The Hippopotamus Marsh (32 page)

“Yes, it is,” Kamose spat back at him grimly. “Our spy was Mersu but Si-Amun had been passing information to him all the time. He intends to kill Mersu and then himself. Hurry!”

“Gods!” Ahmose managed. They spun towards the women’s quarters. Before long they were tumbling to a halt outside Mersu’s cell. The guard, pale and visibly relieved to see them, saluted shakily.

“Oh, Prince Kamose, I am so glad to see you! Prince Si-Amun is inside. He ordered me not to enter the room no matter what and I cannot disobey him, but something terrible has happened in there and he has not come out.”

“You fool!” Kamose snapped. “A good soldier must sometimes use his own judgement! Unlock the door and go in.”

The man fumbled with the door and pushed it open. Laying down his spear, he drew his knife and went cautiously inside, Kamose and Ahmose after him. The light was very dim. The lamp by the cot was already sputtering, exhausted of oil, and cast gyrating shadows around the small room. Kamose almost tripped over the body of Mersu. Swiftly he knelt, his practised eye seeing past the welter of blood, now almost dry and darkening to a murky brown, to the death wound under the ear. He pulled the corpse onto its back. Mersu’s abdomen was a torn mess.

Ahmose had sprung past him to the body sprawled across the cot. He stopped as if struck by a spell. “Kamose!” he whispered in a strangled voice. His brother came to his feet slowly, feeling the weight of grim certainty make his movements clumsy. He forced himself to step past Mersu and raise his eyes to the burden on the cot. Si-Amun’s face
was contorted with his last agony. His lips were rimmed in a black froth. Such pain and resignation were expressed in the rigid features that Kamose knew the sight was imprinted so vividly on his consciousness that the details would never fade.

“Si-Amun!” he cried out. “Si-Amun!” He fell across the cot, and drawing Si-Amun’s still-warm body into his arms, began to sway with his cheek resting on Si-Amun’s hair. Ahmose stood watching as if stunned. Kamose was vaguely aware of his stiff figure. Though he wanted to shout to his brother to go away so that he could give full rein to his bitter regret, he forced himself to consider what must be done. “Ahmose, wake the women and bring them. Do not let them in, though. Guard, fetch help and have Mersu’s body carried to the stables for the time being. Alert the servants. I want this room washed and the linen on the cot changed immediately.” Both men left.

For a precious few minutes Kamose was alone with his twin. He was not given to easy tears, even now. He continued to cradle Si-Amun, stroking his head, his thoughts coherent and loud to him in the new silence. In better times your weakness would not have mattered, Si-Amun, he said to himself, consumed by a cold anger. If Father had been King from the beginning, if you had not cared so much about what is correct over what is right, if you could have learned to be reckless … He kissed the lifeless forehead, and as he did so he felt the germ of true hatred begin to uncurl in his soul. Rapidly it sprouted, a dark and evil sprig. You, Apepa, Kamose thought with ferocity. You are to blame. Father and now Si-Amun. The family is decimated and it is your fault. Setiu pig. Foreign disease. The epithets
he flung at the King eased his grief but they were more than a comfort. They clung to the roots of this new hatred and fed it so that its grip on him became firm.

Servants came running, and in a frightened silence interspersed with Uni’s murmured commands, they mopped up the blood and spread fresh sand on the floor. Mersu’s body was taken away. Uni and Kamose lifted Si-Amun so that the sheet on the cot could be removed and a fresh one laid, then they placed him gently on the sweet-smelling linen. A bowl of hot water appeared and Kamose, glancing up, saw Tani in the act of wringing out a cloth. Tears were pouring down her cheeks. “Ahmose!” he shouted angrily. “I told you to keep the women away!” Ahmose’s face peered around the door.

“She insisted,” he said. “Grandmother is here, and Mother. Aahmes-nefertari is coming. I will wait for the word to let them in.”

“This is no sight for you,” Kamose said brusquely to Tani, but she smiled wanly at him, the dripping cloth in her hands.

