The Women and the Boatman

by Mark Gajewski

  “For what?” Abar snapped, still focused on Rawer.

  “For how he’s treating you. You don’t deserve it. Not when you’re promised to him.”

  One of the girls squealed.

  Abar snorted. “As if he cares.” Suddenly she wrapped her fingers around my bicep. “We’re going to make him. Come with me,” she ordered.

  I thrilled to her touch. Abar practically jerked me towards Rawer and the girls.

  He spotted us, half–rose to his feet. “What the…”

  Abar ignored Rawer, smiled up at me beatifically – the top of her head barely reached my shoulder – veered to the right and swept by him into the shadows beyond the firelight.

  “Abar and a commoner! Who thought we’d ever see that?” Herneith exclaimed behind us.

  “Not just any commoner. You wish it was you with Nykara, don’t you, Herneith?” Semat accused.

  “He’s just an errand boy,” Rawer said disparagingly. “All brawn and no brains.”

  “But what brawn,” Neith said dreamily.

  I was mortified. I felt my face grow hot.

  Abar let go of my arm. Unsure what to do, I followed her to a nearby cluster of palm trees, out of earshot of Rawer. Then I stopped, assuming I’d played my part in whatever it was she’d been trying to do.

  “Come on!” Abar snapped, not slowing down, looking over her shoulder at me. “I’m not done with you yet.” She stalked ahead of me angrily almost to the riverbank, then suddenly halted in a patch of moonlight and faced me. “I hate Rawer!” she stormed. “He does this all the time! Sometimes I want to kill him!” Her fury was palpable. She started pacing back and forth.

  I didn’t know whether to speak or remain silent. What did Abar want with me? I took a deep breath. “Most boys in Nekhen would give everything they have to be Rawer,” I said cautiously.

  “Is that supposed to be comforting?” Abar snarled, stepping close, looking up at me, her eyes blazing. “Why do you boys always have to fawn over me?”

  I took a step backwards. “I’m sorry. I feel bad for you.” I should have kept my mouth shut. How had I gotten in the middle of her dispute with Rawer? “I’ll go now.” I sensed that was the safest thing for me to do.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Abar said crisply. “Rawer will come looking for me. I want him to find me with you. That’ll drive him crazy. He hates you with a passion. Take me someplace he’ll see us for sure.”

  I’d never have guessed Abar was so manipulative. But, then, I didn’t actually know anything about her. Rawer would make me pay for my involvement in her machinations tonight. But she wasn’t giving me an option. Resignedly, I led her a few paces to a medium–sized reed vessel tied up in the middle of Aby’s fleet. “My father crewed this one,” I said. “He used to bring Mother and me here first thing every time he returned from a journey.”

  Abar looked at the boat, then me. “Don’t just stand there – help me aboard.”

  I put my hands under her knees and back and lifted her over the side and set her feet on the deck. She was incredibly light.

  “You too,” she ordered, looking down at me.

  I pulled myself onto the vessel, a few feet away from where Abar was sitting cross–legged, her back against the side of the boat. I perched atop a low reed container a few feet away, but not until she invited me. Abar had always seemed unreal to me, distant, beyond my reach. That I was in her presence for the second time today, even under these circumstances, was amazing. And frightening. I was tongue–tied. That never happened to me around girls. But what was I supposed to say to an elite like Abar that wouldn’t make me sound like a complete idiot? As I already had twice tonight.

  The boat gently rocked with the current. The moon was full and every detail of the boat and riverbank and island in the channel was clear. As was Abar. Aby’s fire was a distant flicker, mostly obscured by a line of palms along the riverbank casting dark shadows, their fronds clacking in the gentle breeze. The fires before the huts of Aby’s workers, and farmers up and down the river on both sides, glowed like distant fireflies. I gazed towards the channel. The moon path shimmered on the water. The night was alive with sounds – insects buzzing, birds chittering, splashes from leaping fish, the river lapping against the boat. I closed my eyes, breathed deeply of mud and reeds and lilies, remembered all the nights I’d sat on this very boat with Father and Mother, listening raptly to his tales about his travels with Aby and Shery. How I wished he was with me right now.

