The Right Hand of Amon (26 page)

"In many daces, it won't. But there are paths of greater depth through the rapids. When the flood is at its highest and with the ship controlled by men with ropes standing on the taller islands, it's . . ." Inyotef laughed. "It's an exciting journey, but reasonably safe. Amon-Psaro thought the voyage as much of an adventure as I did, but Huy. . ." He let his voice tail off, shook his head. "Last year I saw Huy standing alone, facing four armed men. Smugglers, they were. Desperate and vicious killers. He never showed a moment's fear. But his feet were planted firmly on the sand. Put him on a boat, let the craft rock on the swells, and he turns pale with terror."

Bak swallowed the last bite of bread and meat. Brushing the crumbs from his lap, he asked, "What was Amon-Psaro like?"

Inyotef shrugged. "In many ways, he was no different than any other boy of ten or so years. Curious about everything, easily impressed, innocent, fun loving. Yet he was a prince to the core of his being, a regal creature who knew himself to stand above mere mortals."

Bak sipped from his bowl, recalling Huy's words. "He was my brother," the group captain had said. Could an ordinary soldier, a guard, be like a brother to a royal child? One who walked with the gods? "Did Senu and Woser return to Kemet at the same time?"

"Other ships traveled north with ours, forming a convoy. I didn't know them then, so I don't know if they were on board."

Bak eyed the pilot, wishing he could see his face better. "I have one more question, Inyotef, perhaps the most important I've asked this evening. As an old friend, I beg you to be frank in your answer."

Inyotef laid the bone on the leaves in the basket with the care and precision of a man sorely tried. "Have I lied to you thus far?"

"I mean no offense," Bak said, raising his hands as a sign of appeasement. "My words were careless, I know. But your fellow officers have been far from open with me." Inyotef chuckled. "You're a policeman."

The gibe stung, especially from a man Bak considered a friend. "It's been clear from the outset that Commander Woser and the other officers, specifically Huy, Senu, and Nebseny, don't want me to identify Puemre's slayer. In fact, they've gone to great lengths to stand in my way. why?,,

The chuckle grew to a full-fledged laugh. "You're imagining obstacles where none exist, Bak. They're as eager to satisfy the lady Maat as you are."

My good friend, Bak thought, disgusted, a man whose indignation knows no bounds when 1 even hint he might not tell the truth. He wondered how many of Inyotef's other answers had been equally deceptive.

Bak lay stretched out on his sleeping pallet, staring at the stars. Soon after Inyotef's departure, he had gathered his bedding from the sleeping platform, shaken it out thoroughly in search of any deadly creature that might have been hidden among the sheets, and carried it up to the roof. He wondered why Kasaya had not yet returned from the commander's residence, thought of all the work Pashenuro and the men had done at the island fortress and all they had yet to do, worried that his search for Puemre's slayer and therefore an assassin seemed to be going nowhere.

He was close to sleep, yet awake enough to hear the sounds and smell the scents of night. The soft patter of reed sandals in the street and the odor of burning oil identified the spearman assigned to patrol that sector of the lower city through the hours of darkness. The terrified squeak of a mouse and a throaty growl announced a cat's capture of a late-night snack. Snarling dogs spoke of a fight over a bone or a bitch or a small animal caught by one and desired by all. A crying child and the stench of excrement told of a baby suffering from an illness of the stomach. A woman giggling on the next rooftop and the soft murmurs of a male voice preceded a rustling of bedding, heavy breathing, and moans of ecstasy. Familiar, comfortable sounds. Bak's eyelids grew heavy and he slept.

"Lieutenant Bak. Are you asleep, sir?"

Bak opened his eyes, shook himself awake, sat up. "Kasaya! What is it? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. But I thought you'd want to know." The burly Medjay hunkered down beside him and spoke in a murmur so his voice would not carry to the occupied rooftops close by. "I've found a woman in the commander's residence who'll speak with you, a servant called Meret."

