The Hippopotamus Marsh (9 page)

“I think you are right,” Seqenenra agreed woodenly. “I would need the complexity of Thoth’s mind to do so.” He swivelled on the chair. “Uni, you are my right hand in this house. You order my staff. What is your opinion?” Uni bowed.

“Set is not only the god of foreigners,” he replied. “He is also the sovereign of deserts. Are we not children of the desert as much as of the fertile land, O Prince? A temple to Set here in Weset would be most appropriate.” He was obviously very uneasy, swallowing often between his words, his glance moving rapidly between Seqenenra’s attentive face and Kamose’s damp back.

“Could the nomes support the labour and expense?” Kamose asked, reaching the door and turning. “Apepa wants you to refuse, you know that, Father. He wants to ruin you.” The words fell flat and sinister in the thick afternoon air.

“His insecurity is a dangerous thing,” Seqenenra said in a low voice. “I have served him faithfully and honestly but my devotion has counted for nothing beside his secret fear.” He got up clumsily, and leaning both hands on the desk, tried to smile reassuringly at Uni. “Do not be ashamed that you are troubled,” he said kindly. “You are loyal to this family but also to our King, and any word spoken against him goes to your heart. I could not do without you, Uni. I know that if you were in the King’s presence when something was said against us, you would be equally distressed. Forgive me.” Uni’s features cleared.

“I obey the One and you,” he answered. “And now Lord, will you join your Overseer who is surely overstuffed with fruit and sloshing with your wine by now?” Seqenenra managed a laugh.

“I had forgotten about him. I will be there directly. You can go.” When Uni had bowed himself out, father and sons looked at each other. Si-Amun came and stood close to Seqenenra.

“You will have to do it,” he said uneasily. “As you said, you have served him faithfully and honestly. The alternative is unthinkable.”

Seqenenra’s mind filled with visions of Tani and Ramose flinging reeds at one another and shrieking with laughter, of Si-Amun and his other daughter, arms around each other, oblivious to the rest of the world, of Aahotep and his imperious, adored mother sipping wine and gossiping together under the summer shade of his trees. Yes, the alternative Si-Amun had grasped with such quick intuition was unthinkable, yet his whole being revolted at the injustice of the King’s tortuous manipulations. “I must ponder the matter,” he said, “but not now. I need wine.” Morosely they walked out of the office and into the white furnace of the afternoon.

For seven days Seqenenra kept the contents of the message from the women. He had no intention of burdening Tani with it at all, but knew that eventually the others must be told. He shrank from the inevitable discussion that would follow. He knew that his mother’s sharp eye noted his preoccupation, but she tactfully, if impatiently, waited to share his confidence. Aahotep, too, was disturbed by his silence, but she attributed it to a second scroll arriving hard on the heels of the first, which listed the taxes and expected tribute for the year. As Kamose had predicted, it was heavy. But the load was a familiar one, carried by them for years, and Seqenenra tossed it to Uni with an abstracted word and forgot it.

He did not seek comfort and counsel from Amun. Though he went every morning to perform the rites of washing, clothing and feeding the god, and stood with Amunmose while the High Priest chanted the Admonitions, Seqenenra could not bring himself to ask the god’s advice. He was afraid of what Amun’s oracle would say. The presence of Set in Weset would diminish Amun’s power. There would be rivalry between the two gods and their servants. Set was unpredictable. At one moment he could protect a desert caravan from lions or marauding Shasu, and the next bare his teeth like the ravening wolf he was, and tear the same caravan to pieces. Seqenenra respected him but could never have trusted him. He demanded a devotion that turned his priests into fierce-eyed cubs. He had never forgiven Horus, his nephew and Osiris’s son, for taking half of Egypt away from him, and even if Seqenenra had chosen to do him homage, Set would do no favours for the living Horus-in-the-Nest. How infinitely more insulting, also, to stand before the creature, half-Set and half-Sutekh, that Apepa would install in the new temple. Seqenenra made his prostrations before Amun’s gentle smile and feathery golden plumes with a sick heart.

