A high-pitched chirp drew his eyes to the wall beyond the cages, where a small gray monkey peered out from the shoul-50 / Lauren Haney der of an oarsman thirteen or so years of age, no doubt the one who had left the imprint in the sand. The boy’s older companion, a heavy-muscled sailor with a crooked nose, hugged his knees close and glared at Pahuro. Painted figures of cattle and men marched across the wall above their heads, and above the cages as well. Farther back, additional blue-black and red drawings decorated the wall behind stacks of wild animal skins-leopard, zebra, and giraffe-baskets of ostrich eggs and feathers, and jars and baskets and chests whose labels identified their contents as aromatic oils, spices, and incense.
So much of value, so many beautiful and rare objects, each and every one, Bak was convinced, an item of contraband.
He held out his hand, palm up. It was sweaty, but at least it did not shake, betraying his excitement. “I’ll need the ship’s manifest.”
Ignoring the sailor with the crooked nose, whose face was aflush with anger and blame, Pahuro walked the length of the shelter and brought back a gray baked clay jar containing a half-dozen rolls of papyrus. “No one in my village can read nor can the sailors who came to us after the wreck, but the scroll you want must be here.”
Bak glanced at notes scrawled on the outside of the documents. He found not one sealed manifest, as he should have, but two. The first was short and concise, listing cowhides, ebony logs, and the coffin of a man named Amenemopet taken aboard at Kor and copper ingots loaded at Buhen. It was written in the familiar, cramped hand of a senior scribe Bak knew well. The second was longer, recording the exotic objects in the shelter in addition to the more ordinary items.
It was a false manifest, intended to convince any curious inspector that the entire cargo was legitimate. The writing was neat with perfectly formed symbols, as if prepared by a scribe intent on omitting all slovenly habits that might some time in the future point to him as the author.
Bak walked the length of the shelter, comparing the list with the items he saw. Without an exact count, he could not be sure, but he thought he found everything. Numbers of individual objects could be compared with the document later when they were loaded on Ramose’s ship for transport to Buhen.
Scrolls in hand, his excitement tamped down to a manage-able level, he stood before the sailors. “Where’s Captain Roy?”
“Gone,” the older sailor growled. “Washed overboard.”
Bak glanced at the youth for confirmation.
“It’s true!” The monkey grabbed the boy around the neck, startled by the tension in his voice. “The storm struck sooner than Captain Roy expected. We were still securing the cargo, trying to tie down the logs. The air was so thick we couldn’t see our feet beneath us. The captain knew these waters as I know the freckles on my hands, so he stood on the bow, searching for safe harbor. A great wave struck us, and he was gone. And so was Woserhet and Maya, though we didn’t miss them until later.”
The tale had a ring of truth, but…“How did you find the wadi where your ship lies now?”
“The gods took pity on us! We were blown into its mouth!”
The boy looked awed by the memory. “We didn’t know where we were. If we had, we might’ve saved the vessel.”
“We thought we were on the open water,” his companion growled.
The boy nodded. “Not until we ran aground did we realize our error.”
The older sailor sneered. “If the captain had been with us, he’d have known.”
Bak could well imagine the chaos that must have reigned with no man to give orders and no one knowing what to do.
“Where’d you load this precious cargo?”
“At Kor,” the man said before the boy could answer.
Bak gave him a withering glance. “I know exactly what you loaded at Kor: hides, ebony, and the coffin. You loaded the copper at Buhen three days ago, and later that same afternoon you sailed north.”
The youth, eyes wide and afraid, opened his mouth to 52 / Lauren Haney speak. His companion clamped a hand tight around his thigh, digging his fingers deep, drawing a cry from the boy that sent the monkey cowering into his arms.
“My Medjay sergeant is even now searching out your fellow sailors. He’ll find them, you can be sure.” Tapping the man’s knee with a scroll, Bak made his voice ominous. “Will you tell me what I wish to know, or will you stand back and let another man speak? Will you be given favorable treatment because you helped me, or will one of your fellows walk away from Buhen, freed of all guilt, while you go with the others to the desert mines?”
The man glanced at the boy, whose eyes pleaded for openness and honesty. He spat off to the side, as if obliged to show his contempt, and began to speak, his mien surly, his tone grudging. “We stopped that night about halfway between here and Buhen. On the west bank of the river. A lonely spot of desert too barren and dry for any man to live.
A fire drew us to the shore, where we found all you see here.
We loaded in haste, barely able to see, stumbling from the fire’s meager light to our ship, where Captain Roy held a torch. After all was stowed on deck, we set sail.”
“Who did you meet there? Who turned these objects over to your captain?”
“We saw no one.” The sailor lowered his gaze, as if the question made him uneasy. “It was a dark night, with no moon to speak of. Away from the fire, we couldn’t see our hands before our faces. Guards may’ve been posted, but we didn’t see them.”
The tale sounded farfetched, like the stories Bak’s father had long ago told his young son to tire him with excitement so he would fall sleep. Like those tales of myth and adventure, Bak longed to believe. “Can you show me that place?”
The man hesitated, frowned. “I think so, but…” He glanced at the boy, who looked as uncertain as he did. “We can try.”
A long, trilling whistle sounded from afar. A Medjay signal.
Bak hastened outside and looked up the wadi toward the path that climbed the escarpment to the north. Imsiba was hurrying down the track, followed by a motley crew of men.
The missing sailors.
Several of Ramose’s men brought up the rear lest anyone try to flee. Bak glanced toward the west and the orange-red glow of the lord Re, a sliver of flame on the horizon. Too late to load Ramose’s ship, and too late to set sail. But a satisfactory day nonetheless. More than satisfactory.
Chapter Four
“Now listen!” Captain Ramose stood at the mouth of the rock shelter, feet spread wide, hands on hips, in what Bak had concluded was his favored position for command. “Except to relieve yourselves, you’ll not set foot out of this shelter while I’m gone. You hear me?”
The four oarsmen he had ordered to remain behind nodded in a desultory fashion, not a man among them eager to spend the next day or so on a rocky ledge, imagining their fellows reveling in Buhen.
“If so much as one object vanishes, you’ll each and everyone be held to blame. Understand?”
They nodded, shuffled their bare feet, threw sour glances at the contraband tying them to this wretched place. One man looked about to complain, but Ramose’s scowl stifled his words.
“So be it!” The captain turned away, winking at Bak as he did so, and strode down the path toward the village and his ship, moored at the foot of the escarpment north of the cultivated land.
The vessel wallowed in the swells, too heavily laden for graceful movement. A wide board serving as a gangplank connected the deck with the rising slope. Two sailors, one at the head and the other at the foot, carried the white coffin across the unstable walkway, stepping quick but careful lest they slip and fall into the water, taking their melancholy burden with them. In addition to the original cargo bound for Abu, the decks were cluttered with animal cages and jars of aromatic oils and incense-the most fragile of the contraband. The shipwrecked sailors hunched down on every unused bit of deck, trying to stay out of the way and attract no notice.