Flesh of the God lb-7

by Lauren Haney

  “Five.” Bak closed his eyes as if to blind himself to the truth. “I expected one or two, but so many?” His eyes popped open. “Eighteen were with us at Nofery’s house, as were you and Psuro. Why were the others not in their barracks, sleeping? For the love of Amon, it was the middle of the night!”

  “Ruru was there, alone. He stayed lest anyone come to report an offense. Amonemopet went to a village across the river to meet a woman. The others walked the streets, waiting to hear how the raid went. At so late an hour, they saw few men, none they recognized.”

  “Five men,” Bak repeated in a gloomy voice. “Nofery will exact a heavy toll, I fear. She’ll not only turn her heart from the bargain we made, but she’ll expect many favors in return.”

  “When will you go to her?”

  Bak’s mouth set into a thin, stubborn line. “Not until I must.” He crossed to the stairway and sat on the bottom step. “Where’s Hori?”

  “He went to the sentries’ barracks to speak with the men on guard duty that night, but I believe the time he spends will be like dust thrown to the winds. When Mery and I asked what they saw, they mentioned only the brawlers and the Medjays who took them to the commandant’s residence. They could see no faces from so long a distance.”

  Bak stared at nothing, thinking. “The three who claimed to walk the streets. Did they return to our barracks with or soon after the men who escorted the rabble?”

  “They didn’t come back until almost dawn.”

  Bak laid the baton on his lap, planted his elbows on his knees, and looked at Imsiba over clasped hands. “What does that suggest to you?”

  Imsiba’s eyes narrowed. “Their reason for leaving the barracks had nothing to do with the raid.”

  “Talk to them, Imsiba. Use a cudgel if you must. Do whatever you feel necessary to get the truth from them.” Bak’s expression hardened. “And pray that whatever they did that night, they were seen by other men far, far away from the commandant’s residence.”

  Bak hurried outside the towered gate, where he was greeted by the laughter of five small boys playing leapfrog on the upper terrace. Shading his eyes to spare them the fierce sunlight, he studied the vessels moored at the quay, a half dozen fishing skiffs and three ships.

  He eyed with loathing the largest and closest, the military transport which had docked the previous morning. The stern and prow were adorned with paintings of the lord Montu, the god of war. The large centrally located deckhouse was painted in a bright herringbone pattern of blue and green and red. The mast was bare, the rectangular sail spread across the deck while two men repaired a large, jagged tear. A sailor wearing a loincloth sat fishing at the stern, legs dangling over the side.

  The other two ships were cargo vessels with heavy, rounded hulls; unadorned stern posts and stems; tall, sturdy, naked masts. One, tied across the quay from the transport, was being off-loaded and its cargo of grain carried into the fortress by an antlike line of bearers bent double beneath the heavy bags. Farther along the quay, a half-dozen gaily dressed men from the land of Kush, far to the south, stood with twenty or more long-horned pale brown cows beside a vessel on whose deck had been built the wooden stalls in which the animals would travel. From the fine appearance of men and beasts, Bak guessed a tribal chieftain was taking the cattle to Kemet as tribute for Maatkare Hatshepsut.

  Bak spotted Kames, the scribe he was looking for, standing at the far end of the quay, talking with a burly man tanned the deep russet of a seaman. He gave the two of them a hostile look. He should be with his Medjays, helping with the search. Instead, thanks to Tetynefer’s blind resolve that he and Azzia soon travel to Ma’am, here he was, in search of information he would badly need should they not find the man they sought.

  He hastened along the smooth stone surface of the quay, passing the line of bearers. Sweat trickled down the men’s near-naked bodies; their pungent odor filled his nostrils. The heavy scent of grain made him sneeze. Beyond, he wove a path through the cattle, the tribesmen, and several large malodorous mounds of manure that buzzed with flies. Hearing raised voices from the pair farther along the quay, he stopped a few paces short of them.

  “I don’t care what you do,” the burly man shouted. “You can report me to the viceroy if you like, or to Maatkare Hatshepsut herself. But I’m the captain of that ship, and I’ll not leave this quay until the hull is recaulked.”

