'You've surely heard of Lieutenant Puemre's death,' Bak said. 'Doesn't it stand to reason that your drunken friend witnessed that murder?'
'He may have, I grant you. Or he may've been seeing the creatures born in a beer jar: snakes, scorpions, crocodiles, even a murder or two.'
'Can you describe this man who dreamed of murder?' Bak asked in a wry voice.
'He was of medium height, neither fat nor thin. He had dark hair cut short and dark eyes. He wore a short kilt, had a flint knife at his belt, and wore no sandals.' Sennufer noted the bemused look on Bak's face. 'I know. Half the men in Iken could answer to that description.'
'Meryre said you thought him a craftsman.' 'I had that impression, yes.'
'Why?'
Sennufer rubbed his earlobe, thinking. 'His hands, I guess. The fingers were short and broad, as were the palms, and his nails were dirty. Or maybe stained. They were strong hands, the hands of a man who uses them to earn his bread.'
'If he should come again to your place of business, would you recognize him?'
'I would.' Sennufer hesitated, frowned. 'I think I would.'
Bak stood up to leave. One thing he knew for a fact. His interview with Commander Woser could not possibly turn out any more disappointing than this one had.
Bak and his men, unable to spot a path that climbed the escarpment to the fortress of Iken, approached one of a dozen or more spearmen guarding the harbor. The man pointed out a cut in the cliff face and gave directions to a steep path he aUured them they would find there. The route was well traveled, taking them straight to the fortress and a broad, towered gate. After they displayed their passes, Bak led the way inside a city that looked much like Buhen, with blocks of white-plastered buildings lining narrow, arrow-straight streets.
'Go to the garrison stores,' he told Pashenuro and Kasaya. 'Get food and drink, enough for three or four days, and bedding and a brazier and whatever else we'll need. Talk to all who approach you. Maintain a frank and open face and don't push too hard for news of Puemre's death, but learn what you can. After I talk with Commander Woser, I'll send a message, telling you where our quarters will be.'
Bidding them farewell, he hurried to the commander's residence, a large house with a pillared court surrounded by rooms astir with scribal activity. When he identified himself, the men who overheard pretended indifference, but examined him as closely as a physician studies an open wound. A scribe sent him up a flight of stairs to the second level which, like the commandant's residence in Buhen, served as the living quarters.
Commander Woser, a medium-sized man with a slight paunch, was seated in his reception room in an armchair over which the tawny skin of a lion was draped. From his build, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and thick graying hair cropped below his earlobes, Bak guessed him to be in his late forties.
Without rising, he welcomed Bak with a smile so reserved it chilled the room. 'So you're Thuty's policeman. Lieutenant Bak, is it?'
His tone rankled. He made it sound as if Bak should be on a leash, sitting at Thuty's feet.
'So you're Woser,' Bak said with no smile at all. 'An able commander, I've been told, but one too lost in the day-to-day business of his garrison to report a man missing to his superior officer.'
Woser flushed. 'An oversight, I admit.'
Bak, forced to stand until bidden to sit, glanced around the room. A stack of scrolls lay on a table at Woser's elbow. Several low tables, wooden chests, three-legged stools, and camp stools competed for space with weapons and armor piled against the wall and a variety of products from Kush, confiscated perhaps or merely obtained in trade: a basket of ostrich eggs and feathers, a pile of bright skins, and an open chest filled with gaudy bead jewelry. 'Commandant Thuty was not even aware you, and therefore he, had a man of lofty birth within your command.'
'I shoulder no blame for that,' Woser said stiffly. 'I assumed Lieutenant Puemre registered in Buhen, as he was supposed to do. I had no knowledge of his failure in that regard.'
Bak knew if he pushed too hard, he would be treading on shaky earth, but Thuty had given him authority over Woser in the matter of Puemre's death, so he pressed on. 'Would it not have been politically expedient to make special note of a manlike Puemre when you made your reports to your commandant?'
