beads. Bronze belt clasp, armlets, and anklets. Long spear shined to perfection, dagger sheathed in polished leather, and a golden tan cowhide shield. Golden fly of valor suspended from a gold chain around his neck.
Bak was very aware of the six small faces turned their way, the large, dark eyes locked on their father. He had no desire to lower Senu in his children's esteem, but time was too short for tact. He stood up, facing Senu squarely, his expression as hard as that of the watch officer. 'I have the authority to ask any question I wish. Did not Woser make that clear?'
'You can ask.' Senu's jaw jutted. 'We don't have to answer.'
Bak's voice challenged. 'You claim you don't like to see men die in battle. Well, I'm trying to stop a war, and I intend to succeed with or without your help.'
Nefer's eyes widened. She clapped a hand over her mouth and wraMed the opposite arm around the youngest girl.
Senu stepped back a pace, surprised and puzzled. 'You're not here about Puemre's death?'
'Indirectly, yes, but his slaying is no longer my primary concern.'
Senu looked at his wife, and an unspoken message passed between them. He sat down on the stool Bak had vacated. 'Go on,' he growled. 'I won't promise we'll answer, but try us.'
'Will you see Amon-Psaro while he's here?' Bak asked Nefer.
'If we finish with these in time…' Drawing her arm from around her daughter, she nodded toward the vegetables. '… I'll go with the children to watch the procession to the harbor.'
'Will you speak with him, I mean, while he's here in Iken.'
She frowned, trying to understand his purpose. 'If he summons me.'
'But you won't go out of your way to approach him,' Bak said, pressing the issue.
Senu leaned forward on the stool, his expression stormy. 'Let me set you straight, Lieutenant. Nefer may be AmonPsaro's cousin, but before all else she's my wife and the mother of my children. She's no longer a woman of Kush, nor does she want any part of her homeland.'
Nefer hastened to explain, to soften her husband's belligerence. 'We've five sons, Lieutenant Bak. They're no closer to the throne than I was, but they'd be looked at as a greater threat because they're male children. Neither Senu nor I want them to be involved in any life-and-death struggle for the throne should Amon-Psaro die.'
'Believe me,' Senu added in a fervent voice, 'we pray each day he'll live many long years, and that the priest Kenamon will heal his firstborn son. The boy is the only child he's sired on the queen, the only child whose claim to the throne is unimpeachable.'
Bak glanced toward the stairway, where the three youths were watching and listening with unflagging interest. He wondered what they thought about the life they lived in Iken as compared to the way they would live in a palace in the land of Kush. He dismissed the urge to ask. Both
Senu and Nefer were too protective of their brood to tolerate questions directed to their children.
'Would you not feel safer with your family in Kemet?' he asked.
'Why should we run away?' Nefer, her eyes flashing scorn, flung a handful of peas into a bowl. 'You haven't been listening to my husband, Lieutenant. I'm not a woman of Kush. I've lived in this land of Wawat since I was fourteen years of age. I've a different name, one common to women of Kemet. I dress and cook and live like the women of Kemet. Amon-Psaro has no claim on me, nor has the land of my birth.'
'This is our home,' Senu said, giving his wife a supportive nod. 'Oh, I grumble about a stalled career, claim bitterness at being assigned to this godforsaken land of Wawat, blame my youthful error for a lifetime of assignments on this vile frontier.' He clasped his hands between his knees, smiled at Bak a bit sheepishly. 'The truth of the matter is that my boyhood mistake, one I regret bitterly, had no influence on my career. To rise through the ranks I had merely to move north to Kemet. But we'd have had to leave this land of Wawat, a place our children have always known, a place Nefer and I love as much as life itself.'
Bak had no doubt Senu would kill to protect his familyand so would Nefer. But neither would do so, he was convinced, unless he or she had no other choice. 'I know nothing of the customs of the land of Kush,' he admitted, his eyes on Nefer, 'so my next question may seem foolish. Would Amon-Psaro… Could Amon-Psaro reclaim you, take you back to his palace as his own?'
'If he's the same man he once was,' Nefer said with a laugh, 'he thanks the lord Amon each night and morning that he had the good sense to trade me for those horses.'
