by Judith Tarr
And people said that Egyptians were servile. Khayan would have laughed if he had been alone. As it was, he made his escape as soon as he might, and perhaps cravenly left Iry to his mother’s mercy. It was justice of a sort, as insolent as that child was, and as thorough a stranger to submission. Sarai might never teach her to submit—but, like the Mare herself, she might learn to obey.
THE TWO LADIES
I
Kemni sailed into Thebes on a morning of blessed, searing heat, somewhat after the Inundation of the Nile had crested. They had fought their way upriver, laboring under oar and sail, and thanking the gods that the foreign kings had not known or stopped them. Even so, they had crept through Memphis at night, sailing by the stars, and trusting to the ocean-width of the river in that season. The cargo that they carried was far too precious to risk.
Kemni had been heart-whole again from the moment he passed the first green reedbeds of the Delta. Here at last, in the royal city of the Upper Kingdom, he was home. He had never been gladder to see those towering walls, or to look out on the bare bleak hills beyond them. His eyes had looked on a foreign sky, and his body known the chill of an outland air. If he never left Egypt again, he would be more than content.
Ariana came up beside him as he stood on the prow. If he could have braved the crocodiles, he might have leaped into the river and swum to shore. But he was prudent. He yearned, but he kept to the ship.
He glanced at her. She did not speak, not at first. She was rapt, staring at the city that would hereafter be home to her. The voyage had seemed easy enough for her. She had not pined visibly for Crete, nor, once she had taken ship, fallen back into that strange, remote stillness which had so alarmed him. Her laughter had brightened that whole voyage.
He was heart-glad to be home, but he would be sorry to lose her to the queens’ house. Not that she had ever tempted him, or allowed him to take liberties. He had not even presumed to dream of her. But he had had long days of her company, and long evenings of her stories and songs, jests and sallies and wickedly clever games. A voyage that might have been unbearably tedious had been remarkably pleasant, even with the need to skulk and hide as they passed through the foreign kings’ lands.
And now it was ending. She said to him, “Promise me something.”
“Anything I can,” he said cautiously. “If it’s honorable.”
She made as if to strike him. “Oh, you! Of course it’s honorable. Promise you’ll be my friend when we’re shut up in the palace.”
“I’ll always be your friend,” he said.
“Of course you will,” she said a little impatiently. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, my friend. Someone who comes to visit me, and keeps me company, and—”
“The king might have something to say of that,” Kemni said. “The queens don’t have the freedom that a princess has in Crete.”
“Why not?”
They had spoken of this before—never so directly, but she knew perfectly well how a queen was expected to conduct herself. She had never objected to it before.
He did his best to answer her question. “Queens are more than mortal. Queens are divine. As are kings. They live as gods do, constrained within the bonds of rite and ceremony. They can’t sully themselves with mortal men.”
“I am not an Egyptian queen,” Ariana said; and for an instant he saw all the arrogance of divinity in her. He remembered, then, that she was an image of her own great goddess.
But that was not a goddess of Egypt. “You are Egyptian here,” Kemni said, “if you marry the king of Egypt.”
She set her chin and firmed her lips and said nothing. He knew better than to think he had won the skirmish. He could never win a battle with a goddess.
~~~
Thebes opened its arms and gathered them in. Dancer came to haven at last, weary and tattered but indomitable as ever. Kemni bade farewell to her with genuine regret.
Her cargo he had thought to leave behind, but Ariana had no such intention. “We go together,” she said. “All of us.”
She would not even hear of his sending a messenger, nor wait for the harbormaster to come, but swept him off the ship, with Iphikleia silent in their wake—but Naukrates held his ground. He had to stay with his ship. Even the Ariana of Crete could not shift: him.
She sighed and shrugged and left him, but made him promise to come to the palace the moment Dancer was inspected and secured. He agreed to that, or at least did not disagree.
Kemni almost envied him. Any wise man would have sent a messenger to warn the king of what came to trouble his peace. Kings did not like surprises. And such surprises as this . . .