He did not often cross the river to visit the mortuary temple of his ancestor Mentuhotep-neb-hapet-Ra, for it lay well back from the tombs of others of his forebears and his more recent family in a valley which curved in a great bay and was bounded by the rugged, pocked cliff of Gurn. He had often wondered why the Divine One had chosen such a site, far from fertility and habitation, a lonely, windless place where the sun beat in with remorseless intensity unimpeded by any shade. But in the week before he spoke
to Tetisheri about Apepa’s demand he had himself poled across the Nile and made the journey to the secret valley, and in his agony of mind, believed he had found a reason.

Walking alone up the ramp in the middle of the terrace, shading eyes that watered in the blinding sun in spite of heavy kohl, so that he could contemplate the small pyramid jutting against the unbearable blueness of the summer sky, he felt the uniqueness and courage of the man. Like Seqenenra himself, Mentuhotep had been a governor of Weset paying tribute to a King in the north, until his blood cried out for justification and he had taken up arms against the usurper.

Why? Seqenenra wondered, blinded and beaten by the sun as he stood exposed high upon his ancestor’s monument. The King you served was an Egyptian. He had stemmed the flow of foreigners from the east into the Delta. He had fortified the eastern border. He had raised Mennofer to the power that venerable city had once had, he brought new trade, new peace, he was a good King. But he was not divine. He did not rule by the power of Amun.

Seqenenra sank onto the hot stone, despair flooding him. And when you could bear the humiliation no longer, you made a war of desperation, and you won, and you set the Double Crown on your head at last. Egypt again became a united country, the Red Land and the Black Land, and Ma’at was restored. That is why you chose this forbidding place for your last home. Your destiny set you apart in life. It changed and drove you. It set you apart even in death. Oh, do not let such a destiny overtake me!

With a groan he straightened, passed down the ramp, and walked between the dead remains of the grove of
tamarisks. Mentuhotep’s likenesses watched him go from their shade under the sycamore figs, and it seemed to Seqenenra as he passed that the statues spoke to him dumbly of both his duty and his pain.

In the valley, scorched by the sun, he could not think. He could only feel. He sought refuge in Mentuhotep’s derelict palace where there was coolness of a sort. He paced, he brooded. Unfolding his canopy on the roof of the women’s quarters, he sat cross-legged in the thin shade and looked out over the summer barrenness of his domain. The Nile was a sullen brown dribble. The fields were turning to desert, riven with cracks so deep that a man might stand in one almost knee-deep. The trees were shrivelled, the palms drooped. Nothing living was in sight. As he spared a glance behind him to where the desert danced in the breathless haze, golden sand rolling away to meet an infinity of azure sky, he realized that he was looking at his own soul.

When he knew that he could face neither solution, could turn neither to right nor left even though the choice was now as clear as his own reflection in the copper mirror his body servant held for him every morning, he took the scroll to his mother. Tetisheri was on her couch. It was the middle of the afternoon. Isis was fanning the stale air over her sheeted body and Mersu had just replenished the water jug on her table. The room was dim but the thick mud brick walls could not keep out the full force of Ra as he prepared to burn his way into the west.

Seqenenra requested admittance and was waved forward. Isis laid down the fan and retired. Tetisheri struggled up and patted the couch and Seqenenra sat, handing her the scroll. She read it through, raised her eyebrows, and
read it again. Seqenenra helped himself to water. Tetisheri dropped the message on the floor and sighed.

“The dagger has been coming closer for years,” she said. “Now it pricks our skin, waiting for a final command to be driven into our heart. I have prayed that this moment might be averted but somehow my ka knew that it could not. What are you going to do?”

He barked a laugh. “I stand on the square of the Beautiful House,” he said, “and my opponent has thrown the number that will send me plummeting into the water of the Underworld. I cannot jump.” She wiped her face with a corner of the sheet and tapped him on his arm.

“The sennet is not won until the last piece is carried off. We must discuss the alternatives. We both know what they are. Do you sacrifice your pride for the sake of the family and leave Si-Amun nothing, not even the title of governor, to inherit? At least our dear ones would be safe. Or do you contemplate …”

“No!” Seqenenra slapped the bedclothes. “It is what he wants. What hope of winning would I have? What do I have? A few chariots for the purposes of pleasure. A few weapons for my bodyguard. I would be defeated before I had even left Weset.”

“You have the Medjay,” his mother objected. “The men of Wawat are the best fighters in the world. They have no love for the Prince of Kush. They are desert creatures who fear, above all, that Kush will one day try to take over their villages. The few in your service are loyal and happy. Recruit more. Talk to Hor-Aha. You have not called him the Fighting Hawk for nothing.”

