Shiri (10 page)

Josef laughed and groaned in one, it just didn’t feel right. “No, no none of that. When we
’re alone I’m the slave and you’re the master.”

“In that case I’l
l have to get you alone as often as possible.”

He grinned, forcing lingering doubts from his mind. He offered her a cup of Theban
Shedeh
before downing another mug of ale himself. She found herself watching over the brim of her cup as he drank.
He saved me.
She remembered the way he’d moved to clean her bruises, he’d touched her then.
Gently.
She felt a strange churning in her tummy when she remembered that.
He saw me naked.
She reddened rather dramatically at the thought and took another sip. He’d lost his parents too, his friends, family. She made to reach towards his hand, she wanted to hold him, to hug him close, as much for her losses as for his.

She inched her fingers towards his and the feeling in her stomach grew stronger. Deep blue eyes glanced at her then and seemed to smile. She looked away and raised the mug hastily to her lips. There were hundreds of slaves each one worse off than the next; impossibly pretty women with full breasts and soft lips, men with knowledge of letters and tongues, he could have saved any one of them.
He saved me.

II

Amenhotep’s coronation was a grand affair. He sat atop a gilded throne with an honour guard of Companions two rows thick standing silent and hard as stone at his flanks. His first act as Co-Regent was to launch into a speech rich in boast and bluster, in which he sought to prove that the honour had not come too early.

There would of course be another grander ceremony in
Memphis and perhaps a third to put them all to shame in Thebes itself. He would leave for the Two Lands at once, driving nearly ten thousand slaves ahead of him. He’d sell the bulk and put the rest to work raising monuments to his ... and his father’s victory on the plains of Megiddo. Pharaoh’s armies cheered his every word.

His voice carried far, ten divisions of the Godking’s finest stood in neat lines before him and he meant to be heard by all. Shiri did her best to ignore him as they loaded their cart. Their donkey was a shaggy little creature with only one good eye, and all the vigour of an eighty year old man. It had still cost Josef seven copper
debens
.
Ba’al
she’d named it, her eyes flicking towards Josef’s cheekily. She’d deemed the name all the more fitting since this storm lord was a girl.

The cart cost him another three coppers, and he’d spent nearly ten on a mountain of supplies. He still didn’t seem confident that they had enough to make it through the Wildlands. Shiri wondered how much coin he had left.
He’d have had a much more comfortable time of it if he hadn’t spent so much on me.
Josef – Yuya had asked about her home and so she spoke haltingly of Yaham.

There was little enough to tell truth be told and she found herself looking to see if he was paying attention. He nodded and frowned in all the appropriate places. He even smiled when she described how she used to go searching for black flint with Ethan, and made faces when she explained how they used to use it shear the flocks in summer.

She found herself wanting to impress him. “My father was a great and famous warrior in his youth.” She sounded suddenly confident as she declared it. He raised an eyebrow at that and she could see him hiding a smirk.
He thinks me foolish.
But he was wrong. Her father
was
a great warrior. But then the Gyptos had come. A shadow came over her face and she realised she was rubbing her eyes. He placed a soft hand on her shoulder. She shrugged him off. “The smoke from the camp fires, it ... it stings,” she explained before growing silent and concentrating on securing
Ba’al’s
harness.

After that Josef spoke for the both of them. He knew much of the histories, the River Wars, and the gods. He even claimed to be able to put his words on rag paper or papyrus, just like the Gypto scribe priests. When she challenged him on that, he’d pulled a face and gone rummaging through the luggage. He found a pot of dye and dipped a finger in it. She watched perplexed, as he made funny shaped scrawls on a scrap of cloth. He handed it to her with a grin. She crinkled her nose, turning it this way and that, trying to decipher its mysteries, “What does it say?”

“Shiri,” he said.

Her eyes widened and she looked at it again,
not sure if he was mocking her. “Can I keep it?”

“No, no I can do up a nicer one than th
at,” he went to take it off her. “Or if you want I could teach you how to put your own words on...”

“I want this one!” she blurted, holding it to her chest protectively.

He made a face, “As you wish, my lady.”

‘
My lady’
the words made her feel funny.
His lady
, she chewed her lip.
Don’t even think it.
He went back to his tale of the River Wars and the battle for some place she’d never heard of; Avaris or Abydos or something.
He knows even more than Old Dathan.
Her eyes never left him as he spoke and she found herself wondering what ‘Josef’ would look like on rag paper.

