by Lauren Haney
“An easy walk beyond the village, yes.”
Bak pressed the rudder, guiding the skiff closer to shore.
“And it’s from here you stole this boat?” The words slipped out as smooth as a dagger from a well-fitted sheath.
Tjanuny tensed for an instant, then relaxed. His face took on a wide-eyed look of honesty and candor. “I borrowed it.”
Imsiba sputtered, a sound falling somewhere between a laugh and a snort. The oarsman’s expression froze. Bak formed a scowl, squelching a laugh.
Tjanuny dredged up some indignation. “If I’d traveled on foot, sir, I’d not have reached Buhen until after nightfall. I thought it best to get a boat-to borrow one-so you could reach the wreck in a timely manner. Captain Ramose wishes to be on his way north, but as I told you when first I saw you, he feels obligated to help. To carry any survivors back to Buhen-should they summon the courage to appear at a ship that’s been plundered-and to haul back any salvageable goods.”
Bak gave the oarsman a stern look. “Later, after I talk with Ramose, you can row me back to this village. There you can explain that it was you who stole-borrowed-the skiff.”
A look of dismay flitted across Tjanuny’s face.
Bak relented. The man’s offense was minor, easily set right.
“I doubt you’ve cause to worry. If we find they’ve taken the cargo, they’ll be too busy explaining their own actions to complain about your misdeed.”
“Was it truly an accident?” Bak waded closer to the overturned ship, taking care not to stir up the mud beneath his feet, clouding the water more than it already was. He bent low to get a better look at the hull. “Or could the vessel have been deliberately run aground?”
Captain Ramose, his ruddy face taut with suppressed anger, stood close by. “You’re overly suspicious, Lieutenant.”
He was referring to his own vessel as much if not more than the wreck. He had looked on in tense silence when Imsiba had swum out to his ship and climbed aboard.
Though not a word had been uttered, he had guessed the sergeant’s purpose: If he and his crew had removed the cargo from the wrecked ship and hauled it to some secret place nearby, the Medjay would learn the truth.
Bak remained mute, admitting only in the privacy of his own thoughts that he might sometimes err on the side of caution.
Ramose pointed to the broken keel-plank running down the ship’s spine. “You can see for yourself, its back is broken.”
40 / Lauren Haney
The vessel, probably seventy paces long from stem to stern, lay hard against a large sandstone boulder that in the distant past had been washed down the wadi when one of the rare but vicious rainstorms in the eastern mountains had sent floodwaters crashing down the dry waterway. Not merely the keel-plank, but several boards on the port side of the hull had been splintered as if struck by a gigantic arrowhead. The ship lay skewered, half on its side, its hull washed in water as high as a man’s thigh.
“I know too little of ships and sailing to hazard a guess as to what happened,” Bak admitted, standing erect and splashing backward. “You’ll have to enlighten me.”
“Only the gods could’ve driven this ship so far inland and thrown it so hard against the boulder.” Ramose eyed the mud surging up in Bak’s wake, then waded along the hull, running his hand over wood darkened and grainy from years of service. At the bow, he ducked low beneath the finial and stared out toward the wadi mouth and his own ship. His voice took on an edge. “I’d say they were caught unawares by the storm. Captain Roy must’ve seen this wadi and thought it a godsend. Instead, they were blown into the shallows and onto the boulder, with no chance to save themselves.”
The theory made sense, and yet…“You think all the crew perished?” Bak eyed the ship, the deck atilt but unharmed.
A school of tiny fish swirled around his legs, tickling him.
“Other than the fatal wound, the damage is so slight and the water so shallow it seems impossible.”
“The storm was fierce, yet…” Ramose scowled, thinking back. “Most of the men probably made it, but I’d not be surprised to learn that one or two were swept overboard before they left the open river. I saw for myself the water washing the upper terrace at Buhen. And after the storm I saw fish there, lying with dead and injured birds carried on the wind.”
Bak thought again of the village to the south, so tempting to men seeking shelter, so convenient for men burdened by salvaged items. But where, he wondered, was the captain?
Surely he would not abandon his vessel and cargo.