His thoughts finding life in her mouth terrified him. It
was as though, in hearing them spoken aloud, a decision had already been made and he was committed.

“Are you so ruthless, Mother?” he said quietly. “Would you wish to sacrifice all of us to satisfy your own pride?” He had hurt her, he saw it. For a moment her eyes filled with tears.

“No,” she ordered, holding up a hand as she saw him begin to apologize. “Do not say it, Seqenenra. There is a grain of truth in your accusation. I have great pride. It is the pride of a woman who was married to a King. Without a Kingdom, I know, yet still a god. But that pride is not an evil thing. It would never demand the lives of those I love.”

“I am sorry, Mother. I know. You speak only of an alternative.” She nodded once.

“And the other is this. Build Set’s temple. Impoverish your people to do it. You know what would happen afterwards?” He smiled without warmth.

“Oh yes. Another letter, demanding what? That I take over the governorship of another city perhaps? Somewhere farther north, nearer to Apepa?”

“Or perhaps a call to active duty in a border fort. There is no escape, Seqenenra. I don’t think there ever was.”

Silence fell between them. The house was utterly still. Tetisheri lay against her cushions with eyes closed. Seqenenra watched the steady rise and fall of her breast. At length he said, “If I fight and am defeated, I condemn all of us to death.”

Without opening her eyes she replied coldly, “We have already been fighting one long rearguard action and are being slowly defeated. We have nowhere left to run. Do we stand and fight, or kneel and receive the longer death?” Her
eyes flew open. “Damn Apepa! We have been so willing. So willing!” Her hand found his knee and at her touch he leaned forward, taking her in his arms. She was tiny and fragile, this mother of his who stood as straight as an arrow and whose spirit had always dominated her dainty body.

“Tetisheri,” he said, striving to keep his voice even, “I am very much afraid.”

“So am I.” She disengaged herself. “You do not need to make this decision immediately. Think about it a little more.”

“I will.” He stood up. “But I know that no amount of thinking will present a fresh alternative. If I hesitate too long, I will run away. I will become impotent. Perhaps Si-Amun and Kamose …”

“Perhaps.” She moved her head wearily on the pillows. “Ask them for their opinion. The most difficult task will be winnowing out those you can trust.” Seqenenra was finding it hard to breathe in the hot, stuffy room. He nodded and turned away.

He spent the afternoon in a restless perambulation of the house. At first he tried to sleep away his anguish but the heat and his feverish thoughts sent him wandering the passages, the reception hall, the men’s quarters where Kamose lay oblivious and Ahmose squatted on the floor of his room, tossing dice. He circled the grain silos ranged neatly against the southern outer wall of the estate, startled the servants in the kitchen that was set in the shade beside the granaries, and knelt in the kennels to feel the comfort of Behek’s great head thrust against his neck.

In the scentless dusk when the sky had gone from red to the palest blue and the stars were beginning to prick clear
and white, he sat by the river in a thicket of brown reeds that rubbed together with the dry whisper of death, his feet covered in warm dust. Time and again he began a conciliatory letter in his mind to the King but got no farther than the salutation. There were no clever words to say. Apepa demanded a yes or a no. The matter was that simple. ‘Treat them with patience and respect and they will cease,’ Teti had said of the scrolls from Het-Uart, but Teti was wrong. Seqenenra had submitted all the patience and respect for his King that he could, but he had emptied himself to no avail.

He forced himself to appear cheerful at the evening meal, listening to Tani’s prattle, enquiring after Aahmesnefertari’s health, advising his wife to isolate the children of the servants who were ill with a fever, and when he could bear the idle conversation no longer he excused himself and went to his couch. At his word Uni extinguished all but the night lamp beside him and went away.

Exhausted, Seqenenra fell into a heavy sleep, but he dreamed of Apepa with the massive wet body of a hippopotamus standing shoulder high in a foetid Nile, his eyes glaring furiously above a leather muzzle that threaded over and around his quivering snout. He was trying to snap the bonds, his lips straining, but they were too strong. In his dream Seqenenra began to speak a spell of malediction. “He shall hunger! He shall thirst! He shall faint! He shall sicken!” and Apepa’s eyes went on blazing at him so that in the end Seqenenra’s voice faltered and died away.