Face Turned Backward lb-2

by Lauren Haney

  A party should please the vizier, satisfy her for months to come, and lure every man of substance along the Belly of Stones, including your five suspects, Lieutenant.”

  “I don’t know about Captain Ramose,” Imsiba laughed,

  “but Hapuseneb and Nebamon would never miss so grand a party, nor would Userhet. Nor, I suspect, would Lieutenant Roy, though I’m not so well acquainted with him.”

  Wriggling back against the wall, Bak pulled his feet up onto the white coffin, wrapped his arms around his knees, and eyed the man seated on the mudbrick bench. Several sharply honed spears and daggers told him how much rest the Medjay had allowed himself. “Nebwa urged the release of all traffic today, but the commandant insisted on waiting.”

  “Of what use can we make of one or two more days?”

  Imsiba asked, unimpressed.

  Bak’s voice turned wry. “He’s hoping the gods will smile on us, handing out miracles without number.”

  Imsiba muttered a few words in his own tongue, an oath most likely. “We don’t even know which path to follow, which direction to turn.”

  A sullen mumble, the stench of rancid beer and vomit, drew Bak’s eyes to the door. A heavily built Medjay held a thin youth by the scruff of the neck, marching him through the entry hall to a door leading to the cells. The men on duty looked up from their game to jeer at a boy they housed often.

  “I agree, but someone fears us nonetheless,” Bak said. “I have a feeling our questions about Mahu led to yesterday’s attack. Or maybe our examination of the tombs. Or both, if Intef and Mahu were slain by the same man.”

  Imsiba frowned. “Other than similar murder weapons, we’ve found no connection between the two.”

  “No obvious connection.”

  The Medjay leaned forward, his interest quickening.

  “You’ve seen a link I’ve missed?”

  Hori walked into the entry hall from the street, so over-burdened that sweat poured from his brow. In one hand, he carried a basket piled high with bread and beer jars and in the other a deep bowl of fish and onion stew, if the odor wafting from its mouth told true. Dangling from one shoulder were two quivers with a few arrows in each. A pair of bows hung from the other shoulder, chafing his ankle with each step.

  The Medjays on duty looked up from their game. Their faces lit up at the sight of the food and they called out a greeting. One man scrambled to his feet to meet Hori midway across the room and relieve him of basket and bowl. Carrying the containers back to his partner, he placed the food between them and they scooted close to eat. The smell of fresh bread and the odor of the stew banished the lingering smell of beer.

  Bak dropped off the coffin and hurried out to take the weapons.

  “I’ve just come from the armory, sir.” Freed of his load, the scribe bent to rub his ankle. “I know the task took too long, but I went a second time, taking also the bow and quiver dropped by the man who waylaid you and Imsiba.”

  “Well done, Hori.” Bak ushered the youth into the office, leaned the weapons in a corner, and went back to his seat on the coffin. “Now tell us what you learned.”

  “The arrows are all alike, sir, standard issue with no marks to distinguish one from another. Nor are the bows and quivers any different than those in the garrison arsenal, those handed out to our archers.”

  Bak was disappointed but not surprised. “Can a man lay hands on bow, quiver, and arrows with the ease I fear?”

  “No, sir.” Hori blew away a drop of sweat hanging from the tip of his nose. “The scribe responsible for archery equipment is a diligent man. He treats a lost or broken arrow as an offense to the gods. When I told him how you came upon these weapons, where you found them, his face reddened and he sputtered like a drowning man. Not until he regained his breath was he able to search his records for lost items.”

  Hori paused, adding drama to his tale. Bak sneaked a glance at Imsiba, who rolled his eyes skyward.

  “Bows disappear, sometimes broken or lost in the desert, 164 / Lauren Haney but it’s not easy to lose a quiver,” the boy said. “According to the most recent inventory, taken only last month, none has gone missing for a year or more.”

  “Then where did these two come from?”

  Hori shrugged. “From another garrison, he suspects, or an arsenal in faraway Kemet.”

  Bak released a long, disgusted breath. “With each of our suspects involved in one way or another with trade, each could’ve laid hands on those weapons.”

