Ben Bova: Vengeance of Orion

Or did they? I felt an icy anger grip me in its merciless clutches. Were they telling me the truth, Zeus and Hera and the others? Or was Anya the victim of a power struggle among them, the loser in a battle among the Creators? They said they did not kill one another, but the Golden One had caused Anya’s death, and perhaps none of them chose to help me bring her back.

Each night I tried to make contact with the Creators, to reach their golden-shimmering domed city somewhere in the far future of this time. But they refused me. I lay on my narrow bunk in the creaking boat and saw nothing but the reflections of the river against the low wooden ceiling, heard nothing except the drone of insects and the distant faint voice of an occasional song from the shore.

Our reception at Wast was very different from the day when Helen, Nefertu, and I had first arrived. The prince himself awaited us, with an honor guard of brightly polished soldiery that lined both sides of the stone pier from end to end. Thousands of people thronged the waterfront, drawn by the sight of Prince Aramset, young and dashing in his purple-hemmed skirt and golden pectoral.

I saw Lukka and his men, wearing Egyptian armor now, standing proudly in the first rank, nearest the prince.

And no sign of Nekoptah or any priest from his temple.

We were welcomed quite royally. Aramset walked right up to me and greeted me with both hands on my shoulders, to the tumultuous cheers of the crowd.

“The lady Helen?” I asked him, over the noise of the cheering.

Grinning, he shouted in my ear, “She has had a happy reunion with her husband, and is now allowing him to court her in the Egyptian manner — with gifts and flowers and serenades by minstrels in the evening.”

“They aren’t sleeping together?”

“Not yet.” He laughed. “She’s making him learn the ways of civilization, and I must say that he seems eager to learn — so that he can bed her.”

I had to smile to myself. In her own way Helen would cultivate Menalaos. Still, I felt more of a pang of regret than I had expected to.

Aramset greeted Hetepamon with regal solemnity, then showed us to chariots drawn by quartets of matched white stallions. Our parade moved up the streets of the capital at a stately pace; the prince was giving the crowds plenty of time to admire him. He may be young, I thought, but apparently he knows a thing or two about politics. He must have spent his few years closely observing the mechanics of power. I was impressed.

Once we reached the palace, I saw old Nefertu standing at the top of the stairs that led into its main entrance. I was glad to see him alive and safe from Nekoptah’s machinations.

We alighted from the chariots, and Aramset came to me. “I must make a fuss over the chief priest of Amon; he is a much more important personage than a mere friend, Orion.”

“I understand.”

“In three days there will be a majestic ceremony, to seal the new alliance between the Achaians and the Kingdom of the Two Lands. My father will preside, and Nekoptah will be at his side.”

“What is happening…”

“Later,” the prince said, his youthful face beaming. “I have much to tell you, but it must wait until later.”

So he went to Hetepamon while I fairly ran up the steps to greet Nefertu, realizing as I pranced toward him that it was the prospect of news about Helen that was really exciting me.

All that afternoon and well into the evening Nefertu filled me in on what had transpired during my absence. News of our peaceful success in the delta country had, of course, been flashed to Nekoptah by sun-mirror almost as soon as it had happened. He seemed furious at first, but put a good face on it for the king. He had made no overtures against Helen, realizing that his “hostage” had been turned into the prize for the alliance with Menalaos.

As the sun cast lengthening shadows across the city, we sat in my apartment, I on a soft couch covered in painted silk, Nefertu on a wooden stool where he could look past me to the terrace and the rooftops beyond.

“Nekoptah has been strangely silent and inactive,” said the silver-haired bureaucrat. “Most of the time he has remained shut up in his own quarters.”

“He won’t give up the power of this kingdom without a struggle,” I said.

“I believe the sudden emergence of Prince Aramset as a force to be reckoned with has stunned him and upset all his plans,” Nefertu said. “And for that, we have you to thank, Orion.”

“Meaning that Nekoptah blames me for it.”

He laughed — a soft chuckle, actually, was all that Nefertu would allow himself.

“And the lady Helen?” I asked.

Nefertu’s face took on that blank, expressionless look of a professional bureaucrat who wishes to reveal nothing. “She is well,” he said.

“Does she want to see me?”

Turning his eyes away from me slightly, he replied, “She has not said so.”

“Would you tell her that I wish to see her?”

He looked pained. “Orion, she is allowing her husband to woo her all over again. The husband that you sent to her.”

I got up from the couch and walked toward the terrace. He was right, I knew. Still, I wanted to see Helen one final time.

“Take my message to her,” I said to Nefertu. “Tell her that I will be leaving for good once the ceremony with the king is finished. I would like to see her one last time.”

Rising slowly from his chair, the old man said tonelessly, “I will do as you ask.”

He left, and I stayed on the terrace, watching the evening turn from sunset red to deep violet and finally to black. Lamps winked on all across the city, matched by the stars that crowded the clear dark sky.

A servant from the prince arrived with a set of packages and an invitation to supper. The packages contained new clothes: not an Egyptian-style tunic or skirt of white linen, but a leather kilt and vest similar to what I had been wearing for so many months. I laughed to myself. This outfit was handsomely tooled and worked with silver. It included a cloak of midnight blue and boots as soft as a doe’s eyes.

Aramset was becoming a true diplomat. I wondered how my stained old outfit smelled to him. Servants answered my clapping hands and prepared a bath for me. Finally, bathed, perfumed, decked in my new kilt, vest, and cloak — with my old dagger still strapped to my thigh — I was escorted to Aramset’s quarters.

We dined quietly, just the two of us, although I saw a quartet of Lukka’s men standing guard just outside the door to the prince’s chambers. Servants brought us trays of food, and the prince had them sample everything before we tasted it.

“You fear poison?” I asked him.

He shrugged carelessly. “I have surrounded the temple of Ptah with soldiers, and given them orders to keep the chief priest inside. He’s in there brooding, and hatching schemes. I have suggested to my father that Nekoptah and his brother officiate at the ceremony three days from now, the two of them together.”

“That should be interesting,” I said.

“The people will see that the priests of the two gods are as alike as peas in a pod.” Aramset smiled. “That should help to get rid of any plans Nekoptah may have about setting up Ptah above the other gods.”

I bit into a melon and thought to myself that Aramset was handling court politics rather well.

“Your father is… well?” I asked.

The prince’s youthful face clouded. “My father will never be well, Orion. His sickness is too advanced, thanks to Nekoptah. The best that I can do is to make him comfortable and allow the people to continue believing in their king.”

Aramset seemed in total control of the situation. There was nothing left for me to do here. Within three days I could take up my quest to find Anya, wherever that would take me. Still, I thought, it would be good to see Helen one more time.