Three Princes (2 page)

Natyra reared up, defiantly nude, to stand between Oken and the general. She placed her hands on her hips and lifted her chin with regal disdain. “How dare you come in here uninvited!”

The general spat out a torrent of words, accusing Oken of being a spy for the Pharaoh. The sight of those perfect breasts, however, made the intensity of his rage falter. He hesitated before taking another step toward her. He repeated the accusation at a lower volume.

Natyra, speaking in the same language, reminded the general that he was also a spy. In Trade Speak she added haughtily, “Irrelevant! He is invited to be here—you are not!”

Oken had faked ignorance of the native tongue. He had just received his reward for the ruse. General Blestyak was not on the embassy’s suspect list. He was considered to be something of an idiot, fit only for horses and royal stables. Natyra’s single sentence, however, made pieces fall neatly into place. The royal stables were part of the Palace compound, with access to the entire grounds. The royal family worshipped their horses. The stables were temples to Epona, sacred ground. Blestyak was in a perfect position to observe anything happening there. His obscurity even made sense. Who would notice him?

Oken made himself lie still, resting back on one elbow, a hand draped across his hip. He let his gaze drift as if the glorious view of Natyra from behind were more important than a raging giant.

Blestyak’s step faltered again as he looked back and forth between the lovers. “I will have this pig arrested!”

“I will have you thrown out!” Natyra stamped once with her foot.

“That’s one big bear.” Oken spoke lightly, pretending to be entertained by the interruption. “What’s he shouting about? Does he plan to join us?”

She turned her head to glare at Oken. “Do not be impertinent.” “Good.” Oken made himself relax back against the pillows. “I don’t much like animals, not in bed.” He waved the general out as he would dismiss a servant. “Make him go away, milya Natyra.” Blestyak recovered his rage, flinging himself at Oken with a roar. He landed on the bed with such a crash that the solid wooden frame creaked ominously. Oken, however, had neatly rolled away. He leaped to his feet as the general raised himself up, to scramble after him.

Oken was glad that he had not yet taken off his jacket. He sprang around the bed to where Natyra was just regaining her feet. He picked up the towel and draped it around her shoulders like a dinner cloak.

Blestyak also regained his feet and was coming around the bed, with an incoherent string of curses. Giant hands stretched out to grab Oken.

Oken kissed Natyra lightly on the tip of her nose, feeling, as he had from the first, a strange jolt when so close to her green eyes. “I’ll be back,” he said, knowing it was a lie. His work here was done. He turned aside as the general reached them, thus Natyra intercepted Blestyak’s assault. Both of them fell heavily onto the bed, with the general’s arms tangled around Natyra’s long limbs. Oken sprang away, running toward the secret exit behind the tapestry. The general moved with surprising swiftness, untangling himself and snatching up giant handfuls of the carpet with a fierce jerk. Oken went down. He rolled as he fell, and he came up just as Blestyak’s fist came down on the side of his face.

The buzzing in Oken’s head nearly drowned out Natyra’s scream. He tasted blood.

Even Oken’s eidetic memory recalled only a blur of pain and pounding fists in the next few seconds. His best training in martial arts could only keep him moving fast enough that the general could not kill him, not all at once. Natyra’s angry screams penetrated like darts in the fog.

There was an abrupt explosion of shattering crystal. Blestyak fell heavily across Oken, pinning him to the carpet.

Oken had a glimpse of Natyra’s nude form standing over them, holding the broken remains of the vase she had just smashed over the giant general’s giant head. White peony petals clung to the droplets of water on her arms and legs like stray feathers. She held that crystal weapon raised, prepared to hit Blestyak again if he stirred.

“Is he dead?” she whispered.

Oken could see the flutter of veins pulsing in the general’s forehead as blood spilled down across the huge face. Petals were caught in the hot, red blood. “No,” he managed to gasp. “Get him off me.” Then the lights vanished, and the world fell silent and still.

LIGHT AND
sound returned with stunning cold.

Oken found himself lying on a mound of snow beneath a clear black sky of northern stars. His first thought was to regret that he had left his gloves on Natyra’s bed. The next was the hope that the blood staining the snow was not his own, at least, not all of it.

He tried to sit up, thought better of it, and settled for lifting his head enough to see beyond the bloodied snow. He was lying on the frozen drift at the base of a stone wall. He recognized the wall. He had been carried to the side entrance of his hotel. The Egyptian Embassy was across the street. He checked his jacket pocket with trembling fingers. The case was still there. He shook it, hearing the slight rattle that said the scroll was inside.

