by David Drake
"If you'll give me leave to go to the door," said Pentweret, "I'll summon them. They can be here in a few minutes at most."
Khamwas nodded. His youngest brother slipped past them to the door-which opened to a thrumming of Khamwas' fingers on the bowl. Samlor watched as the man spoke urgently through the opening. Pentweret had been the one to draw a weapon at the first intrusion, and he was wise enough to ask before stepping toward the door.
That meant his instincts were enough like Samlor's that he could be a real problem.
Pentweret seated himself again. He had left the door ajar. Noise from the corridor became a backdrop as omnipresent as the hiss of a waterfall. The crowding servants were nervous, but they were too interested in events to leave unordered.
The noise grew louder until it was cut by a voice of authority. "Your highnesses?" called someone in pear-shaped tones. "The prince and princess are here, as you commanded."
Khamwas turned and snatched the door open with his hand. Samlor glanced from side to side, trying to cover the seated kings as well as whatever waited in the hall. A functionary with gold ornaments, a spotless tunic, and enough fat to prove he did nothing strenuous for a living, waited with a child to either side of him.
Khamwas dropped his bowl with a clang echoed by every metal object in the room and corridor. He knelt and held out his arms to the children.
Their faces blanked. They didn't move.
"Pemu!" Khamwas said. "Serpot! I'm your father. I'm Khamwas."
The boy looked to be nine, the girl perhaps seven-the age of Star-though both children had the coppery complexions and straight hair of their father. For a moment they poised, unwilling to trust the news that they weren't orphans after all, living on their cousins' sufferance. Then they ran to the waiting arms, the boy first, sobbing and crying, "Daddy!"
The seated kings looked at one another. Samlor wondered if he ought to clear his knife, but the others were uncomfortable rather than hostile. Osorkon was perspiring freely. He hadn't moved from his chair, but tension was working his muscles hard.
Khamwas turned and stood, holding a child by either hand. His foot thrust out behind him to slam the door closed.
The sound of the door thumping against its jamb-and the fact that it had been closed physically-relaxed the atmosphere within the chamber. Patjenfi looked toward Osorkon and said peevishly, "Well, does that mean he'H be joining us?"
"Don't act like a greater fool than the gods made you," Pentweret snapped from across the table. "If he comes to us this way-" his eyes flicked toward Khamwas and were forced back by conscious effort of will " – he comes as our king."
The only sound in the room was the murmuring of the children as they hugged themselves closer to Khamwas coarse robe. The three seated men held their breath while they waited for their brother to speak.
Khamwas fluffed his daughter's hair. His fingers paused briefly at the comb of gold filigree at Serpot's temple, then dropped back to her upraised palm. "You saved your lives," he said calmly, "by the way you cared for these while I was-gone."
Samlor could see that Pemu and Serpot didn't understand what was happening, but the tenseness of the situation was clear enough to silence them. Pemu braced himself, threw his chest out toward his uncles and tried to look as much a man as his age permitted.
"And you saved your throne, my brothers," Khamwas continued, "by the way you've ruled Napata since our father died. Together and for the country's good, as you claimed when you sold me into slavery. You've done well. I'm sure you'll continue to do so."
Pentweret's hands began to tremble as his lips stammered through the prayer which his mind had silently rehearsed. Patjenfi tried to jump up, babbling thankfulness, but his legs caught between his chair and the table. Osorkon stared at him disdainfully, until the rabbit-faced man subsided.
"How can you say that," asked Osorkon slowly, "after the way we treated you six years ago?"
Khamwas smiled. "Because you were correct, my brother. I would have been a disastrous king-but I would have demanded my rights as eldest son, because then I would have all the resources of Napata to aid me in my search."
"We never knew just what it was you were looking for," said Pentweret, being as careful as he could to avoid a negative connotation. "We should have tried harder to understand. .»
His eyes begged Khamwas for understanding.
"I was looking for the source of all power," Khamwas replied with a smile that made sense only to Samlor, who had also been Nanefer in another age. "I found it at last."
