by Lauren Haney
Bak broke into a smile, delighted at the news. "It'll be wonderful to see a friendly face again and to speak for a change with officers who're straightforward and honest."
Kasaya grinned. "First you must speak with Commander Woser. He wants to see you right away."
"No more bad news, I hope."
"He didn't bless me with knowledge."
Bak's laugh was short-lived. He recounted his interviews with Senmut and Mutnefer and told Kasaya to go find Pashenuro. They should take all the rations they could spare to Mutnefer, get her description of the mute boy, and goon to the market. The child, he felt sure, would turn up sooner or later and he wanted at least one of them there when he showed his face. The boy had to be found and any secrets he held somehow released. Only then would he be safe.
"I've seldom seen men work so hard," Imsiba said, his eyes on the crowd massed in the distance. The glitter of gold could be seen above their heads, the elegant, upswept prow of the god's barge towed now by men rather than a warship. "I pray the lord Amon makes the effort worthwhile."
"You've heard Amon-Psaro is already in Semna," Bak said.
Imsiba's face turned dour. "How can a man expect a god, no matter how great and powerful, to heal a child so ill?
"What does Kenamon have to say?"
"He speaks with the unflagging faith of a priest, not the practical physician he is. But the closer we come to Semna,
I've noticed, the more often he kneels in prayer."
The big Medjay's gloom was contagious, filling Bak's heart with grim and unwanted thoughts.
They strode across the sandy waste, neither in a mood to talk yet comfortable with the shared silence. Bak's eyes darted ahead, tracing the course of the slipway along which the lord Amon's barge was being dragged past the most formidable of the rapids below Iken. The route stretched across the sandy desert flat, a road paved with logs, slightly curved to form a cradle, lying side by side on a bed of dry and cracking silt.
As they neared the barge, Nebwa stepped back from among the soldiers surrounding the vessel and shouted an order. The men standing in front, well above a hundred troops from Buhen, took up the slack on heavy ropes attached to the craft, while others alongside did the same, their task to prevent the barge from tipping to the right or left as well as to aid with the tow. Several men carrying large round-bottomed jars hurried forward. Commander Woser and the officers Huy, Senu, Inyotef, and Nebseny stood off to the side with Kenamon. The lesser priests and a couple of soldiers purified for the occasion knelt beside the lord Amon's golden barque, waiting to lift it onto their shoulders and move it forward with the barge. The doors of the shrine were closed and sealed, protecting the image of the god from the noise and dust of the outside world.
A second shout from Nebwa. The water carriers tipped their jars, soaking the silt in front of the barge, making it as slick as the grease taken from a fat roasted goose. A foreman counted off the rhythm in a singsong voice, and the tow-men began to pull. Muscles bulged. A few men grunted, others cursed. Sweat poured forth beneath the heartless sun. The lower hull, gently rounded, bare of paint and gilding, slid forward on the bed of logs, its wood creaking and moaning with the strain.
A great golden barge traveling across the barren desert. Amazing! Bak thought.
Nebwa walked alongside, watching with a wary eye, alert for snarled ropes, a fallen man. Ten paces and he shouted again, bringing the barge to a halt, giving the men a chance to rest.
Bak let muscles that he had not realized were tensed relax and looked farther afield, searching out his men. A mixed guard of Medjay police and the spearmen Nebwa had selected formed a rough oval thirty or so paces around the barge. Others stood on higher ground off to the west, widely spaced yet not so far apart they could not communicate with a whistle or a shout. Their task was to watch the desert for marauding tribesmen.
"You've done well, Imsiba. I wish I could say the same."
"I've had no opportunity to speak with Commander Woser." Imsiba stared toward the officers with Kenamon. "Have you learned yet why he raised so high a wall around the news of Puemre's death?"
Bak laughed ruefully. "If he were the only obstruction I've found in Iken, I'd think myself lucky."
The big Medjay gave him a curious glance.
"I'll explain tonight. After the lord Amon is safe within the mansion of Hathor. Now I must talk to Woser." Bak grinned. "I've been summoned."
While Imsiba struck off to the west and the line of guards watching from afar, Bak circled around the weary tow-men. The officers and priests were too intent on their conversation to notice his approach.
