Pillar of Fire Read online

  “It is not said in the courts of the kingdom,” said Ankhesenamon. “Of course it wouldn’t be. The courts concern themselves with wars and kings. What do they care for a rumor from the empty lands, unless it touches on their dignity?”

  “That’s well for you,” Johanan said, “and for him. If it were known who he was—”

  “It will never be known,” the queen said with sudden fierceness. “I’ll have you killed if you breathe a word of it. Do you understand me?”

  “Perfectly,” he said, unruffled. “You need have no fear of me. I go to visit my grandmother in Thebes. She’s old, and not as strong as she was. She needs her grandson beside her.”

  “Are you asking my leave?”

  He looked her in the face. “I am not,” he said, “great lady. Unless it pleases you to give it.”

  No one had ever addressed her so, calmly, boldly, and completely without defiance. He would do what he would do. She had no part in it.

  It astonished her past even anger. She said, “If I gave you a safe-conduct throughout the Two Lands, what would you do with it?”

  “Cherish it,” he answered, “great lady.”

  “You are as impossible as he is.” She said it without rancor, even with amusement. “No wonder he prospers so well among you. You’re all like him.”

  “Well,” he said, “after all, we’re kin.”

  She laid a hand against his cheek, briefly, and smiled more briefly still. Then she rose. “When you go,” she said, “my scribe will have it ready for you. Be sure to keep it safe. It will protect you wherever you are. Without it . . .”

  “Without it I’m no more than a runaway slave.” He grinned at Nofret, who glared back. “I understand, great lady. You’ve been most generous.”

  “I give you no more than your due.” She dipped her head to him, which was a very great honor, coming from queen to Apiru slave. “Prosper well. Bear my greetings to your grandmother.”

  “Lady,” he said, bowing low. When he rose, she was gone.

  Thirty-Seven

  Johanan left Memphis in the morning, with the queen’s safe-conduct hidden in his robes. Nofret had fetched it from the scribe and given it to him before he left the palace. He lingered so long that she wondered if he meant to sleep in the room where he had eaten; but at last he rose from his seat.

  His robes were waiting for him, clean and mended. He put them on. They changed him, made him both more and less a foreigner. They blurred the fine width of his shoulders, the narrowness of his flanks; but they were better fitted to his face, keen as it was, like a desert falcon’s.

  He hesitated, as if he wanted to speak but could not bring himself to begin. Nofret could not speak, either. She had been distressingly glad to be rid of Seti. This man, this stranger, this friend of her youth, who had never touched her as a man touches a woman, nor ventured such a liberty . . .

  Except once. He had been leaving then, too, for years and perhaps forever.

  Anger surged up in her. It drove her forward, caught him in her arms, pulled his head down till their faces were level. Strange, to kiss a bearded man; neither pleasant nor unpleasant, simply different.

  She pulled away first. He looked at her, his eyes dark, almost soft. “You have a lover,” he said.

  She caught her breath. “How can you—”

  “I’m glad,” he said. “I was afraid for you, so lonely as you can be, and so prickly-proud.”

  “You have a wife,” she said. She did not know it, or see. She only meant to wound.

  The blow fell short of the mark. “No,” he said. “I have no wife, or lover either.”

  “Of course you do. You’re a man grown. Every man marries, to sire sons.”

  “There’s no one in Sinai,” he said, “who makes my heart sing.”

  She glared at him. “What does that have to do with it? A wife is a commodity. She bakes your bread, weaves your robes. She gives you sons. What more do you need of her?”

  “Nothing, I suppose,” he said. He brushed her lips with his fingertip. Her lips were hot, his finger cool. “May the god keep you.”

  He was gone before she moved. She did not seek him out before morning. When her messenger found the house where he had been staying, he was set long since on the road to Thebes.

