Pharaoh

by Jackie French

  Narmer thrust out with his javelin, felt the hard metal slice into flesh, heard the man in front of him gasp as he collapsed.

  Stab, slash. Another fell, and then another. Stab, slash…Men were dying around him in the darkness, whether friends or enemies he couldn’t tell.

  Stab, slash.

  His feet were wet with mud, with sweat, with blood.

  Hawk, suddenly a true king, fought next to him as he never had before, with no thought of himself or of his safety, stabbing with his javelin, his face firm, intent, for once no hidden plan behind it. Portho’s great bulk heaved his war club, the enemy falling beneath it like wheat before a sickle.

  Stab, slash. More Yebu men fell before them.

  There are too many of them, thought Narmer desperately. Far more than I realised.

  And how long would the men of Min remain loyal? They were only here for the plunder. How long would it be before they decided this wasn’t the easy battle they had hoped for, and fled?

  ‘Narmer! Watch out!’ It was Hawk’s voice.

  Narmer turned. The war club struck his shoulder, not his head. But it was enough to drive him to his knees. The water splashed about him as he struggled to get up, dazed and groping for his javelin. Dimly he sensed the club descending again.

  ‘Narmer!’

  Hawk grappled with someone at Narmer’s side. Suddenly the club was gone. The man wielding the club was gone as well. His brother’s hand hauled him roughly to his feet.

  ‘Hurt?’ Hawk grunted.

  Narmer staggered, then caught his balance. ‘No.’

  He should thank his brother for saving his life. Twice in one night…

  But there was no time to talk. Stab, slash…and when he looked again his brother was gone, hidden by the mass of fighting men.

  The enemy seemed endless. The collapse of their walls had shocked Yebu for a while, but now they fought as a disciplined group once again.

  Slash, stab…draw the javelin back and stab again.

  Slash, stab. Duck and shift and stab again. Enemy after enemy, endless…impossible…

  They’re going to win! thought Narmer with a flash of panic. I was wrong! The flood, the surprise attack…they’re not enough! Any moment now half our army is going to run…

  How could he hold them all together? The Min men and the outcasts barely knew his name. How could he rally them again, into a single force?

  ‘Thinis! Min!’ he yelled. But the words were almost lost in the noise of battle. Half his breath had gone with fighting.

  Here and there ragged shouts answered him, as his men struggled towards their leader. But not enough. Nowhere near enough.

  Stab, slash…it was impossible to think and fight as well. But he had to think. There had to be a way…

  Suddenly a noise pierced the din of battle. A rumbling, splashing sound. Someone yelled, high above the yells of men.

  ‘Narmer! Narmer! Narmer!’

  The voice was unmistakable. It was Nitho! Narmer stared. And all around him men stared as well.

  Nine donkeys galloped down the main street of Yebu. The other three donkeys galloped behind, each pulling a cart. The first carts ever seen along the River—but not the farm carts Narmer had seen back in Sumer. These carts were only platforms above two wheels. And balanced on each of them, Nid and Jod and Nitho waved their weapons, slashing at the enemy.

  ‘Narmer! Narmer! Narmer!’

  Nitho wore her woman’s dress and the gold amulet from the Queen. Her head was bare. Her hair streamed behind her, like darkness about the moon, her scar a deep red across her face as she yelled defiance at the enemy.

  ‘Narmer! Narmer! Narmer!’

  She was the war goddess, thought Narmer, dressed in gold and white and riding above them all. Savage, determined, impossibly beautiful in the moonlight.

  Around him men screamed. Not shrieks of anger or pain this time, but yells of terror, screams of awe. The united mass of Yebu men broke into a hundred frightened individuals.

  The men of Thinis gazed in awe too. But for them this was a miracle—a goddess calling out their leader’s name.

  ‘Narmer! Narmer! Narmer!’

  Once more Narmer’s army surged together, their faces dappled with mud and blood.

  ‘Narmer! Narmer! Narmer!’

  Even the Min men cried out his name now, as they rushed after the carts to the attack.

