The Right Hand of Amon

by Lauren Haney

  Bak hated to interrupt so vivid a tale. "Where was this place, Antef?"

  The potter shook his head, dragging himself back to reality. "North of here it was, among the rocks overlooking the far end of the long island." He pointed vaguely toward the river. "The place is rough and lonely, but the sand has made a bed as soft as the fuzz on a newly hatched duckling."

  Bak remembered seeing the low rock outcrop some distance downriver from where he and Pashenuro had talked. It would have been a long walk for a man besotted by beer. "You've more to tell, I know."

  Antef went on, describing in lurid detail every man's dream of a night with a goddess. His coworkers sneaked glances at each other and at Bak, their mouths twitching with silent laughter.

  "When at last she wore me out," Antef said, "I closed my eyes and slept. When next I awoke, a sliver of moon was showing and she was gone."

  "What woke you?" Bak asked.

  "Nothing., Antef's eyes-darted to his inquisitor's face and fell away. "Nothing, I swear!"

  "You heard two men talking, didn't you?" Bak kept his voice hard, his tone positive, as if he himself had been on the spot instead of hearing the tale thirdhand from Meryre. "You saw them arguing. One man turned away, preparing to leave. The other grabbed him from behind. I know what

  happened then-one man stabbed the other-but I must hear it in your words."

  "No! I saw nothing!"

  "I don't enjoy using the cudgel, but I will if I must." "It was dark, but..." Antef's voice broke; he dropped his chin to his breast. "Yes, he slew him. I could tell from the sounds I heard and what little I could see. He stabbed him in the face or maybe the neck, dragged him to the river, and pushed him in. It happened so fast ... I could do nothing to help, I swear!"

  Not that fast, Bak felt sure, but even if Antef had interceded, Puemre would have died. And the potter would probably have died with him. "What did the murderer look like?"

  "I never saw his face. If I had, I'd have told." Antef began to sob. "I fear him greatly, and I'll not rest until he's caught. But I can't help you. I saw only his back." Bak believed him. He was too frightened to lie.

  "I asked everyone I met to tell me of the boy," Kasaya said, "but no one has seen him. He was like a shadow to Lieutenant Puemre. Now it's as if the sun has gone and the shadow with it."

  "Was he slain and thrown into the river like Puemre, I wonder?" Pashenuro asked.

  "Antef saw no child." Bak's voice turned grim, reflecting the dread lurking in his thoughts. "We can only pray he wasn't slain somewhere else at another time."

  The trio hurried along the row of trees hugging the river's edge. Kasaya, the best tracker of the three, scanned the earth to right and left, searching for tracks or objects that might have been left behind by a child or by a man intent on throwing aside the remnants of murder.

  They slowed their pace as they approached their goal, a mound of tortured black granite, broken and cracked by oven-like heat and midnight cold, by blowing sands and raging waters. Rising from a blanket of dun-colored sand blown off the western desert, the mound reached out toward the northern end of the elongated island that lay in the water below the fortress. The channel between mound and island was confined to a passage no broader than ten paces, where the water raged down a series of shallow, foaming falls and swirled around jagged and torn boulders.

  They climbed the mound, searching first for the sheltered spot where Antef had dreamed of the lady Hathor. The wind had blown with strength at least twice since Puemre's disappearance, so their chances of finding signs of murder were slim at best. Nevertheless, they had to try.

  Bak stood on the tallest chunk of granite and, hands on hips, surveyed the tumbled stones and raging waters below. To the west, the lord Re was resting on the horizon. "The scarred man, you say, is an armorer?"

  "If he's the man you saw, and he must be, his name is Senmut." Kasaya knelt on a low, snaggle-tooth boulder to study a likely pocket of sand. "The chief armorer told me he makes and repairs spears, sharpening points and setting them on the shafts."

  Pashenuro stole Bak's next question. "What was his connection with Lieutenant Puemre?"

  Kasaya moved on to another nook. "Senmut's oldest daughter, a girl of fifteen years, was the one who cleaned and washed and cooked for him and the boy."

  Bak scowled. "If she did nothing more than housework, why would her father knock me senseless to search the building?" He stepped across a gap to another, lower boulder. Glancing at a small sandy pocket, he let out a grunt of satisfaction. "Here's Antef's nest, I think. Or someone else's secret drinking place."

