Eye of the Moon (13 page)

If only I had paid heed to my father's words. If only I had held my tongue, they might've believed we were peasants. Was Tuthmosis silently cursing me? I twisted and turned to try to get a glimpse of him, but the Medjay's arms entrapped me with as much force as the jaws of a crocodile.

We rode in silence, the sun beating down.

I'd never ridden a camel before. Its gait was clumsy. I discovered in time it had three ways of walking—a stumbling short stride like the rolling of a small boat on a choppy river, a longer stride that seemed to dislocate every bone in my body, and a sudden jerky gallop that felt as frightening as instant death.

All of them were terrifying.

There was no way of knowing what distance we were covering. In the middle of the day we rested in a narrow passage of shade cast by a wind-worn outcrop of rock. The water the Medjay offered from leather skins that hung from the camels' necks was warm and tasted of goat. I glanced across at Tuthmosis, trying to read his eyes. We were silenced by the men whenever we tried to speak.

In the middle of the afternoon, a murky cloud like a dark swarm of locusts gathered along the horizon. I peered out from beneath my swaddle. The camels became restless and the men wound their scarves tighter around their faces and turned their backs to the dark horizon.

Then a hush fell. Silent as a dead man's heart.

A huge, solid wall of dust and sand rolled silently toward us. Then the wind began to gust. Harder and harder. As I peered out, the ragged outlines of the men seemed to be unfurling—their clothes, the torn head veils, the edges of their tunics, unraveling—their shapes disappearing in the haze. Bent over their camels in the murky light, they were ghostly apparitions. I lost sight of Tuthmosis.

With a howl like a raging animal, the storm overtook us. The dust wrapped itself around us and the world turned dark. In terror I buried my head into the Medjay's shoulder and heard him laugh deeply against my body.

Sand stung my arms and legs, my throat choked, and my eyes were blinded. Against his chest, I heard the sound of his heart close to my ear. A sound that should have been comforting but instead was terrifying. Yet I knew that had he not dug his fingers into my flesh and pinned me against him, I'd have blown away and been lost forever.

   
11
   
ANOUKHET

T
he storm blew itself out sometime in the night while we clung to our camels. In the midst of it I must have dozed. It was the complete silence that startled me from sleep.

The desert stretched endlessly to the horizon, as rippled as the surface of a river and completely unrecognizable. Strange shapes of rock and bone lay exposed and sand dunes stood where none had existed before.

We'd been riding for a long time when I spotted a dark green speck emerge in the middle of the blinding sand ahead. Green? The sun was surely making me delirious. But it grew larger and larger until shapes of palm trees appeared, shimmering and jumping in the haze.

Spurred on by a sense of water, the camels kicked up sand and began to gallop. The leader gripped tightly to his reins to keep his animal under control while I was jostled and juggled about, terrified I would fall under the huge, pounding leathery feet.

As we rode among tall, feathery palm trees heavy with dates and spreading acacias, children and chickens scattered on either side. Dogs barked all around. Low striped tents with sides tied up on stakes exposed shadowy, mysterious interiors.

The camels laid back their ears and brayed and raised frothing lips to show their teeth, snapping in displeasure, as the men struggled to halt them and prod them into kneeling positions.

The Medjay leader called out to some boys to unload the bags and bundles.

I felt the cool shadows wash over me. In the midst of all the noise and movement, I sat senseless, unable
to move. The leader reached up and clasped me by the waist and swung me down, past the snarling teeth of his camel. I pulled free of him, brushed the slimy camel spit from my face with the back of my arm, and ripped the ragged goatskin scarf from my head. The leader threw back his head and laughed. Then he turned and walked toward a tent the other men had entered.

I stood there in the shade. The contrast between desert and oasis was beyond belief. We'd moved from a world of blinding, blistering heat into a cool green space, dappled and dancing with sunlight and shadow. It was like being trapped inside a glimmering piece of dark emerald stone.

Alongside some rocks, a spring of water bubbled up from beneath the sand to form a pool where women were collecting water in terra-cotta jars. Peacocks strutted among them, bringing their own glimmer of green to this already shaded space.

Peacocks? How was it possible?

Tuthmosis stood next to me. I caught his eye. We were both too exhausted to speak. People disturbed by the commotion gathered around at a distance and stared. A little boy touched my hand curiously but
was scolded by his mother and shooed back to a tent. The women appeared to be discussing us. When one of them came forward with a gourd of water, I pulled it to my lips so eagerly that the water splashed and spilled onto the sand.

