But he would see none of it.
I will not cry! he told himself desperately. He held himself upright on his chair, his face frozen to stop the tears that tried to fall. I won’t look back, I won’t!
But he did. He saw the River flashing silver, the early smoke rising from the town. Thinis had never looked so beautiful.
This land had been his life. All he had ever hoped for or imagined was here.
Now he would never see Thinis again.
Houses gave way to plots of grain and orchards. And then the rich moist floodlands were behind them. They climbed into the hills, dry and hot as the baker’s oven.
They stopped at midday at a water seep: a thin film of surprisingly cool water that dripped from a rock into a pool no bigger than a cupped hand.
Bast headed to the water and began to drink, then pounched on a lizard that had been unwise enough to try to drink there too. The porters put Narmer’s chair down in the shade of a rock, then went to replenish their water bags.
Narmer leant against the cool stone and closed his eyes. He felt exhausted already. Even though he had been sitting up this past moon, even trying a few cautious steps, it was far more tiring to brace his body against the jiggling of the litter for hours at a time.
This would be his life now, he thought dismally. Hobbling to his litter, leaning on someone’s shoulder. Crippled forever…
‘Hungry?’ Nitho squatted beside him, holding out a handful of dates. She had left off her scarf as soon as they were beyond Thinis, but she still wore the headdress. The Trader had insisted that Narmer wear one too. He was grateful now. The cloth at least kept off the worst of the sun.
Narmer shook his head. ‘No, thank you.’
Nitho no longer called him Prince, he realised. He supposed no one ever would again.
‘You’d better drink something, at least.’ This time she held out a damp water bag.
Narmer drank from it. The water tasted of goatskin. He’d have liked to spill some of the cool water over his head, but water was precious now. Was this still River water? he wondered. Or had Nitho filled it from the pool? The River had given him everything he was—his food, his kingdom, his life’s blood. Now he would never drink its waters again.
The Trader got up and barked out an order. The porters gathered their spears and began to pick up the baggage. Narmer struggled to his feet and started hobbling towards his chair.
‘No,’ the Trader said to him.
Narmer stared. Had he misunderstood? Nitho had been teaching him the Trader’s language, but he still had a lot to learn.
The Trader’s face showed no expression. ‘You will walk,’ he said firmly. ‘Not ride.’
‘But—but I can’t!’ He turned to Nitho, pleading, ‘Nitho, tell him! Explain to him!’
Nitho’s face was impassive too. ‘He is your master now,’ she said quietly. ‘If he says walk, you walk.’
‘But there’s no way I can keep up with you!’
Had the Trader really been serious when he’d said they’d leave him in the desert? Narmer tried to calculate. Thinis was still only a morning’s walk away. Surely he could make it back again! Limping, dusty, bedraggled, crawling perhaps…
He would rather die, and have the crows pick out his eyes.
‘Walk,’ said the Trader again. He held out a walking stick. The dark eyes were kind, but the wrinkled face inscrutable.
Narmer took the stick and began to hobble forward.
It was agony. His good leg took half his weight, the stick the other half. His bad leg refused to move by itself. He had to swing his body every time he took a step, so it would force his leg to swing too.
Step, swing, step, swing, step—it was as though fire played along his muscles. Step, step, step…
The sand burnt his feet. They had lost their toughness during the months in bed. But sandals were too cumbersome for walking far.
The others were getting further and further ahead. Narmer forced himself to go faster, his bare feet pushing frantically through the sand.
Step, swing, step, swing, step…
And slowly he realised that the agony had eased, just a little. That each time he swung his leg it moved a little more easily. That yes, he was finally walking…
Step, swing, step, swing, step, swing…
Sweat poured down his face. He didn’t dare look at the others now to see how far ahead they were. It didn’t matter, he thought grimly. If necessary he’d walk all night to catch up to them. Anything rather than return home a failure. Step, swing, step, swing…
‘Narmer! Narmer!’
For a moment he hardly heard the words. Then the mist cleared before his eyes and he saw Nitho in front of him. She was holding out a water bag. The porters stood beside her with his chair.
‘You did well,’ she said gently. ‘But that’s enough. Drink now, then ride. You can walk again tomorrow.’
‘I walked! I really walked!’
‘Of course you did.’ Her crooked smile was as wide as the River. ‘The crocodile couldn’t stop you, and neither will your leg. You can do anything you put your mind to, Narmer. Anything at all.’
And for a moment, there on the chair, with his leg shaking uncontrollably and triumph in his heart, he believed her. And it felt better than all the cheers and flattery in Thinis.
CHAPTER 13
A night, trying to sleep in a goatskin cloak, feeling the teeth of the rocks beneath. The stars wheeling above him in the clear desert sky, seeming so close he felt he could poke them with a stick. Oats for breakfast and half a day of jolting in the chair…
They were out of the hills and into the real desert now.
Narmer had never been more than half a day from the green safety of the River, with its water and its wildlife. Out here there was neither.
The first thing he’d noticed was the light. It was pure white, out here away from the green River valley. The sun was so strong it seemed to bleach all the colour from the world. White light all around him, white light reflecting off quartz in the rocks, off sand.