  A heavy silence descended upon the room, broken at length by Imsiba. “You were about to tell me, my friend, why you think Intef and Mahu were slain by the same hand.”

  Hori’s eyes widened. “Is it possible, sir?”

  Bak pointed to a stool. As the youth settled down, he said,

  “We know someone approached Mahu, asking him to smugle contraband, and Intef told his wife he’d found an old tomb, long ago robbed but a gold mine nonetheless. We also know that illicit objects are usually smuggled across the frontier in small quantities, primarily because they’re difficult to hide on the donkey caravans that bypass the Belly of Stones, and they’re easily found by our inspectors. Yet Captain Roy’s deck was piled from stem to stern with contraband.”

  Imsiba frowned. “His cargo was off-loaded from a ship, not a caravan. The crew saw the vessel sailing away in the dark.”

  “I’d wager a month’s rations that that ship came down the Belly of Stones during high water. And I’d bet my newest kilt that it carried contraband belowdecks as ballast.”

  Imsiba eyed his friend thoughtfully. “A ship of modest size, with its hull filled from one end to the other, would hold a lot of illegal cargo.”

  “If filled with care,” Bak added, “it would look and feel natural to those who earn their bread standing on dry land, ropes in hand, hauling vessels up and down the rapids.”

  “But once below the Belly of Stones, he must face our inspectors. How…?” Imsiba’s puzzled expression vanished; he snapped his fingers. “Of course! He’d unload his cargo upstream from Kor and stow it away in some secret place. An old, long-forgotten tomb perhaps.”

  Bak nodded. “Intef’s gold mine.”

  “Lieutenant Bak?” Sitamon stood in the entry hall just inside the street door. Her little boy, half hidden by her leg, clung to her long white sheath. She carried in both hands a large reddish pot with a long, slim loaf of bread laying across the top. The escaping steam carried the odor of pigeon smothered in herbs.

  “I’m looking for…” She stepped hesitantly toward the office, spotted Imsiba at the back, smiled. “Oh, there you are, Sergeant! I heard you were wounded and I thought…” She glanced at Bak and Hori, blushed. “Well, I thought you might like a thick and soothing broth, but I see you’re busy.”

  Imsiba shot to his feet, smiled. “No. No, I’m not busy.

  We’ve been talking, that’s all.”

  Bak noted how flustered his friend was, how pleased to see the woman. Smothering a smile, he dropped off the coffin and brushed the dust from the back of his kilt. The young scribe, he noticed, was staring at the bowl in her hand with open longing.

  “Hori and I have not yet had our midday meal, and it awaits us in the barracks. We were just getting ready to leave.” He gave the youth a pointed look. “Weren’t we, Hori?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Nebwa spent the rest of the day in Buhen, talking with the garrison officers and their sergeants, planning ways in which to dazzle the eye of the vizier. Bak talked to his Medjays, who dropped in on various scribes and craftsmen they had come to know during their months in the fortress, and he visited Nofery’s house of pleasure. Thuty spoke to his wife, whose servants’ hasty visits to one dwelling and another, inviting, borrowing, seeking help, spread word of her party throughout the city. By the time the barque of Re sank beneath the western horizon, leaving behind a slab of moon amid a thick sprinkling of stars, the vizier’s surprise inspection was the most widespread secret in Buhen.

  �
��I’ll not spend another day in this room. I’ve grown accustomed to our friend here…” Imsiba tapped the coffin with his knuckles. “…but I’m not about to keep him company through eternity.”

  “We’ll soon be rid of him,” Bak said, glancing up from the scroll spread across his lap. “Ramose promised to haul him north when next he sets sail.”

  Imsiba walked to the bench and, with a clatter of metal and wood, bundled together more than a dozen spears, forming what looked like an immense, rigid sheaf of hay.

  Their sharp bronze points glittered like gold, bringing a smile to Bak’s face. These were not the first the big sergeant had polished. For a man who had spent the previous day resting-and in truth he no longer appeared wan and drawn-he had accomplished a lot.

