The Shepherd Kings (70 page)

That might even have been true. Or perhaps she had guessed
what Khayan had done with Iry. Women knew. It was a magic of theirs.

Even a messenger, even one of the maids, was not allowed to
pass. Without help and without forgiveness, then, Khayan left the palace of
Avaris.

He was almost cravenly glad to leave those walls and be free
of that vast and crowded city. The king’s riding had all the road open before
it. Passersby fled his coming. Caravans hastened to open the way. Lesser lords
and princes either drew back or called out, “Sire! Where away?” And when they
had their answer, some of them joined in the riding, either right then and
there or later in the morning.

Khayan did not forget Iry. Never. But among these men of his
own kin and kind, he could ease his spirit, and smooth away the tightness of
too long a time within walls.

At night in the camp, he would remember her, lying alone on
his blanket. Many of the men had brought women for their pleasure, packed among
the servants and the baggage. They would happily have shared with him, but he
smiled and refused. Wine, companionship, dancing and song, he would take, but
women . . . no. They were not Iry.

Oh, he was besotted. He laughed at himself while he lay
there, listening to the sounds of pleasure outside the tent’s walls. When he
slept he dreamed of her; not true dreams or dreams of prophecy, but memories
all the sweeter for that they were so brief.

When at last the king allowed him to return to Avaris, he
would make his amends to her as he could, and love her with all his heart. But
now, while there was no hope for it, he would ride and hunt as the king wished,
and be as happy as his spirit would let him be.

Wherever the king was, runners came and went, messengers
bringing word of things that even on a hunt the king must be aware of.
Khamudi’s company of picked men had gone away southward. They had not, as yet,
found any sign of invaders, whether on the river or on the land.

“Did they look in the desert?” Khayan asked at that.

“Nothing,” the runner said. “It’s quiet. The young men are
not pleased.”

“I can imagine,” Khayan said dryly.

With such news to ease their hearts—though Khayan was on
edge still, like the fool he no doubt was—they made their way north and
somewhat west, into the depths of the marshes where the hunting was gloriously
rich. So too were the swarms of stinging flies, and the crocodiles in the
braided streams of the river, but those were little enough to deter the men of
the people. All day they hunted, and in the evening they ate the fruits of the
hunt.

On the day when they met the herd of riverhorses, and the
king himself brought down the great bull—and lost a loyal servant doing it, the
hapless man torn in two by the vast jaws and the ivory teeth—a messenger came
to them from a new direction. North, he came from, and east. He rode in a
chariot behind a pair of stumbling and nigh foundered asses, wounded himself,
and haggard as if he had ridden day and night without rest or nourishment.

“Sile,” he said. “They’re taking Sile.”

