"I'll slay him!" The short, stocky ship's master, his face aflame with rage, glared at the tall, rangy villager standing before him. "I vow to the lord Hapi, I'll take his life with my bare hands!"
Hapi was the god who personified the river flowing below them, for much of its length broad and sedate, predictable. Here, however, its waters were split into a labyrinth of narrow, swift channels forcing their way around black granite boulders and islets, with just a few supporting sparse green growth.
The Medjay sergeant Imsiba took a firmer grip on the seaman's upper arm. Tall and sleek, with dark, glowing skin and the grace of a leopard, he towered over the man he held. "You'll take no man's life today, Captain Suemnut."
"He wrecked my ship!"
"Through no fault but his own, that I swear." The villager Neny, a man burned dusty brown by sun and wind, spouted the words with contempt.
Lieutenant Bak, Imsiba's commanding officer and head of the Medjay police at the fortress of Buhen, a two-hour trek downstream to the north, scowled at the pair.. Buhen, the largest of eleven fortresses along this rugged and desolate segment of the river called the Belly of Stones, served as administrative headquarters for the area. Thus, his involvement in their squabble.
Their enmity was long-standing, he had been told, a sore that festered each time Suemnut had his ship hauled upstream through the rapids or eased back down on his homebound journey. Unfortunate, since each needed the other in equal measure. This stretch of rapids could be navigated only when the river was swollen and only with the help of the local men, who, using stout ropes, pulled the ships upstream or guided their passage downstream. Neny was the most influential and skilled headman in the area, able to collect sufficient men from neighboring villages and use his vast knowledge of the rapids to see a ship safely through the rocks. The land on which his and the other villages stood was the most. barren along the Belly of Stones, and without the products merchants such as Suemnut exchanged for their aid, the people would have — starved.
Certain he would get nothing useful from either man, nothing uncolored by anger and dislike, Bak walked a dozen or so paces to the end of the sandswept promontory on which they stood. The lord Re, well on his way to the western horizon and his descent into the netherworld, glowed bright yellow in a pallid sky. Bak's shadow was elongated, the head and shoulders falling over the edge of the low cliff. A stiff, north breeze dried the sweat on his broad, deeply tanned chest, ruffled his short-cropped dark hair, lifted the hem of his thigh-length white kilt. He licked his lips, tasting salt, and waved off a fly buzzing so close to his head he could hear its song above the roar of the rapids at the base of the promontory. The distant honking of geese drew his eyes downriver, where a flock was settling into a reedy backwater, a safe haven for the coming night.
Beyond the broad stretch of rapids, the brownish, frothing water rushed down a narrow, steeply sloping channel clutched between a multitude of black granite crags, bleak and bare, glistening wet. Other than the swiftness of the flow, the passage looked as safe as a stone-paved street leading to the mansion of a god. Its appearance was deceiving. Obstacles lay beneath the surface, concealed by silt and froth: rocks and falls and eddies that could send a ship careening to certain destruction against the boulders. Unless its journey was controlled by men, men like those standing or kneeling on the boulders and islets at either side of the channel. What, then, had happened to the vessel lying broken and helpless near the lower end of the passage? The modest traveling ship, roughly sixty paces long, lay smashed against a cluster of three craggy boulders rising at the near side of the channel. Water surged through an impressive hole torn in the vessel's hull. The deck tilted at an impossible angle, yet a surprising amount of cargo remained on board. Bundled cowhides lashed in place, soaked by the turbulent waters. What had gone wrong? Bak found it difficult to believe Neny would deliberately destroy a ship, even a vessel belonging to a man he hated. Other ships' masters would be sure to retaliate, finding a headman who pleased them more, leaving Neny's village to starve.
His eyes raked the rocky outcrops and islets along the channel, where fifty or more nearly naked villagers idled away the hours, awaiting Neny's signal to set to work. Coils of thick rope lay on the rocks at their feet. Other ropes, lifelines attached to the broken vessel, were wound around boulders or heavy poles jammed into crevices, holding the ship in place until the men could swim out and salvage the cargo.
"My beautiful ship," Suemnut wailed, coming up behind Bake "Why, oh, why did I wait so long to sail north? Why didn't I sail at the highest flood stage, as I should've?"
Bak looked at a man truly distraught. "You were on board when your vessel broke loose?"
