Chapter 119 - 13: The Southland Takes Root — The Nubian Settlement Breaks Ground

Chapter 119: Chapter 13: The Southland Takes Root — The Nubian Settlement Breaks Ground

Kes saw the river valley on the afternoon of the third day.

Over the last earth ridge, the valley lay at his feet. A small river came flowing from the east, curved around the high ridge, and went south, out of sight. On the riverbank, several dozen broken shelters lay scattered, sparse and low. The shelters were low to the ground, their wall surfaces peeling away in patches, their roof reeds bleached white by the sun, year after year.

Behind him came En-Tu with the dozen and more donkeys, carrying the first batch of goods transferred from the border river ferry. In those three days, they had traveled by day and camped in the wild by night. The further south, the hotter the wind and the drier the earth. But Kes’s steps grew faster, day by day.

"Slow down." En-Tu shouted from behind. "The donkeys cannot keep up with you."

"If they cannot keep up," Kes looked back and smiled, "let them run ahead carrying my letters."

Under the old silk tree at the village mouth, a person sat.

Kes’s steps nailed themselves to the ground.

It was a woman with greying hair, holding a length of unfinished cloth in her arms. She faced north, motionless, as if she had sat beneath this earth ridge for a hundred years.

"Mother—"

When Kes shouted the word, his throat seemed blocked by something.

The woman under the tree slowly turned her head. She squinted, looked a while, and suddenly rose to her feet; the spindle of the loom fell from her lap to the ground and rolled far off, into the dust.

"Kes?" Her voice shook hard. "Is it my son’s . . . is it my son’s Kes?"

Kes ran down the slope, ran to her, and dropped to his knees.

"Mother," he said, "it is me. I am back."

The woman reached out her hand and felt his face, once, and once more. She felt the eyebrows, the jaw, the scar on the back of his neck from a fall when he was small. Her hands were rough as tree bark.

"Back." she said. "Back is good." She did not weep; she only gripped his arm, hard. "Four years . . . four years and one spring. I counted every day."

"Your son is unfilial." Kes said. "I made you wait four years."

"Unfilial, nothing." the woman said. "Going to study a craft is a proper matter. The whole clan is watching." She pulled him up, turned toward the village, and shouted, "Come out, everyone! My son is back! Back with his finished craft!"

That one shout moved the whole valley.

Out of the broken shelters, people came one after another. Old people leaning on canes, children running barefoot, women carrying infants in their arms. They gathered around in a ring, and did not dare come too close, and watched this "young fellow back from the new capital" from a few steps off, from behind the nearest wall corners. Those who knew him called "Kes"; those who did not asked in a low voice: "Is this the one who went north to study the craft?"

"He is." the person beside them said. "Gone four years."

The old clan chief was helped out by En-Tu. He was past ninety, his back bowed, but his eyes were still bright. He walked up to Kes and looked him over, top to bottom, and suddenly smiled, showing a mouth of sparse teeth: "The image. The image of your father when he was young."

"Grandfather chief." Kes said. "I am back."

"Back is good." the old clan chief said. "I tell the clan every day — that boy Kes will come back. Come back carrying the craft." He reached out a withered hand and patted Kes’s shoulder. "I am old. This clan, from now on, must lean on you."

Kes said nothing. He looked at the dark, thin faces before him, and at the shelters fallen in by halves, one after another, and at the bare feet of the children in the dirt. He felt a very heavy thing settle on his shoulders, heavier than any pack he had carried, and he knew what it was, and he did not set it down.

"Grandfather," he said, "I have brought you a gift."

He took out the packet of salt and the few copper pieces from his pack and held them up: "This is what my mother saved over three years. I did not touch a bit of it, and brought it all back." He paused. "And this." He unrolled a sheet — the transcript of the code of laws. "This is Egypt’s new law. No levies in the busy season. Paid labor in the idle season. From now on, no one can make our people work for nothing."

The old clan chief took the roll, and turned it over, and turned it back. He could not read, but he pressed the roll to his chest and said: "Good. A good thing. Enshrine it."

"Do not enshrine it." Kes said. "Hold it in the hand, ready for use at any time."

That night, Kes laid out the packet of salt and the copper pieces his mother had given him, one by one. Then he handed his mother the two bolts of coarse cloth Nefer had sent: "Mother, this is from Aunt Nefer of Thebes, sent for you. For you to cut a new robe."

"A new robe . . ." The woman felt the cloth, and her eyes reddened. "Four years, and this is the first time anyone has thought of me, to give me a new robe."

"From now on," Kes said, "the people who think of you will only grow more."

