“The First Cataract is a long way off. The second even farther!”
“We know,” Tuthmosis answered, although I wasn’t sure he did know.
The man stared back. “Where are you from?”
“A village downriver—”
“Tuthmosis is the king’s son,” I interrupted. If this man was truly a Medjay, for our own protection, it might be well to tell him we were powerful. Then I bit my lip as I caught Tuthmosis’s scowl.
The man turned and looked me up and down with the dark eye of someone used to assessing goods to trade. Then he leaned back on his camel and laughed. But it was a laugh without any mirth. “A king’s son in peasant dress. And now you’ll tell me you’re the king’s daughter!”
Tuthmosis broke in. “My sister’s confused. We’ve been traveling a long while. The heat of the sun has touched her. We’re peasants.”
“What are peasants doing so far from their village? Have you broken the law? Are you fleeing?”
“We told you—we’re going farther up the river,” Tuthmosis answered.
“To what purpose?”
Tuthmosis was silent.
The man narrowed his eyes as he looked at me and then turned to the men. “Perhaps the girl speaks the truth. Perhaps they’re not peasants.” The other men looked on with hard, expressionless faces. “We’ll take them. We could sell them. The pharaoh’s son would fetch a good price. And the pharaoh’s daughter—”
“No . . . no!” I interrupted. “My brother is right. I’m confused. I’m certainly not the pharaoh’s daughter.”
He turned back to me and spoke slowly as if explaining to a child. “I know that.” He held my eyes. “Because a new pharaoh, Amenhotep, has been elected. He’s just a boy. He has no daughter!”
“The new pharaoh?” I stared back at the man. How could he know this already? How had he heard the news on the edge of the desert so far from Thebes? What else did he know?
He smiled as he saw my surprise. “We have spies. Perhaps there’s more money to be made by selling both of you back to the authorities.” He looked between us with an eyebrow raised as if he expected an answer. “Perhaps to the high priests of Thebes? I hear they’re keen to find a certain boy and girl who’ve escaped.”
Without warning he reached down swiftly and yanked me up onto his camel and swung me across the animal’s back in front of him. And even though I squirmed and fought and tried to pull away, he clutched me and held me tightly against his chest to prevent me from slipping free. The camel protested at this extra burden and brayed like a donkey with a broken leg.
This spurred the group into action. One man beat his camel to make it kneel, then reached across and pulled Tuthmosis onto the front; another scooped up our skin blanket with the tip of his sickle sword and flung it across to Tuthmosis. Another reached down and with a few swift scything movements sliced our boat apart so that nothing was left but a heap of debris stranded on the sand.
Amid a hubbub of braying camels, the men dug their heels into their animals and urged them around. Before I could exchange more than a look with Tuthmosis, we were moving in single file up the dune, the leader in front with me held tightly against him and Tuthmosis riding somewhere behind.
As we topped the crest of the dune, I felt the roughness of the Medjay’s rags against my arms and his torn head veil whipping against my face in the wind.
Ahead there was nothing but endless desert.
He pulled off a strip of roughly woven wool from his body and handed it to me. “You’ll need this for protection against the sun and sandstorms.”
The strip felt greasy in my hands and smelled of goat. But I wrapped it around my head and face to protect me from the glare. From a peephole in the swaddle, all I saw were his sinewy arms and his grimy hands with dirt-lined nails as he held the camel reins and at the same time clutched firmly on to me.
The heat drew a suffocating stench of camel, wood smoke, and sweat from his body. But as we rode into the blinding desert, I was conscious not just of the smell of him, but of the sickle sword that kept bumping against my thigh and the bulge of the dagger that pressed hard against the small of my back.
If only I had paid heed to my father’s words. If only I had held my tongue, they might’ve believed we were peasants. Was Tuthmosis silently cursing me? I twisted and turned to try to get a glimpse of him, but the Medjay’s arms entrapped me with as much force as the jaws of a crocodile.
We rode in silence, the sun beating down.
