Eye of the Moon

by Dianne Hofmeyr

  Tuthmosis tugged at me. “Come now, Isikara! We must hurry!”

  Suddenly I felt uneasy. Maybe my father would still come. I eyed the prince. “Can’t we wait? Just until tomorrow? The sun’s already low. The river might not be safe at night.”

  He shook his head. “We can’t risk it. You heard Ta-Miu. They’ve already announced my death. They’ll kill us if we’re found.”

  Ta-Miu nodded.

  I glanced at her. “And you? They might kill you for helping us.”

  “I’ll have to risk it.”

  “Come with us!”

  “No!” Tuthmosis glanced coldly at me. “It’s difficult enough to escape with you. But I’m duty bound because of what your father did for me. Three of us would be impossible.”

  So I was a burden! For a brief moment we stood eyeing each other.

  Ta-Miu broke the tension. She reached up to Tuthmosis and put a small, delicate hand on his arm. “Go carefully!” she whispered. I saw her slip something to him from her girdle bag. I noticed the small tattoo on her left shoulder. It was the outline of a cat.

  We went quickly down the pathway to the causeway, our footsteps slapping against the stone and echoing in the stillness as we ran.

  A tall figure loomed up out of the shadows. “Oy! Stop!”

  It was a guard so drunk, he could hardly stand. He came very close and peered into our faces. I smelled fumes of palm wine on his breath. “Where are you going?”

  My heart stood still. Tuthmosis had not yet put on his disguise. He’d be recognized. But before we could say anything, the man’s legs gave way beneath him. He fell into a stupor at our feet and we skirted quickly past him.

  We found the reed boat as Ta-Miu had said and pushed off silently from the bank. The sun was already dropping behind the Theban mountains. I felt my own heart sinking too. Hidden in the mauve shadows beneath the cliffs were the bodies of Tuthmosis’s parents—King Amenhotep lying in his red sarcophagus waiting to journey to the afterlife, and Queen Tiy waiting for the Opening of the Mouth ceremony.

  And my own father? Was he there too? In one of the passageways, finding his way toward us? I prayed with all my heart that it was so.

  I looked back at Tuthmosis. “How far will we go tonight?” I whispered.

  “Beyond the outer city of Thebes. We’ll be going against the current, but the wind blowing upstream will be in our favor.”

  Beyond the outer city! It was a frightening thought. The farthest I’d ever gone was across the Great River to the western bank. Now I thought of Katep. Like him, I was traveling farther and farther away from everything I’d ever known. It wouldn’t do me any good to look back. But how could I look forward? What lay ahead was too unknown. The thought numbed me into silence and made the paddles feel like stones in my hands.

  The breeze had died. In the slow silver light, the only sound came from the flap of the sail and the swish of our paddles as we urged the boat forward against the smooth-running current. Now and again, the stillness was broken by the splash of a whiskered catfish as it broke the surface to catch a water fly, or the fluster of wings as a surprised heron flew up from the reeds.

  A sudden beat of oars behind us made my heart leap. Not a single oar but many. In the purple dusk, I saw a dark red sail and the huge bulk of Dazzling Aten, its sharp prow slicing through the water, bearing down on us.

  8

  WOSRET

  They’re after us! They know we’ve escaped. Ta-Miu must have told them!”

  “Impossible! Ta-Miu would never reveal our secret.”

  “Then why are we being followed?”

  “Someone must have spotted us.”

  “Paddle faster!”

  “We can’t out-row them! They’ve twenty oarsmen and a captain who knows no mercy.”

  “Stop rowing, then!”

  “One moment you say paddle faster, the next you say stop rowing. Which do you want?”

  I grabbed the second wig. I already had mine on. “Put this on! Pull the tunic over your head. Quick! You have to be a girl now! It’s our only hope. They’re looking for a prince and a girl. Not two sisters. Don’t speak! Don’t let them hear your voice. I’ll answer for both of us.”

  The barge was gaining on us. While Tuthmosis arranged his wig and clothing, I paddled closer to the reeds. If we were lucky, they’d pass without seeing us hidden among the papyrus. I turned to inspect the prince. He made a handsome peasant girl. His eyes challenged me to keep silent.

