A/N: This fic isn't dead, and neither am I (yet)! Sorry about the long wait between updates. Life has just been all kinds of crazy lately, as those who read my LiveJournal know. That doesn't mean I've abandoned this project, though. I promise that no matter how much time passes, I will finish this one. Fanfic is what's currently keeping me sane, and this fic tops the list.

One of the main reasons this chapter took so long to come out is that it didn't actually exist when I posted the prologue, but something got itself written later in the fic that demanded this part happen. It'll all become clear in the end. As I've said before of my multi-chapter fics: give it a chance to make sense and it will.

And for the record, the majority of this fic will now take place in Ancient Egypt. Sorry if that wasn't clear from the prologue.

1. A Very Good Place to Start

Beginnings are usually scary and endings are usually sad, but it's the middle that counts. You have to remember this when you find yourself at the beginning.­ -- Sandra Bullock

Panya was nothing special, really. Everybody knew it. She knew it too, and was perfectly comfortable with the fact. Her nature was pleasant, her teeth somewhat even, and her eyes and hair the same pleasing shade of nut brown. If she couldn't compete with beauty of her sisters then so be it. She was content to be the plain daughter, sitting quietly by her mother's side while the other two fretted about what jewellery set off their heavily applied make-up.

"You're awfully dull, Panya," Jamila was constantly telling her. Jamila had glossy hair that she tried to keep in a fashionable cut – although by the time news of what was fashionable reached their village it had already passed out of style in the cities. "You just sit there all day like a lump of clay. Are you waiting for the gods to turn you into something better?"

Panya just shrugged and got on with whatever menial task she was doing.

Neither Jamila nor Nanu ever bothered about household chores unless reminded. Then they complained, and were happy to 'forget' given half a chance. Panya had to pick up their slack while they went off to giggle with their friends, and tried to divine which boys would be their husbands by sticking fruit seeds to their foreheads.

"You shouldn't let them take advantage like that, Panya," her father said.

"They have responsibilities," her mother warned. "It'll do them no good if you're constantly covering for their laziness."

"But I like being busy."

"You should still go out and socialise more."

She shrugged. It was her favourite response. "I'm happy as I am."

Panya went about her business quietly and competently. She preferred a life where everything stayed the same and pleasure could be found in doing simple tasks well. Jamila and Nanu wished they could live in the palace as wives of the Pharaoh. They dreamed about expensive clothes and gifts from suitors far above their station. Nanu in particular loved to talk about the fine foods nobles enjoyed, and would often greet meals with a wrinkled nose because they were so simple.

"Be happy with what you have," their father told her. "Be more like Panya. She never complains."

Nanu rolled her eyes and glared at her, even though Panya still had the embroidery for her sister's new slip balanced on her knee while they ate. "If I was more like Panya I'd be as plain as the food."

"As plain as mud," Jamila giggled, until their mother scolded them both.

"You should stand up for yourself," she told Panya when both Jamila and Nanu had gone with very bad grace to fetch water from the well. She was a mild woman most of the time, but sometimes having three daughters tried her patience. "You never defend yourself, Panya. You just let people walk all over you."

Panya shrugged and went back to her embroidery. "I'm happy as I am."

In contrast to her sisters, Panya liked living in their little village. It was quiet, and they were close enough to the river that she could go down as often as she liked and work in the sunshine. She liked working. Moreover, she liked feeling useful. She was rather serious, which made her extra unpopular with her sisters, whose playfulness filled up their personalities like bread soaking up water. She'd never really done anything just for fun if there were other tasks to do – and with Jamila and Nanu around there were always other tasks that needed to be done.

She didn't seek out potential husbands. Men tended to forget all about her, the way you forget about a bench or a tool unless you need to use it. Panya faded so much into the background that any boys who did call for her sisters rarely registered there was a third daughter in the household.

