Prince in Exile by Carole Wilkinson Page A

fanned the small fire under the conical oven and added dry reeds and pats of animal dung to the flames.
    “What happens if it doesn’t balance?”
    “Then the person is not fit for the afterlife. There is a monster called Ammut with the head of a crocodile, the front legs of a lion and the rear of a hippopotamus.”
    Karoya stopped fanning the fire.
    “The monster comes and eats the heart of the bad person.”
    “And the beetle-shaped jewel?”
    “It has my name on it. So that Osiris knows it is truly my heart. On the bottom of the scarab there is a prayer that no one will speak against me on that day of judgement.”
    Karoya took the rounds of dough and stuck them on the outside of the conical oven.
    “Have you been a good person?” She didn’t look him in the eyes as she usually did when she spoke to him.
    Ramose had never really considered whether he was a good person or not. Would Osiris really question the goodness of Pharaoh’s son?
    “I’m not dead yet. When I am older, I will be pharaoh and I’ll be a good pharaoh like my father. I’ll treat my people well.”
    “And kill and enslave all foreigners,” added Karoya.
    The air was fragrant with the smell of baking bread.
    “Maybe not.”
    The first loaf, now cooked, dropped to the ground.
    “What are you going to do now?” Karoya asked quietly.
    It was something Ramose had tried to avoid thinking about. The truth was he had no idea what to do.
    “You only have two choices, as I see it,” said Karoya picking up the hot bread with the tips of her fingers. “You stay here and work in the Great Place or you go back to the city and let your father and sister know you are alive.”
    Ramose watched the other loaves fall from the oven one by one as they cooked. The thought of seeing his sister again lifted his heart.
    “I have to go to the palace,” he said after a while. “There’s nothing else I can do.” It felt good to make a decision. “I’ll stay here until my father returns from his campaign.”
    Karoya picked up the other loaves and wrapped them in a cloth.
    Ramose had begun to think that there was nothing he could do but stay forever in the Great Place counting chisels and recording absent workers. He’d imagined himself eating gritty bread and hearing people laughing at his clumsiness and making jokes about his fear of enclosed places till he was old and fat like Paneb. Talking to Karoya had helped him work out what he had to do. All he needed now was a plan, a way to get back into the palace.
    In the meantime, he would stay where he was and wait till his father returned from Kush. He had to work another shift at the Great Place.

    Ramose decided to keep away from the other boys as much as he could. He would concentrate on the work he had to do and try and stay out of trouble. He found a quiet spot behind the storehouse and started working on a stone flake. He was writing out a list of the provisions that had arrived from the city: sacks of grain, piles of smelly fish, several oxen ready to be slaughtered and fresh vegetables too. All of this had to be allocated to the workers according to their roles in the tombs.
    They were paid once a month. The scribe and the foreman earned the most, seven or eight sacks of grain, then came the sculptors and painters, who earned six sacks. The labourers who hauled blocks of stone and baskets of stone chips each got four and a half sacks. Finally came the apprentices who earned two sacks of grain each. The perishable food was divided up more or less equally among the workers. Ramose wrote down his own earnings: two sacks of grain, a dozen fish, one and a half deben of oxen meat, a jar of oil and a basket of vegetables.
    Ramose wouldn’t be seeing any of his earnings though. He had to pay for the three copper chisels he’d damaged and the oil he’d wasted staying up half the night rewriting. He also had to repay Paneb for his scribe’s tools and for feeding him while he had no income. It would be