by Lauren Haney
Bak turned his attention to a square pavilion roofed with reed mats which stood before the long unprotected wall to the left. The light structure shaded the scribe, a fleshy young man with thick, curly brown hair. Seated on a stool before a low table on which stood a bronze scale, he placed stone weights in a pan suspended from one arm of the device to match the weight of a pottery cone lying in the pan hanging from the opposite arm. The cone’s broad end was plugged with dried clay. Four glittering gold ingots lay on a low mudbrick platform beside his right leg.
Bak’s eyes lingered on the ingots, the same width and breadth of the one hidden in his bedchamber but at least two fingers thicker. The wealth they represented took his breath away. “Why weigh the cone?”
“It’s filled with ore,” Neferperet said. “It comes that way from the mines.”
The scribe pointed to three identical numbers inked on the baked clay and spoke in the same offhand manner as men who weighed nothing more precious than grain or lentils or onions. “These are the weights recorded when the cone was filled, when it was handed over to the caravan officer, and when he delivered it to the treasury here in Buhen. The weight I find now should be the same.”
“What of the ingots?” Bak prompted. “Have they been weighed?”
“After they cooled.” The scribe waved away a fly that had settled on a pristine bar. “They’ll be weighed again when we deliver them to the treasury before nightfall.”
And the weight found there, Bak thought, is verified over and over until the gold is safely stored in the royal treasury in Waset. Which means these weights are accurate, just as Kames said. How then could Heby have taken gold? Minute quantities, perhaps, but not the large amount indicated in the scrolls Nakht left with Azzia. With an imperceptible sigh, he looked from one furnace to another. Maybe the answer lay in the smelting process.
“So few men work here?” he asked.
“I’ve three times the number,” Neferperet said. “I sent the others home. After we finish today, we’ve nothing more to do until another caravan delivers more ore. One was expected before now but…”
A wind-driven cloud of dirt rolled across the workshop, catching everyone by surprise. Bak clamped his eyes shut and covered his mouth and nose. The lean-tos crackled, the scribe coughed, a craftsman swore. The finer particles clung to sweaty faces and bodies.
The air stilled. Neferperet looked up at the dull yellow sky and his expression grew worried. “I hope, for the sake of man and beast alike, the officer in charge can find a sheltered spot before this storm reaches them. If they’re spread out along the trail and become separated, not one in ten will return.”
Bak shuddered. He had heard of the raging sand-storms on the open desert and the dire consequences of getting lost.
One of the craftsmen swallowed the last of his melon, threw the rind aside, and wiped his hands on his loincloth. Picking up a long pair of tongs, he walked to the nearest furnace and poked the gently flaming charcoal mounded inside the container.
“It’s ready,” he announced.
Neferperet hurried to the lean-to to sort through a pile of rectangular baked clay molds, each slightly smaller than an outstretched hand. Finding two he liked, he set them side-by-side on a row of bricks not far from the burning furnace. The other two craftsmen stuffed the last of the melon into their mouths.
Bak looked inside the adjacent furnace. A few pieces of charcoal glowed red each time the breeze coaxed them to life, but they would soon burn out. The third furnace, located at the center of the shorter lean-to, stood well away from the others, making it an ideal workplace for a man disliked by his fellows. Bak’s interest quickened and he strode across the workshop to stand before it. Unlike the other shelter, where everything had its own place, this was cluttered and messy.
“Was this Heby’s place?” he asked.
“It was.” Neferperet came up beside him. “He had no sense of order, as you can see.” In his hand, the goldsmith carried a round spouted pottery bowl with a flat bottom, a crucible.
Bak’s eyes drifted over tongs, rods, blowpipes, crucibles, and molds. They were strewn around the lean-to as if deposited by a whimsical wind. The furnace was cold, its charcoal ashy.
“Did you use this space today?”
Neferperet shook his head. “We had no need.”
Bak thanked the lord Amon in one breath, prayed in the next that Heby had left some sign of how he had taken gold when, according to the weights, none could be taken. He knelt to pick up a baked clay mold, a simple affair, a rectangular dish with thicker, sturdier walls than those used for cooking. Can molds be altered with no one being the wiser? he wondered.