It was an especially hot day when her life changed. Absorbed in mending one of Jamila's linen dresses, Panya didn't notice the boy lurking in the reeds. It wasn't until he let out a groan that she realised she wasn't alone on the riverbank. Automatically her hand went to the little knife she kept for cutting fabric. Unlike many villages, women didn't habitually carry weapons here. It was too quiet. Some of the more frustrated men longed for an excuse to go into battle, especially when they heard stories of wars the Pharaoh's army fought in other parts of Egypt. Sometimes their dissatisfaction worried Panya, but she didn't like to think too much about it.

The boy was no threat. He'd been badly wounded. When she pulled aside the reeds she could see the jagged slash along his thigh, and the dirt encrusted along the edge of the wound. His face was sweaty and drawn with pain and fear.

Her first response was the call her father, but the boy grabbed her wrist.

"Please don't," he begged. "They'll kill me."

"Who will?"

"The men of your village."

"Why would they do that?"

"They'll think I'm a spy."

"A spy?" Panya said incredulously. "Sent by whom? And to spy on what? We're such a small village we don't even have our own judge. We have to share on with three other settlements, and even then most decisions are made by the villagers themselves. For the most part people don't even know we exist. There's nothing worth spying on here. Nothing ever happens here."

But he was insistent; terrified that if he was discovered by anyone else he'd be killed.

"I'm not meant to be here," he burbled, speaking more freely than he should have. "I was separated from my tribe. I've been trying to catch up with them. We're supposed to all be travelling together, but I help look after the goats. A few broke free and I volunteered to round them up, but I went too far to be heard. Raiders found me. They killed the goats. Wanted the meat, I suppose. Would've killed me, too, but I got away." Perhaps it was the pain, or perhaps he thought that he could trade for his life with information. Women were notorious gossips, weren't they? If he had met any other woman, then perhaps, but Panya was different.

Still, she froze at the mention of Raiders. "How close were the Raiders?" If they came to the village they'd either pass right by or slaughter everyone. There was never a third option with Raiders.

"It was yesterday. I was walking all night, so far from here. I'm so tired …" The boy's eyes fluttered. "Please don't kill me."

"I won't kill you."

"I don't want to die."

He was so pitiable that Panya's sensible heart twisted. She couldn't understand her own reactions. Even as she went back to the house, snuck out what she needed and could hide under her slip, and used Jamila's dress as bandages after she'd cleaned his wound, she was trying to figure out what she was thinking.

She knew this boy was one of the nomads who sometimes travelled by this area – infrequently, but she'd heard about them once or twice. Raiders often followed the bigger tribes, like jackals tracking herds of grazing animals because they were easier prey than more cunning wild beasts. She'd also heard about what Raiders did if they caught up with them. Consequently, nomads were seen as magnets of bad luck, not to mention beneath the status of regular Egyptians. 'Godless', her father called them, and 'sinful'. They were fine to trade with, but you always had to remember they were different, in the way crows were different than songbirds, or dust different than the nutrient-rich silt the Nile left in the fields after each flood.

"You can't trust nomads," her uncles always told Panya after they and her father returned from market in the bigger village fifteen miles away. "They'll swindle you as soon as look at you. They don't have the same respect for the law that we do."

"Nomads don't have laws," her father grumbled. "They don't believe in Ma'at. Heathens, all of them. The Pharaoh shouldn't let them wander about the way they do, not with the all the damage of the war."

"I heard," said one fat auntie, "that nomads sell Egypt's secrets to other nations."

"That would certainly explain how they can cross the borders as easily as they do. They're cheats and liars. They'd sell out their own people for money."

"I heard they kidnap women and sell them into slavery in the border nations."

"I thought that was Raiders?"

"Raiders, nomads – it's all much of a much. I don't want any of them near me, and I can't think of anyone who would."

Calling someone 'nomad' was an insult, to be hurled in an argument when you were really angry. Panya had grown up being told that nomads never washed, stole, pillaged, and were basically just a step up from bloodthirsty Raiders. She'd sometimes wondered whether these things could possibly be true, since the men who went to market sometimes brought back dazzling bits of tribal jewellery. Surely nobody who could use their hands for something so beautiful could be as evil as people said. But she was just one girl. Her opinions didn't count for much.

