The Hippopotamus Marsh (13 page)

“Pardon me, Prince,” he interrupted. “I do not wish to appear rude but you seem absent, preoccupied. Are the fortunes of your family a little strained? Has the One raised your taxes too high this year?”

“I am not offended,” Seqenenra replied reassuringly. “This is one occasion when you have a right to enquire into my financial health. It is true that the taxes were high but then so were my revenues. It was a bountiful harvest.” Fierce pride swelled in him and he wanted to deny that he was living on the edge of ruin and tell Teti to mind his own business. But as he had said, Teti had a right to the assurance of the dowry, and, in any case, word of his army must surely be leaking steadily north. “My nomes have been complaining of raids on their villages by the Shasu,” he explained. “I decided to conscript a small army to deal with them. When the men are trained, they will be stationed in the various villages, but until then I must bear the cost of feeding and arming them.” He spread his hands. “It is an expensive undertaking.”

“I have heard rumours of this army of yours,” Teti said slowly, and at his expression Seqenenra was very glad he had kept his explanation as close to the truth as possible. “But Seqenenra, why did you not simply ask the One for a few detachments from Het-Uart? He would not want the security of his people threatened.” His people? Seqenenra swallowed his hot reply.

“I do not want to excite the King’s attention,” he said frankly. “I know that I make him anxious and it would be
foolish to take the chance of being relieved of my governorship on any pretext. The One could say that I was incompetent, that I did not control the nomes properly. Or he could say that the situation was more grave than it is and put a Commander in charge of Weset.” He felt suddenly hotter. His kilt scratched his thighs and he was all at once aware of the taste of grit in his mouth. Teti’s black eyebrows rose.

“The One will hear of it in any case,” he said.

“But by then I will have the situation in hand,” Seqenenra cut in swiftly. “The conscripts might even be disbanded.” I sound like a haggler in the market running after a steward already walking away from my stall, he thought in despair. Rising, he rubbed both hands over his face and smiled wanly at Teti. “You do not believe me, do you?” Teti chuckled abruptly in surprise.

“Why would I not?” he asked. “The Shasu often pick away at outlying villages. But Prince, if your resources are so stretched to supply this army, I advise you to swallow your pride and ask the One for help. It is exceedingly dangerous not to explain your true situation to him.” They looked into each other’s eyes for a long second. “You have not answered his last letter, have you?” Teti continued softly. “That is why you do not wish to approach him. You are very foolish, Seqenenra.” Seqenenra felt himself loosen. Teti had grasped the wrong conclusion.

“Do not worry about Tani’s dowry,” he said, trying to keep the quiver of relief out of his voice. “I may be impoverishing myself temporarily to victual my soldiers, but I still have great wealth in my cattle in the Delta. Tani is precious to me and if she wants Ramose she shall have him.” Teti
knew that his implied criticism had stalked the boundary of good manners. He bowed his head once.

“So be it,” he acquiesced. “In that case we ask two hundred head.” Seqenenra resumed his seat and objected. Ipi, on the floor by the desk, silent and unobtrusive, picked up his brush, and the haggling began again.

Si-Amun was about to climb onto his couch that night when Mersu bowed his way into the bedchamber. The young man had sat uncomfortably through the feast, tense and polite, and had escaped to his rooms as soon as possible. Kamose had sought him out there and they had cast the dice for a while. He had gone to Aahmes-nefertari’s apartment afterwards, lying beside her on the couch with her head against his shoulder while Raa massaged her swollen legs, but after she had begun to doze he had gently extricated himself, said good night to Raa, and gone back to his own rooms. He felt cold and restless, and knew that he would not be able to sleep.

“Your pardon, Prince, for disturbing you so late,” Mersu said, “but your kinsman wishes to see you privately in the guest rooms.”

“Well, let him come here,” Si-Amun responded sharply. “A Prince does not answer a summons from a mere nobleman.” Mersu continued to stand by the door just outside the lamp’s steady glow.

“That is true,” he replied softly, “and Teti asks forgiveness for his request, but he thinks that it will excite less comment, if you are seen, for you to go to him. I agree.”

