Judith Tarr - Lord of the Two Lands

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Judith Tarr

Lord Of The Two Lands

•PROLOGUE-

Neclanebo.

Nekhtharhab.

The power was in the name. The name was power.

Beloved of Amon, son of the Sun, Great House of

Egypt, Protected of Horus, Lord of the Two Lands.

Nekhtharhab. Nectanebo to the sea-peoples, the raw young

Hellenes who served so well on all sides of the world's

wars.

He stood on the horizon and looked down. It grew like

the lotus flower, his land, kingdom and empire and heart

of the world. Long slender stem of Black Land against the

pitiless red of desert, great dark flowering of Delta on the

edge of the Great Green that was the name and essence of

me sea. Lifeblood of the lotus was the stream of the Nile,

quiescent now, shrunk to its least extent, while its people

tilled the black earth that was its gift. Almost, like a god,

he could reach, touch. Almost, like a god, cup it in his

hand.

The air sighed about him, a whisper like wings, a glim-

mer as of falcon-eyes. Memory touched, passed; sunlight,

singing, the weight of the Two Crowns new and terrible

upon his brows; and names on him, new names, strong

names, god-names for a god-king.

Here in Amon's temple was silence and shadows, and

the basin on its four clawed feet, and Egypt in it, the rich

black land of Khemet, shadow-shaped in water of the Nile.

The walls were alive with painted gods and kings and

queens, beasts, birds, lotus, palm, papyrus, all the many-

colored splendor of Egypt. Barbarians had not touched

these. Not they, not the Parsa, though they had wrought

horrors enough in other temples than this of Amon in

2 Lord of the Two Lands

Thebes. They were gone. He had driven them out, he and

his people; and if there had been more than simple human

force in it, then that was no more than the enemy de-

served. Their names would die with their memory, and

they would be gone for all of eternity.

But they, being barbarians, did not understand what it

was for a name to die. They were coming back. It was in

the water: beyond the lotus that was Egypt, a red tide of

blood, a blackness of war. Persia had held the Two Lands

once. She would seize them again and grind them under

her booted heel.

Nectanebo bent over the basin. The lappets of his head-

dress swung forward, nearly brushing the water. He thrust

them back. One shoulder ached. A Persian mace had bro-

ken it in that last battle, just before he knew that he had

won- The bone had healed well, but the ache had never

wholly faded.

It was distracting him now, making the image waver, the

power drain away. He drew a sharp breath, and the image

steadied. It did not change. Persia was coming—not soon,

perhaps; not for years, it might be—but inevitable, and in-

escapable. There was no power in Pharaoh, even in a pha-

raoh who was a great mage and master of the hidden art,

to overcome an enemy so implacable. Their gods were

young and few and eager for empire. His were old beyond

telling and numerous beyond counting, and they had never

willingly been gods of war.

"I can hold," he said, soft in the silence, "with the gods'

help. But my body will die, and I become Osiris; and who

will be Horus to defend my lands? I had a son. He is dead;

the Parsa killed him. I have a wife. .She is with child; and

if it is a son, will his strength suffice for what I foresee?

Who will defend my kingdom? Who will wrest it from the

Persian's fist?"

The air sighed again, louder. The tamps flickered, cast-

ing long shadows. Painted kings seemed to stir, their eyes

to kindle. Painted gods drew breath like living things. The

PROLOGUE 3

ranks of hieroglyphs quickened, beasts and birds and styl-

ized men shifting, stretching, yearning toward freedom.

Nectanebo breathed a word. The lamps ceased their

swaying. The walls stilled. Something chittered away

overhead. Bat; or spirit blown from its course and flutter-

ing lost among the pillars. Nectanebo took no notice of it.

The water blurred and rippled. A new vision grew in it.

