by Lauren Haney
Ahmose’s eyes lit up and he looked at the package with longing. Sweet cakes, it appeared, were his weakness, maybe a treat the old woman could no longer prepare. “He goes away with the ox and brings back a laden sledge. All it carries is loaded on board Captain Roy’s trading ship.”
“Where does he go, old man, when he leads the ox away?
Into the desert?”
“He walks west, yes, but I know not how far.” Ahmose, watching Imsiba spread the leaves wide, revealing the rich brown, crusty cakes, licked his lips unconsciously. “I long ago learned the value of caution.”
Bak understood. An old, no longer strong man would not wish to draw attention to himself by leaving tracks in the sand that the headless man would be sure to follow. “After his night of labor is ended, he returns the ox and donkeys to Kefia’s farm. Where does he go after that?”
Ahmose hesitated. If the look on his face told true, he was well aware of the value of the information he had thus far given away and was reluctant to part with the rest until he knew for a fact he would be rewarded. As Imsiba trickled honey onto a cake, the old man stared at the rich golden stream, his face registering desire, indecision.
He tore his eyes from the sweet with obvious effort. “I’ve heard you’re a fair man, Lieutenant, one who gives with a generous heart. How can you take from me, giving nothing in return, when you reward in a grand fashion others who’ve helped you less than I?”
Has word traveled so far of the objects I left with Pahuro?
Bak wondered. “Don’t believe all you hear, old man. Tales have a tendency to swell in direct proportion to the wishes of the one who listens.”
Ahmose’s face fell, reflecting the resignation of a man 212 / Lauren Haney convinced he must settle for a sweet cake in place of the servant he requested.
Touching his arm, Bak gave him a reassuring smile. “You’ll get your reward, never fear. Not one servant but two: a young man who’ll ease your burden, and a wife who’ll keep him happy in this lonely place.”
Ahmose stared open-mouthed. Then he lowered his head, hiding his face, and when he spoke his voice was husky with tears of joy. “The headless man goes upriver. A half-hour’s walk above Kefia’s farm is a backwater, and there among the reeds he hides a small skiff. He climbs aboard, poles the vessel into the current, and lets the river carry him downstream through the darkness.”
Chapter Fourteen
“You should not have promised so much.” Imsiba stood ankle-deep in coarse wind-blown sand, looking back across the cove and the channel of fast and turbulent water toward the island they had just left. “Commandant Thuty will not be pleased.”
“What would you have me do?” Bak demanded. “Give the old man nothing?”
“Where will you get these servants you promised? With Thuty already complaining that you seek to usurp his powers, he’ll not command the chief steward to search them out and hand them over.”
Imsiba meant well, Bak knew, but the promise was made.
“That farm will only thrive with much hard work. Should Ahmose break a bone or become too sick to toil, it’ll revert to the wild in a single season and he and the old woman will starve.”
Turning away, closing his heart to further criticism, he climbed to the top of the long, narrow spine of weathered rock whose lower end formed the ledge where Wensu and Roy had moored their ships. He glimpsed Ahmose on the summit of the island, staring across the water toward him and Imsiba, too curious to go on about his business. A patch of white among the brush lower down could have been the old woman, also watching.
The big Medjay climbed up to join him. “It looks a lonely life to us, but when all is said and done, Ahmose and Kefia are close neighbors.”
“Close, yes, but separated by endless toil. I doubt they see each other from one week to another.” Struck by a new thought, Bak chuckled. “Unless they’ve gossip to pass on.”
Imsiba had to smile. As old Ahmose had reminded them, rumors moved faster up and down the river than messages carried by official couriers.
In silence they walked side by side up the rocky spine. The surface was cracked and broken, sharp-edged and treacherous where it lay half buried in sand. A light breeze stirred the air, carrying to them the chirping of hundreds of sparrows massed in the tamarisks near the cove. Ahead, the sun hung close above the western horizon, tinting the sky gold.
