by Lauren Haney
He rolled forward, ramming his assailant’s legs. The man fell heavily, cursed. Though wary of the dagger invisible in the pitchy darkness, Bak rose to a crouch and lunged. His foot slipped on the oily floor and he fell full-length on the other man, forcing the air from him. Bak found the hand clasped around the dagger’s handle and tried to twist the weapon free. His own hands were so oily he could barely maintain his grip.
The man thrashed from side to side, punching Bak’s lower back with his free hand, trying to shake him off. Bak swung his right fist. The blow was deflected by a hard round object, which skittered across the floor. Heby’s unwashed dishes, he thought, sweeping them aside with a curse. His other hand slipped from the dagger to his opponent’s wrist. He feared losing what little control he had of the weapon, but how could he prevent it?
The fist thudded against his lower back so hard it jarred his teeth. He rolled onto his side, pulling his opponent with him, pinning the flailing arm to the floor. Something solid tilted beneath his shoulder; a gritty, dusty substance poured out. The brazier, he thought, and the oven is just behind it. Holding the man close, Bak rolled hard and fast onto his back, slamming the hand holding the dagger against the oven. The blow jolted his arm to the shoulder, the man yowled, the dagger clattered to the floor.
Bak had not the leisure to feel relief. His opponent lay heavy on top of him. He tried to shove him off, but the man grabbed him around the chest. They rolled one way and another, locked so close together neither could get in a serious blow. They bumped the walls, the oven, the stairway. They smashed pottery and tumbled over shards and tools and bits of hardened clay. They spread a thin slick of oil across the floor and coated themselves with sandy particles. Bak’s muscles ached, his lower back felt numb, the burns on his side and arm were fiery. Every breath was a struggle. His sole consolation was his opponent’s ragged breathing.
The man suddenly relaxed his hold, twisted free, and rolled away. Bak heard him bump something, a few raspy breaths, silence. He rolled in the opposite direction to lose himself in the dark as his opponent had and hauled himself to a crouch. Hovering there, stifling his gasps, he listened for any tiny sound that would give away the other man’s position. He heard nothing.
He stood up and moved his hand through the blackness, trying to find a wall, the oven, anything he could use to orient himself. His fingers slid through empty air, touched a wall not far to his right. He heard a faint scuffing noise, a sandal moving across the gritty floor. He stepped to the wall. A bit of baked clay crunched beneath his foot. Cursing mutely, he stood statue-still and listened. The silence was as thick as the darkness.
With his arm brushing the wall, he moved one foot forward, shifted his weight, and moved the other foot. The wall fell away from his upper arm, but he could feel it next to his elbow. He smothered an urge to laugh aloud. He was standing beside the open stairway, no more than two paces from the bottom step. Beyond was the door to the larger room. Once he reached the foot of the stairs, his opponent would be trapped inside the kitchen.
He took another step. His toe caught a shard and sent it rattling across the floor. A muffled curse echoed his own, the sound close in front of him. He lunged, collided with solid muscle and warm, slippery flesh. The man spun past him and began to run. Bak, a pace or two behind, glimpsed the faint light at the bottom of the mat that covered the outer door, a swath of drifted sand beneath it, and the dark figure ducking low to grab something off the floor. The mat was shoved violently forward; the cords holding it in place snapped apart. The figure darted through the portal and veered to the right. The mat blew back to slap Bak in the face. He jerked it aside and felt as if he faced a solid wall of wind and sand. He had forgotten the storm raging through Buhen.
He grabbed the sheet hanging from the reed chest. Winding it around his head and shoulders, leaving a slit so he could see, he ducked around the crazily flapping mat and pushed his way into the lane. The wind grabbed him and shoved him after the fleeing man, a vague shadow in the swirling torrent. Fine sand seeped beneath the sheet, lodged under his clothing, adhered to his oily, sweaty body. His eyes smarted, his nose was stuffed up, and his throat was clogged. The burns on his side and arm, scraped raw by the sand, stung as if still afire.
