by Lauren Haney
Amon-Psaro had abandoned the glitter and gloss of office, he saw, retaining only the royal diadem and the broad collar and bracelets of gold and lapis lazuli that he had worn during the procession through the city the day before.
"It's been many years since I've stood side by side with a man of Kemet and had the opportunity to speak the language of my youth. Don't steal the pleasure from me by placing me in a niche with the gods."
Bak heard loneliness in Amon-Psaro's voice and regret for a lost past. The thought had probably occurred to him at one time or another that a living god might share such basic emotions with ordinary men, but the realization surprised him-and touched him. "Would you like a jar; of beer, sir?" he blurted.
"Beer?" Amon-Psaro hesitated an instant, laughed. "Yes, Lieutenant, a jar of beer would be in order."
Bak leaned over the inner breastwork and called out to a soldier strolling along the base of the wall. The man, seeing the king beside the officer, hastened to the kitchen. In no time at all, a ruddy-cheeked boy delivered a basket filled with beer jars, dried fish the size of a man's finger, and small round loaves of crusty bread.
The king, beer jar in hand, looked out over the wall, his elbows planted on the bricks, his eyes on the rapids below. The lord Re, a golden ball resting on the horizon, threw streaks of red and orange and yellow high into the pale sky, brilliant ribbons thrown out by the god in honor of the Kushite monarch.
Amon-Psaro sipped through the reed straw, scowled at it, dropped it into the basket, and drank from the neck as his less refined companion was doing. "It seems you and I have a mutual friend, Bak."
"We do?" Each time Bak spoke, he had to remind himself not to call the king "sir".
"Mistress Nofery, a woman of business in Buhen. I've a letter from her, brought today by the courier who delivered dispatches from Commandant Thuty to Woser. She calls you a good man, one of the best in the garrison of Buhen, and a good friend."
Bak gaped. "You know Nofery?" Even as he spoke, he recalled the obese old woman, sitting with him in her house of pleasure in Buhen, telling him she once knew AmonPsaro. He had laughed, he remembered, skeptical of her tale.
"I knew her well many years ago. I was a prince then, a hostage in Waset." Amon-Psaro stared straight ahead, looking into his past. "She was shapely and beautiful, the most seductive woman I've ever met, even to this day." He laughed softly to himself, the sound lost in the rumble of the rapids. "She was a woman of pleasure then, and now she runs a business. A successful endeavor, she wrote, selling the bounty of the fields. I'm glad she's found good fortune."
Bak opened his mouth to blurt out the truth, but changed his mind. If Nofery chose to paint herself in bright colors, it was not his. business to dull the sheen.
"I long to see her again," Amon-Psaro said, his voice wistful, "but I'll not take my son to Buhen and risk further illness. Nor can she travel, she tells me, with her business so brisk this time of year and her daughter too heavy with child to carry on alone."
Bak stared at the river below, hiding his face from Amon-Psaro, his racing thoughts. Nofery had no daughter. What was she up to? Why would she lie when, if she told the truth, she could see once again a man she liked and admired, a powerful man who might give her many precious gifts.
"She was a lovely creature." Amon-Psaro emptied his beer jar and, smiling at the memory, dropped it into the basket. "Slim, straight arms and legs. Breasts large and round and erect. Mouth soft and gentle."
The answer came suddenly, stunning Bak with its simplicity, showing him a sensitivity he had never imagined Nofery possessed. She had indeed been beautiful, just as she had told him that day in Buhen, and she wanted AmonPsaro to remember her that way, not as the fat and aging old woman she had become. He admired her for the sacrifice.
"I've sent her a gift to let her know I've not forgotten: a lion cub and a young male slave to care for it and cater to her every wish." The king glanced at Bak, his expression anxious. "Do you think she'll like them?"
Bak pictured Nofery with a large new house of pleasure, a grand place of business with an exotic mascot and servant. "She'll be overwhelmed with joy." An understatemeet, if ever I heard one, he thought. She'll parade them before me, never letting me forget I thought her tale untrue.
Amon-Psaro relaxed, smiled, broke the plug out of a fresh jar, and handed the brew to Bak. He seemed friendly enough, open to questions, but Bak hesitated to ask the one uppermost in his thoughts. Curiosity finally nudged aside his trepidation. "Will you tell me of Sonisonbe, Inyotef's sister?"
The king gave him a quick look, and turned away to stare out across the river. "Sonisonbe. Yes."
"I don't have to know any more than I already do, but I'd like to understand."
