Time Meddlers on the Nile

by Deborah Jackson

  Taharqa rolled up to him on his chariot, leaned over, and patted his shoulder. “Good shot. We’ll make a peacekeeper of you yet.”

  Matt smiled at the unexpected praise, even though he found the statement ironic.

  “Go claim your prize. You’ll eat well tonight.”

  With a brisk nod, Matt spurred his horse towards the reedy patch of ground where the duck had fallen. He thought to scoop it up from horseback, as he’d seen other warriors do, leaning over and skewering it with a spear. But he threw the spear straight through the duck’s wing and into the soggy earth beneath it. When he grabbed the spear back, it stuck fast and wrenched him right off his mount. He fell with a smack to the ground and the soldiers around him burst out laughing.

  Matt sheepishly stood up, his chest throbbing and his arms and face stinging from contact with the rough ground. He dusted himself off and went to retrieve his spear and the dead duck. Taharqa guided his chariot next to him and smiled.

  “Perhaps there are more things I need to teach you,” he said.

  “Perhaps,” Matt mumbled.

  “But the most important skill is to fire at a moving target from horseback or chariot. That you’ve already mastered. The rest will be easy.”

  Matt looked up into the prince’s eyes. Incredible. He was still patting Matt on the back, figuratively speaking, even after he’d embarrassed himself. Of course what the prince had said was true. These men were either mounted bowmen or charioteers, and he had hit a moving target from horseback. But it was the way the prince had said it—with pride, almost. He’s a great leader. How often had Matt cringed under negative comments—from Nadine, from a few of his teachers? They’d told him he would amount to nothing, and he had, until Sarah had come along and made him feel quite the opposite. This general understood how to strengthen his troops from the inside out.

  He nodded at the prince and met those keen, thoughtful and stern, though paradoxically, warm eyes. At first Matt had found him quite chilly and suspicious. Not someone he could trust. But after the Medjay’s brutal attack, Matt knew the prince had every right to be suspicious. Not only had he faced that attack with incredible courage, but he’d also spared precious time to bury his dead. After that he’d kept his soldiers focused, practicing strategies of attack and retreat, and sending them after difficult targets such as hippos to keep them sharp. But even with all these manoeuvres, he’d taken the time to train Matt, a boy he barely knew. He’d showered him with praise and encouragement and, most of all, he’d promised to help him retrieve Sarah. No wonder he would become king—the pharaoh—one day.

  Matt remounted his horse—gentle Sarah—and tucked the duck carcass into his saddlebag. Then a shout rang out from the front of the column of soldiers.

  “Napata. Napata.”

  Matt squinted into the distance, but dust spiralled through the air from the horses’ hooves, making it nearly impossible to see. He urged Sarah forward, keeping pace with the prince, who scanned the horizon in anticipation. Momentarily the haze scattered and Matt could make out tall stone structures, fluted columns, and a mass of brilliantly coloured specks moving about.

  “Napata,” said Taharqa, his eyes alight, with just the wisp of a smile touching his lips. “Home.”

  Chapter 13

  City of the Pharaohs

  The city rose from the floodplain, framed by emerald and golden fields and orchards, a colourful mosaic made all the more striking by the sandy background of the desert. At first tiny circular mudbrick houses with flat roofs dotted the pathway. Then they rode past larger and larger walled estates constructed of pink stone. Matt spotted an even more impressive building, with glyph-covered stone columns and a wooden gateway, at the end of a road of flagstones. Across the river an odd mountain soared, with sheer sides and a flat top like a butte in the North American West.

  Taharqa pointed it out and called it Gebel Barkal, the sacred mountain of Amun—a god, no doubt. A sprawling structure of stone blocks and columns blanketed an area near its base. Taharqa labelled it the Temple of Amun. It was strange that the prince sort of sneered when he mentioned that the priests lived on that side of the river. Matt took it the priests weren’t his favourite people.

  At the entrance to the city, dozens of children streamed from their huts to greet them. They threw themselves to the ground, bowing to the prince, then leaped up and surrounded the men, dousing them with questions. “How many hippos did you kill? Did you manage to hunt some elephants? Who is that strange boy riding Senkamon’s horse?”

