“Apepa is not here?”
Sebek-khu shook his head, his smile fading. “No, Majesty, not unless he is hiding somewhere. I have made a cursory examination of the building but it is vast and complex and I and my men have not been in possession long. However, his vizier is waiting for you. I have detained him in a small room close by. He wanted to greet you in the reception hall but it would have taken many soldiers to watch him there. I am afraid I have insulted his dignity.”
“To Set with his dignity!” Ahmose responded loudly, a dull fume of disappointment rising in him. Are we to be thwarted of our vengeance, Kamose? All this, the desperation, the killings, the uncertainty and the pain, ours and the citizens of this accursed place, is it all to be for naught? If Apepa has gone, I will cast soil upon my head and howl like a wounded dog. “Take me to him,” he finished irascibly. He was suddenly aware of an extreme fatigue. Excitement had carried him this far but now he wanted to turn aside, go down and out those deceitful gates, get onto his couch and draw clean sheets up over himself. Het-Uart was a ruined void.
He set off behind his General, pacing between those peculiar statues whose foreignness made his scalp prickle, Khabekhnet and Ramose to either side, the Followers now at his rear. Directly ahead, a row of tall pillars marked what Ahmose supposed was the main entrance. No lights showed between their frowning girth; indeed, the darkness beyond them was deeper than the night outside. Sebek-khu did not approach them. He veered left, skirting the edge of the palace and stopping outside a small door set into the western wall. Ramose gave an exclamation. “I have been here before,” he said. “This is where I was brought.” Ahmose held up a hand.
“Khabekhnet,” he said. “Go in and call my titles.” Sebek-khu opened the door and the herald stepped through.
“Down on your face before Uatch-Kheperu Ahmose, Son of the Sun, Horus, the Horus of Gold, he of the Two Ladies, he of the Sedge and Bee.” Khabekhnet had of his own volition added the two titles Ahmose had refused to accept at his first coronation because he was not yet King over both Upper and Lower Egypt. Now he heard them ringing out in his Chief Herald’s authoritative voice and a lump came into his throat as he followed. It was a magnificent thing for Khabekhnet to do.
Candlelight met him, soft and diffuse, making him blink after the limited range of the torch Tchanny had borne. He found himself in a pleasant room with low, gilded chairs and one elegant table holding a cluster of fat candles. Cushions of hectic colours and busy patterns lay piled here and there. Three tall alabaster lamps should have illumined the space, but they were not lit. The walls were of a dull yellow ochre and just beneath the ceiling there ran a giddy frieze of black-painted repeated whorls. A closed golden shrine stood in one corner.
The floor was carpeted and in its centre a man was kneeling, forehead touching it, one hand clutching a blue-andwhite staff of office. Ahmose looked down on him for a moment before bidding him rise. The soldiers around him had reverenced Ahmose and now stood watching their charge carefully. “Get up and give me that staff,” Ahmose commanded. The man struggled to his feet. He was in middle age with a lined face dominated by both a hooked nose as curved as a hawk’s beak and a braided beard. His black hair was very short. His long, plain white gown was belted in silver. Obediently, his kohled eyes fixed on Ahmose, he did as he had been told. With one savage gesture Ahmose broke the staff in two across his knee and threw the pieces into a corner. “Who are you?” he rapped. The man cleared his throat.
“I am Vizier and Keeper of the Royal Seal Peremuah,” he said steadily. “It is my duty to officially surrender the city of Het-Uart to you on behalf of my Lord, His Majesty King Awoserra Apepa.”
“And where is His Majesty?” Ahmose demanded. He knew it was not worthy of him, but he was unable to keep the sneer out of his voice. The man flushed.
“He has relinquished his city and gone to join his brothers in Rethennu. I have his authority to render to you my charge, the Royal Seal, in token of his acknowledgement that Egypt is now yours.”
“It always was,” Ahmose replied automatically but he was perplexed. “How can Apepa have escaped, with Het-Uart girdled by my soldiers for so many months? How long has he been gone?” he asked Peremuah. The vizier’s eyes became hooded. He stared at his silver-sandalled feet and said nothing.
