“I had no idea how much work it takes to make pots and jars,” I said. “I promise I’ll properly pack them on my boat so none breaks between here and Badari.”
Amenia smiled. Her eyes crinkled a bit at the corners. “Speaking of jars… I’m sure your donkeys are loaded by now. Uncle will be looking for us. We should get back.”
“I’ll send someone from the boatyard with more donkeys later today. I’ll want to bring all of these with me, too.”
Amenia took a step, turned. “I wish I could go to Badari!” she said fervently. “You’ve opened my eyes to a world I never knew existed. Thank you for that, Nykara.” She headed down the slope towards her house.
I strode beside her. “Maybe you’ll get to travel someday.”
She shook her head. “Uncle Hemaka will never let me live anywhere but the upper settlement, much less leave Nekhen – unless he joins me to an elite. My skill as a potter is too valuable to him to let me go anywhere. I produce twice as many of the rough pots as any of his men. I could make them in my sleep.”
Amenia interested me as few people ever had. “Well, come down to the river sometime,” I told her grandly. “I’ll give you a ride on my boat. It’ll be little enough payback for providing the pottery for my expedition.”
“I make reed mats beside the river every week or so, along with the daughters of other potters,” she said. “Sometimes I wash clothes there too.”
“I’ll be watching for you,” I said. Then, uncertainly – “If you want me to.”
Her cheeks colored. Her eyes rose to mine, frank. “Uncle wouldn’t like it. Neither would Nekauba.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “But I would, Nykara. I’d like it very much.”
A warmth I’d never felt before welled up inside me. Had I just stumbled on the exceptional woman I’d been looking for to share my life?
The donkeys were ready when we reached the works. Hemaka was waiting beside the animals, fuming, an earthenware jar filled with the stones I’d given him earlier at his feet. Amenia spotted him and immediately dashed to the covered area and resumed her work. She didn’t tell me goodbye. I strode straight to him.
“What were you two up to?” Hemaka asked, suspicious.
“I asked Amenia to show me how she makes her pottery. She took me to her kiln and explained the process.”
“Why?” Hemaka asked sharply.
“I’ve gone on many trade expeditions with Dedi,” I replied calmly. “He always has the advantage in an exchange of goods because he knows everything there is to know about what he’s trading. That way he can properly set its value against what’s produced in other settlements. That’s why Dedi always comes out ahead when he trades with Nubt and Tjeni and Abu. Their traders don’t know their goods as well as he knows his.” I fingered the top of a jar sticking out of a net on the nearest donkey. “I wanted to find out about these, the effort it takes, their scarcity, so I can have the advantage in Badari. I’ve never traded jars like these before.”
“Hmph. Well, now that you know, stay away from my niece. She doesn’t need the likes of you bothering her and keeping her from her work.”
I quickly inspected the bulging nets on every donkey, made a quick count of jars. “Everything seems to be in order,” I said.
Hemaka handed me a sherd of pottery with a jar drawn on it in ink. He gave me a bit of reed. I knelt, dipped its end into a small jar of ink on the ground beside his foot, drew the swinging hull of a boat on the sherd directly below the jar. I stood, handed the sherd to him. He carefully placed it in the jar atop the stones. “Be on your way now, Boy,” he snapped.
I led the string of donkeys out of Hemaka’s yard. I looked back over my shoulder just before his house disappeared from view. Amenia was bent over, smoothing the inside of a large pot, but I could tell she was watching me. That made me unaccountably happy. Wenher hadn’t a few hours ago, and she’d practically thrown herself at me.
I turned my attention back to the path. Perhaps my offer to give Amenia a ride on my boat would lure her to the boatyard. If not, I’d find a reason to return to the upper settlement and see her. Now that I’d found her, I wasn’t going to rest until she was mine. It occurred to me if my expedition to Badari was successful it would lead to more, all of which would require her pottery and give me a reason to call on her. If I needed an incentive to succeed on my upcoming trip besides helping Dedi realize his life’s ambition, I now had it.
