The Shepherd Kings (8 page)

Kemni opened his mouth to deny that, but shut it again. He
could not help but remember how she had come onto the ship in Memphis, slipping
aboard under cover of darkness, and refusing to say exactly where she had been
or what she had been doing.

“You see,” said Ariana, skipping a little as she led him on
up the steep narrow street. “Never believe her when she frowns and threatens lightnings.”

“Not even when she speaks for her gods?” Kemni asked a
little wickedly.

“She speaks for Earth Mother,” said Ariana, “but you’ll
always know when she does that. You have eyes that can see.”

Kemni stilled—a great deal within, a little without; but she
tugged him onward.

“Come, beautiful man! We’ve a fair walk ahead of us.”

They were almost to the top of what, he realized with dizzy
suddenness, was quite a steep ascent. The white houses marched away below them
to the blue gleam of the sea. The way leveled ahead, but then began to climb
again, up and up to a dizzying height.

They would not, thank all the gods, be compelled to walk so
far or so high. People were waiting, servants with bright curious eyes,
standing beside an elegant and gold-bedecked chair such as, in Egypt, kings and
great lords rode in before their people. Ariana stepped neatly into it,
arranged her tiered skirts, and smiled at Kemni. “Well? Are you coming?”

Kemni had ridden in such a chair a time or two, for honor or
for the weakness of a wound. One had carried him away from the battle for
Avaris, until he was laid in one of the king’s boats and carried half-conscious
down the river. But he had never ridden so, face to face and knee brushing knee
with a woman as beautiful as a goddess.

Her chatter relieved him of any need to be good company. It
washed over him as the servants lifted the chair onto strong shoulders and
began the climb to the Labyrinth. It was long and in places so steep he
clutched the sides of the chair and prayed, while Ariana laughed at him.

Yet at length it came to an end. The sun had begun visibly
to sink. The bearers were panting, their sweat pungent and yet rather pleasant.
And there above them was a wall, white as seafoam, white as the clouds that
scudded in the blue heaven. All along the summit of it were the images of
horns, sharp white curve like the new moon, or like the horns of the bull that
they all worshipped here. And along its face was carved or limned or painted
the labrys, the double-headed axe.

There was a gate just ahead of them, wide and high and crowned
with the horns of the Bull. Guards stood on either side of it, tall as men went
here, broad and strong, armed with the double axe.

Kemni’s middle tightened. He was a poor object to be seen in
a palace, crusted still with sand, no wig on his close-cropped head, and a kilt
that had seen the worst of wind and salt. But Ariana was his guide and his
defense.

They bowed as the chair passed, those tall guards in their
high helmets; bowed to the ground. It might be for Kemni, but he rather
thoroughly doubted it. Ariana rode past them with her head high, prattling on
as if she passed this gate and these guards every day.

And so she must. She was a power here, or he had lost all
sense of courts and kings.

