The Shepherd Kings

by Judith Tarr

  Maybe someday he would. But not today. Ariana was within, they assured him, and he was free to enter.

  She was preparing for the day: dressed, her hair in a plait, her face painted lightly, running through the roster of the chariot-wing with, of all people, Ahmose himself. Kemni stopped short and nearly fled, but they had both seen him.

  Ariana’s smile was as brilliant as ever. “Kemni! We looked for you, but you were nowhere to be found. My lord wants to know, can we double the number of men, and have them ready to fight by harvest time?”

  “This year or next?” Kemni asked: the first thing that came into his head.

  “This year,” Ahmose said.

  Kemni frowned. “That’s not long at all.”

  “But if each of those we’ve trained to fight were made a charioteer, and the new men were taught to fight—could we do it?” Ariana asked him.

  “It would be difficult,” Kemni said.

  “But possible?”

  “If the men were the best to be had, and willing to work day and night—yes. But have we enough horses? Enough chariots?”

  Ariana nodded.

  “Good,” said Ahmose. “Very good indeed. Have them ready just before the harvest begins. We’ll harvest men, and take back the Lower Kingdom.”

  Kemni bowed. Almost he had forgotten why he came here; and it was delicate, with the king sitting beside Ariana. But he did the best he could. “My lady, the Queen Nefertari . . .”

  Ariana raised a brow. “Go,” the king said. “I’m well enough here.”

  He had dismissed them both. Kemni doubted that he had been meant to follow Ariana back into Queen Nefertari’s presence, but he chose to do it. It happened that, as they walked back through the camp, Iphikleia met them. She did not say anything, simply took a place in the procession. Kemni was glad of her; he suspected that Ariana was, also.

  Ariana had not had audience with the Great Royal Wife since her wedding in Thebes. They had managed to avoid one another with great ease, since Ariana had hidden herself away in the Bull of Re, and Nefertari had kept her place, as always, by the king’s side.

  Queen received queen with rather more ceremony than Kemni had had. There was a graceful dance, an exchange of pleasantries, compliments and finely framed words that signified little. Kemni was lulled almost into a drowse. He had to struggle to listen, to catch the subtle shift, the moment when Nefertari began to come to the point.

  They were speaking of the Bull of Re, how Ariana had rebuilt part of the house and added greatly to the stables, and made the holding into a haven for the king’s charioteers.

  “That is a great work,” Nefertari said. “What you do will be remembered.”

  “Memory is a great thing here,” Ariana said. “Is it not? Remembering the name. Remembering the life.”

  Nefertari inclined her head.

  “Where I was born,” Ariana said, “the name matters little. I am the Ariana—that is my title and my office. What name I had when I was a child, I set aside, and it was forgotten. When I grow old, I shall take another name, another office. And when I die, I shall go to the breast of the earth my mother. Who I was, what I did, will matter nothing then. The earth will hold my bones. The air will bear my spirit.”

  “Then who you are, what you are—your self—it matters nothing?”

  “What I do,” said Ariana. “That matters. That I did it, and no one else—when the seasons have turned, and all who live now are gone to the earth, who will care that I did it?”

  “Your name is your immortality,” Nefertari said. “We must give you one, so that you may live forever.”

  “Whatever name you give me,” Ariana said, “I remain what I am.”

  “Yes,” said Nefertari.

  Ariana smiled her quick smile. “If it will make you happy, you may do it. It’s of little matter to me. I’ll go on, and do what I do, and help you all to win this war.”

  “Why will you do that?”

  “Because,” said Ariana, “it’s what I was born for. When we are young, you see, when first our women’s courses come to us, we go into the womb of the Mother, into the deeps of the earth. There we dream what we will be; what we will do in this turn of the seasons. I dreamed sun hotter than I had ever known, and a falcon poised against it, and a river of life through the dry land. I dreamed Egypt. The falcon came to me and folded his wings about me and made me his own. And I knew that when it was time, I would come to Egypt.”