I’d just reached the outcrop beside the wadi path when Nekauba suddenly stepped from behind the jumble of huge boulders at its base, approximately the same spot where Pipi and Wenher had been waiting for me earlier. He blocked my way. He held a three–foot long wood club in one hand, menacingly. I halted my string of donkeys.
“Don’t be getting any ideas about Amenia,” he snarled.
“Excuse me?” I looked down at Nekauba, somewhat amused. If I wanted I could probably snap him in two. Despite his little club. Besides, his warning had come too late. My mind was already whirling with ideas about Amenia.
“I saw how you were staring at her. You’re wasting your time. We grew up together. She’s mine.”
“Maybe you should let her decide, don’t you think?” I asked evenly.
He stiffened. “Her uncle and my father already have.”
He was exaggerating, based on what Amenia had told me, but what was the point in aggravating him by calling him out?
Nekauba swept his eyes over me. “You think you have a chance with her? An errand boy? She and I are going to join. When Uncle Hemaka and my father die their pottery works will be mine. Think you can offer Amenia a future like that?”
Nekauba was an obnoxious boy. I could in fact offer her a better future. I had half a mind to thrash him. But I didn’t want Amenia to take any grief from him on my account, not when I wouldn’t be around to defend her. I held my palms up. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Amenia and I simply had a conversation about pottery–making while we waited for you to load my donkeys, one Hemaka approved. That’s all. She told me you want her for your woman. I understand her situation perfectly.”
Nekauba reached up and shoved me in the chest with his free hand. “See you remember it.” He tapped the end of the club in his left palm a couple of times, gave me a superior and condescending smile.
I ripped the club away and grabbed each end and broke it over my knee in one swift movement. I tossed the two halves aside. Nekauba shrank back involuntarily, his eyes wide.
I stepped towards him. “Next time you want to talk with me, Nekauba, leave your little toys at home. And your threats.”
He scurried off towards the upper settlement without looking back.
I slapped the lead donkey on the rear and the string began to move once more. I’d made an enemy of Nekauba just now, but so what? He wasn’t much of an enemy. I wasn’t going to let him come between Amenia and me.
***
We were within sight of Nubt when my boat jerked violently and ripped the steering oar from my hands and launched me forward onto tall pottery jars filled with trade goods crammed tightly together on the deck. My formerly–resting oarsmen, similarly sprawled atop my cargo or entangled with each other, filled the air with cries and curses as they struggled to regain their footing. I quickly scrambled back to the stern on hands and knees. The vessel, caught on something, paused for a long moment, started swinging perpendicular to the current, tilted sideways. Then, with a shudder, it freed itself and began to drift. I got to my feet, caught hold of the oar, pushed against it with all my might, steered towards the western shore. Sluggish, taking on water, we limped to land. Several crewmen jumped overboard as we touched and secured the bow with a long rope to the trunk of a palm tree. I moved amidships to the side of the boat, peered over. There was a huge gash in the side, partly above and partly below the waterline, perhaps ten feet long. I was going to have to replace entire sections of reeds. I thanked the gods we hadn’t sunk and lost our cargo. I glanced in the direction from which we�
��d come, caught sight of palm fronds poking up in the channel. No doubt a tree uprooted during the last inundation had drifted downstream and lodged against the river bottom. We’d been unlucky enough to collide with its tip, hidden slightly below the surface.
Dagi and Pabasa joined me, surveyed the damage.
“Two days to repair, at least,” I estimated. “Dagi, have the men unload our goods and place them together on shore. Then drag the boat onto land. We can’t fix it while it’s in the water.” I pointed. “Assign some of the crew to cut reeds from that patch over there. They’re all experienced builders; they’ll know which kind. Once that’s done have them start assembling bundles.” I straightened. “Pabasa, come with me. I’m going into Nubt to arrange beer and bread for the next couple of days.”
Pabasa and I disembarked.
“Are we calling on Oonesh?” he asked hopefully.
