Night after night he tossed and sweated, longing to tear that smile from his brother’s face, just as Hawk had torn his future from him.
It was hardest of all today. Because today Hawk, Prince of Thinis, was marrying Berenib, Princess of Yebu. The King of Yebu had sent his daughter to marry the heir of Thinis, and it seemed he didn’t care who the heir was. Hawk or Narmer, it was all the same to him.
Hawk the heir. Hawk the victorious. Or Narmer the cripple. Narmer the nothing.
Outside people cheered. The air was filled with the sound of flutes and drums, and the smoke of roasting meat and baking bread.
But in his room Narmer watched the cat wash herself with one great paw, and almost wished he had died.
Hawk came to see him two days later, while the Trader was changing Narmer’s bandages. It was the first time his brother had visited him alone. Before he had always been with the King, and attended by guards and servants.
Hawk still looked amused, but also taller somehow, and his face more vivid, as though there had been a cloak over him before. Now the real man shone through.
Today the prince was decked out in more gold than even his father had ever worn. Even his long kilt was trimmed with gold. His eyes were rimmed with kohl. Gold gleamed on his wrists and arms, and there was a familiar gold amulet on his chest.
That’s mine! Narmer wanted to cry. But it belonged to the heir of Thinis, not to him. All he could do was lie on his bed, propped up by cushions, while his brother towered over him.
‘Greetings, little brother,’ said Hawk calmly, waving the Trader out of the room. The Trader cast a sharp look at Narmer, then obeyed.
‘Congratulations,’ said Narmer. He was relieved to find his voice was steady. He tried to keep his face as expressionless as Hawk’s had once been.
‘Thank you.’
Hawk pulled up a chair and sat down. He caressed its arms with his long soft fingers and smiled at Narmer. ‘I must have this taken to my rooms,’ he said. ‘You won’t need a chair now. I’ll have a cushion sent in its place.’
A chair for the heir, and cushions for everyone else. Narmer watched his brother for a moment, then he said, ‘You knew the crocodile was there.’
Hawk smiled at him enigmatically. ‘What are you talking about?’
Narmer ignored him. ‘I was too weak to explain it to Father before. And now of course I can never tell him.’
‘Why is that?’ Hawk’s voice was light. But his eyes were watchful.
‘Thinis needs to trust its king. So I will be loyal. For Thinis’s sake, not yours.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Hawk pleasantly. He might have been talking about cucumbers for breakfast. ‘You’ll make me an excellent vizier. You needn’t worry that there won’t be enough for you to do. All that interest in dykes and building walls can be put to good use. And I…I shall be king. As I always should have been.’
Narmer wanted to rage at him. Scream at him. Vow revenge.
But he was powerless. And Hawk knew it.
For Thinis, he repeated to himself. For Thinis.
‘My regards to your wife,’ he said at last, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘I wish her well in her marriage.’
‘Thank you.’ Hawk smiled at him again. ‘She is as beautiful as they say, you know. She wanted to visit you, but I said no. Your scars are quite horrible, you know. We don’t want to give her nightmares.’ He lifted his hand in farewell. ‘Recover soon, little brother. I am sure I’ll find a way to make you useful.’
He smiled again, and strolled from the room.
‘I could poison him if you like.’
It was Nitho. She must have been hiding behind the door curtain, Narmer realised. ‘I could slip a little something into his beer. He wouldn’t die for days. No one would ever know.’
Nitho was carrying another noxious mixture, in a big pottery mug trimmed with black, with hunting scenes on the outside. Her scarf had come free, showing her whole face, with its bright twisted scar. The cat stalked after her, as though hoping that the mug held food.
Was Nitho serious? Narmer wondered. But it didn’t really matter. He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Why not? He’s a poisonous reptile. Worse than a reptile. Snakes only attack for food, or if they’re scared.’
‘But he’s the only other son my father has.’
‘Then without him you’d be the heir again.’
