The Shepherd Kings (64 page)

For a moment Kemni thought that Seti would resist the change
of subject, but he had, after all, begun it himself. With a faint sigh he said,
“Three days, I heard. The lords from the outlying holdings are coming in. There’s
been a little grumbling—a few aren’t delighted to be called to their duty. But
nobody’s dragging his feet too badly.”

“Three days.” Kemni shook his head. “That’s five or more
before we can take the road. And the king comes when?”

“Three, four days. Five at most.”

“Close,” Kemni said. “Damnably close. But that’s not to be
helped. We’ll make the best of it.”

Seti bowed his head to that.

“Go on,” Kemni said. “See that the men are ready. I’ll be
out as soon as I’m done with this last bit.”

~~~

The men were as they always were, waiting in their ranks:
those who drove and fought alone, those who drove but did not fight, and those
who fought from behind the charioteers. As always for simple exercises, they
had left off the horses’ plumes and ornaments and put on plain kilts in place
of their bronze armor, but their harness was clean, their weapons in good
order, and the horses brushed till they shone. They were a handsome company,
and proud.

Kemni expected that they should look to him with obedience.
But with awe? He did not see it. They were strong men. He knew each one by
name, and knew a little of each—his family, his friendships, what pleasures he
liked to take. A commander knew these things. It made him stronger, and bound
his men to him more firmly.

He rode through the ranks, meeting eyes here, matching a
smile there. If they had made a myth of him, they were not letting him see it.
No one shrank from meeting his stare, or fled at his smile.

They were all in order, ready and honed and eager. They
would stand down after this, rest, prepare to march; but today, for all their
spirits’ sakes, he put them through their paces, from slow march to rattling,
thundering gallop, in companies and all together, hub to hub across nigh the
width of the valley. Then they broke and scattered and indulged at will in mock
battles with headless spears and blunted swords, and much whooping and yelling
and brandishing of weapons.

Kemni paused on a hilltop, reining in his restive stallions,
and watched them with pride and singing pleasure. Seti’s words were nigh
forgotten.

One of the commanders of ten, with a handful of his men,
came roaring up below and paused to breathe. They all grinned at Kemni. He
grinned back. “Well, Rahotep,” he said to the captain, “are we ready for war?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be, my lord,” the captain said. He
sheathed his sword, slapped it into the scabbard and wiped sweat from his brow.
“So then, my lord. What’s ahead for us, then? Will we win?”

“That’s with the gods,” Kemni said.

“Surely, my lord,” said Rahotep. “But surely you can see. Is
it victory? Will we all come out alive?”

“I would hope so,” said Kemni. He was beginning to grow
uneasy. It was the way Rahotep was looking at him, the odd and unwonted
intensity.

“But you know,” Rahotep said. Then he shrugged. “Well;
that’s not for simple mortals to ask, is it?”

“I’m as simple a mortal as you,” Kemni said sharply.

“Why, surely, my lord,” Rahotep said, but not as if he
believed it. “Not that it’s my place to ask, but . . . will I
live? Will I come home unharmed?”

“If the gods are kind,” Kemni said, which was not an answer.

But Rahotep took it as one. He smiled broadly and bowed and
whipped up his horses, and went galloping back into the nearest tangle of
gleefully brawling men. His own men paused, regarding Kemni with—gods, yes,
that was awe—before they sent their horses in pursuit.

Kemni snarled to himself. Out of a few vague words they
would build a whole prophecy.

Was that not what an oracle was? A cryptic utterance, a word
that could be taken in any of a dozen ways—and there, out of nothing, a
foretelling of what would be.

Even if Rahotep died, which the gods forbid—they would say
that that had been the deep meaning of Kemni’s words, the significance that
they, simple men, had failed to comprehend. Kemni knew too well how men
schooled themselves to speak of gods, or of the gods’ beloved.

He sent his horses back down onto the field in a fine flash
of temper. There were men in plenty willing, even eager to cross swords with him.
But none would give him an honest fight. They all bent, bowed, yielded after a
stroke or two. The harder he struck, the more quickly they gave way.

Only the rags of prudence kept him from beating the last man
senseless. He turned instead, shouted to the horses, gave them leave to run as
they would.

And they followed, the whole ten score of them, men and
chariots, as geese will follow their leader, or sheep the shepherd. They were
bound to him indeed, inextricably. There was nothing that he could do—not one
thing—to free himself from them. He could not even want to. He was theirs as
much as they were his.

When the king was a day’s journey from the Bull of Re, all
that could be prepared was done. The household was ready, the armies encamped,
fed and given a light ration of beer, for they must be as keen as swords before
the king’s eyes.

They all rested in quiet, with little revelry. Kemni even
found himself free to rest, and not so long after dark had fallen, either. If
he had been wise he would have stayed in his tent among the charioteers, but
wisdom had little to do with wanting. He took his stallions and harnessed them
to his chariot, and in moonlight nigh as bright as day, rode back to the Bull
of Re.

The holding was quiet, the great circles of camps asleep.
They had grown since Kemni saw them last, till the whole plain of the river was
full of them, and their fires shone as innumerable as the stars. He rode
through them in a soft rattle of wheels and a thudding of hooves, unseen as if
he had, like a god, the gift of passing invisible. But he was no god. He was
only Kemni of the Lower Kingdom, the king’s charioteer.

At the gate he found the guard awake, but it was a man he
knew, who greeted him and let him pass. The empty stables daunted him a little;
still, there was cut fodder, and a clean stall large enough for the stallions
to share. They were content to rest there, to eat their fodder and idle and
dream their stallion-dreams.

Kemni hoped for better than a dream. He trod softly through
a house asleep, to the room in which he had left Iphikleia weak and ill though
likely now to live.

She was not there. Her belongings were in their places, the
bed made ready as if to receive her, but no one lingered there, not even a
servant.

She was with Ariana, perhaps. Or in the bath. She loved a
bath in the evening, when the air had cooled a little and the water’s warmth
was pleasant.

A jar of wine was waiting for her, and a basket of cakes.
Kemni ate and drank a little, washed away the dust of the road in the basin by
the bed, and thought of going in search of her. But she would come back. He set
aside kilt and ornaments and the sword that he wore at his belt, and sat on the
bed to wait for her. In a little while, in such comfort as he was, he lay flat;
and in a little while more, he was asleep.