  The men laughed and flaunted their booty—smooth ivory tusks and hearty slabs of hippo meat. They explained that Matt was a foreigner, but he would be joining their company. Taharqa kept quiet as his men chattered merrily, but for the first time since Matt had met him he looked relaxed, his almond-shaped eyes crinkling at the corners, his full lips smiling, his shoulders less taut. Matt thought this was how laidback he’d probably look if he were home in Ottawa, even going to school. But he didn’t have that option and he knew that Taharqa’s time here would be short-lived too. He had a pressing campaign against the Medjay.

  “Is that your home?” Matt asked, pointing to the immense stone building with the glittering golden gate.

  Taharqa nodded. “The palace. My family’s home. But my mother is not there right now. She’s with Pharaoh Shabaqo in the Delta.”

  “Your father?” asked Matt.

  The prince chuckled. “No, the current king is not my father. The great pharaoh Piankhy was my father. He died many years ago. Shabaqo is my uncle.”

  Matt wrinkled his forehead, trying to piece together the puzzle of Nubian succession to the throne. “But won’t you be the next pharaoh?”

  Taharqa laughed loudly. “That is the question, isn’t it? Shabaqo’s son is also under consideration, as are my brothers and a few other royal nephews. We need to prove our worth, and then the priests and the pharaoh will choose the best candidate.”

  “Prove your worth? How do you do that?”

  Taharqa suddenly looked grim and dispirited. “By winning battles, which I haven’t done yet. It will take skill, strategy, confidence and, above all, strength. I have to be wise and always live by the rules of ma’at. And I need to seek peace wherever possible.”

  “Ma’at? Do you have to live by my rules?” Matt asked with a chuckle.

  “Ma’at is our credo. It’s a quality built into the world by the gods at the moment of Creation. It means justice and truth, how we live in harmony with the gods. I need to live according to this creed and use it in every decision I make. Do you think I’m worthy, young Matt?”

  Now Matt understood why the men had laughed when the prince had called out his name. He’d once looked up the meaning of his name on the Internet. Matthew. It meant gift of God. Not exactly the same. He found this new meaning more interesting. He didn’t know if he could live up to it, though.

  “That’s a great deal to ask of anyone,” he said to the prince. “But yes, I think you’re worthy.”

  Taharqa blinked several times, and then narrowed his eyes. Maybe he thought Matt was doing what most people would likely do when speaking to a prince—telling him exactly what he wanted to hear just to get into his good books.

  “I’m not saying this because I want you to help me rescue Sarah,” said Matt. “Though I do. But from what I’ve seen over the past few days, your drills and decisions, the way you care for your men . . . well, you seem like a good leader.”

  The harsh lines faded from the prince’s face as he gazed at Matt. “Thank you,” he said. “But a good leader of soldiers doesn’t necessarily mean a good king. Come. Let’s eat and rest. We’re due that at least.”

  He led Matt forward, through the lofty golden gates and into an estate that rivalled Buckingham Palace. The main structure, a broad fortress constructed of tub-sized blocks of pink sandstone, was encompassed by a large whitewashed wall. On one side of the building sat a jade garden with a lotus pond and on the other stood a series of gr
ain bins, spilling wheat from their doors, along with other structures Matt couldn’t identify. Salt-white sculptures of ram-headed humans bordered a flagstone path that led up to the palace, and elaborately decorated archways and carved doors marked the entrances into the other buildings. Matt gaped at the colourful reliefs splashed all over the walls, like artistic graffiti. They depicted more humans with animal attachments—crocodile or jackal heads—and supple Nubians with reed-like caps bowing to a king with a cobra crown.

  The prince leaped off his horse and turned it over to a stable boy—or slave?—who quickly led it away. Matt slid off Sarah and, reluctantly, let another boy whisk her to the stable—a squat mudbrick building that smelled of fresh hay and something a little more pungent, likely horse droppings. If only Sarah were here.

  How about we sleep in the stable, Sarah?

  In a stable? Are you kidding? In between the horse dung and horses?

