Nebwa’s sarcasm rankled, as did the truth of his words.
Bak gave him the best smile he could manage. “I spoke from disappointment, my brother, not from malice.”
The term of affection brought a crooked smile to Nebwa’s face. “And I from frustration,” he admitted. “I long to return to Buhen, to my wife and child. To smiling faces, not men who turn away, fearing I’ll find further reason to hold them in this wretched place.”
“I suggest you get down on your knees before all the shrines in Kor and seek the deities’ favor.” Bak’s smile was tenuous, unable to hide how serious he was. “If Imsiba and I can locate the tomb Intef found, with luck it’ll not only be filled with smuggled items, but will offer a place to lay in wait for the headless man. Not until we’ve snared him will we see an end to this unforgiving task.”
“I’ll do more than pray,” Nebwa said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’ll send patrols up the trail along the Belly of Stones with orders to look for Wensu. If he’s as smart as I think he is, he’s out of our reach in the land of Kush, but we can’t afford to take the chance. We might hide a small problem from the vizier, but not one so large all the world knows.”
Bak preferred not to dwell on the consequence of failure.
“What’s this man Wensu like?”
“He’s a sailor without peer, they say. A man reared on the desert, but more at home on the water than on land.” Nebwa noted Bak’s weary look, smiled. “I know. That much you’ve heard before.” He rubbed his chin, raspy with the previous day’s growth of beard, and looked deeper within 198 / Lauren Haney himself. “He’s a small, dark version of Captain Roy, if the truth be told, befriending none but the men in his crew and confiding in no one.”
“The headless man, I assume, is one of my suspects and Wensu, I feel sure, is his tool. Yet twice you’ve called him smart.”
“Sly would be a more apt description. He’s not a man of subtle or complicated thought.”
“Could he have slain Mahu and Intef, do you think?
Kushite men are reputed to be greatly talented with the bow.”
Nebwa bristled. “No more so than men of Kemet.” He smiled, realizing how he had sounded, but quickly sobered.
“Wensu least of all. His left arm is a pale shadow of the right.
It’s thin and weak, the hand drawn and cramped. Memento of a childhood accident, so I’ve heard.”
“That arm should make him easy enough to recognize.”
Imsiba ducked out of the way of a man carrying two large water jars suspended from a yoke across his shoulders. “And his ship, so the fishermen say, should be equally easy to spot.”
Bak stepped aside, allowing a man to pass who carried a wriggling, bleating lamb in his arms. “They’re certain Wensu’s not traveled south?”
Imsiba shook his head, not because he had no answer but because conversation was impossible. They strode on, saying nothing, following the path along the edge of the harbor, jostled by men walking with a purpose, whistling, singing, shouting, excited by the prospect of showing their backs to Kor. Soon they cleared the waterfront, leaving behind the hustle and bustle, exchanging the odors of sweat and animals and exotic spices for the musty smell of the river and the tangy odor of rich black earth saturated by floodwaters.
“With Commandant Thuty stopping all traffic on the river,”
Imsiba said, “the men who pull the ships upstream through the rapids have laid down their ropes and set their backs again to farming. They fear the wrath of mighty Kemet, it seems.”
Bak snorted. “You know as well as I that they’d close their hearts to the lord Amon himself, given a generous enough reward and a better than even chance that they could get away with it.”
Imsiba laughed. “The fishermen swear he’s not gone south, and I could find no reason for a lie.”
“We’d better let Nebwa know.” Spotting two small boys with fishing poles walking side-by-side along the path, bumping shoulders, giggling, Bak beckoned them. He stated his message, asked them to repeat it until he was sure they had it right, and sent them on their way.
“Do any of the fishermen know of the landing place where Captain Roy met the headless man?”
“If so, they’re not speaking.” Imsiba’s expression turned grim. “Two brothers forced by circumstance to stay out one night long after dark came close to being run down by a ship carrying a silent and furtive crew and no lighted torch on deck. The next morning, they found a hole in the bow of their skiff, one that took close on a week to repair, leaving their wives and children hungry.”
“That sounds like Wensu’s work, not Roy’s.” Bak’s mouth tightened. The Kushite must be stopped at once, before his vicious use of the axe caused a ship to sink and all on board to drown. “If they’re as afraid as Ramose, I’m surprised they spoke at all.”
“Another man whispered in my ear, hoping to send me on my way, fearing my continued presence would draw further wrath, this time on all the fishermen of Kor.”
“They were quick to connect Wensu with the threat.”
“They probably recognized his ship, even in the dark of night. There’s not a man among them who wouldn’t exchange his wife and children, given the chance to lay hands on that vessel.”
Bak looked downstream, his eyes on the dozen or so fishing boats drawing away from the shore, their red and yellow and multicolored sails rising up the masts, catching the 200 / Lauren Haney breeze, ballooning. “They’re sailing, I see. I guess your questions scared them away.”
Imsiba scowled. “If the gods don’t soon smile upon us, my friend, we’ll have made this journey for no good reason.”
Bak pictured the landscape above Kor, rocky and desolate, stingy with life, but a place inhabited nonetheless. A place where there was no such thing as a secret spot. If one looked close enough, one could find a hovel, a garden plot, a bit of grass for grazing. Like the fishermen, the people might play deaf and dumb and blind, but someone would have eyes to see and a tongue to tell the tale.
“Wensu’s ship, I’ve heard described many times. So often my thoughts were dulled by repetition, driving away a question I should long ago have asked.” Bak stood forward in the skiff, poling the vessel through a patch of reeds growing in a shallow backwater. “Has he made it his own in any way?”
“Like many men of Kush, he worships the long-horned cattle.” Imsiba used an oar to push away a rotting palm trunk.
“The head of the divine cow is painted on the bow. The drawing is a single color, red, and the horns have been lengthened and twisted in keeping with his beliefs.”
The skiff slid through the last of the reeds. The swifter water beyond grabbed the vessel, flinging it toward a jagged outcrop of rocks. Close to losing his balance, Bak dropped to a crouch, swung the pole around, and held the vessel off, avoiding certain collision. Imsiba nudged the rudder with an elbow and at the same time adjusted the sail to carry them into deeper water. At least, they hoped the water was deeper.
They had been on the river for hours, working their way south far into the mouth of the Belly of Stones. The water was swift, its path funneled through a channel narrower than that at Buhen and obstructed by islands, a few large, most small, many no bigger than boulders. Stretches of boiling rapids now and again interrupted the flow and a rippled surface sometimes hinted at rocks hidden by the flood.
Bak wished with all his heart that they had brought along a fisherman from Kor. Even a reluctant guide would have been better than none. With the water running so high, covering the natural banks of the river as often as not, and neither he nor Imsiba familiar with the area, they had no idea which of the many rocky outcrops reached far enough into the river to provide a mooring place for a ship the size of Captain Roy’s, nor did they know which channel offered safe passage.
Nor had they met with any success in the few tiny hamlets and farms they had found nestled among the rocks. The people-isolated, impoverished, mistrustful-had shrunk back, looking to the headman or the eldest male of the household to speak for them. To a man, they denied knowledge of a ship loading or unloading cargo in the night. None would look Bak in the eye, but whether they lied from fear of the smugglers’ retribution or were merely afraid of the authority he represented, he had no idea.
To the west, a solitary spine of black granite rose above what looked like an endless slope of golden sand falling from the long north-south ridge where Intef’s body had been found. Just ahead, the lower end of the spine, washed by the swollen river, had long ago collapsed, forming a mound of boulders, broken and battered by sun and wind and water.