"She wants to talk now?" Bak asked, his voice dubious. Kasaya shook his head. "At sunrise tomorrow. At a place not far from the river where the women gather to do their washing."

"Isn't she afraid her master will hear of the meeting from the other women?"

"Most feed their families before washing their linen, but she has more sheets and clothing than all the others combined so she must start early. The place she mentioned is sheltered by a row of trees. It's easy to see all who approach and impossible to be seen from the lower city or the fortress."

"Why has she offered to help? Is she seeking vengeance for some real or imagined slight on Woser's part or on the part of Aset?"

"No, sir." Kasaya stared at his knees, fidgeted with his hands. "She's ... Well, she's a widow, sir, and lonely." Bak reined in the urge to grin. "And you're going back to her bed tonight."

"Yes, sir."

Clapping him on the shoulder, Bak sent him on his way. As the Medjay's soft footsteps faded away in the street below, he lay back down. He regretted the need to use the woman in so shallow a way, but he had no choice. All he could do was pray she would provide the breakthrough he so desperately needed.

Amon-Psaro would march through the gates of the fortress before nightfall the next day, yet the identity of the man who wished to slay him was as elusive as it had been from the beginning. Many signs pointed to a conspiracy among the officers, yet he rejected the theory. The idea that four senior officers, all stationed at a single garrison, hated

Amon-Psaro enough to wish him dead stretched credibility. The fact that they all were assigned to the garrison at Iken when Amon-Psaro decided to come to Iken was a joke played by whimsical gods, not an occurrence planned in an organized plot. The idea that they all would risk a war to settle a personal grudge was as totally implausible. If he could get the truth from Woser, maybe once and for all he could settle the matter.

Bak walked along the water's edge, staying close to the trees, blending as much as possible into the long shadows of first light. Should Woser learn of this meeting, he would not thank Meret for speaking of his private affairs, especially with the police officer whose efforts he had done all he could to obstruct. She would no doubt be beaten, and Bak did not want that on his conscience.

The morning was soft and gentle, the land not yet heated by the lord Re. The air was sweet, the sky a clear, vibrant blue. The trees were alive with birdsong, too loud to hear the leaves rustling in the breeze or the murmur of the rapids, whose voice was softened by distance.

Kasaya stepped out of the trees twenty or so paces ahead and waded into the river. He cavorted in the water as if born to the lord Hapi, diving, rolling, leaping, letting the current carry him downriver, battling the flow to return upstream. He was showing off to the woman, Bak guessed, flaunting his youthful vigor, his large well-formed body, his good spirits.

As Bak approached the spot where the Medjay had entered the water, he paused. Ahead, the row of trees curved away from the river's edge and back again, forming a sandy half circle dotted with weathered boulders and bushes growing from patches of rich black soil. A backwater during the height of the flood, he guessed, but now an ideal place for the local women to do their laundry. Sheets so white they burned his eyes were already draped over several boulders and bushes, drying in the sun.

A thin-faced woman of about seventeen years knelt at the edge of the water, looking often at Kasaya, laughing with delight at his performance, while she scrubbed a winestained dress with a whitish substance Bak assumed was natron. Her long white shift was hiked up to her thighs, revealing legs as slender and muscular as her bare arms. Her hair was pulled back and hidden inside a bag-like protective cloth. Sweat poured from her brow and stained the back and underarms of her dress.

Bak scuffed his sandal, alerting her to his approach. She glanced his way and flushed, then scrambled to her feet, clutching the dress to her bosom, and attempted an awkward bow.

Suspecting Kasaya had exaggerated his importance, Bak waved off the formality. "Go on with your task, mistress Meret." He knelt at the edge of the trees, letting her know he respected her wish for secrecy. "Kasaya has told me you're willing to speak of Commander Woser's household."

She nodded, tongue-tied by shyness-or maybe shame at what she was about to do.

To one will know you've talked to me, that I promise." "Kasaya says you're a man who keeps your word," she murmured, dropping to her knees, bending over the stained dress. "Ask what you will."

