“It should be you, instead of a lamb,” she said to him.
“You like the goat?” asked Qeskaant, returning from his preparations. “You can keep him.”
“N-no thanks.”
“It’s fine. We have many goats and he seems to have taken a liking to you. Did you know, if a goat follows you around, it’s good luck?”
Sarah frowned, scanning Qeskaant’s earnest face for some sign that he was kidding. Not a twitch.
“Why would it be good luck?” she asked.
“It means that you’re favoured. Goats are headstrong. They like to go their own way and we need to direct them, with a few harsh prods, more often than they’ll voluntarily follow us. You must keep him—it would be a mistake to refuse such a gift.”
Sarah narrowed her eyes. He must be joking, but he looked so serious. Now other people had crowded close and were nodding, as if he were telling the absolute truth. If she turned him down, what would they do? A happy crowd could easily transform into an angry mob if she offended them.
“Fine,” she said through taut lips. “I’ll keep him.”
Great. Now she had her own goat. Just what she’d always wanted. The animal bumped her with his curved prongs and rooted out another thread from her jeans. Soon he’d have her unravelled and undressed.
“Stop it,” she hissed.
“What will you call him?” asked a wiry little girl, placing her hand on his furry back.
What? Now she had to name him? “Oh . . .” she muttered. She riffled through a list of names in her head. Todd, Keith, Billy, Nuisance, Curly, Moe. “Matt,” she finally said. She owed him one for always revelling in her animal issues.
“But that’s the name . . .” Qeskaant paused.
“Yes, it is,” she replied.
“Are you naming him for truth and justice, or are you really calling a goat by your friend’s name?”
“You said he was good luck.”
Qeskaant tried to hide a grin, but Sarah caught it anyway.
“Is this a joke?”
“No,” said Qeskaant quickly. “He’s your goat now. Matt is your good luck.”
“Sure,” she said, mulling it over. He was either the best luck she’d ever had, or the worst she could have ever stumbled upon.
“Come on, Matt,” she said to the goat. “I’m hungry. Let’s get a seat by the fire.”
She beckoned to the creature and, sure enough, he raised his head and followed her. Actually, he was a lot like Matt. Stubborn, persistent, not easily cowed. And he seemed to be attracted to her, even though she wasn’t anything like him. He butted his head in where it didn’t belong, and he liked to chew on things—although with the real Matt the things were more like “ideas.”
She sat on the soft cushion of sand and extended her hands to the flames to warm them. The goat stopped next to her and nuzzled her face, then butted her head again.
“We have to get back to him,” she said, gazing into his large moist eyes. “Do you understand?”
It was strange, but the goat jerked his head, nodding, as if he knew exactly what she meant.
Other members of Qeskaant’s family gathered nearby and the feast began in earnest. Healthy slabs of lamb were roasted, and then passed around. Dates, figs, and the ever-present flat bread, even a small dish of honey, were shared. The hum of chatter drowned out any lone desert sounds, even the muttering and calling of the sheep and goats. The men and women on either side of Sarah tried to question her about her origins, where she’d travelled from, what she called home. She smiled and shrugged, as if she didn’t quite understand, burying her nose in a flap of bread.
Suddenly, loud angry voices rose over the crowd, turning down the volume of conversations in an instant. Sarah looked up and was surprised to find Qeskaant and the elderly man she thought was his father involved in a heated argument.
“Are you mad?” yelled the old man. “Do you really think you can challenge the prince and his army?”
“Yes, and I think it’s about time.”
“That’s not how we work. We hit hard, fast, and we retreat. There will be no retreating from Taharqa if you engage him.”
“We were their warriors once. We can surely defeat him. It’s about time we faced him, instead of sneaking in and sneaking out.”
“Oh, you’ve lost your mind. This isn’t the time. The prince’s army is made up of many strong warriors. He’s also a cunning leader. I’ve watched his training and tactics from a distance. You must not do this or we’ll lose all our best young men.”
