by Judith Tarr
For a long moment Kemni could not answer, nor think of an answer. He had been envisioning terrible prices: mountains of gold, armies of hostages, blood of princes poured out in the court of the bulls. But this—he almost laughed aloud.
“Lord king,” he said, “royal marriages are a frequent consummation of great alliances. If that is all the price you ask, my king will pay it gladly.”
“Ah,” said Minos, “but will he pay it as we ask him to pay? This will be no concubine, no last or least of a flock of wives. If he takes to wife one of our royal ladies, she must be a queen. She will accept no lesser rank.”
That was perhaps difficult. But still, not impossible. Unless . . .
“She cannot be the first of the queens, the Great Royal Wife. That office belongs to a lady of Egypt.”
“Queen Nefertari,” said Minos. Which proved that he knew sufficient of Egypt and its rulers, and could pronounce that great lady’s name with a reasonable accent, too. “Yes, we know of her. Our lady will not ask to displace her. But to be second to her—that, she will expect. Will your king allow it? Will his Great Royal Wife?”
“That truly is a choice that they should make,” Kemni said.
“We ask you to make it for them.”
Minos was not going to yield in this. That was all too clear. If Kemni agreed, he might face the wrath of his king—but worse by far, that of the Great Royal Wife.
He had seen Queen Nefertari, of course; she sat beside her husband, who was also her brother, in court and at festivals, and shared in the ruling of the Upper Kingdom. But he had never spoken to her, nor had she singled him out for her attention. She took little notice of the crowd of young men around the princes.
Now he feared, if he chose wrongly, she would fix him with the terrible and burning sun of her regard. Stronger men than he had withered in it, and even, people whispered, died of it.
He had a sudden, vivid recollection of her face as he had seen it once, caught in the lamplight of a banquet, in an expression as close to unguarded as a queen might ever permit herself. She had been a little weary, perhaps a little ill. In the distraction of a troupe of fire dancers, she had let her head droop somewhat, and rested her cheek on her palm. She was beautiful as royal ladies were expected to be, in the perfection of paint and wig, gown and jewels, that befit a queen. And yet, in that moment, she seemed almost mortal.
The memory did not comfort him. Queen Nefertari was a great force in Egypt, some said greater than the king—whispered, even, that Ahmose wore the crown, but Nefertari ruled the kingdom.
Whatever Kemni agreed to now, she would judge. This more than any was a woman’s matter: the bringing of a rival queen into the palace over which she ruled.
Nevertheless, her lord—and therefore, Kemni realized with a small, chill shock, she herself—had sent him here. He had been given the power of an envoy, and the discretion to make such bargains as he might. They should have sent a wiser man, or one more fit to decide such matters. But they had not. He was all they had.
He drew a breath, steadying himself. “Very well,” he said. “I speak for my king, and for my king’s Great Wife. I accept that price for your aid in our war.”
Minos inclined his head. Kemni could not tell whether he was relieved or dismayed. “Then it is done. My clerks will write it as it should be written, and those will witness it who properly should. In the morning on the third day from now, you sail for Egypt.”
So sudden. So complete. Kemni should have expected it, and yet it took him by surprise. He had come to think that he would live out his life in this foreign country, speaking a language not his own, even coming to forget the accents and the cadences of his native Egyptian. Foolish, but he did not have to be wise just now; only obedient. He bowed to the king as to a lord of Egypt, and accepted his dismissal with suitable grace.
But before Kemni took his leave, Minos raised a hand. “Wait,” he said.
Kemni paused.
“Come to dinner tonight,” Minos said. “A servant will fetch you when it’s time.”
Kemni bowed again. This was an honor, but no less than he deserved. He was allowed to leave then, to claim the day for himself—to cherish the knowledge that, in three days’ time, he would be sailing back to Egypt.
~~~
Kemni dined with the king that night, and with the queen, and with the great ones of the court. But Ariana was not there, nor was Iphikleia.
