Bak woke up with what one of his Medjays, a man slain in the line of duty the previous year, would have called a burr in his loincloth. He itched to lay hands on the one who had left the cobra in his sleeping pallet. If the goal had been to stop his meddling, it had failed miserably.
He bade Nebwa good-bye at sunup, sent the twenty borrowed spearmen to the garrison stores for tools and supplies, and hurried to the market to tell Pashenuro of the new task he must shoulder. Following narrow, winding paths between stalls already drawing customers, he searched for his two Medjays. He traded a few faience beads for breakfast-a flat loaf of bread and a bowl of thick lentil stew-and ate as he walked along.
As early as it was, the proprietors of woodframe stalls roofed with reed or palm-leaf mats had set out bowls filled with fragrant herbs; amulets and good-luck charms; lentils and beans; bronze tweezers, razors, and knives; and a multitude of other small objects. Larger items were piled along flimsy walls: flint-edged scythes and wooden plows, lengths of linen, large pottery jars filled with beer or oil or salted fish or meat, smaller jars containing wine or honey. Local herdsmen and farmers were building red and green and yellow mounds of fresh fruits and vegetables on rush mats spread on the ground. Men and women set out baskets filled with succulent dates or sweet, sticky cakes or bread or eggs or grain. Several men had hung unplucked fowl from the wooden frames of lean-tos, while others were spreading fish on the ground.
He liked best the stalls of the men and women who had come from far upriver. Seated cross-legged on the ground or perched on low stools, the people were as exotic as the products surrounding them. Short and fat, tall and thin. Painted, tattooed, scarified, greased, smeared with red clay or white ashes. Some nearly naked, others elaborately robed, a few dressed no different than men of Kemet. Their offerings included tawny or spotted animal skins, ostrich feathers and eggs, lengths of rare woods and chunks of gemstone, caged animals and birds, shackled slaves.
The customers, though sparse at this early hour, were equally intriguing: local farmers and villagers; soldiers, sailors, and traders from Kemet to the north; and herdsmen, farmers, and villagers from far to the south. Each man and woman had brought objects to trade, foodstuffs and luxury items common to them yet desirable or rare to others.
Across a stretch of barren, hard-packed sand, he found Pashenuro sitting on the mudbrick wall of an animal paddock filled with a mixed herd of sheep and goats, talking with a bald, potbellied farmer. A fine dust rose in puffs above the bleating creatures, trotting this way and that for no good reason. Other paddocks contained donkeys, a lone mule, rare in this part of the world, and long- and shorthorned cattle, snorting or lowing or braying in protest of their entrapment. Dust drifted through the air, carrying the smell of animal and the stench of manure.
"The boy's been seen," Pashenuro said after the farmer walked away, "'but he's like a wraith, here one moment and gone the next. Today we'll search for a hideaway outside the market, looking into houses both empty and occupied, and the storage magazines as well."
Bak glanced at the rows of warehouses between the market and the harbor. If the buildings were fully used, two men would need a week to search through the objects stored inside. He yearned to shake Woser until his teeth rattled. "I must tear you away from this task and assign you to another. In the meantime, I've borrowed some men from Nebwa, and I'll send four to help Kasaya."
"Another task?" the Medjay asked, surprised. "I thought finding the child more important than anything else."
Bak gave a short, hard laugh. "To us, yes, but Commander Woser has his own priorities. He's ordered me to make habitable the island fortress so Amon-Psaro can live there in comfort and safety. I've no choice but to make you head of the men who do the work." He swatted at a fly buzzing around his face. "Come, let's find Kasaya, and I'll explain to you both at once."
Pashenuro could not stop shaking his head. "How can the commander do this, sir? Why is he doing it?"
"You didn't have to borrow men from Buhen." Huy shaded his eyes with his hand so he could watch the boat carrying Nebwa's spearmen draw away from the quay. "With Puemre gone, the men in his company are without an officer. I thought to hand them over to you until you're recalled to Buhen, or until Commandant Thuty sends someone else to fill the vacancy Puemre left."
