Time Meddlers on the Nile

by Deborah Jackson

  Taharqa vaulted over the side.

  “Isn’t that a bit risky?” asked Matt. “Going by yourself?”

  “I’m the prince,” he said. “He’s a warrior. It would be cowardly to kill me while we’ve suspended the battle to talk. And perhaps, today, I’ll make a kingly decision. Just as you did.”

  He winked at Matt and strode confidently across the blood-soaked ground. Matt gaped after him, but then a strange thing happened. The weight of guilt and misery of the past ten days, and specially the last hour, seemed to lift from his shoulders and take wing. He wasn’t a king or a pharaoh, but he had held the fate of the entire universe in his hands and, despite the pain it had caused him, he knew he’d done the right thing.

  He grasped the reins of the chariot and clucked, “Let’s go,” to the prince’s horses.

  Chapter 30

  Home

  Halfway to the fortress, the familiar tug slurped at Matt’s molecules and the failsafe tornado swirled around him.

  “It worked!” he exclaimed. “An alliance is what they needed. I think we’re going home,” he said to Sarah. “And I’m taking you with me,” he said to his dad, dropping the reins and looping his arms around him.

  Sarah beamed and hugged her goat. “It worked,” she echoed.

  The twister circled them, pulling them skyward. Matt clutched his father tight to his body, setting his jaw, shutting his eyes, hoping. A fearful nudge and a whinny from his mare told him she had crowded closer. Then it came: jet propulsion, atoms squeezing together, and a wet slap onto the lab floor.

  He opened his eyes, blinked, and found something solid in his arms. “Dad?”

  “I’m here, Matt.”

  He was. Sprawled on the lab floor beside him, no arrow or blood or wound visible, his shoulder healed. His dad was free, unhurt, and home.

  Matt hugged him and buried his face in his stringy blond hair. His dad did the same, his arms gripping him tightly, like an elastic band.

  “Failsafe error. Failsafe error,” pronounced Isabelle.

  “Disengage failsafe,” yelled Matt and his dad simultaneously. They pulled back and laughed together.

  A bleat warbled behind them, and then a whinny.

  Matt swung around and spotted Sarah, Matt, and Sarah, scattered haphazardly across the floor.

  “I guess we brought along the barnyard,” said Sarah. She hugged her goat all the same.

  “We could send them back,” he remarked.

  “No,” she said adamantly, stroking the goat’s head.

  “I can’t believe you’ve taken a liking to farm animals.”

  “They grow on you,” she replied.

  “I suppose.” He reached over and tousled Sarah’s mane.

  “We left Nadine behind,” said Matt’s dad with a deep frown.

  “Yeah,” said Matt. “So?”

  “Maaatt.” His father gave him a stern look.

  “Things couldn’t have turned out better,” he said, ignoring the fatherly tone and look. Something he’d have to get used to, he supposed. Before his dad could comment any further he quickly changed the subject. “I still don’t understand what we did. What role did Qeskaant play in our history? It had to be really important, but why would his death have wiped out our timeline? He was just a raider.”

  “No,” said Sarah. “He wasn’t just a raider. He was an honourable man, who valued freedom and took the Nubians’ principles of ma’at,” she grinned, “to another level. Isabelle, pull up the history of Taharqa. We’ll see if he’s mentioned anywhere.”

  She slipped and scrambled off the floor, and then strode eagerly to the computer console. The goat trailed her and nipped at her backside.

  “Stop that, Matt,” she said.

  “I’m not doing anything,” said Matt with a grin. He gave his dad another squeeze and stumbled to his feet, pulling his dad up with him once he found dry footing. Then he scooted to the console and plopped into the swivel chair. Sarah settled into the chair beside him, lightly brushing his arm with her fingers. Matt met her gaze and he could have sworn her eyes glowed. Maybe his did too, especially when his father grabbed another chair and joined them.

  They scanned the historical records together, but as they looked and studied and pondered, Matt’s high spirits began to sink.

  “Nothing,” he muttered. “Not even a mention of Qeskaant.”

