by Lauren Haney
The trail, which had been heavily trodden through the years, was not difficult for a man accustomed to strenuous activity, but the heat was pervasive, with not a breath of air to offer relief. Bak feared for Ani, the most likely among them to suffer from the climb.
He examined the barren landscape around them. The deep defiles, the steep slopes, a total absence of vegetation. A land endowed by the gods with turquoise and then abandoned to the lord Set. The sandstone was a different shade of red than that of the granite peaks in the Eastern Desert. Where those had had a pinkish cast, the stone here was tinted with gold, as if burned by a fire from within as well as by the sun without.
Psuro, following Bak on up the trail, continued their con versation as if it had not been interrupted. “Do you think one of them the guilty man, sir? You haven’t said.”
“I believe the man who’s been watching us the most likely slayer. Whether someone among us is his ally, I can’t say.”
“You speak of the man you and Nebre followed into the mountains.”
“The one who led us into the mountains, you mean.” Bak grimaced, unhappy with the memory.
“The man I should’ve slain,” growled Nebre, walking close enough to hear.
“Would he have followed us across the sea?” Psuro asked.
“A good question, Sergeant. One for which the answer eludes me.”
“I pray to the lord Amon never to have to toil in a place such as this.”
Bak smiled at the intensity in Psuro’s voice, though he agreed wholeheartedly. The mountain of turquoise was not a place where he wished to spend many hours. “You’d best check on Ani, Sergeant. He looks ill. I think the climb was too difficult for him.”
“He must drink more water, sir. He’s not taken in enough to make up for what he’s lost.”
“I’ve seen all manner of men enter the mansion of the
Lady of Turquoise,” User said, joining them. He handed the
Medjay a waterbag. “Get him inside, into the shade. If any one complains, send him to me.”
Psuro strode down a slope of coarse, hard-packed sand as red as the rocks around them. He said a few words to Kaha, standing with the weapons and goatskin waterbags they had brought from the valley camp. Together they approached the plump jeweler, who sat hunched over, his forehead on his knees, and offered him a drink. After Ani took a few careful sips, Psuro took his arm, helped him to his feet, and led him across the grit. Kaha, taking the waterbags and weapons with him, followed them around a chamber being built against the southern wall of an open court. They vanished through a side door into the mansion of the Lady of Turquoise.
Like Bak, User watched to be sure an overly officious priest did not turn the men out. “Amonmose told me of how highly regarded you were in Wawat, Lieutenant. I’m suitably impressed.”
He did not sound the least bit impressed, Bak thought.
“I’m not sure why. Since we left Kaine, three men, including one of my own, have died beneath my very nose.”
“What was your intent this morning? To make us all suspi cious of one another?”
“Any man with good sense would’ve been looking over his shoulder long ago. I believe you to be a man of good sense.”
User’s laugh held not a shred of humor. “Why do you think I agreed to bring Ani and Wensu with me into the desert? To let Amonmose and Nebenkemet come along?”
“You told me you needed additional wealth to pay for physicians,” Bak reminded him.
“I do, yes, but I much prefer traveling alone with a nomad guide. So I intended this time.” User flung Bak one of his hu morless smiles. “I must admit to a certain relief when Ani and Wensu approached me, wishing to come with me. I’d heard, as I told you before, that Ahmose had vanished. Then
Minnakht failed to reappear. Both of them explorers. It set me to thinking.”
He obviously thought himself guilty of a weakness, but
Bak called his concern commonsense. “Amonmose and
Nebenkemet must’ve been easier to accept.”
“The merchant at least knew something of the desert.”
Bak saw Kaha leaving the goddess’s mansion empty handed. He must have found a safe place to leave the weapons and waterbags out of the sun. “You seemed none too happy when we came along.”
“I didn’t know if you were friend or foe. You outnumbered us and you were better armed. If Amonmose had told me who you were…” User shrugged. “He didn’t. He kept the knowledge to himself.”
“I asked that he do so.”
