by Lauren Haney
Bak found Kasaya on the roof with four of the Medjays who had traveled upstream with the lord Amon. Sitting in a strip of shade from the fortress wall, they were sharing a stewed duck, a pot of lentils and onions, and a melon. As their usual diet was far less sumptuous, they were thriving while on their temporary assignment. Bak accepted a chunk of sweetish green melon and hunkered down to wait until the men finished the succulent fowl.
After the quartet filed down the stairs, Bak and the young Medjay crossed the roof to the front of the house, where they could look down on the broad north-south street that connected the two massive towered gates of the fortress. A slick-haired yellow dog lay sleeping in a shady doorway. A child two or three years of age played in a dusty lane too far away to overhear. Heat waves rose from the rooftops. The odors of burnt charcoal and cooking oil and manure were carved on a breeze too soft and gentle to dry the sweat trickling down their bodies.
"I need a weapon, Kasaya, something I can use to break Woser's wall of silence."
The bulky young Medjay frowned, puzzled. "You would go to a garrison commander, dagger in hand?"
"You misunderstand me," Bak smiled. "In this case, I speak of knowledge as a weapon. The more I know about Woser, the better armed I'll be when I go to him for the truth."
The light dawned on Kasaya's face. "Oh! Information!" Smothering his smile, Bak studied the young Medjay. Tall, broad at the shoulder and narrow of waist, a handsome yet innocent visage. "I can think of no one better able to help than you."
"You think me worthy after…" Kasaya stared unhappily at his large, naked feet. "… after I let the child die?" Bak laid his hand on the young man's shoulder. "We failed this morning, you and I both, and we can in no way make amends. But let's not let his death go unavenged. Let's find the man who slew him."
Kasaya raised his chin and stiffened his spine. "How can I help, sir?"
"I don't know how many servants toil in the commander's residence. From what I've seen of mistress Aset, I doubt she liftSS a hand to care for the household, so the number may be large. Servants move back and forth through the rooms, seeing and hearing much and saying little."
A donkey squealed in terror or pain outside the northern gate, drawing Bak's attention and Kasaya's. A man yelled, hooves clattered on hard-packed earth, and the creature burst through the portal, the baskets it carried bouncing to the rhythm of its trotting hooves. A portly man clad in a knee-length kilt raced after the animal, stick raised, chasing it all the way to the southern gate, where a guard stepped into its path and grabbed its halter.
The pair on the roof could not help but laugh. Bak was grateful for the young Medjay's resilience-and his own, for that matter.
"Go to the commander's residence." Bak stared across the rooftops toward Woser's house. "Be friendly. Especially with the women: those who are older and motherly and those close to you in age. Ask no questions. Say, if you think it would help, that I removed you from your duties because you failed in some small task. If you confide in them, gain their sympathy and trust, they may confide in you, telling you all they've seen and heard in Woser's household."
Kasaya thought over the assignment, and a smile wiped the gravity from his face. "I feared, when I saw you coming, that I was to be punished. Instead, it seems, I'm given a reward."
"They all hated him," Minnakht said.
Puemre's sergeant, a large, heavy man in his late twenties, with a crooked nose and an ugly scar on his thigh, stood beside Bak, hands on hips, legs spread wide, watching his men cutting bricks out of the partly collapsed wall of an old warehouse. Not a man among them looked happy with so menial a task.
"I don't like to think they envied him," he went on. "I respect them all. But what else can I think? Oh, I know Lieutenant Puemre sometimes trod on other people's toes, but he was raised a nobleman. Aren't they all like that?"
"My contact with the nobility has been limited," Bak said, keeping his voice neutral, uncritical.
Minnakht gave him a quick, amused glance. "I've heard you were exiled to Buhen because your fist made contact with a nobleman's chin. Or was it his nose?"
Bak was always amazed at the way useless information spread along the southern frontier. As a police officer, he thought it best to let this particular item die a natural death from lack of attention. "More than half the bricks are coming away broken, I see. Has that been the case since you started this task?"
