A Vile Justice

by Lauren Haney

  Spotting a taller outcrop at what he judged to be midway between him and the wrecked ship, he rose to the surface for air and swam toward the projection. The current pulled at him, trying to carry him downriver. The rope got in his way, hampering the use of his left arm and at the same time breaking his speed as he slowly played it out. Nearing the outcrop, which reached to within a hand's length of the water's surface but was hidden beneath the foam, he lunged toward it.

  Without warning, an arm broke the surface. A hand beckoned.

  He jerked away, so startled he sucked in water. The current caught him, tore him from the outcrop, and carried him downstream. Froth warned of a maelstrom ahead and he came close to panic. The rope pulled him up short.

  Swimming with all his strength, trying not to cough, he regained the outcrop, held on tight, and surfaced for air. The hand-if he had indeed seen a hand-had vanished. He coughed water and at the same time tried to give the boy a reassuring smile. When his breath came easily again, he worked his way around and down the outcrop, taking care not to cut himself on knife-sharp edges of splintered rock. On the far side, he found the hand. And more.

  The body of a man, pale in death, wide-eyed with fear, bobbed up and down in the current. A stout rope, snarled and tangled in a crevice, was wound around his legs, holding him underwater. Bak noted the rope's frayed end and a long burn-like injury down the man's right thigh and leg where he had been dragged across the rocks. This, he thought, must be Dadu. The tale he read was clear, but only half a story. To find the rest, he must swim out to the wreck. Sensing the passage of time, he resurfaced, took in air, glanced at the sky. The sun would soon disappear, leaving Wawat in darkness. He must leave Dadu submerged and hurry on.

  He swam straight to the wrecked ship, noting as he did the taut ropes rising from the broken vessel to the islets lining the channel, holding the wreck in place. The three boulders on which the ship lay were cracked and pitted, weathered by time. Diving down, he saw the rough-cut sandstone blocks used for ballast spilling around the boulders from the ragged hole in the hull. A school of tiny fish swarmed around the hides. A large perch swam among them, feasting on his smaller brethren, sending them darting in all directions. The frayed end of a thick rope waved from among the blocks, the same rope, he felt sure, as the one around Dadu's legs.

  Surfacing for air, he swam around the cargo to the rudder. The hides looked secure on the steeply sloping deck, but for how long? He played out the rope he carried around his shoulder and tied the end to the aftercastle, forming a bridge of sorts between the ship and the islet on which the boy sat. A trio of crows scolded him from the surrounding boulders.

  He flung a rock their way, sending them squawking into the air, and dove again. In moments, he found attached to the hull the heavy rope he assumed Dadu had carried out to the ship before his death. Rather than rising toward the islet where the boy stood-as it should have-it curved around the trio of boulders and back toward the ship to disappear in the pile of hides. By prodding and poking, he traced its path through the cargo and back into the water, where all but the frayed end had been entombed beneath the sandstone blocks. It looked, he thought, as if a mighty being, a god perhaps, had torn the rope free and flung it, sending it around the boulders and in among the hides, dooming the ship.

  Bak stood with Imsiba, Suemnut, and Neny on the promontory. The sky was afire with color. The breeze had waned, allowing the soft evening sunlight to draw the chill from his bones and dry his kilt and loincloth. Swallows flitted through the air, catching on the wing insects invisible to the human eye. The smell of braised onions drifted in the air from a village nestled among the rocks farther downstream.

  In the narrow channel where the wreck lay, a dozen men were cutting the bundled hides free and letting them fall into the water. Others were towing the bundles to the rope Bak had tied to the aftercastle, while a third team attached them to the line and pushed them across the current to the islet. Still more men were mounding the salvaged hides well out of reach of the water, where they would remain for the night. The work was frenzied, a race against the dark.

  "You can't see from here..." Bak pointed toward the river. ". . . but the rocky outcrop where I found Dadu's body has edges sharper than a flint knife." He raised his hand, showing a cut he had not realized he had until he left the water. "It cut partway through the rope and the weight of the vessel did the rest, snapping it apart."

  "So the wreck was an accident," Imsiba said, looking pointedly at Suemnut.

  The captain sniffed. "That a sharp-edged rock might cut one rope, I can understand, but what of the other ropes that were supposed to hold my ship in place? Secured on every side, how could it slew around the way it did, striking the boulders?"

