Sting of the Scorpion (3 page)

They all sat around the fire and ate a meal of goat’s meat, bread and a vegetable that Ramose didn’t recognise. After that there were dates and warm milk. The nomads talked among themselves in their strange language. The children stared at Mery who was curled up in Karoya’s lap. They giggled as Hapu pulled faces and did little tricks for them.

“I can’t believe they don’t want to know who we are,” Ramose said.

“They think that is our business, not theirs,” said Karoya.

“How do they know we’re not planning to steal their goats?” asked Hapu.

“It doesn’t matter. It would be a shameful thing to turn away a traveller in the desert, even if he’s an enemy.”

“We’re not their enemies though,” said Ramose.

“Yes, we are,” said Karoya. “At least you two are. Egyptians are the enemies of all desert people. They kill them for no reason or enslave them. You especially are their enemy, Ramose.”

“Would it make a difference if they knew who I was?”

“No, even the pharaoh’s son would be welcome.”

Ramose looked around at the nomads. The men were discussing their goats. The women were clearing away the remains of the meal and mending clothes and tents. The children were getting sleepy. The younger ones were already asleep in their mothers’ laps.

“How can I thank Zeyd?” Ramose asked Karoya.

“You don’t have to,” she replied. “He expects that you would do the same for him.”

Like most Egyptians, Ramose had never met any barbarians before. He had never imagined that he would one day be accepting their hospitality, enjoying their food and sleeping in their tents.

Ramose offered to sleep outside, but Zeyd refused. Ramose slept a dreamless sleep, more peaceful than any since he had left the Great Place.

They spent the next two days travelling through the desert, seeing nothing but sand. Each morning the tents were taken down, the camel was loaded up and the nomads walked through the desert, herding the goats in front of them. They left behind them nothing but their footsteps and the tent stones, piled together for other nomads to use.

Ramose sat on the sled at first, but by the second day he was able to walk for part of the day. The children took it in turns to carry Mery’s basket. Even the smallest insisted on carrying it for a few paces.

The sand stretched out before them flat in all directions. It was hard and, as they walked, their feet made a hollow, booming sound as if they were walking across the stretched skin of a drum. The sun burned down on them and turned the yellow sand to a glaring white.

“I can see water ahead,” said Hapu as they walked. “Look, there’s a lake!”

Karoya laughed at him. “It’s not a lake. It’s the sun playing tricks on your eyes.”

Ramose could see the shimmering mirage as well, a pool of reflected sky just ahead of them.

“My people call it the devil’s mirror,” said Karoya.

Ramose shaded his eyes to look at the mirage. They kept walking towards it, but they never got any closer. It was always just ahead of them.

After two days of seeing nothing but flat sand stretching in every direction, two dark dots appeared in the distance.

“Is that another mirage?” asked Hapu.

Karoya shook her head.

As they drew closer, Ramose could see that it was two piles of rocks. Zeyd smiled and nodded when they reached them. The women replaced rocks that the wind had blown from the piles. Then they swept away sand that had built up against them.

“They are signposts,” said Karoya. “It means that we are heading in the right direction. The piles of stones are a gateway leading to the road ahead.”

Hapu walked between the two piles and looked around him. There was still nothing but sand.

“It looks like a gateway to nowhere,” he said.

The nomads laughed at Hapu, even though they couldn’t understand what he said.

On the third day, the landscape changed. The sand gradually started to rise and fall. Then it piled up into dunes. The dunes grew bigger and bigger until they were towering above them on either side. The colour of the sand changed too, from yellow to pink to pale purple.

“I didn’t realise that sand could be so many different shapes and colours,” Ramose said to Karoya as they walked.

“I told you the desert was beautiful,” said Karoya. “You didn’t believe me.”

“I still wouldn’t call it beautiful, but I’m starting to see it a little differently.”

Ramose didn’t feel threatened by the desert as he had when he first left the Nile Valley. He still couldn’t imagine living in it permanently, but it didn’t hold the same fears for him as before.

“Do you have any idea where we’re going, though?” asked Hapu, joining them as they walked.

“We’re walking south, that’s all I know,” said Ramose, looking up at the sun.

“Eventually we’ll have to stop going south and find the river again,” said Hapu.

At midday, the nomads stopped for a short while to drink milk and eat bread. Then they continued their journey. Hapu was getting bored.

“Let’s play a game,” he said enthusiastically.

“If we stop to play, we’ll get left behind,” said Ramose.

“I was thinking of a game we could play while we’re walking,” said Hapu. “I’ll think of something that we can all see. I’ll tell you what sound it begins with and you have to guess what it is.”

“It’ll be a short game. All we can see is sand!”

“Try it and see,” said Hapu. “It’ll be fun.”

Ramose and Karoya agreed to play the game. Hapu was very inventive and thought of things like sand grain, camel tail and goat’s ear. Even so, it didn’t take long until they had used every possible thing that they could see. Ramose, whose body was still healing from the effects of the scorpion poison, was happy just to walk and let his mind wander.

