The Shepherd Kings

by Judith Tarr

  The lower part of him was spent, but his hands had still their strength. They left her breasts, running down her sides to the sweet curve of her hips, and slipping in beneath. She arched, with a catch of breath—just as, one night, he had dreamed it, dreaming all the places that her body most loved to be touched. Just as in dreams, she gave herself up to it, head thrown back, long hair trailing down. She rocked lightly against his hands, then more firmly, her breath coming faster, faster.

  It caught. She throbbed against him. He was rousing, long before he might have expected, and just as she subsided in his hands.

  With the hint of a sigh, she sank slowly down. Her body lay along the length of his. It was familiar to the point of pain. Even its imperfections, just as he had dreamed them: the faint soft down on her lip, the mole on her shoulder, the scar on her palm where she had, on a child’s dare, lifted a still-searing blade out of a forge.

  He kissed the marred skin there. Her fingers curved along his cheek. She had gone quiet, nestled body to body, just as—just as—

  “That’s why,” he said suddenly. “You dreamed. You dreamed, too.”

  She tilted her head to stare into his face. “You—” She shook her head. “You didn’t.”

  “I did,” Kemni said, half in terror, half in exultation.

  “You dared?”

  “No more or less than you,” he said with a flare of temper.

  It caught her by surprise. She almost shrank before it. Almost. “You never said a word,” she said.

  “Nor did you.”

  “How could I? You would have despised me.”

  “I don’t despise you now.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I don’t know what I meant. This should never have happened!”

  “If you command me,” he said carefully, “I will forget. It will be as if this had never been.”

  “No,” she said. “No. I don’t want to—” She pulled away from him, lifting herself to her knees, bending over him. Her hair brushed his belly. His skin quivered; his rod roused itself once more, valiant to the last.

  She took no notice. Her eyes were on his face. She took it in her hands. Her fingers were cold and a little unsteady. Almost they made him forget all his resolve, and his determination to do nothing that she did not ask.

  “I don’t want to forget,” she said. “But if there is no other way you can endure this—”

  “I want to remember,” he said.

  “Swear it.”

  “I swear,” he said.

  She sighed faintly. She did not look comforted. She looked wild. This must have been what she was when she was younger: this fierce eagerness, this almost frightening delight.

  “You hide it,” he said slowly, “because it’s too much; it’s too strong. It scares people.”

  She did not seem to hear, or if she did, to know what he meant. She stooped and kissed him till he thought he would die for want of air, then let him go so suddenly that he gasped. “Beautiful man,” she said. “Beautiful, beautiful man. Tell me you want me. Me, not some royal vision.”

  “I don’t dream of loving your cousin,” he said. “You . . . if you are absent from my sleep for even a night, I find myself yearning after you.”

  “Why?”

  How very like her that was. He almost laughed; but she would not have welcomed that. “Gods know. I’d have thought I had more hope of becoming her lover than of becoming yours. You were always so cold.”

  “No,” she said. “Never cold. Never for an instant.”

  “But—”

  She silenced him with a finger to his lips. “When I first saw you, bundled on Dancer’s deck like a part of the cargo, I thought you the most distressingly beautiful man I had ever seen. I was incredulous that no Egyptian had seen and recognized you. You turned every man on the ship to a shadow. Surely anyone with eyes could see what you were.”

  “Most people,” Kemni said, his voice somewhat strangled, “don’t have . . . your kind of eyes.”

  “They don’t, do they?” She stroked his cheek, and the curve of his brow. “You don’t know. You don’t believe it. And maybe that’s best. A man who knows his own beauty can be insufferable.”

  “But I am not—”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, doubt me. It’s charming.”

  “Better charming than insulting,” Kemni said. She had claimed back her hand. He felt oddly bereft. “I . . . you tried so hard to shut me away. I could have hated you.”

