you.”
“As a young man, Lupaki was a fine soldier. He’ll hone his skills and mine.” Her soft lips brushed his fingers, making every nerve in his body tingle.
“I love you, Azzia.”
She pushed his hand firmly into his lap. “I loved my husband, Bak, more than life itself. I still love him. How can I give myself to any other man? Or think of it?”
“In time…?”
“If I could love another, it would be you. But today I cannot. Nor can I make any promises or look to the future, for who can say what fate the gods plan for us?”
He could see that any further plea would turn her from him. “I’ll say no more,” he said, making no effort to mask his disappointment. “You must never forget that my farm is yours should you change your mind.”
She released a long, slow breath and smiled a heartfelt thank-you. Biting back a fresh entreaty, he returned her wine bowl and took up his. They sat together, sipping the heady liquid in a silence strangely companionable after so unsatisfactory a resolution, at least as far as he was concerned.
Too soon the wine was finished.
“I must leave you, but first…” She bent over the basket of cakes, withdrew Nakht’s sheathed iron dagger from beneath the leaves, and held it out to him. “I want you to have this weapon.”
He gaped. “You can’t give it away! It’s value is too great, both for the memories it holds and for the objects it could buy should you be in need.”
“I know of no other man who has more right to it.”
“Are you sure, Azzia? I was told Nakht kept it with him always.”
“It took his life, Bak.”
“It saved yours.”
“For both those reasons, you must have it.” She placed the dagger in his hand and gave him a quick, soft kiss on the lips. He reached out to her, but too late. She stood up and ran from the courtyard.
He longed to follow her, but he knew full well that to draw out their parting would hurt her as much as him. He slid the dagger from its sheath and stared at the long, tapered blade of iron. He had coveted it exceedingly when first he had laid eyes on it; now he would give it up without a moment’s thought if he could have Azzia instead.
Bak stood alone atop the towered gate, intent on the harbor below and the river flowing north to Kemet. The sun beat down on his shoulders, draining the moisture from his body. The city behind him lazed in the midday heat, its streets still and silent except for the sporadic barking of dogs, their naps disturbed by the wailing of the hired mourners standing on the terrace that ran along the base of the fortress wall facing the harbor.
He leaned farther over the crenel, his eyes glued to the sleek traveling ship swinging away from its mooring. The mast and rigging had been lowered, the sail stowed away. The current would carry the vessel downstream. It’s prow, on which had been painted the half-open blossom of a blue lotus, rose high and proud above the sundappled river. The captain bellowed orders from the low forecastle. A man at the stern worked the rudder. To the beat of a drum, the other sailors, twenty in all, dipped long oars into the water, maneuvering the ship toward the stronger midstream current.
Baskets, bundles, and furniture were stowed in and around the yellow-and-blue checked deckhouse. Lupaki stood beside Nakht’s shrouded coffin, waving to Imsiba and Nebwa on the quay. Bak could not see Azzia, who had disappeared beneath a woven reed awning attached to the rear of the deckhouse.
Earlier, he had been one of many in the long procession of mourners who had accompanied the coffin from the house of death to the quay, the women moaning and keening and throwing dirt in their hair, the men marching with tears in their eyes. Almost every man and woman in Buhen had come to display grief for a commandant they had loved and respected. With the coffin safely on board the ship, all except the ululating women had gone on about their business.
The vessel cleared the quays and began to gather speed. The oars rose and fell in unison to the rhythmic cadence of the drummer. Imsiba and Nebwa waved a last farewell to Lupaki and turned back toward the gate, walking close and easy together, chatting like brothers. A smile flitted across Bak’s face as he thought of the mutual dislike and mistrust they had held for each other a few short weeks before.
He looked back at the ship and his heart twisted. Azzia had come out from beneath the awning. She stood beside Lupaki as if saying a final good-bye to a place she had thought of as her home. Raising her arm high, she waved. Bak scanned the harbor but saw no one there paying the slightest bit of attention. He returned the signal. Her good-bye was for him alone.
With luck and the favor of the gods, he would one day see her again.
