dwelling of the living. Now… ' Bak jerked the door open and shoved him over the threshold. 'Now it houses the dead.'
The cloying stench stopped Seneb as if he had run into a wall. 'What're you going to do to me?'
Bak dug his fingers into his squirming prisoner's neck and propelled him through the building to the room where the unnamed body lay.
At the foot of the embalming table, Seneb dug in his heels. 'Why have you brought me here? What…?' His eyes landed on the slain man's face. He blinked once, twice, leaned forward for a closer look. 'Lieutenant Puemre!' A smile touched his lips, spread; laughter bubbled from his mouth.
Bak was so startled he relaxed his grip on the trader's neck. It took him a moment to realize he had been handed the name, and even then he was too distracted by the odd reaction to enjoy his unexpected success.
Seneb walked as if mesmerized alongside the table, staring at the damaged foot and hand, the blotches and tears on the body. He stopped at the head, purred, 'You swine.' And he spat on the dead man's face.
'Seneb!' Appalled, Bak lunged at the trader and_ dragged him to the foot of the empty embalming table. 'Are you so low you'd violate a lifeless body?'
'I've harbored hatred in my heart for that man for five long months,' Seneb sneered. 'What would you have me do? Kneel by his side and offer words of forgiveness to his ka?'
Bak glared at his prisoner, giving himself time to think. Seneb's caravan had come down the river the same day the body had. The two men could have met and clashed somewhere along the Belly of Stones. Yet if Seneb were responsible for the man's death, would he have reacted with such surprise, such pleasure at seeing his enemy lifeless?
'What did this man, this Lieutenant Puemre, do to earn such loathing?''he asked.
The trader's mouth twisted with malice. 'He thought himself above all- mortal men, judging them for faults he failed to see within himself.'
'I want specifics, Seneb, not a bald, flat statement any man could make. What did he do to you?'
'He…' The trader hesitated as if deciding what, if anything, he should divulge. 'He treated me with contempt.'
Bak's mouth tightened. He raised the staff, placed the end under Seneb's chin, and forced his head high. The trader tried to step back, but the table behind him caught him just below his fleshy buttocks. Bak increased the pressure. Seneb's spine arced backward. He clung with bound hands to the rim of the trough. His eyes grew large, frightened.
With a contemptuous smile, Bak pulled the staff back until the trader could almost stand erect. 'Will you now spit on me? Or will you tell me what I wish to know?'
Seneb, his eyes glued to the pole, tried to swallow. 'As I made my way upriver, bound for the land of Kush, he took my pass from me, keeping it day after day for no good reason. He cared nothing for the time I wasted or the goods I had to trade for a mere pittance in order to feed myself and my servants, my donkeys. He'd have bled me until I had nothing left if I'd not finally gained the ear of the garrison commander.'
Bak's thoughts leaped back to the previous morning at Kor and the trader's excuse for driving his caravan so long and hard without a stop. The memory brought a dangerous glint to his eyes. 'This, then, was the inspecting officer you wished to avoid at Iken when you came back downriver?'
Seneb tried to nod, but the staff held his chin, in place. 'He was.'
'You could've had no children with you at the time,' Bak said, thinking of Nofery's story, 'and your donkeys must've been fresh. What reason did he have for holding your pass?'
'He had none! I swear it!'
Bak raised the end of the staff a finger's breadth, drawing a fearful moan from the trader.
'My donkeys were laden with ordinary trade goods, I tell you. Pottery, tools, beads, linen. Nothing more, nothing less.' Seneb's eyes darted in all directions but never once met those of his inquisitor. 'If that Medjay of yours had thought to bring my pass, you could've seen for yourself.'
Bak was well acquainted with the many and varied ways traders, soldiers, and even the royal envoys tried to slip objects through the frontier without paying the required tolls. False passes were not uncommon. He exerted pressure on the staff, forcing the trader so far back his eyes bulged.
'Ahight!' Sweat rolled from Seneb's forehead into his ears and hair. 'Four donkeys were found in the desert, tethered out of sight of the trail. Two carried fine weapons, the others wines from the best vineyards of northern Kemet. He accused me of hiding them-no doubt one of my servants whispered the thought in his ear, meaning to repay me for an imagined wrong-and he insisted I be punished with the cudgel as well as fined. But I knew nothing about them!' His eyes darted toward Bak and away. 'I swear to the lord Amon, they weren't mine! Would I leave my beasts of burden with no food or water?'
Bak was sure that was exactly what Seneb had done, and Puemre had taken upon himself the task of righting a wrong, just as he had when he beat the sailor who struck the mute child. A man of high principles. Or was he? What of the belt clasp?
Bak eyed the trader with disdain. 'How did you convince the garrison commander to believe you over Lieutenant Puemre?'
'I saw no love between them,' Seneb said in a sullen voice.
'And you'd. aheady sacrificed… What? Half your investment?… by denying knowledge of the hidden animals and what they carried?'
Seneb clamped his mouth shut, refusing to admit or deny. Bak jerked- the pole from beneath the trader's chin, grabbed his arm, and swung him around to face the dead officer. 'Did you take this man's life, Seneb?'
'You accuse me of…' The trader stared with horrified eyes. 'No!'
'Did you come upon him standing alone, somewhere along the river between Iken and Kor? Did you creep up behind him and knock him unconscious, giving him no chance to protect himself?'
'I didn't!' Seneb cried. 'Ask my servants. Ask those wretched children I brought from the land of Kush. They'll all tell you. I never left the caravan. Not once.'
'We'll ask them,' Bak said grimly.
But will we get the truth from them? he wondered. They all hated the trader and no longer had reason to fear him. They would as readily lie now to see him punished as they would have lied to protect him while still he held the whip.
'Lieutenant Puemre, inspecting officer at Iken.' Nofery savored each word as if the knowledge was more tasty than fine wine. 'I can't imagine why none of the scribes remember him. He was so well-formed and manly.'
Bak scooted his three-legged stool closer to the doorway to catch the afternoon breeze and took a sip from his chipped drinking bowl. The beer she had given him was not the best she had to offer, but it was exactly what he needed: thick enough to coat the tongue and pungent enough to chase away the scent of death.
'They never saw him.' He took another sip, rolling the harsh liquid around his mouth. 'I went again to the scribal offices after I left the house of death. They have no record of a Lieutenant Puemmre bound for Iken or anywhere else upriver.'
Nofery plopped down on a stool, which disappeared be1 heath the sagging flesh of her thighs. 'Records have been known to disappear through careless filing.'
He snorted. 'You tell that to the chief scribe.'
Tipping his stool back, he rested his head against the doorjamb and eyed the small, cramped room. Since he had come to Buhen he had grown accustomed to its faults and even felt at home within its walls, but he could well understand why she wanted better quarters. Stacks of amphorae and beer jars lined dirty, scarred walls. A table piled high with pottery drinking bowls, most in worse condition than the one he held, stood near the back wall, partly concealing a curtained door leading to a rear room. A dozen or so low three-legged stools were scattered about, one holding a precariously balanced pile of baked clay lamps. After the house of death, the mingled odors of sweat, stale beer, and burnt oil were almost pleasant.
'What a snake that trader is!' Nofery sneered. 'To slay so noble an officer was an abomination.'
Bak frowned into his nearly empty bowl. 'I wish I could be as certain as you are.'
Her eyes narrowed. 'You doubt his guilt?'
'If you took a man's life, old woman, would you offer as witnesses to your innocence eleven people who despise you?'
Nofery shifted her huge rear, no longer comfortable with her certainty. 'I'd like to believe the gods have given
