by Lauren Haney
Bak eyed a rock-cut stairway surrounded by what looked like a low mudbrick wall. A rounded projection on one end set him straight: the wall was in fact the remains of a vaulted roof. A black hole at the bottom of the steps beckoned. “I must see for myself what they’re like.”
Another hasty consultation.
“We’ll take you to our favorite, one of the safest,” Mery said. “It’s dug into the stone, not roofed with mudbrick.”
Weaving a path among mounds and broken walls, shallow holes and open pits, they followed the rock shelf to a walled flight of steps that looked much like the others. Two large clay pots that must once have held the tiny bodies of children stood to either side of a stone slab, the inscription on its face too weathered to read. Mery plunged downward. Bak followed, reached a doorway at the bottom, ducked under the low jamb, and found himself in a dark chamber. Three more steps took him to the floor of the sunken room. As he cleared the door, sunlight flowed through, dim but good enough to see by.
The chamber was small, not much wider than his out-stretched arms and twice as long, with a rough-hewn pillar in the center. Its ceiling was so low his hair brushed the stone. Two rooms opened to the right, forming a space as large as the entry chamber, and each contained an empty niche. The place was hot and dry, smelling of dust. The walls throughout were bare, rough and pitted by the mason’s chisel marks. The bodies that had been interred here for eternity had long ago vanished.
This was nothing like the burial places Bak had heard about near Waset, large and sumptuously decorated excava-tions prepared for ranking members of the royal court. But what could one expect? This was the frontier, not the capital of the rich and powerful land of Kemet.
“Is this tomb typical?” he asked, careful not to show his disappointment.
“This is one of the best,” Mery said proudly. “Most are smaller, not much more than holes in the ground, and the roofs of many have fallen in-or look about to.”
“Is the same true of the cemeteries outside the gate, to the west of this fortress?”
“Yes, sir.”
Bak led the way up the stairs, paused at the top, and looked at the ruined superstructures that lined the face of the ledge. “Have you ever come upon an unopened tomb?”
The older boys exchanged glances, another of their silent conferences. The youngest boy, bursting with knowledge, piped up, “You won’t tell anyone, will you, sir?”
Mery gave him a disgusted look.
“I’ll tell one man,” Bak said, “my sergeant Imsiba, who’s as close to me as a brother. Word will spread no further, I promise you.”
He feared the admission would silence them; instead it reassured them. After receiving the communal nod, Mery glanced around, searching for eavesdroppers, and spoke in a low, secretive voice, “We’ve discovered four tombs that look as if they’ve never been opened. When we found the first, we thought to break inside, but we were little then, and afraid. Now we like watching over them, making sure they’re safe.”
“Like the guards who watch over the burial places of the former sovereigns of Kemet,” Bak said, keeping his expression as serious as theirs.
Five dark heads bobbed up and down, the faces grave, the eyes dark and solemn.
“We looked inside ten or twelve tombs altogether,” Bak said. “Sad places, they were, with scattered bones, bits of destroyed coffins, and broken pottery, and no clue as to who once lay buried within.” He jumped a drying puddle, crushing the brittle and curling earth alongside. “Intef found the bracelets elsewhere, I’m convinced, but I asked the boys to keep their eyes open anyway, to look for signs of intrusion in the cemeteries both within and outside the fortress walls.
Whatever they find, they vowed they’d report to you or to me.”
Imsiba chuckled. “You’ve a talent, my friend, for turning the least likely of men into allies.”
Giving the Medjay a quick smile, Bak eyed the land through which they strode, the northern edge of the oasis across the river from Buhen. They were but a short walk from the prosperous fields of Penhet, Netermose, and their neighbors, but the contrast was startling. Meager farms nudged the desert,
with the outermost plots mottled with patches of encroaching sand. Always the last land to receive the life-giving floodwaters and the first to dry out, the trees and vines and bushes here were smaller and not as hardy, the fruits they bestowed on the farmers neither as abundant nor as sweet.
“That must be Intef’s house,” Imsiba said, nodding toward an unpainted mudbrick building straddling the line between oasis and desert.
