King and Goddess (53 page)

He said none of that. He bowed low and kissed her hand, and
left her to the scavengers. “Until evening,” he said, “my lady and king.”

Nehsi went home as Hatshepsut bade him, to Bastet’s strong
embrace and the uproar of his offspring. But having seen that all was in order
there, he took Tama with him, and a pair of his sons whom he found idling about
the stables, and went hunting.

He was not hunting the young king. He returned to the
palace, to that wing of the old queens’ house which had remained occupied
through the reign of a woman who was a king. There dwelt Thutmose’s concubines,
such of them as he had, and his mother Isis.

Isis, like her son, had yielded with apparent submission to
the rule of Maatkare Hatshepsut. But like Thutmose, she had kept her counsels,
and bided her time.

She was still beautiful. Like the goddess for whom she was
named, who also had been born a mortal woman, or so some of the priests said,
she seemed blessed with ageless youth. Nehsi reflected unkindly that she owed
much of it to the artistry of her maids, and the rest to a certain emptiness of
mind that kept her face smooth, unmarred by lines of care and character.

Nonetheless she was marvelous to look at, as beautiful as
any woman in Egypt, wigged and painted and adorned in her solitude as if she
had been still the cherished concubine of a king. He remembered her perfume
from long ago, the oil of roses that spoke of innocence and childlike
simplicity. Nothing could be less like the unguents that the king favored,
complex as they were, and rich with myrrh.

Nehsi had his doubts of her intelligence, but of her
shrewdness he was perfectly certain. She had lived as quietly as a woman might
who knows better than to provoke a king. She might, and on this Nehsi gambled,
have persuaded her son to wait as she waited, until the King Maatkare had begun
to fail of her power.

It was difficult to believe that, looking into her sweet and
baffled face. She had always been afraid of Nehsi, as a child is, because he
was so large and so visibly strong. That fear had not altered with the years’
passing. It made her shrink a little as he bowed to her, hand to cheek as if
she feared that he would strike.

He would not allow her to sway him so, to soften him into
dealing gently with her. Having done proper obeisance of a prince to a king’s
mother who had not been a queen, he remained standing over her. She lacked the
will to bid him sit, although it would have removed his looming shadow.

He would not take it away unless she commanded him. He
looked down at her, at her flower-sweet terror, and indulged himself in a moment
of pure contempt. It was worthy of Hatshepsut, that contempt. It hardened him
for what he must do.

“My king is dying,” he said.

She blinked up at him, seeming witless; but he knew better.
“I heard that,” she said in her sweet voice. “I am sorry for it.”

“Are you? Or are you sorry for how it came about?”

“She is grown old, they say,” Isis said. “She was queen for
so long, since she was a child; and then she made herself king. She has grown
weary. The life trickles out of her.”

“She is no longer young,” said Nehsi, “but she should have
lived for yet a while. As she will not. Because your son made sure of it.”

“My son?” She was all innocence, all wide eyes and
astonishment. “Does she blame him because she had to be king? Nothing ever
compelled her to wear the crowns. She could have given it all up when he came
of age, and left him to bear the burden.”

“That is not what I am saying,” Nehsi said, lowering his
voice to a growl. “Don’t play the child with me; and don’t pretend to
innocence. Your son decided at last that he had had enough of being younger
king to an elder king whom he both fears and hates.”

“What, poison a king? How could he do such a thing?”

“Easily,” said Nehsi, “if he told himself that the king was
a usurper, and that the gods had turned their faces from her.”

“My son is innocent of any wrongdoing,” Isis said.

Nehsi fixed her with his hardest stare. “Yes? Then was it
you who did it? Poison is a woman’s weapon. From a man and a warrior I would
expect a knife in the dark, or an arrow in the back.”

“I have done nothing,” Isis said.

“I don’t believe you,” said Nehsi. “I think you found
someone to procure the poison, and someone else to administer it. Did she drink
it in her wine? Eat it at the feast? Was it given more than once? Tell me.”

“I have done nothing,” she repeated.

He watched her consider tears, but discard them. That was
well. Weeping would have made him angry. Then he might have done something even
less wise than this that he was doing.

