The pilot shook his head. “None speak our tongue.”
Bak nodded his understanding. He could think of no easier way to keep a secret than to surround himself with men unable to speak the tongue of the land in which they toiled. “You told my sergeant that Mahu always posted guards when the ship was laden with cargo.”
“He did.” The pilot’s eyes darted toward Bak’s and slid away. “Much of what we carried belonged to other men, and his reputation rested on delivering each and every object. He wanted no one coming aboard who might pilfer or destroy.”
Bak’s voice turned hard, biting. “But, unknown to him, the guards sometimes left their post at night, slipping into the deckhouse to nap or onto another ship to wager over throwsticks or knucklebones.”
The pilot’s nose shot into the air, his voice turned indignant. “Oh, no, sir! We always did as Captain Mahu bade us! We never…Never!..failed in our duty.”
The pilot’s eyes darted hither and yon, searching for a way out. Certain the guards had left their post the night the tusk had been hidden belowdecks, Bak dropped off the aftercastle, shouldered him aside, and strode to the gangplank.
Bak hurried off the quay, eager to share his findings with Imsiba. He had two men: the Kushite Wensu, whose task it was to bring contraband from far upriver and down the Belly of Stones, and an unknown man of Kemet, no doubt the one who slew Mahu, who could write out a false manifest and pass it on with the items to be smuggled north. In a word, the headless man. If the gods chose to smile on them, their journey south the following day would answer their remaining questions and lead them down the path to their quarry.
Better yet and easier by far, they would find Wensu at Kor, snare him before he could flee, and set his tongue to wagging.
He went first to the guardhouse, but the big Medjay had not been seen since midday. At the police barracks, he was told the sergeant had come around midafternoon, changed into a fresh kilt, and gone on about his business. Hoping a change of clothing meant a visit to Sitamon, Bak crossed the city to her house, following lanes congested with soldiers hurrying to their barracks or home to their families after toiling all day at their posts. The last thing he wanted was to disturb the pair if they were together, but he need not have worried; the house was empty. According to a neighbor, Imsiba had come and gone some time ago. Sitamon and her son had left with him.
Bak walked away, pleased for his friend, yet uneasy. Imsiba had promised not to warn Sitamon that Userhet, a man she trusted, was a suspect in the slaying of her brother, and the promises he made, he kept. But if the overseer was indeed a murderer, one who had slain two men to silence them, would he hesitate to take another life if he feared he might lose a woman he desired?
Turning down the lane that ran along the base of the citadel wall, Bak shook off the thought as fanciful. As far as he could see, Userhet’s foremost passion was himself.
He walked close to the wall, letting a stream of soldiers pass in the opposite direction. They stank of sweat; rivulets of moisture stained dusty bodies and limbs. The narrow, confined lane was stifling, untouched by the breeze stirring the air atop the buildings. The heat and the stench drove him through the northernmost gate to the terrace overlooking the harbor.
On the upper level, shaded so late in the day by the fortress wall, the breeze was strong and soothing, carrying the smell of the river and its occupants. The sky was pale blue tinted with a pink that would deepen and spread as the sun closed on the western horizon.
The sentry standing at the base of the gate grinned. “I see Sergeant Imsiba’s found himself a lady, sir.”
“You’ve seen him today?”
The man nodded toward the smooth stretch of river downstream from the harbor. “Out there, sir, in the skiff with the red sail.”
Bak looked out across the minuscule swells rising and falling on the river’s surface, catching the pink of the sky and losing it time after time. Sure enough, there in the boat he saw Imsiba’s large dark form, the slender figure of a woman wearing a white sheath, Sitamon, and the small, pale child leaning over the hull, dangling a leafy tamarisk branch into the water.
He strode on along the terrace, smiling to himself, forgetting for a while that two men lay dead at the hands of another and the vizier would soon arrive, asking many questions he had yet to answer.
Chapter Thirteen
Bak and Imsiba sailed south to Kor at first light. The Medjay was in good spirits, his self-esteem restored by his evening with Sitamon. He spoke little of her, but when Bak commented upon the fresh, neat bandage on his arm, he admitted in a voice vibrant with both pride and pleasure that she had medicated and rewrapped the wound.
The river was placid and the breeze fair, driving them upstream at a brisk pace. In less than half the time it would have taken to walk the distance, they lowered their sail and beached their skiff not far below the crowded harbor on a stretch of riverbank still soggy from the retreating floodwaters. Imsiba headed downstream toward a row of fishing boats lining the water’s edge, where the men were gathering in nets they had spread out to dry overnight.
Bak walked to the harbor, where vessels of all sizes were tied up two- and sometimes three-deep along a quay overlooked by decaying mudbrick battlements. The announcement of Thuty’s release of caravan and river traffic, made too late to sail the previous day, had added lightness to the footsteps of the men who toiled there and music to their voices. Their joy was infectious, creating an optimism he prayed would be rewarded.
The larger ships rode the swells much as they had for nearly a week, their decks piled high with trade goods, their crews idling away the hours. Their captains stood in clusters on the shore, chatting animatedly. From talk Bak overheard, they were speaking mostly of Commandant Thuty’s party and, as he had hoped, making no effort to depart.
On the smaller vessels, nearly naked sailors scurried around the decks, preparing to set sail. Their masters, men of meager means impatient to go on about their business, practically danced with joy as they shouted out orders. These boats, nautical beasts of burden, hauled local products up and down the river, stopping at villages to take on board or deliver the necessities of life. No party for their captains, no rubbing shoulders with men of high station who knew only luxury, not endless toil.
Bak spotted a bald, spindly-legged man he recognized, one whose sturdy ship plied the waters between Buhen and Ma’am. “I’m looking for Wensu, the Kushite. Master of a small trading ship he brings down the Belly of Stones. Do you know him?”
“I know of him.” The man scratched his head, frowned.
“I’m afraid you’re out of luck, Lieutenant. He set sail close on a week ago. Haven’t seen him since.”
Bak’s good humor seeped away and he bit back a curse.
He should have learned long ago never to look blindly to the gods for favors. “Do you know where he went?”
“He was here one sunset and gone the next daybreak.
That’s all I can tell you.”
“Wensu.” Nebwa spat over a broken section of battlemented wall, accenting the contempt in his voice. “The wild man from Kush.”
Bak stood with the coarse-featured officer atop the fortress wall, looking out at the waterfront. Beyond flowed a river of burnished gold, a rippled mirror of the eastern sky made brilliant by the rising sun Khepre.
“We hoped we’d find him here in Kor, his ship held like all the others, but now I find he’s been gone for close on a week.” Bak had no wish to alienate his friend, but try as he might he could not keep the accusation from his voice, the blame.
Nebwa gave him a long, irritated look. “If you think back, Lieutenant, you’ll remember that we began searching every ship and caravan several days before Mahu’s death and Thuty’s decision to stop all traffic. I spotted Wensu talking with Mahu the first day I came to Kor and I haven’t seen him since. And I’m not surprised. Wensu, like any intelligent smuggler, slipped away the moment he realized how thorough our inspections were. I’d bet a jar of the finest wine of northern Kemet that he’s even now sailing the waters south of Semna, free and clear.”
