lord Khnum, Lieutenant, that you care as I do for horses.'
Bak squeezed his shoulder, smiled. 'If ever I return to the regiment of Amon, I'll need a young team. Now I know where to find them.'
Turning away, clearing his throat, trying to rid himself of unmanly emotion, Ineni called to the men in the river, 'Bring them out now and dry them off. We must soon get them on their way.'
They looked at him, at Bak, and at the man with the crooked nose, confused by the sudden order.
'Move, you laggards!' Ineni shouted. 'We've a herd to save.'
The boy, breaking into a grin, swung the black horse around and rode the beast out of the water. With their human guardians urging them on-amid sudden laughter and backslapping-the other horses followed. The foals scrambled to dry land, eager to rejoin their mothers. Bak had seldom seen such fine animals. All were sleek and fit, spirited yet wellbehaved. He longed to separate out a fine matched pair, to harness them to a chariot, to feel the reins in his hands and the speed of the moving vehicle.
The men caught the animals one by one and tied them to stakes sunk deep in the ground. Someone passed out rags, and they set to work rubbing down their charges.
Ineni picked up a rag, walked to the black stallion, and began to dry his neck. 'Now, Lieutenant, what can I do for you?' He noticed Bak's bemused expression, laughed. 'You think we're wasting time and effort? We're not. There's a shallow passage between the island and the west bank. They'll get their hooves wet, little more.' He looked a new man and acted like one: bright and cheerful, resolute.
Smiling, Bak grabbed a length of frayed cloth and slipped into the space between the stallion and a long- legged white mare with a dark mane tethered to the same stake. He caught hold of her bridle and set to work. 'I've a slayer to find, Ineni, and you owe me some answers.'
'I doubt I can help you much.' Ineni looked across the stallion's back, his good humor banished by the reminder of murder. 'Simut told me you think the deaths were prompted by the sandstorm that came close to destroying the garrison a few years ago. I've never been in the army. Until I wed Khawet, I spent most of my days on our estate in Nubt, well north of the province my father governs and far from the garrison. I take no interest whatsoever in Abu.'
Though weary of repeating himself, Bak explained, 'Other than Hatnofer, I've learned that all who've died so far were either survivors of the storm or the sons of survivors. I'm now looking for men who lost loved ones, men who might blame their loss on Djehuty and the others who came back unscathed.'
Ineni snorted. 'I thought your goal was to narrow the field of suspects, not widen it.'
'Whoever took those lives has an intimate knowledge of your father's household and complete freedom within the surrounding walls,' Bak reminded him. 'That fact alone keeps the number manageable.'
Ineni eyed Bak, torn by indecision. The stallion nuzzled him, reminding him of his task and of the debt he owed the police officer. He smiled at the animal, rubbed its muzzle. 'I could blame Djehuty-and I have-many times. My father was among those who vanished.'
Bak's head snapped around. 'Your… Your what?' 'My father. The man who lay with my mother and sired me.'
'Djehuty isirt…?'
Ineni gave a sharp, humorless laugh, startling the stallion, making him jerk the rope holding him in place. 'My father-my natural father-was a soldier in the garrison when Djehuty was a young man, staying in Abu until he could find a suitable position in the army. I was still taking sustenance from my mother's breast when suddenly my father was posted to a faraway land. She couldn't travel with him, and she had no family to go to. In three days time, Djehuty took her into the governor's villa and that very night he claimed her as his own.' His mouth tightened and he rubbed the horse so vigorously it sidestepped, narrowing the gap Bak occupied. 'I'll always believe he coveted her from afar and finally whispered in his father's ear, seeking my father's distant posting. I've no way of learning the truth.'
Bak slapped the stallion's flank, making more room. He could literally feel the young farmer's anger, hear it in the surge of words dammed up for years. Or had he confided in Khawet? His hatred of her father might account for the discord between them.