This boy was none of the things she'd be told. Despite wandering in the wilderness, he'd taken the time to wash himself, he wasn't daubed in the sigils of human sacrifice, and he had been so very frightened before he passed out. He wasn't a figure from a nightmare; he was just a lost and injured boy, like any boy from the village. The only difference she could see was extra scrawniness and an accent when he talked.

Her practically nature emerged in the way she treated his wound. When he woke up she fed him, and then made him drink a concoction of herbs her mother had taught her would dull pain and speed healing. She changed his bandages, making sure the new ones were scented with oils to keep away disease that might try to infect the wound. It was a miracle it wasn't infected already, she told him. She wasn't a doctor, so if it had been she probably couldn't have done anything to stop it spreading.

He was amazed she was helping him, and even more amazed she hadn't told anyone about him.

"You asked me not to."

"Yes, but … I didn't actually expect you to listen."

"Why not?"

He blinked at her. "Because you're Egyptian."

Panya bristled slightly.

"That's not what I … I just meant that I'm not. I'm a nomad. Surely you've figured that out by now."

"Of course I did. I'm not stupid. But what difference does that make?"

He stared at her, nonplussed. Then he closed his mouth and his frown eased. "None at all. I suppose."

Inwardly, the answer wasn't so easy to explain. Panya found her stomach hurt when she thought about the boy laying the reeds, missing his family, wondering if he was going to die. She felt sorry for him, but it was more than that. She wondered whether his tribe would come looking for him. Would they approach the village? What would happen if they did? That thought sent her cold. She liked a simple life, but suddenly hers was anything but.

She told Jamila the dress had been too badly damaged to repair and completely failed to mention what she'd actually used it for. Nobody ever suspected she was keeping secrets. Panya wasn't that type of girl. She disliked the idea of stealing from her family, so she just ate less and took the rest to the boy.

He stayed by the river, nestled in a cove formed by the roots of a tree where the bank had worn away. Hippos and crocodiles avoided the area, and villagers preferred the more solid ground upstream. Each day he would hide until Panya appeared, sometimes carrying washing or mending, sometimes with nothing in her hands but with a message she was supposed to be taking to someone else in the village, which had given her the excuse to go out.

"You're being very generous. What do you want from me in return?"

She frowned when he asked this. "Nothing."

"But then why are you helping me?"

"Because you need help. If people didn't help each other the world would be in a sorry state."

"This goes beyond just showing me kindness. You're going out of your way to take care of me. I don't want you getting into trouble because of me." He stared at the fruit she'd brought him, turning it over in his hands. He had wide hands, darker than her own, and rough with the calluses of holding weapons and working with the goats.

He told her lots of things about tribal life. He explained about the Great Spirits, about how they camped and decamped, how they hunted and traded, how they survived and lived alongside Egyptians while being so different.

But they're not so different after all, Panya thought as she listened to him. They still have families. They still have loyalty. They still have everything we Egyptians have. They're still just people. She never felt anything but safe in his company. She never felt that he was lying to her, either. She didn't know how. Maybe it was his eyes – blue as a cloudless sky and so filled with honesty that trusting him came as naturally as breathing.

He'd been training as a warrior, he told her, when his tribe moved camp. Every young nomad man, no matter what other tasks he'd done since childhood, trained to take the Warrior Test. He was due to take his soon.

"Or I would have been. I wonder if I'll ever see my people again," he'd said when he first told her about this.

"You will." Panya didn't have the right personality to add 'if you wish for it hard enough' or anything like that. She was the type of girl who believed in cleanliness, always checking your bed for scorpions before you lay down, and choosing thread that wouldn't show when you mended your good clothes. She did pat his shoulder, though.

Now he just stared at the fruit, and she didn't pat his shoulder because she'd suddenly noticed how well-defined they were, and it had caused a strange fluttery sensation in her gut.

"You've come to mean a great deal to me, Panya."

Enough, it seemed, that when he was able to walk again he told her he was going to leave.

"It's too dangerous for me to stay. It's a wonder I haven't been discovered up to now – you too. I don't want to push my luck any further. Believe me, it's better if I go."

Panya stared at him, that strange fluttering inside her again. "But I don't want you to go."