  It’s better than a chicken coop or pig pen.

  Right. Until we get stepped on or something splashes over our heads.

  Man, how he missed her.

  “Come, Matt. You’re welcome in my home,” said Taharqa, waving him towards a gleaming gold-trimmed doorway. “I cannot invite my entire army into the palace, although I wish I could sometimes. They deserve as much as I have to give them. But I’ve been scolded too often for not remembering my stature. Then they send me out for weeks in the desert with the same men that they’d have me shun otherwise.” Taharqa chuckled.

  “Scolded by who . . . uh, whom?” asked Matt. “The pharaoh?”

  “No,” said Taharqa with a grimace. “The gods.”

  Matt frowned. What the heck was he talking about? Suddenly it dawned on him. “The priests?”

  Taharqa placed a hand on his shoulder. “You catch on quickly. They speak for the gods, they say, but sometimes I wonder.”

  Matt decided to keep his mouth shut this time. He had no idea what kind of relationship these people had with their priests and their gods. But it seemed pretty obvious that some bad blood existed between Taharqa and the priests.

  “Anyway, they cannot criticize a foreigner they know nothing about, nor can they prevent me from inviting him into my home.”

  He led Matt into the palace, winding through a maze of hallways with more vivid murals and paintings. The variety of colours—blue, olive green, yellow and vibrant red, along with imperial purple—dazzled Matt, but it was when the prince ushered him into a gigantic chamber at the end of one of the hallways that his jaw became unhinged. The room was blindingly brilliant—every corner glimmered. All the statues, chairs, and tables were made entirely of gold. Gold jewellery was draped over gold chests. The prince fondled a gilded crown with the head of a cobra unfurling at the crest, but he quickly snapped his hand back.

  “These are my chambers,” he said. “But the crown’s not mine yet. I have to earn it.”

  Matt blinked and couldn’t stop gaping. He didn’t know what to say. He’d never seen so much gold, and for a minute he had the greedy desire to gather it up, as if he’d stumbled on buried treasure. He could imagine bringing this home and parading it in front of photographers, gaining glory and riches beyond belief. He would be like Howard Carter, the discoverer of King Tut’s tomb. But suddenly it seemed so meaningless. He didn’t have his father to share it with. He didn’t have . . . His throat tightened.

  “Do you want some of my gold?” asked the prince.

  “No,” Matt said instantly, trying his best to look offended. “All I want is . . .” He paused and gulped.

  “To retrieve your Sarah,” the prince answered for him. “No gold can accomplish that.”

  “I know,” said Matt. He shrugged off his backpack, sank down onto a gilded chair, and closed his eyes, resting his tortured head in his hands. Nothing but an all-out offensive against the best warriors in the land would get her back. One he would have to participate in, not just stand by and let others fight for him.

  Taharqa patted his shoulder. “We’ll bring her back.”

  Matt looked up and opened his mouth to thank the prince when a sharp voice broke into their conversation.

  “Taharqa, what is this?”

  Matt turned. In the doorway stood a bald man wearing a snowy white kilt and webbed with silver and gold jewellery that nearly smothered his chest and neck and coiled around his wrists and fingers. His face was twisted into a sneer and in his fist he clutched an ivory-handled dagger. All of this Matt still would have considered “par for the course” in ancient Nubia, except the man aimed his sneer at him and pointed the sharp tip of the dagger towards his chest.

  In trouble now.

  Even so, he couldn’t help but return the sneer.

  Chapter 14

  Eastern Desert

  Sarah leaped from the horse as they drew near the feathery palm trees, scrubby acacia bushes, blades of green grass, and shimmering sky-blue water of the oasis. She didn’t hesitate or worry what the Medjay would think of her. She was too parched to care. She raced to the edge of the tantalizing pool and threw herself in. As the water enveloped her she thought back over the past two days.

