Face Turned Backward lb-2

by Lauren Haney

  “You’ve found nothing?” Nebwa asked, glancing at the row of mudbrick niches built along the wall. The reddish pottery jars lying inside were empty, the scrolls they normally contained carried off by the scribes who were checking the inventory.

  “Not yet,” Bak admitted.

  The two men stood in the small, square entry hall of a warehouse containing a wide variety of dissimilar objects, some used by the garrison troops in greater or lesser quantities-body oils and oils for cooking, rolls of linen, dried beans and chickpeas, hides, lengths of wood, beer jars both full and empty-while the rest were the more exotic objects paid as tolls by traders crossing the frontier. A multitude of odors intermingled in the still, hot air, hinting at perfumes and fragrant woods, onions and spices, dried fish, and the human body, with none standing above the others.

  Nebwa walked to the rear door and stared down the long, narrow corridor, broken at intervals by open portals and lighted by flickering torches that ran the length of the building. “The swine surely shipped his share north each time Captain Roy sailed to Abu.”

  “Not if he was taking more than his due.” Bak’s eye was drawn to a mouse, running along the base of the mudbrick wall, its nose twitching. “Besides, I’ve not given up hope that we’ll find an elephant tusk.”

  Nebwa snorted. “From what I saw of Roy’s cargo, Userhet’s fingers stuck to much that came his way. But tusks?”

  He hiked up his kilt, grunted. “Wensu, yes. I can see a wild and unruly man like him hiding tusks on the ships of unsuspecting captains like Mahu, but Userhet was a man of thought, one too smart to take so great a risk.”

  “He approached Mahu, a man with an untarnished reputation, the night they played knucklebones at Nofery’s house of pleasure. How smart was that?”

  Nebwa grunted, unswayed. “I know of many a foul deed I’d like to lay at Userhet’s feet. To wash the scrolls clean would ease my life no end, but we can’t lay blame on a whim.”

  Bak could not keep the impatience from his voice. “We know for a fact that one of the men who played asked Mahu to smuggle contraband. If not Userhet, who do you believe it was? Ramose, Hapuseneb, Kay, or Nebamon?”

  “All right,” Nebwa admitted somewhat grudgingly, “Userhet approached Mahu.”

  “He was smuggling contraband by the shipload, Nebwa.

  I’ve heard of no man in the past who’s ever been so bold, nor can I believe a second man exists today of equal daring.

  He was also, I’m convinced, the one smuggling the elephant tusks.”

  Running his fingers through his unruly hair, Nebwa scowled at his friend. “It’s a pity you slew him before he could talk.”

  With Thuty’s order to continue the search for tusks fresh in his thoughts, Bak could think of no greater understatement.

  “Sir!” Hori burst through the door. The youth thrust a short segment of papyrus at Bak, and waved a second document in the air. “I’ve found a match, sir, as you hoped I would.”

  Bak knelt and flattened the scroll across a knee. The document was short, listing the items stored in a single room in the warehouse, but it brought a smile of satisfaction to his face. The symbols were perfectly formed and the writing neat, with no slovenly habits to identify the scribe. Hori knelt beside him and unrolled the second scroll, the manifest taken from Captain Roy’s ship, the document that had legitimized the contraband on board. The writing was identical.

  Bak stood in the doorway, watching Hori and a thin, elderly scribe compare the objects in the room with those listed on the inventory the youth had found. Imsiba prowled, lifting first one item and then another, while Nebwa stood, hands on hips, looking on. Located in an out-of-the-way corner of the warehouse, the long, narrow space contained less than half the number of objects they had found on Roy’s ship, but their combined value must have been four times as great.

  A neat stack of leopard skins stood beside a basket of odd-shaped horns taken from creatures unknown in the land of Kemet. Ostrich feathers protruded from the neck of a wide-mouthed jar. Short lengths of ebony lay beside a basket filled to the brim with chunks of precious stone. Innumerable jars contained, according to labels jotted on their shoulders, myrrh and frankincense, aromatic woods, spices. A narrow-mouthed red pot held the fangs of large carnivorous beasts.

