Enslaved By The Desert Trader

She was overmatched. Seduction was a game whose rules she did not understand—a game of which she had neither experience nor understanding. A game she should not have rushed to play. Not with him.

Now she watched his hands wrap the twine about her wrists over and over, wishing she could go back in time. She wanted to feel his arms engulfing her again. She wished to drink again from those strong, capable hands and to kiss each of his fingers a dozen times.

Seth’s blood, she was a fool. She could not accept her desire for him. Her body had acted against direct orders from her mind. But it had been more than that. It had been as if the moment he had embraced her all the disordered parts of herself had fallen neatly into line, and she’d wanted to stay with him like that for ever.

Or maybe the Red Land had finally driven her mad.

Author Note

Five thousand years ago a civilisation emerged in the Nile River Valley to become one of the most enduring the world has ever known. For three thousand years it thrived, isolated by desert and sea and sustained by the River Nile itself.

We know it as ancient Egypt—though the Egyptians themselves called their kingdom Khemet, or Black Land, after the rich black silt deposited by the Nile’s annual flood. The silt nourished crops, feeding a million souls and filling the coffers of Khemetian god kings—not called pharaohs until circa 1400 BCE—who used their wealth to build spectacular tombs.

Perhaps the greatest such tomb, King Khufu’s Great Pyramid, inspired this story. For centuries the Great Pyramid has been the subject of intense scrutiny, yet many of its mysteries remain unsolved. Recently some researchers have argued that the Great Pyramid hides chambers containing King Khufu’s funeral cache. If found, such an undisturbed hoard of wealth would rival King Tutankhamun’s tomb as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries ever.

We might never know all the Great Pyramid’s secrets, but we can dream. And we can imagine the people who laboured to build and raid it. Their lives might not have been so different from ours after all. Like us, they lived in a time of climatic uncertainties and vexing social inequalities, but also a time of amazing discoveries and miraculous feats. And, like us, they shared that most enduring wonder of all—love.

I hope you enjoy their story!

Enslaved by the Desert Trader

Greta Gilbert

www.millsandboon.co.uk

GRETA GILBERT’S passion for ancient history began with a teenage crush on Indiana Jones. As an adult, she landed a dream job at National Geographic Learning, where her colleagues—former archaeologists—helped her learn to keep her facts straight. Now she lives in South Baja, Mexico, where she continues to study the ancients. She is especially intrigued by ancient mysteries, and always keeps a little Indiana Jones inside her heart.

For Diane Noble and Paul Gilbert

(aka Mom and Dad)

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Memphis, Khemet, year twenty-three in the Reign of King Khufu, 2566 BCE

The serpent’s tongue tickled her toes. It glided over her foot without fear, as if daring her to move. Its horns were large enough for her to see them clearly, even in the low morning light. Kiya sucked in a breath. Of the hundreds of men standing in the grain line, the horned viper had chosen her—the one man who was no man at all. It was just her ill fortune. After a full season of labouring undiscovered upon the Great Pyramid of Stone her life was now threatened by a creature the size of a chisel.

The men in the line near her had not noticed. Not yet. They continued to chatter, folding and unfolding the empty grain sacks they carried, their bare feet shuffling in the sand. They had all gathered—the quarrymen, the masons, the haulers—hundreds upon hundreds of pyramid conscripts, all awaiting their promised allotment of grain. They stood in a single sprawling line that encircled the Great Pyramid like a snare.

‘Move on, brother,’ urged a voice behind Kiya, but she pretended not to hear. If she lifted her foot the viper would surely bite her, and she would have to stifle her scream—the scream of a woman.

She opened her palms to the sky and lifted her eyes heavenward, for no one could lawfully disrupt an act of prayer. Blessed Wadjet, Serpent Goddess, she beseeched in silence, let the viper pass. Still the viper did not move. It was as if the giant pyramid at her side were blocking her plea.

King Khufu’s House of Eternity was not just a pyramid—it was a mountain splitting the sky. Now almost complete, the giant tomb would be ready to receive King Khufu when his time came. It would conduct the great King to the heavens, where he would secure the safety and abundance of Khemet for all time.

Or so said the priests.

The holy men who oversaw the construction of the tomb wore fine linens. They walked with their arms folded across their chests, self-satisfied and proud. But their priestly posture belied an insidious truth: it had been twenty-four full moons since the last flood—two terribly trying years. The Great River was but a stream—no longer navigable by the large imperial barges. Its life-giving waters had ceased to teem with the silvery perch and tilapia that normally filled Khemetian bellies. The riverside plantations of flax, barley and wheat—once green with growth—now stood barren and cracked.