  “You must!” Kames insisted. “The ore is expected in Abu by the end of next week.” He was a white-haired man, half a head taller than the captain and so thin his knee-length kilt threatened to slide off his frail hips. He was the chief scribe, responsible for ore shipments entering and leaving Buhen.

  “The promise was yours, not mine,” the captain snarled.

  “You said yourself the leak isn’t serious.”

  “Listen to me, Kames, and listen good. The leak is small, yes, but if the wind blows like it sometimes does at this time of year, and if we’re blown onto the rocks with water in the hull and a heavy load of copper, we’ll lose everything: ship, cargo, and men. I won’t do it!”

  He swung around and strode past Bak, muttering to himself. Kames, his mouth pursed in anger, marched stiffly after him.

  Bak stepped into his path. “I must speak to you, Kames.”

  The scribe eyed him with distaste. “You’re Bak. The policeman.”

  “I came to Buhen with the Medjays, yes.”

  “I’ve already told that sergeant of yours that all my clerks reported for duty this morning. What more do you want?”

  Bak could see he had approached Kames at the worst possible time. “I need information about the gold that passes through this city.”

  “What business is that of yours? You were sent here to maintain order within these walls. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  Bak silently cursed the man-and himself. He must learn to find reasons before wading into waters forbidden to him. He formed an impatient frown and improvised. “Commandant Nakht asked me to test the ways we protect the gold shipments. His death does not excuse me from completing this or any other task he gave me.”

  Kames hesitated, not entirely convinced, but finally nodded. “Come!” He turned on his heel and led Bak to the end of the quay, well out of hearing distance of the men from Kush.

  The surface of the river was silvery gray, as smooth as a mirror and as reflective. The sun hung high in the sky, its white-hot image repeated on the water. Three fishing skiffs, their sails limp, drifted along the distant shore, a broad line of green separating tawny sandhills from water. Bak could barely see two tiny figures kneeling at the river’s edge, women washing clothing or drawing water.

  Glancing toward the Kushites as if to reassure himself he would not be heard, Kames said, “The commandant was worried about the gold, he said as much. I assured him, as I do you, that he had no reason for concern.”

  Bak kept his expression noncommittal, though the news that he was following Nakht’s path to the stolen gold was reassuring. “Can you say with certainty that not one grain has been lost during the past…” He paused, pretended to pick a number from the air. “The past two years?”

  Kames stared down his long, bony nose. “Surely Nakht told you about the desert raiders.”

  “He mentioned them, yes. He was busy, however, so he suggested I get the details from you.” Bak prayed the lady Maat would forgive his lies.

  “I can give you no specific weights of the gold they’ve taken. The records are in my office, not in my heart, but I can tell you this: none but the wildest desert tribesmen are bold enough to attack our caravans. They seldom get more than five or six donkeys, and, more often than not, the animals they take are carrying food or water rather than gold.”

  “What do they do with the ore?” Bak asked. “Make trinkets for themselves or use it for trade?”

  “It goes through many hands, I’ve been told.” Kames allowed himself a faint smile. “In the end it’s brought back to us.”

  “Is its source never
questioned?”

  “The lord Re chose to scatter bits of his golden flesh in many of the wadis in this barren land. Most tribesmen look for it; those with the gift of patience find it. They and the raiders alike trade it for necessities. Those who receive it trade it off to other men. So it goes until ultimately it falls into the hands of the chief-tains, who accept it with a smile and ask no questions. Well aware that Maatkare Hatshepsut hungers for gold, they bring it to us, either as a trade item or as tribute for the royal house in Waset.”

  Bak shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another. Could a local chieftain have given Nakht the ingot Azzia found? “Do you personally receive and weigh every ingot that passes through Buhen?”

  “Did the commandant tell you nothing?” When Bak failed to answer, Kames expelled a long, resigned sign and spoke as if to a schoolboy. “The gold is brought to me, yes, and weighed and recorded. As for ingots…” His snort was sharp, cynical. “The chieftains of Kush more often than not melt the gold and form it into rings. The tribesmen of Wawat don’t understand the principles of smelting nor do they bother with molds. Some bring nuggets they find in the wadis or the granules they wash from the rock. Those with larger quantities heat it, melt it, and throw it into water, where it forms rough kernels. It’s easier to transport that way, with less chance of losing the smaller grains.”

