“Yes, Majesty,” Abana responded woodenly, still gazing moodily out at the churning tributary. Pezedkhu’s ring on its gold chain winked at Ahmose in the strong sunlight.
“I think I will leave half the navy in the Delta to earnits keep as transport for trade goods, take a quarter of the ships to Weset, and send a quarter down to Nekheb with you,” Ahmose continued. “As my Admiral, does this meet with your approval?”
“Yes.”
Ahmose reached across and prodded him gently. “You have too much pride, Abana,” he chided him. “You regard yourself more highly than your King.” For a moment his accusation had no effect but then Abana swung round, startled.
“You wound me, Majesty,” he protested. “I am your most faithful servant. I have risked my life for you. I would die for you.”
“Then how is it that you brood over the performance of your duty as though the command and its fulfilment were somehow your responsibility alone? Are you then the King?” The Prince’s face fell. He began to smile faintly.
“You are possessed of much wisdom, Mighty Bull,” he answered ruefully. “You are of course correct. Forgive my excessive arrogance.”
“I have forgotten it already. Now tell me what Setiu you have brought with you.” Abana straightened.
“Quite a few fish became entangled in our net,” he commented. “My cousin Zaa is guarding them. They are sequestered in a very small tent.” His smile widened. “You speak of arrogance, Majesty. These men are supremely arrogant and full of complaints. They grumbled all the way to Het-Uart. If it had not been for Your Majesty’s explicit instructions, I would have been happy to abandon every one of them when we passed through the dunes and let the lions and hyenas have them. Zaa is more tolerant than I, which is why he is attempting to care for them. There is Itju, Apepa’s Chief Scribe; Nehmen, his Chief Steward; Khian and Sakheta, both heralds; and Peremuah, the erstwhile Keeper of the Royal Seal. With their wives and children, I must add. I left Apepa’s Chief Wife behind to bury her sons, and the concubines and their children also.”
“Good,” Ahmose said. “Tell Zaa to have his prisoners conducted to Queen Tautha’s room in the temple. They are to be banished with her and they will provide a mourning party for Apepa. Your task now is to find a ship with a reliable captain to take them all to Keftiu once Apepa is entombed. Ipi will give you the necessary scrolls and gold. Then you will go home to Nekheb.” Abana rose.
“But, Majesty, I had thought …”
“Do not think,” Ahmose interrupted him mildly. “You need rest, my Prince. Take a quarter of the navy. Take your prisoners. Visit Nekhbet’s temple. Prepare for the invitation you will receive to my coronation.” All at once Abana knelt, and prostrating himself he pressed his lips to Ahmose’s foot.
“You are a great god,” he said huskily. “I love you, Ahmose.” Then he scrambled up and bowed, and walked briskly away.
In the middle of Paophi the long celebration of the Amun-feast of Hapi began, when the god of the Nile was worshipped and thanked for his bounty. Ahmose, together with hundreds of his subjects, took to the rapidly rising water in his skiff and flung armfuls of flowers onto its surface, poured oil and wine into its frothing depths, and joined in the songs of adoration that rose from the throats of the vast throng and went echoing from bank to bank of the swelling tributary. Every day there was a different rite to be observed, new offerings to be made. It was one of the most beloved of all Egypt’s religious observances and it continued to the twelfth day of the following month, Athyr. But on the ninth of Athyr, Ahmose received word that Apepa would go to his tomb the next morning and regretfully he prepared to withdraw from the ceremonies. It would be his last opportunity to see his sister, and whether she liked it or not, he wanted to be present.
He had not set foot in Het-Uart since his return but, surrounded by his Followers, he made his way through the maze of streets. The bodyguard cleared his way and Khabekhnet went ahead calling a warning but everyone wanted to see him and his progress was slow. People knelt as he passed, shouting his name. Children ran up to him despite the Followers’ vigilance, thrusting wilting flowers or shiny pebbles at him, even attempting to hold his hands. He was amazed and humbled at the tide of love and admiration that surged around him. This belongs to you also, Kamose, he thought, deafened by the lively uproar. It is a homage to the House of Tao, all of us, for freeing them from the bondage of hentis. How Tetisheri would have enjoyed it!