  Nofret did not know why she was so angry. She loved him no more than she loved Seti. Less. Seti had been her lover. Johanan had never been anything but a friend. He was not even that now. He was a stranger, a wild tribesman, and nothing to her at all.

  oOo

  The war in Asia, as far as anyone in Egypt knew, was a mighty success, with victory after victory, and the king smiting his enemies wherever he went. War in Egypt could never go otherwise, nor could its king ever be seen to fail in anything he undertook. He was a god, after all, and infallible.

  But other messages came to the queen, and from those Nofret, warrior-bred, could glean the truth. The king had won nothing but the right to return with his armies mostly intact. Hatti had risen to his goad, and had struck with all the force of which it was capable.

  Worse, and rather insulting, Suppiluliumas had not come himself to contend with the twofold threat of Egypt and Ashur. He was engaged in matters of more importance to his empire, far in the wilds of the north. He sent two armies against the invaders.

  One drove the forces of Ashur clear over the Euphrates and back to their own country. Egypt, hearing of this, left the siege of Kadesh and retreated—foolish or not, coward or wise, it mattered little. Hatti pursued, and did a thing it had done seldom before, if ever: it crossed into Egypt’s lands in Asia and took the city of Amki, and took Egyptian prisoners, and drove them to Hattusas.

  This was a great shame and a clear defeat. But no word of it was spoken outside of the queen’s private chambers. The scribes recorded a victory. The people welcomed the army with cheers and rejoicing, flung flowers before its feet, sang its triumph in the streets of every city.

  It was a lie, but a beautiful one. The king himself seemed to believe in it. He rode into Memphis in his golden chariot, gleaming in his golden armor, all golden himself as if gilded by the sun. He was grown a little taller, a little wider in the shoulders, more distinctly now a man.

  His queen waited for him where she had stood for his departure, in the court of the gate, under a canopy, with her ladies about her. She had taken great pains with her appearance, more than Nofret had ever known her to take. Her gown was spotless and perfectly pleated. Her jewels were her best, like armor of lapis and gold. Her face was painted as perfectly as ever face could be. Her wig, with its uraeus crown, lay just so on her shoulders, its plaits as even as the pleats of her gown.

  She was as beautiful as an image of a goddess, and as still. She sat a gilded throne; a little Nubian maid fanned her with an ostrich-feather fan, for even in the shade the air was heavily warm.

  They heard the king’s coming in the shouts and cheering of his people, waxing as he drew closer, until they could hear the rumble of his chariot wheels and the marching feet of his army. The court in its walls, with its forest of pillars, seemed deathly quiet, the people in it as immobile as the queen.

  He burst into it like a lion on a herd of gazelles. Servants shrieked and scattered. He brought his stallions to a rearing halt full in front of the queen, leaped down from the chariot, and ran to take her in his arms.

  She was halfway toward him, throne and scepter and dignity forgotten, and perfect gown, too, rumpled beyond repair as he swept her up. They were laughing, she through tears, everything forgiven, everything forgotten but the joy of seeing one another again.

  oOo

  He had a scar or two, small ones: graze of arrow, glancing blow of swordblade. They all made much of him, his queen most of all. She bathed him with her own hands and dressed him in a cool kilt and led him to the feast that had been prepared.

  They went hand in hand as they had before they quarreled, with many pauses. If they had not been royal and bound to duty, they well migh
t have abandoned the feast and gone direct to the bedchamber. But that luxury was not given a king or his queen.

  It was a splendid feast, course after course, even to a whole ox, and a goose for every feaster, and mountains of cakes and fruit, and a different wine for every dish. The court, those who had remained at home reunited with those who had gone to war, fell to with a splendid will.

  They, like the king, seemed to have convinced themselves that they celebrated a victory. The tales that the returning warriors told were all of triumph, enemies defeated, plunder taken, cities sacked.

  Lies, every one. Grand lies, as if the repetition of them could transform them into truth.

  In Hatti no doubt they were celebrating, too, with tales of their triumph over Ashur and mighty Egypt. Truer tales than were told here, but no less embellished, the count of captives multiplied a hundredfold, and the slain by a thousand and more, and plunder such as no king could have amassed, however rich he might be.

