Face Turned Backward lb-2

by Lauren Haney

  Six large gray pots converted for use as beehives drew Bak’s eye to a section of undamaged roof. What were they doing there? he wondered. Hives were normally placed closer to the oasis, not on the opposite side of a village, forcing the insects to fly over rooftops where the women worked in the cooler hours and the children played. In the lane below the hives, he noticed, bees were flying around a small, broken jar laying in a pool of liquid gold, honey. Rec-48 / Lauren Haney ognizing a master touch, he laughed softly. “Did you search this house, Tjanuny?”

  “Yes, sir,” the oarsman said, his new authority giving him greater respect. “We found nothing here.”

  “Did you or any of your men go onto the roof?”

  “With so many bees swarming around?” Tjanuny shook his head, incredulous. “Who wants to get stung? Anyway, there was no need. We could see inside through the fallen wall.”

  Bak walked slowly among the insects buzzing around the honey, taking care not to offend them. Reaching the wall, a long swath of stones cemented together with dried mud, he probed the surface with a finger. Though the makeshift cement looked dry, it was cool and damp, soft to the touch.

  The stones had been freshly laid. When he turned around, Pahuro was looking at him with a new respect, Tjanuny with something close to awe.

  “Make an opening in the wall,” he told the old man.

  “There’s no need,” Pahuro said in a resigned voice. “I’ll show you what you wish to see.”

  He led Bak into the house and up a broken stairway to the roof. Bees flew over and around them, leaving the hives and returning, intent on a last delivery of pollen before dark.

  They walked gingerly to the edge of the undamaged portion of roof and looked down into a small square room, probably long abandoned, that had newly been converted to a windowless, doorless storeroom. Dozens of copper ingots the thickness of a finger and shaped like the skins of some dead animal were stacked against the walls. The bundled hides were not among them.

  “Where’ve you hidden the rest?” Bak demanded.

  The old man’s eyes leveled on Bak’s, his voice rang with sincerity. “This is all we found.”

  The time had come, Bak decided, to point out a simple truth. “I’ve two choices, Pahuro. One is the pledge I gave you before. The second is not so pleasant.” He walked to the edge of the roof and looked across the village toward the oasis, its lush green palms and fertile black soil soon to A FACE TURNED BACKWARD / 49 emerge from the floodwaters. “I can take every man over the age of fourteen to Buhen, and there they’ll stand before the commandant as thieves. If he judges them guilty-and he will-they’ll join a prison gang and be sent into the desert to work the mines for our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut.

  Fitting punishment, don’t you think, for men who’ve taken what by rights belongs to her?”

  Pahuro stood stiff and pale, jarred by the threat. With all the able-bodied men torn from the oasis, only women and children would be left to plant the fields and tend the crops, a close to impossible task. Even worse, many of the men might never return from so harsh a punishment.

  “You will close your eyes to our offense?” The question was not a plea, but it came close.

  “I vowed I would, and I will.”

  “Come with me.”

  “This is all we found on board, each and every item.”

  Pahuro looked like a man newly widowed, so great was his sorrow at losing so much of value.

  Bak, standing beside him, tried not to show how surprised he was, how astonished. He had thought to see hides, a sail, a few other mundane items-nothing like what he saw before him, a veritable storehouse of precious objects.

  The old man had led him to the head of the fertile valley and up a steep path to a deep indentation in the cliff face that had been enclosed by a ring of boulders. Cages lined the back wall, protected from the sun and wind by an overhanging shelf of rock. They held two lion cubs and a pair of smaller cats whose name Bak did not know, four wild dogs-puppies actually-and several monkeys, including two young baboons, sacred animals destined for a god’s mansion in Kemet. If not for the bundles of reddish, dun-colored, and black-and-white hides stacked against the boulders, he might have thought the cargo from a different ship than the one he had seen in Buhen.

