The Horus Road

by Pauline Gedge

  “To Uatch-Kheperu Ahmose, Neb-pehti-Ra, Horus, the Horus of Gold, and my esteemed Father, greetings from your loyal son,” he read. “I humbly and sadly offer you my sympathy on the death of my sister the Princess Hent-ta-Hent. Khunes told me to say it like that but I really am sorry. I will miss her even though she cried a lot. Khunes is going to show me how to sign my name and titles myself. I hope you are well and have beaten the evil Setiu and will be coming home soon. Your loving son, the Hawk-in-the-Nest …” Stunned, Ahmose tossed the scroll aside and tore the seal from the other, unrolling it in one savage movement. It had been written throughout in Aahmesnefertari’s own neat, orderly hand.

  “My dearest husband,” it began. “Forgive me for burdening you with this terrible news when all your energies must be engaged in defeating the enemy, but when would it ever be a good time to tell you something that will cause you grief? Our daughter, Hent-ta-Hent, died yesterday of a fever that Amunmose was unable to exorcise. He tried many incantations but the demon was too strong. She had been fretful for some days before succumbing. Raa and I believed her distress to be caused by teething until the fever took hold with unshakeable force. She died still unconscious. She will, of course, be beautified and correctly mourned and we will place her in a temporary tomb until ours has been finished. She was walking quite steadily until she became ill and had mastered a few simple words which she would say loudly over and over again with such pride! She had begun to try and follow Ahmose-onkh about, a fact that either exasperated or charmed him depending on his mood. He was most distressed when I prevented him from being with her once I realized how the demon had filled her. I miss you so much, and never more than now when the house is in mourning. Send me some word as soon as you are able. Your loving wife and obedient subject, Aahmes-nefertari.”

  Ahmose let the scroll roll up with a small rustle. For many minutes he sat with the dry papyrus under his motionless fingers, gazing unseeing into the quivering glow of the lamp flame inside its alabaster sphere. Little Hent-ta-Hent, he thought. I remember the feel of her tiny body on my chest as I lay in the garden, the endearing light weight of her, her skin feeding warmth into mine and her sleeping breath making her dark curls stir rhythmically. I can smell her, that wonderful pure smell of freshness and babyhood. Poor Aahmes-nefertari. Of the three children to whom she has given birth only one survives, and though I keenly feel the loss of my little girl, I cannot know the depth of a mother’s pain.

  Pushing the scrolls aside, he rested his elbows on the table and his chin sank into his palms. It is no accident that this news came to me in the very hour of my triumph, his thoughts ran on. There is a price for everything. Even Kings must pay for what they want. Hent-ta-Hent is the price the gods have exacted for all those who have fallen here today so that I may move ever closer to my goal. Was Kamose also a part of that cost? Even though my destiny to be a King is not so much my own desire as the decree of those same gods who have snatched my daughter in payment and destroyed my brother? A chill shook him, and then all at once the tears that had threatened to overwhelm him earlier came flooding back through his fingers. He heard someone come into the tent behind him, heard Ipi and Akhtoy whispering together in alarm, but he could not move. It is not good for servants to see a god weep, he thought incoherently, but tonight I do not care.

  When he was spent, he lifted his head and immediately a square of clean linen was gently presented to him. Taking it, he wiped his face and rose. Ipi bowed and Akhtoy retrieved the linen. “The Princess Hent-ta-Hent is dead,” Ahmose said tonelessly. “She died of a fever. Take these letters, Ipi. Read and file them. I will dictate replies tomorrow. Stay here. The Scribe of the Army will arrive soon with his report.” He turned clumsily to his steward. “Akhtoy, bring wine.” Akhtoy bowed low, spreading out his hands in the ancient gesture of pleading or commiseration.

  “Majesty, I am so sorry,” he said. “Surely the little Princess needs no justification before the gods. Her heart will weigh lighter than the Feather of Ma’at on the scales of the Judgement Hall.” His compassion was genuine, Ahmose knew. Akhtoy had daughters himself. But your daughters have not been sacrificed to maintain some sort of cosmic balance, Ahmose spoke to him silently. Surely the gods do not dare to even place Hent-ta-Hent’s heart on the scales, for they themselves have willed her death and she is innocent. He was spared a reply. Akhtoy did not wait for one. He backed out of the tent.

