by Lauren Haney
Bak, watching Aset, saw out of the corner of his eye a grim-faced Nebseny veering around three scribes standing in the middle of the court, arguing about the meaning of an obscure glyph. The temptation to trample on the young officer's feelings was too great to resist.
"I suppose Lieutenant Nebseny slept here that night as well," he sneered. "Did he share your bed, I wonder? Or did Puemre come back to keep you company?"
Nebseny burst through the door, grabbed Bak's shoulder, and swung him around. "You swine!" He drew back his fist, murder in his eyes, and swung.
Bak, only a little surprised by so foolhardy a reaction, blocked the fist with an arm. Moving with a speed born of many long hours of practice, he grabbed Nebseny's wrist, jerked him off-balance, and twisted him around, shoving his hand high between his shoulder blades, forcing a moan from his lips.
Kenamon sucked in his breath, shaken by the sudden violence. Woser slid to the edge of his chair, poised to aid his young friend. The scribes in the courtyard, chattering like jays, scurried across the pavement to peer through the door. The guard stood paralyzed and confused, not quite sure who was in charge.
"Don't hurt him!" Aset cried. "Please!"
Bak recalled the way she had hovered over Nebseny when he and the archer had crashed into each other several days earlier. He was fairly sure that if he hurt the young man badly enough, she would tell the truth. But that was not his way. He pushed the hand higher, eliciting another moan, and shoved Nebseny hard. The archer stumbled across the room and fell to his knees at Woser's feet.
Bak noticed the scribes at the door and the guard. "Leave us. There's nothing here to see."
"Go back to your duties," Woser said, standing, giving them a strained smile. "This is a misunderstanding, nothing more."
The scribes drifted away, whispering among themselves. The guard relaxed, choosing to take his commander's words at face value. Bak stood grim and silent, waiting until they could no longer be overheard.
"You've been lying from the outset," he said at last, his eyes darting from one stunned face to another. "Not just to me, but to each other. Now I demand the truth."
"I beg you to speak up," Kenamon said. "If you don't soon talk with honesty and candor, I fear for all of Wawat and the land of Kemet itself."
Woser, his face clouding with worry and puzzlement, dropped into his chair and eyed the old priest. Nebseny, scrambling to his feet, glanced at Bak, his commander, and Aset, confusion vying with the anger and shame of his precipitous defeat.
"We were all three here in this house," Aset said, the challenge clear in her voice. "You can't prove otherwise." Bak wanted to shake her good and hard. She was forcing his hand, making him go further than he had meant to go. "Commander Woser, Lieutenant Nebseny, I'm charging you both with the murder of Lieutenant Puemre, with the intent to commit treason against the royal house." He kept his voice hard and cold, grating almost. "Mistress Aset, you'll stand with them before the viceroy, charged with assisting them in their crimes."
Nebseny snorted. "You must be mad."
"Don't scoff, young man," Kenamon said quietly. "We know Puemre had knowledge of a plot which could wrongly be laid at the door of the royal house-and cause all manner of mischief in this barren land of Wawat."
"The charge is a sham." Woser glared at Bak. "You're so fearful of Puemre's father, so desperate to lay hands on his slayer, that you're striking out in all directions."
The old priest shook his head sadly. "My heart bleeds for you, Commander. You'd willingly give your life for your daughter, yet you blind yourself to the truth."
"How can I know what's in fact the truth? This so-called policeman has given me no specifics."
"Have you earned my confidence?" Bak demanded. "You failed to report Puemre's death, and you've blocked my path to his slayer from the instant I stepped through the gate of this city." He took a turn across the room, swung around, strode back to stand in front of the commander, towering over him. "I'd like to think you're merely protecting your daughter, a foolish young thing who always gets her way by bending your affections to her will, a silly child who would lie to the lady Maat herself to protect both you and her betrothed." He swung toward Aset and snapped, "Can you deny my charge, Mistress?"
She flung her head high, refusing to answer. Nebseny eyed her, a flush spreading across his face, as if for the first time he realized she might actually care for him. Woser squirmed in his chair, ashamed of so great a weakness in his own heart and household.