He waded to shore and climbed a few paces up the steep bank. At the mouth of the wadi, Ramose’s ship rocked on the gentle swells, its deck and fittings creaking, its pennants fluttering in a soft breeze. Hawsers fore and aft joined the vessel to mooring stakes driven into the slope above the water’s edge. Imsiba stood on deck, chatting with the crewmen.
Confident the Medjay would reach a firm conclusion, Bak turned his attention to the impaled ship. It carried a fixed mast rising from the center of a modest deckhouse, a wooden frame with walls of brown rough-woven reed mats. As the vessel had been traveling downstream, the yards were lashed out of the way over the deckhouse roof and the sail stowed below. The stern had been thrown against the wadi wall, crushing the steering area and rudder. The undamaged bow reached over the water, bridging the distance to a patch of tough grasses on the opposite shore. A stack of twenty or more ebony logs at least six paces long had broken free at one end to smash through the rail and hang precariously over the side. A man-shaped coffin, painted white with a yellow band of black symbols running from breast to toe and crossed at intervals by transverse bands, was tied to the deckhouse. A dozen or more reed baskets, their lids sealed tight, lined the lower rail against which they had slid at the time of impact.
Bak felt unaccountably saddened by the wounded vessel, an ordinary trading ship of moderate size, unadorned except for the eye of Horus painted on the prow. Yet seen from a distance it must have been beautiful, sweeping up the river with its weathered wood dark and glossy, its rectangular sail spread wide like the wings of a gigantic bird.
“Will it ever sail again?”
“This isn’t a minor repair. The boulder’s torn the heart from the vessel.” Ramose stepped back, splashing his kilt, and studied the damage. “It’ll have to be hauled to a dock-yard, that much I can tell you.”
Bak recalled the ship moored in Buhen the day before the storm. Much of the ebony coming north through the Belly of Stones was cut into short lengths because of the difficulty 42 / Lauren Haney of transport, so these logs had sparked his curiosity. Because the captain, a man he had never met and could barely remember, had been busy inspecting the ship prior to departure, he had talked to the scribe assigned to collect the tolls. The ebony, he had been told, had been brought down the rapids during high water, carried on a small, sleek vessel owned by a Kushite so daring he braved the wild and unruly waters as much for pleasure as for profit.
Other than the wood, the cargo had been commonplace.
Much of the deck had been stacked with bundled cowhides, he remembered, and an unending line of men had been carrying copper ingots from a warehouse to the ship, stowing them in the hold. Now all that remained above was the coffin, the logs, and whatever the baskets contained. Something too heavy to move easily, he guessed, or not worth the trouble.
“Has anything been left below?” he asked.
“Not even the sail.” Ramose climbed the slope to stand beside him. Feet spread wide, thumbs hooked to his belt on either side of his ample belly, he stared at his own ship. Imsiba was still on deck, probing baskets and chests and bundles, chatting, laughing, making light of his task. The Medjay’s smile, his good humor, and most of all his thoroughness had never failed to scare the truth from men with something to hide.
Ramose, seething with anger, tore his gaze from his ship to look at the wreck. “When last I saw this vessel, the men were unloading a cargo of grain at Kor. Captain Roy s
aid he meant to stop next at Buhen for a load of copper bound for Abu. I knew the man, but not well, so I didn’t tarry to chat.”
Bak was loath to praise men who took what belonged to others, offending the lady Maat, but he had to give the thieves their due. Copper ingots were heavy and cumbersome and so were bundled hides. They must have toiled like ants to clean out the boat, clear most of the deck, and hide all they took. Given another day, they would have hauled away the logs and might even have broken up the ship for firewood.
The body, he assumed, would have been thrown overboard, the coffin saved for later use.
Ramose’s eyes darted to his own ship and back to the wreck; his voice turned intense, bitter. “We found this ship as you see it, Lieutenant. May the lord Hapi swallow us all if I’m lying!”
Few men of the river would dare such a plea. Any who sought the river god’s vengeance in such a manner was either honest to a fault or so guilty he knew for a fact that he had earned a watery death.
