Scroll of Saqqara(13)
“I would hate to see the Nile choked from the Delta to Memphis with the ships and boats of merchants and diplomats,” he answered Hori, “and Memphis itself would become increasingly filthy, noisy and sprawling, as imperial Thebes used to be in the days of the last Thothmesids. No, Hori. Let Memphis be a city of peace to fuel my vision.” The two men smiled at one another.
For the rest of the afternoon they drifted happily with the strong current of late spring, passing Ra’s home, the city of On where Khaemwaset also sometimes served as a priest, and then turning into the Nile’s eastern stream.
Just beyond On, the river ceased to be one mighty force and began to meander in three large ribbons and two or three lesser tributaries towards the Great Green. The western stream bordered the desert. At its northernmost point it fed the most famous vineyards in Egypt, where the coveted Good Wine of the Western River was fermented. Khaemwaset’s storerooms held a large supply of it, and while his compatriots were often seduced into tasting exotic wines that came at great cost from places like Keftiu or Alashia, he remained faithful to the dark red bounty of the Delta.
Through its centre flowed the great river, past that most ancient of capitals, Buto, now nothing more than a temple and a small town, and thence to Tjeb-nuter and out into the Great Green. Khaemwaset and his boats ran north-east, into the Waters of Ra that would take them to their destination.
They tied up for the night by the Sweet Water Canal, which had been cut due east to join the Bitter Lakes. Already the dry tang of the desert was merely an occasional puff of evening breeze overwhelmed by the richer, heavier odours of the Delta farmland. Papyrus thickets jostled and whispered, their dark green stems and beige feathers losing colour steadily as Ra dropped to the western horizon. The delicious aroma of orchard blossoms came wafting, although the orchards themselves were not yet in sight. Verdant growth, both cultivated and wild, tangled everywhere.
All the next day they drifted through the Delta’s amazing variety of plant and bird life, stopping to eat Hori’s freshly caught inet-fish at noon and then lazily sliding on while Ra turned from white to gold to pink and red. By the time night fell once more, the Waters of Ra had become the Waters of Avaris, they had passed the temple of the cat goddess Bast at Bubastis and the river was beginning to be crowded.
They did not sleep as well that night. Craft continually passed them, and challenges rang out regularly across the quiet Nile. Khaemwaset spent an uneasy few hours in vivid and decidedly unpleasant dreams before waking at yet another screamed question and brusque answer. His head ached mildly. Calling Kasa softly so as not to wake Nubnofret, he was washed and dressed and gave the order to resume their journey before the sun was an hour into the sky.
Just before noon, the city of Pi-Ramses straggled into view on their right—first the ungainly hovels of the very poor who now inhabited the site of the original town of Avaris and who seemed to cluster around the brown pylons and steep walls of the temple of Set, and then a heap of rubble Khaemwaset knew was the remains of a Twelfth Dynasty town. Hori and Nubnofret were watching a donkey caravan labouring beside the river. Beasts, merchants and drivers alike were dusty, and sand clung to the bright blankets covering the loads. Goods from Sinai, Khaemwaset surmised, perhaps even gold from my father’s mines, on its way to effect more beautifying in Pi-Ramses.
He turned back to the ruins, now swiftly passing by, and the great canal his father had dug to surround the city was there, already congested with craft of every shape and size, their captains swearing and jockeying for place. Khaemwaset signalled a little regretfully to his wife and son and they retired behind the anonymity of the cabin curtains. There was a pause, and Khaemwaset knew that his captain was running up the imperial colours of blue and white. After a moment the din outside began to diminish and their boat began to move. The commoners were giving way to Pharaoh’s great son, and Khaemwaset sailed up the Waters of Avaris in a space of reverence. Nubnofret tutted.
“They become more vituperous and violent every time we make this trip,” she remarked. “Ramses should have the junction patrolled by the Medjay, who could organize the traffic. Hori, raise the curtain a little now. I want to see what is going on.”
Hori obeyed, and Khaemwaset gave a secret smile. Nubnofret always wanted to know what was going on.
His captain shouted, this time a crisp order to the rowers, and Amun-is-Lord began its slow tack to the right. Soon the ruins and the temple of Set drifted out of sight to be replaced by straggling thick trees sheltering city dwellers seeking shade and conversation. On the left there was no vegetation, only a haphazard, cacophonous and unlovely confusion of workshops, warehouses, granaries and storage facilities teeming with noon life. Behind them, Khaemwaset knew, were the faience glazing works for which Pi-Ramses was famous, and continuous with the canal was more of the town, this time a quieter sequence of modest, white-painted merchants’ homes and the little estates of minor noblemen engulfed in gardens and orchards. The apple trees were in full bloom, the scent enveloping the party in a heady, almost palpable mist, and pale petals rocked on the glittering surface of the water and lay in white mats against the banks.