floor and balanced it on a hip. “Is it true that Captain Mahu has been slain?”
Thuty gave her a look blending fondness with sorely tried patience. “How did you hear so soon?”
“It’s true, isn’t it?” she asked Bak.
He glanced at Thuty, whose resigned shrug permitted him to give her a quick version of the captain’s death. She spoke not a word, but he could see the news distressed her. When he finished, she righted the overturned stool, plopped down, and laid the baby on the floor.
“Has anyone told Sitamon?” she asked.
Bak looked at Thuty. “Sitamon?”
Thuty gave his wife a blank stare.
“Mahu’s sister.” Tiya, seeing how mystified they were, bit her lip. “She came to Buhen not a week ago. Newly widowed, she is, with a child. As Mahu had no wife, and as she had no liking for her husband’s family, nor they for her…” She shrugged. “You know how that goes. So he summoned her, asking her to live here with him and tend to his household.”
Thuty looked so uncomfortable it was obvious he had paid no heed to Sitamon’s name in the garrison daybook, where all newcomers were entered upon arrival. “She’s not been told.”
“Oh, my!” Tiya grabbed the baby, who was crawling again toward Bak, and turned it around, aiming it at the door. “She mustn’t hear by chance…”
“I’ll go,” Bak said.
“…or from someone she doesn’t know.” Tiya might well have been talking to herself. “That poor woman. Alone in a strange city. What will she do now?”
Bak knew Tiya was kind and gentle, but he ofttimes wondered how Thuty maintained his patience. “Has anyone befriended her? Someone who can break the news?”
“I’ll go.” She stood up. “We’ve had no time to grow close, but we’ve talked often during the past few days.” Her eyes focused on Bak. “Now tell me what I’m to say. She’ll want the truth, I know.”
Bak offered a silent prayer of thanks to the lord Amon. He disliked breaking bad news, and no news could be worse than that of an unexpected death.
“Tiya left then and there, fearing someone else would stumble in and break the news before she could.” Bak tore a chunk of bread off the oval loaf and dunked it in the bowl of stew. Fish stew. The fifth time in a week. He could almost smell the roasted lamb in the commandant’s residence. “We’ll not add to Sitamon’s pain tonight, but we must see her early tomorrow without fail.”
Imsiba licked the juice from his fingers. “Will she know her brother’s business, do you think?”
“I pray she does. Where else have we to look?”
“Not on board his ship, I suspect.”
Bak set his bowl on the rooftop on which they sat. A large, 76 / Lauren Haney droopy-eared white dog-Hori’s pet-scooted closer, dragging his belly across the plaster. Bak rescued the stew before it could vanish in one quick gulp. Resting his broad muzzle on his front paws, the dog stared at the bowl with dark, yearning eyes.
Streaks of red and orange flared across the western sky, the lord Re clinging to the dying day as his barque carried him into the netherworld. Most of the structures within the citadel lay deep in shadow. The single exception was the wall that enclosed the mansion of Horus of Buhen. Built on a high mound and towering above the single- story guardhouse, the wall caught the pinkish-gold light of sunset and cast its glow over the two men and the dog.
“How did Mahu’s crew account for themselves?” Bak asked, fishing for solids in his bowl.
Imsiba spoke in the monotonous voice of a courier repeating a verbal message. “When and where the tusk was loaded is a puzzle, so they say. During their journey upstream from Abu, their cargo of grain was unloaded at Ma’am. The ingots and jars of oil were loaded there, as were the stones used for ballast. The livestock was taken on board at Kor, along with feed and hay. The men saw nothing out of the ordinary at Ma’am, at Kor, or here in Buhen. No strangers came on board, to their knowledge, and not a man who ascended the gangplank at Kor or Buhen left the deck to go below.”
“Did the crew ever leave the vessel all at the same time?”
“Mahu never failed to post a guard, they say.”