I’d never ridden a camel before. Its gait was clumsy. I discovered in time it had three ways of walking—a stumbling short stride like the rolling of a small boat on a choppy river, a longer stride that seemed to dislocate every bone in my body, and a sudden jerky gallop that felt as frightening as instant death.
All of them were terrifying.
There was no way of knowing what distance we were covering. In the middle of the day we rested in a narrow passage of shade cast by a wind-worn outcrop of rock. The water the Medjay offered from leather skins that hung from the camels’ necks was warm and tasted of goat. I glanced across at Tuthmosis, trying to read his eyes. We were silenced by the men whenever we tried to speak.
In the middle of the afternoon, a murky cloud like a dark swarm of locusts gathered along the horizon. I peered out from beneath my swaddle. The camels became restless and the men wound their scarves tighter around their faces and turned their backs to the dark horizon.
Then a hush fell. Silent as a dead man’s heart.
A huge, solid wall of dust and sand rolled silently toward us. Then the wind began to gust. Harder and harder. As I peered out, the ragged outlines of the men seemed to be unfurling—their clothes, the torn head veils, the edges of their tunics, unraveling—their shapes disappearing in the haze. Bent over their camels in the murky light, they were ghostly apparitions. I lost sight of Tuthmosis.
With a howl like a raging animal, the storm overtook us. The dust wrapped itself around us and the world turned dark. In terror I buried my head into the Medjay’s shoulder and heard him laugh deeply against my body.
Sand stung my arms and legs, my throat choked, and my eyes were blinded. Against his chest, I heard the sound of his heart close to my ear. A sound that should have been comforting but instead was terrifying. Yet I knew that had he not dug his fingers into my flesh and pinned me against him, I’d have blown away and been lost forever.
11
ANOUKHET
The storm blew itself out sometime in the night while we clung to our camels. In the midst of it I must have dozed. It was the complete silence that startled me from sleep.
The desert stretched endlessly to the horizon, as rippled as the surface of a river and completely unrecognizable. Strange shapes of rock and bone lay exposed and sand dunes stood where none had existed before.
We’d been riding for a long time when I spotted a dark green speck emerge in the middle of the blinding sand ahead. Green? The sun was surely making me delirious. But it grew larger and larger until shapes of palm trees appeared, shimmering and jumping in the haze.
Spurred on by a sense of water, the camels kicked up sand and began to gallop. The leader gripped tightly to his reins to keep his animal under control while I was jostled and juggled about, terrified I would fall under the huge, pounding leathery feet.
As we rode among tall, feathery palm trees heavy with dates and spreading acacias, children and chickens scattered on either side. Dogs barked all around. Low striped tents with sides tied up on stakes exposed shadowy, mysterious interiors.
The camels laid back their ears and brayed and raised frothing lips to show their teeth, snapping in displeasure, as the men struggled to halt them and prod them into kneeling positions.
The Medjay leader called out to some boys to unload the bags and bundles.
I felt the cool shadows wash over me. In the midst of all the noise and movement, I sat senseless, unable to move. The leader reached up and clasped me by the waist and swung me down, past t
he snarling teeth of his camel. I pulled free of him, brushed the slimy camel spit from my face with the back of my arm, and ripped the ragged goatskin scarf from my head. The leader threw back his head and laughed. Then he turned and walked toward a tent the other men had entered.
I stood there in the shade. The contrast between desert and oasis was beyond belief. We’d moved from a world of blinding, blistering heat into a cool green space, dappled and dancing with sunlight and shadow. It was like being trapped inside a glimmering piece of dark emerald stone.
Alongside some rocks, a spring of water bubbled up from beneath the sand to form a pool where women were collecting water in terra-cotta jars. Peacocks strutted among them, bringing their own glimmer of green to this already shaded space.
Peacocks? How was it possible?
Tuthmosis stood next to me. I caught his eye. We were both too exhausted to speak. People disturbed by the commotion gathered around at a distance and stared. A little boy touched my hand curiously but was scolded by his mother and shooed back to a tent. The women appeared to be discussing us. When one of them came forward with a gourd of water, I pulled it to my lips so eagerly that the water splashed and spilled onto the sand.