The people of Khemet, too, were cracking. Their sacred Black Land—named for the colour of the rich, life-giving earth of the Great River’s floodplain—had become brown and lifeless. Every day Khemetians grew thinner and hungrier. The priests assured them that the fate of Khemet would change once the Great Pyramid was complete.

But the tomb workers, whose food rations grew sparser each day, wondered if Khemet wasn’t instead being punished. As they pulled their stone-laden carts up the dark, twisting inner tunnel they whispered among themselves: What if King Khufu’s ambition has grown too great? What if this tomb displeases the King’s heavenly father, Osiris, God of Death and Rebirth? What if, with the stacking of each stone, we are not exalting the land of Khemet but dooming it to death?

Kiya always kept her head down in the tunnel—and held her mouth shut. ‘Mute Boy’ she was called among her gang, and her strange infirmity cloaked her with an air of mystery that distracted them from her concealed gender. It was a useful part of her ruse, and necessary. A woman labouring upon the Great Pyramid of Stone was a sin against the King himself. If she were found out she would be punished. Under King Khufu, that punishment would likely be death.

Now the viper coiled itself more tightly around Kiya’s ankle. She could feel its muscles squeezing her, its tongue gently caressing her skin. It was preparing to bite. When it did, the poison would quickly paralyse her, and death would come on swift feet. She opened her hands and mouthed the words: Wadjet, I beseech you.

‘There will be time to pray later,’ insisted the man behind her. ‘Close the gap.’

He had spoken verily: she had allowed a gap to form in the line ahead of her. She needed to distract him. Impulsively, she pointed her finger eastward, towards the Great River, as if there were some significant sight to observe there. But something was there—or someone, rather. It was a man—a rider. His mounted silhouette made a sharp shadow against the paleness of the dawn.

‘Who is that?’ asked the man behind her.

Kiya shook her head. The rider was unusually large and broad-shouldered, as if he spent his days ploughing fields or hauling stones. He rode a strange hoofed beast whose long legs and thick, luxuriant tail set it apart from a familiar donkey. His flowing dark robes marked him as a Libu, an enemy of Khemet, yet his stature and carriage indicated other origins. He unwrapped his headdress and began waving it in the air above him vigorously, as if in warning. Then his figure dissolved instantly—obscured in the eruption of the Sun God’s light.

Kiya shielded her eyes and glanced downward. To her surprise, her tiny foe was gone—disappeared, just like the rider. But there was little time to celebrate for she felt the ground beneath her begin to tremble. In the place where the rider had been there was now a cloud of dust. Then they materialised—an army of men, advancing towards the pyramid at great speed.

‘Libu!’ someone shouted.

The men in line scattered, but Kiya could not bring herself to move. There must have been a thousand of them—rugged, robed raiders whose shrill battle cries invaded Kiya’s ears and filled her with terror. Some rode atop donkeys, but most came on relentless feet. As they approached they unleashed their arrows upon the tomb workers. A dozen of Kiya’s fellow workers were struck instantly, collapsing where they stood. The rest ran. Some sought refuge inside the Great Pyramid itself. Others escaped into the desert.

Kiya dropped to the ground, playing dead. She counted her breaths. One. Two. Three. Slowly the rain of arrows abated. Kiya opened her eyes to find the Libu raiders gathering around the grain tent. It was as Kiya suspected: the Libu had not come for war. They had come to the plain of Giza for the same reason she had—for that thing that had become, after two years of drought, more precious than gold: grain.

This could not be. Kiya needed her grain. She had earned her allotment of it. And she had been so close, so very close to receiving it.

‘Run!’ a man yelled from far away, but Kiya did not heed him. She had no family, and not a single aroura of land to her name. Without her ration of grain she would have to return to a life on the streets of Memphis—to the life of a beggar.

And that she simply refused to do.

Slowly, she stood. She gripped her grain sack and, in the confusion of Khemetians running away from the grain tent, began to run towards it.

She wrapped the empty sack around her head like a turban. She was a Libu now, a new kind of imposter. On swift legs she darted among the Libu donkeys, and the animals’ large bodies concealed her and protected her from the chaos.

Outside the grain tent few Khemetian guards remained alive. Their wooden shields had not been able to protect them. Like sacred bulls on feasting day the soldiers were being pierced, one by one, by Libu spears and arrows.

It was a grisly slaughter. So much Khemetian blood was spilt upon the sands. But Kiya could not afford to panic or to mourn. She rushed past the battling men and rolled under the tent’s loose hide. Inside, a pile of grain the size of a temple rose before her. She did not stop to gaze or even to think. She just took off her sack and started stuffing it, until it was so heavy with grain she could barely lift it. She did not even hear the ripping sound of her shirt as she rolled over the rough ground back out into the fray.

She could hardly see for the storm of dust outside the tent. She crouched low and kept the sack close to her body. The acrid smell of blood thickened the air and she choked for breath as she dashed eastward, towards the Great River.

