The Horus Road (53 page)

Ahmose would have been entirely content if it were not for the problem of Sharuhen. Every time a herald arrived with scrolls from his generals, he would secrete himself in his father’s office until the cloud of frustration they brought had been dissipated. Sharuhen was an unfinished task. Apepa was a living growth inside a monstrous cocoon attached to the border of Egypt that must be ripped away and trodden upon, and Ahmose knew that soon he must leave Weset once again and take the Horus Road east.

He waited to discuss the matter with his wife until the beginning of Thoth when the New Year celebrations were over and the Inundation had begun. A rich harvest had been gathered. Overseers and governors everywhere sent word of Egypt’s return to fertility and peace together with gifts for their King. The Treasury was filling. The gold routes were stable. It was a good time to go, Ahmose reflected, and Aahmes-nefertari would rule with calm efficiency while he was away. He chose an evening when no guests had been entertained and he and Aahmesnefertari were free to sit in the garden, sharing a last cup of wine before going to their quarters. The heat that day had been intense. They had swum in the river at sunset and were now wrapped in a companionable silence while dusk slowly filled the trees beyond them and seeped across the grass. Aahmes-nefertari had perched on a stool and Senehat was combing out her wet hair. Ahmose sprawled at her feet, tracing their delicate bones with one pensive finger. He had just summoned up the courage to speak when she forestalled him. “I have good news for you, Ahmose,” she said. “I am pregnant again. The baby will be born in the spring, at the end of Pharmuthi. Are you pleased?” He glanced up. She was looking down at him and smiling. He made himself grip her foot, concentrating on the action of his hand so that his dismay would not show on his face.

“Indeed I am pleased,” he said heartily. “Are you sure?”

“Perfectly sure. And perfectly happy.” She nudged him playfully with her toe. “I have already been to the Seer for a prediction. He says that I may expect a healthy boy who will live a long life.” Was he lying? Ahmose thought immediately, and then was ashamed. He scrambled up and kissed her softly on her mouth.

“Oh, Aahmes-nefertari, you deserve this,” he said. “We both do. We will go to the temple tomorrow and make an offering to Amun.” She signalled to Senehat to leave them, and pulling her hair forward she began to braid it with quick, deft movements.

“I have one favour to ask of you, Ahmose,” she said, not meeting his eye. “You may refuse if you wish.”

“I do not want to refuse you anything,” he protested. “What is it?” She still did not look at him.

“I want you to stay with me until this baby is born,” she said. “Do not mistake me, I am not afraid. But I need you here. Will you stay?” Both hands froze on the braid and she became motionless, a curve of loose robe and one pale cheek. Ahmose could feel her tension.

Suddenly he realized that everything important to her hung on his answer. It was not a test. She had not set out coldly to prove his loyalty, with anger or assurance as the goal depending on his words. She was risking all her future well-being in this moment and she had chosen the perfect time to do it. She was well aware that his men did not need him, might never need him, at Sharuhen. Nor was his presence required in Weset, where the wheels of government could go on turning without him, providing someone in authority stood ready to guide it when necessary. Only she truly needed him and he was being asked if her need was as vital to him as it was to her. Kneeling, he lifted her hands and brought them up, imprisoned in his own, under her chin. Her face was already dim in the fading light and her eyes were huge and dark. He smiled slowly.

“Of course I will stay,” he said.

16

IN THE MONTH
of Pharmuthi the following year Aahmes-nefertari gave birth to a lusty, healthy boy. Her pregnancy had proceeded normally. The phantoms of doubt and fear that had plagued her while carrying Sat-Kamose had returned occasionally during the long nine-month wait for the new baby but she had mastered them well, sharing them with Ahmose so that their sting was rapidly drawn. He himself settled determinedly into the routine of court life, at first willing himself to be content but later reading the scrolls from Sharuhen with a sense of relief that there were no changes in the east. He was happy with his wife, happy with Egypt’s growing peace and prosperity, and if he woke in the night full of a fleeting dissatisfaction, it was because the old palace remained empty of both Throne and Royal Regalia.