  The Medjays hurried to his side to look at four empty beer jars lodged in a crack between two weathered boulders. A yellowish stain on another rock reeked of urine. After Kasaya searched the area and found nothing further, they stood where Antef must have and looked down on the

  sandy waste below the mound. Somewhere there, Puemre had been slain.

  The Medjays clambered down and set to work, examining the sweep of sand while Bak searched the rest of the mound. The shadows were long and deep when Kasaya found a small dark stain he thought was blood buried under the fine layer of sand deposited since the murder. Pashenuro hurried to the river and worked his way along the shore. He soon found a brownish spot on a rock poised an arm's length above the swirling waters. It might or might not have been blood, but the rock would have been an ideal place from which to jettison Puemre's body.

  Darkness was falling when Bak found the footprint, located half under a rock in a niche so small only a child could have hidden there. From that point, the mute boy Ramose could have peered through a gap between boulders and watched the slayer take Puemre's life. They had to find that child, if still he lived. "I've found something!" he called, his voice pulsing with excitement.

  A loud crack sounded beside him. He glanced around, uncertain what had made the noise. He noticed a faint smudge on the rock next to him, like a bruise.

  "Get down, Lieutenant!" Pashenuro yelled, ducking into a crack too narrow for his bulk.

  Bak glimpsed something fly past his head and heard another, louder crack. A rock! Someone using a sling. A deadly weapon in the hands of a trained warrior, a weapon often used by the soldiers of Wawat. He ducked, rolled between projecting stones, and peeked out to check on his men. Kasaya was hunkered down next to a boulder at the base of the mound, staring out toward the water. Pashenuro's refuge was closer to the river.

  Another missile about the size of a goose egg flew over Bak's head, smashed against the boulder behind him, and burst.

  "There he is!" Pashenuro called. "Behind the ridge on the island."

  "I see himl" Kasaya yelled.

  Bak squirmed around until he could see. As if on demand, a man popped up, swung his arm, and let fly another rock that smacked against a boulder within arm's length. He vanished as fast as he had appeared. The way the light was failing, Bak had seen nothing but a vague, colorless silhouette.

  He felt no sense of danger-he and his men were safe as long as they remained,where they were-but he hated being pinned down, waiting to be saved by the dark. And he longed to catch the assailant. He studied the channel between the mound and the island, thinking he might swim across. The flow was fast and the low falls, if the foam gave any clue, were pounding on hidden rocks. The risk was too great.

  "I might be able to swim across." Kasaya's voice was tentative, as if he too thought the risk unwarranted.

  "Let the swine go." Bak glanced at the print of the small, bare foot, making sure he had not scuffed it in his rush for safety. "I've a footprint you must see before the light goes."

  They walked back to their quarters in the dark, too intent on making their way through the unfamiliar city to talk of their experience. Bak was puzzled by the attack. Why had the assailant used a sling when a bow would have been a far more effective weapon? Only one reason made sense: a bow and full quiver would have been impossible to transport if the attacker swam to the long island.

&n
bsp; A second question troubled him. He and his men had learned almost nothing about Puemre's death. Every tale they had heard since arriving at Iken had been common knowledge. So why would anyone try to slay them? Or had he alone been the intended victim? Most of the rocks had come his way. Had he learned something unique, something no one else knew? Or had one of Woser's officers simply been trying to frighten him off? He worried the problem like a dog frets over a tough piece of leather, but found no satisfactory explanation.

  The answer came in the dead of night while he lay on his sleeping pallet on the roof, wide-awake, staring at the stars, letting his thoughts drift. Only he had seen the sketch on the broken piece of pottery. If someone thought it important enough to try to scare him off, the drawing must be factual. Which meant Amon-Psaro's life must be at risk after all. A chill flooded his body, making the hairs on his arms stand on end. If Amon-Psaro was slain by a man of Kemet, war would be inevitable.

  He could be wrong. He prayed he was. But he had to assume the worst.

  Chapter Nine

  "Find that boy." Bak hurried up the gully to the fortress, through the main gate, and along the street to the armory, repeating the words over and over in his thoughts, the orders he had given Kasaya and Pashenuro. "If he still lives, we must make sure he stays alive. If he's been slain, we must learn how and when and by whom."