  Lies, like blood, were part of war. Without them it would have been a squalid thing, blood and pain and sudden death. With them it was glorious.

  oOo

  Seti was not waiting for Nofret in her chamber when she came to it, dizzy with the little wine she had drunk and ready to quell his importunings with kisses. Marry him she would never do, but she would keep him in her bed. She needed him for that. His warmth, his presence, the pleasure he gave her . . .

  But there was no sign of him, nor did he come stumbling in late and reeking of wine. She slept alone, cold in the warmth of Egyptian night, and angry even in her dreams.

  Those dreams were none of Seti. The one who walked in them wore another name altogether, and another face: hawk-nosed, black-bearded, burnished with sun and wind. The things he did to her were things that Seti had done. But Seti was not there, not in waking and not in sleep.

  She woke determined to forget him as he so clearly had forgotten her. No doubt he had found another woman, one willing to marry him. She would not quell her pride so far as to go looking for him. A woman abandoned could only make herself a laughingstock if she went blundering in search of her lover.

  She held to her resolve for exactly half a day. That was how long it took her to realize that her lady would not be needing her—she was closeted with the king and would emerge, the guard said with a wink and a grin, when his majesty was pleased to let her go—and that everything was done as it needed to be done, and the maids could take their leisure.

  A chief of servants could be too successful in the practice of her art. Nofret, intending to rest in her chamber, decided instead to seek out the garden court that had been her refuge. But that was tainted now with memory of Johanan. She had gone back once since he found her there, and been able to think of nothing but the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice.

  She turned instead toward the house of the guards. It was beneath her dignity to enter, to lay herself open to the bawdry of idle men. But she could approach the man who hung about the door, polishing a helmet and yawning hugely though it was past noon. She could nudge him with a peremptory foot when he failed to look up quickly enough, and when he lifted wine-shot eyes, say to him, “I would speak with Seti the guardsman.”

  He frowned as if her voice was too loud or harsh for his ears, as the light must be too bright for eyes that had seen too much of lamplight and drowned too deep in wine. But he seemed to know her. He flinched from the knowledge—and no wonder, with him in such condition, and she so close to the queen. “Madam,” he said. “Madam . . . I don’t . . .”

  “What, are you a stranger here?” she demanded of him. “Don’t you know Seti?”

  “Ptahmose,” said a voice within. “What’s the trouble?”

  The man with the helmet turned with relief to the one who came out, an older man, somewhat battered and scarred and limping slightly. “She’s looking for Seti,” Ptahmose said.

  The newcomer looked Nofret up and down. There was nothing lustful in his scrutiny, but something she could not read, an intensity that could have little to do with her beauty or lack of it. “Ah,” he said at last with a lift of the chin. “The queen’s servant. We know you, madam. We wish you well.”

  “I am looking,” she said with careful patience, “for a guardsman who marched with the army. Seti is his name.”

  “We had several so called,” he said. He was a captain, she realized. He was wearing a simple kilt and nothing to mark his rank, but his age and his bearing made it clear enough. “However,” he added after a pause, “we do know which was yours. He was to marry you, yes?”

  “No,” said Nofret. Then, because perhaps she had spoken too quickly: “He thought so. He wanted it. I had no such inclination.”

  Both men exchanged glances. Nofret felt her back go stiff. “Well? Has he fled the guard? Did he dishonor himself in battle?”

  “Of course not,” said Ptahmose, as if stung to temper. “He fought as well as any man in the Two Lands. But—”

  “But he died,” the captain said, short and harsh. “He was killed in the siege of Kadesh. A stone flung from the walls caught him as he took his turn with one of the rams. He died quickly. We brought his body to his mother in the city. Were we in error? Should we have brought it to you?”