Solon turned away as Amenhotep swiped the air with his sword, describing how he battled the Shepherd King in a hard fought duel. He danced back and forth, swinging the blade about his head explaining how he’d parried and countered the great King’s attacks. Rank and file ahead of Solon cheered as the Co-Regent showed how he thrust his blade deep into the barbarian’s heart. Solon slammed the butt of his staff into the mud and marched away from the proceedings.

He glanced briefly at Akil. Pharaoh had put the beardless young soldier under his charge, “I do declare I’m humble as they come.”

“And proud of it,” Akil said, attempting to grab the old man’s sleeve. Ever since he’d been named as the old man’s assistant he was rarely far from Solon’s side. He made to turn him about before anybody noticed their departure.

Solon elbowed him off.
“But I know when I’m in the right and by
Thoth
it’s not me but the whole damn army that’s in the wrong.”

Akil groaned. A few men from the rear ranks looked over their shoulders to see who had decided to show the Co-Regent their backs. Luckily Amenhotep was either too far away or too engrossed in his battle against shadows and ghosts to pay any heed. “But if, as you say, the man was Hyksos was his highness not entitled to request that you give attention to the Egyptian patients instead?”

“Entitled to request? Entitled to request is it? He’d be entitled to request a kick up the arse!”

Akil put a finger to his lips. “Well he’s Co-Regent now so you’d best be keeping such opinions to yourself.”

“I’ll say what I want and to
Apeth
with them that don’t like it. The man’s both fool and fiend.”

Akil ro
lled his eyes and Solon grunted. “Ah, don’t worry, youngling, I may be old but I’m not a complete dotard. I’ll say what I will true enough, but I’ll say it far from this company. ‘Tis home for me, I’m done with war. A quiet retirement with a few Habiru maidens to warm my bed, that’s what I fancy.”

“You’ll not be marching on
Mitanni with us? ‘Twill be an easy straightforward campaign. Aratama’s armies are routed and there’ll be great opportunity for your contraptions to show their worth on the walls of his capital.”

“Naught in war is straightforward, youngling. The Lords of Hattusha will be wanting a slice of the pie too.
I tell you, Akil, lunacy spreads faster than clap in a brothel. There’s plenty more men to be killed yet. If you’d any sense you’d come with me.”

“Would that I could, but
you know the price of desertion, besides my place is here.”

“Killing today and dying tomorrow?”

“I did more than kill,” he said, clearly offended. “See the noble yonder?” he pointed to Lord Yuya. Apparently the man shared Solon’s opinion and was preparing to depart. “He’d have taken a lance in his belly if I hadn’t been on hand.”

Solon glanced in the direction Akil indicated. Yuya and a slave girl were busy loading a cart. “He takes pretty baggage this Yuya.”

Akil grinned, “Aye, he even bought it a new sheath ... didn’t take him long to rip it off though.” He nudged the old man conspiratorially. “You hear old Bomani ranting in his cups? He claims Yuya gave Narmer fifty
debens
for that one.”

For once Solon looked surprised.
“Fifty
debens
?” Wide-eyed he scrutinised the girl more intently, “Aye, well, she’s a decent look to her alright, nice arse and all, but she’s not exactly
Isis
... too narrow in the hips for my taste, and does she even have tits?” He gave Akil a curious look. “Does the man piss gold, or is he just plain simple?”

“This one ain’t simple and that’s a fact.”

“We best go find his chamber pot.”

Akil laughed.
“Nay, rumour has it that Pharaoh gave him a half a fortune.”

“Oh aye? Why’d he do that then? Did he save a prince?”

“Even better,” Akil said. “He killed one. You look on the man that slew the son of Jacobaam.”

Solon raised an eyebrow.
“According to whom?”

“Well, uh, according to himself.”

Suddenly the old man laughed. “According to himself! That’s a good one!” he fisted Akil in the arm. “According to himself! Ha! No doubt, according to himself he convinced old King Aratama to delay, and battered the heads off half the
Maryannu
while he was at it!”

Akil looked irritated.
“Aye, well, there’s no reason to doubt him; I myself saw the Prince’s body.”