The formation carried them up the shallow sand-swept incline, ending abruptly about halfway to the north-south ridge. To either side, the sand showed a few tracks of small animals-dogs or jackals in search of prey and the delicate prints of birds. No human footprints marked the surface.
Imsiba muttered a curse in his own tongue. “Why must the gods forever hold out a promise they fail to keep?”
Bak, too, was disappointed to find the trail had ended so abruptly. “I pray they’re not giving the headless man and Wensu an extra day or two to flee.”
“The thought is abhorrent.”
Bak studied the sweeping landscape and the long shadows of evening. A multitude of colors, gradations from the palest gold to the deepest amber, formed a map of dips and rises invisible in the harsh light of midday. The stony ridge that formed the horizon was the sole natural barrier, other than a few isolated mounds, of any significance along this stretch of the river. If one wished to remain hidden and at peace through eternity, he could think of no more isolated a place, though why any man would wish to spend eternity in this wretched land, he could not imagine.
“We’ll come again tomorrow,” he said, glancing toward the setting sun, “and then we’ll go into the desert.”
The Medjay eyed the vast expanse of sand with disapproval. “Our time would be better spent, my friend, if we summoned our suspects one by one and turned them over to a man with a stout cudgel.”
“Need I remind you that all are men of high repute?”
“To search the desert for a tomb when no tracks remain will be like looking for a boat at night on the great green sea.
We could come within arm’s length and miss it altogether.”
“How long do you think it would take them to run to the vizier with tales of unwarranted beatings and policemen no better than the men they hunt?” Bak gave a hard, sharp laugh. “I fear we’d both spend many months far from home, guarding the prisoners who toil in the desert mines.”
A cynical smile broke through Imsiba’s gloom. “It might be worth a year or two if only to see Userhet bent low beneath the stick.”
Bak eyed his friend intently. “You must truly care for mistress Sitamon.”
“What have I to offer a woman like her?” Imsiba scooped up a small, sharp stone and flung it hard across the unmarked sand.
“Few men walk as tall as you, my brother, in every sense of the word.”
With a bleak laugh, the Medjay brushed his hands together, ridding them of sand, and firmly closed the subject. “If we’re to search this wasteland, we must establish bounds.”
Bak squeezed his shoulder, showing him he understood.
“Look at that ridge, Imsiba, and tell me what you see.”
The Medjay stared. Slowly his frown dissolved and he nodded. “I see a wall of rock, unlike the rocky shelf containing the old cemetery in Buhen, and at the same time similar.”
“Exactly.” Speaking slowly, thinking out a plan as he did, Bak said, “We know where Intef was slain-on the back side of the ridge about a half hour’s walk north of here-and we know the headless man leads the ox into the desert from the cove behind us. I think it safe to begin our search 216 / Lauren Haney here, using as our southern boundary this spine of rock.
We’ll work our way north along the ridge, passing if we must the place where Intef was slain and going on as far as the place where we found his donkeys.”
“The task will be onerous, my friend.”
“But not impossible to complete.”
“And if we find nothing?”
Bak refused to dwell on the possibility of failure
. “I wonder how Intef found the tomb. Did he come this far south to hunt? Did he follow the headless man from here, or did he find it another way?”
“The hunter Intef?” Ahmose looked first at Bak and then Imsiba, the wrinkles across his brow deepened by perplexity.
“Of course I knew him. He came every month or so. Camped downriver in a patch of wild grasses, a place where his donkeys could graze without troubling nearby farmers.”
“Did you ever talk with him?” Bak asked.
“Now and again.” Ahmose gave him a sharp look. “Why?
What did you find when you walked out on the desert that brought you back to me a second time?”
The old man, driven by curiosity, had hurried down the path to meet them. He squatted now on the bank near his skiff, looking down on the pair in the boat. Swallows scolded from a nearby acacia. A gray duck led her fuzzy, cheeping brood through the reeds, swimming in fits and starts, harvesting insects.
“Did you not watch us from the summit of this island?”
Imsiba asked, his voice wry. “Surely you saw that we came up empty-handed.”
