already broken up three fights and confined a half dozen belligerent drunks and a couple of petty thieves.
Nodding to the scribe, he crossed the threshold to a long, narrow corridor. The walls had been painted yellow in a futile attempt to brighten the dimly lit space. A large, dark figure came hurrying toward him.
'Imsiba!' Bak clasped the Medjay's shoulders as if he had been gone a month instead of a few hours. 'I feared you'd miss the lord Amon's arrival!' He barely paused for breath. 'How did you get back so soon? What happened at Iken?'
A wizened old man limped through the audience-hall door. Bak and Imsiba retreated to the base of a stairway rising to the commandant's quarters on the second floor. Light filtered down the steps from the open courtyard above. Pale dust, streaked by sweat, mottled the big Medjay from head to toe.
'Well?' Bak demanded:
With a weary smile, Imsiba slumped onto the bottom step. 'The commander of Iken, Woser is his name, saw me without delay. I knew how eager you'd be for my report, so I stopped only at the barracks for a bite to eat and the local gossip.'
'Have they caught the man who slew Puemre?' Bak prodded.
The Medjay's smile faded. 'Not yet.' 'Then I'm to go to Iken.'
'Commander Woser thinks your time will be better spent getting the truth from that vile trader Seneb.' Bak's eyes narrowed. 'Did you not tell him my doubts on that score?'
'I did.'
A childish giggle sounded at the top of the stairs. A darkeyed girl no more than two years of age stood naked above them, sucking her thumb, staring.
'Let's leave this place, Imsiba, before all Thuty's children descend on us.' Bak eyed his friend critically. 'We'll go to the river, where you can have a bath before the sacred barge arrives.'
In the street outside the building, Bak asked, 'While we waste our time with Seneb, how will Commander Woser spend his time?'
'His officers will look into the matter. He believes they'll have no trouble learning the name of the slayer.' 'If Woser's so confident…' Bak paused; his eyes darted toward Imsiba. 'Do you think he's guessed who took Puemre's life and has only to act on the knowledge?' 'I doubt he suspects any one man. Lieutenant Puemre, at the time of his death, led an infantry company. But five months ago when first he reported to Iken, he was an inspecting officer-as that swine Seneb told us. He held the task for only a month. His harsh measures made him many enemies among those who seek to evade the tolls or profit at the expense of their fellowmen.'
Bak muttered an oath. If the slayer proved to be a trader, he might not be snared for months-if at all.
They headed toward the twin-towered gate which straddled the far end of the street and opened onto the quay. The sun god Re, hovering above the rim of the fortress wall behind them, bathed the battlements and towers ahead in a light so bright it hurt their eyes. The thoroughfare was nearly deserted. Only a few stragglers-a woman with a tiny baby, a couple of soldiers, a scribe-rushed toward the gate and the crowd outside. A priest, white-robed and shaven bald, hurried toward the mansion of the garrison god, Horus of Buben, which dominated the city from a high mound at the corner of the citadel.
'So that's the end of it, my friend.' A smile played on Imsiba's face. 'The problem is no longer yours, and you can journey to Semna with the lord Amon, as is right and proper.'
Bak scooped a rough, fist-sized chunk of milky white limestone from the edge of the street. 'Woser doesn't want help, that's plain enough.'
'He's served in Wawat for years; he knows this land and its people far better than you and I.' Imsiba waved at a soldier peering over the edge of a rooftop. 'He's confident he'll lay hands on the slayer sooner or later, and so he'll tell Commandant Thuty in the report he's no doubt preparing even now.'
Woser's reasoning appeared sound enough, Bak had to admit. Yet many men spoke with confidence; more than a few failed. 'What of Puemre's belt clasp, Imsiba?'
'The lieutenant came to Wawat from the regiment of Amon.' The Medjay gave Bak the dour look of one who knew very well he was feeding a fire he had hoped to quench. 'Commander Woser told me so himself. How long he'd been with your regiment, he didn't say.'
