The Women and the Boatman

by Mark Gajewski

  Just then Dedi and Pipi appeared in the doorway of Pipi’s house. Pipi wore a knee–length kilt, immaculately white. The carved handle of his fish–tailed knife was visible atop the leather sheath affixed at his waist. He wore a necklace of carnelian and quartz beads. His braided hair fell to his shoulders.

  Dedi bowed and bade Pipi goodbye. Pipi was one of the few men in Nekhen Dedi treated as an equal, for along with him he was one of the settlement’s elites. Dedi beckoned to Rawer and me.

  I rose with a sigh of relief. I’d finally be free of the brewery. “Goodbye,” I told Inetkawes and Wenher. I ignored Abar. As if she cared.

  “Enjoy your great adventure, Nykara,” Inetkawes said cheerily.

  “I’ll see you at the festival,” Rawer promised Abar. He winked, as if nothing had just happened between them. “We’ll slip away together after dark.”

  Abar stood up. She laughed. She wasn’t smiling. She crossed the pavilion from her corner and stopped directly in front of me. She looked up. Her head barely reached my shoulder. “What you said about Rawer chasing girls – is it true?” she asked. Her eyes were hard.

  “Yes, I’m sorry to say.” And I truly was. “Commoners now, not elites.”

  “I see.” Abar suddenly raised up on her toes, placed her hands on my shoulders, pulled my face down to hers. We were so close I could smell the lily tucked behind her ear. Then she soundly kissed me. Before I could even react she stepped back, spun around, faced Rawer. “See how it feels?” she spat.

  “You wouldn’t have to worry about other girls if you were more accommodating,” Rawer simpered. Then he glared at me.

  Someday he’d make me pay for Abar’s impetuousness. Or, rather, her act of coldly–calculated revenge. That’s what her kiss had been for. It had nothing at all to do with me. I understood that. But as long as her kiss had upset Rawer I was quite pleased. I enjoyed upsetting Rawer. Then I noticed all the brewery workers were watching. News of that kiss was going to spread. I was going to be the envy of every boy in Nekhen.

  Dedi called and Rawer and I hurried to him.

  “I’ve arranged for our crew’s beer,” Dedi told us. “Tomorrow, Nykara, you and I will visit Salitis and his herdsmen to arrange for dried meat, then go to a few farms to obtain grain and other food for our voyage. We’ll pick up jars from Teti to exchange in Abu. But for now, let’s head back to the boatyard. It’s getting hot and I want to rest in the shade.”

  We returned down the lane by which we’d come to Pipi’s. I was glad we weren’t visiting the herdsmen today. Hundreds of years earlier, Dedi’s stories recounted, the first of them had fenced the end of one of the shallow arms extending outward from the great wadi. Many cattle and sheep and goats and pigs were confined in that arm now, all belonging to Salitis. We delivered jars full of milk and blood from those animals to nearby hamlets daily, and occasionally meat and hides. But, frankly, the area stank, especially on days as hot as this.

  I strolled beside Dedi, barely aware of my surroundings. I should have been thinking about the upcoming trip, the highlight of my life, but I wasn’t. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t get Abar out of my mind. I felt like a fly, drawn in fascination to a spider’s web, hurling myself willingly into a trap. Because of that kiss. As meaningless as it had been it had affected me, more now than when it actually happened. I imagined I could still taste Abar’s lips on mine, feel sensations I’d never felt before. I replayed every moment of our encounter as Dedi and I followed the dusty lane towards the boatyard. I hadn’t changed my opinion of Abar today. She was imperious, superior, denigrating, hateful and cold. She’d manipulated me for months, used me against Rawer, then discarded me without a second thought. But even in the months we’d been fairly close I’d never truly realized the extent of her intelligence, her vision, the drive and ambition oozing from her very pores, her dignity. A man who joined with her, who ruled Nekhen at her side, would be a very lucky man indeed to have her assistance. I surely hoped it wouldn’t be Rawer. He didn’t deserve her. A rift had opened between the two of them today. But, I supposed, they’d eventually bridge it and their relationship would return to normal. And even if it didn’t, Dedi and Aboo had decided Rawer and Abar were going to be joined, and so they would be. But in the end that wasn’t my affair. At least, for a while, Abar had upset Rawer, thanks to me. What more reason did I need to celebrate?