As she ran she noticed that her shirt was gone, and that the wraps she had bound so tightly about her chest had been ripped. The tattered strips of fabric hung from her waist like a tailor’s loose strands and she felt the warm air upon her naked breasts. Her sex was exposed, but it did not matter for her sack was filled.

In fact it overflowed. She carried a windfall of grain—vastly more than she would have been allotted by the priests. And it was all hers. She hoisted it onto her back and felt her spirit grow large. It would be more than enough grain to sustain her through a full cycle of the sun. If she travelled far enough upriver she might even be able to find a plot of land to till and plant. She could trade some grain for her rent and await the flood, as farmers did.

She adjusted her course towards the southeast and became resolved: she would not be returning to the capital city. Never again would she skulk around its docks searching for fish heads, or roam the central market hoping to discover an onion peel or a half-eaten radish. With her boon of grain she would finally be free of want, finally merit her countrymen’s respect.

She heaved the bag onto the ground and shook her fist at the sky. ‘Is that all you have for me, evil Seth, God of Chaos?’ she shouted. ‘For that is nothing!’

Suddenly an arrow flew past her. Then another. She ducked her head, afraid to turn around. She heard the thunder of heavy hooves behind her—not a donkey, something larger. They pounded the ground like drumbeats. They were getting louder, closer. She hoisted the sack upon her back once again and coaxed her legs to run, but soon the large donkey-like creature was upon her. Its rider’s large, muscular arm reached down and wrapped itself around her body, and she and her sack were being lifted off the ground and into the air.

‘Do not fight,’ whispered a thick, husky voice into her ear. ‘Now you are mine.’

Chapter Two

If it had not been for their mindless blood sport he never would have spotted her. Sickened by the massacre—the senseless loss of life—Tahar had let his eyes seek refuge upon the horizon. That was when he’d noticed her distant figure. She’d been running towards the Great River with a bag so full of grain that she’d scarcely been able to keep it off the ground. But it was not the bag that had caught his eye. It was the way her body had moved across the plain. Her small exposed breasts had swung to and fro in an awkward, seductive way—the way of a woman.

What was she doing there at all? It was well known that Khemetians did not allow women to labour directly upon the King’s tomb. Women were thought to be too closely tied to the beginning of earthly life to be associated with the passage at its end.

And yet there she’d been—a woman to be sure. If she had been wearing a shirt or tunic he might have missed her completely, for in all other ways she was like a man: tall, thin, with taut, muscular limbs that gave no hint of feminine softness. She wore no wig, and her worker’s perfectly shaven head shone like burnished copper in the morning sun.

She had the spirit of a man as well—or so he had discovered as she’d kicked and flailed atop his horse. So energetic had been her rebellion that she had given him no choice but to stop at the first oasis he could find to secure her bonds.

He stood above her now, admiring his work. She was seated against the trunk of a date palm, her ankles and wrists wrapped with twine he had wound three fingers thick. The palm gave little shade, and he smiled with satisfaction as he watched the hot sun melt away any remaining notions she might have of escape.

‘I know that you are thirsty,’ Tahar said at last. He squatted on the ground beside her and placed his water bag at her lips. ‘Drink now, for we cannot linger here.’

The stubborn woman refused to drink. Instead, she pursed her lips together and shook her head.

He studied her angry face. She was no goddess—not yet. But she had potential. Her bones were fine and displayed excellent symmetry. Even in her emaciated state her lips were red and plump, and long, arched eyebrows hung high above her big dark eyes, giving her an air of readiness and making her scowl appear almost charming.

Tahar took a draught from the water bag himself. ‘Do you see?’ he asked. ‘It is just water. You must drink. Quickly.’

The Libu raiders would be swarming every oasis from the Great River to the Big Sandy soon, celebrating their success. If they discovered Tahar and the woman they would insist that she be sold into marriage and would demand their share of her bride price. That was the rule amongst the desert tribes—spoils were divided equally. But Tahar knew that, with any likely suitor absent, the raiders would demand their fair share of the woman herself—a possibility he simply could not tolerate.

He held out the bag again. ‘Drink,’ he commanded, ‘for we must keep moving.’

‘Why do you speak the Khemetian tongue?’ she asked, and gave a small jump, as if surprised by the sound of her own voice.

‘I am a trader. I speak many tongues.’

‘You are a Libu raider. A murderer.’ Her brown eyes flashed and her cheeks flushed with a fetching shade of crimson.

‘I am neither a raider nor a Libu—not any more.’

‘But you bear the Libu scar,’ she said, her eyes fixing on the purple crescent framing the side of his eye.

‘And you bear the callused hands of a man,’ Tahar replied coolly. ‘That does not make you one.’ He placed his water bag near her hands, in case she might accept it.

