the container held a liming creature. Hearing nothing inside, he examined it for signs of cracks, thinking it might break in his hands, releasing a viper or something equally dreadful. The container looked solid enough, undamaged.
Sucking in his breath, he reached out with both hands and lifted it. Nothing happened. He brought it closer to his face, his ear, and shook it gently. Again nothing. He thought of untying the string, but common sense prevailed; such a precipitous move would be foolhardy. He shook the pot again, much harder. Inside he heard a soft but frenzied rattling sound. His mouth tightened and he nodded, fairly sure he knew what was inside.
Carrying the container with outstretched arms, he hurried outdoors and around the nearby corner. A short, dead-end lane took him to a low mudbrick wall. Beyond lay an open field. The broken walls of houses built and abandoned many generations before protruded from a heavy blanket of windswept sand littered with garbage, items of no value whatsoever, unwanted by the most impoverished of Abu's residents.
Bak set the container on the wall. Glancing around, he spotted a rock that would fit nicely in his hand and he picked it up. He slipped his dagger from its sheath and held it at arm's length, point down, over the linen.
'Sir!' Psuro hurried up behind him. 'What're you doing?'
'The gift-giver arrived ahead of us, leaving this. I suspect it's lethal.'
Psuro's eyes widened. He spat out a curse and stepped back a pace. 'Do you wish me to open it, sir?' he asked with no enthusiasm whatsoever.
Bak drove the dagger into the fabric and slashed to right and left, enlarging the hole. The soft rattling sound erupted. Psuro muttered a quick incantation designed to hold at bay poisonous reptiles and insects. Bak sheathed his dagger, shoved the pot over the wall, and threw the rock with a mighty heave, smashing the baked clay into a dozen or more rough-edged pieces. Yellow scorpions, their tails raised in fury, darted in all directions.
Bak stared at the creatures, his face grim. A single scorpion's sting would be painful but not deadly. Could a man live if stung by so many? 'I think it best we spend the night in the barracks, Psuro. And tomorrow we must find new quarters.
Chapter Eleven
'This should suit you, sir.' Pahared eyed the empty room, a proprietary smile on his face. 'It's the safest place in the province, that I guarantee.'.
Glancing around a chamber he had already examined for vulnerable points, Bak nodded approval. 'I couldn't have asked for better quarters.'
'Not a man or woman in Swenet can come up here without being seen. My wife never closes her place of business, and when she's not in attendance, her steward is. And you've seen how many servants she has.'
The room was large, providing ample space for Bak and his men. Diffused light fell through high windows protected by wooden grills. Above mudbrick stairs leading to the roof, a north-facing airshaft caught the breeze and channeled it downward. Hints of leather, oil, spices, and wine scented the air, elusive smells betraying the room's frequent use for storage. Through an opening in the floor, muted laughter and a faint smell of beer filtered up another stairway, this rising from a storage room at the rear of the house of pleasure.
Passing through an open door, he walked onto the firstfloor roof, whiok was walled by a knee-high parapet. From there, he looked over the rooftops of a block of single-story interconnected buildings and across the river toward Abu. No structures stood close enough to provide easy access. To the north, beyond a patch of young clover, he spotted Kasaya standing on the quay, keeping an eye on their fully laden skiff.
'Good. Very good,' he said, coming back inside. Psuro, seated in the opening above the descending stairway, dangling his legs, looked as pleased as Bak with their new quarters. 'Can I now go to the quay and get our belongings, sir?'
'Before you bring them here, you and Kasaya must go through them once again, searching for unwanted creatures.' 'Yes, sir.' The Medjay dropped onto the stairs and, whistling a light-hearted tune, hurried away.
'I, too, must go,' Pahared said. 'I've a load to deliver before nightfall. A caravan's been sighted coming in from the west, and the donkeys will need fresh fodder and grain. Only the lord Set knows how many days they've been on the desert trail.' He took several steps down the stairs, paused, looked back up. 'I've given orders that no one be allowed up these stairs and nothing be delivered. If you need anything-food, drink, a game of chance, or a womanspeak to my wife. She'll see you get it, but you or your men must bring it up.'
Bak laid a hand on the trader's shoulder, smiled. 'You've thought of everything, Pahared. You're a good man.'
The big trader grinned. 'I've been called sly, greedy, and a multitude of other names, none so pleasing to my ears.' Laughing, he hastened down the stairs.
Left alone, Bak examined the contents of the two rear chambers, windowless rooms he had earlier given no more than a cursory glance. One was piled high with bundles of cowhides, stacks of rough linen, baskets of glazed beads, and piles of ordinary cooking pottery. The second held baked clay jars large and small whose contents were scratched on the mud plugs or scrawled on their shoulders: unguents, oils, wine, and honey. Except for the hides, a trading staple which came from Kush far upriver, all were common trade goods regularly shipped south from the land of Kemet to exchange for the more exotic products of Wawat and Kush. Pahared's business enterprises were clearly more far-reaching than shipping hay to the donkey paddocks below and above the rapids.
Walking back to the main room, Bak's thoughts returned to the previous evening's gift. He had taken the scorpions as a direct threat, an intent to inflict pain and maybe even death on him or whichever of his men might have opened the pot. An escalation of the previous gifts, more fearsome in nature. A good night's sleep had not altered the assumption. As for its relationship to Hatnofer, from what he had learned of the housekeeper, she had had the temperament of a scorpion, a creature that goes peaceably about its business when left alone but attacks with a vengeance when disturbed.
'Lieutenant!' Kasaya came racing up the stairs, his arms loaded with folded bedding. 'Governor Djehuty has summoned you, sir. He wishes to see you right away.'
Bak hastened into the audience hall, thinking it the most logical place in which to find Djehuty so early in the morning. Though logic, he knew, had scant influence on the governor's behavior. Nor did common sense. Which made him wary of this summons, suspicious of what Djehuty might want. For him to break his silence seemed too much to hope for.
Guards stood at attention at all the doors. Twenty or so men and three women clustered around the columns, talking among themselves. Most were easy enough to identify: farmers, scribes, a couple of craftsmen, and a merchant. Standing out in bold relief was a bearded man wearing a long, colorful robe, a trader from the land of Retenu far to the north.
Anger darkened the visages of several men, petitioners Bak remembered seeing the previous day, men forced to return because theit pleas had remained unheard. Other, more optimistic individuals threw frequent expectant looks at the empty chair on the dais and the doorway nearby through which the governor would make his entrance.
Bak paused, not quite sure what to do next. Should he wait here or go in search of Djehuty? Had the governor forgotten he summoned him? Had he summoned him to charge him with some unspeakable offense? Or did he simply not care that Bak would have to wait while he held his audience? 'Where is he?' asked a young farmer. 'Does he not take his place on the dais each and every morning?'
'He should, yes.' The scribe who answered, one whose duty it was to present the petitioners to the governor, looked decidedly uncomfortable.
'I waited all morning yesterday,' a grizzled farmer grumbled. 'As my time to be heard came close, he got up from his chair and walked out. Now here I am again when I should be toiling in my fields, plowing the earth and planting new crops.'
'I was here, too,' a plump scribe said. 'And I also waited for no good reason.'
'And I,' a couple of men spoke up together.
Why am I worried about me? Bak chided himself. These are the people who have waited before and may have to wait again, while Djehuty goes on with whatever he wishes to do, indifferent to their needs.
'His father was a good man, as honest and fair as they come,' an elderly craftsman said. 'But this one…' He
