The Shepherd Kings

by Judith Tarr

“I doubt that is possible,” the king said.

  “But if it were?”

  He met her stare. People here never did such a thing, never looked their king full in the face, but Iry was what she was. She stood steady.

  “Tell me what you would do,” he said.

  “I would go,” she answered, “in the garb of my office, and speak with the king of the Retenu. He might, for the goddess’ sake, withdraw and leave this kingdom to you.”

  Somewhere amid the council, someone laughed. He was quickly hushed. Ahmose did not laugh, nor did he smile. “You believe that can be done?”

  “Probably not,” she admitted. “But it may be worth the trial. If nothing else, it would impress on the people in the city that one of their great divinities has left them.”

  “They know that already,” one of the commanders said. Few of them looked like warriors to Khayan’s eyes, and this was no exception: a slender, almost weedy man of no discernible age, decked in gold and jewels, with an elaborate braided wig, and a face painted into an expressionless mask.

  Iry spoke to the mask as one who had learned from childhood to see the face beneath. Her voice was cool, her words precise. “Certainly they know. But if I make them see, it may dishearten them.”

  “Now that is true,” the king said. “It makes me think . . . Set is ours, though they claimed him. Has not Set also come back to us?”

  “I know nothing of Set,” Iry said. “I only know Horse Goddess. And she has turned away from them.”

  “Surely,” said another of the commanders, speaking Khayan’s own thoughts—which he could never utter, not in this place—“whatever you can do, lady, however well you do it, will endanger you far more than it will aid us.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “I think not. The king of the Retenu is an honorable man. He would hear me out, and then let me go. And who knows? The goddess might prevail on him to surrender.”

  “Or he might hold you hostage and compel some surrender on our part,” the second lord said.

  “He’ll never hurt me,” she said. “None of them would dare. If he holds me, well then, all the better for the war, to feed your soldiers’ anger and give them more cause to seize the victory.”

  “I’m not sure—” the king began.

  “I will go,” she said. “This is something the goddess bids me do. I would be glad of your blessing, but even without it, I must obey her.”

  Ahmose shook his head. “Lady,” he said, “that is not safe. What if someone does dare to harm you?”

  “Then the goddess wills it,” Iry said. “Will you give me your blessing, sire? Even if you can’t bless what I do?”

  “You always have that,” Ahmose said. “But—”

