Free The Hippopotamus Marsh by Pauline Gedge

father’s good faith?”
    “Of course I will.” Teti stepped forward and embraced the young man. “It will be all right, Si-Amun, I swear. Perhaps we are being foolish, you and I.” He let Si-Amun go and they started for the litters. As they stepped from the shade, the sun smote them. “Perhaps all this will resolve itself and we will laugh at our own solemnity.” Si-Amun did not reply. I can always go home and do nothing, he thought, settling himself on his litter and twitching thecurtains closed. I can ignore it all. But he knew he would not. His father’s secret rage at Apepa must somehow be diverted, rendered harmless, or it would destroy them all.
    They stayed in Khemennu for a month, eating, drinking and sleeping, talking with Teti’s visitors and going regularly to the temple of Thoth. Seqenenra went once into Set’s temple, carrying offerings of rare wine and three gold bands, knowing that the King would hear of it and be pleased and reassured. But he was not allowed into the sanctuary. Only the King himself and the senior priests of Set could greet the god face to face, though at home where Amun was totem of city and family and he himself was lord over all, he had the right to commune directly with his god. He was not sorry to be denied access to Set. He did not want to see the renegade brother of Osiris, the red-haired, red-eyed ruler of the desert, wild and unpredictable though he might be, represented as the Setiu saw him, melded with their own barbaric god Sutekh.
    He and Teti regained the easy familiarity of their relationship. Seqenenra, having decided not to apologize, pretended that the conversation in the passage had never taken place and Teti did not refer to it. Amid embraces and renewed invitations to visit more often, Seqenenra, the family and their retinue set off for Weset. The journey was slow. Seqenenra stopped at every town over which he was lord, talking to priests and mayors, overseers and his minor officials, and the family did not dock at the watersteps until the end of Phamenoth.
    All was well. Kamose had performed his duties quietly and efficiently. Tetisheri questioned Aahotep briefly about the health and well-being of her relatives but did not seem particularly interested in Aahotep’s replies.

3
    SPRING ENDED AND WESET SANK into its summer somnolence. In the arbour the grapes formed and began to swell, green and hard. The crops began to lose their willowy brightness and stiffen to yellow. The crocodiles could often be seen basking immobile, with eyes closed on the sandbanks of the rapidly shrinking Nile, and over all that self-contained, placid domain the sultry timelessness of Shemu exhaled its burning breath.
    Seqenenra, lying on his couch in the stultifying afternoons with sweat pouring from his body or prowling the relative coolness of the old palace while family and servants alike waited languorously for the benison of sunset, knew that he would not wish to exchange this tranquil, satisfying life for the sophisticated bustle of Teti’s estate. There was contentment in the predictability of the coming harvest, and reassurance in the annual Beautiful Feast of the Valley when Amun was carried over the river to visit the mortuary temples and tombs of the ancestors and the citizens of Weset followed him with food to eat beside their dead. Aahmes-nefertari would add to the family. Tani would be betrothed to Ramose, and once a settlement was decided upon by himself and Teti, she would go to live at Khemennu. His mother would go to join his father beforetoo many years were out, and he himself would grow old and fat, Aahotep beside him, and give the reins of governorship to Si-Amun. I ask for nothing more, he said to himself fervently, standing in the dusty shade of a palm tree to watch the peasants work the shadufs, tipping the sun-caught pure water into the now stagnant and empty canals. My land, my family, my life.
    Tani dictated many letters to Ramose and spent much time hanging