Kemni did not know why he should care that either was absent. Nor, after he had been so honored, did any new Ariana come to his bed. For the first time since he had arrived in Crete, he slept alone.
He wondered if he was being punished for some infraction. Perhaps for failing to appear for his morning in the chariot, because he had been summoned to the king instead? Surely Ariana had known of that. Ariana appeared to know everything that passed in the palace.
Somewhat out of pique, but also because he was expected in the clerks’ court for the signing and witnessing of the agreement between Egypt and Crete, Kemni did not go the next morning, either. And again he slept alone, without message or explanation.
The next morning, the morning before he was to take ship for Egypt, he went out as he had so often. He did not expect to find anyone in the horses’ field, not by then. But he wanted to see the horses one last time. He had brought a packet of honey sweets for the pair of bays, who had learned long since to come to him for their tribute. He had grown fond of them.
They were waiting for him as he came up the path into the field, with an air of having waited excessively long. He laughed through a startling catch of tears, rubbed their ears and noses, and fed them the sweets that he had brought. Not until his palms were empty and licked clean did he see who sat beyond them, perched on a jut of stone, knees clasped to leather-tunicked chest.
She had not brought out the chariot, though she was dressed to drive it. Nor did she greet him, or seem to see him at all, until he set himself in front of her. “Good morning,” he said civilly.
She regarded him almost without recognition. He had never seen her so remote. Even Iphikleia was warmer toward him than this—and this was Ariana, his bright companion and his instructor in the art of chariotry.
Maybe it was the bulldancing that had done it, the death of the boy who had tried to be as reckless as she. Kemni did not flatter himself that she grieved for his departure. He was a diversion, no more. When he was gone, she would find another.
He told her so, with boldness that he hoped would make her smile.
She frowned as if he had spoken in Egyptian, which she knew nothing of. “Diversion? Another? Why would I want to do that?”
“To amuse you,” he said. “To give you pleasure.”
“Ah,” she said, and slid into her reverie again.
He wondered if he dared shake her. But she had already made it clear that a man did not touch her—not without her leave. He settled for a shrug, an audible sigh, withdrawal in the horses’ company. They were glad enough that he was there, and they acknowledged his existence, too. They were, at the moment, better companions than Ariana.
When he came back from visiting the whole of the herd, she was gone. She had never explained the oddity of her mood, nor had she waited to say goodbye. He told himself that he should not be disappointed. She was a princess and a great priestess. It had been more than he ever dared expect, that she had given him so much of herself.
Now, as he had said to her, she would go on. She would find herself another occupation to while away her mornings. Or maybe it would be enough that she drove her chariot alone, racing the wind in that high green pasture.
The rest of his farewells were easier, perhaps because that one had been so unexpectedly difficult. He would not be sorry to go, because he was going home. But he had been happier here than he would ever have expected, more at ease and more—yes, more at home. He was proud of that.
~~~
One more lonely night, sleeping fitfully in a bed that seemed suddenly str
ange, and then, at last, it was time. A fair dawn, a brisk wind blowing southward to carry him home. His few belongings were packed and taken away to the ship. He put on his best clothes, his gold of honor, and the blue mantle that had been given as a gift, to keep him warm against the chill of the morning.
He had come in with little attendance but great honor, with Ariana as his guide. He left in a surprising crowd. Most were faces he knew, people he had dined with, drunk with, hunted and played and danced with. They were his guides and his companions on the long steep way to the harbor. They sang; they played on drums and pipes and the stringed instrument that they called the lyre. They gave him a royal leavetaking.
The ship was waiting for him—familiar, faded yet strong beneath: Naukrates’ swift Dancer. Kemni caught himself grinning at the sight of her. And yes, there was the captain himself on the deck, regarding the crowd with lifted brow. When his eye caught Kemni, it brightened. Glad, no doubt, that at last his ship could catch the tide.