  "We've knocked-the edges off that outcrop-and others like it-more than once," Neny said, his voice defensive. "The rope was under tension, stretched to the limit," Bak said. "When it snapped, the upper portion snaked back. It jerked free of the post, wrapped around Dadu's legs, and dragged him across the rocks into the river. It then became entangled in a crack in a boulder. He either struck his head and lost his senses or panicked. Either way, he drowned." "What of my ship?" Suemnut demanded.

  Neny glared. "Do you care nothing for the man who died? A husband and a father many times over? A hard-working man of honor and integrity?"

  Bak longed to grab them both by the neck and knock their heads together. He had hoped that by finding an innocent reason for the wreck he might put an end to their enmity. Unfortunately, they enjoyed their mutual dislike too much.

  "The lower portion of the rope whipped back toward the ship. It wrapped around the boulders, flew across the deckknocking men, brazier, and duck cage into the water-and buried a good, long segment in the bundled hides, pulling the ship up short and jerking it against the rocks."

  "Look!" Imsiba shouted, pointing at the wreck.

  The ship, relieved of much of its load and with most of its ballast scattered on the riverbed, had floated free of the boulders. It began to swing across the channel.

  "Cut it loose!" Neny yelled. His voice, deep and dark, carried through the still air, reaching the men lining the channel.

  "No!" Suemnut wailed. "My ship! My life! No!"

  The men slashing the ropes holding the few remaining hides on deck abandoned their task, dropped into the water, and swam at high speed alongside the vessel. Bollards were jerked free, relea4ng the stout lines holding the ship in the channel. Where the bollards could not be reached, the ropes, too valuable to lose, were axed as close to the hull as possible.

  The ship floated downstream, ponderous with the weight of the water it had taken on. Bak feared it would swing farther around, blocking the channel and putting an end to travel down the Belly of Stones, at least for the remainder of the year. But Neny knew what he was doing. The vessel held its course-floundering, to be sure-until a final steep slope of bubbling water carried it into the cove. Becalmed, the stern dropped ever deeper and the prow reared skyward, raising high the intertwined lily design. The men on the promontory held their breath, waiting. The vessel tilted backward, expelling air, and slid beneath the water's surface.

  "Sir!" The police scribe Hori raced along the stone quay, his eyes locked on Bak and Imsiba, whose skiff was closing on a mooring post. "The commandant wishes to see you, sir! Right away!"

  Bak muttered an oath. "Can I not change into clean clothing?"

  "I wouldn't, sir." The chubby youth caught the rope Imsiba threw, made a loop, and settled it around the post. "A sentry reported seeing your skiff from afar. The commandant's expecting you."

  "You'd best go, my friend," Imsiba said, with a goodhumored smile. "I'll tend to the skiff and that morning meal we thought to share."

  Bak rolled his eyes skyward and grimaced. "What Commandant Thuty wants, Commandant Thuty gets."

  "He has another man with him, sir, a lieutenant from Abu." Hori's expression remained serious. "And Troop Captain Nebwa as well."

  "An
officer from the land of Kemet?" Bak frowned. "An inspector, do you think?"

  "He looks to be a man with a weight on his shoulders. One seeking aid, not trouble."

  With a farewell nod to Imsiba, Bak walked with the boy up the central of three quays, passing a traveling ship similar to that of Suemnut and a broad-beamed cargo ship riding high in the water, its shallow hull rolling on the gentle swells. A sailor bent over its rail to spit in the water. Another hunkered down beside a brazier, stirring the contents of a bowl nestled among the coals. The odor of onions and fish set Bak's stomach to growling.

  Moored at the southern quay, he saw a long and slender traveling ship, built for speed and pleasure rather than to ply the waters laden with merchandise as so many ships did in Wawat. A red-and-white-checked deckhouse and fore- and aftercastles surrounded by delicate railings of papyrus-shaped posts belied a sturdy frame and construction. The prow carried the ram-headed image of the lord Khnum, the god favored by the residents of Abu. Bak was impressed. The officer now speaking with Commandant Thuty had arrived in style.

