“If Penhet had told her about Meret, in time she might’ve come to accept her,” Bak said. “But she learned by chance.
From one of Netermose’s field hands.”
“I dislike making judgments against women. Especially in cases like this where the only right and true punishment is death.” Commandant Thuty leaned back against the waist-high breastwork overlooking the buildings within the citadel.
He grimaced at the task the gods had dropped into his lap.
“Why couldn’t Rennefer accept the girl like the sensible woman all who knew her thought she was?”
Thuty was a short, broad man, with powerful muscles accented by the strong evening light. The officer’s hair and brows were thick and heavy, the set of his mouth firm. Like Bak, who had taken a quick but cleansing dip in the river and a detour to his quarters to change clothes, he wore a thigh-length white kilt, a broad multicolored bead collar with matching bracelets, and woven reed sandals. He wielded his baton of office like an extension of his arm, pointing, patting his leg, prodding an odd-looking lump in a corner.
Bak could offer no consolation. “I suspect her wits were so addled by sudden anger that she stabbed him without thought.”
“Time and time again?” Troop Captain Nebwa snorted.
“He was lucky the neighbor came along when he did. And she was lucky Netermose didn’t stumble on her, dagger in hand, slashing away like the garrison butcher.”
The coarse-featured officer, Thuty’s second-in-command, was half a hand taller than Bak, and heavier. His unruly hair needed cutting, the hem of his kilt was hiked up on one side.
A blue faience amulet of the eye of Horus hung from a bronze chain around his thick neck. As usual, he had neglected to carry his baton of office, preferring to keep both hands free to use as he liked.
Bak was familiar enough with his friend’s colorful manner of speech to ignore it. “The stabbing was spontaneous, I feel sure, but the root of mandrake was another tale altogether.
She meant to slay him. Either to punish him, to silence him, or to hold the farm for herself. Or for all those reasons and more. But she measured out a smaller quantity than needed, one too meager to slay a man.”
“Penhet is beholden to the gods.” Nebwa grinned. “She has no aptitude for murder.”
“He’s flat on his belly and helpless-and will be for a week or more. She’d have succeeded sooner or later.” Bak had had enough of Rennefer. Thanks to the lord Amon, he had not fallen into her web of deceit, but he had come uncomfortably close. Whether or not this poor adventure would gain him respect among the local people remained an open question.
He leaned against the parapet and stared down at the city, a series of rectangles, gray-white in the fading light, outlined by streets and lanes buried in shadow. Thuty had ushered him and Nebwa to the top of the fortress wall, the most private place in Buhen, for a reason. Would he never get to it?
In the corner below lay the commandant’s residence, from which a long open stairway rose up the wall to the massive corner tower beside which they stood. Granaries and warehouses were easily recognized by their vast size. The walled temple, mansion of the lord Horus of Buhen, towered above the more commonplace buildings on a high manmade mound. Beside it stood the old guardhouse Bak and his Medjays used as a prison and operations center. Barracks blocks and a sector of interconnected villas housing officers and scribes and their families occupied the far side of the nearly square citadel.
Pinpoints of light scattered across the rooftops reflected the brightening stars in a sky turning dark. Each dot represented a baked clay brazier and a family sharing their evening meal. Smoke mingled with the odors of cooking oil, onions, braised fish and fowl, and the ever-present smell of manure wafting into the citadel from the animal paddocks in the outer city. A pack of dogs raced down a street, snarling at a creature too small to see, a rat most likely. Donkeys brayed, a courting tomcat yowled. Bak thought of his first days in Buhen, when he had disliked the fortress and resented the task he had been given. Now Buhen was home, a place of comfort and friendship, and he was proud to stand at the head of the Medjay police.
Dismissing Rennefer with a shake of his head, Thuty broke the long silence. “I guess you know a courier arrived from the viceroy before the storm broke?” He paused, waiting for their nods, then went on, “The vizier, so the message said, believes trade items from far upriver are reaching the hands of northern kings-rulers of Mitanni, Amurru, Keftiu, even far-off Hatti-without first passing through the treasury in Waset.”
Bak raised an eyebrow. Surely this was not why he and Nebwa had been summoned. “We’ve heard that rumor before, and it’s never proven true. At least not in a quantity large enough to cause worry.”
“We’re speaking of more this time than a few small items that crossed the frontier on the back of a donkey, hidden among bundles of skins and baskets of ostrich eggs. We’re speaking of ivory. Whole, uncut tusks. Only the lord Amon knows what else has slipped past us.”
