Headmen moved at their own speed, and he did not want to alienate a man whose goodwill might be useful, if not this day, perhaps another in the future.
He forced a genial smile and, barely aware of the curious faces behind the old man, clasped both of Dedu’s gnarled hands in greeting. “Who found this man, Dedu, and where?”
Dedu spoke a command in his own tongue. A small, frail boy no more than six years of age slipped from between two older youths and came forward. He stared at his feet, too shy to speak.
The old man placed a hand on the boy’s scrawny shoulder. “This child brought his father’s animals to the river to drink. He saw the body caught among the reeds.”
Dedu pointed downstream, where a herd of black goats nibbled, untended, at a narrow band of grass growing from the mud along the bank. A few paces farther, near a thick stand of reeds, a red bullock and five cows stood belly-deep in the water. Brown birds twittered around their heads, necks, and backs, harvesting the parasites from their hide.
“He called to his brothers,” Dedu said, nodding toward the two older boys. “They waded out and brought the dead one to the shore. An hour ago. No more.”
“Do you or any of your people know his name?”
“No.” Dedu pulled his yellow wrap closer around his stringy arms. “Before I summoned you, I asked every man and woman. He’s a stranger to them all.”
“You’re certain they told the truth?”
Dedu stared at Bak, measuring him as a man. Evidently deciding him worthy, he said, “If I were not, he’d be feeding the fishes far downstream from this village.”
Bak had to smile at the old man’s candor. “You could’ve allowed the current to carry him off anyway. By doing so, you might’ve saved yourself and your people from suspicion.”
“We trust in the laws of Kemet,” the old man said, his expression grave.
When it suits your purpose, Bak thought, as it does when you know for a fact you’ll not be blamed. “A messenger came to you at sunrise. He described a man we’ve been seeking. Could this be him?” He prayed fervently that such was not the case.
“Come see for yourself.” Dedu turned on his heel and the villagers parted before him.
Bak and Imsiba knelt on the damp earth beside the body, which lay full-length on its left side, feet in the water. A spear, its shaft broken close to the point, was embedded deep in the lower rib cage. Arms, legs, and back were thick and solid; the muscles around the waist bulged with fat.
Snapping out an oath, Bak gripped the cool, clammy shoulder and shoved the body onto its back. A murmur rippled through the surrounding crowd. The dead man’s neck was as thick and broad as his head; his face was square, his mouth full and coarse. A long, open gash, its lips stark white from exposure to water, bared the bone on the left shoulder.
Imsiba uttered a humorless barklike laugh. “We must call off our search, it seems.”
Bak rubbed his hand across his eyes, too disappointed to respond. His instincts had warned him to expect the worst, had sent him to Kames in fact, but he had hoped for better. He had counted on taking this man alive, hearing from his own lips how he had slain Commandant Nakht. How he had managed to steal the gold and where he had hidden all he had taken through the year. Nothing was left but to learn the man’s name. The rest, he feared, might forever remain a mystery.
Dedu whistled softly, as if he had noticed something that surprised him.
Alerted by the sound, Bak studied the body more closely. He noted a dozen or more spots of discolored flesh on the hands and forearms. He knew what they were; he had seen similar scars as a child. His father, a physician, had cared for a woman who had at some time in the past been badly burned by cooking oil.
His glance shifted to the spear point and what little remained of the shaft. Muttering a curse, he tugged the spear from the lifeless chest and held it out so Imsiba could see what he and the old man had spotted: the flawless edges of the bronze point, the careful sanding of the short stub of shaft. The workmanship was superb, unlike that of villagers and tribesmen, who had neither the facilities nor the skills to make so finely crafted a weapon. On the shaft close to the bronze point was a symbol that identified the spear as one from his own police arsenal.
“Have you turned your face from us?” Imsiba asked, stricken. “You stood beside us when Commandant Nakht was slain. How can you not trust us now?”
Bak followed the sergeant out of the tree-shaded courtyard of the house of death where they had taken the body. The midday heat enveloped him like a cloak, draining the sweat from his flesh.
“Can you tell me for a fact where each man was throughout the night?” he demanded.
“Not a man in our company would slay another except to protect himself. I know them!”
“This spear came from our arsenal,” Bak said, holding aloft the linen-wrapped weapon.
“They’re innocent, I tell you!”
Bak’s eyes were drawn to two chatting women, walking across the open stretch of sand on which the house of death stood. One of the pair noticed them, murmured something to the other, and they hastened into the mouth of a narrow, crooked lane that meandered through the dwellings and workshops of the outer city. Imsiba saw nothing-his back was to them-but Bak had seen as they rounded the corner the way they stared with tight, accusing mouths. The rumors are spreading, he thought.
“Come,” he said grimly, taking Imsiba by the arm. “We have much to do and not enough time.”
Imsiba shook off his hand and headed across the sand to a well-worn path hugged on one side by the sunken road at the base of the citadel wall, on the other by buildings crammed together in jumbled confusion.
Bak hurried to catch up. “You misunderstand my questions, Imsiba, and the source of my anger. I don’t doubt our men’s innocence; I question our ability to prove it.”
“Proof!” Imsiba laughed, incredulous. “Half slept through the night in the barracks, the others patrolled the streets from dusk to dawn. How can we find men who saw them?”
“It must be done. With no delay. Before every man in this garrison is blinded by suspicion.” Bak’s expression turned flinty. “We must not only learn their whereabouts when the commandant’s house was ransacked, but we must also discover how that spear left our arsenal.”
Imsiba nodded, his face glum. “Each time you give me a task, it’s ten times ten more difficult than the one before.”
“Have you made any headway with the men unaccounted for when Nakht was slain?”
“The three who claimed to walk the streets went on duty at sunrise. I’ll get the truth from them when they return to our barracks at sunset.”
They reached the mouth of the lane where it opened onto the main thoroughfare. To the west, beyond the hodgepodge of buildings and a strip of barren sand, a long train of donkeys, their backs piled high with hay, was plodding through the great towered gate that pierced the outer wall on the desert side of Buhen. They were bound for the donkey paddocks, whose location could be pinpointed by the fine, pungent dust hanging over the southern end of the outer city. Bak and Imsiba turned east and passed through the gate into the citadel. The two Medjays who had gone with them to the village were walking along at a leisurely pace not far ahead. Three thickset men- craftsmen, from the look of their crumpled sweat-stained kilts-emerged from an intersecting lane farther along the street.
“Hori crossed the river this morning,” Imsiba continued. “He should have no trouble finding the woman who shared her bed with Amonemopet. As for Ruru…”
He broke the thought with an angry hiss. The craftsmen were swaggering toward the Medjays on what looked like a collision course. Bak watched with a wary eye, praying his men would have the sense to avoid a confrontation. They held their ground until the last moment, finally stepping aside to let the others go by. One of the craftsmen raised his hand in an obscene gesture directed at their backs, another spat on the ground.
Imsiba growled deep in his throat. “How does word spread so fast?”
“I’d not be surprised to learn that someone is feeding the fire.”
“Nebwa, you think?”
The approaching craftsmen eyed Imsiba with contempt. Bak put on his coolest, most haughty expression and raised his baton of office. They gave him an uncertain look and swung wide to pass. He turned slowly around, watching them walk on down the street. No man would spit at him and go away unscathed. They did not try.
He scowled at their backs. “From this day on, Imsiba, I want none of our men to walk the streets of Buhen
