The Shepherd Kings Read online

  ~~~

  The Horus, the living god, the king, Great House of Egypt, lord of Upper Egypt and all lands tributary to it, was in a splendid mood this morning. He had slept well, with the assistance of a concubine of surpassing skill. There was no disaster to vex his morning’s ease, no trouble that kept him from preparing a hunt upon the river. They would embark in a fleet as soon as might be, armed to hunt the riverhorse, with bows and nets to catch fowl for the pot, and even lines for such as had inclination toward fish of the river.

  But at this hour, still close to sunrise, Ahmose the king lingered over his breakfast. He dined alone but for a small army of servitors, unattended for once by any of his lords or by the tribe of his sons. It was a luxury a king could seldom afford, and one that his son Gebu did not long allow him.

  He was not visibly troubled to see that one of his sons, nor vexed by Kemni’s intrusion, either. He smiled at them both and beckoned them in, and bade them take what they would from the table spread before him.

  Kemni found that he was hungry. He had broken bread with the king before, though not, to be sure, in the palace of Thebes. Ahmose was not one to stand on ceremony when he did not see the need. He was a warm man, for a king. He was at ease among mere mortals, and even among commoners.

  Sitting with him, eating subtly flavored cakes and fine wheaten bread and cold roast goose, Kemni began to feel like himself again. Perhaps after all it would not be so ill if Ahmose knew of Kemni’s gift. Kings took gifts, and used them. It was their way. But Ahmose would use it as he judged best for his people.

  His son Gebu favored him for looks, though Ahmose was not as big a man. He had inherited the kingship from his brother Kamose a hand of years before, after Kamose died in battle against the Nubians; he had been past the bloom of youth when he took the crown. Nonetheless he looked hardly older than his son. He was strong, and young in his strength.

  One did not begin a conversation with the king. One ate one’s breakfast with unfeigned relish, washed it down with good Egyptian beer, and waited for the royal majesty to speak.

  Which he did, but only after both young men had eaten and drunk their fill. It was a courtesy, one of many that marked this lord of Upper Egypt. He said, “Now, sirs. Tell me what brings you here.”

  Kemni hesitated. Gebu shot him a glance, but he could not find the words that he should say.

  Gebu said them for him, with admirable patience in the circumstances. “Kemni my brother in blood, whom I love, is a dreamer of dreams.”

  Ahmose’s brow went up. It was not surprise, Kemni noticed. “So I hear,” the king said.

  Gebu nodded, equally unsurprised. “In the night, he dreamed the bull dance.”

  The king’s brow climbed higher. He turned the force of his stare on Kemni. Kemni stiffened against it. “Tell me,” he said.

  Kemni told him as he had told Gebu, word for word. It was no easier in the second telling. The king listened in silence, offering no word, no response at all, only that level dark stare. Flat, Kemni would almost have called it, but only as deep water is flat; because human eye has no power to pierce beneath its surface.

  Ahmose, after all, was king and god. Kemni, mere mortal that he was, could only speak as he was commanded, and hope that it would satisfy the king.

  And so it seemed to. When Kemni had told the last of it, the young dancer slain, the bull triumphant, he fell silent. Ahmose was silent, too, tugging at his chin, pondering the tale that he had heard.

  At length he said, “The bull was victorious, you say. What of the other dancers?”

  “I don’t know, sire,” Kemni said. “I only saw the one who died.”

  “Indeed,” the king said. He glanced at Gebu. Gebu’s brows went up. The king nodded.

  “Now?” the prince asked.

  The king inclined his head.

  Gebu had caught Kemni’s arm and tugged him up and out of the king’s chambers before he could say a word, or think to resist. Only when they had passed the outermost guard did Kemni manage at last to dig in his heels. “What—”

  “Just come,” Gebu said.

  “Not till you tell me where.”

  “Not here,” said Gebu. “Follow.”

  It was that or be dragged bodily, with the aid of a massive Nubian guard. Kemni went where he was led, biting back the rest of his protests.