“A tusk can stand as tall or taller than I do, and it can weigh almost as much.” Bak tried not to sound as skeptical as he felt. “That’s not an easy thing to smuggle.”
Nebwa snorted. “Impossible, if you ask me.”
“I don’t want to believe it any more than you do,” Thuty said, scowling at the pair before him, “but it’s a fact. Our 24 / Lauren Haney envoy to the king of Tyre saw a tusk in the palace there. It held pride of place, a new and treasured possession. He took offense, thinking our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut, had delegated another man to present the gift without his knowledge. That very day he sent a courier to Waset, to the vizier.
The tusk was not a gift from the royal house. Nor had it passed through the treasury, as it should have.” Thuty looked first at Bak and then Nebwa, his mouth set, his eyes flinty.
“We’ve been ordered to search all vessels sailing this sector of the river and all caravans coming across the desert. The garrisons farther south along the Belly of Stones will have a like responsibility.”
“We’ll not find an uncut tusk on a caravan,” Nebwa said.
“We might discover a few good-sized chunks. We sometimes do. But nothing that size.”
“What of the lands east of Tyre?” Bak asked, as slow to be convinced as Nebwa was. “They say elephants are found beyond the two mighty rivers that flow south instead of north. Could the tusk have come from there?”
Thuty raised his baton to acknowledge an approaching sentry, a lanky young man wearing a short kilt, carrying a white cowhide shield and a long spear. “The chancellor of Tyre, the king’s right hand, assured our envoy it came from far to the south of Kemet. And it was no gift from one royal house to another. It was bought from a merchant in exchange for gold.”
Before Bak or Nebwa could utter a word, he cut them short. “Further discussion is futile. The vizier has issued a command, and we must obey.” He waited for the sentry to pass by, walk into the tower, and climb the ladder to the roof. “We’ve been ordered to keep the smuggled tusk our secret, saying nothing to anyone. The vizier wants no rumors spreading across the frontier that the land of Kemet no longer wields the power it did when our sovereign’s father, Akheperkare Tuthmose, sat on the throne.”
“Every captain we delay will squawk like a snared goose,” grumbled Nebwa, who had little interest in politics.
“Every trader, caravan master, fisherman. Every man bringing a load of vegetables across the river.”
“Send them to me. I’ll silence them soon enough.”
Bak saw the task was unavoidable, but felt he must point out a truth. “As soon as word spreads that we’re looking for contraband-and the news will fly faster than dust in a gale-not so much as a sandstone chip will cross the frontier without proper clearance and a careful accounting, with the toll already laid out for collection. We’d have more success with random inspections.”
“You know rumor will make the smugglers cautious,” Thuty said, “and I know it, and the viceroy knows it. But try sending word to the capital. To the vizier. Do you think he’ll listen to the men in the garrisons, those who know from experience?”
Bak had no answer, nor did Thuty expect one. The complaint was chronic, one common to all frontier commanders who longed to be heard by the men who walked the corridors of power, but whose messages were more often than not lost in bureaucratic indifference.
Thuty crossed the walkway to the battlements that looked down on the outer city, a huge rectangular area surrounding the three desert-facing sides of the citadel, and enclosed by walls as high and as strong. Bak and Nebwa followed, sneaking a glance at each other, a shared thought: How long would this exercise in futility continue?
Below, the lanes were crooked, the blocks irregular in shape, the buildings thrown together in random fashion.
Within these cramped structures were workshops and homes of craftsmen and traders. Farther out lay the animal enclosures, encampments for transient soldiers, and an ancient cemetery.
“I thought at first to make this solely a military operation, but now I believe the police, not the army, should be responsible for the task here in Buhen.” Thuty saw the surprise on Bak’s face and raised his baton, staving off objections. “I know. The Medjay force is too small to shoulder this effort and perform its normal duties as well. So we’ll use a 26 / Lauren Haney mixed team-police and military-with you, Lieutenant, in command.”
Nebwa heaved an unmistakable sigh of relief. “I can’t think of anyone more suited to the job,” he said magnanimously.
“Let me know how many men you’ll need and I’ll be glad to oblige.”
Bak resisted the urge to elbow his friend hard in the ribcage. He knew Nebwa preferred rough-and-tumble soldiering over the more mundane duties of manning a frontier garrison, and he sympathized much of the time. But now, with so onerous a task ahead, it was difficult to feel compassion.
