The Shepherd Kings (74 page)

“Maybe,” said Iannek, “but if they look where the army is,
they won’t find me, will they? They’re busy with the war, lady. They won’t take
the trouble to hunt me down, if I’m known to be on a simple errand for my
mother.”

Iry could argue with that, and began to, at length; but
Sadana broke in on them both. “Give it up, lady. If we send him away, he’ll
simply follow. Best we keep him with us. We might even be able to keep him out
of trouble.”

Iannek glowered at her. But when he turned back to Iry, he
was his insouciant self again. “Well? Where are we going? To the army?”

“To the army, yes,” Iry said. “The Egyptian army.”

Neither of them flinched or seemed surprised.

“Will you still follow me?” she asked them. “And be loyal to
me?”

They nodded.

“You understand,” she said, “that if you do this, you’re
traitors to the king in Avaris. If he captures you, you’ll die.”

“I know that,” Iannek said. His voice was steady. “My
brother ordered me, lady.
Protect her
,
he said.
Stay with her.
I have to do
that.”

“But you,” said Iry, “swore oath to the king.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t. I swore oath to my brother, as
my lord and commander. I swore to obey him in everything, to do whatever he
bade me do. That’s how we do it, you know that. Then the higher lord swears to
the king. Khayan has to serve the king. I serve Khayan. And because Khayan
ordered me, I serve you.”

Iannek’s logic always made Iry’s head ache. “It
doesn’t—trouble you—?”

He winced a little. Did his head ache, too, then? “Honor is
simple. It isn’t always easy.”

Iry sighed and shook her head. “Then it seems I’m bound to
you. I hope you don’t live to regret it.”

The armies of the Upper Kingdom descended on Sile utterly
by surprise. The long march had gone through empty places, but through towns
and villages too, and never a one had betrayed them to the conquerors. Indeed
they had shared their harvest, and sent the Great House on his way with prayers
and blessings and the worship proper to one who was both king and god.

The gods were with them. Kemni needed no greater proof of
it.

But the war was far from won. They had still to come to Sile
and engage the enemy. And Crete had to be there, waiting at sea, till the
proper time. If there was a storm, if the waves of the sea ran against them and
they could not come to shore . . .

The enemy, after all, had gods of their own. They had
claimed Set the destroyer, the enemy of Horus and Osiris, and made him their
lord and patron.

His temple loomed on the horizon of Sile as it did over
every city that these Retenu built. Great ugly blocky thing that it was, within
walls built high and broad, it had neither beauty nor power. It was merely
massive.

They descended upon it out of the empty lands, eaten alive
by the biting things that dwelt in the marshes, seared by sun and wind, and
worn down with long marching. They found the great gate open, caravans
streaming in and out, the markets humming with commerce, the walls but lightly
guarded. The governor of the city, the king’s spies said, had gone to take the
waters in an oasis in Asia, taking with him half a dozen of his favorite women,
and his newest and most delightful wife.

Such arrogance was entirely to be expected, and yet it
amazed Kemni. For a people who built walls as strong as these, who lived for
the arts of war, they were remarkably disinclined to believe in war when it
came upon them.

“Not from us,” Ahmose said. He had bidden Kemni drive his
chariot from the middle ranks, where all the army could rejoice that it
protected him, to the head of the march. He was in his golden armor, crowned
with the blue crown of war, and all his weapons were gleaming with gold. Still
they were weapons and not ornaments, keen-edged and well balanced, and he knew
how to wield them.

As they sped past the van to the open field, Ahmose said
calmly, “They think of us as servile, even after all my brother’s victories. We
are a nation of slaves, a conquered people. And how could we attack here? All
our strength is in the south. This is the northern gate of their conquest.”

Kemni nodded. And yet, he thought, they had grown careless.
Had there been no raiders out of the desert, no reivers from Canaan?

It seemed not. Their coming cast the city into disarray.
Men—and women and children, too—swarmed on the walls. The gates swung
ponderously shut. Travelers and caravans caught without ran about in panic. The
caravans at least remembered good sense, gathered together and posted guards
and cast about for an avenue of retreat. There was none: Ahmose’s army came on
in a wide arc. Those who broke and ran either met the points of spears, or
cowered on the shore of the lake that opened on the sea.