Woser leaned forward in his chair, his eyes as dark and intense as his voice. 'Puemre was a good officer, a talented man of arms, but so are my other officers. I didn't wish to raise him above them simply because his father happened to be a nobleman.'
Bak felt stirrings of approval for the commander. 'I sympathize with your purpose, but one must be realistic.' 'Is it realistic to hold one man who has no greater experience than practice warfare above others who've fought for the lives of themselves and their men, proving themselves valiant on the field of battle?'
'Not many ranking officers would act upon such strong convictions.'
Woser waved off the compliment. 'In a little over a year I'll return to Kemet, leaving soldiering behind to live out my days on the small plot of land I was given long ago for service to my country. I no longer stand in awe of men of lofty birth.'
'Puemre's father is now chancellor of Kemet,' Bak pointed out, 'a man who has the ear of our sovereign. To call him lofty would seem an understatement.'
'A misfortune,' Woser admitted with a faint, but definitely cynical smile. 'A development I never anticipated.' Bak concealed his own smile. It was time he moderated his attack, but not so much as to give Woser the offensive. 'Commandant Thuty didn't send me here because he mistrusts you,' he said, skidding along the edge of the truth, 'but because he feels I might more quickly be able to lay hands on Puemre's slayer. After all, you've many other tasks, and I'll have only the one. He doesn't want this death to lay a shadow over the lord Amon's journey through the Belly of Stones.'
Though Woser's expression remained guarded, he pointed to a convenient stool. 'Take a seat, young man. I missed my midday meal. Late it may be, but would you care to join me in a light repast?'
A short time later, with a jar of beer, a flattish loaf of bread, and a bowl of thick, savory vegetable stew on a low table beside him, Bak felt more comfortable with Woser but no less wary.
'I've heard of you,' Woser said, dunking a chunk of bread in his bowl, 'and I know of the high regard in which Thuty holds you. It's said you not only laid hands on the man who slew Commandant Nakht, but at the same time you stopped the theft of gold from one of the desert mines and led a skirmish that saved a caravan.'
Maatkare Hatshepsut herself had ordered the stolen gold to be kept a secret, but it had been inevitable that rumors would leak out.
'I know of no gold leaving Buhen in anything other than an official shipment,' Bak said truthfully, for the thief had had no time to carry away his hoard.
'You did lay hands on Nakht's slayer,' Woser insisted. 'That's common knowledge all along the Belly of Stones. As is the success of your, battle with the tribesmen.'
Bak fished a slice of celery from the stew, uncertain what to say, unsure of Woser's purpose. 'I was lucky. The lord Amon stood by my side, guiding my thoughts and my actions.'
'No need to be so modest, lieutenant. You're an exemplary soldier, a fine and…'
'Enough!' Bak smiled to take the sting from his words. 'Too much flattery will make me suspicious of your motives.'
Woser chuckled. 'I'm just trying to point out that this task Thuty gave you is unworthy of your talents. If, as I believe, Puemre's death was an accident, you've nothing to investigate.'
Bak's eyes narrowed. 'An accident?'
Woser wiped the inside of his bowl with a crust of bread, finishing his stew. 'According to Thuty's message, Puemre was found in the river with his throat cut in such a way he suffocated on his own blood. My guess is that he slipped and fell into the water, which carried him downriver to the rapids where his throat was torn by a sharp rock. To assume his death a murder seems an overcomplication of a simple situation.'
Bak set his bowl down, rocked back on his stool, and gave Woser a long and hard look. 'It was I who found the body and I who pulled the murder weapon from his throat. That weapon was a chisel jammed hard and fast into place, too deep to be easily removed. Lieutenant Puemre's death was not an accident.'
Woser did not actually squirm, but he looked decidedly uncomfortable. 'If not, a trader must've slain him, as I believed initially. One of the many Puemre alienated during the month he served as inspecting officer.'
'I doubt Chancellor Nihisy will be satisfied with so simple an explanation and no evidence to back it up.' Bak