  He had gone that way before, and often enough, too: out one of the back ways of the palace, into the less savory portions of the city. They went in no more state than they ever had on night rambles in search of bad beer and willing women, and no escort but one another. Kemni would have been better pleased if he had been given time to put on something other than his best kilt. At least, he reflected wryly, he had put on few jewels and only his third-best wig, since it was likely he would be hunting the riverhorse with the king once his audience was done.

  It seemed he was hunting something else altogether; something that made its home down by the river. Not far from here, traders moored their ships. Their crews found women and beer and lesser entertainment behind the low doors and the weatherbeaten walls. The streets were ripe with the reek of their passing: piss, stale vomit, the fierce stink of dung both human and canine.

  At this hour of the morning, only a valiant few braved the light and the rising heat. Swarms of flies beset them. A pack of dogs, all ribs and mangy hide, jostled past and vanished into a lesser alleyway, in full cry after the gods knew what.

  Kemni had begun—not to be afraid, no. But to wonder if he had done something to anger the king. Why else had he been brought here to this odorous underbelly of Thebes, if not by way of punishment?

  When Gebu paused, Kemni nearly collided with him. He ducked through a leather curtain into a house like every other along that cesspit of a street, into darkness absolute.

  He froze, but Gebu had him by the arm again, tugging him into a space that he could not see. Then, with the rattle of a bolt and the slide of a latch, out suddenly into daylight again.

  Daylight and the scent of flowers; the glimmer of sunlight in a pool. Kemni stood blinking, astonished, in a courtyard such as he might expect to find in any lordly house—but not here, in this poorest quarter of the city.

  They paused only long enough for Kemni to get his bearings, before Gebu tugged at him yet again. They passed under the colonnade into shade and almost-coolness, then up a stair and into a long airy room.

  Kemni stopped short on the threshold. Before he could stop himself, he laughed.

  He was standing inside his own lamp from Crete. The same many-armed sea-creature coiled and undulated along the wall, in a great gathering of its kin. No bulls here. No slender supple dancers.

  One of the shadows moved. Kemni suppressed a start. This was not his dream come to life. It was an older man, thicker-bodied, tanned to leather by years of wind and sun. But the shape of him, broad shoulders, slender waist; the long-nosed, large-eyed face; and the hair bound in a fillet and trailing in ringlets over his back and shoulders, all spoke vividly of the dancers in the dream. He moved like a dancer, too, light on his feet, soft and quick as a cat.

  There were others behind him, quiet men with the look of well-trained servants. He took no notice of them, nor did Gebu. It was Kemni’s oddity that he noticed everyone, even slaves.

  Gebu advanced past Kemni with an air of unfeigned pleasure. The Cretan’s face reflected it: sudden smile, quick clasp of hands. “Naukrates,” Gebu said. “I thought you might have sailed before this.”

  “You knew I didn’t,” said the one called Naukrates, “or you’d not have come looking for me.”

  Gebu laughed and spread his hands. “Very well then. I hoped you’d still be in the city.”

  Naukrates spread his hands and bowed, a graceful, foreign gesture. “And what is it that I can do for you?”

  Gebu glanced back at Kemni, who had chosen to remain near the door. “This is my brother in blood and battle, a lord’s son of Lower Egypt. His name is Kemni.”

  “K
emni,” the Cretan said. His tongue softened it, gave it a lilt that was more pleasant than not. Kemeni, it sounded like. It was a greeting, and a welcome.

  He made no move, but as if he had given a signal, servants padded in, soft on bare feet, bearing chairs, a table, jars and cups and bowls: all the makings of a small feast. Kemni marveled a little that a house so evidently deserted, unguarded, undefended, should after all be so well tenanted.