The next thing he noticed was the space. The desert filled the world from horizon to horizon, with no human thing to break the monotony.
And then he noticed the noise.
He’d thought the desert would be silent. It wasn’t. The sand rustled; in other stretches rocks creaked underfoot. The wind was always howling somewhere past the horizon, even when the air around them was still.
But even in the Endless Desert, it seemed, there was grass, thin tufts sheltered by clumps of rocks, and the occasional seep of water, trickling into the sand or forming tiny puddles in the rock.
By now Narmer was getting to know the porters too, the big men who carried the baggage, put up the tents and, hopefully, frightened off any passers-by who might be tempted to steal their goods—or their lives.
Narmer had assumed that the Trader had hired his men on the journey. But it seemed that they were from Sumer too: Akkadians, the dark-skinned early inhabitants of the land between the rivers.
Narmer had heard of Sumer, but it had never quite seemed real before, just another story from places far away. Now, listening to the porters’ strange language, Sumer became part of the new world he had to learn about.
Portho the porter with the scar on his shoulder, was the oldest. He had worked as a boy for the Trader’s father, who, it seemed, had been a trader too. Portho could tie a piece of cord around his upper arm and flex his muscles so it snapped, and could whirl a stick in tinder to light a fire faster than anyone Narmer had ever seen.
Nid was the tallest, a giant of a man. He had lost his eye in a scuffle with tribesmen to the east. He munched grass stems as he walked, and one of his teeth was worn down further than the rest from his chewing.
Jod was the youngest, and smaller than the other two—though still half as tall again as any man in Thinis. But he had a soft voice of authority that the other guards obeyed even when the wind blew sand into their faces, and humans and animals a
like were cranky.
The porters mostly chattered among themselves, in their own language, and the Trader seemed to enjoy silence. But most days Nitho talked to Narmer as she walked beside his chair. She was still teaching him Sumerian, but they spoke of other things as well.
It was Nitho who helped him climb a dune to watch a desert hare whirling in the sand, circling and prancing as though it had decided to dance with the wind. It was Nitho who told him stories of their trading expeditions to Ka’naan for copper or for tin in far-off Khorassan, where Nitho had seen a strange woman with hair the colour of the sand and eyes like bits of sky.
As Prince of Thinis Narmer had never had a friend. Was this what it might have been like, he wondered, to have a brother or sister who was a companion, instead of one who plotted to steal your throne? The friendship and adventure made him forget the loss of Thinis for a time—almost, at any rate.
And every day, whenever he looked up, Narmer would find the Trader’s eyes upon him, bright in their setting of dark wrinkles, inscrutable.
What was the Trader thinking? Narmer could understand some of his speech now. But the Trader spoke little, leaving the routine of setting up camp to the porters.
‘Is he always like this?’ Narmer asked Nitho one afternoon as she walked beside his chair.
‘What do you mean?’
‘So quiet. He always seems to be…’ Narmer was going to say ‘looking at me’, but he substituted ‘thinking’. ‘He’s not sorry he let me come, is he?’
‘He’s quieter than usual,’ admitted Nitho, ‘but of course he doesn’t regret bringing you.’
Still, Narmer wondered.
Who was this man he had entrusted his future to? A trader’s life had seemed so simple back in the safety of Thinis. Now, in the emptiness of the desert, Narmer realised how little he knew.
At least he had grown used to the caravan’s routine. Each day they set off in the dim pre-dawn light, before it grew too hot. They travelled till midday, when they rested in shade if there was any to be found, or draped the tents across the poles if there wasn’t, to keep off the sun and protect them from the worst of the afternoon’s heat. In the late afternoon they walked again till the sun began to set. They ate at dawn and dusk: handfuls of dates or dried jujubes, or bread that Nitho made by dripping a little water into the bag of flour, flattening out the dough and baking it on the rocks or sand at mid-afternoon when they were hottest.
Narmer was amazed the first time he tasted one of these small flat cakes. It was cooked right through and the sand brushed straight off the crust. They tasted of the desert, of Nitho’s hands and, just occasionally, of cat.
Bast was always there, but never quite with them. She roamed just out of sight, except at dawn and dusk, when she sat by Nitho gnawing at her food. She seemed to expect to be fed whatever the humans ate. But sometimes in the morning there was a small gift outside Nitho’s tent: the half-chewed head of a desert lizard or a splodge of mouse guts, and once what Nitho swore was the tail of a cobra.
Narmer walked twice a day now. He could even put his full weight momentarily on his damaged leg.
And every day, Thinis and his life as a prince fell further behind.
They had been travelling for almost a moon when the strangers appeared on the horizon: black dots in the haze of the midday heat, so that at first Narmer wasn’t sure they were really there. But slowly they grew larger, and larger still.
‘People of the Sand,’ said Nitho warily, shading her eyes from the glare.
Narmer snorted. ‘People of the Sand are worthless. They just wander about, hunting—or stealing from other people. They tried to attack Thinis two floods ago. They don’t build anything, or grow anything.’
