by Lauren Haney
"Spawn of a snake!" Bak snarled at the tiny, barren room in which he sat.
Few men disgusted him as Seneb did, but the more he saw of the trader, the more convinced he was that the man was as innoceZt of Puemre's death as he was guilty of an endless cruelty to all the creatures he had bought and sold through the years.
Somewhere in the building, Bak heard men's laughter and the clatter of spears. The scent of lentils and onions wafting from the roof vied with the rancid odor of vomit given off by a baker who had passed out in the next room. Midday had barely come and gone, the lord Amon was not
expected for another two or three hours, and already the revelers had begun to fall.
Bak rose abruptly from his stool, sending it skittering across the hard-packed earthen floor, crossed the room, and opened a warped wooden door. Its squeak attracted seven pairs of dark, suspicious eyes. The children taken from Seneb's caravan sat in a rough semicircle on the bare floor. Their bodies were clean, their woolly hair trimmed, their wounds bandaged. The stocky Medjay seated in front of them was so intent on his halting attempt to speak their tongue it took him a moment to notice his officer.
"Have they talked yet, Psuro?" Bak asked.
"Not a word." The Medjay scowled. "Each time I leave the room they chatter like birds, so fast I don't understand a word. Each time I come back they seal their lips as if with glue."
Bak was not surprised. The air around the children reeked of mistrust. He studied them one by one, searching for a chink in their wall of silence. Every face was closed to him, every small body stiff with apprehension. Then he noticed the tattoo between the oldest girl's eyebrows, a rough triangle supporting a tiny white crescent. The head of a horned bull, a god of Kush. The child had lived in a pious household. Had she learned respect for gods other than her own?
Praying she had, he asked Psuro, "Have these children heard that the lord Amon will come today to Buhen?" The Medjay shrugged. "I doubt it, sir. Not one among them speaks our tongue."
Bak nodded, satisfied. "Tell them of his visit. Stress his greatness, his warmth and kindness, his generosity toward those who worship the gods of other lands." He spoke in fits and starts, thinking out a strategy as he went along. "Tell them that soon they'll be sent to our capital city of Waset, where they'll serve the priests who walk the halls
of the god's greatest mansion. Then speak no more of the god, but go back to your questions."
His spirits rose as the plan took form. "In the meantime, I'll go find Hori and send him to you. Together you must take these children to the top of the fortress wall so they can see the lord Amon for themselves. Perhaps the god, with Hori's youth and good humor to help, will loosen their tongues where we cannot."
Bak walked across the audience hall, the most spacious room in the commandant's residence with a high ceiling supported by a forest of red octagonal columns. Hori had just rushed off to the guardhouse, as excited by the prospect of playing policeman for a few hours as he was of watching the lord Amon's arrival from atop the wall. If nothing else, Bak thought with a rueful smile, I've made one person happy today.
The hall and the rooms around it buzzed with life. A youthful scribe stood in front of Thuty's office, explaining to a grizzled sergeant the need for exact records of disbursements rather than rough guesses. Seated on a bench built against the wall, a potter, his hands and arms flecked with dry clay, listened to a stout, balding scribe extolling the virtues of the slim decorated vases from the land of Keftiu, which he wished copied. Near the exit, a young archer dictated a letter to the public scribe, a tired looking man of middle years.
Bak was surprised at the number of people still going about their duties. Although the lord Amon was not expected for another hour or more, the general populace had begun soon after midday to stream out the towered gates leading to the waterfront and the quays. The Medjays and the spearmen Nebwa had lent to help them had already broken up three fights and confined a half dozen belligerent drunks and a couple of petty thieves.
Nodding to the scribe, he crossed the threshold to a long, narrow corridor. The walls had been painted yellow in a
futile attempt to brighten the dimly lit space. A large, dark figure came hurrying toward him.
"Imsiba!" Bak clasped the Medjay's shoulders as if he had been gone a month instead of a few hours. "I feared you'd miss the lord Amon's arrival!" He barely paused for breath. "How did you get back so soon? What happened at Iken?"