  Ahead, the tall mudbrick walls of Buhen rose stark white in the early morning sun. Towers projecting from the face of the riverside wall rose to the crenelated battlements from two stone terraces lining the water's edge. A sentry stood at the base of the twin-towered gate they approached, passing the time with three small boys. A similar gate to the north was busier. A long line of men trudged down the quay, carrying heavy copper ingots from a warehouse inside the fortress to a ship bound for the land of Kemet. They sang a workman's song, out of tune and of scant musical merit, but if volume was any indication, the words were heart-felt. An elderly, wizened priest, his head shaved bald, sat at the base of the southernmost pylon gate. He sat there often, warming himself in the sun after performing the morning ablutions in the dark chill of the mansion of the local god, Horus of Buhen. Bak saluted the soldier, ruffled the hair of one of the boys, and waved to the priest.

  He stepped into the dark passage through the gate, and a cool tingle crept up his spine. An omen, he thought, maybe the lord-Amon himself warning him to proceed with care. He laughed out loud, driving the thought away, and the chill.

  The sentry in the entry hall of the commandant's residence pointed Bak toward a flight of stone stairs leading to the second floor. Bounding up the steps two at a time, he burst into the warm, sunny courtyard. The space was cluttered with toys, water jars, loom, grindstone, and a deep basin filled with natron. In the white, salty substance, Thuty's eldest son, :a boy of ten years, was dessicating a dog that had been his constant companion until its death of old age. The odor of decay had waned, Bak was glad, to note, so the child would soon be able to wrap for eternity the creature he had loved.

  He paused at the door of the commandant's private reception room, where three men sat waiting, no one speaking, as if all they had to say had already been said. The commandant sat in his armchair, a stemmed drinking bowl in his hand, beside a small table laden with bread, beer, cold roast pigeon, and dates. He spotted Bak and beckoned. Troop Captain Nebwa, seated on a low three-legged stool in his favored spot off to the side, glanced toward Bak and nodded. The third man, a stranger to Buhen, occupied a stool in front of the commandant. He, too, turned around to look.

  "You summoned me, sir?" Bak asked.

  "Lieutenant." Thuty raked Bak with his eyes, taking in his dirt- and sweat-stained kilt, bandaged hand, and assorted bruises and abrasions. If he was troubled by such an untidy appearance, he gave no sign. "Have you eaten?" he asked, motioning toward the food on the table.

  "At daybreak in Neny's village." Bak eyed the fare. A bowl filled with the tiny bones of birds told him the other men had already consumed their morning meal. "Nothing so grand, believe me."

  "Draw a stool close." Thuty was a short, broad man whose powerful muscles glistened with the oil he had rubbed onto his ruddy skin. His brows were heavy, his mouth firm, his jaw set. A fire burned behind. his dark eyes, reflecting the strength of purpose that had earned him his lofty position.

  As Bak selected a pigeon from the bowl and tore a wing from the body, Thuty nodded toward the stranger. "This man you see before you is Lieutenant Amonhotep. He's come from Abu, sent by Djehuty, governor of our southernmost province in Kemet. He's Djehuty's aide, his right hand."

  Savoring the bird, which was braised to perfection, Bak studied the officer. Amonhotep, a few years younger than Bak, who had reached twenty-five years, was of medium height and slender, with reddish curly hair and green eyes in a thin, serious face. His frame was slight, but well padded with muscle. His brow was lined with worry.

  "I've heard much about you, Lieutenant." Amonhotep gave so brief a smile Bak almost missed it. "The vizier, who's an old friend of Djehuty, praised you highly when he passed through Abu last week."

  Bak's eyes darted toward Thirty, seeking an explanation, and on to Nebwa. That the vizier, who had recently toured the fortresses of Wawat, had stopped at Abu on his return voyage to the capital was no surprise, but that a man in so grand a position would speak of a mere lieutenant in charge of the Medjay police at Buhen was astonishing.

  "Didn't I tell you the great man would spout your praise?" Nebwa gave his friend a lopsided grin, far short of the generous smile that normally accompanied his teasing. "In no time at all, your fame as a man who stalks human predators will spread throughout the land of Kemet."

  The troop captain, next after Thuty in the line of command, was a coarse-featured, untidy man, tall and muscular, thirty years of age. His belt was twisted, bunching his kilt up on one side. His broad, multicolored bead collar had worked its way around so the falcon-headed clasp lay on his left shoulder. His stingy smile, his failure to continue his needling, indicated a distinct lack of enthusiasm for whatever had brought Amonhotep from Abu.