And from the sea came a vast fleet of wine-dark sails, ships
with long bright eyes, and crews of warriors who laughed as they rode the waves
on wind and oar. The great ship that led them, the flagship, bore on its sail a
golden bull and a great double axe; and its prow was horned like a bull. The
admiral on the deck raised his weapon as he came on: a double axe,
bright-gilded and flaming in the sun.

Ahmose’s army raised a roar of delight, which met its echo
from the ships. They closed the vise on land and sea, surrounded the city of
Sile, and mounted siege outside those towering walls.

Not too long a siege. That was the king’s order. They must
break the gates down quickly and take the city, and secure the road to the
north, close it off against reinforcements from Asia.

Ahmose on the march had begun to show his age. He was not a
young man, and though he was strong of will, his body was beginning to yield to
the years. But in front of Sile, in the camp that they had made behind the line
of the siege-engines, he won back his youth.

The Cretan admiral had come down from his ship to speak with
the king. He was a great prince, a lord of the sea-warriors, high and proud—and
yet, for all of that, he was still the captain whom Kemni had known on the
voyage to Crete. Naukrates in his proper rank and station dressed more richly—much—but
put on no greater airs, nor scorned to acknowledge a mere commander of a
hundred, a king’s charioteer.

In fact he was most particular in his greetings to address
Kemni with warmth and welcome, as a friend and kinsman. Kemni did not need to
feign gladness in his response. “My lord! You came in excellent good time.”

“Of course I did,” said Naukrates, draining the cup of wine
that he had been given with his welcome, and holding it out to be filled again.
They were feasting in the camp, Egyptians and Cretans sharing what they had;
for the king’s following, that meant dining on fish of the sea and on the flesh
of a fat ox that the supply-parties had taken as tribute from one of the caravans.

Naukrates drank from his refilled cup but did not drain it.
“Now tell me,” he said. “How fares my niece? Is she well?”

Kemni’s throat closed. The king still did not know who
traveled hidden among the baggage and camped at night amid Kemni’s men, hidden
and protected. He could hardly tell Naukrates that Iphikleia was not only in
the camp, she was shut in a tent that her uncle could, if he but lifted his
eyes, catch sight of amid a thousand others.

Nor was Kemni inclined to tell Naukrates that she had been
wounded, or how or why. Gebu was too close, laughing uproariously in a crowd of
princes. Kemni settled for a few empty words: “She’s well, as far as I know.”

“Indeed,” said Naukrates. “She’s not here?”

Kemni bit his lip.

Naukrates’ eyes narrowed. “Ah,” he said. “The king forbade?”

“The king bade his queens command his own fleet in the
south. They will have begun to move northward when we move south.”

That seemed to satisfy Naukrates. “That’s wise. Yes, wise
indeed. And you—you look splendid. Is it true what I hear? You’re charioteer
for the king?”

Kemni nodded, with a faint sigh of relief that he had
escaped the difficult ground of Iphikleia’s whereabouts. “The king is most
pleased with his chariots.” “

“Good!” said Naukrates. “Here, aren’t you thirsty? Drink up!
There’s war ahead of us.”

“And war all about us,” Kemni said as he lifted his cup.

