Daughter of the Falcon God Page 8

  Hunefer shoved Pimay, hard.

  Pimay staggered, caught himself, shoved back.

  Hunefer lunged and suddenly the brothers were wrestling, arms locked around each other, pushing, pulling, grunting. They tripped, crashed to the ground. Jars and bowls and platters and their contents went flying. Aya scrambled to her feet, moved out of the way, half dragging Takhat, who was clinging to her leg. Everyone else in the band was rushing to see what was happening, forming a large circle around the combatants. The boys were rolling over and over, towards the campfire, each throwing punches, raising dust.

  “On your feet! Both of you!”

  The anger in Kakhent’s voice stopped his sons in mid fight. They both rose, bloodied, covered with dirt, sweaty, gasping for breath, eyeing each other darkly.

  “It’s her fault!” Tabiry cried. She was pointing at Aya. “She’s been trying to steal Pimay away from me for months, even though Hunefer wants her!”

  Aya felt everyone’s eyes on her.

  “I warned you to leave them alone,” Kakhent snarled, closing the gap between himself and Aya, looming over her.

  “I have,” Aya said defiantly, her eyes meeting his. “But neither of them will leave me alone. You saw Pimay badgering me when we were at the river often enough. You know I wasn’t leading him on.”

  “So you say. Girls are devious.”

  Hannu drew near. Kakhent saw him, addressed him. “Chosen one or not, you need to get your daughter under control before she rips my band apart.”

  “I haven’t done anything wrong,” Aya insisted.

  “Silence!” Kakhent thundered. “You’ll speak when spoken to from now on, girl! Don’t mistake me for Bek.”

  “Go to my hut!” Hannu ordered Aya. “Prepare yourself to receive my stick!”

  Aya saw triumph on Tabiry’s face, hurt on Hunefer’s, anger on her father’s. She turned, humiliated, heard the babble of voices rising behind her as she hurried away. No doubt she was going to be a topic of conversation for years to come because of Kakhent’s sons. She ducked inside her father’s hut, sat in the darkness, waiting, trembling. Her father was a violent man when provoked. She’d tasted his stick many times before. She’d embarrassed him greatly this night; she dreaded what she was about to experience. The unfairness of it all ate at her.

  Half an hour later Hannu shouted for Aya to come outside. She exited the hut, stood before him meekly, eyes downcast. He was pacing back and forth next to the fire. Nubwenet was beside the fire, seated on her leather stool, her face sympathetic.

  “There will be two joinings in camp tonight,” Hannu informed Aya, stopping in front of her. “Pimay has already taken Tabiry to his hut.”

  “I’m to be joined to Hunefer, then?” Aya asked softly. Her heart fell. A lifetime spent subservient to Hunefer was even worse than her father’s stick. Life with Hunefer was not what she’d dreamed.

  “You’ll be joined to Kakhent,” Hannu announced brusquely.

  Aya stood mute, in shock. Kakhent? He was more than three decades older than her. He was her grandfather’s brother. He despised her. He already had four sons, and she was younger than all of them. Two of them were in love with her. The thought of being his, of the complicated situation that would create within his family, frightened her. “Why?” she asked, tears welling in her eyes.

  “Explain it to her, Mother,” Hannu said. He stalked off.

  Running away from confrontation, Aya thought. Typical.

  “Sit next to me, child,” Nubwenet said gently.

  Aya sat down cross–legged, facing her.

  Nubwenet reached out, stroked Aya’s hair. “You’re the most beautiful girl in our band, the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, even at so young an age. You’ve been driving Hunefer and Pimay to distraction. And others.”

  Aya knew that to be true. The fight tonight was proof of that. And she recalled the increasingly lustful looks she’d seen in the eyes of Bebi’s and Amenemope’s sons before the band had split. “I haven’t led anyone on,” Aya objected. “I’ve told them to stay away from me, but they won’t.”

  “Might as well try to keep the sun from rising in the morning,” Nubwenet replied. “You’re going to become even more beautiful as you grow older, Aya, even more desirable. You’re bright. You learn quickly. You’re talented – no one makes better pottery or baskets, or weaves finer linen. You have the ability to heal. You know more about farming than any of the men. You have a presence – everyone gravitates to you. On top of that, you’re the falcon god’s chosen one. You are, in short, Aya, a prize of the first magnitude. Because of your relationship with the falcon god, because of your abilities, because of what you’ve done for our band, you wield more power than you know. Kakhent wants that power for himself. That’s why he won’t join either of his sons to you – he’d be giving away the opportunity to control you and your power.”