‘No. Without him there’d be chaos. Every soldier who thought he should lead the army would wonder if he could be king. I can’t even walk, much less lead the army. What use is a king who has to be carried in a litter?’
‘You’ll walk,’ said Nitho, ‘even if I have to pull you with a rope to make you take your first steps.’
‘Mrrrww,’ agreed Bast. She sat on the chair that Hawk had just vacated and began to wash herself.
‘You won’t be here. You and your master have stayed so long already.’
‘Your father has paid us well for it: the rest of the gold that you bargained us out of.’ She smiled briefly, twisting her scar even further. ‘Perhaps that is the great fortune my master’s oracle spoke of. We’ll stay to see you on your feet, of course. The rest is up to you.’
She looked at him steadily for a moment. ‘You can do it,
o great Prince Narmer. If I can learn to walk on half a leg then you can too. As for your face…’ She shrugged. ‘It’s not as bad as mine. At least your scar will fade.’
She handed him the mug. Narmer sipped. He wished she’d wipe his face, as she used to do, or even hold his hand. But she never touched him these days, except to help the Trader change his dressings.
Seknut bustled in with food for him. Nitho left, and the cat followed her; Bast knew there was no chance of getting food from Seknut.
Seknut sat with him while he ate, then she left him too.
It was a luxury to be alone, after so many days of always having someone in his room, listening to his breathing or his mutterings. Narmer lay there, looking at the ceiling and thinking.
No more golden future. No more kingship.
So what was left?
One leg that worked. Another that might work, at least a bit, given time.
A scar on his face Nitho told him would fade.
A talent for hunting he couldn’t use, a gift for administration he didn’t want to use. There was no way he could be his brother’s vizier. Not even for Thinis.
Suddenly he realised he was free. If he was no longer the heir then he was no longer bound by duty. It was as though the ropes that had bound him to Thinis had snapped. He felt light as a leaf that could fly in the wind.
But where to? What did he want to do? What could he do?
He knew his numbers. He could write the tallies almost as well as a priest. The priesthood, then? At least the gods weren’t subject to his brother, nor were those who served them.
But which god could he serve? Osiris, god of the Underworld? No, he’d felt Osiris’s breath on his cheek. He wanted no more of Osiris.
Hathor, the cow goddess? But she was the King’s special guardian. That thought hurt too much also.
Horus, falcon god of the sky?
Seth, the god of storm and war and violence?
How could he serve at a shrine to those who had let this happen to him? He couldn’t even sing or strum a lyre…
He wouldn’t cry. He couldn’t cry. He was too empty for tears.
Nothing left. His position, his future, even the health and the handsomeness he had taken for granted…
A breeze blew through the door. It brought the scent of the desert, along with a scatter of sand. The servants would need to sweep tomorrow, he thought idly…
And suddenly he knew what he could do.
CHAPTER 11
The Season of Emergence (Late Winter)
Narmer waited another half moon, till he had managed to stand up by himself for a few brief heartbeats, and was strong enough to sit upright on his pillows the whole day instead
of lying like a baby. He waited till the Trader came with Nitho one morning, to change his bandages.
He waited till he had borne it all without a sound—the dead flesh and scabs pulled off with the linen cloths, the honey mixture smeared on the wounds, which still seeped blood and ooze at the edges.
And then he asked them.
Nitho sat back on her heels, the soiled linen still in her hands. ‘You want what?’
‘To join you. To serve your master. To learn to be a trader too.’ Narmer almost smiled for the first time since he had met the crocodile.
Nitho sounded too shocked to even translate. Behind her the Trader waited, peering at Narmer through his driedgrape eyes, as inscrutable as ever.
‘You heard me,’ he said to Nitho. ‘Could you ask the Trader for me?’ His heart was leaping as though he were about to jump off a cliff. But he kept his voice steady.
‘But you can’t!’ Nitho fought to gain control of herself under her scarf. ‘Prince Narmer, you don’t understand,’ she added more formally. ‘You’ll be leaving your home forever! We’ll never come this way again!’
