the boat at an excessive speed.
“Father! Behind us!” Bak yelled. “He doesn’t see us!
Swing the tiller!”
Ptahhotep glanced backward and at the same time did as he was told. Bak filled the sail as much as he dared. The skiff swung partway around, climbed a wave, dropped with a thud into the hollow beyond. The fishing boat appeared to turn, as if deliberately following them. Denying the thought as ridiculous, he signaled his father for more rudder and let the sail balloon. The keelless skiff, leaning at a precarious angle, bumped across the waves, out of the fishing boat’s way. Bak turned forward, thinking to set the vessel upright.
His father yelled, “He’s turning with us!”
Bak swung around. The larger hull was fast approaching, too fast to escape. “Jump, Father!”
His face white with shock, Ptahhotep let go of the tiller and threw himself overboard. Praying his parent would get safely out of the path of the larger vessel, Bak let go of the sheets. As they slipped out of the cleats and snaked across the deck, the prow of the fishing boat loomed over the stern.
The sail billowed furiously, slapping Bak’s face. The skiff tipped over farther and began to skid on its side, taking in water. Bak jumped. The larger vessel struck the smaller, sending him sprawling into the river. The hull of the fishing boat struck him across the back.
Chapter Ten
Stunned by the blow, Bak felt as if he had been struck on the back by the fist of a god. The impact knocked the air from him and shoved him downward. Arms and legs limp, moving where the water took them, he vaguely saw the hull slide over him. Unable to think, he sucked in a breath, filling his lungs with water.
Coughing, taking in more water, desperate for air, he came back to his senses. He knew he was sinking and the current was carrying him downstream. Terror struck. His limbs flailed, too fast, out of control. Recognizing panic and how close he was to drowning, he forced himself to calm down. He held back a cough, made his arms and legs respond, and swam upward. His body felt heavy and stiff. His chest burned. He saw light through the water, beckoning him.
He broke the surface. The water was rough around him.
Cold wind and heavy swells washed over his head. He coughed and coughed again, spewing liquid, making room for the air he needed.
Then he thought of his father and the boat that had struck the skiff.
“Father!” he yelled, looking around in all directions.
The sun had vanished, throwing a golden glow into the sky that reflected on the roiling water like broken shards of light, heaving and falling, appearing and disappearing, making it impossible to see any object as small as a man’s head.
He did glimpse a boat off to the right, making its way toward the west bank. It could have been the fishing boat that had run them down, but it was too far away for him to be sure.
He coughed hard, bellowed out, “Father!”
“Bak!”
Had to be Ptahhotep, he thanked the lord Amon. Hard to hear with water filling his ears, a strange hollow sound that made the man he heard difficult to locate. He called again, received an answer. Swimming in the direction from which he thought the response had come, he quickly found his father clinging to a long curved section of hull, all that remained of the skiff. A stub of mast was attached and a portion of the torn sail floated on the waves.
“Are you all right, Father?”
“Wet and angry but unhurt. And you?”
Bak tried a grin, but his teeth were clenched so tight it looked more like the grimace it was. “My back feels as if it’s been peeled, and I sucked in a chestful of water. Other than that, I’m ready to do battle with the malign spirit himself.” A gross exaggeration, one intended to make them both feel better.
“That boat struck us on purpose.” Ptahhotep’s eyes flashed with fury. “The son of a snake, the. .” He ranted on, spouting invectives even his policeman son had never heard.
Bak looked toward the west bank, searching for the boat he had seen. The lord Re had entered the netherworld, taking with him the glow from the sky. Darkness was falling fast.
The vessel had vanished, hidden by the gloom, probably nestled against a mudbank, its sail furled, its weathered hull blending into the background.
The waning light told him they must not tarry. He had every confidence that he could swim to the far shore, but his father was no longer a young man. “We must go, Father.
We’ve a long swim ahead of us.”
A movement caught his eye, a traveling ship coming downstream at a fast pace. The vessel he had seen earlier but had forgotten in the struggle to survive. With the light so uncertain, he feared it might pass them by, but a member of the crew spotted the torn sail. The oarsmen slowed the craft and maneuvered it close with practiced ease. Ropes were thrown and the crew hauled them on board.
Bak glanced at the lord Khepre, a sliver of gold peering over the eastern horizon. He had awakened angry and impatient to get on with the new day, but Hori and Kasaya had yet to come. The bandage his father had bound around his upper torso chafed, the musky smell of the poultice tickled his nose, and the bandage around his thigh was too tight. He untied the latter, decided the abrasion was healing properly, and threw it away. His father, called out to tend an infected foot, need never know.
When he went outside to care for his horses, he found Defender lame. A cursory inspection revealed a small stone embedded in the animal’s hoof, a problem easily fixed and best not left to the end of day. But first the team had to be fed and watered. As he finished the task, he spotted the scribe and Medjay hurrying along the path toward the house. The bandage roused their concern and questions. While the horses ate their fill, he sat with the pair beneath the sycamore, where he shared their early morning meal-bread, cheese, and dates Kasaya’s mother had provided-and told them how the fishing boat had run down his father’s skiff.
“The malign spirit,” Hori said, his face grim. “The boat had to be his. Or under his control.”
“I’d wager my iron dagger that you’re right.” Bak did not make such a statement lightly. The weapon was a treasured gift, given to him by a woman he had met when first he had gone to Buhen, one he had never ceased to hold close within his heart.
“Who else has reason to want you dead?” Hori’s question required no answer and received none.
Bak retrieved a basket of instruments his father kept in the house in case he was called out to care for an animal and knelt before the lame horse. While he examined the gelding’s hoof, Kasaya held the rope halter and rubbed his head.
Hori hoisted himself onto the mudbrick wall, well out of the way of flying hooves should the creature strike out. He made no secret of the fact that he rued the day his father had insisted he follow him as a scribe, and he longed to be a man of action-if not a police officer, the chariotry officer Bak had been-but he did not quite trust the large, swift animals.
“I’m surprised you two weren’t attacked when you climbed the cliff,” the youth said.
“Maybe our so-called malign spirit wasn’t at Djeser Djeseru then and didn’t know we went up to investigate.” Bak probed gently around the stone, trying to see how deep it was and loosen it if possible. Defender nickered softly but stood still. “Or he may’ve been there but couldn’t get away unnoticed. Or, more likely, he feared being seen unless he took a roundabout route that would get him to the top too late.”
The gelding’s withers twitched in silent complaint.
Kasaya distracted him with a handful of grain. “I suppose a man could climb up a different crevice than the one we did, but could he cross the tops of those tower-like formations without being seen from below?”
“I don’t know, but I assume so.” Deciding the stone could easily be removed, Bak took a pair of long-nosed tweezers from the basket and pulled it free. He laid the instrument aside and examined the hoof to see how deep the injury went.
“The malign spirit must fear you greatly.” Hori held out a small bowl of salve Ptahhotep had prepared. It
