Pharaoh

by Jackie French

  ‘What happened in your dream, Your Majesty?’ asked Nitho.

  The Queen’s eyes lost their focus for a moment, as though she were looking back into her dream. ‘You came to Sumer safely,’ she said. ‘But there was more.’

  She held her hand out to the Trader. The women attendants gasped—it was an unheard-of honour for the Queen to touch a man, even one who had touched her earlier to save her life. But that had been in private…

  The Trader took her hand with his usual calm.

  ‘Good fortune, dear friend,’ said the Queen quietly. ‘You will have all that your heart desires. And one last journey, with a home you never expected, and joy and comfort at the end. But you will never come again to Punt.’

  She took Nitho’s hand now. ‘You will have what you wish for most as well,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’ Nitho’s face was suddenly heartbreakingly eager.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said the Queen, smiling. ‘If I were you I’d hurry back to Sumer. The sooner the better, my dear. It’s high time you made your offering.’

  ‘What offering?’ Narmer blurted out—then blushed. Even after all these moons with the Trader, it was still hard to remember that he was no longer a prince, no longer free to interrogate even a queen if he chose.

  The Queen just smiled. ‘Feed him lettuce, my dear,’ she added. ‘I have always found it most effective.’

  She turned to Narmer but didn’t offer him her hand. Narmer wasn’t insulted. He was neither woman nor eunuch, and he knew the Queen had done him honour enough already. ‘Your master told me that you were once a prince in your own land. You will never be a prince again, or a king either.’

  Narmer reddened, and tried to ignore the pain that slashed at his heart.

  ‘But you will be something else. They will remember your name,’ said the Queen quietly, ‘for more than six thousand years.’

  Six thousand…It was an impossibly large number. And the prophecy was carefully vague too. How could anyone know if their name would live that long?

  ‘So my dreams won’t come true like Nitho’s and our master’s?’ he asked, keeping his voice respectful.

  The Queen laughed. ‘No, young man. They won’t. You don’t even know what to wish for yet. And you,’ she added to Bast, who was prowling around the throne as though wondering if she should climb up onto the Queen’s lap next to the leopard cub, ‘you will also get something you never expected. And Queen of the Desert you may be, but you’re not queen here. If you try to jump onto my throne you’ll feel my foot.’ She smiled. ‘Take her away,’ she said to Nitho. ‘Goodbye, my friend,’ she added to the Trader. ‘If my dream is a true one we will never meet again.’

  ‘What did the Queen mean?’ Narmer whispered to Nitho, as the three of them walked through the colonnades to their rooms. ‘What offering was she talking about? What did she mean about lettuce? And what is it that you and the Trader wish for?’

  Nitho flushed. ‘He dreams of finding his children,’ she said quickly. Narmer noticed she left his other questions unanswered.

  They left Punt before the dew had risen the next day.

  CHAPTER 21

  The Season of Flood (Summer to Autumn)

  There were two ways to get to Sumer. The first was the trading route: north by sea, then through Ka’naan with its copper and turquoise mines, and down the Euphrates River by barge to the Trader’s home town of Ur, bringing the metals as well as the precious building stone from upriver that the town prized.

  But this time there was no need for more trading. They would cross the sea in the Queen’s own ship, inlaid with gold and ebony, then head straight across the drylands to Sumer. A journey that might take a year or more around the coast would take no more than three or four moons. It would be hard going, of course. But the land was familiar to the Trader.

  ‘The master knows every well and water seep along the route,’ said Nitho. They were eating watermelon slices in the prow of the ship, while the Trader napped under a shelter of red and gold cloth. The cat was sprawled at Nitho’s feet, chewing the stuffed quails left over from breakfast.

  The waves lapped the boat’s sides below them. The air smelt of the rose oil that the Queen’s sailors sprinkled on the sails, and of cat.

  Narmer spat a few seeds over the prow into the waves. ‘How does the master remember everything?’ He had been meaning to ask this for many moons. ‘He can remember the names of every person he’s traded with, and what he bought and how much he paid. It’s almost magic.’

