Vengeance of Orion Part 31

He reached for Helen's hand and brought it to his lips. She kept herself from cringing, but just barely.

Nekoptah clapped his hands once, and a servant immediately came from the farther door with a tray of wine goblets.

We had barely tasted the wine, a sweetish red that Nekoptah said was imported from Crete, when the hall door opened again and a guard announced: "His royal majesty, King of the Two Lands, beloved of Ptah, guardian of the people, son of the Nile."

Instead of the king, though, six priests in gray robes entered the room, bearing copper censers that filled the room with smoky, pungent incense. They chanted in an ancient tongue and made a mini-procession around the table three times, praising Ptah and his servant on Earth, Merneptah. As they left, six guards in golden armor marched in and lined themselves along the wall, three on each side of the doorway, and froze into blank-faced immobility. Each of them held a spear that almost touched the ceiling. Then came two harpists and four beautiful young women bearing peac.o.c.k-plume fans. In their midst walked the King of Egypt, Merneptah.

He was a man of middle years, his hair still dark. Slim of body and small in stature, he walked slightly bent over, as if stooped with age or cares-or pain. He wore a sleeveless robe of white decorated with gold embroidery around its border. His skin was much lighter than any Egyptian I had met. Unlike his chief minister, the king wore no adornments except for a small golden medallion bearing the symbol of Ptah on a slim chain about his neck, and copper bracelets on his wrists.

It was his eyes that troubled me. They seemed clouded, unsteady, almost unseeing. As if his thoughts were turned almost totally inward. As if the world around him was not important, an annoyance, an impediment to what he considered truly important.

I glanced down at Helen, standing beside me. She had caught it too.

The two harpers and the fan-bearing women bowed low to their king and left the room. One of the guards out in the hall closed the door and we were alone, except for the six guards lining the wall like statues. I knew that I would be seated with my back to them, and that did not please me.

Introductions were polite but perfunctory. Helen curtsied prettily for the king, who seemed completely indifferent to her beauty-even to her presence. I bowed and he mumbled something to me about the barbarians from the sea.

We sat at table and servants brought us a cold soup and platters offish. The king ate almost nothing. Nekoptah ate enough for all four of us.

Conversation was desultory. Nekoptah did most of the talking, and most of it was about how the wors.h.i.+p of Ptah was being resisted by fanatics who were trying to reinstate the madness of Akhenaten.

"Especially in Menefer," complained Nekoptah, while gobbling a morsel of fish. "The priests there are trying to bring back the wors.h.i.+p of Aten."

"I thought it was Amon they glorified," I said, "rather than Aten."

"Yes," said Helen. "We saw the Eye of Amon on the great pyramid there."

Nekoptah frowned. "They say it is Amon they reverence, but secretly they are trying to bring back Akhenaten's heresies. If they are not stopped, and stopped soon, they will plunge the Two Lands into turmoil once again."

The king nodded absently, picking at his food.

With me translating for her, Helen tried to engage him in conversation, asking about his wife and children. The king merely stared past her.

"His majesty's wife died last year in childbirth," said Nekoptah.

"Oh, I'm sorry..."

"The baby died also."

"How awful!"

The king seemed to make an effort to focus his eyes on her. "I have one son," he muttered.

"Prince Aramset," interjected Nekoptah. "A comely lad. He will make a fine king, one day." But his face clouded, and he added, "Of course, his royal majesty has many other fine sons by his royal concubines, as well."

Merneptah lapsed into silence again. Helen glared at the fat priest.

And so it went through the whole supper. At last it was finished and the king bade us good night and left. I noticed that Nekoptah barely bowed to his king; not that he could have gotten far, as fat as he was.

As the guards escorted us back to our quarters, I asked Helen, "Do you think the king is ill?"

Her face showed how troubled she felt. "No, Orion. He is drugged. I have seen it before. That fat beast is keeping him drugged so that he can control the kingdom for himself."

I was glad that she spoke only Achaian and the guards could not understand her. At least, I hoped that they could not.

The situation was painfully clear to me. Nekoptah was in control of the capital and the king. He was using me to set up a deal that would trade Helen for the security of the delta country against the Sea Peoples. For good measure, he was going to remove the chief priest of Amon and tighten his hold on the entire kingdom.

To guarantee that I do as he wished, Nekoptah would hold Helen hostage in the capital, not realizing that I knew he intended to hand her back to Menalaos.

