“These are beautiful!” Qen exclaimed. He picked up an arrowhead at Iuput’s invitation, turned it over and over, studied it, tested the cutting edges with his thumb. “They’re far more elegant than the ones my band makes. Ours don’t have these tangs.” He set the arrowhead back on the leather strip. “I was watching you working on them from over here, Iuput. I bet I could make three of my style in the time it takes you to make one of yours.”
“No doubt,” Iuput said evenly. “But why would you want to?”
“Want has nothing to do with it. There’s little time available between returning from a hunt and setting out on a new one when we’re following game on the savannah,” Qen said. “Hunters have to work quickly to replace arrows they shot and failed to retrieve that day.”
“Perhaps your people must,” Kakhent said. “But we don’t spend all our time hunting. So we don’t need to.”
“I have time to make pottery. I make reed baskets. I weave linen,” Aya interjected. “We have leisure time because of our animals and our stored grain. It doesn’t cost us anything to make arrowheads that are both functional and pleasing to the eye.”
“Arrowheads that impress women,” Iuput said, winking at Qen. “We all need something to set us apart in their eyes.”
“Will you show me how to make an arrowhead?” Qen asked Iuput.
Aya was surprised by his request.
“Of course,” Iuput replied.
He and Qen moved near the fire and Iuput laid out his supplies and began instructing Qen. Aya settled in at Kakhent’s side once again and watched for awhile as Iuput taught Qen to chip a flake off a flint cobble and begin refining it. Qen was both clumsy and uncertain, and his first few attempts were disastrous. But he was persistent – she had to give him that. After every failure he cheerfully tried again. Aya eventually lost interest and turned her attention to other preparations that were being made around camp. She rose and walked over to where Ahaneith was removing baked bread from her small oven and placing the loaves in reed baskets.
“How many more?” Aya asked.
“These baskets hold the first two varieties. I’ll make two more by tomorrow,” her daughter said.
“Here come our lovers,” Takhat giggled from beside the fire.
Aya saw that Menna and his year–younger brother Khay were hurriedly approaching with carcasses slung over their shoulders. Khay was actively courting Takhat. Aya thought as little of him as she thought of Menna. He was equally boastful and full of himself. Takhat, unfortunately, seemed to have fallen under his spell. The two barbarians appeared to be racing each other. Aya was amazed at their strength, that they could move so fast carrying such burdens. They both spotted the girls at the same time and angled in their direction.
Aya addressed Khay as he arrived. “Offerings for the falcon god?” she inquired.
“Yes!” Menna interjected, dumping an oryx practically at her feet. He was breathing hard, drenched with sweat. “This’ll be the centerpiece of the feast.”
Khay slung his animal to the ground atop Menna’s. “That scrawny thing?” he scoffed. “It’s my oryx everyone will want to eat. See how fat he is?”
It never failed to amuse Aya how young hunters sought to impress potential mates and increase their status within their band by slaying beasts. She recalled how just such an attempt had nearly cost Hunefer his life many years ago.
Ahaneith moved beside Menna. “Are you ready for the races and wrestling and target shooting?” she asked coyly.
“I’ll win every event, for you,” Menna told her gallantly.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Khay said, giving his brother an ungentle shove, then moving to Takhat’s side.
“Does no one in my band stand a chance?” Aya asked innocently. “Not even my brother?”
“No,” Menna blustered. He caught sight of Iuput at the nearby fire. “What’s he doing?”
“Making arrowheads,” Aya replied.
“What’s Qen doing with him?” Khay asked.
Without waiting for her reply Menna and Khay stalked over to where Iuput and Qen were industriously working flint. Aya and the girls followed. Menna stooped and grabbed an arrowhead from beside Qen and held it up, inspecting it. “What’s this?” he demanded.
Aya was surprised to see that Qen had improved so much in her brief absence. Qen’s arrowhead was a far cry from the refined elegant ones her brother made, but Qen was clearly on the right track. With practice he might even prove to be competent.
Qen looked up at his nephew. “An arrowhead, if I’m not mistaken. I’m surprised a mighty hunter like you doesn’t recognize it.”
