The plain was wide and barren, beaten down by the sun of Egypt. Horus’ falcon wheeled against that bitter light. Beneath them both, a line of chariots waited. They were as still as men and horses could be. A hot dry wind plucked at the horses’ plumes and tugged at the kilts of the charioteers.
Kemni stood in the center of the line. The reins were quiet in his hands, but he could feel the horses’ eagerness thrumming through them. On either side of him the line stretched away. It had seemed little enough in the muster, half a hundred chariots, a hundred men, and himself to lead them, but from the center it seemed a goodly number.
Away across the plain, a gleam of gold marked the king’s pavilion. Servants had pitched it there before dawn, and the king established himself in it by full morning, borne up from the river in his golden chair. Kemni, who had camped out of sight of the king and his train, knew from messengers that it was an illustrious if small and secret gathering which had come to this place not far from Thebes. The king was there, and the chiefs of his ministers, and the priests of Amon and of Osiris.
Kemni met the glance of the charioteer on his right hand. Ariana favored him with a wide bright smile. She knew, too, and she did not care. She had announced that she would ride, and ride she had, with Iphikleia in the warrior’s place. They were a striking sight among all the Egyptians, kilted like them, helmeted, and armed as if they had been fighting men. But there could be no doubt at all that these were women. Not in the slightest.
The falcon wheeled at the zenith, lazily, like the god’s own blessing. Kemni drew a breath. Yes. Yes, it was time.
He slipped a fraction of rein. His stallions were ready, waiting for the signal. They leaped ahead. The rest of the line surged behind him, a long sweep backward on either side, like the track of geese in the sky, or a wake on the river. It was not the best way to fall on the enemy, but for vaunting before a king it was splendid.
In a pounding of hooves and a rattling of wheels and a chorus of shouts and whoops and war-cries, the first chariotry of Egypt swept upon the royal camp. Kemni drove not for the pavilion but for a point past it, bending in a swift arc, while the two wings of chariots behind him drew together. A doubled line of them circled the camp, till the outer ring bent again and swerved and reversed its direction. There were two rings still, but one galloped sunwise, the other against it, round and round in a dizzying spiral.
They halted as they had rehearsed, close in about the royal pavilion, with Kemni himself roaring to a stop full before it. He vaulted from the chariot and ran to kneel at his king’s feet, breathless, stifling laughter.
Ahmose the king spoke above him in a voice warm with mirth of its own. “Marvelous,” he said.
Kemni lifted his head. The king was smiling.
“Show me how to drive your chariot,” Ahmose said.
There were gasps among the courtiers, some not as quickly suppressed as others. The king, the god, the son of Horus, was never to act on a whim, or to depart from the carefully ordered round of his days.
But Ahmose had commanded. Kemni could only obey. He rose and bowed and followed the king to where his chariot waited. His stallions, whom Ariana herself had trained, were standing obedient, though their sides were heaving. It would be well to walk them out, and well indeed if the king was minded to learn how that was done.
The rest of his chariotry left its circle to follow. The king had a great escort; and beside him, calmly and without expectation of rebuke, the newest of his queens.
Kemni had not seen any women about the king. But there had been a curtain behind him, and Kemni was sure that Nefertari and her ladies sat behind that. Perhaps some of the gasps he had heard had been theirs.
There would be a price to pay for this. But for the moment Kemni allowed himself to indulge in the pleasure of it: the open plain, the company of his men and his queen and—yes—his lady Iphikleia, and his king beside him showing not too ill a hand with the reins.
Ahmose seemed as lighthearted as a boy, even when he surrendered the lines and laughed and said, “I have no art in this. Show me how a master does it!”
“For that, my lord,” Kemni said, “you should look yonder.” He pointed with his chin toward Ariana, who had drawn somewhat ahead.
Ahmose sighed. “Ah,” he said. “Yes. Oh, yes indeed.”
“If you wish to learn this art, my lord,” Kemni said, “you could have no better teacher than that.”
“I do not doubt it,” said Ahmose. “But if it were known that I was learning the way of the chariot under the tutelage of a Cretan woman, what would the rumormongers say?”
“Since all that we do here is a secret, sire, and since the woman is your lawful wedded queen, they’re not likely to say anything at all.”
“That is true,” said Ahmose. “And after the war, when all is won, there need be no secrets.”
Kemni should have held his tongue. But he said, “My lord, if you have a desire to ride to battle in a chariot, then you well may. Only find yourself a charioteer, and learn to fight from behind him. Later is soon enough to learn to ride and fight, both.”
