by Lauren Haney
All rules could be broken. One simply had to find a way where no blame would fall on anyone's shoulders. The mother cat trotted out of the shadows of the house, lifted a kitten by the nape of the neck, and pattered back inside. She was moving her litter to a new and safer place.
A broad smile flashed across his face, and he offered a silent prayer of thanks to the lady Bast, the cat goddess. "What if we also built a shrine on the island for the lady Harbor?" He picked up another spindle, this one broken, and glanced often along the lane, making sure the tom did not return to stalk his innocent and now-unprotected prey. "A new mansion it would be, but of modest proportions. Would you then agree to move the lord Amon?"
Imsiba and the other officers, trying hard not to laugh at so brazen an idea, stared at Kenamon, willing him to agree. The priest, his mouth twitching with stifled humor, walked to the edge of the roof and looked into the lane. The mother cat stalked out of the house and caught up another kitten. Kenamon burst into laughter. "Not even the first prophet himself could argue with so fortunate an intervention by the lady Bast."
Pashenuro rolled his eyes skyward. "First you give us another day so we need not push so hard, and now you ask us to build a shrine. Will this task never end?"
Bak laughed at the Medjay's hangdog expression. "You should be overjoyed-as I am-that we're getting off so easy. Once this fortress is habitable and Amon-Psaro in residence with the lord Amon, most of our worries for his safety will be over."
"We'll be toiling far into the night, I fear."
Bak sobered, fully aware of the enormous responsibility he had laid on Pashenuro's shoulders. "Woser is even now explaining the task to a carpenter and a goldsmith. Minnakht is searching out the finest woods in the city, and Nebseny is raiding the treasury for gold. All you have to do is provide a firm and flat foundation in the most sheltered comer of this fortress."
Their eyes automatically followed the little drifts of fine sand blowing across the open floor. With the northern wall repaired, that end was the least touched by the breeze.
After they had decided where best to situate the shrine, they walked around the walls, examining the finished work and discussing the effort yet to be made. The floor had been cleaned from one end to the other, the debris hauled away. A half dozen men were smoothing rough spots and filling holes. Two men were trimming bushes and cutting branches that hung too low. Other than the cook and his helpers, the rest of the men were scattered over the long, western wall, hanging from scaffolding, suspended from ropes, standing on ladders. They laughed and joked, chiding each other, Pashenuro, even Bak. They were men enjoying a job they would soon see over and done with, a job to be proud of and one never to be repeated.
Bak was delighted with the men and their effort, and he told them so. As for Pashenuro, he made a silent vow to plead his case to Commandant Thuty as soon as they returned to Buhen, asking that the Medjay be promoted to sergeant.
"I thought you should be one of the first to know." Bak, bursting with self-satisfaction, raised his drinking bowl to Inyotef. "As the man responsible for ferrying Amon-Psaro across the river day after day, you'd have been at his beck and call throughout his stay in Iken."
A raucous yell exploded from a rough circle of sailors and soldiers sitting on the floor of Sennufer's house of pleasure, gambling with knucklebones. Laughter rippled through the group. Someone banged his fists on a wooden stool, beating out a hasty tattoo. A woman's giggle sounded behind ateavy curtain drawn across the door to the brewing room.
Inyotef gave the gamblers a distracted glance. "I owe you another jar of beer, it seems."
Bak picked up his jar, sloshed it around, and found its contents wanting. Holding it high, he signaled Sennufer to bring more. "Having the god and the king in one place is more convenient for everyone-and safer."
Inyotef's eyebrow shot upward. "I wouldn't think safety would be a factor, not here in Iken. The only place in all of Wawat where there's less to fear is Buhen."
Bak wished he could tell his friend of the threat to Amon-Psaro's life, but he could not do so until he somehow cleared him of suspicion. "Haven't you heard of the child whose throat was cut while he ran through the market? I'd hate to think of the consequences should Amon-Psaro or any member of his entourage suffer a like fate."
"I heard about the boy." Inyotef expelled a long, regretful sigh. "Terrible that one so young must lose his life like that. He was the child who served Puemre, I've heard."
