by Lauren Haney
With his father manning the tiller, Bak struggled to raise the single rectangular sail. The moment the heavy linen rose above the lower yard, the wind caught it. The higher he lifted it, the stronger the force that filled it, threatening to tear the halyard from his hands or the cleats from the deck.
Threatening to capsize the vessel. His father, who had sailed all his life and had taught his son the art, eased the boat around, attaining a fine line between letting too much wind into the sail and letting the skiff founder in the waves. At times the craft literally stood still.
At last the upper yard reached the masthead. Working together with sail and tiller, father and son turned the wind and current to their advantage. In a short time they were on course, not following a direct line, for the wind demanded a zigzag route, but they felt confident they would reach the opposite shore not far from the path that would take them home. They sped across the water, their journey strenuous and cold, but invigorating.
The lord Re hovered above the western peak behind Djeser Djeseru, dappling the surface of the rough water in reds and golds. Some distance upstream, a large traveling ship was coming toward them, its sail tucked away, its oarsmen holding the vessel on a course midstream of the current carrying them northward. Other than that, the sole vessel in sight was a fishing boat sailing some distance behind them on a course similar to theirs. Like the vessel Bak had noticed near the quay in Waset, its hull was weathered a deep brown.
Assuming it was the same boat, it must have left not long after they did.
Bak dismissed the two vessels from his thoughts and concentrated on keeping the skiff on course. For all practical purposes, he and his father had the river to themselves. They could go where they pleased, sail as fast as they wished. The world was theirs alone.
Keeping in sight the mouth of a canal on the opposite shore, using the lord Re as a beacon, they sailed roughly in a northwesterly direction. After attaining a heady speed that would set the fastest chariot horse to shame, Bak would adjust the sail, spilling the wind, holding barely enough to maintain western movement while the current carried the skiff downstream. He was exhilarated by the speed, by the challenge of competing with the storm and the river. The wind tugged at his hair and the fabric of his tunic. It whistled through the lines and rattled the fittings atop the masthead. Gulls soared above, wings spread, letting the wind carry them south, squawking as if making light of the men below.
About midstream Bak tore his eyes from the goal ahead to see how his father was faring in the stern. He was startled to see the fishing boat behind them, coming up fast. Too fast.
His heart leaped into his throat and he spat out a curse.
Though a far more cumbersome vessel, it was twice as large as their own and much heavier, with considerably more sail. The master of the vessel was using that sail to great advantage, allowing the wind to push the boat at an excessive speed.
“Father! Behind us!” Bak yelled. “He doesn’t see us!
Swing the tiller!”
Ptahhotep glanced backward and at the same time did as he was told. Bak filled the sail as much as he dared. The skiff swung partway around, climbed a wave, dropped with a thud into the hollow beyond. The fishing boat appeared to turn, as if deliberately following them. Denying the thought as ridiculous, he signaled his father for more rudder and let the sail balloon. The keelless skiff, leaning at a precarious angle, bumped across the waves, out of the fishing boat’s way. Bak turned forward, thinking to set the vessel upright.
His father yelled, “He’s turning with us!”
Bak swung around. The larger hull was fast approaching, too fast to escape. “Jump, Father!”
His face white with shock, Ptahhotep let go of the tiller and threw himself overboard. Praying his parent would get safely out of the path of the larger vessel, Bak let go of the sheets. As they slipped out of the cleats and snaked across the deck, the prow of the fishing boat loomed over the stern.
The sail billowed furiously, slapping Bak’s face. The skiff tipped over farther and began to skid on its side, taking in water. Bak jumped. The larger vessel struck the smaller, sending him sprawling into the river. The hull of the fishing boat struck him across the back.
Chapter Ten
Stunned by the blow, Bak felt as if he had been struck on the back by the fist of a god. The impact knocked the air from him and shoved him downward. Arms and legs limp, moving where the water took them, he vaguely saw the hull slide over him. Unable to think, he sucked in a breath, filling his lungs with water.
