The Right Hand of Amon (22 page)

"We'll go to the barracks the moment we get back to Iken," he promised Pashenuro. "You should have help by midday and Micks long before nightfall."

The Medjay nodded and hurried back to his crew. As Bak turned away to follow Huy down the path to the skiff, his eyes drifted unbidden toward the roaring maelstrom downstream. From where he stood, he could see no waterfall, but he guessed from the gathering speed of the river, the distant roar, and the amount of foam hurling into the air that the riverbed fell substantially, not all at one time, but in a series of cascades.

Ships sometimes traveled those rapids, he knew, when the river rose to its greatest height, laying a protective depth of water over many of the rocks. Using sturdy ropes, men standing on the islands or on unsubmerged boulders manhandled the vessels upstream or guided them through the deepest channels while the current carried them downstream. His feeling for Inyotef swung from pity to admiration; the pilot was responsible for guiding the ships through the rapids as well as along less troubled waters.

Bak saw an object in the mist, a vague image emerging from the steaming, roiling water. It looked for an instant like the head and shoulders of a man. No, he thought. Impossible. Abruptly the figure vanished from sight, a figment of his imagination he was sure. Then he saw it again in the smoother water above the rapid, moving slowly across the current, aiming toward the long island. A second figure emerged from the foam, and a third. The first reached the shallow water along the shore and stood up. A man. No, a boy!

He stared hard, unable to believe any human being could survive so great a turbulence. "Are my eyes deceiving me?"

Huy, halfway down the path, glanced downstream and laughed. "The local men and boys swim these waters with ease, using goatskins filled with air to lift them to the surface each time the lord Hapi pulls them under. I, too, when first I saw them, thought my eyes played tricks on me."

"They've more courage than I have, or are more foolhardy."

"The river is the center of their lives, Lieutenant, from birth to death and from dawn to dusk. They know all its habits through the seasons and how to use them to their advantage."

Bak watched the last boy wade onto the island and shake off the water like a dog. "I count myself a fair swimmer, and I like the water, but those boiling rapids hold no appeal." _

"You're fortunate you can swim. I'd drown in a quiet pool., ,

"You've never learned how?"

"Why do you think I sail with such care?"

Noting Huy's discomfort, Bak allowed the subject to die. He did not want to humble the officer, nor could he afford to alienate him.

As he unfurled the sail, a bright yellow rectangle of heavy fabric, and raised the upper yard, he said, "Nebwa tells me you've spent much of your life in Wawat."

Huy settled into the prow of the skiff, facing forward. "I've lived in Kemet, serving in the fortresses along our eastern frontier, and once I served as envoy to the land of Keftiu, but I think of Wawat as my home."

"You won the gold of valor, I've been told, while fighting in this barren land."

"Twenty-seven years ago, it was, far to the south in the land of Kush." Huy smiled at the memory. "I was a young man then, a raw recruit with more courage than good sense. I fought without thought, risking my life as if I were immortal." He glanced at Bak, chuckled. "Though often foolish, I acted the hero, and won a golden fly to prove it."

Bak saw pride on the officer's face and the humility of a truly brave man. He hoped Huy was not the murderer he was seeking. "Did you have occasion to see Amon-Psaro's father?"

"Only at a distance, and not until we won our final battle. He was a prisoner, his arms shackled, his head bowed with grief at the loss of his army, hundreds upon hundreds of good and valiant men."

"What of Amon-Psaro? Was he there, too?"

Huy shook his head. "He was a child, too young to stand with his father on the field of battle. I didn't get to know him until later."

"You actually knew Amon-Psaro?" Bak was so surprised he almost forgot to adjust the sail so they could pass .the southern tip of the long island.

Huy eyed him with curiosity. "We took him hostage. Did you not know? He grew to manhood in the royal house in Waset."

"Is that where you met him?"

"I was among the party who took him north." Huy's voice grew distant, following his thoughts into the past. "We spent many days together, sailing downriver to our capital. First, I served as a guard, ordered not to let him escape and flee back to his father. Later, when we were far away and he could no longer think of returning to Kush, we played games together and wrestled and fished and hunted. I like to believe I made him forget the loneliness he felt and the sadness of leaving his home and family."

