“As were half the men in Buhen,” Paser said, reaching out with his left, uninjured hand to take a drinking bowl from the servant girl. She poured his wine and moved on to Nebwa.
Azzia said to Mery, “Iry told us a sentry atop the outer wall was blown into a gate tower and fell at least halfway to the ground. Is it true his leg is broken?”
“His leg, an arm, and some ribs.” Worry darkened the watch officer’s face. “The physician bound the bones straight and offered the necessary spells. With luck he’ll walk again.”
“With luck he’ll live, you mean,” Nebwa muttered.
“Were you on the wall when it happened?” Bak asked Mery. Nebwa’s whereabouts remained a mystery, but the watch lieutenant’s location was no less important.
“I tripped and fell not long after the wind stiffened, so I went to my quarters.” Mery’s eyes darted toward Azzia, fell away. He stared shamefaced into his drinking bowl. “I thought, since my men have been through many storms, they needed no guiding hand to keep them safe. I judged them wrong, it seems.”
Bak cautioned himself not to leap to any conclusions. Mery had been alone, yes, but what of the other three?
“Soldiers are soldiers,” Nebwa said. “Good, brave men, but they need the same attention and care you’d give a child.”
The servant girl slipped among them with a plate of sweet cakes. Bak could not resist their yeasty aroma though he had eaten well while imprisoned in Nakht’s bedchamber. As she moved on around the circle, he eyed Harmose. The archer’s scowl was directed at Nebwa, whose blanket accusation of the Medjays, had drawn his anger away from Bak.
Paser accepted a cake and took a bite from it. He favored the right arm, Bak noted, but the injury was not so serious that it crippled him.
“How did you happen to be caught in the storm?” he asked.
“I set out to inspect a new herd of donkeys. That old thief Dedu delivered them yesterday morning and I thought to use them in the next caravan I lead into the desert. I didn’t want to learn the morning we leave that half were too old or too infirm to make the journey.”
“Old and infirm!” Nebwa guffawed. “If the drovers you chose for the journey hadn’t slipped off for home as soon as the wind came up, they’d have set you straight in a hurry.” He threw a sly grin at Azzia. “Those animals are so young and frisky one of them butted him and knocked him into a wall. That’s the truth of the matter.”
Bak’s smile was automatic-and stingy. Another man alone with a tale that may or may not be true. Paser threw Nebwa a look that would have shriveled a man less thick-skinned. “At least I had the good sense to stay inside the fortress. Unlike you, who walked into the desert and lost your way.”
“You didn’t have a company of fighting men outside the walls like I did,” Nebwa retorted. “I’ve never lost a man in a storm, nor will I ever if I can help it.”
Evidently thinking of his own failure to remain on duty, Mery flushed and stared glumly at his hands.
Oblivious, Nebwa gave Paser an insolent look, daring him to contradict. “I didn’t lose my way, merely my sense of direction for a moment or two.”
Paser raised a skeptical eyebrow. “An hour or two, I’d say.”
Bak felt better about his own experience with the storm. At least he had the consolation that he had not been the sole individual to get lost. If Nebwa had indeed been lost.
Nebwa’s eyes narrowed, his expression turned belligerent.
“How can you two share the same quarters?” Azzia’s tone was light, teasing, designed to sap the tension between them. “You bicker like a pair of old women with nothing better to occupy your time.”
“I thank the lord Amon I’ll be free of him soon!” Nebwa winked, as if he had been joking all along. “Ahmose’s caravan, the one we feared was lost, straggled in this morning. Paser will leave in two days’ time with fresh supplies for the miners.”
Paser looked at Harmose. “You’ll lead the archers who come with us, I’ve been told.”
“Is this true, Harmose?” Azzia asked, surprised.
“Tetynefer, it seems, has no need for a man who speaks the tongue of this land.” Harmose did not bother to hide his disgust. “He believes all who enter this garrison should know the words of Kemet.”