  Thuty remained mute, strangely hesitant to explain the officer's mission.

  Bak, curious, suspicious, wary of the two officers' reluctance to speak up, dropped a thigh bone into the dish, licked the oil from his-fingers, and asked, "You summoned me for a purpose, sir?"

  Thuty's eyes slewed toward the officer from Abu. "The tale is best told by one who knows firsthand what happened."

  "How should I begin?" Amonhotep ran his fingers through his reddish curls. "Three members of Djehuty's

  household have met with an unfortunate death in a single month, one in the river near the governor's villa, the others within the compound in which the house stands. The first two seemed unlikely accidents, but we accepted them as such. Who wants to believe anything more abhorrent? The third was murder without question, a man found dead with a dagger in his breast. To Djehuty's way of thinking-and mine-that final death makes the first two suspect."

  He stared at Bak as if expecting agreement. Bak let nothing show on his face. He had too few facts to reach any kind of conclusion.

  "The last killing occurred one day before the vizier arrived," Amonhotep continued. "Djehuty, naturally upset by so recent a death, told the vizier of it and the other two. That worthy official was as disturbed by the tale as are all of us who reside in the villa." He paused, shook his head as if to rid himself of a bad dream. "The vizier thought of you, Lieutenant Bak. He told Djehuty how clever you are at laying hands on men who turn their backs on the lady Maat. He suggested we seek your help."

  How clever I am? Bak thought. Suddenly he understood the young officer's mission, and his heart sank. The tale was intriguing, the puzzle it posed a challenge. But only if he journeyed to Abu could he hope to identify the slayer-and placate the lady Maat, the goddess of right and order.

  "Djehuty is a proud man," Amonhotep said, "one accustomed to depending on his own resources. Yet how could he turn his back on the suggestion? Without help, we can do nothing. We've no one to point to, not a shred of proof that all three lives were taken at the hands of a slayer. So Djehuty agreed. He ordered his traveling ship provisioned for a voyage, and the day the vizier sailed north to the capital, I sailed south to Buhen. Now here
I am after eight long days on the river, pleading my case to your garrison officers." He leaned toward Bak; his voice grew hoarse with emotion. "And to you. Will you, Lieutenant Bak, return with me to Abu?"

  Bak stared at the officer, his thoughts racing. He liked nothing better than to follow the path of a slayer, searching out tracks often hidden by time and cunning, closing in on the one he chased, and snaring him. He had done so several times in Buhen, and he had gladly traveled south to the fortress of Iken to investigate the death of an officer. Unlike Iken, which fell within Thuty's command, Abu was a world away, the domain of another man, Djehuty, who had summoned him. Would he be free to move as he liked or would his hands be tied by authority? Would he get help from the garrison should he need it, or would he be forced to stand alone? Would those he spoke with be bound to answer his questions or would they laugh in his face and turn their backs to him?

  More important by far: would he be free to return to Buhen after laying hands on the slayer? Would he, could he, lay hands on the one he sought?

  He glanced at the commandant, but before he could sort out his questions, his doubts, Thuty stood up, walked to the door, and stared out at the courtyard. After a long silence, he swung around. "This, I feel, is a matter best discussed in private, Lieutenant Amonhotep. Leave us."

  "Yes, sir."

  Thuty stepped away from the door to let him pass. "I'll summon you within the hour with my answer."

  As the young officer's footsteps faded away on the stairs, Bak opened his mouth to speak.

  Thuty raised his hand to silence him. "As you well know, Lieutenant, the vizier is not a man to accept refusal. You must go to Abu."

  "But, sir..."

  Thuty slumped into his chair. "I enjoy my rank as commandant and thd, authority I hold here in Buhen and along the Belly of Stones. I dream some day of rising to the rank of general and standing at the head of a regiment." He picked up his drinking bowl, stared into its depths, set it down again. "Not only might that dream vanish if we ignore the vizier's wishes, but I might well be posted to Kush or Hatti or some other faroff and disagreeable land. It goes without saying that you'll walk beside me, wherever I go. Shall we take the risk?" .