Pharaoh by Jackie French Page A

Trader’s face.
    The Trader was holding something; it was an awl, Narmer realised, like the women used for sewing. There was thread as well. And suddenly the Trader pushed the awl into his leg so that it pierced through the skin.
    Princes didn’t scream. Princes were meant to bear everything in silence. But he screamed nonetheless.
    The sandstorm thickened again. He heard the Trader’s voice. Then Nitho’s face bent over him, and she pinched his cheeks so hard they hurt.
    How could you feel a pinch when your leg was in flames? But it was enough to keep him awake, to stop the sandstorm from sweeping him away.
    ‘Stay with us,’ ordered Nitho. It was the voice of the Oracle, the voice of his dreams. Narmer obeyed.
    The pain seemed to last forever…
    Finally he felt Nitho’s hands spooning something into his mouth, something bitter, but tasting faintly of honey. Most of it dribbled down his chin. The spoon returned. This time Nitho held his head, to make it easier for him to swallow. The mixture trickled down his throat. He wanted to speak, but the room whirled.
    And suddenly there was no pain.
    It was dark when Narmer woke again, apart from a lamp flickering by his bed: a small flame on a tiny lake of oil. He heard snoring, and could see the dim bulk of the Trader sleeping on a pile of cushions in the corner. Bast was there too, sprawled over the Trader’s feet as though the cushions belonged to her, not him.
    Something moved beside him. Nitho. Her scarf was still across her face, but her dark eyes looked at him steadily.
    She held a spoon to his lips again. ‘Drink it,’ she whispered. ‘The poppy juice will make you sleep.’
    ‘Nitho?’ Again, the words were hardly there. But somehow she understood.
    ‘Yes. It’s me. Can you understand?’
    He couldn’t nod. He blinked instead. He forced his lips to move again. ‘How bad?’
    She looked at him, eyes wide in the lamplight, as though wondering how much to tell him. ‘The top of your leg is gone, and half of your buttock. There are teeth marks on your lower leg. We’ve sewn up the worst of it, but the puncture wounds are deep. There’ll be fever, but we’ll do what we can.’
    ‘Die?’ whispered Narmer. She would tell him the truth, he knew. Oracles never lied…
    ‘I don’t know.’ There was honesty in her voice. ‘We’ll do our best.’ She hesitated. ‘There’s a wound on your face too, a deep one. But not from teeth. From a stick maybe, in the mud.’ And then, ‘You’ve lost a lot of blood. You need to drink. The poppy will take away your pain.’
    No, thought Narmer, not take it away. The pain was partof him now. But at least the poppy made it feel like the pain belonged to someone else.
    And then he slept.
    Time passed in a blur. Seknut muttered prayers to Bes, her favourite household god, beside his bed. Nitho, her hands cool on his hot skin, spooned liquid into his mouth, or simply sat holding his hand, as the pain washed back and forth.
    The smell of blood was constant. Then there was a new smell of rotting flesh. Narmer glimpsed dead skin in a bowl by the bed and knew it was his, as the Trader’s hands worked on him again and again smearing his wounds with a mixture of honey and myrrh and aloe. There had been garlic and crocodile dung in the mixture at first, which stank and had stung. The Trader made him drink teas, too: horrible messes of ox liver and raw eggs and onions, pounded smooth, with mint and sycamore seeds and more garlic.
    His father’s face hovered above him. Or was that a dream? Seknut whispered a spell: ‘O Son of Pain, who brings the fever and the anguish…’
    Once he woke to see Bast peering over him, her eyes pale gold in the moonlight. But it was Nitho’s hand that held her. It was almost as though the two of them were guarding him. Somehow, thought Narmer vaguely, they were keeping death away.
    Days passed. No, not days. Days were defined by meals, at such and such a time, and sleep at night. This was