“I see.”
Something about the way he spoke sent a chill up Bak’s spine. “I’ll be atop the outer wall tonight, on the tower overlooking the center quay. I’ll have the scrolls with me. If you’d like to meet me there, I’m certain we can agree on a mutually advantageous exchange.”
“So public and well-guarded a place?” Paser laughed. “I think not. If we’re to meet at all…” He appeared to puzzle over his answer. “Somewhere along the river where no man will see us together. Upstream would be best, where the rocks reach into the water.”
Where the goldsmith Heby was slain, Bak guessed. “So private and empty a place? Do you think I care so little for life?” He shook his head. “No! We’ll meet…” He knew full well where he wanted to face Paser, but he frowned as if searching for an idea. “There,” he pointed, “on the roof of the commandant’s residence. When the moon reaches its highest point and the sentries can look down upon us.”
Paser studied the building, suspicious. “How can I be sure you’ll not have men hidden close by?”
“Darkness will have fallen long before we meet and most of the garrison will be fast asleep. You’ll have plenty of time to inspect the surrounding streets and buildings should you feel the need.” Paser eyed him thoughtfully, letting the silence grow.
“One thing you should know,” Bak said. “I’ve posted my Medjays at all the gates leading out of Buhen. I’ve instructed them to intercept everyone-officer, soldier, or civilian; man or woman-and examine each bundle and basket they carry, no matter how small or large. They’re looking for weapons or any of the other garrison supplies so often taken outside these walls and traded to nearby villagers. If there’s anything of value to be found, they’ll find it.”
“You’ve left me no option, it seems.” Paser pivoted on his heel and walked toward the line of donkeys.
Bak had caught no more than a glimpse of the officer’s face and the fierce defiance of a creature at bay, willing to fight to the death rather than let its captor snare it. I’ve hooked a crocodile, he thought, not a great fish that’s helpless out of the water. He had expected no less, but the thought of confronting Paser in the dead of night sent another chill up his spine, this one radiating across his bandaged shoulders and around his rib cage.
Bak hurried along the street to the commandant’s residence. Keeping himself alive was just one of his problems. He also had to convince Paser to go to his cache of gold and bring a portion back, and he had to wring a confession from his lips.
“Officer Bak!” Hori shouted from the rooftop.
He looked upward, as did the soldiers standing before the door. The scribe knelt at the edge of the roof, his youthful face aglow with excitement. Standing beside him were the three servants of the household: Lupaki, the old woman, the girl. And Azzia.
Bak’s worries and fears melted away in the warmth of her smile. “You’re here!”
“I owe much to mistress Iry.” Azzia’s voice was as soft and gentle as he remembered it. “She persuaded her husband to let me stay.”
Bak glanced at the soldiers, who had begun to edge out into the street so they could see the roof and its occupants. He waved them back to the doorway, but was too happy at finding Azzia alive and well to notice their failure to obey.
“She convinced Tetynefer of your innocence?” he asked.
Hori’s smile stretched all the way across his face. “She threatened him with divorce!”
A smile fluttered across Azzia’s face, vanished. “If the breeze is fair, the viceroy will sail into Buhen before nightfall tomorrow. I’m to stand before him the moment he sees fit, probably the following day.”
“He’s bringing the new commandant,” Hori explained.
Bak thanked the lord Amon for his good fortune. If the steward’s wife had not intervened, if a storm had blown the caravan apart on the desert, if another group of tribesmen had attacked, he would not have arrived in time to save her.
Azzia knelt beside Hori. Her long reddish braid snaked over her shoulder and fell between her breasts. “We’ve heard many rumors since word came that you were waiting to be ferried across the river. We heard of the accident at the mine and the fierce battle you fought. So I know you’ve had much to think about since you left Buhen, but did you now and again give thought to the man who took my husband’s life?”
“I believe I know his name.”
Before she could question him further, Bak shot a warning glance at the listening men. Her nod told him she understood he could not speak freely.
Lupaki grabbed Hori and hugged him. The female servants fell on their knees and wept with joy.
“I thank your gods and mine,” Azzia said. “And I thank you more than all of them.” Her final words were muffled by tears, making a lie of the smile she tried to show him.
He did not know what to do or say. He longed to hold her close, to console her with his love, as he had done with many other women through the years. She would not welcome his embrace. She was too recent a widow, too fine a woman. He could not take advantage of the gift of life he hoped soon to give her.
The buzz of voices drew his eyes to the rooftops paralleling the street. Soldiers and civilians, men, women, and children were jostling for the best positions from which to watch the triumphant army and their prisoners enter the city. Paser, he saw, was removing the gold from the next to last donkey.
“You’d better go, sir.” Hori was practically dancing with excitement. “After all the vile things that have been said about our Medjays, I can’t wait to see you and Imsiba and all the others march at the head of the prisoners you took.”
“I thought to let Nebwa…”
“You can’t!” Hori exclaimed. “You won the battle. They say he wasn’t even there!”
“You must enter this city with your men, Officer Bak.” Azzia cleared the tears from her throat, brushed a hand across a wet cheek. “They’ve earned the right to walk tall and proud, all together, behind the man who led them to victory.”
One of the soldiers who had been listening piped up, “I’ve followed Lieutenant Nebwa into the desert a dozen times. We’ve brought back prisoners-though not so many,” he added ruefully. “Half the fun was marching behind him through that gate when we had something to show for our trouble.”
Bak remembered the grueling practice sessions with the regiment of Amon and the joy he had shared with his men whether they won or lost. How could he have forgotten? To march past the residence, knowing Azzia was standing on the roof, watching, smiling at him, would increase that pleasure tenfold.
He grinned. “I’ll return the instant the donkeys are inside their paddocks. We must talk.”
He headed back toward the quay and his men. As he approached the donkeys in front of the treasury, he thought of Paser and the fearless way he had walked into the tribesmen’s trap. He, too, had earned the right to march at the head of the procession, to have his brief moment of glory before being brought to his knees.
Bak checked, not for the first time, the dagger at his waist. The weapon slid easily into its sheath. His belt and kilt were too snug for it to catch on a stray bit of fabric should he need it quickly. Realizing he was fidgeting, he forced himself to sit still. He wanted to appear wary, not eager to do battle or fearful.
He sat midway on the open flight of stairs which rose from the commandant’s residence to the walkway atop the battlements. He was clearly visible in the moonlight to the patrolling sentries-and would soon be to Paser, lurking somewhere in the building below.
For almost an hour, he had heard the infrequent signals his Medjays had given while they stalked the car- avan officer: the call of a nightbird, the whine of a lost puppy, the harsh yowl of a tomcat prowling for a mate. The sounds had begun not long after their quarry had slipped out of his quarters. They had signaled his ascent to the battlements, where he had stood for a long time, studying the rooftops and lanes within the citadel. They had marked his descent and followed his slow progress as he made a careful and painstaking examination of the dark, deserted buildings in the vicinity of the commandant’s residence. The shriek of a female cat mounted by a tom had warned Bak that the man he awaited had entered the antechamber below. Since then, time had dragged.
Bak scanned the roof-flat, ghostly white, empty. His eyes probed the dark rectangular opening where the stairway descended past Nakht’s reception room to the ground floor. He studied the larger, dimly lit square of the courtyard. Paser could be watching him from the stairwell or hiding among the potted trees and shrubs, one shadow among many. Bak pictured Azzia and her servants, lying awake and fearful, listening to the stealthy footsteps of the