'It couldn't have been more than a few weeks. I left ten months ago. Take away the five months he's been here, and the time it takes to journey up the river from Waset…' Bak's voice tailed off, he shook his head in disgust. 'No wonder Woser assigned him first as an inspecting officer!'
'He probably trained in another regiment. From what I was told in the barracks by those who fought beside him in this foul land, he was skilled in the arts of war and faced the enemy without fear.'
'Nonetheless…' Bak, reaching the only possible conclusion, grimaced. 'How lofty a position does his father hold in the land of Kemet?'
A wry smile touched Imsiba's face. 'I was told only that his name is Nihisy, but much was made of Lieutenant Puemre's courage and his willingness to befriend his men though he was of noble birth.'
'Nihisy.' Bak spread his hands wide, shrugged. 'The name means nothing to me, but if he's a nobleman…' He had no need to say more. Woser's report would have to be very persuasive to prevent Thuty from sending Bak to Iken.
He twisted the chunk of rock between his fingers, making its many small crystals glitter in the sun. Puemre, he thought, must have been a lot like the stone, never showing the same face twice. Nofery had admired him, and Seneb hated him even in death. He had proven himself worthy to his fighting men, not an easy thing to do, yet he had worn a belt clasp to which he had no right, and he had most likely attained his rank through his father's influence. 'When was Puemre first discovered missing?'
'His sergeant, Minnakht, reported him gone the morning of the afternoon we found him.'
Bak was accustomed to the oblique way Imsiba sometimes spoke, but as always he had to struggle to make sense of the words. 'Two days before you told Woser we'd found the body. Two whole days, and he didn't send a message to Thuty. How did he explain that?'
'He offered no reason, nor was it my place to ask.' Imsiba gave Bak the same dour look as before. 'Can you not close your eyes to such a small lapse? You'd be much happier leading me and our men in Amon-Psaro's guard of honor than spending day after day in Iken.'
Refusing to admit, even to himself, how tempted he was to heed Imsiba's plea, Bak drew the Medjay off the paved street at the rear of the guardhouse. The sandy plot was cluttered with building materials: drying bricks, wood of varying lengths, a few stone slabs.
He dropped the rock, brushed his hands together to remove the dust, and sat down on a stack of wood. 'If Woser neglected to report the absence of a nobleman, what else will he fail to do?'
'The men of the garrison think him a worthy and honorable man. He'll do what he must.'
'Will he?'
Imsiba's brow furrowed with disappointment. 'If not for you, my friend, I and all our men would still be looked upon with suspicion, as we were when first we came to Buhen. Now that a time has come when we're to be given a place of honor, you must stand at our head, for without you there, our triumph will be hollow.'
Bak felt as if he was being torn in two. 'Don't you know how much I want to go with you, Imsiba? But I want also to do my duty. And if it takes me to Iken, I must go.'
Imsiba shifted from one foot to another, uncomfortable with the decision.
Bak rose from the woodpile and forced a smile. 'I can promise you one thing, my brother: I'll do all in my power to resolve this death as fast as I can. With luck, the lord Amon will smile on me, and I'll be free by the time he reaches Iken.' He clapped his friend on the shoulder. 'Now, go find a place for a swim.'
Imsiba gave him a halfhearted smile and hurried down the street to the fortress gate. Bak picked up the chunk of stone, swung around, and hurled it as hard as he could at the mudbrick retaining wall that supported the mound on which the mansion of Horus stood. A puff of dust erupted from the slight hollow it made. Given enough time and a sufficient number of rocks, he could lay bare the temple foundations. He prayed he could gather enough pebbles of information to reveal Puemre's slayer in time to go upriver, as he had promised Imsiba.
Bak stood with his fellow officers on the stone terrace facing the river. His eyes, like those of every man, woman, and child of Buhen, were locked on the sacred barge of the lord Amon, moored at the quay projecting into the water from the pylon gate leading into the mansion of Horus of Buhen. The long, slender hull, the canopied dais rising amidship, and the sacred barque within, all sheathed in gold, glittered in the harsh midafternoon sunlight. The slim and elegant image of a man, the lord Amon, formed of solid gold, as tall as Bak's arm from elbow to fist, stood