The dwelling was small, two rooms at most, with a lean-to attached to one end. A venerable grapevine spread its arms across the shelter and the flat roof of the house. A thin red cow stood in the shade, suckling a wobbly spotted calf.
Two juvenile donkeys shared the space. A flock of geese scratched and pecked at a fresh sheaf of hay spread beneath the animals’ hooves, scattering it further. Herbs and garlic hanging from the lean-to frame perfumed the air.
A child, a girl of eight or so years, came outside, her hip thrust out to take the weight of the baby she carried. A small naked boy barely old enough to walk peeked around the doorjamb and giggled.
The girl eyed them with suspicion. “My mother’s out there.”
She pointed toward a field not far from the house and a woman on her knees between two rows of small leafy green plants, carefully spaced to give them plenty of room to grow.
Melons, Bak guessed. Two small children, also on their knees, were spread out across the field. Bak muttered an oath, dismayed. He had expected a poverty of place, but to find an overabundance of mouths to feed as well came as a shock.
Miscarriage was frequent on these poor farms and the death rate high among babies.
“A woman alone with five children, most too young to earn their bread?” Imsiba shook his head, his face grim. “Few will survive to the next flood.”
“My father sometimes grumbles about the great estates in Kemet, where so many men toil for so few, but even he admits a widow with children is seldom left to starve.”
The woman spotted them, rose to her feet, and walked down a shallow furrow toward the house. She was, they saw, beginning to swell with yet another child. The children in the field turned to stare, curious, but a word from their mother sent them back to their task. The older girl shooed the toddler into the house, but stayed close to the door to watch and listen.
The woman raised her hand in greeting. Noticing the dirt lodged in the wrinkles and beneath her nails, she gave her visitors an embarrassed smile. “The insects would have us starve if we let them.” She was small and thin, close in age to Bak, but work-worn and weary.
“We’ll not keep you long,” he promised, introducing himself and Imsiba.
“I am Nehi.” She offered them the mudbrick bench in front of the house and pushed close a large overturned pot for her own use. Clasping her hands in her lap, she toyed with a ring on the middle finger of her right hand. Her eyes, sunken pools of sorrow and anxiety, darted from one man to the other. “My husband’s donkeys. What’s happened to them?”
“They’re well cared for and content,” Imsiba assured her.
“I took them myself to a paddock in Buhen. We can bring them here, if you like, or leave them where they are and trade them in your name. They’re yours to do with as you wish.”
She took a ragged breath, murmured, “I feared they were lost to me.”
Imsiba went on, telling her of the wild game the donkeys had carried and how he had disposed of it. The bargain he had struck brought forth a wan smile. But her pleasure was shallow, her burden heavy. She bowed her head in silent anguish, twisting the ring, rubbing the greenish stone. The child in the doorway laid the baby on the floor and ran to her mother. She wrapped her arms around her, holding her close, and whispered words of comfort. Bak and Imsiba sat where they were, studying their hands, waiting.
Nehi drew her face from her daughter’s thin ches
t and smoothed the child’s short, straight hair. “Go care for the baby, little one.” As the girl carried her charge inside, she turned back to her visitors. “Forgive my weakness. I must, I know, grow accustomed to my husband’s absence.”
Bak resisted the urge to clear his throat. “For my own satisfaction and also for yours, mistress, I’d like to lay hands on the man who slew Intef. Can you tell me who might’ve wanted him dead?”
“No one.” She raised a hand to wipe her eyes, noticed the dirt, clutched both together in her lap. “He was a quiet man, one who kept to himself.”
“He sometimes stopped for beer in a house of pleasure in Buhen.” Bak kept his voice kind, unthreatening. “It’s a friendly place, oft times raucous, not one frequented by a man who wants always to be alone.”
“Nofery’s place of business.” She gave him a wan smile.
“A man can be silent, yet enjoy the company of men.”
Especially one who must come home to a houseful of babies, Bak thought. “Did he ever speak of the people he met there?”