"The penalty for treason is death, Commander." Bak made his voice ominous, and at the same time prayed Woser would not call his bluff.
"I've not betrayed my gods or my land, and I see no way you can prove I have." Woser closed his eyes and spoke with resignation. "But to be charged with so heinous an offense would ruin what's left of my life, and that of my daughter and the man as close to me as a son. I'll tell you what you wish to know."
"Father!"
Woser silenced the girl with a wave of his hand. "As you've guessed, Lieutenant, on the night Puemre was slain, I left this residence soon after my officers departed. I went to a woman I know in the lower city, one who'll tell you I stayed with*er through the night. Her servants know of my coming and going. They, too, will vouch for me. As will the watchman assigned to that sector of the city."
Aset stared openmouthed. If Bak had not expended so much effort in getting Woser to talk, he would have laughed, but he smothered the urge, fearing he would risk his hard-won advantage.
Woser gave the girl a wry smile. "Even I must have a life of my own, my daughter."
She managed a limp smile. "Oh, Father, I was so afraid! I knew you didn't sleep in your bed that night, and I thought…" She lowered her eyes, flushed. "I thought you'd heard those awful rumors about.. " Her voice tailed off, she swallowed hard.
His expression turned grave. "When I came through the southern gate at dawn, I saw you hurrying through the streets, with no other woman to see you home safe and well." His voice roughened, betraying his unwillingness to ask a question whose answer he feared. "Where had you been?"
"I went to the barracks, looking for Nebseny." It was Nebseny's turn to gape.
"I waited for more than an hour, talking with the men on watch." She shot the young officer a guilty look. "I'd heard you argued again with Puemre and came close to blows. I learned later he accused you of backing away from a skirmish when his men needed help, but at the time I thought… Well, you surely can guess what I thought. That's why, in the end, I made them promise not to tell you I was there."
Nebseny gave her a bitter smile. "You thought me so low I'd creep up behind him to take his life instead of facing him like a man."
"I didn't!" she cried. "I only knew you weren't where you were supposed to be: in the barracks, asleep."
"I was on the fortress wall, pacing back and forth the length of the city. I'd heard those rumors flying through the barracks. I was trying to build the courage to tell your father I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with soiled linen."
Aset bowed her head, covering her face with her hands. "The sentries must've seen you there," Bak said. Nebseny nodded, his eyes on his betrothed, distracted by what to him was far more important than an alibi. Hesitantly, he went to the girl and took her in his arms. "Don't cry, my beloved. Your servant Meret has since come to me. She's assured me the tales were untrue."
Aset turned her face into his breast and clung to him. Woser, watching the pair with open relief and a weary satisfaction, must have felt Bak's scrutiny. He looked up at the man who had so recently bedeviled him and offered a tentative smile. "I owe you more than answers, Lieutenant. How best can I help?"
"The prince's health seemed better while they camped through the night, but soon after the caravan set off this morning, he had another attack." The courier, a short, wiry young man, stood at rigid attention, repeating the message he had been given. Sweat trickled down his face, making runnels in the dust clinging to his cheeks. "King Amon
Psaro looked forward to reaching Iken by nightfall. He was most disappointed at the need to break the journey so close and yet so far away."
Bak scowled, trying to look disappointed, hiding the relief he felt at his own reprieve and that of the men toiling on the island fortress. Kenamon, he feared, would worry himself sick at the delay in seeing his patient, but almost everyone else in Iken would welcome the respite.
Woser, his face solemn, looked south across the desert, as if far in the hazy distance he could see the Kushite encampment. A puff of wind drove a dust devil up the narrow walkway along the battlements and whipped a dry and torn leaf over the parapet.
They stood atop the massive outer wall of the fortress. As Bak had preferred to discuss the threat on Amon-Psaro's life in more privacy than the commander's residence provided, Woser had suggested the younger officer accompany him on one of his periodic surprise inspections of the sentries. Bak had readily agreed, but if he had known how hot and thick the air had become, he would have suggested a walk along the river instead.