"Tell your mother," the woman drew close to the lamp, "these four years — what did you study?"

"I studied reading the ground." Kes said. "Studied laying walls, raising granaries, keeping accounts, opening medical points." He counted them off one by one. "And I studied how to gather scattered people into one place."

"Gather into one place . . ." the woman murmured. "When your father lived, he said the same. He said, when the clanspeople are scattered, the hearts are scattered. He said it half his life, and it never came to pass."

"What father did not bring to pass," Kes said, "I will go on and do."

The next day, the first thing Kes did was walk.

He led a group of half-grown children and walked the whole valley, up and down, from the riverbank to the ridge. The three places of broken shelters, the one old spring, the flat ground at the village mouth, the stones of the riverbank, the high ridge to the east. At every place he crouched down, scooped up a handful of earth, kneaded it in his palm, and looked at it, close. Wherever he went, he measured — with paces, with the hemp rope, and with his snow-white lime line, plumbed again and again against the ground.

"This spring is silted." he stood at the old spring and said. "The water mouth is half blocked by sand. If it is not cleared, the water cuts off in this year’s dry season."

"This flat ground is low." he walked on to the village mouth. "When it rains, it floods. The grain-drying must move somewhere else."

"This high ridge," he stood on the ridge at last and said, "is a good place. The earth is clay, steady. Half a li from the spring, half a li from the river. The damp cannot climb it, and for hauling the grain in and out, there are two roads." He turned and looked north once more. "Its back to the wind, its face to the sun. In winter, the north wind is blocked by the earth ridge; in summer, the river wind comes from the east. The new home stands below the ridge’s south slope."

The children followed him, nodding as if they half understood. A child asked: "Brother Kes, what are you looking at?"

"Home." Kes said. "Looking at how our home should be stood."

"Is there not a home already?" The child pointed at the broken shelters far off.

"That is a den." Kes said. "It keeps off the rain, but it cannot carry the winter. A home must stand firm, stand straight, and give peace." He patted the child’s head. "Later, you will all know."

Tuxi walked at the very back. He said nothing, and memorized Kes’s words, sentence by sentence, in his heart.

That evening, Kes gathered the whole clan on the open ground at the village mouth. The people came and sat in a wide ring, the old on stones and the young on the bare earth.

"Uncles and elders." Kes stood on a stone in the middle and said, "I have studied in the north for four years. Studied reading the ground, laying walls, raising granaries. My teacher is Lu Zhu, the Chief Builder who stood up the laws for all Egypt. The first thing he taught me was — the people must settle in first."

The torchlight threw his shadow on the ground, long.

"This valley of ours — three places of shelters, forty-some households." he said. "Seventeen rooms have fallen. If we go on in the old way, mending one patch east and one patch west, next year there will be more fallen. And so, I want to gather everyone into one place."

"Gather?" In the crowd, an old clansman spoke. "Places lived in for generations, moved just like that? My grandfather’s grandfather is buried on the west slope. Move the home, and who tends their graves?"

"The home moves, and the graves do not." Kes said. "The new home is only two li from the west slope. At the festivals, the grave-tending goes on as before. The road is still that road."

"And my few ridges of land?" Another woman asked. "My land is east, and if the home moves to the south slope, how much wasted road must I walk in a day?"

"Auntie," Kes said, "I have reckoned it. From the new home to your land is half a li nearer than from your present shelter. If you do not believe it, tomorrow I will walk it with you, and measure it in paces."

"And the water." an old man said. "The old spring is west. If you move everyone to the south slope, must we not walk half a li more for drinking water?"

"The water, I will tend." Kes said. "The old spring must be cleared, and a platform built. With the platform up, the water is led to the village’s edge. From then on, drawing water is nearer than now."

"But . . ." The first old clansman wanted to speak on.

"Brother." The old clan chief spoke. "Hear him out. This boy studied real things in the north. Last year, River-Channel Village and the fishing village of Egypt all raised new granaries. It is a law that all Egypt must follow. And this boy raised them alongside." He paused. "I have lived ninety years, and never waited out a man who could stand a home. Now one has come. And you would still block him?"

The crowd went quiet.

"I hear the chief." someone said first.

"I hear him too." another said.

"Then good." Kes said. "The work opens tomorrow. The first matter — raising the shelters."

The shelters took three days.

Not long-stay shelters, but work shelters — the usable material of the three broken places, rafters, door planks, old reed mats, all of it gathered below the high ridge and raised into a dozen and more long communal sleeping sheds. The men dismantled and carried the loads, the women boiled water and cooked the meals, the children carried straw and passed rope, and no hand in the valley stood idle. The whole valley, for the first time in who knew how many years, was this lively.