Such strange power, this beautiful child who went abroad all
unguarded, and took a fancy to a stranger, and brought him with her through the
gate of the Bull, into the house of the Double Axe.

~~~

Kemni was no stranger to palaces. He had walked in that of
Memphis and that of Thebes; even in that of Avaris where the Retenu ruled. He
had walked on pavements that were old in the dawn of the world.

This palace was not old as an Egyptian would think of it. If
anything it was rather raw with newness. Nor was it as vast as that of Thebes,
as lofty or as deeply weighted with awe. And yet it had its own power, and its
own unmistakable majesty.

It was a maze within, a great gleaming ramble of buildings
all over the summit of that high hill. Ariana knew it as Kemni had known the
thickets of reeds outside his father’s house, every twist and complex turn of
it. She led him unwavering though he was all turned about, to a house among the
many, set amid a garden. There was a pool to bathe in, and servants to wait on
him, and a bed to rest in if he should be so minded. There was even a wonder,
water that flowed into basins at the turning of a lever, to wash in or to
relieve oneself: remarkable, and a great game, to watch the water flow and
stop, flow and stop.

She left him there alone and made it clear that he was not
to follow. But she had promised to come back for him. He clung to that, here
where there was nothing that he knew, and nothing that was his own. Everything
of his was still on the ship, as far as he could tell.

If this was a plot, a conspiracy to separate him from his
own people, catch him alone and so destroy him, it had succeeded admirably. He
could huddle in a corner, stiff with fear, or he could let himself be waited on
by these deft and bright-eyed servants. They were all young, youths and slender
maidens, dressed alike in a scrap of kilt, with their long hair caught up in a
scarlet fillet. They were not slaves—that much he could tell, as bold as their
eyes were, and their commentary as they cleaned and shaved and made him
presentable. They did not, perhaps, know that he understood their language, or
if they did, they did not care.

In Egypt he was reckoned good to look at, though he had
never reckoned himself a beauty. Here they cared less for perfection, and more,
as they averred, for the whole of a man’s self. For some reason beyond his
fathoming, perhaps only because Ariana found him beautiful, they were delighted
with him. They loved the warm red-brown of his skin, so different from their
olive darkness. They were a little taken aback at his hair, cropped short for
comfort under a wig, but they marveled at his long dark eyes. They marked the
shape of him, how he was not so wide in the shoulders or so narrow in the
middle as they, but wide enough and narrow enough to be pleasing. And they had
a great deal to say of his manly organ, which he had never reckoned to be
anything remarkable—but they did not crop the foreskin here for cleanliness and
for sacrifice to the gods. They pointed and stared and giggled, and one bold
creature took it in her hand and fondled it as if she had every right in the
world.

He could grow angry if he tried, or if they persisted. But
they went on to other wonders, dried him and wrapped him in a kilt after the
Cretan fashion, and put tall boots on his feet—more marvels there, as narrow as
those were. Elegant, they said. That was the word they repeated to one another.
He was elegant, as if that were a great virtue.

He did not feel elegant. He was clean and dressed and tidy,
but he felt oddly rumpled and annoyed. He was not accustomed to servants who
spoke so frankly over a lord’s head—or over his nether parts.

They invited him to rest in the wide bed, in a room full of
the song of the sea—strange, that, for the sea was rather far away, out of sight
if not of scent and sound. But he was not minded to do their bidding in that.
He went out instead into the garden.

On that side a parapet walled it. Kemni found himself atop a
high terrace, looking down a steep descent to the rocky defiles and brief levels
of inland Crete. It was a wild prospect, strange and not particularly
hospitable, and nothing at all like his own country.

He shivered. He had not been truly warm since he left the
Delta of Egypt. Here, even in the sun, the wind was chill. It sang from the
sea, and the sea’s cold heart was in it.

Soft warmth fell about him. He spun, startled, to find
Iphikleia standing behind him, and a mantle around his shoulders, wool the
color of sea and sky, lined with cream-pale fleece.

She was even more forbidding after the bright memory of
Ariana, and even less delightful a companion. But she had brought the mantle,
as no one else had thought to do. He wrapped himself in it, savoring the
warmth, and yes, the beauty of it, too. “This is a mantle for a king,” he said.
“I thank you.”

She shrugged a little and came to stand beside him, resting
her hands on the parapet. “We can’t have you taking your death of cold before
you even speak with the king,” she said.

Such concern for his welfare, he thought wryly. “And when will
I speak with the king?” he inquired.

Again, she shrugged. “When the king is ready, he’ll summon
you.”

“Ah,” said Kemni. He knew kings. “And what am I to do with