Almost, he laughed. He had asked the gods, and they

answered, from the very beginning. Lamplight limned it,

granted it more shadow than light, but there was no mis-

taking the name of that dance. The man was as eager as a

ram, and built like one, a heavy gleaming creature with

muscles that rolled like water. The woman was nigh as tall

as he, but if he was a ram, she was a tigress, turning sud-

denly in his clasp, locking legs about his middle and rak-

ing claws down his back. He grunted. She laughed,

arched, sank teeth into his shoulder. Her face through

streams of red-gold hair was wild, a little mad.

Her teeth had drawn blood. He took no notice of it,

though it ran in the lamplight in streams the color of wine,

or of the Tyrians' purple. Their shadows leaped and

danced, a mingled shape of dark and light upon the wall.

For a stretching moment it was a ram, a ram crowned with

the sun, and a serpent coiled about him, locked in passion

that was half war.

It broke, blurred, scattered. They dropped down in a

tangle of limbs and bodies and coppery hair.

There was a silence. Nectanebo, trapped in the scrying,

watched the wildness flow out of them. The man laid his

head on the woman's breast. His hair was black and thick,

cut as the Hellenes cut it, and he wore a beard like a Hel-

lene, and that was a Hellene's face, though ram-heavy,

ram-strong. She was slighter as befit a woman, but her

beauty was as Greek as his, the full rounding of her body

even in its slimness, the strong oval face and the long

broad nose and the wide low brow: to an Egyptian, heavy

and somewhat coarse, but striking for all of that. Her

4 Lord of the Two Lands

hands were long and strong, stroking the knotted muscles

of his back, smoothing them one by one.

"A god was in us tonight," she said. Greek indeed, but

not as it was spoken by envoys in the courts of the Two

Lands: broader and softer, with the hint of an antique lilt.

"Not one of your damned snakes again?" His voice was

deep, with the hint of a growl.

She laughed in her throat. "Not tonight, my jealous lord.

Didn't you feel it? Didn't you see the light that was on

us?"

"I saw you," he said.

"My lord." It was a purr. "My king. Were you Herakles

tonight? Or were you more? Were you even—"

His hand stopped the name. His scowl was terrible. "I

was myself. Or am I not enough for you?"

Over the heavy black-furred hand, her eyes danced with

mirth. A gasp escaped him. His hand snapped free. She

bared her sharp white teeth. "See, my lord, I prophesy.

We've made a king tonight, you and I and—who knows?

A god may pass where he will. I for one shall welcome

him."

"Raving madwoman." His body was reviving. He rose

above her. "We'll see if I need a god to do my rutting for

me."

She smiled long and slow, and pulled him down.

Nectanebo straightened slowly. There was his answer.

There, if he read it rightly, was his king: a spark in the

womb of this woman, this wild barbarian creature who

could not but be a queen. Her king was man enough, and

strong enough, but Nectanebo was a mage, and he knew

that this man was not what he was seeking-

Barbarians. Aliens. Foreigners. Had he wrested his lands

from the Parsa, only to surrender them to the Hellenes?

He rose to his full height. He was aware as he had not

been in a long while, that even in Khemet he was not tall;

that in the world without, he was a small man. A little thin

PROLOGUE 5

brown man with a scarred and stiffened shoulder, a sug-

gestion of Ethiopia in the fullness of his lips and the

broadness of his nose, but all Egypt in the long dark eyes

made longer still with kohl. He was greater than he

looked, and stronger. He was Lord of the Great House,

master of the Two Lands. He had conquered the Parsa and

freed his people, and restored the worship of his gods.

He did not kneel as even Pharaoh should before divin-

ity. The mood was not on him. The power was in him still,

though it had begun to ebb. "Why?" he demanded of the

air.

It whispered, but it spoke no word that he could under-

stand.

He stooped toward the chair that sat by the basin,

caught up what lay there: the crook and flail of the Great

House. He held them high. "Am I the last, then? Is the

Great House to fall? Shall no man again be Lord of the

Two Lands, but that he be the king of an alien people?"