The captain nodded. "Only the gods kept me from drowning. Me and my crew."
"Tell me what happened."
"I was standing on deck, as always, but with the fate of my vessel in other men's hands. I don't like Neny, but never once have I had reason to doubt his skill, nor did I this time. I was watching his men laboring to pass us down the channel, taking care not to tangle the ropes. They were working in teams, singing. All seemed well. And then something…" He shook his head, as if denying a fact impossible to refute.
Bak bit back the urge to prompt, preferring the seaman tell the tale at his own pace and in his own way.
Suemnut frowned, swallowed hard. "I… I don't know what happened. A noise, I remember, and a rope whipped across the deck. Men went flying overboard, and the brazier and a cage of ducks. The cage broke apart, I recall, and birds flew in every direction." A distracted smile touched his lips and fled. "As you can see, the ship was laden with hides, bundles and bundles of them, all securely tied on deck. The rope struck those at the stern. I felt a mighty jerk and suddenly we rammed into the boulders. The vessel shuddered and I heard the moaning and snapping of wood. The next thing I knew, we were swimming for our lives."
"Where'd the rope come from?" Imsiba asked.
"Our hawsers were stowed securely on deck. It had to be one used for the tow." Suemnut glowered at the headman; his tone gnaw accusatory. "I can't say how it came aboard my ship, but Neny was standing on a boulder close by, shouting orders."
"I'd wager your ballast shifted, Captain." Neny spat out the title as he would a sour fruit.
Bak studied the wreck and the men positioned along the channel to hold the ship in place, their ropes rigid with tension. He had a good idea what had happened. An experienced captain like Suemnut probably did, too, and surely Neny did. But both had closed their hearts to the truth, preferring instead to fan the fire of enmity. He glanced at Imsiba, who, nodded agreement. They had no need to air the thought; they had been friends too long.
Bak stared again at the torn and broken ship, squinting to temper the glare on the water. A vessel no different from most traveling ships, it had an enclosed deckhouse painted in a black, white, and green chevron pattern; an open forecastle and aftercastle; a long rudder hanging from the stern of a hull weathered a deep, rich brown; and an intertwined green and white lotus design painted on its. high prow. A good, reliable ship, it must have been, but no longer.
"I must go to the wreck and see it for myself," he said Neny gave him a doubtful look. "You would risk at best a good dunking, at worst your life?"
Bak's mouth hardened. "I see fifty or more men occupying the boulders on both sides of the channel. Has not each and every man taken a dunking this day?"
"Most have, yes, but…"
"Do you think me any less a swimmer than they are?" "They know the river well-and its hazards."
Bak scowled. "Call one of your men and tell him to guide me across the rocks to the ship. I'll also need a stout lightweight rope."
Neny's eyes flashed resentment at so peremptory a tone, but he bowed his head in acquiescence.
Bak's wait was brief. The young man summoned, fourteen or so years of age, was slim as a reed and seemed always to wear a shy grin. Neny spoke to him in a dialect Bak could not understand, but Imsiba tilted his head, listening closely to words he had known as a child. In the end, he seemed satisfied with the headman's instructions.
Setting off, Bak carried the rope coiled around his left shoulder and the youth, an inflated goatskin used by local people to provide buoyancy in the water. Rather than work their way across the chaos of cracked and broken rock at the base of the promontory, they took a roundabout but less treacherous route, walking ankle-deep through windblown sand, leaping from rock to rock across a swift channel, wading through knee-high weeds and hip-deep water. Beyond a row of islets, craggy and barren of life, flowed the channel through which the ships were pulled. A well-beaten path requiring a modest amount of wading carried them north along the open stretch of swift-flowing water. Bak merely nodded to the men he and the boy passed, certain they would reveal nothing until he had seen the wreck for himself and could question them with the authority of knowledge.
They halted on a high mound of weathered rock adorned with a single tamarisk and dotted with tough, spiky grass. The islet lay slightly upstream, overlooking the wrecked ship. A pole made shiny by the slippage of ropes was wedged between two boulders. The islet was unoccupied, the pole bare of rope. Directly across the channel, a villager sat on his haunches, raising something to his mouth — dates most likely — and chewing with vigor. Close beside him, a taut rope was wrapped several times around a boulder, its far end attached securely to the wreck.
