by Judith Tarr
“I’d like to see you try,” Khayan said. He sat back in his chair of office, lazily, diverted for the first time that day. He was greatly indebted to his brother for that, though he would never have let Iannek know it. Iannek was troublesome enough without that knowledge to wield over Khayan.
“So,” Khayan said when the silence had stretched sufficiently. “Nubia?”
“It’s beastly there,” Iannek said. “It must be. It’s even farther from anywhere interesting than this is. Don’t you think we could start a war? Or sack a few cities? It’s been ages since we fought the Upper Egyptians.”
“Not today,” Khayan said, “or tomorrow either. A war takes a little time to prepare.”
“I know that,” Iannek said crossly. “But a raid—that takes no time at all.”
“It takes very little time to die, either,” said Khayan. “Well; since you won’t go to Nubia and I won’t let you sack any cities, would you do a thing for me?”
Iannek eyed him warily. “It had better not be peaceful.”
“It probably won’t be,” Khayan said, “though it might be quiet as often as not. But it will give you ample to do, if you do it properly.”
Iannek still was not won over. “What is it?”
“You do know that the Mare has a servant,” Khayan said.
Iannek’s brows leaped toward the fillet that bound his hair. “It’s true, then? It’s an Egyptian?”
“You’ve seen her,” Khayan said. “Everybody has.”
“Yes,” Iannek said. “Of course. But they’re saying it’s a plot. Or a mystery. Something the women are doing to discomfit the Egyptians.”
“The Mare chose,” Khayan said. “No human creature compelled her.”
“And it’s . . .” Iannek shook his head. “That one thinks she’s mistress of this place, or her mother does. They both do.”
“They were once,” said Khayan.
“It seems the Mare wants to make the young one so again.” Iannek sighed and stretched, easy as a cat on the floor at Khayan’s feet. “She has a tongue on her, that one. I used to try to get her to kiss me, but she never would.”
“You never tried to force her?”
Iannek sat bolt upright. “What do you take me for?”
“A young rakehell who had to leave the king’s court abruptly because of an outraged husband. Who dares not go to Memphis because of outraged kinsmen. Who—”
“Those ladies were willing,” Iannek said with an air of injury. “Some were more than willing. I’ve never taken a woman who didn’t want me.”
“I would hope so,” Khayan said mildly.
“You don’t want me to touch her,” Iannek said. “Not now. I’d be sitting on the haft of a spear, and the head of it coming out my mouth, if I did such a thing to the Mare’s servant.”
Khayan kicked him, not too hard, but hard enough to make him grunt. “Idiot! Of course I’m not asking that. I’m asking you to look after her. Keep her safe. Fend off the fools and the madmen. Protect her from anyone who would harm her.”
“Even in the women’s house?”
“She lives there,” Khayan said.
“But your mother—”
“I’ll settle it with her,” Khayan said. “Will you do it?”
“That’s a great charge,” Iannek said a little slowly. “What’s a young rakehell doing taking it on himself?”
“Maybe the young rakehell simply needs something to occupy his mind.”
“Have you asked her what she thinks of that?”
Khayan’s teeth clicked together. That part of his brilliant scheme had not occurred to him. Nor should it have occurred to Iannek. Iannek, like all blessed fools, was only clever when no one wanted him to be.
But he was a fool, and a happy one. “I thought not,” he said. “Don’t worry, brother. I’ll charm her till she begs me to be her servant.”
More likely, Khayan thought, she would flay him with her tongue till a wiser man would have screamed for mercy. But Iannek, whose wisdom was entirely of the accidental sort, would reckon it all a grand lark. It would keep him busy, which was what mattered; and it might even keep Iry safe.
III
“Safe from what?” Iry had given Iannek the flaying he professedly expected; and he had taken it in good part, and refused adamantly to stray from her shadow. He was like a large, shaggy, and irritating young dog. Iry was not fond of dogs. She was even less fond of lords who thought she needed protecting. “And from what?” she demanded of Khayan. “I’m your holy priestess. Who would dare touch me?”
