She was overmatched. Seduction was a game whose rules she did not understand—a game of which she had neither experience nor understanding. A game she should not have rushed to play. Not with him.

Now she watched his hands wrap the twine about her wrists over and over, wishing she could go back in time. She wanted to feel his arms engulfing her again. She wished to drink again from those strong, capable hands and to kiss each of his fingers a dozen times.

Seth’s blood, she was a fool. She could not accept her desire for him. Her body had acted against direct orders from her mind. But it had been more than that. It had been as if the moment he had embraced her all the disordered parts of herself had fallen neatly into line, and she’d wanted to stay with him like that for ever.

Or maybe the Red Land had finally driven her mad.

Author Note

Five thousand years ago a civilisation emerged in the Nile River Valley to become one of the most enduring the world has ever known. For three thousand years it thrived, isolated by desert and sea and sustained by the River Nile itself.

We know it as ancient Egypt—though the Egyptians themselves called their kingdom Khemet, or Black Land, after the rich black silt deposited by the Nile’s annual flood. The silt nourished crops, feeding a million souls and filling the coffers of Khemetian god kings—not called pharaohs until circa 1400 BCE—who used their wealth to build spectacular tombs.

Perhaps the greatest such tomb, King Khufu’s Great Pyramid, inspired this story. For centuries the Great Pyramid has been the subject of intense scrutiny, yet many of its mysteries remain unsolved. Recently some researchers have argued that the Great Pyramid hides chambers containing King Khufu’s funeral cache. If found, such an undisturbed hoard of wealth would rival King Tutankhamun’s tomb as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries ever.

We might never know all the Great Pyramid’s secrets, but we can dream. And we can imagine the people who laboured to build and raid it. Their lives might not have been so different from ours after all. Like us, they lived in a time of climatic uncertainties and vexing social inequalities, but also a time of amazing discoveries and miraculous feats. And, like us, they shared that most enduring wonder of all—love.

I hope you enjoy their story!

Enslaved by the Desert Trader
Greta Gilbert

www.millsandboon.co.uk

GRETA GILBERT’S passion for ancient history began with a teenage crush on Indiana Jones. As an adult, she landed a dream job at National Geographic Learning, where her colleagues—former archaeologists—helped her learn to keep her facts straight. Now she lives in South Baja, Mexico, where she continues to study the ancients. She is especially intrigued by ancient mysteries, and always keeps a little Indiana Jones inside her heart.

MILLS & BOON

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For Diane Noble and Paul Gilbert

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Contents

Cover

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Memphis, Khemet, year twenty-three in the Reign of King Khufu, 2566 BCE

The serpent’s tongue tickled her toes. It glided over her foot without fear, as if daring her to move. Its horns were large enough for her to see them clearly, even in the low morning light. Kiya sucked in a breath. Of the hundreds of men standing in the grain line, the horned viper had chosen her—the one man who was no man at all. It was just her ill fortune. After a full season of labouring undiscovered upon the Great Pyramid of Stone her life was now threatened by a creature the size of a chisel.

The men in the line near her had not noticed. Not yet. They continued to chatter, folding and unfolding the empty grain sacks they carried, their bare feet shuffling in the sand. They had all gathered—the quarrymen, the masons, the haulers—hundreds upon hundreds of pyramid conscripts, all awaiting their promised allotment of grain. They stood in a single sprawling line that encircled the Great Pyramid like a snare.

‘Move on, brother,’ urged a voice behind Kiya, but she pretended not to hear. If she lifted her foot the viper would surely bite her, and she would have to stifle her scream—the scream of a woman.

She opened her palms to the sky and lifted her eyes heavenward, for no one could lawfully disrupt an act of prayer. Blessed Wadjet, Serpent Goddess, she beseeched in silence, let the viper pass. Still the viper did not move. It was as if the giant pyramid at her side were blocking her plea.

King Khufu’s House of Eternity was not just a pyramid—it was a mountain splitting the sky. Now almost complete, the giant tomb would be ready to receive King Khufu when his time came. It would conduct the great King to the heavens, where he would secure the safety and abundance of Khemet for all time.

Or so said the priests.

The holy men who oversaw the construction of the tomb wore fine linens. They walked with their arms folded across their chests, self-satisfied and proud. But their priestly posture belied an insidious truth: it had been twenty-four full moons since the last flood—two terribly trying years. The Great River was but a stream—no longer navigable by the large imperial barges. Its life-giving waters had ceased to teem with the silvery perch and tilapia that normally filled Khemetian bellies. The riverside plantations of flax, barley and wheat—once green with growth—now stood barren and cracked.

The people of Khemet, too, were cracking. Their sacred Black Land—named for the colour of the rich, life-giving earth of the Great River’s floodplain—had become brown and lifeless. Every day Khemetians grew thinner and hungrier. The priests assured them that the fate of Khemet would change once the Great Pyramid was complete.

But the tomb workers, whose food rations grew sparser each day, wondered if Khemet wasn’t instead being punished. As they pulled their stone-laden carts up the dark, twisting inner tunnel they whispered among themselves: What if King Khufu’s ambition has grown too great? What if this tomb displeases the King’s heavenly father, Osiris, God of Death and Rebirth? What if, with the stacking of each stone, we are not exalting the land of Khemet but dooming it to death?

Kiya always kept her head down in the tunnel—and held her mouth shut. ‘Mute Boy’ she was called among her gang, and her strange infirmity cloaked her with an air of mystery that distracted them from her concealed gender. It was a useful part of her ruse, and necessary. A woman labouring upon the Great Pyramid of Stone was a sin against the King himself. If she were found out she would be punished. Under King Khufu, that punishment would likely be death.

Now the viper coiled itself more tightly around Kiya’s ankle. She could feel its muscles squeezing her, its tongue gently caressing her skin. It was preparing to bite. When it did, the poison would quickly paralyse her, and death would come on swift feet. She opened her hands and mouthed the words: Wadjet, I beseech you.

‘There will be time to pray later,’ insisted the man behind her. ‘Close the gap.’

He had spoken verily: she had allowed a gap to form in the line ahead of her. She needed to distract him. Impulsively, she pointed her finger eastward, towards the Great River, as if there were some significant sight to observe there. But something was there—or someone, rather. It was a man—a rider. His mounted silhouette made a sharp shadow against the paleness of the dawn.

‘Who is that?’ asked the man behind her.

Kiya shook her head. The rider was unusually large and broad-shouldered, as if he spent his days ploughing fields or hauling stones. He rode a strange hoofed beast whose long legs and thick, luxuriant tail set it apart from a familiar donkey. His flowing dark robes marked him as a Libu, an enemy of Khemet, yet his stature and carriage indicated other origins. He unwrapped his headdress and began waving it in the air above him vigorously, as if in warning. Then his figure dissolved instantly—obscured in the eruption of the Sun God’s light.

Kiya shielded her eyes and glanced downward. To her surprise, her tiny foe was gone—disappeared, just like the rider. But there was little time to celebrate for she felt the ground beneath her begin to tremble. In the place where the rider had been there was now a cloud of dust. Then they materialised—an army of men, advancing towards the pyramid at great speed.

‘Libu!’ someone shouted.

The men in line scattered, but Kiya could not bring herself to move. There must have been a thousand of them—rugged, robed raiders whose shrill battle cries invaded Kiya’s ears and filled her with terror. Some rode atop donkeys, but most came on relentless feet. As they approached they unleashed their arrows upon the tomb workers. A dozen of Kiya’s fellow workers were struck instantly, collapsing where they stood. The rest ran. Some sought refuge inside the Great Pyramid itself. Others escaped into the desert.

Kiya dropped to the ground, playing dead. She counted her breaths. One. Two. Three. Slowly the rain of arrows abated. Kiya opened her eyes to find the Libu raiders gathering around the grain tent. It was as Kiya suspected: the Libu had not come for war. They had come to the plain of Giza for the same reason she had—for that thing that had become, after two years of drought, more precious than gold: grain.

This could not be. Kiya needed her grain. She had earned her allotment of it. And she had been so close, so very close to receiving it.

‘Run!’ a man yelled from far away, but Kiya did not heed him. She had no family, and not a single aroura of land to her name. Without her ration of grain she would have to return to a life on the streets of Memphis—to the life of a beggar.

And that she simply refused to do.

Slowly, she stood. She gripped her grain sack and, in the confusion of Khemetians running away from the grain tent, began to run towards it.

She wrapped the empty sack around her head like a turban. She was a Libu now, a new kind of imposter. On swift legs she darted among the Libu donkeys, and the animals’ large bodies concealed her and protected her from the chaos.

Outside the grain tent few Khemetian guards remained alive. Their wooden shields had not been able to protect them. Like sacred bulls on feasting day the soldiers were being pierced, one by one, by Libu spears and arrows.

It was a grisly slaughter. So much Khemetian blood was spilt upon the sands. But Kiya could not afford to panic or to mourn. She rushed past the battling men and rolled under the tent’s loose hide. Inside, a pile of grain the size of a temple rose before her. She did not stop to gaze or even to think. She just took off her sack and started stuffing it, until it was so heavy with grain she could barely lift it. She did not even hear the ripping sound of her shirt as she rolled over the rough ground back out into the fray.

She could hardly see for the storm of dust outside the tent. She crouched low and kept the sack close to her body. The acrid smell of blood thickened the air and she choked for breath as she dashed eastward, towards the Great River.

As she ran she noticed that her shirt was gone, and that the wraps she had bound so tightly about her chest had been ripped. The tattered strips of fabric hung from her waist like a tailor’s loose strands and she felt the warm air upon her naked breasts. Her sex was exposed, but it did not matter for her sack was filled.

In fact it overflowed. She carried a windfall of grain—vastly more than she would have been allotted by the priests. And it was all hers. She hoisted it onto her back and felt her spirit grow large. It would be more than enough grain to sustain her through a full cycle of the sun. If she travelled far enough upriver she might even be able to find a plot of land to till and plant. She could trade some grain for her rent and await the flood, as farmers did.

She adjusted her course towards the southeast and became resolved: she would not be returning to the capital city. Never again would she skulk around its docks searching for fish heads, or roam the central market hoping to discover an onion peel or a half-eaten radish. With her boon of grain she would finally be free of want, finally merit her countrymen’s respect.

She heaved the bag onto the ground and shook her fist at the sky. ‘Is that all you have for me, evil Seth, God of Chaos?’ she shouted. ‘For that is nothing!’

Suddenly an arrow flew past her. Then another. She ducked her head, afraid to turn around. She heard the thunder of heavy hooves behind her—not a donkey, something larger. They pounded the ground like drumbeats. They were getting louder, closer. She hoisted the sack upon her back once again and coaxed her legs to run, but soon the large donkey-like creature was upon her. Its rider’s large, muscular arm reached down and wrapped itself around her body, and she and her sack were being lifted off the ground and into the air.