He and Aahmes-nefertari spent a portion of every morning wandering the gracious halls and lordly passages of the place that would be both their home and a shrine to the Divine Incarnation of a renewed Ma’at. The lapis tiles for the Throne Room were finished and laid. Its walls were at last covered with sheets of gold on which were etched giant representations of the King in the Double Crown smiting his enemies with an axe while a smaller Aahmes-nefertari clung to his heel with one hand and raised the ankh in the other. The artists swarmed the precincts with their pots of bright colours, turning pillars into grapevines, ceilings into birds and stars, and corridors into rivers and pools of blue water in which fish swam and on which delicate lotus and lily blooms floated.

Ahmose was exultant when Chief Treasurer Neferperet announced that there was now sufficient gold and silver in the treasury to begin work on the gates of electrum and the goldsmiths were ready to offer a choice of designs for it to the King. Trade was becoming well established. Gold, ivory, ebony, ostrich feathers and the pelts of exotic animals came north from Wawat, oxen from Tjehenu, gold and silver rhytons, ewers, and bowls, bronze inlaid ceremonial swords and daggers, ceramics of eggshell thickness adorned with octopi, dolphins and urchins, dyes, and of course the precious poppy flowed in from Keftiu, but as yet there was no cedar from northern Rethennu or a fresh influx of horses from the tribes even farther east with which the Setiu had dealt. Ahmose wondered gloomily if there ever would be, but he did not dwell on the lack. The gods had looked on him with favour and he was careful to be grateful.

The astrologers chose the name Amunhotep for Ahmose’s son. Aahmes-nefertari, cuddling the chubby baby while the nursery attendants twittered and clucked around her, was overjoyed when Amunmose brought the news himself. “‘Amun-is-satisfied’!” she exclaimed, bending to rub her nose playfully against her son’s. “What a wonderful name! Surely it means that the god has ceased to test our ability to endure, Ahmose! He is satisfied with all we have done for him!” Ahmose peered at Amunhotep and after a moment the baby gurgled, smiled, and thrashed his fat arms.

“They should have named him Mighty Bull of Weset,” he teased her. “He eats and kicks like one.”

“The Seer has predicted a glorious future for him, Majesty,” Amunmose put in. “Long life and stability.”

“I am so glad,” Aahmes-nefertari whispered. “So glad, so glad.” She met her husband’s eye over the bundle in her arms. “Prince Amunhotep. He will be a great warrior and a fine governor like his father.”

“And brave and stubborn like his mother,” Ahmose retorted, grinning. He kissed her flushed cheek. “When you have finished adoring your accomplishment, come on the river with me. The evening is cool and sweet and I need some attention, too.”

He remained at home for another three months to make sure that both Aahmes-nefertari and his son continued in good health. The season of Shemu had begun, with its breathless heat. Pakhons and Payni went by, and then it was the beginning of Epophi, when all over Egypt the peasants took to the fields with their scythes, the threshers stood ready to flail the chaff from the grain, and the vintners waited to trample the dusty, bursting grapes being tumbled into the vats.

Ahmose went to his wife’s apartments and, finding her absent, climbed the stairs leading to the roof above them. She was there with Senehat, sprawled indolently on a mat, her head on a cushion, gazing up at the blaze of summer stars flung across a black sky. Hearing him come, she turned to look at him but she did not rise. He lowered himself beside her and took the cup of water Senehat immediately proffered. “The house was unbearably hot today,” she murmured. “It is time to start sleeping on the roof. Even the draught blowing through the pillars of the reception hall at the feast tonight seemed too warm. How lovely it is up here, Ahmose!” He swallowed his water and nodded an agreement, slowly scanning the length of her naked body illumined by the soft glow of the single lamp. It had been placed well away from her so that the insects it attracted might not annoy her, and the golden half-light it cast made silken highlights of her knees and hips, the slight mound of her stomach, the well of her breasts, leaving the rest hidden in a tantalizing shadow. She was beautiful and she was his. He felt her hand slide over his where it rested beside her.

