The Hippopotamus Marsh Read online

  “Let us pray that they only want a flagon of wine, a good meal and a night under your roof before sailing on into Kush,” Kamose observed. “I think they see us as the last bastion of civilized comfort before they brave the rigours of the south. How they fear and despise the desert! Ahmose! Where are you going?” Seqenenra’s youngest son ran past barefooted, his kilt rumpled and dusty.

  “I am meeting Turi on the practice ground for a wrestling match!” Ahmose yelled over his shoulder. “We have a small wager between us!”

  “Be present at dinner, Ahmose!” Seqenenra shouted after him. “We have guests!” The boy waved his acknowledgement.

  “Guests,” Kamose repeated bitterly. “They were not invited and we have no choice but to receive them.” Seqenenra answered the salute of the soldier on duty at the main entrance. As he and Kamose entered the house, Uni left the shadows and came swiftly towards him. Kamose disappeared in the direction of his own apartments in the men’s quarters.

  “A royal craft is about to dock at the watersteps,” Seqenenra told the steward. “Send an escort to meet whoever is on board. Tell Isis to warn the Lady Tetisheri and my wife, and have fruit and wine ready in the garden. I want to pray and change my kilt.” Without waiting for Uni’s nod he strode towards his rooms. “Water, quickly!” he ordered the body servant who had appeared in answer to his call and was bowing. “And I will need fresh linen. We have company from the Delta.” Do not look for trouble where there is none, he told himself sternly as he unloosed his sandals and reached for the water jug. Stay calm. Do not antagonize Apepa’s messenger. Do not upset the balance of today’s Ma’at, O Prince of Weset!

  Opening his shrine, he took up the incense holder lying beside it, lit the charcoal from the candle kept burning for that purpose, and sprinkled a few grains of incense on it. Bowing to the image of Amun the Great Cackler, lord and protector of Weset, he made his obeisance and then prostrated himself on the cool floor. Help me to keep my temper, he prayed. Give me the gift of wisdom to hear whatever it is that has brought the King’s herald this far, without betraying either impatience or contempt. Guard my tongue, that I may not offend him to my detriment and the peril of my family. Veil my thoughts from him so that he sees only politeness behind my eyes. There was nothing more to say. Rising, he took a moment to inhale the sweet smoke from the burner before snuffing it out, closing the shrine, and submitting to the ministrations of his servant who had returned with a basin of warm water and linen cloths.

  An hour later, freshly clad, he walked into the sunlit fragrance of his garden. His eyes were kohled. On his brow he wore a plain silver circlet and around his neck went ankhs and silver wadjet-eyes. Rings glittered against the almost black skin of his hands. Beside his pool, under the shade of the trees, mats had been spread and the royal visitor and his two companions sat cross-legged, listening to his wife Aahotep’s soft, measured tones. Kamose sat a little apart, also formally painted, his hands folded on the clean white pleats of his kilt.

  At Seqenenra’s approach all rose and bowed. A servant moved to offer him a bowl of fruit but he shook his head, accepting the wine Uni held out. He motioned, sinking to the grass, and all went down with him. “Greetings,” he said amiably. “We are honoured to give hospitality to the servants of the One. To whom am I speaking?”

  “I am Khian, Herald of the King,” one of the men replied. He was slender and fair-skinned, his eyes thickly kohled against the southern sun. His kilt was gossamer-fine, his leather belt studded with carnelian, and the two gold chains lying on his chest sparkled with his breath. “These are my guards. I thank you for your greeting, Prince. It is my pleasure to bring the good wishes of the Lord of the Two Lands to your whole household and particularly to the Lady Tetisheri, your mother, to whom he fervently conveys life, health and prosperity.”

  Seqenenra nodded. “We are grateful. Are you on your way to Kush, Khian?”

  The herald took a delicate sip of his wine. “No, Prince,” he explained. “I came especially to extend to you the salutations of the One and to bring you a letter.” Seqenenra’s glance met Kamose’s and passed on to his wife. Aahotep was studiously watching the antics of the sparrows among the newly opened leaves of the trees.