The Trader looked at him with one of his small smiles. ‘Is that so?’
Portho muttered something, staring anxiously at the strangers, his accent still too strong for Narmer to understand.
‘War party,’ agreed the Trader.
‘How can you tell?’
‘There are too many for a hunting party, and they’re all men. If they were just moving from oasis to oasis there’d be women and children too.’
‘Are they going to attack us?’
The Trader shrugged. ‘That’s up to you.’
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Narmer. ‘Sir,’ he added as an afterthought. It was hard to remember that he now had a master.
The Trader’s lips stretched into a smile. ‘They’re heading towards us. That means they’re either planning to fight us, or are curious and want to know who we are. Probably they haven’t decided which.’
Narmer looked at the approaching men.
‘You wanted to be a trader,’ said his master calmly. ‘This is where you start. Make them believe that it’s better to trade with us than fight us.’
‘How? They’re People of the Sand! Thieves! All they have to do is kill us and they can take everything we have anyway!’
‘Exactly,’ said the Trader.
‘Master!’ said Nitho urgently. ‘He’s not ready!’
The Trader lifted his water skin and took a drink before answering her. ‘I think he is.’
Narmer stared at him. How could the Trader risk the lives of everyone just to see whether Narmer could manage by himself?
The Trader raised an eyebrow, as though he knew what Narmer was thinking. ‘Every time we trade,’ he said, ‘we’re at the mercy of strangers. Your father could have taken us prisoner and stolen our goods, instead of paying us with gold. Every trade is a challenge and a danger.’
‘So this is a lesson?’ asked Narmer slowly.
‘Of course.’ The Trader gave another of his small smiles. His teeth seemed long and white for his age. ‘All of life is a lesson,’ he added. ‘But for a moment, remember that a trade takes two sides. Both have to have something to give.’
Narmer bit his lip, his panic growing. What did People of the Sand have to trade? They carried nothing but their weapons. And what could the Trader give the People of the Sand? The strangers would have no use for gold, and the Trader’s people needed everything else in their luggage to survive here in the desert.
Narmer looked around their caravan, at the porters whispering worriedly among themselves, at Bast stalking along two sandhills away. Nitho looked at him uncertainly, then nodded, as though she had decided to trust him, and fastened her scarf over her face again.
Were they really leaving it all to him? So this was the life of a trader: bargaining not just for gold but for life or death.
But he wasn’t a trader yet! What could he show these men that would make their eyes gleam, like his father’s had at the brown curls of myrrh? He was just a boy with scars and hopes…
And suddenly he knew.
A linen cloth was spread across the sand and a small pot set down in the middle as the strangers approached.
There were perhaps forty of them, bare legged, with faces carved by sun and wind, and stiff, badly cured camel hide twisted about their hips. A few carried spears or slingshots. The rest carried rough wooden clubs.
Narmer gazed at them, fascinated despite the danger. He had never seen any of the People of the Sand up close before. He had been too young to fight the last time they attacked Thinis, and his father had decided that People of the Sand made poor servants. Any who were captured were slaughtered or sold to other towns like Min, where the King relied on slaves for much of the work.
Memories of home stabbed through him once again. Was the rest of his life to be spent bargaining with barbarians like these?
He could smell them already. These people stank.
They muttered among themselves as they gazed at the travellers sitting on the sand, looking as if they met bands of desert warriors every day. Jod, Nid and Portho had even left their spears on the ground—though still within reach.
Narmer stood up as the men approached, using his stick to keep himself steady. He bowed slowly, giving them time to take in the sight of Bast, purring as Nitho
scratched her ears, the relaxed men lounging around the pot.
‘We greet you, o brave men of the endless sands,’ he said politely, and waited for Nitho to translate.
The men stared, first at him and then at Nitho as she spoke to them. But their eyes stayed blank, as though they didn’t understand anything she said. Nitho said something else, then listened to the mutterings of the men.
‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know their language.’
‘But you know every language!’ hissed Narmer.
‘No, I don’t. No one does!’ she whispered back, exasperated. ‘How many languages do you think there are in the world? Five? Ten? There must be thousands!’
Narmer felt a shiver of fear inside him. But he forced himself to keep smiling, then pointed to the small pot in the middle of the smooth white linen cloth.
It was carved from smooth alabaster, and whiter than the sand around them. Inside was a dirty green liniment.
The strangers peered at it, unimpressed. Their muttering increased. One raised his spear and said something urgently to the others.
The meaning was clear: Let’s kill them now, before they have time to pick up their spears.
Narmer held up his hand. Then slowly, very slowly, he lifted up his kilt. His scars glared red and purple in the desert light.
The strangers gasped. How could anyone have survived a wound like this?
Narmer lowered his kilt and pointed at the liniment, then at the Trader.
The mutters were different now. What would warriors need more than anything else? An ointment that could cure their wounds. And these people—these powerful people with their tame wildcat—had the secret.
The warrior leader gestured to the pot. Narmer smiled again, a smile as calm, he hoped, as the Trader’s. As though he bargained with armed strangers every day, and thought nothing of it. He held up a water bag, then pointed at the pot again.
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