“Lest you fear I’m neglecting you, Troop Captain,” Thuty said with a wry smile, “Kor will be your responsibility. Your men will search every bag and basket on every donkey traveling north through the desert, just as Bak’s men will investigate the vessels sailing these waters.”
Bak stifled a laugh. The old fortress of Kor, subsidiary to Buhen, stood at the lower end of the Belly of Stones, a long stretch of rapids not navigable through most of the year. The fort served as a place where northbound trade goods were shifted from donkey caravans to trading vessels, or the reverse. It was a dry, dusty post, far less appealing than the harbor of Buhen.
“How was I to know he needed a pass?” Ramose, the florid-faced captain of the trading ship moored alongside the quay on which he stood, planted his legs wide apart, his fists on his hips, and glared at the officer standing before him.
“He told me he came from the north, not the south. You can’t hold me responsible for another man’s lies!”
Bak let the seaman’s belligerence pass over him with an indifference born of practice. Most of a day had passed since the commandant had ordered the all-out search for contraband, and every boatman on the quay had vented his anger and resentment in one way or another-the smaller the boat, the louder and more vociferous the complainant. He turned to the lean, sinewy man whose arm was caught in the firm grip of a hulking young Medjay policeman. “Explain yourself, Tjanuny!”
The dusky offender drew his shoulders back and raised his chin high, refusing to be intimidated. “My brother lives in Kemet, sir, tilling the fields of an illustrious nobleman whose estate is a day’s walk north of Abu. I thought to go there, to make a new and better life for myself.”
Bak waved off a fly buzzing around his face. “How do you know you’ll be welcome?”
Tjanuny hesitated, his dark eyes betraying the agony of decision. With obvious reluctance, he untied the neck of a leather pouch suspended from a thong around his waist, withdrew a broken chunk of grayish pottery, and handed it over. The writing on the surface was cramped but clear. The scribe of the nobleman Amonhotep guaranteed Tjanuny’s passage north from Wawat. The shard had only to be presented and payment would be made.
Bak glanced at Ramose’s ship, riding low in the water, heavy with merchandise brought from far upriver to the south. A mixed unit of soldiers and Medjay policemen swarmed over the craft, probing the contents of baskets and bundles and chests filled with exotic and precious items. An elderly scribe borrowed from the garrison records office followed their progress, comparing the cargo with the manifest he held, making sure the captain had omitted no items for which he had to pay a toll. The colors of the deckhouse-red, yellow, and black-were faded and blurred, while the forecastle was bright with fresh paint. On the prow, the faded symbols forming the name had been outlined in black, pre-paratory to repainting. The vessel creaked, a black dog tied to the deckhouse whimpered to be free. A bulging linen bag gave off an intriguing but alien scent that mingled with the smell of paint.
Fifteen or so men wearing the skimpiest of loincloths, their skin burned to leather by the sun, clustered on the quay near the stern. Tjanuny’s fellow oarsmen. Realizing they had drawn Bak’s attention, they hurriedly looked away, making 28 / Lauren Haney their interest conspicuous by their effort to appear disinterested.
The ship looked reasonably well tended, its crew a congenial lot, the captain no doubt good-natured when all went well. Not a bad berth, Bak concluded. A vessel on which Tjanuny could work his passage north so that later another man, a trusted friend, could pretend to be a ship’s captain and present the chit to Amonhotep’s scribe for payment.
Suppressing a smile, he asked Captain Ramose, “If he had a pass, would you keep him on board as far as Abu?”
“Good sailors are hard to find.” Ramose eyed Tjanuny thoughtfully. “He’s proved his worth, I guess.” A pause, a nod. “I don’t suppose he meant any harm. Yes, I’d keep him on.”
“Take him to the scribal office building, Kasaya,” Bak told the Medjay. “Get him a pass to travel north.”
Tjanuny’s face registered surprise, pleasure, and then dismay as Bak walked to the edge of the quay and dropped the shard into the river.
Another day of this wretched task, Bak thought, and I’ll be the most infamous man along the frontier, shunned by all. He had another thought and laughed aloud, surprising a fisherman stowing his nets in the prow of his boat, preparing to cast off and sail home to his village. No, not the most unpopular. From what he had heard from men newly arrived from Kor, Nebwa in his usual tactless way had already out-stripped him for first place.
