Lord of the Two Lands (35 page)

In the end she would shrug and live with it. And no thanks to his majesty the king, who was getting up a water-fight, and shocking the poor priest into speechlessness. It could hardly be blasphemy, since it was the god’s son who did it; but kings were more staid in this part of the world.

The desert let them pass unmolested out of Siwah. Its power was quiescent; if not conquered, then certainly subdued. No gate opened on the other side of a storm. No guide came for them, nor did the way lose itself in front of them. It was quiet, all of it. Quiet to rest in.

At Rhakotis the city was shaping itself. Deinokrates the architect had sent to Memphis for rolls of papyrus and boxes of chalk and crews of men to begin the marking and digging of foundations. It was like old days in the valleys of the kings, but these labored to build not a tomb but a living city.

For far too long the Two Lands had looked backward to a splendor that was gone. Now it would look forward again under a king whose face was toward living glory and not the splendor of the dead.

Their passage to Memphis, rowing up the slow strong stream of the Nile, was a triumphal procession. The army was waiting for them. Like, Meriamon thought, a lover for his beloved. They were that, with Alexander.

o0o

She had the same rooms she had had before in the Great House behind its white walls. She went to the temple to sing the offices, but she did not sleep there, and no one asked it.

Amon’s priests from Thebes had gone, and Lord Ay with them. He had left a message for her. It was written in the most ancient of the tongues the priests knew, drawn and painted as meticulously as the writings on the temple’s walls.

When she held it in her hands, it seemed to stir gently. The eyes of the beasts and birds, the men and women and gods, looked for a moment like the eyes of living things.

Words were power. Words written were the strongest of strong magics.

These were, in the end and after the invocations of the gods and the full forms of his name and hers and the wardings against ill use or misuse, supremely simple. “Do as your heart bids you. May Mother Isis guide your steps.”

She took the message back with her to her rooms. There was dinner to go to: Alexander’s last in Memphis before he took the road to Asia. People were coming who had had far to go, as far as Elephantine in the uppermost of Upper Egypt. All the Companions of Siwah were invited to it, and for the rest of the army there was a banquet laid on in the soldiers’ messes.

It was, in short, an obligation. She was still in the robe of a singer in the temple. She took off the heavy braided wig, running fingers through her hair. Phylinna had the bath things ready, and the other wig, the state wig that was suitable for a royal lady.

Tonight she would be that, every inch of her, even to the scent she wore. She had walked in the land of coming forth by day. She had spoken with the Lady of the living and the dead. She was the daughter of the Great House of the Two Lands, and this was the feast of her victory.

And yet she lingered. She put down the message from Lord Ay, and took it up again. She was following her heart. She had been doing it, truly and wholly, since Siwah. And yet...

Sekhmet came mincing from wherever she had been. She was getting thick about the middle. The gods knew how she had managed that, with all the wandering and hunting she had been doing. She sprang as lightly as ever to the center of Meriamon’s bed and curled in the center, and went calmly to sleep.

Meriamon sat on the coverlet beside her, smoothing her fur. She began to purr.

Phylinna was waiting. Meriamon stood. She was mooning like a girl on the eve of her wedding. Which this almost was; but not for a while. She shook herself and went to the cooling bath.

o0o

The banquet was as splendid as she could have imagined. Alexander looked magnificent in a gold-embroidered chiton and a new purple cloak, with a crown of golden oak-leaves hardly brighter than his hair.

Meriamon might have liked to see him robed and crowned as pharaoh, but his face was turned already toward the east; and he had his army to think of. They wanted to see their own proper king. The princes of Egypt, maybe, needed to see him as he was. They did not look displeased.

The feast itself was as Egyptian as anyone could wish. The Macedonians bore it bravely. They were not compelled to drink beer, which they were glad of. Their opinion of Egyptian beer was, to put it mildly, jaundiced.

“Cat piss,” Niko had pronounced it, magisterially, after a good two jugs of it.

There was wine, and it was quite acceptable. There was goose prepared in a dozen ways, and duck, and dove and quail, and lamb and goat and beef, and oryx and gazelle, and great platters of green stuff, and fruit, and cheeses, and more manners of bread than a Hellene could have dreamed of, with a dizzying array of sauces. All eaten in music and in song, with dancers and players and a whole troupe of acrobats leaping and tumbling among the couches.