  “Then you are blessed of the gods,” Nefertari said. She said it slowly, as if she must consider all sides of it, all meanings of the words.

  “Do you do such things?” Ariana asked. “Do you lay yourself open to your gods, and ask that they show you what they intend for you?”

  “No,” said Nefertari. “Not . . . in such a way. The priests speak to the gods, and the king, who is a god, speaks for all of Egypt. For others, there are prayers and dreams, and for some, the blessings of priesthood, or service to the gods.”

  “That is very practical,” Ariana said. “Do people ever wonder what it would be like to talk to the gods? And to be answered?”

  “The gods are far above us,” Nefertari said.

  “Surely not above you,” said Ariana. “Are you not queen and goddess?”

  “I am that,” said Nefertari.

  “Do the gods speak to you?”

  “Sometimes,” Nefertari said slowly, “I dream dreams.”

  Kemni, mute in shadow, woke suddenly and fully.

  “Do you now?” Ariana said. “Do you indeed? Are they dreams that others should know?”

  “I never speak of them,” Nefertari said. “But . . . they come to me often, and weigh on me sorely.”

  “Dreams of war?”

  “Dreams of war,” Nefertari said, “and dreams of peace. Dreams of long ago, and dreams of what is yet to come. In my dreams the gods walk. The priests say that they dwell beyond the horizon, but in my dreams the world is full of them.”

  “When you dream, you live in the gods’ country,” Ariana said. She sounded as close to awe as Kemni had ever heard her. “Oh, you are blessed! Are they beautiful? Are they terrible?”

  “They are both,” Nefertari said. “They speak to one another, but never to me. Once . . . I dreamed that one of them came down to a duller world, this world of ours, and saw a woman of such surpassing beauty that even he—even a god—stood mute in astonishment. He knew then what it was to worship a thing, mortal woman though she was. Then he took on the face and semblance of her husband, and went in to her, and set in her a spark of divine fire. And that spark grew, and swelled her belly, and was born in blood and pain as mortal children are born. And that child—that child had my face.”

  Ariana nodded as if she had expected just such an ending. “The gods come often to mortal women,” she said.

  “Not ours,” said Nefertari. “They are not given to such excesses. That a god—that Amon—should do such a thing—”

  “Then it is a very great thing.”

  “Or a very ill one.”

  “No,” Ariana said. “It is never that. Does he speak? Does any of them? What is it they ask of you?”

  “They never speak to me. But I see the Two Crowns in their hands, and my husband waiting, ready to be crowned.”

  “That is an omen,” Ariana said.

  “Or a great and wishful hope.” Nefertari shook her head slightly. “If it should be of use, I will use it. But if not . . . not.”

  “Yet you told me,” Ariana said.

  “Your world is full of gods. To you, it would seem neither strange nor mad.”

  “I would understand it.” Ariana nodded. “Is that all you ask of me? Understanding?”

  “I ask nothing of you,” said Nefertari, “but that you serve the king faithfully, and obey him in all that he bids you do.”

  “Of course I will do that,” Ariana said.

  “That is well,” said Nefertari. “He is pleased with you. Most pleased.”

  “And
you? Does that distress you?”

  “No,” said Nefertari. “You are not as other women. Nor am I. We are worthy of him.”

  “You do me great honor,” Ariana said. She did not speak with humility; it was truth, that was all. “And yet you still don’t entirely approve of me.”

  Nefertari’s lips thinned a fraction. “Do you require my approval?”

  “No,” Ariana said. “But I should like to know why.”

  There was nothing to compel the Great Royal Wife to answer her, and yet she did so. It was courtesy. And perhaps, Kemni thought, it was a seal of alliance. “A queen in Egypt,” Nefertari said, “does not ride in a chariot like a man, bare-breasted and bold-faced before the world. Are you dreaming that you will ride to battle? That you will fight?”