Coughing, taking in more water, desperate for air, he came back to his senses. He knew he was sinking and the current was carrying him downstream. Terror struck. His limbs flailed, too fast, out of control. Recognizing panic and how close he was to drowning, he forced himself to calm down. He held back a cough, made his arms and legs respond, and swam upward. His body felt heavy and stiff. His chest burned. He saw light through the water, beckoning him.
He broke the surface. The water was rough around him.
Cold wind and heavy swells washed over his head. He coughed and coughed again, spewing liquid, making room for the air he needed.
Then he thought of his father and the boat that had struck the skiff.
“Father!” he yelled, looking around in all directions.
The sun had vanished, throwing a golden glow into the sky that reflected on the roiling water like broken shards of light, heaving and falling, appearing and disappearing, making it impossible to see any object as small as a man’s head.
He did glimpse a boat off to the right, making its way toward the west bank. It could have been the fishing boat that had run them down, but it was too far away for him to be sure.
He coughed hard, bellowed out, “Father!”
“Bak!”
Had to be Ptahhotep, he thanked the lord Amon. Hard to hear with water filling his ears, a strange hollow sound that made the man he heard difficult to locate. He called again, received an answer. Swimming in the direction from which he thought the response had come, he quickly found his father clinging to a long curved section of hull, all that remained of the skiff. A stub of mast was attached and a portion of the torn sail floated on the waves.
“Are you all right, Father?”
“Wet and angry but unhurt. And you?”
Bak tried a grin, but his teeth were clenched so tight it looked more like the grimace it was. “My back feels as if it’s been peeled, and I sucked in a chestful of water. Other than that, I’m ready to do battle with the malign spirit himself.” A gross exaggeration, one intended to make them both feel better.
“That boat struck us on purpose.” Ptahhotep’s eyes flashed with fury. “The son of a snake, the. .” He ranted on, spouting invectives even his policeman son had never heard.
Bak looked toward the west bank, searching for the boat he had seen. The lord Re had entered the netherworld, taking with him the glow from the sky. Darkness was falling fast.
The vessel had vanished, hidden by the gloom, probably nestled against a mudbank, its sail furled, its weathered hull blending into the background.
The waning light told him they must not tarry. He had every confidence that he could swim to the far shore, but his father was no longer a young man. “We must go, Father.
We’ve a long swim ahead of us.”
A movement caught his eye, a traveling ship coming downstream at a fast pace. The vessel he had seen earlier but had forgotten in the struggle to survive. With the light so uncertain, he feared it might pass them by, but a member of the crew spotted the torn sail. The oarsmen slowed the craft and maneuvered it close with practiced ease. Ropes were thrown and the crew hauled them on board.
Bak glanced at the lord Khepre, a sliver of gold peering over the eastern horizon. He had awakened angry and impatient to get on with the new day, but Hori and Kasaya had yet to come. The bandage his father had bound around his upper torso chafed, the musky smell of the poultice tickled his nose, and the bandage a
round his thigh was too tight. He untied the latter, decided the abrasion was healing properly, and threw it away. His father, called out to tend an infected foot, need never know.
When he went outside to care for his horses, he found Defender lame. A cursory inspection revealed a small stone embedded in the animal’s hoof, a problem easily fixed and best not left to the end of day. But first the team had to be fed and watered. As he finished the task, he spotted the scribe and Medjay hurrying along the path toward the house. The bandage roused their concern and questions. While the horses ate their fill, he sat with the pair beneath the sycamore, where he shared their early morning meal-bread, cheese, and dates Kasaya’s mother had provided-and told them how the fishing boat had run down his father’s skiff.
“The malign spirit,” Hori said, his face grim. “The boat had to be his. Or under his control.”
“I’d wager my iron dagger that you’re right.” Bak did not make such a statement lightly. The weapon was a treasured gift, given to him by a woman he had met when first he had gone to Buhen, one he had never ceased to hold close within his heart.