‘Do not fight,’ whispered a thick, husky voice into her ear. ‘Now you are mine.’

Chapter Two

If it had not been for their mindless blood sport he never would have spotted her. Sickened by the massacre—the senseless loss of life—Tahar had let his eyes seek refuge upon the horizon. That was when he’d noticed her distant figure. She’d been running towards the Great River with a bag so full of grain that she’d scarcely been able to keep it off the ground. But it was not the bag that had caught his eye. It was the way her body had moved across the plain. Her small exposed breasts had swung to and fro in an awkward, seductive way—the way of a woman.

What was she doing there at all? It was well known that Khemetians did not allow women to labour directly upon the King’s tomb. Women were thought to be too closely tied to the beginning of earthly life to be associated with the passage at its end.

And yet there she’d been—a woman to be sure. If she had been wearing a shirt or tunic he might have missed her completely, for in all other ways she was like a man: tall, thin, with taut, muscular limbs that gave no hint of feminine softness. She wore no wig, and her worker’s perfectly shaven head shone like burnished copper in the morning sun.

She had the spirit of a man as well—or so he had discovered as she’d kicked and flailed atop his horse. So energetic had been her rebellion that she had given him no choice but to stop at the first oasis he could find to secure her bonds.

He stood above her now, admiring his work. She was seated against the trunk of a date palm, her ankles and wrists wrapped with twine he had wound three fingers thick. The palm gave little shade, and he smiled with satisfaction as he watched the hot sun melt away any remaining notions she might have of escape.

‘I know that you are thirsty,’ Tahar said at last. He squatted on the ground beside her and placed his water bag at her lips. ‘Drink now, for we cannot linger here.’

The stubborn woman refused to drink. Instead, she pursed her lips together and shook her head.

He studied her angry face. She was no goddess—not yet. But she had potential. Her bones were fine and displayed excellent symmetry. Even in her emaciated state her lips were red and plump, and long, arched eyebrows hung high above her big dark eyes, giving her an air of readiness and making her scowl appear almost charming.

Tahar took a draught from the water bag himself. ‘Do you see?’ he asked. ‘It is just water. You must drink. Quickly.’

The Libu raiders would be swarming every oasis from the Great River to the Big Sandy soon, celebrating their success. If they discovered Tahar and the woman they would insist that she be sold into marriage and would demand their share of her bride price. That was the rule amongst the desert tribes—spoils were divided equally. But Tahar knew that, with any likely suitor absent, the raiders would demand their fair share of the woman herself—a possibility he simply could not tolerate.

He held out the bag again. ‘Drink,’ he commanded, ‘for we must keep moving.’

‘Why do you speak the Khemetian tongue?’ she asked, and gave a small jump, as if surprised by the sound of her own voice.

‘I am a trader. I speak many tongues.’

‘You are a Libu raider. A murderer.’ Her brown eyes flashed and her cheeks flushed with a fetching shade of crimson.

‘I am neither a raider nor a Libu—not any more.’

‘But you bear the Libu scar,’ she said, her eyes fixing on the purple crescent framing the side of his eye.

‘And you bear the callused hands of a man,’ Tahar replied coolly. ‘That does not make you one.’ He placed his water bag near her hands, in case she might accept it.

‘Just because you have tied me in bonds it does not make me a slave.’

‘Then we are both imposters.’

‘Hem!’ she snarled, then batted the water bag out of his hands.

‘Foolish woman!’ Tahar shouted, watching the bag’s precious contents spill onto the sand. ‘Now I shall have to draw water from the oasis pool and boil it. It will be many hours before we drink again.’

He grabbed her arm in anger and an invisible spark seemed to ignite the air between them. He released her arm and she returned her remorseless gaze to the sun-baked desert.

‘You are a Libu monster,’ she muttered.

‘And you are a Khemetian to the bone,’ he said.

‘How am I “a Khemetian to the bone”?’

‘You are spoiled and superior, as if the Gods themselves sanction your decadence.’

‘If you think ordinary Khemetians to be decadent, then you truly are dull,’ she said, and a small tear pooled in the corner of her eye.

Tahar stood and placed the empty water bottle in his saddlebag. Better to wait for her to beg for it—something she would do quite soon, he was sure. Thirst was a powerful motivator.

As is hunger, he thought, stealing a glance at her small white breasts.

No—he would not conquer her body. He would not even think of it, though he admitted that he wished to. Taking her would be like drinking wine from the amphora you meant to trade.

He removed his headdress and draped the garment over her shining head. ‘You must shield your skin from the sun,’ he told her, laughing as her head disappeared beneath the fabric. ‘What do you call it? La?’ he mocked.

‘The Sun God is Ra—blessed Ra. May he punish you severely,’ she stated, but her voice was muffled by the thick fabric, making Tahar laugh.

‘Gods do not care about us, silly woman. I have seen enough of the world now to know that it is so.’

‘What can you possibly have seen to give you knowledge of the Gods?’ she mumbled from beneath the fabric.

‘I have seen the beds of ancient rivers that once flowed over this very oasis, and the bones of creatures unimaginable to us. I have seen paintings on rocks deep in the desert. They show people swimming like fish. Swimming! The Gods may be mighty, but they care little about us. We are temporary.’ Tahar paused. ‘We are...whispers in the grass.’

The woman was quiet for some time, as if trying to picture all the things he had described. At length, she spoke. ‘Are you going to violate me, then? I am...’

‘A virgin? I could tell that just by looking at you,’ he said. It was a welcome confirmation of his belief, for it would raise her bride price significantly.

‘Are you going to kill me?’

‘Of course not.’ You are more valuable than all the salt in the Fezzan.

The woman exhaled. Moving her bound hands with agility, she pulled the headdress off her head and gathered it around her lithe, muscular body.

He would have to fatten her up, of course. No rich Minoan sea captain or powerful Nubian chief would trade anything of value for such a scrawny, sinuous bride. Proper Khemetian clothing and adornments would need to be procured, as well. And her eyes would need to be kohled, and her lips hennaed in the fashionable manner. Finally, her hair must be allowed to grow. Though most wellborn Khemetian women wore wigs upon their shaved heads, Tahar knew that foreign traders preferred the real thing.

He would have to train her—just as he had done with his father’s horse: tame her and give her time to swallow her fate. He would need to be wary, for Khemetian women were accustomed to more freedoms than women of the desert tribes. Given the opportunity, a Khemetian woman would take her advantage—or so he had discovered at the Houses of Women he frequented along the caravan routes. A Khemetian woman would rub your back while unclasping your necklace. She would nibble your earlobes while pillaging your saddlebags.

Still, after he had quieted her will and thickened her flanks there would be no trader able to resist the healthy young bride. She was Khemetian, after all—a goddess from the land blessed by the Gods—and she was going to make Tahar rich.

The woman cocked her head and looked up at him, her expression drained of pride. ‘Please, let me go,’ she begged. She lifted her bound hands beseechingly. ‘I must return to my home. My mother and sister will not survive without the grain I carry...carried.’ She blinked, and a lone tear traced a path down her dusty face.

Tahar felt his stomach twist into a knot. Her intentions seemed laudable. She apparently wished to save her family, to relieve their hunger. Careful, man. A Khemetian woman will say whatever she needs to say.

‘The Great River will swell in only three more cycles of the moon,’ he assured her. ‘The flood will be late, but it will come. Your family will survive. Do not fear for them.’

‘But how can you know when the Great River will flood? You are not a priest or a seer. You cannot know the future. You are a liar, a trader—’

‘That is all!’ Tahar snapped. He would not abide her disparagement of his profession, lowly though it was. It had kept him alive all these years, and in the good favour of his tribe and the merchants he served. ‘You should give thanks for your life.’

‘And what do you intend to do with that life?’ she asked sharply, her lip betraying a tremble. Her eyes were so large and luminous. They challenged and begged all at once.

‘I—’ Tahar searched his mind, trying to remember his intentions. ‘You will make an excellent bride. I intend to trade you.’

‘Trade me? In exchange for what?’

‘For a boat.’

‘A boat? What will you do with a boat? Carry your sheep in it?’ Boldness swelled in her bosom. ‘You are Libu—a desert-dweller. Are you not?’

‘Not any more. Now I am only Tahar. Tahar the Trader.’ Tahar the soon-to-be sailor, thanks to you, my lovely.

He smiled to himself. He would find this fiery little viper a rich merchant husband, use the proceeds to get himself a boat, and they would all be the better for it.

‘I am taking my horse to drink at the pool,’ he announced, untethering the steed. ‘We shall depart as soon as I return.’ He walked several paces towards the pool, then mustered his most menacing voice: ‘Do not even think about trying to escape.’

Chapter Three

There is nothing eternal but the Gods, Kiya told herself, watching the trader disappear into the thick willow and tamarisk foliage surrounding the oasis pool. She pressed her bonds across the jagged ribs of the date palm. Everything else is temporary.

The twine was made of unusual green fibres—not papyrus, something finer. Hemp, perhaps. It was exceptionally strong, but Kiya knew that even the strongest bonds could be broken. She had seen captive crocodiles do it with ease. If they could do it, why not Kiya?

What she could not do was become a slave. She had seen them on the streets of Memphis. They followed their owners like dogs, their shoulders slumped, their eyes cloudy and lifeless. Nay—she would rather die and become lost in the corridors of the Underworld than serve someone else in this one.

Not that the trader cared a fig about what she thought or felt. He had not wavered, even when she had told him about her starving family, of the souls who stood to perish if she did not return.

It had been a lie, of course. She did not have a starving family. She did not have anyone at all, in fact. But it didn’t matter: he had failed the test. He, like most of his profession, was soulless, completely without a ka. And his certainty of the coming flood was beyond arrogance. Only a seer or High Priest could ever know such a thing. Certainly not a trader.

She rubbed the twine against the rough palm ribs and soon tiny ribbons of smoke began to weave into the air. She intensified her effort, remembering his stinging words. Foolish and decadent, he had called her. Spoiled and superior. Was that what the Libu thought of the Khemetians? Was that how they justified their raids?

The trader had denied being a Libu, though he bore the Libu scar—a brutish, crescent-shaped gash beside his eye. And he wore the long purple robes of a Libu, though they did not suit him. His broad, deeply contoured chest stretched against the thin fabric, threatening to break the seams. And his strange, liquid blue eyes suggested unusual origins. He was quite attractive, in truth.

For a fiend.

Her hands burst apart. She quickly untied her feet and leapt into a run. The soft sand gave beneath her, revealing her footprints, but soon she spied a patch of hardpan. She headed towards it, not stopping until her footprints were no longer visible upon the naked ground. Then she stopped. She had an idea. Carefully, she began to walk backwards in the very same footprints she had made.

