Wiping the sweat from his brow, rubbing his hand on his damp kilt, he knelt among the goats. He caught the nearest, whose alarmed bleat frightened the rest and set them to flight. With short, sharp barks, the dog turned them back. Bak ran his hands over the captive animal’s back, stomach, legs. The hair was as soft and curly as that of a nobleman’s pampered concubine. Freeing the animal, he went on to the next and a third.
“They could use some fattening,” he said, “but are oth erwise in good condition.”
“You see!” The trader swung toward the tribesman, his expression gleeful. “They’re not worth full price. As I told you.”
The tribesman flashed Bak a look of frustration and dis illusionment. He obviously believed that, as so often hap pened, a man of authority had here again taken the side of the man with the smoother tongue.
Muttering an oath at the nomad’s unfounded fear, Bak rose to his feet. With a quick step forward, he lifted the strings of beads from the basket. The trader sucked in his breath, reached out to grab, pulled back at the last moment.
Bak held up the bright lengths of color and measured them against his arm. No two strings were the same length and all were shorter than they should be. Picking up the amulets suspended from cords, he examined each in turn. The rock crystal was cracked, as the tribesman had said. The others were poorly carved and inferior, the stones more often than not faulted.
Flinging beads and amulets into the basket, Bak knelt before a bag of wheat. The trader muttered an obscenity.
Bak dug his fingers deep into the bag and fished out a pebble the size of a radish. Exploring further, he retrieved a half-dozen similar stones and two roughly the size of duck eggs. A goat came close, nudging his elbow, inching to ward the open bag and the grain inside. The trader stood tight-lipped, plainly aware that no excuse would serve. The tribesman looked torn, his satisfaction at being proven right mingled with mistrust of the outcome.
Bak stood up, having seen enough, and motioned the nomad to remove his goat before it could eat any of the wheat, altering the weight and thus destroying the evidence.
He waved an arm to catch the eye of the sergeant in charge of the ten-man patrol. The soldier came running, two spear men close on his heels.
“Take this man and his trade goods to the guardhouse.
Have my scribe Hori inventory everything, making special note of the weighted bags of grain, inconsistent lengths of beads, and whatever else he finds amiss. I’d not be sur prised if the beer is diluted, and he’ll probably find pebbles in the honey and oil.”
“Lieutenant.” The trader sidled close to Bak and lowered his voice. “I enjoy my freedom, sir, as you enjoy yours.
There must be something I can do for you, or some object
I can give you that you’d not ordinarily get for yourself.
Something of value, something worthy of a man of good taste, a man willing to overlook one small mistake.”
The tribesman edged closer, suspicious, trying to eaves drop.
“Small mistake?” Bak asked, accenting the word small.
The trader failed to notice the dangerous glint in the of ficer’s eye. “I’ve a servant, a pretty thing of fourteen years.
She’s no longer pure and chaste, but the better for it. A gift well worth accepting.”
“Are you offering me a bribe, sir?”
The trader paled. “No! No, sir. You misunderstand me, sir.”
“Take him away,” Bak said.
With the indifference of a man who had repeated the task many times, the sergeant ordered his men to collect the objects spread out on the sand while he clamped his pris oner’s arms together with wooden manacles and led him away.
The tribesman watched, dumbfounded.
Bak laid a hand on his shoulder. “He’ll not cheat you or any other man for many months to come-if ever again.”
The man, made shy by the kindness, stared at the animals milling around his legs. “I could not sacrifice my goats for items so shoddy. They’re like children to me and my woman, brothers and sisters to our boy and girl.”
“Most men who trade at this market are honest, many of them farmers who give value for value.” Bak knelt among the goats and scratched several eager heads. “Has no one ever told you that the value of these animals is in their fine hair, not their meat?”
“I sometimes trade the yarn my wife spins from their hair, and I know its worth. But to live, we must eat their flesh as well as take their milk and their warm coats.”
Bak rose to his feet. The goats pressed close against his legs, trusting, innocent. As tame and gentle as household pets. He glanced around the market, his eyes darting from one lean-to to another, seeking a farmer who often came to sell his produce. At last he found, seated in the shade be neath a woven reed roof, surrounded by fruits and vegeta bles, the large sturdy body of Netermose, a warm-hearted and considerate man who loved his land and animals above all things.
“I know a man, a farmer who’d value these goats more alive than dead. Let me take you to him.”
“Hor-pen-Deshret.” The caravan master Seshu made the name sound like a curse. “They say the swine has come back.”
Troop Captain Nebwa scowled. “He wouldn’t dare.”
“Who?” Bak, standing at the edge of the market, tore his eyes from the fluctuating stream of people walking toward the citadel gate, hastening home with produce, live animals, and innumerable other necessities of life.
“Hor-pen-Deshret.” Nebwa spat on the ground in a show of contempt. “Self-styled Horus of the Desert.”
The tall, bulky officer, a coarse-featured man in his early thirties with unruly hair that always needed cutting, was
Commandant Thuty’s second-in-command. Having come from the practice field outside the walls of Buhen, where he had been overseeing the training of new recruits, he was covered with dust streaked and mottled by sweat.
“The wiliest and most ferocious of all tribesmen,” Seshu said. “A man who knows no fear.”
Nebwa’s scorn was evident. “For years he dreamed of ruling this segment of the river, making himself rich by collecting tolls from all who pass through.”
The caravan master nodded. “A dream he’s never lost, so they say.”
Seshu was of medium height with the rangy muscles and sun-darkened skin of one who had spent many of his forty years marching beneath the sun. His eyes were sharp and quick, his cheekbones prominent, his nose aquiline, testi fying to ancestors who trod the sands of the eastern desert.
Bak, who vaguely recalled hearing of Hor-pen-Deshret, stepped into the thinning stream of people. With Nebwa and Seshu on either side, he strode toward the citadel gate and the commandant’s residence. Compared to the rumor that the army might be leaving the frontier, the return of a desert bandit seemed of minor significance.
“He and his followers raided caravans, farms, villages, even small units of troops when he deemed the risk worth the gain,” Nebwa explained. “They made off with food, animals, women, weapons-anything they could lay their hands on. All who dwelt along the river feared him. Finally, five or six years ago-long before you came to Buhen,
Bak-Thuty’s predecessor, Commandant Nakht, had all he could take of the miserable snake. He took out a company of troops to destroy him, personally leading the column, with me at his side. We never managed to lay hands on the wretch, but we slew many of his followers and chased him far into the desert. I’ve not heard of him for several years and thought never to see him again.”
“I dared hope he’d died.” Seshu, his face rueful, stopped at an intersecting path that would take him to the animal paddocks. “It seems the gods have chosen not to bless us.”
“I don’t believe it!” Nebwa’s voice was hard, his ex pression resolute, the troop captain at his most stubborn.
“He wouldn’t have the nerve to come back.”
