by Lauren Haney
A gangly young man burst through the door, his hand on his dagger, his face an angry scarlet. He stopped short. His eyes darted from Aset to Bak and back again. Confusion supplanted anger.
"Nebseny!" The girl's face paled; she sprang to her feet. "What brought you here?" If her show of surprise was an act, it was a good one.
"Your father sent me. He told me he thought this man . . ." Nebseny glanced at Bak, far more than an arm's length from the girl, and took in her dress. "What're you doing in this house?" he demanded of her, "and in so revealing a gown!"
"What I do is none of your business," she snapped. Without a word, he grabbed her arm and shoved her out of the courtyard and into the house. Scooping up the folded robe, he humN after her.
Bak followed as far as the front door. As they disappeared from sight at the end of the lane, he let out a long, relieved breath. Thanks to the lord Amon, a great deal of luck, and a healthy suspicion, he had missed entrapment by a hair. He walked back to the courtyard and dropped onto the bench, not sure who had been doing what to whom.
Had Woser thought up the game? Or Aset? The young man Nebseny had seemed genuinely angry, but appearances could be deceiving.
He glanced at the meat, so brown and fragrant it was worthy of the lord Amon. The wine, too, was special. Yet he did not enjoy eating and drinking alone. He cocked an ear, heard children playing on the rooftops. One of the boys would surely be willing to carry a message to Pashenuro and Kasaya at the commander's residence.
Chapter Seven
"You understand what you must do," Bak said, looking first at Pashenuro and then Kasaya.
Pashenuro slipped the loop of his leather sheath onto his belt and retied the strip of linen. "I'm to follow Lieutenant Puemre's company onto the practice field-or to whatever task they have today-and I'm to speak with the sergeant, Minnakht, working my way into his confidence. With luck, and if the lord Amon smiles on me, he'll not only talk with an open and honest tongue, but he'll encourage his men to tell me what they can."
Bak fastened the clasp of his wide multicolored bead bracelet, tugged at the hem of his kilt to smooth it over his hips, and sat down on the sleeping platform, converted now to a bench cluttered with his neatly folded sleeping pallet, his sandals, Kasaya's shield, and a basket of bread so fresh it perfumed the room. The few other furnishings were the Medjays' sleeping pallets on the floor, two folding camp stools, and a basket of nonperishable provisions. A smaller basket containing writing implements and a few scrolls sat near the doorway to the second, empty room.
"Your purpose?" he asked Pashenuro.
"I'm to learn what I can about the dead man and. . ." The thick-bodied Medjay slid his dagger into the sheath, adjusted the weapon for greater comfort, and picked up his shield and spear, lying along the base of the wall. "Using
all the guile I possess, I'm to learn what I can about the other officers without anyone guessing my purpose. Especially how they and Lieutenant Puemre worked and played together, whether friendly or as foes."
Bak grinned unexpectedly. "That should keep you busy through much of the morning."
"Much of the week, I'd guess." Pashenuro laughed. Bak sobered, his eyes darted toward the younger man. "What have you to do, Kasaya?"
The hulking Medjay, sitting cross-legged on his sleeping pallet, poured a dollop of oil into his hand and spread it over his arms and torso. "I'm to start with Lieutenant Puemre's neighbors, teaming what they know of him and of the people he knew and the places he went. Of the people they name, I'm to go only to the civilians who knew him outside the garrison."
"I'll be talking to the men in the barracks," Pashenuro reminded him.
Kasaya frowned at the unnecessary offering. "If I find the mute child, I'm to bring him back here and guard him with my life. The same is true of the craftsman who drowns himself in beer. As for the scarred man, once I learn where he lives and toils, I'm to stay far away, letting him think he's safe from your questions."
"What of the woman heavy with child?" Pashenuro asked. "The one who cared for the dead man's house." Bak slipped a foot into a sandal, his thoughts turning to the sketch he had found in the mute boy's bed. He had been convinced of a plot when he found it, but in the light of a new day, the idea seemed ridiculous. Why would any man of Kemet want to slay Amon-Psaro? He was a powerful king, yes, but he ruled a distant land. A land so far away, it seemed more mythical than real.