  I bit my lip to stop myself from giggling. “Wrap something around your forehead so your eyes don’t show,” is all I said.

  Now the barge was so close, its sails blocked the last light of the sky. With a shudder I saw Wosret sitting under the canopy. Two slaves held flaming torches on either side of him. It had to be serious for him to travel by night. The captain stood in the prow, holding a torch to light the way so the barge would not run into logs and floating papyrus and debris being swept down the river.

  We sat quietly, our paddles clenched, holding our breath. For a moment I thought they might pass, but the captain’s hand went up. “Hold your oars!” he shouted back to the men, and pointed. “There’s something out there! Among the papyrus alongside the bank.”

  With a sudden swish, all oars came up. The barge glided silently toward us. The captain leaned forward in the prow. His large chest gleamed in the torchlight, and his fiery red hair teased out and lost its edge as it sprouted and tangled with his beard and made a huge lion’s mane around his sweaty face.

  “Who are you?” His voice boomed over the silent water like thunder.

  “Two peasant girls, sir. Come from the Sophet Festival.” I did my best to put on a rough peasant accent and kept my head bowed to appear like a humble farm girl. I prayed Wosret would not come up to the prow as well. We were low in the water. From where he was seated under the canopy, his view of us wasn’t good.

  The captain waved his torch above us. “What are you doing out on the river at dusk? Are you not frightened of crocodiles?”

  “Crocodiles don’t scare us, sir!”

  “Well, they should, you foolish girl! Why are you returning so late?”

  “We’ve come from the Sophet Festival, sir.”

  “Yes,” he answered testily. “You’ve said that!”

  “Our dog has died. She was trampled underfoot in the crush at the festival. We’re here to offer her as a sacrifice to the great god Sobek. As you know, sir, it is said that whoever is devoured by the crocodile god, Sobek, is possessed forever by divinity!”

  There was a snigger from one of the oarsmen. “A divine dog!”

  “Well spoken of the great god Sobek! How is it that you know so much of him?” The torchlight flickered across his coarse features and wild mane as he waited for my reply.

  I bit my lip. I was always saying too much. Speaking too freely. Why couldn’t I hold my tongue?

  “Captain!” Wosret called out impatiently from beneath the canopy. “Enough of this time wasting! Hurry with your questioning. Make sure they are who they say they are. Then let’s be on our way.”

  “Yes, sir.” The captain nodded as he peered across the water. “So where’s your dog?”

  I hesitated. Tuthmosis crouched forward and whispered under his breath. “Tell him we’ve already thrown it overboard!”

  “The dog is here, sir!”

  “Idiot! What’ll you do now?” Tuthmosis asked.

  The captain held the torch high. A path of gold rippled across to us. “What are you whispering about? Where is the dog?”

  I grabbed a skin Ta-Miu had given us, snapped the cord that bound it, and gathered it up in my arms, holding it as if it had a dog’s weight of muscle and bone. “Here, sir!”

  “Well, girl—offer it to Sobek, then! Throw it in!”

  “Yes, sir! But I don’t know the proper incantations.”

  “Say what you want. Just get on with it!”

  “To the great god Sobek. May he not crush two humble peasa
nt girls between his mighty teeth. May he arise from the water and take our offering that we most humbly and earnestly—”

  “Enough! Enough! Sobek has heard you! So have we all! Cast your dog before him now, without further preamble or speech making!”

  I hurled the skin bundle into the water on the side closest to the reeds and watched the water take it, praying it wouldn’t spread out and float toward their boat into the path of the torchlight. For a moment it seemed to catch the current but then was trapped by a clump of reed. Before they could notice anything suspicious, I picked up my paddle and whacked it down hard and then called back to the captain. “It wouldn’t do for a dead dog to drift alongside the royal barge, sir!”

  Suddenly Wosret appeared in the prow alongside the captain.

  “Who is this girl? How does she know this is the royal barge?”

  “I can . . .” I bit my lip. I had almost said read! But no peasant girl would be able to read. “I can see by the red sail and the handsome decoration, it has to be a boat of some importance!”

