The Hippopotamus Marsh

by Pauline Gedge

  “Well, Ramose,” he said. “we used to creep up on the crocodiles in the Khemennu swamps together and hunt for ibis eggs. Do you remember when Kamose and I tied you to a skiff and dragged you through the river? You nearly drowned. And now you are to be my brother-in-law. It seems fitting. Do you have any doubts?” He swilled his cup, drank, and held it out for more. The servant hovering behind them filled it and stepped back.

  “Why, no, Prince,” Ramose answered. “I love Tani and she will make a fine wife. The marriage is a respectable and suitable one.”

  “Even considering the trouble Father has been in?” Si-Amun’s face came close to his own. “You know people are saying that Apepa had Father attacked. We are not exactly in the King’s good graces.” Ramose tensed. Beneath Si-Amun’s wine- slurred words and glazed eyes he sensed a sober questing.

  “Rumours always abound in the estates of the noble and powerful,” he said carefully, “and our god is of a suspicious nature. I do not believe either that Seqenenra has been traitorous or the King vengeful. I do not listen to gossip, Prince.” A curious expression, half relief and half disappointment, swept over Si-Amun’s eyes.

  “So you know nothing of it,” he urged. Ramose spread his hands.

  “Only what is passed from mouth to mouth on idle afternoons. It is all so silly, Si-Amun, but I suppose it troubles the family. The hunting accident—it is a tragedy.” He hoped that he sounded convincing. Si-Amun did not know that Tani had told him the truth and he must not betray her confidence.

  “And your father?” Si-Amun pressed. “Teti is one of Apepa’s favourites. What does he know?” The words were low, the tone almost desperate. Ramose hid his bewilderment, sensing something close to despair in the Prince.

  “If you are suggesting that my father knew anything about an attack on your father, an attack that Seqenenra himself admits was a hunting accident, you are overstepping the bounds of our blood ties,” he said. “If there was an attack and if my father knew about it beforehand, he would have warned Seqenenra.” His indignation was genuine. Si-Amun stared at him for a moment then laughed, a quick, humourless gust of wine-laden breath.

  “I am sorry,” he said, still choking on his wine. “Of course he would. Forgive me.” He began to come unsteadily to his feet. Ramose caught his arm.

  “Si-Amun,” he said sharply, “are you ill? Or is something troubling you?” Si-Amun looked down on him for a long time.

  “I envy you, Ramose,” he said finally. “I used to be like you. I would give Amun anything his heart desired if I could be like you again. Tani is a fortunate girl.” He graced Ramose with the parody of a smile and walked away. As he went, Ramose noticed the steward Mersu staring after him.

  There are nasty undercurrents in this hall, Ramose thought, putting down his wine. What could Father possibly know about Seqenenra’s attempted murder? He would tell someone surely, he would warn the husband of his wife’s cousin, he has loyalties to the relationship between our families. Doesn’t he? Si-Amun’s irrational speech had set up a pulse of disquiet in him.

  He caught Tani’s eye. With a jerk of his head he indicated that they should get Seqenenra’s permission to go into the garden. I wish that I could take Tani and go home, he thought, moving towards the Prince’s table. I feel like a child in a maze, and the night is coming. I will leave tomorrow as soon as the contract is signed.

  In the morning Seqenenra scrawled his name and title on the betrothal scroll. “You may tell Teti,” he said to an uncomfortable Ramose who strained to understand the garbled but vehement words, “that I am insulted and displeased at the six-month delay in the nuptials. I have paid a good dowry. Tani has a unique blood line. If there are any more problems, I shall withdraw my consent and demand compensation from Teti.” The left side of the Prince’s face was a frozen, inert mask but the right side glowed with irritation. Ramose put aside his dread of this formidable man.

  “My father did not make his reasons clear to me,” he said. “But I must respect his decision, Prince. When I come for Tani in six months’ time my conscience will thus be clear. He forced himself to meet Seqenenra’s eye. “You forget, lord, that out of love for your daughter I am as disappointed as you.” Suddenly, surprisingly, Seqenenra put his right arm around Ramose and embraced him tightly.

  “I like you,” he said. “I like your courage. I see you have gifts. Go and give them to her. I will not be at the water-steps when you leave, but I wish you a safe journey.”