  “I thank you, sire,” she said.

  ~~~

  “Someday,” Khayan said when they had come to her tent, “a king is going to forget who you are, and bind and gag you and keep you locked in a cage.”

  Iry shrugged. “Maybe the king of the Retenu will do that. Does it matter? I have to do this. No man is going to stop me.”

  “Then I’m going with you,” Khayan said.

  “You are not.”

  “You won’t stop me.”

  “But it’s not safe for you to—”

  She stopped, and wisely, too.

  “Exactly,” he said. “I suppose you’re going to do it today? The longer you delay, the more likely the council is to find a way to stop you.”

  “I would do it now,” she said. “But not if you insist on coming with me.”

  “Good,” Khayan said.

  She hissed in frustration. “You are a maddening man.”

  “Then we’re well matched.” He sat on the chest that held her priestly robes, and smiled sweetly at her. “Since you’re not going to do it after all, shall we rest a little instead?”

  He did not mean that they should sleep. But she was in no mood to yield to his blandishments. She pushed him off the chest and retrieved her white robe, and all that went with it: the belt of knotted cords, the black dagger in its ancient sheath, the bag of sacred things. In it, he knew, were amulets and images of the goddess, and herbs used in the rites, and other things that were not for him, as a man and mortal, to know.

  She put on the robe, belted it as custom prescribed, and hung the dagger from the belt. The bag she set aside. When she went out, she would carry it over her shoulder. But now she took from it a comb of ivory or fine-carved bone, closed the chest and sat on it and combed out her hair. It was not long enough, quite, to braid, but she could bind it with an intricately plaited fillet of white horsehair set with disks of beaten gold. Golden ribbons streamed down the back of it.

  Khayan had never seen that headdress on a living head. It was worn only for the greatest of rites, which had not been his to see. Iry wore it as a queen would, holding her head high, and proud with it, but not so overwhelmed by her own consequence that she could think of nothing else.

  She was almost done. If he would go with her—would face his people as he was now, a weight of shame so heavy that it came near to crushing him—he must at least do her no dishonor. He had only one other kilt, which happened to be clean, and a pair of sandals that were new and none too comfortable, and no ornaments at all.

  She turned at the end of her robing and set a box in his hands. It was very heavy for its size; he nearly dropped it. In it was one of the great collars that the Egyptians favored, and armlets, all of gold. He looked from them to Iry’s face. “How—”

  “People give me gifts,” she said. “These are a man’s jewels.”

  “But I can’t—”

  “If you insist that you must come with me, in spite of what it will do to your spirit, then you must come with all the pride that you have ever had. They’re going to mock you, Khayan. Mock and spit at you. And you must bear it as a king does, as if he were far above it.”

  “I’m not going to stay behind,” Khayan said through gritted teeth, though he would have loved dearly to crawl into the corner of the tent and stay there till she came back.

  If she did.

  That stiffened his spine. He put on the collar, with her help—finding it not so heavy once it rested on his shoulders. The armlets were large enough, which was also surprising. They were graven with a wonderful thing: horses and chariots pursuing one another round and round through a landscape of reeds.

  He traced the lines of one with his finger. “This was not a gift,” he said.

  “But it was,” said Iry.

  He narrowed his eyes at her.

  She tossed her head so that the golden ribbons rippled and danced. “Well then. The gold was a gift, and the smith made it as I asked. You don’t like it?”

  “It is princely,” he said. “I am not.”

  “You are my prince,” she said. “Now wear it, and hold your head high. The Mare chose me. I chose you. In the east, that would make you a very great lord.”

  That was true. And yet—

  She turned and left him with the armlets still in his hands. He had to thrust them on if he would catch her, and stride long and fast. When he had caught her, he was too breathless to speak any of the words he had gathered to fling in her face.

  Which was probably not an ill thing. The Mare was waiting. She was bridled as if for a festival, and brushed till she gleamed. Khayan would have wondered how that could be, if he had not seen Iannek’s broad white grin beyond the Mare. Iannek, of course, would never reflect on what danger Iry rode to. Danger to Iannek was both meat and drink.

  Indeed he held the bridles of Khayan’s own beloved duns, harnessed with suitably princely splendor, and drawing a chariot that must have been one of the king’s: it was gilded, and its shafts were tipped with gold. Iannek was in armor, Egyptian no less—and how he had managed that, seeing that he was a bull in a herd of gazelle, Khayan could not imagine. It did seem to fit him well, and he looked well in it, in an odd and barbaric way.

  Khayan was to be charioteer, it seemed, with Iannek in t
he warrior’s place. As that sank in on him, there inevitably was Sadana with her warrior women, mounted and armored and ready to ride.

  They were all together, then, a small riding but a noble one, and Iry on her white Mare, whom they all served. Khayan would gladly have been her only guard, but these would protect her as no one man could.

  They might also be seized and killed. If so, then so be it.

  ~~~

  They rode through the camp with no attempt at ceremony, and yet it became a procession. The Egyptians made a path for Iry as they always did, and many followed, murmuring, as she rode toward the gate. The people atop it had seen: their faces were turned toward her, eyes wide, fingers pointing.

  No one shot at her. That much power her presence had, and the Mare’s moon-white coat that seemed to drink the sun and turn it to cold fire.

  She rode past the siege-engines into the open space between the army and the wall. The gate loomed over her. It was splintered but not broken.

  This was not Sile. It would not fall as Sile had fallen. It was the greatest city in the world, and the most strongly warded.

  She halted before that gate and raised her hand. “Open,” she said, not even particularly loudly.

