Face Turned Backward lb-2

by Lauren Haney

  “They saw Penhet covered in blood and too weak to speak.

  They fear for his life.” Imsiba frowned, accenting the compassion in his voice. “To lose a master is always unsettling. Especially when his widow will be forced to farm alone-or to rid herself of the land and animals and most of the help as well.”

  The two men, Bak saw, were driving the herd back toward the farm compound, bringing them to shelter before the wind rose. The orb of Re, he noted, had lost its clarity, its glow blurred by the thickening haze. “We’ve not much time. Let’s draw Netermose from his prison and take him to the spot where Penhet was assaulted. We must have his side of the tale in addition to that of the aggrieved wife.”

  Imsiba’s head snapped around, his eyes wide with surprise.

  “You think she’s lying?”

  Bak shrugged. “She summoned me, I know, and I’ve found no reason to suspect her of trying to slay him. But I learned long ago that there’s no more fertile field for murder than the home.”

  “I didn’t do it! I swear!” Netermose’s voice shook with fear. “He was lying on the ground when I found him, the dagger by his side, blood flowing from a dozen open wounds.” He moaned. “I can see him even now, his eyes wide open, surprised. He wanted to tell me who stabbed him. I know he did! But he hadn’t the strength.”

  The farmer, a husky, gruff-looking man in his mid-forties, wiped his eyes as if to erase the memory. He was on his knees in the position Rennefer had described, bending over a scuffed spot of earth near the edge of a sizable palm grove.

  A few brownish traces of dried blood were all that had survived the careless feet of the servants who had carried their master away. To make matters worse, the stubble was crushed and broken all around the area, the cracked and curling earth trod to dust, leaving no chance of sorting out the various footprints.

  “If you didn’t use this dagger,” Imsiba said, displaying the weapon he had found, “how did you get so much blood on you?”

  Netermose looked down at himself, at muscular arms and legs and a torso edging toward fat. Much of the blood Rennefer had seen had caked and fallen away, but red-brown smears colored the front of his kilt and dark flakes lodged in sweaty wrinkles. “I thought to carry him home, but…” He paused, cleared his throat. “…but Rennefer came as I took him into my arms.”

  The farmer’s hands were shaking. Whether guilty or innocent, the stabbing had jolted him. So Bak drew him to his feet and led him into the dappled shade of the trees, releasing him from the reenactment of his actions. “Penhet was far from an ideal neighbor, I know, and you had occasion to quarrel more than once. What did he do this time to bring you onto his land?”

  “Nothing.” Netermose’s eyes darted back to the spot where Penhet had lain. “I came on a matter of business. A simple trade.”

  A breeze gusted through the palm grove and across the field, rattling the fronds, teasing the hems of their kilts, sweeping the dust from the land to fill eyes and ears and noses with grit. The pigeons rose from the stubble, wings whirring, and circled back to their mudbrick shelter near the house. The wind died away and the heat resettled, close and dirty, stifling.

  Bak glanced at Imsiba and they shared a thought: they too 12 / Lauren Haney must soon seek refuge. “Tell us what happened, Netermose, from the beginning.” He would need details of the agreement, but that could come later-when time was not so pressing.

  The farmer looked up at the sky, studied its color and texture. He knew better than they the vagaries of a storm along this stretch of the river. He spoke in hurried clumps of words, verifying their concern. “Penhet sent a servant bearing a message. Our agreement was ready, I was told, and he held it in his hands. If I’d come this morning, we could walk together to the village, where the scribe would meet us with witnesses. I came across my fields, waded the canal, and walked along the path through the date grove.”

  He paused, took a ragged breath. “When I came out into the sunlight, there he was.”

  “Did you hear or see anything out of the ordinary?” Imsiba asked.

  Netermose gave the Medjay a puzzled look, not sure what he was getting at, then his brow cleared and he nodded. “The birds. As I neared the trees the air was filled with song, but suddenly they grew silent.”

  Bak and Imsiba exchanged another glance. The sudden cry of a frightened man could have startled the birds-or a man accused of attempted murder could be lying.

  “You saw him and…What then?” Bak asked.