  “I wanted you to,” she said. “I swore an oath, you know. When I was young. I would never belong to a man. That’s why—” She blushed—Iphikleia, blushing; impossible, and yet there was no mistaking it. “That’s why I never took one to my bed. It’s expected, you know. It’s even encouraged. Unless you are the Ariana; then you send your servants to men you fancy, and preserve yourself until you can wed a king.

  “But I would become no man’s possession. I swore that when I was nine summers old, before my breasts had even budded.”

  “I rather doubt,” Kemni said, “that I can hope to possess you. You are not a possession.”

  “All men want to own their women,” said Iphikleia. “They can’t help it. Bulls, stallions—they do the same. The lion owns his harem of ladies. But I will not be owned.”

  “It would be presumptuous of me to dream of it,” Kemni said. “You are royal, and a goddess’ beloved. I’m as mortal as man can be.”

  “Beloved Egyptian,” she said, half scornful, half tender. “Your land is full of gods. Your kings are gods. I’m a very ordinary thing here, yes? And you wonder why I find you so astonishing.”

  “You are never ordinary,” Kemni said. “Whereas I—”

  “Perfectly extraordinary,” she said. “I won’t marry you, do you understand? I won’t parade this in front of the world. But I’m not going to let you go—awake or asleep. Can you endure that?”

  “Do you give me a choice?”

  “You may walk away,” she said, with a flash of her old, cold self. “I won’t stop you. But I won’t call you back. Not now, and not after.”

  Such a choice. She was still in most respects a stranger. But somehow, by the gods’ will, they had shared their dreams. The Iphikleia he knew on the other side of sleep, the Iphikleia who lay in his arms and managed still to glare at him, was as dear to him as life. That other one, the cold and haughty priestess, was a mask.

  He spoke to the Iphikleia of the spirit, the bright, fierce presence that was, he was certain now, the truth of her. “I won’t walk away. For your honor and for your name’s sake, I’ll not strut this union through the streets. The rest of it will be as the gods will.”

  “And the goddess,” she said. “Always the goddess.”

  He bent his head in respect, as to a queen. Iphikleia caught it in her hands again, pulled it down, and rolled him up against the wall. There, and headlong, she took him anew, so fierce and yet so sweet that it was almost beyond mortal bearing. Then when he thought that now, surely, he must die, for there was nothing more to do in this world, she let him go. She kissed him and stroked him and left him, and went to be, once more, the Iphikleia that the world knew.

  V

  Kemni reeled through the rest of that day as if he had been struck a blow to the head. That night he did not dream; his sleep was as dark as deep water.

  Until he woke, at some hour between midnight and dawn, to wicked fingers teasing him, coaxing his manly parts to rise and greet this incalculable creature who had made him her own. He was deep in her before his eyes had even opened, savoring the scent and touch and taste of her, and her presence here, waking, in his bed.

  They said that a new-plucked maidenhead was more pain than pleasure; and that a woman had to learn the first steps of the dance before she knew what joy it could be. Iphikleia had known it in the spirit long before she knew it in the flesh. She took an honest delight in it. She even laughed, soft and rich, as she tried a twist and stroke that made him cry out. “Ai! Woman
, you’ll kill me.”

  “Maybe someday,” she said. “But now I want you alive.”

  She wanted him more than alive. She wanted him inexhaustible and insatiable. But he was not a woman, to be so blessed of the gods. He gave her what he could, and she professed herself satisfied with it.

  When there was nothing left of him but a limp rag, she held him in her arms and kissed him softly, and said, “Ariana is sending you to steal a chariotmaker from the Retenu.”

  He had known that. Of course he had. But—“You tell me that now?”

  “When should I tell you?”

  He opened his mouth, but he was not a perfect fool. Instead of the rush of protest, he asked simply, “When?”

  “As soon as you may.”

  She was cool, calm. Another woman would have wept, or tried at least to seem sad. But this was Iphikleia.

  “I suppose she’ll want to see me in the morning,” Kemni said after a while. Then: “Does she know?”

  “There’s little my cousin does not know.” Iphikleia played with his hair. “Are you ashamed of me?”