Kes himself lived in the sheds too. He crowded in with the clan’s young men, and at night listened to them tell the four years’ story — which year dry, which year flooded, which year the roving soldiers robbed the grain on the road. At the sorrowful parts, no one spoke; at the hopeful parts, they all turned and looked at Kes.

"These sheds," Kes said to the clanspeople, "we live in one month. After the month, the first batch of you move into the new houses."

"New houses?" The clanspeople’s eyes went wide. "One month?"

"One month." Kes said. "The households whose rooms fell come first."

"And us?" a young fellow asked.

"You?" Kes said. "You come to work. Carry material, form bricks, tamp earth. The house is being stood for yourselves, and the labor must come from yourselves." He paused. "Set your hearts at rest — the wages are entered as they should be. Entered in the account of ’built by the villagers as a voluntary work,’ the same as River-Bend Village, and on the roster, your names are written."

"Voluntary work . . ." The young fellows chewed on the words. "They sound stirring."

On the night of the third day, Shunzi arrived.

He had driven ten donkeys from the border river ferry, three days on the road. On the donkeys’ backs was the first batch of goods — grain, material, medicine, packed and roped. Seeing Kes, Shunzi jumped off the donkey and came over: "Brother Kes, Uncle Meru sent word: the first batch — thirty dan of grain, ten chests of medicine — enough for your clan to eat until the start of autumn. The material follows behind."

"One thing more." Shunzi said. "The border transit storehouse has been cleared out. From now on, I come twice a month. Whatever your clan needs, write the manifest. The wooden board — where is it?"

Kes drew out the board carved with three water lines: "Carried on me. The manifest matched to the board, and the store lets out the material."

"Right." Shunzi said. "The first trip’s material manifest, I have brought. Check it."

Kes took the manifest and checked it item by item. At the timber column, he suddenly smiled: "Shunzi, do you remember Old Ba of the border town?"

"I remember." Shunzi said. "The one waiting for timber to build his son’s wedding house. This trip’s material holds his — Uncle Meru approved it himself, the first share." He paused. "The day Old Ba got his timber, he wept on the dock for a quarter of an hour. He said that when his son takes a wife, the first cup of wine will be raised from afar to Shopkeeper Meru."

"Good." Kes said. "The merchant house’s accounts are entered into people’s hearts like this, one entry at a time."

"One matter more." Shunzi said. "There is word from the north. The north line’s five boats have all sailed. The grain, material, and medicine behind the border wall are all pressed in. Uncle Old Camel sent word: the ones raising granaries in the south and the ones pressing stores in the north are two strands of strength on one rope."

"One rope." Kes said. "When you go back, thank Uncle Old Camel for me."

"One matter more — carry a letter back to the new capital for me. To report my safety to my teacher."

"Where is the letter?"

"Writing it now." Kes said.

He crouched by the grain stacks in the torchlight and wrote his first letter home. The letter was short: "Teacher, Uncle Meru: Kes has reached the valley. The clan’s forty and more households — the people are all here, and the hearts are all here. Mother is well. Tomorrow, the work opens on the granary. Kes."

When it was written, he thought a moment and added one line: "I have learned. This time, it is my turn to teach."

Shunzi put the letter away, drove the donkeys around, and started back that very night. Under the moonlight, the string of donkey bells went north, ding-ding.

On the fourth day, the old spring was cleared.

Kes took several young fellows down into the spring’s mouth and scooped the silted sand out, basket by basket, hour by hour. On the third day of scooping, the water in the spring suddenly came up with a gurgle, clear and strong, filling the mouth to the brim.

"It is open!" the young fellows shouted.

"Not so fast." Kes said. "Build the platform."

Following what his teacher had taught, he laid a ring of stone platform around the spring’s mouth. The platform was two feet high, and over the spring’s mouth went a stone slab that could open and close. The water ran from clay pipes at the platform’s side into a stone trough — the upper trough, for people to drink; the lower trough, for washing clothes and things.

"Listen, all of you." Kes stood at the spring and said, "From today, this spring has a rule: drink first, wash after. The drinking water is taken from the upper trough; the washing is done at the lower. Whoever breaks the rule, the whole household goes one day without water."

"So strict?" someone muttered.

"It must be strict." Kes said. "Four years ago, in the siege of Thebes, the whole city lived on three wells. The rules of the well platforms were set in those days. Water is life, and life cannot be used mixed."

The clanspeople gathered around the new well platform, looking left and right. A woman scooped up a ladleful, tasted it, and said: "Sweet. Sweeter than before."

