Warrior King, page 3
Kamose sat down in his chair and glanced at Tetisheri, his officials, and, lastly, Ahhotep.
She would help him be the King he needed to be. Together, they could do what Tao could not, or at least she hoped, else they be conquered and punished as traitors.
The princes stood along the wall. They were usually not privy to these conversations, but the Waset royal family needed them to see Kamose’s stewardship.
Be confident in your son. He is divinely appointed. Be good to Kemet, and the gods will bless us, Ahhotep told herself as she found a few princes’ harsh glares upon Kamose. And I must be ready, for the road to winning this war will be a long one.
3
A TIME OF STRATEGY | AHHOTEP
SEDJEFATAWY, 1575 BC
Ahhotep eyed the eight princes lining the wall of the council room as Tetian opened his mouth to speak to the King. The silence had been maddening after Kamose had asked for suggestions on how to proceed. She bit her tongue to see what the dissenter would say.
“Kamose, Given Life, our great King,” Tetian began. His words were right, but there seemed to be an undertone of mockery. “What shall we do in our struggle against the Hekka Khasut, you ask? Surely your many years of wisdom will provide a plan for us. You are our king, after all. Why should you ask us?”
Ahhotep glanced at her mother, who stood up. “You will respect the throne, Prince Tetian.” Her stony glare lingered upon him, but his eyes only narrowed at her.
He opened his mouth, but Tetisheri lifted a flat palm to him.
“Silence your tongue if you cannot speak with the reverence due to the King of Kemet,” she said.
Metjen and Setka snorted at the rebuke, but at Tetisheri’s sharp glare, they pressed a polite smile on their lips.
Tetian refrained from speaking, but a sneer arose on his face, along with a shake of his head. Ahhotep could have stood and said the same, but Tetian would not have closed his mouth and done what she said. She had tried to control the room many times when she was on the throne while her husband was off to battle. Some of the princes, Tetian as one of them, had only mocked her until Tetisheri stepped in. She wondered at her mother’s power over them. Why had they given her mother respect and, to her, nothing? Specifically Tetian. Did she need to earn it? And if so, how? As she thought, she placed a finger alongside her lips and stared at the outspoken objectors. If she could uncover their motivations, then she may be able to sway them to their side and give up their wealth for the cause.
While ruminating, she looked at Tetian’s sneering face, Metjen’s pressed smile, Setka’s cold eyes, and Baufre’s vacant stare. She noticed each of their heads sat right under the feet and smiting mace of her father’s image etched into the wall above them. She snorted. And if she couldn’t find out their motivations, would they be enemies in their midst? She cracked her neck with a sharp twist of her head. She hoped not. Any more division and they would surely fail.
Kamose stood and again asked his question. “In light of the failure of my father’s strategy, does anyone have insights into how we should proceed? We have few fighting men and few resources. The weapons of the Hekka Khasut prove to be superior: the horses, the chariots, the khopesh.”
Silence.
He spoke again. “We have the son of Admiral Baba who will study the two khopeshes we took from the Aamu messengers in hopes of supplying our troops with them. But we do not have chariots or horses. How do we gain an advantage over superior weaponry? Those who have fought against them, what weaknesses do they possess for exploitation?”
Baba cleared his throat and glanced at the new general Pennekhbet before speaking. “The chariot cabins are large. The wheels are small; they cannot turn sharply without turning over.” He chopped a hand in the air to demonstrate what they could do as he once again met Ahhotep’s gaze. “Their strength comes from a fast approach.”
His full lips turned downward in the sense of a knowing sympathy. He was sorrowful she had lost her brother-husband.
Ahhotep’s heart fell into her stomach at his second gaze that day, his motivation dawning on her. She forgot to breathe as her last image of Tao’s broken body was revived again in her memory. She loved Tao as her brother but also as the father of her children. He had been irrational at times, small in stature, rash . . . And had easily fallen to provocation. She had tried to calm him many times, but he had never listened.
