Pharaoh

by Jackie French

  He tried to keep the anger from his face as he crossed the street and joined the line in front of the waiting girls. They smiled up at him, hopeful that this handsome young man might be the one to choose them.

  Nitho was looking at the ground. How many times had she been hurt already today, Narmer wondered indignantly, by some stupid peasant sneering with distaste at the twist in her smile? How many men had she looked up at hopefully, only to have them walk away?

  ‘Nitho?’

  Nitho glanced up abruptly. She flushed. ‘What are you doing here?’ she hissed, eyes darting from side to side. ‘You don’t know anything about this. Go away!’

  ‘I know enough.’ Narmer tried to control his temper. ‘You have to wait here till some man chooses you, right?’

  Nitho nodded uncomfortably.

  Narmer held out his hand. ‘I am a man. And I choose you.’

  Something unfathomable flared in Nitho’s eyes. Her face flushed an even deeper red. She put her hand in his, then struggled to her feet. For once, thought Narmer, she looked as if words had failed her.

  ‘Do we have to go in there?’ Narmer looked in disgust as another couple ascended the steps to the Temple.

  ‘No. No, that’s only when there is nowhere else to go.’

  ‘Then we’ll go home,’ said Narmer firmly, leaning down to pick up her mat and basket. It was a struggle to keep his voice steady. The Sumerians were his people now, he reminded himself. It would cause harm to the family to show disgust.

  But it was difficult.

  They crossed the road, still hand in hand. Narmer could hear the envious chatter of the girls behind them. The ugly one had been taken—and by such a beautiful young man, with gold at his neck and an alabaster amulet on his chest!

  He shot a quick glance at Nitho. Her face looked different. Almost joyous, he thought wonderingly, but scared too. Relieved, he assumed, to be away from there.

  They were through the Markets and out the Gate before Narmer let her hand fall. ‘Done,’ he said, breathing more easily. ‘Now no one will ever know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  He looked at her in surprise. ‘That we fooled them, of course. You’re officially a woman now, without having to go through that horrible ritual.’

  ‘You mean you don’t…’ Nitho’s voice broke off.

  ‘I don’t want…’ what was the phrase? ‘to lie with you?’ Narmer took her hand again. ‘Nitho, how could you think I’d do such a thing? I just wanted to save you. You don’t really think you need to sacrifice yourself…’

  ‘You…you idiot!’ yelled Nitho.

  She wrenched her hand away, lifted her skirts and ran down the road to home, leaving him staring after her, the mat and basket still in his hand.

  CHAPTER 24

  Things were different after that.

  Nammu seemed happy, watching his newly watered fields flourish, seeing his adopted son command the men in his fields. Nitho too went about her daily business, overseeing the women at their weaving and cooking and washing. She arranged to have the house repainted a pale blue, with fresh tiles for the courtyard where they ate together, adorned with patterns of leaping cats and date palms.

  She was as friendly as before, after a few days of stiffness and embarrassment. But somehow the easy comradeship of the journey had gone.

  Had she really thought that he would lie with her?

  From time to time Narmer caught himself looking at her, wondering. He had never thought of her like that—or, if he had, had stopped himself at once. Surely Nammu had other plans for his son and daughter.

  Narmer supposed the day would come when Nammu would choose partners for them both: a son and daughter of another trading house, perhaps, with wealth that might almost match their own. Narmer’s limp was hardly noticeable now, and Nitho’s dowry would be so large that any family would overlook her scars.

  Perhaps there might even be a husband who would value her command of languages too, allow her to organise trading trips as well as supervise her women as they ground the wheat and barley…He would have to be special, thought Narmer, to be worthy of Nitho.

  So far Nammu had made no mention of marriages. Perhaps he enjoyed having a son and daughter in his house too much to think of letting Nitho go off to a husband’s home now.

  But since the day at the Temple the calm pattern of their life had changed, as a pebble thrown into a pond might break up a still reflection.

