by Judith Tarr
“May we hunt northward?” Khayan asked—daring greatly, but he did not care.
Apophis laughed. “O persistence! Yes, we may hunt northward, if that’s your whim. Go on, choose your companions. We’ll leave tomorrow.”
Khayan stopped short at that. “Tomorrow, my lord?”
“It’s somewhat late to begin today,” Apophis said.
Khayan began to correct him, but though better of it. What could he say? The truth? Sire, I have debauched the Mare’s servant, and she commands me to attend her tomorrow night. If you will only put off the hunt for a day—
No, the truth would not do. And Khayan, as Iry had said, did not lie. He settled on silence. He bowed, accepted a blessing on his head, and let himself be dismissed.
III
Iry did not believe it when she saw it. Their chambers were in an uproar. All the men were leaving, it seemed—riding off in the morning to hunt with the king.
“A great hunt,” one of the young idiots half-sang in an ecstasy of delight. “Days and days. Maybe a whole month—riding and living in a tent and hunting whatever quarry the gods bring.”
“And whose golden inspiration was that?” she demanded.
The boy goggled at her. The last he or anyone had known, after all, she was shut in her room, pining away for who knew what cause. But he was obedient enough to answer her question. “Why, lady, the Lord Khayan’s.”
“Khayan—” She broke off. “Not the king’s?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, my lady,” the boy said.
“But tomorrow night he—”
That was not anything this child needed to know. She let him go where he was clearly desperate to go, on some errand or other involving a great deal of speed and enthusiasm.
Some said the king had ordered this expedition, but most laid it at Khayan’s door. Iry hardly needed to ask why. So: he had not wanted her after all. How clever of him to persuade the king to take him away before he could be forced to lie with her again.
She was not angry. Oh, no. She was too intent on murder to be angry. Of course they were taking no women with them. This was a men’s hunt. Though no doubt there would be maids and servants, and suitable pleasure for the evenings. Of which he would take his ample share.
She was not going to lock herself in her room again. No. This time she would take refuge with the Lady Sarai.
That formidable woman appeared content to accept Iry’s renewed diligence and her heightened attention to lessons that grew steadily more complicated. This was the art of statecraft, the manifold skills of ordering tribes and nations. She might have had no head for it, except that she needed something, anything, to take her mind off that horrible man.
Her body remembered anything but horror. Kisses as deep and sweet as his voice, and hands that knew how to wake such sensations as she had never known. It remembered the warmth of his arms and the thick softness of his hair, falling over his shoulder and brushing her breast.
Such memories should have distracted her sorely; but in turning away from them, she focused all the more intently on the proper protocols for addressing each level of envoy from a foreign king, from princely ambassador to lowly message-runner.
“I’m not a queen,” she said. “Why do I have to know these things?”
“Because what you are is higher than a queen,” Sarai said as calmly as always. “Whatever a queen can do, you must do better.”
Since that was true, Iry held her tongue and set to learning what she was set to learn. And ignoring the tumult without, which seemed quite excessive for as small an expedition as it was. They were not mounting a war; they were simply going hunting with the king.
That tensed her spine, but as far as she could tell, none of them knew that there was, in fact, a war coming upon them.
She was deep in the intricacies of yet another ritual—this one of birthing, and yet also of dying—when she heard a voice without that she knew too well. Khayan had come to muster the troops, with much laughter and easy camaraderie, as there always was when he was among his men. It struck her that such a thing was not usual. He had come as a stranger, an interloper, who had grown to manhood in a foreign land; and he had made himself beloved of his father’s people. That was not an easy thing to accomplish.
She was not in a mood to admire him. He stayed away from his mother, at least, and from the women. That suited Iry very well.
Very well indeed. Yes.
~~~
In the morning they left, the whole uproarious lot of them, filling the courtyards with shouting and clatter. All the pomp and state that accompanied a royal hunt in Egypt was little enough in evidence here. The king was remarkable only in that his scale-armor was washed with gold, and his chariot bright with gilt. His weapons looked well worn and rather plain, like the man himself.
Iry had not intended to watch them go, but she happened to be near a window when the clamor began. She saw them all with their chariots, most drawn by asses, though the king’s and of course Khayan’s rolled behind a team of horses. Khayan was close by the king, and by no means the largest or the most imposing of all those big bearded men, and yet there was something about him that drew the eye.
She had no desire to follow him with her gaze, and yet her eyes had a will of their own. It was the body again, remembering.
If one meeting of body to body was enough to rob a woman of her wits, then no wonder so many women were fools. Iry turned her back on the window and on the great riding that streamed out of the court, and went back to her lessons in the arts of priestesses who were more than queens.
~~~
Khayan tried thrice to gain admission to the women’s quarters before he left on the king’s hunt. But the Lady Sarai had forbidden ingress to any man for that day and night, because, the door-guard said, she was engaged in teaching the Mare’s servant one of the great rites.
That might even have been true. Or perhaps she had guessed what Khayan had done with Iry. Women knew. It was a magic of theirs.
Even a messenger, even one of the maids, was not allowed to pass. Without help and without forgiveness, then, Khayan left the palace of Avaris.