If Kemni had been fortunate, Ahmose would have been elsewhere, traveling about his realm or hunting down the river. But the king was in residence. His guards stood at the gate in all their finery. His chamberlains barred the way within, and swept them smoothly and irresistibly to the house of the foreign envoys, which just then was not, quite, bursting at the seams; and there left them to cool their heels in royal luxury.
Or so the chamberlains imagined. Kemni had in mind, once they were left to their own devices, to go in search of the Prince Gebu. Gebu would win them entry, he had no doubt of it.
But Ariana had no intention of waiting quietly for Kemni to arrange matters. She fixed the chief of the chamberlains with her haughtiest glare, and said in ragged but serviceable Egyptian, “You will take us to the king. You will take us now.”
“Madam,” the chamberlain said with a curl of the lip that took in her sea-worn clothing, her salt-stiffened hair, and her demonstrably foreign origin, “the Great House of the Two Lands will grant you audience in the proper time and with the proper ceremony. Until that time—”
“That time is now,” said Ariana. “You will take us to him.”
The chamberlain so far yielded to desperation as to cast Kemni a look of appeal.
Kemni, who was only more acceptable than she in that he was male and Egyptian, knew better than to be flattered, but he was amused. “Lady,” he said, “at least wait until we’ve bathed and made ourselves presentable. Would you have the king of Egypt think you a raw barbarian?”
“The king of Egypt, everybody says, is a reasonable and sensible man.” Ariana folded her arms over her breasts and glared at them all. “I will speak with him now.”
Kemni shot a glance at Iphikleia. She offered him no help. The chamberlain’s face had set in the immovable obstinacy of his kind.
Kemni sighed heavily and said to Ariana in Cretan, which he hoped the chamberlain did not speak, “Lady, if you please, let him go. I know a better way.”
“What?” she demanded in the same language. “To wait till we’re all ancient? You know we won’t be let in as we are, not unless we do it quickly.”
“Will you trust me?” he shot back. “I live here. I have a little influence. Once we’re clean and fit for anything but sailors’ company, I’ll see that we’re granted audience with the king.”
“Promise that?”
“Promise,” Kemni said with only the slightest quiver. If Gebu was not in the palace, or if he was not inclined to serve Kemni’s purpose . . .
Ariana need not know any of that. She glowered still, but she said, “Very well. You do what needs to be done. I,” she said with a toss of her head, “shall wait for you in the bath.”
“I’ll bathe myself,” he said, “by your gracious leave. Even Gebu, who happens to be my friend, might be more pleased if I were cleaner.”
She sniffed audibly, but she did not forbid him. Therefore, and rather wickedly, he bathed first, in royal Egyptian luxury, with servants who knew truly the art of making a body clean. They shaved him and anointed him and clothed him as befit a prince, with ornaments that widened his eyes somewhat, for they were rather above his deserts. He had not worn so much gold before, a collar so weighty that the servants grunted a little as they lifted it, and armlets as heavy as shackles, and a belt like the spreading wings of a vulture, each feather enam
eled with green and red and blue. He fought the frequent urge to stroke it as he went in search of his battle-brother.
Kemni had come in a stranger with a pair of foreign women, of little regard and less importance. But now, agleam with gold, in a kilt of the finest linen and a princely wig, he attracted stares and whispers. He recognized many of the faces, but few seemed to recognize him. Of course; Kemni the commander of a hundred had never affected such state. And he had been gone half a year and more. Gods knew what rumors had risen in his absence.
It was strange to be thought a prince. He was not sure he liked it.
He was however seeking one who was a prince in truth, and trusting to paths and patterns that were half a year old. Prince Gebu was in residence, said a lordling who had hunted with Kemni many a time, but looked on him now without recognition, blinded by the gold and the finery. He was burning with curiosity, Kemni could see, but he was too polite to ask the name of one who must surely be too august to be unknown.
A lord of the Lower Kingdom. The whisper ran ahead of him. It was true enough.
