The Horus Road

by Pauline Gedge

  “In this I have no choice,” Ahmose replied. “The soldiers may loot Sharuhen. They deserve it. But no citizen is to be murdered. I care only that Apepa the Younger and his brother Kypenpen are correctly identified and killed. Leave the children of Apepa’s concubines alone. They have no claim to Egypt. Am I understood?”

  “Perfectly,” Abana assured him.

  “There is one more thing,” Ahmose went on. “My sister is to take ship to Keftiu after Apepa is buried. I have given her permission to conduct his funeral rites in Het-Uart but then she must leave Egypt. You have become acquainted with many Keftiu traders. Arrange a safe passage for her. I will give her a letter to the Keftian ruler.” He could see one conjecture follow another behind Abana’s alert, dark eyes. I do not have to explain any of this, he thought with relief. Abana is astute enough to reach his own conclusions regarding the source of my information and how I bartered for it. “She will mourn for the full seventy days,” he finished. “Surely in that time you will have humbled Sharuhen and returned to the Delta. Take any of Apepa’s officials with you. They will provide Tani with company on her journey and form the core of her new household when she arrives.”

  “The Keftians and the Setiu have always respected one another,” Abana said, rising. “You may trust me to do all as you would wish, Majesty.”

  “Good. Then you are dismissed.”

  He went to his couch early but he could not sleep. No sounds came to him from the tent next door, but he was preternaturally aware of what it contained and his mind insisted on supplying exaggerated pictures of the physician bending over Apepa’s decaying form on one side and Tani on the other, both of them casting grotesque shadows on the tent walls. When his imagination supplied a third shadow, tall and sinister, he got up, wrapped himself in a cloak, and leaving his own tent he let himself quietly into the other.

  The physician was dozing in a chair and Tani was asleep on her stool beside the couch, one arm stretched across her husband’s shallow chest, her head resting on the pillow next to his. Unconsciousness had erased the evidences of weariness and sadness from her face and in the dim lamp-light Ahmose saw again the young, unsullied girl she had been. He wanted to go up to her and stroke the dishevelled hair back from her brow, murmur words of reassurance and comfort, but instead he sank to the floor just inside the entrance and watched her.

  The physician had been roused by Ahmose’s small noises. Yawning, he stood and bowed. “His breathing has become very faint and erratic, Majesty,” he said in a low voice. “It is a matter now of moments, not hours.” Ahmose nodded and put a finger to his lips. The physician moved back to his chair.

  Ahmose was woken by Tani’s cry. She had overturned the stool and was half-sitting, half-lying on the couch, Apepa cradled in her arms, rocking him and wailing. Finding himself curled up on the floor of the tent, Ahmose struggled blearily to his feet. The physician was tidying away his phials and spoons. “Give me leave to go to my quarters, Majesty,” he said. “It has been a long night. I will see that the bed linen is burned in the morning.” Ahmose waved his permission and turned to Tani, intending to say some word, make some gesture of commiseration, but he hesitated. She was oblivious to all but her grief, her eyes closed, her whole body mutely shouting her pain as the tent filled with her keening. Nothing I could say or do would be sincere, Ahmose thought. I am glad he is dead, and any expression to the contrary would be a lie. He slipped away as noiselessly as he had come.

  He sent a warning to Turi to be ready to set out at once, but he gave Tani another hour to exhaust the first hysterical outpouring of her grief before allowing Apepa’s body to be carried out and put in the sand-filled coffin. By the time she emerged, swollen-eyed but silent, the box had been fastened shut and loaded onto an ox cart, the Throne and Regalia occupied another, and Makhu had a chariot waiting for her. Turi and the escort stood waiting also, their faces solemn in the leaping orange light of the torches. Ahmose went to her, but she strode past him without a glance, stepped up into the chariot, and arranged herself on its floor. At Ahmose’s signal Turi called a command, the soldiers formed ranks, and the cavalcade began to move. Ahmose strained after it until the flare of the torches was no more than a vanishing flicker, then he began to walk away. “Go to bed, Akhtoy,” he said over his shoulder. “I shall not need you until sunrise.”