“Listen,” he said, “and listen well. You may deny what you
have done until the gods themselves cast you down. But I know. I remember. I
will never forget.”

“I could have you killed,” she said.

He showed her his teeth. “Oh, do that! I’ll haunt you from
beyond the dead. My spirit will flutter about you, bird-winged in the day,
man-tall in the night. Everywhere you look, you will see me. Every word you
speak, you will hear the echo of my voice. I will stand forever as close as
your shadow, supping your breath, eating away your name. And when you die, I
will be waiting for you.”

She had gone pale. “You can’t do that!”

“I can,” he said, “and I will. Unless you do a thing for me.”

Even in her terror, she was a canny creature. Her eyes
narrowed. Her mouth went small and tight. She was not so beautiful now, or so
sweetly childlike. “What are you asking of me?”

“In truth,” he answered, “little. Only keep a rein on your
son. I know what he means to do once my king is dead. He will destroy her if he
can: efface her name, pull down her monuments. Promise me that you will prevent
him.”

Her eyes went wide again, but the innocence was gone from
them. “But, sir, how am I to do that?”

“As you always have,” Nehsi said. “By coaxing, wheedling,
even threatening. He will not touch the name or the memory of my king.”

“If he is truly determined, no force of man or gods will
prevent him.”

“No force but yours,” said Nehsi. “You taught him to hate
her. Now teach him to stand well away from her memory. Or I haunt you. I walk
in your every dream. I take you with me on the paths of ordeal, and when my
heart is weighed on the scales of Justice, yours too shall be set there, and
shall inevitably fail. How will it be for you, my lady, to have been judged
among the dead while yet you live, and found wanting?”

He paused. She had drawn together, shivering as if with
cold. Her pallor would have alarmed him if he had allowed himself to care. “I
will hold you to this,” he said. “Your son will not kill my king’s name and
memory as he has killed her body. You will make sure of it.”

She looked up at him. For all her terror, her eyes were
narrow, sly. “But I shall die before him. Then he will do as he pleases.”

“You would do well to see that he pleases to let my king’s
memory be.”

“I won’t promise you that,” she said.

He hissed, which made her start. “You will try.”

“You should go to him,” said Isis, “and not torment me. I’m
only his mother. He is the one who will do whatever he will do.”

“I am only half a fool,” Nehsi said. “He who would not
hesitate to slay a king would hardly pause at a king’s minister.”

“He is afraid of you,” she said.

“Oh, I’m sure. But he is a man. He will cast down his fear
and set his foot on it, and brandish his sword in its face.”

“You aren’t going to go away until I promise. Are you?” Her
voice was faint and small.

“I am not,” Nehsi said.

“Then I promise.” She lowered her head till he could see
only the crown of her wig. “I will do what I can. I will not even have you
killed. It will hurt you a great deal to be nobody after having been a great
prince for so long—and to be without her. That will be anguish, won’t it? It’s
little enough to keep my son from killing her memory, for a while. In the end
he’ll win. You won’t haunt me on the other side of death; the gods won’t let
you.”

“But on this side of it,” Nehsi said, “I can make your life
a perpetual misery.”

“I don’t want that,” said Isis. “Go away now. You have what
you wanted.”