  “It was as I told you. I knelt beside him, thinking to help, to carry him home. As I took him in my arms, a woman screamed. Rennefer. Coming up behind me. She screamed on and on as if driven to madness. Her servants came running. She pointed a finger at me, insisting I stabbed her husband. They made me their prisoner and the rest you know.”

  Another gust of wind, this stronger than the last, swept across the land, carrying dirt, chaff, and dead leaves, shaking the palms, bending low the bushes and grasses. The men turned their backs, hunched their shoulders, closed their eyes and mouths. After its force abated, Bak glanced toward the sun, a vague spot of yellow in a murky sky. Beyond the river, coming out of the west behind Buhen, he saw a dense, dark cloud advancing across the desert, cutting a swath so broad it filled the horizon. The wall of swirling dust and sand towered high into the air, dwarfing the massive fortress, enveloping everything in its path. Bak sucked in his breath.

  He had expected strong winds, but so violent a storm was rare this late in the year.

  Netermose followed his glance. “My early crops,” he groaned, forgetting his own plight. “None will survive this day.”

  “Let’s go!” Imsiba yelled, already on the move.

  Bak took a final, quick look at the place where Penhet had fallen and the lay of the land around the spot. What had truly happened here? The answer lay close at hand, he was sure, but how could he grasp it?

  The narrow windows high in the wall were covered with tightly woven mats and the doorway was protected in a like manner, yet it was impossible to escape the grit. The wind, its roar fearsome, searched out cracks and crevices, driving the sand inside, depositing dust on every surface. Oil lamps flickered in the thick and restless air, making vague shadows dance and writhe in the dusk. Grit coated sweaty flesh and worked its way beneath clothing. Mouths and noses were dry, eyes stung. Bak knew the world outside the house was far less bearable, but the urge to flee hovered at the edge of his thoughts.

  The room was sparsely furnished, yet crowded. Three large woven-reed storage chests and a small chest made of a dark wood were scattered around the walls. The loom had been dragged inside and shoved into a corner. Rennefer occupied the only chair, while Bak sat on a three-legged stool.

  Netermose sat on the floor, his back to the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. Near the door stood the folding stool Imsiba had spurned in favor of a step on the mudbrick stairway leading to the roof. Like the door and windows, the opening at the top was secured by a mat. Penhet lay on the white-plastered mudbrick sleeping platform, his eyes closed, his voice silenced by the drug. If not for a soft moan now 14 / Lauren Haney and again, Bak might have thought him no longer among the living.

  “How could you bring that man into my home?” Rennefer demanded.

  “What would you have us do?” Bak glared. “Throw him out into the storm?”

  “You took him from the hut. Put him back.”

  “Mistress Rennefer!” Bak stood up, wiped his face with a hand, leaving tracks of damp dirt across his cheek. His shadow loomed over the woman. “You accuse him of stabbing your husband and he swears he’s innocent. What reason do I have to believe you rather than him?”

  Rennefer’s chin jutted out. “Would I have asked you to come if I held guilt in my heart?”

  Netermose stared at his large, work-scarred hands, clasped between his knees. From the moment they had entered the house, the farmer had not once looked at Rennefer in a forth-right manner. He would sometimes give her a furtive
glance, but that was as far as he would go. He would not, maybe could not, meet her eyes. That his conscience troubled him was apparent.

  “I didn’t attack Penhet. I swear it!” Netermose’s voice turned bitter. “She’s taken what she saw and added to it, convincing herself I stabbed him.”

  Bak let out a long, frustrated breath, dropped onto the stool he had so recently vacated, and scooted back against the wall, well away from the thin wisps of smoke spiraling above a sputtering wick. Three yellowish puppies, curling together in a nest of straw, watched him, an intruder, with mistrust. The contented cheeps of ducklings could be heard beneath the wings of their mother, settled in a basket nearby.

  Bak closed his eyes to shut out the world and wished for a drink, a mouthful of water to wash the grit from his tongue.

  He longed for the storm to end, for the air to be clean, for a solution to the puzzle he faced.

  He forced himself to back up, to reconsider the tales the pair had told. He could find no fault with Rennefer’s account.