This he would not expect. He would follow her footprints east, towards the Great River. Meanwhile, she would be in hiding back at the oasis, where he would eventually return, defeated and exhausted, and quickly fall asleep. He would not even hear the gentle hoofbeats of his strange beast as she rode it off into the night.

By the Gods, she wished it were night already, and not so impossibly hot. The Sun God bored into her skull, melting her thoughts and sapping all that was left of her strength. As her head began to swim a memory flooded in... ‘Stay awake, Mother,’ young Kiya whispered, crouching by her mother’s side in the shadowy chamber. ‘We must try to escape.’

Evil men had breached the walls of the harem and invaded the concubines’ chambers. The panicked women and children had been running barefoot past the doorway of her mother’s chamber, seeking their escape beyond the harem walls.

‘Come with me, little one,’ a voice had urged.

It had been one of the escaping concubines. She had stopped in her mother’s doorway and held her hand out to Kiya.

‘Come now, we have little time.’ The woman had glanced at the empty vials that littered the floor beneath the bedframe. ‘You must leave your mother here. Already she has begun her journey.’

‘My daughter will sssstay with me!’ Kiya’s mother had slurred, rousing herself from her stupor. ‘Leave us to our fate!’ Her eyes had rolled back in her head. ‘Beware the three serpents, my daughter,’ she’d told Kiya, gripping her small arm. ‘Each will try to take your life.’

‘She is not in her right mind, dear,’ the woman in the doorway had said. ‘Come quickly!’

‘The third will succeed,’ her mother had continued. ‘Unless you become like—’

Her mother’s grip had been too strong—Kiya hadn’t been able to pull away. ‘Mama, please. We must flee. The bad men are coming!’

‘All men are bad, Kiya. Remember, they only wish to possess you, to enslave you.’

By the time Kiya’s mother had finally released Kiya’s arm the woman in the doorway had gone.

‘Conceal yourself under the bed,’ Kiya’s mother had instructed. She’d reached for the largest of the vials, uncorked the bottle, and drunk down its cloudy contents. ‘Do not fear, my beautiful little daughter. They will not find you. And they will not take me alive.’

Kiya had felt hot tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘Please do not go, Mama! Do not leave me alone.’

But Kiya’s mother had lain her head upon her wooden headrest for the last time and slipped soundlessly into her world of dreams.

‘Beware the three serpents,’ whispered her mother’s voice again now.

Startled, Kiya looked all around her. There was not a single soul in sight.

‘Each will try to take your life,’ the voice resounded.

Kiya looked up at the sky, half expecting to see her mother’s face staring down at her. There was nothing. She looked to the ground, as if at any moment a serpent might materialise upon her foot.

‘The third will succeed, unless you become like...’

Like what?

Kiya slapped herself on the cheek. The skin on her head had begun to boil and her mouth was dry, as if full of fibres. She knew that if she did not get out of the sun soon she would quickly lose her will to do it. Abandoning her plan, she broke into a run, heading as fast as she could back to the oasis, where the trader was nowhere to be seen. Heedless of anything but her own smouldering skin and desperate thirst, she dived into the oasis pool and let the cool water caress her. She drank her fill, then disappeared into the depths.

When she finally emerged for a breath she heard men’s voices, nearing the pool. They were speaking in a deep, guttural tongue that she recognised immediately. Libu.

Her heart hammered as she cowered into a shady stand of flute reeds growing in the water on the far bank. She found the longest of the reeds and snapped it in half, then sank down against the bank, breathing slowly through the natural straw.

In moments a group of men arrived at the pool’s edge. Their blurred figures were difficult to see through the water, but Kiya noticed their purple headdresses and the long copper blades that hung from their belts. The men spoke excitedly—joyfully, even. As their donkeys bent to drink, Kiya could see the animals’ saddlebags bulging with grain.

Khemetian grain.

Kiya felt her heart pinch with hatred. They were Libu raiders, for certain. Their joy was the Khemetians’ doom. All the workers—the thousands of peaceful farmers whom Kiya had joined in service to the King—would now return to their homes empty-handed because of these evil men. Many of the Khemetian farmers would not return home at all.

Kiya struggled to keep her breaths even and swore she would have her revenge. The Sun God would soon be on his nightly voyage to the Underworld and the murderous villains would be to bed. The Moon God would rise, and Kiya would execute her escape plan anew.

Curses on the trader, for she no longer needed him. She had a band of Libu to plunder from instead. Besides, if her captor were any kind of trader he would have quickly understood the threat they represented to his grain. He and his strange, oversized donkey were probably halfway across the Big Sandy by now.

Chapter Four

But she was mistaken.

He slid down noiselessly into the water next to Kiya. He might have been a stranger, for he wore nothing upon his head, nor any distinguishing clothing. His chest was bare, and strands of his long yellow-brown hair floated languidly around his face like threads of smoke. Kiya knew him only by the two cerulean eyes staring out at her. Their colour was incomprehensibly blue, their gaze so deep and steady they might have belonged to a statue of an ancient god.

His arm slipped behind her back and she felt his hand grip her waist. Gently, he floated her body in front of his and pulled her against him. She could feel the hard, rippling contours of his stomach against her back as he nestled them against the bank.

Kiya did not know what to do. If she fought him she would reveal them both. What had he told her? That he no longer claimed to be Libu. If that was so, then perhaps he was in as much danger as she.

She held her breath as he took the hollow reed from her fingers and pressed it to his own lips, drawing in a deep breath then returning it to her mouth. They passed the breathing reed back and forth in this manner as the Libu men began to retreat from the bank one by one. His arm surrounded her waist and kept her body pressed tightly against his, making her feel oddly safe.

Soon she began to feel something else as well. A growing firmness where her backside pressed against his hips. Neither his loose-fitting pants nor her voluminous wrap could conceal it in their folds. That.

At the advanced age of twenty-three, Kiya would have never guessed herself capable of stirring a man’s desire. Indeed, she had worked quite hard throughout her life to achieve the opposite effect. Did this man who wished to sell her in fact desire her? Or was this simply what happened when that part of a man came into contact with a woman’s body? Surely it was the latter, for Kiya was not the kind of woman men desired. Fie—she was not the kind of woman men could usually even detect was a woman.

Kiya gazed up through the water. The Libu raiders were dispersing. She counted only two lingering on the far bank. A large insect glided across the surface of the water above them and a water snake swam languidly past. Meanwhile, the trader’s growing desire had found its resting place in the cleft of her backside.

It was the first time in her life that she had been this close to a man. She might have moved to the side, but the sensation was not altogether unpleasant. As a test, she allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to feel him there. That was what happened when a man took a woman, was it not?

She pictured the act, for she had heard the tomb workers discuss it in detail, and had seen it depicted in the reliefs carved upon the gates of Hathor’s temple. In this case he would not be above her, as the reliefs often depicted. He might lift her by the waist, for example, and then settle her upon him, pushing himself into her. But how could that be? How could she possibly contain him? For a moment an unfamiliar pain akin to hunger shot through her, then it was gone.

No, there it was again.

To further the test, she pushed gently against his firmness, giving resistance, and thought she could feel him grow firmer still. Was this the power of a woman? Was this the fantastic faculty that the storytellers sang of in the taverns? And was this the beginning of the act that the young men sketched in the alleyways of Memphis, chuckling conspiratorially?

If it was, then she might be interested. Perhaps.

But not with a murderer. And never as a slave.

The trader’s hands pulled her against him more tightly. She knew she needed to escape his grasp, for her body was starting to move against her will. But escape was impossible, for there was still one Libu raider left at the pool. He was standing motionless at the water’s edge.

He appeared to be looking right at them.

Kiya froze. The man could not see them. They were underwater, in shadow, and concealed by a patch of reeds. Her heart pounded so hard that she imagined it creating a ripple. Tahar, too, seemed to have noticed, for he squeezed her gently. Hold still, his hands told her.

The Libu man walked to their side of the pool and stood above the stand of reeds. He pulled his long sword from its sheath and began poking it into the water. The sword probed to the left of Kiya, then to the right. Kiya held her breath.

Chapter Five

The sword’s penetration into her arm was not deep, but Tahar watched as it shattered her senses. Pierced as the woman was, even the mightiest of warriors would not have been able to stifle a cry, and as they floated to the surface he knew he could not prevent her coming scream—the scream of a woman.

‘Ah!’ she cried in pain.

‘Hazah!’ Tahar yelled, covering her voice with his own.

He grabbed the Libu man’s ankle and pulled him into the pool. Amidst the splash of water Tahar pulled her close. ‘Swallow your agony,’ he whispered frantically. ‘And keep your mouth shut. He must not know that you are a woman.’

The Libu man surfaced. ‘Villain!’ he shouted at Tahar.

Tahar eased the woman behind him. ‘You have discovered me, brother,’ he said, splashing water at his tribesman playfully. ‘You were the only one who even came close!’ He could feel the warmth of the woman’s blood draining into the water all around him. ‘Dakka, you scoundrel,’ Tahar continued lightly. ‘You’ve damaged my slave.’

‘I did not see him,’ Dakka spluttered, casting a quick glance over Tahar’s shoulder. ‘And you’ve made me release my sword.’ The young man scanned the surface of the pool.

‘Well, go and fetch it, man,’ chided Tahar, ‘before the Khemetian Pool God consumes it!’

Dakka scowled, then drew a deep breath and plunged into the depths.

Tahar turned to the woman. ‘You are my slave now. Do you hear? You are again a young man.’ Tahar pulled at the part of her headdress that she had spooled over her head and wrapped it around her wound. ‘Let the men see your bald head. Keep your eyes down and do not speak. Do everything I command.’

Dakka resurfaced, his gleaming copper sword held high. ‘It needed a good cleaning anyway,’ he stated. ‘Khemetian blood makes an ugly stain.’

Ugly indeed, thought Tahar. The woman remained in the pool while the two men hoisted themselves up the bank and embraced. ‘You ride with a large party?’ asked Tahar.

‘Nay, there are but a dozen or so. Some from the Libu tribes of Garamantia, the rest the Libu of the Sardana region, including the Chief. The only Libu from the Meshwesh region is myself—and now you, brother. But where is your...beast?’ Dakka’s eyes searched the perimeter of the pool.

‘It is called a horse, Dakka,’ Tahar said with feigned annoyance. ‘How many times must I remind you? It is tethered in the shade of the acacia bushes yonder.’ Tahar pointed vaguely beyond the pool, watching out of the corner of his eye as the woman strained to pull herself from the water.

‘Since when do you own a slave?’ Dakka pressed.

‘Since this morning, of course.’ Now cease your questioning.

Dakka’s gaze settled upon the woman’s sopping figure. Thankfully Tahar’s ample headdress concealed her breasts and thighs well. At length, the young man smiled. ‘Then well done, brother, for you are one of very few to obtain one.’ Dakka unwrapped his headdress and his long dark hair fell around his shoulders.