He did go, though, taking with him the pack of food she'd finally decided to steal for him, and the few bits of jewellery she owned, so he could trade his way back to his tribe – all of which was flung on the ground as evidence of his guilt when they dragged him back into the village that night.

"We found him skulking around, obviously up to no good," said the men who'd discovered him. "Filthy nomad." They said the word as one might say 'cat dirt' or 'camel dung'.

Panya was hustled away with the rest of the women who tried to see what was causing such a stir. She surprised her mother by fighting her way back to the jeering circle. Her behaviour was so uncharacteristic that she was able to slip past a lot of bodies before someone took her arm and yanked her back.

He was on the ground, covered in cuts and bruises. One arm was bent at an odd angle. He caught her eye and gave a slight shake of his head. They thought he'd only just arrived in the area. They didn't know how she'd been caring for him, and judging by the way everyone was reacting now, if that came out it would go badly for her.

Panya looked around at the men and women of her village. She'd grown up with these people. She'd listened to their stories, learned what they had to teach her, and looked up to them for as long as she could remember. Yet at the moment she barely recognised them. Their prejudice had made them strangers. It had made them terrifying. Their fear of Raiders, their intolerance of non-Egyptians, and their frustration at their quiet, simple lives had turned them into a mob. The law that they believed made them better than others was suddenly a knarled and twisted thing, like a club made from heavy wood.

His body was flung into the river for the animals to eat. As a godless nomad he wasn't granted any kind of burial ritual. Nobody ever spoke of the incident again, except to say how brave the men had been, protecting their women from such a dangerous thieving outsider.

Panya stayed silent. She'd screamed once, but that was into her fist, as she was hustled away and heard the sickening crack of rock meeting bone. She never commented on what had happened. In fact she almost stopped talking altogether. She went on with her work, never straying from her daily routine, but her face seemed to have forgotten how to smile, and her heart felt heavy as the fabled sky-iron that was used in only the most sacred temples.

Eventually her parents grew concerned over her moroseness and lack of appetite. Even Jamila and Nanu noticed.

"Are you ill?"

"Should we ask to borrow a donkey and take you to the doctor in the next village?"

Panya shook her head. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

"You look sick."

"Are you sick?"

"No," Panya replied.

She was, but it was heartsickness and no medicine could cure that. The previous night she'd had a nightmare so vivid it actually made her vomit when she woke up. She couldn't forget the sight of his face as she'd last seen it, compared to what he'd looked like as he told her about his mother and father, the Great Spirits, and the things he'd be able to do once he passed the Warrior Test.

Panya squeezed her eyes shut. "I'm fine. Honestly. Don't worry about me."

When she discovered she was with child she knew what she had to do. She couldn't write well enough to leave a letter explaining properly, and they had no papyrus in their house anyway. She scratched a brief note in the dirt outside the front door, knowing it would be seen when her family rose in the morning.

His name was Kafele. He was not evil. I loved him very much. I am safe. Do not worry about me.

The city of Akhenamkhat, named for Pharaoh Akhenamkhanen, was an easy place to lose yourself in. it was a working city, forever expanding and building new districts for people to fill. Panya was absorbed as an Egyptian citizen, became a seamstress and joined a group of women in the fabric district. In seemingly no time at all her quick hands and light touch put her in high demand. Even when her belly started to swell, she just balanced her work on it and carried on without complaint.

She told people she was a widow, and that she'd been travelling with her husband to register the marriage when they were attacked by Raiders. The papers were lost along with her husband. She'd carried on because she had nowhere else to go except the place where they'd planned to start their new life.

"Village life was so small," she only half-lied. "We planned to do so much together, but the village and the people there was so small-minded we couldn't stay. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do without him …"

"Such a sad story," said the head seamstress, a woman with enough independent means that she'd never bothered with a husband for herself. "But don't worry, darling. We'll take care of you. We look out for our own, here."

And they did. When her son was born the other seamstresses treated him like additional mothers. He had a happy infancy, and an even happier childhood. Someone was always on hand to look after him, and he never wanted for attention, but with so many strong-minded women around the arrogance this might have brought was quelled early on.

