Noting the objects on deck, baskets and bundles securely tied down and five stalls spread with fresh hay, Bak asked,
“You’re preparing to leave Buhen?”
“Tomorrow at first light we sail north to Ma’am. My firstborn son, my heir, will celebrate his eighth year in four days’ time. I wish to be there.” Baket-Amon flung a per functory smile at the two sailors who had repaired the rud der. “Well done. You’re free to go into the city, but take care how much beer you drink. You must bring the cows from the paddocks at daybreak.”
The men hurried away, arguing about the merits of the several houses of pleasure in Buhen. Nofery’s apparently ranked high in their esteem.
“I’m taking ten cows to Ma’am,” Baket-Amon explained.
“My tribute to Maatkare Hatshepsut. Another ship will carry them north from there.” As a native prince, he was obliged to send gifts to the sovereign of Kemet and to pay court to her as would any subject of note.
Bak walked to the rail and stared out across the water.
Specks of gold and orange and red danced on the swells, a shattered reflection of a sky painted bright by the setting sun. “I’ve come again to ask if you’ll speak with Amon ked.”
“Would that I could, Bak, but I can’t.” Baket-Amon crossed the deck to stand beside him. He looked sincerely distressed, but adamant. “Now more than ever…” He paused, frowned at the water splashing against the hull.
“Now that I’ve seen…” A sharp laugh. “Now that my past has come back to taunt me.” He shook his head. “No, I will not, I cannot speak with Amonked.”
“But, sir…” Bak said, planning to beg if necessary.
“I’d leave Buhen today if I could,” the prince said, cut ting him short, “but the hour is late and neither my men nor I are so foolhardy as to sail through the night.”
Looking closer at the man beside him, Bak saw that his face was drawn, his manner distracted. He clasped tightly the pendant of the ram-headed Amon, as if holding the golden image would give him strength. Whatever had oc curred between him and Amonked must be serious indeed.
As much as Bak hated to give up, he saw that to continue his plea would be fruitless.
Baket-Amon stiffened his spine, pulled his head back, and forced a smile. “I feel greatly in need of diversion. Will
I see you at Nofery’s place of business this evening?”
Bak shook his head. “Like you, Amonked sails tomor row, though in a different direction. So far, the people of this garrison have behaved themselves, pretending to ignore him and his party when in fact they’re seething with anger.
Neither my men nor I dare rest easy until they’re gone.”
“There they go, my friend, and good riddance.”
“My feeling exactly, Imsiba.” Leaning against the para pet that edged the terrace running along the base of the fortress wall, Bak watched the distant flotilla sailing upriver toward the fortress of Kor. With the hulls too low to see, the rectangular sails, swollen by the northerly breeze, looked like birds skimming the water’s surface in the blue morning haze. “I’d be happier if they were sailing north to
Kemet.”
Imsiba broke a chunk of hard bread from the loaf he and
Bak were sharing and dunked it into a bowl of goat’s milk.
“If only Amonked had taken the commandant with him. At least we’d have some reassurance that all might go well.”
“After the inspection, he had nothing but praise for all he saw here. For a short while, I dared hope he was so impressed he’d think Thuty’s presence necessary.” Bak, dipping his bread to soften it, added in a bitter voice, “How wrong I was.”
“This fortress is well-run, the best I’ve ever seen.”
Bak took a bite, testing for hardness. “Lieutenant Hor hotep, oozing honeyed words, reminded Amonked that the warrior kings whose blood he and our sovereign share re built the fortress after centuries of neglect and established the rules by which it’s run.” He popped the soggy chunk into his mouth, ate, and licked the milk from his fingers.
“He made it sound as if anything accomplished since that long ago time is of minor significance.”
“Amonked allowed a glib tongue to influence him?”
Bak shrugged. “I spent the whole day trying to under stand what sways that man. I failed utterly.”
Tearing another piece of bread from the loaf, he scanned the harbor. The central and southern quays stood empty, awaiting the return of Amonked’s flotilla. No surprise there.
But he was surprised at seeing Baket-Amon’s traveling ship still moored at the northern quay. A small herd of tan short horned cows filled the stalls. The ship’s master stood on deck near the gangplank, looking toward the fortress gate; the helmsman sat on the edge of the forecastle; and the crew meandered around the deck, trying to look busy. The vessel was ready to sail, the crew clearly awaiting the prince. Perhaps he was detained, Bak thought, by a bevy of young women at Nofery’s house of pleasure.
“Lieutenant Horhotep sounds a complete fool.” Imsiba glanced at a crow landing on the parapet a dozen paces away, eyeing the bread, squawking. “Does he not know of the commandant’s close friendship with Viceroy Inebny?”
Bak soaked more bread, pulled it from the milk, and ducked backward, saving his kilt from the dripping white liquid. “I doubt he believes anyone posted outside the cap ital is of any consequence. Including the viceroy.”
The Medjay stared dolefully at the departing vessels.
“Where do you think we’ll go, my friend, if go we must?”
He had asked the question Bak had asked himself time and time again. “Back to Waset? To Mennufer? To a re mote post on the northeastern frontier?” His gloom matched that of the sergeant’s. “I wish I could guess with authority, but I’m as much at a loss as you are.”
“I suppose we’ll all be sent our separate ways.” The words were spoken with the reluctance of one who fears the answer.
“Who’d think to keep us together? That’s not the army way.”
They ate in unhappy silence, watching the flotilla’s sails merge into the haze. The sunny terrace was warm after a cool night. The river was calm, its surface a sheet of brown ish water broken at times by a leaping fish. Ducks and geese swam around the empty quays, seeking food thrown over board by the departed sailors. Sitamon’s cargo ship had sailed north to Abu and a traveling ship had taken its space.
The sailors on board shouted across the quay at the men on Baket-Amon’s ship, their jokes vulgar, their laughter raucous.
“Do you remember the plans Commandant Nakht had for Buhen and Wawat?” Bak asked, recalling his first day within the fortress and his first conversation with the man who had preceded Thuty.
Imsiba gave his friend a surprised look. Bak seldom mentioned their earliest days on the frontier, when friend ships had been forged, love had come and gone, and they had begun to feel the fortress their home. “He wished to make Buhen into a thriving city, in which soldiers and craftsmen and traders could live in safety and contentment with their families. He wished the people of this land to live in peace and to prosper.”
“If Amonked deems the army useless, all Nakht hoped for will die.”
Regret filled the ensuing silence. Bak’s eyes strayed to ward the northern quay, and the prince’s troubled mien came back to him. Maybe all was not as it should be.
“Baket-Amon was determined to leave at first light. Let’s see what’s keeping him.” He threw the last of the bread at he crow, which hopped along the wall, head cocked, wary of the generosity.
Walking north along the terrace, Bak gave his friend a rueful look. “The thought of losing all Nakht hoped for bothers me exceedingly. The thought of leaving this place and the people I’ve come to love is almost more than I can bear.”
“I know, my friend. I, too, feel closer to Buhen than any other place, and closer to all those I’ve come to know.”
Hori burst through the northern gate, spotted them, and raced up the terrace to meet them. The chubby scribe’s face was flushed, his eyes alight with excitement. “Lieutenant
Bak! Come quickly! A man’s been found dead. Stabbed.