  “Why does that matter?” Aya asked. “He’s our patriarch now. His sons can’t challenge him, certainly not Hunefer or Pimay. They’re his youngest.”

  “What if Bebi and Amenemope lead their families here to the lake someday?” Nubwenet asked. “It could happen. Don’t you think they’d challenge Kakhent’s right to be patriarch? He’s the youngest brother. They’d push him aside without the power you give him. To prevent that from happening, he’s going to take you for his own.”

  “That’s the real reason Kakhent came to the lake, isn’t it. He didn’t care about farming or herding. He wanted to succeed Bek as patriarch.”

  “You’re correct,” Nubwenet replied.

  “What does Father get in return for giving me away?” Aya asked. She knew he had to have approved this joining. If she was the prize Grandmother claimed, she must have brought Hannu much.

  “You deserve the truth, Aya, though your father would never be so forthcoming with you as I’m being. You know that Kakhent’s oldest son, Paser, should follow him as patriarch someday.”

  “Kakhent made Father his heir,” Aya guessed.

  “You are bright, child,” Nubwenet said. “Tomorrow morning Kakhent will announce that your father will be his successor. His sons will, of course, be furious.”

  “I pay the price for Father’s ambition,” Aya said bitterly.

  “I love my son, but to him you’re only a piece in a game, to be used as he sees fit. As will be your sister Takhat when she is of age. As was I, for my father. Its the way of all the men I’ve ever known.”

  “But I don’t love Kakhent!” Aya protested.

  “Love is a luxury no woman is permitted,” Nubwenet replied. “We join with whomever we are assigned by our patriarch. I did. Your mother did – twice. We adapted to our situations – in time. So will you. Otherwise you’ll be miserable. Kakhent can be a tolerable man – as long as you obey and don’t challenge him. Do your best to keep him happy, Aya – especially inside his hut. That will make your life easier.

  “I’ll try, Grandmother,” Aya promised.

  Nubwenet picked up a fertility figurine from beside her stool. “Take this, Aya. It gave me my children.” She smiled. “You’re strong. You’ll give Kakhent many children. That’s where you’ll find true love – not with the man you’re joined to.”

  “Like the love I have for Takhat and Iuput?” Aya’s mother had died giving birth to Takhat. For all practical purposes, Aya had raised her younger brother and sister, for her father had taken no interest in either of them.

  Nubwenet nodded. “Being joined to our patriarch brings with it responsibilities, Aya, ones you would not have if you were joined to a lesser man. Even though you’re so young, still a girl, really, beginning tonight you’re the leading woman in our band, instead of me. You’ll dole out grain to each family every morning from the storage bin from now on. You’ll organize our festivals. You’ll oversee the setting up and tearing down of camps when we move the herds between the lake and the river. Women will come to you when their children are sick, seeking cures, though of course you already provide those. The
y’ll come to you seeking fertility charms too, ask you to pray for them to the falcon god and the goddess so that they’ll get pregnant. You’ll construct birth bowers, and be present at births, and oversee the purification rites that follow. And countless other tasks, including the directing of foraging, as you already do. All this on top of running your own household and raising your own children.”

  “Will you teach me, Grandmother?” Aya asked, overwhelmed by what was about to happen to her.

  “I will. Just as my mother taught me. And I’ll do my best to help you, as long as my strength lasts. But I’m afraid your relationships with the band’s women are going to change dramatically,” Nubwenet warned. “Bintanath and Ladice and Behenu are all much older than you. They’ll be jealous, because they were passed over and now must take orders from you. And then there’s Tabiry… She’ll never stop worrying that Pimay loves you, not her. That doubt will eat at her, turn her completely against you. She and the rest will do everything they can to make you miserable, to put roadblocks in your path, to make you seem incompetent in Kakhent’s eyes and thereby raise their own status. I’m afraid you’re in for a very difficult and lonely time.”

