Lord of the Two Lands Read online

  “You are a woman,” said Barsine.

  “And a man wouldn’t notice?” Meriamon sat back. The second cake was gone; she had eaten it without noticing. She wiped her fingers with the cloth the servant offered, dipped in warm water scented with citron. “Maybe he wouldn’t, at that. As close as you keep yourself, as quiet as you can be, you can conceal the child until the time is ripe, and bring it out, and let people decide whose it is.”

  “Precisely,” Barsine said. “And my lord can let it be known that I am bearing. He can come more seldom for it, and stay more briefly.”

  She said it calmly, but Meriamon saw the pain behind it. And knew it for what it was. “He’s known from the beginning.”

  “I told him.”

  “Then—he never really—”

  “He did,” said Barsine, soft and fierce. “That first time. He did. But I had to tell him. I had lied enough in keeping silent and letting him love me once.”

  “And a Hellene won’t touch a bearing woman,” said Meriamon.

  “He was angry,” Barsine said. “But he forgave me. He loves to forgive, as he loves to give. He saw wisdom in what I had done.”

  Meriamon had her doubts of that. No doubt Barsine needed to believe it. “So he keeps coming back to you, and keeps up the pretense. He won’t need to do it much longer.”

  “Unless he wishes.”

  There was a silence. Meriamon let it stretch. After a while she said, “You wanted me to know. Why?”

  “I used you,” said Barsine. “I lied, a little. I let you think that I was free to accept him.”

  “You were talking yourself into it,” Meriamon said.

  Barsine smoothed her skirt along her thigh, long, slow, focused on it. She had done much the same when she played the bashful beloved.

  Parsa, thought Meriamon. Parsa, always, no matter that all her men had been Hellenes.

  Slowly Barsine said, “I wanted to see what you were.”

  “And what was that?”

  “His friend.”

  “And now?”

  “You are still. You could be more. If you would.”

  Meriamon was calm. She should not have been, maybe. But this was too fierce a battle to fight in anger. “Are you asking me to do that?”

  “No,” said Barsine. Still smoothing her gown with those long fingers; still centered on it, eyes lowered, profile cut as clean as a carving in ivory. “He may not go to Egypt now. Will you do anything to force him?”

  “If I can,” said Meriamon, “yes.”

  “I could help you,” Barsine said.

  “Why?”

  Barsine could not have expected that, even from Meriamon. For a moment she looked up; for a moment her eyes met Meriamon’s. “I mean no treachery.”

  “No?”

  “I love Alexander,” Barsine said.

  Truth. But what was truth to a Persian?

  “He admires you greatly,” said Barsine, “even when he curses you for a stubborn fool. He means to do what you ask, when his pride has salved itself in Tyre. But if he dies here—”

  “If he dies here, Persia is safe.”

  “I am Alexander’s now,” Barsine said. “Persia is no part of me.”

  “Persia is all of you.”

  Barsine’s breath caught. “How you hate us!”

  “Yes, I hate you,” said Meriamon. “I hate everything that you are. You marched out of Persis. You trampled my country under your feet. You murdered our kings; you mocked our gods, or strove to make them your own.”

  “You are as proud as Alexander,” said Barsine. “And no more sensible in it.”

  “I am of Egypt. No foreigner has ever ruled my people in peace.”

  “Yet you would make Alexander your king?”

  “Alexander, we choose. Alexander rules by our gods’ will.”

  “We rule by the will of Ahuramazda.”

  “That is no god of Egypt.”

  “That is the Truth.”

  And there, in the ringing silence, was the heart of it.

  “Your Truth is one,” Meriamon said, “and unyielding, and unforgiving. Ours is many; it shifts, it changes, it takes new shapes as the world grows.”

  “There can be but one Truth. All else is the Lie.”

  “No,” said Meriamon.

  “Yes,” Barsine said.