“It’s not like any I’ve ever seen. Too fancy,” Menna said flippantly, tossing it to the ground.
At least Qen’s able to appreciate its beauty, Aya thought, surprised at herself for defending him, if only in her own mind.
Qen retrieved it, blew off dust, set it on a strip of leather.
“Why are you wasting your time making arrowheads?” Khay queried. “You’re no hunter, Cripple.”
Qen ignored the barb.
Menna laughed.
Iuput seemed about to retort, but a look from Qen and a hand on his forearm silenced him.
“They’re offerings for the falcon god,” Qen replied.
“Have you abandoned our gods and adopted theirs, Uncle?” Menna asked.
Qen shrugged.
Menna’s remark reinforced Aya’s fear that once she and her daughter and sister joined with these barbarians Meru would make them give up their gods and adopt new ones. Her hand rose to her talisman. Would she be expected to abandon the falcon god? That was inconceivable. And, she also realized, if Meru’s people didn’t settle permanently at the lake, and Kakhent died within the year, this might be the last harvest festival any of them would ever celebrate, the last time any of them would worship here. If they had to give up the falcon god, was there a barbarian god or goddess to assure their fertility, grant them children? Aya thought she remembered Qen mentioning one, but she wasn’t sure. The thought of trying to exist without the gods she knew was horrifying.
“Will you be shooting these fancy arrowheads tomorrow in the contest?” Khay asked Iuput.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps I will too,” Aya said teasingly. She still hadn’t forgiven Menna for his outrageous claim that he’d saved her from the viper. She’d never shot an arrow in her life. But Khay and Menna didn’t know that.
“You’re a woman,” Khay said dismissively. “Contests should be for men only – not girls…” – he glanced at Qen – “and not cripples.” He laughed, tilted his head towards Qen. “If he even has the nerve.”
Qen studiously ignored his nephews and set about chipping another arrowhead.
No wonder no one respects him, Aya thought. If he’d at least stand up for himself... In the past she wouldn’t have cared what anyone thought about Qen. But if he was to be her ally to help keep Meru’s band at the lake, she needed him to develop a backbone, and quickly.
“I suppose Qen would welcome a woman bringing meat home to him,” Menna laughed. “Aya, maybe Kakhent will let you hunt for Qen if we settle here.”
Menna and Khay laughed again.
“Have all the fun you want at my expense, Nephew,” Qen said quietly, setting the flint he was working aside, rising unsteadily to his feet, taking hold of his staff, straightening. “But leave Aya alone.” He was suddenly exuding an air of authority that Aya had never before witnessed. His eyes darted from Menna to Khay and back again. “You should both be ashamed of yourselves,” he lectured. “You’re speaking of and to a patriarch’s woman – and doing it in front of him. Remember your place. You owe her and him your respect. Now, go. Both of you. Return to camp.”
So Qen finally speaks, Aya thought, amazed, but in defense of me, not himself.
The boys looked at each other uncertainly, then nervously laughed off the confrontation. They bid Ahaneith and Takhat goodbye, then departed, b
oth vowing loudly to win every contest at tomorrow’s festival. Qen waited until his nephews were nearly out of sight, then wished Iuput and Kakhent a good evening and also headed for home. He didn’t look at or speak to Aya.
A few moments later Kakhent retired to his hut. Aya moved to the other side of the fire and took a seat beside Iuput.
“It’s shameful how Menna and Khay treat Qen,” he said. “And the rest of Meru’s people, too.”
“Why do you care?” Aya asked.
“Because Qen isn’t like anyone in Meru’s band,” Iuput replied. “He’s more like us than he is like them.”
“Qen? Really?” The thought was laughable.
“Meru takes no interest in our way of living, as far as I can tell.”
“That’s true,” Aya admitted.
“He’s focused solely on our girls being joined to his boys. He ignores everything else we have to offer. But Qen has realized that our lifestyle presents him personally with an opportunity.”
“Opportunity for what?”