myself while I wait for him?”

“Anything you like,” said Iphikleia.

“Murder? Rapine? Murrain among the cattle?”

Did her eye glint at the sally? He never could tell, with
her. “Anything within the laws,” she said.

“Then,” he said, “will you be my guide? I’d like to wander a
bit, if I may.”

“I am not a servant,” she said. “I doubt you know what I am.”

“A priestess,” he said. “A princess. I come to speak for the
king of Egypt. I may be far beneath you in myself, but my king is rather above
you.”

“Is he?” She lifted her chin. “Very well. I see how ignorant
you are of our ways—and your accent is still abominable. You might ask for wine
and be given a chamberpot. I’ll play guide. Come.”

Gracious she was not, but he was not looking for grace. He
wanted the knowledge of one who had run wild over these hills as a child, and
who had not—whatever she might wish him to think—forgotten a fingerbreadth of
it.

In her company he was considerably less diverted, and
considerably more inclined to notice where he was and what he was looking at.
And yet he was aware, always, of her presence, like the warmth of the mantle on
his skin. She did not call him beautiful, nor much of anything else either. But
she knew where the best wine was, and the most splendid view of the island and
even, distantly, the sea; the finest avenue of noble houses and the richest
pasture of the famous cattle. She even knew where there were horses.

There were not many. Kemni counted four handfuls of them,
mostly mares and foals. The stallion was old and much scarred with ancient
battles. But they were horses, and they were sacred. “They belong to Earthshaker,”
Iphikleia said with a gesture that averted evil from the name. “He accepts the
sacrifice of the Bull, and cherishes the dance. But we call him Lord of Horses.
He was given them, you see, long ago, before ever our foremothers came to this
island, by his mother who made them.”

“I had heard,” Kemni said, “that he made them.”

“So men would have you think,” Iphikleia said. “No; Horse
Goddess made them. He had them from her as a gift. They bless this land. They
embody his promise: that while they live and thrive, his hand will never fall
on us.”

“They protect you,” Kemni said. He watched the horses in
their field, as they grazed and played and—yes, over yonder, mated. “They
threaten us. The Retenu—”

“The Retenu have turned them into a weapon,” she said. “But
a weapon serves any hand that can wield it.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve thought of that. By the gods, I’ve
thought of it. But now, in front of them, to dream that we can wield this one . . .”

“Are you afraid of them?” she asked him.

“No,” he said. And that was the truth. They were large, but
oxen could be larger. They were not as gentle as oxen, but neither were they as
fierce as crocodiles, or near as deadly.

She walked past him into the field. Some of the horses
raised their heads. One or two of the youngest came to investigate, bright-eyed
with curiosity. She greeted them as one who knew well their ways, walking at
ease among them.

Kemni had never seen horses so close, except in battle.
These were not coming at him to destroy him. They took little notice of him in
the main. They were animals, that was all, engrossed in their own concerns.

“Could I learn,” he asked with beating heart, “to understand
them?”

“You could try,” she said.

“Then I shall,” he said. He spoke with more courage than he
actually had, but he did not try to take the words back once they were out.
Iphikleia’s glance betrayed how well she read him.

Better she read this than what he dreamed of nights.

He sighed faintly. She was in among the horses, smoothing
manes, scratching necks, fending off inquisitive noses. He gathered his courage
and plunged in behind her.

It was difficult. He could not help but remember how he had
known horses, drawing chariots in battle, trampling the bodies of his own
people. His uncle, his uncle’s sons, had died beneath those hooves and those cruel
wheels, crushed and torn till the embalmers were sore taxed to restore them to
a semblance of their living selves. When he found them past the Field of
Flowers, if he should be so blessed, he hoped that they would have been healed;
or their life everlasting would be a poor and tormented thing.

These were not horses of war. Cretans did their fighting on
shipboard. Their horses were sacred beasts, cherished, pampered, and driven
only in festivals. They were peaceable creatures. They smelled of grass and
sea-salt, clean air and something rather pleasant that was all their own.

His hands lingered on smooth necks and rounded rumps. Their
manes were thick and tangled. He worked the knots out of one, a dun mare with a
dark colt at heel. The colt nibbled at his mantle, snorting a little at the
scent of wool and fleece.

“You need less to understand these horses,” Iphikleia said,
“than to master them. Understanding is easy enough. Mastery may be beyond you.”

“I can try,” he said, “if someone will teach me. Since it
seems I’ll be cooling my heels for a while on this most splendid of islands.”

Her brows arched. “Ah. After all, you have a courtier’s
speech. Who would have thought it?”

“Not I,” he said. “Find me a teacher and I’ll let you be.”