All at once the answer came to Ahmose and he rounded on Khabekhnet. “Take my chariot at once,” he ordered. “Ride out through the Royal Entrance Gate as quickly as you can and find Prince Abana. He should be somewhere close by. Detain every citizen and cart that has not disappeared. I want them all searched, regardless of their condition. How long?” he shouted at Peremuah as Khabekhnet ran out. “And where in Rethennu was he going?” Peremuah sucked in his lips and raised his head. His expression was obstinate.
“I was instructed to tell you only that His Majesty had gone and to give you the Seal,” he persisted. “I am sorry.”
“Are you?” Ahmose said furiously, though his anger had been sparked by frustration, not by Peremuah’s demeanour. The man was only doing his ministerial duty. “Give it to me then!” Peremuah pulled open a drawstringed bag hanging from his belt and withdrew the Royal Seal, passing it to Ahmose with a short bow. It was a small clay cylinder. Ahmose looked down at it as it lay on his palm. He rubbed the raised characters of Apepa’s name and titles with one tentative thumb, knowing that he held in his hand the last agent of all Setiu power in Egypt, then he dropped it to the carpet and ground it contemptuously under his heel, feeling it break and crumble. “So ends Apepa’s reign,” he said, scuffing the grey grit. “Peremuah, you are to be held here until I find someone who will tell me where Apepa has gone. Afterwards you may leave Egypt.” The man recoiled in shock.
“But, M … Majesty am I not to die?” he stammered, unconsciously giving Ahmose his title, and Ahmose snorted.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” he snapped. “You are neither a soldier nor a traitor to your master and I am not a demon. Stay in this pesthole or hurry home to Rethennu, I do not care which. Sebek-khu, see to it. And now, where are the remaining courtiers?”
“I had them herded into Apepa’s quarters,” Sebek-khu told him before flinging an order at Peremuah’s guardians and indicating an inner door. “They are mostly women.” He cast a sidelong glance at Ahmose as they emerged into a deserted passage, Ramose and the Followers coming after, and instantly the vizier vanished from Ahmose’s mind. He knows that Tani might be among them, he thought anxiously. He has never seen her but everyone is aware of my family’s tragedy. What shall I do if she has also gone?
He trudged after his General and was soon lost in a maze of narrow intersecting corridors and halls that seemed to fold one into another like a child’s nightmare of endless ochre walls and echoing unlit spaces. Sebek-khu and several of the Followers had snatched up candles that cast a flickering light around the company but outside their flames the darkness was unrelieved. To Ahmose its quality was both desolate and eerie, as though the thousands who had thronged the palace and then fled had left fading traces of themselves behind to fill the hollow rooms with a whispering panic. Sebek-khu, although he had an almost infallible sense of direction, often hesitated before a branching black void. There were brackets for torches at regular intervals, usually on the walls beside the many closed doors that Ahmose had no desire to see open, but they were empty. Often he found himself crossing tiny courtyards that were open to the sky, with fountains that no longer spewed water into their basins and stone paving littered with all the evidences of a hurried abandonment. At such times he looked up and took comfort from the squarely delineated pattern of white stars above him.
But eventually there was a glow of light at the end of a narrow passage, and Ahmose came to a halt before two imposing doors. The soldiers to either side stiffened and saluted him, and at a word from Sebek-khu they pulled the doors open. Ahmose walked through. One swift glance at the wary faces turning quickly in his direction told him that Apepa was not among them. He had clung
to a far-fetched hope that the man might have disguised himself and not yet slunk out under cover of the vast flow of his citizens in spite of what the vizier had said. These people were mostly of the right age but none of the four or five men resembled him. I suppose the younger courtiers were adventurous enough to join the commoners, Ahmose thought, but age brings caution and an increasing fear of the unknown. Tani is not here either.
He spared a moment to absorb the impressions the large room was forcing on him. The walls were hung with mats woven in the same hectic colours and whirling patterns he had noticed on the cushions in the place he had first entered, and where they ceased there were scenes of white-tipped mountains thrusting above a blue ocean dotted with ships. The water itself teemed with exotic sea creatures Ahmose could not identify. There were two inner doors, both of painted wood. On the surface of the left-hand one a hump-backed bull with golden horns and flaring nostrils glared at him and on the right the Setiu sea-god Baal-Yam with his plaited beard lifted his naked torso from the frothing water. Unlit lamps curved and frilled like seashells were placed at random.