“Qen’s disability makes him unfit for the life he leads, Aya. That’s what was subconsciously driving him to learn about us, at first. Now, he’s become amenable to adopting a new order for his life, as he told Kakhent and you tonight. Our order. Soon he’ll crave it.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Qen can’t hunt, Aya, but he can plant. He can’t travel fast, but he can keep up with a herd. Because of his disability, because of his interests, Qen has been more receptive than any of Meru’s people to us.”
“It’s not a position he can argue publicly,” Aya said. She wondered if Qen had discussed with Iuput what he’d discussed with her and Kakhent.
“That’s a shame – Qen’s a hundred times more intelligent than his patriarch. I wish I knew what had created such a deep rift between them. Maybe if that could be bridged…” Iuput sighed. “I guess its up to Kakhent to convince Meru to live as we live. We can’t rely on Qen to do it, even though I consider him an ally.”
Which meant it was actually up to Aya. She’d not been caught alone by Meru since the incident at the delta, but during his frequent visits to Kakhent’s campfire she’d constantly felt his eyes upon her. There was hunger, possessiveness, in those eyes. His longing for her was growing day by day. As much as she despised the fact that he lusted after her, she knew that his desire provided her with a modicum of leverage over him. Assuming Kakhent lived a few years more – there was no reason to suspect he wouldn’t – Meru would have no choice but to remain with his band at the lake for an extended period of time, waiting for her to be free to join with him. She planned to use those years to convince him of the benefits of her people’s lifestyle, to seek concessions from him that he’d hopefully grant to please her in order to win her heart, not just her obedience. Then, after she joined with him, her life wouldn’t be a total disaster.
Repugnant as the idea was, Aya knew she had to begin charming Meru so she could ultimately bend him to her will. That had to start at tomorrow’s festival.
***
Aya gently shook Ahaneith’s shoulder. “It’s nearly dawn,” she whispered. “Wake your aunt and sisters.”
Aya heard Pageti and Betrest and Takhat stir on their pallets as she felt for her loincloth and fastened it around her waist. Quietly, so as not to disturb Kakhent, she slipped from the darkened hut.
Now that the harvest was finished and the festival four days in the past, everyone in Aya’s camp had resumed their regular daily routines. The men and older boys stalked the savannah communally or waited in ambush at the permanent stations established in the wadis, hunting large game animals. A handful of younger boys assisted Iuput in watching over the herds, protecting them from predators day and night, milking the cattle each morning, occasionally blooding them, moving them from pasture to pasture. Women and girls traveled to various resource patches on the savannah and lakeshore to obtain food – tubers of bulrush and clubgrass, seeds of dented dock and prickly douch, fruit of dom palm and sycamore fig, sedges, various plants. The very youngest boys roamed the marsh, setting snares for waterfowl and hares and other small game.
As for Meru’s band, most of them were still engaged in harvesting their fields, though Meru and his sons spent their days hunting alongside Kakhent’s sons and did not participate in agricultural drudgery. That was left to the women. Qen oversaw that work. Iuput had made a number of sickles for Qen; he’d been extremely grateful for the tools.
A warm breeze caressed Aya’s face as she emerged from her hut. Stars still blazed directly overhead, though the slightest hint of rose was coloring the eastern horizon. Waves ran up onto the shore, slowly, rhythmically, though the water was indistinct in the darkness. The palm fronds on the peninsula were barely stirring. From the far distance came a low rumbling roar, no doubt a hippo settling into plant–choked shallows after a night ashore feeding on grasses. Aya assumed a hunter from one or both bands would see to him later in the day. Ahaneith pushed past Aya, followed by Pageti and Betrest and Takhat. All five of them knew their morning roles and they set to work wordlessly. Aya carried a few barely–glowing coals from the banked campfire to the pile of dried sheep dung Betrest was arranging under and around a small clay oven a dozen feet or so in front of the hut. Takhat was criss–crossing tamarisk branches on the cookfire to bring it to flame. Ahaneith was striding towards the lake to fill the large earthenware jar that was balanced on her shoulder. Pageti was rummaging among various baskets and jars for vegetables and fruits for the morning meal. As Aya finished coaxing her fire to life Pageti brought to her in turn an earthenware mixing bowl and emmer she’d ground to flour the day before and a few spices and a bit of the bread mixture saved from yesterday.
