times, and the oppressive atmosphere never failed to make him feel that he stood on the threshold of an eternity he was in no way prepared to inhabit.
Nofery stood beside a thigh-high stone embalming table, studying the naked body lying in the shallow trough carved into its upper surface. If she had ever seen the dead man before, the knowledge was hidden behind the perfumesoaked square of linen she held over her nose and mouth.
'Do you recognize him?' Bak doubted she did; she had been silent too long.
'The face, I think, is familiar, yes.' Her eyes, narrow and sly, slid toward him. 'If you were to jog my memory, perhaps with a small favor… '
He buried his surprise-and mistrust-in a frown. 'This isn't the market, old woman. You can't haggle with me over this man's name as you would with a merchant over the price of an onion.'
'I've no wealth to speak of, and I'm no longer in the prime of life,' she said in a plaintive voice. 'Yet I must make my way alone in this hard, cruel land. Have you no pity?'
Unmoved, he leaned against the empty table behind him and crossed his arms over his chest. 'Before a melon can be eaten, the vine must be given water in sufficient quantities to allow the fruit to mature.'
The wrinkles deepened at the comers of Nofery's eyes, hinting at a smile. 'I saw this man alive and well. Four or five months ago it was. He must've come and gone all in one day, for I laid eyes on him only the one time.'
She must really have seen him! Bak could barely believe his good luck. 'Go on,' he said, keeping his face bland, his voice level.
'My dwelling is small, but my business grows each day,' she said sadly. 'Those who come for beer must sit on the laps of those who play games of chance. Those who come for a quiet chat must shout to be heard through the din. Those who…'
Bak tamped down his impatience with a game he usually enjoyed and strode toward the door. The adjoining room contained nothing but a basket of clean white linen frayed at the edges and a few baked clay jars and pots. 'Come along, old woman. If you've nothing to tell me, I'll find someone else who has.'
She eyed him, measuring the strength of his will. He returned her look, saying nothing, waiting.
Her mouth drooped, she let out a long, aggrieved sigh, and turned back to the table. 'I went to the market that day earlier than usual. I heard loud, angry curses so 1, and others like me, ran to see. A sailor-I'd never seen him before nor have I seen him since-was beating his servant with a staff. The child, a boy of mixed blood no more than six or seven years of age, lay on the ground, his back, arms, and face bruised and bleeding. Before those of us inclined to do so could stop the beating, this officer…' She nodded at the dead man. '… burst through the crowd, tore the staff from the sailor's hand, and flung it away. Then he struck the sailor with his baton of office time and time again until he fell senseless to the earth.'
Bak eyed her long and hard. 'I heard of no such incident.'
'Nor were you meant to, for when the officer knelt to help the child, he and those of us who watched soon realized the gods had blessed the boy with neither speech nor hearing. We stood back and allowed this officer, who himself looked like a god, to lift up the child with uncommon tenderness and carry him to a warship moored at the quay.'
Bak nodded his understanding. A crude form of justice had been carried out, and, in the eyes of those who witnessed it, the matter was closed. He walked to the table and studied the grayish face of the man lying there. Would one who had behaved in so noble a fashion shun the scribal offices, thinking himself too great a man to register? Would he wear a belt clasp for which he was in no way entitled? 'Are you certain this is the same man?'
'He is. Ask any of the others who were in the market that morning, and they'll agree.'
Bak's final doubt ebbed away, and he gave her a pleased smile. 'You've done well, old woman, very well. Now did you ever learn his name and where he was going from here?'
Nofery's smile was no less sly than before. 'I'm in great need of a more spacious house. I went to the chief steward, and my plea fell on deaf ears. Only the commandant carries greater weight, but he'll not listen to me alone.'
'You tell me all you know about this man, old woman, and I'll convince Thuty of your merits, though that, I fear, will be no easy task.'
With a triumphant smirk, she backed away from the table and sidled toward the door. 'He boarded a warship carrying replacement troops for the fortresses along the Belly of Stones. I assume they, and he with them, disembarked at Kor and marched on south. How far I don't know.'
Realizing she was trying to escape, Bak leaped across the room and caught her by the elbow. 'You never learned his name, did you?'
'I wanted to!' She tugged her arm, trying to dislodge the fingers clamped around it. 'I thought him a fine man and yearned to know him. But few people had seen him and those who had knew nothing of him.'
Mocking himself for letting her trick him, Bak pushed her into the adjoining room. A priest. kneeling beside the basket, examining the linen, looked up, startled. Beyond, through another door, an embalmer bent over the body of a young woman lying prone on an embalming table. The wife of an officer, she had died in childbirth during the night. Using a long slim tool inserted through the nose, the embalmer was scraping the soft matter from within the head. A deep bowl with its contents hidden from view contained, Bak assumed, either the body of the unborn child or the organs that had been withdrawn through the gaping slit in the left side of the dead woman's abdomen.
'You'll not go back on your word, will you?' Nofery asked, worried. 'You asked only that I tell you all I know.'
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. 'I'll go to the commandant for you as I promised. But not until the lord Amon has come and gone.'
'Many men will wish to celebrate the god's visit,' she pointed out.
'Thuty has too great a burden to listen now. He'd close his heart to your plea, and you'd be out of luck altogether.' Screwing her mouth into a pout, she shook off his arm, trudged ahead down a short passage, and shoved open the door to the courtyard. Hurrying past Imsiba, standing outside with the trader Seneb, the old woman strode to a mudbrick bench shaded by the sycamores and palms lining the high enclosure walls. She flopped down with a grunt that silenced a chirping sparrow and bent over a small fish pool to draw deep into her lungs the sweet scent of white lotus blossoms floating on the surface of the water. Bak smiled to himself. She was not so chagrined that she would return to her place of business before her curiosity was satisfied.
He shut the door behind him and, with the taste of death still on his tongue, eyed Seneb from head to toe. The pudgy trader's hands were tied behind his back; his kilt was rumpled and dirty. Though not a bruise or cut marked his body, his eyes were wary, frightened. It seemed unlikely that the slain man, one fose actions had been so noble they had even beguiled Nofery, would ever have crossed the path of this foul merchant. Yet the question had to be asked, for they had both come from upriver.
'Has this jackal told you of his journeys, Imsiba?' The big Medjay hefted the long, heavy staff he carried. 'With a bit of persuasion, yes.'
Bak had little faith in words extracted by means of the cudgel, but in Seneb's case he could think of no more fitting way. 'How long ago did he travel upstream?'
'Five months, he claims, as does the pass we found among his clothing.'
'Nofery saw our man four or five months ago.' Bak spoke with care, preferring the trader remain in ignorance of how little they knew of the slain man. 'He failed to introduce himself before traveling south.'
The Medjay nodded that he understood. If the man in the house of death had come through Buhen only four months ago, Seneb would already have been far to the south in the land of Kush. If five months, the trader might have crossed his path.
'I'll take this cur inside, and when I'm through, I'll return him to his cell.' Bak took the staff from Imsiba's hand. 'In the meantime, speak with Nofery. After you hear her tale, send her home. Then go find Hori and see what luck he's had this morning.'
Hori was the police scribe. Bak had roused the boy at daybreak and sent him out with instructions to describe the dead man to all the garrison officers and sergeants. A thankless task, but a necessary one.
Imsiba nodded. 'I'll find him.'
Bak gripped the, trader by the neck and aimed him toward the door.
'What is this place?' Seneb demanded. 'Why bring me here?'
'Many years ago; when this wretched land of Wawat was ruled by a king not our own, it most likely was a
