The Shepherd Kings

by Judith Tarr

  She was not a warrior, either, or a master of bow and spear. She did not know how to fight as men fight.

  She said, “If you kill me, you’ll gain nothing.”

  Sadana’s brows went up. She was very haughty, that one. “Why should I want to kill you?”

  “I would,” Iry said.

  “They said,” said Sadana slowly, “that you were . . . different.”

  “I am Egyptian,” Iry said.

  Sadana’s fists clenched. The anger flared then, swift and fierce. “Who are you, that she should choose you?”

  “If I knew that,” Iry said, “I would know how to refuse it.”

  “You would refuse the Mare?”

  Sadana was outraged. Iry knew better than to marvel at it. These people were strange about their goddess. Why should Sadana be any different?

  “I was not raised to worship her,” Iry said. “I was raised to hate her. I never wanted to belong to her.”

  “No one refuses the Mare,” Sadana said.

  “I don’t want to,” Iry said. “And as you say, I can’t. Are you going to oppose me at every turn, or will you give your goddess her due?”

  “What you have should have been mine.”

  “Surely. But the Mare chose otherwise.”

  “I do not understand it,” Sadana muttered. “You have nothing. No beauty, no wit, no power. You are a child. You have not even a child’s wisdom. What magic did you work? What plot is this?”

  “No plot of mine,” Iry said. “If the gods are conspiring against you, then that is their will. I have no part in it.”

  “That is a lie.”

  “I never tell lies,” Iry said.

  Sadana snorted in disgust, very like a mare, and turned on her heel. Iry made no effort to call her back.

  It was war. That much she had known already. This was no ally. Her life was in little enough danger, perhaps. But her souls?

  Ah; and these people thought that a person had only one soul. Iry had seven. But she could not spare even one of them, except to wander in a dream, or to speak for her before the gods.

  Maybe that was what she must do. Send her winged ba, or the ka that was her image and likeness, to speak to Horse Goddess in her own distant country.

  Maybe Horse Goddess would let her go, and give Sadana what she yearned for.

  Maybe Egypt would be reunited, too, and the Retenu driven out. Who knew what might happen? For the gods, anything was possible. Anything at all.

  II

  Khayan was a lord among lords of this conquered kingdom. It should be of little moment to him what intrigues the women wrought, or how they waged their shadowy wars within the house that he allowed them.

  But before he was a lord of men, he was a child of the White Mare’s people. Women’s wars were the great wars; the more so if they had to do with the Mare herself.

  The Mare went her own way. The Mare’s servant would have liked to—that much Khayan could see. No doubt his mother could, too.

  His mother missed nothing. She had no mercy either, nor cared to find any. She had set Sadana to teaching the girl to shoot a bow—futile, it might have seemed, except that the child had been taught long ago to shoot at birds in the reeds; and she remembered. Perhaps even then the gods were preparing her for what was to be.

  Khayan wondered, daringly, at his mother’s setting Sadana such a task. Had she no fear that an arrow might fly astray? Surely they all reverenced the Mare, and were taught from youth to cherish the Mare’s servant. But this was an Egyptian. She was impossible—outrageous.

  “It is amazing,” Barukha said from the depths of his bed, one breathless hot night. Khayan had not invited her there. He had come in from the hall to find her so, naked as an Egyptian, with her long hair newly washed and scented with musk, and a garland of flowers about her brows. The scent of musk and flowers, in that heavy heat, was overpowering.

  She seemed oblivious to her own potent allure. She was musing on the Mare’s new servant. “So ordinary,” she said. “So unexceptional. Cast her into a crowd of her own kind, she vanishes. There is nothing remarkable about her at all.”

  “You’ve been talking to Sadana.” Khayan had had dreams of casting aside the swathings of his robes and falling asleep in such coolness as was possible. But Barukha had other intentions. She had taken from him all that she wanted, with great relish but little care that he be satisfied. Then, as heedless as only Barukha could be, she turned to the thing that had been occupying her mind as it had everyone else’s.

