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.’
‘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