  ***

  Our expedition set out for Abu two days later. The deck of Dedi’s boat was completely filled with the empty jars and pots of various sizes we hoped to trade, objects made by Dedi’s craftsmen, and the supplies we’d brought along to feed our nineteen oarsmen and steersman and Dedi and me. I was younger than the rest of the men, but bigger than most and strong, and so could row in unison without disrupting their rhythm. We made steady progress against the north–flowing river, aided slightly by the southerly wind blowing against the mass of palm fronds affixed in our bow. The voyage home would be much easier; we’d be able to drift most of the time with the current. The steersman stood in the stern, managing the long oar. One man sat in the bow, a pole in his hand, alertly watching and probing the water for sandbars and other obstructions.

  In the first twenty–five or so miles after leaving Nekhen we passed small farms and an occasional hamlet comprised of a handful of huts, their residents all beholden to Aboo. This stretch of river was familiar to me from making daily deliveries of milk and beer and blood. After that, for the most part the riverbanks and the plains lining them to both east and west were uninhabited – sometimes marshy, usually tangled with brush and thick undergrowth, edged with extensive patches of reeds. Water shone silver in a handful of basins back from the river, confined by natural dams left behind a few months earlier when the river subsided after the most recent inundation. The cultivable strip was never more than a mile wide and usually much less, abruptly edged with stark desert and rocky plateau. Swallows and sparrows and larks and thrushes and pigeons and doves rose from groves of acacia and sycamore and willow and tamarisk trees and reed patches as we passed. Grouse and quail flitted in the undergrowth. Scores of crocodiles sunned on the riverbanks and sandbars, and an occasional wild cat peered from a gap in the brush. Falcons and vultures and hawks rode updrafts, circling lazily high over our heads. Egrets and ibis and storks and cranes stabbed the water at the river’s edge, fishing, reflecting whitely on the river’s surface. Once or twice a fish even leapt from the water, flashing silver in the sunshine. We made camp late every afternoon, tying up along the shore. Some of the crew went hunting then, others fished in the shallows with bidents. I was among the former; I was an unerring marksman with bow and arrow and lance.

  I finished a shift of rowing and stepped carefully around the jars crammed closely together on the reed deck and seated myself in the shade of Dedi’s pavilion, dripping sweat. I quickly downed an entire jar of water.

  “The problem with reed boats,” Dedi observed, “is we can only make them so big. There’s never enough room on deck to carry as much cargo as I’d like. If we could double their size we’d be able to use half as many boats to transport foodstuffs every day from and to Nekhen, and it would take proportionally fewer men to crew them. Fewer people and families for me to support. And we could take far more trade goods north and south and make every voyage more profitable.”

  “Why don’t we make boats out of wood instead?” I asked.

  “Wood is problematic,” Dedi replied. “Most trees in the valley are short and twisted. Only a small part of each trunk is usable. It’s extraordinarily difficult and time consuming to saw those trunks into planks. Flint saws don’t cut wood cleanly. Planks turn out with jagged edges and much too thick and too heavy and of uneven sizes – it would be a waste of time to try to tie them together with rope to form a watertight boat hull – too many gaps between pieces. At best an acacia trunk yields a four–foot long plank – it’d take more than ten of them laid end to end to make a boat as long as the new one we’re assembling. And that’s if I could f
igure out a way to join the short ends of the planks together.”

  “Acacia’s the best type of wood?”

  “It’s stronger than willow or tamarisk, wider, straighter. But still useless. So, for now, I’m afraid reeds are our best bet. They’re available, they’re easy to work with – that offsets the smaller size of the vessels we can build.”

  “So you’ll always have to maintain a large fleet and always have a lot of people to support,” I said. “But except for the small punts you construct for fishermen, Dedi, the boatyard produces nothing. Your wealth comes only from a share of the goods you transport.”