  The Medjays had left their quarters with the same sense of urgency he felt. The mute boy Ramose had to be located and, if_ still living, Bak had to find a way to communicate with him. He had to know for a fact the significance of the sketch on the pottery shard. The fortress of Semna, and therefore Amon-Psaro, was too close to Iken for comfort. Even worse, all Bak's suspects would be traveling upstream to Semna with the lord Amon. The god's entourage would provide an ideal refuge for a potential assassin, allowing him to make his play and slip back among the others camouflaged as one among many.

  Bak strode into the armory, a building too spacious for the number of men toiling there, its once whitewashed walls now worn and dirtied to the dark brown of river silt. Long ago when the fortress had been fully manned, the structure had bustled with craftsmen striving to arm a large and active force. Now, with the garrison small and the battles reduced to skirmishes, with most weapons brought in by ship from the north, the need was limited to minor manufacture and repairs.

  Pausing on the threshold, he nodded a greeting to the chief armorer, a swarthy, muscular man of thirty or so years, and glanced around in search of the scarred man. The hot, stuffy room rang with the sound of two men hammering bronze points to harden the edges. The acrid smell of molten metal filled the air around a thick pottery furnace nested on a bed of charcoal. Quick, sharp clicks and the sound of broken stone skittering across the hard-packed earthen floor betrayed the presence of someone in the next room flaking flint for an arrowhead or some other implement of war. The stench of wet leather drifted through an open door, beyond which several men were stretching reddish hides onto wooden frames, making or repairing shields.

  A barrel-chested man of medium height, his cheek deformed by a long scar, strode through the rear door. He spotted Bak, his eyes widened with recognition, and he swung around as if to run. He had nowhere to go; the armory had only a single exit.

  "Senmut!" Bak snapped, silencing the pounding and chipping, drawing a dozen gawkers from the surrounding rooms.

  A look of craven fear washed across the scarred face. "I didn't slay Lieutenant Puemre! I swear it!"

  Bak had expected a denial, but one of lesser consequence. "If you're as innocent as you claim, why did you knock me out? Why search the house?"

  The chief armorer scowled at the watching men, sending them scurrying back to their tasks, then hunkered down near the outer door, listening to every word, every shade of meaning. He would no doubt report what he heard to his family and probably to half of Iken as well.

  "I've done nothing!" Senmut said. "I swear!"

  "Why did you run two days ago, when you found me in Puemre's house?"

  "Wouldn't you? Would you want to be blamed for something you didn't do?"

  "You're open to blame until you explain yourself." Losing patience, Bak caught Senmut's arms above the elbows and shook him. "Now talk! I want no more denials."

  Senmut backed up, his steps clumsy, his eyes fearful. "I went looking for the boy, that's all. I swear it! Then I saw you on the floor, Puemre's belongings strewn around you, and I ran."

  "The boy. . ." Bak's ears took in the silence of the tools, the idleness of craftsmen too busy listening to work. "You need a jar of beer, Senmut." To the chief armorer he added, "I'll not keep him long."

  Senmut, startled into obediencg, led the way to a house of pleasure in the next block, where the proprietor sold beer so thick it clogged the strainer. The establishment was neat and clean, with walls freshly whitewashed and a floor sprinkled with water to keep down the dust. Beer jars and drinking bowls stood in tidy stacks, and a few low three-legged stools were scattered among straw-stuffed pillows for seating. The brew was strong and tasty, ideal for breaking down a wall of defense and loosening a tongue. A large helping of patience might also be in order, Bak reminded himself.

  "You went looking for the boy," he said, keeping his voice kind, conversational. "The mute child Ramose, you Senmut eyed his interrogator with suspicion. "He needs a new home. I thought to take him to mine, to make him part of my household." He drank from his bowl, taking several healthy swallows. "I've no wife to mother him. She died two years ago. But my children like him, and my oldest daughter is a mother to all."

  Bak studied the armorer's face, searching for a lie. "The neighbors haven't seen the boy since the night Puemre disappeared. I fear for his safety."

  Senmut's work-hardened hands fidgeted on the bowl.