“The furnace awaits us,” Neferperet said.
Reluctantly, Bak replaced the mold where he had found it and followed the chief goldsmith to the pavilion. He had much to learn; Heby’s workplace could wait.
A guard hurried through a flurry of blowing dust to stand with Bak in front of the scale. Neferperet knelt beside the platform on which the ingots lay and set the crucible next to them. Like the scribe, he seemed indifferent to the precious metal, but Bak, who had never before seen so much wealth, felt its lure as Heby must have.
The scribe handed a cone to Neferperet. The clay plug, Bak noted, was stamped with the seal of the royal house. The goldsmith held the cone over the crucible and, with a wooden mallet, knocked off the pointed tip. A stream of golden granules looking much like coarse sand flowed into the crucible, along with larger grains up to the size of peas and a considerable number of flakes large and small. Bak smothered the urge to reach out and let the glittering particles trickle through his fingers.
The flow stopped. Neferperet tapped the cone to eject a few more bits and laid it in a bowl of water. Any gold remaining inside, he explained, would be washed out and added to the next batch to be smelted. A second cone was poured into the crucible and a third, depositing a mound of ore reaching halfway to the rim.
The chief goldsmith rose and carried the crucible to the furnace, the guard at one elbow, Bak at the other. The workman with the tongs stoked the fuel. The other two took positions atop the bellows, standing with one foot on each of a pair, and began to march in place. As each man lifted a foot, he pulled a cord attached to the upper surface of the bellows, drawing air inside as the goatskin swelled. When he dropped the foot, the air shot through a hollow reed outlet with a pottery nozzle inserted in a hole bored through the bottom of the fuel container. The charcoal glowed, the heat became intense.
Neferperet set the crucible next to the molds on the bricks. The stoker laid his tongs aside. They cradled the crucible between two flexible wooden rods and lifted it onto the charcoal.
Sweat poured from the men marching on the bellows. The stoker added charcoal, then aimed the tip of a reed blowpipe at the fresh fuel and blew long and hard, goading the heat from it. His face grew flushed; moisture dripped from his brow. Neferperet hovered like a man awaiting his firstborn son. Bak and the guard retreated to a place where the heat was not so extreme. The wind, Bak noticed, was stronger, the gusts more frequent.
The mounded ore gradually slid away and sank into the molten liquid below. The mass turned fiery. Neferperet hovered closer, studied it with a practiced eye, pronounced it ready. The pair on the bellows halted their endless march and backed off, giving their overseer and the stoker plenty of room to shift the crucible and pour the liquid gold into the molds.
Bak was stumped. From what he had seen thus far, Heby could have taken no more than a grain or two of gold without every man in the workshop being a party to the theft-a situation he could not imagine. Two men might hold a secret forever, a half-dozen for no more than a week.
“Now we let the ingots cool,” Neferperet explained.
He glanced at the pavilion, which shuddered in a gust of wind, and began to issue orders to his men. The light structure must be dismantled before it blew away, the scribe’s belongings moved to a more substantial shelter. Heby’s place would be best,
but first the tools and vessels had to be moved out of the way.
Bak muttered an oath. Heby’s lean-to was his last hope of tracing a path to the stolen gold and the man who had slain to protect it. “I’ll clear a space,” he offered.
Ignoring the surprised look on Neferperet’s face, he strode toward the shelter. A gust of sand-laden air caught him midway. He scrunched his eyes to slits, ran the last few paces, and ducked inside. The wind lashed the roof, the palm fronds crackled, but only an erratic breeze disturbed the air below.
He quickly sorted through the clutter, his thoughts racing. A small amount of gold would be lost each time the ore was transferred from one container to another, and the weight would probably change-he had no idea how much, but at least a modest amount-when the ore was melted down. The difference between the raw and smelted metals, he had no doubt, would be well known, easily accounted for by the scribes. The total loss from beginning to end would in no way match the large amount unaccounted for in the scrolls Azzia had given him.