“I should think you understood courts,” Khayan said. He had been harnessing his stallions when she caught him in the stable, some time before he could have been expecting her. But he had seemed if anything rather relieved to see her—and to receive the sharp edge of her tongue. He had been expecting it, too, then.
“I understand courts,” she said. “But this is no palace.”
“No?” He paused with a bridle in his hand. “You live in the women’s house, and you can say that?”
“Sadana,” she said. The name recalled the woman: set face, bitter eyes, teaching that yielded nothing to any resentment. Sadana had been commanded to teach Iry the bow, therefore she did. She did it well. She made no effort whatever to gain Iry’s liking or even her respect.
“Sadana will do nothing to me,” Iry said. “She hates me with a perfect hate, but the Mare chose me. She’ll not go against the Mare.”
“Sadana is no danger to you,” Khayan said. “And I did say courts. Royal courts. The king has asked to see the Mare’s new servant.”
Iry’s back stiffened. Her skin went cold. “The king? Apophis?”
“Not Ahmose,” Khayan said dryly. “Yes, Apophis.”
“In Avaris?”
“He could come here,” Khayan said, “but that’s not overly likely. We’re going to Avaris, yes. I have duties to the king in any case, and so do you.”
“Not to that king,” she said from far down in her belly, where the cold was deepest.
“Then think of it so,” he said: “the king has duties to you.” He bridled his horses while she pondered that, and harnessed them to his chariot.
Before he was done, and while his back was turned, she was gone. She shed her robe before she left the stable, thrust it into a chest with a heap of saddlecloths, and slipped into the shadows. She did not greatly care where she went. They would find her in the end, of course; and she would find the Mare first, and no doubt Khayan.
Khayan. She set that thought aside until she had found a place to cherish her solitude. It was a small garden in a corner of the outer wall, a space of little use to anyone, but someone long ago had planted a date-palm as on an oasis, and set a pool at its feet. The palm gave little enough shade, but the rustle of its fronds was pleasant, and the water was cool as she laved her face and her feet.
Then the thought she had left aside came back to haunt her. The water reminded her, the feel of it on her skin. Moonlight, and another such escape from constant vigilance. And Khayan lying in a pool of that cold light, glistening with water, his beard and his thick hair curling with the wet. He had looked like some great and beautiful animal. She understood then why these Retenu swathed themselves in robes—not to hide their ugliness, but to veil their beauty. Then nakedness was a different thing, not a simple matter of course, but a marvel and a gift.
She had not been able to help herself. She had had to touch him. He had not seemed to mind it. Maybe he thought it was a dream. He had been close to sleep. His skin was softer than it looked, and his hair, too, not rough as she had thought it would be.
She wanted to touch him again. That would not be wise at all, she knew it, but wanting knew nothing of wisdom. He was a foreigner, a conqueror. She hated him. And yet . . .
It was strange to think such things, and of that one of all men. Other women did, she knew it very well. In the women’s house, as among the servants that Iry had been, that was all they did seem to thin
k of. Except the lord’s sisters—they were above it, or maybe immune to it. His mother?
No, Iry would not let her thoughts take such a path. The lesser women, the servants, the women of rank or family who attended Sarai, were entirely caught up in it. One of them—Barukha, that was her name—crept out most nights when she thought no one was watching, and crept back toward morning, tousled and heavy-lidded and smelling of something a little rank and a little wild, and to Iry’s nose, a little repellent. It was not like a cat in heat, at all, but the feel of it was the same.
Barukha was a lord’s daughter. Such things were forbidden her, Iry had thought; certainly in daylight she acted as if that were so.
They were not forbidden the Mare’s servant. Iry had asked—seeking an answer of Maryam, who was the most inclined to give clear answers to odd questions. The Mare’s servant could do whatever she pleased. That was her privilege, as it was the Mare’s. She could marry or not marry, love a man or many men or no men at all—even love a woman, if she so desired.