Amon-Psaro let the silence grow, reluctant to speak. When at last he did, the words came hard, torn from a past long buried. "I met Inyotef during the voyage north to Kemet when first I was taken hostage. He was a sailor, barely a man but older than 1, more experienced. A man of boundless ambition, and one who played as hard as he worked." He stopped, raised the jar to his lips, drank, set it on the wall. "Huy, who was as close to me as a brother, was sent north with his battalion the day we set foot in Waset. I walked into the palace friendless but for Inyotef."
He toyed with the jar, his thoughts far away. "I soon found a way to scale the wall, and I made my way to the harbor and the warship Inyotef sailed on. He showed me Waset that day, and I thought it the most magical city I'd ever seen. We roamed the streets for hours, and when we grew tired he took me to his home. His parents and sister welcomed me as one of theirs."
"Didn't anyone miss you in the palace?"
Amon-Psaro snorted. "That night my wings were clipped. But I refused to eat, so from that day forward they closed their eyes to my absences." He took another drink, but Bak doubted he tasted the brew. "One day Inyotef's warship sailed north, taking him with it. At first, Sonisonbe and I played as we had before, but our games soon turned to lovemaking."
He picked up the beer jar, set it down again, looked at Bak for the first time grace starting his tale. "Inyotef returned a man of the world, filled with the desire for plea. sure. By then I had many friends among the nobility, all with a like passion, so for months on end I spent my days and nights reveling. I drank too much, played games of chance, and lay in the arms of countless women. Nofery was one of them. She stole my heart."
"What of Sonisonbe?"
"I loved her, too." Amon-Psaro drew in a deep, ragged breath and released it. "Long before my father died and I had to return to the land of my birth, I promised them both I'd send for them as soon as my throne was secure. Nofery laughed, taking my vow as a joke. Sonisonbe promised to follow me to the four corners of the earth if need be. In the end, when at last I took my father's place, my duties as king overwhelmed me: the need to wed my sister to keep the line pure, the squabbling among my cousins, the need to learn about a land and a people I'd long ago forgotten. I didn't send for either woman. I wanted no more burdens." He rolled the jar between his two hands, unaware of his action. "Some months later Inyotef wrote, telling me of Sonisonbe's death, vowing to slay me."
Bak felt an immense pity for Amon-Psaro, for Sonisonbe, for Inyotef. "I heard his ship was once turned back from the land of Kush, so I assumed you knew he wanted you dead." He frowned, bewildered by a new thought. "Why then did you come north to Wawat? Surely you knew he was a pilot on the Belly of Stones."
"I had to save my son's life.",
"A prudent man would've sent a message to Commandant Thuty, asking him to send Inyotef north, well away from Men."
Amon-Psaro shrugged, as if as much at a loss to explain as Bak was to understand. "Perhaps I wished to end his misery and mine, for we both mourned for her in equal measure. Or did I wish to appease my conscience by putting myself in his hands and letting the gods decide my guilt or innocence, my life for hers? I don't know."
Bak left Amon-Psaro at the entrance to Kenamon's pavilion, and Imsiba intercepted
him moments later. Eyeing the broad gold and lapis lazuli collar around Bak's neck, the wide bracelets on his arms, the Medjay's expression plainly showed his concern. "What did you tell him, my friend? That you're going with him to faroff Kush?"
Bak took Imsiba's arm and aimed him toward the quiet corner where their men had set up camp. The camp was empty, the men somewhere across the fortress watching Pasbenuro play knucklebones with the champion of the Iken garrison. Distant voices, laughter, and cursing announced the ebb and flow of the game. They hunkered down beside a thick fish stew, kept warm on a bed of coals contained within a tripod of rocks.
"I danced around the truth for a time," Bak said, "but finally told him how I felt: I'm content as I am and I have no desire to live a life of wealth and privilege. So he gave me this instead." He ran his fingers over the cool, smooth beads of the necklace. "He took them off and, with his own hands, fastened them on me."
"I thank the lord Amon!" Imsiba grinned. "When I saw you laughing together, I feared the worst." -
Bak's smile was as broad as that of his friend. He was relieved the decision was over and done with, the temptation to climb to great heights a thing of the past. "He hid his feelings, but I suspect he was relieved. He talked too freely today, more than a king should, telling me the deepest secrets within his heart. I imagine he'll be glad to see the last of me."
"The prince, Kenamon says, is doing well. How much longer, do you think, before we can go home to Buhen?" "Soon," Bak said. "The sooner the better."
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