“Now listen!” Captain Ramose stood at the mouth of the rock shelter, feet spread wide, hands on hips, in what Bak had concluded was his favored position for command. “Except to relieve yourselves, you’ll not set foot out of this shelter while I’m gone. You hear me?”
The four oarsmen he had ordered to remain behind nodded in a desultory fashion, not a man among them eager to spend the next day or so on a rocky ledge, imagining their fellows reveling in Buhen.
“If so much as one object vanishes, you’ll each and everyone be held to blame. Understand?”
They nodded, shuffled their bare feet, threw sour glances at the contraband tying them to this wretched place. One man looked about to complain, but Ramose’s scowl stifled his words.
“So be it!” The captain turned away, winking at Bak as he did so, and strode down the path toward the village and his ship, moored at the foot of the escarpment north of the cultivated land.
The vessel wallowed in the swells, too heavily laden for graceful movement. A wide board serving as a gangplank connected the deck with the rising slope. Two sailors, one at the head and the other at the foot, carried the white coffin across the unstable walkway, stepping quick but careful lest they slip and fall into the water, taking their melancholy burden with them. In addition to the original cargo bound for Abu, the decks were cluttered with animal cages and jars of aromatic oils and incense-the most fragile of the contraband. The shipwrecked sailors hunched down on every unused bit of deck, trying to stay out of the way and attract no notice.
Bak glanced at Pahuro, who stood stiff and straight and tight-lipped, a man too proud to display the indignity he must have felt at being caught so soon and so thoroughly.
Or one who expected to suffer the anger of the gods-or the wrath of mighty Kemet.
“You found nothing else on board the ship?” Bak asked, not for the first time. He was thinking specifically of elephant tusks, for none had been found among the contraband.
“We’ve held nothing back. That I swear by the lord De-dun.” Pahuro’s voice was as stiff as his spine, the oath to an old Kushite god.
Bak believed him, and the false manifest listing all the precious objects seemed to bear him out. No tusk had been recorded.
His eye was drawn to Ramose, hurrying past the village, raising a puff of dust with each step he took. A yellow dog barked halfheartedly from a patch of shade. Getting no reaction, it hauled itself to its feet and trotted down a sunny lane to sniff at the heels of several women kneeling before a small mudbrick shrine dedicated to some local god Bak could not identify from so far away. Women praying, he felt sure, for the safety of their village and their men.
“I’ll keep my vow, Pahuro,” he said, irritated they had such scanty faith in his word. “I’ve no desire to squeeze the life from your village.”
“They’re old women, Lieutenant, frail creatures who remember a time long ago when our men were made to march off to war and not one in ten came back.”
Bak remembered tales he had heard of the last full-scale conflict fought through this area and farther south. Many years had since passed and the village now looked prosperous enough, with plump livestock and fowl, rich fields, lush date palms, and vines that no doubt bore succulent fruit. Not 56 / Lauren Haney visible was the amount of work required, back-breaking labor leaving meager time and energy to repair the poor houses, or to allow the sick to rest and mend, or to travel to Buhen to take part in the festivals of the gods.
Bak turned to the oarsmen, drew in a breath, and closed his heart to thoughts of his responsibility to the lady Maat and his duty to the royal house and his sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut. “Now, so I can show Ramose what I’ve asked you to do before we sail, and he can lay no blame on your heads, you must place in the hands of this headman one copper ingot and two bundles of cowhides.” He paused, scanned the objects in the shelter, selected the most and least useful. “Give him also the smallest of the two lengths of heavy linen, and one jar of perfumed oil for the women.”
Pahuro dropped to his knees and covered his face, too moved to speak. Bak hurried away, cursing himself for a soft-hearted fool. Commandant Thuty, whose fierce tongue had been known to make brave men quake in their sandals, would not be pleased to learn he had rewarded a village which by rights should be punished.
“This is the place, all right. See?” The sailor with the crooked nose knelt beside several small brownish lumps half-covered by sand and dried hard by the harsh desert heat. A few flies crawled over the surface, but none found a morsel fit to hold them for long. “They must’ve thrown water over the cages to wash out the filth.” He glanced up at the youth with the monkey clinging to his neck. “You remember. The sand around them was wet when we came.”
The boy, looking sheepish, pointed. “I stepped in that pile.
It was so dark, I couldn’t see a thing.”
Tjanuny, squatting beside an irregular ring of rocks a dozen paces away, glanced up from the thin layer of ash and a few pieces of charred wood he had cleared of windblown sand.