  He looked up startled. “I should be asking you that.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m a foreign woman. My rank and where I come from matters little here. And you are the king’s trusted servant.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Stop that,” she said. “It’s not fitting for a man to imagine himself less than he is. You were born to a lesser lordship. You’ve grown to more. Do you think the king will let you slink and hide, now he’s discovered how useful you can be?”

  “Probably not,” Kemni said a little ruefully. “I am convenient. And I do take orders well.”

  “And fulfill them well.”

  He shrugged. “You,” he said, “should flaunt yourself at the king’s son. He’s pleasant, charming, and completely to be trusted. And he’s of rank to match yours.”

  “I like him,” she said, not at all disconcerted by this new shift of his. “He is pleasant. He has no gift for any language but his own, and he’ll never understand horses.”

  “He wants to understand them,” Kemni said.

  “But he has no gift for it. They cry out to him with every flick of the ear, and he’s as deaf as the earth underfoot.”

  “He’ll learn.”

  “One can hope so,” she said.

  “So,” he said. “While I’m gone, risking death to bring the king a chariot-maker, will you be warming his bed as you warm mine?”

  “I don’t have to answer that,” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  She kissed him. Her lips were fire-warm. They woke him rather thoroughly. He drew her down. She was ready for him, and more than ready.

  ~~~

  Ariana gave Kemni three days to gather his wits and his companions. He could not take an army, but neither could he go alone. A party small enough to escape notice, but large enough to capture and hold a prisoner or, better yet, prisoners—fishers on the river, with a small fast boat and a clutter of nets and cargo. No one noticed fishermen or farmers. They were everywhere, naked sunburned men who knew better than to draw a lord’s eye.

  Kemni chose from among his own hundred, men who knew how to wield net and line, and who were wise enough to be circumspect. One of them was Seti. He was wild and he was insolent, but he was a fine sailor, and Kemni thought he might be more sensible than he wanted to seem.

  The others were quieter men, wiry-thin even for Egyptians, the better to seem poor fishermen and not king’s soldiers. They stripped naked or wrapped their loins in a bit of rag, took care to go unshaven and unwashed, and embarked on the boat in a fine state of redolence.

  There was someone waiting for them. Kemni sucked in his breath. “Don’t begin,” Iphikleia said. “You need someone who knows a good chariot from a bad one.”

  “This isn’t a ship from Crete,” Kemni said. “You can’t hide as I hid.”

  “I’ll do well enough,” she said. “Now may we go?”

  Kemni turned to Ariana, who had come down to the river with them. She spread her hands. “I don’t command her,” she said. “If she wants to go, she goes.”

  Nor could Gebu help him. Gebu was on the boat past Iphikleia, somewhat less filthy and unshaven than the rest, but a creditable fisherman nonetheless. He grinned as Kemni glared at him. “I can’t take you both! What if you’re captured or killed? Two kings will be after my hide.”

  “Then you’d best protect us, hadn’t you?” said Gebu. “Come, brother. Time’s wasting.”

  Kemni’s careful plan was crumbling around him. He had had every intention of sailing in, doing what he must, and escaping unrecognized. With a Cretan woman all too obviously perched in the bow of a fishing boat, and a royal prince less than perfectly hidden among the crew, Kemni would be as difficult to notice as an ibis in a flock of geese.

  He was bound to go. He had given Ariana his word. And she would not order these interlopers off the boat.

  With a deep sigh, he bade farewell to his Cretan queen and lent his shoulder to the rest of those that slid the boat from the bank into the water. He was the last to clamber aboard, drawn up by eager hands, just ahead of a crocodile’s sudden snap.

  That was omen enough to begin with. Kemni chose to regard it as hopeful, in that he had escaped unharmed. The crocodile, cheated of its prey, lashed its tail in temper and vanished beneath the water.

  The boat rocked in the wave of the crocodile’s passing, but steadied as the men aboard it dug in the oars. They rowed out into the middle of the river, raised the sail to catch the bit of wind, and let the current carry them downstream.

