by Lauren Haney
As they neared the beached skiff, Kasaya shaded his eyes with a hand to take another, better look. "The vessel is Ineni's," he stated. "See that broad scratch on the hull? It's his ahight."
Their prow bumped earth under the water, throwing the young Medjay to his knees, and momentum carried them onto the muddy shore. They leaped out and drew the craft up beside Ineni's. Bak distributed the weapons, giving the bow and quiver to Psuro, a more skilled archer than he or Kasaya. A path invited them into the tamarisk grove. Beyond, a patchwork of garden plots arced around the base of the hill, each plot separated from the others by irrigation channels shaded by palms, tamarisks, and acacias. An ox lowed, drawing their eyes to a faroff field. The creature, led by a small boy, was pulling a plow guided by his father, while another child walked behind, sowing seeds. Nothing else stirred, neither man nor beast, not uncommon at this time of day.
Walking on narrow ridges alongside the ditches, they hurried to the base of an ancient staircase rising up the hill. The slope was smooth, the steps blanketed with untrampled sand. From the water, they had seen two other stairways ascending to the southern end of the burial place. They hastened in that direction, walking one moment on the sand and the next on the cultivated land, sometimes with one foot in each. Insects and reptiles, frightened by their passage, darted beneath boulders that had tumbled from above to lie along the edge of the fields. Fallen giants resting.
Kasaya loped on ahead to the closest of the two stairways. "Someone's climbed up here," he called.
Bak and Psuro hurried to join him. The footprints, shapeless indentations, rose up a long and steep flight of. steps covered much of the way with sand. Enough remained bare to see that the ancient staircase consisted of two parallel flights of steps separated by a low ramp up which heavy coffins had been drawn many generations earlier. A kneehigh wall set the stairway apart from the hillside.
The three men stared upward. Psuro whistled softly between his teeth. Kasaya muttered something in his own tongue, impossible to understand. Bak stood silent and still, awed by the determination that had driven Khawet to the top. If the prints were hers.
Psuro knelt to examine the indentations. "The breeze hasn't worn away the sharp edges. I'd say they're fresh." Bak studied the terraces above. He did not like the silence, the utter lack. of life. Was Khawet standing somewhere out of sight, determined to fend off any man who approached? Or was she on her knees in some ancestor's house of eternity, making a final offering before she gave herself up? Or had she brought along a vial of poison, meaning to take her own life? He turned around to scan the oasis and added another possibility. Was she even now making her way to the two skiffs drawn up at the water's edge?
"Psuro, you must hurry to the river and set sail, towing mistress Khawel s vessel behind ours. Keep a wary eye on shore. Let no one else set out. I'd not like to be stranded here while she makes her escape."
"But, sir!" The Medjay pointed at the terraces, clearly unhappy with what he considered a lesser assignment. "You might need me up there."
"Your task is as necessary as mine. Go!"
"Yes, sir." Psuro swung around, too quick for Bak to catch his expression, and stalked away.
Bak turned to the younger Medjay, the hard look on his face brooking no argument. "You, Kasaya, will remain here, while I climb up to the terraces and look for her there. If I find her and she attempts to flee, I want you here to snare her."
Kasaya's mouth tightened in objection, but he nodded compliance.
Bak eyed his spear and shield, tempted to leave them behind and go armed with only his dagger. The heavy shield aggravated the ache in his shoulder, both it and the spear would be awkward during the climb, and the latter would be close to useless until he reached the terrace. But he had badly underestimated Khawet before, never once considering her a suspect, and he knew better than to do so again. Resigned to the discomfort, he nodded a curt good-bye to the young Medjay and headed up the stairs on the right side of the center ramp.
He was accustomed to long, steep, and arduous stairways, having climbed many in the fortresses of Wawat. Thinking the effort here no different, he started out fast and confident, treading in the footprints of the one who had gone before him and looking up at his ultimate goal more often than at his feet. A mistake, he learned at the sixth step, one that could have had grave consequences. He took a quick step up, but the stair was not there, the stone broken. His foot came down hard, jarring his teeth, pitching him forward onto a knee.