“He talked often of Nofery. He liked her.” She dropped her eyes to her writhing hands. Suddenly she was still, her body and voice stiff. “He…He told me of the lion she has, and how she came to have it.”
Bak noted the change in attitude, the tension. What sparked it he had no idea. Not their talk of Nofery, he was sure. “Was he there, do you know, a week or so ago?”
She frowned, thinking. “I don’t…”
“He was at home, Mama, not in Buhen.” The girl had returned to the door, leaving the baby inside. “That was when we planted the beans, remember?” At a nod from her mother, she explained to Bak, “It took several days. We have no ox, so Papa had to pull the plow himself. And we took a donkey to the farmer Kamose.” Her large, dark eyes leaped toward the lean-to and a shadow touched her face. “We had three young donkeys then. Too many, Papa said, so we traded one for oil and some milch goats.”
Nehi spread her hand across her swelling stomach. “We seem never to have enough milk.”
The ring she wore was clearly visible, a wide strip of gold with a green scarab, luminous from wear and age, nested in a raised oval border. Another antique, Bak felt sure. Intef had indeed found a tomb, not during his last journey into the desert, but before.
Keeping his voice level, his sudden interest hidden, he said, “Your ring is beautiful, mistress. May I see it?”
She stiffened, looked about to panic. With an obvious effort, she formed a smile and offered her hand, her movements jerky with tension. “Pretty, isn’t it? Intef found it washed up on the riverbank when the floodwaters receded. It’s of small value, he told me, a bit of bronze and faience not worth selling. So he gave it to me.”
She was offering too much; her voice was too chatty, too strident. She was unaccustomed, Bak thought, to lying. “We found two very old and valuable bracelets and some gold beads hidden on one of his donkeys. This ring is equally old, not bronze and faience but gold and jasper.”
“You err!” she cried, tearing her hand free, clasping it to her breast. “The ring is worth nothing!” Her voice broke, she sobbed, “Do you think us so wealthy we can keep for ourselves a trinket of great value? Something to look at and enjoy, not trade for food?”
Covering her face with her hands, she began to moan, airing a grief deep within her heart. The girl ran to her, held her close, and glared at Bak and Imsiba. “Leave us. My papa is gone, and you’re hurting my mama. How can you be so cruel?”
Realizing how bold she had been, she clamped her mouth shut and stared defiantly at the two men. The stance was foolish, meant to make a lie of the fear they saw in her eyes.
Bak had every right to tear her from her home, to carry her off to Buhen and punish her severely for her impudence.
He chose to turn away. “Come, Imsiba. We’ll get nothing more here.”
“She knows Intef found a tomb,” Imsiba said.
“She may tell us more in time,” Bak agreed, “but now she’s too afraid. Too worried for her children.”
“How desperate is she, do you think?”
Bak’s voice reflected the concern he saw on Imsiba’s face.
“That depends on how much of value Intef found and hid away-and whether or not she knows where he hid it and how to dispose of it to her advantage.”
“You think she does?”
“I pray she does.”
They walked along the raised verge of Intef’s bean field, turning green with new growth. Water trickled from a shallow irrigation ditch, its wall breached to allow the life-giving moisture to spread across the earth. The last good drink the plants would have, Bak guessed, for soon the ditch would run dry and every drop would have to be carried from afar.
“Do you think it important to snaring Intef’s slayer?” Imsiba asked. “The tomb, I mean. The place where he found the jewelry?”
Bak gave a rueful snort. “I wish I knew.”
They stopped at the corner of the field and looked out across the oasis. Less than a week had passed since Rennefer’s attempt to slay her husband, but even in so short a time many more fields had turned bright green with new life.
In the lower-lying areas, the last to give up the floodwaters, men, women, children, and cattle were spread across the land, plowing the rich black earth and sowing the next crop.
Birds dotted the fields behind them, searching for worms and seeds left on the surface.
Bak imagined he could see in the distance Penhet’s farm.
How much had happened since last he had stopped there!
“One day soon Rennefer will stand before Commandant Thuty. He’s putting off the day he must pass judgment, but when at last he summons her, he’ll want a full picture. Let’s go see Penhet, learn of his health and how he fares without his mate.”