  “Well, there is something,” said his father. “Rumours and speculation that Taharqa was involved in a battle in 701 BCE. Whatever he did, it was enough to elevate him above his brothers and cousins to become the next pharaoh. So it had to have been a great success. The record states that the Assyrians’—Sennacherib’s—forces mysteriously took ill and had to withdraw from their imminent attack on Jerusalem. The Jewish people proclaimed this as their Deliverance, allowing for their survival and giving rise to their civilization and faith.

  “But what if there was more to it? What if Taharqa did attack the Assyrians, but it was covered up in order for them to save face? It looks like the Assyrians and Egyptians drafted a trade agreement after this event. Why would they make peaceful arrangements if the Assyrians were strong enough to threaten Egypt?

  “Or, there’s another possibility. With the added threat of the Medjay warriors joining the prince’s army, the Assyrians rethought their attack and withdrew before Taharqa even arrived. He would be a force to be reckoned with if he were once again allied with the most powerful and elite warriors of that time.”

  “But it doesn’t even mention Qeskaant,” said Matt. “Or if slavery ended. Which, come to think of it, maybe we shouldn’t have interfered with.”

  Sarah sent him a slanted gaze.

  “What? It was something Nadine said,” explained Matt.

  Sarah frowned and tilted her head.

  “It has to do with time travellers interfering, changing history with disastrous results, erasing history and then creating an infinite loop because it’s impossible to actually erase history . . .”

  Sarah was beginning to look pained.

  “Well, it wasn’t all Nadine’s idea.”

  “You think?”

  Matt shook his head. “Forget it. But I still wonder why it doesn’t mention any of this in the records.”

  “It was a long time ago,” said Sarah, the lines disappearing from her forehead. “They didn’t have many records back then. Basically what we have here is from the Bible and from the Assyrians. Not much is even mentioned of Taharqa except that he failed to defeat the Assyrians later, when he was Pharaoh. That he’s remembered for. What’s recorded is usually in the best interest of the people doing the recording, right? Qeskaant isn’t even a bleep on the record, because if he or Taharqa did make the Assyrians scared enough to back down, they wouldn’t want to admit it. And if Taharqa stopped slavery at that time, it might not have been recorded either, or if the Nubians did jot it down in hieroglyphs on a temple wall, it might have been buried. I remember reading that the Egyptians buried a great deal of Nubian history under a lake when they built the Aswan Dam. We’ll never know much about their history. It’s too bad.”

  “Well, now we know more,” said Matt.

  “It would be wonderful if we could go back all through time, unearth the true stories, and correct or make the appropriate additions to the records, wouldn’t it?” said his father.

  “Dad? You’re not serious,” said Matt.

  His father smiled and patted his shoulder. “I think I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “Right,” said Matt. “So we’re not going back there ever again. It’s too risky.”

  “Matt, you’re forgetting something.”

  Matt turned to his father and raised his eyebrows.

  “Nadine is still back there.”

  “No.”

  “Caught in the quantum wormhole, just like I was.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “And if we leave her there, she might alter history too, creating another loop.”

  Mat
t stood and shook his head. “After all we went through, the crocodiles—”

  “Crocodiles?” said his dad.

  “And the raiders and fighting a lion—”

  “A lion?” said Sarah.

  “And the bloodiest battle I’ve ever seen, you want us to go back into that machine to rescue Nadine.”

  “Yup,” said his dad.

  Historical Note

  Time travel novels are a peculiar blend of historical fact, science, and absolute fabrication. That’s why I think I owe my readers an explanation of how and why I created these novels and some indication of what is real and what is invention. As far as the historical period and people are concerned, I try to remain true to the facts, but there are instances where I have to be creative, especially when I’m dealing with an ancient era. I endeavor to explain the science of time travel as best I can. However, time travel is, as yet, an impossibility, so again I have to extend my imagination. And my characters . . . well, they’re based on near and dear friends. No they’re not. Completely manufactured. What did you expect? I’m a professional liar—um, ah . . . fiction writer.

