The Shepherd Kings

by Judith Tarr

  “I never said we should not do it,” Nefertari said. “It can be done. But carefully. And quickly. Who is the best of your runners?”

  “That would be Nakhtmin,” Kemni said when Ariana’s glance bade him speak.

  “Bid him come to me within the hour,” Nefertari said, “and be quiet about it. I will give him the words to say—I and my sister queen.”

  Kemni bowed. Nefertari’s eyes rested on him for a disconcerting while, as if she took simple pleasure in the sight of him. Then, as abruptly as the shutting of a door, she let him go.

  ~~~

  “She would like you in her bed,” Iphikleia said. She was up and sitting in a chair, white and gaunt but determined, when Kemni found a moment to look in on her. He had not meant to tell her of his audience with the Great Royal Wife, but what with one thing and another, with pausing to talk and being plied with the breakfast he had altogether forgotten, he found himself chattering more perhaps than he should. She was hungry for news—the servants, she complained, told her nothing, and Imhotep was oblivious to all but his work.

  “She wants you,” Iphikleia said. “There, stop shying like that! She’ll never take you—no more than Ariana will. But I’m sure she loves to look at you.”

  “Every woman in the world can’t be wanting to take me to bed,” Kemni said crossly. “I’m not that good to look at.”

  “You don’t think so?” she asked. “No, maybe not all women, after all. Only women of taste and discernment.”

  “And you aren’t raging with jealousy?”

  “Should I be?”

  “Women,” Kemni said, in much the same tone Ariana had used of men. “Stop tormenting me now, and be sensible. For by the gods, one of you women has to be. Ariana is going to try to smuggle herself to the war, I can see it as clear as the sun at noon. Gods know what the Great Royal Wife intends to do, but I’ll wager she won’t be sitting here like a proper and submissive royal subject, doing her king’s bidding and not a fraction more.”

  “Do you think she’d betray the king?” Iphikleia asked.

  “No!” said Kemni. “She terrifies me. She makes me want to turn and bolt. But she’s loyal. I’d wager my souls on it.”

  “So would I,” Iphikleia said, “if I had the whole rank of Egyptian souls, and not the simple one we Cretans are given. But you think she has more on her mind than her king’s wishes.”

  “I think,” he said, “that when the gods look down from the horizon on this kingdom and ask one another whose will rules most strongly in it, some of them would declare by their very divinity that while Ahmose is king, Queen Ahmose Nefertari is the one whose word matters most in the counsels of the kingdom.”

  Iphikleia did not recoil from that thought, or seem to find it at all shocking. “What of it? The kingdom is well ruled, everyone agrees on that. Does it matter who actually does the ruling?”

  “But Ahmose is the king!”

  “Ahmose is a wise man, who knows what he has in the chief of his wives. I admire him. Every man should be so sensible.”

  “You women are all appalling,” Kemni said. “And you are all here. Maybe I shall invent a messenger of my own, and run away to hide behind my king.”

  “You won’t do that,” said Iphikleia. “Come here, kiss me. Then go. You’ve dallied here long enough, and I want to sleep.”

  Kemni was glad to kiss her, even in his fit of temper—and a long, deep, splendid kiss it was, too, with a promise in it of more. But not now, and not tonight. She was weak still, and more than ready to rest.

  Soon. If the war allowed. If his king and his queens and all the rest of Kemni’s tormentors permitted it to be so.

  VIII

  The king’s armies had begun to come down the river. Those that had gathered in and about Thebes were behind. These were the lords and nomes of the north, coming to Queen Nefertari in the Bull of Re, and mustering along the river to the south and north of the holding.

  There was no Cretan ship on the river now. Dancer had left the day after it brought Nefertari, sailing as quickly as it might toward the enemy’s country and past it, the gods willing, to the sea. All the boats were Egyptian boats, a great jostling fleet of them. Yet more had come bearing provisions, supplies, weapons. Those came and came again, emptying the granaries and storehouses of the Upper Kingdom, pouring all they had into the king’s war.

  It was a mighty undertaking to gather them all, not so soon that they grew restless, nor so late that they missed the muster. The stream of runners and messengers never stopped or slowed. They all came to the Bull of Re, to the two queens in the heart of it, who held together all those thousands with an ease that surely must come from the gods.