"You must tell King Amon-Psaro that my heart is filled with disappointment," Woser said to the courier. "I'd hoped to see him in Iken today. However, as the prince's health is all-important, I understand the need to postpone his arrival. I'll make haste to the lord Amon and offer my heartfelt prayer that the child will feel more like traveling tomorrow."
"Spoken like a true diplomat." Bak grinned after the courier had hurried away.
Woser gave him a quick smile. "Too many years on the frontier, greeting the envoys of kings and queens, have made my tongue as oily as that of a palace hanger-on."
His eyes darted toward an approaching sentry, the last he had to inspect, a tough-looking man of close to forty years burned a crisp brown from many years in the sun. The man halted before his commander and stood at attention, his eyes fixed on some far-off point. Looking stern and competent, Woser examined clothing, weapons, and physical well-being.
While Bak waited, he rested his elbows on the thick mudbrick wall and looked out across the desert. The tawny plain stretched as far as the eye could see, its sandy blanket torn here and there by dark ridges and knolls of protruding granite. The stiff westerly breeze stirred the desert surface, filling the air with fine sand, coloring the sky a pale yellow and cloaking the sun with haze. The distinction between earth and sky was lost in the distance, where individual features blended and blurred. A sweaty slick of fine dust coated Bak's body and he could taste the desert on his tongue, minute bits of parched and stale rock carried on the wind from far-off lands. His wrists itched beneath the wide bead bracelets he wore. He yearned for a swim, and mercifully he might now have the time.
The sentry strode on, and Woser joined Bak at the wall. "I like to believe nothing can pass by me unseen in this garrison." His face was shadowed with worry and self-reproach. "How did I fail to see a plot against AmonPsaro?"
Bak eyed him with something less than sympathy. "Did you actually tell Huy and your other officers to stand in my way?"
Woser had the grace to flush. "I made it clear I thought the slayer had done us all a favor. I went no further." "In other words, you made it easy for them to justify their failure to help, their unwillingness." Bak heard the accusation in his voice, knew he must drop the matter or risk alienating once again an officer whose cooperation he badly needed.
"How many men do you believe are involved?" Woser asked.
"One, if the mute child's sketches are to be believed. And I'm more inclined than ever to think them true." Bak could not prevent himself from adding, "Especially now that I've verified your alibi and Nebseny's and know for a fact you're both innocent. The idea of a conspiracy has always troubled me."
Woser turned away, his shoulders hunched, his hands locked behind his buttocks, and strode the few paces up the walkway to the corner tower. Bak stared at the commander's back, suddenly doubting himself, wondering how one man alone could hope to slay a king, a man always surrounded by guards and lackeys. Could I be mistaken? he wondered. Did I sort out one conspiracy of silence, leaving another yet to be found?
Woser strode back, his expression unhappy yet resolute. "I've known my staff officers for many years, Lieutenant, and I call each and every man my friend. But if you wish, I'll give you a private place and send them to you one by one. I give you leave to ask them what you will. Use the cudgel if you must."
Any doubts Bak might have had about the commander vanished altogether. "With Amon-Psaro's caravan stalled in the desert, I've a day's reprieve. Perhaps the gods. will smile on me and I can narrow my suspects to one before he marches into Iken. If not, I fear I'll have to accept your offer."
Chapter Fifteen
"Amon-Psaro should never set foot inside these walls." Bak spoke as if voicing the thought would make it a real possibility. "There are too many rooftops, too many unoccupied and ruined buildings."
Standing halfway up the open stairway that connected the commander's residence with the battlements, he scowled at the city laid out below, a geometric patchwork of white rooftops, narrow sun-struck streets, and small, shadowy courtyards. Several of the blocks looked as if a gigantic mouse had nibbled away random chunks of mudbrick and plaster, leaving a broken wall here and a collapsed roof there. Heat radiated from the flat white roof below him, drying the beads of sweat forming on his flesh. The stench of the watery depths wafted from a nearby rooftop, where a neighbor's morning catch of fish had been laid out to dry.