Another time-consuming task, Bak thought. To lead a company of spearmen was a full-time job. "Nebwa offered men and I accepted," he said, keeping his voice noncommittal. "As for an entire company… I doubt I'll need so many, but I can't know for sure until I see the island."
"Shall we go?" Huy asked, stepping into the skiff he had made available for Bak's use. The craft rocked beneath his weight, its hull scraping the stone revetment that prevented the riverbank from eroding between the two quays.
Bak untied the vessel, jumped in, and shoved off. Sitting at the rudder, he took up the oars and rowed across the glassy surface of the harbor. The boat was small and compact, easily handled by one man, a pleasure to use. He longed to try out the sail, but that would have to wait until the return trip. The prevailing breeze at Iken, as at Buhen, blew from the north.
He had to admit Huy was doing all he could to ease the task of preparing the fortress for Amon-Psaro. He had given freely of tools, supplies, and food. He had promised as many men as needed, had arranged for two supply boats to ply the waters, transporting men and food and building supplies from Iken to the island, and had found the skiff. He had even volunteered to accompany Bak on this, his first journey to the island, guiding him across the perilous currents upstream of the rapids. Would a man bent on murdering the Kushite king be so helpful? Certainly-if cooperation would be to his advantage.
At the end of the quay, the current grabbed the vessel with surprising force, carrying it swiftly downstream. "Row well out into the channel," Huy advised. "You don't want to be swept onto the long island. You want to go around it."
Bak nodded, recalling the lay of the islands as he had. seen them from the girdle wall high above the river the first time he and Huy had talked. Upstream to the south, the main channel flowed broad and relatively free of obstacles. Immediately in front of the city, however, the river spread out in multiple channels, flowing around and over rocky islands and outcropping rocks that formed swirling, raging rapids impossible to navigate. The island closest to the Iken waterfront was the long, narrow tumble of broken rocks from which the man with the sling had harried him and the Medjays. Pockets of earth gave a foothold to sparse but tenacious trees and brush, much of which, he guessed, would vanish under water as the flood deepened.
A second channel separated that island from another, divided now by the rising waters into two chunks of land connected by a narrow isthmus. The ridge to the north, tall enough to remain above water through the highest flood, supported trees, brush, and the island fortress. He had to swing the boat around the long, narrow island and sail down the second channel.
Following Huy's advice, he dug the oars into the — water, his powerful strokes driving them across the current. As they passed the southern tip of the long island, Bak could see water lapping over the low spots, sneaking onto land that a day or two ago had been dry. He swung the skiff into the second channel and drove it across the current toward the island on which the fortress stood. A third current caught the skiff, pulling it to the right toward a pair of craggy islets rising from the mouth of a side channel. Beyond, he heard the growl of angry water and spotted jagged rocks rising above a swath of foam.
"Careful!" Huy warned.
Bak was already working the rudder and oars, turning the skiff midstream. He was glad Huy had come along. To a man reared in Kemet, where the river flowed smooth and broad and the greatest hazards were shallows, these wild waters were a new and unsettling experience.
Ahead, the channel flowed clear all the way to the landing stage. The fortress, he saw, was an uncomplicated structure of plain mudbrick walls built on a stone-revetted base that followed the contours of the island. The fortification was protected at intervals by stubby spur walls. The vessel on which Nebwa's men had sailed was moored against the rocky shore, and the last few men were disembarking. The others, each laden with baskets or tools, formed an irregular line, hauling the supplies up a steep slope and through a partially collapsed gate.
As they drifted downstream, the growling waters behind subsided to a whisper and another, throatier roar sounded ahead. Awed by the power he heard, Bak stood up to look. A hundred or so paces beyond the fortress gate, the channel turned white and vicious. The width of the river from one island to the other was a wild tangle of rocks and water and froth. A rainbow twice the height of a man leaned over the water, trembling in the spray rising from the maelstrom.
"Now you see why we drag the ships overland," Huy said.
"They'd be beaten to pieces in that water." Chilled at the spectacle, Bak dropped onto his seat and turned the skiff toward the shallower water alongside the island. "I saw those rapids from the girdle wall, but at so great a distance they lose their impact on the senses."
