The Shepherd Kings (35 page)

There the Retenu seemed mostly to be: big, bearded men in
elaborate robes, with their hair plaited and their beards curled, and no women
with them. Their women lived locked behind walls, less free than the slaves who
stood naked on the block.

Kemni, pausing outside the slavemarket, saw how fiercely
they battled one another for possession of a single woman: a creature of
surpassing strangeness, milk-fair of skin, with hair the color of copper. Her
face was not particularly beautiful—its features were blunt, her lips overfull,
her nose too small and upturned at the tip. But her hair was wonderful, and her
skin. Her body was overly rich for Egyptian taste, her hips broad, her thighs
heavy, and her breasts as white and nigh as large as twin lambs. The Retenu
slavered at the sight of her. Kemni saw one, near the edge of the throng, slip
his hand beneath his robe and begin to rock gently. He had called out a price,
but it was long since overwhelmed.

Someone jostled Kemni from behind, and cursed him for
blocking the way. He moved on past, caught in the crowd. Somewhere behind him
was Seti, and Gebu. He could not see them; they were lost. But they knew where
he was going, to the market and in search of a beerseller’s stall.

They would find him. Or not. They all knew where the boat
was; that much he could trust in.

So many people. Kemni had been living like a prince, if he
was honest about it. He had forgotten what a crowd was like, how irresistible
its currents could be, how manifold its voices. Haggling mostly, and snatches of
song; the cry of a child and the shrilling of a woman at her feckless man. And,
buried within it, the bray of an ass.

He had not even thought before he turned toward that one
sound among so many. Asses were the wealth of the Retenu, their honor, and their
royal sacrifice. Where asses were, must be chariots. And if there were chariots . . .

He slipped under and over and through the press of people,
working his way to a side-current, and thence to a street that made its
twisting way inward through the town. The crowds were much less here, and
quieter, except for the pack of children that howled past like hounds on a
scent. Kemni plucked his bag of barley grains from clever fingers, and smiled
sweetly into a grubby young face. The child grinned, gaptoothed and
unrepentant, and sprang in pursuit of his fellows.

Somewhat more wary but still intent on his own hunt, Kemni
strode swiftly down the street. It went on rather longer than he had expected,
with several bends and turns. More than once it crossed another street, lesser
or greater, but none of those led where he had in mind to go.

Then at last he came to it: a broad open space, a square
bounded by the low mudbrick houses that were everywhere in Egypt. It was, he
saw with interest, not far at all from the new temple, and just below the
fortress that was rising on its jut of hill.

The market here was a cattle market, as it must have been
for time out of mind. But one side of it was given now to lines of long-eared
asses, and to clusters of bearded Retenu settling bargains in their guttural
language.

There were no horses. And no chariots. These were
pack-beasts for caravans, Kemni could see: some were sold in their pack-gear,
some even laden, their burdens sold with them. Kemni wondered if the buyers
knew what they had bought, or if they took what luck brought them. Certainly
they must hope for better fortune than those who had died or been lost, leaving
their beasts to be sold in the market.

No chariots. But the fortress rose on its hill, its walls
half-finished but already warded with a gate and guards. Kemni had hoped for a
lord’s estate with its open gate and people passing in and out. This was a
stronghold, a house of war.

And yet its gate was open. People passed in and out. Most
were Egyptian, of every rank and station. The lord must be in residence, then,
and his following with him.

Kemni hesitated for a moment. But he was alone—no sign of
Gebu or Seti—and unarmed and nondescript. Surely he could walk in with any of
the other unarmed and barely noticeable commoners, see what there was to see,
hear what he could hear, and come out again with none the wiser.

It seemed wise enough, and safe enough, though he might have
been wiser to find his companions and tell them what he intended to do. But
they would insist on coming with him; and three men together, with one who was
not skilled in concealing the manners and bearing of a prince, would attract
far more notice than one man alone.

His feet decided somewhat before his wits did: he was
walking around the edge of the market, casually, not slinking or creeping as if
he had something to hide. He was but one of many of his kind, unmarked by gold
or fine garments or a retinue, and therefore scarce to be marked at all.

