"Tarr,.Judith.-.Lord.Of.The.Two.Lands2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tarr Judith)

tonight? Or were you more? Were you evenЧ"

His hand stopped the name. His scowl was terrible. "I
was myself. Or am I not enough for you?"

Over the heavy black-furred hand, her eyes danced with
mirth. A gasp escaped him. His hand snapped free. She
bared her sharp white teeth. "See, my lord, I prophesy.
We've made a king tonight, you and I andЧwho knows?
A god may pass where he will. I for one shall welcome
him."

"Raving madwoman." His body was reviving. He rose
above her. "We'll see if I need a god to do my rutting for
me."

She smiled long and slow, and pulled him down.

Nectanebo straightened slowly. There was his answer.
There, if he read it rightly, was his king: a spark in the
womb of this woman, this wild barbarian creature who
could not but be a queen. Her king was man enough, and
strong enough, but Nectanebo was a mage, and he knew
that this man was not what he was seeking-

Barbarians. Aliens. Foreigners. Had he wrested his lands
from the Parsa, only to surrender them to the Hellenes?

He rose to his full height. He was aware as he had not
been in a long while, that even in Khemet he was not tall;

that in the world without, he was a small man. A little thin

PROLOGUE 5

brown man with a scarred and stiffened shoulder, a sug-
gestion of Ethiopia in the fullness of his lips and the
broadness of his nose, but all Egypt in the long dark eyes
made longer still with kohl. He was greater than he
looked, and stronger. He was Lord of the Great House,
master of the Two Lands. He had conquered the Parsa and
freed his people, and restored the worship of his gods.

He did not kneel as even Pharaoh should before divin-
ity. The mood was not on him. The power was in him still,
though it had begun to ebb. "Why?" he demanded of the
air.

It whispered, but it spoke no word that he could under-
stand.