"It is not that the water is sweeter." Kes said. "It is that the water is clean."

The "drink first, wash after" rule met resistance at first. A young fellow, after washing his hands, rinsed them in the drinking trough by habit, and Kes caught him, and fined his household one day without water on the spot. The fellow’s mother did not complain; she said instead: "Rightly fined. Clean water should have clean rules." From then on, no one broke it again. The women queued for the lower trough when washing clothes. The children, drawing water, knew to walk around the upper trough.

"This well platform," the old clan chief said, leaning on his cane and coming to look every day, "is more precious than the god’s image in the shrine."

"Grandfather," Kes said, "the god’s image does not tend thirst. The well platform does."

The granary broke ground on the eighth day.

The site, Kes had set it long since — on top of the high ridge, half a li from the spring, half a li from the river. He led the people in digging the pit first, then bedding the crushed stone, one layer of lime earth and one pass of the rammer, layer after layer, pass after pass. At the third pass, he invited the old clan chief forward.

"Grandfather chief," Kes said, "the first ramming is yours."

"Mine?" The old chief smiled. "I can no longer swing a rammer."

"If you cannot swing it, then hold it." Kes said. "This granary is the life-root being raised for the whole clan. The first ramming must be by the hand of the clan’s highest generation."

The old chief did not refuse again. He walked forward, tottering, and laid his hand on the rammer’s handle. Two young men, one left and one right, guarded his hand as they swung the rammer up and brought it down, the old man’s hand riding with it.

Thud — dull, steady, on the earth of the river valley, and the sound of it went into the ground.

"Good." the old chief said, and in his clouded eyes there was suddenly light. "This one ramming has nailed our clan into this ground."

The clanspeople cheered together. The cheer startled the water birds on the riverbank into a flapping cloud.

The whole clan took turns working on the granary. The men dug the pit, bedded the stone, tamped the earth; the women carried water, carried food, formed the bricks; the children picked broken stones on the riverbank and carried them up to the ridge, basket by basket. Kes wanted to enter wages, and the clanspeople would not take them. The old chief said: "This is our own granary. Wages — for what?" Kes said: "The law writes that hired labor is paid. If you will not take it, I will still enter it in the accounts — in the column of ’built by the villagers as a voluntary work.’ From now on, the account book of this granary carries the names of your whole clan."

"There is such a saying?" The clanspeople were taken aback.

"There is." Kes said. "Last year, River-Bend Village raised its granary the same way, as voluntary work. Their roster traveled to the new capital with my teacher’s letter." He paused. "Whoever raises the granary, the account records who. Our names will stand with this granary for a hundred years."

"A hundred years!" The clanspeople shouted. "Then we will work all the harder!"

Tuxi was on the worksite too. Kes called him aside and said: "Tuxi, watch. This granary’s foundation — dig the pit first, then bed the crushed stone, one layer of lime earth, one pass of the rammer. From now on, you keep the granary, and you must understand all of this. A granary’s foundation is the same principle as a house’s — solid below, steady above."

"I will remember." Tuxi said. "Solid below, steady above."

"One thing more." Kes said. "Senior brother Mery taught me one sentence, and I will teach it to you too: the granary holds the grain, and the law holds the people’s hearts. Neither end may stand empty."

Tuxi silently repeated the words three times.

The voluntary-work roster was kept by Kes’s mother. She sat on a stone by the granary, day after day, and spread out the household register Tia had given, and asked household by household, entering one by one, asking each family its numbers twice. At her own household’s column, she wrote: "Head of household: Kes’s mother. Mouths: one. Land: none. Rooms: none. Grain: none."

When it was written, she looked at the three "none" characters and lost herself a long while.

"Mother," Kes came over and said, "these ’none’s — I will change them into ’have’s for you, one by one."

"Change them." his mother said. "I will wait."

The granary stood half a month later.

Kes brought two buckets of water, and, following the way of his teacher and Mery, threw them across the floor of the grain section. The water ran along the slope, toward the door, and not a drop soaked in.

"Do you see?" he asked the gathered clanspeople. "The damp cannot rise, and the grain cannot rot."

The clanspeople said nothing. An old man crouched down, felt the floor for a long while, and suddenly said: "This floor is drier and cleaner than the warm end of my own bed."

"From now on," Kes said, "our grain sleeps on a floor like this."

The first cart of grain entering the granary — the whole clan came, old and young, and stood in a ring around the door. Thirty dan of grain, sack by sack, weighed on the scale, entered in the book, binned in the cells. His mother kept the account, stroke by stroke, her brush steady. When the entries were done, she read it aloud before them all, line by line. When the reading was done, the old clan chief pressed his handprint onto the account page, pressing it firm.