He was almost cravenly glad to leave those walls and be free of that vast and crowded city. The king’s riding had all the road open before it. Passersby fled his coming. Caravans hastened to open the way. Lesser lords and princes either drew back or called out, “Sire! Where away?” And when they had their answer, some of them joined in the riding, either right then and there or later in the morning.
Khayan did not forget Iry. Never. But among these men of his own kin and kind, he could ease his spirit, and smooth away the tightness of too long a time within walls.
At night in the camp, he would remember her, lying alone on his blanket. Many of the men had brought women for their pleasure, packed among the servants and the baggage. They would happily have shared with him, but he smiled and refused. Wine, companionship, dancing and song, he would take, but women . . . no. They were not Iry.
Oh, he was besotted. He laughed at himself while he lay there, listening to the sounds of pleasure outside the tent’s walls. When he slept he dreamed of her; not true dreams or dreams of prophecy, but memories all the sweeter for that they were so brief.
When at last the king allowed him to return to Avaris, he would make his amends to her as he could, and love her with all his heart. But now, while there was no hope for it, he would ride and hunt as the king wished, and be as happy as his spirit would let him be.
Wherever the king was, runners came and went, messengers bringing word of things that even on a hunt the king must be aware of. Khamudi’s company of picked men had gone away southward. They had not, as yet, found any sign of invaders, whether on the river or on the land.
“Did they look in the desert?” Khayan asked at that.
“Nothing,” the runner said. “It’s quiet. The young men are not pleased.”
“I can imagine,” Khayan said dryly.
With such
news to ease their hearts—though Khayan was on edge still, like the fool he no doubt was—they made their way north and somewhat west, into the depths of the marshes where the hunting was gloriously rich. So too were the swarms of stinging flies, and the crocodiles in the braided streams of the river, but those were little enough to deter the men of the people. All day they hunted, and in the evening they ate the fruits of the hunt.
On the day when they met the herd of riverhorses, and the king himself brought down the great bull—and lost a loyal servant doing it, the hapless man torn in two by the vast jaws and the ivory teeth—a messenger came to them from a new direction. North, he came from, and east. He rode in a chariot behind a pair of stumbling and nigh foundered asses, wounded himself, and haggard as if he had ridden day and night without rest or nourishment.
“Sile,” he said. “They’re taking Sile.”
The king’s glance flashed to Khayan. For an instant Khayan feared that it was suspicion—that he might be accused of being a spy. But the king taxed him with nothing. He simply said, “We stop here. Send for the servants.”
~~~
Wine from the king’s own wineskin, and bread and onions and a slab of cheese, restored the messenger remarkably. He would not rest in the camp they made a safe distance from the riverhorses’ pool, until he had told the king all he knew.
“He’s laid siege to Sile,” he said. “The king from Thebes—the Egyptian. He came out of the empty lands with his armies—and chariots, sire. He came with chariots. He has a whole great herd of horses, and—”
“Horses?” the king broke in. “Not asses?”
“Horses,” the man said. “Good ones, fast, well trained. But they’re not all he has. He has a fleet. An enormous fleet, sire, of ships that ride on the sea.”
“Ships that ride on the sea?” Apophis repeated. “But Egypt has no—”
“Crete does,” the messenger said.
The king had been on his feet, pacing as he listened, as he liked to do. It helped him think, he said.
At that, he stopped, wheeled, and nearly fell. He groped his way to his chair and sank into it. “Crete? They’ve made pact with Crete?”
“Those are Cretan ships, sire,” the messenger said.
“Sile,” Apophis said as if to himself, “and Crete.” He lifted his head, frowning at the sky. “Gods, what fools we’ve been. What arrogant fools.”
“Sire,” Khayan ventured to say. “We’re numerous enough here, and armed. If we leave as soon as we can, we might be able to—”
“No,” the king said. And to the messenger: “Tell me the rest of it.”
The man bowed in his seat, drank deep of his wine as if to gather courage, and said, “The army came from the empty country, and the fleet from the sea. They surrounded us before we knew what we had seen. We were able to man the defenses and barricade the walls, but their numbers are great, and they’ve cut off the road in back of us. They’ll hold back any who try to come from Canaan.”
Apophis nodded. He could see it if Khayan could, though he had refused Khayan leave to stop it before it began.
Khayan spoke again. “Sire, if they’ve laid siege—how long ago? Two days ago? Three?—there’s time. We can win the city back and crush them before they move south.”
“They will be coming down the river,” Apophis said as if he had not heard him. “There is a fleet in the south, even if Khamudi can’t find it. We’re threatened on both sides.”
War. Khayan did not know who first said the word. But in scarce a dozen heartbeats, it had hummed through the camp. War. We’ve found us a war.
But the king was not to let them have it. Not all of them. After that first moment’s prostration, he was on his feet again, as strong of will and wit as he had ever been, snapping out orders almost too fast to follow.