‘Oh?’

‘We sought to collect slaves after we’d finished with the guards, but by then the tomb workers had all disappeared.’ Dakka squeezed his hair and twisted it into a bun.

‘They escaped into the tomb, doubtless,’ said Tahar, shaking his own shoulder-length hair and placing it behind his ears. ‘I have often wondered what lies within that mountain of stone.’

‘Surely riches beyond our dreams,’ said Dakka. ‘But sealed in secret chambers we shall never know. Chief Bandir found the workers’ entrance soon after the raid. It led to a tunnel that plunged beneath the earth, but we found nothing in it.’

The woman stationed herself in the shade just behind Tahar, concealing herself well.

‘Neither gold nor slaves?’

Dakka shook his head. ‘Chief Bandir was enraged. “Where did they go?” he yelled, but soon gave up. The tomb workers’ settlement was also without reward—not one miserable soul to be found. But the raid wasn’t completely fruitless. There was more grain than we could carry, and three large sacrificial bulls were discovered near the boat pit.’ Dakka rubbed his engorged belly. ‘Two hundred Libu feasted on food marked for the Khemetian Gods! You missed the banquet.’

‘I had my prize. I wished to be on my way,’ Tahar said, glancing back at the woman. The blood had already begun to soak through the fabric around her arm.

‘Indeed,’ said Dakka, ‘though the boy appears rather...gaunt. Do you think he will endure the journey back to your tribe’s camp?’

‘We shall see. It is less likely now that his ability to survive has been greatly diminished by the sting of your blade.’

The veiled compliment had its desired effect, for Dakka finally took his eyes off of the woman. ‘You should have seen how many Blacklanders I plucked today, brother—’

‘Bah!’ interrupted Tahar, for he could not bear more talk of bloodshed. ‘Save the bragging for around the fire. Now, lead me to the others. Let us surprise them together.’

Soon Dakka was leading them back towards the same flat, sandy spot where Tahar had tied the woman less than an hour before. She walked without a sound behind the two men. If she was in pain she did not show it, and as they entered the bustling camp Tahar noticed that she had cleverly adjusted the headdress to further conceal the bumps of her breasts.

‘Shame on you, brethren,’ Tahar announced, hailing a dozen Libu warriors with a grin. ‘I had hoped to test your hunting skills, but not one of you spotted me!’ Tahar pointed at Dakka. ‘It was this young jackal who finally sniffed me out.’

Tahar smacked Dakka gamely on the back and scanned the company. He recognised some of the men, but others were from distant tribes who had joined only for the raid. In a few moons they will all be enemies again, Tahar thought bitterly.

‘And who is that?’ asked a small, cadaverous man sitting against a rock. He pointed a long, knobby finger in Tahar’s direction and opened his one good eye wide. ‘That wretched urchin behind you.’

‘Greetings, Chief Bandir,’ Tahar said, bowing low. ‘The boy is my slave. I acquired him at the raid, though as you can see he has been recently injured.’ Tahar cast a scolding gaze at Dakka, then smiled forgivingly.

‘I’d always thought you partial to women,’ sneered the Chief, ‘Tahar of No Tribe.’ The Chief adjusted his leather eye patch and narrowed his good eye into a slit.

Tahar of No Tribe. The title stung worse than the cut of any blade. Tahar had been with the Libu of the Meshwesh region since he was twelve years old—over twenty cycles of the sun now. He had led countless trade missions and brought great wealth to the tribe. He was well known along the caravan routes, and by merchants from Napata to Uruk. They called him the Blue Serpent, for his rare blue eyes and quiet, watchful manner. The men of his own tribe didn’t call him that, however. They had come to call him brother.

‘If I am not a Meshwesh Libu by now, Chief Bandir, then let the Gods bury me in the sands,’ Tahar said, meeting Dakka’s supportive gaze. ‘And I am partial to women, of course... But I am also partial to help!’

Tahar laughed lightly, but only Dakka laughed with him. Tahar stared out at the collection of men—herders, most of them—all taking their cue from the rich, unsmiling Chief.

Tahar turned to the woman. ‘Go fetch the horse,’ he commanded in Khemetian. ‘Do it now, boy!’

The woman made an obedient bow, then disappeared across the oasis. He realised suddenly that he had no way of knowing if she would return. Meanwhile, the men eyed Tahar sceptically. His mind raced. He had to convince them of his loyalty, and somehow alleviate their suspicions.

‘I was wrong to conceal myself in the pool,’ Tahar began in a feigned confessional tone. ‘In truth, I was being gluttonous. You see, I wished to consume all the wine myself.’

Tahar paused, letting the men absorb his statement. ‘Wine?’ repeated a barrel-chested man, his dark brows lifting. ‘You carry wine?’

A low murmur rippled through the crowd.

‘Not just wine, brother. Khemetian wine.’ Tahar flashed the party a roguish grin. ‘I procured two amphorae from the grain tent during the raid. I drained them into udder bags and hoped not be discovered.’ Tahar looked around at the dozen men sheepishly. ‘Will you forgive a greedy trader? There is certainly enough for everyone.’

Just then the sun vanished below the horizon and the heat loosened its grip on the land. One of the men let out a sigh. ‘A few drops of Khemetian wine would be most welcome,’ he said.

‘Aye,’ agreed another, his dust-reddened eyes brightening. ‘I have not tasted Khemetian wine since before the drought.’

As the stars began to appear above them, Tahar was transformed from dubious outsider to honoured guest.

‘Well, get the wine, then, Tahar,’ said Dakka. ‘Let us celebrate our success.’

Tahar turned to find that the woman had quickly and silently returned with his horse. She stood beside it holding the reins, her head bent in subservience, her legs spread and her toes pointing outward in a convincing male pose. She was a true imposter—a snake of many colours—and Tahar found himself admiring her.

‘Tahar, why do you tarry?’ said Dakka, coming to his side. ‘And why do you wear the smile of a fool?’

‘What?’

‘The wine!’

‘Oh, aye. The wine,’ Tahar said, fumbling in his saddlebags.

‘Yes, the wine,’ someone called. ‘Before we all perish.’

Tahar returned to the circle with two udder bags full of what was sure to be the most potent wine the men had ever tasted. Ceremoniously, he handed both of the bags to the Chief, aware that he had lied once again. Tahar had not stolen the wine from the grain tent, as he had claimed. Long ago he had discovered that wine could be a tool of his trade, and he carried it wherever he travelled.

The Chief placed both bags in his mouth and drank his fill. When he’d finished, a trail of red liquid dribbled down his chin. ‘Blood of Khemet,’ he said, and the men repeated it.

‘Blood of Khemet!’

Tahar was glad the woman could not understand the Libu tongue, for the Chief’s words would have surely destroyed her. The rich crimson liquid was indeed known as ‘Khemet’s blood’, but drunk so cheerfully, and held by a hand that still bore the stains of actual Khemetian blood, it seemed poisoned. Tahar did not wish even a sip.

‘The Khemetians are decadent,’ the Chief said, passing the bags to the men. ‘They deserved what we gave them this victorious day.’

‘Aye! Aye!’ the men cheered.

‘The arrogance of their Great Pyramid of Stone!’ continued the Chief. ‘The Gods do not approve. That is why we have this drought, why the people of the Red Land starve.’

Bandir did not mention the fact that the Khemetians, too, were starving. What he did note was that the Siwa Oasis—which Bandir himself controlled—had seen less than half of the trade caravan traffic of two years ago. He described his empty toll houses, his idle wells, his vacant brothels.

‘Today, the Libu tribes have taken back only a small part of what we are owed,’ he concluded.

Tahar felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. What was the purpose of this tirade? They had raided the Great Pyramid of Stone and taken hundreds of lives, along with a large haul of grain and three sacred bulls. Was that not enough?

The Libu raiders raved and howled, passing the wine bags between them as the full moon rose. When a bag was finally handed to Tahar he only feigned taking a draught. He had struggled his entire life to be accepted as Libu, but as he watched the men rally behind their bloodthirsty Chief he realised that he did not want to be. Nor did he have to be—thanks to the woman who stood silently in the shadows, pretending to watch the moon.

Chapter Six

It felt almost pleasurable, at first—that flick of a tongue across her thigh. That cool, soft skin pressing against her calf. She tried not to move, tried not to breathe. Perhaps this was only a dream.

Then she heard it—a soft, almost imperceptible hiss, like the sound of fire consuming grass. She worked to free her hands, but she could not. Tahar had tied them before she had fallen asleep. Nor could she jump up—he had bound her ankles too. She felt the movement of the creature’s skin on her leg. This was no dream. This was the certainty of death, twisting up her body like a rope.

Another serpent.

Kiya lifted her head. There was Thoth, the Moon God, his face round and full. In his powerful light she could see all the men. They sprawled around the dying embers of the fire, sated with wine. Their cacophony of contented snores burned Kiya’s ears and filled her body with hatred.

Thieves. They did not deserve to rest so well—not with so many innocent lives on their hands. Yet as she watched the serpent disappear under her wrap, it seemed that it was Kiya whom the Gods wished to be punished.

This was not an accident, as she had believed the viper to be. This was her mother’s prophesy unfolding. Beware the three serpents, she had warned Kiya, so long ago.

If the viper had been the first serpent, then this asp was surely the second. Or was it? A water snake had swum by them in the oasis pool. It had veered towards her, then veered away, deterred by a brush of Tahar’s hand. If the water snake had been the second serpent, then this asp was the third. Perhaps this was not the continuance of her mother’s prophesy, but the fulfilment of it.

But why? Why did the Gods wish Kiya dead?

Suddenly it came to her. The tomb. She should have never heeded King Khufu’s call to service. She should have never gone to labour upon his Great Pyramid of Stone. Instead she should have listened to the priests, whose message was clear: no female should ever set foot upon a tomb. She had broken the taboo. Now the Gods were merely exacting their punishment upon her.

Kiya resolved not to fight the asp. She would face her death bravely, for it was the Gods’ will. She took the part of her headdress that she had placed under her head and stuffed it into her mouth. To cry out would mean to wake her captors, and she refused to give them the pleasure of witnessing her death. She slowed her breathing and braced herself for agony.

Then she felt it—the sting of two sharp fangs in the tenderest part of her thigh. The exquisite pain crackled through her body, followed by a kind of squeezing inside her that made her breath grow short. She studied Thoth’s pocked white face, which seemed to grow larger, closer.

Her strength drained away and the needling pain in her thigh grew. She had failed her people, who asked only that she revere the Gods, that she heed their simple rules. Soon she would face Osiris, the King’s heavenly father, in his Hall of Judgement—though she probably would not even make it that far. She had no papyrus to tell her the names of the doorkeepers, nor any priest to say the spells. She did not even have any gold with which to pay the boatman.

