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support more mouths. We are poor but we have dignity. Fill the house with children and we increase our poverty while sacrificing what little independence we enjoy. Besides …” His voice fell and I had to strain to catch the words. “What makes you think Aswat is as peaceful and secure as it seems? Like all women you see no further than the path to the river where you carry the washing, and your ears open only to the gossip of the other wives. The men here are not much better. They direct the pedlars and wandering workmen to the women, to buy or to hire, and do not listen to their tales, for they are insular and suspicious of all who were not born here. But I have seen this Egypt. I do not spurn the strangers who come and go. I know that the eastern tribesmen are trickling into the Delta, trying to find land for their flocks and herds, and in the Delta there is trouble. It may come to nothing, or it may mean that the Good God may call upon all his soldiers to leave their fields and defend their country. How would you fare then, with babies to feed and your midwifery to perform as well? If I was killed the land would revert to Pharaoh, for as you say, Pa-ari is not likely to follow in my footsteps. Ponder my words with your mouth closed, for I am weary and need to sleep.” I heard my mother mutter something else and give a resigned sigh, and then there was silence.
    When my father’s voice had died away I lay on my back, gazing into the pressing dark heat of the little room, and imagined the foreigners he had spoken of sifting slowly across the fertile soil of the Delta, a place I had never seen and barely heard of, spreading out, oozing southward along the Nile towards my village like the black mud of the Inundation. The vivid picture excited me. Suddenly Aswat shrank in my mind from being the centre of the world to a very small backwater in a threatening vastness, yet I did not feel lost or in danger. I wondered what they were like, these sinister people, what the Delta was like, what blessed Thebes, home of Amun the King of the Gods was like, and I was in a boat floating down the Nile towards the Good God’s fabled northern capital when I fell asleep at last.

2
    AS I HAVE SAID , I was eight years old when the inspiration came to me that if I could not go to school, the school should come to me. It was at about the same time that I began to work with my mother and my days were full of obligatory household chores but the need to learn was a constant ache, a kind of mild desperation that returned to nag at me in the few idle moments I had. My plan was simple. Pa-ari would teach me. He must know almost everything there was to know by now, seeing that he had been trudging along to the temple school for five years. One afternoon when our house and indeed the whole village drowsed under the fierce heat of Ra’s summer scorching and Pa-ari and I were supposed to be resting, I dragged my pallet close to his and peered into his face. He was not asleep. He was lying on his back, both hands behind his head, and his eyes had followed my movements in the half-light. He smiled at me as I bent over him.
    “No, I won’t tell you a story,” he said loudly. “It’s too hot. Why can’t you sleep, Thu?”
    “Keep your voice down,” I told him, settling back. “I don’t want a story today. I want a big, big favour from you, dear Pa-ari.”
    “Oh gods,” he groaned, rolling onto his side and propping himself on one elbow. “When you use that wheedling tone of voice I know I’m in trouble. What is it?”
    I studied him as he continued to smile at me indulgently, this brother whom I adored, this lordly young male who had begun to make pronouncements in Father’s assured way that brooked no argument. I kept no secrets from him. He knew how much I disliked helping Mother with birthings, how fascinated I was with her potions, how lonely I felt when the other village girls turned from me with smirks and giggles on the few