  Nitho looked at him sharply, then grinned. She wore her usual travelling clothes, but had yet to pull the scarf across her face that turned her into a boy. ‘Want to know the secret?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Narmer, surprised. He thought that she was about to tell him a chant that would help keep the information in his memory. But instead she reached down to the pouch at her belt. She handed him a scrap of leather, tanned and scraped thin and rolled so tightly it was no bigger than a twig.

  Narmer threw his melon rind overboard, licked the stickiness off his fingers and wiped them on his tunic. He unrolled the leather carefully, making sure he didn’t tear it. It had been marked with a knife, but not with a pretty design. In fact some of the marks looked like the number tallies from home that the priests used to record how many pots of grain each farmer stored in the palace silo, or like the pictures used to mark the King’s name.

  Narmer stared at it, understanding seeping in.

  Nitho took the scrap from him. ‘They’re words, and a map,’ she said. ‘See? A map is a picture of the land. This is the sea, these are rivers, and these are towns. That is your River there, the long line; that is Thinis. This is the way we are heading: east to Sumer. These marks here stand for words. That is the mark for a mine, and those wavy lines mean a waterhole.’

  Narmer stared at the tiny mark that had been his home. ‘Will the master mind that you showed me?’

  Nitho shook her head. ‘He wants you to learn to write. But you’re still learning to speak Sumerian. It’s hard to learn too much at once.’

  ‘How many different marks are there?’

  Nitho shrugged. ‘Lots. There are marks for everything you can trade, or grow, and for people and animals too. I’ll teach you more when we get home. Or our master will.’

  When we get home…

  Narmer gazed out at the waves.

  What was waiting for them in Sumer? The Trader was rich now beyond his wildest dreams. He had even lost the distracted look he had worn since leaving Thinis. And when he gazed at Narmer now it was with calm satisfaction.

  What would happen to Narmer if the Trader decided not to travel any more? Would he have to find another trader to teach him? Or would their master find other work for him in Sumer? Would he become a workman, supervising slaves or planting melon crops?

  There was so much he didn’t know. But pride—and respect for the Trader—made it impossible to ask.

  The crossing was smooth; the captain knew the weather signs and never travelled if there was a breath of storm. Then they said goodbye to the crew and travelled up through the mountains, between blighted rocks and cliffs that seemed to stare at them as they passed. Other travellers might be in danger from bandits here, but the Queen had sent guards to protect them.

  From the mountains they descended to the drylands: stretches of sand in high-piled dunes enough like the country around Thinis for Narmer to feel a pang; then across dry rocklands with hills like blasted skulls. Here the Queen’s men left them to travel by themselves.

  From here it would be slow going for the porters, weighted down with the heavy packs of gold, as well as the tents, spears and water. The others carried the lighter packs of myrrh and food, but each night Narmer still felt his shoulders ache with the unaccustomed load.

  It was late summer now—hot days and cold nights—and there were no trees to give wood to burn. They collected dry animal droppings as they walked instead, or branches of wormwood and other shrubs, but eve
n so, most nights there wasn’t enough fuel for a fire.

  Sometimes there were fingers of ice in their goatskin waterbags in the morning. What must winter be like here? wondered Narmer. The bitter wind and the clear desert sky tried to suck the warmth from their bones. But at least they slept in warm cloaks of panther skin, another gift from the Queen.

  Their food was a handful of dried dates at morning, noon and night, with nuts and melon seeds that had been dried and baked in mutton fat and honey: travelling food from Punt. Water was measured drop by drop, to make it last till the next oasis.

  Oases meant water—thin seeps from a cliff face, or sometimes a spring or even a pool. Water meant animals, and animals meant dried dung for the tiny fires that hardly drove away the darkness. But fire meant that the travellers could have bread to eat, cakes baked quickly in hot ashes, tasting of sand and reminding Narmer of home.

  Oases meant other people, too, the nomads who lived in this harsh land, hunting and driving their herds of scrawny cattle and even scrawnier goats from waterhole to waterhole, across the shattered stonelands, the dry river beds, the stone chasms of the mountains.