  A small, awkward silence fell. The herald drank again. Kamose brushed an invisible speck of dust from the date in his hand and bit into it cautiously. Seqenenra was about to make an innocuous comment that good manners demanded, when a shadow fell across him and he turned to see Si-Amun and Aahmes-nefertari standing hand in hand at his back. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The pair bent smiling, kissed Aahotep, greeted Khian gracefully, and settled onto a mat beside Kamose.

  A general conversation began, full of the prospects for this year’s sowing, the new life stirring in the precious vines and the number of calves born in the Delta. Khian was an enthusiastic husbandman who took a personal interest in the running of his own small estate outside Het-Uart and the slight hiatus that had followed the mention of a letter was forgotten. The sun westered slowly, filling the garden with an orange light, and the fish in Seqenenra’s pool rose to the surface as the mosquitoes began to gather in clouds. Uni distributed fly whisks and the talk was punctuated with their gentle swishing.

  Tani came at last, running over the lawn with the dogs panting and grinning behind her. One of them, Behek, loped to Seqenenra and laid his sleek head in his master’s lap. Seqenenra stroked it gently. “I am sorry to be so late,” Tani remarked as she reached for some fruit and settled next to her mother. “But the dogs needed a good run. I took them out to the edge of the desert and then through the town to the river so that they could cool off. What a beautiful day it has been!”

  Seqenenra motioned to Tani’s bodyguard and the man whistled and shook the leashes he held. Reluctantly the dogs obeyed, Behek licking Seqenenra’s hand before trotting away. Aahotep rose. “It is time to refresh yourself before the meal,” she said to Khian “Uni will show you to the guest rooms and then escort you to the reception hall. Your men can go with our servants. Tani, come with me. You need a good wash.” She smiled around at them all and Seqenenra marvelled at her composure. No strain showed on her face or was betrayed in any hesitancy of her gestures. At once Khian and his soldiers stood, bowed, and followed the steward. Si-Amun flung an arm around Aahmes-nefertari’s neck.

  “He is more like a farmer than a herald,” he remarked. “Although he would find hoeing weeds a chore without any muscles. Why does the King send us such an inferior creature? Surely we are worthy of a Chief Herald’s attention at least! What does he want of us?”

  Seqenenra knew that his son was half-joking but beneath the bantering tone was a hint of affront. You have too much of the wrong kind of pride, Si-Amun, he thought to himself. I wish that you did not take offence so easily over the petty insults that cannot threaten either your manhood or your noble blood unless you let them. “He has brought another letter from Apepa,” he said. “I have not read it yet. I want to do so on a full stomach.” Kamose came close to his father.

  “Always letters, always stupid, niggling demands,” he said in a low voice. “Last time it was an order to grow more barley than flax when the barley crop already promised to be abundant, and then there was a request for the numbers of pairs of sandals in our household. What stupid game is the King playing?”

  Seqenenra gazed at the placid surface of the pool. The fish were making peaceful circles that spread and broke against the stone surround. Long shadows were growing across the sunset-tinged grass. The servants were rolling up the reed mats and gathering the debris of the greeting-meal. “I don’t know and it doesn’t matter,” he answered at length. “We do as we are told and in exchange for our obedience we may order our nomes and our lives as Amun desires. Many are not so fortunate.” Kamose grimaced, and scrambling up he walked away.

  “I could go and talk to the herald, Father,” Si-Amun offered. “I might be able to glean some useful information from him.”

  “I forbid you to
do so,” Seqenenra said sharply. “A herald is a messenger, nothing more. He is not required to advise his master or give any opinions and it should be beneath your dignity, Si-Amun, to accord this Khian any more respect than the laws of hospitality require. Moreover, he is the servant of a King who wishes us ill. Remember that and take care how you address him.” Si-Amun flushed.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “You are right. But it is very hard to know myself the child of Kings and yet be forced to curb my tongue in the presence of a mere herald.” He rocked forward onto his knees and then stood, pulling his wife with him. “There will be no feast for a while yet,” he finished. “Walk with me by the river, Aahmes-nefertari.”