He retrieved five molds, all identical in shape and form, and examined them with care. They seemed impossible to alter in any way. Disappointed but unwilling to give up, he stacked them next to the wall and began to separate tools from vessels, searching for the molds Heby had broken the previous day and for anything else that might provide a lead. He glanced up once, saw Neferperet and the stoker quenching the smoldering fuel in the other furnaces. The pavilion stood roofless with only its frame remaining. One of the bellows-men, his back to the wind, was untying the cords that bound it together. His mate was helping the scribe gather up the scale and weights. The guards were getting ready to move the gold. Bak’s time was running out.
Working as fast as he could, he placed like objects together out of the way behind the furnace. Along with the usable items, he found the spout and rim of a broken crucible, several rods and reed pipes too charred to be of further use, and a crushed blowpipe. He found no cracked or broken molds, not even a shard, nor anything else out of the ordinary.
Neferperet ducked into the lean-to. One arm encircled a bundle of rolled mats, the other the scribe’s stool. He eyed the neatened workspace with an appreciative smile. “To see order here is as pleasing as the sight of a well-formed woman.”
Bak’s smile was automatic. How, he wondered, can I learn what happened to the missing molds without asking outright? He toed the pile of broken and burned objects he had set off to the side. “Heby threw nothing away, it seems.”
Neferperet glanced at the trash, shook his head in disgust. “I told him many times to let his stoker clean up at the end of each day, as the rest of us do. No man could please him, however, and he was seldom moved to do the task himself.”
Bak’s eyes narrowed. “How long had he refused the help?”
“Since he came a year ago.” Neferperet stalked to the other side of the furnace, let the mats roll off his arm, and set the stool beside them. “Yesterday, to show you how he was, his stoker turned away to realign the molds while they were getting ready to pour. That’s all he did, turn away. Heby picked up an empty crucible, the one you see there broken to pieces, and threw it at him.”
“I saw no parts of the molds he broke yesterday.” Bak smiled, making it a joke. “Did he throw them as well?”
Neferperet snorted. “If he had, I’d have marched him straight to the chief metalsmith for a flogging.” He moved to the edge of the lean-to, ready to dart into the blowing sand. “As for the molds, I’m not surprised you didn’t find them. The one he dropped couldn’t be saved, so I’d guess he threw it away. The other he may’ve taken home, hoping to repair it.”
“Can molds be repaired?” Bak asked, surprised.
“Most can’t, but Heby was as clever with clay as he was with gold. He brought several vessels back I thought never to use another time.”
Bak trotted down the narrow, curving lane, counting off the mat-covered doorways in the unbroken row of dwellings to his right. The wind swept him forward, released him, shoved him ahead. Sand swirled past at many times his speed, forming drifts along the walls, creeping into the smallest cracks. The tiny projectiles abraded his bare skin. He felt grit in his eyes and between his teeth, the chafing of granules in his sandals and under his kilt and loincloth. He had been equally uncomfortable in the past, but memory paled in comparison with the reality.
The seventh door, Neferperet had told him. Night had not yet fallen, but the thick brownish yellow cloud sweeping across the desert had stolen the light from Buhen. The lane was murky, the doors indistinct. Bak twice heard muffled voices within, twice saw a strip of light between a doorjamb and an ill-fitting mat.
Reaching the door he wanted, he released the bottom of the mat from the bricks holding it in place and slipped inside. The room was pitch black, stiflingly hot, and reeked of sweat, cooking oils, and musty dirt. He held the mat off to the side to get some light. Near the door were an oil-filled lamp and the tools to start a fire. Thanking the lord Amon for Heby’s good sense, he dropped to his knees, set aside the mold he had brought from the workshop, and rolled the lower edge of the mat to calf height. After tying it securely, he moved the tools and lamp to the uncertain light at the threshold. Sitting with his back to the wind, he went to work. A low drift of sand had formed around his buttocks by the time he lighted the wick.
He picked up the mold and raised the lamp to look around. The light was weak but good enough for his purpose. Heby’s lean-to had been cluttered and messy; the small room he had lived and slept in was filthy. Dirty, rumpled bedding covered a mudbrick sleeping platform. A charcoal-and sweat-stained loincloth lay on the hard-packed earthen floor; a kilt with red-brown blotches had been thrown across a stool. One end of a graying frayed sheet hung from the gaping mouth of a reed chest. In the corner lay a crumpled mound of cloth with heavy stains visible among the wrinkles. Bak took a closer look. The cloth, he felt certain, had been used to staunch the flow of blood.
