“And he said?”
Bak had to smile. “‘To face a challenge and win is far more satisfying than to win by default.’”
Nakht chuckled. “Yes, he would say such a thing. He spouts wisdom with the ease of a priest.”
They laughed together.
Nakht sobered, gave Bak a speculative look. “I think you have the wit to do any task set before you, the stubbornness to see it through to the end, and the pride to do it well. You’ll need those traits and more to assimilate your Medjays into this garrison. Do you think you can curb your rashness and swallow your resentment at being sent here long enough to prove your worth and theirs?”
Bak took the question as a challenge, one his pride would not allow him to resist. “Last evening when our ship docked at the quay and we entered this fortress, few men we passed greeted us with a smile. I can make no promises, for men’s thoughts are difficult to change. But I hope, when I sail back to Kemet, that I’ll see my Medjays standing beside those same men as trusted companions.”
Nakht nodded his satisfaction. “I can ask no more.”
He stepped aside, making additional space at the crenel so they both could look beyond the wall. Bak frowned at what he considered the most forbidding land he had ever seen. Below, along the terraced base of the fortress, the brownish waters of the river that gave life to this land flowed wide and deep, north to Kemet, where he longed to be. Three long stone quays projected into the water in front of two towered gates and a broader pylon gate. Two sturdy cargo ships and four smaller, lighter trading vessels were moored alongside. A line of men plodded along the quay between the gate on which they stood and the larger of the two cargo vessels, their backs bent low beneath heavy copper ingots bound for workshops in Kemet.
Farther out, a dozen fishermen’s skiffs tacked diagonally across the water, their sails appearing in the distance like the wings of birds. Across the river, a long stretch of green, a fertile oasis in a land of rocks and sand, looked dusty and indistinct in the sweltering haze. Nothing lay beyond but sandhills bleached almost white by the unforgiving sun.
The faint honking of geese drew both men’s gaze to the pallid sky above. A flock of thirty or more birds flew south, too high for arrows to reach, too wily to rest and feed near an oasis inhabited by man. Bak watched them fade from sight, envying them their freedom to go where they wished.
Nakht, who must have noticed the wistful look on his face, gave him an understanding smile. “I lived in the land of Hatti for many years, a place as rich in its own way as the valley of this river. As I grew older, I yearned to return to Kemet, the land of my birth. I thought to spend the remainder of my life with my feet on its rich black soil, walking through fields of grain and fruits and vegetables.” His smile gave way to a cynical chuckle. “When finally I did return, I was sent here to the southern frontier.”
“You dislike Buhen, as I do?”
Nakht’s smile dissolved. “The fortress, no. It’s much like any other garrison. And dislike is too pale a word; I was afraid.” He held out his hand as if making an offering of the view across the river. “It was the land itself I feared, this dry, barren land of Wawat, this desert which surrounds us. I thought it an empty and brutal place where no man could walk without thirst or hunger, heat or poisonous creatures. However, in the year I’ve been here…” He paused and his smile this time contained no irony, no cynicism. “I cannot say I’ve grown to love the desert, but I respect it and think it a place of great beauty.”
Bak could think of nothing to say; he was too surprised the commandant would utter such personal thoughts to a man he had met less than an hour before.
Nakht laughed-at himself, Bak thought. “I’ve said enough, perhaps too much. I hope one day you’ll come to like Buhen and be as proud to serve this garrison as I am to command it.”
Bak swallowed a denial. He was convinced he would never like this vile city or the onerous task of policing it.
The commandant seemed not to expect a hasty and insincere promise. He once again glanced toward the sun, and his voice became crisp, purposeful. “You must, within the next few days, impress on the men in this garrison that I mean to have order here. They must see you and your Medjays in action and me standing behind you with the scales of justice. Sweep the market for false weights or…?” His expectant look left no doubt he wanted a suggestion which could be expanded to a plan.
Bak stared at the sunbaked land across the river, mulling over various ways of introducing a police force in a place where none had ever been. The most obvious idea was the least appealing, for it was born of his own past behavior.
“I’ve heard the monthly rations were given out today,” he said. “Many men will visit houses of pleasure this night. Name for me the foulest of the lot, one with many patrons, a place louder and more unruly than all the others. My men and I will come upon them in the dark and take them like fish in a net.”
He felt like a traitor, plotting the downfall of men no better than he.
Bak raced around the corner with six armed Medjay policemen close on his heels. In the flickering light of the torch he carried, he saw twenty-five or more men scuffling in the gloomy moonlit lane. The hard-packed sand beneath their bodies was slick and wet, the air thick with the stench of sweat, stale beer, and vomit. A far-off chorus of barking dogs mingled with garbled, drunken taunts and the thud of fist striking flesh.
A pottery jar flew through the air, spewing beer from its open mouth. Bak spotted the missile, ducked. The jar whipped past his head and smashed into the wall beside him, splattering its sticky contents over his bare torso and fresh white kilt. Muttered curses echoed his own and he guessed several of his men had also been caught in the shower.
He raised his torch high. The lane, three cubits wide, broad enough for three men abreast, ran arrow straight between two rows of connected single-story mudbrick houses, their doors shut tight. It ended at a broad path which ran along the base of the massive wall enclosing the fortress. A torch at the far end told him Sergeant Imsiba and six additional Medjays were there to bag the prey he meant to sweep into their hands.
In the middle, trapped between the two forces, were the brawlers: soldiers alleviating the boredom of frontier duty, sailors relieving the tedium of a long voyage, prisoner-miners celebrating the completion of their sentences before going home to Kemet. Their shadows flitted across the facades of the houses as they pummeled each other, rolled over broken jars and puddles of beer, tried to creep away only to be caught up and drawn back into the fray. A dozen or more heads peered down from above, residents who had complained long and loud, so Nakht had said, about the frequent brawls outside their homes.
The focus of the battle was a place of business midway along the lane, the house of pleasure of the old woman Nofery. Her bulk, planted in the doorway, cut off much of the light streaming from within. She stood, crossed arms resting on her mammoth belly, braying like an ass to goad the fighters on. She would sing a different song later, Bak thought, would whine like a starving cur at what he had in mind for her.
He turned to the men behind him. “Ready?”
The way they hefted their spotted cowhide shields and heavy, head-high wooden staffs told him they were. The way their teeth flashed in their dark-skinned faces told him how much they were looking forward to the skirmish. He raised his torch and waved it back and forth. The flame sputtered, sparks cascaded to the ground. The signal was returned from the far end of the lane. He handed the torch to one of his men and took in exchange his shield and baton of office.
“Let’s go,” he said.
With three men behind him and another three behind them, they swept forward, filling the lane so no one could slip past. The nearest pair of besotted men, both on their knees swinging ineffectual punches, glanced up and gaped. Bak relished the look of disbelief on their faces. He could imagine what they saw: a baton-wielding officer of Kemet followed by a wall of bright shields, the Medjays’ legs, arms, and heads vague shadows in the dark. One of the pair bellowed like a rampaging bull, scrambled to his feet, and tried to run away from what he clearly thought were demons from the netherworld. The second man tried to rise, blundered into the first man’s legs, and they fell together. Bak prodded them with his baton, forcing them forward into the melee.
The pair stumbled into another man, who grabbed one of them, shoved him against the wall, and slammed his head onto the plastered surface with as much force as he could muster. A Medjay broke ranks, grabbed the attacker by the hair, and pitched him into a trio wrestling on the ground.
“The Medjays!” someone shrieked. “The Medjays!”
Bak’s eyes homed in on Nofery, whose hands were cupped around her mouth to form a horn.