Still, a tiny suspicion lurked, an irritant like a minute grain of sand lodged in the corner of an eye. "If she cleaned the house for him and the boy, she also washed their sheets and made their beds. I should talk to her myself."
"Amon-Psaro's courier passed through on his way to Buhen soon after nightfall last night," Woser said. "He came again at daybreak, carrying Commandant Thuty's answer and instructions for me as well."
"The king's entourage is within a few hour's march of Semna!" Bak slumped onto the nearest stool, one of several scattered around the courtyard. "I don't want to believe it!"
"They'll march through its gate before dark. There they'll remain, awaiting the lord Amon."
"The young prince must've taken a turn for the worse." Woser strode across.the courtyard, pivoted, and strode back. Worry clouded his face. "The long journey and the heat of the desert at this time of year would be a strain on anyone. For a frail and ailing child . . ." He shook his head, the wrinkles on his brow deepened. "I pray Amon-Psaro understands that the lord Amon can sometimes be whimsical in his cures."
I pray Kenamon's skills as a physician are worthy of the challenge, Bak thought, sharing the commander's concern. "The god's barge must already have left Buhen," Woser said, taking another turn across the court, narrowly missing a basket of white thread wound into balls. The container stood at the foot of a loom on which a length of finely woven linen was stretched. "The vessel should reach the gates of Iken by dusk tomorrow. The lord Amon will spend but a single night here in the mansion of Hathor before journeying on, 'directly to Semna."
"He won't linger at the other garrisons along the Belly of Stones, visiting the gods as originally planned?" Bak whistled softly. "For time to be so critical, the prince's life must truly be threatened."
"The boy can't breathe in the life-giving air, so the courier told me. Each day that passes seems his last."
The two officers looked at each other, awed by a course of events they were helpless to alter, their mutual mistrust momentarily forgotten.
Woser was the first to turn to more practical matters, to tasks he could control. "All our plans for the lord Amon must be revised. The procession when he arrives will go on, but the presentation of gifts, the distribution of food and drink, the merrymaking, must be curtailed. We must assign additional sentries without delay and send more troops to patrol the desert track. We must. . ." He went on, listing the many and varied tasks that had to be done, squeezing four days' work into half the time.
Bak let his thoughts stray to his own pressing needs. If he was to take his place at the head of his men while they served as Amon-Psaro's guard of honor, he had only two days to lay hands on Puemre's slayer. An impossible task unless the witnesses, the mute boy and the besotted man, were found. As for the sketch, he prayed the child could somehow explain it away.
A new thought came to him. Perhaps Puemre had for some unimaginable reason taken a dislike to Amon-Psaro. Maybe he had made the sketch, hoping to bring misfortune to the Kushite king by means of sympathetic magic. If so, it had worked; the prince's health was failing daily. But what if I'm wrong? Bak wondered; what if there is a plot afoot? Tiny fingers of fear ran up his spine. Amon-Psaro would soon be encamped at Semna, a bare day's hurried walk from Iken. Too close by far.
"I must quickly get on with the task Commandant Thuty assigned me," he said. "Are your officers here, as promised?"
Woser scowled, the moment of mutual regard lost. "I trust you understand how much they have to do in too short a time."
"I'll not keep any of them long," Bak assured him.
Troop Captain Huy leaned over a broken section of battlement and eyed the rooftops of the lower city. Bak stood beside him, high above the escarpment on a partially fallen spur wall that projected from the eastern face of the fortress. In the distant past, the spur had served a purpose. Now, with the armies of Kush long ago defeated and warfare limited to desert skirmishes, with a powerful girdle wall in place, the spur had lost its value and had been allowed to crumble. Bak had demanded privacy, and he could think of no place more private in this or any other garrison.
"According to Puemre's personal record, he spent much of his youth on his father's estate near Gebtu." Huy spat a seed over the parapet and popped another date into his mouth. "One servant taught him to read and write. With another he learned to hunt and fish. A brave and respected veteran, a man I once knew, passed on the arts of war. The estate manager, of course, taught him the business of farming."
