“Papa says it comes from his mother.” Bakist laughed. “And my temper. And my stubbornness.”
“And your adventurousness?”
“That’s all my own.” She laughed again.
Bakist’s mother motioned to her. Bakist ignored her, turned away. “Will you be coming to Maadi often?” she asked.
“If my expedition is successful, yes.”
Bakist moved so close her hair brushed softly against my arm. She lowered her voice. “Let me help you tomorrow and I’ll be able to cut the amount Setau demands as his share for arranging your trades in half.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“He has a notion of joining with me. He’ll want to impress me by taking it easy on my friend.”
“We’re friends now?”
“Why not? Don’t you like me?” she half pouted.
“I do, actually. You know your own mind, don’t you Bakist.”
“Whose else would I know? I can talk Haran and Khaba down for you too. They always start way too high.”
“And in return for your help with them I’ll let your father do a little better than he expects?”
“Exactly.” Bakist smiled innocently.
“I’ll bet this is how you’ve been helping your father – charming his competition. Does he know?”
“Of course not. He’d probably make me stop, out of pride. Then where would we be?”
I looked at her, amused. “Why are you telling me this, Bakist?”
“Why, so you’ll have a successful trip and come back to Maadi, of course.”
“Bakist!” her mother called again, this time sharply.
“Do what you promised and you’ll have the pick of my pottery and gold and anything else I’ve brought with me,” I said.
Bakist smiled, then rose and leisurely crossed the room to her mother’s side. Halfway there she looked at me over her shoulder, rolled her eyes. I realized, as she passed her approaching father, she was the tallest girl of her age I’d ever met.
Nabaru took the place she’d vacated. “Are you enjoying my wine?”
“Immensely.” I took another long sip. “Bakist told me you came to the valley from along the seacoast.”
“The girl loves to talk, especially when I’m trading with someone. I hope she didn’t bore you.”
“Not at all. She said she helps you in your trading.”
“She tags along. She thinks she does.”
So Nabaru was unaware of how Bakist subtly assisted him. Assuming she hadn’t been exaggerating her abilities, she was more wily than he knew. Or, perhaps, she had been exaggerating. Tomorrow would tell.
“I must admit, she’s got a head on her shoulders, that one. She’s smarter than her two older sisters. She’s old enough now to be joined – just turned. A few traders are already pressing me hard to give her to them or their sons. Guess soon she’ll be ‘helping’ them.”
“Speaking of trading, have you ever heard of a delta hamlet called Merimda?” I asked. “An ancestor of the man I work for traded there, perhaps five centuries ago. According to his family’s stories it was on the westernmost branch of the river, a couple day’s journey south of the sea.”
“The name’s not familiar. The hamlet’s probably long since disappeared,” Nabaru said. “The river’s channels move eastward a little at a time, year after year. Eventually the hamlets that once lined them are left high and dry and its inhabitants leave.”
I finished the last of my wine. “I can’t help notice all the ivory figurines decorating your house. They’re like the ones in the southern storage area.”
Nabaru shrugged. “My woman likes them. They come from Farkha.”
“Where you have the rest of your operation.”
“Bakist told you a lot,” Nabaru said.
“Tell us about Nekhen, Nykara, and what brought you here to trade with us,” Setau directed, sitting on my other side.
I quickly stood, faced the traders. They waited expectantly, as curious about my home as I was about theirs. Bakist was seated against the wall opposite me, listening. She smiled encouragingly.
“Nekhen is the largest settlement in its region, about a month and a half’s travel south of here. We have a ruler – a single man who’s in charge. His name is Aboo. Ten thousand people in the settlement and nearby valley owe him their allegiance.”
Someone let out a long whistle.
“Several families have controlled great enterprises in Nekhen for centuries, just as you do, Khaba, and you, Haran – stone carving, brewing, herding, linen making, fishing, hunting, wood working among them. The man I work for, Dedi, along with Aboo, controls all transportation – Dedi by boat, Aboo by land, using donkeys. Dedi also controls many craftsmen. They shape raw materials into items needed by the people who live in the valley, but also a number of special items limited to the elite men of Nekhen and the other large settlements along the river.”