  A gray-green vessel held small linen bags of seeds, each labeled with the name of a tree or plant growing far to the south of Wawat. A basket contained dried roots and leaves and stems, laid in layers separated by squares of rough linen.

  Two man-shaped coffins and a rectangular outer coffin were stacked before the rear wall with three small wooden tables and a broken chair. The coffins had been painted and adorned, but the spaces reserved for names had been left blank. Their tops leaned against the wall behind them. They were empty, off-the-shelf items to be shipped upriver and sold. They and the furniture looked out of place in a room otherwise filled with exotic trade goods. Bak suspected Userhet had stored them here to convince any curious scribe that the contents of the room were aboveboard.

  He was more than satisfied with both the quantity and the quality of what they had found. Yet at the same time he was disappointed. The room contained no elephant tusk, nor so much as a sliver of ivory. Could he be wrong after all? Could someone other than Userhet have been sending tusks north?

  Who? Of equal import, how was the deed done?

  “Another jar of myrrh. The sixth, by my count.” Imsiba, shaking his head in wonder, set the ovate black jar among several similar containers. “Userhet meant to leave Buhen a rich man, of that you can be sure.”

  “I wonder what Psuro’s found in his house?” Hori asked.

  “Not much, I’ll wager,” Nebwa said. “He had too many neighbors with too many prying children to hide anything of value there.”

  Bak waved off a thick, acrid ribbon of smoke drifting from a torch mounted near the door. “Somewhere to the north, probably in Abu, there’ll be a man who received the contraband Userhet sent to Kemet-and a place where they stored all they smuggled.”

  “Thuty sent a courier at first light.” Nebwa watched the older scribe count leopard skins. “If the gods smile on him-and on us-he’ll reach Abu before Userhet’s accomplice realizes something has gone amiss. I’d hate to see the swine slip away free and safe.”

  “How will they know who to look for?” Hori asked.

  “I see no problem there,” Nebwa said, chuckling. “He’ll be the one hanging around the quay, asking for Captain Roy.”

  “Userhet must’ve brought a few objects at a time from the tomb we found,” Bak said, thinking aloud, seeking a way a tusk could be smuggled. “He probably listed them then and there as part of the inventory. With so many ships coming and going, each leaving a portion of its cargo as toll, not a scribe on his staff would’ve noticed.”

  “Once listed as stored in Buhen,” Imsiba added, “everything here could be sent north on any ship. A false manifest would account for them should an inspector show interest between here and Abu-or wherever they were set ashore.”

  Bak nodded. “Userhet had but to find a captain who would unload them at the proper time and place.”

  “I thought him arrogant and no brighter than most,” Imsiba admitted. “Never would I have given him credit for so simple yet clever a scheme.”

  “A scheme is only as good as those who carry it out. His began to crumble the day Roy decided to return to Kemet.”

  Nebwa caressed the soft gray hide of a monkey. “Why he approached Mahu, I’ll never understand.”

  “Maybe Mahu had a darker side,” Bak said.

  Nebwa’s head snapped around. “I don’t believe it!”

  Bak preferred not to think it either, but no other explanation could account for Userhet’s proposition to Mahu. The overseer had been too canny by far to approach a man he knew to be of unimpeachable integrity. But best not to press the point. Best for Sitamon’s sake-and Imsiba’s-to leave her brother’s reputation unblemished.

  “H
ere it is.” With her fleshy arm threaded through the shoulder straps, Nofery spread the lower portion of a white sheath, a wide swath of the finest linen, across the foot of her bed. “I had it made especially for the commandant’s party.”

  Bak, standing close so he could see, formed an admiring smile. It was difficult to appreciate so large a dress, but the last thing he wanted was to hurt the obese old woman’s feelings. He had come to her place of business to keep his promise, to tell her of his hunt for the smugglers, narrowing the

  274 / Lauren Haney field to Userhet, and the final chase ending in the overseer’s death. As the rich black earth of the river valley absorbs the yearly flood, she had soaked up his every word and in return had insisted on showing him her party finery. The tale, a minor distraction at best, had failed to ease his frustration at not finding a tusk.

  The dusky servant Amonaya laid a broad collar of multicolored beads over the straps and Nofery’s extended arm.

