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  ‘And then she gave a gurgle, blood flowed from her mouth and she was dead.

  ‘My master ran to his grandfather. But his eyes were sightless as they stared into the sky.

  ‘So my master closed them. He buried his grandfather in the dirt of the island, and the others too. But he left the afreet for the crows.

  ‘Then he returned to the ship. And he has travelled ever since.’

  The Trader no longer looked at his audience. His gaze was fixed on the lotus pool, or perhaps somewhere very far away.

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ objected Narmer. ‘What did your master mean when he said his manhood was stolen from him? Why were the other men trapped while he escaped?’

  ‘Because my master can never be lured by the song of a woman,’ said the Translator softly.

  ‘Why not?’ cried Narmer.

  Hawk gave a small cough from his cushion on the other side of the courtyard. ‘Because he is a eunuch,’ he said pleasantly, his frog eyes narrowing as he smiled. ‘Isn’t that so?’

  ‘But he has a beard!’ Eunuchs never grew whiskers, just as they were unable to have children.

  The Translator said something to the Trader. The Trader smiled and met Narmer’s eyes once again. He reached behind his ears and suddenly his beard fell into his lap.

  The Trader said something to the Translator, still with his eyes on Narmer.

  ‘My master says that not everything is as it seems, Prince Narmer,’ the young man translated.

  ‘My master was captured in a rebel raid back in his homeland, Sumer, when he was not much more than a toddler. His father led a party of soldiers to bring him back. But by then his manhood had been cut away.’

  ‘But…’ Narmer tried to think. ‘But how can he ever have a son and daughter?’

  ‘I am sorry, so sorry, great Prince. I cannot tell you. My master himself doesn’t know.’ The Translator’s voice was low, as though he shared his master’s sadness. But there was something more, thought Narmer suddenly. It was almost as though in his sorrow the Translator spoke in another voice. ‘He believes that one day, nevertheless, he will find his son and daughter. A dying promise never lies, even from an afreet. That is why he keeps on travelling. He knows that one day he will find them.’

  The Translator’s voice was back to normal. I was imagining things, thought Narmer. A servant glided from the shadows at a gesture from the King and filled their mugs again. Narmer sipped and let the conversation wash over him.

  It was nearly too much to take in. It had almost seemed as though the Trader were telling the story just to him. As though there were a message for him alone.

  But how could there be? Narmer wasn’t a trader. Nor was he hunting for the son and daughter he had never had.

  He glanced at the Trader. The man still seemed lost in thought. And the Translator’s face was hidden. But his brother gazed at him across the courtyard. In the growing shadows Hawk’s face seemed almost amused.

  CHAPTER 4

  The next day Narmer woke before dawn. He needed to leave before his father’s guards saw him and tried to accompany him.

  A pang of guilt went through him. One day’s hunting was excusable. But two days in a row, when the dykes needed checking now that the floods were going down…

  Yet he had to see the Oracle. Surely when he told his father he’d understand. There was so much the Oracle could tell him that would help Thinis.

  He peered out of his room. No, no one about, not even the early sweepers in the royal courtyard. Every floor and street in Thinis had to be swept each morning, or the sand soon formed small dunes against the walls. Even during the floods the dust blew in from the hills, and the sand from the deserts beyond.

  Narmer slipped out through the courtyard, then under the archway.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ A soft voice came from the shadows under the colonnades.

  Narmer turned. It was Hawk. He leant against the walls of the palace, regarding Narmer with his usual small smile.

  ‘Hunting.’ Narmer held up his spears and slingshot, and a small bundle of food.

  ‘Off to catch a hippopotamus on your own, like our celebrated father?’

  ‘Nothing so grand,’ said Narmer. ‘Maybe a few pigeons. A fox or gazelle if I’m lucky.’

  ‘What a pity,’ said Hawk gently. ‘I’m sure a hippo would impress our father. It would be a compliment to have a son who caught a hippo, just like him.’

  Narmer grinned. ‘Maybe one day. See you this afternoon.’

