Face Turned Backward lb-2
Page 20
Chapter Twelve
Bak hurried down the gangplank and along the quay, his thoughts on Ramose and the Kushite. The captain’s fear was real-and warranted, he felt sure. Too many questions remained unanswered to come to any firm conclusion, but deep within himself, he felt Ramose innocent of Mahu’s death and Intef’s. The Kushite must have approached the burly captain as soon as he learned of Captain Roy’s decision to return to Kemet, thinking to replace Roy’s ship with another before a gap could occur in the transport of contraband.
After Ramose refused, another man-one of Bak’s four remaining suspects-had gone to Mahu. But where the Kushite was a shadow who could threaten and vanish, the other was well known, a man with too much to lose to allow Mahu to live.
Finding no fault with his logic, satisfied with his conclusion, Bak drew his thoughts back to the world around him.
Ahead he saw Tjanuny, the man Ramose had sent to Buhen with word of the shipwreck, sauntering up the quay with several of his mates. Sight of the lean, sinewy figure nudged his memory, bringing back words spoken in jest. An offhand reference to a headless man.
Bak’s stride lengthened. “Tjanuny!” he called.
The sailor swung around, recognized the officer, and stopped dead still, his body tense, his expression both fearful and puzzled. His mates sidled away, wanting no part of whatever dire fate might befall him.
“Rest easy, Tjanuny,” Bak said, smiling. “I want nothing from you but information.”
Suspicion lurked in the sailor’s eyes. “I toil aboard Captain Ramose’s ship from dawn to dusk. What can I know that would be of value to you?”
Laying a hand on the man’s shoulder, Bak urged him around and on up the quay. “The day we returned from the shipwreck, we stopped at the place where Captain Roy loaded the contraband. Do you remember?”
“A vast open plain,” Tjanuny said, nodding. “His crew thought the sands inhabited by shadows of the dead.”
“While they were telling that tale, you made a joke.”
“Who? Me?” Tjanuny slowed to a snail’s pace and scratched his head. “I remember Roy’s men telling of a boat that passed by in the dark, but if I told a joke, it escapes me.”
Bak preferred not to put words in the sailor’s mouth, but…“You made light of their fear, speaking of a man missing a portion of his body.”
Tjanuny snapped his fingers, grinned. “Sure! The headless man.”
“That’s the one,” Bak said, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Now where did you first hear of him, and how?”
“The Belly of Stones.” Tjanuny relaxed, the residue of mistrust seeping away, and walked on toward the fortress gate. “I came from a land far to the south, as you know. I worked my way downriver aboard first one ship and then another until I reached Semna. The river was high, the Belly of Stones navigable-I was told. But I’m a cautious man. I watched two ships lowered down some rapids. They made it all right, the men on board safe if not always dry, but the sight wasn’t as reassuring as it should’ve been. I gave the matter serious thought, and wanted no part of so hazardous a voyage. So I walked from Semna to Kor, meeting many people along the way. I often heard whispers of a headless man.”
Tjanuny gave Bak a sheepish smile. “At first I thought him not a man, merely a myth. A tale the farmers tell to scare themselves at night. And to this day, I’m not sure. I never saw him for myself.”
“What exactly did they tell you?” Bak asked, making no secret of how interested he was.
“They say he comes and goes in the dead of night. He’s been seen in a skiff far out on the river, and walking the desert sands. He sometimes meets a ship, so they say, in a quiet spot along the water’s edge. Some claim the vessel is filled with shadows, but others say they’ve heard men talking and laughter no different than yours and mine.” Tjanuny paused, thought over what he had said, shrugged. “I fear that’s all I heard, sir.”
“You’ve done well, very well indeed.” The sailor had earned a reward, a gift appropriate to the man and worthy of his aid. But what? The answer came as if handed down by the gods. “Have you ever been to Nofery’s house of pleasure, Tjanuny?”