Bak sensed a question rather than a simple comment, but he had not brought Inyotef to the house of pleasure to hand out information. "Tell me what you know of Senu."
A befuddled and naked man, shielding his privates with a dirty kilt bunched in his hand, shoved the curtain out of his way and stumbled through the door from the brewing room. Tagging close behind was a scraggly young woman pulling a rumpled dress down over her substantial rear. While the pair made an unsteady trek across the room and out the door, the gamblers roared, slapped their knees, jeered.
"Your taste in houses of pleasure has never been dull," Inyotef laughed, "but I'm honor-bound to tell you, it's far from refined."
Bak grinned. "As you pointed out yesterday, I'm a policeman."
The pilot eyed him over the rim of his drinking bowl as if he suspected Bak was needling him. Then he shrugged, dismissing the thought, and sipped from his bowl. "If you think Senu slew Puemre, my young friend, you must think again. He's a good man and a good soldier. I can think of no one I'd rather stand beside when facing combat."
"High praise indeed." Bak shifted his stool so he could see his companion's face better through the gloom. "Do you know him as well off duty as on?"
The knucklebones clattered onto the floor. A gambler yelped with glee, his companions groaned.
Inyotef's mouth tightened with disapproval, whether because of the disturbance or the question was unclear. "Senu wed a woman from this wretched desert. He's sired children who know no other place but Iken and the Belly of Stones. He's even taken one of the taller and more fertile islands as his own and raises crops like a native." Inyotef gave a sharp, cynical laugh. "We've nothing to talk about but his duties and mine. I don't claim to know him."
Bak heard bitterness in Inyotef's voice, and envy. Traits that made him uncomfortable, especially when found in a friend "Like the rest of you, he's made it clear he hated Puemre. And with good reason, it seems to me."
Inyotef snorted. "His home is his life. Soldiering is merely the task he performs to place bread on his table. If he'd not been so involved with his family, he'd have seen the way Puemre coveted his company of spearmen and taken precautions."
From what Bak had heard of Puemre, he doubted any defense would have stopped him for long. "Senu makes no secret of his dislike for the duties of a watch officer. Is he equally dissatisfied with the course of his life, his career?" "I respect him," Inyotef said carefully, "and within the limitations I've mentioned, I like him. He's not a man who'd slay another from behind, that I can assure you." Bak could already hear the "but."
"But," Inyotef went on, "Senu, like all of us, has been the victim of whimsical gods, especially in his early years." "Good fortune follows bad as surely as day follows night," Bak said, spouting a platitude an elderly aunt often repeated, a banality he hated though at times found useful. "But you speak of Senu as a victim, which makes a lie of the promise of good fortune."
"He won a golden fly, but the joy of it was short-lived." Bak eyed his friend narrowly. "Tell me straight out, Inyotef. Don't dance around the edges of the tale, teasing me with hints."
"It happened a long time ago in our war with the land of Kush. He was a sergeant, new to the rink and inexperienced." Inyotef stared into his drinking bowl as if reluctant to speak, swishing the beer around, bringing the dregs to the surface. "He… He disobeyed orders, I heard, and told his unit to charge the Kushite army. Most of his men were slain, but they held off the enemy long enough for a fresh and superior force to move into the area and come to thei
r aid, winning the battle." The pilot paused, glanced at Bak with a sad smile. "His bravery won him a golden fly, but his disobedience curbed what could've been a brilliant career. Now you see why he's bitter."
The tale was much as Senu had told it, but with a different slant, one that made him seem more foolhardy, a danger to his troops. Bak had heard bitterness in Senu's voice, but he had thought at the time the feeling was more worthy than Inyotef believed, a bitterness over the loss of lives rather than a damaged career. The truth was no doubt somewhere between the two. As for whether or not Senu had reason to slay Amon-Psaro, Bak felt no closer to an answer now than he had been before.
"When do you meet Huy?" Inyotef asked. "Midafternoon." Bak glanced upward, checking the time. The sun, a golden orb magnified by the yellowish haze in the air, had not long ago passed its highest point, leaving him an hour or more to hustle Minnakht and his men off to the island with a final load of used bricks. He added, with a laugh, "Woser told him this morning how close to finished the men are with the work. He wishes to see this miracle for himself."