Thanking the lord Amon that the day was nearly over, Bak stopped at a gangplank bridging the gap between the quay and a long, slim traveling vessel. Imsiba stood on deck, watching his inspection team probe the cargo. They were closing on the rudder, nearly finished with their task. Hori sat on the deckhouse roof, legs dangling, writing pallet, water jar, and extra pens beside him. The manifest was spread across his lap so he could check off objects as the men called them out. The captain, a short, wiry individual with a mottled complexion, lounged in the forecastle, while the crew looked on from the upper terrace, where they had gone to play throwsticks in the shade of the fortress wall.
The ship was bright and new, its wooden hull not yet darkened by time, its bronze fittings unblemished and shiny.
A lightweight wooden lean-to hung with white linen was attached to the chevron-patterned deckhouse, sheltering from the sun and the breeze a tiny, wizened woman and her three female servants. A white coffin in human form was lashed up against the deckhouse. The old woman’s husband, the captain had told Bak, on his way north to Kemet to be buried in the family tomb.
The contents of the last basket were called out. Hori checked off the final item, collected his writing implements, and dropped off the cabin roof, hitting the deck with a hollow thud. The search team filed down the gangplank, Bak relieved them of duty, and they trotted up the quay toward the fortress. The ship’s crew cut their game short to hurry aboard, arguing heatedly about the final cast of the sticks. With Imsiba watching, Hori tied and sealed the manifest and turned it over to the captain. They spoke a few words, the seaman clapped the big Medjay on the back, and shouted an order for the oarsmen to take their positions.
“I see no men scurrying around, counting baskets laden with contraband,” Nebwa said, coming up behind Bak.
Bak swung around, amazed. “By the beard of Amon!
What’re you doing in Buhen?”
“I left Ptahmose in charge. Not a man in Wawat has led more desert patrols than he has, and not a caravan master in the world can deceive him.” Ptahmose was Nebwa’s sergeant, as close to him as Imsiba was to Bak.
“You’d better keep well out of Thuty’s way. You know how he feels about men who shirk their duty.”
“You lay blame where no blame is due.” Nebwa screwed up his face, trying hard to look aggrieved. “I’ve a legitimate mission. One even Thuty can’t frown upon.”
Bak rolled his eyes skyward. “I don’t believe you for a moment, but let’s hear your tale. Practice now before you must repeat it to him.”
30 / Lauren Haney
Nebwa grinned like a child newly escaped from scribal school, but soon sobered. “Captain Mahu will sail from Kor before nightfall, his ship heavy with merchandise. It was more than half loaded when I arrived at dawn, so I can’t vouch for what was stowed on board yesterday. When he sails into Buhen, I suggest you search it from stem to stern.”
“We’re inspecting every vessel. You know that.” Bak eyed his friend, suspicious. “Now speak the truth: Was this merely an excuse to slip away from Kor, or do you have good reason to urge undue diligence on our part? Mahu’s always seemed an honest man to me.”
“It was an excuse to come home, I admit, but…” Nebwa scratched his head, frowned. “I saw him talking to a man I wouldn’t trust with my rattiest pair of sandals, a boatman from the south, as slick a man as I’ve ever seen. Not much, I know, but…” Again his voice tailed off; he looked almost embarrassed. “I like Mahu. I’d hate to think he’s not the man I always believed him to be, nor do I wish to harm his reputation. But they were standing close, their voices low and secretive. Furtive.”
“If we find nothing on board,” Bak promised, “his reputation will remain unblemished.”
Forming a smile, Nebwa raised a hand in greeting to Imsiba and Hori, walking down the gangplank. “Fair enough.”
A nearly naked dock worker scurried along the quay beside the ship, releasing the hawsers from their mooring posts. At a brisk command from the captain, a sailor pulled the gangplank aboard, the drummer set the rhythm for the oarsmen, and they dipped their long paddles into the water. As the vessel swung away from its berth, they began to sing a song of the river, their voices loud and merry but with scant beauty. Bak raised his baton of office, returning the captain’s salute, while Nebwa and the others waved a farewell.
“Neglecting your duty again, I see,” Imsiba said, altering his voice to sound like Thuty, “and you a troop captain, too.
A fine example you’re setting for one whose every deed should be above reproach.”
The gibe prompted a careless laugh. “I’ve better things to do than listen to the squawks of a flock of caravan masters.”
Nebwa turned his head aside and spat on the ground, showing his contempt. “We’ve found not a single item of contraband. Nor will we ever, with all the world expecting to be searched.”