Once he entered the district of the nobles, however, the crowd thinned. Here many officers had taken up residence and he was saluted as he went, until even they disappeared and the temple of Sutekh reared before him. Its forecourt had been cleared of the chaos he remembered. Looking to his left, he saw a vast stretch of reddish open ground where Apepa’s palace and its protecting wall used to be. Only a few trees remained, swaying gracefully, their shade empty. He averted his eyes.
As before, he refused to enter Sutekh’s domain. He waited quietly until he saw the procession emerge, first the priest of Ra with his acolytes holding smoking incense burners, then the red oxen of sacred custom drawing the sled on which Apepa’s coffin lay, then Tani and the Setiu officials followed by the professional mourners. The coffin itself was of wood but it was lavishly decorated with gold and the eyes painted on its side had been delicately executed. Sebek-khu had obviously taken great pains to provide something suitable from a funerary storehouse in the city. Tani, dressed in mourning blue, was crying and the professional women, some fifty of them, were keening with high voices and casting on their heads the earth they had brought with them. No earth existed in Het-Uart, only beaten dirt as hard as the stones of Sharuhen. Ahmose made a mental note to make sure that Sebek-khu was reimbursed for the amount he must have had to pay to the women. The number of hired mourners reflected directly on the importance of the deceased.
The cavalcade skirted the temple and Ahmose joined it at the rear. It was not far to the tombs of Apepa’s forebears. Behind the temple was a mausoleum entered through a gate which now stood open. Beyond it was a city in miniature, paved streets fronted by small houses that at first seemed ready to welcome their occupants to cooking fires and cushioned bedchambers, but as Ahmose passed the first set of tiny entrance pillars and glanced inside he saw that they were empty but for an offering altar. The noble Setiu dead rested under the floors. He did not like the way his footsteps came echoing back to him and the discordant wails of the women woke other wails that returned, thready and faint, like the answering voices of distant spirits being lured to the business of the living who had invaded their realm.
The priest halted at a house close to the end of the central row. Apepa’s coffin was removed from the sled and stood upright. Ahmose, peering beyond it into the gloom, saw the deep hole into which the sarcophagus would be lowered, and shuddered. Armed with the pesesh-kef and the netjeri, the priest began the rites and Ahmose closed his eyes. Even the incense did not smell right in this strange place. It seemed to mingle with the odour of damp stone and earth that was never sweetened by the sun. He remembered the stench of Apepa’s dying, and clenching his jaw he resigned himself to wait.
The convoluted, intricate rituals took a long time, but at last the coffin was carried inside the mortuary and the attendants gathered around to see it descend. Tani laid a bouquet on its lid, stood a moment in thought, then turned to Ahmose. He had not realized that she was aware of his presence. They eyed one another in the gloom. “I will not stay for the funeral feast,” Ahmose said awkwardly. “I have discharged my bargain, Tani.” He fumbled at his waist and drew a scroll from the pouch hanging there. “It is sealed with my name and titles,” he told her as he handed it to her. “Give it to Keftiu’s ruler. Prince Abana has seen to all the details of your journey. You will be perfectly safe and comfortable.” She nodded. “I know you expressed the hope that we would never meet again,” he stumbled on, “but I wanted to offer you such meagre support as I could on this day. And I had to say goodbye.” Suddenly she ste
pped to him and, astounded, he felt her arms go around him.
“Dear Ahmose,” she said brokenly. “We have each done what we had to do. You will be one of Egypt’s mightiest Kings, I know it, and I also know that in spite of everything we still love one another. Please, let us also forgive one another and the gods who have decreed that we should live in this terrible age.” She withdrew and kissed him softly on the mouth, giving him a taste of her salt tears. “Can we do that?”
“Yes,” he replied, seeing her through a blur of his own. “Yes, dearest Tani, Queen Tautha. Dictate a letter to me sometimes. Tell me how you fare. If there is anything you lack and I am able to provide it, I will. Farewell.”
He turned on his heel and left her, walking back along that haunted avenue lined with the bodies of those who had crafted the history of Egypt’s occupation. They had begot one another in pride and indifference to the country they had enslaved until the last ruler of their House had dictated a letter to an insignificant princeling far away in the desert of the south and in so doing had created the catalyst for his own downfall.