  Ahmose resumed his seat and looked across at his Chief Scribe, who had retrieved the scrolls and was watching him blankly. “I think,” Ahmose said heavily, “that we will be able to go home before long, Ipi.” The scribe smiled grimly.

  “Indeed, I fervently hope so, Majesty,” he agreed.

  As Ahmose had predicted, there was no rest for him or any highly placed officer that night. The Scribe of the Army appeared just before midnight, as the depressingly familiar stench of burning bodies had begun to coil throughout the Egyptian tents. A thick sheaf of papyrus was under his arm. He looked more exhausted than Ahmose felt, and gratefully accepted the King’s offer to sit. Akhtoy poured him wine, which he drank at once with the greed of true thirst.

  “The tally is complete, Majesty,” he said, shuffling the sheets of paper and settling deeper into his chair. “Five thousand, four hundred and ninety-one hands were collected and personally counted by me. Of those, two thousand, one hundred were taken from the battlefield by the tributary. The remaining three thousand, three hundred and ninety-one were gathered on the northern mound. It is a terrible loss for Apepa.” He glanced up. “The corpses have been fired in twelve locations, well away from the water. Our losses number two thousand dead and five hundred and sixty-three wounded. Of the wounded, some ninety are not expected to live and two hundred and eight have lost either arms or legs to the enemy’s swords. When they are able, they should be sent home and pensioned in the usual way. They are of no further use to you.” His delivery was brisk and matter-of-fact. No Scribe of the Army, part of whose task was the gruesome necessity of walking from arena to battle arena with his assistants when the fighting was over and sometimes literally wading through mutilated bodies, could afford the indulgence of sentimentality. “The physicians warn me that medical supplies are running low. I have sent to Iunu for more linen for bandages as well as herbs and poppy from the temples there, but it will be a few days before these things arrive.”

  “Break down our dead and wounded into the divisions and the navy for me,” Ahmose requested. The Scribe did so, reading from his seemingly endless lists. Baqet’s Division of Thoth had sustained the greatest number of casualties in the desperate attempt to hold off Pezedkhu until Turi and the Division of Amun arrived, and by far the heaviest count of wounded lay with the navy, whose sailors and marines had lost arms and hands while struggling to regain their vessels.

  When the figures were firmly fixed in Ahmose’s mind, he dismissed the man, asking him to bring regular reports on the rate of attrition among the wounded. He was replaced almost at once by a steady stream of officers from the divisions, come to report on the order slowly being brought out of what had been chaos. The supply of arrows was spent. Swords and spears were lost or broken and soldiers had been detailed to collect discarded Setiu weapons to replace them as soon as it was light. All the officers brought into the tent with them the miasma of smoke and extreme fatigue.

  The last to bow his way inside was Ankhtify, Standard Bearer of the Division of Horus. “General Khety sends you his most fervent congratulations, Majesty,” the officer said. “Every Setiu soldier on the northern turtleback is now burning outside the walls and their quarters are now occupied by our division. But there is an enclave of Egyptians and foreigners, mostly Keftiu merchants, living on small estates to the north-west of the mound. They are clamouring to be allowed to leave. General Khety is refusing them permission until he has received your command on the matter.”

  “Those are the estates with irrigation ditches that are usually filled by digging out the wall,” Ahmos
e said. He pursed his lips, considering. “I want to talk to the Keftiu. Tell Khety that I will come and inspect the mound tomorrow. In the meantime he is to detain them all. Have him close both the gates and set sentries inside and outside them. They are to be guarded at all times, particularly the Horus Road Gate where Khety might be vulnerable to an attack from the east. I have not had any communication from the divisions in the eastern Delta for some time. The risk is small but it must be taken into account. If by some rare chance the northern mound were to be retaken by the Setiu, it would be a disaster. The gates can of course be opened to allow our own troops to come and go during the day. What of the ancient temple to Set?” The man raised his eyebrows.

  “Some of the Setiu made a stand within its confines,” he told Ahmose, “but they were overcome and slaughtered. The temple itself is not damaged but will require purification. Does Your Majesty wish this to be done tonight? Will you pray there tomorrow?”