No. Sarah clenched her fists. Please don’t listen to him. If he did, that would leave her stranded and Matt as Taharqa’s slave. The Medjay had to help Matt. They had to get Sarah and him back together. The shattered timeline depended on it.
“Do you really think it’ll end in disaster?” asked Qeskaant, seeming hesitant now.
The older man nodded.
Sarah stood up. What was she doing? But she had to. She couldn’t let the old man talk Qeskaant out of his plan. What would happen to her then? Would the Medjay wander in the desert for years, dragging her along with them like one of their sheep? Would she never get back to Matt? She couldn’t let it happen.
“Qeskaant,” she said, above their raised voices. “Listen to me.”
Chapter 23
Shortcut
Matt leaned over and patted Sarah’s neck as she plodded through the drifts of sand that covered the trail. They looked like snowdrifts on an icy Canadian highway, but with the sun blazing and broiling and the dust clogging his nostrils and stinging his lips, he could hardly remember the crackling chill of his hometown. They were taking the shortcut through the desert, Taharqa had explained. It bypassed a great portion of the serpentine Nile, the part that was rocky, barren, and incapable of supporting crops. It would also be impossible to navigate the Third and Second Cataracts with Nubian boats and barges at this time of year, he’d said, because the Nile was at its lowest level and the toothy rocks exposed.
So Matt was having his first real experience of unchecked desert—swells and troughs of sand dunes interrupted by the occasional rocky patch still chopped with furrows from ancient caravans. The winds blew from the north, sweeping into the travellers’ eyes and forcing them to tie scarves over their faces. And the sun beat down on them ferociously, making the grasslands and the palm-shaded oases around Napata seem like refrigerators.
For two days now, they’d travelled, struggling through the blinding wind and crossing paths with ravines, dry riverbeds, and a track that ran to the long-abandoned gold mines of the Twelfth Dynasty. Taharqa led the procession, directing his stallions from a glittering chariot, issuing orders to a long line of charioteers and a string of horsed archers, maybe a thousand in all. This number was not considerable by Nubian standards, but Matt had discovered from his conversations with the prince that a large squadron of the pharaoh’s army was stationed with the king in the Nile delta region, keeping the peace among the quarrelsome princes of Egypt.
The pharaoh had already sent several men ahead to the area around Jerusalem where the Assyrians were invading—the siege line—but they weren’t likely to hold off an attack. A number of these men were local farmers they’d conscripted who had little experience in battle. Taharqa’s army was composed of the elite—the finest charioteers and most skilled archers that Nubia had to offer—the only real hope the pharaoh had of repelling the Assyrians.
Along with the army came supply wagons filled with food, grain, extra ammunition, tents, and chariot gear. Cooks, blacksmiths, and carpenters rode in these wagons, along with several stable boys. Taharqa had even ordered a lion to be trundled with them on a wagon equipped with solid iron bars. It was odd, but when Matt had asked the prince about it, Taharqa had not bothered to explain other than to say, “He may be useful.”
Matt shook his head as he surveyed this massive army, still wondering how he himself was going to fight against a band of skilled warriors, if it came down to that. He had t
o prepare himself for something he’d gone to great lengths the past few years to try to avoid or prevent. Not only that, but now he had to ride beside Nadine and his father, each on a horse Taharqa had loaned them, and try to mask the nagging pain he still felt from their argument in the palace.
They looked ridiculous, too. Both his dad and Nadine wore the same tattered Roman togas they’d arrived in, but now they also sported the odd bowl-shaped Nubian caps to protect them from the sun. So far they’d said little throughout most of the journey, neither one mentioning Matt’s outburst. Matt had hoped that his father would at least try to reach out to him again, but instead he’d seemed content to stare at the featureless horizon and watch Taharqa’s army stirring clouds of dust around them. When they’d stopped for the night, he’d helped build the fire and pass around the food provided by camp cooks, but the only thing he’d talked about was the time machine.
