Pharaoh's Daughter: A Novel of Ancient Egypt

Year 15 of the Reign of Ramesses The Great,
1stmonth of Akhet

Chapter One

My parents talked in the darkness for a long time, their voices moving in and out of my sleep like the back of a hippopotamus rising and sinking in the Great Hapi. Abba, Father, spoke softly and slowly, while Ima, Mother, talked rapidly, as if she had to get all the words out before she forgot them. My brother Aharon, and sister, Miryam, are seven and four and hear nothing, not even the sounds of their own sleep. My baby brother, Yekutiel, is barely three months old. He sleeps through everything.

I am Almah, and I used to sleep like Yekutiel, but now that I am twelve I lie awake in the darkness. Something is wrong. Every evening after Abba comes home from working on the pharaoh's temple in Pi-Ramesses, men come to talk. My father is named Amram, and he is a leader of our people, the Habiru, "the people from the other side." ("The other side of what?" I asked him once. He said we have a land of our own, and one day our. god, Ya, will send a redeemer who will lead us out of Khemet and into our land. Abba said that in our land the rivers flow with milk and honey. When I Asked, "What is a redeemer and when is he coming?" he looked away.) Abba and the men talk long into the darkness, but their voices are low and I cannot hear their words. Yesterday I asked Ima what they were talking about. She looked at me as if I were bad luck that had come to life.

I get up when I see the blackness on the ceiling change to gray. Miryam has a leg-on top of mine, an arm flung across my chest. Aharon lies pressed against me on the other side. Abba snores softly. Gently Imove Miryam's arm and leg and get up. She and Aharon do not waken, but they sense I am leaving and move closer to each other. Aharon has only a little while longer to sleep before it will be time for him to get up and go with Abba to work in Pi-Ramesses.

Rubbing my eyes I walk into the kitchen and get the water jar. I go out the back door, past the bread oven built against the house, through the doorway in the wall, and into the narrow street. Pale pink tinges the eastern sky where the sun will rise.

Our house is on the comer of the Street of the Serpent and the Street of the River, at the farthest end of the village. It faces the Great Hapi, though at a safe distance. The river has started rising, which means the new year has begun. In Khemetian it is called the season of Akhet. The river will rise until it threatens to flow over the top of the road that protects us. That has never happened, though. But for almost two months it will be as if we are living next to the Great Green Sea. Then slowly, so slowly that we will not notice at first, the river will return to its bed and leave behind the thick black mud in which we will plant.

Other girls and women walk by me, water jars atop their heads like hair piled high, on their first of many trips to the river for water. Though one or two glance at me, they do not speak.

Instead of following them, I cross the street to a small path and disappear among the canebrake and the long sharp leaves of the papyri that tower above me. The birds send warning calls from the tops of the papyri. I would think they would know me by now.

Eventually I come to a stream, one of the branches of the Great Hapi where the river is not as wide or deep. The others are afraid to come here for water. Because of the snakes. They say I come here because I think I am better than anybody else and don't want to be around them. ("Who cares if you can speak Kbemetian? If you were a real Habiru, you would not speak the language of people who bate us.") I tried to explain that it is quiet here and that I like the music of the silence and the music of the birds. They did not believe me. Perhaps because I was not telling the truth.

I look carefully for any snakes or crocodiles that might be hiding in the thick bulrushes. Then, looking around once more to be sure no one is watching, I take off my dress and face the sun. It seems to be reaching for me through the papyri as its warmth pours over my newswelling breasts and the wispy hair that says I am becoming a woman.

This is the real reason I come here for water. I have never told anyone. It is my secret. Mine and the sun's. I raise my arms high over my head and move them outward in a circle as if I am holding the sun, but it does not bum me because Hove it and it loves me. I close my eyes and tongues of warmth cover my body. I think I could stand here like this for the rest of my life.

However, sooner than I would like, I get nervous that someone will see me. I know they can't, but that does not matter. I force my eyes open and slip my dress on. Then I fill the jar, put it on my head, and start for home...