Bak studied the mound on which he stood and the bare pole. "This looks to be a critical place from which to ease a ship down the channel. Why is it not manned?"
The boy shrugged. "Dadu was here. He swam out to the ship with a rope, which he'd made fast to this pole. When last I saw him, he'd come back and was waiting for his team to come help. Then the ship wrecked, and I never thought to look again. Where he's gone now, I don't know."
Bak scanned the channel, the men perched on the rocks overlooking the narrow chute of water, and the calm and safe cove not fifteen paces downstream of the wreck. "Where was Neny when the ship struck the rocks?"
"There."
The youth pointed upstream toward a tall granite monolith rising above the surrounding landscape, an ideal place from which to watch the activity all along the channel and to issue orders. A flatter rock beside the monolith was occupied by a balding man who had snugged his rope around a protruding mass of stone. The far end of the rope was attached to the ship.
Resting his backside against the pole, Bak stared across a short span of swift, tumultuous water, a dozen paces at most, toward the broken ship. The vessel looked no different at so close a distance than from afar. Rather like a lamb savaged by a jackal. Too badly injured to save.
He focused on the cargo, a hundred or more bundles, probably a thousand cowhides total, lashed to the deck in front of the deckhouse and behind it. Those washed by the river were well soaked, but he assumed they could be recovered and dried with no loss in value. No wonder Neny's men were staying close. To salvage so much would earn them ample reward.
Chiding himself for wasting the last precious moments of daylight, Bak knelt beside the water and looked out at the foaming surface. If he were to learn the truth, he must enter the river. He shuddered at the thought. In the not too distant past, he had come close to drowning; now he feared the rapids mightily The boy voiced no objection, but watched with dismay as Bak looped one end of the rope around the pole and carried the remainder of the coil to the water's edge. Trying not to see his own fears mirrored in the youth's face, he shouldered the rope and stepped into the river. Taking a deep breath, shutting down the dread, he dove beneath the surface.
Swimming against the current's tug, he examined in light filtered by silt-laden water the liquid world around him. The rock lining the bottom was an extension of the mound he had just left, a tumble of rough, broken boulders that reached out toward the open channel. During low water, they and the boulders on which the ship lay would form a single barren island. A school of fingerlings-carp, Bak thought-swam among the naked limbs of a drowned bush. He imagined he could taste the fish, the silt, the mustiness of the ages.
Spotting a taller outcrop at what he judged to be midway between him and the wrecked ship, he rose to the surface for air and swam toward the projection. The current pulled at him, trying to carry him downriver. The rope got in his way, hampering the use of his left arm and at the same time breaking his speed as he slowly played it out. Nearing the outcrop, which reached to within a hand's length of the water's surface but was hidden beneath the foam, he lunged toward it.
Without warning, an arm broke the surface. A hand beckoned.
He jerked away, so startled he sucked in water. The current caught him, tore him from the outcrop, and carried him downstream. Froth warned of a maelstrom ahead and he came close to panic. The rope pulled him up short.
Swimming with all his strength, trying not to cough, he regained the outcrop, held on tight, and surfaced for air. The hand-if he had indeed seen a hand-had vanished. He coughed water and at the same time tried to give the boy a reassuring smile. When his breath came easily again, he worked his way around and down the outcrop, taking care not to cut himself on knife-sharp edges of splintered rock. On the far side, he found the hand. And more.
The body of a man, pale in death, wide-eyed with fear, bobbed up and down in the current. A stout rope, snarled and tangled in a crevice, was wound around his legs, holding him underwater. Bak noted the rope's frayed end and a long burn-like injury down the man's right thigh and leg where he had been dragged across the rocks. This, he thought, must be Dadu. The tale he read was clear, but only half a story. To find the rest, he must swim out to the wreck. Sensing the passage of time, he resurfaced, took in air, glanced at the sky. The sun would soon disappear, leaving Wawat in darkness. He must leave Dadu submerged and hurry on.
He swam straight to the wrecked ship, noting as he did the taut ropes rising from the broken vessel to the islets lining the channel, holding the wreck in place. The three boulders on which the ship lay were cracked and pitted, weathered by time. Diving down, he saw the rough-cut sandstone blocks used for ballast spilling around the boulders from the ragged hole in the hull. A school of tiny fish swarmed around the hides. A large perch swam among them, feasting on his smaller brethren, sending them darting in all directions. The frayed end of a thick rope waved from among the blocks, the same rope, he felt sure, as the one around Dadu's legs.
