The Women and the Boatman

by Mark Gajewski

  She drained it without pausing for breath, handed it to me.

  “The purification ritual is now complete,” I announced.

  Abar sighed deeply. “So this is my last day of freedom. Tomorrow I’ll be locked away in Ma–ee’s house again. Thank the gods for the audience hall or I’d go crazy.”

  “He lets you attend now?” I asked in surprise.

  “Ever since Shery was born. My son gave me the leverage I lacked before. I wait until the elites or petitioners half–fill the room before I march in. Rawer doesn’t dare try to kick me out in front of them – appearances are everything to him. He likes to portray himself as all powerful – that illusion would evaporate in an instant if anyone thought he couldn’t control his own woman. Senebi tried to stop me once before I got to the entrance – he and his goons. But he didn’t dare lay his hands on me and I brushed right past him. I even threatened to hire goons of my own if he tried to block me again.” Abar laughed.

  “My uncle Hemaka expected to have Senebi’s position,” I told Abar. “It was part of the agreement he and Ma–ee made when they gave me to Sanakht. Uncle Hemaka is extremely bitter about Ma–ee’s broken promise. You should hear what he says about Ma–ee when he and Sanakht are talking.”

  “Just one of a host of Ma–ee’s enemies,” Abar said. “So, Hemaka’s not content with being Nekhen’s leading potter now, and being an elite?”

  “He enjoys the wealth. He doesn’t enjoy how the elites treat him like an outsider. They inherited their positions. He feels he earned his. He thinks he’s as good as any of them. They disagree.”

  “A stroke of luck for Hemaka, wasn’t it, that Teti’s works burned down,” Abar said facetiously.

  “No luck involved. Ma–ee either set the fire or ordered Senebi to set it to fulfill his agreement with Uncle Hemaka. I can’t prove it, of course, but I don’t doubt it.”

  Abar shook her head. “Trying to head off Ma–ee’s lunacy is why I go to the audience hall, Amenia. I can’t count the times I’ve prevented him from doing something either foolish or outrageous. I force him to listen to both sides of an argument before he renders what passes for justice. I’ve never seen a man so quick to make up his mind without waiting for most of the facts. I shudder to think what messes he’s made this past week while I’ve been undergoing the afterbirth rituals.”

  “Speaking of messes, are the supplies of emmer and barley as low as everyone believes?” I asked.

  Abar nodded. “The god of the inundation did not smile on Ma–ee this first year of his rule.”

  “My cousin Peseshet said her man, Yuny, was only allocated half his usual amount of land.”

  “He wasn’t the only one. There was a near–rebellion among the farmers when Ma–ee placed the boundary markers. If they’d rallied behind a leader then they might have been able to force him to allocate fairly. But they didn’t. So Senebi and his thugs were able to put everyone who complained in his place separately.”

  “You wouldn’t believe how many farmers I had to tend to in the weeks after the inundation festival. Cuts, bruises, broken bones, even a few stab wounds.”

  “The only farmers who came out ahead were the ones who bribed Ma–ee.”

  “But he’s continued to provide foodstuffs generously at all the festivals,” I observed.

  “He’s trying to hide the truth from the people, so they’ll think there’s no problem. His generosity has made the problem much worse, of course – he’s nearly exhausted the grain reserves.” Abar leaned close. “Dagi procured what little excess grain there was in the valley these past months, mostly from the area around Abdju, Tjeni’s satellite. Nykara transported it here. Tentopet, Dagi’s sister, told me. Somehow she manages to communicate with Nykara at will even though Rawer and Senebi have drawn a wall of silence around our house. I don’t think either of them realizes who her brother is, and that he’s Nykara’s friend. Anyway, the plains are much wider at Abdju than here, so they actually had grain to trade. Can you believe it – Nykara used his own stock of trade goods to finance the exchanges?” She shook her head in disgust. “Ma–ee wouldn’t have stood for using any of the luxuries he’s already set aside for his burial, or the share of what Nykara’s workshops produce he claims for himself. Anyway, without that grain we’d really be in dire straits.”

  “That can’t continue indefinitely, can it?”