  But the nomads respected the porters’ spears and the Trader’s knowledge of medicines. They longed for a touch of beauty, and the travellers traded strings of beads and alabaster pots for the privilege of joining the nomads at their waterholes, sharing their fires or their meat.

  But even without the beads and the medicine the scattered dwellers of this harsh land were eager to share what little they had with a stranger, for nothing more than a story around the fire—or hoping that they too might be given hospitality when they needed it.

  They’re so much friendlier than the People of the Sand, thought Narmer. Or are they? he wondered suddenly. Apart from one short meeting, he had only known the People of the Sand as enemies, not as hosts around their campfires.

  It was customary to give a guest the fattest portion of the meat, the warmest spot in the camel-skin tents. And in return the Trader’s party left the best they had to offer: not myrrh or gold, which the nomads had not use for, but bags of parched grain, dried to make it lighter on their travels, or ointment for sore eyes, or honeycomb or goat’s cheese wrapped in wax: the sorts of luxuries that the big-eyed children of the waterholes had rarely seen.

  It was a hard journey, but a good one. The Trader’s knowledge and their trade goods meant that they were never seriously short of water. Nid, Jod and Portho hunted too, catching ibex and deer, and once a wild camel which the travellers shared with the people at the next oasis. Even the cat brought game back sometimes, as the fancy took her.

  And now Narmer mostly walked. The muscles that the crocodile had taken would never return, but he had built up other muscles to compensate. He would never be much of a runner. Yet his leg now moved when he wanted it to. It ached in the cold, but there was no more agony.

  He still had not found the courage to ask the Trader what would happen to him when they reached Sumer. Part of him was afraid that the Trader might be offended. It was up to a master, after all, to look after his dependants. Another part of him just wanted to enjoy the journey. These days seemed almost beyond time, as though they would walk and hunt and laugh companionably around the night-time fire forever.

  Slowly the land sloped downwards. They were nearing Sumer now. Drylands gave way to grass, blasted plateaux to hills. And finally the grass turned into marshlands: greenblack mud and beds of reeds where snakes slept in the sun and birds rose in endless clouds as the Trader’s party approached. The smell of rotting vegetation seeped into their clothes. The path was hard to follow sometimes. But now it was a path, beaten by travellers like themselves, and herders and their animals, and wild goats and sheep.

  Mosquitoes sipped at their skin. All of them now wore scarves like Nitho’s across their faces to try to keep off the ravenous small beasts. But even then they crept inside each crevice. The only thing that really kept them off was plastered mud, which stank, so that it was hard to know which was worse.

  ‘There’s a story that a mighty warrior stole a wife away from a neighbouring tribe,’ said the Trader one day from behind his scarf. ‘He hid her in the marshes, but she kept complaining that she was lonely with no companions. She whined so loudly that the gods took pity on her, and sent her…’

  ‘Let me guess: a cloud of mosquitoes for company,’ said Narmer, grinning.

  ‘There’s an oil made from scented grass that keeps them off,’ offered Nitho.

  ‘Where is it? Why aren’t we using it?’ demanded Narmer.

  Nitho looked surprised. ‘We used up the last of it long before we got to Thinis. But we can get more once we’re home.’

  ‘Not long now.’ The Trader’s eyes were bright. Nid, Jod and Portho chattered excitedly to each other, pointing out familiar landmarks.

  Home. They had travelled for so long now it seemed impossible that the journeying might end. And what then? thought Narmer. What is waiting for me in Sumer?

  They camped that night on ground that had seemed dry the night before. But by morning the damp had seeped into the panther skins. Even their clothes were wet and stank of the marshes. The cat was already prowling around the tents, mewing her discontent. She had found some small creature to eat in the night, and her whiskers were red with drying blood.

  ‘Should we hang the tents out to dry before we set out?’ asked Narmer. Goatskin rotted if rolled up wet.

  But the Trader shook his head. ‘Leave them. We’ll be home by afternoon.’