  The seasons turned. The second canal was finished in time for the spring floods. Then Narmer hired a foreman to supervise the autumn ploughing. Ebu was an able man, and able to teach his young master Sumerian skills like cattle breeding and beehive craft, and the art of reinforcing dyke walls with the reed mats that allowed the mud walls of Sumer to be so much higher than those at Thinis.

  Before he knew it, Narmer had been in Ur more than a year. Sometimes it seemed as if his younger self had arrived only yesterday, gazing like a yokel at the wonders of the city. But at other times it was as though he had always lived here, planning expeditions with his adopted father, managing their estate.

  Narmer studied at the Temple of Nanna too, like many wealthy young Sumerians, learning the history of the land: the story of the flood that cleansed the world, how the Sumerians had travelled from their original land far away to conquer the people of Akkadia and found the cities of Ur, Uruk, Eridu and Kish.

  Nammu also taught Narmer merchant craft, in long conversations over honey beer and sesame bread in their flowered courtyard. Narmer learnt to write trading symbols, and to draw maps of the lands around—the cities of the Elamites, the remaining Akkadian towns, the realm of the Salouir folk to the south, Ka’naan to the northwest as well as Punt to the south. He could even add Thinis and the towns along the River to his map now, without feeling a pang of loss.

  He was taught how to trade with city merchants, too: a measure of barley for a pot, or so many silver shekels for an ingot of tin. Other merchants borrowed from Nammu, giving him a third of the profits from their travels in return for the shekels to buy their trade goods. And Narmer watched and learnt.

  Nitho was always part of these trade negotiations, sitting on her chair with the men, translating when necessary, and offering her opinions on what would fetch the best price where.

  It was a good life, with companionship and satisfying work. And if Narmer ever heard a whisper in his mind of homesickness, a longing to share his new skills with his own land, he had trained himself to ignore it.

  Marduk the trader was an old friend of Nammu’s, a giant man with a salt and pepper beard and a laugh that shook the house. Once he and Nammu had been competitors. But tonight Marduk seemed happy at his friend’s success.

  Marduk had just returned from his latest trip and the two men had spent the day exchanging stories—tales of women warriors north of the Great Blue, with hair the colour of the moon, or cloth as fine as mist made by caterpillars in a land some said was far beyond the rising sun.

  Now the afternoon’s feast was crumbs and bones. The sleepy servants had lit the oil lamps and put out trays of dates stuffed with almonds, the season’s first raisins, goat’s cheeses pressed with poppyseeds, and radishes with sesame. The cat lay on her back under the table, her legs in the air and her whiskers stained with mutton fat and quail.

  Nitho had excused herself and gone to bed. Narmer was getting up to leave too when some words of Marduk’s caught his attention. ‘And did you hear about young Kuumas?’ Marduk asked, pouring himself another mug of beer.

  Nammu shook his head.

  ‘Thought he’d try to follow in your footsteps. Took an expedition across the desert to that river.’ The big man chuckled. ‘That’s what they call it, don’t they? Just “The River”. As though there were no other rivers in the world.’

  Nammu glanced at Narmer. ‘Not much to trade for there. Only gold, and there are closer mines than that.’

  ‘That’s what we all said. But he wouldn’t be told. Nearly lost everything, inc
luding his life. Said the River towns were warring among themselves. No one had any time for spices and precious goods, and no gold to pay for them anyway.’

  Narmer was surprised to see his hand was trembling. He put his mug down carefully on the low table. ‘Did he tell you the names of the warring towns?’

  Marduk noticed the urgency in his voice. ‘That’s right, you’re from down that way, aren’t you? No, he didn’t mention names. Knew they’d mean nothing to me anyway. Don’t know where Kuumas is now either. He was in Punt when I last saw him…’

  An hour later Nammu saw his friend to the guest rooms. He returned to the courtyard to find Narmer still sitting there, staring absently at the moon’s reflection in the canal. Nammu seated himself beside his adopted son and watched him for a few moments. ‘There are many towns along the River, my son,’ he said at last. ‘The fighting might have been a long way from Thinis.’