Ahmose raised his chin high, indignant. “Life here is lonely, Sergeant, and one of endless toil. Am I not entitled to a time of rest?”
“The sergeant meant no offense,” Bak said, smothering a smile, the better to smooth the old man’s ruffled feathers.
“You’ve every right to take some ease. Would I have vowed to find you a servant if I didn’t think you worthy?”
Ahmose opened his mouth and closed it, the reminder sapping his resentment.
A breath of air touched Bak’s cheek, not the hot caress of daytime, but the cooler kiss of evening. They could linger no longer. To attempt to reach Kor in the dark, sailing through these hazardous waters, would be foolhardy. “Did you ever speak to Intef of the headless man?” he asked Ahmose.
“I warned him to take care, to stay far away from the cove and close his eyes and ears to any ships he might see or hear.”
“Sealing his lips like those of all who live and toil along this stretch of the river.” Imsiba’s voice was flat, his demeanor critical.
Ahmose gave the Medjay a disdainful glance. “We don’t farm this land because we’re brave men, sergeant. We stay because this was the land of our fathers and their fathers before them. We’ve no other place to go and no other way to earn our bread.”
Bak shot a warning glance at the Medjay, urging silence.
“Did Intef heed your words of caution, old man?”
“I never saw him at the cove when the headless man met the ships, but I once saw him there the following day.” Ahmose waved off a fly. “He must’ve heard a vessel come and go, and voices in the night, and decided to see what he could see. I climbed into my skiff and rowed across to the cove, where I warned him a second time to take care.”
“Did he ever follow the headless man into the desert?”
Ahmose snorted. “He was a hunter. Would such a man follow a trail when he feared his own tracks might be followed?”
Bak smiled to himself. For one whose life was so limited, the old man missed almost nothing. “Did you ever see him far out on the desert? Possibly leading his donkeys along the ridge that separates this valley from the endless sands to the west?”
“He always came down from the desert.” Ahmose’s eyes narrowed. “The ridge, you say?”
“I know you’ve much to do and have precious few moments to stand idle,” Bak said, grinning, “but if you happened to be in need of rest, and if you happened to look toward the western desert, did you by chance ever see Intef exploring the ridge with more care than you thought necessary?”
Ahmose blinked a couple of times, absorbing the jest, then slapped his knee and burst into laughter. “You’ve a fine tongue in your head, Lieutenant! A way with words I truly enjoy.”
Imsiba lowered his head as if in prayer, hiding his face.
Bak gave the old man a fleeting smile, but remained silent, waiting.
Ahmose contained himself with difficulty. “The time I spoke with Intef at the cove, he went on about his business, traveling north along the river toward Kor to deliver the game his donkeys carried. Sometime later-a month, maybe longer-he came back. I saw him at the river one evening and the next day out by the ridge.” The last trace of humor faded from the old man’s face. “He was taking his time, tracking, I thought. I hurried into my house and knelt before the shrine. And I prayed he wasn’t tracking the headless man.”
“I sent two boats into the Belly of Stones and a like number of patrols along the water’s edge. They both came back empty-handed.” Nebwa ran his fingers through his unruly hair and stared sightlessly across the harbor of Kor. “If Wensu’s in there, he’s hidden his ship in a spot not easily found, and not a farmer along the river is willing to give him away.”
“They’re afraid,” Bak said, weariness creeping into his voice. “Of the authority you and I represent. Of Wensu, and rightly so. Not Captain Roy, for they must know by now that he drowned in the storm. And they fear the headless man.”
Nebwa planted his backside on a mooring post. “You saw for yourself how vulnerable they are. Can you blame them for being skittish?”
“Not at all.”
The two men sat in silence, mulling over the day’s minor successes and major failures. The lord Re lay on the distant horizon, a red-orange ball flattened against the outer gate of the netherworld. Not a breath of air stirred.
Except for a man whistling a bright and cheerful tune, the harbor was quiet, with many of the smaller vessels departed.
The larger ships remained, their masters unable to get mooring space at Buhen with the vizier’s fleet soon to arrive.