  "He's a tough little fellow, a born scavenger. He can get by where most others would starve."

  "Puemre was slain," Bak said, spelling it out. "The child might well have suffered a like fate."

  The armorer's voice turned gruff, despairing. "Puernre was a son to me, and Ramose a son to him. I'll care for him as I will my daughter's unborn child." Bak's last grim words must have sunk in then, for he shook his head and gave a pathetic imitation of a smile. "The boy ran away, that's all. He came to my daughter yesterday morning to let her see he was alive and well. In the market, it was, soon after the fishermen brought in their catch."

  Bak's emotions leaped to surprise and delight, and gratitude to the lord Amon. Yet he was confused by Senmut's mixed signals, by so deep a despair. "Your daughter cooked for Puemre and cleaned his house?"

  Senmut wiped his nose with the back of his hand, sniffed. "She cared for him, yes, and one day soon she'll care for his child." His voice broke, and he covered his face with his hands. His shoulders trembled with silent sobs.

  Puemre's child? Bak laid a kindly hand on his arm. "I must speak with her, Senmut. Where can I find her?" Mutnefer, Bak guessed, was close to Aset in age, but there the resemblance ended. Where Woser's only daughter was delicate and lovely, Senmut's eldest child was graceless and plain. Where Aset was girlish and fanciful, Mutnefer was a woman heavy with child and the responsibility for her father's household, six children between the ages of two and twelve.

  "Puemre loved me, and I him." Mutnefer rested her hand on her unborn child, and her voice trembled. She wore a loose dress of ordinary linen, a single wristlet of bronze, and the merest touch of kohl on eyes red-rimmed from crying. "He meant to take us with him when he went back to Kemet."

  Bak, seated on a stool in the roofless cooking area behind the three-room house, was touched by her faith in Puemre's promises. Hiding his compassion, he watched her drop a lump of well-kneaded dough into a round pottery baking dish, setting it in a mound of hot coals. She covered the dish with a conical lid. A naked two-year-old boy played in the shady doorway and a girl of eight or so bent over a stone mortar, pushing the grindstone back and forth, making coarse flour from grain. He- had seen two other small ch
ildren, the oldest about five, playing on the roof under the sharp eye of a ten-year-old. The child next in age to Mutnefer, a boy of twelve or so, had gone to the river to fish. All who were old enough had to earn their bread in Senmut's household.

  "Without your help, how did your father plan to care for so' large a brood?"

  Her smile was as tremulous as her voice. "They, too, were to go to Kemet: my father, my brothers and sisters. Puemre promised us a house on his father's estate, a parcel of land, and even a servant, a woman to care for the small ones. Instead of making weapons, my father would make tools for the men who worked the fields of the estate."

  A promise easily made, Bak thought, and equally easy to forget. "What was to become of you? Were you to wed him or ... ?"

  She laughed, incredulous. "I have no noble blood! He loved me, yes, and he meant to take me into his household. I would've been his favorite for all time, he vowed, but his concubine, not his wife."

  Bak thought4 best to drop the subject before she guessed how skeptical he was. He did not want to hurt her. "When did you last see Puemre?"

  "The evening he disappeared." Her voice dropped to an unhappy murmur. "He walked me home before reporting to the commander's residence."

  "What did he say? Will you tell me of his mood? Was he happy or sad or angry, for example?"

  Mutnefer retrieved a portable camp stool from the house. The legs were carved and painted to look like the delicate heads of river birds, the seat made of finely woven leather. Bak could imagine a piece of that quality in the commander's residence, not in this poor household.

  She noticed his interest. "Puemre saw the trouble I had getting off the ground once I sat down, so he brought this stool to ease my life." Blinking back tears, she placed it in the shady strip next to the wall and sat down heavily.

  He wondered what he would do if she had the baby then and there. The thought was unsettling-until he recalled seeing women on the roofs of several houses in the block.

  "Puemre came home that day long before dusk. I always cooked his evening meal and ate with him and Ramose, then brought whatever was left back to my family." She closed her eyes, swallowed. "He picked me up and swung me around in a circle, so excited he spoke in riddles. He mentioned the king Amon-Psaro, the prince, revenge, and a great battle with the Kushites. He said our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut herself, would give him the gold of valor and more."