‘Just because you have tied me in bonds it does not make me a slave.’

‘Then we are both imposters.’

‘Hem!’ she snarled, then batted the water bag out of his hands.

‘Foolish woman!’ Tahar shouted, watching the bag’s precious contents spill onto the sand. ‘Now I shall have to draw water from the oasis pool and boil it. It will be many hours before we drink again.’

He grabbed her arm in anger and an invisible spark seemed to ignite the air between them. He released her arm and she returned her remorseless gaze to the sun-baked desert.

‘You are a Libu monster,’ she muttered.

‘And you are a Khemetian to the bone,’ he said.

‘How am I “a Khemetian to the bone”?’

‘You are spoiled and superior, as if the Gods themselves sanction your decadence.’

‘If you think ordinary Khemetians to be decadent, then you truly are dull,’ she said, and a small tear pooled in the corner of her eye.

Tahar stood and placed the empty water bottle in his saddlebag. Better to wait for her to beg for it—something she would do quite soon, he was sure. Thirst was a powerful motivator.

As is hunger, he thought, stealing a glance at her small white breasts.

No—he would not conquer her body. He would not even think of it, though he admitted that he wished to. Taking her would be like drinking wine from the amphora you meant to trade.

He removed his headdress and draped the garment over her shining head. ‘You must shield your skin from the sun,’ he told her, laughing as her head disappeared beneath the fabric. ‘What do you call it? La?’ he mocked.

‘The Sun God is Ra—blessed Ra. May he punish you severely,’ she stated, but her voice was muffled by the thick fabric, making Tahar laugh.

‘Gods do not care about us, silly woman. I have seen enough of the world now to know that it is so.’

‘What can you possibly have seen to give you knowledge of the Gods?’ she mumbled from beneath the fabric.

‘I have seen the beds of ancient rivers that once flowed over this very oasis, and the bones of creatures unimaginable to us. I have seen paintings on rocks deep in the desert. They show people swimming like fish. Swimming! The Gods may be mighty, but they care little about us. We are temporary.’ Tahar paused. ‘We are...whispers in the grass.’

The woman was quiet for some time, as if trying to picture all the things he had described. At length, she spoke. ‘Are you going to violate me, then? I am...’

‘A virgin? I could tell that just by looking at you,’ he said. It was a welcome confirmation of his belief, for it would raise her bride price significantly.

‘Are you going to kill me?’

‘Of course not.’ You are more valuable than all the salt in the Fezzan.

The woman exhaled. Moving her bound hands with agility, she pulled the headdress off her head and gathered it around her lithe, muscular body.

He would have to fatten her up, of course. No rich Minoan sea captain or powerful Nubian chief would trade anything of value for such a scrawny, sinuous bride. Proper Khemetian clothing and adornments would need to be procured, as well. And her eyes would need to be kohled, and her lips hennaed in the fashionable manner. Finally, her hair must be allowed to grow. Though most wellborn Khemetian women wore wigs upon their shaved heads, Tahar knew that foreign traders preferred the real thing.

He would have to train her—just as he had done with his father’s horse: tame her and give her time to swallow her fate. He would need to be wary, for Khemetian women were accustomed to more freedoms than women of the desert tribes. Given the opportunity, a Khemetian woman would take her advantage—or so he had discovered at the Houses of Women he frequented along the caravan routes. A Khemetian woman would rub your back while unclasping your necklace. She would nibble your earlobes while pillaging your saddlebags.

Still, after he had quieted her will and thickened her flanks there would be no trader able to resist the healthy young bride. She was Khemetian, after all—a goddess from the land blessed by the Gods—and she was going to make Tahar rich.

The woman cocked her head and looked up at him, her expression drained of pride. ‘Please, let me go,’ she begged. She lifted her bound hands beseechingly. ‘I must return to my home. My mother and sister will not survive without the grain I carry...carried.’ She blinked, and a lone tear traced a path down her dusty face.

Tahar felt his stomach twist into a knot. Her intentions seemed laudable. She apparently wished to save her family, to relieve their hunger. Careful, man. A Khemetian woman will say whatever she needs to say.

‘The Great River will swell in only three more cycles of the moon,’ he assured her. ‘The flood will be late, but it will come. Your family will survive. Do not fear for them.’

‘But how can you know when the Great River will flood? You are not a priest or a seer. You cannot know the future. You are a liar, a trader—’

‘That is all!’ Tahar snapped. He would not abide her disparagement of his profession, lowly though it was. It had kept him alive all these years, and in the good favour of his tribe and the merchants he served. ‘You should give thanks for your life.’

‘And what do you intend to do with that life?’ she asked sharply, her lip betraying a tremble. Her eyes were so large and luminous. They challenged and begged all at once.