  Foreign secrets. The wine was foreign, too, but the food was familiar enough. Whoever the cook was, Kemni would have wagered silver that the man was Egyptian.

  Proper manners required patience. One had to eat though one had eaten one’s fill with the king; drink, and speak of nothing, and dance the dance of strangers meeting. One did not ask what one was itching to ask, nor indicate through glance or shift of body that one was ready to leap out of one’s skin with impatience.

  Naukrates was the captain of a ship from Crete. He told tales of the Great Green, the sea that flowed at the bottom of the world, and all its ways and its creatures, and the peoples who lived along its shores. They were wonderful tales. And through them Kemni saw something else.

  This was not a simple merchant captain. That he was here, that he had passed the barriers the foreign kings had raised on the river south of Memphis, spoke for a determination beyond the ordinary. The wealth of this house, the number and quality of servants, made Kemni suspect that here was one of rank perhaps equal to Gebu. He had the air, the calm expectation that when he spoke, men would listen; and when he commanded, men would obey.

  Rather subtly, so that at first Kemni was barely aware of it, the current of conversation shifted. They had been speaking of trade, and of navigating the river of Egypt. It was inevitable that they speak of the foreign king who squatted athwart the delta of the river, and ruled the trading-houses of Memphis.

  “Once we were the Two Lands,” Gebu said: “Upper Egypt, which was Thebes and the long narrow valley of the river; and Lower Egypt, which is Memphis and the Delta. Two lands. Two worlds, as it were, Upper Egypt as narrow sometimes as a man can walk in an hour, bounded by the desert; and Lower Egypt with its green marshes and its damper airs.

  “And now only Upper Egypt is ours. Lower Egypt belongs to the invaders out of Asia, the lords from Retenu. Half a score of years ago we took it back—but we lost it as soon as we had won it, because we could not hold it all, not against both the foreign kings and the kings of Nubia.”

  “I suppose,” said Naukrates, “that one could simply endure.”

  “One could,” said Gebu.

  “Or one could . . . act on it.”

  “One might,” Gebu said. “And how would that serve you?”

  “Simply enough,” Naukrates answered. “Egypt has always been rich in trade. These foreign kings are willing enough to take what we offer, but they close off the greater wealth of Egypt, and the trade that comes with it, from places far away on the world’s edge.”

  “Gold,” said Gebu. “Ivory.”

  “Elephants and apes and fowl like living jewels.” Naukrates sighed. “The foreigners trade with Nubia, to be sure. But the tribute their king demands is ridiculous.”

  “Any king’s tribute is ridiculous, if you ask a trader,” Gebu said.

  “His is more ridiculous than most,” said Naukrates. “He looks to the land, to the kingdoms of Asia, and to the trade that comes from the sunrise countries. He thinks little of us who come from the sea.”

  “Whereas we who sail in boats on our river that can be as broad as a sea— we understand the trade that comes in ships from across the Great Green.”

  “Just so,” Naukrates said.

  Kemni listened in silence. He was beginning to see, perhaps, what this signified.

  Crete lay far away, an island in the Great Green. Between Thebes and Crete lay not only water but the whole broad stretch of Lower Egypt. And Lower Egypt was held captive by kings out of Asia.

  Not all of Lower Egypt lay passive under the conqueror’s heel. Kemni knew that—perhaps none better. He was the son of a lord from Lower Egypt. His father had bowed his head to the invader. But Kemni had not. Kemni had taken arms with his uncle, his father’s brother, likewise a lord of the conquered kingdom, and gone to fight for the king of Upper Egypt. The uncle had died for it. Kemni had lived, but he had not gone back to his lands. Gebu had brought him to Thebes and made a prince of him, and cherished him as a brother.

  Crete was a great power on the sea. Its ships and its fighting men were a wonder of the world.

  Suppose, thought Kemni, that Upper Egypt had not had to fight alone.

  Suppose that it could ally with Crete, and crush the foreigners between. Then might it not at last, after a hundred years, succeed in taking back what belonged to it?

