by Lauren Haney
Bak's eyes darted upward, where he saw a half dozen black specks wheeling in a loose circle high overhead. "Wouldn't a corpse attract vultures?"
"Oh, I've no doubt they spot any likely meal in the water, but as they prefer dining on dry land, they'll look for something that's already washed ashore."
Bak felt like a man banging his head against a stone pillar. "Did you see..." Doggedly he described Seneb's caravan for the second time that morning.
"We no doubt saw it," the sergeant said, "but from this distance, one caravan looks much like another. As long as they keep to the trail and behave themselves, we mind our own business. Only if we spot marauding tribesmen or someone in trouble do we signal the patrol. It's their job to keep order on the desert track."
Leaving the lean-to, they walked toward the watchmen hunkered down at the edge of the precipice, looking out over the river.
Bak hated to go with no more knowledge than when he had come. Perhaps if he went on a fishing expedition ... "How long have you been posted here without a break?"
"Nine days. Tomorrow will end our time on duty, and we'll be relieved by other men until our next stint." "Do you have much contact with Iken?"
"The patrol comes by each morning to deliver fresh food and drink."
"And garrison gossip as well?" Bak grinned.
"We're no good to anyone if we don't know what's going on around us." The sergeant spoke with a solemn face and a twinkle in his eye.
"I've often found gossip useful," Bak agreed, "but only when filtered through a fine sieve."
"That goes without saying." The humor fled from the sergeant's face, and he grew thoughtful. His eyes darted toward his fellow watchmen; he seemed about to speak but unsure of the ground on which he trod.
"Could it be that you've stumbled onto a chunk of granite which might contain a grain of gold?" Bak prompted. The sergeant nodded, to himself rather than Bak, and walked on toward the precipice. "One of my men was told a tale two nights ago. It's probably of no merit, for it was based on the ramblings of one too besotted by beer to speak his own thoughts. What you'll make of it, I know not, but I feel you should hear it."
"I'll measure its worth with care," Bak assured him. The sergeant knelt among his men, and Bak seated himself on a rocky knob beside them. The former spoke to the oldest of the three spearmen, a tall, gaunt man with thick white hair. "This is Meryre. He walked to Iken two nights ago to see his wife. She's young and soon to bear him a child, so he worries needlessly. Since I'm as soft-hearted as he is soft-headed, I let him go some nights to see her." The older man flushed like a boy talking of his first love. "Tell this officer the tale you heard in the house of pleasure of Sennufer," the sergeant said.
"I've known Sennufer since we were young and green," Meryre explained. "We soldiered together many years ago, and his wife looks in on my wife each day. I always stop to hear of her before I go home and to share a jar of beer with my friend. That night he told me so strange a tale I truly thought it born in the brewer's froth."
Meryre paused, looked at the sergeant and Bak as if uncertain whether or not he should continue. Both men nodded encouragement.
"A man had come the night before, Sennufer told me. He was utterly besotted, stubbing his toe on the threshold as he entered and stumbling against the other customers. Sennufer took him by the arm and sat him down and half listened to his ramblings while he went on about his business.
"The man claimed the lady Hathor had come to him, offering him pleasure through the night. For privacy, she led him outside the walls of the city to a nest among the rocks and gave him jars of beer without number. At last he closed his eyes and, as goddesses are apt to do, she vanished in his dreams. Voices woke him, he claimed, men's voices raised in anger."
Meryre scratched his nose, remembering. "He told Sennufer that one man turned away, thinking to leave, but the other grabbed him from behind and thrust a knife into his mouth. The injured man struggled to get away, but the other was stronger. Soon he collapsed and the man who stabbed him shoved him into the river."
Bak sat immobile, unable to believe his good luck. If he could find that man, that witness, he'd soon lay hands on the one who slew Puemre.
"I can see by your face, you think this tale a true one," the sergeant said.
"It matches the way I believe Puemre's life was taken," Bak admitted. "Do you know anything, Meryre, of the man who told this tale to Sennufer?"
