Eye of the Moon (14 page)

   
12
   
SCORPIONS OF SEQET

W
hen three bleating goats were brought to be slaughtered for the feast, I thought of Katep and remembered what I'd wished for the day he'd left. I'd wished my life would change! But I hadn't dreamed it would change so much for the worse.

The throats of the three goats were quickly slit and the blood collected in bowls, and then the bodies were skinned, chopped, and added to pots boiling
over a crackling fire. Women were chopping onions and garlic, grinding fragrant leaves of rosemary and crushing cumin seeds and cinnamon sticks in a mortar to flavor the stew. Others were straining fermented barley beer into large terra-cotta jars.

I was made to work alongside some girls grinding flour and preparing loaves of bread. Dogs squabbled around our feet for bits of bone and entrails. Children started a game of wrestling and laughing and throwing bits of dough among us. The girls sweat and worked and cast sidelong glances at me. Peacocks, frightened into the trees by the commotion, screeched and added their own cacophony to the day.

There was no sign of Tuthmosis. It was strange to be separated from him. Then Anoukhet appeared at my side and set to silently kneading dough beside me. Her bracelets chased back and forth along her arms as she worked. Her monkey perched in a palm tree nearby.

After a while she whispered, “He knows everything. He knows exactly who you both are—Tuthmosis and Isikara. He'll be ruthless about selling you back to Thebes when the time comes. Your only chance is to escape!”

I stopped and stared at her in confusion while the girls around us giggled and chatted. Flour had settled on her eyelashes and powdered them white. There was a smear of dough across her cheek, but her expression was serious.

“Keep working!” she hissed. “Don't draw attention to what I'm telling you.”

“We can never escape. It's too dangerous. How would we go?”

“By camel. It's the only way.”

“But we don't know the desert.”

“There's an old camel tender here. He knows his time is up. They'll put him out in the desert soon to die. So he has every reason to leave. He'll take us. He knows the way. He's from Nubia.”

“Us?”

She nodded. “I'm coming with you.”

“Why?”

“This place is a nest of
scorpions
.” She hissed the word.

I gave her a sidelong glance.

“The Medjay are scorpions! Fast, unpredictable, poisonous! And every bit as deadly! They bury themselves in the sand and shelter under rocks, waiting to
do evil. They're the most dangerous inhabitants of this earth. Serpents of the underworld.” She drew the wedjat Eye of Horus quickly into the flour with her elbow to ward off evil. “Do you know the legend of the scorpion goddess?”

“Yes . . . Seqet. She walks with the scorpion on her head and opens throats to breathe. She allows us to live.”

“But also to
die
! She can paralyze throats. She's a dangerous goddess. She protects but also punishes with her scorpion arrows. Her anger causes death. Her scorpions are vicious. The Medjay are just as vicious. Don't be fooled by them. They strike when you least expect it. They're a plague on this earth.”

She spit on the ground. “Naqada is the worst scorpion of all!”

“Naqada?”

“The leader. He'd kill you if it paid him more to do so. He's ruthless. He has trained his hawk to peck out people's eyes. If you see someone blind here, it's because of his hawk. Naqada is as evil as Apep!”

My mouth turned dry. That was a name that should
never
be uttered. God of evil and destruction. God of chaos. Every day he tried to swallow the Sun.
I shuddered. “I beg you . . .
don't
! Don't give the Evil One power by saying his name.”

“Like must be fought with like.”

“How?”

“Every day I make an effigy of a scorpion from beeswax. The sting of a bee against the sting of a scorpion. I leave it out in the sun on the burning sand so it will melt to nothing, in the hope that Naqada's power will also disappear. But it doesn't. With each new dawn, Naqada's power is restored. So I've given up. The only way to overcome Naqada is to escape him! I've been waiting for my chance. With you and Tuthmosis and the old camel tender, we'll manage it.”

I shook my head. Her plan seemed unthinkable.