Silence.

"Answer me'"

The echoes died unanswered. -

He sank down. The floor was stone, and cold under the

thin linen of his kilt- Crook and flail drooped on his knees.

"At least," he whispered, barely to be heard, "at least, if

ever you have loved me, let me know his name."

The stillness deepened. His shoulders sagged. The gods

had forsaken him. Even his power was gone, drained away

like water from a broken pot. He was mere man, and mor-

tal, and deaf to aught that the heart could hear.

Alexander.

It was a whisper, fainter even than his own. It could have

been the slap of bare feet on stone, the rustle of linen in a

priest's robe, the hiss of a cat as it warred with shadows.

Every muscle stretched taut. He strained to hear.

Yes- Yes, he had heard it. A name—alien name for an

alien king, but his king, his god, his hope.

Alexander.

PART ONE

ISSUS

•ONE*

"Alexander!"

The sea roared, crashing on stones. Louder by far were

men's voices, the ring of bronze and precious steel, the

neighing of horses, the mingled tumult of battle; and a

name over them alt, ringing up to heaven.

Meriamon had been walking since the world was made.

She had had a horse, but the Parsa had taken (hat, farther

back than she could remember. That they had not taken

more was a mark not of their restraint but of hers. They

would pay in their due time-

She crested the last, pitiless hill. The battle spread be-

low, a seethe and clash of men and beasts, shouts and cries

and the clangor of metal on metal. It sounded like nothing

so much as a cattle market beside a smithy. But the drov-

ers were Hellenes—Macedonians,- she must remember to

call them—and what they drove were Persians. Parsa. The

enemy.

Her mantle heaved, struggling. A narrow tawny head

thrust through the wrapping, opened eyes the color of

minted gold, uttered a single, emphatic mrrrrttt. Meriamon

gasped. Sekhmet's claws were wickedly sharp. The cat

sprang free hissing her displeasure, shook from head to

tail, and vanished behind a clump of scrub.

Meriamon drew the cloak tighter about her stinging

breast. The wind plucked at her, whipping the muddied

hem against her legs- She was wet with the unwontedness

of water that fell from the sky, she was colder than she had

ever been in her life, and there was a fire in her. The sun,

sinking toward the sea, freed itself from its prison of cloud

and thrust a long lance across the battlefield. It caught a

splendor of scarlet and gold- God or man, she could not

10 Lord of the Two Lands

tell, so bright as it was: blinding her through all the shields

of body and souls, down to the heart of her. Dimly in the

afterblaze she saw a shadow, a quenched and stumbling

thing that quailed before that shape of fire, and knew with

a fierce dark joy that she looked on the Persian king. He

turned, with his bodyguard all fallen and his enemies surg-

ing upon him; turned his glittering chariot and fled.

A roar followed him. The Macedonians surged in his

wake. His people, loyal even in their shock, died defend-

ing his cowardice. His enemies laughed. The one who led

them—flaming even in the last of the light, his little thick-

set black horse prancing and snorting and flagging its

tail—shouted something in a high fierce voice. The Mac-

edonians shouted back. "Alexander!"

Meriamon smiled. Sekhmet returned from her errand,

haughty and much displeased. "Walk with me, then," said

Meriamon, "if riding warm and dry-footed is beneath your

dignity."

The cat filliped her tail and started down the slope,

picking her way delicately through mud and stones and

scree. Meriamon sighed, half laughing, and followed her.

A shadow followed them, a shadow within the woman's

shadow, and its shape, if shape it truly had, was strange.

Meriamon knew about camps. She had lost her horse out-

side of one. This one was different, its people louder, dirt-

ier, and infinitely more shameless, but men were men

wherever they were. She kept her mantle wound tight and

drew down a little of the twilight on herself, putting a

twisting in it, willing eyes to slip aside. Macedonians were

not like the Parsa, who brought their whole households to

war as if it were a hunt for the court, though they had their

servants and their camp followers. She did not care to be

seen as she was: not only a woman but a stranger, and

alien, and perhaps an enemy.

