garbage dump, but the small force here has made the utmost use of the remainder.”
“We do what we can, sir,” Ahmose said pedantically.
Amonked looked down at the prisoners and his smile faded. “What shall we do with those men?”
Bak queried Nebwa with a glance. He was not sure if the question was rhetorical or genuine. The troop captain shrugged, as mystified as he.
“I believe all threat of a coalition has been banished for some time,” Bak said, assuming the inspector truly wanted their counsel. “Hor-pen-Deshret has lost credibility. Thanks to him, there’s not much likelihood that any other man who covets riches and power will be able to lure men from the desert in numbers anywhere near those we faced yester day.” Ever mindful of Ahmose’s mission and their sover eign’s wish to tear the army from the Belly of Stones, he added, “For how long we can lay down our guard, I make no prediction.”
“Even if tempted, the tribesmen would refuse,” Nebwa added. “At least, in the near future. Too many men are dead and injured, leaving too many families alone and hungry, women and children and the aged who must now be fed by the more fortunate among them.”
Amonked walked to a crenel and looked at the men whose fate he held in his hands. “By rights, we should send to Waset all who are well enough to travel, offering them as servants to the royal house and the mansion of the lord
Amon.”
“We’d need extra men, at least a company of spearmen, to guard them on the journey north,” Ahmose said, “and we can’t keep them here while we await the arrival of troops from some distant garrison. We’ve no supplies to spare, and our next shipment of grain won’t come until long after the harvest in Kemet. Without that, we’ve nothing to trade locally for the more perishable fruits and vegetables we’d need.”
Eyeing the patchwork of fields along the river, Amonked asked, “Could not the captives help with the harvest, thereby earning their keep?”
Nebwa barked out a laugh. “The farmers would subject them to slavery-or, more likely, let them starve.”
“What of Semna?” the inspector asked, untroubled by what came close to ridicule.
“It and its sister fortresses sit in a land devoid of life,”
Ahmose explained. “What food and supplies they don’t re ceive from Kemet, they must get by barter from traveling merchants.”
“We can’t take them with us on the caravan.” Bak said no more, the reasons too obvious to relate, too much like those given for Askut and Semna.
With much to think about and the choices limited,
Amonked turned his back on his advisers to pace up and down the walkway, head lowered, hands clasped behind him. Bak rubbed the bandage on his thigh, a poor substitute for scratching the scabbed-over and itchy wound. He knew what he would do, but the decision was not his to make.
Nebwa and Ahmose also remained mute, an ordeal if their faces told true.
Amonked soon rejoined the three officers. “I know men in the royal house who would order us to slay the tribes men.” Neither his face nor his voice betrayed what he thought of the idea. “They would say we fought a battle and won it fairly. We’ve earned the right to cut off their hands and count them.”
Bak had heard grizzled veterans tell tales of hundreds upon hundreds of hands submitted to some lofty general in expectation of reward: the gold of valor, a portion of enemy wealth, captives who would make suitable servants. All very well in a major conflict, with king facing king on the field of battle, but here?
“We’ve fought no war,” he said, “only a minor, local skirmish led by a man bent on theft. The taking of hands would be inappropriate, as would the death of all these men.” What had he said to Pawah while awaiting the en emy? “This is no local skirmish; men will die.” And they had. Many men on both sides.
Amonked flashed him a look of… relief? “Shall we set them free?”
Bak stifled a smile. “Other than slay them, sir, which would leave their women and children to walk the desert sands alone and fearful, many to die of starvation and want,
I know not what else we can do with them.”
“Turn them loose,” Nebwa said in his usual blunt man ner. “I see no need to wipe out whole families merely to boast that I won a small victory.”
Ahmose hastened to second the suggestion. “I can spare enough food to see them on their way and sufficient men to escort them into the desert.”
“So be it.” Amonked, seemingly unaware of their relief, leaned into the crenel and his eyes settled on a dozen or so men seated in the shade slightly apart from the rest. The fallen head of the enemy coalition and the surviving mem bers of his tribal unit. “What of Hor-pen-Deshret?”
“Now there’s a man whose hand I’d gladly take,” Nebwa growled, scowling at his longtime foe.
“He can’t be set free,” Ahmose stated. “He fled once into the desert, and here he is again. As certain as I am of the lord Re’s return tomorrow, I know he’d come another day.”
“I suggest you take him to Kemet,” Bak said. “His pres ence in the royal house should pacify our sovereign for our failure to enslave or slay the rest.” He had heard that Maat kare Hatshepsut enjoyed seeing powerful men kneeling low before her, their foreheads on the floor. A tale he deemed unwise to repeat to her cousin.
Amonked’s eyes twinkled, as if he had read the thought.
“Give him an hour alone, time enough to weigh his guilt with no friends or allies to offer support, then bring him before me in Lieutenant Ahmose’s office.”
“Hor-pen-Deshret. Horus of the Desert.” Amonked sat stiff and straight on Ahmose’s low-backed chair, which had been made as comfortable as possible, thanks to several thick pillows the lieutenant’s wife had brought. As it had no arms, he rested one hand on a plump thigh and held his baton of office in the other. “Don’t you think the name a bit presumptuous?”
“To you, perhaps.” The captive chief tossed his head in a superior manner. “To you, a man who has no understand ing of the desert and those of us who thrive in its barren wastes.”
Rather than dropping to his knees as he should have, the tribesman stood tall and proud, unbowed by captivity, fac ing Maatkare Hatshepsut’s cousin as if standing before an equal. He had been allowed to bathe and don clean cloth ing. One of his two guards, who stood a few paces behind him, had given him-in an instant of good humor or sar casm-a brownish feather to replace the red one he had lost. His broken arm had been bound within the bark of a slender tree and bandaged to hold it close to his chest. It was a clean break, the garrison physician had said, and should heal straight and strong.
Nebwa snorted, drawing the prisoner’s eyes to him, Ah 270
Lauren Haney mose, and Bak, standing at Amonked’s right hand. With a cynical smile, the tribesman bowed his head to Bak, ac knowledging the man who had laid him low and at the same time making light of the feat.
“I mean to release all those men you drew to your side with vain promises of wealth and glory.” Amonked main tained a regal bearing, as if born a prince destined to sit upon the throne. “With you no longer among them, I doubt they’ll form another coalition of tribes.”
“Set me free and I’ll see that they don’t.”
Amonked raised an eyebrow. “Are you pleading for mercy, Hor-pen-Deshret?”
“Never!” The tribesman raised his chin high. “I’m offer ing myself as an intermediary between my people and yours.”
“You wish to serve as an envoy?” Amonked chuckled.
“Have you not faced the fact that you’re our prisoner?”
“I’m a true falcon of the desert. Captivity would not suit me.”
Amonked wiped every trace of emotion from his face and stared at the proud tribesman standing before him. Not until Hor-pen-Deshret’s haughty smile began to look forced did he speak. “I mean to take you to Waset to stand before our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut. If she chooses to spare your life… Well, she can be whimsical at times, so I’ve no way of predicting her decision.” Amonked stared again at the man standing before him, feigning contemplation.
“This much I can tell you: if she’s sufficiently impressed with your manly appearance and demeanor, she’ll not merely allow you to live, but you’ll be a pampered guest within the royal house.”
Hope flared in Hor-pen-Deshret’s face.
“Seeing your vast abundance of pride, she may even take you with her each day to the hall of appearances,