“Who else has reason to want you dead?” Hori’s question required no answer and received none.
Bak retrieved a basket of instruments his father kept in the house in case he was called out to care for an animal and knelt before the lame horse. While he examined the gelding’s hoof, Kasaya held the rope halter and rubbed his head.
Hori hoisted himself onto the mudbrick wall, well out of the way of flying hooves should the creature strike out. He made no secret of the fact that he rued the day his father had insisted he follow him as a scribe, and he longed to be a man of action-if not a police officer, the chariotry officer Bak had been-but he did not quite trust the large, swift animals.
“I’m surprised you two weren’t attacked when you climbed the cliff,” the youth said.
“Maybe our so-called malign spirit wasn’t at Djeser Djeseru then and didn’t know we went up to investigate.” Bak probed gently around the stone, trying to see how deep it was and loosen it if possible. Defender nickered softly but stood still. “Or he may’ve been there but couldn’t get away unnoticed. Or, more likely, he feared being seen unless he took a roundabout route that would get him to the top too late.”
The gelding’s withers twitched in silent complaint.
Kasaya distracted him with a handful of grain. “I suppose a man could climb up a different crevice than the one we did, but could he cross the tops of those tower-like formations without being seen from below?”
“I don’t know, but I assume so.” Deciding the stone could easily be removed, Bak took a pair of long-nosed tweezers from the basket and pulled it free. He laid the instrument aside and examined the hoof to see how deep the injury went.
“The malign spirit must fear you greatly.” Hori held out a small bowl of salve Ptahhotep had prepared. It smelled much the same as the poultice on Bak’s back. “First he made the cliff face fall upon you and now he’s wrecked your father’s boat.”
“He’d better fear me.” Bak’s voice was harsh, angry. The horse, snorting surprise, jerked backward. “I’m a policeman, trained as a soldier. I can take care of myself. But my father’s a physician, a man no longer young and vigorous. I’m very much troubled by the fact that he’s been brought into this.”
“He was an innocent bystander, surely!”
“Was he?” Wrinkling his nose at the strong, musky odor of the salve, Bak gently rubbed it into the tender spot. “The fishing boat was moored near the quay where he always leaves his skiff. Was it waiting in the expectation that I would sail home with him? Or was it waiting for him alone and I was an added bonus? Was he meant to be injured or slain as a warning to me?”
“I want my father guarded at all times, sir,” Bak said, concluding his tale of the previous evening’s events.
“Why do you come to me?” Commander Maiherperi, a slender man of forty or so years, eyed Bak with an intensity that would have made a younger, greener man uneasy. His woolly hair and dusky skin spoke of mixed blood; the scar across his cheek told of a man who had earned his lofty position. “Amonked brought you into this. Why not go to him?”
“I did. He suggested I speak with you. You stand at the head of the men who guard the royal house; therefore, you stand apart from all other forms of military and civil authority.” A wry smile formed on Bak’s lips. “He also believes you owe me a favor.”
The commander, seated on a chair on a low dais, allowed himself a slight smile. “Because I tore you from the army to place you at the head of a company of Medjay police? Because I sent you to Buhen when our sovereign ordered you exiled? Has he not seen how you’ve thrived on the frontier?”
The chamber, central to the guards’ barracks inside the walls surrounding the royal house and grounds in Waset, was of imposing proportions. Its lofty ceiling was supported by four tall pillars, and air circulating through high windows kept the space cool. The odors of leather and sweat served as a constant reminder of generations of armed and armored men who had come to report to and receive orders from their commander. Other than two tough-looking guards flanking the wide, double doors behind him, Bak and Maiherperi were the sole men present. Their words resonated through the huge, almost empty space.
“We spent more than a month together on the Belly of Stones, sir. We came to know each other quite well.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Bak was not surprised the commander knew of
Amonked’s adventures in Wawat. The officer’s knowledge was legendary. It had to be, for he was responsible for the safety of the royal house and the well-being of their sovereign and all she held dear.