  She had spoken the truth, he was sure, up to a point. But the crucial time was earlier, before she came upon Netermose and Penhet, perhaps before the farmer came upon the wounded man.

  Netermose had spoken of Rennefer coming up behind him, out of the palm grove. If his tale were true, she might well have stabbed her husband and hidden among the trees and bushes when she heard the farmer’s approaching footsteps. But why, as she herself had pointed out, would she then summon a police officer from Buhen, a man experienced in righting the wrongs most offensive to the lady Maat, the goddess of right and order?

  The wind moaned, rustled the doormat, blew sand through its thinnest gaps, nudged the mudbricks holding the bottom edge against the floor. Imsiba shifted to a lower step, out of the way of sand trickling through the mat above him.

  Why was Penhet stabbed? Bak wondered. Why today?

  Why not yesterday or tomorrow? His eyes popped open, focused on a gray-green pottery jar standing in a prayer niche beside a statue of the squat, ugly household god Bes. Several papyrus rolls protruded from the mouth of the jar. “What matter of business did you come for, Netermose?”

  “I needed more land and…” The farmer sneaked a glance at Rennefer. “…Penhet had agreed to sell me a field.”

  She opened her mouth, but Bak silenced her with a hard stare. “What were the terms of your agreement?”

  “The usual.” Netermose’s eyes were locked on his hands, but his shoulders were hunched as if to ward off Rennefer’s tight-lipped stare. “I was to give him some livestock and various items from my land and my household. In return, he would give me the field next to the palm grove, where the main irrigation channel turns back toward the river.”

  “No!” Rennefer lurched toward the edge of her chair.

  “That’s our best field. It holds the water longer than all the others, and the crops grow taller.” Her eyes darted toward Penhet, her voice grew harsh. “My husband would never sell it. Never!”

  Bak could have sworn he saw Penhet’s eyelids flutter. He 16 / Lauren Haney stared at the injured man, willing him to awaken. A soft moan was his only reward. He turned again to Netermose.

  “Who first suggested this transaction?”

  The farmer drew his knees up to his chin and hugged them close. “Penhet. He knew I wanted more land and I had…Well, several things he wanted.” He looked like a man who expected to be pelted by rotten melons-or in this case by the shrieks and claws of an infuriated woman.

  “Where’s the agreement now?” Imsiba asked.

  “I saw no scroll.” Netermose looked surprised and then perplexed. “He didn’t have it with him, yet we were to go…”

  His voice tailed off, lost as the document seemed to be.

  Could Penhet have had second thoughts about the agreement, Bak wondered, and decided to leave it behind? He walked to the prayer niche and removed the jar. Returning to his stool, he tipped it upside down. A half-dozen scrolls cascaded from its mouth to fall with a dry rustle onto the earthen floor. He sorted through them. Every document was tied and sealed, a fact that meant nothing. It would be easy enough for a man or woman to place a daub of mud over a knot and impress another’s seal in the soft mud.

  Picking a scroll at random, he broke the seal with his thumbnail, and unrolled the document across his lap. As he began to read, he glanced toward Rennefer. He caught a quick impression of surprise and consternation before she wiped her features clear. She had not expected him to be an educated man. “Can you read and write, mistress Rennefer?”

  “What do you take me for?” she scoffed. “A spoiled and whimsical daughter of the nobility?”

  “Netermose?”

  “I can count,” the farmer said, “and I’ve learned to add and subtract. I have no need for further learning.”

  Bak glanced through the document, a year-old agreement to sell two cows to a farmer who lived on the opposite end of the oasis. He dropped it into the jar. “Did the scribe in the village prepare your agreement? Or does Penhet write?”

  “Penhet was to compose the document.” Netermose glanced uneasily at Rennefer. “To be certain all was right and proper, we meant to ask the scribe to look it over.”

  “You’ll never set a plow to that land,” Rennefer sneered.

  As if in response to her pronouncement, the wind rattled the mats covering door, roof opening, and windows. Dust and grit filtered inside, thickening the haze. The lamp nearest the door blew out, expelling a ribbon of acrid smoke that mingled with the dirt. Bak glanced at Imsiba, whose barely perceptible nod told him that he, too, had seen the triumph on her face, heard the exultation in her voice.

