The Shepherd Kings

by Judith Tarr

  Kemni was gaping like an idiot. If he had thought at all, he had surmised that she performed some service in the women’s house. Where else might she be? She was safe, that was all he had known.

  But this—

  Pepi was currying one of the lesser duns who drew the lord’s chariot when their brothers were indisposed. He greeted Kemni with a glance.

  “Iry,” Kemni said. “What—”

  Pepi grunted. He smoothed the gleaming gold-brown coat, and added a scratch of the nape, which pleased the stallion greatly. Then at last, when Kemni was ready to strike it out of him, he answered the question Kemni had not quite asked. “He’s teaching her about horses.”

  “But—”

  “It’s something to do with his mother’s tribe.” Pepi combed the stallion’s tail with his fingers, keeping his eyes on it rather than on Kemni, as if there was something more, but he did not want to say it. “Understand. She would do nothing to betray any of us. But there are more gods than we know in Egypt, and more powers in the world than some of us ever imagined. One of them has chosen her to be its servant.”

  Kemni frowned. He who dreamed dreams was hardly one to question such a thing, and yet . . . “What are you saying? Have the Retenu done something to her?”

  “Not the Retenu,” Pepi said.

  Kemni was not going to get anything out of Pepi, that was clear. And it was too late to follow the lord’s chariot.

  And yet, was it? If Kemni used his wits, surely he could find them. They did not go far. The lord had come back before noon the day before, nor had he looked as if he had been traveling long or swiftly.

  It was easy enough after all. Kemni simply asked the guard at the gate he had seen the lord ride through, “Where has my lord gone? I have a message for him.”

  The Retenu did not even grace him with a glance, but answered clearly enough. “He is with the horses, as he always is in the mornings.”

  “And that is where?” Kemni asked, holding his breath lest he had betrayed himself.

  The guard pointed him down the road to the eastward. Kemni followed it with the carefully cultivated air of a servant on an errand. His back twinged between the shoulderblades, where a spear could drive home and end all his deceptions. But the guard appeared to have forgotten him.

  When this holding belonged to its proper lord, the eastern fields had been planted with barley. There were still barley-fields along the road, plowed now and newly planted. The first green shoots gleamed against the black earth.

  Over the hill, where the road curved away from a long rolling field, Kemni was reminded of what someone had said of donkeys pastured amid the barley. But these were horses. Hundreds, as Pepi had said. More horses than Kemni had ever seen together, even in battle. Horses of every color, age, size.

  And horses of a color he had seen only in dream: white or moon-colored, grazing together apart from the rest. There was movement beyond them.

  Iry was riding a moon-dappled horse—a mare, Kemni saw as he made his way toward her. He came as a hunter comes, keeping to what cover there was: groups and clusters of horses, and beds of reeds, for she was riding by an arm of the river. She rode well, as far as he knew to judge, and with an air of one who has studied it for some time.

  The lord Khayan was standing in the new grass, with a smoke-colored colt nuzzling his hair. He was giving her instruction, a word here, a gesture there. He was teaching her to ride the mare.

  That was even more preposterous than that Iry should be riding out with him at all. He, a foreign lord, a prince, was serving as teacher to an Egyptian slave.

  They seemed very amiable. More than amiable, maybe. They had the ease of two who were, if not friends, then allies: comfortable in each other’s presence. He addressed her with respect, she with familiarity but no contempt. The language they spoke shifted between Egyptian and the Retenu tongue, and sometimes to one that Kemni did not know, that must be that of the eastern horsemen.

  It was a little dizzying, and a little confusing. It was, he thought, like a secret tongue, such as kings’ spies might choose to speak, or children with secrets to keep from their elders.

  The lesson ended with Iry dismounting from the grey mare and setting her free. She did not run off as Kemni had thought horses did. She lingered, nuzzling Iry’s hands, and insisting that Iry rub her neck and shoulders. The lord Khayan said in Retenu, “I can’t stay. There’s too much to do before we leave for Avaris.”