Not that any of it mattered. She had sinned against the Gods. She was doomed to wander for all eternity in the labyrinths of the Underworld, lost as she had always been, among strangers.

Now the serpent’s figure slid into view, profiled against Thoth’s blurring face. The creature had climbed the entire length of her. Its hood expanded, it hovered above her, as if considering her transgressions. She would go now, willingly. She let her eyelids close.

But behind her eyes she found only darkness. She did not hear the howls of the jackals, who guarded the gates of the Underworld. Instead, she heard the sound of footsteps in the sand.

She could no longer feel her limbs, and the world began to spin. She heard a sharp hiss, and the rough scuffing of feet upon the ground. Then something else—a soft, wet noise, like the suckling of a babe at its mother’s breast. There was a strange tugging sensation at the site of the wound.

Was someone attempting to suck out the venom? Yes, it did feel as if there were a mouth tugging at her thigh. There was no time for reflection, for soon an acute pain ripped through the numbness in her leg. She had never felt such agony—not even when she had been pierced by the Libu blade. She opened her mouth to scream and felt a large hand over it.

‘Stay silent,’ the trader’s voice growled.

She bit down hard on the cloth again. The feeling of suction at the site of the bite returned, then ceased.

‘Tahar,’ sneered the Chief. He muttered something in the Libu tongue, then bent over Kiya and switched to Khemetian. ‘What is wrong, slave?’ he asked.

Kiya felt the fabric of her headdress being arranged to cover her face.

‘The boy will not answer you,’ explained Tahar. ‘He has suffered the bite of an asp. He is all but dead.’

‘Are you alive, boy?’ asked the Chief, ignoring Tahar. Kiya stayed silent. ‘Let me see you.’ Kiya could feel the fabric of her headdress being tugged.

‘There is no need to look at the site,’ the trader explained steadily. ‘It is already too late to stop the poison.’ His voice was like the edge of a blade.

‘There is enough moonlight to at least see the mark,’ said the Chief. ‘Or would you deny my will?’

Kiya felt the cover come briskly off her face. She smelled the Chief’s strong, sour breath. ‘The boy still breathes,’ the Chief said. ‘If I can save him, Tahar, he is mine, for you have clearly forsaken him.’

Kiya felt her wrap being folded back, then a sudden sharp pain as the Chief’s finger probed the tender site where the asp’s fangs had penetrated her thigh. He pushed his hand further up, and she drew a breath when she felt Chief’s bony fingers discover her woman’s mound.

‘What is this?’ the Chief exclaimed. ‘Not a boy at all!’ The Chief yanked his arm from beneath Kiya’s wrap. ‘You have lied to us, Tahar.’

Kiya opened her eyes, but could see only shadows all around her. Her body was limp with exhaustion, but she felt a small tingling sensation returning to her legs, and the tightness in her chest had diminished. She saw the shapes of slumbering men stirring upon the ground. They growled and moaned, still heavy with the effects of the wine. The shadowy figures of two men stood above her, motionless.

‘If you give her to me now I will forgive you,’ whispered the smaller shadow—the Chief.

‘Never. She is mine.’

‘She is ours,’ the Chief said, his voice growing louder. ‘She is a spoil of the raid. She belongs to every man here.’

‘Nay, she belongs to me and me alone.’

What happened next Kiya wasn’t entirely sure. She felt her limp body being scooped into the trader’s strong arms. She was placed atop the horse and felt the trader’s large, warm body slide behind hers. He gripped her tightly by the waist.

‘Do not fight me,’ he whispered with hot breath. ‘Not now.’

As they rode away she heard the frantic sound of the Chief’s shouts. Though she did not speak the Libu tongue, she could imagine what he was saying.

‘Why do you delay, you drunken fools? Get her! She is ours!’

Chapter Seven

‘I am yours, My King. You may take me if you wish,’ breathed the young woman. She had draped herself across King Khufu’s lap, as she had been instructed, though she could not bring herself to relax her limbs.

‘I wish you would get off my legs,’ said the King. ‘You are stiffer than a mummy.’

The woman scrambled to the floor and waited obediently upon her knees.

‘Just rub my feet, woman,’ the King bristled.

The King’s newest concubine took his soft right foot in her hand and began to knead. ‘You are the handsomest, most magnificent king who has ever lived,’ she said as she worked, for concubines were trained to flatter the King in such ways.

‘Indeed?’ answered King Khufu, bemused. He plucked a grape from the fruit basket on the table and stared out at the brown rooftops of Memphis.

‘And the most intelligent and the most powerful and...’ The woman paused.

‘And?’ asked the King.

‘And the most accomplished.’

‘Ah! Accomplished. Did you hear that, Imhoter?’ The King pointed a shrivelled date at his elderly advisor, who was kneeling at the foot of the King’s divan.

‘Yes, My King,’ said Imhoter, keeping his head bowed.

Of course the holy man had heard it. He had been kneeling with his head bowed for some time, waiting for the King to release him from his obeisance.

‘Do you think she refers to my ossuary, Imhoter?’ asked the King. ‘You know—that little building I made?’

‘Yes, Majesty,’ Imhoter intoned, studying the lapis tiles beneath his knees. ‘That is the structure to which I believe she refers.’

‘Is that it, coddled one?’ the King asked his concubine. ‘You refer to my heavenly catapult?’

The beautiful young woman ceased rubbing his foot, utterly confused. After several moments the King’s lips narrowed into an angry line. He pointed his royal finger north.

‘Oh!’ the woman exclaimed. ‘Yes, My Lord, the Great Pyramid of Stone. Yes, yes. That is the accomplishment to which I was referring. It is truly...awe-inspiring. Future generations will look upon it with...awe.’

The King wrenched his foot from the woman’s hands. ‘You bore me, young blossom.’ He turned to the priest. ‘Imhoter, remind me to send a teacher to the Royal Harem. A historian, and perhaps a scribe versed in the embellishments of language. These new concubines are as thick as palm trunks.’

‘Yes, Majesty,’ said Imhoter, keeping his gaze upon the floor.

‘Well, get up, then, Imhoter!’ the King said finally. ‘Or am I surrounded by fools?’

Imhoter stood slowly, glancing sidelong at the young woman. Her eyes had been kohled with an elegant, swirling design, but tears now threatened to smudge the lovely black circles.

The King levelled an icy stare at the woman. ‘And get a special tutor for this one. This...’ The King paused. ‘Pray, what is your name?’

‘Iset, My King,’ said the woman.

The setting sun shot a golden ray across the terrace and lit up her ochre-red lips, which trembled like a child’s.

‘Iset,’ Khufu said. ‘Even the name is dull.’

A single tear traced a path down the woman’s powdered cheek. Imhoter knew that the woman had been preparing her entire life for this—her first encounter with a Living God. As his concubine she would share his bed, would bear his bastards, yet up until this moment he had not even bothered to learn her name.

Imhoter watched the woman wither beneath the King’s gaze. The King did not know her name, and neither would any man, for the life of a concubine was foremost the life of a loyal servant. She would live out her days in the seclusion and isolation of the harem—available for the King whenever he wanted her, alone and lonely when he did not.

This was the fate of all concubines—glorious and terrible. Imhoter could not understand why women went so eagerly towards it. In his fifty years of service to the King, and the King’s father before him, there had been only one concubine who had resisted that fate. Imhoter’s heart squeezed and he pushed the memory from his mind.

Now Iset wiped her tear and gestured meekly towards the King’s foot. ‘Shall I continue, My King?’ she asked.

‘Tsst!’ the King hissed, brushing her away.

If only Imhoter could tell the poor woman that the King no longer welcomed any woman’s touch. Indeed, it was well known amongst King Khufu’s priests and advisors that he hadn’t taken either of his wives nor any of his concubines to his bedchamber in many, many moons.

‘Leave me now,’ the King spat at the woman. ‘Go!’

She jumped up and rushed across the expanse of the terrace, the train of her long white tunic dragging behind her like a sail unable to catch the wind. Imhoter could hear her sobs as she disappeared behind a distant column.

It was another ill omen, for the mark of a king was his virility—his ability to fertilise the land of Khemet with his seed, which he was expected to plant in as many concubines as possible. In that particular function King Khufu had lately begun to falter. The younger priests were already scandalised by the King’s behaviour. They whispered among themselves like harem girls. Has Horus Incarnate lost his virility? That was the question on their minds, for the King’s body was Khemet’s body, and for two years Khemet had been suffering a drought.

‘Do not condemn me, priest,’ the King growled, reading Imhoter’s thoughts. ‘Am I not the Living God? Can I not do what I please, my actions reflecting the will of Horus, God of Order and Protector of both Upper and Lower Khemet?’

The King lifted his empty goblet, and a slave boy holding a large pitcher emerged from the shadows and filled it.

‘Of course, Majesty,’ Imhoter said.

‘Then open your mouth, eunuch,’ the King commanded, reminding the former priest of his debased status, ‘and tell me why you have come.’

A rush of shame pinched Imhoter’s chest, but he did not show it. Instead he reminded himself of his duty to Khemet. He had faithfully advised King Khufu’s father, Sneferu, and now he served Khufu himself.

He took a deep breath and began. ‘Keeper of Khemet, I had a most compelling vision as I slept this morning. It involved your House of Eternity, the Great Pyramid of Stone.’

Khufu nodded, squinting at the glowing white pyramid at the horizon’s edge. To reach it required a day’s journey from Memphis, but even at this great distance the building appeared powerful, impermeable, eternal.

Still, Imhoter could not help but feel a growing sense of dread. It had been two years now since Hapi, the life-giving flood, had blessed the land of Khemet with its waters. And now akhet, the season of the flood, was almost over. If Hapi did not arrive soon there would be no crops again this year. Without any reserves left, the people of Khemet would slowly begin to starve.

‘Tell me, Imhoter. What did you see in your vision?’ the King asked.

‘I saw an army of men clad in violet and blue. They seemed to be bursting out of the sun itself. Some ran; others rode donkeys. They were running towards the Great Pyramid of Stone.’

‘Libu?’

‘Aye. It appeared to be a raid, though I did not see more than what I have said...’ The priest paused.

‘What else, Imhoter?’

‘Nothing, Majesty.’

‘I know there is something else,’ Khufu said, and His Majesty was right. The King read Imhoter like a scroll. ‘Tell me, Seer, for the Gods speak to me through you.’

‘As you wish—but this part of the vision confuses me,’ continued Imhoter. ‘I also saw a woman. She was a beautiful woman, as splendid as the Goddess of Love and Abundance herself. Two black serpents hung from her temples. They touched her collarbone like strands of hair. You commanded that she be sacrificed.’

‘Sacrificed? It is not since the time of Zoser and the Seven-Year Drought that a human has been sacrificed.’

‘That is why I do not understand the vision. I know that Your Majesty would never return to that barbarous ancient practice.’ Imhoter swallowed hard. In his haste to placate the King he had divulged too much of his vision. Now he could see Khufu turning the idea over in his mind.

