The Shepherd Kings (69 page)

Khayan breathed a sigh of relief. “Ah. That’s well.”

“We’ve got a game in the offing tonight,” the guard said.
“Come and play with us if the king lets you go.”

“I’ll do that,” Khayan said willingly enough. If he was not
to go to Iry, a game in the guardroom would do.

He passed the guards with a smile and a nod, into the rooms
that he had come to know well since he came out of the east. The king would be
in the smaller audience chamber, if he was entertaining guests; and indeed,
there he was, with a larger gathering than Khayan had expected. Khayan
recognized most of them: the chancellor of the kingdom, one or two commanders
of the armies, the master of horse, and a gathering of nobler courtiers. Khayan
was hardly a minor lord, but in this company he was the youngest and the least.

He thrust himself past that moment’s hesitation. The king
had asked for him. It was awkward to come in so late, but Apophis betrayed no
anger. He rose, in fact, and beckoned to Khayan, bidding him sit at his own
right hand, and calling the servants to bring him whatever he desired.

Those signs of great favor could hardly go unnoticed. Khayan
marked whose eyes slid, and whose face went a little too still.
Young puppy
, these august lords must be
thinking. But they maintained expressions of civility, and made no effort to
challenge him. There was time for that later.

Once Khayan was settled with a cup of wine, the council—for
so it was—returned to the deliberations that he had interrupted.

“You do believe this?” Apophis asked his general of the
armies.

That old soldier, who had lost a hand in some battle long
ago but who was still a deadly fighter, nodded his scarred and grizzled head
and said, “Ten years ago this city was almost taken by the Egyptians because we
were caught off guard. But for your foresight, my lord, in bidding Nubia remember
its alliance, we would have lost this kingdom that our fathers conquered.”

“The Egyptian was driven back,” one of the lesser lords
said. “He died not long after, fighting Nubians, it’s said. His brother, who
took the throne—his brother has never offered us even a skirmish. He’s ruled by
women, they say: first by his mother, then by the wife he inherited from his
brother.”

“She’s his sister, I’m told,” said the man next to him. He
shuddered. “Barbarian, to bed his own father’s child.”

They all murmured at that, except Apophis and the general
Khamudi, who were intent on the greater concern. “I do believe,” Khamudi said,
“that the rumors are true. The Egyptian is mustering his armies. Have you had
word from Nubia since last the moon was at the full? Have you sent messengers
there? It’s been silent, my lord. As if the Egyptian has cut us off from our
allies.”

“How can he do that?” the minor lord demanded. “Or if he’s
done it, maybe he’s marching into Nubia. It’s rich country, and everyone covets
it. Why not the Egyptian?”

“Because,” Khamudi said with an air of sorely strained
patience, “the Egyptian would find it more satisfying to attack us and take
back what his predecessors used to hold.”

“Rebellion,” said the master of horse. He sounded
unsurprised. “Yes, I’ve heard rumors, rumblings in the earth. These people are
servile, but some of them are proud. Those would pay dearly to drive us back
the way we came.”

“We came from this very country,” the chancellor said. “I
was born in this city. I’m as Egyptian as any of these alleged rebels.”

“Remember what the late pharaoh said,” said Khamudi, “when
he stood in front of these walls and taunted us with his victory. ‘Vile
Asiatics,’ he called us. ‘Dogs of foreigners.’”

“And he fled,” said the chancellor, “and died soon after.
Surely his people understood what the gods were telling them.”

“And yet rumor is,” the king said, “that his successor is
marching toward us.”

“Rumor only,” the chancellor said. “I’ve sent out spies and
runners. There’s word of a fleet well south of Memphis, but no one has seen it
sailing northward. If it exists at all, I suspect that it is there simply to
taunt us. The Egyptian is hardly strong enough to challenge our armies—and he
has no more than his kingdom will supply, while we have the might of Asia at
our backs.”

“Suppose,” Khayan ventured to say, “that he had found a way
to cut us off from that. It’s a narrow ribbon of road that binds us to our
people. What if he managed to cut it?”

They all regarded him as if he had been a child piping up in
the council of his elders. Even the king looked on Khayan with more patience
than credence.