  Seqenenra watched them disappear into the growing dusk. Si-Amun was nineteen, a few moments older than Kamose and therefore Seqenenra’s heir. Physically he was his brother’s double and they could hardly be told apart from each other except for the small mole at the corner of Si-Amun’s mouth, but their personalities were dissimilar. Si-Amun’s self-confidence bordered on arrogance. He was a clever scholar, a good marksman with the bow, but chafed at his existence in this provincial backwater. He wanted to go north, to wait upon the King, to be where the power in Egypt resided, and Seqenenra could only hope that as he grew his arrogance would become a Princely competence and his restlessness would be channelled into the exercise of a proper authority.

  But Kamose seemed to have inherited an aura of serenity from his mother. He had all the quiet self-confidence of a man twice his age, and was secure enough in his own maturity to mind his own business. At sixteen, Ahmose, the youngest son, was a flame, a darting, vigorous, happy man proficient with his weapons, a fine wrestler who asked little more of life than that it should continue unchanged under the blessings of the gods.

  I have everything a man could desire, Seqenenra reflected. I am a Prince of Egypt. I have a close and loving family. I suffer no want. My duties are taxing but straightforward, unlike the responsibilities of a King. He looked up, and almost against his will his eyes were drawn to the massive, straggling hulk of the ancient palace, now cloaked in the coming night. For as long as he could remember it had dominated the estate he had inherited from his father, Senakhtenra, and his father before him. Most regarded it as an anachronism. Familiarity had bred an indifference to its slowly crumbling presence. But from the time of his childhood his mother had put him to sleep with the stories of his ancestors who had inhabited it, one god following another, Kings of Upper and Lower Egypt, the Red Land and the Black Land, fighting monarchs whose blood was fiery with the seed of desert forebears and numinous with the legacy of Ra himself. They lay beautified in their tombs. They rode in the Holy Barque with the gods, while he …

  Suddenly he shivered in the evening breeze, and rising he began to walk towards the house. He was no more than a loyal Prince to the god who sat on the Horus Throne in Het-Uart. The power of the Kings of old had waned. Egypt had split in two. Prince had squabbled with noble. Private armies had ravaged the land and the last true god, weak and useless, had surrendered his authority to foreigners who had for many years been seeping into Egypt from the east and gradually taking upon themselves the responsibilities of a country in chaos. The Setiu now ruled Egypt. That was the reality of the age into which Seqenenra had been born and in which he would die.

  So deep were his musings that he almost collided with his steward, waiting in the gathering dimness of the passage. With an effort he wrenched his thoughts into the present. “Does Khian have everything he needs?” he asked. Uni nodded. “Good. See that the torches are lit, Uni. Darkness seems to have come early tonight.” He moved slowly towards his own quarters, knowing he had no appetite either for the food whose aroma was even now stealing over the precincts or the game of words he would be forced to play yet again with his King.

  The feast was eaten in an atmosphere of forced cheerfulness. Family and guests were anointed with scented oils and garlanded with delicate early wild flowers. Seqenenra’s harpist played, and later Tani left her place by her grandmother, Tetisheri, and danced, weaving among the crowd with all the sinuous grace of her thirteen years.

  Apart from Khian, there was a Weset merchant, Seqenenra’s Overseer of Cattle, who had arrived earlier from the acres in the Delta where the Prince was allowed to graze his herds, and several priests from the temple of Amun, whose shaven skulls gleamed in the torchlight. Tetisheri, regal yet elfin in a tightly fitting white sheath, her grey hair hidden under a chin-length black wig topped by a circlet of gold leaves, had exchanged brief, cool greetings with Apepa’s representative, answered the message from the King politely, and retired to her meal and conversation with her steward, Mersu.

  As the evening grew cooler, braziers were lit. The merchant, drunk and appreciative, bowed and went home. The priests retired. Seqenenra, looking about the emptying hall from his position on the low dais, knew that he could no longer postpone the moment of reckoning. The servants had cleared away the remains of the meal and vanished. Khian was fidgeting surreptitiously with the bracelet on his thin wrist, and the expectant faces of the family were turned towards Seqenenra. He nodded to his scribe, Ipi, and at once the man went to Khian and took the proffered scroll. At Seqenenra’s invitation he broke the seal and began to read aloud.