He growled a curse.
"Are you alright, sir?" Kasaya called.
"Fine." Bak brushed the grit from his skinned flesh and climbed on, his pace slower, his eyes on his feet much of the time, paying more heed to where he placed them.
The staircase was old, treacherous, the steps uneven and broken, and at times inconsistent in height. Buried in sand as they were, hidden from view, he stubbed his toes, stumbled on shattered stones that rocked beneath his weight, and stepped into holes of varying depths. The windblown sand was slippery, flowing downhill at the slightest disturbance, threatening to carry him with it. No longer trusting the earlier footprints, he began to probe the steps with the spear, using the butt end to locate irregularities.
The higher he climbed, the more conscious he became of the long way down to the bottom. With the sand as slippery as wet river mud, the gradient steep, and the hill denuded of outcrops, offering nothing to grab hold of, he could imagine himself sliding, falling, tumbling head over heels like a ball, coming to rest at Kasaya's feet, looking the fool. Worse, he might break an arm, a leg, his back.
Shaking off the thought, he plodded on, dogged in his determination. His leg muscles tightened, prelude to a cramp. Pain nagged his shoulder. The sun beat down, heating the sand beneath his feet. Sweat beaded on his forehead and rivulets flowed down his chest. He passed the halfway point, neared the three-quarter mark. Why, he wondered, had he not had the good sense to send Kasaya on this infernal mission?
Without warning, a rumbling sounded above him. His eyes, which had been locked on the next step, snapped upward. A boulder, poised on the upper edge of the stairway, pitched forward. Kasaya yelled, his words meaningless in the instant of shock. The heavy stone landed on a lower step, bounced, struck another step, bounced a second time. Another bounce and it would be upon him.
With no time to think, barely time to react, Bak leaped to the side, hurdling the low stone wall, and landed in the sand beside the staircase. Immediately he began to slide downhill. His feet skidded-out from under him, the spear flew from his hand, and he fell on a hip. Khawet, he was sure. She had shoved the boulder off the terrace. She had meant him to die. Anger struck him and with it a rock-hard determination not to give her the satisfaction.
Aware he risked tearing his flesh to shreds, he shifted the shield from left hand to right, held it hard against his side, and flung himself toward the low wall. His sandal skidded along the stones, and the shield bumped the rough surface, making it hard to hold. Digging the heel of his other foot into the sand, using it as both brake and rudder, he brought his downhill plunge under control. Much sooner than he dared hope, he mercifully stopped.
Catching his breath and at the same time scrambling to his knees, he looked upward. Khawet stood at the top of the staircase, watching him. Slowly, deliberately, she raised a sling and lobbed a stone at him. Snarling an oath, he swung the shield up, deflecting the missile. When next he looked, she was gone.
Holding the cowhide barrier before him, he rose to his feet and took a hasty glance around, evaluating his position. He stood about halfway up the stairs, out in the open with no available shelter and the enemy above. The boulder had lodged between two others at the edge of a field of young melon plants. His spear lay at the bottom of the steps, its point glinting in the sun.
"Are you alright, sir?" Kasaya, heading upward as fast as the damaged steps would allow.
"I'm fine. Now get off those stairs! If Khawet descends this hill by another route, I wan
t you in a position to cut her off."
"Yes, sir." The Medjay lowered his head and plodded down, sulking, Bak suspected.
Preferring to keep his dagger hand free, Bak switched the shield back to his left hand, reviving the ache in his shoulder. He stepped over the low wall and, muttering a quick prayer to the lord Amon, headed up the stairway once again. The smudged sand marking the boulder's path impressed upon him how important it was that he keep a wary eye on the terrace as well as watch his feet. In spite of the added caution, his divided attention, he climbed steadily.
He passed the highest point he had reached before. As if she had been monitoring his progress, Khawet appeared above, sling loaded, pouch of rocks slung over her shoulder.
He wondered if she had set that spot as his upper limit and planned not to allow him to advance beyond.