And the Golden One had made a fortress for himself inside the great pyramid.

It all looked hopelessly snarled. Until I saw that with one stroke I could cut the knot. Like a message sent by some G.o.d, a plan took shape in my mind. By the time Helen and I had returned to our apartments, I knew what I had to do.

Chapter 39.

I had not expected the prince of the realm to join our expedition downriver. As Lukka and his men marched aboard the boat that would take us to the Lower Kingdom, a sedan chair flanked by a guard of honor was carried by six sweating Nubians slowly down the stone pier and stopped at our gangplank. A young man pushed the curtains aside and stepped lithely from the chair, slim, well muscled, and as light of skin as Merneptah and the priests I had seen.

His name was Aramset: the only legitimate son of the king. He was barely old enough to have a bit of down fuzzing his chin. He was a handsome lad, a good indication of what his father must have looked like as a teenager. He seemed eager to take part in a war.

The nominal leader of our expedition, the limping, overweight General Raseth, bowed low to the prince and then introduced me to him.

"We're going to slaughter the barbarians," Aramset said, laughing. "My father wants me to learn the arts of war, so that I will understand them when I rule."

He seemed pleasant enough. But inwardly I knew that Nekoptah had arranged this royal addition to our expedition. If the prince happened to get himself killed in battle, and there was no other legitimate heir to the throne, it strengthened his grip on the power of the kingdom even further.

Again I had to admire Nekoptah's cunning.

I had taken leave of Helen that morning, trusting her safety to the care of Nefertu. She did not fully understand all the machinations swirling around us, but she sensed that schemes within schemes were taking me away from her.

"Menalaos still seeks me," she said, as I held her in my arms.

"He is hundreds of miles away," I said.

She leaned her golden head against my chest. "Orion, sometimes I think that it is my destiny to return to him. No matter what I do, he still pursues me, like the hounds of fate."

I said nothing.

"He will kill you if you do battle against him," she said.

"No, I don't think so. And I don't really want to kill him, either."

She pushed away from me slightly and gazed up into my eyes. "Will I ever see you again, my protector?"

"Of course."

But she shook her head. "No. I don't think so. I think this is our final farewell, Orion." There were tears in her eyes.

"I will come back," I said.

"But not to me. You will seek your G.o.ddess and forget about me."

I was silent for a moment, thinking to myself that she was right. Then I said, "No one could ever forget you, Helen. Your beauty will live through all the ages."

She tried to smile. I kissed her one last time, knowing that someone was watching us, and then bade her good-bye.

Nefertu accompanied me to the docks, and I asked the slim old man to watch over Helen and protect her against the intrigues of the palace.

"I will, my friend," he said. "I will guard her honor and her life."

So, as our boat pushed off from the dock with the early morning sun slanting through the obelisks and monumental statues of the capital, I waved a final salute to Nefertu, knowing in my heart that one gray-haired minor functionary would never be able to protect anyone-even himself-against the growing power of Nekoptah. My only hope was to do what I had to do quickly, and get back to the capital to deal with the fat chief minister before he could cause harm to Helen or my newfound Egyptian friend.

I scanned the palace buildings as our boat glided out into the Nile's strong current, looking for a terrace where a golden-haired woman might be waving to me. But I saw no one.

"So we begin to earn our pay."

I turned abruptly and saw Lukka standing beside me, his dour face set in a tight smile. He was glad to be away from the palace and heading toward battle, where a man knew who his enemies were and how to deal with them.

Aramset turned out to be a pleasant young man who laughed to hide his nervousness. General Raseth bustled about the boat constantly, hovering over the royal heir until the prince made it clear he would rather be treated as one of the regular officers.

Strangely, Lukka and the prince seemed to get along very well. The youngster genuinely admired the battle-scarred professional soldier, and seemed eager to learn all he could from him.

One hot afternoon, as the oarsmen paddled us past the ruins of Akhenaten, I heard Lukka telling the prince, "All that I have spoken to you in the past days means nothing, compared to the experience of battle. When the enemy comes charging at you, screaming their war cries and leveling their spears at your chest, then you'll find out whether your blood is thick enough for war. Only then."

Aramset stared at Lukka with great round eyes and followed the Hitt.i.te soldier around the boat like a faithful puppy.

Our boat carried fifty soldiers, and it was powered by sixty oarsmen: slaves, many of them black Nubians. Since we were sailing downriver, the Nile's own powerful current did the heaviest work for us.

