The Right Hand of Amon

by Lauren Haney

  "He had none! I swear it!"

  Bak raised the end of the staff a finger's breadth, drawing a fearful moan from the trader.

  "My donkeys were laden with ordinary trade goods, I tell you. Pottery, tools, beads, linen. Nothing more, nothing less." Seneb's eyes darted in all directions but never once met those of his inquisitor. "If that Medjay of yours had thought to bring my pass, you could've seen for yourself."

  Bak was well acquainted with the many and varied ways traders, soldiers, and even the royal envoys tried to slip objects through the frontier without paying the required tolls. False passes were not uncommon. He exerted pressure on the staff, forcing the trader so far back his eyes bulged.

  "Ahight!" Sweat rolled from Seneb's forehead into his ears and hair. "Four donkeys were found in the desert, tethered out of sight of the trail. Two carried fine weapons, the others wines from the best vineyards of northern Kemet. He accused me of hiding them-no doubt one of my servants whispered the thought in his ear, meaning to repay me for an imagined wrong-and he insisted I be punished with the cudgel as well as fined. But I knew nothing about them!" His eyes darted toward Bak and away. "I swear to the lord Amon, they weren't mine! Would I leave my beasts of burden with no food or water?"

  Bak was sure that was exactly what Seneb had done, and Puemre had taken upon himself the task of righting a wrong, just as he had when he beat the sailor who struck the mute child. A man of high principles. Or was he? What of the belt clasp?

  Bak eyed the trader with disdain. "How did you convince the garrison commander to believe you over Lieutenant Puemre?"

  "I saw no love between them," Seneb said in a sullen voice.

  "And you'd .aheady sacrificed ... What? Half your investment? ... by denying knowledge of the hidden animals and what they carried?"

  Seneb clamped his mouth shut, refusing to admit or deny. Bak jerked- the pole from beneath the trader's chin, grabbed his arm, and swung him around to face the dead officer. "Did you take this man's life, Seneb?"

  "You accuse me of . . ." The trader stared with horrified eyes. "No!"

  "Did you come upon him standing alone, somewhere along the river between Iken and Kor? Did you creep up behind him and knock him unconscious, giving him no chance to protect himself?"

  "I didn't!" Seneb cried. "Ask my servants. Ask those wretched children I brought from the land of Kush. They'll all tell you. I never left the caravan. Not once."

  "We'll ask them," Bak said grimly.

  But will we get the truth from them? he wondered. They all hated the trader and no longer had reason to fear him. They would as readily lie now to see him punished as they would have lied to protect him while still he held the whip.

  "Lieutenant Puemre, inspecting officer at Iken." Nofery savored each word as if the knowledge was more tasty than fine wine. "I can't imagine why none of the scribes remember him. He was so well-formed and manly."

  Bak scooted his three-legged stool closer to the doorway to catch the afternoon breeze and took a sip from his chipped drinking bowl. The beer she had given him was not the best she had to offer, but it was exactly what he needed: thick enough to coat the tongue and pungent enough to chase away the scent of death.

  "They never saw him." He took another sip, rolling the harsh liquid around his mouth. "I went again to the scribal offices after I left the house of death. They have no record of a Lieutenant Puemmre bound for Iken or anywhere else upriver."

  Nofery plopped down on a stool, which disappeared be1 heath the sagging flesh of her thighs. "Records have been known to disappear through careless filing."

  He snorted. "You tell that to the chief scribe."

  Tipping his stool back, he rested his head against the doorjamb and eyed the small, cramped room. Since he had come to Buhen he had grown accustomed to its faults and even felt at home within its walls, but he could well understand why she wanted better quarters. Stacks of amphorae and beer jars lined dirty, scarred walls. A table piled high with pottery drinking bowls, most in worse condition than the one he held, stood near the back wall, partly concealing a curtained door leading to a rear room. A dozen or so low three-legged stools were scattered about, one holding a precariously balanced pile of baked clay lamps. After the house of death, the mingled odors of sweat, stale beer, and burnt oil were almost pleasant.

  "What a snake that trader is!" Nofery sneered. "To slay so noble an officer was an abomination."

  Bak frowned into his nearly empty bowl. "I wish I could be as certain as you are."