  “Sadana finds her ordinary, too? She bites the throat of anyone who talks to her, these days. Her riders walk well shy of her.”

  “I can imagine,” Khayan said. He propped himself on his elbow. The sweat of his exertions was drying, if slowly. It cooled him a little.

  Barukha stroked lazy fingers down his breast, raking nails lightly through the curly hairs. Her touch made him quiver.

  She smiled at his response, but did not choose, just then, to take it further. “Sometimes I think,” she said, “that for the Mare, any Egyptian girl would do. Surely that one has nothing to recommend her but her tribe and nation.”

  Khayan was not inclined to argue with her. In a little while she had tired of her musings—and, it seemed, of him. She left him where he lay, took up the dark robe that had covered her and slipped away into the shadows.

  Khayan rolled onto his back. It stung: she had raked him with her nails. He sighed. If he had been a man as other men, he would have cast her out of his bed when he found her in it. But he was his mother’s son. She had taken of him what she would, and he had allowed it.

  He ached and his back stung, and he was not satisfied. He sighed and finished it, without pleasure, then went to the bath that was one of the great luxuries of this house. Servants could fill a great basin with hot water, but for such times as this, the broad tiled pool with its floating pads of lotus and its dance of bright fishes was a wonder and a marvel.

  The water was cool on his fevered skin. It washed away the sweat and the stains, and soothed the heat both without and within. When he was as clean as he could be, he floated in a half-dream, in the light of the one small lamp.

  He was not dreaming of Barukha. Once she was gone, she was gone. The face and body that lingered in his memory were quite different.

  Khayan did not know when he had begun to find Iry fascinating. In teaching her what she hungered to know, what she needed in order to serve the Mare, he had learned that she was not ordinary at all. She understood horses. She understood people, too, though she seemed unaware of it.

  And while she was not beautiful, she was . . . interesting. She was tall for an Egyptian. She had the leggy grace of a young filly, and an ease in herself that he, child of robes and modesty, could envy.

  When he had first seen her robed as a priestess, after so often clad in nothing but a blue bead on a bit of string, he had had all he could do to conceal from her how greatly she had aroused him. It was well for him that she was an innocent, or she would have had cause to mock him.

  Then, when they had come to the horses’ field, she had stripped off the trappings his mother had imposed on her, and become again the naked Egyptian slave. But to him she had changed utterly. The garb of his own people had given him eyes to see her.

  That was perhaps not a fortunate thing. As a slave she was his to command. As the Mare’s servant, she could command him. She who had been far below him was now far above.

  He swam from end to end of the pool, not far but far enough, then back again, over and over. It took him out of himself, out of mind and will and worry.

  When he could swim no more, he climbed out and lay on the cool damp tiles, till his heart had stopped hammering and his breath came slow and deep again. He felt clean, as he had not felt in a long while; clean and cool. Blessed, blessed coolness.

  Someone was kneeling next to him, taking shape out of lamplight and shadow. He knew she was a dream. She would not be here, not at such an hour, watching h
im gravely with those long Egyptian eyes. She was naked as she best preferred to be, as modest in it, and as comfortable, as a lady of his people in all her robes and veils. Her high small breasts, her girlish-narrow hips, were charming rather than beautiful, pleasant rather than alluring. And yet something about her made him want to do all the things to her that he did not, in his heart, greatly desire to do to Barukha; but Barukha insisted.

  There was no concealing what he felt. He was as naked as she, but for him, who had modesty, it was nakedness indeed. And when a man wanted a woman, no one could ever mistake it.

  She did not seem to notice or to care. Of course; to her it was a common thing.

  She was more intent on the rest of him. Her hand crept out and brushed his breast, just where Barukha had stroked it not so long ago. He shivered more deeply now than he had then. That was real touch, real warmth of flesh. Real and living fingers taking in how different he was from men of her own people, how much broader, taller, stronger; and marveling at his curly pelt.

