streaks on his face. “I’m sorry he’s dead. He…” The boy faltered, added lamely, “He was a good man.”
Bak looked up the wadi, listening, waiting. The swallows shot back and forth, their grating notes as quick as their flight. He saw no sign of Pashenuro atop the opposing cliff, no warning signal. He laid a hand on the youth’s back and allowed gentleness to enter his voice. “Was he involved in the murders you spoke of yesterday?”
The boy stared at his hands, clutched tight together in his lap. “Yes, sir.”
“Tell me what happened, Pawah, what started the trou ble.”
“Meretre.” A long pause, then, “The ram of… the prince could’ve bought her ten times over-and I prayed many times to the lady Hathor that he would-but my prayers went unanswered.” He bit his lip, blinked hard.
“She was barely a woman, untouched by any man. A special treat of great value, Thutnofer liked to say. He held her back, tempting one and all with her youth and beauty.”
Tears spilled over. “She was my friend, as close as a sister to me. We were meant to share a like fate.” The boy squeezed his eyes tight as if to rid himself of memory. “I shall miss her always.”
Bak guessed a deeper secret, one he needed to know for a fact. “What fate was that, Pawah?”
“It’s not important!”
A bright flash of light flitted across Bak’s breast. His head snapped up, his eyes darted toward Pashenuro’s hiding place. Another flash of light, this of longer duration, that was meant to be seen by all who were posted on the north ern side of the wadi. The men vanished from sight as if abducted by the gods. Bak took up his own mirror and repeated the signal, alerting the men on the opposite incline.
They, too, scurried out of sight.
“They’re coming!” Pawah whispered.
Catching the boy by the arm, Bak hustled him up the slope and into the deep shadow beneath an overhanging segment of cliff, where they could not be seen from the wadi floor. His weapons and shield lay against the wall.
The swallows wheeled through the air near the alcove, their squeaks loud and angry, scolding the intruders.
“Were you also being held back, Pawah, as Meretre was?”
Hope for a respite fled from the boy’s eyes. He lowered his head, hiding his shame, and spoke so softly Bak could barely hear. “The two of us, she and I together, were dis played over and over again to whet the appetites of wealthy customers.”
Bak muttered a curse. A girl of twelve or so years, a boy of eight or nine. A package to sell to the highest bidder.
Could this be the child’s secret, he wondered, the reason he’s so afraid? No, he was a long way from Thutnofer’s house of pleasure, safe from that particular degradation.
“Sennefer didn’t buy the two of you, did he?” He doubted the nobleman that kind of man, but the question had to be asked.
“Oh, no, sir! He found me after I ran away.”
So Thutnofer still owns the boy, Bak thought. Or perhaps
Sennefer or Amonked went to the swine with an offer he could not refuse. “Did Meretre flee with you?”
Looking as miserable as a child could look, Pawah stared down at his hands, shook his head.
Bak’s heart went out to him. Whatever had happened must have been horrendous indeed. “You must tell me, Pa wah.”
The tears began to roll in earnest; sobs broke the youth’s words into phrases. “One night… Three years ago, it must’ve been. A man came into Thutnofer’s establishment.
It was fairly early, but business was good, the rooms filled with pleasure-seekers. Meretre and I were on display.” He tried to stifle his sobs, failed. “The man was young and well-formed, his name Menu. He’d come in before, but never had he been so… So full of himself. So demanding.
He drew Thutnofer aside. Seldom taking their eyes off Mer etre, they sat in a quiet corner and talked. Sometimes their words grew heated. Sometimes they spoke as the closest of friends. In the end, a bargain was struck. Thutnofer raised his hand and beckoned her.”
Sobs choked off the boy’s words; his body shuddered with anguish. He slumped to the ground and clasped his legs close to his breast as if to still the spasms, the sound.
Bak knelt beside him, considered pulling him close, hug ging him. He could not. Pawah was nearly a man, old enough to take offense should anyone treat him as a child.
While the youth exhausted his tears, Bak peeked outside their shelter. Other than the swallows, which had returned to their feeding, not a creature stirred. Then he heard a sound, words as elusive as a puff of smoke carried on the air. Shading his eyes with a hand, he looked toward the upper end of the dry watercourse. He glimpsed, coming out of the sun’s glare, one small figure, two, five, a dozen, striding down the path along the wadi floor.
The tribesmen were talking to one another-bragging,
Bak suspected, reinforcing their courage with bravado. At the same time, they were cautious, looking to right and left, glancing back as if to make sure they were not alone, that other men were following. They may not have been told that the spies Hor-pen-Deshret had sent out were missing, but they had to assume all who traveled with the caravan were prepared to hold off an attack, with soldiers from the garrison to help.
Pawah, his eyes puffy and almost dry, scooted up beside
Bak. “How long before we set upon them?” he whispered.
“Not until Pashenuro signals that the last man is within range. We’ve a while yet. They’re spread out far too much for their own good.” Keeping his eyes on the approaching men and others appearing behind, Bak said, “Menu pur chased a few hours with Meretre, you told me. Did Baket Amon arrive about that time and interfere?”
“Would that he had,” the youth said fervently.
“What did happen?”
The boy tried to look defiant. “Can I not tell you later?
After we face these miserable barbarians?”
Bak caught the boy’s chin, pulled his head around, and looked him straight in the eye. “Pawah, if you hadn’t gone out with Pashenuro to spy on the tribesmen, we’d not be here today, with a good chance of winning the battle. None theless, I feel like turning you over my knee and spanking you.”
Pawah’s face flamed, he swallowed hard.
“I want no more evasion, do you hear me?” Bak said, releasing his chin.
The youth’s eyes teared, but anger and pride kept them from overflowing. “Menu took her to the back of the build ing. Thutnofer bade me carry on, walking around the room, showing myself to best advantage. I did so, all the while trying not to think of Meretre, thinking of nothing else. And all the while Thutnofer bragged of the wealth Menu had exchanged for her. A house-not large, he kept saying, but of good value in a city as crowded as Waset.” The boy’s words resonated with fury. “I hated Thutnofer. I wanted to slay him with my own two hands. But I could do nothing.”
The foremost group of tribesmen reached a point im mediately below their shelter, giving Bak his first good look at Hor-pen-Deshret. The tribal leader walked at the head of his army, strutting like a high-bred stallion. He was tall and lean and glistened with oil recently rubbed onto his body.
He wore a leather kilt painted red, studded with circles of metal. A broad multicolored beaded collar adorned his up per chest, he wore wide leather bracelets and anklets, and a bright red feather rose from his short dark curly hair. He carried a long spear and a shield decorated with a red chev ron design.
His army followed, loose clumps of men, widespread in many cases, coming down the trail in no particular order.
Where their leader was a show horse, they were donkeys.
Men dressed in leather or linen or wool, simple garb, un adorned, often ragged and patched. Men dragged away from their wives and children and flocks, wearing on their backs all they had brought with them, in many cases all they owned.
Bak longed to attack then and there, to slay with his own hands the man who had lured these people off the desert with promises of glory and wealth. He spurned the urge.
That rag-tag army had to be crushed, putting an end forever to dreams of a tribal coalition.
Pawah, his voice husky with raw emotion, said, “Time passed. How many hours, I don’t know. One, maybe two, maybe longer. When only a few men remained, Thutnofer ordered me away, telling me to get on with my