“It is my fault,” she said brokenly. “I was too stupid to see what was happening when I met him in the passage. If I had argued with him. If I had run to you immediately … Let me do this, Kamose.”

“It is not your fault,” he said harshly. “Si-Amun chose this moment a long time ago.” She did not answer. He stood back and watched her wash Si-Amun’s tortured face, the crust of blood from his limp hands and motionless chest, her movements sure. He knew that he would never take Tani for granted again.

By the time Kamose allowed the other women into the room, Si-Amun lay composed, arms at his side, white linen
draped across his loins. Nothing could be done, however, to disguise the pain and terror in which he died and which was reflected so graphically on his face. Aahmes-nefertari flew to him, and falling beside him, laid her head on his chest. “I did not know that he was suffering so much!” she sobbed. “He told me everything and I did nothing!” She lifted a distorted face to Kamose. “I wanted him to kill Mersu and then keep silent!” She went on crying. Aahotep simply sat on the cot and her hand found her son’s thigh. She seemed dazed. Tetisheri stalked to the cot and stood with folded arms over her sleeping robe, her grey hair dishevelled, her complexion drained. Tani, her task completed, squatted in a corner with her head on her knees.

“I have read the scroll,” Tetisheri said at last. “He did the right thing. He was weak but the blood of his ancestors won out in the end.” Kamose glanced at her. She seemed calm, but she was unconsciously pinching her arms so fiercely that they were already bruising. He was about to go to her when Aahotep jerked to her feet. Her eyes were blazing.

“Is that all you can say?” she shouted. “This is my son, your grandson! No words of love, Tetisheri, no tears for your own flesh? How can you be so cold? I would have spared him this, I would have taken his place if I thought I could put it right, and yet it was his own father he betrayed! To Set with your arrogance, your cruel adherence to an unfeeling code of conduct!” She made an effort to control her agitation. “He is not only guilty of treason,” she went on in a choked voice, “he is a suicide. How can he possibly be properly beautified and buried? What god will receive him?” Tetisheri had listened impassively. Now she went around the cot and pulled Aahotep to her feet.

“I did not say that I did not love him,” she responded harshly. “It was not necessary. This family is my life. My life! I said that he had done the right thing. I paid him the supreme compliment, my poor grandson. Weset is the only place left in Egypt where men still know what is right.” All at once her iron control wavered. Blindly her hands went out, and Aahotep embraced her.

“Kamose, you are our authority now,” Ahmose said. “Mersu deserves complete annihilation, of course, and you will order that his body be thrown into the Nile, but what of Si-Amun? Was his last act not one of brave expiation? His suicide was not a matter of a man turning away from his responsibilities or the trials of his life.”

“I know.” Kamose bent and pulled Aahmes-nefertari from Si-Amun’s corpse. “That is enough!” he said to her roughly. “You will make yourself ill. Think of your son, Aahmes-nefertari. Si-Amun would be ashamed of this outburst.” She stopped her loud sobbing and nodded against his chest. “He cannot be properly beautified,” Kamose answered Ahmose. “To allow it would be to condone all he has done. But I will not see him forfeit his soul. Let the sem-priests preserve his body whole, without the organs being removed, without the separate prayers, without ceremony. Then he will be wrapped in sheepskins and buried quickly.”

“Sheepskins?” Aahmes-nefertari croaked. “Not that, Kamose! That is disgrace! That is shame!”

“It is what he deserves and nothing more,” Kamose said, and the tone of his voice brooked no argument. “He would approve if he could, Aahmes-nefertari.” Aahotep broke in.

“You are right,” she said sadly. “It is just, Kamose.” Kamose signalled to Uni, hovering by the door

“Bring the sem-priests and give them those instructions,” he said. Uni bowed and disappeared. “Ahmose, please tell Raa and Isis to come. Mother, Grandmother, you need rest. Aahmes-nefertari, I will send the physician to you.” Gradually he saw to their needs, shepherding them out, sending a servant for the physician, until at last the sem-priests came to take Si-Amun away. He felt sick, and so tired that his limbs were unco-ordinated. There had been no time for memories, not for any of them. That would come later in the long hours of peace, when together they could learn to speak of Si-Amun without grief and exorcise the shame he had brought to the house.