"Into the granary." Kes shouted.

"Into the granary!" The whole clan answered together.

The clanspeople gathered around the granary door, looking and looking. A child asked: "Brother Kes, the grain, once in the granary, will not rot?"

"It will not rot." Kes said. "The foundation is raised three inches, the wall foot has crushed stone buried, and the wind passes through the windows. Kept by the law, this grain will last until next year’s new grain comes down."

"Then in winter, we will not be afraid?" the child asked again.

"Not afraid." Kes said.

"Not afraid!" The children jumped and shouted before the granary door. "Not afraid of winter!"

At that moment, the sky over the valley was especially high.

The guild’s three craftsmen arrived on the seventh day after the granary stood.

The leader was Old He, the old stonemason of the West Bank. Behind him came two young ones — Yamu and Take. They had walked half a month of road to get there, and worn through two pairs of shoe soles between them.

"Guild Master Kamon said," Old He said, "when Kes raises work in the south, the guild’s people come when they are called. The three of us are the first batch." He patted the tool pack on his back. "Stone chisels, hammers, rope plummets — all brought, and not one missing."

"The wages . . ." Kes began.

"The wages at the guild’s rates." Old He said. "If your clan cannot pay for a while, owe it first. The guild’s account waits until after the autumn." He paused. "Guild Master Kamon has one word more — the guild’s people, wherever they go, first lay the wall straight. Do not break the plaque of ’THE GENERAL GUILD OF CRAFTSMEN OF ALL THE LAND.’"

"It will not break." Kes said. "With the three of you here, these walls will be straighter than the guild’s own."

Old He and his men went to work the day they arrived. Old He did not sit and did not rest; he first walked three circles around the worksite, then crouched down and knocked over the granary wall Kes’s people had laid, place by place. At a wall corner, he stopped: "This corner is half a fen off."

"Half a fen off?" Yamu leaned over. "Uncle He, it looks straight to me."

"Plumb it with the line." Old He said.

Yamu plumbed the line. The line ran against the wall, and at the corner, it stood off by half a fen.

"I submit." Yamu said. "Uncle He, your eye is truer than the line."

"The eye is trained." Old He said. "You are young, and your eyes are lazy. From now on, at the start of work every day, first plumb the wall once. Plumming and plumming, the eye goes straight." He paused, and said to Kes, "This corner — take it down and lay it again. Your granary will keep a whole clan’s life from now on. Not half a fen may be off."

"Take it down." Kes said.

They took it down and relaid it. Old He held the rule himself. A half-day’s work was redone in two hours, and when the line was plumbed — perfectly straight.

The clan’s young fellows gathered around and watched. When the watching was done, they all clicked their tongues: "That old craftsman — a wonder."

"No wonder." Old He said. "Just forty years of practice. If you want to learn, I will teach. Guild Master Kamon said — the three of us came not only to help with the work. We came to pass on the craft. The walls from now on, you must know how to lay yourselves."

"We will learn!" the young fellows shouted.

From that day, Yamu and Take worked the daytime shifts, and after work, opened lessons by the granary. They taught reading stone, laying joints, plumbing lines. Around a bonfire, a dozen and more young fellows squatted on the ground, comparing broken stones in their hands. The nights of the river valley had, for the first time, something like the sound of study — not reading books, but reading the craft.

With three skilled hands, the house-building went fast.

Kes first spread Lu Zhu’s sample drawings on a stone for Old He and his men to see. Old He looked slowly, and after a while nodded: "This stone foundation — we lay it the same way on the West Bank. It is just this wall — half an inch thinner?"

"The south is hot." Kes said. "Half an inch thinner, and the house cools faster at night. The roof is thickened against the sun."

"The door faces the river." Old He said. "For ventilation."

"Right." Kes said. "The summer wind comes up from the river."

"Good." Old He said. "Do it your way. The work of the southland listens to the people of the southland."

The sample house went up below the west slope of the high ridge. The stone foundation was broken stone picked from the riverbank, laid piece by piece in staggered joints, one stone locking the next. The mud bricks were formed by the clan’s women and children — clay mixed, straw binding added, brick by brick, drying in rows on the riverbank. Kes led the men in laying the bricks, course upon course. Every half foot of wall, one plumb of the line; every foot, another plumb. The lime line in his hand did not leave him from morning to night, from the first brick to the last.

"This line," a child asked, "Brother Kes, what is it for?"

"Plumbing straight." Kes said. "Whether the wall is straight, one plumb with it tells. One fen off — take it down."