Nevertheless, Tao was still her brother and husband. She missed him. Were her emotions obvious enough to solicit the comfort of the new Admiral? She hoped not, for then her mother would scold her for showing weakness.
Baba continued as if he had never looked at the Great Wife. “The horses are weak at the knees and the neck. They cover their beasts in little armor, which seems to give them a faster approach.”
Kamose adjusted the royal mace in his hand. “Then it seems we need to capture a chariot, study it, make it faster, more agile. Or we need to be able to get close enough to kill the beasts, the horses.” He took a deep breath.
Ahhotep sensed the overwhelming task in front of him. She had done this to him, her firstborn son. Think, she told herself, ignoring the Admiral for the moment.
“Both of these require men who can fight,” Kamose said and glanced at the four silent princes.
An idea sprang upon her. “What of the Medjay?” she asked aloud. All eyes turned to her.
Tetian scoffed. “Now you want to bring the Kermans into this struggle? Shall we invite the Kushites too? Why not all the land of Wawat? Or even better, how about the gentle Apiru in the Lower? They will all surely run the Hekka Khasut out.”
Baba and Pennekhbet jolted from their chairs, wrenching their necks to see who spoke to God’s Mother with such disrespect.
But Ahhotep stood up in elegance and grace. The vulture of her royal headdress had an open golden beak ready to strike.
“Prince Tetian, leave your scorn in Ta-Seti,” she said and quickly hurried to speak again before he could mock her. “The Kermans have long been allies and trading partners with all of the Upper. Why would they not fight for us? The Medjay are elite warriors, mercenaries, and all mercenaries fight for a price. It would even benefit them if we were to take back our lands and restore our trade flow up the Nile again.”
The room was filled with bobbing heads.
Baba added, “They are masters of the bow and spear. They shoot greater distances than we are able. They can perhaps take out the charioteers before they begin their charge.”
Pennekhbet also spoke with a nod to Kamose. “We can hire the Medjay as well to train our men.” Then he added, glancing at the four princes who withheld support, “The few men we have.”
Setka scoffed. “And how will you pay for these Medjay? Elite warriors do not come cheap.”
Metjen and Nekhen lifted an eyebrow as they waited for a response.
Ahhotep’s mind raced. She had hoped the suggestion would bring about support from the princes. It hadn’t. She debated what to say: they could cut down rations even more and use fewer ships or pay the soldiers less grain than they already had.
Paser of Herui stepped forward in her silence. “I have already offered my men and resources. However, this I say to you, we do not have much, King Kamose, but what we have is yours.”
Kamose lowered his chin in gratitude. “Your offering is much appreciated, Prince Paser.”
Metjen stepped forward, glaring at Paser. “I think the loudest unspoken question in this council room is this: Should we give you our resources, or are you going to waste them like your father?”
Kamose responded in confidence, “I am divinely appointed and the good steward doing what is best for Kemet. The King is the defender of our land, is he not?”
Tetian smiled with thin lips spread across his face. “Yes, King Kamose, but I ask you, like Metjen, my fellow Prince of Bat, will you waste our resources like your father, who was also divinely appointed and a good steward, and all the rest?”
All eight princes waited for what Kamose would say. Ahhotep remained silent. Her son had to answer, and she prayed to Horus that he be with his living embodiment, for this answer could gain the princes to his side or lose them forever.
Kamose pushed the chair back and paced the front of the room, royal mace swinging in his hand. “My father was rash. I am not. My father had not studied strategy and entered this war without the proper training, yet I have been trained in war and strategy since I wore a shendyt.” He stopped and eyed the princes.
“My father struggled for years attacking Apu, Shashotep, Zawty, and other large port cities. He lost many men trying to bluff his might over the Hekka Khasut. As Defender of Kemet, I will attack the smaller ports north of the larger cities. Cut off the Nile trade, starve them out, ransack them for resources, and move ahead to the next smaller port.”