He was about to leave the room that seemed to have been his prison forever when he remembered Tani. Turning, he called her, holding out a hand. She came and grasped it gratefully. “Thank you for not forgetting me,” she said. He summoned a smile.

“Come,” he ordered, leading her out into the passage. “I will take you to your quarters, Tani.” He did not like the look of her. Her eyes were all black pupils and her skin sallow but for the purple smudges under her eyes. Her fingers in his were very cold.

“Kamose,” she said hesitantly, glancing back at Mersu’s still-open door with a shudder. “Could I please sleep in your room tonight? I do not want to be alone.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer to be with Mother?” Tani shook her head.

“No,” she said emphatically. “You make me feel safe. I want to be with you.”

He had his steward set up a cot beside his couch, and while Heket was dressing it he forced a cup of wine between Tani’s chattering teeth. “I am so cold,” she complained.

“It is the shock,” he told her. “Here. Get into bed. Heket has brought extra blankets and she will sleep by the door. There is nothing to fear.”

“Yes there is,” she whispered as he bent over and kissed her. “There is the future to fear, Kamose. See what life has done to Si-Amun.”

He wanted to reassure her, to tell her that Si-Amun’s choices had brought their inevitable consequences, but he did not have the heart. Already her eyelids were drooping. He extinguished the lamp and fell onto his couch, knowing that he had lived a lifetime in the few hours since Tani had shaken him awake and he was now a very old man. Apepa will pay, he thought as he plunged into sleep. Justice will eventually be done for you, Seqenenra, and for you, my brother. I shall see to it.

11

HE WOKE
just before dawn, fully conscious, and lay with his hands behind his head listening to Tani’s even breathing and watching the first colourless light diffuse through the room. He knew that the kitchen and household servants must be about, for they usually began their chores well before the family rose, but there were no sounds of cheerful industry, no snatches of song sung in the passage or slap-slap of busy sandalled feet. I must gather my energies and get up, he thought. The tragedy must be faced. Mother, Tetisheri, all of them will want to talk today, and cry, and they will turn to me because I am now the head of the family. They will expect me to be strong, to make decisions when there are none to make in order to reassure them. When will word of Si-Amun’s suicide reach Het-Uart? How will Apepa react?

With a sinking heart he hauled himself off the couch and padded to the door. Outside, his steward was waiting patiently on his stool. “Akhtoy,” Kamose said, “send someone to the temple. Tell Amunmose to perform the rites on my behalf this morning, and have Ipi ready in Father’s office after I have bathed and dressed.” When he went back into the room he saw that Tani was awake. He smiled at her. “Are you feeling better this morning?”

“Yes,” she replied without answering his smile. “But my dreams were bad, Kamose. What is to become of us?” A discreet knock was heard. Kamose dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose.

“My body servant is ready to wash me,” he replied. “You are not to worry about the future, Tani. It is hidden in the will of the gods and it is also in my hands. Don’t you have confidence in your big brother?”

“Of course I do,” she retorted, sitting up and yawning. “It is just …” He held up a warning finger.

“No more. I will send Heket to you, and I want you to go and comfort Mother today. You are stronger than you think, little Tani. Remember how you used to chatter away to Father when he was recovering from his wound? No one could make him smile the way you could!”

“I am not little Tani any more!” she flashed at him, annoyed. “I shall soon be sixteen. Is twenty-one so old, Kamose? Anyway it was different when Father was only wounded and getting better. I shan’t know what to say to Mother.” Her voice faltered. He sat on the edge of her cot and took both hands in his own.

“No tears,” he rebuked her sternly. “Be strong for me, please, Tani. I need your help today. Try to see Aahmesnefertari also. Her loss yesterday was the greatest.” She rallied under his words.

“That is true,” she said with a trace of defiance. “But you will marry Aahmes-nefertari because you are now Prince and she the elder sister. She will have you to protect her and comfort her.” Kamose heard what she said with a sense of surprise. He had not considered this duty.