  Bak turned away lest the sharp-eyed scribe read the satisfaction on his face. Nakht had, without doubt, gotten the ingot from someone inside Buhen. “Other than to raiders, is gold ever lost after it falls into our hands?”

  “I see no way. As I told Nakht, men of proven honesty weigh it again and again, from the time it’s taken from the rock until it’s delivered to the royal treasury in Waset.”

  Bak stared across the glistening river, his eyes on the opposite bank, his thoughts on another maxim of Maiherperi: Even an honest man will alter the balance of the scales if his hunger for wealth is great enough. “Weights can be made to lie.”

  Kames flung him a resentful look. “I’m responsible for those weights, young man, and I can assure you that they do not lie.”

  “I don’t question your honor, Kames.” Bak gave him a placating smile. “Merely the steps we take to ensure the gold’s safety.”

  Not entirely mollified, Kames said, “I keep a set of master weights of proven accuracy. With them, I test all other sets at least twice a year.”

  “Do you go to the mines yourself?”

  “I do no such thing! My responsibilities are here, not out on the burning sands.” Kames unbent enough to explain, “Every few weeks or months, in no regular pattern, I send out sets of weights I know are true, and those at the mines are returned to me.”

  “You leave nothing to chance,” Bak said, his tone admiring. The system seemed to have no fault. Nonetheless, one had to exist. How else could the gold have been stolen?

  Kames’s face relaxed in a modest smile. “I try to think as a thief, and then I take precautions so even I would fail.”

  Bak laughed, appreciative of the technique. With a fading smile, he said, “The miners are all vile criminals, men who’ve been convicted of offending the lady Maat. Are there no thieves among them?”

  Kames’s answer was lost to the angry bellow of a cow followed by laughter. Bak glanced at the cattle ship, where a lanky tribesman decked out in his traveling finery, a fringed red wrap and necklaces, bracelets, and anklets of copper, stood on the narrow wooden gangplank, trying to pull after him a cow whose hooves were planted firmly on the quay. She bawled, swept her head back and forth. A slender youth in yellow and red smacked the beast’s flank with a whip. She refused to budge. Another man, older and heavier, bent low behind the cow and hissed so much like a snake that a chill ran up Bak’s spine. Bellowing her alarm, the beast charged headlong up the gangplank. A lightning-quick leap to the deck saved her owner from being pitched into the river. He caught the rope, pulled her up short, and shook his fist at her in mock anger. The Kushites on the quay laughed so hard tears ran from their eyes. Their high spirits were infectious, and Bak and Kames joined in.

  As the second cow walked sedately up the gangplank, Kames’s smile waned. “A clever miner might take for himself a small amount of ore before it’s weighed, but few try.” He pointed toward the distant sandhills, where the shimmering sun-struck dunes seemed to dissolve into the molten sky. “The land you see there is baked and lifeless, the wadis where gold is found are far worse. The lord Re burns the heart from the miners, sometimes taking their wits as well, sometimes their lives. Gold loses its value when life itself is at stake.”

  Kames’s sympathy for men forced to endure such hardships was apparent. If this man, who had insisted on sending a ship out when it needed recaulking, could feel such compassion, the miners’ lives must be very hard indeed. He thought of the ingot hidden beneath his sleeping pallet and the sweat chilled on his back. Every day he kept it made any explanation he could offer more difficult to believe. If he was judged a thief, he too would be sent to the mines-or worse. He and his men had to catch the one who had ransacked Azzia’s home. They had to! But what if they never found him?

  His resolve to keep the ingot weakened and he fished for an opening. “If I were to tell you someone has been stealing gold for over a year, what would you say?”

  “Impossible!” Kames laughed at what he took to be a joke. “For as long as I’ve been in Buhen, three years and two seasons, the weights of the ore leaving the mines have matched exactly the weights received at the smelters. The same is true of the ingots shipped from here to Waset.”