“Dear Ahmose,” she said. “I know why you are here. You want to go north again, don’t you?” Startled at her perception, he leaned closer so that he could see her expression. She was smiling at him wistfully.

“I don’t want to, Aahmes-nefertari, and that is the truth,” he replied. “But I must. It is time.”

“I know.” She curled up into a sitting position and wriggled around to face him. “I shall miss you terribly,” she admitted. “This year has been a blessed one, has it not? And you will miss Amunhotep’s first words, his first steps. That is a pity.” There was no rancour in her words, only regret. She laughed shortly. “Ahmose-onkh has begun to call him Ahmose-onkh-ta-sherit. He sits by the basket and tells him to hurry up and grow so that they can shoot the bow and read stories together. He has been lonely, I think.” Ahmose touched her calf.

“I think so too. Ahmose-onkh-the-younger. That is charming. But I do not intend to miss a moment of Amunhotep’s progress if I can possibly avoid it. I go to Sharuhen only to dismantle the army and bring Weset’s divisions home.”

“Ahmose!” She swayed back in surprise. “You will give up the siege? Leave Apepa safe forever in that city? But why?” He pursed his lips.

“Because Sharuhen cannot be taken. I could sit up there for years while the inhabitants ate the fruits of their gardens and drank from their wells. I suppose in time some misfortune would overtake them. The population might become too large for the food supply or a plague might strike them, anything, but those things cannot be predicted. The Keftiu cannot go on shipping water to the troops forever and the men themselves cannot be expected to die of old age, inactivity and frustration.” He shrugged. “I will leave a division permanently stationed at the Wall of Princes and across the Horus Road, just within our border. The rest I will distribute to garrisons in the Delta and Iunu and Mennofer, perhaps one at Khemmenu, so that they can be rotated and yet called up as they are needed. Amun and Ra will come back with me and go into the new quarters with their wives and families.”

“But what of Apepa?” she pressed. “He was the symbol of every oppression to Kamose and to you also. Leave him alive and the work is unfinished. And what of his sons? They will claim the kingship of Egypt if you allow them to survive.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I have spent the last few weeks thinking about little else. But there is no alternative, Aahmes-nefertari, no way to reach in and pluck Apepa and his sons from within those stone walls. I will keep scouts in the vicinity and I can use the divisions that will be at Iunu and Mennofer to march on Sharuhen quickly if the opportunity arises, but I will not waste my life sitting in a tent and waiting for something to happen. I want to be here with you and the children, with my ministers and overseers, watching Egypt blossom under my hand.” He lay down and pulled her after him, dismissing Senehat as he did so. “I will commission a new throne, new regalia, and try to forget that at the very end I failed. I have decided that it is a price worth paying in exchange for everything I hold dear.” She lay silently in his arms for a long time and he wondered if she had fallen asleep, but presently she stirred against him.

“Nevertheless,” she breathed, “it is the will of the god that determines our fate. Go into the temple before you leave, and sacrifice a bull to Amun, and pray that our vengeance may indeed be complete. He will not desert you now, at the end, Ahmose. I am his Second Prophet, remember. I have a feeling that the war is not yet over.”

“I respect your intuitions,” Ahmose said without much conviction. “I will do as you say, but without your confidence, Aahmes-nefertari. Now you must do as I say. Kiss me. This may be the last time we make love on the roof of the old house. Move into the new house while I am gone and see the electrum gates hung so that their fire may greet me when I come sailing home again.” At once she raised herself on one elbow and placed her mouth on his and his arms encircled her. I am right to admit this small defeat, he thought before his senses slipped away from his control. It is a matter of priority. But he knew that he would carry a tiny seed of bitterness in his soul for the rest of his life.