Since Meret had been given the lowly task of washing linen, he guessed she was one of the lesser servants, helping in the kitchen, making beds, and dusting and sweeping in addition to doing laundry. In a frontier fortress, however, where households were small and informal, she would also sometimes help Aset with her toilet. And she would certainly gossip with the other servants.

"How did mistress Aset behave with Lieutenant Puemre? Did she act as if she cared for him?"

"The mistress is a child." Meret's smile was tender, forgiving of Aset's faults. "Her mother died when she was very young, a babe. If her father had taken another wife, she'd have learned to be a woman. Instead, he's always given her all she desires and shelters her from care and worry. She plays with his affections, and because she knows no better way, she flirts with all men, hoping to bring them to their knees as she does her father. Lieutenant Puemre was no different than the rest."

She stopped abruptly, the color spreading across her face, evidently realizing her tongue had been running away from her.

A long speech for a shy woman, Bak thought, and a strange one. Two women close to each other in age, one a household drudge, the other her pampered mistress. An ideal nest for jealousy, yet the one with nothing plainly adored the one who had everything. Kasaya must have bewitched her to get her to speak.

"What of Lieutenant Nebseny?" Bak glimpsed the Medjay leaving the water to settle down at the base of a tree, where he could watch the path from the fortress and also eavesdrop. "From what I've seen of him, he appears to be her slave, though a reluctant one."

"They're betrothed."

Bak whistled his surprise. "I'd not heard a word. Why does no one speak of it?"

"She refuses to wed." Noting Bak's raised eyebrow, Meret hastened to her mistress's defense. "She has no desire to hurt the lieutenant; she looks upon him with fondness. But she wishes above all else to live in Kemet, while he likes serving on the frontier. She fears they'll not be happy.,,

Bak snorted, incredulous. "Woser lets her play that game?"

"Not willingly," Meret admitted, sprinkling more natron on the fabric and scrubbing the stain between her knuckles. "The betrothal was his wish. He and the lieutenant are as close as father and son." A thought struck her, and she smiled. "That's why Aset flirted so shamefully with Lieutenant Puemre. She thought it amusing to defy her father while at the same time she teased her betrothed."

Not tease, Bak thought, manipulate. Or, more likely, she cared not a grain of sand for what either man thought. She wanted only to wed a nobleman and live a life of wealth and ease on a great estate in Kemet. "How did Puemre respond to her?"

"He flirted, but at a distance." Her expression clouded. "Those of us who serve in the commander's residence knew of the woman he had, the armorer Senmut's daughter. We tried to warn Aset, but . . ." Again the tender, forgiving smile. "She's always been certain of her own charms." "Did your mistress win him at last?"

Meret lifted her eyes to Bak's. "I don't know."

The look she gave him was open and direct, free of guile or shyness. The false look of a liar, he felt sure. "I'm not asking if she won a vow of marriage, Meret. If she had, she'd have shouted her victory to all the world. I want to know . . ." He paused, giving his words greater emphasis. "I must know if she lay in his arms, letting him fill her belly with child."

"No!" Her eyes widened, dismay replacing the mock innocence.

"That's what the men are saying in the barracks." "Maybe that's why..." She clapped her hand to her mouth. "No, it's not true!"

He saw he had touched a raw spot. "The common soldiers, the traders, others as well, say she's with child, and Puemre wag'the father."

"He never touched her! She teased, that's all. I should know; I wash her sheets and clothing." Her face reddened at the oblique reference to her mistress's monthly cycle. She lowered her eyes and murmured, "Why must you men always believe the worst?"

Bak stared, his thoughts jolted by her words. True, he had been assuming the worst, but not the way she meant. He had been thinking of Woser's lack of cooperation, and Nebseny's, in terms of a plot against Amon-Psaro. Now this lowly servant had unwittingly reminded him that the obvious explanation was ofttimes the real one, something closer to home and more personal.