The Shepherd Kings (93 page)

Sadana? Sadana was the woman in his dream?

Well, and why not?

He did not love her as he had loved Iphikleia. No woman
would ever have that from him again. And yet, maybe, he loved Sadana no less.
It was different, that was all. Love born first in friendship, in the bond
between comrades in arms; between warrior and charioteer. She had chosen him
once to be her lover, but not again; nor had she seemed inclined to do it. He
had never forgotten that night, but neither had it grown into obsession.

In the dream she had loved him as he loved her, and that was
the joy of it. But that might have been his own wishing given substance.
Certainly she took little notice of him now, nor seemed to care how close he
stood, and he near naked.

The mare had gone down, heaving as mares did in the swift
violence of birthing. He saw the silver bubble of the caul, and an ivory gleam
within it: the foal’s foot as it dived into the air.

Sadana frowned. He saw: one foot only where should be two,
and the mare straining. Sadana leaped over the wall and dropped at the mare’s
side, reaching within, searching; pausing. The mare strained again. Smoothly,
cleanly, Sadana drew out the body of the foal, dark and wet within the clouded
silver of the caul. She folded it back from round muzzle and from ears that
curled at the tips, thin wet neck and great square shoulder.

The foal stirred, struggling, pulling itself free of its
mother. Sadana sat back as it moved, letting it birth itself now that she had
freed it. It tried to crawl into her lap. She cradled it, turned it till it
faced its mother.

The mare had raised her head. Her nostrils fluttered. She
touched nose to small wet nose.

Sadana’s smile was sudden, luminous, and completely
unselfconscious. It warmed Kemni like sunlight as he settled beside her,
watching the mare greet her foal.

“Colt?” he asked.

“Filly.” Sadana sounded greatly pleased. “A mare among the Mare’s
people. She will be very beautiful.”

Kemni was learning to see the seeds of beauty amid all the
legs and angles of a foal; but he was still far from accomplished in the art.
Sadana, who had learned it as a child, spoke with confidence and no little
pride. It was a great thing to bring one of these creatures into the world, so
rare as they were, and so dear to the goddess.

They watched together in silence as the white mare’s child
taught herself to stand, to seek the brimming udder, to nurse. There was no
need to speak, to cover discomfort with a veil of words. All that they needed
to say, the mare and her foal were saying between them.

Kemni could leave it so, as it had been since Sadana
appointed herself his keeper. Or, when the foal had drunk its fill and sighed
and dropped down to sleep, and the mare had turned her attention to the fodder
that she had disdained the night before, he could say, “Come with me. When I go
to the Bull of Re, as I should do soon—come and help me.”

She raised a brow. “Is there no one there to do it?”

“No one of the Mare’s people.”

“Well then,” she said, “one or two of my women would be
delighted, I’m sure, to ride with you into the Upper Kingdom.”

He heard her in a kind of despair. But he would not
surrender yet. “I
was asking you.”

Both brows went up. If she was laughing at him, he would
look for a sword to fall on. “What can I do that one of my women cannot?”

“Be Sadana,” he answered.

“Ah,” she said. And nothing else for long enough that he
despaired. She did not want to come. She wanted to stay here, where her
brothers were, and the Mare’s servant, and the Mare herself. Of course. How
not?

Then she said, “It’s a friend you’re wanting.”

“I’m sure I shall find one,” he said stiffly, “once I come
there.”

“No,” she said. “No. I didn’t mean it so. I meant—”

She broke off', and hissed as if in frustration. “Are you
asking me for something else?”

He felt the heat rise to his cheeks. “I wouldn’t presume,”
he said.

“Wouldn’t you?” She was watching the mare again, and the
foal. “What if I said yes? Yes to all of it?”

“All of it?” he echoed her.

“Everything you ask. What you let yourself think you want of
me, and what your heart wants.”

His heart, at the word, thudded once, hard, as if it would
leap out of his breast. “And yours?” he asked. “Does yours want this?”

“From the beginning,” she said.

He was afraid. That was the cold in his skin, the shiver in
his heart. He had never been afraid with Iphikleia.