Bak felt as if he had found a lump of gold in a long-dry desert watercourse. Huy had not simply known Amon-Psaro; he had known him well. Well enough to become his enemy? "You were good friends, then."

"He was my brother." Huy's smile turned wry. "I was very young, at heart only a child. When we bade good-bye at the door of the royal house, I left with tears on my cheeks. I knew I'd never see him again, and I didn't."

He was telling the truth, Bak felt sure, but was it the whole truth? "You must be looking forward to meeting him again."

"He'll not remember me. Too many years have passed." Huy spoke in an offhand manner, but Bak heard something else in his voice: a hope that Amon-Psaro would recognize him. As the friend he had lost so many years ago? Or as a long-standing foe?

"Lieutenant Bak!" A boy of seven or eight stood on the end of the northern quay, shouting. "Lieutenant Bak!" "What is it?" Bak lowered the yard and let the vessel's momentum carry it into the still waters of the harbor. "I've a message for you, sir. From the Medjay Kasaya."

"Tell me."

"He found the one he's been looking for. You must go to the market right away. To the animal paddocks."

Bak paused at the edge of the market to look across the sandy waste toward the paddocks. Somewhere behind, he had lost Huy. The officer had insisted on coming along, saying he wanted Bak with him when he spoke to Sergeant Minnakht and the men of Puemre's company.

Bak spotted Kasaya instantly. The big Medjay stood beside a paddock in which a lanky Kushite in a skimpy loincloth was trying to rope a huge; long-horned bullock. The enraged creature was wheeling around, bellowing, raising a cloud of dust that half hid Kasaya, three of the spearmen who had helped with the search, and a small dusky boy. Kasaya towered over the child, his huge hands gripping the boy's skinny shoulders. Bak loped toward them.

The boy watched him draw near, his eyes wide, terrified. Kasaya must surely have made it clear that we pose no threat, Bak thought, that we are in fact trying to keep him alive. Why then is he so afraid?

Without warning, the boy jerked free of the Medjay's grasp, ducked beneath a spearman's outflung hand, and raced away from the paddock through the dust, aiming for a row of stalls at the edge of the market.

"Catch him!" Bak yelled, frantic to keep him isolated from the crowd, where he would be almost impossible to find.

He sprinted across the sand, determined to head the boy off. Kasaya and the spearmen spread out, forming an arc to drive him"lnto Bak's arms. Bak ran to within ten paces of the child and slowed, poised to lunge. Kasaya and the spearmen closed in. The child, looking as desperate as a gazelle held at bay by a pack of wild dogs, veered straight toward Bak, startling him. Bak reached out to grab. The boy ducked low and sideways. Bak's fingers touched hot, sweaty flesh and the child slipped from his grasp. Moments later, he plunged into the throng of shoppers.

Bak swung on his men, furious at the loss. "Imbeciles! How could you let him get away like that?"

"I couldn't hold him, sir." Kasaya looked devastated. "I swear I couldn't. He's as slippery as an eel."

Bak took a long, deep breath, controlling his anger and frustration. He, too, had had a hand in losing the child. "Where's the other man I sent to you?"

"We left him in the storage magazine where we found the boy." Kasaya pointed toward the center of five interconnected warehouses fifty or so paces away. "I told him to guard the child's belongings."

"The boy'll not go back there." Bak glared at the market and the near-hopeless search they faced. "Let's spread out and find him."

With Bak in the center, they plunged into the throng. The aisles were jammed with men, women, and children from all walks of life, people who lived along the Belly of Stones and those who had come from afar to see the lord Amon. Some haggled over prices. Others wandered from stall to stall, squeezing fruits and vegetables, shaking jars, lifting the uppermost layer of a basket in search of hidden perfection-or rot-below the surface. A few gazed at the merchandise in quest of a special bargain or looked wistfully at objects too dear for their meager means.

Heat and a multitude of odors enveloped food stalls, metalsmiths' braziers, and crowded humanity. Shouts and laughter rose above a buzz of voices. Bak shouldered a man aside and was shoved in turn by another man. Bumped from behind, he stubbed his toe on a brick holding down a corner of linen and stumbled into a donkey that swung its head around to snap at him. Sweat poured down his back and chest. Anger and frustration clouded his face, discouraging ~; sharp comments from men whose feet he trod on.