‘What did she wear, this sacrifice?’

‘She wore golden serpents on each of her arms and legs.’

‘Did you see anything more in your vision? Did you see Hapi, our precious flood? Is it coming at last?’

‘No, I am afraid I saw nothing to do with Hapi.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘Nothing at all. Just a legion of Libu...and a lady of serpents.’

Just then a King’s Guardsman appeared at the far end of the terrace. The Royal Chamberlain announced the man’s arrival as he strode the length of the space and prostrated himself at the foot of the King’s divan.

‘I bring urgent news for the ears of the Living God.’

‘Speak,’ commanded the King.

‘Your Majesty, I was sent by Hemiunu, Chief Vizier and Overseer of the Great Pyramid, just before he perished.’

‘Perished?’ The King’s goblet made a loud clang as it fell upon the tiles.

‘Yes, My King, along with most of the King’s Guard. A Libu horde attacked the grain queue early this morning. Lord Hemiunu bade me tell you. It was his dying wish.’

‘And the grain?’

‘It is all gone—stolen by the Libu filth.’

The King cast an awestruck gaze at Imhoter, then sat back.

Imhoter could not believe the guardsman’s words. The grain tent had contained the last of the royal grain stores. Now the tomb workers would have nothing to help them see their families through the drought.

‘The lady of serpents,’ muttered the King vacantly.

‘Your Majesty?’ said the guardsman.

‘A woman wearing golden serpents upon her wrists,’ the King said, ‘did you see her?’

‘No, My King, I am sorry. There were no women at the raid.’

The King sank back into his cushions and it appeared to Imhoter as if he had shrunk to half his size. ‘And Hapi, our magnificent flood?’ the King muttered, the colour draining from his face. ‘When will it arrive? When?’

Chapter Eight

There was and there was not. That was how Kiya began all her tales. It was the traditional way, the way of the entertainer. It was the way her mother had taught her, for concubines were expected to provide diversions for kings, and stories were one of them.

Kiya remembered few details from her mother’s tales, but she remembered how her heart had swelled as her mother had described worlds beyond Kiya’s wildest dreams—worlds in which animals talked and people did magic and everything came in threes, including wishes.

After she’d lost her mother and gone to live on the streets of Memphis, Kiya had often loitered outside the taverns, where men told tales for money and fame. Her aim had not merely been diversion: there had often been food to be had, as well. Kiya would huddle undetected under the kitchen windows behind the taverns, hoping to filch a half-eaten honey cake to fill her stomach and catch a story to sustain her.

There was and there was not, the storytellers would begin, and she would strain to hear their fantastic falsehoods—stories of giant crocodiles and shipwrecked sailors and men who lived for hundreds of years. The storytellers’ words would transport her to places far beyond the dusty streets of Memphis, and for a short time she’d feel worldly. Not an orphan, but a traveller. Not a street beggar, but a princess. The storytellers carried harps and, for the right amount of beer they would sing and play. Kiya always smiled when they sang her favorite song, ‘The Laundry Woman’s Choice,’ about a poor laundry woman who must choose between two suitors. ‘I will wear the shirt I love best, no matter how it fits’ went the chorus, and Kiya would quietly sing along.

She was fascinated by the bond the storytellers called love. She longed to feel it. She had searched the faces of the young men in the marketplaces, and as her womanhood had begun to bloom they had searched her face in return. But they had always looked away.

Slowly, Kiya had begun to realise that she was not desirable to young men. And why should she be? She had no family or property—not even a proper tunic or wig. She clad herself in rags and grew her own hair, which hung in tangled ropes that smelled vaguely of the docks.

One day Kiya had been digging for clams in the shallows of the Great River when an old man had approached her. His gait had been crooked, and Kiya had been able to smell the sour, vinegary aroma of wine upon his breath.

He’d grabbed her by the arm. ‘You are mine now, little mouse,’ he had slurred.

He had already torn away most of her ragged wrap by the time her teeth sank into his flesh.

She’d bitten down hard, unaware that it would be the first of many such bites. As she’d run away she had remembered her mother’s words: Stay away from men, Kiya! They only mean to possess you, to enslave you.

How right her mother had been. As she’d got older the menace of men had only grown. She’d needed protection, and had been confronted with the choice all street girls faced: to sell herself into servitude or to sell her body in a House of Women.

Kiya had not wanted to choose. Each time she’d considered the options she had felt her ka begin to wither. She had meandered through the marketplace and splashed in the Great River, desperately clinging to her old life. She had lingered outside the taverns, listening to the storytellers’ tales, remembering the urgency of her mother’s words and trying to conceive of another way.

Finally, she had: shaving her head, concealing her curves and covering herself in rags, just like a character in a story.

Kiya had became Koi.

There was and there was not.

* * *

‘Awake!’ a deep, familiar voice commanded.

But when she opened her eyes darkness enveloped her still.

‘I have arrived in the Underworld?’ she stuttered.

There was a menacing chuckle. ‘If you consider a cave in the banks of an ancient river the Underworld, then, yes, indeed. You have arrived.’

Kiya’s head throbbed. ‘I am...alive?’

‘Yes, you are alive—though you have been sleeping the sleep of the dead for many days.’

The air around her was cool and still, and her eyes could discern nothing in the inky darkness. Layers of cloth swaddled her, but beneath them was a hard surface. She attempted to sit up, but a searing pain shot through her inner thigh and she collapsed back onto the ground with a curse.

‘Don’t forget that you have been bitten by a deadly asp,’ said the voice from somewhere close. ‘And pierced by a Libu blade.’

She touched the tender wound on her arm. Where had that come from? A confounding fog stifled Kiya’s thoughts. Where was she? And what menace stalked her now? She needed to find a weapon—a stone, even a handful of dirt would suffice. A desperate thirst seized her and she coughed.

‘Nor should you forget that you drank from an oasis pool,’ the voice added. ‘You have been vomiting for two days.’

‘And still I am not dead?’

‘Your Gods apparently wish you alive.’

‘Nay. I am certain they wish me dead.’

‘Well, you are fortunate to know me, then, for I have saved you from their will.’

‘And who are you who would thwart the Gods?’

‘You do not remember?’

‘I scarcely remember who I am,’ Kiya moaned, for she was no longer Koi, the stealthy street orphan, nor was she Mute Boy from Gang Twelve of the Haulers. She was someone else entirely—someone positively new. But who?

‘In your fever you raved of serpents,’ said the voice.

Kiya heard the sound of stones being placed upon the ground.

‘Three serpents would try to take your life, you said. One would succeed, unless you become like...’

‘Like what?’ Kiya asked.

‘That was all you said.’

‘I heard a voice in the desert,’ she remembered. ‘A prophesy.’

‘If you heard such a voice in the desert, then it was no prophesy. It was an illusion—a waking dream. Illusions occur in the Red Land when a person lingers too long in the sun.’ A ray of sunlight flooded into the cavernous space. ‘Now, let there be light.’

Kiya blinked and a large figure stepped into her view. The light was behind him, keeping his body in shadow, and she imagined him a demon. His dark silhouette towered above her, the expanse of his chest terminating in long, well-muscled arms that appeared strong enough to break her in two. She groped about desperately, her hand finally closing upon a loose stone.

The demon bent down and placed his large hand over her fist. His thick voice was at her ear. ‘Do you really wish to bite the hand that feeds you, Little Asp?’ He lifted her fingers, one by one, from the stone, then tossed it aside. ‘Do not try to fight now,’ he said gravely, ‘for you will most certainly lose.’

He wrapped one arm around her shoulders and threaded the other under her knees. Without effort, he lifted her body. She could smell his scent—something rich, earthy and unmistakably male. He carried her across the cave to the wall farthest from the entrance. There, he gently set her down in a sitting position.

He remained in shadow, but as he walked back towards the mouth of the cave the light hit him and she could discern a loincloth wrapped neatly around his lower body. Below the cloth his legs bulged outward, as if the Gods had decided to allot him the strength of two men instead of one. Above the loincloth the great swathe of his back seemed to bloom from his round buttocks in an array of taut muscles.

The demon was well-made.

He was also enormous.

Kiya glanced at her own scrawny, swaddled figure and concluded that he had wrapped his own clothing around her many times.

‘You were very hot for a time, then very cold,’ he explained as he reached the mouth of the cave and bent to retrieve a water bag. ‘You endured a terrible fever. The oasis water you drank was dirty and should not have been consumed.’ He returned to her side, held the water bag out to her and paused. ‘Please don’t make this like the last time.’

‘The last time?’

‘You don’t remember that either?’

Ah, but she did remember. It came all at once, in a flood of images: how she had punched the water bag from his hands; how she had tried—futilely—to outmanoeuvre him; how the blade had plunged through the water and through her arm. She touched the inside of her thigh and for a moment could feel the asp’s sharp fangs puncturing her skin once again.

She remembered all of it—even the feel of his hands as he’d picked her up and hoisted her onto his strange beast. Even...even the pool. She felt a flush of heat in her cheeks. Those hands. They had been so confident upon her waist. It had been as if her body were a dune of sand they might traverse expertly, if only given the chance.

‘Nay, I do not remember,’ she lied.

She reached for the water bag and tilted it to her mouth. The water was cool and fresh, and she drank until she had drained the entire bag.

‘Don’t be shy,’ he said, flashing a shadowy smile. He lifted the empty bag from her grasp. ‘Since you do not remember, I will have you know that you are my captive. I took you in a grain raid. I saved you from Libu raiders and nursed your wounds. I am Tahar, and you are mine.’

He put the water bag down and held up a bowl full of rich-smelling game.

‘This is addax. I caught it last night in the wash below the cliffs. The meat is tender—like oryx, but lighter in flavour. I have cured it with smoke, so that we may consume it over the next few days. You may eat as much as you like, but first you must say my name.’

Kiya stared into the bowl of meat. Meat? How long had it been since she’d eaten meat? She could hardly remember. She reached for a piece of addax.

‘Not so fast, my little imposter,’ he said, pulling the bowl away. ‘What is my name?’

‘Tahar.’

‘And what is your name?’

Her name? Was this a cave, or some earthly Hall of Judgement? His eyes were in shadow, but she could feel them studying her. Ah... She knew exactly what this was. This was her first lesson in submission.

‘I’m sorry. I do not remember my name.’

‘That’s unlikely.’

‘Please, Tahar, I do not remember,’ she lied. She blinked her eyes and was able to produce several fine, false tears. Oh, handsome trader, from beyond the Big Green, you are overmatched.

Annoyed, he thrust the bowl out to her. She placed a piece of the fresh smoked addax into her mouth and every part of her body awakened to the act. The meat was so rich—almost sweet—as if the beast had lived a life of luxury and not scratched its lean existence from the desert sands.

