On a Balcony Read Online Free

and certainly nothing to inspire awe. An ibis stalked gravely through the water. No doubt these trips were only a search for novelty. There was an interest in the past these days, for people in their desperate search for that commodity are doomed from the start by their accompanying hostility towards anything new. Even Pharaoh, now he could no longer hunt, took a mild interest in the antique. The prince’s interest was of that sort, and nothing more.
    Amidships someone had lit a cook-fire. Horemheb stood up and stretched. His body badly needed exercise . Perhaps today, while Ay and the prince grubbed about some temple precinct, he could go into the rushes with a bow and arrow and a cat and flush game. This high up, the Nile was well stocked with game.
    But that was not to be. The curtains of the royal compartment parted and Ay appeared, stepping fastidiously over the still sleeping attendants, rather like that ibis through the reeds. He made his way towards Horemheb. They were to turn back for Thebes, he said. He said nothing about the scene the night before. Horemheb did.
    Ay shrugged. “It is nothing to be taken seriously. He is only a boy.”
    “He is twenty-three.”
    “Age has nothing to do with the matter, and besides, among princes trusted advisors are an excellent substitute for intelligence,” said Ay, and thus betrayed his only ambition, before he had the time to turn away.
    Horemheb gave the orders. By the time the prince was up, they were already in midstream, with the current taking over from the oars and sail. The temple and its peristaltic gorge vanished behind them, and Horemheb could not say he was sorry.
    The voyage back would be faster. They might even be able to stop from time to time, to hunt. But they did not stop to hunt. As though he had been to consult an oracle about pressing affairs and had received a favourable answer, the prince was anxious to get home.
    Nor was he friendly or talkative, as people with Horemheb usually were.
    Horemheb was puzzled by that. The prince did not make friends. They were the same age, and had been flung together for years. Yet the prince was evasive. The prince kept very much to himself. It was almost as though he felt a slight contempt for what previously hehad admired, such as the skill with which Horemheb could shoot a duck, as though he had at last found some way to prove himself superior that now made Horemheb the child, not him.
    It was worse than infuriating. It was mysterious.
    On the morning they were to reach Thebes he saw Ay, as usual clean-shaven, fastidious, and very far away, coming to speak to him again. His thin loincloth flapped at his waist, and it had to be admitted that for a man of sixty, Ay had a tight, wiry body fit to endure anything. He was the opposite of soft, and therefore Horemheb treated him with respect. Together they scanned the shore.
    “What will you say to the Queen?” asked Ay. “About the prince, I mean.”
    “That Royal Father Ay has interested him in archaeology. I suppose it is better for him to be interested in something.”
    Ay smiled wryly. “So I thought. Unfortunately it hasn’t turned out quite that way. That was a temple to Ra, where we stopped. The prince has discovered he is descended from Ra. The priests of Amon are not apt to like it. Of course he is quite right, Ra is the older god, but since Amon is the stronger, we can only hope he does not insist.” He hesitated. “In other words, he has taken to theology. A rather wilful, self-centred theology, but still, theology. It could be an advantage.”
    Horemheb stared at him. And then he saw that, of course, it could be. The army and the priests of Thebes were always in competition with each other, and in that game Pharaoh was the chief taw.
    “It could also be dangerous,” he said.
    “Oh, I don’t think so. He is only playing, you know. It is only a game to him. But it is a game one might conceivably win.” And again Ay gave Horemheb a look of tacit