  Kemni had taken the steering-oar. It was easy work, needing no thought. The wind was almost cool, the sun fierce, but he was born to that. Iphikleia, he saw, had sunk down in the curve of the prow and drawn a mantle over herself. She looked, even from so close, like a bundle of nets.

  As much as he disliked to admit it, it was possible they would escape undetected. Neither Iphikleia nor Gebu was a fool. And yet . . .

  He shut the thought away. It was some while before they would need to creep and hide. They were still in the Upper Kingdom here. For the game’s sake he had determined that they should be fishermen indeed, and wield net and line as they went. What they caught they would eat, or if there was enough, they could trade in the villages for bread and beer and other, more varied provisions.

  It was not like sailing on the Dancer of Crete. This was a smaller boat, cramped, with few amenities. Every finger’s breadth of space was put to use.

  At night they drew up on the bank, set up camp and a watch and slept as they could. The weapons they concealed in bits of baggage and folds of net were not the weapons of simple fishermen—Kemni had yielded to sense in that much; they carried the swords of warriors, short spears and hunting lances, and bows with arrows set ready to hand.

  But, except for those, they lived and camped as what they seemed. There were no elaborate pavilions, no flocks of servants. Even Gebu had to fend for himself. People were willing to wait on him, but their numbers were too few and their duties too many.

  He insisted that he did not mind. “It’s a grand lark,” he said to Kemni, the third night downriver from the Bull of Re. They were traveling slowly, but not as slowly as Kemni had feared. The river’s current had grown swifter. It was coming to the flood early this year.

  In a day or two or three, they would pass into Lower Egypt. Then they must be more circumspect, and pray the gods that what they looked for could be found soon. Kemni half feared that they might have to sail as far as Avaris.

  But that was ridiculous. There were strongholds of the enemy much closer than the royal city. In one of them, there would be makers of chariots.

  Iphikleia professed to know where some might be. “How did you know that?” Kemni inquired.

  “This way and that,” she said. She was not fond of Egyptian beer, but they had brought no wine. Fishermen did not drink it. She sipped, grimaced, began to set the
cup down.

  Gebu caught her hand, held it. “No,” he said. “No, lady. Wine, one sips. Beer, one drinks down as quickly as one can. Here: shut your eyes and drink deep.”

  She did not at all appear to mind that he had touched her. She did as he advised, screwed up her face and squeezed her eyes shut and drained the cup in a swallow. She gagged, gasped, coughed, but opened her eyes and said in somewhat breathless surprise, “It’s not so bad!”

  “You see?” said Gebu. “It’s not a taste to linger over. But taken quickly, without pause to think—it’s rather splendid.”

  “It. . . does grow on one,” Iphikleia admitted. She went back to gnawing at her share of barley bread.

  Kemni watched them narrowly. Gebu was sitting close to her, as someone had to; it was a tight circle round the fire, well back from the river with its threat of crocodiles. Kemni had found a place somewhat apart from them, between Seti and a tongue-tied young man who regarded Iphikleia in awe. Gebu the prince affected him not at all, but Iphikleia in her shabby mantle and her redolence of fish was an object of veneration.

  She was suffering Gebu to sit very close. He touched her often, by accident as it seemed, but Kemni knew that art as well as any.

  It should not matter. Iphikleia was not Kemni’s possession. She had barely glanced at him since she set foot in the boat—as if what they had had was left behind in the Bull of Re.

  And now she favored the prince. Had she lied, then, when she said that it was not Gebu she fancied? Or had she changed as a woman could do, and turned toward him after all?

  Fruitless thoughts, and futile here, where every eye could see and every ear hear what passed between any two of them. If he indulged in jealousy, he must do it alone—and know it for folly.

  “This is splendid,” Gebu was saying in response to a murmur from Iphikleia. “I’ve never fended completely for myself before. It’s refreshing.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” she said.