  A high-pitched chirp drew his eyes to the wall beyond the cages, where a small gray monkey peered out from the shoul-50 / Lauren Haney der of an oarsman thirteen or so years of age, no doubt the one who had left the imprint in the sand. The boy’s older companion, a heavy-muscled sailor with a crooked nose, hugged his knees close and glared at Pahuro. Painted figures of cattle and men marched across the wall above their heads, and above the cages as well. Farther back, additional blue-black and red drawings decorated the wall behind stacks of wild animal skins-leopard, zebra, and giraffe-baskets of ostrich eggs and feathers, and jars and baskets and chests whose labels identified their contents as aromatic oils, spices, and incense.

  So much of value, so many beautiful and rare objects, each and every one, Bak was convinced, an item of contraband.

  He held out his hand, palm up. It was sweaty, but at least it did not shake, betraying his excitement. “I’ll need the ship’s manifest.”

  Ignoring the sailor with the crooked nose, whose face was aflush with anger and blame, Pahuro walked the length of the shelter and brought back a gray baked clay jar containing a half-dozen rolls of papyrus. “No one in my village can read nor can the sailors who came to us after the wreck, but the scroll you want must be here.”

  Bak glanced at notes scrawled on the outside of the documents. He found not one sealed manifest, as he should have, but two. The first was short and concise, listing cowhides, ebony logs, and the coffin of a man named Amenemopet taken aboard at Kor and copper ingots loaded at Buhen. It was written in the familiar, cramped hand of a senior scribe Bak knew well. The second was longer, recording the exotic objects in the shelter in addition to the more ordinary items.

  It was a false manifest, intended to convince any curious inspector that the entire cargo was legitimate. The writing was neat with perfectly formed symbols, as if prepared by a scribe intent on omitting all slovenly habits that might some time in the future point to him as the author.

  Bak walked the length of the shelter, comparing the list with the items he saw. Without an exact count, he could not be sure, but he thought he found everything. Numbers of individual objects could be compared with the document later when they were loaded on Ramose’s ship for transport to Buhen.

  Scrolls in hand, his excitement tamped down to a manage-able level, he stood before the sailors. “Where’s Captain Roy?”

  “Gone,” the older sailor growled. “Washed overboard.”

  Bak glanced at the youth for confirmation.

  “It’s true!” The monkey grabbed the boy around the neck, startled by the tension in his voice. “The storm struck sooner than Captain Roy expected. We were still securing the cargo, trying to tie down the logs. The air was so thick we couldn’t see our feet beneath us. The captain knew these waters as I know the freckles on my hands, so he stood on the bow, searching for safe harbor. A great wave struck us, and he was gone. And so was Woserhet and Maya, though we didn’t miss them until later.”

  The tale had a ring of truth, but…“How did you find the wadi where your ship lies now?”

  “The gods took pity on us! We were blown into its mouth!”

  The boy looked awed by the memory. “We didn’t know where we were. If we had, we might’ve saved the vessel.”

  “We thought we were on the open water,” his companion growled.

  The boy nodded. “Not until we ran aground did we realize our error.”

  The older sailor sneered. “If the captain had been with us, he’d have known.”

  Bak could well imagine the chaos that must have reigned with no man to give orders and no one knowing what to do.

  “Where’d you load this precious cargo?”

  “At Kor,” the man
said before the boy could answer.

  Bak gave him a withering glance. “I know exactly what you loaded at Kor: hides, ebony, and the coffin. You loaded the copper at Buhen three days ago, and later that same afternoon you sailed north.”

  The youth, eyes wide and afraid, opened his mouth to 52 / Lauren Haney speak. His companion clamped a hand tight around his thigh, digging his fingers deep, drawing a cry from the boy that sent the monkey cowering into his arms.

  “My Medjay sergeant is even now searching out your fellow sailors. He’ll find them, you can be sure.” Tapping the man’s knee with a scroll, Bak made his voice ominous. “Will you tell me what I wish to know, or will you stand back and let another man speak? Will you be given favorable treatment because you helped me, or will one of your fellows walk away from Buhen, freed of all guilt, while you go with the others to the desert mines?”