Bak laid a hand on the captain’s shoulder and smiled.
“You must bear with me, Ramose. I have to be sure of your innocence. If I’m to retrieve this vessel’s cargo, I’ll need your help and that of your men.”
Ramose barked out a laugh. “I don’t believe it! At the same time you insult me by questioning my honesty, you ask for aid.” He shook his head in mock disbelief, laughed again. “I doubt I’ve ever met a man so suited to his task. The lady Maat must think you a perfect tool.”
Bak was not sure if the comment was meant as a compliment or a condemnation. He wanted to believe the former, for Maat was the goddess of truth and order, but the word
“tool” bothered him.
To avoid further discussion, maybe heated words, Bak walked along the shore, where a few scraggly reeds reached up through the water. A dozen paces took him to the track that snaked up the steep incline to the top of the escarpment.
The surface of the path was sand and rock, hard-packed by the passage of feet and cloven hooves, impossible to read.
But men in a hurry often took shortcuts, and men heavily burdened sometimes stumbled to left or right.
He climbed to the first bend, where the trail doubled back, and stopped to study the slopes to either side. They were rough and rocky, at first as uncommunicative as the path, but soon he found a tiny pocket of sand deposited by the recent storm, and on it the perfect image of a bare foot, as yet untouched by wind. The print was that of an adult, too large to be a woman, unscarred, ordinary. Maybe that of a sailor, maybe not. Offering a quick prayer to the lord Amon that
44 / Lauren Haney patience would reward him with a more revealing clue, he walked on, taking a step or two at a time, stopping, searching for further sandy patches.
The trail again turned back on itself, climbed higher. He spotted another, larger pocket of sand sheltered by an out-cropping rock four or five paces above the path. He thought he glimpsed some form of imprint. Practically holding his breath, he bounded up the slope. His foot slipped on an unstable bit of rock and he fell, skinning a knee. Indifferent to the blood oozing from the wound, to his burning flesh, he knelt to examine the impression left in the sand.
The image was distinct, easily read. His spirits soared. To the left was a smooth square amid a network of triangles, the imprint of the net-like garment worn by oarsmen, with a leather patch at the rear to protect the kilt. The tiny hand-prints of a monkey, a few smudged as if the creature had grown restless, marked the sand to the right. A monkey? Bak wondered. He could in no way imagine so exotic a creature living in a poor village along this portion of the river. And neither Roy’s ship nor Ramose’s had carried wild animals as part of the cargo. Perhaps the monkey was a pet. A sailor might somehow have laid hands on the animal and kept it as his own. Not a member of Ramose’s crew, for no monkey had been found when his ship was inspected in Buhen.
No, the man who sat here had been among the crew of the wrecked ship. He and the others who had survived the storm had made their way south to the village, where they had recruited men to help salvage the cargo. But what of Captain Roy? Why would a man strip his own vessel of all it carried?
A movement drew his eye toward the wadi mouth. Imsiba stood at the rail of Ramose’s ship, waving both arms over his head, his signal that the captain and his crew were free of guilt. Bak plunged down the trail and hurried to the man he had wronged. An apology was in order.
“Until you came, we knew nothing about a shipwreck.”
Pahuro, the headman of the village upriver from the wreck, shook his shaggy white head in absolute denial. “Since we didn’t know about it, we can’t have taken the cargo.”
The logic was impeccable, Bak thought, and a blatant lie.
Leaning back against the hip-high mudbrick wall that surrounded a paddock containing two plump white cows and a gray donkey, he looked up at the trail where it vanished from sight at the top of the escarpment. No sign of Imsiba, who had gone in search of a youth he had spotted on the clifftop, keeping an eye on the wreck. A villager, maybe, or one of the truant sailors.
Inside the paddock, flies buzzed around several greenish piles of manure whose smell blended with the odor of the animals and the tangy scent of hay. A tame crow hopped along the wall, its hoarse cry a demand for food or attention.
From where Bak sat, the village looked much as it had from the river: a few poor houses reached by narrow, dusty lanes giving access to doorways leading into dark, airless rooms.
Three small, naked children, one with his thumb in his mouth, peered down from a rooftop.