  ‘Have fun, little brother.’ Hawk lifted a hand in farewell. His hands were always smooth, the hairs plucked with tweezers, the nails buffed with wax.

  Narmer broke into a jog as soon as he’d left the palace, acknowledging the bows and greetings of other early-rising people as he passed. The air was rich with the smells of baking bread and lotus-root cakes, and bubbling spicedbean stews.

  He hurried along the dyke again, then up into the hills. He could see women washing down below, beating their clothes by the water’s edge.

  Since yesterday the floods had retreated another cubit, leaving their black silt behind. The valley smelt of flood, and the promise of crops to come. Narmer smiled. The women wouldn’t get their clothes very clean, no matter how much laundry paste of fat and wood ash they used. But he supposed it was too long to wait till the water ran clear again, and green grass and herbs and wild lettuce sprang up from the mud.

  The smell of flood vanished once he reached the cliff, and the scent of the desert filled his nostrils instead. In front of him were hot rock and hotter sand stretching to the horizon, and the endless dry of the lands beyond the River.

  No wonder the People of the Sand try to invade our lands, thought Narmer. How could anyone survive out there?

  He continued along the ridge. A lizard poked its flat head up from behind a rock. Narmer felt for one of the stones in his pouch and fitted it into his sling.

  Wham! The smooth rock hit the animal straight in the head. It fell to the ground, stunned. Narmer ran over to it and broke its neck swiftly, before it could wake up, then hung its carcass from his belt.

  He began to jog again. Soon the Oracle’s wadi was below him…

  All at once he remembered that the Oracle had ordered him not to come before noon. He glanced above him. Ra’s golden chariot hovered just above the hills. He was early.

  Would she be angry?

  He gazed down into the wadi. There was no sign of the wildcat today.

  Then suddenly there it was, slinking through a crevice in the rock. He hadn’t noticed the crevice among the shadows yesterday.

  The giant cat stared up at him. ‘Mrraw?’

  It lay down on the rock again. Its golden eyes gazed at Narmer as he half climbed, half slid down the cliff.

  Narmer chose a spot well away from the watchful cat, then bowed, his face to the ground. ‘Mighty Oracle?’

  ‘Yes?’ Somehow the Oracle sounded short of breath, almost as if she had been running. He must be imagining it, he thought. Oracles didn’t run; they were just there. ‘I told you not to seek me before noon,’ she added. Despite the edge in her voice, it was as lovely as it had been the day before.

  ‘I wanted to see you,’ said Narmer simply.

  There was a pause. ‘You can’t see an oracle.’ And strangely there was a hint of bitterness in the words. ‘You can only hear her.’

  ‘Hear you then, o mighty Oracle,’ said Narmer quickly. ‘Ask you questions.’

  ‘Proceed, then.’

  ‘When will the People of the Sand attack again?’

  ‘That’s easy. You should know the answer yourself.’

  Narmer considered. ‘After the next harvest,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Of course. Isn’t that when they’ve attacked in the past? When the granaries are full and desert bellies empty. Next question.’

  ‘What should I do when I am king?’

  ‘Your best, of course.’ The Oracle laughed as Narmer frowned. ‘That wasn�
�t the answer you wanted, was it? All right. Build your walls higher. Train your men in fighting. Don’t just wait for an attack to teach them how to wield a spear or a club. There’s been a drought to the east and west. More tribes are moving towards the River. There’s little food in the desert, and lots of barley and wheat in your granaries. Is that all you want to ask?’

  ‘One more question…’ Narmer took a deep breath. ‘If you had a body and not just a voice, what would you look like?’

  There was another pause. ‘I would be tall,’ said the Oracle softly. ‘With skin the colour of the moonlit sand. And I would be perfect. Is that the end of your questions?’

  ‘I think so, o Oracle. For today.’

  Narmer was still trying to take it all in. Tribes moving from the desert to Thinis. He’d have to tell his father. They’d have to plan…

  The voice spoke again. ‘There will be no other day. Ask what you want now.’