Surfacing for air, he swam around the cargo to the rudder. The hides looked secure on the steeply sloping deck, but for how long? He played out the rope he carried around his shoulder and tied the end to the aftercastle, forming a bridge of sorts between the ship and the islet on which the boy sat. A trio of crows scolded him from the surrounding boulders.
He flung a rock their way, sending them squawking into the air, and dove again. In moments, he found attached to the hull the heavy rope he assumed Dadu had carried out to the ship before his death. Rather than rising toward the islet where the boy stood-as it should have-it curved around the trio of boulders and back toward the ship to disappear in the pile of hides. By prodding and poking, he traced its path through the cargo and back into the water, where all but the frayed end had been entombed beneath the sandstone blocks. It looked, he thought, as if a mighty being, a god perhaps, had torn the rope free and flung it, sending it around the boulders and in among the hides, dooming the ship.
Bak stood with Imsiba, Suemnut, and Neny on the promontory. The sky was afire with color. The breeze had waned, allowing the soft evening sunlight to draw the chill from his bones and dry his kilt and loincloth. Swallows flitted through the air, catching on the wing insects invisible to the human eye. The smell of braised onions drifted in the air from a village nestled among the rocks farther downstream.
In the narrow channel where the wreck lay, a dozen men were cutting the bundled hides free and letting them fall into the water. Others were towing the bundles to the rope Bak had tied to the aftercastle, while a third team attached them to the line and pushed them across the current to the islet. Still more men were mounding the salvaged hides well out of reach of the water, where they would remain for the night. The work was frenzied, a race against the dark.
"You can't see from here…" Bak pointed toward the river. "… but the rocky outcrop where I found Dadu's body has edges sharper than a flint knife." He raised his hand, showing a cut he had not realized he had until he left the water. "It cut partway through the rope and the weight of the vessel did the rest, snapping it apart."
"So the wreck was an accident," Imsiba said, looking pointedly at Suemnut.
The captain sniffed. "That a sharp-edged rock might cut one rope, I can understand, but what of the other ropes that were supposed to hold my ship in place? Secured on every side, how could it slew around the way it did, striking the boulders?"
"We've knocked-the edges off that outcrop-and others like it-more than once," Neny said, his voice defensive. "The rope was under tension, stretched to the limit," Bak said. "When it snapped, the upper portion snaked back. It jerked free of the post, wrapped around Dadu's legs, and dragged him across the rocks into the river. It then became entangled in a crack in a boulder. He either struck his head and lost his senses or panicked. Either way, he drowned." "What of my ship?" Suemnut demanded.
Neny glared. "Do you care nothing for the man who died? A husband and a father many times over? A hard-working man of honor and integrity?"
Bak longed to grab them both by the neck and knock their heads together. He had hoped that by finding an innocent reason for the wreck he might put an end to their enmity. Unfortunately, they enjoyed their mutual dislike too much.
"The lower portion of the rope whipped back toward the ship. It wrapped around the boulders, flew across the deckknocking men, brazier, and duck cage into the water-and buried a good, long segment in the bundled hides, pulling the ship up short and jerking it against the rocks."
"Look!" Imsiba shouted, pointing at the wreck.
The ship, relieved of much of its load and with most of its ballast scattered on the riverbed, had floated free of the boulders. It began to swing across the channel.
"Cut it loose!" Neny yelled. His voice, deep and dark, carried through the still air, reaching the men lining the channel.
"No!" Suemnut wailed. "My ship! My life! No!"
The men slashing the ropes holding the few remaining hides on deck abandoned their task, dropped into the water, and swam at high speed alongside the vessel. Bollards were jerked free, relea4ng the stout lines holding the ship in the channel. Where the bollards could not be reached, the ropes, too valuable to lose, were axed as close to the hull as possible.
The ship floated downstream, ponderous with the weight of the water it had taken on. Bak feared it would swing farther around, blocking the channel and putting an end to travel down the Belly of Stones, at least for the remainder of the year. But Neny knew what he was doing. The vessel held its course-floundering, to be sure-until a final steep slope of bubbling water carried it into the cove. Becalmed, the stern dropped ever deeper and the prow reared skyward, raising high the intertwined lily design. The men on the promontory held their breath, waiting. The vessel tilted backward, expelling air, and slid beneath the water's surface.