"The rocks get worse downriver before they get better." The tall, lean officer caught up the rope and looped the end, preparing to moor the vessel. As the skiff bumped the shore, he threw the loop over a post grayed by the sun and made shiny from use. They followed the last soldier in line up the steep, rocky path and into the fortress.
Bak paused at the gate to look around. His first reaction was. one of dismay. To call the place a fortress, he thought, was a gross exaggeration. It was nothing more than a fortified wall enclosing a roughly rectangular space over two hundred paces wide and four times as long, a place to shelter farmers and their livestock during an attack. From the poor condition of the walls and the amount of debris covering the floor, it had been neglected for years, probably since the war against the Kushites-if not before.
Nebwa's spearmen were equally disheartened. They stood in the middle of the fortress, looking around, their faces long, their usual banter silenced.
Pashenuro issued an order, spurring them to action, and strode across the rubble-strewn floor, glancing around the filthy, dilapidated structure, frowning. "Not a place where I'd house a king, sir."
"A palace it'll never be," Bak agreed, scowling at the disarray. "Tlie question is: Can we make it not merely habitable, but attractive by midafternoon tomorrow?"
The Medjay managed a weak smile.
Huy eyed the crumbling walls. "I've not set foot in this fortress for many months. It's in worse condition than I remembered."
"Alright, let's see what's here." Bak hoped he sounded more hopeful than he felt. "Then we can decide what must be done."
The trio walked along the base of the walls, veering around trees, overgrown bushes, and mounds of fallen bricks, stumbling over hidden roots, stepping across suspicious holes in the earth, avoiding piles of waste, most of it dry and hard, left by humans and animals. They examined fallen sections of the fortification, calculating the effort needed to make temporary but effective repairs. At the end, they climbed a stairway eroded by wind and water until it was little better than a steep, irregular ramp. Standing on the wall not far from the gate, they looked out across the fortress. Nebwa's spearmen, clearing a space for their camp, were now laughing and chattering as if they had not a care in the world. It must be pleasant, Bak thought with envy, to be free of responsibility.
Vaguely aware of the crash of water in the channel behind him, he thought over the task ahead. To finish in time would be difficult, he decided, but not impossible. "The floor will have to be cleared and cleaned," he told Pashenuro. "Leave all the trees and bushes where they are, at least for now. They'll give life to'this place, make it seem less harsh and abandoned. Save all fallen bricks that still remain whole and whatever else you find of value. Dump the rest into the river."
"Yes, sir," Pashenuro said.
"The walls will be your greatest problem," Huy said, staring at a large irregular gap at the northwest corner. "You've no time to make new bricks."
"We'll fill the holes with rubble," Pashenuro said. "And have Amon-Psaro laugh at so crude a fortress?" Bak shook his head. "No. If no one objects"-he queried Huy with a glance-"we can mine the old, abandoned houses in Iken, prying out bricks that are whole, and sail them across the river for reuse here."
"An excellent idea!" Huy smiled his approval. "With enough men, you might well turn this fortress into a place befitting a king."
"I must accept your offer of Puemre's company," Bak said reluctantly. "Pashenuro will need half the men here on the island and four or five masons to show them how to lay the bricks. The rest should remain in Iken, gathering bricks for shipment across the river."
"Done!" Huy nodded. "Puemre's sergeant, Minnakht, is a good and trustworthy man. You can look to him with confidence to head those who'll work in the city."
With the worst of his difficulties resolved, Bak allowed himself to breathe more freely. He did not deceive himself that the task would be easy, but he was certain it could be done. If the lord Amon smiled on him-and on his workmen-it should be finished before Amon-Psaro marched into Iken.
Bak stood at the gate, looking back at Nebwa's spearmen, the core of his work force. Their lean-to tents had been set up, a hearth built, tools distributed, food and supplies stowed away. One man knelt at the hearth, dropping vegetables into a pot, and another was kneading bread. A half dozen men were spread out across the northern end of the fortress, cleaning the stone and hard-packed earthen floor, while the rest carried baskets of debris through a far gate to the river. They had accomplished a lot in their short stint on the island, yet the task ahead looked endless.
"We'll go to the barracks the moment we get back to Iken," he promised Pashenuro. "You should have help by midday and Micks long before nightfall."