Khamwas touched the bulge over his heart where the crystal book lay bound, but before he resumed speaking, he gripped Pemu's hand. "I also found that the only power I really wanted, the power of bringing the dead to life. . is beyond the ability even of the gods."
Again there was silence.
"Well," said Patjenfi at last, "you'll have to live somewhere, if you're back. I think-"
"You'll move into my apartments here in the palace at once," Osorkon interrupted. "I'll leave my servants in place until you can arrange matters to your own satisfaction, elder brother."
"I'll send over clothing from my suite," added Pent-weret. "It will fit you, I think." He glanced at the massive Osorkon and grinned coolly. "Again, until you make other arrangements."
"The children will need their things, too," said Patjenfi with a frown. "I do hope that-" He paused, pursing his lips, and finally continued, "Well, if you want to separate them, of course, that's your right, whatever you want. But they've grown up with my three, haven't you, darlings?"
Serpot nodded determinedly. Pemu, less convinced of the question's simplicity, looked from his uncle to his father- who was smiling-and nodded agreement himself.
Khamwas leaned down, kissed each child on his forehead, and said, "Go back and get your things together, darlings," he said as he hugged them. "My brothers and I have one more thing to discuss."
The children went out into the corridor. Before the door closed behind them, Samlor heard Pemu saying in a clear, princely voice, "Take us back to our rooms, Tery. We'll be-"
"One more piece of business," Khamwas paraphrased. As he eyed his brothers, his expression reverted to the icy hardness with which he had first entered the inner palace. Samlor thought of his dagger and thought about the three seated men. . and wondered what was about to happen.
"Six years ago, my brothers," said Khamwas, "one of you-let's pretend that I don't remember who-said that if I were killed instead of being sold into slavery, I wouldn't come back later to make trouble."
Samlor now understood the look and the tone.
Patjenfi looked down at his hands, making attempts to smile that each time lapsed into terror. Osorkon met Khamwas' eyes as stolidly as a mirror, but sweat glittered on his high forehead.
Pentweret was looking up also. His eyes were blank and the angle of his chin suggested that he was offering his throat to a slaughterer's blade. His larynx hobbled as he tried to swallow, and hobbled again.
"You didn't take that advice," Khamwas continued, "and perhaps you think you made a mistake."
There had been a tone of playful banter, cat and mouse rather than cat and kitten, in Khamwas' voice. Even that false humor dropped away as he continued, "Don't be certain that I wouldn't have returned, my brothers. I was a scholar even then, though I hadn't a fraction of the powers I have now."
He paused before he concluded, "Believe me, you would be even less pleased to see me now if you had chosen murder."
"Then we can all rejoice to be the men we are," said Osorkon calmly. He stood up and reached across the table to clasp the hand which Khamwas slowly extended to him.
"Welcome home, my brother," Osorkon said. "It's good to have you with us again."
CHAPTER 25
THE WALL OF the terraced garden overlooked the river, but from inside even the enclosure was screened by lush greenery. Expert tending preserved the appearance of untrammeled nature without the dankness and the impossible tangles wh
ich «natural» implied in reality. /A fountain played in the near distance, noticeable for its babble and the sheen of mist in the air beyond a border of straight-stemmed bushes with flowers of glowing magenta.
Broad-leafed vines-gourds rather than grapes-had been trained to cover the arbor in which Samlor sat with Khamwas, watching the flock of royal children playing a game with bats and a feather-filled ball on the lawn. Servants stood nearby with refreshments and in case of accident, but the arbor's narrow doorway and curved walls gave it the privacy of a camera obscura.
"I can't offer you more than you've earned already, Samlor," Khamwas said. Both men found it easier to speak when their eyes were on the squealing children than they did while searching each other's expressions. "You'll leave here a rich man-"
"I do all right," Samlor interrupted. "I never doubted you'd keep our bargain-and I've never asked anybody for more 'n that."
Khamwas laid two fingers on Samlor's knee and brought the other man's eyes to meet his.