  “Then go,” Iry said in Egyptian. “I’ll follow when I’m done here.”

  He looked as if he might protest, but after a brief pause he shrugged and went to catch and harness his horses. They, like the mare, came to his hand as if they had been dogs: a thing that Kemni caught himself yearning after. It must be magic. It must. And yet . . .

  When the lord had taken his chariot and his stallions and gone, Iry said in clear Egyptian, “Come out of there, cousin. You don’t need to hide any more.”

  Kemni came out slowly, and a little wryly. “I thought I was a hunter,” he said.

  “The Mare is the hunted,” said Iry. She spoke the beast’s name and kind as if it were a title, as one would say Great House to signify the king. “She always knows what lurks in the reeds.”

  The grey mare—the Mare—seemed signally uninterested in Kemni. She wandered off as he approached, grazing idly, switching her moon-white tail at the flies. Except for her color and her undeniable quality, she seemed mortal enough; but there was more to her than mortal seeming.

  “Have I dreamed you?” Kemni asked her.

  She ignored him. Iry eyed him a little oddly. He was not about to explain to her what gift the gods inflicted on him.

  It seemed he did not need to. “So,” she said. “You still do that. You still dream.”

  “All men dream,” Kemni said.

  “Not like you.” She began to walk back the way they all had come. He followed her. “You didn’t think I knew, did you?”

  “It seems everybody knows,” he said wearily. “Very well. Tell me what that is, besides a horse of peculiar color.”

  “A goddess,” she answered.

  “Of course,” Kemni said. “And you are her servant. Pepi told me that. I don’t suppose it’s intentional.”

  “Is it ever, with gods?”

  He echoed her sigh. “And is it unintentional that the lord and conqueror of these lands is waiting on you like a family retainer?”

  “He is that,” she said. And when he favored her with a glance of pure incredulity: “Truly. The Mare’s priestess stands higher than any man.”

  “You are . . .” He laughed, not for mirth, but because if he did not do that, he would howl. “Aren’t they appalled?”

  “Horrified.”

  “Why—how—?”

  “The gods know.”

  Kemni needed time. He needed to think. “We can use this. We can—”

  “You trust me?”

  He stared at her. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Maybe,” she said, “I’ve gone over to the enemy.”

  “You? You’d die first.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “As sure as I am of anything,” he said. And he was. He could not, walking beside her, believe that she would ever be anything but loyal to her own people. But if she had to choose between her people and this white mare . . . That would not happen.

  “I wish I could be as certain as you,” she said.

  “That’s faith,” he said. “Trust yourself. Be strong. There’s war coming. We’ll win it—and we’ll win it with horses, and with ships from the sea.”

  “Or lose it and die,” she said.

  He struck her shoulder lightly with a fist, as he had done when they were children. “Would you rather never try at all?”

  “No,” she said. “But I’m not sure—you shouldn’t trust me.”

  “And yet I will do it,” he said.

  She shook her head, but she gave up the argument.

  V

/>   They left for Avaris in the morning, the lord and his women and most of the Retenu that had been in the house; and Iry, and Kemni among the grooms. He was not the only Egyptian: Pepi went, too, and another of the men who looked after the horses. Everyone else was a foreigner: bearded man or, startling to Kemni’s eyes, veilless and half-wild woman galloping hither and yon on the back of a horse.

  It was true. There were women who rode horses. They carried bows, and short spears. In camp at night they stalked about like warriors, and no man offered them impudence. Most spoke the language of the east, and that of the Retenu but poorly, and Egyptian not at all.

  They ran in a pack like young men, most often in the wake of a wild beauty with the same golden falcon-eyes as the lord Khayan. That was his sister, the lady Sadana. Kemni asked for her name, not to gain power over her but perhaps to understand her.

  She was a fierce, embittered creature. The Mare should have been hers; had been meant to be hers. But Iry had taken it from her.