The tall, slender infantry officer was close to fifty. His eyes were a startling blue, his gray hair cropped even shorter than Bak's. He spoke in a wry voice, not quite poking fun at the dead man's upbringing, but letting Bak know the contempt he held for those who thrived on advantage and privilege. A long, ugly scar on his right shoulder left no doubt that he had earned his position, second only to Woser in the garrison hierarchy.
A breeze not yet heated by the sun rustled their hair. Swallows darted away, soon to return to their twittering young hidden in nests bored in the weathered mudbrick. The view wts glorious-and enlightening-showing clearly the tactical significance of the fortress and its island outlier.
In the hazy distance, the river made a sweeping bend through the desert, flowing broad and relatively free of obstacles. Below the bend, Iken's two white stone quays reached into the water to shelter the surprisingly large number of vessels that plied the hazardous waters of the Belly
of Stones. The fortress loomed over the harbor and, a short walk north, the crucial point where the river literally broke apart, torn asunder by rocks and islands to form a multitude of swift-flowing, foam-shrouded rapids. A calm, smooth channel dammed downstream by a rocky cascade separated the lower city from a long tear-shaped island that supported only the most tenacious and water-tolerant brush and trees. Beyond, rising from the rocks of a second, higher island, a smaller fortress gave a second important advantage over an attacking army.
With no time to linger on details, he turned his attention back to Huy. He shared the troop captain's conviction that a man should earn his way, but he kept the thought to himself. "You've just described a life of bucolic gentility. That doesn't explain how Puemre qualified for service in the regiment of Amon."
Huy gave him a cool glance. "The trouble with the army these days is boredom. And boredom leads to impatience. You young officers have never had to face another army. All you do is sit in the garrison day in and day out, wearing calluses on your backsides, maneuvering for promotion."
Bak wanted to shake the man for his condescending attitude and at the same time he silently thanked him for the opening he had offered. "Are you suggesting we slay Amon-Psaro so the other Kushite kings will join forces and march against our army, giving our officers an honest opportunity to gain experience?"
Huy snorted. "You'd not make jokes if you'd ever faced them in battle as I have." He ran a finger down the scar. "The man who gave me this was outnumbered four to one, yet his courage never flagged. They're worthy foes. More than worthy. Fearsome and deadly."
Bak was impressed by his sincerity, or at least the appearance of sincerity. "Until ten months ago, I was an officer in the regiment of Amon. I knew my fellow officers. Lieutenant Puemre was not among them."
Huy eyed him with interest. "You were infantry?"
"No, chariotry."
"Humph." Huy's interest flickered out, and he stared across the lower city, hiding his thoughts in a frown. "When barely a man, Puemre was sent by his father to Iunu, where he labored as a scribe in the great mansion of the lord Ptah. He later moved on to Byblos to serve as chief scribe to our royal envoy there. Upon his return to Kemet, he joined the regiment of Ptah as an officer. Two years later-soon after you came to Buhen, I assume-he moved to Waset and the regiment of Amon. There he stayed a mere three months before coming south."
"His life was filled to the brim, it would seem." Bak's voice was as wry as Huy's had been. "Was he born a wanderer, I wonder, or did he go from one task to another for a reason?"
Huy seemed about to speak, but changed his mind and answered with a shrug.
"Troop Captain Huy!" Bak spoke slowly and deliberately, leaving no room for misunderstanding. "What you don't offer voluntarily, I'll read for myself in Puemre's personal record. Or learn from another source. Preferably not from his father, Chancellor Nihisy, when we're all standing before the viceroy, charged with dereliction of duty-or worse."
Huy swung away, his back rigid, his hands balled tight. He strode a few paces along the parapet, stopping at a place where a tall, heavy tower had fallen away from the wall and crumbled. A wasp flew past his head unseen. A swallow dived and scolded, protecting its nest from a man unaware of its Troximity. Two sentries patrolling the battlements atop the main wall met at a distant tower. They paused to stare at the officers on the spur wall-and probably to gossip about Puemre's death and the mission of the man talking so privately with their troop captain.
