The Shepherd Kings (28 page)

Or so the chamberlains imagined. Kemni had in mind, once
they were left to their own devices, to go in search of the Prince Gebu. Gebu
would win them entry, he had no doubt of it.

But Ariana had no intention of waiting quietly for Kemni to
arrange matters. She fixed the chief of the chamberlains with her haughtiest
glare, and said in ragged but serviceable Egyptian, “You will take us to the
king. You will take us now.”

“Madam,” the chamberlain said with a curl of the lip that
took in her sea-worn clothing, her salt-stiffened hair, and her demonstrably
foreign origin, “the Great House of the Two Lands will grant you audience in
the proper time and with the proper ceremony. Until that time—”

“That time is now,” said Ariana. “You will take us to him.”

The chamberlain so far yielded to desperation as to cast
Kemni a look of appeal.

Kemni, who was only more acceptable than she in that he was
male and Egyptian, knew better than to be flattered, but he was amused. “Lady,”
he said, “at least wait until we’ve bathed and made ourselves presentable.
Would you have the king of Egypt think you a raw barbarian?”

“The king of Egypt, everybody says, is a reasonable and
sensible man.” Ariana folded her arms over her breasts and glared at them all.
“I will speak with him now.”

Kemni shot a glance at Iphikleia. She offered him no help.
The chamberlain’s face had set in the immovable obstinacy of his kind.

Kemni sighed heavily and said to Ariana in Cretan, which he
hoped the chamberlain did not speak, “Lady, if you please, let him go. I know a
better way.”

“What?” she demanded in the same language. “To wait till
we’re all ancient? You know we won’t be let in as we are, not unless we do it
quickly.”

“Will you trust me?” he shot back. “I live here. I have a
little influence. Once we’re clean and fit for anything but sailors’ company,
I’ll see that we’re granted audience with the king.”

“Promise that?”

“Promise,” Kemni said with only the slightest quiver. If
Gebu was not in the palace, or if he was not inclined to serve Kemni’s purpose . . .

Ariana need not know any of that. She glowered still, but
she said, “Very well. You do what needs to be done. I,” she said with a toss of
her head, “shall wait for you in the bath.”

“I’ll bathe myself,” he said, “by your gracious leave. Even
Gebu, who happens to be my friend, might be more pleased if I were cleaner.”

She sniffed audibly, but she did not forbid him. Therefore,
and rather wickedly, he bathed first, in royal Egyptian luxury, with servants
who knew truly the art of making a body clean. They shaved him and anointed him
and clothed him as befit a prince, with ornaments that widened his eyes
somewhat, for they were rather above his deserts. He had not worn so much gold
before, a collar so weighty that the servants grunted a little as they lifted
it, and armlets as heavy as shackles, and a belt like the spreading wings of a
vulture, each feather enameled with green and red and blue. He fought the
frequent urge to stroke it as he went in search of his battle-brother.

Kemni had come in a stranger with a pair of foreign women,
of little regard and less importance. But now, agleam with gold, in a kilt of
the finest linen and a princely wig, he attracted stares and whispers. He
recognized many of the faces, but few seemed to recognize him. Of course; Kemni
the commander of a hundred had never affected such state. And he had been gone
half a year and more. Gods knew what rumors had risen in his absence.

It was strange to be thought a prince. He was not sure he
liked it.

He was however seeking one who was a prince in truth, and
trusting to paths and patterns that were half a year old. Prince Gebu was in
residence, said a lordling who had hunted with Kemni many a time, but looked on
him now without recognition, blinded by the gold and the finery. He was burning
with curiosity, Kemni could see, but he was too polite to ask the name of one
who must surely be too august to be unknown.

A lord of the Lower Kingdom. The whisper ran ahead of him.
It was true enough.

Gold and finery won him through where sea-stained near-rags
would never have done. He entered the princes’ house, in among that warren of
alliances and squabbles, riots and revels and tangled intrigue. It was not
home, but it was close enough.

There they knew him. People here were accustomed to piercing
the mask of gold and paint to a man’s true face. “Kemni! Kemni’s back from the
dead!”

Half the princes were here, it seemed, or came quickly as
word went out. They crowded around him, embraced him, pummeled him, gave him
the welcome that neither the city nor the greater palace had known to give.

