by Lauren Haney
Bak thanked the lord Amon for the man’s strong sense of duty. “Will you go with them, Amonmose? Or will you re main with your fishing fleet on this side of the sea?”
The merchant spread his hands wide in a gesture of indeci sion. “Only when my men can safely return to their camp can Nebenkemet build huts and another boat. We could wait, but should we?” He flung a rueful smile at Bak. “If I thought you were close to laying hands on the slayer, Lieutenant…”
“I suggest the two of you cross the Eastern Sea with User,”
Bak said, side-stepping the question.
The merchant eyed him with open curiosity. “That sounds ominous, as if you think never to snare the vile criminal.”
Bak failed to rise to the bait. Instead he said to User, “Once our sovereign’s ships are loaded, they’ll not tarry. If they sail a day or two after your arrival, as I believe they will, I’ll not reach the port in time to board. I’ll need another way of crossing the sea.” His eyes darted toward Amonmose and he flashed a smile. “A fishing boat perhaps.”
The merchant grinned, acknowledging his failure to learn more. “How large a boat will you need?”
“One big enough to carry four or five passengers, the fastest in your fleet.”
“The moment we reach the port, I’ll speak with Nufer.
You’ll find his boat and crew awaiting you.”
User looked with a marked lack of enthusiasm toward
Bak’s camp, where Minmose and Kaha were packing their belongings, while Psuro and Nebre examined the three don keys on which they would carry weapons, water, and sup plies to the oasis where they hoped to find Minnakht. “You’re taking all your men with you?”
“Minmose will remain with you and will see that our don keys are transported back across the sea. Kaha has an errand that will take him to another destination. Psuro and Nebre will travel with me.”
User grunted, in no way comforted.
“I doubt we’ll be more than three or four days behind you,” Bak said. “I’ve been told there are wells at the near end of the southern trail and a village of sorts called Tjau. A con tingent of soldiers, their task to check all who come and go along that route, dwell there, along with a few nomads and camp followers. I suggest you wait for us there.”
“If we wait, we’ll lose the safety of the caravan.”
Bak realized that he had to give them an incentive to delay, had to rouse their curiosity. “With luck and the help of the lord Amon, I expect by then to have found the answers to all your questions and mine.”
The caravan set out at dusk. The trek to the copper mines was short and the donkeys, carrying nothing but the food and water needed for the return journey to the port, made good time in the cooler hours of night. What could have been a single load of turquoise was, for safety’s sake, divided up and concealed among the more mundane objects on the backs of a half-dozen animals.
A small forest of widely spaced acacias dotted the floor of the wadi that served as the center of copper production in the area. They camped a short distance from the trees and away from the well-to keep the donkeys out of the overseer’s gar den, Nebamon explained. Bak walked with him through the night to a grove of palm trees rising above a dark drystone hut. Along the way, they passed a cluster of interconnected stone huts in which the workmen dwelt and several slag heaps that marred the simple beauty of the moonlit water course. The cool night air smelled of dust and goats and of a tangy plant he could not identify.
Nenwaf, overseer of the copper works, roused himself from his sleeping mat and welcomed them with a broad smile and a gush of words. His nomad wife barely made an appearance and that not a happy one, but his five small chil dren leaped from their sleeping mats and rushed to Neba mon’s side for the treats they had come to expect each time he passed through. With faces and hands sticky from the honey cakes they quickly devoured, they hovered around, staring wide-eyed at the two officers talking with their father.
The next morning, the garrulous overseer escorted Bak and the men in User’s party over the surrounding hillsides, delighted to show off his domain. The mines, scattered throughout the area and especially abundant in the next wadi to the east, were much like those on the mountain of turquoise but were more widespread, more abundant, and larger. Here, too, the miners were men from afar, come to toil for Maatkare Hatshepsut and the generous earnings they would take back to their faroff homes. From shafts penetrat ing deep into the hillsides, narrow galleries followed the ore, often widening into underground halls. The tunnels formed complicated networks through which the heavy loads of ore had to be dragged and, in the end, lifted up to the surface.
