Pharaoh Read Online Free PDF Page B

girl. He was trying not to stare, but it was difficult. Her face was scarred all down one side, the skin as red and rippled as a pool in the rock. Her lip twisted in an eternal half smile.
    Narmer said nothing. There was nothing he could think to say.
    ‘My name is Nithotep,’ said the girl at last. She sat with her face averted, trying to hide the scarred side of her face. ‘My master calls me Nitho.’
    ‘Where are you from?’
    ‘From a land called Ka’naan—or so my master says. I don’t remember. He found me out in the desert when hewas trading there. I’d been badly burnt. My face, my legs, my arm too, as though I had fallen in the fire. But he said I was still crawling, trying to get home. I was two years old, perhaps. No more.
    ‘My master knows medicine. There are experts in his land who have taught him about healing, and he’s learnt even more as he’s travelled. He tended my burns. He tried to find my parents, but no one claimed me.’
    Narmer stayed silent. He could imagine that the parents of a child as badly hurt as that might not want to have her back. Babies who were badly formed, or even too small, were exposed on the rocks for the jackals to eat. An older child who was scarred, perhaps crippled, would be no use at all. Especially a girl. What man would take a crippled girl to marry?
    ‘So my master kept me,’ said Nitho quietly. ‘He forced me to move my arms and legs when the scars would have pulled tight and twisted my limbs. He cared for me.’
    ‘Why?’ Narmer bluntly. A trader could buy all the girls he wanted—beautiful ones, not scarred ones like Nitho.
    ‘Because I had survived,’ said Nitho softly. ‘Just like he had when he was captured and hurt as a child. He told me that a child who had fought as I had would become an adult who could survive as well. One whom he would be honoured to travel with.’
    ‘My nurse was a slave from along your River, captured and sold by the People of the Sand. That’s how I can speak your language. My master had me taught many other languages as we travelled. He is the wisest man I know, buteven a wise man can’t know everything, and he has no ear for other tongues. So I became his translator.’
    ‘Why do you dress as a man?’
    Nitho shrugged. ‘There are places where it isn’t safe to be a girl. I’m used to putting on a boy’s voice. Like this.’ Suddenly her voice was gruff again. ‘But mostly because…’ She spoke in her own voice again. ‘Who wants to look at a face like mine?’
    ‘So you wear the scarf all the time?’
    ‘Not when we’re travelling. My master says the first time you see a girl with a scar like mine you say, “Look at the scar.” The second time you say, “There is Nitho with the scar.” But the third time you say, “There is Nitho.” Those who know me don’t see my scar any more.’ She hesitated a moment then added, ‘But they don’t see beauty either.’
    ‘That was what your master meant last night when he told the story,’ said Narmer slowly. ‘He was saying that appearances can be deceptive.’
    ‘Yes. It’s one of his favourites. I think he tells it to make me feel better. A beautiful voice tells you nothing about the person behind it. And an ugly face…’ She shrugged again. ‘Well, maybe the person behind that isn’t as bad as she looks either.’
    For the first time Nitho looked straight at him. ‘But this was the only chance I’d ever have of talking to someone like you. Someone who would speak to me without revulsion. I was taking Bast out for a walk—she was making the people in the guesthouse nervous, and—’
    ‘Bast?’
    Nitho nodded at the wildcat. ‘I raised her from a kitten. One of her legs had been almost torn off by jackals. But my master showed me how to sew up the wound, to make her whole. Anyway, I was taking her for a walk and I saw you here. I hid and…well, you know the rest.’
    Narmer said nothing.
    ‘No more questions?’ asked Nitho, smiling