he answered. “The smoke. The archers beginning to flood the walls. Our tents emptying. Men running to their assembly points. There is order in that chaos.”

  “I would expect nothing less.” Ahmose deliberated for a moment, his eyes on the turbulent scene ahead. “What is Apepa hoping to achieve?” he wondered aloud. “Is this simply a pointless exercise, a prideful gesture, what?”

  Suddenly a great swelling howl went up mixed with a frenzied yelping that made Ahmose’s skin prickle. Ramose’s arms shot out, gripping both sides of the chariot in a paroxysm of excitement. “The eastern gate is opening!” he screamed. “Look, Ahmose! I cannot believe it!” Neither could Ahmose. With a kind of dazed incredulity he watched as the massive doors began to swing inward. He leaned forward to shout to Makhu to move closer but Makhu had already tightened the reins and the horses were picking up speed, the Followers running beside them. “The Setiu are coming out! Look at them, look at them!” Ramose was shouting against the wind whistling past Ahmose’s ears and Ahmose, eyes narrowed, feet apart, bent over, felt a rush of pure joy mingled with pure terror.

  Makhu brought them to a halt as another chariot came careening towards them. It was Khabekhnet. He leaped down and came running. “I have placed a herald with every general, Majesty,” he cried. “Give your orders.”

  “I need to know if the gates of the northern mound are also open,” Ahmose said. “If more troops are coming out. Tell General Khety that if they are I want them beaten and the northern mound occupied at any cost. At any cost. If he needs reinforcements, he has my permission to take them from Sebekh-khu or Turi. Tell Paheri to support him with the navy. The Medjay have control of the western edge of Het-Uart and therefore can aid in the push to the western gate.” Khabekhnet saluted, and his chariot rolled away in a cloud of dust.

  “Why the northern turtleback?” Ramose wanted to know.

  “Because it is full almost exclusively with Setiu soldiers,” Ahmose replied. “There are very few civilians living on it. If we can overrun it and slay them, we will have completely defeated Apepa. The eastern Delta is rapidly falling back into our hands. Think of it, Ramose. All he will have left is the city itself. Routing the troops is more important than taking the city.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew that his decision to concentrate his army’s efforts to the east had been right. Kamose would have disagreed. For Kamose this war was a personal matter and the only enemy face he saw was Apepa’s. Driving out the Setiu had meant somehow reaching inside Het-Uart and crushing Apepa himself. All Kamose’s campaigns had been nothing more than the clearing of a path to Apepa’s palace door. His judgement was flawed, Ahmose thought sadly. He would never have taken the city. I also yearn to see Apepa on his knees before me, but I can wait.

  “The northern mound only has two gates,” Makhu put in. “One to the Horus Road and one on the west, facing the tributary. Let me drive you into some shade, Majesty. It is going to be a long, hot day.” Ramose stepped out of the chariot.

  “With your permission, Majesty, I would like to join the fighting,” he said. “If the Royal Entrance Gate is also open, I want to be there. I might be useful to General Turi.” Ahmose looked down at him. I know why you want to be there, he thought. I don’t want to lose you, but I cannot refuse. He nodded brusquely.

  “Just do not get yourself killed,” he said. “I do not have the time to find another governor for Khemmenu and the Un nome.” To Makhu he added, “Very well. Take me to those trees.” He pointed. “It is not a good vantage point but it will do until I have a clearer picture of what is happening from the heralds.”

  Once under the leafy branches of a huge sycamore, Ahmose lowered himself onto the floor of the chariot facing the city and the Followers grouped themselves around him. He could see General Baqet’s standard in an ocean of surging bodies, the soldiers of the Division of Thoth already engaged in close fighting with the hordes pouring out of the western gate. To the south-east he could only glimpse the rearguard of the Division of Montu spread
ing in a mighty curve to mingle with the trailing edge of Baqet’s men. There was another gate, hidden from Ahmose’s sight. He did not yet know whether it was open or closed. He forced himself to relax the tension gripping his body, uncurling the fists that were clenched against his thighs, unlocking the muscles of his jaw. No purpose would be served by rushing into the fray or even by pacing.

  The sun was considerably higher in the sky and Ahmose judged the time to be approximately the middle of the morning before the chariots of the heralds began to carve tracks to him across the beaten earth. The first was from Sebek-khu. “The Division of Montu is engaged in full battle outside the south-eastern gate, Majesty,” the man said. “The gate itself was open but is now closed. General Sebek-khu has sent a thousand soldiers to aid General Khety at the northern mound.”

  “Sebek-khu is confident that he can hold?”

  “Yes, Majesty. But he needs the Medjay. He is losing men due to the archers on the wall.”

  “Order General Hor-Aha to redeploy two of his boats. Bring me word as the situation changes.”

  The report from the Division of Thoth was similar. “The western gate was closed as soon as the Setiu army came out,” the herald told Ahmose. “They have ranged themselves between the outer perimeter of the wall and our soldiers. They are trying to force us into the tributary. General Baqet is hard pressed although he has generous aid from General Paheri. The ships are somewhat hampered by the ruins of the docks which are under the surface of the tributary and are thus a danger.”

  “What of the Medjay?”

  “They remain in position opposite the western gate and are keeping the archers on top of the wall pinned down.”

  “Does General Baqet ask for reinforcements?” The herald shook his head.

  “Reinforcements would do no good,” he said. “There is no room for them. They would only hamper the division’s ability to manœuvre. The Setiu General Pezedkhu is keeping a large contingent of soldiers close around him. General Baqet thinks that he will try to fight his way through our troops to the water.” Ahmose was on his feet and facing his herald.