"You have helped me gain the cosmos," Khamwas said softly. He patted the crystal book beneath his sash, using the same touch with which he had demanded Samlor's attention. "To an extent, I'm wondering what I'll do with the power now that it's mine. . but don't ever doubt that the power is at your service, or that you've earned that service."
"If I need your help, I know it's here," said Samlor as he turned his head again. "You know. .," he added.
On the grassy area, Pemu made a goal amid great squealing from the older children.
"You know, it could be that I'd want Star to have a place she could be that wasn't Cirdon. That's a lot-"
"Of course," interrupted Khamwas.
"That's a lot to ask," Samlor repeated sharply. "And it's going to be more as she gets older, the way she, you know, learns things."
"Yes, I do know," Khamwas agreed with a smile. He plucked one of the gourds hanging beside him and turned it in his hands, letting the yellow and green stripes shine alternately in a spike of sunlight through the leaves massed above. "I would be honored."
"You were going to say," remarked Samlor to change the subject-and not to change it- "that you wanted something from me."
"Yes, I was," Khamwas agreed drily. "I was going to ask if you'd stay here with me for a little while, perhaps a month."
"You don't trust your brothers?" Samlor said with mild surprise. He twisted a gourd from its cap also. The rind felt waxy and cool in his hands, artificial rather than alive.
"I do trust them," Khamwas corrected, smiling. "And I don't-how shall I say it, fear for my life. But I'd like there to be one person who is-" he looked away, looked back, and smiled again " – my friend, in the next few weeks while I set up my household."
"You can order wax statues to row," said Samlor, picking up a memory the two of them shared from another age. "But you can't tell them how to do it."
"Exactly."
Samlor laughed. "People worry about the gold plate in the strongroom, but they forget about the eggs in the pantry till there's nothing for supper," he said. "Sure, I'll hang around for a while and help you get organized. Anyway, I haven't seen much of your city here."
"I need to get reacquainted myself," Khamwas said. "We'll go out together in the morning."
He rubbed the hidden book with the knuckle of the thumb hooked over the gourd. "It-" he began, then started over with, "We risked much, you and I, to win the book. But despite the difficulties, the dangers, I must admit it was easier than I had expected."
"Don't call your life blessed," said Tjainufi sourly, "until it has ended."
But the men's attention was absorbed by the children, Serpot running toward the arbor in a grass-stained tunic shouting, "Daddy! Daddy! We won!"
CHAPTER 26
"Is THE DISH to your taste, your highness?" said the priest, adding with a nod to Samlor, "Excellency?"
Samlor mumbled agreement while Khamwas continued to peer with rapt attention at the scene in the temple forecourt beneath them.
The bowl of mixed fruit slices had been chilled somehow. At least it felt cool after a day of ambling through Napata with a minimal entourage-Khamwas, Samlor, and the two footmen whom Khamwas' borrowed major domo absolutely insisted must accompany the prince. The inner loggia of the Temple of Tatenen was a good place to rest and view the crowd of late-afternoon customers visiting the expensive shops in the court below.
One thing that Samlor had already decided about Napata was that the religious institutions here continued to do as well as they had in the time of Prince Nanefer. The silver spoon with which he ate his fruit was molded into delicate vine arabesques more estimable than even the metal itself.
"Samlor," Khamwas whispered urgenty. "Do you see her? There, going-"
He pointed. The priest who was acting as personal servant to the temple's guests craned his neck to follow the gesture but fell back two steps in embarrassment when he realized what he was doing.
Samlor leaned against the thick stone rail of the loggia and frowned in concentration at the bustle in the forecourt. A woman wearing a cape and headdress of shimmering red silk had just disappeared into one of the shops, accompanied by several maids. A pair of staff-bearing footmen remained outside, suggesting that they would use force if necessary to prevent their mistress from being jostled within.
"Somebody you know?" Samlor asked, cautious because he could sense Khamwas' agitation. He hadn't seen the woman's face, nor would it have meant anything to him if he had. But his companion had a lifetime of history in Napata, not a few weeks in the desert and two days in the capital. .