Maiherperi adjusted the pillow behind him and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know your father, Lieutenant, but from what I’ve heard of him, he’ll not be pleased to have an escort keeping him company day after day.”
“I can see no other way. If the man I seek thinks to hurt me through him, or to intimidate me, he and our small farm must not go unprotected.”
“I agree. The accidents at Djeser Djeseru must be stopped, and what your father desires is of no importance. He’ll have to put up with a guard until you succeed in your mission.”
Normally Bak would have urged caution, warning the commander that he sooner or later might fail to lay hands on a man he sought. Not this time, however. He would catch the malign spirit if it took all his remaining days.
“I wish you to have a lean-to set up in the old temple of Djeserkare Amonhotep and his esteemed mother Ahmose Nefertari,” Bak said to Hori. They were walking with Kasaya up the causeway that would take them to Djeser Djeseru. “You must position it in a place of privacy, where no man can come close without being seen. Equip it with a low stool, a mat upon which a man can sit, and plentiful jars of beer.”
“Yes, sir?” The question in the scribe’s voice mirrored the curiosity on his face.
“You’ve talked with many men who’ve seen or been a victim of an accident here at Djeser Djeseru. While you set up the lean-to, I’ll speak with your friend Ani. Then you must bring those men to me one after another. I wish to learn more of these mishaps firsthand.”
“Yes, sir.” Hori hurried on up the causeway and across the terrace, passing a gang of workmen towing a sledge on which lay a twice-life-size limestone statue of Maatkare Hatshepsut wrapped for eternity. How they could toil so hard on so hot a day, Bak could not begin to guess.
“Now, Kasaya, untie this bandage. It’ll draw too many curious eyes, too many questions.”
“Yes, sir. Montu was always after me to do things for him.
Run errands mostly.” Ani, seated on his mat beneath the scribes’ lean-to, poured a couple drops of water onto a cake of black ink and mixed it in with a stiff brush. “I sometimes gathered broken bits of pottery and limestone chips for him, but I’ve no way of knowing if those you found in his home were those I gave him.”
Bak, seated on the stool, was glad he
had found the boy alone. He doubted Ramose would have interfered, but the garrulous old man Amonemhab would have added his thoughts, wanted or unwanted. “I was told he took them home a week or two ago.”
The boy screwed up his face, thinking. “I’m not sure, sir.
Could you describe some of the sketches? I might remember them.”
As Bak complied, a drop of sweat trickled down the side of his face. Not a breath of air stirred across Djeser Djeseru, and heat lay over the valley like a heavy pallet stuffed with wool newly cut from a sheep. His back itched, the abrasion irritated by sweat. With the bandage gone, few men had commented, and those who did had assumed his back, like his thigh, had been scraped raw during the rock slide.
The trial copies of gods and offerings were commonplace, it seemed, with few special enough to remember, but the moment Bak began to describe the comic sketches, Ani’s frown cleared and a smile broke across his face. “I remember! I took them from the trash heap between the foundation of the new shrine to the lady Hathor and the old temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep.”
Bak smiled with him, momentarily sharing the boy’s enjoyment of the rough humor, but quickly sobered. “Do you remember seeing the neck of a broken jar with a sketch of a honey bee on it? Similar to this?” With the tip of his baton, he drew in the sand by his feet a crude jar with a necklace from which hung a pendant bee.
Ani studied it, shook his head. “It might’ve been there, sir, but I didn’t notice it.”
“Tell me of the accident.” Bak sat down on the low stool and pointed with his baton at the reed mat on the ground in front of him. “Leave nothing out. The smallest detail could be important.”
The man, a workman named Mery, looked wary of sharing the shaded space with the officer, not because he feared questions, Bak suspected, but because he was unaccustomed to the company of men of authority. He was one of the multitude who toiled day after day, moving heavy and unwieldy objects from one place to another.