This camp was quiet, as camps went. All the noise and

terror was in the other, among the Persians, as some

Issus 11

fought and most fled and the women, trapped in their tents

and their modesty, shrieked and wailed. Even over the

sounds of battle and camp, Meriamon could hear them.

They had laughed and chattered while their kings made

a mock of her gods- They had fluttered and cooed in the

Great House of Egypt, and simpered as their men called

themselves masters of the Two Lands. Now they would

know what it was to be conquered.

Meriamon*s jaw ached. She was grinding her teeth

again. Hate was a fine fierce thing, but it was little enough

to live on. And she had eaten the last of her bread yester-

day.

Water at least there was in plenty- She would eat later,

when she found what she had come for. People were be-

ginning to mill and throng about her, soldiers coming back

from the battle, the wounded limping or leaning on spears

or carried on their shields. Their curses were a long drone,

punctuated by cries of pain-

"You."

Meriamon drew still more shadow about her. The crowd

had thickened, the tumult risen, surging from the battle-

field. There was order in it, and purpose, however frantic

it might look.

"You!" Something caught her cloak. She wheeled. A

man stood over her. He seemed as high as the sky. He

reeked of sweat and blood. "Go to the surgeons' tent," he

said- "Tell them we've got one out here, and he's giving

trouble."

She could understand him. Just. Macedonian, her teach-

ers had told her, was Greek, but barely so. Her own Greek,

gods be thanked, was where she needed it. "Why don't

you tie him and drag him in?"

The man laughed: a sharp sound, with a catch in it. "Tie

him? Tie our Ajax? Take a look at him'"

She had thought mis man was huge. The one on the

ground, in what looked to be a convulsion, stretched as

12 Lord of the Two Lands

long as a tree. There were two men on him, holding him.

One fell away. The other rocked and swayed.

Her lips tightened. She stepped round the man who had

spoken—commanding her like a servant: how dared he?—

and approached the fallen giant. Even in dusk and fitful

torches, she could see enough. "He has fits?" she asked.

"He got hit over the head. He keeps trying to go back

and fight Persians." The lesser giant dodged a flying foot.

"We'd clip his ear to keep him quiet, but we'd kill him if

we tried."

"You had better not try," said Meriamon, evading flail-

ing limbs, closing in on the man's head. He had lost his

helmet; his hair was matted with something dark and glis-

tening. Blood. She knelt, took the tossing, thrashing head

in her hands. Lost it. Won it again, and held. She spoke a

word, an ancient word, a word with power in it. Peace.

Little by little he stilled. Her shadow bent over him, en-

folded him.

"Take him now," she said. Her voice sounded faint and

far away. "Gently; jostle him as little as you may."

The Macedonians obeyed her. She was a little surprised,

but dimly. So thin, her magic was, so far from the source

of its strength. It was all she could do to quiet the man, to

keep him so while his companions carried him to the sur-

geons.

Very likely he would die. She was no adept of

Imhotep's temple, to work miracles with healing magic.

She had only the one small gift of quiet, and knowledge

enough if she were given light and space to wield it.

The man who had stopped her was still beside her,

steadying the giant's shoulders with one long arm. The

other two men had the rest of him. They were all

wounded, she noticed. One limped. They all walked stiffly,

with now and then a catch of breath.

The surgeons' tent was an image from the Persians'

hell: dim lamps, leaping shadows, groans and shouts and

howls of agony. The stink caught at her throat. "Over

Issus 13

there," someone snapped, harried. 'There' being by the far

wall, in a space barely large enough for a man of normal

dimensions, and far from the nearest lamp. That at least

Meriamon could remedy. She pointed with her chin.

"Bring it here."

