The Hippopotamus Marsh

by Pauline Gedge

  He himself was struggling to walk. Uni had produced a crutch that bit the tender flesh under his good arm and raised blisters on his palm that soon turned to thick calluses, but he could at least move haltingly from his room to the garden, dragging his left leg behind him. He spent many hours learning to negotiate the steps of the portico. He was also better able to make himself understood, although his speech remained slurred. Tani told him, giggling, that he sounded drunk all the time, but at least with great effort on his part and concentration on the part of his hearer, he could communicate. Fiercely he disregarded the fatigue, the disappointment, the black depression that crept over him every sunset. He wanted to be ready to ride when the time came.

  His naming day had been celebrated on the third day of Phamenoth. He was now thirty-seven years old. He was able to stand in the temple and make the offering of a bull for a thanksgiving and he watched Tani dance proudly in his honour with the other temple women. She was now fifteen. In the following two months the twins would turn twenty-one and in the summer Ahmose would become eighteen. Seqenenra, seeing Tani dip and swirl in her garland of bright flowers, tinkling systra in her hands, felt a stab of apprehension at the swift passing of time. Life was a dream that slid by while he stood in his sleep and followed it with his eyes, unable to reach out and grasp a corner of the pageant, slow it down, force it to stand so that he could consider its implications properly.

  A public message came from Het-Uart and was read in the market-place of Weset to the dusty, restless crowd. The King would attain his fortieth year in the month of Mesore, and in recognition of his naming day and the Anniversary of his Appearing, taxes would be lowered. The citizens of Weset, traditionally an independent and haughty breed, did not cheer and clamour. They simply waited until the herald had finished and then walked away, talking among themselves. Of more interest to them was the fact that their Prince had been able to stand throughout his own naming day ceremonies in the temple and had received their mayor with gifts of two days of holiday and an extra hundred acres to be drained and cultivated for them for one year.

  7

  RAMOSE HAD COME, sailing to the watersteps one morning in the middle of Phamenoth and fending off Behek and the other dogs as he walked to the house with his escort. Seqenenra was sitting in the garden, Uni behind him and Tetisheri reclining on a mat beside him, her cushions piled around her, when the young man came to pay his respects. Isis and Mersu stood some way off. Isis was flinging blooms into the water of the pool to stir the fish that flickered, a sullen gold, in the murky depths.

  Ramose came forward and bowed, his two bodyguards and his steward following suit. Then he straightened and waited for Seqenenra to speak. Seqenenra felt the man’s eyes on his mouth, his eye travelling his body, but the appraisal was open and kindly. “Greetings, Ramose,” he enunciated carefully. Ramose’s gaze flew to his face. There was a moment of deciphering that Seqenenra had become used to. It had taught him patience.

  Then Ramose said, “I greet you, Prince, for myself and on behalf of my father who was most distressed at the news of your misfortune. I almost expected a scroll from you telling me not to come. I would have understood.” He turned and bowed slightly to Tetisheri. “Princess, I am honoured to see you again.” Tetisheri smiled, shading her eyes as she looked up at him.

  “Ramose, you become more handsome each time I see you,” she answered. “You have your mother’s even features and your father’s big eyes. How is your mother?”

  “She is well. She has sent you and her cousin a vial each of a new perfume being mixed on Asi. She hopes you will like it. I will have it unpacked later, as I have brought many gifts for Tani also.”

  Tetisheri chuckled. “New perfume! And has she sent me a man to appreciate it also? Thank you, Ramose. The gift is a generous one.” Seqenenra waved him down. Ramose ordered his escort back to the boat and sank into the sycamore’s spreading shade with a sigh.

  “Your hurts are grievous, Prince,” he said frankly, as Tetisheri sharply commanded Mersu to have a greeting meal brought from the kitchens. “I am appalled. How could a fall of rock cause such damage?” Seqenenra looked at him blankly and then remembered the letter that had gone to Het-Uart from Kamose.

  “The chariot was rolling fast under an overhang,” he replied, pausing between words to make sure that Ramose understood. “I thought of nothing but the lion to be shot. Something loosened the rocks and I remember nothing more than the sound of them falling.”