  He hobbled away and Ramose watched him go before signalling for the servant to pick up the box at his feet and follow him to the women’s quarters. If I did not know better, Ramose thought with worry, I would imagine those words as some kind of permanent farewell.

  Tani clapped her hands and exclaimed over the presents, sending for her mother and sister to admire them. There were bolts of linen of the first quality in many different colours, jars of gold dust to sprinkle on her kohl and eyepaint, ebony anointing spoons with gold inlay, dyed ostrich feathers from Kush, earrings of silver and jasper and a small alabaster hippopotamus with black obsidian eyes and ivory teeth. Tani cradled it ecstatically. “How thoughtful of you, Ramose,” she said, happy and suddenly shy. “You remembered how I love them.” Ramose laughed.

  “I could hardly forget, seeing the number of times I have been dragged to the marshes to admire them!” he retorted. “I must be going, Tani. I will send word in six months when the festival preparations are made and then I need not say goodbye to you again.” He bowed to Aahotep. “Thank you for your hospitality, Princess. I will make an offering to Thoth so that your husband’s health may continue to improve.” Aahotep turned her dark-lashed eyes to him and laid a warm palm against his cheek.

  “Greet the family for me, Ramose,” she asked in her husky voice. Removing her hand, she glanced at Tani, back to Ramose, and he wondered at her sober expression. He kissed Aahmes-nefertari, and he and Tani walked to the watersteps where his barge lay rocking on the slight swell, its pennants stirring limply in the almost motionless air. There he embraced her once more, she near to tears, and he ran up the ramp.

  His captain gave the order to cast off. Behek began to bark deliriously as the boat slipped away, seeking the north-flowing current. Ramose leaned on the railing and watched Tani recede, a small, upright figure in flowing white linen, the dog bounding about her knees. A lump came to his throat. She is very brave, he thought. Brave and loyal. The strength of his emotion startled him and he waved once and disappeared inside the cabin.

  The next three months passed on the estate like the thick stillness that always precedes a khamsin out on the desert. The crops turned from supple green to a brittle golden ripeness. Seqenenra’s overseers tallied the fields, saw to the sweeping of the granaries, and consulted last year’s yield lists. But Seqenenra himself could take no interest in the affairs of his domain.

  Kamose and Si-Amun celebrated their birthday, Kamose genially but Si-Amun with a quiet embarrassment that bordered on sullenness. Seqenenra had held a reception for his sons and had invited all the dignitaries of Weset and his nomes. He had watched Si-Amun’s efforts to be gracious with a puzzled concern. “You had better talk to that one,” his mother had advised. “Something is eating him up.” Seqenenra had tried, but Si-Amun had been politely evasive. The problem was obviously not the young man’s health or that of his wife. Aahmes-nefertari was sunk in the lassitude and contentment of her second pregnancy.

  Seqenenra, finally annoyed, his head throbbing and his shoulder and back aching from the crutch, told him sharply that if his trouble had to do with the coming fight he could be released from any obligation to march. Si-Amun had tried to answer, his mouth trembling, but in the end he had sunk once more into silent discomfort and then fled.

  Seqenenra had approached Kamose, but Kamose was as mystified as he. “I do not know,” he had told his father. “He avoids me. We do not even wrestle any more. Sometimes he goes with Ahmose into the marshes. You know how easy it is to be with Ahmose.
He spends most of his time with Aahmes-nefertari in the women’s quarters.” Tetisheri had lost patience with her grandson a long time ago and spoken roughly to him, so that he avoided her, but his mother continued to fret over him and did her best to draw him out, to no avail.

  Seqenenra was forced to dismiss his concern for Si-Amun. He was involved in his own worries, forcing his body through a series of strenuous exercises that he hoped would make him fit for the chariot and the ride north. He swam every day, floundering in the Nile and grimly ignoring the secret opinion of those watching. He knew he looked ridiculous. He dragged himself around the practice ground in the blazing sun, sweating and cursing, his muscles burning. At the back of his mind had been the belief that if he only had enough time and worked hard enough, life would return to his arm and leg, but through all his exertions the limbs hung on him like a burden of rebuke.