“If this poor fire was all the light you had, I’m surprised you saw the cages.”
Shading his eyes with a hand, Bak scanned the area, a broad, open plain on both sides of the river. The sands, barren of plants and animals alike, blanketed the earth from the water’s edge to the horizon, lost in a pinkish-purplish haze.
The flat, burnished gold surface, relieved at intervals by low sandhills, appeared to tremble like a living creature, veiled as it was in heat waves. From high above in a vivid blue sky, the lord Re looked down upon the men below, parching their throats and scorching the sands they trod. Other than the makeshift hearth and the animal waste, the storm had conspired to hold the site’s secrets, erasing all signs of man.
This bleak plain seemed an unlikely spot for a rendezvous, Bak thought, too open and visible. Yet it was a place where nothing lived or moved. Its sterility, its utter desolation, would make it one of the few spots along the river where one man could meet another unseen, especially on a dark night.
“Our ship drew in close to shore, and the loading went fast. Not a man among us wanted to tarry.” The sailor stood up, eyed the site, grimaced. “We didn’t like this place. A land of death, we thought, even in the cool of night.”
“Who met you here?” Imsiba asked.
“We never saw anyone,” the man grumbled. “Just…” His voice tailed off; he shifted his feet, uneasy.
“We saw shadows in the dark,” the boy said in a hushed voice. “The oldest man among us, one who should know, said the sandhills were ancient burial places, so we feared at first they were shadows of the dead. Later…”
“Why not a headless man?” Tjanuny mumbled, chuckling,
“or some other specter of the desert?”
Bak silenced him with a frown, wanting no distractions.
The man and boy exchanged a quick look. The latter said,
“Later, after we finished loading, Maya thought to go off by himself for some reason. He’d not gone ten paces when an arrow came out of nowhere, narrowly missing him.”
“Dead men don’t carry bows and arrows.” The older sailor’s tone was dogged, as if a fear of the unknown nibbled at the edges of his commonsense. “Nor do they take traveling ships to the netherworld.”
It was Bak’s turn to exchange a glance with Imsiba. “You 58 / Lauren Haney saw another vessel here? The one that brought the contraband?”
“No!” The boy’s voice was so sharp the monkey grabbed his hair and wrapped itself around his head. “We didn’t know it was close by until we were ready to sail, and we don’t know for a fact that it left the objects we loaded. First, we heard across the water the groan and creak of rising yards and the snap of heavy linen catching the wind. Not long after, the ship sped south and we saw the spread of sail passing in the dark. Not easy to see, but impossible to miss.”
And impossible to identify later, Bak thought, irked. Especially when your wits are addled by fear.
“Mahu’s still here, I see.” Ramose stood at the prow of his ship, directing the oarsmen and the man at the rudder as they eased the vessel against the northern quay. “I thought by now he’d be well on his way to Abu.”
“I forgot we left him here.” Bak scowled at the cargo ship, no longer moored at the southern quay where last he had seen it, but tied up now at the central quay. He glanced at the sun and groaned. Close to midafternoon already. So much for the leisurely swim he yearned for. “I’d better search that vessel right away, Imsiba. The cattle and goats they had on board are tribute bound for the capital. The sooner they sail north, the better.”
Sailors threw hawsers over the mooring posts and pulled the ship on which they stood snug against the quay. The instant the gap closed, Bak leaped across to the landing, with Imsiba close behind. The stones felt hot beneath their sandaled feet, the air warm and close.
“Before I inspect that vessel, I must go to Commandant Thuty.” Bak drew the Medjay down the quay, out of the way of the men who were securing the vessel and setting out the gangplank. “Seldom do I have such good news to report. I’d like to be the first to deliver it.”
Imsiba laughed. “Then you mustn’t tarry, my friend. I’ll wager the rumors have already taken wing.”
“Don’t speed me on my way yet,” Bak grinned. “I’ve several tasks I wish you to shoulder.”
Imsiba’s smile turned wry. “I feared for a moment I’d have the rest of the day to myself.”
Bak laughed, but quickly sobered. “Before anything else, you must search out Pashenuro.” He was speaking of the Medjay sergeant next in line behind Imsiba. “Tell him to find a place-an empty house in the outer city would be best-where we can sequester the sailors from the wrecked ship. They’ve told us close to nothing. With luck, a few days with no company other than each other will remind them of many details they claim now they’ve forgotten.”