The smile faded from the sergeant's face. "The mud hasn't been moistened for years and the straw that binds it has rotted away. Here, let me show you." He strode to a mound of bricks so broken they looked like the clods in a newly plowed field. Picking up a chunk, he crumbled the black earth between his fingers, turning it to dust. "You see?"
Bak's voice grew firm, an officer speaking to a lesser man. "Have you tried other walls in other parts of Iken?" The sergeant stiffened at the unexpected tone of command. "No, sir, but I doubt… "
"Do it. The buildings in this city couldn't have been raised all at one time or by a single brickmaker or mason. The binder will be different, the consistency, the way they dried. They'll have weathered in different ways, depending on their location."
Minnakht's eyes narrowed in thought, then a look of approval passed over his face. Without another word, he selected five men and sent them to various ruined sections of the city.
Bak watched the nearest man slowly, painstakingly extract a brick from a wall. "Tell the men here to cut bigger blocks from these poor walls. The island fortress has many large gaps as*ell as small ones."
"Yes, sir." The sergeant strode through the ruined building, issuing the new orders. By the time he came back, his men looked more cheerful and he more content with this new and untried officer to whom they must report.
Satisfied with the tentative acceptance, Bak let his voice return to normal. "Puemre served for a short time in my old regiment, the regiment of Amon. Why did he transfer so soon to Wawat?"
"The officers there, he told me, were youthful men firmly settled in their ranks, leaving few opportunities for a newcomer. He thought promotion would come faster on the frontier."
"So he came to Iken, where all the officers were older men; firmly settled in their ranks."
Minnakht stared straight ahead; his voice turned defensive. "If the truth were known, the officers in the regiment of Amon probably turned their backs against him, as they did here."
Yes, Bak thought, like most men of courage and integrity, they had no time for a man who thought himself more deserving than he was. "You got along well with him, I've been told."
"He wasn't the easiest man to please, but he was a good officer-the best I've ever known." The sergeant turned away so Bak could not see his face, and a huskiness filled his throat. "When any of us needed help, he was generous with both his time and his wealth. When we marched into battle, he was the first to face the enemy, and he was the bravest. Once he understood the ways of the frontier, he never planned a skirmish that failed."
Bak was surprised at Minnakht's depth of feeling, like a man grieving for a friend rather than an officer. "What of mistress Mutnefer? Did he speak to you of her?"
"Many times. He thought her a kind and gentle woman, one to love through eternity. He meant to take her with him when he went back to Kemet." Minnakht's eyes spilled over. With an annoyed grimace, he brushed away the tears. "He planned to make her his wife."
Bak gave him a sharp look. "His wife? She told me he meant to keep her as his concubine."
"He talked many times to me of facing his father over the matter, but he never told her. He wished to surprise her."
Bak had seldom heard so sad a tale. No wonder Minnakht was upset. "It's best she never knows. Her life's already filled with toil and poverty. To add the knowledge of what might have been would double the hardship."
"She'll not hear it from me, of that you can be sure." Minnakht glanced at Bak as if searching for approval. "I mean to take her for my wife, if she'll have me."
"Mut
nefer?" Bak asked, startled by the admission. "My wife died in childbirth two years ago. I've felt no great need for a home and family since her death, but now the time has come. I want Mutnefer, and I wish to take the child as my own."
"You're certain Minnakht was in the barracks when Puemre was slain?" Bak asked.
"Yes, sir." Pashenuro's eyes darted along the line of men carrying old, dry bricks up the path from the supply boat to the island fortress. "He stayed the night, as always."
They stood at the gate, watching the men work with an ant-like patience and tenacity. The sun was dropping toward the western horizon, the shadows lengthening, the northern breeze carrying away the intense heat of the day. The sharp chirp of a sparrow sounded above the roar of the rapids. The mound of bricks on deck shrank rapidly as crewmen shifted their cargo onto trays suspended from yokes across the shoulders of the infantrymen. They, in turn, plodded up the steep path, balancing the unfamiliar load with care, and deposited the bricks at the base of the walls, where they were raised to the scaffolding or ramparts for use by m1n repairing broken sections of wall.