The lane ahead twisted to the left and the man disappeared from view. Bak hastened after him, made the turn. The wind caught him, threw him at the far wall. He hit it with a thud, stumbled, and would have fallen if a stronger gust had not propelled him on. The shadowy figure forged ahead. Bak plowed after him through eddying gusts which blew from all directions. Even with the sheet swaddling his head and shoulders, he felt exposed, vulnerable. He could not help but feel a grudging respect for the other man, who wore nothing but a short kilt.
He followed his quarry around another corner. A gust tore the end of the sheet from his fingers and unwrapped the section around his shoulders. He grabbed the flapping length of cloth, which caught the wind like a sail and blew him backward. He spotted a doorway, tacked toward it, and wedged himself against the jamb until he could pull the fabric around his burned side and arm. When he looked up, he glimpsed the other man much farther ahead than before, turning into an intersecting lane. Something billowed out in the wind behind him. Bak gave a hard, humorless laugh. The man had brought a cloak with him.
Bak battled the wind to the corner, made the turn, and was nearly blinded by a thick cloud of sand blowing toward him. He bent double, held his hand before his stinging eyes, and pushed his way along the lane, using all his strength to put one foot in front of the other. When he reached an intersection, the wind swirled around him, buffeting him on all sides. He stood his ground, looking down each lane in turn. The man he was pursuing had disappeared.
“So you gave up the chase.”
“No, Imsiba, I did not. I’m stubborn like an ass but with less common sense. I went on and on from one lane to another, paying no heed to the turns I made.” Bak was so angry with himself that he practically growled, “I lost my way.”
Imsiba had the grace to make no comment.
Bak frowned at the empty sand-swept lane ahead, which was illuminated by a last faint glow of sunset and the wavering flame of Imsiba’s torch. Walls hugged both sides. Dark rectangles marked doors whose mats had been removed to allow inside the clean, fresh air. At the gradual bend ahead, the light dwindled, faded to blackness. Murmuring voices, a baby’s whimper, the smell of burning oil, onions, and fish filtered down from rooftops cooled by a soft, gentle breeze. High overhead, the stars were brightening as the barque of the lord Re sailed deeper into the netherworld and the last bits of dust drifted back to earth. Bak found it impossible to appreciate the peace of the moment. His battered muscles ached, his side and arm burned. He could not remember a time when he had felt so grimy.
“He knew every lane, every whim of the wind. As for me…” Bak’s laugh was bitter. “With the sand so thick, I couldn’t see the battlements; I didn’t know north from south, east from west. When I finally stopped to ask, those who lived in the block were traders. They had no idea who Heby was or where he lived. I was lucky they could direct me to the citadel.”
They stepped over a low drift running diagonally across an intersection and turned into another, similar lane. The rippled sand covering its surface was scarred by the footprints of a man and a dog.
Bak pointed at the shadows ahead. “The seventh door on the right.”
“You’re certain he came back?”
“With so much to lose, wouldn’t you?”
Imsiba’s smile was rueful. “I’d think it a fearsome thing to do, but if my life depended on it, yes.”
A thick-chested brindle bitch loped past them. Spotting a striped cat sniffing a doorjamb, the dog barked and raced at the smaller animal. It shot through the darkened doorway with the dog in hot pursuit. A man yelled, let out a string of curses; children laughed with delight. The dog scooted out the door, its tail between its legs, and ran on up the street. Imsiba chuckled.
Bak was too irritated to see humor anywhere. “If only I’d seen his face!”
“He had no scars; no marks to tell you who he was?”
“I glimpsed the dagger, nothing more.” Bak grimaced at the crude bandage wrapped around his fiery side and arm. “And the flames spreading beneath me.” He stopped in front of Heby’s door, where the mat hung askew, its lower end torn and tattered. “One thing I know. His body is hard, not soft with age or inactivity, and he thrusts the weapon like a man trained to use it.”
“He’s a soldier.”
“He can read, Imsiba. He’s an officer.” Or a translator, Bak thought.