Gold and finery won him through where sea-stained near-rags would never have done. He entered the princes’ house, in among that warren of alliances and squabbles, riots and revels and tangled intrigue. It was not home, but it was close enough.
There they knew him. People here were accustomed to piercing the mask of gold and paint to a man’s true face. “Kemni! Kemni’s back from the dead!”
Half the princes were here, it seemed, or came quickly as word went out. They crowded around him, embraced him, pummeled him, gave him the welcome that neither the city nor the greater palace had known to give.
It was all he could do not to burst into tears, break down and howl. But that would sully his beauty. He embraced and pummeled and roared happily back at the lot of them.
They herded him into one of the halls, where there was always wine to be had, and whatever else a young male fancied. Today it was a flock of girls in wilted garlands, and the remains of a roast ox. None of the girls was as pretty as Ariana, but they were all beautiful, if only because they were Egyptian.
But he could not dally with them, however much he yearned to. He put them aside regretfully, and raised his voice above the tumult. “Gebu—where is Gebu?”
It took a while, and a great deal of shouting back and forth, but at length someone had an answer: “He’s serving his time in Amon’s temple.”
“No, he’s not,” someone else said. “He finished that yesterday, don’t you remember? He’s waiting on the king.”
“So much the better,” Kemni said.
They objected strenuously, even after he promised to come back and finish celebrating his return. But he had to speak with the king.
He had more escort than he strictly wanted, but as he passed the gate of the princes’ house, the princes and their following went back to their revelry. None went with him to find the king. That would be dull, they said. Ahmose was holding audience or settling disputes or counting grains of barley with his scribes, or some equally deadly royal pursuit. Gebu, fresh from his season of priesthood, would no doubt find it stimulating, but they were made of softer stuff.
“Ah, to be home again,” he said. They laughed and made as if to bathe him in wine, but he escaped with his splendor intact.
~~~
Ahmose the king was not, after all, going over accounts with his scribes, or even receiving embassies. He was taking his leisure in the royal menagerie, enjoying the sight of his latest acquisition.
Kemni stopped short on the edge of a space like a garden of grass. Half a dozen horses grazed there, a stallion and a harem of mares. They were taller than the herd in Crete, by a little, and lighter in the body; more delicate, closer in semblance to the gazelle than to the ox. They were all red, the stallion black-maned—a bay; the rest lighter, red-maned or even fallow gold.
“Where in the name of all the gods did you find these?”
Kemni had forgotten where he was, or who would hear him. Ahmose answered from beyond the horses, where he stood with Gebu and a pair of guards. The guards looked as if they were defending their king against a horde of crocodiles, standing with spears at the ready, glaring at the placid horses.
“Good day, my lord Kemni,” Ahmose said. “Welcome back at last from your journey. I trust we find you well?”
“Very well, my lord king,” Kemni said with belated civility. He would have gone down in obeisance, but Ahmose’s upraised hand prevented him.
“No, no,” the king said. “Be at ease. Do you like my horses, young lord?”
“I like them very much indeed,” Kemni said. “But, majesty, what—where—”
“They come from Libya.” Ahmose stepped past a startled guard and held out his hand. One of the mares lifted her head and sniffed lightly at it. When she found nothing to eat therein, she snorted and went back to her grazing. “You did ask to be paid in horses. Did you not?”
“Not—” Kemni stopped. He had asked to learn to drive a chariot, that was true. He supposed that would be to be paid in horses. “But, sire, these aren’t for me.”
“They might be,” Ahmose said.
He was waiting. Kemni lacked the subtlety of courts; it struck him belatedly, what he had been asked, albeit without a word. He nodded, but he frowned a little. Ahmose’s brows went up a fraction.
Kemni resorted to words again, too quickly perhaps, but he hoped he would be forgiven. “There is . . . something. A price.”
Ahmose waited as eloquently as before.
“A marriage,” Kemni said. Ahmose was not dismayed: no doubt, as Kemni had, he had expected it. But he might not be expecting the rest. “The king of Crete gives you his daughter, a lady of very high rank. He asks that she be made a queen.”