Oonesh – Jackal – was Nubt’s ruler and chief trader. He too presided over a group of elites, though much fewer in number than Nekhen’s and nowhere near as wealthy, since Nubt was considerably smaller than our settlement. His position was not hereditary; he’d been chosen by the other elites upon the death of the prior ruler and so his power was considerably less than Aboo’s. Pabasa had accompanied me on two visits to Nubt so far as part of his training to operate a trading post. During them he’d made the acquaintance of Oonesh’s eldest daughter, Rennefer. I guessed her to be sixteen or so. That’s who Pabasa really wanted to call on. She’d seemed equally interested in Pabasa both times. Abar had taken that as a good sign when I’d reported it to her. She wouldn’t have to worry about at least one of her permanent traders quickly joining with a high–ranking local woman.
Nubt consisted of two separate settlements on high ground just beyond the half–mile wide cultivated plain, separated from each other by one of the many wadis slicing into the plateau on the west side of the valley. A number of nearby hamlets had relationships with Nubt, though none were officially beholden to its ruler as the hamlets near Nekhen were to Aboo. The northern settlement was smaller, inhabited mostly by workmen, edged by a ceremonial ground that was quite primitive in comparison to Nekhen’s. The southern settlement was inhabited by the elites, surrounded by a wall of logs set in a trench and plastered over with mud. Nubt’s trade goods were stored in a hut inside the wall. A substantial cemetery occupied the low desert directly west of the southern settlement, atop a low elongated gravel ridge centered in a wadi, marked by hundreds of depressions left behind when the brush and dirt mounded over the graves collapsed and settled. The number of depressions attested to Nubt’s great age.
We crossed the long cultivated strip and passed through the gate into the southern settlement. The dusty meandering lanes inside were crowded with men and laden donkeys and women balancing water jars on their shoulders, and running children. It was noisy. Smoke spiraled upward from numerous houses, all of them larger than the rude huts in the northern settlement. Pens attached to the houses held geese and a few goats. A short walk brought us to Oonesh’s residence, which was much larger than the huts crowded around it. Oonesh happened to be sitting on a leather stool outside in the shade beside its entrance.
He saw us and rose. “Nykara! Pabasa! You’ve come to trade?”
“Not this time, I’m afraid,” I told him, bowing. “I’m headed farther north. A tree trunk snagged my boat just south of here, gashed it pretty badly. It’s going to take a couple of days to repair. I’ve come to arrange beer for my men while we’re here, and fresh bread.”
“Rennefer!” Oonesh shouted.
A moment later a girl emerged from the house. She spotted Pabasa, instantly blushed, shyly smiled. It would have been surprising if he hadn’t been attracted to her. Her skin was light brown, her shining eyes dark and outlined with malachite, cheeks slightly dimpled, dark hair brushing the tops of her shoulders, legs long. She was dressed finely, as befit a ruler’s daughter, in a white linen skirt with a necklace of gold beads and bracelets to match. Nubt wasn’t called “the golden settlement” for nothing. Its mines in the eastern desert provided the elites with magnificent luxuries.
“Nykara’s crew needs enough fresh beer and bread for the next three days,” Oonesh told her. “How many men?” he asked me.
“Eleven.”
“Go to the brewer and baker and arrange for them to deliver it.”
“Yes, Father.”
“I’ll go along,” Pabasa volunteered. “To tell them where to deliver,” he added hastily.
The two strolled off, several respectable paces apart, studiously not looking at each other.
“Please. Sit,” Oonesh said.
I settled on a stool next to his in the shade. It was a pleasant day, but the sun was hot and being out of it was a relief.
“So, if not Nubt, Tjeni then, to trade?” Oonesh asked.
“Actually, I’m bound for Badari.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s somewhere to the north. Dedi’s ancestor came to Nekhen from there five hundred years ago. Badari figures in dozens of his family’s stories. There are supposedly forty or fifty hamlets in a twenty–mile strip along the east side of the river, all loosely associated with each other, maybe three or four large enough to be called settlements – Hemamiah, Mostagedda and Matmar are mentioned. Badari is chief among them. Or at least it was half a millennium ago. It’s always been Dedi’s dream to visit. Our ruler’s sending me to see if it still exists.”
“Instead of Dedi?”
“Aboo thinks the trip is risky. I’m expendable.”