After leaving Tjanuny in Nofery’s capable hands, Bak hastened to the commandant’s residence. There he arranged for guards on Ramose’s ship, soldiers who could blend in with the crew, unlike the easily identified Medjays. As he passed through the gate to the outer city, the waning strength of the sun and a stiffening breeze hurried his pace along the narrow, irregular lanes. Dust whirled into the air and settled, powdering his sticky shoulders and tickling his nose. A black and white cur, her teats heavy with milk, loped up the street ahead of him, a limp rat hanging from her mouth.
Men and women laughed together, children shrieked with gaiety, a baby wailed. Off-duty soldiers and traders, idled by Thuty’s ban on travel, walked the sandy paths in search of diversion. A dog barked in the distance, setting off a chorus throughout the city. The raucous bray of a donkey rose above the softer bleats of sheep. The smell of onions cooking, the rank odor of drying fish, and the acrid stench of smelting metals could in no way compete with the sweetish odor of manure carried through the air from the nearby paddocks.
The people living here, Bak felt sure, would get down on their knees and kiss Commandant Thuty’s feet when at last he announced his decision to allow the caravans to move.
A side lane carried him to the house where Captain Roy’s crew was sequestered. He stopped outside a makeshift door made of stout reeds lashed together to form a grid, allowing light to enter. Inside he heard:
“She’s a treasure to behold, I tell you, a creature so great of beauty she could be a goddess. Eyes deep and dark like the midnight sky, skin as pale and smooth as thick cream, lips as red as a pomegranate and as sweet. And what she could do with her mouth…” The speaker paused, gave a long, slow sigh. “Rapture. That’s what I felt. A love so deep and strong, so long-lasting, I thought never to regain my strength once she released me.”
Bak laughed softly to himself. The speaker was Dadu, one of the Medjays assigned to guard the sailors. The tale in its many variations was an oft told diversion in the barracks-imaginary, not real. A tale used to tantalize im-prisoned men, to make them hunger for freedom and the attractions they imagined awaited them outside, to draw the truth from them.
Bak called out, making his presence known. Dadu, a tall, wiry man with flecks of white in his hair, hurried to the door to admit the officer. Bak gave the Medjay a surreptitious wink, then took in the room with a glance. Skimpy sleeping pallets, folded for economy of space, stood in a stack against a wall. A brazier and a mound of pottery dishes had been shoved into a corner, while four large round-bottomed water jars leaned against another wall. Baked clay lamps, their wicks fresh and unburned, shared the prayer niche with the bust of some former resident’s long-forgotten ancestor. The second room, a windowless box, held another stack of sleeping pallets and a mound of bags, baskets, and jars filled with rations. Both rooms opened onto a walled courtyard containing a tall conical grain silo and a round oven. Particles of dust danced in the sunlight falling through the doors; the smell of manure was pervasive.
The dozen men who had been sitting or lying on the floor, 186 / Lauren Haney listening to Dadu’s tale with rapt attention, scrambled to their feet. Five others hurried in from the courtyard. Bak queried the Medjay with a glance. Dadu gave a slight nod; he believed the sailors had had about all they could take of seclusion.
Bak studied the faces before him, noting among them the sailor with the crooked nose and the boy, who had pleaded in vain to keep as a pet the small gray monkey. The men tried to stand stiff and defiant, but their eyes dropped to their feet or slewed to their fellows for aid or narrowed in a calcu-lating manner. He could smell their fear, a fear well founded, for they had been caught with objects that by rights belonged to their sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut. A fear he could use to his advantage.
At the courtyard door, he pivoted on the
threshold and stood in the bright rectangle of sunlight, his face in shadow, his back warmed by the lord Re. “One man among you will speak for the rest. Who will it be?”
They looked at one another, confused by the need to choose.
Imsiba had judged them right, Bak saw, men accustomed to following, not thinking for themselves. No wonder their ship had run aground! “Must I decide for you?”
“Min,” someone said.
“He’ll do,” another said, pointing to the man with the crooked nose. “He talked to you before. Let him again.”
Bak remembered the man as surly, but one who could be made to speak. “Come forward,” he commanded. “Sit here where I can see you.” He pointed his baton at his own shadow, stretched across the floor.
Glaring at his fellow crewmen, Min shouldered his way to the spot Bak had indicated. He stood for a moment, rebellious, but a quick, hard look dropped him to his knees fast enough.