  “No. There’s not any excess grain left anywhere now. But if the next inundation is normal it won’t matter. Ma–ee will be able to fully replenish the granaries and no one will ever know how close we came to starvation.”

  “I overheard Sanakht tell Uncle Hemaka Nykara’s put the fleet to rights. He’s built several new boats, trained new crews, added new craftsmen, shut down Ma–ee’s trading posts in favor of the ones operated by Dagi and Pabasa.”

  “All of their assistants have joined with local women now,” Abar told me. “Thanks to Nykara, Nekhen’s presence is going to expand in the southern valley, just like we planned. Hopefully, my son and his sons after him will be able to build on that after Ma–ee’s dead.” She put her hand on mine. “Would you like Tentopet to pass a message to Nykara for you? I’m sure she can find a way.”

  I shook my head sadly. “We’ve made a clean break, Abar. It’s best to let it be. I haven’t spoken to Nykara since the day before Uncle Hemaka gave me to Sanakht.” The day Keminub was conceived. “I still make pottery for Nykara – it’s making Sanakht rich – but his men make the pick–ups and deliveries to the upper terrace. It’s better we leave things the way they are, that he forgets me, that I try to forget him.” There was a catch in my throat. Saying the words out loud was painful. “I can’t imagine he’d care for me anymore anyway, not after Sanakht has… spoiled me.”

  “You’re wrong,” Abar assured me. “He’d be with you in a heartbeat if he could. I never saw two people who loved each other more than you and Nykara. I always envied you so much. Love like that doesn’t go away.” She put her hand atop my belly, on my unborn child. “How old is Sanakht?” she asked. “Forty?”

  “About that, yes.”

  “How much longer can he possibly live?”

  “Are you suggesting Nykara will wait for me?” I scoffed. “With my luck Sanakht will live as long as Dedi – another twenty years or more.”

  “Ten years, twenty, a hundred – Nykara will never give up on you,” Abar averred.

  I recalled the dream the falcon god had sent me, Nykara and me sitting together, our child in his arms, watching the sun set over the delta. He had indeed promised Nykara to me. But I’d kept my dream secret from Abar, denied her precious time in which she could have built an alliance to defeat Rawer. I’d confirmed Rawer as Nekhen’s ruler in the falcon god’s name, knowing I shouldn’t. I’d put myself and my needs before his will. I’d dishonored my god, turned away from him. Because of that my dream would never come true. Nykara was lost to me forever. So was the god’s favor.

  I shook my head. “On second thought, Tentopet can pass along a message for me.” I had to pay the price for what I’d done, set Nykara free, give him up forever. He shouldn’t be miserable just because I was. He wasn’t to blame for what I’d done. “Tell Nykara not to wait for me. Tell him to get on with his life. Tell him to find a woman he can love and spend the rest of his life with.”

  Abar bowed her head. “Oh, Amenia…”

  “Our lives should be so different!” I exclaimed, frustrated, furious. “You should be ruling Nekhen, Abar. You should be joined to a man you love. I should be with Nykara.”

  “And Ma–ee’s to blame for everything,” she said. “I’ll hate him for eternity.”

  3441 BC

  Bakist

  I was in the harbor district, running an errand for Papa. A caravan full of wine was due to arrive at Farkha in the delta in a few days and he’d tasked me with arranging a boat to carry it from there to the traders’ storage area in Maadi. The harbor was crowded, the flats along the river piled high with goods carri
ed from or being loaded onto nearly two dozen moored vessels from all over the North. The cries of overseers and boat captains drowned out the grunts and curses of harried sweating porters and oarsmen. The dusty lane that paralleled the river was swarming with more porters bearing containers through the entrance in Maadi’s new settlement wall and on to either the northern or southern storage areas, and strings of donkeys piled high with goods, and water carriers, and vendors offering bread and beer, and a host of women exchanging foodstuffs with the boats’ crewmen for a share of their exotic goods, and even a few girls with dripping water jars on their shoulders. A couple of cats slunk along the bases of the wall and the storage huts, keeping to narrow strips of shade.

  “Bakist!”