  Narmer didn’t look at him. ‘I know. But Father Nammu, Thinis is the biggest of all the towns on the River. A trader would go there, if anywhere.’

  ‘Big enough to defeat an attacker, then. And Kuumas is a fool. He’d try to sell myrrh to an ant hill and ignore the palace over the hill. He may never even have got to Thinis.’

  Narmer did look at Nammu then. ‘I know, Father. The River is a long way away. And our lives are here.’ He stood up, then bent over and embraced the old trader. ‘Goodnight, Father.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘Thank you. For everything.’

  Maybe it was the rich food, or Marduk’s strange tales of faraway lands…but Narmer couldn’t get the news about the River out of his head.

  Suddenly he dreamt.

  He was back in the wadi where he had first met Nitho, climbing up the hills again to gaze down upon Thinis.

  But it wasn’t there.

  There was marshland where fields should have been. Beds of reeds instead of a palace. And lurking in the reeds was the crocodile. But this time it had the face of his brother.

  Grief washed through him like floodwater down the River. And with grief came wakefulness. He woke, sweating, and gulped water from the beaker next to his bed. He lay down again and tried to sleep.

  It was just a dream, no more. How silly to let a dream upset him. Of course the fighting was nowhere near Thinis. Of course the town was still there, still prosperous—his father on his throne, old Seknut bossing the palace women, the smells from the bakers’ ovens…

  Life had changed for him, but not for the town of his birth. And yet…

  It was no use. He swung his legs off the bed and walked out to the terrace. He could see the moon from here, the great god Nanna. The god’s light poured a rain of silver onto the fields of Sumer.

  A place of peace. An alliance of four cities, his adopted father had explained, strong because they worked together.

  Nammu’s lands, which would be Narmer’s some day, rich

  and fertile. His future.

  Narmer shook his head. Who was he trying to fool?

  Until tonight he had convinced himself he had been simply glad to have a place in the world again: to be heir to fine estates, part of a new family, with the challenge and the pleasure of learning the trader’s craft and caring for his adoptive father’s wealth.

  Now, suddenly, he knew deep down he was still Prince Narmer of Thinis. He had spent most of his life learning to think of the land’s Ma’at instead of himself. Every cart he saw carrying a load, every ox he noticed ploughing a field he secretly longed to take back to the land of his birth, to show his people how valuable such things might be. Mirrors, bronze spearheads, metal ploughs, even the method of building in steps using reed mats as reinforcing, and the intricate canals to take water to lands that would otherwise be too dry to grow things—all were gifts he wanted to give to the land that bore him.

  He wanted to go home.

  Not forever, he told himself, as he turned from the terrace to go back to bed. Just long enough to see whether Kuumas’s news about the fighting along the River was true; to assure his father that his son was well and happy; to give Seknut a gift—alabaster beads perhaps. And, if he were honest, to show Hawk that his brother had triumphed in a world far bigger than Thinis.

  But he would come back to Ur in the end. His future was here, in this land of wonders between the great rivers of Tigris and Euphrates.

  He would go to Thinis as a trader, not as its prince. But he would take what he knew that Thinis needed, not what would bring the most gold. And this last journey would surely convince him that Thinis was his no more. That his place was here, his people were here, his future…

  One more adventure, he thought, as he closed his eyes, eager once more for sleep. I am still too young, after all, to settle down. I’ll ask Nammu for a year’s leave of absence. Then I will return here for good.

  ‘To Thinis?’

  ‘Please, Father.’

  Nammu’s eyes usually crinkled with happiness when he heard the word ‘Father’. But not this time.

  Narmer tried to find the words to persuade him. ‘For most of my life they were my people. Let me make sure Thinis is safe, and give them this one gift of knowledge, then I’ll come home.’

  Nammu closed his eyes. When he opened them again the brief flash of pain was gone. It was almost, thought Narmer wonderingly, as though Nammu had expected this moment, had been saving up the memories of the past year to console him while his son was gone.