It is finished, Ahmose thought. I have kept faith with you, Seqenenra my father. I have brought your struggle to fruition, Kamose, my beloved brother. I am justified before the gods. It is time to go home.
EPILOGUE
ALTHOUGH IT WAS EARLY and the sun had only just risen, crowds were already gathering to either side of the river road between the palace and the temple and the Nile was choked with small craft of every description. For some weeks the population of Weset had been growing as the day of the King’s coronation drew near. Minor nobles and villagers alike from all over Egypt had left their homes and converged on the town, turning it into a noisy congestion. The mayor of Weset, Tetaky, had been forced to request troops from the Division of Amun to police the streets as fights broke out over food or living space, whether litters or donkeys had priority in the narrow alleys, and why only local stallkeepers should be allowed to choose the most favourable sites from which to ply their wares along the route the royal cavalcade would pass.
Ahmose had woken before dawn, and for the first time since the old palace was restored he mounted to the roof by way of the staircase he had ordered closed off and sealed. The wax adhering to the rope on the lower door broke easily under his touch, and as he pulled the door itself towards him and put his foot on the bottom step, he was aware of the musty, stale odour of disuse. The lamp he was carrying illumined the layers of dust, the cracks and rough pieces of broken brick, and he negotiated them carefully, one hand on the wall. He knew that in this place, above all others, his father and his brother were with him and he called to them softly as he went, begging them for their presence in the temple, their prayers and blessings on this momentous day. The upper door had been sealed from the inside. Again he crumbled the wax into which the imprint of his name had been pressed, and emerging at last, found himself above the quarters where his women lay, still deep in their slumbers.
The windcatcher against which his father had placed his back had been cleared of the rubble that had filled it and was once again funnelling the prevailing summer wind down into the palace, so Ahmose was forced to lower himself against its side, facing east. The sky held a faint rosy blush. Ra was about to be born out of the body of Nut. Hunching up his knees, Ahmose waited. He had intended to spend these precious few minutes in remembering his dear dead ones, contemplating the journey they had begun together and only he had been privileged to complete, meditating upon the ceremony that would empower him to become in truth the incarnation of his god, but with the settling of his body a profound joy began to steal over him so that he was unable to maintain a state of inner quietude.
The streak of pink along the horizon widened, deepened, and beneath it a yellow glow threw the edge of the desert into black relief. A wind sprang up. Down below in the gardens that now encircled the palace one bird sent out a piping cry. It was followed by others, and soon a musical harmony of song mingled with the steady, muted murmur of water spouting from the fountains into their stone basins. In the east a rim of fire shimmered, pulsed, and rays of light came racing towards Ahmose, bringing a storm of colours with it. He closed his eyes. Son of Ra, Son of the Morning, he thought. I am that also. Touch me with your golden fingers, Mighty One. I am held in the centre of Ma’at where I belong. This is my destiny, to be the axle around which the wheel of Egypt’s equilibrium turns.
He had just blown out the now feeble flame of the lamp when a voice came muffled from the base of the stair. “Majesty, are you up there? It is time for you to go to the temple.” Ahmose heaved himself up.
“Akhtoy, I have made you my Fanbearer on the Left Hand,” he called back down. “You no longer need to concern yourself with these errands. Leave them to Royal Steward Hekayib and his assistants. Unless, of course, you think you did not train him well enough.”
“I am sorry, Majesty,” Akhtoy replied as Ahmose reached the bottom and pushed the door closed. “It is an old and precious habit, hard to break.”
Just beyond the entrance pillars the litter bearers were waiting, Harkhuf and the Followers with them. Ahmose had greeted them and sat down when Hekayib came running after him. “The Queen and the Hawk-in-the-Nest are being dressed, Majesty,” he panted, “and the Princes have already left their quarters.” Ahmose nodded.
“Thank you, Hekayib, but you do not need to worry. Everyone will wait until I have gone. Go and eat something. You look strained.” The bearers drew the curtains closed and lifted him. He heard Harkhuf bark a command to the guards on the gate and he was carried through. He spared a quick glance back through the drapes as the huge electrum doors were swung ponderously shut. They had been hung the day before he had returned from Het-Uart. He had seen them glinting like fire as his ship approached Weset and with a thrill of pride he had known that he would disembark at the watersteps, walk between them, and enter his new domain for the first time as its inhabitant.