  Several times he had himself carried to the valley where Osiris Mentuhotep-neb-hapet-Ra’s deserted temple smouldered, but the presence of his ancestor merely angered him and he resolved not to go there again. Fate had not dealt with Mentuhotep as it had with him, Seqenenra. Mentuhotep had not marched north to war maimed and broken. The site conjured self-pity, and Seqenenra did his brooding in the friendly gloom of the old palace. He could no longer climb to the roof, where in spite of much scrubbing the stain of his blood was baked brown into the bricks. He sat on the dais of the throne room, his twisted face turned to the dim friezes on the walls, and tried to maintain an optimism within himself.

  In the last week of Payni a letter came from the King, brought by his Chief Herald, who was not on his way to anywhere else but who came ashore at Weset escorted by twenty warriors in royal blue and white, his unsullied linen and gleaming helmet discreetly protected from the sun by the gilt canopy under which he strode to the reception hall. In one hand he carried the white staff of his office and in the other a sealed scroll. Uni, unperturbed, showed him a chair and offered him refreshment, ignoring the bristle of spears around him, the leather belts hung with knives that girded the massive waists of the bodyguard, then leaving to summon his master. “So many soldiers!” he spluttered behind Seqenenra in the passage. “It is an insult!”

  “Of course it is,” Seqenenra answered wearily. “But we are used to that, are we not?” He limped into the hall. The herald rose, bowed perfunctorily, and watched him come. Seqenenra left him standing. He did not speak, so that the herald was unable to open his own mouth.

  Seqenenra held out his hand and the scroll was placed in it. Quickly he broke the seal and read, then passed it to Ipi who had followed him, palette ready. “File this,” Seqenenra ordered curtly. He regarded the herald, who was endeavouring to keep his face expressionless, but the man’s affront at being forced to remain mute was evident. Seqenenra relented. “I offer you my hospitality,” he said. “Will you use my guest quarters tonight?” The herald’s face cleared but became cool.

  “My thanks, Highness, but I come well-victualled and since I must leave again for Het-Uart with the dawn, I ask your indulgence. I will dine and sleep on the barge.”

  “In that case,” Seqenenra responded equably, “you are dismissed.”

  He carried the contents of the scroll in his mind like a dark disease all that day while he struggled with his exercise, rested sleeplessly on his couch, and shared the evening meal with his listless family. There were questions from Tani and Ahmose, who had passed the watersteps and inspected the gilded barge from the bank with curiosity, but the rest of them knew Seqenenra would speak when he was ready.

  He waited until he returned from the temple. The moorings were empty. The barge had gone. Then he summoned them to the reception hall, sitting waiting, his crutch on the floor beside him, Ipi at his feet, while they straggled into the room. All looked wary, even his mother. They ranged themselves before him, eyes fixed on him apprehensively. The last time he had formally called them was years ago when Apepa had paid them a state visit. He surveyed them quietly.

  “Apepa has spoken,” he said without preamble. “He is himself planning a temple to Sutekh here in Weset, beside Amun’s home. His architects and masons will arrive to survey the site after the harvest in two months’ time. They will go on to Swenet to choose stone. We will provide the labourers. This time the scroll was perfectly intelligible.”

  No one stirred. He could tell from their faces that they had understood his laboured words. He touched a finger to his drooping lip. “We will have no temple to Sutekh here,” he enunciated emphatically. “No architects, no masons, no northern foreigners. We are Egyptians. Our god is Egyptian. We go to war immediately. Kamose, if you, Hor-Aha and the officers scatter, you can have troops here in a month. Uni,” he turned to his steward, “get out the victual lists and weapons tally. Ipi, bring me the Scribes of Assemblage.” He realized that he was speaking too fast and garbling his words. Taking a deep breath he forced himself to be calm. “Ahmose, you will not come. I want you to stay here and prepare to assume my title if I or the others do not come home.” He would have gone on, but Ahmose stepped forward looking injured.

  “That is unfair,” he protested. “I am the best shot in the five nomes. I attained my majority two years ago. I will be eighteen soon. I can handle horses better than either Kamose or Si-Amun.” Aahotep made a gesture towards her son, half-protecting, half-rebuke, but Seqenenra cut her off.

  “There will be no argument,” he said sternly. “Ahmose, I am sorry but you know why the survival of at least one male in the family is vital.”