“It would be more kingly to do that,” Ahmose mused. “Still, since that may not be done in the time we have, I have found myself a charioteer. Will you teach me to fight from behind you?”
Kemni had not meant to put himself forward at all. If anything, he had been thinking of Seti, who had a gift for both horses and chariots. But if the king chose him for this thing, he would not refuse it. It was a great honor.
Great danger, too. The king would be the focus of any attack, its greatest prize and its most natural center. But Kemni was not afraid of danger. Not enough to turn away from it.
He nodded, bowing as low as he could with the reins in his hands and the horses fretting against the tensing of his fingers. “I would be glad to teach you, sire,” he said.
~~~
The king, who had left Thebes under pretext of hunting lions in the wilderness, chose to linger a day or two on that plain above the river. Some of his escort did indeed go hunting lions, and gazelle and whatever other quarry presented itself to them. They ate well in camp that night, and the night after that, of gazelle, ducks and geese from along the river, and a fine catch of fish.
In those two days, while Kemni and his men gratified the curiosity of the king and his lords as to the way and manner of driving and fighting in chariots, the king’s ladies never once showed themselves. They must have had to go out if only to relieve themselves, but if they did it, they managed to do it in secret. Kemni began to doubt that they were there at all. In the night, it was Ariana who kept the king company in his bed, and gladly, too, as far as Kemni could see.
But on the third morning, when the king showed still no inclination to return to his city, Kemni was on his way to fetch his stallions and his chariot when a servant stopped him. It was a man, a scribe, small and nondescript, with an unassuming manner; but Kemni had not seen him before. “My lord,” the man said, “my lady would see you.”
“Your lady Nefertari?”
“Yes, my lord,” the scribe said.
Kemni let himself be led, with hammering heart and sweating palms, behind the curtain that divided the pavilion.
It was much the same on the other side, no darker or more confined. But as all the people without were men, all those within, except for a scribe or two and one who must be a priest, were women. Kemni had no difficulty recognizing the queen, even veiled and seated among several likewise veiled. Her carriage, the way she sat, the way the others sat about her, marked her as clearly as if she had been clothed all in gold.
He bowed to her, low and suitably reverent. With a gesture that in another woman he might have called reckless, she cast off her veil. Her face was exactly as he remembered it, beautiful beyond the measure of simple mortal women—though the Lady Nefertem, he could not help thinking, was more beautiful still. But she had not the air that this one did. She was a lady of good family. This was queen and goddess.
She looked down at him, at the awe he made no effort to hide, and perhaps she was pleased. Or perhaps she merely found his face pleasant to look at. Iphikleia had told him, much more than once, that he should learn to accept that, if he could not understand it.
It still made him blush to be stared at, and women always seemed to stare. He could not speak, either, without sinning greatly against propriety. He must wait for her, and she was in no haste to end his discomfort.
At last she said, “Good morning, man of the Lower Kingdom.”
“Good morning, majesty,” he said after a pause to gather his wits.
“It will be better when we leave this place,” she said, “and return to the city. But that is not a thing that I have power over.”
“No, majesty?” Kemni asked—biting his tongue too late. It was not that he meant to be impertinent. But whatever his gift of tongues, he had no gift for the language of courtiers.
She knew that. Did she smile? If so, it was a faint and shadowy thing, but it colored her voice as she said, “I suppose I might, if I set myself to it. But some battles are not worth winning.”
“He’ll not linger much longer, lady,” Kemni said. “He knows that. He is a dutiful king, though at the moment he may not seem so.”
“I do know that,” she said a little coldly, and he knew that he had been presumptuous. Again. But she did not seem angry. “He has made you his charioteer. Are you content with that?”
“I am the king’s charioteer. Could I be less than content?”
“Some might be,” she said. “It is an office without precedent. Our world is rich in precedent—rife with it. How are we to live when so much is new?”
“That is the fault of the Retenu,” Kemni said. “We had never been invaded before, and never conquered. We have never had to win back a kingdom. But we will do it—with their own weapons, and ours, and our allies’. However we may.”
“Surely,” she said. There was a silence, which Kemni was not bold enough to break. Then she said, “Keep him safe.”
That was not at all what he had expected. It left him speechless.
She smiled. Yes, she smiled. “Poor child. Are we ever what you expect?”
“I suppose not,” he said after a pause. “Lady.”
“Good,” she said. “Now you begin to be wise.”
Wisdom was desirable, but he thought perhaps he was too young to cultivate it. He began to say so, but she spoke before him. “I would like to speak with the Cretan woman. Will you fetch her for me?”
