inured to all life had to offer.
Senna seemed mildly troubled, while Dedu and the drovers looked as if they wanted nothing more than to turn their backs and go on their way. Except for Psuro, who stood slightly apart from the other men, the Medjays had come and gone.
“Are you certain you never saw this man before yester day?” Bak asked, not for the first time.
As a single unit, they chorused a denial.
“You surely don’t believe one of us slew him,” Ani said.
“Who are you to question us?” Wensu sneered. “You’re a soldier, not a police officer.”
Bak was not yet ready to divulge to these men that he and his Medjays were policemen.
“He never once revealed his name.” Amonmose shook his head as if mystified that any man could die unknown. “Sit ting around our fire last night, we talked about him, made guesses as to who he might be and what he was doing out here alone. That’s one reason I came to him, tried to strike up a conversation. I felt sorry for him, thought he could use some companionship.”
“I’d wager a donkey and foal that a nomad took his life,”
User said. “One of those people camped up the wadi could easily have slipped past us in the dark and crept upon him to rob him.”
“Rob him of what?” Bak asked. “The golden amulet he still wears?”
“As none of us know what he brought with him,” Ani said,
“how can we know what might’ve been stolen?”
“If you’re so determined to play policeman, Lieutenant, I suggest you question those nomads.” Wensu slapped his leg with his fly whisk, a habit Bak was beginning to find exceed ingly irritating. “If they didn’t slay him, they’ll certainly know who did. Another nomad who crept out of the desert in search of wealth.”
A convenient theory, Bak thought. One highly question able if this man’s death was somehow tied to the disappear ance of Minnakht. He had no reason to think it was, but experience had taught him not to trust coincidences. This death occurring here and now when a half-dozen other men had set out on the same trail Minnakht had taken looked sus piciously like a coincidence.
“The footprint I saw yesterday was not made by these san dals.” Kaha, kneeling at the dead man’s feet, ran his finger around the edge of a sole. “These are almost new and show no sign of wear. The print on the hillside was made by a san dal well worn, its sole beginning to curl to fit the foot of the man wearing it, and the outside edge had a slight cut near the small toe.”
Bak studied the lifeless face, wondering exactly who this man was and why he had come into the desert alone. If he had not left the print, who had? Another man traveling alone?
“You must go to User’s camp, Kaha, and study the footprints left by the men who spent the night at this well.”
Nodding his understanding, the Medjay rose to his feet.
“You wish to know if any of them made the print on the hill side, or if someone else was watching from afar.”
“That, yes, and I also wish to learn if any nomad left the vicinity of the well to snoop around User’s camp or the place where this man was slain.”
“I doubt a nomad slew him, sir.”
Inclined to agree, Bak looked thoughtfully at User’s camp, which was in a state of disarray. About half the donkeys were loaded, while the rest awaited water jars and supplies with the enduring patience of most beasts of burden. The explorer was arguing with his nomad guide and the drovers. The other men were standing around in idle expectation that they would soon be on their way.
“We’ve come upon two groups of men recently merged to form a single unit,” he said, “their intent to cross the desert on a route never before used by any man other than a few no mads and Minnakht. As if that doesn’t tickle the imagination sufficiently, we also have two men who chose to travel alone through this wilderness, one who’s disappeared and the other who’s dead. That doesn’t merely tickle, Kaha. It causes an itch that must be scratched.”
Grinning, the Medjay walked off to do as he was bidden, passing along the way User, a drover, and a donkey. From the resentful expression on the nomad’s face, Bak guessed he was the one selected to take the body back to Kaine. Beyond the trio, Dedu had begun to issue orders, setting his kinsmen to their tasks.
A distant movement drew Bak’s glance up the secondary wadi. He spotted Nebre’s tall, slim figure, returning from the nomad camp at a good fast pace. As soon as User and the no mad spread out a sheet in which to roll the body, he hurried eastward to meet the Medjay, preferring to speak with him alone than to air his suspicions to all the world.
“The nomads are gone, sir.”
“So early in the day?”
Nebre wiped a thin film of sweat from his face. “Nothing remained but a few footprints and the marks of a crude shel ter. The fire was cold. I’d guess they moved out long before dawn.”
“They left in a hurry.”
“So it would seem.”
With Nebre beside him, Bak walked slowly toward the well, mulling over the news. Would the nomads have left in such haste if they had nothing to hide? “User said two young girls took their goats to the well. Other than their tracks, did you see any others along the way?”
“None.”
“How many people were in the nomad camp?”
“It was a family group: one woman, the two girls who cared for the flock, a child learning to walk, and I found signs of a baby crawling on the ground.”
“No sign of a man?”
“I found no footprints of a man, sir, neither a husband nor an intruder.”
Bak smiled. Nebre had read his thoughts. The slain man could have forced himself on the woman and she in turn re paid him with death. “Unlikely slayers, that family, wouldn’t you say?”
“The odds are much against their guilt, sir.”
Bak looked down the wadi toward the well. He knew noth ing of the men traveling with User’s caravan. They all had pleaded innocence, but might not one among them be a mur derer? “I’ve asked Kaha to study the footprints in User’s camp to see if any match those he saw on the hillside yesterday and to search for signs of a nomad intruder. After he’s finished, you and he together must make a wide circuit of the well and the campsites. I want to know if any outsiders have come near.”
Bak parted from Nebre and hurried to the well, where
Senna and Rona were filling the goatskin waterbags. Upon learning that they had almost finished the task, he went on to the campsite where he and his men had spent the night. He found Psuro and Minmose dividing the last of the supplies among the donkeys. Assured that all was well with the pack ing, he told the sergeant of the tasks he had given to Nebre and Kaha.
“What’s the point of seeking tracks?” Psuro asked. “We must travel on.”
“Two thoughts have occurred to me. One is the possibility that this death is in some way related to Minnakht’s disap pearance. The second is of more immediate concern. If a slayer is lurking about who has no regard for right and order, for the lady Maat, we’d best learn the truth and take precau tions. Would you like to wake up some fine morning and find one of us slain in our sleep?”
Psuro dropped a bag of dates into a basket and gave him a long, speculative look. “You suspect one of the men traveling with User?”
“I think it a possibility.”
The sergeant knew Bak very well. “And you wish to snare the slayer.”
“Minnakht has been missing for two long months. What are the odds that he still lives?”
“I’d not wager a grain of sand that we’ll find anything other than a shallow grave, and probably not even that.”
“Now we’ve come upon a dead man. Do you not think we should include his slayer in our quest?”