Two of the bearers were already gone, one at something

like a run. The third looked ready to bolt. He brought her

the lamp instead, and paused, swaying a little, frowning at

her.

She was under him when he went down, catching the

lamp before it fell, bracing the worst of his weight. But

she was small even in Khemet, and he was Macedonian-

They went down together, half on the giant, half in the

passage between rows of bodies.

Meriamon struggled from beneath him. The lamp was

safe. She used it to look at him. Not all the blood on him

was his friend's. And his right arm—the one that he had

kept out of her sight—did not look well at all.

The giant would keep. She attacked the smaller man's

armor. It came free more easily than she might have ex-

pected, though it jarred him. She was glad that he was not

awake to feel it.

There were no other wounds on him that mattered: cuts,

bruises, one that might have been bad if it had been a little

deeper. His arm was bound up roughly in strips torn from

someone's tunic, stained solid with blood both dried and

new-wet. With teeth-gritted care she peeled away the

wrappings.

It could have been worse. A wound ran down the length

of it, thin and not remarkably deep. Sword-cut, and a

glancing one at that. It was little enough. The worst was

what it ended in. The bone was broken at the wrist, the

hand dangling like a dead thing- It seemed a clean break,

no shards or splinters to foul the wound. But whatever had

done it had crushed the flesh and ground the muscle into

the tortured bone. A little more, and he would have lost

the hand.

14 Lord of the Two Lands

She could save it. Maybe. Care now, prayer, time and

the gods' protection against fever—he would not be a one-

armed man. Whether he could win back full use of arm

and hand. only the gods knew.

Her eyes found a man hovering—no, boy, though he

was bigger than most men in Khemet: wide curious eyes,

idle hands. "Splints," she said. "Bandages, thread, needles.

Water, as hot as you can get it. Herbs to wash a wound."

The boy was obedient, and quick about it. Maybe it was

the weight of her shadow with its gleam of eyes.

When she had done all she might for the wounded man,

she looked up. The tent stretched away in front of her. She

blinked hard. It shrank somewhat. It was mostly a roof and

poles, and sides that rolled up or down at need—all down

now, closing in the sight and scent and sound of pain. Too

much pain. She turned to the nearest man, awareness nar-

rowing again, to focus on this one, endurable center. Little

as she might know beside a healer-priest, she knew enough

for this; more maybe than the Greek surgeons did. She

could tell what needed stitching, what was broken and

what was strained, when a limb could stay and when it had

to come off; how to draw an arrow from a wound. People

tried to speak to her once or twice. They might be asking

what a woman was doing in the surgeons' tent. She did

not answer. They had eyes. They could see what she did.

None of them interfered. Her shadow took care of that.

News came in with new waves of wounded: remnants of

the fight, men returned from the pursuit, others who had

taken wounds and only now troubled to notice them. The

enemy was driven far away. The Persian camp was taken,

and the king had taken the Great King's tent.

"And the Great King's women," said a man who had

lost a hand. He had dropped his shield and used the strap

to bind the stump and gone on fighting, crazy-mad as men

could be when their blood was up. He was numbed now,

part with wine, pan with shock; and dizzy with victory. He

grinned. He had excellent teeth, Meriamon noticed.

Issus 15

"Would you believe it? They take their wives to war. And

their concubines. And all their slaves, and tfieir brats, too.

And a whole squalling pack of eunuchs."

He glanced at Meriamon and started, and fell suddenly

silent.

She almost laughed aloud. She had forgotten the coat

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JudithTarr-LordOfTheTwoLands•PROLOGUE-Neclanebo.Nekhtharhab.Thepowerwasinthename.Thenamewaspower.BelovedofAmon,sonoftheSun,GreatHouseofEgypt,ProtectedofHorus,LordoftheTwoLands.Nekhtharhab.Nectanebotothesea-peoples,therawyoungHelleneswhoservedsowellonallsidesoftheworld'swars.Hestoodonthehorizonandloo...

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