"What a pity, to take it down."

"A crooked wall standing," Kes said, "that is the true pity. Better to take it down three times than to stand one crooked wall."

The walls rose. The roof rose. The slanted flue, following Seb’s letter, was bent slantwise through the wall in mud brick. The door opened toward the river. The windows, two, narrow, slantwise across. The roof’s reed mats pressed five layers — this Kes had learned changing the border storehouse; a southern rain can fall one whole night, and only five layers hold it.

On the day the house was finished, Kes carried the water bucket and, as was his way, threw it at the wall — the water ran down the wall face, and not a drop soaked in.

"House inspection." he said.

"A good way of inspecting." Old He said. "The West Bank’s old masters, in those years, were also two buckets of water, and they inspected half a street into submission. The craft your teacher passed down, in your hands, has not gone off the pattern."

"I would not dare let it." Kes said. "My teacher’s walls are the sample of all Egypt."

The first batch into the new houses was the households whose rooms had fallen. Seventeen fallen rooms belonged to eight households. These eight lived first.

On the first day of moving, Kes led the eight households, looking at the houses one by one. An old man went in, felt the walls, felt the windows, felt the door facing the river, and suddenly crouched down and buried his face in his hands.

"Uncle," Kes crouched down too, "you are . . ."

"Not crying." The old man raised his head, his face all tears. "I am glad. More than forty years I lived in that shelter, and when it rained, it leaked like a sieve. My granddaughter coughs every rainy season." He wiped his face. "Now, there is a house. A house that does not leak."

"From now on," Kes said, "the rainy season holds no fear either."

"No fear." the old man said. "My granddaughter, this winter, will sleep one dry night."

The words spread, and the whole valley stirred. The households not yet on the list ran to the worksite every day, asking: "Officer, when is my household’s turn?"

"Queue." Kes said. "By the register. The fallen rooms first, the households with old people first, the households with children first."

"Is my household on that register?"

"It is." Kes said. "Forty and more households, not one left out, all on the register."

Before summer came in, the first batch of eight houses all stood. Then the second batch opened. This time, the clan’s young fellows could form the bricks and lay the walls themselves. Yamu and Take watched beside them, and wherever something was wrong, called stop. Old He said: "Half a year more, and you graduate. Graduated, and the guild enters your names."

"Enter our names!" the young fellows shouted. "Then we are the guild’s people too!"

The medical point stood between the houses and the granary.

By Shafi’s sample drawing: one consultation room, one medicine room, the two rooms side by side. The medicine cabinet, raised half a foot off the ground. The windows, narrow, slantwise across from each other. Kes set the medicine chest Shafi had given, layer by layer, into the cabinet — wounds, wind and chill, stomach pains. Every layer with its label, and every label facing out.

"Tuxi." Kes called the half-grown boy over. "From today, you help here. Memorize the medicine labels, keep the cabinet, and take the medical accounts."

"Me?" Tuxi’s eyes went perfectly round. "Can I do it?"

"You can." Kes said. "You are fine-hearted, with a good memory. This is work passed down from Sister Shafi — the cabinet raised half a foot, the dry and the damp apart, the narrow windows slantwise across. Not one of them may be wrong."

"I will learn." Tuxi said. "One by one."

From that day, Tuxi came to the medical point before dawn every day, before anyone else in the valley was up. First wiped the cabinet with a dry cloth, then turned the labels, and recited the name and use of every medicine three times from memory, in a low voice. He recited slowly, but he remembered firmly. Kes tested him: "The wind-and-chill — which layer?" He said: "Second layer, third compartment from the left. The dry medicines above, the fresh below, the labels facing out." Kes nodded: "Good. When you go to the new capital one day, answer it just so."

"Go to the new capital?" Tuxi stared.

"Go." Kes said. "Teacher Imset said — physicians must be examined, and the examination belongs to the guild. Our place needs one properly trained physician. You are the most fitting." He paused. "Wait for Shunzi’s boat the trip after next, and travel north with it. To the medical house of the new capital, to apprentice and study medicine."

Tuxi said nothing. His eyes lit up, little by little.

"Your mother’s side," Kes said, "I will speak for you."

"I will go." Tuxi said. "When I have studied it through, I will come back and see the clan’s sicknesses."

The medical point’s first patient came on the fifth day. A woman ran in through the door holding a child in both arms, breathless and frantic, weeping as she ran: "Officer, the child’s stomach hurts — two days now, two whole days!"

Kes was not much of a physician, and he did not pretend otherwise. Following what Shafi had taught, he turned the labels, took the stomach medicine, and, by the label’s usage, had the child take it. Then he boiled hot water, tempered it warm in the bowl, and fed it in, bit by bit, waiting between spoonfuls.

