The Hippopotamus Marsh (41 page)

“Highness?” the servant enquired. Kamose turned to him, smiling.

“I will pour for myself,” he said. “You can go.” The man cast him a doubtful, worried glance and left. Kamose went to the table and lifted the jug, trying to pour himself a drink, but his hands were trembling so violently that he slopped the water onto the floor.

An hour later, bathed and clad in freshly starched linen, a circlet of gold on his head, he sat in the office and received the General’s curt bow. He still felt that an aura of dislocation surrounded him. His eyes were swollen, his hands puffy from the effects of the sleep that had been more than sleep, but he was happy and he greeted Dudu with a swift smile. “Why did you wish to see me?” he asked. Dudu looked nonplussed, then embarrassed.

“Highness, it is my unfortunate duty to insist that you confer with me on every decision you take regarding your family and the nomes for the next four months. Everything must be reported to the One.”

“An unfortunate duty, indeed,” Kamose replied dryly. “I make no decision today, Dudu.” The man bowed shortly. “That may be so, Prince, but I also have a duty to accompany you everywhere. I am afraid I am to be your shadow.” Kamose felt a pang of sympathy for him.

“Do you wish a cot set up beside my couch?” he asked, a wicked innocence on his face. Dudu sighed, offended.

“No, Highness, that will not be necessary,” he responded stiffly. “One of my soldiers will guard your nights and your afternoon sleeps. With regard to your soldiers, I have released them from the barracks and paired them with my own fifty retainers. One of yours, one of mine. To keep them all locked away for four months would not have been practical.” Kamose for a moment admired such a strategy.

“No indeed,” he agreed. “Not practical at all. Dudu, I am going to walk to the temple now. You may accompany me if you wish.”

“Now?” Dudu blurted. Kamose could see the thoughts written on the bluff face before Dudu managed to control his expression. He was not allowed into the Holiest of Holiest, the sanctuary. Messages could be passed there through the High Priest and Dudu could do nothing about it except post guards at every exit and question all who passed. What foolishness! And who went to pray at this time of day anyway?

“Now,” Kamose affirmed, rising. “We are a devout people here in the south,” he went on. “Amun receives our regular homage, as does Osiris, Hapi, Ptah. I hope you have strong legs, General, for you will be standing regularly in the outer court for long periods.” Dudu bowed without replying and Kamose strode past him, calling for his guard.

He could have taken a litter but he wanted to walk, not to spite his shadow but because he had covered the same ground such a short time ago. The dream was vivid in his mind as he passed under the thick green shade of new leaves alive with nesting birds. The river rushed by, swollen and murky. The sun was hot but not unpleasant. Kamose wanted to sing. His escort, one of his own bodyguards
accompanied by a Setiu warrior, tramped ahead stolidly. Dudu followed him three paces behind, his own guard bringing up the rear. A Weset woman holding a small boy by one hand and a donkey’s leading rope in the other drew to one side as Kamose passed. She bowed, smiling, and Kamose greeted her.

At the pylon he had a moment of awe and hesitation, remembering Amun’s stately appearance here. He ordered the soldiers to relax in the shade of the massive stone structure. He and Dudu went on into the outer court. Kamose stopped a young priest who was hurrying by in the direction of the god’s storerooms that ranged along one side of the temple. “Where is the High Priest? Find him for me and send him to the sanctuary. I wish to pray.” The boy bowed, nodded, and ran on. With a peremptory gesture Kamose ordered the General to wait. Dudu did not dare to follow him as he passed the gate to the inner court.

Kamose stood while a temple servant approached carrying a bowl filled with water from the sacred lake and a cloth. By the time he had removed his sandals and washed his feet, hands and face, murmuring the cleansing prayers as he did so, Amunmose was waiting by the closed doors of the sanctuary. Kamose answered his bow with a hand on the High Priest’s shoulder and together they entered the holy place.

It was dark there and refreshingly cool. Amun sat glowing dully, his smile fixed on his benign features, a smile, Kamose thought, of triumphant complicity. You are a great god, Kamose told him in his mind. You deserve to have the whole of Egypt placed in your open palms and it will be. I promise. He approached the god and knelt, kissing the
smooth golden feet and clasping the solid ankles. Laying his cheek against Amun’s arched foot he closed his eyes and began to pray, thanking him for the message of the dream, so obvious and yet overlooked by them all, even Seqenenra, who had marched his men in the desert, marched and been defeated. The chance was slim but it was better than no chance at all and the god himself had provided it, therefore the task was not hopeless. Love for this deity, the protector of Weset, the one whose eyes lit the desert and who had turned his august gaze on his son, filled Kamose, and with it came a corresponding scorn for the wild undisciplined Sutekh and his royal sycophant. We will win, he told the god. You and I.