  He kept walking, tripping occasionally on the uneven ground, through the neat rows of the army’s tents, past the horses’ stalls, past the stores of grain, until he came to the outer perimeter of the camp. He was challenged and he answered. He could feel the sentry’s curious gaze on his back but he went on. At last he realized that he was beyond sight or sound of his host and he came to a halt. The moon was setting, a pale, misshapen disc about to sink into the ocean far to the west. It gave no light but the stars were a crowded white glory flung wide above his head and all around him the desert lay peacefully still. Not even the air was stirring.

  There was the vague hump of a rock close by. Ahmose sat down and rested his forehead on his knees. It is over, he thought. It is really over. He felt something give way inside him at the words, like a tight band tearing loose, and suddenly he was weeping, hot tears sprinkling his feet, sobs rising from some place long frozen deep within his soul, and he did not stop until the last vestige had shattered, melted, and been washed away.

  17

  DAWN WAS BREAKING when Ahmose returned to his tent. Before he washed or ate, he summoned Khabekhnet. “Appoint four heralds to stand beneath the city’s four walls and call Apepa’s death at noon, at mid-afternoon, and at sunset,” he ordered. “Have them say, ‘This night Awoserra Apepa was gathered to his gods.’ There is no need for offence. We must consider the grief of his family.” He saw Khabekhnet quickly scanning his face before dropping his gaze and retreating and he realized that the marks of his weeping must still be evident. So be it, he thought, as Hekayib shouldered his way into the tent with a bowl of steaming, scented water and a vial of oil. Let my people see that a King may be human enough to shed tears while still holding over them the ultimate authority of a god. Hekayib removed the rumpled tunic and began to bathe away the rigours of the night. The water felt good on Ahmose’s skin, refreshing and cleansing, and it came to him that the water of his tears had also cleansed him, scouring his heart and mind free of every invisible accretion laid slowly on them by the years of tension and pain.

  He spent the morning being driven through the camp. The soldiers had already received word that they would be leaving and he was cheered as he passed. In the afternoon he met with the generals, outlining his plan to them carefully and emphasizing Abana’s role. “The Division of Amun and Division of Ra will accompany me home to Weset,” he told them. “Ptah will be disbanded temporarily, but do not tell your men yet, Akhethotep. They must still march back to Egypt sober and in good order.” His men laughed. “You, Baqet, will keep the Division of Thoth here in full sight of Sharuhen, and you, Meryrenefer, will appear to leave but you will deploy your men on battle alert behind the dunes. Keep them well hidden but ready to respond when Baqet sends word that Apepa the Younger has opened the gates. I have decided to station you permanently at Khemmenu when this is over, Baqet. I will send word to Ramose to begin building barracks there for the soldiers and their families. One division still in the Delta will also be disbanded, subject to immediate recall if necessary, and the other will continue to guard the Horus Road and man the forts of the Wall of Princes. Sebek-khu will eventually take permanent control of Het-Uart and Khety will take his division to their new home at Mennofer. Thus the whole of Egypt will have a military protection. Are there any questions or objections?”

  “What of the Medjay, Majesty?” Hor-Aha asked testily. “They have been your faithful allies since your father’s day. Will you send them back to the nothingness of Wawat?” Ahmose glanced at him quizzically.

  “You fear the nothingness of Wawat, General?” he asked evenly. “But do not worry. The Medjay have their village on the we
st bank at Weset. They are not forgotten and their long service will be rewarded. All of you,” he said raising his voice. “All of you will be rewarded. Without you the sun would be rising each day on a very different Egypt. Without your presence my crowning will be a poor event indeed. I shall send you word as soon as the astrologers have chosen a propitious time.” They looked at him blankly. Then Kagemni snorted.

  “How stupid we are, my friends!” he exclaimed. “Apepa is dead, the Horus Throne is on its way to Weset, the fighting is all done. It is all done! Wake up! Egypt will rejoice in a true Incarnation. We have endured and we have the victory!” Roars of laughter and an explosion of chatter followed his speech, and Hor-Aha leaned close to Ahmose.

  “They knew but did not know,” he commented. “Full understanding did not strike them until you mentioned your crowning. Will they settle well to peace, do you think?” Ahmose met the man’s black eyes.

