The Horus Road by Pauline Gedge Read Free Book Online Page A

a cloak, and left their shelter. The night was cool and still. Across the river a few faint orange lights marked the environs of Weset and the Nile itself flowed peacefully, a narrow, fluid darkness from where she stood.
    It was no more than a few steps to the low wall of the court and she crossed the uneven, shadow-hollowed ground quickly with a word of reassurance to the Follower who had materialized by her side. He moved back and she went on alone to the black, gaping hole in the side of the pyramid that would be filled and sealed the next day.
    Here she sank down, and drawing up her knees she began to speak in a whisper, telling her brother how much she loved him, reminding him of their childhood together, putting into words how it felt to hear his voice issuing from another room as she walked along a passage, to go out into the garden and look up to see him perched motionless on the roof of the old palace, to be warmed by one of his rare smiles. “You were our rock, our touchstone, obdurate and unyielding, and I did not realize how closely we clung to you,” she said softly. “Somehow we took it for granted that your very obstinacy would always protect us. Ahmose is King now and his way is not your way. It never was. You know this, dear Kamose. Yet I think that if Ahmose had gone first he would have failed. That will not happen now because his time has come, but you did the right thing, the only thing, and you will be justified before the gods.
    “Do you remember sailing down to Khemmenu one year when we were still very young, to celebrate the Feast of Thoth on the nineteenth of his month with Mother’s relatives? And on our first night out Si-Amun accidentally pushed me off the boat and I had not learned to swim? The Inundation had barely begun. The servants were rushing about screaming and Si-Amun started to cry and Father came out of the cabin not knowing what the uproar was about. You just calmly ran down the ramp, waded into the shallows, and dragged me to the bank. I was coughing and spitting. ‘Silly Aahmes-nefertari,’ you said. ‘Swimming is easy. I will teach you how and by the time we come home you will be faster than the fish.’ Even then you took charge of our safety. I will not let you be forgotten. I will not let your memory be distorted. The history of Egypt will not be allowed …”
    The words died in her throat from pure terror, for something moved in the darkness of the tomb entrance. A shape detached itself from the void and came panting towards her and with a low cry of relief she recognized Behek. Whining, he settled onto his haunches beside her and laid his grey head in her lap. She flung her arms around him. “How did you get across the river?” she scolded him. “Did you push your way onto one of the servants’ skiffs? You should not have been down there. You might have found yourself immured behind a wall of rubble tomorrow, unable to escape, and no one would ever have known what had become of you. But I understand. Oh, I do understand.” And, burying her face in his warm neck, she began to sob.
    In the morning the last rites were chanted, the tents struck, and the remains of the feast buried. Masons stood waiting to fill in the doorway that seemed to exhale a cold loneliness into the sparkling air. “Amunmose will see that the seals are attached when the men have finished,” Ahmose said to a quiet Aahmes-nefertari. “It is over and we must go on. The boats are waiting to take us back to the house and there is much to do. How did Behek get here?” He gave a sharp order to a guard standing nearby and, with a last glance at the stubby pyramid rearing solidly against the clear blue of the sky, Aahmes-nefertari got onto her litter and pulled the curtains closed.
    Ahmose disappeared in the direction of the temple once they had gained the eastern bank, and the women also separated to their several quarters. To Aahmes-nefertari the house seemed cleansed, empty of all the currents of