Nikolaos was not there. Meriamon had the couch to the right of the king’s, high honor and quite scandalous for a woman, even a royal Egyptian; and two servants to wait on her, and people staring at her. She smiled, and spoke when spoken to, and ate as much as she could stand.

That was not very much. It never was. She drank more than she usually did. The wine was rather more than acceptable. In fact it was good. Very good. Excellent.

Niko was busy. Some people had to get ready for the march in the morning, after all.

He would come in before the night was over, if not to the hall then to her rooms. He had said he would, that morning when he left her, getting up even earlier than she and running off to do something unintelligible. There had been an air about him of suppressed excitement. Of surprises, and of great secrets.

Whatever he was up to, she would know soon enough. What niggled at her was no more than uneasiness on the edge of changes.

He was not waiting for her when she came back to her rooms. Sekhmet was on the bed again, or still. She grumbled about moving to make room for Meriamon, but she was much too lazy to leave the bed. She settled for walking deliberately down the length of Meriamon’s body and then halfway back up again, and coiling herself against Meriamon’s hip.

Meriamon’s body was full of wine. It had been almost too much to sit up while Phylinna washed her, cleansed the paint from her face, plaited her hair down her back.

But her mind was sharply, almost painfully alert. It counted each breath as she drew it. It marked the slow turning of the stars, and the first faint glimmer of dawn upon the horizon. It knew the touch of each hair of Sekhmet’s coat as she stroked the sleeping cat.

And made a discovery that shocked laughter out of her. “Sekhmet! You didn’t!”

The cat yawned and stopped her ears with an upcurved paw. She did not want to hear about it.

“I hope it was one of the temple cats,” Meriamon said.

“I think it was the king of the stevedores’ quarter,” said Nikolaos.

Meriamon started. She had not heard him at all.

He was barefoot, with his sandals in his hand. He looked extraordinarily pleased with himself.

“Where have you been?” she demanded of him. Not furiously, no. Of course not. Merely vehemently.

“I do think it was the big he-cat from down by the docks,” Niko said. “He courted her for days. I’d hardly blame her if she gave in simply to shut him up.”

“Maybe she likes great grinning louts,” said Meriamon.

“You’ll never get her to admit it.” He set his sandals in their usual place next to the clothing chest, and unfastened his belt. His chiton was plain and somewhat workworn.

The lamplight did wonderful things to the planes and angles of his body. He paused with his chiton in his hand, frowning at the other, the twisted one, and flexing the stiffened fingers.

They were moving more easily now. He hardly seemed to notice any longer that there was anything amiss. He could ride, he could hold a shield. He could not play the double pipes, but then he had never been much good with them.

“Does it hurt you?” she asked him.

“No.” His voice was abstracted, but peaceful enough. “Sometimes a twinge or two... no. I had Typhon on the Scythian bit again. He likes it. I’m thinking of keeping him on it.”

“What does Alexander say to that?”

“Alexander thinks I’m starting to make sense. Ptolemy says I never did, why should I start now?”

She smiled. He grinned back. Yes, definitely he was keeping secrets.

He had had a bath. He smelled of clean skin and sweet oil. His hair was damp, curling as it dried.

Her body woke for him. But he was not ready, not quite yet. He stretched out beside her. Whatever he was thinking of, he was bursting with it.

“Tell me,” she said.

His eyes were wide. He played a very poor innocent. “What’s to tell?”

“You know better than I.”

He bit his lip. He was trying not to grin.

She measured him with a surgeon’s eye. “I happen to know,” she said, “that if I touch you here”—and she did—”and there”—and she did that—”you howl.”

He did. He bolted halfway out of bed. She wrapped arms and legs about him and trapped him. “Tell,” she said.

“Under torture?” he asked, affronted.

She straightened her best finger. She threatened his most sensitive rib.

“I’ll tell!” he cried. He was laughing like an idiot. She had to wait for him to stop.

“I’ve been talking,” he said at long last. “To the king. And to Ptolemy. And Mazaces—did you know he’s going to stay in Egypt? Alexander is keeping him on. He knows the place, after all. And he’s not too badly hated, for a Persian.”

“He won’t be satrap again, surely,” said Meriamon. Her lips were tight.