  I spun around to see who along the quay had shouted my name, spotted him among the bustle. “Nykara?” I cried in disbelief. My heart instantly beat faster. His arrival was an unexpected and very welcome surprise.

  Nykara hopped from the deck of his laden wood boat onto shore, grasping a leather pouch in one hand. We quickly closed the gap between us, both of us dodging others, briefly embraced. Nykara was as imposing as ever, hair long, skin sun–browned, muscles hard. He was obviously weary from his long journey, yet seemed reinvigorated by his arrival at Maadi. I hoped, as always, that had something to do with seeing me. I’d missed him the months he’d been at his home in Nekhen.

  I’d been twelve years old the first time he’d visited Maadi, a tall gangly slip of a girl. I’d never met anyone as good–looking and self–assured and charismatic. Naturally, even though he was six years older than me, I’d been instantly attracted to him. What heart on the brink of womanhood didn’t succumb to dreams of forbidden romance, especially with an exotic and imposing stranger? Because I was bolder than either of my older sisters, I’d been brave enough to approach and serve him and even engage him in conversation when he came to meet with traders in Papa’s house. I’d also been self–confident enough in my abilities to offer to help him negotiate his trades. To my surprise, he’d actually taken me up on my offer, and I’d come through for him. He’d called on me to help him negotiate on every one of his subsequent trips. The first seemed so long ago now – eight years had passed. I’d long since become a woman, the tallest in Maadi, grown into my height in every way. Nykara had watched me grow up, though in a very disjointed fashion – we’d been together for a week or so, then apart for as long as six months, over and over, all those years. On some of his visits I’d felt like I was exactly the same person who’d greeted him on his preceding visit, on others I’d felt like a different person entirely.

  “Looks like another fine assortment of trade goods,” I said, professionally surveying the crammed deck of his vessel. There was barely space for his crew to move around.

  “The best from my smithy and the workshops of my craftsmen.” Nykara shook his head. “Can you believe Ma–ee was so short–sighted the years he was running the enterprise he wouldn’t let me trade what his craftsmen produced here at Maadi?”

  “An utterly stupid man.”

  Nykara laughed.

  Several of his men eyed me lasciviously from the deck. Every boat’s crew did. I ignored them.

  “Have you been waiting in the harbor for me to return?” Nykara teased. “Do you come every day hoping to see me?”

  “You wish,” I said lightly. But I wished he did wish. “I was running an errand for Papa.” I took hold of his arm. “You’ll stay with us, of course.”

  “I hoped you’d ask.”

  He’d known I’d ask. Nykara had stayed with us every trip since his first. He and Papa were not only trading partners but fast friends. I glanced at his pouch. I couldn’t wait to see what treasures he’d carried with him from Nekhen. He always brought us gifts – for Papa and Mama and each of my sisters. But my gift was always the best.

  “The wall’s been finished since my last visit,” Nykara observed, scanning the wood structure.

  “Finally circles the entire settlement,” I told him. “We’ve become a target for desert raiders, ever since Nekhen started trading with us. Your elites’ desire for our luxury goods has brought us prosperity. Our storage areas are a tempting prize. Our population’s more than doubled since you first voyaged here from the South.”

  “There were only three boats in the harbor when I arrived that time, as I recall. But today…” – he swept his arm across the docks – “barely a berth for me.”

  “We’re lucky enough to be at the very junction between North and South,” I said. “All trade goods flow through us.”

  “Speaking of which, as I arrived I glimpsed the top of a long pavilion inside the wall where the southern storage huts are located,” Nykara said. “That’s new too.”

  “More than just a pavilion. The whole area’s been redone – the northern too. I’ll show you before we go to Papa’s.”

  I led Nykara along the harbor lane towards the brand–new entrance gate into the settlement. I hadn’t let go of his arm. He didn’t seem to mind.