“I shall make very sure of that,” Nehsi said.

~~~

It was bluster and empty threats, but it was all he had. He
left her sitting there, terrified and crafty at once, and all her beauty
vanished, wiped away by the words that they had spoken together.

There was one more thing that he must do before he returned
to his king. His son Seti had taken a few hours’ rest in the barracks. Nehsi
found him in his bed with a plump maid beside him; hauled him up, great hulking
young man that he was, and flung him headlong on the floor. He sprawled there,
gasping with shock.

Nehsi set a foot on his neck. “You failed me,” he said, his
voice so low it was no more than a rumble in his chest. “You’ve let her die.”

“She is not dead yet,” Seti said from the floor, with a fair
degree of snap in his voice for a man who lay prostrate under another man’s
foot. “All the physicians are saying that it’s women’s trouble. Was I to tell
the gods to keep that from her till you came home?”

Nehsi kicked him onto his back. He glared up at his father,
little cowed, though he knew better than to resist. Nehsi could not suppress a
small crowing of pride in this son that he had sired.

“The physicians are in the younger king’s pay,” Nehsi said
almost calmly. “As you should have known. She’s been poisoned. It’s so obvious,
I wonder at you. Are you securing yourself with Thutmose, too? Has it occurred
to you that your father is old and will die soon enough, but you have to live
with this king for years thereafter?”

“I had hoped,” Seti said through clenched teeth, “that you
would think better of me than that.”

“I might,” said Nehsi, “if she had not fallen ill under your
guardianship.”

“It happened in a moment,” Seti said. “She had entertained a
few lords and their ladies in her private dining chamber—something to do with a
change in the taxes of the Tenth Nome, and the wedding of one of the nomarchs’
daughters. The wine was a new vintage, and strong. Most drank it as it was. She
had hers watered—heavily, I noticed. The waterjar was the same that is always
there. We gave a bowl of it to one of the barracks dogs later, after she fell
ill. It’s still romping about, chewing shieldstraps to shreds. We never found
any evidence of poison.”

“Then someone came in and changed the water while you were
fretting over her illness. That’s the simplest thing in the world to do.”

“I know that,” Seti said. “But we found nothing, therefore
we can prove nothing.”

“The water should have been tasted before it was given her,”
Nehsi said, “as every other drop she drank and morsel she ate was tasted. But
no one thought of the water, did he? So simple a thing. So easy to detect if
she had drunk it plain, but she drowned it in wine, and with it the taste of
the poison.”

“Are you going to put a few servants to death? You can start
with the steward of her dining chamber. He was near the waterjar rather often.”

“I well may do that,” Nehsi said with a growl in his throat.
“Now tell me what should prevent me from beginning with you.”

“Nothing,” said Seti.

Nehsi lifted his foot abruptly and pulled Seti to his feet.
He struck his son in the face, a hard, backhanded blow. Seti withstood it
without expression. “That is for your failure. This,” he said, pulling the
young man into a tight embrace, “is for your courage in telling me the truth.”

Seti stood back when his father would let him, hands on
Nehsi’s shoulders, not smiling, not quite, but his eyes were warm. And
relieved, Nehsi noticed. That was well. A son should walk in proper fear of his
father.

“Father,” Seti said. “Do you want me to go hunting a king?”

“I would dearly love,” said Nehsi, “to bury that young man
deep and set a mountain on his grave. But my king will not kill a king. No more
will I. He lives; there’s no help for it. I’ve done what I can to make certain
that he takes no more vengeance on her than he has already.”

Seti bowed his head. “I still have to live under him,” he
said. “Have you given any thought to how all of us will do that?”

“As we can,” said Nehsi. “If we live in quiet for a while,
show ourselves no threat, in the end I think he’ll have the sense to use us as
we may best be used. If not—if he has in mind to destroy all who were loyal to
her—then we’ll do what we can do. I have kin in Nubia, and your mother has kin
in Punt. We’ve no lack of places to go, if Egypt closes itself to us.”

“I don’t want to leave Egypt,” Seti said.

“Nor I,” said Nehsi through tightening throat. “Pray the
gods we never have need of it.”

“But you,” Seti said, “may not want to live in Egypt without
her.”

“Oh, no,” said Nehsi. “This land is full of the memory of
her. I’ll guard it while I live; and after I am dead, if I must, I’ll
continue.”

“But she may not die,” Seti said. “The gods may preserve
her.”

Nehsi said nothing to that; and Seti looked away, ashamed as
well he should have been, of his fit of happy folly.

Slowly at first, then with terrible swiftness, the sun rose
to its zenith over Thebes of the kings, and sank toward the western cliffs. Its
light spread long over them, red as blood. The sky filled with fire.

Beyond that fire, on the other side of the horizon, lay the
land of the dead: the land to which the king was going, and swiftly now,
without either fear or regret.

Nehsi returned to her then as she had commanded. Her pack of
jackals lingered, but Nehsi had taken thought for that. Eager though they might
be to be present at the moment of her death, their bodies knew both hunger and
thirst. He saw to it that a banquet was spread for them in one of the greater
halls. They fell upon it with greedy delight. He left them so, and sought his
lady’s chamber.