Together we got busy carrying the last few bags to the reed boat, then set Nava in the prow and launched our vessel back onto the sacred river.
How fortunate we were to be sailing downstream! We didn’t have to fight the current—no easy task without a sail to steal the wind. All we had to do was steer. Nava kept her seat in the prow of the boat, Amenophis guided us from the stern, and I sat midway between the two of them, enthroned in a nest of provision bags. How very different from the way I’d come to Thebes, riding with my family amid the luxuries of my aunt Tiye’s regal ship. But except for wishing that Father and my second mother, Mery, and my sister, Bit-Bit, were still here with me, I wouldn’t have traded places with my then-self for a double handful of gold. Then I’d been as much of a captive as Nava, being dragged to a marriage I didn’t want to a boy I’d learned I could never love. Now I was free.
As the sun rose higher, the river came to life. Flights of egrets rose out of the reeds when our little boat came too close for their liking. Their plumage made white streaks across the bright blue sky. Little green herons peered at us curiously for a moment from the shallows and then went back to feeding. Sometimes I thought I saw the darting brilliance of a kingfisher’s wings, and once, Nava came scrambling over the food sacks to tug my hand and point eagerly at the magnificent sight of a falcon with outstretched wings. He rode the heavens with kingly calm, without the frantic wing-beating of lesser birds, as if the sky itself balanced on the tips of his golden-brown feathers. Without warning, he folded his wings and plunged to snatch a fish from the river. The ripples of his strike lapped against our boat as he flew away to enjoy his silvery, squirming feast.
We weren’t the only ones sailing on the sacred river—how could we be? This was the heart and spirit of the Black Land, the realm of the god Hapy, whose timely floods renewed the fields and fed us. Our small boat was one of countless others, watercraft of all sizes, some under sail, some driven by oars, some carried along by both. Upstream and downstream, the peacefully flowing water was a wonderful confusion of people, ships, livestock, the sweet scent of spices or incense wafting from a merchant’s vessel, the lively music of the boatmen’s work songs, the cry of a baby, the laughter of a child.
I marveled at the spectacle and power of the sacred river. Not so long ago, I’d stood helpless in the house of Isis, back in Akhmin, while the goddess’s chief priest took cruel joy in telling me that Mahala was dead. The slave girl had saved me from drowning, but for his own malicious reasons, the priest declared that she’d cheated Hapy of his chosen sacrifice. No doubt he’d seen to it that she was given to the river-god in my place.
And yet here was Nava, sailing happily, fearlessly, along the same waters that had claimed her beloved sister. I quietly gave thanks to Isis for having healed the little girl’s heart. Nava was so at ease on our boat, as though she’d been born to the life of the river. She was captivated by everything she saw. She even pointed out a bank where a raft of crocodiles lay dozing, baking their scaly backs in the sun. One of the biggest of them sprawled lazily, his deadly jaws gaping wide while a tiny brown bird hopped here and there, picking bits of food out of the monster’s teeth.
“What a brave little thing,” I said, putting one arm around Nava’s shoulders. “Just like you.”
“He’s not brave,” she told me. “He’s smart. He knows the crocodile won’t snap him up. Then who’d clean the monster’s teeth? Look at him! He’s safe and he knows it.”
That was true. I saw how the speck of a bird went on with his business, helping himself to the leftover scraps of less-lucky creatures. There was a bold quality to his hops and flutters that made it seem as if he were swaggering, telling the whole world, “Oh, yes, this is a fine crocodile, isn’t it? One of the biggest, the strongest, the best hunters. And he works for me.”
I don’t know how far we’d traveled when I asked Amenophis to steer our boat back to shore along the western bank.
“Why?”
“You’ve been at the oar for a long time, that’s why,” I replied. “Just look at how high Ra’s boat has risen! You must be tired.”
“I’m fine,” he countered, but his appearance told a different story. I saw a slight trembling in his legs, and his grip on the oar wasn’t just tight but desperate, as if it was holding him upright more than he was holding it. “We have to go farther. If not, my brother will—”
“We’ll go farther, but not if we don’t take the time to rest a bit along the way,” I said calmly. “You have to remember that if—when—your brother comes after us, he’s only a man, not a hunting hound. He can’t track us by scent or sight—not now. I can’t see the towers of Thebes from this far down the river. Can you? And just look at how busy the river is! We’re one small boat among many, small enough to hide in the reeds if he does come sailing up to us.”
“I—I guess you’re right,” Amenophis admitted. “And if we go ashore now, maybe we can find a village, get a few more loaves of bread, a real fishing spear—”
“As long as we’re careful about how we bargain for them,” I told him. “You’ll have to act like an ordinary person. If not, they’ll remember you, and if Thutmose sends messengers up and down the river, asking people if they’ve seen a regal-looking young man—”
“Oh, I don’t think my brother would describe me as regal-looking,” Amenophis said, rubbing the back of his shaved head sheepishly. “He’d just tell his messengers to ask folks if they’d seen a scrawny boy, a little girl, and a beautiful—”