Pharaoh Read Online Free PDF Page A

the smells of baking bread and lotus-root cakes, and bubbling spicedbean stews.
    He hurried along the dyke again, then up into the hills. He could see women washing down below, beating their clothes by the water’s edge.
    Since yesterday the floods had retreated another cubit, leaving their black silt behind. The valley smelt of flood, and the promise of crops to come. Narmer smiled. The women wouldn’t get their clothes very clean, no matter how much laundry paste of fat and wood ash they used. But he supposed it was too long to wait till the water ran clearagain, and green grass and herbs and wild lettuce sprang up from the mud.
    The smell of flood vanished once he reached the cliff, and the scent of the desert filled his nostrils instead. In front of him were hot rock and hotter sand stretching to the horizon, and the endless dry of the lands beyond the River.
    No wonder the People of the Sand try to invade our lands, thought Narmer. How could anyone survive out there?
    He continued along the ridge. A lizard poked its flat head up from behind a rock. Narmer felt for one of the stones in his pouch and fitted it into his sling.
    Wham! The smooth rock hit the animal straight in the head. It fell to the ground, stunned. Narmer ran over to it and broke its neck swiftly, before it could wake up, then hung its carcass from his belt.
    He began to jog again. Soon the Oracle’s wadi was below him…
    All at once he remembered that the Oracle had ordered him not to come before noon. He glanced above him. Ra’s golden chariot hovered just above the hills. He was early.
    Would she be angry?
    He gazed down into the wadi. There was no sign of the wildcat today.
    Then suddenly there it was, slinking through a crevice in the rock. He hadn’t noticed the crevice among the shadows yesterday.
    The giant cat stared up at him. ‘ Mrraw? ’
    It lay down on the rock again. Its golden eyes gazed at Narmer as he half climbed, half slid down the cliff.
    Narmer chose a spot well away from the watchful cat, then bowed, his face to the ground. ‘Mighty Oracle?’
    ‘Yes?’ Somehow the Oracle sounded short of breath, almost as if she had been running. He must be imagining it, he thought. Oracles didn’t run; they were just there . ‘I told you not to seek me before noon,’ she added. Despite the edge in her voice, it was as lovely as it had been the day before.
    ‘I wanted to see you,’ said Narmer simply.
    There was a pause. ‘You can’t see an oracle.’ And strangely there was a hint of bitterness in the words. ‘You can only hear her.’
    ‘Hear you then, o mighty Oracle,’ said Narmer quickly. ‘Ask you questions.’
    ‘Proceed, then.’
    ‘When will the People of the Sand attack again?’
    ‘That’s easy. You should know the answer yourself.’
    Narmer considered. ‘After the next harvest,’ he said slowly.
    ‘Of course. Isn’t that when they’ve attacked in the past? When the granaries are full and desert bellies empty. Next question.’
    ‘What should I do when I am king?’
    ‘Your best, of course.’ The Oracle laughed as Narmer frowned. ‘That wasn’t the answer you wanted, was it? All right. Build your walls higher. Train your men in fighting. Don’t just wait for an attack to teach them how to wield a spear or a club. There’s been a drought to the east and west. More tribes are moving towards the River. There’s little food in the desert, and lots of barley and wheat in your granaries. Is that all you want to ask?’
    ‘One more question…’ Narmer took a deep breath. ‘If you had a body and not just a voice, what would you look like?’
    There was another pause. ‘I would be tall,’ said the Oracle softly. ‘With skin the colour of the moonlit sand. And I would be perfect. Is that the end of your questions?’
    ‘I think so, o Oracle. For today.’
    Narmer was still trying to take it all in. Tribes moving from the desert to Thinis. He’d have to tell his father. They’d have to plan…
    The