“How would he cut off the road to Asia?” the chancellor
demanded. “We hold all the ways to it. And even if he managed that—what
strength would he have? We have great armies. He would have no more than he
could spirit through the desert or across the marshes and fens, which are
impenetrable. His attempt would be feeble and doomed to fail.”

Khayan shut his mouth carefully, though words in plenty
begged to tumble out of it. They were all nodding, some smiling at him with
pitying expressions, others looking much too pleased at what they reckoned his
folly.

Maybe it was folly. It would be a ghastly undertaking, and
impossible to sustain, even if it could be done at all. But if he were the
Egyptian king, he would look for a way to do it. Particularly if he could rely
on the Egyptians within the kingdom—whose numbers were vast, and Khayan’s own
people terribly few—to rise up and fight for him when he came.

“So,” Apophis said in the stretching silence. “No one has
more than rumors. All’s quiet within the kingdom. If the fleet moves, if it
exists—we’ll know, yes?”

They all nodded. Khamudi said, “Most rumors I’ll ignore, my
lord. But this one is worth our attention. If it’s false, well, our young men
could use a dose of marching and guarding. A sufficiency of days in the sun and
nights in the fens, with hardships enough, and maybe a skirmish—that would keep
them quiet for a while.”

“Then you would take a company or two southward,” Apophis
inquired, “and investigate these rumors of a fleet?”

“Perhaps three large companies,” Khamudi said, “or four. A
show of strength would not be amiss.”

“Do it,” said Apophis.

Khamudi bowed in his seat.

“Sire,” Khayan said. “If it’s as simple a matter as that,
and as little a thing, why not send a company to Sile, too? If nothing else,
the march will give them occupation, and they can visit their kin in Asia if
they’ve a mind.”

Apophis considered that. Khayan granted him as much. “It
might not be an ill thing,” he said. “But if attack comes upon us, it will come
from the south. Best not to dissipate our forces by sending a portion of them
into the north.”

“But if the attack is from the north—”

“My dear young cousin,” Apophis said warmly, but with a
warning beneath, “your concern is admirable. But there is no danger from the
north.”

Khayan bowed his head. “Then . . . sire,
might I take my own men, and only those, on a training march? And perhaps we
may pause at Sile, and assure ourselves that my fears are unfounded?”

“In time,” said Apophis, “perhaps. For now, I prefer you
here.”

There was nothing Khayan could say to that. This was the
king, and these were the wisest of his counselors. If they saw no merit in what
he proposed, then perhaps, indeed, it was only silliness.

The council ended so, with Khayan set aside, and Khamudi
bidden to march into the south in search of the Egyptian king’s fleet. Khayan
would have left with the others, but Apophis kept him there with a word and a
glance.

That was not excessively well received. But Apophis took no
notice. When the last of the lords had passed the door, and there were only the
servants and Khayan remaining in the suddenly empty hall, Apophis said, “There,
lad. No need to sulk. Are you tired of this city already?”

“No, sire,” Khayan said. “But—”

“I understand,” Apophis said, and smiled. “Come, then. What
would you say to a few days’ escape? A hunt—we’ll hunt for whatever the land
will give us.”

“May we hunt northward?” Khayan asked—daring greatly, but he
did not care.

Apophis laughed. “O persistence! Yes, we may hunt northward,
if that’s your whim. Go on, choose your companions. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

Khayan stopped short at that. “Tomorrow, my lord?”

“It’s somewhat late to begin today,” Apophis said.

Khayan began to correct him, but though better of it. What
could he say? The truth?
Sire, I have
debauched the Mare’s servant, and she commands me to attend her tomorrow night.
If you will only put off the hunt for a day—

No, the truth would not do. And Khayan, as Iry had said, did
not lie. He settled on silence. He bowed, accepted a blessing on his head, and
let himself be dismissed.

Iry did not believe it when she saw it. Their chambers
were in an uproar. All the men were leaving, it seemed—riding off in the
morning to hunt with the king.

