Pillar of Fire Page 35

  As well for him that his body had gone to his mother. Nofret could not have given it the honor it deserved. That woman in Memphis whom she had never met, the bronze-smith’s widow, would mourn her son unvexed by a stranger’s sorrow.

  Thirty-Eight

  Nofret shared her grief with no one. The one whom she might have spoken to, Ankhesenamon, was in no mood to weep even for a friend, still less a slave. She had her husband back again. Their quarrel was forgotten. They were as they had been in the first days of their happiness, one heart and one soul together, and one body as often as they could accomplish it. They were the royal lovers, the beloved of Egypt, the delight of the Two Lands.

  Nofiret’s heart was cold, but if it could have been warmed, so would it have been to see them. They had everything that human heart could desire: wealth, love, joy, youth and great beauty, and long life before them.

  No child had been given them, not since that second daughter who died aborning, but Ankhesenamon had great hope. She prayed in the temple of Isis and in the temple of Hathor and in Taweret’s temple, and gave them rich offerings, and paid for the upkeep of their priesthoods. They would give her what she prayed for. She was sure of it.

  Egypt was greatly pleased with its king. He had proved himself in war, or so they believed. He ruled well, with his queen at his side. He had restored the gods to their temples and made them wealthy. He was young and strong and would rule long. They had not had such a king since his father Amenhotep was young—not, some insisted, since the great Thutmose.

  Thutmose by all accounts had been a gifted warrior and general. Tutankhamon, though not hopelessly inept, was neither. His intelligence did not center on the ordering of armies, or overmuch either on the care of kingdoms. Those were duty for him, duty that he performed well, because he must. But his great gifts, if he had any, had not shown themselves. He was beautiful, amiable, a doting husband, a competent king. Brilliance he had none, nor seemed to need.

  Nofret did not know why she should care. Greatness was rare in kings as in anyone else. Her lady was happy. Egypt was much enamored of them both.

  The king had a throne made just then and set in place of the one that had been his father’s: a beautiful gilded thing with lion-feet. On its back the limner had set the image of the king enthroned, and his lady in front of him, anointing him from a jar of sweet oil.

  It was a tender picture, and drawn from life. Just so were they with one another. Just so did they always intend to be.

  Or at least until he spoke of going to war again. He showed no sign of it, devoted himself to the affairs of his kingdom and the happiness of his queen. Hatti did not press its advantage, that Nofret heard of. Horemheb the general was in Asia, making sure of it. She could not help but wonder if Horemheb preferred it so: to do his duty away from the king’s interference.

  The king, rested at last from the exertions of war, found in himself a great restlessness. He contemplated another royal progress, a triumphal procession through the Two Lands, with even a pause in Thebes to worship Amon in his own city. All the way to Nubia he would go, and then back, clear to the Delta, showing himself to all his people and receiving their homage.

  If he meant them to remember that his brother Akhenaten had not gone to them but had bidden them come to him to worship at his feet, then no one truly could fault him. Akhenaten had been at heart an indolent man. Tutankhamon had the strength of youth, and vigor that seemed unflagging. He was to Egypt like the cool breath of the growing time after the heavy heat of the river’s flooding.

  His processional took some time to arrange. His barge must be refurbished and newly brightened with gold. He had ordered a new chariot, and new horses had come to him, gift of a chieftain in Numidia: a pair of swift stallions like gazelles of the desert, with coats the color of the Red Land, but manes so pale a gold that they were nearly white. He loved their speed and their willingness, their lightness in his hands as they sped round the racecourse in Memphis.

  While he waited for his servants to complete the muster of his court and kingdom, he proposed a hunt up the river toward the Delta. There were riverhorses in the reeds there, sluggish-seeming and slow but deadly when set at bay, and great flocks of geese and ducks to test an archer’s skill, and even, for the bravest, lions in the coverts.