  “No,” Ariana said, but she said it slowly, as if with reluctance. “I know better than to think that I will be allowed to ride into battle. A king risks himself because he is the king. A queen is ill advised to do so. When the war comes, I will keep to the tents and the baggage like a proper woman. You need have no fear that I will run wild among the fighting men.”

  Nefertari nodded once. She was perhaps relieved. Or perhaps she had expected this answer, but had desired to hear it from Ariana’s own mouth. “That will do,” the queen said. “I am content.”

  Perhaps that was true. Ariana took it as a dismissal, bowed and withdrew quickly enough that if Nefertari had been inclined to call her back, it would have been difficult to do gracefully.

  Kemni was not at all averse to making an escape. His head was aching, and his shoulders were tight.

  Nefertari frightened him. He did not know why. Ahmose was king and god, the living Horus, and yet Kemni was at ease in his presence. Immortal though his spirit might be, in this life he was a man like many another.

  Nefertari, as she had said to Ariana, was not like other women. Maybe it was true. Maybe a god—Amon himself, as she had dreamed—had begotten her.

  II

  Seti the charioteer was troubled. He was the most insouciant of men, with a light heart and a wry wit and eyes that had seen everything there was to see. But when he came to Kemni, not long after they had returned to the Bull of Re from that plain north of Thebes, he was unwontedly grim.

  He found Kemni in the workroom of the charioteers’ house, going over accounts and wishing himself very, very far away. Kemni had no objection to scribes’ work, in fact read well and wrote not too badly, but accounts made his head ache. Seti’s arrival was a godsend, a rescue from long crabbed columns and endless figures.

  Seti, the fool, saw the scribe for the charioteers and the scribe for the Bull of Re, and retreated as rapidly as he had come. Kemni abandoned his captors to their heaps of dusty papyrus, and set off in pursuit of his second-in-command.

  Seti had not gone far. He was slumped against a pillar in the court, glaring balefully at a cat who made her insouciant way across the sunlit space. Seti in his wonted self was very like the cat. It was strange to see him scowling.

  “Very well,” Kemni said from behind him. “Who is she, and why did she bid you begone?”

  Seti spun. “I would die for the queen, but what does that matter to anyone? She doesn’t know. And even if she did, would she care?”

  “She would care,” Kemni said. “She does. I’m sure of it.”

  Seti shrugged, sullen and glowering. “That’s not my trouble.”

  “Then why are you glooming about so mightily?”

  “It’s nothing,” Seti said. “I was a fool to trouble you. I’ll go; I should be getting ready for the first of the new recruits. There’s a boatful coming in a day or two.”

  Kemni knew that, and Seti knew he knew it. It was chatter, no more. “Tell me what’s troublesome enough that you’ll come looking for me. If it’s not a woman, then what is it? Some worry over the recruits? They’re picked men, the king assured me.”

  “I’m sure they are,” Seti said. He looked as if he would like to bolt, but had thought better of it. He glanced about. “Not here. Let’s go where there are no ears to hear.”

  That, in Seti’s estimation, was as far away from the Bull of Re as possible. Kemni had been intending to ride among the herds in any case, to count them and to ponder whether there were enough horses, with sufficient training, to do what the king had asked of him. He took Seti with him as charioteer. As simply as that, and rather quickly, they escaped the confines of house and courts, and turned toward the hidden valley with its growing herds.

  Kemni’s bays were fresh and a little headstrong. They were not the gentle creatures he had first driven under Ariana’s tutelage. These were younger beasts, stronger and more fiery, more inclined toward a good gallop than a sedate trot through and about the valley. He gave them rein at first, let them run down the straight and well-leveled road, until, near the valley’s entrance, it narrowed and grew winding and steep. They were not so unwilling to be prudent then, though they tossed their heads and snorted with suitable ferocity.

  In among the herds at last, with the team settled to its work, after a fashion, Kemni could not help remembering the great herds at the Sun Ascendant, and the Mare and her servant, and the Retenu lord and his kin who had found themselves afflicted with an Egyptian priestess-queen. Iry did well, Kemni hoped; and Sadana, that wild creature with her bold face and her shy heart.

