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sled.
    Sleep." Staggering to the back, he curled into a ball and slept.
    Tetisheri sat in the sand, her back supported by the bundles on the sled. Amun-Ra was
    preparing to depart, spinning orange and low in the sky, taking the worst of the extreme
    heat toward the ground in his descent.
    When she tried to rotate her ankle, pain shot through her like a stabbing knife. It was more
    than physical agony that caused tears to jump to her eyes: How would she dance with a
    broken foot? Nakht and Renenutet would surely send her home now.
    The trip back to her village had been disorienting. Ramose had returned as a hero. Tetisheri
    had been greeted as a sort of royal figure as well. Everyone assumed she would wed
    Ramose, even her parents, who were clearly delighted at the prospect. Somehow it seemed
    inevitable.
    A mewing sound came from the covered basket sitting among the bundles at her back.
    Stretching around, she took it down and reached inside to check on the small black-and-
    orange wild kitten she had found during the visit home.
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    The villagers enticed the feral cats with scraps of food so they would come to their yards to
    eat the rodents that decimated their grain stores. This little one had been wandering in her
    parents' courtyard with no mother in sight.
    Renenutet kept statues of Bast, the cat goddess with the feline head and the body of a
    woman, all over the house. Bast was a daughter of Osiris and Isis, the twin sister of Horus.
    She was the keeper of his sacred Eye. She was also the mother of the lion god, Mihos. Surely
    Renenutet was a lover of cats and wouldn't object if Tetisheri brought this pet into the
    household.
    Tetisheri reached into the basket to check on her new pet. The kitten clawed playfully at her
    hand, nipping her. "You're a frisky baby," she said. "Settle down. We'll be home soon."
    Taking it onto her lap, she stroked its soft fur until it purred.
    In little more than fifteen minutes, the slave was up again. He bowed and began to tie
    himself to the sled. "Is your head better?" she asked as she returned the kitten to its
    basket.
    Touching his forehead, he nodded. His eyes were bright, refreshed. She stopped and looked
    at his dark, desert-lined face and saw him as if for the first time. His face was not her idea of
    classic beauty, not like Ramose with his almond eyes and long, straight nose, but she saw
    something there that drew her.
    "Sit with me a moment more," she entreated him.
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    As he settled tentatively beside her, she drew in the sand the hieroglyph for peace.
    It was unusual for anyone other than a priest, priestess, or royalty to be able to read or
    write, but she had learned a little from her father while working in his shop. They sometimes
    had to inscribe an urn, jar, vase, or canopic jar.
    He nodded his agreement and responded with two hieroglyphs: No harm.
    She smiled a little and he answered with an equally slight smile.
    How she wished he could speak. She wanted desperately to talk to him right then because
    she now felt the need to patch together the links that connected the information she
    already had. He was a captured soldier. He could write in Egyptian hieroglyphs. He had
    some illness that pained his head. And she had dreamed of him, dreamed of him so deeply
    that it was as if she had drunk in his spirit.
    Was this the ka of which her father had spoken? Had their ka spirits met in the dreamtime, each clutching for the mysterious green jewel? Was that why the feeling of knowing him
    was now so strong?
    Was it why she had feared him at first sight?
    Was the fear warranted, an omen?
    Were they destined to tumble down some endless tunnel together? In a flash, she saw the
    image again in her mind's eye. A shudder of fear ran up her spine and made her shoulders
    quiver.
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    On impulse, she drew two stick figures in the sand. She depicted them tumbling from a cliff.
    She pointed to herself and to him.
    He stared at her, his face filled with amazement. Then he nodded