Finding nothing of substance in the stew, Bak tipped the bowl to his mouth and drank, swallowing mushy bits of fish, celery, chickpeas, and onions. A cold, wet nose nudged his thigh, a large sloppy tongue licked him. Giving the dog a wry smile, he set the bowl on the roof, scratched the animal’s thick neck, and stood up. “They had nothing on board that could be transported with ease except a few items in the deckhouse. I’ll wager the guards curled up inside and slept.”
“I’ll not argue with you, my friend, but they say no.”
The dog cleaned the bowl with a few loud smacks of his tongue. Barely pausing for breath, he swung half- around and dropped to his belly in front of Imsiba. A cat yowling in the street below failed to distract him.
Picking up his beer jar, Bak walked to the edge of the roof and looked across the street at the building where Mahu’s slayer had vanished without a trace. He saw nothing but a solid wall, two stories of white-plastered mudbrick that revealed no secrets. Like Mahu’s crew. “Confine them on board the ship. A day or two of boredom should revive lost memories.”
Imsiba laughed. “You’ve no sense of fair play, my friend.”
Bak’s smile was fleeting. “Have you ever had a man die while he strode beside you? A man you’d made your prisoner? I could feel the touch of Mahu’s arm on mine, Imsiba, the warmth of his flesh. And then he fell.” Taking a final look across the street, he turned his back on the blank wall and the intense frustration he had felt when he found the slayer gone. “Ramose will return to Pahuro’s village tomorrow?”
“He hopes to sail at first light.” Imsiba eyed Bak a moment as if to assure himself of his friend’s well-being. “He wanted to leave as soon as his deck was cleared, thinking to sail until darkness fell.” The Medjay set his bowl in front of the dog, who licked it clean in an instant, and plucked a half dozen dates from a makeshift package of leaves. “But Commandant Thuty has ordered that the wrecked ship be saved, so the last I saw of Ramose, he was treading on the heels of the chief scribe, urging him to soon find carpenters to travel north with him.”
“He’s wise not to delay, lest he return to find the wounded vessel dismantled, carried off board by board. I doubt Pahuro would be so bold, with the eyes of authority aimed his way, but his isn’t the only village in the area.”
“If they set sail at dawn, with luck and the help of the gods they’ll reach the village before midday.” Imsiba popped a date into his mouth. “The carpenters will remain, as will the soldiers who’ll see to their safety, but Ramose 78 / Lauren Haney will come back to Buhen the following day, his deck piled high with contraband.”
“And here his ship must remain until I lay hands on Mahu’s slayer,” Bak said, his voice turning sour.
“You’ll find him, my friend. You always do.”
Bak had to smile. “When you speak those words, I know you mean them. When they come from Thuty, I take them as a threat.”
Laughing, Imsiba collected the residue of their meal. The last of the color faded from the sky, quenching the bright reflection on the wall and leaving the rooftop in darkness.
The two men, with the dog tagging behind, walked to a square of light and descended the stairway to the entry hall below. A torch mounted on the wall beside the street door cast light on the stairs and illuminated the large, unfurnished hall, where the two Medjays on night duty sat on the floor playing knucklebones, a game that seemed never to end, continuing from one watch to another, day in and day out.
Bak had initially feared the wagering would lead to trouble, but the quantities bet remained small, the enthusiasm and good humor vast.
Imsiba went off to assign men to the next day’s inspections at the harbor. Bak watched the game for a short time, then selected a dried twig from a basket filled with kindling, held it to the torch, and carried the flame into the adjoining room, which he used as an office. With the fire creeping toward his fingers, he lit the wicks in two baked clay lamps, small dishes filled with oil, supported on thigh-high tripods made of reeds.
He hastened back to the entry hall and, as the flame licked his fingers, dropped the twig into a bowl of sand on the floor below the torch.
Returning to his office, he dropped onto the woven mat Hori preferred to a stool and eyed the litter around him: scribal pallets, pens and inks, and writing materials had been shoved aside, providing space for lengths of papyrus fresh from the river, knife, mallet, burnisher, and glue. With a multitude of old documents always available