  Kemni, with twice a hundred men and chariots, with all their grooms, healers for both men and horses, servants, armorers, and men under orders to maintain and repair the precious chariots, reckoned himself much beset. Nefertari and Ariana between them did all of that for many a thousand. He tried to compose himself as he saw them do, always calm, never visibly frazzled, and not raising their voices even to chastise great error. And chastise they did, even to death, if such was the penalty they reckoned fitting.

  His charioteers, gods knew, were no better or worse than young men ought to be, but their infractions were minor. They kept apart by the queens’ order, indeed had removed the horses and chariots from the holding and retreated to the valley of horses, as the army began to gather. How much of a secret they were, Kemni was not certain, but if they could remain but a rumor, it would serve the king’s purpose.

  They camped in the valley therefore, kept watch as if they were already at war, and kept up their spirits in wondrous fashion. Kemni had no need to hunt for ways to keep them occupied. Horses took a great deal of looking after, and horses with chariots were almost excessively engrossing. In moments of despair, Kemni knew that they would never come to the Lower Kingdom; they would be trapped here forever, grooming and tending horses, repairing chariots, and discovering how very much of the art they still were ignorant of.

  He had tried at first to come back to the house at night, but the third time he found himself still in the field long after the sun had set, the messenger he sent to Iphikleia returned with a message of her own: “Never mind that. Stay with your people. They need you.”

  He had got out of the habit of sleeping alone, but as exhausted as he was when at last he could snatch a few hours’ sleep, he had little enough time to fret over the absence beside him. There were women if he had wanted them: girls from the villages, maids from the holding, who seemed untrammeled by duties and unconcerned by secrecy.

  Kemni took one to his bed one night, a bright-eyed young thing with a supple body and a quick tongue. She was far from the first to let him know that she would not be averse to a night in his company; he was the commander, after all, and there was that damnable face of his.

  “Oh, not only your face,” she said as she slipped his kilt from about his middle and stood back to admire. “Beautiful man! All the others will be oh so jealous.”

  His body had warmed to her of its own accord, as well it might: it had had no taste of a woman since Iphikleia was struck down. But as she set about stroking and fondling him, he went cold. Her hands were not the hands he wanted. Her voice, though pleasing, chattered on endlessly. Her face was pretty, but pretty was not enough.

  She did her best with lips and hands, with unwavering patience and goodwill. At last he set her hands aside and slipped away from her lips. “Enough,” he said as gently as he could. “You are lovely, and I regret . . . but not tonight.”

  She did not laugh. That much grace she gave him. She sighed and patted his limp organ, which quivered faintly but could not bring itself to rise, and said, “Never mind. I understand. You can’t help it. She’s put her spell on you—and wisely, too. If I had such a lovely man, I’d want him all to myself, too, and I’d make sure I kept him.”

  She left him then, he hoped not to tell the tale to all her fellows, nor would sh
e take the necklace of lapis stones that he offered her. “It wasn’t for pretties I did it,” she said.

  “Still,” he said, “don’t you want something for your trouble?”

  “You were no trouble at all,” she said. “But this, I will take.” She took a kiss, a long and luxurious one, before she slipped out into the night.

  He slept alone that night, and the nights after. Sometimes he thought the women about the camp stared and giggled as he went by, but he told himself he was fancying things.

  Until Seti said to him one morning as they shared bread and beer and the rolls of accounts, “Tell me what you did with Meritamon the other night.”

  Kemni looked up from a blur of numbers. “Merit— Who?”

  “The pretty one. Breasts like little green melons. Never stops talking.”

  Kemni remembered her perfectly well, once he had been reminded. “What’s she saying I did?”

  “She’s not,” Seti said. “She walks about with a smile on her face and a dreamy look in her eye. When she deigns to lie with one of us, she’s only half there. She’s got all the other women dreaming and mooning about, too, but they’re all singing laments of the ‘beautiful unattainable.’”