  “Like an animal’s,” she said.

  “I am a man,” he said a little stiffly.

  “Surely,” she said.

  He thrust himself up, scrambling away from her. “What are you doing here? How did you get in? What do you want?”

  She shrugged. “This was my house,” she said. “I know every corner of it.”

  “But what—why—”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I heard you in here. Do you do this often?”

  “No!”

  “You should. Your people aren’t made for this heat. You won’t dress for it, either.”

  “Can you see me in a kilt?”

  Her head tilted. Her eyes narrowed. “You would look . . . not so bad. Your shoulders are smooth. And your back. Some of them, they look like apes out of Nubia.”

  He drew himself up, affronted. “They look like men of the people.”

  “Not my people,” she said.

  “They are now.”

  Her lips tightened. He thought she might deny it, but she said, “I like you better this way. You’re quite—yes, you’re beautiful. I didn’t expect that.”

  “You think I’m ugly.”

  His voice must have been flat: her lips quirked. “I think it’s hard to tell. All those robes, you know. And so much . . .” Her hand brushed his beard. He stiffened. No one did such a thing except a lover. And a lover only did it by his leave.

  But this strange child did not even know that liberties she took. “I wish I could see your face,” she said.

  “You see my face.”

  “I see,” she said, “a pair of eyes like a falcon’s, and a nose like the curve of the moon. And then, nothing. Is it ugly? Is that why you hide it?”

  “I am a man,” he said.

  “So I noticed.” Her eyes had slanted in a direction that made him blush like a girl—and be glad indeed of dim light and beard high up on his cheeks. “I think you may not be ugly,” she said. “I think you may be too beautiful for your own comfort. You are, aren’t you?”

  “You’ve been talking to my sisters,” he said. His voice had a growl in it.

  “They do call you the beauty of the family,” she said.

  “Can’t I be that without looking like a girl?”

  “You do not look like a girl,” Iry said. “How strange you people are, to worry so much about being a man, and to be so afraid of seeming like a woman. I don’t think your mother or your sisters would be happy to hear you.”

  Khayan’s teeth clicked together. No. Indeed they would not. Among their people, a man could have beauty, and be much sought after for it, too. But. . . “A man to them is a man. He doesn’t try to turn himself into a beardless boy.”

  “That’s to be cool,” she said, “and clean. The heat would trouble you far less if you cultivated less fur.”

  “I am what I am,” he said.

  “Surely.” She smiled at him, which was always disconcerting. “I try to hate you. But you’re very hard to hate.”

  He could shift quickly, if she insisted. That much his sisters had taught him. “Why would you want to do that?” he asked her.

  “Don’t be a fool. You know what you are here.”

  “My kin have been lords here for a hundred years.”

  “And mine were lords here for many times a hundred years. We’ll take it back, lord of the Retenu. You can be sure of that.”

  He shivered in the warmth of the night. She spoke calmly, not threatening, simply telling him what must be.

  “I will do all I can,” he said with equal calm, “to prevent that.”