Kenamon, standing at the base of the stairs with Woser, Imsiba, and Nebseny, shaded his eyes with his hand and studied the tall citadel wall looming over the mansion of Hathor and the small figure of a sentry patrolling the battlements above the temple. "The walkways atop those walls bother me," he said, apprehension turning his voice querulous. "They look an ideal place from which to fire off a quiverful of arrows."
"None but the most reliable men will patrol the battle ments." Woser's face was set, determined. "He'll not be threatened from that quarter, I can assure you."
Bak plunged down the stairway to the roof. "You'd do well to station a few archers up there," he told Nebseny, "men with stout arms and a long reach. Men you'd trust with your life."
The young officer flushed, not yet accustomed to the sudden change in his attitude toward Bak, or Bak's toward him. "I've just the men: twenty archers and a sergeant newly arrived from the faraway land of Naharin. You can be sure they've no grudge against the Kushite king."
"Perfect." Bak walked to the edge of the building and looked down on a grayish striped cat sprawled in the shade of a doorway, suckling five fuzzy kittens not yet old enough to see. He and the other officers had identified one precaution that would avert the need for many of the others, but they needed Kenamon's consent to break a religious convention. They had been skirting around the issue since they had gathered in Woser's office, and Bak still wasn't sure how best to ask. "I doubt the prince is in danger…" His eyes darted toward Imsiba. "… but you must guard him well, you and our men."
Imsiba had seldom looked so somber. "We'll stay with the child through all the hours of day and night, my friend. He'll never be left alone."
"It's Amon-Psaro I'm worried about," Woser grumbled, careful not to look at Kenamon. "We've taken every precaution, yet gaps remain in our security."
"As there always will be unless…" Nebseny let his voice tail off and glanced at Bak, dropping the burden fully onto his shoulders.
Bak could avoid the issue no longer. "Amon-Psaro will be safe in the island fortress. We've nothing to worry about there. The weak link in our chain of defense-and, believe me, my uncle, it's very weak-is the journey from the island to the harbor and the march through the city to the temple. Back and forth day after day for as long as the prince is ill, the king's life will be at risk."
Kenamon's mouth tightened. "What are you asking of me?"
From the resolute look on the old man's face, Bak could tell he had already guessed what the officers wanted. "Will you allow us to build a shrine
on the island and house the lord Amon there?" His voice grew passionate with conviction. "I beg you, my uncle, to agree. Then the king and his son can be together day and night, safe from threat, without the need for the twice-daily march along streets difficult if not impossible to secure."
The elderly priest, his face grave, shook his head. But instead of voicing an immediate rejection, he clasped his hands behind his back and paced the length of the rooftop, his head bowed in thought.
A snarl sounded in the street below. Bak glanced around, saw an orange tom skulking up the lane toward the striped cat and her helpless kittens. She faced him, her back arched, the fur on her tail standing on end, snarling to protect her brood. The tom crept on undeterred, his tail whipping back and forth, bent on stealing one of the tiny, blind creatures. Bak scooped up the nearest object to hand, a stone spindle, and flung it at the wall above the tom's head. He leaped upward, twisting around in midair, and scooted away.
"I'm sorry, my son." Kenamon, his face grim and unhappy, patted Bak's shoulder as he would a favored puppy. "The lord Amon must remain in the mansion of Hathor."
Why? Bak wanted to ask. Is a shrine not good enough now that he's a great and mighty god? "We'll recruit the most accomplished carpenter in Iken to build it and the most talented goldsmith to sheathe it. Set up in a private corner, the lord Amon will be safe and well protected from man and beast and the elements. He'll be more comfortable there, for all the fortress will be his, not one small room in a temple he must share."
Kenamon gave him a fond smile. "You speak with a golden tongue, my boy, but I was told by the first prophet himself that the god must dwell with the lady Hathor." Muttering a curse under his breath, Bak glanced at the other officers and Imsiba. Woser looked disgusted, the Medjay and Nebseny helpless to come up with a better idea. He knelt at the edge of the roof and stared into the lane below, giving himself time to think. There had to be a way around that order. The kittens were alone, he noticed, and only three remained. Where was the mother? Had the tom sneaked back to steal the other two while he looked away?