  It opened for her. Not all of it; only the smaller gate within the gate. But that was large enough to admit horses and chariot, and Iry leading them on the Mare’s back.

  Khayan’s heart was cold and still. He was beyond terror. Just so had it been once when he hunted a bear to its cave, and while the hounds swarmed and bayed, made his way into the reeking darkness.

  The bear had fallen to his spear. Maybe in this hunt he himself would fall. But not before Iry. He swore to that, in his heart where all oaths were strongest.

  As Iry had ridden through the Egyptian army, so she rode through Avaris, down the king’s way amid the gathered crowds. The word had spread as it always did. The Mare was in Avaris, where she had never gone. And the Mare’s servant had come back among the people.

  The palace was open for them, the frown of the citadel little lightened by the gate that stood wide. It looked, to Khayan, like a gaping mouth.

  He knew the men who waited. They were princes of chamberlains, the king’s own. They met embassies from great allies, and saw to their comfort.

  Iry was not looking for comfort. The rest of them left their horses in the first court, but the Mare would not go. She paced beside Iry, hooves echoing on the pavement, through the courts to the king’s hall.

  After all Khayan’s fears, no one appeared to have seen him, still less to know who he was. He was as invisible as the rest. Every eye turned on Iry, and on the Mare.

  ~~~

  The king was waiting in his hall of audience, crowned with the crown of the Lower Kingdom that Salitis the first king had taken as his own. His robes were of the people, but his throne, the lotus-pillars of the hall, and its painted walls, were all of Egypt.

  That was his name painted on the walls in the binding of the cartouche. Khayan did not read the Egyptian writing, that march of beasts and birds and strange shapes and fragments of human figures, but he knew what some of it signified. Enough to recognize a king’s name when he saw it.

  Apophis had not changed. He looked no older and no more haggard. He was, if anything, at ease on that golden throne. His court had a faintly wild-eyed look, as if it felt the terror of the siege, but he was calm.

  His herald greeted Iry as was proper for formal audience, taking no notice of her escort, as was also proper. What was not proper was that all of them carried their weapons still; and that sat ill with the guards whose wonted place was at the door and around the walls. They had drawn in close, poised to leap if any of them menaced the king.

  He waved them back, cutting through the herald’s lengthy oration. “That will do,” he said to the herald, who shut his mouth with a snap, suppressed an expression of purest pique, bowed and withdrew.

  The king rose. “You will come,” he said to Iry.

  Khayan knew the room behind the throne. He had sat in it often in the king’s company, or with great lords of the court. When he followed Iry, he was not prevented—perhaps because he was unarmed. The others found themselves face to face with the guards, and throat to point with their spears.

  Iannek at least might have tried to press past, and maybe died for it, but Iry turned. “Stay,” she said to him.

  He was hardly as docile as a favorite hound, but he was obedient. He snarled and stood still.

  Iry had already turned away. Khayan strode after her.

  The king was not alone in that place of private audience. There were guards, of course. And there were a pair of veiled women.

  Almost Khayan could not pass that door. A man of the people learned to recognize the shape behind a veil; and those he knew very well indeed.

  And they knew him. Their eyes on him were steady, unflinching.

  The king’s face was rather less difficult to read. He turned in the room and pulled Khayan into a hard embrace. Khayan stiffened against it, more than half expecting the bite of a dagger in the back; but Apophis was weeping tears of—gods; joy.

  What Khayan felt was much less simple. When the king would let him go, he tried to bow low, but Apophis would not allow that. “No, my child. No. No ceremony here. I only thank the gods that they let you live.”

  “I live a slave,” he said.

  “You serve the Mare’s servant.” That was not Apophis’ voice. It was Sarai’s. She was not one to rise for anyone, even a lost son. But when she held out a regal hand, Khayan had no choice but to take it.