She ate another piece, feeling the animal’s spirit pass into hers, feeling strength return, feeling...gratitude.

She thought of the traditional Khemetian proverb: If I shall die, I shall die in thanks, having tasted all of life.

She stopped her chewing. ‘It appears that I am in your debt.’

Tahar was as still as the shadows that concealed him. ‘Indeed you are...’

She could not see his expression, but he seemed to be thinking.

‘And you shall pay that debt soon.’

In a few brisk strides he had returned to the mouth of the cave, where he bent with his knife and began scraping what appeared to be the addax’s hide.

‘How? How will I pay that debt?’

‘I shall sell you into marriage to the richest man I can find.’

His words burned through the last bit of fog that lingered in Kiya’s mind and a familiar rage began to smoulder in her heart. ‘You misunderstand me. I said that it appears that I am in your debt, but in fact I am not.’ She had his attention now. ‘For I would be halfway to Abydos by now if it weren’t for you.’

‘Is that where your family lives? Abydos?’

‘Family—?’ She stopped herself. The demon had almost caught her in her lie. ‘Aye, it is where my family lives. Though I wouldn’t call it living, for there is no food, and now I have been captured and cannot aid them, and they will continue to starve unless I am released, and—’ Kiya stopped when she discovered that she was talking to the walls.

Tahar had apparently exited the cave.

Chapter Nine

Wretched viper of a man. In the softness of her gratitude she had exposed herself to his fangs. By the Gods, where was her sense? This trader was no different from other men—always seeking to possess women and use them for profit. As soon as she had her strength back she would slip out of his grasp. There was naught she could do now while her injuries healed. She would eat his meat and bide her time, then simply disappear.

She regained her calm and looked around the cave. Slowly, a grand vision emerged before her eyes. Images—hundreds of images—upon the walls. Birds and beasts and plants—some familiar, some utterly strange.

‘Remarkable, aren’t they?’

Tahar’s voice made Kiya jump. He had silently returned to the mouth of the cave. When had he done that? He was staring at Kiya, and in the shifting light she thought she could detect a wistful look in his eyes. ‘So beautiful and mysterious.’

‘What is this place?’ asked Kiya. ‘A kind of temple?’

‘I suppose so, though only a blessed few know of it. Welcome to the Cave of Wanderers.’ Tahar pointed to the wall across from Kiya. Upon it was drawn a family of river cows, basking in the shallows of a river. Above them the long, elegant bodies of several sacred ibis floated in the sky. Beneath them a great school of perch swam for all eternity.

‘A Khemetian surely did this.’

‘Very certain of that, are you?’

‘I know the work of my people,’ Kiya said. ‘That is the Great River. And those are hippos—river cows. They bask in the water during the daytime. I have witnessed this scene many times on the banks of our sacred river.’

‘Indeed? Well, in that case, you can tell me the name of the tall creature standing on the bank.’

‘What tall creature?’ Kiya asked. She studied the vegetation—papyrus, lotus, thistle. There were drawings of palms, acacias, tamarisks, and even a few fig trees, but there was not a single creature of any significant height. ‘There is no tall creature standing upon the bank.’

‘Then your eyes deceive you.’ Tahar traced the trunk of a sycamore tree with his finger, then continued upwards to the ponderously long neck of a creature that in all other ways resembled an ass. ‘It is called a giraffe.’

‘A giraffe? What is that? What gods made this place?’

‘No gods—’ began Tahar, then stopped himself. ‘Long ago, the desert was not the desert.’

Kiya was too entranced to ask his meaning. Though the animals were but dark outlines, they seemed alive somehow, as if they might jump from the walls and be reborn inside this secret womb of stone.

Animals weren’t the only figures. There were humans carrying arrows and spears. Some rode atop beasts with long, serpentine snouts. Kiya drank in the images, letting them fill her with their secret messages, amazed as her world expanded before her eyes.

There was that feeling again—gratitude. Think, Kiya. Remember he is your captor. He intends to sell you for his own gain.

Soon Tahar was crouching at her side. He held a small linen packet. ‘In order for the wound on your thigh to heal properly I must ensure the poison is completely extracted. Then I must apply this poultice to encourage healing. May I tend it now?’

‘How do you know the flood is coming?’

Tahar eased her body into a more reclined position. ‘I just know.’ He gently pulled apart her legs.

‘How do you know?’

‘I am going to lift the headdress cloth to address the wound now. This is necessary.’

Kiya squeezed her legs together. ‘First tell me how you know about the flood.’

Tahar sighed. He placed his hands upon the ground on either side of her, then moved up the length of her body, stopping with his mouth just inches from her face. ‘Do you really want to know how I know?’

‘Yes,’ Kiya whispered, ‘for you are not a god. You cannot see the future.’

‘Nay, I cannot see the future,’ he said.

His hot breath smelled of sycamore and smoke.

‘But I can see what is right before my eyes.’

He gave a quick glance downward, into the small space of heated air between their two chests. She could feel the muscular hardness of his naked midriff as he rested it lightly against her stomach, realizing that she feared his weight, yet also yearned for it.

‘The locusts, for example,’ he said, finding her eyes. ‘They swarm on the eastern sides of the dunes but they do not fly. And the acacia seeds that rest in the sands have lately begun to crack.’

Kiya gulped. ‘That is all?’ His lips were so close.

‘That isn’t even the beginning, dear woman.’ He bent his lips to her ear and whispered. ‘The wind has begun to waft its way northward in the deepest part of the night. Have you not noticed? And the wild aurochs have retreated to the inland mountains. They no longer graze with their cousins near the river. Songbirds from the south have begun to perch in the tamarisk branches. Have you not heard them singing just before dawn? If you Khemetians would simply observe the world around you, you would know that the flood is coming. Instead you pray to gods who do not listen. You do dances and sacrifice bulls. You are silly, frivolous people.’

He was hovering so very close. She tried to imagine the warble of songbirds, but all she could hear was the sound of her heart throbbing in her chest. ‘You insult my people. You insult me.’

‘Nay, I honour you.’

‘How do you honour me?’

‘By speaking what is in my heart.’

His eyes flashed. He moved back down her body and lifted the cloth that covered her thighs. On the inside of her left thigh an alarming red mound had appeared. It was punctuated by four tiny black holes: the mark of the bite that should have taken her life.

Tahar hovered over the wound, then encompassed it with his mouth and began to suck. Kiya gasped, powerless, as he drew out the remaining poison, his long, sandy-blond locks cascading around his shoulders as he worked. The thick hair appeared clean and soft, as if recently washed. Kiya wondered what it might be like to put her fingers through it.

Impulsively she opened her legs a bit wider, suddenly wishing that all the parts of her body had been bitten by a snake so that he might suck them each in turn. A low moan escaped her lips.

Tahar stopped his work on the wound. Without moving he peered up at her, and she felt a twinge of fear invade her body. You say what is next, his eyes told her. He appeared to be poised at the edge of some terrible divide, and she knew that if she wanted him she would only have to tell him. Nay—she would only have to touch his hair, to twist a long, shiny strand around her finger.

Ah, but she could not do it.

For if she did, who would she become? Certainly not the tough girl who had scratched her living from the streets of Memphis, who had won her right to survive every single day. And not the daughter of her mother, who had warned her against men and the danger they represented. And certainly not the clever woman who worked on a king’s tombs and defeated men at their own silly games. Who would she become if she allowed this man to pleasure her, knowing that he was planning to trade her?

The answer to that question was easy: she’d become a slave.

Kiya stiffened and sat up. ‘Are you not going to say a prayer?’ she asked, quickly closing her legs.

A burst of air rushed through Tahar’s nostrils. He shook his head angrily, then walked to the cave entrance and spat. He wiped his mouth with the side of his arm and stared out at the landscape. Then he returned to Kiya, scooped up another water bag and drank a long draught.

‘Nay,’ he responded. ‘It is not necessary.’

‘Of course it is necessary. A god can accelerate the healing of a wound. The Goddess Sekhmet, for example, or even—’

‘I do not believe that gods can affect the healing of wounds,’ interrupted Tahar. Avoiding her gaze, he bent down and trickled a stream of water onto the wound. Then he tied the poultice firmly into place upon it. ‘Now, cover yourself, woman.’

Cover yourself.

She felt her insides twist in shame as she realised that she had been mistaken. Moments ago it had not been desire that she had read in his eyes, but derision. Now he couldn’t even bear to look at her.

Kiya quickly pulled the headdress over her thighs. This was the second time she had mistaken his kindness for caring, and she scolded herself for the error.

‘You said these drawings were made by the Gods of the Desert,’ she muttered angrily, ‘but you are wrong. Khemetians made these drawings.’

Tahar’s cheeks flushed red. ‘Of course you think Khemetians did these, for you are Khemetian and you believe all the universe revolves around you.’

‘Well, it does. The Gods made the land of Khemet—the Black Land—and they made the Red Land—the desert. They made the lands separate and they stay separate. One defines the other. That is how the balance of maat is maintained. These drawings show the Great River as it was long ago. And it shows Khemetians—the guardians of the Great River. The chosen ones.’

Tahar grabbed his water bag and stood. ‘If you believe that, then you probably also believe that your Great River begins in a cavern at the Isle of Abu.’ He returned to the mouth of the cave.

‘That is where it does begin.’

‘Woman, I have travelled the length of the Great River, and I can assure you that it does not begin at the Isle of Abu. It is vastly longer.’

‘It appears that life in the Red Land has driven you to madness, for even the lowest beggars on the streets of Memphis know that the Great River begins beneath the Isle of Abu. The God Khnum controls its waters. If you believe otherwise, you are perhaps experiencing a feverish dream.’

Tahar shook his head, rolling up the addax hide. ‘I might be mistaken, but I believe it is you who has been recently stricken by a feverish dream.’ He lifted the packet and stood. ‘We leave at sunset.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘To find you a husband, of course. We are going to Nubia, where you don’t have to be a king to have many wives. You just have to have plenty of gold.’

His words were like daggers in her heart. ‘You are the worst kind of demon.’

‘And on our way to Nubia we will stop at the Isle of Abu. To prove you wrong.’

Chapter Ten

‘The Isle of Abu!’ the King shouted. His voice carried across the rooftops of Memphis, sending a hundred pigeons into flight. ‘We must go there now, Imhoter. It is the only way.’

Imhoter stood with his head bowed. ‘You would leave Memphis without its King?’ The long sleeves of Imhoter’s robe concealed his hands, which he squeezed together nervously.

After the Libu raid on the grain tent the King had ordered the remaining members of the King’s Guard into the desert. They were only a few dozen soldiers in search of hundreds of Redlanders who might as well have been ghosts. It had been a thoughtless decision, for it was well known that the desert tribes were highly dispersed. They came together only for raids, and could easily evade the Khemetian headhunters.