"Sir!" The police scribe Hori raced along the stone quay, his eyes locked on Bak and Imsiba, whose skiff was closing on a mooring post. "The commandant wishes to see you, sir! Right away!"
Bak muttered an oath. "Can I not change into clean clothing?"
"I wouldn't, sir." The chubby youth caught the rope Imsiba threw, made a loop, and settled it around the post. "A sentry reported seeing your skiff from afar. The commandant's expecting you."
"You'd best go, my friend," Imsiba said, with a goodhumored smile. "I'll tend to the skiff and that morning meal we thought to share."
Bak rolled his eyes skyward and grimaced. "What Commandant Thuty wants, Commandant Thuty gets."
"He has another man with him, sir, a lieutenant from Abu." Hori's expression remained serious. "And Troop Captain Nebwa as well."
"An officer from the land of Kemet?" Bak frowned. "An inspector, do you think?"
"He looks to be a man with a weight on his shoulders. One seeking aid, not trouble."
With a farewell nod to Imsiba, Bak walked with the boy up the central of three quays, passing a traveling ship similar to that of Suemnut and a broad-beamed cargo ship riding high in the water, its shallow hull rolling on the gentle swells. A sailor bent over its rail to spit in the water. Another hunkered down beside a brazier, stirring the contents of a bowl nestled among the coals. The odor of onions and fish set Bak's stomach to growling.
Moored at the southern quay, he saw a long and slender traveling ship, built for speed and pleasure rather than to ply the waters laden with merchandise as so many ships did in Wawat. A red-and-white-checked deckhouse and fore- and aftercastles surrounded by delicate railings of papyrus-shaped posts belied a sturdy frame and construction. The prow carried the ram-headed image of the lord Khnum, the god favored by the residents of Abu. Bak was impressed. The officer now speaking with Commandant Thuty had arrived in style.
Ahead, the tall mudbrick walls of Buhen rose stark white in the early morning sun. Towers projecting from the face of the riverside wall rose to the crenelated battlements from two stone terraces lining the water's edge. A sentry stood at the base of the twin-towered gate they approached, passing the time with three small boys. A similar gate to the north was busier. A long line of men trudged down the quay, carrying heavy copper ingots from a warehouse inside the fortress to a ship bound for the land of Kemet. They sang a workman's song, out of tune and of scant musical merit, but if volume was any indication, the words were heart-felt. An elderly, wizened priest, his head shaved bald, sat at the base of the southernmost pylon gate. He sat there often, warming himself in the sun after performing the morning ablutions in the dark chill of the mansion of the local god, Horus of Buhen. Bak saluted the soldier, ruffled the hair of one of the boys, and waved to the priest.
He stepped into the dark passage through the gate, and a cool tingle crept up his spine. An omen, he thought, maybe the lord-Amon himself warning him to proceed with care. He laughed out loud, driving the thought away, and the chill.
The sentry in the entry hall of the commandant's residence pointed Bak toward a flight of stone stairs leading to the second floor. Bounding up the steps two at a time, he burst into the warm, sunny courtyard. The space was cluttered with toys, water jars, loom, grindstone, and a deep basin filled with natron. In the white, salty substance, Thuty's eldest son, a boy of ten years, was dessicating a dog that had been his constant companion until its death of old age. The odor of decay had waned, Bak was glad, to note, so the child would soon be able to wrap for eternity the creature he had loved.
He paused at the door of the commandant's private reception room, where three men sat waiting, no one speaking, as if all they had to say had already been said. The commandant sat in his armchair, a stemmed drinking bowl in his hand, beside a small table laden with bread, beer, cold roast pigeon, and dates. He spotted Bak and beckoned. Troop Captain Nebwa, seated on a low three-legged stool in his favored spot off to the side, glanced toward Bak and nodded. The third man, a stranger to Buhen, occupied a stool in front of the commandant. He, too, turned around to look.
"You summoned me, sir?" Bak asked.
"Lieutenant." Thuty raked Bak with his eyes, taking in his dirt- and sweat-stained kilt, bandaged hand, and assorted bruises and abrasions. If he was troubled by such an untidy appearance, he gave no sign. "Have you eaten?" he asked, motioning toward the food on the table.