  “No.” Nofret’s voice, even to herself, seemed thin and far away. “No, you did the proper thing. I wasn’t his wife. You didn’t know—you couldn’t—”

  “We knew,” said Ptahmose in what he might have meant for gentleness, “that he lay of nights with one of the queen’s servants. He was a quiet man. He didn’t boast, even when the beer went round. When we told stories of women we had loved, he just smiled.”

  Nofret’s throat was tight. Her eyes were dry. They burned. “Thank you,” she said. “I thank you.” She turned.

  One of them—the captain: his voice was deeper—said, “Wait. We regret—”

  No doubt they did. She kept on walking, neither fast nor slow, not dragging but not in haste, either. They did not try to follow. Men never knew what to do or say when a woman acted strangely.

  She was very calm. She was not angry. She did not want to weep. It was hardly as if she had loved the man, or wanted to marry him. He had been the one she lay with on lazy afternoons, that was all. She had not even known that he died.

  “Surely,” she said, “if I had loved him I would have known. Wouldn’t I?”

  The person she addressed, the image of a king set up against a wall, regarded her in stony silence. He was dead—as dead as Seti. Of course he would have nothing to say to her.

  The garden court was full of another man’s presence. The wall where she had first lain with Seti was too far, and there was another man on guard there, diligent in his duty. Her own chamber was murmurous with memories: laughter and kisses, and Seti’s shadow on the wall when the lamp was lit.

  In the end she went to the lotus pool. The queen was closeted with the king, repairing the last of their quarrel. Her maids were wherever it pleased them to be while their lady had no need of them. There was only Nofret by the pool, and the ducks that swam in it and begged for bits of bread.

  She had none. They left her in disgust to attend their business on the far end of the pool.

  She sat on the stone-paved rim. There was a colonnade to shelter her from the hammer of the sun, but she needed the force of it, beating on her head. She needed to lie in the merciless heat, to be sucked dry by it, but with her hand trailing in the cool water.

  The scent of lotus was strong. The ducks muttered among themselves. Far away she heard a voice singing, woman or eunuch, strong and sweet, words she could not catch, nor needed to. It was a love-song, a song of blazing noon. No death in it. No grief.

  No one in Egypt ever forgot death or failed to give it its due. But death to them was an image of life. They had made it so, and built their tombs to match it, if they had wealth enough, and foresight enough, to do as much.

  Seti would have had neither. He was a common man, a soldier of the guard
. He had all his fortune to make, and nothing left to build a house of the dead. His body would have been brought back among a hundred others, packed in natron to preserve it till it could be given to his kin. They would pay the embalmers what they could, for as much of the rite as they could manage—maybe all of it if his death in honor had gained him the wherewithal for a proper burial. Nofret did not know. It was not an aspect of the royal duty that she had ever studied.

  She did not want to study it. Seti had been neither kin nor husband. She had lain with him, that was all, and refused him when he begged her to marry him. That warm body, those supple limbs, gone all cold and stiff—she could not remember him so. She would remember his hands on her, touching her secret places; his lips on her skin; the taste of him, his scent, his weight on her body, rousing all of it to pleasure.

  But when she tried to see his face she saw that other, the one that for all she knew still lived.

  “I should have known he had died,” she said to the sun. “If I had loved him—if he had mattered enough—I would have known.”

  The sun had no opinion. It saw everything that passed under its face. It could not comprehend human blindness. “I should have loved him,” she said. “Instead—of—” Instead of loving someone else.

  How strange that it took a lover’s death to recognize a truth. That he had had her body, but her spirit had wandered all the while, straying after one who wanted nothing of her but her friendship. He had not even asked her to go with him to Thebes. And why should he? She was like a sister to him. A sister stayed where she belonged, waiting on her lady, while he wandered where he would.

  If it had been Johanan and not Seti who had shed her maiden blood, Johanan who had pressed her to marry him . . .

  She would have refused him. She was all contrary. She did not want to marry. She wanted to be alone. Even a lover was not worth so much grief. A lover whom she had not loved—it was ridiculous. It was undignified. It was unworthy of his memory.