It was all he could do not to burst into tears, break down
and howl. But that would sully his beauty. He embraced and pummeled and roared
happily back at the lot of them.

They herded him into one of the halls, where there was
always wine to be had, and whatever else a young male fancied. Today it was a
flock of girls in wilted garlands, and the remains of a roast ox. None of the
girls was as pretty as Ariana, but they were all beautiful, if only because
they were Egyptian.

But he could not dally with them, however much he yearned
to. He put them aside regretfully, and raised his voice above the tumult.
“Gebu—where is Gebu?”

It took a while, and a great deal of shouting back and
forth, but at length someone had an answer: “He’s serving his time in Amon’s
temple.”

“No, he’s not,” someone else said. “He finished that
yesterday, don’t you remember? He’s waiting on the king.”

“So much the better,” Kemni said.

They objected strenuously, even after he promised to come
back and finish celebrating his return. But he had to speak with the king.

He had more escort than he strictly wanted, but as he passed
the gate of the princes’ house, the princes and their following went back to
their revelry. None went with him to find the king. That would be dull, they
said. Ahmose was holding audience or settling disputes or counting grains of
barley with his scribes, or some equally deadly royal pursuit. Gebu, fresh from
his season of priesthood, would no doubt find it stimulating, but they were
made of softer stuff.

“Ah, to be home again,” he said. They laughed and made as if
to bathe him in wine, but he escaped with his splendor intact.

~~~

Ahmose the king was not, after all, going over accounts
with his scribes, or even receiving embassies. He was taking his leisure in the
royal menagerie, enjoying the sight of his latest acquisition.

Kemni stopped short on the edge of a space like a garden of
grass. Half a dozen horses grazed there, a stallion and a harem of mares. They
were taller than the herd in Crete, by a little, and lighter in the body; more
delicate, closer in semblance to the gazelle than to the ox. They were all red,
the stallion black-maned—a bay; the rest lighter, red-maned or even fallow
gold.

“Where in the name of all the gods did you find
these
?”

Kemni had forgotten where he was, or who would hear him.
Ahmose answered from beyond the horses, where he stood with Gebu and a pair of
guards. The guards looked as if they were defending their king against a horde
of crocodiles, standing with spears at the ready, glaring at the placid horses.

“Good day, my lord Kemni,” Ahmose said. “Welcome back at
last from your journey. I trust we find you well?”

“Very well, my lord king,” Kemni said with belated civility.
He would have gone down in obeisance, but Ahmose’s upraised hand prevented him.

“No, no,” the king said. “Be at ease. Do you like my horses,
young lord?”

“I like them very much indeed,” Kemni said. “But, majesty,
what—where—”

“They come from Libya.” Ahmose stepped past a startled guard
and held out his hand. One of the mares lifted her head and sniffed lightly at
it. When she found nothing to eat therein, she snorted and went back to her
grazing. “You did ask to be paid in horses. Did you not?”

“Not—” Kemni stopped. He had asked to learn to drive a
chariot, that was true. He supposed that would be to be paid in horses. “But,
sire, these aren’t for me.”

“They might be,” Ahmose said.

He was waiting. Kemni lacked the subtlety of courts; it
struck him belatedly, what he had been asked, albeit without a word. He nodded,
but he frowned a little. Ahmose’s brows went up a fraction.

Kemni resorted to words again, too quickly perhaps, but he
hoped he would be forgiven. “There is . . . something. A price.”

Ahmose waited as eloquently as before.

“A marriage,” Kemni said. Ahmose was not dismayed: no doubt,
as Kemni had, he had expected it. But he might not be expecting the rest. “The
king of Crete gives you his daughter, a lady of very high rank. He asks that
she be made a queen.”

“That . . . might be arranged,” Ahmose said.

“I told him so, sire,” said Kemni. “But . . .”

“But?”

Kemni breathed deep, steadied himself, said it. “She’s here,
my lord. Minos’ daughter. She took ship with me.”

“What, and all her attendants? And not one of our spies said
a word of it.”

“Because, sire,” Kemni said, “she came alone but for a
single attendant. It’s irregular. I told her so. But, my lord—”

“How very interesting,” Ahmose said. That was not a thing he
said often, Kemni could see: Gebu, who had been hanging back as was proper, was
a little wide-eyed. “What reason did she give for this great departure from
tradition?”

“She said,” said Kemni, “that you need her now, and now is
when she must be here.” His eye slid toward the horses. “Sire, she knows how to
drive a chariot.”

“Ah, does she?” Ahmose was interested indeed. He was almost
lively.

“She has taught me somewhat of the art,” Kemni said.

“I see,” said Ahmose, “you’ve wasted little time.”

Kemni bowed his head. It was little and late, but he did not
want to seem more forward than he had already.

A hand fell on his shoulder. He started and almost flinched.
The king had touched him, with his own hand, and shaken him lightly. “Young
lord,” Ahmose said, and his voice was warm, “you have done well and more than
well.”

“Even if I couldn’t keep Ariana—the princess from breaking
with all proper conduct?”

“We shall see what she considers proper,” Ahmose said, still
warmly. He was amused. Very much so. “Come. Take me to her.”

“But—”

“I too,” said Ahmose, “may depart from proper conduct.”

It was worse than improper. It was appalling. But it was a
royal command, and Kemni was the king’s servant.

Still, he ventured to say, “My lord, if it were I, I would
summon her here. And let her know that there are horses.”

Ahmose considered that. Kemni held his breath. Then the king
said, “Yes. Yes, that is wise. Kamut—go to the house of the foreign embassies.
Fetch the lady from Crete.”

The smaller of the two guards bowed low and ran to do his
master’s bidding. While they waited, Ahmose called in servants, and had a
canopy set beside the horses’ enclosure, and a table, and wine and dainties. It
was all done and waiting long before Ariana appeared, and somewhat after Kemni
had begun to fear that she would refuse the summons.