  I glanced at Abar. She was scanning the shore angrily, impatient for Rawer to appear, ready to wreak vengeance on him. “He’s certainly taking his sweet time,” she muttered, almost to herself.

  I couldn’t imagine how she was feeling right now. For Rawer to disrespect her so flagrantly was appalling. It must be awful for her, knowing she’d eventually be joined to him and they’d spend the rest of their lives together. Maybe Rawer would change once he was older, take his responsibilities towards her more seriously. I hoped so, for her sake.

  “I’m truly sorry for your loss,” Abar said after a long while.

  Thank the gods. Common ground. Shared misery. “I’m sorry for yours, too.”

  “I loved Uncle Shery. To see the barbarians who killed him get justice... I wish your father hadn’t died avenging him, though. I’m glad their murderers paid the price.”

  “So am I. I wish I could have swung the mace myself, though,” I said fervently.

  “That makes two of us.” She scanned the shore again, then turned towards me. “I’m Abar, by the way.”

  “Everyone in Nekhen knows who you are,” I said.

  “You too, Nykara. I’ve watched you compete against Rawer at festivals. Along with my so–called friends.”

  She was referring to Rawer’s companions. My face grew hot again, recalling their comments.

  “You should hear him curse when you beat him,” she said with some satisfaction.

  “Oh, I have. So many times.”

  That broke the tension a bit. Abar giggled. “Your father was one of Grandfather’s boatmen?”

  I couldn’t believe she was actually engaging me in conversation. I supposed she wanted to fill the silence, keep from getting bored while she waited for Rawer to appear. Or, maybe she wanted Rawer to catch her acting with me the way the elite girls had been acting with him. “My grandfather, too. I’ve worked in the boatyard since I was four years old.”

  “Doing what?”

  “At first I ran errands and harvested reeds and carried supplies from the storage hut to the workers. The last few years I’ve tied together the bundles of reeds we use to construct Aby’s boats and fishermen’s punts.” I held up my hands. “I have the most nimble fingers in the boatyard. Thankfully, your grandfather’s going to let me continue working for him now that Father is... He’s even taking Mother and me into his hut. She’s going to run his household.”

  “You expect to spend the rest of your life working in Grandfather’s boatyard?”

  “To tell the truth, no. Father used to tell me stories about his trips to Nubt and Tjeni and Abu, crewing for Aby and Shery,” I said. “He even passed on tales he wasn’t sure were true – about a great delta in the far North, a magnificent sea, strange lands along the coast. Someday I want to design and build my own boat and go north and see if the tales are true.”

  “What makes you think you can design a boat?” Abar challenged. “Even Uncle Shery couldn’t. Grandfather claims he’s the only boatman in Nekhen with the skill to create a vessel more complicated than a fisherman’s punt.”

  “I shouldn’t aspire to anything important because I’m a commoner? Is that what you think?” I queried.

  “And untrained. And a boy.”

  “I’ve been making model boats as long as I can remember and setting them adrift on the river afterwards.”

  “A model’s not a real boat.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “You think you can gain wealth enough to finance creation of a real boat,
and support and lead a crew on an expedition into the unknown? Working as a common laborer in Grandfather’s boatyard?” Abar scoffed.

  “What would you do in my place? Focus on the obstacles and give up without even trying? Or do whatever you must to make your dream live?”

  Abar half–smiled. “Well, Dreamer, if you ever build your boat, I assure you the stories about the North are true. The sea even has a name – Wadjet Wer, the Great Green.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because one of my ancestors saw it with his own eyes. His name was Ankhmare. He was the first in my family to settle at Nekhen. Grandfather tells Ankhmare’s story often. I sit with him beside his fire most nights, learning my family’s ancient tales. I’ve memorized them all.”

  If Abar only knew how often I’d watched her from afar at that fire, her body bathed with gold by the dancing flames. She looked then exactly like I imagined a goddess would.

  “Occasionally Grandfather makes Rawer and me repeat his stories. I, at least, relate them correctly.”

  “And Rawer doesn’t?”