But they were not to leave quite yet. As Kemni boarded the ship, a further disturbance brought him about. An even greater crowd was coming, with even more noise. People were blowing the sea-horns, long moaning cries, and singing, and clapping their hands. They danced as they came, tumbling like bulldancers, wheeling and spinning, dizzying the eye.
Kemni had never seen such a procession. Everyone in it seemed to be a bulldancer or a priestess, or both. He half expected to see a bull among them, but the god’s great servants were safe in their high pastures now that they had performed their office.
The center of that uproar was resplendent in gold, aglitter with precious stones. She came in the wealth of a kingdom, high-crowned with gold, stepping lightly, delicately down to the water. So brilliant was she, and so potent in her presence, that one almost failed to see who rode behind her in gilded chairs borne on the shoulders of strong young men: the king and the queen themselves, come to bid farewell.
But not, or not only, to Kemni. Ariana, and Iphikleia all but unnoticed in her shadow, boarded the ship with the air of one who did a great and courageous thing, and who wished that everyone would stop remarking on it.
The king and the queen stayed on the shore. Kemni was still not certain what was happening, though he knew he should have been. Ariana was sailing on the Dancer. That much he could see. She must be going on a pilgrimage.
She was even more abstracted than she had been in the horses’ field. Kemni might almost have thought that she was drugged. Her face was white, her eyes all but blind.
And yet, as she mounted to the deck, with Naukrates reaching to lift her up, and Iphikleia supporting her from behind, she came alive. She looked down at the people on the shore, and round about at those on the ship. She shuddered just visibly, or shook herself. The life flooded back into her face. She held out her arms, then spread them wide.
The people cried aloud. There were words in it, mingled almost out of comprehension. But from them Kemni gained a sort of meaning.
Indeed, she was going away. She was going to Egypt. She was going—
He could not speak here. Not now. He bit his tongue till it bled.
At last the farewells were done. At last, with grinding reluctance, the Cretan king and his people would let their princess go. The ship cast off, men from shore and sailors from the ship setting hand and shoulder to the hull, sliding it smoothly into the water. Kemni clearly felt the shift from earth to sea. Dancer was alive beneath him. The water bore her up. The oars bit, pulling her out into the harbor.
Music followed her, and song, and people calling like the crying of gulls. Their princess was leaving them, going away to be a queen in Egypt.
~~~
“You weren’t supposed to come now.” Kemni was trying not to rail at her, but not succeeding. They were well out to sea, the sail up, the oars shipped, and Dancer skimming before the wind. The women had put off their finery and put on more practical garb. So too had Kemni, taking a few moments’ respite in the sea-chest of a cabin that had been his own on the voyage to Crete. He was rather surprised to have it, and undismayed to discover that he would share it with the captain. The women, of course, had the captain’s cabin with its greater space and comfort.
Now they were all on deck in the sun and the spray, the great green expanse of Crete skimming past. Ariana was much restored to herself, now the thing was done—now she had set sail for Egypt.
Kemni should not have said what he was thinking. But they had been passing round a jar of wine, and the sun was strong and the spray was cold, and this was Ariana. “You were supposed to wait till the war was over, then come in suitable state to seal the victory. What if the Retenu get rumor of this? You’d be a hostage beyond all others. And if—if—we pass them undetected and come as far as Thebes, how will you manage? Queens reckon their rank and estate by the number and quality of their attendants. One attendant, however royal, however holy, will serve you poorly in the queens’ palace.”
She sipped wine and appeared to listen, but she offered no response. She was doing it to madden him, he was sure.
“Listen to me,” he said. “What good does it do you or any of us to come to Egypt now, in secret as it must be, and when you come to Thebes, if you come there, to be married without full public ceremony, or the enemy will know what’s transpired? What are you looking to gain?”
“Time.” That was Iphikleia, answering with her wonted lack of patience for Kemni’s profound male idiocy. “Wisdom, maybe. Advice in your king’s ear, from someone who knows all the secrets of Crete. A queen is a pretty thing, and a wedding is a pleasant festival. But Egypt needs more. Egypt needs us.”