A wizened old man limped through the audience-hall door. Bak and Imsiba retreated to the base of a stairway rising to the commandant's quarters on the second floor. Light filtered down the steps from the open courtyard above. Pale dust, streaked by sweat, mottled the big Medjay from head to toe.
"Well?" Bak demanded:
With a weary smile, Imsiba slumped onto the bottom step. "The commander of Iken, Woser is his name, saw me without delay. I knew how eager you'd be for my report, so I stopped only at the barracks for a bite to eat and the local gossip."
"Have they caught the man who slew Puemre?" Bak prodded.
The Medjay's smile faded. "Not yet." "Then I'm to go to Iken."
"Commander Woser thinks your time will be better spent getting the truth from that vile trader Seneb." Bak's eyes narrowed. "Did you not tell him my doubts on that score?"
"I did."
A childish giggle sounded at the top of the stairs. A darkeyed girl no more than two years of age stood naked above them, sucking her thumb, staring.
"Let's leave this place, Imsiba, before all Thuty's children descend on us." Bak eyed his friend critically. "We'll go to the river, where you can have a bath before the sacred barge arrives."
In the street outside the building, Bak asked, "While we waste our time with Seneb, how will Commander Woser spend his time?"
"His officers will look into the matter. He believes they'll have no trouble learning the name of the slayer." "If Woser's so confident..." Bak paused; his eyes darted toward Imsiba. "Do you think he's guessed who took Puemre's life and has only to act on the knowledge?" "I doubt he suspects any one man. Lieutenant Puemre, at the time of his death, led an infantry company. But five months ago when first he reported to Iken, he was an inspecting officer-as that swine Seneb told us. He held the task for only a month. His harsh measures made him many enemies among those who seek to evade the tolls or profit at the expense of their fellowmen."
Bak muttered an oath. If the slayer proved to be a trader, he might not be snared for months-if at all.
They headed toward the twin-towered gate which straddled the far end of the street and opened onto the quay. The sun god Re, hovering above the rim of the fortress wall behind them, bathed the battlements and towers ahead in a light so bright it hurt their eyes. The thoroughfare was nearly deserted. Only a few stragglers-a woman with a tiny baby, a couple of soldiers, a scribe-rushed toward the gate and the crowd outside. A priest, white-robed and shaven bald, hurried toward the mansion of the garrison god, Horus of Buben, which dominated the city from a high mound at the corner of the citadel.
"So that's the end of it, my friend." A smile played on Imsiba's face. "The problem is no longer yours, and you can journey to Semna with the lord Amon, as is right and proper."
Bak scooped a rough, fist-sized chunk of milky white limestone from the edge of the street. "Woser doesn't want help, that's plain enough."
"He's served in Wawat for years; he knows this land and its people far better than you and I." Imsiba waved at a soldier peering over the edge of a rooftop. "He's confident he'll lay hands on the slayer sooner or later, and so he'll tell Commandant Thuty in the report he's no doubt preparing even now."
Woser's reasoning appeared sound enough, Bak had to admit. Yet many men spoke with confidence; more than a few failed. "What of Puemre's belt clasp, Imsiba?"
"The lieutenant came to Wawat from the regiment of Amon." The Medjay gave Bak the dour look of one who knew very well he was feeding a fire he had hoped to quench. "Commander Woser told me
so himself. How long he'd been with your regiment, he didn't say."
"It couldn't have been more than a few weeks. I left ten months ago. Take away the five months he's been here, and the time it takes to journey up the river from Waset . . ." Bak's voice tailed off, he shook his head in disgust. "No wonder Woser assigned him first as an inspecting officer!"
"He probably trained in another regiment. From what I was told in the barracks by those who fought beside him in this foul land, he was skilled in the arts of war and faced the enemy without fear."
"Nonetheless.. ." Bak, reaching the only possible conclusion, grimaced. "How lofty a position does his father hold in the land of Kemet?"
A wry smile touched Imsiba's face. "I was told only that his name is Nihisy, but much was made of Lieutenant Puemre's courage and his willingness to befriend his men though he was of noble birth."
"Nihisy." Bak spread his hands wide, shrugged. "The name means nothing to me, but if he's a nobleman..." He had no need to say more. Woser's report would have to be very persuasive to prevent Thuty from sending Bak to Iken.