He set out on the twelfth of Epophi with Akhtoy, Hekayib, Ipi, Khabekhnet, Ankhmahor and the Followers, one day after the anniversary of Sat-Kamose’s funeral. He and Aahmes-nefertari had taken offerings of flowers, oil, fruit and bread to lay outside the tomb. They had stood in the baking sun with Amunmose in front of the sealed entrance, saying the prayers of remembrance and petition for the girl’s ka, and there was no sadness in Ahmose as he held his wife’s hand, only love for the baby who had melted his heart and a belated understanding that her brief life had been responsible for healing the breach between himself and Aahmes-nefertari.

Afterwards he had said goodbye to Aahotep and his grandmother, taken Ahmose-onkh out on the desert in a chariot and given him his first driving lesson, and then made his way to the temple to perform his sacrifice as he had promised his wife. Watching the bull’s blood pour into the waiting bowl, he did his best to pray with fervour for a final vindication but his thoughts would not stay centred on the words he was saying and in the end he fell silent. Do what you will, King of All Gods, he told his totem resignedly. You have led us from occupation to freedom at the cost of many lives and much suffering. If at the last you choose to spare our enemy, then it is your sublime prerogative to do so.

He spent the evening with Aahmes-nefertari discussing the matters of government to be dealt with while he was away, then he went through into the nursery, kissed his sleeping son, and retired to his own rooms. Lying on his couch in the darkness, he felt homesickness already creeping towards him and he welcomed it as a sign that he was indeed fully reconciled to his decision to leave Sharuhen to its isolated peace.

He slept deeply and dreamlessly until Akhtoy roused him two hours before dawn. “The ships are loaded and ready, Majesty,” the steward told him, “and there is hot water in the bath house. Uni will not wake the Queen, as you requested. Will you eat now?” Ahmose swung his legs to the floor. The air was thick and hot in his bedchamber and his head was aching gently.

“I will eat on the boat when the sun rises,” he said. “But I will wash. Has Khabekhnet sent out a herald to warn the generals?”

“He has. The High Priest is waiting above the watersteps to purify your way with blood and milk.” Ahmose rubbed his face and came fully awake.

“Is he? But why? I am not embarking on a fresh venture or undertaking a formal progress.”

“Queen Tetisheri commanded it,” Akhtoy replied. “She was carried to the temple in her litter just after the afternoon sleep yesterday. She also awaits you.” Ahmose exchanged a rueful glance with his servant.

“Very well,” he said. “Give me that kilt, Akhtoy, and I will go to the bath house. So much for making a quiet departure.”

They were both standing patiently by the open water-steps gate. Tetisheri’s servant Isis held a lamp. The night was still fully dark, with no hint of the dawn. Tetisheri was swathed in a cloak as though it were winter. Ahmose approached them diffidently, not knowing what to expect from his grandmother. He had not told her of his intention to withdraw from Sharuhen for fear the news might bring down an avalanche of harsh words on his head, but perhaps she had found out by some mysterious means and was about to heap imprecations on him now.

But when he came close, her arm shot out and imprisoned him in a strong, bony grip. “During my rest yesterday afternoon I dreamed that you were killing a goose,” she said without preamble. “You had the creature firmly held under your arm with its head in your hand. First you plunged the knife into its breast and then you severed its neck with one swift blow. Blood spurted over your chest and ran down your legs. So wet and red and rich, Ahmose, and the feathers gleaming white and the knife glinting as you slashed.” Her unpainted face was turned up to him solemnly. “I did not know when I dreamed that you were going north to disband the army, I swear it. Ahmose-onkh told me later that you had promised to see him very soon. Then I knew.” Her hooded eyes were alight with triumph. “Such a dream is very rare and its interpretation clear. You will kill your enemy. There is no doubt.”