In the shadow of a tent, I saw a girl standing with her hand resting up against the tent pole, the other on her hip, staring straight at us. She was tall, loose-limbed, and dark-skinned. She wore a short, boyish tunic and her hair was wild and free in a tousled mass of dark curls that fell around her face, instead of the carefully twisted and plaited wigs worn in Thebes.
A woman clicked her fingers and said something to her. The girl tossed her head, turned, and went inside, then brought out some bowls on a brass tray. She walked toward us with languid indifference as if no one could hurry her, her upright stance and the way she held her body making her seem defiant. Her tunic was rough and her boots were sturdy and made of leather, held in place by straps around her ankles. Masses of silver bracelets shivered and shimmered against one another, and an array of silver rings glinted on her fingers as she held out the tray.
The bowls were piled high with ripe dates, desert honeycomb, and pomegranate seeds that glowed like garnets. There was a bowl of water for rinsing the hands, with a small piece of linen cloth next to it. Between the bowls lay a tiny spray of yellow mimosa flowers.
I crammed a piece of honeycomb into my mouth so quickly that the honey had no time to drip, and then I scooped up a handful of pomegranate seeds. The girl’s dark amber eyes, deeper than the color of the desert honey, seemed to challenge mine. She refused to look away, and it was only when I felt the pomegranate seeds bursting against my tongue that she turned toward Tuthmosis.
I glanced across at him and wondered what he thought of her. She’d brought the tray of food because she’d been commanded. But the tiny sprig of mimosa on the tray—was that her own doing?
Just then the Medjay leader strode out of the tent followed by the other men. A hawk gripped a dusty linen pad strapped to his shoulder. The bird was tied to his wrist by a plait of fiber that connected to a ring on its leg. This was a wild creature with a fierce eye and a screech that set my teeth on edge.
The man pushed the girl aside and shooed the women back. “Enough! They’re not guests!” Then he narrowed his eyes at us. “You’ve seen the desert. You know what a journey across it is like. If you venture beyond this oasis, you’ll soon be lost. If you try to escape, you’ll never make it out of here alive. It’s a brutal and savage death. Be warned!”
I glanced quickly at Tuthmosis. It was true. The Medjay had made a prison for us without stone walls. There was no way of knowing the direction to take back to the river. There were no paths across the shifting sands. The sandstorm had been treacherous. Death by thirst was a horrible way to die! To be exposed to the burning sun, without water and shelter and any hope of finding some, would be terrifying.
Tuthmosis eyed him. “What’s your plan?”
The man shrugged. “You’ll remain here until we find the right buyer. Someone who makes a good offer. Someone who wishes to return you to Thebes.”
“I thought the Medjays were against Thebes!”
“We’re against anyone who wants to take away our freedom. But there are times when it’s convenient to make friends with Thebes. She’s conquered all her enemies right now. There’re not many bargains to be made. But the high priests will be interested to know we have captured the king’s brother.”
“Tuthmosis is the true King. Not Amenhotep, his brother!” I blurted out.
The man eyed me, flint-faced and keen-eyed. “At the Festival of Sophet, it was Amenhotep and not Tuthmosis who wore the royal Atef crown.”
So he knew everything!
“If we’re not sold, what then?” Tuthmosis interrupted, without looking in my direction.
The leader appraised him with a sneer. “A lame person is not much use to us. People who are weak or old are left in the desert to die. There’s no place for weakness in an oasis in the middle of the desert.”
He turned back to me. “At least a girl can cook and fetch water.” His eyes were those of a falcon. A falcon watching its prey. I could hardly breathe.
“Tonight we’ll celebrate our safe return. The women will prepare a feast. There’ll be music.” He turned and smiled at the girl. “Anoukhet will dance for us. I command it!”
She lowered her eyelids with a brief look of loathing, then turned her head away with indifference, as if to study a bunch of dates that hung plump and orange between the fronds of a nearby palm. Just then a dog walked by with a monkey sitting on its back.
“Tss tss!” the girl hissed softly through her teeth.
The monkey turned, leaped directly onto her shoulder, and gazed around, as relaxed as if it had jumped onto a palm frond.