  “You are Persian,” said Meriamon. “You will never be aught but that. As I will never be aught but Egyptian. Alexander... he is always Alexander, and only Alexander, but that is as endlessly varied as the faces of my gods. Cambyses, Darius, Artaxerxes the accursed, Ochos who drove my father to his death—they came in their Truth, and laid its yoke on us, and wondered that we hated it, and through it hated them. Alexander will be our king, our pharaoh, our Great House of Egypt.”

  “If he succeeds in taking Tyre.”

  “If he does that,” said Meriamon.

  “Can you protect him?”

  There. At last. Meriamon swallowed a sigh, a curse on Persian indirection. She could barely protect herself. But she said, “The gods watch over him.”

  “You are a sorceress,” said Barsine. “You are very powerful, they say. Will you guard him against harm?”

  “He is guarded,” Meriamon said. Not knowing if she spoke the truth. A good priestess, she told herself, should trust the gods to look after their own.

  She rose. She needed the sun and the clean air. “Guard yourself,” she said, “and the child you carry.”

  o0o

  Kleomenes was waiting outside of Barsine’s tent, trying to look as if he had just happened by. Niko was glowering at him, as usual. Niko did not approve of her lapdog, as he called the boy.

  Meriamon walked past them both. Niko fell in behind her. He had the sense not to say anything. Kleomenes, who was younger, stretched to keep up, for she was striding swiftly. “What happened?” he wanted to know. “You look furious. Has somebody been at you?”

  She did not answer. There were too many words in her; they fell over one another.

  “It was Barsine, wasn’t it?” he said. “She’s jealous of you, everybody knows it. The king thinks too much of you to suit her. What did she say? I’ll give her what for.”

  Meriamon stopped short. Kleomenes went on past her, caught himself, scrambled back. “Kleomenes,” she said. She kept it gentle, but there was iron in it. “I know perfectly well that you’re running out on Philippos. Even if there is nothing much to do in the hospital now.”

  He looked like a whipped pup, all droop and wounded eyes. “But there isn’t anything to do,” he said.

  “You are still Philippos’ apprentice. He won’t love me for luring you away from your duty.”

  “But—” said Kleomenes.

  “Go,” said Meriamon.

  He went. He dragged his feet, he looked back often, he even shed a tear. She hardened her heart and her eyes. He heaved a mighty sigh and turned his back on her.

  She had no pity to spare. She turned from the way he had taken and went to the horselines.

  Her mare was there, accepting a grooming with queenly condescension. The Thracian grinned at Meriamon and bobbed his untidy head.

  One way and another they had both acquired names. The groom was Lampas, which was not the name his father had given him, but he liked it, and answered to it. The mare was Phoenix. Meriamon said their names to herself, anchoring herself with them, inclining her head to the groom and laying a hand on the mare’s neck. Lampas grinned even wider. Phoenix snorted and shook her head.

  “You ride?” Lampas asked.

  “I ride,” said Meriamon.

  It did not matter where. Phoenix wanted to run. Meriamon let her.

  o0o

  Niko caught them not far from the Leontes, and that because Meriamon had stopped to let the mare graze. He was riding the bow-nosed gelding, which had no speed, but was almost the mare’s match for endurance. He had a pack with him, and a full wineskin, and Sekhmet riding in the fold of his cloak.

  Meriam
on eyed him askance. He did not say anything. He was armed, she noticed, with sword and spears. He at least, it seemed, was prepared for a journey.

  She shrugged. Why not? She twitched the mare’s head up. The river ran loud and high, leaping down from the mountain. Snow lay thick on them amid and above the deep green of cedars. Alexander’s men were up there, cutting down the great trees for his causeway. Meriamon touched the mare into a canter, toward the cedars and the snow.

  o0o

  The long ride and the clean air did much to restore Meriamon to herself. She was still a woman without a shadow, but there was no pain in it, or none that mattered.

  As the way grew steep, the river forged its path through thickening trees, outriders of the forests of the Lebanon. The ground was deep with their castings, the air dizzying with their scent, strong and pure and green. The trees were small here, but small in a cedar of the Lebanon was as high as a tower, and great branches spreading wide like outstretched arms.

  “They pray to your Zeus,” Meriamon said, halting under one of them.