  Narmer’s eyes opened wide in shock. ‘Why? I’ll have other questions on other days!’

  ‘Because that’s the way it is,’ said the Oracle shortly.

  ‘But I have to speak to you again!’ cried Narmer.

  ‘What question is so difficult that you have to ask it tomorrow, not today?’

  ‘I—I just want to talk to you!’ It was true, he realised. Being a prince could be lonely. But here was someone—something—he could talk to. Who understood more than just the types of fish in the nets and what sort of bread was for dinner.

  More silence. ‘I’m sorry, so sorry,’ said the voice softly. ‘I can’t come again. I wish I could. So sorry…’

  Narmer frowned. For a moment the voice had been almost familiar. As though in her sorrow the Oracle had spoken without thinking, using a different voice from the one she had used before…

  I can’t come again, she had said. But oracles didn’t have bodies. How could the Oracle come again? And that phrase, sorry, so sorry. Where had he heard it before? With that same almost-accent?

  ‘Mrrrr?’ said the cat into the silence. It sat up again, sending a waft of cat scent across the gully.

  The scent of cat. And the musky, animal scent the night before, under the scent of spices.

  ‘I know who you are,’ said Narmer quietly.

  ‘What do you mean?’ The Oracle’s old voice was back again, without the hint of accent. ‘I’m an oracle.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You’re a young man, like me. You’re the Trader’s translator.’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘You are. There’s a crevice in the rock. I didn’t see it among the shadows yesterday. That’s where you’re hiding.’ Narmer tried to keep the anger from his voice. ‘Come on. Come out where I can see you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do you think?’ said Narmer bitterly. ‘So I can give you the beating you deserve. Pretending to be an oracle! Pretending to have a girl’s voice!’

  ‘I didn’t pretend! I’m not a boy.’

  ‘Are you still claiming you’re an oracle?’

  ‘No. I’m not an oracle. I’m a girl.’

  CHAPTER 5

  The cat stood up, waving its huge tail from side to side. Its golden eyes flashed at Narmer as though he were a desert mouse who might dare to resist becoming breakfast.

  Narmer took a step back. ‘What’s wrong with it?’ he called to the unseen watcher in the crevice. ‘Is it going to attack me?’ He lifted his spear.

  ‘She knows you’re angry with me,’ said the girl’s voice coolly. ‘Throw her the lizard on your belt.’

  ‘Will that stop her?’

  He could almost hear the shrug. ‘Maybe.’

  Narmer untied the bit of dried gut that held the lizard and threw the animal to the cat. She caught it in her teeth before it hit the ground. She stopped for a moment, as though considering whether to accept it, then padded back to her rock and ripped open its belly with her teeth.

  Narmer let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He wasn’t sure he would have had time to hurl his spear if she had leapt.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said to the blank cliff face. ‘But I still want to see you.’

  Another pause. ‘To thrash me?’

  ‘No, I don’t beat girls. I want an explanation.’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you, that’s all.’

  ‘Why not talk to me at the palace? Or won’t your master let you?’

  ‘What? Oh, no. My master is very good to me.’

  ‘Then why? Why trick me like that?’

  Something moved behind the rock face. Narmer heard the sound of feet limping across the sand.

  For a moment the young man of the night before stood there in the shadows of the crevice. The same long robe, the same scarf across the face. And then the scarf was lowered.

  Narmer gasped.

  ‘Yes,’ said the girl bitterly. ‘Now you know why I hide behind a scarf and rock, Prince Narmer. Now you know.’

  They sat in the sunlight, a little away from the cat as she tore at the lizard.

  Narmer cast another look at the girl. He was trying not to stare, but it was difficult. Her face was scarred all down one side, the skin as red and rippled as a pool in the rock. Her lip twisted in an eternal half smile.

  Narmer said nothing. There was nothing he could think to say.

  ‘My name is Nithotep,’ said the girl at last. She sat with her face averted, trying to hide the scarred side of her face. ‘My master calls me Nitho.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘From a land called Ka’naan—or so my master says. I don’t remember. He found me out in the desert when he was trading there. I’d been badly burnt. My face, my legs, my arm too, as though I had fallen in the fire. But he said I was still crawling, trying to get home. I was two years old, perhaps. No more.