  With the spears cradled on his uninjured arm, Imsiba strode into the entry hall, where he stopped briefly to chat with the Medjays on duty. One of the pair was rolling up their sleeping pallets, while the second tossed empty beer jars and bowls into a basket. Imsiba walked on, passing through a rear door. Beyond lay the police arsenal, where the spears he held and others equally splendid would be set aside until the vizier’s official inspection.

  Bak went back to the scroll, a report from the commander of Semna on desert tribesmen crossing the frontier at that southern outpost. Usually he enjoyed the earliest hours of the morning, when the guardhouse was quiet and he could catch up on the mundane clerical duties required of his office, but now his thoughts wandered. He wanted nothing more than to solve the murders and stop the smuggling before the vizier set foot in Buhen, but how could he do so in so short a time? If he was right, if the same man slew Mahu and Intef and injured Imsiba, if that man was covering his tracks as a smuggler, he had one vile criminal to look for instead of several. But was he right? He had tied the various crimes together in a nice neat package, but how much of his theory was hope and how much reality?

  Hori burst into the room with Psuro in tow. Both men carried cowhide shields, curved rectangles slightly wider at the arched top than at the bottom, reaching from knee to shoulder. The youth carried two, one a creamy white and the other light brown, while those the stocky Medjay brought were reddish, red and white spotted, black, and black and white spotted. They were so new they still gave off the slightly acrid smell of recently tanned hides.

  Grateful for the distraction, Bak rolled up the report, tossed it into a basket with several others, and scrambled to his feet.

  “Let’s see them,” he said, taking the shields from Hori and leaning them against the coffin.

  Psuro added his four, forming a bright cowhide wall in front of the man-shaped chest. The stocky Medjay modeled 168 / Lauren Haney them one by one, holding shield and spear at rigid attention as he would during the vizier’s inspection. Bak stood before him, trying to decide which would make the most dramatic appearance.

  “You look a dutiful man, Lieutenant.”

  Bak glanced toward the door. “Userhet! What brings you to my humble place of business?” He smiled, softening the words lest they be taken as flippant.

  “I thought to find you at the quay, but I see you’ve found a more peaceful occupation than searching a few fishing vessels.”

  Bak kept his smile in place, ignoring the sarcasm. “Peaceful, yes, and less offensive to the nose.”

  Crossing the threshold, the handsome overseer glanced pointedly at Hori and Psuro. “I’ve come on a matter of some importance, Lieutenant.”

  The vizier’s visit, Bak guessed. “My men can be trusted to hold their tongues.”

  “Nevertheless…”

  Bak lifted the brown shield, baring the foot of the coffin, and handed it to Psuro. “You must either tell me of your errand now, or go on about your business and come back another time. As you may’ve heard, a man of note is journeying upriver, and I wish my Medjays to make a good impression.”

  Userhet’s mouth tightened at the rebuff, but he held his ground. “The commandant’s wife sent a servant to my quarters, inviting me to her party.” He gave Hori and Psuro a quick look, as if Bak’s oblique reference to the vizier had left him confused as to whether or not they had been told the identity of the man soon to arrive. “To have so lofty an individual in Buhen will be a memorable experience, but it could easily turn disastrous.”

  “In what way?” Bak took the brown shield from Psuro’s hand and replaced it with the black one, exposing the coffin at knee level.

  “You’re an intelligent man, Lieutenant. You know as well as I that the garrisons of Wawat owe their existence to trade, yet neither cargo vessels nor caravans have been allowed to move for the past five days.”

  “This is by far the best,” Bak said to Psuro. “Take the others back to the garrison arsenal and draw new black shields for the inspection.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bak stepped aside, giving Psuro and Hori room to obey.

  From his new position, he saw that Imsiba had returned to the entry hall and had stopped again to speak with the men on duty. Bak beckoned, but the big Medjay grimaced and shook his head, refusing to enter while a man he disliked remained. Hori walked along the row of shields, picking up one and then another and stacking them on Psuro’s out-stretched arms.

  “You’re not the first to voice concern,” Bak said. “I believe the commandant is even now reevaluating his stance on the movement of traffic.”

  “I thank the lord Amon!” Userhet glanced toward the pair collecting the shields. “As you can well imagine, I harbor in my heart a deep concern for Buhen, but I must admit I’ve a secondary interest as well.”