“Oh, do you?” Si-Amun said sarcastically. He had conceived a dislike for his grandmother’s steward since handing him the scroll for Teti some weeks ago. It seemed
to him that an oily complicity had been growing behind Mersu’s impeccable manners, but he was careful to admit to himself that his own guilty imagination might be at work.

It is I who have changed, he thought, as he came reluctantly to his feet and reached for his sandals. I certainly do not like him, but truthfully I cannot fault his service or his attitude. “It is not a steward’s place to proffer agreement,” he snapped pettishly. “But I suppose I must see what Teti wants. Go.” Mersu bowed and slipped away. Si-Amun could not hear his bare feet on the floor of the passage. Going to the door he peered out. The torch on the wall showed him nothing but the sleepy guard at the far end.

The men’s guest quarters were in the same wing of the house as his and his brother’s rooms and it did not take Si-Amun long to arrive at Teti’s door. He knocked and not waiting for an answer, walked in. Teti rose from beside the couch and inclined his head. He was wearing a thin, yellow linen coat with full sleeves that brushed the floor and showed every well-fed line of him with the night light behind it. “I was rude to beg you to come to me, Prince,” he said before Si-Amun had a chance to speak. “Please forgive me. But I needed to be careful. Ramose and Tani are out looking at the stars,” he explained in answer to Si-Amun’s glance around the room. “I will not keep you long, Si-Amun.” Si-Amun swallowed his irrational anger, and closing the door, came forward.

“I expected some answer to my message, Teti,” he said. “I was beginning to think that it had gone astray.” Teti indicated the dried figs and wine by the couch. Si-Amun shook his head. Teti folded his arms.

“You asked me to come, not write to you,” he pointed out. “I am sorry if I caused you any distress. I knew that the One would require an inspection of the cataract this year as it was not done before the last Inundation, so I decided to wait. Your father seems set on this course.” Si-Amun began to wander the room, touching walls, fingering the alabaster lamps.

“You have spoken to him about it?”

“Yes. I mentioned it briefly. I told him that rumours of the army are filtering north and will reach Het-Uart soon. He said that the soldiers are for the defence of your nomes against the Shasu.”

“That is a lie.” Si-Amun forced himself to stand still and face Teti. “Father’s Medjay bodyguard have been recruiting Shasu. Teti, you must stop this!” He spread his arms. “Why should I have compromised my conscience if you can do nothing?”

“Is that what you feel you have done?” Teti enquired in a low voice. “What of your conscience towards our King, young Prince?”

“I know, I know.” Si-Amun spoke more impatiently than he had intended. “I am relying on you, Teti, to contain this thing and keep it from the ears of the One.”

“And how am I supposed to do that if your father brings his army north? I tell you, Si-Amun, he will not be persuaded. All we can do is to have his effort aborted before it can flower.”

Si-Amun was stiff with the need to move, to fidget. Resolutely he put his hands behind his back. “Is that possible?”

Teti frowned, pulling his coat more tightly around him. His bald head shone in the pale light. “I can write to the
One and request that Seqenenra be ordered north on some pretext, to organize the nomes around Ta-she perhaps, to regulate the taxes, anything. The King will comply.” He met Si-Amun’s troubled gaze. “The flood is almost upon us and a man cannot march through water.”

“There is no time for that.”

“Then your father must be stopped on the way. Apepa must be told, warned. Seqenenra must take the consequences.”

“No!” Si-Amun started forward. “I trusted you to help us, Teti! What use have you been? What have I done?” Teti strode to him and took his shoulders in a firm grip.

“You have done your duty as a loyal Egyptian,” he insisted. “Do not weaken now, Si-Amun. Apepa’s justice will fall more kindly on your father for your loyalty. I know him. But you must not falter now. Keep me informed. Send me the time of the march and its direction and first destination. If you do not, Apepa will think that you have changed allegiance and will punish you severely. There is no time to do more!” Si-Amun wrenched himself from Teti’s grasp.

“Talk to Father again!”

“If I do, he will know that someone has been telling me what has been going on. He will suspect you.”