Bak and Senu laughed with her, dissolving the tension and the mutual mistrust. The children, most of whom were too young to understand, began to laugh, too, cautious, tentative, relieved.
Wiping the tears from his eyes, Senu said, 'You spoke of preventing a war, and you question us about AmonPsaro. There must be a connection between the two.'
Can these people be trusted? Bak asked himself. Yes. They've nothing to gain by the Kushite king's death, nothing to lose while he lives.
'Puemre was slain because he discovered a plot to slay Amon-Psaro.' He forced himself to go on, to voice the unthinkable. 'Inyotef, I now feel sure, is the man I seek.'
The full force of the pilot's betrayal struck him. For a betrayal it was. A personal betrayal because a man he. had liked and trusted had deceived him with lies and smiles and had then tried to slay him. The larger betrayal, that of Inyotef turning his back on the land of Kemet and the company of gods, was no less hurtful.
'I'd not have thought it of him.' Senu, hurrying along the lane beside Bak, shook his head as if to deny Inyotef's treachery. 'We've never been close, but I've always believed I could trust him.'
'My conscience prodded me each time I considered the possibility.' Even now, after accepting the pilot's perfidy, Bak felt deceitful in voicing his mistrust. 'He used that, I'm sure, to blind me to his wrongdoing.'
In the distance, a trumpet blared. Three long blasts. It was the second signal they had heard since leaving Senu's house. They could see nothing from the lower city, but Bak pictured a herald standing high on the twin- towered southern gate of the fortress, his eyes on the distant caravan, invisible except for a huge yellowish cloud of billowing dust, making its slow way north along the desert track. 'How much farther to his house?' Bak asked. 'A few blocks, that's all.'
Men, women, and children hurried along the street, not yet a stream but a steady trickle making for the path that would take them up the incline to the fortress. Eager and excited voices, laughter ringing out, an impatient mother yapping at her children. The crack of a whip, rapid hoofbeats, and the raucous braying of a train of donkeys made to hurry against their will. A gentle breeze stirred the air, easing the heat without raising the dust.
'From what I've heard, his anger can flare in an instant and only a quick retreat can save the one closest to him from the fury of his fists.' Senu ducked away from a snapping donkey. 'But for the life of me, I can't think why he'd want Amon-Psaro dead. As far as I know, they haven't met for years. I see no flame there.'
'I think a long-dormant ember has come back to life.' Bak stepped over a greenish pile of fresh manure, launching a cloud of flies. 'Do you recall any special happening, anything unusual or suspect, when your paths crossed in days gone by?'
'We seldom met. I spent too much time traveling, guarding shipments of precious objects moving downriver or escorting envoys laden with gifts for tribal kings far upriver. He, too, spent most of his time on the water, but on warships rather than merchantmen. As far as I know, he never sailed much farther south than Semna.'
'Strange,' Bak said, frowning. 'Huy told me AmonPsaro and Inyotef were great friends while both were young and living in Waset. One would think Inyotef would've asked to voyage south. Not everyone can claim friendship with a king.'
'It seems to me there was something…' Senu paused, giving himself a moment to think, then ducked around a woman trying to console her sobbing baby and strode on. 'Yes.' He glanced at Bak, nodded 'Yes, I remember a time… Oh, fifteen, maybe twenty years ago. Inyotef had been given his first command, a warship of moderate size. He brought it upriver through the Belly of Stones, lay over at Semna for repairs, and sailed on south with the intent of journeying deep into Kush. The mission was insignificant: a show of power, I think, and no doubt to collect tribute as well.'
He paused again, listening to another blast of the trumpet. 'I must hurry. My men will be wondering where I've gone.'
He rushed around a corner, entering a narrow lane hugged on both sides by small houses buzzing with the voices of those who lived inside. A flock of ducks squawked in a derelict house, which reeked of bird droppings
'The envoy I was to escort was slow to reach Semna,' Senu went on. 'I was still waiting for him three days later when Inyotef sailed again into the harbor. His ship had been turned back. He gave no reason, but a rumor