  “Maybe they have their own gods,” said Niko. He tilted his head back, measuring the tree with his eye. “Titans, maybe. These are trees the way giants are men.”

  “We don’t have anything like them in Egypt.”

  “No one has anything tike them.” Niko swung his leg over the gelding’s neck and slid to the ground. He had taken to riding with a smooth bit as Meriamon did, kinder by far than the monstrosities that the warhorses endured. The gelding seemed to like it; he browsed happily enough around it while Niko unslung the wineskin and held it out to Meriamon.

  She drank and handed it back, holding the wine in her mouth, letting it go down slowly. It was good wine, well watered: as good as the king had.

  She dismounted, stretching stiffened muscles. She was thinner still than she needed to be; her bones jutted in uncomfortable places. She rubbed one that ached particularly, trying to be discreet about it. Of course Niko saw. The corner of his mouth twitched. She set her jaw and rubbed harder. He shrugged out of his pack and squatted to rummage in it, with Sekhmet offering advice.

  Meriamon wandered a little, leading Phoenix; or maybe the mare led her. And wisely: the hill moderated its slope, and the trees paused suddenly, opening on a broad cleared space that rolled down to the river. Cutters had been there, but not for a season or more. Grass had grown over the stumps; from one sprouted a young cedar, no taller than Meriamon’s knee, no thicker than her finger.

  The mare strained against the bridle. Meriamon slipped the bit from its mooring and hobbled her with a bit of old rein and let her go. She set promptly to grazing, like a sensible beast.

  Niko’s gelding followed her soon enough, hobbled likewise and freed of his bridle. Niko came up beside Meriamon where she sat on a stump, with bread and a bit of cheese and more of the wine.

  They ate in companionable silence, listening to the calling of birds in the wood and the cropping of horses in the meadow. Meriamon was tired, but it was a good tiredness, with wind in it, and sun, and her troubles left far behind. The sun was still high, warm on her face, warm enough that she pulled off her cap and unbuttoned her coat and let the wind cool her skin.

  Niko got up after a while and went down to the river. He stooped to drink from it, and stayed there, trailing his hand in the swift water. He would not be mad enough to swim in it, surely. It was snow-cold.

  He stood straight and let his cloak fall. Meriamon opened her mouth to shout at him, but he stayed on the bank, clasping his right arm to him as he often did, staring down at the rushing water. Sekhmet wove about his ankles. He gathered her up. She was almost the same color as he was.

  Meriamon dragged her eyes back to the horses. They grazed side by side, peacefully, tails switching, now one, now the other. It was not, Meriamon thought, as if she had never seen a man before. And yet there was something about him standing there, that made her insides clench.

  He was not handsome. He was, in fact, rather unabashedly homely. He had a nose like a ship’s prow and a jaw like an outcropping of granite. But he was well made, if one liked them long and lean, and he moved like a good horse. He was a pleasure to watch.

  It was spring, and she was lately come back from a long sickness, and her body knew very well what it was for. Nor did it care that Niko was the last man in the world who would want the likes of Meriamon. He was male, was he not? And young and strong even with his scarred and twisted hand, and good to look at, there in the sun, with the cat on his shoulder.

  He came up from the river and stood by her. His cloak was in his hand. He said something. “What?” she said.

  “Nothing,” said Niko maddeningly. He spread the cloak on the ground and sat on it. He hardly looked at her. He could stare at her till her skin crawled, when he decided to be obvious about being on guard. When she would have liked him to notice her, he was oblivious.

  “Kleomenes notices me,” she said.

  He glanced at her then, sharp with ill temper. “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  He slapped at a fly. It had bitten him. He rubbed his shin, muttering.

  It was not the fly he was muttering at. “That puppy. What finally inspired you to chase him off?”‘

  “He’s been shirking his work,” said Meriamon. “Philippos is a hard man as it is; Kleomenes doesn’t need to make him harder.”

  “He could use a good tanning.”

  “Oh, come,” Meriamon said. “He’s not as bad as that. I’ve been teaching him as much as I can. He’s a good pupil. Just... persistent.”

