The sky had darkened, Bak saw, and the lord Re had long ago entered the netherworld, allowing the stars to show their faces. He hoped he could find a boatman to ferry him across the river in the night. “I’ve spent the last two nights at Djeser Djeseru, so I don’t know how my father feels about having a man in constant attendance.”
“From what I’ve been told, he made no secret that he resented the need for a guard, but he doesn’t hold the sergeant responsible. In fact, he treats him as a friend and companion rather than holding him at a distance.”
Thanking the lord Amon for small favors, Bak trudged down the lane to the gate, bade good night to the sentry, and walked out into the darkened city.
The world was black, with the quarter moon pale and weak. Stars were sprinkled like bright grains of salt across the sky. Bak heard the rustle of a small unseen creature slipping through the tough dry grass that grew along the irrigation channel. A hare bounded across the path in front of him, leaving a melon patch to hide within a field of henna. Indistinct images off to his right were all he could see of cattle resting in a neighbor’s field of stubble. The distant cry of a jackal set off a chorus of barking dogs. The air was cool and smelled of the manure spread across a fallow field.
His father’s house was dark, Ptahhotep no doubt asleep.
He saw no sign of the guard, but assumed Sergeant Huy would show himself when he spotted him approaching in the dark. To make sure the sergeant did not set upon him, thinking him an intruder, he began to whistle.
He approached the paddock where his horses lazed away their days, fully expecting the guard to appear. He saw no one. The shed, a small and unattractive but sturdy structure at the other end of the paddock, was dark, the horses safely inside for the night. The back of the structure and one end were mudbrick, the remains of a partially fallen building. A wooden front and second end had been tacked on and a new roof built when Bak had brought the animals from the garrison stables. They were much too valuable to leave outside each night, risking theft.
Walking along the paddock wall, he began a livelier refrain. Still the guard did not appear. A sense of unease washed through him. He stopped whistling and stepped up his pace, trotting past the wall and across the plot of grass in front of the house. The silence was unnerving, the failure of the guard to appear disturbing.
He ducked beneath the portico, his eyes on the wooden door. As dark as it was, he could see that it stood slightly ajar and a man lay crumpled on the ground before it. Alarmed, he took a quick step forward. His foot struck something and he lost his balance. He grabbed a wooden column to save himself, spotted the long spear he had stepped on, dropped onto a knee to see who the man was. The face was unknown to him, but the spear and the white cowhide shield beside the limp body identified him as a guard of the royal house.
Sergeant Huy, the man Maiherperi had assigned to keep his father safe!
The guard was breathing. Bak found no open wounds on his broad back or chest, but when he ran his fingers over the thick short hair, he discovered a large wet lump on the back of his head. The sergeant had been struck down by a hard blow. As he could do nothing for the man, he rose to his feet, stepped over him, and pushed the door wide.
The loud, terrified scream of a horse and the clatter of hooves on a hard-packed earthen floor sounded in the shed.
He stiffened. His father could as easily be with the horses as within the house, trying to save the animals from. . From theft or worse?
Snapping out a curse, he leaped from beneath the portico and raced across the scraggly grass toward the paddock.
Vaulting the wall, he veered around the water trough and sped toward the shed. Another shriek of equine panic gave wings to his feet, as did thoughts of his father alone and in desperate need of help. Bursting through the doorway, which should not have been open but was, he stopped abruptly.
A minimum of light came through the high window on the mudbrick end of the building, but his eyes were as accustomed to the darkness as they would ever be. Both horses, tied to stone hitches near the manger, were scream-ing, bucking, kicking out, trying to break free, trying to escape from whatever they feared. Ptahhotep was not there.
Bak’s first thought was a snake, perhaps a deadly cobra or some other poisonous reptile crawling through the straw strewn across the floor. Before he could dwell on the thought, a loud crack sounded against the doorjamb beside his head. Another struck somewhere inside the shed, adding to the horses’ frenzy.
A sling! Someone was pelting the animals with rocks. Not large killing rocks, but smaller stones designed to sting and make them panic. He glimpsed the head and shoulders of a man at the window. The image vanished at the blink of an eye. He swung around, thinking to give chase, but stopped himself. In their hysteria the horses could break a leg or injure themselves or each other in some other fashion. They must be calmed quickly so he could go back to the house and his father.
Forcing himself to be patient, to appear unruffled-at least to the horses-he left the doorway and sidled around those flying hooves. He approached Defender, the horse farthest from the window, slowly from the side, careful to make no sudden or threatening moves, murmuring words that had no meaning. The sound of his familiar voice, his cautious approach, the absence of further flying stones, quieted both animals’ screams and stilled their frantic bucking. As poor as the light was, he could see their trembling limbs, and when he reached out to catch Defender’s rope halter, he felt his flesh quiver.
Without warning, the horse jerked his head. Victory snorted in terror and at the same time Bak smelled smoke.
He pivoted, spat out a curse. The door was closed and fire curled under the bottom edge. The straw!
He raced toward the door, tried to shove it open. It held tight, barred, he felt sure, by the man he had seen at the window. He stamped out the flames reaching out beneath it, but other bits of straw fueled the spreading fire. The horses screamed hysterically, bucked and kicked out, shook their heads and jerked backward, trying to free themselves of the ropes that held them fast.
Bak checked his own fear, the desperate need to escape that stifled common sense and straight thinking. He knew the shed well. He had helped build it. And he knew its weak-nesses.
He darted around Defender, the flying hooves, and grabbed a wooden rake standing in the corner. Using its butt end as a battering ram, he struck out at the join between the wood and the mudbrick. A crack formed between the two.
He forced the rake handle into the gap and pried the wood farther from the brick. The dowels connecting the first two boards broke with a loud crack.
He flung the rake aside, raised his foot, and kicked the board as hard as he could. The cords binding it to the roof tore away and it crashed onto the ground. A family of rats scurried out through the hole and disappeared in the darkness. Trying not to breathe the smoke that filled the shed, ignoring the crackle of the fire sweeping across the floor, the clatter of hooves, the terrified equine screams, Bak kicked another board loose and another and another until the space was wide enough for a horse to go through.
Satisfied with the hole, he swung around and stared, appalled. The straw was burning all across the floor, and flames were licking the legs of the frantic horses. He could smell their singed hair. He scooped up the rake and swung it from side to side, sweeping a path through the burning straw, pushing as much as he could away from the panicked animals.
Dropping the tool, he tore his dagger from its sheath and cut through the knot that held his kilt in place. He lunged at Defender, flung the kilt around the horse’s head, blinding it, and slashed through the rope that held it captive. Catching the halter, he led the trembling, terrified animal through the hole in the wall and away from the burning shed, jerked the kilt off its head, and slapped it on the flank to send it to the opposite side of the paddock.
He raced back inside. The grain in the manger had begun to smolder, making it hard to breathe, and all the bits of straw scattered across the floor were flaming like tinder. The palm frond roof was burning, snapping and popping and shooting out sparks. Ignoring the heat, the smoke, the stench, he hurried to Victory. The horse sidled away, as afraid of him and the cloth in his hand as it was of the fire.
He grabbed the rope holding the animal in place. It reared back, flung its head, flailed out with its front hooves.
Bak ducked, saving himself, and lunged at the horse to grab its halter and throw his kilt over its head. Holding both with one hand, he severed the restraining rope, got a better grip on the halter, and urged the trembling horse
