Eye of the Moon (18 page)

I looked from one to the other as they stared at each other with blazing eyes, waiting to see who would turn away first. When neither did, I stepped between them and took Tuthmosis's hand. “Let me rinse this and bind it for you, before you lose too much blood.”

The three of us were tied by bonds, but this was still going to be a difficult journey.

   
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ABU ISLAND

W
hen I had finished binding Tuthmosis's hand with strips of torn linen, he nodded toward Anoukhet. “Her hair needs cutting. She has to look like a boy. Yours is short enough. But cut hers.”

“Don't you dare!” she growled at me.

I eyed him. “Stop giving orders, Tuthmosis! There's no moss to wet it with and make a lather. It can wait until we reach the river.”

“Do it now—without lather. Before we risk meeting anyone else.”

I drew my blade reluctantly from my belt.

Anoukhet jumped up. “I'll do it myself!” She snatched up her dagger—the jeweled one that had cut to the heart of Naqada—grabbed a fistful of her hair, and hacked it with one quick movement. She flung the hair down and hacked again and again.

The long black tendrils fell against the sand in shapes as intricate and intertwined as strange hieroglyphs. They seemed to be telling their own secret story—something of who Anoukhet really was.

A new person stood before us, wild-eyed and shorn. I glanced at her face but she wouldn't meet my eye. I gathered up the thick strands and shook them free of sand. How long had they taken to grow to such a length? I laid the strands in a roll of cloth, bound them up, and handed them to her.

She shrugged her shoulders and tossed the bundle into her saddlebag. I saw the glitter in her eyes. I knew they weren't tears of regret, but tears of anger that she'd been forced to obey Tuthmosis. Yes, it would be a difficult journey.

Our camel was a bony and supercilious beast with
bloodshot eyes. We knew the camel hated us from the moment we had first walked around it, wondering where and how to climb up. It had moaned and spit and snarled as we'd approached. The only way to mount the camel without help was to get on while it was kneeling down and then get it to rise.

We heaved ourselves on and sat astride, with Anoukhet up front. She prodded and urged the camel up. In the standing process, we were thrown backward and forward twice—each jolt more violent and unexpected than the one before. Once we were up, if we moved in the saddle, he snarled and tried to snap at us. And when Anoukhet tried to urge him in another direction, he turned to bite our feet.

She seemed not the least bit bothered as she forced it forward down the cliff path.

After a long, silent afternoon of never-ending sand dunes rippling toward the horizon, I sensed the camel's sudden change of pace. Suddenly we came over a rise of amber sand and found ourselves looking down on a landscape of black boulders tumbled and glistening in the sun like polished jet.

The Great River lay before us—but different from
any part of the river I'd seen so far. Instead of smooth-flowing water, the river was choppy and white-curdled as it rushed and tumbled over, around, and between huge, smooth black rocks.

Upstream was an island, so large it seemed almost like the opposite bank. It divided the river in two. The island was rugged and high to the south with stone walls of a temple and a coastline of creeks and small sandy beaches. Groves of palm and mimosa and castor-oil trees came down to the water's edge on the side closest to us. In its heart were tilled patches of cotton plants, lentils, durra, and wildflowers.

The camel tender indicated with his chin. “Abu Island—Elephantine Island—named after the boulders, which look like the backs of elephants wallowing in the water.”

After the harshness of the desert, it was like a green jewel set in the river. I let out a sigh. “We're safe at last!”

Tuthmosis shook his head. “Not yet! We aren't beyond the control of Thebes. My father built that temple and a harbor for his army. There'll be Egyptian soldiers here. We must travel farther south.”

My heart sank.

Anoukhet shook her head. “We can't move on directly. We need to cross to Syene first.” She indicated the opposite bank of the river. There was a sprawl of mud-brick houses with dark-mouthed alleyways between them. “There'll be food and a chance to rest.”

“There'll be soldiers as well! It's too dangerous. They'll be on the lookout for us.”

Anoukhet laughed as she gave him a swift glance. “Not looking like that! You hardly look like a royal prince! Besides, there's no settlement farther south of these cataracts for a long while. There'll be no marketplace or chance of food farther on.”

We urged the camels onto a barge that took us to the other side. The bank was crowded with people, bales of goods, heaps of dates spilling out of woven baskets, and donkeys and camels both laden and unladen. Rotting, half-sunk boats lay poking out of the mud, and dried-out hulls lay among the reeds in the afternoon sunshine. The edge of the river itself was covered with boats moored so tightly together that they made a solid raft over which people crossed and recrossed as they loaded and unloaded goods. Men paddled from shore to shore in small reed boats, dragging fishing nets.

The noise of barking dogs, shrill voices, camels snorting and snarling, donkeys braying, dealers shouting, and children squealing and splashing mingled with the hissing and chatter of the cataracts.

Down narrow alleyways people held up goods at arm's length, begging us to stop and look and buy. What was offered was new and strange compared to what I'd seen before. Ostrich eggs, tortoiseshell, porcupine quills, claws and teeth, spears, bows, arrows, ebony clubs, daggers, wrinkled animal skins, whips made of hippopotamus hide, ivory bracelets cut in solid circles from elephant tusks, gold nose rings, leather girdles decorated with bright glass beads and cowrie shells, human skulls—or so they looked—and sloughed snakeskins.

Powerful and exciting aromas rose up from heaps of red, gold, and amber powders, curious-looking roots, shriveled pods, and strange bulbs, and young boys ran alongside us offering handfuls. Anoukhet leaned down from the camel, laughing and arguing, touching and feeling and smelling everything that was thrust toward us. When a boy handed her a flask of castor oil, she pulled out the stopper and began rubbing her arms with it. Then she laughed and handed
him a strip of a goat's-wool scarf in exchange.

“Stop that!” Tuthmosis hissed. “You're behaving like a girl!”

She flashed a look at him. “You forget. I
am
a girl! This is my place! I know how to behave here! It's
you
who is the stranger in Syene. You forget I'm Nubian. I'm named after the goddess of Nubia—Anoukhet—goddess of the hunt and goddess of the waters of the Great River! Syene is my home.”

“I'll be off, then,” the old camel tender announced, looking between the two of them. “You've no more need of me. I brought you safely through the desert; now I must leave you.” He nodded toward Anoukhet. “Keep your camel. I'll take this one in payment.”

We bade him farewell and Tuthmosis slid down and untied his saddlebag. It seemed to amuse Anoukhet that we rode on the camel while he walked alongside us.

He caught her look. “We'll be selling your camel soon. We need to buy a boat to go farther downstream.”

Anoukhet shook her head. “Have you seen the cataracts? Boats aren't used on this part of the river. Camels and donkeys transport everything around the cataracts.” She nodded her head toward one of the
shadowy, dark alleyways. “There's a place down there to get food and drink.”

Tuthmosis shook his head. “It looks rough. There might be soldiers from the garrison.”

Anoukhet flashed a look at us and laughed as she made the camel kneel and tied it to a post. “So? We're not girls, remember! I'm thirsty and hungry. Come on,” she urged. “Let's not argue about this.”

“Aren't you going to search for your family?”

“They're dead, for all I know. They were all taken into slavery. Sold or made to work in the quarries cutting stone for obelisks and statues for the likes of the wealthy pharaohs in Thebes.”

She didn't glance at Tuthmosis, but I knew the barb was meant for him. She took Kyky out from under her wrap and placed her on her shoulder.

Tuthmosis glared after her as she marched down the alleyway. “You'll only bring attention to us with that animal.”

“There'll be more than monkeys in here to attract attention,” she said as she ducked through the doorway.

   
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ENCOUNTERS