Still grumbling, he walked with Imsiba and Hori up the quay. Bak remained behind, unwilling to leave until his men finished inspecting Ramose’s ship and it set sail for the north.
He sat on a mooring post, tapping his ankle with his baton, letting his thoughts run free. The sun, a pale yellow orb in a blue-white sky, seemed for a moment to cling to the edge of the high fortress wall, then dropped behind it. A sentry, reduced to a silhouette against the light, paced the battlements. A half dozen fishermen stood among as many skiffs pulled up on the revetment near the end of the quay, their voices raised in argument, speaking in a local dialect Bak could not understand.
He listened to the murmurs of the ship’s crew farther out on the quay, inhaled the fishy, musty odor of the water flowing past, savored the breeze caressing his shoulders. He thought of the ship that had already sailed, wondered where it would tie up for the night and what safe harbor Ramose would find. And he thought of Mahu’s cargo vessel, soon to arrive from Kor. Nebwa’s suspicions seemed farfetched, based on instinct rather than fact. At times that instinct was infallible, but now? Mahu’s reputation was exemplary, his honesty unquestioned.
Bak, yawning broadly, stepped out of the dark passage through the towered gate and walked south along the upper terrace. One large vessel, a broad-beamed cargo ship with the river god Hapi painted on its prow, was moored alongside the southern quay. The crew hustled about the deck, securing the lowered mast and yards for the long voyage downstream to Kemet. The ship was Mahu’s, riding low in the water, reeking of the farmyard. When it had sailed into Buhen at dusk, too late to inspect, the cattle and goats it carried on deck had been led away to the animal paddocks.
The harbor guards had assured Bak that the remainder of the cargo had lain untouched through the night.
The heavy ship wallowed in the swells raised by a stiff breeze. Across a strip of water and tied to the central quay, a line of smaller boats-fishing skiffs, papyrus rafts, and vessels used to ferry people, animals, and produce across the river-bobbed up and down, tugging at their mooring ropes.
Bak eyed the quay, the bustle on board Mahu’s ship, the men working in and around the lesser craft. He smelled the faint fishy odor of the river, smoke from many small hearths and braziers, and the sweet, clinging odor of manure. Long red banners whipped in the breeze from atop four tall flagstaffs clamped to the facade of the pylon. The rustling of heavy linen vied with the clamor inside the fortress: the barking of dogs, the braying of donkeys, the shouts of sergeants goading the garrison troops to their day’s activities.
At that moment, all seemed right with the world. Almost too right. If I were a superstitious man, Bak thought with a smile, I’d start looking over my shoulder, fearing trouble close behind.
Imsiba strode through the gate, followed by a scraggly line of Medjays and soldiers and the elderly scribe from the records office. He paused, eyeing two men standing midway along the quay. “Our morning, it seems, has been blessed beyond words.”
The big Medjay, Bak knew, was referring to the younger of the pair, Userhet, overseer of warehouses, impeccably clad in a calf-length kilt, a broad bead collar, and matching bracelets. From a distance, the tall, broad-shouldered bureaucrat looked more like a soldier than a scribe. His hair was dark and curly, his nose aquiline, his skin oiled gold. Imsiba had taken a dislike to him the day he set foot in Buhen.
Userhet was charming-too charming, Imsiba had grumbled-much admired by garrison wives and daughters.
Mahu, the second man, was of medium height and build, with skin dark and weathered from too many years standing unprotected on the deck of a ship. He wore a simple knee-length white kilt, bronze bracelets and armlets, and a pectoral with a design too finely worked to see from so far away.
“Userhet and Mahu are neighbors,” Bak said. “They often play the game of senet together.”
Imsiba gave the pair a sour look. “I’ve always thought Mahu too upright a man to use friends in lofty places to gain an advantage.”
“You know how fond of himself Userhet is! He’d not be here if he thought a shadow would fall anywhere near him, darkening his precious reputation.”
“Mahu’s reputation is equally spotless, my friend, but if Userhet pleads his case, insisting he sail out of Buhen without an inspection, I’d say ‘tarnished’ could better be used to describe them both.”
“I see you’ve a way with words, Sergeant.” A tall, slender man of thirty or so years emerged from the gloom of the passageway behind them, his eyes twinkling with good humor. Though his face was bony and pocked, ravaged by some childhood disease, he was a man of elegant movements and infinite grace, wearing a broad collar, bracelets, and armlets. Each piece of jewelry was a treat to the eye, with every bead made of gold, carnelian, turquoise, or lapis lazuli-not the bronze and faience affairs worn by most everyone else in Buhen.