Kemni could well have pointed out that he was no slave, to be sent on errands, or that she had ample servants of her own who might have been given the duty. There was a reason, surely, why he had been set this task. He bowed and did as she bade.
~~~
Ariana had a tent just outside the king’s encampment, within the circle of the charioteers. It was a warrior’s tent and not a queen’s, for she had come here as an advisor in war, not as a lady of the palace. Her only concession to rank was the pair of maids who kept the tent and saw to her person. They smiled brilliantly at Kemni when he came to the tent. It was their fondest hope that, just once, he would forsake his Cretan priestess for their welcoming arms.
Maybe someday he would. But not today. Ariana was within, they assured him, and he was free to enter.
She was preparing for the day: dressed, her hair in a plait, her face painted lightly, running through the roster of the chariot-wing with, of all people, Ahmose himself. Kemni stopped short and nearly fled, but they had both seen him.
Ariana’s smile was as brilliant as ever. “Kemni! We looked for you, but you were nowhere to be found. My lord wants to know, can we double the number of men, and have them ready to fight by harvest time?”
“This year or next?” Kemni asked: the first thing that came into his head.
“This year,” Ahmose said.
Kemni frowned. “That’s not long at all.”
“But if each of those we’ve trained to fight were made a charioteer, and the new men were taught to fight—could we do it?” Ariana asked him.
“It would be difficult,” Kemni said.
“But possible?”
“If the men were the best to be had, and willing to work day and night—yes. But have we enough horses? Enough chariots?”
Ariana nodded.
“Good,” said Ahmose. “Very good indeed. Have them ready just before the harvest begins. We’ll harvest men, and take back the Lower Kingdom.”
Kemni bowed. Almost he had forgotten why he came here; and it was delicate, with the king sitting beside Ariana. But he did the best he could. “My lady, the Queen Nefertari . . .”
Ariana raised a brow. “Go,” the king said. “I’m well enough here.”
He had dismissed them both. Kemni doubted that he had been meant to follow Ariana back into Queen Nefertari’s presence, but he chose to do it. It happened that, as they walked back through the camp, Iphikleia met them. She did not say anything, simply took a place in the procession. Kemni was glad of her; he suspected that Ariana was, also.
Ariana had not had audience with the Great Royal Wife since her wedding in Thebes. They had managed to avoid one another with great ease, since Ariana had hidden herself away in the Bull of Re, and Nefertari had kept her place, as always, by the king’s side.
Queen received queen with rather more ceremony than Kemni had had. There was a graceful dance, an exchange of pleasantries, compliments and finely framed words that signified little. Kemni was lulled almost into a drowse. He had to struggle to listen, to catch the subtle shift, the moment when Nefertari began to come to the point.
They were speaking of the Bull of Re, how Ariana had rebuilt part of the house and added greatly to the stables, and made the holding into a haven for the king’s charioteers.
“That is a great work,” Nefertari said. “What you do will be remembered.”
“Memory is a great thing here,” Ariana said. “Is it not? Remembering the name. Remembering the life.”
Nefertari inclined her head.
“Where I was born,” Ariana said, “the name matters little. I am the Ariana—that is my title and my office. What name I had when I was a child, I set aside, and it was forgotten. When I grow old, I shall take another name, another office. And when I die, I shall go to the breast of the earth my mother. Who I was, what I did, will matter nothing then. The earth will hold my bones. The air will bear my spirit.”
“Then who you are, what you are—your self—it matters nothing?”
“What I do,” said Ariana. “That matters. That I did it, and no one else—when the seasons have turned, and all who live now are gone to the earth, who will care that I did it?”
“Your name is your immortality,” Nefertari said. “We must give you one, so that you may live forever.”
“Whatever name you give me,” Ariana said, “I remain what I am.”
“Yes,” said Nefertari.
Ariana smiled her quick smile. “If it will make you happy, you may do it. It’s of little matter to me. I’ll go on, and do what I do, and help you all to win this war.”
“Why will you do that?”
“Because,” said Ariana, “it’s what I was born for. When we are young, you see, when first our women’s courses come to us, we go into the womb of the Mother, into the deeps of the earth. There we dream what we will be; what we will do in this turn of the seasons. I dreamed sun hotter than I had ever known, and a falcon poised against it, and a river of life through the dry land. I dreamed Egypt. The falcon came to me and folded his wings about me and made me his own. And I knew that when it was time, I would come to Egypt.”
“Then you are blessed of the gods,” Nefertari said. She said it slowly, as if she must consider all sides of it, all meanings of the words.
“Do you do such things?” Ariana asked. “Do you lay yourself open to your gods, and ask that they show you what they intend for you?”