Woser was saying, "You surely don't believe Chancellor Nihisy will come all the way to the Belly of Stones!" The commander looked worried, Bak noticed with some satisfaction Nebwa raised his hands palm forward, staving off the words. "You misunderstand. All I said was that I wouldn't want to walk in Thuty's sandals, or yours, if the man who slew Puemre isn't brought to justice in a timely manner." "The chancellor won't come," Inyotef said. "He's too new to his task, too busy slipping into the palace bureaucracy. He'll send someone else in his place."
"Worse yet," Nebwa snorted. "A lesser man who represents a great one is always harsher than his master. Especially when the master is too far away to learn the true facts and soften his agent's decisions."
"Do you always look on the dark side, Nebwa?" Huy kept his voice light, teasing almost, but he looked as worried as Woser.
"I call the score the way I see it." Nebwa spotted Bak and a broad grin erased the gloom. "Now here's the man who can save you from Nihisy's wrath!" He clasped Bak's shoulders in greeting. "No man yet- has escaped his justice."
"You exaggerate." Bak spoke automatically, his eyes darting around the group, noting their reactions.
Woser's face was taut; tired eyes betrayed nights made restless by anxiety. Nebseny's mouth was a thin, tight line. The wrinkles etching Huy's forehead had deepened. Senu's eyes searched Bak's face and Nebwa's, as if he suspected a plot to spread fear among him and his fellow officers. Inyotef smiled, a trait Bak remembered from the past, the pilot's way of hiding tension, worry, fear, or any sign of weakness.
Nebwa eyed the barge and the men around it, some drinking beer from a goatskin, others oiling themselves to prevent their skin from drying, the rest sitting and talking or lying on the sand with their eyes closed. He gave no hint of whether or not he noticed the officers' reactions. "You're too clever by far," he told Bak. "A man impossible to deceive."
"You make me sound like one who walks with the gods," Bak joked.
"You walk with the lady Maat, that I know." Nebwa clapped him on the shoulder, grinned at Woser. "You'll see. When he's in search of justice, he's like a dog with a bone. Once he sinks his teeth in, he never lets go. I wouldn't tread in the slayer's footsteps for all the gold in Wawat and Kush."
Bak was delighted with Nebwa and the reactions he had brought forth, but he wondered if his friend had not gone too far. A cornered criminal, like a trapped animal, was apt to strike out with uncontrolled fury. If he knew from which direction to expect an attack, he could guard against it, but here, where one man seemed as guilty as another, he had no defense.
Kenamon gave the pair a disapproving scowl, patently unhappy with Nebwa's game and suspicious of Bak's part in it. "Have you heard the news, my son?"
Bak caught the censure in the elderly priest's voice, and a deeper worry. "What's wrong? Has something happened to Amon-Psaro?" The moment the words popped out, he knew he had made a mistake. If, as he believed, one of the officers standing with him was determined to slay the king, he had revealed what he knew in one short, ill-conceived question.
Woser gave him an odd look. "Not the king. It's the prince."
"A courier came to Commander Woser not an hour ago," Kenamon explained. "He carried a message from Amon-Psaro, who's gravely worried about the life of his son. He no longer has the patience to wait in Semna while the lord Amon makes his slow progress up the river.
He's bringing the child to Iken."
"May the gods save us all." Bak's voice was flat and lifeless, his thoughts stalled.
"As the river is still too low to sail all the way uninterrupted by rapids, Amon-Psaro will come by the desert route. His entourage is large, more than a hundred men including servants, so they'll not be able to travel fast, but they should arrive in two days' time."
Bak did not bother to hide the dismay he felt. No one, with the exception of the would-be assassin, could possibly guess its true source: the Kushite king on his way to Iken, walking onto the home ground of a man who wanted him dead. Like a honeybee buzzing toward a gossamer web, with a spider poised to strike.
He looked toward the golden shrine and offered a fervent prayer to the god dwelling inside. Let us soon find the mute child, he implored, for we've no other trail to follow.
Chapter Ten
"We searched the market- from end to end." Kasaya towered over Bak, sitting on the roof of a warehouse facing the river. "No one is harboring the boy, nor did we miss any hiding places."
