'And garrison gossip as well?' Bak grinned.
'We're no good to anyone if we don't know what's going on around us.' The sergeant spoke with a solemn face and a twinkle in his eye.
'I've often found gossip useful,' Bak agreed, 'but only when filtered through a fine sieve.'
'That goes without saying.' The humor fled from the sergeant's face, and he grew thoughtful. His eyes darted toward his fellow watchmen; he seemed about to speak but unsure of the ground on which he trod.
'Could it be that you've stumbled onto a chunk of granite which might contain a grain of gold?' Bak prompted. The sergeant nodded, to himself rather than Bak, and walked on toward the precipice. 'One of my men was told a tale two nights ago. It's probably of no merit, for it was based on the ramblings of one too besotted by beer to speak his own thoughts. What you'll make of it, I know not, but I feel you should hear it.'
'I'll measure its worth with care,' Bak assured him. The sergeant knelt among his men, and Bak seated himself on a rocky knob beside them. The former spoke to the oldest of the three spearmen, a tall, gaunt man with thick white hair. 'This is Meryre. He walked to Iken two nights ago to see his wife. She's young and soon to bear him a child, so he worries needlessly. Since I'm as soft-hearted as he is soft-headed, I let him go some nights to see her.' The older man flushed like a boy talking of his first love. 'Tell this officer the tale you heard in the house of pleasure of Sennufer,' the sergeant said.
'I've known Sennufer since we were young and green,' Meryre explained. 'We soldiered together many years ago, and his wife looks in on my wife each day. I always stop to hear of her before I go home and to share a jar of beer with my friend. That night he told me so strange a tale I truly thought it born in the brewer's froth.'
Meryre paused, looked at the sergeant and Bak as if uncertain whether or not he should continue. Both men nodded encouragement.
'A man had come the night before, Sennufer told me. He was utterly besotted, stubbing his toe on the threshold as he entered and stumbling against the other customers. Sennufer took him by the arm and sat him down and half listened to his ramblings while he went on about his business.
'The man claimed the lady Hathor had come to him, offering him pleasure through the night. For privacy, she led him outside the walls of the city to a nest among the rocks and gave him jars of beer without number. At last he closed his eyes and, as goddesses are apt to do, she vanished in his dreams. Voices woke him, he claimed, men's voices raised in anger.'
Meryre scratched his nose, remembering. 'He told Sennufer that one man turned away, thinking to leave, but the other grabbed him from behind and thrust a knife into his mouth. The injured man struggled to get away, but the other was stronger. Soon he collapsed and the man who stabbed him shoved him into the river.'
Bak sat immobile, unable to believe his good luck. If he could find that man, that witness, he'd soon lay hands on the one who slew Puemre.
'I can see by your face, you think this tale a true one,' the sergeant said.
'It matches the way I believe Puemre's life was taken,' Bak admitted. 'Do you know anything, Meryre, of the man who told this tale to Sennufer?'
Meryre shrugged. 'He was a craftsman, I think, but I know not who Tie is or what he does. Go see Sennufer and ask him.'
Bak felt like shouting his thanks to the lord Amon. He had done it! He had solved the mystery of Puemre's death before ever setting foot in Iken. Or had he? Would a man so besotted remember the face of the killer five long days after he witnessed the murder?
Chapter Six
The lord Re's solar barque had long since tipped its prow toward the western horizon when they displayed their traveling passes at Iken's northern gate. Continuing along a well-trod path, they crossed an empty stretch of windblown sand before reaching an outer town of stone and mudbrick houses. Many had partially collapsed, some showed signs of burning, and all were blanketed with varying depths of sand. Bak knew they had been built and occupied many generations before, and had been allowed to deteriorate during those terrible years when the armies of Kemet had abandoned Wawat to Kushite kings. Since the Kushite armies had been soundly defeated twenty- seven years ago, the number of soldiers needed to man the garrison was small, and the houses had never been rebuilt.
Flimsy lean-tos and mud-daubed reed mats had been tacked onto structures with broken walls and fallen roofs, providing a modicum of shelter. The dusky-skinned people living there, plainly Kushites, watched the three strangers pass by with shy curiosity. Bak guessed they had come from far to the south to do business in this important trading and manufacturing center, and had set up temporary residence in the ancient dwellings. Thuty had described Iken as 'a city as large as Buhen, seven hundred or so people, with half the number of soldiers and twice as many civilians, many of them transients.'
They soon entered the lower city, which was more stable in appearance, with warehouses, workshops, and interconnected blocks of white-plastered mudbrick houses. A close look, however, showed as many buildings empty as occupied, some falling in on themselves, others unpainted and neglected.
Making their way along a series of narrow streets, they brushed shoulders with soldiers, sailors, clerks, craftsmen, and traders, less often with women, children, and servants. White-garbed people of Kemet vied for space with brightly clad people from Wawat and Kush. Cooking odors and the ranker smell of burning kilns and furnaces, the nosewrinkling odors of sour sweat and sweet perfumes, the ever-present aura of human and animal waste, and the musty-fishy smell of the river lay in the still, hot air like an unseen haze. The murmur of voices, the barking of dogs, the squawk of poultry blended together as one. Farther south, the sounds changed to the creak of ships moored in the harbor, the monotonous chant of men carrying bags of grain from vessel to warehouse, and fishermen growing hoarse hawking their day's catch.
Overlooking it all was the huge rectangular fortress whose towered mudbrick walls rose stark white atop the steep escarpment edging the western side of the city.
Bak had heard Iken was a great trading center, but he had had no idea how exotic a place it was, how varied its people, how intriguing its narrow, disorderly lanes and dark doorways. He was struck by curiosity and excitement, a yearning to explore. Hardly able to contain himself, he prayed fervently to the lord Amon that his task would soon be over. The city beckoned.
'I'm afraid I can't help you, sir,' Sennufer said. 'I don't know who he is.'
Bak dropped onto a low, three-legged stool, his spirits utterly deflated, and frowned at the short, wiry man, whose thin hair was so fiery red it had to be hennaed. 'Have you any idea why he came here to bare his thoughts?' Sennufer shrugged. 'A drunken whim, most likely.' 'A dangerous whim. If by chance he was overheard and word reached the wrong man, I'd not give a handful of grain for his chances of surviving to an old age.'
'I wouldn't worry overmuch.' Sennufer glanced outside, where Pashenuro and Kasaya were standing in a narrow lane, chatting with four spearmen. 'Meryre heard the tale wrong. Or maybe I twisted it without meaning to, leading his thoughts astray. The besotted man didn't claim he saw a murder; he said he dreamed one man killed another.'
Bak scowled at Sennufer, then turned his face away lest he seem unappreciative. He eyed this place of business: two cluttered rooms looking out on the lane and the blank wall of a warehouse. The rear of the room in which he sat was stacked waist-high with beer jars. Stained reed mats covered the hard-packed earthen floor. A basket of drinking bowls, four low tables, and a dozen battered stools stood around the room. Game boards had been painted on the upper surfaces of the tables, providing customers with an opportunity to wager while they drank.
The second room, which reeked of bread and beer, was abustle with activity. Two male servants, sweat pouring off faces made ruddy by heat and effort, chattered together. One crumbled half-baked bread into vats containing a sweetened liquid. The other stirred and strained the fermented brew, poured the thick liquid into large jars, and stoppered them with mud plugs. Sennufer was a frugal man, it seemed, one who manufactured the merchandise he sold. Bak was glad he had not been tempted. Home brew was ofttimes worthy of the gods, but also could be so strong it would lay low a bullock. With Sennufer's business so near the waterfront, the stronger type would no doubt be more in demand.