He twisted the chunk of rock between his fingers, making its many small crystals glitter in the sun. Puemre, he thought, must have been a lot like the stone, never showing the same face twice. Nofery had admired him, and Seneb hated him even in death. He had proven himself worthy to
his fighting men, not an easy thing to do, yet he had worn a belt clasp to which he had no right, and he had most likely attained his rank through his father's influence. "When was Puemre first discovered missing?"
"His sergeant, Minnakht, reported him gone the morning of the afternoon we found him."
Bak was accustomed to the oblique way Imsiba sometimes spoke, but as always he had to struggle to make sense of the words. "Two days before you told Woser we'd found the body. Two whole days, and he didn't send a message to Thuty. How did he explain that?"
"He offered no reason, nor was it my place to ask." Imsiba gave Bak the same dour look as before. "Can you not close your eyes to such a small lapse? You'd be much happier leading me and our men in Amon-Psaro's guard of honor than spending day after day in Iken."
Refusing to admit, even to himself, how tempted he was to heed Imsiba's plea, Bak drew the Medjay off the paved street at the rear of the guardhouse. The sandy plot was cluttered with building materials: drying bricks, wood of varying lengths, a few stone slabs.
He dropped the rock, brushed his hands together to remove the dust, and sat down on a stack of wood. "If Woser neglected to report the absence of a nobleman, what else will he fail to do?"
"The men of the garrison think him a worthy and honorable man. He'll do what he must."
"Will he?"
Imsiba's brow furrowed with disappointment. "If not for you, my friend, I and all our men would still be looked upon with suspicion, as we were when first we came to Buhen. Now that a time has come when we're to be given a place of honor, you must stand at our head, for without you there, our triumph will be hollow."
Bak felt as if he was being torn in two. "Don't you know how much I want to go with you, Imsiba? But I want also to do my duty. And if it takes me to Iken, I must go."
Imsiba shifted from one foot to another, uncomfortable with the decision.
Bak rose from the woodpile and forced a smile. "I can promise you one thing, my brother: I'll do all in my power to resolve this death as fast as I can. With luck, the lord Amon will smile on me, and I'll be free by the time he reaches Iken." He clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Now, go find a place for a swim."
Imsiba gave him a halfhearted smile and hurried down the street to the fortress gate. Bak picked up the chunk of stone, swung around, and hurled it as hard as he could at the mudbrick retaining wall that supported the mound on which the mansion of Horus stood. A puff of dust erupted from the slight hollow it made. Given enough time and a sufficient number of rocks, he could lay bare the temple foundations. He prayed he could gather enough pebbles of information to reveal Puemre's slayer in time to go upriver, as he had promised Imsiba.
Bak stood with his fellow officers on the stone terrace facing the river. His eyes, like those of every man, woman, and child of Buhen, were locked on the sacred barge of the lord Amon, moored at the quay projecting into the water from the pylon gate leading into the mansion of Horus of Buhen. The long, slender hull, the canopied dais rising amidship, and the sacred barque within, all sheathed in gold, glittered in the harsh midafternoon sunlight. The slim and elegant image of a man, the lord Amon, formed of solid gold, as tall as Bak's arm from elbow to fist, stood in a golden shrine atop the barque. As the white-robed priests on board performed their ministrations, the vessel rocked gently on the water; the bright painted ram's heads carved on prow and stern rose and fell in tandem.
Bak closed his eyes and waited for the glowing reflection to fade from inside his lids. Having lived as a youth in the capital, he had seen the enshrined god many times. The sight never ceased to move him, but he no longer felt the single-minded awe of men and women who had never before set eyes on the greatest of all the gods.
With his vision returned to normal, he scanned the river, the crowded quays and waterfront, searching for his men and for possible sources of disruption. Sailors on the warship that had towed the barge upriver were mooring the much larger, heavier craft on the opposite side of the quay. The flotilla of small boats which had sailed out to meet the god trickled back toward shore. A second warship swung around farther out on the water, preparing to dock. The deep beat of the drum that gave rhythm to the oarsmen could now and then be heard above the excited babble of the onlookers. The Medjay police, their spearpoints gleaming in the brilliant light, walked among the crowd to give aid where needed or prevent trouble.