“Lieutenant!” Ramose strode around the deckhouse to the coffin and rapped it with his knuckles. “What shall I do with this? If I’m to return to Pahuro’s village and bring back all we left behind, I’ll need every square cubit of deck space.”
Bak eyed the white man-shaped box, undecided. It had no place in a warehouse, and the priests at the house of death were always complaining about a lack of space. He had not noticed the titles of the deceased on the manifest, but doubted the man was of sufficient importance to convince the priest of Horus of Buhen to keep the coffin in a storeroom in the god’s mansion. He could think of only one place, one that did not appeal in the least. “Have it delivered to the old guardhouse, Imsiba. With luck, we can send it on to Abu within a couple of days. Perhaps on your ship, Captain Ramose?”
“Fair enough,” Ramose laughed.
Imsiba shook his head in mock despair. “Little did I know when first I set eyes on you, my friend, that you’d make me caretaker to a coffin.”
Bak clasped his hands before his breast and deepened his voice, mimicking the chief prophet of the lord Amon. “The mastery of many tasks separates a great man from an ordinary one.”
Imsiba tried to look pained, but a grin broke through.
Ramose’s laugh boomed across the harbor, drawing the attention of sailors and fishermen and ferrymen, drawing laughter
60 / Lauren Haney from the men who toiled nearby whether or not they understood the joke.
When the laughter died away, Bak said, “After you’ve finished with Pashenuro and the coffin, you must come back here, bringing Hori with you. You’ll oversee the transfer of cargo from this vessel to the appropriate warehouse and he, in turn, will record that transfer. In short, you’ll treat the ship as you do each new arrival in Buhen, but Ramose will pay no tolls.”
Commandant Thuty leaned back in his armchair, adjusted the thick pillow beneath his rear, and stretched his legs in front of him. He had a way of looking around the unadorned, white-walled room he called his office that left no doubt of the pleasure he took in his command. Bak stood facing him between two of the four red columns which supported the ceiling. Other than the chair, the room held no furniture.
Thuty used it for official appearances; his real place of business was his reception room in the family quarters on the second floor.
“You’ve done well, Lieutenant.” Rubbing the palms of his hands together, Thuty grinned like a delighted child. “Very well indeed. You’re to be commended for convincing the headman that it would be in his best interest and that of his village to reveal the hidden contraband. And for dealing with its return to Buhen in the best manner possible under the circumstances.”
So far, Thuty had dispensed nothing but praise, giving no attention to the few small objects Bak had given the villagers.
Maybe he would overlook them in light of the vast number of items recovered. “I was lucky Captain Ramose was there.
Many ship’s officers wouldn’t have been so helpful, so willing to delay their voyage north.”
Thuty unrolled the false manifest and glanced through it as he spoke. “When the viceroy hears of all you found-a respectable prize by any man’s standards-he’ll surely send word to the vizier. Who knows? That worthy official may even whisper the news in the ear of our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut.”
Bak shifted his feet, uncomfortable with the thought. The one time he had drawn the queen’s attention, he had been torn from his duties as a charioteer and exiled to Wawat.
Fortunately, what had been intended as punishment had turned out to be a gift of the gods. He liked Buhen and wanted nothing to imperil his life on the frontier. “I don’t know what Pahuro meant to do with so much of value. He could barter away the cowhides with no trouble and an ingot or two now and again, but the remainder, all rare and costly items, would’ve brought officials without number into his village, each with questions he’d have no end of trouble answering.”
“He’d probably have come up with some wild tale of finding the objects strewn along the river’s edge, though how he’d account for anything as heavy as the ingots is anybody’s guess.” Thuty looked up from the manifest. “And the animals.
Caged the way they are, they’d make a lie of any claim that the ship sank while the creatures were on deck.”
Bak heard the soft patter of sandals on stone, someone crossing the audience hall, approaching the doorway behind him. Someone, he hoped, who would seek an interview with Thuty, giving him a chance to slip away and return to the harbor. “They were well tended when we found them, but I imagine the cages would sooner or later have been shoved into the river and the animals drowned so their skins could be safely taken. The villagers couldn’t release them, nor do they have the wealth to feed them for long.”
Thuty looked back at the manifest and ran his finger down the listed items. “I see no mention of an elephant tusk.”