  5440 BC: The River – Peret (Seed)

  Aya and Ahaneith sang as they trod the worn dusty trail half–hidden by waist–high grass. The trail hugged the rim of the escarpment that rose abruptly from the river valley’s floor, towering at the edge of its western flank. As usual Aya led the way, far too impatient to follow her oldest daughter, too anxious to see what lay ahead. To her right, several hundred feet below the plateau’s rim, flowed Iteru – the river – the only source of water in the long narrow valley that stretched hundreds of miles to both north and south. The plain directly below Aya was broad, twice the width of the one on the east bank of the river abutting the base of a similar plateau. Aya balanced a reed basket on her right shoulder, as did Ahaneith, both containers overflowing with the fruit they’d spent the day gathering in the groves that dotted the miles–wide plateau that lay between the river and the lake country. The rainy season had greened the plateau’s grass and it stretched as far as the eye could see, thick and lush, north and south and west, its monotony interrupted only by clumps of flowering shrubs that sweetly scented the breeze that rippled the tall grass like waves. Aya had tucked a flower behind her left ear and placed several colorful clusters atop her fruit, bouquets for her two youngest daughters – Pageti and Betrest. In every direction herds of animals grazed the savannah beneath the blue vault of the cloudless sky – gazelle, oryx, hartebeest, aurochs, wild cattle, giraffes and more. It was no surprise to Aya that her band’s hunters had been able to keep everyone well–supplied with meat during their three month–long sojourn in the river valley.

  Aya switched her basket to her left shoulder and grasped its rim with her left hand. The sun beat down, hot on her bare back, its heat tempered a bit now that it was descending towards the horizon. Still, rivulets of sweat ran down her spine. She glanced over the edge of the escarpment. Far below her feet the wide brown river sliced straight as an arrow through the heart of the valley, powerful and relentless, lined with patches of reeds and rushes and papyrus and groves of dom palm and acacia and tamarisk and sycamore fig and willows, the plains on both banks overgrown with wild cereal grasses and shrubs. Shadows had already spread from the plateau where she was standing towards the river and the two reed and mud huts of her band that stood side by side on the western plain, midway between the riverbank and the terminus of the narrow footpath that switchbacked from the rim where she was walking down to the valley floor. The huts were toy–like from this height. Smoke spiraled lazily from a single campfire burning brightly between them. There were a handful of people in camp – Hannu, Kakhent’s son Wetka, Aya’s two daughters. The men were lounging, the girls working at tasks in preparation for the evening meal. A hundred yards upstream, to the south, forty or so long–horned cattle and three dozen sheep and as many goats were drinking at the river’s edge, watched over by six or seven dogs and Wetka’s sons Isu and Intef, overseen by Aya’s brother Iuput.

  Aya had come to enjoy the months each year that her band spent grazing their herds in this valley. This was the fourteenth time she’d visited it since she’d first discovered the river and she now knew by heart every section that her band annually ranged. The valley was a bountiful place, the river at its heart full of fish, the banks dotted with patches of reeds with which to build huts, the plains rich with waterfowl and wild cats and hares and mongoose and other creatures. There was plenty of grass for the band’s animals to graze as well. Those grasses, she now knew for certain, were the gift of the inundation. Every summer came a flood that entirely filled the valley from plateau to plateau, carrying with it rich soil to renew the plains on both sides of the river. After three months, when the waters fully receded, shoots of wild grass began poking through the mud, growing quickly in the hot sun. Those waters were the same that filled her lake, the soil the same that renewed the plains along its shores.

  It was shortly after the grasses began to appear that a small portion of Aya’s band arrived in the valley, having made the week–long trek from their home on the north shore of Ta–she along with their herds. Normally Kakhent led the contingent himself, but he was nearing his sixth decade now and travel was increasingly hard for him. So this year he’d delegated leadership to Hannu. He, as usual, had been content to let Aya make all the decisions during the sojourn. He enjoyed the trappings of leadership, not the responsibility or the work involved. The valley had grass and water enough to support the animals, and moving them here prevented them from trying to graze the fields of emmer and barley that had been planted at the lake. Those members of the band who had not traveled to the valley were there even now, guarding and caring for the fields. As always, Aya had guided her companions over the ridge that lay between the lake and valley on the trail that began near the lake’s delta. Arriving in the valley, she had then led people and animals steadily south, establishing a new temporary camp alongside the river every three or four days. The constant movement kept the grasses in each area from being over–grazed, which was important, because some weeks ago Aya had turned the band back north, retracing ground they’d already covered, heading home. The grasses had regrown in their absence at their usual campsites, and so was available to feed the herds once more. Aya had decided to make for the ridge trail and home in a week or so; the present camp was two days leisurely travel south of that crossing. By now emmer and barley would be growing tall at her lake and both would be ready to harvest when she returned. Aya couldn’t wait – while she enjoyed the valley, she loved the lake, especially the views of the seemingly endless savannah and rolling hills that swept to the horizon in every direction. Down in the valley she always felt closed in by its steep rocky walls, shut off from the rest of the world. That was one reason she took every opportunity to scale the escarpment to gather seeds and fruits and roots up on the savannah.