But such facts were meaningless to King Khufu. In his fury over the grain tent raid he had acted without thinking. He had sent the city’s defenders on a fool’s errand and left the city itself vulnerable to attack. And now he apparently wanted to abandon the city completely.

‘Abu is the only answer,’ the monarch ranted, thrusting his soft, thick finger at Imhoter’s chest. ‘I must go to Abu and appeal to Khnum, God of the Great River. If we do not have the flood soon, we all shall perish.’

Imhoter measured his response. ‘I would merely suggest that you consider the idea more closely, Your Majesty.’

Imhoter knew of several wealthy priests who had accumulated enough grain to support small armies of followers. One priest in particular—a wretched old man named Menis—seemed poised to usurp Khufu’s power. The King’s departure would be just the opportunity Menis needed to install his army and take the throne.

‘Abu is very far away. Let us think on the idea for a time.’

‘But there is no more time, old eunuch!’ The King barked. He paced across the shady terrace, his leather sandals slapping against the tiles. ‘The royal grain is gone; the people of Khemet grow desperate. If the waters of Hapi do not come the citizens of Memphis will unseat me soon.’

If you leave the city, they will unseat you sooner! Imhoter thought, though knew he could not speak his mind.

Like his father before him, King Khufu was prone to flights of rage, so Imhoter spoke calmly, keeping to the facts. ‘The upriver journey is long—four weeks at least, even with strong north winds. Your idea is brilliant, but I am sure you wish to think on it.’

‘There is no thinking, eunuch, only listening to the Gods—and what I hear is mighty Horus, whispering to me. He is telling me to go to the Isle of Abu, to beg for Hapi.’

King Khufu paced incessantly, but Imhoter remained still. He, too, yearned for Hapi, but not for the same reasons as the King. The farmers of Khemet suffered, and it tried the holy man’s soul. Their limbs grew lifeless, their bellies ballooned with want. To watch them wither and die was a punishment Imhoter did not know if he could endure.

What gives a King’s life more value than a farmer’s, or even a beggar’s? The question tickled the edges of Imhoter’s mind like an itch he could not scratch. It had been a long time since he had considered it, though it was perhaps, the most important question of his life. A woman had asked it of him in innocence long ago, and he had been unable to answer her. She had been a forgotten concubine of King Sneferu, and she had studied him with eyes as deep and endless as the night.

Now Khufu lifted his hands to the sky. ‘The Gods must verify that I am Khemet’s rightful ruler—that my great tomb was not erected in vain. I must bring the flood.’

Imhoter nodded obediently, hoping that the King’s reckless compulsion would pass. He closed his eyes and begged the Gods to send him a vision of the future—one of the river rising and the King seated safely on his throne. But no such vision came.

‘Advise both my queens,’ the King pronounced. ‘If Hapi does not arrive by the Feast of Hathor, we make for the Isle of Abu.’

Chapter Eleven

Tahar had not planned on taking the woman to the Isle of Abu, so exceedingly far south. He had wanted to stay near the Big Green ports, where the boats were as plentiful as merchants in need of brides. He could have traded her for a fine vessel at some dock in Alexandria, for example, or at one of the marshland bazaars in Tanis.

Thanks to his own stubborn pride, however, they were headed for Abu, as far south as one could go in Khemet before passing into the tribal lands of Nubia. Instead of days, their journey would now take many weeks, travelling from oasis to oasis by night, paralleling the Great River as they moved ever southward through the desert.

Lands, he was a fool. It would be a long, difficult trek, made harder still by the fact that he was a wanted man. By now all of Khemet would have heard about the grain raid, and his Libu scar marked him as the enemy. It did not matter that he was Libu no more, that he had renounced the bloodthirsty thieves whom he had once called brothers. The Khemetians needed scapegoats as much as the Libu did, and Tahar made an easy target.

The morning sun lifted above the horizon, piercing Tahar’s eyes. They would arrive at the next oasis soon. He could see a small verdant patch in the distance, at the base of several low cliffs. Meanwhile, the woman had begun to doze in the saddle. He had not joined her there during the night’s journey, choosing instead to walk. He did not trust himself so close to her, though he knew he would have to ride with her soon. They had a long, dangerous journey ahead.

If they survived, however, Tahar stood to reap a fine reward. Though much of Nubia’s gold now lay buried in the tombs of Khemetian kings, the Nubians were no paupers. A wealthy Nubian chief would not pass up the opportunity to add a Khemetian bride to his harem, and he would pay well for her—in dozens of gold ingots.

The promise of a well-paying Nubian husband was not the only reason they journeyed south, however. Tahar’s purpose was also philosophical. The Isle of Abu was just that—an island—and he was determined to prove it to the obstinate woman. The Great River did not begin at Abu, as she so passionately believed. And an imaginary god did not dwell beneath the island, considering when to release his torrent.

But he did not only wish to educate her—he wanted to astound her. What would she think the moment she saw her Great River from the top of the Theban peak? Finally she would understand that her gods did not simply conjure the Great River from under their robes!

Not that she would likely appreciate the geography lesson, or any of his knowledge of the desert. The woman had pricked his nerves with her talk of gods and maat and the eternal, infernal land of Khemet. If he could just get one single Khemetian to understand that Khemet was not the centre of the world, and that their precious river was not controlled by gods, he would die a happy man.

But why was it so important for him to convince her? Perhaps it was her incredible obstinacy that had baited him. What had she called her people? The ‘chosen ones.’ The nerve of that!

‘We shall eat and take our rest at the oasis ahead,’ Tahar explained, attempting to rouse her.

She opened her eyes and swatted the air, as if his very words were a nuisance. Then she resumed her sleep.

By the Gods, she was spoiled. She had no idea of the knife’s edge of survival upon which they trod. She was the kind of Khemetian woman he loathed.

So why did she invade his thoughts like a swarm of locusts?

He stole another glance at her. She still wore his headdress around her breasts and waist. He would ask for it back soon. In exchange he would gift her the sandals and addax-skin dress he had made for her. The soft amber-haired garment was now completely dry and ready for donning, and he looked forward to seeing her in it.

He led the horse to a cluster of large boulders at the base of the cliffs. ‘Stay here while I see that the oasis is safe,’ he explained to the woman, who appeared barely to be able to keep her eyes open. ‘I will not be long.’

It took him no time to inspect the site. The pool was small, but it looked cool and inviting. There were no Libu raiders about, nor any men of the King’s Guard. Tahar studied the ground and found no footprints of predators or any other kind of threat. But when he returned to the boulders there was no horse...and no woman.

He did not panic, though he cursed himself for not having foreseen it. Of course she would try to escape on his horse. Her drowsiness had been feigned: she had been waiting for this chance all night.

He rounded the boulders and spotted her, heading east at a full gallop. He swallowed hard—because she looked so beautiful and strong atop the horse, because her plan was both bold and clever, and because he knew exactly what he had to do next.

He placed his fingers to his lips and his high whistle split the morning. His horse slowed, then reared up, just as he had trained it to do. Its front legs swam in the air and the woman tumbled to the ground in a pile of purple cloth.

She was, thank the Gods, unharmed. She stood immediately. Her headdress had come unwrapped and one of her small delectable breasts had burst free. Tahar smiled as he watched her struggle to cover herself, cursing the Red Land and everything in it.

She was dusting herself off when the first arrow pierced the ground beside her. Another followed close behind, and if she had not had the awareness to get moving she would surely have been hit. Scanning the cliffs, he quickly found the arrows’ source—two men clad in the unmistakable blue linen of the King’s Guard.

Tahar’s horse had now returned to his side, and he mounted it. ‘Khemetian filth!’ he yelled at the guards, and they momentarily ceased their shooting.

Tahar barrelled towards them on his stallion. Now the guards had two targets to shoot for, and soon the arrows were flying in Tahar’s direction as well.

Tahar rode unflinchingly towards the archers, catching one of their arrows in his saddlebag. He plucked a second arrow right out of the air with his hand. He changed direction, moving as unpredictably as he could, buying himself time enough to fashion his long rope into a large loop.

The guards were dumbstruck when the rope encircled them. It yanked them to the ground like captured goats. Tahar swung out of the saddle and pulled the rope taut, so the men were pressed together, back to back. He wrenched their quivers and bows from their arms, broke one bow in half upon his knee, and placed the other on the ground beside him with the remaining arrows.

‘Your beast is no donkey,’ said a smooth, feminine voice from behind him. ‘And you are not a simple trader.’

She was staring up at his horse in awe. How had he not noticed her there?

‘Nay, it is no donkey,’ Tahar said, keeping his eye on the guards.

‘What is it, then? It runs like a gazelle.’

‘The people of my tribe call it a horse.’

‘Your tribe? What tribe is that?’

‘The People of the Grass. From the lands beyond the Dark Sea.’

The Khemetian guards stared up at their captors in confusion, and Tahar read their thoughts. Who was this Libu man whose tribe was named for a cow’s food? And who was this Libu woman who dressed like a man and spoke perfect Khemetian?

‘Look there!’ the woman exclaimed, pointing to a donkey lurking in the shade at the base of the cliffs.

In minutes she had returned with the beast, and Tahar inspected its saddlebags. Inside there was water, a hunting knife and two sleeping carpets, but not a bit of food. Tahar studied the men. They appeared quite thin.

‘Your King has placed a reward on Libu heads, has he not?’ Tahar demanded. ‘That is why you hunt us?’

‘Aye,’ confessed the older of the two guards. ‘Finish us quickly,’ he urged, glancing at the dagger wedged in Tahar’s belt.

The younger man’s lips were trembling.

Tahar shook his head. He would not be a part of any more killing. He pulled out his dagger, but did not use it to cut any throat. Instead he cut off a large swathe of the woman’s headdress, fashioned it into a kind of sack, and filled it with grain from his own saddlebag.

‘I’m sorry that I cannot give you our heads,’ Tahar said, tying the sack closed, ‘but this purple cloth may be used as proof to collect your reward, and the grain it contains is worth its weight in copper.’

He held up the heavy sack and placed it in the donkey’s saddlebag.

‘This is smoked addax,’ he explained to the men, retrieving a large palm leaf bundle from his horse’s pack. He tucked the addax in beside the sack of grain. ‘Together with the grain, the addax will be more than enough to sustain you on your journey back to Khemet,’ Tahar said. ‘Now, stand.’

The two men pushed themselves to stand and Tahar slowly undid the rope.

‘You must go north before you go west,’ Tahar explained. ‘Keep to the oases and be wary of thieves.’

Shock and confusion spread across the men’s sunken faces as Tahar bent to help them onto their beast. Securing them in their saddle, Tahar slapped the donkey on the rump.

‘Now, go,’ he said.

As the beast ambled away the older man turned. ‘You have our thanks, Man of the Grass,’ he told Tahar. ‘Your kindness will not be forgotten.’

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