"I must learn who she is," Khamwas said, still whispering. He stared at the foreshortened doorway across the court as if intensity would give him clear vision of what went on inside. One of his hands clasped the rail while the other squeezed Samlor's knee hard enough to be disconcerting.
The whole situation was disconcerting.
"Well," said Samlor, shifting as he set down his bowl; his knee straightened, as if by accident, and flexed out of Khamwas' grip. "I'll go down and see what I can find out." He looked at his companion, waiting for a response to the question his tone had implied.
"Yes. .," Khamwas said, focused on the doorway. He turned sharply and added, "But you mustn't disturb her."
Samlor nodded and said with heavy irony, "Oh, you can trust me to handle the business with all the subtlety you would bring to it yourself."
A cloud softened Khamwas' intense features and he stared at the hand which had clasped Samlor so harshly. "I…," he said, looking up again as Samlor rose and shrugged his garments into place. "I'm sorry, my friend. She's very important to me in some way. I'm sure."
"No problem," Samlor grunted as he walked past the priest and lesser servants to the stairs within the temple.
No reason to imagine that it was a problem, and a dead certainty that Khamwas and the Book of Tatenen could handle any difficulty that arose.
But Samlor kept remembering a grinning crocodile.
The forecourt was busy, though from the height of the loggia it was obvious that there was more empty pavement than there were people. From the pavement itself, nothing but moving walls of people were visible.
Shrugging again-the brocade collar of his new tunic chafed him, though the fabric was soft enough-Samlor strode across the area. As he neared the far side of the court, his eye caught a flash of scarlet: not the woman but her tall headdress, leaving the shop and preparing to enter another one. He started after her, then thought again and stepped into the shop his quarry had just quitted.
The maid who waited while the shopowner wrapped a purchase was dressed even more strikingly than her mistress. Her skirt was of pleated linen, cut to beneath her navel in front but rising almost to shoulderblade level in back. Instead of an ordinary blouse or jacket, she wore the skin of a spotted cat pinned to bare her left shoulder.
The head hung over her right breast. The beast's eyes had been replaced by topazes, and the maid's own irises were of the s
ame tawny lambency.
"The cat won't bite," the woman said drily to Samlor.
He blinked, realized that he had paused with his hand resting on the doorjamb-and then realized that his mouth was open.
"Yes, sir, may I help you?" asked the shopman with a tinge of concern underlying his professional brightness. He was folding the second of a pair of carnelian earrings, elephants astride the globe of the cosmos, into a square of velvet.
"Ah, I-" Samlor said. "Ah, my business is with the lady."
"Is it indeed?" said the woman, giving him a look of appraisal as cool as that of a cook pricing fowls in the market.
"The, ah, the lady who was here a moment ago, in red," he plowed on. "I believe you may know her?"
"Know my mistress?" said the woman. When she smiled, her mouth opened as wide as the cat's. "Yes, I should say 1 do."
The shopman was listening to his customers in obvious interest. Samlor gave him a look freighted with the frustration he could not let loose on the woman. The man jumped, then trotted to the back of the shop muttering that he needed better ribbon.
Samlor relaxed. The maid was playing a game, flirting at second-hand as it were, and there was no harm in that. He smiled and said, "Milady, a friend of mine-a high-placed friend of mine-noticed your mistress and was curious about who she is. Rather than make a public production of it, he asked me to check quietly."
That was pretty close to the truth, and it conveyed the threat without stating it. Coquetry was very well and good, but this amber-eyed woman had to know where the real power in the discussion lay.
"I'm sure my mistress Tabubu would thank your friend- her tone made the word 'master' and a slur because Samlor had not used it " – for his solicitude, if he chose to present himself in person," said the maid. "A lady of her position isn't in need of help from others, however highly placed, of course."
She shifted her stance. The false cat eyes winked from her breast.
Samlor raised an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth.
"She is here to make offerings for her father on the seventh anniversary of his death," the maid continued, bowing to the silent goad. "He was the prophet of the god Mnevis.