teeth, the sound of a snake preparing to strike.
Ahmose shrank back but remained mute.
User, perched on three mudbricks stacked to form a seat, pulled a stick from the smoldering hearth over which a gazelle cooked, and prodded the fire to make it burn hotter.
The Medjays, the men of User’s party, and the nomads sat on the ground, forming a half circle around them. The dogs, which had returned in ones and twos, lay in a loose group behind the men, looking on like additional witnesses. The family who dwelt in the oasis sat in front of their house, watching. The men of Kemet were offering various ways of breaking the prisoner’s silence, each more disagreeable than the one before. A young nomad who could speak the tongue of Kemet continually translated for his brethren, who built on the suggestions with ideas of their own.
User rotated the stick, examining its fiery tip. “Dedu was my friend. A good friend. You didn’t just take his life. You left him for carrion.” A calculated look settled on the ex plorer’s face and he shifted his gaze to the prisoner. “I say we blind this snake and turn him loose in this barren land with no water or food.”
A murmur of agreement swept through the onlookers. A donkey brayed, as if offering its consent.
“No!” Ahmose scrambled back, his horrified eyes locked on the stick. “You must take me to Kemet, Lieutenant. My offenses must be weighed on the scales of justice, not left in the hands of these desert swine.”
“Ah,” Nefertem said, dropping onto his stool. “He can talk.”
Flinging User a hasty look of thanks, Bak shoved himself back against the wall that enclosed the well, startling a lizard that darted across the hot sand to the shelter of a broad-leafed vine. “Are we correct in believing Minnakht died rather than tell you of the gold you sought?”
Ahmose tore his eyes from the stick User continued to toy with. “I’ve searched the Eastern Desert for a lifetime, think ing to become a wealthy man. I know this land holds vast riches, and I knew that someday…”
User cleared his throat, urging him to omit the prologue.
The prisoner’s quick response was gratifying. “I bumped into Minnakht in Waset-a year ago, that must’ve been-and he let slip hints of his good fortune. I thought to learn his se cret. Later he would say nothing, and in my anger I slew him.”
“Have you not failed to fill in the details of your black deed?” Bak asked in a hard voice. “When first we met, you told me you were brought across the sea, dropped on the shore, and were accosted by men who beat you and left you to die. Was that tale Minnakht’s rather than yours?”
Ahmose hesitated, but finally nodded. “Yes.”
User’s mouth twisted in contempt. “You met him as a friend, then set upon him, bound him so he was helpless, and beat him to death. What kind of man are you?”
Ahmose’s mouth clamped tight, which in itself was an ad mission of guilt.
Nefertem made a sound deep within his throat, part angry growl, part heartfelt pain. The nomads seated around them, who had thought of Minnakht as one of themselves, glared at the prisoner and murmured angry words. Wensu and Ani,
Amonmose and Nebenkemet looked shocked and saddened.
The old man who cooked for Nefertem scurried forward.
For a moment Bak thought he meant to slay the prisoner. In stead he spat on his face, turned his back to him in a gesture of contempt, and rotated the gazelle over the hearth.
As the old man retreated, Bak pressed on, not bothering to hide his disgust for so cowardly a murder. “Why did you send Senna to Minnakht’s father? Why did he not simply dis appear in the desert?”
“I thought to convince Inebny that his son was truly dead,”
Ahmose said, wiping the spittle onto his shoulder, “and
Senna wished to collect the livestock and supplies he was due. It never occurred to us that the commander would find a man to take up the search-you, a seasoned police officer and that he’d insist Senna serve as your guide. Or that you’d join User’s caravan.”
“I doubt we would have if a dead man hadn’t been found when first we came upon them.” Bak’s voice grew hard, grim. “You slew that man, did you not?”
Ahmose hesitated. User shook the stick at him like the long finger of a teacher reprimanding a pupil. The tip had turned black as the heat dissipated, a fact the prisoner had to have noticed. Still, he answered with a nod.
“Who was he?”
“He was a soldier, Paser by name, a friend of Minnakht.
He’d seen us together in Waset, heard us talk of the Eastern
Desert and gold. I thought never to see him another time, but when he appeared at that well, I knew he must die.”
User jabbed the stick in among the burning embers. “How did you slay him without leaving footprints?”
Ahmose curled a lip, betraying a superiority he was in no po sition to feel. “I’m far more a man of the desert than Minnakht ever was. He regularly returned to the land of Kemet, shrugging off his life as a desert wanderer, while I often dwelt throughout the year with Senna’s clan.” His eyes slid toward Bak. “I know more of tracking than you or your Medjays will ever know,
Lieutenant, and I know how to hide any sign of my presence.”
Bak glanced at his men, who looked as if they themselves were ready to commit murder. “From then on, you thought to watch us night and day.”
Ahmose smirked. “The watching man, you called me.”
Noting the pride he took in the appellation, Bak said, “You carried off well the look of a nomad.”
“I dared not risk being seen by the people who came to the wells to water their flocks-they’d have known I wasn’t one of them-and most of the transitory pools had dried up. I’d not bathed for some time. When Senna told me you believed me a nomad, I thought your error would serve me well.”
He was so smug Bak had to resist the urge to strike him.
“Why slay Dedu?”
“By then I was wearying of your pursuit. No matter what
I did to discourage you, you refused to give up. So I thought to pass myself off to you as Minnakht. I couldn’t risk Dedu seeing me. I knew him from long ago, and he wouldn’t have forgotten.”
“You were the man who destroyed his daughter’s future,”
Bak guessed. “You’re the father of her child.”
Ahmose let out a barklike laugh. “When Dedu realized I meant to slay him, he tried to play on my sympathies by telling me I had a child, a girl. I didn’t believe him, and I don’t believe you.”
“You slew your daughter’s grandfather, Ahmose.”
A look of self-doubt-or possibly pain-flitted across Ah mose’s face. He erased it with a thin smile. “Dedu would never have told you, a stranger, a secret so painful to him.”
“Believe what you wish,” Bak said with a shrug. “You’ll never have the chance to see the child.”
The two boys who had traveled north earlier in the day walked into the oasis. Bak could see nothing but the don key’s head, feet, and tail, so heavily laden was it with dry twigs gleaned from the bushes that grew in the nearby wadis.
Looking curiously at the gathering of men, the youths left the laden animal in the shade of a tree and hurried to the house to learn what they had missed.
“Why slay Senna?” Bak asked, “a man you claim was your longtime friend?”
“You know why. He pushed you into the face of the flood, trying to slay you. Sooner or later you’d have gotten the truth from him.” Ahmose’s mouth twisted into a cynical smile. “I once saved his life-you saw the scar on his shoulder-so I suppose I could say it was mine to take.”
“What of Rona?” Bak demanded.
The prisoner glanced toward Psuro, sitting with Nebre,
Kaha, and Minmose, their expressions dark, threatening. He lowered his voice, as if he hoped to prevent their hearing. “I held no ill will toward him. He saw me slay Senna.”
Bak wanted to smash Ahmose in the face. Nebre, burning with rage, leaped forward, trying to reach the bound man.
Psuro, no less furious, grabbed the Medjay’s arm, halting him, and snapped an order to Kaha and Minmose, forbidding them to move.
