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 goddess 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 Hittite 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 assassins? How many of the troops on the other boats had been ordered to fall back, once battle had begun, and let me and my Hittites 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 Hittites 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 friendship 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 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 canals, 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.