  Iry declared that it did not matter, that Sadana could not oppose the Mare’s will. Everyone else watched them when they were near one another, warily, as armies will watch their commanders before a battle.

  That first night as they camped in a field outside a village that belonged to this Khayan, Kemni had settled to his bread and beer with Pepi and the other Egyptian groom. He had done well, he thought, in playing the servant. No one challenged him, or asked him if he was other than he seemed.

  He was just breaking the loaf and biting into it when someone came to stand over him. He looked up into a foreigner’s face: one of the wild riders, who, afoot and with her weapons laid aside, seemed no more than a child, and not a large one at that. She was staring at him as if she had never seen his like before.

  He stared back, not caring if it was rude. A smile flickered across her face: bright and wicked, though she suppressed it quickly. That smile almost warmed him to her. It made him think of Ariana.

  “Pretty,” she said in Retenu, struggling with it a little, but clearly determined to master it. “She says come.”

  Kemni supposed that she meant Iry. Surely she did not mean Sadana. But he said, “She?”

  “Priestess,” the girl said. “You understand? Come.”

  “I understand. Priestess—Iry?”

  The girl nodded. “Iry,” she said.

  Kemni thrust himself to his feet. Yes, this was a small woman for these people: she was not even as tall as he was. Her eyes were frank in their admiration of him. He felt himself flushing. It was fortunate that it was night, and that firelight gave every face a ruddy glow.

  She led him through the camp, making no particular secret of it, and attracting less notice, maybe, than if she had skulked and crept and tried to conceal him. A few glances flicked their way, but none lingered.

  Iry was a person of consequence. She had a tent and a fire of her own, and a company of riders at ease round about. She also—and that he had not seen, or noticed—had the Mare. He had not seen that one among the horses, nor anywhere near Iry as she rode in the lord’s chariot, but there was no mistaking that pale dappled hide or that air of royal distance. Somehow, perhaps invisible as gods can travel, the Mare had accompanied her servant on this journey.

  It was strange to think of all this as belonging to an Egyptian, to his own kin. But maybe it did not belong to her. Maybe she belonged to it. Maybe she was its prisoner.

  She did not seem so, seated in the lamplight in the tent, with a fan blowing a soft breeze across her, and, somewhat surprising, an Egyptian gown to cover her, instead of a foreign robe. Had she done that for him?

  She did look well in it. She looked remarkably like her father, who had been a pleasant-looking man, comely if not beautiful. Her mother’s beauty had not passed to her. It did not seem to trouble her, nor did it trouble Kemni. He liked to look at her. He always had, even when she was a small and outspoken minnow of a child and he was a lordly not-quite-man.

  There was no one attending her. No servant, no guard. The rider had left Kemni at the tentflap and gone to keep her fellows company by the fire. They were not sitting too close, he noticed. It was a pleasant evening for this part of the world; but they were fanning their faces and muttering what must be imprecations against the heat. He was half tempted to suggest, sweetly, that they dispose of their leather tunics and the garment called trousers, and be sensible as Egyptians were sensible.

  The tentflap fell with the words unsaid. Iry regarded him unsmiling.

  He favored her with his sweetest and most exasperating smile. “Good evening, cousin,” he said.

  “Don’t call me that here,” said Iry.

  “Why? None of those wild riders understands a word. There’s no one else near enough to hear.”

  “You don’t know that,” she said. “Sit down.”

  He was pleased enough to obey, particularly since she had bread and cheese and a bowl of something savory, and better beer than he had been about to drink with Pepi. He greeted that with some surprise. “No wine?” he said.

  “Over there,” she said, tilting her head toward another jar. “Why, don’t you want beer?”

  “Beer is wonderful,” he said. “Beer is delightful. Now tell me why you had me brought here. Are you trying to taunt our lords and masters with me?”

  “In a way,” she said. “I’ve told Khayan that I want an Egyptian escort. He suggested you.”