“No, sir.” A rivulet of sweat crept down Bak’s breastbone, tickling him. “When I saw the shelter and all those precious objects, I prayed to the lord Amon a tusk would be among them. He failed to respond.” The tale was true, but the plea had been made mainly so his life and Nebwa’s could return to normal, with no more wretched inspections. If they 62 / Lauren Haney had discovered that Roy had been smugling ivory, their job would have been done.
Thuty glanced past Bak and raised his hand, signaling whoever stood at the door to wait outside until he was free.
He rerolled the scroll, planted his elbows on the arms of his chair, and stared hard at the younger officer over pyramided fingers. Bak stiffened.
“You’ve many admirable qualities, Lieutenant, but now and again you demonstrate a lack of good judgment surprising in a man as competent as you-as you did this morning.”
“Sir…”
“Pahuro and the people of his village took as their own many precious objects which by rights belong to the royal house. Without your intervention, they’d not have given them up, yet you rewarded them with a portion of their plunder.”
“Yes, sir.”
Thuty’s expression hardened. “I’m responsible for meting out justice along this sector of the river. You are not. Is that clear, Lieutenant?”
Bak felt the blood rush to his face. “Yes, sir.” He had expected official disapproval. Never once had he thought he might be treading on the commandant’s authority.
Still smarting from Thuty’s chastisement, Bak hurried to the harbor to set in motion the inspection of Mahu’s ship.
He found the captain near the stern, sitting on an overturned woven reed basket. He was chatting with Lieutenant Kay, a short, broad-shouldered man of thirty or so years who stood on the quay, resting a hip on a mooring post. Kay was new to Buhen, an infantry officer transferred a month or so earlier from the more southerly fortress of Semna.
Bak raised his baton of office in greeting and led his men on board. While they spread out across the deck, he walked to the bow and climbed into the forecastle. From there, he could see much of the ship-and he had the privacy he needed to cool his heated temper.
He resented Thuty’s accusation that he had overstepped his bounds. Well, maybe he had, but in a small way and with no ill intent. One thing he knew as a certainty: he could not go back and undo what he had done. In fact, he was not sure he would if he could. What were the few insignificant objects he had given the villagers compared to the riches of the royal house? As for Thuty…
Tamping down his irritation, a waste of time at best, he studied the ship on which he stood. The deckhouse was a light-framed structure sheathed in brownish reed mats which could be installed or removed as needed, its shape and size altered to suit the cargo. About half the space in front of the shelter had been roofed with mats and fenced to hold a small but valuable herd of short-horned cows, magnificent reddish beasts offered as tribute by a southern chieftain to the royal house of Kemet. Not long after the ship had docked, they had been led away to a paddock inside the fortress and there they would remain until the vessel was ready to sail.
The foremost portion of the deck, piled high with hay and bags of grain to feed the animals, lay open to the elements.
The area behind the deckhouse was similarly equipped to transport a herd of long-haired white goats, which had also been driven ashore and confined in a paddock. Nearly as valuable as the cattle, they too were being sent north as tribute. The deck had been swept clean. The tangy smell of fresh hay overlaid a lingering odor of animal waste.
Between the sheaves of hay and the grain, the deck held an infinite number of hiding places. As would the deckhouse and the vast area belowdecks. But by the wildest stretch of his imagination Bak could not conceive of Mahu carrying contraband. The animals alone, some of the finest he had ever seen, attested to the captain’s integrity. No important chieftain would entrust so valuable a herd to a man of questionable honesty. Yet Nebwa’s instincts, sometimes dramatically wrong, were more often than not right.
Bak’s eyes darted aft to Captain Mahu’s husky figure. How well had he known Captain Roy? He had no idea how many ships plied the waters between Abu and Buhen, but 64 / Lauren Haney surely not so many that the drowned man would have been a stranger. Dropping off the forecastle, he hurried the length of the deck to the stern, where he apologized for detaining the vessel for so long.
Mahu waved off the apology. “The delay was no fault of yours, Lieutenant. If I’m to lay blame, I’ll look to the viceroy.
Or to the gods who allowed the storm to wreck Roy’s vessel.
If indeed that’s what happened.”
“Rumors have multiplied ten times ten since word of the shipwreck was brought to Buhen,” Lieutenant Kay said. “Not many carry the ring of truth.”
Mahu snorted. “We’ve even heard tales of mutiny.”
Kay aimed his baton at the northern quay and Ramose’s ship. “Now we can see for ourselves Roy’s crew, with no sign of their master. Was he slain by an angry river, as some say, or by those ruffians?”