A quick smile flickered on Inyotef's lips. "I thought to sail across with you, but you're leaving so late I haven't the time."
Bak, with the pilot by his side, veered off the path and strode to the river's edge a few paces downstream of the northern quay. He nodded toward a squat cargo vessel moored close in, its broad-beamed hull riding low in the water. "You're taking the grain ship upriver to Askut?" Askut was an island fortress about halfway between Iken and Semna.
"Not for a day or two yet." Inyotef flashed another smile. "The captain and his crew wish to see Amon-Psaro march into the city. I can't say I blame them. With so large and colorful a following spread out across the desert, the procession should put to shame the lord Amon's arrival."
Bak was glad Kenamon was not around to hear the god coming off so short when compared to a tribal king from the wretched land of Kush. He knelt at the river's edge and splashed water on his face and shoulders and chest. It was not the swim he had hoped for, but it would have to do. "If you've no ship to pilot, what's so important you can't come with us?"
Inyotef stepped out of his sandals and waded to his knees into the water. "I wish to study the rapids downstream. When I see how high the river has risen, I can estimate how many days will pass before the water covers the rocks to a sufficient depth to carry a ship."
Nodding his understanding, Bak stood up. "Tomorrow morning then. I doubt Amon-Psaro will arrive before midday, so you'll have plenty of time to examine our handiwork before you're needed to transport him."
"I'll look forward to it."
"The swine!" Bak glared at his skiff, beached above the stone revetment midway between the two quays. The small vessel lay on its side, the interior damp and in places puddled with water that had flowed in through a small, ragged hole in its prow. "Someone took an ax to it! Who? And why?"
"To keep us from sailing to the island?" Huy snorted at so ridiculous a thought. "Surely not! We've too many other ways of getting there."
A dozen onlookers standing on the slope above them talked among themselves, offering wild speculations as to who the culprit might have been. A spearman assigned to harbor patrol held them at a distance while his partner knelt at the prow, looking as mystified as Bak and Huy.
"You didn't see anyone?" Bak demanded, eyeing the sailor who had rescued the vessel.
"No, sir." The short, muscular man, clad in an ill-fitting loincloth, scratched his unkempt head. "I was alone on the cargo ship, sitting in the shade of the forecastle, fishing, dozing. It was nice there, breezy, not too hot. Maybe I heard something, something that woke me. I don't know. When I noticed your skiff-half underwater, it was-I bellowed like a bullock trapped in a marsh. They came running." He nodded toward two local farmers who had hurried to his aid. "We dived in and between the three of us dragged it out just in time."
"When I find the man who did this…" Bak let the threat hang in the air, allowing those around him to imagine any number of worthy retributions.
Huy knelt beside the spearman and probed the hole with his fingers. "I know a carpenter, one who's built several small boats, who might be able to fix it, but not before nightfall."
"Send for him."
With a nod as curt as Bak's voice had been, Huy strode up the slope. He spoke a few quiet words to the spearman, who dismissed the audience with a sharp command and a display of spear and shield. As soon as the last man had vanished from sight, he hastened away on the troop captain's errand.
Bak stood, hands on hips, glaring at the hole. He was angry, but more than anything he was puzzled. This was simple destruction, not a threat to his life, so what was its purpose? His thoughts darted hither and yon, searching for an answer. He could find none.
The sun was sinking toward the western desert by the time the two officers sailed out of the harbor. Huy's skiff was older than Bak's and needed a fresh coat of paint, but it was serviceable, the officer explained, for the short journeys he often made to the islands south of Iken.
Bak, seated in the prow, watched with approval while Huy raised the sail and searched out an erratic breeze, letting the wind shove them out of the harbor. As soon as they were midstream in the channel, he spilled the air from the sail, took up the oars, and let the current carry them north toward the long island. Bak recalled Huy saying he could not swim and Inyotef describing the officer as terrified of the water. In his experience, few men so afraid could-or Would-make themselves into accomplished sailors. "You handle the vessel with admirable skill. It's hard to believe you fear the water."