  Nofret had been as sluggish as the king was restless, but when her lady prepared to accompany the king on his hunt, Nofret found herself adding her bit of baggage to the rest. Maybe it was the lure of the queen’s chariot. The old gentle mares had been put to pasture not long ago. The new pair were sister-wives to the king’s Numidian stallions: silver as they were ruddy gold, dappled like the moon, with manes the color of smoke.

  It would hardly be given to Nofret to drive them, but she could ride while the queen drove, and feel the wind in her face. She had not felt it in too long. It was a sudden need in her, to be out, away from the palace where she had taken a lover, and where she had learned of his loss.

  oOo

  They went by land into the Delta, with servants in boats bearing provisions and the baggage: all the servants, that is, but those granted the pleasure of riding with the princes. The king led as always, the queen beside him while the road allowed it, with a wing of his chariotry to guard him, and the court behind in their brightly painted chariots.

  They were the young and the bold, the intrepid hunters and racers, archers and spearmen, many with dogs running beside. Behind those came the people on foot: the beaters and drivers of game, the huntsmen with their hounds, the falconers with their birds, all the servants of the chase.

  They went with much laughter and singing, no need for stealth till they came to the places of the hunt. They had new songs to sing, songs brought from Asia and rendered into the language of Egypt. Nofret recognized the bleached skeleton of a Hittite war-chant with Egyptian words hung on it, words that told of a lion-hunt and a kingly victory.

  It was some days’ journey to the place of the hunt, far up in the Delta. Although there were cities and villages in which they might have rested of nights, they chose to camp as armies did, under the stars. The king had a pavilion, of course, and the lords each a lesser one, with hangings of gauze to keep out the incessant, buzzing, biting swarms of the Delta. It was wetland here, fenland, and the Red Land far away: such country as was profoundly strange to the rest of Egypt.

  Here the great river of the Two Lands divided into many streams, rich with beasts and birds, fish and crocodiles. Every night they feasted, now on fish, now on goose or duck, now on deer of the thickets. They were in no haste to come to the hunt itself; the journey was enough, and the lordly contests to find and slay food for the pot.

  For Nofret it was a strange half-real passage through country as alien to Hatti as to the Egypt that she had seen till now. The best of it was that it bore no memory of Seti, not his face that her mind’s eye had forgotten, nor the touch of hands that she too well remembered. Her sleep in this place was disturbed only by the buzzing of insects and the sting of the few that slipped through the gauze to taste of her blood.

  She had the queen’s pavilion to herself, for the queen slept in the king’s, sharing his couch. The handful of maids who had come with her were asleep among the rest of the servants, and not all alone on their blankets, either.

  Nofret did not want to be with them. She was content to lie alone, to let the dark cover her. When she slept, she dreamed nothing that she remembered. She was, perhaps, content.

  oOo

  At last and at their leisure they came to the place of the royal hunt. There was little to distinguish it from any other tract of field and fen along their way, except that the fields were wider, the fens more distant, and the river-reeds more crowded with birds. The beaters went out then, and the huntsmen, and the falconers brought the falcons to their lords and masters. The hunt went out in pursuit of its various quarry.

  The queen had a fair hand with a bow and a quick eye for a bird in flight. For a good half of the day she and
the king vied to fell geese for the evening’s feast. When every bag was full and the cooks already returning to camp to pluck and clean the birds, one of the huntsmen came up panting to the king.

  The king laughed and swung the man into his chariot, steadied him and gave him a cup of water to drink. He took it gratefully, but he did not pause once he had drunk it. “Majesty,” he said, still breathless. “Majesty, a lion—yonder.”

  The king came alert. “Where?”

  The man pointed with his chin. “There, my lord. Past the thicket, do you see the jut of rock?”

  “I do indeed,” said the king, peering under his hand. The land opened between the river and the thicket, and the rock was clear to see beyond that.

  He sent up a sudden clear call. Lords who had wandered in search of game came hurtling back. Some of the huntsmen with hounds on leads brought their baying, lunging beasts to the king’s side.

  Nofret was in the chariot with the queen. Ankhesenamon held her mares in check, eyes on the king. Nofret wondered if he looked as odd to her lady as he did to her. He seemed to shimmer like a mirage in the desert. But the air here bred no such visions. It was too richly wet.