  Slash, stab…

  Narmer was vaguely aware of Nitho, Jod and Nid still hovering above them, their javelins stabbing the enemy.

  Was Nitho safe? As safe as anyone in this chaos, he thought. At least she was high above the battle. And there was nothing he could do about it now.

  ‘Narmer! Narmer! Narmer!’ The battlefield roared with voices as more men took up the cry.

  It was easy to tell friend from foe now. The Yebu men were on the run, while Thinis and Min together yelled Narmer’s name.

  Suddenly Narmer saw a man in front of him, wearing the blue and white headdress of a king. He too was yelling, frantically trying to rally his men.

  Narmer let his javelin fall and threw himself onto the King. His one thought now was not to kill, but to stop the killing, to force this man to surrender.

  They plunged together, down into the muddy water. For a moment, as the coldness covered his head, Narmer remembered the long-passed battle with the crocodile. But now, as then, he held on. They grappled for a moment, and then he had the King’s throat…

  He struggled up. He took his hands from the throat of the King, then wrenched the man’s arms behind his back. ‘Surrender!’

  The King grunted in pain.

  ‘You can stop the slaughter! Surrender now!’

  ‘And live in slavery?’

  ‘No.’ Narmer gasped for breath. A few men still fought around them. But even as he watched most of his men had begun to head into the streets after their fleeing enemies.

  Where was Nitho? Yes, there she was, no longer on her cart. The donkeys must finally have been spooked by the noise and blood. They were galloping back down one of the streets. But their job had been done. Safe, he thought. At least she’s safe.

  ‘Min! Thinis!’ he yelled, as the King continued to struggle next to him. ‘To me! To me!’

  The battle-dazed men looked round. Some hesitated, their blood still up. But others took up the cry. ‘Narmer! Narmer!’ One by one the men began to gather round.

  Narmer turned back to the King. ‘No slavery,’ he panted. ‘No more dead. An alliance under Thinis’s leadership. Do you accept?’

  He felt the King’s slump of defeat in his arms.

  CHAPTER 32

  Battles were easier than their aftermath, thought Narmer wearily.

  Daylight drenched the battered town of Yebu. The fighting was over. Prisoners stood with bound wrists, ankledeep in the muddy water that still flowed through the streets. Soon some of his men would march them out into the fields and up the rise, to fill in the channel and build another dyke to keep the River from Yebu.

  So much to organise. A kingdom to hold together.

  How did you do it? he asked his father.

  But even as he helped his men haul up the wounded before they drowned, and drag the corpses to the marketplace for their families to collect, new plans were rising in him, like the yeast in baker’s dough. Two towns were stronger than one; four towns made a nation, just as it was in Sumer.

  And suddenly a vision burst through his mind: the entire River, united, trading and working as one country, a land of such peace and prosperity that people would talk of it for more than six thousand years.

  Meanwhile, all around him joyous reunions were taking place, as the Thinis slaves greeted their loved ones.

  ‘He has saved us! The Golden One has saved us!

  ‘He moved the River! Even the River obeys the Golden One!’

  ‘Your Majesty?

  Narmer turned. It was Jod. ‘Majesty’? thought Narmer. Jod had always called him ‘Master’, or ‘Young Master’
perhaps. ‘Majesty’ was what you called a king.

  ‘Your brother…’ said Jod quietly.

  They waded through the remnants of the flood. The silt had stained the water so it was impossible to tell what was blood.

  Someone had laid his brother on a table in Yebu’s marketplace. Perhaps last night the table had held pottery or fresh bread. Now it held the body of a king.

  His brother’s face looked strangely peaceful. One hand still held his javelin, so that it rested across his breast.

  Had he fallen protecting Narmer from the war club? Narmer would never know how his brother had lost his life. But he knew that Hawk had died, finally, as a king.

  So now I’m king, thought Narmer. No, not king. Yebu’s king can rule his town. Min’s king will still rule too. Each town we conquer will have its own ruler. But I will be leader of them all.

  Pharaoh. The Golden One.

  The thought brought no elation. It just seemed right, as though Narmer had slipped on a pair of sandals made to fit his feet.