The Medjay nodded and hurried back to his crew. As Bak turned away to follow Huy down the path to the skiff, his eyes drifted unbidden toward the roaring maelstrom downstream. From where he stood, he could see no waterfall, but he guessed from the gathering speed of the river, the distant roar, and the amount of foam hurling into the air that the riverbed fell substantially, not all at one time, but in a series of cascades.
Ships sometimes traveled those rapids, he knew, when the river rose to its greatest height, laying a protective depth of water over many of the rocks. Using sturdy ropes, men standing on the islands or on unsubmerged boulders manhandled the vessels upstream or guided them through the deepest channels while the current carried them downstream. His feeling for Inyotef swung from pity to admiration; the pilot was responsible for guiding the ships through the rapids as well as along less troubled waters.
Bak saw an object in the mist, a vague image emerging from the steaming, roiling water. It looked for an instant like the head and shoulders of a man. No, he thought. Impossible. Abruptly the figure vanished from sight, a figment of his imagination he was sure. Then he saw it again in the smoother water above the rapid, moving slowly across the current, aiming toward the long island. A second figure emerged from the foam, and a third. The first reached the shallow water along the shore and stood up. A man. No, a boy!
He stared hard, unable to believe any human being could survive so great a turbulence. "Are my eyes deceiving me?"
Huy, halfway down the path, glanced downstream and laughed. "The local men and boys swim these waters with ease, using goatskins filled with air to lift them to the surface each time the lord Hapi pulls them under. I, too, when first I saw them, thought my eyes played tricks on me."
"They've more courage than I have, or are more foolhardy."
"The river is the center of their lives, Lieutenant, from birth to death and from dawn to dusk. They know all its habits through the seasons and how to use them to their advantage."
Bak watched the last boy wade onto the island and shake off the water like a dog. "I count myself a fair swimmer, and I like the water, but those boiling rapids hold no appeal." _
"You're fortunate you can swim. I'd drown in a quiet pool.,
"You've never learned how?"
"Why do you think I sail with such care?"
Noting Huy's discomfort, Bak allowed the subject to die. He did not want to humble the officer, nor could he afford to alienate him.
As he unfurled the sail, a bright yellow rectangle of heavy fabric, and raised the upper yard, he said, "Nebwa tells me you've spent much of your life in Wawat."
Huy settled into the prow of the skiff, facing forward. "I've lived in Kemet, serving in the fortresses along our eastern frontier, and once I served as envoy to the land of Keftiu, but I think of Wawat as my home."
"You won the gold of valor, I've been told, while fighting in this barren land."
"Twenty-seven years ago, it was, far to the south in the land of Kush." Huy smiled at the memory. "I was a young man then, a raw recruit with more courage than good sense. I fought without thought, risking my life as if I were immortal." He glanced at Bak, chuckled. "Though often foolish, I acted the hero, and won a golden fly to prove it."
Bak saw pride on the officer's face and the humility of a truly brave man. He hoped Huy was not the murderer he was seeking. "Did you have occasion to see Amon-Psaro's father?"
"Only at a distance, and not until we won our final battle. He was a prisoner, his arms shackled, his head bowed with grief at the loss of his army, hundreds upon hundreds of good and valiant men."
"What of Amon-Psaro? Was he there, too?"
Huy shook his head. "He was a child, too young to stand with his father on the field of battle. I didn't get to know him until later."
"You actually knew Amon-Psaro?" Bak was so surprised he almost forgot to adjust the sail so they could pass. the southern tip of the long island.
Huy eyed him with curiosity. "We took him hostage. Did you not know? He grew to manhood in the royal house in Waset."
"Is that where you met him?"
"I was among the party who took him north." Huy's voice grew distant, following his thoughts into the past. "We spent many days together, sailing downriver to our capital. First, I served as a guard, ordered not to let him escape and flee back to his father. Later, when we were far away and he could no longer think of returning to Kush, we played games together and wrestled and fished and hunted. I like to believe I made him forget the loneliness he felt and the sadness of leaving his home and family."
Bak felt as if he had found a lump of gold in a long-dry desert watercourse. Huy had not simply known Amon-Psaro; he had known him well. Well enough to become his enemy? "You were good friends, then."