“That . . . might be arranged,” Ahmose said.
“I told him so, sire,” said Kemni. “But . . .”
“But?”
Kemni breathed deep, steadied himself, said it. “She’s here, my lord. Minos’ daughter. She took ship with me.”
“What, and all her attendants? And not one of our spies said a word of it.”
“Because, sire,” Kemni said, “she came alone but for a single attendant. It’s irregular. I told her so. But, my lord—”
“How very interesting,” Ahmose said. That was not a thing he said often, Kemni could see: Gebu, who had been hanging back as was proper, was a little wide-eyed. “What reason did she give for this great departure from tradition?”
“She said,” said Kemni, “that you need her now, and now is when she must be here.” His eye slid toward the horses. “Sire, she knows how to drive a chariot.”
“Ah, does she?” Ahmose was interested indeed. He was almost lively.
“She has taught me somewhat of the art,” Kemni said.
“I see,” said Ahmose, “you’ve wasted little time.”
Kemni bowed his head. It was little and late, but he did not want to seem more forward than he had already.
A hand fell on his shoulder. He started and almost flinched. The king had touched him, with his own hand, and shaken him lightly. “Young lord,” Ahmose said, and his voice was warm, “you have done well and more than well.”
“Even if I couldn’t keep Ariana—the princess from breaking with all proper conduct?”
“We shall see what she considers proper,” Ahmose said, still warmly. He was amused. Very much so. “Come. Take me to her.”
“But—”
“I too,” said Ahmose, “may depart from proper conduct.”
It was worse than improper. It was appalling. But it was a royal command, and Kemni was the king’s servant.
Still, he ventured to say, “My lord, if it were I, I would summon her here. And let her know that there are horses.”
Ahmose considered that. Kemni held his breath. Then the king said, “Yes. Yes, that is wise. Kamut—go to the house of the foreign embassies. Fetch the lady from Crete.”
The smaller of the tw
o guards bowed low and ran to do his master’s bidding. While they waited, Ahmose called in servants, and had a canopy set beside the horses’ enclosure, and a table, and wine and dainties. It was all done and waiting long before Ariana appeared, and somewhat after Kemni had begun to fear that she would refuse the summons.
~~~
But Ariana was no fool. She knew where Kemni had gone and what he had hoped to do. She kept the king waiting, but not too long. Just as the sun slipped visibly westward from its greatest height, she came, with Iphikleia for escort and shadow. The guard Kamut, who had been sent to fetch her, trailed like a lost dog, visibly smitten.
She was wrapped in a mantle of linen like an old woman, with a fold of it over her hair. As she approached down the path of raked sand, she let it slip and fall.
Kemni heard the gasp beside him. Gebu had never seen a Cretan lady in her full glory. It was, Kemni agreed, a marvelous sight.
Ariana had brought a small bag with her, Kemni had known that. Out of it she had conjured wonders. The embroidered skirt, the jeweled vest, he knew; he had seen them in Crete. The jewels were of rare quality. The paint of face and breasts, he supposed, was Egyptian, but what she had done with it was all Cretan. Her hair was washed and dried into ringlets, plaited and coiled and caught in a fillet. She was the very image of her own goddess, even to the serpent armlets—jewels for once, and not living creatures.
What Ahmose thought of her, Kemni could not tell. The king’s face was a royal mask, expressionless and still. Nor could Kemni tell what Ariana thought of the king of Upper Egypt. He was not a young man or a greatly beautiful one, but she had never struck Kemni as the sort to care for such things.
They regarded one another with a remarkably similar expression, or lack thereof: still face, dark eyes, no word spoken.
It was Ahmose who broke the silence. “Lady,” he said. “I welcome you to Egypt.”
She inclined her head. She was as haughty then as Iphikleia could ever be, but Iphikleia’s eyes did not glint so, nor did a smile touch the corner of her mouth. “My lord,” she said in better Egyptian than Kemni had imagined she knew. “I am most pleased to stand in your presence. And so soon. Is he not a marvel of a courtier, this ambassador of yours?”
