Bak tried to read the seaman’s face, but the night was too dark. “You knew of his cruelty and did nothing to stop him?”
“I knew of the abusive way he spoke to our parents, and when Iset sought a divorce, I was told the reason. He made no secret that he wagered, drank himself witless, lay with innumerable women. As for the rest…” Minkheper tore his hand from the river, stood up, and expelled a bitter laugh. “My only excuse is that I was too far away for too long to learn the truth.”
He paused, stared out toward the island. “When I came back to Waset to settle his affairs, I found nothing to settle.
He’d lost everything our parents left behind, including property he and I held together. If Baket-Amon had not already taken his life, I’d have slain him myself.”
“Were you ever told that the prince slew him because he found him with a young woman he’d just beaten to death?”
“So Thutnofer said.”
Turning their backs to the river, they walked up the dark path toward the caravan encampment, which was ablaze with light. Bonfires reached for the sky, giving sight to the men tending the wounded. With so many in need of care, they had long since run out of poultices and bandages, but
Nebwa and Ahmose had demanded from the nearby villag ers additional lengths of cloth and medicinal herbs.
“Menu’s death was justified in the eyes of men and the gods,” Bak said, “yet you were driven to exact revenge.
For the love of Amon, why?”
“As the eldest son, I was honor-bound to slay the man who took his life.”
“No matter how just or unjust the cause.” Bak’s voice was flat, uncritical, yet all the more censorious for its lack of reproach.
“Yes.”
Sorrow flooded Bak’s heart. Minkheper was as much a man of Kemet as Amonked or Nebwa or Commandant
Thuty. Nonetheless, he had felt obliged to obey the deities of a far-off land, gods who demanded that a good man’s life be taken in exchange for that of a brute. Unlike the lady Maat, who required that justice be done, never seeking a man’s death for no good reason.
“Did Baket-Amon face you in Buhen, unaware of your purpose?”
“He knew what would happen should we meet.” Min kheper took a deep, long breath. “The day after I learned the truth of my brother’s death, I called upon the prince. I warned him of my duty, saying that the next time I laid eyes on him, I must slay him.” Another deep breath that reeked of sadness. “We parted amiably, with the regret of men who could have been as close as brothers under other, better circumstances.”
“He was fortunate you were a mariner who sailed distant seas much of the time.”
Minkheper seemed not to hear. “We spent the interven ing years far apart. In the rare instances when we inadver tently walked the streets of the same city, we went out of our way to avoid each other. Then fate, or perhaps it was the will of the gods-your gods or mine, I’ll never know placed us both in Buhen, both in that wretched house where
Commandant Thuty quartered us. I was forced to avenge my brother, like it or not, and Baket-Amon did nothing to stop me.”
Silence descended, accompanying them through the darkness to the edge of the encampment.
“You tried to slay me twice,” Bak said.
“I’d heard of your reputation as a hunter of men. I had to make an effort to save myself.”
“But you saved my life today.”
Minkheper’s wry smile was clearly visible in the light reaching out from the nearest fire. His bright hair glowed as if from an inner sun. “I thought I wanted to survive, to reach the lofty rank of admiral for which I’ve strived for so many long years. In the end, though, faced with a choice of holding my head high or bowing it in shame, I couldn’t bring myself to slay a man I’ve come to like and respect.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Look at them.” Nebwa rested his hands on either side of the crenel and leaned forward, looking down at the pris oners collected at the base of the towered wall. “You’d think they’d’ve had enough of fighting, but there they are, squabbling among themselves already.”
Bak, standing at the next crenel, eyed two men shouting insults at each other, each backed by allies, men from the same tribe, he guessed. He had long since ceased to be surprised at such behavior. “Hor-pen-Deshret must have a tongue of pure honey to’ve held his coalition together as long as he did.”
“Even if he had the freedom to do so, he’d not form another very soon. The men of the desert still treat him with respect, so say the guards-in the heat of battle, he proved himself a more than able warrior-but now they listen to him with caution.”
“They’ve learned a valuable lesson.”
“Unfortunately, their memories are short.”
The two friends stood in amiable silence, watching the confrontation below, well satisfied with the outcome of the previous day’s battle. A cool northerly breeze eased the warmth of the morning sun. The smell of drying fish wafted up from the rooftop of a building block outside the wall.
The tribesmen, bedraggled and worn in defeat, squatted in the shade of the fortress wall or milled about on the patch of sand where they were being held, one of the few rela tively level spots on the rocky prominence on which the fortress of Askut stood. They were ringed by guards to prevent escape, apprehensive about whatever punishment they might face, worried for their families far out in the desert, making tensions run high and feelings lie close to the surface. To add to their sense of defeat and unease, the walking wounded had been left among them, while the more seriously injured had been carried into the fortress, their fate unknown.
Voices drifted up from the passage within the massive twin-towered main gate, and presently Lieutenant Ahmose and Amonked climbed onto the battlements. The latter, un accustomed to the long ladders used in exterior defenses for ease of removal in case of attack, stepped onto the roof top with obvious relief. Ahmose followed with an agility that attested to his many years in the garrisons of Kemet.
The pair strode along the broad walkway atop the wall to join Bak and Nebwa on the imposing tower that formed the sharpest corner of the roughly triangular stronghold.
Amonked raised his staff of office in greeting, scanned the panorama spread out before him, and smiled as if all was right with the world. “You may have to lower me down that wretched tower with a rope, but the view from up here is spectacular enough to make the humiliation worthwhile.”
The genial smile faded, replaced by a gravity befitting the inspector. He studied the fortress’s commanding posi tion on the island, the immense expanse of landscape vis ible all around, and the water flowing on all sides, a moat provided by the gods. The island was little more than a gigantic rock on which pockets of earth supported trees, brush, and a few hard-won garden plots. A place easy to defend and difficult to assault. Yet, like Buhen and the other fortresses along the Belly of Stones, it had fallen more than once in the past, when official neglect had left it poorly manned, its too few troops abandoned.
Across the western channel, the caravan could be seen, reduced in size by distance. The donkeys, returned from their island refuge, grazed on the trampled weeds and grass south of the encampment. The piles of foodstuffs and equipment which had proven such useful obstacles during the fighting had been redistributed in preparation for the next segment of the journey south, the long march to
Semna.
“Have you and Lieutenant Horhotep finished your in spection, sir?” Nebwa asked.
Bak resisted a smile. Since fighting at Amonked’s side, what had remained of the troop captain’s resentment had melted away and his use of the word “sir” was a true sign of respect.
“We have, and I must admit I’m impressed. At least half the space inside these walls is unused, a veritable