“The young always are.” Oonesh laughed. “I doubt if anything worthwhile lies north of Tjeni, Nykara. I personally have no interest in finding out. My gold mines in the eastern desert give me wealth enough. I mine a caravan’s worth every three or four months, enough to create objects to keep my elite followers happy. More caravans occasionally bring me goods from the oases in the western desert. The trail goes east from them almost to the river, then cuts south from near Tjeni and right across the eastern bend in the river. That’s the same route I use to trade by donkey with Tjeni.”
“We boatmen do have to go farther than you to reach Tjeni,” I admitted. “But drifting north on the river is faster than riding a beast across the wastes.”
“Speaking of which, a caravan’s due to arrive from the eastern desert in a day or two. It’s bringing back sea shells and malachite, and a quantity of mudstone from the Black Mountains halfway between the river and the eastern sea. That’s its only source, as you well know.”
“Because you remind me every time we trade,” I laughed. “Scarcity lets you drive a hard bargain. Dedi’s craftsmen turn your mudstone into the animal–shaped cosmetic palettes Aboo distributes to our elites. They’re quite a status item.”
Oonesh’s woman appeared with a jar of beer and filled two cups.
“That’s an interesting jar,” I said as she poured. It was identical to Amenia’s red–polished pottery, decorated with an image of a hippo. Was it one Ipu had told us about in Dedi’s hut many years ago, traded by men from Nekhen?
“It’s been handed down in my family for generations,” Oonesh said. “Some of our jars and pots have been mended multiple times. They’re much prized.”
“I have a boat full of very similar objects,” I told him. “The pottery was made by a descendant of the woman who invented that style in the first place, in Nekhen.”
“Far–fetched,” Oonesh said, shaking his head. “Everyone claims their settlement invented something. Still, I’d like to take a look at your goods tomorrow. Perhaps pottery for mudstone and malachite? Diversify your cargo before you head to Badari?”
“Sounds good to me,” I replied.
Pabasa and Rennefer reappeared. They were walking much closer together now than they had been before, and were chatting amiably. Their apparent reticence had likely melted away the instant they’d left Oonesh’s sight.
“We’ve arranged delivery for the next several day
s,” Pabasa reported as they joined us.
“Thank you,” I told Rennefer. “I hope you’ll join us at our meals. You too, Oonesh, and the rest of your family.”
Rennefer nodded, looked boldly at Pabasa.
Pabasa sat down next to us at Oonesh’s invitation. Rennefer moved a few paces away beside the house, knelt, pulled the lid off an earthenware container, scattered a few handfuls of emmer on a grinding stone, took up a quern and began sliding it back and forth, leaning on it with all her weight, turning the emmer into flour. Her hair swayed in time to her movements.
Pabasa eyed her, and not subtly.
“Dedi and I are going to handle trade with Nubt differently in the future,” I told Oonesh.
“Oh?”
“Instead of me bringing a boatload of goods every three or four months and trading for a week or so and then returning to Nekhen, I’m going to establish a permanent trading post – with your permission, of course. I’ll send men with a boatload of goods monthly to stock it. They’ll return to Nekhen with whatever we’ve received to that point. That way you’ll be able to trade with us any time you like. As well as the hamlets that are dependent on you – Armant, Amrah, Salmany, Mesaid and Mahasna. And Inerty.”
“An interesting concept,” Oonesh said thoughtfully.
“Pabasa will run the post and reside in Nubt permanently,” I informed him.
Rennefer was listening to our conversation. She seemed thrilled by the news.
“Three men will assist him, all selected by me and our ruler’s daughter and trained by Dedi himself. I think this new approach will benefit both our settlements.”
“You’ll do the same in Tjeni, I assume?” Oonesh asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “I plan to leave Pabasa here when I return from Badari. He’ll set up the post. I’ll send a boat full of trade goods and his assistants north about a month later. I assume you’ll help him pick out a suitable site?”
Rennefer had given up all pretense of working. She was sitting back on her haunches, hands flat on her upper thighs, leaning slightly forward, listening intently.
The Women and the Boatman Page 25
