All along the shore against which the barges and boats were moored, spearmen held the crowd back, allowing plenty of space for the royal pair and the lord Amon, the standard-bearers, priests, and musicians to board the appro priate craft for the voyage downstream.
With the sacred barge raised high upon the floodwaters, its deck above the riverbank, the priests standing on the bow had a clear view of the processional way, of the scurrying soldiers and frightened flock. Garbed all in white and shaven bald, with two men wearing leopard skins over their shoul ders, they lined the rail, staring down the thoroughfare, ap palled by the pandemonium.
The boatmen on the royal barge had an even better view.
Rather than standing in serious expectancy while they awaited their sovereigns and their god, they were laughing heartily at the frantic gathering up of obstinate sheep and goats. The spectators waiting along the riverbank craned their necks, trying to see what was going on.
Pahure ran to the water’s edge along which the royal barge was moored. He glanced over his shoulder, saw how close Bak had come. With the path ahead barred by the ves 280
Lauren Haney sel and with any retreat cut off, he turned southward to race along the muddy shore toward the stern.
A soldier yelled, “Now look here, sir! You’re not al lowed…” He spotted Bak, blustered, “And you…”
“Police!” Bak ran into the open area along the river and raised his baton of office so all who looked could see. “That man’s a criminal. He must be stopped.”
Voices buzzed among the spectators, who pressed against the line of spearmen, eager to see. The soldiers, who might have helped Bak, given the chance, had to shove the crowd back, keeping clear the area their sovereigns and their god would, in a short time, tread.
Cursing the curiosity that so often stole away common sense, Bak ran on after Pahure. The steward, reaching the bow of the sacred barge, paused as if unsure what he should do. He glanced back at his pursuer; looked up the line of vessels tethered to the sacred craft, none of which he could hope to board and cut free; and stared out across the river at the distant shore and the flotilla of boats too far upstream to be of help. Those short moments of hesitation proved his un doing. Bak leaped at him. The steward ducked away, slipped in the mud, and half fell, half dived into the silt-laden water.
Bak, balanced precariously on the edge of the bank, came close to falling into the river with him, but scrambled back to firmer ground. Pahure surfaced just out of reach, sput tered, looked around to see where he was. The gilded bow of the barge of the lord Amon hung over him, reaching high above his head. The long, sleek prow was surmounted by a huge carved, gilded, and painted image of a ram’s head emerging from the sacred lily. The horned ram, symbol of the lord Amon, wore on its head the golden disk of the sun and over its brow a rearing cobra. A large painted and gilded wooden replica of a multicolored broad collar hung below the image.
Pahure’s expression clouded, as if for an instant he felt the wrath of the god breathing down his neck. He shook his head, visibly throwing off the feeling, and swam under the prow. A couple of paces beyond the vessel, he treaded water and again looked out across the river at the opposite shore, so far away few men would dare try to swim across and fewer would succeed. Especially not a man already tired af ter a long, hard chase. Bak, very much aware of how tired he himself was, stood poised on the riverbank, ready to swim after his quarry.
The priests on the barge, their brows furrowed by worry, peered down from the bow, looking at the man in the water and at his pursuer. Bak was as concerned as they. He could hear, over the cheering of the spectators lining the pro cessional way, the beat of drums setting the pace of the pro cession, the harsher sounds of clappers and sistra. He estimated them to be about halfway between Ipet-resyt and the river, approaching the spot where last he had seen the sheep and goats. He prayed the soldiers had removed the an imals from the processional way, prayed he could snare
Pahure before the standard-bearers and leading priests reached the waterfront and the dual sovereigns, especially
Maatkare Hatshepsut, became aware that a problem existed.
Pahure, his decision made, swam upstream, vanishing be hind the far side of the golden barge. Bak pushed his dagger firmly into its sheath so he wouldn’t lose it in the river, flung his baton of office away from the water’s edge, and dove in after him. Rounding the hull he spotted the steward swim ming south alongside the vessel at a good solid pace. The sa cred barge was not large, less than fifty paces long, and its shallow hull, gilded above the waterline, lay low in the wa ter. To a swimmer, it looked like a wall of solid gold, with scenes incised along much of its length showing Maatkare
Hatshepsut praising her heavenly father.
Bak glanced up midway along the vessel, saw rising on the deck above him the gilded dais and, beneath its roof, the open shrine in which the barque of the lord Amon would be placed for its voyage to Ipet-isut. Frantic priests hung over the railing, watching him and Pahure.
He swam on, listening to the sounds of sistra and clappers and drums echoing through the water in his ears, hearing the voices of men and women on the riverbank talking excit edly, no doubt guessing where he and Pahure had gone, what the vile criminal meant to do, where the two would reappear.
Bak could not imagine what Pahure hoped to gain. He could not swim across the river and the moment he set foot on the near shore, he would be taken. He was doomed one way or the other.
Ahead, the steward passed the twin rudders, each overlaid with a thin gold sheath incised with the sacred lily and the two eyes of the lord Horus, and swam beneath a second gilded ram’s head mounted on the narrow stern. Spotting
Bak, he dove beneath the water. Bak kicked backward to grab a rudder, fearing Pahure meant to pull him under. A half-dozen priests fluttered back and forth across the stern, peering over the sides. From their near panic, he guessed they feared he would snap off the rudder, which was much lighter and more graceful than those on working vessels.
Pahure surfaced some distance upstream and swam south ward with long, fast strokes. Ignoring muscles beginning to ache from the strain, Bak shot forward through the water.
The steward passed the densest part of the crowd gathered around the sacred barge and appeared to be heading toward an acacia hanging over the river’s edge, a tree Bak remem bered from the day he had walked along the shore with
Netermose.
Even if Pahure reached the tree and pulled himself onto the mudbank, he doubted the steward would get away. Too many people were running along the shore, keeping pace.
Still, he wanted to be the man to snare the vile criminal.
Pahure leaped upward and grabbed a limb, which bowed beneath his weight. As he began to pull himself out of the water, Bak swam to him and caught hold of his legs. The steward clung with both hands and tried to shake him off.
The limb drooped further. Bak’s hands slid down the wet legs, stopped at the ankles. He jerked as hard as he could, heard the sharp crack of breaking wood. Though not broken through, the limb bent lower, dropping Pahure into the water to his waist.
With a grim but victorious smile, Bak looked up at the man he had caught. He saw no fear on Pahure’s face, only a firm determination to fight to his last breath. Beyond the steward, he glimpsed a group of spectators running toward the tree, several armed soldiers gathering around, and four nearly naked, heavily muscled men, each carrying a good size rounded rock, identifying them as competitors in a throwing contest.