What Ahmose could see of the few unoccupied chairs showed him legs made in the likeness of full-breasted girls with short skirts and ribboned ringlets holding up gilded seats whose backrests were ivory dolphins, and more dolphins, silver this time, smiled at him benignly from the bases of the many wine cups cluttering the low tables. The sheer foreignness of his surroundings made Ahmose cringe. It is one thing to trade with Keftiu for exotic objects, he thought. Many of them are pretty. But there is nothing Egyptian here at all, no evidence that our conquerors had anything but disinterest for our art or our gods.
He turned his attention reluctantly to the silent throng regarding him with a palpable fear. The women were unpainted and dishevelled, their hair undone, their long woollen skirts haphazardly tied. A pile of tasselled cloaks lay on the carpeted floor beside an unlit brazier. The room was warm with the press of bodies and smelled faintly of sweat and perfumes. “Are you all drunk?” Ahmose enquired. One of the men detached himself and came forward.
“We have been finishing our Lord’s supply of wine,” he said simply, “but we have not been able to shut out the disaster around us. What Egyptian are you?” Ahmose was nonplussed. He had never been asked that question before, and he realized that in dressing and leaving his tent so hurriedly he had neglected to snatch up any emblem of his position. Even his linen headdress was plain. Sebek-khu answered for him.
“You are addressing His Majesty Uatch-Kheperu Ahmose. Do him reverence,” he barked. The man bowed, obviously confused, and the rest followed suit awkwardly.
“Forgive me, Majesty. I am Semken, mayor of Het-Uart. I could not leave my city.”
“You speak straight to the point, I see,” Ahmose commented. “Now tell me, where has Apepa gone?” Semken shook his head.
“I swear I do not know. I am only a mayor, Great One, not a courtier. I was summoned to the palace three days ago and given instructions by Vizier Peremuah to prepare the citizens for the evacuation that took place this night. But when it was time for me to go, I could not bring myself to do it, although I made sure that my family left. Instead I came here. Perhaps the vizier can tell you our Lord’s whereabouts.”
“He could, but he refuses.” Ahmose lifted his gaze to the huddle beyond. “Do any of you know where he has gone?” he said loudly. No one stirred, but suddenly there was a cry and a young woman broke away from the rest. She was pointing at Ramose.
“You!” she shouted. “I know you! In the bath house here at Het-Uart! You were washing beside me and you had a guard with you. He tried to stop me talking to you because you were Apepa’s southern prisoner and you asked about a Princess Tani.” She stood in the middle of the floor, clicking her fingers in exasperation. “Your name … Your name …” Then her face lit up. “You are Ramose!” Ahmose turned to his friend. He was staring at the girl and frowning, struggling to recollect her.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “And you are Hat-Anath, daughter of an assistant scribe to one of Apepa’s Overseers of Cattle. I remember you now.” A tiny smile came and went on his mouth. “I must apologize for not honouring the invitation you extended to me at that time, to visit you in your quarters.”
“It is still open,” she replied promptly, smiling back at him, not the least embarrassed by her disorderly appearance. “Unless you found your Princess, of course.”
“I found her,” Ramose said quietly, “but I lost her again.”
“Where is your father?” Ahmose interposed sharply. Hat-Anath gestured behind her.
“Here, and my mother also. Since the siege began in earnest, my father has been unable to carry out his duties.” She peered searchingly into Ahmose’s eyes. “They say that you have slaughtered all the Delta cattle as your brother did and you will kill us too,” she said. “It is not true, is it?”
“No,” Ahmose answered soberly. “But I intend to burn down this palace, so I suggest that all of you leave the wine jugs behind, gather up what you can, and hurry away. My men will not accost you.”
“But where can we go, Majesty?” Hat-Anath spread out her hands. “I am an Egyptian. I was born here in Het-Uart. So was my father, though my grandfather was Setiu. The Delta is all I have known!” Ahmose sighed inwardly. We have fought a dirty war, you and I, Kamose, he thought sadly. But what civil war is not dirty? We have been forced to destroy the innocent along with the guilty in our bid for freedom and you, Hat-Anath, are just another casualty.