“I guess this is our world, our universe. I keep getting drawn back into it by this unstable wormhole. I think it’s attempting to open in its original place and time in the laboratory, but since that mouth is blocked it connects to other folds in our universe, although it’s sometimes hard to tell when the nearest parallel worlds seem almost identical to our own. You followed me to Holland, Matt, didn’t you? And that was in our own universe, even though the wormhole can bond with others. And here again—”
“I was there to get you out before you were hurt or killed. But you said you wanted to stop something,” Matt had said, hoping his dad would tell him what he hungered to hear.
“I was there because the wormhole deposited me there,” his father had replied, gazing at the fire and avoiding eye contact. “I’d seen what might have happened to you in other similar universes, so yes, I wanted to stop it. But there’s nothing noble about that, Matt. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t initiated it.”
“But—”
“I could direct a portion of the negative energy to open the wormhole for short bursts of time, enough to make rescue attempts or send images of other worlds, or blaze a message in the fractions of a second that the wormhole opened, even siphon weapons from our universe into another. What else should I have done? I began the sequence, I opened the Pandora’s Box, I made it possible for the destruction of everything we know.”
“You see?” Nadine had interjected. “Little efforts to save a couple of minor lives after he’d triggered a global disaster. I was trying to save millions.”
Matt had glowered at her, but he hadn’t said anything. He had waited for his father to answer, but his dad had hung his head, turned away, and crawled onto his fur bed, not saying another word.
Why hadn’t he denied Nadine’s accusations? Why hadn’t he defended himself? He could have shoved the blame back on her, where it belonged. She had started this as much as he had. And maybe saving millions started with caring for one person. Was there such a thing as “minor lives”? But his dad had said nothing. At least he could have admitted to Matt that he wasn’t the best father, but that he still loved him. The time machine might have been a mistake, but Matt wasn’t. Anything that Matt could hold onto, some shred of the father he’d dreamed of.
This morning he was still waiting for his dad to say something, as Sarah trudged beside him on his horse.
“It’s hot,” was all he mumbled, mopping the sweat from his forehead with the remnants of his Roman toga.
“Of course it’s hot,” muttered Nadine. “It’s a desert, for goodness’ sake.”
“Matt!” Taharqa called from the front of the column. He waved his arm for Matt to join him.
“Don’t go,” Nadine hissed. “You spend far too much time with him. If you haven’t already altered the timeline, you increase the risk that you will every minute you’re with him.”
“Yes, I know,” said Matt. “But he’s a prince and the commander of this army. Do you really think I can just ignore him when he calls? He likes me. He wants to talk to me. What do you want me to do? Pretend I don’t want to talk to him, or that I don’t know anything. Act ignorant, like Dad?”
His father winced.
“He’s not that stupid.”
“Matt, hurry,” yelled the prince.
Matt urged Sarah forward, but he threw one last comment over his shoulder. “Besides, he’s my friend.”
Sarah trotted ahead of the archers and nudged up alongside Taharqa’s chariot.
“Yes, Taharqa. What is it?” asked Matt, noticing a gleam in the prince’s eye.
“There,” he said, pointing to a withered thorn tree near the crescent mound of a dune. “A gazelle.”
Matt squinted and could just make out black stripes blurring against the golden backdrop of sand.
“Run it down, Matt. Test your skill on horseback.”
“But . . .” Matt tried to protest, not too keen on killing the animal.
“You need to hone your battle skills,” said Taharqa. “I’d rather not see you fall in your first skirmish, and you haven’t even defeated a challenging opponent yet. Now go!”
Matt gulped and raced after the gazelle. Sarah lowered her head, as if thrilled to have free rein, while Matt fumbled his bow from his shoulder. He attempted to nock an arrow as the earth thundered beneath him, his hands shaking with the rhythm. The gazelle, hearing the hoofbeats behind, gathered even more speed, rocketing over the dunes. Matt pulled back his arrow and fired. It arced smoothly, and fell to earth just as smoothly, metres from the gazelle’s position.