Dozens of other boats joined us as we headed for the delta. At each city where we tied up overnight there were more soldiers waiting to join our expedition, and boats to carry them. I began to see the true power of Egypt, the organization that could bring together a fleet carrying the men and materiel for a mighty armed force that could strike over distances of hundreds of miles.

But I wondered which of the men on our own boat were spies for Nekoptah? Which were a.s.sa.s.sins? How many of the troops on the other boats had been ordered to fall back, once battle had begun, and let me and my Hitt.i.tes be cut to pieces by the barbarian raiders? I knew I could trust no one except Lukka and, through him, his two dozen soldiers.

Over those long hot days and dark warm nights I got to know Prince Aramset. There was much more to him than a laughing, nervous youngster.

"I want Lukka and his. .h.i.tt.i.tes to be my personal guard, once we return to Wast," he told me one evening, as we dawdled over the remains of supper.

We were tied to the pier of one of the cities that dotted the riverbank, rocking gently in the eddies of the main current. It was an oppressively hot, still night, and we ate on the open afterdeck of the boat, desperate to catch any stray breeze that might waft by. A slave slowly swept a palm-leaf fan over our heads to keep the mosquitoes away. General Raseth had fallen asleep at the table, drowsing over his empty wine cup. The prince never took wine; he drank clear water only.

"You couldn't pick a better, more loyal man, your highness," I said.

"I will pay you handsomely for them."

He had pride, this teenager. But I answered, "My prince, allow me to make you a gift of them. I know that Lukka would be pleased to serve you, and it would please me to make the two of you happy."

He nodded slightly, as if he had expected no less. "Yet, Orion, I shouldn't accept such a valuable gift without offering something in return."

"The friends.h.i.+p of the crown prince of the Two Lands is a gift beyond price," I said.

He smiled at that. Deliberately, I poured a cup of wine from the little Raseth had left and offered it to him.

He refused with a slight wave of his hand.

"To seal our bargain," I suggested.

"I never drink wine."

"You don't like its taste?"

His face turned sour. "I have seen what wine has done to my father. Wine-and other things."

"He is not sick, then?"

"Only in his soul. Since my mother died, my father wastes away within himself."

There was bitterness in his voice. He was out to prove to his father that he could be a worthy heir.

As delicately as I could, I asked about Nekoptah.

Aramset eyed me carefully. "The high priest of Ptah and the chief minister to the king is a very powerful man, Orion. Even I must speak of him with great respect."

"I understand his power," I said. "Will you keep him as your your chief minister when you become king?" chief minister when you become king?"

"My father lives," the prince said flatly. No trace of anger at my presumption. No trace of rancor toward Nekoptah. He had learned to hide his emotions well, this young man.

"Yet," I pressed, "if your father should become unable to rule, through sickness or melancholy-would you be appointed to rule in his place, or would Nekoptah act for him?"

For long moments Aramset said nothing. His dark eyes bored into me, as if trying to see how far he could trust this stranger from a distant land.

Finally he said, "Nekoptah is perfectly capable of administering the kingdom. He is doing so now, with my father's approval."

There was no sense pressing him further. He was wise enough not to say anything against Nekoptah that might be overheard. But I thought he did not like the fat chief minister very much. His hands had balled themselves into fists at my first mention of him and remained tightly clenched until he bade me good night and walked off to his cabin.

We reached the delta country at last, rich with green farmlands, crisscrossed by irrigation ca.n.a.ls, lush with beautiful long-legged birds of snowy white and delicate pink. The local garrison commanders conferred with General Raseth and told him that the Sea Peoples had taken several villages near the mouth of a western arm of the river. They estimated the number of barbarian warriors at more than a thousand.

That evening, the general, Prince Aramset, and I took supper together in the small cabin atop the boat's afterdeck. Raseth was in a jovial mood as he dug into the stewed fish and onions.

"Make allowance for the local troops' natural exaggerations," he said, reaching for the wine pitcher, "and we have nothing more than a few hundred barbarians to deal with."

"While we have more than a thousand trained men," said the prince.

Raseth nodded. "It's simply a matter of finding the barbarians and hitting them before they can scatter or get back to their s.h.i.+ps."

I thought of the Achaian camp along the beach at Troy. I wondered if Odysseus or Big Ajax would be among my enemies.