  “Oh?”

  Userhet’s eyes widened, darted toward Bak. “By the beard of Osiris! That’s a coffin!”

  Hori and Psuro exchanged a furtive look and came close to laughing. The men on duty in the entry hall covered their mouths to stifle mirth. Imsiba hid a smile in a frown of disapproval. Bak glanced from one to another, trying to understand. Then it came to him: the men had somehow found a way of using the coffin as the focal point for making bets, probably wagering on each new viewer’s likely reaction.

  He was not averse to gambling, but the men were getting carried away. The time had come, he decided, to restrict their bets to knucklebones. “We could find no better place to put it, so here it sits.”

  Userhet walked close to read the deceased’s name.

  “Hmmm. A man of no special worth, I see. A scribe probably.”

  170 / Lauren Haney

  Hori and Psuro, shaking with silent laughter, hurried out to the street with their burden. Someone in the entry hall sputtered. Bak shot a warning glance their way. Userhet was not a man to take lightly a joke at his own expense. “You spoke of a second reason for wanting traffic to move.”

  “I must know how much longer Mahu’s ship will be held in Buhen.” Userhet turned his back on the coffin and gave Bak a self-satisfied smile. A smug smile, Imsiba would have called it. “Mistress Sitamon has turned to me for advice about her brother’s affairs. Letting so large a vessel lie idle is not good business.”

  Bak stole a look at Imsiba, remembering the pleasure his friend had shown when the lovely young widow had come with the broth. He hoped the Medjay had failed to hear, but no. Imsiba stared at the overseer, the hurt plain to see on his face.

  “She told me she asked him for advice.” Imsiba prowled the room, distraught. “She didn’t say she’d placed her affairs in his hands.”

  “I doubt she has,” Bak said, hoping to calm his friend.

  “You heard him say as much yourself.”

  “Today perhaps, but what of tomorrow? You know how persuasive he can be.”

  “No, I don’t.” Bak dropped onto the coffin and eyed Imsiba with a blend of impatience and sympathy. “You appear to know him far better than I. Since you can’t bear to stand in the same room with him, how have you gained so vast a knowledge?”

  The Medjay walked to the door and stared unseeing into the entry hall, where two men, potters if the grayish flecks of dried
mud on their arms told true, had come to report a theft of charcoal, silencing the knucklebones. He whirled suddenly, his face stormy. “Userhet’s one of your suspects, my friend. If he proves to be a slayer of men, Sitamon’s life could be in danger.”

  “He’s one of five suspects. A man more apt to be innocent than guilty.”

  “Are you still gnawing that bone, Lieutenant?” Hapuseneb strode into the room with an assurance only wealth can give.

  “I suggest you cast your net wider. It’s true that those of us unfortunate enough to have played knucklebones with Mahu are each and every one involved in trade, but many others along the river have both the means and the wit to smuggle contraband.”

  “You’ll find my scribe Hori in a room at the back of this building,” Bak said in a wry voice. “If you’ve names to offer, we’ll search the men out and apply the cudgel.”

  Hapuseneb burst into laughter. Glancing around, he located a stool against the wall, drew it forward, and sat down.

  The potters hurried out of the building, looking no happier than when they had arrived. The entry hall remained silent, the knucklebones stilled for a more entertaining game of chance.

  “I’ve come fishing,” Hapuseneb admitted. “I’ve heard whispers of a visit from the vizier, and I’ve been invited to a party worthy of the great man himself. He is coming, isn’t he?”

  “I, too, have heard tales-and the promise of a surprise inspection.” Bak gave the trader a bland smile. “As I think it unwise to dismiss rumors so important to our well-being, I’ve ordered my men to ready their clothing and equipment.”

  “Inspection, my right buttock! It’s trade the vizier’s interested in, not the army. That’s why I’ve come to you.”

  Hapuseneb stood up abruptly, glowered first at Imsiba and then Bak. “Thuty can’t possibly go on this way, holding traffic in Buhen and Kor. He must, for his own sake, release all caravans and ships. If he doesn’t, the vizier will strip him of his rank and throw him to the jackals.”