The five great warships plus the vessels already there would fill the harbor to bursting. To move a ship from Kor to Buhen and then have to move it back was not worth the effort.
“You’ll send soldiers upriver to look after Kefia’s farm and old Ahmose, as I promised?” Bak asked.
“How long must they stay?”
Bak gave a sharp, humorless laugh. “I’ve vowed to end this nightmare before the vizier arrives. That gives me one day, two at most.”
“I’ve bent my knees today before every shrine in Kor,”
Nebwa said with a resigned smile. “Something tells me I’d better go around again.”
Bak awoke the following morning long before daybreak.
He lay on his sleeping pallet, listening to Hori’s soft breathing in the next room and an occasional whimper from the large and good-natured dog the youth had brought into their lives as a puppy. Bak’s tangled sheets smelled of perfume, souvenir of the pretty young woman who had come to him in the night, sent by Nofery to put him in her debt. The old woman, whose curiosity knew no bounds, wanted to be sure he would tell her of his quest for the man who slew Mahu and Intef-and, no doubt of greater interest to her, the ancient tomb he sought and the riches it might contain.
He lay still and quiet, reviewing his list of suspects, trying to decide which of the five was the most likely to be the man he sought. Two, Ramose and Nebamon, he thought far less likely than Hapuseneb, Userhet, or Kay, but certainty continued to elude him. He did, however, have an idea how to give the headless man a face.
As soon as the high, narrow window admitted enough light to see by, he got up and dressed, roused Hori from his sleep, and issued orders. Leaving the boy reeling from the onslaught, he hurried outside and down the street to the Medjay barracks and Imsiba. He prayed the day would be long enough for all he hoped to achieve.
“Here you are, sir.” Hori laid four levers, a couple of mallets, an axe, several wedges and chisels, and a half dozen wooden rollers on the floor of Bak’s office. His dark eyes were alive with excitement, his voice tinged with self-importance. “As you suggested, I asked also to see the sledges, but came away empty-handed, saying your skiff is small and the low runners and crosspieces would make them difficult to stow. I told them I must first find out how great is the
load you need to transport.”
“You talked with Userhet himself?” Bak asked.
“Not at first, but he was there throughout my stay, and he made no secret of his interest.”
Bak gave Imsiba, seated on a stool near the door, a quick smile of satisfaction. “How’d he react?”
“I paid special attention, as you asked me to.” Hori’s voice, his demeanor grew serious, the policeman he longed to be reporting to his superior. “If Userhet’s the headless man, he gave no sign. He had many questions, but so did the scribe who walked from basket to basket, collecting the tools I wanted. I, in turn, gave few answers, saying only that you sailed south yesterday and planned to go again today. Maybe you were taking the tools to Nebwa, or perhaps you intended to use them for some task unknown to me.”
“I can think of no more intriguing a response.” With a broad smile, Bak sat down on the coffin. “You’ve done well, Hori. You’ve planted a seed; now let’s see if it germinates.”
Basking in praise, the youth had trouble looking as serious as he thought he should. “I’ll go now to see Captain Ramose.”
“Don’t forget, we want a rope strong enough to support a man’s weight, yet not so thick we can’t easily work with it.”
Hori nodded and hurried away. The guardhouse was quiet, with the back rooms closed off and the men in the entry hall giving the knucklebones a rest while they ate their morning meal. Men strode past the street door, their sandals scuffing the pavement and their weapons clanking, hastening to their duty stations.
Bak scooted back on the coffin, rested his head and shoulders against the wall, and eyed Imsiba. “I pray we’re not playing this game for nothing.”
The Medjay’s expression held equal amounts of affection and skepticism. “We’re wasting much of the day, one better spent, I suspect, on the desert south of Kor.”
“Oh?” Bak’s eyes twinkled. “Did I not hear you say yesterday that to search the desert would be an endless and hopeless task?”
Imsiba scowled at the pile of objects the scribe had left behind. “I know you intended Hori to make his point with Userhet, but did he really need to bring so many tools from the warehouse?”