  The man glanced at the boy, whose eyes pleaded for openness and honesty. He spat off to the side, as if obliged to show his contempt, and began to speak, his mien surly, his tone grudging. “We stopped that night about halfway between here and Buhen. On the west bank of the river. A lonely spot of desert too barren and dry for any man to live.

  A fire drew us to the shore, where we found all you see here.

  We loaded in haste, barely able to see, stumbling from the fire’s meager light to our ship, where Captain Roy held a torch. After all was stowed on deck, we set sail.”

  “Who did you meet there? Who turned these objects over to your captain?”

  “We saw no one.” The sailor lowered his gaze, as if the question made him uneasy. “It was a dark night, with no moon to speak of. Away from the fire, we couldn’t see our hands before our faces. Guards may’ve been posted, but we didn’t see them.”

  The tale sounded farfetched, like the stories Bak’s father had long ago told his young son to tire him with excitement so he would fall sleep. Like those tales of myth and adventure, Bak longed to believe. “Can you show me that place?”

  The man hesitated, frowned. “I think so, but…” He glanced at the boy, who looked as uncertain as he did. “We can try.”

  A long, trilling whistle sounded from afar. A Medjay signal.

  Bak hastened outside and looked up the wadi toward the path that climbed the escarpment to the north. Imsiba was hurrying down the track, followed by a motley crew of men.

  The missing sailors.

  Several of Ramose’s men brought up the rear lest anyone try to flee. Bak glanced toward the west and the orange-red glow of the lord Re, a sliver of flame on the horizon. Too late to load Ramose’s ship, and too late to set sail. But a satisfactory day nonetheless. More than satisfactory.

  Chapter Four

  “Now listen!” Captain Ramose stood at the mouth of the rock shelter, feet spread wide, hands on hips, in what Bak had concluded was his favored position for command. “Except to relieve yourselves, you’ll not set foot out of this shelter while I’m gone. You hear me?”

  The four oarsmen he had ordered to remain behind nodded in a desultory fashion, not a man among them eager to spend the next day or so on a rocky ledge, imagining their fellows reveling in Buhen.

  “If so much as one object vanishes, you’ll each and everyone be held to blame. Understand?”

  They nodded, shuffled their bare feet, threw sour glances at the contraband tying them to this wretched place. One man looked about to complain, but Ramose’s scowl stifled his words.

  “So be it!” The captain turned away, winking at Bak as he did so, and strode down the path toward the village and his ship, moored at the foot of the escarpment north of the cultivated land.

  The vessel wallowed in the swells, too heavily laden for graceful movement. A wide board serving as a gangplank connected the deck with the rising slope. Two sailors, one at the head and the other at the foot, carried the white coffin across the unstable walkway, stepping quick but careful lest they slip and fall into the water, taking their melancholy burden with them. In addition to the original cargo bound for Abu, the decks were cluttered with animal cages and jars of aromatic oils and incense-the most fragile of the contraband. The shipwrecked sailors hunched down on every unused bit of deck, trying to stay out of the way and attract no notice.

  Bak glanced at Pahuro, who stood stiff and straight and tight-lipped, a man too proud to display the indignity he must have felt at being caught so soon and so thoroughly.

  Or one who expected to suffer the anger of the gods-or the wrath of mighty Kemet.

  “You found nothing else on board the ship?” Bak asked, not for the first time. He was thinking specifically of elephant tusks, for none had been found among the contraband.

  “We’ve held nothing back. That I swear by the lord De-dun.” Pahuro’s voice was as stiff as his spine, the oath to an old Kushite god.

  Bak believed him, and the false manifest listing all the precious objects seemed to bear him out. No tusk had been recorded.

  His eye was drawn to Ramose, hurrying past the village, raising a puff of dust with each step he took. A yellow dog barked halfheartedly from a patch of shade. Getting no reaction, it hauled itself to its feet and trotted down a sunny lane to sniff at the heels of several women kneeling before a small mudbrick shrine dedicated to some local god Bak could not identify from so far away. Women praying, he felt sure, for the safety of their village and their men.