“Status items to set them apart,” Khaba said knowingly.
“Exactly,” I replied. “Aboo and Dedi sent me to the North hoping I’d find new types of raw materials Dedi’s craftsmen can turn into status items. I have – copper and lapis lazuli among them. I’ve also discovered more status items unlike any available at Nekhen – your vases, Khaba, and your wine, Nabaru. It’s my intention to carry a selection of all these back to Nekhen.”
“So, at last we get down to trading,” Setau said with satisfaction. “And in return for Maadi’s products and raw materials?”
Thanks to my many expeditions to Nubt and Tjeni and Abu I was a practiced trader, in my element. I retrieved my pouches, carefully removed the first item.
“This is a fish–tailed knife,” I said, holding it up, then handing it to the nearest man to inspect and pass on. “Aboo awards these only to our elite men. As you can see, the knife has been made by a master craftsman, its edges finely serrated, each indentation sharp, each of equal size. There are no finer knives anywhere in the valley.”
Next I displayed figurines, some carved of flint, some of ivory – hippos, elephants, cows, rams, ibex, a donkey, a dwarf, a dancing woman. Though Maadi had its own stone and ivory carvers, it was obvious Nekhen’s produced superior objects. After that I passed around a falcon pendant made of gold, a vulture pendant made from a copper nugget, necklaces made of copper nuggets and gold beads and a variety of polished stones, and finally unworked slabs of mudstone.
“Now,” I concluded, “a sample of the finest items I’ve brought from the South – pottery jars.” One by one I revealed a black–topped jar, a polished–red jar decorated with a line of white ostriches, and a buff–colored jar decorated with a red boat. As I held each one up I told its story, just as Amenia had told me. “So you see, these jars represent the sweep of thousands of years of time along the river and through the valley and across the lands to east and west,” I concluded.
“The black–topped are spectacular,” Haran said.
“The deck of Nykara’s boat contains many dozen,” Setau interjected. “All much larger than these samples.”
“And the decorated?” I asked.
The traders glanced at each other. No one seemed interested.
“Our elites wouldn’t dream of going to the Afterlife without decorated pottery in their graves,” I said encouragingly.
“We aren’t preoccupied with the next life at Maadi,” Nabaru said. “We live for the here and now. We put very little in our graves.”
Amenia’s decorated pottery had no value in Maadi. No matter. I’d be able to trade it in Nubt on the way home.
Nabaru glanced at his fellows. “It’s fair to say we want most of what you’ve brought with you, Nykara. What is it you want from us specifically?”
“Jars of your wine,” I said. “Vases and cosmetic jars from your works, Khaba. Lapis lazuli. Olive oil and resin and obsidian. And, Haran, as many ingots of copper as you’re willing to part with.”
“Splendid!” Setau said.
He was already calcul
ating his share of the trades. Little did he know that, if Bakist wasn’t exaggerating her abilities to persuade, it would be less than he expected.
“Tomorrow morning we’ll meet at the harbor and conduct our trades with Nykara,” Setau announced. “But now – we feast!”
***
Nearly seven weeks to the day after leaving Maadi I moored my battered and heavily patched reed boat at the landing place in Dedi’s boatyard. The sun had just slipped below the rim of the western plateau and the entire river valley was in shadow and darkening quickly. We’d had to stop three times on the journey home to make repairs, all substantial; fortunately, we hadn’t lost any trade goods. But it was clear to me reed boats were unsuitable for long–distance trading. Luckily, I now had the means to rectify that shortcoming.
My eight crewmen and Heth and I – I’d convinced him to come with me from Maadi, and I’d left Dagi behind at Tjeni and Pabasa at Nubt – were swarmed the moment we set foot on land by the boatmen and their families. They pressed close to the boat, scanned the deck crowded with containers of various sizes and stacks of copper ingots, chattered excitedly. As well they should; Bakist had been as good as she’d promised in the negotiations and I’d brought back much more than I’d expected. Even better, she’d promised to help me again whenever I returned to her home. I’d also done quite well at Nubt, exchanging all of Amenia’s decorated pottery. A few men, carrying lit torches, waded into the water to get a closer look at everything. In only a moment Dedi appeared. He swept the boat with his eyes, then embraced me.