“His men swear he was washed overboard,” Bak said, watching a soldier remove one wall of Mahu’s deckhouse.
“I’m inclined to believe them. Without him to lead the way, they let the storm run them aground, and now they seem lost.”
“No great surprise.” If Mahu was troubled by the search, he gave no sign. “Roy brought most of them with him when he came south from Kemet. They’ve done his bidding for years.”
“How well did you know him?”
“As well as any man could.” Mahu watched the thickset, pockmarked Medjay Psuro lift the afterdeck hatch and, with two other men, each carrying a small torch, climb down into the hold. “He was a quiet man, one who kept his own counsel, and as steady as a rock. He knew the river better than most, and he was a fine sailor. He maneuvered his ship as easily as most men would handle a fishing boat a quarter the size.”
Bak glanced toward Ramose’s ship, where a line of men was carrying the animals down the gangplank and along the northern quay to the fortress gate. The cages hung from long poles, allowing the bearers to remain at a safe distance from vicious claws and teeth. “Have you ever known him to carry illicit cargo?”
“I know what’s being said: his deck was stacked high with contraband.” Mahu eyed the men searching the foredeck, prodding and poking sheaves of hay and bags of grain. “As far as I knew, he was no different than most: honest but not to a fault, and willing to take a small risk, but too steady to make a habit of it.”
Kay gave Bak a quick look. “He sailed out of Buhen the day before the storm with no caged animals on board. I know that for a fact, for I saw the ship leave. Have you asked his crew where they picked them up and who delivered them?”
“Sir!” Psuro, his face an emotionless mask, pulled himself half out of the hatch. “We’ve found something you should see.”
Bak noted the Medjay’s lack of expression, the careful way he failed to name his prize. Contraband? He glanced at Mahu, who looked mildly puzzled rather than fearful-as most men would if they expected to be caught with an illicit cargo. Lieutenant Kay glanced from one man to another, curious.
Bak hurried to the hatch, Psuro ducked out of his way, and he let himself down into the hold. The square of light beneath the opening illuminated neat stacks of copper ingots, which filled much of the floor space within easy reach of the hatch. Accustomed as he was to the brightness of the deck, he could see nothing beyond except the two torches his men had brought and, at the far end of the cavernous space, a square of light from the open foredeck hatch. He ducked down and closed his eyes, giving them time to adapt to the dark. He felt the ship wallow in the swells, heard water slap the hull, smelled the burning torches. The skitter of tiny clawed feet passed him by, a rat without doubt.
When at last he could see, he arose. The deck was too low overhead to allow him to stand erect, so he walked hunched over, taking care not to bump his head on the crossbeams.
Beyond the ingots, he stepped around a hundred or more thigh-high reddish pottery jars stacked and tied so they could 66 / Lauren Haney not escape and roll with the ship. The two men who had gone below with Psuro knelt in the light of their torches, looking at a mound of coarse white fabric-the sail stowed away for the journey downstream. The remainder of the hold was filled with rough chunks of stone, providing the additional ballast required over and above the weight of the ingots and whatever the jars held. They gave the hold a dusty smell which mingled with the odors of stagnant water, grain, and hints of an infinite variety of previous cargoes.
Psuro squatted beside the sail, and Bak knelt next to him.
The thick, heavy linen had been folded in as neat a way as possible so that when next it was needed, it could be installed on the yards with a minimum of effort. Now it lay with each of the top six or seven folds folded back on itself. Laying across the next lower fold was a long, curving cone of ivory, an uncut elephant tusk the length of a man’s leg from thigh to ankle.
“I didn’t know the tusk was there!” Mahu, looking as harried as a man could be, wiped the sweat from his brow. “I swear to the lord Amon and all the gods in the ennead that it was not on this ship when we stowed the sail below.”
Bak eyed the officer, less certain than he liked to be that he had found the guilty man. Mahu was either a superb actor or innocent. “How did it come aboard then? And when?”
Mahu stared at the tusk laying at his feet as if it were a poisonous serpent. “If I knew, don’t you think I’d tell you?”
Bak glanced at the growing number of men standing on the quay alongside the ship, talking among themselves in hushed voices, fearful of missing a single detail. Sailors and fishermen mostly, alerted by whispers carried on the wind and drawn to the scene by curiosity. Lieutenant Kay was not among them; evidently he had no taste for seeing a man brought low.
