McAndrews was a big man, two inches over six feet, and at thirty biological years still in the shape he'd had as a running back at the Coast Guard Academy before the Event; broad-shouldered, with thick muscular arms, flat stomach, and long legs. That showed to advantage, since he was wearing a simple knee-length linen military wraparound kilt, vividly white against his natural dark-brown skin and cinched by a heavy belt.

By a stroke of luck, the Egyptians were among the peoples here who admired a trim figure, at least in a soldier; other men of substance were expected to have a substantial belly.

He'd shaved his head as well-fairly common, though compulsory only for priests-and wore a sphinx-type linen khat-headdress and high-strapped sandals with silver studs. On his upper arms were snake-shaped gold bracelets; on his chest the Gold of Valor, Egypt's equivalent of the Medal of Honor and rather more, a massive thing, rows of gold disks strung into necklaces and a spray of gold braids and flowers across his broad chest.

No sword at the belt, of course, not in Pharaoh's presence here in the capital of Pi-Ramses. He raised his eyes to Ramses's face, feeling again the echo of the shock he'd undergone that first time.

All right, Pharaoh is not a brother, he admitted.

Today the ruler wore-informally, as a mark of honor, and probably because the daily morning meetings with the vizier were just too frequent for the full treatment-his own short hair with no wig, under a cloth-of-gold skullcap. That hair was a grizzled dark auburn-brown, in this the thirty-ninth year of his reign and sixtieth of his life; Pharaoh's eyes were hazel, his chin knobby, his nose a scimitar beak… and all in all he reminded McAndrews of a guy who'd run a really good Italian restaurant in Memphis.

That's Memphis, Tennessee, not the place up the Nile…

Although Mario DeCiccio hadn't used kohl eyeshadow or rouge on his cheeks, or gold and carnelian earrings, or a broad collar of lapis and silver…

He fought down a brief, bitter stab of homesickness. All right, most Egyptians aren't brothers. Not until well north of Thebes; skin color darkened to a rye-toast-brown like McAndrews's in Upper Egypt just before you got to Elephantine-Aswan, where the first rapids interrupted the Nile.

In the stretch upstream of the First Cataract lived the Nubians, who were unambiguously black, blacker than McAndrews, and so were Kushites south of them-but those were exploited colonies of the Egyptian kingdom, held down by forts and garrisons. Power here lay in the lower Nile valley. Ramses was only the second of his line to be born Pharaoh; his grandfather had been a lucky soldier, and his family were pretty typical of the northeastern Delta area.

Pharaoh flashed him a smile. "Still no pain, Mek-Andrus!" he exclaimed, flicking a finger against one of his teeth. "For the first time in twenty inundations, no pain!"

"Pharaoh is generous," McAndrews said. "Generous beyond my worth."

And the second part of that is a lie, mutha', he thought at the official beside him, who was radiating wholehearted agreement with the polite falsehood.

"I eat like a young man again," Pharaoh said happily, as a man might who'd had abscesses and eight teeth worn down to the nerve pulp. "I tear at meat like a lion!"

That had been another shock. He just hadn't expected these people to be so fucking backward about something so simple. Egyptians had what passed for advanced medical skills in this era; their doctors were much in demand, or had been before the rise of Great Achaea. What they didn't have was the slightest knowledge of dentistry. Plus their bread was full of grit.

A dentist trained by Walker's man, some bridgework and caps, ether to make it painless…

That was the smartest thing I ever did, the black man thought. It had won him the gratitude of Pharaoh, and a dozen other great men. Maybe it makes up for being stupid enough to let Walker con me in the first place.

Pharaoh leaned back on his throne. It was supported on either side by golden lions, and the back was a great golden falcon with lapis eyes, whose wings were raised protectively over User-Ma'at-Ra. The wall behind him had a mud-brick core-all secular buildings here did, stone was for tombs, temples, and the Gods. But every inch of its two-story height was covered in tilework, whose glazing shimmered like thin-sliced sapphires and rubies and emeralds in the light that streamed from the small high clerestory windows.

So were the flanking walls; the huge faience murals showed one of Ramses's favorite stories, his victory at Kadesh more than thirty years before. Bow drawn to his ear, bedizened stallions prancing before his chariot, the Pharaoh charged to victory over tumbled, fleeing Hittites. It was all busy and gaudy beyond words, like a fifties Hollywood Technicolor costume drama, and about as truthful.

Our Son of Ra got his semi-divine ass kicked at Kadesh, McAndrews knew; the city was still part of the Hittite Empire and Ramses had barely gotten out alive. You didn't mention it, if you wanted to remain healthy.

And God-my mother's God, not the God-damned things with goat's heads here-but I am so sick of living in places where I could be taken out and killed on one man's whim.

"So," Ramses went on cheerfully. "The reports speak well of your armory."

"Truly Pharaoh sees with the eye of Horus," McAndrews said. "The iron furnaces, the waterwheels, the rolling and slitting mill and boring machines, all the things necessary to equip the armies of Pharaoh with rifles continue. Ships are building in Thebes as fast as timber can be procured and shipwrights trained in the new methods. The cannon-foundry here in your city of Pi-Ramses makes more of the great guns, and will make still more if the bronze can be found."

He cast a sidelong glance at the vizier, whose responsibility it was to find the metal.

The bureaucrat coughed discreetly. "Perhaps it would be better if the powder mill and gunshops could also be transferred here," he said. "To have them so far south out of the way, near a turbulent frontier province like Kush…"

McAndrews shrugged. "Then they would not work, eminent Vizier," he said. "They need fast-flowing water to turn the wheels. The First Cataract is the nearest place with such rapids. And the iron ore is there, too."

Pharaoh leaned forward. "And the training of men to fire the rifles! How goes that?"

"Chosen of Ra, I have been working closely with Djehuty of the Brigade of Seth, and with your son the Great General of the Armies. We now have a battalion trained every month."

Ramses nodded. "It seems so swift…"

"Favored of Amun, a rifle not only strikes faster and harder than a bow, it is much easier to learn."

Good archers had to be virtually born at it; any peasant pulled from the plow could learn a musket in a couple of months.

"Already we have employed both the rifles and the cannon against your enemies to the southward."

Pharaoh nodded: "We have seen the reports of the damage wrought. They are all your first demonstrations led me to believe."

His fist descended slowly on his knee. "Kashtiliash in Babylon and Tudhaliyas in Hattusas have both sent to me, and this upstart from nowhere Jared Cofflin, they have all sent insolent insults, demanding that I give up your person, Mek-Andrus. To so demand you is to demand that Egypt have none of the new weapons! The weapons Kashtiliash used to conquer the Assyrians and Elamites, and which the King of Men has used to spread his power over the Sea Kingdoms. Do they think me a fool? Do they think I will leave the Two Lands bound, naked and helpless?"

That didn't seem to call for any comment. Then Ramses went on: "But now I can meet all of them on equal terms."