  Ramose nodded. “Father wishes to know if you need anything, another physician, the loan of overseers?” Seqenenra’s hand went to the linen cap tied around his head. He fingered it absently.

  “Thank him for me,” he replied, “but I need nothing. My physician is the best in Egypt.”

  There was a movement by the house and Tani stepped into the sunlight with Heket trailing her dutifully. As she saw who had come, her wide mouth broke into a smile and she held both hands out to Ramose. He scrambled up and took them. “How lovely you are, Princess!” he exclaimed, kissing her cheek. She pulled away, gazed at him for a moment, then settled herself beside Tetisheri.

  “So!” she said. “Are we to be betrothed this visit, Ramose? I must confess I am tired of waiting. Father is perfectly capable of putting his name and title on the document, and if you tell me you did not bring your father’s signature and seal I shall throttle you!” Yes, Seqenenra thought. A betrothal quickly now, and then a marriage. He glanced at Ramose who had resumed his cross-legged position.

  “I have brought the betrothal document,” he said. “It needs only your father’s name. But my father is insisting on a six-month waiting period before the marriage.” Tani threw up her hands. The sun glinted on her ringed fingers.

  “Oh really!” she snorted. “As if we are all strangers! Why? Teti is such an enthusiast for protocol. I shall dictate a stinging letter to my future father-in-law, and …”

  She prattled on. Tetisheri was watching her with amusement. The servants were smiling. But Seqenenra had withdrawn into himself. Teti is waiting to see what I will do, he suddenly knew without a doubt. He does not want to be allied to a family tainted by treason. Does he know I was attacked by an assassin? He has been burned by the flame of revolt in his own family and will be doubly cautious over this marriage. Somehow I must tell Tani that, unless I win through to Het-Uart and become Egypt’s King, Teti will no longer be willing to have her in his home.

  “Tani, that is enough!” Ramose broke in sternly, and surprisingly Tani closed her mouth, though she managed to shrug eloquently. “My father is willing for the betrothal contract to be signed and sealed now. He will prepare festivities in Khemennu and you and your family will come in six months for the final celebrations. I do not know his reasons for this further wait, but you and I have waited for months already so it will not make much difference. Perhaps it is the dowry?” He glanced politely at Seqenenra, who did not answer.

  At that moment servants appeared, bringing wine and shat cakes. Behind them the rest of the family straggled and Ramose rose to bow to Aahotep and embrace the three young men. All settled by the pool and the conversation became general. After a while Ramose and Tani got up and Seqenenra gave them permission to leave.

  Ramose put his arm across the girl’s slim shoulders and they strolled towards the river. Behek had risen and lumbered panting at their heels. The sound of voices slowly faded, to be replaced by the rustle and piping of birds in the reeds and the hum of insects in the flowering shrubs. The branches of the palms met over their heads, casting a stiff shade on the white, dusty path. Tani dug her toes into the powder as they went. “I am very angry with Teti,” she said. “And I imagine that Father is insulted. He is after all a Prince, Ramose. He deserves more deference from your father than he gets.”

  “He is well aware of the honour Seqenenra is doing him in letting me have you,” Ramose replied hesitantly. “It is not second thoughts or pride or a need to try your father’s authority.” He came to a halt a
nd she with him. Turning her, he smoothed her eyebrows with thoughtful fingers. Behind and before them the sun-dappled path twisted into green gloom. “I must be honest with you, Tani,” he admitted. “I love you very much. There are strong rumours that Seqenenra was struck by Apepa’s hand because he was planning rebellion. Is it true? My father thinks so.”

  “I care not one fig what your father thinks!” Tani flashed. “He is a fat old man with more dignity than he deserves! How dare he hesitate over me, a Princess with royal blood in her veins!” Ramose stepped away from her flushed face and furious eyes.

  “I am angry also,” he said evenly. “I do not care either what your father or mine think or do. But we are obedient children, Tani, and we will remain so until our parents die. You did not answer my question. Do you not trust me?” She considered him, her head on one side.

  “My loyalty belongs to my family,” she said frostily, “and you are not yet a member of that family or me of yours.” He reached out and shook her gently.