At last he rose. Amunmose stood quietly watching. Kamose walked to him. “I know how I am to defeat Apepa,” he said without preamble, “but it will take much planning, much gold. Amun showed me how in a dream, Amunmose, but I need your help. Send priests to every Amun shrine in the nomes and any farther north that you know of. Bring to Weset all the offerings, gold, silver, jewellery, anything that can be used to pay grain merchants and vegetable sellers. Do it secretly and store it here, in the temple.” Amunmose nodded in agreement. “I am being followed everywhere by the King’s representative,” Kamose went on. “This is the only place he cannot enter, therefore, with your permission, I should like to use the sanctuary to pass and receive messages with you as intermediary. It will not be for long,” he explained, seeing Amunmose’s hesitant expression, “and it will involve no sacrilege, that I promise. I will be able to deal with General Dudu in a week or so. In the meantime news will come to you, not to me, and I will come to the
temple twice a day for it.” He paused, thinking. “I have already sent for Hor-Aha. Have a priest set up a tent out in the desert to intercept him in the unlikely event that he arrives before I have had time to get rid of Dudu. You can lodge him here. I will send Uni to you tomorrow. Tell him I want a list of every boat in the area—fishing vessels, skiffs, barges, all of them, and a list of boat makers in Weset.”

Amunmose smiled. “Is that all, Prince?”

Kamose grinned back at the bite of sarcasm in his friend’s voice. “That is all for now. Make sure Uni brings his information here and does not attempt to give it to me directly. I thank you, Amunmose.”

The High Priest inclined his head. “I am glad Amun afforded you this vision. I think he has great plans for his town. Who knows? One day Weset might be the chief and holiest city in Egypt!”

Kamose laughed, the glad sound echoing against the high stone ceiling. “Who knows indeed?” he said, thinking of the town’s huddle of mud houses, the noisy market and sleepy wharf. “I must rejoin my jailor.” Prostrating himself before the god and embracing Amunmose he strode out into the dazzling sunshine, forcing himself to swallow the song that rose to his lips.

General Dudu’s report to Apepa was dictated a week later to the scribe he had brought with him. Kamose was with his mother as she inspected the newly planted flower beds against the house when Ipi came with the news. “He dictated in private, in the rooms assigned to him,” the scribe said in answer to Kamose’s sharp question, “but I knew it was to happen because his scribe and I were talking together in the office when he was sent for. I followed but
could not hear the message, for the General keeps his door guarded. I had to walk straight past.”

“Where is the scroll now?”

“His scribe is in his cell, making a fair copy to send north.” Kamose considered quickly. It was vital that he see the dispatch, not so much for what it said but for the manner of Dudu’s style in dictation, his opening address and the closing salutation he used.

“Can you lure the man away from his work for a few moments?” he asked Ipi. “Is a herald waiting to take it north immediately?”

“No, Highness,” Ipi told him. “There is a box filled with dispatches the King left to be carried into Kush and some for the northern administrators. The herald is due back from Kush tonight and will not start for the north until tomorrow.”

“Good. Dudu will be here at any moment, having done his duty. Run to Uni. Tell him I want him to inspect the scroll carefully and he doesn’t have much time in which to do so. Take the scribe to the river, give him wine from my own stock, anything, Ipi.” Ipi bowed and went away. Kamose saw him bow as he veered past the General who was just emerging from the house.

“What are you doing, Kamose?” Aahotep said in a low voice. Kamose pressed her arm.

“I cannot tell you yet, it is too dangerous,” he whispered back. “In a few days, Mother.” She nodded, lips compressed, and returned to her consideration of the new plants. A short distance away a gardener was squatting in the wet black earth, his naked brown spine bent as he distributed his nest of seedlings.

“Of course we must continue to plant and see to the crop sowing as well,” Aahotep said more loudly as Dudu swung towards them. “There is time for that before we must leave here forever.” She turned to the General with a haughty smile. “Even though the King has appropriated our next harvest, we cannot see our peasants denuded also. Come, Kamose.” She linked arms with him and began to talk of something else, strolling in the direction of the grape arbour and leaving Dudu to bring up the rear.