  Her eyes narrowed. "You doubt his guilt?"

  "If you took a man's life, old woman, would you offer as witnesses to your innocence eleven people who despise you?"

  Nofery shifted her huge rear, no longer comfortable with her certainty. "I'd like to believe the gods have given me greater wit than that."

  Bak lifted a pottery beer jar from the floor between them and refilled their drinking bowls. All in all, he was content with his day, but he felt it a beginning rather than an end. He had found the answers he sought, yet he had more questions now than when he started. Those he felt sure could be answered in Iken. He yearned to go himself instead of sending a courier ahead, as Commandant Thuty wished. But, like the dregs swimming around in his bowl, he was trapped by circumstances.

  Nofery brokedegthe silence. "They say the lord Amon travels south to Semna to meet the Kushite king Amon-Psaro, and you're to go with him. You and Nebwa." She stared at the bowl in her hand. "Is this true?"

  The abrupt change of subject, a studied indifference in her voice drew Bak upright. "You never cease to amaze me, old woman. I learned of our mission only last night."

  "The tale is true then."

  "Nebwa will go, yes." Sure she wanted something, he was wary of what it might be. "I may not."

  He went on to explain the commandant's decision to make him responsible for all major offenses within Thuty's area of command. While he spoke, a pretty, tousle-headed young woman peeked around the curtain behind Nofery. Her eyes were heavy with sleep, her smile slow and lazy. Bak greeted her with an absentminded nod. He enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh as much as any man, but this was neither the time nor the place.

  "So because Thuty chooses to wait," he said ruefully, "I'm sitting on top of a wall, wanting to leap in both directions yet unable to jump either way."

  Nofery, grunting at the effort, bent over to pick up the beer jar. She splashed the liquid into his bowl and hers, chuckled. "If I know you, my fine young friend, you're already searching for a way to do both."

  With a sardonic smile, he raised his hand to lick off the beer she had slopped over the rim of his bowl. The young woman at the curtain bared one small, shapely breast, fondled it, beckoned. He barely saw her. The old woman's words were like a herdsman's goad, urging him to move, not stand in place.

  Nofery was as unaware of his thoughts as she was of the girl, behind her. "If you do go upriver with the lord Amon, you'll be in Semna for some time, they say, serving the king himself."

  Her tone again was too casual, jerking his thoughts from his own desires to hers. The journey upriver could have nothing to do with her wish to expand, he thought. Unless . . . "What do you want me to do, old woman? Walk through the villages around Semna, looking for a few dusky beauties for this place of business?"

  Nofery's face lit up, she chortled. "Now that's an idea! Not one I'd thought of, but.. ." Her laughter dwindled, and she shook her head. "No, I'll speak with Nebwa later. He'll serve my purpose better."

  Unable to hold Bak's attention, the girl shrugged her shoulders, stepped back, and let the curtain fall.

  He was puzzled. What else could Nofery want? "If you've something to say, spit it out. Imsiba will soon come, and I'll have no more time for your endless demands."

  She stared at her hands, lost in some secret memory that softened her heavy features and gave warmth to her mouth and eyes. "I once knew Amon-Psaro, many years ago." "You, old woman?" Bak asked, incredulous.

  "Barely mo
re than a child, he was, yet more of a man than most I've bedded. He was strong and fierce and at the same time kind and gentle. A man above all others even then."

  "How can you make such a claim? You've never traveled beyond Kor. You told me so yourself."

  Her massive breast rose and fell in an exaggerated sigh. "More than twenty years ago, it was, in our capital city of Waset. He was a prince then, a hostage taken north to Kemet by the soldiers of Akheperenre Tuthmose after their victory over his father in the land of Kush."

  Could she be telling the truth? Bak wondered. The war she referred to was the last the army of Kemet had fought in this wretched land. Male children of defeated kings, boys who might one day sit on the thrones of their fathers, were commonly taken to Waset to live in the royal house. Raised with the children of the highest men in the land, adopting their ways, making firm friendships, they more often than not returned to their homelands as staunch allies of the conquering nation.