Iry did not want to love a woman. A man . . . she had never wanted that, either. Not when all the men she could have were bearded Retenu, or Retenu slaves.
It was so strange, this thing that she had become, on the whim of a white Mare. She was still herself. She was still Iry. But there was so much inside of her now. So many words in that language she hated, and in the beginnings of another language, an older language, that of the Mare’s people. So many things to remember. So many secrets; so many mysteries. All entrusted to her because of the Mare.
They reckoned themselves masters of intrigue, and yet they trusted her, Egyptian born, with knowledge that no Egyptian had ever had. Knowledge that, if she wished, could turn against them—could betray them. She knew the names of their gods, and the powers that were given them. There were rites and magics that could sway all these people—and she was learning them. She had little enough yet, but given time, she could wield it as she chose, against whom she chose.
She turned her hands palm up on her bare brown thighs. So much power. She had been born to be lady of a holding. Then she had been made a slave. Now, she was—why, she was as powerful as a queen.
Her fists clenched. No. Not that. Not yet. She was too young still. She knew too little. All she had was the beginning of an understanding. If she lived long enough, she would be a woman of great power and wisdom. But now, she was but a child, with a child’s strength.
A shadow fell across her. She looked up, not particularly alarmed. She had heard the scrabbling, and the sound of toes and fingers finding purchase on the wall. Silly. There was a small gate only a few dozen paces away, which the guards never troubled to watch.
She said so. The shadow against the sun, which was Egyptian, male, and somewhat unsteady on its feet, said rather crossly, “It was barred on the inside.”
She narrowed her eyes against the glare. The voice reminded her of something, or someone. She could not think who it might be. The face . . .
The world tilted, then righted itself. She could not breathe, suddenly; then, with equal suddenness, she could. “You died,” she said. “I saw your body. I saw your face.”
His face. There had been no face, not on that one of the bodies that came back from Avaris. Horses’ hooves had shattered it beyond the embalmers’ power to restore.
Then maybe—then surely—the man they had buried with all due rites had not been Kemni at all. She did not trust her feet, but she had to get up, to see him better. To look into that face which she had thought destroyed.
Yes. It was Kemni. He was older, of course. Taller; broader. Much darkened with wind and sun, unshaven and not particularly clean, and very much alive.
“You grew,” he said, which she was thinking, too. But he would be more startled than she: he had been a man already, if very young, when he went away—she thought, to die; and she had been a child, her breasts not even budded yet.
He frowned. “It is you. Isn’t it? Iry?”
She nodded. “Kemni,” she said. “Cousin. How—”
“I was with your father and your brothers. I saw them die. I would have died, too, but one of the princes saved me and carried me away. They must have found someone else near your father and taken him for me. There was such confusion: battle, retreat, bitterness and anger. I never came to myself till we were well south of Memphis. By then your kin were long gone, sent back to this place, and I was safe—so they told me—in the Upper Kingdom. I thought you all must have been killed, since your father was a rebel. The Retenu were in no forgiving mood when we left them.”
“My mother wouldn’t stand for that,” Iry said. She was calm again, she thought, until she started to sway. He caught her before she could fall. His hands were warm and strong. He was alive.
“But I heard,” he said, “that a foreign lord had taken this place.”
“One did,” Iry said. “One took it when he died.”
“And your mother? The Lady Nefertem?”
“Alive,” Iry said. “And well.”
His eyes closed for a moment. He looked as she felt: as if he dared not let go of himself, or he would howl like a dog. When his eyes opened again, he said the thing he must most have dreaded to say: “My kin? My father?”
Iry answered him baldly, because there was no way to soften the blow, not really. “They died. No, no one killed them. Your father took ill of a wasting sickness. Your mother lingered long enough to see him to his tomb; then she went to it herself. There was no one to take the Golden Ibis then; so the foreign lord took it. He has a steward there now, a cousin to our Teti. It’s well enough looked after, all things considered.”