“So Badari wasn’t a rumor after all!” he exclaimed. “I was afraid something had happened to you. I expected you back more than a month ago.”
“Badari was a waste of time, Dedi. It’s declined these past five hundred years. There was nothing worth trading anywhere in its region. So I took a chance and continued north, almost to the foot of the delta. Most of what’s on my boat comes from a place called Maadi.”
“I’ve sent for Aboo,” Dedi said. “Once he arrives you can tell us both about your trip at the same time.”
While we waited I commanded my men to unload specific containers so I could present a sample of what I’d obtained to Dedi and our ruler. By the time Aboo appeared, accompanied by torchbearers, the containers were waiting in a long row. Not surprisingly, Abar was with him. Her skin was golden in the flickering torchlight, her jewelry sparkling, her eyes shadowed and mysterious. She looked achingly beautiful.
I’d thought of her often during my journey. I’d missed our weekly meetings, the hour or two we spent together, our easy companionship. I owed her a tremendous debt for having suggested and then convinced Aboo that I make the trip. I suspected my success at Maadi would repay that debt. But Abar wasn’t the only woman I’d had on my mind these past weeks.
During my trip I’d been practically consumed by visions of Amenia – I’d stared at a deck covered with her pottery the entire journey north, after all, and part of the way home. I’d pictured her bent over those jars, her long thin fingers shaping them, arms and legs and cheeks white with clay, her long hair tumbling down her bare back. Amenia had made an unforgettable impression on me during our brief meeting at her uncles’ pottery works. No girl or woman had ever interested me so much and so quickly. Amenia was very similar to Abar – driven, not content to live her life the way others expected, talented, visionary. But where Abar could be cold and distant and secretive and manipulative and imperious, Amenia was warm and earthy and open and approachable and caring. That two women could be so alike in so many ways, yet so different, was quite amazing to me.
My feelings for Amenia were like glowing coals on the very brink of bursting into flame. I knew they’d ignite with the merest whisper of a breeze. So I’d grappled with one question on my trip, over and over – should I expose those coals to a breeze? My head said no. Amenia was promised to Nekauba, or possibly to an elite if her uncle was able to use her to gain influence for himself. Was it even possible for me, a common boatman, to insert myself into her life? With a copper monopoly I might gain status enough Hemaka would at least consider a union between Amenia and me. Then again, he might not. It would surely take a year or more for me to establish my smithy and make the elites dependent on me for tools and weapons and such. Much could happen in that amount of time. More troublesome, I didn’t know if Amenia was truly interested in me. I’d only spent an hour or so with her. She’d said she wanted to see me again – she wanted to very much. But had she merely been caught up in the moment? Had she thought about me even once during my long absence? Three months was a long time. Or had she already forgotten me? My head said to fall back on Wenher, the sure thing, the union that would absolutely ensure my future. I’d thought about her on the trip too. But my heart cried out for Amenia. My heart said she was the woman I’d been looking for. And my heart was far stronger than my head.
Abar saw me and smiled. Her smile was like the sun bursting from behind a cloud. She and Aboo halted next to Dedi. Rawer was absent.
“Appears I was right to send you north,” Aboo said, glancing at the deck of my boat.
“You mean I was,” Abar corrected her father happily. She looked at me proudly. What I’d accomplished reflected on her as much as it did me. “You’re missing Pabasa and Dagi,” she noted.
“Pabasa’s with Oonesh in Nubt, setting up his trading post. Dagi’s with Minkhaf in Tjeni. I promised them both a boatload of trade goods within the month.”
“Fabulous!” Abar cried.
“Tell us about your expedition,” Dedi urged, impatient.