And yet, as he passed between the two tall bearded guards
under the half-finished gate, his back tightened. They could not know that he
was different from any other small wiry red-brown nonentity. He wore no jewels,
put on no airs. He was nothing to them. Danger came armed and in multitudes,
not single and weaponless.

The guards never even seemed to see him. He forbore to
collapse with relief once he had passed them; they would see and, perhaps,
begin to wonder. He walked on instead, with but the hint of wobble in his
knees.

He had been in Avaris of the kings, even walked there
briefly as a conqueror, and in lesser holdings of the Retenu, long ago and in
his father’s company. He had walked in a fortress or two, the high house of a
man who claimed lordship over Kemni’s lands and people. This was much the same:
part palace, part encampment. It had few of the graces of the Egyptian palace,
though to be sure, this was unfinished, and rough with it. Workmen were
clambering over the wall as he walked briskly past, fitting stone to stone and
raising the wall high.

A stable would be set against that wall, most likely, or
just outside of it. As indeed it was: just outside, a square of mudbrick
buildings, and the very earliest beginnings of their like in stone, and a broad
court of smoothed sand marked now with the ruts of chariot wheels.

A handful of shaggy young men were playing at battle,
whooping and clattering about the court, whipping on their teams and making a
great show of hairbreadth turns and sudden skidding stops. None of them drove
horses. This lord perhaps had none, or did not choose to indulge in those
larger, swifter, but more costly and more delicate creatures.

But Kemni was not here for the horses. He sidled along the
edge of the court, in and out of shade and sun. He did not see any Egyptians
here: a flaw in his plan, but he was not ready, yet, to retreat. Perhaps, if no
one expected to see an Egyptian there, no one would see him.

It was a thin hope to rest a life on, but it was the best
Kemni had. He would not withdraw. Not yet. He had to see where those fine and
gleaming chariots had come from.

They well might have come from Memphis or Avaris. He had no
honest right to expect that there might be a workshop there. And yet he went
on. He found the storage for fodder; the stable proper, where asses stood or
lay in company, some tied to the wall, some left loose; what must be the
quarters for the stablemen, empty now but full of their clutter. And then, when
he had begun to wonder if he would ever find it, the place in which they kept
the chariots and the harness. It was much larger than he had expected. Men
worked there, repairing—no, building a chariot.

Kemni shrank as deep into shadow as he might. His hand had
risen to the amulet of Amon that he wore on his breast, and clasped it tight.
The gods were with him, oh, indeed. In the first place of the enemy to which he
had come, to find what he sought . . .

And well he might find it, but to make use of it—that was
not so simple.

No lord of the enemy would be so much a fool as to leave his
prized artisans for any passerby to steal. These would, he suspected, be housed
above their workshop, close to the heart of the stable, and in full view of the
guard atop the gate.

But at night . . .

Kemni itched to go. Still he lingered, watching and
listening. He understood their language, if he set his mind to it; he had
learned it long ago, as one learns all one may of one’s enemy, the better to do
battle against him. They were speaking of little that mattered, and nothing
that need trouble him. Except that one said, “I’ll be glad when this one is
done. It’s well past time we saw Avaris again.”

“Tomorrow,” another said. “Now quick, finish that wheelrim.
Soonest done, soonest over—and we’ve a journey to prepare for.”

The first man sighed. “And none too soon for me. The next
time the king sends us out to build chariots for one of his pets, he can leave
me at home. I’ve had a bellyful of these lordlings and their ‘Do this, do that,
do somewhat else of no use whatever, but great pleasure, because it makes the king’s
men leap to our bidding.’”

“Ah,” said the second. “Well. That’s lordlings for you.
We’re gone in the morning, thank the Great God; and we’ve left good work behind
us.”

“We have done that,” his companion agreed.

Kemni thrust his fist into his mouth and bit down hard. Tomorrow?
They left tomorrow? But that meant—

He could not run. He must walk out as casually as he had
come, and make his way past the guards, and pass with maddening slowness
through the crowds in this town that had ambitions to become a city.