Now and again, Bak glimpsed Ramose’s sailors going from house to house, Tjanuny at their head, looking for missing items. He had made the oarsman their leader as soon as he had returned the skiff with appropriate apologies and sufficient groveling. The villagers stayed out of their way, watching their progress from a distance, whispering. They seemed furtive rather than resentful; people with a secret, not the indignant victims of an unjust search.
“Your village is neat and clean, Pahuro, your fields well tended.” Bak nodded toward the oasis spread out below.
“Your date palms must be the envy of every man and woman along this stretch of river. Can you honestly say you didn’t have the good sense, the moment the storm died down, to send children out in search of any useful and desirable items that might’ve blown ashore?”
Pahuro, looking smug at the compliment and torn by the conclusion, readjusted his position on the one chair the village possessed. It was a stiff wooden armchair, its seat covered by a pillow with a complicated pattern of interlocking 46 / Lauren Haney multicolored spirals worked onto its upper surface. Before the old man had settled himself upon it, Bak had noticed how thin the pillow was, perhaps to display the design to its best advantage. Whatever the reason for so skimpy a stuffing, it was too thin to protect the bony rear of the tall, skinny headman. Bak suspected patience would reward him with the truth simply because Pahuro would sooner or later become desperate to stand up. However, he had no desire to wait so long.
“The storm ended late in the day.” Pahuro shifted from his left buttock to his right, from one tale to another. “I don’t like to see the children far from home after nightfall.”
Bak bent to pick up a straw, stuck one end into his mouth, and formed a sympathetic smile around it. “I’d have shared your concern, especially with a dozen or more sailors making their way upriver in search of food and shelter.”
“The crew survived?” Pahuro smiled. “I thank the lord Hapi for sparing them.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t see them! My Medjay sergeant tracked them from the wrecked vessel to this village.” A lie, but the local people believed Medjays more knowledgeable about the desert than any ordinary man of Wawat. It never occurred to them that Bak’s men had all been reared in the land of Kemet, and most had spent their youth tending the fields of the lord Amon.
Pahuro wriggled in his chair, not from discomfort this time, Bak guessed, but because he suspec
ted he was being driven into a corner from which he might not escape.
The sailors came out of the last house to be searched and Tjanuny shook his head. They had found nothing. Nor did Bak see Imsiba on the path, bringing in the youthful watch-man. With the sun racing toward the western horizon, his hope of soon laying hands on crew and cargo was fading with the light.
“I know you salvaged all you could. Why shouldn’t you?
Life in this wretched land is hard.” Bak stared at nothing as if trying to reach a decision, then flung the straw aside and stood up. “This is what I’ll do, Pahuro. If you guide me to the missing cargo, I’ll close my eyes to your offense.”
The old man frowned, skeptical.
“I’ll blame no one in this village,” Bak promised, “neither man nor woman nor child. I’ll turn my back and walk away, and not another word will ever be uttered.”
Pahuro shook his head, sighed. “You lay blame where no blame is due, Lieutenant.” A secret thought touched his face, a look of cunning, and he pushed himself out of the chair.
“Come, let me show you.” Without a backward glance, he walked in among the houses of the village. Bak, hurrying to catch up, beckoned Tjanuny to come along.
Pahuro led them from one house to another, into sheds and through lean-tos, inviting them to prod and poke, to look again at what the search party had already examined.
Certain the old man was trying to cloud his vision, Bak kept his eyes wide open, his thoughts alert to all possibilities. As before, the villagers watched from a distance, whispering, but now they looked to be in good spirits, with a fresh confidence, and he even saw one man nudge another in the ribs.
The plundered cargo was here, he was sure, but where? Had he walked within arm’s length yet failed to see it?
At last a narrow lane took them to a stone and mudbrick structure at the back of the natural terrace. The way the stones were laid and the various sizes of the bricks told Bak the house had been built many generations earlier and repaired or altered at different times in the past. The front portion looked to be recently renovated, but the rear of the building was close to collapse. One wall had fallen, another leaned at a precarious angle. More than half the roof had caved in.