  He stepped back, head tilted, to admire the effect. Nodding his satisfaction, he shook open a large rectangle of white linen, draped it around her arm, crossed one fringed end over the other, and brought the visible end down the front of the sheath. Smiling, the boy laid out bracelets, armlets, and anklets that matched the collar, completing the ensemble.

  Bak patted Nofery’s hefty behind. “You’ll steal the vizier’s heart, old woman.”

  “You make light of me now,” she said, flinging her head high, “but you’ll be most impressed this evening.”

  Bak thought it best to make no comment. He had learned a long time ago not to underestimate her. “Will you take the boy with you? And the lion?”

  She laid a hand on the child’s woolly head. “Amonaya will go. I’ve decided he’ll wear nothing but a white kilt and gold bracelets and anklets. His skin will be oiled to a fine sheen, and he’ll wave an ostrich feather fan over my head. I’ll be the envy of every woman there.” Her smile vanished in a pout. “I thought to take the lion, too, but he’s still too much the kitten.”

  Bak released a long, secret sigh of relief. He had feared she would drag the beast along, and he would have to assign a Medjay to stay nearby and stave off the creature should it choose to maul some lofty nobleman.

  Pulling free of the straps, she took Bak’s arm and ushered him out to the courtyard. A pale young woman with golden hair lay on a linen pad, unclothed in the sun. A slightly older woman, dark-haired and large-breasted, sat cross-legged beside her, rubbing oil into her back and buttocks. Both gave Bak sleepy-eyed smiles, inviting intimacy.

  Ignoring them, Nofery plopped down on a stool in a strip of shade beside the wall. “You’ve not told me what Userhet thought worthy of dragging across the desert on his sledge, with you and Imsiba so close on his heels.”

  “Nothing I’d risk my life for,” Bak grinned, drawing another stool into the shade.

  She snorted. “You’ve thrown yourself at death more often than most-but always for principle, not for gain.”

  “He had a bag of gold in kernel form. You know: the ragged pieces produced when molten gold is slowly poured into water.” Bak waited for her nod, continued, “He had bags filled with nuggets of hard-to-find metals such as iron and electrum, and chunks of precious stones. Nothing of any great size, all destined for a jewelry maker, I’d guess. He also had more than a dozen jars of aromatic gum resins. He must somewhere have had a special customer, for we’ve found more myrrh and frankincense than anything else.”

  “The peoples to the north of Kemet, I’ve been told, burn incense in the temples of Baal and Astarte as our metalsmiths burn charcoal in their smelting furnaces.”

  The dark-haired woman, prompted most likely by the mention of so many precious items, raised her arms and arched her back in a pretense of stretching. Not to be out-done, the pale woman rolled onto her side, the better to display her wares.

  Bak gave the pair an absentminded smile. If Userhet had found a way to ship large quantities of resins down the river through Kemet and north beyond its borders, could he not as easily send elephant tusks?

  Nofery tapped his knee with a finger, as if she feared his attention had wandered. “They say you searched the warehouses this morning and found several rooms filled to the ceiling with contraband.”

  Bak laughed. “You must find a new source of information, old woman, one not so given to exaggeration. We found only one secret store and that not large, but I must admit it held many objects of value.”

  “Tell me,” she urged, leaning close.

  Pinching her cheek, he murmured, “Have I not already earned a jar of your finest wine, old woman?”

  She jerked away, sniffed. “I thought you my friend, not one who comes only to drink and to make merry at my expense.”

  “We found three coffins in the room,” he teased. “Two were man-shaped, the third…” Suddenly a light flared in his heart and he shot to his feet. “By the beard of Amon, Nofery!

  If the thought I just had has any substance, I’ll be indebted to you for life.”

  He dashed out of the courtyard, leaving the three women gaping.

  “Where’s Imsiba?” Bak called, racing into the guardhouse.

  After the bright street outside, he could see almost nothing in the dimly lit entry hall.

  Knucklebones clattered on the hard earthen floor and one of the Medjays on duty scrambled to his feet. “He’s in the back with Hori, talking to a prisoner. Shall I summon him, sir?”

  Bak strode into his office. “Bring both of them at once.”

  The guard vanished through a rear door, and his mate followed Bak. “Is something wrong, sir?”