He had his mother's hair colour and complexion, but his father's blue eyes. As he grew, Panya saw echoes of Kafele in the way their son's easy charm and fierce desire to protect his loved ones.

"Our own little Guard," the head seamstress said, clapping her hands with glee when he marched up and down the workshop on chubby legs, safeguarding them all with a stick and a pot someone had given him to use for a shield. "Oh, he's so adorable!"

Panya watched her son – Kafele's boy – and pride spiked within her. "He's perfect," she said, and vowed that nobody would ever convince her otherwise, or try to convince him either. She didn't tell anyone his father was a nomad, but in her heart she knew all the ideas about tribespeople were nothing more than lies, suspicion and Egyptian arrogance. Her son was half nomad, which apparently made him half filth, but he was perfect, and she would never let him believe differently as long as she lived.

His father was a City Guard. He grew up measuring himself against the shaft of a spear, waiting for the day it wasn't too big for him to throw. He always knew he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. Since the moment he could stand up and mimic the man's walk, he idolised him and wanted to be just like him. His mother thought it tiresome, but his father was flattered. He laughed at his son's mimicry and pulled him onto his lap for the same old routine they never got tired of.

"So what do you want to do with your life, my boy?"

"Spend it protecting people, like you."

"You mean you'd step in front of a thief and stop him even if you didn't know whether he was armed?"

"Yes."

"You mean you'd run into a burning building to save people?"

"Yes."

"You mean you'd work at night and sleep in the day, or go for days without any sleep at all if your superior told you to?"

"Yes."

"You'd follow orders no matter what?"

"No."

"No?"

"Only if they were just and given in order to protect ordinary people and safeguard the law. That's what being a City Guard is all about. The Guard protects Ma'at in the city."

"Good answer. I suppose you can stay my son for a while longer."

He played Guards and Robbers with his brother and sister – both younger than him but pretty good playmates nonetheless. His sister's blonde curls bounced as she ran, shrieking, from the 'robber', and she swooned with practised ease when he appeared as the Noble City Guard and Took Care of the Problem. The Guard always won, of course. They all agreed about that. Any other outcome was unthinkable.

So was the news that their father had died in the line of duty. Unthinkable. He'd known being a Guard was dangerous, but he'd never considered it would actually take his father from them. The family was devastated, and fell into a sort of stupor afterwards. They didn't begrudge their father his place in Paradise, but the sudden absence gaped like an open wound in their lives.

Maybe that was why he strode into the middle of the crowd of bullies when, by rights, he had no business getting involved. He wasn't from their circle. He wasn't even from their area of the city. He was just walking along the street, head in the hazy place it had been since his father died, when he heard the sound of a fight from down an alley. When he drew closer he could see it wasn't much of one – four against one, with handfuls of sand being flung around like children in a nursery. A foot connected with the one's belly, making him double over, and the four moved in like jackals ripping a lone goat to pieces.

Something snapped inside him. He didn't know the details of what was going on but he knew injustice when he saw it. The four boys weren't so brave when he waded in. He was big for his age, and powerful across his shoulders. He took after his father that way. He had also learned how to block and throw a good punch from an early age.

He knew how to block a bad punch too, which was all they threw. Typical mob behaviour: only brave when they were many and the enemy was weak enough. He made short work of them and then turned to their victim – who flung sand into his eyes and tried to run away.

He punched blind. His fist still managed to connect with the smaller boy. He heard the 'whoof' and 'thump' of a body hitting the floor. It didn't get up again.

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

"Why did you do that?" the boy demanded breathlessly. "I was fine on my own."

"No you weren't."

"I didn't need any help. I didn't need your help."

"No, you didn't want my help," he corrected calmly. His father had always said getting angry with people was counterproductive. The worst thing you could do to an angry suspect was tell them to calm down, but if you led by example, and refused to react to their anger, they couldn't help but do the same. People were more likely to meet you halfway if they believed they'd thought of it themselves. "You did need it, though. They would've killed you."

"Murder's against the law."

"It was a figure of speech."

"I know." The other boy sounded rankled, his anger cooling but not disappearing as the heat of battle left him. After a moment he asked, "If I get up, will you hit me again?"