  “He doesn’t care one bit about the past. I do.” She stood for a moment, impatiently scanned the riverbank again, resumed her seat. “Those girls are so… so…”

  “Why doesn’t Aby put a stop to Rawer’s nonsense?” I interrupted. “He’s playing around right in front of him. Wasn’t it Aby who promised you to Rawer in the first place?”

  “Yes. But Rawer’s mother was Grandfather’s favorite daughter. Everyone says Rawer looks exactly like her.”

  “So he gets away with whatever he wants?”

  Abar nodded. Another long silence. More anxious scanning of the shoreline. I couldn’t help staring at her. She was intoxicating, her skin moonlit, eyes shadowed and mysterious, lips full, cheeks slightly dimpled. I couldn’t imagine why Rawer would choose to be with anyone else. I could have sat where I was and gazed at Abar for the rest of my life and been happy.

  “Would you like me to tell you Ankhmare’s story while we’re waiting for Rawer, in case you someday actually get to go exploring?” Abar finally asked.

  I suspected she was simply trying to fill the time. But I wasn’t about to turn down the chance to talk with her, whatever her reason. “Please.”

  “Ankhmare lived five hundred years ago, in a settlement called Badari, somewhere far to the north along the river, in the midst of three or four dozen hamlets,” Abar began. “Unlike us, his people didn’t live in the valley permanently. They planted their crops after the inundation, tended them, harvested them. When the inundation began they abandoned their homes and followed herds of oryx and gazelles and aurochs through the eastern wadis, living off them all the way to the eastern sea. Now, Ankhmare was a boatman and trader. In the months he resided at Badari he carried the goods he’d acquired during his annual sojourn in the East to the nearby hamlets on a small reed boat of his own design. One year, chasing the rumor of a rich settlement far to the south in the midst of the savannah – this was so long ago the plateaus lining the valley hadn’t yet turned to desert, but were still grasslands – he and his crew rowed his reed boat to the great cataract where Abu is located, then traveled overland for months until he reached a large playa – a lake fed by the spring rains. He found no fine settlement, just a large camp where many bands gathered annually to harvest wild grain and fatten their herds of cattle. Ankhmare traded what goods he had and set out for home.

  “A young woman lived at the playa, named Tiaa. She was a potter. In fact, she invented the black–topped pottery once so prevalent in our valley. More than that, Tiaa was the representative of the falcon god, his priestess, though that title did not come into existence until perhaps three hundred years after her death. The falcon god had revealed himself to her family hundreds of years earlier, and had even given her ancestress an amulet in his image shaped from some material no one had ever seen before.”

  “Ipu’s amulet?”

  Abar smiled. “Ipu is Tiaa’s descendant, just as I’m Ankhmare’s. Anyway, for reasons lost to time, Tiaa accompanied Ankhmare from her playa to Badari. They lived there for many years, though not as man and woman. Each of them, you see, loved someone else. At Badari Tiaa learned to make pottery in the Badarian style, which was said to be the finest ever invented. She and Ankhmare traveled widely trading her wares, as far north as a settlement called Merimda, not far from the Wadjet Wer. They even visited the sea for a few days.”

  “The boatmen say the sea is so vast you can’t see its far side,” I interjected. “They say mighty waves pound the shore, that storms are so violent they’d sink one of Aby’s boats in an instant.”

  “So say Ankhmare’s tales too,” Abar replied. “Now, as I said, Ankhmare loved a woman. Her name was Khuit. Their patriarch, Addaya, wouldn’t let them join. When Addaya died his successor, Pay, claimed Khuit for himself. So Ankhmare and Khuit fled Badari in a small boat, accompanied by Tiaa. In time they came to Nekhen, where they settled.