In the shadow of a tent, I saw a girl standing with her hand resting up against the tent pole, the other on her hip, staring straight at us. She was tall, loose-limbed, and dark-skinned. She wore a short, boyish tunic and her hair was wild and free in a tousled mass of dark curls that fell around her face, instead of the carefully twisted and plaited wigs worn in Thebes.

A woman clicked her fingers and said something to her. The girl tossed her head, turned, and went inside, then brought out some bowls on a brass tray. She walked toward us with languid indifference as if no one could hurry her, her upright stance and the way she held her body making her seem defiant. Her tunic was rough and her boots were sturdy and made of leather, held in place by straps around her ankles. Masses of silver bracelets shivered and shimmered against one another, and an array of silver rings glinted on her fingers as she held out the tray.

The bowls were piled high with ripe dates, desert
honeycomb, and pomegranate seeds that glowed like garnets. There was a bowl of water for rinsing the hands, with a small piece of linen cloth next to it. Between the bowls lay a tiny spray of yellow mimosa flowers.

I crammed a piece of honeycomb into my mouth so quickly that the honey had no time to drip, and then I scooped up a handful of pomegranate seeds. The girl's dark amber eyes, deeper than the color of the desert honey, seemed to challenge mine. She refused to look away, and it was only when I felt the pomegranate seeds bursting against my tongue that she turned toward Tuthmosis.

I glanced across at him and wondered what he thought of her. She'd brought the tray of food because she'd been commanded. But the tiny sprig of mimosa on the tray—was that her own doing?

Just then the Medjay leader strode out of the tent followed by the other men. A hawk gripped a dusty linen pad strapped to his shoulder. The bird was tied to his wrist by a plait of fiber that connected to a ring on its leg. This was a wild creature with a fierce eye and a screech that set my teeth on edge.

The man pushed the girl aside and shooed the women back. “Enough! They're not guests!” Then he
narrowed his eyes at us. “You've seen the desert. You know what a journey across it is like. If you venture beyond this oasis, you'll soon be lost. If you try to escape, you'll never make it out of here alive. It's a brutal and savage death. Be warned!”

I glanced quickly at Tuthmosis. It was true. The Medjay had made a prison for us without stone walls. There was no way of knowing the direction to take back to the river. There were no paths across the shifting sands. The sandstorm had been treacherous. Death by thirst was a horrible way to die! To be exposed to the burning sun, without water and shelter and any hope of finding some, would be terrifying.

Tuthmosis eyed him. “What's your plan?”

The man shrugged. “You'll remain here until we find the right buyer. Someone who makes a good offer. Someone who wishes to return you to Thebes.”

“I thought the Medjays were against Thebes!”

“We're against anyone who wants to take away our freedom. But there are times when it's convenient to make friends with Thebes. She's conquered all her enemies right now. There're not many bargains to be made. But the high priests will be interested to know we have captured the king's brother.”

“Tuthmosis is the
true
King. Not Amenhotep, his brother!” I blurted out.

The man eyed me, flint-faced and keen-eyed. “At the Festival of Sophet, it was Amenhotep and
not
Tuthmosis who wore the royal Atef crown.”

So he knew everything!

“If we're not sold, what then?” Tuthmosis interrupted, without looking in my direction.

The leader appraised him with a sneer. “A lame person is not much use to us. People who are weak or old are left in the desert to die. There's no place for weakness in an oasis in the middle of the desert.”

He turned back to me. “At least a girl can cook and fetch water.” His eyes were those of a falcon. A falcon watching its prey. I could hardly breathe.

“Tonight we'll celebrate our safe return. The women will prepare a feast. There'll be music.” He turned and smiled at the girl. “Anoukhet will dance for us. I command it!”

She lowered her eyelids with a brief look of loathing, then turned her head away with indifference, as if to study a bunch of dates that hung plump and orange between the fronds of a nearby palm. Just then a dog walked by with a monkey sitting on its back.

“Tss tss!”
the girl hissed softly through her teeth.

The monkey turned, leaped directly onto her shoulder, and gazed around, as relaxed as if it had jumped onto a palm frond.

The girl glanced across at me. Our eyes held for a short moment before she looked away again.

Anoukhet. So that was her name. But who was she? And where did she come from—this girl who was a dancer and a tamer of monkeys, who was so fiercely indifferent but who was made to dance at the command of the leader?