“Rats,” he growled. Quickly he rooted around in his quiver and extracted another arrow. With crisp precision he placed it onto the string of sinew and fired again. This time the arrow caught the wind and angled to the left instead of right, missing the gazelle by centimetres and plunging into the sand.
Matt cursed, but he didn’t slow Sarah down, even though the gazelle was putting more distance between them. The next arrow he withdrew in the speed of a heartbeat and fired before he could take another breath. It zinged through the air and snapped, thunk, right into the gazelle’s belly. The creature bleated and flopped to the ground.
A cheer rang out from the column of men on the trail. Matt turned and blinked. Wow. The whole battalion was watching him and raising their bows in the air. His heart swelled, his sweat-soaked face beamed. He’d done it. He’d joined the ranks.
Taharqa charged up to meet him in his chariot. “Well done,” he bellowed. “Successive arrows, just as I taught you. Now gather up your prize. You’ll be eating hearty tonight.”
Matt smiled and urged Sarah to the site of the slain animal, the arrow jutting from its ribs, blood splashed over its caramel fur. His pulse quickened—a surge of excitement and a twinge of remorse—at seeing the vibrant animal now lying dead on the barren ground. But instead of using the spear trick, something that would spell disaster with such a large animal, he got off the horse, bent down, and hefted the limp body over Sarah’s back, tying it swiftly with a length of fibrous rope. Then he leaped back into his saddle—basically just a linen pad—and placed a hand proudly on his kill. He trotted back to Taharqa, almost forgetting his father, Sarah, and the timeline—why he was here—in this moment of triumph.
“It feels good, doesn’t it?” asked Taharqa, smiling.
“Yes,” said Matt. “Incredibly.”
“Hold on to that feeling. It is far more difficult with men.”
Matt’s high spirits deflated. His face must have shown it too, because Taharqa quickly added, “But you have the courage. I can see it in you. You’ll survive, but you still have more training to do. Deposit the carcass in the cooks’ wagon and join your father. He’ll no doubt feel pride, even if he isn’t everything you had hoped. Then come up here again later. I have prepared something special for you.”
“Special?” asked Matt.
“It’s a surprise. Do not attempt to pry it from me. Just know that it will help you do what you must when the time comes.”
Matt cocked an eyebrow, but a knot formed in his belly, to
o. What was the prince up to now? He knew it was useless to try to wheedle out Taharqa’s surprise, so he did as instructed and went back to his father.
His dad stared at him at first, saying nothing. Suddenly he cleared his throat. Matt braced himself. Was the prince right or would he be disappointed again?
“When did you learn that?” he asked.
“Before you got here,” said Matt. “The prince taught me archery.”
His father nodded, and then lowered his eyes and looked away. “You’re quite good at it.”
“A lot of good it will do us,” said Nadine. “You’re getting more and more mired in this culture and this land. Goodness knows what you’re doing to history. You know, I think every time that bloody machine sends you back in time you become part of history. Nothing is the same anymore.”
Matt opened his mouth to snap a retort, but his father beat him to it.
“It’s not as if we’re any better,” he said. “We’re the reason Matt’s here—in this particular time—in the first place. At least he’s learning something about the people and acquiring a skill that might assist us down the road.”
Matt nearly sighed. Finally, some positive words from his father. He’d almost expected him to agree with Nadine, but maybe Taharqa was right. Maybe there was a little more to his father than misguided scientist and Nadine’s “yes man.”
“Just be careful where you use it, Matt,” his father continued. “You don’t want to get involved in this war.”
Matt’s heart sank as his blood pressure rose. “No, I don’t want to, Dad,” he said. “I’ve never wanted to get involved in any wars. But I have and I am just the same. The Medjay kidnapped my best friend, Sarah, and if I don’t fight, then she could die. If I don’t help Taharqa, then he might kill me. We made a deal that I can’t renege on no matter how bloody this gets. So I guess you’ll have to live with me getting involved, no matter what Nadine says.”
Time Meddlers on the Nile Page 13