“I must make you my prisoner, Captain Mahu, and impound your ship and cargo.” Bak kept his voice low, unwilling to shame the officer before the gawkers on the quay.
Mahu drew himself up to his full height and looked the length of his ship, his pride in the vessel apparent. “I’ve done no wrong. If you seek the truth, you’ll learn for a fact that I’m innocent.”
Bak beckoned Psuro and issued fresh orders. The inspection was to continue, with the Medjay in charge. Guards must be posted, allowing no one to board. Later, after the search team completed its task, only the crew, who made the ship their home and had no other place to sleep or eat, should be allowed aboard.
Satisfied Psuro could continue without him, Bak plucked a tall, hefty Medjay from among the men searching the vessel, and the two of them ushered the captain down the gangplank and onto the quay. Mahu held his head high, trying without success to hide his distress. The onlookers, murmuring among themselves, parted to let them through, fell in behind, and followed them to the fortress. As they passed out of the sunlight and into the shade cast by the twin-towered gate, Bak saluted the sentry with his baton of office. The sentry, a seasoned veteran with graying hair, gave Mahu a curious look, then eyed the men who followed as if not quite sure how to deal with them. The Medjay solved the problem for him. He pivoted, held his long spear horizontally in both hands, and stood, legs spread wide, to hold the onlookers back.
Bak and Mahu entered the dimly lit passage through the gate, passing so quickly from light to near darkness that they were close to blind.
“You’re known as a man who searches out the truth,” Mahu said. “Will you do so for me?”
“And if I find you guilty?”
“I’ve done no wrong, I promise you.”
Bak heard something in Mahu’s voice, a sincerity perhaps, that came close to convincing him. “I’ll do what I can.”
Side by side, they stepped out of the passage. The sun, a smoldering orb hovering above the western battlements, reached into the citadel, setting aglow the white walls of the buildings lining the street, dazzling them with light. Muttering an oath, Bak snapped his eyes shut. A faint whisper 68 / Lauren Haney sounded, a dull thud. Mahu jerked backward and cried out.
Bak’s eyes shot open. He swung around, saw the captain staring wide-eyed at an arrow projecting from his abdomen.
Another wisp of sound and a thwack. A second arrow struck dead center below Mahu’s ribcage. He stumbled back and crumpled to the pavement. His life dripped onto the stones beneath him, forming a fast-expanding red puddle. He tried to speak. Blood bubbled from his mouth and he went limp.
Yelling for the sentry, Bak scanned the street, searching for the assailant. The bright walls and pavement, the fierce light, burned his eyes, making it hard to see. Three small boys, who had been playing in the dirt behind the old guardhouse, peeked around the corner, attracted by his shout.
Two elderly women, also driven by curiosity, moved out of the shade of an intersecting lane. They all gaped, too startled to move, too afraid to draw near. None could have seen Mahu struck down.
A sudden movement caught his attention, drawing his eye up and to the left, to the roof of the building across the street from the guardhouse. A warehouse, with grain stored on the ground floor, the top floor in need of repair and no longer occupied. He glimpsed a dark blur, barely visible in the sun’s glare. An instant later it vanished.
Mahu moaned, his eyes fluttered open. His breathing was rough and tortured.
“Sir!” The sentry ran out of the passage, saw the wounded man, gaped.
“Stay with this man. And send someone for the physician.”
Bak’s voice turned hard. “I want the one who did this.”
He raced to the warehouse door, shoved it open, and burst through. The guard on duty, curled up in a corner asleep, woke with a start and scrambled to his feet. He grabbed for his spear, leaning against the wall with his shield, and at the same time recognized Bak. The spear slipped through his fingers and clattered to the hard-packed earthen floor.
“The stairs!” Bak yelled, swinging his baton toward the man. “Where are the stairs to the roof?”
The guard pointed toward an open door. “Through there!
The first room to the right.”
Bak dashed down a dark hallway, offering a hasty prayer to the lord Amon that he would soon lay hands on the man he sought. He found an open portal, spotted a mudbrick stairway rising to the second floor. A swath of light shone down from above, illuminating the steps. He raced upward, found himself in an open court so small that half its space was taken up by another stairway. He darted on up, burst out onto the roof, stopped. The heat rose in waves from the flat white surface, so bright it made his eyes water. The nearly square expanse was empty of life, the plaster too hot to walk on unshod, and the air reeked of fish. Some enterprising soul had cleaned dozens of perch and laid them out to dry. The surrounding rooftops were as hot and uninviting, as empty.