Ani and Nebenkemet asked a multitude of questions, and
Nenwaf immediately warmed to them both. Unlike Teti, he allowed Ani to sort through the piles of malachite brought to the surface and take as many chunks of the bright green stone as he wished. It was less valuable than turquoise and not as appealing to the eye. Nonetheless, the pudgy jeweler avidly picked up one chunk of rock and another, filling the filthy square of cloth he carried. When he had a good-sized collec tion, he spread them out on the ground and sorted through them, ultimately saving just two or three choice pieces.
As the morning wore on, Nebenkemet’s knowledge of mining became ever more apparent and Nenwaf began to speak to him on equal terms. Bak was intrigued. He doubted
Amonmose would have brought this man into the desert if he thought him unable to build huts and a boat, but he was no simple carpenter.
After a midday meal of bread and beer supplemented with green onions and cucumbers harvested from Nenwaf’s gar den, the overseer led them across the wadi floor past slag heaps containing greenish black lumps of malachite from which much of the copper had been drained. On the hillside beyond, he escorted them to a dozen furnaces where men toiled in the heat. He stopped at one of the few not being worked. It had recently been used, he explained, and had been left to cool. A pile of greenish rock, crushed for easier smelting, lay beside the furnace.
“As you can see,” Nenwaf said, “we’re using the latest methods of extracting the ore from the stone.”
Nebenkemet hovered close, hands clasped behind his back, studying the clay-lined pit dug into the hillside. Rather than the more common goatskin bellows on which men stood to pump air into the furnace, the newer pot bellows were used. Here, a leather top on the flared opening of a pottery nozzle could be pumped up and down by hand or by foot, blowing air into the furnace to make it burn hotter, allowing for a more efficient production of copper from stone.
“By locating the pit on the hillside,” Nenwaf said, “we can take full advantage of the wind that usually blows up the wadi, causing the fire to burn more fiercely.”
“What do you place in the furnace to aid in the separation process?” Nebenkemet asked.
“Several materials found locally.”
Nenwaf went on to discuss the process in detail. As far as
Bak could tell, the method was cruder than that employed at the fortress of Buhen to smelt gold, but similar. He glanced at his companions. Other than User, who looked a bit bored, all but Nebenkemet appeared overwhelmed by the description.
The carpenter followed the overseer’s explanation with no trouble and at times asked questions as difficult to compre hend as were the answers.
Bak was about ready to shout “Enough!” when the over seer pointed out the shallow pit flanked by stones in front of a hole in the base of the furnace. At the bottom, a lump of molten copper had begun to congeal as it cooled.
Ushering them on, Nenwaf showed them every phase of the process: men crushing the stone, loading the furnaces, operating the bellows. If User had not noticed that a long line of donkeys was being led to the place where the ingots were stored for transport, the overseer would probably have gone on for the rest of the day.
As they walked back toward the caravan, Bak drew
Nebenkemet aside. “Who are you, Nebenkemet? What are you?”
“You may well be a carpenter, but you’ve a knowledge of mining that few men can claim. You grasped every word Teti said, and while Nenwaf’s explanation was beyond my under standing, you spoke with him on equal terms.”
During the ensuing silence, a breeze rustled the leaves of an acacia and a desert lark sang its solitary song. The blow ing and complaining of donkeys marked the progress of the loading, along with the shouts of soldiers and an occasional laugh.
“I’ve a natural curiosity, that’s all.”
“No.”
Nebenkemet swung around to face him, his mistrust ap parent, his dislike for what Bak represented if not for the man himself. “I’ve known other men like you, Lieutenant. Quick to charge a man with some foul deed and quicker yet to take away his life, sending him far away from home and family, ofttimes to his death.”
Smothering resentment at so offensive an assumption, Bak kept his voice level, unemotional. “You were a prisoner,” he guessed.
“You may as well speak the truth,” Amonmose said, hurry ing up to lay a hand on Nebenkemet’s shoulder. “You know nothing of pretense. A blind man could’ve seen that you know as much if not more about mining and smelting than
Nenwaf himself.”