By the time Kamose went to the temple the next morning to perform the rites, Uni had visited the High Priest. While Dudu sat in the shade of a pillar in the outer court and glumly watched the colourful comings and goings of the dancers and petitioners, Amunmose gave Kamose Uni’s message. “The opening and closing salutations are the common ones,” he said. “The King’s titles after the greeting and before the General’s signature.”

“A signature?”

“Yes,” Amunmose said. “The General likes to scrawl his name himself and he does not put ‘by the hand of my scribe so-and-so.’”

“That is bad news,” Kamose said, frowning. “A seal?”

“The General prefers uncoloured wax and he uses a cylinder seal. He must carry it on his person. Uni says that the signature is not difficult to forge, Prince, and he had a chance to try it twice. The General’s Setiu name is not a long one, the two syllables being repeated.” For a second Kamose reflected on the many skills that were needed to produce a good steward.

“Anything else?” This is the only chance we will get to try that signature, he thought. If I wait until the next
dispatch, time will be running too short. I must trust Uni’s draughting ability.

“Yes,” Amunmose said. “The General’s dispatches are always wound three times with plain flaxen string and knotted once. The wax is placed on the knot.” If we get through this, I will make Uni a vizier, Kamose said to himself.

“Thank you, Amunmose,” he said aloud. “I have been in here long enough. Please get a message to Uni. Tell him that I shall arrange to bring Ahmose to my quarters tomorrow night, very late. The servants’ quarters have only two guards in the passage. Perhaps I can be ill. Tell him to try and persuade one guard, preferably the Setiu one, to stay on Ahmose’s door while he is escorted to me by the other one. I shall be waiting. If tomorrow night is not suitable, then the next. Can you do that for me?”

“Certainly, Highness.”

Kamose rode back to the house, Dudu walking behind the litter, in a mood of tense concentration and a mounting apprehension. He had killed before, but in the heat of battle. He did not know if he could conjure the reckless callousness necessary to murder a man in cold blood. But I must, he told himself, deliberately bringing to mind the King’s supercilious face in order to stiffen his resolve. I must. It is the first, the most important move. Dudu must die. But in his mind he was whispering, “Apepa must die,” and that thought stiffened his muscles and brought a steadiness to his determination.

Two hours before dawn, when sleep is at its heaviest and vigilance grows weary, Kamose left his couch, went to the door, and opening it, spoke to the guards outside. He was
bent over, his face twisted in pain. “I need my steward,” he gasped. “I am ill. Please tell him to bring my brother with him.” The guards looked at each other. Kamose’s personal bodyguard touched him gently.

“Shall I alert the physician also, Prince?” he asked solicitously. The other guard was watching Kamose carefully. Kamose cursed himself. The possibility of that request had not occurred to him. “Very well,” he agreed, “but I do not want to alert the whole household if it is just something I ate or drank.”

“I will go,” the local man said. The other one resumed his stance. Kamose retreated, closing the door, and listened to the footfalls fade along the passage. He was sure that his Setiu guard had been about to suggest that Dudu be roused, but now the man would not dare to leave his post unattended.

Some minutes later he heard low voices beyond. The door opened and Uni appeared, bleary-eyed and clutching his sleeping kilt. Ahmose followed him into the room. Kamose could see three faces in the shadows behind Ahmose, and fortunately two of them were local bodyguards. Kamose, panting now, beckoned his own in after his brother and bade him close the door. “Are you my loyal servant?” he asked the man, straightening and walking to his chest. “Will you obey me whatever the consequences?” The soldier nodded.

“You know I will, Prince. Have I not stood at your door and at your side for many years?” He sounded offended.

“Good,” Kamose shot at him crisply. “In a moment I want you to kill the Setiu outside, then go with my steward. Uni, you are to take both the local guards and go immediately
to the quarters where Dudu’s staff sleeps. If you are unfortunate enough to meet more Setiu men, kill them at once. Set up soldiers around Dudu’s servants so that not one of them can walk out of his cell without being seen. They are not to leave, not even to walk along the passage, for any reason at all.” He was fingering the contents of the chest impatiently as he spoke, then he stood, a dagger in his hand. Fleetingly he thought how the last time he had seen it, it had been held in the delicate grasp of the woman in his dreams. The soldier was nodding his assent. “Ahmose,” Kamose went on, “we are going to kill Dudu now, we hope in his sleep. I do not ask you to strike, only to hold him if he struggles. It must be done quietly. I cannot announce my intentions until I have the soldiers under my command. Uni, the herald left yesterday morning?”