The two men stood on a rise of rock-strewn red sand south of the goddess’s mansion, looking across the low walls that would one day form a large chamber being added to the building by Maatkare Hatshepsut. Ten men toiled at the wall, increasing the height of a ramp up which the next course of stones would be hauled and placed. Prisoners they were, but they chattered constantly as all men do who toil together day after day. An overseer watched, barking out orders, while a guard sat dozing in a slice of shade beside the wall. A sledge containing two large sandstone blocks stood idle on the chamber floor and seven or eight additional blocks lay ready to load. Bak guessed they had been cut the previous season and left for the new crew to place.
“Where’s that overseer, the one called Teti?” User grum bled. “I’ve no desire to spend the night up here.”
The hill on which they stood sloped from south to north, allowing them to look beyond the new chamber and the open court to what had been, many generations ago, another struc ture, now partially destroyed. Kaha had joined Wensu and the pair were walking among a dozen or so monolithic me morial tablets that rose into the sky or lay in the sand at either end of the fallen building, reminders of past kings and long ago expeditions to the mines. Now and again they stopped so
Wensu could read an inscription to the Medjay.
Beyond the building, the irregular surface of the plateau sloped toward the north until suddenly it dropped away. The high, steep cliff overlooked a deep wadi cut through the sandstone by raging waters many generations ago.
The mansion of the Lady of Turquoise, built of the reddish stone taken from the mountain, looked a part of the land around it. It was not large, four or five rooms, Bak guessed, and angled off to the south at the rear of the open court. Lieutenant Huy had told him the goddess’s shrine and that of the lord Sopdu, patron god of the eastern frontier, were cut into the rock be neath the high ground behind the structure. An impressive stand of bushes somehow managed to survive in front of the building, adding life to the hot, dry, and otherwise lifeless land.
Other than the prisoners toiling on the building and the soldiers and prisoners resting from their ordeal of carrying water and supplies up the trail, few men were visible on the tableland atop the mountain. Bak guessed that its uneven reddish surface concealed the mines and those who dug the turquoise from within. A young man wearing the long kilt of a scribe was talking with Sergeant Suemnut, and four men were approaching up a slope farther to the west.
“I thought this place would be busier,” User said, as if reading his thoughts, “an ant hill.”
“According to Huy, too large a number of men would be impossible to supply. Necessity limits the population to about a hundred and twenty.”
“Thirty prisoners came with us from the port to help build the mansion of the goddess, and I count ten men raising the ramp in the new chamber. Do you suppose our sovereign knows her generous offering to the Lady of Turquoise is be ing carried on at the expense of her mining operation?”
“Someone will have told her. From what I’ve heard, she keeps a close eye on the amount of precious minerals and stones received at the treasury. She’d question a shortage.”
User grinned. “You speak as if you don’t know her person ally, Lieutenant.”
“The earthly daughter of the lord Amon? You jest.”
Bak wondered if Amonmose had heard of his exile to
Buhen and had told the explorer. He probably had. Such tal
es were the stuff of legend, far more interesting than talk of skirmishes in the desert or the arrival at a garrison of a beau tiful young woman.
Sergeant Suemnut called out and one man of the four turned aside to join him. The sergeant pointed toward Bak and User. Words were exchanged, not all of them agreeable if the intensity of their gestures told true. The sergeant snapped out a final order and the man strode across the sand.
“I’m Teti,” he said. “Which of you is Lieutenant Bak?”
The overseer of the mines was a few years older than Bak, of medium height, and well muscled. He wore a dirty knee length kilt and carried a short baton. His snapping black eyes and the angry set of his mouth promised an interesting tour if not a pleasant one.
“This is one of our bigger mines, and at present our most productive.” Teti stopped beside a large square hole in the ground. At the bottom, a horizontal tunnel led off to the right.
“Do any of you want to go down?”
Bak knelt to look. The sound of voices could be heard is suing from the tunnel, along with the tapping of mallets on chisels. “I’m going.” He had made his expectations clear to the sergeant, and felt sure the message had been passed on.