"At daybreak in Neny's village." Bak eyed the fare. A bowl filled with the tiny bones of birds told him the other men had already consumed their morning meal. "Nothing so grand, believe me."
"Draw a stool close." Thuty was a short, broad man whose powerful muscles glistened with the oil he had rubbed onto his ruddy skin. His brows were heavy, his mouth firm, his jaw set. A fire burned behind. his dark eyes, reflecting the strength of purpose that had earned him his lofty position.
As Bak selected a pigeon from the bowl and tore a wing from the body, Thuty nodded toward the stranger. "This man you see before you is Lieutenant Amonhotep. He's come from Abu, sent by Djehuty, governor of our southernmost province in Kemet. He's Djehuty's aide, his right hand."
Savoring the bird, which was braised to perfection, Bak studied the officer. Amonhotep, a few years younger than Bak, who had reached twenty-five years, was of medium height and slender, with reddish curly hair and green eyes in a thin, serious face. His frame was slight, but well padded with muscle. His brow was lined with worry.
"I've heard much about you, Lieutenant." Amonhotep gave so brief a smile Bak almost missed it. "The vizier, who's an old friend of Djehuty, praised you highly when he passed through Abu last week."
Bak's eyes darted toward Thirty, seeking an explanation, and on to Nebwa. That the vizier, who had recently toured the fortresses of Wawat, had stopped at Abu on his return voyage to the capital was no surprise, but that a man in so grand a position would speak of a mere lieutenant in charge of the Medjay police at Buhen was astonishing.
"Didn't I tell you the great man would spout your praise?" Nebwa gave his friend a lopsided grin, far short of the generous smile that normally accompanied his teasing. "In no time at all, your fame as a man who stalks human predators will spread throughout the land of Kemet."
The troop captain, next after Thuty in the line of command, was a coarse-featured, untidy man, tall and muscular, thirty years of age. His belt was twisted, bunching his kilt up on one side. His broad, multicolored bead collar had worked its way around so the falcon-headed clasp lay on his left shoulder. His stingy smile, his failure to continue his needling, indicated a distinct lack of enthusiasm for whatever had brought Amonhotep from Abu.
Thuty remained mute, strangely hesitant to explain the officer's mission.
Bak, curious, suspicious, wary of the two officers' reluctance to speak up, dropped a thigh bone into the dish, licked the oil from his-fingers, and asked, "You summoned me for a purpose, sir?"
Thuty's eyes slewed toward the officer from Abu. "The tale is best told by one who knows firsthand what happened."
"How should I begin?" Amonhotep ran his fingers through his reddish curls. "Three members of Djehuty's household have met with an unfortunate death in a single month, one in the river near the governor's villa, the others within the compound in which the house stands. The first two seemed unlikely accidents, but we accepted them as such. Who wants to believe anything more abhorrent? The third was murder without question, a man found dead with a dagger in his breast. To Djehuty's way of thinking-and mine-that final death makes the first two suspect."
He stared at Bak as if expecting agreement. Bak let nothing show on his face. He had too few facts to reach any kind of conclusion.
"The last killing occurred one day before the vizier arrived," Amonhotep continued. "Djehuty, naturally upset by so recent a death, told the vizier of it and the other two. That worthy official was as disturbed by the tale as are all of us who reside in the villa." He paused, shook his head as if to rid himself of a bad dream. "The vizier thought of you, Lieutenant Bak. He told Djehuty how clever you are at laying hands on men who turn their backs on the lady Maat. He suggested we seek your help."
How clever I am? Bak thought. Suddenly he understood the young officer's mission, and his heart sank. The tale was intriguing, the puzzle it posed a challenge. But only if he journeyed to Abu could he hope to identify the slayer-and placate the lady Maat, the goddess of right and order.
"Djehuty is a proud man," Amonhotep said, "one accustomed to depending on his own resources. Yet how could he turn his back on the suggestion? Without help, we can do nothing. We've no one to point to, not a shred of proof that all three lives were taken at the hands of a slayer. So Djehuty agreed. He ordered his traveling ship provisioned for a voyage, and the day the vizier sailed north to the capital, I sailed south to Buhen. Now here I am after eight long days on the river, pleading my case to your garrison officers." He leaned toward Bak; his voice grew hoarse with emotion. "And to you. Will you, Lieutenant Bak, return with me to Abu?"