The girl glanced across at me. Our eyes held for a short moment before she looked away again.
Anoukhet. So that was her name. But who was she? And where did she come from—this girl who was a dancer and a tamer of monkeys, who was so fiercely indifferent but who was made to dance at the command of the leader?
12
SCORPIONS OF SEQET
When three bleating goats were brought to be slaughtered for the feast, I thought of Katep and remembered what I’d wished for the day he’d left. I’d wished my life would change! But I hadn’t dreamed it would change so much for the worse.
The throats of the three goats were quickly slit and the blood collected in bowls, and then the bodies were skinned, chopped, and added to pots boiling over a crackling fire. Women were chopping onions and garlic, grinding fragrant leaves of rosemary and crushing cumin seeds and cinnamon sticks in a mortar to flavor the stew. Others were straining fermented barley beer into large terra-cotta jars.
I was made to work alongside some girls grinding flour and preparing loaves of bread. Dogs squabbled around our feet for bits of bone and entrails. Children started a game of wrestling and laughing and throwing bits of dough among us. The girls sweat and worked and cast sidelong glances at me. Peacocks, frightened into the trees by the commotion, screeched and added their own cacophony to the day.
There was no sign of Tuthmosis. It was strange to be separated from him. Then Anoukhet appeared at my side and set to silently kneading dough beside me. Her bracelets chased back and forth along her arms as she worked. Her monkey perched in a palm tree nearby.
After a while she whispered, “He knows everything. He knows exactly who you both are—Tuthmosis and Isikara. He’ll be ruthless about selling you back to Thebes when the time comes. Your only chance is to escape!”
I stopped and stared at her in confusion while the girls around us giggled and chatted. Flour had settled on her eyelashes and powdered them white. There was a smear of dough across her cheek, but her expression was serious.
“Keep working!” she hissed. “Don’t draw attention to what I’m telling you.”
“We can never escape. It’s too dangerous. How would we go?”
“B
y camel. It’s the only way.”
“But we don’t know the desert.”
“There’s an old camel tender here. He knows his time is up. They’ll put him out in the desert soon to die. So he has every reason to leave. He’ll take us. He knows the way. He’s from Nubia.”
“Us?”
She nodded. “I’m coming with you.”
“Why?”
“This place is a nest of scorpions.” She hissed the word.
I gave her a sidelong glance.
“The Medjay are scorpions! Fast, unpredictable, poisonous! And every bit as deadly! They bury themselves in the sand and shelter under rocks, waiting to do evil. They’re the most dangerous inhabitants of this earth. Serpents of the underworld.” She drew the wedjat Eye of Horus quickly into the flour with her elbow to ward off evil. “Do you know the legend of the scorpion goddess?”
“Yes . . . Seqet. She walks with the scorpion on her head and opens throats to breathe. She allows us to live.”
“But also to die! She can paralyze throats. She’s a dangerous goddess. She protects but also punishes with her scorpion arrows. Her anger causes death. Her scorpions are vicious. The Medjay are just as vicious. Don’t be fooled by them. They strike when you least expect it. They’re a plague on this earth.”
She spit on the ground. “Naqada is the worst scorpion of all!”
“Naqada?”
“The leader. He’d kill you if it paid him more to do so. He’s ruthless. He has trained his hawk to peck out people’s eyes. If you see someone blind here, it’s because of his hawk. Naqada is as evil as Apep!”
My mouth turned dry. That was a name that should never be uttered. God of evil and destruction. God of chaos. Every day he tried to swallow the Sun. I shuddered. “I beg you . . . don’t! Don’t give the Evil One power by saying his name.”
“Like must be fought with like.”
“How?”
“Every day I make an effigy of a scorpion from beeswax. The sting of a bee against the sting of a scorpion. I leave it out in the sun on the burning sand so it will melt to nothing, in the hope that Naqada’s power will also disappear. But it doesn’t. With each new dawn, Naqada’s power is restored. So I’ve given up. The only way to overcome Naqada is to escape him! I’ve been waiting for my chance. With you and Tuthmosis and the old camel tender, we’ll manage it.”
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