“Mate?” Imsiba snorted. “Viper, you mean.”
“I knew she’d be angry,” Penhet said. “That’s why I was so reluctant to tell her of the agreement. But I never expected this.” He made a vague motion toward his back and the bandages swaddling him from waist to neck.
“My wife tends to his wounds.” Netermose sat on a stool beside the pallet on which the injured man lay on his stomach, the orange cat curled up against his thigh, purring. “She counted eleven cuts, most shallow and not serious, but two that could’ve taken his life given sufficient time to bleed.”
“I thank the lord Amon that you came upon me when you did,” Penhet said, patting his neighbor’s foot. “If you hadn’t, if she’d had time to go on…” He shook his head, unable to utter a thought so abhorrent.
Bak glanced at the courtyard, which looked as well tended as the first time he had seen it. Rennefer would not be pleased, he suspected. “Your servants seem conscientious enough.”
“Netermose’s wife keeps an eye on them.”
“You signed your agreement then?” Imsiba asked.
The two farmers exchanged a glance of mutual satisfaction.
“We’ve made a new agreement,” Penhet said.
“He’ll keep the land,” Netermose explained, “even the patch that so angered Rennefer. And I’ll tend to his fields and help him care for his livestock.”
“And we’ll share the proceeds,” Penhet added, smiling.
The arrangement seemed fair, a way to give both men what they needed: Netermose more land and Penhet a means of living.
“You’ve not yet brought Meret into your household?” Bak asked the latter.
“No.” Penhet fussed with the cat’s velvety ears, unable to meet Bak’s eyes. “I’ve lost my taste for her.”
Bak was not surprised. The girl represented the end of a way of life; how could she be a new beginning?
“I keep telling him he needs someone to care for him, a woman who can keep the servants in line.” Netermose scowled at his neighbor. “I have a large household and my 132 / Lauren Haney wife’s a busy woman. She can’t come here forever.”
“My servants are still upset,” Penhet
explained. “As I am, for that matter. Maybe later. After Rennefer is…” He shook his head, denying the fate he knew awaited the woman who had for so long shared his life. “But not Meret. Someone else perhaps.”
Bak thought of the woman he and Imsiba had just left, the tiny farm, the many mouths to feed. “I know of someone, a recent widow, who might be persuaded to live here. I must warn you, though, that she has several children.” He thought it best not to divulge the exact number.
“Children?” Penhet’s eyes lit up. “I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve heard a child’s laughter on this farm. Even my servants are barren.”
Bak sneaked a glance at Imsiba, who was giving him the suspicious look of one who thought the suggestion planned in advance. Maybe it was, Bak thought. Not by me, but by the gods. If so, neither the truth nor a lie would sway Penhet.
His fate was sealed. So he spoke of Intef’s death and of all he and the Medjay had found on the poor farm at the edge of the oasis.
“Five children,” Penhet said, his tone thoughtful, neither pleased nor dismayed.
“You’d have a houseful,” Netermose said in a carefully neutral voice.
Bak remained mute, letting the farmer make up his own mind. Imsiba stood under the lean-to, saying nothing, his expression-his silent laughter, Bak suspected-hidden in the shadow.
Penhet broke a long silence. “Netermose is right. I can’t go on like this, depending on his wife day after day. Yet I do need someone. My wounds need tending; my servants require a firm hand.” He paused, smiled to himself. “And yes: having children in the house will be a pleasant distraction.”
Bak offered a silent prayer of thanks to the lord Amon-and made a further plea that a match would result, one that would last through eternity.
Chapter Nine
Thin ribbons of yellow reached across a pale blue sky, heralding the rising sun. The air was clear and still, pleasantly warm. Feeble trails of smoke spiraled up from dwellings in the outer city, carrying the tantalizing aroma of baking bread and the harsher odor of scorched oil. Men, women, and children jostled each other in the narrow lanes. A dozen black cows, their udders heavy with milk, forced their way through, indifferent to the curses they roused.