fangs of large carnivorous beasts.
A gray-green vessel held small linen bags of seeds, each labeled with the name of a tree or plant growing far to the south of Wawat. A basket contained dried roots and leaves and stems, laid in layers separated by squares of rough linen.
Two man-shaped coffins and a rectangular outer coffin were stacked before the rear wall with three small wooden tables and a broken chair. The coffins had been painted and adorned, but the spaces reserved for names had been left blank. Their tops leaned against the wall behind them. They were empty, off-the-shelf items to be shipped upriver and sold. They and the furniture looked out of place in a room otherwise filled with exotic trade goods. Bak suspected Userhet had stored them here to convince any curious scribe that the contents of the room were aboveboard.
He was more than satisfied with both the quantity and the quality of what they had found. Yet at the same time he was disappointed. The room contained no elephant tusk, nor so much as a sliver of ivory. Could he be wrong after all? Could someone other than Userhet have been sending tusks north?
Who? Of equal import, how was the deed done?
“Another jar of myrrh. The sixth, by my count.” Imsiba, shaking his head in wonder, set the ovate black jar among several similar containers. “Userhet meant to leave Buhen a rich man, of that you can be sure.”
“I wonder what Psuro’s found in his house?” Hori asked.
“Not much, I’ll wager,” Nebwa said. “He had too many neighbors with too many prying children to hide anything of value there.”
Bak waved off a thick, acrid ribbon of smoke drifting from a torch mounted near the door. “Somewhere to the north, probably in Abu, there’ll be a man who received the contraband Userhet sent to Kemet-and a place where they stored all they smuggled.”
“Thuty sent a courier at first light.” Nebwa watched the older scribe count leopard skins. “If the gods smile on him-and on us-he’ll reach Abu before Userhet’s accomplice realizes something has gone amiss. I’d hate to see the swine slip away free and safe.”
“How will they know who to look for?” Hori asked.
“I see no problem there,” Nebwa said, chuckling. “He’ll be the one hanging around the quay, asking for Captain Roy.”
“Userhet must’ve brought a few objects at a time from the tomb we found,” Bak said, thinking aloud, seeking a way a tusk could be smuggled. “He probably listed them then and there as part of the inventory. With so many ships coming and going, each leaving a portion of its cargo as toll, not a scribe on his staff would’ve noticed.”
“Once listed as stored in Buhen,” Imsiba added, “everything here could be sent north on any ship. A false manifest would account for them should an inspector show interest between here and Abu-or wherever they were set ashore.”
Bak nodded. “Userhet had but to find a captain who would unload them at the proper time and place.”
“I thought him arrogant and no brighter than most,” Imsiba admitted. “Never would I have given him credit for so simple yet clever a scheme.”
“A scheme is only as good as those who carry it out. His began to crumble the day Roy decided to return to Kemet.”
Nebwa caressed the soft gray hide of a monkey. “Why he approached Mahu, I’ll never understand.”
“Maybe Mahu had a darker side,” Bak said.
Nebwa’s head snapped around. “I don’t believe it!”
Bak preferred not to think it either, but no other explanation could account for Userhet’s proposition to Mahu. The overseer had been too canny by far to approach a man he knew to be of unimpeachable integrity. But best not to press the point. Best for Sitamon’s sake-and Imsiba’s-to leave her brother’s reputation unblemished.
“Here it is.” With her fleshy arm threaded through the shoulder straps, Nofery spread the lower portion of a white sheath, a wide swath of the finest linen, across the foot of her bed. “I had it made especially for the commandant’s party.”
Bak, standing close so he could see, formed an admiring smile. It was difficult to appreciate so large a dress, but the last thing he wanted was to hurt the obese old woman’s feelings. He had come to her place of business to keep his promise, to tell her of his hunt for the smugglers, narrowing the
274 / Lauren Haney field to Userhet, and the final chase ending in the overseer’s death. As the rich black earth of the river valley absorbs the yearly flood, she had soaked up his every word and in return had insisted on showing him her party finery. The tale, a minor distraction at best, had failed to ease his frustration at not finding a tusk.
The dusky servant Amonaya laid a broad collar of multicolored beads over the straps and Nofery’s extended arm.
He stepped back, head tilted, to admire the effect. Nodding his satisfaction, he shook open a large rectangle of white linen, draped it around her arm, crossed one fringed end over the other, and brought the visible end down the front of the sheath. Smiling, the boy laid out bracelets, armlets, and anklets that matched the collar, completing the ensemble.
Bak patted Nofery’s hefty behind. “You’ll steal the vizier’s heart, old woman.”
“You make light of me now,” she said, flinging her head high, “but you’ll be most impressed this evening.”
Bak thought it best to make no comment. He had learned a long time ago not to underestimate her. “Will you take the boy with you? And the lion?”
She laid a hand on the child’s woolly head. “Amonaya will go. I’ve decided he’ll wear nothing but a white kilt and gold bracelets and anklets. His skin will be oiled to a fine sheen, and he’ll wave an ostrich feather fan over my head. I’ll be the envy of every woman there.” Her smile vanished in a pout. “I thought to take the lion, too, but he’s still too much the kitten.”
Bak released a long, secret sigh of relief. He had feared she would drag the beast along, and he would have to assign a Medjay to stay nearby and stave off the creature should it choose to maul some lofty nobleman.
Pulling free of the straps, she took Bak’s arm and ushered him out to the courtyard. A pale young woman with golden hair lay on a linen pad, unclothed in the sun. A slightly older woman, dark-haired and large-breasted, sat cross-legged beside her, rubbing oil into her back and buttocks. Both gave Bak sleepy-eyed smiles, inviting intimacy.
Ignoring them, Nofery plopped down on a stool in a strip of shade beside the wall. “You’ve not told me what Userhet thought worthy of dragging across the desert on his sledge, with you and Imsiba so close on his heels.”
“Nothing I’d risk my life for,” Bak grinned, drawing another stool into the shade.
She snorted. “You’ve thrown yourself at death more often than most-but always for principle, not for gain.”
“He had a bag of gold in kernel form. You know: the ragged pieces produced when molten gold is slowly poured into water.” Bak waited for her nod, continued, “He had bags filled with nuggets of hard-to-find metals such as iron and electrum, and chunks of precious stones. Nothing of any great size, all destined for a jewelry maker, I’d guess. He also had more than a dozen jars of aromatic gum resins. He must somewhere have had a special customer, for we’ve found more myrrh and frankincense than anything else.”
“The peoples to the north of Kemet, I’ve been told, burn incense in the temples of Baal and Astarte as our metalsmiths burn charcoal in their smelting furnaces.”
The dark-haired woman, prompted most likely by the mention of so many precious items, raised her arms and arched her back in a pretense of stretching. Not to be out-done, the pale woman rolled onto her side, the better to display her wares.
Bak gave the pair an absentminded smile. If Userhet had found a way to ship large quantities of resins down the river through Kemet and north beyond its borders, could he not as easily send elephant tusks?
Nofery tapped his knee with a finger, as if she feared his attention had wandered. “They say you searched the warehouses this morning and found several rooms filled to the ceiling with contraband.”
Bak laughed. “You must find a new source of information, old woman, one not so given to exaggeration. We found only one secret store and that not large, but I must admit it held many objects of value.”
“Tell me,” she urged, leaning close.