'My father was gone ten years. When he returned, his wife dwelt in the netherworld and his son in Nubt. He dared not say a word.' Ineni's face registered a bitter anger; his hands moved swiftly over the stallion's legs. 'He came sometimes to see me, and in a way we drew close. But Djehuty always stood between us. He seduced me just as he had my mother. He saw how much I loved the land, saw how skilled I was with men and animals. He gave me ever greater responsibilities and, at the age of seventeen, made me manager of his estate. The land became my mistress.'
Bak stood erect to wring the water from his rag. 'The land, not Khawet?'
'We were of a marriageable age and I cared for her, but ho.' Ineni gave another of his harsh laughs. 'I was a servant, in no way worthy of the great man's only child.'
Bak nodded understanding. Djehuty claimed descent from a long line of provincial governors. Would he not wish his daughter to wed nobility? -
Ineni continued: 'That storm you're interested in altered many lives, mine most of all. I was twenty years of age when the desert swallowed up my father. My mother was long dead, and I was alone in the world. Djehuty was a man with no sons, and Khawet his sole daughter. His estate was thriv, ing thanks to my good sense.' He squeezed out his rag, came around the stallion's rump, and continued his task, sharing Bak's space. 'One day he came to me-four months, it was, after the storm. He wanted to adopt me as his son, he told me, and in return, I must wed Khawet. He wanted his estate to remain whole, and I wanted the land. As for Khawet… Well, he'd made the decision and she had no say in the matter. And so it happened. The contract was drawn up and witnessed, and she came into my bed.' He gave a strained little laugh. 'All in all, the arrangement worked out as well as could be expected.'
'I've noticed a certain distance between you and Khawet.' Bak spoke with care, trying to be tactful when tact was impossible.
'Why should I deny what all the world knows?' Ineni's smile was fierce. 'I've done everything in my power to earn her affection, but she clings to the memory of a past beloved, one who long ago entered the netherworld. Even that I might overcome, but her father holds her by his side in Abu, while I must spend much of my time on our estate in Nubt.'
Bak recalled Amethu's comments about women who had no children. 'How old is she? Twenty-four, twenty- five?' He raised a questioning eyebrow, received a nod. 'I know that's well beyond the age when most women first bear a child, but it's surely not too late to give her one.'
'I seldom touch her, and so it's always been,' Ineni admitted in a gruff voice. 'She… Well, when I go to her, she tolerates me, barely.'
Bak eyed him thoughtfully. Through his life, he had known several men whose wives held them at a distance. They all had one thing in common. 'You've a concubine?'
'Another secret known to all the world.' Ineni tried to make his voice gruff, but pride forbade him to do so. He noticed Bak's hint of a smile and laughed. 'Yes, I freely admit I share my bed in Nubt. She's the loveliest young woman in the province, the joy of my life. Last month, she gave me a son. My firstborn. A treasure to behold.'
Later, Bak stood alone at the river's edge, watching the long line of horses and men plod through the shallow water to the west bank. He had to admit he was biased in Ineni's favor, preferring to believe that anyone who loved horses as he did would have to be driven hard against a wall to slay a man. On the other hand, the young farmer had more than enough reason to want Djehuty dead. Not only had his true father died in the storm, but all Djehuty's property would someday belong to him and Khawet.
Bak borrowed a skiff from Ineni and spent the remainder of the afternoon sailing back to Abu, the voyage made long and tedious by the fitful breeze. By the time he got his first glimpse of the ancient tombs that overlooked the island from the west bank, tiny spots of light glowed in a darkening sky, and the odor of burning fuel drifted through the air from a multitude of braziers.
As he neared the landingplace below the governor's villa, he had second thoughts about beaching the skiff among several drawn out of the water a few paces upstream, including the vessel Kasaya had left there. The patch of shoreline was too visible from above, as were the stairs he would have to climb. The archer might once again be lying in wait, prepared to slay him. Why take the risk? He sailed on until he found a dozen or more small boats pulled up on shore and a group of men hunkered down nearby, encircling a game of throwsticks.