  Kemni came nigh to choking on a swallow of beer. “They’re doing what? They’re mad.”

  “I’d say so,” Seti said. “They’re not refusing the rest of us, at least—though we’re made to feel like very poor seconds indeed.”

  “I did nothing with her,” Kemni said through gritted teeth.

  Seti stared at him. “You must have done something.”

  “Not one thing.” Kemni glared in the face of Seti’s disbelief. “I swear on my name. She said my lady put a spell on me. Maybe so. I only know I wanted no other woman.”

  “Astonishing,” said Seti. “They really are making love to a dream.”

  “Or mocking us all.”

  “No,” Seti said, toying with a pen, scribbling on a scrap of papyrus as if he had known how to write. “That’s like women, you know. Nothing’s as good to them as the man they imagine. They can’t have you, and so the rest of us are nothing beside you. Some of the men would kill them, and want to kill you, for that.”

  “So don’t tell them,” Kemni said with a growl beneath the words.

  “Why not? You’re already half a myth.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Really,” Seti said, spreading his hands as if to swear an oath. “Look at yourself. You dreamed a dream, and the king sent you away across the Great Green. You came back with a queen for him and a priestess for you and an alliance that might, by the gods’ will, win us this war. You dreamed another dream, and it gave us chariots, and made us lords of horses—us who were conquered by chariots, and frightened to death of horses. The Great Royal Wife speaks to you as to a great prince—and she speaks to no one except the king and her fellow queens. The gods know your face, people are saying. And the gods only know kings and priests. Since you’re neither, you must be something else—either one of them, or one of their chosen.”

  “That is nonsense,” Kemni said. “And worse than nonsense, if people start thinking I really am a god. That’s treason.”

  “People think what they want to think,” Seti said. “They don’t make a habit of telling kings what’s tumbling around in their bellies.”

  “I’m supposed to be comforted by that? If they start invoking me when they swear at one another, someone is going make sure the king hears.”

  “The king loves you. What’s more, he knows you. He won’t be alarmed, and I doubt he’ll be angry.”

  “His own son,” Kemni said, “turned against him and thought to make himself king. I’m that son’s battle-brother. Do you think he’ll forget that?”

  “I think the king knows the difference between a handsome liar and a man who’d cut off his own rod before he’d lie to his king.”

  “So much you know of kings,” Kemni muttered. “Set’s black balls! This is unbearable.”

  Seti goggled at him. Kemni as a god or a god’s child barely perturbed him. Kemni swearing like a lowborn soldier took him utterly aback. “Sir! Where did you learn to talk like that?”

  “You know perfectly well where I—” Kemni bit off the words. “Are you trying to drive me mad?”

  “I’m trying to make you laugh.” Seti looked doleful. “I’m not doing very well. Aren’t you even half tempted to find this all a grand joke?”

  “It’s all a grand mess.”

  “Oh, now, it’s not as bad as that. A commander ought to be a bit of a myth—it keeps the men sharp.”

  “It also keeps greater lords on edge, and makes them want to dispose of him,” Kemni said grimly.

  “You should have thought of that before you started entertaining gods in dreams,” Seti said. “Here, my lord, drink your beer and finish your numbers. We’ve got exercises in the field; the men will be waiting.”

  “Of course I must not keep the men waiting.” Kemni downed his cup of beer and glared at the columns of figures. “This says that unless we march soon, we’ll be needing more provisions than we’ve gathered. How long before everyone’s mustered?”

  For a moment Kemni thought that Seti would resist the change of subject, but he had, after all, begun it himself. With a faint sigh he said, “Three days, I heard. The lords from the outlying holdings are coming in. There’s been a little grumbling—a few aren’t delighted to be called to their duty. But nobody’s dragging his feet too badly.”

  “Three days.” Kemni shook his head. “That’s five or more before we can take the road. And the king comes when?”

  “Three, four days. Five at most.”

  “Close,” Kemni said. “Damnably close. But that’s not to be helped. We’ll make the best of it.”

  Seti bowed his head to that.

  “Go on,” Kemni said. “See that the men are ready. I’ll be out as soon as I’m done with this last bit.”