“And of
course you knew the Prince well.” With smiling eyes the old man watched the pair readying their cart. To his mind they appeared to be brushing against each other somewhat more than was necessary. Elbows and shoulders seemed all too willing to accidently graze their counterparts, while fingers and hands found excuses to touch as they worked on adjacent knots. “That slave goes about her work with head held high and eyes that do not shrink from those of her master.” Indeed as he observed them more intently, he noted that not only did her eyes not shrink from his, they actively sought them out. “Now there’s a pretty pair of rascals if ever I saw one.”

Josef paused mid-sentence; the cart was all but fully provisioned for their trip.
We’re being watched.
“Hurry on wench I haven’t got all day!” he raised the back of his hand as if to strike. Shiri flinched, instinctively raising her hands to defend herself, a look of shock streaking across her face. It was only when she saw the sly wink he gave her that she understood. She curtsied obediently, as a good slave should and increased the pace of her work
.

Ak
il turned back to his companion. “Ah, you think over much, Solon. There’s no love between master and slave, least of all them two. Did I not tell you how I found ‘em last night? Her cringing in the corner with ripped sheath, and the look of a maiden freshly taken, and he, drinking ale and nursing his wounds as he readied himself for another sally. Aye, mark my words, he had at her a few more times ‘ere morning. The slut likely thought there was love behind his lust,” Akil laughed, “Well, the fool wench just had her illusions smashed. Look how she cowers now!”

It was an unusually long speech from the man, but Solon concluded its lengt
h did not increase its accuracy. “Aye, right you are, Akil, truly you’re wise and observant beyond your years. Such wisdom is wasted in the army.”

Akil allowed himself a grin of satisfaction, the old man rarely admitted to an error in judgement. “Now call me fool if you will,” Solon continued, “but I daresay a career serving as
ghaffir
to a noble that pisses gold would be far more suited to your talents than trudging around after Tuthmosis.”

Akil eyed Yuya
’s slave. “And more rewarding too,” he said slowly. “The way I hear it, Pharaoh told Lord Yuya he could take a man of his choosing. He journeys to Heliopolis by all accounts.”

“
Heliopolis?” Solon’s eyebrows were dancing. He tugged his beard as he ever did when pondering something, before speaking more urgently and elbowing Akil in the ribs. “Convince him to take you as his
ghaffir
and I’ll attach myself to your group.” He shoved him forward. “Go on, lad, be about it, and you’ll be sipping Memphite Red and enjoying your pick of the Sun City’s Habiru fillies in no time.”

Akil hesitated, but a second glance at the slave girl seemed to make up his mind. She was kind enough to provide him with a pleasant view as she bent to give her attention to the last few strappings about the cart.
Plenty more like that and better in Heliopolis.

He greeted Lord Yuya with an outstre
tched hand and a friendly smile. “Well, my lord, how’s that cheek of yours?” Shiri turned away and busied herself with the cart. Akil laughed at that and jerked a thumb in her direction. “Looks like you have the filly broken in at last. You’ve come far since our last meeting.”

“And I have further to go,” Josef
replied.

“In that case you’
ll no doubt be wanting a
ghaffir
. Palestine is full of wandering bands of rebel scum. And as for the Wildlands, don’t get me started on that place. You can’t go ten yards without being accosted by some
Shasu
bandit offering you a knife in the belly for the gold in your pouch, and be sure they’ll be on your wench first chance they get.”

“So I’
m to give my gold to a guard in place of a bandit?” Josef shrugged. “The
Shasu
worry me but little.”

“Oh but they should
!” Akil turned to his companion. “Do I not speak truly?”

“Oh, aye,” Solon said. He’d appeared like a shadow at Akil’s shoulder. “The Wildlands are untamed and barbarous beyond a doubt. And as for the nomads, well ‘tis rare that I’ve seen a worse band of ruffians than that lot. They fight all day and drink all night, and may
Seth
himself curse me down if I tell it false, but their younger lordlings have a habit of loitering about the watering holes demanding random travellers to go sword to sword. Why last time I journeyed without Pharaoh’s hosts at my back, a half score of the scoundrels came at me in the small hours.” The girl’s eyes widened and Solon winked at her, “Hah! Fear not pretty one, I went at them with my staff and that did for them.” He gesticulated vigorously with the weapon. “Aye, I broke a few heads and sent them on their way the wiser for the lesson.”