and elaborate jewelry.
The vizier’s goal was Thuty’s armchair, which had been padded with thick pillows and covered with an embroidered linen throw, and now stood in regal splendor at the end of the audience hall. Officers and scribes from the garrisons along the Belly of Stones and local princes and chieftains stood talking among the columns that supported the ceiling, circulating among the men from the capital.
The women of Buhen, far fewer in number but with their ranks swollen by ten or twelve wives and concubines who had come south from Kemet, sat on low stools in an adjoining hall normally occupied by scribes. At a smaller, less official affair, they would have mingled with the men, but Thuty had elected to make the occasion as grand as was possible in a frontier garrison like Buhen, as memorable to the vizier.
While the men talked of affairs of state, the women spoke of more intimate affairs.
Nofery, Bak noticed, was seated with the commandant’s wife Tiya and the vizier’s lovely young concubine Khawet, their heads together, chatting like long-time friends. The boy Amonaya stood behind them, stirring the air above their heads with an ostrich feather fan. Bak had never thought of Nofery as a woman befriended by other women. Perhaps he had erred.
The ebb and flow of voices, laughter, and now and again a good-natured oath filled the audience hall, overwhelming the softer voices of the women. Servants bearing large plates walked among the guests, offering roasted meats and vegetables, honey cakes and sweetened breads, dates, figs, and grapes. Wine flowed freely, adding a heady perfume to the sweet scent of flowers and the more astringent smell of the small cones of perfume evaporating atop the many wigs.
Musicians were gathering at one end of the room, along with four female dancers and acrobats. The air lay still and heavy, drawing the moisture from the crush of bodies, adding a sourness to nostrils already too much assailed.
“Well done, Bak.” Nebwa bowed his head, showing deep respect. “Spoken with a tact I could never muster, but pointed enough to penetrate even the thickest of skins.”
With his thoughts still on Imsiba, it took Bak a moment to realize Nebwa had overheard his conversation with the young officer from the capital. “I doubt he’s ever served a day in a regiment, but I don’t envy him his present duty.
From what I’ve heard of the royal house, the perils one faces in the corridors of power are more frightening than those on the practice field.”
Nebwa laughed. “Give me Buhen any day.”
“Now there’s a man I doubt would agree with you.” Bak pointed his baton of office at Lieutenant Kay. “Each time I see him, he’s talking with a different officer, none from the garrisons of Wawat. He looks to me like a man seeking a new, more northerly post.”
Nebwa beckoned a servant carrying a large round-bottomed jar and held out his drinking bowl. The youth poured into the container a deep red, musty smelling wine. “I’d hate to lose Kay, but I wish him luck. He served long and well as an inspecting officer at Semna. He’s earned a reward.”
The lead harpist ran his fingers across the strings of his instrument. A second harpist, a lutist, two oboe players, and a woman with a lyre joined in. Residents of Buhen, they now and again struck a false note, but no one seemed to care-or even notice.
Nebwa eyed the contents of his bowl with approval. “Have you talked yet to that young spearman I suggested you see?”
“I did.” Bak found the wine pleasantly heady. “His wife’s a local woman, as you said, and she’s heavy with child. They long to stay in Wawat near her family, not return to Kemet where he must toil in the fields of a nobleman’s estate. When I told them of Ahmose and the island, they thought it a gift of the gods.”
Sergeant Pashenuro slipped up beside Bak, drinking bowl in hand, a fixed smile on his face.
“You look like a man with a toothache,” Bak grinned.
The stocky Medjay clung to the smile as if to life itself.
“I’ve made an appearance, sir, as you suggested. But I much prefer beer to wine, and I know not how to talk to men of quality and wealth. Can I now go back to the barracks?”
“You’ve done well to stay this long,” Bak said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Go if you like. You’ve made your presence known, and I can ask no more.”
The sergeant thrust his nearly full bowl into the hand of a startled servant and hurried through the crowd toward the exit.
“Showing off your Medjays, Lieutenant?” Hapuseneb laid a hand on Nebwa’s back and an arm across Bak’s shoulders.
Bak greeted the wealthy trader with a smile. “They’ll get no notice otherwise, and to be promoted as they should be, they must attract the attention of the mighty.”
Nebamon, walking as usual in the younger merchant’s shadow, nodded agreement. “Unfortunate, but true, I fear.”
“I’ve left my drinking bowl somewhere. Can’t speak my piece properly with a dry mouth.” Hapuseneb beckoned a servant and soon held a bowl filled to the brim. “Thanks to all the gods in the ennead, to Commandant Thuty, and most of all to you…” He raised his bowl high, aimed it briefly at Nebwa, and let it linger before Bak. “… we can go on about our business unhampered. My caravan masters thank you.
The captains of my ships thank you. And I…thank you.”
Nebamon raised his bowl to Bak alone. “I, too, am grateful, Lieutenant. My trade goods are already on board a vessel bound for Abu, and the loss I faced has been averted. I owe you more than I can say.”
“I’m in your debt, not the reverse. It was you who first told me of the headless man.”
Hapuseneb raised his bowl higher. “To Userhet. The swine!”
The trio around him raised their bowls to his.
A short time later, as the two traders wandered off, Nebwa said, “I hear you’re to take mistress Rennefer before the vizier tomorrow.”
Bak gave his friend a wry smile. “So Commandant Thuty told me.”
“What a sly dog he is to pass her on that way.”
Bak’s smile was short-lived. “I’ve been told the vizier has already made his decision-based on my report, not our appearance before him.”
Nebwa gave him a quick glance. “She surely deserves to speak her piece.”
“He’ll hear her out. And then he’ll order her taken upstream and thrown to the crocodiles.”
Nebwa scowled. “She’s truly a woman with her face turned backward, a demon of the night, but to see her punished that way when Roy, Wensu, and Userset met death in a quick and clean manner makes no sense.”
Bak agreed. He knew Rennefer had courted death when she had tried to slay her husband, but she had failed where the others had succeeded. Did her lack of success not demand some consideration?
“I’ve not yet seen Imsiba,” Nebwa said, breaking a long silence. “Is he still among the missing?”
“I can’t imagine where he’s gone. I hope he’s not…Ah, there he is!”
With relief surging through him, Bak nodded toward the door, where the big Medjay had paused to speak to the departing Pashenuro. Sitamon stood close by his side, wearing a simple white sheath, a gold chain from which hung a dozen or so lotus blossoms of gold inlaid with blue and red stones, and four gold bangles.
Rather than taking her directly to the room where the women sat, Imsiba guided her through the throng toward Bak and Nebwa. The Medjay touched her constantly on the shoulder or back or arm. She glanced often at him, giving him the soft, warm smile of a woman newly sated in body and spirit.
Nebwa watched the approaching pair with narrowed eyes.
“I don’t know where they were hiding out, but from the looks of them, I’ve a good idea what they’ve been doing.”
“If she decides to return to Kemet, his choice won’t be easy.” Bak wanted more than anything else to be fair and generous, but he could not keep the worry from his voice.
Nebwa gave him a sharp look. “Do you think she’s convinced him to learn the ways of ships and trading?”
“I pray she hasn’t,” Bak said fervently. “He’d do well, I’ve no doubt, but he wouldn’t be happy chained to a great vessel like Mahu’s and the endless demands of business.”
Nebwa opened his mouth to say more, but the pair in question was upon them, stifling his words.