  Kemni’s eyes widened. “Why in the gods’ name did he do that?”

  “Because,” she said, “I happened to mention that Pepi had a young kinsman here, who knows horses, and who has done a little fighting. He thought that you would do handsomely.”

  “You’re mad,” he said. “Or he’s playing a game that will end with my body on a hook.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Iry. “I think you’re better hidden in plain sight. You don’t keep your head down well.”

  “I do, too!”

  “Do not,” she said. “Now stop that and listen to me. We’re going where every word is counted, and every face is examined minutely. You’ve been lucky that Khayan is a bit of an innocent, and his people are preoccupied with establishing his place and with finding my place objectionable. If anyone stops to notice you while you belong to me, you’ll simply be another part of what I am. I’m the safest haven you’ll have. Believe that.”

  “I believe it,” he said. “But what if that safety is an illusion? They may decide that we’re both worth killing, even with all that you are to them.”

  “They won’t kill me. It would be sacrilege.”

  “Iry,” Kemni said, “when we come to Avaris, I have no intention of staying. Do you understand? I’ll do what I meant to do there, and then I’ll go, back to where I belong.”

  “I know that,” she said. “I’ll keep you safe till you disappear. Do consider the advantage I can give you: while you’re with me, you’ll be where you can hear everything, and see everything. Your king would command you to do it, if he knew.”

  He would. Kemni could not deny it. But he said, “I don’t want to put you in danger.”

  “I have the goddess for protection,” she said, “and the Mare.” She poured a cup of beer and set it in his hand. “Now drink. In the morning I’ll be given a chariot of my own. You’ll keep me company in it.”

  “I would rather walk behind it,” he said.

  “No,” said Iry. “In plain sight, I said. The plainer the better. You can drive a chariot, yes?”

  “But Egyptians don’t—”

  “I’m no master, either. We’ll be inept together. The horses are well trained, Khayan assures me, and quite docile. They’ll not make utter fools of us.”

  Kemni threw up his hands. There never had been any resisting Iry when she was in this mood. And he could not help it—he was glad that he was to play charioteer, even if it put him in danger.

  ~~~

  There was a grand and terrible pleasure in driving a chariot on Retenu land, and living to marvel
at it. Surely, if Kemni had been lord here, he would have forbidden any Egyptian to learn of horses or chariots. They were too deadly a weapon.

  Arrogance. There was no other name for it.

  And yet Kemni did not make the mistake of underestimating these people who had ruled the Lower Kingdom for a hundred years. They had not done it by being fools. They were strong and their weapons were great. They were a warrior nation, which Egypt was not. All their young men were taught from infancy to fight. It was not as it was in Egypt, where most of the men tilled the earth or served in the temples. All of them were warriors. Every one.

  They loved war. They gloried in it. For Kemni as for most of his people, it was a thing he did because he must. It was not a pleasure, or a game. It was grim necessity.

  These people fought for the plain joy of it. If they could not fight an enemy, they fought one another. They fought over everything.

  Kemni had known this. It was brought home to him rather forcibly that very morning, as he played charioteer to Iry who was, incalculably, a priestess of these outlandish people.

  There was always a great deal of running about in this riding, people coming and going, messengers, forerunners, greetings from this holding or that. The wild women could not ride quietly in a column; they were perpetually in motion. And they had their match in the young men who were, Kemni gathered, the lord’s kinsmen—or some of them were.

  One had been hovering about a great deal the day before. In camp he had been nearby, now Kemni stopped to think—it was almost as if the warrior women had kept him at bay by taking stations about Iry’s tent. He had wandered off in the morning, or been headed off by some of the women.

  But as Kemni kept to a sedate pace in the middle of the line, tight-backed with the effort of seeming casual, a chariot hurtled toward him across a new field of barley. Insolent foreigner; and idiot, too. That was the winter’s provender he was trampling. Not that he would ever think to be sorry for it, he who was set too high ever to know the bite of hunger.