"Do not be afraid." he said to the woman. "This medicine chest was fitted by the new capital’s medical house. What the labels say, do. It cannot go wrong."

That night, the child’s pain stopped and the child slept sound. Kes sat at the medical point’s door and, on the first page of the medical account, wrote neatly:

"The valley medical point, first patient. Stomach pain. Medicine given, cured."

When the writing was done, he looked up at the sky and said in a low voice: "Sister Shafi, the first page — I have entered it."

The second patient was a young fellow from the worksite, who had had a stone fall on his foot, and the instep had swollen high. Tuxi helped apply the wound medicine, reciting the label’s usage as he applied it. The fellow hissed with the pain, and still found breath to say: "Tuxi, gently . . ."

"Gently, nothing." Tuxi said. "The label says: wash the wound first, then apply the medicine. Bear it."

"This boy," the fellow said, "studying medicine — he has turned fierce."

"Fierce," Kes said from the door, "is what makes a medical point stand."

The market and the low wall went up after summer came in.

The market stood by the ferry. By Meru’s West Bank market: timber shop fronts, stall tables all one measure at five feet, two drainage ditches running the length of it, open-price wooden boards hung over the stalls. Kes raised three boards more, standing at the market’s mouth — sections, open prices, shared care of the waterways.

"These are the merchant house’s rules." Kes said to the clanspeople. "Trade rests not on goods, but on trust. Once the trust stands, the boats from outside are willing to tie up at our ferry."

On the first market day, En-Tu’s caravan came. Along with it came Nubians of two scattered dwelling points by the border river. They carried leather, fragrant herbs, dried dates, and traded them away for salt, timber, and medicinal herbs. An old man from another village held his traded salt and said: "Before, trading for salt took seven days of road. Now, walk here, and it is here."

"From now on," Kes said, "it is here every month. Shunzi’s boat comes every month."

In the market, the clan’s women set up stalls too, one beside the next. Some sold cloth, some dried fish, some dried dates, and each stall had its open-price board. Kes’s mother set up a stall and sold the cloth she wove. On the first day, she sold three bolts of it. She felt the few copper pieces in her palm, one by one, and said: "This money, I am saving it for you. Saved enough, and it will take you a wife."

"Mother," Kes smiled, "it is still early."

"Not early." his mother said. "With the home stood, it is time to think of the household." She paused. "It is a proper matter."

The low wall stood at the valley’s mouth. Chest-high, running from the rock shoulder to the riverbank, with two crenellations raised at the corners. Kes led the young fellows in laying the wall by day and setting the watches by night. For the watches, he drew a roster and posted it at the medical point’s door — two men a night, the night in four watches, one torch per watch. On the first night of the watch, Kes went himself, before his turn was due. He held the torch and stood on the crenellation, looking at the valley under the moonlight — several dozen lamps, in the sheds and the new houses, lighting one by one.

"The first night of the watch." he said in his heart. "From now on, someone keeps it every night."

Tuxi’s northward day was set for the second boat of the summer.

In those days, Kes’s mother sewed a pack for Tuxi every night by the lamp, stitch after stitch. She sewed the bottom double, and double again: "The northern road is long, and the shoes must be solid." Tuxi’s mother had long been gone. In these years, Kes’s mother had raised him as half a son, feeding him and mending for him.

"Auntie," Tuxi said, "when I have studied it through, I will come back."

"No hurry." the woman said. "Study well. A person studying medicine must keep the heart still." She handed over the pack, and tucked in a few dried dates on top. "For the road."

On the day Tuxi left, the whole clan came to the ferry to see him off. Shunzi’s boat waited on the river, its bow nudging the bank. Kes called Tuxi aside and said: "When you reach the new capital, first go to the Bureau, and find my teacher. Say that Kes sent you. My teacher will take you to meet Teacher Imset and Sister Shafi." He paused. "The new capital’s medical house has strict rules. The cabinet raised, the account reported the same day, the gravely sick seen before the lightly sick. All of this, you have learned at home. When you are there, do not lose your nerve."

"I will not." Tuxi said. "What Brother Kes taught, I remember it all."

"And this." Kes pressed a letter into Tuxi’s robe. "This is the letter for my teacher. You will hand it over yourself. In the letter, there is your name."

"My name?" Tuxi stared.