Bak spread his legs wide and held his baton at waist level, one hand at either end, filling the portal with authority. “Soon I must take you before the commandant, charged with transporting contraband in a greater quantity than ever I’ve seen before. Your captain is gone, swallowed by an angry river. The burden now rests on your shoulders alone.”
One man yelped like a startled puppy. The others babbled, their voices loud, defensive, resentful, whiny. Dadu, standing before the street door lest anyone try to leave, stared over their heads unmoved.
“In your favor,” Bak said, raising his voice, quieting them,
“is the fact that we’ve not only recovered the contraband, but your ship can be repaired and made a part of our sovereign’s fleet. With luck, you’ll suffer no greater punishment than the desert mines.”
Though he made the servitude sound like a stroll along the river, the prediction struck them dumb, filling the room with unease. Not one among them had failed to see the long lines of men, foul criminals sent south from Kemet, filing off the ships at Buhen and the other fortresses of Wawat and marching off into the desert. Many never returned. Those who came back were bowed and broken.
“I can ask the commandant to spare you-to shorten your stay in the desert or assign you to labor elsewhere.” Bak’s voice turned hard, cold. “You, in turn, must speak to me with a frank and open tongue.”
The men looked at one another. Fearful. Hopeful. Wanting to believe, not sure they could.
“I’d come back an old man!” The youth stared at Bak, shuddered. “What do you want to know?”
All eyes turned toward him; tight-lipped faces accused him of betrayal. But Bak spotted deeper, better-hidden emotions as well: a relief that not one of them had been the first to break, and a spark of hope that the youth had opened the door to possible salvation.
“You told me a tale when last we met,” he said to Min.
“You spoke of sailing with Captain Roy to a lonely spot on the river and loading on board the illicit cargo we found on your ship.”
“The tale was true.” The sailor looked up, squinting into the sun, trying to see Bak’s shadowed face. “You saw for yourself signs of our effort.”
“Why did you load there when you usually take on cargo south of Kor?” Bak snapped out the question, risking the guess.
A man sucked in his breath, others muttered curses. A few, Min among them, stared open-mouthed and mute.
“The load was too big!” the youth cried. “Go on, Min. Tell him.”
“The boy tells the truth.” Min spoke grudgingly, nettled by the young sailor’s prodding. “We’d never before been so bold, never loaded so much illicit cargo, never carried so much at one time. But our captain…” He gave a soft, bitter laugh. “He said we’d be safe away from the frontier, where no one would know the truth from a lie, and with false pa-pers to carry us north.”
“In other words,” Bak said, steering his questions back to the path he wished to take, “the place south of Kor is small, with no space for so large a quantity of goods.” He paused to think, added another guess. “And it offers no convenient hiding place should you have to leave it for some reason.”
“That’s right,” Min mumbled, his expression sullen.
“And when there’s no moonlight, it’s as black as the inside of a sealed tomb,” the boy added. “If we’d loaded there, we’d still be stumbling around in the dark, not daring to light a torch for fear of being seen.”
Bak did not have to ask who might see. The river above Kor was dotted with islands rocky but verdant, and soil lay in protected pockets and coves along the water’s edge. Small villages and tiny farms clung to each bit of green, people eking out a living, aware and wary of strangers.
“Describe this place,” he said.
A few men whispered among themselves, someone muttered a curse. The boy opened his mouth to speak, but a hiss made him swallow the words.
Min stared straight ahead, refusing to look at his fellow seamen-or at Bak. “We moored against a rocky shelf near a small oasis on the west bank of the river. It’s above Kor, but the distance I can’t tell you. We always went in the dead of night with no moon to see by, and our captain never sailed a direct path.”
Bak doubted these men who had spent a lifetime on the river would lose their way easily, even with a captain trying to deceive them. They were holding the knowledge back for some reason. “Could you find it if you had to?”
Min shrugged. “A ledge is a ledge, and one oasis much like another.”
Bak was willing to bet they had left mooring stakes behind, and the ledge would surely be scarred from the hull rubbing the stone. “Did you ever meet another vessel there?”