  Wosret leaned over the railings. He stood twisting his ring and staring at us across the water in silence. I held my breath and kept my head bowed. Next to me so did Tuthmosis.

  Then Wosret pointed at him. “That one—your sister—she’s a silent one.”

  “She grieves, sir. The dog was her favorite pet.” I was glad the night air had turned my voice husky. With my servant’s wig and deep voice, I prayed Wosret wouldn’t recognize me—or Tuthmosis in his girl’s tunic and wig.

  “Where is your father that he allows two girls alone on the river at night?”

  “Celebrating, sir! It’s the Sophet Festival.”

  The captain nodded. “Drunk, probably! Eh?”

  “Maybe so. There’s a new king to be celebrated, sir.” I kept my eye on Wosret while I spoke.

  “That we know, girl!”

  I nodded but kept silent.

  The captain held the lamp a little higher and then turned to Wosret. “Should we take them on board?”

  Wosret shook his head impatiently. “We’re wasting time. Just find out what they know.”

  The captain nodded and called down. “We’re on the lookout for two traitors. A prince and a young girl. Have you seen them come this way?”

  “If we’d seen a prince, sir, we’d have followed him. We’re poor peasant girls, sir. A prince would have done us well.”

  “Well, watch out for one. Be sure to report to an official if you come across a prince who limps.”

  “A prince with a limp, did you say? It wouldn’t be Crown Prince Tuthmosis, sir?”

  Behind me, I heard Tuthmosis’s sharp gasp.

  The captain shook his head. “What foolish girls you are, eh? Tuthmosis is dead! How else would his brother, Amenhotep, be king? It’s another prince we search for.”

  Wosret snapped his fingers at the captain. In the flare of the lamps I saw his garnet ring clinging to his hand like a bubble of blood. “Let’s waste no more time! Darkness is descending. Row on! They can’t have gotten far!”

  We sat in silence after they passed, until their wake stopped washing against us and our boat finally stopped rocking. The night grew dark around us.

  Finally Tuthmosis let out a deep sigh as if he had been holding his breath. “That was stupid, Isikara.”

  I found I was shivering. “I hate him! I loathe Wosret!”

  “But you didn’t have to taunt him.”

  “I wanted him to feel guilty.”

  “A man like Wosret never feels guilt.”

  “I had to say something. He’s killed my father! He’s made him drink the poison cup.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “I do know! My father would’ve followed otherwise. Why else hasn’t he? And why else would Wosret be out on the river looking for us at night? They’ve discovered my father replaced you. You heard Wosret! They can’t have gotten far. . . . He knows! He’s after us! And he’s killed my father!”

  “But you didn’t have to pretend to throw the dog into the river! Now we’ve lost our blanket!”

  “What?” I gasped. “You brute! What do blankets matter when I’ve lost my father? There were two in the bundle.” I hurled another skin into his lap.

  We stared at each other unflinchingly. Then he turned abruptly and reached into the woven basket. He plucked out a flask of sweet fig wine, pulled the stopper with a sharp plop, and drank some. He held it out to me. “Have some of this. You’re not yourself and neither am I. Remember”—his voice dropped lower—“I’ve also lost a parent.”

  I eyed him angrily. “It’s not the same for you!”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re a prince!”

  “Do princes not have feelings?”

  I glared straight back at him. How could he of all people know how I truly felt? I wanted to thump my fists against his chest. Instead I snatched the flask from him, took a quick gulp, and almost choked at its strength.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me! It’s you who’s strange!” I snapped as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I’m fine!” But suddenly I felt my stomach heave, and before I could help myself, I was spewing over the side of the boat.

  “Isikara?” He put a hand on my shoulder.

  I shrugged him off. “I’m fine!”

  “But . . . ?”

  “Leave me alone.” I bent over the side of the boat and spewed into the water again. “I’m just . . . just angry and . . .”

  “And what?”

  “And . . . perhaps scared . . . ?”

  He sat back in the boat and began to laugh.

  I looked back at him. “What? Curse you, Tuthmosis! At a time like this, you laugh? You really are a brute.”