His body ached with the fierce cold and bruising and the hard, sharp pain of fractured ribs. He rolled off the snowdrift and into the road. Pain gave him the strength to pull himself up to his feet and he staggered over the pavement to the embassy building. His legs gave way as he reached the huge windows. The building’s automatic security system would alert the guards inside. He lay huddled around the pain, waiting for them to find him. It was time to leave Novgorod. He had accomplished his mission and his best suit was ruined.

LORD OKEN
arrived in Memphis under an Egyptian sky transformed into a chill midnight by the garment of Noot, brilliant with stars. The Memphis cityscape glittered from horizon to horizon, spread out for leagues below the coach station perched on the outer rim of the elevated highway. Distant lamps glowed in windows and on street corners, creating pools of light in the darkness. Temple flags fluttered high above the maze of rooftops, orchard trees, and courtyard walls. The Nile was just visible, a broad, shimmering ribbon glimpsed between buildings and trees. Blue navigation lights gleamed along the shore.

Oken stepped down from the coach, letting the other passengers surge past him toward the warm glow of the station interior. He had felt a profound impatience during this last stretch of the journey. The night pouring past the coach windows made him keenly aware of his eagerness to return. The sharp, sweet air of Egypt filled his lungs with a delighted intoxication. He had been born in the foggy world of Mercia, but Memphis was his home. He was glad to be back.

The journey had been swift, just two weeks by coach to cover the leagues between Novgorod and Memphis, giving him occasion once again to appreciate the complex system of Caesar’s elevated highways that covered Europe. Rusland was exciting, but the deep cold of winter chilled more than his bones. He rested his hand briefly on his side, wincing. His bones barely had time to knit on the journey. He could not stretch without feeling the dull ache under the wrapping of bandages.

The charm of the night hour made him decide to walk. Drivers were plentiful, waiting in the station. Oken wanted to feel and to taste his return to Memphis more directly. He had admired the pristine snowbanks laid over Novgorod like a velvet quilt. He had enjoyed the layover in Athens, filthy, noisy streets ripe with smells and delicious human intrigue. Memphis, however, was a temple, solemn, stone-cut, clean, and eternal. Melodious, deep-throated bells pealing forth the hours and the days wove a pattern of timelessness. The night sky above Egypt was the color of eternity.

Oken went into the station and told the agent to send his luggage ahead to the west wing of the professors’ hall at Thoth’s Manor. The acolytes in the reception foyer would take it up to his apartment. His luggage would arrive before he did, which would give Professor-Prince Mikel Mabruke advance warning of his homecoming. Oken did not want to surprise his friend. Mik might have company. Oken certainly hoped Mik had company. Mik was used to company. His recent retirement have given him, at last, time for company.

Oken set off for the staircase that spiraled down to ground level on the city side. His destination was clearly visible. The twin towers of the Galileo Observatory and the pylons of Thoth’s Manor rose above Memphis, dominating every view. The highway skirting the city was a pale white presence in the night fading behind him as he descended the many steps.

Once at street level, he was surrounded by restaurants and nightclubs catering to travelers coming in from the coach station above. Spinglass lights flashed and beckoned with a rainbow of colors, inviting him in for the usual variety of services and entertainment. The streets were not busy. A few people strolled here and there, weary travelers just arriving and young folk on the prowl for anything offered by the night. Laughter and music spilled from opened doors.

Oken walked on, guided by memory and by the flags of Thoth’s Manor riding high over the city.

He crossed through a residential neighborhood, street after street of vertical, multistory houses pressed up against each other. The tops of palm, sycamore, and cypress could be seen from the courtyards within, and flowerpots circled the base of every corner streetlamp.

Hand-painted on these house fronts were wildly innocent designs showing the personality of the owners, family identity tattooed on the skin of their homes. Every kind of art could be found here: ancient hieroglyphics painted alongside Celtic maze designs, Danish realism, and Spanish surrealism. In these neighborhoods the house art was as well known as the family’s name. These were people proud to be in Memphis, even as part of backstreet life. Banners fluttered above the doorways, leftovers from this or that festival. Music and laughter floated gently through opened windows and from the inner courtyards. Occasionally a hire-carriage or a private vehicle went silently past Oken on gusts of air, stirring the dried sycamore leaves piled up against the curb.