Laundry lay drying on one roof. Small dark objects, grapes he thought, dotted a sheet spread out on another.
Swerving around the fish, he raced across the roof to the corner and called down to the two old women. They had seen no armed man. Following the knee-high parapet along the back of the building, he ran to the far corner. From there, he could look down two intersecting streets. Except for a couple of brown puppies play-fighting and a group of spearmen coming through the fortress gate, both were empty.
He had to give the assailant credit; he could not have picked a better time of day, with the sun blinding hot and few men or women venturing out.
He zigzagged back across the roof, peering down into several small open courts that had once served as sources of light and air for the maze of rooms on the second floor. Long abandoned, they had entrapped over the years a thick blanket of sand dotted with broken pottery, bits of rotting wood, fallen plaster, and a variety of objects of no further use to anyone. In one court, he surprised a trio of rats nibbling at some unidentifiable object. In another, he set to flight a flock of swallows living in holes excavated in a decaying wall. In none did he find any means of descent from the roof, nor did he see any telltale footprints in the sand.
70 / Lauren Haney
By the time he reached the main courtyard, his confidence had begun to wane. The front of the building, above the entryway where the guard was posted, seemed an unlikely avenue of escape. Twice the size of the other courts, it had suffered a greater assault from the elements. A large section of wall had collapsed. As he hurried toward the opening, the roof felt springy beneath his feet, fragile and insubstantial, and he noticed a network of tiny cracks where the materials beneath had weakened, breaking the plaster. Slowing his pace, treading as lightly as his weight would allow, he approached with care.
As he knelt at the edge, something snapped beneath his feet and the roof settled with a short, sharp jolt that sent his heart into his throat. Stifling a nervous laugh, he looked down into the open court. Below he saw a mound of crumbling mudbricks sprinkled with sand and trash. A swath of sand had been pushed away on the near side and the bricks beneath were gouged and crushed. As if a heavy object had fallen on the mound. Or a man had jumped from above.
Cursing beneath his breath, Bak pushed himself off the roof. The fall was not great, his landing easy, but his feet slid out from under him and he skidded down the bricks on his backside-as the man before him had done. Standing up, brushing himself off, he looked around. A single set of footprints crossed the sand to an open portal on his right.
Passing through, he found himself in a long corridor, its walls broken on both sides by open doorways. He hurried from one to the next, finding no one inside. Bursting through the final portal, he skidded to a stop. A ladder stood in the middle of the room, its uppermost rungs protruding through a small, square opening to the roof. Off to the side, hidden in shadow, he spotted a bow almost as long as he was tall and an unadorned leather quiver filled with arrows.
He snapped out an oath. Only a man confident that he would escape would leave behind his weapon. A man clever enough to abandon a weapon that would draw attention to himself.
Though he knew the effort was wasted, he climbed the ladder and looked outside. As expected, the expanse of white plaster stretched out before him, with no man in sight. While he had been wasting time going from room to room, his quarry had made his escape.
As much as he hated to admit it, he had been outsmarted.
Thoroughly disgusted, he picked up the bow and quiver and looked them over. They were standard army issue, no different than hundreds of other weapons stored in the armory and carried by the archers of Buhen. They could not have been more commonplace.
“He breathed his last in my arms.” The sentry, kneeling beside Mahu’s body, stared at his bloody hands. “Why am I moved? I’ve seen men die before, men I knew well cut down on the field of battle.”
Bak looked at the dead man, slain without warning and for no good reason. Mahu lay flat on his back, as the sentry had left him. One arm rested by his side. The other was folded over his breast, held there by the arrows that had stolen his life. His skin looked waxen, his tan too dark, his bared belly, seldom exposed to the sun, too light. Rivulets of scarlet had flowed from his wounds to congeal on the stones beneath him.
“Did he speak before he died?”
“He said…” The sentry stood up and placed his hands behind him, as he if could no longer bear the sight of them.
“He tried more than once and each time the blood came, snuffing out his words. Somehow, on the brink of death, he found the strength. He said, ‘I’ve done no wrong.’”
Bak muttered an oath. He was saddened by Mahu’s death, and angry. What kind of vile criminal would lie in wait to take a man’s life? A man destined to die anyway unless proven innocent of the crime for which he had been accused?
What snake would slay a man with a policeman walking beside him, taking him into custody for that very crime?
“I’ll do what I can,” he heard himself say, repeating the promise he had made while Mahu still lived.