Enslaved by the Desert Trader

by Greta Gilbert

  Tahar was next.

  Tahar’s large figure moved over the top of the wall with catlike grace, then bounded safely to the ground without a sound. In the slight glow given off by the guards’ fire Kiya could see that Tahar was naked but for a ragged loincloth tied loosely about his middle.

  This was no time to be looking at a man’s exposed flesh, Kiya told herself. But what living woman wouldn’t steal a glance at the towering pillar of strength and masculinity that now stood before Kiya, sucking in the free air? His broad shoulders stood watch over the kingdom of muscle and taut flesh that was his body, and as he adjusted the cloth about his manliest parts Kiya felt her own most womanly parts respond in turn.

  Curses—this was not the time for such reveries.

  Just then a guard holding a blazing torch came around the corner of the building. ‘I’ll just be a few minutes, brother,’ he was calling back to the other guard. He looked up to discover the three fugitives, then paused, saying nothing. He stepped towards Tahar and gave a reverent bow. ‘Go quickly!’ he whispered, then abandoned his torch upon the ground and dashed away.

  ‘You heard him,’ whispered Imhoter, and soon they were weaving through the quiet outskirts of Memphis, heading west towards the desert.

  It had been a miracle that the guard had let them go. As they tiptoed past dwellings and shuffled beside animal pens it occurred to Kiya that by saving them the guard had put his own life in danger. By now the second guard had surely discovered the abandoned torch and dangling rope and was calling for reinforcements. There would be many guards searching for them soon: they had to keep moving.

  Tahar ran ahead of Kiya, but he looked back at her often, as if to promise her they would not be caught. Why would a King’s Guardsman endanger his own life to save theirs? The man had bowed respectfully to Tahar before disappearing into the night. Why? What reverence did he owe a Libu man who had been condemned by the King himself to die?

  Soon the shadowy mud brick buildings of Memphis were but a distant blur. Following Imhoter’s lead, they turned northward, stopping to take their rest at a small stand of tamarisk trees growing just beyond the river floodplain.

  Kiya collapsed into Tahar’s arms, which quickly grew wet with her sobs. ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘I might as well have been,’ said Tahar, smoothing her hair and rocking her like a babe.

  ‘Come, dear girl. You must eat,’ said Imhoter, producing a small linen package from under his tunic. ‘You have a long journey ahead.’

  He opened the cloth to reveal a large honey cake.

  ‘But how is it possible that you carry honey cake? Were you not imprisoned these many days, as I was? Are you not starved?’ asked Kiya.

  ‘Aye, we were imprisoned,’ said Imhoter, ‘but the guard whom we saw tonight was our salvation. He kept us fed, brought us water for washing, and allowed the King’s concubine to visit us. Just today he supplied us with the rope we used to escape.’

  ‘I do not understand. Why did the guard help you?’

  ‘You did not recognise him, did you?’ asked Tahar.

  ‘Nay,’ said Kiya. ‘Do I know him?’

  ‘You do indeed,’ said Tahar, ‘for he tried to kill you. But that was long ago—in another life.’

  In another life. Tahar’s words sent a pang of longing through Kiya’s body. In another life she had been neither queen nor captive. In another life she had been standing by this brave, merciful man’s side.

  Then it came to her. The King’s Guardsman—of course! The man was the elder of the two who had attempted to put an arrow in her heart and take Tahar’s head as a prize. Tahar had captured both guards that day at the second oasis, then sent them away with enough meat and grain to see themselves home.

  ‘I remember him now. He owed you his life.’

  ‘He owed me nothing,’ said Tahar. ‘But I gratefully accepted his goodwill, for it meant that I might see you again.’

  Kiya’s breaths quickened with her hope. Had Tahar yearned for her as she had him?

  ‘I, too, wished to see you again, my dear Hathor,’ added Imhoter, ‘though I have little time to explain myself now. I have had a vision—an army on the march towards Memphis. Tahar confirms that it is true.’