‘I understand that,’ said Narmer slowly.
‘Do you?’ She gestured at Narmer’s room, the hangings on the wall. ‘You’ve only seen us living like you do, as guests of the palace. But my master isn’t rich, even if you think he carries riches. We don’t live like this most of the time.’
‘I know…’ began Narmer.
‘How can you, here in your safe River valley? Have you any idea what the desert is really like? What it’s like to face people who have never met a trader before, who believe a stranger must be an enemy and enemies must be killed, and to have only seconds to convince them to let you live? Do you know how to face people of strange towns and stranger languages and persuade them to take your wares? Knowing that if you fail they may steal everything you have? Or, almost as bad, send you on your way with no food or water, and no guides to find any?’
‘Of course I don’t know,’ said Narmer quietly. ‘But I want to.’
Nitho’s big eyes gazed intently at him over her scarf. Then she turned to the Trader and began to speak.
Narmer tried to follow their conversation. He had picked up a little of the Trader’s language now. What was Nitho saying so vehemently? Was she arguing that he should come? Or stay?
As usual the Trader’s expression was impossible to read. But somehow Narmer didn’t think he looked surprised.
Finally Nitho turned to him again. ‘My master says, “Why should we take a boy who stumbles instead of walks? What can you offer us in return?”’
Narmer had thought of this over the days and nights he had lain here.
Even the bracelets on his arms were Hawk’s now. Nor did he have other languages, like Nitho. But there was one thing he did have.
‘I beat your master out of two and a half cups of gold,’ he said. ‘Next time I will be on his side and get the gold for him.’
Nitho translated. The Trader grinned and spoke to her briefly.
‘He agrees,’ said Nitho.
‘What? Just like that?’ Narmer had been prepared to argue, even plead, to bargain for this just like he had bargained with the Trader before.
‘My master says,’ Nitho continued, ‘that if you’re not worth your bread we can just leave you in the desert for the jackals. No loss to us either way.’ But she looked startled too, as though the Trader’s words had surprised her.
Narmer stared at the Trader. Was he serious? The man’s eyes crinkled, as though he were laughing at a joke no one else had heard.
Was this some kind of test?
‘Good,’ Narmer said evenly. ‘Then it’s a fair trade. No loss on either side.’
‘Except your life, perhaps,’ said Nitho drily.
Narmer shrugged. At the moment his life didn’t seem much to risk.
Seknut cried. Her face screwed up like a pomegranate left too long in the sun. She covered her face with her hands to try to hide her sobs.
‘Into the Endless Desert! No one survives the desert!’
‘The People of the Sand do.’
Narmer felt like crying too. But he hadn’t cried before—when the crocodile attacked; when the King made Hawk his heir. He wouldn’t let himself cry now, either. If only he could take Seknut with him! But an old woman would never survive the desert. And a Trader’s apprentice did not have servants.
Seknut shook her head without replying, the tears streaming down her cheeks. The People of the Sand were barbarians. The River was the only world she knew.
But there is another world beyond the River, thought Narmer. A world of giant boats and lands of strange treasures. A new excitement was growing within him.
He told his father privately, kneeling on his cushion before the throne.
He expected the King to object, to plead with him not to go. But he didn’t. Instead his father sat silently on his throne, while the noises of the palace lapped over them: the songs of the women in the kitchen courtyard, the sounds of their chopping, the cry of a plover near the River.
Finally the King said, ‘Good.’
The word hurt, even more than the teeth of the crocodile. But Narmer understood. Even crippled, he was a threat to Hawk. The new rule would be easier with Narmer gone. The King had spoken, not his father.
‘I wish…’ Suddenly it was his father talking, not the King. ‘I wish it could be different. If I could give my life for yours, my legs to the crocodile in exchange for yours…’ His father’s fingers gripped the chair arms so tightly the knuckles were white.
Was he going to say ‘I would give anything for you to be my heir, not Hawk’?
Suddenly Narmer knew he couldn’t bear to hear the words. Nor should a king say them.