The boatmen who’d remained behind in Nekhen crowded close. They were as eager to hear about the trip as Aboo and Dedi.
“As you can see from the condition of my boat, the journey was extremely difficult,” I began. “We spent weeks longer than we should have, tied up along the river making repairs, both coming and going. But thanks to the skill of my crew we were able to stay afloat.”
They basked in my praise. In my place, Rawer would have taken the credit.
“There were close to fifty hamlets and very small settlements in the Badari region,” I said. “Not a single one had anything worth trading for. While Nekhen’s spent the past five hundred years growing, that region’s faded away.”
Aboo and Abar looked at me in surprise.
“So I decided to press north, to see what I might find.” I swept my arm in the direction of my boat. “As you can see, my gamble paid off. Most of these goods come from a settlement called Maadi, only a couple of miles from the foot of the delta.”
“You went almost to the Wadjet Wer?” Abar asked incredulously.
Aboo looked amazed, Dedi proud.
“Within three or four days of it,” I replied. “Maadi is considerably smaller than Nekhen – just a few hundred inhabitants. Farms line the river to north and south to feed its people, just like here. The settlement lies atop a long narrow ridge at the mouth of several wadis, right beside the river. It has a fine harbor, and when we arrived there were several other boats there, two from settlements farther north in the delta, one from the lands bordering the Wadjet Wer. A couple more arrived before we left for home. We saw donkey caravans arriving and departing through the wadis I spoke of, and from the delta. Maadi truly is at the crossroads of trade routes. Many traders from foreign lands have settled there.”
I reached into a leather container I’d slung over my shoulder before leaving the boat. I pulled out a necklace, handed it to Aboo. “This is lapis lazuli, a material from a land many months journey to the north and then east. The traders say that’s the only place in the world where it exists.”
Aboo took it and draped it around his neck. It glittered blue in the torchlight.
I handed a second necklace of the same material to Dedi. Then I held one out for Abar. She looked at me, eyes shining, then bowed her head. I slipped it over and let it fall against her neck. She straightened and smiled. The necklace looked marvelous against her skin. She stroked it
with her fingertips.
I bent, lifted an earthenware jar beside my feet, called for cups. As a young girl retrieved them I broke the jar’s clay seal. “This is wine, a drink from the lands along the seacoast,” I said. “It’s made from a fruit called grapes that grow on vines on the slopes of low hills. The people harvest them, dump them in large vats, then tread barefoot on the grapes until they become juice. They collect it in jars and seal it. It ferments, much like beer.”
The girl returned and I poured cups for Aboo and Dedi and Abar. They were all delighted by its unusual rich taste.
“I’ve returned with sixty large jars of wine,” I told Aboo and Dedi. “No doubt they’ll be as much status symbols as fish–tailed knives.”
Both of them agreed enthusiastically.
Next I passed around a selection of Khaba’s vases. “Like at Nekhen, Maadi’s elites oversee large enterprises, though much fewer in number than here. A man named Khaba produces these vases out of many different types of stone. It’s Maadi’s largest enterprise by far. He employs dozens of men and women.” I handed several small colorful jars to Abar. “These are for your cosmetics – the finest jars from Khaba’s works.”
“More gifts!” She took them gleefully.
I sent someone to bring me a small burning branch from the closest campfire. I overturned a large calcite jar, momentarily held the lit end of the branch inside. The jar glowed like honey from within. Exclamations came from the crowd.
“Imagine this jar half–filled with oil, topped with a burning wick,” I told Aboo.
I revealed the rest of the numerous samples of what I’d traded for, impressing everyone who was watching. Finally I held up a slab of mudstone. “The Maadians were eager to trade for the black–topped pottery I took north. They cleaned me out. But they had no interest at all in either of the decorated styles. Fortunately, Oonesh, Nubt’s ruler and chief trader, did, as did the leading men in the hamlets associated with Nubt. I exchanged every one of the decorated jars for mudstone either on the way north or on the way home. I’ve discovered a new market for old style pottery.”
The Women and the Boatman Page 28