~~~

But Ariana was no fool. She knew where Kemni had gone and
what he had hoped to do. She kept the king waiting, but not too long. Just as
the sun slipped visibly westward from its greatest height, she came, with
Iphikleia for escort and shadow. The guard Kamut, who had been sent to fetch
her, trailed like a lost dog, visibly smitten.

She was wrapped in a mantle of linen like an old woman, with
a fold of it over her hair. As she approached down the path of raked sand, she
let it slip and fall.

Kemni heard the gasp beside him. Gebu had never seen a
Cretan lady in her full glory. It was, Kemni agreed, a marvelous sight.

Ariana had brought a small bag with her, Kemni had known
that. Out of it she had conjured wonders. The embroidered skirt, the jeweled
vest, he knew; he had seen them in Crete. The jewels were of rare quality. The
paint of face and breasts, he supposed, was Egyptian, but what she had done
with it was all Cretan. Her hair was washed and dried into ringlets, plaited
and coiled and caught in a fillet. She was the very image of her own goddess,
even to the serpent armlets—jewels for once, and not living creatures.

What Ahmose thought of her, Kemni could not tell. The king’s
face was a royal mask, expressionless and still. Nor could Kemni tell what
Ariana thought of the king of Upper Egypt. He was not a young man or a greatly
beautiful one, but she had never struck Kemni as the sort to care for such
things.

They regarded one another with a remarkably similar
expression, or lack thereof: still face, dark eyes, no word spoken.

It was Ahmose who broke the silence. “Lady,” he said. “I
welcome you to Egypt.”

She inclined her head. She was as haughty then as Iphikleia
could ever be, but Iphikleia’s eyes did not glint so, nor did a smile touch the
corner of her mouth. “My lord,” she said in better Egyptian than Kemni had
imagined she knew. “I am most pleased to stand in your presence. And so soon.
Is he not a marvel of a courtier, this ambassador of yours?”

Kemni’s cheeks burned. They were not supposed to speak of
him. He was not supposed to be there. He should be invisible, intangible,
forgotten.

But this was not in any way a proper meeting of god-king and
royal bride. Ahmose said, “He has served me well, do you not agree?”

“Most exceptionally well,” she said. She tilted her head toward
the horses. “Is this his reward?”

“Would you like it to be?”

“Does it matter what I like or dislike?”

“I should be pleased to have pleased you,” Ahmose said.