"Will you try to blind me with sand again?"

"No."

"They I won't hit you."

A few seconds later the other boy got to his feet. Gritty tears couldn't mask his sour expression, or the blood caking his lip and left nostril. He spat red saliva onto the floor and rubbed his mouth with his wrist. He was shorter than average, with a shock of brown hair that looked like they'd been messy even before he got in the fight. He didn't wear it in the fashionable single forelock, with the rest of his head shaved. Maybe that was why he'd been picked on. Something about him exuded 'prey', even though the blood on his knuckles and mixed with sand under his fingernails said otherwise. This boy fought dirty.

"Why were you fighting with them?"

"Because they exist. Isn't that enough?"

"Disturbing the peace is an offence."

"What are you, a City Guard?" he snorted the words, but choked on the noise at the reply.

"Someday, yes."

The pause lasted several seconds. "Seriously?"

"Why do you sound surprised?"

"I don't know. I just … how old are you?"

"Nine."

"I'm nine, but I don't know what I want to do with my life yet." His expression darkened. "Except live it without having to defend myself just because I'm alive."

"What are you talking about?"

A bitter laugh – far too old for a nine year old. "You mean you can't tell just by looking at me? I would've thought I had it written on my forehead and hieroglyphs, from the way those four keep coming after me." He tilted his chin, as if inviting someone to take a shot at it. "I'm a nakmah."

"… Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"You don't know what a nakmah is?"

"Should I?"

Another chin tilt. Clearly, the smaller boy was anticipating more hostility, which just made him wonder why the boy had brought up the term at all, if he expected it to turn people against him. "My father was a nomad."

A pause. "And?"

That seemed to flummox the other boy. "You know. A nomad."

"I've heard of them."

"They're filth."

"You think so?"

"No!"

"Then why say it?"

"Because … because that's what everyone says!"

"I don't."

"Well you're a weirdo. A weirdo who gets involved in other people's business when he's not wanted, or needed, or … or … you're just a big klimkakh!" The smaller boy's eyes glittered like he'd just said something unforgivable. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Aren't you going to punish me for calling you that?"

"I don't even know what you just said."

The other boy deflated again. He scratched his head. "You don't react like a normal person to anything, do you?"

"I react like myself. My father taught me that to do anything else is dishonest."

"And you always do what your father says?" the other boy sneered.

"Said."

"What?"

"Said. Not says. My father is dead."

The other boy's eyes widened. He stood straighter. "I … I didn't …" He shifted his weight from bare foot to bare foot. His soles were thickly callused. Clearly his family didn't have wealth enough for sandals. "Mine too."

Something inside him keened softly at the bitterness in the boy's voice. He folded his arms and looked down at the same-age, same-city child who was still so different, so alien in looks and thoughts.

"My father was a City Guard. He died during a house fire. He saved three lives but lost his own."

"I … never actually met my father. He died before I was born. Because he was a nomad. He was … killed. Because of that. Because he was different. Like he didn't matter. And because of that, because of him, I'm called a nakmah. A half-breed. Half-human, almost. My mother's sisters … she moved away, but they got married and came to the city. They found her by accident when they wanted pregnancy dresses to reflect their husbands' high stations. They promised they wouldn't tell, but they must've, or maybe one of the other seamstresses overheard … but people found out, and so I'm a nakmah. Which means I'm fair game." The smaller boy nodded his head in the direction the four bullies had taken. "I've never told anyone all that," he said, sounding surprised. "Why am I telling you? I don't even know you."

"And I don't know you. But I know how you can stop believing them."

"What?"

"You believe them."

"About what? About being a nakmah? About being worthless just because of who my father was?" His bloodied hands tightened into fists.

"Are you telling me you don't?"

"I'm worth as much as anybody else in Akhenamkhat! As much as anybody else in all of Egypt!"

"But you still introduced yourself as a nakmah just now, before you even told me your name."

The fire in his eyes blazed like the blue centre of a flame. Then it faded. The boy seemed to collapse in on himself, his cuts, bruises, and the kicks he'd taken all working to make him tired and seem even smaller as his shoulders slumped. It had to be hard, living with the constant knowledge that people thought you were less than them.

