White froth warned off the wary boatman, hinting at rocks lurking beneath the river’s surface.
Imsiba eyed the boiling water with distaste. “I doubt a ship the size of Captain Roy’s could sail this deep into the Belly of Stones during much of the year.”
“I didn’t ask the crew how often they came,” Bak admitted.
“Seldom, I’d guess. Probably only during high water when Wensu could take advantage of the flood to come down the Belly of Stones, bringing a load of contraband to the headless man. Roy, in turn, would sail up here, load as much as he dared carry at one time, and travel back to Abu under a false manifest.”
“Seldom if ever rendezvousing with Wensu because the distances are too great and the timing of a meeting too difficult.”
Bak nodded. “Which accounts for their use of a temporary storage place-the tomb Intef found, most likely.”
The rapids slid away behind and a full sail drove them around the boulders, revealing a small cove. The northerly breeze faltered, cut off by a wall of granite, the surviving portion of the rock spine not yet weathered and broken. The sail drooped and momentum carried the skiff into still waters.
Upstream, a boulder the size of a great warship turned the current aside, while the spine provided a quaylike ledge on the downstream side. Tamarisks grew in profusion at the back of the cove and behind the boulder. The rocky spine, the trees, and the boulder might not hide altogether a ship and men loading cargo, but they would certainly confuse the eyes of the soldiers manning the distant watchtowers overlooking the desert track, especially on a moonless night.
Bak gave Imsiba a tentative smile. He had been too disappointed too many times through the morning to allow himself too great a bout of optimism. “This looks an ideal place to moor a ship.”
“Where’s the nearby oasis?” the Medjay asked, equally cautious. “Not those few tamarisks, surely.”
He took up the oars while Bak lowered the yard and secured the sail. Hardly daring to breathe, they rowed the length of the ledge, searching for signs of wear. They found several spots where the stone was white and gritty, bruised.
With growing certainty, they beached the skiff beneath the trees and hurried out on the ledge. They found with no trouble the mooring stakes Captain Roy and Wensu had left behind. After so discouraging a morning, they could barely believe their good luck. This was the place they sought.
From the height of the ledge, they saw palm trees beyond the boulder to the south. Heavy clusters of reddish dates hung from their crowns. There, Bak guessed, they would find the oasis. And as fruit could not develop unless fertilized by man, the farmer would not be far away.
A well-trod path through the tamarisk grove took them to an irregular triangle of rich black earth deposited at the lower end of a shallow, dry watercourse long ago clogged by a landslide. The core of the oasis lay open to the sun, with ditches delimiting garden plots. Tiny plants peeked up through drying soil-onions, melons, beans, and lentils-while clover burst forth in a rich green carpet. Around the periphery, palms and a few acacias shaded goats, sheep, four donkeys, and a dun-colored ox. A small mudbrick house huddled against the ancient landslide, allowing, Bak assumed, for one room above ground and one or two dug into the earth at the back. Smoke curled into the sky from an outdoor oven. The aroma of baking bread reminded him of the midday meal they had left untouched in their skiff.
The animals, he noted, were plump and sleek. An open shed roofed with reed mats sheltered a dozen or more sheaves of hay. Ducks and geese and wild birds scratched in the dirt around a like number of large red pottery jars used, no doubt, to store grain.
Imsiba voiced Bak’s conclusion. “For a farm so small, these people seem unaccountably prosperous.”
“Do you think the gods dispense gifts in the night?” Bak grinned.
“More likely a headless man.”
At the river’s edge, a man of twenty-five years or so, square of body and firm of build, sat on an overturned skiff, cleaning fish. Spotting the approaching pair, he stood up, a gutted perch in his hand, and watched them, making no move to welcome them.
A plump young woman sat in front of the house in the shade of an acacia, her legs drawn up beneath her, forming a clay bowl in the old-fashioned manner without a wheel. A baby lay on a pallet beside her, sleeping, while a girl of three or four years poked at the rich dark mud in a nearby bowl.
The child noticed the strangers, pointed. The woman scrambled to her feet, scooped up the baby, and caught the girl by the arm to drag her inside the house. A boy of six or so
204 / Lauren Haney stood in the dappled shade of the date palms, sucking his thumb, staring.
“They seem most anxious to befriend us,” Imsiba said with a wry smile.
Bak’s face remained grim, his sense of irony deserting him.
“Like all the others we’ve talked to today, but with more reason, I suspect.”
He raised his baton of office and beckoned. In no great hurry, the farmer laid the fish and a gutting knife in a basket and walked toward them. Bak held his ground, making the man cover the distance. The local farmers might not trust authority, but they respected the power it carried.
“I’m Lieutenant Bak, officer in charge of the Medjay police in Buhen, and this is my sergeant, Imsiba.” His voice was crisp, but pleasant enough. “We’ve come on a matter of importance.”
“Kefia, I’m called.” The man’s face, as square as his body, was impassive, closed to prying. “We see few strangers here and know little of the world outside our small oasis.”
“With so pleasant a mooring place so close at hand…”
Bak waved vaguely toward the cove. “…I’d think any number of men would use it as a safe harbor. Fishermen. Farmers trading excess produce. The men who pull ships up the Belly of Stones during high water.” He paused, letting Kefia think what he would, then hardened his voice. “And men who deal in contraband, thinking to avoid the law of the land.”
The farmer blinked, but otherwise appeared unmoved.
“Those who come to trade either fish or fowl or produce seek us out. Any men up to no good…?” He shrugged. “We don’t invite trouble, nor do they. They stay well away from us, and good luck to them, I say.”
Imsiba gave him a hard look. “To let smugglers go about their business is an offense against the lady Maat- and our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut.”
A flock of pigeons rose with a whir of wings from an island a short distance downriver, giving the farmer an excuse to avoid the Medjay’s sharp eyes. “I mind my own business.”
Bak wanted to shake the truth from him; instead he smiled.
“You’ve a pleasant farm, Kefia, but one too small, I’d have thought, to use an ox as a beast of burden.”
The farmer glanced toward the dun-colored creature and back. His voice took on a hint of surliness. “As you can see for yourself, I’m a man alone, with no sons of an age to toil in the fields. The ox helps me plow.”
“Surely these small fields…” Bak pointed his baton at the clover. “…don’t yield enough hay to feed an ox you use once a year.” He swung the baton toward the animals. “…and four hungry donkeys as well.”
“The dates.” Kefia answered too fast, too emphatically.
“They’re the finest grown along the Belly of Stones. I take them to the market in Buhen. I need the donkeys to carry them.”
Bak gave him an incredulous look. “You haul dates on the backs of donkeys, plodding for a day or more along a dusty desert trail, when a boat would be cleaner and faster?”
The farmer tried to hold Bak’s glance, but could not.
“Two men have been slain, Kefia, their lives lost at the hands of the men you’re protecting. They could as easily turn on you. If I come back tomorrow and find you and your family slain, you alone must bear the burden of guilt.”
With a low whimper, Kefia buried his face in his hands.
His voice shook. “All right! I’ll speak! But I’m a dead man already.”
Bak glanced at Imsiba, sharing a quick look of relief, but the satisfaction he felt did not blind him to the fear he had sensed throughout their journey upstream from Kor. “You must leave this place at once,” he told the farmer, speaking more kindly. “You’ve a skiff, I see. Take your family to Kor.
Tell Troop Captain Nebwa I sent you. He’ll keep you safe until I lay hands on the men you fear.”
“What of my animals? My tender young crops? I can’t leave them to wither and die.”
“He’ll send soldiers to watch over your farm. Now tell me all you know, leaving nothing out, and start first