Nebwa twisted around and spat his contempt in the dirt of the potted plant behind him. “That overripe melon has no more sense than a stone. Only a witless civilian would place a Medjay over a unit of archers guarding a caravan.”
Harmose glared. Mery frowned. Paser rolled his eyes skyward. Azzia, looking like a woman who had had about all she could take, told her servant to clear away the empty bowls and dishes.
Bak wanted information, not a quarrel. With dusk turning to darkness, with Azzia’s patience coming to an end, he had no time to waste. “Harmose, I see you survived the storm unscathed.”
The archer tore his smoldering eyes off Nebwa, saw Azzia’s pleading look, managed a stiff smile. “A mighty falcon-the lord Horus himself, I’m convinced-saved me from certain death.”
Nebwa sputtered, but a sharp look from Azzia kept him mute.
“To be blessed by a god is an honor above all others.” Bak hoped he sounded impressed rather than suspicious. “Where were you? In the desert, hunting?”
Azzia’s quick smile of gratitude was tempered by…what? speculation? Had she realized his questions concerning their whereabouts held a purpose?
“I was far out on the river,” Harmose said, “fishing from a skiff. I saw the storm approaching and sailed back this way, but too late. The river came to life, the waves washed over me.” A note of awe entered his voice. “The lord Horus swooped down and flew low overhead, guiding me to the shore. He left me there, safe, and flew away.”
Could the tale be true? Bak wondered. Why would the lord Horus favor this half-Medjay archer when not a single god in the pantheon had lifted a finger to help identify a man who had stolen the flesh of the lord Re and taken two lives? They would not, it seemed, even bother to help eliminate any of the suspects.
He made himself smile and congratulated Harmose on his good fortune, as did Azzia, Mery, and Paser with varying degrees of astonishment.
Nebwa looked thoughtful. “With the lord Horus watching over you, maybe…” He scowled, shook his head. “No. Another man should lead the archers who guard the caravan. One who shares no blood with those vile savages who took Nakht’s life.”
Leaping to his feet, Harmose balled his hands into fists. The infantry officer stared at him with the irritating innocence of a man whose thoughts were engraved in granite.
“Enough!” Bak snarled at the incensed archer, who reluctantly returned to his stool. “Much blame has been laid at the feet of the Medjays these past few days. Ill feeling has grown like scum on a stagnant pool. I know little of the local villagers and less of the desert tribesmen, but one thing I do know: my Medjays have done no wrong.”
Gripping Bak’s shoulder, Nebwa spoke as one comrade to another. “I don’t fault you for standing beside your men. I’d do the same if my troops were in trouble. But to allow an innocent woman to stand accused of their vile crime?” He shook his head, his fingers clamped tight. “No, in that you go too far.”
Bak shook off the offending hand, the grinding pain in his shoulder. The irony of the situation did not escape him. First, Harmose charged him with abandoning his men; now Nebwa was accusing him of protecting them at the expense of the truth. “Not one man in my company could’ve taken Nakht’s life. That I know for a fact.”
“Is that what they told you?” Nebwa asked, giving Mery a knowing wink.
“Bak might well be speaking the truth,” Mery said. “I heard his scribe, the boy Hori, asking for men who saw them elsewhere that night.”
“He found them,” Bak growled, rubbing his shoulder.
He saw no need to mention Ruru, the one man who had been alone in the barracks. Except for the white bandage on the tall Medjay’s head, he was almost invisible in the deepening darkness. A reminder that night was almost upon them and he had no more time to waste listening to these men squabble.
As if to stress the need for haste, Lupaki emerged from the house carrying two brightly flaming torches. He mounted one on the wall beside the rear door and the other at the head of the stairwell. After collecting two unoccupied stools and a table, he left as silently as he had come. In the better light, Bak saw Harmose eyeing him with a new appreciation. Azzia’s thoughts were hidden in shadow. Nebwa remained unconvinced.