  “Nekhen was much smaller then. Less than a thousand people called it home. There were only a handful of what we’d call elites, and they were only a step or two removed from being patriarchs. Nekhen didn’t trade with any hamlet in the valley. Not one of the nearby hamlets was tied to Nekhen in any way. Ankhmare and Tiaa set out to change that. Ankhmare used his boat to begin carrying goods made in Nekhen’s workshops to north and south, establishing a rudimentary trade network. A man named Djaty ruled Nekhen in those days. His grandson and heir, a truly awful man named Harmose, put obstacle after obstacle in Ankhmare and Tiaa’s path as they tried to build that network and expand Nekhen’s influence in the valley. They became convinced Nekhen would never grow if Harmose became its ruler, so they identified a better man – an elite named Kairy – and quietly set out to build support for him in the surrounding valley. Tiaa also convinced Djaty that, as the representative of the falcon god, she should confirm his successor when the time came. When Djaty died, Tiaa confirmed Kairy instead of Harmose, and the patriarchs of the surrounding hamlets pledged fealty to him. That’s why, for the past five hundred years, everyone in the nearby valley has recognized Nekhen’s ruler as their own, and it’s why we’ve become the largest and mightiest settlement anywhere.”

  “What happened to Ankhmare and Tiaa?” I asked.

  “Tiaa disappeared from our family stories. Ankhmare continued to build boats and trade. You see, he became obsessed with a desire to link every settlement and hamlet in the southern section of the valley as far distant as Tjeni and Abu to Nekhen, just as he’d linked all the local hamlets to our settlement. He believed that once the entire South bowed down to Nekhen, Nekhen’s ruler would be able to move north and unify this entire valley. He devoted the rest of his life to that quest.”

  “I wish I knew about my family’s past,” I said enviously. “All I know is my ancestors were hunters before my grandfather became a boatman.”

  “It’s not just stories my family’s kept alive,” Abar said. “That trade network Ankhmare started? It fell apart after his death, abandoned by Nekhen’s rulers. For the next five hundred years they concentrated their efforts on expanding their authority in this region, not in the valley beyond. So Nekhen is less powerful than it should be if they’d carried on in Ankhmare’s footsteps. When Grandfather became our ruler he began setting that to rights.”

  “Aby revived trade specifically to pursue Ankhmare’s dream?” I guessed.

  Abar nodded. “Grandfather’s family has controlled Nekhen’s fleet for several generations. When his brother Depy became our ruler, Grandfather took over operation of the family boats. For nearly twenty years he operated the fleet locally, for Depy had no interest in the rest of the valley and wouldn’t let Grandfather trade to north or south despite his repeated pleas. That changed the day Grandfather became our ruler. He immediately took up Ankhmare’s quest. Now, at that time two brothers, my uncle and my father, controlled herds of donkeys moving all goods on land, both locally and on the trade routes traversing the
eastern and western deserts. Grandfather joined his oldest daughter, Manana, to Uncle Shery, and his youngest, Iaret, to Father.”

  “Is that why Aby named Shery his heir? Because he didn’t have any sons?”

  “Yes. He also put Uncle Shery in charge of his boats and started trading to north and south again. He and Uncle Shery traded off – whoever wasn’t on an expedition watched over Nekhen.”

  “The elites didn’t object?”

  “How could they? The joinings linked boats and donkeys in a single network that gave our combined family power enough that Grandfather was able to reignite trade in an effort to expand his authority beyond Nekhen’s borders without internal opposition. That’s because the elite families operating our settlement’s enterprises are dependent on my family to deliver the products they make and the foodstuffs that feed them and their dependents.”

  “Aby can bring an elite to his knees if he challenges him?” I asked.

  “As long as Grandfather and Father wield boats and donkeys towards the same end,” Abar replied. “Unfortunately, the blood tie between the two halves of my family designed to ensure cooperation forever was lost when both Mother and Aunt Manana died within weeks of each other.”

  “That’s why you were promised to Rawer,” I inferred.

  “Practically at birth, specifically to keep the network whole,” Abar acknowledged. “But Rawer plays around with girls constantly. Tonight isn’t an isolated circumstance. Since he doesn’t take our joining seriously it’s no wonder the elite boys don’t. They consider me a prize, Nykara.” Her voice was suddenly bitter. “You see, my situation’s unlike any other elite girl’s in Nekhen. Father doesn’t have any sons – Mother died giving birth to me and he’s never taken another woman – so someday I’ll inherit his donkey herd. Nekhen’s elite men see my inheritance as an opportunity for them to gain additional wealth and influence for themselves. Even though I won’t be a woman for another year they’re already importuning Father to join me to their sons. The son who wins me, the elites expect, will eventually operate my herd and control the wealth it generates.”