  We hadn’t wound very far through the crowd when my attention was attracted to an altercation near one of the boats. The reed vessel rode low in the water and showed evidence of many unskilled repairs. Women and children crowded its deck, fearfully watching the confrontation just beyond. Two men were arguing loudly, chest to chest. One was Setau, the overseer in charge of the docks. He’d pressured Papa for years to join me to him, but had finally given up. I’d leveraged his desire for me to negotiate a reduced share of goods on Nykara’s behalf on his very first visit, which he’d had to honor on every subsequent one. Even so, Setau had made out quite nicely over the years thanks to the volume of Nykara’s trade. Setau was arguing with a farmer. A dozen or more travel–stained immigrants stood in a semicircle behind him. Setau was backed by five guards with copper knives tucked in leather sheaths at their waists and lances in their hands. Such greeting parties were a recent development in Nekhen. Much had changed since Nykara’s last visit seven months ago.

  “Let’s watch,” Nykara whispered. “Never seen anything like this before.”

  We slipped to one side of the farmers.

  “I tell you, there’s no place for filthy immigrants like you at Maadi,” Setau barked. “You think you can come here with nothing and we’ll feed you?”

  “We’re willing to work hard. We know how to farm. We’ve brought seed and supplies with us.”

  “Go find some land and sow your seed then. There’s plenty two days’ travel north of Maadi.”

  “We will. But once we plant, our emmer won’t be ready to harvest for another five months. We just need work enough for some of us in your settlement until then so we can feed our families in the meantime.”

  “We have no extra food to spare,” Setau snapped. “What we have supports our workers. There’s no place for you here. Get back on your boats and be gone.”

  “But we’ve traveled for weeks. The inundation’s been horrible at home. We can’t farm there anymore. Where are we supposed to go?”

  “Not my problem.” Setau gestured and his guards took several menacing steps forward.

  The leader turned and looked at the rest of his comrades. There was confusion and panic and hopelessness in their eyes. He shrugged, shoulders hunched, defeated. They all turned away and moved towards their cluster of boats, trailed closely by the guards.

  “Things have sure changed at Maadi, and not for the better,” Nykara observed. “Setau used to be very welcoming.”

  “Before you started trading with us the local farmers always had enough excess grain that we could support everyone in Nekhen easily. But with our population explosion, and the poor inundation a year ago that wiped out our reserves, there isn’t any grain to spare. I don’t envy Setau his job these days.”

  I led Nykara through the gate into Maadi. We followed a group of burdened porters along a wide dusty lane to the settlement’s northern edge. We stopped before a long open–sided rectangular structure consisting of a wood f
rame thickly topped with palm fronds, erected five months earlier. Inside the structure, buried up to their necks in the ground, were massive clay storage jars arranged in a long row. The whole area swarmed with people. Some porters were placing objects from the containers they’d carried from the traders’ boats into the storage jars. Others were filling containers with items from the jars to carry back to the harbor. A few men, obviously traders, stood in small groups, making deals.

  “No more storage huts,” Nykara observed. “This is impressive.”

  “We don’t have to worry anymore about raiders setting the huts on fire and destroying our trade goods,” I said. “Once the tops are on the jars the contents are safe.”

  Nykara knelt, closely inspected the nearest jar, looked up at me. “The jars hold the same items as the huts did?”

  I nodded. “Mostly foodstuffs in this area, though the grain jars are empty – we’ve set our emmer and barley aside to feed ourselves, not to trade to the lands along the seacoast. As for the rest – cooked mutton, shellfish, fish bones, flints, rough pots, spindle whorls, clay jar stoppers.”

  Nykara rose and I took hold of his arm again. I led him south through Maadi, using a path on the crest of the ridge. The storage jars on the southern edge of the settlement were covered by a pavilion similar to the other. This area was also alive with porters and overseers and traders. Quite a few traders greeted Nykara by name. He was well–known after so many expeditions.

  “As you can see,” I said, “the jars here are inside cellars sunk five feet into the earth. Each cellar is ten feet long, and each is linked to its neighbor. The walls of the cellars are lined with stone and the massive jars buried inside them are covered with stone lids.”

  Most of the lids were currently propped open so the jars’ contents could be viewed. I ran through the litany of goods inside – “ceramics, tools, carnelian beads, figurines carved from hippo ivory, lapis lazuli, obsidian.” As before, fragrant cedar logs were stacked beside one end of the pavilion, close to rows of jars containing olive oil and resin and wine.