Those of the lords who had joined the hunt on its way, and those with holdings nearest this country and toward Sile, he bade return home with all speed, and muster every man of theirs who could fight. As soon as that was done, they must make of themselves a wall to the south of Sile, and prevent the Egyptian and his seaborne allies from advancing deeper into the kingdom.
The one he set in command of them was not Khayan. It was one of the generals who had been in the council, sitting in Khamudi’s shadow.
The rest of them, and Khayan, would return to Avaris. “I need you there,” Apophis said before Khayan could voice his protest. “You’ll get your fight, I promise you. This war will come from south as well as north. I want you with me when the second attack comes.”
Khayan had no choice but to bow his head to that. There was no reward for foresight, after all, and no advantage in having seen before anyone else how the enemy would choose to fall on the kingdom.
~~~
So quickly it all changed, from hunt to war. The young rakehells in the king’s following were beside themselves with gladness. Most of them, Khayan noticed, were let go with Khamudi’s lieutenant. The steadiest and the most sensible, such as they were, remained with the king.
He supposed he should be flattered to be counted high among them. And it was true, there would be war enough for everyone.
In very short order, those who would ward the borders of Asia had gathered weapons and baggage and gone. The king was not in quite so much haste, but neither did he see fit to camp in that place. He paused only to take the great ivory tusks of the riverhorse. The rest he left for the crocodiles, and for the vultures that had been circling since the hunt began. When the sun had passed the zenith, they had taken the road to Avaris, with messengers sent ahead in swift chariots to warn the city of what would come upon it.
Khayan he kept at his right hand. Khayan hoped it was for liking, and not for mistrust.
Khayan’s mood was vile. He was being a fool, and he knew it. He had no need to ride to Sile. But to be given the command of that venture—that would have been an honor, and one he would have been glad of.
Many would have said that he was more greatly honored to be kept so close to the king and admitted to all his counsels. Apophis in the face of war was no longer the easy and affable man who had taken such delight in his menagerie. This was a hard man and a king, and a great commander of armies.
Armies which he must gather, and prepare in haste. As he rode toward Avaris, his runners ran tirelessly to all the lords and holdings, and bade them gather their fighting men.
By evening, in the way of such things, the news had run ahead of them. The kingdom had roused. Its lords were gathering their weapons. The lesser folk, the conquered people, labored unregarded, except perhaps by Khayan. War or no, there was a harvest to get in, wheat and barley and the lesser fruits of the earth.
“Sire,” Khayan said as they rode at speed through fields of ripe barley and little dark people cutting it with sickles. “This harvest—can it be got in faster? If the enemy comes so far, and finds only empty fields, he’ll find nothing to feed himself. And if the harvest is gathered and stored well apart from his advance, and guarded with as much strength as we can spare . . .”
“Indeed,” Apophis said. “That’s well thought of. See that it’s done.”
Khayan bowed to that: to the trust as well as the command. It was a gift, whether the king knew it or no. Khayan chose to take it as such.
IV
On the third day they came back to Avaris, the king and his much diminished hunting party. Behind them was a kingdom in uproar, lords mustering troops, men arming for war. And far behind them, on the borders of Asia, the war itself had begun and continued.
The city seemed, at first sight, to be no more or less crowded or tumultuous than it ever was. But the crowds were impenetrable, the tumult deafening. Everyone who could had come seeking shelter within those high walls, under the king’s protection.
Apophis rode in to a thunder of cheering and a torrent of gladness. Khayan could feel the strength pouring into him, even from in front of him, struggling a little with the stallions, who though weary with long
marching at a hard pace, tossed their heads and pranced at the roar of the crowd. The people’s love was a strong drug, stronger than wine. It made him dizzy.
The palace walls cut off the worst of it, though it surged still without, like a roar of the sea, as the rest of the army made its way through the city. There was fear—war always brought that, fear of death, fear of pain—but not fear of defeat. That, Khayan’s bones knew. They were a strong people, and they had ruled in this land for a hundred years. They would win this war.
“This time,” Apophis’ princes said in council, “we win it forever. Let us crush the Egyptian and all his armies. And when we have done that, let us pursue him even to Thebes, and do what we should have done years since: take the other half of Egypt, and make it our own.”
Always before when Apophis had heard such counsel, he had pointed out, with crushing logic, that they were strong but they were few, and the great length of Egypt, with all its crowded people, was a hard prize to hold with such numbers as they had. But now he only nodded. “We have to consider that,” he said, “yes. Or they’ll keep coming back, and keep defying us, till they manage to destroy us.”
Then he sent a strong force to Khamudi south of Memphis, to block the fleet when it came down the river. So guarded in the south as well as the north, with his own city strengthened greatly between, he settled to wait, and to rule the kingdom while his generals waged war far afield.
Khayan came late to his rooms, very late indeed, and stumbling on his feet. He had gone direct from march to council, and had dined with the king after—astonished at Apophis’ tirelessness. When he left the hall, Apophis was still in it, passing round the wine and ordering the disposition of his armies.
Khayan had his own orders. His levy from the Sun Ascendant was to stay where it was, on guard over the herds of horses—such of them as would not be sent to one or the other of the generals for use in the war. He would be very well paid for that, in lands and treasure.