Bak stared at the officer, his thoughts racing. He liked nothing better than to follow the path of a slayer, searching out tracks often hidden by time and cunning, closing in on the one he chased, and snaring him. He had done so several times in Buhen, and he had gladly traveled south to the fortress of Iken to investigate the death of an officer. Unlike Iken, which fell within Thuty's command, Abu was a world away, the domain of another man, Djehuty, who had summoned him. Would he be free to move as he liked or would his hands be tied by authority? Would he get help from the garrison should he need it, or would he be forced to stand alone? Would those he spoke with be bound to answer his questions or would they laugh in his face and turn their backs to him?
More important by far: would he be free to return to Buhen after laying hands on the slayer? Would he, could he, lay hands on the one he sought?
He glanced at the commandant, but before he could sort out his questions, his doubts, Thuty stood up, walked to the door, and stared out at the courtyard. After a long silence, he swung around. "This, I feel, is a matter best discussed in private, Lieutenant Amonhotep. Leave us."
"Yes, sir."
Thuty stepped away from the door to let him pass. "I'll summon you within the hour with my answer."
As the young officer's footsteps faded away on the stairs, Bak opened his mouth to speak.
Thuty raised his hand to silence him. "As you well know, Lieutenant, the vizier is not a man to accept refusal. You must go to Abu."
"But, sir…"
Thuty slumped into his chair. "I enjoy my rank as commandant and thd, authority I hold here in Buhen and along the Belly of Stones. I dream some day of rising to the rank of general and standing at the head of a regiment." He picked up his drinking bowl, stared into its depths, set it down again. "Not only might that dream vanish if we ignore the vizier's wishes, but I might well be posted to Kush or Hatti or some other faroff and disagreeable land. It goes without saying that you'll walk beside me, wherever I go. Shall we take the risk?".
"No, sir." Given no other rational choice, what else could Bak say? "All I ask of you is a promise."
Thuty's eyes narrowed. "What might that be?"
"While in Abu, I wish to remain under your command." Nebwa gave Bak a quick nod of approval, lowered his gaze and, suppressing a smile, stared hard at his outstretched feet. He had guessed Bak's purpose and applauded it.
Thuty, taking care not to look at Nebwa, pursed his mouth in sham disapproval, though his pleasure was evident. "Your reasons, Lieutenant?"
"First, it will set me apart from others within the governor's household, allowing me to remain a free agent. Second, if I should fail in my mission or pose a threat to one who walks the corridors of power, neither Djehuty nor anyone else in Abu will have the authority to punish me for something beyond my control. Finally, I wish to return to Buhen and my Medjays when the task is completed."
Thuty planted his elbows on the arms of his chair and eyed Bak over entwined fingers, stretching the silence as if mulling over the idea. "I see no reason why I can't loan you to Djehuty for a few weeks. Let me summon a scribe and bind you in writing to my command."
Bak, seated on a mudbrick bench, stretched out his legs and leaned back against the white-plastered wall, savoring his last few hours in Buhen. The courtyard was sunny and warm, unusually quiet for so late in the morning, with no customers patronizing Nofery's house of pleasure.
The sound of a broom moving briskly across the floor could be heard in the front, most public room in the house, while a soft snore came through a portal to the rear, where the younger women slept.
"You leave _ tomorrow?" The query came from a third open door, from which the smell of roast goose drifted. Beneath a lean-to, which shaded half the court, a young lion cub lay sprawled, licking its paws and cleaning its face. Its ears pricked at the sound of its mistress's voice, but it never paused in its ablutions.
"At first light." Bak's eyes began to twinkle. "Too early, I fear, to bid you goodbye-unless you'd prefer I awaken you."
Nofery came out the door, scowling. "The very thought is abhorrent."
Mice scurried unafraid through the straw and the palm frond roof over the obese old woman's head, competing with sparrows for seeds and nest materials. She transferred her scowl to the movement on the roof, then glanced critically at the lion. Her eyes soon darted around, and she spotted a stool, which she dragged close to Bak. She plopped down, her heavy legs and ample buttocks making the stool almost disappear.
"It pains me deeply to admit it, Bak, but I fear I'll miss you. All the bar you consume, the humor you so often exercise at my expense, the use you make of my knowledge and friendships, the…"
Bak reached forward and pinched her fleshy cheek. "Be silent, old woman. Tears will flow from my eyes if you go on with your confession of fondness."