  Tahar nodded. ‘Chief Bandir marches from Nubia along the desert route—five thousand strong.’

  Kiya closed her eyes in stunned comprehension. ‘He captured you then? The day you set me free? As I scaled the Theban peak and beheld the Great River you were drawing him and his men away from my path.’

  ‘By sunrise I was already many hours’ journey into the Red Land, but capture me they did.’

  Kiya could make out the shadows of Tahar’s features, but his eyes remained dark caverns that she could not read. ‘Because you were on foot?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Kiya’s worst nightmare had come to pass. In setting her free, Tahar had doomed himself.

  ‘I was Bandir’s prisoner for many weeks,’ Tahar continued. ‘He tortured me with both fist and flail. When I wasn’t being beaten I dug latrines and tended to beasts. I was Bandir’s personal slave. But I remembered your courage, Hathor, and it gave me strength. Eventually I managed to escape. But just as soon as I was free of the Libu raiders the Khemetian hunters found me.’

  ‘Where did they find you?’ Kiya did not even need to ask. She already knew the answer. ‘On the Island of Abu?’

  Tahar nodded gravely. He had followed her there, just as she had hoped. He had been searching for her and instead had found the tip of a Khemetian soldier’s sword.

  The veil of numbness that had overtaken her, the slow mummification of her spirit that had begun the day she had dropped the acacia seed into the river and bade him goodbye, suddenly disappeared. She felt her ka spark through her body in a blaze of joy.

  ‘You came for me, then? You sought me out upon Abu?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  Tahar bent and embraced her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe—and that was all right with Kiya, because she didn’t need to breathe. Nor did she need to eat or drink or sleep, as long as she had him.

  He lifted her body off the ground. ‘I thought I had lost you for ever,’ he whispered in her ear.

  Kiya did not know how long they stayed like that, locked in their embrace. It might have been a minute, or perhaps a dozen minutes. But soon Imhoter’s gentle voice split the silence.

  ‘Do you hear it?’ he asked them.

  ‘Hear what?’ asked Tahar.

  The old priest put his ear to the ground. ‘Hoofbeats. The army approaches. They will reach the city by daybreak.’

  ‘We must flee,’ said Kiya. ‘We must find a boat.’

  ‘The Great River fills with raiding parties even now,’ explained Imhoter, standing. ‘They will come by land and by water to surround the city. You must travel on foot, in darkness.’

  ‘Into the desert?’ asked Kiya.

  ‘Nay, I will never be able to find you there,’ said Imhoter. ‘You must head northward now.’

  ‘You are not coming with us?’

  ‘I cannot, my dear girl. I serve the people of Khemet, and Memphis is my home. I must return to the palace and warn the King. My warning is the only chance the people of Memphis have against an army of this size. Go now,’ Imhoter said, motioning northward. ‘Make for the Great Pyramid of Stone. Stay away from people, for there is a bounty upon your heads. Find the workers’ entrance and hide yourselves inside. The day after tomorrow I will come for you. I will remove you from Khemet or I will die trying.’

  Imhoter gave Kiya a significant look.

  ‘I have something important to tell you, but not now. Now you must go.’

  He bowed low, then turned back towards the rooftops of Memphis.

  Chapter Thirty-Five
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  It was not until the Sun God had stretched his long arms above the eastern horizon that they finally reached the base of Khufu’s House of Eternity—the Great Pyramid of Stone. They had travelled in silence all through the night, keeping their pace fast and their footfalls light as the Moon God moved across the sky.

  ‘We have returned to where we began,’ said Tahar.

  The sunrise cast a brilliant glow upon his fine angled jaw. His beard had been shorn, apparently in preparation for sacrifice, but his hair had been left untouched. The ragged locks fell around his face, softening it and reminding her of how absurdly handsome he was.

  His body towered over hers. Was it a trick of her mind, or had he grown stronger over time? He was leaner now, and his muscles were more coiled. If she had not known him, she would surely have been cowering beneath his fearsome, looming figure. Since she did know him, however, she merely wished to admire him.