“You, too?” Kemni demanded. “What, you’ll offer my king two queens when he looked for one?”
“Not likely,” said Iphikleia with a slight curl of the lip. “He’ll take this one and be more than glad of her.”
“He might have been gladder if she’d brought her horses,” Kemni said.
“Horses can be had,” said Ariana, speaking at last, and as clearly as ever. She was back among them in truth. “Egypt does need me, you know. I know the fleet, I know how it sails and where, and what signals it answers. I know horses, I know chariots. Being a wife I may not know, but I can be priestess and queen. Now teach me,” she said. “Teach me while we sail. Teach me of Egypt.”
“I should teach your captain to set you off at the first port,” Kemni muttered.
She laughed. “You will not. Now begin. I would know everything. All you can think of—and as much of your language as I can learn. I taught you the chariot. Teach me Egypt.”
Kemni might upbraid her, and he might disapprove highly of what she did, but in the end, he could only obey her. She would, after all, be his queen.
INUNDATION
I
The river flooded early that year, taking almost by surprise the priests whose task it was to predict the rising and falling of the waters. One day, it seemed, the river ran low and slow. The next, it roared in flood, spreading wide over the parched land. People fled, but they laughed as they ran, and sang, for this was the wealth of Egypt, the life and prosperity of the Two Lands.
“It’s a plot,” Ramerit said as she heaved up a great basket of soiled linen. “Thebes knew of this days ago. But did it tell any of us, up here past Memphis? It did not!”
“Well,” said Nefer-Ptah, who despite her utterly Egyptian name was utterly and imposingly a Nubian. “You can hardly expect them to give us anything here. Not as things stand.”
Ramerit sniffed. “They should have told us.”
Ramerit had never been a reasonable person. Iry, who was not particularly reasonable either, but who at least knew when to be quiet, went on bundling linen into the baskets. If she worked quickly, she might be able to escape while Ramerit and Nefer-Ptah were occupied with arguing over rebellion in Thebes.
Iry did not want to think about rebellion in Thebes. She ducked her head till the straight black hair hid her face, and bent more assiduously t
o her work. As she had half dreaded, the two womenservants were at it full force. They would dredge up every slight against both halves of Egypt, all the way back to King Salitis who came roaring in his chariot out of the north and seized the whole of Lower Egypt for himself and his sons and his lords and lesser kings, and all the way forward to Ahmose who was king now, away south in Thebes where Egypt was still Egypt.
She loaded the last basket while they were but halfway between the kings, ducked even further and slid and sidled and, in a breathless rush, was gone.
No squawk of outraged discovery pursued her, for once. She escaped the breathless closeness of the linen-room, darted down the dim and odorous passage that led to the kitchen, and slipped out the door into the sudden and blazing brilliance of the day.
The heat was heavy, oppressive, but she was naked as any sensible creature would be here, but for the blue bead on its string about her hips, and the amulet of Bastet that hung between her young small breasts. She stopped to embrace the light and heat both, with a pleasure as pure as any animal’s.
Like a cat, she thought with a little purr in her throat. As if in answer to what was half thought, half prayer, one of the cats that deigned to live in this house came and mewed and wove its sleek spell between her ankles. She bent down. The tawny back arched to meet her palm.
As she straightened, a hand stroked her back precisely as she had stroked the cat’s. She had arched to meet it before she thought; and certainly before she saw who did it.
She hissed and recoiled. Her least favorite tormentor grinned at her and, in the moment of her startlement, wheeled her over and against the wall. She was trapped in the cage of his arms, breathing the musk of him that said, inescapably, foreigner. And no matter that she had been bound to these conquerors for the past two hands of years.
This son of the conqueror was remarkably callow, in her opinion, and intolerably determined to be the light of her life. She looked into his broad high-nosed face with its patchy young beard, and considered spitting at it. But that would only make him laugh. Milord Iannek was the least easily offended of men, and the most difficult to be rid of.