  “As well as from the objects my craftsmen make in my workshops,” Dedi reminded me. “More than three–quarters of the objects I take on a trading expedition are my own, and the same proportion of the raw materials I return with are utilized by my craftsmen. The other quarter is Aboo’s share.”

  “I didn’t realize so many of the goods were yours,” I admitted.

  “There’s more to being a boatman than boats.” Dedi leaned towards me. “My boats give me more than wealth, Nykara. They also give me influence.” Dedi laced his fingers together. “As you well know, I’m inextricably aligned with Aboo and his ground–based transportation network. As his fortunes rise, so do mine. My fleet, combined with Aboo’s donkeys, have made him the most powerful ruler Nekhen has ever seen.”

  “Why?”

  “The people who reside in hamlets and on farms along the river near Nekhen are dependent on Aboo and me to supply them with their daily drink and meat and linen and leather goods and all the products made in Nekhen’s workshops. Nekhen’s elites are dependent on us to distribute the products made or managed by their workers, and to bring foodstuffs from the valley’s farms for those workers to eat. The elites in the large settlements to the north will soon once again become dependent on us for the fine objects produced in Nekhen they can turn into visible signs of their status, and take with them to their graves. With a single word Aboo or I could stop the flow of all those products. Think of the resulting chaos. So, in a very real sense, if Aboo wants to impose his will on anyone, he can. Everyone knows it, and so they obey his commands without question.”

  “So, boats are important because they give you and Aboo control over other people’s lives, and thus represent power.” I pondered for a moment. “Your ancestor Ankhmare once traded in the delta, maybe even on the shores of the Wadjet Wer, though that was when he lived in the North before he settled at Nekhen. Do you think anyone from Nekhen will ever travel that far again?”

  “Definitely. I won’t rest until we do. But there are smaller steps we need to take first.”

  “Badari,” I said.

  Dedi nodded.

  “Will you take me with you when you go?” I asked eagerly.

  Dedi laughed. “Let’s get to and from Abu first, shall we?” He put his hand on my shoulder. “It won’t happen in my lifetime, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someday someone in Nekhen builds a boat large enough to sail upon the Wadjet Wer and to whatever mysterious lands lie along its shores. Perhaps, Nykara, it might even be you.”

  I silently vowed to myself it would be. What was the point of being a boatman if not to explore strange and exotic places? I wasn’t content to spend my life in Nekhen when there was a vast world awaiting discovery. “Speaking of mysterious lands, I’ve heard boatmen say a few farmers have recently emigrated from Tjeni, hoping to reach the foot of the delta. It is true?” I asked.

  “I’ve heard that as well. It won’t be long before farmers from Nekhen’s stretch of the river start to migrate too. We may soon be making boats for more than just fishermen in my boatyard.”

  “Why would anyone want to leave a fine settlement like Nekhen for the unknown?”

  “My best guess is only two or three hundred thousand people live along this river, Nykara, based on what I’ve seen on my travels. That isn’t many, given its six hundred mile length between the cataract and the sea. But because of Nekhen’s size, the land in our area is fairly densely inhabited. There are perhaps five thousand people in the upper and lower settlements, another four thousand residing on farms and in nearby hamlets. All the really good farmland is spoken for on both sides of the river. Each farm can support about forty or so people. Most farm families consist of a farmer and his woman and six or so children…”

  “So each farm feeds them, plus thirty–two craftsmen or workers in Nekhen?” I ventured.

  Dedi smiled. “Yes. I see you have a grasp of numbers. Too bad Rawer doesn’t.” He sighed. “Anyway, if a farmer dies and leaves his land to two sons, and each of them has a family of eight, then that same amount of land has to feed sixteen farmers…”

  “And only twenty–four people in Nekhen.”

  Dedi nodded. “Most farmers have more than two sons. So, at some point land can’t be divided any further. A son will have to cultivate unimproved land farther away from Nekhen. But he won’t be able to plant his first crop until he clears the land of brush and drains it of water. That’s very labor intensive. To survive, to prosper, it’ll be easier for him to relocate to the North where he can sow as much already cleared land as he wants. Water and land are said to be ripe for the taking in the fifty miles or so just south of the delta. The land in the middle stretches of the river doesn’t match our style of farming, according to what I’ve heard, but it does in the far North. The plains are supposedly narrower there, but are so uninhabited there’s no competition for farmland. Of course, those rumors may be completely false.”