  Before I get into the fact versus fiction explanation, I thought I’d satisfy your curiosity—assuming you care at all—about how my ideas for this particular novel came about. Why did I choose the Nubians, and was I first interested in the time travel dilemma, then hard-pressed to find a link between the two?

  Actually, the dinosaurs came first, but who wants to read another book about dinosaurs? Oh, you did? Sorry about that. Maybe in another book.

  Anyway, to answer the above questions, I felt this need to threaten to erase our history, to place Matt and Sarah into the worst (time travel) situation imaginable—I’m so kind to my characters—and finally to give you an explanation for Nadine—who’s not the cardboard villain you might have assumed. At the same time, I wanted to establish that there may be a link (or links) between our civilization and an ancient one, a civilization we know far less about than the Egyptians or the Romans or the Macedonians. Don’t remember the Macedonians? Some fellow named Alex was involved.

  Now in order for our timeline to end, this link had to be broken . . . with the collapse of the civilizations to follow, or at least extreme alteration. I don’t mean to imply with any certainty that Taharqa played a role in securing the protection of Jerusalem. But in the The Rescue of Jerusalem, Henry T. Aubin (1) shows that the speculation exists. If I wanted to suggest that there could be a connection, that might have far-reaching consequences, like removing a link and erasing our history, well, there it is. Not exactly a strong one, but a possible one.

  As for Nubia, I selected this ancient civilization because, quite simply, it’s fascinating. Nubia, throughout the ages, has withstood onslaught after onslaught of invaders: the Egyptian pharaohs, Cambyses, the Persian conqueror of Egypt, who went as far as the Fourth Cataract, but nearly died on the return march, the Romans, who sacked Napata, but refused to stay and secure the nation, the Arabs, who dominated northern Africa from the seventh century onward, but left Nubia to the Christians for another 800 years. Even in the past century Great Britain abandoned Sudan to a “dervish horde armed mainly with knives and spears.” (2)

  The Nubians stand apart in their stubborn refusal to be absorbed by other nations. They even dominated Egypt in the time of the 24th to the 30th Pharaonic Dynasties. Discounting the current conflict in Sudan, which is horrific, but has nothing to do with ancient history (although even aspects of that could be debated) I wanted to reveal the amazing character of Nubia. I waded through book after book, trying to piece together the puzzle of the Nubians. I gazed at fantastic colour photographs blended with historical data from books such as The Nubian Pharaohs, Black Kings on the Nile (3) and it did give me a sense of Taharqa’s fondness for sculpture and construction, but it didn’t provide me with nearly enough archaeological proof of the Nubians’ lifestyle and character, or explore all the details that I needed to really understand their culture.

  Aside: This may get long and drawn out, because it involves historical fact and research without a hint of crocodile battles or goat attacks, so by all means, nod off if you must.

  The most comprehensive book I found was called Nubia, Corridor to Africa (4) by William Y. Adams—an out-of-print book that can still be obtained in libraries. From this (gigantic and heavy) book, and a few others, (5) I threaded through the details, discovering everything from geographic information—cataracts and savannah—to the usual meals the Nubians ate (hippo meat included), and from detailed descriptions and diagrams of Buhen, Napata, and Gebel Barkal to burial rituals and funerary offerings (which included the basic items buried with a soldier). I learned a wide variety of facts about Nubian pharaohs and was introduced to the Medjay.

  Yes, the Medjay were actual raiders, mentioned throughout history in ancients texts, particularly in the second century where Pliny—a Roman author and army commander—wrote of the desert nomads, the ferocious Blemmytes as a “headless race whose eyes and ears do grow beneath their shoulders.” (6) (I guess even Roman authors liked to exaggerate and lie— I mean, fictionalize.) They’re also referred to in the third and fourth centuries as “the perpetrators of raids upon the settled communities around Aswan and Philae,” (7) and even supported Egyptian rebellions against Roman authority. These Blemmytes were probably the ancestors of the Beja tribes of today, and likely descended from Medjay or Medju, who were often named as desert raiders in the hieroglyphic texts of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt. The Blemmytes primary habitat was the Red Sea Hills.