  And perhaps he had known, thought Narmer suddenly, remembering the Queen’s words back in Punt about her ‘true dream’. She had been right when she predicted that Nammu would find his children; was it also true that Narmer’s name would be known for six thousand years? Had the Trader expected that Narmer would want more than a peaceful life overseeing a rich farm?

  For suddenly it was as though Nammu had been planning just this trip for his son. He didn’t even—as Narmer had half expected—offer to go too.

  ‘Very well. But you should go via Ka’naan,’ he said abruptly, his voice carefully expressionless. ‘I know this isn’t a trading journey, but trade as you go nonetheless. Remember, a trader is safer than an ordinary traveller. I’ll send messengers upriver to all my acquaintances, telling them to expect you and asking them to give you what help they can.’

  Narmer embraced him joyfully. Nammu felt smaller these days, as though he had shrunk while Narmer had grown.

  ‘Thank you, Father,’ was all Narmer said. But that said it all.

  He told Nitho his plans too. But though her eyes widened for an instant, she simply nodded, and made a comment about the most profitable mines to visit on the way.

  It took five moons to get the trade goods assembled, the messages sent out. Spring once more filled the air with scents of greenery and warm air. The hills were still dappled with the bright hues of winter wildflowers, reds and yellows and the occasional flash of blue. The fields were rich with winter crops.

  Impatience nibbled at him, but he tried to control it. He had learnt enough now to know that there was no hurrying the preparations for a journey as long as this.

  To his relief, Nid, Jod and Portho all volunteered to come as well. They had no need to make another journey; their families were more comfortable than they had ever expected after the last journey with the Trader. Narmer was touched by their loyalty and glad of their company. He had learnt a lot from his adopted father, but the porters’ experience would be invaluable.

  This time he would take tame donkeys, both for riding and to carry the trade goods—no myrrh or ebony this time, but bronze spearheads, mirrors, metal shovels and ploughs. There was no need to pack the other gifts—the skills of building canals, wheels, carts and tall buildings, and of writing, to ensure that these skills and the deeds of men could be passed on.

  Finally the day came to leave. Ten donkeys were loaded with their packs and the three porters stood by them ready to depart.

  Narmer gave his new father a final hug.

  ‘I will be back, Father,’ he assured him.

>   There were tears in the old trader’s eyes. But he looked strangely calm, as though he had been preparing for this day for a long time.

  ‘Till we meet again, my son,’ he replied.

  They embraced, then Narmer strode over towards the donkeys. And stopped.

  There was one more animal than he had expected, with a small figure sitting on its back.

  Nitho.

  She was dressed in her boy’s robes, and Bast was prowling around the donkeys, as though to say, You are tethered, but I am free.

  ‘I’m coming too,’ said Nitho stiffly. ‘You’ll need a translator. And…’ she flushed, ‘…and anyway, I’m coming too.’

  ‘Mmmrr?’ said the cat. She brushed against Narmer’s legs, then, impatient to leave, began to slink down the road in her familiar ‘following ahead’ prance.

  Narmer glanced back at Nammu. But his adopted father showed no surprise at the sight of Nitho on her donkey. It seemed as if he had been preparing for this as well.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Narmer. It didn’t seem enough. But he wasn’t sure what he felt…and he was quite sure he had no words for whatever it might be.

  Then they left.

  CHAPTER 25

  It was a good journey.

  It was far easier travelling on a donkey, Narmer found, than being carried in a chair. His old injuries didn’t bother him at all these days, except after an extra-cold night on hard ground.

  They followed the River Euphrates at first, watching the barges on the water and the flocks of waterbirds across the grasslands. The river was still low, the snows that would bring the floods not yet melted. They traded beads and other trinkets in the villages for bags of barley meal, dates or skins filled with the weak barley beer of the region. But they always camped outside the walls, to give Nitho privacy from prying eyes. And besides, Bast was likely to worry the village women, who might think she planned to eat their babies as she rubbed against their legs, instead of hoping for leftovers from their stew pots.