“I am sorry,” he said aloud. “But the problem is not mine. If your father still has family beyond Egypt’s borders, then you must go to them. But I warn you all.” He had raised his voice. “Get out of the palace.” She would have made another protest but Ahmose lifted one admonitory finger. “No,” he said. “I have spoken.” He turned once more to Ramose whose expression was unreadable. He was still staring at Hat-Anath. “Ramose, do you want her?” he asked with inspiration. Ramose started.
“Want her, Ahmose?” he repeated. “For what purpose?” Ahmose surrendered.
“For no purpose,” he said wearily. “Sebek-khu, let us go.” He had expected an outburst of consternation when he turned his back on the courtiers but there was none, and he was followed through the doors by a resigned quiet.
He and the others had barely reached the end of the passage when they were approached by Sebek-khu’s Commander of Shock Troops. He was carrying a torch and in its glare his face betrayed an anxiety that vanished when he saw them. He bowed.
“Majesty, I am glad that I have found you. I presume that you have just spoken with the people in Apepa’s quarters. There is a woman who refused to join them. She insisted on remaining in her own rooms. She says she is a Queen, therefore I hesitated to compel her. She has asked that you be brought to her.” His tone betrayed his annoyance at such impudence. Ahmose felt his blood begin to race and beside him Ramose drew in a quick breath.
“You will lead me there,” Ahmose managed to say. “Ankhmahor, take the Followers and go with Sebek-khu. Find the throne room. I expect it is just beyond the main entrance. Wrap the Horus Throne and the box containing the Royal Regalia in whatever clean linen you can find and escort them to my tent. Have them well guarded. Ramose, come with me.” It was Tani who waited for him. It had to be, and he did not want to greet her in the presence of any avid ears. I shrink from greeting her at all, he thought. What can I say to her? How can mere words bridge the gulf between us after so long? Do I love or despise her?
“So she is still alive!” Ramose whispered with such wonder and anticipation that Ahmose was ashamed of his instinctive need to recoil from this reunion. He nodded curtly at the officer.
“Let us move on, then,” he said.
13
IT WAS NOT FAR to the women’s quarters. They were of course situated close to Apepa’s own private rooms and Ahmose found himself standing outside yet another set of sturdy double doors long before he was ready. The guards who had been leani
ng against the passage wall and talking desultorily sprang to attention as he came up to them, saluted, and at his reluctant invitation, opened the doors for him. He felt as though his feet were encased in Nile mud but he forced them to carry him forward, Ramose behind him. The doors closed.
The first thing that impressed itself upon him was the light. Two golden lampstands holding alabaster cups were feeding a mellow glow into a charming room of soft rugs, silver-chased cedar chairs, a low ebony table topped with ivory squares for the playing of board games, and in one corner a delicate little shrine. “You have oil!” he blurted. The woman standing by the table did not smile. She was swathed in a thick woollen cloak patchworked in red, blue and green, her small feet encased in short leather boots, her long black hair bound to her forehead by a single fillet of gold. Lapis hung from her ears and encircled both wrists, and rings shone on every finger of her trembling hands. She was fully painted, her eyelids glittering with sooty shadow in which gold dust had been mingled, her eyes kohled, her mouth orange with henna. Here at least was someone with enough dignity to refuse the numbing escape of wine in the face of dissolution. Ahmose stared at her, his own mouth so dry that he could not swallow, his heart thrumming with such force that he thought he might faint.
“Of course,” she said, and it was Tani’s voice, a little deeper than the girlish treble he remembered, a little more deliberate, and with a courtier’s clear accent. “And fuel for my brazier too. Being a Queen has its advantages, Ahmose, particularly during a siege. It is good to see you again.”
He could not answer. This familiar yet utterly alien creature gazing at him so calmly had rendered him wordless. He stood there stupidly, woodenly, and watched those huge gazelle’s eyes suddenly become liquid. “It is good to see you again!” she cried out, and all at once she was speeding across the floor, the cloak falling away from her. His arms opened and then he was embracing her, his body instantly recognizing the vitality that had always imbued her bones, her cheek tight against his neck, her tears warming his jaw.
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