~~~

He dreamed of battle. There was no great terror in it, no
more than there should be among the rains of arrows and the stabbing of spears.
It was battle; fear was part of it, and a wild joy, too. It might almost have
been one of his battles when he was younger, for he was fighting among men he
knew, and Gebu among them, his old friend and battle-brother. They were all on
foot, but Kemni rode in a chariot above them, swifter by far than they, and
stronger.

Gebu was not a traitor here. There was a strange and
piercing gladness in that. He fought as they all did, bravely. All of them—the
living, and yes, the dead. He saw his uncle, that gentle man who was so fierce
in battle; his cousins arm in arm and singing as they fought; and yet, nearby
them, Rahotep of the charioteers, and a handful of his men, and one or two of
the other commanders of ten. And there beyond them, rising above them on the
back of a night-black mare, Iphikleia with her bow, taking aim over their
heads, felling the bearded ranks of the enemy with her swift hail of arrows.

She was riding toward him, slowly for the press of men was
thick, but there was no mistaking it. Now and then, if she could pause, she
caught his eye. Once she smiled. His heart warmed in the light of it.

“Kemni,” she said.

She was beside him suddenly, then above him—looking down at
him. He was lying in her bed. She was bending over him, dressed not in armor of
scaled bronze but in the fashion of a lady of Crete, many-tiered skirt and
painted breasts and armlets like the coil of serpents. She was awake and alive
and nigh as strong as she had ever been, only a little gauntness left to recall
her wound and her long sickness.

Kemni sat up so quickly that his senses reeled. The dream
scattered and fled. The thing that he had been about to understand, the thing
that the gods wished him to know, was gone before he could grasp it.