  Bak opened his mouth, quickly clamped it shut. To speak to Kames would be foolish. He must be patient. He must wait until they caught the fugitive. Or until they were certain they would never catch him. Then he would report the ingot to Tetynefer, not to this man who was responsible for the accuracy of the weights.

  “Officer Bak!”

  He looked down the quay, saw the husky figure of Pashenuro, one of his Medjays, burst from among the half-dozen cattle waiting to be loaded.

  “You must come at once, sir!” Pashenuro’s body glistened with sweat, his breath came out in short, quick gasps. “Imsiba has a message from Dedu, the headman of the village beyond the north gate. A man has been pulled from the river. He’s dead. Stabbed, so Dedu says.”

  Bak and Imsiba paused at the top of a sloping path which cut through a low, sandy ridge lying between the river and a mudbrick village whose area was smaller than that of the dozen or more brush-enclosed donkey paddocks built off to one side. Two Medjays, one carrying a rolled-up litter on his shoulder, drew up beside them. At the far end of the slope where the water lapped the shore, thirty or more men, women, and children stared at the patch of ground they encircled, speaking in hushed voices. He could see nothing of the body in their midst.

  The message had been vague, but he knew the headman would not have summoned him if a villager had been slain. The victim had to be a man of Kemet. Could Azzia’s thrust with the spear have been more deadly than it appeared? He thought not. The wound had been ugly but not lethal. No brawls had been reported, no arguments between two men, and no troops had gone missing from the garrison. Maybe the body had washed downstream from one of the fortresses along the Belly of Stones.

  Praying it was so, praying the fugitive they sought was in Buhen, alive and able to confess his offenses, Bak strode down the path, a track of hard-packed sand mottled with manure. Imsiba and the others followed in a ragged line. A woman spotted them and spouted a warning in the tongue of Wawat. The murmurs of the villagers tapered off. The circle parted to let a wizened old man come through.

  “I am Dedu, the headman,” he said. “It was I who summoned you, sir.”

  Before the group closed behind the old man, Bak glimpsed the waxen body. It looked intact, undamaged, not yet bloated. It had not been long in the water. He longed for a closer look, but forced himself to be patient. Headmen moved at their own speed, and he did not want to alienate a man whose goo
dwill might be useful, if not this day, perhaps another in the future.

  He forced a genial smile and, barely aware of the curious faces behind the old man, clasped both of Dedu’s gnarled hands in greeting. “Who found this man, Dedu, and where?”

  Dedu spoke a command in his own tongue. A small, frail boy no more than six years of age slipped from between two older youths and came forward. He stared at his feet, too shy to speak.

  The old man placed a hand on the boy’s scrawny shoulder. “This child brought his father’s animals to the river to drink. He saw the body caught among the reeds.”

  Dedu pointed downstream, where a herd of black goats nibbled, untended, at a narrow band of grass growing from the mud along the bank. A few paces farther, near a thick stand of reeds, a red bullock and five cows stood belly-deep in the water. Brown birds twittered around their heads, necks, and backs, harvesting the parasites from their hide.

  “He called to his brothers,” Dedu said, nodding toward the two older boys. “They waded out and brought the dead one to the shore. An hour ago. No more.”

  “Do you or any of your people know his name?”

  “No.” Dedu pulled his yellow wrap closer around his stringy arms. “Before I summoned you, I asked every man and woman. He’s a stranger to them all.”

  “You’re certain they told the truth?”

  Dedu stared at Bak, measuring him as a man. Evidently deciding him worthy, he said, “If I were not, he’d be feeding the fishes far downstream from this village.”

  Bak had to smile at the old man’s candor. “You could’ve allowed the current to carry him off anyway. By doing so, you might’ve saved yourself and your people from suspicion.”

  “We trust in the laws of Kemet,” the old man said, his expression grave.

  When it suits your purpose, Bak thought, as it does when you know for a fact you’ll not be blamed. “A messenger came to you at sunrise. He described a man we’ve been seeking. Could this be him?” He prayed fervently that such was not the case.