Evidently Teti had not wished to hear.
“As are we,” Psuro said, signaling Nebre and Kaha to come forward.
“And I,” User said.
“After coming so far?” Ani rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Nor would I,” Nebenkemet said, kneeling beside Bak and looking down the shaft.
Amonmose knelt beside the carpenter. “How do we get down?”
“Are you well enough?” User asked Ani.
The jeweler, whose face remained flushed from his ardu ous climb, formed a resolute smile, took a waterbag from the
Medjay sergeant, and raised it to his lips. “Psuro was right.
The more water I drink, the better I feel.”
Openly irritated by the growing number of men who wished to accompany him, Teti frowned at Wensu. “You’re not coming, too, are you?”
The young man stared into the hole, which looked to be less than the height of two men. “Are all the mines so deep?”
“If we could find turquoise on the surface, do you think we’d be burrowing in the ground like sand rats?”
Wensu swallowed hard but refused to back off. “I wish to go down this mine, not wait until we reach the next one.”
Teti swung around, eyes blazing, but before he could argue
Bak raised a hand to silence him. “Yes, Teti. The next and the next and the next. As many as we must. The sooner we learn what we came for, the sooner you’ll be free of us.”
“I thought you wanted to know about Minnakht, not spend your time watching other men labor.”
“I want to use this day to its greatest advantage. Shall we go?”
Teti took them down what proved to be one of three shafts sunk through the reddish stone from the top of the hill to the mine below. They followed him along the short horizontal tunnel to a gallery about twenty-five paces wide and half as deep. Its floor was irregular, made uneven and treacherous by earlier excavations never filled in. The mine was better lit than most and had plenty of air. In addition to the shafts to the surface, the gallery had been cut all the way through the ridge, leaving a large opening at one end that overlooked a valley.
Nine miners were chiseling away the rock face, five within subsidiary chambers separated by walls or pillars of stone left intact to support the roof. Each chamber was taller than a man and wider, allowing plenty of space in which to search for stones embedded in the matrix. Fine dust hung in the hot air, and the miners smelled strongly of sweat. To a man, they turned around, curious to see who had come. Spotting Teti, they quickly returned to their task.
Staying well out of the way, Bak and his companions watched the men chiseling out small, careful bites of stone and letting them drop around their feet. Any turquoise they found, they cut free of the matrix and threw into pottery bowls placed nearby. At irregular intervals, ordinary work men-nomads who dwelt in the surrounding mountains,
Lieutenant Huy had said-loaded the waste into baskets and carried it away.
The miners’ task was hot, filthy, and laborious, and could be dangerous. Sweat poured from them. Their knuckles were barked, their legs and feet scabbed. These men were not pris oners. A few had come from the surrounding villages, the rest from lands much farther afield. They would receive payment in kind at the end of the mining season and would return to their homes and families wealthier men. Bak would not have exchanged places with them for any number of riches.
Amonmose caught Bak’s eye and grimaced. Psuro looked on with distaste, and Nebre muttered a few words in his own tongue, a prayer no doubt. Of them all, User, Nebenkemet, and Ani appeared the least troubled. The explorer had seen other mines and quarries, and if this offered any surprises, he gave no sign. The burly carpenter wandered around the gallery, peering closely at the walls, examining tools dulled by use and thrown aside to be resharpened, and watching the way the miners performed their task.
Ani looked around with avid interest. “How much turquoise do you get each day?”
Scowling, the overseer walked along the row of miners, picking up the bowls behind them. He brought them back and displayed their contents. Each held three or four blue green stones from the size of a pea to as big as a man’s thumbnail. “We’ve been working the mines since daybreak, three hours at most. When the workmen sort through the waste, they may find a few more nodules, but this looks to be a typical day.”
Ani looked disappointed. “Are the stones always so small?”
“Most, yes, but now and again…” Teti glared at him be neath lowered brows. “I suppose next you’ll want to see all we’ve recovered since our last delivery to the port.”