"Then tomorrow you must search farther afield," Bak said doggedly. "We have to find him before Amon-Psaro marches into Iken."
They spoke loudly so each could hear the other over the excited babble of voices, the crowds lining the riverbank, jostling for a better view of the approaching flotilla: the golden barge of the lord Amon and the vessels escorting it during the short voyage from the slipway to the harbor.
"I see no problem, sir." The young Medjay's eyes and thoughts were on the procession of rivercraft sailing slowly upstream, fittings polished, banners flying from masts and stays, crews decked out in their spotless best. "With Sergeant Imsiba here and half our men, we should be able to search all of Iken between dawn and dusk."
Bak snorted. "How blessed you are, Kasaya, to be able to sleep with your eyes open and dream while you go about your daily tasks."
A puzzled look flitted across Kasaya's face, to disappear with a flush. "They must stay with the lord Amon?" "That's where their duty lies."
"Yes, sir." Kasaya's eyes darted back to the glittering barge, the longing to stay and watch the spectacle written clearly on his face. "I must go to the market. I'm taking the first watch and Pashenuro the second, so he'll want time to find a hidden place to sleep."
"Sit!" Bak commanded. "If I know Pashenuro, he long ago found a bed and now he's searching out the fattest and plumpest fowl and fruits for his evening meal." And maybe a tasty morsel to share his bed, he thought.
With a delighted smile, Kasaya sat next to him on the roof. Elevated above the trees scattered along the riverbank and the many people standing at the water's edge, their view of the flotilla was unobstructed.
The people, though deprived of much of the customary pomp, were as thrilled by the god's arrival as the residents of Buhen had been-and they were far more colorful. Standing among the unadorned soldiers of Kemet were men and women bedecked with feathers and tattoos and exotic jewelry, symbols of tribes upriver to the south and from the deserts to the east and west. They wore costumes of every color and shape and size, from the skimpiest of loincloths to elaborate multicolored robes. As the barge drew near, they pressed forward as one, their voices louder, more excited.
Once the lord Amon was safely housed in the mansion of the lady Hathor, where he would remain throughout his stay in Iken, the spectators would disperse, Bak knew. The market would be far more crowded than normal and the child Ramose almost impossible to find. A wearisome thought, not one designed to lift the spirits.
The men standing on the quay-Commander Woser, his officers, the priests who ministered to the lady Hathor, five local princes, and two desert chieftains-shuffled their feet, adjusted kilts and tunics and weapons, brushed dust from sandals. Bak could guess their thoughts. Instead of the overnight stay initially planned, the lord Amon was soon to become a semipermanent guest for an unspecified length of time. Each had to put on his best face — and keep it on for the duration. A mixed blessing at best.
Inyotef stood at the prow of the lead vessel, a warship gaily decorated with long, fluttering pennants of red and white. He stood tall and erect with no sign of infirmity, Bak noted. His face was expressionless, his baton of office clenched in his hand. Next came the lord Amon's gilded barge, the long, slender bull attached to the warship by towropes thicker than a man's wrist. The golden vessel glided over the water, turned to molten copper by the last rays of the sun. The white-robed figure of Kenamon stood before the dais on which the golden barque rested; the lesser priests stood with him. The shrine, mounted atop the barque, was open on all sides, allowing the people to see and adore the slender gold image standing within. The murmurs rose to thundering shouts of adoration.
Two sleek trading ships, one on either side of the glittering barge, served as escort vessels. Imsiba and the Medjay police stood in the near ship, Nebwa and his contingent of guards in the craft on the far side. At the sight of his men, so tall and straight and noble, Bak's heart swelled with pride. And, he had to admit, his head swelled, too. They were the best police force in the world, he was convinced, worthy guards for the lord Amon, the greatest of all the gods.
"You've a rare talent, Bak." Nebwa, glancing around Sennufer's house of pleasure, wrinkled his nose at the stench of beer, sweat, and a faint odor of dead mouse. "You can walk into any city and, at the speed of a swallow, nose out the worst establishment there and make it your own special place."
Bak laughed. "Nofery wishes to turn her house of pleasure into a palace. Will you enjoy it more when you must dress like a kingfisher and smell like a lotus so she'll admit you through her door?"