  “No.” Ahmose decided quickly. “The Delta has always belonged to Set but the Setiu took the god and melded him with their own Sutekh. I do not wish to have anyone think that in worshipping Set I am giving my approval to Sutekh also. Let the priests purify the precincts and let the temple remain, but I will not enter it.” He rose, a gesture of dismissal. “I will also visit the wounded and drive among the troops,” he finished. “Convey my extreme admiration to General Khety for his success today.”

  When Ankhtify had gone, Ahmose had himself washed, performed his belated evening prayers, offered the customary incense to Amun, and fell onto his cot.

  He was about to ask Akhtoy to douse the lamp when yet another shadow darkened the door of the tent. It was Hor-Aha. He came forward swiftly and halted beside the cot, looking down on Ahmose expressionlessly. Ahmose studied the smooth black face on which the only betrayal of tiredness lay in two faint grooves running from the inside corners of those sooty eyes. “The news of the little Princess’s death is already spreading throughout the camp,” he said without preamble. “I am very sorry, Majesty. What else can I say? The gods’ idea of justice does not always conform to our own.” Ahmose nodded once and waited. Hor-Aha swallowed. “I have come to give you my shame,” he went on. “I am ashamed for the hesitation, nay, the cowardice of the Medjay. I am ashamed at their refusal to obey my orders. I am ashamed at what I hear, that you yourself were compelled to urge them to cross the lesser tributary and carry away the wounded.” His deep voice had grown hoarse. “I ask for your permission to punish them.” Ahmose searched the smooth, exotically handsome face. There was something different about Hor-Aha, something he could not quite determine.

  “I agree that they behaved abominably,” he said, “but their fear of water is well known, Hor-Aha. They should have attempted to overcome it and I have no respect for their lack of initiative, but they acquitted themselves well in the early stages of the conflict.”

  “That may be so,” Hor-Aha said gravely, “but now they have made themselves and me objects of scorn among the Egyptian officers. If I was hated before, I am anathema to them now.” Ah yes, Ahmose thought. The heart of the problem. Your pride, my old friend, and your secret self-doubt.

  “How will you punish them?” he wanted to know.

  “I will remove their personal totems,” Hor-Aha replied at once, and Ahmose suddenly remembered that each tribesman carried some barbarous fetish or other; a stone from a sacred site, a piece of bone from a wild animal he had slain, even the lock of a vanquished enemy’s hair, in the belief that such things had the power to protect him from danger. And will you yourself give up your precious totem, Hor-Aha? Ahmose asked him silently. Will you relinquish the piece of linen stained with my father’s blood that you carry on your belt?

  “No,” Ahmose said emphatically. “No, Hor-Aha. If you do that, they will think themselves so defenceless that their ability to fight will be gone. Then they will be cowards indeed! Leave it alone. Lash them with your tongue, with leather if you like, but do not strike at their spirit.” Hor-Aha looked down in reflection for a moment, then his chin rose.

  “Your Majesty speaks wisely,” he admitted, “but in doing so you heap yet more humiliation upon me. Here.” He held out a fistful of something that appeared to Ahmose, in the dim light of the one lamp still burning, like the black fur of a cat with a drooping tail. “I have cut off my hair as an act of extreme mortification.” Ahmose watched in astonishment as Hor-Aha laid the two long braids side by side on the white sheet. So that is the difference about him that teased me, Ahmose thought. His chest is bare. I had grown so used to seeing it adorned with those gleaming ropes. Gods! He is giving me his manhood! He looked up and met his General’s blank gaze.

  “Your men will see,” he said slowly. “They will know what you have done, and why.” Hor-Aha ran a hand up the back of his naked neck.

  “Even so,” he replied. “But it is not only for them. It is for me. For my regret. I will do my utmost to see that such a necessity does not arise again, Majesty. Dismiss me, I beg.” Ahmose did so.

  For a while a pregnant silence filled the tent. Ahmose and Akhtoy met each other’s eye. Then Ahmose waved a finger. “Wrap them up and store them somewhere in the bottom of one of my tiring boxes,” he said to the steward. “Do it quickly, Akhtoy. I must sleep now or go mad.”