He made no effort to pursue it. She was here, warm and
living and wonderfully supple in his arms, laughing as she devoured him with
kisses. “Beautiful man! Don’t tell me they let you go.”

“I let myself go,” he said when she would let him speak. He
clasped her so close that she gasped, then set her a little apart from him,
drinking in the sight of her, assuring himself with his hands that what his
eyes told him was true. “You’re healed! But how—”

“Imhotep is blessed of the gods,” she said.

“And may they bless him for a thousand years.” They tumbled
together into the bed, losing her garments somewhere, but not her jewels.

He rose up over her. Naked, but still with her hair in its
elaborate coils and curls, and her body gleaming in necklaces and earrings and
armlets, she made him ache with wanting her. And yet he took his time about it.
He kissed every fingerbreadth of her, lingering round the sweetness of her
breasts, and the cup of her navel, and most of all in the narrow, livid scar
that was all her remembrance of the messenger’s knife.

She seized him with sudden strength, and overset him, and
took him by storm. He gasped with the shock of it, then laughed. “There was
never a woman like you,” he said.

“I should hope not,” she said. Then there were no words left
in either of them, only the dance of the body.

~~~

Kemni had not slept so well since before he could
remember, nor waked so well content. Iphikleia was still in his arms, curled
against him with her head on his shoulder. He hated to disturb her, but it was
nearly sunrise—long after he should have been up and in his chariot and on his
way back to the camp.

She opened her eyes and smiled drowsily. “Beautiful man,”
she said. “Love me again?”

“We can’t—”

For a moment he thought she would insist—and he would
surrender. But she sighed and yawned and kissed him regretfully. “Go, go,” she
said. “Maybe tonight . . .”

“Maybe,” he said without much hope. Tonight the king would
be there. Then who knew when he would see her again? They would march to the
war, and she would remain behind, as women had done from the beginning of the
world.

He stooped to kiss her before he went, and nearly forgot all
his resolve. But she pushed him away. “Tonight,” she said.

It was not as late as he had feared. He had time to gather
and harness the horses, and to make his way back to the camp before the sun
brightened the sky. Then there was no rest for him; for today they were to show
themselves before the armies of Egypt.

The runner came at midmorning as expected, with the word he
had been waiting for. The king had come. His fleet had come in, crowding that
which waited already along the river’s edge. The armies were gathering, the
muster proceeding apace—and that was somewhat unexpected. The queens had
prepared a royal welcome, feasting and foregatherings for a day or two or
three, before the armies were to move.

“He wants us to move tomorrow,” the boy said. “The Great
Royal Wife said come now. Come in arms, with the baggage, and everything you
can gather. You’ll camp by the river tonight. At dawn, you march.”

Already the camp was astir, the tents falling, men at the
run, breaking camp and harnessing horses and rounding up those who would go as
reinforcements. Kemni found himself trapped in his tent with a pair of the
servants insisting that they must dress and arm him. “All Egypt will see you
today,” they said. “Don’t shame us.”

Of course he must not shame the servants. He let them do as
they would, but in and about their fussing and primping, he managed to order
both march and departure.

At last they let him go. And none too soon: the tent was
ready to fall. The chariots were mustered, every man in armor, gleaming like an
image cast in bronze. They raised a cheer as Kemni came out, a roar of joy and
pride, and a welcome, and a promise. They were his. They would serve him to the
death.

~~~

They came out of hiding in the strong light of morning,
not far from noon, when the heat was rising and the sun beating down on the
bronze of helmet and armor. They suffered, but with pride, because they were
the first who had ever ridden to war in chariots for the Great House of Egypt.

The road was clear before them, but the fields on either
side of it were thronged with armies. The river was crowded with boats. The
center was a flame of gold, the king’s own barge with its golden hull and
golden canopy, and its ranks of golden oars. He himself sat on its deck, lifted
high on a throne of gold and lapis and blood-red carnelian. His armor was
washed with gold. From so far he seemed no living man at all, but the image of
a god.