  “Sorry. But I never thought I’d hear you admit that.”

  “What?”

  “Being scared.”

  “And I thought I’d never hear you say sorry!” I snapped back at him.

  “We could’ve been killed by them. No one would’ve known. Our bodies thrown to the crocodiles in the darkness. We’d have disappeared forever!”

  “So?” I eyed him.

  He was looking at me strangely. “But it didn’t happen, did it?”

  I shook my head.

  “It didn’t—because of you. You managed to bluff Wosret! Have you seen the ring he wears? When I was a boy, he used to tell me that with that ring he had power over everything on earth. He could make things happen. Anything he wanted. And I believed him. But you outwitted him. We should drink a toast! We’ve seen the last of him. The last—until I’ve gathered my army against him.”

  “We’ll never see the last of him!” The bile rose up in my throat again.

  Tuthmosis reached out and shook my shoulder. “Don’t say that. What lies ahead will be different. But we’ll live the days as they come. My father’s kingdom stretches as far as the Second Cataract of the Great River. Beyond that, in the land of Nubia, we’ll be free of Wosret. I’ll gather an army to fight him. To fight for my crown.”

  I looked back at him and willed myself to believe in what he said.

  We pulled the boat up among the papyrus reeds and spread the skin blanket on top of some grass that lay flattened beneath a grove of palm trees. We took out the dates and millet cake and slices of roast fowl Ta-Miu had packed.

  A smell of wood smoke and sounds of drums and rowdy voices drifted back to us from Thebes as we ate. I stood and scooped up some smooth flat pebbles, walked to the water’s edge, and flicked them angrily one after another across the water. If Wosret had been there, I’d have liked one to have found his heart.

  The stones skimmed the surface and jumped along like agitated flying fish. Even Katep would have been impressed with my skill. But if Katep had been here, I might not have been in this mess.

  Eventually, even the frogs fell silent and darkness came down like a star-spangled cloak. Tuthmosis pulled the skin over us and soon he was breathing deeply. I lay an
d felt for the knots on my bracelet, praying to Hathor for protection. Then I asked for forgiveness as well for twice calling Tuthmosis a brute.

  I must have fallen asleep, because later something woke me. There was a swish of grass and someone treading softly but firmly. A huge, dark shape appeared in the long grass. Then I heard a snuffle, the sound of grass being pulled and snapped, and a deep rumble of guts. There was a foul smell.

  It wasn’t a person. It was a hippopotamus! And it was very close. I knew these animals came out of the river at night to feed. We were lying right in its path. I could hardly breathe as I nudged Tuthmosis.

  “Tuthmosis!” I whispered close to his ear.

  “Wh-what?” He turned over grumpily.

  “Shh!”

  There was silence as the hippopotamus stopped eating. I imagined its ears swiveling and twitching around to catch the sound of us. One snap of those huge jaws, and we’d be done for!

  But the sound of grass being pulled and snapped started up again.

  “There’s a hippopotamus. Next to us.”

  “Lie still,” he whispered back. “They have poor eyesight.”

  I lay rigid with my arms stiffly at my sides, too terrified even to breathe, and prayed the grass farther down toward the river was sweeter tasting than the grass we were lying on.

  “Tuthmosis . . . ?” I whispered later when I sensed the beast had moved farther away. There was no reply, except the sound of even breathing.

  All thought of sleep had gone. I lay with my eyes wide open and watched the moon come up—fuller now than the fine thread I’d seen on the morning that was supposed to have marked the ritual of crocodile bathing at the Temple of Sobek. I’d lost track of the days. But one thing I was sure of—Tuthmosis was not going to be the best of protectors.

  I felt for my moonstone amulet and prayed to Hathor again—this time to ward off evils, not just for my sake, but for Tuthmosis’s sake as well.

  Then I searched the sky to find the stars that outlined Sah, the hunter with his bow and arrow. Katep’s constellation. I willed Katep to be searching the stars as well. To be looking up from the desert in Sinai and to be thinking of me. I thought of my father’s words: If you’ve learned the constellations and the stars, then wherever you are in the world, you’ll never be lost.