And his life.
Desperately in need of a spear, or any weapon that would place him at a distance from his opponent, he stepped back among the shields lying on the ground. Allowing his atten tion to stray for a mere instant, he spotted the shaft of a spear, its point broken off. As Hor-pen-Deshret lunged to ward him, he scooped it up and slammed it against his arm, shattering the bone. The weapon fell from the tribal chief’s hand. He gave Bak a look of utter incredulity.
And dropped to his knees in supplication.
Bak stood with Amonked and Nebwa, watching Ahmose and the troops from Askut rounding up what was left of the tribal army. The local people looked on, their eyes glit tering with satisfaction. About a hundred men of the desert had survived unscathed, more than half were injured to a lesser or greater degree, and the remainder were dead, gath ered together and laid out to be buried on the verge of the desert at daybreak.
“Such carnage,” Amonked said, shaking his head sadly.
“What will their families do?”
“Some will survive, the rest will starve,” Nebwa said.
“As always.” He sounded cold, but a tightness in his voice betrayed his true feelings.
Amonked led them to the short line of fallen archers, guards, and drovers, fourteen men of the caravan who had died at the hands of the enemy. Pawah was on his knees at the end of the row, his head bent over the prone body of
Thaneny. The scribe had fallen to an enemy spear toward the end of the fighting.
The youth looked up, unashamed of the tears rolling down his cheeks. “I loved Thaneny like a brother. I shall miss him always.”
Amonked knelt beside the boy and placed an arm around his shoulders. “No man will ever take his place.” He laid his free hand on the scribe’s shoulder and his voice thick ened with emotion. “He was my right hand, not my servant but my friend.”
Bak turned away, unable to understand the whims of the gods. Thaneny had come so close to death in the past, over coming unspeakable odds. Now here he was far from his home, his life taken in battle. One who had died because he refused to stand back and take refuge while men he knew fought to the death nearby. A man courageous to a fault. Where was the reward for a life lived so valiantly?
“You know, don’t you?” Minkheper, standing at the river’s edge, glanced at Bak, who had come up beside him.
“You slew Baket-Amon.”
“Someone remembered my brother, I assume?”
Bak ignored the question. He had promised Pawah si lence, and he would keep that vow. “Menu deserved to die.
The prince did not.”
“True.” Minkheper stared at an irregular strip of torch light falling across the faintly rippled surface of the water, golden reflections cast by a guard on the island where the donkeys had been left. “My brother, much younger than I and given all the advantages by our father, lived a life of utter depravity. He shamed my parents while they lived and he shamed me. Death by violence was inevitable.”
Chilled by the cold night air and a lurking fury mixed with sadness in Minkheper’s voice, Bak crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Did he always take pleasure in hurting others?”
Minkheper knelt and let the water flow around his hand, caressing his fingers like a lover about to lose its beloved.
“He always had a cruel tongue, which he used at first to pummel my mother and father and later his wife Iset. As far as I know, she was the first he struck with his fist. After that… Well, as the years rolled by, a fire seethed within him, making him less than human.”
Bak tried to read the seaman’s face, but the night was too dark. “You knew of his cruelty and did nothing to stop him?”
“I knew of the abusive way he spoke to our parents, and when Iset sought a divorce, I was told the reason. He made no secret that he wagered, drank himself witless, lay with innumerable women. As for the rest…” Minkheper tore his hand from the river, stood up, and expelled a bitter laugh. “My only excuse is that I was too far away for too long to learn the truth.”
He paused, stared out toward the island. “When I came back to Waset to settle his affairs, I found nothing to settle.
He’d lost everything our parents left behind, including property he and I held together. If Baket-Amon had not already taken his life, I’d have slain him myself.”
“Were you ever told that the prince slew him because he found him with a young woman he’d just beaten to death?”
“So Thutnofer said.”
Turning their backs to the river, they walked up the dark path toward the caravan encampment, which was ablaze with light. Bonfires reached for the sky, giving sight to the men tending the wounded. With so many in need of care, they had long since run out of poultices and bandages, but
Nebwa and Ahmose had demanded from the nearby villag ers additional lengths of cloth and medicinal herbs.
“Menu’s death was justified in the eyes of men and the gods,” Bak said, “yet you were driven to exact revenge.
For the love of Amon, why?”
“As the eldest son, I was honor-bound to slay the man who took his life.”
“No matter how just or unjust the cause.” Bak’s voice was flat, uncritical, yet all the more censorious for its lack of reproach.
“Yes.”
Sorrow flooded Bak’s heart. Minkheper was as much a man of Kemet as Amonked or Nebwa or Commandant
Thuty. Nonetheless, he had felt obliged to obey the deities of a far-off land, gods who demanded that a good man’s life be taken in exchange for that of a brute. Unlike the lady Maat, who required that justice be done, never seeking a man’s death for no good reason.
“Did Baket-Amon face you in Buhen, unaware of your purpose?”
“He knew what would happen should we meet.” Min kheper took a deep, long breath. “The day after I learned the truth of my brother’s death, I called upon the prince. I warned him of my duty, saying that the next time I laid eyes on him, I must slay him.” Another deep breath that reeked of sadness. “We parted amiably, with the regret of men who could have been as close as brothers under other, better circumstances.”
“He was fortunate you were a mariner who sailed distant seas much of the time.”
Minkheper seemed not to hear. “We spent the interven ing years far apart. In the rare instances when we inadver tently walked the streets of the same city, we went out of our way to avoid each other. Then fate, or perhaps it was the will of the gods-your gods or mine, I’ll never know placed us both in Buhen, both in that wretched house where
Commandant Thuty quartered us. I was forced to avenge my brother, like it or not, and Baket-Amon did nothing to stop me.”
Silence descended, accompanying them through the darkness to the edge of the encampment.
“You tried to slay me twice,” Bak said.
“I’d heard of your reputation as a hunter of men. I had to make an effort to save myself.”
“But you saved my life today.”
Minkheper’s wry smile was clearly visible in the light reaching out from the nearest fire. His bright hair glowed as if from an inner sun. “I thought I wanted to survive, to reach the lofty rank of admiral for which I’ve strived for so many long years. In the end, though, faced with a choice of holding my head high or bowing it in shame, I couldn’t bring myself to slay a man I’ve come to like and respect.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Look at them.” Nebwa rested his hands on either side of the crenel and leaned forward, looking down at the pris oners collected at the base of the towered wall. “You’d think they’d’ve had enough of fighting, but there they are, squabbling among themselves already.”
Bak, standing at the next crenel, eyed two men shouting insults at each other, each backed by allies, men from the same tribe, he guessed. He had long since ceased to be surprised at such behavior. “Hor-pen-Deshret must have a tongue of pure honey to’ve held his coalition together as long as he did.”