  Other quarry a lady might pursue, but the lion was the king’s prey. Even his lords did not venture to come before him.

  Ankhesenamon glanced back at the rest of the hunt. As she prepared to turn her horses, to leave the field to the men, Nofret’s hands did a thing all separate from her will. They caught the reins and pulled the mares’ heads about again, seized the whip and sent them leaping forward after the king and his huntsmen.

  The huntsmen slipped leashes on the hounds. They cast about for a moment, searching for a scent. Then one yelped in excitement. The others crowded about it. From the thick of the pack rose a full-throated bay. They sprang into a run.

  The king’s stallions reared against the traces. He held them back as the hounds took the lead, then let them go. The rest pounded after, and the queen behind, and a straggle of followers.

  The lion was waiting for them. It had made a kill: the young of a gazelle. It was a she-lion, and young herself, but strong—and in the lair behind her the hunters could see a flicker of movement, a gleam of eyes. She had cubs, then, to make her fierce.

  Nofret, holding the rear with the queen clinging mute to the sides of the chariot, cast up a prayer to whatever god could hear. A massive old he-lion would have been far better, and safer too: slower than the lithe young lioness, and lazier, less inclined to attack before the first arrow struck him. A lioness with cubs was deadliest of all. She fought to defend her young, and she fought without quarter.

  She knew that she faced enemies. She crouched over the body of her kill, teeth drawn back in a snarl. The dogs swarmed toward her, but none leaped on her. Not yet. They were wise dogs. They held her at bay for the hunters’ coming.

  The way to the lair was steep, but not too steep for a chariot or for the king’s surefooted horses. He urged them up, not even pausing to see if the hounds would tear at her, weary her till she was easy prey.

  Headstrong, thought Nofret, and brave to folly. Just beyond the ring of dogs he pulled up his horses and leaped down, spear in hand.

  Ankhesenamon’s gasp was loud in Nofret’s ear, but the queen said nothing, nor moved. No one did. This was the king’s fight, by law and long custom.

  He seemed utterly alone up there, armed only with a slender spear, and no shield but the dogs. He sent them forward with a cry not unlike a hound’s bay itself. The lioness vanished in a seething mass of dogs.

  The noise was indescribable: shrieking, yelping, baying, snarling. The lioness burst out of it in a storm of tawny hide, a scarlet flash of blood. A hound lay writhing, rent nearly in two. A snap of jaws broke another’s neck. Just beyond that one was the king.

  He stood light on his feet, spear poised, waiting as if he had all the time in the world. No tremor shook him.

  The lioness crouched. The hounds circled again, yelling, but none moved close for the kill. Neither king nor lioness paid them any heed.

  Her tufted tail twitched. The great muscles of her haunches bunched. He balanced the spear in his hand, lightly, waiting.

  The moment stretched. It ended with blinding swiftness.

  The lioness sprang. The king’s spear caught her in the breast. She fought her way up the whole length of it, snapping, clawing, battling for her life and the lives of her young ones.

  He braced against the spearbutt, held on with all his slender strength. Her claws raked air within a breath of his face. He held his ground. She gasped and coughed and died.

  Carefully the king eased back. The lioness, convulsed in death, fought no longer against the spear in her heart. He drew a breath, the first perhaps since the lioness leaped on his spear.

  From it seemed to rise the shouts of his people, cheering the victory: alone, with only a spear, against a lioness in defense of her cubs.

  What had been stillness except for the battle of king and lioness, shattered into furious activity. The huntsmen leaped to gut and flay the body of the lioness. Some of the others scrambled for the cave to capture the spitting, snarling cubs—three of them in all, a he and two shes.

  The he-cub was presented to the king with ceremony. He wrapped it in a mantle that one of his princes gave him, and cradled the furious small bundle against his breast. He had an odd look, half exultant, half whitely shocked: the look of the warrior after battle, as Nofret too well remembered it.

