Bak sat on a jagged chunk of rock, the highest point on the island, keeping an eye on the channel the boats traveled when going back and forth between Iken and the island fortress. He was tired and bruised, his knees abraded. His arms and legs were weak and shaky. His kilt was filthy and torn from hem to waist. The hour was late, the sun close to setting, but with luck and the lord Amon's favor, another boat would make the trip before darkness fell. He had no wish to spend the night on this rocky outcrop, an irregular mass of jagged, water-worn stone.
Huy managed a wan smile. 'I tried to drown you. How can you be sure my terror wasn't pretense?'
'I doubt the lord Amon himself could turn a man into so accomplished an actor,' Bak said in a wry voice, 'but I've a more substantial reason as well.'
They both spoke louder than normal to make themselves heard above the tumbling waters.
'And that is…?' Huy asked.
'When we reached the harbor, we found my skiff holed for what seemed like no good reason. So instead of my vessel, we used yours. It, too, had been damaged, though in such a way we wouldn't notice until too late. You'd never have set foot on it if you'd done the dirty work yourself.'
If possible, Huy's face turned paler than before. 'My skiff was damaged deliberately?'
Bak described the damage to the hull, the missing dowel and butterfly cramp. 'And from the way the stanchion broke, it must also have been weakened.'
Huy's face turned grim as the truth began to dawn. 'We were meant to die together.'
'Exactly.' Bak rubbed the back of his neck, trying to banish the soreness from his muscles. 'I might've taken my boat out alone, but with a hole in its hull, I couldn't. You were busy through much of the day, watching your officers and their men practice the drills they'll perform for Amon-Psaro, so you couldn't take your skiff out until they'd finished.'
Huy muttered a savage oath. 'I worked the men like oxen, making no secret of the fact that I wanted to quit early because we planned to sail to the island.'
'Many things could've gone wrong.' Bak's voice was as grim as Huy's face. 'For example, I could've taken a barge to the island, though I've never done so before, and waited for you there. But I didn't. Everything fell into place for our would-be slayer, just as it was meant to.'
Huy eyed a heron wading in a shallow backwater across the channel and scowled. '1 can understand Puemre's murderer wishing you dead, especially if you're treading close on his heels. But why slay me?'
Bak gave the older officer a speculative look. 'What do you know of Puemre's death that you've failed to tell me?' 'Why would I hold anything back?' Huy snapped. 'Puemre was a swine, true, and I've no reason to grieve for him, but his death-any death-is an offense to the lady Maat. A lie only magnifies that offense.'
'You must know something,' Bak insisted.
Huy scrambled to his knees-not for the first time-and leaned out over the river. He wretched once and again and again, vomiting water yellow with bile, his body, racked with pain and exhaustion. When he finished, he leaned back against the boulder and closed his eyes. Bak allowed him to rest. Huy was a strong and determined man, but no longer young. He had spent the heat of the day standing beneath the blazing sun and had come close to drowning. He had earned Bak's respect, and he had earned the right to be left in peace while he collected himself.
'I know Puemre's father is the chancellor,' Huy said, his eyes still closed, 'a favorite of Maatkare Hatshepsut herself, and laying hands on his slayer would naturally be important to you. But you seem driven by the task.'
'I'd forgotten Nihisy,' Bak admitted, laughing softly at himself. 'I've been too worried for Amon-Psaro.'
Huy's eyes snapped open. 'Amon-Psaro? What are you talking about? Have you been holding secrets within your heart that bear on the workings of this garrison?'
Bak hastened to tell him all he knew. 'So you see now why I dared not trust you,' he concluded, 'and why I've asked the questions I have.'
'Woser told us he was certain a trader slew Puemre. I took him at his word.' Huy snorted. 'Because it was easier, I guess, to look to a stranger than to a friend.'
'The commander was laying a false trail. He feared Nebseny slew Puemre, and he even worried that mistress Aset might've done it.'
'Woser loves Aset above all others. After her mother died, he made her his sole reason for living.' Huy rubbed his eyes, red-rimmed from the water. 'Maybe now that you've cleared the air between them and between her and Nebseny, he can enlarge his life, perhaps wed Sithathor, the widow he's been visiting since he took command of Iken.'
A pair of crows swooped down, landing on a rock protruding from the river a few paces above the rapids. One bird, its wings fluttering for balance, hopped down to the water to pluck out the sodden carcass of a rat. Its mate squawked, calling to a third crow perched on an acacia on another small island.
'As for me,' Huy went on, 'I disliked Puemre for blaming me for the lives he lost during the first skirmish he fought, but as all the world knew his accusation had no substance, I carried no burden of anger, no wish for revenge.'
'You came too close to drowning for me to suspect you any longer,' Bak reminded him. 'If my thinking is right, the man I seek is either Inyotef or Senu.'
'I can't believe either man an assassin.'
'I'm convinced I'm right,' Bak said, his tone as unyielding as that of the older officer.
'And if you err?'
'I'll have no choice but to look at every man in this garrison, far too many for the few short hours until the Kushites march into Iken. The thought is intolerable.'
'We can and will surround Amon-Psaro with guards, every man in the garrison if need be.' The certainty evaporated from Huy's voice. 'But if one of those two happens to be the guilty man…'
Bak had no wish to go again through the various options available to protect the king, each and every one faulted. Fruitless speculation gave birth to frustration and depression, two feelings that could only get in the way of clear thinking. 'Will you tell me of Senu and Inyotef, sir?'
A tiny smile flitted across Huy's face, probably because of the formality from a man who had not long ago kneed him in the groin and knocked him senseless. 'Senu made a mistake when young, as many inexperienced men do. He saw his company winning a battle, and he urged them to charge forward, forgetting to notice the men to left and right, the way the front line wavered, the numbers of wounded falling. Carried away with success, he urged his men well ahead of the others, allowing them to be trapped in a dry watercourse. Puemre never let him forget his error.'
'Puemre made a costly mistake of his own.'
'He blamed everyone but himself for that, while Senu has spent a lifetime blaming himself for his error.'
A flock of swallows plunged from the sky, small winged missiles chattering with excitement. Wheeling in midair, they darted back and forth across the water, feasting on a cloud of insects too small for the human eye to see.
'Inyotef told me Puemre constantly reminded him of his age and his crippled leg,' Bak said.
'I counseled him and Senu both to ignore him, pointing out that he'd soon use his influence to have himself transferred to the capital, where he could walk the corridors of power. The man who tried to hurt him would merely hurt himself.'
Bak gave him a long, speculative look. 'You told me he wanted your job. One stepping-stone among many, you said. First you would fall to his ambition, and Woser and Commandant Thuty and the viceroy would fall behind you. He surely couldn't be in two places at once: here in Wawat and in faraway Kemet.'
A touch of pink colored Huy's pallor. 'His climb to power on the southern frontier was my own personal dread, one I believed unwise to share. The strength of a garrison lies in the solidity of its troops. I wanted no internal warfare among the officers. There was enough bad feeling as it was.'
Bak, who also now and again tailored the truth to fit necessity, smiled his understanding. Huy was a good man, he felt, one any good officer would be proud to serve. 'Do you have any idea why Senu or Inyotef would hate AmonPsaro? I speak now of the past in addition to the present.'
'I don't know.' Huy eyed a dragonfly flitting around the islet. 'I just don't know.'
Bak saw a reluctance in Huy to speak, a truth hidden in his heart that he preferred not to divulge. While he waited for the disclosure he knew the officer would be honorbound to make, he watched the swallows, their hunger satisfied, streak away to the west and the steep face of the escarpment where their nests were hidden. A
