Kepi went to the wall of the workshop and sat in the shadows to wait. She was familiar enough with cats; wild cats stalked the refuse pile outside her village. But she wondered who on earth would commission a statue of a cat, of all things.
Soon enough, Kepi heard musical clinks; these customers clearly wore lots of jewelry. Kepi heard the master meet them at the entrance and lead them inside. She stood and peeked in through a window.
A couple with long, drawn faces and many bracelets, anklets, and necklaces followed the master. Their eyebrows were shaved. At the sight of the cat statue, they gasped. “It makes us think of our dear departed one.” The woman beat her chest in grief, as though the cat was a member of her family. The man paid and carried away the statue.
Kepi backed into the shadows again and plopped down, almost landing on the lap of one of the slave boys. “Sorry. I didn’t see you.” It was the boy she had moved aside for earlier. “I saw the customers,” she said in a confidential tone. “That statue is for their dead cat. Imagine that! They owned a wild cat.”
“It probably wasn’t really wild. It’s popular here to tame cats. When one is really nice, they mate it with another really nice one, and the kittens are even nicer. They sleep with them.”
“You’re joking. Cats in a house?”
“Cats keep poisonous snakes out. And rats, too. People say they’re wonderful. I bet the owners shaved their eyebrows.”
“They did!” said Kepi.
“I told you. It’s what they do here to show respect at the death of a cat.”
“How do you know so much about Ineb Hedj?”
“I’ve lived here since I was six. Half my life.”
Kepi swallowed. Half his life away from his family. “I’m Kepi.”
“You probably don’t want to talk with me, Kepi.”
“Why not?”
“I was a swineherd before I came here. The master says swineherds stink. He says that’s why I’m bad. He beats me. If he sees us talking, he might beat you, too.”
Kepi worked to keep her face placid. Her family said swineherds stank, too. She took a deep breath without being obvious about it. This boy didn’t stink. And it wasn’t his fault that his family kept swine. “I don’t care. I’m happy to know you.”
The boy stared. Then he gave a quick head bow. “Call me Kan. But that’s not really my name. I was born in Kanesh, so that’s what the man who bought me from my parents called me for short, and it stuck.”
His parents traded him away! Kepi looked down at her feet so Kan couldn’t see the shock in her eyes. In Egypt no one would do that to their children. “Kanesh. Where is that place?”
“Northeast. In the land of the Hattians. It takes months on the backs of jackasses to get there.”
“My home is far, too. But south. It takes a month and a half to get there by boat.”
“My home has mountains all around,” said Kan. Then he gave a little humph. “Actually, I don’t remember it that well. Sometimes I think I don’t remember it at all.”
“I remember home. I haven’t been away so long, though—not even two months. I think about it all the time. I think about my mother and father and my sister Nanu.” Talking like this made Kepi tremble.
“Yeah.” Kan looked away. “At least we’re busy here. You won’t be able to think about them so much as long as you’re working the metals.”
“I’m not working here long. I only came by accident, really. It all started because of a baboon.”
“Baboon? You mean a monkey?”
Kepi hadn’t meant to talk about Babu. She’d given up hope of ever seeing him again. But it felt nice to remember him right now. “The best little monkey.”
Kan gave a twisted smile. “Is that a joke?”
“Two boys stole him, and I went after them to get him back. Anyway, he’s lost. But I have something else I need to do now. Then I’m going home.”
“Sure.” Kan laughed. “Just like I’m going home.”
“Don’t laugh. I’m going to do it.” Kepi got to her feet. Beyond the wall of the metallurgy yard, she could see, the sky was decorated with upward swirls of pale-gray smoke from cooking fires. So many of them. So many people were preparing their evening meals.
She looked into the window of the workshop again. The master had left. The workbenches were covered with jewelry in various stages of completion. She thought of the glass bead necklace Menes had bought her in Nekheb, the one she’d never seen. She wished she had let him give it to her then, so that now she’d have a token of him. “I miss jewelry,” said Kepi. “I used to wear so much that I jangled wherever I went.”
Kan jumped to his feet as though a scorpion had pinched his bottom. “I have something to show you, then.” He took off the little pouch that hung around his neck and shook the contents into his hand. Several tiny silvery-white metal bowls, each no bigger than a fingertip, lay in his palm. They each had a miniature loop on the underside of the bowl basin.