  The queen had not gone up on the rock with the rest. She remained below with her chariot, and her maids about her, all who had been swift enough to catch her. Her eyes on the king were full of light, the aftermath of deadly fear.

  His grin flashed white as he seemed at last to see her. He raised the hand that did not grip the cub in its quelling mantle. In sudden exuberance he leaped, cub and all, into his chariot, took up the reins in his one free hand, and came hurtling down from the rock.

  Nofret’s heart thudded. He was taking no heed at all for the danger: such speed over ground so rough and so perilously steep. Escape from death could do that, convince a man that he was immortal.

  King and god he might be, Horus incarnate, but not even kings in Egypt lived forever. That was only given to gods who were not born as men.

  He had forgotten that. Nofret breathed easier as his chariot came to the level. It was flying, and he was laughing. The lion-cub, whether lulled by his exuberance or simply stiff with fear, had stopped its snarling.

  The king’s chariot roared and rattled past the queen’s. She caught the wind of it and the gust of his joy: she laughed herself, breathless, and freed her eager mares to catch their brothers.

  Nofret, robbed of the reins, clung desperately to the chariot’s sides. Level the ground might be, but it was broken and stony, and they were going much too fast for safety. The wheels touched the earth perhaps one stride in three.

  If the king’s wheels touched it at all, she would be amazed. He raced at full speed, heedless of the broken ground, headlong as if he had been on the racecourse of his own city. His laughter floated back to them, a clear glad sound, wild and very young.

  It happened suddenly and yet very slowly, as does everything that is inevitable. Nofret saw the whole of it without surprise. This, maybe, she had come to see; this had brought her on the hunt.

  The stallions ran surefooted as ever, skimming the earth. The chariot flew behind them.

  The stone that caught it was a little sharper than the rest, and jutted a fraction higher. The wheel jarred against it with force that must have rattled the king’s teeth. Above the thunder of wheels and the roar of wind in her ears, Nofret heard a squall from the lion-cub. The king kept his balance: he was light on his feet and supple, and had taken worse blows than this on many a road.

  But the chariot, his beautiful new chariot that he had had made for this very hunt, with its sides like gilded vulture-wings and its shafts tipped with electrum and precious silver, was not as robust as the m
an who rode in it. The wheel lurched against the traitor stone, and caught, and bent.

  His body braced to balance the light weight of the chariot. The wheel steadied; he straightened. His horses slowed somewhat.

  The axle snapped with a sound that Nofret could hear even from well behind. The chariot leaped like a live thing. The king, caught off guard, swayed too far and fell.

  A charioteer learned how to fall. But the king had the lion-cub to think of. He coiled as he fell, protecting the bundle in his arms, heedless of his own head. He rolled and tumbled, limbs flailing, but clinging still to his burden.

  In the last instant he lost it. It rolled squalling away as he dropped sprawling, the shards of the chariot long gone behind his maddened horses.

  The queen halted her mares so hard that they surged up on their hindlegs. She was not aware of them at all. She flung the reins in Nofret’s face and leaped down beside her husband. He lay utterly still.

  So might any man if he had taken a fall, Nofret thought as she struggled to master the rearing, plunging horses. He would need a moment to recover himself; even to regain consciousness, as hard as he had come down and as fast as he had been going before he fell.

  But he was lying very still. The queen knelt by him, touching his face with trembling hands, easing wig and helmet-crown from his head. He stirred under her hands, drew up a knee, let it slide down again.

  Nofret got the mares in hand and secured the reins to the chariot-frame. They were wild to pursue their brothers, but training held them. They halted, snorting and tossing their heads but venturing no resistance against the tautness of the reins.

  She climbed down and ran back toward her lady. The king had moved—he lived. “He’s coming to,” she said as she came up. “See, he stirs.”

  Ankhesenamon did not seem to hear her. It dawned on her, too slowly, that there was blood on the queen’s hands, and on the linen of her gown where she cradled the king’s head. His face was grey-pallid under the bronzing of the sun. He stirred again, but not as one who wakes: feebly, as if in convulsions.