“Naqada captured me as a child and brought me here from Nubia. I'm a slave. We
have
to escape!” she hissed urgently. “And soon. It's the only way. He'll guard you as closely as his hawk guards him. If he can't find a buyer to take you back to Thebes, he'll do a deal with Wosret. Kill you himself—for a price, of course! Whatever happens,
neither
of you will come out of this alive. You know too much. The high priests can't have Tuthmosis claiming his rightful throne.”

Anoukhet was forming the dough with her hands. The charms on her bracelets—frogs, scarabs, dragonflies, scorpions, bees, and turtles—jangled harshly against one another. She slapped the dough into shape as if it were all she cared about. But her breathlessness betrayed her.

Soon the loaves would be lined up and ready for the baking ovens. The opportunity for talking would be over.

“What must we do?”

“We have to act quickly,” she whispered. “Escape tonight!”

“Tonight?”

She nodded. “Leave arrangements to me. The camel tender is ready to set off whenever I say. Tonight, while the feasting takes place, be sure to store some food for the journey. Dates, fruit, olives, and nuts. Whatever you can lay your hands on. Steal a saddlebag to carry it in. Bring a cloak or skin to wrap around you at night. And fill any water skins you find. Be sure to warn Tuthmosis that this is our
only
chance. When I give the signal, it'll be time to go.”

I nodded and swallowed. Her plan was drastic, her words dire. It was hard to know whether to trust her, but if we didn't, our fate lay with Naqada. To escape and find our way in the desert seemed less dangerous than staying.

   
13
   
THE SEVEN RIBBONS OF HATHOR

S
hadows lengthened. Huge fires were lit and burning braziers placed along the pathways. I wandered among the tents on the outskirts of the oasis searching for Tuthmosis and found my hand suddenly grasped. It was Anoukhet.

She pulled me quickly toward a tent and lowered the flap. It was hung with colored cloth and spread with woven rugs. Her monkey lay curled up on a
goatskin in a dark corner. Thick animal skins were strewn everywhere. A carved box inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl held glass flasks, terra-cotta bowls, and alabaster jars.

It seemed luxurious for the tent of a slave girl.

“Have you told Tuthmosis?” she whispered in the half darkness.

I shook my head. “I can't find him.”

“They're keeping you apart so you can't plot anything. I'll discover where they've sent him and tell him our plan.”

“Be careful of how you persuade him.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “Tuthmosis is a king's son. He's not used to taking orders.”

Anoukhet laughed as she lit an oil lamp. “I need no protection. I'm not afraid of him.” The light caught a sparkle of mischief in her eyes. “We must get ready for the celebration. They'll suspect something if we don't prepare ourselves.” She gave me a critical look. “Your clothes are rough and dirty. Those sandals will be useless in the desert. You need leather boots like mine. We need to look like men,
if we're come upon. And your wig is awful. . . .” She pulled it from my head and examined the padding underneath. “And full of lice.”

“It belonged to a servant. It was a disguise.”

“Wigs are useless in the desert. They're too hot to wear. You'd do better to grow your hair long and let it fall naturally.”

I felt the short stubble of hair that had begun to grow on the journey. “That's unheard of in Thebes! Normally my hair is shaved to the scalp.”

“We're far from Thebes now.” She was emptying water into a large terra-cotta basin. She removed a duck-headed stopper from a blue glass vial and tilted it carefully. A few drops of oil fell into the water. A sweet essence of rose petals, jasmine, oranges, and almonds filled the air. She made me sit and rubbed a thick lather of reed sap mixed with moss over my scalp and worked it in around my temples.

“Keep your eyes closed to stop the soapiness getting to them. This will rid you of any lice that may have escaped the wig and nestled in your own hair.”

Her bracelets of tiny creatures jingled and sang in my ears.

“Have you a cosmetic box for keeping oils for
the journey? Galena and malachite pastes made with vegetable oils are needed for protection around the eyes.”

“I have turquoise paste.”

“
Turquoise
paste?” She paused in scrubbing. “It's not a parade of beauty! This isn't Thebes! Have you ever seen an animal that roams the wild with turquoise around its eyes?”