  “Of course you will.” She swooped toward him before he could recoil, and brushed his lips with hers. Then, as if her temerity had put her to flight, she was gone. Not even a hint of her presence remained.

  ~~~

  He might have dreamed it. In the morning she was as she always was, no shyness, no mention of what had passed between them in the night. He began to be certain that it had been a dream.

  Then, as the morning’s lesson ended—sooner than usual, because he had a court of justice to attend, and after that must receive a gathering of men from the region—just as they were done with harnessing the horses, she brushed his hand with her fingers. It was quick, and almost not to be felt; and yet his hand stung as if she had brushed it with a flame.

  She did not speak of it. Nor, he discovered, could he.

  He tried to put it out of his mind—to forget it, not to mull it over and over when he should be hearing petitions, judging disputes, and coaxing the headmen of the villages to speak to him as if he were their lord and not their enemy. Maybe that was why she did it. Because he was the enemy. Or else because—

  Oh, no. She cared nothing for him. How could she? If it was not hostility that made her do such a thing, it was innocence. She found him interesting, as if he had been one of the horses. There was no more to it than that. And he should not try to make it matter more than it did.

  The headmen left soon enough, but much later than he would have liked. He barely remembered what he had said to them. It must have pleased them in some way: they did not rise up to smite him, and they left with what seemed like good cheer. Some were even smiling. He sent a prayer of thanks to whichever of the gods had deigned to speak for him.

  He would have liked to go apart and maunder further, but too many people had need of him. First there was Teti the steward, who had matters that must receive the lord’s approval. Then there was his master of arms, and his master of horse, whom he must satisfy. And after they had left him, there was Iannek.

  Iannek had been quiet of late, for Iannek. A good number of his following had wandered off in search of greater amusement than Khayan’s backwater could offer. Those who remained were kept in hand, if sometimes with difficulty.

  And that was Iannek’s trouble. “It’s dull here,” he said. “Don’t you do anything but trudge from duty to duty?”

  “Is there anything else a lord should do?” Khayan inquired.

  Iannek snorted. “What a stick you are! And here I’d thought you were a man of spirit. You used to be, before you went away to be a tribesman. What did they do out there, geld you?”

  That startled laughter out of Khayan. “Good goddess, no! They like their stallions all present and accounted for.”

  “Ah!” said Iannek with a sudden awakening of interest. “Did you really . . . ? Did they . . . ?”

  “You would love to know,” Khayan said.

  “Torturer.” Iannek wandered about the hall where Khayan had been sitting for what seemed an eon of days. Most of the servants were gone, and all of the men of substance. The few servants who remained were busy with small things: sweeping the floor, wielding the fans that cooled the hot still air, fetching wine for Iannek to drink. He sipped warily, and scowled: it was the same heavily watered wine that he was always given. “Water is for fish,” he muttered. “A man drinks wine.”

  “This man drinks it to excess,” Khay
an said. “Come, think of it as a gift: you can drink to your heart’s content, and still be standing when you’re done.”

  “And what good is that?” Iannek drained the cup, grimacing as he did it, and poured it full again. “Tell me what it was like, being a stallion among such mares.”

  “I will not,” said Khayan.

  “You are a stick.” Iannek flung himself down at Khayan’s feet, ignoring the perfectly acceptable chair that had been set nearby. “Gods, it’s dull here!”

  “So leave,” Khayan said.

  Iannek rolled an eye up at him. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? You could go to Memphis. Vex our uncles and cousins. Cut a swath through the maidservants there. In fact,” Khayan said, “I’ll send a messenger to Uncle Samiel this very day, and tell him to expect you.”

  “Oh, gods,” Iannek groaned. “Not Samiel.”

  “Why? Don’t tell me he has reason to clip your ears, too.”

  “He’ll clip more than that. He has the most beautiful—the most exquisite—the most astonishing concubine. She comes from somewhere nobody’s ever heard of, where everybody devotes his life to the arts of the bedchamber. And such arts! Brother, if you could even begin to imagine—”

  “I think I’m glad I can’t,” Khayan said dryly. “Not Samiel then. And probably not Memphis. What of one of the cities south of it? Or even Nubia? Nubia might be interesting enough for you.”

  “Ach,” Iannek said, “no. Nubian women have teeth in their nether parts, everybody knows that. Take one of them—snap! It’s the geldings’ paddock for you.”

  “That’s nonsense,” Khayan said.

  “Do you know that for certain?” asked Iannek. “Do you really, brother?”

  Khayan smiled in a way that he knew would vex his brother extremely. “I’ll wager I know who told you that. She was most accommodating to those she wanted. Those she didn’t . . . she told a tale. Such white, white teeth she had. And when the tale came to the point—snap! And away the poor fool would run.”

  Iannek blushed furiously amid the patches of his still uncertain beard. “I’ll kill her. I’ll hunt her down and kill her.”