Meryre shrugged. "He was a craftsman, I think, but I know not who Tie is or what he does. Go see Sennufer and ask him."
Bak felt like shouting his thanks to the lord Amon. He had done it! He had solved the mystery of Puemre's death before ever setting foot in Iken. Or had he? Would a man so besotted remember the face of the killer five long days after he witnessed the murder?
Chapter Six
The lord Re's solar barque had long since tipped its prow toward the western horizon when they displayed their traveling passes at Iken's northern gate. Continuing along a well-trod path, they crossed an empty stretch of windblown sand before reaching an outer town of stone and mudbrick houses. Many had partially collapsed, some showed signs of burning, and all were blanketed with varying depths of sand. Bak knew they had been built and occupied many generations before, and had been allowed to deteriorate during those terrible years when the armies of Kemet had abandoned Wawat to Kushite kings. Since the Kushite armies had been soundly defeated twenty-seven years ago, the number of soldiers needed to man the garrison was small, and the houses had never been rebuilt.
Flimsy lean-tos and mud-daubed reed mats had been tacked onto structures with broken walls and fallen roofs, providing a modicum of shelter. The dusky-skinned people living there, plainly Kushites, watched the three strangers pass by with shy curiosity. Bak guessed they had come from far to the south to do business in this important trading and manufacturing center, and had set up temporary residence in the ancient dwellings. Thuty had described Iken as "a city as large as Buhen, seven hundred or so people, with half the number of soldiers and twice as many civilians, many of them transients."
They soon entered the lower city, which was more stable in appearance, with warehouses, workshops, and interconnected blocks of white-plastered mudbrick houses. A close look, however, showed as many buildings empty as occupied, some falling in on themselves, others unpainted and neglected.
Making their way along a series of narrow streets, they brushed shoulders with soldiers, sailors, clerks, craftsmen, and traders, less often with women, children, and servants. White-garbed people of Kemet vied for space with brightly clad people from Wawat and Kush. Cooking odors and the ranker smell of burning kilns and furnaces, the nosewrinkling odors of sour sweat and sweet perfumes, the ever-present aura of human and animal waste, and the musty-fishy smell of the river lay in the still, hot air like an unseen haze. The murmur of voices, the barking of dogs, the squawk of poultry blended together as one. Farther south, the sounds changed to the creak of ships moored in the harbor, the monotonous chant of men carrying bags of grain from vessel to warehouse, and fishermen growing hoarse hawking their day's catch.
Overlooking it all was the huge rectangular fortress whose towered mudbrick walls rose stark white atop the steep escarpment edging the western side of the city.
Bak had heard Iken was a great trading center, but he had had no idea how exotic a place it was, how varied its people, how intriguing its narrow, disorderly lanes and dark doorways. He was struck by curiosity and excitement, a yearning to explore. Hardly able to contain himself, he prayed fervently to the lord Amon that his task would soon be over. The city beckoned.
"I'm afraid I can't help you, sir," Sennufer said. "I don't know who he is."
Bak dropped onto a low, three-legged stool, his spirits utterly deflated, and frowned at the short, wiry man, whose thin hair was so fiery red it had to be hennaed. "Have you any idea why he came here to bare his thoughts?" Sennufer shrugged. "A drunken whim, most likely." "A dangerous whim. If by chance
he was overheard and word reached the wrong man, I'd not give a handful of grain for his chances of surviving to an old age."
"I wouldn't worry overmuch." Sennufer glanced outside, where Pashenuro and Kasaya were standing in a narrow lane, chatting with four spearmen. "Meryre heard the tale wrong. Or maybe I twisted it without meaning to, leading his thoughts astray. The besotted man didn't claim he saw a murder; he said he dreamed one man killed another."
Bak scowled at Sennufer, then turned his face away lest he seem unappreciative. He eyed this place of business: two cluttered rooms looking out on the lane and the blank wall of a warehouse. The rear of the room in which he sat was stacked waist-high with beer jars. Stained reed mats covered the hard-packed earthen floor. A basket of drinking bowls, four low tables, and a dozen battered stools stood around the room. Game boards had been painted on the upper surfaces of the tables, providing customers with an opportunity to wager while they drank.
