of drawing in black ink on its smooth outer surface. Picking it up, he saw lines rough and uncertain, a sketch by an untrained hand. People with round heads and pointed, birdbeak noses, shapeless bodies, and stick-like arms and legs. Then his eyes widened and he pursed his lips in a silent whistle. The sketch showed a man with the tall crown of a king bending over a small figure lying on a bed. A second man stood behind the king, knife in hand, arm poised for a deadly thrust. The meaning was clear: the Kushite king
Amon-Psaro with his ailing son, and someone… Puemre maybe?… intending to slay the king.
He took a long, deep breath to calm his pounding heart. Was he leaping to a conclusion based on faulty evidence? Why would Puemre want to slay Amon-Psaro, a man who had not set foot on the soil of Kemet for many years and probably never would again? No, the idea was ludicrous.
He heard a sound, the faint crunch of sand underfoot. Swinging around, he glimpsed a deeply tanned leg and a short white kilt. Something struck him on the head, rocking him back, and he felt himself falling. The world around him turned to night.
Bak opened his eyes, tried to lift his head off the floor. The room tilted at a frightening angle, making his stomach churn. His skull felt about to burst. He closed his eyes, swallowed. After a while, he tried again to rise. This time, he managed to lift his shoulders onto Puemre's clothing chest, empty now, its lid askew. When the room stopped spinning, he looked at the mess around him and cursed with all his heart. Whoever had struck him senseless had torn the place apart. The chests were empty, their contents strewn around the room, along with the sleeping pallets and sheets. The food storage jars had been tipped over, leaving grain and flour, lentils and dried dates, dumped on the floor. His eyes landed on a grayish mass of grit close to his knee and he muttered another, harsher curse. The shard with the drawing had been crushed to bits.
The chunk of pottery could have been accidentally trod on during the search-but he did not believe it for a moment. He quickly sorted through his thoughts, finding a new possibility. Maybe Puemre was not the man who wanted Amon-Psaro dead; maybe instead he had caught someone else plotting against the Kushite king.
Bak heard a noise, a faint crunch of sand underfoot exactly as before. He swung around and at the same time grabbed an empty storage jar, not much of a weapon but better than nothing. Glimpsing a man peering through the doorway, a long scar deforming his cheek and a wide-eyed look of shock and fear, Bak hauled himself to his feet and lurched toward the portal, the world unsteady around him. The man ducked away and began to run. Bak crossed the threshold on legs too shaky to carry him farther. Clinging to the doorjamb, he watched the man race around the corner at the far end of the lane and vanish from sight.
He scowled, more at his own infirmity than at his failure to catch the man. It should be easy enough to find one with so terrible a scar.
Bak walked along the lane, careful to make no quick movements that would goad the dull ache in his head into a full-fledged throbbing. He half listened to the voices on the rooftops, families relaxing in the cool of the evening while the women prepared the last meal of the day. A tiny brownish monkey chattered at him from a doorway. Dogs barked in the distance and a donkey brayed. A rat shot up the lane and through an open portal; an orange-striped cat raced after it. Iken might wear brighter colors than Buhen, he thought, but it was no different, a frontier city made up of men, women, and children, soldiers and civilians. Ordinary people going about their ordinary tasks.
As he neared the end of the block, the aroma of braised beef wafted from the open doorway of his new quarters. A broad smile spread across his face, and he hastened forward. The commissary, it appeared, had been generous indeed to Pashenuro.
He strode inside and followed the scent to a small, square courtyard at the back of the house. Stopping short on the threshold, he gaped at the attractive young woman kneeling at the burning brazier.
'Who're you?' he demanded.
She looked up, startled by his sudden entry, and gave him a sloe-eyed smile. 'I'm Aset, daughter of Commander Woser.'
For an instant, he wondered if the blow on his head had addled him so badly he had come to the wrong house. Impossible. 'What're you doing here?' The question was too abrupt, he knew, and lacking in tact.
