hard to know.”
“We didn’t want to slay anyone,” the butcher wailed.
“We wanted to scare him, that’s all. The inspector.”
“What’ll we do if he tears the army from Iken?” the sandal maker whined. “We all have wives whose families dwell here. Our children know nothing but this city, this land of Wawat.”
“What good would I be with the army gone?” the ar morer asked. “Merchants have no use for weapons.”
Bak secretly blessed the trio. In a few highly emotional words, they had unknowingly told Amonked what he most needed to hear.
Nebwa eyed them long and hard. “What shall we do with them, Lieutenant?”
“We could turn them over to Horhotep.” Bak looked from one man to the next, making sure they understood the worst possible consequence of their actions. “Lieutenant
Horhotep, the inspector’s military adviser is a cold, unfor giving man who’ll insist you be sent to the desert mines as punishment.”
“No!” they chorused, horrified.
“What would happen to our families?” the sandal maker cried.
“My wife. How would she feed our children?” the ar morer wailed.
Nebwa frowned, pretending to think over their fate. “I’d prefer we turn them over to Commander Woser. They’re his men, his problem.”
“Let them go.” Amonked came up beside the two offi cers, his breathing not yet under control. “I’d guess their attempt at murder frightened them as much as me. I doubt they’ll ever again repeat so foolhardy an action.”
Bak did not know which was the more surprising: the fact that the inspector had managed to follow them or that he had given so generous a judgment. “Are you sure you want to do this, sir?”
“Set them free.”
No men had ever before dropped to their knees in front of Bak and bowed so low their foreheads touched the ground. He was startled-and discomfited-by their ex treme gratitude. Amonked looked unmoved.
Nebwa set a fast pace at the head of the desert patrol
Woser had assigned to escort them south to the caravan.
The ten spearmen who regularly patrolled the desert sands were hard-muscled, tough-thinking young men burned dark by the sun. The sleek, well-groomed men from the capital maintained the same fast pace, but with an effort. Assuming the attempt on Amonked’s life had shown him how vul nerable he was, Bak thought it a good time to probe for information. He drew the inspector off to the side of the column, close enough to be safe, far enough so no one could hear.
They were on high ground, following a trail that would, later in the day, strike off across the desert to avoid a bend in the river, saving many hours’ march over hard, rough terrain. To the east, islands large and small broke the sur face of the glittering ribbon of water contained between tree-lined banks interrupted at times by the mouths of dry watercourses covered with black, fertile soil or by streams of sand spilling out from the desert. In spite of the obsta cles, the river flowed more freely than at any time since they had left Kor.
Amonked studied the surrounding landscape, his face clouded by worry. “Do you think it wise to walk so far from the patrol?”
Since leaving Iken, Bak had seen no one standing along the riverbank, watching them pass. The trees were thick enough to shelter an army, but was not the purpose of the endless watch to be seen? To unnerve with a continuing presence? “I wish to speak of Nefret and Baket-Amon, sir.
If you have no objection to others hearing, we can rejoin them.”
“Our experience in Iken has made me too cautious,”
Amonked admitted, looking chagrined. “If anyone chose to attack us now, we’d see them in plenty of time.”
Bak forced himself not to look again at the river, but the temptation was great. The absence of watchers puzzled him.
Why were they not there as always before? Something must have happened to discourage them, but what? Surely not
Amonked’s kindness to those three witless bowmen. Some thing of far greater significance.
“I know you quarreled with Baket-Amon,” he said.
“So Thaneny told me.” Amonked expelled a humorless laugh. “It was naive of me to believe you’d not learn of the confrontation, but I don’t like to think of myself as a man of no self-control, and to proclaim my irrationality to a stranger is repugnant.”
“Baket-Amon’s reputation with women neared mythical proportions, and your concubine is a very lovely and de sirable woman. You surely know that fact alone places you high among those who might have wished him dead.”
“We argued about her, yes. But would I slay a man for her? Never!”
“Then tell me of your quarrel.”
“I can assure you that our words spoken in anger were quickly forgiven and forgotten. By me, for a fact. By him as well, if I’m the excellent judge of men Maatkare Hat shepsut believes me to be.”
Did he mention his cousin, thinking to intimidate me?
Bak wondered. “To keep the quarrel a secret multiplies my suspicions ten times over.”
The inspector threw him an irritated look. “I’ve no desire to speak further of the matter.”
“Do you want the prince’s death to go unresolved? Do you wish the thought to fester forever in men’s hearts that you slew him?”
Amonked stared, thin-lipped, at the pack of feral dogs ranging across the sandy waste to the west. The animals had abandoned the inspection party in Iken, joining their brethren who dwelt within the walls of the fortress. The caravan had gone on without them, but some ancient in stinct had caused them to again form a band and follow the desert patrol and their lofty charges.
Amonked tore his gaze from the dogs and, with a dis tasteful look, began to speak. “Yes, Baket-Amon desired
Nefret. I’m not certain how often he came to my dwelling in Waset-neither she nor my wife would tell me-but at some point he made a nuisance of himself and the two of them together told me of his visits. I doubt he loved Nefret.
My wife believes that because she held herself aloof while other young women doted on him, she became a challenge he could not resist.”
“I’ve never heard that he pursued a woman uninvited.”
“Nor have I, but my wife assured me such was the case with Nefret. And my wife is a truthful woman.” Amonked looked hard at Bak, daring him to challenge the assertion.
“I confronted the prince and told him he must go away and forget her.”
“He agreed, I assume.”
“He offered to buy her.” Amonked’s annoyance was plain. “As if she were a common servant, one who’d come into my home and my bed to pay off her father’s debts. I set him straight on that score and refused his offer. We quarreled. Unaccustomed to having his wishes denied, he…” Raising his chin high, Amonked said indignantly,
“He called me a selfish old man.”
Selfish and old, Bak thought. Words designed to wound, words no man wishes to repeat when applied to himself.
“Not the judicious response I’d have expected from a royal envoy.”
“Indeed not.”
Bak offered an understanding smile. “You were in censed, I assume, and rightly so.”
“I ordered him out of my house. He refused to leave without hearing from Nefret that she wanted nothing to do with him. I finally threatened to speak to my cousin, Maat kare Hatshepsut, and he hurried away in a huff.”
“Never to return?”
“Never.” Amonked’s eyes darted toward Bak and he added with a certain amount of bitterness, “Why would I