  ~~~

  The men were as they always were, waiting in their ranks: those who drove and fought alone, those who drove but did not fight, and those who fought from behind the charioteers. As always for simple exercises, they had left off the horses’ plumes and ornaments and put on plain kilts in place of their bronze armor, but their harness was clean, their weapons in good order, and the horses brushed till they shone. They were a handsome company, and proud.

  Kemni expected that they should look to him with obedience. But with awe? He did not see it. They were strong men. He knew each one by name, and knew a little of each—his family, his friendships, what pleasures he liked to take. A commander knew these things. It made him stronger, and bound his men to him more firmly.

  He rode through the ranks, meeting eyes here, matching a smile there. If they had made a myth of him, they were not letting him see it. No one shrank from meeting his stare, or fled at his smile.

  They were all in order, ready and honed and eager. They would stand down after this, rest, prepare to march; but today, for all their spirits’ sakes, he put them through their paces, from slow march to rattling, thundering gallop, in companies and all together, hub to hub across nigh the width of the valley. Then they broke and scattered and indulged at will in mock battles with headless spears and blunted swords, and much whooping and yelling and brandishing of weapons.

  Kemni paused on a hilltop, reining in his restive stallions, and watched them with pride and singing pleasure. Seti’s words were nigh forgotten.

  One of the commanders of ten, with a handful of his men, came roaring up below and paused to breathe. They all grinned at Kemni. He grinned back. “Well, Rahotep,” he said to the captain, “are we ready for war?”

  “As ready as we’ll ever be, my lord,” the captain said. He sheathed his sword, slapped it into the scabbard and wiped sweat from his brow. “So then, my lord. What’s ahead for us, then? Will we win?”

  “That’s with the gods,” Kemni said.

  “Surely, my lord,” said Rahotep. “But surely you can
see. Is it victory? Will we all come out alive?”

  “I would hope so,” said Kemni. He was beginning to grow uneasy. It was the way Rahotep was looking at him, the odd and unwonted intensity.

  “But you know,” Rahotep said. Then he shrugged. “Well; that’s not for simple mortals to ask, is it?”

  “I’m as simple a mortal as you,” Kemni said sharply.

  “Why, surely, my lord,” Rahotep said, but not as if he believed it. “Not that it’s my place to ask, but . . . will I live? Will I come home unharmed?”

  “If the gods are kind,” Kemni said, which was not an answer.

  But Rahotep took it as one. He smiled broadly and bowed and whipped up his horses, and went galloping back into the nearest tangle of gleefully brawling men. His own men paused, regarding Kemni with—gods, yes, that was awe—before they sent their horses in pursuit.

  Kemni snarled to himself. Out of a few vague words they would build a whole prophecy.

  Was that not what an oracle was? A cryptic utterance, a word that could be taken in any of a dozen ways—and there, out of nothing, a foretelling of what would be.

  Even if Rahotep died, which the gods forbid—they would say that that had been the deep meaning of Kemni’s words, the significance that they, simple men, had failed to comprehend. Kemni knew too well how men schooled themselves to speak of gods, or of the gods’ beloved.

  He sent his horses back down onto the field in a fine flash of temper. There were men in plenty willing, even eager to cross swords with him. But none would give him an honest fight. They all bent, bowed, yielded after a stroke or two. The harder he struck, the more quickly they gave way.

  Only the rags of prudence kept him from beating the last man senseless. He turned instead, shouted to the horses, gave them leave to run as they would.

  And they followed, the whole ten score of them, men and chariots, as geese will follow their leader, or sheep the shepherd. They were bound to him indeed, inextricably. There was nothing that he could do—not one thing—to free himself from them. He could not even want to. He was theirs as much as they were his.