The king’s glance flashed to Khayan. For an instant Khayan
feared that it was suspicion—that he might be accused of being a spy. But the
king taxed him with nothing. He simply said, “We stop here. Send for the
servants.”

~~~

Wine from the king’s own wineskin, and bread and onions
and a slab of cheese, restored the messenger remarkably. He would not rest in
the camp they made a safe distance from the riverhorses’ pool, until he had
told the king all he knew.

“He’s laid siege to Sile,” he said. “The king from
Thebes—the Egyptian. He came out of the empty lands with his armies—and
chariots, sire. He came with chariots. He has a whole great herd of horses,
and—”

“Horses?” the king broke in. “Not asses?”

“Horses,” the man said. “Good ones, fast, well trained. But
they’re not all he has. He has a fleet. An enormous fleet, sire, of ships that
ride on the sea.”

“Ships that ride on the sea?” Apophis repeated. “But Egypt
has no—”

“Crete does,” the messenger said.

The king had been on his feet, pacing as he listened, as he
liked to do. It helped him think, he said.

At that, he stopped, wheeled, and nearly fell. He groped his
way to his chair and sank into it. “Crete? They’ve made pact with Crete?”

“Those are Cretan ships, sire,” the messenger said.

“Sile,” Apophis said as if to himself, “and Crete.” He
lifted his head, frowning at the sky. “Gods, what fools we’ve been. What
arrogant fools.”

“Sire,” Khayan ventured to say. “We’re numerous enough here,
and armed. If we leave as soon as we can, we might be able to—”

“No,” the king said. And to the messenger: “Tell me the rest
of it.”

The man bowed in his seat, drank deep of his wine as if to
gather courage, and said, “The army came from the empty country, and the fleet
from the sea. They surrounded us before we knew what we had seen. We were able
to man the defenses and barricade the walls, but their numbers are great, and
they’ve cut off the road in back of us. They’ll hold back any who try to come
from Canaan.”

Apophis nodded. He could see it if Khayan could, though he
had refused Khayan leave to stop it before it began.

Khayan spoke again. “Sire, if they’ve laid siege—how long
ago? Two days ago? Three?—there’s time. We can win the city back and crush them
before they move south.”

“They will be coming down the river,” Apophis said as if he
had not heard him. “There is a fleet in the south, even if Khamudi can’t find
it. We’re threatened on both sides.”

War
. Khayan did
not know who first said the word. But in scarce a dozen heartbeats, it had
hummed through the camp.
War. We’ve found
us a war.

But the king was not to let them have it. Not all of them.
After that first moment’s prostration, he was on his feet again, as strong of
will and wit as he had ever been, snapping out orders almost too fast to
follow.

Those of the lords who had joined the hunt on its way, and
those with holdings nearest this country and toward Sile, he bade return home
with all speed, and muster every man of theirs who could fight. As soon as that
was done, they must make of themselves a wall to the south of Sile, and prevent
the Egyptian and his seaborne allies from advancing deeper into the kingdom.

The one he set in command of them was not Khayan. It was one
of the generals who had been in the council, sitting in Khamudi’s shadow.

The rest of them, and Khayan, would return to Avaris. “I
need you there,” Apophis said before Khayan could voice his protest. “You’ll
get your fight, I promise you. This war will come from south as well as north.
I want you with me when the second attack comes.”

Khayan had no choice but to bow his head to that. There was
no reward for foresight, after all, and no advantage in having seen before
anyone else how the enemy would choose to fall on the kingdom.

~~~

So quickly it all changed, from hunt to war. The young
rakehells in the king’s following were beside themselves with gladness. Most of
them, Khayan noticed, were let go with Khamudi’s lieutenant. The steadiest and
the most sensible, such as they were, remained with the king.

He supposed he should be flattered to be counted high among
them. And it was true, there would be war enough for everyone.

In very short order, those who would ward the borders of
Asia had gathered weapons and baggage and gone. The king was not in quite so
much haste, but neither did he see fit to camp in that place. He paused only to
take the great ivory tusks of the riverhorse. The rest he left for the
crocodiles, and for the vultures that had been circling since the hunt began.
When the sun had passed the zenith, they had taken the road to Avaris, with
messengers sent ahead in swift chariots to warn the city of what would come
upon it.

Khayan he kept at his right hand. Khayan hoped it was for
liking, and not for mistrust.

Khayan’s mood was vile. He was being a fool, and he knew it.
He had no need to ride to Sile. But to be given the command of that
venture—that would have been an honor, and one he would have been glad of.

Many would have said that he was more greatly honored to be
kept so close to the king and admitted to all his counsels. Apophis in the face
of war was no longer the easy and affable man who had taken such delight in his
menagerie. This was a hard man and a king, and a great commander of armies.

Armies which he must gather, and prepare in haste. As he
rode toward Avaris, his runners ran tirelessly to all the lords and holdings,
and bade them gather their fighting men.

By evening, in the way of such things, the news had run
ahead of them. The kingdom had roused. Its lords were gathering their weapons.
The lesser folk, the conquered people, labored unregarded, except perhaps by
Khayan. War or no, there was a harvest to get in, wheat and barley and the
lesser fruits of the earth.

“Sire,” Khayan said as they rode at speed through fields of
ripe barley and little dark people cutting it with sickles. “This harvest—can
it be got in faster? If the enemy comes so far, and finds only empty fields,
he’ll find nothing to feed himself. And if the harvest is gathered and stored
well apart from his advance, and guarded with as much strength as we can spare . . .”

