Nana Smith's Room

The room of Nana Smith was filled with many a thing. There was the family loving cup that Alan and Gemma had used in their childhood games as the Holy Grail, a photograph of Nana Smith's late husband, there was a bible that she sometimes read from to whoever would listen to her. When it came to the Bible, Nana Smith had her favourites, as anyone did: Creation, the Flood, the tales of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Ruth, David and Saul, Elijah, Daniel, Jonah and Jesus, all did she love.

Laying upon her bed, her back supported by pillows, Nana Smith read from the Bible to Alexander and Roxana, both laying upon her bed, with the wounded former resting his head upon Nana Smith's lap. It was the first chapter of Exodus that Nana Smith was reading and she was commenting on the text so often that Alexander found her comments on the text more interesting than the text itself.

Nana Smith spoke of how Captain Smith identified the Pharaoh of the Exodus as Ahmose I, in accordance with the ancient writers, whom identified the Exodus with the Expulsion of the Hyksos, a people of West Semitic, Levantine-origin, whose leaders became pharaohs of the Fifteenth dynasty, living in coexistence with the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties before ultimately entering into war with the Seventeenth Dynasty and being defeated by Ahmose, founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty and the first Pharaoh of the New Kingdom period. Ultimately, Nana Smith wondered aloud which of Ahmose's Seventeenth dynasty predecessors could have been the Pharaoh of the Oppression, a question that was on Alexander's mind as well, for whomsoever could be so terrible as to have every infant son slain? Nana Smith spoke of the Captain's theory that the Pharaoh of the Oppression would be Rahotep, Founder of the Seventeenth Dynasty, yet alas, this was where sleep took Alexander while Nana Smith's commentary upon the text continued, fueling Alexander's dreams as did his clash Miltiades that day, and even thoughts of his parents, the champion hunters Amen-Ra and Olympias.