  They’d marched across rolling dunes and through dry crusty river beds carved out by the occasional flash flood in the desert. They’d plodded past scattered thorn bushes and prickly patches of grass. Almost everything was scorched, withered, and dying, but somehow Sarah had still spotted evidence of life: scorpions scuttling under rocks, the winding imprint of a snake seeking a cooler nest, birds, poor misguided ducks or storks that Qeskaant said would soon perish. She’d even caught sight of a fennec, a small desert fox whose cream-coloured fur made it blend in with the sand—a clever camouflage. But most of the wildlife had suffered the effects of the desert. Buffalo, antelope, sheep, even horses and men had been reduced to nothing but bleached bones.

  How could the Medjay enjoy living here instead of on the banks of the Nile River; yet somehow they seemed to. They rode through the desert without a care, heedless of the savage business of the sun. They looked cheerful, upbeat, would even sing or hum some out-of-tune melody occasionally—making Sarah cover her ears—although sometimes they’d fall to sparring again. Were these duels silly play-fights or were they real, because tempers sometimes flared in the heat? Sarah knew that many times she’d felt like strangling Qeskaant for taking her from Taharqa’s camp. She’d rather be a slave in Nubia than plodding through this wasteland. She’d often wondered if she’d be adding her own bones to the bleached ones they passed, considering the dribbles of water Qeskaant allowed her to drink.

  Not here, though. Not at the oasis, where the water soothed her sore throat and pumped strength back into her shaky muscles. She couldn’t give up now. She’d find a way to get back to Matt and intercept his father. She had to. But she wouldn’t survive the desert without the Medjay. She had to figure out another way.

  “Better?” asked Qeskaant with a wink as he dismounted.

  “So much better.” Sarah guzzled the water.

  The men around her laughed, but they soon splashed in too, and drank their fill. After a good hour of frolicking in the pool, the men returned to their packs and set up camp in the shade of the palms. It was interesting to watch. They quickly erected temporary shelters, hemispherical or rectangular tents of woven straw mats strapped over a wooden frame—the wood gathered from acacia or little low-branching dom palms, as they called them.

  After they’d constructed their tents, they broke out packs of food and hunkered around fires, chatting and eating—their usual evening routine. Qeskaant speared some dates from a palm tree and offered them to her. She was getting tired of dried beef or mutton, chewy figs, and wrinkled dates. The fresh dates, despite their sour taste, were a welcome change—especially when they burst in her mouth, spilling streams of heavenly juice.

  As she nibbled, chewed and savoured, the men began to discuss their raids. They tossed about the ivory they’d stolen from Taharqa, their eyes gleaming. Sarah couldn’t help but glower.
Despite their noble arguments, it seemed that all they cared about was killing and taking what they wanted.

  “You seem angry,” said Qeskaant, his sharp eyes missing nothing.

  “Why do you have to steal?” she asked. “Isn’t there a better way to live?”

  “Well, of course there is,” he answered immediately. “By farming. We used to raise livestock and grow crops along the Nile banks and we still do, where we can—where the pharaoh can’t catch us. Stealing isn’t about stealing, unless we’re very hungry.”

  Sarah turned away from the other men and jabbed Qeskaant with her eyes. “Then what is it about?”

  Qeskaant’s lips grew thin and he gripped his sword. Sarah jerked backward, but she soon realized he wasn’t mad at her. “It’s about taking back. It’s about showing the royal family what they’re doing. Do you think the pharaoh and the prince don’t steal? They steal gold from the desert to clutter their palaces. They steal ostrich feathers, ivory, from the creatures to beautify their bodies. They steal people, young Sarah, don’t you understand? To the interior—the depths of land—they march and they steal.

  “Because of our strength and determination, the Medjay have always been free. We chose to serve the pharaohs long ago because they made the land flourish, but we didn’t understand how it was done. Now we know. Artists, craftsmen, warriors, priests, princes, and pharaohs all determine the shape of the land, but it’s the slaves who build their monuments, their palaces, their temples, and they’re not given the choice to roam the land as we do. They’ve been taken, stolen. We just steal them back.”

  Sarah felt a shiver of dismay at his words. Slavery seemed such a backward concept, but it was widely practiced in the past. She’d never thought that there would be protesters in this day and age. But why wouldn’t there be? She remembered reading about Spartacus, a slave in ancient Rome, and his revolt.