  Bak picked up another scroll and broke the seal. As he spread the document across his thighs, he glanced toward the man on the sleeping platform. He could not be sure in the flickering light, but he thought Penhet’s eyes snapped shut. Keeping his face expressionless, he began to read. After a few moments, he looked again at the injured man. This time he was sure: Penhet was peeking out through narrowed eyes. A man unwilling to face the truth-or one afraid the truth would kill him.

  Feigning an interest in the document, Bak sorted through the facts and explored the possibilities, narrowing the field to the most likely theory-one not entirely to his liking, one that left an open question. Could a single parcel of land raise the emotions to such a high pitch? Or had something else, a small but significant detail, prompted the attack? Abruptly, he stuffed the scrolls into the jar and stood up. “I must know more of your agreement, Netermose. Can you give me the specifics?”

  Like many men who had never learned to read, the farmer had an exceptional memory. He related every particular of the long and complicated bartering process the scroll had documented: each and every object, where it originally came from, and how great or little its value. For the parcel of land, which he described in detail, he had agreed to give foodstuffs, lengths of linen, a few bronze vessels and tools, items of female clothing, and some frivolous objects such as bits of jewelry, an ivory comb, and a bronze mirror. The more 18 / Lauren Haney costly items the farmer reserved until the end: cattle, goats, and a household servant named Meret, a female fourteen years of age.

  Bak sat quite still, certain he had the key at last. “Meret,” he said, glancing at Rennefer.

  She tensed, her chin shot upward.

  “Who is this servant Meret?” he asked Netermose.

  “She helps my wife with the household tasks. Her father was a farmer who gave her to me in payment of a debt long before we came to the land of Wawat.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  Netermose shrugged. “Some say she is.”

  Imsiba was quick to see the path Bak was following. Taking care not to look at Rennefer, he said, “I’ve heard of a household servant called Meret. A succulent bird, they say.

  One ripe for the plucking.”

  “Did Penhet want her as a servant or a concubine?” Bak made the question as bald as he could, as jarring to Rennefe
r as possible.

  The injured man groaned.

  “He longs for an heir, he told me, and he thinks her beautiful.” Netermose stared at the floor, refusing to look at Rennefer. “The girl is young and healthy, one who could fill a man’s house with children and his later years with happiness and comfort.”

  “You talk nonsense,” Rennefer snapped. “He’s told me many times that my failure to conceive is a gift of the gods, drawing us closer, not tearing us apart. He’d never sacrifice so much as a square cubit of this land for a simple-minded calf to share his bed.”

  Bak eyed the spare and hard-working woman, one neither warm nor likable, who had given her youth and whatever beauty she may have possessed to make the farm thrive.

  Somehow-maybe Penhet himself had told her-she had learned he meant to trade away a portion of that land for a young and pretty woman. Who could blame her for fearing she too might become disposable?

  The moaning of the wind ceased. The flames of the lamps burned tall and untroubled. The reed mats covering doors and windows hung straight and quiet. Sand trickled through a hole in the mat atop the stairs, the whisper of its fall audible in the silence. The storm had passed.

  Bak crossed the room to stand before the woman. “I must take you to Buhen, Mistress Rennefer, and there you’ll stand before the commandant. Your husband was not as steadfast and devoted as your years together warranted, but you had no right to try to take his life.”

  She stood up to face him, her eyes flashing defiance. “Do you think me so foolish I’d stab him in broad daylight? If I wished him dead, I’d slip poison in his stew and all the world would think he died a natural death.”

  The injured man moaned again, louder than before, a cry from deep within. His eyes were open, Bak saw, and he was staring at his wife with the same horrified look he would give a rearing, hissing cobra.

  “I understand your sense of betrayal, but you went too far.

  You tried to destroy Netermose as well as Penhet to punish him for his unwitting part in your husband’s treachery.” Bak’s voice turned hard, angry. “And you summoned me from Buhen, thinking me gullible, easily tricked, too much a man of the army to see into the heart of a farm woman.”