“Can I touch them?”
“Sure.”
Kepi held two up to the late afternoon sun. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Are they made of a special silver?”
“It’s tin. In my country we smelt it out of rocks, just like we smelt copper here. The man who first owned me had a whole sack of pure tin pebbles, and I stole some before he traded me away. It’s all I have left of my country. I made these from a tin pebble.”
“What are they for?”
He flipped each basin over so the loops stuck out on top. “They’re bells.”
“What are bells?”
“Listen.” Kan put the rest of the bells away in his pouch. Then he pulled a thread from the edge of his loincloth and ripped it in half with his teeth. He strung the thread through the loops on the two bells and shook. The bells hit each other and gave off the sweetest high-pitched tinkling sound.
“Marvelous,” whispered Kepi. Her whole body had tensed up. The tinkle of those bells felt familiar. They sounded like the noise Kepi had imagined the goddess Hathor’s necklace must make. That tinkle was more beautiful than the best music she’d ever heard. It filled her with joy. “Bells are completely marvelous.”
“When I hear them, it makes me think I remember being small and happy, and maybe someday I’ll be happy like that again.” Kan put the tin bells back into the pouch and looked at her with a serious face. “Come on. Let’s take another tin pebble and make more bells. For you.”
Breathless, Kepi waited in the workshop while Kan went to get a tin pebble from his hiding place. They hammered the tin flat enough to break into two pieces; then each of them hammered their piece even flatter. It was soft and gave way easily. But it still took Kepi a long time to make it thin enough for bells as delicate as the ones Kan had in his pouch.
“Hear that?” Kan held a piece of tin close to Kepi’s ear and folded it. It gave off the strangest crackle. “It’s crying. You have to be gentle, because tin feels everything.” He showed Kepi how to fold tin the right way, so that each bell would have a loop at the top for stringing.
It was tricky and took all of Kepi’s attention. In the end, she made five tin bells. The evening light had grown dim. Kan handed her a thread, and Kepi strung the bells together and shook them. They tinkled perfectly. How amazing that Kepi had made them so fine when her hands moved so clumsily at the task. They were as wonderful as jewelry. They made her feel like the old Kepi, the one who had a family that gave her jewelry. And the music these bells made was even better than the music jewelry made. The music made her feel she belonged to the goddess Hathor. It made her believe that Hathor was watching her. Of course! Hathor must have helped her make them. Hathor must have guided her clumsy hands. Hathor wanted her to have these bells. Thank you, great goddess Hathor. Thank you, thank you.
“You’re a tinker now,” said Kan. “Anyone who makes things from tin is a tinker. Make sure you never take them out in snow, or they’ll turn to gray powder.”
“I’ve never seen snow,” said Kepi, holding the precious bells to her chest. She wouldn’t even know what snow was if Father hadn’t told her about it.
“I was just teasing. We have snow in my country. Seriously, though, never let them fall into a fire, or they’ll break.”
“I won’t,” said Kepi, holding them closer.
“If you polish those bells, they’ll shine as bright as silver. Now look at what I made.” Kan held the thing he’d been working on to his mouth and blew. It gave off a loud, shrill sound.
Kepi jumped in surprise.
“It’s a whistle. A boy from my country was here a couple of years ago. He taught me how to make them before he was traded away again. Isn’t it great?”
“Indeed!” The master came into the workshop through the gloom of early evening. “What do you have there, boy?”
Kan put the whistle behind his back. “Nothing.”
“It doesn’t sound like nothing.”
“It’s mine.”
The master scowled. “What’s yours is mine. You belong to me, you dirty little pig herder. You’ll get a beating for talking back, all right. And you . . .” He looked at Kepi. “What have you got?”
“We made them,” said Kepi, moving to stand beside Kan. “They’re ours.”
“Anything made in my workshop is mine.” The master held out his hands, one toward Kan and one toward Kepi.
Kepi’s fingers closed tight on the bells. She’d never give them up. She saw the skin on Kan’s jaw tighten as he clenched his teeth.
Kan and Kepi looked at each other, and almost as if they’d known all along this had to happen, they ran together out of the workshop, out of the metallurgy yard, out into the streets of Ineb Hedj.