“May the gods favor our victory,” said Naukrates.

~~~

Maybe the women had been listening, or maybe they had
simply decided that it was time. As the servants brought in the great savory
hulk of the ox, pungent with onions and herbs, there was a flurry beyond the
tent: voices murmuring, muffled cheers.

Ariana had come as the Ariana of Crete, the living goddess,
priestess and queen. Her skirts were the height of fashion in Knossos, a full
dozen tiers of finely woven fabric embroidered with gold and silver. Her vest
was studded with jewels, gold and jewels about her throat and her waist and her
ankles, golden bells chiming in her ears, and golden serpents coiling about her
arms. Her hair was piled high and held in a crown of gold.

Every eye fixed on her. Every man in that place gaped like a
rustic at the blaze of her beauty.

Kemni tore his eyes from it to watch Ahmose. The king seemed
not at all surprised. Nor, gods be thanked, was he angry. He rose as she
approached, as splendid in his trappings of war as was she in her trappings of
the court.

He held out his hands. “My lady,” he said in the enormous
silence. “Welcome.”

So, Kemni thought. He had known. Had he been angry when he
discovered his queen’s disobedience? He showed no sign of it.

She came to him, smiling her wonderful smile, with such
warmth that Kemni heard more than a few long sighs. Ahmose took her hands and
set her in his own chair, standing beside her, smiling at his lords and
generals, his princes, his commanders, and his servants. “My lords,” he said,
“I give you my lady and my queen.”

There was a moment of further silence—astonishment, surely,
though there must have been rumors. Then, all at once, a shout went up, a great
roar of greeting and gladness.

So, thought Kemni. She had aimed for this moment. Of course
she had. There was none better—and none more perfectly calculated to deflect
the king’s wrath that she had disobeyed his order. If indeed he was angry. For
all Kemni knew, he had expected it.

Iphikleia, lost in her lady’s shadow, sat calmly beside
Kemni and reached for his cup of wine. Her uncle, on her other side, embraced
her so tightly that she gasped; but she did not rebuke him except for spilling
the wine.

He laughed and filled the cup again. “Well met,
sister-daughter. Well met! Are you well?”

“Very well,” she said, and truthfully too. She had thrived
on the march, grown strong, even gained flesh. If Kemni had had anything to do
with that, then he was glad. Gladder perhaps than she would ever know.

Servants brought her a cup of her own, but she was content
to share Kemni’s plate, and no shame if everyone knew what it meant that they
sat so close. As why should there be? In Crete it was perfectly acceptable.

~~~

“That was a bold thing you did,” Kemni said.

She nestled in his arms, stroking him lazily. He was all
limp, even the part of him that wanted most to rise and worship her. “Bold? I?
What did I do?”

“You and Ariana,” he said. “Coming to the king as you did.”

“How else should we have done it?”

“You should have stayed where you were told to stay.”

“Ah,” she said, a sound of disgust. They had fought that battle
days ago, and she knew it as well as he.

“Ah,” he echoed her, drawing it out till she slapped him to
make him stop. He grinned down at her face in the hollow of his shoulder. “Very
well. I admit it. I’m glad you came. I’m glad to have you here. I’m more than
glad to have had you—”

This time she silenced him by holding his rod hostage. But
she could not stop his laughter. “Gods,” he said. “Gods, I love you.”

“Beautiful man,” she said. “Show me how you love me.”

“I’ve shown you and shown you and—”

“Show me more.”

“Cruel woman,” he said. There was little left in him but
kisses, but of those he had a thousand.

~~~

In a siege there was little enough use for chariots. But
the king was not about to let them stand idle. He sent them out as scouts in
small companies, to find provisions which larger companies on foot could bring
back, and to hunt down escapes from the city, and to range wide in the army’s
defense.

Their speed, and the distances their teams could cover,
delighted Ahmose to no end. “Old kings dreamed of this,” he would say when
Kemni brought back word of the day’s explorations. He loved his chariots; he
was like a child with a toy, wielding it in every way he could think of,
playing to his heart’s content.

The siege went well, for a siege. The city was cut off. The
road into Asia was shut, with an army across it. But the people within the
walls were holding fast. No doubt they preferred starvation or death to the
life of captives.

Kemni could understand that. The Lower Kingdom had lived so
for a hundred years.

He rode out with the rest, though as commander he was not
required to do it. It was relief from the boredom of the siege, long days of
sitting in camp while the engines hammered the walls and the archers shot off
fire-arrows from both the ships and the land. Those who would fight when the
gates fell had nothing to do but wait, unless they were fortunate to be sent
out as Kemni’s men were.

He ranged wide to the south, till he knew all the villages
within a day’s ride of Sile. Word had gone to Avaris, he knew; they could not
keep every messenger from escaping. But likewise the Retenu could not prevent
the army from learning what passed in the south. The king in Avaris had sent
armies to the defense of Sile. And yet, said those of his men whom he had sent
out, they were traveling slowly. They seemed in no haste to reach the city.