Huy gave him an ironic glance. "You've heard my worst-kept secret, I see."
Bak laughed. "Each of us has a weak spot. The trick is to overcome it, as you obviously have."
"As long as my feet are dry, I'm fine." Huy, keeping a wary eye on a shaggy tamarisk branch floating along beside them, rowed with strong, sure strokes across the current. "I realized when first I traveled as a soldier that I must control my fear or look the fool. As I hadn't the will to learn to swim, the next best way was to learn to sail."
"Inyotef said the two of you and Amon-Psaro sailed through the rapids on a warship." Bak eyed a cluster of rocks to their right and the churning waters racing through a gap between an island and a low-lying segment of land slowly being engulfed by the river. "That must've been an experience never to forget."
"An understatement if ever I heard one." Huy's laugh held not a speck of humor. "Did he tell you he came close to drowning me that day?"
Startled, Bak's head snapped around. "With what intent?"
"Oh, he meant no harm." The same humorless laugh. "As we neared Kor, he pushed me overboard, thinking necessity would force me to swim. Instead I panicked, gulped in water, and sank like a stone. Inyotef stood paralyzed, too surprised and distraught to act. It was Amon-Psaro, then only a child, who saved me from certain death." He adjusted the rudder, turning the skiff eastward to pass the upstream end of the long island. The vessel nudged the tamarisk branch. "Inyotef was filled with remorse. He begged my forgiveness, and I forgave him. But if ever I had the will to learn to swim, I lost it then."
Bak was jolted by the tale and annoyed with Inyotef's silence. He could understand the shame the pilot might feel, but he was too irked to sympathize. If he had known of the incident earlier, he would have saved many steps on the long path to discovering who might wish Amon-Psaro dead. Huy owed his life to the Kushite king. The likelihood that he would wish to slay him was close to nil.
Something cool tickled his foot, jerking his thoughts from speculation to reality. He glanced at the hull where his sandals rested. An elongated puddle was sloshing back and forth along the keelboard, its source a thin stream of water pouring through a crack between two boards higher up the hull. He cursed softly to himself, suddenly very much aware of Huy's fear, acutely conscious of the officer's potential to panic.
The branch still clung to the skiff, he noticed, close to the seam that was leaking,
as if a cluster of leaves was caught on a rough spot below the waterline. Yet the outer surface of the hull should have been smooth the length of the vessel. Working hard to keep his face expressionless, his motions unhurried lest Huy notice, he reached into the water and explored the hull with his fingers. The branch broke free. Where it had been, he felt a ragged edge of broken wood and, probing deeper, a rounded hole that paralleled the surface of the hull instead of breaking through the wood. For an instant he was puzzled as to its purpose, but the answer was not long coming: the hole should have contained the dowel that pinned the two boards together.
With a growing sense of urgency, he leaned farther out, reached deeper, and ran his hand over the wood. He soon found a second hole, one seam lower than the missing dowel and triangular. His stomach lurched. A butterflyshaped wooden cramp had been knocked out of the opposite edge of the board from which the dowel was missing. At the first hint of pressure, that section of board would pop away from its mates, leaving a hole in the hull as big as his lower arm.
He glanced around, searching for a safe haven. They had passed the upstream end of the long island and Huy was leaning into tTie rudder, swinging the craft across the current that would carry them downstream to the landing of the island fortress. Bak doubted the skiff would stay afloat that distance.
Opening to their right was the channel that formed the back side of the island where the fortress stood, its course split at first by two small islands, rocky outcrops too low and craggy to support more than a few scraggly bushes. Beyond the larger of the two flowed a single channel, its waters boiling and angry, tumbling over and through and down a fresh set of rapids.
"Swing us in close to those islands." Bak kept his voice cool and calm, soothing he hoped.
"Is something wrong?" Huy demanded. "We've a small leak. I'd like to…"
A sharp crack of breaking wood cut him short. The stanchion holding the rudder collapsed. The rudder twisted in Huy's hand, breaking the notch holding it against the stern. The boat took on a life of its own, swinging sideways is the channel, out of control. Huy stared appalled at the useless rudder, the color draining from his face.