  He gestured to two of his men. ‘Carry his body to the palace. Find Berenib, the woman who was his wife. Tell her to dress him with all honour. He is a king, and will be buried as one.’

  The energy of battle was seeping away. Nitho will know what to do now, he thought. Nitho can help me organise…

  Nitho…

  Where was she? Why hadn’t she come to join him?

  He began to wade through the water, avoiding the floating bodies. ‘Nitho? Nitho!’

  Men cheered him as he passed. Min men, Thinis men: they were all one army now. A group of Thinis slaves bowed low. ‘My Lord, thank you! Thank you!’

  ‘Wherever you lead we will follow, my Lord!’ yelled one of the Min men.

  ‘The girl on the cart! Find her!’ he shouted.

  ‘Yes, my Lord. Anything!’

  Narmer rushed through the muddy colonnades. A woman peered at him from a doorway.

  ‘The trader!’ he called. ‘Have you seen the trader? The girl who rode behind the donkeys? Have you seen her?’

  The woman shook her head, her eyes wide with fear.

  He entered a courtyard, then another, where two children hid behind a giant pot. He pretended not to see them. No sign of Nitho here.

  He made his way slowly back to the marketplace. Where was she?

  Suddenly his skin grew cold.

  He began to help the men haul up the bodies from the mud again, frantic, his tiredness gone. But now he was looking for one face alone. A scarred face, with a twisted lip, dearer to him than any other could be.

  ‘Hurry!’ he yelled desperately. A tide of emptiness washed through him. There was triumph, glory—but no Nitho.

  He yelled out her name, as though sheer noise might make her reply. But no voice answered him. Men gathered round him, helping too. Body after body…

  A man’s body, its drowned face white except for the mud and a bruise on its head. A boy’s body, the clothes so like the boy’s dress Nitho had worn that he felt a stab of terror. But she had been wearing a woman’s dress—

  ‘Hissssss! Yooowl!’

  Narmer spun round. It was Bast. The animal was bedraggled, the black and orange of her coat the colour of mud. She was sitting on a giant basket that had once held fish or barley, batting her paws at a fool who had tried to come too close.

  A mass of once-white robes lay slumped beside her.

  Narmer felt his breath freeze within his body, then begin to gallop again, like wild camels after rain. At least Nitho hadn’t fallen in the water. At least she hadn’t drowned.

  He splashed towards her and lifted her up against him.

  Blood. Blood everywhere, soaking into her dress, dripping over the gold she wore at her wrists and neck. Dried blood, almost black. Fresh blood oozing down her face from a great ripped cut above her eye.

  Fresh blood. She was alive!

  It was as if his heart had stopped beating, then crashed to life again like a flood surging down a wadi.

  He yelled for help, tore a strip from his tunic and pressed it against the cut, then searched for other injuries. A blue bruise on her forehead; her eye would be black tomorrow. But no other wound that he could find.

  She would live, then. She had to live!

  The cat glared at him, as though it were all his fault. And she’s right, thought Narmer.

  He sat on a nearby table with Nitho on his lap. She had to wake up. For a moment his life stretched before of him, a life without Nitho, as dry as the world without the River.

  Then her eyes opened. She blinked, confused, and smiled faintly as she recognised him.

  ‘You’re safe,’ she whispered.

  He stroked her muddy cheek. ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s over? We won?’

  ‘Yes. Shh, my darling Nitho. All’s well. Shh.’

  But her eyes stayed stubbornly open.

  ‘What now?’ she whispered.

  He almost smiled. How could he find the words, at a time like this, for all that was in his mind?

  And then he had them.

  ‘Now you will be my queen. You will, won’t you?’

  She muttered something, too low for him to hear. He bent closer to her mouth.

  ‘Stupid…’ she murmured. And then, ‘Of course…always loved you…’ she added, the words almost lost in the noise around them.

  ‘I love you too,’ he said, even though her eyes had drifted shut again. But he knew she heard him, as her fingers clasped his hand.