Nebenkemet shook off the hand and glared at Bak. “Do you think to accuse me of slaying the men who’ve died since we set out from Kaine?”
“I seek the truth, nothing more.”
Amonmose hovered close as if he feared they would clash.
“I believe the lieutenant to be a fair man, Nebenkemet. If you say nothing, he’ll be bound to believe the worst.”
“He’ll think the worst no matter what I say.”
“Are you in truth a carpenter?” Bak demanded. “Or are you a miner?”
“Tell him,” Amonmose urged.
“The knowledge may not help me find the slayer,” Bak said, “but if it serves to eliminate a single individual-you I’ll be one step closer to snaring that vile criminal. Closer to saving the life of yet another man who might stand in the way of his dagger.”
Nebenkemet looked at Bak and at his friend, his defiance slowly crumpling, turning to indecision.
“What you’ve done in the past is of no concern to me.”
Bak veered around the branch of an acacia. “I came into this desert with a task to perform, and that I mean to do. I’ve no interest in anything other than that.”
Nebenkemet glanced at Amonmose for support, received a quick nod of encouragement. Staring straight ahead, into the past, he said, “I labored in a shipyard in Mennufer, appren ticed to a boat builder. Young and foolish, thinking to make myself look more of a man, I stole a small bauble for a woman I coveted. I was caught within the hour.” He glanced again at Amonmose, who urged him on with a concerned smile. “I was sentenced to spend four years toiling in a mine in the desert east of Abu. Unlike my fellow prisoners, I liked mining, and I had a nose for following the veins of ore. The overseer raised me to the level of assistant and asked me to stay when my punishment ended. I refused.” He expelled a bitter laugh. “I thought to return to my old life in the shipyard in Mennufer, but my master turned me away. I was a crimi nal, a man who couldn’t be trusted.”
Amonmose, seeing his friend’s distress, took up the tale.
“I knew Nebenkemet as a youth. When I came upon him in a house of pleasure, angry and besotted, talking of revenge, I took him away and washed the beer from him. When I heard his tale, I asked him to come with me.”
“So here I am, a prisoner of another sort.” Nebenkemet laughed softly. “A man more besotted with the desert, the quiet and the solitude, than with any woman I’ll ever meet.”
Bak smiled. He believed the tale, that Nebenkemet had been punished as a thief. Would he slay a man-and another and another? He had lived a hard life, to be sure, but from what Bak had seen through the long journey across the desert, he was as steady as a man could be, easygoing, unen cumbered by pride, a man who took pleasure in the simple things. Greed and the quest for gold were not a part of him.
“You remained behind for a purpose, Lieutenant?”
Nenwaf, seated on a mudbrick bench in the shade of the palm grove, glanced at the five children straggling up the wadi. The two largest, both girls, carried a basket between them, sharing its weight. They had followed the caravan to collect the dung dropped by the donkeys. The manure they had picked up, along with the waste the animals had left at the camp, would be formed into flat, round cakes and laid out to dry for use as fuel.
“Do you recall the explorer Minnakht?” Bak sat on a fallen palm trunk facing the overseer, while Psuro rested a shoulder against a tree.
“How could I forget?” Nenwaf offered Bak a handful of dates. “He seemed a fine man and was a joy to speak with.”
“Did he say why he came?”
“To see the mining and smelting.” The overseer smiled at the memory. “He wished to know all there was to know about following the veins of ore while at the same time keeping the tunnels safe, and he was most interested in the furnaces and in the way we take the metal from the stone. Other than
Nebenkemet, I’ve known few men to ask so many apt ques tions.” He laid the dates in a pile on the bench beside him.
“He wanted also to visit the larger mining area to the south. I assured him that the furnaces they use are outdated, as is their way of smelting the ore.”
“All the mines aren’t operated in a similar manner?” Bak asked, surprised.
“The southern wadis have been mined for many genera tions, far longer than here. The quantity of copper-rich stone is dwindling. Soon it’ll no longer be practical to send men and supplies to dig it from the earth. As a result, no attempt is made to modernize the process.” Nibbling the flesh from the seed of a date, Nenwaf eyed Bak curiously. “He seemed de termined to go there, so I suppose he went anyway.”