“Never.”
“We sometimes saw signs that a ship had come and gone,” the boy piped up.
Another, sharper hiss brought a flush to his cheeks. At the back of the room, several men exchanged thin-lipped, disapproving glances. The youth was speaking too freely to suit them, inviting punishment.
With Captain Roy gone, Bak could think of only one reason for holding back information: a desire to keep secret someone or something. “I’ve heard tales of a headless man meeting a ship in the dead of night at a secret spot south of Kor.” A loud, heartfelt curse confirmed his guess. “As the ship was yours and the secret spot served as your mooring place, I’m amazed you failed to remember him. Surely one with so outstanding a feature would be hard to forget.”
The men looked at one another, their initial surprise quick to vanish, replaced by glares of accusation, as if they blamed each other for giving away their secret.
“He was there.” The boy ducked away from a well-aimed elbow. “We saw him each time we stopped for cargo.”
Min’s voice took on a placating tone. “He always stood at a distance, a headless wraith in the dark. When the time came for speech, usually after we loaded, our captain went to him. As he walked back, bringing with him a new manifest, the headless man faded into the darkness.”
Remembering how awed these men had been of the place and the ship they had seen when loading the cargo north of Buhen, Bak gave Min a curious look. “You show no fear, as most men would, of a ghostly figure with no head.”
Min snorted. “He’s a man, that’s all.”
“That’s all? A man?” A hard-muscled young sailor strode from the back of the room to tower over him. “Well, let me set you straight, Min. That man had the power to make us all men of wealth-if only you and that boy had had the good sense to keep your mouths shut.”
Min shot to his feet, his chin jutting. “We never saw his face and don’t know his name. How can we approach him, offering our services? If we’ve no ship to call our own and no captain to point the way, what services can we offer?”
“Sit down, both of you!” Bak commanded.
Min dropped where he stood. The younger man tried to melt in among his fellows. As if his accusation alone had put an end to their hopes, they refused to shelter him, forcing him to sit at the front of their ranks beneath Bak’s watchful eye.
The sailors looked at each other, seeking a reason for remaining mute. But with their plan to again haul contraband revealed as hopeless, they could find no further reason for secrecy. To a man, they nodded.
“Wensu he’s called,” an older sailor said. “We often haul trade goods he’s brought from far upriver. You saw for yourself the ebony logs we carried on deck. He tied up beside us the day before we sailed north from Kor, and we moved them from his deck to ours.”
“Could he and the headless man be one and the same?”
“No,” the sailors chorused.
“Impossible.”
“Never.”
“The headless man is a man of the north, not the south,”
Min explained. “He’s pale of body and limb, not dark like the Kushite.”
“Wensu?” Captain Mahu’s pilot, a small, wizened man with white hair, wrinkled his nose in mild distaste. “The Kushite, you mean. The one with the traveling ship he’s turned into a trading vessel.”
“So I’ve been told,” Bak said.
“Sure, I remember him there.” Clinging to the stanchion supporting the huge oar-like rudder, one of a pair that controlled the cargo vessel’s direction, the pilot lifted a foot to scratch the instep. “The quay at Kor has limited space, as you know. Because of the large quantity of trade goods that came down the Belly of Stones during high water, ships were moored two and sometimes three deep, awaiting their turn to load. For a time, Wensu’s ship was tied to ours, and his sailors had to cross our deck to go ashore.”
Bak scowled at the man, exasperated. “Did you not tell my sergeant that no one came aboard who hadn’t the right to do so?”
“They had every right. How else could they get from their ship to dry land?”
Offering a silent prayer to the lord Amon for patience, Bak leaned back against the railing around the aftercastle, a raised platform located behind the steering gear. From where he stood, he could see the length of the vessel. The stalls had been cleared away and the deck scrubbed until the wood glowed a warm red-brown. New dark green mats still giving off the tangy smell of fresh sap walled the deckhouse. The sacks of grain and sheaves of hay had been moved into the shade beneath the mat shelter. Sailors were spread out around the ship, polishing fittings, repairing lines and hawsers, and working aloft at the masthead and on the yards.