“Who’s next?” Nebwa yelled.
Harmose raised his bow and waved it. “We are. Lieutenant Mery and I.”
“I’d wager my best pair of sandals that the man who saves her will be the one to win her heart,” Bak said.
Mery paled, the scar at the corner of his lip flamed.
Harmose appeared eager but practical. “You’ll take along the winner when you sail with her to Ma’am?”
Bak looked from one man to the other, his own face solemn. “I cannot change the fate the lord Horus has revealed.”
The archer flashed a broad grin and strode away to face the target, walking with a brisk, confident step. Mery produced a distracted smile, stiffened his spine, and hurried after him.
Relieved the pretense was over, Bak glanced toward the camp, seeking reassurance that all was as it should be. Imsiba stood facing the archery field, talking across the back of a donkey to another man. Several Medjays were standing guard, the rest were helping the drovers. He could not see what they were doing, but Nebwa had told them to pour foodstuffs from one basket to another, water and wine from jar to jar. To rebundle extra weapons, clothing, and the officers’ tents. Nothing would escape their sharp eyes, he knew, but would they find stolen gold?
Nebwa hastily settled on one last bet and rushed to Bak’s side. “All went well?”
“Harmose could make a man believe night is day and day is night.”
“That’s the Medjay half of him.” Nebwa’s expression turned sour and he glanced toward the donkeys. “I know you trust your men, but…”
Will the poison never drain from his heart? Bak wondered. “If my Medjays find stolen gold, Nebwa, you’ll hold it in your hands before darkness falls.”
“Will I?”
An angry retort rose to Bak’s lips, but he swallowed it. He had no wish to quarrel with the one man who could help him get under Paser’s skin. Especially now, for the caravan officer was next in line to compete. He, like Mery, must be stretched as tight as his bowstring before he fired his first arrow.
An image of Mery’s handsome face, drawn and tense, flashed before Bak’s eyes. He felt a momentary guilt, which he quashed with a vision of Azzia standing before the viceroy and Nakht and Ruru lying lifeless on the floor of the commandant’s residence. The thought strengthened his resolve to do whatever he had to do, no matter how distasteful.
He looked at Paser, standing among the wagering men, speaking with a gangly archer whose skin was mottled by a peeling sunburn. “If he doesn’t soon come to us, we must go to him.”
“He’ll come. I’ve trod too hard on his toes for him to register no complaint. My order to consolidate the supplies without so much as telling him I intended to do so should be the tiny flame that sets the village afire.”
Bak detected a surprising lack of enthusiasm. “I thought you enjoyed baiting him.”
“Baiting is one thing. The possibility that I might doom him is another.”
Bak could think of nothing to say. He well understood Nebwa’s qualms.
The caravan officer must have felt their gaze. He glanced toward them, and a ruddy flush spread across his face. Has nothing more than anger at Nebwa sent the blood to his cheeks? Bak wondered. Or is his anger mixed with fear that stolen gold will be discovered? That he himself will be named a thief and murderer?
Paser abandoned the archer without a word and wove a path through the betting men, his expression dark, smoldering. He stopped squarely in front of Nebwa. “I hope you’re satisfied. Our food and supplies must now be scattered to the four winds. We’ll not be on our way before dawn tomorrow.”
“So be it,” Nebwa said, shrugging.
“If we lose one man or donkey for lack of water, I’ll take you before the new commandant and see you broken.”
Nebwa spat on the ground near Paser’s left foot. “Tired men fall away from a column, too. And my men need rest.”
The bettors’ voices ebbed to whispers. Harmose stood facing the new target, bow poised, string taut. His arrow took wing and slashed through the center of the pale brown hide, burying itself to the feathers.
“They’d be no more weary than mine if you’d been less gullible,” Paser snapped, “if you’d not marched them off to chase tribesmen who didn’t exist.”
Nebwa’s expression turned stormy. “They grew tired when I hurried after you, thinking you needed help.”
“How many are here, watching this match when they should be sleeping?”
“An hour or so of amusement never hurt anyone.”
A second arrow slammed home and a third, peeling the feathers from the first, littering the sand with bits of white. Awed murmurs burst from the onlookers, silencing Nebwa and Paser, drawing their eyes to the match. Mery stood stiff and silent, his face unreadable from so far away. Bak prayed he had not already convinced himself he had no chance to win.
Harmose let fly his next arrow, which began to flutter the instant it left the bow. It thunked into the target a hand’s breadth below the other three. Many of the onlookers, men who had bet on his skill, groaned. The archer scowled, fussed with the bowstring wound around the end of the weapon. Bak suppressed a smile. Harmose, he was sure, had planted the arrow exactly where he intended.
“After a few hours’ sleep,” he said, “I see no reason why Nebwa’s men can’t march throughout the night.”
Paser’s eyes raked him from head to toe. “You know nothing of the desert, Bak. We could at any time be overtaken by a storm or our water could go foul and the donkeys die of its poison.”
“You worry like an old woman,” Nebwa said, dismissing the possibility of catastrophe with a wave of his hand.
Paser’s cheeks turned fiery. “I see why Nakht no longer allowed you to lead the caravans. He looked into your heart and found you irresponsible.”
Harmose sent his final arrow hurtling through the air. It plowed into the shield within a hair’s breadth of the first three. The men who had backed him shouted with glee; the rest yelled encouragement at Mery.
“If you think me so reckless in my duty,” Nebwa sneered, “why do you not write the worst to your cousin, the high and mighty Senenmut? As our sovereign’s toady, he commands far more power than any fortress commandant-or viceroy, for that matter.”
“Don’t press me too hard, Nebwa. I’m loathe to use my influence, but I will if I must.”
Mery moved into position. The timing could not have been better. Bak placed a hand on Paser’s broad shoulder, ushered him a few paces away from Nebwa, and spoke as one friend to another. “Make no threats, Paser, I beg you. You’re a fine officer, brave beyond all others. I’d not like to see you…”
He stopped deliberately, watched Mery pull back the bowstring and release it. The missile flew straight and true, sending more bits of feather raining down on the sand.
Bak lowered his voice to a confidential murmur. “The regiment of Amon stands at full strength an hour’s march from Waset and the royal house. The regiment of Ptah, they say, could take the northern capital of Mennufer within a day.” He paused, watched Mery’s second arrow take wing, cut through the shield next to the first. “As you know perhaps better than most, both regiments are commanded by Menkheperre Thutmose, whom many believe the rightful, sole heir to the throne.” Mery pulled the bowstring taut. “I know nothing for a fact, but…”
A shrill, tooth-jarring whistle pierced the air. Paser’s shoulder twitched beneath Bak’s hand. Mery’s bow jumped, sending the arrow high and wide to bury itself in the sand behind the target. One of the bettors moaned as if the missile had penetrated him instead. Bak swung away from Paser. He saw Imsiba weave a path through the mounds of supplies and drop from sight behind a donkey. He doubted gold had been found. The signal was intended to harry, not pass on information. With a noncommittal grunt, he turned back to the caravan officer.
“What I’m trying to say is this,” he said. “Hold yourself far away from Senenmut. If what I’ve heard is true, he’ll not long be the most powerful man in Kemet.”
Paser’s eyes were on Mery, his face impossible to read. “I’m not a blind man, Bak.”
What does that mean? Bak wondered.
Mery wiped his brow with his hand and elevated his bow. His stance was wrong. All who watched could see he had given up the struggle. The arrow thudded into the target three fingers’ breadth above those he had shot off