She rose to her feet, her elegant figure visible through a calf-length white sheath so diaphanous he could see every curve, every shadow and light. 'You've had a long, hard day, Lieutenant. I thought to ease your evening hours with food and drink and…' She hesitated, shrugged. 'With whatever pleasures strike your fancy.'
He swallowed hard, trying to ignore the warmth in his loins. She was about sixteen, ripe for the plucking. But common sense told him to be wary of this woman. 'Where are my Medjays, Kasaya and Pashenuro?'
She raised an eyebrow as if surprised he should care. 'I sent them to my father's kitchen.'
The warning signals grew stronger in his thoughts, helping to quench the fire in his groin. The barracks would have been a more logical place to send them, especially if she meant them to spend the night away from this house.
With a sultry smile, she reached out to take his hand and led him to the mudbrick bench built onto the back of the house. Near the bench, he saw a reed basket overflowing with two wine jars, stemmed drinking bowls, and several bundles wrapped in leaves, food prepared by her father's servants, he guessed. A neatly folded bundle of cloth lay on the end of the bench, a robe, he assumed, something to cover her nakedness while she walked the streets between the commander's residence and this humble abode. A pleasant breeze floated off the roof, blowing away the heat from the brazier.
She picked up a jar and a bowl. 'Shall we drink and be merry while our food cooks?'
Bak took the jar from her, noted the vintage on the plug, and nodded his approval. Whatever her game, she was playing it with style. Or was it Woser's game? 'I assume your father believes you to be with friends, mistress Aset?'
'Oh, he never questions my actions.'
I'll bet, Bak thought. A lovely thing like you would be the bane of any father's life.
She sat beside him, so close he could smell her sweetscented hair and see the tiny brown mole tucked in the cleft between her lush, round breasts. 'Will you open the wine?' she asked.
Squashing the moment's temptation, he broke the plug and filled her bowl. The wine was a clear, deep red, heavy with the scent of a delicate yet indefinable fruit.
Taking a sip, she smiled and turned the bowl so his lips would touch the same spot. 'Drink, my brother, and enjoy. Let's make this a night never to forget.'
My brother, she had said. The endearment was as disconcerting as the invitation. 'I'm most flattered that you've come to me, mistress. You're as lovely as a gazelle, too perfect a creature to waste on one as undeserving as I.'
'You're far too modest.' She ran her fingers down the muscles of his arm, making his skin tingle. 'My father has told me you're a man of great courage.'
'Your father exaggerates.' He rose to his feet, distancing himself from so tempting a morsel.
She looked up, surprised, and gave him a pouty smile. 'You don't find me attractive?'
'You know I do.' Kneeling beside the brazier, he picked up a stick charred on one end. 'You're as lovely as any woman I know.' He made a pretense of stirring the fire, his thoughts flitting in all directions, searching for a way out. The last thing he wanted was to be expelled from Iken by an irate father.
'Come to me,' she urged, patting the seat beside her. He formed what he hoped was a regretful smile. 'I'm sorry, mistress Aset, more sorry than you'll ever know. But I've pledged my heart to another.'
The excuse was bittersweet, not altogether true, nor was it untrue. He had, many months before, given his heart to a woman too recently widowed to love him or anyone else.
She had gone to faraway Kemet, taking her husband's body for burial in his tomb. He had heard nothing from her since, nor was he sure he ever would. Still he yearned for her.
Aset's smile hardly wavered. She bent toward him, her shapely breasts bulging at the top of her dress. 'She's not here. I am.'
He eyed the plump offering. True, he had some time ago turned his back on abstinence. After all, yearning was one thing; remaining faithful to a faint hope was something else again. Not now, though, not with Commander Woser's daughter.
Quick footsteps sounded in the house. Leather sandals, Bak thought, not the reed-sandaled steps of Kasaya or Pashenuro. He offered brief but fervent thanks to the lord Amon for giving him the wisdom to leave the bench.