  He knew nothing of his own beauty, and yet his body was a temple of proportion and strength. His broad chest tapered into a perfect sacred triangle, standing upon its apex. The elegant shape found its terminus in two fascinating muscles that angled like bows down the sides of his hips to the mounds of his upper legs. If there was any imbalance to his figure it was those legs. They were large and strong beyond any practical use. It was as if a sculptor god had shaped Tahar to perfection, then slapped the remaining clay upon his legs as an afterthought.

  ‘You are injured,’ she told him.

  A fresh knife wound, likely received when he’d been dragged through the crowd of angry wedding guests, traced a crooked line down his arm.

  ‘It is nothing,’ he said. ‘Already it ceases to bleed.’

  ‘We shall tend to it properly soon,’ Kiya said, and she could hear the worry behind her words. He nodded, then looked at the ground. She knew he shared her thoughts. By now Chief Bandir’s army would have arrived at the gates of Memphis. Many lives were being lost, including, quite possibly, Imhoter’s.

  Even if Imhoter survived the attack on the palace, Kiya thought, he would be captured by the raiders. What then? Knowing Chief Bandir, Imhoter would be tortured until he disclosed the location of King Khufu’s Libu prisoner...and, of course, the location of the famous Hathor, Bandir’s escaped bride.

  If the Khemetians did manage to stave off Bandir’s army, Imhoter would still have to face the King. Would Khufu have mercy on the sacred advisor who had warned him of the attack, or would the King punish Imhoter for escaping his incarceration? With Kiya and Tahar disappeared, Kiya suspected that Khufu would have no mercy on the dear old priest.

  Kiya bowed her head. Right now hundreds of men were dying—and for what? To make a rich man richer? Kiya bristled as she pictured Bandir’s roving black eye.

  The raiders did not fight for Bandir alone, however. The Libu Chief had merely harnessed the anger they already carried in their hearts. Kiya understood that anger well, for it was born of longing—the longing for a better life. She had felt that longing all her life. Why should the highborns have all and the low-borns have nothing? She had always wondered. And surely the Libu must wonder something quite the same: Why should the Blacklanders have all and the Redlanders have none?

  Now, because of Tahar, she understood that she had been asking the wrong question. The world was wide and there was enough for all. There was so much more than just the Red Land and the Black Land. There was the Green Land and the Yellow Land and the Pink Land, and every kind of land stretching into for ever. It was a great big world, with so much in it, and no reason to despair. Kiya only wished she could see it all, with Tahar by her side.

  Kiya whispered a cheer as Tahar pushed back the boulder that concealed the workers’ entrance. A shaft of light poured into the large, flat space where only three months ago Kiya had gathered every day with her work gang. They stepped inside, and small flecks of dust illuminated by sunlight floated like tiny insects all around them. They did not have candles, and they would need to reseal the entrance soon so they would not attract attention.

  ‘We shall be safe for the length of this day and the night that shall follow,’ announced Tahar, and he rolled the large stone back to its place in front of the entrance.

  A profound darkness surrounded them. Kiya could hear Tahar’s breaths, but she could not find him. ‘I have lost you already,’ she said, aware that just days ago they had been condemned to die in this very space.

  ‘I am here,’ Tahar said, and he pulled her against him.

  Ah, the exhilaration of his embrace. She buried her face in his chest and let him hold her until she felt her breaths grow even again. Soon his heart and hers seemed to be beating in the same rhythm. They lay upon the cool ground together and Kiya felt her eyes grow heavy with sleep.

  She awoke to the soothing feel of his fingers running through her short hair.

  ‘We have been sleeping for many hours, I think.’

  Her head was in his lap.

  ‘I have wanted to do this since the day I captured you,’ he said, tracing the length of each of her eyebrows with his fingers.

  Kiya felt a dull stab of emotion. ‘If you wished to hold me close, then why did you set me free?’

  ‘I told you why—so that I could create a false trail.’