"There is." Kes said. "What I wrote is — this boy is fine-hearted, fit to study medicine. Tuxi." He paused. "In the letter, I have written everything of these months. The granary stood, the houses rose, the medical point opened, the market opened. And I wrote one line more — the south lacks hands, and I ask the teacher to pick a few willing apprentices from the craft school. This letter is the root I have written to the north. And you — you are the first vine it grows."

Tuxi pressed the letter to his chest: "I will carry it with my life."

"No need of your life." Kes said. "Carry it steady. That is enough."

Tuxi’s eyes reddened. He bowed deep to Kes, and then bowed once to the people at the ferry, and turned and boarded the boat.

The boat pushed off. Tuxi stood at the stern, waving at the shore the whole time. The people on the shore waved back. Kes did not wave. He stood at the ferry and watched the boat go north along the river.

"This boy," En-Tu said beside him, "when he comes back, he will be our clan’s first physician."

"He will." Kes said. "And this valley’s first vine reaching north."

"Vine?" En-Tu did not understand.

"My teacher said it." Kes said. "People are linked to people, and places to places. This valley of ours, from now on, is no longer one lonely valley. The root is stood in the south, and the vines of the north will come over, one by one."

That night, Kes did not sleep.

He walked alone up to the high ridge. Below his feet was the newly stood granary. Far off were the new houses, the newly opened medical point, the newly raised market. The lamp-fires were scattered through the dark like a handful of stars flung into the valley.

He suddenly remembered four years ago. Remembered the leaking date boat, and the rammer he could not swing straight that first time on the West Bank worksite. Remembered his teacher’s words: "Every circle you drew will have a village, storing its winter grain inside it."

Now, the circles had turned real, one after another.

Everything his teacher had taught, he had used: the stone foundations, the raising, the narrow windows slantwise across — his teacher’s granary sutra. The voluntary-work roster — senior brother Mery’s method. The water-throwing wall test — the old bricklayer’s wager. The first page of the medical account — Sister Shafi’s charge. The market’s three boards — Uncle Meru’s rules. The slanted flue — senior brother Seb’s letter. The lime line — given by his teacher’s own hand, and not one day out of his hand since.

Behind him, footsteps. It was the old clan chief, helped up the slope by two young men, one on each arm. He was panting a little, but his eyes went straight to the lamps below.

"Grandfather," Kes said, "why have you come up?"

"Come up to look." the old chief said. He looked at the valley below his feet for a long time, and suddenly said: "Kes, when I was small, I heard my grandfather tell it — our clan, in the old days, also had good days once. Houses, granaries, livestock. Later, it scattered, and grew poor, one generation worse than the last." He paused. "I thought — in this life, I would not see it."

"You have seen it." Kes said.

"I have seen it." the old chief said. "With this, I can close my eyes in peace." He reached out a trembling hand and pointed at the spread of lamp-fires. "These lamps are the brightest thing I have seen in all my life."

"From now on," Kes said, "they will be brighter. The granary must be bigger, the houses more even, and the children must have a school."

"A school . . ." the old chief murmured. "Good. Learning characters. Learning accounts. Learning your craft."

"Learning mine," Kes said, "and learning my teacher’s."

"Right." the old chief said. "One generation passes it to the next. Passed on until no one remembers whose hand held the first rammer. But the granary will still be standing." He patted Kes’s arm. "That — is the root."

The young men helped the old chief down. Kes stood on the ridge a long while more.

The letter to his teacher, at that hour, was traveling north with Tuxi. What the letter said, he remembered every word — the granary, the voluntary work, the whole clan’s names in the account. The houses, eight risen. The medical point, its first patient a child with a stomach ache, cured. The market, open at the ferry. The low wall, watched every night. And the last line: the south lacks hands, and I ask the teacher to pick a few willing apprentices from the craft school.

He looked north. The northern sky was heavy black, but he knew that beyond that sky were the new capital, and the West Bank, and the lamp-boats coming and going on the whole river.

"Teacher," he said in a low voice, "everything you taught — I have stood it up."

At the sky’s edge, the fish-belly white rose. The morning wind came over the river, carrying the rank smell of water plants, and a little of the smell of newly tamped earth.

Below the ridge, from the chimney of the first new house, the day’s first thread of cooking smoke rose.

The smoke, fine and straight, climbed toward the high sky.

The first thread of cooking smoke has risen in the river valley of Nubia. The granary stands, the houses stand, and the medical point’s lamp sways lightly in the mountain wind. The forty and more households, for the first time, feel their days have roots. But Kes knows this is only the beginning — more than thirty households are still waiting for new houses; more children are still waiting for a school; and his letter is on the road north. In the letter there is news of victory, and there is a call for help. The lamps of the south are lit. Will the people of the north come?

(End of Chapter 13)