Setka shook his head. “Your strategy will take decades to complete, and what happens when the Nile fans out in the delta before it reaches the Great Sea? How will your strategy work then?”
Kamose lowered his mace. “It won’t. But,” he said, “we will make a path to King Apepi’s magnificent city of Hut-Waret and lay siege until we can drive him out.”
Metjen scoffed. “What makes you think the other Hekka Khasut colonies will not come to Hut-Waret’s aid?”
Kamose lifted his chin. “They might, but we will have already proved our might by reaching Hut-Waret in the first place. They will cower.”
“You make a big assumption, King Kamose,” Tetian said, retreating under the firm stare of Tetisheri.
“This is my strategy, with or without your support,” Kamose said. “Thus, it is written.”
Ahhotep nodded in support of her son. He would be a great King. His strategy would work at least until they breached the Lower, but they would need time. She scanned the four princes who withheld support. Maybe once they regained what Tao lost, they would provide their much-needed resources, especially once they entered the Lower, where the Hekka Khasut’s influence was far greater.
Her gaze returned to Baba as all left the council room at Kamose’s command. “Walk with me, Admiral,” she commanded.
Her maidservants, Meret and Nena, followed them at a close distance, and Ahhotep led Baba to the courtyard where Tao’s statue was being completed. She stood facing her brother-husband’s stone image with Baba beside her.
“You made a wise decision to retreat,” she said, and Baba opened his mouth to thank her, but she cut him off. “I will pray to Anhur that you will continue to be a model warrior making wise decisions for my son.”
Baba closed his mouth and nodded.
“You may speak if you wish,” she said.
“I thank God’s Mother for her prayers to Anhur.”
They stood silent until Ahhotep asked a question she probably should not have asked. “Why do you glance at me, Admiral Baba?”
He cleared his throat and shifted on his feet. She hid a soft smile at his antics but remained in her regal posture. Part of her wondered if he would deny it, but he did not.
“My wife, Lady Ebana, traveled to the Field of Reeds several years ago,” he said.
“I fondly remember Lady Ebana. May her ka live forever.” Ahhotep thought of the noblewoman from Nekheb, the nome of Nekhen. She had never realized Ebana’s husband was a fleetsman; she had always assumed he would have been a priest or scribe, given Ebana’s status. But if Baba had captured the heart of Lady Ebana, he must have been much more than his occupation in her eyes. If Ebana thought enough of Baba to make him her husband, Ahhotep could trust him as Kamose’s advisor. The tension in her shoulders dissipated at the thought. Kamose had chosen his Admiral well.
“My son and daughter remain with me in the land of the living,” Baba said. “I only glance at God’s Mother because I share in her loss of losing a spouse.”
Ahhotep blinked away the coming tears as she traced Tao’s eyes carved into the stone. So she had been obvious, and a sigh escaped her at the scolding she would receive from her mother.
“I do not wish to resurface your pain,” Baba whispered, misinterpreting her sigh. But she would not allow him to know the true reason.
“Then do not,” she said and turned to face him.
His gaze remained with hers before his head dropped in a bow. “As God’s Mother commands.”
He stood taller than her, so she could still see his face though his head was bowed. The vision of Kamose being brought home in the same manner as Tao or, even worse, hearing of his execution in the flame caused a thick bitterness on the back of her tongue. She swallowed it down.
She wanted to tell him to make sure her son came home alive, not to cause her more pain, but in doing so, she would make her son appear weak. He was not weak. He was intelligent and capable. So, she remained silent.
He lifted his head from his bow, and again the warmth of his gaze filled her as if he was telling her not to worry about Kamose. Or, perhaps, it was merely what she wished he was trying to say to her.
Tetisheri’s light footsteps sounded on the mud brick path surrounding the courtyard. She stood in Ahhotep’s line of sight and observed the shared stare between Ahhotep and Baba.
“Come, God’s Mother,” Tetisheri said, and Ahhotep broke her gaze with Baba.