  ~~~

  While his thoughts wandered, so had the conversation. They were speaking now of gods and of wonders, of dreams and visions. But before Kemni could open his mouth to speak, that too had shifted. Now Gebu said, “You sail soon, I suppose.”

  Naukrates nodded. “We’ve lingered here overlong. I’d like to be home for the dancing of the bull. We do that, you know, at the year’s end.”

  “Yes,” said Gebu, in Kemni’s silence. “When you go, can you take a passenger?”

  Naukrates shrugged slightly, a very Cretan shrug: expressive of much, not all of it clear for an Egyptian to read. “I might,” he said. “Can he pay his passage? Or should I put him to work?”

  “He can pay,” Gebu said, “but he might be of use. He’s not a bad sailor, as men go in Egypt.”

  Naukrates’ brow went up. Kemni knew what the sailors of Crete thought of Egyptians and their boats. Children playing in puddles, he had heard one of them say once.

  And why, wondered Kemni, was Gebu seeking passage to Crete? Not rebellion, surely. Not running away from his father and his people and the war that, Kemni was sure, was coming soon.

  Embassy. Yes. And how subtle, and how secret. If the king in the north learned of this before the Cretan ship passed the last port of Egypt, he could capture and destroy every man on it, and the alliance with it.

  Then Naukrates said, “So you fancy yourself a sailor.”

  His eyes were not on Gebu. He looked Kemni in the face.

  Kemni felt a perfect fool. Of course he was the one they were speaking of. Why else would he be here? He was well enough loved, but he was hardly privy to the king’s secrets. Unless he could be of use.

  After rather too long a pause, he gave Naukrates such answer as he could. “I fancy myself well enough, but I’ll never pretend to be a sailor on the Great Green.”

  The Cretan’s dark eyes glinted. “What, a modest Egyptian? Has the world ever seen such a thing?”

  “The world may want to know why I go to Crete,” Kemni said.

  “Because the gods chose you,” said Gebu. “Do you refuse? You can if you like. It’s a long way to go for little more than a dream.”

  Kemni stiffened at that. “Did your father pray for a sign, then? And I was his answer?”

  “That’s between my father and the rest of the gods.”

  Kemni’s breath hissed between his teeth. “You want me to leave Egypt.”

  “Leave Egypt, go to Crete, speak with the king in the Labyrinth. And,” said Gebu, “come back with a token of the alliance. A living one, if promises be true.”

  “They are true,” Naukrates said. “For a compact such as this, the only true bond is living flesh.”

  “A wife for the king.” Gebu sighed a little. “I asked to be given the task, you know. But the gods asked for you.”

  “One dream,” Kemni said. “One vexatious nightmare. Can you say you’ve never had any such thing?”

  “I never dreamed of this,” said Gebu.

  “Very well,” Kemni said crossly, and no matter what the Cretan captain was thinking. “I’ll go. But promise me something.”

  “Whatever you like,” Gebu said.

  “When I come back,” said Kemni, �
�don’t simply make me rich. Give me horses and a chariot, and let me learn the way of them.”

  Kemni had never seen Gebu so flatly astonished. “Horses? Why would you want that?”

  “So that I can conquer the conqueror,” Kemni said.

  “Well,” said Gebu after a pause. “I did say anything. I’ll speak to my father. If it can be done, he’ll do it.”

  “That will do,” Kemni said, then caught himself. But Gebu did not rebuke him for presumption. He only laughed and cuffed Kemni’s ear, and called for the wine to go round again. “In your honor,” he said, “and in honor of the embassy.”

  II

  Kemni must have been mad. Even if the king had commanded it, to agree to sail in secret out of Egypt, to speak for the king before the king of Crete—Kemni had no subtlety. He could fight a battle, sail a boat, amuse a prince. But embassies were for the wise, and for great lords and princes. Not for the adopted brother of a lesser prince.

  All he had was a dream. It seemed a fragile thing on which to hang the fate of Egypt.

  But it was decided. The king said so. “The gods chose you,” he said when Kemni tried to protest. “They will guide you. Trust in them.”

  Kemni had no choice. The king had spoken. And Naukrates the Cretan was sailing in the morning.

  Kemni would go alone. He might have had a servant, or a guard, but he declined. It was a secret embassy, after all, and must be hidden from the Retenu.

  And that too, perhaps, was why he had been chosen. A lord of higher rank and position might have insisted on a greater show. The offer of a guard or a single servant would have insulted such a personage. And the proper entourage of a great lord would have been recognized long before it passed the ports of the Delta, and his embassy and his secret been uncovered, and all of it destroyed.

  This was not battle of the field, man to man and the gods must choose the victor, and yet battle it was. That it must be fought in secret was a great shame, but never as great as that Egypt herself lay divided, and a king out of Asia ruled over the half of it.