  “You speak as if we are all to die!” Si-Amun burst out. “Suicide is wrong, Seqenenra!” He had never before called his father by name and the word put an immediate gulf between them. Kamose pulled him back.

  “Be quiet, Si-Amun,” he said in a low voice. “It has all been said before. We are going and that is that.” Si-Amun glowered at him and flung off Aahmes-nefertari’s hesitant arm.

  “I am tired of all the talk.” The voice was Tetisheri’s. “Do it, Seqenenra, and then have done with it.” Seqenenra managed a wintry smile at her before turning to Tani. She was regarding him with a steady enquiry.

  “I am afraid this means that your marriage will be postponed, probably indefinitely, Tani,” he told her. They were the hardest words he had ever forced past his misshapen lips. He searched for something more to say, something comforting, but she saved him from the necessity.

  “A year ago I could not have borne such news,” she answered huskily. “Now I am able to accept the inevitable. This is why Teti insisted on the six-month wait, isn’t it, Father? He suspected us all. I know my duty. Yet if you become King, I shall expect payment for my faithfulness!”

  Seqenenra could not even smile at her clumsy attempt at humour. His rancour sat in his breast, a hard, cold weight. Teti will not join me as we pass by, he thought, but Ramose might. I wish I could force Teti to honour the contract and let them marry now and stay away from this tragic chaos. “There is one thing more,” he said. “I will command in the field. I cannot fight well but I can lead the men who will be depending on me for their morale.” Si-Amun took a breath and would have shouted, but Kamose’s hand descended on his arm like a vise.

  “Amun will vindicate us,” Kamose said with finality. Seqenenra could stand no more. He dismissed them with a flick of the wrist. When they had gone he turned to Uni.

  “Give me my crutch and your arm, Uni,” he said. “I feel as though I have already run to Het-Uart and back. Shall I come back, do you think?” It was an uncharacteristic plea for reassurance. Uni grunted.

  “Ask Amunmose, not me,” he retorted. “I am not a prophet.” Nor are you a tactful servant, Seqenenra thought, amused, and at that his sadness fled. This time there would be no assassin’s blow in the night. He would have himself guarded constantly until they left. This time they would surely march.

  Si-Amun left the reception hall and was almost at the end of the passage leading to his own quarters when Mersu slid out of the early shadows and bowed.
Ignoring him, Si-Amun tried to push past but the steward took a step to bar his way. “Well, what is it?” Si-Amun snapped. Mersu bowed again.

  “Your pardon, Prince, but I would like to know what your father had to say. It is most unusual to see him summon the whole family at once.” Si-Amun could hardly look at the man, his distaste was so strong.

  “That is none of your business.”

  “Perhaps,” Mersu answered in a low voice, glancing about the deserted passage. “But it may be the King’s business.”

  “Apepa has ordered the building of a temple to Sutekh here at Weset,” Si-Amun croaked. “Now let me past before I strike you.” Mersu did not stir.

  “And what will Seqenenra do, Prince?” Si-Amun began to flush.

  “He has not decided. Get out of my way!” Mersu leaned closer and his voice dropped even farther.

  “I must remind you, Si-Amun, that if you do not take me into your confidence I will tell your father how the attack on him came to be. I have nothing to lose, you see.”

  “How hateful you are!” Si-Amun burst out. “You do not deserve to live, and if Father wins, I will kill you with my own hands. Traitor!”

  “So Seqenenra is to march?” Mersu said, unmoved by Si-Amun’s venom. “When?” Si-Amun gave in.

  “Immediately. The word is going out even now. We will assemble and move at the end of next month.”

  “Epophi,” Mersu said thoughtfully. “My thanks, Prince.”

  Si-Amun’s response was a stinging slap that caught Mersu full on the face. The steward staggered back, a hand going to his cheek, but he recovered himself quickly. He even smiled. Si-Amun strode past him, suddenly desperate for clean, moving air.

  Instead of going to his quarters, he ran into the garden and stood by the pool, gasping and shuddering. After a while, he had calmed down enough to go about his business. I do not even have a friend I can confide in, he thought as he went. No one to share this burden of guilt and hatred, to propose an impossible solution, to offer understanding and sympathy. I hope Apepa’s warriors kill me on the field. It is all I deserve.