Ani’s already flushed face turned even redder. “I mean no disrespect, sir, but I earn my daily bread by making jewelry, toiling in the workshop at the royal house. I’ve seen a few large stones, yes, but I longed to see them here, in the place where they…” His voice tailed off, his expression wistful.
“You make jewelry for our sovereign?” Teti eyed the chunky little man with interest-and a new respect. “I never thought to meet such a man. Certainly not out here in this des olate land.” A smile blossomed and he ushered Ani to a shal low chamber near the deepest end of the gallery, “You must see this, sir. It’s the most promising vein we’re following.”
User winked at Bak and they hurried after the pair. Teti tapped the miner on the shoulder and issued an order in an unfamiliar tongue. The man stepped out of the way and the overseer motioned Ani into the chamber. Bak and the others gathered around.
Teti pointed to several blue-green lumps about the size of chickpeas, all more than a hand’s length apart, embedded in a diagonal line down the wall. “It doesn’t look like much, I know, but I’ve a feeling about this vein. I think we’ll get some good pieces out of here.”
“Could I have one of these?” Ani asked, running his fin gers along the row of stones.
Teti looked taken aback. “I’m sorry, sir. If I gave away bits of turquoise to everyone who asked…” He paused, laughed.
“Why not? They’re neither large nor especially precious.” He turned to the miner, hesitated, asked Ani, “Would you not prefer a bigger and more perfect stone? We can pick one out from among those we mined earlier this week.”
“I want this piece, one I’ve seen in its natural state. In fact…” Ani’s plea faltered, then took on a new strength.
“Could I have the sandstone around it, with the turquoise en closed within?”
They visited a dozen other mines. One was more than twenty paces across, lined with small galleries in which men were chippping away the stone. Another was thirty paces wide and half as deep, cut on two levels, with the men fol lowing layers of reddish sandstone sandwiched between bands of yellow stone. They descended a sloping shaft barely large
enough to admit a man bent over, where they found a solitary miner. A couple of mines were shallow, gaping mouths whose rough stone faces occupied men fortunate enough to toil in the open air. Much of the roof had recently fallen in an older mine, making access impossible, and a cloud of squeaking bats forced retreat from a small but deep shaft.
All the while, Nebenkemet hovered close to their guide.
His first few questions verified Bak’s initial impression that he was more interested in the mining process than in the turquoise. Teti, who must have reached the same conclusion, began to divide his attention between the craftsman and Ani.
Bak watched with interest this man who seldom spoke but sometimes revealed hidden depths.
As they walked from one mine to another, they passed sev 238
Lauren Haney eral tall memorial tablets left by long-dead kings whose de sire for the blue-green stone was as great if not greater than that of Maatkare Hatshepsut. Teti pointed out the small quar ries from which sandstone was taken for the mansion of the
Lady of Turquoise and a multitude of open-air shrines where the men bent a knee to their gods.
They peeked into long-abandoned mines, some shallow, others deeper and more heavily shadowed, which had been converted to rough dwellings by the miners and prisoners.
Stones outside, etched with unfamiliar symbols, identified the team of men who had laid claim to each shelter and dwelt within. Similar stones identified old mines converted to stor age magazines and the shaft the scribe had taken as his own.
The whole formed a small village of poor dwellings and storehouses better identified and therefore easier to find than those in the capital city of Waset.
They shared a brief, inadequate midday meal of bread and beer in the shaded opening of a storage magazine. By that time, the supplies and water had been safely stowed away, so Suem nut ate with them. Lieutenant Nebamon had told him to remain atop the mountain until Bak was satisfied he had seen enough, but the sergeant urged them to hurry. They would descend by way of a different trail, one too dangerous to risk in poor light.
“As you can see, this place of worship is small,” Teti said, leading them through the open court in front of the mansion of the Lady of Turquoise. “Our sovereign has plans to en large it further, but I see no need. You saw the many shrines scattered over the mountaintop.”