"Nofery? Running a house fit for royalty?" Laughing, Nebwa pulled a lumpy, straw-filled pillow into the comer where Bak was ensconced on a stool, sat down, and signaled Sennufer for a jar of beer. "Imsiba's not yet come?"
"He should be here soon." Bak thought of telling him of Nofery's claim that once she had loved Amon-Psaro, and he had loved her, but dismissed the temptation as frivolous. Nebwa had to return to Buhen the following morning, and they had other, more pressing matters to discuss. "He had to stay until the lord Amon was safe and content in the mansion of the lady Hathor and Kenamon and the other priests settled in the house they've borrowed from the chief scribe."
"The old man's getting tired." Nebwa smiled. "In spite of his exhaustion and an uncertain future, I truly believe he's enjoying himself. He's seen nothing like this land of Wawat in all his life, and his curiosity knows no bounds."
"After the lord Khnum formed him on his potter's wheel, he threw away the pattern," Bak said with a fond smile.
Imsiba strode through the door. "My friends!"
His tall, muscular figure and the confidence in his voice drew the eye of every man there: a dozen hardened sailors, some from the south and the rest from Kemet, and four soldiers newly back from desert patrol, their faces and bodies ruddy from windburn and sun. The majority were playing games of chance and drinking a brew so new it smelled more of bread than beer.
Imsiba accepted a jar from Sennufer, toed a stool toward Bak and Nebwa, and sat down. They talked of nothing, waiting for the other patrons to lose interest. The lane outside turned dusky. Sennufer lit several oil lamps, scattering them, around the room.. The game soon grew exciting, the voices loud and raucous, sailors and soldiers alike forgetting the officers among them. Bak told his tale, omitting no details of his stay thus far in Iken. By the time he finished, the black of night enveloped the land and the air inside was thick with smoke.
"If Puemre was slain because he knew of a plan to slay Amon-Psaro, why would the other officers protect the one who slew him?" Nebwa shook his head vigorously. "It makes no sense."
"Do you have any idea how many times I've come to the same conclusion?" Bak glared at nothing, disgusted at his failure to come up with a better idea. "They all faced the Kushites in battle twenty-seven years ago. Would that not be enough to quench their thirst for blood?"
"Did you see that
war firsthand?" Nebwa asked Imsiba. The tall Medjay shook his head. "My village was raided the year before. I was brought to Iken, I think, and here the soldiers took me away from the tribesmen who stole me. When the armies of Kemet marched on Kush, I was already in Waset, living as a child on a country estate belonging to the lord Amon."
"I, too, was a boy." Nebwa swirled a thick layer of dregs around the bottom of his drinking bowl. "My father was a soldier, a sergeant like you, and we lived in northern Wawat-in the fortress of Kubban. He marched south with the army of Kemet and came back a hero."
"I wasn't yet bom." Bak had seldom felt as youthful and innocent, protected by circumstances and birth from his friends' more exciting childhood. "Was the war so special, men would kill at the memory?"
Imsiba shrugged, queried Nebwa with a glance.
"My father spoke often of the war, of heroism and booty. My mother spoke only of the sadness in Kubban when the men sailed south. And the fear." Nebwa stared into his cup, recalling his father's tales of the distant past. "Akheperenre Tuthmose, our queen's father, had died in his sleep, leaving the throne in the hands of his son, Akheperenre Tuthmose. The wretched men of Kush, thinking our new king too weak and unsure of himself to defend his birthright, stored the pot of discontent among the chieftains of southern Wawat, urging them to rebel. Buhen stood at risk, as did the fortresses along the Belly of Stones, and even those of us living as far north as Kubban feared a siege.
"The king sent an army, and the rebels of Wawat dropped like grain falling before a scythe. Our soldiers marched on to the land of Kush, slaying the warriors, laying waste to the villages, and taking prisoners and booty. Many men died on both sides before the most powerful of the kings who had urged rebellion, a tribal chieftain of much courage but no common sense, was captured on the field of battle. His warriors threw down their arms. Our army marched into his capital and took all of value within. The king was put back on his throne, a broken man. His firstborn son was sent to Kemet as hostage, and peace has reigned to this day."