  ‘Bring our father here,’ she whispered. ‘Teach them traders’ writing. Teach them traders’ routes…Trade…proper ships along the River…will bring the River towns together.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But shh now. We can talk about this later. We have all the time in the world.’

  ‘Later…’ she breathed.

  She seemed to sleep. But the hand that held his stayed warm and firm.

  I always loved you! he thought. My oracle, friend, sister, companion…queen. How could I rule without you?

  He sat there holding her, feeling her heartbeat next to his, listening to the bustle all around: the joyful calling of the Thinis slaves, his men marching the prisoners off with their spades, Jod hurrying towards them—and old Seknut, her face lit up with the widest smile of pride and happiness she had ever given him, hobbling up with clean water and linen. She too was alive, and safe!

  But Narmer’s eyes fled back to Nitho’s injured face. ‘You’ll be fine in a day or two,’ he told her softly, as Seknut, understanding the situation at a glance, began to press a bandage to Nitho’s wound. ‘And if your face has another scar—well, it was you who told me once that all princesses are beautiful. They’ll call you beautiful too, when we are married. And you are.

  ‘We’ll teach them to control the River, to bring water to the desert. And we’ll bring our father here. Perhaps he can work out other words to write, not just for trading, so that our knowledge can be remembered—and our names will live for six thousand years.

  ‘I will be the pharaoh, and you my queen. The first in my heart. My dearest friend. And when the gods come to judge us in the Afterlife, we’ll walk together.’

  The following account is written by me, Hesyre, Scribe to the mighty Narmer, first Pharaoh of all Egypt, wearer of the Dual Crown of North and South, who united our land as one Kingdom, diverted the might River Nile, built cities and invented the papyrus on which I write. Our glorious Pharaoh died aged sixty-three while hunting hippopotamus. His great queen Nithotep ruled after him as regent, with their son, Djer. Long may Narmer and Nithotep rule together in the Underworld. Long may their names be remembered.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book takes place about 3000 BCE, long before the pyramids of Egypt were built, or Jerusalem, and before Egypt had mummies, scribes, hieroglyphics or irrigation.

  When we think of ‘ancient Egypt’ we think of the pyramids. But the times of the Pharaoh Narmer were ‘ancient history’ to the builders of the pyramids too. Most o
f the information you’ll find about ancient Egypt is far too modern to be relevant to this book.

  Yet five thousand years ago was one of the world’s most fascinating times, especially in the Middle East and Egypt, where this book is set, and around the Mediterranean.

  It was the beginning of civilisation as we know it now. Instead of being nomads, travelling from place to place gathering wild food, people were learning new ways to farm and starting to build cities, instead of just small villages. In the early days of farming, tribes would camp for months by the fields of grain, waiting for it to ripen, then pick and thresh it—getting rid of the stalks and the husks around the seeds. Then during the colder months of the year they’d have to lug around all the wheat they’d gathered. So slowly people decided to stay put instead of wandering around—and the world’s first settlements grew up around the wild wheat fields.

  It was the age of domestication, too, as humans realised that instead of hunting wild animals they could farm them, and train them to work. Such animals included horses, dogs, camels and cats.

  The landscape of Egypt and the Middle East was very different from today, with forests, marshland and grasslands instead of today’s vast deserts. The deserts in this book would have been smaller than the ones in the same areas today, and probably had more springs and scattered grass where animals could graze. But this also seems to have been a time when these areas were becoming drier, forcing farmers to learn how to irrigate, and more and more nomads to seek moister pastures.

  Life was growing harder in other ways too. Now that people were living in one place and their water was becoming polluted with their sewage, they started to catch diseases, especially from the animals they lived so close to—measles from cows, tuberculosis from cows and goats, and influenza from pigs and ducks. In earlier times humans were too spread out for disease to travel from group to group. Now for the first time many illnesses really got a hold on our lives.

  Wars grew more serious, as people fought for land near water and there were more people living in one place to fight, though there were still no professional armies. People who owned land—or controlled it—were better off than those who didn’t, so for the first time there was a real difference between the wealthy and the poor. Rich people now had slaves captured in battle, or servants: people who owned no land and had to work for someone else for their food.