"He was my brother." Huy's smile turned wry. "I was very young, at heart only a child. When we bade good-bye at the door of the royal house, I left with tears on my cheeks. I knew I'd never see him again, and I didn't."
He was telling the truth, Bak felt sure, but was it the whole truth? "You must be looking forward to meeting him again."
"He'll not remember me. Too many years have passed." Huy spoke in an offhand manner, but Bak heard something else in his voice: a hope that Amon-Psaro would recognize him. As the friend he had lost so many years ago? Or as a long-standing foe?
"Lieutenant Bak!" A boy of seven or eight stood on the end of the northern quay, shouting. "Lieutenant Bak!" "What is it?" Bak lowered the yard and let the vessel's momentum carry it into the still waters of the harbor. "I've a message for you, sir. From the Medjay Kasaya."
"Tell me."
"He found the one he's been looking for. You must go to the market right away. To the animal paddocks."
Bak paused at the edge of the market to look across the sandy waste toward the paddocks. Somewhere behind, he had lost Huy. The officer had insisted on coming along, saying he wanted Bak with him when he spoke to Sergeant Minnakht and the men of Puemre's company.
Bak spotted Kasaya instantly. The big Medjay stood beside a paddock in which a lanky Kushite in a skimpy loincloth was trying to rope a huge; long-horned bullock. The enraged creature was wheeling around, bellowing, raising a cloud of dust that half hid Kasaya, three of the spearmen who had helped with the search, and a small dusky boy. Kasaya towered over the child, his huge hands gripping the boy's skinny shoulders. Bak loped toward them.
The boy watched him draw near, his eyes wide, terrified. Kasaya must surely have made it clear that we pose no threat, Bak thought, that we are in fact trying to keep him alive. Why then is he so afraid?
Without warning, the boy jerked free of the Medjay's grasp, ducked beneath a spearman's outflung hand, and raced away from the paddock through the dust, aiming for a row of stalls at the edge of the market.
"Catch him!" Bak yelled, frantic to keep him isolated from the crowd, where he would be almost impossible to find.
He sprinted across the sand, determined to head the boy off. Kasaya and the spearmen spread out, forming an arc to drive him" lnto Bak's arms. Bak ran to within ten paces of the child and slowed, poised to lunge. Kasaya and the spearmen closed in. The child, looking as desperate as a gazelle held at bay by a pack of wild dogs, veered straight toward Bak, startling him. Bak reached out to grab. The boy ducked low and sideways. Bak's fingers touched hot, sweaty flesh and the child slipped from his grasp. Moments later, he plunged into the throng of shoppers.
Bak swung on his men, furious at the loss. "Imbeciles! How could you let him get away like that?"
"I couldn't hold him, sir." Kasaya looked devastated. "I swear I couldn't. He's as slippery as an eel."
Bak took a long, deep breath, controlling his anger and frustration. He, too, had had a hand in losing the child. "Where's the other man I sent to you?"
"We left him in the storage magazine where we found the boy." Kasaya pointed toward the center of five interconnected warehouses fifty or so paces away. "I told him to guard the child's belongings."
"The boy'll not go back there." Bak glared at the market and the near-hopeless search they faced. "Let's spread out and find him."
With Bak in the center, they plunged into the throng. The aisles were jammed with men, women, and children from all walks of life, people who lived along the Belly of Stones and those who had come from afar to see the lord Amon. Some haggled over prices. Others wandered from stall to stall, squeezing fruits and vegetables, shaking jars, lifting the uppermost layer of a basket in search of hidden perfection-or rot-below the surface. A few gazed at the merchandise in quest of a special bargain or looked wistfully at objects too dear for their meager means.
Heat and a multitude of odors enveloped food stalls, metalsmiths' braziers, and crowded humanity. Shouts and laughter rose above a buzz of voices. Bak shouldered a man aside and was shoved in turn by another man. Bumped from behind, he stubbed his toe on a brick holding down a corner of linen and stumbled into a donkey that swung its head around to snap at him. Sweat poured down his back and chest. Anger and frustration clouded his face, discouraging ~; sharp comments from men whose feet he trod on.