The second room, which reeked of bread and beer, was abustle with activity. Two male servants, sweat pouring off faces made ruddy by heat and effort, chattered together. One crumbled half-baked bread into vats containing a sweetened liquid. The other stirred and strained the fermented brew, poured the thick liquid into large jars, and stoppered them with mud plugs. Sennufer was a frugal man, it seemed, one who manufactured the merchandise he sold. Bak was glad he had not been tempted. Home brew was ofttimes worthy of the gods, but also could be so strong it would lay low a bullock. With Sennufer's business so near the waterfront, the stronger type would no doubt be more in demand.
"You've surely heard of Lieutenant Puemre's death," Bak said. "Doesn't it stand to reason that your drunken friend witnessed that murder?"
"He may have, I grant you. Or he may've been seeing the creatures born in a beer jar: snakes, scorpions, crocodiles, even a murder or two."
"Can you describe this man who dreamed of murder?" Bak asked in a wry voice.
"He was of medium height, neither fat nor thin. He had dark hair cut short and dark eyes. He wore a short kilt, had a flint knife at his belt, and wore no sandals." Sennufer noted the bemused look on Bak's face. "I know. Half the men in Iken could answer to that description."
"Meryre said you thought him a craftsman." "I had that impression, yes."
"Why?"
Sennufer rubbed his earlobe, thinking. "His hands, I guess. The fingers were short and broad, as were the palms, and his nails were dirty. Or maybe stained. They were strong hands, the hands of a man who uses them to earn his bread."
"If he should come again to your place of business, would you recognize him?"
"I would." Sennufer hesitated, frowned. "I think I would."
Bak stood up to leave. One thing he knew for a fact. His interview with Commander Woser could not possibly turn out any more disappointing than this one had.
Bak and his men, unable to spot a path that climbed the escarpment to the fortress of Iken, approached one of a dozen or more spearmen guarding the harbor. The man pointed out a cut in the cliff face and gave directions to a steep path he aUured them they would find there. The route was well traveled, taking them straight to the fortress and a broad, towered gate. After they displayed their passes, Bak led the way inside a city that looked much like Buhen, with blocks of white-plastered buildings lining narrow, arrow-straight streets.
"Go to the garrison stores," he told Pashenuro and Kasaya. "Get food and drink, enough for three or four days, and bedding and a brazier and whatever else we'll need. Talk to all who approach you. Maintain a frank and open face and don't push too hard for news of Puemre's death, but learn what you can. After I talk with Commander Woser, I'll send a message, telling you where our quarters will be."
Bidding them farewell, he hurried to the commander's residence, a large house with a pillared court surrounded by rooms astir with scribal activity. When he identified himself, the men who overheard pretended indifference, but examined him as closely as a physician studies an open wound. A scribe sent him up a flight of stairs to the second level which, like the commandant's residence in Buhen, served as the living quarters.
Commander Woser, a medium-sized man with a slight paunch, was seated in his reception room in an armchair over which the tawny skin of a lion was draped. From his build, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and thick graying hair cropped below his earlobes, Bak guessed him to be in his late forties.
Without rising, he welcomed Bak with a smile so reserved it chilled the room. "So you're Thuty's policeman. Lieutenant Bak, is it?"
His tone rankled. He made it sound as if Bak should be on a leash, sitting at Thuty's feet.
"So you're Woser," Bak said with no smile at all. "An able commander, I've been told, but one too lost in the day-to-day business of his garrison to report a man missing to his superior officer."
Woser flushed. "An oversight, I admit."
Bak, forced to stand until bidden to sit, glanced around the room. A stack of scrolls lay on a table at Woser's elbow. Several low tables, wooden chests, three-legged stools, and camp stools competed for space with weapons and armor piled against the wall and a variety of products from Kush, confiscated perhaps or merely obtained in trade:
a basket of ostrich eggs and feathers, a pile of bright skins, and an open chest filled with gaudy bead jewelry. "Commandant Thuty was not even aware you, and therefore he, had a man of lofty birth within your command."