He walked through a door at the back of the room. Beyond an open stairway leading to the roof, its woven-mat trapdoor closed, lay the kitchen. Half the depth of the first room, it was lightly roofed with branches and straw dense enough to provide shade, loose enough to allow smoke to escape. A round oven for baking bread occupied the near corner. A brazier sat beside it, its fuel burned to a powdery gray ash. Three unwashed bowls were stacked close by, the one on top lined with the thin scum of poorly strained beer. The floor at the far end of the rectangle was littered with vessels, shards, and odd-shaped lumps of dry, discarded clay. A layer of fine sand covered everything, and more was seeping through the roof.
Bak’s eyes traveled back to the oven, a round mudbrick structure with an opening at the front to admit fuel and bread, and a smaller hole at the top to disgorge smoke. An irregular black stain rose up the grimy wall. Heby had been a man alone, with no woman to cook for him-or to bake his bread. He would have traded his services or his allotment of grain for food. Bak doubted sufficient heat could be built up inside a cooking oven to melt gold, but Heby might have used it to harden the objects he molded from clay. Or he could have used it for a hiding place. For gold? Probably not. Too many people lived in the block, too many curious children, to hide something so precious in a place so easy to peek into.
Lest he err, he knelt before the oven and looked inside. Dust covered long-neglected baked clay shelves. A thick layer of ash covered the floor. He ran his fingers through the ashes, felt nothing but a few lumps of charred fuel and baked clay. He abandoned the oven with a sigh and crossed the room to kneel before the objects on the floor. Maybe here his luck would change.
Two round bowls sat off to the left. One was filled with cloudy water, the other with a partially dried lump of grayish clay, with indentations of Heby’s fingers and thumb remaining on its surface. Next to the bowls, an empty cone with its tip broken off lay among several shards that had been part of a sturdy round-sided bowl. His eyes slid farther to the right and he smiled. There lay a cracked mold, the broken
remains of at least one other, and a gray-black stone carved to the exact size and shape of a gold ingot. The stone, he guessed, was the form around which the wet clay was molded.
Eager to examine the molds, he shoved aside several fragments of rock-hard clay and set the lamp amid the clutter. As he made additional space for the mold he had brought with him, his eye fell on the cone. Why, he wondered, did Heby take it from the workshop? He picked it up, rotated it. He found no weight notations on its outer surface. It had never been weighed! With growing excitement, he licked a finger and ran it around the cone’s interior. Holding it to the light, he looked for bits of glitter. He saw none, which was disappointing but not significant. The cone could have been washed after it was emptied.
He laid it down and took a quick look at the shards lying with it. The bowl had been thick-walled, unadorned, most likely a container Heby had used for carrying clay. A narrow gap visible at the broken edge of one piece indicated it had contained a fault when it was fired. A bubble must have formed in the wet clay.
He picked up the cracked mold. It looked no different than the others he had seen through the day, but…Was it a little deeper? He reached for the mold he had brought from the workshop and held the two side-by-side over the light.
He heard a sound behind him, a whisper of movement. He stiffened, every sense alert. Again he heard something; he had no idea what. He spun around, glimpsed a figure looming over him, a glittering dagger poised to strike.
Chapter Nine
Bak ducked and swung his right arm high to ward off the blow. The weapon sliced off to the side, but the force of the thrust toppled him onto the tools, shards, and bits of hardened clay. The lamp tipped over. Tongues of flaming oil flowed among the objects beneath him, licking his rib cage and arm. He dropped the molds and tried to roll away from the fire and the red-hot pain. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed his assailant, arm raised, ready to strike again. Bak groped for something to throw, felt the rounded side of a bowl. He grabbed the rim and heaved it at the dark form of the other man. Water showering from the vessel hissed as it quenched the fire searing Bak’s side. The bowl crashed into his assailant’s shoulder, driving him backward with a grunt. Bak rolled across the sputtering fire, smothering the remaining flames. In the last flicker of light, he spotted the dagger arcing toward him.