  He had almost forgotten what had brought him here, between memory and reckoning the count of the horses that Ariana and the king had gathered. He would have given gold to have the herds that belonged to the lord Khayan, the mares and foals as well as the teams of war-stallions. But those were far away and in another kingdom. What he had for his use was here.

  It was not an ill gathering of horses, for a beginning. He said as much to Seti.

  “It will do,” Seti said. He was not pressing to be heard. Maybe he hoped that Kemni would not ask him why he had asked that Kemni come here.

  But Kemni was not one to let go a thought for long, once it had taken hold. “Tell me,” he said.

  Seti sighed. “It may be nothing. Really, my lord.”

  “And yet it eats at you,” Kemni said. And again: “Tell me.”

  At last and with an air of casting it all at Kemni’s feet, Seti said, “When we went to show the king what we had done, while you were occupied with the king and the queens, I had occasion to go wandering about. I’m a great idler, you know. Everyone says so.” He said that with a flicker of his usual wit.

  “I happened, as I idled here and sauntered there, to come across several of the king’s men. They were keeping close by one another, sharing a jar of beer and waiting for the king to have need of them. They weren’t happy about that: they were very lofty personages, to be kept waiting about like servants.

  “They were unhappy about a great deal more than that. There are factions in the court, it seems, who don’t approve of the king’s war. They think that he should stay at home, tend to the Upper Kingdom, and do nothing to provoke the foreign kings’ anger. We’ll be destroyed, they said. We’ve survived so long by the blessing of the gods, but if the Retenu are reminded too forcibly of our existence, they’ll sweep up the river and conquer the whole of Egypt.”

  “Cowards’ counsel,” Kemni said.

  “Craven,” Seti agreed. “But in certain things they’re terribly bold. They were talking, when I happened by, of finding ways to stop the war. Those who have his ear were to bend it, of course, but others said that that wouldn’t be enough; that something more should be done. They were talking of sending messengers to the Lower Kingdom, and warning the Retenu of the war that’s been prepared against them.”

  “But won’t that force the very thing they’re most afraid of, and bring the enemy down on us?”

  “They thought not. They said that an early warning would let the Retenu stop the invasion at the start, and keep them from pressing it backward into its own country.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Kemni said. “And Crete—did they talk about C
rete?”

  “Oh, yes. The horses, too. Everything.”

  Kemni drove for a while in silence, circling the outer limit of the valley. The bays had quieted considerably; were content to trot smoothly out. There was a pleasure, even with such thoughts as clamored at him, in the lightness of their mouths through the reins, and the roll of wheels beneath him, and the wind in his face.

  But the things that roiled in his belly would not long be ignored. He said to Seti, “They’re going to betray the king? How can they do that?”

  “For his own good, they said. To save his life and the freedom of the Upper Kingdom. To prevent us all from being enslaved.”

  Kemni shook his head hard enough to dizzy him briefly. “They can’t believe that. One of them or more must be a traitor—must be taking Retenu pay.”

  “That’s possible,” Seti said. “One or two seemed to say the most, but they might simply have been the most inclined to talk. Except that one . . .” He trailed off. Kemni waited, but he did not go on.

  “Except that one . . . ?” Kemni asked.

  Seti shivered behind him. “It may have been nothing. I wasn’t there to hear the beginning, and I certainly wasn’t privy to the whole of their conspiracy. If that is what it was.”

  “You know it was.”

  “I don’t want it to be.” Seti’s voice snapped out. “There was one who seemed to be leading them. He argued most strongly against the war. Then someone—someone said, ‘What if the king can’t be dissuaded? What do we do then?’ And he said, ‘Then maybe the Upper Kingdom has need of a new king.’”

  “He can’t have said that,” Kemni said before he thought. “The king is a god. No one can kill him. It would be sacrilege.”

  “Suppose that someone had a dream,” Seti said. “That he dreamed a god spoke to him, and told him that he, and not the living Horus, was meant to be king.”