alone. They must always travel in pairs, especially at night when they patrol the streets, and each pair must take a dog. They must at all times tread lightly, drawing no trouble to themselves.”
“If they’re forced into a corner? Can they not protect themselves?”
“If they must fight back, they should. I want none of them to look like cowards. But caution them to strike with care. The death of another man would bring a mob to our doorstep.” Smiling an apology, he added, “Those rules apply to you, too, Imsiba.”
The big Medjay smiled ruefully. “If Hori and I are to find witnesses for all our men throughout last night, he’ll be walking by my side when my hair is white and I can no longer stand erect without the aid of a staff.”
Bak’s laugh held no humor, for his eyes were on the Medjays ahead. They had stopped just inside the gate that led to the quay, and two sentries had left their post to speak to them. What now? he wondered. Laughter rang out, not from one man but from four. A sentry clapped a Medjay on the shoulder, the other raised his spear in a mock salute. Bak’s men ambled through the gate. The tension seeped from him, and he thanked the lord Amon that not all men in Buhen thought his Medjays guilty of murder.
The anxiety drained from Imsiba’s face and he glanced at Bak. “You’ve said nothing about the man we took to the house of death. Was he slain by one who knew he had gold and wanted it for himself? Or was he slain at this time by chance?”
“Chance, Imsiba?” Bak shook his head. “The gods have played many cruel tricks on us since we came to Buhen, and this is the vilest of all. Chance had nothing to do with it. He was slain because of the gold, I have no doubt.”
“And so our men would be blamed for murder,” Imsiba said, his voice bitter. “Why? Because the guilty one hates and fears all Medjays? Or did he mean to tie our hands until he can slip away from Buhen?”
“He should not have gone so far.” Bak’s expression was cold and unforgiving. “We now have a personal stake in hunting him down like the animal he is.”
Chapter Seven
Bak broke through the surface of the water and propelled himself into the shallows. The strip of dirt along the river was empty; no one stood among the acacias lining the bank. Relieved that Nofery had not yet come, he hauled himself to his feet and waded to the granite boulder. Grabbing his kilt and loincloth, he darted into the shade beneath the trees. A sparrow fluttered to a higher branch, twittering its displeasure at being disturbed. A lizard scurried across the ground and disappeared beneath a rustling bush. Still dripping, he hurried into his clothing. He had no wish to submit himself to Nofery’s lewd comments should she find him undressed.
He lifted a fishy-smelling package wrapped in leaves from a low, flat boulder and sat down. Through the branches he could see the steep, ill-defined path rising to the top of the long stretch of sand and rock that paralleled the river south of the fortress. He flicked an ant from the bundle and unwrapped it. A dozen limp green onions lay on top of four charred fish mired in a pool of coagulated oil. As unappealing as they were, he was too hungry to care.
He broke the head off a fish, tore the body apart, and began to eat the flesh from its bones. Am I waiting in vain? he wondered. Did Nofery laugh in Hori’s face when he told her what I wanted?
No sooner had he asked himself the question than he heard querulous muttering, the swish of flowing sand, a curse. His eyes darted toward the path. Nofery was about a quarter of the way down, slightly off balance on a slope too unstable to support the weight of her heavy body. Her face was flushed, her ankle-length white sheath was stained with sweat and dust. In one hand she carried a long staff, useless in the sand. In the other, she gripped a good-sized beer jar.
“Don’t sit there with your mouth agape,” she shrieked. “Help me!”
Thanking the lord Amon she had come, Bak dropped the fish on the rock and raced up the slope. She grabbed him by the upper arm, clung as if her very life was at risk, took mincing steps, and whimpered. She was heavier than he had thought, and throughout the descent she did nothing to help herself. If she had not brought the beer, he would have seriously considered drowning her.
Reaching the safe, flat earth at the bottom of the slope, she spouted a flood of grievances. The heat, the long walk from the fortress, the rough desert path, the flies. Wondering how he would ever get her back up the hill, Bak ushered the bulky woman to the rock and moved his midday meal so she could sit.
“When that scribe of yours, that Hori, told me I must visit the house of death…well, I pledged to help you, so I was obliged to go.” She rearranged her huge buttocks on the hard stone. “If he’d told me of the hardships I’d have to endure to meet you here, I’d have thrown him out on his backside.”
“Come now, mistress Nofery!” Bak gave her his most boyish smile. “You wanted to know as much as I the name of the man pulled from the river.”
She snorted as if indifferent, but he could see she could hardly wait to tell him what she had learned. “I care only for the living. A dead man can’t buy my wares or lie with my women.”
“Did you bring the beer to drown your sorrow at losing a customer?” he asked, his eyes twinkling. “Or to thank me for having the good sense to ask you to take a look before any other man or woman?”
Her laugh, coming from deep within, made her many rolls of fat shake like the gel from a well-cooked cut of meat. As the quaking subsided, she could not resist a final complaint. “I tell you this, Officer Bak. The satisfaction of being the first to lay eyes on him was in no way worth the effort it took to get here.”
“Would you prefer all who live in Buhen to know you’re my spy?”
“I’d have little business,” she admitted. “Even my promise to speak highly of your Medjays will cost me much.” Her eyes narrowed, the look on her face turned sly. “I’d be more useful to you if you released me from that vow.”
Bak bent over and patted her cheek. “You must whisper their praises, old woman, not shout their merits to the world. One word spoken with subtlety is worth ten shoved down a man’s throat.”
Nofery’s sigh was so exaggerated, so deep and long, Bak imagined her fleshy body shrinking to a twig. Shaking off the image, he sat on the ground in front of her, folded his legs, and laid his food on his crossed ankles.
“Tell me, Nofery, who was he?”
She hesitated and he saw the temptation on her face to bargain favor for favor. The stern look he gave her, along with her eagerness to relate what she knew, overcame her desire to negotiate.
“His name was Heby,” she said. “He came to my place of business perhaps once a month.”
“I must offer a plump goose to the lord Amon,” Bak said, smiling with relief. “I feared you wouldn’t know him.”
“I recognized him, yes, but as for knowing him? I doubt if any man did.” She unplugged the jar, took a deep drink from it, and passed it to Bak. “Most men come to relax after a long day and they wish to enjoy the company of others. He came to drink and to relieve himself with my women. He seldom spoke, never smiled, held all men at arm’s length.”
Bak inhaled the aroma seeping from the jar’s mouth, nodded his approval, and took a healthy drink. “He had no friends?”
“Who would befriend so sullen a man?”
Bak finished the fish and began to eat another. The lord Amon had given him the wisdom to send Nofery to the house of death; why then would he not provide the answers he needed? “Did he ever say what he did to put bread in his mouth?”
“He told me nothing, but another man did. One who worked by his side day after day.” She drank from the jar a second time, taking so much, Bak wondered if any remained for him. “Heby was a goldsmith, one who melted the ore brought from the mines. The scars Hori told me to look for, those on his arms, were old burns, as you thought. He’d been spattered by molten metal.”
Bak pictured the ingot hidden in his bedchamber and chided himself for being so blind. Who but a goldsmith would have had the skill and the tools to melt down the ore and mold it? Who would be in a better position to steal?