  “I’ll keep my vow, Pahuro,” he said, irritated they had such scanty faith in his word. “I’ve no desire to squeeze the life from your village.”

  “They’re old women, Lieutenant, frail creatures who remember a time long ago when our men were made to march off to war and not one in ten came back.”

  Bak remembered tales he had heard of the last full-scale conflict fought through this area and farther south. Many years had since passed and the village now looked prosperous enough, with plump livestock and fowl, rich fields, lush date palms, and vines that no doubt bore succulent fruit. Not 56 / Lauren Haney visible was the amount of work required, back-breaking labor leaving meager time and energy to repair the poor houses, or to allow the sick to rest and mend, or to travel to Buhen to take part in the festivals of the gods.

  Bak turned to the oarsmen, drew in a breath, and closed his heart to thoughts of his responsibility to the lady Maat and his duty to the royal house and his sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut. “Now, so I can show Ramose what I’ve asked you to do before we sail, and he can lay no blame on your heads, you must place in the hands of this headman one copper ingot and two bundles of cowhides.” He paused, scanned the objects in the shelter, selected the most and least useful. “Give him also the smallest of the two lengths of heavy linen, and one jar of perfumed oil for the women.”

  Pahuro dropped to his knees and covered his face, too moved to speak. Bak hurried away, cursing himself for a soft-hearted fool. Commandant Thuty, whose fierce tongue had been known to make brave men quake in their sandals, would not be pleased to learn he had rewarded a village which by rights should be punished.

  “This is the place, all right. See?” The sailor with the crooked nose knelt beside several small brownish lumps half-covered by sand and dried hard by the harsh desert heat. A few flies crawled over the surface, but none found a morsel fit to hold them for long. “They must’ve thrown water over the cages to wash out the filth.” He glanced up at the youth with the monkey clinging to his neck. “You remember. The sand around them was wet when we came.”

  The boy, looking sheepish, pointed. “I stepped in that pile.

  It was so dark, I couldn’t see a thing.”

  Tjanuny, squatting beside an irregular ring of rocks a dozen paces away, glanced up from the thin layer of ash and a few pieces of charred wood he had cleared of windblown sand.

  “If this poor fire was all the light you had, I’m surprised you saw the cages.”

  Shading his eyes with a hand, Bak scanned the area, a broad, open plain on both sides of the river. The sands, barren of plants and animals alike,
blanketed the earth from the water’s edge to the horizon, lost in a pinkish-purplish haze.

  The flat, burnished gold surface, relieved at intervals by low sandhills, appeared to tremble like a living creature, veiled as it was in heat waves. From high above in a vivid blue sky, the lord Re looked down upon the men below, parching their throats and scorching the sands they trod. Other than the makeshift hearth and the animal waste, the storm had conspired to hold the site’s secrets, erasing all signs of man.

  This bleak plain seemed an unlikely spot for a rendezvous, Bak thought, too open and visible. Yet it was a place where nothing lived or moved. Its sterility, its utter desolation, would make it one of the few spots along the river where one man could meet another unseen, especially on a dark night.

  “Our ship drew in close to shore, and the loading went fast. Not a man among us wanted to tarry.” The sailor stood up, eyed the site, grimaced. “We didn’t like this place. A land of death, we thought, even in the cool of night.”

  “Who met you here?” Imsiba asked.

  “We never saw anyone,” the man grumbled. “Just…” His voice tailed off; he shifted his feet, uneasy.

  “We saw shadows in the dark,” the boy said in a hushed voice. “The oldest man among us, one who should know, said the sandhills were ancient burial places, so we feared at first they were shadows of the dead. Later…”

  “Why not a headless man?” Tjanuny mumbled, chuckling,

  “or some other specter of the desert?”

  Bak silenced him with a frown, wanting no distractions.

  The man and boy exchanged a quick look. The latter said,

  “Later, after we finished loading, Maya thought to go off by himself for some reason. He’d not gone ten paces when an arrow came out of nowhere, narrowly missing him.”