  “Peace is only maintained through a watchful strength,” he replied. “Egypt has learned this tragic lesson well. She will not forget, and neither will they.” He scanned the noisy, delighted men around the table. “Your bow may hang on a wall and your dagger only leave its sheath to dispatch a hyena, Hor-Aha, but you and they will still be Egypt’s defence. Be assured that the knowledge will never be far from my mind.”

  On the morning of the fourth day the divisions rose, shouldered packs, tightened belts and sandals, and marched away from Sharuhen, leaving Baqet and his five thousand men ranked rather forlornly in the littered waste they had left. The city bulked like some vast monster behind them and on every side the stony desert ran away, shimmering malevolently in the heat. There had been no acknowledgement of the heralds’ cries but men had appeared briefly above the walls before vanishing again with ghostly speed. Ahmose, sparing one swift glance behind him at the standard of Thoth framed bravely against those uncompromising bastions, prayed that even its memory might eventually be erased from his mind.

  In eight days his forces were making camp again, this time around Het-Uart. The Division of Osiris had obediently left the main body of the army once Sharuhen was out of sight and had dug itself into the base of the dunes a little more than five miles from the city. The three remaining divisions had moved on rapidly, optimism lending speed to their feet, and the journey had been uneventful.

  Outside Het-Uart, Ahmose sent Kagemni and the Division of Ra on to Weset together with the Medjay. He dismissed Akhethotep and the Division of Ptah amid the soldiers’ wild rejoicing and saw the Division of Horus under General Khety march south to Mennofer. All he had left was the Division of Amun, less the contingent that had escorted Tani and then gone on to Weset, and Sebek-khu whose men were still busily engaged in tearing down Het-Uart’s walls. Although he reminded himself many times that the years of war were over, that no more blood would be shed in Egypt, that the need for vigilance was past, he felt naked and defenceless. He also felt oddly purposeless. The end had come so quickly, a sudden halt that saw the constant apprehension that had always tautened his body and his heart alleviated, that his mind still ran ahead to the next battle, the next military decision to be made.

  He had his tent set up outside Het-Uart. He had no desire to enter the city, although from where he sat in the stifling evenings he could now see far beyond the truncated remains of its defences to its narrow streets and cramped houses. They seemed alive again with soldiers, new citizens and old, dogs, donkey carts and grubby children who squatted in the dirt. He could even catch a glimpse of the Temple of Sutekh and regretted his decision to allow it to stand. He had met with Sebek-khu who had told him that Tani was living in an anteroom of the temple. Apepa had been taken to a House of the Dead, and Sebek-khu himself had coerced a priest of Ra from Iunu to perform the funeral ceremony when the period of mourning was over. “I trust I did the right thing, Majesty,” the General had said apologetically. “The priest was most reluctant to help your sister. He was afraid that in granting the usurper the blessing of an Egyptian burial he would be incurring your wrath.”

  “You did well,” Ahmose told him. “And is the Queen in good health?”

  “She seems so,” Sebek-khu had admitted. “She seldom leaves the temple. I have appointed a guard and a servant for her. Would you like an officer to bring her to you?” Ahmose had considered but declined.

  “No. Send me word when Apepa goes to his tomb. I will see her then.”

  He was content to wander along the tributary, now filling gradually with the power of the Inundation, enjoying the song of birds and the welcome shade of the river growth with Ankhmahor and the Followers. He sat with them in the evenings drinking wine and reminiscing, a luxury they could all afford now that no danger threatened them. He lay on his couch through the dark hours, listening peacefully to the quiet rumble of Het-Uart, a sound composed of so many familiar elements that reminded him of his home.

  He had requested sentries to be posted at strategic points along the nearer end of the Horus Road, more from habit than from necessity, and he had not withdrawn the scouts in Rethennu in case Abana or Meryrenefer needed to communicate urgently with him, but he found his mind at last slowing, rejoining the growing relaxation of his body and heart, and he knew there would never again be any sudden alarm to rouse him to some dire necessity in the middle of the night.