She stood in the open, taunting his inability to get at her, and hurled a rock at him. He swung the shield up. The missile struck hard, jolting his arm, setting his shoulder afire, and dropped into the sand at his feet. He tried to scoop it up, thinking to hurl it back, but the stone rolled away to the next lower step. She shot off another rock and another and another, launching them as fast and hard as she could, casting the missiles with uncommon accuracy and a rare strength for a woman.
Unable to retaliate, refusing to retreat, he trod on up the stairs, parrying the stones with his shield, thinking to unnerve her with a steady pace. The sling could be a deadly weapon. in the hands of an experienced warrior. As Khawet was proving herself to be.
Suddenly she turned and darted north along the terrace. He was surprised to see how close he was to the top, with only seven or eight more steps to climb. She must have emptied her pouch of stones. Or had she chosen to run rather than face him, fearing his greater strength and weight? He staved off the temptation to race upward, risking a fall, and continued to climb with as much care as before. Never once did he let down his guard lest she return with another, deadlier weapon. Seeing nothing, hearing no sound, he stepped onto the terrace. There he found the lever she had used to shift the heavy boulder. Other than that, no sign of her remained.
The slope of the hill had been cut away, he saw, providing a vertical surface for the facades of a lengthy row of tombs dug deep into the rock. A broad walkway edged with a kneehigh parapet follgwed the curve of the hill, offering a comfortable approach to these houses of eternity. He eyed the line of entryways, wondering which, if any, sheltered Khawet. Certainly not the two atop the southern staircases, for he had seen her run away from them. He scowled at the gaping portals, black rectangles that warned of the depth of darkness inside. How was he to find her without a torch?
He strode north along the sunlit terrace, peering into tombs whose doors had long ago vanished and whose contents had been desecrated and robbed, passing others whose entrances were blocked by stone or brick walls that looked untouched but had probably been defiled like the rest. On mounds of debris before several entrances, he saw fragments of bone and linen and wood, the residue of ancient robberies. These sepulchers, he assumed, were very old, dating to a time when Abu stood on the threshold of the frontier and Wawat was a place to explore and conquer, not settle and exploit as at present.
If he remembered accurately an early conversation with Djehuty, when the governor had laid claim to a long and esteemed ancestry, he had spoken of a direct line as far back as Kheperkare Senwosret, who had ruled many generations after these early kings. True, the governor had spoken with longing of a more ancient lineage, but even he had not dared press the claim as fact.
Bak had no idea what Khawet's purpose was in coming to this burial place, but if she took her heritage as seriously as Djehuty did, she would waste no time in the older tombs. She would go to the one closest to her heart.
Beyond an entrance half buried in windblown sand he approached a trio of open portals. The faint odor of incense teased his nostrils, then drifted away. Every sense suddenly alert, he crept to the nearest and peered down a short, narrow passage. A shaft of light, vague and indistinct, reached from the depths of the tomb toward the entry to blend with the faint illumination from outside. The smell of incense was stronger here, wafting out through the portal.
Bak slipped his dagger from its sheath, took a deep but quiet breath, and sidled through the passage, keeping his back to the wall. At the end, he peeked into a rectangular chamber, its ceiling supported by six square columns. Nothing stirred in the near-dark hall. A few silent steps took him to a handsome granite offering table laden with a braised pigeon, onions, cucumbers, and dates, along with a bouquet of white lilies and a pottery bowl holding the burning incense. The perfumed smoke was cloying, overwhelming the sweeter odor of the flowers and the tantalizing scent of the bird.
The vague light drew him up a low flight of steps at the rear of the hall and into a corridor where six niches, three on either side, framed rock-cut, painted figures of the deceased as one with Osiris, the lord of the netherworld. In the gloom, deep shadows hovered around the dark, shrouded figures. They and the heavy smell of incense made the corridor seem a passageway to death. Bak crept along on silent feet, chilled by the thought.