Bak was well satisfied with the information he was glean ing and Nenwaf lived a singularly uninteresting life. To sat isfy the man’s curiosity was small reward. “Because it was so late in the season, Lieutenant Puemre wouldn’t supply a guide. He urged him to wait at the port until the final caravan came in from the south. Minnakht did wait, and Puemre be lieves he spoke with the overseer.”
“I trust he learned enough to make the wait worthwhile.”
Bak gave him a sharp look. “You don’t believe he did?”
A small naked boy climbed onto Nenwaf’s lap, while an other child laid her head on his thigh. A boy of four or so years ran to Psuro and chattered in a mixture of tongues picked up from the miners and those who smelted the ore.
The two older girls had carried the basket to the hut, where their mother sat on the ground, grinding grain for bread.
“He wished also to learn about the mining and processing of gold.” Nenwaf adjusted his legs beneath the child’s bony bottom. “I could tell him nothing except that I suspect the ef fort is much the same as here. I doubt anyone else in this god forsaken land knows any more than I do. We seek turquoise and copper, not the more precious metal.”
Bak exchanged a quick glance with Psuro, who had never allowed the demands of the child to distract him from the adult conversation. “Minnakht was an explorer, an adven turer who wandered the Eastern Desert in search of precious stones and minerals. Did it not surprise you that he showed so great an interest in such mundane tasks as digging out the ore and smelting it?”
“I’ve met men like him before. Men who have a natural curiosity about the world around them. I took his questions for granted.”
“I’ve never met him, but from what I’ve been told, he was liked and admired by all who knew him. He evidently drew men to him, made each see what he wanted to see. Every man
I’ve questioned has given me a different description.” He eyed the overseer curiously. “How did you see him, Nenwaf?”
“Nenwaf’s description of Minnakht was very much l
ike that of Teti. As far as I could tell, neither was colored by Min nakht’s charm or adventurous spirit,” Bak said, glancing up at the stars to be sure they were traveling north as they should be. He did not mistrust the nomad guide Huy had loaned them, but should anything happen to that guide, he thought it best that they know exactly where they were.
Psuro, trudging along at his side, said, “They’re both prac tical men, too knowledgeable to be swayed by what might be taken as flattery.”
“Unlike the men in User’s party.” Nebre, walking a few paces ahead with the guide, led their three donkeys.
Bak studied the wadi along which they were walking. The bright, clear moonlight made the sand glow and deepened the shadows on the stony hillsides. What had looked in the sunlight to be bright, multicolored mounds and plateaus were flat and dull in the lesser light. An army could be hidden along the slopes and remain undetected.
“I know we’re traveling to the oasis because you believe
Minnakht is there,” Nebre said, shifting the strap of the quiver hanging from his shoulder, “but why would he follow us across the sea?”
Psuro grunted agreement. “Why would he approach us, for that matter, then hide himself as if he doesn’t trust us?”
As before, Bak eyed the slopes to either side, assuring himself that they were too far away for a man to hear what he had to say. “When he failed to appear on the shore of the
Eastern Sea as he vowed he would, a thought struck me, one
I couldn’t shake. Since then, I’ve asked a multitude of ques tions and have gleaned innumerable answers, many of which have strengthened that thought. It’s time I told you of my conclusion and of what I plan. Go tell our guide to walk on ahead. What I have to say is for your ears alone.”
“Listen to the night birds, the squeak of bats,” Nebre said, studying the oasis they were approaching. “I’ll wager he’s not here.”
Bak stared at the long, irregular row of palm trees and tamarisks. What appeared to be a tangle of undergrowth lay partially concealed within the deep shadows beneath the trees. He had hoped to arrive before the moon dropped so low, but his revelations to Psuro and Nebre had taken time, and the hour they had spent refining his plan had been well worthwhile. Now, with the darkness so deep, he mistrusted the oasis and the shelter it offered. Anyone camped there would have heard their approach. Common sense urged him to proceed with caution.