Instead Narmer used his crutch to lift himself from his cushion and threw his arms round his father. It was unheard of; even as the heir he had never touched the King unbidden.
He felt his father tremble as he returned the hug.
Yes, it was better that he left.
The King gave the Trader more gold—all the gold his servants could mine in the moon before they left. It seemed strange to Narmer that the gold went to the Trader, not to him. But he was no longer Prince of Thinis, and the Trader was his master now. It was something that would take a while to get used to.
The King gave them provisions too: dried meat and fruit, parched grain, travel bread baked in the oven till it was hard. He would have given them more, but the porters could only carry so much.
Seknut fussed over Narmer to distract herself from her grief, weaving him a new kilt and ordering him new sandals, as though the best clothes she could find would protect him from the demons of the outside world.
The night before they left, the King held a feast as splendid as the one for Hawk and Berenib’s wedding.
It was hard to feel the people’s eyes on him, gazing at his scars, his crippled leg. It was hard to hear their farewells.
‘You will always be our Golden One,’ cried Rintup the rope maker. There were tears in the man’s eyes.
No, thought Narmer. You are mourning the loss of the boy I used to be, not the one I am now. The Golden One has vanished.
And in his place…who knows?
It was hard to watch Berenib, who was as beautiful as he’d expected, trying not to look at his scarred face. It was even harder for Narmer to see his brother, with gold ornaments on his neck and arms and forehead, sitting on the stool that had been his, at the King’s side. But it only strengthened his resolve to go.
That night in bed he was dozing, too keyed up to sleep properly, when a shadow crept into his room.
For a moment he thought it might be Hawk, come to finish him off. He froze, pretending to sleep. But then he realised it was his father.
The King sat on the chair by Narmer’s bed. He didn’t attempt to wake his son, but simply sat there in the darkness. And Narmer found he too was content simply to lie there, breathing evenly, watching his father
in return from under his lashes.
What could they have talked about if he had shown he was awake? What words would bridge their loss—the loss of a kingdom, the loss of a father, the loss of a son? Both knew they would probably never see each other again.
So both stayed silent in the darkness. Narmer dozed. Perhaps the King did too. And before the dawn the King slipped away.
CHAPTER 12
The Trader’s party left in the predawn light, with only the King and Seknut to farewell them. They were under way before anyone in the town but the bakers was stirring, lighting the fires for the day’s bread, or the occasional woman with a fretful, wakeful child, looking out her windows as they passed.
Bast was nowhere to be seen. But Nitho had assured him that the cat would be waiting for them beyond the town. Cats were good, she said, at ‘following in front’.
They were heading for a city called Punt, according to Nitho, to spend the gold from Thinis on more myrrh. Then they’d take the myrrh to Ka’naan to trade it for copper, then take the copper to Sumer to trade for yet more gold.
This, it seemed, was how traders made their living.
The porters carried the spears and tents, the water bags, and the deerskin bags of parched grain and dates, dried meat, figs and raisins, travel bread and lotus seeds, chattering away in their own strange tongue. Neither the Trader nor Nitho carried more than a small pack, and an even smaller water bag.
Two of the porters also carried Narmer’s litter, a chair fastened to two tent poles. He was glad there were so few people around to see him carried like a baby through the streets where he had once run while the people smiled and bowed. The jiggling movement of the litter hurt his leg and made him feel a bit sick, like being in a fishing boat on the River. But he welcomed the pain. Anything to stop the deeper pain of thinking about what he was leaving behind.
They passed through the streets of the town, with their familiar smells of human dung and baking bread, then out onto the road through the fields. The flood had subsided, leaving rich black mud that was already turning to dust. The first shoots of wheat and barley had poked through the soil now. Soon the gardeners would carry buckets of water on yokes over their shoulders for the vegetables and the fruit trees. Fishermen would take their boats out onto the River; women would wash their clothes in its shallows; and children would drive flocks of geese or goats out to graze, or wave fans in the orchards to scare away the birds.
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