Pushing the mat aside, he stepped across a calf-high drift unmarked by footprints and stopped a couple of paces inside the room. Imsiba followed with the torch. The chest and stool were overturned; sheets, sleeping mat, and clothing were strewn over the floor. Fine sand blanketed every surface, but all footprints that might have been left had been erased by the wind blowing under the mat. Scalding the air with a string of curses, Bak led the way to the kitchen. The floor was littered with tools and with bits of pottery crushed beyond recognition. Like everything else, the brazier had been smashed, its ashes smeared across the gritty oil-stained floor. Bak had expected the worst, but was disappointed nonetheless. From the look on Imsiba’s face, he was not alone in the feeling.
The big Medjay prodded the ingot-shaped stone with the point of his spear. “We’ll find no gold here.”
“If Heby kept it in this house, its hiding place will remain.”
“Is that all we look for? An empty hole?”
“The cone I saw had never been weighed.” Bak glanced toward the top of the stairway, where the exit to the roof was blocked. “I doubt Heby brought it here empty, meaning to repair it. I’d bet a month’s ration of beer that it was brought to him by the man who attacked me and it was, at that time, filled with gold. We must search for a trace of that second man.”
“If we find none?”
Scowling, Bak uttered the unthinkable. “We start again at the beginning and pray to all the gods in the ennead we’ll have better luck the next time around.”
“You fill my heart with joy, my friend…” Imsiba eyed the room, his expression glum. “…and a wish to forget this hopeless search you plan and return to our men’s barracks. They’re cooking a feast, pigeons and lentils. Would you not like to eat while they’re hot?”
Bak was so hungry he could almost smell the birds roasting on the brazier. He shook off the temptation to leave at once and returned to the larger room. Imsiba followed and mounted the torch in a bracket by the door.
As Bak began to examine the bare sleeping platform, he asked, “What of the tasks I set you this morning?”
“I spoke to our men of the need to patrol in pairs and to walk around those who seek trouble.” Picking up a dirty sheet, Imsiba wrinkled his nose in distaste. “They vowed to do as you asked, for one of the watch sergeants had already warned them of the gossip and most had seen for themselves the fear and mistrust in other men’s eyes.” He set the chest upright and dropped the sheet inside. “That vow tasted bitter on their tongues, my friend. They came to this city, proud to be chosen above all others to police its streets, and now…” He gave a hard, cynical laugh. “Your order that they fight when they must took some of the sting from their mouths, and won their loyalty like nothing else could.”
“No man who serves me will ever act the coward,” Bak said grimly.
“That knowledge eased my other tasks. As did the fact that you’ve never questioned their innocence in the slaying of Commandant Nakht or the goldsmith.”
“Tell me…” Bak broke off abruptly, feeling a mudbrick in the corner jiggle beneath his fingers.
Imsiba dropped a stained kilt into the chest and hurried to his side. “You’ve found something?”
“We’ll soon know.” Bak knew better than to expect success in so short a time, but his voice was tinged with hope.
He hurried into the kitchen, scanned the clutter on the floor until he spotted a chisel, and hastened back with it to pry up the brick. Both men peered into the hole he’d made, saw nothing behind but another brick. Bak probed with the tool, but the surrounding bricks were firmly anchored to those around them.
Muttering an oath, he continued his examination of the platform. “What luck have you had in placing our men elsewhere when Nakht and Heby were slain?”
Imsiba swept a second kilt from the floor and flung it at the chest. “I know where every man was at the time the commandant’s life was taken. One man, Ruru, was alone and unseen. In the barracks he was, sleeping. As for last night with so many hours to account for, all in the dead of night when most men slept…” Heexpelled a mirthless laugh. “That task is more hopeless than looking for gold in this house where none remains.”
“You must not give up, Imsiba!” Bak’s voice was sharper than the chisel in his hand. “To ask Nofery to lie for five men was a task I dreaded. To ask for more is a thing I won’t do. She’d make me her slave-and you and all our company. That’s too high a price to pay.”
Imsiba knelt beside the sleeping mat, his expression bleak. “I’d not like to kiss her dirty feet for the rest of my life, but I see no other way.”