“A great hunt,” one of the young idiots half-sang in an
ecstasy of delight. “Days and days. Maybe a whole month—riding and living in a
tent and hunting whatever quarry the gods bring.”

“And whose golden inspiration was that?” she demanded.

The boy goggled at her. The last he or anyone had known,
after all, she was shut in her room, pining away for who knew what cause. But
he was obedient enough to answer her question. “Why, lady, the Lord Khayan’s.”

“Khayan—” She broke off. “Not the king’s?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, my lady,” the boy said.

“But tomorrow night he—”

That was not anything this child needed to know. She let him
go where he was clearly desperate to go, on some errand or other involving a
great deal of speed and enthusiasm.

Some said the king had ordered this expedition, but most
laid it at Khayan’s door. Iry hardly needed to ask why. So: he had not wanted
her after all. How clever of him to persuade the king to take him away before
he could be forced to lie with her again.

She was not angry. Oh, no. She was too intent on murder to
be angry. Of course they were taking no women with them. This was a men’s hunt.
Though no doubt there would be maids and servants, and suitable pleasure for
the evenings. Of which he would take his ample share.

She was not going to lock herself in her room again. No.
This time she would take refuge with the Lady Sarai.

That formidable woman appeared content to accept Iry’s
renewed diligence and her heightened attention to lessons that grew steadily
more complicated. This was the art of statecraft, the manifold skills of
ordering tribes and nations. She might have had no head for it, except that she
needed something, anything, to take her mind off that horrible man.

Her body remembered anything but horror. Kisses as deep and
sweet as his voice, and hands that knew how to wake such sensations as she had
never known. It remembered the warmth of his arms and the thick softness of his
hair, falling over his shoulder and brushing her breast.

Such memories should have distracted her sorely; but in
turning away from them, she focused all the more intently on the proper
protocols for addressing each level of envoy from a foreign king, from princely
ambassador to lowly message-runner.

“I’m not a queen,” she said. “Why do I have to know these
things?”

“Because what you are is higher than a queen,” Sarai said as
calmly as always. “Whatever a queen can do, you must do better.”

Since that was true, Iry held her tongue and set to learning
what she was set to learn. And ignoring the tumult without, which seemed quite
excessive for as small an expedition as it was. They were not mounting a war;
they were simply going hunting with the king.

That tensed her spine, but as far as she could tell, none of
them knew that there was, in fact, a war coming upon them.

She was deep in the intricacies of yet another ritual—this
one of birthing, and yet also of dying—when she heard a voice without that she
knew too well. Khayan had come to muster the troops, with much laughter and
easy camaraderie, as there always was when he was among his men. It struck her
that such a thing was not usual. He had come as a stranger, an interloper, who
had grown to manhood in a foreign land; and he had made himself beloved of his
father’s people. That was not an easy thing to accomplish.

She was not in a mood to admire him. He stayed away from his
mother, at least, and from the women. That suited Iry very well.

Very well indeed. Yes.

~~~

In the morning they left, the whole uproarious lot of
them, filling the courtyards with shouting and clatter. All the pomp and state
that accompanied a royal hunt in Egypt was little enough in evidence here. The
king was remarkable only in that his scale-armor was washed with gold, and his
chariot bright with gilt. His weapons looked well worn and rather plain, like
the man himself.

Iry had not intended to watch them go, but she happened to
be near a window when the clamor began. She saw them all with their chariots,
most drawn by asses, though the king’s and of course Khayan’s rolled behind a
team of horses. Khayan was close by the king, and by no means the largest or
the most imposing of all those big bearded men, and yet there was something
about him that drew the eye.

She had no desire to follow him with her gaze, and yet her
eyes had a will of their own. It was the body again, remembering.

If one meeting of body to body was enough to rob a woman of
her wits, then no wonder so many women were fools. Iry turned her back on the
window and on the great riding that streamed out of the court, and went back to
her lessons in the arts of priestesses who were more than queens.

~~~

Khayan tried thrice to gain admission to the women’s
quarters before he left on the king’s hunt. But the Lady Sarai had forbidden
ingress to any man for that day and night, because, the door-guard said, she
was engaged in teaching the Mare’s servant one of the great rites.