  The beginning of the new year had been celebrated a day after Ahmose arrived in the Delta, and with it the month of Thoth. The heat continued on into Paophi, not as intense as it was in the south but more uncomfortable because of the Delta’s humidity. On the fourth day of Paophi, Abana, General Baqet and General Meryrenefer came striding towards Ahmose where he was sitting by the water lazily contemplating the rush and gurgle of the current. He rose and greeted them warily, unable to read any news from their faces. They accepted his offer of stools with alacrity. “The Sea of Reeds is already becoming difficult to negotiate, Majesty,” Baqet said, almost snatching the cup of beer Akhtoy was holding out, and drinking thirstily. “We made less time than we had hoped and the men are covered in mosquito bites and mud. We did not stop to allow them to bathe once we struck the lakes of the Delta but they are splashing about in the canals now. How good it is to be back in Egypt!”

  “I am pleased to see you,” Ahmose answered. “What happened at Sharuhen?” It was Abana who told him. The other two had fallen silent.

  “I performed outside the walls as rudely as you could have wished, Majesty,” he began. “I thought I would enjoy taunting Apepa’s son but I did not. As the days went by, I found myself shrinking from so ignoble a task. I dreamed of him weeping for the loss of his father. I developed a sore throat, not from shouting I believe but from guilt.” He shot Ahmose a sombre glance. “It had to be done but it shamed me. When I get home to Nekheb, I shall purify myself in the goddess’s sacred lake and offer her a sacrifice of atonement.”

  “I know,” Ahmose said softly. “It was not a duty for an honest man, Prince, and I am truly sorry for the necessity.”

  “It worked though,” Baqet cut in. “One morning the gates opened and the Setiu soldiers came tumbling out. Apepa the Younger was commanding them. They were disciplined enough for garrison troops but they were no match for us, and Apepa’s son was no Pezedkhu. The Division of Thoth cut them down with ease. I had sent a runner to Meryrenefer as soon as I saw the gates move. When the Division of Osiris arrived and realized that I needed no assistance, it marched on into Sharuhen. By the time the skirmish was over, the city was in Egyptian hands.”

  “Speaking of which, I took a hand in the fight and two women from the fort,” Abana said. “The hand was recorded by the Scribe of the Army. I hope you will let me keep the women. My wife will be sorry that the war is over, seeing that I am managing to provide her with a complete household through my captures.” His tone was light, an attempt at humour, but Ahmose sensed the discomfiture behind it.

  “Tell me the rest,” he ordered. None of them spoke. Finally Meryrenefer cleared his throat.

  “Prince
Abana dragged Apepa in from the battlefield. He was screaming imprecations like an enraged woman. He resembled his father to a great degree, Majesty. Perhaps that made his execution a little easier.” He looked hesitantly in Abana’s direction but Abana was staring at the ground between his knees. “The Chieftain of Sharuhen was dead already, slain in the fight. In the centre of the city was a palace of sorts built of stone. All Apepa’s family was there as well as many of his ministers. More escaped from Het-Uart than we had thought. You had commanded us to harm no one except Apepa and Kypenpen, but there were many children and young men gathered with the women and we did not know which was the younger prince. We were forced to … to … to injure one of the children before Kypenpen gave himself up.”

  “We tied a rope around its head and twisted it,” Abana said hoarsely. “Egyptians do not torture babies. The poor little creature howled and cried. One of the young men came forward out of the sobbing crowd and identified himself as Kypenpen. We know it was he because his mother rushed after him screaming, ‘No, Kypenpen, not you! Let the child die but not you!’ We took him out into the garden with his brother and we cut off their heads. An officer took their hands and it was recorded. There are many beautiful gardens inside Sharuhen. One would not have thought it, given the desert outside.”

  “Then there was a day of looting,” Meryrenefer said. “The soldiers have many lovely things and a few slaves to take home to their wives.”

  “Very well,” he said firmly. “Meryrenefer, tomorrow you will disband the Osiris Division and you, Baqet, will take the Thoth to Khemmenu. I have already notified Prince Ramose of your coming. You are both dismissed.” Hastily they emptied their cups, rose, and retreated. Ahmose turned to Abana. “I intend to muster the divisions once a year for refreshment training,” he said. “Do you think this is a good idea?”