  Aya and Ahaneith approached the head of the steep rocky footpath that switchbacked down the face of the western plateau to the river below. Suddenly a man and boy rose from the tall grass on either side of the path where they’d been concealed. Ahaneith screamed and dropped her basket. The boy, on the right, had an arrow fitted to his bow, drawn back menacingly, aimed at Aya. The man’s bow was still slung over his shoulder. Aya didn’t know either of them. She tossed her basket aside, its contents spilling in the grass. In the same motion she drew the flint knife tucked in the waist of her loincloth. It was of little use against an arrow, but it was all she had. She half–crouched, sliding to her right to shield Ahaneith protectively with her body, the knife in her right hand leveled at the strangers, eyes darting between them. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  The man held out his hands, palms up. “We didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “Do I look frightened?” Aya snapped. She pointed the tip of her knife at him for emphasis.

  His eyes were locked on hers. “No
t the least bit.” He dropped his hands to his side. “My band always camps by the river every year, right where your huts are. My nephew and I were surprised to find your people here.”

  Aya guessed him to be in his early thirties, probably seven or so years her senior. Her eyes were drawn to an ugly wide white scar that ran from his right hip to his knee, impossible not to notice against his sun–browned skin. The only scar remotely similar that Aya had ever seen was the one on Hunefer’s leg, but unlike Hunefer this man was a cripple. His right foot was mangled and twisted outward. She wondered what he had done to anger the gods, to be disfigured so. Aya disregarded him as an immediate threat. She turned her attention to his nephew. The boy was clearly a hunter and obviously the more dangerous of the two, perhaps sixteen, four years older than Ahaneith. He was several inches taller than the cripple despite his youth, his skin burned dark by the sun, arms and legs muscular, chest broad, hair long. A copper pendant dangled around his neck; from that Aya inferred he must have traveled here from the East, for one of her great–grandmother’s tales mentioned that bits of copper lay scattered on the ground for the taking in the rocky hills near the eastern sea. Sitre had shown her such a pendant once, one that had belonged to her; what had happened to it after Sitre’s death Aya did not know. The hunter’s eyes were dark and piercing. She’d never seen a boy so good–looking, especially contrasted with his maimed companion. Both of the strangers were dressed in loincloths made of ragged animal skins. Their bows and arrows and the flint knives tucked in their belts were crude, lacking the elegance of the weapons produced by her band. They look like barbarians, Aya thought, disgusted. That’s what hunters and gatherers are, compared to we farmers and herders.

  The hunter was boldly staring at Ahaneith. Aya was not surprised. Her daughter was remarkably beautiful – light brown skin, long dark hair that fell to the middle of her back, eyes dark and shining, lips full, body already becoming rounded, legs long. Aya assumed that Ahaneith was staring back at him, equally boldly. Like her cousins Kheti and Tiy, and Aya’s younger sister Takhat, Ahaneith was of an age where she longed to find a man to join with so she could have children. That was, after all, a woman’s primary purpose in life. But all four girls faced the same challenge – every boy in Aya’s band old enough to take a girl to his hut was her cousin. That circumstance had not changed in the years since Aya had been joined to Kakhent and Tabiry to Pimay, for no other band had ever visited the lake and Aya had never seen signs of any other band during her visits to the valley. Just a month ago, in fact, soon after their arrival in the valley, Hannu had sent Iuput upriver in search of another band, as Kakhent had each of the past thirteen years. He’d returned a few days later without encountering anyone – not surprising, considering how sparsely utilized the valley was. Before departing from the lake, Kakhent had told Aya resignedly that if they didn’t discover another band along the river this year he’d arrange for the joining of all the male and female cousins of an age at the conclusion of the next inundation festival at the lake, the band’s traditional time for joinings. The band couldn’t afford to go another year without beginning to produce more children.