  ‘But could we not have waited and escaped together? Surely we could have lingered with Bandir’s army until a better opportunity came. We could have escaped together.’

  Tahar’s words were measured. ‘I could not wait and watch you become Bandir’s slave.’

  ‘You mean his wife?’

  ‘It is the same thing, is it not?’

  Kiya smiled to herself. ‘I have taught you well, then.’

  ‘You have, Goddess,’ said Tahar. He stroked Kiya’s hair. She had been stripped of her wig and all her jewellery, but her natural hair had grown much. It grazed the bottoms of her earlobes. ‘Your hair is so soft,’ he said. ‘It is like—’

  ‘Wait,’ she said. She moved his hand down to touch her gown, sending a thrilling shiver all through her body. ‘It is like the fabric of this gown, is it not?’

  ‘Verily it is,’ Tahar said, stroking the fabric against her stomach. His voice was thick. ‘I have never felt a material so soft.’

  ‘It comes from the Land of the Potters,’ Kiya pronounced. ‘Far beyond the Big Green. They employ insects to create it—can you believe it? Worms!’

  ‘Worms? How very strange. I should like to see them for myself,’ he said.

  She wanted to say that she would like to see them, too, with him by her side. But did he feel the same way? His body’s response to her remained strong. Even now, as he caressed her hair, she could hear his breaths growing shorter. But it did not answer the question on her mind: Did he wish to continue the journey they had begun?

  He had let her go, after all. He had set her free. It had been the act of a good man, a noble man, but also a man who did not see his future with her. It was true that he had returned to Abu, but perhaps it had merely been to ensure her safety. And then there was the darker question she harboured: if a more respectable suitor had bid for her—someone gentler and nobler than Bandir—would Tahar have sold her into marriage after all?

  She was not ready to know the answers to these questions. If their paths were destined to diverge, they would. In the meantime she would think of Tahar as her friend—a strange kindred soul—that was all.

  They settled themselves against the wall of the dark room, side by side, and talked for many hours. Tahar described his ordeal: how Chief Bandir had captured him and made him run until he’d collapsed; how he’d been bound in shackles and beaten nearly every day; how he’d been made to grovel upon the ground for his dinner. He explained that he had never had to live such a life, the life of a slave, and it had humbled him.

  As she listened her eyes filled with tears. She cou
ld not believe the pain he had endured. It sounded much worse than the life of any slave. And he’d done it to secure her freedom.

  Finally, Kiya gathered her courage. ‘Can I ask you two questions, Tahar?’

  ‘You may ask me a thousand questions.’

  ‘If Bandir had not claimed me—if his party had never happened upon us—would you have taken me to Nubia after all?’

  They sat together in silence for so long that Kiya couldn’t bear it.

  ‘The second question is this,’ she continued. ‘If you had found me at Abu, what then? Would we have continued on to Nubia? Would you have sold me to a more amicable suitor? A Nubian prince or some such?’

  It annoyed her that she could not see his expression. What was going on in his mind? And why did he not answer her?

  ‘It is unnerving to be so enveloped in darkness,’ he said, ‘when one is so accustomed to light at this time of day.’

  ‘There is nothing we can do, alas.’

  ‘Not nothing,’ he said, avoiding her questions.

  ‘What? Do you intend for us to walk up the tunnel?’

  ‘Why not? I have often longed to see the inside of this great structure.’

  ‘But we would march in total darkness. None of the torches will be lit.’

  ‘How many times a day did you say your gang hauled stones up the tunnel?’

  ‘Thrice a day.’

  ‘For how many months?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘That is many hundreds of journeys. I think you are quite prepared to lead the way.’

  Kiya started to protest, then realised that he was right. What were they doing here, squatting in the darkness, when they could look upon all of Memphis and perhaps even discover clues to the outcome of the battle?

  ‘Fine. But you have not answered my questions,’ Kiya said, releasing Tahar.

  ‘No, I have not. I will answer them at the top.’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Kiya felt her way along the perimeter of the chamber until she found the concealed rock that guarded the entrance to the tunnel.