  Bak stood next to the coffin, looking at it. He had sat on it so often he had begun to think fondly of the man within, as if Amonemopet were a distant uncle, one often spoken of but never met. “Were you, by chance, one of the men who carried this coffin from Ramose’s ship to this building?”

  “No, sir. I was assigned that day to Psuro’s inspection team. We found the elephant tusk on Captain Mahu’s ship.”

  “You summoned us, my friend?” Imsiba hurried into the room, followed by Hori and the Medjay who had gone after them.

  Bak looked at the two guards, thinking to use them for what he intended, but decided not to. This he must do himself. He moved to the head of the coffin and pointed to the opposite end. “Take Amonemopet’s feet, Imsiba. Let’s carry him out to the entry hall.”

  Imsiba gave him a puzzled look, but did as he was told.

  Bak knelt so his hands were close to the floor and gripped the carved shoulders. Imsiba found a slightly better hold at the ankles. At Bak’s nod, they tried to lift the coffin. As neither had been able to get his fingers beneath the wooden box, neither had a good enough grasp to raise it off the floor.

  “It’s too heavy,” Imsiba said, shaking his head. He turned to a guard. “Go bring a lever and some rollers.”

  “And a chisel and mallet,” Bak called to the departing man.

  Imsiba eyed him thoughtfully. “Do you know something, my friend, that I don’t?”

  “Don’t you think Amonemopet weighs far more than he should?”

  Imsiba stared first at Bak and then at the coffin, his expressions ranging from puzzlement to thoughtfulness to dawning realization. Certainty took hold and he began to chuckle.

  Hori gave him a startled look. The remaining guard stared at the coffin, trying to understand the joke.

  The guard who had left soon returned with tools. Suitably equipped, he and his mate raised the coffin onto the rollers, grunting at the effort, and moved it to the entry hall. While the container stood in solitary splendor in the center of the large, open room, Bak suggested he and Imsiba try once more to lift it. Better able to grasp it, they did so, but with an effort. Its weight, they both agreed, was too great for a man whose body had been dessicated.

  With Imsiba by his side, and a wide-eyed Hori and guards too stunned to speak looking on, Bak took up the chisel and mallet. Vague indentations in the white
-painted surface told him where to find the wooden pegs that had been hammered in place to secure tenons projecting from the edge of the lid into slots cut into the case. He knocked out the pegs and in-serted the chisel beneath the lid. A sharp rap with the mallet cracked the paint sealing the lid to the case. Hori caught his breath, shocked. The guards murmured hasty prayers. Bak pried up the lid.

  No odor of decay or of aromatic oils wafted out. No man-shaped package wrapped for eternity filled the space. Instead, the coffin was stuffed with loosely packed bags that smelled strongly of grain, making Bak sneeze. Imsiba, Hori, and the guards laughed, releasing their tension.

  Offering a silent prayer to the lord Amon that he would find what he sought, Bak lifted a bag and dropped it on the floor, raising a puff of dust. He picked up another and a third. In the space between two deeper bags, he glimpsed a smooth white surface. His heart soared.

  He glanced up at Imsiba and grinned. “How many times have I sat on this coffin, wondering how a man could transport in secret anything as large as an uncut elephant tusk?”

  “The gods at times have a perverse sense of humor.”

  “They do indeed.” Bak picked up another bag of grain and looked down at the void he had created. “I shall miss Amonemopet. Though he never existed, he lived in my heart.”

  Imsiba laughed softly and set to work, helping to remove the bags of grain. With Hori and the guards looking on, amazed, they bared not one but two elephant tusks. The heavier, thicker ends lay together near the center of the coffin, with one tusk curving to the left, its point at the head of the container, the other curving to the right with its point at the feet.

  Bak stared at his prize, delighted, and offered a second prayer, this of gratitude. How many tusks, he wondered, had traveled down the river and across the great green sea to lands far to the north of Kemet? How many were even now in transit? The thought cast a shadow over his joy and his smile faded. “Do you realize, Imsiba, that we must open every coffin passing through Buhen until we’re sure no more tusks will be found? And we must send word north so every inspector along the river, throughout the lands of both Wawat and Kemet, will do the same.”