splashing the sand and receding with a whisper. Garish red tentacles reached across the sky to be mirrored on the sea below.
They had camped on a barren shore, where the coastal plain was broad and the escarpment too far away to offer cover to a man attempting to run away. If a wadi drained the higher land, its mouth had widened out and had become lost in the flat expanse of sand and gravel.
“Never let him seduce you with his charm, Sergeant. He’ll flee if he can.”
Psuro frowned, perplexed. “Why he won’t resign himself to our protection, I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t entirely trust us,” Bak said with a wry smile.
The sergeant chuckled, but quickly sobered. “Nufer be lieves we’ll reach the southern trail late tomorrow or early the following morning. What are we to do with him then?”
Bak knelt to pick up the shell of a sea creature new to him.
Smelling the stench of the occupant decaying inside, he flung it into the sea. “I think it best that you hold him on the boat while I go ashore. I must report to the soldiers, and I must see if User and his party await us, as I suggested. I must also look for the nomad child Imset-or Nefertem, but I think his com ing unlikely.”
“Could Kaha have found him so quickly?”
“If Nefertem wanted to be found, I’m certain Kaha reached him. If he believed in my message, he’ll have sent the boy on his way within the hour.”
“The desert is vast, sir.”
“Yes, but one man alone can travel much faster than a caravan.”
They stood together, looking out upon the sea and a flock of squawking gulls swooping down for a late evening meal, flapping their wings and splashing the water while they squabbled for fish.
“What if Imset hasn’t come?” Psuro asked.
“We’ll wait.”
Bak prayed fervently that the child had arrived and even now stood on the shore awaiting them. The amount of food and water they had was limited. They could refill their water jars at the village well, but he doubted they could replenish their food supply unless they met a caravan carrying supplies destined for the mines across the sea.
“Lieutenant Bak!” The voice was childish but bordering on manhood.
Bak stepped away from the stone hut used as an office and storeroom by the soldiers who manned the outpost called
Tjau at the eastern end of the southern trail. A well encircled by a waist-high wall was nearby, and a stone- walled paddock enclosed a small herd of donkeys.
He looked in the direction from which the call had come, toward a dozen rough mud-and-reed huts occupied by no mads. Imset, who had been gathering dead branches from a clump of tamarisks a hundred or so paces away, dropped the bundle of fuel at the door of a hut and loped toward him across the hot sand.
Smiling, Bak strode out to meet the boy, scattering a flock of goats along the way, and clasped his shoulders in greeting.
The woman to whom the animals belonged stood in the doorway of the hut, keeping a close eye on man and boy. A small dark-haired girl clung to her ankle-length tunic and a baby crawled around her feet. A shaggy white dog lay with its head on its paws, watching the goats. Bak wondered if the woman was Imset’s mother or if he had joined her household to make himself less conspicuous while he waited.
Imset tugged from a leather pouch hanging from his belt the quartz pendant and a cloth-wrapped package. With a shy smile, he handed them to Bak. Bak unwrapped a limestone shard covered with writing. The message, written in the carefully formed script of a man who had long ago learned to write but seldom had occasion to do so, was brief and to the point: “I long to meet with my brother Minnakht. And with you, Lieutenant. You must travel west along the caravan trail. Your Medjay Kaha and I will await you at the well mid way between the sea and Waset. From there, we’ll travel on together.”
Bak smiled. The response could not have been more to his liking. Sobering, he stared off to the west, taking a few mo ments to decide what best to do.
“Do you know User?” he asked, pointing toward a camp site shaded by a large acacia some distance away. The ser geant in charge of the outpost had told him the explorer and his party had arrived four days earlier. He had urged them to continue west with the caravan, but they had refused, saying they wished to return to Kemet with Bak.
Imset led him to the crude hut. The woman and children shrank away, fearful of the stranger. Inside, lying on a bed of goatskins, he saw a length of bright fabric, several bronze spear and harpoon points, and a jar that contained honey or some other desirable substance difficult to get in the desert.
“You traded with him?”
“Trade. Yes.”
“Is User your friend?”
The boy nodded.
“Enemy?”
Imset shook his head vehemently. User had apparently won him over.
Signaling the boy to wait, he hurried to the building the soldiers occupied and asked for papyrus and writing imple ments. None of the men could read or write, so they were slow to take the request seriously. He snapped out an order, convincing them his need was real. The sergeant hastened to cut a small piece of papyrus from an inventory of supplies delivered some months earlier and a soldier located a scribal pallet so long unused that a thick layer of dust had to be scraped off before the ink could be moistened. Bak wrote a quick message to Nefertem, rolled it tight, and tied it with a bit of string. Getting into the spirit of the task, the sergeant secured it with a daub of mud and impressed it with a seal he had never before had occasion to use.
Bak tucked the cylinder beneath his belt and went in search of Imset, who had returned to the tamarisks to gather more wood. After helping the boy carry his gleanings to the hut, he looked toward the campsite he had yet to visit. “User,” he pointed, “and you…” He touched Imset’s chest. “Walk west.” He pointed toward the place where the trail began.
The boy gave him an uncertain look. Either he did not recall the meaning of the word walk or he did not wish to remember.
“Walk.” Bak moved two fingers like a man walking.
Imset gave a reluctant nod.
“You walk with User to the well. To water.” Bak pointed again to the boy and toward the camp, placed the first two fingers of both hands side by side and made the walking mo tion, and pointed west. He cupped a hand and pretended to drink, reminding Imset of the meaning of the word water.
Imset shook his head. “I walk with you to water.”
“You walk with User. I follow.” Bak made the walking motion with his right hand followed closely by two fingers of his left hand.
A stubborn look settled on Imset’s face and he turned to walk away.
Bak caught his arm to halt his flight, withdrew the papyrus from beneath his belt, and held it out. “For Nefertem.”
Imset took the scroll and inspected the seal. He looked at
User’s camp, thought over what Bak wished him to do, and nodded that he understood: the message must reach Nefer tem ahead of Bak. “I walk with User.”
“You want us to travel on to the well without you.” User gave Bak a suspicious look. “What’re you up to, Lieutenant?”
Bak laughed. “I’ll be no more than a day behind you.”
“What are we to do when we get there?”
“Make camp and wait for me. The water is good, so the soldiers here say, and the man who dwells there is friendly.
I’m certain he’ll enjoy talking to someone new for a change, and his wife will appreciate the goods you have to trade.”
Bak had left Imset to gather his few belongings and had walked to User’s camp. Minmose had greeted him with a huge smile and Amonmose with the hug of a bear. The other men, though more restrained in their actions,