  ‘My master knows medicine. There are experts in his land who have taught him about healing, and he’s learnt even more as he’s travelled. He tended my burns. He tried to find my parents, but no one claimed me.’

  Narmer stayed silent. He could imagine that the parents of a child as badly hurt as that might not want to have her back. Babies who were badly formed, or even too small, were exposed on the rocks for the jackals to eat. An older child who was scarred, perhaps crippled, would be no use at all. Especially a girl. What man would take a crippled girl to marry?

  ‘So my master kept me,’ said Nitho quietly. ‘He forced me to move my arms and legs when the scars would have pulled tight and twisted my limbs. He cared for me.’

  ‘Why?’ Narmer bluntly. A trader could buy all the girls he wanted—beautiful ones, not scarred ones like Nitho.

  ‘Because I had survived,’ said Nitho softly. ‘Just like he had when he was captured and hurt as a child. He told me that a child who had fought as I had would become an adult who could survive as well. One whom he would be honoured to travel with.’

  ‘My nurse was a slave from along your River, captured and sold by the People of the Sand. That’s how I can speak your language. My master had me taught many other languages as we travelled. He is the wisest man I know, but even a wise man can’t know everything, and he has no ear for other tongues. So I became his translator.’

  ‘Why do you dress as a man?’

  Nitho shrugged. ‘There are places where it isn’t safe to be a girl. I’m used to putting on a boy’s voice. Like this.’ Suddenly her voice was gruff again. ‘But mostly because…’ She spoke in her own voice again. ‘Who wants to look at a face like mine?’

  ‘So you wear the scarf all the time?’

  ‘Not when we’re travelling. My master says the first time you see a girl with a scar like mine you say, “Look at the scar.” The second time you say, “There is Nitho with the scar.” But the third time you say, “There is Nitho.” Those who know me don’t see my scar any more.’ She hesitated a moment then added, ‘But they don’t see beauty either.’

  ‘That was what your master meant last night when he told the story,’ said Narmer slowly.
‘He was saying that appearances can be deceptive.’

  ‘Yes. It’s one of his favourites. I think he tells it to make me feel better. A beautiful voice tells you nothing about the person behind it. And an ugly face…’ She shrugged again. ‘Well, maybe the person behind that isn’t as bad as she looks either.’

  For the first time Nitho looked straight at him. ‘But this was the only chance I’d ever have of talking to someone like you. Someone who would speak to me without revulsion. I was taking Bast out for a walk—she was making the people in the guesthouse nervous, and—’

  ‘Bast?’

  Nitho nodded at the wildcat. ‘I raised her from a kitten. One of her legs had been almost torn off by jackals. But my master showed me how to sew up the wound, to make her whole. Anyway, I was taking her for a walk and I saw you here. I hid and…well, you know the rest.’

  Narmer said nothing.

  ‘No more questions?’ asked Nitho, smiling slightly.

  Narmer shook his head. He could think of nothing else to say.

  This girl had fooled him completely. She had learnt enough about Thinis in one day to answer all his questions. He didn’t wonder that her master kept her with him.

  She had even made him believe that she was beautiful…

  ‘What will you do now?’ he asked at last.

  She shrugged. ‘Go back to the guesthouse.’

  ‘No, I mean when you and your master leave here.’

  ‘We’ll head back the way we came. Across the desert, then across the sea towards my master’s homeland, Sumer. And after that…who knows?’

  Narmer tried to imagine it. Always travelling, never with your own people, not even speaking your own language. ‘Will you ever come back here?’

  Nitho shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. We only came this time because an oracle told my master that he would find great fortune here.’ She smiled briefly. The scar on her face twisted even more. ‘That’s where I got the idea to pretend to be an oracle. But no matter what the Oracle said, I don’t think Thinis will have riches enough to make it worth crossing the desert again.’