The Hippopotamus Marsh by Pauline Gedge Page A

heart, it came back to him in horrifying detail. Why horrifying? he thought as his steward came forward and bowed. “Bring me a piece of papyrus parchment and a palette,” he ordered, and the man went away.
    Si-Amun pulled off his kilt, then tore the sheet from his couch and began to rub down his sweat-streaked body. Horrifying, because you doubt Teti’s good intentions, he said to himself. There. I have formed the words. I am not a wide-eyed innocent. Teti may wish me to spy on my father for his own ends. Yet he may be sincere. We share blood through Mother. He has always been a good friend to this family and I cannot rely on my own misgivings, causedsurely by nothing but guilt at going behind Father’s back. Father must be stopped and Teti is the only one to whom I can turn. Grandmother would tear out Apepa’s eyes if she could. Mother does whatever Father wants. Kamose also. Ahmose cares for nothing but his freedom. It is up to me to save us all.
    The steward returned with the scribe’s palette and parchment. “Find Mersu and ask him to come,” Si-Amun said, taking the things. “And then tell my wife that I would like to walk with her for a little by the river. You can go.”
    He sank cross-legged onto the floor, settled the palette across his bare knees, and selecting a thin brush he began to write carefully on the papyrus, willing his hand not to tremble. ‘Father has received another letter,’ he printed. ‘He is raising an army. Please come before he goes too far. I do not know what to do.’ He did not sign it. Rolling it, he tied it with a piece of string, sealed the knot with hot wax, and painstakingly drew a crude hippopotamus in the wax.
    By the time he had finished, Mersu was bowing himself into the room. Si-Amun, still naked, held out the scroll. Mersu looked at him enquiringly but took it. “I believe you are a friend of Teti’s Chief Steward,” Si-Amun said. Mersu nodded.
    “He and I were raised in the same village, next door to one another, Prince,” he replied guardedly. “We attended the local scribes’ school at the same time.”
    “I see.” Si-Amun folded his arms. “I want you to make sure that this scroll reaches him. It is for Teti. A private matter.” He had been going to lie, but if he had said that the scroll was for Ramose, Mersu would have wondered why it had not been given to a regular messenger plying theriver. Try as he might, Si-Amun could come up with no good excuse for his request. The older man was gazing at him steadily, a question in his eyes. Impatiently Si-Amun dismissed him. He did not bother to wash. Rummaging in his chest he pulled out a clean kilt, wrapped it on, and hurried out to find Aahmes-nefertari. He needed to feel her arms around him, reassuring him that he had done the right thing although she herself was ignorant. Teti would come. Father would listen to his relative’s appeasing words. All would be well.

4
    BEFORE THE MONTH was out, gangs of peasants from Weset were raising barracks on the desert behind the western cliffs. Hor-Aha and his soldiers returned, and soon dark, quick men began to trickle across the Nile and disappear into the hills. Seqenenra made his fifty seasoned retainers officers to form the core of his army, and set them over the new recruits. There was no time to train them properly. They would have to sink or swim on their own. Those with the new bows must teach those receiving the ones Hor-Aha was feverishly trying to construct. All must be marched and drilled, issued spears, axes and clubs, fed and watered. Seqenenra made no attempt to answer the King’s letter. It would be at least two months, he knew, before Apepa began to wonder why no word had come from the south.
    When matters could no longer be hidden from the family, he had told them what he had decided to do. “I do not have time to organize this thing properly,” he said to the bewildered little group. “I have few career officers, no seasoned Scribes of Assemblage