This then was a new thing. He did not like it. Not that it
cared for like or dislike. It simply was. To love again so soon, after so much
grief—even with the strength of his dream behind him, he could hardly endure
it.

The gods had little patience with human maunderings. No more
did Sadana. She advanced on him. He stood his ground, as indeed he could not
help but do: the wall was at his back.

She trapped him there, with no escape. “Yes,” she said.
“Yes, I will go.”

He had asked no less, and should be glad. And yet he said,
“I can’t give you the whole of myself. I never could.”

“I know that.” Her finger brushed his cheek. “I don’t care.”

“You are worthy of more.”

“You don’t know that,” she said. “I’ll take what you have,
and take joy in it. It will be enough.”

“What if it’s not?”

“It will be.”

He shook his head. He did not know why he was being so
stubborn, but neither could he stop himself. “I’m sorry I asked. If you want to
send one of the others, I’ll be content. You belong here. Maybe someday—”

“Stop that,” she said. “You asked. I’ve answered. I’ll go
with you to the Bull of Re.”

“Will you go as my wife?”

That took her off guard. But not for long enough. “Yes,” she
said. “Yes, I will do that.” Then she laughed. “Great goddess! Your kin will be
appalled. First my brother and your cousin. Now—”

“I’m not taking you because she won’t have me. Don’t believe
that.”

“Of course I don’t,” she said, as if amazed that he could
think such a thing. “She’s never had eyes for anybody but Khayan. Some women
are like that. Some dogs, too. And a mare or two. They only ever care for one
man.”

“I had thought,” he said with an edge of bitterness, “that I
was a man for one woman.”

“One woman at a time,” she said. “I’ll be content. Trust in
that, beautiful man. I will be happy.”

She meant it. Her eyes were shining. He had never seen her
so, with all the taut fierceness gone. She was very beautiful, beautiful enough
to break the heart.

He touched her as she had touched him, the brush of a finger
lightly down her cheek. Her eyes closed. She shivered.

He would have drawn back, but she caught his hand and held
it. “Sometimes,” he said, “I’ll grieve. Can you live with me then?”

“We all grieve,” she said. “I’ll bring you healing.”

“I don’t want to forget,” he said with a touch of sharpness.
“Don’t make me do that.”

“Never,” she said. “But the pain—that, I can take away. If
you will.”

“I want the pain, too. For remembrance.”

“Pain you may have. But not to wallow in.”

He glared at her. And yet his hand was still pressed to her
cheek, and hers over it, warm and strong as many a man’s.

“No wallowing,” she said. “Except in love. That’s the law
I’ll make you live by.”

“And if I won’t?”

“You will.”

There was a silence. Kemni began to wonder precisely who had
chosen whom.

She let go his hand. It slipped down of its own accord, to
rest on her shoulder. She made no move to shake it off. “You really will?” he
asked. “You really would go with me as my wife?”

“With great joy.”

And, he thought, no misunderstanding. She knew him, all of
him, heart and grieving souls. Even what was missing, or what he no longer had
to give. And she could still be glad, so glad that he could hardly bear it.

There was only one thing that he could do, and that was to
be as glad as she. It was less difficult than he had feared. When he opened his
arms, she came to them—rare gift in one so proud. She held him as he held her,
a little shy at first, perhaps a little afraid. She had had pain, too, and
fear, and long sorrow.

None of that would go away, not wholly. But even the deepest
of wounds, if it does not kill, in time will heal. She, warrior that she was,
would not care if there were scars.

No more did he. He was happy, after all; deeply and
wondrously happy. Just as he had been in his dream—but with the prick of guilt,
the welling of memory.

She felt his drawing back, and caught him, holding him fast.
“Memory,” she said, “but no guilt. Never guilt.”

“I can’t promise that.”

“Try.”

He shook his head. Her hand stopped it, tilted it. Her lips
met his.

There, however brief, was forgetfulness. There was healing,
whether he would or no.

He would accept it, and the one who brought it. He would
take it and be glad.

He laughed suddenly. Sadana pulled back, breaking off the
kiss. She was puzzled, and perhaps a little angry.