It seemed an endless while before he came to the boat, and
found it all but deserted. The two men who had drawn guard-duty were loitering
about as if they had nothing more pressing to do. Iphikleia was not in any of
her wonted hiding places. He could not dare to hope that she had hidden herself
too cleverly for him to find: it was not a large boat, nor blessed with many
recesses in which a grown woman could conceal herself.

She was gone, the gods knew where. Kemni could see no profit
in searching for her. He hated himself for that practicality; but he was a
practical man. He paced and fumed and fretted, till one of the men on guard,
sauntering past, slapped a jar of beer into his hands. He nearly dropped it. It
was heavy: full almost to the brim. It was good, too, well brewed and not too
sour, with just the proper taste of barley and a hint of the bread from which
the beer had been born.

He could not drink himself into a stupor. He sipped—just
enough to dull the edge of his anxiety, and no more. When he was beginning to
be comfortable, his men began to straggle back. Some were well gone in beer.
Others looked as if they would have liked to be.

Last of all, Gebu came, and Seti behind him, looking
inescapably like a man of rank and his servant. They glowered at Kemni. “Where
did you get to?” Gebu demanded. “We hunted high and low for you.”

“I’ll tell you,” Kemni said. “But first—where is Iphikleia?”

“Here,” she said.

He nigh jumped out of his skin. She was sitting on the
boat’s rim, wrapped in her shabby cloak, with bare dirty feet and her hair in a
tight plait. She looked like a child, and not one of rank, either.

He most certainly had not found her on the boat. She must
have come up the other side, and waited till he was off guard before she made
herself known.

He set his teeth and throttled his temper. “Where have you
been?” he inquired.

“Here,” she said.

“You have not.”

She lifted her chin. The urchin was suddenly a princess,
haughty and cold. He grinned at her. He would rather have snapped his teeth in
her face, but that would not be proper. “Well; you’re here now, and no armies
on your track. I’ll presume that you haven’t done anything excessively deadly.”

“How generous of you,” she said.

“Isn’t it?” He turned back to Gebu, deliberately putting her
out of his mind—or as much as he could ever do, when he felt as if she had,
somehow, captured one or more of his souls.

They were all in place at the moment, and he had no time to
waste. The sun had begun to sink. “I’ve found what we’re looking for,” he said
without preamble. “It’s up there, in the fortress.”

Faces that had brightened when he began, fell quickly at the
end of it. “We’ll never get into or out of that,” Seti said for them all. “Not
without an army.”

“No,” said Kemni. “We won’t. It’s strong even half-finished,
and it’s crawling with men. But we won’t need to storm the fortress. The gods
are with us. These chariotmakers—they’re not the lord’s own. The king lent them
to him. And tomorrow—tomorrow they go home.”

“Home?” Gebu frowned. “To Avaris?”

“So they said,” Kemni said.

“But that means—”

Kemni nodded.

Gebu’s scowl vanished. He flung arms about Kemni and whirled
him in a brief, headlong dance. “Brother! Little brother! What a wonder you
are!”

Seti was not so quick to credit it. “You think they really
will leave tomorrow? Well; and if they do, how will we follow? I’ll wager
silver they’ll go in chariots.”

Kemni had been pondering that for all that long afternoon.
“They’ll go on land, I’m sure. They’re Retenu; they hate boats. But the river’s
running fast. We can keep pace well enough. Let them travel well away from
here, until they’re in the empty places—then we can fall on them and capture
them all.”

“I don’t think there’s room in the boat for that,” Seti
said.

“We’ll make do.” Iphikleia had not softened her expression
at all, but she had spoken for Kemni. That would do, he supposed. She slid down
from the boat to the bank, and said, “You’re sure they’re what we need.”

“I’m certain,” he said. He was still, carefully, patient.

“Well then,” she said. “Someone should watch to see them
leave. Even tonight—they might go early. And if they do—”

“I’ll go,” Seti said. “Only feed me first, and give me a jar
of beer. It will be a long night, whatever comes of it.”