  “But you’ll discover the truth as soon as your next boat is constructed.”

  Dedi smiled.

  My world was changing. This journey with Dedi was opening my eyes. “What was different about Nekhen and the valley when you were young?” I asked. Dedi was in an expansive mood and I intended to take advantage of it.

  “Pottery. I grew up using polished–red ware, some with black tops, most painted with river scenes or desert scenes or animals or plants, not this coarse mass–produced stuff we’re carrying to Abu.” He glanced at the cargo disdainfully. “Back then Neken’s ruler, my father, Gehes, had far less authority over the surrounding valley than Aboo does now.”

  “Did Gehes have to fight to gain power?”

  “There was no one to fight.” Dedi gazed over the river. “It wasn’t always so, that we even had a ruler at Nekhen.”

  “Why not?”

  “According to the old tales, the ancestors of everyone now living in Nekhen once wandered the deserts east and west of the river valley. Those deserts were not so dry then; there were lush grasslands and groves of trees and vast herds of game animals, both large and small. Our ancestors planted their crops at oases or beside seasonal lakes and lived there during the growing season in temporary camps, returning to the savannah after the harvest and wandering about, following herds of oryx and gazelle and other beasts until time to plant their crops once more. In due course some came to this valley. Because the plains were relatively wide at what is now Nekhen, and because the inundation came regularly and the area was rich with resources – flint, clay, wood – farmers settled here. As generations passed, sons built huts close by those of their fathers, creating small hamlets of related families. Eventually those hamlets dotted the plain. Inevitably, the hamlets grew ever larger and drew ever closer to others, and the beginnings of the settlement we call Nekhen took shape.”

  “So Nekhen is very old.”

  “Yes. At first each family’s hamlet was ruled by its eldest member, its patriarch, and every family was self–sufficient. They grew their own food, cut their own wood, hauled their own water, shaped their own flint for tools and weapons, constructed their own reed boats, made their own pottery. But despite an ever–growing number of farmers and their dependents, the fertility of the land ensured a regular surplus of grain at the end of each growing season. Because the land could feed more people than it took to work it, some people were freed from farming to spend their time on ot
her tasks – brewing beer, for example. The brewers started supplying their beer to farmers, who supplied them with grain at the end of every harvest to make the following year’s beer. The farmers stopped brewing beer for themselves. The brewers also exchanged beer with fishermen and herdsmen and linen makers in return for their products, and they too stopped brewing. In time, the bounty of the land led to dozens of craftsmen being able to specialize in some way.”

  “Because everyone needed something someone else could make?” I asked.

  “Exactly. We need stone tools to build our boats. Stone carvers need various types of stone to make those tools. We transport it to them. The stone carvers need to eat; they’re supplied by farmers in exchange for implements to till their land. Farmers need wood goods – furniture and chests and boxes; carpenters make those, using the stone carvers’ tools. In return for our carrying supplies to them, farmers supply those of us who build boats with food. Farmers need to store their excess grain…”

  “So they need pots?” I guessed. “And potters need to eat, so they’re supplied by farmers?”

  Dedi nodded. “Over time, everyone who lived at Nekhen became increasingly dependent on others, almost without realizing how much, yet they often had conflicting needs. Inevitably, there were disputes between the patriarchs of families or between brewers and potters and craftsmen. So they turned to the wisest men among them to sort everything out, usually the most prominent man in each specialty. Those men became the unofficial leaders of Nekhen. First the potters took on that role, because pottery was the most important commodity in the settlement at that time. Then the brewers took over. Beer was something everyone needed – and certainly appreciated more than pottery. While each craftsman has a network to obtain the supplies needed to do his work – we boat builders, for example, receive acacia from the woodcutters and tools from the stone carvers – the brewers’ network is the most extensive of all, involving woodcutters, water carriers, farmers, potters, herdsmen, and boatmen.”