It was true. I should have seen it from the beginning, Si-Amun thought bitterly. Well, let Father suspect me. Let him be cold towards me, let him hate me. I will go to him myself and tell him what I have done. But he knew he could not. He did not believe in the rightness of Seqenenra’s rebellion. It has all gone too far, he thought again with despair. I am committed. “The King knows what
is going on already, doesn’t he?” he whispered. “You sent him my scroll. You betrayed me.”

“Yes, he knows.” Teti poured wine and thrust it between Si-Amun’s trembling fingers. “Yet he waits to see what Seqenenra will really do. He does not wish to be unjust if your father changes his mind.”

“Gods!” Si-Amun stood staring stupidly into the red depths of the cup. “I have sold my father!”

“No. You have saved your inheritance. Think, Si-Amun! With Apepa waiting to surround him, your father will suffer little bloodshed. Otherwise the damage he inflicts before he is defeated could be enormous. The revolt will be a small thing, quickly forgotten. Seqenenra will be disciplined and his officers executed, but is that not better than the loss and destruction of all you have here?” He watched Si-Amun suddenly empty the cup, draining it in long, gasping swallows. “Keep me informed, I tell you.”

With exaggerated care Si-Amun placed the cup on the table. He nodded at Teti, turned, and walked unsteadily to the door, but before he could leave, it opened and Ramose came in. Si-Amun was too dazed to step aside and Ramose barely avoided hitting him. “Good evening, Prince!” Ramose said. Si-Amun pushed by him and the door slammed. Ramose looked at his father. “What is the matter with Si-Amun?” he asked. Teti sank onto the couch and passed a weary hand over his shaven skull.

“I made him angry,” he said. “It is nothing, Ramose. I shall be glad to be on our way tomorrow.”

“That sounds ominous.” Ramose smiled. “Is it something to do with Tani’s dowry?” Teti looked startled.

“No! Seqenenra and I have arrived at a satisfactory agreement and you can marry at sowing time.”

“Wonderful.” Ramose yawned. “Where is the body servant? I want to go to bed. I love Seqenenra’s estate, it’s so easygoing and everyone is unconcerned with the rigidity we live with, but it does make for lax staff. Shall I call him?”

“If you like.”

Ramose waited, but as his father continued to sit on the edge of the couch gazing into space and frowning, the young man shrugged to himself, bellowed for a servant, and fell to humming the tune Seqenenra’s harpist had played that evening. He was supremely happy.

5

IN THE END
Teti and Ramose sailed with a promise of a hundred head of cattle, twenty offering rams and thirty uten’s weight of silver as Tani’s bride price. Seqenenra, embracing them and watching them walk up the ramp into their barge in the brief moment of transitory coolness before Ra rose in shimmering heat over the horizon, wondered where he would obtain the silver, but as he had asked that that portion of the agreement be deferred for one year after the marriage, he resolved not to worry about it. Tani was ecstatic, saying goodbye to Ramose in floods of happy tears, his necklace proudly at her throat.

Shortly after the last ripple of wash from the barge had vanished, she took her bodyguard and went to visit the hippopotamuses. Aahotep, eyes still swollen with sleep, gathered her loose cloak around her and went back into the house for food. Kamose and Ahmose sat on the watersteps, their bows beside them, waiting for the skiff that would pole them once more over the river where Hor-Aha was already drilling the soldiers. Uni and Mersu stood a few paces away, immobile and freshly washed, while Tetisheri took Seqenenra’s arm and gently pulled him to face her. Without kohl, her lips free of henna, her wiry grey hair streaked with black tumbling about her shoulders, she
looked old and tired but her grip was firm. “Does he suspect?” she asked abruptly. Seqenenra shook his head.

“I don’t know. Perhaps. In any case there is nothing we can do about it if he does. It is too late. I told him I was conscripting to protect the nomes. He knows I have not answered Apepa’s letter.”

“How does he know that?” Her black eyes nested in a myriad of wrinkles were suddenly alert. “Is he in closer contact with the One than we suspected or does he only surmise?” Seqenenra was suddenly angry at the greedy complicity in her face. He plucked her fingers from his arm.