“Hapuseneb!” Bak was never quite sure how he should treat this man, the most successful trader south of the land of Kemet. So he had long ago opted for equality. “I didn’t expect to see you in Buhen!” He glanced toward the quay, though he knew none of the merchant’s ships were moored there. “How did you get here?”
“You see that magnificent vessel with the patched yellow sail?” Hapuseneb pointed to a small, very ordinary fishing boat riding the swells near the water’s edge. “I borrowed it last night and sailed in from Kor, where my own ship lan-guishes-thanks to your friend Nebwa.”
“Don’t tell me he caught you smuggling contraband!” Bak laughed.
The merchant gave a cynical snort. “One of my caravan masters, a man of no sense whatsoever, tried to bring three 34 / Lauren Haney young women across the frontier without passes. Nebwa impounded the lot: women, donkeys, and trade goods. He can keep the women through eternity, for all I care, but I want my donkeys returned, and the merchandise they carry.
As I couldn’t persuade him to release them, I came to Buhen, hoping to convince Thuty so we can soon load my ship and sail north to Kemet.” He shook his head in mock resignation.
“He agreed, but only if I sail into Buhen and submit to a second search. The viceroy’s command, it seems, is of greater influence than my poor cries for understanding.”
Smiling at his own joke, Hapuseneb knelt at the water’s edge, drew the borrowed skiff in close, and stepped aboard.
Bak and Imsiba turned away and led their inspection crew on down the quay.
“Hapuseneb seems a good man,” Imsiba said. “I wish more were like him. Quicker to accept this task we must do and slower to complain.”
Bak slowed his pace as they approached the gangplank and lowered his voice so no one else would hear. “If we find no ivory through the week, and if Nebwa finds none at Kor, we’ll speak to Commandant Thuty. By then we’ll have inconvenienced and angered a sufficient number of men to convince the viceroy we’ve done our duty. With luck, he’ll consign these blanket inspections to the netherworld.”
“Oh, I don’t blame you, Lieutenant.” Userhet glanced at Imsiba and the men standing by the gangplank, awaiting Bak’s signal to board. “I’m sure you’d much rather be elsewhere.”
“Yes, sir,” Bak said, using formality to distance himself from potential argument.
“I understand Commandant Thuty received a message from the viceroy, ordering a widespread search for contraband.” Userhet paused, giving Bak a chance to comment, perhaps to confirm or deny, maybe even go so far as to fill in details.
“The commandant seldom confides in me, sir.”
“How many ships have you inspected so far? Two? Three? And you must’ve examined half the fishing boats along this part of the river and most of the ferries. Yet you’ve brought nothing to the treasury, nor have you turned in anything of lesser value to the main storage magazine.”
“No, sir.”
Close to the end of the previous day Nebwa’s sergeant had confiscated a cage of half-grown monkeys suffering from starvation and thirst. Maybe the overseer had not yet heard about the animals-or maybe he did not consider them of value.
Userhet frowned, tried again. “To search every vessel and come up empty-handed seems a waste of time. Yours and that of everyone else.”
Mahu laid a hand on his shoulder. “We live on the frontier, my young friend. We’re bound to be inconvenienced once in a while. Especially men like me, who come and go time and time again, more often than not carrying valuable and rare cargo.”
“Your reputation is above reproach,” Userhet insisted. “You shouldn’t be subjected to such an indignity. If I had the authority, I’d send you on your way this instant.”
“I appreciate the thought and I’m grateful,” Mahu smiled,
“but even if you could, I wouldn’t accept. What would my fellow seamen think if I were allowed to slip away unscathed while they are forced to submit?”
Bak had thought Mahu a pleasant man; the statement earned him respect. “We should be finished before midday, sir.”
“Lieutenant Bak!” Hori’s voice, insistent, urgent.
Bak swung around, saw the chubby youth running down the quay, clutching his scribal pallet under his arm.
The boy slid to a halt, took a couple of deep breaths. “Sir, there’s been a shipwreck! A long day’s walk to the north. It must’ve happened during the storm.” He paused, wiped the sweat from his face. “Captain Ramose found it at first light.
You must go, sir. The crewmen are gone-either drowned or run away-and the cargo has vanished.