"Would his men lie for him?" Bak asked.
"Others were there, too," Pashenuro said. "Outsiders who'd have nothing to gain by saying they saw him when they didn't: eleven guards traveling north with a royal envoy and three spearmen journeying upriver for assignment at Semna."
"I see the sense in Minnakht's taking Mutnefer as his wife," Bak admitted, "but when he confessed he coveted her, I was sorely tempted by the obvious conclusion. If I thought Puemre's death an ordinary murder, I'd have locked him away then and there."
"I like him." Pashenuro's eyes darted toward another cargo boat coming around the end of the long island, an idle craft Minnakht had searched out after his men had found several productive sources of brick. "Lieutenant Puemre was lucky to have him in his company."
"Pashenuro!" A mason perched high on a scaffold beckoned.
Bak could see his presence was an added burden the Medjay did not need. "You've much to do before nightfall, so go on about your business. I can check the repairs without dragging you around with me."
Bak was more than satisfied with the work that had been done. The repairs on the long eastern wall, which had suffered the least through the years from natural and human erosion, were completed. The fresh plaster holding the patches together could not entirely be disguised, but the wall was whole, with no sign of neglect except for damaged spur walls invisible from the interior. He strode back to the much shorter northern wall and the gaping hole at the west comer, where most of the men were working. Pashenuro had vowed the whole span would be fixed before nightfall. "Those men deserve a reward."
Bak swung around, startled more by the echo of his ownthoughts than the unexpected presence behind him. "Senu! What brings you to this island outpost?"
The short, stocky lieutenant watched a tray of bricks being raised to a broken section of battlement. "I came upon Sergeant Minnakht and his men, tearing down a block of ancient buildings and carrying them away from Iken brick by brick. I wanted to see for myself where all those bricks are going."
What's a watch officer doing way out here? Bak wondered. Especially so near the end of the day when he must soon inspect the sentries assigned to night duty? True, Senu had commanded most of these men before Puemre was given the company; but to come so late? "We'll leave a few buildings standing"-he grinned-"those dwellings that are fully occupied."
Senn laughed. "There's a warehouse not far from my quarters I wouldn't mind seeing pulled down. It was long ago used to store grain; today it holds nothing but rats."
"If you're serious about its destruction, speak with Minnakht."
"I will. The pests are everywhere." Senu eyed the long eastern wall with a studied interest. "How's your search progressing for Puemre's slayer?"
A fishing expedition, Bak thought. Why am I not surprised? "I've been side-tracked today and have faced a major setback, but I'm confident I'll soon lay hands on the guilty man."
If Senu noticed how meaningless the words were, he gave no indication. "Now there's been another death, I hear. The murder of an innocent child. Did the same man slay him, I wonder?"
"I've had no time to tie the threads together, but could his death so soon after that of his master be a coincidence?" Giving Senu no time to form an answer, Bak took his arm and ushered him along the finished wall. "Come, let me show you the work we're doing."
As, they walked, he pointed out several repairs, then said, "I've been told you once fought with our army in Kush, winning the "gold of valor."
"That was a long time ago, twenty-seven years." Senu's face clouded. "I was a callow youth, more foolhardy than brave. I did what I had to do to survive, and the king handed me a golden fly."
Bak glanced at the officer, surprised by his disparaging tone. "You take no joy in the award?"
"Joy?" Senu's laugh was hard and bitter. "I wear the fly only when I must. Only on the most ceremonial of occasions."
Senu was a scarred man, Bak saw, the wounds deep within his heart. What had happened? Was the incident sufficient to fuel a plot to slay Amon-Psaro? "You faced Amon-Psaro's father in battle?"
"Faced him?" Senu scoffed. "He chased us into a narrow valley blocked by sand and hunted us down like vermin. Not one man in four survived." His mouth tightened; he visibly shook off the wrath clouding his visage. "Has your quest for the murderer taken you in any special direction?"
"We're narrowing down the possibilities." Bak saluted the cargo vessel's master, standing at the gate having a final word with Pashenuro before sailing back to Iken. "What saved you from the Kushite army?"