He tried to put himself in the boy's place, but couldn't. He'd known his father. He was valued by all members of his family. His little brother and sister adored him. This boy, whether or not he had family waiting for him at home, looked as lonely as a single stem on a bank of flattered reeds.

"I'm not worthless," the boy muttered. "I'm not."

"So prove it."

"How?"

"Become a Guard like me. Guards prove themselves over and over, day after day and night after night. They use deeds, not words. You can't argue with deeds. It doesn't matter what your background is; if you're a Guard, people respect you. They have to, because half the time they couldn't do what Guards do, and they feel ashamed of themselves because they know it. Guards protect the law. They're champions of Ma'at. Nobody can disrespect a City Guard and still call themselves a true Egyptian."

The boy stared at him. "You think it's just that easy?"

"No. Nothing's easy. But it's true."

"You sound like a recruitment officer."

He shrugged.

The boy bit his lip. "I could really be a City Guard? They'd let me?"

"If they didn't, they'd answer to me."

The boy snorted. "As if that's any kind of threat."

"Believe me," he said seriously, "it would be. Nobody messes with my friends."

Panya watched her son and the boy-who-wasn't-her-son-but-might-as-well-be. She'd come to mentally tag him that way, and it fit more and more with each passing day. Last week, when he looked troubled, she had stroked her hands through his single hank of hair the way she did with her son's – he had convinced her son to wear his that way too, to look more the part for the recruiters. He hadn't even flinched. It had felt perfectly natural on both sides.

The boys were inseparable, though they'd each chew off their arms before being openly affectionate. Mostly you could tell their closeness from the way they stood; each trying to edge slightly in front of the other, as if to protect him. Since her son was so much smaller than his friend this was often funny to look at – like a fox trying to protect a lion.

Actually, that wasn't such a bad comparison. Her son was wiry and light on his feet, and since he didn't have much bulk he relied on speed and cunning in a fight, whereas his friend dwarfed almost everyone he met. If that boy took a swing at someone, they went down and stayed down. Sometimes they were unconscious but sometimes they stayed because it was dangerous to get up again if he was still around.

Yet at this moment, despite his size, he looked so small. Loss had a way of making you seem tiny.

"Boating accident," the neighbours tutted at each other. "The Nile claims so many."

"So tragic. He already lost his father, and now this."

"Mother, brother and sister, all drowned."

"They say a hippo sank them."

"I heard it was negligence for safety procedures. The skiff sprang a leak."

"No, it was definitely hippos. And it wasn't a skiff, it was a barge."

"Hippos? You mean there was more than one?"

"Two fighting bulls. Ploughed right into the boat. Nobody on board stood a chance. Even if they hadn't drowned, they'd have been crushed or maimed. Everyone knows the most dangerous animal in the world is an angry bull hippo."

"How awful."

"Was he there? Did he see it?"

"He was flung clear – right out of the boat. Knocked unconscious. Washed up on shore unscathed after everything was over. Everyone says it's a miracle. He was the only survivor, you know."

"What'll he do now?"

"Has he any relatives who could take him in?"

"Not if he wants to stay in Akhenamkhat."

"So he'll be sent away, then."

"Such a shame."

"Can't be helped."

Panya tried not to listen or think too much about her neighbours' gossip. They were like midge buzzings. However, like midges, you couldn't just wave them away and expect them to go. The places where they'd bitten into her memory swelled up, making her thoughts hot and itchy. She didn't know what her son's friend would do now, either, and that worried her. To look at him, you could've mistaken him for someone with no passion, but she knew his emotions ran deep and motivated him in everything he did. His life path had been chosen by his love for his father, after all. This new tragedy could break him, if he let it.

If they let it break him.

"I couldn't protect them," he kept murmuring. "I'm the man of the family. It's supposed to be my job to look after them. And I couldn't. I failed. I failed my family …" He looked as shell-shocked now as he had when rescuers first pulled him out of the water and told him what had happened.