His body was still weak, but inside Ramose felt strong. The fact that he had survived the scorpion sting gave him courage. Vizier Wersu had attacked him and he’d survived. He knew that the vizier had only been a vision, that it was really the scorpion that had nearly killed him, but in his mind he felt as if he’d overcome his enemy. He didn’t know where the nomads were going, but he knew he was getting closer to Thebes. Every step was taking him closer to his home and his family.

In the afternoon, a breeze picked up. Grains of sand blew gently across the surface of the dunes.

“I’d forgotten what a breeze was like,” said Ramose, turning his face towards the faint rush of cooler air.

The nomads didn’t seem pleased about the breeze and made the camel walk faster.

The breeze became a wind. The sand started to shift slightly. The wind blew the sides of the dunes into steeper and steeper slopes until they eventually collapsed and cascaded into new shapes. The wind grew stronger and the blowing sand started to sting their hands and faces. The nomads unwound the cloth from their heads and covered their faces with it. The long nomad coats protected the friends’ arms and legs. Ramose and Hapu had nothing to shield their faces from the sharp sand. Karoya wrapped her striped cloth over her face. She also took Mery’s basket from the children and held it close to her, muttering reassuring words to the cat.

Within an hour, the wind was howling and they had to bend over almost double to protect themselves from the fierce stream of stinging sand. The wind howled and roared like some sort of wild beast. Ramose couldn’t see any more than a cubit in front of him.

“Why don’t we stop and wait for the wind to die down?” he shouted to Karoya.

“It’s too dangerous,” she yelled back. “If you sit still in a sandstorm, the sand will bury you. We have to keep moving. Just stay behind the camel.”

Ramose shouted to Hapu. “Stay close.” He grabbed his friends’ hands and they bent into the wind.

Ramose lost all sense of time. He couldn’t tell whether the sandstorm had been blowing for a few minutes or for hours. He hung on tightly to Hapu and Karoya’s hands. Every now and again he glanced up to make sure that he could still see the camel’s rump in front of him.

Suddenly, Karoya’s hand was wrenched out of his. He turned. Through the stream of flying sand he saw that her legs had disappeared up to her knees.

“It’s a sand pool,” she yelled. Her voice was almost lost in the roar and screech of the wind. “Soft sand. I’m sinking.”

Ramose stumbled towards her.

“No! Don’t come closer or you’ll sink too,” Karoya shouted. “Get Mery!”

The cat’s basket was sitting on top of the soft sand, too light to sink. Ramose reached out and grabbed it. Karoya was sinking further into the sand. In a few moments she would disappear completely.

Ramose quickly took off the long garment that he was wearing and, holding on to one end, threw the other end to Karoya. She reached out for it, but couldn’t grab hold. The sharp sand bit into Ramose’s bare skin. It felt like a thousand scorpions were stinging him.

“Hapu,” he shouted. “Hold on to my hand.”

He could hardly see Karoya now. She was struggling to clamber out of the soft sand, but the more she struggled the further she sank into it. With Hapu clinging onto his hand, Ramose edged towards the sand pool. He could feel his feet sink up to his ankles. He didn’t dare go any further. He threw the coat towards Karoya again. She managed to grab hold of one of the sleeves. Ramose felt his legs disappear into the sand.

“Pull me back,” he screamed at Hapu. “I’m sinking too.”

He felt his friend grip him around the waist with both hands. Ramose held on to the hem of his coat. He felt the cloth give slightly and realised with horror that the stitching in the sleeve was breaking. He leaned out further, amazed that skinny little Hapu had found the strength to hold the weight of both Karoya and him. He hoped he could keep it up.

Ramose hauled in the garment hand over hand. The stitches kept breaking, until the sleeve was only attached to a couple of finger-widths of cloth. Ramose reached out and grasped hold of the sleeve just as the last stitch broke. He pulled the sleeve with all his might until he could see Karoya’s fingers about to lose their grip. He grabbed her by the wrist. Once she felt him, she reached out with her other hand and grabbed hold of his arm with a grip like crocodile jaws. Ramose’s strength was fading, but he knew he couldn’t let his friend go. Using his arm like a rope, Karoya clawed her way to the edge of the sand pool and crawled back to firmer ground. All three collapsed exhausted onto the sand.

After a while the wind started to die down. The biting sand stopped blowing at them. The air finally cleared. They looked around.

“Where are the nomads?” said Hapu.

Ramose, worn out after so much exertion so soon after his sickness, didn’t have the strength to move. Karoya struggled to the top of a dune. She turned in a circle, scanning the horizon in all directions.

“I can’t see them anywhere.”

Ramose crawled up the sand dune. He had to see for himself. Huge dunes stretched in every direction like a sheet of crumpled papyrus. He strained his eyes looking for a series of black shapes that would represent the nomads and their animals. All he could see was sand.

“They have to be out there somewhere,” he said. “There hasn’t been enough time for them to walk over the horizon.”