"Woser came with his company." Senu's snort reflected the bitterness of memory. "He was a lieutenant, greener than I was but with fresh troops and the courage of the lady Sekhmet. When the Kushite king saw he might soon become the victim of his own trap, he withdrew, leaving those of us still living cowering among the rocks."
"You must've done something right, Lieutenant. The gold of valor isn't awarded lightly."
"In our desperation, we took many lives." Senu's laugh was sharp and brittle. "Does the number of dead make a hero? No, it's the way one stands up to the enemy."
Bak agreed, yet he could not understand so complete a rejection of the golden fly. A portion of the tale was missing, he was sure. "I've been told you've served in Wawat for many years and even far to the south in the land of Kush."
"My wife came from this part of the world, and my children were all born here." Senu's eyes darted toward the two men at the gate. "I think of the Belly of Stones as my home."
The ship's master waved a farewell to Pashenuro and hurried down the path to the landing.
"Did your duties ever take you to the court of Amon-Psaro?"
Senu's eyes darted toward the departing sailor. "Wait!" he called. "I must go!" he told Bak. "The men assigned to the evening watch could even now be awaiting me."
He swung away, loped to the gate, and rushed outside. Bak followed as far as the empty portal and watched him hurry down the path toward the soon-to-depart vessel. Another supply boat, the last of the day, was moored a short distance upstream, waiting to take its place at the landing, where it could more easily be unloaded. Bak turned away and went back inside. He had no doubt Senu had to inspect the watch, but he had a feeling duty had very little to do with the hasty retreat.
Chapter Thirteen
After a final discussion with Pashenuro over additional supplies and rations needed for the following day, Bak hurried out the gate, eager to be on his way before darkness fell.. He had no wish to sail those treacherous waters in the fading light of dusk, and to make the attempt in the dark would be suicidal.
He stopped short at the top of the path. His skiff was gone, no longer tied to the post. Muttering a curse, he glanced upstream, thinking someone had borrowed it. He saw the supply boat, rounding the southern tip of the long island on its way to lken. Other than that, the channel was empty. He swung around, l
ooking downstream. There he saw the skiff, fifty or so paces away, about halfway between the landing and the tumbling rapids. The empty vessel bobbed on the water, its prow aimed upstream, its stern bumping the rocky shore. The mooring rope was snagged on something below the surface, the boat anchored in place, but with the current so strong it was only a matter of time before the vessel broke free.
Bak snarled an oath and plunged down the path. How could that accursed boat have broken loose? At the river's edge, he ran north through the sparse brush, following a line of trees whose roots were washed by the rising waters, risking a twisted ankle on the rough stony terrain. A sparrow darted from limb to limb, scolding him, but its voice was lost in the thunder of the rapids. He drew even with the small craft and, giving no thought to possible hazards such as sharp rocks or old, discarded spearpoints, he stepped into ankle-deep water and reached for the hull. The aft end swung away, tugged out of his grasp by a whim of the current. Or the perversity of the gods.
He took another step into the river, knee-deep now with the current pushing his legs, trying to shove him downstream. Another step, thigh-deep and chilly, the pressure of the current more insistent. He reached for the skiff. It ducked away, darting downstream at least two paces and edging farther from the island, then jerked to a halt. Its anchor, a rock most likely, was shifting on the bottom. He had no time to waste. The rope could break free at any moment and the vessel be carried into the rapids.
Still he hesitated, thinking of the boys he had seen emerge from the rapids that morning, wishing he had one of their goatskins to help him stay buoyant. Erasing so useless a thought from his heart, he gritted his teeth and dived into the water with a mighty shove of his feet. The current caught him, and at the same time his momentum carried him to the skiff. He grabbed the prow. His added weight tore the rope free and the vessel began to swing around, moving swiftly toward the boiling waters, sweeping away any vague idea he might have had about climbing aboard. With a renewed sense of urgency, he caught the rope and, summoning forth his most powerful strokes, propelled himself toward the shore. The skiff seemed to come alive, trying to jerk out of his grasp, but he was a strong swimmer and the distance was short.