The perfumes of gardens carried on the night breeze told him he was approaching the Uptown District, the ancient estates of Memphis overwhelmed by the sprawl of Thoth’s Manor on one side and the shifting Nile on the other. Caesar and Cleopatra had counted the original families of these estates as friends. The Divine Couple had walked in those courtyards. They had been carried along these very streets in litters made of the finest Lebanese cedar, resting on the shoulders of Roman guards. Altars, artwork, and architecture had remained unchanged here since those days, living tribute to the parents of civilization and of enlightened life.

There were bigger, flashier estates north and south of Uptown and across the river, as far as the sandstone hills around Lake Fame. Here, however, along these narrow streets, Old Memphis enfolded him within the timeless atmosphere of her antique and gracious architecture.

Oken had arrived in Memphis just fifteen years earlier, shortly before his twelfth birthday, a new and very nervous student at Caesar’s Royal Academy of Political Reality. His parents were both descendants of Caesar’s children with Queen Cleopatra, which made Oken royalty born of royalty, family lines nineteen centuries unbroken. By Caesar’s royal decree, royalty born of royalty were to be educated only by Caesar. Oken’s entire family had been educated in the Caesarian System, although one or the other of his three older brothers were more likely to inherit the throne of the Spate of Mercia in the Britannic Isles than he was. Oken knew he would always call Memphis home, no matter who he was or where he had been born.

More than a lifetime of changes had swept through him and around him during his years at school. Memphis herself was utterly unchanged, changeless, with only the patterns of leaves against the sky and thickened branches of the sycamores lining the avenue to show that time had any hold here. This might have been his very first stroll through these streets fifteen years ago. The delicate night breezes carried identical wafts of incense and the perfume of flowers, the fragrances of roses and lilies, mint and sandalwood, jasmine, honeysuckle, and the sweet purple scents of lavender and myrrh. Fountains splashing sang gentle, wordless tunes of constant delight. These ancient estates were a shield against time. Elsewhere, the world wheeled forward on aqueduct highways and on the spreading sails of Quetzals floating through the skies. In Memphis, time paused, pleased with this eternal moment.

The avenue wound on between the high walls of estates gated by painted pylons, temple-fronts-in-miniature proudly displaying the names, generation upon generation, of the venerable Memphite families who had lived and died behind those antique stone walls, in the cool shade of towering date palms, and sycamores, and cypress. Family names dating back to Caesar’s day were the bottom row of names on the pylons, originally hand-painted in hieroglyphics by master artists whose names themselves were legend. The hieroglyphs were carefully maintained, restored as needed by schools of artists who kept the ancient techniques alive and thriving. These families were the elite among the elite. Their names were registered in eternity, names spoken with hushed awe and respect everywhere, names like Rokhmyr, Djoser, Orkon and Ra-Imhotep.

Memphis was the capital of the world. All roads led to Memphis. On most maps, they did. Oken walked down those midnight avenues, feeling the timeless presence of millennia of history. At twenty- seven, Lord Oken was too young to be jaded by the magnificence around him. He felt the thrill of association with the grandeur of such ancient lineages and ageless beauty.

The first time he walked these streets, at age twelve, Oken had met a group of giggling, sloe-eyed beauties wearing silk wrap- dresses in butterfly colors. Layers of curls framed their girlish faces. Their bronzed-golden skin looked richer than Greek coins. Their lips were painted red as berries. They surrounded him and his bodyguard jingling their golden bracelets and laughing, whispering to one another in a rapid, joyful- sounding language he did not know. One of them had been brave enough to reach out and stroke Oken’s curly hair. The others squealed and whisked her away, their girlish laughter drifting back to him on the incense-flavored breeze. Oken could feel the heat in his face, the internal fires that had flared at her brazen touch.

His bodyguard, a kindly old soldier who yearned to be back in his misty homeland of Mercia, was trying to frown. The little beauties, however, had taken hold of his heart as well.

“Do they live here?” Oken made his voice light to cover the sudden fires. “Do they live in these estates?”

“Aye.”

“Mum hopes I will find a wife from one of these Uptown estate- families in Memphis.” He hesitated. “The one who touched my hair was quite fine, you know.”

The old man laughed, the hearty laugh of an elder at the foolishness of the young. “Those were servant girls—mademoiselles. They were ladies’ maids out on a holiday! Your mum would not like them a bit, mark my words, lad. She wouldn’t let them clean her boots.”