  But for a little while he could not sleep. Lying on his back in the dimness, he felt again the languid body of his baby daughter against his chest and fancied that her warm breath sighed in his ear. Not until he turned onto his side did unconsciousness engulf him.

  He woke early to a hurried meal and a slow dressing, for he wished to present himself to his troops in full regal and military regalia. When Akhtoy had settled the pectoral around his neck, the golden earring in his lobe, the golden Chief Commander’s bracelets on his wrists and the gold-shot linen helmet surmounted by the arrogant beak of the goddess Nekhbet on his head, he strapped on his sword belt and sandals and emerged into the smoke-hazed morning. He was greeted by Ipi, who had been waiting armed with his palette, and a clink of metal and the thud of purposeful feet as a group of soldiers with Ankhmahor leading them at once came marching towards him from the direction of the tributary. They were already livered in the blue and white of royalty. Coming up to him, they bowed as one then straightened to watch him expectantly. “Your new Followers, Majesty,” Ankhmahor explained. “I have selected them from among the Shock Troops of each division. They are eager to serve you.” Ahmose welcomed them briefly before turning to Ankhmahor. Beyond him Makhu appeared, the wheels of the chariot glinting dully in the clouded atmosphere.

  “How is Harkhuf?” Ahmose enquired.

  “He has improved slightly and there is as yet no sign of ukhedu in the wound,” Ankhmahor replied. “The pain is still intense. He drinks a great deal, both water and poppy.”

  “Good.” Ahmose began to walk to his chariot and the bodyguard fell in promptly around him. “We will make our first stop today at the northern mound.”

  The vast camp through which he was driven was seething with the bustle of orderly activity and cheerfully noisy. Soldiers laden with dirty linen made their way to the river, pausing to reverence him as he passed. Others sat outside their tents cleaning their weapons or drinking beer. Some lay asleep, oblivious to the happy furore around them, their spare kilts draped over their faces and their spent limbs flaccid on the grass. Many were limping, not from wounds, Ahmose realized, but from muscles stressed with a full day of fighting. A mood of optimism prevailed.

  At the canal that snaked from the main tributary around the northern mound and back again, Ahmose dismounted, crossing the dwindling water on a makeshift bridge Khety’s soldiers had laid down and walking between the two outflung arms of the Horus Road Gate with a rush of pride. He was met by the General himself and together with Ipi, the Followers and Khety’s senior officers, Ahmose spent several hours inspecting his prize. It was an unlovely place, bare of any vegetation except on the roofs of the endless lines of military barracks where th
e foreign soldiers had managed to grow meagre crops of barley, garlic and vegetables. Khety’s men were busy clearing them of everything the hapless Setiu had left, piling pots, garments and even a few unused bows and swords in heaps under the gleam of the morning sunlight.

  The wounded were being tended in a large, crumbling mansion close to the temple. Ahmose paced the rows of pallets on which his men lay, his ears assaulted by their groans and cries, which seemed to echo against the high ceilings of the pillared rooms. The physicians moved among them, accompanied by several priests of Set, who were exorcising the fever demons and offering what prayers they could for those already dying. They bowed profoundly to Ahmose as he passed. “I presume that the governor of the mound lived here before Apepa was forced to turn it into a military bivouac to take the overflow of troops coming in from the east,” Khety said in answer to Ahmose’s query as they regained the open air. “The building itself belongs to your ancestor Osiris-Senwasret’s time but the Setiu made some additions of their own, mostly crude mud brick halls. They are not much interested in architecture.”

  “It is an unsightly shambles,” Ahmose admitted, “and of no use to us. When the wounded have gone, you can tear down the Setiu additions and use what is left as your headquarters, Khety. You and the Division of Horus will be stationed here at least until Het-Uart surrenders. How many wells are there?”

  “Only four, Majesty. The water supply was of course supplemented by the canal itself, outside the walls.”

  “Dig more if you need them, and commandeer the gardens of the few estates that exist here. If we continue to hold the eastern Delta, there will be food enough for your men, but we must not presume on our ultimate safety.” He turned to Khety and smiled. “You have indeed proved yourself a worthy General and a faithful son of Egypt,” he said warmly. “Now I must speak with the inhabitants of those estates.”