The route to the temple was thickly lined with soldiers to keep the populace back. Ahmose could see nothing, but he could hear the excited speculations as his litter passed. He would return to the palace seated on the Horus Throne, Aahmes-nefertari beside him and Ahmose-onkh at his feet, fully crowned and robed and carried high so that his subjects could see him, but now, naked save for a loincloth, he must remain hidden.
The canal leading to the temple was also heavily guarded. No one but those invited would be allowed inside Amun’s precinct, and Ahmose welcomed the stately silence that descended on him as he left the litter, directed the Followers to proceed inside and take up their stations, and walked alone to the sacred lake. Two priests were waiting for him. Stripping him of the loincloth, they led him down into the water, submerged him, and scrubbed him thoroughly with natron. They did not speak and neither did he. The solemnity of the occasion was beginning to creep over him and he submitted to their ministrations gravely.
With plain reed sandals on his feet he was escorted into an anteroom and shaved from his skull to his ankles, still in that same efficient but reverential silence. Only then did Amunmose appear. He was arrayed in the full panoply of his office: a white linen gown of the twelfth grade trimmed in gold, so gossamer fine that its folds trembled with his breath, a white ribbon encircling his head, the leopard skin draped across one shoulder and his gold-tipped staff of authority in his hand. An acolyte was with him. Passing the boy the staff, Amunmose wrapped a new loincloth around Ahmose, then taking him by the hand he guided him through into the inner court.
It was full of the multitude of his nobles, generals, courtiers and the foreign ambassadors, a sea of winking jewels, perfumed linens and kohl-rimmed, expectant eyes glimpsed through the sweet haze of dozens of smoking incense burners. He looked for his family first. Tetisheri and Aahotep were sitting against the opposite wall. His grandmother seemed like a statue, clothed entirely in a silver-leaved sheath covered by an embroidered silver cloak, her hair hidden under a cap of silver whose wings brushed her thin c
ollarbones. Aahotep had chosen to wear scarlet linen hung all over with droplets of gold. Above her painted face the golden stool, symbol of the goddess Neith, rose like a solid crown. Heavy rings glimmered on her folded hands and ankhs adorned her wrists and neck. Tetisheri was staring straight ahead, obviously caught up in the extreme dignity of the moment, but his mother smiled at him briefly, her dark eyes lighting.
Ahmose turned towards the sanctuary. Its doors were folded back and within it Amun sat garlanded in flowers. Lamplight slid over the frills of his two plumes and the golden curves of his body like smooth oil. Other gods stood with him: the falcon-headed Ra with his sharp beak and black, beaded eyes; the vulture goddess Nekhbet of the south; and Wadjet, the cobra goddess of the north whose hood was spread and whose fangs were exposed, ready to spit poison at any threat that might come near the King.
Just outside the sanctuary the Horus Throne rested and Aahmes-nefertari was herself enthroned beside it, her sheath sparking gold, her pectoral of gold and lapis scarabs netted in gold chains covering her breast, the wings and out-thrust head of Mut, wife of Amun and guardian of Queens, on her head. Mut’s claws to either side of Aahmes-nefertari’s painted cheeks grasped the shen sign signifying infinity, eternity and protection. Ahmose-onkh sat at her feet on a low stool. His youth lock was wound in gold ribbon sewn with tiny golden lotuses and papyri and a single Eye of Horus rested against his delicate ribs. Ahmose had given him matching gold bracelets, miniature copies of the silver armbands his generals wore, with his name and rank as Hawk-in-the-Nest etched on them, and he was engrossed in turning them proudly round and around his wrists.
The singers had burst into a chant. Following Amunmose, Ahmose approached the god and prostrated himself, lying prone on the floor and then crawling to kiss the golden feet. Rising, he faced the tightly packed throng. An acolyte was holding out two dishes, one of natron and one of water from the sacred lake. Amunmose wet his finger and dipping it into the natron, proceeded to anoint Ahmose on the forehead, eyelids, tongue, chest, hands and feet, murmuring the prayers of purification as he did so.
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