now. His
Medjays have walked ten times the number of steps the rest of us have taken, scouting ahead, searching for him when he was abducted, following suspicious footprints. I’ve not seen you put forth one-tenth the effort.”
Thoroughly chastised, Wensu swallowed whatever else he thought to say.
“I came not as a policeman,” Bak said, “but as a soldier given a task by his commandant. If we’d not found the man dead at the well, I’d have revealed myself sooner. But men an swer questions more readily when asked by a friend or ac quaintance, so I decided to keep secret the fact that we’re policemen.”
“You thought one of us slew the stranger,” Ani said, clearly surprised.
“My men found no sign of an intruder.”
User eyed him thoughtfully. “You’ve been watching us ever since, saying nothing, hoping to pounce on the rat among us.”
“The night Dedu walked away to be slain, we found the footprint of an unknown party in your camp, a man whose print Kaha first spotted between Kaine and our initial camp site, the man who’s been watching us ever since. That print cleared no one of suspicion, but it suggested that someone other than any of you might’ve slain the first man.”
“What of Senna and Rona?” Amonmose asked.
“The floor of the gorge was too rocky, the patches of sand too disturbed to reveal footprints.”
“Do you continue to believe one of us is the guilty man?”
Ani asked. “Is that why you’ve come to us this morning?”
“I don’t know the name of the slayer,” Bak admitted, “nor am I convinced he’s among you. Whether or not he is, wher ever he is, I intend to snare him. If one of you has been help ing him, you’ll suffer a like fate. Make no mistake about that.” He scanned the faces of the men before him. “I keep no secrets. I share with my men all I know and suspect. I’ve re ported to the captain of the ship on which we crossed the
Eastern Sea and to Lieutenant Puemre at the port. Any at tempt to silence me or to stop my investigation will be in vain.”
“I can’t believe any of them is a slayer.” Psuro, walking behind Bak up the narrow trail that led to the mines atop the mountain of turquoise, hoisted his quiver higher onto his shoulder. “Wensu’s all talk, too weak to face a man with a dagger. Ani wouldn’t know what to do with a weapon. As for the others…”
“You don’t think User could slay a man?”
“I do-for a good reason or in the heat of battle. I doubt he’d slay several men, one after the other, or creep up behind a man and stab him in the back.” Psuro glanced down the long, steep slope to their right, which was covered with bro ken chunks of reddish sandstone. “I believe the same to be true of Amonmose.”
Bak nodded, in full agreement. “What of Nebenkemet?”
“I’ve no doubt that he could slay a man, but would he?”
They walked on, following Sergeant Suemnut and four armed soldiers who led the supply train. Not a sound could be heard in the still air except the crunch of sandals on rock, a muttered curse now and then, and the faint call of a falcon soaring overhead. At the end of a long traverse around the curve of the mountain, they scrambled up a vertical section of reddish sandstone, split by erosion into thick, flat plates lying one on top of another.
Bak turned to watch the row of men ascending the path behind them. Nebre and Kaha were first in line. A dozen paces back, User led the men in his party, checking often to be sure Ani and Wensu were keeping pace. Next plodded the soldiers and prisoners laden with water jars and supplies.
Armed soldiers were spread along the line, maintaining the pace, preventing gaps, and watching for raiders. Attempts to steal supplies were rare, Lieutenant Huy had said, but not un known.
The trail, which had been heavily trodden through the years, was not difficult for a man accustomed to strenuous activity, but the heat was pervasive, with not a breath of air to offer relief. Bak feared for Ani, the most likely among them to suffer from the climb.
He examined the barren landscape around them. The deep defiles, the steep slopes, a total absence of vegetation. A land endowed by the gods with turquoise and then abandoned to the lord Set. The sandstone was a different shade of red than that of the granite peaks in the Eastern Desert. Where those had had a pinkish cast, the stone here was tinted with gold, as if burned by a fire from within as well as by the sun without.
Psuro, following Bak on up the trail, continued their con versation as if it had not been interrupted. “Do you think one of them the guilty man, sir? You haven’t said.”
“I believe the man who’s been watching us the most likely slayer. Whether someone among us is his ally, I can’t say.”
“You speak of the man you and Nebre followed into the mountains.”
“The one who led us into the mountains, you mean.” Bak grimaced, unhappy with the memory.
“The man I should’ve slain,” growled Nebre, walking close enough to hear.
“Would he have followed us across the sea?” Psuro asked.
“A good question, Sergeant. One for which the answer eludes me.”
“I pray to the lord Amon never to have to toil in a place such as this.”
Bak smiled at the intensity in Psuro’s voice, though he agreed wholeheartedly. The mountain of turquoise was not a place where he wished to spend many hours. “You’d best check on Ani, Sergeant. He looks ill. I think the climb was too difficult for him.”
“He must drink more water, sir. He’s not taken in enough to make up for what he’s lost.”
“I’ve seen all manner of men enter the mansion of the
Lady of Turquoise,” User said, joining them. He handed the
Medjay a waterbag. “Get him inside, into the shade. If any one complains, send him to me.”
Psuro strode down a slope of coarse, hard-packed sand as red as the rocks around them. He said a few words to Kaha, standing with the weapons and goatskin waterbags they had brought from the valley camp. Together they approached the plump jeweler, who sat hunched over, his forehead on his knees, and offered him a drink. After Ani took a few careful sips, Psuro took his arm, helped him to his feet, and led him across the grit. Kaha, taking the waterbags and weapons with him, followed them around a chamber being built against the southern wall of an open court. They vanished through a side door into the mansion of the Lady of Turquoise.
Like Bak, User watched to be sure an overly officious priest did not turn the men out. “Amonmose told me of how highly regarded you were in Wawat, Lieutenant. I’m suitably impressed.”
He did not sound the least bit impressed, Bak thought.
“I’m not sure why. Since we left Kaine, three men, including one of my own, have died beneath my very nose.”
“What was your intent this morning? To make us all suspi cious of one another?”
“Any man with good sense would’ve been looking over his shoulder long ago. I believe you to be a man of good sense.”
User’s laugh held not a shred of humor. “Why do you think I agreed to bring Ani and Wensu with me into the desert? To let Amonmose and Nebenkemet come along?”
“You told me you needed additional wealth to pay for physicians,” Bak reminded him.
“I do, yes, but I much prefer traveling alone with a nomad guide. So I intended this time.” User flung Bak one of his hu morless smiles. “I must admit to a certain relief when Ani and Wensu approached me, wishing to come with me. I’d heard, as I told you before, that Ahmose had vanished. Then
Minnakht failed to reappear. Both of them explorers. It set me to thinking.”
He obviously thought himself guilty of a weakness, but
Bak called his concern commonsense. “Amonmose and
Nebenkemet must’ve been easier to accept.”
“The merchant at least knew something of the desert.”
Bak saw Kaha leaving the goddess’s mansion empty handed. He must have found a safe place to leave the weapons and waterbags out of the sun. “You seemed none too happy when we came along.”
“I didn’t know if you were friend or foe. You outnumbered us and you were better armed. If Amonmose had told me who you were…” User shrugged. “He didn’t. He kept the knowledge to himself.”
“I asked that he do so.”
The two men stood on a rise of rock-strewn red sand south of the goddess’s mansion, looking across the low walls that would one day form a large chamber being added to the building by Maatkare Hatshepsut. Ten men toiled