  Hearing voices in the lane outside, Bak tipped his stool back and peered through the door. Imsiba stood a dozen or so paces away, talking with a trio of spearmen. Bak swallowed his beer in a single gulp and stood up, ready to leave. "As for me..." Nofery sneaked a glance in his direc

  tion, smirked. "I was young and beautiful then, desirable to many men. Amon-Psaro among them."

  The smirk convinced him: she was trying to dupe him for the second time in one day. Giving her his most charming smile, he bent over and pinched her cheek. "You were never young and beautiful, Nofery."

  She stared at him with an expression so forbidding he thought for a moment she would slap him. Then she started to laugh, great hearty guffaws that set in motion every roll of fat beneath her long white shift.

  Bak, feeling a bit guilty for making fun of her, pulled her to her feet. "Come, old woman. Imsiba is outside. I trust he's spent much of the afternoon questioning those poor wretches Seneb brought from the south. If so, he's earned a reward. A jar of beer should suit him, the best you have."

  "You want me to go to Iken." Imsiba's voice was flat, his expression disapproving.

  Bak shoved aside a basket of crusty, fist-sized loaves of bread and sat down on the second step of the open stairway leading to the roof. Fine dust drifted aimlessly in a sliver of sunlight falling from above. "The commandant said. ,send a courier,' and you're the man I've selected."

  "What of Seneb? I've not yet finished questioning those who traveled with his caravan."

  Bak had thought out exactly what he wanted, and he was not about to retreat before the Medjay's assault. "Am I not able to question them as well as you?"

  Imsiba scowled at the world in general. Bak settled back on the stairs and glanced around his quarters with the unconscious satisfaction of one who had experienced life in a barracks. The room in which they sat was small and plain, with a hard-packed earthen floor and white plastered walls. One stool stood just inside the entrance, the other in a corner amid a clutter of rush baskets overflowing with scrolls, a writing pallet, paint and water pots, all the tools of Hori's trade. One rear door led to Bak's bedchamber, the second to the scribe's room. A large white dog with a broad muzzle and sagging ears sprawled between the two, his legs and bushy tail twitching in response to a dream.

  Surrendering to the inevitable, Imsiba dropped onto the stool by the entrance, his back to the narrow, sun-baked lane. "What am I to do once I'm there? Or, more to the point, what are your special instructions over and above delivering the message of Lieutenant Puemre's slaying?"

  Bak gave his friend a look of mock innocence. "You question my motives, Imsiba?"

  "I know you too well, my friend, to look only on the surface of any task you give me that's out of the ordinary." Bak plucked a loaf from the basket and, breaking into laughter, threw it at the Medjay, who caught it with easeand a reluctant smile.

  "One day I'll disappoint you, but not today." Sobering, Bak leaned forward, elbows on knees. "If the man who took Puemre's life has been caught, the matter is closed, and all I ask you to do is satisfy my curiosity. Who slew him in so foul a manner and why? For what reason did he fail to register here in Buhen? What story lies behind the belt clasp?"

  Imsiba shook his head. "If the slayer has been caught, a message would've come to Commandant Thuty long before now, especially if Lieutenant Puemre was of noble birth."

  "You'd think so, wouldn't you? Yet Thuty hasn't even been notified he's missing." Bak raised a cynical eyebrow. "Don't you think an officer's absence would've been noticed by this time?"

  "Perhaps you make a mystery where none exists." The Medjay spoke with no conviction whatsoever.

  "Go to Iken at first light tomorrow. Speak with the garrison commander and learn all you can. If he can offer no solution to Puemre's death, I must go at once. The slayer's trail is already two days old. By the time you return, three will have passed, and a fourth day will go by before I can get there."

  "Are you not leaping too fast, my friend? Commandant Thuty has yet to decide what he wishes you to do." "The slain man was an officer, Imsiba, and from all appearances a man of quality." '

  The Medjay muttered a curse in his own tongue. "This Lieutenant Puemre could not have been slain at a worse time. You should journey upstream with the rest of us, not spend your days in Iken, searching for carrion."

  "I'm not sure when the lord Amon will arrive in Buhen or how long it'll take him to reach Iken. I'd wager six or seven days, maybe more." Bak's mouth tightened to a thin, stubborn line. "I hope to lay my hands on Puemre's slayer long before that."