Someone screamed. A woman's high-pitched wail of horror and loss. Silence fell all across the market, as if the people awaited another scream. A curious murmur swelled to a cacophony of speculation and fear.
Bak raced in the direction from which he thought the scream had come, shoving people out of his way. He seldom carried his baton of office, but now he was sorry he had left it behind in Buhen. Sobbing broke out ahead, pulling him toward his goal, a ring of people already collecting around someone else's misfortune.
He burst through the ring and stopped dead still. "No!" he cried, the words torn from him as he took in the scene. "No!"
The armorer's daughter Mutnefer was on her knees, bending over the small dusky child. Her body shook with sobs drawn from the depths of her being. The boy lay on his side in the dust among a dozen fallen jars and a puddle of blood. His bony arms and legs were flung askew, his eyes and mouth open wide, as if he were as afraid in death as he had been in life. A last drop of blood clung to the lower end of a long, deep slit across his throat.
"Troop Captain Huy remained with the body as you asked him to, sir. It was he who ordered the crowd away." Kasaya stared straight ahead, unable to meet Bak's eyes. Nor could he look at the straw nest hidden behind a store of pottery ewers, braziers, and bowls in a rear corner of the warehouse, illuminated by a flaming torch mounted on the wall. The sheet was dirty and stained; an unwashed bowl had drawn ants. A larger bowl was filled with childish treasures; a wooden crocodile and dog, a ball, a boat, a sheathed knifathat must once have been carried by Puemre, and a small ivory scribal pallet with shallow wells containing red and black cakes of ink and a narrow slot holding two reed pens.
Bak, kneeling beside the makeshift bed, could barely look at them himself. He felt as guilty as Kasaya and the spearmen did. If they had not searched out the child, he might never have run into the arms of the one who slew him. "What of the others?"
"They were all in the market, sir." "All of them?" Bak asked, incredulous.
"Yes, sir." Kasaya swallowed hard. "Commander Woser came soon after you left to see what the trouble was, and his daughter, mistress Aset, was with him. It was she who realized the shock was bringing forth the baby and led Mutnefer away. Lieutenant Nebseny came running, as did Lieutenants Senu and Inyotef, each from a different direction."
Bak rubbed his hand across his eyes as if to wipe away the images stored there. No one had witnessed the murder, nor had anyone noticed the boy, not even Mutnefer, until he grabbed the back of her dress as his legs gave way beneath him.
Bak stood up, clasped Kasaya's shoulder, and gave the Medjay a wan smile. "Go find me a basket, and tell Nebwa's men to report to Pashenuro at the island fortress. We'll take the boy's possessions to Mutnefer's house. Her brothers and sisters will like the toys; the rest she can keep as memories."
After Kasaya hurried away, Bak cleaned the bowl with a handful of straw, shook out the sheet and folded it neatly, and laid them with the other objects in the basket. Each item tore at his heart, deepening his determination to lay hands on Puemre's slayer, a man so low he had slain a helpless child. Seething inside, he glanced around, making sure he had everything and searching for… What? A broken chunk of pottery with a sketch on its surface? He poked around in the straw, found nothing.
Rocking back on his heels, he studied the spot where the bed had been and the pottery stacked around it. He noticed, within arm's reach of the boy's nest, a wide-necked ewer lying beside a pile of bowls when it should have been stacked with the other jars. He picked it up. Something rattled inside.
Muttering a quick prayer to the lord Amon, he turned the ewer upside down. Four shards fell out, each covered with rough sketches in red and black ink, sometimes three or four images one on top of another, the red figures mixed with the black, making it hard to tell them apart. One picture, a bolder black than the rest, showed two men of Kemet, one thrusting a weapon down the other's throat, above a wavy line, water. The figures were so much like those in the sketch he had seen in Puemre's house that he was sure they had both been drawn by the same hand.
The boy must have drawn the pictures, not Puemre. What better way to communicate when you can neither speak nor hear? Had he drawn the sketches solely for his master? Or had he intended to give them to someone, Mutnefer maybe, to pass along a warning? The truth would never be known, but Bak liked the latter idea.