Panya understood loss. She knew how corrosive it could be unless you found a way to channel the emotions into something more practical. She couldn't conceive of another way to deal with that kind of pain. Just sitting around and moping had never been the way she did things, and the past years spent around her had rubbed off on both boys as they grew. They weren't really boys anymore, she thought; they were young men.

Except when they were hurting like this. They'd always be her boys then – both of them. Blood wasn't everything, after all.

"You'll live with us," she said.

"I have to go to family -"

"Exactly."

He looked up at her, still dazed, but also grateful. Everything he'd ever planned to do was here in Akhenamkhat. His relatives would let him stay if he asked them.

Her boys stayed together from that day onwards. They lived with her, and she cared for them even as her eyesight failed from work, and her hands became knarled, and her back bowed from long hours at it. Despite all this, she still went to the door the day each day to watch them down the street – including the day they attended the tryouts for the City Guard recruitment officers. She strained her eyes to see them right to the corner, and was left with a headache as she worried whether or not they'd pass muster.

She hobbled to the door on the day they left, and watched them down the street as they took their meagre belongings and followed the officer who had come to take them to the training barracks.

"I won't fail again," Rafael swore in the low monotone he'd adopted since the river accident. What little emotion he showed seemed to have drained out of him into the water that day, except when it came to one thing. "I'll never fail in protecting people ever again."

Panya worried about his determination. He was so blinkered, and being a Guard could be a dangerous job …

"Don't worry, Mother," her son said, hugging her briefly and whispering into her ear. "I'll watch out for him."

"Watch out for yourself as well," she murmured back. "Stay safe, both of you."

"I'll make you proud." His eyes shone. "My father, too."

Panya's heart smacked against her ribcage. In a few months it would do this so hard it would stop itself, and she'd die in the middle of the workshop, her head pillowed on the head seamstress's lap. For now, though, it just beat faster with pride. He may be rough around the edges, too quick with his fists and still prone to getting into fights he couldn't handle if he was insulted, but her son remained the best thing she'd ever done with her life.

"You already have, Valon."

To Be Continued …

Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs

A Very Good Place to Start

-- The chapter title comes from the song Doh-Ray-Mi, from The Sound of Music – to wit: 'Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start'.

Panya was nothing special, really.

-- Panya is an Egyptian name that means 'mouse'.

Jamila had glossy hair that she tried to keep in a fashionable cut – although by the time news of what was fashionable reached their village it had already passed out of style in the cities.

-- Jamila is a Swahili name that means 'beautiful'.

Nanu in particular loved to talk about the fine foods nobles enjoyed, and would often greet meals with a wrinkled nose because they were so simple.

-- Nanu is an Egyptian name that means 'beautiful'.

"They don't believe in Ma'at. Heathens, all of them. The Pharaoh shouldn't let them wander about the way they do, not with the all the damage of the war."

-- Ma'at was a goddess, but several historians say she's actually more of a concept than an actual deity. Ma'at was the personification of the fundamental order of the universe, without which all of creation would perish. The primary duty of the pharaoh was to uphold this order by maintaining the law and administering justice. To reflect this, many pharaohs took the title "Beloved of Ma'at," emphasising their focus on justice and truth. At any event in which something would be judged, Ma'at was said to be present, and her name would be invoked so that the judge involved would rule correctly and impartially. In the underworld, the heart of the deceased was weighed by Anubis against Ma'at's feather. If the heart was heavy with wicked deeds, it would outweigh the feather, and the soul would be fed to Ammit (a demon with the head of crocodile, the torso of a leopard and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus), but if the scales were balanced, indicating that the deceased was a just and honourable person in life, he would be welcomed by Osiris, the Lord of the Dead, into Paradise. Ma'at's presence in all worlds was universal, and all the gods deferred to her. Ma'at was worshipped and revered widely throughout all of Egypt. Even the gods are shown praising Ma'at. For more information about the idea of Ma'at follow this link -- touregypt. net/godsofegypt/maat2. htm

His name was Kafele. He was not evil. I loved him very much. I am safe. Do not worry about me.

-- Kafele is an African name that means 'worth giving one's life for'.