  Imsiba looked doubtful. "I yearn to believe you can, my friend."

  "Thanks to Commandant Thuty, I feel like a man who's been offered two plump pigeons but given no opportunity to eat either of them." Bak's voice turned grim. "I may fail in the attempt, but I intend to try for both."

  Chapter Four

  Commandant Thuty strode through the door of the room he used as an office. Speculation as to the reason for his summons faded to silence. The dozen officers scattered among the four red columns that supported the ceiling stepped back to make a path to the armchair standing empty against the rear wall.

  Nebwa leaned close to Bak and murmured, "Where's Imsiba?"

  "I sent him to Iken." Bak kept his voice equally muted. "He left at first light and should be back before nightfall." "You sly jackal." Nebwa grinned. "What'd you tell him to do? Whisper your praise in the garrison commander's ears?"

  Bak snorted. "Questions, Nebwa, not praise." His eyes strayed toward the commandant and an anger born of frustration seeped into his voice. "If I'm to resolve Puemre's death, I've no great desire' to report to Iken blinded by ignorance."

  Thuty shifted his chair from the wall to stand behind it with his hands resting on its back. "A courier arrived from the north no more than an hour ago," he announced. "If the breeze remains fair, the lord Amon will reach Buhen by midafternoon today."

  Murmurs of anticipation, excitement rippled through the room. Even Bak, who had grown to manhood only a half hour's walk from the god's mansion in the capital, was not immune. His joy was soon marred by regret, followed quickly by dismay. Imsiba would not be back in time to watch the holy procession. And the god's arrival at so early a date shrank the number of days that would pass before Amon reached Iken to only four or five. Could he hope to search out Puemre's slayer in so short a time?

  Thuty raised a hand for silence. "I assume each of you has told your men what I expect of them when the sacred barge docks at the quay?"

  "Yes, sir," the officers chorused.

  "I've seldom seen so many kilts and shields drying in the sun," Nebwa muttered. "The rooftops are as littered as the desert verge when an army long away from water rushes to the river for a swim."

  Another officer laughed softly. "My men have polished their spearpoints so much they've lost their edge."

  Bak's smile was automatic, his thoughts wandering. Since taking command of the Medjay police, he had snared three men who had taken the lives of oth
ers. Two had been easy to catch, the slaying done in anger and the slayer too paralyzed by his offense against the lady Maat to cover his tracks. The third death, that of Thuty's predecessor, had taken weeks to resolve. If Puemre's slayer had not yet been caught, such would probably be the case here as well.

  Thuty's voice, as hard as granite, broke into his thoughts. "Our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut, thinks of those of us who occupy the garrisons here in Wawat as little more than caretakers of the precious objects passing through on their way to the royal treasury. The chief prophet holds us in no higher esteem." His eyes darted from one face to another. "I can't impress upon you enough how important it is to welcome the lord Amon and his retinue in a manner befitting his exalted status among the gods. Do I make myself clear?"

  The officers, Bak among them, spoke as one. "Yes, sir." . The. chorus was ragged this time, marred by surprise at Thuty's frankness. The queen's neglect of the army was a constant irritation, a source of many whispers, seldom aired in public. She held the reins of power. For how long, though, was anyone's guess. Her nephew and stepson, Menkheperre Tuthmose, had inherited the crown from his father while still a small child. Hatshepsut, not content to serve as regent, had placed herself on the throne. Many believed the heir, now sixteen years of age, should assume his rightful place above her. He kept his plans to himself, but had several years before begun to rebuild the army into a capable and loyal fighting force.

  Thuty eyed his officers at length as if to be sure they understood, then took his seat to discuss the disposition of the garrison troops during the lord Amon's stay in Buhen.

  Bak refused to give in to a sense of hopelessness that threatened to overwhelm him. The odds might be against his snaring Puemre's slayer in time to journey upriver with the god, but he vowed to try. Since the only avenue of investigation open to him at the moment was Seneb and those unfortunate children the trader had brought from the south, he would begin with them.

  A door slammed at the far end of the old guardhouse, followed by the thud of a heavy wooden bar dropping into place, locking the prisoner inside his cell.