  When I read about them, I saw the potential for conflict with these people. I began making connections right up to the Fuzzy Wuzzies—what British colonial soldiers called Hadendoa warriors supporting the Sudanese Mahdi in the nineteenth century. I consulted the Internet (who doesn’t?) and found on Wikipedia (yes, even authors use Wikipedia for a quick reference) a connection between the Fuzzy Wuzzies and the Medjay, or, if you’ve followed the links through time above, the Beja people. The Hadendoe had butter-matted hair which gave them a fuzzy look. Ah. Maybe they always did, setting them apart with a distinctive appearance. The Beja people were one of two multi-tribal groupings—one of which was the Hadendoe, nomadic along the Red Sea coast. The Beja people were known for their skill in battle. Hmm. Sound familiar? Rudyard Kipling, in his poem Fuzzy Wuzzy, (8) said the Hadendoe “broke the square,” which refers to the British infantry square, a very difficult task. Kipling’s narrator, an infantry soldier, admires the Fuzzy Wuzzies, praising their bravery.

  So the Medjay, or at least their descendants, were documented and poetically admired even in practically modern times, but where did they begin? My next step was to look backward. I discovered that the Medjay actually worked for the pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom as their guardians and warriors. Eventually they became an elite police force and were often called upon to protect valuable areas, especially royal and religious complexes. (9) They’re most notable for their protection of the royal palaces and tombs in Thebes. I’m not really sure about Abu Simbel, but . . . see below.

  At some point in time, however, the Medjay broke away from the pharaohs and began their legendary raiding. Why did they break away and plague the Egyptians and eventually the Nubians? Adams mentions archaeological evidence (Pan graves (oval-shaped) in the Buhen area, which were unique and indicated another cultural sub-group) that they’d once lived along the banks of the Nile and worked peaceably as farmers. So I invented the idea that the Medjay protected Abu Simbel, but they did live near Buhen, may have gathered there and, at one time, policed royal palaces, tombs, and temples. Fact . . . mixed with fiction. If you continue reading, you’ll see how it becomes blended even more. But if you need a coffee or a brisk run before carrying on, I’ll understand. (You really shouldn’t drink coffee, though.)

  Back to fiction. There’s absolutely no evidence for my suggestion that the Medjay opposed slavery. Not provable. Sorry. What I did discover—this is fact—was that they opposed
Roman rule, after which they settled down and became farmers again. This could have been because they had a problem with another nation dominating their people—an issue with freedom, perhaps? And if you think about it, why would the former police of ancient Egypt suddenly swing to the opposite side and begin stealing and raiding? (This is just my brain, pondering.)

  What I could establish without a great deal of hunting was that slave-gathering occurred in Nubia for a long period of time, first when the Egyptians captured the Nubians, and then when the Nubians captured people who lived farther up the Nile River. If I needed a reason for conflict between the two Nubian cultural groups—those who ruled Nubia and Egypt in 701 BCE and the Medjay—I suppose stripping individuals of their freedom might have appalled the skilled, proud Medjay warriors who were drawn to a nomadic/free lifestyle. Perhaps it would even incense them enough to set out to change things, to harass the pharaohs until justice was done.

  Facts, facts, ponder, ponder, speculate, more facts, speculate . . . fiction. It works like volcanic intrusion into bedrock, prodding at the foundation until the heat creates metamorphic rock.

  The fact remains that the Medjay existed. They were farmers who became warriors/police, who then became raiders, then farmers again, then raiders, etc. Who knows why they did what they did. I invented the idea that they fought with Taharqa to defeat the Assyrians. There’s no evidence that Taharqa even reached Jerusalem, only that he was called to do battle, something mysterious happened, and the Assyrians fled—after which, strangely enough, the Assyrians drew up a trade agreement with Nubian-ruled Egypt.

  So . . . I created the association between the Medjay and Taharqa because I needed a reason to prevent the prince from (potentially) reaching Jerusalem—thereby destroying the link—and it had to be a better reason than stepping on a butterfly, or simply meeting the Matt-boy.