“May I mix it, Mother?” Betrest asked.
“Certainly.”
Aya dumped the spices and flour and starter into the bowl and Betrest began to blend the contents together with her fingers. Ahaneith returned soon after and Aya added water to moisten the dough. When it was the proper consistency, she helped Betrest form flat cakes and place them on a large flat rock and then pushed the rock inside the oven. Ahaneith joined her sister and helped cut the vegetables and fruit with a flint knife, placing the pieces in various bowls. Takhat, meanwhile, was stirring a savory stew at the edge of the cookfire.
By now the entire camp was stirring to life. Smoke spiraled into the sky from a handful of ovens where more women were sleepily at work. Aya heard laughter from the lakeshore where girls were filling water jars, and complaints from those fetching dung or small branches fallen from tamarisk trees at the base of the ridge. As Aya waited for the bread to finish baking she took a moment to look around. The stars had disappeared and the sky was brightening from rose to gold and yellow. The lake had taken on the sky’s colors and shone like a mirror, its surface barely ruffled by the hint of breeze. Birdsong swelled from the reeds that lined the lakeshore and the trees on the nearby savannah.
Kakhent emerged from the hut, leaning on his crook. Ahaneith hurried to her father and helped him to a seat next to the campfire just as Paser’s youngest son, Ashaket, arrived with a large jar of fresh milk from the herd, the patriarch’s due.
“For you, Grandmother,” he said.
Aya took it from him. “Thank you, Ashaket.” Even after so many years, Aya hadn’t gotten used to being called “grandmother” by the children of Kakhent’s sons. At eleven years old, Ashaket was nearly half her age. But his father, her stepson, was eight years older than her. That felt even stranger.
“Grandfather – Patriarch – Iuput told me to tell you he’ll move the herds a mile farther west today,” Ashaket said. “The grass is about gone where we’ve been grazing. He says in another month he’ll move the animals off the savannah and onto the harvested fields.”
“Any animals lost?” Kakhent queried.
He kept close tabs on the herd, Aya knew, for the animals were her band’s true wealth. Thus, Kakhent’s appointment of Iuput to supervise them. Ka
khent trusted no one else as much as he did her younger brother.
“We boys have kept the jackals and red foxes that were skulking about at bay, but a lion took two sheep the past two days.”
“What’s Iuput doing about it?” Kakhent asked, frowning.
“He told me to tell you that he and Hannu are going after it today,” the boy reported nervously. “Along with Menna and Khay. And Meru. Meru has already claimed the right to make the kill.”
“He is a patriarch.” Kakhent nodded. “Tell Iuput not to fail,” he ordered.
Ashaket dashed off.
Aya pitied Kakhent in that moment. Had he been a decade younger he would have led the hunt and personally slain the beast. Killing lions had always been a task reserved to her band’s patriarch, as far back as the old tales went. She could tell the thought of yielding the kill and the hide that went with it to another band’s patriarch was maddening. One more unpleasant reminder for Kakhent of his own mortality.
Kakhent settled in beside the overflowing bowls and platters, and Aya and the girls seated themselves in a circle around them. Betrest filled Kakhent’s cup with beer, while Pageti did the same for Aya. “What do you have planned for today?” Kakhent asked Aya as he selected a bit of fruit from the nearest bowl.
That was the sign that everyone could eat.
“The girls and I are going to dig up some clay and start working it,” Aya replied. Her miu rubbed against her leg, then sat in front of her and gazed at her hungrily. Aya fed her a bit of meat. The mius were quite useful around camp – most families had one or more. They helped keep down the rodent population around the communal grain bins and the storage containers kept in each hut. Aya’s usually disappeared during the day but reappeared at night in time to curl up and sleep in the crook of her knees. “Then we’ll check the snares we set in the marsh yesterday,” she continued. “They’re near a large hive, so we’ll bring back honey.”
Kakhent smacked his lips. “The first honey of the year is always welcome,” he said. “Makes your bread taste that much better.” He picked up his chunk and took a bite.
Daughter of the Falcon God Page 19