Bak regretted his outburst, backed off enough to ask, “How many men do you speak of?”
“Ten. All those assigned to patrol through the night.”
Bak had to laugh. “If you were the viceroy, Imsiba, what would you do if you learned ten Medjays, policemen of Buhen whose duty it was to walk the streets from sunset to sunrise, had spent all the night taking their pleasure with Nofery’s women?”
Imsiba’s shoulders sagged. “The storm must’ve carried my wits far into the desert.”
Leaving the sleeping area, Bak gave the glum-faced Medjay an understanding pat on the shoulder. He stopped before a wall niche containing a crude baked clay image of the squat, ugly household deity Bes. From the dusty cobwebs draped around the figure, he guessed no offering had been made for many weeks. Unpromising though it seemed, he swept the webs away to examine the niche.
“I should’ve reported the gold the moment I laid eyes on it,” he said unhappily. “Heby and his confederate would’ve retreated to the shadows, fearing discovery, and they’d have done nothing more. Because I made it my secret, I left them free to act. I alone set off this chain of events which led to Heby’s murder and the vile rumors holding our men responsible.”
Imsiba finished with the mat, threw it on the platform, and surprised Bak with a smile. It was stiff and too hearty, but a smile nonetheless. “We’ll find that other man, my friend, and the gold he’s stolen as well. We’ll be looked upon as men of valor, and we’ll grow fat and lazy with nothing to do day after day but watch the lord Re sail across the sky.”
“Boredom seems a small price to pay for the answers I long to find.”
Bak examined an empty niche and each of the four walls. Imsiba cleared the floor, throwing Heby’s meager possessions on the sleeping platform, and swept the sand out the door. They both got down on hands and knees to inspect the dry, hard-packed earth.
“You spoke of those men on patrol last night,” Bak said, brushing away pieces of grit embedded in his knee. “What of the others?”
“Except for Ruru and Pashenuro, who stayed with mistress Azzia in the commandant’s residence and are still there, all were in the barracks from dusk to dawn.”
“Unseen by any but themselves and you.”
“You err, my friend. One other man was there, a man of Kemet.”
Bak’s head popped up, a query on his face.
Imsiba busied himself with a crack so thin and snakelike that a blind man would know it had no depth. “The scribe Ptahsoker, he is. The steward Tetynefer’s right hand. He came while we ate our evening meal and stayed through the night, playing the game of knuckle-bones with Amonemopet and the men on watch.”
Bak wanted to believe, but suspicion lurked in his heart. “You s
aid nothing about him this morning.”
Imsiba gave an elaborate shrug.
It’s not the truth, Bak thought, or is it? Would a man so close to Tetynefer risk such a lie? Prudence dictated he let the matter drop. “What of the three who claimed to wander the city when Nakht was slain?”
Imsiba rocked back on his heels, frowned. “As you thought, they had better things to do than await the results of our raid on Nofery’s house. They were at the quay, gambling with some sailors. They feared to admit as much, for they lost much of their portion of our monthly rations.”
Bak’s expression hardened. “And now the other men will have to share with them, leaving less for themselves through no fault of their own.”
“They’ll not soon make the same mistake, I promise you. I ordered the stick, thinking a firm reminder will long remain in their thoughts.”
Bak nodded his approval. The punishment was just.
A short time later, he hauled his weary, aching body off the floor and walked into the kitchen. He prayed they would find something, anything. Imsiba brought the torch, which flickered and sputtered, the fuel nearly burned away. With the uneven light urging them to hurry, they continued the search. Bak concentrated on the stairway; Imsiba took the floor.
“Where was Amonemopet when Nakht’s life was taken?” Bak asked. “Across the river, as he said?”
“With a village woman, yes. He shared a skiff with three other men of Buhen, scribes they were. They went over for the date wine, which is sweet and very strong.” Imsiba chuckled. “It crept upon them in the night and stole their senses. If he hadn’t come back with them, the current would’ve carried their vessel downriver and they’d be well on their way to Ma’am.”