  “If you tell me the truth, I shall swear by Thoth, totem of Khemennu, not to tell a living soul. Not even my father.” She took a deep breath.

  “Very well, Ramose. I am angry with Father also for putting himself in the position he did and bringing down on himself the King’s wrath. I love him so much and I am so sorry for him. But you must promise to keep it to yourself. I shall utter a curse tonight that will take effect if you ever tell.” He nodded.

  “I agree.”

  “Then it is true. Father put up with Apepa’s insults and pricks for as long as he could, and then he got a letter telling him he had to kill the hippopotamuses. Can you imagine anything more foolish? Father is clever and he managed to avoid such a cruel thing, but then the King wanted him to build a temple for Set here.” She bit her lip and turned troubled eyes to his. “I suppose he might have considered a small shrine, but Weset belongs to Amun. It was impossible. Father gathered a small army and was ready to start north and then someone tried to kill him. We don’t know who. We will probably never know.” Her voice shook. “We all believe that Apepa’s hand was in it.” Ramose took her waist and they began to walk again.

  “I am sorry to cause you this distress,” he said, “but you do see, don’t you, that my father must be careful of his reputation? He must wait six months to make sure that Seqenenra has learned his lesson and will stay quiet from now on.”

  “How tactfully you express it!” Tani blurted, stiff against his hand. “You speak as though my father were an unruly dog to be whipped into submission!”

  “You have always had frankness from me,” Ramose rebuked her. “There is no point in dancing around the subject, Tani. Our future depends on it.”

  “I suppose you think of my father as a deceitful traitor and an insane man too?”

  They had reached the watersteps. He drew her down onto the white stone. The water lapped with tiny sucking sounds at their feet. A family of ducks broke from the reeds and arrowed smoothly towards one of the small islands between the east and west banks, their wake spreading behind them. The far cliffs wavered, hot beige against a cloudless sky. “I think that his cause is just but his method misguided,” Ramose answered, his eyes narrowed against the sun and his gaze fixed on the ducks, now waddling one by one onto the rocky shore. “I do not share my father’s comfortable acceptance of our Setiu masters. I would like to see an Egyptian god on the Horus Throne someday. But it will not be in our lifetime.” He forced her to look at him. “Your father is a brave man, but I trust that his moment of rage is over.”

  Tani did not answer. She smiled at him briefly and looked away. His rage is not over, she thought. It will never be over. As for the army, it has gone home. I can hope fervently that it will not be called back, but I do not like it when Hor-Aha and Kamose cluster around him for hours on end and Kamose and Si-Amun quarrel every time they are together. Something else is brewing and I am afraid. No one tells me anything. They think I am still a child because I am the youngest and must be spared.

  All at once she grasped Ramose’s fingers. “Am I a woman to you, Ramose,” she asked him urgently, “or a pretty girl who has captured your affections and whom you treat kindly and lightly? Is this simply an advantageous marriage for you?”

  “Tani,” he chided her, “there are a dozen women at home who are pretty and whom I treat kindly and lightly. I have watched you grow from a fey child into a lovely young woman with a quick mind and an equally quick temper. I love you. As for an advantageous marriage, well,” he sighed in annoyance at his thought, “you may be a Princess but your family now lives under the cloud of the King’s disapproval and my father is worried about it. Why this sudden doubt?” She rubbed her cheek against his warm upper arm.

  “I want to be happy,” she whispered. “I want to live at Khemennu with you forever. I can hardly bear to look at Father any more, to be cheerful around him, to pretend encouragement. He was so straight and graceful, Ramose, so lordly! Every time I force myself to go to him, it is with a terrible anger against the King and an ache of remembering how things used to be. Please take me away.”

  He had nothing to say. Gathering her to him, he stroked her silently until he felt her relax and then they spoke of other things. But when they joined the rest of the family for the evening meal, he found that he was watching them, the proud Taos, with detachment and wariness. The night was hot, the first creeping breathlessness of summer.