  “A message from Awoserra Aqenenra Apepa, Lord of the Two Lands, Beloved of Set, Beloved of Ra, he who causes hearts to live, to Seqenenra Tao, Prince of Weset. Greetings! It distresses me to make this command to my friend Seqenenra, but the pool of the hippopotamuses which is in Weset must be done away with. For the noise of their bawling is in my august ears day and night and they permit me no sleep. Life, health and prosperity to you and your family. May Sutekh the Magnificent smile on you and Horon bring you good fortune. I anticipate your favourable reply.”

  The scroll rolled up with a dry rustle. Wordlessly Seqenenra held out a hand and Ipi relinquished the papyrus quickly, as though it had sullied his fingers. “You are doubtless tired, Khian,” Seqenenra said evenly. “You may go to your couch.” The herald bowed with obvious relief.

  “Thank you, Prince,” he replied. “I must leave very early in the morning, for I wish to make a speedy return to Het-Uart and the river current will be against me. I am grateful for your indulgence.” He sketched a reverence to the rest of the family and was gone.

  For a long time no one stirred. The lamps were burning low and shadows encroached into the airy room and insinuated themselves across the floor. The braziers spat and settled. Then Tani spoke. Her voice shook. “You won’t kill the hippopotamuses will you, Father?” she pleaded. “Surely the King does not mean what he says! The marshes would be like deserts without them!”

  “There is no need to discuss this at length,” Tetisheri said determinedly. “Apepa is insane. He has probably already forgotten that he even dictated such a nonsensical piece of rubbish. Toss it into the nearest brazier and let us go to bed.” Seqenenra placed the scroll very carefully among the bruised flower petals that now littered his small table and stared at it pensively.

  “He is not insane,” he said. “If he had come under the special protection of the gods, the whole country would know about it, and that is not the case. No.” He felt all at once weighted down, as though he had eaten stones instead of goose meat. “This is yet another attempt to puzzle and frighten us, to push us towards something, away from something, I don’t know what.”

  “Perhaps he simply wishes to emphasize his authority over us and humiliate Weset at the same time,” Kamose interjected. “He knows our lineage. We are a long way from Het-Uart, more than six hundred miles. Does he lie sleepless in the night because he wonders what plots we might be hatching here so far from his control? It is not the coughing of the hippopotamuses that he fears.”

  “But we have a legal treaty with him,” Aahotep put in. “We pay tribute. For generations we have been loyal subjects. His father did not torment your father this way, Seqenenra . We do not hatch plots, Kamose. We see to our five nomes
and mind our own affairs.”

  “I think he wishes us to violate our ancient agreement with him,” Seqenenra answered quietly. “He wants us to give him an excuse to bring his army here, to exile us, or worse, to install a governor without a drop of royal blood in his veins. Then he will be able to sleep.”

  “But why now?” Tetisheri urged. “I can just remember the terrible plague that struck Het-Uart forty years ago when Apepa’s grandfather Sekerher sat on the Horus Throne. The citizens were dying in their hundreds. Their bodies were thrown into open pits within the city. The Setiu were vulnerable then, but we in the south did not take the opportunity to rebel. Why this suspicion now?” Seqenenra shrugged.

  “But it was after the plague had burned itself out that Sekerher threw up the mighty earthen defences that now encircle the mounds on which the city was built,” he pointed out. “Hindsight told him that his security had been hanging by the slender thread of the south’s goodwill. He woke to a danger that had not materialized but had become a possibility to be considered in the future. Apepa may not rule actively here, but neither are we absent from his calculations. He does not trust us.”

  “Het-Uart is not worth defending,” Aahotep said. “It is a treeless jumble of filthy alleys where rats forage among the offal. I cannot imagine why the Setiu should have chosen to live in such squalor with the whole of the verdant Delta at their disposal.”

  “Yes you can,” Tetisheri retorted. “They are not Egyptian, that is why. They are foreigners who live without Ra. Het-Uart!” she snorted. “The House of the Leg! It used to be a rather delightful little town before the Setiu discovered it. What a pretty picture such a name conjures now!”

  “We are not planning a rebellion,” Kamose objected calmly. “Mother is right. We do not hatch plots. Let us not discuss this at length. ‘Power is in the tongue, and speech is mightier than fighting,’ as one of the Osiris Kings once said. Send yet another clever letter, Father, and then we can return to the more important matters of sowing and calving.”