Oken’s face burned then, more fiercely in shame than desire. “How do you know that? You’re just an old soldier!”

“That I am. A servant knows a servant when he meets her. The ladies who live here, the fine ladies your mum craves, would never walk these avenues without a full guard and a retinue of attendants.” He warmed to his narrative. “The ladies your mum craves mostly dress in white, old-Egyptian white, so that the gold and jewels that cover their bare arms and ankles, and their fine, long necks shine out the better—those girls there wore their own hair. You should know that no fine lady of Old Memphis would ever wear her own hair! Bare, clean skulls to put expensive wigs on, wigs with diamonds wove into the braids. No—those girls were ma de moiselles. Your mum would have my bottle on toast if I let you mingle with them!”

He was greatly pleased with this revelation, nodding as he walked beside Oken.

Oken risked a glance over his shoulder at the group of girls. The one who had touched his hair, leaving a burning impression on his skull, was at that moment looking back at him.

“You mark my words,” the old man said then, “your mum is a child of Caesar’s line, and you’ll win no arguments with her.”

“I am also a child of Caesar’s line.”

“You’re a lad. Your mum is always right.”

The memory of Natyra intruded on Oken’s reminiscing. “My compliments to your dear mum,” she had whispered from out of her radiant pool.

Oken strolled on, his hands in his pockets, breathing in flowerscented memories. The old soldier was retired in his beloved Mercia, with a lovely Greek widow whom he met one night beside the Nile. “A servant knows a servant when he meets her.”

He wished the old man luck. Oken was no longer a “lad.” He could walk the streets at night alone now. He was his own bodyguard, trained by Caesar’s best.

“Hoy there, mister!” A voice hailed from out of the night.

Oken stopped. He saw a Memphis city constable in the uniform of white trousers, a short-sleeved ostrich-leather waistcoat with lapels and gold braid. The constable was standing in the light beneath a corner lamppost at the intersection Oken had just passed.

“You’re out late, sir.” The constable walked toward Oken with measured, unhurried strides. “Are you lost?”

“No, Constable.” Oken stood quietly as the man approached. “I’ve never felt more at home. I just returned from a tour of Europe. I missed Memphis. I missed the air, and the lights.”

Oken held out his hand when the constable reached him. “Lord Scott Oken.” His signet ring and the silver torque around his neck backed his words. “Of the Mercia Spate. And you?”

The constable took Oken’s hand with a firm grip, “Constable Mathias of the Uptown Station, but from north of the Mersey myself, sir.”

“Constable Mathias,” Oken said in echo. “I know Redfield and Evanstead of the Uptown. I don’t think I’ve met you before.”

The invocation of the names of his superior officers took the stiffness from the man’s stance. “Just out the academy, sir. Only my second night on patrol, truth be known. They’ve pulled out every man jack in the corps on account of some royal fella got himself nicked. Pharaoh set us out hunting for him, so new men get to pull extra duty. Extra pay, if you get my meaning, sir.”

“Well, I’m not the man you’re looking for, but I’ll walk with you, if you like. I know these streets. I can introduce you around.”

“I’d not mind the company, truth be known. These old places seem thick with ghosts and old names, if you get my meaning, sir.”

“Indeed, Constable Mathias, thick with ghosts and old names.”

“Are you headed home, Lord Oken?”

“The Ibis Road Gate. I have rooms on Campus.” Oken realized then how eager he was to see his friend, Prince Mikel Mabruke. Novgorod had been Oken’s longest assignment outside of Memphis since Mabruke retired. Oken had been away for months. The story of this adventure would have proper resonance and context once shared.

“A fine spot, sir,” Mathias said, respect clear in his voice. “The view from those tower rooms must be quite the thing.”

“If you like, Constable.” Oken had a sudden impulse. “You should walk up with me, and watch sunrise over the Temple of Hathor Ascendant. There’s no finer view of dawn in all the world.”

“A worthy invitation, sir, but I’m on duty until noon. By rights I can walk with you only as far as the guard post at Ibis Gate.”

“Good enough, Mathias, and spoken with a proper sense of duty. Come up for supper, then, and watch the Sun set over the Temple of Ptah-Sokar. My friend will be happy to meet you.” ProfessorPrince Mabruke, Oken’s mentor in espionage, had taught the necessity of maintaining good relations with officials of public authority. Many difficult explanations could be avoided by knowing what to say to whom.