  She drew him to her. Her fierce eyes searched his face—much as Iry loved to do, but never so tender. “So. The world changes. Are you content?”

  “I—” Khayan would have said that he was not. Except that his eye caught Iry, standing quiet as she best knew how to do; and the sight of her made him dizzy with joy. Even here, on the raw edge of pain.

  “The goddess gives where she wills,” Sarai said, “and chooses whom she will.”

  Khayan looked down. He was blushing again. He blushed a great deal of late.

  His mother laid a cool palm against his burning cheek. She was smiling, maybe. Beneath the veil, it was difficult to tell.

  “It would be better,” he said, “if you cursed me and cast me out.”

  “Easier,” she said, “for you, perhaps? How could I do that? You belong to the goddess.”

  “I am thinking,” he said, “that if I had not grown from boy to man among your kin, I would have flung myself on a sword a good while since.”

  “And you reckon yourself a coward because you did not.” She shook her head. “Child, a coward takes refuge in death. A brave man lives the life his gods ordain.”

  “So they teach among the eastern tribes.” He sighed. “Lady, Mother, this is a war. We are on opposite sides of it.”

  “Surely. And we intend to win.” She spoke without doubt or hesitation.

  “Even with such an omen as we are?”

  “The Mare goes where she goes,” Sarai said. “And the people are the people. This kingdom has belonged to them for a hundred years. Should they simply let it go?”

  “They are besieged. The river is blockaded with their ships. No reinforcements can come from Asia. The lords away from here—”

  “They are still a great people. They were born here—just as you were. This is their country. If they are driven out of it, where can they go?”

  “Back to Asia,” Iry said levelly. She had come to stand beside Khayan. “Your time here is ended. We offer you freedom to go, with all your goods and chattels, and even such wealth as you can safely carry.”

  “We have no desire to carry it away,” said Apophis. “We rule here. We intend to remain.”

  “The Great House will destroy you,” Iry said. “He lives in spite of the plot against him. The gods of this kingdom love him, and wish you gone.”

  “Our priests say,” said Apophis, “that Baal, who is Set, will def
end us, and crush the armies that march against us.”

  “Set is a destroyer,” Iry said. “Those whom he chooses as his playthings, he dandles and fondles, until he casts them down.”

  “Are you a priest of Set, that you know such things?”

  “I am the Mare’s servant,” Iry said. “I know what the goddess permits her to know.”

  “We will not yield,” Apophis said. “No, lady; not even for you.”

  “Even for wealth and life and freedom, and the avoidance of war?”

  “War is pleasing to the gods, and to Baal their king,” said Apophis. “Blood is their sacrifice. We will give them their fill, and so win back our kingdom.”

  Iry stared at him as if he had astonished her. Maybe he had. Egyptians, Khayan had come to know, were not warriors, nor did they make a virtue of war. Quite the opposite. Iry could not understand a man for whom war was not a threat but a promise; who had been born and bred to fight in battles.

  “You would fight,” she asked, “even if you knew that you could avoid it?”

  “Avoid it? How? By surrender? No,” Apophis said, “I would not do that even if my people would allow me. Even for you, lady—even for your goddess. I cannot.”

  “You will not,” she said, soft and a little bitter.

  “That, too,” he agreed.

  “Then will you hold me here, and make me a hostage?”

  “No,” he said. When her eyes widened in disbelief, he went on, “I will let you go. It might serve some small purpose to hold you prisoner, but I see no great profit in it.”

  “This mercy will not help you, if you lose.”

  “I never expected that it would.” He smiled at her. “This is a praiseworthy thing you do, and brave—braver perhaps than you know. It will gain you admiration among our young men. But no surrender. That would be unthinkable.”

  “We can think of it,” she said.

  “Ah,” said Apophis, “but you are Egyptian.”

  “I don’t understand you,” she said.

  “No.” He took her hands in his, and bowed over them. “Understanding is not necessary. Only acceptance. When we win this war, my lady, if you choose to come back to us, there will be no punishment; no retribution. It is understood that the Mare does as the Mare pleases.”