He'd almost gotten used to the lack of privacy a great man had to endure in this era. It was still a relief when he was alone in the north loggia-alone except for Miw-Sherri. She smiled and handed him a cup of pomegranate juice, a slender brown girl in a long sheath dress banded in bright colors. That and the gold necklace set off skin one shade darker than his. She was a daughter of Ramses himself, not by a Great Wife or even acknowledged concubine, of course; informally, by a harem attendant. It was still a major honor, another sign of Pharaoh's favor…

"What I hadn't expected was to actually like her," he said to himself-again in English.

He hadn't had one woman around for long since Ygwaina died in childbirth, just before they got chased out of Alba. Even now, he shuddered at that memory. Could Hong have saved her, if she'd given a damn? Walker had told him Captain Alston was raising the daughter he'd never seen-told him with that goddamn half smile, half sneer…

His son by Miw-Sherri was going on nine months now, and both were doing fine.

"My husband?" Miw-Sherri-the name meant "kitten"-said.

"Just thanking the Gods for you, Sherri," he said, and she snuggled in against him. Egyptians didn't have the Achaean taboo on public displays of affection.

"And thinking deep thoughts," she said, poking a finger into his midriff. "Forgetting that Djehuty and Takushet are coming to dinner."

He slapped his forehead and grinned at her. "I leave all that to you," he said. "Like the wise man in the tale, I 'watch and am silent, recognizing your talents.''

"Go then, go," she said, laughing. At seventeen she was young but a woman by Egyptian standards, and proud of her skill at managing a great nobleman's household.

He went, out into the private garden near the villa's chapel. There he stripped to his loincloth and took up the bokken, looking forward to burning off some of the frustration of a meeting at the palace. He'd gotten into the iajutsu habit during the years with Walker-relaxing, and healthy, and occasionally horribly useful. The household staff knew better than to disturb the master. He lost himself in the movements, patterned choreography of breath and will, until he looked up two hours later, running with sweat and chest heaving deep and slow. Something teased at his awareness-

Blank-faced, he took up Marlins's dai-katana, sliding the long steel free of the sheath and raising it in both hands, right hand over left on the long hilt.

"I'll be with you in a minute," he said, without looking over his shoulder. Then:

"Disssaaaaa!"

The blade swept down, right to left, and the shoulder and arm of the papyrus-reed man-shape before him fell in a clump, the tough springy reeds sheered clear away. Another kia, and the return sweep bisected the whole figure.

He turned. The man leaning on his spear watching him was so black that he almost vanished in the shadow of the painted wooden pillars that upbore the portico, like a statue carved in ebony; as tall as McAndrews but a little more lightly built. His kilt was the skin of lions, and a swath of the mane lay on his shoulders; his face was marked by three parallel sets of gouges on each cheek, and by a lion's steady stare from dark eyes. Raw gold circled his arms, a necklace of lion fangs and gold around his neck, and a light bronze Egyptian army-issue fighting ax was tucked into his belt.

"You speak this language?" McAndrews said in Egyptian, going through the ritual of cleaning and sheathing the blade, his hands and face steady as rock despite the hammering of his heart.

"I learn it from traders," the other man said, and nodded. Ocher-dyed braids moved, and the ostrich plumes they carried. "And to fight the Horse Masters, the men of Khem. I am Ghejo, chief among the Marazwe, whom your messenger gave safe-conduct over the border and north to this place."

Suddenly he grinned, teeth very white. "I knew that you were rich, Mek-Andrus. I had heard that you were a wizard, and believed it, from the weapons you gave the Horse Masters. I had heard also that you were a warrior… and now I believe that, too."

McAndrews nodded curtly; he had a fair collection of battle scars now. Yeah, this is a dude you wouldn't disrespect. But so am I, these days.

"You are my guest," McAndrews said, conferring semisacred status on his visitor.

He turned and dived into the tile-edged pool, swam a length, then hauled himself out. Attendants brought a towel and a fresh kilt, set out a table in the shade of the portico, loaded it with roast duck, fresh wheat bread, a salad, steamed vegetables, and a bowl of fruit. Ghejo ate the duck and bread with enthusiasm and looked at the greens as if his host were eating weeds. McAndrews hid a shudder as the Kushite smacked his lips over a jug of Egyptian beer. The stuff was brewed from a fermented mash of barley bread, and tasted like it.

"So," Ghejo said at last. "You are a warrior, a wizard, and have great wealth."

He looked around, obviously determined to be unimpressed and equally obviously awe-smitten.

"What do you wish with us poor desert dwellers?" he went on, a sardonic note in his voice.

"Because you don't build temples like the Egyptians, or write on papyrus, I don't imagine you're a fool," McAndrews said. "I'm not an Egyptian myself."

"Yes," the chief's son said, considering him. "You look more like us-and your voice is not quite a Khemite's. Tales reach us from Elephantine, at the first cataract, where you build your wizard weapons, that you are from a far, strange land. I still ask my question."

McAndrews ate a fig. "Your spear is a good weapon," he said. It was-seven feet of ironwood, with a bronze butt-spike and a long bronze head. "Have your people many like it?"

Ghejo scowled. "You know we do not," he said. "The Horse Masters take our ivory, ebony, plumes, gold dust, slaves, and give us a pittance. When we fight them, we have spears with heads of bone or stone against their bronze, and no chariots. Now we face your thunder-death-makers as well."

McAndrews nodded; with their only real trade route downstream to Egypt, the free Kushites-dwellers in what he'd known as the northern Sudan-were on the receiving end of a monopoly.

"Spearheads are made of copper and tin," McAndrews said. "Or they were, until I brought the art of iron and steel to these lands."

He clapped his hands; a guard brought a sword. It was made to a traditional Egyptian pattern, a half-moon slashing blade with a short straight section above the hilt, called a kopesh. This was blue-gray gleaming steel, though. The hilt was checked olive wood and the pommel gold and lapis. It was the blade that drew Ghejo's eyes; they lit as he took it up, tested the edge, stood to sweep it through a few practice slashes.

"A gift," McAndrews said grandly.

"A good gift!" Ghejo replied.

"The ore from which this iron is made," McAndrews said, wiping his mouth on a linen napkin and eating a fig, "is common in your land."

Ghejo's head came up with a snap like a striking snake. "Say you so?" he breathed softly.

McAndrews smiled, carefully prepared words moving behind his eyes. "I do," he said. "Isn't that interesting?"

Ghejo's eyes narrowed, and he nodded. McAndrews had picked up considerable experience with barbarians over the past ten years. Most of them weren't much moved by the prospect of being civilized; civilization meant someone like Ramses hitting you up with the bill for his palaces and wars and forty-foot gold statues. He had found that barbarians were just as enchanted as anyone else at the prospect of wealth, and their chiefs were as greedy for power as any Pharaoh. The trick would be to make any arrangement look like a good solid exchange of value-for-value, from someone their bloodthirsty code could let them respect. They were strange, but not necessarily fools.