  Seqenenra, dressed only in a thin kilt-linen, ate little. His crutch lay discreetly behind him where Uni stood. The wrap around his head was a patch of white in the ill-lit hall. He pushed food quickly into his deformed mouth as though hoping no one would see, and his eyes roamed the company. Ramose thought of his own father, oiled and bejewelled, gesturing expansively and speaking in his low-pitched, cultured voice to each of his guests in turn as they ate at his flower-strewn ivory tables. Teti was like a huge owl, benign and wise. Seqenenra was a wounded hawk, battered yet alert, with a watchful malevolence behind the darting eyes. Ramose smiled at the drama of his image and Seqenenra, catching the stare, suddenly smiled back. Ramose nodded and looked away.

  The Princess Aahotep was at Seqenenra’s elbow, a darkly beautiful woman whose every movement held voluptuous grace. There was little of his own mother in her, Ramose reflected, although they were related. His mother was comfortably middle-aged. This woman with her full lips and burnished skin was as sensuous as the King’s concubines who gathered languidly on their cushions around the fountains of the harem on a summer afternoon. He saw her lean back to speak to Hetepet, her servant, lean sideways to put her mouth against her husband’s ear, supple and easy in her movements.

  Ramose sipped his wine and let his mind wander with his eyes. The twins, Kamose and Si-Amun, sat together on mats, sharing a table littered with the remains of the meal but not speaking. The constraint between them was almost palpable. Although it seemed as though there was one man looking into a mirror when they turned to each other, black eyes, long thin faces, sharp noses, a mass of dark curls, there was a gulf between them that set them apart. What is it? Ramose wondered.

  He felt Si-Amun’s gaze on him, had felt it often through the evening hours while the musicians played and danced and the servants wove to and fro with lotus garlands and perfumed oil. It made him anxious. Kamose turned often to speak to the wild-looking Medjay warrior at his elbow, a man of slow gestures and quick, cold eyes, while Si-Amun seemed to sink lower on his mat, his ringed fingers fidgeting in the food.

  Ahmose, scantily clad, had finished his meal long before and was wandering through the diners, sling in hand, delving occasionally into a leather bag at his belt from which he drew small pellets. The clatter of their striking punctuated the conversations. Ahmose sang snatches of some jaunty melody as he whirled and let go. No one paid him any attention. He was obviously too good a shot with the sling to cause anxiety. The great lady Tetisheri sat a little apart, surrounded by her retinue of retainers, a straight-backed, glittering old woman w
hose sharp gaze encompassed everyone and whose slightest movement resulted in a flurry of obedience around her. Ramose shuddered inwardly. She had always terrified him as a boy, and even now as a man he was in awe of her. Mersu, her steward, answered a command, the words lost in the general hubbub, bending towards her politely. Ramose considered him. He had a relative or a friend in Teti’s household, his father’s Chief Steward he thought. They were always together when the Taos came to visit. An impressively calm man.

  His Tani was sitting on a mat beside her sister, knees drawn up under her filmy red linen, braceleted arms hugging them, waving hair bouncing against her neck as she talked. His heart melted. He did not know what it was about her that called forth such a response. She was so unlike the rest of her family and yet her spasm of anger today, while he had deliberately not reacted to it, had taken him aback. She, too, possessed the overwhelming Tao pride.

  Her sister, Aahmes-nefertari, was a younger version of her mother, dark, well-curved, with piercing black eyes and a haughty mouth. She was pregnant, Ramose knew. Another Prince, he thought. Another Tao to spit at the King and dream their long dream of power and ancient Ma’at. By Thoth, I admire them! It would not do to let them know, for I, too, come of a venerable family and have my pride, but I am glad to be sitting here where the air is somehow cleaner and a less complicated Egypt tugs at my mind. But they are dangerous too. As unpredictable as bulls, even my Tani in her way. It is in their blood. Osiris Mentuhotep neb-hapet-Ra … I know my history.

  His reverie was interrupted by a movement and a rustle beside him. He turned. Prince Si-Amun was settling himself on the floor. Ramose smiled at him warily. He was holding a goblet with great care, and to Ramose, noting his flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes, he seemed already more than a little drunk. “Prince,” Ramose nodded. Si-Amun nodded back.