Satisfied all was well, he once again turned his attention to the quay. Commandant Thuty, the priest of Horus of Buhen, and three brightly garbed native princes stood alongside the barge, waiting to greet the lord Amon and his entourage. All wore broad multicolored bead collars, wristand armbands of gold or bronze, rings set with bright stones. All but the priest carried spotless new shields, and the shine of their weapons vied with the sun. A dozen soldiers and scribes, shaven and purified to assist the god and his priestly representatives, waited with them.
Red banners, suspended high above the pylon from tall wooden flagstaffs, rustled in a fitful breeze. Bak prayed a tiny puff of air would sneak down from above to cool the sweltering terrace and blow away the smell of too many bodies pressed too close together.
"Swine!" An angry shout from the terrace below. "Hey! Whattaya think you're doing?" someone else yelled.
Bak leaned over the waist-high wall in front of him. Five small boys, holding hands to form a snake, were weaving a path through the masses of people. The crowd was too thick for such pranks, the terrace too congested. He pursed his lips and whistled a signal. A patrolling Medjay came running. Within moments, the snake was torn apart, the boys reprimanded, the adults pacified.
When he looked back at the sacred barge, the chief priest, wearing a fine white linen robe and decked out in a golden pectoral and bracelets, waved his censer a final time. Lesser priests lifted the gilded barque, a miniature version of the barge, off the dais. Raising the carrying poles to their shoulders, they followed the chief priest down the gangplank, carefully balancing the barque and its precious cargo high above their heads. The moment their feet touched the quay, shouts of joy burst from the onlookers, all jostling for a better view. The words blended into a roar so loud a flock of pigeons took to the air, drawing Bak's eye to the battlements. He smiled. Psuro and Hori and seven wide-eyed children were standing atop the nearest tower, staring down at the god, entranced.
The chief priest, followed by the priest of Horus of Buhen and the commandant, and then the local princes led the procession along the quay. Behind them, two priests purified the lord Amon's path with incense and libation; others shaded his shrine with ostrich-plume fans. Those men borrowed from Buhen carried gilded chest
s containing ritual equipment and the god's clothing and bright-painted standards symbolizing Amon and Horns and the other gods important to Wawat. As they came closer, Bak could see their mouths move, but their chanting was lost in the clamor and shouting of fervent worshipers. He found himself shouting along with them, felt his breast swell with wonder and adoration.
The procession neared the pylon. Incense wafted through the air. Bak leaned far out over the wall so he could see around his fellow officers. The chief priest waved his censer at the people on the opposite side of the quay, turned, waved it toward Bak and those standing with him. The acrid smoke drifted around the thin, wrinkled face of the priest. Bak's mouth dropped open and he almost lost his grip on the wall. The chief priest was a man he had known all his life, the physician Kenamon, teacher and friend of his father, who was also a physician.
Kenamon disappeared behind Bak's compatriots. The barque of the lord Amon seemed for a few moments to sail above their heads, then vanished through the pylon gate.
Kenamon, Bak thought, a man who had treated the ills of many who walked the halls of the royal house. If Puemre's father was a nobleman, Kenamon would know him.
"My son." Kenamon clasped Bak's shoulders with long, bony fingers. "My heart is filled with joy to see you again. It's been ... How long?"
Bak gave the priest a broad, warm smile. "Less than a year. Have you forgotten so soon, my uncle, the night I took leave of my senses in Tenethat's house of pleasure?"
The old man, so small and frail he looked as if the faintest breeze would blow him away, chuckled. "Ah, yes, the night you drew attention to the less than honest behavior of certain of our sovereign's favorites."
His eyes grew wide in exaggerated alarm. He clapped a hand to his mouth and peered around as if searching for an eavesdropper lurking in the long evening shadows of the fluted columns which surrounded the forecourt of the mansion of Horus of Buhen. Then they laughed together, the old man with mischievous eyes, the younger with delight. Kenamon's exalted position as the chief prophet's envoy had neither restored his respect for authority nor stolen his sense of the ridiculous.
