Nava was blind to the cobra, but it saw her. It opened its mouth even wider, as if to swallow her whole, and its fangs glistened.
I whirled around and seized a stone from the top of the wall. It was the size of a loaf of bread, but Nava’s peril gave me unexpected strength. “Get away from her!” I shouted at the snake just before I flung the rock with all my might. I didn’t wait to see if it hit the target; I was too busy grabbing more stones, pelting the cobra, beating it back, away from the child. It gave a halfhearted hiss, then shrank away from me, bowing its head. I could hear Thutmose yowling with frustration, screaming at the snake, ordering it to stand firm, to turn and attack me.
“How brave am I, Thutmose?” I called out in triumph. “You tell me. You tell me!”
And I hurled one last stone, which struck the snake right between its eyes. The stone shattered the snake like glass from snout to tail. The glimmering shards vanished before they hit the ground, and Thutmose vanished with them.
“Did you see that, Nava?” I laughed, glorying in my victory. But the laughter died on my lips: Nava was gone. “Nava?” Fresh terror seized me. “Nava, where are you? Nava! Nava!”
Darkness fell around me as I cried her name. All that answered me was a voice on the wind that called out again and again: Nefertiti … Nefertiti …
“Nefertiti, wake up! Wake up!” Nava shook my arm with her small, strong hands.
“Oh, Nava! Thank Isis, you’re here!” The child squawked with surprise when I bolted awake on the ground beside the sacred river and hugged her as if I’d never let her go.
1
SUNRISE
Sunlight touched the western shore of the sacred river. I sat hugging Nava as we watched the beautiful return of light to the world. The nightmare that had disturbed my sleep on that first night of our escape from Thebes was gone. In my heart, I praised Ra, who had triumphed once more over the monsters of the underworld to steer his sun-ship safely back across the open sky.
“Are you all right?” Nava asked, gazing at me with a worried look that was much too old for such a little girl. “You were making a lot of noise. You must have had a very scary dream.”
“It was scary,” I replied, brushing a few stands of hair out of her eyes. “But it wasn’t all bad.”
“I heard you yell the evil prince’s name.” Nava pursed her lips, her small body radiating anger. She knew what Thutmose had done to me—condemned me for blasphemy, imprisoned me, tried to have me killed—and that he was the reason we’d fled Thebes the night before. “A dream he’s in has to be all bad!”
“Not if I fought him”—I smiled—“and won.”
She tilted her head. “Did you?”
“I certainly did. First he tried to fool me; then he tried to harm me, but I defeated him. And do you know why I could do that?” Nava shook her head. “Because I wasn’t just fighting to save myself. You were in my dream as well, Nava, and I fought for you.”
“Oh, I know I was there,” she said, lifting her chin. “I heard you call my name, too. Did I help you?”
“In a way.”
“Hmph. That means I didn’t do anything, really.”
“Maybe next time I’ll have a dream where we fight together,” I said. “And isn’t it better to know that I can depend on your help when I’m awake?”
Nava wasn’t satisfied. “I want to help you always. At least you dreamed that you won. I’m glad. That means we’ll be safe, no matter what. Dreams don’t lie, not the really important ones.”
“So now you’re a dream-reader as well as a musician, Nava?” I teased her gently, the way I sometimes teased my little sister, Bit-Bit. How I missed her!
Nava shook her head. “I wish I were. Dream-readers—even those who are slaves—can become very rich and important. Before she died, my mama used to tell us about one of our people, a Habiru slave who was a great dream-reader, long ago. He read Pharaoh’s dreams so well that he was given his freedom, and gold, and a big house, and a princess!”
“Those must have been very important dreams,” I said lightly.
“Oh, they were!” I was treating Nava’s tale as no more than a child’s fancy, but she was completely sincere. She believed every word she told me. “Mama told us that those dreams saved the Black Land from a famine that lasted seven years.”
A wistful look came into her eyes. It was the first time I’d heard Nava talk about her mother.
I patted her shoulder. “Your mother knew very good stories, Nava. I hope you’ll tell me more of them someday.”
“It’s not a story,” she said, giving me a determined look. “It’s the truth.”
“What’s the truth?” a sleepy voice called out weakly from the far side of our dead campfire. With groans and moans, Prince Amenophis pushed himself up to sit cross-legged on the harsh ground. “Horus spare me, but my arms and legs feel ready to break before they bend normally again,” he muttered. “Ugh, what a night. Amun grant we don’t have to spend too many more like it before we reach Dendera.”
“How far is it from here?” I asked.
Amenophis shrugged his bony shoulders. “A few days.”
“How many?” I pressed. I was concerned, for his sake. After only one night away from the comforts of Thebes, he was starting to look haggard. The fewer days we’d have to travel, the better for him.
It was an innocent question, but it seemed to make Amenophis surprisingly uncomfortable. “I—I’m not sure. I’ve always been brought there in one of the royal ships. It was very pleasant, sailing down the sacred river, so I never paid much attention to how long the journey took.”
“Royal ships with oars and sails,” I remarked. “They’d go much faster than our little papyrus boat, but it’ll get us there all the same.”