The Oasis Read Online Free PDF Page B

of their bodyguard the women and children of the town ran to see them and then hung back shyly. Kamose saw an official pushing his way towards them. At a word from him the Followers let the man through. He bowed profoundly.
    “My lord instructed me to watch for your arrival, Majesty,” he explained. “We have been in readiness for you for a week now. My lord has just returned to his house from the temple. With your permission I will tell him that you are here.”
    “I would like to pay my respects to Osiris before meeting the Prince,” Kamose replied. “Let him know that I will see him in an hour. There will be no time in the morning,” he added to Ahmose as the man bowed again and withdrew. “The sanctuary should still be open.”
    The High Priest received them gravely. The sanctuary was indeed open and he was about to intone the evening prayers before the god was shut away until the morning. Kamose and Ahmose joined him in the prostrations and Kamose took the few extra steps that led him to the small shrine his ancestor Mentuhotep-neb-hapet-Ra had erected to the glory of the god. With his face pressed to the stone floor, Kamose prayed less to Egypt’s most revered deity than to the King whose blood ran in Kamose’s own veins and who had built the old palace in the days of Weset’s former eminence. His mortuary temple lay hard up against the Cliff of Gurn on the west bank opposite Weset, yet another place where the dreams of the living mingled with the unquiet promptings of the dead. Kamose begged him for his aid, and it seemed to him that there in the deepening gloom, amid the scent of wilting flowers and stale incense, his father’s ka came close to him and his royal ancestor’s presence hovered briefly, bringing with it a temporary peace.
    The two men emerged into the last of the twilight, but the strange sadness of the hour was dissipating under the bright force of cooking fires and flaring torches. The odour of roasting meat filled the air. “I’m hungry,” Ahmose said. “I hope the Prince sets a good table.” The man who had approached them before had been waiting. Detaching himself from the encroaching shadows of Osiris’s outer court, he bowed and bade them follow him.
    It was not far to Ankhmahor’s estate. The Prince’s garden glowed in the light of many lamps and through their radiance Ankhmahor himself came briskly to greet them, smiling and bowing. “Majesty, Highness, I am happy to see you,” he said. “The bath house is ready if you wish to refresh yourselves and my steward tells me that a meal will appear shortly. Tell me your pleasure.” There was none of Intef’s caution in this Prince’s demeanour, and not so much deference either, Kamose reflected as he thanked Ankhmahor and asked to be ushered to the bath house. Ankhmahor’s domain spoke of more wealth than that of the governor of the Herui nome and it was obvious that the proprieties would be observed. No business, how-ever pressing, would be discussed until bellies had been filled. Such adherence to time-honoured conventions was reassuring, Kamose’s thoughts ran on, as the moist, scented air of the bath house surrounded him and servants rushed to disrobe him and Ahmose. But it also spoke of pride and an awareness of high lineage. Oh must you pick apart everything? he scolded himself as he mounted the bathing slab and closed his eyes under the gush of hot water a servant was cascading over him. Accept what is, and do not see traps and dangers where there are none. The real ones are threatening enough.
    Later, scrubbed, shaved and oiled, they were bowed into a reception hall redolent with the mingled odours of food, flowers and perfume, and seated before individual tables upon whose gleaming surfaces spring flowers quivered. Ankhmahor’s fam-ily, his wife, two sons and three daughters, came to offer their obeisances. They were handsome people, slender and dark-eyed, their features alike under the kohl and henna, their