Someone screamed. A woman's high-pitched wail of horror and loss. Silence fell all across the market, as if the people awaited another scream. A curious murmur swelled to a cacophony of speculation and fear.

Bak raced in the direction from which he thought the scream had come, shoving people out of his way. He seldom carried his baton of office, but now he was sorry he had left it behind in Buhen. Sobbing broke out ahead, pulling him toward his goal, a ring of people already collecting around someone else's misfortune.

He burst through the ring and stopped dead still. "No!" he cried, the words torn from him as he took in the scene. "No!"

The armorer's daughter Mutnefer was on her knees, bending over the small dusky child. Her body shook with sobs drawn from the depths of her being. The boy lay on his side in the dust among a dozen fallen jars and a puddle of blood. His bony arms and legs were flung askew, his eyes and mouth open wide, as if he were as afraid in death as he had been in life. A last drop of blood clung to the lower end of a long, deep slit across his throat.

"Troop Captain Huy remained with the body as you asked him to, sir. It was he who ordered the crowd away." Kasaya stared straight ahead, unable to meet Bak's eyes. Nor could he look at the straw nest hidden behind a store of pottery ewers, braziers, and bowls in a rear corner of the warehouse, illuminated by a flaming torch mounted on the wall. The sheet was dirty and stained; an unwashed bowl had drawn ants. A larger bowl was filled with childish treasures; a wooden crocodile and dog, a ball, a boat, a sheathed knifathat must once have been carried by Puemre, and a small ivory scribal pallet with shallow wells containing red and black cakes of ink and a narrow slot holding two reed pens.

Bak, kneeling beside the makeshift bed, could barely look at them himself. He felt as guilty as Kasaya and the spearmen did. If they had not searched out the child, he might never have run into the arms of the one who slew him. "What of the others?"

"They were all in the market, sir." "All of them?" Bak asked, incredulous.

"Yes, sir." Kasaya swallowed hard. "Commander Woser came soon after you left to see what the trouble was, and his daughter, mistress Aset, was with him. It was she who realized the shock was bringing forth the baby and led Mutnefer away. Lieutenant Nebseny came running, as did Lieutenants Senu and Inyotef, each from a different direction."

Bak rubbed his hand across his eyes as if to wipe away the images stored there. No one had witnessed the murder, nor had anyone noticed the boy, not even Mutnefer, until he grabbed the back of her dress as his legs gave way beneath him.

Bak stood up, clasped Kasaya's shoulder, and gave the Medjay a wan smile. "Go find me a basket, and tell Nebwa's men to report to Pashenuro at the island fortress. We'll take the boy's possessions to Mutnefer's house. Her brothers and sisters will like the toys; the rest she can keep as memories."

After Kasaya hurried away, Bak cleaned the bowl with a handful of straw, shook out the sheet and folded it neatly, and laid them with the other objects in the basket. Each item tore at his heart, deepening his determination to lay hands on Puemre's slayer, a man so low he had slain a helpless child. Seething inside, he glanced around, making sure he had everything and searching for ... What? A broken chunk of pottery with a sketch on its surface? He poked around in the straw, found nothing.

Rocking back on his heels, he studied the spot where the bed had been and the pottery stacked around it. He noticed, within arm's reach of the boy's nest, a wide-necked ewer lying beside a pile of bowls when it should have been stacked with the other jars. He picked it up. Something rattled inside.

Muttering a quick prayer to the lord Amon, he turned the ewer upside down. Four shards fell out, each covered with rough sketches in red and black ink, sometimes three or four images one on top of another, the red figures mixed with the black, making it hard to tell them apart. One picture, a bolder black than the rest, showed two men of Kemet, one thrusting a weapon down the other's throat, above a wavy line, water. The figures were so much like those in the sketch he had seen in Puemre's house that he was sure they had both been drawn by the same hand.

The boy must have drawn the pictures, not Puemre. What better way to communicate when you can neither speak nor hear? Had he drawn the sketches solely for his master? Or had he intended to give them to someone, Mutnefer maybe, to pass along a warning? The truth would never be known, but Bak liked the latter idea.