“Not likely,” said Niko. “No; Peukestas will be governor here, and Aischylos of Rhodes. A Macedonian and a Greek. And Egyptians to stand behind them.”

“That’s well,” Meriamon said. She had known about Peukestas, of course. But one never knew. Kings could change their minds.

“I’ve been talking to Deinokrates, too,” Niko said. “He’s down from Rhakotis, getting more men and having a last word with Alexander. They’re calling the place Alexandria already. It looks as if it’s going to stick.”

“Of course it will,” said Meriamon. “The gods have said it.”

“I’m going up there,” he said. “I’m going to help build it.”

“We’re going straight to Tyre,” she said. “There won’t be time to stop by Rhakotis again.”

“I’m not going to Tyre,” said Nikolaos. “I’m going to Alexandria.”

“But—”

And he said, “‘We’?”

There was a pause.

“I’m going to Tyre,” Meriamon said very carefully. “I’m going with Alexander.”

“Of course you aren’t,” said Niko. “You hated it there. You spent every moment wanting to be in Egypt.”

“I was supposed to be in Egypt. He was dallying, building that mole of his.”

“And making the greatest siege m the world,” Niko said.

“It kept him out of Egypt.” She shook herself. She was letting him lure her from the straight track. “He’s king in Egypt now. He has to go and conquer Persia.”

“Of course he does. I’m not going with him. I’m going to help Deinokrates build his city. It’s going to be splendid, Meriamon. All the best of Egypt, and all the best of Hellas. We’ll build temples to our gods, and temples to yours; Amon, of course—”

“Isis,” she said. “Build a temple to Isis.”

“Isis,” he said, obliging. “And a market, Meriamon. A market for everything in the world, and ships to bring it, and a harbor for the ships to anchor in. And a place for philosophers. Alexander was particular about that. Somewhere for them to do their thinking, and somewhere for their teaching, and scribes to copy their books, and a library to keep them in. We’ll have a theater, and festivals to match the ones in Athens. We’ll have a gymnasium. We’ll have the greatest city that ever was.”

“And places for ordinary people?” Meriamon asked. “Will you make room for those?”

“Everywhere,” he said. “Cities aren’t made, you know. Mostly they just grow. Here we’ll learn from their mistakes.”

“So we shall,” she said.

He did not hear the echoes in her voice. His smile dazzled her. He kissed her thoroughly, drew back still grinning, said, “I knew you’d see it. We can be married there. Or if you’d rather, we can go with Alexander as far as Pelusium. It won’t be much of a wedding for a king’s daughter, but he’ll be there, at least, to bless it.”

“I’m going with him,” she said. “To Tyre. And wherever he goes after that.”

The brightness faded from his face. He frowned. “But why?”

“Because he is my king.”

“He’s your king in Egypt. He’s not staying here.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

“But,” said Niko. “You wither and fade outside of your Black Land. Your magic is weak. The air is too cold or too wet. The sun is wrong. The sky is too narrow.”

“All of that is true,” she said. “It makes no difference. Alexander is my king. Where he is, my power lies.”

“Does he know that?”

Bless the boy. He was jealous.

Her heart was cold and small and hard. She understood now. What Ay had meant; what he had bidden her to do.

There were gods in it somewhere. They felt very far away and supremely indifferent. Even the Mother of them all. She had seen her beloved slain and rent in pieces, and gone up and down the Two Lands in search of them. She would hardly have pity on a woman whose lover was simply determined to stay in Khemet. Fine good sense, she would reckon that.

“Alexander knows,” Meriamon said. “He’s not displeased. I’ll go back to working with Philippos, and Aristandros might decide to make use of me. There will be other Egyptians with us. And Thaïs, of course. And Phylinna. It’s not as if I’ll be all alone.”

Niko looked blank. Stunned. “But why?”

She drew a deep breath. She prayed for patience. “I have to. The same way I had to leave Egypt in the beginning. Because it’s where I must be. And—” She stopped. Very well: let him know the truth. “I want to. Yes, this is my country. Yes, there is no place like it. But I want to see other places; other skies. There are whole worlds that I’ve never seen. He said that to me, did you know? When we were in Siwah. I know what he meant. I want to see them with him.”

“You should have married him after all,” said Niko, hard and flat.

“No,” she said. “It’s not that kind of wanting. It’s what you want in his city.”