"I shoulder no blame for that," Woser said stiffly. "I assumed Lieutenant Puemre registered in Buhen, as he was supposed to do. I had no knowledge of his failure in that regard."
Bak knew if he pushed too hard, he would be treading on shaky earth, but Thuty had given him authority over Woser in the matter of Puemre's death, so he pressed on. "Would it not have been politically expedient to make special note of a manlike Puemre when you made your reports to your commandant?"
Woser leaned forward in his chair, his eyes as dark and intense as his voice. "Puemre was a good officer, a talented man of arms, but so are my other officers. I didn't wish to raise him above them simply because his father happened to be a nobleman."
Bak felt stirrings of approval for the commander. "I sympathize with your purpose, but one must be realistic." "Is it realistic to hold one man who has no greater experience than practice warfare above others who've fought for the lives of themselves and their men, proving themselves valiant on the field of battle?"
"Not many ranking officers would act upon such strong convictions."
Woser waved off the compliment. "In a little over a year I'll return to Kemet, leaving soldiering behind to live out my days on the small plot of land I was given long ago for service to my country. I no longer stand in awe of men of lofty birth."
"Puemre's father is now chancellor of Kemet," Bak pointed out, "a man who has the ear of our sovereign. To call him lofty would seem an understatement."
"A misfortune," Woser admitted with a faint, but definitely cynical smile. "A development I never anticipated." Bak concealed his own smile. It was time he moderated his attack, but not so much as to give Woser the offensive. "Commandant Thuty didn't send me here because he mistrusts you," he said, skidding along the edge of the truth, "but because he feels I might more quickly be able to lay hands on Puemre's slayer. After all, you've many other tasks, and I'll have only the one. He doesn't want this death to lay a shadow over the lord Amon's journey through the Belly of Stones."
Though Woser's expression remained guarded, he pointed to a convenient stool. "Take a seat, young man. I missed my midday meal. Late it may be, but would you care to join me in a light repast?"
A short time later, with a jar of beer, a flattish loaf of bread, and a bowl of thick, savory vegetable stew on a low table beside him, Bak felt more comfortable with Woser but no less wary.
"I've heard of you," Woser said, dunking a chunk of bread in his bowl, "and I know of the high regard in which Thuty holds you. It's said you not only laid hands on the man who slew Commandant Nakht, but at t
he same time you stopped the theft of gold from one of the desert mines and led a skirmish that saved a caravan."
Maatkare Hatshepsut herself had ordered the stolen gold to be kept a secret, but it had been inevitable that rumors would leak out.
"I know of no gold leaving Buhen in anything other than an official shipment," Bak said truthfully, for the thief had had no time to carry away his hoard.
"You did lay hands on Nakht's slayer," Woser insisted. "That's common knowledge all along the Belly of Stones. As is the success of your, battle with the tribesmen."
Bak fished a slice of celery from the stew, uncertain what to say, unsure of Woser's purpose. "I was lucky. The lord Amon stood by my side, guiding my thoughts and my actions."
"No need to be so modest, lieutenant. You're an exemplary soldier, a fine and..."
"Enough!" Bak smiled to take the sting from his words. "Too much flattery will make me suspicious of your motives."
Woser chuckled. "I'm just trying to point out that this task Thuty gave you is unworthy of your talents. If, as I believe, Puemre's death was an accident, you've nothing to investigate."
Bak's eyes narrowed. "An accident?"
Woser wiped the inside of his bowl with a crust of bread, finishing his stew. "According to Thuty's message, Puemre was found in the river with his throat cut in such a way he suffocated on his own blood. My guess is that he slipped and fell into the water, which carried him downriver to the rapids where his throat was torn by a sharp rock. To assume his death a murder seems an overcomplication of a simple situation."