She slapped his hand away. "Fondness, indeed! It's the demands you make that I'll miss. Like I'd miss a toothache." "How would you ever manage without me?"
"None too well, I'd guess." Nebwa sauntered in from the front room, holding in each hand two pottery beer jars, their plugs already broken away. "If you hadn't made her your spy when first you came to Buhen, she'd still be eking out a living in that hovel in the outer city."
Nofery lifted her head high and sniffed. "Will you never learn tact, Troop, Captain? I've no regrets about days gone by, nor do I wish to relive that life in words."
Chuckling, he sat on the floor beside her and handed her a jar of beer. "Drink, my little dove. Drown your sour disposition in the finest brew in Buhen."
Imsiba followed Nebwa into the court, carrying a small basket lined with leaves. "If the beer won't cheer her, perhaps this gift sent by Sitamon will put a smile on her face." Sitamon was Imsiba's beloved, an attractive young woman he planned soon to take for his wife.
He handed the basket to Nofery and joined Nebwa on the floor. She folded back the leaves to reveal a dozen or more small cakes made of crushed dates and nuts, dripping with honey. Her eyes. locked onto them, and she licked her lips. They were her favorite delicacy, a fact Sitamon knew well.
"So…" Nebwa demanded, winking at Bak, "… are you going to eat them all yourself or will you share a few?" Flashing him a contemptuous look, she handed the basket over. He took a sweet and passed it on. Bak and Imsiba refused the offer. Sitamon had meant them for Nofery, and she should have them.
She helped herself and took a bite, delighting in the taste and texture. "Would that I could go to Abu, too," she said, her voice tinged with yearning.
Bak gave her a surprised look. "How many times have you told me you prefer Buhen to any other place?"
"Can I not sometimes feel a longing for my homeland?" She frowned, as if unable to believe he could be so obtuse. "Can I not dream sometimes of returning to a valley of broad green fields and prosperous villages and cities where men and women walk the streets clad in fine linen and exquisite jewelry?"
Bak knew she had long ago been a courtesan in the capital, a creature of beauty who had lain with the most lofty men in the land. She seldom mourned the past, but now and again memories lay heavy within her breast. He asked, "Have you ever heard of Djehuty, sired in Abu and now governor of the southernmost province of Kemet?"
Distracted by the question and pleased he had consulted her, she licked the honey from her fingers. "Djehuty. Hmmmrn." Absentmindedly, she reached for another sweet. "Yes, son of a nobleman. One who also served as governor of the province, as did his father before him. And his father's father, so I heard." She took a bite, chewed. "Djehuty, sent as a boy to the capital to rub shoulders with the royal children. An only son, I seem to remember, spoiled by his mother and father alike. A stubborn youth, who did as he wished, heeding no one's advice, ofttimes taking upon himself authority too great for his age or abilities."
Nebwa snorted. "Sounds a true son of the nobility. I hope for your sake, Bak, he's outgrown such childish, headstrong behavior."
"I'll find out soon enough. We sail at first light tomorrow, and if the gods smile on us, we'll arrive in Abu nine or ten days hence."
Imsiba eyed him across the top of the beer jar. "Would that I could go with you, my friend."
"And I, too," Nebwa said, raising his jar to Bak. "No slayer alive could hide his guilt for long with the three of us…" He glanced at Nofery, read the hurt on her face at being left out, smiled. "… and Nofery hot on his trail."
Bak shook his head at what he knew was impossible. "Kasaya and Psuro will go with me. With no rank to get in their way, they can ask questions of all those men and women who might answer me with silence, thinking me a threat to their masters. Besides, I trust both with my life, and so should you."
Nebwa's eyes darted Bak's way. "You don't think it'll come to that, do you?"
"I don't know." Bak gave him a rueful smile. "Amonhotep has added nothing to what he told us in the commandant's presence. Djehuty, he claims, has tied his hands, saying he prefers to tell me the tale himself, filling in the details. The reason, Amonhotep refuses to give."
"How can he blind you to the facts?" Imsiba asked, indignant.
Nebwa gave the big Medjay a long, thoughtful look. "I think we must find an excuse to follow Bak to Abu. To walk with a friend along a familiar sunlit street is one thing; to walk alone with strangers down a dark and unknown path is foolhardy."