  Narmer felt his heart beat as fast as a mob of deer running from a hunter. He had no idea what he felt. Relief, curiosity, terror…

  They ate the last of the travel food—there was no need to ration it now—and started to walk again. By midmorning the land had begun to rise once more. The path led up a hill—tiny after the mountains they had crossed, but higher than the marshes they had just travelled through.

  They reached the top and Narmer gasped.

  The fields of Sumer lay before them.

  CHAPTER 22

  Sumerian Season of Ploughing (Autumn)

  Narmer had known that Sumer was rich, that wheat and barley grew there just as they had at Thinis. But he had never expected anything like this.

  Field after field, all the way to the horizon. And instead of one river there were hundreds, strangely regular streams of water, green as mint leaves, which led through rectangles of brown, ploughed ground where grain would grow, stretches of vegetables, of vines, fruit trees and melons.

  Narmer shook his head. What sort of land was this, where even the rivers formed a pattern like tiles in a courtyard?

  The Trader’s face wore the contented smile of a man who has journeyed across the world and now is back again. ‘The canals are still full,’ he said. ‘A good flood means a good crop.’

  ‘Canals?’ The word was unfamiliar.

  The Trader laughed. ‘You don’t think these water courses are natural, do you? Canals are dug by man. They drain the flood water from the farms in wet times, and carry it from the river to water the crops in dry.’

  ‘The river?’

  ‘The Euphrates. It’s still too far away to see,’ said Nitho.

  Narmer gazed at the fields in front of him. It was almost impossible to accept! The sheer scale of the farmland, the thought that mere humans had transformed a world like this…

  He suddenly imagined what Thinis could do with canals like these, to take water from the River into the drylands, beyond the reach of the flood. Or storing floodwaters, maybe, so that…

  He shook his head. No more thoughts of Thinis! This was his life now, whatever it was going to be.

  They started down the hill. The path became a road as they travelled through the farmland, as good as the main street of Thinis.

  Suddenly Narmer stared again. There on the road in front of them was a wild donkey—no, a tamed donkey—but who had ever thought of taming an animal like a donkey? The big beast was pulling something behind
it. Not dragging it, but…He squinted and tried to understand.

  ‘Shut your mouth before the flies rush in. It’s just a cart on wheels,’ said Nitho. She looked like she was enjoying his amazement.

  ‘Wheels?’

  ‘Wheels go round and round. The carts go on top. Carts can carry more than a laden donkey.’ Nitho grinned. ‘You can even ride in one.’

  Narmer gulped as the donkey and the cart passed them. The animal was being led by a small child. How could someone so young control a donkey?

  ‘There are lots of tame donkeys in Sumer,’ added Nitho kindly. ‘They’re useful for carrying things.’

  ‘But how…’ Narmer shut his mouth. He wasn’t going to appear even more ignorant by asking further questions. But what else had this extraordinary land to show him? No, he was no prince now. In Sumer it seemed he was as ignorant as any of the People of the Sand.

  They walked all day, and still there was no sign of the city. Just fields, worked by farmers dressed in loincloths and headdresses and nothing more, guiding cattle that had been tamed to pull a plough. Incredible, thought Narmer. These ploughs were so much bigger than the hand-held ploughs of Thinis, and made of metal, not wood. There were more canals, and then still more, and yet more fields, so that they seemed as though they’d continue to the far end of the world.

  Dotted among the fields were houses woven from reeds, and others with mud walls like in Thinis, and thatched with reed roofs or rounded mud-brick roofs like the round ovens at home.

  And at last the Euphrates River appeared in the distance. Narmer stared at it—so like his own River, and so unlike as well. It ran between boulders, which looked like pebbles at this distance, and it gleamed brown and blue and green.

  More tame donkeys passed them, sometimes laden with panniers instead of pulling the strange carts. There were people in tunics like Nitho’s and the Trader’s, who raised their hands in salute and called out words of greeting as they went by. There were dark men like Jod and Nid and Portho, dressed in leopard skins. Naked children from neighbouring farms ran after them, with juice-stained faces and muddy feet, shrieking with happy terror when Bast turned round to glare and hiss.