“Thank you for your service in the King’s Fleet,” she whispered. “I pray you will gain victory over our enemy.”
Without another word, she left Baba in the courtyard. She followed her mother toward the royal harem’s economic center to begin dividing grain and gold for the wage of the Medjay.
But she peered back at the Admiral and caught his gaze once more before she rounded the corner and entered the royal harem.
4
A TIME OF PRIORITY | AHHOTEP
SEDJEFATAWY, 1572 BC
The sun’s rays pricked Ahhotep’s skin as she rested in a rooftop courtyard. She sighed underneath the heat of the Aten, the sun disc. It had been a long three years.
The crumbling mud brick walls of her grandfather’s palace stared back at her. A jagged crack forced its way down to the wall’s base, and a few workmen were there to patch it. Royal body servants stood in front of her so they would not gaze at the Great Royal Wife or otherwise try to do anything but fix the wall. Her maidservants, Meret and Nena, knelt beside her. With a firm grip, she clutched the cool faience amulets of Isis and Hathor and pressed them against her chest. She remembered her days as a little girl when her father laid out plans to expand Sedjefatawy, the northern palace, and then again as a woman when her husband expanded it into a fortress. Yet through the years, this had always been her courtyard, even though the women’s rooms were on the other side of the harem. This was her place of rest.
The shade of the palm branch glided from her head to her eyes as a servant girl fanned her in a soft, fluid motion. Its breeze was a welcome respite from the sun’s prick. Her tongue longed for wine or water or even beer at noontime, but she said nothing—her teeth clenched and her jaw clamped tight. The amulets indented in the palm of her hand as a tear budded in her eye.
Mother of the Gods and Lady of Magic—grant me healing. Grant me protection. Grant me peace. Marvelous are your ways, she prayed but could not finish the silent plea.
She could not bear to attend the Kap, the royal nursery and school, not after hearing what the royal physician-priest had to say about her youngest son and daughter, twins at birth, born in the days that preceded the news of her husband’s brutal end.
Their palace sat on the edge of the Nile, north of the city of Waset, named after their nome. If Kamose had lost at any port, she would be sure the Hekka Khasut would charge their way to Sedjefatawy without much thought of the other nomes. The fear of burning and never seeing the Field of Reeds chilled her blood and made sleep elusive. Perhaps, it was only the fear of envisioning Tao’s contorted face and what the Hekka Khasut king could have done that day that distorted her sense of security within her palace walls. Her son had shown to be a competent and patient king, not rash like Tao. He took much after his grandmother. He would endure the war. He had to. He was going to.
A sigh escaped her, and the heat of the Aten’s rays made her eyelids droop. She revisited the continual fear in her mind: burning, her and her family. No afterlife. Wandering in eternal restlessness. Always tiring but never able to rest. Always hungry but never able to eat. That would become them if Kamose lost even one battle, but their strategy had worked . . . so far.
So why am I worried about an imminent attack? She swallowed the lump in her throat. Tao’s body had been brought home less than half a day after Baba and Pennekhbet had returned with word of retreat. Not enough time to evacuate. Not enough time to do anything.
She wished to sleep, but she had to be alert if the palace should ever come under attack. They would only survive if she, in the few moments she would have, were able to get her children and herself to Per-djed-ken and sneak away under the guise of locals.
But Kamose was winning, slowly, very slowly, but still winning. They left a full force behind them at the last conquered port in case they lost the smaller one to the north. Enough time would be afforded to the royal family if the army surrendered. Yet, Kamose would be slain in that event. She envisioned his face marred by ax wounds and wrapping her arms around her slain firstborn son, the pride of her loins.
Stop, she pleaded with her heart. I cannot endure this.
The distressing thoughts swirled and muddied her mind as she questioned her actions three years ago, just as she did every day. What had she done, giving the order to slay the Aamu messengers? If she had not, they could be at peace. She could have her son home. They could all live long lives and certainly travel to the Field of Reeds.