Kemni sank down on the raked sand. “I was going to go there first. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to—”
“No.” Now that he was not looming over her, Iry could see him more clearly. He had a rangy look, as if he had been walking far and long, but he was strong, and well enough fed. Except for the dirt and dust and the scurf of beard, he looked as if he had been prospering. The sight of him was peculiarly terrifying, and strangely exhilarating. As if the dead could walk, or what was gone could live again.
But this man was patently not dead, and no spirit walking, either. “You’ve not been living in the Red Land,” she said.
He was glad to change the subject, she could see. “Thebes,” he said. “I’ve lived in Thebes.”
“Ah,” said Iry.
“And you?” he asked.
“I’ve lived here.”
“Are you well? Are you—?”
“I’m well,” she said. “I suppose I know why you’re here. Who sent you? The Great House?”
He nodded.
She had meant it for mockery, somewhat. But he was not laughing. “Really? The king himself?”
“The king himself.” Kemni drew himself up a little. “I’m battle-brother to one of his sons. I serve . . . one of the queens.”
“You’re raising a rebellion.” She did not know why he should stare. It was obvious. “If anyone catches you here, you’ll hang from the wall by a hook.”
“Why? I’m just another slave.”
“Slaves in this house,” she said, “are clean.”
He glanced down at himself, as if he had not even noticed his condition. “Well then; I’ve been laboring in the fields.”
“That’s farmer’s work,” she said. “House-slaves don’t stoop to it.”
He glowered at her. “You were always difficult. Couldn’t you have changed even a little?”
“No,” she said. And that was a lie so blatant, she wondered that he did not rise up and strike her with his fist.
He had not changed at all, except to grow taller and wider and more full of himself. He had been a cocky young thing when he ran wild between his father’s house and his uncle’s. He was still cocky, and not so very old, either. “Tell me where I can find a bath,” he said, “and a razor that’s not too blunt.”
“You’re staying here?”
�
��For a while.”
“That’s not wise. At all.”
“Probably not,” he agreed. His brows quirked. “Bath? Razor?”
She should have sent him on his way—back over the wall for choice, or to one of the few people in this house that she trusted. But she could not bring herself to let him go. He was a memory from years past, a name and face that she had made herself forget, except when it was time to remember the dead. Now he was alive again, warm and solid and rather redolent.
It was mad, what he was doing. If one of the Retenu caught him, he was dead, as she had warned him. And yet he quite likely had the right of it. Retenu could not tell one Egyptian from another. Bathe this one, shave him, make him fit for decent company, and he would vanish among the rest of his numerous and unregarded kind.
But first she had to get him to that bath and that razor. She took him on roundabout ways, down passages that she hoped were little used, through the chains of courts and houses to a room that most in the house had forgotten.
There, as she had hoped, was Huy the scribe, aged and blind but still keen of wit—and by the gods’ grace, Pepi the master of the stable was with him, sharing a jar of beer for old times’ sake. Iry hesitated before she passed that door. She had not been there since she was taken away to be the Mare’s priestess. If they looked on her with hatred, or worse, with contempt, she did not know if she could bear it.
But Pepi greeted her with a broad gaptoothed smile, and Huy’s face lit like a lamp, even blind as he was. “Little one!” the old scribe cried. “Oh, child, we’ve missed you.”
“And I you,” she said a little thickly. “Are you well?”
“Very well,” Huy said, “now you’re here again. Pepi, move your creaking old bones, we have a guest.”
“Two guests,” Pepi said, eyeing Kemni narrowly. Iry could not tell if he recognized her cousin, until he said, “Well. Well and well. So the dead do walk. Where’ve you been, boy? Lying in a furrow for the birds to peck at?”
“Close enough,” Kemni said with a hint of laughter. “Your lady brought me here, I think, to make me fit for human company.”
“I’m sure,” Pepi said dryly. “Here, boy. We’ll see to that.”