"Puemre was a highly respected scribe, you'll read in his record, and he was a good officer: brave, talented in the arts of war, a creative tactician. So we found him here in Iken." Huy pivoted, showing a face dark with suppressed anger. "He knew few men had his ability, and the knowledge gave him an arrogance that knew no bounds. He wanted the moon and the stars and the sun for himself, and anything he wanted he got, no matter what the cost to those around him."
"He used people?" "He trod on us." "What exactly did he want? Your position?"
"Mine. Commander Woser's." Huy laughed bitterly. "I've no doubt Commandant Thuty would've been in his way, for he made no secret of his desire to sit in the viceroy's chair."
Bak whistled. "Few men set their sights so high." "The men in his company believed he would one day walk with the gods. His fellow officers, I among them, thought him a demon."
Bak parked his rear against the parapet and studied the older officer. Huy's aversion to Puemre was palpable. Not many men harbored so intense a dislike without a particular reason. "What specifically did he do to you?"
The older officer's mouth tightened. "I didn't like his attitude, that's all."
Bak expelled a long, irritated sigh. "I didn't like the fact that he wore a belt clasp of the regiment of Amon. A clasp entitled only to those who helped rebuild the regiment, not upstarts like him. Yet I don't despise him the way you do." "I didn't slay him!"
"Have I accused you? No! I'm merely trying to identify the man who did."
Huy picked up a mudbrick clod and hurled it at the main wall. The missile slammed into the white-plastered surface, shattering. A patrolling sentry gave a little start and swung around, looking for the source of the sudden noise. Recognizing his superior officer, he raised his spear in salute and marched on.
"Puemre's first skirmish was with a band of desert tribesmen who'd been stealing cattle from the riverside villages." Huy brushed his hands together, dislodging bits of dirt. "When I assigned him the task, I advised him to waylay them where they'd least expect it, take them captive, and bring them back to Iken." The officer shook his head in disgust. "Naturally he knew more than anyone else. He felt it wasn't manly for one army to ambush another, so he marched across the desert, raising a dust cloud that could be seen as far away as Semna. Instead of him waylaying the tribesmen, they ambushed him among the dunes and a pitched battle resulted. Five lives were lost on our side, and twice as many of the enemy, who were poorly armed as usual. If he'd done as I told him, none would've died on either side."
Bak noted the angry flush on Huy's face, a failure to forgive a mistake any newly arrived officer mig
ht make. "There it should've ended, but it didn't, I assume."
"How right you are!" Huy picked up another clod and heaved it, this time well away from the sentry. "When taken to task for losing so many unnecessary lives and, worse yet, risking the loss of his entire company, he laid the blame at my feet."
"He surely didn't get away with it!"
"Fortunately, the gods smiled on me. I'd given him his orders in front of other men, men who could and did pass the truth to Commander Woser."
A valid reason to hate a man, Bak thought, but is it reason enough to kill? "What happened the night of Woser's meeting? The night Puemre disappeared?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary." Huy almost smiled. "Other than our reason for the meeting, of course. It's not often the lord Amon honors us with his presence."
"When did you meet and for how long?"
"We entered the commander's residence soon after dusk, the five of us together. I remember seeing a servant lighting the torches in the courtyard. We discussed for over an hour the duties we had to perform during the god's visit and the journey to Semna. After we came to an agreement as to who would do what, we left."
"Does Woser customarily call meetings so late?" "Only when he feels the need, as in this case."
Bak could not remember a time when Commandant Thuty had called a meeting after dark. "Did you disagree on any matter of importance?"
Huy's laugh held not a speck of humor. "Puemre never agreed to anything, significant or otherwise, that didn't show him in a praiseworthy light, especially when men of importance were involved."
"As in this case."
Huy gave him a scornful glance. "If you think to lay Puemre's death at our feet simply because we saw him last, your fame as a clever policeman will be as fleeting as the morning mist over the river."
"I'm searching for answers, not pointing a finger." Bak gave him a long, speculative look. "Who do you believe took his life?"