He paused at the end of the corridor, where the light was brighter. In the chamber ahead, he heard the faint whisper of a burning torch and sensed the presence of another individual. Khawet, he felt sure. Dagger in hand, he held the shield before him and took a cautious step forward. He found himself in a room too small for the four square columns that provided surfaces for drawings of the deceased, figures illuminated by the leaping flame of a torch. Khawet stepped into view at the rear, holding the light aloft, her back to a niche containing lightly carved paintings of a man and his family, her ancestors Bak assumed.
"Stay where you are, Lieutenant. I'll not let you lay hands on me." The long-handled torch, the kind carried by town guards assigned to night patrol, burned close to the ceiling. The angle of light turned the planes of her face hard and unyielding, matching her voice.
"You can't escape, mistress Khawet."
"I've done nothing worthy of condemnation. I've simply been a tool of the lady Maat, balancing the scales of justice." Her smile turned smug, irritating. "As you are."
"I've not spent the past days tracking you down only to let you slip through my fingers."
"You've earned a reward of sorts, that I concede." Her eyes flashed determination. "But you'll not have it at my expense."
He stepped forward, between the first pair of columns. She swung the torch down, pointing the flame along the central aisle, holding him off. He had to overpower her, but how? The chamber was so small and the columns were so large, there was not much room to maneuver. Even his spear would have been impossible to use in so confined a space.
"Nor will you reach your goal," he said, taunting her. "Your father still lives." Maybe.
She blinked, taken aback, but not for long. "I gave him twice the amount of poison needed to slay a man. He'll not survive the day."
He took a short and careful step forward. She thrust the flame toward him, forcing him back.
"What did he do to make you hate him so?" he asked. "Why slay all the others as well?"
"Oh, come now, Lieutenant! You spent all morning questioning Amethu and Simut. Don't try to convince me you don't know Nebmose was my beloved, my betrothed. The one man who touched me as no other will."
The torch, as long as Khawet's arm, could not be easy to hold, thrust out the way it was. She was a strong womanher use of the sling had proven that-but how long could she continue to grasp the thing at such an ungainly angle?
"I know of your feelings for him, yes, and I know he was one of the many who failed to return from that deadly sandstorm five years ago."
"Do you also know that some men survived at the expense of others? They found a safe haven and turned away all who wished to share their good fortune."
"I heard a tale, yes." Bak spoke with care, refusing to admit a man still lived who had sheltered in that haven
. Khawet had followed her pattern slavishly-until today. He had no wish to sacrifice User should she somehow manage to escape and go after the one man she had missed in her reign of vengeance.
"They turned Nebmose away," she said bitterly, "forcing him to go on in the face of the storm."
Bak stepped forward once more. As before, she thrust the torch toward him, forcing him back. If she had been holding him at bay with any ordinary weapon, a spear, for example, he would have grabbed it and twisted it from her hand, but not this fiery standard.
"How do you know this?" he demanded. "Did Sergeant Senmut tell Sergeant Min, who confided in mistress Hatnofer?"
She bowed her head, acknowledging the guess. "Senmut was born a braggart, and Min could keep nothing from Hatnofer."
"Your father found shelter somewhere else," he pointed out, "not with Senmut and the others."
"He and Min did, yes. And they found a donkey laden with food and water." She paused, added with a sneer, "Enough to sustain three men with ease."
"Nebmose came upon them," Bak guessed, "and did they also turn him away?"
"The shelter they'd found was- small, an overhanging boulder with a ridge of sand in front, forming an alcove. Min refused to put the donkey out, refused to make space for Nebmose. According to Hatnofer, he laughed, saying a dumb beast was of more value than a lieutenant. They fought. Min, much the stronger of the two, felled Nebmose and.. " Her voice wavered. "And my father thrust a knife in his back."
Bak was not surprised by the gravity of Djehuty's offense, only by its pointlessness. A man afraid to die, slaying one who was already down. And him a nobleman. No wonder the governor had refused to divulge his secret. The tale showed him up for what he was: a coward and a murderer, unworthy to sit in a seat of power. One who should have been taken before the vizier and been made to account for his crime. Or crimes.