“No,” said Nefertari. “Not . . . in such a way. The priests speak to the gods, and the king, who is a god, speaks for all of Egypt. For others, there are prayers and dreams, and for some, the blessings of priesthood, or service to the gods.”
“That is very practical,” Ariana said. “Do people ever wonder what it would be like to talk to the gods? And to be answered?”
“The gods are far above us,” Nefertari said.
“Surely not above you,” said Ariana. “Are you not queen and goddess?”
“I am that,” said Nefertari.
“Do the gods speak to you?”
“Sometimes,” Nefertari said slowly, “I dream dreams.”
Kemni, mute in shadow, woke suddenly and fully.
“Do you now?” Ariana said. “Do you indeed? Are they dreams that others should know?”
“I never speak of them,” Nefertari said. “But . . . they come to me often, and weigh on me sorely.”
“Dreams of war?”
“Dreams of war,” Nefertari said, “and dreams of peace. Dreams of long ago, and dreams of what is yet to come. In my dreams the gods walk. The priests say that they dwell beyond the horizon, but in my dreams the world is full of them.”
“When you dream, you live in the gods’ country,” Ariana said. She sounded as close to awe as Kemni had ever heard her. “Oh, you are blessed! Are they beautiful? Are they terrible?”
“They are both,” Nefertari said. “They speak to one another, but never to me. Once . . . I dreamed that one of them came down to a duller world, this world of ours, and saw a woman of such surpassing beauty that even he—even a god—stood mute in astonishment. He knew then what it was to worship a thing, mortal woman though she was. Then he took on the face and semblance of her husband, and went in to her, and set in her a spark of divine fire. And that spark grew, and swelled her belly, and was born in blood and pain as mortal children are born. And that child—that child had my face.”
Ariana nodded as if she had expected just such an ending. “The gods come often to mortal women,” she said.
“Not ours,” said Nefertari. “They are not given to such excesses. That a god—that Amon—should do such a thing—”
“Then it is a very great thing.”
“Or a very ill one.”
“No,” Ariana said. “It is never that. Does he speak? Does any of them? What is it they ask of you?”
“They never speak to me. But I see the Two Crowns in their hands, and my husband waiting, ready to be crowned.”
“That is an omen,” Ariana said.
“Or a great and wishful hope.” Nefertari shook her head slightly. “If it should be of use, I will use it. But if not . . . not.”
“Yet you told me,” Ariana said.
“Your world is full of gods. To you, it would seem neither strange nor mad.”
“I would understand it.” Ariana nodded. “Is that all you ask of me? Understanding?”
“I ask nothing of you,” said Nefertari, “but that you serve the king faithfully, and obey him in all that he bids you do.”
“Of course I will do that,” Ariana said.
“That is well,” said Nefertari. “He is pleased with you. Most pleased.”
“And you? Does that distress you?”
“No,” said Nefertari. “You are not as other women. Nor am I. We are worthy of him.”
“You do me great honor,” Ariana said. She did not speak with humility; it was truth, that was all. “And yet you still don’t entirely approve of me.”
Nefertari’s lips thinned a fraction. “Do you require my approval?”
“No,” Ariana said. “But I should like to know why.”
There was nothing to compel the Great Royal Wife to answer her, and yet she did so. It was courtesy. And perhaps, Kemni thought, it was a seal of alliance. “A queen in Egypt,” Nefertari said, “does not ride in a chariot like a man, bare-breasted and bold-faced before the world. Are you dreaming that you will ride to battle? That you will fight?”
“No,” Ariana said, but she said it slowly, as if with reluctance. “I know better than to think that I will be allowed to ride into battle. A king risks himself because he is the king. A queen is ill advised to do so. When the war comes, I will keep to the tents and the baggage like a proper woman. You need have no fear that I will run wild among the fighting men.”
Nefertari nodded once. She was perhaps relieved. Or perhaps she had expected this answer, but had desired to hear it from Ariana’s own mouth. “That will do,” the queen said. “I am content.”
Perhaps that was true. Ariana took it as a dismissal, bowed and withdrew quickly enough that if Nefertari had been inclined to call her back, it would have been difficult to do gracefully.
Kemni was not at all averse to making an escape. His head was aching, and his shoulders were tight.
Nefertari frightened him. He did not know why. Ahmose was king and god, the living Horus, and yet Kemni was at ease in his presence. Immortal though his spirit might be, in this life he was a man like many another.
Nefertari, as she had said to Ariana, was not like other women. Maybe it was true. Maybe a god—Amon himself, as she had dreamed—had begotten her.