“Indeed,” Apophis said. “That’s well thought of. See that
it’s done.”

Khayan bowed to that: to the trust as well as the command.
It was a gift, whether the king knew it or no. Khayan chose to take it as such.

On the third day they came back to Avaris, the king and
his much diminished hunting party. Behind them was a kingdom in uproar, lords
mustering troops, men arming for war. And far behind them, on the borders of
Asia, the war itself had begun and continued.

The city seemed, at first sight, to be no more or less
crowded or tumultuous than it ever was. But the crowds were impenetrable, the
tumult deafening. Everyone who could had come seeking shelter within those high
walls, under the king’s protection.

Apophis rode in to a thunder of cheering and a torrent of
gladness. Khayan could feel the strength pouring into him, even from in front
of him, struggling a little with the stallions, who though weary with long
marching at a hard pace, tossed their heads and pranced at the roar of the
crowd. The people’s love was a strong drug, stronger than wine. It made him
dizzy.

The palace walls cut off the worst of it, though it surged
still without, like a roar of the sea, as the rest of the army made its way through
the city. There was fear—war always brought that, fear of death, fear of
pain—but not fear of defeat. That, Khayan’s bones knew. They were a strong
people, and they had ruled in this land for a hundred years. They would win
this war.

“This time,” Apophis’ princes said in council, “we win it
forever. Let us crush the Egyptian and all his armies. And when we have done
that, let us pursue him even to Thebes, and do what we should have done years
since: take the other half of Egypt, and make it our own.”

Always before when Apophis had heard such counsel, he had
pointed out, with crushing logic, that they were strong but they were few, and
the great length of Egypt, with all its crowded people, was a hard prize to
hold with such numbers as they had. But now he only nodded. “We have to
consider that,” he said, “yes. Or they’ll keep coming back, and keep defying
us, till they manage to destroy us.”

Then he sent a strong force to Khamudi south of Memphis, to
block the fleet when it came down the river. So guarded in the south as well as
the north, with his own city strengthened greatly between, he settled to wait,
and to rule the kingdom while his generals waged war far afield.

Khayan came late to his rooms, very late indeed, and
stumbling on his feet. He had gone direct from march to council, and had dined
with the king after—astonished at Apophis’ tirelessness. When he left the hall,
Apophis was still in it, passing round the wine and ordering the disposition of
his armies.

Khayan had his own orders. His levy from the Sun Ascendant
was to stay where it was, on guard over the herds of horses—such of them as
would not be sent to one or the other of the generals for use in the war. He
would be very well paid for that, in lands and treasure.

He was to stay with the king. He was the king’s charioteer.
It was an office of great honor, and great power if he chose to take it. Which
he might well do. He had drunk from the king’s cup, out in the city. He would
not be averse to another taste.

Dangerous thoughts, he told himself wryly as he passed the
guard at his own door. He stopped in the outer room, yawning hugely. There was
no servant waiting to undress him. At last: the palace servants had understood
that Khayan preferred to look after himself before he slept, though he was glad
enough of help in the morning. He dropped his robes and his ornaments with a
sigh of relief, leaving them for the servants to find, and stretched till his
bones cracked. Another yawn seized him as he half-walked, half-stumbled into
the inner room.

The lamps were lit, the nightlamp in its niche and the
cluster by the bed. They cast a soft glow across the coverlets. Those were
fresh, scented with some green herb. Someone had scattered petals across them,
as if he had been a prince. He shook his head at that, and lay down with a sigh
that was half a groan.

He should rise again, blow out the lamp-cluster. But the bed
was marvelously comfortable. Sleep toyed with him, hovering just out of reach.
Memories flickered behind his eyes. The king’s face, the great riverhorse
dying, the messenger and his staggering team, shouts and cries and the dim
clangor of war.

Soft hands stroked his back. Warm breath tickled his nape. A
supple body fitted itself against him.