  “Pestiferous.”

  “I’d think you’d like him,” she said. “He’s clever enough, and he wants to do well.”

  “He moons after you like a lovesick calf.”

  His voice was venomous. Meriamon looked at him in surprise. He glared at his foot, which he had freed of its shoe. There was nothing at all wrong with it.

  “I suppose,” said Meriamon, “he is a little exasperating. Young things are. They do grow out of it.”

  “Not that one,” Niko said.

  “Why, what’s he ever done to you?”

  “Nothing.” Niko pushed himself to his feet. Sekhmet chose that moment to leap down from his shoulder. He stumbled over her; his foot turned.

  He did not fall on his bad arm. Not quite. But he fell hard; hard enough to knock the breath out of him.

  Meriamon did not even remember getting up. She was on the ground beside him, reaching for him.

  He had not harmed himself. The bone was all but mended; muscle had withered as muscle did round a broken bone. It was not a pretty thing, but it was beautiful to eyes that knew what it had been.

  She laid his arm in her lap, working her fingers into the bleached and whitened skin. He gasped. His hand twitched. Stiffly; barely to be seen. But it moved. She bent the wasted fingers one by one, carefully, easing when his breath caught.

  He was staring at it. His lips were set tight; sweat ran down his face. Pain. And he had not made a sound. He never did.

  “It’s healing,” she said.

  He turned his face away, refusing what that healing meant. A withered arm. A twisted hand.

  “No,” she said, firm enough to bring his head about. “You’ve let it wither so that the bone can knit. Now you’ll make it strong. It’s going to hurt,” she said. “I don’t deny it. But you’ll have two hands again.”

  “One and a half,” he said.

  “More than that,” said Meriamon. “It will never be as strong as it was before, that’s true enough. It won’t be useless, either. How strong does it have to be to carry a shield?”

  Hope leaped in his eyes, but he knocked it down and sat on it. “Philippos said I’d be invalided out.”

  Her breath hissed between her teeth. “He said what?”

  “He said I’d heal enough for light work, if I didn’t force it. But I won’t do any more fighting.”

  “When did he say that?”

  “Does
it matter?”

  “Yes!” she snapped.

  “Somewhere back there,” Niko said.

  “Before Sidon?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose.”

  “And he hasn’t said a word since?”

  “He hasn’t needed to.”

  Meriamon wanted to spit. “That—maddening—man! You, too. Both of you. He’s got eyes as good as mine. He can see what I see.”

  “Scars.”

  “Miracles!” She struck his shoulder with her fist. “Don’t you remember Eshmun’s temple?”

  “That was nonsense. It didn’t do a thing.”

  “It did,” said Meriamon. “Look at this! This should have rotted and come off. It’s healing. It’s mending where only a god could cause it to mend.”

  “If a god did it,” said Niko with a curl of the lip, “why didn’t he do it all at once, instead of dragging it on and on?”

  “Maybe he wanted to teach you patience.”

  He glared. She glared back.

  Why she did what she did next, she would never in her life be able to explain. It was the sun in her, and the green smell, and the heat of temper sparking between them. She bent down. She kissed him hard.

  He tasted of wine and cedar. He smelled of himself: horses, wool, clean sweat.

  She straightened. Her cheeks were burning hot. His were scarlet. All the way down to the neck of his chiton.

  His arm was still in her lap. He reclaimed it. Carefully.

  He would not look at her. She could hardly look at him.

  He disliked her intensely; he had made that clear long since. Now he would hate her.

  Her guardsman was supposed to fall in love with her. Not she with her guardsman.

  He stood. He could not get into his cloak as easily as he had got out of it. She had to help him. The shame of it thinned his lips and pinched his nostrils tight.

  She started to turn away, looking toward the horses. He caught her. She stood stiff and still.

  “Why?” he asked her.

  Her throat had locked shut. She drove words through it. “I don’t know.”

  His hand did not let go. She could break his grip easily enough if she tried. “That’s not an answer,” he said.

  “It’s all I have.”