“No,” he said to that. “No, I’m not laughing at you. I’m
laughing at myself. That I’ve been such a fool; and that it’s taken me so long
to see what was in front of my face.”

“You weren’t ready to see,” she said.

He opened his mouth to say more, perhaps a great deal more,
but she stopped it with her hand, then with her lips. When he could breathe
again, there were no words left. Nor was there need of any.

Except one. “Beloved,” he said.

“Beloved,” she agreed. She bore him back and down. She was
conquering him as her father’s people had conquered Egypt—but here was neither
victor nor vanquished, neither captive nor free. Only the two of them, and the
love that was between them, that had grown out of enmity and flowered in war.
And now, thought Kemni with what little wits he had left: now, in peace, it
would yield its harvest.

Until very recently, the people called the Hyksos were one
of the great mysteries of Egyptology. Who they were, where they came from, even
what they were called, was a matter of debate and of sometimes extravagant
guesswork. Even the name that was given them, the “Shepherd Kings,” is a
mistranslation. The word
Hyksos
, in
Egyptian, means “foreign kings.” These unknown and perhaps Semitic people were
thought to have introduced the horse to Egypt, to have conquered and ruled it
for some hundred years, then to have vanished, with all memory of them expunged
from the record.

In recent years however, excavations in the region of the
Nile Delta have yielded a remarkable store of information about these
mysterious people. They are now believed to have been invaders from Canaan,
perhaps from Byblos. Their capital, Avaris, has been located at the site called
Tell el-Dab’a, where excavations still continue, and have uncovered some great
surprises—among them, a rich trove of frescoes in a distinctly Minoan style.
Manfred Bietak, the archeologist in charge of the excavations, has postulated a
Cretan alliance in the reconquest of the Lower Kingdom, secured very likely by
means of a royal marriage. He and others have also discovered that the older
perception of the Hyksos as horsemen is not precisely correct. Their chariots
for the most part were drawn by donkeys, and their caravans were donkey
caravans. Horses were much rarer, and were in evidence in Egypt before the
Hyksos invasion.

What the Hyksos did bring however was the chariot, that
great weapon of Bronze Age war. Egypt appropriated it, hitched horses to it,
and made itself a great power in that part of the world.

These new discoveries and perceptions of the Hyksos,
particularly as found in Donald Redford’s
Egypt,
Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times
(Princeton, 1992), and most recently and
comprehensively in
The Hyksos: New
Historical and Archaeological Perspectives
, ed. Eliezer D. Oren
(Philadelphia, 1997), have shaped and to a great extent determined the plot of
my novel. For the sake of the story I have taken great liberties with the
culture and geography of Crete, as well as its political and social structure.
I have been less freehand, as it were, with Egypt, but scholars will almost
certainly take issue with some of my interpretations of the historical and
archeological evidence. There was, as far as anyone knows, no son of the
Pharaoh Ahmose by the name of Gebu, nor is there known to have been any plot
against him. Of his Cretan queen, if she existed, nothing at all is known; but
Queen Ahmose Nefertari most certainly lived, and was a woman of great power and
influence. She did indeed claim to be the daughter of the god Amon, and was
given the office and priestly title of Great Wife of Amon.

Also historical is the mariner Ahmose si-Ebana, who was so
kind to future generations as to compose an eyewitness account of the fall of
the Hyksos—which he witnessed from on board the fleet; he was never a
charioteer; instead he states that before he was a sailor he was a footsoldier
in the king’s service. King Apophis likewise is attested in the historical
record, although Khayan (named for one of Apophis’ predecessors, King Re
Khayan) and his family are fictional, as are Iry and all her kin, the Mare, and
the Mare’s people—though there is some evidence that there was, in fact, a
tribe or tribes of Amazons somewhere in central and western Asia. That
evidence, however, comes a thousand and more years too late for this novel. And
finally, the great storm that in the novel contributes to the fall of Avaris
actually did occur in the reign of Ahmose, and was even more destructive than I
have depicted it; but it had nothing to do, as far as we know, with the war
against the foreign kings.

The Shepherd Kings